Mountain Meadows Massacre

Baker–Fancher party In early 1857, the Baker–Fancher party was formed from several groups mainly from Marion, Crawford, Carroll and Johnson counties in northwestern Arkansas. They assembled into a wagon train at Beller's Stand, south of Harrison, to emigrate to southern California. The group was initially referred to as both the Baker train and the Perkins train, but later referred to as the Baker–Fancher train (or party). It was named after "Colonel" Alexander Fancher who, having already made the journey to California twice before, had become its main leader. By contemporary standards the Baker–Fancher party was prosperous, carefully organized and well-equipped for the journey. They were joined along the way by families and individuals from other states, including Missouri. The group was relatively wealthy, and planned to restock its supplies in Salt Lake City, as did most wagon trains at the time. Interactions with Mormon settlers At the time of the Fanchers' arrival, the Utah Territory, though legally a democracy, was effectively a theocracy under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), who had established colonies along the California Trail and the Old Spanish Trail. US President James Buchanan had recently issued an order to send federal troops to Utah, which led to rumors being spread in the territory about its motives. Young issued various orders that urged the local population to prepare for the arrival of the troops. Eventually Young issued a declaration of martial law. The Baker–Fancher party was refused provisions in Salt Lake City and chose to leave there and take the Old Spanish Trail, which passed through southern Utah. In August 1857, the Mormon apostle George A. Smith traveled throughout the southern part of the territory instructing Mormon settlers to stockpile grain. While most witnesses said that the Fanchers were in general a peaceful party whose members behaved well along the trail, rumors spread about their supposed misdeeds. United States Army Brevet Major James Henry Carleton led the first federal investigation of the murders, and the findings were published in 1859. He recorded Hamblin's account that the train was alleged to have poisoned a spring near Corn Creek, resulting in the deaths of eighteen cows and two or three people who ate the contaminated meat. Carleton interviewed the father of a child who allegedly died from this poisoned spring and accepted the sincerity of the grieving father. He also included a statement from an investigator who did not believe the Fancher party was capable of poisoning the spring, given its size. Carleton invited readers to consider a potential explanation for the rumors of misdeeds, noting the general atmosphere of distrust among Mormons for strangers at the time, and that some locals appeared jealous of the Fancher party's wealth. Modern historians, noting the symptoms of the young boy who died, as well as very similar symptoms in someone in the Fancher party who died before reaching Utah, and the difficulty for a party the size of the Fancher train to poison a spring, now theorize that the deaths were caused by anthrax, which was a widespread but unrecognized disease in cattle at that time. Conspiracy and siege The Baker–Fancher party left Corn Creek and continued the to Mountain Meadows, passing Parowan and Cedar City, southern Utah communities led respectively by Stake Presidents William H. Dame and Isaac C. Haight. Haight and Dame were, in addition, the senior regional military leaders of the Iron Military District of the Nauvoo Legion. As the party approached, several meetings were held in Cedar City and nearby Parowan by local LDS Church leaders pondering how to implement Young's declaration of martial law. On the afternoon of Sunday, September 6, Haight held his weekly Stake High Council meeting after church services and brought up the issue of what to do with the immigrants. The plan for a Native American massacre was discussed, but not all the Council members agreed it was the right approach. The Council resolved to take no action until Haight sent a rider, James Haslam, out the next day to carry an express to Salt Lake City (a six-day round trip on horseback) for Young's advice, as Utah did not yet have a telegraph system. Following the council, Haight decided to send a messenger Joseph Clewes south to John D. Lee. The attack continued for five days, during which the besieged families had little or no access to fresh water or game food and their ammunition was depleted. Organization among the local Mormon leadership reportedly broke down. Fear spread among the militia's leaders that some emigrants had caught sight of white men, and had probably discerned the identity of their attackers. This resulted in an order to kill all the emigrants, with the exception of small children. Killings and aftermath On Friday, September 11, 1857, two militiamen on horseback approached the Baker–Fancher party wagons, one carrying an American flag and the other with a white flag. They were soon followed by Indian Agent and militia officer John D. Lee who told the battle-weary emigrants that he had negotiated a truce with the Paiutes. Under Mormon protection, the wagon-train members would be escorted safely back to Cedar City, away, in exchange for turning all of their livestock and supplies over to the Native Americans. Accepting this offer, the emigrants were led out of their fortification, with the adult men being separated from the women and children. The men were paired with a militia escort and when the signal was given, the militiamen turned and shot the male members of the Baker–Fancher party standing by their side. The women and children were then ambushed and killed by more militia that were hiding in nearby bushes and ravines. Members of the militia were sworn to secrecy. A plan was set to blame the massacre on the Native Americans. Leonard J. Arrington, founder of the Mormon History Association, reports that Brigham Young received the rider, James Haslam, at his office on the same day. When he learned what was contemplated by the militia leaders in Parowan and Cedar City, he sent back a letter stating the Baker–Fancher party was not to be meddled with, and should be allowed to go in peace (although he acknowledged the Native Americans would likely "do as they pleased"). Some of the surviving children saw clothing and jewelry that had belonged to their dead mothers and sisters subsequently being worn by Mormon women, and the journalist J.H. Beadle said that jewelry taken from Mountain Meadows was seen in Salt Lake City. Investigations and prosecutions An early investigation was conducted by Brigham Young, In Carleton's investigation, at Mountain Meadows he found women's hair tangled in sage brush and the bones of children still in their mothers' arms. Carleton later said it was "a sight which can never be forgotten." After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a cairn and cross. Nevertheless, Cradlebaugh conducted a tour of the Mountain Meadows area with a military escort. He attempted to arrest John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, and John Higbee, who fled before they could be found. Cradlebaugh publicly charged Brigham Young as an instigator to the massacre and therefore an "accessory before the fact". Possibly as a protective measure against the mistrusted federal court system, Mormon territorial probate court judge Elias Smith arrested Young under a territorial warrant, perhaps hoping to divert any trial of Young into a friendly Mormon territorial court. Apparently because no federal charges ensued, Young was released. on March 23, 1877. Lee is seated, next to his coffin. 's execution. Further investigations were cut short by the American Civil War in 1861. The US posted bounties of $5000 USD () each for the capture of Haight, Higbee, Stewart, and Philip Klingensmith. Dame, Klingensmith, Ellott Willden, and George Adair Jr. were indicted and arrested while warrants to pursue the arrests of four others who had gone into hiding (Haight, Higbee, William C. Stewart, and Samuel Jukes) were being obtained. Klingensmith escaped prosecution by agreeing to testify. Brigham Young excommunicated some participants, including Haight and Lee, from the LDS Church in 1870. Philip Klingensmith had been a bishop but then had left the church and moved to Nevada by the time of his arrest. Lee was arrested on November 7, 1874. His first trial began on July 23, 1875, in Beaver, before a jury of eight Mormons and four non-Mormons. One of Lee's defense attorneys was Enos D. Hoge, a former territorial supreme court justice. The trial led to a hung jury on August 5, 1875. Lee's second trial began September 13, 1876, before an all-Mormon jury. The prosecution called Daniel Wells, Laban Morrill, Joel White, Samuel Knight, Samuel McMurdy, Nephi Johnson, and Jacob Hamblin. Lee also stipulated, against advice of counsel, that the prosecution be allowed to re-use the depositions of Young and Smith from the previous trial. Lee called no witnesses in his defense, and was convicted. Lee was entitled under Utah Territorial statute to choose the method of his execution from three possible options: hanging, firing squad, or decapitation. At sentencing, Lee chose to be executed by firing squad. In his final words before his sentence was carried out at Mountain Meadows on March 23, 1877, Lee said that he was a scapegoat for others involved. Brigham Young stated that Lee's fate was just, but it was not a sufficient blood atonement, given the enormity of the crime. ==Criticism and analysis==

Media coverage '' magazine. Published reports of the incident date back at least to October 1857 in the Los Angeles Star. A notable report on the incident was made in 1859 by Carleton, who had been sent by the US Army to investigate the incident and bury the corpses at Mountain Meadows. The first period of intense nationwide publicity about the massacre began around 1872 after investigators obtained Klingensmith's confession. In 1868 C. V. Waite published "An Authentic History Of Brigham Young" which described the events. In 1872, Mark Twain commented on the massacre through the lens of contemporary American public opinion in an appendix to his semi-autobiographical travel book Roughing It. In 1873, the massacre was given a full chapter in T. B. H. Stenhouse's Mormon history The Rocky Mountain Saints. The massacre also received international attention, with various international and national newspapers also covering John D. Lee's 1874 and 1877 trials as well as his execution in 1877. The massacre has been treated extensively by several historical works, beginning with Lee's Confession in 1877, expressing his opinion that George A. Smith was sent to southern Utah by Brigham Young to direct the massacre. In 1910, the massacre was the subject of a short book by Josiah F. Gibbs, who also attributed responsibility for the massacre to Young and Smith. The first detailed and comprehensive work using modern historical methods was The Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1950 by Juanita Brooks, a Mormon scholar who lived near the area in southern Utah. Brooks found no evidence of direct involvement by Brigham Young but charged him with obstructing the investigation and provoking the attack through his rhetoric. The LDS Church denied any involvement by Mormons, and into the 21st century was relatively silent on the issue. In 1872, it excommunicated some of the participants for their role in the massacre. Even after irrefutable evidence surfaced in 1999, the LDS Church did not officially recognize its members' responsibility for the attack through at least 2002. In September 2007, 150 years after the tragedy, the LDS Church published its first official statement of regret on the topic, and told the Associated Press via a church spokesperson that the statement should not be seen as an apology. In modern times, the murders have been called an act of domestic terrorism in many works of literature, and is considered the largest act of domestic terrorism in United States history prior to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Other descriptors include "the darkest deed of the nineteenth century" and "a crime that has no parallel in American history for atrocity". LDS historian Richard Turley called it "the worst event in Latter-day Saint history", and historian of the American West Will Bagley stated it was "the most brutal act of religious terrorism in America history" before the 2001 September 11 attacks. Varying perspectives As described by Richard E. Turley Jr., Ronald W. Walker, and Glen M. Leonard, historians from different backgrounds have taken different approaches to describe the massacre and those involved: • Portraying the perpetrators (white Mormon settlers) as fundamentally good and the Baker−Fancher party as evil people who committed outrageous acts of anti-Mormon instigation prior to the massacre; • Describing the opposite view that the perpetrators were evil and the emigrants were innocent; Prior to 1985, many textbooks available in Utah Public Schools blamed the Paiute people as primarily responsible for the massacre or placed equal blame on the Paiute and Mormon settlers (if they mentioned the massacre at all). Explanatory theories Historians have ascribed the massacre to a number of factors, including strident Mormon teachings in the years prior to the massacre, war hysteria, and the alleged involvement of Brigham Young. Strident Mormon teachings For the decade prior to the Baker–Fancher party's arrival there, Utah Territory existed as a theodemocracy led by Brigham Young. During the mid-1850s, Young instituted a Mormon Reformation, intending to "lay the axe at the root of the tree of sin and iniquity". In January 1856, Young said "the government of God, as administered here" may to some seem "despotic" because "...judgment is dealt out against the transgression of the law of God." During the preceding decades, the religion had undergone a period of intense persecution in the American Midwest. They were officially expelled from, and an Extermination Order was issued by Governor Boggs, the state of Missouri during the 1838 Mormon War, during which prominent Mormon apostle David W. Patten was killed in battle. After Mormons moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, the religion's founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith were killed in 1844. Following these events, faithful Mormons migrated west hoping to escape persecution. In May 1857, just months before the Mountain Meadows massacre, apostle Parley P. Pratt was shot dead in Arkansas by Hector McLean, the estranged husband of Eleanor McLean Pratt, one of Pratt's plural wives. Parley Pratt and Eleanor entered a Celestial marriage (under the theocratic law of the Utah Territory), but Hector had refused Eleanor a divorce. "When she left San Francisco she left Hector, and later she was to state in a court of law that she had left him as a wife the night he drove her from their home. Whatever the legal situation, she thought of herself as an unmarried woman." Mormon leaders immediately proclaimed Pratt as another martyr, with Brigham Young stating, "Nothing has happened so hard to reconcile my mind to since the death of Joseph." Many Mormons held the people of Arkansas collectively responsible. "It was in accordance with Mormon policy to hold every Arkansan accountable for Pratt's death, just as every Missourian was hated because of the expulsion of the church from that state." Mormon leaders were teaching that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent – "...there are those now living upon the earth who will live to see the consummation" and "...we now bear witness that his coming is near at hand". Based on a somewhat ambiguous statement by Joseph Smith, some Mormons believed that Jesus would return in 1891 and that God would soon exact punishment against the United States for persecuting Mormons and martyring Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Patten and Pratt. Col. William H. Dame, the ranking officer in southern Utah who ordered the Mountain Meadows massacre, received a patriarchal blessing in 1854 that he would "be called to act at the head of a portion of thy Brethren and of the Lamanites (Native Americans) in the redemption of Zion and the avenging of the blood of the prophets upon them that dwell on the earth". In June 1857, Philip Klingensmith, another participant, was similarly blessed that he would participate in "avenging the blood of Brother Joseph". Thus, historians argue that southern Utah Mormons would have been particularly affected by an unsubstantiated rumor that the Baker–Fancher wagon train had been joined by a group of eleven miners and plainsmen who called themselves "Missouri Wildcats", some of whom reportedly taunted, vandalized and "caused trouble" for Mormons and Native Americans along the route (by some accounts claiming that they had the gun that "shot the guts out of Old Joe Smith"). They were also affected by the report to Brigham Young that the Baker–Fancher party was from Arkansas where Pratt was murdered. It was rumored that Pratt's wife recognized some of the Mountain Meadows party as being in the gang that shot and stabbed Pratt. War hysteria , Apostle who met the Baker–Fancher party before touring Parowan and neighboring settlements before the massacre The Mountain Meadows massacre was caused in part by events relating to the Utah War, an 1857 deployment toward the Utah Territory of the United States Army, whose arrival was peaceful. In the summer of 1857, however, the Mormons expected an all-out invasion of apocalyptic significance. From July to September 1857, Mormon leaders and their followers prepared for a siege that could have ended up similar to the seven-year Bleeding Kansas problem occurring at the time. Mormons were required to stockpile grain, and were enjoined against selling grain to emigrants for use as cattle feed. Scholars have asserted that George A. Smith's tour of southern Utah influenced the decision to attack and destroy the Fancher–Baker emigrant train near Mountain Meadows, Utah. He met with many of the eventual participants in the massacre, including W. H. Dame, Isaac Haight, John D. Lee and Chief Jackson, leader of a band of Paiutes. He noted that the militia was organized and ready to fight and that some of them were eager to "fight and take vengeance for the cruelties that had been inflicted upon us in the States." Analysis indicates that Edwards's signature may have been traced and that the typeset belonged to a typewriter manufactured in the 1950s. The Utah State Historical Society, which maintains the document in its archives, acknowledges a possible connection to Mark Hofmann, a convicted forger and extortionist, via go-between Lyn Jacobs who provided the society with the document. ==Remembrances==

The first monument for the victims was built two years after the massacre, by Major Carleton and the US Army. This monument was a simple cairn built over the gravesite of 34 victims, and was topped by a large cedar cross. The monument was found destroyed and the structure was replaced by the US Army in 1864. By some reports, the monument was destroyed in 1861, when Young brought an entourage to Mountain Meadows. Wilford Woodruff, who later became President of the Church, said that upon reading the inscription on the cross, which read, "Vengeance is mine, thus saith the Lord. I shall repay", Young responded, "it should be vengeance is mine and I have taken a little." In 1932, residents of the surrounding area constructed a memorial wall around the remnants of the monument. Starting in 1988, the Mountain Meadows Association, composed of descendants of both the Baker–Fancher party victims and the Mormon participants, designed a new monument in the meadows; this monument was completed in 1990 and is maintained by the Utah State Division of Parks and Recreation. In 1999, the LDS Church replaced the US Army's cairn and the 1932 memorial wall with a second monument, which it now maintains. In August 1999, when the LDS Church's construction of the 1999 monument had started, the remains of at least 28 massacre victims were dug up by a backhoe. The forensic evidence showed that the remains of the males had been shot by firearms at close range and that the remains of the women and children showed evidence of blunt force trauma. In 1955, to memorialize the victims of the massacre, a monument was installed in the town square of Harrison, Arkansas. On one side of this monument is a map and short summary of the massacre, while the opposite side contains a list of the victims. In 2005, a replica of the US Army's original 1859 cairn was built in the community of Carrollton, Arkansas, the former county seat of Carroll County, Arkansas. It is maintained by the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. In 2007, the 150th anniversary of the massacre was remembered by a ceremony held in the meadows. Approximately 400 people, including many descendants of those slain at Mountain Meadows and Elder Henry B. Eyring of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles attended this ceremony. In 2014, archaeologist Everett Bassett discovered two rock piles he believes mark additional graves. The locations of the possible graves are on private land and not at any of the monument sites owned by the LDS Church. The Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation has expressed their desire that the sites be conserved and given national monument status. Other descendant groups have been more hesitant in accepting the sites as legitimate grave markers. ==In media==

Works of non-fiction • Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath, by Richard E. Turley, Barbara Jones Brown, (2023) • Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Glen M. Leonard (2008) • House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Shannon A. Novak (2008) • Burying The Past, a documentary film by Brian Patrick (2004) • American Massacre, by Sally Denton (2003) • Blood of the Prophets, by Will Bagley (2002) • The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks (1950) Works of historical fiction • None Left to Tell, novel by Noelle West Ihli (2024) – Tells the story of the Mountain Meadows massacre from the perspectives of three women and one child who were involved. • American Primeval by Mark L. Smith (2024) – Largely fictional telling of several violent clashes in the Utah Territory, including the massacre. • Variation West by Ardyth Kennelly (2014) – A novel of 4 generations of a family in Utah, beginning with 2 fictional daughters of John D. Lee, with the Mountain Meadows massacre as backdrop. • September Dawn by Christopher Cain (2007) – The film is a fictional love story between real characters who were involved in the massacre. • Red Water by Judith Freeman (2002) – A novel about how the wives of John D. Lee have to come to terms with their husband's actions. • Redeye by Clyde Edgerton (1995) – A novel about a fictional bounty hunter, Cobb Pittman, who with his catch dog, Redeye, tracks down Mormons responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. • The Star Rover by Jack London (1915) – Protagonist Darrell Standing is reincarnated as Jesse Fancher. ==See also==