Tag: history

This is the final part of a three-part series on John Corrill and dissent in Mormonism. In the first and second parts, I introduced Corrill, an early Latter-day Saint, and his 1839 history.

The “Betrayal” at Far West

The Danites and dissenters fade into the background as Corrill narrates the unfolding of the conflict. As open conflict begins, Corrill’s narrative balances him between the roles of conscientious objector and silent victim. He opposes the preemptive strikes in Daviess County, does not participate in warfare, and describes an individual conversation with Smith: Corrill asks whether he thinks they can succeed in their warfare. Smith responds that “they would, or die in the attempt.”

Before the end of the conflict, Smith will have told Corrill to “beg like a dog for peace.” (LeSueur, 1987)

As the conflict intensifies, Corrill describes his fear, not only of the Danites, but of the Missourians; Corrill felt that his life was in danger to not one, but both of the armed parties to the conflict. Apparently he was unable to flee as Thomas Marsh and Orson Hyde had (“Minutes and Testimonies”, p. 33), and so he had no choice but to stay:

I knew that they were jealous of me as a dissenter, and that it was of no use for me to say any thing more; in fact I felt it was necessary for me to look out for my own safety…I would have been glad to have left the county with my family, but I could not get away; the decree was passed, and there was no other chance for me and the other dissenters but to pretend to take hold with the rest.

Corrill, 1839, pp. 36–37

And when Far West came under siege, he found himself caught in the crossfire.

I expected we should be exterminated without fail. There lay three thousand men, highly excited and full of vengeance, and it was as much as the officers could do to keep them off from us any how; and they now had authority from the executive to exterminate, with orders to cut off our retreat, and the word Mormons, I thought, included innocent as well as guilty…

Corrill, 1839, p. 42

When it became clear (at least to Smith, if not Lyman Wight) that military victory against the Missourians would be impossible, Smith chose Corrill as one of five representatives to negotiate with them for peace. Perhaps he believed, despite any misgivings about Corrill’s character, that Corrill’s position in the state legislature, political connections, or rhetorical abilities would help secure a peaceful surrender. But the negotiations did not proceed quite as Smith hoped.

Apparently the general had considered George Hinkle, the leader of the representatives, to be the person who represented the Mormons and could formally agree to the terms of surrender. Smith and the other hostages had assumed they would have a chance to negotiate with the general, but when they arrived in the Missourians’ camp, they were immediately taken into custody; “it therefore appeared to Smith and the other hostages that the representatives had lured them into the militia camp, where the surrender terms were then forced upon them.” (LeSueur, 1987) The subsequent disaffection of four of the five representatives (including Corrill) and their testimony against the church at the Richmond hearing cemented the perception in Smith and the others’ minds that Hinkle, Corrill, and the others had betrayed them into the hands of their enemies, where they would have been executed had it not been for General Doniphan’s refusal to carry out the hasty order, and where they suffered mistreatment in Missouri prisons during the following winter months.

This event was the final nail in the coffin of Corrill and Smith’s relationship. Writing from prison in December 1838, Smith lambasts Corrill for his role in the drama at Far West. If Corrill ever read this letter, he must have felt indignant and betrayed himself to have been named in the same breath as the “villain” Sampson Avard:

‘If the light which is in you become darkness, behold, how great is that darkness.’ Look at the dissenters… Look at Mr Hinkle, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Look at his brother John Corrill. Look at the beloved brother Reed Peck, who aided him in leading us, as the Savior was led, into the camp as a lamb prepared for the slaughter… In fine, we have waded through an ocean of tribulation, and mean abuse practiced upon us by the ill-bred and ignorant such as Hinkle, Corrill, and Phelps, Avard, Reed Peck, Cleminson, and various others who are so very ignorant that they cannot appear respectable in any decent and civilized society, and whose eyes are full of adultery and cannot cease from sin.

Smith, 1838; edited for conventions

Corrill ends the historical section of his narrative with the plight of the now-destitute Mormons seeking another place to live and redress for their property. Technically, peace was achieved; none were killed in the siege. But the way in which Smith and his friends were taken into custody drove a wedge between these leaders and the representatives who had agreed to the terms without them.

Dissent and Friendship

Corrill’s ultimate conclusion, which he calls “a few remarks to the church”, begins with his promised explanation of his reasons for leaving it:

I have left you, not because I disbelieve the bible, for I believe in God, the Saviour, and religion the same as ever; but when I retrace our track, and view the doings of the church for six years past, I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, and plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the even till too late. If he said to go up and prosper, still we did not prosper; but have labored and toiled, and waded through trials, difficulties, and temptations, of various kinds, in hope of deliverance. But no deliverance came.

Corrill, 1839, p. 48

The trajectory of Corrill’s exit from Mormonism has been wrapped in moral indignation at vigilante violence and foolish, authoritarian decisions of leaders, but that is not the core of Corrill’s apostasy. He came to reject Mormonism because what he saw and experienced was not what he had believed it to be. This is the same sentiment of one commenter in 2017, who, rejecting what he deemed simplistic explanations for why people cease activity in Mormonism—desire to sin, laziness, offense, and intellectual pride—concludes, “perhaps people leave because they conclude that the One True Church, isn’t.” (Ellis, 2017) Corrill’s leap of faith in becoming a Mormon was that “through every age, God continued to send prophets to the people…[and] if God did these things formerly, why not now? …why not this?” The final straw, stated below in the remainder of his final remarks, was the ultimate failure and humiliation of that prophet at Far West.

The promises failed, and time after time we have been disappointed; and still were commanded, in the most rigid manner, to follow him, which the church did, until many were led into the commission of crime; have been apprehended and broken down by their opponents, and many have been obliged to abandon their country, their families, and all they possessed, and great affliction has been brought upon the whole church. What shall we say to these things? Did not your prophet proclaim in your ears that the day was your own, and you should overcome; when in less than a week you were all made prisoners of war, and you would have been exterminated, had it not been for the exertions and influence of a few dissenters, and the humane and manly spirit of a certain officer?

Corrill, 1839, p. 48

In these lines, Corrill emphasizes the irony of the Mormons’ situation. Smith had proclaimed that they would overcome their enemies, but it was a Missouri general, Alexander Doniphan, who had saved their life, while dissenters like Corrill and Hinkle had pled for, and ultimately secured, peace (albeit under General Lucas’s conditions, hardly helped by the agitation of other dissenters like Thomas Marsh, and at the cost of the freedom of Smith and other leaders). He closes:

But where now may you look for deliverance? You may say, in God; but I say, in the exercise of common sense and that sound reason with which God has endowed you; and my advice is to follow that, in preference to those pretended visions and revelations which have served no better purpose than to increase your trouble, and which would bind you, soul and body, under the most intolerable yoke.

Corrill, 1839, p. 48

By reason Corrill entered the church, and by reason he departed. At least, to Corrill it was just reason. To Smith, it was betrayal and treachery of the highest degree. Smith was the one withering in inhumane imprisonment while Corrill was vindicating himself to his friends and allies. What Corrill never admits in his condemnation of Smith is that the disastrous saga of the “Missouri Mormon War” was at least as catastrophic to Smith as it was to Corrill.

Corrill’s ironic question, “Where now may you look for deliverance,” is familiar to Latter-day Saints in different words, phrased by Smith in a March 1839 letter from prison and now canonized in Doctrine and Covenants, section 121:

O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries? Yea, O Lord, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them? … Stretch forth thy hand; let thine eye pierce; let thy pavilion be taken up; let thy hiding place no longer be covered; let thine ear be inclined; let thine heart be softened, and thy bowels moved with compassion toward us. Let thine anger be kindled against our enemies; and, in the fury of thine heart, with thy sword avenge us of our wrongs. Remember thy suffering saints, O our God…

Smith, 1839; edited for conventions

Less familiar than these words is the context in which the “response” comes, since it is not excerpted in D&C 121. It is the arrival of letters from Emma Smith, Don Carlos Smith, and Edward Partridge that prompts Joseph Smith to pen this emotional prose:

Those who have not been enclosed in the walls of a prison without cause or provocation can have but a little idea how sweet the voice of a friend is. One token of friendship from any source whatever awakens and calls into action every sympathetic feeling—it brings up in an instant everything that is past—it seizes the present with a vivacity of lightning—it grasps after the future with the fierceness of a tiger—it retrogrades from one thing to another, until finally all enmity, malice, and hatred and past differences, misunderstandings and mismanagements lie slain victims at the feet of hope. And when the heart is sufficiently contrite, then the voice of inspiration steals along and whispers: My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and afflictions shall be but a small moment—and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes. Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.

Smith, 1839; edited for conventions; emphasis added

To Joseph Smith—and many Mormons, then and now—their church was always more than a church. It was a community: Zion. Membership was friendship. Corrill viewed his dissent and departure as a rational choice, but to Smith, it was the same as backstabbing a friend. Smith’s heaven was a heaven remarkably like earth, where people in their own bodies could laugh and play and live with their families: “And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.” (Smith, 1843; edited for conventions; cf. D&C 130:2) More important to Smith than doctrine and organization—neither of which showed constancy during Smith’s presidency—was his ideal of harmony and freedom from the embattlement and persecution that, particularly in Smith’s mind, had dogged the church since its inception. The saving “voice of inspiration” was carried in the hope of letters from friends. This is why the fallout between Smith and dissenters, including Corrill, was so bitter and so irreparable, and why the tension between faithful members and hints of dissent in the contemporary church is as insoluble as ever. Corrill’s apostasy was felt and experienced within the church as that of son against father; student against teacher; Iscariot against Christ. For the early Latter-day Saints, with God’s true kingdom at stake and enemies real and perceived at every turn, there was no room for anything less than a united faithfulness to the prophet—and the pain of shattered trust on both sides of the story of John Corrill and his apostasy is still felt among the latter-day believers and heretics of the twenty-first century. ∎

Works Cited

Note: The format of this list is loosely inspired by MLA style. Since I typically don’t work with historical sources and am more at home with APA, please overlook any issues of style.

Blair & Rives. “Senate Document 189 on the Trial of Joseph Smith”, 1841. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ASenate_Document_189_on_the_Trial_of_Joseph_Smith.djvu. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

BYU Scripture Citation Index. Brigham Young University, https://scriptures.byu.edu. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

Corrill, John. A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, The Joseph Smith Papers, 1839, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/john-corrill-a-brief-history-of-the-church-of-christ-of-latter-day-saints-1839. Accessed 14 Feb 2023.

“Elder Oaks Interview Transcript from PBS Documentary.” News Release. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 20 July 2007, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-oaks-interview-transcript-from-pbs-documentary. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

Ellis, Jonathan. “Review of Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt.” Blog post. 19 Apr 2017, https://medium.com/@jellistx/review-of-planted-belief-and-belonging-in-an-age-of-doubt-644cc5d1cca4. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

“Joseph Smith Papers: Karen Davidson and John Corrill”. Church of Jesus Christ, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2011-10-0005-joseph-smith-papers-karen-davidson-and-john-corrill?lang=eng. Accessed 20 Feb 2023.

LeSueur, Stephen. The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, University of Missouri Press, 1987.

“Minutes and Testimonies, 12–29 November 1838” [State of Missouri v. Gates et al. for Treason], The Joseph Smith Papers, 1838. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-and-testimonies-12-29-november-1838-state-of-missouri-v-gates-et-al-for-treason. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

Oaks, Dallin H. “Reading Church History” (CES Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History, Aug. 26, 1985), 1985, https://archive.org/details/reading_church_history_1985_oaks. Accessed 14 Feb 2023.

Peterson, Daniel C. “The Book of Mormon and the Descent into Dissent,” Ensign, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sep 2020, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/09/the-book-of-mormon-and-the-descent-into-dissent?lang=eng. Accessed 14 Feb 2023.

Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, Law, King, & Law, 1888, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44896/pg44896-images.html. Accessed 28 Feb 2023.

Smith, Joseph Jr. Journal, March–September 1838, The Joseph Smith Papers, 1838. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-march-september-1838/60. Accessed 17 February 2023.

Smith, Joseph Jr. Letter to the Church in Caldwell County, Missouri, The Joseph Smith Papers, 16 Dec 1838, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-the-church-in-caldwell-county-missouri-16-december-1838/1. Accessed 14 Feb 2023.

Smith, Joseph Jr. Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, The Joseph Smith Papers, 20 March 1839, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-the-church-and-edward-partridge-20-march-1839/1. Accessed 14 Feb 2023.

Smith, Joseph Jr. Instruction, 2 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards, The Joseph Smith Papers, 2 Apr 1843, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/instruction-2-april-1843-as-reported-by-willard-richards/, Accessed 17 Feb 2023.

This is part two of a three-part series on John Corrill and dissent in Mormonism. In the first part, I introduced the topic and broke my silence on the topic of religion. These following parts are excerpts from an essay I wrote for a Brigham Young University religion class.

Introduction

My own experience growing up as a Latter-day Saint in Utah has been characterized by a deep suspicion of antagonistic viewpoints. Young people are taught what to do when they encounter “anti stuff” online, and opposing votes during general sustaining votes on church leaders are spoken of with disdain and frustration by those who support leaders. One 2020 article by Daniel C. Peterson in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Ensign magazine compares dissenters to a variety of Book of Mormon villains and explains in bullet points that “dissenters harm themselves”; “dissension hinders the growth of the church and fosters unbelief”; “contention reflects spiritual error”; “dissenters can often be articulate and persuasive”; “contention often reflects greed, self-interest, and political ambition”; “dissenters are often deceived or deceivers”; “dissenters can become the fiercest enemies of the Church and the gospel”.

Public dissent from Latter-day Saint leaders or institutions takes many forms. There are those who, like Ezra Booth and Ryan Cragun, abandon membership and publicly denounce their former church as foolishness. There are those like John Dehlin who see themselves as emotional guides for those experiencing crises of faith. There are organizations like By Common Consent and Provo’s Prodigal Press that adopt a positive or neutral stance toward the organized church itself while often criticizing particular aspects of the community. There are people like Terryl and Fiona Givens, Melissa Inouye, and the rest of the Faith Matters organization who embrace the church and advocate progressive social change within it that sometimes runs against the institutional grain. There are those who appear “orthodox” to outside appearances, but have strong private feelings opposed to teachings and practices of the church.

Suspicion of dissent is not a new phenomenon among Latter-day Saints. The most obvious point of origin of the church’s suspicion of dissenters is the dramatic scenes that unfolded in the “Missouri Mormon War” of 1838, and the apostasy in Kirtland before that. In 1833, violence had forced Mormons to withdraw from “Zion” in Jackson County, Missouri and settle elsewhere in the state. Threats of violence were also what drove Joseph Smith, followed by hundreds of others, to move from Kirtland to the Missouri settlements in 1838, and internal and external pressures led Smith and others to fear that history would repeat itself and they would again be forced from their homes. A vigilante band known as “Danites” coalesced around Sampson Avard, and spurred on by rhetoric like that of Sidney Rigdon, who condemned disloyal members as “salt [that] have lost his savor…[and] is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men,” the Danites threatened and expelled dissenters.

Although the Danites’ actions only escalated tensions between the Mormons and their neighbors—with disastrous consequences—such an attitude of intolerance toward dissent has persisted throughout Mormon history. A strong formulation against dissension in the contemporary church is represented by statements in Dallin H. Oaks’ 1985 discourse “Reading Church History”, statements that Oaks has more recently restated (“Elder Oaks”, 2007), that emerged amid the Mark Hofmann crisis:

Criticism is particularly objectionable when it is directed toward Church authorities, general or local… Evil-speaking of the Lord’s anointed is in a class by itself. It is one thing to depreciate a person who exercises corporate power or even government power. It is quite another thing to criticize or depreciate a person for the performance of an office to which he or she has been called of God. It does not matter that the criticism is true.

Oaks, 1985, pp. 24-25

The figure I have called to the witness stand in this investigation of dissent is John Corrill, a figure whom Latter-day Saint historian Karen Davidson has said “deserves to be better known” (Church of Jesus Christ, n.d.). Corrill joined the “Church of Christ” in 1831 in Kirtland and followed the church through the Jackson County expulsion, through the construction of the temple and apostasy in Kirtland, and to its new home in Far West, Missouri, where he remained in positions in the church hierarchy and on relatively good terms with Joseph Smith until the events of summer and fall 1838 leading up to the “Missouri Mormon War”. Though his schism with the church would be final and irreparable, he did not side (at least openly) with the Kirtland apostates, nor was he targeted by the Danites as Oliver Cowdery and others were, and Joseph Smith retained some trust in him until the aftermath of the siege of Far West. Although both Corrill and Sampson Avard would testify against Smith in the following legal proceedings, Corrill was no violent Danite (he considered Avard “as grand a villain as his wit and ability would admit of”). He remained proud of his republicanism to the end, yet he did not stoop to William McLellin’s level of reportedly looting Smith’s property and gloating to imprisoned church leaders at the siege of Far West, “How do you feel as to the course you have taken in religion?” (Pratt, Autobiography) Above its readability and brevity, Corrill’s testimony A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints strikes the reader as self-vindicating but fair, frustrated though temperate, and historically lucid yet paradoxical in its initial defense of and ultimate condemnation of the Mormons.

“Investigations”

In conversing with my friends, I have been frequently asked, “How did you come to join the Mormons?”—“How could you yield to their delusions?” These inquiries, and others of the same nature, I have always answered frankly and fully, as it is my intention to do in the present little work, which, indeed, I have undertaken, not less for the satisfaction of my friends who have advised me to it, than to explain the motives which have governed my conduct.

Corrill, 1839, Preface

Corrill’s opening lines make it clear that his history will strike delicate balancing act. He must answer both why a reasonable republican—a lover of freedom and individual rights—such as himself joined the Mormons in the first place, and why he has since distanced himself from them now. This is no easy task. As a holder of public office, he can appear neither too sympathetic nor too critical of the Mormons without sacrificing face. If Joseph Smith was a charlatan, then Corrill was a dupe; if Smith was a true prophet, then Corrill is an enemy of democracy. This is a precarious tangle from which Corrill must extricate himself.

Published in 1839, Corrill’s short book inevitably emphasizes the recent conflict between the Mormons and Missourians, which had led to the capture of Mormon leaders and exile of the members. Corrill will spend nearly half his book in 1838. First, though, he must spend a chapter explaining how he came to encounter Mormonism. This occurred in 1831 in Ashtabula, Ohio (thirty miles west of Kirtland) with Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, and Tiba (Ziba) Peterson, the first group of missionaries on their way to the western border of the United States.

First impressions were less than positive. Unlike the emotional experience that Pratt, for example, reported in his autobiography, Corrill met the Book of Mormon with his rational mind:

I looked at [the book of Mormon], examined the testimony of the witnesses at the last end of it, read promiscuously a few pages, and made up my mind that it was published for speculation. In my feelings and remarks I branded the “messengers” with the title of impostors, and thought I would not trouble myself any more about them. But I shortly heard that these messengers had stopped in Kirtland, about thirty miles distant, among a society of people called Campbleites, at whose head stood elder Sidney Rigden, a noted preacher of that order. With that news I was at first much pleased; for, from my former acquaintance with that society, I knew that they were well versed in the Scriptures, and I supposed that, without fail, they would confound the impostors, convince them of their folly, and send them home again. But, to my astonishment, in a short time I heard that they had converted the majority of the society, together with Elder Rigden, to their faith.

Corrill, 1839, pp. 7-8

Corrill set out for Kirtland in hopes to “save [Elder Rigden] from their imposition”. When he arrived, he was “embittered” to find that Rigden had been baptized a Mormon, and “indignant” to find them “enjoying as they supposed, the gift and power of the Holy Ghost”. He argued with Tiba Peterson but, making no impression, returned home. On the journey, his rational gears started turning again:

I thought of Solomon’s words,—“that he is a fool who judges a matter before he hears it;”…investigation could certainly do me no harm… Now it is not impossible, thought I, but that ere I am aware of it, I may be found fighting against God; perhaps I had better stop and reflect on the subject a little; weigh the matter more closely, and compare this new doctrine with the Scriptures; and if it does not agree with the Scriptures, I shall certainly know that it is not of God.

Corrill, 1839, pp. 8-9

This he does over the course of the next seven chapters, qualified at the outset by his remark

that I always believed the Bible, (the Old and New Testament,) to be true. The whole course of my investigation was predicated upon that fact, and I felt safe in embracing any thing that corresponded with the scriptures.

Corrill, 1839, p. 9

The subjects of his investigations are prophets, prophecy, and revelation in modern times; the Book of Mormon, its origin and background, and contents; church doctrines; the work of gathering; and the morality and effects of the religion. Throughout these chapters, he cites the Bible on varied topics from healing the sick to the combination of the sticks of Judah and Joseph. (The verses Corrill uses are still used in contemporary Latter-day Saint religious education, and I wonder whether Corrill sourced them from Latter-day Saint tracts or preaching at a later date.) The conclusion to which his individual reason and the Bible, his twin guides, lead him is that “although I was not fully satisfied, yet viewing this religion to be much nearer the religion of the Bible than any other I could find, I concluded to join the Church,” remarking in retrospect that he did so “with the determination that if ever I found it to be a deception, I would leave it.”

Until 1838

During the period from 1831 until 1838, Corrill’s narrative is unambiguously sympathetic toward the Mormons, and reports major developments in the church as faithfully as any Mormon historian (indeed, this section and the previous may have been written while Corrill was actually serving as an official church historian (Corrill, 1839, Historical Introduction). For example, of the 1833 expulsion from Jackson County, he reports:

Here, let me remark, that up to this time the Mormons had not so much as lifted a finger, even in their own defence, so tenacious were they for the precepts of the gospel,—“turn the other cheek.”

Corrill, 1839, p. 19

During all these difficulties the Mormons were accused of many crimes. This, of course, was necessary for an excuse; but the people of Jackson well know, that up to the time, the Mormons had not been guilty of crime, nor done any thing whereby they could criminate them by the law: and, in my opinion, the stories originated in hatred towards the Mormon religion, and the fear entertained of their overrunning and ruling the county.

Corrill, 1839, p. 20

And uncharacteristically in light of Corrill’s ideological commitment to individual liberty, a critique of consecration is conspicuously absent from this section (and when it does appear in chapter 26, Corrill is remarkably neutral toward it, noting that “their law gives every man the privilege of managing his own concerns”). Even after his defection from the church, he remained uncritical of the practice, testifying neutrally in 1838 that “We have a rule in the Church, authorising any member to consecrate or give, voluntarily his surplus property to the church, for charitable purposes.” (Minutes and Testimonies, 1838, p. 29)

The Hazards of Unity

Corrill’s first criticism of Mormon conduct comes in his description of the handling of the significant debts that had arisen through the construction of the Kirtland Temple, purchase of land in Missouri, and other sources, and the resultant ill feelings. This situation was the key contributor to the internal apostasy in Kirtland, and strife within the church followed church leaders to Far West, Missouri.

At this point, Corrill faces the task of describing the events that led to warfare with the Missourians, and in this portrayal, he is much less sympathetic to the Mormons than before. According to Corrill, the Mormons had become fed up with the dissenters and mob attacks that had driven them out of both Jackson County, Missouri, and Kirtland,  and if they were attacked, “God would enable them to stand against anything, even the State of Missouri, or the United States, if they should come in a mob.” (Corrill, 1839, p. 29)

Even more than the language of violence, what troubles Corrill most is the unity that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon demand of their followers. Their preaching is not just a harmless motivational call to work together; it is a call to become one by ridding the church of its impurities—meaning dissenters. In the face of the threat of Missouri mobs, Smith and Rigdon taught that

if the church would be united, and exercise faith in God, he would protect them, though their enemies were ever so numerous… they must become one, and be perfectly united in al things; cleanse themselves from every kind of pollution, and keep the whole law of God; and if they would do this, God would strengthen them against their enemies…

…the scripture says, “If ye are agreed, as touching any one thing, it shall be done,” consequently, to become one was very essential, and they must be well united in all things…and the church, it was said, would never become pure unless these dissenters were routed from among them.

Corrill, 1839, pp. 29–30

The result of these sentiments was Rigdon’s “Salt Sermon”, where

it was plainly understood that he meant that dissenters, or those who had denied the faith, ought to be cast out, and literally trodden under foot.

Corrill, 1839, p. 30

Such a situation, where unity is taken to an extreme that noncompliance is no longer an option, frightens Corrill, who reports that “many of the church…became disgusted with such things…but such was the influence of the presidency over the church, that it was of no use to say anything” (Corrill, 1839, p. 29). High-profile dissenters were threatened with physical violence and fled from their homes—“depart, depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befal you,” read the “Danite Manifesto” (Senate Document 189, 1841, p. 7)—and others like Corrill were frightened into relative silence. “This scene I looked upon with horror, and considered it as proceeding from a mob spirit,” Corrill wrote. “Thus the work of purifying was commenced, and now it must be carried out.” (Corrill, 1839, p. 40) Those who conspired to carry out this purification were the Danites, led by Sampson Avard, “as grand a villain as his wit and ability would admit of”, in Corrill’s words (Corrill, 1839, p. 31)

If Far West as a whole was characterized by hazardously strict demands of unity, then the Danites were even more so: they were “a society that should be agreed in all things” and “covenanted to stand by one another in difficulty, whether right or wrong, but said they would correct each others wrongs among themselves”. “They therefore entered into a covenant, that the word of the presidency should be obeyed, and none should be suffered to raise his hand or voice against it” (Corrill, 1839, pp. 30–31) He expressed that “there was so much tyranny and oppression exercised, that for several weeks many persons dare not speak their minds, nor let them be known…” (p. 32). ∎

The narrative continues in part three. Citations will be presented in the third part.