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Discover Mid-America — January 2007

Liberty’s old jail part of Missouri’s violent past

During the 1830s, much of northwest Missouri was the scene of violence between farmers and a growing group of newcomers. The new residents, members of a recently formed religion known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, were trickling into the state from Kirtland, OH, where their sect was based. The conflict, which came to be known as the “Mormon War,” turned otherwise peaceful farmers into mobs and many members of the Latter Day Saints into an organized defense force.

Violence against Mormon settlers in Independence began in 1832. The next year, an article urging “Free People of Color” in a Mormon-owned newspaper enraged slaveholders already suspicious of their new neighbors. Many were fearful that Mormons were advocating the confiscation of all property for their new “Zion.” More than 400 citizens met at the Jackson County Courthouse and demanded the Mormons abandon their property and leave. When they refused, the mob destroyed the group’s printing press and print shop, then tarred and feathered an LDS bishop.

Three days later the Missourians issued an ultimatum. Half the Mormons were ordered to leave immediately. The rest were given six months.

The Mormons failed to comply. On Oct. 31, 1833 they were attacked at Whitmer Branch near Independence. Houses were destroyed and the citizenry terrorized. A second attack on Nov. 4 resulted in more violence, with three deaths. Terrified, the Mormons fled, crossing the Missouri River to seek shelter in Clay County. Later, more LDS members would settle in Caldwell and Daviess counties, only to be harassed and persecuted by the Missouri citizenry there.

Battles would be fought throughout the region between Missouri mobs and the “Danites,” or militia groups organized by the Mormons for their self-defense. Accounts of the bloodshed vary. Testimonies by excommunicated Mormons indicate there was aggression on both sides. In any event, the situation got so bad that an “extermination order” against the Mormons was issued by Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs on Oct. 27, 1838.

(Note: the extermination order remained in effect until 1976, when it was rescinded by Gov. Kit Bond.)

When Joseph Smith, LDS leader, agreed to meet with the state militia, he was taken prisoner along with several other church leaders. Their execution was ordered, but in an unprecedented demonstration of moral courage, Brig. Gen. Alexander Doniphan refused the order, and the men were imprisoned at the Liberty Jail. Awaiting trial on charges of murder, treason, arson and other crimes, they were kept there for 128 days in miserable conditions, suffering from the cold in the unheated, drafty dungeon. They were forced to sleep on dirty straw and suffered “poisoning attempts and insults,” according to LDS accounts.

In early April 1839, they were taken before a grand jury in Gallatin, MO. On April 15, while being transported to Boone County for a change in venue, their guards allowed Smith and his fellow prisoners to escape. They fled the region, caught up with the main body of the church, and headed east toward Illinois.

Now, in more peaceful times in Clay County, Carl Walker is the director of the Liberty Jail Visitors Center. He said the jail, built in 1833, has been in ruins since the late 1800s, having served as a jail for only 23 years. In 1856, the building was used as an icehouse.

“At the turn of the century, Homer Stevens acquired the property and built a house on the jail foundations,” Walker said. “The old dungeon provided him cellar space, even though it was only a few feet below ground. The church bought the property in 1939, and used the house as a combination meeting house and historic site. In 1963, the Visitor Center was completed as we see it today.”

Although the jail was surrounded by violent history, the church that Joseph Smith founded believes that the jail was a place where Smith grew spiritually.

According to Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “The nearly windowless prison-temple becomes a unique window through which to view Joseph and the processes of revelation and soul stretching evident during this particular period of the Restoration.

“Herein we see Joseph testifying while suffering, learning while teaching, giving direction to the work while he was being tutored, giving blessings while being cursed, and proclaiming the United States Constitution to be a ‘glorious standard’ even while being grossly deprived of his own constitutional rights.”

After Smith escaped Liberty, the residents of Quincy, IL, sheltered him and some 12,000 followers the next winter. In the spring, the group settled in the village of Commerce, located in a swampy area several miles upriver. Renamed Nauvoo, it would become a thriving community, second in population to Chicago.

In 1844, however, history would repeat itself. Local residents, outraged by property thefts attributed to their Mormon neighbors, and the group’s advocacy of plural marriage, turned on the sect. After the press of a newspaper critical of Joseph Smith was destroyed, Joseph and his brother Hyrum fled the area but later were incarcerated in nearby Carthage. They were later killed by a mob, which had stormed the jail.

In 1846, about half the Mormons, led by Brigham Young, left Nauvoo and began an epic journey that would end in the valley of the Salt Lake in Utah, site of the sect’s present headquarters.

Others, renouncing polygamy and other tenets of the original sect, stayed behind. Eventually the scattered dissidents formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In the early 1900s, the group relocated to Independence, MO, and is known today as the Community of Christ.

In Liberty, the Historic Liberty Jail, located at 216 North Main St. in Liberty, MO, attracts more than 50,000 visitors annually, and is one of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ important historic sites. Several exhibits, audiovisual presentations and artwork help visitors understand the site’s historical significance. The visitors’ center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for free guided tours.

Ken Weyand can be reached at kweyand1@kc.rr.com

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