[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri, second edition; i-vi, 7–60 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Shepard and Stearns, 1840. The copy used herein is held at CHL.
A manuscript draft of this pamphlet, simply titled “To the Publick” was presented to a conference of church members at , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve the manuscript and authorized its publication on behalf of the church. The pamphlet, when published, carried the endorsement of JS, , and as “Presidents of said Church.”
and collaborated on the publication of the text, which was available in print by May 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, was acknowledged as author in an 1840 Times and Seasons newspaper article, and when the pamphlet was advertised in that church periodical in 1841. JS and held some expectation that funds from the sale of An Appeal would eventually help defray costs of their late-1839 trip to .
By July 1840, and had been authorized to produce a second, revised edition to be published by Shepard & Stearns in . Page related some of the circumstances surrounding its publication and circulation in a letter sent to JS, “. . . at [Ohio] we parted for a few days . . . Elder Hyde went to Cincinnati where in my absince he published a second Edition of the ‘Apeal to the American people’ (2000 copies)[.] when I arrived the work was about completed[.] after disposing of as many of them as posible and suplying the market about cincinnati and the adjacient country he left me with some fourteen or fifteen hundred on hand, to dispose of” (John E. Page, Philadelphia, PA, to JS et al., Nauvoo, IL, 1 Sept. 1841, JS Collection, CHL). Funds from this printing were to be for the express purpose of subsidizing Hyde and Page’s imminent mission to in Palestine.
The second edition was essentially a lightly edited reprint of the first, with a four-page “Publisher’s Preface” added. In the preface, and noted the purpose of the publication, explained the severe hardships imposed by the persecutions upon Page’s own family, provided a detailed account of a vision experienced by Hyde, and expressed enthusiasm about the prospects of the mission. The preface also contained a copy of an official letter of appointment and commendation for Hyde and Page from an April 1840 church conference at , Illinois, signed by JS, and a letter of reference from , governor of .
Although many of the events reported in both editions of ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology of events is often inaccurate. However, Rigdon’s account does contain the texts of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document from a historical perspective is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some important material not readily found elsewhere.
and purchases were making of their lands and crops (the land consisted in pre-emption rights, as the land in that part of the had not as yet come into market) every day, and payment made until there was some twenty-five thousand dollars worth of property bought from the mob in improvements and crops. While these operations were going on, the mob would occasionally boast that when they had got payment for their lands and crops they would rise up and drive the Saints out and keep both their lands and their crops. They also sold a large quantity of hogs, some cattle and sheep and other property. These threatenings were making continually, but the Saints did not, however, entertain any great fears of their doing so—but the sequel will show that their threats were real.
While the mob was operating thus, in , there were scattering families in other counties which had to suffer violence also at the hand of their neighbors. In a family by the name of Lathrop, who lived on a farm which they had purchased from a man by the name of James Weldon, was attacked, Mr. Lathrop was driven from home—his wife and some of his family were sick—after he was driven away one of his children died, and his wife was there alone and laying very sick; and there were twenty-five or thirty armed men around the house threatening her husband’s life, if he attempted to come home. In this situation Mrs. Lathrop lay without attendance, surrounded by a body of armed ruffians; and while in this situation her child died, and her husband dare not return to comfort her. Her own situation at the time being delicate, and terrified by the mob, her condition was afflicting in the extreme. The mob took and buried her child. A body of armed men was sent by the authorities to relieve her—they arrived at the place and found the mob there, the most of whom fled at their approach. They took the woman and her goods and family which remained, and brought her off with them, with another family by the name of Jackson. Mr. Jackson had also been driven from his family. Mrs. Lathrop survived the abuse but a very short time. There were also scattering families of the saints in , and other counties, who were severely threatened, and some left the country out of fear, at the sacrifice of much property.
We have already mentioned that after the mob had been turned into militia, and disbanded as such, they went to Carroll county to attack a settlement of the saints in that place. The mob in Corrill county began to assemble on the first of October, 1838. We are not able to state the precise day; but it was as early as the first week of the month. We will now leave the affairs of and the other counties to give an account of the settlement in Carroll; for the history of the others which remain is identified with the history of this settlement, and the things which befel it.
Some time in the last week in March, 1838, a man by the name of , who was a large proprietor in the town plat of , on the , arrived at . He was the bearer of a letter from a Mr. , who had been a merchant in Carrollton, the county seat of Carroll county, but at the time he wrote this letter was living within a few miles of , having purchased a large tract of land at that place, say some fourteen hundred acres. [p. 27]