Mormon History
Jackson County Revisited - 1875
The Salt Lake Daily Tribune – October 6, 1875
JACKSON COUNTY.
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The Early History of the Saints and Their Enemies.
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Joe Smith's Practical Polygamy and Its
Results.
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A Beautiful and Flourishing Country for Saintly Gathering.
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Joe's Curses Which Miss Fire Like an Old Shot Gun.
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(Correspondence
Tribune.)
INDEPENDENCE, Jackson County, Missouri
Sept. 28th, '75.
Compelled by a mysterious and afflictive providence to wait two days in West
Missouri, I seized the occasion to run down here and put in a day in the Holy
Land of Mormonism. And I have seen and heard so much to interest me that I am
sure many of my Mormon friends will be pleased to learn how their old neighbors
get along, and read of the present condition of the land of Zion. It is, indeed,
a goodly land. Of that there can be no question by Saint or Gentile; and my
opinion of the Prophet has risen fifty percent since I arrived at his
SELECTED SPOT FOR THE NEW JERUSALEM.
I have now visited and got
pretty well acquainted with five of the Mormon Zions -- Salt Lake City, Council
Bluffs, (or rather Winter Quarters on the west bank,) Independence, Nauvoo and
Lake County, Ohio; and it must be said that they always made good selections. If
the "Lord" had only kept his word with them, they might have amounted to a great
deal in this selection. But the "Lord" proposed and the Missourians disposed,
and things are as they are.
Falling in on the ears with an old citizen who has been here forty years, he had
the driver take me to the hotel by the way of Limestone Avenue and
THE TEMPLE BLOCK,
and on the highest point we
paused and took a good view of the situation. It was beautiful beyond
description. Twelve or fifteen miles westward, the spires of Kansas City
glittered attractively in the light of the setting sun; while in all directions
gently rolling prairie and tasty groves combined in rural beauty -- the prairies
rich in tall corn, the groves each enclosing a magnificent farm house.
Independence is on a series of knolls and intervening slopes; the native timber
still adorns the town; drainage is excellent and pavements good, and the result
is, one of the most beautiful and healthful cities in the West. The population
is 4,000, and in that number is an amazingly large proportion of pretty girls. I
don't see how it is possible for a single man to get away from the place.
Temple Block, still unfenced, is on the crown of the most commanding knoll; but
the ground slopes so gradually that the rise is not evident till one leaves it.
That and the lots immediately adjacent are the property of some resident
Mormons, of whom there are
TWO SECTS HERE
the Hedrickites and
Twelveites. They have a bishop and did publish a little weekly called the
Truth Teller; but is has lately "ausgespielt." There were two brothers named
Hedrick who headed one of the dissenting parties which refused the Presidency of
Brigham. John Hedrick had his neck broken in this county by a runaway team; the
other one moved to Kansas, where he now owns a mile square of land and is rich
in flocks and herds. Meanwhile Brewster, Cutter, Page and others, who also led
off small bands of dissenters, died, and their followers party gathered here;
the rest of them are scattered in Iowa, "half Mormon and half nothing." The
conglomerates in Missouri took the name of Twelveites, but have kept splitting
into factions till only a dozen or twenty families are left here under Bishop
Haldeman. They have preaching once a month and are contentedly waiting for
Christ's second coming. They have a big advantage over Brigham -- they own the
undoubted site of the Temple which is to be, in the New Jerusalem. In most other
respects Brigham is ahead.
Jackson is the second county in the State, St. Louis only being ahead; and it
had in 1870 a population of 60,000. Kansas City has doubled in size since then,
and allowing for a slight increase throughout the rural districts, they claim a
population for the whole county of 85,000. No part of Missouri has a better
population. From every commanding point, schoolhouses and churches are seen;
every good plat of land is under cultivation, only the ridges and groves being
in common. There is just about timber enough to suitably adorn the landscape,
and all the public buildings and most of the residences are elegant and
handsome. The records show, except in Kansas City, an exceptionally small
percentage of crime. The old settlers announce with some pride that there has
never been a mob in the county since that which expelled the Latter-day Saints.
I use this term because it is in common use in Utah; but while they were here it
was an unknown phrase. The Saints called themselves the "Church of Christ," and
they were known by sinners as Mormonites. Their present title was afterwards
adopted at Kirtland. Of course, in the above statement as to mobs, the citizens
excluded the era of the war, which did some damage in the county, but none of
any permanence. The average of wealth and intelligence is high. In short, if the
"Lord" condescends to come in person, he could not well select a better place to
come to.
My first call was on Dr. William E. McLellin, whose name you will find in every
number of the old Millennial Star, and in many of Smith's revelations. I
found the old gentleman in pleasant quarters, himself and wife living with two
grandchildren in a home he has occupied for many years. He joined the Mormons in
1831, and left them in 1836. Came to Independence in 1831 from Paris, Illinois,
and was baptized here. Soon after he went on a mission and returned in 1833.
Soon after his return a Mormon meeting was called in the yard in front of John
Corril's home, (I visited the place,) where the Doctor was called upon for
remarks. He expounded from the scriptures, (this is his account,) that the
Gentile world was in bad straits; that a general wind-up was at hand, and that
the result would be blood and destruction to the unbelievers and a glorious
triumph for the Saints. The Doctor was careful not to specify how this
would be brought about, or to set any time, but the speaker who followed him
prophesied that before five years
ALL UNBELIEVERS IN JACKSON COUNTY WOULD BE DESTROYED.
Upon this a few Missourians
in the outskirts of the crowd signified an emphatic dissent and went down town.
That evening an "indignation meeting" was called in the public square, where
Russel Hicks, a lawyer, and Saml. C. Owens, county clerk, gave it as their
opinion that the Mormonites intended to raise the slaves, join them and massacre
the whites. This set the ball rolling and the next Tuesday three hundred armed
men from the county were assembled in town. They tore down the Mormon printing
office, chased Dr. McLellin through a corn field and into the woods, but failed
to catch him, committed some other outrages and notified the Saints to emigrate.
The latter assembled their forces on Big Blue, in the upper part of the county.
The citizens feared an attack on the town, armed all the men, and sent a small
scouting party to parley with they enemy. This party was fired upon by the
Saints, and two citizens, Brezeal and Linville, killed. This was the first blood
shed, and the Mormons shed it. But it settled their fate in Jackson county, and
they were driven out en masse the next November.
Dr. McLellin is strongly of opinion that the troubles of the Saints here did not
result from anything they had done, but altogether from what the citizens
feared they might do if they got a majority. They Saints at that time
interpreted the prophecies much more literally than they now do; in particular
Sydney Rigdon, Orson Hyde, W. W. Phelps, and Martin Harris, whether in Kirtland
or Missouri, were instant, in season and out of season, in declaring to the
Gentiles that the great day of Armageddon was at hand, and that if the Gentiles
resisted the ordinances of God, blood would flow even to the horses bridle-bits.
With them was a small minority of the Saints, who went about the country
notifying the old settlers that they had better sell out and leave, for the Lord
was "about to clean up his threshing floor and make a way for the Saints." Of
course, this sort of talk created trouble, but the Doctor is very emphatic in
his statement that the Saints committed no more actnal [sic] crime than an equal
number of other people. The Doctor "dissented" (the apostates were then called
"dissenters") in 1836. His faith was first shaken by the changes made in the
revelations. He had been careful to keep copies of the originals, presented
proof that all the early
REVELATIONS WERE CHANGED THREE TIMES,
and considerably amended before they appeared in their present form. Next he was swindled out of all the property he put into the joint stock concern in Kirtland, and soon after was convinced that the Prophet had suborned men to commit crime. What follows I give on his authority, and he is regarded here as a thoroughly reliable man.
THE DOCTOR'S STORY.
At Kirtland there was a wealthy citizen, Grandison Newell, who brought a number of civil suits against Joseph Smith -- estimated as high as thirty. Dr. McLellin was a witness in some of these cases. About that time a devout Saint whispered to the Doctor that "men had slipped their wind for smaller things then Newell was guilty of." Upon this the Doctor saw one of Joseph Smith's intimates privately, and the latter confessed that he and another were employed by Smith to assassinate Grandison Newell! The Doctor satisfied himself fully that the man's statement was true, and thought it about time to leave. He accordingly put his wife on one horse, took another himself and "lit out." Soon after he settled in Upper Missouri, and was soon surrounded by the Saints again, but was careful to keep still and have no intimacies with them.
SMITH'S POLYGAMY.
He was in the vicinity during all the Mormon troubles in Northern Missouri, and grieved heavily over the suffering of his former brethren. He also informed me of the spot where the first well authenticated case of polygamy took place in which Joseph Smith was "sealed" to the hired girl. The "sealing" took place in a barn on the hay mow, and was witnessed by Mrs. Smith through a crack in the door! The Doctor was so distressed about this case, (it created some scandal at the time among the Saints,) that long afterwards when he visited Mrs. Emma Smith at Nauvoo, he charged her as she hoped for salvation to tell him the truth about it. And she then and there declared on her honor that it was a fact -- "saw it with her own eyes." The long disputed question, then, as to whether the Prophet did practice polygamy, is now effectually set at rest; and Brigham is a little ahead of young Joe on that point. About the time she told the Doctor this, Mrs. Smith also published a card in the Quincy (Illinois) Whig, in which she stated that she had no faith in the prophetic mission of her "late husband, and considered his revelations as the result of a diseased mind." Despite all these experiences, Dr. McLellin is still a firm believer in the Book of Mormon. He thinks it was truly "given by divine inspiration," but that the men to whom the trust was committed proved unfaithful, and have gone from bad to worse ever since.
FIRE BRANDS.
I also met a gentleman named Brown, who resided in Gallatin, when the Mormons sacked that place and burned the principal houses. This was after they had been harassed considerably by their enemies, and he was inclined to sympathize with them at first, but was rather rudely converted by having his father's house set on fire by the sparks from the store-house. About the same time Millport, (a little town in Davis county) was plundered and partially burned by the Mormons; still they might have settled their troubles with the people had it not been for dissensions among themselves. But in Far West, the Saints capital, were many of the original converts who did not fully believe the latest revelations. Of those Oliver Cowdry, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, W. W. Phelps and Lyman E. Johnson received a written notice signed by eighty-four Saints, that they were considered guilty of counterfeiting, gambling, etc., and were under surveillance. These persons accordingly fled to the Gentiles for protection. The first two were "witnesses" to the Book of Mormon, the next, one of the "eight witnesses." Some of them came to Dr. McLellin's on their flight. One by one the suspected and disaffected slipped out of Far West, while the irregular war went on; but finally the militia assembled under an official call, and in a very short time all the Saints were dispersed or captured. I obtained, and now have in my possession, a complete copy of the evidence taken on the trial, from the copy certified to by Judge Austin King, and printed by authority of the State.
IN CLAY COUNTY.
When the Saints went into
Clay county, the citizens there were profuse in kindness to them, and full of
indignation at the people of Jackson; but in a year or two the Clay county
people in turn began to hold mass meetings, and beg the Mormons to go further
on. One of these meetings appointed a committee to draft an address to the "new
settlers, the people commonly called Mormonites," a copy of which is before me.
It is a funny document. It sets forth in florid rhetoric the facts that the
exiles from Jackson had come into Clay poor and destitute, averring that they
only wanted refuge for a year; that the people of Clay had exhausted kindness on
them, and sought by all honorable means to make peace between them and Jackson
county; that the time was past in which the Mormonites had agreed to go, and yet
they showed no signs of leaving, and if they remained so much as one year
longer, it would cause war between Clay and Jackson. The address closed by
imploring them by every consideration of honor and public safety to go further,
and suggested Wisconsin Territory as a good place for them, "where their
neighbors will be few, all Northern people like themselves; they can establish a
government of their own, and have no conflict with our laws," etc. Cornelius
Gillum was active in effecting a compromise, and finally got the Saints to
remove without using Clay as a basis of attack against Jackson county. This
Gillum afterwards led a company of militia in the war against the Saints.
I may as well add here that Dr. McLellin evidently sought to soften the case
against the Saints, and apologised for them as much as possible; but his wife,
in what little she had to say, took a more radical view of it, averring of her
own knowledge that the leading Mormons in Far West were guilty of every kind of
little crime and meanness." Lyman Johnson, one of the exiles from Far West, was
her nephew. I also saw Mr. Reuben Wallace, who served in the extempore regiment
which was raised to defend Jackson country from "Joe Smith's army"--meaning, I
suppose, "Zion's Camp," from Kirtland. But the people of Clay county positively
forbade the Saints to use their territory as a basis of operations against
Independence, and the expected invasion was indefinitely postponed. Also, Mr.
Weston, late mayor of this city, whose father commanded part of the Jackson
Militia; Mr. Lucas, son of General Lucas, and may others. All the participants
in the war against the Saints have been so often described in Utah as a set of
murderous scoundrels, mobocrats and villains, who deserved
HANGING FIRST AND HELL AFTERWARDS,
that one is rather surprised to find in the survivors mild, venerable old gentlemen, who look as if they had never wantonly injured a fly. Colonel Thomas Pitcher, in particular, is generally pictured in Mormon annals as a blood drinker, whose favorite meal was a Mormon baby on toast; but he is an exceedingly quiet and pleasant old farmer, with hardly nerve enough to butcher a calf. As the Prophet Joseph pronounced the curse of heaven on all these men as enemies of God and his saints, and predicted untold horrors for them, your Mormon readers will no doubt be pleased to learn
THEIR SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
The first fact that strikes
one is, how wonderfully tenacious of life all those combatants seem to have
been, whether Mormon or anti-Mormon. It seems as good as a life insurance to
have been engaged in the Mormon war on either side. But individually the
account, as far as known here, is as follows:
Oliver Cowdery, first witness of the Book of Mormon, after being "cut off for
lying, counterfeiting and immorality," turned his attention to law and real
estate in which his success was only average. It was a favorite practice with
him when half drunk to preach a Mormon sermon. When visited by any of the
Saints, or a stranger, he invariably asserted the truth of his "testimony;" but
among his friends privately he admitted that it was "all a bottle of smoke." He
died in Richmond, Ray county, and Elizabeth, his wife, afterward married an old
farmer, with whom she is living up in Iowa -- "fair, fat and sixty," and not
caring much about Mormonism.
David Whitmer, second witness, still lives in Richmond -- a well to do livery
man and stock dealer, accounted by all the citizens a perfect gentleman. He
generally refuses to talk about Mormonism, but when hard pressed by interviewers
insists that "an angel showed him the plates." Privately he informs his friends
that his statement is true, but he means Mr. John Angell, a neighbor of the
Smiths! The "curse" don't appear to have got him bad, but there is no telling
what may happen. It would be a great card for some missionary from Salt Lake to
restore the old man and bring him to Utah, as Stevenson did Martin Harris; but
as Whitmer is rich, while Harris was a pauper, he might not be so easily
restored.
John Whitmer, brother of David and one of the "eight witnesses," lives near old
Far West and is the wealthiest [man] in that vicinity, owning 700 acres of land
in one body, cattle upon a thousand hills, and ready money in abundance.
Evidently the "curse" has missed him on a fair point blank range. But the "Lord"
may snatch him bald-headed yet, before 1890 and the return of the Saints. So it
won't do to count too much on his case.
Samuel C. Owens, who made the first speech here against the Saints and led the
mob, was shot dead in the Mexican war, while leading an assault. I hardly know
whether to credit this to the "curse" or not; but on second thoughts have
concluded its only fair to do so. True, a great many men were killed in that war
who had nothing to do with the persecution; but the "Lord's" bookkeeping may
differ from ours, and it is best to be on the safe side. So credit Owens to
prophecy.
Russel Hicks, then Owens' deputy, is now an old lawyer at Kansas City. He is a
rough, gruff old sinner, but hale and tolerably prosperous. But if he don't go a
little slower on his "bitters," I think the "curse" will eventually catch him.
Jones H. Flournoy, another mob leader, then postmaster, died a natural death
years ago. Nothing remarkable about his fate in any respect.
General S. D. Lucas, who assisted Generals Doniphan and Clark in the capture of
Far West, served his country with distinction for many years, and died a natural
death. His family holds high rank here, both socially and intellectually. His
son is recorder of deeds for this county, and is a man of promise. Possibly the
"curse" is postponed to the next generation, according to the law of Moses.
Henry Childs, attorney for the Saints, and generally their friend, moved West,
and was killed in an Indian war. No "moral" to be drawn from his case.
Samuel Weston, then justice of the peace and a savage anti-Mormon, died a
natural death, leaving a moderate property and respected family. His son, late
mayor of this city, has made a success in the plow manufacture. I asked him
particularly if he felt the "curse," but he could not say that he did.
Colonel Thomas Pitcher, the great Mormon-eater, who led the militia of the
county in the final struggle, lives a little out of town on a beautiful farm; he
feels the infirmities of age, and otherwise is doing as well as could be
expected.
Cornelius Gillium tried for a long time to compromise the trouble in Northern
Missouri, failed completely, charged the fault of the failure to the Saints, and
became one of their bitterest enemies. He settled in the Platte Purchase, and
made money, afterwards went to Oregon and became a [renowned] Indian fighter,
and for aught I can learn, may be living there yet.
Ruben Wallace, another "mobber," is keeping a grocery and feed store here. He is
usually troubled with biliousness at this season of the year, but beyond that is
not particularly conscious of the "curse." I have thought over his case
considerably, and if you consider the prophecy hard pressed, you may credit his
biliousness to the "curse" -- but you must do it on your own responsibility. I
wash may hands of it.
Captain Samuel Bogart, who commanded the Missouri militia at the battle of
Crooked river, (and by the way the opposing accounts of that battle are fearful
"crooked,") served many years after as a Methodist preacher; finally got too fat
and lazy for that business, and moved on to a farm up north. No later reports of
him. Should think if the "curse" got anybody, it would be him; for in that
battle Apostle Patten was killed. Mr. Samuel Tarwater, a citizen, was also badly
wounded and captured by the Mormons who hacked him almost to pieces with their
knives and swords. One cheek was cut off and his jaw broken, most of his lower
teeth knocked out, a rib broken and at least twenty flesh wounds on his body..
They departed, leaving him for dead, but under the treatment of Dr. Ralph he
recovered and lived to a good old age. On account of his case, many of his
neighbors and friends cruelly treated all the Mormons they captured. In fact the
war seems to have been conducted on both sides with great barbarity.
This letter has spun out to unreasonable length, and I will only say of all the
other notables of the Mormon period, that they have lived or died, prospered or
failed, according to their talents and character, very mich like other men.
Jackson county has a population nearly equal to that of Utah, and about twice as
much wealth. The crops this year are enormous and the general condition
prosperous; law and order prevail, and life and property are secure. If the
"Lord" has put a "curse" on the country, he has a queer way of showing it; but
as the statute of limitations does not run against Prophets, it may come to a
fulfillment any time within the century. And further this deponent saith not.
BEADLE.
Note: John Hanson Beadle (1840-1897) was the author of the 1870 book Life in
Utah, which went through several printing and name alterations, each of
which preserved his sub-title: "Mysteries & Crimes of Mormonism." He is the same
correspondent who wrote "The Golden Bible" for the Tribune issue of
Apr. 15, 1888, which featured an interview with the grandson of Sidney
Rigdon.