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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 20 Page: 444 (~1840)

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444 lived and said they would spill my blood if I did not leave the place immediately. The leaders of this company were John Cornet, Thomas Langley, and Hezekiah Warden; they lived in Jackson County.

"This was in the cold winter, and our sufferings were great. I fled across the Missouri River to Clay County, where I lived three years, in which time I often heard Judge Cameron and others say that 'your Mormons cannot get your rights in any of the courts of the upper country;' and I had not the privilege of voting as a free citizen.

"I moved to Caldwell County, bought land and opened a good farm, and lived in peace until the summer and fall of 1838, when mobs arose in counties round about, and I with the rest was obliged to take up arms in self-defense; for the cry was that the mob law should prevail if we stood against them, until the army came and took us all prisoners of war. I with the rest was obliged to sign a deed of trust at the point of the sword. I with sixty others was selected out and marched to Richmond and Ray County, by the command of General Clark, where they kept us a number of weeks, pretending to try us as treasoners and murderers. At length I obtained my liberty and returned to my family in Caldwell County; and I found that there was no safety there, for there was no law, but all a scene of robbing, and plundering, and stealing. They were about to take me again, and I was obliged to leave my family and flee to Illinois. In about two months my family arrived, having suffered much abuse and loss of health and property. Soon after the arrival of my family, my son, a young man, died; and I attribute his death to the cruel barbarity of the mob of Missouri, he being a prisoner among them, and having suffered much because of them.

"My father was a soldier, and served in the Revolutionary War. under the great Washington, but I have not had protection on my own lands; and I have not been permitted to see my farm in Jackson County, Missouri, in seven years. Soldiers were stationed or quartered in different parts of Far West; and they treated us roughly, threatening to shoot us, and making use of anything they pleased, such as burning

(page 444)

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