Deseret News reports that Governer John W. Dawson hurriedly left Salt Lake City yesterday at 2 p.m. after "offering a gross insult to a respectable lady of this city." News claims governor hired as his bodyguards Lot Huntington, Jason Luce, William Luce, and Moroni Clawson to protect against "his being killed or becoming qualified for the office of chamberlain [castrated eunuch] in the king's palace." Although it is evening newspaper, Deseret News does not report what happened to Dawson the previous night at Ephraim Hank's coach station at Mountain Dell. The so-called bodyguards beat Dawson "nearly to death" and then stripped him of his clothes and valuables. governor recovers well enough to write the News on 7. Jan.: "Any report stating that I hired these desperadoes to escort me over the mountains, is also untrue." Dawson says he asked for the protection of Ephraim Hanks, who instead sent the others to escort the governor out of the territory. Dawson continues his journey back to his home in Indiana, where he dies of natural causes sixteen years later. His official biography claims he never fully recovers from the beating in Utah.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]
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