Lilburn Boggs - Assassination Attempt

Assassination Attempt

Boggs, who was from Independence, moved to a house within the City of Zion plot in Independence after the Mormons were evicted from Missouri and after he left office. His home was three blocks east of Temple Lot. 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.

The crime was investigated by Sheriff J.H. Reynolds, who 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, then acting wholly upon the biased assumption of the storekeeper, determined that the man in question was Orrin Porter Rockwell, a close associate of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.. Reynolds eventually caught Orrin Porter Rockwell and held him for almost a year while he awaited trial. Reynolds could not produce any evidence that Rockwell was involved in any way and he was acquitted of all charges concerning Boggs, after prominent lawyer Alexander Doniphan agreed to defend him.

A few Mormons saw the assassination attempt positively: An anonymous contributor to The Wasp, a pro-Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois that was not supported by the LDS Church, 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". 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 publicized 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.