FOR MY FRIEND, TIM ORD:
6/28/1813 - Named after his father (with an extra "r" in his name) and for his paternal grandmother (Irene Porter), one of the individuals vital to the establishment of the Mormon Church in America, the future Samson of the Latter Day Saints, Orrin Porter Rockwell (during his lifetime, he will also be known as "Porter," "Old Port," the "Destroying Angel," and the "Samson of Utah"), is born in Belcher, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, to Orin and Sarah Witt Rockwell on Monday, June 28, 1813 (he will be the second of nine sons and daughters the couple will have). With New England roots that can be traced back to Deacon William Rockwell of York, England, with tangled bloodlines that connect him to the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith, Jr., and a distant cousin who will become the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
Orrin Porter Rockwell
When Rockwell is four years old, the family moves to a farm near Manchester, New York. Two years later, in 1819, the Smith Family of Vermont, after three seasons of failing crops, takes out a mortgage on a 100-acre farm un western New York, becoming immediate neighbors to the Smiths. Though there is an eight year age difference between Joseph Smith (the older of the two) and Orrin Rockwell, the boys (along with their families), become fast friends and treat each other as if they were brothers. Enthralled by Smith's tales of treasure hunting and the wisdoms he has been provided with some of the Lord's angels (the pair also bond over each having a crippled leg ... Smith's from fractured leg that is poorly mended by a local doctor, while at ten, Rockwell suffers a leg break that is set wrong and ends up being an inch shorter than his "good" leg), after Rockwell has finished his daily chores, the youth picks berries and cuts firewood to earn extra income to go towards the publication of what will come to be called "The Book of Mormon." Book published at the end of March in 1830, the church it creates formally begins on April 6th of the same year ... and one of the new church's first members is Orrin Porter Rockwell, who is baptized into the Church of Christ (the church first name, before it later becomes The Church Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) at the age of sixteen, the youngest member of the first group of converts to be baptized. The harassment of Smith and his new church begins almost immediately, forcing the man now known as "The Prophet" to move from one place to another in an effort to find a location where he and his followers can practice the tenets of their new religion in peace, moving from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, then on to conclaves in Missouri, before being pushed out of Missouri and into Illinois, violently. At each step of Smith and the church's hegira, Rockwell can be found riding in support of various Mormon projects Smith tasks him with, or serving as his friend's personal bodyguard.
Smith Circa 1842
Receiving The Golden Tablets From The Angel Moroni
Moving west, the Rockwell Family moves on from Kirtland when word is received from Smith of a vision that the Saints are to gather in Missouri (a move also made necessary by Smith being tarred and feathered by a mob of Ohioans on March 24, 1832, the death of a son from pneumonia that he catches due to the same Ohio mob, the failure of the Zion's Camp militia to protect Mormon settlers, the Mormon's Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company project going bankrupt, and the subsequent arrest warrant issued against Smith on charges of banking fraud). One of the first Mormons to settle near Independence, Missouri, Rockwell builds a home (at which other Mormons, numbering in the hundreds often gather), takes an 18-year-old Saint, Luana Beebe, as his bride on February 2, 1832, and run a ferry business with his father over the waters of the Blue River (also called the Big Blue). Rockwell's seemingly good life in Missouri doesn't last long though as a civil war of sorts breaks out between earlier settlers in the Independence region and the newly arrived Mormons (Smith will try to stop the blood shed by having an audience with President Martin Van Buren, but both he and the sitting members of Congress can do little for the Mormons beyond stating that the troubles are for the state of Missouri to decide). Tit-for-tat, when a secret group of Mormons form to do battle with the Missourians after the governor, Lilburn Boggs, issues Missouri Executive Order 44 (now known as the "Extermination Order" because Boggs authorizes Missouri's citizens to kick the Mormons out of the state by any means necessary, including murder) Rockwell (who loses his ferry business and has his home literally torn to pieces in the violence) vows to fight fire with fire and puts his mark at the 69th position (he never learns how to fully read and write) on the document that forms the fraternal organization for the protection of Mormons and the reprisal destruction of non-Mormon enemies and internal dissenters, called the Danites. In approval of his dedication to the Smith and the Church, July 6, 1838, in the Mormon's latest settlement of Far West, Missouri, Rockwell is ordained a deacon, the first step in becoming a priest of the Mormon Church.
Smith Is Tarred And Feathered
Boggs
The Destruction Of Haun's Mill
The Mormon War of 1838 comes to an end on October 31, 1838, when Missouri militia numbering 2,500 men move on Smith and his followers at Far West. Deciding to surrender rather than have his people butchered (ready to fight, among the city's defenders is Rockwell), Smith surrenders and is almost executed for treason the next morning (he is saved by the actions of General Alexander Doniphon, who threatens to withdraw his command if Smith isn't given due process and is murdered). Placed in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, Smith and and a handful of followers will spend five months behind bars. He is kept up to speed on events with the Missourians and within the Mormon Church by secret messages being relayed from Independence to Liberty (as part of the surrender terms, the Mormons are in the process of now leaving Missouri for Illinois) and snuck to Smith by Orrin Porter Rockwell, who also gets escape tools into the men behind bars (the attempt fails when a tool fails on the last stone being worked on and the hole the men are digging out of the jail is discovered before Rockwell can get the men replacement equipment). Smith's group finally gets away when Sheriff William Morgan and the group of guards he has transporting his prisoners to Boone County for sentencing, on orders from unknown sources, conveniently become intoxicated (on whiskey purchased by Smith's brother, Hyrum) and their charges escape to the town of Quincy, Illinois on April 22, 1839. Family and friends greet the freed Mormons upon their arrival in Illinois ... among them is the 26-year-old Rockwell, awaiting his next orders from The Prophet.
Doniphon
The Liberty Jail
A town of 2,000 souls, Quincy swells to a city of over 7,000 people as it fills with Mormons escaping Missouri prior to a new city of Zion being established as a base for Smith's new religion at the Illinois town of Nauvoo. When Smith goes east to meet with political leaders in an attempt to prevent new breakouts of violence between the Mormons and non-believers like the Missourians, Rockwell accompanies his friend, providing consul as requested and bodyguarding talents when necessary. By now an adult roughly 5'8" in height, layered in muscle, and energized by youth, experience, and his burning faith in Smith and the Church, along with becoming an expert horseman, Rockwell has become a quick-draw artist firing rifles and pistols, and a deadly opponent at close quarters using his fists or wielding a knife or hatchet. Never proven in a court of law, as a new decade begins, Rockwell receives his next assignment and is given the task of taking out the man the Church believes is most responsible for the current woes of the Mormons ... former Missouri Governor Lilburn Williams Boggs. His wife pregnant with the couple's fourth child, in 1842, under the assumed name of Brown, Rockwell places his wife in the care of her family in Independence helping the Smith prophecy that Boggs will soon suffer a violent death come true. On the rainy evening of May 6, 1842, while Boggs reads the local daily newspaper as at his feet, his six-year-old daughter Minnie rocks her infant sister to sleep, the ex-governor is suddenly grievously shot in his study by an outside assassin. Hit four times by buckshot (thirteen other pieces of lead hit the wall beside where Boggs is reading), Boggs has two pieces of lead penetrate his skull and lodge in the left lobe of his brain, another bit of buckshot buries itself in the thick muscles of the former governor's neck, and a fourth piece of buckshot goes through the hollow of his neck, enters his mouth through the back of his throat and is swallowed into his stomach. Unconscious from his wounds and blood all over the place, Boggs is not expected to live once doctors begin treating him, but rallies and survives another eighteen years (he passes in Rancho Napa, California on March 14, 1860 at the age of 63). Suspicion of being involved in the crime of course immediately falls on Smith and Rockwell, and they are arrested by Missouri deputies for extradition back to the "Show Me" state. Deciding discretion is the better part of valor, until things can cool off in the region, Smith goes into hiding near Montrose, Iowa (charges against Smith will eventually be dropped when a judge rules that Missouri's extradition orders are unconstitutional), while Rockwell goes on the run (weary of her husband always being gone on some secret mission for the Church, during this time period Rockwell's wife leaves him (the children are cared for by Rockwell's mother), looking for work in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before tired of running and hiding, he drifts back to St. Louis where he is recognized and quickly arrested (there is a $3,000 reward for his capture) before he can get across the river to the safety of Illinois.
Mormons Arriving At Quincy
Smith
Taken to Independence (during the coach ride, Rockwell oversee repair of a damaged kingpin bolt and will drive the coach out of the spot its drunken driver has wedged it into against a hillside), while awaiting trial, Rockwell is begins a routine of confinement in which his days are spent in a second floor cell, while his nights are made up of sleeping on urine soaked straw with no fire allowed in the jail's dungeon (and all the while he faces the danger of a mob pulling him out of custody and hanging him). Weeks go by (losing weight and strength, his meals consist of cold corn dodgers and leftover meat his jailer doesn't consume during his own meals), and when Smith fails to orchestrate an escape by his bodyguard, Rockwell, Rockwell puts his own attempt into motion by getting a local girl to smuggle him a knife which he uses on his shackles. Managing to get out of the jail, he is quickly recaptured by Sheriff J.H. Reynolds, placed in shackles that don't allow him to straighten into a standing position, and confined in the dungeon. Brought before Judge John F. Ryland's Circuit Court in August, Rockwell discovers a grand jury has failed to indict him for attempting to kill Boggs, but he will now go on trial for his failed jail escape. Services paid for by Mormon money gathered by Smith and Rockwell's mother, Rockwell is represented before the court by Alexander Doniphon (transferred from one venue to another during this period, there will be two more unsuccessful attempts on Rockwell's life and the prisoner will make another escape attempt by wiggling through a stovepipe hole before being defeated at a locked door he can't open between himself and freedom). The lawyer earns his money, and although a jury finds Rockwell guilty, he is sentenced to five minutes more minutes of confinement in the County Jail (it will take the sheriff more than five hours to actually release him though). Early in the morning of December 13, 1843, after nine months of confinement, Rockwell walks out of the Independence jail as a free man. Still deep within a state that is filled with people that want him dead, with only $4 he has borrowed from a friend, Rockwell keeps away from main roads and heads across country for the Mormon enclave at Nauvoo, paying fifty cents to ride a horse for fourteen miles when the soles of his feet become a bloody mess, and doling out seventy-five cents to a stranger who agrees to carry the weary Mormon for the rest of the day. Continuing his slog, another fifty cents gets Rockwell supper, a bed, breakfast, and a horse he can ride for twelve miles. Making it to Montrose, Iowa, thanks to hiring another man to carry him, he uses the last of his money to take a ferry across the Mississippi River and makes his way to Joseph's Mansion House in Nauvoo where the Prophet is holding a Christmas Day party of dinner and dance for fifty couples. The fulfillment of a Smith prophecy that Rockwell will "honorably escape" from the clutches of Missouri, Rockwell is at first not recognized, but then celebrated with hugs and exclamations of delight when Smith realizes his friend has rejoined him, delight that causes Smith to make a new prophecy as he takes in the long hair and thick beard Rockwell has grown during his recent confinement ... "I prophesy, in the name of the Lord, that you, Orrin Porter Rockwell, so long as ye shall remain loyal and true to thy faith, need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee!' And sure enough, from that day forward, with only one exception (visiting in California, Agnes Coolbrith Smith Pickett, the widow of Smith's brother, Don Carlos, Rockwell will find the woman bald from battling typhoid fever, and has his hair sheared into a wig for the lady), Rockwell lets his hair grow and is not harmed by any of his future enemies, becoming a Samson to the Saints.
Rockwell Amusing Himself In Jail
The Smith Mansion In Nauvoo
Agnes
For awhile, Smith allows Rockwell to actually run a barber shop out of The Prophet mansion, but Mrs. Smith soon puts an end to that, but not to Rockwell serving as a bodyguard for her husband. And justified in taking the position, Rockwell saves Smith's life when the pair go to make a local arrest without backup, and he knocks a gun away from a belligerent Mormon named Charles Foster before he can shoot Smith (unpaid, Rockwell becomes briefly stage struck when he appears in a local production of the romantic drama, Pizarro, as a Spanish soldier named Davina holding a spear). Missouri problems gone, the persecution of the Mormons nonetheless continues at Nauvoo, exacerbated by Smith deciding to run for President of the United States, and accelerated even more by internal disagreements within the Mormon Church. In the spring of 1844, after arguments about how Nauvoo's economy should be organized, Smith is turned on by two formerly trusted members of his inner circle, counselor William Law and Nauvoo Legion general Robert Foster. Excommunicating the dissidents, Law and Foster former an alternative church in the county seat of Carthage, and procure indictments against The Prophet for perjury and polygamy, publishing their views in the new paper they start, the Nauvoo Expositor. Believing the smears in the press will create another cycle of violence against the Mormons, Smith convenes a special session of the city consul, and that group authorizes the destruction of the new paper ... instead of settling things down however, the act of destroying the printing press is like pouring gasoline on an already blazing fire (and it does not help that Smith, his brother, and Nauvoo Marshal Greene are among the men that tear apart the newspaper's printing press, smash it to bits, and then burn the rubble, compliments of Rockwell kicking in the door of the Expositor's office. The state now in an uproar over events in Carthage and Nauvoo, with Governor Thomas Ford threatening to call out the state militia to insure order in the two cities, Smith and his brother Hyrum ride to Carthage to face the charges against them. Wanting to ride with the brothers, Rockwell is told to stay in Nauvoo to help finalize plans that Smith has for moving the Mormon community into the unsettled wilds of the west where they can develop their new religion without being constantly persecuted by non-believers. Rockwell is chosen to be the chief scout for the expedition.
Law
Upon arriving in Carthage, the Smith Brothers surrender themselves to Constable William Bettisworth and are placed in captivity, with the additionally charges of the capital offense of treason. Joining the brothers in jail are handful of Smith associates that includes Willard Richards, John Taylor, John Solomon Fullmer, John P. Greene, Stephan Markham, and Dan Jones. The men have two pistols which guards have missed, perhaps because the guards are not guards at all, but a group of Mormon hating militia Governor Ford has given the job of protecting the Mormon captives, the Carthage Greys. Sure enough, without the expected protection of the Nauvoo Legion (their commander, Jonathan Dunham has kept the force in Nauvoo), two days after surrendering, a mob of roughly 200 men disguised by faces blackened with wet gunpowder, break into the jail on the afternoon of Thursday, June 27th to do away with the Mormon leadership. In the melee that follows, Hyrum Smith is shot in the face and dies almost instantly, Richards is grazed in the ear by a bullet, and Taylor is shot five times, but lives to become the third president of the Latter Day Saints (he dies in Kaysville, Utah in 1887 at the age of 78). Defending himself with one of the pistols the captives possess, Smith wounds three members of the mob, but trying to escape out of the room is confined to by jumping out of it's window, Smith is shot twice in the back and once from a gun of a member of the mob outside. Tumbling out of the window to his death, The Prophet's last words are said to be "Oh Lord, My God!" Down and already dead the mob nonetheless shoots a horde of bullets into the lifeless body of Smith (no one will ever be found guilty of participating in the murders).
Attack On The Carthage Jail
Death Masks Of Joseph & Hyrum Smith
Fearing retaliation for the murders, Rockwell is soon arrested by Carthage authorities on trumped up counterfeiting charges, but before he can suffer a fate similar to that of the Smiths, the former bodyguard escapes, vanishing into the night. He resurfaces on the morning of September 16, 1845, when Rockwell rescues County Sheriff Jacob Backenstos from an assassination attack on the lawman's life (he is believed to be siding with the Mormons as they are burnt out of their homes near the town of Warsaw) by one of leading members of the Carthage Greys, Lieutenant Frank Worrell, killing the man with rifle shot through the abdomen that knocks Worrell out of his saddle as he confronts Backenstos. No fence sitting now for the lawman, empowered by Brigham Young's orders (the new leader of Smith's church), Backenstros and Rockwell lead a counter insurgency through the region, burning out the homes and farms of those that have chased Mormons out of the region (during this period of time, Rockwell will take up with a woman already married to tavern keeper and Nauvoo Legion captain, Amos Davis ... some say as a ordered reward by Brigham Young for killing Worrell). And as the Mormons ready for their next move to the west, Rockwell is selected to carry messages from the Mormon leadership (the Council of Fifty) in Nauvoo to the vanguard of the exodus at the Camp of Israel in Iowa. On Rockwell's fifth trip, he is arrested in Nauvoo while stalking Chauncey Higbee (a Mormon that had turned on Joseph Smith and part of the mob that killed him ... disarmed, Rockwell is found to possess an arsenal of weaponry that will allow him to fire on his enemies seventy-one times before any reloading is necessary), but set free once Rockwell's murder trial for killing Worrell is changed to the town of Galena and Sheriff Backenstos testifies on his behalf. Free again, as the Mormons ready to leave Iowa, Rockwell conveys messages among the many Saint encampments and serves the new leader of the Church, Brigham Young in the same capacity as he did Joseph Smith, as the religious leader's chief bodyguard. On the cold Wednesday morning of Springs arrival, April 14, 1847, one hundred and forty-three men, three women, and two children, led by Young himself, set off as the advanced group of Mormon pioneers seeking a new Zion in the west, carried forth by 73 wagons, 93 horses, 52 mules, 66 oxen, and accompanied by 17 dogs, a passel of chickens, enough food to feed the company for a year, and a single cannon ... among the company is a scribe to document the journey, a mathematician, a carpenter, a scientific observer, and attached to the tenth group of Ten, captained by Appleton Milo Harmon, is the scout and chief hunter of the party, Orrin Porter Rockwell.
Young
Winter Camp
Strict discipline enforced on the march westward, breakfast call comes at 5:00 in the morning, by 7:00 the company is on the move until sunset, when the wagons are drawn into a half-circle with the horses secured within the group's perimeter, a bugle sounds at 8:30 for prayer and lights are out within the camp by 9:00 each evening (honoring the Sabbath, Sundays are spent in camp). Fulfilling his duties as scout and hunter, Rockwell helps fend off a small band of Indians trying to steal some of the company's horses, becomes an excellent buffalo hunter (antelope shot by Rockwell also finds its way onto the pioneers' tables), recovers lost animals, charges and chases off a group of fifteen Pawnee horse hunters stalking the party, tracks down a valuable spyglass Young has lost along the trail, and helps guard the Council of Fifty during Sunday prayer ceremonies. The first part of the journey, Council Bluffs to the Elk Horn River, across Wood River, to Chimney Rock and then Scotts Bluff, before reaching Fort Laramie on the Platte River, a journey of roughly 425 miles that takes the company six weeks to walk (along the way, three members of the party will invent a mechanical device which converts the turn of wagon wheels into miles traveled, and several Mormon businesses are established at various ferry points along the way ... at first, the Saints will charge $1.50 per river crossing), arriving at the fort on June 1st. After two days of equipment repairs, the draft animals being reshod, and other Mormons from a southernly travel group and ill members of Mormon Battalion joining Young's company, the group sets off again along a portion of the Oregon Trail, moving from the banks of the North Platte to Independence Rock and the grasses of Sweetwater Valley, on to Pacific Springs and South Pass before reaching Wyoming and the Green River. Pushing on despite the forebodings of other Mormons that believe Zion can be found in California (led by Samuel Brannen, a group of Mormons have traveled to California around Cape Horn via the merchantman ship, Brooklyn) and mountain men (including frontiersman Jim Bridger) that pitch other routes into Utah, the pioneers reach Fort Bridger (the fort consists of two double wall log houses about forty feet long joined by a ten foot high pen of poles for horses) on July 7th. Again, the group briefly stops to rest and prep for their final push into the Great Salt Lake Valley. Following the infamous Hastings Cutoff (where the Donner Party is delayed just long enough to end up starving in the California Sierras when winter arrives early), the group muscles its way closer and closer to their destination. When Young comes down with a severe case of "mountain fever" (now thought to be caused by the bite of a Rocky Mountain wood tick), he remains behind with the slower moving main group of Mormon pioneers, and sends forward a scout party of twenty-three wagons and forty-two men under the command of Orson Pratt; Rockwell of course is the main scout of the advanced group. Receiving orders from a recovering Young on where he lay out his new Zion, Rockwell is part of the party of a seven men (Pratt, George A. Smith, John Pack, Joseph Mathews, J. C. Little and John Brown are the others) that plant the first Mormon seeds within what will soon become Salt Lake City, and he is among the group of well wishers that welcome Young when he comes out of Emigration Canyon on July 24, 1847, when the last of the wagons roll into the valley the Mormons have toiled so long to reach, completing a migration of over 1,000 miles through a major chunk of western wilderness.
The Journey
Fort Laramie
Fort Bridger
Viewing The Promised Land
No rest once Zion is reached, Rockwell is immediately sent out to scout the surrounding mountains before being sent out by the council of Fifty (along with three members of the Mormon Battalion) to escort Apostle Ezra T. Benson to the next batch of Mormons headed for what the new settlers officially name the Great Salt Lake City of the Great Basin of North America. It will take the small party two weeks to meet the pioneers at Deer Creek in what will become the state of Wyoming (the party eventually reaches Salt Lake City, due in large part to the guiding skills of Rockwell, his hunting skills in providing fresh meat to the pioneers when their food supplies run out, and his leadership in blunting the attacks of Indians). The task of getting another group of pioneers into the area completed, Rockwell is next made a member of a group of Mormons (18 members in all) sent to California to evaluate the country, business opportunities, and gather any mail sent to the Mormons at Salt Lake City, once again as chief scout and hunter. Miscalculating how long the company will take to reach California, the party almost perishes going west and are forced to eat butchered horses to subsist, reaching Rancho Santa Ana del Chino near San Bernardino on Christmas Eve of 1847 after being on the trail for forty-five days. Waiting for good weather before returning to Utah, Rockwell leaves for Salt Lake City on April 12, 1848 with a party of twenty-five Mormons from the San Diego area. Following the "Spanish Trail," the group leaves Rancho Santa Ana, inches over Cajon Pass, moves across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas, then journeys over the Virgin River, Beaver Creek, Salt Creek, and the Spanish Fork River before reaching Salt Lake City on the morning of June 5th. No sooner is Rockwell back in town, he is given his next assignment, to ride out to the east and help Brigham Young bring in the next batch of Mormons coming to Salt Lake City. Rendezvous accomplished, to the cheers of the populace of the city, Young, Rockwell, and the new emigrants are welcomed into town on September 20th, swelling the population of Zion to more than 2,000 Saints. In 1849, Rockwell is one of ninety-four hunters that with another group of men, exterminate fifteen thousand predators from the valley, he is appointed a deputy marshal for the provisional state of Deseret, and is tasked by Young (along with Ute speaking 18-year-old George W. Bean) to try and placate the Utes of the area (led by Sowiette and his under chief, Walkara) from going to war over the Mormons settling in what was once their valley. Task successful achieved in large part because of Bean's negotiating skills and lack of fear, a pleased Young authorizes both men the authority to speak in his name any time they have any dealings with tribes living in the Great Basin area.
Benson
Rancho Santa Ana del Chino
Chief Sowiette Wood Carving
Provo, Utah
And then it is back to California for Rockwell, in the company of Apostle Amasa Mason Lyman, to collect tithes belonging to the Mormon church. And as long as he is in California during the opening madness of the California gold rush, Rockwell decides to open up shop in the diggings near Sutter's Fort, putting miner profits into his own pockets (and those of the Church) by overseeing a saloon called the "Round Top" at Murderer's Bar, an inn at Buckeye Flat, a "half-way" house near Mormon Island on the American River. Operating under the alias of James B. Brown knowing his old enemy Lilburn Boggs has transplanted himself to California, and that the state is full of former Mormon haters from Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, Rockwell goes about armed with a brace of pistols, dueling pistols loaded with buckshot, a rifle, a Bowie knife, and an attack trained dog constantly by his side. Returning to his base on the American River after guiding a group of Mormons (Lyman is among the party of Charles C. Rich) nearly two hundred miles through the Indian infested Humboldt Valley, Rockwell decides it is time to head back to Utah (Lyman's and Rockwell's mission of getting thousands of dollars in tithes out of Mormon Samuel Brannan fails) with mail, emigrants, and his own head intact after barely escaping a necktie party when his true identity is discovered when he wins yet another shooting contest on the banks of the American, winning $1,000 from a group of irate miners. Rejoining Rich's party, Rockwell, in company with fifty-two others, successfully guides the group back to Salt Lake City ... a four hundred mile journey in which the scout invades an Indian camp to get stolen horses back from the Indians that stole them the night before and shoots to death an Indian that had tried to enter the Mormon's night camp masquerading as a relief guard ... from a distance of three hundred yards. The party reaches Salt Lake City thirty-seven days after leaving California.
Lyman
Murderer's Bar
Brannan
For the next five years, working out of Salt Lake City, Rockwell spends the majority of his time trying to keep the peace between the valley's new settlers and the Indian tribes that still consider the area their home. In April of 1851, the outdoorsman gets caught up in avenging the murder of a Gentile, Lorenzo D. Custer, building a sawmill for the Mormons in the Tooele Valley west of Salt Lake City. Gunned down when a captured Indian war party (30 men in strength) is not stripped of its weapons, and kills Custer. All but four of the Indians escape, along with a number of horses, and to send a clear message to anyone warring against the Mormons, Rockwell has the four men executed and buried among the desert sands of Skull Valley. The year 1852, on orders from Young, finds Rockwell in the mountains investigating whether Jim Bridger is fomenting an Indian uprising near Fort Utah, establishing a ranch with John Neff near Mill Creek, overseeing church work as a member of the Melchizedek Priesthood, and despite a sixteen year difference in their ages, courting Neff's daughter, Mary Ann, to become his bride (the couple will be married by Brigham Young himself on May 3,1854, with the union resulting in the birth of five sons and four daughters before Mary Ann's untimely death in 1866 at the age of only 37). In 1853, Rockwell again plays the role of Davina in a production of Pizarro, that is the first entertainment to be put on at the city's new Social Hall. The year also sees a renewal of belligerence lasting ten months between the local Indians and the Mormons when bartering over three trout and three pints of flour near the community of Springville (fifty miles south of Salt Lake City) erupts in violence that will cost over sixty souls their lives. Both sides weary of the back-and-forth of killings, Rockwell, Amos Herr Neff and George Washington Bean are sent to parlay with Ute leader, Walkara (somehow, the scout also finds time to serve on a committee selecting a site for a penitentiary ... approving a spot roughly four miles to the east of town that once built, will serve as Utah's state prison until March of 1951) and giving gifts to the chief and his warriors are able to set up a truce and a further parlay with Young. Peace talked of, but guns at the ready, despite a series of hiccups that threaten to start up the fighting again, Rockwell, Neff, and Bean are able to bring Young the peace he is seeking before the summer of 1854 ends (Walkara and 120 members of his tribe are baptized into the Mormon Church on July 27, 1854, with the chief's new name becoming Joseph Walker).
Mary Ann Neff Rockwell
Amos Neff & George Bean
Walkara
. One set of Indian troubles for the moment contained, Rockwell returns to his Salt Lake City home briefly, but then is sent by Young to visit the Shoshones near Fort Bridger, carrying supply goods worth thousands of dollars. That task completed, he is next hired by the Federal government (along Bean and a Frenchman named Nicholas Janise) at $5 a day to negotiate the surrender of the Pahvant people of Chief Kanosh responsible for murdering Captain John Williams Gunnison and seven members of a Pacific Railroad surveying team near the town of Delta, Utah in 1853 (four Indians will eventually be turned over to the United States Army, but whether they were really the culprits responsible for the massacre is dubious). At home briefly, Rockwell celebrates the birth of a daughter, Mary Amanda Rockwell on March 11, 1855; two weeks later the guide is in the employee of Lt. Colonel Edward Jenner Steptoe opening up a new trail to California traveling through what will be Carson Valley, and the first town of what will one day be the state of Nevada. Reaching California, Rockwell visits locations from his gold rush days in the state and encountering the hairless widow of Joseph Smith's brother recovering from a bout of typhoid fever cuts off his long locks to have them fashioned into a wig for the woman, Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Smith (locks lost, Rockwell does not suffer a Samson-like disaster as a result, but does state later that from the moment of his shorning he suffers the desire for strong drink and can't stop swearing).
Gunnison
Steptoe
In April of 1856, Rockwell sets off to the east, guiding a small party of important Mormons back to the United States (Almon W. Babbitt and Joseph L. Heywood have business in Washington D.C., Orson Pratt and Ezra T. Benson are on missions to Europe, and George A. Smith and John Taylor are headed for that year's Territorial Convention. Not the best time for traveling, Rockwell gets the group to Mormon Grove, Kansas ten days ahead of schedule despite having to bring the travelers though a fifty-six hour blizzard that piles six foot high drifts of snow over the trail, two days with half the party stopped by snow blindness, pitching camp in a torrential rain storm, saving the party's horses from freezing, and recovering six runaway horses without the loss of a single loss of any of the men in the party. Such will not be the case returning to Utah, and months later when Babbitt precedes without Rockwell as his guide (despite Rockwell's warnings), he and two other men are slaughtered about 120 miles from Fort Kearny by a small band of Cheyenne dog soldiers, a massacre that for awhile, will be blamed on Rockwell. Cleared of the blame for Babbitt's demise, upon returning to Salt Lake City, Rockwell discovers he is a father again, his wife this time giving birth to a daughter on August 5, 1856 that the couple name Sarah. In April of 1857, the Mormon adventurer puts his wilderness services to work for the new Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company (Congress will soon cancel the company's contract over scheduling issues involving the Postmaster General), delivering twenty-four sacks of mail to Salt Lake City from the east, the first postal delivery to take place in Zion since November of 1856. Mountain trails finally open with the arrival of spring in the high country, Rockwell gathers up another load of mail, and heads east for the town of Independence in July of 1857. Outside of Fort Laramie however, Rockwell discovers that mail for Salt Lake City has once more been put on hold as President James Buchanan has sent Federal troops into the region to deal with Mormon and Indian depredations in the region. Intent on letting Brigham Young know the problem headed his way as quickly as possible, Rockwell and two companions, A. O. Smoot (the mayor of Great Salt Lake City) and Judson Stoddard, procure a group of fast mounts, attach them to a light spring wagon, and set off for Salt Lake City with Rockwell behind the reins ... a journey of five hundred and thirteen miles that the men complete in five days and three hours. Arriving in Salt Lake City on July 23rd, the men find the city deserted, with most of it's inhabitants celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Mormon entry into the Great Salt Lake Valley with Young along the shores of the Wasatch Mountains' Silver Lake. Continuing up to the lake, the men reach Young at around noon, report the impending invasion of the area, and then Rockwell rides back to his home and wearily goes to bed.
Babbitt
In what will become known as The Utah War, a clash of wills lasting over a year between President Buchanan's government (one of the chief sources of conflict is the religion's authorization of multiple marriages, Young himself will have 56 wives and 57 children) and the leadership of the Mormon Church that results in a full pardon being granted for Mormons involved in fighting Federal forces (there is no pardon for the individuals charged with murder in the Mountain Meadows tragedy that takes place in September of 1857 and costs 120 emigrants to California their lives), Brigham Young being removed as Utah governor and replaced by non-Mormon Alfred Cumming, and the peaceful entry into the area of Federal troops, Rockwell is put in charge of an independent company of one hundred Mormon Rangers. Avoiding large fixed battles with the advancing Federals, Rockwell puts together a delaying hit-and-run campaign against the eastern invaders that destroys supplies, stampedes and steals horses and mules while terrifying civilian teamsters with stories of Danite assassins, burning grasslands and forage, and secretly pulling apart wagon wheelpins. Not surprisingly, though a failure in removing the mules of a column of invaders (the stolen animals run back to the U.S. Army when they hear bugles blowing Stable Call announcing it is eating time for the critters), Rockwell leads five of his best men on the first raid of the war against the Federals. More successful with his next missions, Rockwell and his command are on hand when the Federal supply camps at Fort Supply and Fort Bridger are put to the torch, and is at the forefront of Mormon warriors that rustle a fourteen-hundred herd of cattle from the command of Colonel Edmund B. Alexander. Sustenance gained, Rockwell delivers a portion of the cattle to members of the Nauvoo Legion and then drives the balance of stock into Salt Lake City, and reports to Brigham Young before going home to his wife and family.
Alexander
Cumming
In October of 1857, the six Californians known as The Aiken Party (two brothers, John and Tom Aiken, Andrew J. "Honesty" Jones, Tuck Wright, John Chapman, and a Colonel Eichard of Mariposa County) make their way into Utah, hoping to meet up with the Federal forces of future Confederate general, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, and fleece his 2,000 troopers of their pay with dice, cards, and games of Faro. Riding fine mounts under expensive Mexican saddles while flashing gold about to pay their way, the men instead find Mormons still in charge of the Salt Lake Valley area and the Gentiles are taken into custody as potential Federal spies. Eventually freed of the charges, the men are escorted out of the region by Rockwell, Sylvanus Collett, and two other men, but never make it back to California, with the exception of John Chapman, who breaks off from his friends upon reaching Salt Lake City. Conflicting testimony given when the matter eventually comes to trial (no one will ever be found guilty in a court of law for the killings), using a faked Indian attack on the banks of the Sevier River to mask their actions, attack the two Aikens, Tuck Wright, and Colonel Eichard with iron rods and pistol fire. Tom Aiken and the colonel never seen again, Tom Aiken and Tuck Wright stumble into the town of Lehi with grievous wounds stating they were set upon by their escorts. Wounds treated, the men head back to the relative safety of Salt Lake City, but are vanished by two men wielding shoguns at a place called Willow Creek (an area Rockwell was seen riding towards earlier in the day). Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City Jones begins telling anyone who will listen the story of what he believes has befallen his friends (including the embarrassing information that Brigham Young has ordered the killings) and he too is eliminated, placed in a deep hole a few miles outside of the city after being shotgunned and his neck ravaged by two strokes from a Bowie knife wielded by "Wild Bill" Hickman. A mystery, while five men are most decidedly murdered by persons unknown, many of their possessions are noted to now be the property of Rockwall, Collett, and other Mormons in the area (the $25,000 in gold coins John Aiken was carrying also go missing).
Johnston
Wild Bill Hickman
On December 30, 1857, Rockwell is one of the first eight Mormons to be charged with treason on a blanket indictment issued by a grand jury empaneled by Federal Judge Delana R. Eckels (the other names on the list are those of Brigham Young, ordained Quorum of Twelve Apostles member Heber C. Kimball, LDS Church apostle Daniel H. Wells, Utah legislature Speaker of the House John Taylor, Nauvoo Legion General George D. Grant, Nauvoo Legion Major Lot Smith, and Mormon gunman William "Wild Bill" Hickman). Despite the charges placed on his head (there are also rumors that on orders from Young, Rockwell attempts the murder of John Tobin for taking the innocence of Brigham's daughter, Alice and for the brutal slayings of Henry Jones and his mother for having relations with each other to the utter embarrassment of the LDS), Rockwell, along with a small band of his men, are chosen to escort new governor Cumming into Salt Lake City to meet with Brigham Young (during the night journey, Rockwell's men dupe the governor that the main canyon road into Salt Lake City is guarded by thousands of locals, when in actuality, the defenders of the route number less than two hundred), serve as the governor's bodyguard during his time in Salt Lake City negotiating with Young, and then take Cumming safely back the Federal camp at Fort Scott, missions that are accomplished without incident by May 10, 1859. Peace agreed to by June of 1859, Rockwell returns to his family (now expanded by one more member, John Orrin Rockwell, born on October 23, 1858) and moves them from Neff Canyon to a new home near the village of Lehi, Utah. Starting a new chapter in his life for $500 (for sixteen acres of real estate near Point of the Mountain, at Hot Springs, on the road between Salt Lake City and Lehi), he opens the Hot Springs Brewery Hotel. He also makes a pitch to get the contract to carry mail in Utah, and somehow is still a deputy sheriff being paid to bring wrong doers in the territory to justice.
Invasion
Hot Springs Brewery Hotel
Entering middle-age, there will be a continuation of the violence that seems to have surrounded Rockwell his entire life and rumors continue to swirl about the man and his activities for Brigham Young and the Mormon Church. Though no proof is ever presented and the matter never goes to trial, in September of 1859, Rockwell's name becomes associated with the murder of John Gheen, a former gambler, turned murderer (of Lilace W. Conditt in a property rights dispute), turned Salt Lake City butcher (evidence showing otherwise, the matter will be deemed a suicide). Not a rumor at all is what happens when Rockwell's path crosses with an ox driver named Martin Oats at his hotel. Accused of cattle rustling by Oats (after the man also clashes with bartender Robert Hereford), the two men fight for Oats' Bowie knife before Hereford produces two pistols and disarms the bullwhacker, before sending the bested man on his way. Sadly for Oats, later that same day he meets Rockwell on the road to Lehi and the men begin arguing again, an argument that becomes physical and causes the forty-six year-old Mormon to pull his revolver and kill the ox driver with a bullet to the man's chest (an investigation will determine that the killing was a "justifiable homicide"). During this period in time, the lawman turned hotel proprietor also leads a posse that ends the cattle rustling activities of a group of thieves led by a flashy gambler (he wears tailored buckskin suits enhanced by flowers and silk embroidery and the buttons on his vest are two half dollar pieces of gold) named Joachim Johnston (the five men in the gang all survive being arrested). Later in 1860, when Johnston and an army deserter named Myron Brewer are caught counterfeiting in Salt Lake City, they make the mistake of accusing Brigham Young as being behind the operation ... calumny stated, when the two men are shot to death by an unknown assassin on the evening of May 17, 1860, Rockwell is again rumored to be the men's killer (the city marshal and chief of police will rule that the two men got in argument and shot each other). Reputation well established as being a first-class hell-raiser, when British explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton (among his many exploits is a visit in disguise to Mecca during a period of time when non-Muslims are put to death for entering the city), fresh from leading an expedition in Africa seeking the source of the Nile River and looking for a new topic to write about stops in Salt Lake City, along with Brigham Young, he spends time with Rockwell (freshly back in town after freighting 40 wagons of supplies to Pikes Peak, Colorado) and later will describe the outdoorsman in his book, "The City of Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California" (their meeting goes so well that upon his return to England, Burton will send the Mormon lawman a bottle of brandy for all the kindness the mountain man bestowed on Burton).
Burton
In January of 1861, Rockwell takes his neighbor, Israel Evans, to ecclesiastical court over rustling and butchering one of the wilderness scout's ox. Not surprisingly on a trial conducted by Brigham Young, the matter will be found to be in Rockwell's favor. With the beginning of the Civil War on April 12, 1861 as Fort Sumter, South Carolina is bombarded in Charleston Harbor, the Salt Lake Valley quickly empties out of Federal troops; a departure that takes away a law abiding presence in the region and leaves the hooligans in the area to go into action. And of course, for good or bad, truth or a lie, Rockwell is available to deal with Mormons and Gentiles that Brigham Young and the apostles of the church have problems with. Sure enough, when Mormon brothers Kenneth and Alexander McRae are sought on charges of robbing an emigrant passing through the region and are gunned down while resisting arrest by a posse, the deaths are said to be the result of a buckshot encounter sent the men's way by Rockwell's double-barreled shotgun. But for every tale of Rockwell being a fiendish killer, there are just as many tales, backed up by both Gentile and Mormon witnesses of the man's abilities and lawful ways like when, at the auspices of Brigham Young, the lawman helps Frank Karrick, a Gentile freighter that hauls supplies back and forth between Sacramento, California and Salt Lake City, Utah recover over $4,000 in stock and goods, with the culprits arrested, not shot (for catching the culprits and getting the stolen goods back, Karrick will pay Rockwell $500, and several weeks later, send from Sacramento the gifts of a fine new saddle and a gallon demijohn of the California capital's best whiskey. One killing that Rockwell does take responsibility for takes place in January of 1862, when Rockwell is called upon to find 27-year-old outlaw Lot Huntington, and two of his associates, Moroni Clawson and John P. Smith, men wanted on assault charges against the territory's new governor, John W. Dawson, an $800 theft from Overland Mail Company, and for taking an outstanding Zion mount known as Brown Sal. Located at a stagecoach station run by H. J. Faust, Rockwell asks Huntington three times to surrender (a friend of Lot's father, Rockwell has known the boy, one of Brigham Young's nephews since childhood) and doesn't fire on the outlaw until Lot turns on the lawman with a .44 revolver. Quicker to aim and fire, the thief goes down with multiple bullets in his belly and bleeds out in four minutes (his friends, Smith and Clawson, surrender, but turned over to the Salt Lake City authorities, they are both shot to death while trying to escape, which none of the citizens of Salt Lake City buy, figuring the real story has the men being either murdered by Rockwell, or taken down by Wild Bill Hickman, who had been crippled by Huntington when the two men get into a gunfight on Christmas Day of 1859. Challenged many times over the years by a gunman trying to make a name for himself by testing Rockwell and his talisman hair, one encounter with an outlaw is typical of Rockwell ... caught off guard by a gunman with pistol already drawn, the Mormon Samson laughs in the man's face while telling him that the ball-and-cap weapon being pointed his way won't work because the gun's primer has fallen off, checking the truth of the statement, the shootist takes a split second to glance down at his weapon, just enough time for the lying, but calm Rockwell, to pull his revolver and send a killing round into his foe's chest.
Faust Station
Huntington's Death
Despite the violent intensity of the American Civil War, the West's Indian problems do not dissipate with the fighting that takes place back East. In 1862, with money coming in from being a mail contractor on five routes though Utah, and the lucre that comes from running successful ranching and hotel enterprises, Rockwell is one of the richest Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley (when Brigham Young is arrested in 1863 for violations of the nation's anti-polygamy laws, Rockwell is one of four men that put up $5,500 to bond the Mormon leader out of jail), wealth he walks away from when he is asked to help guide (again at $5 a day and keep) the California Volunteers of Colonel Patrick E. Conner against the Shoshone Indians making life hell for northern Utah Mormons and Gentile emigrants moving over the main trails heading to California. In the closing days of January 1863, Rockwell and company move through brutal winter conditions and surprise a band of Shoshones led by Chief Bear Hunter that are camped near the confluence of Bear River and Battle Creek in what will one day become Franklin County, Idaho. The resultant cultural clash between Californians, Mormons, and Native Americans will be known as the Bear River Massacre, a bloodbath Indian disaster that sees Bear Hunter killed (along with over two hundred members of his tribe), eighty of he band go missing (thought to have drowned trying to escape soldiers by jumping into the river), 175 horses are captured, 70 lodges are destroyed, 1,000 bushels wheat change hands, and a large haul of powder and bullets are confiscated by Conner's command (along with a host of items taken from emigrants and settlers at a cost of only 14 dead soldiers, 49 wounded men, and 79 troopers incapacitated with frozen feet). Rockwell's duties not over with the winning of the battle, the scout orchestrates the withdrawal of Conner's freezing command back to Salt Lake City (Conner will later be quoted as saying that Rockwell saved his command) by arranging for wagon teams and sleds to haul the wounded and dead out of the area. Later, in April of 1863, Conner forces the Shosone into a peace conference after besting a band of warriors at Spanish Fork Canyon, again aided by the scouting abilities of his new Mormon friend, Rockwell.
Conner
Massacre
Fifty years old in 1863, when his wife states her fright at Utah's continuing issues with rogue Indian warriors, Rockwell moves his wife and family into Salt Lake City and starts making plans to moving his ranching efforts to a piece of real estate in Skull Valley to the west of Sheeprock Mountain along Government Creek where he intends to lead a peaceful and quiet life during his final years. Such will not be the case however. As with many visitors to Salt Lake City, journalist Fitz Hugh Ludlow, a roving journalist for The Atlantic Monthly, shows up in the Mormon capital looking for a story, and taken in by Rockwell, finds it discussing the life of the Mormon mountain man ... and once more, lies are mixed with the truth in telling Rockwell's tale (a total gentleman during the writer's visit, Rockwell allows Ludlow to stay at his home, break bread with his family and takes the man on a tour of Salt Lake City and the valley where it sits, for which he is rewarded by being called a "heaven-elected assassin of Mormonism" and s butcher "by divine right." Despite the invectives sent his way, instead of looking for people to murder (including Ludlow), Rockwell spends his time running his businesses, making his wife happy in their new home, and delighting in in the love of his children (eight-year-old Mary and six-year-old Sarah love unbraiding their father's long hair and combing his locks). Sadly, in 1866, after giving birth to a sixth boy, Joseph Neff Rockwell, Mary Ann weakens and her heart gives out on September 28 (in October, the infant also passes away). In mourning for his losses, Rockwell is still the bogeyman to blame when there is a killing, and his name is bandied about when Dr. John King Robinson, a Gentile involved in a property dispute with Brigham Young is found murdered steps from his Salt Lake City home, and his name is mentioned in connection with a black man named Thomas Colbourn having his throat cut for having sexual relations with a white Mormon woman (neither death is ever settled in a court of law). At the end of the year, Rockwell closes down his Point of the Mountain station and moves the operation into Salt Lake City.
Ludlow
Never a dull moment for the Mormon Samson, as the final years of the 1860s come to a close, Rockwell is chosen to serve as the one-day bailiff for Judge J. F. Kinney, has one of his prized hogs sold by a Salt Lake City butcher shop for $500, invites visiting officials Schuyler Colfax (soon to be the vice president of the United States, Illinois Lt. Governor William Bross, newspaper editor Samuel Bowles, and writer Albert Richardson, to his home for strawberry and cream (thinking Richardson is Ludlow, he also contemplates vanishing the misidentified wordsmith), is asked to help freighter Alexander Toponce recover eighteen head of oxen that have gone missing in the mountains north of Salt Lake City, prospects for gold near South Pass, Wyoming (in the company of Wild Bill Hickman), is hired to retrieve a string of stolen horses (the thieves are caught and the horses recovered before Rockwell can make his way into the mountains), recovers $40,000 stolen from an Overland stagecoach robbed near his Government Creek Ranch (the captured crook is able to escape when his guard, Rockwell's foreman, Hal Shurtliff falls asleep while watching the culprit, and sure enough, the lawman get blamed for not handling the job himself, and gossip arises that Rockwell was behind the robbery the beginning), with the help of Deputy Sheriff Henry Heath he captures eighteen-year-old killer Chauncey W. Millard (brought to justice, Millard will sell his body to a Provo surgeon for a pound of candy, which the killer enjoys while awaiting his execution by firing squad), helps a local rancher recover ten rustled horses (and arrests the two hired hands that took them), and has two of his horses win prizes at the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society exhibit of 1869. More of the same at first, in the spring of 1870, Rockwell leads one of the three posses that bring Nevada badman Albert H. Haws to justice for the killing of Deputy Marshal William B. Storey (in the manhunt that ends with Haws being shot to death, two posse members will be killed, and a third, wounded), while also taking the time to beat the snot out of a bartender that has made the mistake of insulting him (saloon also maimed, Rockwell is made to pay a $500 "peace" bond to the disgruntled bartender), and finds silver pay dirt in the Ophir Mining District at a site called the Rockwell Lode owned by the lawman's Rockwell Mining Company.
Colfax
In between escorting Brigham Young to court (where the Mormon leader is facing polygamy charges and being an accessory to murder ... a Supreme Court ruling will cause all charges to be dropped against Young) and taking the Treasury Department to court over $1,310.63 for unpaid services rendered to Utah's postal system (and he collects all of the money owed, including the sixty-three cents), Rockwell takes a moment for himself to marry for the third, and last time, taking his former housekeeper, thirty-four-year-old Christine Olsen, as his bride (Rockwell is fifty-nine at the time ... the marriage will result in four more children being born into Rockwell's family, though some die in infancy, in all, there will be seventeen Rockwell rug-rats, eleven of whom will survive into the next century). Other than occasionally still serving as Brigham Young's bodyguard at special events, Rockwell's last job for the Mormon Church takes place in 1873, when the outdoorsman is sent to central Utah region of Fish Lake to help start the community of Cedar Grove. In less than a month, a thriving new village is up and running and Rockwell rides back to Salt Lake City. 1873 will also be the year of the frontiersman's last violent confrontation, when he faces off with a desperado named Loren Dibble, lets the outlaw empty two guns at him without moving, then empties his own revolvers at Dibble feet, making the man dance to keep from being hit by a bullet, then walks forward and shakes the men like he is a rag doll before depositing him on his seat in the street (the killer not killing because Dibble is the son of one of Joseph Smith's multiple wives). Bones beginning to creak, in the last three years of his life Rockwell can either be found at his Government Creek Ranch, with his wife Christine at the couple's Second West Street home in Salt Lake City, in a quiet corner of one of his favorite saloons, or at the small office he keeps for himself at the town's Colorado Stables. Old animosities let loose with the death of Brigham Young in Salt Lake City on August 29, 1877 at the age of 76, Rockwell, along with Sylvanus Collett, is indicted by a grand jury and arrested for the murder of the Aiken party. Trial set for the following year, Rockwell is released on bond when three friends put up the court cost of $15,000 (when asked about his upcoming trial, the frontiersman will use his favorite exclamation, just repeating over and over the word "Wheat," the Mormon's shorthand for everything will eventually be fine ... wheat indeed!). Free for the moment, Rockwell is able to score tickets for the final night, Saturday, 6/8/1878, of thespian Denman Thompson's turn in the starring role of the play, Joshua Whitecomb.
Old Man
Taking his daughter Mary out for the evening, the two enjoy the play, then Rockwell takes his daughter home before retiring to a local tavern. Enjoying a few drinks, Rockwell finishes drinking and walks three blocks to his office at the Colorado Stables in the early morning hours of the next day, where he flops down and sleeps deeply for several hours. Waking, the scout complains about being cold and then is struck by waves of nausea and violent vomiting. Insisting he is fine and needs to get up to take care of business, Rockwell pulls on his boots and then falls backwards, unconscious on his bed. Doctor called and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation attempted, Rockwell passes away from natural causes at the age of 64 on the afternoon of June 9, 1878. Thought to be an indestructible force of nature (whether the legend is true or not, the reality is that just as Joseph Smith had prophesized so long ago, with his locks long, despite Rockwell's penchant for violence, the man is never harmed by a bullet or blade), within an hour of the man's death, hundreds of people gather at Colorado Stables to verify the Mormon avenger is really gone (and with the news, a new round of smears come out about him in regional newspapers). On Wednesday, June 12th, Rockwell's funeral takes place before almost a thousand mourners at the assembly hall of Salt Lake City's Fourth Ward (it is rumored that his wife can't find a single set of clothing to bury her husband in that doesn't contain at least one bullet hole in them). At the funeral, Rockwell's eulogy will be given by future church president and Joseph Smith's nephew, apostle Joseph F. Smith, who states, "They say he was a murderer, if he was, he was the friend of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and he was faithful to them, and to his covenants, and he has gone to Heaven and apostates can go to Hell ... Porter Rockwell was yesterday afternoon ushered into Heaven clothed with immortality and eternal life, and crowned with all glory which belongs to a departed saint. He has his little faults, but Porter's life on earth, taken altogether, was one worthy of example, and reflected honor upon the church. Through all his trials, he never once forgot his obligations to his brethren and his God," his tombstone will read.
Final Resting Place
Tombstone
Statue
Carradine
Coburn
Saint, demon, or an individual somewhere in-between, the adventure full and often misunderstood life of Orrin Porter Rockwell begins in Massachusetts on June 28, 1813.
Painting
Statue
The Real McCoy
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