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One of the most murderious was Porter Rockwell who did his shooting for the church. A colorful westerner who deserves to be remembered. It was a time that needed people like that—the Mormons faced terrible repression and even murder at the hands of Anti-Mormons.

OK, last post I recapped 38 of Porter Rockwell's 43-45 adult years (he had two birthdates listed -- one for 1813 & the other for 1815).

I did this based upon the so-called "justifications" that Forward the Light Brigade was making for why Porter Rockwell could "get off" minus any justice for his murder of 150-200 individuals over the course of his life...plus Rockwell was arrested & implicated for the attempted assassination of Missouri Gov. Boggs (Boggs was shot, but lived).

I've covered ground for two of the 5 geographical areas associated with the early Mormons: Utah and Illinois. In this post, I will cover upstate NY and Kirtland, Ohio, and then briefly revisit 1860s over other violence committed by Utah Mormons.

The other three geographical areas associated with the Mormons in the late 1820s and all of 1830s were upstate NY; Kirtland, Ohio, and two counties in Missouri.

Upstate NY: There was no murder of Mormons or formalized "repression" in NY.
What about Kirtland, Ohio?

Well, in Kirtland, there was criminal activity by the Mormons: numerous statutory rape charges; and then there was Joseph Smith's Kirtland Safety Society fraud. For the record, as one FREEPER poster put it, the Mormons left Ohio after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. Their bank was NEVER chartered with the state; never had any contributed capital; never was led by any competent management; issued large amounts of counterfeit money...including $3 bills. Thousands were financially ruined in this fiasco...and was one of the triggered the Panic of 1837 and ensuing 5-year depression -- one of the worst economic downturns in this country's history.

As the Mormons were departing Kirtland, Lds columnist Doug Gibson mentions what assignment a newly appointed Mormon "apostle" (Lyman Royal Sherman) was given: "...opposition leaders sought to use a printing office to manufacture anti-LDS tracts. That printing office was destroyed by fire to prevent that, and historians believe it was the ever-faithful Sherman who set the blaze to thwart Smith’s enemies." (see Early Mormon Sherman died without ever knowing he was called to be an apostle)

So, we've covered Utah, Illinois, NY, Ohio. That leaves Missouri. And even of the above, I forgot to mention these 1860s episodes in Utah:
* 1864: RLDS Missionaries beaten and nearly murdered by Lds
* 1869: I read the book DOWN THE GREAT UNKNOWN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S 1869 JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY & TRAGEDY by Edward Dolnick (Perennial Books), 2001. Powell, of course, was the one-armed Civil War vet who became the first known white man/white party to venture down the Green/Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon. Shortly before finishing the trip, three of his party ventured out on foot into Utah Territory...never to be heard from again other than the Mormon leaders trying to pin the deaths of the three men on Indians. On pp. 283-285, Dolnick cites an amateur historian & former dean of the college of science @ So. Utah Univ. (Wesley Larsen) re: a letter Larsen found in 1980 in a trunk belonging to the John Steele family. Steele was a judge and a militia officer & father of the first white child born in Utah territory. The letter was written to Steele from William Leany. Both were devout Mormons. Book mentions Leany had run afoul of the Mormon church by giving an emigrant a meal & roof & veggies. Book excerpt: "Leany's fellow Mormons charged him with giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy.' To teach him a lesson, someone clubbed him over the head, fracturing his skull and leaving him for dead. Leany survived. By 1883, he and Steele were old men. Steele evidently suggested to his good friend Leany that the time had come for them both to repent of their sins. Leany wanted no part of it. The church had blood on its hands, but he had nothing to repent. Like an Old Testament preacher, Leany thundered that 'thieving whoredom murder & Suicide & like abominations' reigned in the land. Then came the sentence that, a century later, electrified Wes Larsen: 'You are far from ignorant of those deeds of blood from the day the picket fence was broken on my head to the day those three were murdered in our ward & the murderer killed to stop the shedding of more blood.'...Larsen...embarked on a frenzied round of detective work. The reference to 'our ward,' a local Mormon district run by a bishop, was the first clue. Leany and Steele had lived in the same ward only once through the years, in 1869. And in that same fateful year, Larsen found, only one trio of men...had been reported missing or killed in southern Utah. "Further, Larsen learned, only weeks before the Powell expedition reached Separation Rapid, Brigham Young had traveled throughout the region warning the faithful that the long-threatened invasion of Utah by Gentiles was imminent. When 'war' came, Young warned his listeners, blood would rise 'to their knees and even to their waist and to their horses' bridle bits.' The Mormon leader ordered sentries posted at all the passes leading into southern Utah. Then, at the worst possible moment, three white strangers wandered into no-man's-land spouting a cock-and-bull story about their trip down a river that everyone knew was impassable. The three men were dragged off and executed as spies, Larsen speculates, and the news of the unsanctioned executions triumphantly telegraphed to Salt Lake City..."In Larsen's scenario, the next step was an exact replay of the Mormon response to the 120 killings at Mountain Meadows. First came cover-up...then a vow of scilence on the part of those who knew the truth, and finally a finger of blame pinning the crime on the nearest Indians."

Next post: 1830s Missouri