Haun's Mill massacre

Haun's Mill massacre
"Haun's Mill" by C.C.A. Christensen
Location	Fairview township in eastern Caldwell County, Missouri
Coordinates	39°40′13″N 93°50′21″W / 39.670241°N 93.839035°W / 39.670241; -93.839035Coordinates: 39°40′13″N 93°50′21″W / 39.670241°N 93.839035°W / 39.670241; -93.839035
Date	October 30, 1838 About 4 p.m.
Weapons	muskets and rifles
Deaths	17
Non-fatal injuries	14, plus 4 of the attackers
Perpetrators	~240 Livingston County Missouri Regulators militiamen and volunteers

The Haun's Mill massacre was an event in the history of the Latter Day Saint movement. It occurred on October 30, 1838, when a mob/militia unit from Livingston County, Missouri attacked a Mormon settlement in eastern Caldwell County, Missouri, after the Battle of Crooked River. By far the bloodiest event in the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, it has long been remembered by the members of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Haun's Mill was a mill established on the banks of Shoal Creek in Fairview Township, Caldwell County, Missouri in 1835–1836 by Jacob Haun (Hawn), who was not a Mormon. However, by October 1838 there were approximately 75 Mormon families living along the banks of Shoal Creek, about 30 of them in the immediate vicinity of Haun's Mill and the James Houston blacksmith shop.

The unauthorized militia involved in the massacre was led overall by Colonel Thomas Jennings, of Livingston County with William O. Jennings (Sheriff of Livingston County), Nehemiah Comstock, and William Gee as captains of the three companies. At the time of the attack the militia consisted of 240 men from Daviess, Livingston, Ray, Carroll, and Chariton counties, and included prominent men such as Major Daniel Ashby of the Missouri state legislature and Thomas R. Bryan, Clerk of Livingston County.

Although the massacre took place a few days after Missouri's governor, Lilburn Boggs, issued his infamous Missouri Executive Order 44 ("Extermination Order" of 1838 - rescinded June 25, 1976 by Governor Christopher S. Bond.), most historians have now concluded that the militia unit had neither the time nor the opportunity to have received news of the order.