"Those I have mentioned and several others, revolted at the scenes enacted against the Mormons, and would have liberated the brethren had it not been for 'outside pressure,'—that is, the strong prejudice against us by the people, and their bloodthirstiness to kill the prophets."
Meanwhile, the mob, not content with the ruin they had wrought, continued to threaten the few Saints who remained in Far West, evidently determined to carry out the order of their chief, Governor Boggs, to "exterminate the Mormons, or drive them from the state." The main body of the Church, numbering from ten to twelve thousand souls, had already left the state, and were beyond the reach of Missourian mobs, encamped upon the hospitable shores of Illinois.
"On the 14th of April, 1839," continues Heber, "the committee who had been left to look after the wants of the poor, removed thirty-six of the helpless families into Tenney's grove, about twenty-five miles from Far West. I was obliged to secrete myself in the corn-fields and woods during the day and only venture out in the evening, to counsel the committee and brethren in private houses.
"On the morning of the 18th, as I was going to the committee room to tell the brethren to wind up their affairs and be off, or their lives would be taken, I was met on the public square by several of the mob. One of them asked, with an oath, if I was a Mormon.
"I replied, 'I am a Mormon.'
"With a series of blasphemous expressions, they then threatened to blow my brains out, and also tried to ride over me with their horses, in the presence of Elias Smith, Theodore Turley and others of the committee.
"It was but a few minutes after I had notified the committee to leave, before the mob gathered at the tithing house, and began breaking clocks, chairs, windows, looking-glasses and furniture, and making a complete wreck of everything they could move, while Captain Bogart, the county judge, looked on and laughed. A mobber named Whittaker threw an iron pot at the head of Theodore Turley and hurt him considerably, when Whittaker jumped about and laughed like a madman; and all this at the time when we were using our utmost endeavors to get the Saints away from Far West. The brethren gathered up what they could, and fled from Far West in one hour. The mob staid until the committee left, and then plundered thousands of dollars worth of property which had been left by the brethren and sisters to assist the poor to remove.
"One mobber rode up, and, finding no convenient place to fasten his horse to, shot a cow that was standing near, while a girl was milking her, and while the poor animal was struggling in death, he cut a strip of her hide from the nose to her tail, to which he fastened his halter.
"During the commotion of this day, a great portion of the records of the committee, accounts, history, etc., were destroyed or stolen.
"Hearing that Joseph and the brethren had escaped from their guard while they were on their way from Daviess to Boone County, to which place they had obtained a change of venue, I called upon Shadrach Roundy, with whom I started immediately towards Quincy.