The following is from the Verbal Statement of Bishop Dennison L. Harris, made by him to President Joseph F. Smith in the presence of Elder Franklin Spencer, in the house of Bishop Carl Christian Nikolai Dorius of Ephraim, Sanpete, Co. Utah, on May 15, 1881:
You know Brother Joseph,
(here the speaker addressed himself to Bro. Jos. F. Smith) that the Prophet
started over the river, just before he gave himself up, to go away; it might be
that he intended or meant that he would leave the place, and it might be that
he knew that his life would be taken. I could not say as to that.
Before leaving Joseph put a
seal upon our mouths, and told us to tell nobody not even our fathers for 20
years. He cautioned us very seriously, and I did as he told me. There was one
thing that Joseph said which I have not related. He said: they accuse me of
polygamy, and of being a false prophet and many other things which I do not now
remember; but, said he, I am no false prophet, I am no impostor; I have had
no dark revelations, I have had no revelations from the devil. I have made
no revelations; I have not got anything up myself. The same God that has thus
far dictated and directed me, and inspired me and strengthened me in this work,
gave me this revelation and Commandment on Celestial and Plural marriage; and
the same God Commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accept it and
introduce it and practise it, I together with my people should be damned and
cut off from this time henceforth. And they say if I do so and so they will
kill me. What shall I do! What shall I do! If I do not practise it I shall be
dammed with all my people; if I do teach it and practise it and urge it, they
say they will kill me, and I know they will. But said he, we have got to
observe it, that it was an eternal principle, and that it was given to him by
way of Commandment and not by way of instruction.” (Transcription taken from
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Dennison Lott Harris’s Firsthand Accounts of the
Conspiracy of Nauvoo and the Transmission of Apostolic Keys,” in Joseph
Smith: A Life Lived in Crescendo, ed. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, 2 vols. [Orem,
Utah: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2024], 2:909-10, emphasis added)
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