BGuthrie Photos: UT -- Mountain Meadows Historic Site (Mountain Meadows Massacre)

UT -- Mountain Meadows Historic Site (Mountain Meadows Massacre):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MMM_060607_002_STITCH.JPG: This stitched version lets you see everything. The pass on the far left is how the wagon train came in. They were held hostage just inside the valley where the green diagonal comes in. The monument in there as well. After they surrendered to the Mormons, the party was escorted up the valley until they were massacred off to the right side of the picture.
2. MMM_060607_004.JPG: THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE Led by Captains John T. Baker and Alexander Fancher, a California-bound wagon train from Arkansas camped in this valley in the late summer of 1857 during the time of the so-called Utah War. In the early morning hours of September 7th, a party of local Mormon settlers and Indians attacked and laid siege to the encampment. For reasons not fully understood, a contingent of territorial militia joined the attackers. This Iron County Militia consisted of local Latter-day Saints (Mormons) acting on orders from their local religious leaders and military commanders headquartered thirty-five miles to the northeast in Cedar City. Complex animosities and political issues intertwined with deep religious beliefs motivated the Mormons, but the exact causes and circumstances fostering the sad events that ensued over the next five days at Mountain Meadows still defy any clear or simple explanation. During the siege, fifteen emigrant men were killed in the fighting or while trying to escape. Then late Friday afternoon, September 11th, the emigrants were persuaded to give up their weapons and leave their corralled wagons in exchange for a promise of safe passage to Cedar City. Under heavy guard, they made their way out of the encirclement. When they were all out of the corral and some of them more than a mile up the valley, they were suddenly and without warning attacked by their supposed benefactors. The local Indians joined in the slaughter, and in a matter of minutes fourteen adult male emigrants, twelve women, and thirty-five children were struck down. Nine hired hands driving cattle were also killed along with at least thirty-five other unknown victims. At least 120 souls died in what became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Seventeen children under the age of eight survived the ordeal and were eventually returned to Arkansas. One or more other children may have remained in Utah.
3. MMM_060607_011.JPG: THE BURIAL SITES The Baker-Fancher emigrants buried the bodies of ten men killed during the five-day siege somewhere within the circled wagons of the encampment located west of the current monument in the valley. Most of the Baker-Fancher party died at various locations northeast of the 1859 memorial. In May 1859, Brevet Major James H. Carleton, commanding some eighty soldiers of the First Dragoons from Ft. Tejon, California, gathered scattered bones representing the partial remains of thirty-six of the emigrants, interred them near the wagon camp, and erected a stone cairn at the site. Before Carleton's arrival, Captains Reuben T. Campbell and Charles Brewer along with 207 men from Camp Floyd, Utah, collected and buried the remains of twenty-six emigrants in three different graves on the west side of the California Road about one and one-half miles north of the original encampment. Brewer reported that "the remains of [an additional] 18 were buried in one grave, 12 in another and 6 in another." Since the erection of the memorial by Major Carleton, several local families, including the Platts, Lytles, and Burgesses, have preserved and protected the graves in this area from being desecrated by souvenir hunters, land developers, curiosity seekers, and other intruders. In 1999, the Mountain Meadows Association collaborated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in erecting the new monument over the spot of the original 1859 grave. On August 3rd, 1999, workers excavating for the wall around the new monument accidentally uncovered the Carleton grave. On September 10th, 1999, the remains recovered from that grave were re-interred in a burial vault inside the new wall. The monument was dedicated the following day, September 11th, 1999.
4. MMM_060607_026.JPG: Here's a closer view of the site of the encirclement. The entry valley is on the left.
5. MMM_060607_041.JPG: The benches sit in front of the "In Memorium" wall. The rock for the memorial is from Little Rock, Arkansas.
6. MMM_060607_047.JPG: THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL and THE CALIFORNIA ROAD An arduous 1,200-mile route between Santa Fe and Los Angeles, the "Old Spanish Trail" passed through Mountain Meadows during its heyday, between 1830 and 1848. The trail served traders who loaded their pack mules with woolen goods from Santa Fe each fall and returned from Californian each spring with Chinese goods and mules and horses for markets in Missouri. The trail followed along the west side of the Mountain Meadows to a campsite at the south end of the valley, then down Magotsu Creek. Attempts to blaze this trade route began as early as 1765, when Juan Maria de Rivera explored from Santa Fe to the Gunnison River, in Colorado. Fathers Athanasio Dominguez and Velez de Escalante were turned back by heavy snows in 1776 in an attempt to reach California. Traveling as far north as the Provo area, they gave up the venture while camped between modern Milford and Cedar City. Later, Spanish traders made frequent visits from New Mexico to barter with the Utes for pelts and slaves. Jedediah Smith explored the western stretch of the trail from Utah to California in 1826-27. The first to complete the circuit from Santa Fe to Los Angels was Mexican trader Antonio Armijo in the winter of 1829-30. Ewing Young's trapping party from Taos may have followed the trail about the same time. In 1830-31 William Wolfskill proved its utility for pack trains, and a brisk trade flourished for a dozen years. After 1848, the trail fell rapidly into disuse. Discharged members of the Mormon Battalion en route to Salt Lake City from San Diego drove the first wheeled vehicles over the trail in 1848. This opened a new emigrant wagon route know as the "California Road." It was used by gold seekers and other California emigrants and by Mormon travelers. The wagon road shifted to the east side of the meadows to avoid Magotsu Creek. It was this route to California that brought the Baker-Fancher party to Mountain Meadows in September 1857.
7. MMM_060607_056.JPG: MOUNTAIN MEADOWS Historic Sites View Finders View No. 1: Camp Site: The viewer on your left is directed toward the historic campsite at the south end of the valley. This was a traditional stopping place for pack mule trains traversing the Old Spanish Trail. At this site, the Baker-Fancher Train camped in 1857 and on September 7 the initial siege of the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place. Stone monuments with plaques were erected in 1859 and 1932 and a new plaque in 1990. View No. 2: Massacre Site: Travelers entered Mountain Meadows from the north crossed the rim of the basin near the location seen through the viewer on your right. Pack trains stayed to the far (west) side of the valley, buy wagons chose a less marshy route nearer this side. Most of the Baker-Fancher Party were killed on September 11, 1857, as they were being escorted out of the valley heading north. The viewer locates the approximate site of the massacre and of an 1859 stone monument marking one of the burial sites. The piece of stone embedded in the concrete walkway behind you is native granite from Little Rock, Arkansas
8. MMM_060607_063.JPG: Mountain Meadow Massacre site near St. George, Utah. The murder scene itself was in the distance.
9. MMM_060607_158.JPG: MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE GRAVE SITE MEMORIAL MARKER Built and maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Out of respect for those who died and were buried here and in the surrounding area following the massacre of 1857. Dedicated 11 September 1999
10. MMM_060607_162.JPG: Memorials: [1857: Prompted by complaints about church power in the territory and a public outcry against polygamy, the United States sent an army to Utah, raising Mormon fears that the final annihilation was at hand. It will take months for the Army forces to reach Utah. Mormon leaders proclaim they are ready for war. The Mountain Meadows Massacre happens during this time of tension.] [1857: The massacre occurs.] [1857: Winter had stopped Buchanan's army's advance, and the "Mormon War" ended before it really began. In a negotiated settlement the president pardoned Young and his followers for inciting a rebellion, and Young in turn resigned as governor -- but he remained in effective control of his people. ] [1858: A federal judge comes to Utah to pass judgment on the massacre. John D. Lee, a prominent Mormon leader and the person most associated with the event, goes into hiding and remains hidden with the help of other Mormons. Lee, by the way, has 19 wives.] 1859: The original monument at this site was established by the U.S. Army. It consisted of a stone cairn topped with a cedar cross and a small granite marker set against the north side of the cairn and dated 20 May 1859. Military officials marked some other burial sites in the valley with simple stone cairns. [1860: Brigham Young, the Mormon head, visits one of Lee's mansions. Despite his involvement in the massacre, Lee is still highly regarded in the church.] [1861: Voters in Harmony, Utah elect Lee as their presiding elder.] [1861: Brigham Young stopped at Mountain Meadows. Federal troops, outraged at the massacre, had erected a makeshift monument to those who had been murdered. On it were the words, "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, and I will repay." Young gazed at it for a time, then ordered the monument torn down. "Vengeance is mine," he muttered, "and I have taken a little." ] [1870: A Utah paper openly condemned Brigham Young for covering up the massacre. That same year Young exiled Lee to a remote part of northern Arizona and excommunicated him from the church, instructing his former confidant to "make yourself scarce and keep out of the way."] [1874: John Lee arrested. In his writings, he says that the church's orders to execute the wagon train were explicit. "The orders said to decoy the emigrants from their position, and kill all of them that could talk. This order was in writing.... I read it, and then dropped it on the ground, saying, "I cannot do this...." I then bowed myself in prayer before God... and my tortured soul was wrung nearly from my body by the great suffering.... If I had then had a thousand worlds to command, I would have given them freely to save that company from death."] [1877: John D. Lee is executed. He is the only person punished for the massacre.] [1890: Church president Wilford Woodruff, faced with the loss of all church facilities and any political influence in Utah, produced in 1890 what was called a "Manifesto" in which he stated that Mormons would give up plural marriage. This, along with the church's commitment to staying out of politics, will result in Utah statehood later.] [1896: Utah admitted as a state.] [1904: Apostle Reed Smoot, himself a monogamist, was elected a U.S. senator in 1904. The Senate has hearings on the church's commitment to monogamy. Joseph F. Smith released a "Second Manifesto" in 1904, reiterating that the church had abandoned polygamy. Since then, LDS members who practice polygamy have usually been excommunicated. ] 1932: The Utah Trails and Landmarks Association built a protective stone wall around the 1859 grave site in September 1932. The association president was George Albert Smith of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and later President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1936: The Arkansas Centennial Commission and Arkansas History Commission placed a stone iron historical marker on Highway 7 about three miles south of Harrison, Arkansas. The marker, near the William Beller home and what is now known as Milum Spring, identifies the area as the departure place for some members of the caravan. 1955: On 4 September 1955, the Richard Fancher Society of America unveiled a granite memorial to the victims in a park at Harrison, Arkansas. [1961: Amazingly enough, John D. Lee is posthumously readmitted back into the Mormon church.] 1990: The State of Utah, families of the victims, and local citizens erected the Mountain Meadows Memorial on a nearby hill. The granite marker lists the known victims and surviving children. President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated the memorial on 14 September 1990 during a meeting in Cedar City. 1999: Under the direction of President Gordon B. Hinckley and with the cooperation of the Mountain Meadows Association and others, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints replaced the 1932 wall and installed the present Grave Site Memorial. President Hinckley dedicated the memorial on 11 September 1999.
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Wikipedia Description: Mountain Meadows massacre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mountain Meadows massacre involved a mass slaughter of the Fancher-Baker emigrant wagon train at Mountain Meadows in the Utah Territory by the local Mormon militia in September 1857. It began as an attack, quickly turned into a siege, and eventually culminated on September 11, 1857, in the execution of the unarmed emigrants after their surrender. Local Paiute tribesmen recruited by the militia also participated in both the attack and the massacre.

The Arkansas emigrants were traveling to California shortly before the Utah War started. Mormons throughout the Utah Territory had been mustered to fight the United States Army, which they believed was intending to destroy them as a people. During this period of tension, rumors among the Mormons also linked the Fancher-Baker train with enemies who had participated in previous persecutions of Mormons or more recent malicious acts.

The emigrants stopped to rest and regroup their approximately 800 head of cattle at Mountain Meadows, a valley within the Iron County Military District of the Nauvoo Legion (the popular designation for the militia of the Utah Territory).

Initially intending to orchestrate an Indian massacre, two men with leadership roles in local military, church and government organizations, Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee, conspired to lead militiamen disguised as Native Americans along with a contingent of Paiute tribesmen in an attack. The emigrants fought back and a siege ensued. Intending to leave no witnesses of Mormon complicity in the siege and also intending to prevent reprisals that would complicate the Utah War, militiamen induced the emigrants to surrender and give up their weapons. After escorting the emigrants out of their fortification, the militiamen and their tribesmen auxiliaries executed approximately 120 men, women and children. Seventeen younger children were spared.

Investigations, interrupted by the U.S. ...More...
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [History 1800s (excl wars)] [Park (Local)]
2006 photos: Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point.. Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia. Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
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