| 580 shot and severely wounded at his home in Independence. Missouri. It was at first reported that he was dead, but this was a mistake. He recovered and went to California, where he died some years later.
Because of the part that Governor Boggs had taken in driving the saints from the State, suspicion rested upon them. It was quite generally charged that Joseph Smith sent one O. P. Rockwell to do the deed. Rockwell was apprehended, tried, and acquitted. Gen. A. W. Doniphan was attorney for Rockwell, and he told us a few years ago that there was not one particle of evidence produced in court to connect Rockwell with the crime. At the time Boggs was shot he was a candidate for State senator, and politics was agitated during the campaign in a very vindictive spirit. Boggs had many bitter political enemies. There was surely as much reason to suspect his political enemies of being guilty of the crime as to suspect the Latter Day Saints.
About this time the Quincy Whig published an account of the tragedy, which is a fair specimen of the reports which went the rounds of the press. 9
To this Joseph Smith published an answer and denial. 10
9 ASSASSINATION OF EX-GOVERNOR BOGGS, OF MISSOURI.-Lilburn W. Boggs, late Governor of Missouri, was assassinated at his residence in Independence, Missouri, by an unknown hand, on the 6th instant. He was sitting in a room by himself, when some person discharged a pistol loaded with buckshot, through an adjoining window; three of the shot took effect in his head, one of which penetrated the brain. His son, a boy, hearing the report of the pistol, ran into the room in which his father was seated, and found him in a helpless situation, upon which he gave the alarm. Footprints were found beneath the window, and the pistol which gave the fatal shot. The Governor was alive on the seventh but no hopes are entertained of his recovery. A man was suspected, and is probably arrested before this. There are several rumors in circulation in regard to the horrid affair; one of which throws the crime upon the Mormons, from the fact, we suppose, that Mr. Boggs was Governor at the time, and in no small degree instrumental in driving them from the state. Smith, too, the Mormon prophet, as we understand, prophesied a year or so ago, his death by violent means. Hence there is plenty of foundation for rumor. The citizens of Independence had offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the murderer.-Millennial Star, vol. 19, p. 439
10 NAUVOO, Illinois, May 22, 1842.
Mr. Bartlett; Dear Sir:-In your paper (the Quincy Whig) of the 21st instant, you have done me manifest injustice ascribing to me a prediction
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