What to Do if You Forget Your Name
By Davis Bitton

Author’s note: Long interested in Lyman Wight and his family, I was delighted a number of years ago to discover the testimony of Orange Wight, written in 1903 and 1904.  In retelling his experience, I have made minor corrections in spelling and punctuation.

Orange Wight, the oldest son of Lyman Wight, spent the last few years of his life in Bunkerville, Nevada, living with his daughter and her husband.  While there, at their request, he wrote a valuable document.  Unpretentious, full of misspellings, this personal history — really a series of recollections — provides valuable details about early church history.

Born in 1823, Orange was eight when his father and mother accepted the “new” religion of Mormonism.  When he was fifteen, Joseph Smith was taken prisoner at Far West, Missouri.  After being threatened with the loss of his life, the Prophet was taken to Liberty Jail.

With Joseph in Liberty Jail — along with Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Alexander McRae, and Caleb Baldwin — was Lyman Wight, Orange's father.  From that miserable dungeon (B.H. Roberts called it a "prison-temple") Joseph worried about the fate of the Saints, who were driven from their homes.  The sublime words now found in Doctrine and Covenants, sections 121, 122, and 123 were sent from the jail in the form of a long letter. 

With his mother, Orange traveled to Liberty several times.  “While in the prison with the prophet,” he wrote, “I got better acquainted with Br Joseph and could appreciate his divine mission.”

When the extermination order of Governor Lilburn Boggs forced the Saints to leave Missouri, Harriet Wight, Lyman's wife, and her small children were taken to Quincy, Illinois.  Riding a pony, Orange drove two milk cows more than two hundred miles.

If you were destitute, how could you possibly survive in the new location?  The answer for the Wights was milk and fish.  From the cows they had extra milk to sell.  The Higbee family, who were fishermen by trade, took on Orange as a partner in order to use his pony.  They would catch, while he would haul and peddle. 

Three miles up the Mississippi River from Quincy, they rented an old house, constructed a seine (or net), and then caught all the fish they wanted, supplying the Higbee and Wight families and selling the rest.

Sixteen-year-old Orange thus made a good living for his mother and younger siblings.  The Wight family rented a five-room house in Quincy and took in boarders. 

Reports from Liberty Jail indicated that the prisoners would soon be free.  While they were being transported to another county, the judge, the sheriff, and the guards connived to allow their escape.  On horses provided by friendly brethren, they headed towards Illinois.

Travel across Missouri was dangerous business.  If they were recaptured, they faced the prospect of a longer prison term and a harsher sentence.  So they pretended to be men from the East seeking a place to settle.  The ruse was well planned.  Other parties of “land-hunters” were deployed ahead of them and to their right and left and could thus report any danger to the protected central party.  Using back roads and open fields, the groups rode across the Missouri countryside.  The escaped prisoners adopted new names.

Coming to an isolated ranch, they introduced themselves, using the fictitious names, and were pleased when the proprietor offered to put them up for the night.  The next morning, while the others of the party were outside, Alexander McRae was inside.  The proprietor entered the room and said something like, “I’ve forgotten your name.  What is it?”

Unfortunately, McRae had also forgotten his false name.  So he suddenly had a terrible stomach cramp that threatened to throw him into spasms.  Frantically, the proprietor ran outside and told the other Mormons that their friend needed them, as he was very sick.

They rushed inside.  “Mr. Brown, what is the matter with you?  What have you been eating?”  “Mr. Brown” was so relieved to hear his name that he promptly began to feel better.

The proprietor came in with a jug of whiskey, recommending that “Mr. Brown” should drink a glass to help him recover.  Not only did “Mr. Brown” follow the recommendation, but several of the other brethren also “took some for fear the disease was contagious.”  We are reminded that in those early years the Word of Wisdom was viewed as a recommendation, not always strictly observed as a commandment.  Besides, one imagines, the brethren could say they were following “doctor’s orders,” (the proprietor’s) in an extreme situation that required some laxity.

Orange Wight and the other members of his family heard this story in Quincy, when the tired, relieved escapees arrived and sought refuge in the Wight house.  Whenever strong beverage was served, the men would say, “You had better serve Brother McRae first.  He has a cramp and can't tell his name.”

On a more serious level, Orange Wight, now sixteen years old, once again had the choice opportunity to hear the Prophet Joseph Smith preach as well as hold forth in small-group conversations.  “Here in Quincy,” Orange wrote, “I still had a better chance to become better acquainted with the Prophet Joseph and had an increase of my faith in his holy mission, being at an age when I could judge and see more perfectly that he was an inspired prophet of God.”