The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901

Rigdon told the April conference that he had one unceasing desire, namely, to know whether God would accept their work. At the suggestion of the spirit, he had taken some of the brethren into a room in his house that morning, and had consecrated them. What there occurred he thus described:—

"After the washing and anointing, and the patriarchal seal, as the Lord had directed me, we kneeled and in solemn prayer asked God to accept the work we had done. During the time of prayer there appeared over our heads in the room a ray of light forming a hollow square, inside of which stood a company of heavenly messengers, each with a banner in his hand, with their eyes looking downward upon us, their countenance expressive of the deep interest they felt in what was passing on the earth. There also appeared heavenly messengers on horseback, with crowns upon their heads, and plumes floating in the air, dressed in glorious attire, until, like Elisha, we cried in our hearts, 'The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.' Even my little son of fourteen years of age saw the vision, and gazed with great astonishment, saying that he thought his imagination was running away with him. After which we arose and lifted our hands to heaven in holy convocation to God; at which time was shown an angel in heaven registering the acceptance of our work, and the decree of the Great God that the kingdom is ours and we shall prevail."

While the conference was in session, Pittsburg was visited by a disastrous conflagration. Rigdon prayed for the sufferers by the fire and asked God to check it. "During the prayer" (this quotation is from the official report of the conference in the Messenger and Advocate, p. 186), "an escort of the heavenly messengers that had hovered around us during the time of this conference were seen leaving the room; the course of the wind was instantly changed, and the violence of the flames was stayed."

Rigdon's attempt to build up a new church in the East was a failure. Urgent appeals in its behalf in his periodical were made in vain. The people addressed could not be cajoled with his stories of revelations and miraculous visions, which both the secular and religious press held up to ridicule, and he had no system of foreign immigration to supply ignorant recruits. He soon after took up his residence in Friendship, Allegheny County, New York, where he died at the residence of his son-in-law, Earl Wingate, on July 14, 1876. In an obituary sketch of him the Standard of that place said:—

"He was approached by the messengers of young Joseph Smith of Plano, Ill., but he refused to converse or answer any communication which in any way would bring him into notice in connection with the Mormon church of to-day. It was his daily custom to visit the post-office, get the daily paper, read and converse upon the chief topics of the day. He often engaged in a friendly dispute with the local ministers, and always came out first best on New Testament doctrinal matters. Patriarchal in appearance, and kindly in address, he was often approached by citizens and strangers with a view to obtaining something of the unrecorded mysteries of his life; but citizen, stranger and persistent reporter all alike failed in eliciting any information as to his knowledge of the Mormon imposture, the motives of his early life, or the religious faith, fears and hopes of his declining years. Once or twice he spoke excitedly, in terms of scorn, of those who attributed to him the manufacture of the Mormon Bible; but beyond this, nothing. His library was small: he left no manuscripts, and refused persistently to have a picture of himself taken. It can only be said that he was a compound of ability, versatility, honesty, duplicity, and mystery."

One person succeeded in drawing out from Rigdon in his later years a few words on his relations with the Mormon church. This was Charles L. Woodward, a New York bookseller, who some years ago made an important collection of Mormon literature. While making this collection he sent an inquiry to Rigdon, and received a reply, dated May 25, 1873. After apologizing for his handwriting on account of his age and paralysis, the letter says:—

"We know nothing about the people called Mormons now.* The Lord notified us that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were going to be destroyed, and for us to leave. We did so, and the Smiths were killed a few days after we started. Since that, I have had no connection with any of the people who staid and built up to themselves churches; and chose to themselves leaders such as they chose, and then framed their own religion.

"The Church of Latter-Day Saints had three books that they acknowledged as Canonical, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Commandments. For the existence of that church there had to be a revelater, one who received the word of the Lord; a spokesman, one inspired of God to expound all revelation, so that the church might all be of one faith. Without these two men the Church of Latter-Day Saints could not exist. This order ceased to exist, being overcome by the violence of armed men, by whom houses were beaten down by cannon which the assailents had furnished themselves with.

"Thus ended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it never can move again till the Lord inspires men and women to believe it. All the societies and assemblies of men collected together since then is not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, nor never can there be such a church till the Lord moves it by his own power, as he did the first.

"Should you fall in with one who was of the Church [of] Christ, though now of advanced age, you will find one deep red in the revelations of heaven. But many of them are dead, and many of them have turned away, so there are few left.

"I have a manuscript paper in my possession, written with my own hands while in my {30th. year}, but I am to poor to do anything with it; and therefore it must remain where it [is]. During the great fight of affliction I have had, I have lost all my property, but I struggle along in poverty to which I am consigned. I have finished all I feel necessary to write.

"Respectfully,

"SIDNEY RIGDON."*

Rigdon's affirmation of his belief in Smith as a prophet and the Mormon Bible when he returned to Pennsylvania was proclaimed by the Mormons as proof that there was no truth in the Spaulding manuscript story, but it carries no weight as such evidence. Rigdon burned all his old theological bridges behind him when he entered into partnership with Smith, and his entire course after his return to Pittsburg only adds to the proof that he was the originator of the Mormon Bible, and that his object in writing it was to enable him to be the head of a new church. Surely no one would accept as proof of the divinity of the Mormon Bible any declaration by the man who told the story of angel visits in Pittsburg.

CHAPTER XVI. — RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION

Rigdon was not alone in contending for the successorship to Joseph Smith as the head of the Mormon church. The prophet's family defended vigorously the claim of his eldest son to be his successor.* Lee says that the prophet had bestowed the right of succession on his eldest son by divination, and that "it was then [after his father's death] understood among the Saints that young Joseph was to succeed his father, and that right justly belonged to him," when he should be old enough. Lee says further that he heard the prophet's mother plead with Brigham Young, in Nauvoo, in 1845, with tears, not to rob young Joseph of his birthright, and that Young conceded the son's claim, but warned her to keep quiet on the subject, because "you are only laying the knife to the throat of the child. If it is known that he is the rightful successor of his father, the enemy of the Priesthood will seek his life."** Strang says, "Anyone who was in Nauvoo in 1846 or 1847 knows that the majority of those who started to the Western exodus, started in this hope," that the younger Joseph would take his father's place.***

At the last day of the Conference held in the Temple in Nauvoo, in October, 1845, Mother Smith, at her request, was permitted to make an address. She went over the history of her family, and asked for an expression of opinion whether she was "a mother in Israel." One universal "yes" rang out. She said she hoped all her children would accompany the Saints to the West, and if they did she would go; but she wanted her bones brought back to be buried beside her husband and children. Brigham Young then said: "We have extended the helping hand to Mother Smith. She has the best carriage in the city, and, while she lives, shall ride in it when and where she pleases." * Mother Smith died in the summer of 1856 in Nauvoo, where she spent the last two years of her life with Joseph's first wife, Emma, who had married a Major Bideman.

Emma caused the Twelve a good deal of anxiety after her husband's death. Pratt describes a council held by her, Marks, and others to endeavor to appoint a trustee-in-trust for the whole church, the necessity of which she vigorously urged. Pratt opposed the idea, and nothing was done about it.* Soon after her husband's death the Times and Seasons noticed a report that she was preparing, with the assistance of one of the prophet's Iowa lawyers, an exposure of his "revelations," etc. James Arlington Bennett, who visited Nauvoo after the prophet's death, acting as correspondent for the New York Sun, gave in one of his letters the text of a statement which he said Emma had written, to this effect, "I never for a moment believed in what my husband called his apparitions or revelations, as I thought him laboring under a diseased mind; yet they may all be true, as a prophet is seldom without credence or honor, excepting in his own family or country." Mrs. Smith, in a letter to the Sun, dated December 30, 1845, pronounced this letter a forgery, while Bennett maintained that he knew that it was genuine.**

The organization—or, as they define it, the reorganization of a church by those who claim that the mantle of Joseph Smith, Jr., descended on his sons, had its practical inception at a conference at Beloit, Wisconsin, in June, 1852, at which resolutions were adopted disclaiming all fellowship with Young and other claimants to the leadership of the church, declaring that the successor of the prophet "must of necessity be the seed of Joseph Smith, Jr." At a conference held in Amboy, Illinois, in April, 1860, Joseph Smith's son and namesake was placed at the head of this church, a position which he still holds. The Reorganized Church has been twice pronounced by United States courts to be the one founded under the administration of the prophet. Its teachings may be called pure Mormonism, free from the doctrines engrafted in after years. It holds that "the doctrines of a plurality and community of wives are heresies, and are opposed to the law of God." Its declaration of faith declares its belief in baptism by immersion, the same kind of organization (apostles, prophets, pastors, etc.) that existed in the primitive church, revelations by God to man from time to time "until the end of time," and in "the powers and gifts of the everlasting gospel, viz., the gift of faith, discerning of spirits, prophesy, revelation, healing, visions, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues." No one ever heard of this church having any trouble with its Gentile neighbors.

The Reorganized Church moved its headquarters to Lamoni, Iowa, in 1881. It has a present membership of 45,381, according to the report of the General Church Recorder to the conference of April, 1901. Of these members, 6964 were foreign,—286 in Canada, 1080 in England, and 1955 in the Society Islands. The largest membership in this country is 7952 in Iowa, 6280 in Missouri, and 3564 in Michigan. Utah reported 685 members.

The most determined claimant to the successorship of Smith was James J. Strang. Born at Scipio, New York, in 1813, Strang was admitted to the bar when a young man, and moved to Wisconsin. Some of the Mormons who went into the north woods to get lumber for the Nauvoo Temple planted a Stake near La Crosse, under Lyman Wight, in 1842. Trouble ensued very soon with their non-Mormon neighbors, and after a rather brief career the supporters of this Stake moved away quietly one night. Strang heard of the Mormon doctrines from these settlers, accepted their truth, and visiting Nauvoo, was baptized in February, 1844, made an elder, and authorized to plant another Stake in Wisconsin. He first attempted to found a city called Voree, where a temple covering more than two acres of ground, with twelve towers, was begun.

When Smith was killed, Strang at once came forward with a declaration that the prophet's revelations indicated that, at the close of his own prophetic office, another would be called to the place by revelation, and ordained at the hands of angels; that not only had he (Strang) been so ordained, but that Smith had written to him in June, 1844, predicting the end of his own work, and telling Strang that he was to gather the people in a Zion in Wisconsin. Strang began at once giving out revelations, describing visions, and announcing that an angel had shown him "plates of the sealed record," and given him the Urim and Thummim to translate them.

Although Strang's whole scheme was a very clumsy imitation of Smith's, he drew a considerable number of followers to his Wisconsin branch, where he published a newspaper called the Voree Herald, and issued pamphlets in defence of his position, and a "Book of the Law," explaining his doctrinal teachings, which included polygamy. He had five wives. His Herald printed a statement, signed by the prophet's mother and his brother William, his three married sisters, and the husband of one of them, certifying that "the Smith family do believe in the appointment of J. J. Strang." Among other Mormons of note who gave in their allegiance to Strang were John E. Page, one of the Twelve (whom Phelps had called "the sun-dial"), General John C. Bennett, and Martin Harris.

Strang gave the Mormon leaders considerable anxiety, especially when he sent missionaries to England to work up his cause. The Millennial Star of November 15, 1846, devoted a good deal of space to the subject. The article began:—

"SKETCHES OF NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS: James J. Strang, successor of Sidney Rigdon, Judius Iscariot, Cain & Co., Envoy Extraordinary and a Minister Plenipotentiary to His Most Gracious Majesty Lucifer L, assisted by his allied contemporary advisers, John C. Bennett, William Smith, G. T. Adams, and John E. Page, Secretary of Legation."

Strang announced a revelation which declared that he was to be "King in Zion," and his coronation took place on July 8, 1850, when he was crowned with a metal crown having a cluster of stars on its front. Burnt offerings were included in the programme.

This ceremony took place on Beaver Island, in Lake Superior, where in 1847 Strang had gathered his people and assumed both temporal and spiritual authority. Both of these claims got him into trouble. His non-Mormon neighbors, fishermen and lumbermen, accused the Mormons of wholesale thefts; his assumption of regal authority brought him before the United States court, (where he was not held); and his advocacy of the practice of polygamy by his followers aroused insubordination, and on June 15, 1856, he was shot by two members of his flock whom he had offended, and who were at once regarded as heroes by the people of the mainland. A mob secured a vessel, visited Beaver Island, where Strang had maintained a sort of fort, and compelled the Mormon inhabitants to embark immediately, with what little property they could gather up. They were landed at different places, most of them in Milwaukee. Thus ended Strang's Kingdom.*

Another leader who "set up for himself" after Smith's death was Lyman Wight, who had been one of the Twelve in Missouri, and was arrested with Smith there. Wight did not lay claim to the position of President of the church, but he resented what he called Brigham Young's usurpation. In 1845 he led a small company of his followers to Texas, where they first settled on the Colorado River, near Austin. They made successive moves from that place into Gillespie, Burnett, and Bandera counties. He died near San Antonio in March, 1858. The fact that Wight entered into the practice of polygamy almost as soon as he reached Texas, and still escaped any conflict with his non-Mormon neighbors, affords proof of his good character in other respects. The Galveston News, in its notice of his death, said, "Mr. Wight first came to Texas in November, 1845, and has been with his colony on our extreme frontier ever since, moving still farther west as settlements formed around him, thus always being the pioneer of advancing civilization, affording protection against the Indians."

After Wight's death his people scattered. A majority of them became identified with the Reorganized Church, a few gave in their allegiance to the organization in Utah, and others abandoned Mormonism entirely.

CHAPTER XVII. — BRIGHAM YOUNG

Brigham Young, the man who had succeeded in expelling Rigdon and establishing his own position as head of the church, was born in Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, on June 1, 1801. The precise locality of his birth in that town is in dispute. His father, a native of Massachusetts, is said to have served under Washington during the Revolutionary War. The family consisted of eleven children, five sons and six daughters, of whom Brigham was the ninth. The Youngs moved to Whitingham in January, 1801. In his address at the centennial celebration of that town in 1880, Clark Jillson said, "Henry Goodnow, Esq., of this town says that Brigham Young's father came here the poorest man that ever had been in town; that he never owned a cow, horse, or any land, but was a basket maker." Mormon accounts represent the elder Young as having been a farmer.

His circumstances permitted him to give his children very little education, and, when sixteen years old, Brigham seems to have started out to make his own living, working as a carpenter, painter, and glazier, as jobs were offered. He was living in Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, in 1824, working at his trade, and there, in October of that year, he married his first wife, Miriam Works. In 1829 they moved to Mendon, Monroe County, New York.

Joseph Smith's brother, in the following year, left a copy of the Mormon Bible at the house of Brigham's brother Phineas in Mendon, and there Brigham first saw it. Occasional preaching by Mormon elders made the new faith a subject of conversation in the neighborhood, and Phineas was an early convert. Brigham stated in a sermon in Salt Lake City, on August 8, 1852, that he examined the new Bible for two years before deciding to receive it. He was baptized into the Mormon church on April 14, 1832. His wife, who also embraced the faith, died in September of that year, leaving him two daughters.

Young married his second wife, Mary A. Angel, in Kirtland on March 31, 1834. His application for a marriage license is still on file among the records of the Probate Court at Chardon, now the shire town of Geauga County, Ohio, and his signature is a proof of his illiterateness, showing that he did not know how to spell his own baptismal name, spelling it "Bricham."

Young began preaching and baptizing in the neighborhood, having at once been made an elder, and in the autumn of 1832, after Smith's second return from Missouri, he visited Kirtland and first saw the prophet. Mormon accounts of this visit say that Young "spoke in tongues," and that Smith pronounced his language "the pure Adamic," and then predicted that he would in time preside over the church. It is not at all improbable that Joseph did not hesitate to interpret Brigham's "tongues," but at that time he was thinking of everything else but a successor to himself.

Young, with his brother Joseph, went from Kirtland on foot to Canada, where he preached and baptized, and whence he brought back a company of converts. He worked at his trade in Kirtland (preaching as called upon) from that time until 1834, when he accompanied the "Army of Zion" to Missouri, being one of the captains of tens. Returning with the prophet, he was employed on the Temple and other church buildings for the next three years (superintending the painting of the Temple), when he was not engaged in other church work. Having been made one of the original Quorum of Twelve in 1835, he devoted a good deal of time in the warmer months holding conferences in New York State and New England.

When open opposition to Smith manifested itself in Kirtland, Young was one of his firmest defenders. He attended a meeting in an upper room of the Temple, the object of which was to depose Smith and place David Whitmer in the Presidency, leading in the debate, and declaring that he "knew that Joseph was a prophet." According to his own statement, he learned of a plot to kill Smith as he was returning from Michigan in a stage-coach, and met the coach with a horse and buggy, and drove the prophet to Kirtland unharmed. When Smith found it necessary to flee from Ohio, Young followed him to Missouri with his family, arriving at Far West on March 14, 1838. He sailed to Liverpool on a mission in 1840, remaining there a little more than a year.

In all the discords of the church that occurred during Smith's life, Young never incurred the prophet's displeasure, and there is no evidence that he ever attempted to obtain any more power or honor for himself than was voluntarily accorded to him. He gave practical assistance to the refugees from Missouri as they arrived at Quincy, but there is no record of his prominence in the discussions there over the future plans for the church. The prophet's liking for him is shown in a revelation dated at Nauvoo, July 9; 1841 (Sec. 126), which said:—

"Dear and beloved brother Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me; I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name. I therefore command you to send my word abroad, and take special care of your family from this time, henceforth, and forever. Amen."

The apostasy of Marsh and the death of Patton had left Young the President of the Twelve, and that was the position in which he found himself at the time of Smith's death.

One of the first subjects which Young had to decide concerned "revelations." Did they cease with Smith's death, or, if not, who would receive and publish them? Young made a statement on this subject at the church conference held at Nauvoo on October 6 of that year, which indicated his own uncertainty on the subject, and which concluded as follows, "Every member has the right of receiving revelations for themselves, both male and female." As if conscious that all this was not very clear, he closed by making a declaration which was very characteristic of his future policy: "If you don't know whose right it is to give revelations, I will tell you. It is I."* We shall see that the discontinuance of written "revelations" was a cause of complaint during all of Young's subsequent career in Utah, but he never yielded to the demand for them.

At the conference in Nauvoo Young selected eighty-five men from the Quorum of high priests to preside over branches of the church in all the congressional districts of the United States; and he took pains to explain to them that they were not to stay six months and then return, but "to go and settle down where they can take their families and tarry until the Temple is built, and then come and get their endowments, and return to their families and build up a Stake as large as this." Young's policy evidently was, while not imitating Rigdon's plan to move the church bodily to the East, to build up big branches all over the country, with a view to such control of affairs, temporal and spiritual, as could be attained. "If the people will let us alone," he said to this same conference, "we will convert the world."

Many members did not look on the Twelve as that head of the church which Smith's revelations had decreed. It was argued by those who upheld Rigdon and Strang, and by some who remained with the Twelve, that the "revelations" still required a First Presidency. The Twelve allowed this question to remain unsettled until the brethren were gathered at Winter Quarters, Iowa, after their expulsion from Nauvoo, and Young had returned from his first trip to Salt Lake valley. The matter was taken up at a council at Orson Hyde's house on December 5, 1847, and it was decided, but not without some opposing views, to reorganize the church according to the original plan, with a First Presidency and Patriarch. In accordance with this plan, a conference was held in the log tabernacle at Winter Quarters on December 24, and Young was elected President and John Smith Patriarch. Young selected Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards to be his counsellors, and the action of this conference was confirmed in Salt Lake City the following October. Young wrote immediately after his election, "This is one of the happiest days of my life."

The vacancies in the Twelve caused by these promotions, and by Wight's apostasy, were not filled until February 12, 1849, in Salt Lake City, when Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, C. C. Rich, and F. D. Richards were chosen.

CHAPTER XVIII. — RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS—"THE BURNINGS"

The death of the prophet did not bring peace with their outside neighbors to the Mormon church. Indeed, the causes of enmity were too varied and radical to be removed by any changes in the leadership, so long as the brethren remained where they were.

In the winter of 1844-1845 charges of stealing made against the Mormons by their neighbors became more frequent. Governor Ford, in his message to the legislature, pronounced such reports exaggerated, but it probably does the governor no injustice to say that he now had his eye on the Mormon vote. The non-Mormons in Hancock and the surrounding counties held meetings and appointed committees to obtain accurate information about the thefts, and the old complaints of the uselessness of tracing stolen goods to Nauvoo were revived. The Mormons vigorously denied these charges through formal action taken by the Nauvoo City Council and a citizens' meeting, alleging that in many cases "outlandish men" had visited the city at night to scatter counterfeit money and deposit stolen goods, the responsibility for which was laid on Mormon shoulders.

It is not at all improbable that many a theft in western Illinois in those days that was charged to Mormons had other authors; but testimony regarding the dishonesty of many members of the church, such as we have seen presented in Smith's day, was still available. Thus, Young, in one of his addresses to the conference assembled at Nauvoo about two months after Smith's death, made this statement: "Elders who go to borrowing horses or money, and running away with it, will be cut off from the church without any ceremony. THEY WILL NOT HAVE SO MUCH LENITY AS HERETOFORE."*

A lady who published a sketch of her travels in 1845 through Illinois and Iowa wrote:—

"We now entered a part of the country laid waste by the desperadoes among the Mormons. Whole farms were deserted, fields were still covered with wheat unreaped, and cornfields stood ungathered, the inhabitants having fled to a distant part of the country.... Friends gave us a good deal of information about the doings of these Saints at Nauvoo—said that often, when their orchards were full of fruit, some sixteen of these monsters would come with bowie knives and drive the owners into their houses while they stripped their trees of the fruit. If these rogues wanted cattle they would drive off the cattle of the Gentiles."*

A trial concerning the title to some land in Adams County in that year brought out the fact that there existed in the Mormon church what was called a "Oneness." Five persons would associate and select one of their members as a guardian; then, if any of the property they jointly owned was levied on, they would show that one or more of the other five was the real owner.

While the Mormons continued to send abroad glowing pictures of the prosperity of Nauvoo, less prejudiced accounts gave a very different view. The latter pointed out that the immigrants, who supplied the only source of prosperity, had expended most of their capital on houses and lots, that building operations had declined, because houses could be bought cheaper than they could be built, and that mechanics had been forced to seek employment in St. Louis. Published reports that large numbers of the poor in the city were dependent on charity received confirmation in a letter published in the Millennial Star of October 1, 1845, which said that on a fast-day proclaimed by Young, when the poor were to be remembered, "people were seen trotting in all directions to the Bishops of the different wards" with their contributions.

We have seen that the gathering of the Saints at Nauvoo was an idea of Joseph Smith, and was undertaken against the judgment of some of the wiser members of the church. The plan, so far as its business features were concerned, was on a par with the other business enterprises that the prophet had fathered. There was nothing to sustain a population of 15,000 persons, artificially collected, in this frontier settlement, and that disaster must have resulted from the experiment, even without the hostile opposition of their neighbors, is evident from the fact that Nauvoo to day, when fifty years have settled up the surrounding district and brought it in better communication with the world, is a village of only 1321 inhabitants (census of 1900).

Politics were not eliminated from the causes of trouble by Smith's death. Not only was 1844 a presidential year, but the citizens of Hancock County were to vote for a member of Congress, two members of the legislature, and a sheriff. Governor Ford urgently advised the Mormons not to vote at all, as a measure of peace; but political feeling ran very high, and the Democrats got the Mormon vote for President, and with the same assistance elected as sheriff General Deming, the officer left by Governor Ford in command of the militia at Carthage when the Smiths were killed, as well as two members of the legislature who had voted against the repeal of the Nauvoo city charter.

The tone of the Mormons toward their non-Mormon neighbors seemed to become more defiant at this time than ever. The repeal of the Nauvoo charter, in January, 1845, unloosened their tongues. Their newspaper, the Neighbor, declared that the legislature "had no more right to repeal the charter than the United States would have to abrogate and make void the constitution of the state, or than Great Britain would have to abolish the constitution of the United States—and the man that says differently is a coward, a traitor to his own rights, and a tyrant; no odds what Blackstone, Kent or Story may have written to make themselves and their names popular, to the contrary."

The Neighbor, in the same article, thus defined its view of the situation, after the repeal:—

"Nor is it less legal for an insulted individual or community to resist oppression. For this reason, until the blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith has been atoned for by hanging, shooting or slaying in some manner every person engaged in that cowardly, mean assassination, no Latter-Day Saint should give himself up to the law; for the presumption is that they wilt murder him in the same manner.... Neither should civil process come into Nauvoo till the United States by a vigorous course, causes the State of Missouri and the State of Illinois to redress every man that has suffered the loss of lands, goods or anything else by expulsion. ... If any man is bound to maintain the law, it is for the benefit he may derive from it.... Well, our charter is repealed; the murderers of the Smiths are running at large, and if the Mormons should wish to imitate their forefathers and fulfil the Scriptures by making it 'hard to kick against the pricks' by wearing cast steel pikes about four or five inches long in their boots and shoes to kick with, WHAT'S THE HARM?" Such utterances, which found imitation in the addresses of the leaders, and were echoed in the columns of Pratt's Prophet in New York, made it easy for their hostile neighbors to believe that the Mormons considered themselves beyond the reach of any law but their own. Some daring murders committed across the river in Iowa in the spring of 1845 afforded confirmation to the non-Mormons of their belief in church-instigated crimes of this character, and in the existence and activity of the Danite organization. The Mormon authorities had denied that there were organized Danites at Nauvoo, but the weight of testimony is against the denial. Gregg, a resident of the locality when the Mormons dwelt there, gives a fair idea of the accepted view of the Danites at that time:—

"They were bound together with oaths of the most solemn character, and the punishment of traitors to the order was death. John A. Murrell's Band of Pirates, who flourished at one time near Jackson, Tennessee, and up and down the Mississippi River above New Orleans, was never so terrible as the Danite Band, for the latter was a powerful organization, and was above the law. The band made threats, and they were not idle threats. They went about on horseback, under cover of darkness, disguised in long white robes with red girdles. Their faces were covered with masks to conceal their identity."*

Phineas Wilcox, a young man of good reputation, went to Nauvoo on September 16, 1845, to get some wheat ground, and while there disappeared completely. The inquiry made concerning him led his friends to believe that he was suspected of being a Gentile spy, and was quietly put out of the way.*

William Smith, the prophet's brother, contributed to the testimony against the Mormon leaders. Returning from the East, where he had been living for three years when Joseph was killed, he was warmly welcomed by the Mormon press, and elevated to the position of Patriarch, and, as such, issued a sort of advertisement of his patriarchal wares in the Times and Seasons* and Neighbor, inviting those in want of blessings to call at his residence. William was not a man of tact, and it required but a little time for him to arouse the jealousy of the leaders, the result of which was a notice in the Times and Seasons of November 1, 1845, that he had been "cut off and left in the hands of God." But William was not a man to remain quiet even in such a retreat, and he soon afterward issued to the Saints throughout the world "a proclamation and faithful warning," which filled eight and a half columns of the Warsaw Signal of October 29, 1845, in which, "in all meekness of spirit, and without anger or malice" (William possessed most of the family traits), he accused Young of instigating murders, and spoke of him in this way:—

"It is my firm and sincere conviction that, since the murder of my two brothers, usurpation, and anarchy, and spiritual wickedness in high places have crept into the church, with the cognizance and acquiescence of those whose solemn duty It was to guardedly watch against such a state of things. Under the reign of one whom I may call a Pontius Pilate, under the reign, I say, of this Brigham Young, no greater tyrant ever existed since the days of Nero. He has no other justification than ignorance to cover the most cruel acts—acts disgraceful to any one bearing the stamp of humanity; and this being has associated around him men, bound by oaths and covenants, who are reckless enough to commit almost any crime, or fulfil any command that their self-crowned head might give them."

William was, of course, welcomed as a witness by the non-Mormons. He soon after went to St. Louis, and while there received a letter from Orson Hyde, which called his proclamation "a cruel thrust," but urged him to return, pledging that they would not harm him. William did not accept the invitation, but settled in Illinois, became a respected citizen, and in later years was elected to the legislature. When invited to join the Reorganized Church by his nephew Joseph, he declined, saying, "I am not in sympathy, very strongly, with any of the present organized bands of Mormons, your own not excepted."

By the spring of 1845 the Mormons were deserted even by their Democratic allies, some three hundred of whom in Hancock County issued an address denying that the opposition to them was principally Whig, and declaring that it had arisen from compulsion and in self-defence. Governor Ford, anxious to be rid of his troublesome constituents, sent a confidential letter to Brigham Young, dated April 8, 1845, saying, "If you can get off by yourselves you may enjoy peace," and suggesting California as opening "a field for the prettiest enterprise that has been undertaken in modern times."

An era of the most disgraceful outrages that marked any of the conflicts between the Mormons and their opponents east of the Rocky Mountains began in Hancock County on the night of September 9, when a schoolhouse in Green Plain, south of Warsaw, in which the anti-Mormons were holding a meeting, was fired upon. The Mormons always claimed that this was a sham attack, made by the anti-Mormons to give an excuse for open hostilities, and probabilities favor this view. Straightway ensued what were known as the "burnings." A band of men, numbering from one hundred to two hundred, and coming mostly from Warsaw, began burning the houses, outbuildings, and grain stacks of Mormons all over the southwest part of the county. The owners were given time to remove their effects, and were ordered to make haste to Nauvoo, and in this way the country region was rapidly rid of Mormon settlers.*

The sheriff of the county at that time was J. B. Backenstos, who, Ford says, went to Hancock County from Sangamon, a fraudulent debtor, and whose brother married a niece of the Prophet Joseph.* He had been elected to the legislature the year before, and had there so openly espoused the Mormon cause opposing the repeal of the Nauvoo charter that his constituents proposed to drive him from the county when he returned home. Backenstos at once took up the cause of the Mormons, issued proclamation after proclamation,** breathing the utmost hostility to the Mormon assailants, and calling on the citizens to aid him as a posse in maintaining order.

A sheriff of different character might have secured the help that was certainly his due on such an occasion, but no non-Mormon would respond to a call by Backenstos. An occurrence incidental to these disturbances now added to the public feeling. On September 16, Lieutenant Worrell, who had been in command of the guard at the jail when the Smith brothers were killed, was shot dead while riding with two companions from Carthage to Warsaw. His death was charged to Backenstos and to O. P. Rockwell,* the man accused of the attempted assassination of Governor Boggs, and both were afterward put on trial for it, but were acquitted. The sheriff now turned to the Nauvoo Legion for recruits, and in his third proclamation he announced that he then had a posse of upward of two thousand "well-armed men" and two thousand more ready to respond to his call. He marched in different directions with this force, visiting Carthage, where he placed a number of citizens under arrest and issued his Proclamation No. 4., in which he characterized the Carthage Grays as "a band of the most infamous and villanous scoundrels that ever infested any community."

"During the ascendency of the sheriff and the absence of the anti-Mormons from their homes," said Governor Ford,* "the people who had been burnt out of their houses assembled at Nauvoo, from whence, with many others, they sallied forth and ravaged the country, stealing and plundering whatever was convenient to carry or drive away." Thus it seems that the governor had changed his opinion about the honesty of the Mormons. To remedy the chaotic condition of affairs in the county, Governor Ford went to Jacksonville, Morgan County, where, in a conference, it was decided that judge Stephen A. Douglas, General J. J. Hardin, Attorney General T. A. McDougal, and Major W. B. Warren should go to Hancock County with such forces as could be raised, to put an end to the lawlessness. When the sheriff heard of this, he pronounced the governor's proclamation directing the movement a forgery, and said, in his own Proclamation No. 5, "I hope no armed men will come into Hancock County under such circumstances. I shall regard them in the character of a mob, and shall treat them accordingly."