The Minor Family of Somerset

--------Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia
Volume 2
Biographies
Miller, Jacob
King, Thomas Franklin, a High Councilor in the Davis Stake, is t
he son of ThosJefferson King and Rebecca E. Olin, and was bor
n in Portage county, Ohio, May 1, 1842. In a sketch prepared fo
r this work, Elder King writes: "My parentsjoined the Church i
n September, 1830. They both died in 1876, and were previous t
o their death the oldest living couple belonging to the Church
. They were intimately acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smit
h and his brother Hyrum, and passed through all the trials and p
ersecutions that were heaped upon the Saints in the early rise o
f the Church. In 1845 they moved from Ohio to Illinois and bough
t a farm in Morley's Settlement, a short distance from Nauvoo.T
hey raised one crop there when they were told by some of their n
eighborsthat the mob intended to drive all the "Mormons" out. M
y father was sick at the time. Previous to this the mob had driv
en out all the able bodied men among the Saints, including my br
other George E. who was about seventeen years old. When the mo
b came, they told my mother to leave at once. Father was not abl
e to help. All the team my parents had at that time was one hors
e and a one-horse wagon. My mother moved some of the furniture i
nto the cornfield, andput the beds and some of the light thing
s into the wagon, after which we allgot on top of the load. A
s soon as we had started, the mob set fire to the house. We wen
t to Nauvoo and found shelter in a large frame house that was al
ready occupied by three other families. After we were housed, m
y mother tookmy brother Alma, who was twelve years old, and ret
urned to the farm to get the balance of our furniture. There wa
s a good crop of corn on the farm ready to gather. As we had n
o bread, my mother and brother went again to the farm toget a l
oad of corn. The mob threatened her at that time, but she told t
hemshe had no bread for her children and must have it. They thr
eatened to shoother if she did not leave, but she told them t
o shoot away, as she would justas soon die as to starve. When s
he returned the third time one of the mobbers put a gun to her b
reast and said: "If you return again, I will shoot you."As sh
e thought she had secured enough to last us through the winter s
he didnot return any more. The first recollection I have in thi
s life was the parching of this same corn, that my mother riske
d her life to obtain for the sustenance of her children, which w
as parched and ground in a coffee mill and eaten with milk on ou
r journey Westward. Two cows which we owned at that time, wer
e a great help to us. My father was with us on the journey; he o
wned a wagon but no team, as the team we used belonged to my gra
ndfather. He and his wife, not my grandmother as she died some y
ears before, were traveling with us, or we with them. My grandfa
ther was quite aged, and as his wife had not much faith in the G
ospel, they soon concluded to go no further. Thus, when theytoo
k the team of the wagon, we were side tracked. This took place f
orty miles from Mount Pisgah, in Iowa. My brother George E. the
n started out on footfor Mount Pisgah and secured a team whic
h landed us at that place all right.We moved into a log cabin w
hich had no floor, and the roof was of bark whichcurled up, s
o that when it rained it was just as wet inside as it was outsid
e. My father being a Carpenter and builder soon obtained employm
ent, but atsome distance east of Mount Pisgah. In a short tim
e he hired a man to move usto a place called Stringtown, wher
e quite a number of our people had settledtemporarily for the w
inter. The next year we moved to Black Hawk and in a short tim
e to Iowaville; both these places were on the Des Moines river
, lessthan a hundred miles from Nauvoo and there were