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175 years ago
Mob violence in Jackson County, Mo., resulted in the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints the first week of November 1833, according to Essentials in Church History by President Joseph Fielding Smith.
The book states that on Nov. 7, "the banks of the Missouri River were lined with refugees who had gathered in the utmost confusion, so hasty had been their flight. Twelve hundred souls were thus forced to seek shelter, the best they could, in the dead of winter, and in the midst of storms. Many died from exposure and the abuse otherwise heaped upon them, and the fleeing multitude left, in the frozen stubble, a trail of blood from their lacerated feet."
They found some temporary relief in Clay County, just across the river.
Mobs had repeatedly attacked the homes of Church members for days prior, leading to, according to the book, "The Battle of the Blue" on Nov. 4. As mobs destroyed property near the Big Blue River, some men of the Church gathered in defense and two members of the mob were killed. Of the defenders, Andrew Barber was killed and Philo Dibble "also received a severe wound, but was almost instantly healed by the laying on of hands by Elder Newel Knight," according to the book.
The account adds that Church members subsequently obeyed an order to surrender their arms when Missouri Lt. Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs pledged that the mobbers would do the same. Once the Church members were disarmed, they found themselves in a defenseless position as mobbers retained their arms and increased their violence.
