On June 28, 1845, a new phase bagan for Perrigrine when he married Lucina and Mary Call. Reminiscent of the biblical story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, Sessions family tradition suggests that Lucina agreed to marry Perrigrine on the condition that he marry her sister Mary as well. Since polygamy was not openly discussed at that time, Perrigrine scarcely mentioned Mary’s name in his diary until much later.1
Perrigrine entered polygamy when he married Lucina and Mary Call. In this undated photograph, Perrigrine is pictured with six of his wives. Seated (left to right): Lucina (?), Fanny Emorett, Sarah Crossley, Sarah Ann Bryson. Standing (left to right): Esther Mabey, Perrigrine, Elizabeth Birdenow. Courtesy Irene Poulson and Suzanne Anderson.
During this same time in Nauvoo, Church leaders were constantly dealing with accusations of wrongdoing, even from some once closely associated with the Church. Perrigrine mentioned one favorite tale of the Mormons’ ability to frustrate their enemies who tried to bring charges against Church leaders. Brigham Young and others of the Twelve were accused of involvement in counterfeiting operations. In an effort to serve the warrants, government agents waited outside the Nauvoo Temple, where the Brethren were gathered. Here they thought the arrests could easily be made, but William Miller, who, with Brigham, had returned from a mission to England in 1841, donned Brigham’s overcoat and hat. As he left the temple, he was taken into custody by the marshals and hauled to Carthage before the mistake was discovered.2
The general situation was tense. Twenty-four men, including Perrigrine, were called to guard duty. Hosea Stout was chosen captain over the guard, or “Regular Standing Police” as he called them. However, after several entries about the guard and lists of the prospective names, Stout recorded on December 24, 1846, “Out of this number Perrigreen Sessions & John D[avis]. Parker declined to serve and William [Henry] Kimball & George W[ashington]. Langley had to quit in consequence of their ill health as standing guard would soon weare them out.”3 Despite Stout’s report that Perrigrine declined to stand guard, he was in fact a bodyguard for both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and Perrigrine’s own writings reveal that he did indeed share guard details in Nauvoo. His obedient nature impelled him to serve where needed. We can only surmise that he felt too unwell or unable to accept guard duty at one point but was ready and able at another.
Hosea Stout was chosen as police captain at a time when Saints like Perrigrine were being pressured to leave their homes in Nauvoo. Courtesy Church Archives.
Despite social and political disruption in the community, personal and family matters continued as normal. Perrigrine always expressed pleasure in new baptisms, particularly if they had family connections. He recorded the baptism of his cousin Enoch Bartlett Tripp and brother-in-law, Windsor Palmer Lyon (1809–48), who were baptized on January 18, 1846. For Lyon, it was actually a rebaptism.
Windsor Lyon had joined the Church at Weatherfield, New York, in 1832. In turbulent Far West, Missouri, he met and courted Sylvia Porter Sessions, Perrigrine’s sister, marrying her at Far West, April 21, 1838.4 At about this time, Windsor was in practice as a surgeon and colonel in the army.5 An account was later written of his life, which quotes an article written by Nina P. Stone: “Dr. Lyon was a great and good man, well educated, and zealous in his labors for the good of mankind. He established a mercantile and drug business in the city of Nauvoo.”6 He loaned money to Joseph Smith, as recorded by Patty Sessions. On February 12, 1844, Patty wrote that “Brother Joseph was at her house, and Mr. Lyons, Sylvia’s husband lent him five hundred dollars.”7 According to family histories, Lyon loaned the Church $3,000 in 1838, and he also loaned money to Thomas B. Marsh, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In need of his money, Lyon sued for repayment and was forthwith excommunicated. Thus he was being rebaptized into the Church at this time.8
Perrigrine’s cousin Enoch B. Tripp (1823–1909)9 was baptized on the same day as Windsor Lyon but under unusual circumstances. Tripp, in an intriguing autobiography, described his early experiences and the magnetic pull he felt toward Nauvoo. He arrived there when the Saints were being pressured to leave.
I stopped at a hotel [in Carthage] for the night. The landlord learning that I was going to Nauvoo, and was direct from Maine, inquired if I was a Mormon. I informed him I was not and never expected to be. I was going there on speculation as I understood they were selling their property at great sacrifice and leaving.10
After the landlord described the scene in Nauvoo, Tripp confided:
My mind was wrought up to such a pitch, I was on the point of abandoning the idea of going to Nauvoo. My mother’s sister, Patty Sessions, and her husband and children were living there and I needed a rest so I nerved myself up with the idea that inasmuch as they had the name of being fine folks before they were Mormons and ever great friends to my folks, I would go there and throw myself under their protecting care. No sooner had I made this resolution to myself, than if all hell had been let loose for there could not have been a greater tumult. The landlord said the posse had just come with old Brigham Young.11
This was, of course, William Miller, disguised as Brigham Young and whose real identity was revealed in front of Tripp. Tripp and Miller were the only passengers on the stage to Nauvoo that day. Tripp paid the driver extra to drop him at the Lyon drugstore and residence.
When Sylvia saw her cousin, she thanked the Lord “that he had preserved her life to behold some of her blood relatives from Maine. . . . Her father, mother and brothers were sent for and all greeted me with a most hearty welcome. The fear of being killed had now to a great degree left me.”
A reconstruction of Patty Sessions’s Nauvoo cabin. Perrigrine’s cousin Enoch Bartlett Tripp visited Patty when he came to Nauvoo, where he was soon baptized. Courtesy Donna T. Smart.
Tripp admitted being extremely prejudiced against the Mormons, but he was also impressed with their faith, their kindness and courtesy, and their prayers.
One day, I ventured to ask Aunt Patty Sessions to let me see the “Mormon’s Golden Bible.” With a smile, she brought forward a large bible and said, “that is all the bible the Mormons have.” Being well posted in the bible, I looked it over and said it was like our bible. Aunt Patty replied, “It is the same kind of bible that I have heard your father preach from many times in the state of Maine. The only difference between your father’s belief and ours in the bible is, your father does not believe the bible as it reads but spiritualizes it. We believe the bible as it reads.” This opened my eyes and put me to thinking. For that was my belief concerning the bible and I had contended with my father on that point several times.
Aunt Patty said they had another book that the Mormons held as sacred as the bible and brought it forward saying it was called the Book of Mormon, translated from plates of gold by the Prophet Joseph Smith and it is a true story of the inhabitants of this continent, the Indians; that Christ was with them after his crucifixion and had His Church established among them, the same as he had at Jerusalem. . . . I begged the privilege of reading it, which she readily granted. On reading the book, I was convinced that it was true and the work of God, but I kept the same locked up in my heart.
I read the Doctrine and Covenants and “The Voice of Warning” by Parley Pratt. In the meantime, I often met in company with Heber C. Kimball, one of the twelve Apostles, at Mr. Lyon’s home. . . .
On Sunday morning, February 1, 1846, Heber C. Kimball came to the house of Mr. Windsor P. Lyon in order to rebaptize him into the church and they sent up to the temple and got a large bath tub in order to baptize him in, in the house. . . . I took Mr. Kimball to one side and informed him of my feelings in relation to this Mormon doctrine that I did believe this to be the true work of God according to the Bible and I made a confident of him. I told him I did not want to disgrace my father’s family by becoming a Mormon if it was not true as my folks stood high in society. My father was then in the legislature and my eldest brother was president of the Senate of Maine. I said to Mr. Kimball if it was the work of God to so inform me, if it was the work of men, to so inform me and I would forever remain dumb. Mr. Kimball looked down at me, his face white as snow and said, “Enoch,” as he always called me by that name, “I see the integrity of thy heart, and I say unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that this work is the work of God and not the work of man; and I promise you that if you will go forth into the waters of baptism and have hands layed upon you for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, that you shall know for yourself. . . .” We went into Mr. Lyon’s kitchen where he baptized and confirmed me a member of the church. I then had a witness of the truth of this Latter-day work and that testimony has always abided with me.
On the night of February 2, 1846, Brother Heber C. Kimball sent his carriage for me, Mr. Lyon and my cousin, David Sessions, and took us to the Temple where I received my endowments and was ordained a Seventy by my cousin, P. G. Sessions. It was the last night that endowments were given in the Temple before leaving Nauvoo. . . . Brother Heber C. Kimball counselled me to remain in Nauvoo as one of the new citizens as there would be trouble after the saints were gone and to aid in assisting and protecting the poor saints remaining. If I would do this and would be true and faithful I should be blessed. It would be revealed to me when to gather up with the Saints.
After being baptized secretly by Brother Kimball, I passed myself off as one of the new citizens so as to have more influence in protecting the saints if trouble did come.12
Trouble did come. Perrigrine’s description provides an interesting perspective. He also took care to chronicle information about the Call family, as well as to note how the Saints prepared to leave Nauvoo.
Perrigrine’s Memoirs
and [Cyril and Sally] removed to this state in 1838 about the time the Saints were expeled from the State of Missouri here they moved with all their family five Sons and Seven daughters names as follows Harvy born Septem 6. 1808 Anson born May 13 1810 Samantha born Oct 15 1815 Fanny born May 11- 1817 Lucina born September 29 - 1819- Josiah born August 12- 1822 Mary born February 21 - 1824 - Rosaline born December 29 - 1825 Sarah born December 19 - 1827 - Melissa born March 29 1830 - Omer and Homer twins born Jan. 9 1834 Salmon born July 20 1812 died September 1813 Cyril Call born in Woodstock – Win[d]sor. Co - Vermont <July 2 – 1785> Sally Tiffany born Cambridg[e] Franklin Co Vermon[t] July 20 -1790 Maried April 6 - 1806 and have lived in wealth and prosperity untill when their house was burned down and the family driven away by the mob and their property distroyed because they were Laterday Saints here Harvy and Chester Lovelin [Loveland] that Maried with Fanny shared the same fate with their father their houses were distroyed and catle stolen and they left to seak a shelter with about one hundred more families of the saints who fled to save their lives in the dead hour of the night leaveing their property to be distroyed by an infuriated set of holy Methodist and Presbiterians who thought they were doing Gods servis and made many long prayers by the light of the houses and property of the Later Day Saints here a scare of war and trouble raised to a high pitch which stoped the building up of the City and the Nauvoo house the Saints were harised with vexatious lawsuits and some taken and put in Prison some shot at and others whipt by these pious Gentiles inspierd by their Father the Devil and led on by his Priests here the lives of the Twelve were sought as the life of the Prophet Joseph was which caled forth strong gards to gard them and the City in which I shared my part and have wrote this history when I had my armes before me and expected to use them in defence of my own life and the lives of my brethren I will here observe that the Governer caled for five hundred to volenteer to stop the mob from their acts of violence but behold they were off from the same piece and were no beter then their brethren the mob and never made one move to inforse the law upon the mob but on the other hand they would take the saints and put them in Prison and haris them in evry way they could untill the church agread to leave the State and nation because the cup of their iniquity is full as they have kiled the Prophets and saints and persecuted them from city to city[.]
OCTOBER 1845
this agreement was entered into on the .6 . of Oct 1845 and sanctioned by the whole Church and Captins of hundreds and Captins of fifties and of tens were caled out and from this time prepertions began to be made by makeing wagons and procureing teames and provision for a journey into the Wilderness in search of a land of rest a land of piece whare we can injoy the privileges and blessings of a Celestial law unmolested and undisturbed for a season untill this Gentile Nation are scerged for their sins and abominations as the Lord has said by the mouth of his servents the Prophets the months of September and October was a continual scene of War and termoil and the labour on the Temple was almost oblige to stop and the workmen many of them caried small armes with them all the time and all kept their muskets whare they could put their hand on them at a moments warning not knowing one moment but they would have to fight the next and it seamed as though our enimies were determined that the work should stop but it continued through all the Percecution and hardly stopt for a moment the Lord blessing the labours of the faithful in all that was done both in building the Temple and in defending our selves and our Wives and our Children from the hands of those that sought our lives and the over throw of the church and kingdom of God but through the Mercy of God we were permited to stay in Nauvoo Altho hundreds of the Saints were drove in from the surrounding cuntry destitute of a place to lay their heads or provisions to subsist upon having their crops of graine distroyed their beef and pork stolen and their furnature distroyed with their houses which increased the suffering of the Widow and the Fatherless and those that were sick as many were sick and dieing as it was a sickley season I was taken sick about the first of September and had a violent fever which kept me from labour for a bout three months altho my family injoyed good health and all my friends in Nauvoo except my Brother David he had too setled fevers that brought him near the jaws of Death[.]
DECEMBER 1845
here in the midst of persecution and poverty I commenced labour about the first of Dec - at the Masonic Hall13 to build me a waggon to move with in the spring with the Church here my self with others fited up shops for makeing and fiting up Waggons and other things for our journey not knowing one day but we should have to fight the next or leave with our children on our backs but as cold wether came on the mob spirit seamed to die away and they would suffer the Saints to harvest their crops what was not distroyed except some few that swore out writs fore the Twelve and others and come in to the city and at one time they arestid a man by the name of Miller suposeing him to be brother Yong Brigham Yong and and did not find their mistake untill they arived in Carthage in this they were disapointed and some what ashamed of their wicked plan but still continued to hunt for the Twelve which caled forth a strong gard to gard them and gard the city as they would steal our catle and horses or any thing else that they could get their hands on here I would remark that on the eighteenth of January that my brother in law Winsor. P. Lyon and my coasen Enock [Enoch]. B . Tripp were baptised under the hand of brother Heber . C . Kimball One of the Twelve this give the connection a time of rejoiceing to see them Obey the truth on the twentieth after receiveing my indewments in the house of the Lord with Lucina my Wife I commenced work in the Temple and I will here say that the Spirit of the Lord was pored out upon those that were atending to the Ordinances of the holy priesthood about this time a man by the name of [James J.] Strang came into the city and claimed to bee the head and leader of the church saying that he was caled and Ordained by the Prophet Joseph to that Office this made conciderable of a stur in the church and some were wiling to harken to him.14 but piece continued betwene us and the Church and our enimies and the Indewments continued in the Temple all this month[.]15
Windsor P. Lyon (c. 1840s) married Perrigrine’s sister, Sylvia, in Far West, Missouri, in 1838. Courtesy Norma Earl.
Notes
1. Lucina bore four children: Perrigrine (b. September 19, 1848, d. same day); Keplar (b. December 8, 1855, d. August 26, 1932); Harvey (b. June 13, 1859, d. January 3, 1948); Lucina (b. January 30, 1862, d. March 17, 1863). Lucina, the mother, also raised the two children of Perrigrine’s first wife, Julia Ann—Martha Ann and Carlos Lyon. Lucina died June 29, 1904.
Mary bore five children: Julia (b. April 25, 1848, d. November 27, 1938); Byron (b. November 7, 1851, d. January 5, 1928); Cyril (b. August 7, 1855, d. May 30, 1861); Zina (b. December 4, 1859, d. January 1, 1951); and Perry (b. August 5, 1860, d. August 18, 1896). Mary, who like Lucina loved and sacrificed much for her family, died at age forty-one, on November 25, 1865.
2. See Leonard Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 126–27.
3. Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844–1861, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964), 1:220.
4. The Lyons buried three children—Marian (1839–42); Philafreen (1841–44); and Asa Windsor (1842–42)—in Nauvoo. They buried two more—Byron Windsor (1847–51) and David Carlos (1848–50)—later in Iowa City, where they moved in June 1846.
5. Kate B. Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage, 15 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1971), 10:415.
6. Josephine E. Fisher, “Josephine Rosetta Lyon Fisher—Her Parentage,” typescript, [4], photocopy in possession of editor, provided by Norma F. Earl.
7. Donna T. Smart, Mormon Midwife: The 1846–1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1997), 23. It is intriguing that, according to a signed affidavit of her daughter Josephine, Sylvia was sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith during the period of Windsor P. Lyon’s excommunication. The affidavit also stated that Joseph was the father of Josephine. Smart, Mormon Midwife, 20–21.
8. According to the Nauvoo High Council minutes, the $3,000 loan was to William Marks, then president of the Nauvoo Stake—against whom the civil suit was filed. The next day, November 7, 1842, Marks filed a counter suit before a Church court and Lyon was excommunicated. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 181, 682.
9. Enoch B. Tripp (1823–1909) was the son of William Tripp and Patty Sessions’s sister Namah. William was an Episcopal-Methodist preacher.
10. Enoch Bartlett Tripp, Autobiography, as copied by an unnamed person is in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Library, Salt Lake City. A photocopy is available in Church Archives as well. The copyist wrote, “Copied in 1951 from an original account of the life of Enock Bartlett Tripp written by him and found in his trunk with his genealogical record.”
13. The Masonic Hall was dedicated by Hyrum Smith on April 5, 1844. In addition to being used for freemasonry rites (a number of citizens in Nauvoo became Masons), the hall served as a cultural center for the community. Richard N. Holzapfel and T. Jeffery Cottle, Old Mormon Nauvoo, 1839–1846 (Provo, Utah: Grandin Book, 1990), 108–10. Perrigrine’s comment implies that the hall was pressed into further use as a shop for building wagons, at least when the Saints were preparing to exit Nauvoo.
14. Joseph Smith baptized James J. Strang in February 1844. After the Martyrdom, Strang had a letter he claimed was written by the Prophet, designating Strang as Church president and Voree, Wisconsin, as a gathering place. By then, the Twelve had been accepted as Church authority. Strang’s letter was called a forgery, but he attracted a few to Voree. From there he moved to Beaver Island, north of Lake Michigan. In 1856 he was killed by a disaffected follower. See Arrington, American Moses, 119.
15. The Saints believed that finishing the temple was important in spite of their preparations for leaving.
