Cane Creek Massacre

The Cane Creek Massacre (or Tennessee's Mormon Massacre) occurred on 10 August 1884, when a group of Protestant Christians led by Methodist leader David Henson attacked a group of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) as they were having their Sunday service in Martin Condor's private farm home in Lewis County, Tennessee. As a result, five people were left dead, and two women were harshly injured.

Causes of the Attack

While the attack occurred in August 1884, strife between Protestants and Mormons had been on the rise for some time. Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, was attacked and murdered by an angry mob while he was in jail in 1844. Anti-Mormon sentiment was largely due to Mormon beliefs, specifically regarding the fact that they practiced polygamy.^[1] The United States Federal Government under the leadership of President Chester A. Arthur passed The Edmunds Act of 1882, declaring all forms of polygamy a felony. Attacks on Mormons spurred counter-attacks on American settlers passing through Mormon lands, such as the one that is now known as the "Mountain Meadows Massacre".^[2]

In the months before the attack on the LDS Church, John Vandever, a Baptist minister, lawyer, and doctor of medicine, distributed copies of an article that had recently been published in the Salt Lake City Tribune entitled "A Red Hot Address" (16 March 1884). In this address, Bishop West, who was a leader of an LDS congregation in Juab, Utah, commanded the followers of the LDS church to be:

"no more be cowardly and humble towards the wicked Gentiles... Homes that sheltered their enemies should be leveled, that the blood of the wicked should be spilt and that the federally appointed Utah Territorial Governor Eli Murray should be disemboweled and his entrails strewn in the streets."^[3] Submitted to the Tribune by "Tobias Tobey" as a record of a speech given on 9 March 1884, the address would be immediately repudiated by the church from which it was said to have proceeded. They claimed on 18 march 1884 that there was no such "Bishop West" and that the church had not met on the date that the speech was claimed to have been given on account of rain. Also, no one in Juab County had ever heard of Tobias Tobey.^[4] Many church historians now claim that this article was falsely published in the Tribune.^[5]

Alternatively, other historians claim that the "Red Hot Address" was only the latest in a series of rage-evoking scandals that the Mormons had been caught in. One such historian notes that John Gibbs (one of the five Mormons killed) had been accused of coercing a female convert to have sex with him after telling her that he had received a revelation from God that she was supposed to. Others reported having caught Gibbs molesting a young girl on a public road. Such rumors were not out of the ordinary.^[6] However, they were almost exclusively made by individuals having openly Anti-Mormon biases.^[7]

Also, violence against Mormon missionaries had been winked at by the Federal courts in the past, such as in the case of Joseph Standing in 1879. Standing was a Mormon missionary in Georgia that was killed by a mob of more than 12 men, who stood trial and were named by an eye-witness, before being acquitted of all charges, thus setting a permissive attitude in the direction of anti-Mormon violence.^[8]

John Henry Gibbs

Elder John Henry Gibbs was a 31 year old Welsh man that converted to Mormonism on 28 August 1862. In 1866, his family emigrated to the United States to make their way to the Utah Territory. Gibbs married a woman named Louisa Obray in 1874, whom he would have a son and two daughters with. In February 1883, upon being ordained as an elder and missionary, Gibbs announced that he would be traveling to Tennessee to do his mission work in the South.^[9] Originally assigned to Hickman County, Gibbs began his work in Tennessee on 3 March 1883, but was soon reassigned by B.H. Roberts to Lewis County - a notably more challenging region. By May 1884 he had been titled the President of the North West Tennessee Conference. After a successful year having baptized 36 new members and receiving 44 new members, he expected to return to a newly erected church after his visit to Chattanooga to receive this title. Upon return however, he found that his church had been burned down by the locals.^[10]

Parson Vandever

Parson Vandever was a local minister that worked vigorously against the Mormon cause in the Lewis County area by distributing the defaming "Red Hot Address" across the county. He is recorded as having "Worked up prejudice... in that section by giving it (Red Hot Address) wide publicity, and by his pretended credence to the falsehood, causing great excitement." Elders William jones and John Gibbs of the Lewis County LDS Church attempted to talk to Vandever at his home. Vandever refused to speak to them, and demanded that they leave the area. Some reports reflect that David Henson was at this encounter, but refused to address the Mormon leaders.

^ Hatch, William Whitridge (1968). There Is No Law: A History of Mormon Civil Relations in the Southern States, 1865-1905. New York: Vantage Press.
^ Linam, Alisha M. (2013). Our Sorrows They've Seen: The Tennessee Mormon Massacre. Middle Tennessee State University Press. p. 1.
^ Crow, Bruce (2013). A Land of Strangers: Cane Creek Tennessee's Mormon Massacre and its Tragic Effects on the People Who Lived There. lulu.com. p. 74. ISBN 978-1304275592.
^ George Teasdale, "Letter to the Editor," Salt Lake City Tribune, 18 March 1884.
^ Chase, Randal S. (2013). Church History Study Guide, Pt. 3: Latter-Day Prophets Since 1844. Plain & Precious Publishing. p. 155. ISBN 978-1937901264.
^ Wingfield, Marshall (17 March 1958). "Tennessee's Mormon Massacre". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 17 (1): 19–36. JSTOR 42621358 – via JSTOR.
^ ""An Anti-Mormon Account,"". The Weekly American. 21 August 1884.
^ Driggs, Ken (1989). "There Is No Law in Georgia For Mormons: The Joseph Standing Murder Case of 1879". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 73 (4): 745–772. JSTOR 40582059 – via JSTOR.
^ Biographical Information, John H. Gibbs Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
^ "Account of Baptisms by Elder John H. Gibbs," John H. Gibbs Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

[1] Hatch, William Whitridge (1968). There Is No Law: A History of Mormon Civil Relations in the Southern States, 1865-1905. New York: Vantage Press.

[2] Linam, Alisha M. (2013). Our Sorrows They've Seen: The Tennessee Mormon Massacre. Middle Tennessee State University Press. p. 1.

[3] Crow, Bruce (2013). A Land of Strangers: Cane Creek Tennessee's Mormon Massacre and its Tragic Effects on the People Who Lived There. lulu.com. p. 74. ISBN 978-1304275592.

[4] George Teasdale, "Letter to the Editor," Salt Lake City Tribune, 18 March 1884.

[5] Chase, Randal S. (2013). Church History Study Guide, Pt. 3: Latter-Day Prophets Since 1844. Plain & Precious Publishing. p. 155. ISBN 978-1937901264.

[6] Wingfield, Marshall (17 March 1958). "Tennessee's Mormon Massacre". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 17 (1): 19–36. JSTOR 42621358 – via JSTOR.

[7] ""An Anti-Mormon Account,"". The Weekly American. 21 August 1884.

[8] Driggs, Ken (1989). "There Is No Law in Georgia For Mormons: The Joseph Standing Murder Case of 1879". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 73 (4): 745–772. JSTOR 40582059 – via JSTOR.

[9] Biographical Information, John H. Gibbs Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

[10] "Account of Baptisms by Elder John H. Gibbs," John H. Gibbs Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

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