Haun’s Mill Massacre
On
October 30, 1838, just three days after the extermination order was
issued, approximately 240 men approached a Mormon settlement at a place called
Hawn’s Mill (or Haun’s Mill). The women and children fled into the woods, while
the men sought protection in the blacksmith shop. One of the Saints’ leaders,
David Evans, swung his hat and cried for peace. The sound of a hundred rifles
answered him, most of them aimed at the blacksmith shop. The mobbers shot
mercilessly at everyone in sight, including women, elderly men, and children.
Amanda Smith seized her two little girls and ran with Mary Stedwell across the
millpond on a walkway. Amanda recalled, “Yet though we were women, with tender
children, in flight for our lives, the demons poured volley after volley to
kill us” (in Andrew Jenson, “Amanda Smith,” The Historical Record, July
1886, 84).
Members of
the mob entered the blacksmith shop and found and killed 10-year-old Sardius
Smith, son of Amanda Smith, when he was hiding under the blacksmith’s bellows.
The man later explained, “Nits [young lice] will make lice, and if he had lived
he would have become a Mormon” (in Jenson, “Haun’s Mill Massacre,” Historical
Record, Dec. 1888, 673; see also B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive
History of the Church, 1:482).
Alma Smith,
Sardius’s seven-year-old brother, witnessed the murder of his father and
brother and was himself shot in the hip. He was not discovered by the mob and
was later miraculously healed through prayer and faith. Although a few men
along with women and children escaped across the river into the hills, at least
17 people were killed, and about 13 were wounded. (See Church History in the
Fulness of Times Student Manual, 2nd ed. [Church Educational System manual,
2003], 201, 203–4; see also History of the Church, 3:183–86.)
No one in the
violent mob was brought to justice for their crimes in the courts of Missouri
or by federal authorities.
