The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1883-11-01
NINETEEN MURDERs.
THE TERRIBLE RECORD GIVEN OF
BRIGHAM YoUNG's "AyENGING
ANGELS"

The death Of Bill Hickman, one
of the .ayenging angels" of Dan
ties, whom the church authorities,
having used for deeds of blood and
atrocity for many years, found it
convenient to slight a4d ignore,
was announced recently in Denver,
Col, and a reporter visited George
C. Bates, ex-Bnited States district
attorney, Of Utah, to whom Hickman
made confession Of his evil deeds
few years ago. and asked him for
some particulars in regard to the
avenging angels life.
so old Bill Hickman is dead, at
last" said the reporter.
"Yes,'' Mr.. Bates replied, ..and
no man in this country ever left
darker biography for cold-blooded
murders than this same Bill Hick-
man. During the last years Of his
life having turned states evidence
against Brigham Young, he was as
great a TERROR to the Norman church
and Norman people as he had hith-
erto been to the gentiles.p
..He made confession to you, I
understand, about the time Of the
trial of Brigham Young and his,
confederates of the murder Of one
Sprague."
"He made confession to me,
and it was so terrible in its nature
that I shuddered as the words came
from his lips. He not only confess
ed to the murder Of Sprague, but.
gave me some particulars Of nine
teen other murders in which he had
been engaged. In regard to the
murder Of Sprague he gave me min
ute particulars. Sprague, he said,
was engaged as spy in carrying
information to the United States
troops who were then en-route to
Utah, For this Rrighesn.'
Young determined to have him cap.
tured and put TO DEATH and Hick-
man was detailed with a mounted
party of Mermons, and finally cap
tured him and started with him to
Salt Lake. While on the way Joe
Young came with orders from his
father not to bring him in, but to
kill him in the mountains, where
his body never could be found and
where there could be no witnesses.
Accordingly, when night came, and
Sprague was asleep, Hickman and
his two confederates took an axe,
and moving quietly to his side
crushed in his skull, and then took
from his person a belt containing
about nine hundred dollars in gold.
Removing the fire, they buried his
body under the ashes in the earth,
and they replaced the fire over the
grave SO that the place of his burial
could never be ascertained. I'M
mediately after they went to Salt
Lake. brigham called upon them
to turn over to him, as president,
the gold, and then and there began
the first feud between Hickman
and president Young. The latter
insisted and demand that all this
should be turned over to the
church, while Hickman claimed
that he had made large expenditures
in the expedition and had furnished
his own horses, SO that he ought to
DE permitted to keep at least part
Of it. Young, of course, conquered,
and took every dollar of the gold,
but the iron entered into Hiekman's
soul, and new it was that he antici-
pated his revenge by swearing
Young on the gallows for his mean
ness in not dividing the plunder
taken from the corpse of the MUIR
dered man.
'.Did Hickman ever repent of his
crimes?"
Fully, 1 think. The one aim of
his life, however, was to get even,