The Mormon War in Hancock County

BY HERBERT SPENCER SALISBURY.

The author of this article, who is a member of the Topsfield (Mass.) Historical Society, the Illinois State Historical Society, and Sons of the American Revolution, is a native of Hancock County, and has made "Mormon” history a study for over forty years, and in that time has received the testimony of many people, now deceased, who were residents of Hancock County during the Mormon Period.

Senator L. Y. Sherman introduces him to the readers of the Illinois State Historical Society Journal, as follows:

UNITED STATES SENATE.
Washington, D. C.

Springfield, Illinois, June 16th, 1915. I have known Herbert Spencer Salisbury for many years. I was once a near neighbor of his when I lived at Macomb. He is a graduate of Carthage College, a post-graduate of the University of Illinois, and has been a county officer of Hancock County. He possesses an intimate knowledge of affairs and places in northwestern Illinois. It is a pleasure to me to introduce him to the public who may read his writings.

(Signed)

LAWRENCE Y. SHERMAN.

On account of the many inaccurate things written about the "Mormons," as the Latter Day Saints are popularly called, I feel it necessary to be careful and exact in my statements and give references to all authorities cited.

By consultation of the Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, the Journals of the Massachusetts Colonial Congress and other New England histories and genealogies, we find that the first paternal ancestor of Joseph Smith to arrive in the New World was Robert Smith, an English Puritan, who came to New England in 1638. Joseph Smith's great grandfather, Samuel Smith, Gentleman, was a member of the Massachusetts General Court, as a representative from Topsfield in Essex County; was later a member of the Essex County Convention, called to consider Gen. Gage's hated proclamation and was an Essex County representative

in both the first and second Colonial Congresses of Massachusetts. He also was chairman of a local tea committee, member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety during the Revolution, etc., while his son, Asahel Smith, grandfather of the prophet, was a captain of Minute Men who marched at the Lexington alarm, and also to the siege of Boston.1

Lucy Mack, mother of Joseph Smith, was a direct descendant of John Mack, Scotch Covenanter, who came to New England to escape religious persecution and founded the noted Lynne, Connecticut, Mack family. Lucy Mack's father, Solomon Mack, was born in 1752, was a member of Israel Putnam's company in the French and Indian War, and afterwards served in the Revolution.2

John Howard Todd, A.B., Randall Parrish, and other historians of merit, erroneously accuse Joseph Smith of being of low origin, but the above cited records show that his paternal ancestors were the Curtis, French, Gould, Towne and Smith families of Topsfield, Massachusetts, while on the distaff side he was descended from the Mack, Colby, Huntley, Loomis, Gates, Cone, Olmstead, Brainard and Spencer families; all noted not only for their distinguished Crusader, Puritan, or Covenanter ancestry, of noble blood and uncompromising principles, but also for their prominence as founders of New England colonies, officers and soldiers in Colonial and Indian Wars, and in the American Revolution.

Joseph Smith inherited along with the characteristics, tendencies and teachings of these noted families, about ten or twelve Scotch and English coats of arms. In the light of these facts, it does not appear so extraordinary that Joseph Smith should start a religious reformation and contend for his rights and his cause, undeterred by persecution and even death itself, which reached him so tragically in the historic city of Carthage, two blocks from where this is written.

1-See records of the Illinois Society, Sons of the American Revolution under membership of Fred M. Smith, of Independence, Mo., grandson of the prophet.

2-See Tremain & Toole's Five Colonial Families, History of Gilsum, N. H., Records of the S. A. R. as above, etc.

When Joseph Smith led his band of New England patriots to western Missouri, in the early thirties, and began preaching against slavery, the Missourians received them as they did that other New England abolitionist, John Brown, with fire and sword.

Senator O. F. Berry, in his lecture before the Illinois State Historical Society in 1906, says, pages 89, 903: "In the meantime they were preaching against slavery.

It is sufficient here to say that it is not strange that talking and preaching against slavery as they did, both publicly and privately, they aroused the enmity of the Southern slaveholder, and they were driven out of Missouri, not on account of their religious teachings, in any particular, but because of their political doctrines and while I am informed that many of their ablest men insisted that it would be wise to refrain from teaching or preaching against the cruelty of slavery, most of the elders and preachers refused to do so and it resulted in great persecution and the final driving out of Missouri of Smith and his followers. From there they came to Hancock County, Illinois, which was the headquarters of the Mormon Church from 1839 to 1846."

Senator Berry, while not connected in any way with the Smith family, or to any Mormon Church, has resided in Hancock County since childhood and enjoyed unequalled opportunities for the study of Mormon history and with his permission I will quote, further, from his excellent lecture, to show the true difficulties under which the Mormons labored here. Senator Berry's able researches are in peculiar contrast with the writings of some Illinois historians who repeat the enraged Missouri pro-slavery advocates' charge that the Mormons were driven from the State on account of the crimes they had committed.

At Nauvoo the Latter Day Saints built up a city, which is said to have contained nearly 20,000 inhabitants, started a university in true New England style, just as the New Englanders started colleges at Galesburg, etc., and prohibited saloons, a thing unheard of in a city of that size at that period.

3-Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1906.