Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/175

 several hundred houses; made extensive improvements; and shortly the wild and lonely prairies and stately forests were converted into well cultivated and fruitful fields. There we expected to spend our days in the enjoyment of all the rights and liberties bequeathed to us by the sufferings and blood of our noble ancestors. But, alas! our expectations were vain. Two years had scarcely elapsed before we were unlawfully and unconstitutionally assailed by an organized mob, consisting of the highest officers in the county, both civil and military, who boldly and openly avowed their determination, in a written circular, to drive us from said county. As a specimen of their treasonable and cruel designs, your honorable body are referred to said circular, of which the following is but a short extract, namely: "We, the undersigned, citizens of Jackson County, believing that an important crisis is at hand as regards our civil society, in consequence of a pretended religious sect of people that have settled and are still settling "in our county, styling themselves Mormons; and intending, as we do, to rid our society, 'peaceably,' if we can—'forcibly,' if we must; and believing, as we do, that the arm of the civil law does not afford us a guarantee, or at least a sufficient one, against the evils which are now inflicted upon us, and seem to be increasing by the said religious sect, deem it expedient and of the highest importance, to form ourselves into a company for the better and easier accomplishment of our purpose." This document was closed in the following words: "We therefore agree, after timely warning, and receiving an adequate compensation for what little property they cannot take with them, they refuse to leave us in peace, as they found us, we agree to use such means as may be sufficient to remove them, and to that end we each pledge to each other our bodily powers, our lives, fortunes, and sacred honors."

To this unconstitutional document were attached the names of nearly every officer in the county, together with the names of hundreds of others. It was by this band of murderers, that your memorialists, in the year 1833, were plundered of their property, and robbed of their peaceable homes. It was by them their fields were laid waste, their houses burned, and their men, women and children, to the number of about twelve hundred persons, banished as exiles from the county, while others were cruelly murdered by their hands.

Second. After our expulsion from Jackson County, we settled in Clay County, on the opposite side of the Missouri River, where we purchased lands both from the old settlers and from the Land Office; but soon we were again violently threatened by mobs, and obliged to leave our homes and seek out a new location.

Third. Our next settlement was in Caldwell County, where we