This unease reached a bursting point when Thomas B. Marsh and Orson Hyde of the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles arrived in Richmond and reported that the Danites had invaded Daviess County and sacked the county seat of Gallatin.
Arthur Conan Doyle and other authors had also popularized the idea of blood-thirsty Danites riding rough-shod through Utah in various fictional works.
In 1838, the Whitmer family became estranged from Joseph Smith Jr. during a leadership struggle in Far West, Missouri, and all were excommunicated along with other dissenters and fled Caldwell County after receiving an ultimatum from the Danites.
Sampson Avard, the leader of a band of Mormon vigilantes called the Danites, which existed in Missouri during the period of the 1838 Mormon War.
She was the first to bring to England an entire American company with an American play, Joaquin Miller's The Danites.