Attack on Durham House and Miraculous Protection of Elders

“On last Sunday night, after we had all gone to sleep—we learned later that the time was 11:45—I was awakened by a pounding on the front door. We are used to having messengers call at any hour of the night with telegrams regarding boats or emigrants, so I thought I would go and receive whoever it was. I went down and opened the door, and there stood a man. I asked him what he wanted, and he said he wanted to come in. I told him he could not come in, and asked him to go away. He insisted on coming in, and I stood there with a dumb bell which Elder Shurtliff had handed me, and remonstrated with him, but he wasn't to be dissuaded. He then began to throw large stones through the glass of the front door and the windows. I then went to the telephone to call the police, but found the wire had been cut. Just then Elder Shurtliff shouted that there was a man at the west side at the entrance to the meeting room. Arthur Gorton, who works in Durham House, had gone to the office to telephone to police headquarters, and when he saw the fellow approach the west windows he shouted to him to desist. So we three ran to that side of the house, Elder Shurtliff handing me a stove poker as we ran. Arthur Gorton stepped outside the door and I followed him, and Elder Shurtliff joined us. We began to admonish him again to go away, preferring to allow him to go even after the damage he had done, rather than have a row. He then turned on us and savagely attacked me with a piece of paving stone about sixteen inches long and six or seven inches wide, using it as a club. I warded off the first blow with my arm, but the second one struck me on the leg, cutting through my trousers and skin to the bone. I felt the contact of whatever it was that cut my leg, and I dropped the poker and grabbed the man around the neck. He was like a madman and dragged me about the place in a frenzy, but with the help of the other brethren I managed to hold him. He bit my wrist severely, but we held him struggling until a policeman, attracted by the noise, came and arrested him.”

— S. X. L., The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 73, No. 10