The Missouri Persecutions

by B. H. Roberts

After General Parks had left the vicinity of De Witt with his mutinous militia, he returned to Diahman, where he had left Colonel Thompson in command, and resumed control of affairs in that section.

The mob about Diahman, hearing of the fate of De Witt, and learning of the approach of that mob and the efforts of Gilliam in the same direction, became bolder, and at once began to threaten the saints and burn some of their houses and stacks of hay and grain. These depredations were committed chiefly at a place called Millport, a short distance from Diahman. The house of Don Carlos Smith was burned down, after being plundered, and his wife with two helpless babes were driven out into the night. She made her way to Diahman, carrying her children and having to wade Grand River where the stream was waist deep.

The next day General Parks passed the ruins of this house, belonging to Don Carlos Smith, who was then on a mission in Tennessee, and it seemed to arouse within him a just indignation. He at once went to the house of Lyman Wight and gave him orders to call out his companies of militiamen—Wight holding a colonel's commission in the fifty-ninth regiment of the Missouri militia, commanded by General Parks—and gave him full authority to put down mobs wherever he should find them assembled. He said he wished it distinctly understood that Colonel Wight had full authority from him to suppress all mob violence. The militia that Colonel Wight called out was divided into two companies; one company, consisting of about sixty men, was placed under the command of Captain David Patten, and the other of about the same number was commanded by Wight in person.

Captain Patten was ordered to go to Gallatin and disperse the mobs that were reported to be in that vicinity, while Wight and his company started for Millport.

When Patten's company came in sight of Gallatin, he found a body of the mob, about one hundred strong, who were amusing themselves by mocking and in various ways tantalizing a number of the saints whom they had captured. Seeing the approach of Patten's men, and knowing the determination of the leader, the mob broke and ran in the greatest confusion, leaving their prisoners behind them.

On his march to Millport, Colonel Wight found the whole country deserted by the mob which had infested it, and their houses in flames or in smoldering ruins. The mob having learned that General Parks had ordered out Wight's companies of militia, was seized with sudden fear and swore vengeance, not only upon the "Mormons," but upon Generals Parks and Doniphan as well. To accomplish this purpose, they had loaded up their most valuable personal effects and setting fire to their log huts, they sent runners throughout the State with the lying report that the "Mormons" had "riz" and were burning the houses, destroying property, and murdering the old settlers.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CROOKED RIVER.

That was a cunning piece of diabolism which prompted the mob of Daviess County to set fire to their own huts, destroy their own property and then charge the crime to the saints. It was an act worthy of an incipient Herod. But it was not without a precedent in Missouri. Two years before that, something very similar occurred in Mercer County, just north-east of Daviess. In June of the year 1836, the Iowa Indians, then living in St. Joseph, made a friendly hunting excursion through the northern part of the state, and their line of travel led them through what was known as the Heatherly settlement, in Mercer County. The Heatherlys, who were ruffians of the lowest type, took advantage of the excitement produced by the incursion of the Indians, and circulated a report that they were robbing and killing the whites, and during the excitement these wretches murdered a man by the name of Dunbar, and another man against whom they had a grudge, and then fled to the settlements along the Missouri River, representing that they were fleeing for their lives. This produced great excitement in the settlements in the surrounding counties; the people not knowing at what hour the Indians might be upon them. The militia was called out for their protection; but it was soon ascertained that the alarm was a false one. The Heatherlys were arrested, tried for murder, and some of them sent to the penitentiary.