Witnesses to the Martyrdom, Willard Richards Story

Art by  William L. Maughan

To watch on Youtube click here: https://youtu.be/KBOeKwWOsQs

To listen on Spotify click here: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/krystine-stephenson/episodes/Willard-Richards-Carthage-Jail-Miracle-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints-e31ts78

The murder of the Prophet Joseph Smith is a tragedy which the member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have never recovered. The first Prophet of the restoration was killed along side his brother at the hands of a ruthless mob, and miraculously two witnesses were left to testify of the brutality of what occurred. There are no coincidences in the Lords work, and what are the chances that two people lived through the horrendous mob attack on Carthage Jail. These two men were left to tell the world what actually occurred, as eye-witnesses of the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Willard Richards and John Taylor were with the Prophet on that fateful day, and both men miraculously survived the attack to, live as witnesses to the world of what occurred on that fateful day.

When Joseph Smith knew his time on Earth was coming to an end, he predicted on multiple occasions that his life would be over soon, but he also predicted what would happen to Willard Richards. A year before the murders in Carthage Joseph Smith gave a prediction to Willard, but Willard did not know what it meant until after the death of Joseph Smith then it all made sense.

Willard Richards Background

Willard Richards was introduced to the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ through his cousin Brigham Young in 1836. Only six months after his baptism Richards served a mission to England. Later, Willard Richards served as Church Historian and Secretary to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

With all that Willard Richards contributed to the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the most well known is that he was as an eyewitness to the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Richards went to Carthage with the Joseph and the others. Willard Richards promised the Prophet Joseph Smith that he would stay to the end, no matter what came.

Joseph asked Willard saying: “If we go into the cell, will you go in with us?” Willard responded, “Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the river with you—you did not ask me to come to Carthage—you did not ask me to come to jail with you—and do you think I would forsake you now? But I will tell you what I will do; if you are condemned to be hung for treason, I will be hung in your stead, and you shall go free.”

Willard Richards was warned about the struggles that they would face by going to Carthage. Willard willingly stayed and fought with with his brethren. Richards used his cane to deflect the enemies’ guns. Richards was an eye witness seeing Hyrum fall to his death and then the Prophet Joseph. Willard Richards saw John Taylor get shot and pulled him to safety, covering him with a mattress. Fully expecting to be the next one shot, Richards was surprised when the mob, having fulfilled their mission to murder the Prophet, left the building. 

It was after it wall all over when Richards recalled something the Prophet had told him more than a year before, saying “the time would come that the balls would fly around him like hail, and he should see his friends fall on the right and on the left, but that there should not be a hole in his garment.” Willard Richards survived the attack unscathed and was able to care for the bodies of his fallen friends and report what had happened.

Willard Richards was trained as a doctor in herbal medicine. It is a miracle that he was the one left alive to help John Taylor with his bullet wounds, and care for the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Willard Richards was a large man, and for him to escape the attack unscathed is a great miracle.

For the Lord said “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” Doctrine and Covenants 6:28. For John Taylor and Willard Richards to survive this attack was a great miracle. Without the words of those two men, who knows what kind of accounts we would have of what actually occurred that terrible night.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland's talk "Safety for the Soul" given in October 2009 said:

"As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?

Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless, and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon."

References:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/latter-day-saint-history-1815-1846-teacher-material/lesson-26?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2013/06/two-witnesses-three-days-and-the-aftermath-of-the-martyrdom?lang=eng

https://rsc.byu.edu/prophets-apostles-last-dispensation/willard-richards

(Manuscript History, vol. F-1, p. 183).