CHAPTER 13.

1838.

HAUN'S MILL MASSACRE-GOVERNOR BOGGS RESPONSIBLE-BURR JOYCE'S ACCOUNT-HISTORY OF CALDWELL COUNTY-STATEMENT OF J. W. YOUNG-STATEMENT OF AMANDA SMITH-STATEMENT OF HYRUM SMITH-OF NATHAN KNIGHT.

Hann's Mill massacre.

IN this chapter we record one of the most cruel deeds of blood known to the history of the age. We would gladly draw the curtain and say nothing regarding this horrible affair, but we have no right to cover up or conceal the facts of history. Nor can we resist the conclusion that this butchery was the direct and legitimate result of the exterminating order of the chief responsible. executive of the State of Missouri. By this were these desperate, cruel, and bloodthirsty men impelled to this deed that causes humanity to blush. The horrible consequences of this awful deed must by the faithful historian be laid at the door of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs.

Boges

We might compile an account of this from church records, but we prefer to present it to our readers from the pens of men who were not connected with it, and who dispassionately viewed the matter after years had dispelled the intense feeling of the time.

The following is the account as written by Burr Joyce, and published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for October 6, 1887, and reproduced in the Saints' Her

Burr Joyce's account.

ald for October 22, 1887:

THE HAUN'S MILL MASSACRE.

"AN INCIDENT OF THE 'MORMON WAR' IN MISSOURI.

"Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat.

"BRECKENRIDGE, Missouri, September 27, 1887.

"In the afternoon of Tuesday, October 30, 1838, during the Mormon war in Missouri, there occurred in Caldwell

County a dreadful incident, generally termed 'The Haun's Mill Massacre.' From official documents and other records, from affidavits of witnesses, and from statements made by actual participants, I have prepared the following account. If any newspaper publication of the affair has ever before been made, I am not aware of the fact.

"The Mormons made their first settlement in Missouri, in Jackson County, in the year 1832, under the leadership of their prophet,' Joseph Smith. I have not the space here to describe their experiences in that county, their expulsion therefrom, their sojourn in Clay and Ray, the 'treaty' by which they were given Caldwell County as a sort of reservation, the founding of the city of Far West, nor can I narrate the circumstances leading to the Mormon war (so called), and finally the banishment of these unhappy people from the State. All these incidents may form the subject of a future paper. I may state, however, that the massacre was perpetrated on the very day that the militia, under Generals Lucas and Doniphan, arrived at Far West, with orders from Governor Boggs to 'expel the Mormons from the State or exterminate them.'

"At Jacob Haun's mill, on Shoal Creek, in the eastern part of Caldwell County, about eight miles south of Breckenridge, there had collected about twenty Mormon families. Haun himself was a Mormon and had come to the site from Wisconsin a few years before. He had a very good mill, and clustered around it were a blacksmith shop and half a dozen small houses. The alarm that the troops were moving against them had driven nearly all the Mormon families in the county to Far West for safety. A dozen or more living in the vicinity repaired to Haun's mill, which was twenty miles to the eastward of Far West. As there were not enough houses to accommodate all of the fugitives, a number were living in tents and temporary shelters. A few families, perhaps four, had come in on the evening of the 29th, from Ohio, and were occupying their emigrant wagons. Not one member of the little community had ever been in arms against the 'Gentiles,' or taken any part whatever in the preceding disturbances.

"Word that the militia of the State had been ordered to expel them from the country had reached the Mormons of the Haun's mill settlement, and following this intelligence came a report that a considerable number of men in Livingston County, together with some from Daviess, had organized in the forks of Grand River, near Spring Hill, in Livingston, and were preparing to attack them. Whereupon a company of about twenty-five men and boys, indifferently armed with shotguns and squirrel rifles, was organized at the mill, and David Evans was chosen captain. It was resolved to defend the place against the threatened assault. Some of the older men urged that no resistance should be made, but that all should retreat to Far West. The day after the skirmish on Crooked River (October 25), Haun himself went to Far West to take counsel of Joe Smith. 'Move here, by all means, if you wish to save your lives,' said the prophet. Haun replied that if the settlers should abandon their homes, the Gentiles would burn their houses and other buildings and destroy all of the property left behind. 'Better lose your property than your lives,' rejoined Smith. Haun represented that he and his neighbors were willing to defend themselves against what he called 'the mob,' and Smith finally gave them permission to remain. Others at the mill opposed a retreat, and when an old man named Myers reminded them how few they were, and how many the 'Gentiles' numbered, they declared that the Almighty would send his angels to their help when the day of battle should come. Some of the women, too, urged the men to stand firm, and offered to mold bullets and prepare patching for the rifles if necessary.

"North of the mill was a body of timber half a mile in width, skirting Shoal Creek; beyond was a stretch of prairie. For a day or two Capt. Evans kept a picket post in the northern border of the timber, but on the 28th he entered into a sort of truce with Capt. Nehemiah Comstock, commanding a company of Livingston 'Gentiles' from the settlements near Mooresville and Utica, and the post was withdrawn. By the terms of this truce, which was effected by a messenger who rode between Evans and Comstock, the

Gentiles were to let the Mormons alone as long as the latter were peaceable, and vice versa. Each party, too, was to disband its military organization. But on the morning of the 29th the Mormons learned that a company of Livingston militia, a few miles to the eastward, were menacing them, and so they maintained their organization and that night set watches. The latter company was commanded by Captain William Mann, and for some days had been operating at and in the vicinity of Whitney's mill, on Lower Shoal Creek (where the village of Dawn now stands), stopping Mormon emigrants on their way from the East to Caldwell County, turning them back in some instances, taking their arms. from them in others, etc.

"On the 29th, at Woolsey's, northeast of Breckenridge, an agreement was reached by the Gentiles for an attack upon Haun's mill. There companies, numbering in the aggregate about two hundred men, were organized. They were com manded by Captains Nehemiah Comstock, William O. Jennings, and William Gee. The command of the battalion was given to Col. Thomas Jennings, an old militia officer, then living in the Forks. Nearly all of the men were citizens of Livingston County. Perhaps twenty were from Daviess, from whence they had been driven by the Mormons during the troubles in that county a few weeks previously. The Daviess County men were very bitter against the Mormons, and vowed the direst vengeance on the entire sect. It did not matter whether or not the Mormons at the mill had taken any part in the disturbances which had occurred; it was enough that they were Mormons. The Livingston men became thoroughly imbued with the same spirit, and all were eager for the raid. The Livingston men had no wrongs to complain of themselves, for the Mormons had never invaded their county, or injured them in any way; but they seemed to feel an extraordinary sympathy for the outrages suffered by their neighbors.

"Setting out from Woolsey's after noon on the 30th, Col. Jennings marched swiftly out of the timber northwest of the present village of Mooresville, and out on the prairie stretching down southwards towards the doomed hamlet at Haun's

Mill. The word was passed along the column, 'Shoot at everything wearing breeches, and shoot to kill.'

"All of the Gentiles were mounted, and they had with them a wagon and two Mormon prisoners. Within two miles of the mill the wagon and prisoners were left, in charge of a squad, and the remainder of the force pressed rapidly on. Entering the timber north of the mill, Colonel Jennings passed through it, unobserved, right up to the borders of the settlement, and speedily formed his line for the attack. Capt. W. O. Jennings' company had the center, Capt. Comstock's the left, and Capt. Gee's the right.

"The Mormon leader had somehow become apprehensive of trouble. He communicated his fears to some of the men, and was about sending out scouts and pickets. It had been previously agreed that in case of attack the men should repair to the blacksmith shop and occupy it as a fort or blockhouse. This structure was built of logs, with wide cracks between them, was about eighteen feet square, and had a large wide door. The greater portion of the Mormons were, however, unsuspicious of any imminent peril. Children were playing on the banks of the creek, women were engaged in their ordinary domestic duties, the newly arrived immigrants were resting under the trees, which were clad in the scarlet, crimson, and golden leaves of autumn. The scene was peaceful and Acadian. It was now about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun hung low and red in a beautiful Indian summer sky.

"Suddenly, from out of the timber north and west of the mill the Gentiles burst upon the hamlet. The air was filled with shouts and shots, and the fight was on. It cannot fairly be called a fight. Taken wholly by surprise, the Mormons were thrown into extreme confusion. The women and children cried and screamed in excitement and terror, and the greater number, directed by some of the men, ran across the milldam to the south bank of the creek and sought shelter in the woods. Perhaps twenty men, Captain Evans among them, ran with their guns to the blacksmith shop and began to return the fire. Some were shot down in their attempts to reach the shop.