Tough As Porter Rockwell

My father claimed that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormons, had been a distant relative on his father's side of the family. My aunt has backed up this assertion, saying that our line had remained in Maine, while the prophet's clan had drifted from the mountains in Vermont to the religiously burned-over lands of Western New York. After announcing his discovery of the golden tablets of the Moroni, Joseph Smith had formed the Latter Day Saints. Their belief in polygamy had angered more conservative religionists and the Mormons had been driven by angry mobs, but they hadn't gone without a fight and the most infamous of their protector had been Orrin Porter Rockwell.

The young convert had served as bodyguard to the Prophet, who had said to Porter at a Christmas party. "I prophesy, in the name of the Lord, that you — Orrin Porter Rockwell — so long as ye shall remain loyal and true to thy faith, need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee."

According to Wikipedia the Mormon Samson had earned a bloodthirsty reputation with an attempted assassination of Lilburn Boggs, the former governor of Missouri, who had signed Executive Order 44 on October 27, 1838 known as the "Extermination Order" evicting Mormons from Missouri by violent and deadly means. Old Port had defended his murdering ways by saying, "I never shot at anybody, if I shoot they get shot!... He's still alive, ain't he?" His former home was the site of the Utah State Prison. He was no Taggard Romney.