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

of the .ayenging angels of Dam
ties, whom the church authorities,
having used for deeds of blood and
atrocity for many years, found it
convenient to slight and ignore.
was announced recently in Denver,
COL, and a reporter visited George
C. Bates, ex-Enited 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, sand
no man in this country ever left a
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, be was as
great TERROR to the Norman church
and Norman people as he had hith-
erto been to the gentiies."
.sHe made a confession to you,
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 onlyc0 fess-
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 reason Rrigha1as
Young determined to have him cap
tured and put to death and Hick-
man was detailed with a mounted
| party of Mormons, 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 aseertained. In
mediately after they went to Salt
Lake. Brigham called upon them
to turn over to him, as president,
the gold, and tnen and there began
the first feud between Hickman
and president Young. The latter
insisted and demand that all this
I 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
! be permitted to keep at least part
of it. Young, of course, eonquTed.
and took every dollar of che gold,
but the iron entered into Hickman's
soul, and new it was that he antici-
| pated his revenga by swearing
Young on the gallows for his mean
ness in not dividing the plunder
taken from the corpse of the MUIR
Gered man.
"Did Hickman ever repent of his
crimes?"
Fully, think. The one aim Of
his life, however, was to get even,
as he said, with Brigham Young"