Joseph Smith, and the Great West

JOSEPH SMITH, AND THE GREAT WEST When the Saints Bore the Brunt of Pro-Slave Hatred. By I. K. Russell, Author of "Hidden Heroes of the Rockies" "And now it came to pass that the persecutions which were inflicted on the church by the unbelievers became so great that the church began to murmur, and complain to their leaders concerning the matter; and they did complain to Alma. And Alma laid the case before their king, Mosiah." — Book of Mosiah, Chapter 2 7. And in the days of the Last Dispensation, the Church of God was also pillaged and persecuted, and there was much carrying of pleas for relief to the Government. All familiar with the rise of the "Mormon" Church are well aware that there has been no moment of persecution in its historv to compare with the period from 1833 to 1844 when its people were driven forth to brave midwinter blasts on bleak prairies and saw their leaders shot down and put in prison. There was much mystery at the time of these persecutions as to the motive and cause, and there were many appeals to the Govern- ment for redress against a seemingly lawless mob. It is well-known that both the Governor of Missouri and the President of the United States admitted the justice of the "Mormon" plea, but denied their power to do anything. Heartlessness hardly could have reached a more vigorous) extreme than in these persecutions: "I think there was no individual of our company who was appraised of the sudden and awful fate which hung over our heads. "The banks of Shoal creek on either side teemed with children sporting and playing while their mothers were engaged in domestic employments. The weather was very pleasant, the sun shone clearly, all was tranquil, and no one expressed any apprehension of the awful crisis that was near us, even at our doors." — Joseph Young, in a sworn statement of events at Haun's Mill. But the seeming peace was over a volcano. Joseph Young's narrative continues: "It was about 4 o'clock p. m., jwhile sitting in my cabin with my babe in my arms and my wife standing by my side, the door being open, I cast my eyes on the opposite bank of Shoal Creek, and saw a large body of armed men on horses directing their course towards the mills with all possible speed. Their leader, a man named Comstock, fired a gun; all at once they discharged about 100 rifles, aiming at a blacksmith shop to which our frineds had fled for safety. Then they charged up to the shop, the crevices of which, between the logs, were sufficiently large to enable them to aim directly at the bodies of those who had fled for refuge from the fire of their murderers. There were several families tented in the Tear of the shop whose lives were exposed, and, amid showers of bullets, fled to the woods in different directions. * * * "When we arrived at the house of Mr. Haun, we found Mr. Merrick's body lying in the rear of the house; Mr. McBride's in front, literally mangled from head to foot. We were informed by Miss Rebecca Judd, who was an eye witness, that he

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE GREAT WEST 159 was shot with his own gun after he had given it up, and then was cut to pieces with a corn cutter by a man named Rogers, of Davies county, who keeps a ferry on Grand river, and who has since repeatedly boasted of this act of savage barbarity." We have no intention here of rehearsing the scenes of the Mis- souri mobbings. This bit will give the color and the spirit of them. How are they to be explained? All prophets of the Lord from Isaiah on down had turned thejr thoughts and the spirit of their words to the general affairs of man- kind. The Church was never meant to be aloof from life and its mysteries and problems. We know that Joseph Smith had prophesied concerning the most bitter hatreds then growing in America, and that his people lived at the very point of contact between the two sides of this on- coming war of Abolitionist and pro-Slaver, of Secessionist and Union- ist. So far we have sketched backgrounds, showing how the people of the South were determined that their slaves would not be penned up by New England-made laws, in the few slave states of the South, but should expand until Missouri was safely pro-slave, and the far West was sending to Congress a pereptually safe pro-slave majority. Keeping this background in mind, we desire now to trace a few outstanding moments of the Missouri persecutions to note how con- stantly the pro-slave motive came shining through. As a guide for this re-checking of the data, may I remind our readers of a statement by Louis Pasteur, who is the father of many discoveries which make modern life different from what it was before his day. Louis Pasteur found the world afflicted by many diseases and for these diseases the doctors had many remedies — none of which ever worked. He finally found a living organism at work and was able to extract it from the blood of a sick guinea pig. He extracted other living organisms from the blood of a sick cow and still others from the blood of a sick hog. In short, he discovered bacteria and proved they were a cause of infectious disease. Now he began a triumphal march across the hori- zon of the world's plagues and fevers. Never having been in a hospi- tal before, he entered one and cured its cases of child-birth fever by sterilization of the bandages and instruments used. He taught that heat killed the germs and that bandages and instruments, if unsterilized, carried these germs from one patient to another. He entered a room where the first silk worms he ever saw were dying of a plague; and saw some supposedly well ones, just imported from Japan, on a tray beneath the sick ones. "Germs from the sick worms are falling on the well ones," he exclaimed, "remove them from all contact and prevent infection." Thus he marched on from silk worms to hog cholera, to the fevers of cattle, to hydrophobia, and so he became the father of modern dairying, without being a dairyman; the father of modern baking,

160 IMPROVEMENT ERA without being a baker; the father of modern vinegar-making, without being a manufacturer; the father of modern medicine without being & medical practitioner; and the father of modern brewing, as well, although not of home brewing which violates all the principles of yeast control which he laid down. As he drove on through to con- quer one disease after another, he wrote of the joy that comes when an investigator strikes at last the right trail. "After that," he wrote, "you ascend the Mountain of Truth, and at each new summit you look back over a wider and wider landscape." Nothing could be more confused and contradictory than the story of various episodes of the opening of the Great West, until you test them by the measuring rule of an establishd pro-slave policy, ram- pant in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, to dedicate Missouri and the far west to pro-slave purposes. But holding this motif in mind, as basic to the country in which Joseph Smith and his people played their part, as intruders from the North in violation of a settled Southern policy, let us look over some typical "Mormon" experiences of the era of drivings, remembering that the Southern trust never ceased until Vigilant Days resulted in the hanging throughout the far West of the last of the Southern guerilla stragglers. At the outset of this drive, of course, both a real campaign and a "camouflage of motives" were attempted. It has been so in all wars and none of them can be understood until the camouflage has been removed and the inner strategy revealed. The camouflage in Missouri consisted of charges that the "Mormons" were guilty of counterfeiting, cattle stealing, and generally of vagabondish, larcenous habits. Until the whole background of Missouri's mood at the moment towards "yeowuns frum Noth," could be worked out, it was neces- sary to waste volumes in defense of the Saints against the "covering" charges. But how fraudulent all these were, and how insincerely made, I had occasion to learn in a beautiful and stimulating manner, before I knew much of anything about the charges themselves. In the year 1905, I was sitting in the reportorial room of the Deseret News, one afternoon — very late. All the others had gone. In the door came an old man, supported by a cane. A young man helped to sustain him. I judged him to be over ninety. The two men approached me and the old man made substantially this speech: "Young man, I am here. I have wanted to come here for fifty years. There's something I want to say to the 'Mormons.' I have come here to say it. My name is Cooper. I manufacture the Cooper wagon. I kept books for many years and on my books were the names of thousands of 'Mormons.' Your early freighting was done in Cooper wagons. I sold them to many of your emigrants, — often only for a paper note. I want to tell you first that I never was defaulted against on a single one of those notes. "Every one was paid in full. That's one thing I want to say to the 'Mormons' before I die. The next thing is that this experience with the 'Mormons' has haunted me for many a year. For I was a boy in Missouri.

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE GREAT WEST 1 6 1 and I believed the story that you people stole our cattle and robbed our homes and killed our people. And I helped to mob you and drive you. "But I lived to see the cattle stealing and the outlawry keep right on growing strong after you 'Mormons' were driven out. I saw our people or- ganize and go after cattle rustlers and the counterfeiters and the bad men in general. And I saw every crime we charged against the 'Mormons,' prac- tically, proved against some desperado after the 'Mormons' were expelled." If those charges were the camouflage, — what was the real source of bias and hatred to the murder point against the "Mormons"? "The 'Mormons' have viz," declared a passer-by to Parley P. Pratt as he came near the scene of the first Missouri mobbing. "Riz" — that's Southern talk. And you will find it the talk of every mob gathering as long as the mobocrat ruled Missouri and there was a "Mormon" left who could be driven out. The excuses they offered for the outrages, records Parley P. Pratt in telling the story of the Jackson, Clay, Ray and Clinton county expulsions, were: First: The society were guilty, principally, of being eastern or northern people. Secondly: They were guilty of some slight variations in man- ners from the other citizens of the state, who were mostly from the South. Here we find ourselves at the outset firmly upon that mountain of truth of which Louis Pasteur wrote, as he ascended to greater and greater vistas with each new rise of the summits. None of the perse- cuted Saints could know the secret workings of the Southern mind at that time, but from the speeches in Congress we have assembled it is easy to write in our own third accusation: "They (the 'Mor- mons') were guilty of threatening to become voting majority, when Missouri must always send pro-slave senators and congressmen to Wash- ington." And so we can turn to the first election in Davies county, Mis- souri, at which "Mormons" tried to be citizens and take part as Ameri- cans in American affairs. "Mormons" approached the polls and were at once set upon by bullies who assaulted them. Perry Durphy caught the arm of one bully who was about to strike Samuel Brown, a would- be "Mormon" voter. At once a general assault broke forth against the Saints. Leaving, for a moment, the scrimmage which followed, let us consider an incident that happened twenty years later in Walla Walla, Washington. Some soldiers went to a theater in American army uni- forms. A man sitting behind them called them names and reviled their uniforms. One of them spoke back, whereupon he was struck at from all sides. He and his companions were badly beaten and as they broke out of the theater their own officers took them in charge. They were heavily punished as rioters. Later Southern sympathizers who were brought by vigalantes to the noose, admitted that they had planted" this quarrel and had purposely annoyed the " yankee

162 IMPROVEMENT ERA soldiers" until they should strike back, when the whole mob of South- ern irregulars vented their wrath upon Yankees. The uniform had overwhelmed them with a lust to fight. Just as in Missouri, after the scrimmage was over and the Saints had abandoned their homes to sleep — men, women and children, in the open fields during a downpour, Missourians admitted to their leaders* "The whole disturbances was a premeditated thing, to prevent the 'Mormons' from voting. We request you to withdraw as this affair may end in bloodshed." And if the "Missourians" could not bear the thought of "Mor- mons" voting in their state, what kind of heroes would they make of the "mob" leaders who drove the "Mormons" out. It is well- known that "lawless mobs" drove the "Mormons" in 1833 and 1834. What has become of these "lawless mobs" four years later when the Government would normally have cleared out the lawless? If they were girding up for the Civil War, and men were being honored for the dominating hatreds of that bitter day, then the "mobocrats" would be honored in Missouri affairs. And what happened? The "lawless mob" of the Jackson county drivings of 1833, became the Governor and his staff of generals at the final drivings of 1838-9. Lilburn W. Boggs was publicly known as a sympathetic spectator at the first of the drivings and to have joined in the utterance: "We will rid Jackson county of the 'Mormons,' peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. If they will not go without it, we will whip and kill the men; we will destroy their children and ravish their women!" And after another four years who was it that sat in the Gover- nor's chair and issued an official order of extermination? It was this same Boggs, skillful politician, who had correctly gauged the desires of the slave-holding oligarchy of the South. And even in 1833 it was not hard to scratch off the veneer of the confessedly lawless mob- ber, and find a responsible politician of the Southern cause. Of those active in the destruction of the plant of the Evening and Morning Star, B. H. Roberts gives us this list in his Missouri Persecutions: S. D. Lucas, colonel and judge of the John Smith, justice of the peace, county court. Samuel Weston, justice of the peace. Samuel C. Owens, county clerk. William Brown, constable. Russel Hicks, deputy clerk. Thomas Pitcher, deputy constable. "Besides these," he adds, "there were Indian agents, postmasters, doctors, lawyers, and merchants." In other words the same groups who enlisted later for the cause of Jeff Davis. It is well-known that when your enemy does something credi- table, you do something, in the telling of it, to make it look discredi- table. The one thing the mobocrat agitators had to convince the South was that the "Mormons" were part of the North's abolitionist group. So when the Evening and Morning Star was accused of "sowing

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE GREAT WEST 163 dissensions and inspiring sedition among the slaves," and encouraging "free men of color" to settle with the "Mormons," the editors of that paper desired to set themselves "right," as the "Mormons" had no call to fight out the slavery issue. But the lamb had as much chance to set itself right with the wolf that accused it of muddying the wolf's drinking water, as did the Saints of explaining that they were intent on other matters than the slavery issue. The editor of the Star set forth that the Missouri laws forbade the importation of free men of color, as they were regarded as real estate. He urged members of the Church to be guided by prudence and so act as not to give offence. But were soft words of any use ? Instead of being accepted as written, the rumor went forth on swift wings, "The Mormons" are advising their people to act secretly, not openly, — and were under cover starting an 'underground railroad' for slaves." An extra edition of the Star went further in the fruitless task of explaining where explanations would have spoiled the political advantage of an appearance of guilt. "The intention in publishing the article, 'Free People of Color' pleaded the editor, all in vain, was to stop free people of color from emigrating to Missouri." Southern editors invented and imagined great hosts of poor slaves, only waiting the signal from the "Mormons" to strike out for Missouri. And thus were the flames of passion spread. And the flight of the "Mormons" from Jackson county was forced upon them. Appeals to Governor Dunklin were all in vain. He knew the "lawless mob" could elect its own candidate Governor any time — as it did a little later in the case of Boggs. So he started the fashion of turning a deaf ear to the "Mormons," which continued until Thomas L. Kane, abolitionist, got the ear of President Buchanan, and stopped Johnson's Army in its tracks, for which fine service he is honored in the name of Kane county, Utah. The drivings spread and continued. If a "Mormon" rolled two logs together to use as a breastwork to. defend his home, then he was guilty of "arming and fortifying against the sovereignty of an American state." As they would say today, "the 'Mormon' was slapped down without a chance to whisper in his own defense." If leaders were arrested, witnesses who came to their trial were immediately arrested and marched out of town, or arrested and thrown into jail with them. "Witnesses" were outlawed. Here was war — a chapter of the Civil War as definitely as if it had occurred after Sumpter, not before. ' Would the President hear the complaints of a dispossessed group of citizens? Normally, yes. But the President was soundly Southern. A political mood calling for a Lincoln had not yet been established. And would the Southern president side with Northerners against the south? "The constitution of the United States," wrote the Southern

164 IMPROVEMENT ERA President, "does not control jurisdiction over offences against the law of a state. The President must await a call from the Governor of the state in which trouble has occurred!" As the drivings continued it became the turn of Clay county to take up the fagot and the scourge. And on what grounds? Their leaders stated to them, in June, 1836: 1. Their religious tenets were so different from the present churches of the age, that this always had and always would excite deep prejudice against them in any populous country where they might locate. 2. They were eastern men whose manners, habits, customs, and even dialects were essentially different from the Missourians. 4. Common report has it that they kept up a constant communica- tion with the Indian tribes of the frontier; and declared from the pulpit that the Indians were & part of God's chosen people, destined by heaven to inherit with them the land of Missouri. There was camouflage here. Clay county officials held to the truth of their own feelings. And the Committee on Expulsion kindly advised: "We do not vouch for the correctness of these state- ments, but whether they are true or false their effect has been the same in exciting our community." The objection to the dialect of the Saints had an odd outcome. When the drivings had reached the point of resulting in the arrest of the Prophet and of many leaders, to be marched as captives for display to the Missourian mobs, there came an hour when certain leaders could escape from a Missouri jail. Parley P. Pratt and Morris Phelps were two of those who made a dash for liberty. Both were surrounded by mobbers hunting for "those "Mormons," but both traveled with their hunters — unknown to them and unrecognized by them. How? By merely imitating the Southern drawl they had heard so often among their captors: "He was suddenly surrounded in the darkness of the night by a group of horsemen in pursuit of the prisoners," writes Parley P. Pratt of the escape of Brother Phelps. , "They immediately hailed him and cried out,' you, what is your name?' He replied in the same rough and careless manner, 'you ■ rascals what's yours?' * * They then begged his pardon for the rough manner in which they had accosted him, 'O, you are of the real breed. By , no 'Mormon' could counter- feit that language, you swear real natteral; hurrah for old Kentuck. But whar mout you live, stranger?' He /replied, 'just up here, you mout a know'd me, and then again you moutn't.' And so the men of "Old Kentucky" rode away from Phelps still in pursuit of "Mormons." And he gave one more "hurrah for Old Kentucky" to speed them on their way. Soon he was among friends and exiles in Illinois. It was the same with Parley P. Pratt. He obtained an old hat, explained that bruises on his face were due to "celebratin' the Fourth of July in liquor," and successfully palmed himself off as a Southerner from Terre Haute in search of cheap land, He, too, reached friends and exiles in Illinois-

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE GREAT WEST 165 "And Hurrah for Old Kentuck." I visited the Mayor of Louis- ville recently, in search of data on these men of "Mormon" days in Missouri, who had gone from Kentucky to fight the "Mormons." "Yes," the Mayor said, "we sent more men to the Civil War on the Southern side than almost any state, and also more to the Northern side. With us it was literally brother against brother. We were the vortex of the war's feelings." If they fought that way — brother against brother to the death in the days of '61 — can't we understand better now the hatreds that consumed them in the days of Joseph Smith? How they carried the hatreds on over to Kansas, while the Saints found an hour of peace in Utah, will be the next chapter of the story taken up. Hole in the Rock The Era is indebted to W. W. Thibodean, Escalante, Utah, for these illustrations, well known to the pioneers of the San Juan county, Utah, showing "Hole in the Rock," through which the pioneers took their wagons and outfits, when on their way to settle in that country. Left, Looking from the top down; right, Looking up from the Colorado River through the "Hole in the Rock."