I was born in Richland County Ohio on the 24th day of January 1829. My Father, Jacob Myers and my Mother Sarah Coleman Myers embraced the gospel about the year 1834 and moved to Missouri in 1836. They settled in the eastern part of Caldwell County near Shoal Creek, about 16 miles from Far West. He built a grist mill for Mr. Haun which afterwards was the scene of the massacre. I was baptized in the summer of 1837 when in my ninth year. In 1838 when the war broke out against the Saints, my brother Jacob Myers, Jr., was living near the mill and had been assisting in running it. My brother-in-law, James Houston, who was blacksmith built and owned the shop in which the massacre occurred. On the 30th of October 1838 most of the brethren [sic] living in the vicinity of Haun's Mill assembled there, among whom were my father and my brother George. My father with my brother-in-law accompanying him started for home before the mob came upon them at the mill. My brother-in-law's wife was at father's home. About dark word came to us that the mobbers were coming and that men, women and children had better hid[e]in the woods as they intended to kill all they could find. The men were told to hide by themselves. There were three families at father's house. After the men were gone the women took the children, and went about a mile and one-half to the woods. After the children were asleep and lights put out my mother put on a man's coat and stood guard until one or two o'clock, when word came to us they had had a battle at the mill and two of my brothers were wounded.
    We all then went home and found father there. Mother told him [page 2] he had better stay with the children and she would go to the mill to see to my wounded brothers. I clung to my mother and wanted to go with her to which she consented. My brother George's wife also went with us. We lived three miles from the mill. My brother George lived one and a quarter miles from the mill. When we came to his house we found him lying on the bed. When Mother saw him she exclaimed: "Oh! Lord have mercy on my boy." He replied: "Don't fret Mother, I shall not die." He was very weak from the loss of blood. I will here relate the manner of his escape in his own words as he told us after he was better. "Our guns were in the blacksmith shop when the Mob came unexpectedly upon us. 0rders were given to run to the shop. The mob formed a half circle on the north side of, the shop, extending partly across the east and west ends so as to cover all retreat from the shop. They commenced firing before we could escape with our arms. I looked for a chance to run out but as soon as I arose to run one fellow behind a tree leveled, his gun at me and I had to drop down again. One of the brethren [sic] by my side had just loaded his gun when he fell, mortally wounded. I seized his gun and raised my hat so that the mobber could see it immediately when he came around the tree so I could see him level his gun again at me, but I was too quick for him for when I fired he clasped his arms around the tree and slid to the ground. I now thought it was my time to escape. I made two or three jumps from the door when a bullet struck me a little below the right shoulder blade and lodged against the skin near the pit of my stomach. I fell to the ground, Mother, if ever a boy prayed I did at this time. I thought it would do me no good to lie there so I arose and ran up the hill, the bullets whistling by me all the time. When I came to the fence and was climbing [page 3] over it, a ball passed through my shirt collar. I walked as far as I could but soon became so weak from loss of blood that I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl the rest of the way home. I was very thirsty, and finding no one at home, crawled to the spring and drank freely. When I got back to the house I became very sick and vomited a large quantity of blood. Then I felt more easy. I suffered terribly before this.”
    After Mother dressed George's wounds we went on to the mill where we arrived just at the break of day. I shall never forget the awful scene that met our eyes. When we first arrived at Haun's Mill the first scene that presented itself, in his dooryard, was the remains of Father York and McBride and others covered with sheets. We went down the hill to cross the mil1 dam and there stood a boy over a pool of blood. He said: “Mother Myers this is the blood of my poor father." This, with the groans of the wounded, which we could distinctly hear, affected Mother so that she was unable to make any reply to the boy. We made our way to brother Jacob's house and found him with his left leg broken by a bullet about half way between his knee and ankle and a flesh wound in his thigh. After he fell to the ground the mobber saw him sitting there holding his leg and one of them ran up to him with a corn cutter to kill him. As he raised his arm to strike, another one of the mob called out to him and told him if he touched my brother he would shoot him. Running up to them he said my brother was a damned fine man for he had ground many a grist for him. After the mob had ceased firing my brother's wife and her sister saw him sitting where he had fallen. They went out and asked two of the mobbers [page 4] to carry him into his house. The mobbers asked them if there were any Mormans [sic] in the house. They said there were not. They told the women that they would throw them into the millpond if they lied to them. They then took him up and carried him into his house and threw him on the bed, and hurried out of doors as though they expected to be shot the next moment. From my brother's house we went to the blacksmith shop where we beheld a most shocking sight. There lay the dead, the dying and the wounded, weltering in their blood where they fell. A young man, whose name was Simon Cox who lived with my Father, lay there with four bullets, having passed through his body the kidneys. He was still alive. He said to Mother: "All I want is a bowl of sweet milk and a feather bed to lie on.” He had just got a pair of new boots a few days before and he told Mother how they dragged him about the shop to get them off. He told us to be faithful and said to me: "Be a good girl and obey your parents." He died in the afternoon about twenty-four hours after he was shot.
    After we came back to my brother's house my Father, David Evans and Joseph Young, with one or two more came and gathered up the dead and carried them to my brother's place, put the bodies a wide board, and slid them off feet foremost into a well which he had been digging but had not yet come to water. Everytime they brought one and slid him in I screamed and cried. It was such an awful sight to see them piled in the bottom in all shapes. After the dead were buried (which was done in a great hurry), Father and the brethern went away and secreted themselves for fear the mobbers would return. The mobbers returned, I do not [page 5] remember how soon, camping there about 20 days during which time they killed cattle and hogs to live on. They also took six or eight stands of bees belonging to Father which were at the mill. During the time they camped there they were very civil to the women folks. They chopped wood and brought water for my brother's folks. They wanted to come in the house and sit around the fire but Mother would not allow them to do so. In the following spring my brothers had so far recovered as to be able to go on board a steamer on the Missouri River and return to Ohio where Jacob had to have his leg amputated above the knee. George never became a sound man again. Father moved his family to Illinois in the spring of 1839 and settled near Payson, Adams County, and continued to live in that region till the exodus from Nauvoo.