One of the most callous individuals featured in the book is William Cameron Stewart, who was originally from the Spean Bridge area of Lochaber. He was born around 1827 and, in his early years, worked on a farm and was something of a handyman before making his way to the central belt where he converted to Mormonism even before heading to the shores of the New World in 1853 making his way to the Mormon utopian state of Utah.
If America was finding it difficult to tolerate Catholics and the Quakers, the Baptists and the Methodists, it was convulsed with a frenzied hostility when a new and ‘blasphemous’ doctrine emerged in its own back yard attracting thousands of followers. The messages preached by the leaders of the Church of the Latterday Saints, or Mormons, were seen as menacing and counter to traditional American values, such as the practice of polygamy among Mormon men.
One man attracted to the new movement was Scot William Stewart and he was going enact savage revenge for the perceived intolerance of the Mormon faith.