David W. Kilbourne and Edward Kilbourne, “Latter-Day-Ism: Number 3,” Hawkeye and Iowa Patriot, October 14, 1841

Historical Introduction

One of the reasons that claims to land on the Half-Breed Tract were complicated was because of old claims dating back to the time the land was still governed by Spain. Notably, David Kilbourne and the New York Land Company were challenged by the Riddick (or Reddick) heirs. In 1809, Thomas F. Riddick had purchased a grant known as the Tesson grant (Louis Honore Tesson received the grant in 1795 from the Spanish governor-general at New Orleans), and now his children were petitioning for the land. President Martin Van Buren issued a patent for 640 acres for them in February 1839, but Kilbourne and others with the New York Land Company were able to pass a decree in 1841 which partitioned the land and essentially invalidated the Riddick claims.¹

During the same time that Kilbourne was attempting to help invalidate the claims of the Riddick heirs, the Saints were beginning to promote the growth of their settlements in Lee County, Iowa Territory. In March of 1841, Joseph Smith received a revelation, part of which answered the question, “What is the Will of the Lord concerning the Saints in the Territory of Iowa?” The answer was to build up the city of Zarahemla, which was located just west of Montrose, and “let all those who come from the East, and the West, and the North, and the South, that have desires to dwell therein, take up their inheritances in the same, as well as in the City of Nashville.”² Smith had designated a site for the city of Zarahemla on July 2, 1839, but almost nothing was done to build up the city until after the March 1841 revelation.³

In August 1841, the name of the Iowa Stake was changed to Zarahemla Stake, and the stake had about 750 members. However, the Zarahemla Stake was discontinued on January 6, 1842 with a branch replacing the stake.⁴ Part of the reason for this was the emphasis to build up Nauvoo, but part of the move away from emphasizing Iowa had to do with the instability of land claims on the Half-Breed Tract. By April 1843, Joseph Smith was actively discouraging members from settling in Lee County, Iowa Territory, because of a man who had tried to sell him questionable land claims to Keokuk, Iowa Territory. Smith commented at a Church conference, “I would not buy property in Iowa Territory: I consider it stooping to accept it as a gift.”⁵

Document Transcript

LATTER-DAY-ISM: NUMBER 3

. . . It is perhaps unnecessary to say that in these numbers it is not our purpose to enter into any controversy with the ‘Mormons’ relevant to their religious belief. It is sufficiently humiliating to be compelled, by a strong sense of duty, to expose their nefarious conduct. Confining ourselves strictly to facts, we shall leave them for others to draw their own inferences. That there may be no misapprehension as to the individuals meant, we shall freely make use of their names, and should injustice be done them, they can resort to their legally remedy, assuring them that if a single statement of ours is denied, we stand prepared to establish its truth by a host of witnesses.

In a previous number we gave a brief history of the ‘Half Breed Reservation,’ and stated that ‘a company of New York gentlemen made extensive purchases of Half Breed claims.’ The same gentlemen, by their agents, were placed in possession of the barracks at Camp Des Moines, on their abandonment by the United States dragoons in June, 1837, and soon after caused a town to be surveyed, to which the name of ‘Montrose’ was given, and the name of the post-office was changed, at the request of the citizens, from ‘Fort Des Moines’ to ‘Montrose.’⁶

In addition to the numerous difficulties surrounding the ‘Half Breed title,’ an old ‘Spanish claim’ was raked up from the oblivion of a former age, and a patent issued in 1839 to the claimants under it for a tract of land one mile square, including the town site of Montrose.⁷

The gentlemen in possession, however, having ‘nine points of the law’ in their favor, could, of course, hold the premises against the world, till a final adjudication of the whole matter. This the ‘Spanish claimants’ well knew, and recognized them as being in peaceable possession by instituting suit in our courts, which is still pending.

The parties interested flattered themselves that when their conflicting claims should be settled, all obstacles to the improvement of the place, and its becoming—what, from the beauty of its situation, it was intended for by nature—a large and flourishing town, would be removed; but alas! how vain and delusive are all human hopes and expectations. A third claimant appears in the person of Joe Smith, with a title purporting to be Heaven derived. Early one morning in March last, the quiet citizens of Montrose were surprised by a visit from some of Joe Smith’s scullions from Nauvoo,—who to all appearance had but recently made their escape from a steel trap,—headed by Alanson Ripley, a Mormon Bishop, who says that ‘as to the technical niceties of the law of the land, he does not intend to regard them; that the kingdom spoken of by the prophet Daniel has been set up, and that it is necessary every kingdom should be governed by its own laws.’⁸ With compass and chain they strided through gates and over fences to the very doors of the ‘Gentiles,’ and drove the stakes for the lots of a city which, in extent at least,—four miles square,—should vie with some of the largest cities of the world. They heeded not enclosures; why should they? is not the earth the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof? and shall not his ‘Saints’—of the Latter Day—inherit and possess it forever?

‘The kingdom spoken of by the prophet Daniel’ having been set up, its ‘laws’ authorized this Mormon Bishop to threaten personal violence to one of the undersigned, for removing a stake which had been driven within the bounds of his enclosure, without his consent and contrary to his wishes, and to hold a club over the head of Mr. A. M. Bissell, while one of his ‘steel trap’ comrades drove a stake within the enclosure of Mr. Bissell, directly before his door, after having been forbidden by him to do so.

A few days subsequently to these occurrences, it was ascertained that the exterior line of this ‘four mile’ town had been run by order of Joe Smith, and a plot of it made and recorded, to which he gave the name of Zarahemla.

And who figures as proprietor of this renowned city? Joe Smith, to be sure, ‘the Agent of Doctor Galland,’—a worthy agent for a worthy principal!

Having sold to his dupes a large portion of the Half Breed tract, a happy thought strikes him that they can yet be ‘bled;’ he orders them by ‘revelation’ to leave their fine farms and move into the ‘city,’ sells them lots and conveys them by deeds. There would be some excuse for these proceedings had they taken place under any color of title, but he had not the shadow of a shade to found a right upon. In this view of the case, was there ever a more barefaced attempt at swindling than this?

On the 6^th of April, at a conference held at Nauvoo, a Mormon leader publicly read a pretended ‘revelation’ that the city of Zarahemla should be laid out and built up by the ‘Latter Day Saints!’ Joe Smith then stated that, ‘in accordance with this revelation,’ a city had been surveyed, and the Saints desirous of purchasing lots could now do so. ‘The people over there,’ said he, ‘are very much apposed to it, but they must know—if they know any thing—that it would be for their interest to have 5000 inhabitants come in with back loads of money; why, I sometimes think they don’t know beans when the bag is open; they needn’t be scared; we don’t want their improvements without paying for them; we expect to pay them a good price for their possessions, and if that don’t satisfy them, we’ll have them any how.’⁹

Are the people of Iowa prepared to submit to such treatment from an Impostor as vile as ever disgraced humanity? Are we to be told that ‘if you choose to sell, we will buy your possessions, if not, we will have them any how’? Is the title to land hereafter to be settled by revelation through Joe Smith? Has the time indeed arrived when ‘the kingdom is to be set up by forcible means if necessary,’ and when the riches of the Gentiles are to be consecrated to the true Israel? Such were the teachings of the leaders of this society in Missouri, and the facts here stated show conclusively that such are their teachings and practices now.

Have we not some reason to believe that their Missouri troubles were not solely for righteousness’ sake, but that they there, as here, disregarded all law, human and divine, and by their conduct brought down upon their own heads the vengeance of an outraged and insulted people? Robbery and theft with them are called ‘consecrating the property of the Gentiles.’ Since the publication of the second number of these articles, we were called from home by business, and during our absence our store was broken open in the early part of the evening of Wednesday, the 6^th inst., before the young man who slept in the store retired for the night, and robbed of goods to the amount of between three and four hundred dollars, to wit:

42 pieces dark prints, (entire,)

5 or 6 pieces dark satinets,

1 piece black circassian,

and a considerable quantity of cambric book muslins, jaconet, sarsenet, &c. &c. This stands on our list as robbery No. 14.

The undersigned, however, are not the only sufferers; this our ‘Gentile’ neighbors know by sad experience. The four wheels of a new farm wagon were stolen from the yard of Harman Booth, Esq., a few nights since; and the week previous, all the tools of the blacksmith shop of Mr. S. H. Burtis, with a fine two-horse wagon, were taken.¹⁰ It is not a singular fact that the enclosures of the ‘Gentiles,’ and their buildings even, are entered, and property stolen, while the wagons and farming utensils of these ‘Latter Day Saints’ stand exposed in the open street, far from any dwelling, and yet are perfectly secure?

Why is it that those who oppose this swindle are the principal, if not the only, sufferers?

D. W. KILBOURN,
EDWARD KILBOURN

Montrose, Iowa, October 13, 1841.