History of Utah, Part 9

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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HISTORY OF UTAH.

mangled. He spent the rest of the night cleansing the tar from his bruised and bleeding body.

Next day was the Sabbath, and the Saints in that vicinity assembled for their usual worship. Methodists, Baptists, Campbell- ites and Mormon apostates came also. Some of them had helped compose the mob party of the previous night. Scarred and wounded the Prophet appeared before them, bore a ringing testimony to the truth of his mission, and that day baptized three more into the Church.

But the mobocratic spirit was now rampant, not only at Hiram, where fresh plots were at once formed against the Mormon leader, but also at Kirtland, and throughout the surrounding region. Elder Rigdon, after recovering from the effects of the ill-treatment he had received, fled with his family from Hiram to escape further outrage.

Joseph and Emma remained anotlier week, during which one of the sick twins died. He then sent his wife to Kirtland, and set out upon his second visit to Missouri. He was accompanied by Sidney Rigdon, Bishop Whitney and others, who joined him at different points along the way. A circuitous route was taken, to evade mobo- cratic ambush and pursuit. The party reached Independence late in April.

The affairs of, the Church in Missouri were found to be pros- pering, though some prejudice had been created against the Saints by certain persons who had misinterpreted their motives in settling there. A series of petty persecutions had resulted. Stones and brick-bats were thrown through their windows, and they were other- wise insulted and annoyed. It was the beginning of sorrows, the precursor of the coming storm, the first, faint sparks of a furious conflagration, destined ere many months to burst forth as a besom of fire, sweeping before it into exile the whipped and plundered Saints of Jackson County.

Early in May the Prophet started back to Kirtland, Elder Rigdon and Bishop Whitney accompanying liim. Near Greenville, Indiana, the Bishop had his leg broken, while jumping from a run-

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away stage-coach. This delayed him and the Prophet for a month at a public house in Greenville, Elder Rigdon meanwhile proceeding on to Kirtland. During the stay at Greenville an attempt was made to murder the Prophet by mixing poison with his food at dinner. He narrowly escaped death. Next morning he and his friend departed from the dangerous neighborhood, and sometime in June arrived at Kirtland. The birth of the Prophet's son Joseph, the present leader of the sect known as Josephites, or, as they call themselves, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, occurred on November 3rd of this year, just prior to the return of his father and Bishop Whitney from a hasty trip to the east.

On Christmas Day, 1832, was recorded the following "revelation and prophecy on war:

Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, begin- ning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls.

The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place ;

For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations ; and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations.

And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshalled and disciplined for war :

And it shall come to pass also, that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceeding angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation ;

And thus, with the sword, and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquakes, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth he made to feel the wrath, the indignation and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations.

The Saints claim that this prediction began to be fulfilled on April 12th, 1861, when the Confederate batteries at Charleston, South Carolina, opened fire on Fort Sumter.

* Doctrine and Covenants, Section 87.

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During the winter of 1832-3, the Mormon leader organized at Kirtland the School of the Prophets, designed for the instruction of the Elders in the "things of the Kingdom." He also completed his revision of the scriptures.

On the 18th of March, 1833, was organized the First Presidency, the highest depository of authority in the Church. This council consists of three High Priests after the order of Melchisedek, chosen and sustained by the whole body, over which they preside. The personnel of the Presidency at this first organization was as follows: Joseph Smith, junior, President; Sidney Rigdon, First Counselor; Frederick G. Williams, Second Counselor.

It was now decided to purchase lands in and around Kirtland, surnamed "the land of Shinehah," and build up and beautify the city while awaiting further developments in Missouri, "the land of Zion." Farms were accordingly purchased, work-shops and mills erected, and various industries established. During the early part of 1833 a temple at Kirtland was projected.

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CHAPTER VII.

1833.

THE JACKSON COUNTY EXPULSION AND ITS CAUSES-MOBOCRATIC MASS MEETINGS AT INDEPEN - DENCE-DESTRUCTION OF THE OFFICE OF THE "EVENING AND MORNING STAR -BISHOP PARTRIDGE TARRED AND FEATHERED-THE MORMONS REQUIRED TO LEAVE THE COUNTY FORTHWITH-A TRUCE AGREED UPON-THE MOB BREAK THEIR PLEDGE-RENEWAL OF DEPREDATIONS-THE MORMONS APPEAL TO GOVERNOR DUNKLIN-HE ADVISES THEM TO SEEK REDRESS IN THE COURTS-LEGAL PROCEEDINGS INSTITUTED-THE MOB ENRAGED-THE OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER RIOTS-A BATTLE ON THE BIG BLUE-LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR BOGGS CALLS OUT THE MILITIA-THE MORMONS DISARMED AND DRIVEN-CLAY COUNTY RECEIVES THE REFUGEES-JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI, STILL "THE LAND OF ZION."

WELVE to fifteen hundred Latter-day Saints now inhabited Jackson County, Missouri. They had purchased lands and improved them, built houses-mostly log cabins-and were occupying them, sowed their farms and fields and reaped repeated harvests. A store had been established by them at Inde- pendence, a printing press and type had been procured from the east, and a periodical called the Evening and Morning Star, edited by William W. Phelps, was being issued. A school of Elders, number- ing sixty members, with Parley P. Pratt as its president and preceptor, had been instituted, and preaching to the Missourians was continued with success.

Plans for the city and temple of Zion had been forwarded by the Prophet from Kirtland, but so far little had been done toward the building of the New Jerusalem. The Book of Commandments, or revelations, had also been sent from Ohio to be published in Missouri. The United Order, though still in its incipiency, was being established as fast as circumstances would allow.

The Saints, as a rule, were poor, but were sober, moral, honest

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and industrious; attending strictly to their own affairs, and not med- dling with the concerns of their neighbors. Indeed, so thoroughly did they "mind their own business" as to lay themselves open to the charge of exclusiveness.

They were far from being a perfect people-an ideal Zion. On the contrary, they manifested many of the faults that are the com- mon heritage of weak humanity. But those faults were chiefly man- ifested among themselves, and were violative of the precepts of their religion rather than of the laws of the land. Seldom were they subversive of the rights of the Missourians. But in an Order such as theirs, demanding strict unselfishness of its members, it could not be but some would slip and frequently break the rigid rules that bound them. They were repeatedly warned by the Prophet of dire consequences that would follow these infractions, and were especially admonished against covetousness and disunion.

But with the esoteric views of the Saints, as to divine punish- ments visited upon them for transgressing the rules of their Order, the historian has naught to do. He has only to consider here their every-day dealings with their fellow-men. So considering, it must be admitted by those cognizant of the truth, that not to their misdeeds against the Missourians-though some misdeeds there may have been-but to their social and religious peculiarities, are we to look for the main causes of the calamities that now befell them. These peculiarities, which have ever rendered the Mormons unpopu- lar with other sects and parties, were made doubly obnoxious by the misrepresentations of those politically, religiously or pecuniarily interested in decrying them.

Allusion has been made to the fact that the motives of the Mor- mons in migrating to Missouri had been misinterpreted by the older settlers. Some of these actually supposed, and others affected to believe, that it was the purpose of the Prophet's followers, when they became strong enough, to take forcible possession of the coun- try, unite with the Indians across the border and drive the Gentiles from the land. That this fear, wherever sincerely felt, was due in

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part to ill-advised and vain-glorious utterances of persons connected with the Church,-whose views were as much at variance with truth and the teachings of authority as the deductions of the ignorant and inflammable masses around them,-is more than probable. That it was also due to misrepresentation by Mormon apostates, political and religious opponents of the Saints, bent upon furthering their own ends and playing for that purpose upon the credulity of the common people, is not only probable, but an established fact.

The teachings of the Book of Mormon and the Church authori- ties upon these points were as follows: That God had given into the hands of the Gentiles this land; had inspired them to discover it and maintain it as a land of liberty; that the Gentiles, such as embraced the faith, were to assist Ephraim and Manasseh in building up Zion and would share in her glory; and that the duty of the Saints in relation to the Gentiles was to preach to them the gospel of peace, and honestly purchase every inch of ground to be used or occupied in the rearing of the New Jerusalem.

True, the Book of Mormon contains certain prophecies of retri- bution upon the Gentiles, such as rejected the Gospel and oppressed the Lamanites. But the Lamanites themselves were to avenge their own wrongs, and that without aid or instigation from Ephraim. The queerest phase of the subject, and it would be extremely funny but for the terrible tragedy to which it led, was that the Missourians, who like most people scoffed at the Book of Mormon and scouted the idea of "Joe Smith " being a prophet, should have allowed these predictions to so alarm them. Perhaps it was their effect upon the Saints that was feared. In that event the hapless Mormons were punished, not for crimes committed, but for crimes they were expected to commit.

Besides the charge of "tampering with the Indians," the Mor- mons were accused by the Missourians of being abolitionists-anti- slavery advocates-which charge, supported only by the fact that they were mostly eastern and northern people, was sufficient at that time, and in that region, to blacken their characters irredeemably.

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Their United Order theories were dubbed "Communism," and were said to involve a community, not only of goods and chattels, but of wives. Also,-though the reader may smile incredulously at the statement,-the fact that they were poor was urged as an accusation of evil against them. This charge, unlike the rest, had the merit of being strictly true.

A man named Pixley, local agent for a Christian missionary society, took an active and initiative part in circulating these reports, which were caught up by others and sown broad-cast until well-nigh all Jackson County with the anti-Mormon spirit was aflame. As early as April, 1833, meetings were held to consider the most effec- tive means of ridding the county of the unpopular Mormons. Law- ful methods were not considered, for obvious reasons. The Mormons were law-abiding and peaceable. Poverty, superstition, unity, unpop- ular doctrines,-these were their crimes. What law, in a land of civil and religious liberty, could reach them ? No; law could not, but mob violence, trampling on law, strangling liberty in her very sanctuary, could and would, and did.

Three hundred men assembled one day in April, at Indepen- dence, and endeavored to unite upon a plan for the proposed Mormon extirpation. Too much liquor having been imbibed beforehand, the meeting, after much cursing and quarreling, broke up in confusion.

Other attempts, in July, were more successful. On the 20th of that month a mass meeting of five hundred convened, presided over by Colonel Richard Simpson. James H. Flournay and Colonel Samuel D. Lucas acted as secretaries. A declaration against the Saints, embodying charges similar to the foregoing, was unanimously adopted, and it was resolved that they be required to leave the county forthwith, and that no Mormon be permitted in future to settle there. It was demanded that the publication of the Evening and Morning Star be at once suspended. A committee of thirteen was sent to confer with the local Mormon leaders, acquaint them with the decision made concerning them and their people, and report to the mass meeting within two hours. The committee having executed

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its errand returned, reporting that the Mormons requested sufficient time to fully consider the matter and consult their leaders in Ohio.

A furious yell was the only answer vouchsafed. and forth rushed the mob to begin its work of outrage and destruction. A red flag led them on. Surrounding the house of William W. Phelps, editor of the Star, they razed it to the ground, confiscating the printing press, type and other materials found upon the premises. The editor's family, including his wife with a sick child in her arms, were brutally thrust into the street, and the household furniture, books, etc., destroyed or carried away by the rabble. The editor himself was captured, but escaped through the crowd.

The Church store was next assailed, but the mob soon desisted from their work of plunder and gathered upon the public square. Thither, Bishop Edward Partridge had been dragged from his fireside. Refusing to at once leave the county, he was stripped of most of his apparel, covered with tar, and feathers were thrown over him. Elder Charles Allen suffered similar treatment. Mixed with the tar was a powerful acid which severely burned their flesh. Other Mormons were threatened and abused. Night coming on, the mob dispersed.

These lawless acts were committed, not alone by the rabble, ignorant, easily inflamed, and perhaps not wholly accountable for their frenzy, but by men of prominence and position. Clergymen, magistrates, state and county officials, who had sworn to honor and sustain the law, looked on approvingly while the law was being violated, and even participated in its infraction. It is said that the leaders of the mob, prior to engaging in these acts of vandalism, in imitation of the patriot founders of the nation pledged to each other " their bodily powers, their lives, fortunes and sacred honor." Shortly after the affair. Lilburn W. Boggs, Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri, said to some of the Mormons: "You now know what our Jackson boys can do, and you must leave the county."

Three days after the assault upon Bishop Partridge and his brethren, the mobocratic mass-meeting again convened, this time in

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greater numbers than before. The recent acts of violence had seen- ingly sated in part their anger. At all events they were a little more reasonable than before. A new committee was appointed to confer with the leading Mormons, and the result was a mutual agreement between the two parties. By the terms of this compact, one half the Saints were to be permitted to remain in the county until the 1st of January, 1834, and the other half until the 1st of April. It was agreed that the Star should not again be published, nor a printing press set up by any Mormon in Jackson County. Their immigration thither was at once to cease. In return for these concessions by the Saints, the committee gave a pledge that no further attacks should be made upon them. This agreement the mass meeting ratified and then adjourned.

Oliver Cowdery now carried to Kirtland a full account of what had taken place in Missouri. Affairs in Ohio at that time were far from peaceable. The Prophet was harassed with law-suits, and frequently threatened with violence. Yet the Kirtland Stake was progressing. The corner-stone of the Temple was laid on the very day that the Jackson County mob issued its decree of expatriation against the Saints. It was decided, after Elder Cowdery's arrival. to purchase a new printing press and continue the publication of the Evening and Morning Star at Kirtland; also that another paper called the Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate be published there. The latter was succeeded by the Elders' Journal.

About the middle of September the Prophet sent Orson Hyde and John Gould to Missouri, with a message of comfort and instruction to his people in that State. By this time the mob troubles in Jackson County had resumed. It was Punic faith in which the Saints had trusted. The pledge given by the mass meeting in July had been broken. Two months had not elapsed before the mob renewed hostilities. Some of the Saints then moved into adjoining counties, hoping thereby to allay excitement and secure peace and tranquility. Vain hope. They had no sooner settled there than they were threatened with expulsion from these

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newly acquired homes. "The Mormons must go!" was now the prevailing sentiment south of the Missouri river.

An appeal was next made to the Executive of the State. Daniel Dunklin was then Governor of Missouri. A document setting forth the wrongs the Saints had suffered from their fellow-citizens of Jackson County, describing the situation, and asking for military aid and protection while seeking redress in the courts, was carried to Jefferson City and delivered at the Governor's mansion by William W. Phelps and Orson Hyde. This document was dated September 28th, 1833. A reply was received late in October. The Governor declined to give the military aid requested, but advised the peti- tioners to make a trial of the efficacy of the laws, and promised that if they failed to obtain a proper execution of the same he would then take steps for their relief.

Pursuant to the Governor's advice, though not without some apprehension as to the result, the Mormons, having secured for the sum of a thousand dollars the services of four lawyers, instituted legal proceedings against their oppressors. It was as the application of the lighted match to the mine. An explosion of popular fury fol- lowed, before which, like stones and timbers of some huge building blown. to atoms, the entire Mormon community, men, women and children, were driven in every direction from Jackson County.

It was about the last of October. Night attacks by armed mobs were made simultaneously at several points. Beyond the Big Blue river, in the western part of the county, houses were unroofed, men beaten, and women and children driven screaming into the wil- derness. Similar scenes were enacted elsewhere. For three con- secutive nights the work of rapine and ruin went on. At Independ- ence houses were attacked and the expelled inmates whipped and pelted with stones. The Church store was broken open and plun- dered, its goods strewing the streets. One man, caught in the act of robbing the store, was taken before Justice of the Peace Samuel Weston, who refused to issue a warrant for his arrest. The robber was thus turned loose to rejoin his companions. Later, the Mor-

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mons who had arrested him were taken into custody, charged with assaulting their prisoner. Being fired at while under arrest, they were placed in jail to save them from the fury of the rabble. Every effort of the Mormons to obtain justice was unavailing. The officers of the law were either too timid to come to their rescue, or were in league with the mob against them. The circuit judge at Lexington, being applied to for a peace warrant, refused to issue one, but advised the Mormons to arm themselves and shoot down the outlaws who came upon them.

To the Saints such advice was most repugnant. Their religion forbade strife, and strictly prohibited the needless shedding of blood. To meet violence with violence, however, now seemed their only recourse. The mob, emboldened by their policy of non-resistance, were hourly becoming more aggressive. The Mormons must either defend themselves, or supinely submit to wholesale outrage, plun- der and massacre. Preferring the former course, they followed the advice of the Lexington judge and armed themselves, and the next onslaught of their foes found them ready to receive them.

On the 4th of November a marauding band fired upon some of the settlers beyond the Big Blue. A battle ensued. Several Mor- mons were wounded, one fatally, and it was found that two of the banditti had bitten the dust. The Mormon mortally wounded was a young man named Barber. He died next day. Philo Dibble, who was thought to be fatally shot, recovered and is still living, an aged and respected citizen of Utah.

A " Mormon uprising" was now widely heralded. The purpose of the Missourians had been accomplished. They had goaded their victims to desperation, and at length blood had been shed. The rest of the program was comparatively easy. On November 5th Lieu- tenant-Governor Boggs ordered out the militia to suppress the alleged insurrection. Colonel Thomas Pitcher, a radical anti-Mormon, was placed in command. He permitted the mobocrats, who had caused the trouble, to enroll themselves among the troops called out to put down the "uprising." He required the Mormons to lay down their

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arms, and deliver up to be tried for murder certain men who had taken part in the previous day's battle. The rest of the community were required to leave the county forthwith.

The first two behests being obeyed, Colonel Pitcher, to enforce speedy compliance with the other, turned loose his mob militia to work their will upon the disarmed and helpless Saints. Scenes beg- garing description were now enacted. Armed bands of ruffians ranged the county in every direction, bursting into houses, terrify- ing women and children and threatening the defenseless people with death if they did not instantly flee. One of these bands was led by a Christian minister heading, like another Peter the Hermit, this holy crusade. Out upon the bleak prairies, along the Missouri's banks, chilled by November's winds and drenched by pouring rains, hungry and shelterless, weeping and heart-broken, wandered forth the exiles. Families scattered and divided, husbands seeking wives, wives husbands, parents searching for their children, not knowing if they were yet alive. Such was the sorrowful scene-a veritable Acadian tableau-enough, it might be thought, to melt a heart of stone. But alas, the human heart, inhumanized by hate, is harder than stone.

Most of the refugees, after much suffering from hunger and exposure, found an asylum in Clay County, on the opposite shore, where they were kindly received and their woes compassionated. All the other counties to which the Mormons had fled followed the example of Jackson and expelled them from their borders. Ten settlements were now left desolate.

But the exiles did not despair. It was a lawless mob that had driven them from their homes and robbed them of their possessions. Surely in a land of law and order there was recompense and redress for such wrongs. The Governor, Judges and other state officials were in turn appealed to, and even the President of the United States was memorialized in relation to the Jackson County tragedy. Courteous replies came back, deprecating and deploring what had taken place, but that was all. Governor Dunklin held that he could

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not lawfully extend military aid to maintain the Mormons in posses- sion of their homes, and the reply of the President, by the Secretary of War, was to the same effect. The mob then was supreme. So seemed it to these homeless and plundered American citizens, suing in vain for redress at the feet of the highest civil and military authority in the land.

. President Jackson, as well as Governor Dunklin, doubtless sin- cerely desired to right the wrongs of the exiles. It was not like "Old Hickory,"* with his "anti-nullifying" record, to hesitate or falter in the presence of what he deemed a duty unperformed. He evidently thought, as most Democrats would think, that the Jackson County episode was a local wrong to be locally rectified, and that he was powerless, unless requested by the Governor or the Legislature of the State, to interfere and take action against the Missouri mob, as he had formerly against the South Carolina nullifiers.

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History of Utah, Part 9

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026