For the Northampton Courier.
PERSECUTION OF THE MORMONS.
MR. ATWILL, Sir—
I have just received a letter, dated Aug. 25, 1839, from one of the Mormonites, who was driven out of Davies county, Missouri, last December, by the ferocious, blood-thirsty Missourian mobs. I will give some extracts, that your readers may see to what fearful extent and power, bidding defiance to all laws, human and divine, the mob system is carried in this country. He says "great have been the sufferings of the Mormons in this State. This is the fourth time I have been driven, and suffered the loss of all things. Eight houses I lost in Missouri, which I built with my own hands, and four plantations, generally with the crops on the ground.
"Last fall I was in a good way to live, but the mob came on, and took nearly all the furniture out of my house, my farming utensils, about 700 bushels of corn, and other crops, a mule and two horses worth two hundred and fifty dollars, which were all the team I had.
"We were all driven out of this (Davies county) to the county of Caldwell, in the cold month of December, which is the coldest part of our winter—snow was four or five inches deep. Some were in tents and some were without, and great were the sufferings of hundreds.
"Many suffered to death. All this by the wicked mob-bers of Missouri, having a mob Governor.
"If we had been blessed with a good Governor who would have upheld the laws of the land, we could have put down all mobs that would have come against us; but instead of that, he trampled them under his feet by taking an innocent people and thrusting them out of the State without judge or jury—taking their arms from them, and then suffering the mob to fall on, plunder and murder them.
"They stole thousands of dollars worth of horses. Ma-ny of the Mormons they robbed, and never left them even a blanket; and some they killed after they had given up their arms.
"Great were their sufferings; I knew three or four die out of one family, near where I lived, on account of suf-fering cold, hunger, &c.
“Those of Davies, and other counties, had to leave in ten days, and flee into Caldwell county, where we could have the privilege of staying until the first of March; then we must leave the State or be massacred.
"Hundreds of families were in Davies county; from that to Caldwell is twenty miles. * * *
"Among the many barbarous acts which the Missouri-ans committed on us, I will mention one, which took place at Hauns Mills. About forty men, with their families, had lately moved on from the East; they found the Missouri-ans rising in great mobs. They thought they would be at peace with them or leave the State. Accordingly they went to them and made a covenant to stay through the winter. The next day, the mob, about two hundred strong, came on, and fell to massacreing them; they killed about thirty, and the rest made their escape badly wounded.
"When they saw the intentions of the mob, they fled into their houses, in order that they might have a better chance to beg for their lives; about thirteen or fourteen fled into a blacksmith's shop; it being a log shop and un-chinked, they rushed up and put they guns between the logs and shot until they were all down, and then went in and killed the wounded; and so likewise in other houses and gave no quarters. They shot some women. They shot one young woman through the hand, and she fell be-tween two logs, and so escaped their murderous hands.—This is only one act of their cruelty among many. Some they whipped to death; others, until they thought they would die. * * *
"Many innocent men and children were most inhuman-ly murdered. Sixty in number were dragged from the bosom of their families, by an armed soldiery, without any process of law whatever, thrust into prison and irons, and there remained a long time without knowing why they were thus treated. Women were insulted, houses plunder-ed and burned, and from ten to twelve thousand souls ex-pelled as exiles from the State in the winter season, of which, many died of cold, hunger and fatigue. Should I go into particulars it would swell this to a volume."
I am well acquainted with the writer of the above.—He was formerly a respectable citizen of Lyons, N. Y., and worth about two thousand dollars, until he was led away by the delusions of the Mormonites.
J. BEMENT.
Ashfield, Sept. 25, 1839.
