During the 1836–1838 period about twelve thousand Latter
Day Saints moved into the nearly vacant Far West area of “Upper
Missouri” with the hopes of building a Zionic community,
where they could await the time when they would be allowed to
return to the Center Place in Jackson County. At first, it seemed
that peace and prosperity would bless their efforts, but during
the summer of 1838 war broke out between them and the nonmember
settlers.
The war intensified after the Battle of Crooked River on October
25, 1838, and after Governor Lilburn Boggs issued his infamous
“extermination order” on October 27. The settlers
throughout Northwest Missouri began to be caught up in a spirit
of mobocracy and a determination to banish the Saints, even to
the point of shedding blood. Thus it was that while the main army
of settlers was gathering at Richmond for an assault on Far West,
the Livingston County militia attacked the Saints’ village
at Haun’s Mill. This act on October 30, 1838, proved to
be the worst atrocity of the war; it became known as the “Haun’s
Mill Massacre.”
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 .... On the
29th at Woolsey’s northeast of Breckenridge, an agreement
was reached by the Gentiles for an attack upon Haun’s
Mill. Three companies, numbering in the aggregate about two
hundred men, were organized. They were commanded by Captains
Nehemiah Comstock, William 0. Jennings, and William Gee. The
command of the battalion was given to Col. Thomas Jennings,
an old militia officer ....
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 ....
Setting out from Woolsey’s after noon on the 30th, Col.
Jennings marched swiftly .... The word was passed along the
column, “Shoot at everything wearing breeches, and shoot
to kill" ....
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. 0. 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.
The fire of the Mormons was wild and ineffective; that of the
militia was accurate and deadly. The cracks between the logs
of the shop were so large that it was easy to shoot through
them, and so thickly were the Mormons huddled together on the
inside that nearly every bullet which entered the shop killed
or wounded a man. Firing was kept up all the while on the fleeing
fugitives, and many were shot down as they ran.
Realizing very soon that he was placed at a decided disadvantage,
Captain Evans gave orders to retreat, directing every man to
take care of himself .... The fugitives were fired on until
they were out of range, but not pursued, as the few who escaped
scattered in almost every direction.
Coming upon the field after it had been abandoned, the Gentiles
perpetrated some terrible deeds. At least three of the wounded
were hacked to death with the “corn knives” or finished
with a rifle bullet. William Reynolds, a Livingston County man,
entered the blacksmith shop and found a little boy, only ten
years of age named Sardius Smith, hiding under the bellows.
Without even demanding his surrender, the cruel wretch drew
up his rifle and shot the little fellow as he lay cowering and
trembling. Reynolds afterward boasted of his exploit to persons
yet living. He described with fiendish glee how the poor child
“kicked and squealed” in his dying agonies and justified
his inhuman act by the old Indian aphorism, “Nits will
make lice.”
Charley Merrick, another little boy only nine years old, had
hid under the bellows. He ran out, but did not get far until
he received a load of buckshot and a rifle ball—in all,
three wounds. He did not die, however, for nearly five weeks.
Esquire Thomas McBride was seventy-eight years of age, and
had been a soldier under Gates and Washington in the Revolution.
He had started for the blacksmith shop but was shot down on
the way and lay wounded and helpless but still alive. A Daviess
County man named Rogers, who kept a ferry across Grand River
near Gallatin, came upon him and demanded his gun. “Take
it,” said McBride. Rogers picked up the weapon and finding
that it was loaded deliberately discharged it into the old veteran’s
breast. He then cut and hacked the body with his ‘‘corn
knife’’ until it was frightfully gashed and mangled.
After the Mormons had all been either killed, wounded, or
driven away, the Gentiles began to loot the place. Considerable
property was taken, much of the spoil consisting of household
articles and personal effects. At least three wagons and perhaps
ten horses were taken .... Two of the survivors have stated
to me that the place was “pretty well cleaned out.”
Colonel Jennings did not remain at the mill more than two
hours. Twilight approaching, he set out on his return to his
former encampment. He feared a rally and return of the Mormons
with a large reinforcement, and doubtless he desired to reflect
leisurely on his course of future operations. Reaching Woolsey’s,
he halted his battalion and prepared to pass the night. But
a few hours later he imagined he heard cannon and a great tumult
in the direction of Haun’s Mill, betokening, as he thought,
the advance of a large Mormon force upon him. Rousing his men
from their sweet dreams of the victory, he broke camp, moved
rapidly eastward, and never halted until he had put the West
Fork of Grand River between him and his imaginary pursuers.
He and his men had won glory enough for one day, anyhow! They
had not lost a man killed and only three wounded....
The Mormons killed and mortally wounded numbered seventeen.
Here are the names:
The severely wounded numbered eleven men, one boy (Alma Smith,
aged 7), and one woman, a Miss Mary Stedwell. The latter was
shot through the hand and arm as she was running to the woods.
Bloody work and woeful! What a scene did Colonel Jennings
and his men turn their backs upon as they rode away in the gloaming
from the little valley once all green and peaceful! The wounded
men had been given no attention, and the bodies of the slain
had been left to fester and putrefy in the Indian summer temperature,
warm and mellowing. A large red moon rose, and a fog came up
from the stream and lay like a facecloth upon the pallid countenances
of the dead.
Timidly and warily came forth the widows and orphans from
their hiding places, and as they recognized one a husband, one
a father, another a son, and another a brother among the slain,
the wailings of grief and terror were most pitiful. All that
night were they alone with their dead and wounded. There were
no physicians, but if there had been, many of the wounded were
past all surgery. Dreadful sights in the moonlight, and dreadful
sounds on the night winds! In the hamlet the groans of the wounded,
the moans and sobs of the grief-stricken, the bellowing of cattle,
and the howling of dogs, and from the black woods the dismal
hooting of owls.
By and by, when the wounded had been made as comfortable as
possible, the few men who had returned gathered the women and
children together, and all sought consolation in prayer. Then
they sang from the Mormon hymn book a selection entitled “Moroni’s
Lamentation”.... And so in prayer and song and ministration
the remainder of the night was passed.
The next morning the corpses had changed and were changing
fast. They must be buried. There were not enough men left to
make coffins or even dig graves. It could not be determined
when relief would come or when the Gentiles would return. There
was a large unfinished well near the mill, which it was decided
should be used as a common sepulcher. Four men, one of whom
was Joseph W. Young, a brother of Brigham Young, gathered up
the bodies, the women assisting, and bore them one at a time
on a large plank to the well and slid them in. Some hay was
strewn upon the ghastly pile and then a thin layer of dirt thrown
upon the hay.
A day or two thereafter Captain Comstock’s company was
ordered to Haun’s mill, where it remained in camp for
some weeks .... While in camp at the mill, according to the
statements to me of two of its members, Comstock’s company
lived off the country, as did the State troops at Far West.
The Mormon cattle and hogs had been turned into the fields and
were fine and fat. The mill furnished flour and meal, and other
articles of provision were to be had for the taking. The Mormon
men were either prisoners or had been driven from the country.
By the 1st of April following all had left the State. Many
of them had been killed, their houses burned, their property
taken, their fields laid waste; and the result was called “peace”
(Church History 2:225-233).
An estimated three hundred Church members lost their lives during
these troubled times in Missouri when the Missouri settlers drove
them out of the state at gunpoint.
The Haun’s Mill Massacre stands as a symbol of the sacrifice
and devotion of the Saints. After a century and a half of study
and reflection, it can be seen that some of their sorrows could
have been avoided by the use of more discretion and meekness.
On the other hand, that was an era of religious bigotry, and any
denomination which claimed to have revelations direct from heaven
would have been the object of intense hatred.
Some of the Saints forsook their religion and were spared the
persecution. But the great majority of them became even more convinced
that this work was true. This knowledge and assurance came to
them not only through the testimony of Joseph Smith, but through
marvelous spiritual manifestations of their own. In the words
of one English immigrant who joined the Church: “This is
the work of the living God, and though death and hell combine
against it, they cannot prevail.”
And so even today, the “Marvelous Work and a Wonder”
continues to offer salvation to all who come to it.
