PORTRAITS OF LEADING MORMONS.

MORMON TEMPLE NOW BEING BUILT IN SALT LAKE CITY

LIFE IN UTAH;

OR, THE

MYSTERIES AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.

BEING AN EXPOSE

OF THE

SECRET RITES AND CEREMONIES

OF THE

LATTER-DAY SAINTS,

WITH A

FULL AND AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF POLYGAMY AND THE MORMON
SECT FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT TIME.

BY

J. H. BEADLE,

EDITOR OP THE SALT LAKE REPORTER, AND UTAH CORRESPONDENT
OP THE CINCINNATI COMMERCIAL.

Issued by subscription only, and not for sale in the book stores. Residents of any State desiring
a copy should address the publishers, and an agent will call upon them.—See page 541.

NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY,

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. ; CHICAGO, ILL. : CINCINNATI. Ohio; ST. LOUIS, Mo.;

BOSTON, Mass., and ATLANTA, Ga.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
J. R. JONES,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern

District of Pennsylvania.

TO

GENERAL W. H H. BEADLE,

LONG A COMPANION IN STUDY AND HOPE,

ALWAYS

A TRUE BROTHER AND HELPER:

AS A

SLIGHT TESTIMONIAL FOR VALUABLE SUGGESTIONS

IN THE

INCEPTION OF THE WORK,

AND

SUBSTANTIAL AID IN ITS EXECUTION;

THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

America is the paradise of heterodoxy. All sorts of
wild, strange and even abominable religions flourish
unchecked, side by side, and generally without violent
collision. The wild dreams of the fervid Oriental im-
agination ; the vague shadowings of Gothic mysticism;
the coarse materialism of French infidelity, and the
ideal fancies of Greek and Asiatic, all the errors and
worn out theories of the Old World, of schisms in the
early Church, the monkish age and the rationalistic
period, find here a free air, a fertile soil, a more congenial
clime and a second native country, as it were, in which
new and more luxuriant growths spring rapidly from
the old and half dead stocks of pseudo-theology.

But the inventive American mind is not content
merely with old errors, and the Yankee is nothing if
not practical; hence we see that to every new or purely
American phase of religious error, there is always tacked
a feature of political power, communism of property,
social license or moral perversion, a general revolt

against accepted theories in law, medicine, marriage,

5

6                                              PREFACE.

government or social relations. Let the extreme tend
which way it will, it is equally an extreme; whether
of the anti-marriage Shakers, the celibate Harmonists,
the wife-communists of Oneida, or the polygamous Mor-
mons. All this is, perhaps, a necessary evil—an inevit-
able adjunct to a great good. In the perfect liberty of
conscience guaranteed, the perverted or diseased con-
science is equally free with the pure or healthy; and
where every man is free to choose as he will, it is
reasonable to suppose that many will choose but poorly.
Like all good principles this liberty of conscience is
strangely liable to abuse; but a careful examination
will show, I think, that the present condition is far
better, with all its evil outgrowths, than would be any
aiming at repression. Repression is not unity. Sup-
pose either of the prominent sects to be made the
Established Church—if indeed the mind can possibly
conceive of an Established Church in America—the
Methodist, for instance; then would that church at
once lose many of its communicants; most people would
avoid it to the farthest extent allowed by law, not from
any particular hostility to that one church, but simply
because it was established.

We may, indeed, congratulate ourselves, that with such
perfect liberty of choice so few have adopted beliefs at
all dangerous either to the State or to society; for
these last are the only questions with which we have a

PREFACE.                                              7

right to deal. But certain forms of belief cannot pos-
sibly confine themselves to speculative errors; the per-
version of moral and ethical principles is too radical to
be confined to the heart, and the hideous moral gan-
grene, starting from the soul and center, works out-
wardly through the life in all manner of corruption,
confusion and abomination. When the faith is per-
fectly inwrought, it cannot but show itself in acts, and
with these the State has a right to deal. Perfect tolera-
tion is due to all beliefs, and these gross forms of error
only demand attention when endeavoring, against the
good of the State, to make a peculiar moral condition
the general law for a whole people, and still more as
laboring to radically pervert the Christian idea of mar-
riage. If the experience of all civilized nations for
three thousand years, and the best judgment of the
best minds in law founded upon that experience, have
proved any one fact more than another, it is that the
marriage relation should be strictly regulated by law,
that the State has an absolute right to prescribe the
civil conditions accompanying and the civil rights re-
sulting from it; and that the human passions, whether
excited by mere lust or by religious fanaticism, must be
controlled by positive law. It matters not if an indi-
vidual esteem it his natural right to act contrary to ex-
press law, or if several individuals constituting a commu-
nity believe it to be a religious right; they are equally
subject thereto, and must take the legal consequence of

8                                          PREFACE.

disobedience. It is then a gratifying fact, that so few
have adopted beliefs tending to pervert the marriage
relation.. Of the forty millions in America less than
half a million are included in all of such sects. In this
light liberty of conscience in America is almost a per-
fect success.

The vast majority of our people have founded their
religious belief on theories' not inimical to the public
good; and the scores of varying sects which arise from
year to year, generally do so only to run a brief and
meteor-like race, and sink like dissolved exhalations in
the bogs and mire of ignorance from which they arose.
But occasionally we see one of these parasitic growths
upon the body of religious freedom, which, from peculiar
and special causes, extends its existence beyond what
we would naturally look for; and a few, originally
transplanted from Europe where the parent organiza-
tion has long since expired, maintain a sort of sickly
life through two or three generations in America. Of
such are the Shakers from England, and the Har-
monists from Germany. But where in contact with
vital Christianity, they must sooner or later yield;
their wild enthusiam is sufficient for rise and growth,
but lacks the virtuous energy to direct and continue.
To such, comparatively innocent and harmless, the
public direct little attention. But there are a few,
which manage to preserve a sort of isolation even in
the midst of other sects, or in extreme cases, to get

PREFACE.                                              9

apart and aside, and maintain for a long period an
independent existence. Of these none have attained
to such prominence as the sect called Mormons. Hav-
ing leaders at once sagacious and unscrupulous, they
have long managed to avoid whatever contact would
weaken their organization. We have seen them, from
small and obscure beginnings, rise to a strength suffi-
cient to create a local rebellion in Missouri; trans-
planted thence to Illinois, rise to a threatening power;
transplanted again, flourish rapidly for a while, and
though now evidently on the decline, yet strong enough
to create a difficult and delicate political problem, and
like the Bohon Upas, overshadow a whole Territory
with a deadly influence. Scattered through the nation
Mormonism would be the weakest of all religions;
collected into one Territory, and ruling there with al-
most absolute power, they present a painfully interest-
ing problem. Comparatively, their numbers are trifling;
locally, they are of great importance. In the light of
the principles here enunciated, and with perfect con-
fidence in their correctness, this work has been prepared;
with a view to the better enlightenment of the Ameri-
can public on this question and if possible, to make the
duty of Government and people more plain, to set
forth the most salient points in the progress of
religious imposture, and to draw attention to a Territory
rich in natural resources. It is believed that the
work contains most of the material facts of interest

10                                        PREFACE.

in regard to Utah and the Mormons; whether of the
climate and resources of the former, or the history,
theology and peculiar social practices of the latter.
The history of the sect is drawn from many sources:
from their own works, from personal records of several
who have spent many years among them, from evidence
published by the State of Missouri, from official docu-
ments of States or the General Government, from
previous compilations and other accredited sources.
Of charges against the Mormons, not fully proved, the
statements for and against them have been equally
presented. The same rules of evidence have been ap-
plied in summing up their history, as are held applicable
in courts of justice. The author's opportunities for
personal observation will be seen in the course of the
work. The author is well aware of the many imperfec-
tions of the work, but does not seek to disarm criticism
by a prefaced apology; it is given as a compilation
of testimony, on which the reader has the same
privilege of passing judgment as the author has exer-
cised on those before him. Whatever may be thought
of the style in which they are presented, I trust many
of the facts will be found interesting, and if the work
should excite an intelligent interest among the Ameri-
can people, in regard to the affairs of Utah, it will have
accomplished the dearest wish of the author.

J. H. B.
Corinne, Utah Territory, April 5th, 1870.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL.

Birth and early life of the Mormon Prophet—The original Smith
family—Opinion of Brigham Young—The "peep-stone "—" Call-
ing " of Joe Smith—The Golden Plates—"Reformed Egyptian"
translated—"Book of Mormon" published—Synopsis of its con-
tents—Real author of the work—" The glorious six " first converts
—Emma Smith, " Elect Lady and Daughter of God "—Sidney Rig-
don takes the field—First Hegira—" Zion " in Missouri—Kirtland
Bank—Swindling and " persecution "—War in Jackson County—
Smith " marches on Missouri"—Failure of the " Lord's Bank "-—
Flight of the Prophet—" Mormon War"—Capture of Smith—
Flight into Illinois................................................................... 21

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY FROM THE FOUNDING OF NAUVOO TILL 1843.

Rapid growth of Nauvoo—Apparent prosperity—" The vultures gather
to the carcass"—Crime, polygamy and politics—Subserviency of
the Politicians—Nauvoo Charters—A government within a govern-
ment—Joe Smith twice arrested—Released by S. A. Douglas—Sec-
ond time by Municipal Court of Nauvoo—MeKinney's account—
Petty thieving—Gentiles driven out of Nauvoo—" Whittling-Dea-
cons"—"Danites"—Anti-Mormons organize a Political Party—
Treachery of Davis and Owens—Defeat of Anti-Mormons—Cam-
paign of 1843—Cyrus Walker, a great Criminal Lawyer—"Revela-
tion" on voting — The Prophet cheats the lawyer—Astounding
perfidy of the Mormon leaders—Great increase of popular hatred—

Just anger against the Saints..................................................... 58

11

12                                       CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

MORMON DIFFICULTIES AND DEATH OF THE PROPHET.

Ford's account—Double treachery in the Quincy district—New and
startling developments in Nauvoo—Tyranny of Joe Smith—Revolt
of a portion of his followers—The " Expositor "—It is declared " a
nuisance" and "abated"—Flight of apostates—Warrants issued
for Smith and other Mormons—Constables driven out of Nauvoo—
Militia called for—Nauvoo fortified—Mormon war imminent—Gov-
enor Ford takes the field in person—Flight of the Prophet and
Patriarch to Iowa—Their return and arrest—The Governor pledged
for their safety—In his absence the jail is attacked—Death of the
Smiths—Character of the Prophet—Comments............................. 89

CHAPTER IV.
TWO YEARS OF STRIFE—EXODUS FROM ILLINOIS.

No successor to the Prophet—David Hyrum Smith, the "Son of
Promise"—Contest for the leadership—Diplomacy of Brigham
Young—Curious trials—All of Brigham's opponents " cut off"—
Troubles renewed—Fights, outrages, robberies and murder—An-
other election and more treachery—Singular "Wolf Hunt"—Cap-
ture and trial of Smith's murderers—Of the Mormon rioters—Fail-
ure and defects of the law—Further outrages on Gentiles—Trouble in
Adams County—The " Oneness "—The people of Adams drive out
the Mormons—Revenge by the Mormons—Murders of McBratney,
Worrell, Wilcox and Daubeneyer—Retaliation, and murder of
Durfee—The Mormons ravage Hancock—Flight of the Gentiles—
Militia called and Hancock put under martial law—The Mormons
begin to leave Illinois—Fresh quarrels—More Mormon treachery
—Bombardment of Nauvoo, and final expulsion of the Mormons.... 133

CHAPTER V.
FROM THE NAUVOO EXODUS TO THE MORMON WAR IN UTAH.

The Via Dolorosa of Mormon History—Through Iowa—Great suffer-
ing—" Stakes of Zion"—Settlement in Nebraska—"Mormon Bat-
tallion"—Journey to Utah—Founding of Salt Lake City—Early
accounts—Outrages upon California emigrants—Travelers murdered
—Apostates "missing "—Dangers of rivalry in love with a Mormon

CONTENTS.                                       13

Bishop—Usurpations of Mormon Courts and officers—Federal
Judges driven out—Murders of Babbitt and Williams—Flight of
Judges Stiles and Drummond—The Army set in motion for Utah-
New officers appointed—Suspicious delay of the Army—The " Mor-
mon War " begun.................................................................... 155

CHAPTER VI.

THE BLOODY PERIOD.

Sounds of war in Utah—Popular excitement—Fears of the disaffected
—Attempted flight—Murder of the Potter and Parrish families—
Massacre of the Aiken party—Assassination of Yates—Killing of
Forbes—Brigham "Turns loose the Indians"—Mountain Meadow
Massacre—Horrible barbarity of Indians and Mormons—Evidence
in the case—Attempt of Judge Crablebaugh—Progress of the "Mor-
mon War"—Delay of the army—Treachery or inefficiency?—Mor-
mon Legion—Lieutenant-General Wells—Brigham " Commands "
the National troops to withdraw—Army trains destroyed—Lot
Smith, the Mormon Guerilla.—The "Army of Utah" in Winter
Quarters—Colonel Kane again—Negotiations with Brigham—Gov-
ernor Cumming "passed" through the Mormon lines—"Peace
Commissioners''—Mormon exodus—Weakness of Cumming—End
of the War—Murders of Pike, the Jones's, Bernard, Drown, Arnold,
McNeil and others—A change at last.......................................... 177

CHAPTER VII.
GENTILES IN UTAH.

A New Element—Livingston and Kinkead—" Jack-Mormonism at
Washington"—Judge Drummond—M. Jules Remy—Gilbert and
Sons—Heavy trade—Later Gentile Merchants—Walker Brothers—
Sales at Camp Floyd—" Crushing the Mormons "—Ransohoff & Co.
—Mormon outrages again—Murders of Brassfield and Dr. Robinson—
Whipping of Weston—Evidence in case of Dr. Robinson—Outrages
on Lieutenant Brown and Dr. Williamson—Gentiles driven from
the Public Land—Territorial Surveyor—Success of General Connor's
Administration—The Government returns to the old policy—Mur-
ders of Potter and Wilson—Horrible death of " Negro Tom "—The
last witness "put out of the way"—"Danites" again—Murder
each other—Death of Hatch—Flight of Hickman—Forty-three mur-
ders— Another change of officials — Doty — Durkee — Shameful
neglect by the Government—Flight of the Gentiles—Comparative
quiet again—A better day—The author arrives in Utah................. 196

14                                            CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.
FIRST VIEWS IN UTAH.

The real " American Desert"—No Myth—Bitter Creek—Green River
—Lone Rock—Plains of Bridger—Quaking Asp Ridge—Bear River
—A Mormon autobiography—"Pulling hair"—" Aristocracy " on
the Plains—" Mule Skinners " and " Bullwackers "—The Bull-
wackers Epic"—Cache Cave—Echo Canyon—Mormon "fortifica-
tions "—Braggadocio—Storm in Weber Canyon—Up the Weber—
Parley's Park—A wife-stealing Apostle—Down the Canyon—Majestic
scenery—First view of the valley—The " City of the Saints."........ 217

CHAPTER IX.

TWO WEEKS IN SALT LAKE CITY.

Views of the City—Temple Block—Brigham's Block—Theatre—Im-
migrants—Mormon arguments—Reasons for polygamy—"Book of
Mormon"— First Mormon sermon—"Old" Joe Young — His
beauty (?)—His sermon—Mormon style of preaching—Order of
services—First impressions rather favorable—Much to learn yet..... 239

CHAPTER X.
TRIP TO BEAR RIVER AND RETURN.

Northward afoot—Hot Springs—"Sessions Settlement"—Polygamy
again—"Ephe Roberts' young wife"—Farmington—Kaysville—
Three wives, and stone walls between—" Let us have Peace "—Red
Sand Ridge—Ogden—Brigham City—Into the poor district—Scan-
dinavian Porridge—English cookery—Rural life in Utah—Bear
River, North—Cache Valley and the Canyon—"Professor" Barker,
the " Mad Philosopher"—A New Cosmogony—Mormon science—
"Celestial Masonry"—"Adam"redimvus—A modern "Eve"—
Folly and fanaticism—Mineral Springs—The country vs. the city
Mormon................................................................................ 260

CHAPTER XL
THE CONFERENCE AND ITS RESULTS.

A Mormon mass-meeting—Faces and features—Great enthusiasm—A
living " martyr "—A Mormon hymn—The poetess—A " president"

CONTENTS.                                         15

chosen—He recites the Church history—First view of Brigham—
He curses the Gentiles—A " nasty sermon"—Coarseness and pro-
fanity—Bitterness of other speakers—Swearing in the pulpit—Excit-
ing the people—Their frenzy and fanaticism—Hatred against the
United States—Foolish bravado—The author gains new light on
Mormonism—A subject to be studied—English and European Sects
of like character—Division of the subject.................................... 278

CHAPTER XII.
ANALYSIS OF MORMON SOCIETY.

Difficulty at the outset—Extremes among witnesses—Prejudice on
both sides—First impressions favorable—" Whited Sepulchres "—
Classes of Mormons—Brigham Young ; Impostor or fanatic ?—The
dishonest class — The "earnest Mormons" — Disloyalty—Church
and State—Killing men to save their souls—Slavery of women—
Brigham the government—Prophecy against the United States—
" War "—" Seven women to take hold of one man "—Another war
expected—Blood and thunder in store for the Gentiles—" The great
tribulation" about due—Popular errors—Witchcraft—"Faith-doc-
toring "—Zion, in Jackson County, Missouri—Comfortable prospect. 290

CHAPTER XIII.

ANALYSIS OF MORMON THEOLOGY.

Its origin—A theologic conglomerate—Mythology, Paganism, Mo-
hammedanism, corrupt Christianity and Philosophy run mad—
"First principles of the Gospel"—The five points of variance-
Materialism—No spirit—A god with "body, parts and passions"—
Matter eternal—No "creation"—Intelligent atoms—Pre existent
souls—High times in the Spirit Worlds—Birth of Spirits—They hunt
for " Earthly Tabernacles"—The " Second Estate "—Apotheosis—
The "Third Estate "— " Fourth Estate "—Men become gods—" Di-
vine generation"—Earthly Families and Heavenly Kingdoms—Did
Man come from the Sun ?—" Building up the Kingdom "—One day
as a thousand years—The time of the Gentiles about out—Great
events at hand—"Gog and Magog," et. al.—Gentiles, prepare to
make tracks—Return to "Zion," in Missouri—Christ's earthly empire
—Great destiny for Missouri—Tenets from Christianity—Baptism a
" Saving Ordinance"—Baptized twelve times—Office of the Holy
Ghost—Strange fanaticism—Eclectic Theology—A personal god—
The homoousian and the homoiousian—The Logos and the Aeon—
Grossness and Vulgarity........................................................... 311

16                                       CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV.
THEORETICAL POLYGAMY—ITS HISTORY.

Poetry of religious concubinage—Fanaticism and Sensualism—Two
extremes--- Origin of Polygamy—The great revelation—Its contra-
dictions and absurdities—Mormon argument—Real origin—Begin-
ning of Polygamy—A prostitute for religion's sake—Failures and
scandals—War in the Church—Stealing a Brother's wife—Furore in
consequence—The Expositor—Its destruction—Death of the Smiths
—Polygamy practiced secretly and denied openly—Brigham's mar-
riages—Nine years of concealment—Avowal at last—Argument in
its favor—Demoralization in the English Church—A climax of un-
natural obscenity — The "Reformation "— Temporary decline in
Polygamy—Hostility of native Mormon girls—Outside influence-
Difference of opinion—It dies hard—Spiritual wives—Mystery and
abomination............................................................................ 832

CHAPTER XV.
PRACTICAL POLYGAMY.

Open evils and hidden sufferings—Miss S. E. Carmichael's testimony
—Mormon sophistry—The sexual principle—Its objects—Theory
and facts—Monogamist vs. Polygamist—Turk, Persian and African
vs. the Christian White—The same effects in Utah—Jealousy and
misery — Children of different wives — Cultivated indifference—-
Hatred among children—Brigham's idea of parental duty—Are the
Mormon women happy ?—Submission and silence—Degradation of
women—Mormon idea of politeness—Heber C. Kimball and his
" cows "—" My women "—Slavery of sex—Moses and Mohammed
outdone — Incest — Marrying a whole family—Robert Sharkey—
Remorse and suicide—Uncle and niece—Bishop Smith and his nieces
—Mixture of blood—Horrible crimes—Half-brother and sister—The
Prophet "sold"—The doctrine of incest—"Too strong now, but
the people will come to it"—Now openly avowed—Brothers and
sisters to marry for a "pure priesthood"—Testimony of William
Hepworth Dixon—Father and daughter may marry—Effects upon
the young — Infant mortality—Large average-mortality — Fatal
blindness — The growing youth — Demoralization — Youthful de-
pravity—No hope for young men and women—Sophistry and mad-
ness—Ancient sensualism to be revived...................................... 354

CONTENTS.                                           17

CHAPTER XVI.
THE MORMON THEOCRACY.

Absolutism—An ancient model—Three governments in Utah—Church
officials—First President—First Presidency—" The worst man in
Utah "—Quorum of Apostles—" The Twelve "—A dozen men with
fifty-two wives—President of Seventies—Patriarch—"A blessing
for a dollar"—Bishops—Division of the City and Territory—Their
magisterial capacity High Council—Judge and jury—Ward teachers
—The confessional—The priesthood—Aaronic and Melchisedec—
Evangelists—Secret police or "Danites"—Civil government only
an appendage—Excessive power of the Mormon Courts—Perver-
sions of law and justice—Organic Act defective—Federal Judges—
Their weakness and disgrace—Verdict by ecclesiastical" counsel"—
Verdicts dictated from the pulpit—Probate Judges really appointed
by Brigham Young—Voting system—Marked ballots—" Protecting
the ballot"—The Hooper McGroarty race—Plurality of offices as
well as wives—Tyranny of the Church—The Mormon vs. the Ameri-
can idea—The evils of which Gentiles complain........................... 881

CHAPTER XVII.

RECUSANT SECTS OF MORMONS.

Repression not unity—Great break-up at Nauvoo—Sidney Rigdon's
Church—J. J. Strang—Cutler, Brewster and Heddrick: "The
Gatherers"—The " Truth Teller "—Lyman Wight in Texas—San
Bernardino Mormons—Apostasy, Spiritualism and insanity—Brig-
ham supreme in Utah—First secession, the " Gladdenites "—Perse-
cution and murders—Blood-atonement introduced—Second seces-
sion, the "Morrisites"— War with the sect—Massacre of the
"Morrisites "—Governor Harding's adventure—General Connor
protects the recusants—Soda Springs—Another Prophet—The
"infant Christ"—Beginning of the Josephites Emma and her
sons—The "Reorganized Church"—First Mission—Mission of the
"Smith Boys"—Excitement at Salt Lake—Priestly lying—The
God-be schism—Liberal principles—Hopeful indications—After
Brigham, who?—Orson Hyde?—Daniel H. Wells?—George A.

Smith ?—Probable future of the Church....................................... 402

2

18                                            CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVIII.
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES.

Territorial limits—"Basins"—" Sinks"—"Flats"—Kain and evapora-
tion—Elemental action and reaction —Potamology—Jordan—Kay's
Creek—Weber—Bear River Cache Valley Timber—Blue Creek
—Promontory — Great Desert — Utah Lake — Spanish Fork — Salt
Creek — Timpanogos — Sevier River — Colorado System — Fish—
Thermal and Chemical Springs—Healing waters—Hotwater plants
—Analysis by Dr. Gale—Mineral Springs—Salt beds—Alkali flats
—Native salts—Great Salt Lake—First accounts—Fremont—
Stansbury—Amount of salt—Valleys—Rise of the Lake—Islands
—Bear Lake—" Ginasticutis "—Utah Lake—Climate—Increase of
rain—Singular phenomena—Fine air—Relief for pulmonary com-
plaints.................................................................................... 435

CHAPTER XIX.
MATERIAL RESOURCES OF UTAH.

Amount of arable land—Its nature and location—Increased rainfall—
Causes—Probable greater increase—Mode of irrigation—Aquarian
Socialism—No room for competition—Alkali—Some advantages—
Yield of various crops—"Beet-sugar"—Sorghum syrup—Mormon
improvements ( ? )—Grossly exaggerated—True Wealth of Utah—
Mining and grazing—Bunch-grass—Mountain pastures—Sheep and
goats—"Fur, fin and feather"—Trapping and hunting—Carnivora
—Ruminants—Buffalo—None in the Basin—Shoshonee tradition—
Game, fowl—Amphibia—" Sandy toad "— Serpents—Fish—Oysters
in Salt Lake—Insects—"Mormon bedbugs"—Advantages from the
dry air—Insectivora—Crickets—Grasshoppers or locusts ?—Indians
of Utah—Rapid extinction— " Diggers " — " Club-men,"—Utes—
Shoshonees—Their origin—Mormon theory—Scientific theory—
Chinese annals—Tartans in America—Mormon settlers—Twenty-
three years of "gathering"—Much work, slow progress—Reasons
Inherent weakness of the system—Great apostasy—Their present
number—Exaggeration—Enumeration of settlements and population
—Nationality—Total military force—Future of the Territory........ 460

CONTENTS.                                          19

CHAPTER XX.
MORMON MYSTERIES—THEIR ORIGIN.

The Endowment—Actors—Scenery and dress—Pre-requisites—Adam
and Eve, the Devil and Michael, Jehovah and Eloheim—A new
version—Blasphemous assumptions—Terrible oaths—Barbarous
penalties—Origin—Scriptures and Paradise Lost—Eleusinian mys-
teries—" Morgan's Free-masonry "—The witnesses—Probabilities
—Their reasons— Changes....................................................... 486

CHAPTER XXI.
PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS.

Co-operation—The "bull's eye" signs—Inherent weakness of the
system—Immediate effects on the Gentiles—Final result to the
Saints—Founding of Corinne—Its bright prospects—Trip to Sevier
—The deserted city—New Silverado—Mines and mining—A new
interest in Utah—Rich discoveries—Hindrances—Grant's Admin-
istration in Utah—Better men in the Revenue Department—
Experience of Dr. J. P. Taggart—More "persecution"—The
Judges—The Governor—Congressional Legislation— "Cullom
Bill"—Probable effects—Guesses at the future—Another exodus
—"Zion," in Sonora............................................................... 503

CHAPTER XXII.

REDEEMING AGENCIES.

The Church—First attempt—Rev. Norman McLeod—Dr. J. K. Rob-
inson—Second attempt, Father Kelley—Last attempt—The Epis-
copal Mission, success and progress—Sabbath School—Grammar
School of St. Marks—A building needed—Mission of Rev. George
W. Foote—Difficulties of the situation—Number and occupation of
Gentiles—Political prospects—Gentile newspapers— The Valley Tan
—The Vedette—The Utah Reporter—S. S. Saul, the founder—
Messrs. Aulbach and Barrett—The author's experience—Principles
advocated—Courtesy of the Gentiles—Conclusion....................... 527

20

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LIFE IN" UTAH;

OR, THE

MYSTERIES AND CRIMES OF MORMOMSM.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL.

Birth and early life of the Mormon Prophet—The original Smith family-
Opinion of Brigham Young—The " peep-stone "—"Calling" of Joe
Smith—The Golden Plates— "Reformed Egyptian" translated—" Book
of Mormon" published—Synopsis of its contents—Real author of the
work—" The glorious six" first converts—Emma Smith, " Elect Lady
and Daughter of God"—Sidney Rigdon takes the field—First Hegira—
" Zion" in Missouri—Kirtland Bank—Swindling and "persecution"—
War in Jackson County—Smith "marches on Missouri"—Failure of
the "Lord's Bank"—Flight of the Prophet—"Mormon War "—Cap-
ture of Smith—Flight into Illinois.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was born
December 23d, 1805, at Sharon, Windsor county, Ver-
mont. His parents, Joseph Smith, Sen., and Lucy
Mack Smith, belonged to the lowest grade of society,
and, by the testimony of all their neighbors, were illit-
erate and superstitious, as well as indolent and unre-
liable. They could believe in the supernatural as
easily as the natural; for they were as ignorant of the
one as the other. These qualities seemed to descend

upon the son by "ordinary generation;" but at an

21

22                 LIFE IN UTAH; OR THE MYSTERIES

early age he showed that he far excelled all the rest
of the family in a peculiar low cunning, and a certain
faculty of invention, which enabled him to have a
story ready for any emergency.

In the year 1815, the Smith family removed to New
York, and settled near Palmyra, Wayne county, where
they resided ten years. Here young Joseph developed
a remarkable talent for living without work, and at an
early age adopted the profession of "Water Witch,"
in which calling he wandered about the adjoining
country with a forked stick, or hazel rod, by the de-
flections of which, when held in a peculiar manner,
he claimed to determine the spot where a vein of water
lay nearest the surface. This had been a part of his
father's business; but Joe was possessed of real genius,
though of a peculiar kind, and soon struck into higher
paths. He began to " divine" the locality of things
which had been stolen, by means of a " peep-stone"
placed in his hat, and by the same means to point out
where hidden treasures lay. Almost innumerable are
the stories of his youth, giving bright promise of future
rascality. But many of them depend on little more
than popular report, and we can only receive as au-
thentic those events which rest upon the sworn testi-
mony of reliable men who were his neighbors. After
ten years' residence in Wayne, the family moved to
the adjoining county of Ontario, and settled near the
town of Manchester. Here, from pointing out the
place for wells, Joe went to work digging them. While
in this work for Mr. Willard Chase, a peculiar, round,
white stone was found by him and the other workmen,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM                         23

which Joe took possession of and carried away, much
to the regret of Mr. Chase's children, to whom it had
been given as a curious plaything. This was after-
wards the noted " peep-stone," in which Joe saw such
wonders. Many of these statements are not very stren-
uously denied by the best-informed Mormons. They
acknowledge, generally, that Joe Smith was of humble
parentage, very poor and illiterate, and that he was for
many years a " wild boy." Brigham Young is espe-
cially frank upon the subject, adding, in conclusion:
" That the Prophet was of mean birth, that he was
wild, intemperate, even dishonest and tricky in his
youth, is nothing against his mission. God can, and
does, make use of the vilest instruments. Joseph has
brought forth a religion which will save us if we abide
by it. Bring anything against that if you can. I
care not if he gamble, lie, swear, and run horses every
day, for I embrace no man in my faith. The religion
is all in all."

Brigham is correct; the early character of the Pro-
phet has little to do with the religion, except as
determining the character and credibility of his evi-
dence. Let us then examine briefly the origin of this
new theology, present the main testimony; and, as
impartial judges, hear the Prophet's account first.
Many years after, when Mormonism was an established
fact, Joseph gave the following account: At the early
age of fifteen he became much concerned about the
salvation of his soul, and at the same time a powerful
revival of religion spread throughout Western New
York. Joseph professed to be converted and his mo-

24                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ther, sister Sophronia and his brothers, Samuel and
Hyrum (so spelled by his father) joined the church.
But when the revival ceased, a "great rush" took
place among the ministers of various denominations as
to who should secure most of the new converts;
Joseph's soul was vexed, and he began to have serious
doubts. In this frame of mind he opened the Bible,
and his eye fell upon this text: " If any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men
liberally, and upbraideth not"—James, Chap. I. v. 5.
He, therefore, retired to a secluded thicket near his fa-
ther's house, and knelt in prayer, supplicating the
Lord to know " which of all the sects was really right."
While praying, the entire wood was illuminated with a
great light, he was enveloped in the midst of it and
caught away in a heavenly vision, he saw two glorious
personages and was told that his sins were forgiven.
He learned also that none of the sects was quite right,
but that God had chosen him to restore the true priest-
hood upon earth. Afterwards, he began again to doubt,
and, being quite young, fell into sin, and it was not
until September 23d, 1823, that God again heard his
prayers, and sent heavenly messengers to tell him his
sins were forgiven. An angel visited him from time
to time afterwards, instructing him in his duties, and
finally informed him that in " the hill Cumorah," not
far from Manchester, certain Golden Plates were buried,
containing an account of the settlement of America, be-
fore Christ. After several preliminary visits, on the
22d of September, 1826, the Golden Plates were taken
up from the hill Cumorah " with a mighty display of

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        25

celestial machinery," and delivered by the angel to Jo-
seph. His vision being cleared, at the same time, he saw
a great concourse of devils struggling with angels to
prevent the work. The plates were "of the thick-
ness of tin, bound together like a book, fastened at one
side by three rings which run through the whole, form-
ing a volume about six inches thick." The record was
engraved on the plates in " reformed Egyptian " charac-
ters, consisting of "the language of the Jews and the
writing of the Egyptians." In the same box with the
plates, were found two stones, " transparent and clear as
crystal, the Urim and Thummim used by seers in an-
cient times, the instruments of revelations of things dis-
tant, past and future." When the news of this discov-
ery spread abroad, " the Prophet was the sport of lies,
slanders and mobs, and vain attempts to rob him of his
plates." He was ere long supplied with witnesses. Oli-
ver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris make
the following solemn certificate :

" We have seen the plates which contain the records ;
they were translated by the gift and power of God, for
His voice hath declared it unto us, wherefore we know
of a surety that the work is true; and we declare with
words of soberness that an angel of God came down from
heaven, and brought and laid before our eyes, that we
beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon."

The testimony of these three is prefixed to all printed
copies of the " Book of Mormon," for such is the name
now given to the work. Oliver Cowdery was at that
time a sort of wandering schoolmaster, rather noted as
an elegant scribe. He assisted in translating the in-

26                 LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

scriptions on the plates, continued an active Saint for
many years, and was finally expelled from the Church
in Missouri, " for lying, counterfeiting and immorality."
He led a rambling life for many years, and died a short
time since a miserable drunkard.

Martin Harris was a credulous farmer who lived near
the Smiths. He had imbibed the notion, so common in
the religious excitement of that period, that " the last
days were at hand," and mortgaged his farm for three
thousand dollars, to pay for printing the first edition of
the book. He continued with the Mormons till his
means were exhausted, and, having quarrelled with Joe
Smith, in Missouri, returned to his old residence in New
York. Of David Whitmer little is known. He dropped
out of the Mormon community, in one of the " drives "
in Missouri, and settled in that State. But the Prophet
had other witnesses. Soon after, four of the Smiths,
three of the Whitmers, and another witness, eight in
all, testify as follows: " Joseph Smith, the translator,
has shown us the plates of which hath been spoken,
which had the appearance of gold; and as many of the
plates as the said Smith had translated, we did handle
with our hands and also saw the engravings thereon, all
of which had the appearance of ancient work and cu-
rious workmanship."

According to Smith's account, he first met Oliver
Cowdery, April 16th, 1829, and after convincing him of
his divine mission, on the 15th of May following, John
the Baptist appeared, and ordained them both into the
Aaronic Priesthood, after which they baptized each
other. In July following, the Golden Plates were shown

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         27

the " three witnesses," and in that year the translation
was completed. It was begun some time before, but
suspended in July, 1828, from the singular circumstance
that the wife of Martin Harris had stolen a hundred and
eighteen pages of the manuscript. As afterwards ap-
peared, the translators thought she intended to wait
until they had supplied the stolen part, then reproduce
the original, and prove that they did not literally cor-
respond. But it seems they had credited her with more
cunning than she possessed. She had bitterly op-
posed her husband in his venture upon the new
speculation, and had burned that part of the manuscript
he brought home, hoping thereby to put a stop to the
work. She afterwards attempted, by legal proceedings,
to prevent the disposal of his farm; but, failing in that,
finally separated from him. The translation was then
completed, Oliver Cowdery making most of the final
copy. The " Book of Mormon " was first given to the
world early in 1830, when three thousand volumes were
published, under contract, by Mr. Pomeroy Tucker, then
proprietor of a paper in the county. He has, within a
few years, given to the world a valuable work on the
" Origin and Progress of Mormonism," containing many
interesting facts concerning the origin of the sect. The
first proof-sheet of the work was given by Mr. Tucker,
as a sort of curiosity, to his cousin Steve S. Harding,
whom he styles " a fun-loving youth of that vicinity."
Mr. Harding soon after removed to Indiana, and, just
thirty-two years afterwards, was appointed by President
Lincoln Governor of Utah, whither he carried the proof
sheet, and presented it to the Church Historian.

28                 LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

The " Book of Mormon " was rapidly circulated, and
attracted some comment. And at this point, a brief
synopsis of this work is appropriate. It consists of a
number of Books, named after their reputed authors—
Book of Nephi, Book of Alma, Esther, Jared, etc. They
contain the following history:

In the reign of Zedekiah, six hundred years before
Christ, a Jewish family, with a few friends and retain-
ers, left Jerusalem, being warned of God that a great
destruction and captivity were at hand, and journeyed
eastward in search of a " land of promise." After many
wanderings, and the death of the Patriarch, they reached
the sea, when Nephi, who had succeeded his father in
the Patriarchate and Priesthood, was directed by the
Lord to build a boat; and, furnished with a " double
ball and spindle," which served the exact purpose of the
modern mariner's compass. They embarked, and in
due time reached the continent of America. Subsequent
revelations have decided that they landed in Central
America. There they increased rapidly; but a great
schism arose, and one Laman, with his followers, re-
fused to obey the true priesthood, for which they were
cut off, cursed, and condemned " to be a brutish and a
savage people, having dark skins, compelled to dig in
the ground for roots, and hunt their meat in the forests
like beasts of prey." But it was foretold that a rem-
nant of them should, in time, " have the curse removed,
and become a fair and delightsome people," who should
" blossom as the rose, under the teachings of the Latter-
day Saints." These were the Lamanites, the present
Indians, while the Christian party were known as Ne-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        29

phites. The latter spread over all of North and South
America, became rich and powerful, and built the cities
of Zarahemla, Jacobbugath, Manti, Gidgiddoni, and
scores of others, thus accounting for the numerous ruins
found on this continent. They were ruled over suc-
cessively by Nephi the First, Second, and Third, by
Noah, Alma, Kish, Coriantumnr, and numerous other
kings, and were successively instructed by a number of
prophets. But the Lamanites increased likewise, and
carried on almost perpetual war with the Nephites, till
a great part of the land was desolate. According to
this history, there have been no people of the Old
World so warlike and blood-thirsty as these; and battles
in which from twenty to fifty thousand were slain were
of common occurrence. The Nephites were troubled,
too, by " false doctrine, heresy, and schism;" the true
priesthood was reviled; one man arose and preached
Universalism, " that God would save all mankind at the
last day," and others followed strange gods. An im-
mense mass of the nation turned back and joined the
Lamanites, and a band of robbers, under one Gadianton,
desolated a large part of the land. At length prophets
appeared and announced the coming of Christ, who,
after he was crucified at Jerusalem, preached the Gospel
in America. At the time of his death, this country,
also, was shrouded in darkness; a mighty earthquake
threw down the wicked city of Jacobbugath, opened
great chasms and basins throughout the land, and the
whole face of the country was changed. The Nephites
accepted Christ at once; but in a few generations, fell
again into apostasy, and the Lord delivered them into

30                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the hand of their enemies. The mighty Chieftain
Omandagus, whose rule was from the Rocky Mountains
to the Mississippi, fought against the Nephites, and after
him many others. Little by little, the Nephites were
driven eastward, but made a stand near the shores of
Lake Erie, and fought " till the whole land was covered
with dead bodies." They made their final stand about
430, A. D., at the hill Cumorah, in Ontario County,
New York, where the Lamanites came against them,
and the battle raged till two hundred and thirty thou-
sand Nephites were slain; the little remnant was cap-
tured, and only Mormon and his son Moroni escaped.

The various kings and priests had kept a record of
their history, which Mormon now collected in one
volume, added a book of his own, and gave them to his
son. The latter finished the record, and buried the
whole in the hill Cumorah, being assured of God that
in fourteen centuries, a great Prophet should restore
them to man. Such is the book, and Joseph's account
of it. On such testimony alone there is sufficient cause
to reject it, the book itself containing abundant internal
evidence of a fraud.

Let us now glance at the opposing account. In the
year 1812, a written work, called the " Manuscript
Found," was presented to Mr. Patterson, a bookseller of
Pittsburg, Penna., by the author, Rev. Solomon Spauld-
ing. This gentleman was born in Pennsylvania, was a
graduate of Dartmouth College, and for many years a
Presbyterian minister; he fell into bad health, left the
ministry, and finally died of consumption. The " Man-
uscript Found " was written by Spaulding as a historical

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        31

romance, to account for the settlement of America, and
he proposed to Mr. Patterson to publish it with a pre-
face, giving an imaginary account of its having been
taken from plates dug up in Ohio; but the latter did not
think the enterprise would pay. Sidney Rigdon was
then at work in the office of Mr. Patterson; the latter
died in 1826, and what became of that copy of the man-
uscript is not known. Mrs. Spaulding had another com-
plete copy; but in the year 1825, while residing in
Ontario Co., N. Y., next door to a man named Stroude,
for whom Joe Smith was then digging a well, that copy
also was lost. She thinks it was stolen from her trunk.
Thus far all is clear, and there is no particular discrep-
ancy between the two accounts; but when the " Book
of Mormon " was published, the widow and brother of
Solomon Spaulding, and several other persons who had
heard him read his work, forthwith claimed that the
new publication was nearly identical with the " Manu-
script Found," varying only in certain interpolated
texts on doctrinal points. This claim was circulated
abroad, and caused Sidney Rigdon to write a highly
slanderous and abusive letter to the press in regard to
Mrs. Spaulding. Mormon historians say that Spaul-
ding's book was a mere idolatrous romance, and that the
whole story is the invention of Dr. Philastus Hurlbut,
who seceded from the saints in Ohio, and "persecuted"
Joe Smith in various ways. The widow's and brother's
statement is supported by the evidence of Mr. Joseph
Miller, Sr., now of Washington Co., Penna., who had
often heard Spaulding read his work; by that of Mr.
Redick McKee, who formerly boarded with the Spaul-

32                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ding's, and by others who knew of the work. Space
fails to set forth all the evidence presented in support
of this view. Suffice it to say, that while it is of moral
force sufficient to convince most minds, it is yet not such
proof as would establish the fact beyond all doubt, or
convict Smith and Rigdon of theft and forgery in a
court of justice. If the proof were any less strong than
it is, I would decide against the Spaulding claim, solely
from the internal evidence of the book; for the style and
matter are such as to raise a very strong presumption
that it could not be the work of any man with intelli-
gence enough for a minister, or of a graduate from Dart-
mouth College. But the true theory no doubt is, that
the writing of Spaulding was taken by Smith, Rigdon,
Cowdery and others, as the suggestion and idea of their
work; but was greatly modified and interpolated by
them, leaving sufficient characteristics to be recognized
by the Spaulding witnesses, who were left solely to
their memory for a comparison with the " Book of Mor-
mon," recognizing what was in it, and forgetting much
that was not included.

Of the " three witnesses " it is unnecessary to treat;
their subsequent course shows what weight is to be
attached to their testimony. The best evidence further-
more shows, that Sidney Rigdon was the prime mover
in the fraud, and that Joe Smith was conveniently put
forward as the Prophet.

The year 1830 ranks as number one of the Mormon
era. Early in the spring, the " Book of Mormon " ap-
peared, and on the memorable 6th of April following,
the Mormon Church was organized near Manchester.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         33

Six members were baptized and ordained elders, viz.:
Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr., Hyrum Smith,
Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Joseph Knight,
all but the last two of the " original Smith family."
The sacrament was forthwith administered, and hands
laid on " for the gift of the Holy Ghost." On the 11th
of April, Oliver Cowdery preached the first public dis-
course on the new faith, and the same month the
"first miracle" was performed in Colesville, Broome Co.,
N. Y. On the first of June, the Church, which had
meanwhile gained a few more Whitmers and some
others, held its "First Conference" at Fayette, in
Seneca Co.; and the same month Joe Smith was twice
arrested, "on false charges," tried and acquitted. Mean-
while, on the 18th of January, 1827, he had married
Emma Hale, daughter of Isaac Hale, of South Bain-
bridge, Chenango Co., N. Y.; and, in 1830, she was,
by special revelation, pronounced "Elect Lady and
Daughter of God," afterwards more learnedly styled
Electa Cyria. She became thoroughly disgusted at
her husband's religion while in Nauvoo, and expressed
no particular regret at his death; she refused to emi-
grate to Utah, but apostatized and married a Gentile,
and is rather popular as land-lady of the old Mansion
House, at Nauvoo. In August of 1830, Parley P. Pratt,
a young Campbellite preacher, came on a visit especially
to hear of the new faith, and was at once converted,
and soon after, Sidney Rigdon appeared as a leading
Mormon. Their own history states that he had never
heard of Smith until this time. Soon after, Orson
Pratt was baptized, and the new Church now had valu-

34                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

able material in its composition. The wild, poetical
zeal of Parley, and the cool determination of Orson
Pratt, the immense biblical knowledge and controver-
sial skill of Sidney Rigdon, and the shrewd cunning of
Joe Smith, were united in the work of propagandism,
and converts multiplied. In October, missionaries were
sent to the " Lamanites," and in December, Sidney
Rigdon visited Joe Smith, and preached several times
in the vicinity. In January, Smith and Rigdon pro-
ceeded to the latter's residence, near Kirtland, Ohio,
preaching by the way. Rigdon had previously col-
lected a band of nearly one hundred persons, who called
themselves Disciples; mostly seceders from other de-
nominations, holding to a literal and rapid fulfilment
of the prophecies, very fanatical and looking daily
for "some great event to occur." Many of these
adopted the new faith at once, and a church of thirty
was organized. " By revelation" of February 9th,
the elders were commanded " to go forth in pairs and
preach," and it was ordered they should dwell particu-
larly upon the fact that " the last days were at hand."
This idea is one that has a great hold upon many
minds. Nor is it confined to the ignorant; many intel-
ligent men in every generation become impressed with
the idea that " in our day the world has become so cor-
rupt, that God Almighty is going to make a great change,"
and in spite of the plain declarations of Scripture, fan-
atics will wrest the mild precepts of the Gospel, and
force them to indicate that hell-fire and destruction are
impending over everybody but their own particular sect.
The Mormons began as Millenarians, and that of the

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        35

maddest sort; but they did not preach that the world
itself was to be destroyed, only that destruction was soon
to fall upon all who did not embrace the new gospel.
No particular time was set for this consummation, but it
was understood to be imminent. Early in 1831, John
Whitmer was appointed Church recorder and historian,
and about the same time, the remaining New York
Saints came to Kirtland, which is set down in Mormon
annals as the First Hegira.

On the 6th of June, the Melchisedek, or Superior
Priesthood, was first conferred upon the elders, and soon
after Joe Smith had a revelation that the final gather-
ing place of the Saints was to be in Missouri. He set
out the same month with a few elders, and in the middle
of July, reached Jackson County, Missouri, where an-
other revelation was granted that this was " Zion which
should never be moved," and the whole land was " sol-
emnly dedicated to the Lord and His Saints." They
began at once to build, and laid the first log in Kaw
Township, twelve miles west of Independence. Another
revelation, of August 2d, fixed the site of the Great
Temple "three hundred yards west of the Court House
in Independence," which spot was accordingly dedicated
by religious exercises, which were followed by a great
accession of " gifts." On the 4th of August, another
large party arrived from Kirtland, a " General Confer-
ence " was held in the " land of Zion," and another rev-
elation vouchsafed to Joseph, that the whole land should
be theirs, and should not be obtained " but by purchase
or by blood."

Just what was to be understood by that strange

36                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

wording, it is now impossible to tell. The Mormons
explain it very innocently, and the Missourians con-
strued it to mean that the Saints would unite with the
Indians and drive out the old settlers. Joe Smith re-
turned to Kirtland the latter part of August, and soon
after established a mill, store, and bank. The last was
what was then denominated a " wild cat" bank, that is,
it had no charter, and deposited no State bonds for se-
curity ; but rested solely on the individual credit of the
proprietors. As several wealthy men had come into
the new organization, the notes of the bank circulated
at par. Joseph Smith was made President, and Sidney
Rigdon, Cashier. For the next five months, Joseph
travelled and preached in the Northern and Eastern
States, making many converts, who " gathered " either
at Kirtland, or in Missouri. The elders sent out in
February previous had met with tolerable success, and
Samuel H. Smith, brother of the Prophet, had added
greatly to the Church by converting Brigham Young.
This noted personage was born at Whittingham, Wind-
ham Co., Vermont, June 1st, 1801. He had four brothers
and six sisters, all of whom became Mormons. He was
baptized in April, 1832, by Eleazer Millard, and soon
after " gathered " at Kirtland. He was brought up on
a farm, and learned the trade of painter and glazier,
which he followed till after his conversion to Mormon-
ism. In him Joe Smith recognized one " born to rule,"
and his deep cunning and wonderful knowledge of the
weak points in human nature, soon gave him a leading
position in the Church. In March, 1832, Joe Smith
and Sidney Rigdon, while absent from home, were tarred

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        37

and feathered by a mob, " for attempting to establish
Communism, for forgery and dishonorable dealing," ac-
cording to their adversaries ; by their own account, " for
the truth's sake," and this is set down as " the beginning
of persecutions." Early in April, Joe Smith found it
necessary to go again to Independence, Mo., where a
sort of " Ecumenical Council" was held, and a printing
office set up. In June, was issued the " Morning and
Evening Star," the first Mormon periodical, edited by
W. W. Phelps. Joe Smith soon returned to Kirtland,
and the latter part of the same year Heber Chase Kim-
ball was baptized into the Church. In February, 1833,
Joe Smith finished his "inspired retranslation" of the
New Testament, and soon after received a " revelation
to square things in Zion." A quorum of three High
Priests, Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick
G. Williams, was organized as " Presidency of the
Church," and they were at once favored with " visions of
the Saviour and concourse of angels."

By the spring of 1833, the Mormons numbered some
fifteen hundred in Jackson County, Missouri. They
had taken virtual possession of Independence, where
their paper was published, and were fast extending their
settlements westward. The intense religious excitement
which raged throughout the United States during the
decade of 1820-30, which led to the wild phenomena of
"jerks," and so-called religious exercises of howling,
jumping, barking and muttering, seems to have left a
precipitate of its worst materials in Mormonism. They
daily proclaimed to the older settlers that the Lord had
given them the whole land of Missouri; that bloody

38                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

wars would extirpate all other sects from the country;
that " it would be one gore of blood from the Mississippi
to the border," and that the few who survived would be
servants to the Saints, who would own all the property
in the country. As their numbers increased, arrogance
and spiritual pride took possession of them; they pro-
claimed themselves "Kings and priests of the Most
High God," and regarded all others as reprobates, des-
tined to a speedy destruction. In conversation with the
Missourians, they never wearied of declaring that all
the Churches established by the latter were "alike the
creation of the devil," that they were under the curse
of God and all their members doomed, castaway Gen-
tiles, worse than heathen, and unworthy of longer life.
At the same time it does not appear that there were any
more violations of law among them, than would be
among the same number of very poor and ignorant peo-
ple anywhere; but their general conduct was insufferable.
In the first flush of their religious enthusiasm, they seem
to have been governed by no ideas of moderation; they
proclaimed through the country that it was useless folly
for Gentiles to open farms, the Lord would never allow
them to enjoy the fruits of their labor; they notified
the workmen upon new buildings that they could never
hope to be paid therefor, and generally proclaimed that
in a very few months the Gentiles would have neither
name nor place in Missouri.

The simple-minded Missourians listened with a vague
wonder to their first predictions, then smiled at their
confident boastings of superior purity and holiness ; but
soon their increasing numbers and arrogance awakened

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                       39

serious fears of the future. The Missourians, unaccus-
tomed to the language of hyperbole in prophecy, inter-
preted their predictions to mean that the Saints
themselves would be the ministers of God's vengeance,
and smite the unbelievers; many were incensed against
them for their language, and the public mind was
greatly inflamed. In April, 1833, a number of Missou-
rians came together in Independence, and decided that
" means of defence ought to be taken," but determined
upon nothing. The first June number of the Morning
and Evening Star contained an intemperate article,
headed, " Free People of Color," which excited the
wrath of the old citizens against the Mormons, as
" abolitionists," and was answered by a small pamphlet,
headed, " Beware of False Prophets." As summer ad-
vanced, it appeared that the Mormons would be suffi-
ciently numerous to carry the county at the August
election, and this roused all the fears of the old settlers
afresh. Without apparent concert, an armed mob of
three hundred assembled at Independence, tore down
the newspaper office, tarred and feathered several of the
Saints, whipped two of them a little and ordered all to
leave the county. Oliver Cowdery was started to Kirt-
land to consult with Joe Smith; but, during his absence,
the Saints agreed with the citizens to leave Jackson
County. On the 8th of October, W. W. Phelps and
Orson Hyde presented a memorial to Governor Dunklin,
of Missouri, praying for redress, to which that officer
made answer, that they "had a right to the protection
of the law, if they chose to stay in Jackson." Embold-
ened by this, they refused to leave according to agree-

40                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ment, and the last of the month the mob again rose,
burnt ten Mormons⁷ houses and committed a few other
outrages. The Mormons armed in turn, and fired into
a portion of the mob, killing two; the whole body of
citizens then arose against them, calling in aid from
other counties, when the Mormons became panic-
stricken and suddenly evacuated Jackson, crossing the
Missouri River during the nights of November 4th and
5th, into Clay County.

This first expulsion of the Mormons is a point upon
which there has been much discussion. That the people
of Jackson County were not justified in law is plain;
but that they did exactly as the people of nine counties
out of ten would have done, is equally plain. They
seem to have been actuated much more by a fear of

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                       41

what the Mormons would do when they had the power,
than by what they had done; and that those fears were
well founded, is abundantly shown by subsequent events.
The near vicinity of the Mormons was intolerable, and
the settlers were determined they should leave. The
mob allowed the Saints to carry their printing material
to Liberty, Clay Co., where they soon after began to
publish the Missouri Enquirer. They spread themselves
over Clay and into Van Buren County; but were " per-
secuted " and annoyed in the latter so they made no
great settlement.

Meanwhile, Joe Smith and a much more intelligent
class of Mormons were building up Kirtland. July 2d,
1833, Smith completed his "inspired translation" of
the Old Testament, and soon after a printing press
was set up in Kirtland, and the Latter-Day Saints
Messenger and Advocate established. " Old man Smith,"
the Prophet's father, was made patriarch, and Bishop
Partridge head of that branch of the Church. When
the news of affairs in Jackson County reached him,
Joseph " determined on war, and began at once to
collect a small force." He soon had two hundred men,
with whom he started westward; " marched on Mis-
souri," according to Gentile history; " hoped to redeem
Zion," according to Mormon annals. About this time,
Joseph had another revelation " as to business," which
will be found in the Doctrine and Covenants with the
rest, which contained, among other directions, this re-
markable passage :—" Behold, it is said or written in
my laws: Thou shalt not get in debt to thine enemies.
But, behold, it is not said at any time the Lord should

42                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

not take when He pleases, and pay as seemeth to Him
good. Wherefore, as ye are on the Lord's business,
whatsoever ye do," etc. We need not be surprised,
therefore, to learn, as we do from Joseph's Autobiogra-
phy, that the people along the road were very hostile.
Two days before starting, on May 3d, the Conference
of Elders, in Kirtland, repudiated the name of Mor-
mons and adopted, for the first time, that of Latter-
Day Saints; and we notice in Joseph's account that
along the road they constantly denied the name of
Mormons. These being the "last days," they were
Latter-day Saints, as well as to distinguish them from
the Saints of former days; the term Mormon, on the.
contrary, is supposed to be derived from the Greek
[Mormou], signifying a "horrible fright" or "bug-
bear."

Joe and his " army " reached Missouri in the latter
part of June, but while near the Mississippi, the cholera,
then but just known in America, broke out in his camp,
and in a few days twenty of the company died. Joe
preached, prayed and prophesied in vain ; his followers
were panic-stricken at the horrible and unknown dis-
ease. He first attempted to cure it " by laying on of
hands," but desisted with the remark, that " when the
Lord would destroy, it was vain for man to attempt to
stay His hand." An armed force which had meanwhile
gathered in Jackson County, in anticipation of his
coming, was scattered by a violent storm, and in a few
days, the cholera having spent its force, the company
reached Liberty. There was nothing to be done, and
in a few days Smith returned to Kirtland. A quorum

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM                        43

of twelve apostles was then organized, among them,
Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. The former
received the " gift of tongues," and was sent on a mis-
sion to the Eastern States, and in May, 1835, all the
twelve left Kirtland on general missions. The ensuing
August, there was a General Assembly at Kirtland, in
which the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," and
the " Lectures on Faith," by Sidney Rigdon, were
adopted as the rule of faith. About this time, a learned
Jew, formerly Professor of Oriental tongues in New
York, was connected with the Mormons, and on the
4th of January, 1836, a Hebrew professorship was
established at Kirtland, Joseph Smith and several
other leading Mormons entering upon the study. A
Temple had been projected early in the settlement,
which was completed and dedicated as the " House of
the Lord," March 27th, 1836. This was their first
temple, and its estimated cost, $40,000. Meanwhile,
Governor Dunklin had attempted to have the Mormons
again put in possession of their lands, in Jackson
County, whereupon a committee of citizens from the
latter met a committee of the Mormons, and offered the
following :
" Proposition of the people of Jackson County to the

Mormons:

" The undersigned committee, being fully authorized
by the people of Jackson County, hereby propose to the
Mormons, that they will buy all the land that the said
Mormons own in the County of Jackson, and also all
the improvements which the said Mormons had on any
of the public lands in said County of Jackson, as they

44                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

existed before the first disturbance between the people
of Jackson and the Mormons, and for such as they have
made since. They further propose, that the valuation
of said land and improvements shall be ascertained by
three disinterested arbitrators, to be chosen and agreed
to by both parties. They further propose, that should
the parties disagree in the choice of arbitrators, then

------is to choose them. They further propose, that

twelve of the Mormons shall be permitted to go along
with the arbitrators, to show them their land and im-
provements while valuing the same, and such other of
the Mormons as the arbitrators shall wish to do so, to
give them information; and the people of Jackson County
hereby guarantee their entire safety while doing so.
They further propose, that when the arbitrators report
the value of the land and improvements, as aforesaid,
the people of Jackson will pay the valuation, with one
hundred per cent., added thereon, to the Mormons within
thirty days thereafter.

" They further propose, that the Mormons are not to
make any effort, ever after, to settle either collectively
or individually within the limits of Jackson County
The Mormons are to enter into bonds to insure the con-
veyance of their land in Jackson County, according to
the above terms, when payment shall be made ; and the
committee will enter into a like bond, with such security
as may be deemed sufficient for the payment of the
money, according to the above proposition, etc., etc."

The Mormons have always maintained that their later
troubles were " solely on account of their religion," but
that they were driven from Jackson County because

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        45

" the mob desired to get possession of their lands." The
above document certainly tends to disprove that charge.
The foremost men in the county offered their personal
security for the payment, but the Mormons rejected the
proposition, on the ground that the Lord had said, " Zion
should never be moved." The citizens of Jackson then
became apprehensive that they would be attacked from
Clay County, and stirred up those in the latter county
who considered they already had cause to complain of
the Mormons; so they " requested " the latter, in May,
1836, to remove, which they did, this time settling in
Carroll, Davis and Caldwell Counties. In the last named
they founded the town of Far-West, and these counties
being new and unoccupied, they prospered greatly for a
while.

In June, 1837, the first organized foreign mission was
sent to England, consisting of H. C. Kimball, Orson
Hyde and W. Richards. On the 30th of July following,
they baptized the first converts there, in the river Rib-
ble, and the first confirmation of members was at Wal-
kerford, August 4th. The first Conference of English
Mormons was held in the cock-pit at Preston, the 25th
of the following December.

In the autumn of the same year, the " Kirtland Safety
Society Bank," engineered by Smith and Rigdon, failed,
under circumstances which created great scandal, and
the Prophet had a revelation to " depart for the land of
Zion," in Missouri. Smith and Rigdon left Kirtland
" between two days," and their creditors pursued them
for a hundred miles; but in the language of Joseph's
Autobiography, " the Lord delivered them out of the

46                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

hands of their persecutors." They reached Far-West in
March, and found a fearful schism raging in the Church.
The authority of Joseph was unequal to the task of re-
storing order, and Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and
one L. E. Johnson were " cut off from the Church,"
while Orson Hyde, Thomas B. Marsh, W. W. Phelps
and many others apostatized and brought many serious
charges against Joe Smith and other leaders. It was
said they were plotting treason against the State, that
they were conspiring with the Indians, that they were
engaged in counterfeiting and cattle-stealing, and were
attempting to establish a community of goods as well as
wives. The dissenters stirred up the neighboring people
against the Saints, and for purposes of defence and re-
taliation the "Danite Band" was organized. They
were first commanded by D. W. Patton, who took the
name of " Captain Fearnot," and styled themselves
" Daughters of Gideon." Afterwards they adopted their
present name from the suggestion in Genesis xlix. 17 :
" Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the
path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall
fall backward."

On the 4th of July, Sidney Rigdon preached what he
called, " Sidney's last sermon;" in which he threatened
Gentiles and apostates with violence, and declared that
the " Saints were above all law." Troubles soon after
arose in Davis County, at elections; the Mormons all
voting one way secured control of the County; a gen-
eral fight occurred at the August election in the town of
Gallatin, in which a number were seriously wounded on
both sides. For two months there were occasional fights

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        47

all over Davis County, and the Mormons at length de-
clared their " independence of all earthly rulers and
magistrates." The Clerk of the county, a Mormon,
was commanded by Joe Smith to issue no more writs
against the Saints ; and the Justice of the Peace in Gal-
latin was mobbed for entertaining suits against them.
Scattering parties of militia began to assemble under
arms in the neighboring counties, one of which, com-
manded by Captain Bogart, came to battle with a party
of seventy Mormons and defeated them. Another party
of Mormons attacked the militia near Richmond, in Clay
County, and killed two of them; the latter returned
the fire, killing " Captain Fearnot." The Mormons then
rose en masse and drove out all the officers of Davis
County not of their faith, and burned and plundered
the town of Gallatin, another small village, and much of
the surrounding country, driving out the inhabitants.

About this time, Brigham Young fled for his life to
Quincy, Illinois. The troubles grew so extensive and
complicated, that after many attempts to learn something
definite from " the seat of war," Governor Lilburn W.
Boggs called out fifteen thousand militia to restore order.
The first detachment had a sort of battle with the Mor-
mons in Carroll County, after which, Governor Boggs
issued an order that the Mormons " should be expelled
from the State," adding, " even if it was necessary to ex-
terminate them." This is the celebrated " extermina-
ting order," and Governor Boggs the " Nero" of Mor-
mon historians. Another body of militia were fired
upon by the Mormons at Haun's Mill, and in revenge
exterminated the whole Mormon party, variously esti-

48                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

mated at from sixteen to thirty. Only two escaped
alive. The Mormon forces then began to retreat on
every hand, and finally united in the town of Far-
West, where they were surrounded by a large militia
force under Generals Doniphan, Lucas and Clarke, and
compelled to surrender at discretion. Most of their
plunder was recaptured and delivered to the owners, and
the great body of the Mormons were released under a
promise to leave the State.

Joe Smith, Hyrum Smith, and forty others were held
for trial, and the militia officers forthwith organized a
Court Martial and condemned several of them to be
shot! But General Doniphan, a sound lawyer and
brave man, by a firm use of his authority and influence,
prevented this foolishly illegal action. The prisoners
were taken before the nearest Circuit Judge and put
upon trial " for treason, murder, robbery, arson, larceny,
and breach of the peace." They could not well have
been tried for more ; but it seems by the evidence that
many of them were guilty on most of the charges.
They were committed to jail to await their final trial.
The evidence in the case was printed by order of the
Missouri Legislature, and presents a singular instance of
how a few knaves may lead to their destruction a whole
people, if sufficiently ignorant and fanatical. Compara-
tive peace was restored, but the history of civil commo-
tions shows that private revenge will seek such a period
for its gratification, and in many neighborhoods fearful
outrages were perpetrated upon individual Mormons by
those who held a personal animosity against them.
Their leaders had provoked a conflict for which the in-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         49

nocent suffered; and the most quiet and unoffending
portion of the Mormons were hunted out and rudely
hurried from their homes at the most inclement season
of the year, often without a chance to supply themselves
or dispose of their property, and much suffering was the
result. They now numbered over twelve thousand, and
in the month of December this large body began the
journey into Illinois, which the most of them reached
in January, 1839. They spread over the western coun-
ties wherever they could find food or employment, par-
ticularly about the town of Quincy, in Adams county;
while many went as far east as Springfield, and others
to St. Louis. They were everywhere received as suf-
ferers for their religion, and to some extent for their
"free-state" sentiments; for Illinois was just then be-
ginning to be agitated by the anti-slavery excitement,
and the Mormons had been driven from a slave State.
The Missouri border had never been well spoken of, nor
was it till long afterwards; and the Illinoisans rather
seemed pleased with the opportunity of showing how
superior they were to the " border ruffians." They re-
garded but little the Mormon statement that their reli-
gion was the only cause of trouble; in fact the more in-
telligent knew that such could not be the case; but they
made haste to assume that the Mormons were "New
York and New England Yankees, driven out as abolition-
ists," because the Missourians would not tolerate such
sentiments. The people of Illinois, particularly of the
western counties, knew little and cared less about dif-
ferences of speculative theology. That portion known
as the " Military Tract" had but lately come into mar-

50                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ket, and was settled very rapidly; the religious training
of the people had not kept pace with the advance of
their material interests, and a sermon to them was a
sermon, whether preached by Arminian or Calvinist,
orthodox Trinitarian or heterodox Unitarian. Perhaps
they were not impious or skeptical; religion was " at
loose ends," but there was always a sentiment in its
favor, only sectarianism was little understood, talked
of, or cared for. In short the charity of these people
was broad enough to cover all sects, and no man was
persecuted or called in question for his religious belief.
Under these circumstances they gave the Mormon peo-
ple protection, and welcomed them to their homes and
tables ; they listened to the story of their wrongs with
tears in their eyes; they grasped the outcasts by the
hand, and swore to stand by them to the bitter end.
Subscriptions were opened for them in many places;
even the Indians, yet upon a near reservation, con-
tributed liberally, and several sections made kindly
overtures, and pressingly invited the fugitives to settle
among them. They had not yet caught sight of the
cloven foot of the monster, or seen its miscreated front.
The Missourians found, in the meantime, that they
had "caught an elephant;" they had Joe Smith, his
brother Hyrum, and forty others in jail on a multitude
of charges; but many of the witnesses were gone, the
trial would have been long and expensive, and it was
probably the best policy to get them all out of the
State in such a way that none would re-enter it, rather
than condemn a few to the penitentiary. Accordingly,
they were removed from place to place, loosely guarded,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        51

and on the 15th of April, Joseph and a few others
escaped from their guards, who were either drunk or
pretended to be. They hastily made their way to
Quincy, followed by the small remnant of Mormons
which had been left at Far-West. The remaining
prisoners escaped and followed soon after, and in the
language of Governor Boggs' next message, " the young
and growing State was happily rid of the fanatical
sect;" but in the language of Mormon poetry,

" -------- Missouri,

Like a whirlwind in her fury,

Drove the Saints and spilled their blood."

Early in May, Joe Smith went to Commerce, in
Hancock County, Illinois, by invitation of Dr. Isaac
Galland, from whom he obtained a large tract of land
near the head of the Des Moines Rapids, and shortly
had another revelation for his people to settle there.
To a proper understanding of their¹ future history a
brief sketch of the locality is necessary, which has
been kindly furnished me by R. W. McKinney, Esq.,
present Postmaster at Nauvoo, who has resided in that
vicinity since 1837:

" Hancock is a river county, washed on the west by
the Mississippi for forty miles, taking into account the
windings of the river. It was originally nearly all
prairie, extending eastward in a direct line from
Commerce twenty-five miles; high and rolling, with a
soil of inexhaustible fertility, and with most of the
timber fringing the streams along the eastern border.
The western part of the county, bordering on the Des
Moines Rapids ; was always a favorite spot of beauty to

52                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the voyager on the Mississippi; the eye was here
relieved by a most inviting prospect, the river was
fringed by low wooded hills, from which gushed
clear and sparkling brooks, passing with low musical
murmurs over their rocky beds until they were finally
lost in the ' Father of Waters.'

"But the early progress of Hancock County was
anything but encouraging. While other sections of
the State, with fewer advantages and a less healthy
climate, rapidly augmented in wealth and population,
this remained almost a wilderness, and this by reason
of uncertain titles.

" Hancock County, fair, healthful, and fertile, 'even
as the Garden of the Lord,' was one of those unfor-
tunate counties comprised in that afflicted section lying
between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, known as
the ' Military Tract.' It had been set apart by Act of
Congress as bounty land for the soldiers of the War of
1812 ; but few of them emigrated there, and nearly all
of the patents, or ' soldiers' rights,' as they were called,
were thrown upon the market for sale. This furnished,
for a score of years, a rich harvest for speculators and
land jobbers, and the ' Military Tract' became the
' happy hunting ground' of sharks and sharpers of
every description. A race of ' bloated patent holders'
was thus created, whose broad tracts of wilderness land
rivalled in extent the proudest dukedoms and baronies
of the old world. It was against sound public policy
to create such a land monopoly on the public domain;
but much greater evils grew out of this thing in the
establishment of a conflict of titles, creating doubt and

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         53

uncertainty, casting a shadow on every man's home-
stead who dared to erect it on the Tract, and driving
away honest and enterprising settlers. A system arose
in the East of forging patents by having absent or de-
ceased soldiers represented by others, and even by
making duplicate copies entire without affidavit, or aid
from the Land Office.

" In hundreds of instances there were three patents
upon the same section, with facilities to make a thou-
sand, in fact, the entire Tract was eventually strewn
with patents as thick as autumn leaves in an un-
broken forest. So great grew the evils of this system,
and from the non-payment of taxes by non-residents,
that the Legislature of Illinois went to work to devise
a remedy. But the Legislators of new States are not
generally very learned or capable statesmen, and the
sharpers laughed at the idea of illiterate men thwarting
the plans of men whose business it was to 'pierce the
centre' of the most explicit statute. The Legislature
having tried sharp and pointed statutes on the fra-
ternity before, but without success, instead of tinkering
and amending laws which 'John Doe, et al., had
laughed at, tried the virtue of a more sweeping enact-
ment. They enacted, in substance, that if any one
held possession of land for seven years under color
of title, such possession should be proof of title conclu-
sive against all the world, and that 'John Doe et al.,'
with their pockets full of patents, should be forever
barred and excluded. When John Doe and his com-
peers took in the force of this statute, not a smile lit
up their solemn countenances. They were caught at

54                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

last. But everybody was disappointed by the final
operation of the statute. It only created or attracted
another 'swarm of flies, more hungry, voracious, and
pestilent than any that had preceded them; the
heavens and the earth were darkened by their myriads,
and no friendly swallow appeared to drive them away.'
" No sooner was the 'Delinquent List' exposed for
sale for non-payment of taxes, than a crowd appeared
in and around the Court House, hungry and haggard,
the like of which had surely not been seen since Pha-
raoh's lean kine emerged from the river Nile. Here
were congregated broken down tradesmen, tinkers
and vagabonds; rough, roaring, swearing fellows, and
smooth-faced, hypocritical, canting knaves, jostled each
other, and mingled and commingled in the halls of jus-
tice, each one striving with the few dollars he had con-
trived to save out of the general wreck by cheating his
creditors, to retrieve his fortunes, and the result was a
land-monopoly more corrupt than any that had pre-
ceded it. The law had been aimed at the non-resident
jobber, to compel the payment of taxes; but this un-
scrupulous crowd hurled it without mercy or discrimi-
nation at the heads of everybody; if it carried away the
inheritance of the widow and orphan, it was all the
same to them. The wise Legislators stood aghast at
the havoc they had innocently caused. They had
'called spirits from the vasty deep,' and contrary to all
past experience they had come. These sharpers in-
spired general terror, and no wonder; for had the in-
congruous and villanous crowd made a descent into
hell, the devil would have fled howling to the most re-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         55

tired and gloomy corner of his domain, leaving them to
contend and squabble among themselves for a 'tax
title' on his burning throne! It was now an indis-
criminate fight on the 'Military. Tract,' in which all
sorts of persons, with all sorts of papers, documents,
and titles, rushed to the conflict and couched their
lances for the fray. In this hot contest the unsophisti-
cated settler, not conversant with these matters, had
but little show. He could much more readily, with
the slightest possible assistance, 'read his title clear to
mansions in the skies' than so establish his claim to a
single foot of land covered by 'soldiers' rights' forged
patents, and tax titles on the whole Military Tract.

" Fortunately, Hancock County was not altogether
covered by these titles. The Act granted the soldier
'one hundred and sixty acres of land,' no less, no more.
Hence, those quarters called 'fractional,' with less or
more than one hundred and sixty acres, were subject to
entry at the Land Office. These skirted the banks of
the river and along the township lines of the whole
county, and were rapidly taken up and settled before
the arrival of the Mormons, at which time Hancock
County contained a sparse population of several thou-
sand. Owing to greater security of title, most of them
were settled along the Mississippi. The Des Moines
Rapids excited much attention as a favorable site.
Among the conspicuous men who visited this section
was General Robert E. Lee, then a Lieutenant of Topo-
graphical Engineers, in the employ of the War Depart-
ment, for the purpose of making a survey of the rapids.
His visit was in 1832, and he remained in the county

56                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the whole season, and was favorably known to all the
old settlers, and much respected for his urbanity and
gentlemanly bearing. It was then a favorite idea with
some, that the Mississippi would in time be bridged at
these Rapids, and that at no other place could a perma-
nent structure be erected. Hancock was organized as
a county in 1829, and the Capital permanently estab-
lished a few years after at Carthage.

" Meanwhile the courts traveled around the country
after the manner of a public exhibition, holding terms
at such points as met the views of the lawyers, or per-
haps where it was considered that law and justice were
most needed. Among the lawyers who then practised
in Hancock, were Malcolm McGregor, Archibald Wil-
liams and 0. H. Browning; the former, a brilliant
genius, died young, and the latter two have since be-
come 'known to fame.'

"First in history was a Post Office at the Rapids,
called Venice, but there was no town of that name.
In the year 1834, Commerce was laid out by Messrs.
Alex. White and James B. Teas; and shortly after a
Mr. Hotchkiss, of New Haven, Conn., laid out Com-
merce City, just above the other town. All proved
failures, but many still had confidence that this was
the place for a great city in the future. Among the
owners of the 'bottom land' was Dr. Isaac Galland, a
man of some enterprise, who, immediately after the fail-
ure of Hotchkiss, opened a correspondence with Joe
Smith, which resulted in an agreement that the latter
should settle all his people near Commerce."

To the foregoing graphic sketch it is only necessary

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.

57

to add, that the Prophet purchased a small tract and
received gratis a larger one; a convenient revelation
was vouchsafed for the Saints to gather to this stake of
Zion; they complied with rapidity, the plat of a great
city was laid out and the Mormon star was once more
in the ascendant.

58                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY FROM THE FOUNDING OF NAUVOO TILL 1843.

Rapid growth of Nauvoo—Apparent prosperity—" The vultures gather to
the carcass"—Crime, polygamy and politics—Subserviency of the
Politicians—Nauvoo Charters—A government within a government-
Joe Smith twice arrested—Released by S. A. Douglas—Second time
by Municipal Court of Nauvoo—McKinney's Account—Petty thieving
—Gentiles driven out of Nauvoo—" Whittling Deacons "—" Danites"—
Anti-Mormons organize a Political Party—Treachery of Davis and
Owens—Defeat of Anti-Mormons—Campaign of 1843—Cyrus Walker,
a great Criminal Lawyer—" Revelation" on Voting—The Prophet
cheats the Lawyer—Astounding perfidy of the Mormon Leaders—Great
increase of popular hatred—Just anger against the Saints.

A city rose as if by magic. Temporary in character
as most of the buildings were, rude log houses or frame
shanties, they served to shelter the rapidly gathering
Saints. The first house on the new site was erected
June 11th, 1839, and in eighteen months thereafter
there were two thousand dwellings, besides school
houses and other public buildings. The new city was
named Nauvoo, a word which has no signification in
any known language, but in the " reformed Egyptian "
of Joe Smith's imaginary history, is said to mean
" The Beautiful." The site was indeed beautiful, but
not the most feasible they could have selected. Instead
of locating immediately at the head of the Rapids,
where there was a convenient landing at all seasons,
they chose a spot one mile below, only approachable
by steamboats at high water. The temporary struc-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        59

tures, in no long time, gave way to more permanent
buildings; improvements multiplied on every hand,
and Joe Smith had almost daily revelations directing
how every work should be carried on. Here, it was
foretold, was to be built a great city and temple, which
should be the great gathering place of "Zion," and
central rendezvous of the sect, " until such time as the
Lord should open the way for their return to Zion,
indeed"—Jackson County, Missouri; and from here
were to spread gigantic operations for the conversion of
the world. One by one most of the Missouri apostates
came creeping back into the Church; Orson Hyde was
restored to his place as apostle, and was able to explain
his apparent defection. A missionary board was organ-
ized, and arrangements perfected for foreign missions
embracing half the world. On the 29 th of August,
Orson Pratt and Parley P. Pratt set put on a mission
to England, followed, September the 20th, by Elders
Brigham Young, H. C. Kimball, George A. Smith, R.
Hedlock, and T. Turley. Brigham had been appointed
"President of the Twelve Apostles" in 1836, in place
of Thomas B. Marsh, the apostate. They landed at
Liverpool the 6th of April, 1840, and entered with zeal
upon their work. Brigham assumed entire control of
the enterprise, established various missions, baptized
numerous converts, labored among the common people,
preached, prayed, wrote and argued, lived hard, and
travelled hundreds of miles on foot. May the 29th,
1840, he established and issued the first number of the
Latter-Day Saints Millennial Star, a periodical never
suspended since. He organized a number of flourishing

60               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

churches, and early in 1841 returned to Nauvoo, bring-
ing with him seven hundred and sixty-nine converts.
Shortly before this time, Sidney Rigdon had addressed
a memorial to the Legislature of the State of Pennsyl-
vania, praying for redress for the alleged losses of the
Saints in Missouri, and calling upon the Congressional
delegation from that' State to move the General Govern-
ment in their behalf; and in October, 1839, Joseph
Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Elias Higbee and Orrin Porter
Rockwell set out for Washington, delegated to seek
redress. They reached the Capital, November the 28th,
and were admitted forthwith to an audience with Presi-
dent Van Buren, who heard them through, and, accord-
ing to their report, replied, " Gentlemen, your cause is
just, but I can do nothing for you," adding, in under-
tone, " I should lose the vote of the State of Missouri."
By his own account this last remark was, " The Gene-
ral Government cannot interfere in the domestic con-
cerns of Missouri." Nothing resulted from either
application; but the attention of the country was
attracted to Nauvoo. The rapid growth of the city
excited the wonder of eastern people, and numerous
curiosity hunters, correspondents and tourists hastened
to visit it. They were treated with extreme complais-
ance, and in their reports the city lost nothing of its
wonders. In October, 1840, a petition with many
thousand names was forwarded for an Act of Incorpo-
ration for Nauvoo, and about the same time Joe Smith
had another revelation that the Temple must be com-
menced at once, and ground was broken therefor Octo-
ber the 3d. The sudden and surprising prosperity of

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                       61

the sect attracted to them a number of ambitious and
unscrupulous men, of whom four deserve particular
notice.

Dr. Isaac Galland, was, in the early part of his life,
a notorious horse-thief and counterfeiter, belonging to
the "Massac Gang," as it was called, on the Ohio
river. He had then nominally reformed and moved
into Hancock County, where he was in 1834, a candi-
date for the Legislature, but was defeated by a small
majority. Soon after, he came into possession of a
large tract of land, and induced Joe Smith to settle
on a part with a view to enhancing the value of the
rest.

Jacob Backinstos came to Hancock from Sangamon
County, where he had got credit for a stock of goods,
sold them, and defrauded his creditors; after which he
came over to the Mormons seeking his fortunes. His
brother married a niece of Joe Smith, but Backinstos
held off and took rank as a " managing Democrat," a
sort of local politician. In this capacity he rendered
some service to Judge Stephen A. Douglas, who, in
turn, appointed him Clerk of the Hancock Circuit
Court, this giving him great political power with the
Mormons. By them he was at different times elected
Sheriff and member of the Legislature, and continued a
" Jack Mormon " to the end of the chapter.

"General" James Arlington Bennett was an ad-
venturer of some talent, whose " range" was from
Virginia to New York City, where he had an occa-
sional connection with the press. He early wrote to
Joe Smith, proposing a religious and political alliance,

62                 LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

adding, with refreshing candor, " You know Moham-
med had his right hand man." Joe replied in a tone
of good humored sarcasm, adding, however, a sort of
offer for Bennett to visit Nauvoo.

The latter came soon after, and was baptized into the
church, but not being trusted to the extent he desired,
soon departed.

Dr. John C. Bennett was usually considered "one
of the greatest scamps in the Western country." He
was a man of real talent, some ambition, overbearing
zeal, and all engrossing lust; at the same time rather
good looking, of smooth manners and easy address.
Besides being a medical graduate and practising physi-
cian, he had acquired considerable military and engi-
neering skill, and had been Adjutant General of the
State of Illinois. He now brought his talents and
rascality to an alliance with Joe Smith; for a year and
a-half he was his intimate friend and trusted coun-
selor, when, as has often happened before, a beautiful
woman set them at outs, and forever put an end to
this touching friendship. These, and a score of others
of like character, attached themselves to the rising sect
and became Joe Smith's unscrupulous tools and allies.
As for the common Saints, the pliable mass, though
not nearly so foolish and fanatical as in Jackson County,
they were quite as obsequious and worked steadily to
build up the material interests of " Zion."

The missions in England, Wales and Scotland, pros-
pered greatly, and many thousands of foreign Saints
arrived in Nauvoo; some remained, but the majority
were scattered in settlements through the country,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         63

which the Prophet called "Stakes of Zion." They
were not to rival the great city, but to be its feeders
and tributaries. The swamp land adjacent to Nauvoo
was drained, and the site rendered quite healthy; the
rapids were surveyed by J. C. Bennett, and a wing
dam projected which was to make a commodious har-
bor in front of Nauvoo, and secure driving power suffi-
cient to turn all the factory wheels of a vast commercial
city.

These were the palmy days of Joe Smith; this was
the " Golden age " of Mormonism. The former was no
more the wandering lad, with " peep-stone " and hazel
rod, or the fugitive vagabond fleeing from Missouri
rifles; he was at the head of a now consolidated and
rapidly augmenting sect; he was courted and flattered
of politicians; he was absolute ruler and main proprie-
tor of a city already populous, and destined to be rich
and powerful. Bright visions of future aggrandizement
and wealth floated through his brain, and he confidently
looked forward to the time when he should be virtual
dictator of a powerful State. But into the very noon
of this halcyon day floated the faint rumbling of a dis-
tant earthquake, and afar upon the political and social
horizon appeared a little cloud, "no bigger than a man's
hand," which stayed not till it darkened the whole
heaven of the future, and dashed this proud fabric to
the ground.

There now devolves upon me the narration of a
change in public sentiment, swift and violent, almost
without parallel in America; and the reader will learn
with surprise that in a brief period hatred took the place

64                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

of friendship, and the same people who had received the
Mormons with gladness were in hot haste to drive them
out at the bayonet's point. The consideration of what
caused this unprecedented change in public sentiment,
and the intense hatred against the Mormons, presents
some points of pertinent inquiry to politicians, and per-
haps some lessons to religious sects. The various
causes which led to the Mormon troubles in Illinois,
and their final expulsion, may be grouped under three
heads:

I. Criminal. II. Moral and Social. III. Political.

I. In the first, it may well be said, the Mormons
were destined to experience, in all its bitterness, the
force of the homely adage in regard to giving a dog a
bad name. The Mississippi Valley, from St. Louis to
Galena, had been for years unusually infested with
reckless and blood-stained men. The whole of south-
eastern Iowa and much of northeastern Missouri was
in a comparatively wild and lawless state; the " half-
breed " tract of the former, from unsettled land titles
and other causes, was appropriated as a refuge for and
overrun by coiners, horse-thieves and robbers; and the
latter section, adjacent, was little if any better. The
law was enforced with slackness, or the combination of
rogues was too great for the ordinary machinery of jus-
tice; people had but little confidence in courts and
juries, and, in more atrocious cases than common, sat-
isfied themselves with lynch law.

The islands and groves farther up the river, near
Davenport and Rock Island, were the hiding places of
regularly organized bands of marauders; as also were

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        65

the bayous and hollows west of Nauvoo. The writer
was but a boy, but remembers well the thrills of horror
that ran through the West at the murder of Miller and
Liecy in Lee County, Iowa, of Col. Davenport at Rock
Island, of an entire family of five persons in Adams
County, and others too numerous to mention. Long
afterwards, while the writer was travelling through
Hancock, Pike, and Adams counties, no family thought
of retiring at night without barring and double-locking
every ingress; and the names of John Long, Aaron
Long, Granville Young, Robert Birch, the Hodges and
Foxes, and dozens of other murderers, were as common
as household words.

To all that class the bad name given the Mormons
in Missouri was so much capital, and it gathered around
them, with the real vulture instinct. Hundreds of li-
centious villains, cut throats, and robbers made their way
into Nauvoo, were baptized into the Church as a con-
venient cover for their crimes, and made that their
secret headquarters. Property stolen far up the river,
or east of the city, was run through and concealed in
the western bayous, or hastily disposed of to innocent
purchasers, so that the owners generally found it among
the Mormons. The criminals were, in many instances,
traced directly to Nauvoo; but once within the charmed
circle, all power to punish them was gone.

Their secret confederates were ready to " swear " them
clear, and too often the cry of " persecution " was suf-
ficient to mislead really honest Mormons, and cause
them to defend one who, though really guilty, claimed
the name of a Saint. Thus, while the Mormons could

66                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

truly say there was less crime in Nauvoo than in most
other cities of its size, it was still true that more crimi-
nals issued thence than from any other.

How many of the real Mormons were concerned in
these depredations it is impossible to say, probably very
few; but the fact remained that the criminals had most
of them assumed the name of Mormons, that they were
not thrust out and punished, and that the really inno-
cent portion obstinately refused to entertain any charge
against the guilty, making the Church a complete cover
and exemption for crime. An angry people could not
be expected to go into their city and discriminate
between them; they struck blindly at the whole com-
munity, and thus while two-thirds of them were proba-
bly guiltless of crime, all suffered alike. In the outer
settlements there was actual cause to complain of the
foreign Saints; thousands of them had " gathered " in
great haste and extreme poverty ; they had nothing, and
knew not how to rapidly accommodate themselves to
their new pursuits, and at the same time very naturally
refused to starve in a plentiful country.

Their doctrines virtually invited them to take what
they needed, and they did.

As to the heads of the Church and their newly-ac-
quired allies, enough has been said to show that much
of their conduct was on the very border-line of rascal-
ity, if it did not altogether step over it.

II. Of the second class of causes, but little need be
added to the history of polygamy, to be more fully re-
cited hereafter. Of the ten thousand intrigues of Smith,
Bennett, Rigdon and other leaders, it is useless to speak,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         67

except to give their public results. While the estab-
lished denominations of Illinois were threatened, and
her political stability endangered, her people were also
shocked by the introduction of new, and to them, re-
volting vices.

III. But the great cause of popular hostility, which
finally led to the worst result, was the Mormon system
of voting solidly, at the dictation of a few men

They have always insisted on this principle, pretend-
ing that there would be no union in their Church, if the
members were allowed to vote by individual will. Such
a course must ever have one effect, to cause the Church
to be regarded as a mere political entity, to be fought
accordingly, and in time, arouse the fiercest opposition.
It will hardly do to say no church has a right to so di-
rect its vote, and yet, if persisted in, it must be a con-
stant source of faction. Any such church would con-
stitute a dangerous power in a republican government;
and would soon have arrayed against it all those who
were defeated by its vote, all who failed to get its sup-
port, all who disdained to stoop to the arts necessary to
obtain it, and all those who clearly saw the evil tendency
of such a system. In two years after he entered Illi-
nois, Joe Smith was absolute master of three thousand
votes; practically, he might just as well have been al-
lowed to cast so many himself. The offices of the
county were in his gift; no man could hope to reach
Congress from that district, without his favor, and it was
highly probable, that by the next election, his simple
will would determine who should be Governor of the
State.

68                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

Such power in the hands of a corrupt man, used with
a singular perfidy and in the interests of the worst
clique ever assembled, would alone be almost sufficient
to determine the people upon the expulsion of him and
his fanatical sect. The particular situation, at the time,
rendered this evil ten-fold more apparent. For the first
time since its organization, the Whig Party had a fair
prospect of carrying the State and the nation; but
Illinois was doubtful.

If Henry Clay should again be the nominee of the
Whigs, Kentucky, Louisiana and other Southern States
were considered certain for that party, and, in certain
very probable contingencies, Illinois would turn the
scale one way or the other. It was quite certain the
Mormons would, by 1844, give the casting vote in Illi-
nois, and Joe Smith had perfect control of the Mormon
vote. Such contingencies are liable to frequently occur
in our politics, and henceforth set it down as an Amer-
ican axiom, that any church assuming to cast its vote
as a unit, for its own interests, under the dictation of its
spiritual head or heads, is the deadly foe of our liberties,
and justly an object of distrust and dislike to every
lover of his country. With this digression, I resume
the thread of history.

The " Harrison Campaign " of 1840 was in full tide,
and the politicians gathered thick around Joe Smith.
His people had been driven from a Democratic State
by order of a Democratic Governor, and himself denied
redress by a Democratic President; while his " memo-
rial " against Missouri had been introduced and counte-
nanced in the Senate of the United States by Henry

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        69

Clay, and in the House by John F. Stuart, both
Whigs.

He felt friendly to them, but finding he had great
power, determined to use it well and took good care
not to commit himself. When wined, dined, toasted,
and feasted by managers of both parties, he stated in
general terms that he felt no particular interest in
politics; he had tried the Yankees of New York, and
the "free soilers" of the Western Reserve, and had
met with rough treatment; he had gone thence to the
pro-slavery Missourians, and had met with rougher treat-
ment ; the Democrats had robbed him, and the Whigs
refused him redress, and he had little confidence in either.

But there were certain things absolutely necessary
for his city to receive from the Legislature, to protect
him and his people from mobs, and the party that
could most certainly give him these would obtain his
support. This cheerful frankness was met by renewed
protestations of respect and good-will, and both parties
were eager to grant him favors.

After secret consultation with his counselors at
Nauvoo, Joe had a revelation to support the Whig
ticket, which the Mormons did unanimously in 1840
and '41. In the Legislature of '40-'41, it became an
object with the Democrats to conciliate them, and at
that session Dr. J. C. Bennett came with a charter,
mainly drawn up by himself and Joe Smith, for the
incorporation of Nauvoo. The charter was referred to
the Judiciary Committee who reported favorably, the
ayes and noes were called in neither house, and the
charter passed without a dissenting vote.

70                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

The annals of ancient and modern legislation might
be searched in vain for a parallel to that Nauvoo
Charter. It gave all the powers ever granted to in-
corporated cities, and gave them power to pass all laws
"not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States,
or of this State" which was afterwards interpreted to
mean that they might pass local ordinances contrary to
the laws of the State. It provided for a Mayor, four
Aldermen, and nine Councillors, and established a
Mayor's Court with exclusive jurisdiction of all cases
arising under the city ordinances.

It also established a Municipal Court, to be com-
posed of the Mayor as Chief Justice, and four Alder-
men as associates, and gave this court the power to
issue writs of Habeas Corpus. And this not only to
try the sufficiency of writs issuing from any other court,
which is a power rarely granted a Municipal Court,
but to go beyond that and try the original cause of
action. Hitherto none but Judges of the Supreme and
Circuit Courts could issue such writs, and there were
just nine persons in the State empowered to do so;
but this Act at one fell swoop conferred it upon the
five judges of this Municipal Court, and those the per-
sons above all others most liable to abuse it. It also
incorporated the militia of Nauvoo into a body to be
called the " Nauvoo Legion," independent of -all other
militia officers in the State, except the Governor as
Commander-in-Chief. It established a court-martial for
this Legion composed of the commissioned officers, en-
tirely independent of all other officers, and in the
regulations not governed by the laws of the State !

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        71

This Legion was to be at the disposal of the Mayor
in executing the ordinances of the city. Another
charter incorporated a great tavern to be known as the
Nauvoo House. " Thus," says Governor Ford, " it was
proposed to re-establish for the Mormons a government
within a government; a legislature with power to pass
ordinances at war with the laws of the State; courts
to execute them with but little dependence upon the
constitutional judiciary, and a military force at their
own command, to be governed by its own laws and
ordinances, and subject to no State authority but that
of the Governor.

" The powers conferred were expressed in language
at once ambiguous and undefined; as if on purpose to
allow of misconstruction. The great law of the sep-
aration of the powers of government was wholly dis-
regarded. The Mayor was at once the executive power,
the judiciary, and part of the legislature. The Com-
mon Council, in passing ordinances, were restrained
only by the Constitution. One would have thought
that these charters stood a poor chance of passing the
Legislature of a republican people jealous of their liber-
ties. Nevertheless they did pass unanimously through
both houses. Messrs. Little and Douglas managed with
great dexterity with their respective parties. Each
party was afraid to object to them, for fear of losing
the Mormon vote, and each believed that it had secured
their favor. A city government, under the charter, was
organized in 1841, and Joe Smith was elected Mayor.

"In this capacity he presided in the Common Council,
and assisted in making the laws for the government of

72               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the city; and as Mayor, also, he was to see these laws
put into force. He was ex-officio judge of the Mayor's
Court, and chief justice of the Municipal Court, and in
these capacities he was to interpret the laws which he
had assisted to make. The Nauvoo Legion was also
organized, with a great multitude of high officers. It
was divided into divisions, brigades, cohorts, regiments,
battalions and companies. Each division, brigade and
cohort had its General, and over the whole, as Com-
mander-in-Chief, Joe Smith was appointed Lieutenant-
General. These offices, and particularly the last, were
created by an ordinance of the Court-martial composed
of the commissioned officers of the Legion.

" The Common Council passed many ordinances for
the punishment of crime. The punishments were gen-
erally different from, and vastly more severe than the
punishments provided by the laws of the State."

Elder Howard Coray, who was at that time a confi-
dential clerk of Joe Smith's, states that he was present
at the time Smith *and Bennett were constructing this
Charter; that Bennett objected to certain clauses as
being "too strong," to which Smith replied, "We must
have that power in our courts, for this work will gather
of all mankind; the Turk, with his ten wives, will come
to Nauvoo, and we must have laws to protect him with
these wives." Elder Coray, now a devoted Brighamite,
at Salt Lake, advanced this to disprove the statement
of Joe Smith's sons that their father did not establish
polygamy. It merely proves, as will hereafter be
shown, that he was in that practice long before the
date of his pretended revelation.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                       73

It was, indeed, necessary for him to fence out the
Missourians with strong ordinances, for his old enemies
in that State were busy in schemes against him. In
the fall of 1841, the Governor sent a requisition to
Illinois for Smith's arrest, and after some evasion it was
executed. A writ of Habeas Corpus was sued out be-
fore Judge S. A. Douglas, whose circuit embraced Han-
cock. On technical grounds Douglas released Smith,
which the latter considered a great favor from the
Democrats. Again, in 1842, Smith was arrested on a
requisition, and this time forcibly rescued by his follow-
ers. The election of 1842 was approaching; the
Whigs nominated Joseph Duncan for Governor, and the
Democrats Thos. ?. Ford. After an immense amount
of wire pulling, Joe Smith issued a proclamation to his
people—there seems to have been no revelation this
time—pronouncing "Judge Douglas a master-spirit,"
and commanding the people to vote the Democratic
ticket. Ford was elected, and assumed the duties of
Governor, late in 1842. He has embodied the official
acts of his Administration in his " History of Illinois,"
and throughout this part of my narrative the quotations
are from that work, unless otherwise credited.

The Democrats would almost certainly have carried
the State without the Mormons; but in 1843, there
was to be an election for Congressman in their district,
and therein they were absolute. But the great reaction
had set in, and the Mormons were fast becoming odious
to the body of the people. After the political account,
the reader will be interested in the anti-Mormon ac-
count, and I quote from the narrative of R. W.

74               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

McKinney, Esq., before alluded to, a witness of the
facts :

" The preaching of Mormonism was a greater success
than could have been reasonably expected in so en-
lightened an age, and one to a great extent inclined to
skepticism. A new spirit of emigration was excited,
and every convert was urged to hasten to where he
could gaze upon the divine face of the Prophet, and
where the wealth of the Gentile world would flow in
upon them. Two years had not elapsed since the first
fugitives arrived at Nauvoo before the Mormons out-
numbered the old settlers. The latter began to think
they had enough for the present. None of the prom-
ised advantages had accrued from the settlement of the
Mormons among them. They had created but little
trade or commerce, had made no improvement of the
rapids, had established no manufactories, erected no
school-houses, organized no institutions for instruction,
and made no provision for the support of the poor.
They were pressed into Joe's service, and employed
upon the erection of a temple of an order of architecture
such as the world had never seen. They now assumed
a haughty bearing and arrogant speech towards their
old friends and protectors, and the latter were constantly
sneered at as blind and erring Gentiles, whose steps
were tending downward to the deepest pit of hell. The
Saints were to possess the earth and the Gentiles be
crushed beneath their footsteps. This doctrine had a
fearful effect upon the common Mormon; he looked
upon the old settler much as the followers of Moses and
Joshua looked upon the Canaanites. If the earth was

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        75

to be delivered to the Saints with the fullness thereof,
why not take possession at once, or so much of it as to
supply present wants ? The old settlers began to feel
that the inflated declarations of the Prophet meant
something more than idle gasconade. Their cattle,
which had pastured safely on the broad prairies, now
failed to come up; their poultry took wings and flew
away to some undiscovered country, never to return,
and their barns and granaries were depleted with un-
heard of rapidity. If one visited Nauvoo in search of
estrays, if by accident he peeped into the shambles or
slaughter-pens of the Saints, he was rudely rebuffed as
a disturber of the peace of Zion. He was fortunate if
he escaped arrest, and did not often escape annoyance.
The Mormons prided themselves on their genius in de-
vising modes of annoyance by which a suspicious stran-
ger could be driven away without resort to violence;
the Prophet had systemized annoyance, and reduced it
to a science. He had organized clubs of loafers and
boys into what he called ' whittling deacons.'

" They were composed of the lowest grade of vaga-
bonds in Nauvoo, and were stationed around the streets
and corners, armed with pieces of pine board and
sharp dirk-knives, always ready for instant service. If
a stranger were seen on the streets, the first thing was
to find out if he were obnoxious. An experienced spy
was placed upon his track, who followed him until it
was ascertained what the stranger was. If he appeared
hostile to the Saints, if he spoke disparagingly of the
Prophet or his religion, 'the whittling deacons'
put at his heels.

76               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

"They would surround him with pine sticks and
dirk-knives, and whistling gravely, keep up a continual
whittling, the shavings flying into the face and over the
person of the obnoxious one, and the sharp knives being
flourished dangerously close to his ears. If timid and
nervous he retreated soon; but if he faced the music,
the whittling was more energetic, the whistling louder
and shriller, the knives approached closer and flashed
more brightly, till his retreat was a necessity. Strange
that a person who claimed to be commissioned as a
Prophet, could have authorized such low and disgrace-
ful work ; but we have the authority of the Saints that
it was Joe Smith's own invention, and was considered
a brilliant stroke of genius. If the suspected person
was contumacious and stood out against the 'whittling
deacons,' his case was referred to a higher tribunal, the
'Danite Band.' The 'whittling deacons' were com-
posed of Saintly loafers, this of Saintly ruffians. Many
of them were outlaws, criminals who had fled from jus-
tice and who sought and received protection from Joe.
No man was too deeply stained with crime to gain that
protection, if the Prophet could use him. If a fugitive
from justice proved a worthless and inefficient tool, he
was given up with a great flourish of trumpets, and
with glowing comments by the newspaper press as to
what an orderly and law abiding people the Mormons
were.

" Who ever heard of Joe Smith giving up Porter
Rockwell, or that he ever lost any respect on account
of his crimes This lawless banditti went after the
contumacious stranger with bowie-knives and Colt's re-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        77

volvers. Their business was to terrify and insult him,
to salute his ears with strange oaths and blasphemies,
to menace him with threats of instant death and to
flourish their deadly weapons in his face. But were
there no police to appeal to ? These assailants were
themselves the police, powerful only for evil. If the
suspected was still fool-hardy enough to refuse to leave,
his case was reported to a higher tribunal, who gave
secret and mysterious warnings, written in mystic char-
acters and stained with blood, which were dropped in
the way of the suspected, were found in his bed-room,
under his pillow or about his person. Dire was his fate
if he disregarded this last solemn admonition. He
would never again be heard from; the mission of the
'destroying angel' was sudden, sure and complete.

" The Prophet's ambition and love of display had been
sated by a shower of civic honors thrust upon him by
the Corporation Act. " His love of power and desire
for vengeance were gratified by a review of his solid
squares of infantry, his squadrons of cavalry and
parks of artillery. He was the only man of his age
beneath the rank of Grand Duke, that could summon
a well-equipped army from his retainers. But he
had other vices to gratify besides ambition and love of
display.

" How to gratify his licentious desires became* with
him a great study. To overcome the virtue of his fe-
male followers and establish prostitution as a religious
rite, he had a revelation. None of his compeers or suc-
cessors could compete with him in revelations. His son
Joe, who claims to be his legitimate successor, has been

78                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

so reticent as to receive from the Brighamites, and de-
serve, the title of the 'dumb Prophet.' The elder Joe,
had revelations on all sorts of subjects; building houses,
plowing lands and selling merchandise, and now author-
izing him to seduce and degrade his female devotees.
His elders were now instructed that the time had arrived
when seven women should take hold of one man; that
no woman could be saved unless united to a husband in
a spiritual sense; that such union was enjoined by di-
vine authority, and to resist it was to resist the ordinance
of God. Here was the dilemma for the female Saint:
she must succumb to a libidinous priest, or be sent to
perdition; she must accept prostitution or damnation,
and there was no escape. It was at first claimed that
this connection was purely spiritual and Platonic; but
the admissions of incautious Saints, and the testimony
of many women, soon left no doubt in any intelligent
mind that the system was one of complete concubinage.

" The two young Smiths, who lately made a raid into
Utah, denying that their father practiced polygamy,
ought to know, as every intelligent person does know,
that the will of Joe Smith was absolute in Nauvoo, and
all the councils, sanhedrims and priests in the city could
never have established polygamy there, if he had but
shook his little finger in opposition.

" The Mormons were not only introducing a new
religion, but striving to introduce a new civilization;
or rather laboring to abolish all civilization, and to re-
establish a barbarism old as the infancy of the world.
If an old patriarch, who lived immediately after the
earth emerged from the deluge, through ignorance

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        79

married a sister or an aunt, the Mormon assumed the
same right. If another patriarch armed his numerous
servants, and invaded the tented city of a rival, carried
his wives and children into captivity, and drove away
his sheep, cattle and oxen, it was a divine precedent
which the Saint would do well to follow. As in those
remote ages the whole people labored and toiled for
the aggrandizement of their chieftain in erecting castles
for his protection, or guarding the flocks and herds in
which his wealth consisted, so the Mormon chieftain
employed his retainers in the erection of a gorgeous
temple. The anti-Mormons saw that the Mormons
were industrious, and saw too that much of their labor
was misdirected, and that they derived no benefit from
it, more than the enslaved multitudes who toiled on
the Egyptian pyramids in the traditional ages of the
world. They saw that Hancock County, under the
control of the dominant sect, was receding to the re-
motest and most barbarous ages of the world. They
farther understood that the multitudes who lived in
shanties, and worked without pay, were not likely to
starve as long as they were taught that the earth and
all things therein belonged to the Saints of the Lord.
It was thought high time to impose some barrier to
the further increase of the dominant Mormons. No one
then thought of violence or war; there had been no
lawless demonstrations prior to the Mormons' arrival,
and in justice to the old settlers it should be noted
there has been none since their expulsion. Every one
considered that most of the evils resulted from the
power vested in the Prophet by the Mormon Charter,

80                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

and the creation of the Legion. It was, therefore,
thought best to constitute a new political organization,
uniting all anti-Mormons without regard to previous
predilections, having for its object united opposition to
the Mormons, and repeal of all the Mormon Charters
and disbanding of the Nauvoo Legion. A general
mass-meeting was called, and was fully attended.
Whigs and Democrats fraternized and rivalled each
other in their zeal to rid the country of the growing
incubus. But when it came to county nominations,
unfortunately there were more aspirants than offices.
Those who received nominations were content; but
the rejected ones affected to consider themselves badly
abused men. Among them were two who went right
over with their influence to Joe Smith. The first was
a Reverend Thomas Owens, a renegade Baptist preacher,
and the other Jacob C. Davis, a lawyer, too indolent
to labor or study, but the political oracle of the red-
eyed loafers who congregated together in the low
groggeries of the town where he lived. This brace
of worthies wended their way to Nauvoo, and in-
formed the Mormon autocrat of the combination
against him; but tendered him their sympathy and
support, offering to run as the Mormon candidates for
the Legislature. The Prophet chose Jacob Davis as
his candidate for the State Senate, and Bill Smith, his
own brother, and Thomas Owens, his candidates for the
Lower House. The rest of the county ticket was filled
out by the Prophet from his own Mormon tools.

"The issue was for the first time clearly drawn, the
election in due time came off, and the Prophet was

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        81

triumphant. He had elected everything on the county
ticket. By his combinations he had completely de-
feated the anti-Mormon move, and had for county-
officers his trusty friends, devoted to his interests. If
his enemies chose to appeal from the decision of the
polls, he was ready for them. His battalions were
models of discipline, devoted to his service, numbered
by thousands, and armed with an efficiency which dis-
tinguished no other troops in America. The walls of
the Temple were progressing rapidly. The anti-Mor-
mons looked upon the structure with many doubts and
apprehensions. Everything the Mormons did was veiled

82                 LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

in mystery. This structure resembled no church, its
walls of massive limestone were impervious to the shot
of the heaviest cannon. It had two tiers of circular
windows which looked to the wondering Gentiles very
much as if they were portholes for the manning of
cannon. The building was near the center of a square
of four acres, to be surrounded by a massive wall ten
feet in height and six in thickness. This, the Mor-
mons said, was for a promenade; the anti-Mormons
would have told you, it could have been constructed for
no other purpose than a fortification, and one which
would have stood a heavy bombardment without being
breached.

"Another charter provided for the erection of 'a large
hotel,' and it was denominated the ' Lord's boarding
house,' to which a revelation is added that Joe Smith
and his heirs were to have 'a suite of rooms dedicated
to their use forever.'

" It was the boast of Joe that this would be the
great 'Mission House' of the world; that in its parlor
he would entertain princes, kings and emperors from
Europe and Asia, who would leave their distant homes
to receive information and instruction from him in the
new faith. So completely had Joe's head been turned
and so wild and visionary had he become, that it was
not without reason that his wife, only a few years after
his death, published a statement in the Quincy Whig
that she had no belief in his prophetic character, and
considered his pretended revelations the emanations of
a diseased mind. It may be some gratification to know
that the apostolic dignitaries did not always agree

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         83

among themselves, after the establishment of 'spiritual
wifery,' in the distribution of female prizes. They had
no disputes in polemic theology. The oracle Joe settled
everything of that sort by immediate revelation. But
when the face of a handsome female Saint was seen
peering from under the curtains of an immigrant wagon,
it was like throwing the apple of discord among the
lascivious priests of the new religion; and however
submissive the sacred college may have been to the
settlement of a theological tenet, when the same oracle
pronounced a verdict in regard to a female prize against
one of them, his curses were loud and deep. In fact,
this system was soon the means of destroying the Mor-
mon unity right at home; the entering wedge that
divided Nauvoo into factions, and gave the anti-Mor-
mons a clue to success.

"The name of Cyrus Walker had long been con-
spicuous in western Illinois. He was an eminent
lawyer, who had acquired a great reputation in Ken-
tucky, where he came into competition with Ben
Hardin, John Rowan and the Wickliffs. He was past
middle life, and had never been a politician; but in
1843 the Whigs needed a popular candidate, in the
Hancock district, for Congress. There was no hope of
his election unless Joe Smith and his followers could
be manipulated, and thus balance the Democratic ma-
jority. Mr. Walker resided in the adjoining county of
McDonough, and was thought to be just the man, as
in a long criminal practice his mind had become a per-
fect storehouse of expedients, artifices and dodges. He
was nominated, and accepted in the full belief that he

84                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

was a match for the tricky Prophet. His chances were
rather doubtful, as the Whigs had been most active in
the anti-Mormon Convention. Owen and Davis, Demo-
crats, had deserted to the Mormon camp; but no Whig
had been guilty of such defection. But it was confi-
dently anticipated Walker could out-general the
common-place Mr. Hoge, the Democratic candidate.
Meanwhile the peace of the Mormon Zion was dis-
turbed. Men who had toiled without remuneration
began to murmur, and the families of those who went
forth to preach the gospel, without 'purse or scrip,'
often suffered greatly in their absence. Dr. John C.
Bennett, to whose instructions the Legion owed its ad-
mirable drill and discipline, had not risen to that high
rank in the Hierarchy which he fancied his talents en-
titled him to, and had been slighted in the distribution
of female prizes. He had seceded, and was a conspira-
tor against the Prophet, denouncing him with a bitter-
ness born of imaginary slight and wrong. He traveled
through the West, secured large crowds wherever he
lectured, of all who were attracted by the disgusting
details of Mormon depravity. But at the same time
the Prophet was engaged in exposing and denouncing
him; while he proved Joe to be immoral and licentious,
the latter proved the same thing against him, and the
community soon became satisfied that it was a quarrel
between two great rascals, and they were not called upon
to decide which was the greater. Joe had apparently
forgotten all about the indictment still pending against
him in Missouri; but Bennett had not, and by his in-
trigues, a fresh requisition was issued, and Joe was

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        85

arrested in Henderson County, at one of the 'Stakes of
Zion,' some twenty-five miles from Nauvoo. But the
officers soon found themselves surrounded by a detach-
ment of the Nauvoo Legion, and the whole party was
conducted in triumph to that city. The Municipal
Court met to try the legality of the requisition and the
regularity of the proceedings, and Cyrus Walker was
called upon for his opinion. Their judgment was in no
wise controlled by his arguments; but his approval of
such jurisdiction was of great value to Joe Smith. He
was profuse in his thanks to Walker, and promised ear-
nestly to support him. Walker fully believed that this
settled every Mormon vote in his favor, was satisfied
he need do nothing more, and returned home to study
up the political questions of the day, and fit himself for
his future duties in Congress.

"But there was some 'wire-pulling' going on of
which he little dreamed; there was a great deal of
running to and fro of 'managing Democrats' between
Nauvoo and Springfield, and suddenly the Mormons
were called in a mass meeting, the second day before
the election, when Hyrum Smith arose and announced
that he had just received a revelation from heaven that
the Mormons were to vote for the Democrat, Mr. Hoge !
They were still in doubt till the Prophet arrived next
day, when the whole voting population of Nauvoo again
assembled to hear from him. He stated that he was
not prepared to advise them with regard to election
matters; he could only inform them that he had pledged
his own vote to Mr. Walker, and would keep his pledge;
but he had received no communication from the Lord

86                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

on the subject; 'he had not seen the Lord, nor had he
gone to seek the Lord about the matter. He was not
disposed to call upon the Lord at the request or desire
of any Gentile politician; if the Lord really wanted to
see him, there was nothing to prevent His calling upon
him. So far as he was concerned, the people might
vote for Walker, Hoge, or the devil; it was all the
same to him. But,' continued the Prophet, 'I am in-
formed my brother Hyrum has seen the Lord, and has
something to say to you. I have known brother Hyrum
ever since he was a boy, and never knew him to lie.
When the Lord speaks let all the earth keep silent.'
Thereupon brother Hyrum took the stand and boldly
announced that he had seen the Lord, who had instructed
him to support Mr. Hoge, 'and brethren, you are all
commanded to vote for Mr. Hoge, for thus saith the
Lord God Almighty.' This short address of the Pa-
triarch was no doubt the most powerful and convincing
'stump speech' ever delivered. When the count was
rendered next day, Mr. Cyrus Walker had one vote,
whilst Hoge's counted by thousands. It is difficult to
realize that in this enlightened age and most enlightened
nation, any assembly could be found, so deplorably igno-
rant as to be controlled by two such blackguard impos-
tors, yet so it was; they listened to these blasphemous
deceivers as though God spoke from the heavens. Mr.
Walker did not go to Congress. He withdrew forever
from politics, devoted himself to his profession and grew
rich. He heard the result of the Nauvoo election with
deep mortification. He had been a match for the
shrewdest and most cultivated members of his own pro-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         87

fession; he was now tricked and sold by a miserable
impostor, beneath the notice of any respectable man.
Mr. Walker retired to his bed on that night the most
bitter, uncompromising and persevering anti-Mormon
in the State of Illinois."

To this interesting recital it is only necessary to
add a few facts from the official record. Early in May,
1843, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, of Missouri, while
sitting in the evening near an open window, was shot
from without and seriously wounded in the head. By
the testimony of various apostates it appears, that Joe
Smith had frequently foretold the " sudden vengeance
of God on the Nero of Missouri," who had used the
State troops to expel the Mormons; and that about this
time, Orrin Porter Rockwell was for some time absent
from Nauvoo, and when Joe Smith was asked his where-
abouts, he replied with a laugh, "O, just gone to fulfil
prophecy." On these and other statements an indict-
ment was found in Missouri against Smith and Rock-
well, and soon after the officers of that State secured
another requisition from Governor Ford for Joe Smith.
He was arrested and released by his own Municipal
Court, with the advice of Mr. Walker, as already re-
lated. The agents of Missouri went forthwith to make
application to Governor Ford, for a body of militia to
enforce the writ, and Walker was sent by the Mormons
as their attorney to resist the application. Governor
Ford declined either to act at once, or to say how he
would finally act; as he afterwards stated, because he
was not clear as to his duty, and knew the politicians
only wanted his decision to carry back to the Mormons.

LIFE IN UTAH OR, THE MYSTERIES

In this state of uncertainty the Mormon leaders sent
"Jake" Backinstos to manoeuvre at Springfield, and
ascertain if possible what the Governor would finally
do. Governor Ford was absent at St. Louis, and a
prominent Democrat, in his interest at Springfield, gave
the most solemn assurances in the Governor's name,
that the militia would not be sent against the Mormons,
if they voted the Democratic ticket. Neither Governor
Ford nor any other responsible official knew aught of
this promise in his name, till after the Mormons left the
State. With this promise, Backinstos reached Nauvoo
but two days before the election, with what result has
already been seen. Such damning political treachery
was not without due punishment. The Whigs now
saw with amazement, that the most solemn promises
meant nothing from Joe Smith; the Democrats gen-
erally felt that a sect of such political power, for sale
every day and every hour in the day, and uncertain till
the last hour of election, was no safe ally, and both
parties awaked to the startling fact, that Joe Smith
was actual dictator of their politics and chose their
rulers. The anti-Mormon excitement was accelerated
ten-fold, and ceased not till their final and complete ex-
pulsion from the State. And disastrous as was that
expulsion, terrible as were the sufferings of individual
Mormons, it is scarcely too much to say they richly de-
served it, for this one act of perfidy and folly.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                       89

CHAPTER III.

MORMON DIFFICULTIES AND DEATH OF THE PROPHET.

Ford's account—Double treachery in the Quincy district—New and start-
ling developments in Nauvoo—Tyranny of Joe Smith—Revolt of a por-
tion of his followers—The "Expositor"—It is declared "a nuisance"
and "abated"—Flight of apostates—Warrants issued for Smith and
other Mormons—Constables driven out of Nauvoo—Militia called for—
Nauvoo fortified—Mormon war imminent—Governor Ford takes the
field in person—Flight of the Prophet and Patriarch to Iowa—Their re-
turn and arrest—The Governor pledged for their safety—In his absence
the jail is attacked—Death of the Smiths—Character of the Prophet—
Comments.

As from this point nearly everything connected with
the Illinois history of the Mormons is official and politi-
cal, I here take up Governor Ford's account:—

" It appears that the Mormons had been directed by
their leaders to vote the Whig ticket in the Quincy, as
well as the Hancock district. In the Quincy district,
Judge Douglas was the Democratic candidate, and 0.
H. Browning the candidate of the Whigs. The lead-
ing Mormons at Nauvoo having never determined in
favor of the Democrats until a day or two before the
election, there was not sufficient time, or it was neg-
lected, to send orders from Nauvoo into the Quincy
district, to effect a change there. The Mormons in that
district voted for Browning. Douglas and his friends,
being afraid that I might be in his way for the United
States Senate in 1846, seized hold of this circumstance

90                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

to affect my party standing, and thereby gave counte-
nance to the clamor of the Whigs, secretly whispering
it about that I had not only influenced the Mormons to
vote for Hoge, but for Browning also. This decided
many of the Democrats in favor of the expulsion of the
Mormons.

" No further demand for the arrest of Joe Smith
having been made by Missouri, he became emboldened
by success. The Mormons became more arrogant and
overbearing. In the winter of 1843-4, the Common
Council passed some further ordinances to protect their
leaders from arrest, on demand from Missouri. They
enacted that no writ issued from any other place than
Nauvoo, for the arrest of any person in it, should be
executed in the city, without an approval endorsed
thereon by the Mayor; that if any public officer, by
virtue of any foreign writ, should attempt to make any
arrest in the city, without such approval of his process,
he should be subject to imprisonment for life, and that
the Governor of the State should not have the power
of pardoning the offender without the consent of the
Mayor. When these ordinances were published, they
created general astonishment. Many people began to
believe in good earnest that the Mormons were about
to set up a separate government for themselves in defi-
ance of the laws of the State. Owners of property
stolen in other counties made pursuit into Nauvoo, and
were fined by the Mormon courts for daring to seek
their property in the holy city. To one such I granted
a pardon. Several of the Mormons had been convicted
of larceny, and they never failed in any instance to

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                        91

procure petitions signed by 1,500 or 2,000 of their
friends for their pardon. But that which made it more
certain than everything else, that the Mormons con-
templated a separate government, was that about this
time they petitioned Congress to establish a territorial
government for them in Nauvoo; as if Congress had
any power to establish such a government, or any other,
within the bounds of a State.

"To crown the whole folly of the Mormons, in the
spring of 1844, Joe Smith announced himself as a can-
didate for President of the United States. His follow-
ers were confident that he would be elected. Two or
three thousand missionaries were immediately sent out
to preach their religion, and to electioneer in favor of
their prophet for the Presidency. This folly at once
covered that people with ridicule in the minds of all
sensible men, and brought them into conflict with the
zealots and bigots of all political parties; as the arro-
gance and extravagance of their religious pretensions
had already aroused the opposition of all other denomi-
nations in religion. It seems, from the best information
that could be got from the best men who had seceded
from the Mormon church, that Joe Smith about this time
conceived the idea of making himself a temporal prince
as well as spiritual leader of his people. He instituted
a new and select order of the priesthood, the members
of which were to be priests and kings temporally and
spiritually. These were to be his nobility, who were
to be the upholders of his throne. He caused himself
to be crowned and anointed king and priest, far above
the rest; and he prescribed the form of an oath of

92                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

allegiance to himself, which he administered to his
principal followers. To uphold his pretensions to roy-
alty, he deduced his descent by an unbroken chain
from Joseph the son of Jacob, and that of his wife
from some other renowned personage of Old Testament
history. The Mormons openly denounced the government
of the United States as utterly corrupt, and as being
about to pass away, and to be replaced by the govern-
ment of God, to be administered by his servant Joseph.
It is at this day certain, also, that about this time,
the prophet re-instituted an order in the Church called
the 'Danite Band.' These were to be a body of police
and guards about the person of their sovereign, who
were sworn to obey his orders as the orders of God
himself.

" Soon after these institutions were established, Joe
Smith began to play the tyrant over several of his fol-
lowers. The first act of this sort which excited atten-
tion, was an attempt to take the wife of William Law,
one of his most talented and principal disciples, and
make her a spiritual wife. By means of his Common
Council, without the authority of law, he established a
recorder's office in Nauvoo, in which alone the titles of
property could be recorded. In the same manner and
with the same want of legal authority, he established
an office for issuing marriage licenses to Mormons, so
as to give him absolute control of the marrying pro-
pensities of his people. He proclaimed that none in
the city should purchase real estate to sell again, but
himself. He also permitted no one but himself to
have a license in the city for the sale of spirituous

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         93

liquors; and in many other ways he undertook to regu-
late and control the business of the Mormons. This
despotism, administered by a corrupt and unprincipled
man, soon became intolerable. William Law, one of
the most eloquent preachers of the Mormons, who
appeared to me to be a deluded but conscientious and
candid man, Wilson Law, his brother, Major-General
of the Legion, and four or five other Mormon leaders,
resolved upon a rebellion against the authority of the
Prophet. They designed to enlighten their brethren
and fellow-citizens upon the new institutions, the new
turn given to Mormonism, and the practices under the
new system, by procuring a printing-press and estab-
lishing a newspaper in the city, to be the organ of their
complaints and views. But they never issued but one
number; before the second could appear, the press was
demolished by an order of the Common Council, and
the conspirators were ejected from the Mormon
Church.

" The Mormons themselves published the proceedings
of the Council in the trial and destruction of the heret-
ical press; from which it does not appear that any one
was tried, or that the editor or any of the owners of the
property had notice of the trial, or were permitted to
defend in any particular.

" The proceeding was an exparte proceeding, partly
civil and partly ecclesiastical, against the press itself.
No jury was called or sworn, nor were the witnesses re-
quired to give their evidence upon oath. The council-
lors stood up one after another, and some of them sev-
eral times, and related what they pretended to know.

94                  LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

In this mode it was abundantly proved that the owners
of the proscribed press were sinners, whoremasters,
thieves, swindlers, counterfeiters and robbers; the evi-
dence of which is reported in the trial at full length.
It was altogether the most curious and irregular trial
that ever was recorded in any civilized country; and
one finds difficulty in determining whether the proceed-
ings of the Council were more the result of insanity or
depravity. The trial resulted in the conviction of the
press as a public nuisance. The Mayor was ordered to
see it abated as such, and if necessary, to call the Legion
to his assistance. The Mayor issued his warrant to the
City Marshal, who, aided by a portion of the Legion,
proceeded to the obnoxious printing-office, and destroyed
the press and scattered the types and other materials.

" After this, it became too hot for the seceding and
rejected Mormons to remain in the holy city. They
retired to Carthage, the county-seat of Hancock County,
and took out warrants for the Mayor and members of
the Common Council, and others engaged in the outrage,
for a riot. Some of those were arrested, but were im-
mediately taken before the Municipal Court of the city
on habeas corpus, and discharged from custody.

" On the seventeenth day of June following, a com-
mittee of a meeting of the citizens of Carthage, pre-
sented themselves to me with a request that the militia
might be ordered out to assist in executing process in
the city of Nauvoo. I determined to visit in person
that section of country, and examine for myself the
truth and nature of their complaints. No order for the
militia was made; and I arrived at Carthage on the
morning of the 21st day of the same month.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         95

" Upon my arrival, I found an armed force assembled
and hourly increasing, under the summons and direction
of the constables of the county, to serve as a posse com-
itatus to assist in the execution of process. The general
of the brigade had also called for the militia, en masse,
of the counties of McDonough and Schuyler, for a sim-
ilar purpose. Another assemblage to a considerable
number had been made at Warsaw, under military com-
mand of Col. Levi Williams.

" The first thing which I did on my arrival was to
place all the militia then assembled, and which were
expected to assemble, under military command of their
proper officers. I next dispatched a messenger to
Nauvoo, informing the Mayor and Common Council of
the nature of the complaint made against them; and
requested that persons might be sent to me to lay their
side of the question before me. A Committee was
accordingly sent, who made such acknowledgments
that I had no difficulty in concluding what were the
facts.

" It appeared clearly, both from the complaints of the
citizens and the acknowledgments of the Mormon Com-
mittee, that the whole proceedings of the Mayor, the
Common Council, and the Municipal Court, were
irregular and illegal, and not to be endured in a free
country; though, perhaps, some apology might be made
for the Court, as it had been repeatedly assured by
some of the best lawyers in the State, who had been
candidates for office before that people, that it had full
and competent power to issue writs of habeas corpus in
all cases whatever. The Common Council violated the

96                LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

law in assuming the exercise of judicial power; in
proceeding exparte without notice to the owners of the
property; in proceeding against the property in rem;
in not calling a jury; in not swearing all the witnesses;
in not giving the owners of the property, accused of
being a nuisance, in consequence of being libelous, an
opportunity of giving the truth in evidence; and in
fact, by not proceeding by civil suit or indictment, as
in other cases of libel. The Mayor violated the law in
ordering this erroneous and absurd judgment of the
Common Council to be executed. And the Municipal
Court erred in discharging them from arrest.

"As this proceeding touched the liberty of the press,
which is justly dear to any Republican people, it was
well calculated to raise a great flame of excitement.
And it may well be questioned whether years of
misrepresentation by the most profligate newspaper-
could have engendered such a feeling as was produced
by the destruction of this one press. It is apparent
that the Mormon leaders but little understood, and
regarded less the true principles of civil liberty. A
free press, well conducted, is a great blessing to a free
people; a profligate one is likely soon to deprive itself
of all credit and influence by the multitude of false-
hoods put forth by it. In addition to these causes of
excitement, there were a great many reports in
circulation, and generally believed by the people.

"Fortunately for the purposes of those who were
active in creating excitement, there were many known
truths which gave countenance to some of these accusa-
tions. It was sufficiently proved in a proceeding at

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM                         97

Carthage whilst I was there, that Joe Smith had sent
a band of his followers to Missouri, to kidnap two men
who were witnesses against a member of his Church
then in jail, about to be tried on a charge of larceny.
It was also a notorious fact, that he had assaulted and
severely beaten an officer of the county, for an alleged
non-performance of his duty, at a time when that
officer was just recovering from a severe illness. It is
a fact also, that he stood indicted for the crime of
perjury, as was alleged, in swearing to an accusation
for murder, in order to drive a man out of Nauvoo,
who had been engaged in buying and selling lots and
land, and thus interfering with the monopoly of the
Prophet as a speculator. It is a fact also, that his
Municipal Court, of which he was Chief Justice, by
writ of habeas corpus, had frequently discharged indi-
viduals accused of high crimes and offences against the
laws of the State; and on one occasion had discharged
a person accused of swindling the Government of the
United States, who had been arrested by process of the
Federal Courts; thereby giving countenance to the
report, that he obstructed the administration of justice,
and had set up a government at Nauvoo, independent
of the laws and Government of the State. This idea
was further corroborated in the minds of the people, by
the fact that the people of Nauvoo had petitioned
Congress for a Territorial Government to be established
there, and to be independent of the State Government.
It was a fact also, that some larcenies and robberies
had been committed, and that Mormons had been
convicted of the crimes, and that other larcenies had

98                  LIFE IK UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

been committed by persons unknown, but suspected to
be Mormons. Justice, however, requires me here to
say, that upon such investigation as I then could make,
the charge of promiscuous stealing appeared to be
exaggerated.

" Another cause of excitement, was a report industri-
ously circulated, and generally believed, that Hiram
Smith, another leader of the Mormon Church, had
offered a reward for the destruction of the press of the
'Warsaw Signal,' a newspaper published in the county,
and the organ of the opposition to the Mormons. It
was also asserted, that the Mormons scattered through
the settlements of the county, had threatened all
persons who turned out to assist the constables, with
the destruction of their property and the murder of
their families, in the absence of their fathers, brothers
and husbands. A Mormon woman in McDonough
County was imprisoned for threatening to poison the
wells of the people who turned out in the posse ; and a
Mormon in Warsaw publicly avowed that he was
bound by his religion to obey all orders of the prophet,
even to commit murder, if so commanded.

"But the great cause of popular fury was, that the
Mormons at several preceding elections had cast their
vote as a unit; thereby making the fact apparent, that
no one could aspire to the honors or offices of the
country within the sphere of their influence, without
their approbation and votes.

" As my object in visiting Hancock was expressly to
assist in the execution of the laws, and not to violate
them, or to witness or permit their violation, as I was

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                         99

convinced that the Mormon leaders had committed a
crime in the destruction of the press, and had resisted
the execution of process, I determined to exert the
whole force of the State, if necessary, to bring them
to justice. But seeing the great excitement in the
public mind, and the manifest tendency of this excite-
ment to run into mobocracy, I was of opinion, that
before I acted, I ought to obtain a pledge from the
officers and men to support me in strictly legal meas-
ures, and to protect the prisoners in case they surren-
dered. I was determined, if possible, the forms of law
should not be made the catspaw of a mob, to seduce
these people to a quiet surrender, as the convenient
victims of popular fury. I therefore called together
the whole force then assembled at Carthage, and made
an address, explaining to them what I could, and what
I could not, legally do; and also adducing to them
various reasons why they as well as the Mormons
should submit to the laws; and why, if they had re-
solved on revolutionary proceedings, their purpose
should be abandoned. The assembled troops seemed
much pleased with the address; and upon its conclu-
sion, the officers and men unanimously voted, with
acclamation, to sustain me in a strictly legal course,
and that the prisoners should be protected from vio-
lence. Upon the arrival of additional forces from
Warsaw, McDonough, and Schuyler, similar addresses
were made, with the same result.

" It seemed to me that these votes fully authorized
me to promise the accused Mormons the protection of
the law in case they surrendered. They were accord-

100              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ingly duly informed that if they surrendered they
would be protected, and if they did not, the whole
force of the State would be called out, if necessary, to
compel their submission. A force of ten men was de-
spatched with the constable to make the arrests, and
to guard the prisoners to headquarters.

" In the meantime, Joe Smith, as Lieutenant-Gen-
eral of the Nauvoo Legion, had declared martial law in
the city; the Legion was assembled, and ordered under
arms; the members of it residing in the country were
ordered into town. The Mormon settlements obeyed
the summons of their leader, and marched to his assists
ance. Nauvoo was one great military camp, strictly
guarded and watched; and no ingress or egress was
allowed except upon the strictest examination. In
one instance, which came to my knowledge, a citizen
of McDonough, who happened to be in the city, was
denied the privilege of returning, until he made oath
that he did not belong to the party at Carthage, that
he would return home without calling at Carthage,
and that he would give no information of the move-
ments of the Mormons.

"However, upon the arrival of the constable and
guard, the Mayor and Common Council at once signi-
fied their willingness to surrender, and stated their
readiness to proceed to Carthage next morning at eight
o'clock. Martial law had previously been abolished.
The hour of eight o'clock came, and the accused failed
to make their appearance. The constable and his escort
returned. The constable made no effort to arrest any
of them, nor would he or the guard delay their departure

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     101

one minute beyond the time, to see whether an arrest
could be made. Upon their return, they reported that
they had been informed that the accused had fled, and
could not be found.

"In the meantime, I made a requisition upon the
officers of the Nauvoo Legion for the State arms in their
possession. It appears that there was no evidence in
the quartermaster-general's office of the number and de-
scription of the arms with which the Legion had been
furnished. Dr. Bennett, after he had been appointed
quartermaster-general, had joined the Mormons, and
had disposed of the public arms as he pleased, without
keeping or giving any account of them. On this subject
I applied to General Wilson Law for information. He
had lately been the Major-general of the Legion. He
had seceded from the Mormon party; was one of the
owners of the proscribed press; had left the city, as he
said, in fear of his life, and was one of the party asking
for justice against its constituted authorities. He was
interested to exaggerate the number of arms rather than
to place it at too low an estimate. From his informa-
tion I learned that the Legion had received three pieces
of cannon, and about two hundred and fifty stand of
small arms and their accoutrements. Of these, the
three pieces of cannon and two hundred and fifty stand
of small arms were surrendered. These arms were de-
manded because the Legion was illegally used in the de-
struction of the press, and in enforcing martial law in
the city, in open resistance to legal process, and the
posse comitatus.

" I demanded the surrender also, on account of the

102               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

great prejudice and excitement which the possession of
these arms by the Mormons had always kindled in the
minds of the people. A large portion of the people, by
pure misrepresentation, had been made to believe that
the Legion had received from the State as many as thirty
pieces of artillery and five or six thousand stands of small
arms, which, in all probability, would soon be wielded
for the conquest of the country, and for their subjection
to Mormon domination. I was of opinion that the re-
moval of these arms would tend much to allay this ex-
citement and prejudice; and in point of fact, although
wearing a severe aspect, would be an act of real kind-
ness to the Mormons themselves.

" On the 23d or 24th day of June, Joe Smith, the
Mayor of Nauvoo, together with his brother Hyrum
and all the members of the Council, and all others de-
manded, came into Carthage and surrendered them-
selves prisoners to the constable, on the charge of riot.
They all voluntarily entered into a recognizance before
the Justice of the Peace, for their appearance at court
to answer the charge. And all of them were discharged
from custody except Joe and Hyrum Smith, against
whom the magistrate had issued a new writ, on a com-
plaint of treason. They were immediately arrested by
the constable on this charge, and retained in his custody
to answer it.

" Soon after the surrender of the Smiths, at their re-
quest I dispatched Captain Singleton with his company,
from Brown County to Nauvoo, to guard the town; and
I authorized him to take command of the Legion. He
reported to me afterwards, that he called out the Legion

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      103

for inspection; and that, upon two hours' notice, two
thousand of them assembled, all of them armed; and
this after the public arms had been taken away from
them. So it appears that they had a sufficiency of
private arms for any reasonable purpose.

" After the Smiths had been arrested on the new
charge of treason, the Justice of the Peace postponed
the examination, because neither of the parties were
prepared with their witnesses for trial. Meanwhile he
committed them to the jail of the county for greater
security. The jail in which they were confined, is a
considerable stone building; containing a residence for
the jailor, cells for the close and secure confinement of
prisoners, and one larger room not so strong, but more
airy and comfortable than the cells. They were put
into the cells by the jailor; but upon their remonstrance
and request, and by my advice, they were transferred
to the larger room; and there they remained until the
final catastrophe. Neither they nor I seriously appre-
hended an attack on the jail, through the guard sta-
tioned to protect it. Nor did I apprehend the least
danger on their part of an attempt to escape. For I
was very sure that any such an attempt would have
been the signal of their immediate death. Indeed, if
they had escaped, it would have been fortunate for the
purposes of those who were anxious for the expulsion
of the Mormon population. For the great body of
that people would most assuredly have followed their
Prophet and principal leaders, as they did in their flight
from Missouri. I learned afterwards that the leaders
of the anti-Mormons did much to stimulate their fol-

104               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

lowers to the murder of the Smiths in jail, by alleging
that the Governor intended to favor their escape. If
this had been true, and could have been well carried
out, it would have been the best way of getting rid of
the Mormons. The leaders would not have dared to
return, and all their church would have followed. I
had such a plan in my mind, but I had never breathed
it to a living soul, and was thus thwarted in ridding
the State of the Mormons two years before they actu-
ally left, by the insane fury of the anti-Mormons.

" The force assembled at Carthage amounted to about
twelve or thirteen hundred men, and it was calculated
that four or five hundred more were assembled at War-
saw. Nearly all that portion resident in Hancock were
anxious to be marched into Nauvoo. This measure was
supposed to be necessary, to search for counterfeit money
and the apparatus to make it, and also to strike a salu-
tary terror into the Mormon people, by an exhibition of
the force of the State, and thereby prevent future out-
rages, murders, robberies, burnings, and the like, appre-
hended as the effect of Mormon vengeance on those who
had taken a part against them. On my part, at one time,
this arrangement was agreed to. The morning of the
27th day of June was appointed for the march; and Gold-
en's Point near the Mississippi river, and about equidistant
from Nauvoo and Warsaw, was selected as the place of
rendezvous. I had determined to prevail on the Justice
to bring out his prisoners, and take them along. A coun-
cil of officers, however, determined that this would be
highly inexpedient and dangerous, and offered such sub-
stantial reasons for their opinions as induced me to
change my resolution.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      105

" Two or three days' preparation had been made for
this expedition. I observed that some of the people
became more and more excited and inflammatory, the
further the preparations were advanced. Occasional
threats came to my ears of destroying the city and mur-
dering or expelling the inhabitants. I had no objection
to ease the terrors of the people by such a display of
force, and was most anxious also to search for the al-
leged apparatus for making counterfeit money; and, in
fact, to inquire into all the charges against that people,
if I could have been assured of my command against
mutiny and insubordination. But I gradually learned
to my entire satisfaction, that there was a plan to get
the troops into Nauvoo, and there to begin the war, prob-
ably by some of our own party, or some of the seceding
Mormons, taking advantage of the night to fire on our
own force, and then laying it to the Mormons. I was
satisfied there were those amongst us fully capable of
such an act, hoping that in the alarm, bustle and con-
fusion of a militia camp, the truth could not be dis-
covered, and that it might lead to the desired collision.

"All these considerations were duly urged by me
upon the attention of a council of officers, convened on
the morning of June 27th. I also urged upon the
council, that such wanton and unprovoked barbarity
on their part would turn the sympathy of the people
in the surrounding counties in favor of the Mormons,
and therefore it would be impossible to raise a volun-
teer militia force to protect such a people against them.
Many of the officers admitted that there might be
danger of collision. But such was the blind fury pre-

106              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

vailing at the time, though not showing itself by much
visible excitement, that a small majority of the council
adhered to the first resolution of marching into Nauvoo;
most of the officers of the Schuyler and McDonough
militia voting against it, and most of those of the
County of Hancock voting in its favor.

"A very responsible duty now devolved upon me to
determine whether I would, as Commander-in-Chief, be
governed by the advice of this majority, I had no
hesitation in deciding that I would not; but on the
contrary, I ordered the troops to be disbanded, both at
Carthage and Warsaw, with the exception of three com-
panies, two of which were retained as a guard to the
jail, and the other to accompany me to Nauvoo.

" I ordered two companies under the command of Cap-
tain R. F. Smith, of the Carthage Grays, to guard the
jail. In selecting these companies, and particularly
the company of the Carthage Grays for this service, I
have been subjected to some censure. It has been said
that this company had already been guilty of mutiny,
and had been ordered to be arrested whilst in the en-
campment at Carthage; and they and their officers
were the deadly enemies of the prisoners. Indeed it
would have been difficult to find friends of the prisoners
under my command, unless I had called in the Mor-
mons as a guard; and this I was satisfied would have
led to immediate war, and the sure death of the
prisoners.

"Although I knew that this company were the ene-
mies of the Smiths, yet I had confidence in their loyalty
and integrity; because their captain was universally

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      107

spoken of as a respectable citizen and honorable man.
The company itself was an old independent company,
well armed, uniformed and drilled; and the members of
it were the elite of the militia of the county. I relied
upon this company especially, because it was an inde-
pendent company, for a long time instructed and prac-
ticed in military discipline and subordination. I also
had their word of honor, officers and men, that they
would do their duty according to law. Besides all this
the officers and most of the men resided in Carthage;
and in the near vicinity of Nauvoo; and, as I thought,
must know that they would make themselves and their
property convenient and conspicuous marks of Mor-
mon vengeance, in case they were guilty of treachery.

"I had at first intended to select a guard from the
County of McDonough, but the militia of that county
were very much dissatisfied to remain; their crops were
suffering at home; they were in a perfect fever to be
discharged; and I was destitute of provisions to supply
them for more than a few days. They were far from
home, where they could not supply themselves. Whilst
the Carthage company could board at their own homes,
and would be put to little inconvenience in comparison.

" It is true also, that at this time I had not believed
or suspected that an attack would be made upon the
prisoners in jail. It is true that I was aware that a
great deal of hatred existed against them, and that
there were those who would do them an injury if they
could. I had heard of some threats being made, but
none of an attack upon the prisoners while in jail.
These threats seemed to be made by individuals not

108               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

acting in concert. They were no more than the bluster
which might have been expected, and furnished no in-
dication of numbers combining for this or any other
purpose. Having ordered the guard and left Gen.
Deming in command and discharged the residue of the
militia, I immediately departed for Nauvoo, eighteen
miles distant, accompanied by Colonel Buckmaster,
Quartermaster General, and Captain Dunn's company
of dragoons.

"After we had proceeded four miles, Col. Buckmaster
intimated to me a suspicion that an attack would be
made upon the jail. He stated the matter as a mere
suspicion, arising from having seen two persons con-
verse together at Carthage with some air of mystery.
I myself entertained no suspicion of such an attack;
at any rate, none before the next day in the afternoon;
because it was notorious that we had departed from
Carthage with the declared intention of being absent
at least two days. I could not believe that any person
would attack the jail whilst we were in Nauvoo, and
thereby expose my life and the life of my companions
to the sudden vengeance of the Mormons, upon hearing
of the death of their leaders. Nevertheless, acting
upon the principle of providing against mere possibili-
ties, I sent back one of the company with a special
order to Captain Smith to guard the jail strictly, and
at the peril of his life, until my return.

" We proceeded on our journey four miles further.
By this time I had convinced myself that no attack
would be made upon the jail that day or night. I
supposed that a regard for my safety and the safety of

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      109

my companions would prevent an attack until those to
be engaged in it could be assured of our departure from
Nauvoo. I still think that this ought to have ap-
peared to me to be a reasonable supposition. I there-
fore determined at this point to omit making the
search for counterfeit money at Nauvoo, and defer an
examination of all other abominations charged on that
people, in order to return to Carthage that same night,
that I might be on the ground in person, in time to
prevent an attack upon the jail, if any had been medi-
tated. To this end we called a halt; the baggage
wagons were ordered to remain where they were until
towards evening, and then return to Carthage.

" Having made these arrangements, we proceeded on
our march, and arrived at Nauvoo about four o'clock
of the afternoon of the 27th day of June. As soon as
notice could be given, a crowd of the citizens assembled
to hear an address which I proposed to deliver to them.
The number present has been variously estimated at
from one to five thousand.

" In this address I stated to them how, and in what,
their functionaries had violated the laws. Also, the
many scandalous reports in circulation against them,
and that these reports, whether true or false, were
generally believed by the people. I distinctly stated
to them the amount of hatred and prejudice which pre-
vailed everywhere against them, and the causes of it,
at length.

" I also told them plainly and emphatically, that if
any vengeance should be attempted, openly or secretly
against the persons or property of the citizens who had

110              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

taken part against their leaders, that the public hatred
and excitement were such, that thousands would as-
semble for the total destruction of their city and the
extermination of their people; and that no power in
the State would be able to prevent it. During this ad-
dress some impatience and resentment were manifested
by the Mormons, at the recital of the various reports
enumerated concerning them, which they strenuously
and indignantly denied to be true. They claimed to
be a law-abiding people, and insisted that as they
looked to the law alone for their protection, so were
they careful themselves to observe its provisions. Upon
the conclusion of this address, I proposed to take a vote
on the question whether they would strictly observe
the laws, even in opposition to their Prophet and
leaders. The vote was unanimous in favor of this
proposition.

" The anti-Mormons contended that such a vote from
the Mormons signified nothing; and truly the subse-
quent history of that people showed clearly that they
were loudest in their professions of attachment to the
law, when they were guilty of the greatest extrava-
gances ; and in fact, that they were so ignorant and
stupid about matters of law, that they had no means of
judging of the legality of their conduct, only as they
were instructed by their spiritual leaders.

" A short time before sundown we departed on our
return to Carthage. When we had proceeded two
miles, we met two individuals, one of them a Mormon,
who informed us that the Smiths had been assassinated in
jail, about five or six o'clock of that day. The intelli-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     111

gence seemed to strike everyone with a kind of dumbness.
As to myself it was perfectly astounding; and I an-
ticipated the very worst consequences from it. The
Mormons had been represented to me as a lawless,
infatuated and fanatical people, not governed by the
ordinary motives which influence the rest of mankind.
If so, most likely an exterminating war would ensue,
and the whole land would be covered with desolation.
Acting upon this supposition, it was my duty to pro-
vide as well as I could for the event. I therefore took
the two messengers in custody back to Carthage, in
order to gain time and make such arrangements as
could be made, to prevent any sudden explosion of
Mormon excitement. I also despatched messengers to
Warsaw, to advise the citizens of the event. But the
people there knew all about it, and, like myself, feared
a general attack. The women and children were moved
across the river, and a committee despatched that night
to Quincy for assistance. The next morning by day-
light, the ringing of the bells in the city of Quincy an-
nounced a public meeting. The people assembled in
great numbers. The Warsaw committee stated to the
meeting, that a party of Mormons had attempted to
rescue the Smiths out of jail; that a party of Missourians
and others had killed the prisoners to prevent their
escape ; that the Governor and his party were at Nau-
voo, at the time when intelligence of the fact was
brought there; that they had been attacked by the
Nauvoo Legion, and had retreated to a house where
they were then closely besieged. That the Governor
had sent out word that he could maintain his position

112              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

for two days, and would be certain to be massacred if
assistance did not arrive by the end of that time. It
is unnecessary to say that this entire story was a fabri-
cation. The effect of it, however, was that by ten o'clock
on the 28th of June, between two and three hundred
men from Quincy, under command of Major Flood,
embarked on board a steamboat for Nauvoo, to assist
in raising the siege, as they honestly believed.

"Upon hearing of the assassination of the Smiths, I
was sensible that my command was at an end; that my
destruction was meditated, as well as that of the Mor-
mons ; and that I could not reasonably confide longer in
one party or the other. I am convinced that it was the
expectation that the Mormons would assassinate me, on
the supposition that I had planned the murder of the
Smiths. Hence the conspirators committed their act
while I was at Nauvoo.

"It was many days after the assassination of the
Smiths before the circumstances of the murder became
fully known. It then appeared that, agreeably to pre-
vious orders, the posse at Warsaw had marched on the
morning of the 27th of June in the direction of Gold-
en's Point, with a view to join the force from Carthage,
the whole body then to be marched into Nauvoo.
When they had gone eight miles, they were met by the
order to disband; and learning, at the same time, that
the Governor was absent at Nauvoo, about two hun-
dred of these men, many of them disguised by blacking
their faces with powder and mud, hastened immediately
to Carthage. There they encamped at some distance
from the village, and soon learned that one of the com-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                   113

panies left as a guard had disbanded and returned to
their homes; the other company, the Carthage Grays,
was stationed by the Captain in the public square, a
hundred and fifty yards from the jail, whilst eight men
were detailed by him, under the command of Sergeant
Franklin A. Worrell, to guard the prisoners. A com-
munication was soon established between the conspirat-
ors and the company; and it was arranged that the
guard should have their guns charged with blank car-
tridges, and fire at the assailants when they attempted
to enter the jail. General Deming, who was left in
command, being deserted by some of his troops, and
perceiving the arrangement with the others, and haying
no force upon which he could rely, for fear of his life,
retired from the village. The conspirators came up,
jumped the slight fence around the jail, were fired
upon by the guard, which, according to arrangement,
was overpowered immediately, and the assailants en-
tered the prison, to the door of the room, where the
two prisoners were confined, with two of their friends,
who voluntarily bore them company. An attempt was
made to break open the door; but Joe Smith being
armed with a six barrelled pistol, furnished by his
friends, fired several times as the door was bursted
open, and wounded three of the assailants. At the
same time several shots were fired into the room, by
some of which John Taylor received four wounds and
Hiram Smith was instantly killed. Joe Smith now
attempted to escape by jumping out of the second-story
window; but the fall so stunned him that he was un-
able to arise, and, being placed in a sitting posture by

114              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the conspirators below, they despatched him with four
balls shot through his body.

" Thus fell Joe Smith, the most successful impostor
in modern times; a man who, though ignorant and
coarse, had some great natural parts, which fitted him
for temporary success, but which were so obscured and
counteracted by the inherent corruption and vices of
his nature, that he never could succeed in establishing
a system of policy which looked to permanent success
in the future. His lusts, his love of money and power,
always set him to studying present gratification and
convenience, rather than the remote consequences of
his plans. It seems that no power of intellect can
save a corrupt man from this error. The strong
cravings of the animal nature will never give fair
play to a fine understanding; the judgment is never
allowed to choose that good which is far away, in pre-
ference to enticing evil near at hand. And this may
be considered a wise ordinance of Providence, by which
the counsels of talented but corrupt men are defeated
in the very act which promised success.

" It must not be supposed that the pretended Prophet
practiced the tricks of a common impostor; that he
was a dark and gloomy person, with a long beard, a
grave, and severe aspect, and a reserved and saintly
carriage of his person; on the contrary he was full of
levity, even to boyish romping; dressed like a dandy,
and at times drank like a sailor and swore like a
pirate. He could, as occasion required, be exceedingly
meek in his deportment, and then again rough and
boisterous as a highway robber; being always able to

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                    115

satisfy his followers of the propriety of his conduct.
He always quailed before power, and was arrogant to
weakness. At times he could put on the air of a peni-
tent, as if feeling the deepest humiliation for his sins,
and suffering unutterable anguish, and indulging in
the most gloomy forebodings of eternal woe. At such
times, he would call for the prayers of the brethren in
his behalf, with a wild and fearful energy and earnest-
ness. He was full six feet high, strongly built, and
uncommonly well muscled. No doubt he was as much
indebted for his influence over an ignorant people, to
the superiority of his physical vigor, as to his greater
cunning and intellect.

"His followers were divided into the leaders and
the led; the first division embraced a numerous class
of broken-down, unprincipled men of talents, to be
found in every country, who, bankrupt in character
and fortune, had nothing to lose by deserting the
known religions, and carving out a new one of their
own. They were mostly infidels, who, holding all re-
ligions in derision, believed they had as good a right
as Christ or Mahomet, or any of the founders of former
systems, to create one for themselves; and if they
could impose it upon mankind, to live upon the labor
of their dupes. Those of the second division were the
credulous, wondering part of men, whose easy belief
and admiring natures are always the victims of novelty
in whatever shape it may come; who have a capacity
to believe, any strange and wonderful matter, if it only
be new, whilst the wonders of former ages command
neither faith nor reverence; they are men of feeble

116              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

purposes, readily subjected to the will of the strong,
giving themselves up entirely to the direction of their
leaders; and this accounts for the very great influence
of those leaders in controling them. In other respects
some of the Mormons were abandoned rogues, who had
taken shelter in Nauvoo, as a convenient place for the
headquarters of their villany; and others were good,
honest, industrious people, who were the sincere vic-
tims of artful delusion. Such as these were more the
proper objects of pity than persecution. With them,
their religious belief was a kind of insanity; and cer-
tainly no greater calamity can befall a human being
than to have a mind so constituted as to be made the
sincere dupe of a religious imposture."

It were vain to attempt to describe the mingled
feelings of grief and rage which agitated the people of
Nauvoo, when the death of Joe Smith was announced
there. All his errors and tyrannies seemed to be
obliterated from their minds; he had " sealed the truth
with his blood," and stood henceforth a sainted martyr.
The spiritual wives of the dead Prophet filled the city
with their cries, but his lawful wife Emma was quiet
and resigned. When Joseph and Hyrum retreated
across the river to avoid the constable first sent from
Carthage, she had joined with the Apostle William
Marks in writing them an indignant letter, in which
she charged them as "cowardly shepherds, who had
left the sheep in danger and fled." This statement
rests upon the testimony of Joseph F. Smith, son of
Hyrum, now an Apostle at Salt Lake, who adds:
" When Joseph saw that letter his great heart almost

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     117

bursted, and he said, 'If that is all my wife and friends
care for my life, then I don't care for it,' and returned
and gave himself up."

The whole people turned out, in deep mourning, and
with every demonstration of grief, and the remains of
Joseph and Hyrum were honored with a magnificent
funeral. Joseph was thirty-nine, and Hyrum forty-four
years old. In the short space of fifteen years Joe
Smith and his coadjutors had brought forth a new
Bible, ordained a new morality, established a new
theology, and founded a Church with missions in half
the civilized world. Organized in 1830, the Church,
at the time of their death, numbered probably two
hundred thousand throughout the world. The Mor-
mons themselves claimed half a million. But they
have probably never exceeded the former number since
that time. Under the lead of Brigham Young they
made tolerable progress for a few years, but are certainly
losing in numbers at present. In the very germ of the
new sect was planted a fatal principle of progress in
evil, which, by its appeal to the vagaries and vices of
men, gave a predisposition to rapid rise and the
assurance of early decay. From a living and erring
Prophet of personal prowess and prestige, the progress
was regular and natural to intrigue, grossness and
materialism; materialism and sanctified lust necessi-
tated polygamy, and polygamy has in the perfect order
of nature proved the mother of incest and blood
atonement. From the worship of a human demigod
of passion, under a light and false mantle of religion,
the descent was easy to the worship of only sensual

118              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

forms and practices. There is nothing more surprising
in it than in the progress from the serpent's egg to the
deadly viper. Nor is it strange that the sect increased
rapidly; every century, and almost every generation,
has witnessed the sudden rise of a corrupt and law-
defying sect; and modern society still presents ample
materials. As like produces like, and everything its
kind in nature, so the evil-hearted and credulous will
be led to worse evil by any religion that does not
convert and reform. The various sects, too, have lost
much of that burning and aggressive vigor which
distinguished their rise; and redemptive agencies have
not, in all respects, kept pace with sinful allurement,
and a fair field has been left for delusion. The
minister in many cases still travels on horseback, while
the devil goes by rail. With all the power of evan-
gelical organization and gospel at work, Satan too often
rides upon the whirlwind of popular passion, and
subsidizes by trick and prejudice the very enthusiasm
of man's nature.

The Methodists, who formerly prided themselves on
a hearty simplicity and earnest work among the masses,
have too often attained to the elegant conservatism of
the Old Mother; they are in some places fixed almost in
gilded formalism, and in others reduced to the preju-
diced following after traditions of religion, both lacking
much the kindling of the " fire from the altar." The
Baptists, who were also the hardy pioneers, have so en-
trenched themselves about as to be separated from other
denominations in sympathy, and almost from the world,
leaving themselves open, at least, to the charge of follow-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      119

ing " the water-god of exclusive errorists." The Pres-
byterians, whose universal suffrage should be peculiarly
suited to the genius of our whole people, seem to have
struck but a certain class of quietly reserved tastes; and
they appear to the world as much interested in preserv-
ing the authority of an ancient Confession of Faith as in
vitalizing their republicanism for the conversion of the
people. The Campbellites have developed a controver-
sial spirit which may well be suspected of having gone
beyond a mere zeal for the truth. The Episcopalians,
with an organization essentially monarchical in form,
looking to its dignitaries for authority and power, di-
vided even here as to the policy of carrying this princi-
ple farther, cannot yet be said to be fully naturalized as
an American church. All have attained to a more
formal, or sober and intellectual sort of religion. Nor
should we quarrel with this, of itself. Intellectual men
must have an intellectual faith; a mere emotional ex-
perience is quite impossible to them, nor would it con-
tent them. Notwithstanding this, the Unitarians, a sect
whose faith is more purely one of philosophy and taste,
have shown little vitality in extending their bounds.
There is still the great mass of men who will be content
with nothing short of a simple religion, warmed with a
generous enthusiasm; and this, in the hands or under
the direction of corrupt or crazy men, becomes a wild,
fierce fanaticism. Not that religion should accommodate
the vices of human nature ; but while it reforms them
it should give virtuous direction to that enthusiasm
which will otherwise rend and tear them. It is not at
all too late for another successful delusion. Millions

120               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

pant for novelty, for a personal god, for present light
and prophecy, for something harmonious entirely with
our own day and nation, more real, more tangible, not
a mere matter of two thousand years of church erudi-
tion and history, grand as they are in the triumphs of
an improving civilization.

In the midst of such excitement in the West came
the impostor, and to the lowest manifestation of this
want Mormonism was addressed. But Mormonism
could never be a success in America, because it contro-
verted the inherent American idea; it turned back to
sensualism for its inspiration, and to despotism for its
model. Had it been founded on progressive instead of
retrograde ideas, had it developed individuality and
personal freedom, had it claimed a higher consideration
for the feminine in creation and a more perfect inde-
pendence for woman, had it stepped forward and not
back, then it might have helped reform all America, and
founded a permanent, new order.

The religious public may then be re-assured; Mor-
monism is not the religion or sect which is to play havoc
among existing systems. But the signs of the times
indicate a new or modified phase of religion. We will
have a distinctly American Church. The Roman Em-
pire Christianized made Roman Catholicism, which has
been reformed as its people have in the governments;
Russia made the finished Greek system; Italy is Ultra-
montane Catholic; England has the Establishment;
Scandinavia has the Lutheran Church; each nation has
developed one central, theologic and ecclesiastical idea,
and we are not yet so fully completed and individual-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     121

ized, as to be without the same want and yearning. Per-
haps one of the present sects will modify and advance
to the needed place; or from the spirit of union in many,
may come the ascendant and satisfying one. The Church
of the future must be both intellectual and emotional;
it must look to the future for its hope, and to our own
land for its governing polity, and not to worn out sys-
tems which have proved too weak for earthly means;
as truth is immortal it must look only for new develop-
ments of truth; it must purify the marriage relation,
and recognize the political and social independence of
woman ; it must believe in sanctification, if even it does
not claim to have obtained it, and it must make un-
ceasing war upon every species of oppression, and every
form of intemperance. Such a Church must have more
truth than error both in method and creed, and for it,
a broad field is open.

But Mormonism was a mushroom growth upon a rich
bed of decay, which sprang up merely because some-
thing better was not planted, but had no enduring root.
It might flourish for half a century or more, upon the
scum of vice in America and the ignorance of Europe,
but could enjoy at best but a sort of living death, and
must soon wither and decay.

122              LIFE IN UTAH OR THE MYSTERIES

CHAPTER IV.

TWO YEARS OF STRIFE—EXODUS FROM ILLINOIS.

No Successor to the Prophet—David Hyrum Smith, the " Son of Promise"
—Contest for the Leadership—Diplomacy of Brigham Young—Curious
Trials—All of Brigham's Opponents "cut off"—Troubles Renewed—
Fights, Outrages, Robberies and Murder—Another Election and more
Treachery—Singular "Wolf Hunt"—Capture and Trial of Smith's
Murderers—Of the Mormon Rioters—Failure and Defects of the Law—
Further Outrages on Gentiles—Trouble in Adams County—The " One-
ness "—The People of Adams Drive out the Mormons—Revenge by the
Mormons—Murders of McBratney, Worrell, Wilcox and Daubeneyer—
Retaliation, and Murder of Durfee—The Mormons Ravage Hancock—
Flight of the Gentiles—Militia Called and Hancock put under Martial
Law—The Mormons Begin to Leave Illinois—Fresh Quarrels—More
Mormon Treachery—Bombardment of Nauvoo, and Final Expulsion of
the Mormons.

The hostility of the Gentiles suddenly relaxed, and
a brief period of repose followed. But it was necessary
to provide for the government of the Church. The
theocratic polity had been fully established by Joe
Smith, but no provision made for a successor. The
Prophet had, it is true, laid his hands on the head of
his eldest son Joseph and ordained him a king and
priest in his stead, and but a short time before his
death he stated that, "the man was not born who was
to lead this people, but of Emma Smith—then promising
him an heir—should be born a son who would succeed
in the Presidency after a season of disturbance." This
son, named from his father's direction David Hyrum,

AND CRIMES 0? MORMONISM.                   123

was born at the Mansion House, on the 17th of No-
vember following. This is the "son of promise" whom
thousands of the Mormons still regard as the predes-
tined leader who is finally to bring them back to
Jackson County.

But an immediate leader was needed. Many had
revelations that Joseph would, like the Saviour, rise
from the dead, and some reported that they had seen
him coursing the air on a great white horse. But all
these were finally condemned by the priesthood as
"lying revelations." William Smith, the Prophet's
only surviving brother, claimed the succession on that
account. Sidney Rigdon, who was one of the First
Presidency, from his peculiar relations to the Church,
asserted the strongest claim. James Strang had an
immediate revelation that he was to lead the people
into Wisconsin. Lyman Wight received a divine
order to go to Texas, and Gladden Bishop, John E.
Page, Cutler, Hedrick, Brewster and others laid in
their claims.

On the 15th of August, the Twelve Apostles, headed
by Brigham Young, addressed an " Encyclical letter to
all the Saints in the world," and the 7th of October, the
Saints of Nauvoo and vicinity met in council to deter-
mine who should take control. Brigham had been
absent in Boston, and Rigdon, very busy among the
people, had succeeded in getting a special convention
called ; but Brigham arrived the very day of the meet-
ing, and signally defeated Rigdon. The people voted
that the government should for the present be in the
"College of Twelve Apostles," which was in effect

124              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

making Brigham chief ruler. The next day Brigham
made a savage address against Sidney Rigdon, who,
meanwhile, had a revelation that all the wealthy mem-
bers were to follow him to western Pennsylvania, and
establish a new " stake " for the others to gather to !
Brigham then denounced Rigdon and all his revelations
as from the devil, and moved that he be "cut off."
Nearly a hundred voted in the negative, when it was
immediately resolved they were " in a spirit of apos-
tasy," and they were " cut off." It was then proposed
and unanimously carried, that" all who should hereafter
defend Rigdon should be cut off," which ended the so-
called election. Rigdon took a small band to Pennsyl-
vania, and most of the other aspirants also took off
various sects, known in the Brighamite church as " Glad-
denites," " Strangites," " Brewsterites," " Cutlerites,"
" Gatherers," etc. Most of these sects have fallen to
pieces. The Times and Seasons, a weekly periodical,
had been established at Nauvoo soon after its settlement,
and in the fifth volume may be found a full account of
these curious trials.

Brigham Young now took entire control, hastened the
completion of the upper rooms of the Temple, and
hurried the people through their " endowments." These
consist of a mystical ceremony representing the various
stages in man's progress, during which the candidates
are initiated and passed to the various degrees of the
priesthood, and sworn to obey all orders of their supe-
riors. The penalties for violation of these oaths are.
according to the uniform testimony of various apostates,
" having the throat cut," the " bowels slit across," the

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     125

" heart plucked out," or the " blood spilt upon the
ground," according to the several degrees. Brigham
consolidated his power rapidly, but by the opening of
1845, outside hostility again began to be felt, and the
leaders secretly resolved to abandon Nauvoo.

The malcontents from the city, and those who had
suffered, would run away to anti-Mormon neighbor-
hoods, and stir up hatred against the Saints. Gentiles,
who owned property near Nauvoo, found it practically
worthless, for they could sell it to no other Gentiles;
and in the county at large, where the Mormons settled
around an old resident, his society was gone; he could
have no church nor school privileges; he could not
affiliate or be neighborly with the new comers, and
often suspected them of trespass and constant annoyance
His land lost half its value, and the near presence of
foreigners of the fanatic sect caused him to be forever
on his guard. It became a settled conviction in the
minds of the people that they could have no peaceful
enjoyment of their property while the Saints remained
Gentiles combined in groups for society and protection,
and Mormons did the same at command of the Church,
to which they were bound by such absolute oaths; and
this, of course, led to local and sectional hatred, which,
among people who habitually wore arms, soon culmi-
nated in blood. Men became afraid to stir abroad, ex-
cept in squads; riots and regular skirmishes, amounting
almost to pitched battles, took place; blood was shed,
lives were lost, and the exasperation of both parties was
raised to the highest pitch. The Western press teemed
with accounts of the enormities of Nauvoo, no doubt,

126              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

greatly exaggerated, but still with considerable basis of
truth. A horrible murder was committed in Lee
County, Iowa, and the perpetrators were traced directly
to Nauvoo. At least a dozen Mormons swore positively
that the accused were in that city at the time of the
murder; and yet so contradictory was their testimony,
and so plain the rest of the evidence, that the mur-
derers, two brothers named Hodges, were convicted and
hanged at Montrose, Iowa. It was whispered about
that they would be rescued by a Mormon force, and
nearly every man in southern Iowa, then but eighty
miles wide, the rest to the Missouri being Indian, coun-
try, attended the execution. This case excited all
of Iowa as well as Illinois afresh against Nauvoo.
Conspicuous among the journals of that period, in
advocating the expulsion or extermination of the Mor-
mons, were the Sangamo Journal, Burlington Hawk-eye,
Quincy Whig and Warsaw Signal. At the same time,
the executive of the State was accused openly of favoring
the Mormons. Perhaps no fact in Mormon history so
fully illustrates the blind unreason of the laity, or the
corruption and treachery of their leaders, as their treat-
ment of the Governor, Thomas L. Ford. He had been
elected with the aid of their votes, and had always
maintained that the crusade against them was only for
political effect; he had been their friend in 'most diffi-
cult situations, and had even strained the facts to make
a sort of excuse for them; he had done all that was
supposed necessary to save the Smiths, and had risked
his popularity and life to bring their murderers to pun-
ishment. And yet they are never weary of heaping

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     127

abuse upon him, because he did not accede to other
demands on their part; they generally accuse him of
conniving at the murder of the Smiths, and heap exe-
crations upon his memory. It must be remembered,
that Governor Ford wrote his history the year after
the Mormons left, that it is not so much a history of
the State as a defence of his administration, that, pol-
litically, he was more of an enemy to the anti-Mormons
of western Illinois than to the Mormons, and con-
sequently inclined to make as favorable a showing as
possible for the latter. With this comment, or caution
rather, I return to his account:

"About one year after the apostles were installed in
power, they abandoned for the present the project of
converting the world to the new religion. All the
missionaries and members abroad were ordered home;
it was announced that the world had rejected the
gospel by the murder of the Prophet and Patriarch,
and was to be left to perish in its sins. In the
meantime, both before and after this, the elders at
Nauvoo quit preaching about religion. The Mormons
came from every part pouring into the city; the con-
gregations were regularly called together for worship,
but instead of expounding the new gospel, the zealous
and infuriated preachers now indulged only in curses
and strains of abuse of the Gentiles, and it seemed to
be their design to fill their followers with the greatest
amount of hatred to all mankind excepting the ' Saints.'
A sermon was no more than an inflammatory stump
speech, relating to their quarrels with their enemies,
and ornamented with an abundance of profanity.

128               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

From my own personal knowledge of this people, I
can say, with truth, that I have never known much of
any of their leaders who was not addicted to profane
swearing. No other kind of discourses than these were
heard in the city. Curses upon their enemies, upon
the country, upon Government, upon all public officers,
were now the lessons taught by the elders, to inflame
their people with the highest degree of spite and malice
against all who were not of the Mormon Church, or its
obsequious tools. The reader can readily imagine how
a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants could be wrought
up and kept in a continual rage by the inflammatory
harangues of its leaders.

" In the meantime, the anti-Mormons were not idle;
they were more than ever determined to expel the
Mormons; and, being passionately inflamed against
them, they made many applications for executive
assistance. On the other hand, the Mormons invoked
the assistance of Government to take vengeance upon
the murderers of the Smiths. The anti-Mormons
asked the Governor to violate the Constitution, which
he was sworn to support, by erecting himself into a
military despot and exiling the Mormons. The Mor-
mons on their part, in their newspapers, invited the
Governor to assume absolute power, by taking a
summary vengeance upon their enemies, by shooting
fifty or a hundred of them, without judge or jury.
Both parties were thoroughly disgusted with Consti-
tutional provisions, restraining them from summary
vengeance; each was ready to submit to arbitrary
power, to the fiat of a dictator, to make me a king for

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     129

the time being, or at least that I might exercise the
power of a king, to abolish both the forms and spirit
of free government, if the despotism to be erected upon
its ruins could only be wielded for their benefit, and to
take vengeance on their enemies.

"Another election was to come off in August, 1844,
for members of Congress and for the Legislature; and
an election was pending throughout the nation for a
President of the United States. The war of party was
never more fierce and terrible than during the pen-
dency of these elections. As a means of allaying the
excitement, and making the question more managea-
ble, I was most anxious that the Mormons should not
vote at this election, and strongly advised them against
doing so. But Col. E. D. Taylor went to their city a
few days before the election, and the Mormons being
ever disposed to follow the worst advice they could get,
were induced by him and others to vote for all the
democratic candidates. Col. Taylor found them very
hostile to the Governor, and on that account much dis-
posed not to vote at this election. The leading Whig
anti-Mormons believing that I had an influence over
the Mormons, for the purpose of destroying it, had as-
sured them that the Governor had planned and been
favorable to the murder of their Prophet and Patriarch.
The Mormons pretended to suspect that the Governor
had given some countenance to the murder, or at least
had neglected to take the proper precautions to pre-
vent it.

"In the course of the fall of 1844, the anti-Mormon
leaders sent printed invitations to all the militia cap-

130             LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

tains in Hancock, and to the captains of militia in all
the neighboring counties in Illinois, Iowa, and Mis-
souri, to be present with their companies at a great
wolf hunt in Hancock; and it was privately announced
that the wolves to be hunted were the Mormons, and
Jack Mormons.* Preparations were made for assem-
bling several thousand men, with provisions for six
days; and the anti-Mormon newspapers, in aid of the
movement, commenced anew the most awful accounts
of thefts and robberies, and meditated outrages by the
Mormons. The Whig press in every part of the United
States came to their assistance. The Democratic news-
papers and the leading Democrats, who had received the
benefit of the Mormon votes to their party, quailed
under the tempest, leaving no organ for the correction
of public opinion, either at home or abroad, except the
discredited Mormon newspaper at Nauvoo. But very
few of my prominent Democratic friends would dare to
come up to the assistance of their Governor, and but few
of them dared openly to vindicate his motives in en-
deavoring to keep the peace. They were willing and
anxious for Mormon votes at elections, but they were
unwilling to risk their popularity with the people, by
taking a part in their favor, even when law and justice
and the Constitution were all on their side. Such
being the odious character of the Mormons, the hatred
of the common people against them, and such being
the pusillanimity of leading men, in fearing to encoun-
ter it.

" In this state of the case I applied to Brigadier-Gen-

* A slang name applied to Gentiles who favor the Mormons.

AND GRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     131

eral J. J. Hardin of the State militia, and to Colonels
Baker and Merriman, all Whigs, but all of them men of
military ambition, and they together with Colonel Wil-
liam Weatherford, a Democrat, with my own exertions,
succeeded in raising about five hundred volunteers; and
thus did these Whigs, that which my own political
friends with two or three exceptions, were slow to do,
from a sense of duty and gratitude.

" With this little force under the command of General
Hardin, I arrived in Hancock County on the 25th of
October. The malcontents abandoned their design, and
all the leaders of it fled to Missouri. The Carthage
Grays fled almost in a body, carrying their arms along
with them. During our stay in the county the anti-
Mormons thronged into the camp, and conversed freely
with the men, who were fast infected with their preju-
dices, and it was impossible to get any of the officers
to aid in expelling them. Colonels Baker, Merriman
and Weatherford volunteered their services if I would
go with them, to cross with a force into Missouri, to
capture three of the anti-Mormon leaders, for whose
arrest writs had been issued for the murder of the
Smiths. To this I assented, and procured a boat which
was sent down in the night, and secretly landed a mile
above Warsaw. Our little force arrived at that place
about noon; that night we were to cross the Missouri
at Churchville, and seize the accused there encamped
with a number of their friends; but that afternoon
Colonel Baker visited the hostile camp, and on his
return refused to partcipate in the expedition, and so
advised his friends. There was no authority for com-

132              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

pelling men to invade a neighboring State, and for this
cause, much to the vexation of myself and others, the
matter fell through. It seems that Colonel Baker had
already partly arranged the terms for the accused to
surrender. They were to be taken to Quincy for ex-
amination under a military guard; the attorney for
the people was to be advised to admit them to bail,
and they were to be entitled to a continuance of their
trial at the next Court at Carthage; upon this, two
of the accused came over and surrendered themselves
prisoners.

" I employed able lawyers to hunt up the testimony,
procure indictments and prosecute the offenders. A
trial was had before Judge Young in the summer of
1845. The Sheriff and panel of jurors selected by the
Mormon Court were set aside for prejudice, a new panel
was ordered and elisors were appointed for this purpose;
but as more than a thousand men had assembled under
arms at the court, to keep away the Mormons and their
friends, the jury was made up of these military followers
of the court, who all swore that they had never formed
or expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of
the accused. The Mormons had one principal witness,
who was with the troops at Warsaw, had marched with
them until they were disbanded, heard their consulta-
tions, went before them to Carthage and saw them mur-
der the Smiths. But before the trial came on they had
induced him to become a Mormon; and being much more
anxious for the glorification of the Prophet than to
avenge his death, the leading Mormons made him pub-
lish a pamphlet giving an account of the murder, in

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     133

which he professed to have seen a bright and shining
light descend upon the head of Joe Smith, to strike some
of the conspirators with blindness, and that he heard
supernatural voices in the air confirming his mission as
a Prophet! Having published this in a book, he was
compelled to swear to it in court, which of course de-
stroyed the credit of his evidence. This witness was
afterwards expelled from the Mormons, but no doubt
they will cling to his evidence in favor of the divine
mission of the Prophet. Many other witnesses were
examined who knew the facts, but, under the influence
of the demoralization of faction, denied all knowledge
of them. It has been said, that faction may find men
honest, but it scarcely ever leaves them so. This was
verified to the letter, in the history of the Mormon
quarrel. The accused were all acquitted.

" At the next term, the leading Mormons were tried
and acquitted for the destruction of the heretical press.
It appears that, not being interested in objecting to the
Sheriff or jury selected by a court elected by them-
selves, they, in their turn, got a favorable jury deter-
mined upon acquittal; and yet the Mormon jurors all
swore that they had formed no opinion as to the guilt
or innocence of their accused friends. It appeared that
the laws furnished the means of suiting each party with
a jury. The Mormons could have a Mormon jury to
be tried by, selected by themselves; and the anti-Mor
mons, by objecting to the Sheriff and regular panel,
could have one from the anti-Mormons. Henceforth no
leading man on either side could be arrested without the
aid of an army, as the men of one party could not

134              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

safely surrender to the other for fear of being murdered;
when arrested by a military force, the Constitution pro-
hibited a trial in any other county without the consent
of the accused. No one would be convicted of any
crime in Hancock; and this put an end to the adminis-
tration of the criminal law in that distracted county.
Government was at an end there, and the whole com-
munity was delivered up to the dominion of a frightful
anarchy. If the whole State had been in the same
condition, then indeed would have been verified to the
letter what was said by a wit, when he expressed an
opinion that the people were neither capable of gov-
erning themselves, nor of being governed by others."

Late in 1845, the Mormon Charters were revoked by
the Legislature, which act that body evidently considered
a cure for all the evils of Mormonism.

" Nauvoo was now a city of about 15,000 inhabitants
and was fast increasing, as the followers of the Prophet
were pouring into it from all parts of the world; and
there were several other settlements and villages of Mor-
mons in Hancock County. Nauvoo was scattered over
about six square miles, a part of it being built upon the
flat, skirting and fronting on the Mississippi River, but
the greater portion of it upon the bluffs back, east of
the river. The great Temple, which is said to have
cost a million of dollars in money and labor, occupied a
commanding position on the brow of this bluff, and
overlooked the country around for twenty miles in Illi-
nois and Iowa.

" The anti-Mormons complained of a large number of
larcenies and robberies. The Mormon press at Nauvoo

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     135

and the anti-Mormon papers at Warsaw, Quincy, Spring-
field, Alton, and St. Louis, kept up a constant fire at
each other ; the anti-Mormons all the time calling upon
the people to rise and expel, or exterminate the Mormons.
The great fires in Pittsburg and in other cities about
this time, were seized upon by the Mormon press to
countenance the assertion that the Lord had sent them
to manifest his displeasure against the Gentiles; and to
hint that all other places which should countenance
the enemies of the Mormons, might expect to be
visited by ' hot drops ' of the same description. This
was interpreted by the anti-Mormons to be a threat by
Mormon incendiaries, to burn down all cities and places
not friendly to their religion. About this time also, a
suit had been commenced in the circuit court of the
United States against some of the Twelve Apostles, on
a note given in Ohio. The deputy marshal went to
summon the defendants. They were determined not to
be served with process, and a great meeting of their
people being called, outrageously inflammatory speeches
were made by the leaders; the marshal was threatened
and abused for intending to serve a lawful process, and
here it was publicly declared and agreed to by the
Mormons, that no more process should be served in
Nauvoo. Also, about this time, a leading anti-Mormon
by the name of Dr. Marshall made an assault upon
Gen. Deming, the Sheriff of the County, and was killed
by the Sheriff in repelling the assault. The Sheriff was
arrested and held to bail by Judge Young, for man-
slaughter; though, as he had acted strictly in self-
defence, no one seriously believed him to be guilty

136              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

of any crime whatever. But Dr. Marshall had many
friends disposed to revenge his death, and the rage of the
people ran very high, for which reason it was thought
best by the judge to hold the Sheriff to bail for some-
thing, to save him from being sacrificed to the public
fury.

" Not long after the trials of the supposed murderers
of the Smiths, it was discovered on the trial of a right
of property near Lima, in Adams county, by Mormon
testimony, that that people had an institution in their
Church called a " Oneness," which was composed of an
association of five persons, over whom one was appointed
as a kind of guardian. This one was trustee for the rest,
was to own all the property of the association; so that
if it were levied upon by an execution for debt, the
Mormons could prove that the property belonged to one
or the other of the parties, as might be required to defeat
the execution. And not long after this discovery, in the
fall of 1845, the anti-Mormons of Lima and Green
Plains held a meeting to devise means for the expulsion
of the Mormons from their neighborhood. They ap-
pointed some persons of their own number to fire a few
shots at the house where they were assembled ; but to
do it in such a way as to hurt none who attended the
meeting. The meeting was held, the house was fired at,
but so as to hurt no one; and the anti-Mormons sud-
denly breaking up their meeting, rode all over the coun-
try, spreading the dire alarm that the Mormons had
commenced the work of massacre and death.

" This startling intelligence soon assembled a mob,
which proceeded to warn the Mormons to leave the

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     137

neighborhood, and threatened them with fire and sword
if they remained. A very poor class of Mormons
resided there, and it is very likely that the other
inhabitants were annoyed beyond further endurance
by their little larcenies and rogueries. The Mormons
refused to remove; and about one hundred and seventy-
five houses and hovels were burnt, the inmates being
obliged to flee for their lives. They fled to Nauvoo in
a state of utter destitution, carrying their women and
children, aged and sick, along with them as best they
could. The sight of these miserable creatures aroused
the wrath of the Mormons of Nauvoo. As soon as
authentic intelligence of these events reached Spring-
field, I ordered General Hardin to raise a force and
restore the rule of law. But whilst this force was
gathering, the Sheriff of the County had taken the
matter in hand. General Deming had died not long
after the death of Dr. Marshall, and the Mormons had
elected Jacob B. Backinstos to be Sheriff in his place.
Being just now regarded as the political leader of the
Mormons, Backinstos was hated with a sincere and
thorough hatred by the opposite party.

" When the burning of houses commenced, the great
body of the anti-Mormons expressed themselves strongly
against it, giving hopes thereby that a posse of anti-
Mormons could be raised to put a stop to such incen-
diary and riotous conduct. But when they were called
on by the new Sheriff, not a man of them turned out
to his assistance, many of them no doubt being
influenced by their hatred of the Sheriff. Backinstos
then went to Nauvoo, where he raised a posse of

138              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

several hundred armed Mormons, with which he swept
over the country, took possession of Carthage, and
established a permanent guard there. The anti-Mor-
mons everywhere fled from their houses before the
Sheriff, some of them to Iowa and Missouri, and others
to the neighboring counties in Illinois. The Sheriff
was unable or unwilling to bring any portion of the
rioters to battle, or to arrest any of them for their
crimes. The posse came near surprising one small
squad, but they made their escape, all but one, before
they could be attacked. This one, named McBratney,
was shot down by some of the posse in advance, by
whom he was hacked and mutilated as though he had
been murdered by the Indians..

" The Sheriff was also in continual peril of his life
from the anti-Mormons, who daily threatened him with
death the first opportunity. As he was going in a
buggy from Warsaw in the direction of Nauvoo, he
was pursued by three or four men to a place in the
road where some Mormon teams were standing. Back-
instos passed the teams a few rods, and then stopping,
the pursuers came up within one hundred and fifty
yards, when they were fired upon, with an unerring
aim, by some one concealed not far to one side of them.
By this fire* Franklin A. Worrell was killed. He
was the same man who had commanded the guard at
the jail at the time the Smiths were assassinated; and
there made himself conspicuous in betraying his trust,

* It has since transpired that "Port" Rockwell fired the fatal
shot; and the gun he used is still preserved as a triumphant relic, in
Salt Lake City.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     139

by consenting to the assassination. It is believed that
Backinstos expected to be pursued and attacked, and
had previously stationed some men in ambush, to fire
upon his pursuers. He was afterwards indicted for the
supposed murder, and procured a change of venue to
Peoria County, where he was acquitted of the charge.
About this time also, the Mormons murdered a man by
the name of Daubeneyer, without any apparent pro-
vocation; and another anti-Mormon, named Wilcox,
was murdered in Nauvoo, as it was believed, by order
of the twelve apostles. The anti-Mormons also com-
mitted one murder. Some of them, under Backman,
set fire to some straw near a barn belonging to Durfee,
an old Mormon of seventy years; and then lay in
ambush until the old man came out to extinguish the
fire, when they shot him dead from their place of
concealment. The perpetrators of this murder were
arrested and brought before an anti-Mormon justice of
the peace, and were acquitted, though their guilt was
sufficiently apparent.

"During the ascendancy of the Sheriff and the absence
of the anti-Mormons from their homes, the people who
had been burnt out of their homes assembled at Nau-
voo, from whence, with many others, they sallied forth
and ravaged the country, stealing and plundering what-
ever was convenient to carry or drive away. When
informed of these proceedings I hastened to Jackson-
ville, where, in a conference with General Hardin,
Major Warren, Judge Douglas, and the Attorney
General, Mr. McDougall, it was agreed that these
gentlemen should proceed to Hancock in all haste, with

140              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

whatever forces had been raised, few or many, and put
an end to these disorders. It was now apparent that
neither party in Hancock could be trusted with the
power to keep the peace. It was also agreed that all
these gentlemen should unite their influence with mine
to induce the Mormons to leave the State. General
Hardin lost no time in raising three or four hundred
volunteers, and when he got to Carthage he found a
Mormon guard in possession of the Court House. This
force he ordered to disband and disperse in fifteen
minutes. The plundering parties of Mormons were
stopped in their ravages. The fugitive anti-Mormons
were recalled to their homes, and all parties above four
in number on either side were prohibited from assem-
bling and marching over the country.

" Whilst General Hardin was at Carthage, a conven-
tion previously appointed assembled at that place,
composed of delegates from the eight neighboring
counties. The people of the neighboring counties
were alarmed lest the anti-Mormons should entirely
desert Hancock, and by that means leave one of the
largest counties in the State to be possessed entirely
by Mormons. This they feared would bring the sur-
rounding counties into immediate collision with them.
They had, therefore, appointed this convention to con-
sider measures for the expulsion of the Mormons. The
twelve apostles had now become satisfied that the Mor-
mons could not remain, or if they did the leaders would
be compelled to abandon the sway and dominion they
exercised over them. They had now become con-
vinced that the kind of Mahometanism which they

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      141

sought to establish could never be maintained in
the near vicinity of a people whose morals and preju-
dices were all outraged and shocked by it, unless in-
deed they were prepared to establish it by force of
arms. Through the intervention of General Hardin,
acting under instructions from me, an agreement was
made between the hostile parties for the voluntary
removal of the greater part of the Mormons in the
spring of 1846.

"The two parties agreed that, in the meantime, they
would seek to make no arrests for crimes previously
committed; and on my part, I agreed that an armed
force should be stationed in the county to keep the
peace. The presence of such a force, and amnesty
from prosecutions on all sides, were insisted on by the
Mormons that they might devote their time and energies
to prepare for their removal. General Hardin first
diminished his force to one hundred men, leaving Major
William B. Warren in command. And this force being
further reduced during the winter to fifty, and then to
ten men, was kept up until the last of May, 1846.
This force was commanded with great prudence and
efficiency during all this winter and spring by Major
Warren; and with it he was enabled to keep the tur-
bulent spirit of faction in check, the Mormons well
knowing that it would be supported by a much larger
force whenever the Governor saw proper to call for it.
In the meantime, they somewhat repented of their
bargain, and desired Major Warren to be withdrawn.
Backinstos was anxious to be again at the head of his
posse, to goster over the county and to take vengeance

142              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

on his enemies. The anti-Mormons were also dissatis-
fied, because the State force preserved a threatening
aspect toward them as well as the Mormons. He was
always ready to enforce arrests of criminals for new
offences on either side; and this pleased neither party.
Civil war was upon the point of breaking out more than
a dozen times during the winter. Both parties com-
plained of Major Warren; but I, well knowing that he
was manfully doing his duty, in one of the most difficult
and vexatious services, steadily sustained him against
the complaints on both sides. Great credit is due
General Hardin and Major Warren for their services,
which had the happiest results, and prevented a civil
war in the winter time, when much misery would have
followed it.

" During the winter of 1845-'46, the Mormons made
the most prodigious preparations for removal. All the
houses in Nauvoo, and even the Temple, were converted
into workshops; and before spring more than twelve
thousand wagons were in readiness. The people from
all parts of the country flocked to Nauvoo to purchase
houses and farms, which were sold extremely low, lower
than the prices at a sheriff's sale, for money, wagons,
horses, oxen, cattle, and other articles of personal prop-
erty, which might be needed by the Mormons during
their exodus into the wilderness. By the middle of
May it was estimated, that sixteen thousand Mormons
had crossed the Mississippi and taken up their line of
march westward; leaving behind them in Nauvoo a
small remnant of a thousand souls, being those who
were unable to sell their property, or having none to
sell, were unable to get away.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     143

" The twelve Apostles went first with about two
thousand of their followers. Indictments had been
found against nine of them in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the district of Illinois, at its Decem-
ber term, 1845, for counterfeiting the current coin of
the United States. The United States Marshal had
applied to me for a militia force to arrest them; but in
pursuance of the amnesty agreed on, and consequent
considerations, I declined the application unless regu-
larly called on by the President according to law.
The arrest of the leaders would end the preparations
for removal, and it was notorious that none of them
could be convicted; for they always commanded evi-
dence and witnesses enough to render conviction im-
possible. But with a view to hasten their removal
they were made to believe that the President would
order the regular army to Nauvoo as soon as naviga-
tion opened in the spring. This had its intended
effect; the twelve with about two thousand followers
immediately crossed the Mississippi before the breaking
up of the ice. But before this, the deputy marshal
had sought to arrest the accused without success.

" Notwithstanding but few of the Mormons remained
behind, after June, 1846, the anti-Mormons were no
less anxious for their expulsion by force of arms; being
another instance of a party not being satisfied with
success not brought about by themselves, and by
measures of their own. It was feared that the Mor-
mons might vote at the August election of that year;
and that enough of them yet remained to control the
elections in the county, and perhaps in the district for

144              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     145

Congress. They, therefore, took measures to get up a
new quarrel with the remaining Mormons. And for
this purpose they attacked and severely whipped a
party of eight or ten Mormons, which had been sent
out in the country to harvest some wheat in the neigh-
borhood of Pontoosuc, and who had provoked the
wrath of the settlement by hallooing, yelling, and
other arrogant behavior. Writs were sworn out in
Nauvoo against the men of Pontoosuc, who were kept
for several days under strict guard until they gave bail.
Then, in their turn, they swore out writs for the
arrest of the constable and his posse who had made
the first arrest, for false imprisonment. The Mormon
posse were no doubt really afraid to be arrested, be-
lieving that instead of being tried they would be mur-
dered. This made an excuse for an anti-Mormon
posse of several hundred men; but the matter was
finally adjusted without any one being taken. A com-
mittee of anti-Mormons was sent into Nauvoo, who
reported that the Mormons were making every possi-
ble preparation for removal; and the leading Mormons
on their part agreed that their people should not vote
at the next election.

" The August election soon came, and the Mormons
all voted the whole Democratic ticket. I have since
been informed by Babbitt, the Mormon elder and agent
for the sale of Church property, that they were induced
to vote this time from the following considerations:

" The President of the United States had permitted
the Mormons to settle on the Indian lands on the Mis-
souri River, and had taken five hundred of them into

146              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the service as soldiers in the war with Mexico; and, in
consequence of these favors, the Mormons felt under
obligations to vote for Democrats in support of the Ad-
ministration ; and so determined were they that their
support of the President should be efficient, that they
all voted three or four times each for a member of Con-
gress.

" This vote of the Mormons enraged the Whigs anew
against them; the probability that they might attempt
to remain permanently in the country, and the certainty
that many designing persons for selfish purposes were
endeavoring to keep them there, revived all the excite-
ment which had ever existed against that people. In
pursuance of the advice and under the direction of
Archibald Williams, a distinguished lawyer and a Whig
politician of Quincy, writs were again sworn out for
the arrest of persons in Nauvoo, on various charges.
But to create a necessity for a great force to make the
arrests, it was freely admitted by John Carlin, the con-
stable sent in with the writs, that the prisoners would
be murdered if arrested and taken out of the city. And
now having failed to make the arrests, the constable
began to call out the posse comitatus. This was about
the 1st of September, 1846. The posse soon amounted
to several hundred men. The Mormons, in their turn,
swore out several writs for the arrest of leading anti-
Mormons. Here was writ against writ; constable
against constable; law against law, and posse against
posse.

" Whilst the parties were assembling their forces, the
trustees of Nauvoo being new citizens, not Mormons,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     147

applied to the Governor for a militia officer to be sent
over with ten men, they supposing that this small force
would dispense with the services of the civil posse on
either side. There was such a want of confidence on
all sides, that no one would submit to be arrested by an
adversary, for fear of assassination.

" In looking around over the State for a suitable officer,
those upon whom I had relied in all previous emergen-
cies having gone to the Mexican war, the choice fell
upon Major Parker, of Fulton County. He was a
Whig, and was selected partly for that reason, believ-
ing that now, as in previous cases, a Whig would have
more influence in restraining the anti-Mormons than a
Democrat.

" The posse continued to increase until it numbered
about eight hundred men; and whilst it was getting
ready to march into the city, it was represented to me
by another committee, that the new citizens of Nauvoo
were themselves divided into two parties, the one siding
with the Mormons, the other with their enemies. The
Mormons threatened the disaffected with death, if they
did not join in defence of the city. For this reason, I
sent over M. Brayman, Esq., a judicious citizen of
Springfield, with suitable orders restraining all com-
pulsion, in forcing the citizens to join the Mormons
against their will, and generally to inquire into and re-
port all the circumstances of the quarrel. Soon after
Mr. Brayman arrived there, he persuaded the leaders
on each side into an adjustment of the quarrel. It was
agreed that the Mormons should immediately surrender
their arms to some person to be appointed to receive

148               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

them, and to be re-delivered when they left the State,
and that they would remove from the State in two
months. This treaty was agreed to by General Single-
ton, Colonel Chittenden and others on the side of the
Anties, and by Major Parker and some leading Mor-
mons on the other side. But when the treaty was sub-
mitted to the anti-Mormon forces for ratification, it was
rejected by a small majority. General Singleton and
Colonel Chittenden, with a proper self respect, immedi-
ately withdrew from command; they not being the first
great men placed at the head of affairs at the beginning
of violence, who have been hurled from their places be-
fore the popular frenzy had run its course. And with
them also great Archibald Williams, the prime mover
of the enterprise, he not being the first man who has
got up a popular commotion and failed to govern it
afterwards. Indeed, the whole history of revolutions
and popular excitements leading to violence, is full of
instances like these. Mr. Brayman, the same day of
the rejection of the treaty, reported to me that nearly
one-half of the anti-Mormons would abandon the en-
terprise and retire with their late commanders, 'leav-
ing a set of hair-brained fools to be flogged or to disperse
at their leisure.' It turned out, however, that the cal-
culations of Mr. Brayman were not realized ; for when
Singleton and Chittenden retired, Thomas S. Brockman
was put in command of the posse. This Brockman
was a Campbellite preacher, nominally belonging to the
Democratic party. He was a large, awkward, uncouth,
ignorant, semi-barbarian; ambitious of office, and bent
upon acquiring notoriety. After the appointment of

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      149

Brockman, I was not enabled to hear in any authentic
shape of the movements on either side, until the anti-
Mormon forces had arrived near the suburbs of the
city, and were about ready to commence an attack.
The information which was received, was by mere
rumor of travelers, or by the newspapers from St.
Louis. And I will remark that during none of these
difficulties, have I been able to get letters and dispatches
from Nauvoo by the United States mail, coming as it
was obliged to do, through anti-Mormon settlements
and Post Offices."

The Governor's account proceeds to state the efforts
and failure to raise an additional force of militia to quell
the disturbance; that, if any had been raised, it
would have only operated to increase the excite-
ment and the anti-Mormon force; that, it was his
solemn conviction, no sufficient force could have been
raised, to fight in favor of the Mormons; that, no force
could have more than temporarily suppressed the
difficulties, and such was the public prejudice against
the Mormons, that, ten chances to one, any large force
of militia which might have been ordered there would
have joined the rioters, rather than fought in favor of
the Mormons.

" The forces under Brockman numbered about 800
men; they were armed with the State arms, which
had been given up to them by independent militia
companies in the adjacent counties. They also had
five six-pounder iron cannon, belonging to the State,
which they had obtained in the same way. The Mor-
mon party and their allies, being some of the new

150               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

citizens under the command of Major Clifford, num-
bered at first about two hundred and fifty men, but
were diminished by desertions and removals, before any
decisive fighting took place, to about one hundred and
fifty. Some of them were armed with sixteen shooting
rifles, which experience proved ineffective in their
hands, and a few of them with muskets. They had four
or five cannon, rudely and hastily made by themselves
out of the shaft of a steamboat. The Mormons and
their allies took position in the suburbs, about one
mile east of the temple, where they threw up some
breastworks for the protection of their artillery. The
attacking force was strong enough to have been divided
and marched into the city, on each side of this battery,
and entirely out of the range of its shot; and thus the
place might have been taken without the firing of a
gun. But Brockman, although he professed a desire
to save the lives of his men, planted his force directly
in front of the enemy's battery, but distant more than
half a mile; and now both parties commenced a fire
from their cannon, and some few persons on each side
approached near enough to open a fire with their rifles
and muskets, but not near enough to do each other ma-
terial injury.

" In this manner they continued to fire at each other,
at such a distance, and with such want of skill,
that there was but little prospect of injury, until the
anti-Mormons had exhausted their ammunition, when
they retreated in some disorder to their camp. They
were not pursued, and here the Mormons committed
an error, for all experience of irregular forces has

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     151

shown, that however brave they may be, a charge on
them when they have once commenced a retreat, is
sure to be successful. Having waited a few days to
supply themselves with ammunition from Quincy, the
Anties again advanced to the attack, but without com-
ing nearer to the enemy than before, and that which
at the time was called a battle, was kept up three or
four days, during all which time the Mormons admit a
loss of two men and a boy killed, and three or four
wounded. The Anties admit a loss on their side of one
man mortally, and nine or ten others not so danger-
ously wounded. The Mormons claimed that they had
killed thirty or forty of the Anties. The Anties
claimed that they had killed thirty or forty of the
Mormons; and both parties could have proved their
claim by incontestable evidence, if their witnesses had
been credible. But the account which each party
renders of its own loss should be taken as the true one,
unless such account can be successfully controverted.
During all the skirmishing and firing of cannon, it is
estimated that from seven to nine hundred cannon
balls, and an infinite number of bullets, were fired on
each side, from which it appears that the remarkable
fact of so few being killed and wounded, can be ac-
counted for only by supposing great unskilfulness in
the use of arms, and by the very safe distance which
the parties kept from each other.

" At last through the intervention of an anti-Mormon
committee of one hundred from Quincy, the Mormons
and their allies were induced to submit to such terms
as the posse chose to dictate, which were that the Mor-

152             LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

mons should immediately give up their arms to the
Quincy committee, and remove from the State. The
trustees of the Church and five of their clerks were per-
mitted to remain for the sale of Mormon property, and
the posse were to march in unmolested, and to leave a
sufficient force to guarantee the performance of these
stipulations.

" Accordingly the constable's posse marched in with
Brockman at their head, consisting of about eight hun-
dred armed men, and six or seven hundred unarmed,
who had assembled, from all the country around, from
motives of curiosity, to see the once proud city of Nau-
voo humbled, and delivered up to its enemies, and to
the domination of a self-constituted and irresponsible
power. They proceeded into the city slowly and care-
fully, examining the way from fear of the explosion of
a mine, many of which had been made by the Mormons,
by burying kegs of powder in the ground with a man
stationed at a distance to pull a string communicating
with the trigger of a percussion lock affixed to the keg.
This kind of contrivance was called by the Mormons a
'hell's half-acre.' When the posse arrived in the city,
the leaders of it erected themselves into a tribunal to
decide who should be forced away and who re-
main. Parties were dispatched to hunt for Mormon
arms and for Mormons, and to bring them to the judg-
ment, where they received their doom from the mouth
of Brockman, who then sat a grim and unawed tyrant
for the time. As a general rule, the Mormons were
ordered to leave within an hour or two hours; and by
rare grace some of them were allowed until next day,
and in a few cases longer.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     153

" The treaty specified that the Mormons only should
be driven into exile. Nothing was said in it concern-
ing the new citizens, who had, with the Mormons,
defended the city. But the posse no sooner obtained
possession, than they commenced expelling the new
citizens. Some of them were ducked in the river,
being in one or two instances actually baptized in the
name of the leaders of the mob; others were forcibly
driven into the ferry boats, to be taken over the river,
before the bayonets of armed ruffians ; and it is asserted
that the houses of most of them were broken open and
their property stolen during their absence.

"Although the mob leaders, in the exercise of un-
bridled power, were guilty of many enormities to the
persons of individuals, and though much personal
property was stolen, yet they abstained from materially
injuring houses and buildings. The most that was
done in this way was the stealing of the doors and sash
of the windows from a few houses by somebody; each
party equally alleging that it was done by the other.

" The Mormons had been forced away from their
homes unprepared for a journey. They and their
women and children had been thrown houseless upon
the Iowa shore, without provisions or the means of get-
ting them, or to get away to places where provisions
might be obtained. It was now the height of the sickly
season. Many of them were taken from sick beds,
hurried into the boats, and driven away by the armed
ruffians now exercising the power of government. The
best they could do was to erect their tents on the banks
of the river, and there remain to take their chances of

154              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

perishing by hunger, or by prevailing sickness. In this
condition the sick, without shelter, food, nourishment
or medicines, died by scores. The mother watched her
sick babe, without hope, until it died, and when she sunk
under accumulated miseries, it was only to be quickly
followed by her other children, now left without the
least attention; for the men had scattered out over the
country seeking employment and the means of living.
Their distressed condition was no sooner known, than
all parties contributed to their relief; the anti-Mormons
as much as others."

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                    155

CHAPTER V.

FROM THE NAUVOO EXODUS TO THE MORMON WAR IN

UTAH.

The Via Dolorosa of Mormon History—Through Iowa—Great suffering—
"Stakes of Zion"—Settlement in Nebraska—"Mormon Battalion"—
Journey to Utah—Founding of Salt Lake City—Early accounts—Out-
rages upon California emigrants—Travelers murdered—Apostates
" missing "—Dangers of rivalry in love with a Mormon Bishop—Usurpa-
tions of Mormon Courts and officers—Federal Judges driven out—
Murders of Babbitt and Williams—Flight of Judges Stiles and Drum-
mond—The Army set in motion for Utah—New officers appointed—Sus-
picious delay of the army—The "Mormon War" begun.

The last of the Mormons was exiled from the State
which had gladly received them seven years before,
and we turn to their march through Iowa—the Via
Dolorosa of Mormon history. A band of pioneers
through Iowa left Nauvoo the 20th day of January,
1846, and the same day the High Council issued a cir-
cular announcing the general intention to leave. Early
in February several thousand Mormons crossed the
Mississippi, many of them on the ice, and started
directly west, along a line near the northern boundary
of Missouri. They were divided into companies often
wagons each, under control of captains, and this semi-
military order was maintained throughout. As the
spring advanced, many of the able-bodied men scattered
to various places in Missouri and Iowa, seeking em-
ployment of every kind, and the remaining men, with

156              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

a great band of women and children, pursued their way.
In that climate and at that season, their sufferings were
necessarily great. The high waters, wet prairie, damp
winds and muddy roads of spring troubled them worse
than the frosts of winter, and sickness and death in-
creased. "All night," says a woman who made the
journey, " the wagons came trundling into camp with
half-frozen children screaming with cold, or crying for
bread, and the same the next day, and the next, the
whole line of march.

" The open sky and bare ground for women and
children in February is a thing only to be endured
when human nature is put to the rack of necessity,
and many a mother hastily buried her dead child by
the wayside, only regretting she could not lie down
with it herself and be at peace."

On their way they established " Stakes," and when
the weather had sufficiently advanced, enclosed large
fields and planted them with grain for those who were
to follow after. The most noted of these "stakes"
were Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah. They bridged
the Nishnabatona, Nodaway and Grand Rivers, besides
many smaller streams, and later, when the grass was
grown, turned northward.

But the advance of the season seemed to increase the
amount of disease; hundreds who had been frost-bitten
and chilled during the winter died along the way, and
the route was lined with graves. Still the zeal of the,
survivors sustained them, and the cruel ambition of
their leader forced them on; and though many de-
serted and turned away to various Gentile settlements,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     157

a majority remained. As successive parties left Nau-
voo, the trains were spread over a line of a hundred
miles; but during the latter part of the season they
concentrated in the Pottawattomie country, extending
up and down the Missouri from Council Bluffs. Here
they built ferry boats, and a part crossed the river.
Preparations for the winter were made on both sides;
cabins were built, rude tents erected, and " dugouts,"
dwellings half underground, constructed. Many young
men went back to the States, and hired out to
work for provisions, which were forwarded to the
camp. According to other witnesses, a band of horse
and cattle thieves was organized under the control of
Orson Hyde, and a gang of counterfeiters sent into
Missouri. In the July previous they had been visited
by Captain James G. Allen, of the United States
Dragoons, with whom Brigham Young entered into

158             LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

negotiations to furnish a battalion for the Mexican
War. The Mormons were the more ready to enter
this service, as they expected to be discharged in Cali-
fornia, where the Church then intended to settle.
Five hundred men were enrolled in a few days, and
proceeded to Leavenworth., where they were mustered
into the service of the United States. An agent of
Brigham Young accompanied them thus far and re-
ceived twenty thousand dollars of their advanced
bounty, which was understood to be for the support of
their families during their absence. Several of them,
since apostatized, testify that none of it was ever so
appropriated. The battalion was placed under the
command of Colonel Philip Saint George Cooke, and
started forthwith on the noted overland march of
General Kearny.

They marched two thousand and fifty miles to San
Diego, California, passing through the mountains of
southern Colorado and New Mexico, and across the
" desert of death." One company of them re-enlisted
for a short time in California, many apostatized and the
rest made their way to Salt Lake City. The main
body of the Saints meanwhile concentrated at what is
now Florence, six miles north of Omaha, which they
called Winter Quarters. There they built five hundred
log houses, one grist-mill, and several " horse mills;"
there the Church was completely reorganized; the " Quo-
rum of Three " re-established, and it was unanimously
resolved that " the mantle of the Prophet Joseph had
fallen on the Seer and Revelator, Brigham Young; " who
was accordingly chosen to all the offices and titles of
the dead Prophet.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     159

On the eastern side of the Missouri, were still some
two thousand wagons scattered in various camps, each
bearing the name of its leader. Many of these names
remain in the local nomenclature of that country, as Cutr
lers, Perkins, Millers, etc. At this time they were visited
by Colonel (since General) Thos. L. Kane, of Philadel-
phia, who continued with them some time, crossed a
portion of the plains with them, and figured extensively
in an important period of Mormon history. Elder
John Hyde, the noted apostate, says that Kane there
embraced Mormonism, but this seems quite improbable.
During the winter, Orson Pratt, Parley P. Pratt and
John Taylor went on a mission to England, giving gen-
eral notice to the Saints abroad, that the next " gath-
ering place would be in Upper California." At a con-
ference held before they left Nauvoo, to determine their
destination, Lyman Wight had strongly urged Texas,
John Taylor proposed Vancouver's Island, many were
in favor of Oregon and Brigham Young insisted upon
California. They finally fixed indefinitely upon "some
valley in the Rocky Mountains."

In accordance with this conclusion, the " Pioneer
Band," a hundred and forty-three men, driving seventy
wagons, under the command of Brigham Young, left
Winter Quarters, April 14th, 1847, and followed Fre-
mont's Trail westward up the Platte River. West of
the Black Hills, they diverged and followed a " trapper's
trail" for four hundred miles, and from Bear River west-
ward, laid out a new route through Emigration Canon
to Jordan Valley.

The company entered the valley July 24th, now

160               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

celebrated as "Anniversary Day." They found willows
and other scant vegetation about a rod wide along City
Creek, and this stream they dammed, and dug an irri-
gating ditch. They planted a few potatoes, from which
they raised enough that year to serve for seed for a
large plat, though no bigger than chestnuts. They pro-
ceeded also to lay out a city, and in October Brigham
Young and a few others went back to Winter Quarters.
The people had suffered greatly with cholera, fever
and inflammatory diseases, and the "Old Mormon
Graveyard" at Florence contains seven hundred graves
of that winter, of which two hundred are of children.
Vast numbers had "fallen into apostasy," or turned
away and joined themselves to recusant sects; and all
their fair-weather friends had forsaken them. But the
little remnant were at least consolidated in sentiment,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     161

strengthened and confirmed together by mutual suffer
ing, firm and self-reliant; and something over four thou-
sand made the journey to Salt Lake the following season.
But the small party left in the valley had raised but
a scant crop, and though the new comers had trans-
ported all the provisions they could, there was great
scarcity. Every head of a family issued rations to
those dependent upon him, and many children received,
for months, "each one buiscuit a day and all the sego
roots they could dig." Wolves, raw hides, rabbits,
thistle roots, segos, and everything that would support
life was resorted to. In 1849, a plentiful crop was
raised, furnishing enough for food and a small surplus.
February 20th, 1848, emigration from Great Britain
was re-commenced after a suspension of two years. On
the 10th of November of that year the inhabitants of
Nauvoo were awakened at an early hour by a fire in
the Mormon Temple, which was soon beyond their
control and in a short time everything was destroyed
but the bare walls. The city was largely occupied by
a colony of Icarians, French Communists, under the
lead of M. Cabet, and they had begun to refurnish the
building for a social hall and schoolroom. The Hancock
Patriot of that date gives a full account of the mis-
fortune, showing conclusively that the building had
been fired by an incendiary. " But it is," says the
Patriot, " impossible to assign a probable motive. The
destroyer certainly had less worthy feelings than the
man who fired the 'Ephesian Dome.' Admit that it
was a monument of folly and evil, it was at least a
splendid, and harmless one."

162               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

Many have since supposed that it was fired by an
emissary from a rival city. The walls still stood in such
perfect preservation, that nearly two years after the
citizens determined to roof and finish it for an Academy;
but on May 27th 1850, a violent hurricane swept over
Iowa and Illinois and prostrated the structure, leaving
only a portion of the western wall, and now naught but
a shapeless pile of stones marks the spot. Mormon
annals give many interesting incidents of their first three
years in Utah, but this record can deal particularly
only with that portion of their history where they came
in immediate contact with the Gentiles. For two years
they seem to have had it all their own way; if there
were Gentiles resident in Salt Lake City before 1849,
they were " braves before Agamemnon," history makes
no mention of them. Of course there were trappers
and mountaineers who occasionally visited the city, and
a few parties of emigrants passed that way even before
the great rush of '49. Lieutenant Ruxton's "Life in
the Far West" gives an account of a visit to the new
city, which is both amusing and romantic, and M. Violet,
the French chief among the Shoshonees, visited the
Mormon settlements soon after their establishment.
For three years the Mormons devoted all their ener-
gies to developing the country and getting ready to live;
their extreme poverty prevented their being either very
enterprising in reaching out towards their neighbors, or
particularly anxious to encroach on any one. Quite a
number of Gentiles had met with them in various places
on the plains and accompanied them some distance;
but Colonel Thomas L. Kane, who made most of the

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     163

journey with them, and witnessed their early efforts,
has left the only account approaching to exactness of
these early years. The great rush of gold hunters in
1849, was coeval with a season of plenty, and the asso-
ciation seems to have been mutually beneficial to Mor-
mons and pioneers, but none of the latter appear to
have halted in " Zion." They were in too eager haste
to gain the new Eldorado. As early as 1846 a few
emigrants passed this way to the Pacific coast, and the
latter part of that year one Hastings led a party by a
new route south of the Lake, since known as " Hastings
Cut-off."

It is estimated by those living at various military
posts on the overland route, that from five to ten thou-
sand emigrants from the United States had crossed to
the Pacific coast before the discovery of gold. Fort
Bridger had been occupied several years by Colonel
James Bridger, the oldest mountaineer in that region,
who had been engaged in the Indian trade there, and
upon the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia since
1819. Early in 1849 General Wilson, newly appointed
Indian Agent for California, passed through Salt Lake
City, making a short stay, and late the same year Cap-
tain Howard Stansbury, of the United States Topo-
graphical Engineers, reached the city and remained till
the next May. This officer with his assistant, Lieuten-
ant Gunnison, set out from Leavenworth, Kansas, on
the 31st of May, 1849 ; traveling up the Blue River to
its head, he crossed over to the Platte and followed the
main emigrant route as far as Fort Bridger.

Thence he endeavored to find a more direct route to

164             LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

the head of the lake than the one usually followed by
Fort Hall, in Idaho, which required a " northing" of
nearly two degrees. In pursuance of this intention he
followed the " Mormon Road" west to Bear River,
thence followed down that stream northward, six
miles to Medicine Butte, from which he sought a
route due west, but was obliged to turn again to the
south and struck upon the head of Pumbars Creek, a
tributary of the Weber.

From this hollow he passed over another ridge to
Ogden Hole, long the rendezvous of the Northwest Fur
Company, on account of its fine range for stock in
winter. From this place he passed out into the main
valley, and from the " bench " northwest of Ogden, on
the 27th of August, caught his first view of Great
Salt Lake. Thinking, as he stated, that his success
depended somewhat upon the good-will of the Mor-
mons, he visited Salt Lake City at once, and seems to
have formed a very favorable opinion. He acknowl-
edges the courtesy and assistance of the Mormons, " as
soon as the true object of the expedition was under-
stood." His party were probably the first Gentiles
who ever spent more than a month or two in Salt
Lake City. Late in 1849, or early in 1850, Messrs.
Livingston and Kinkead, pioneer merchants, opened a
store in Salt Lake City, and from the extent of their
trade, the Saints seemed to have realized handsomely
on their sales to the California emigrants.

Captain Stansbury completed his survery of the
Great Salt Lake, and set out on his return to the
States in August, 1850; and soon after an immense

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     165

emigration appeared on their way to California. The
association of the preceding year seems to have crea-
ted great confidence and nearly all these emigrants
made a lengthy stay in the Mormon settlements. For
three years the Mormons had been almost unheard of
in the States, most of the prejudice against them had
died out and had the policy of the first year been pur-
sued, mutual good-will would have been established
on a firm basis and the settlement in Utah considered
a real blessing.

166               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

But renewed prosperity, plenty and increasing
numbers had produced their usual effects, arrogance,
spiritual pride, and a desire to dominate over " the
unbelievers," and numerous difficulties arose. Late in
the season a large number of emigrants were persuaded
that it was unsafe to continue the westward route at
that season, and concluded to remain all winter among
the Mormons. They represent that all was pleasant
until autumn was too far advanced for them to leave
even by the southern route, after which a series of mer-
ciless exactions began, and never ceased as long as the
Mormon civil authorities could find pretences for bogus
legal actions, or the emigrants had anything of which
they could be stripped. Those who had hired out to
work for Mormons were refused their pay, and denied
redress in the courts; if difficulties arose, fines of from
one to five hundred dollars were imposed for the
slightest misdemeanors ; in all suits between Mormon
and Gentile, the latter invariably paid the costs; they
were openly reviled in court by the Mormon Judges,
and in one peculiarly aggravating instance Justice
Willard Snow boasted to Gentiles in his court that " the
time was near at hand, when he would judge Gentiles
for life and death, and then he would snatch their heads
off like chickens in the door yard."

In one case an emigrant died near the Hot Springs,
and his three companions buried him and proceeded on
their way without notifying the city authorities. Com-
plaint was made that some city ordinance had been
violated; they were pursued, taken back to the city,
and every dollar they had, as well as their wagon and

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     167

all their stock, were taken to pay their fine and costs.
Another Gentile was struck over the head with a board
by Bill Hickman, and returned the blow, for which he
was arrested and fined eighty dollars; the costs made
up the amount to more than two hundred dollars, but
as he had but little over half the sum, they kindly con-
tented themselves with taking all he had, and let, him
depart. Many who had come in with a complete
"outfit," finished their journey on foot. When these
emigrants reached the general rendezvous on the Sacra-
mento, they began to compare notes. And as each new
comer added to the evidence, it was thought best to
compile their statements to send to their eastern friends.
Accordingly the afl&davits of five hundred of them were
selected, reduced to form, and, with their names ap-
pended, published and circulated generally in the East.

This book, of which a copy may be found in the
State library at Sacramento, contains Statements of facts
which seem almost incredible, even with our present
knowledge of Mormon law and its administration; but
they rest on the sworn testimony of reliable men, who
now reside in Tuolumne, Amador, Placer, Nevada, Si-
erra, and other mining counties of California.

This publication roused all the old bitterness of feel-
ing against the Mormons, which was not a little
heightened soon after by the shameless avowal on their
part of polygamy and incest as features of their religion.
Meanwhile, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in
1848, all that section had passed from the dominion of
Mexico to that of the United States, and early in 1849,
the Mormon authorities called a convention " of all the

168              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

citizens of that portion of upper California lying east
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, to take into considera-
tion the propriety of organizing a Territorial or State
Government." This convention met at Salt Lake
City on the 5th of March, 1849, and in a short session
"ordained and established a free and independent
Government, by the name of the State of Deseret,"
fixed the boundaries of the new State, and provided
for the election of a Governor and all State officers.
On the 2d of July following, the Legislature of the
new State met, elected a delegate to Congress, adopted
a memorial also to that body, in which they set forth
their loyalty, patriotism and material progress, popula-
tion and other qualifications and asked for admission.

Congress, however, failed to see it precisely in that
light, and on the 9th of September, 1850, passed an
act to organize the Territory of Utah, of which Presi-
dent Fillmore appointed Brigham Young Governor.
In return for this courtesy, Brigham soon after preached
one of his " live sermons," in which he said; " Why,
when that time comes (the earthly reign of the Saints)
the Gentiles will come begging to us to be our ser-
vants. I know several men, high in office in the Na-
tion, who would make good servants. I expect the
President of the United States to black my boots."
This was, to say the least, unkind of Brigham. At
the same time, Lemuel C. Brandenburg was appointed
Chief Justice; Perry E. Brochus, and Zerubbabel Snow,
(Mormon) Associate Justices; Seth M. Blair, (Mor-
mon) Attorney General, and B. D. Harris, Secretary.
Thus the President had divided the offices pretty

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     169

equally between Saint and Gentile. The officers did
not reach Utah till July, 1851, at which time there
were a few Gentiles resident in Salt Lake City, mostly
carpenters and other artisans whose labor was just
then in special demand, emigrants who had failed at
that point on their way to the Pacific, and perhaps
half a dozen California traders or cattle dealers. The
new Gentile officers soon found themselves involved in
difficulty; Judge Brochus rashly attempted to preach
against polygamy, and having his life threatened soon
after left the Territory, followed in 1852, by Secretary
Harris, leaving the government once more in the hands
of the Mormons. Brigham Young appointed his second
counsellor, Willard Richards, to fill the vacant Secre-
taryship, the sole remaining Judge, Z. Snow, and the
District Attorney being " good Mormons."

A few Spaniards who had come into Utah from the
South were tried before Snow, and convicted " of buy-
ing Indian children for slaves," whether justly or not,
cannot now be determined. The Indians were taken
from the Gentiles, and turned over to the " brethren,"
to make them, according to prophecy, "a fair and
delightsome people." An Indian war soon after broke
out, and occasional difficulties continued through 1852,
'53, and '54. In place of the judges who had resigned,
President Pierce appointed Judges Leonidas Shaver
and Lazarus H. Reed; the former arrived in the fall
of '52, the latter in June, '53. Judge Shaver was a
"hail fellow, well met," and lived on the best of terms
with the Mormons for some time, but at length a
sudden quarrel occurred between him and Brigham

170               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

Young. He occupied a room in a house belonging to
Elder Howard Coray, but rented by a Mr. Dotson.
One night he retired in his usual health, and the next
morning was found dead in his bed. The Church
authorities ordered a thorough investigation, and the
Coroner's jury of Mormons decided that he died of
" some disease of the head." One physician gave it as
his opinion, that the Judge had been greatly addicted
to the use of opium, and died in consequence of being
suddenly deprived of it; and this is the popular belief
among the Mormons. Only one witness on this matter
was ever examined in the States, and she gave it as
her opinion that he had been poisoned, adding that she
had heard Brigham Young say: "Judge Shaver knew
too much, and he dare not allow him to leave the
Territory." Being an apostate Mormon, her evidence
may be true or untrue. The Mormons treated Judge
Reed with marked courtesy, and after a stay of one
year he left with an exalted opinion of them. He
went to his home in New York, intending to return,
but died very suddenly while there.

About this time, a young man named Wallace A.
C. Bowman, a native of New York, arrived at Salt
Lake from New Mexico, with a company of Spanish
traders. He met Brigham Young and his "body
guard" at Utah Lake, and, according to his com-
panion's account, had some difficulty with the latter.
On his arrival in the city, he was arrested by Robert
T. Burton on several charges. He was kept in
confinement several weeks, but no evidence appearing
against him was released. He started east at once,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     171

but was shot and instantly killed in a canon but a few
miles from the city, " by Indians," according to the
Mormon account; by Norton and Ferguson, " Danites,"
according to the same witness above mentioned. As
in that case, it is now impossible to tell which story is
true. John F. Kinney, of Iowa, was appointed Chief
Justice to succeed Reed, and George P. Stiles Associate
Justice; Joseph Holman, of Iowa, Attorney General,
and Almon W. Babbitt Secretary. In the spring of
1855, W. W. Drummond, of Illinois, was also appointed
Associate Justice.

In the fall of 1854, Colonel Steptoe, with about three
hundred men of the United States Army, reached Salt
Lake and spent the winter. At the same time quite a
number of Gentiles, on their way to or returning from
California wintered in the city. It is now known that
Colonel Steptoe had been secretly commissioned Gov-
ernor of Utah by President Pierce, but, being of an un-
cautious disposition, he attempted to practice polygamy
an a free and easy plan not approved by the Saints,
the result of which was that he was ingeniously trapped
by two of Brigham's " decoy women," and to avoid ex-
posure resigned his commission and recommended
Young's continuance in that office. Utah now began
to be regarded as the " Botany Bay of worn-out politi-
cians ;" if a man was fit for nothing else, and yet had
to be rewarded for political services, he was sent to
Utah.

During all the period from 1852 tol856 numerous
"Gladdenites" and other apostate and recusant Mor-
mons were frequently slipping away and crossing to

172               LIFE IN UTAH ; OR, THE MYSTERIES

California and Ore-
gon; and many of
these parties, as well
as trains of Gentile
emigrants, were har-
assed in various
ways which could
hardly be accounted
for by Indian hos-
tility. Almon W.
Babbitt, having quar-
relled with Brigham,
started across the
plains in 1855 and
was murdered "by
Indians who spoke
good English;" and
of this case Brigham
said, "He lived a

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     173

fool and died like a fool. When officers undertake to
interfere with affairs that do not concern them, I will
not be far off. He undertook to quarrel with me and
soon after was hilled by the Indians."

In 1852 Lieutenant Gunnison, M. Creuzfeldt, the
botanist, and eight of their party were massacred
near Sevier Lake, by Indians, as then reported; but
soon after escaped apostates stated that it was done by
"painted Mormons." In 1851 a Mr. Tobin came to
Salt Lake with a party and while there was quite inti-
mate with Brigham's family. It is reported also that
he was engaged to Brigham's daughter Alice Young.
He returned in 1856, but had some difficulty and left.
His party was attacked at night on the Santa Clara,
three hundred and seventy miles south, many of them
wounded and six of their horses killed; but they es-
caped by abandoning their baggage.

Not an arrow was shot at them, their clothing was
pierced by bullets, the wounds were evidently from the
best make of rifles and they all testify that the attack-
ing party spoke English. Other parties of recusant
Mormons were missed in Nevada; several emigrants
from Missouri were last heard of near Salt Lake, and
others had their stock run off where it was reasonably
certain there were no hostile Indians.

A recusant testifies that "one of the Missourians had
boasted of helping to drive the Saints from Jackson
County, and that he was kidnapped and murdered
under the old mint by John Kay and other 'Danites.'"
A young man in Cache Valley had a difficulty with
the bishop in regard to a girl whom the bishop wanted

174              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

for a " plural wife." The young man was seized in a
canon by two men with blackened faces and by them
mutilated in an unspeakable manner. He afterwards
went to San Bernardino, California, and died insane. A
similar difficulty arose in a settlement on the Weber,
and the young man was found dead, having received
two shots in the back. One general difficulty exists in
all these cases. The witnesses were all apostate Mor-
mons. While the writer would not stigmatize a whole
class, among whom he has many pleasant acquaintances,
and which contains some thoroughly honest and reli-
able men, yet it must be confessed that, of those who
have lived Mormons for a term of years the outside
world must always remain in doubt.

There were very few Gentiles in Salt Lake, their in-
terest required that they should know nothing outside
their business, and they generally took care to make no
inquiry. Hence little definite and positive proof of the
affairs of that period was laid before the Government;
but these reports spread through the West and con-
stantly increased the bitterness against the Mormons.
Had the latter shown any willingness to throw light
upon disputed points, their case would have a much
better appearance. But their preaching constantly ex-
cited the people to greater hostility against the Gov-
ernment, and their courts and officers regularly thwart-
ed every attempt of the Federal officials to inquire
into reported crimes or bring offenders to justice. In
the fall of 1856, it became no longer possible for the
Federal Judges to maintain the independence of their
courts. The Mormons claimed that the Territorial

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      175

Marshal should select the jurors for Federal courts
when doing Territorial business, instead of the United
States Marshal.

Pending the decision of this question, James Fergu-
son, Hosea Stout, and other Mormon lawyers and
officials, entered the court-room with an armed mob,
and compelled Judge Stiles to adjourn his court.
Thomas Williams, a Mormon lawyer, who had an
office with Judge Stiles, protested against this action,
for which his life was threatened. He soon after tried
to escape to California, but was murdered on the way.

The records of the District Courts were soon after
stolen from Judge Stiles's office and, as he supposed at
the time, destroyed. Both the Gentile Judges soon after
left the Territory, reaching the States in the spring
of 1857. The Mormons were now in open rebellion.
Congress was not in session, but President Buchanan
and War Secretary Floyd determined to send an armed
force with new officials. Accordingly, a force of nearly
three thousand men was sent forward from Leaven-
worth, under the command of Gen. W. S. Harney,
who was, while on the plains, superseded by Col.
Albert Sidney Johnston. At the same time new men
were appointed to all the civil offices, as follows:
Governor, Alexander Cumming; Chief Justice, D. B.
Eckles; Associate Justices, John Cradlebaugh and
Charles E. Sinclair, and Secretary, John Hartnet.

The march of the column was delayed for various
reasons, and it was late in September before the army,
accompanied by the officials, crossed Green River and
entered the Territory. Meanwhile Captain Van Vliet,

176              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

an active and discreet officer, had been sent forward
to purchase provisions for the army and assure the
people of Salt Lake of the peaceful intentions of the
Government. On his arrival there, he was amazed to
find them preparing for war.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                    177

CHAPTER VI.

THE BLOODY PERIOD.

Sounds of war in Utah—Popular excitement—Fears of the disaffected—
Attempted flight—Murder of the Potter and Parrish familes—Massacre
of the Aiken party—Assassination of Yates—Killing of Forbes—Brig-
ham "Turns loose the Indians "—Mountain Meadow Massacre—
Horrible barbarity of Indians and Mormons—Evidence in the case—
Attempt of Judge Cradlebaugh—Progress of the "Mormon War"—
Delay of the army—Treachery or inefficiency ?—Mormon Legion—Lieu-
tenant-General Wells—Brigham " Commands " the National troops to
withdraw—Army trains destroyed—Lot Smith, the Mormon Guerilla—
The " Army of Utah" in Winter Quarters—Colonel Kane again—Ne-
gotiations with Brigham—Governor Cumming "passed" through the
Mormon lines—"Peace Commissioners "—Mormon exodus—Weakness
of Cumming—End of the War—Murders of Pike, the Jones's, Bernard,
Drown, Arnold, McNeil and others—A change at last.

We enter now upon the black chapter in the annals
of Utah—a period replete with crime and stained with
innocent blood. Occasional rumors of the march of the
army had reached Salt Lake early in the season, and
on the 24th of July, when the entire population were
collected in Cotton wood Park to celebrate " Anniversary
Day," " Port" Rockwell and John Kimball appeared
among them just from the plains, and announced that
the column was certainly destined for Utah. Brigham
turned to those nearest him and with a savage scowl
remarked, " I said when we reached here that if the
devils would only give us ten years I'd be ready for
them. They've taken me at my word, and now they

178               LIFE IN UTAH ; OR, THE MYSTERIES

will see that I am ready." The news spread rapidly
throughout the settlements, producing everywhere fierce
anger or a mixture of hope and dread, according as the
hearer was firm in the Mormon faith or secretly dissat-
isfied. The Tabernacle and Ward Assembly Rooms
resounded with harangues in fierce denunciation of the
Government, and Brigham Young and Heber C. Kim-
ball vied with each other in vile language and inflam-
matory appeals.

Brigham repeatedly stated that "if any proved traitor,
or attempted to shield his own when the day came to
burn and lay waste, he should be sheared down; for
judgment should be laid to the line and righteousness
to the plummet." The effect of such teaching upon a
fanatical people may well be imagined. A perfect
reign of terror ensued. Of those devoted to Brigham,
every one was a spy upon his neighbors, while the dis-
affected trembled at the storm, and made efforts to
escape. Two men by the name of Parrish at Spring-
ville, just south of Utah Lake, had declared their
intention to start for California. The night before
their intended departure their stock was run off, and
going to search for it they were murdered but a few
hundred yards from their dwelling, and after death
their bodies mutilated in a shocking manner. Two of
their neighbors, by the name of Potter, were killed at
the same time. One Yates, a mountaineer, passing
westward was assassinated in Echo Canon, and a party
of six from California, under the command of a Mr.
Aikin, were attacked west of Salt Lake, and four of
them instantly killed. The other two were promised

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     179

they "should be sent out of the Territory by the
southern route," and, in pursuance of that promise,
started south under guard. They were never again
heard of, and by the testimony of an apostate woman.
Alice Lamb, they were killed and their bodies thrown
into a large spring near the road. She adds that one
was only stunned by the first shot, when Porter Rock-
well stepped up, placed a pistol to his ear, and, adding,
" This never misses," literally blew out his brains. The
Mormons aver that this was a party of gamblers, that
they carried with them "powders to drug Mormon wo-
men," and that they deserved death anyhow;" and in
all such cases they have established the principle of
assassination. In this time of excitement, suspicion
was proof. About the same time Brigham Young,
preaching in the Tabernacle, stated that hitherto as
Governor and Indian Agent he "had protected emi-
grants passing through the territory, but now he would
turn the Indians loose upon them." This hint was as
good as a letter of marque to the land pirates of south-
ern Utah, and was not long in being acted upon. Early
in August, and before the excitement had reached its
greatest height, a large train on its way to California
reached Salt Lake City. Doctor Brewer, of the United
States Army, who saw this train last at O'Fallon's
Bluff on the Platte, the 11th of June preceding, de-
scribes it as "probably the finest train that had ever
crossed the plains. There seemed to be forty heads
of families, many women, some unmarried, and many
children. They had three carriages; one very fine,
in which ladies rode and to which he made several

180               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

visits as he journeyed with them. There was some-
thing peculiar in the construction of the carriage, its
ornaments, the blazoned stag's head upon the panels,
etc." This carriage was many years afterwards in the
possession of the Mormons.

In Salt Lake City several disaffected Mormons joined
the train, and all proceeded by the southern route. The
train was last seen entire by Jacob Hamlin, Indian sub-
agent for the Pah-Utes, who lived at the upper end of
the Mountain Meadow. He met them at Corn Creek,
eight miles south of Fillmore, while on his way to Salt
Lake City. Thenceforward no more was heard of the
train; it was "lost," and a whole year had passed be-
fore any news of its fate reached the officials.

Nor was it till many years afterwards, that all the
damning facts in regard to its destruction were brought
to light. But when revealed, it stands forth pre-emi-
nent in shocking barbarity above all that has occurred
in American history, scarcely equalled by aught in the
old world, and certainly not by anything in the history
of our English race. The massacre of Glencoe pales
in comparison.

Without going into detail of the witnesses examined,
or the evidence of each, suffice it to give events as they
occurred, and as they were fully proved in various ex-
aminations since made. Mountain Meadow is three
hundred miles from Salt Lake, on the road to Los An-
gelos, California. The meadows are about five miles in
length and one in width, on the " divide " between the
waters of the Great Basin and the Colorado. A very
large spring rises near the south end, by which the em-

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     181

igrants camped for a few days, having been told by
Hamlin that this was the best place to rest and recruit
their stock before entering upon the Great Desert
Thirty-four miles below the Meadow is a Mormon set-
tlement on the Santa Clara; thirty miles north is Cedar
City, and eighteen miles east of that is the town of
Harmony. From the " divide " down to the Colorado,
are a few Pah-Ute Indians, and north to Fillmore, a
small tribe of Pah-Vents. The day after the emigrants
passed Cedar City, a grand council was called there by
Bishop Higbee and President J. C. Haight of that town,
and Bishop John D. Lee of Harmony. They stated
that they had received a command from Salt Lake City
" to follow and attack those accursed Gentiles and let
the arrows of the Almighty drink their blood."

A force of sixty men was soon raised, and joined
with a much larger force of Indians, encircled the
emigrants' camp before daylight. The white men had
meanwhile painted and disguised themselves as Indians.
A portion crept down a ravine near the camp, and fired
upon the emigrants while at breakfast, killing ten or
twelve.

The latter were completely taken by surprise, but
seized their arms, shoved the wagons together, sunk
the wheels in the earth, and got in condition for
defence. The idea that enough of the Utes of that
district could be got together to attack a train with
fifty armed men, is too absurd to be entertained for a
moment, and the emigrants had rested in the ease of
fancied security.

But their resistance was far greater than the Mor-

182               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

mons had expected; and there for an entire week,
with their women and children lying in the trenches
they had dug, they maintained the siege and kept the
savages, as they supposed, art bay. And all of this
time, as testified by Mrs. Hamlin, wife of the Agent,
the shots were constantly heard at Hamlin's ranche,
and parties of Mormons, bishops, elders and laymen,
were coming and going to and from the ranche, eating
and drinking there, and "pitching quoits and amusing
themselves in various ways." They had the emigrants
effectually secured, and could afford to divide time and
slaughter the Gentiles at their leisure. But at the end
of a week they grew tired and resolved upon strategy.
The firing ceased, and while the weary and heart-sick
emigrants looked for relief, and hoped that their savage
foes had given up the attack, they saw, at the upper
end of the little hollow in which they were, a wagon
full of men. The latter raised a white flag, and it was
perceived they were white men. A glad shout of joy
rang through the corral at the sight of men of their
own color, their protectors, as they had every reason to
believe. They held up a little girl dressed in white to
answer the signal, and the party entered. The wagon
contained J. C. Haight, John D. Lee and other dignita-
ries. They accused the emigrants of having poisoned
a spring on the road used by the Indians, which was
denied. It afterwards appeared in evidence that the
spring ran so strong that " a barrel of arsenic would
not have poisoned it." The Mormons said they were
on good terms with the Indians, but the latter were
very angry, and would not let the emigrants escape.

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      183

The Mormons would, however, intercede for the latter,
if desired. This offer was gladly accepted, and after a
few hours' absence the Mormons returned and stated
that the Indians gave as an ultimatum, that the
emigrants should give up all their property, particu-
larly their guns, and go back the way they came.
The Mormons promised in this case to guard them
back to the settlements. These hard terms were
acceded to, and the emigrants left their wagons and
started northward on foot.

The women and children were in front, the men be-
hind them, and a Mormon guard of forty men in the
rear. A mile or so from the spring, the road runs
through a thicket of scrub oaks, where are also many
large rocks, and here a force of Indians lay in ambush.
At an agreed signal, a sudden fire was poured into the
body of emigrants, and then Mormons and Indians
together rushed upon them, shooting, cutting their
throats, beating them to death with stones and clubs
and in a very few minutes a hundred and twenty men
women and children, Americans, Christians, Gentiles,
lay dead upon the ground, the miserable, hapless vic-
tims of Mormonism. The Mormons and Indians fell
upon the women, bit and tore the rings from their fin-
gers and ears, and trampled in the faces of the dying.
One young girl was dragged aside by President Haight,
and kneeling implored him for life. He violated her
with shameful barbarity, then beat out her brains with
a club. Another young woman was taken out of the
throng by John D. Lee. He afterwards stated he in-
tended to save her life and take her to his harem; but

184               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

that she struck at him with a large knife, when he im-
mediately shot her through the head. Three men es-
caped. One starved to death upon the desert, another
was murdered by the Indians ninety miles south, and
the third was killed upon the Colorado, by whom is not
known. Seventeen children were saved alive, who
were supposed to be too young to remember anything
about the circumstance. But two of them did, and af-
terwards gave important evidence.

The children were first taken to Mrs. Hamlin's, and
afterwards distributed among Mormon families in the
neighborhood; one was shot through the arm and lost
the use of it. They were all recovered two years after
and returned to their friends in the States. The prop-
erty was divided, the Indians getting most of the flour
and ammunition; but they claim that the Mormons
kept more than their share. Much of it was sold in
Cedar City at public auction ; it was there facetiously
styled, " Property taken at the siege of Sebastopol;"
and there is legal proof that the clothing stripped from
the corpses, spotted with blood and flesh and shredded
by bullets, was placed in the cellar of the tithing office
and privately sold. As late as 1862, jewelry taken at
Mountain Meadow, was worn in Salt Lake City, and
the source it came from not denied.

Such was the Mountain Meadow Massacre; and to
the eternal disgrace of American justice, not one of the
perpetrators has ever been punished according to law.
But the vengeance of heaven has not spared them.
Some of the young men in the Mormon party have
since removed to California, and others apostatized.
They earnestly insist that they were never informed

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      185

that any killing was intended; that they were told the
only object was to turn back the emigrants and pre-
vent their carrying information to California; that no
more than a dozen white men, besides the bishops and
President, were in the secret, and that these with the
Indians did all the killing. This is the present belief
of most of the Mormons, and they add that Haight
and Lee forged the order from Brigham Young, which
was produced in extenuation of the crime. Two of the
principal perpetrators are now insane. John D. Lee
still resides in Harmony, no longer a bishop, and one
can scarcely restrain a feeling of satisfaction at know-
ing that his life is one of misery. He is shunned and
hated even by his Mormon neighbors, he seldom ven-
tures beyond the square upon which he lives, his mind
is distracted by an unceasing dread of vengeance, and
his intellect disordered.

Though a too lenient government has failed of its duty,
yet, in the sufferings of a fearful mind, he anticipates
the hell his crimes deserve. Some months passed
away before it was even whispered in the northern
district that white men were concerned in this affair;
and to the credit of the Mormon people be it said, a
great horror spread among them at the report. A
lady, then resident at Springville, told me that the
people of that place first learned of the massacre the
next spring, and the complicity of white men was put
beyond doubt, in her mind, by the confession of her
cousin, who was in the party but claimed he did not
assist at the killing. " For weeks," she added: " I
and the other women could not sleep for hearing the
screams and groans of the poor creatures in our ears.

186              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

We thought we saw signs in the sky. We trembled
in dread. We wanted to run away from the land, for
we thought it was cursed—that the vengeance of God
would destroy everybody in the southern district."
The lady escaped to Fort Bridger, and afterwards
married a Gentile. The superstitious fears, of which
she speaks, still rest in many minds ; nor is it difficult
to believe that, in the mysterious decrees of the moral
order, the fearful stain must be washed out in blood.
The guilty have escaped earthly justice; but to the
eye of faith an avenging Nemesis is poised upon the
mountains of southern Utah, and pointing to the plains
below demands " blood for blood."

One question remains: Did Brigham Young know
aught of, or give command for this massacre ? The
strong probability of course, is, that he did not. The
majority of the Mormons, while they admit that church
officials were concerned, yet claim that they acted with-
out Brigham's knowledge, and his own family add, that
when news of the affair was brought him, he burst into
tears and said, " If anything could break up and destroy
this people, that one act would do it." Against these
opinions there are many strong proofs : the evidence of
the Mormons and Indians engaged in the affair; the
failure of Brigham to give any account of it, whatever,
in his next report as Indian Superintendent; the com-
plete silence of his organ, the Church paper, on the
subject; his sermon " turning loose the Indians on emi-
grants ;" the fact that John D. Lee is his son by Mormon
"adoption" and has never been punished ; the testimony
of the young Mormons who escaped from Harmony to
California, and more than all else, the overwhelming

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                    187

certainty that no fact of great importance is ever en-
tered upon without the advice and consent of Brigham
Young. An attempt was made by Judge Cradlebaugh,
in the autumn of 1859, to bring the murderers to justice,
which failed from causes to be hereafter fully explained—
Mormon courts and juries.

I resume the regular history. On the 15th of Sep-
tember, 1857, Brigham issued a proclamation putting
the Territory under martial law; all the militia and
able-bodied men were ordered " to hold themselves in
readiness to march at a moment's notice to repel inva-
sion," and Lieutenant-General Daniel H. Wells was
ordered with two thousand men to " occupy the passes
of the Wasatch mountains, to defend their hearths and
homes against the violence of the army." Echo Canyon
was fortified, and orders issued to harass the Federal
Army in every way, by driving off stock, burning
wagons and blocking up the roads, but to take no lives
till further ordered. Besides several other papers,
Brigham sent to the commander of the United States
forces the following remarkable document:

"Governor's Office, Utah Territory,
Great Salt Lake City, September 29,1857.

" Sir : By reference to the Act of Congress, passed
September 9, 1850, organizing the Territory of Utah,
published in a copy of the Laws of Utah, herewith, p.
146, Chap. 7, you will find the following:

"' Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the ex-
ecutive power in and over said Territory of Utah shall
be vested in a Governor, who shall hold his office for
four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and

188              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the
United States. The Governor shall reside within said
Territory, shall be Commander-in-Chief of the militia
thereof/ etc., etc.

"I am still the Governor and Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for this Territory, no successor having
been appointed and qualified, as provided by law, nor
have I been removed by the President of the United
States.

"By virtue of the authority thus vested in me, I
have issued and forwarded you a copy of my proclama-
tion, forbidding the entrance of armed forces into this
Territory. This you have disregarded. I now further
direct that you retire forthwith from the Territory by
the same route you entered. Should you deem this
impracticable, and prefer to remain until spring in the
vicinity of your present encampment, Black's Fork, or
Green River, you can do so in peace, and unmolested,
on condition that you deposit your arms and ammuni-
tion with Lewis Robinson, Quartermaster-General of
the Territory, and leave in the spring, as soon as the
condition of the roads will permit you to march. And
should you fall short of provisions, they can be fur-
nished you by making the proper applications therefor.

" General D, H. Wells will forward this, and receive
any communications you may have to make.

"Very respectfully,

"Brigham Young,

" Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Utah
Territory.

"To the Officer commanding the Forces now in
vading Utah Territory."

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      189

It is difficult to believe that the Federal forces were
handled with any skill whatever, the official report in-
dicating that troops and supplies were scattered without
order all the way from Green River to the head of Echo
Canyon; and the following extract from the official re-
port will show that the Mormon forces were " obeying
orders:"

" Forts Bridger and Supply were vacated and burned
down. Orders were issued by Daniel H. Wells (Lieut.-
General Nauvoo Legion) to stampede the animals of the
United States troops on their march, to set fire to their
trains, to burn the grass and the whole country before
them and on their flanks, to keep them from sleeping by
night surprises, and to block the roads by felling trees
and destroying the fords of rivers.

" On the 4th of October, 1857, the Mormons, under
Captain Lot Smith, captured and burned on Green
River, three of our supply trains, consisting of seventy-
five wagons loaded with provisions and tents for the
army, and carried away several hundred animals."

Late in the fall the army halted at Fort Bridger, and
wintered at a place which was called Camp Scott. No-
vember 21st, the newly-appointed Governor, Cumming,
issued a proclamation, which might be summed up in a
little advice to the Mormons " to go home and obey the
laws, and they would not be molested."

While matters were in statu quo, in January, 1858,
Colonel Kane, the old friend of the Mormons, proceeded
to California by sea, thence into Utah by the southern
route, and reaching Salt Lake City, opened negotiations
with Brigham Young. Soon after he was escorted

190               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

Porter Rockwell and Daniel Kimball through the
Mormon army, and thence found his way to Fort
Bridger, and had a lengthy interview with the Federal
officials. The result was that Governor Cumming ac-
companied him on his return, and was permitted to pass
through the Mormon forces to Salt Lake City. He was
much flattered with his reception, particularly by an
illumination in his honor, of Echo Canon, which they
passed in the night. They were escorted by Kimball
and Rockwell, and reached the city early in the spring;
the Mormons hastened to assure him that " the rebel-
lion in Utah was a pure invention," and the records
which were supposed to have been destroyed, were pro-
duced entire ! They had only been concealed.

Such flattery and attention were bestowed upon the
Governor that he was completely captivated, and such
earnest representations made that he was soon con-
vinced the Mormons were an 'innocent and much
abused people, and was anxious to spare them all
humiliation possible. But he could not control the
army which had orders from the Secretary of War.
He reported a " respectful reception" to Washington,
and on the 12th of April, Mr. Buchanan appointed
L. W. Powell, of Kentucky, and Ben McCulloch, of
Texas, as " Peace Commissioners," and by them sent a
proclamation of pardon! But Brigham Young had
given orders for a move, and early in April, 20,000
people from the city and north of it started south, they
knew not where, but many supposed it was to Mexico.
Governor Cumming in vain implored them to remain.
Old Mormons have often described to me how he stood

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     191

upon the street as the long trains rolled southward,
with the tears streaming from his eyes, and protested,
" if he followed his feelings he would rather go with
them than remain with the apostates." Late that
month he issued a proclamation offering "protection
to all illegally restrained of their liberty in Utah," but
few availed themselves of it. The latter part of May,
the Peace Commissioners arrived, and had an interview
with the leading Mormons. The latter stipulated that
the army should not be stationed within forty miles of
the city; that they should protect private property;
should march through the city without halting, and
must not encamp till they passed the Jordan. They
promised on their part everything that was asked and
"accepted the President's pardon."

June 26th the Federal army marched through the
deserted city, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, who,
according to Mormon account, "rode with his head
uncovered." Their permanent camp was at a point
west of Utah Lake, and forty miles south of the city,
which was named Camp Floyd. Late in the season
the absent Mormons returned to their homes in great
poverty and destitution, and the "Mormon war" was
ended. The Federal officials entered again upon their
duties; courts were reopened and attempts made to
administer justice; but no grand jury would indict
and no petty jury convict, and criminals went "scot
free." The following cases appear upon the record:

" During the sitting of Judge Sinclair's Court, the
Mormon Grand Jury promptly found a bill of indict-
ment against one Ralph Pike, a Sergeant in Company

192               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

I, of the 10th Infantry, United States Army, for an
assault with intent to kill, committed upon one How-
ard Spencer, the son of a Mormon bishop, at the mili-
tary reserve in Rush Valley. Upon capias issued, Pike
was arrested and brought to Great Salt Lake City.
The day following, August 11, 1858, about 12 o'clock,
M., as Pike was entering the Salt Lake House, on Main
street, Spencer stepped up to him from behind, saying,
'Are you the man that struck me in Rush Valley ?' at
the same time drawing his pistol, and shot him through
the side, inflicting a mortal wound. Spencer ran across
the street, mounted his horse and rode off accompanied
by several noted ' Danites.' Pike lingered in dreadful
agony two days before he died. The ' Deseret News,'
in its next issue, lauded young Spencer for his courage
and bravery.

" A man by the name of Drown brought suit upon a
promissory note for $480, against the ' Danite' captain,
Bill Hickman. The case being submitted to the court,
Drown obtained a judgment. A few days afterwards
Drown and a companion named Arnold were stopping
at the house of a friend in Salt Lake City, when Hick-
man with some seven or eight of his band rode up to
the house and called for Drown to come out. Drown
suspecting foul play refused to do so and locked the
doors. The Danites thereupon dismounted from their
horses, broke down the doors and shot down both Drown
and Arnold. Drown died of his wounds next morning,
and Arnold a few days afterwards. Hickman and his
band rode off unmolested.

" Thus, daring a single term of the court held in a
Mormon community, the warm life-blood of three human

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      193

victims is shed upon the very threshhold of the court;
and although the Grand Jury is in session no prosecu-
tion is attempted, and not one of the offenders brought
to justice."

Soon after, a deaf and dumb boy named Andrew
Bernard was killed in Weber Canon, as was pretty
clearly proved by " Ephe " Hanks, a noted " Danite;"
and an apostate named Forbes was found dead. The
same year one Henry Jones and his mother living near
Pondtown, south of Utah Lake, were accused of horse-
stealing by their neighbors. They were attacked at
night and the woman instantly killed; the young man
escaped and ran some two miles pursued by the " Dan-
ites." He was finally captured and a pistol placed to
his ear and discharged, blowing his head to pieces.
Both the bodies were placed in their dwelling, a " dug-
out " half under the ground; the roof was then thrown
down upon them and covered with dirt, making that
their only grave. The next winter a Mormon bishop
of that locality killed one of his wives for alleged in-
fidelity, and one Franklin McNeil, who had sued Brig-
ham Young for false imprisonment, was shot dead in
his own door.

Another abomination of that bloody period was not
brought to light till long after.

Early in 1858, while the army was yet at Fort
Bridger, eighty discharged teamsters started through
the city to California. An officer of the Nauvoo Le-
gion was informed that he would find a " trusty force,"
at a certain place, with which to guard them through,
and received the following order:

194              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

'Salt Lake City, April 9th, 1858.

" The officer in command of escort is hereby ordered
to see that every man is well prepared with ammunition
and have it ready at the time you see those teamsters
a hundred miles from the settlements. President
Young advises that they should be all killed to pre-
vent them from returning to Bridger to join our ene-
mies. Every precaution should be taken, and see that
not one escapes. Secrecy is required.

" By order of General Daniel H. Wells.

"James Ferguson,

" Assistant Adjutant General"

The officer refused to execute the order, for which
his life was threatened. He took refuge at the Federal
camp and was sent out of the Territory. The signa-
ture of Ferguson is authenticated by two Mormons,
formerly merchants in Salt Lake City. Several years
after, the widow of Ferguson called upon a Federal
Judge who had the writing in his possession. She
stated that she had heard the rumor that there was
such a paper and desired to see it.

It was not given to her but spread upon the desk
for her inspection. She read it through, turned deadly
pale, and rushed out of the room without saying a
word. Through 1858 and '59 various difficulties oc-
curred; Governor Cumming did not sustain the judi-
ciary in their efforts, and finally an order was received
from Washington that the troops were not to be used
as a posse to aid the United States Marshal in making
arrests. This, of course, completely put an end even

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     195

to the attempt to administer justice. But the en-
trance of the army had done good in a variety of ways ;
stage and mail lines had been established; means of
intelligence had been multiplied, and a considerable
Gentile influence established, and we gladly turn away
from the dark period of crime and degradation, and
enter upon the era in which outside influence began to
produce good effects even in Utah.

196               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

CHAPTER VII.

GENTILES IN UTAH.

A New Element—Livingston and Kinkead—" Jack-Mormonism at Wash-
ington "—Judge Drummond—M. Jules Remy—Gilbert and Sons—
Heavy Trade—Later Gentile Merchants—Walker Brothers—Sales at
Camp Floyd—" Crushing the Mormons "—Ransohoff & Co.—Mormon
Outrages again—Murders of Brassfield and Dr. Robinson—Whipping of
Weston—Evidence in case of Robinson—Outrages on Lieut. Brown and
Dr. Williamson—Gentiles Driven from the Public Land—Territorial
Surveyor—Success of General Connor's Administration—The Govern-
ment Returns to the Old Policy—Murders of Potter and Wilson—Horri-
ble Death of " Negro Tom"—The Last Witness "put out of the Way "
—"Danites" again—Murder each Other—Death of Hatch—Flight of
Hickman—Forty-three Murders—Another Change of Officials—Doty—
Durkee—Shameful Neglect by the Government—Flight of the Gentiles
—Comparative Quiet Again—A better Day—The Author Arrives in
Utah.

A new element now enters into Utah affairs, and de-
mands attention. There had previously been Gentiles
resident in Salt Lake, but before 1858, they seem
to have created no special interest. The history of
Gentile merchants from the earliest times to the present
exhibits a singular record of " pluck" and enterprise,
contending against the ever-varying complications of
political and religious fanaticism. The first Gentile
merchants to make a permanent establishment in Salt
Lake, were Messrs. Livingston and Kinkead, who
began business there in 1850, and taking the tide
of Mormon prosperity at its height, when the young
colony had just realized on the California trade, their

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     197

profits were immense. At the date they reached the
city there were no Eastern goods in the Valley, and
the first day their store was open they took in $10,
000 in gold ! Other merchants passed through doing
some trade, but none had done so well. The custom
of these early merchants was to start from the Missouri
with large stocks, which they opened at Salt Lake,
remaining only one autumn and winter, trading for
cattle, grain and flour, which they took on to California
the next season.

From 1850 till 1862, "jack-Mormonism" ruled at
Washington to a considerable extent, and the Gentiles
of Utah had but little help, either by protection or
moral influence, from Federal appointees. Judge Kin-
ney, who was appointed Chief Justice in 1854, came
that year to the valley with his family and a large
stock of goods. He kept a hotel, sold goods, speculated
in various ways, and spared no pains to keep on good
terms with his Mormon customers; afterwards he
joined the Mormons, was baptized in the holy Jordan
—it is reported that he paid the officiating priest $10
to have the job done in the night—and represented the
Territory one term in Congress.

For a short time he was the colleague of Judge Drum-
mond, the Government thus, by immorality on one side
and " jack-Mormonism" on the other, playing into the
hands of the Saints most effectually. Kinney had a
difficulty with Brigham Young early in 1855, as re-
ported by M. Jules Remy, who visited Salt Lake that
summer, and Brigham declined the invitation of the
Frenchman to dine with him at Kinney's hotel, on that

198               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

account. It is a subject of curious conjecture what sort
of an impression this state of affairs made on the courtly
Frenchman, accustomed to see the representative of the
supreme power treated with the utmost deference.
Kinney left the next year, retaining, however, the office
and its emoluments till 1857, and in 1860 was reap-
pointed.

The entrance of Johnston's army, with the government
contracts thereby rendered necessary, and the more
complete establishment of the Overland Stages, mark
the beginning of a new era in Gentile history ; here is
a point of departure, so to speak, between the old and
the new. separating ancient and modern history. Nearly
all the late merchants came in with that army, or fol-
lowing soon after.

During the interval from 1853 to 1858, the Mormons
had fallen behind, and great destitution often pre-
vailed, particularly in the southern settlements. One
year the crops were short from drouth, and another they
were entirely destroyed by grasshoppers; during two
seasons there was no surplus except a little wheat which
could only be sold in barter for fifty cents per bushel;
one winter thousands of the people subsisted largely
upon sego roots, and another, of unusual severity, a third
of the cattle throughout Utah died from exposure. In
the period known in Mormon chronicles as " The Re-
formation," the Ward Teachers visited every family in
their jurisdiction, and made a thorough examination of
their flour barrels and meat chests, taking away the
surplus, where there was any, to divide it among those
who had none. In the summer of 1855, M. Jules Remy,

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                     199

French traveler and savan, and Mr. A. M. Brenchley,
his English companion and botanist, journeyed from
Sacramento to Salt Lake City, by the Central Nevada
route and south of the lake, and spent several weeks
studying Mormon institutions. Their publication, a
copy of which may be found in the State Library at
Sacramento, describes a condition of extreme poverty in
Utah ; provisions of all sorts were at premium prices,
and their tour of two months, with the poorest accom-
modations, cost them more in gold than a first-class tour
of Europe would have done. Wheat and a few other
bare necessaries alone were tolerably cheap. The season
of 1856-57 might be justly denominated the " Winter
of Mormon discontent." And it is remarkable that
during those two years were committed most of those
crimes which form so black a chapter in the annals of
Utah.

The entrance of Johnston's army proved a real god-
send to many, and being followed by a season of
unusual fruitfulness, the Mormons were again rendered
prosperous. The firm of Gilbert & Sons was established
in Salt Lake City about that time, though one of the
firm had done business there before. This firm made
large profits during the five succeeding years, their
sales on one particular day amounting to $17,000 in
gold. Coin was the only currency, all large payments
being made in the Mormon five-dollar piece, a coin
struck by the Church, which, however, contained but
$4.30 in gold. Another prominent firm of that period
was Ransohoff & Co., long the leading Jewish firm,
who built the best stone store-house in the city. They

200              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

had extensive dealings with Brigham Young, who was
for a while on the best of terms with Gentile merchants,
and when Johnston's army left and the camp property
was sold, Brigham borrowed $30,000 of Ransohoff to
invest in army pork. Following the entrance of the
army came a heavy trade with Nevada, and not long
afterwards considerable with Colorado; and at this
period was the rise of the firm of Walker Brothers,
now par excellence, the Gentile merchant princes of
Utah. The Walkers, four young and middle aged
gentlemen, were of Mormon parentage and reared
among the Saints; having, by great industry and
enterprise, secured a small stock in trade before the
entrance of the army. The stores at Camp Floyd were
sold early in 1861, with immense profits to the Saints;
iron which had retailed at a dollar per pound, became
as plentiful as in the East, and Brigham Young,
Walker Brothers and other firms bought immense
quantities of pork at one cent per pound, which they
afterwards retailed at sixty. Thus did Buchanan
" crush the Mormons." The Overland Mail service
grew into greatness, furnishing another source of profit,
and the Gentile merchants shared largely in the gen-
eral prosperity. During 1859 and '60, though there
was hostility between Camp Floyd and the Mormon
hierarchy, money was plenty; sufficient supplies had
been forwarded to last the army ten years, and great
quantities of leather, gearing, cavalry equipments,
clothing, blankets and small stores were sold for one
tenth their value; Brigham was on the best of terms
with the Gentile merchants; gifts and donations on

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                      201

both sides were common; there was for a time little or
no social distinction between Mormon and Gentile, and
an era of general good feeling prevailed.

The General Government soon returned to the old
policy, and with the return of Kinney, Judges Flenni-
ken and Crosby were appointed to succeed Sinclair and
Cradlebaugh, removed. In 1861 Governor Cumming
left Utah, and was succeeded by John W. Dawson, of
Indiana, who was soon entrapped into " a base attempt
on the virtue of a Mormon woman," and in consequence
of many threats precipitately fled the Territory. He
was waylaid, however, in Weber Canyon, and received
a terrible beating, which he richly deserved for his
cowardice, and, if the charge above be true, for his
detestably bad taste. Notwithstanding these differ-
ences with the officials the Mormons continued on good
terms with the merchants, trade was free, and the
people rather prosperous. The opening of the war
signaled a sudden change; the disloyalty of the Mor-
mons was only equalled by the disgust of the Gentiles,
and the whole gist of Mormon sermons for a year or
two might have been compressed into that aggravating
after-prophecy, " Didn't we tell you so ?" With them
it was only the realization of what Joe Smith had
prophesied in 1832, and Sunday after Sunday the
Tabernacle resounded with the harangues of Brigham
Young and Heber Kimball, in fiendish exultation over
the prospect that " the war would go on till nearly all
the men, North and South, would be killed, the rest
would become servants to the Saints, the women of the
United States would come begging for the Mormon

202              LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

elders to marry them, and a general cry would go up,
'come and help us preserve the race of man in this
land.'"

Such was the stuff then preached by men who are
now prating loudly of their loyalty. It was hard for
an American to listen to it quietly, and but little else
was heard in Salt Lake for the first two years of the
war. Early in 1862 Judges Flenniken and Crosby left
Salt Lake City. If they did anything while there to
forward the cause of truth, to add to the dignity of the
Government, to increase the moral force of the Gentiles
or protect the victims of Brighamism, it appears not on
the record. President Lincoln was advised by tele-
graph of their departure, and on the 3d of February,
1862, appointed Thomas J. Drake, of Michigan, and
Chas. V. Waite, of Illinois, to succeed them. On the
31st of March following, Stephen S. Harding, an " origi-
nal abolitionist," of southern Indiana, was appointed
Governor, and the new officials reached Salt Lake in
July of the same year. In October following Colonel
(now General) P. Edward Connor arrived with fifteen
hundred men and established Camp Douglas. This
administration may well be styled the " golden age " of
Gentiles in Utah. For nearly four years General Con-
nor maintained the rights of American citizens, and
protected and assisted many hundred dissenting Mor-
mons in their escape from Utah. Their prompt action
in protecting American citizens and recusant Mormons
from injury, together with the anti-polygamy features
of Governor Harding's first message, and the action of
the Judges in asking Congress for an amendment to

AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM.                    203

the Organic Act of the Territory, excited the Brigham-
ites to great anger for a time; the hostility increased,
and when an unusually large number of miners came
to winter in Salt Lake, Brigham assumed entire control
of Mormon trade and flour was put up at once from $3
to $6 per hundred in gold, then equal to twice that
amount in currency. Great was the indignation at
this move, but the miners could not help themselves at
that season and submitted, though their curses were
both loud and deep. The opening of spring relieved
this embargo, and the Mormons soon discovered that
though Camp Douglas was something of an eye-sore,
yet the presence of two regiments added materially to
their trade. The triumph of the Union arms through
1864, the prompt payment of claims against the Gov-
ernment, and the appointment of rather more accept-
able officials, convinced the Mormons that " loyalty
would pay" for awhile, and another era of free trade
and tolerably good feeling followed. The years 1864-65
were seasons of prosperity to the Gentiles; Ransohoff
& Co. cleared large sums dealing in general supplies,
and Walker Brothers, who had meanwhile apostatized
from Mormonism, took rank as millionaires.

The era of free trade and good feeling was short and
the change sudden. In 1865 and 1866 all the California
and Nevada volunteers and most of the other troops
were withdrawn, and the hostility of the Church was
manifested with tenfold more fierceness. All the Gen-
tiles, who had pre-empted land west of the city, were
whipped, ducked in the Jordan, or tarred and feathered,
and their improvements destroyed; many were threat-

204               LIFE IN UTAH; OR, THE MYSTERIES

ened and ordered out of the country; Weston, of the
Union Vedette, was seized at night, taken to Temple
Block and cruelly beaten; Brassfield was shot; Dr.
Robinson assassinated, and general consternation seized
upon the Gentile residents. Some of these events de-
mand a more particular account.

Squire Newton Brassfield, formerly a citizen of Cali-
fornia, and more lately of Nevada, while sojourning
temporarily in Salt Lake City, formed the acquaintance
of a woman who had been the polygamous wife of a
Mormon, named Hill, but had left him, repudiated this
so-called marriage and claimed that she was entitled
at common law to the possession of her children by this
Hill, as the offspring of an illegal marriage, or rather
of no marriage at all. She and Brassfield were married
in legal form by the U. S. Judge, H. P. McCurdy, on
the 28th of March, 1866; a writ of habeas corpus
was issued from the United States Court for the pos-
session of her children, and the trial set for the night
of April the 3d, but adjourned till the 6th. Meanwhile
Brassfield had taken a trunk containing her clothing
from her former residence, and was arrested by the
Mormon authorities on a charge of grand larceny!
The ground assumed for this action was that the cloth-
ing taken was the property of her husband. It was also
charged that he had resisted the officer attempting to
make the arrest—an offence universally considered
worthy of death by the Mormons. In this case also an
appeal was had to the United States Court. On the
evening of April 6 th, about 8 o'clock, while Brassfield
was passing along Second South street, in the custody