| 96 the bearer, Doctor Sidney Rigdon, who was for many years citizen of the State of Ohio, and a firm supporter of the administration of the General Government.
"Doctor Rigdon visits Washington (as I am informed) as
A.-In about six weeks after he came to the county he first met him; he went out of his way one day six miles to see Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon. He said he found them in Kirtland Township; they had been there but a short time and occupied a small log house. He found them to be quite intelligent men, and he said pleasant talkers, and quite free to converse upon their religious views, which at that time was known as the "new sect." My father always said Joseph Smith was a conscientious and upright man.
Q.-Did you know any other persons of the new society?
A.-Oh, yes, a great many. I knew Mr. Pratt very well. He was a smart and a square man all around. Those men were neither knaves nor rogues; that is my opinion of them. I suppose some of them may have been. It was just as in all other bodies of the kind, there will be some bad ones, but I don't know of any that were. There were a good many stories circulated about them that I knew to be false. At one time an ox was found in Kirtland Township, killed and skinned; and there was a great to do about the Mormons having killed it. My brother was sheriff at the time, and with others went up to investigate the matter, and he says that there was not the least evidence which showed that the Mormons had any hand in killing the ox. Persons around, however, who hated their religion, would tell that they did.
Q.-How was it that people did not like them? Were they not good citizens?
A.-Yes, they were as good citizens as those of any society. It was the fanatics in religion that tried to drive those men out. There were a great many conservative men in our county at that time who held these fanatics back, and if it had not been for this they would have gone in and killed them all. But our intelligent and honorable citizens prevented this.
Q.-What about the Kirtland Bank swindle? Mr. Axtell, you are a banker, and know how that was, do you not?
A.-Yes, I know about that bank; they started in Kirtland. These parties went into the banking business as a great many others in the State of Ohio and other States. They got considerable money out a first, and their enemies began to circulate all manner of stories against them, and as we had a great many banks then that issued what was known as "wild-cat" money, the people began to get alarmed at so many stories, and would take the other banks' issue instead of the Kirtland; and so much of it was forced in at once that the bank was not able to take it up. Had the people let these people alone there is no reason that I know of why the Kirtland Bank should not have existed to this time and on as stable a basis as other banks.
Q.-Then you think it was the fault of the enemies of the bank that it failed?
A.-Yes, I do; and it was not the only one that failed either by a good many, and with which Smith had nothing to do.
Q.-What then do you consider the prime causes of the expulsion o the Mormons from Kirtland?
A.-The ignorance and fanaticism of their accusers did it; they thought public sentiment would tolerate it and they did it. The same as Roger Williams was driven out and the witches burned in Massachusetts.
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