Page:History of Utah.djvu/133



FIRST MIGRATIOX. 81

Partridge to Kirtland, arriving there early in Feb- ruary, and taking up their residence witii N. K. Whit- ney, who shows them great kindness. Among the hundred behevers there at the time, certain false doc- trines have crept in; these are quickly overcome, and a plan for community of goods which the family of saints had adopted is abolished. Commandment comes by revelation that a house shall be built for Joseph ; that Sidney shall live as seems to him good, for his heart is pure; that Edward Partridge shall be ordained a bishop;^ that all but Joseph and Sidney shall go forth, two by two, into the regions westward and preach the gospel.^"

"And now, behold, I speak unto the church: thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not lie ; thou shalt love thy wife, cleaving unto her and to none else; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbor, nor do him any harm. Thou knowest my laws, given in my scriptures; he that sinneth and repenteth not shall be cast out. And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support, laying the same before the bishop of my church, the residue not to be taken back, but to be used by the church in buying lands and building houses of worship, for I will conse- crate of the riches of those who embrace my gospel among the gentiles unto the poor of my people who are of the house of Israel. Let him that o^oeth to

ers abandoned their homes in the Susquehanna valley and moved westward. 'Some of the followers,' he says, 'were moved by a spirit of adventure, while others placed their property in the common lot and determined to accompany the prophet to his earthly as well as to his heavenly kingdom. Smith Baker was one of the teamsters, and reports that the train consisted of three bag- gage and eleven passenger wagons. The exodus was along the old state road, north of Binghamton, to Ithaca, and thence across Cayuga Lake to Palmyra.'

"Smith had appointed as his bishop one Edward Partridge, a very hon- est and industrious hatter of Painesville, Ohio, who had withal a comfortable stock of the good things of the world. He was stationed at Independence, and had the sole control of all the temporal and spiritual afiFairs of the colony, always obedient, however, to the revelations promulgated by Smith.'

'" ' Some of the members pretended to receive parchment commissions miraculously, which vanished from their sight as soon as they had been cop- ied.' For a copy of one of these, with seal attached, see Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, 107; Kidder's Mormonism, 73. HiBT. Utah. 6