The Revised and Enhanced History
of Joseph Smith by His Mother
Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor
Chapter 2
The tragic history of Jason Mack and his courtship and engagement to Esther
Bruce. Jason sails with his father to the Maritime Provinces. Another man deceives Esther Bruce and takes her to wife. Jason’s return and terrible disappointment.
1775
to 1790
My oldest brother, Jason, was a studious and manly boy. [1] Before he attained his sixteenth year, he became
what is termed a seeker, a believer in the power of God manifest
through the medium of prayer and faith. [2] He held that there was no church in existence
which contained the pure principles of the gospel enjoyed by
the ancient disciples of Christ, and
he labored incessantly to convince the people that, by an exercise
of prayer, the blessings and privileges of the ancient disciples
of Jesus might be and eventually would be obtained.
At the age of twenty he became a minister of the gospel. [3] Shortly after this, he became enamored with a
beautiful and wealthy young woman by the name of Esther Bruce
of the state of New Hampshire. She was the pride of the place in which
she resided, not so much on account of her splendid appearance
as the soundness of her mind and her stately deportment, joined
with an unaffected mildness of disposition and a
condescension of manners which were admirably suited
to the taste and principles of my brother. He was passionately
fond of her, and she seemed also to have the most fervent attachment
for him. It would have been as easy to have convinced Jason
that he could exist without his head as that he could live and
enjoy life without being united with her in marriage.
They were engaged to be married and every preparation was being
made for their approaching nuptials, when my father received
a letter from Liverpool [4] stating that a heavy debt that had been due him for
a long time was collected and ready for him. Thus, it was agreed
that the marriage of Jason should be deferred, and he should
accompany my father to Liverpool. He left his betrothed with
a heavy heart but with this arrangement — that he was to write
to her and his sisters conjointly once every three months. In
due time, according to their agreement, a letter arrived which
Esther received most joyfully, but it was never followed by
another from him. A young man who kept the office where she
received her letters formed in his heart a design to thwart
my brother in his intentions and obtain the hand of Esther Bruce
himself. He used every art to dissuade her from marrying Jason,
meantime detaining his letters in order that she might not hear
from him, and he might the more easily accomplish his fiendish
purposes.
Unforeseen circumstances detained my father and Jason beyond
the time appointed for their return. Meanwhile, the postmaster
continued to importune Miss Bruce upon the subject of my brother’s
neglect, until at last she received two or three epistles stating
that Jason Mack was dead, that she and his relatives might cease
to look for his return. This was two years after Jason had left
the shores of America. [5] Esther gave no credence to the first message,
till the tale was so confirmed that she could no longer doubt;
but still she rejected the young man from the post office until
within four months of Jason’s arrival at home, three years and
ten months from the time they had embarked for Liverpool. [6]
Jason went immediately to her father’s house. She was absent
with her husband. He seated himself in the same room where he
had wooed her and obtained her consent to be his. He waited
for her arrival with a beating heart, not knowing the perfidious
game his rival had played him, until she entered. She was attired
in a complete suit of mourning, as she had lost a brother recently
by death, and beyond this there was a bitter disappointment
preying like a cankerworm upon her very vitals, occasioned by
the supposed death of him who now stood before her.
She bowed in gloomy silence as she entered the splendid apartment
where he sat, fitted up as it had been in earlier, happier days
to please the man now doomed to drink the bitter cup of sorrow
to the dregs. She walked to the other side of the room and thrust
aside her bonnet and shawl, but as she turned again to the stranger
and beheld his distracted and inquiring look, she recognized
to her amazement this person. She clasped her hands in agony
and, with a piercing shriek, fell lifeless to the floor. My
brother took the motionless form of her that should have been
his own and, placing her on a sofa, resigned her into the hands
of her cowering, conscience-smitten husband and left her with
those pungent feelings which some few are fated to experience
but none can tell nor imagine correctly.
By the active exertions of those who attended her, she at last
revived to realize her lamentable situation more fully. Jason
returned home, and hearing an explanation of the whole matter,
which simply was that the man detained his letters and gave
the intelligence of his death, he went immediately to sea. Jason
lived single to his fiftieth year. [7]
From this time forward, Esther never recovered her health but,
lingering for two years, died the victim of disappointment. [8]
