Is the Mansion House in Nauvoo a stop on the Underground Railroad in which slaves were helped to freedom? Archaologist Paul Debarthe makes this surprising claim. We’ll also talk about the murder of an abolitionist by the name of Elijah Lovejoy and how that relates to the Underground Railroad. I was also surprised to find out that Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs started the Honey War after he sent Mormons from the state. Check out our conversation….
Gov Boggs Honey War!
GT 00:44 Fantastic. All right. So, the weird thing is, I knew about your archaeological stuff in Nauvoo, and then all of a sudden you have this new book on Hawn’s Mill. So, as we jump into Hawn’s Mill, and, of course, you’re the archaeologist. Can you give people that may not have watched some of my previous interviews and don’t know what the Hawn’s Mill Massacre was? What is that all about?
Paul 01:09 Well, the way you said that, Hawn’s Mill massacre…
GT 01:11 I said that on purpose.
Paul 01:13 And for Mormons, it’s the Hawn’s Mill Massacre. For Missourians, it is not likely to be found in the history books.
GT 01:22 They call it an incident, right?
Paul 01:23 Well, that came from my students, because my students had been digging in Caldwell County and digging at Hawn’s Mill and we got an invitation to give a presentation to the Caldwell County Historical Society, meeting in Polo. And on the way to that presentation, the question came up. Here we’re digging on what the Mormons call the Hawn’s Mill Massacre site. But we’re presenting to the Caldwell County Historical Society, which had a bunch of [descendants of] people that were on the attacking group in it, how do we address this matter and not be offensive? And I left it in the hands of the students. And they presented that night on the Hawn’s Mill incident in the Mormon War. I’ve been proud of that ever since because it is a more neutral way to approach it. And yeah, there were 17 people killed, dumped in a well. The small hamlet of Hawn’s Mill was very innocently hit because Jacob Hawn was not a Mormon. But his mill was there on Shoal Creek, supplying wood for the Mormons to build houses as they came into Caldwell County. And he had the grain, the grist mill to grind the grain, and he was in a very good position to take advantage of the Mormons coming into that county because it was part of the settlement that had been brokered by Alexander Doniphan.
GT 02:44 Right.
Paul 02:45 So, yeah, the Hawn’s Mill incident was particularly painful, because it was so unnecessary. You have a group of people from Kirtland who left at the beginning of the Mormon War, early July, and made their trek all the way across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. [It took them] months to get there finally in October to be killed in the massacre, in the incident. And to me, one of the fascinating things that comes out in the book is the discovery that in 1838, in Indiana, the Potawatomi village of some 850 people was burned by the federal government to get them out of there. They were then escorted by the military, across those same states. They happened to camp in some of the same spots that the Mormons had camped in when they were on the way from Kirtland to Hawn’s Mill. But they came the southern route to Independence and would have been in Independence at the time that the incident at Hawn’s Mill occurred. But they were expecting to go across into Kansas where the government had promised them new houses. Instead, they found a cemetery and Kansas named a county for them. But they left behind a trail of about 100 dead people. If you drive along highway 24 through Missouri, you’ll find the occasional monuments to mark where those children are buried.
Paul 04:13 And so the harshness of what was going on in this slave state of Missouri, at the time, under the governance of Lilburn Boggs is just remarkable, in part, because it was a slave state and the slave owner politics was not particularly considerate of the value of human life other than the white people, the people that owned slaves. People who didn’t own slaves that were white, generally supported the Slave Act and supported that politics. But it was a pretty harsh day. The harsh day, I found out more recently, even after the book went to press, that Mr. Boggs, Governor Boggs was also the instigator of the honey war, which happens to have covered the territory where my farm is in Iowa.
GT 05:07 Oh, really?
Paul 05:09 (Chuckling) It’s part of the fun of the historical research. [There were] six honey trees up there, and Governor Boggs said the sheriff up to gather the $6 worth of taxes. And the sheriff came back and said, “Those people think they’re in Iowa. They’re not going to pay taxes in Missouri.” Governor Boggs sent him back, “You make sure you get that money collected.” He disappeared for a while. And we don’t know for sure whether he was enticed by some comforting lady or just what happened. Anyway, Governor Boggs issued the order to send the militia up and make sure they got those taxes collected. He sent 1500 men.
GT 05:51 Was this before after Hawn’s Mill?
Paul 05:53 This is after, in 1839.
GT 05:54 Oh, I have not heard this story. Wow.
Paul 05:58 To me, it’s pretty good fun, because, you see, the division between Iowa and Missouri was initially set up at the Des Moines rapids and then following the latitude directly west across. But the Des Moines Rapids is 12 miles long. And so the Missourians said it’s at _________ And the Iowans said it’s Keokuk. So, here’s the 12-mile gap, where the people in between became known as hairy nation. Because these were hairy, scruffy people who didn’t want to pay taxes to either state.
GT 06:28 So Boggs was still governor. So this is around 1840, or so?
Paul 06:31 Yes, he was governor from 1836 to 1840. And so here he sends 1500 guys up to collect the taxes of 6 honey trees. And Governor Lucas of the territory of Iowa gathered up 1200 guys to defend Iowa.
GT 06:49 Oh, my goodness.
Paul 06:50 And they didn’t have guns and so they got brought their pitchforks and broom handles. And they proceeded to defend their state, defend the rights to not have to pay taxes. One of the interesting comments came out there of one of the Iowa guys is saying, “Our land is in Iowa. We don’t want it in Missouri because their land isn’t as good. {both laughing}
Paul 07:15 Let me finish that with just a little bit. The end of the story is particularly fun, because by December of 1839, it began to turn cold. The Missourians had gotten, I think, five wagon loads of whiskey. And so they had a pretty good party. And they ended up shooting a deer cutting in half and putting Governor Lucas name on one and Governor Boggs on the other. And they shot him as target for target practice until they turned into mincemeat. Then they buried the collections and gave them a military ceremony to bury both of them. And the Iowans, of course, were tired of being cold and didn’t have adequate equipment or housing. And so mostly they just peeled off in the night and went home. But they did agree that they should allow the federal surveyor put the line in and he did and that’s the line that’s there today. That line puts my farm three miles north of the Missouri-Iowa border. So my farm you see is in part of that honey war.
GT 08:14 That’s crazy!
Paul 08:15 Isn’t that fun?
GT 08:16 So I have to ask you this because I had Alex Baugh on my podcast talking about Hawn’s Mill, and he called Governor Boggs, the worst governor in the history of Missouri. Would you agree with that?
Paul 08:31 One of the worst in the history of the country! {both laughing}
GT 08:34 Okay, You go even further! {much laughter}
Paul 08:36 He was on hand in 1833,when the Jackson County Riots broke out.
GT 08:42 Yeah, because he’s from Independence.
Paul 08:43 Yeah, he’s from Independence. His home was right there close to where the printing office was. And so, yeah, he was apparently on hand and saw it witnessed and was part of it. And so that was 1833. So, by 1836, he becomes governor. And he clearly is in the pockets of the slave owners. And [there were] probably six honey trees [in the] northern part of the state that not paying taxes. Look at all that wasted money to go after that.
GT 09:12 And that’s so weird to me, because he issued the famous Extermination Order, which was, I think, the day before, the Hawn’s Mill.
Paul 09:21 Three days before. The 27th of October, and then the massacre incident occurred on the 30th.
GT 09:26 Yes.
Paul 09:28 And so, it’s most unlikely that the regulars knew about his order.
GT 09:34 Right.
Paul 09:35 That is to say that they may very well have had some premonition of it or may have had some background dealing to try to advocate for it, but they would not have had fulfillment. And furthermore, the idea of exterminating people would authorize the right to kill, and we don’t see that following Hawn’s Mill. They had opportunity, but they basically were driving them out of the state. They were not trying to kill a bunch of people.
GT 09:59 Right. And that’s basically what Alex said, too, was, “We need to get them out of the state.” And he said that he thinks that if word had come down in time, it may have prevented the Hawn’s Mill Massacre. Have you heard that before?
Paul 10:18 If word had not come down?
GT 10:20 If word had come down, if the Missouri troops had heard about the massacre or the Extermination Order, the massacre might never have happened. They’re like, “Get out of here. ”
Paul 10:30 Yeah, there is clearly a possibility. I recognize, though, there was a good deal of possibility, because while we talk about the religious differences, the fact that the Mormons were coming into a slave state and saying [that] we want to build Zion here with everybody equal, and blacks and First Nations people can participate. We will baptize them. This was very much contrary to what the slave state ideology was. The early constitution of Missouri made it so blacks were automatically slaves, unless they carried their certificate to show otherwise.
GT 11:08 Oh, that’s interesting.
Murder of Elijah Lovejoy
Paul 11:10 So, when Elijah Lovejoy in St. Louis, saw, I forgot his name, the black man who was free, get lynched, burned at the stake, because he didn’t have his certificate with him. Elijah Lovejoy got upset and wrote some very poignant words on his press to chastise Missourians for being so inhuman. So, they burned his press and destroyed it.
GT 11:34 What year was that, approximately, do you know?
Paul 11:37 [It was in] 1836.
GT 11:38 Oh, because this is right at the time of the hostilities with the Mormons.
Paul 11:42 Right, and then he got another press. And the case went to trial and Judge Loveless was the judge over that trial. I’m sorry, not Loveless, Judge Lawless, a fun name for a person to be in charge of such a trial. But, he ruled that under mob action, people lose their personal sense of responsibility and so no individual is responsible for murdering the black man. And Elliajah Lovejoy wrote about that. So, they destroyed his press again.
GT 11:48 And Ellijah Lovejoy is just a–was he was an abolitionist, would we say?
Paul 12:22 He was an abolitionist.
GT 12:22 [He was] non-Mormon,
Paul 12:23 Not a Mormon, no.
GT 12:24 [He was] just very strongly against slavery.
Paul 12:27 There’s more to this story, though, if I can go back just a bit, because the Smith family had gotten started in Palmyra.
GT 12:36 Right.
Paul 12:36 And several of them, Lucy and Hyrum, Sophronia and Samuel, I believe it was, all joined the Presbyterian Church. And the pastor of that Presbyterian Church had gone to Quincy, Illinois, I believe in the 1820s, it must have close to 1830 and helped to establish the Lord’s Barn, which was a Presbyterian congregation, although I believe combination with two pastors that were abolitionists on the Underground Railroad. And they got Adams County to be the most abolitionist county of Illinois at that time. And so here they were helping blacks to get out of Missouri, getting them under the wagons and hiding them and getting them on an underground railroad all the way to Canada. And then here came these Mormons out of Independence, out of Missouri, that Governor Boggs is exterminating in 1838 And they didn’t have to be hidden. And a thousand people in Quincy, in Adams County, housed 3000 Mormons for about three months, until they moved on to Nauvoo. And interestingly enough, I have archeological evidence to show that they were pretty much influenced by the abolitionist process there. We found a hiding place on the Mansion House that we’re not supposed to be talking about yet.
GT 14:04 Oh, we’ve got a scoop here. All right, that’s awesome! {both laughing}
Paul 14:10 Well, but anyway, I’m getting ahead of my story because Ellijah Lovejoy, had gone across to Alton, Illinois, after his press is destroyed, I think, three times in Missouri. He went across to the Alton and got another press, and the slaveholders came after him, destroyed his press and shot him five times and killed him.
Paul 14:32 His brother, Owen Lovejoy, then picked up the abolitionist baton. He married a lady who had about a thousand acres halfway between Nauvoo and Chicago and that became one of the major Underground Railroad staging points to get people to Canada. When Owen Lovejoy then came to Nauvoo in 1838, I believe it was, with his daughter and her husband, Joseph Smith, III gave them a tour of Nauvoo. And Joseph Smith, III already knew about Elijah Lovejoy being martyred for the abolitionist cause. [Joseph] was already profoundly influenced by that. And the privilege of giving a tour to Owen Lovejoy was an honor that he put in his memoir. And clearly, he was profoundly influenced for the rest of his life. In his section 116 in the Doctrine & Covenants, he pondered the black people by indicating that they should also be ordained, especially to serve their own people.
GT 15:35 Wow, that’s interesting.
Was Mansion House an Underground Railroad Station?
Paul 15:38 And there’s just so much of an abolitionist thread through there. I have got an article, it’s just been rejected about that. Now I have to rewrite it. We can talk about that another time. But there’s a profound theme of abolitionists. William Smith, Joseph’s younger brother was tied up with Isaac Sheen down in Kentucky and Ohio. Isaac Sheen had personally escorted a black man, a slave, from Maryland all the way to Canada to help him get his freedom. And then in his newspaper in Covington, he for six years published the request for some black woman to marry him so that they could appeal against the stupid laws that were forbidding it. No black woman ever volunteered for that, so he ended up marrying the Babbit girl. But here we’re talking here about people–and William was tied in with him. They got a number of the Hale family members involved in the Underground Railroad at Palestine Grove, which was William’s headquarters. I believe it was the Richardson family [who] had a trapdoor in their living room with a big rug over it. So when the sheriff came and the escaping slaves were underneath the trapdoor, the sheriff didn’t find them. But here were people that were tied directly to Isaac Sheen and William Smith, helping to transport people through Palestine Grove up to Canada.
GT 17:15 Wow. I didn’t know that.
Paul 17:16 Apparently, the Hale family had people along the way that could help to shepherd those people.
GT 17:24 Well, and I know Emma Hale’s aunt married a black man. Mark Staker told me that. I was like, “Wow, I didn’t know that!”
Paul 17:31 Yeah, so to appreciate that family already had some clear abolitionist tendencies.
GT 17:38 Right.
Paul 17:39 And what I found at the Mansion House, in the excavations there, we found a big drain. We also found the drains outside, but most drains come off the roof and they carry them from the high ground down to low ground and get the water away from the house. This drain on the southeast corner of the mansion hotel, was a vaulted drain more than three feet high, about two, a little over two feet wide, lined with brick. And we only dug 10 feet of it. But it was angling from the southeast corner of the Mansion hotel toward Water Street. And that was enough to hide three or four men.
GT 18:21 Oh, really?
Paul 18:22 And it was to hide the drain in the basement. So why did they do it? I think there’s clear evidence of the Underground Railroad.
GT 18:34 So, are you saying that the Mansion House was part of the Underground Railroad?
Paul 18:39 I’m saying that. I haven’t got that published yet.
GT 18:41 Holy cow!
Paul 18:44 Yes. I can show you the pictures of the excavation that demonstrate this hiding place.
GT 18:50 I love these tangents, because we came here to talk about Hawn’s Mill, and now we are talking about underground railroad. Holy cow! That’s awesome! I’ve never heard that before.
Paul 18:58 Well it’s because it’s secret. Nobody who was involved–I have a lady who’s an informant here in Kansas City, who grew up in a house along the Missouri River, that was here when the slaves were here. And the house had a tunnel all the way down to the river, so that the slaves could be taken to the river, get them across the river to Kansas, which was free territory and then they go up to Iowa and on up to Canada. They also had a pigeon coop in the house. And she, as a little girl, was told, “We don’t talk about this.” And she asked me not to use her name.
GT 19:42 But you know who she is.
Paul 19:42 But, yeah, I’ve had a long-term relationship with her. She just a delightful person, perfectly honest. But there was a very strict prohibition from people– after all, the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, put a $500 fine against people who helped slaves escape. And that then expanded into $1,000, what was it, 1850? And so it became a serious matter of jeopardy if somebody turned you in for helping slaves escape.
GT 20:00 Right.
Paul 20:07 And it’s interesting, we have these little bits of conflict about Joseph Smith, because he initially was clearly advocating for freedom for everybody. But, then by the time he’s running for president, we have these highly questionable statements that make it look like he’s supporting slavery. And in Missouri, he has some statements that make it look like he is supporting slavery. He wanted to provide them a place to go in Africa, maybe. But then he calls on Copeland, who had slaves, to be his vice president.
GT 20:52 Oh, that’s right, before Sidney Rigdon. That’s right. Yeah.
Paul 20:55 Yes, before Sidney Rigdon; And so here’s this fascinating history for the political phase versus the religious phase in Joseph Smith. But it’s interesting that he was far more interested in equality, I think, whereas Brigham Young then put the ban against blacks having the priesthood, and that lasted until 1978. Whereas under Joseph Smith, III, in 1865, he authorized that people should have the priesthood for their own race.
GT 21:30 That’s fascinating. Well, I’m glad that we have an archaeologist here correcting all of our history.
{End of Part 2}
