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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 20 Page: 442 (~1840)

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442 mob to inform us that if we would forsake our religion they were willing to be our brethren and fight for us; 'but if not,' said he, 'our young men are ready, and we can scarce constrain them from falling upon you and cutting you to pieces.'

'Soon after this there came a large company of men, armed, to my place, and with much threatening and profane words ordered me to be gone by the next day, or they would kill me and my family; in consequence of which threatening we quit our house in the month of November, leaving most of our effects; suffering very much with cold, fatigue, and hunger, we took on the prairie, and went southward twenty miles or more, where we stayed a few weeks. But still being threatened by the mob, we removed to Clay County, where we lived in peace until the fall of 1838, when a mob arose against the people of the church of Latter Day Saints, when we were again obliged to leave our home, seek safety in another place for a few weeks. When we returned, our house had been broken open, and the lock of a trunk broken open and the most valuable contents thereof taken away; the most of our bedding and furniture was either stolen or destroyed; and we were then ordered to leave the State.

"GIBSON GATES.

"Sworn to before David W. Kilbourn, J. P."

-Millennial Star, vol. 17, pp. 661, 662.

"This is to certify that I, David Pettigrew, was a citizen of Jackson County, Missouri, and owned a good farm, lying on the Blue River, six miles west of Independence, and lived in peace with the inhabitants until the summer and fall of 1833, when the inhabitants began to threaten us with destruction. I was at work in my field and a man by the name of Allen and others with him came along and cried out, 'Mr. Pettigrew, you are at work as though you was determined to stay here, but we are determined that you shall leave the county immediately.' I replied that I was a freeborn citizen of the United States, and had done harm to no man. 'I therefore claim protection by the law of the land,' and that the law and Constitution of the land would not suffer them to commit so horrid a crime.

(page 442)

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