Amanda Barnes Smith (1809

Mormon History: 1830 to 1839

Amanda Barnes Smith (1809–1886)

Convert of 1831, disowned by family, Kirtland resident, Haun's Mill witneses §.
Born	February 22, 1809 in Becket, Berkshire, Massachusetts
Died	June 30, 1886 in Richmond, Cache, Utah Territory
Father	Ezekiel Barnes
Mother	Fanny Johnson
Campbellite	When I married my husband he had plenty of this world’s goods. I knew no want. We lived comfortably together. Nothing transpired untill Sidney Rigdon and Orson Hyde came along preaching Campbellism. I was converted to that doctrine, and was baptized by Sidney Rigdon. My husband did not like that but gave his permission.	Amanda Barnes Smith remniscence written in American Fork, Utah, May 1858, Church Archives MS 2409.
Mormon	By this time I had two children and the doctors in consequence of my sufferings advised me to have no more, but thanks to my Heavenly Father, the Gospel came along and I was baptized by Simeon Carter the 1st of April, 1831. … and before a year I gave birth to a pair of twins without a pain …
Mother leaves	my mother would not stay in the house because she found out I had the Elders to pray for me which [sic, when] I was sick, or when they were born.
Neighbors oppose	My neighbors thought I ought to be drummed out of town.
Willard's family	My husband had been baptized before this time so we were united and they could do nothing. My husband’s father [3] Chileab Smith and his brother David and Sylvester were both baptized as also Betsy, Sylvester’s wife.	Sylvester Smith
	When David was baptized my sister Fanny hollowed and screamed so she was heard a half mile. She said she would never eat nor drinking until he left the Mormons. She was as good as her word. She went eight or nine days until she was just gone, and would not put, nor let a drop of anything go into her mouth. When her husband saw that she would die, he sent and had his name taken from the church record; his father soon followed. So by one woman two men fell.
Sylvester Smith	Sylvester was a smart man and a good man; was chosen one of the first High Council in kirtland; was one of Zion's Camp and attained to great height and then fell
Kirtland home	¶ Warren maintained his integrity until the last. He sold out his property in Amhurst and went to Kirtland, and bought down west of the Temple hill on the Shagrin [Chagrin] River.
Looses all in Safety Society collapse	He enjoyed himself well, done all he could to establish the bank and build the Temple. Through the down-fall of that place in consequence of our enemies, he lost all his property only bare what would make a fit out, with which he started with his family for the land of Missouri in the spring of 1838. …	Warren and Amanda had five children, aged 4 to 11.
Disowned	[On their way to Missouri, they stop to say good by to Amanda's parents.] My mother said she hoped she should never see me, hear of me, nor hear my name mentioned again in the world, but we bade them good bye and left them.

	Haun's Mill Massacre	This copy of the affidvait is included in the reminiscence. Women contains another Amanda Smith version, but Tullidge took considerable "poetic license" in preparing the book.
	[Copy of April 18, 1839 affadivit, Quincy, Illlinois]
Stopped by mob	To whom this may come. I do hereby certify that my husband, Warren Smith, in company with several other families were moving from the State of Ohio to the State of Missouri. When we came to the seat of Caldwell Co., while we were travelling, minding our own business, we were stopped by a mob of armed men.	The Smiths originally traveled with the "Kirtland Camp," but before long joined Joseph Young's smaller company of ten families. Alex Baugh, "A Rare Account."
	They told us if we went another step they would kill us all. They took our guns from us. As we were go[4]ing into a new country we took our guns with us. They took us back five miles placed a guard around us, kept us <there> five days, and let us go.
Haun's mill	We traveled on ten miles and came to a small town composed of one grist mill, one saw mill, eight or ten houses all belong to our brothers the Saints. There we stopped for the night.	Young's company arrived at the Shoal Creek settlement on October 28. The attack occured two days later.
Mob of 300 attack	A little before sunset a mob of three hundred armed men came upon us. Our men hollowed for the women and children to run for the woods. While they ran into an old blacksmith shop for they feared if we all ran together they would rush upon us and kill men, women and children.
Shooting	The mob fired upon us before we had time to start from our camp.
	Our men took off their hats swung them in the air and cried for quarter until they were shot down. The mob paid no attention to their cries nor their entreaties but fired alternately.	"Brother David Evans made a treaty with the mob that they wouod not molest us. He came just before the massacre and called the company together and they knelt in prayer [in the blacksmith shop]" Amanda Smith, Women, 121.
Runs to woods	I took my little girls, my boys I could not find, and ran for the woods.
Surrounded	The mob encircled us on all sides excepting the bank of the creek. So I ran down the bank and crossed the mill pond on a plank; ran up the hill on the other side in the brush. The bullets whistled by me like hailstones and cut down the bushes on all sides of me. One girl was wounded by my side and she fell over a log, and her clothes happened to hang over the log in sight of the mob, and the mob fired at them supposing them to be her body,
	and after all was over our people cut out of that log twenty bullets.
	I sat down to witness the awful scene.
Howl, plunder	When they had done firing they began to howl, and one would have thought all the infernals had come from the lower regions. They plundered the principal part of our goods; they took our horses and wagons and ran off howling like demons.
	After they had gone I came down to witness the awful scene, and Oh! Oh! horrible, horrible. What a sight!
Warren and son killed, another wounded	My husband and one son ten years old lay lifeless upon the ground, and one son [Alma] six years old lay wounded very bad, his hip all shot off or to pieces; the ground all covered with the dead or dying.
Other victims	There were three little boys crept under the blacksnith bellows; one of them a son of Bro and Sister Meric, who received three wounds. He lived three weeks and died.	Levi and Philinda Eldredge Merrick. Levi and their 9-year old son, Charles were both killed.
Amanda's sons	The other two boys were mine. One of them had his brains all shot out, and the other his hip all shot to pieces.	"Among those slain I will mention Sardius Smith, son of Warren Smith, about 9 years old, who, through fear, had crawled under the bellows in the shop, where he remained till the massacre was over, when he was discovered by a Mr. Glaze of Carroll County, who presented his rifle near the boy's head and literally blew off the upper part of it." Joseph Young in Facts, 23.
	Realize for a moment, my dear readers, nothing [5] but horror and distress.
Dozen widows, 30–40 orphans	It was sunset. The dogs were filled with rage howling over their dead masters; the cattle caught the scent of innocent blood and bellowed. A dozen helpless widows, thirty or forty orphans or fatherless children screaming and grieving for their father and husbands; the groans of the dying and wounded.
	All of this put together <was enough> to melt the hearts of anything, but a Missouri mob.
Seventeen killed	There was fifteen dead and ten wounded; two died [the] next day.
Bodies thrown into dry well	There were no men, or not enough to bury the dead. So they were thrown in an old well that was dry and covered with straw and dirt.
	The next day the mob came back and told us we must leave the State or they would kill us all. It was cold weather; they had our teams and our clothes; our men all killed or wounded. I told them they might kill me and my children in welcome.
Ordered out	They sent to us from time to time that if we did not leave the State they would come and make a breakfast of us.
School	We had little spelling schools for our children; they said if we did not stop them they would kill us all.
Milling	We done our own milling, got our own wood, no men to help us.
Journey to Illinois	I started the first of February for the State of Illinois without money. Mobbed all the way. I drove my own team; slept out of doors. I had four small children. We suffered much with hunger, cold and fatigue, for what, for our religion.
	Where in a boasted land of liberty, deny your faith or die, was the cry.
Mobbers	¶ I will mention some of the leading men of this mob. Two brothers by the name of Cumstock, William Mann, Benjamin Ashby, Robert White and one by the name of Rogers who took an old scythe and cut an old white headed Revolutionary soldier & Saint all to pieces. …
	¶ Written by my own hand in truth and soberness this the 18th day of April, 1839.

	Family
Spouse	Warren Smith, b. June 14, 1794 in Becket, Berkshire, Massachusetts md. March 28, 1826 in Amherst, Lorain, Ohio d. October 30, 1838 at Haun's Mill, Caldwell, Missouri	Amanda's sister, Fanny, married Warren's brother, David.
Children	Willard Gilbert, b. May 9, 1827 in Amherst, Lorain, Ohio d. Nov. 21, 1903 in Logan, Cache, Utah
	Sardius Washington, b. Sept. 26, 1828 in Amherst, Lorain, Ohio d. Oct. 30, 1838 at Haun's Mill, Caldwell, Missouri
	Alma Lamoni, b. Dec. 16, 1831 in Kirtland, Geauga, Ohio md. Tabitha Free, Mar. 6, 1855 in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory d. June 19, 1887 in Utah Territory
	Alvira Lavona, b. Dec. 16, 1831 in Kirtland, Geauga, Ohio d. Aug. 25, 1921 in Logan, Cache, Utah md. William Dorris Hendriks, Aug. 4, 1851 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Territory d. Aug. 25, 1921 in Logan, Cache, Utah
	Ortensia Howard, b. May 27, 1834
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