Existing comment:
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. |