Haun’s Mill was a small settlement 12 miles east of Far West, Missouri, and was founded by Jacob Haun, who some sources say was a convert to the Church from Green Bay, Wisconsin, though recent research from Brigham Young University professor Alex Baugh seems to show he was not a member of the Church. Baugh’s research also indicates that this man’s name has been misspelled for many years and his last name is actually spelled Hawn, as his headstone in Yamhill, Oregon, records.

Hawn had moved to Shoal Creek in 1835. Hawn’s Mill (which is named after its founder, Jacob Hawn, so its spelling has been recently changed to reflect the discovered correction in Hawn’s name) consisted of a mill, a blacksmith shop, a few houses, and a population of about twenty to thirty families at the mill itself and one hundred families in the greater neighborhood. Tragically for the people in the wagon train, on October 30, nine wagons with immigrants from Kirtland arrived at Hawn’s Mill and decided to rest there before continuing onto Far West. Tensions in the area had been rising between the Mormons and non-Mormons for quite some time. Several misunderstandings and prejudices led the governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs, to issue what became known as the infamous Extermination Order, stating, “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good. Their outrages are beyond all description” (See History of the Church, 3:175). After a small battle between the Saints and the non-Mormons at Crooked River, Joseph Smith, prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, advised everyone in the area where tensions were highest (which included the settlement of Hawn’s Mill) to relocate to Far West, Missouri, or to Adam-ondi-Ahman (also in Missouri) for safety. Records seem to indicate that Jacob Hawn did not want to leave his property, so he stayed and instructed the people of the settlement to stay as well.

Despite a so-called peace settlement on October 28, in which both parties signed an agreement to not attack the other, the non-Mormon party did not disband. On the afternoon of October 30, about 240 armed men approached and attacked Hawn’s Mill.

Joseph Young, Sr., a recent arrival at Hawn’s Mill, described the late afternoon setting: “The banks of Shoal creek on either side teemed with children sporting and playing, while their mothers were engaged in domestic employments, and their fathers employed in guarding the mills and other property, while others were engaged in gathering in their crops for their winter consumption. The weather was very pleasant, the sun shone clear, all was tranquil, and no one expressed any apprehension of the awful crisis that was near us—even at our doors” (In History of the Church, 3:184). While there was no indication for the settlers that danger was so near, they did have some men on lookout and an emergency plan of using the blacksmith shop as a fort if necessary. With only minimal warning, the mob attacked at about 4:00 p.m. Many women and children ran to the woods to hide while the men fortified themselves in the blacksmith shop. Though David Evans, the military leader of the small group of Saints, cried for peace, the mob opened fire on everyone, pitilessly attacking women, children, and even elderly men. Two of the women, Amanda Smith and Mary Stedwell, grabbed Amanda’s two daughters and ran across the millpond walkway while the mob continued to fire at them. The mob quickly forced its way into the blacksmith shop and one man shot a ten-year-old boy, Sardius Smith, in the head, reportedly saying later, “Nits will make lice, and if he had lived he would have become a Mormon” (In Jenson, Historical Record, Dec. 1888, p. 673; see also Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 127–28). Sardius’ younger brother, Alma, who was only seven, saw both his father and brother killed. Alma was shot in the hip, which shattered his bone, but he was miraculously healed (see story below). Even with the people who were able to run to safety in the woods and hills, at least 17 people were killed in the massacre, and 13 were wounded. Jacob Hawn was wounded, but he survived. Looking back on the tragedy a few years later, Joseph Smith said, “At Hauns’ Mill [sic] the brethren went contrary to my counsel; if they had not, their lives would have been spared” (History of the Church, 5:137). This is a tragic story in the history of the Saints, and the people who died were all innocent and undeserving of their fate, but the story is a testament that we need to follow the prophet of God whose counsel will protect us and guide us. We can also learn from this sad experience to work harder to develop peaceful relationships with those who do not believe as we do. Violence and anger will only bring more violence and anger. Here is the miraculous story of Amanda Smith’s faith which helped to heal her son Alma after his hip was shattered in the Hawn’s Mill massacre.

On that terrible day in 1838, as the firing ceased and the mobsters left, [Amanda Smith] returned to the mill and saw her eldest son, Willard, carrying his seven-year-old brother, Alma. She cried, “Oh! my Alma is dead!”

“No, mother,” he said, “I think Alma is not dead. But father and brother Sardius are [dead]!” But there was no time for tears now. Alma’s entire hipbone was shot away. Amanda later recalled:

“Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out. . . . We laid little Alma on a bed in our tent and I examined the wound. It was a ghastly sight. I knew not what to do. . . . Yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help. ‘Oh my Heavenly Father,’ I cried, ‘what shall I do? Thou seest my poor wounded boy and knowest my inexperience. Oh, Heavenly Father, direct me what to do!’ And then I was directed as by a voice speaking to me.

“ . . . Our fire was still smouldering. . . . I was directed to take . . . ashes and make a lye and put a cloth saturated with it right into the wound. . . . Again and again I saturated the cloth and put it into the hole . . . , and each time mashed flesh and splinters of bone came away with the cloth; and the wound became as white as chicken’s flesh.

“Having done as directed I again prayed to the Lord and was again instructed as distinctly as though a physician had been standing by speaking to me. Near by was a slippery-elm tree. From this I was told to make a . . . poultice and fill the wound with it. . . . The poultice was made, and the wound, which took fully a quarter of a yard of linen to cover, . . . was properly dressed. . . .

“I removed the wounded boy to a house . . . and dressed his hip; the Lord directing me as before. I was reminded that in my husband’s trunk there was a bottle of balsam. This I poured into the wound, greatly soothing Alma’s pain.

“‘Alma my child,’ I said, ‘you believe that the Lord made your hip?’

“‘Yes, mother.’

“‘Well, the Lord can make something there in the place of your hip, don’t you believe he can, Alma?’

“‘Do you think that the Lord can, mother?’ inquired the child, in his simplicity.

“‘Yes, my son,’ I replied, ‘he has showed it all to me in a vision.’

“Then I laid him comfortably on his face, and said: ‘Now you lay like that, and don’t move, and the Lord will make you another hip.’

“So Alma laid on his face for five weeks, until he was entirely recovered—a flexible gristle having grown in place of the missing joint and socket, which remains to this day a marvel to physicians. …

“It is now nearly forty years ago, but Alma has never been the least crippled during his life, and he has traveled quite a long period of the time as a missionary of the gospel and [is] a living miracle of the power of God” (“Amanda Smith,” in Andrew Jenson, comp., Historical Record, 9 vols. [1882–90], 5:84–86; paragraphing and punctuation altered).

Sources:

Church History in the Fulness of Times Student Manual, 2003, 193–210

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765642730/Picturing-history-Hawns-Mill-and-Thomas-McBride.html

“The Shield of Faith,” James E. Faust, General Conference, April 2000

dwhite

Doris White is a native of Oregon and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English and a minor in Editing. She loves to talk with others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Bruce Van Orden is a retired professor of Church History and Doctrine in Religious Education at Brigham Young University. In addition to volunteer work with needy individuals, he is writing a biography of William W. Phelps.

William W. Phelps is most well-known in Mormon history for his uplifting hymns. Less appreciated is his calling soon after he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be “a printer unto the Church.” It was prophesied that “the world [would] receive his writings” and that he, Phelps, would “obtain whatsoever he can obtain in righteousness, for the good of the saints” (D&C  57:11-12). W. W. Phelps fulfilled this revealed duty as he published the Church’s first periodical, The Evening and the Morning Star; helped publish early editions of the Doctrine and Covenants; served as Joseph Smith’s scribe for the Book of Abraham and many other documents; helped publish the first hymnbook (for which he wrote about half the hymns contained in it); and helped compile the Church’s official history. Next to Joseph Smith, during the Prophet’s lifetime W. W. Phelps did more than any other leader to put forward the doctrines of the Kingdom of God.

Kirtland Temple

Any Latter-day Saint who has had the privilege to attend a temple dedication has sung or heard these words: We’ll sing and we’ll shout with the armies of heaven,/Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb! (Hymns, 2). W. W. Phelps composed the anthem “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning” for the first temple dedication in Kirtland in 1836. Often in general conference the Saints have sung or heard: Now let us rejoice in the day of salvation.No longer as strangers on earth need we roam./ Good tidings are sounding to us and each nation,/ And shortly the hour of redemption will come (Hymns, 3). This was the first of the “hymns of the restoration” written by a Latter-day Saint in this dispensation, by Phelps in 1832 in The Evening and the Morning Star in Independence, Missouri. Phelps has more compositions (fifteen) in the Church’s current hymnbook, published in 1985, than any other author.

William Wines Phelps

William Wines Phelps was born 17 February 1792 in Dover, Morris County, New Jersey. At age eight, he moved with his family to Homer, Cortland County, New York. He was well-educated for his era, although not in a formal university. He had training that he exhibited throughout his life in meteorology, surveying, classical languages, composition, poetry, handwriting, printing, and editing. He entered the newspaper business as a young man in Cortland, New York.

W. W. Phelps was one of the most publicly known early converts. He had helped create a new social, religious, and political organization in 1827 in New York State known as Anti-Masonry. He edited two Anti-Masonic newspapers, in Trumansburgh and in Canandaigua, New York, the latter merely eleven miles from Joseph Smith’s home in Manchester. Through his newspaper connections, he obtained copies of the Book of Mormon two weeks after publication and sold them in his office. He and his wife Sally read this sacred book overnight and became converted to its truthfulness. After struggling with his conscience for over a year, Phelps took his family to Kirtland in June 1831.

Following are the major events in the life of W. W. Phelps in the restored gospel:

• He was directed by revelation to accompany Joseph Smith and others to Missouri to identify the Land of Zion (D&C 55).
• He participated in all the dedicatory events for Zion and the New Jerusalem.
• He was directed to obtain a printing press and set up a business to print Joseph Smith’s revelations (Book of Commandments) and the Church’s first newspaper in Missouri.
• Together with Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer he printed the Book of Commandments and edited The Evening and the Morning Star, wherein he wrote scores of articles promoting new revelations, the Book of Mormon, and preparing the earth for the Second Coming. He authored many hymns in this and future publications .
• His printing office in Independence was raided and the type destroyed in anti-Mormon mob action in July 1833. He and his family were among those Saints persecuted and then hounded out of Jackson County later in the year.
• He frequently represented the Church in petitioning the state of Missouri and the United States government for redress of the Saints’ grievances.
• He was called in 1834 as one of the three Church presidents in Missouri. As such, he was invited to Kirtland, Ohio, to receive his “endowment from on high.”
• While in Kirtland, Phelps help print and write in the Church’s publications including The Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate, the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, and the first hymnbook. He was one of Joseph Smith’s chief scribes. Along with the other “presidents,” he helped govern the Church and set up the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836. All four songs rendered in the dedication were of his composition.
• He helped lay out and found the city of Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri in 1837.
• During a contentious period among various Church leadership organizations in Missouri in 1838, Phelps was labeled a “dissident,” removed from leadership, and ultimately excommunicated. He testified against the illegal “Danite” activities in Missouri at a preliminary hearing in Richmond, Missouri, in 1839, that resulted in Joseph Smith and others being jailed and bound over for trial.
• 

  Joseph Smith

  Phelps asked for forgiveness from the Prophet in 1840 and labeled himself a “prodigal.” Joseph graciously invited Phelps back to the fold of Christ.

• In Nauvoo, Phelps helped write the official history, served in municipal government and publishing activities, and as Joseph Smith’s political scribe.
• He spoke at the funeral for Joseph and Hyrum Smith and then effectively supported the Twelve to succeed as leadership over the Saints.
• Phelps purchased another printing press in Boston that would be used in Utah. He served the Saints in their new mountain home as explorer, educator, surveyor, weather man, almanac editor, justice of the peace, speaker of the territorial legislature, and a “senior statesman” and writer. He passed away 7 March 1872.

William W. Phelps is held in honorable remembrance by his posterity and all Latter-day Saints who are heirs of his hymns and other vital contributions.

Parley became a Baptist when he was eighteen, although not fully satisfied as to their truthfulness. He married Thankful Halsey on September 9, 1827, and they settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Parley heard Sydney Rigdon speak soon after his marriage and joined his congregation. (Rigdon later became a Mormon apostle, but at that time he was a preacher for a group called the Disciples or Campbellites.) Pratt was thrilled to hear someone actually teaching New Testament gospel, but still worried about the issue of authority. He saw in his own studies that the apostles had been given the authority to continue teaching after Jesus Christ died, and he felt there ought to be apostles with authority today. Despite his concerns, Pratt joined that movement and became a preacher.

Parley P. Pratt Conversion to Mormonism

In 1830 he was preaching in Ohio near Cleveland when he returned home to New York for a visit. There he heard about the Book of Mormon through a Baptist minister. He read part of it and was strongly moved.

I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep. As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists. My joy was now full, as it were, and I rejoiced sufficiently to more than pay me for all the sorrows, sacrifices and toils of my life.

He decided to travel to Manchester to meet Joseph Smith. There, he found Joseph’s brother, Hyrum Smith. On September 1, 1830, Parley went to Fayette with Hyrum to be baptized. He became an elder (priesthood holder) following his baptism and then returned home to teach his family about Mormonism. His brother Orson Pratt became a member of the Church.

Parley P. Pratt was called as one of the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on February 14, 1835. The twelve men of this quorum, which still exists today, are called to be special witness of Jesus Christ and to preach the gospel throughout the world.

Mormon Missionary

In October he accepted his first call to be a missionary. He was sent to the edge of Missouri to work with Native Americans. As he and his companions traveled there, they took opportunities to teach Mormonism to those they met. While in Kirtland, Ohio, they encountered Sydney Rigdon and shared the religion with him. Rigdon and many others in Rigdon’s congregation, including his wife, were converted. When the missionaries began their work with Native Americans, they taught and converted people in the Catteraugus tribe near Buffalo, the Wyandots in Ohio, and the Delaware, just outside of Missouri.

The following year he would serve several other missions, including one to the Shakers.

In June of 1831, Parley P. Pratt become one of the first High Priests at a church conference. Following this he and his brother traveled to another conference in Missouri, preaching as they traveled.

In 1833, Joseph Smith received a revelation that God was pleased with Parley P. Pratt and that he would continue to lead the school as long as he remained worthy. Shortly thereafter, he and the other Mormons were driven from their homes by mobs that burned their houses, killed their crops, and murdered many of the Church members. They settled across the river for a time.

Persecution of Mormons

In 1834, the Mormons pressured the governor to keep his promise to allow the Mormons to return to their homes and to defend themselves against attack. Parley P. Pratt and Orson Hyde approached him with this request, but the governor refused to honor his commitment to them and to religious freedom.

The following year, Parley P. Pratt would attain his highest office in the church. When the first group of apostles were named, he was ranked number seven by age. (Today apostles are ranked by length of time in office, but since the first group was called at the same time, they ranked by age.) As an apostle, he had a special calling to testify of Jesus Christ. He traveled to Canada in 1836 to establish several congregations and then went to New York to do the same. His first wife, Thankful, died a few hours after giving birth. Parley briefly lost faith in the church in all the turmoil of family and religious life, complicated by excessive persecutions, but quickly returned and requested forgiveness.

He moved to Caldwell County in 1838, but once again mobs attacked the Mormons. Governor Boggs had issued the infamous extermination order, making it legal to murder Mormons. The Mormons had not yet learned of it, but the mobs had. When the mob militia arrived, the Mormons attempted to negotiate peacefully with them, but the next day, Colonel Hinkle met with General Lucas and, without authorization, promised to deliver Joseph Smith and other church leaders to the mob and allowed church members to be driven from their homes and many to be murdered. The mobs destroyed property valued in the millions of dollars.

Pratt and other church leaders remained in jail for eight months while the Mormons escaped to Illinois. Parley P. Pratt wrote a book about Mormon persecutions while in prison. During the trials for these types of arrests, typically those coming to testify on behalf of the accused were arrested, leaving only people testifying against them and generally chosen from the mobs that placed them in jail. The men were able to escape after a change of venue. Pratt had escaped once before, alone, but returned when he realized it might endanger the other prisoners. One person in the group was re-arrested, but released when it was acknowledged there were no actual charges against any of the men.

In 1840, Parley P. Pratt served a mission in England and began publishing a Mormon newspaper called the Millennial Star. The following year, he was appointed president over all the British conferences. In 1845, he was appointed head of the conferences of the Middle States and New England. Headquartered in New York, he published The Prophet, a periodical.

He returned home to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846, but following the murder of Joseph Smith, the Mormons were forced to leave Illinois. Pratt left ten days after the first group. A month after the arduous journey to Utah ended, Pratt and several other men were sent to England. The two men who oversaw that area of the church had been disfellowshipped (loss of full membership privileges) for misconduct regarding church funds.

When they returned home early the next year, they came to Winter Quarters to meet with Brigham Young and to report on events in England. They were asked to take charge of Winter Quarters and to lead them to Utah, which they did.

Leading in Utah

A provisional government was established in Utah and Parley P. Pratt helped to create the constitution. When Utah was accepted as a United States territory, he was elected to the legislative council. In the following years, he would serve several more missions and also enter into the practice of polygamy. He wrote many tracts, articles, and books, the best-known of which is Key to the Science of Theology.

Parley also worked with George D. Watt in the 1850s to develop the Deseret Alphabet, which worked phonetically and was intended to help many immigrants and converts from different countries to learn English more easily so everyone could communicate more effectively.

In 1856, Parley was called to serve a mission to the eastern States. Parley sensed his approaching death. He wrote home, “I long to do my duty while here and then go to rest in the paradise of God.” Indeed, Parley stated, “I neither dread nor fear death, but I anticipate changing worlds with joy inexhaustible.” On May 13, 1857, shortly after his 50th birthday, Parley was murdered outside the small town of Van Buren, Arkansas, by Hector McLean, former husband of a wife Parley took in a polygamous marriage. Hector was a man who abused both alcohol and his wife. She left him and eventually married Parley in Utah.

McLean felt Parley had stolen his wife and children (rather than recognizing his own abusive nature had driven them away) and pursued him across the country. Parley was arrested for the alleged crime and was found not guilty by a judge who then released him in secret, realizing Parley’s life was in danger.

With two friends on McLean’s side, they tracked Parley down. Parley was shot him six times and stabbed twice, being left to bleed to death. As he lay dying, Parley testified to those who had come to help: “I die a firm believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith. … I know that the Gospel is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, I am dying a martyr to the faith.”

Sources:

This article is adapted from Every Person in the Doctrine and Covenants by Lynn F. Price, Cedar Fort, 2007, with additional information from Matthew J. Grow, “The Extraordinary Life of Parley P. Pratt,” Ensign, April 2007.

Terrie Lynn Bittner

The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.