Description

John Hammer

November 26, 1836, Austin and Nancy Hammer purchased 96 acres of land just opening up in Northern Missouri. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Contract for the land, improve it, and once it was surveyed, pay only 1.25 per acre. Austin and Nancy worked hard, established a prosperous farm, and supported a growing family. Then, October 30, 1838, a mob attacked the nearby settlement of Hawn’s Mill. Austin was among those guarding the mill. Eight year-old John later recalled that day.

“ I stood in the yard with my mother….Our anxiety, of course, was great as to the fate of the brethren at Hawn’s Mill, knowing also that my father and uncle had gone there to aid in its protection and assist those of our friends who lived there. We were standing there exactly at the time this bloody butchery was committed and of course, we were all looking eagerly in the direction of the mill. While in this attitude, a crimson colored vapor, like a mist or thin cloud, ascended up from the precise place where we knew the mill to be located and was carried or streamed upward into the sky, apparently as high as our sight could extend…. At that hour we had not heard a word of what had taken place at the mill; but as quick as my mother and aunt saw this red, blood-like token, they commenced to wring their hands and moan, declaring they knew that their husbands had been murdered.”

The day following John learned that his father and 16 others had indeed been killed, leaving a wife and six children. John further said, “The death of my father left our family in a very helpless condition. It would have been an event [of] sufficiently melancholy had he died at home of sickness where his family could have administered to his needs. But to have him cut down in his prime, 33 years of age, and be torn from his family ruthlessly and cruelly, so intensified the gloom which rested down upon our bereaved circle. For a time it seemed that no ray of joy would ever be able to penetrate our bosoms again.”

The mob then sent word that they had ten days to leave the state or be killed. John said,

“The burden of all this preparation and removal on our part, rested on Mother. A less healthy and resolute woman could not have had the courage and endurance to grapple successfully with the obstacles that lie in her path….We had to flee, destitute and hunted because of our religion. My mother, at this time, was about thirty-two years old. Well do I remember the suffering of those days….Our family had one wagon and one blind horse, and that blind horse had to transport our effects to the state of Illinois. Into this wagon we placed our clothing, bedding, some cornmeal and what scanty provisions we could muster, and started out into the cold on foot, to eat and sleep by the wayside, with the canopy of heaven for a covering. The bitter frost and biting winds were less barbarous and pitiless than the demons in human form from whose fury we fled. … There was scarcely a day while we were on the road, that it did not either snow or rain. The nights and mornings were very cold for our unsheltered and exposed condition… My mother seemed to be endowed with fortitude and resolution and appeared to be inspired to devise ways and means whereby she could administer comforts to her suffering children, and keep them in good spirits. Her faith and confidence had ever been great in the Lord, but now when all this weight and responsibility had fallen upon her, with no husband to lean upon, she felt indeed that God was her greatest and best friend…. At last, we reached the Mississippi River and we were happy indeed. We gazed upon the opposite side of the river, with hearts overflowing with Thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father, for reminding us that God ruled the Heavens, and took cognizance of the conditions of those who people the earth.”

Behind the story of the Hawn’s Mill Massacre is the story of those who, in faith, went on.

Source: https://theheartsshallturn.blogspot.com/2011/11/austin-hammer.html