Henry Weeks Sanderson remembers Joseph Smith

       

Henry Weeks Sanderson

"We were living in a story-and-a –half log house, the second house from the Prophet Joseph’s, only Sidney Rigdon’s house between us, at the time the Prophet and his brother Hyrum were massacred, and I remember still distinctly the shock that I experienced when a runner went past our house shouting that the Prophet was killed.  I had been baptized in the spring previous at a general baptizing of children, Henry G. Sherwood officiating.  The Prophet Joseph was on the ground and may have assisted in the confirmation.  I was so well acquainted with him that I attached no particular importance to the fact.  I had been to his house frequently and played with his boys, and he would occasionally join us.  I had been in games of ball where the Prophet was one of the players.  I was on the street near his house when he left it the last time alive and was the only one near when he shook hands with a stranger and saw them exchange canes on the street.  I saw the murdered bodies after they were brought to Carthage.”