Vol. 1 The Field Is White | Vol. 2 The Gathering | Vol. 3 The Nauvoo Years | Vol. 4 The Mormon Battalion | Vol. 5 The Journey Home
Elizabeth Browett had reached a boiling point. "See this teapot?" she yelled. "It's mine. See this cup? It's mine. See this cabin? It's mine. Get out!"

"You're being ridiculous," her husband, Daniel, stammered.

Elizabeth pushed the cup into Daniel's chest, spilling composition tea onto his shirt. "You already know what's ridiculous-plural marriage! Gather up your things!"

Daniel cast a glance at his brother-in-law, Robert. Robert drew his shoulders up in a gesture of helplessness. He had not been who asked Daniel to take Harriet Clifford Barnes as a plural wife. That had been Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and Orson Hyde-almost like a church calling.

Elizabeth threw Daniel's heavy coat at him and pointed to the door. "Out!"
Daniel had lived in Nauvoo for only a year and a half, and now this. He had led 109 British converts to America on an immigrant ship, led them up the Mississippi to the Mormon settlement, and had been one of the most faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Surely this would be his greatest test of faith.

A riveting story about plural marriage, the murder of Joseph Smith, and the trial of his murderers.





Email Darryl Harris

 Robert was shocked beyond belief when the court in Carthage reconvened at two o'clock sharp. The jury had been in deliberation for just more than two hours. Robert sat between two men he didn't know, but they were obvious Mormon haters. From time to time they sipped corn whiskey from a canning jar. They began to smile as they anticipated the verdict. In their minds, the five defendants would be declared not guilty in the charge that they had conspired to murder Joseph Smith.

The long-legged jury foreman arose. He was a wire-haired man with deep-set dark eyes. His face carried a smirk, a new source of irritation for Robert. The foreman handed Judge Young a written verdict.

Young read it with a straight face: "We the jury find the defendants not guilty, as charged in the indictments." Except for Katherine, Sheriff Deming, the prosecutors, and Robert, everyone in the courtroom erupted with a chorus of cheers and lusty laughter. Raucous men banged their rifle butts on the floor and waved pistols and knives.
Darryl Harris has been a magazine publisher for more than thirty years. He and his wife, Chris, reside in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and have five children. From 1997 to 2000, they presided over the Korea Seoul Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then served as a bishop for one of the campus wards at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg.
"I really felt compassion for Elizabeth and her struggles to accept the doctrine of polygamy. She reacted the same way most women would have done."
-Suzanne Rowser
Heber City, Utah
"I've never read anything so complete regarding the attempted kidnapping of Joseph Smith in 1843 by the Missouri sheriff. Or about Joseph and Hyrum's untimely deaths and the trial of their murderers that took place in Carthage in 1845. The detail, as seen through the eyes of the main characters of this book, really drew me in. Now I appreciate so much more the Nauvoo epic of our people. I felt a real pain for the prejudice the Mormons suffered during that time. The book was intriguing, to say the least, and a real page-turner."
-Reed Moss
Ririe, Idaho