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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 13 Page: 225 (~1838)

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225 County a dreadful incident, generally termed 'The Haun's Mill Massacre.' From official documents and other records, from affidavits of witnesses, and from statements made by actual participants, I have prepared the following account. If any newspaper publication of the affair has ever before been made, I am not aware of the fact.

"The Mormons made their first settlement in Missouri, in Jackson County, in the year 1832, under the leadership of their 'prophet,' Joseph Smith. I have not the space here to describe their experiences in that county, their expulsion therefrom, their sojourn in Clay and Ray, the 'treaty' by which they were given Caldwell County as a sort of reservation, the founding of the city of Far West, nor can I narrate the circumstances leading to the Mormon war (so called), and finally the banishment of these unhappy people from the State. All these incidents may form the subject of a future paper. I may state, however, that the massacre was perpetrated on the very day that the militia, under Generals Lucas and Doniphan, arrived at Far West, with orders from Governor Boggs to 'expel the Mormons from the State or exterminate them.'

"At Jacob Haun's mill, on Shoal Creek, in the eastern part of Caldwell County, about eight miles south of Breckenridge, there had collected about twenty Mormon families. Haun himself was a Mormon and had come to the site from Wisconsin a few years before. He had a very good mill, and clustered around it were a blacksmith shop and half a dozen small houses. The alarm that the troops were moving against them had driven nearly all the Mormon families in the county to Far West for safety. A dozen or more living in the vicinity repaired to Haun's mill, which was twenty miles to the eastward of Far West. As there were not enough houses to accommodate all of the fugitives, a number were living in tents and temporary shelters. A few families, perhaps four, had come in on the evening of the 29th, from Ohio, and were occupying their emigrant wagons. Not one member of the little community had ever been in arms against the 'Gentiles,' or taken any part whatever in the preceding disturbances.

(page 225)

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