| 326 my face, but I did not fall. As I had command of our party, I ordered our men to disarm the two ruffians and secure them, which was done; and this probably prevented a general attack of the mob that night. The next morning they were let go in peace.
"The same night (Friday) a party in Independence commenced stoning houses, breaking down doors and windows, destroying furniture, etc. This night the brick part of a dwelling house belonging to A. S. Gilbert was partly demolished, and the windows of his dwelling broken in while a gentleman lay sick in his house.
"The same night the doors of the house of Messrs. Gilbert and Whitney were split open and the goods strewed in the street, to which fact upwards of twenty witnesses can attest.
"After midnight a party of our men marched for the store, etc., and when the mob saw them approach they fled. But one of their number, a Richard McCarty, was caught in the act of throwing rocks in at the door, while the goods lay strung around him in the street. He was immediately taken before Samuel Weston, Esq., and a warrant requested, that said McCarty might be secured; but his justiceship refused to do anything in the case, and McCarty was then liberated.
"The same night many of their houses had poles and rails thrust through the shutters and sash, into the rooms of defenseless women and children, from whence their husbands and fathers had been driven by the attacks of the mob which were made by ten or twenty men upon one house at a time. On Saturday, the 2d November, all the families of these people who lived in Independence, moved out of town about one half mile west, and embodied for the preservation of themselves and property. Saturday night a party of the mob made an attack upon a settlement about six miles west of the town. Here they tore the roof from a dwelling, broke open another house, found the owner, Mr. David Bennett, sick in bed, whom they beat inhumanly, and swore they would blow his brains out, and discharging a pistol, the ball cut a deep gash across the top of his head. In this skirmish one of their men was shot in the thigh.
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