"He started his adventuring early pushing into the wilds of Ohio where, at the age of seventeen, he purchased his time from a printer to whom he had been bound out and became a traveling printer and journalist. A publication failed him in New Orleans and another in Indianapolis. While living near Kirtland, Ohio at the home of his sister Mary Ann, thirteen years his senior, and her husband Alexander Badlam, who were devout members of the Latter-day Saint Church, he attended some of their meetings and was privileged to hear Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, speak. During this time he became acquainted with Harriet "Hattie" Hatch and after a short courtship they were married by Joseph Smith in the temple at Kirtland.. One child was born of this union, but the marriage proved `unhappy and soon ended in a separation. He left her mid-1843, to serve a mission at Clinton County, in the care of her father and Mary Ann to nurse her delivery of their baby. (-as related by Sophie Brannan Haight to Reva Scott) (See: "there is not shred of documentary evidence to support the story that he had earlier married and abandoned one Harriet Hatch in Ohio" - see http://www.shipbrooklyn.org/brannan.html ) ("Brannan married, had a child with, and deserted a woman, Harriet Hatch, in Ohio. Despite this commonly told (and retold) tale, there is no hard evidence such a relationship existed." http://www.svn.net/artguy/brannantext.htm)"