(Previous installment)

(David’s mission among the pioneers of Oregon continues.)

It was nearly midnight before the crowd left the hall, but when they did so I found relief, for my mind had been on a continual strain holding the people in check. Next morning the marshal told me I had better leave the town for he feared an outbreak, as the mob were threatening to tar and feather me. I took his advice and left the town on foot for Oregon city by a road through the woods that was but little traveled.

When I found myself alone I began to doubt my dream as it had not been fulfilled. I was leaving Salem and had not baptized anybody. While I was thus thinking a wagon came up behind me. I hailed the man who drove the team and asked him to let me ride. He told me to jump up into the wagon. I did so, and he at once recognized me as the “Mormon” preacher. He told me he was at the meeting and believed the doctrines I taught to be true. I preached to him until we arrived at his camp on Pudding river where he was making shingles. He asked me to stop with him over night as he wished to hear more about “Mormonism.” We sat up nearly all night conversing together.

When I was about to leave the next morning, he told me that he was convinced of the truth, that he believed me to be a servant of God, and wished to be baptized before I left, “For,” said he, “I may never see you again, and if I lose this opportunity I may be lost for ever.” I told him that he must repent of his sins, take upon himself the name of a Latter-day Saint and determine to serve God in bad as well as in good report. He said that he had determined to do so, by the help of the Lord.

We therefore went down to the river near his camp and I baptized and confirmed him a member of the Church. We partook of the sacrament all alone in the silent woods, there being none present to witness the holy ordinances I was performing but God, angels and ourselves. I wrote for him a certificate of his baptism, recorded the same in my journal and left him praising God. I have never heard from him or seen him since. His name was Wm. P. Jacobs.

I continued my journey to Oregon city where I baptized seven persons, who were added to the Pleasant Hill branch, and remained with the Saints over two weeks confirming them in the faith of the gospel and testifying to them of the truth of the work.

I continued my journey down the river, preaching and teaching by the way at every opportunity, until I reached St. Hellens, where I crossed the Columbia river and found the Saints on Lewis river afraid to meet me in public or admit me to their houses. They had all backed out but Sister Louisa A. John, who was neither afraid nor ashamed to invite me to her house, although her husband was in sympathy with the mob. I remained there two weeks trying to break the yoke of bondage from the necks of the Saints, but ail to no purpose. There was no one to leave with the Saints on Lewis river, Elders Harmon and Winslow having been driven from the country by an armed mob, and where they were I knew not, so I left the Saints on Lewis river alone. At parting I blessed Sister Louisa A. John, and predicted, that if she remained faithful, she would yet be gathered to the home of the Saints.

On my return to Oregon city I found Elders Harmon and Winslow. I also received a letter from President G. Q. Cannon releasing us from the mission to return home. Our joy was full and my heart overflowed with thankfulness to God that we were now honorably released to return home to Utah, but how to go and take the Saints with us was the problem to be solved. It was finally agreed that Elders Harmon and Winslow should remain with the Saints at Oregon city and that Elder Higgins and myself stop with the Saints on Coast Fork of the Willamette valley until Spring, warding of the enemy and assisting the Saints to emigrate.

From this time until we started, on the 6th of March 1858, we were employed in getting an outfit and protecting ourselves and the Saints from mob violence for we were continually beset by wicked men and devils, who sought our lives and declared openly that they would drive us from the country if we did not, leave. Elder Keyes, the president of the Willamette branch, had a rifle ball shot through his ax helve, while chopping in the woods alone, by some fiend in ambush. This circumstance gave the Saints a hint to hurry up.

In the meantime the Lord held our enemies and preserved our lives in a wonderful manner while in Oregon, and on our way to Utah, beset, as we were, by enemies on every hand. We were betrayed by false brethren, lost in the mountains among the Modoc Indians, had our horses stolen, the company was taken by Indians and Elder Higgins was shot nigh unto death, but was healed by the power of God. Eventually through all our perils we landed safely among our friends in Ogden, Utah, on the 26th of October, 1858. We felt amply repaid for all we had passed through when we arrived home and were welcomed and blessed by President Brigham Young and the Apostles.

Twenty-five years have passed away since then. I have traveled far and wide through the United States and in foreign lands with the words of life and salvation to a fallen world, and in my humble way, with the help of God, have brought many honest souls to a knowledge of the truth; but my experience on the mission to Oregon is the most interesting one I ever had. I was greatly surprised at meeting Sister Louisa A. John in Ogden city, on the 18th of August, 1882, after a lapse of so many years. She had traveled alone from her old home. Her children one by one passed away in death, and last of all, her husband died, and left her free to come to the home of the Saints. She could find no one of all her father’s house to come with her, and the Saints of Washington territory had lost the spirit of the work, so she had to come alone to do a work for herself and her dead in the house of the Lord.

On meeting her, she said, “Brother Stuart, here I am according to your word that I should yet come to Zion, if faithful. I have no friend but you among the Saints; help me to do my work, tell me how to commence.”

I told her it was the law for all who gather to Zion, to be rebaptized and to pay a tithing of all they possessed in order to obtain the blessings of the house of the Lord. She did as required and received her blessing accordingly.

She visited a short time here and then returned to her old home where she is now settling up her business with a view of returning to Utah to spend the remainder of her days in the service of the Lord.

(Again, we have reached the end of the memoirs in my files. I will search for more. The End? To be continued?)