Elders assulted at Pine Bluff

Quoted in the Latter-day Saint Southern Star on September 9, 1899
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELDERS ASSULTED
President J. Urban Allred wrote the following particulars relative to the raiding of the meeting at Pine Bluff, sixteen miles from Dover, Stewart county, Tenn.: "While holding the last of a series of meetings at Pine Bluff on Sunday night, we were disturbed several times by a mob throwing stones an eggs at the school house in which we were preaching. When [the] meeting closed the crowd dispersed. We expected to be assaulted, so Elders Stewart, Poole, Thurber and myself went with the largest crowd and Elders Hyrum Olsen and H. C. Pettey went in another direction. Our party escaped violence, but the other Elders were attacked with rocks from men in ambush. The rocks falling in the purpose for which they were thrown, one of the fiends fired a shot which hit little Mary Harden. The child was just 12 years of age, and her frantic screams on having the ball pierce her leg caused the would-be muderers to flee. As soon as the shot was fired all lights were extinguished, so had any more shooting taken place there would be nothing to determine the exact location of the Elders. Robert, the childs brother, was very much excited until he found that the wound was not fatal. The doctor thinks it necessary to remove the ball.
"Our meeting at the above named place was a most successful and pleasant one. We baptized one honest soul and left the majority of the people our friends, who say the dastardly, and disgraceful affair will be vindicated. A searching party with bloodhounds has been organized to search out the guilty party or parties. It is to be hoped that justice will be meted to those who attempted the lives of the Elders."

The Chattanooga Times had the following account:

MORMON MEETING RAIDED.
Dover, Tenn., Aug. 29,--(Special.)--While two Mormon Elders were holding services at Vinson's school house, fifteen miles below Dover, Sunday night, a raid was made upon the audience by unknown parties. Several rocks were thrown into the crowd. Pistols were fired, and one little girl was shot through the leg. The neighborhood is very much wrought up over the affair, and an effort to detect the guilty parties by aid of bloodhounds is being made.

The same paper of September 1 says:

SUICIDE THOUGH REMORSE.

Dover, Tenn., Aug. 31,--(Special.)--Baston Winson, a farmer of this county, committed suicide Monday night by shooting himself with a pistol and then cutting his own throat. Bloodhounds which were put on the track of the parties that broke up the Mormon meeting and shot a little girl Sunday night tracked up to Vinson's premises, Monday. No arrest was made, however, but Vinson was supposed to be one of the guilty parties. It seems from writing he left on a pillow case that he thought he had killed the little girl and then committed suicide to rid himself of remorse of conscience. The writing was to that effect, and stated that he shot at one of the Mormon Elders and did not intend to hurt anyone else.

Such instances as these impress one very forcibly with the peculiar manner in which the law of retribution works. Those who violate the laws of God must answer for the same, and the fact that men commit sins and are not overtaken in this life does not prove that they escape the hand of justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[Editors note: Today Pine Bluff is a shadow of its former self. Some of the land was flooded when the Kentucky Dam was finished in 1944. The land that wasn't flooded - including the Vinson School where they met - was formed into the Land Beween the Lake National Recreation Area in 1964. The remaining residents were relocated over the next four years.]

First Convert Baptism in 63 years

Recently I was given a copy of this article. From the Deseret New 9 November 1949, it recounts the baptism of Horace Campbell Cooper Talley, who at the age of 73 decided he wanted to get baptised. By then the Hampshire Branch of the LDS Church had been organized in neighboring Maury County. Bud, as he was called by his friends and family, was the son of Bash and Eliza Talley who were members of the Cane Creek Branch in 1884. He was at home when the Massacre happened but he heard the shots. His mother, Eliza, was at the Conder house during the Massacre.

The article was written by Bruce E Belnap, a missionary serving in Lewis County at the time, and also a grandson of Hyrum Belnap, one of the early missionaries to Cane Creek. He says that Lewis county was closed to missionary work until 1947.

I have been trying to prove or disprove a claim made in more than one written history of the Massacre, that after 1884 no more baptisms had taken place in Lewis County until 1949; a claim made without documentation. Apparently the documentation is here. But I have been able to find a few baptisms in Lewis county prior to this; All of them with a post office address of Hohenwald. A few of them were children of the Carroll family (nieces and nephews of Malinda Conder), which I suppose you could put in their own classification. One was a 40 year old Michael Spears [my best guess at the name from the hand writing] on Apr 28, 1915. The Book of Baptisms for Middle Tennessee, from which I am working only covers up to 1920.

Of course, having a Hohenwald post office does not mean you lived on Cane Creek. The Carrolls did not live on Cane Creek. But it does mean the claim for there to be no baptisms in Lewis County for 65 years is a little to general. But perhaps that may be true if you qualified it for just Cane Creek. At least this article got the title right.

Gibbs and Berry Return: The legend lives on

If you have been reading this blog long you will know I have been trying to track down the source for the urban legend that the Cane Creek area was reopened to missionary work by a descendant of Elder Gibbs and a descendant of Elder Berry. Click here to see my other posts on this subject.

Recently I have been corresponding with the daughter of Elder Eugene Jens Gibbs. This Elder Gibbs served in the Southern States Mission from 1942 to 1944. I first found Elder Gibbs in a Deseret News Article dated 9/18/1943. The article has some errors, but the general idea is that there were several companionships made up of an Elder Gibbs and an Elder Berry: 1884, 1885, 1899, and 1943. I have also found evidence of Elders in 1906.

The 1884 one we know about. But actually Elders Gibbs and Berry were not companions. Not that it matters, but Gibbs and Jones were companions and Berry and Thompson were companions. Detail, details...

Shortly thereafter the brother of Elder Berry and the brother of Elder Gibbs are said to have served in the Southern States Mission. I have no dates or verification. This does not appear to be true. None of the surviving brothers of Gibbs or Berry served missions after 1884. But I do see William Henry Gibbs, who may be the first cousin of John H Gibbs who arrived in the Southern States Mission in October 1884. He stayed until 1887.

The early 1899 companionship, according to the article was supposed to be the son of Gibbs and the son of Berry. However, Elder Gibbs only son, John H Gibbs Jr., served his mission from 1905 to 1907. Elder Berry had two sons serve in the Southern States Mission. John William Berry and Jesse A. Berry both served from 1899 to 1900. John served in Southern Tennessee, and Jesse served in North Alabama. Neither of them served with the son of John H Gibbs. John William Berry did have a companion named William Henry Gibbs Jr. Since first writing about him I found he maybe a first cousin once removed to John H Gibbs. They worked together in Hamilton County just north of Chattanooga, Tennessee. They never went near Lewis County.

As I said before, Elder Gibbs only son served in the Southern States, but he served in Virginia (May 05 - Feb 06) and South Carolina (Mar 06 to Mar 07) with a short stay in the mission office in between. At the same time Elder George Berry served in the same mission. But this Elder Berry is from South Carolina, not southern Utah, and is no relation to the Elder Berry killed in 1884. I don't see that they ever served together.

And the 1943 companionship? Well, according to Eugene Gibbs daughter, her father told her that he along with a companion named Elder Berry (Alfred Oron Berry) were indeed called upon to open the Cane Creek area to missionary work and that the Mission President made a special trip to take them there. I do find Elder Berry in the Southern States Mission at the same time. So far I can document that he was serving in Florida. And Elder Gibbs was in the Southern States Mission too. He was serving in Mississippi and North Alabama. It isn't a perfect fit for the urban legend. This Elder Gibbs is a second cousin twice removed of John H Gibbs. And this Elder Berry is the great grand nephew of William S Berry. Both relatives, but not descendants. But did they re-open the area as Elder Gibbs daughter says? Maybe.

I have two problems I can't reconcile. In 1943, Cane Creek, Tennessee was not in the Southern States Mission; It was part of the East Central States Mission, and had been since 1928. I know that extra mission activity was not unheard of, I can think of a couple examples off the top of my head, but I would expect them to be better documented. Which brings me to my second problem. Why would such an event not have been chronicled in the Liahona: The Elders Journal? It would be like a BYU newspaper not writing that BYU had beaten U of U at football.

So these Elders had two mission presidents William P Whitaker, and Heber Meeks. Both have papers donated to manuscript libraries, Idaho State and BYU respectively. If one of them made the effort to take two of his missionaries out of the mission to open an area of historical significance, I would expect it to be in his journal. I am too far away to do this myself. Any takers? It may be a wild goose chase. It may have been a mission president from the East Central States Mission. It may have happened at the end of their mission as they were on their way home. It may not have happened until 1947 (see below), after the Liahona ceased publication.

[On a side note. Bruce E. Belnap, a missionary working in Lewis County in 1949, claimed that the area was closed to missionary work until 1947, and that in 1949 he witnessed the first baptism from Cane Creek since 1884. Bruce E Belnap was the grandson of Hyrum Belnap one of the early missionaries to Cane Creek. I'll have more on that in my next post.]