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Speaker: Glenn Rawson
Hi, this is Glenn Rawson. One of the most powerful ways to share history and heritage is by the telling of stories. We began sharing inspiring stories nearly 30 years ago. Each of those stories is true and was intended to inspire and strengthen faith. Over the years, those stories have reached millions around the world. This podcast is for you to listen, learn and enjoy.
First Story: “Go and Do as I Tell You!”
The date is Monday, August 6, 1838, in Gallatin Missouri. John Lowe Butler, John D Lee, Samuel Smith and a group of others traveled from Far West and from Adam-ondi-Ahman over to Gallatin, the county seat, to vote. There were 11 Latter-day Saints in that company that went to vote. But when they got there, there was a mob of about 30 Missourians from the county who were there and determined to stop the Mormons from voting. I won’t go into all the details, but this mob was led by a man named Penniston who got up on a barrel and harangued the men and got him all whipped up into anger.
Then at 11 o’clock when the polls opened, one Latter-day Saint went in to vote and as I mentioned in this story before, someone cold-cocked him – just laid him out – and when the man came to, he was up, and it was on, and the brawl started. It became known in history as the infamous Gallatin Brawl and even though our ancestors John Lowe Butler and the others came out on top of that fracas, we kind of didn’t in the overall. We may have won the battle, but we sort of lost the war. Here’s how the rest of the story went.
As the brawl started, John was back behind. He heard it start up. He didn’t know what was going on. He realized he didn’t want to be a part of it and so he came around the corner just in time to see one of his brethren laid out. John Lowe Butler was a Danite and (as again I should talk about Danite sometime, but I don’t have time tonight) he was an oath bound protector of the church and a home teacher. That was his calling, but when he saw his brethren embattled, he picked up a piece of wood and waded into the fray and just started busting heads, trying to get his brethren out of it.
He finally extricated the men that were with him. They were standing on a wood pile. John Lowe Butler standing in front of them with a piece of wood in his hand – a big club – and here come the Missourians, and Butler faced the mob and he said “We will fight as long as the blood runs warm in our veins”, and he meant it.
Eleven beat up, bloody and bruised Latter-Day saints and a mob of Missourians come and just as equally dealt the justice by John Butler. Whatever else happened, the Missourians backed down and said in effect “go ahead and vote.”
When it was over, John Lowe Butler went home. When he got home, he realized that he probably should go and tell the Prophet Joseph Smith what happened, so he went and rode to Far West. He told Joseph about the brawl. Joseph then said, “Have you moved your family to safety?” and John said “no I haven’t.”. Joseph said “go and move them directly. Do not sleep another night there.” John Lowe Butler said “but I don’t want to be a coward” and Joseph said with uncharacteristic sternness. “Go and do as I tell you.”
John went, got his family and moved his family some distance away and the following morning while he was at the neighbor’s house, another neighbor, an acquaintance rode up and when John came walking out, he said in effect, “John I’m so glad that you’re here. I’m glad that you’re still alive.”
“What are you talking about?” The neighbor said, “I watched 30 men surround your cabin and burn it to the ground. I thought you were all dead.”
John Lowe Butler would later write, “I then saw the hand of the Lord guiding brother Joseph Smith to direct me to move my family away. If he had not, why in all probability we should all have been murdered and I felt to thank God with all my heart and soul.”
Second Story: I’m a Full-Blooded Mormon: The Courage of Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner
That Gallatin brawl was in August. The tensions between the Latter-day Saints and the Missourians mounted. It didn’t stop. Rumors spread throughout Northern Missouri and very quickly, battle lines drew between the Missourians and the Latter-day Saints. And it came to a head in the end of October – around October 30, 1838. This event here…I just cannot believe it. There were somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 Missouri militia that marched on the city of Far West. They took up positions just south of the city. They were there by the Governor’s orders. They were determined to conquer the Mormons and bring them into subjection.
As the Missourians brought up their line – and there were thousands of them out there – they raised a white flag of truce and came over to council. And Mary Elizabeth Rawlins Lightner was there and she gives the following account. She said, “Oh, what a time this was. A part of the bloodthirsty mob camped near the city and placed a cannon in the middle of the road intending to blow up the place [meaning Far West].” They raised the flag of truce and then they sent a delegation over and she left this account of what happened when the Missouri delegation came over: “As we approached, General Clarke [that’s the leader of the militia] shook hands with the two men, being old acquaintances, and remarked that Governor Boggs had given him an order for our safe removal.”
Mary Elizabeth Rawlins Lightner was a member of the church, but her husband Adam Lightner was not a member of the church and the same with another family. The governor had given instructions that these two families could leave and get out of the city before the militia attacked.
Mary Elizabeth jumped into the conversation, and she says, “I asked the General if he would let all the Mormon women and children go out.”
“He said ‘no’.”
“Will you let my mother’s family go out,” she said.
The general responded: “The governor’s orders were that no one but our two families should go but all were to be destroyed.”
Imagine facing an army of several thousand men with the ordered determined intent to kill every last one. Upon hearing that announcement Mary Elizabeth Rawlins Lightner responded thus:
“Then if that is the case, I refuse to go for where they die, I will die. For I am a full-blooded Mormon, and I am not ashamed to own it.”
“Oh,” said General Clark, “you are infatuated. Your prophet will be killed with all the rest.”
She said, “If you kill him today, God will raise up another tomorrow.”
“…But think of your husband and your child,” the General said.
“I then said that he could go, and he could take the child with him if he wanted to, but I would suffer with the rest.”
Just then and watching this determined exchange between a young mother and a hardened militia general, the man jumped to his feet. He’d been kneeling down in some brush nearby – jumped up, “stepped between the general and myself,” Mary Elizabeth said “and said hold on general, he then turned to me,” Mary Elizabeth said “and said, Sister Lightner, God Almighty bless you, I thank my God for one soul that is ready to die for her religion. Not a hair of your head shall be harmed for I will go to my knees in blood on your behalf.”
“So do I, “ another man said from nearby. Those two men – the first was Heber C. Kimball, the second was Hyrum Smith. The General then turned to Mary’s husband, Adam Lightner, the non-member and asked him to leave and he refused. That man and that group, the delegation went back, and the treachery continued.
Imagine that kind of courage. Today I’m not giving you a recommendation. I don’t want you running around saying I’m a full-blooded Mormon for obvious reasons but in the 19th century, that term was more commonly acceptable than it is now. But imagine that kind of determination and courage in the face of that kind of adversity.
Well, it wasn’t long after that before the Prophet Joseph Smith and six men total went out to meet with General Clarke and General Lucas – the leaders of the militia. The Prophet Joseph was betrayed by Colonel George M. Hinkle. Hinkle was a Latter-day Saint. He was also a sworn part of the Missouri militia. He was both a Mormon and militia – he’s on both sides of the war as it were. He had gone out to meet with Hinkle and had worked out a deal and came back and said to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “they just want to talk” and the Prophet Joseph, anything to stop the bloodshed that was going to happen, went out to meet with them and Hinkle stepped up to the general and said to the general, “General, these are the prisoners I promised to deliver.”
Joseph, Parley Pratt, and Sidney Rigdon, and all the others were immediately surrounded, arrested and the next day taken away. Now, with the arrest of the Prophet Joseph Smith and then the militia came in and this is the story I told you a few days ago about Heber C. Kimball and William E. McClellan, the mob just came in and took all the rest of the guns and sacked the city of Farwest.
Third Story: The Traitor and The Lady
This is the end of October, beginning of November 1838. The things they did to our people I would never tell you in polite company. So depraved, so disgusting, that I couldn’t even share it with you in a setting such as this. It is that bad. It would make you shudder.
The Prophet Joseph would later say that would make the very hands of the devil himself palsy at the deeds that were done by that conquering army. The city of Far West fell, and they gave our people an ultimatum. The ultimatum was you have to get out of town, you have to leave the state. That’s when the Governor’s order comes down and says you must leave. Winter is coming on. There are approximately eight to twelve thousand Latter-day Saints living in and around Far West. Where are they gonna go? This is how bad it was.
I told you about Colonel Hinkle. I told you about his treachery and betrayal, but this is the rest of it.
The day after he betrayed Joseph, Hinkle came back to Farwest. Again, he’s a Latter-Day saint and he went from house to house and found all of the leaders including Hyrum Smith, called them out and delivered each one of them to the mob. There were more than 50 men, including Joseph and those initially arrested, more than 50 Latter-day Saints who were arrested by the Missouri militia mob and transported to Richmond to stand trial.
From there of course, Parley Pratt went to the Richmond Jail, him and Morris Phelps and Lumen Gibbs and others. Joseph, Sidney, Hyrum, Alexander McCray, Caleb Baldwin – they were locked up in Liberty Jail.
Hinkle knew the threats that were coming against the Prophet Joseph Smith. He knew what he was doing. He knew that he was delivering Joseph possibly to his death, but it didn’t matter. The next day, Hinkle came back into the city and bought whatever assumed right, went to the houses of one of the ladies there in the community and literally kicked her out of the house. Thinking he had the power to do so, he went to a home he did not own and kicked out the women (the wife) and her children. He had already caused her husband to be arrested. After forcing her from the house – making her leave her possessions behind – she then fled to a neighbor. Lucinda Harris weeping, Sister Harris took her. Hinkle took the home, took her food, her clothing, her bedding – all that she owned – even laying claim to her husband’s horse, saddle and bridle. This is typical of the treachery that was going on in history in Far West in October of 1830.
Who was that wife forced out by the traitor? It was Emma Smith. Emma and her children were forced to flee the state of Missouri. Because of Hinkle, and others like him: countless lives were lost, property was damaged or stolen, and atrocities committed in violence.
Well, Brother Brigham and the others (the members of the twelve) realized that they had no choice. They had to get the Latter-day Saints out of northern Missouri but where were they going to take him? They couldn’t go south. That was deeper into Missouri. That was jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan. They couldn’t go west because that’s Indian territory and what are you going to do with 10,000 people with winter coming on in Indian Territory. No one out there can take care of and you couldn’t go north from Far West up into Iowa territory, there was nothing up there for them. There was only one possible solution. There were Latter-day Saints who had been on their way to Far West when everything went down and so they hunkered down in the town of Quincy, Illinois.
Quincy is a river town right on the bank of the Mississippi, South of Nauvoo. Word came, come here, come towards Quincy, get out of the state. Quincy’s right across the river from the Missouri border and so beginning in as early as late December, January, the Latter-day Saints begin slowly moving towards the East. The problem with that is it’s wintertime.
Lucy Mack Smith describes sleeping out in the cold. The tent froze down but perhaps one of the most graphic of what our people went through in this mass exodus of Mormon refugees out of the state of Missouri about January to about April of 1839, it’s this account right here.
Third Story: John Hammer
John Hamer was the son of Austin Hamer and Nancy Hamer. Austin Hammer was killed in the massacre at Haun’s Mill on October 30, 1838, leaving his wife a widow with six children. After the massacre, about ten days later, the mob came back and said “you have to leave the state.” John describes:
“Our father left us a hundred and twenty acres of excellent land with government title, a good crop of corn already matured and 15 acres of good fall wheat. All this we had to leave for the enemy to appropriate for their own use. In fact, all the comforts of home had to be sacrificed and with the saints of God, we had to flee, destitute and hunted” he said “because of our religion.”
“We knew” – they gave them 10 days ultimatum to get out – he said, “We knew we had just a few days to gather everything up and get out of town. This is what the mob wanted – knowing they could take possession after they had compelled our removal. Our family had one wagon and one blind horse and that blind horse with a cart had to transport us, all our goods that we could take, and our family out of this to the state of Illinois. We placed into that wagon our clothing, our bedding, some cornmeal, and whatever 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 fighting winds were less barbarous and pitiless than the demons in human form from who’s fury we fled.”
He points out his mother was 32 years old and the burden of all of this fell on her shoulders. He talked about when night approached: “We would hunt for a log or a fallen tree and if lucky enough to find one, we would light it on fire and thereby stay warm. We were nearly barefoot.” He said “some wrapped their feet in rags to keep from freezing and protect them from the frozen ground. Mother and sisters were the only ones that had shoes and they were almost entirely useless before he reached our destination, the hospitable shores of Illinois. We all walked the entire distance except Austin and Julia – the two babies. Our horse could not carry a greater load.”
Then he talks about leaving behind all of his father’s tools and implements – burying him so that the mob couldn’t take him.
“There was scarcely a day while we were on the road that it did not rain or snow.” Can you imagine! “The night and mornings were very cold for our unsheltered and exposed condition. It is a marvel to me,” he continues “to this day how we endured such fatigue without being disabled by sickness or death but that merciful being who sheltered us and gave us courage took us to our destination.”
This is what I want you to hear.
“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 with all of this weight and responsibility upon her, with no husband to lean upon, she felt indeed that God was her greatest and best friend. She realized that He and He alone must be the deliverer of herself and family, and conduct them to a people possessing the sympathies of humanity.”
Then he talks about “at last, we reached the Mississippi River and could look across and there was Quincy” and he said “our hearts overflowed 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.”
That was John Hamer.
Thank you for listening. Many of the stories you heard today have been published and are archived at glennrawsonstories.com. If you would like more information you can communicate with us there. We will be back again with another podcast next week.
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