Autobiography of Clarissa Wilhelm

My grandfather died somewhere in the state of New York.  My Grandmother Harden died in Cattaraugus County, the town of Perrysburg.  

My Grandfather and Grandmother Tabor died in the county of Cayuga in the town of Scipio.  My Uncle Archibald Harden died in the state of Ohio, and so did my uncles Daniel and James Harden.  My Aunt Amy Bowken and her husband died in the county of Cayuga in the town of Loch.  My Aunt Mahitable and Aunt Mary moved to Canada and I do not know what became of them.  My Uncle Wing and his wife died in the town of Moriva, Cayuga County, New York.  My Aunt Clarissa died in the town of Ledge, Cayuga County.  My Aunt Silence died at G_____, Cayuga County.  My Uncle George died in the town of Scipio.  My mother and father died in Indiana.

I was born in the town of Perrysburg, Cattaraugus County, New York, in the year 1820, February 26.  The first seven years of my life were spent where I was born which is more familiar than what took place yesterday.  The Cattaraugus Indian village was seven miles from my father's.  There were ten children of us.  (14 all together)  Henry, Silence, Mary, Clarissa, William, Abram, Philura, Sarah, Lucretia, and Lovina.  In 1827 my father moved to the county of Chautauqua, the town of Ellery.  My mother had two children born there, Lucretia and Lovina.  My mother lost four children in the town of Perrysburg making her number fourteen.  

We lived in Ellery about seven years.  Then we moved to the eastern part of the state of New York in 1834.  We stopped in the town of Loch for about one year.  I commenced then to work from home to earn my own clothes.  We moved from Loch to Summerhill, a town about four miles from Loch.  We did not live in Summerhill or Summerville more than two years.  While in Summerville I joined the Methodists.  It was there my two sisters Mary and Silence left to go to the state of Ohio.  The next place we moved was to the town of [[Venice, New York|Venice]].  

Twas there I got acquainted with a young man by the name of [[John Benjamin Williams|John B. Williams]].  He was the son of [[John Andrew Williams (Johann Andreas Wilhelm)|John Francis Williams]] and [[Mercy Farrington|Mercy Williams]].  He had two sisters and three brothers.  The names of his sisters were Betsy and Sarah.  The names of his brothers were Silvester, [[Daniel Williams|Daniel]], and Martin.  I was married in the year 1838 to John and we settled in [[Venice, New York|Venice]] about a mile from his brothers and about the same distance from my brothers.  I had a son born in 1840 and we named him [[James Return Williams|James Return]].  

In 1842 I had a [[Susan Clarissa Williams|daughter]] born April 20th.  About this time my husband’s father died.  He had been sick about seven years.  He had the asthma.  About this time Mormonism cane along.  An elder by the name of Paltine Brown preached on the other side of Wasco Lake.  It was about eleven miles from where we lived.  We went around the lake to visit some friends one Sunday and went to meeting to hear the Mormon preach.  It was when my second child was six weeks old.  We went to meeting and believed the gospel but did not obey it as my husband’s sister, Sarah did.  We went home but did not feel that we had done right.  Our baby took sick and lay thus until we made up our minds to obey the Gospel, then she got better.  Then we went again to meeting and was baptized by Brother Shearron and his son, Norman.  [[July 4]], [[1842]].  We went home feeling that the spirit of the Lord went with us.  Then we began to have the spirit of gathering.  Before the Gospel came we felt that we would live and die on the little place we had, when we went to keeping house.  If anybody had told me that I should leave that place I would have felt bad.  But now we began to lay our plans to go to Nauvoo.  We had to spin and weave all our own clothes for the summer and winter including table linen, towels, and grain sacks.  We dried our own fruit and had enough surplus butter from our cow to buy some store goods.  In those days children went barefoot from the time they were born until they were grown.  I remember going places, carrying my shoes.  When I would get almost there I would put my shoes on. We lived on coarse foods and lots of sunshine.  I do not remember any epidemic of whooping cough or measles when I was a young woman.  

Well we still kept making preparations to go to Nauvoo.  My husband and his brother Martin, were in partnership with two farms and there was no sale for land then, so we had to stay awhile longer.  In [[1843]] we had another [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm|son]], [[November 14|Nov, 14]]; we named him after Bateman Haight.  Still we couldn’t sell our farm so we gathered up what money we could to take us to Nauvoo, and left our farm, horses, cattle, and sheep, and hogs.  We went leaving all behind.  Daniel and Martin took the freight and Aunt Sarah to the canal.  We followed in a buggy to Gettysburg, to the Erie Canal.  From Buffalo we went to Cleveland, Ohio, thence to Portsmouth, where we took a steamer on the Ohio River.  The river was so low we were on the sandbar half the time.  My daughter Susan took sick with a bowel complaint and come near dying.  We came to St. Louis and took a steamer out to the Mississippi River getting to Nauvoo the first of October, after Joseph's and Hiram’s deaths.  On the road before we got into town we were often stopped and ask why we wanted to go to Nauvoo -- that Joseph Smith was dead.  When we got to Nauvoo we stayed first at Isaac Haight’s.  The next morning we went to Bateman Haight’s.  My little girl was no better.  I did not know what to do.  She wanted to drink all the time.  I took some cottonwood coals and put them in a bowl of water for her to drink during the night.  On the morning I tasted it and it tasted like lye.  I thought I had killed her, but she began to get better.