S16 A MOB FATAL RENCONTRE. 



means appropriate subjects for yielding what 

 they beheved to be their rights. Meetings 

 were held for the purpose of devising means 

 of redress, which only tended to increase the 

 insolence of the Mormons. Finally a mob 

 was collected, which proceeded at once to 

 raze the obnoxious printing establishment to 

 the ground, and to destroy all the materials 

 they could lay hands upon. One or two of 

 the Mormon leaders who fell into the hands 

 of the people, were treated t(5 a clean suit of 

 * tar and feathers,' and otherwise severely pun- 

 ished. The 'Prophet Joseph,' however, was 

 not then in the neighborhood. Having ob- 

 served the storm-clouds gathering apace in 

 the frontier horizon, he very wisely remained 

 in Ohio, whence he issued his flaming man- 

 dates. 



These occurrences took place in the month 

 of October, 1833, and I reached Indepen- 

 dence from Santa Fe while the excitement 

 was raging at its highest The Mormons 

 had rallied some ten miles west of the town, 

 where their strongest settlements were lo- 

 cated. A hostile encounter was hourly ex- 

 pected : nay, a skirmish actually took place 

 shortly after, in which a respectable lawyer 

 of Independence, who had been an active 

 agent against the Mormons, was killed. In 

 short, the whole country was in a state of 



dreadful fermentation. . 



Early on the morning after the skirmish 

 just referred to, a report reached Indepen- 

 dence Ihat the Mormons were marching in a 



