SECRET HISTORY OF THE MORMONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 19 August 1911, Page 7

SECRET HISTORY OF THE MORMONS.

HOW JOE SMITH WAS MURDERED. Nothing is more remarkable than the rapid growth of Murmonism in its early days. From a few scores the uuiulier of converts grew to hundreds, then to thousands and tens of thousands. The reason for this was that each new convert was in a sense a missionary, seeking other converts. With increasing power, however, the Mormons grew arrogant. Then, as now, many of their converts were young girls and married women. This bred friction, then ill-will, and finally hatred. Persecution broke out. Smith and Rigdon were taken from their beds at dead of night by armed men, and tarred and feathered. Other prominent Mormons were whipped, their houses were burned over their heads, some even were killed outright

Later came wnotesaie massacres. A typical one arose out of an affray at a place called Hawn's Mill, in Missouri. Here the Mormons had established a settlement, with a mill for grinding their corn, a schoolhouse and a blacksmith's shop. The latter building was a strong one, of unhewn logs, and the Saints, attacked by a savage mob, took refuge within it. They intended to use it as a blockhouse, but it proved a slaughter pen, for the besiegers stuck their rifles through the chinks between the logs, and poured in a deadly, concentrated fire, killing or wounding all within.

Afterwards dead and wounded were thrown into a well thirty feet deep, which was filled with their bodies to within three feet of the top. No mercy was shown. Men, women and young children shared the same dreadful fate.

A Mormon boy of eight, discovered hidden behind the bellows after the firing was over, was dragged out and murdered in cold blood. One old man of nearly eighty, who had been shot in the thigh, begged piteously for his life, pointing to his grey hairs. The mob fell upon him and hacked him to death with a corn cutter.

In regard to throwing the bodies in a well, and in other ways, there is a strong resemblance in this massacre to that which afterwards took place at Cawnpore during the Indian Mutiny.

Such dreadful deeds invited retaliation. The Mormons founded an organisation for their defence that afterwards became world-famous. This was the Order of the Danites, or Destroying Angels.

It was, in effect, a secret, oath-bound association of assassins, and their motto was "blood for blood and a life for a life." 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.

Woe to the enemies of the Saints when the Destroying Angels were on the warpath! Many a lonely cabin was raided by them and burned, after the inhabitants had been ruthlessly slaughtered. Women were torn from their beds at night and savagely beaten. Their menfolk were subjected in some instances to horrible, nameless mutilation, worse than death itself.

They could fight, too, in the open upon occasion. One famous Danite leader was Captain Patton, whose nickname was "Fear Not." When a hostile mob attacked a Mormon colony at a place called Far West, in Missouri, Patton took the offensive with seventy-five volunteers, all mounted, and inflicted upon the enemy a crushing defeat; but he himself was killed in the fighting.

The death of "Fear Not" roused the Mormons to frenzy. He was given a magnificent funeral, at which hundreds of armed men were gathered and swore revenge. That part of the State of Missouri where the Mormons were thickest was thrown into wild panic. The "gentiles"—as all who were outside the pale of the Mormon church were called —abandoned their farms and the outlying villages and sought shelter in th« towns. But even this did not sav» many of those marked down for destruction. The terrible Danites were everywhere, seemed to know everything and everybody.

In the midst of all the excitement came the news that Joseph Smith had been arrested and thrown into gaol. This drastic step was the sequel to a remarkable speech, in which he compared himself to Mohammed, and swore that if his enemies did not leave him alone he would proclaim a holy war, and "make of America one lake of blood from the Rocky Alountains to the Atlantic Ocean."

It is impossible, of course, to take this bombast seriously. But amongst Smith's followers were many dangerous fanatics, and the authorities were more than a litttle afraid. The Mormons gathered in great crowds about the gaol where their leader was, sullen, resolute, muttering threats. In the end the "prophet" was allowed to escape. One account has it that his guards were bribed, another that they had yielded to intimidation. Anyhow, he was free, and in order not to be re-taken he fled across the borders of the State of Missouri and settled at a place on the Mississippi river, then called Commeree, but which Smith re-christened Nauvoo. Here he gathered together the faithful, and set about preparing to build a temple and a city. The Saints set to work with their usual energy, and in the course of a few weeks their land was cleared and ready for building upon. Eight thousand houses were built, and inhabited by twenty thousand Mormons, with more arriving every day. These came to the New Zion, as Nauvoo was alternatively called, from all parts of the world. England, and especially the north of England, sent many shiploads of converts. From the one town of Preston, in Lancashire, five hundred were despatched in a single year. In Liverpool and Manchester the converts were counted not in hundreds, but in thousands. Altogether 50,000 English men, women and children embraced the new faith, of whom 17,000 emigrated to Nauvoo or the adjacent Mormon settlements on the Mississipi. Mostly they paid their own fares, but some were assisted by money advanced out of an emigration fund which Smith had established. This they had to repay, however, on their arrival,' by working"so many days on the building of the temple, or in laying out new streets. But all were welcomed, and given a start with a house and a plot of land, and for a time all seemed very promising. Converts also flocked in from France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and even from places so remote as Australia, India and the Sandwich Islands.

■lt was the preaching of the doctrine of polygamy, which Smith said had been given to him in a "revelation" about this time, that was destined to bring about the downfall of Nanvoo, and the death of the "prophet." The people outside the Mormon church fiercely resented it, and prosecution once more became (life. The Mormons, however, were now better organised anil more powerful. To protect them against their enemies Smith established a regular military force, which he called the Nauvoo Legion. It embraced three classes of troops—foot, horse and artillery, and was well drilled and disciplined.

The Danitcs, too, renewed their old evil activity. Midnight assassinations, whippings and burnings struck terror into the gentiles who were opposed to them. Even to speak too freely against the Saints was dangerous. The Destroying Angels slew for a word, a jest idly spoken, sometimes for a mere offensive gesture. The .Mormons were a holy people, a race, apart; they must not, therefore, be subject to insult.

But the wild, free frontiersmen by whom they were surrounded did not see things quite in this light. They met outrage with outrage. To the excesses of the Dauites they opposed the excesses of the Regulators, an association formed amongst themselves to punish Mormon attacks on the gentile population. Xauvoo itself was now practically barred to any but Mormons. If a gentile by any chance entered the town he would be at once approached by a Mormon carrying in the one hand a stick, in the other a bowie-stick with which he would keep constantly whittling it. Soon a companion would join whittler number one, and then another, and another, until the intruder would find himself completely surrounded by armed but silent observers. Unless he was a man of more than ordinary pluck, an hour or so of this sort of thing would convince him of the desirability of quitting Nauvoo for good and all. The whittlcrs were also wont to similarly intimidate people outside the city who were obnoxious to them, and if their mild hint was not taken, a visit from the Danites was the almost invariable sequel. It was felt on all sides that this sort of thing could not go on. The gentile population prepared for war, asserting their intention to march upon Nauvoo and wipe it out. Smith retaliated by embodying the Legion, and placing the city under martial law. Bloodshed seemed inevitable, when suddenly the startling news was made public that Smith had once more been arrested, and put in gaol at Carthage, the nearest big town to Nauvoo.

Wliy Smith should have submitted to this indignity is not quite clear. Possibly, however, he thought that the authorities would find it impossible to convict him of any crime. When it was known that Carthage held the hundreds of armed enemies of Mormonism from outside swarmed into the town; the gaol, a strong stone building, was stormed, and Joseph Smith, together with his brother Hiram, and some others of his adherents, were brutally murdered.

Though caught like rats in a trap, the Mormon leaders made a brave right for their lives. Joseph Smith emptied a six-shooter, which he had retained, among the lynchers, wounding several. Others fought them with cudgels, knives, iron bars, any weapons that came handy. But what could so few do against so many?

Hiram Smith was the first to drop, shot through the body. He fell on his back exclaiming, "I am a dead man," and did not speak again. Seeing that his brother was killed, and having emptied his revolver, Joseph Smith made a dash for the window of the large cell-like room in which he was confined, with the intention of jumping into the courtyard below.

He was received with a fusilade of bullets, which wounded him severely, and he half leaped, half fell into the' yard, a distance of twenty-five feet. For a few seconds he did not move, and the mob, thinking him dead, withheld their fire.

But presently he was seen to stir feebly, and then gathering himself up, he leaned in a sitting posture against the edge of the rude stone well that supplied the prison with water. At once a number of men with blackened faces, who were crouching against a fence some few yards distant, levelled their pieces at him, and, before they could see him again for the smoke they made, Joe Smith was dead. ■ ',