Lilburn Boggs

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Lilburn W. Boggs (1796-1860) was the Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for his interactions with Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, and the so called "Extermination Order" issued in response to the ongoing conflict between Mormon settlers and others in Missouri.

1 Early life
2 Extermination Order
3 Assassination attempt
4 Western settlement
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Lilburn W. Boggs was born in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky on December 14, 1796, to John McKinley Boggs and Martha Oliver. Boggs served in the War of 1812. He moved in 1816 from Lexington, Kentucky to Missouri, Louisiana Territory. At Greenup Co, Kentucky, in 1817, Boggs married his first wife Julia Ann Bent (1801-20), a sister of the Bent brothers of Bent's Fort fame. She died on September 21, 1820 in St Louis, Missouri. They had two children, Angus and Henry.

In 1823 Boggs married Panthea Grant Boone (1801-80), a granddaughter of Daniel Boone, in Callaway Co., Missouri. They spent most of the following twenty-three years in Jackson Co., Missouri, where all but two of their many children were born.

Boggs started out as a merchant, then entered politics. He served as a Missouri state senator in 1826-32; as lieutenant governor, 1832-36; governor, 1836-40; and again as state senator, 1842-46.

[edit] Extermination Order

While governor of Missouri, Boggs issued a document known in Latter Day Saints (LDS) history as the "Extermination Order". This executive order was issued on October 27, 1838 and intended to have LDS members ("Mormons") driven from the state, in response to what he termed

"...open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State ... the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description."

This order was rescinded after nearly 138 years by Missouri Governor Christopher Bond, who declared that the original order violated legal rights established by the U.S. Constitution and who offered his regrets on behalf of the state. [1]

Three days after Boggs signed the extermination order, a unit of the state militia killed 17 LDS men and boys in the Haun's Mill Massacre. While most historians now agree that the unit could not have known of the extermination order and were not motivated by it, the massacre underscored the seriousness of the threat. The Mormon War ended shortly afterwards and thousands of Latter Day Saints crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois.

[edit] Assassination attempt

In his home, on the rainy evening of May 6, 1842, Boggs was shot by an unknown party who fired at him through a window as he read a newspaper in his study. Boggs was hit by large buckshot in four places: Two balls were lodged in his skull, another lodged in his neck, and a fourth entered his throat, whereupon Boggs swallowed it. Boggs was severely injured. Several doctors--Boggs' brother among them--pronounced Boggs as good as dead; at least one newspaper ran an obituary. To everyone's great surprise, Boggs not only survived, but gradually improved.

Meanwhile, the crime was investigated. Sheriff J.H. Reynolds discovered a revolver at the scene, still loaded with buckshot. He surmised that the suspect had fired upon Boggs and lost his firearm in the dark rainy night when the weapon recoiled due to its unusually large shot. The gun had been stolen from a local shopkeeper, who identified "that hired man of Ward's" as the most likely culprit. Reynolds determined that the man in question was Orrin Porter Rockwell, a close associate of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, but was unable to capture him.

Some Mormons saw the assassination attempt positively: An anonymous contributor to The Wasp, a Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois, wrote on May 28 that "Boggs is undoubtedly killed according to report; but who did the noble deed remains to be found out." Rockwell denied involvement in oblique terms, stating that he had "done nothing criminal" -- although it is debatable whether he would consider shooting the hated former governor a crime.

Also at about this time, John C. Bennett, a disaffected Mormon, reported that Smith had offered a cash reward to anyone who would assassinate Boggs, and that Smith had admitted to him that Rockwell had done the deed. He went on to say that Rockwell had made a veiled threat against Bennett's life if he publicised the story. Joseph Smith vehemently denied Bennett's account, speculating that Boggs--no longer governor, but campaigning for state senate--was attacked by an election opponent. Mormon writer Monte B. McLaws, in the Missouri Historical Review, supported Smith, averring that while there was no clear finger pointing to anyone, Governor Boggs was running for election against several violent men, all capable of the deed, and that there was no particular reason to suspect Rockwell of the crime. This opinion was not shared by Rockwell's most noted biographer, Harold Schindler. Whatever the case, the following year Rockwell was arrested, tried, and acquitted of the attempted murder (Bushman, p. 468), although most of Boggs' contemporaries remained convinced of his guilt.

[edit] Western settlement

Boggs traveled overland to California in 1846 and is frequently mentioned among the notable emigrants of that year. His traveling companions widely believed that his move was rooted in his fear of the Mormons. When the train set out in early May, he campaigned to be elected its captain, but lost to William H. Russell; when Russell resigned on June 18, the group was thereafter led by Boggs. Among the Boggs Company were most of the emigrants who later separated from the group to form the Donner Party.

Boggs was accompanied by his second wife Panthea, his son William, William's bride Sonora Hicklin, and his younger children. They arrived in Sonoma, California in November and were provided refuge by M. G. Vallejo at his Petaluma ranch house. There, on January 4, 1847, Mrs. William Boggs gave birth to a son, who was named Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo Boggs after their benefactor. Lilburn Boggs became alcalde of the Sonoma district in 1847. During the California gold rush, Boggs owned a store and did quite well. On November 8, 1849, Boggs resigned as alcalde and became the town's postmaster.

Boggs accepted an appointment as state assemblyman from the Sonoma District in 1852. In 1855 he retired to live on a ranch in Napa County, California where he died on March 19, 1860. His widow Panthea died in Napa County, California on September 23, 1880. They are buried in Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, California.

[edit] References

Boggs, William M. A Short Biographical Sketch of Lilburn W. Boggs, by his son.
LeSueur, Stephen C. The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990.
Schindler, Harold. Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son of Thunder. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966.
Johnson, Kristin. "Lilburn W. Boggs." In Unfortunate Emigrants: Narratives of the Donner Party. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996.
McLaws, Monte B. “The Attempted Assassination of Missouri’s Ex-Governor, Lilburn W. Boggs." Missouri Historical Review, 60.1 (October 1965).
Bushman, Richard. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling., Alfred Knopf, 2005, ISBN 1-4000-4270-4