RLDS Church History Context

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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 19 Page: 381 (~1839-1840)

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381 in concert with the officer who commanded the mob, was Lilburn W. Boggs, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Missouri. When the noise of the battle was spread abroad, the public mind became much inflamed. The militia collected in arms from all quarters and in great numbers, and inflamed to fury. They demanded that the 'Mormons' should surrender up all their arms and immediately quit the county. Compelled by overpowering numbers, the 'Mormons' submitted. They surrendered up fifty-one guns, which have never been returned or paid for.

"The next day parties of the mob went from house to house threatening women and children with death if they did not immediately leave their homes. Imagination cannot paint the terror which now pervaded the 'Mormon' community. The weather was intensely cold, and women and children abandoned their homes and fled in every direction without sufficient clothing to protect them from the piercing cold. Women gave birth to children in the woods and on the prairies. One hundred and twenty women and children, for the space of ten days, with only three or four men in company, concealed themselves in the woods in hourly expectation and fear of massacre, until they finally escaped into Clay County. The society of 'Mormons,' after the above disturbances, removed to the county of Clay, where they were kindly received by the inhabitants and their wants administered to by their charity.

"In the meantime the houses of the 'Mormons' in the county of Jackson, amounting to about two hundred, were burned down or otherwise destroyed by the mob, as well as much of their crops, furniture, and stock.

"The damage done to the property of the 'Mormons' by the mob in the county of Jackson as above related, as near as they can ascertain, would amount to the sum of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. The number of 'Mormons' thus driven from the county of Jackson amounted to about twelve hundred souls. For the property thus destroyed they have never been paid.

"After the expulsion of the 'Mormons' from the county of Jackson as above related, they removed to and settled in

(page 381)

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