[From the Washington Union.]
MORMON OUTRAGES.
The following letter has been received from one of the clerks (Mr. W. P. Landon) whom the late Sur-veyor General of Utah left in charge of the office when he, for his own safety, left the Territory last spring. This statement corroborates the report, pub-lished in the Union several weeks ago, from a party of returned Californians: PLACERVILLE, California, Sept. 18,1857.
Dear Sir : I embrace the earliest opportunity after my arrival here of sending you an account of my escape from the Salt Lake City. I arrived on Satur-day, the 12th inst., weary, worn, foot-sore, and nearly famished, having walked nearly all the way barefoot and almost naked. By the next mail I will give you all the particulars of the doings of the Mormons.
On Saturday, July 25, while engaged in conversa-tion with a number of emigrants, I was assaulted by a gang of Mormons, led on by Dick Pettit and—Thompson, who beat me with stones and clubs most unmercifully. The emigrants were about to rally to my assistance, but I dissuaded them from doing so, telling them that it would only result in their destruc-tion. When I reached home I was insensible. The same afternoon they attacked Deputy Surveyor Mo-go, as he was going to the office, by stoning him, and compelled him to take refuge in the store. On Mon-day, the 27th of July, about midnight, I being awake, suffering from the wounds the Mormons had inflicted, I was startled by loud knocking at the front and back doors of the office, (which adjoins my residence,) and heard Mr. Wilson (the other clerk, who occupies the upper part of the building,) ask from the window what was wanted. The reply was a demand in the name of Brigham Young, that he should come down and surrender himself. I then heard a crash, the door having been burst open, and Mrs. Wilson shriek-ing and begging them not to take away her husband. They brutally told her to keep her mouth shut and stop her noise, or they would make her. I heard Mr. Wilson ask where they were going to take him, and what for. They said, in reply, "Come along, and no fuss, or we'll d—n soon show you."
I was incapable of rendering assistance, and was thinking what to do, when my back-door was forced open, and a party of the ruffians rushed in and or-dered me to come down stairs. I arose, and put on my pants and one stocking. But, as it occurred to me that they would murder us, I resolved to try to escape, and cautiously opened the window for that purpose, when a peremptory order was made for me to make haste and come down. I replied that I was coming down, when they made a rush for the stairs. I jumped out of the window, and escaped to the house of a friend, where I stayed until daylight.—When I went to the store, the boys gave me a pair of moccasins, an old ragged pair of pants, a check shirt, and an old hat. In this disguise I started the next evening, and travelled along the banks of the Jor-dan and of Salt Lake until daylight, when I struck for the mountains. I had hardly reached a place of concealment when I saw seven mounted Mormons in pursuit. I twice narrowly escaped. Once near the Weber canon they came within ten feet of me, but they were riding fast and I was hid behind a sage bush. They followed me to Willow Creek, where the Indians were levying a tax of a shirt and a blank-et on every emigrant. My pursuers were heard to say, "Let him go; the Indians will get him before he goes very far down the Humboldt."
The Indians got many poor fellows on this river during last summer. Many men, women, and chil-dren have been slaughtered by wholesale. One wo-man was scalped alive, and her children's brains knocked out over the wagon wheel. She is still liv-ing. I could enumerate a dozen such instances. I saw on the road the Indian Peter, who used to come to the (Surveyor General's) office. He told me that Brigham Young had sent him out to get "pungoes" (horses) and carbines. He knew me, and said I was wainoe, (good,) because I had often given him bish-cope (red paint.) He informed me there was a "heap of Indians on Humboldt; heap pungoes heap car-bines," etc. I had not left him an hour before he shot a man with four balls. But the man escaped, though not much injured. I have not time to re-count the sufferings I endured while on the road. I have travelled from Carson Valley to this place with nothing but two biscuits to eat. I am now working in a stone quarry, nearly naked and barefooted, for very little more than something to eat—that is, about twenty dollars a month.
The Mormons are all leaving here and Carson Val-ley for the purpose of defending Zion.
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