Historic Adventures: Tales from American HistoryHolland, Rupert Sargent
History
Historic Adventures: Tales from American History
Holland, Rupert Sargent
United States -- History -- Anecdotes
Unfortunately for the Mormons their leader was a man who made enemies as
easily as he made friends. He had aroused much ill feeling when he lived
in Missouri. As a result, when, one day in May, 1842, Governor Boggs
of Missouri was shot and seriously wounded while sitting at the window
of his home, many people laid the crime to Smith or his followers, and
believed that the prophet himself, as Smith was called, had ordered the
shooting. The officers of Missouri asked the governor of Illinois to
hand Smith over to them. This was not done, and consequently ill feeling
against the prophet grew stronger. In the meantime a man named John C.
Bennett, who had joined the Mormons at Nauvoo, and had been the first
mayor of the city, deserted the church, and turned into one of the most
bitter of its enemies. He denounced the Mormons in letters he wrote to
the newspapers, and exposed what he called their secrets. This led other
people to attack the ideas of the Mormons, and it was not long before
there was almost as much dislike of them in Illinois as there had been
in Missouri.
Even in the Mormon church itself there were men who would not agree
with all the prophet Joseph Smith said. A few of these men set up a
printing-press and published a paper that they called the _Nauvoo
Expositor_. Only one issue of this sheet appeared, dated June 7, 1844.
That was enough, however, to raise the wrath of Joseph Smith and his
elders, and they ordered the city marshal to destroy the press. The
marshal broke the press and type in the main street of the city, and
burned the contents of the newspaper office.
The editors hastily fled to the neighboring town of Carthage. The
people there and in all the neighboring villages denounced the
destruction of the press, and declared that the time had come to force
the Mormons to obey the laws, and, if they would not do so, to drive
them out of Illinois. Military companies were formed, cannon were sent
for, and the governor of the state was asked to call out the militia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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