Home -> Surnames -> William Huntington, Jr. -> Children -> Oliver Boardman Huntington Notes -> Habitats Of The Damned

When the Saints moved to Nauvoo or Commerce, as it was then called, it might be called a deserted town, or partly so at least, as there were many empty houses, mostly built of logs and had stood so long that the mud had fallen from the spaces between them.

The Saints just driven from Missouri were glad to get such shelter as those old houses would afford, and they were all soon filled, sometimes two and three families in one house. Some houses had no floors, some no doors.

Soon the inmates became sick--sickness increased until Joseph Smith began to be alarmed and saw something very unusual in the new affliction. He looked into the matter as only a Seer and Prophet could look. He saw the trouble and where it came from. Those houses had been dens of iniquity. He instituted means to empty them again by moving the people into tents and doubling up families in better houses. My father's family he took into his own house and tent.

I once heard him say concerning houses that had been inhabited by wicked people, that before the Saints moved into them they should be thoroughly cleansed, then fumigated with brimstone and white-wash. Afterward there should be a season of prayer in the house, and it should be dedicated unto the Lord for the use they designed for it.

Those old houses had been owned or occupied by wicked, unprincipled men, gamblers, outlaws, licentious robbers, etc., and those that were of the same stamp had met there for evil practices and criminal purposes and there carried on their orgies. While this was the pastime or work of men and women in bodies, disembodied spirits of [133] the same ilk stood around in highest glee and in various ways manifested to one another their enjoyment of the performance of the vilest of sins. When the owners or occupants of the houses were dead, they enjoyed each other's society with their new pals in the spirit state, and when the righteous took possession of their old houses, all combined to kill the new inhabitants, and hence so much sickness--for all evil spirits whether in the body or out of the body, are opposed to this work and this people, and the spirits in the spirit world have means by which they can affect people on earth, and are as diligent there as here to do good or evil.

The last of these old houses doomed to destruction stood quite alone, and for a long time was occupied by one lone woman who persisted in staying there although requested to vacate. Finally Joseph told William Huntington and another brother to go and burn the house that it might no longer be inhabited. They went without delay and removed the woman and her effects and cleansed the house by fire, but first shoved the roof down inside, as it was against the law for a man to burn even his own building that had a roof on.

Young Woman's Journal, Vol. 2:467-8.