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( C O N T I N U E D )
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Heber C. Kimball faced supernatural adversaries shortly after arriving in Commerce. The temporary Kimball family home was typical of the initial Mormon construction along the Mississippi. The dwelling consisted of logs taken from an old stable which were then placed against a pre-existing structure already serving as a residence for several families. Heber’s daughter, Helen Mar Whitney, remembered that her father “put on a few ‘shakes’ to cover it, but it had no floor or chinking.” When her mother realized that when it rained water would accumulate “nearly ankle deep” on the dirt floor, she opted to place “a few little boards” on the ground to “serve as a substitute” for more refined flooring.[1] The Kimball home provided little refuge from the wilderness outside. The structure was in a liminal state, substandard and unfinished, and therefore proved the ideal setting for ghost and demon lore.
Whitney remembered that during the first summer the Kimball home was the site of a supernatural assault:
We were awakened by our mother [Vilate Kimball] who was struggling as though nearly choked to death. Father asked her what was the matter. When she could speak, she replied that she dreamt that a personage came and seized her by the throat and was choking her. [Heber C. Kimball] lit a candle and saw that her eyes were sunken and her nose pinched in, as though she were in the last stage of cholera. He laid his hands upon her head and rebuked the spirit in the name of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Priesthood commanded it to depart.[2]
Personified evil and disease intersected in the body of Vilate Kimball. Her report mirrored what folklorist David Hufford has characterized as an “old hag” experience in which an individual awakens paralyzed, followed by the sensation of hearing or “seeing something come into the room and approach the bed,” and “being pressed on the chest or strangled.”[3] Yet unlike the vast majority of such accounts, where the affliction is terrifying and exhausting but not truly life-threatening, Vilate’s assault bore all the tell-tale signs of cholera. In Commerce, examining bodies for signs of disease had much in common with examining bodies for signs of obsession and possession.
Whitney’s account continues with a recognition of the contagious elements of such a scenario. The evil spirit(s) dispersed throughout the immediate surroundings: “In a moment afterwards, some half a dozen children in other parts of the house were heard crying as if in great distress. The cattle began to bellow and low, the horses to neigh and whinny, the dogs barked, hogs squealed, and the fowls and everything around were in great commotion. And in a few minutes my father was called to lay hands on Sister Bentley, the widow of David Patten, who lived in the next room. She was seized in a similar manner to my mother. They continued quite feeble for several days from the shock.”[4] The evil spirit acted much like a disease moving to another host, but the reaction of the animals confirmed that it was no ordinary ailment.
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