Morgan Pioneer History Binds Us Together I recon. I'll light a candle for you. There's a water bucket and a dipper for you and your bed is right through this door. I hope you will find it comfortable." Mr. Lincoln stepped to the corner and took the dipper from its nail. "I hope your little patient is comfortable tonight." "He'll be strutting around in a day or two with his arm in a sling, nice clean break." "It's a fine life you're leading here, Judge," Lincoln said thoughtfully. "Mending anything that's broken. Looks funny at first glimpse seeing a man welding a part for a farmer one day, and the next day, setting a bone for the farmer's son. But the two go somewhat alike." "No difference," Jonathan smiled, "except bone setting's a lot easier. Nature does most of the welding. But if it's two pieces of iron, you've got to blow up the forge and pound. Nature won't help with that." Lincoln nodded soberly. "Hammer and hammer," he repeated, swinging the dipper to and fro. "I can't weld but I've seen it done. Heat and hammer. Heat and hammer. Whatever man makes, man breaks. And then someone must mend. Judge Browning, there's a lot of mending to be done in these United States; a lot of mending." He hung the dipper like a hammer; striking the palm of his hand with such force that Jonathan expected the handle to snap. A quick smile of apology crossed his face, then the voice continued, quieter now. "I've knocked around a great deal; even made a couple of trips down the river on a flatboat, clear to New Orleans. And wherever I go, I hear sounds of little things breaking, and I see big things bending dangerously near to it. You see signs all around you, hear the sounds. Fact is I'm so worried that I have nightmares, and not all of them when I'm asleep. I get plain scared to death when I look a few years ahead." For along time he seemed to be doing just that, trying to look into the future. Jonathan nodded politely, but he was puzzled and worried, too. He wondered if his guest was going into one of those moody spells he had heard of. But with another swing of the dipper, the shaggy giant continued. "Judge Browning, the United States ought to become the greatest country on earth. But what if the hot heads break it in two, right down the middle? That would be a welding job! It would take the fires of the inferno for the forge, And where is the anvil? Where is the hammer and where is the blacksmith?" The swinging dipper struck the ceiling and again an apologetic smile touched the rugged face. "It was the talk of your bone setting and welding that started me off. Judge; maybe I'm just seeing stumps and gnarled limbs in the dark, and imagining bears. How so?" He took a drink of water, accepted the candle, and stepped toward his room. "Good night, Judge Browning, and many thanks for your hospitality," "Good night, Mr. Lincoln." "That's the way it happened," Jonathan would say, some thirty years later in Utah. "Two frontiersmen yarning. Only I'm just beginning to realize I was listening to prophecy." Jonathan became interested in religion in his mid- thirties. Jonathan had grew up near the Mormon Church though he didn't know it. He and the Prophet Joseph Smith had been born the same year in 1805. Jonathan in Tennessee and Joseph Smith in Vermont. Sometime in 1840 while the city of Nauvoo was still under construction, a Mormon came into Jonathan's shop with a repair job. Encouraged by Jonathan's response to his conversation, he returned the next day with some tracts and a copy of the Book of Mormon. Jonathan read, at first idly, soon with concentration. He knew through the power of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine was the truth, and accepted it. In 1842, Jonathan again sold his property, and moved to Nauvoo. Again he sat up shop; building on Main Street a two-story brick house, and began the manufacture and repair of guns. While in Nauvoo he made a gun for Joseph Smith. The Temple on which Jonathan frequently worked was well under construction. Each day new converts arrived; bringing in additional repairs and jobs, new trials and hardships. There was the repeated attempt on the Prophet's life, as well as the ever-present threat of mob violence. It was not long until the prophet was murdered. Then all sat to work to get ready to leave Nauvoo. The blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters and other workmen were kept busy day and night to get them prepared. Brigham Young planned to make the move in 1840, but attacks from Illinois and Missouri mobs forced them to begin their move in February. Jonathan, too, moved. The Mormons settled temporarily in the vicinity of Omaha on the east banks of Missouri; Jonathan and his family choosing a spot eight miles south of Gainesville (Council Bluffs) on Mosquito Creek. When volunteers for the Mormon Battalion were called, Jonathan volunteered, but Brigham Young said, "Brother Jonathan, we need you here." Jonathan was told many times his mission was to remain where he was to lend his knowledge and special skill to the labors of preparation. So he again established his business, manufacturing "Improved firearm Viz. revolving rifles and pistols, also slide guns, from five to twenty-five shooters, all on an approved plan" as he worded it in the advertisement section of the