8 thoughts on ““A Little Taste of Lynch Law””

1. Wow. You know, you hear about such sentiments, but reading them here in black and white, I’m struck by how emotional my reaction to them is. They all feel so much more personal than I expected. Thanks for sharing, Ardis.

2. Thanks for that, Gary. One reason I left them as images clipped from the paper rather than transcribing them is that personal, emotional confrontation.

3. I don’t know how often these encouragements were acted on, but I wonder how much they represent the majority sentiment, or were they just the ruffian fringe (populated as usual by the proprietors of newspapers).

   And, as Gary said, they are powerful. Like a punch in the gut.

4. We acknowledge that certain talk over the pulpit helped to create the atmosphere that made Mountain Meadows possible, by convincing at least some men that this atrocity was what they were expected to do. If we can admit that about our own people, I think it’s reasonable to hold these editors partially responsible for the acts of violence against missionaries that did occur, by helping to normalize what should have been a shocking idea. Part of the shock for me is the very casualness of the editors’ tone — they weren’t at all afraid of any backlash or even social disapproval for having called for violence.

5. I once lived in Lee Valley. That’s quite a hike for those “perambulating” elders. When I lived there nearly 100 years later, there were three Mormon families; we were still considered unusual. But the people were generally kind and welcoming. I loved living there.

6. I liked seeing the scanned image instead of your transcription. It really does add more dynamics to the words, like Mark B says, “a punch in the gut.”

7. This is quite a collection, Ardis.

   Some of these threats may have been journalistic blustering, but it should be remembered that into the twentieth century, missionaries were beaten and tarred and feathered and in a couple of cases murdered, or more frequently egged or threatened or run out of town, particularly in the Southern States Mission.

   If you don’t mind, here are a couple more notices to add to the collection, but hand lettered rather than under the auspices of the fourth estate: (Runn Morgan Runn) (This is our last warning). There’s a third notice included in the cited source that I didn’t reproduce on blog, due to the graphic nature of the threat, but it is along the lines of some of these newspaper notices.

8. Those are stunning, Amy T — being addressed to a specific man makes them all the more threatening.

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