CHAPTER XVIII.
Renewed Trouble For The Mormons--"The Burnings"
More Charges of Stealing--Significant Admission by Young--Business Plight of Nauvoo--More Politics--Defiant Attitude of Mormon Leaders--An Editor's View of Legal Rights--Stories about the Danites--Brother William on Brigham Young--The "Burnings"--Sheriff Backenstos's Proclamations--Lieutenant Worrell's Murder--Mormon Retaliation-- Appointment of the Douglas-Hardin Commission
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 as much lenity as
heretofore."1
1 Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 696.
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."2
2 "Book for the Married and Single," by Ann Archbold.
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 today, 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 lo ng 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."3
3 "History of Hancock County." See also "Sketches and Anecdotes of the Old Settlers," p. 34
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.4
4 See Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 158-159, for accounts of methods of disposing of objectionable persons at Nauvoo.
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
Seasons5 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"
5 Vol. VI, p. 904.
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.6
6 Gregg's "History of Hancock County," p. 374.
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.7 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,8 breathing the utmost hostility to the Mormon assailants, and calling on the citizens to aid him as a posse in maintaining order.
7 Ford's "History of
Illinois," pp. 407-408.
8 For the text of five of these
proclamations, see Millennial Star, Vol. VI.
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,9 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."
9 "Who was the actual guilty party may never be known. We have lately been informed from Salt Lake that Rockwell did the deed, under order of the sheriff, which is probably the case." -- Gregg, "History of Hancock County," p. 341."
"During the ascendancy of the sheriff and the absence of the anti-Mormons from their homes," said Governor Ford,10 "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 su ch circumstances. I shall regard them in the character of a mob, and shall treat them accordingly."
10 Ford's "History of Illinois," p. 410.
The sheriff labored under a mistake. The steps now
taken resulted, not in a demonstration of his authority, but in the final
expulsion of all the Mormons from Illinois and Iowa.