Returned Missionary Announcement - 1882

Here's a little tidbit about the persecution at Cane Creek before the Massacre. Although the names of the persecutors are not the same as the ones involved two years later, the one friend was a person who name would come up many times in the future. You can almost see the pattern of events to come.

Returned Missionary.- This morning we received a call from Elder Joshua Taylor of [Salt Lake City] who returned, on Wednesday, from a mission in Tennessee. “He Left Utah in May 1881, and labored the first two months in Shady Grove [Hickman county], and was afterwards appointed to take charge of the Cane Creek district [Lewis County], where there is a thriving branch of the Church. There was in that part a very active opposition. Some time since a mob of seventeen men, led by Witts Skelton and two sons, broke up the meeting, and threatened the lives of the Elders. For this conduct seven of the mobbers, including the three Skeltons, are under bonds to appear to answer a charge of disturbing a public worshipping assemblage. The same party set fire to and destroyed the stand and benches which were in a grove used by the saints. Brother Taylor spoke highly of the hospitality of the Southern people, and mentions Mr. I. T. Garrett of Cane Creek in particular, who was very kind to the Elders." (Deseret News, May 10,1882.)