Those who didn't gather from Tennessee

After the exodus of the Mormons from Nauvoo to the west, missionary work in Tennessee was suddenly halted. All effort was on gathering the saints to the great basin. Briefly in 1857, Hyrum H. Blackwell and Emmanuel M. Murphy came to Tennessee to call all the saints to gather to Utah. Not everyone member went west. In an autobiography by Hyrum Belnap, he recounts meeting one of the members who refused the call to gather to Utah.

The next day [21 October 1979] was spent in advertising our appointments in that vicinity, and while in the northwestern portion of the neighborhood, we met an elderly lady by the name of Mary Ann Hickman. We soon learned that she was a Mormon and it had been many years since she had seen an elder of our faith. She was baptized in 1847 [probably earlier] by John D. Lee. Her knowledge of the church at present was very limited, but her recollection of what was taught in the early days of the Church was very distinct. She told us of many prophecies of the elders and very earnestly related the fulfillment of some of them, one of which I will relate.

While they lived in Roloford [Rutherford] County, if I remember correctly, one of the elders told her of a few other scattered members, whom the elders had told that if they did not emigrate to Zion then, the time would come when they would be glad to have gone to Zion barefooted. The elders also said that not many years afterward there would be a war between the North and the South and that a battle would be fought where they lived. At the time, these sayings were little heeded. Ere long the rebellion broke out and surely enough, one morning they heard the roar of the cannon and soon horses came rushing by, some had riders and others had none. On every side could be heard the groans of the dying and wounded. At this point the old lady grew nervous and exclaimed, “Then we remembered the saying of the elders and would to God we had obeyed them”

Hyrum Belnap also ran into other members from before 1847. Michael Fry joined the Church in the mid 1830’s. He proudly showed off his 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. Fry introduced him to William M. Malin who was baptized by Warren Parish in 1834.

Poems about the Cane Creek Massacre

I noticed a strong uptick in the number of people finding my site by searching for information on the Cane Creek Massacre. So much so that I began to suspect that something may have prompted them to look it up. Something in the news maybe. So I began to look to see what it could be.


I didn't find anything. But I did see something I had missed. In 1958 Olive Woolley Burt published a book of Murder ballads of the American West. One of her ballads was a poem written about the Cane Creek Massacre. Olive indicated thet the first part of the poem was missing. It was taken from a newspaper clipping in her "mother's scrapbook". Although Olive admits the clipping contains 18 stanzas, she only reproduced 6 of them.

The Cane Creek Massacre

The boys had lived in peace upon the farm,
A mother's care had shielded them from harm;
They had but recently obeyed the truth,
But loved it with the ardent love of youth.

They saw the brave and much loved elders fall,
Nor feared the mobbers nor the rifle ball;
The conflict was unequal, but they stood,
Unterrified among the scenes of blood.

So was their mother shot by coward hand,
And law dishonored in the cursed band.
And in defense of those so basely killed,
Their youthful blood was on the hearthstone spilled.

No small responsibility will rest
On so-called Christians, who have madly pressed
Their wicked schemes of special legislation
Alike disgraceful to the age and nation.

"Heroic measures" from their Upas tree,
Have thus with blood matured in Tennessee;
Whose martyrs rank with prophets, priests and sages,
Who died for God and Truth in former ages.

Then let us buckle on our armor bright,
Nor fear the enemy, but bravely fight
For human rights, 'til every soul shall be
Protected from the curse of Tennessee.

Regrettably, Olive says the newspaper in unidentifiable.

This was not the first poem about the Massacre I had run across. In the Millennial Star of September 22 1884, I find the following poem. Quoted from the Territorial Enquirer, it is titled:

Lines Inscribed to the Tennessee Martyrs

News flashed over the wires
Of Israels heroes slain!
And many a heart leaped quick with dread,
And ached with a dead dull pain
And Zion bowed her head and wept!
Oh father can it be
That the curse which rests on Illinois
Now darkens Tennessee

Could we but comfort the widow whose heart
Is crushed with its weight of woe;--
And the orphaned ones who never more
A fathers care will know.
And aged parents with whitened hair
Who long for the firm quick tread,
And strong brave arm of their noble boy
Now numbered with the dead

Columbia! Oh my country
Your brow is crowned with fame;
Your arm is strong and mighty,
But your head is bowed with shame:
Shame! for thy sons whose evil brows
Are stamped with the curse of Cain, --
God they defy, -- but their hollow laugh
Is worse than a shriek of pain!

Father of mercy, give us light,
More clearly Thy ways to see.
Let a ray sunshine break through the clouds
Of cruel destiny,
That the shadows of sorrow may brighten
The hope of eternity
Bringing peace to the stricken ones
Which alone can come from Thee
---------Infelice

Joseph Argyle

Joseph Argyle was born in England in 1818. His was a tin plate worker making gas meters. On his first day on the job he was boarded at an inn belonging to William Finch. Accidently he went to sleep in the wrong room and was awakened by a scream. The owners daughter, Jane Finch, was trying out a superstition that if she walked backwards and blindfolded to her bed, the first person she saw after removing her blindfold would be her future husband. As luck would have it, it was Jane's bed he had accidently gone to sleep in. Using her hand to find her bed she found instead a tuft of thick curly hair. In this case at least the superstition held true. They were married two months later.

Joseph and his wife joined the LDS Church in 1851 and 1852 respectively. By 1856 the decided to emigrate to Utah. Limited space does not allow me to record all their journey her, but the arrived in Utah in September 1856 in the Edmund Ellsworth handcart company. Later Joseph...
Quoted from the Argyle Family History.

"... fulfilled three missions, one in England, ... and two to the Southern States, laboring in Tennessee, from November 19, 1876, to October 1877, and from November 19, 1878, to December 23, 1879. He received his calls to go on his missions while at the general conference at Salt Lake City, Utah. While in this service, he and his companion saw the work of the Lord progress, baptizing 43 saints, 12 in England and 31 in Tennessee. He saw the power of God in healing the sick. Again from his diary we quote an instance which occurred in Tennessee:
“Sister Sally Moore was so very sick that they did not expect her to live until morning. A young man named Thomas Coleman was sent after the Elders. He was on one side of the river and we Elders on the other. When we received the message we were unable to go as we had an appointment to hold a meeting that evening. We said we would go the next morning. Thomas Coleman assured us that she would be dead by that time. But we told him to tell her that everything would be all right with her. After leaving him we went to a lonely place in a bunch of red cedars and then knelt down and prayed to the Lord in her behalf and asked him to stay the disease that was then preying upon her system. I prayed first and then Brother Sharp. When we arose from our knees, I told Brother Sharp to look at his watch and see the time and I would look at mine and we will see what transpires for I knew that she would be restored, yet neither of us had seen her. The next morning we went over to see Sister Sally Moore. We found on inquiry that she was much better and the change had taken place when we had prayed for her. When we left her the next day she was apparently well.”

There is a journal in the church Archive. However it does not contain many details about his second mission to Tennessee. There is a note that on

"About June 1 [1879] I received an appointment from president John Morgan to preside over the Tennessee conference. After a meeting at mr Bastin’s house he told us he did not want us preaching there anymore. There was a man there who spoke up and said we could use his house."

This is followed by an entry about his wife and children going to England in 1894.See "Argyle, Joseph, Reminiscences and journal, 1870 May-1894 Oct., 63."


Joseph was one of the first missionaries to visit Cane Creek, Tennessee, during his second mission to Tennessee, along with Elder Martin Garn and Edward Stevenson.

Near the end of his mission he was Letter from Parley P Pratt Jr to the Deseret News

"voted in as successor to Brother Parley P Pratt Jr as president of the Tennessee Conference"

Although I am pretty sure he knew many of the people involved in the Massacre, I have been unable to find anything he wrote concerning it. And I'm sure he wasn't thinking that the people of Cane Creek would have their lives altered in this tragic way. Though I wish we could know how he felt about these events.

Joseph spent the last few years of his life as the Patriarch of the Davis Stake until his death on Sep 26 1905.

[I recently found a obituary of Joseph Argyle claiming he was the first missionary to return to Cane Creek after the Massacre. Davis County Clipper 1905-10-06 Patriarch Called]