state, but little encouragement was returned. The lieutenant-
governor, Lilburn W. Boggs, afterward governor, was a pronounced
"Mormon"-hater, and throughout the period of the troubles, he
manifested sympathy with the persecutors.

One of the circuit judges who was asked to issue a peace warrant
refused to do so, but advised the "Mormons" to arm themselves and
meet the force of the outlaws with organized resistance. This
advice was not pleasing to the Latter-day Saints, whose religion
enjoined tolerance and peace; but they so far heeded it as to arm
a small force; and when the outlaws next came upon them, the
people were not entirely unprepared. A "Mormon" rebellion was
now proclaimed. The people had been goaded to desperation. The
militia was ordered out, and the "Mormons" were disarmed. The
mob was unrestrained in its eagerness for revenge. The "Mormons"
engaged able lawyers to institute and maintain legal proceedings
against their foes, and this step, the right to which one would
think could be denied no American citizen, called forth such an
uproar of popular wrath as to affect almost the entire state.

It was winter; but the inclemency of the year only suited the
better the purpose of the oppressor. Homes were destroyed, men
torn from their families were brutally beaten, tarred and
feathered; women with babes in their arms were forced to flee
half-clad into the solitude of the prairie to escape from
mobocratic violence. Their sufferings have never yet been fitly
chronicled by human scribe. Making their way across the river,
most of the refugees found shelter among the more hospitable
people of Clay County, and afterward established themselves in
Caldwell County, therein founding the city of Far West. County