A Visit to Missouri

A Visit to Missouri By Dr Seymour B. Young On my recent visit to the site of Haun's Mill Massacre, Shoal Creek, Clay county, Missouri, I was more than ever im- pressed with the wonderful faith and patience displayed by the little band of exiles fleeing from Kirtland, Ohio, seeking a home they knew not where, engaged in a journey on which there was no prospective ending in sight. A Mr. Haun had established a mill on Shoal Creek some nine miles northeast of Far West and here this small colony of homeless "Mormons" en- camped with the thought of obtaining a few days' rest for them- selves and their teams. Mr. Haun, a kindly-hearted man, em- ployed several of the men about the dam and race belonging to the mill and by this means they were enabled to increase their scanty stores of provisions for the company, while Warren Smith, a blacksmith by profession, engaged in repairing their wagons and shoeing their horses and in these ways, quite a busy hum of new industry was given to the hitherto little sleepy Missouri town. Some of the brethren bought lumber from the sawmill, which Mr. Haun ran from the same water power that furnished his grist mill. With this lumber they erected small shanties for the protection of their families. Fall season was approaching, and nights were already getting cool, and it was thought the company might stop here during the winter, and then resume their march to the west in the early spring time. However, on the evening of September 28, 1838, this rest and seeming se- curity was interrupted by the sudden appearance of an armed mob of 200 mounted men. armed with guns, who, as soon as they came in close range of the "Mormon" camp began shoot- ing at the men who, with no arms or means of defense, began running into the brush and timber for shelter from the shot* of the attacking party, while twelve of the brethren, with two little boys belonging to Warren Smith, the blacksmith, sought shelter in the log blacksmith shop where he was at work. The mob soon encircled this building, however, and, placing the muzzles of their guns in the openings between the logs, shot every one of the twelve men who were utterly unable to defend themselves. After they had all been shot, excepting the two little boys, Alma and Sardius Smith, who, seeing their father fall with the first volley, crept under the bellows beside their dead father, one on each side of his body, to hide themselves from the sight of the miscreants who continued pouring their deadly missiles into the little helpless band in the shop. As

A VISIT TO MISSOURI 121 soon as all were apparently killed, four or five of these vil- lains entered the shop and proceeded to punch each fallen "Mormon" with the muzzle of their guns to see if life were left in any of them; finally they reached the place where lay the dead body of the blacksmith under his own bellows, and his two little boys beside him. Little Sardius Smith, six years old, on being punched was found to be alive and the little fellow said, "Please, Mr., don't shoot me, I'm only a little boy, I can't hurt anybody." The villain answered him saying: "Nits make lice," and, placing his gun against the back of his head, blew the top of his head off; then he killed the older boy, Alma Smith, who was lying on the far side of his father's body. Another villain fired a shot into the boy's right hip, shattering the bone and tearing away the flesh and covering of the joint, so that, although the wound did not prove fatal, it took years of nursing of a fond and noble mother to bring about his restoration. The following morning dawned clear and bright but for some hours after sunrise no life was seen in that little camp of "Mormon" emigrants. After a while the mothers and children began calling for their husbands and fathers, but alas! there was only a response from five or six men. These had gained, the night before, a more secure hid- ing place in a not distant grove of timber. What a horror met the view of the widows and orphans, as they gazed on the re- mains of the dead in the old blacksmith shop and also the other four who had been shot down, on the outside, before they could gain a place of safety. The sixteen dead bodies of the men and one little boy, Sardius Smith, were gathered and tend- erly laid in a trench prepared around an old dry well, and there securely covered with mother earth. There their remains are still resting, awaiting the call that they shall surely hear from their God, "Ye murdered Saints of Haun's Mill massacre, come forth to receive a martyr's crown, and your mutilated bod- ies to be restored to you crowned with eternal youth and beauty, and life everlasting." This terrible event, however, seemed to have left the faith of the remaining members of that little band of Latter- day Saints unshaken, for after a few days of rest and prayer, the brethren who had escaped the massacre, gathered up the widows and the orphans, and with their own families resumed their journey westward. After crossing the state of Missouri, they reached the Mississippi river near Quincy, Illi- nois, some time in the winter of 1838-39. Crossing the river they found a resting place for a season, with the kind-hearted people of the city of Quincy.