Maurine and I are currently on our second major film shoot for what we are calling the JSD—the Joseph Smith Documentary series. We’re creating upwards of 70 mini-documentaries covering the amazing, remarkable life of the Prophet Joseph. One evening ago, we were racing against the sunset to try to scout our location shoot at Hawn’s Mill. We missed the sunset, but we got something better.

Hawn’s Mill was a small Latter-day Saint settlement of Jacob Hawn and his family and about 75 other families living along the banks of Shoal Creek. It is estimated there were only perhaps a dozen houses, a blacksmith shop and a mill in this new settlement, so many of the new arrivals were still living out of wagon boxes and makeshift shelters. We’ve been to the site many times, but never so late in the evening and never just after sunset.

A peaceful field at Hawn’s Mill under a sky filled with soft pink clouds and the moonrise, symbolizes the serene evening before tragedy struck in 1838.

As we were racing down the quiet gravel road to beat the sun, I was attracted to the pink clouds and the moonrise in the east. I pulled over for but a moment to take a few shots. This was the field right next to where we think the settlement was located.

The peaceful banks of Shoal Creek, surrounded by towering trees, as it winds through Hawn’s Mill, the site of the tragic massacre of Latter-day Saints.
When we got to the parking area of the site, the sun had just barely set two minutes before we arrived. I have to admit I was initially disappointed. I ran along the edge of Shoal Creek, hoping to get the reflection of the sunset in the waters below me. It did not happen. I was somewhat disappointed again.

Then I thought of what happened here that Tuesday afternoon, just after 4:00 PM on October 30, 1838. Approximately 240 men, under the mob-mentality of Nehemiah Comstock, captain of the Livingston County militia, and Obadiah Jennings rode hard into the townsite and began to open fire upon the peaceful Latter-day Saints living there. Within a short time, 1,600 shots were fired and 18 were left massacred. With this on my mind, I came out of the woods and looked to the west and could hardly believe my eyes.

As the sun sets, a low-lying fog begins to spread across the fields of Hawn’s Mill, evoking the solemn memory of the 1838 massacre of 18 Latter-day Saints.
On the far end of the field a low-lying fog began moving slowly and steadily across the ground towards us. It was not unlike the feeling that Cecille B. DeMille created when the destroying angel came to take the firstborn of the Egyptians. We watched the fog for about a half-an-hour and it just became more and more unreal.

Dandelions in the foreground of a foggy field at Hawn’s Mill, where the massacre took place in 1838, capturing the delicate, somber beauty of the sacred site.
I ran out into the field and set the camera low to the ground and shot through some dandelions to capture the remaining light with the rolling fog. I shot with my big camera and with my iPhone—these pictures you’re seeing are all just from the iPhone.

The fence line at Hawn’s Mill with fog creeping across the field, a haunting scene reminding visitors of the massacre that occurred here in 1838.
As we got back to the car I looked again and saw the beautiful angle of the fence and even more fog moving in, I started to recall the names of those who had been killed that day: Thomas McBride, Levi Merrick, Charles Merrick (age 9), Elias Benner, Josiah Fuller, Benjamin Lewis, Alexander Campbell, Warren Smith, Sardius Smith (age 10), George Richards (age 15), William Napier, Austin Hammer, Simon Cox, Hiram Abbott, John York, John Byers, Simon Cox, Austin Hammer and John Lee.

We were blessed to have our own experience with nature and reverence the sacred names of the dead.

And now, you can picture this.