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THE MORMON MENACEBEING THE CONFESSION OF JOHN DOYLE LEE DANITE
AN OFFICIAL ASSASSIN OF THE MORMON CHURCH UNDER THE LATE BRIGHAM YOUNG
INTRODUCTION By ALFRED HENRY LEWIS
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
New York Home Protection Publishing Co. 156 Fifth Avenue
Copyright, 1905, by A. B. NICHOLS
All Rights Reserved
electrotyped and printed by the Herald Company of Binghamtom
CONTENTS (pages not numbered in text version)
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
CHAPTER I THE STORMY YOUTH OF LEE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CHAPTER II LEE BEGINS A CAREER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
CHAPTER III LEE BECOMES A MORMON . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CHAPTER IV THE SAINTS BESET WITH TROUBLES. . . . . . . . . 29
CHAPTER V THE MORMON WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
CHAPTER VI LEE LOCATES THE GARDEN OF EDEN. . . . . . . . . 45
CHAPTER VII THE SAINTS GATHER AT NAUVOO. . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER VIII LEE AS A MISSIONARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CHAPTER IX MORMONISM AND ITS ORIGIN. . . . . . . . . . . . 67
CHAPTER X LEE CASTS OUT DEVILS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
CHAPTER XI HOT FOR LEE IN TENNESSEE. . . . . . . . . . . . 78
CHAPTER XII OF PECULIAR INTEREST IN NAUVOO . . . . . . . . 86
CHAPTER XIII DEATH OF JOSEPH SMITH . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
CHAPTER XIV THE DOCTRINE OF SEALING. . . . . . . . . . . . 99
CHAPTER XV THE SAINTS TURN WESTWARD. . . . . . . . . . . .104
CHAPTER XVI LEE GOES TO SANTA FE . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
CHAPTER XVII LEE IS TREATED BADLY BY THE BRETHREN. . . . .119
CHAPTER XVIII THE DANITE AND HIS DUTY. . . . . . . . . . .129
CHAPTER XIX THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . .139
CHAPTER XX THE MUSTER OF THE DANITES . . . . . . . . . . .146
CHAPTER XXI THE BLOOD FEAST OF THE DANITES . . . . . . . .151
CHAPTER XXII THE DANITE CHIEF REPORTS TO BRIGHAM . . . . .157
CHAPTER XXIII LEE NEARS THE END. . . . . . . . . . . . . .161
APPENDIX I BLOOD ATONEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166
APPENDIX II THE STORY OF LEE'S ARREST. . . . . . . . . . .168
APPENDIX III DEATH OF JOHN DOYLE LEE . . . . . . . . . . .173
ILLUSTRATIONS (not included in text version)
The Mountain Meadows ii
The Danite 36
The Mormon Preacher 60
The Blood Atonement 138
John Doyle Lee 150
INTRODUCTION
THE MORMON PURPOSE
Almost a half century ago, being in 1857, John Doyle Lee, a chief among that red brotherhood, the Danites, was ordered by Brigham Young and the leading counselors of the Mormon Church to take his men and murder a party of emigrants then on their way through Utah to California. The Mormon orders were to "kill all who can talk," and, in their carrying out, Lee and his Danites, with certain Indians whom he had recruited in the name of scalps and pillage, slaughtered over one hundred and twenty men, women, and children, and left their stripped bodies to the elements and the wolves. This wholesale murder was given the title of "The Mountain Meadows Massacre." Twenty years later, in 1877, the belated justice of this Government seated Lee on his coffin, and shot him to death for his crimes.
In those long prison weeks which fell in between his arrest and execution, Lee wrote his life, giving among other matters the story of the Church of Mormon from its inception, when Joseph Smith pretended, with the aid of Urim and Thummim, to translate the golden plates, down to those murders for which he, Lee, was executed. Lee's confessions, so to call them, were published within a few months following his death. The disclosures were such that the Mormon Church became alarmed; the book might mean its downfall. In the name of Mormon safety Brigham Young, by money and other agencies, succeeded in the book's suppression... Continue reading book >>
