In addition to these preparations for the destruction of the saints, in the counties immediately surrounding Caldwell, there was a general uprising of the old settlers under no particular leadership, but roaming through the scattered settlements of the saints in small bands, murdering, stealing stock, house-burning, whipping the men and driving the terror-stricken women and children from their homes. In fact, the whole country surrounding Far West was infested with a merciless banditti, which daily were guilty of the most atrocious deeds of cruelty. The saints living in a scattered condition over the prairies who were fortunate enough to escape with their lives, came running into Far West at all times of the day and night, white with fear. Let is here be said that the Prophet Joseph and counseled his people to settle in villages, and have their farms on the outskirts thereof, after the pattern, as far as circumstances would permit, of the plan given by revelation for building up the city of Zion, described in a former chapter of this volume. He had urged, in addition to the improved opportunities this plan would give them for educating their children, etc., that they would be in a better condition to defend themselves against their enemies. But the saints, at least many of them, would not hearken to this advice; now, however, that the enemy was upon them, when it was too late for them to profit by it, they could see the wisdom of it. It was one of these marauding bands, under the leadership of Nehemiah Comstock, which was guilty of a fiendish massacre at Haun's Mill, on the thirtieth of October. Haun's Mill was between ten and twelve miles nearly due east of Far West, on the south bank of Shoal Creek, which takes a meandering course, though in the main flowing east, and finally empties into Grand River. All told there were about thirty families of the saints located at Haun's Mill, several of which had just recently arrived from the eastern states, and were camped in their wagons and tents behind an old blacksmith's shop adjacent to the mill. The banks of the stream were lined with a growth of scattered trees and an undergrowth of hazel and other brush; while back from the banks is the rather sharp rolling prairie common to that part of Missouri.