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Luke S Johnson Helped The Smiths Escape Kirtland Custody


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It was my understanding that, after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, Joseph did flee Kirtland but not before he stood trial, and he already been through thirteenth prosecutions without a conviction. Then he was finally convicted, not for fraud or enrichment, but of violating the 1816 act.

Joseph and Sidney are found guilty of violating state banking statutes ("illegal banking"). Each to pay $1,000 plus court costs. They appeal. (Kenny, Scott, "Mormon History 1830-1844")

An anti-Mormon then sources for me about Luke S. Johnson (whom was excommunicated following the Kirtland Safety Society failure).

“Luke S. Johnson, learning Sheriff Kimball was about to arrest Joseph for illegal banking, arrests the Prophet for an outstanding judgment in another case. Joseph pays the judgment and leaves for Missouri on horseback with Sidney Rigdon.” (http://www.saintswithouthalos.com/c/1838.phtml)

"January 12th, 1838, I learned that Sheriff Kimball was about to arrest Joseph Smith, on a charge of illegal banking, and knowing that it would cost him an expensive lawsuit, and perhaps end in imprisonment, I went to the French farm, where he then resided, and arrested him on an execution for his person, in the absence of property to pay a judgment of $50, which I had in my possession at the time, which prevented Kimball from arresting him.'

"Joseph settled the execution, and thanked me for my interference, and started that evening for Missouri: this was the last time I ever saw the Prophet." (Luke S. Johnson http://saintswithouthalos.com/b/johnson_lsh.phtml)

So... Am I reading this right? Luke S. Johnson is reporting a conflicting account of him helping Joseph escape Kirtland before facing trial. I'm having a hard time. Are these 2 separate events that just so happen to involve illegal banking? That's really bizarre considering he was already went to trial and was convicted and paid the fine in October 1837. Yet Joseph is somehow in Kirtland still, receiving "double jeopardy" on January 12th, 1838. Is Luke S. Johnson correct?

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It was my understanding that, after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, Joseph did flee Kirtland but not before he stood trial, and he already been through thirteenth prosecutions without a conviction. Then he was finally convicted, not for fraud or enrichment, but of violating the 1816 act and was fined $1000. They paid the fines and appealed the verdict, only the appeal was never heard because they were forced to move, and he moved because people would attack him verbally and threatened him physically which forced him to leave the city.

Only then to come across an anti-Mormon source of the Apostate Luke S. Johnson whom was excommunicated following the Kirtland Safety Society failure.

"January 12th, 1838, I learned that Sheriff Kimball was about to arrest Joseph Smith, on a charge of illegal banking, and knowing that it would cost him an expensive lawsuit, and perhaps end in imprisonment, I went to the French farm, where he then resided, and arrested him on an execution for his person, in the absence of property to pay a judgment of $50, which I had in my possession at the time, which prevented Kimball from arresting him.'

"Joseph settled the execution, and thanked me for my interference, and started that evening for Missouri: this was the last time I ever saw the Prophet." (Luke S. Johnson http://saintswithout...hnson_lsh.phtml)

So... Am I reading this right? Luke S. Johnson is referring to Joseph escape before being facing trial. I'm having a hard time making sense of this.

Never really considered Saintswithouthalos to be anti-mormon. Thought they pretty much presented the history and let one come to their own conclusions.

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Well, I'm throwing his past out there because it could be a possible explanation for the conflict I'm having with the history. Perhaps he is not a reliable witness or whatever... Wait a minuet. How did this end up in the social hall?

Because dances are social by their very nature.

Lehi

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I was making a case that Joseph was a completely innocent man, purely a victim of extralegal persecution. The evidence critics throw back is that he ran from Kirtland, Ohio.

That's really bizarre considering he didn't flee arrest before. The arrest and charge were made in the spring of 1837, by which it went to trial and he was convicted and paid a fine in October 1837, he appealed but then left and his appeal wasn't heard.

When he came back, Luke S. Johnson and some others united together for the overthrow of the Church.

December 10th, 1837, Brigham Young, who was not an officer of the Kirtland Safety Society, "left Kirtland in consequence of the fury of the mob spirit that prevailed in the apostates who had threatened to destroy him because he would proclaim publicly and privately that he knew by the power of the Holy Ghost that I was a Prophet of the Most High God, that I had not transgressed and fallen as the apostates declared. Apostasy, persecution, confusion, and mobocracy strove hard to bear rule at Kirtland, and thus closed the year 1837." (History of the Church, Vol.2, Ch.36, p.528)

That same day Joseph and Sydney just returned from Far West to Kirtland, and in "January, 1838. - A new year dawned upon the Church in Kirtland in all the bitterness of the spirit of apostate mobocracy; which continued to rage and grow hotter and hotter, until Elder Rigdon and myself were obliged to flee from its deadly influence, as did the Apostles and Prophets of old, and as Jesus said, 'when they persecute you in one city, flee to another.' On the evening of the 12th of January, about ten o'clock, we left Kirtland, on horseback, to escape mob violence, which was about to burst upon us under the color of legal process to cover the hellish designs of our enemies." (History of the Church, Vol.3, Ch.1, p.1)

So, Joseph is in Kirtland being tried again for what Luke S. Johnson describes is the same crime on January 12th, 1838 which looks like "double jeopardy" or at least frivolous since he already stood trial. Yet with Luke S. Johnson's help, flees to Missouri.

Smith said his move away from Kirtland was characterized as an "escape mob violence, which was about to burst upon us under the color of legal process to cover the hellish designs of our enemies."

Bushman states, "Joseph and Rigdon left Kirtland in the night on January 12, 1838. The lawsuits were building up, and apostates were feared to be plotting more desperate measures. Joseph claimed that armed men—whether Mormons or irate creditors, he did not say—pursued them for two hundred miles from Kirtland." (Bushman, p. 340).

Did the event Luke S. Johnson describe really happen? And what are the details behind it? I can't seem to find anything more about it.

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