The Brave Sarah Bird Davidson

Patricia R. Major Miller sent me this story from an autobiography of Mary Jane Miller. Mary Jane and her parents joined the Church in Tennessee in the 1880's. She tells one story of her mother Sarah Bird Davidson Miller and about how "friends" and neighbors behaved when it came to Mormonism.

Before we even joined the Church but were keeping the elders, the Kuklies as they called themselves in those days, came to our place one night hunting for the Mormon elders. Me and my older brother Nicholas were away from home that night, and Mother had always said that if they ever came to our house, she would find out who some of them were. She told them there were no Mormon elders there. They threw a large rock against the door and knocked it open. Then they came around to the other door and wanted to come in to see if there were any elders there. Mother [Sarah Bird Davidson Miller, pictured here] told them to wait ‘til she got her lights fixed; then they could come in. So she got them fixed so they couldn’t put them out. She opened the door and the leader came in. Then another one came in slinging his head. She stood at the door and snatched his false face off, and she knew him. He looked at her and said, “You hadn’t ought to have done that.” Then they jumped back out and said, “Kill her. Kill her.” They snapped the pistol in her face three times, but it didn’t fire. That was the old cap and ball or six shooter pistol. They didn’t want us to keep the Mormons around us. My mother never told me who that fellow was, nor I never had any idea until we came to Colorado. Then she told me, and he was the young fellow that me and my brother with others ran together with as good friends.

Sarah, her husband Philip, and their children eventually left Cedar Creek, Tennessee for Colorado in order to worship as they wished.