Margaret Mann Foutz Account of Haun's Mill
Written by Margaret Mann Foutz, from her autobiography, written by her and signed on December 28, 1876 at Pleasant Grove City, Utah.
"I was at home with my little family of five children and could hear the firing of guns. In a moment I knew the mob was upon us. Soon a runner came telling the women and children to hasten into the timber and secret ourselves, which we did without taking anything to keep us warm. And had we been fleeing from the scalping knife of the Indian we would not have made greater haste, and as we went we finally numbered about forty or fifty women and children.
We ran about three miles into the woods and there huddled together, spreading what few blankets and shawls chance only had thrown in our path, upon the ground for the children and here we remained until two o'clock the next morning before we heard anything of the result of the firing at the mill. Who can imagine our feelings during this dreadful suspense? And when the news did come, oh! what terrible news; fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, inhumanly butchered!
We now took up the line of march for home. Alas what a home! Who would we find there and now with our minds full of the most fearful forebodings, we retraced those dreary long miles.
As we were returning I saw a Brother Myers who had been shot through his body. In that dreadful state he crawled on his hands and knees about two miles to his home.
After I arrived at my house with my children, I then made a fire and we warmed ourselves. We then started for the mill, which was over one mile from our house. My children said if Father and Mother are going to be killed, we want to be with them.
It was about seven o'clock in the morning when we arrived at the mill. The first house I came to there were three dead men, one a Brother McBride, I was told that he was one of the survivors of the Revolution. He was a terrible sight to see, having been cut and chopped and terribly mangled with a corn cutter.
I hurried on to find my husband. (Jacob Foutz) I found him in an old house covered with rubbish. The mob had taken the bedding and clothing from al the houses that were near the mill. My husband was shot in the thigh. I rendered him all the aid that I could but it was evening before I could get him home.
I saw thirteen more dead bodies at the shop and witnessed the beginning of the burial which consisted in throwing the bodies into an old dry well. So great was the fear of the men that the mob would return and kill what few men that were left that they threw the bodies in head first or feet first as the case might be. When they had thrown in three my heart sickened and I could not stand it more. I turned away to keep from fainting.
My husband and another Brother drew dead bodies on themselves and pretended to be dead and by so doing saved their own lives and heard what the mob said. After the firing was over two little boys that were in the shop begged for their lives, but 'No,' they said, 'Damn them, they will make Mormons.' And they put the muzzle of their guns to their heads and blew their brains out.
What a change one short day had brought! Here were my friends dead and dying. One in particular asked me to give him relief by taking a hammer and knocking out his brains, so great was his agony from his wounds, and we knew not what moment our enemies would be upon us.
And all this, not because we had broken any of the laws, on the contrary, it was a part of our religious belief to keep the laws of the land.
In the evening Brother Evans got a team and wagon and conveyed my husband to his house, carried him in and placed him on the bed. I then had to attend him alone, without any doctor or anyone to tell me what to do for him. Six days after, I and my husband together, extracted the bullet, it being buried deep in the thick part of the thigh and flattened like a knife.
During the first ten days the mob came every day with blackened faces, more like demons from the infernal pit than like human beings, cursing and swearing that they would kill that damn old Mormon preacher. (Jacob Foutz) And, at times like these when human nature would quail, I have felt the power of God upon me to that degree that I have stood before them fearless and although a woman and alone, these demons in human shape had to succumb, for there was a power they knew not of. During these days of danger I would sometimes have to hide my husband out in the woods and cover him with leaves. And, then again in the house. Thus during my husband's illness was I harassed by mobocratic violence."
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