Setting the record straight on the 'Hawn's' Mill Massacre

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — The Haun's Mill Massacre should be called the Hawn's Mill Massacre.

BYU Professor Alexander L. Baugh discussed these two historical corrections in his presentation at the Mormon History Association conference in Independence on Saturday morning.

With 17 Mormons killed and 14 Mormons injured, Baugh explained that the massacre on October 30, 1838 was the "singular most tragic event in terms of loss of life and injury enacted by an anti-Mormon element against the Latter-day Saints in our entire church's history."

...Baugh has researched the Hawn's Mill Massacre and has successfully identified all the Mormon victims and documented the Mormon defenders as well as more than 50 of the Missouri vigilantes.

This changed in January 2007 when a family history researcher sent Baugh an e-mail explaining that she had found a Jacob Hawn...

Digging into this claim, Baugh is now "absolutely certain" that this Jacob Hawn of Oregon was indeed the same Jacob Haun of Mormon history.

Baugh explained that "in virtually every family source I found, it always used the H-A-W-N, even their grave markers used the 'w' spelling, a clear indication of what was correct." Baugh further clarified that "Missouri state histories and county and atlases generally cite him as H-A-U-N, which probably explains why most historical literature written about the massacre usually uses the same spelling."

Baugh also discussed why Jacob and Harriet Hawn were never Mormons. "I like many other historians mainly assumed they were Mormons." But among other proofs, Baugh explained that they arrived earlier to Caldwell County before the Mormons, and no family records report that they were Mormons.

REVISIONS?

WE don't need any stinkin' REVISIONS!!!

...with his face stuck in a hat.

"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."

---Joseph Knight's journal.

"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.

(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),

"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,

as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,

and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.

In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:

"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."

"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"

reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881

in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)

In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:

"When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,

Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12

June 15, 1879, pp. 190-91.)

Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:

"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"

("A New Witness for Christ in America,"

Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)

"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."

---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.

In that painting of Joey Smith the mormon artist has made him so prissy and feminine, but the photo of Joey Smith depicts him just the same way..

However, while the artist changed his looks into a clear eyed runway model/matinee idol/football hero/Jesus image, the actual Joey Smith was barely passed plain and was skinny and weaselly and had blood shot eyes..

It reminds me of the Leonardo Da Vincis painting of the Last Supper...

Da vinci had a nice looking strongly moral man pose for the LORD Jesus Chris...he worked on the disciples while he looked for a “Judas”

Several years went by and finaly he saw a man on the street who was a drunked and foul mouth and a thief...

As posed the man and painted him as Judas...

As the man sobered up, he recognized Da Vinci and realized where he was

He told Da Vinci that he had posed for him before...

Da Vinci said that he had never seen him before

The man said “Dont you remember me? I posed for you as Jesus”

BTW the same mormon artist depicts his paintings of the mormon jesus as looking just like his imaginary Joey Smith...

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