They fled to Clay county, where the citizens permitted them to
live in quiet till 1836, when a mob spirit began to manifest itself, and
the Mormons retired to a very thinly settled district of the country,
where they began to make improvements.
This district was at the session of 1836-7 of the Missouri legislature,
erected into a county by the name of Caldwell, with Far-West for its
capital. Here the Mormons remained in quiet until after the bank
explosion in Kirkland, in 1838, when Smith, Rigdon, and others of the
heads of the sect arrived. Shortly after this, the Danite Society was
organised, the object of which, at first, was to drive the dissenters
out of the county. The members of this society were bound by an oath and
covenant, with the penalty of death attached to a breach of it, to
defend the presidency, and each other, unto death, right or wrong. They
had their secret signs, by which they knew each other, either by day or
night; and were divided into bands of tens and fifties, with a captain
over each band, and a general over the whole. After this body was
formed, notice was given to several of the Dissenters to leave the
county, and they were threatened severely in case of disobedience. The
effect of this was that many of the dissenters left. Among these were
David Whitmer, John Whitmer, Hiram Page, and Oliver Cowdery, all
witnesses to the Book of Mormon; also Lyman Johnson, one of the
twelve apostles.
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