Volume 5
Three Pioneer Women Speak
Eliza Shelton Keeler
A Tribute
The year before mother died, Elders Benjamin Brown and Jesse Crosby visited our country as missionaries from the Latter-day Saints Church, Nauvoo, Illinois. They converted and baptized quite a number and organized a branch of the Church in our neighborhood. My father, mother, Ann and James were baptized and confirmed members. A mob was raised by the enemies of the church against the Elders; they beat Brother Brown and left him for dead while he was walking from one house to another. Jesse Crosby rushed into our house to escape the mob. They threw stones at the house and broke some of the windows and doors and acted like wild beasts. I was only four years old at the time, but I remember, my mother was very ill, and she looked so white and scared. The officers of the law tried to do something about it, but the offenders were not brought to justice as they deserved. They would not allow my father to try them because he was a Mormon. Jesse Crosby came again in 1850 on another mission to that part to visit the Saints and renew old acquaintances.