[ Full-text transcription of: Witness John Carrill, a Mormon dissenter and State Representative from Caldwell County ]
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application of it by him & further this deponent saith
not Morris Phelps
John Corrill a witness produced sworn &
examined in behalf the State deposeth & saith that about last
June I was invited to a private meeting in which an ef
=fort was made to adopt some plan to get rid of the dis
=Senters. there were some things I did not like and opposed
it with others & it failed. after that I met Prest Rigdon.
& he told me I ought not to have any thing to do with it
that they would do as they pleased. I took his advise. I learned
afterwards that they had Secret meetings. but I was never
invited none of the 1st Presidency was present at the meet
=ing above refered to , we have a rule in the church au
-thorizing any member to consecrate or give voluntarily
his suiplies property to the church for charitable purpo
=ses. Prest. Rigdon last Summer preached a Sermon
commonly called the Salt Sermon, which Seemed to have
for it’s object to produce a feeling among the people to
get rid of the dissenters for crimes alleged & because they
disagreed with them, in a few days there seemed considerable
excitement among the people. & the dissenters left. as I
adresed them, they were in danger. I was afterwards, invited
to one of those meetings where an oath in substance the
same as testified to by Dr Avard was administered. The
Society was ultimately organized into companies and
captains of tens & 50’s were appointed. I took exceptions
only (“so” crossed out) to the teachings as to the duties’ of that society where-
=in it was said if one brother got into any Kind of a dif
=ficulty it was the duty of the rest to help him out right or
wrong, at the Second or at least the last meeting I attended
the presidency to wit Jos. Smith Jr Hiram Smith & Sidney
Rigdon & also Geo W. Robertson was there, there was at this
meeting a ceremony of introducing the officers of the Socieity
to the presidency, who pronounced blessings on each of them
As introduced according to faithfulness in their Calling &
they should have blessings, after this Prest Smith got up &
made general remarks about in Substance as follows. rela
-ting the oppussions the society had Suffered and they wanted to
be prepared for further events but said he wished to do nothing
unlawful & if the people would let him alone they would
preach the gospel & live in peace, towards the close he
observed to the people that they should obey the presi=
=dency & If the Presidency led them astray they might destroy
them. In the last or in some public meeting Jos Smith Jr
said if the people would let us alone we would preach
the Gospel to them in peace but if they came on us to molest
us we would establish our religion by the Sword & that he
would become to this generation a Second Mohamet
About April last I heard Joseph Smith Jr & Prest Rigdon
(who appeared to be vexed on account of troubles & lawsuits
they had had) say that they would suffer vexatious law
=suits no longer & that they would resist even an officer
in the discharge of his duty, Smith Said he has been be
-fore court, some 20,000 times they had never found any
thing against him & that made him of age & he would
submit to it no longer. I heard S. Rigdon 4th July Speech
I heard him say he would not suffer people to come unto
their Streets & abuse them, nor would they suffer vexa
-tious lawsuits. In sutstance he further remarked that
“neither will we permit any man or set of men to insti
-tute vexatious lawsuits against us to cheat us out of
our just rights If they do so wo be unto them” this mor
mon church has been represented as being the little stone spoken
of by Daniel which should roll on and crush all oppo
-sition to it and ultimately should be established as a
temporal as well as a spiritual Kingdom. These things
were to be carried on through the instrumentality of the
Danite band as far as force was necessary If necessary they
being organized into bands of tens. 50’s & ready for
war the teachings of that society led them to prohibit
the taking of any person’s against the presidency
so much so that it was dangerous for any man to
set up opposition to any thing that might be set
on foot & I became afraid to speak my own mind. I
objected to the course of Dr Avard in defiance to this
Daniete band I rather thought Jos Smith Jr. up held
him I would not allow any objections to him. After
the return of the Mormons from deciet I heard
Jos. Smith Jr in presence of Hiram Smith in a con
-versation say that application had been made to
the Gov. and that they understood that he would give
them no assistance & they were determined to withstand
the mob, they were greatly incensed against certain
persons in Caldwell& Daviss & said they intended to
rid the counties of them & of the mob in the course of
that week, this was on Sunday morning and in the
course of that day instructions were given to meet
the next day (monday) on Monday Jos Smith Jr made
a speech and some resolutions were passed purporting
that those persons who would not engage in thies un
-dertaking this property should be consecrated to the
use of [“the church” crossed out] those who did engage in thees undertaking
On Sunday Jos. Smith Jr in his discourse spoke of
persons taking at sometimes, what at other times it
would be wrong to take, and gave as an example the
case of David eating the shewbread & also of the [Saviour]
& his apostles plucking the ears of corn and eating as they
passed through the cornfield he supposed the prejudices
of the Jews and Pharisees were so great against the Sa
viour that they would give them nothing to eat & they
took that method to get it. On the Monday when the re
solutions above refered to were introduced President Rigdon
in a speech said that those who were unwilling to go into the
war ought to be put upon their horses with guns & bayonets and
forced into the front of the war having reference to those who
heretofore had been backwards in defending themselves, & families
No persons were suffered to leave the County in this extreme time
and I met with Phelps to consult as to what all ought to do
After the troops got to Diahmon in all about 4 or 500 men
I heard Lyman wight addressing a portion of the men who
were then (perhaps 8 or 10)” that the earth was the Lord’s and the
“fullness thereof with the Cattle upon a 1000 hills, & if I was
“an hungry I would not tell you” that the Saints of the
Lord had the Same privilege or rights, after that perhaps,
the next day I saw a drove of some 4 or 5 Cattle pass along
& asked what
cattle these were & was answered that they
were a drove of buffalo,
Others, observed they were Cattle a
methodist priest
had consecrated Jos Smith Jr Hiram
Smith Parley P
Pratt Lyman Wight Geo W Robinson
Caleb Baldwin
Alanson Ripley Geo W Harris Geo Grant
probably Jas W
Rawlin’s were in the expedition that
went to Daviss,
Cony, at the time
on the same day
that the Company went to Gallatin Lyman
Wight went with a
Company to Mill port as I understand
he returned &
made a report as I understood it to be to
Jos Smith Jr in
which he said he found nothing to fight
but fences &
empty houses I understood him to say the
people had not
taken away all their property Smith
the Prophet here
asked him if they had taken the negroes
he said yes some
one then laughed observed Smith you
have lost Your
negro to which I think, he made no reply
Jos Smith Jr asked Wight if he had done any
thing
with the property
remaining in Millport Wight said not
they would leave
that matter for a private council.
Suman Gibbs told me he went down with the
expedition
that fought Bogart
and he remained behind ¾ of
a mile from the
battle ground [“to” crossed out] holding horses I feel con
fident that Isaac
Morley was not in the fight with
Bogart, I think the
original object of the Danite
band was to operate
on the dissenters, but afterwards
it grew into System
to carry out the designs of the
Presidency and if
necessary to use physical force to
upbuild the
this is my Opinion
as to their object and I learned it from
various Sources
connected with that band. It was
my understanding
that Dr Avard, teachings in
the danite Society
proceeded from the Presidency. I never
heard that
Constitution spoken of by Dr. Avard in the So
ciety when I was
present nor did I ever hear of
it until
lately & further this deponent saith
not
John
Corrill
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