“Accordingly, a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers, &c, assisted by a crowd of several hundred minions, who volunteered their services on the occasion, marching to the building, and breaking open the doors with a Sledge Hammer, commenced the work of destruction and desperation.”
And the reciprocity for this was that an armed company
of non-mormons whose property was destroyed and whose
wives were hit on by Smith, approached the jail. When
Joe Smith emptied his pistol into the crowd, he signed
his own death warrant, made the masonic sign of distress
and took a bullet for his crimes.
Frontier living at its finest.
Frontier living at its finest.
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LOL. Now that I live in the ‘wild west’, I am finding stories about lynchings are very common- almost every town had at least one lynching (including a couple where they broke the criminal out of jail to kill him). That doesn’t make it right, and the towns express regret for it, but it is interesting to note how common it was when there was little or no law enforcement.
“He needed killin’” is actually a defense argument.