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A third narrative from the era was left by the victim himself, Priddy Meeks. His story followed a format similar to the others. Meeks described the Commerce area as “desperately sick” and characterized his affliction in the context of disease. As with the case of Margaret Mace, he explained that his susceptibility to supernatural assault had been brought on by exhaustion. Although he took medicine to rid himself of his illness, he proved “so weak and feeble that the spirits of affliction or evil spirits or disembodied spirits or the devil if you please, got possession of me and come near killing me.”[1] Meeks reported being “torment[ed]” during the nights by three devils who forced him to perform extreme manual labor, until he was nearly dead. “They would make me work in a horse mill. They would make me go around and around so heavily I could hardly step one foot before the other. Sometimes they would put a pack on my back so heavy I could scarcely stand up under it, and they would make me carry it.” On one evening, when he was certain he would not survive one more night, he heard an angelic voice, “Put the Doctrine and Covenants or the Book of Mormon under your head, and do not consent to them and they can have no power over you.” He followed the instructions. The three evil spirits returned but this time seemed to realize something was amiss.[2]
They held hands as they approached: “The middle one was a large man, dark complexion, black eyes and hair and snaggle teeth, big nose and high cheek bones and an old black wool hat lopped down all around, nearly, and an old cloth coat nearly worn out, black but very much faded and hung slovenly over his shoulders like it might fall off. He was extremely ugly; he looked very vicious, he looked like a devil. The other two were smaller and better dressed and appeared bright and affable like men of education; one of them appeared to be a spokesman, one of them looked considerable like Orson Hyde, the other looked like James Simpson.”[3] Early Latter-day Saints sometimes described evil spirits as monstrous but Meek’s demons were human-like. They were dark, ugly, and furious, but two of the three were comparable to the seeming dignity of Hyde, a Mormon apostle, and Simpson, a U.S. Army captain, who would later serve in the Utah War.
Meeks narrated the scene in a comic manner with the three trying to gain his “consent” to approach him. “The spokesman began to make bows to me and wave his hand in the most friendly and enticing manner that was possible.” He introduced the middle devil as a colonel seeking an interview “with fascinating and enticing words and gestures to make it look like an impossibility to refuse.” Unimpressed, Meeks saw through the ruse and “drew back [his] fist and aimed to strike the demon right in the belly and said, [‘]Clear yourselves, you devils, I do not want anything to do with you.’” This was an unorthodox form of exorcism, but the narrator claimed that from that moment forward his devils never “captured” him or “made a slave” of him again.[4]
Disease and possession were twin aspects of Commerce’s unsettled nature. Perhaps some Saints were unaware of the extent of Nauvoo’s ghosts, but they would not have been unaware of the widespread suffering. As late as August 1841, Joseph Smith would conclude a letter, “we are in the midst of death.”[5] These stories highlight the heightened anxieties among the gathered Mormon refugees. To share tales of the Saints’ ability to thwart the spread of disease or of priesthood holders casting demons out of bodies and homes promised the ability to transform the very nature of Commerce. The performance of ritualistic cleansing, such as exorcism and healing, was important for individual Saints and their families. However, based on the sheer quantity of such stories, I propose that these exorcisms were not acts of individual sanctification alone—but a collective act of sanctifying defiled space.[6] The devil had been turned out of doors and a heaven, or a Zion, was being constructed along the Mississippi. As these stories circulated throughout the community, they promised that Commerce was a redeemed spaced or was at the very least redeemable.
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Christopher James Blythe‘s latest book, Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse, came out earlier this year from Oxford University Press. He is currently a Research Associate at the Maxwell Institute’s Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies where he is working on a cultural history of Book of Mormon geography.
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