Updated June 5, 2003
In
the October 2001 magazine, American Heritage, Sally Denton wrote an in-depth
article of the circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadow Massacre. Some of
the following information was taken from that article.
"On
March 29, 1857, some 40 wagons carrying approximately 50 men, 40 women, and 50
children rolled out of Arkansas to start a new life in the West, a place called
California. The families were famous for their livestock, the best of which they
were bringing with them. They had a thousand prize beef cattle, dairy cows
providing fresh cream, butter and milk along the way, and a choice herd of
Kentucky racehorses. The company's thoroughbred mare, One Eyed Blaze, was
conspicuous. Another, a black satin stallion, as one account described him, was
worth almost a million dollars in today's market. Among the valuables hidden in
the floorboards of the wagons or in the ticking of the feather beds was as much
as $100,000 in gold coins and other currency. The group carried quality weapons,
mostly Kentucky muzzleloaders, and a stockpile of expensive ammunition and had
along three elegant carriages, emblazoned with stag's heads, for the women to
ride in.
Leading the train was Capt. Alexander Fancher, born the second of three
boys in 1812. His elder brother, John, had moved from Arkansas to California in
1856 and urged Alexander and the younger brother, Richard, to join him. While
Richard declined, Alexander eagerly prepared to take his wife, Eliza, and their
nine children, four boys and five girls ranging in age from 18 months to 19
years. John and Alexander Fancher persuaded their friend John T. Baker, the
52-year-old patriarch of a close-knit clan of around 25, to join them. Baker's
eldest son, Jack, was a superior horseman who would play a key role in leading
the train. Joining the Bakers and Fanchers would be the Dunlaps from Marion
County, Jesse and his wife Mary, their six children, and Lorenzo and Nancy and
their five children. One man, William Eaton, joined the group as a friend, with
no blood relations. Among the many mysteries of the event are the identities of
the dozens of others who left Arkansas with the Bakers, Franchers, and Dunlaps.
The estimated value of the wagon train was $70,000.00. A few on the train
were affluent, some even wealthy. There were livestock growers, drovers, and
traders. Others were cattlemen and thoroughbred horse-breeders from northwest
Arkansas. Most of the party was members of large families. Many were newly
married young couples; several had newborn infants and toddlers, and some wives
were pregnant, destined to give birth on the trail. There were also many
unmarried men and women in their twenties, mostly cousins and childhood friends.
Accompanying them for security reasons were at least 20 hired riflemen. Most of
those not related by blood were old friends and longtime neighbors."
(American Heritage Magazine)
When they reached the Salt Lake Valley they planned to rest their
livestock and stock up on provisions. The party arrived on August 3rd and set up
camp. Although the fields were obviously brimming with crops, the Mormons
refused to sell them any provisions.
There were two routes the wagon train could take upon leaving Salt Lake
City. One would take them south, the other west. "A Mormon emissary
approached them, and urged them to turn the train south, where there was good
pasture and food along the way. The train's leaders discussed the routes and
fell into a disagreement, after which the families in four wagons split off to
the west along the well-mapped northern route. The rest of the party pulled out
of Salt Lake City on August 5th. Eaton, the Francher's Arkansas friend, wrote a
cheerful letter to his wife in Indiana before leaving the Utah capital. It would
be the last communication from the group.
Seeing bountiful crops under cultivation, the emigrants sought to buy
supplies in the town of Lehi. Again, all the farmers refused to sell to them.
(Later evidence revealed that Church leaders had issued orders to Mormons living
in the small communities along the trail not to sell grain to the outfit.) They
were rebuffed again in the larger city of Provo. They passed through the
communities of Springville, Spanish Fork, Payson, Nephi, Buttermilk Fort, and
Fillmore, meeting the same refusal at every stop. Finally, at Corn Creek, some
Native Americans sold them feed for their cattle. They set off from Corn Creek
around August 25th and arrived two days later at the walled town of Parowan,
where they would meet up with the Spanish Trail." (Ibid)
Prelude:
During this same time period and by orders of James Buchanan, the
President of The United States, Gen. Albert S. Johnson's army was approaching
Utah from the East. The purpose of the army coming to Utah was to have Brigham
Young removed as governor of the territory and to install a new governor. There
had been serious problems with the Utah territorial political leaders for eight
years. There were numerous complaints of political abuse along with the
continuing depravations of polygamy. Complaints had been sent to Washington that
Church leaders were not following the laws of the United States government.
There was no separation of church and state in the Utah Territory. What Brigham
Young said and did was the law there. Brigham Young stated in a conference talk.
... "It is reported that I have said
that whosoever the President appoints, I am still governor. I repeat it, all
hell cannot remove me... [cries of Amen] ...
I am still your governor... [cries of Glory to God] ... I
will still rule this people until God himself permits another to take my
place."
Young declared martial law throughout the entire territory on September
4, 1857. The Church leaders took Johnson's army as a real threat. The Mormons
said that they were not going to be run out of their communities any more. They
were ready to stand up and fight. Other government officials had been sent to
Utah to serve in their political capacities to no avail. No one breathed without
Brigham Young's permission. He made all the decisions. Under the heavy hand of
Young's dictatorship, the Mormon people were held in an atmosphere of bondage
and fear.
"By the winter of 1856-1857, Young was tormented by defections in
his ranks. Disharmony among the Saints, questioning Church leadership, and lack
of faith was unacceptable. Brigham Young responded with his 'Mormon
Reformation'. He had his Church elders sweep through the communities of the
territory in an orgy of recrimination and rebaptism. He instructed, "back
sliders were to be hewn down." His enforcement army, called the 'Danites',
commonly referred to as the Avenging Angels, gained special notoriety."
(Ibid)
The doctrine of 'Blood Atonement' was also in effect during this time
(1856-1857). The Blood Atonement Doctrine created an atmosphere of hysterical
repentance. If any member of the Church had committed certain crimes that were
unforgivable, the only way to exercise repentance was to voluntarily shed your
own blood. The Saints were afraid because they knew that the Danites would see
to it that Young's orders would be carried out.
Prior to the arrival of the emigrants, the Mormon leaders had been
preaching the doctrine of Blood Atonement. John Doyle Lee, Brigham Young's
adopted son and longtime intimate friend and military commander of the Mormon
leader, stated:
"The
Mormons nearly all, and I think every one of them in Utah, previous to the
massacre at Mountain Meadows, believed in Blood Atonement. It was taught by the
leaders and believed by the people that the Priesthood were inspired and could
not give a wrong order. It was the belief of all that I ever heard talk of these
things, and I have been with the Church since the dark days in Jackson County,
that the authority that ordered a murder committed, was the only responsible
party, that the man who did the killing was only an instrument, working by
command of a superior, and hence could have no ill will against the person
killed, but was only acting by authority and committed no wrong. In other words,
if Brigham Young or any of his apostles, or any of the Priesthood, gave an order
to a man, the act was the act of the one giving the order, and the man doing the
act was only an instrument of the person commanding, just as much of an
instrument as the knife that was used to cut the throat of the victim. This
being the belief of all good Mormons it is easily understood why the orders of
the Priesthood were so blindly obeyed by the people."
(Confessions of John D. Lee, 1880
edition, pp. 279-280)
Another element that added to the hysteria at this time was a violent
sermon preached by Brigham Young in which he said, "There
is not a man or woman who violates the covenants made with their God in the
Mormon temple, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ
will never wipe that out. Your own blood must atone for it, and the judgments of
the almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man or woman will have to
atone for breaking their covenants." (Journal
of Discourses, vol. III p. 247)
The Oath of Vengeance against the American people and the
Government for the death of Joseph Smith was a very important part of the temple
ceremony for many years. Because of this temple ceremony vow of vengeance upon
this nation, a protest was filed in 1903 in the United States Senate to have
Reed Smoot, a Mormon Apostle who had been elected a Senator from Utah, removed
from office on the grounds that he had taken this treasonous oath in the
endowment ritual. It became the subject of a United States Senate Investigation.
The complete record of this episode was published in U.S. Senate Document 486
(59th Congress, 1st Session) Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and
Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the
Right of Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to hold his Seat. 4 vols.
[1 vol. index] Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906).
John Hawley made these statements in his testimony concerning the Smoot
investigation:
"I
went to Salt Lake City in 1856. They gave the endowments of washing and
anointing, and then there was an oath taken in Utah to avenge the blood of the
prophet... In taking the endowments at Salt Lake there was the oath required,
and the oath that was required was to 'avenge the death or blood of the
prophet.' We were made to swear to avenge the death of Joseph Smith the Martyr,
together with that of his brother Hyrum, on this American nation, and that we
should teach our children and children's children to do so. 'The penalty for
this grip and oath was disembowelment,' I would not have discussed the method of
these endowments when I was a member of the Utah Church. The penalty for
revealing or disclosing these secrets was disembowelment. The grips and tokens
of the priesthood were what we were not to disclose... I kept the obligation
while living in Salt Lake City."
Brigham
Young stated, "Furthermore,
every one who had passed through their endowment, in the Temple, were placed
under the most sacred obligation to avenge the blood of the Prophet, whenever an
opportunity offered, and to teach their children to do the same, thus making the
entire Mormon people sworn and avowed enemies of the American nation."
(Confessions of John D. Lee, p. 160)
It
was a serious matter for a Mormon if they broke the covenants they made in the
temple. The threats were real. The Danites saw to it that punishment was swift
and without mercy. This oath was one of the reasons that the Mountain Meadow
Massacre took place. This oath was finally removed about 1927.
Resume
M.M.M.
President Brigham Young sent George A. Smith ahead of the wagon train
with instructions to tell the Saints not to sell any commodities to the Francher
Party, and under no circumstances were they to provide any help to them. If this
order were disobeyed the penalty would be personal harm or even death to
themselves or their families. Juanita Brooks, Mormon historian and author
states, "At Parowan, the gates of
that fort were closed and the company passed by that town. Here one man, William
Leany, recognized a member of the company, William Aiden, as the son of a man
who had befriended him while he was on a mission. He gave Aiden some vegetables
from his garden, knowing well that he was acting in direct opposition to the
official orders. A few days later he was called out of his house and struck over
the head by one of the local police [Danites] on the charge that he had rendered
aid and comfort to the enemy. He was left for dead, and indeed never did fully
recover from the blow." (Confessions
of John D. Lee, p. 206)
Parowan had been built and enclosed with a fort as to protect the Mormons
against Indian attacks early in the settlement of the territory. But Brigham
Young had since embraced the Indians as fellow persecuted people who had been
driven out of their homelands by the despised U. S. Government, and by now, the
Mormons had made peace with them, even baptizing their famous chiefs, Wa-kara
and Kanosh.
(Kanosh
was the Indian Chief who was accused of killing Captain John Gunnison and his
men on Oct. 28, 1853. The Gunnison Party was in Utah at the time, surveying for
the U.S. Government. However, there was testimony that white men dressed up as
Indians committed the Gunnison massacre.) (The
Unsolicited Chronicler by Robert K. Fielding)
Previous to the Mountain Meadow Massacre, on September 4th, 1857, Brigham
Young sent a request to all leaders of the Indian tribes in the Utah territory
to come to Salt Lake City as soon as possible. He met with them and told them
that the U. S. Government was sending troops to Utah for the purpose of
exterminating the Mormons and the Indian tribes in the territory. He told them
it was necessary for them to join in with the Mormons to help fight the enemy
and save their own people. This created such frenzy among the Indian Chiefs that
they promised to join in and help the Mormons. The Indians became their allies.
It is believed by many that in the private meeting that Brigham Young had
with Chief Kanosh the order to exterminate the emigrant wagon train was given,
and the Chief's reward for the extermination would be part of the booty and some
of the cattle to help feed his people. The agreement between Brigham Young and
the Indian leaders in Salt Lake City was made and put into motion.
Brigham Young gave Apostle George A. Smith direct orders to make a trip
south to warn the settlements and priesthood leaders of the approaching wagon
train, and inform them that Chief Kanosh was going to attack the settlers.
Bishop, and Indian Agent, John D. Lee stated that the original plan was to stir
up the Indians to attack the wagon train. But as the scene unfolds, the Indians
were not capable of doing the deed themselves, so the Mormons were left to
finish the job. It then became the responsibility of George A. Smith to meet
with the priesthood leaders and make arrangements to exterminate the emigrants.
"On Friday, September 4th, just before sunset, the Fancher train
entered Mountain Meadows, a five-mile-long valley surrounded by pinion-dotted
foothills. Opening from a narrow entrance on the east and expanding into an
oasis of creeks and cottonwoods, the meadow closed with a bottleneck exit into
the rugged Beaver Mountains to the west. The travelers apparently thought the
location was safe from Indian attacks, for they did not circle their wagons, as
they had done throughout the rest of the journey.
On Sunday, September 6th, the emigrants held a Sabbath service in a big
tent they had faithfully transported across the country. Late that night,
according to subsequent trial testimony, John D. Lee and his accomplices, some
of them Indians, painted their faces and hid in the low hills surrounding the
campsite. They took up strategic positions to prevent escapes, controlling
access to the meadow from all sides. At dawn on Monday, the emigrants awakened
and began their morning routines. Suddenly they heard shots. In the barrage that
followed, 6 or 7 men from the wagon train were killed, 15 more were wounded. The
other side suffered an unknown number of casualties. The pioneers drove their
enemy back. They dragged their wagons into a circular barricade. Apparently
assuming Paiutes had attacked them, they dug a rifle pit while awaiting help
from neighboring Mormons." (American
Heritage Magazine
Charles Fancher sent William A. Aden and two other young men from the
wagon train for help. They were able to sneak past the Indians and rush toward
Cedar City in hopes that the Mormon leaders would send immediate help to the
wagon train to ward off the Indians. The three men traveled about 7 miles to a
watering hole called Leachey Springs. There they met up with twenty men on their
way to join John D. Lee at the massacre. Aden approached the Mormon men and
asked for help. Immediately William C. Stewart took out his rifle, shot and
killed William A. Aden, and wounded the other two men. (The fate of the two
wounded men is written in the Major J. H. Carleton Report.)
"The next day there seemed to be a standoff, and the emigrants
burrowed in further. Each time they ventured to the stream for water, bullets
turned them back. On the fifth day of the siege, Friday, September 11th, Lee and
a fellow Danite came into the camp carrying a white flag. They were greeted with
cheers. Lee told the party that he had learned of the ambush, hastily recruited
Mormons to come to the rescue, and gotten the Paiutes to agree to a truce. "When I entered the corral, I found the emigrants engaged in
burying two men of note," Lee
would later write. "The
men, women and children gathered around me in wild consternation. Some felt that
the time of their happy deliverance had come ... my position was painful, trying
and awful, my brain seemed to be on fire." If they relinquished
their arms to the Mormons, he told them, they would be escorted safely out of
the meadow.
The desperate emigrants agreed. All the children under eight, the age
of innocence, according to Mormon doctrine were placed in one wagon. The wounded
men were placed in a second wagon, and both wagons rolled north out of the
campsite. All the women followed, some carrying infants, and all the children
over eight, who walked a few hundred feet, smiling and waving, as they caught a
glimpse of the militia they thought had come to save them. Then came the men in
single file, spaced several feet apart, each accompanied by an armed Mormon.
Suddenly, on a hill overlooking the site, another Danite raised his
hand and shouted, "HALT! DO YOUR DUTY!" At that command, each Mormon shot
the man beside him, as others, including Indians, hiding in the embankment
ahead, butchered the women and children. The 18 surviving children, ranging in
age from 18 months to 8 years, were weak from thirst, their skin and clothing
smeared with the blood of their parents, brothers, and sisters. The killers
spared these few and distributed them to local families. Over the next 75 years,
some of them would tell the story often, even testifying in detail. But what
they had seen always seemed unbelievable. Federal authorities rescued 17 of them
in 1859, two years after they had been captured, and returned them to relatives
in Arkansas." (American Heritage)
The Mormon historian B. H. Roberts called the Mountain Meadow Massacre, "the
most lamentable episode in Utah history, and in the History of the Church."
(Comprehensive History of the Church,
vol. 4 p. 139)
The Mormon writer William E. Berrett gives this description of the
massacre: "It was a deliberately
planned massacre, treacherously carried into execution. On the morning of Sept.
11, a flag of truce was sent to the emigrant camp and terms of surrender
proposed. The emigrants were to give up their arms. The wounded were to be
loaded into wagons, followed by the women and children, and the men to bring up
the rear, single file. Thus they were to be conducted by the whites to Cedar
City. This was agreed too, and the march began. ... The white men at a given
signal, fell upon the unarmed emigrant men...only the smallest children were
spared." (The Restored Church,
pp. 468-469)
The Indians acknowledged having participated in the massacre of the
emigrants, but said that the Mormons persuaded them into it. (Senate Executive
Document 42, 36 Cong., 1 sess., 94-95, as cited in The
Mountain Meadows Massacre, p. 194; p. 252 of 1962 edition)
"By maneuvering politically with the backstage help of a figure
who would be the Mormon's most important defender, Brigham Young managed to
stave off a federal investigation of the massacre for years. Thomas Leiper Kane,
a wealthy Pennsylvanian who had met the Mormons during their exodus from
Illinois, was Young's lobbyist and veritable secret agent in Washington both
before and after the Civil War. Kane first negotiated personally with General
Johnston and ultimately concluded a deal with the Buchanan administration that
forestalled any further federal invasion or punishment of past Mormon crimes in
return for Brigham's stepping down as territorial governor.
By 1859, stories about the massacre had been published in California and
in underground Utah papers, covering Major Carleton's discovery of skeletons,
his initial investigation and report, and the rescue of the children." (American
Heritage Magazine)
Special
Report on the Mountain Meadow Massacre
By
Brevet
Major J. H. Carleton, U.S.A.
May
25, 1859
Note:
This typescript (prepared in December 1998) has been compared for accuracy with
a typewritten transcription of the published House document. Bracketed
insertions in the text have been included for clarity, to note corrections in
names, or to add complete names. The bracketed identification of the surviving
children is a suggestion based on information on the memorial that was placed at
Mountain Meadows in 1990.
57th
Congress (House of Representatives) Document no. 605 1st Session.
MOUNTAIN
MEADOW MASSACRE
Congress
of the United States,
In the
House of Representatives
May
10th, 1902
Resolves,
that there be printed as a House document 5,000 copies of the Special Report of
the Mountain Meadows Massacre, as compiled by J. H. Carleton, Brevet Major,
United States Army, Captain First Dragoons.
Attest:
A. McDowell, Clerk
SPECIAL
REPORT OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE BY J. H. CARLETON, BREVET MAJOR; UNITED
STATES ARMY, CAPTAIN, FIRST DRAGOONS.
Camp
at Mountain Meadows,
Utah
Territory, May 25th, 1859
Major:
"When
I left Los Angeles, the 23rd ultimo, General Clarke, commanding the Department
of California, directed me to bury the bones of the victims of that terrible
massacre which took place on this ground in September, 1857. The fact of this
massacre of (in my opinion) at least 120 men, women and children, who were on
their way from the State of Arkansas to California, has long been well known. I
have endeavored to learn the circumstances attending it, and have the honor to
submit the following as the result of my inquiries on this point:
Dr. Brewer, United States Army, whom I met with Captain Campbell's
command on the Santa Clara River on the 15th inst., informed me that as he was
going up the Platte River on the 11th of June, 1857, he passed a train of
emigrants near O'Fallons Bluffs. The train was called "Perkin's
Train," a man named Perkins, who had previously been to California, having
charge of it as a conductor; that he afterwards saw the train frequently; the
last time he saw it, it was at Ash Hollow on the North Fork of the Platte.
The Doctor says the train consisted of, say, 40 wagons; there were a few
tents besides, which the emigrants used in addition to these wagons when they
encamped. There seemed to be about 40 heads of families, many women, some
unmarried, and many children. A doctor accompanied them. The train seemed to
consist of respectable people, well to do in the world. They were well dressed,
were quiet, orderly, genteel; had fine stock; had three carriages along, and
other evidences which went to show that this was one of the finest trains that
had been seen to cross the plains. It was so remarked upon by the officers who
were with the doctor at that time. From reports afterwards received, and
comparing the dates with the probable rate of travel, he believed this was the
identical train which was destroyed at Mountain Meadows.
I could get no information of these emigrants of a date anterior to this.
Here seems to be given the first glimpse of their number, character, and
condition; and an authentic glimpse, too, if the train destroyed was the one
seen by the doctor, of which there can hardly be any doubt. The doctor was
confirmed in his belief that the train he saw was the one destroyed, by many
reasons. Among them one fact seemed to be very convincing. He observed a
carriage in the train in which some ladies rode, to whom he made one or more
visits as they journeyed along. There was something peculiar in the construction
of the carriage and its ornaments its blazoned stag's head upon the panels, etc.
This carriage, he says, is now in the possession of the Mormons. Besides, he
afterwards heard as a fact that this train had been entirely destroyed.
The people who owned it would not have been likely to have to sell such
an important part of their means of transportation midway their journey. The
road upon which these emigrants were seen by Dr. Brewer crosses the Rocky
Mountains through the South Pass, and thence goes on down into the Great Basin
to Salt Lake City, and thence Southward along the western base of the Wasatch
Mountains to what is called the rim of the basin. Here the "divide" is
crossed, when it descends upon the valley of the Santa Clara affluent toward the
Colorado. Fillmore City is upon one of the many streams which run westward down
from the Wasatch Mountains into the basin. It is about 140 miles from Salt Lake
City; then upon another stream, 90 miles farther south, is Prawn [Parowan] City;
then upon still another stream, 18 miles south of Prawn [Parowan], is Cedar
City; then to a settlement on Pinto Creek is 24 miles; thence to Hamblin's
house, on the northern slope of the Mountain Meadows, 6 miles.
From Hamblin's house over the rim of the basin to the southern point of
the Mountain Meadows, where there is a large spring, is 4 miles, 1,000 yards.
This swell of land or watershed, called the rim of the basin, runs west across
nearly midway the valley called the Mountain Meadows. This valley runs north and
south; its northern portion is drained into the basin, its southern toward the
Santa Clara. Down on the Santa Clara is a Mormon settlement called "The
Fort": here some 30 families reside. It is 34 miles from Mountain Meadows.
East of Cedar City, say 18 miles, on the east slope of the Wasatch Range,
drained by Virgin River, is the town of Harmony, of 100 families; and farther
down the Virgin River, 12 miles from "The Fort," on the Santa Clara,
is Washington City, also of 100 families. The Santa Clara joins the Virgin River
near Washington City.
The Pah Vent Indians live near Fillmore City. The Pah Ute Indians are
scattered along from Parowan southward to the Colorado.
The train of emigrants proceeding southward from Fillmore toward the
Mountain Meadows are next seen, so far as my inquiries go, by a Mr. Jacob
Hamblin, a leading Mormon, who has charge of "the Fort," on the Santa
Clara, and resides there in the winter season, but who has a cattle ranch and a
house, where he lives in the summer time, at the Mountain Meadows. I here give
what he said, and which I wrote down sentence by sentence, as he related it. He
told me he had given the same information to Judge Cradlebaugh:
"About
the middle of August, 1857, I started on a visit to Great Salt Lake City. At
Corn Creek, 8 miles south of Fillmore City, I encamped with a train of emigrants
who said they were mostly from Arkansas. There were, in my opinion, not over 30
wagons. There were several tents, and they had from 400 to 500 head of horned
cattle, 25 head of horses, and some mules.
This information I got in conversation with one of the men of the train.
The people seemed to be ordinary frontier homespun' people, as a general thing.
Some of the outsiders were rude and rough and calculated to get the ill will of
the inhabitants. Several of the men asked me about the condition of the road and
the disposition of the Indians, and where there would be a good place to recruit
their stock.
I asked them how many men they had. They said they had between forty and
fifty "that would do to tie to." I told them I considered if they
would keep a good lookout that the Indians did not steal their animals, half
that number would be safe, and that the Mountain Meadows was the best place to
recruit their animals before they entered upon the desert, I recommended this
spring, and the grazing about here, four miles south of my house, as the place
where they should stop. The most of these men seemed to have families with them.
They remarked that this one train was made up near Salt Lake City of several
trains that had crossed the plains separately, and being Southern people, had
preferred to take the southern route. This was all of importance that passed
between us, and I went on my journey and they proceeded on theirs. On my way
back home, at Fillmore City, I heard it said that that Company, meaning the
train referred to, had poisoned a small spring at Corn Creek, where I had met
them.
There was some considerable excitement about it among the citizens of
Fillmore and among the Pah-Vent Indian who live within 8 miles of that place. I
was told that eighteen head of cattle had died from drinking the water; that six
of the Pah-Vents had been poisoned from eating the flesh of the cattle that
died, and that one or two of these Indians had also died. Mr. Robinson, a
citizen of Fillmore, whose son was buried the day I got there, said that the boy
had been poisoned in 'trying out' the tallow of the dead cattle. I am satisfied
that he believed what he said about it. I thought at the time that the spring
had been poisoned as stated. I encamped that night with a company from Iron
County, who told me that the Company from Arkansas had all been killed at
Mountain Meadows except seventeen children.
I afterwards met, between Beaver and Pine Creek, Colonel Daim [William H.
Dame] of Parowan, who confirmed what these people from Iron County had said. He
further stated that the Indians were collecting on the Muddy with a
determination to 'wipe out' another company of emigrants which was several days
in rear of the first. He mentioned that the Indians had supplied themselves with
arms and ammunition from the train destroyed at the Meadows. After consulting
with him, he advised me to go forward and spare no pains in trying to prevent
their carrying their purpose into execution, and he gave me an order to press
into service any animal I might require for that purpose. I got a horse at
Beaver about 8 o'clock that evening, and the next evening at Pinto Creek, 83
miles distant, I met Mr. Dudley Leavett [Leavitt], from the settlements on the
Santa Clara.
I told him what I had heard. He told me it was true, and that all the
Indians in the Southern Country were greatly excited and "All Hell"
could not stop them from killing or from at least robbing the other train of its
stock. He further stated that several interpreters from the Santa Clara had gone
on with this last grain. I told him to return and get the best animal he could
find on my ranch and go on as fast as he could and endeavor to stop further
mischief being done. That is, if the Indians ran off the stock of the train, for
himself and all the interpreters to go and recover it, if possible, and prevent
further depredation. He left me under these instructions.
The next morning, which, I think, was the 18th of September 1857, I
arrived at my ranch, 4 miles from the Meadows. Here I had left my family. I
found at the ranch three little white girls in the care of my wife, the oldest
six or seven years of age, the next about three, and the next about one. The
youngest had been shot through one of her arms below the elbow by a large ball,
breaking both bones and cutting the arm half off. My wife, having a young child
of her own, and these three little orphans besides, my home appeared to be
anything but cheerful. About one or two o'clock that day I came down to the
point where the massacre had taken place, in company with an Indian boy named
Albert, who had been brought up in my family.
The boy told me that the inhabitants from Cedar City had come down and
buried the murdered people in three large heaps, which he pointed out to me; the
boy showed me two girls who had run some ways off before they were killed. The
wolves had dug open the heaps, dragged out the bodies, and were then tearing the
flesh from them. I counted 19 wolves at one of these places. I have since
learned from the people who assisted in burying the bodies that there were 107
men, women and children found dead upon the ground. I am satisfied that all were
not found. The most of the bodies were stripped of all their clothing, were then
in a state of putrefaction, and presented a horrible sight. There was no
property left upon the ground except one white ox, which is still at my ranch.
The following summer, when the bones had lost their flesh, I reburied
them, assisted by a Mr. Fuller.
The Indians have told me that they made an attack on the emigrants
between daylight and sunrise as the men were standing around the camp fires,
killing and wounding 15 at the first charge, which was delivered from the ravine
near the spring close to the wagons and from a hill to the west. That the
emigrants immediately corralled their wagons and threw up an entrenchment to
shelter themselves from the balls. When I first saw the ditch, it was about 4
feet deep and the bank about 2 feet high. The Indians say they then ran off the
stock but kept parties at the spring to prevent the emigrants from getting to
the water, the emigrants firing upon them every time they showed themselves, and
they returned the fire. This was kept up for six or seven days. The Indians say
that they lost but one man, killed and three or four wounded.
At the end of six or seven days, they say, a man among them who could
talk English called to the emigrants and told them if they would go back to the
settlements and leave all their property, especially their arms, they would
spare their lives, but if they did not do so they would kill the whole of them.
The emigrants agreed to this and started back on the road toward my ranch. About
a mile from the spring there are some scrub-oak bushes and tall sage growing on
either side of the road and close to it. Here a large body of Indians lay in
ambush, who, when the emigrants approached, fell upon them in their defenseless
condition and with bows and arrows and stones and guns and knives murdered all,
without regard to sex or age, except a few infant children, seventeen of which
have since been recovered.
This is what the Indians told me nine days after the massacre took place.
From the position of the bodies this latter part of their story seems to be
corroborated, and I should judge that the women and children were in advance of
the men when the last attack upon them was made. When I buried the bones last
summer, I observed that about one third of the skulls were shot through with
bullets and about one third seem to be broken with stones.
The train I sent Leavett [Leavitt] to protect had gotten as far as the
canyon, 5 miles below the Muddy, when the Indians made a descent upon its loose
stock, driving off, as the immigrants have since said, 200 head of cattle.
Leavett and the other interpreters recovered between 75 and 100 head, which were
brought to my ranch. Of these the Indians afterwards demanded and stole some 40
head, and last January I turned over to Mr. Lane from California, the balance.
These are all the facts within my knowledge connected with the destruction of the one and the passing along of the other of these two trains."
Mrs. Hamblin is a simple-minded
person of about 45, and evidently looks with the eyes of her husband at
everything. She may really have been taught by the Mormons to believe it is no
great sin to kill gentiles and enjoy their property. Of the shooting of the
emigrants, which she had herself heard, and knew at the time what was going on,
she seemed to speak without a shudder, or any very great feeling; but when she
told of the 17 orphan children who were brought by such a crowd to her house of
one small room there in the darkness of night, two of the children cruelly
mangled and the most of them with their parents' blood still wet upon their
clothes, and all of them shrieking with terror and grief and anguish, her own
mother heart was touched. She at least deserves kind consideration for her care
and nourishment of the three sisters, and for all she did for the little girl,
"about one year old who had been shot through one of her arms, below the
elbow, by a large ball, breaking both bones and cutting the arm half off."
A Snake Indian boy, called Albert
Hamblin, but whose Indian name was a word which meant "hungry," who is
now about 17 or 18 years of age, says that Mr. Jacob Hamblin brought him beyond
where Camp Floyd is situated and that he has lived with Mr. Hamblin about six
years here and about three years up north. He was sent by Mr. Hamblin to my camp
at Mountain Meadow on the 20th day of May 1859, and in speaking of the massacre
at this place related what follows in very good English:
"In
the first part of September a year and a half ago, I was at Mr. Hamblin's ranch
4 miles from here. My business was to herd the sheep. I saw the train come along
the road and pass down this way. It was near sundown. I drove the sheep home and
went after wood, when I saw the train encamp at this spring from a high point of
land where I was cutting wood.
When the train passed me, I saw a good many women and children. It was
night when I got home. Another Indian boy, named John, who lives at the Vegas
and talked some English, was with me. He lived with a man named Sam Knight, at
Santa Clara. After the train had been camped at the spring three nights, the
fourth day in the morning, just before light, when we were all abed at the
house, I was waked up by hearing a good many guns fired. I could hear guns fired
every little while all day until it was dark. Then I did not know what had been
done. During the day, as we, John and I, sat on a hill herding sheep, we saw the
Indians driving off all the stock and shoot some of the cattle; at the same time
we could see shooting going on down around the train; emigrants shooting at the
Indians from the corral of wagons, and Indians shooting at them from the tops of
the hills around. In this way they fought on for about a week."
I asked an Indian what he was killing those people for. He was mad, and
told me unless I kept 'my mouth shut' he would kill me. Three men came down from
Cedar City to our house while the fighting was going on. They said they came
after cattle. Other men passed to and from Santa Clara to our house during the
nights. The three men from Cedar City stayed about the house a while
"pitching horseshoe quoits" while the fighting was on, when they
afterwards went back to Cedar City. Dudley Leavitt came up from Santa Clara in
the night while the emigrants were camped here; but he did not see them. He went
on to Cedar City to buy flour. When he got to the house we told him the
emigrants were fighting here. One afternoon, near night, after they had fought
nearly a week, John and I saw the women and children and some leave the wagons
and go up the road toward our house. There were no Indians with them.
John and I could see where the Indians were hid in the oak bushes and
sage right by the side of the road a mile or more on their route; and I said to
John, I would like to know what the emigrants left their wagons for, as they
were going into "a worse fix than ever they saw." The women were on
ahead with the children. The men were behind, altogether 'twas a big crowd. Soon
as they got to the place where the Indians were hid in the bushes each side of
the road, the Indians pitched right into them and commenced shooting them with
guns and bows and arrows, and cut some of the men's throats with knives. The men
run in every direction, the Indians after them yelling and whooping. Soon as the
women and children saw the Indians spring out of the bushes, they all cried out
so loud that John and I heard them.
The women scattered and tried to hide in the bushes, but the Indians shot
them down; two girls ran up the slope towards the east about a quarter of a
mile; John and I ran down and tried to save them; the girls hid in some bushes.
A man, who is an Indian doctor, also told the Indians not to kill them. The
girls then came out and hung around him for protection, he trying to keep the
Indians away. The girls were crying out loud. The Indians came up and seized the
girls by their hands and dresses and pulled and pushed them away from the doctor
and shot them. By this time it was dark, and the other Indians came down the
road and had got nearly through killing all the others. They were about half an
hour killing the people from the time they first sprang out upon them from the
bushes.
Some time in the night Tullis and the Indians brought some of the
children in a wagon up to the house. The children cried nearly all night. One
little one, a baby, just commencing to walk around, was shot through the arm.
One of the girls had been hit through the ear. Many of the children's clothes
were bloody. The next morning we kept three children and the rest were taken to
Cedar City; also the next morning the train of wagons went up to Cedar City with
all the goods. The Indians got all the flour. Some of it I saw buried this side
of Pinto Creek. There were two yoke of cattle to each wagon as they passed up.
The rest of the stock had been killed to be eaten by the Indians while the fight
was going on, except some which were driven over the mountains this way and
that.
The Indians stripped naked the dead bodies; that is all the men; some of the women had their underclothes left. There were a good many men who came over from Pinto Creek and about, and stayed around the house while the fight went on. I saw John D. Lee there about the house during that time. He lives in Harmony--and Richard Robinson, Prime Coleman, Amos Thornton, Brother Dickinson, who all live at Pinto Creek. Thornton I saw at the house. When father (John Hamblin) came back, I came down with him onto the ground. The bodies were all buried then so we could not see them. There were plenty of wolves around. The two girls had been buried also and I did show them to father, the Indians buried the bodies taking spades from the wagons. The people from Cedar City came down three days later, after the massacre, but the Indians had buried all the bodies before they came. This is all I know about it."
This Albert Hamblin is nearly a
grown man in point of size, and from appearance and bearing has evidently had
engrafted upon his native viciousness all the bad traits of the community in
which he lives. Two of the children are said to have pointed him out to Dr.
Forney as an Indian whom they saw kill their two sisters.
His story is artfully made up, evidently part truth and part falsehood.
Leavitt could not have passed up from "The Fort" to Cedar City without
knowing where the emigrants were besieged, as the road runs near the spring
where the corral was, and between it and some hills occupied by the Mormons and
Indians. That Albert stayed upon a neighborhood hill "herding sheep"
day after day while the fight lasted, and then to the house of nights to go to
sleep cannot be true. That Mormons were passing and re-passing upon the road,
day and night, and did not know what was going on is simply absurd to one
conversant with the surroundings of the place.
In this Indian's statement that some of the Mormons at the house were
"pitching horseshoe quoits," a glance is given at the fiendish levity
with which the murdering, day by day, of this artfully entrapped party of
gentile men, women and children was regarded. This "pitching
of horseshoe quoits" was during the time when dropping shots from
the Indians and the other Mormon concealed around the springs and behind the
crest of hills kept back the perishing emigrants from water. There was time
enough for some to go up to Hamblin's house for refreshments. No danger of the
emigrants getting away. It was all safe in that quarter. "There
is time enough for us to have a game of quoits, the other boys will take care of
matters down there."
The general will hardly fail to
observe the discrepancy between Hamblin's statement and that of Albert in
relation to the burial of the two girls and in relation to the burial of the
bodies of the others who had been murdered. Hamblin says the people from Cedar
City buried them; Albert that the Indians did it, taking spades from the wagons,
not a likely thing for bona fide Indians to do. My own opinion is that the
remains were not buried at all until after they had been dismembered by the
wolves and the flesh stripped from the bones, and then only such bones were
buried as lay scattered along nearest the road.
Albert had evidently been trained in his statement. He gave much of it
after cross-questioning, keeping always the Mormons in the background and the
Indians conspicuously the prominent figures and actors, as Hamblin and his wife
had endeavored to do. It was not until after I told him that Hamblin and his
wife had informed me that John D. Lee and other Mormons were there and had asked
him how it was possible he had not seen them, that he recollected about
"Brother Lee" and "Brothers" Prime Coleman, Amos Thornton,
Richard Robinson, and "Brother" Dickinson from Pinto Creek. He too had
fallen into the general custom of the people and called every man
"brother."
I questioned other Mormons in relation to the massacre, but many of them
said they had moved from the northern part of the Territory since it took place;
others, that they were harvesting at Parowan, Cedar, and at "The
Fort," and knew nothing of it until it was all over. Even
"Brother" Prime Coleman [said] that he was harvesting near Parowan
just before that time with Brother Benjamin Nell, but when the massacre took
place he was down on the Muddy River with Brother Ira Hatch to keep down
disturbances there among the Indians. (The Muddy is 163 miles from Parowan, on
the road to California; he had to pass Mountain Meadows to go there.) He said
that as he and Hatch were coming back they saw in the sand the tracks of three
men who wore fine boots. This was at Beaver Dams (between Mountain Meadows and
the Muddy and 50 miles from the Meadows).
He and Hatch were frightened at this sign, were afraid of robbers, and
did not stop, even for water, until they reached the Santa Clara, 2 miles off.
At Pine Valley, near Mountain Meadows, they first heard of the massacre. There
is no doubt but that all three of these men were active participants in the
butchering at the Meadows. The foregoing is the Mormon story of the Massacre. As
it took place on Hamblin's ranch and within hearing of his family, it was
impossible for them to be "out harvesting" or "up north" or
"down on the Muddy"; he himself had gone to Salt Lake City. At least
he says so; but even this, I think, needs proof. Some account had to be made up,
and the one most likely to be believed was that the whole matter had been
started by the Indians and carried out by them, because the emigrants had
poisoned a spring near Fillmore City. Mr. Rodgers, United States Deputy Marshal,
who accompanied Judge Cradlebaugh in his tour to the South, told me that the
water in the spring referred to runs with such volume and force "a
barrel of arsenic would not poison it."
While the Mormons say the Indians
were the murderers, they speak with no sympathy of the suffer[er]s, but rather
in extenuation of the crime by saying the emigrants were not fit to live; that
besides poisoning the spring "they were impudent to the people on the road,
robbed their hen roosts and gardens, and were insulting to the church; called
their oxen "Brigham Young," "Heber Kimball," etc., and
altogether were a rough, ugly set that ought to have been killed anyway."
But there is another side to this
story. It is said that some two years since Bishop Parley Pratt was shot in
Cherokee Nation near Arkansas by the husband of a woman who had run off with
that saintly prelate. The Mormons swore vengeance on the people of Arkansas, one
of who was this injured husband. The wife came on to Salt Lake City after the
bishop was killed and still lives there.
About this time, also, the Mormon troubles with the United States
commenced, and the most bitter hostility against the Gentiles became rife
throughout Utah among all the Latter-Day Saints. It will be recollected that
even while these emigrants were pursuing their journey overland to California,
Colonel Alexander was following upon their trace with two or more regiments of
troops ordered to Utah to assist, if necessary, in seeing the laws of the land
properly enforced in that territory.
This train was undoubtedly a very rich one. It is said the emigrants had
nearly nine hundred head of fine cattle, many horses and mules, and one stallion
valued at $2,000; that they had a great deal of ready money besides. All this
the Mormons at Salt Lake City saw as the train came on. The Mormons knew the
troops were marching to their country, and a spirit of intense hatred of the
Americans and towards our Government was kindled in the hearts of this whole
people by Brigham Young, Orson Hyde, and other leaders, even from the pulpits.
Here, opportunely, was a rich train of emigrants--American Gentiles. That
is, the most obnoxious kind of Gentiles--and not only that, but these Gentiles
were from Arkansas, where the saintly Pratt had gained his crown of martyrdom.
Is not here some thread which may be seized as a clue to this mystery so long
hidden as to whether or not the Mormons were accomplices in the massacre? This
train of Arkansas Gentiles was doomed from the day it crossed through the South
Pass and had gotten fairly down in the meshes of the Mormon spider net, from
which it was never to become disentangled.
Judge Cradlebaugh informed me that about this time Brigham Young,
preaching in the tabernacle and speaking of the trouble with the United States,
said that up to that moment he had protected emigrants who had passed through
the Territory, but now he would turn the Indians loose upon them. It is a
singular point worthy of note that this sermon should have been preached just as
the rich train had gotten into the valley and was now fairly entrapped; a sermon
good, coming from him, as a letter of marque to these land pirates who listened
to him as an oracle. The hint thus shrewdly given out was not long in being
acted upon.
From that moment these emigrants, as they journeyed southward, were
considered the authorized, if not legal, prey of the inhabitants. All kinds of
depredations and extortions were practiced upon them. At Parowan they took some
wheat to the mill to be ground. The bishop replied, "Yes,
but do you take double toll." This shows the spirit with which they
were treated. These things are now leaking out; but some of those who were then
Mormons have renounced their creed, and through them much is learned which,
taken in connection with the facts that are known, served to develop the truth.
It is said to be a truth that Brigham Young sent letters south, authorizing, if
not commanding, that the train should be destroyed.
A Pah-Ute chief, of the Santa Clara
band, named "Jackson," who was one of the attacking party, and had a
brother slain by the emigrants from their corral by the spring, says that orders
came down in a letter from Brigham Young that the emigrants were to be killed;
and a chief of the Pah-Utes named Touche, now living on the Virgin River, told
me that a letter from Brigham Young to the same effect was brought down to the
Virgin River band by a young man named Huntingdon [Oliver B. Huntington], who, I
learn, is an Indian Interpreter and lives at present at Salt Lake City.
Jackson says there were 60 Mormons led by Bishop John D. Lee, of Harmony,
and a prominent man in the church named [Isaac C.] Haight, who lives at Cedar
City. That they were all painted and disguised as Indians.
That this painting and disguising was done at a spring in a canyon about
a mile northeast of the spring where the emigrants were encamped, and that Lee
and Haight led and directed the combined force of Mormons and Indians in the
first attack, throughout the siege, and at the last massacre. The Santa Clara
Indians say that the emigrants could not get to the water, as besiegers lay
around the spring ready to shoot anyone who approached it. This could easily
have been done. Major [Henry] Prince, Paymaster, U.S.A., and Lieutenant Ogle,
First Dragoons, on the 17th inst., stood at the ditch which was in the corral
and placed some men at the spring 28 yards distant, and they could just see the
other men's heads, both parties standing erect. This shows how vital a point the
Assailants occupied; how close it was to the assailed, and how well protected it
was from the direction of the corral.
The following account of the affair is, I think, susceptible of legal
proof by those whose names are known, and who, I am assured, are willing to make
oath to many of the facts which serve as links in the chain of evidence leading
toward the truth of this grave question: By whom were these 120 men, women, and
children murdered?
It was currently reported among the Mormons at Cedar City, in talking
among themselves, before the troops ever came down south, (when all felt secure
of arrest or prosecution), and nobody seemed to question the truth of it--that a
train of emigrants of fifty or upward of men, mostly with families, came and
encamped at this spring at Mountain Meadows in September 1857. It was reported
in Cedar City, and was not, and is not doubted--even by the Mormons--that John
D. Lee, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higby [Higbee] (the first resides at Harmony,
the last two at Cedar City), were the leaders who organized a party of fifty or
sixty Mormons to attack this train.
They had also all the Indians which they could collect at Cedar City,
Harmony and Washington City to help them, a good many in number. This party then
came down, and at first the Indians were ordered to stampede the cattle and
drive them away from the train. Then they commenced firing on the emigrants;
this firing was returned by the emigrants; one Indian was killed, a brother of
the chief of the Santa Clara Indians, another shot through the leg, who is now a
cripple at Cedar City. There were without doubt a great many more killed and
wounded. It was said the Mormons were painted and disguised as Indians. The
Mormons say the emigrants fought "like lions" and they saw that they
could not whip them by any fair fighting.
After some days fighting the
Mormons had a council among themselves to arrange a plan to destroy the
emigrants. They concluded, finally, that they could send some few down and
pretend to be friends and try and get the emigrants to surrender. John D. Lee
and three or four others, headmen, from Washington, Cedar, and Parowan (Haight
and Higby [Higbee] from Cedar), had their paint washed off and dressing in their
usual clothes, took their wagons and drove down toward the emigrant's corral as
they were just traveling on the road on their ordinary business. The emigrants
sent out a little girl towards them. She was dressed in white and had a white
handkerchief in her hand, which she waved in token of peace. The Mormons with
the wagon waved one in reply, and then moved on towards the corral. The
emigrants then came out, no Indians or others being in sight at this time, and
talked with these leading Mormons with the three wagons.
They talked with the emigrants for an hour or an hour and a half, and
told them that the Indians were hostile, and that if they gave up their arms it
would show that they did not want to fight; and if they, the emigrants, would do
this they would pilot them back to the settlements. The migrants had horses
which had remained near their wagons; the loose stock, mostly cattle, had been
driven off--not the horses. Finally the emigrants agreed to these terms and
delivered up their arms to the Mormons with whom they had counseled. The women
and children then started back toward Hamblin's house, the men following with a
few wagons that they had hitched up. On arriving at the Scrub Oaks, etc., where
the other Mormons and Indians lay concealed, Higby [Higbee], who had been one of
those who had inveigled the emigrants from their defenses, himself gave the
signal to fire, when a volley was poured in from each side, and the butchery
commenced and was continued until it was consummated.
The property was brought to Cedar City and sold at public
auction. It was called in Cedar City, and is so called now by the Facetious
Mormons, "property taken at the siege of Sebastopol." The clothing
stripped from the corpses, bloody and with bits of flesh upon it, shredded by
the bullets from the persons of the poor creatures who wore it, was placed in
the cellar of the tithing office (an official building), where it lay about
three weeks, when it was brought away by some of the party; but witnesses do not
know whether it was sold or given away. It is said the cellar smells of it even
to this day.
It is reported that John D. Lee,
Haight, and Philip Smith [Klingonsmith] (the latter lives in Cedar City) went to
Salt Lake City immediately after the massacre, and counseled with Brigham Young
about what should be done with the property. They took with them the ready money
they got from the murdered emigrants and offered it to Young. He said he would
have nothing to do with it. He told them to divide the cattle and cows among the
poor. They had taken some of the cattle to Salt Lake City merchants there. Lee
told Brigham that the Indians would not be satisfied if they did not have a
share of the cattle. Brigham left it to Lee to make the distribution. One or two
of the Mormons did not like it that Lee had this authority, as they say he
swindled them out of their share. Lee was the smartest man of the lot.
The wagons, carriages, and rifles, etc., were distributed among the
Mormons. Lee has a carriage reported be one of them. The Indians have but few of
the rifles.
Much of this seems to be corroborated by a man named Whitelock, a
dentist, now at Camp Floyd. Whitelock says he was told by a Mormon, who
acknowledged that he was present at the massacre, but who is now in California, "that
orders to destroy the emigrants first came from above" (Salt Lake
City) and that a party of armed men under the command of a man named John D.
Lee, who was then a bishop in the church, but who has since (as Brigham Young
says) been deposed, left the settlements of Beaver City, north of Parowan,
Parowan City, and Cedar City on what was
called a "secret expedition," and after an absence of a few days
returned, bringing back strange wagons, cattle, horses, mules and also household
property.
There is legal proof that this property was sold at the official tithing
office of the church. Whitelock says that this man could not report the details
of the massacre without tears and trembling. He said he was so horrified at
these atrocities he fled away from Utah to California. The man said he saw
children clinging around the knees of the murderers, begging for mercy and
offering themselves as slaves for life could they be spared. But their throats
were cut from ear to ear as an answer to their appeal.
There are now wagons, carriages, and cattle in possession of the Mormons
which can be sworn to, it is said, as having belonged to these emigrants by
those who saw them upon the plains.
Two hundred and forty eight head of cattle were sold on the Jordan River
after the arrival of the Army to United States commissaries by Mormons, and it
is said that they can be traced as having come through the hands of Lee and
[William H.] Hooper, who was Mormon Secretary of State, and were without doubt
the cattle taken from the emigrants. Others are seen in the hands of the Mormons
which are believed to have been captured at the time of the massacre. The Pah-Ute
Indians of the Muddy River said to me that they know the Mormons had charged
them with the massacre of the emigrants, but said they,
"where are the wagons, the
cattle, the clothing, the rifles, and other property belonging to the train? We
have not got or had them. No, you find all these things in the hands of the
Mormons." There is some logical reasoning in that, creditable at
least to the obscure minds of miserable savages, whatever be the truth.
But there is not the shadow of a
doubt that the emigrants were butchered by the Mormons themselves, assisted
doubtless by the Indians. The idea of letting the emigrants come on to an
obscure quarter of the Territory, amid the fastnesses of the mountains, with a
formidable desert extending from that point to California, over which a stranger
to the country, without sustenance, escape with his life; to a point were the
Indians were numerous enough to lend assistance, and who could plausibly be
charged with the crime in case, in the future any people should give trouble by
asking ugly questions on the subject, exhibits consideration as to future
contingencies of which these miserable Indians, at least are entirely incapable.
Besides, "fifty men that would do to tie to" in a fight, all
well armed and experts in the use of the rifle, could have wiped out ten times
their number of Pah-Ute Indians armed only with the bow and arrow. Hamblin
himself, their agent, informed that to his certain knowledge in 1856 there were
but three guns in the whole tribe. I doubt if they had many more in 1857. The
emigrants were to be destroyed with as little loss to the Mormons as possible,
and no one old enough to tell the tale was to be left alive. To effect this the
whole plans and operations, from beginning to end, display skill, patience,
pertinacity and forecast, which no people here at the time were equal to except
the Mormons themselves. Hamblin says three men escaped. They were doubtless
herding when the attack was made, or crept out of a corral by night.
The fate of one of these he had never learned. He must have been murdered
off the road or perished of hunger and thirst in the mountains. At all events he
never went through to California or he would have been heard from. One got as
far as the Muddy River, ninety odd miles from Mountain Meadows. There the
Indians cut his throat. The other got as far as Las Vegas, 45 miles still
farther towards California, where he arrived totally naked, some Indians having
stripped him of his clothes. Hamblin said an acquaintance of his coming from
that way had seen marks in the sand where the Indians had thrown him down and
where there had been struggling when he was stripped. The Las Vegas Indians cut
his throat likewise. The Mormons had a fort at Las Vegas, now abandoned, but
which was occupied at that time.
Here is something which seems to point to the "tracks in the sand
of three men who wore fine boots" which brothers Ira Hatch and Prime
Coleman saw at the Beaver Dams, and at which they became so frightened that they
didn't stop to get water, although there was none other within 20 miles. During
this "Siege of Sebastapol" or after the final massacre, it was
doubtless discovered that the three emigrants had escaped, and Brothers Hatch
and Coleman, perhaps two Mormons named Young, were sent in pursuit to cut them
off on the desert or to get the Indians to do it. Hatch talks Pah-Ute like a
native, and is now an interpreter of their language whenever needed. One of the
Youngs, who now lives at Cotton Farm, near the confluence of The Virgin and
Santa Clara, tells this story of the emigrants murdered on the Muddy:
"He
and his brother, each on horseback, and leading a third horse, were traveling
from California, as he says, to Utah. Just before they arrived at Muddy River
they met one of the emigrants on foot. He had been wounded; was unarmed and
without provisions or water. It was at daybreak. He had traveled already nearly
100 miles from the Mountain Meadows. He seemed to be terror stricken. His mind
was wandering. He talked incoherently about the massacre and his purposes. Under
the awful scenes he had witnessed, the pain of his wound, and the privations he
had endured his senses had given away. They told him of the long deserts ahead
of which, if he pursued his way, he would certainly perish. They persuaded him
to return with them; mounted him on their lead horse, and so came on to the
Muddy, where they stopped to prepare breakfast. One of the Young's laid his
coat, containing in its pocket $500 all their money, on a bush. And commenced
frying some cakes at a fire which had been kindled.
The Indians gathered around in great numbers. The chief would seize the cakes from the pan as fast as they were done, and eat them. At last one of the Youngs struck the chief with a knife, whereupon all the Indians rose to kill the three men. Young says he and his brother drew their revolvers, and holding them on the Indians, kept them at a distance until they got to their horses, had mounted, and were out of arrow shot. They then looked back for the emigrant who had seemed as he sat abstracted by the fire, hardly to comprehend what was going on. He had not left the spot where he sat. Three or four Indians had him down and were cutting his throat. They themselves, then made off, leaving coat, money, and all their provisions."
This is their story, but the truth doubtless was the Youngs, Hatch and
Coleman, had followed up the man; had found him beyond the Muddy, brought him
back, and then set the Indians upon him. The fate of these three men seems to
close the scenes of this terrible tragedy on all the grown people of that fine
train which was seen journeying prosperously forward at O'Fallons Bluffs on the
11th of the preceding June. There were doubtless atrocious episodes connected
with the massacre of the women, which will never be known. Mr. Rogers, the
deputy marshal, told me that Bishop John D. Lee is said to have taken a
beautiful lady away to a secluded spot. There she implored him for more than
life. She too, was found dead. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.
The little children whom we left this John D. Lee distributing at
Hamblin's house after that sad night, have at length been gathered together and
are now at Indian Farm, 12 miles south of Fillmore City, or at Salt Lake City in
the custody for Dr. Forney, United States Indian agent. They are 17 in number.
Sixteen of these were seen by Judge Cradlebaugh, Lieutenant Kearney, and others,
and gave the following information in relation to their personal identity, etc.
The children were varying from 3 to 9 years of age, 10 girls, 6 boys, and were
questioned separately.
The first is a boy named Calvin, between 7 and 8 [John Calvin Miller, 6];
does not remember his surname; says he was by his mother [Matilda] when she was
killed, and pulled the arrows from her back until she was dead; says he had two
brothers older than himself, named James [see below] and Henry, and three
sisters, Nancy, Mary [see below] and Martha.
The second is a girl who does not remember her name. The others say it is
Demurr [Georgia Ann Dunlap, 18 mos.].
The third is a boy named Ambrose Mariam Tagit [Emberson Milam
Tackitt, 4]; says he had two brothers older than himself and one younger. His
father, mother, and two elder brothers were killed, his younger brother [William
Henry, listed below] was brought to Cedar City; says he lived in Johnson County,
but does not know what State; says it took one week to go from where he lived
with his grandfather and grandmother who are still living in the States.
The fourth is a girl obtained of John Morris, a Mormon, at Cedar City.
She does not recollect anything about herself [Mary Miller, 4 (see next below)].
Fifth. A boy obtained of E. H. Grove [Joseph Miller, 1, whose older
brother, Calvin (above)], says that the girl obtained of Morris is named Mary
and is his sister.
The sixth is a girl who says her name is Prudence Angelina [Prudence
Angeline Dunlap, 5]. Had two brothers, Jessie [Thomas J., 17] and John (John H.,
16], who were killed. Her father's name was William [Lorenzo Dow Dunlap], and
she had an Uncle Jessie [Jesse Dunlap].
The seventh is a girl. She says her name is Francis Harris, or Horne,
remembers nothing of her family [Sarah Frances Baker, 3].
The eighth is a young boy, too young to remember anything about himself
[Felix Marion Jones, 18 mos.].
The ninth is a boy whose name is William W. Huff [William Henry Tackitt,
19 mos.].
The tenth is a boy whose name is Charles Fancher [Christopher
"Kit" Carson Fancher, 5].
The eleventh is a girl who says her name is Sophronia Huff [Nancy
Saphrona Huff, 4].
The twelfth is a girl who says her name is Betsy [Martha Elizabeth Baker,
5].
The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth are three sisters named Rebecca,
Louisa and Sara Dunlap [Rebecca J. Dunlap, 6; Louisa Dunlap, 4; Sarah E. Dunlap,
1]. These three sisters were the children obtained of Jacob Hamblin.
I have no note of the sixteenth [Triphenia D. Fancher, 22 mos.].
The seventeenth is a boy who was but six weeks old at the time of the
massacre [William Twitty Baker, 9 mos.]. Hamblin's wife brought him to my camp
on the 19th instant. The next day they took him on to Salt Lake City to give him
up to Dr. Forney. He is a pretty little boy and hardly dreamed he had again
slept upon the ground where his parents had been murdered.
These children, it is said, could not be induced to make any developments
while they remained with the Mormons, from fear, no doubt, having been
intimidated by threats. Dr. Forney, it is said, came southward for them under
the impression that he would find them in the hands of the Indians.
The Mormons say the children were in the hands of the Indians and were
purchased by them for rifles, blankets, etc., but the children say they have
never lived with the Indians at all. The Mormons claimed of Dr. Forney sums of
money, varying from $200 to $400, for attending them when sick, for feeding and
clothing them, and for nourishing the infants from the time when they assumed to
have purchased them from the Indians.
Murders of the parents and despoilers of their property, these Mormons,
rather these relentless, incarnate fiends, dared even to come forward and claim
payment for having kept these little ones barely alive; these helpless orphans
whom they themselves had already robbed of their natural protectors and support.
Has there ever been an act which at all equaled this devilish hardihood in more
than devilish effrontery? Never, but one; and even then the price was but
"30 pieces of silver."
On my arrival at Mountain Meadows, the 16th instant, I encamped near the
spring where the emigrants had encamped, and where they had entrenched
themselves after they were first fired upon. The ditch they there dug is not yet
filled up.
The same day Captain Reuben P. Campbell, United States Second Dragoons,
with a command of three companies of troops, came from his camp at Santa Clara
and camped there also. Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy Marshall Rogers had come
down from Provo with Captain Campbell, and had been inquiring into the
circumstances of the massacre. The judge cannot receive too much praise for the
resolute and thorough manner with which he pursues him investigation. On his way
down past this spot, and before my arrival, Captain Campbell had caused to be
collected and buried the bones of 26 of the victims. Dr. Brewer informed me that
the remains of 18 were buried in one grave, 12 in another and 6 in another.
On the 20th I took a wagon and a party of men and made a thorough search
for others amongst the sage brushes for a least a mile back from the road that
leads to Hamblin's house. Hamblin himself showed Sergeant Fritz of my party a
spot on the right-hand side of the road where had partially covered up a great
many of the bones. These were collected, and a large number of others on the
left hand side of the road up the slopes of the hill, and in the ravines and
among the bushes. I gathered many of the disjointed bones of 34 persons. The
number could easily be told by the number of pairs of shoulder blades and by
lower jaws, skulls, and parts of skulls, etc.
These, with the remains of two others gotten in a ravine to the east of
the spring, where they had been interred at but little depth, 34 in all, I
buried in a grave on the northern side of the ditch. Around and above this grave
I caused to be built of loose granite stones, hauled from the neighboring hills,
a rude monument, conical in form and fifty feet in circumference at the base,
and twelve feet in height. This is surmounted by a cross hewn from red cedar
wood. From the ground to top of cross is twenty four feet. On the transverse
part of the cross, facing towards the north, is an inscription carved in the
wood. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." And on
a rude slab of granite set in the earth and leaning against the northern base of
the monument there are cut the following words:
"Here 120 men, women, and
children were massacred in cold blood early in September, 1857. They were from
Arkansas."
I observed that nearly every skull
I saw had been shot through with rifle or revolver bullets. I did not see one
that had been "broken in with stones." Dr. Brewer showed me one, that
probably of a boy of eighteen, which had been fractured and slit, doubtless by
two blows of a bowie knife or other instrument of that character.
I saw several bones of what must have been very small children. Dr.
Brewer says from what he saw he thinks some infants were butchered. The mothers
doubtless had these in their arms, and the same shot or blow may have deprived
both of life.
The scene of the massacre, even at this late day, was horrible to look
upon. Women's hair, in detached locks and masses, hung to the sage bushes and
was strewn over the ground in many places. Parts of little children's dresses
and of female costume dangled from the shrubbery or lay scattered about; and
among these, here and there, on every hand, for at least a mile in the direction
of the road, by two miles east and west, there gleamed, bleached white by the
weather, the skulls and other bones of those who had suffered. A glance into the
wagon when all these had been collected revealed a sight which can never be
forgotten.
The idea of the melancholy procession of that great number of women and
children, followed at a distance by their husbands and brothers, after all their
suffering, their watching, their anxiety and grief, for so many gloomy days and
dismal nights at the corral, thus moving slowly and sadly up to the point where
the Mormons and Indians lay in wait to murder them; these doomed and unhappy
people literally going to their own funeral; the chill shadows of night closing
darkly around them, sad precursors of the approaching shadows of a deeper night,
brings to the mind a picture of human suffering and wretchedness on the one
hand, and of human treachery and ferocity upon the other, that cannot possibly
be excelled by any other scene that ever before occurred in real life.
I caused the distance to be measured from point to point on the scene of
the massacre. From the ditch near the spring to the point upon the road where
the men attacked and destroyed, and where their bones were mostly found, is one
mile 565 yards. Here there is a grave where Capt. Campbell's command buried some
of the remains. To the next point, also marked by a similar grave made by
Captain Campbell, and where the women and children were butchered; a point
identified from their bones and clothing have been found near it, it is one
mile, 1,135 yards. To the swell across the valley called the Rim of the Basin,
is one mile 1,334 yards. To Hamblin's house four miles, 1,049 yards.