Trivia – The press in Jackson County, Missouri, on which the Book of Commandments was being published was destroyed by a mob. The few books that were able to be created were from the sheets that fifteen-year-old Mary Elizabeth Rollins and her thirteen-year-old sister Caroline saved, grabbing the pages and running from the mob to hide in a nearby cornfield. The scripture I have Joseph quote is well known, but the section number and versification is as printed in the original Book of Commandments rather than what is contained in the Doctrine & Covenants today.

The June 1841 arrest of Joseph Smith appears connected with Tom Sharp’s new-found animosity towards the Mormons, particularly given that the arrest occurs only a few miles from Warsaw, in the community where Elvira’s sister Louisa lived in real life.

I do not know how it was discovered that Dr. Bennett had been inappropriate with Sarah Pratt, but it was discovered shortly before Orson Pratt’s return from England. The use of herbs described is legitimate, although I don’t know that Sarah Pratt would have necessarily ‘needed’ squaw mint. Dr. Bennett’s use of chloroform in this chapter predates the first recorded use of chloroform to anaesthetize humans (1847) but is well after the discovery of chloroform (1831), and Dr. Bennett is noted as being a pioneer in the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic.

Tags: Children of Heaven