Orrin Porter Rockwell
“But he was that most terrible instrument that can be handled by fanaticism; a powerful physical nature welded to a mind of very narrow perceptions, intense convictions, and changeless tenacity. In his build he was a gladiator; in his humor a Yankee lumberman; in his memory a Bourbon; in his vengeance an Indian. A strange mixture, only to be found on the American Continent.”
The Mormon Church's Angel of Death, Orrin Porter Rockwell, was what you'd get if you combined Liver-Eating Johnson, Grigory Rasputin, John the Baptist, and an Angle Grinder, then baptized that person Mormon and made him the player-character in a Red Dead Redemption game. A deputy US Marshal, religious enforcer, bodyguard, outlaw, hotel owner, brewer, and hardcore gunslinger, Rockwell is one of the most controversial and wildly-debated historical figures in the Wild West, and most people's opinion on where this dude falls in the spectrum between "psychotic religious zealot who choked out nonbelievers in their sleep and would just as soon beat you to death with your own spine as suffer your heathen idiocy" and "widley-misunderstood gentle giant who projected fearsomeness and intimidation primarily as a way of heroically guarding and protecting a ragtag band of noble pilgrims from the relentless unjust religious persecution that tormented them relentlessly" more or less tracks to whether or not they own a pair of Mormon underwear and believe that the New Jerusalem from the Old Testament’s Book of Ezekiel is going to be established West of the Mississippi. For what it's worth (and of course nobody asked my opinion), I think there's a convincing argument to be made that whether you think this guy was a Mormon Paladin with a Skill Focus in Intimidation or the Spanish Inquisition packing a sawn-off twelve-gauge both of those depictions can be perceived as almost equally badass and would be worthy of inclusion on the site. So then, here we go.
Orrin Porter Rockwell, "The Avenging Angel of Mormondom", was born June 28, 1813, in Belcher, Massachusetts. His family moved to upstate New York when he was still young, and young Porter grew up and eventually befriended one of the other kids in his neighborhood, a slightly older boy named Joseph Smith. The two were close, and then, when Rockwell was sixteen, Smith came to Rockwell with some news that you really don't hear every day – Smith said that he had received a revelation from God, he'd transcribed the teachings of God into the Book of Mormon, and he'd created a new religion – the Mormon Church. Rockwell, by all accounts, was on board from the very beginning – like, super on board. Rockwell was baptized an O.G. Mormon just a few days after the official creation of the church, swore to uphold this new faith and defend it against its enemies, and then started picking berries and chopping wood from the forests by his house and selling it to raise money to help Joseph Smith get the Book of Mormon published. Rockwell would be fiercely-devout and loyal to the Church from this point on, with, as one historian put it, three important differences – he didn't practice polygamy, he never tithed his income, and he never, ever stopped drinking.
The early days of Mormonism were pretty wild, and Porter Rockwell's adventures on the American frontier, coupled with his unrelenting and unflinchingly-hardcore demeanor forged this guy into a man who – if these pictures haven't already tipped you off – you REALLY didn't want to try and screw around with. He was tall, powerful, with a raging temper and a lightning-quick pistol draw, who was almost never seen without his Colt Navy revolvers and a sawn-off Doom II super shotgun. A true gunfighter who has more kills to his name than Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson combined, Rockwell was eagle-eyed, legendarily-accurate, and had a fervent conviction that no bullet or blade on earth was capable of harming him… and, to his credit, none ever did. He was untouched by bullets for his entire gunslinging career, including instances where guys would unload on him in saloons or city streets and every round in the chamber would sail wide or punch a hole in his jacket or hat or something. This guy was like that scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules Winnfield was like what happened here was a fucking miracle, except Porter Rockwell wasn't incredulous or surprised, or awakened by any of his near-death experiences. This guy freakin' expected them, because he was anointed by God and no mortal power on Earth could stop him. He was the Sword of the Prophet, and anyone who crossed him was going to wish they were listening to that passage from Ezekiel Chapter 25 because that was probably a bit more eloquent than whatever Porter Rockwell was gonna say to you.
Ok, so like I said, the early days of the Mormon Church were a bit… uh… chaotic. I know like you could make a case that that musical by the South Park guys constitutes religious persecution or whatever, but back in the 1830s the American people were WAY less down with folks creating their own religions, and Joseph Smith's group of pilgrims not only got bounced from a number of different settlements for building temples and trying to convince the locals that you need to learn a secret handshake if you want to get into heaven, but they encountered outright violence from groups that were worried about Smith and his crew wanting to take over the world or whatever. Like, for instance, in 1838 the governor of Missouri wrote an official state order declaring that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace", and the standing order to Kill All Mormons resulted in a series of gunfights known as The Mormon War that killed 22 people over the next couple months. Weirdly, the law wasn't actually even taken off the books in Missouri until around the time of the Nixon Administration.
So, the Mormons moved from New York, to Ohio, to Missouri, and then to Illinois. And, every step of the way, they had this dude scouting the roads, hunting for food, blazing trails, and watching their backs against everything from bears and bandits to Apache and local militias:
"I never killed anyone who didn't need killing." - Orrin Porter Rockwell, spoken to a gubernatorial candidate at a campaign rally once.
Well, eventually that governor who had the "Kill All Mormons" order ended up catching a couple bullets to the abdomen, and naturally Porter Rockwell was a prime suspect, because it was kind of this guy’s jam to wreak holy vengeance on anyone who threatened his people. Rockwell, for his part, simply told the prosecutors “I’ve never shot AT anybody. If I shoot, they get shot," and then proceeded to cite the fact that the Governor survived the attack as proof enough that Rockwell hadn't been involved in it. The cops threw him in a cell anyways, and then left him to rot in a dungeon for nine months with no bed, no light, and very limited food. Rockwell never broke, never confessed, and never complained. He just sucked it up, tried to escape a couple times, and then eventually walked out of there when they finally conceded that they didn't have anything on him. Rockwell left prison, dehydrated, exhausted, emaciated, and weak from months in the hole, then proceeded to walk a couple hundred miles through uncharted bandit and creature-infested snow-covered wilderness to link back up with his old posse. He walked from Missouri to Illinois, through dense forest and knee-deep snow, crashed Joseph Smith's Christmas Party unannounced, almost got thrown out because he looked like a deranged madman or a wild animal, and then finally reconnected with his old friend. That night, at the party, Joseph Smith made a personal prophecy for Porter – don't cut your hair, and no bullet or blade can ever harm you. So he didn't, and, like I said, it worked. Rockwell just did the Samson thing from that point on, with one notable and badass exception – when Joseph Smith's sister-in-law caught Typhoid Fever and lost all her hair, Porter Rockwell cut his own hair to make into a wig for her. Which is just awesome.
I heard an argument that Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill kept their hair long because of Porter Rockwell, and, while that may seem a bit of a stretch, it's also not far from the realm of possibility, because from the 1850s onward Rockwell became basically a living legend of the Wild West, as famous as any lawman or outlaw from the time. He traveled with the Mormons from Illinois to Utah to help them establish Salt Lake City, working as the one-man security force for Joseph Smith and then, later, Brigham Young’s personal bodyguard. He would scout and do the Oregon Trail thing, he kept the peace in the city, he negotiated deals with local Native American tribes, hunted buffalo, served as Salt Lake City's police chief, and hunted down people who, in his words, “needed killing”. Like, in 1844 Joseph Smith was arrested and brought to the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where Smith – who at the time was running for President and was the sitting Mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois – was attacked by a mob of angry villagers and shot to death. There's a great tale that one time Porter Rockwell was walking through the forest when, out of nowhere, one of the organizers of that mob rode up to Rockwell on a horse. Rockwell was like, "I know you. You're one of the guys who killed Joseph Smith," then drew his gun, fired, killed the guy, and kept walking. He didn't even take the horse! I don't know how true that story is, but the fact that, based on what we know of the guy, it COULD be true, and that tells you a lot about how badass this freaking guy must have been.
As deputy sheriff of Salt Lake City, Rockwell was respected and feared by both the Mormons and their enemies. And, sure, sometimes an occasional gunslinger would stop by trying to make a name for themselves by smoking Rockwell – like, in one instance, some dude rode out from California and got the drop on Rockwell, but Rockwell looked at the guy's cap-and-ball revolver, told him that the cap had slipped off (the old-school version of telling a guy that his safety is still on or that his fly is open) and then, when the guy looked down, Rockwell drew, fired, and killed the guy before the dude could even flinch. Because when you’re a guy like Porter Rockwell, trouble has a way of catching up to you, and that worked out just fine because this guy loved to be in the middle of the action. Like in 1857, when the U.S. Army came in to fight a war against the Mormons (yes, this really happened), Rockwell mobilized the town militia and ran a campaign against the Army that wasn't designed to kill soldiers, but just to derail the invasion by pulling apart wheelpins, scattering horses, and delaying their approach. Of course, when four Army guys showed up in SLC to set up a brothel and gambling hall in preparation for the Army, those guys all turned up dead in the desert a couple days later with several bullet holes scattered around their person, but you can't prove Rockwell had anything to do with that (even though he probably/totally did) and nothing bad every happened to him because of it.
Rockwell’s job as a Wild West lawman in a hardcore frontier town got him into plenty dangerous situations as well, like in 1862 when he got into a running gunfight with a guy named Lot Huntington who was awanted for being a horse thief and also for beating the shit out of the Governor of Utah. Huntington and two of his companions ended up dead, and Porter didn't have a scratch on him. Another time he tracked a group of horse thieves that, unfortunately for him, included Brigham Young's own nephew, but Rockwell's dedication to his job and the Church superseded any personal stuff, and when those thieves opened fire Rockwell single handedly smoked all of them.
When he wasn't running his hotel and brewery (the Mormons let him run the brewery even though it technically wasn't allowed, because, hey, who was gonna tell him no?), Rockwell enjoyed horsing around with the kids of the town – he built this little rickshaw thing and would load it up with kids then run screaming down the streets pulling the kids along behind him – and eventually he became so renowned for being awesome that when Richard Francis Burton came from the UK to the American Southwest he made a point of stopping by to have a drink with the guy and swap badass old dude war stories. Now that would have been a party worth attending.
Despite being in dozens of gunfights and probably dozens more fist- and knife-fights over 40+ years of hard Wild West living, Orrin Porter Rockwell died of a heart attack in his home on June 9, 1878, at the age of 64. When his daughter went to Rockwell's closet to find a suit for him to be buried in, she struggled to find any that didn't have bullet holes in them.
"Porter Rockwell was yesterday afternoon ushered into Heaven clothed with immortality and eternal life, and crowned with all glory which belongs to a departed saint. He has his little faults, but Porter's life on earth, taken altogether, was one worthy of example, and reflected honor upon the church. Through all his trials, he never once forgot his obligations to his brethren and his God." - Joseph Smith Jr., at Rockwell’s funeral
Links:
Books:
Gordon, Kathryn Jenkins. Butch Cassidy and Other Mormon Outlaws of the Old West. United States: Covenant Communications, Incorporated, 2013.
Krakauer, Jon. Under the Banner of Heaven. United States: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004.
Parshall, Ardis E.., Reeve, W. Paul. Mormonism. United States: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Thrapp, Dan L.. Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography. University of Nebraska Press, 1991.