The Mountain Meadows Massacre ...Southern Utah 1857

[MartnTimothy]

Hi Readers, around one hundred and forty peaceful settlers, were waylaid by Indians, and Mormon settlers disguised as Indians, who moved to the region ten years prior, in South Western Utah in 1857.

The Mormons promised the besieged emigrants safe passage, then murdered all but around seventeen of the youngest children, since then many accounts of the crime have surfaced, including the one below from the last living survivor, she gave in an interview in 1940.

Please check this photo, it can only be of the emigrants...

That is significant, because none of the witnesses mention that a photographer was there, the caption read...

OK listen up, Lee and the other Mormon elders guarantee our safe passage to Cedar City, lay down your arms, men on the left women and children on the right, its our only chance to get away from Mountain Meadow.

There is another shot shows the men's bodies, scattered loosely across about forty meters, it is visible on the 2007 Mormon tape, the men are still fully clad, ie their clothing had not been disturbed, as it was to be when the killers tore it away searching for money belts.

The shots turned up at Jew run, Red and Black bookshops in the late 1960's, and had wide distribution among university ppl. The R&B bookshops had a revolutionary character, what with pics of Che Guvera, and another shot that had a baby impaled on a bayonet, that appears to have been taken during Ashkenazi military ops in Palestine.

Means the M's had a camera man to record all the action, NOW DOES IT NOT, and they are sittin on photo's that are sporadically released, just to let everyone know they still have a handle on it all, seems Old BY got his kicks killing ppl, else what was the camera doin there, and why have none of the M historians said anything!!

Should, that be the case, would a jury determine culpability, vis a vis it is an offense to withhold evidence in a murder case, even at this late date!! We are gonna keep updating this thread!!

Sara Baker, three years old at the time said... Its funny how you will recall unimportant details after so many years ...the black borders on the bright red blankets in the wagon, the wounded and the young children, including me... my two sisters and my baby brother were put in another wagon, Mother and Father had been wounded during the fighting, so they were in the wagon with us children.

Sarah's older sister Martha Elizabeth, told a reporter in 1938 that ...she heard her father tell her mother to get up and put the children in the wagon, that was the last time she saw her mother.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre: An Episode on the Road to Zion... The American Weekly, 1 September 1940!!

Sallie Baker Mitchell says: ...I'm the only person still living who was in that massacre, where the Mormons and the Indians, attacked a party of 137 settlers on the way to California , murdering everybody except 17 children, who were spared because they were all under eight years of age. I was one of those children, and when the killing started I was sitting on my daddy's lap in one of the wagons, the same bullet that snuffed out his life, took a nick out of my left ear,

leaving a scar you can see to this day.

Last November, I passed my 85th birthday and at the time of the massacre, I wasn't quite three years old. But even when you're that young, you don't forget the horror of having your father gasp for breath and grow limp, while you have your arms around his neck, screaming with terror. You don't forget the blood curdling war whoops, and the banging of guns all around you.

You don't forget the screaming of the other children, and the agonized shrieks of women, and you wouldn't forget it, either, if you saw your own mother topple over in the wagon beside you, with a big red splotch getting bigger and bigger, on the front of her calico dress.

When the massacre started, Mother had my baby brother, Billy, in her lap and my two sisters, Betty and Mary Levina, were sitting in the back of the wagon. Billy wasn't quite two, Betty was about five and Vina was eight. We never knew what became of Vina, Betty saw some Mormons leading her over the hill, while the killing was still going on, maybe they treated her the way the Dunlap girls were treated, later on I'm going to tell about the horrible thing that happened to them, or maybe they raised her up to be a Mormon, we never could find out.

Betty, Billy and I were taken to a Mormon home, and kept there till the soldiers rescued us, along with the other children, about a year later, and carried us back to our folks in Arkansas . Captain James Lynch was in charge of the soldiers who found us, and I've got an interesting little thing to tell about him, too, when I get around to it.

But first I want to tell all I remember and all I've heard about the massacre itself, and what lead up to it ...My father was George Baker, a farmer who owned a fine tract of bottom land on Crooked Creek, near Harrison , Arkansas . He and my grandfather, like a lot of other men folks at that time in our part of the country, had heard so much about the California gold rush of 49, that they got the itch to go there. So my father and some of the other men from our neighborhood, went out to California to look over the lay of the land, and they came back with stories about gold, that would just about make your eyes pop out.

There wasn't anything to do, but for everybody in the family to pack up, bag and baggage, and light out for the coast, everybody but Grandma Baker ...She wouldn't budge, she put her foot down and said ...Arkansas is plenty good enough for me, and Arkansas is where I'm going to stay. Her stubbornness saved her life, because if she had gone along, she would have been killed, just as were all the other grown ups, including my grandfather, my father and mother and several of my uncles, aunts, and cousins after that, she went on to Salt Lake City, and nobody in our part of the country ever heard anything more about her.

Our caravan was one of the richest that ever crossed the plains, and some people have said, that that was the reason they attacked our folks, to get their goods. We traveled in carriages, buggies, hacks and wagons, and there were 40 extra teams of top notch horses and mules, in addition to 800 head of cattle, and a stallion valued at $2,000. Altogether, the property in our caravan was valued at $70,000.

Salt Lake City in1867 When our caravan reached Salt Lake Cit in August, our supplies just about out, everybody tired and hungry, our horses and cattle were lean, and badly in need of rest and a chance to graze, we were told to, move on and be quick about it, the Mormons refused to sell us any food, that is what I was told when I was growing up, and I've always believed it was so.

So we had to move on, down to Mountain Meadows, in what is now Washington County , Utah . Mountain Meadows was a narrow valley, lying between two low ranges of hills, with plenty of fresh water, supplied by several little streams, and lots of grass for our stock to graze. So it looked like a good place for our party to rest up before tackling the 90-mile desert that lay just ahead. A lot has been written about what was going on among the Mormons while our party was resting at Mountain Meadows. Both sides of the question have been gone into pretty thoroughly, with a lot of arguments and evidence on each side, so anybody who wants to form his own opinion can took up the books on the subject and make his choice.

On the morning of September 7, our party was just sitting down to a breakfast of quail and cottontail rabbits when a shot rang out from a nearby gully, and one of the children toppled over, hit by the bullet, right away, the men saw they were being attacked by an Indian war party. In the first few minutes of fighting, twenty two of our men were shot down, seven of them killed outright. Everybody was half starved to death, and I reckon the whole crowd would have been wiped out right then and there, if Captain Fancher hadn't been such a cool headed man.

He had things organized in next to no time, all the women and children were rounded up in the corral, formed by the wagons, and the men divided into two groups, one to throw up breastworks with picks and shovels, the other to fire back at the Indians.

The fighting kept up pretty regularly for four days and nights., most of our horses and cattle were driven away, our ammunition was running out, we were cut off from our water supply, altogether, it looked pretty hopeless, but I don't think our men would have ever surrendered if John D. Lee and his crowd hadn't tricked them.

According to the way I heard it, while we were trapped down there in the valley, just about perishing for lack of water and food, John D. Lee and some of the other Mormons held a strange kind of prayer meeting back in the woods, just out of sight of our camp. They knelt down and prayed for Divine instructions, and then one of them named John M. Higbee, who was a major in the Mormon militia, got up and said: “I have evidence of God ís approval of our mission.”

“He said all of our party must be put out of the way, and that none should be spared, who was old enough to tell tales, then they decided to let the Indians kill our women and older children, so no Mormon would be guilty of shedding innocent blood. They figured that more than likely, all of our men were guilty of some sin or other, if it wasn't any thing worse than hating Mormons, and really should be killed, but maybe the women and older children were innocent of any wrong-doing, and it seems Mormons prided themselves, on being right scrupulous about shedding innocent blood.

Years later, when he was put on trial, John D. Lee insisted he was against the whole idea, and tried to talk the others out of it, but that.. John Mount Higbee 1827-1904 ..Major Higbee, Philip Klingensmith, who was a Mormon bishop, and some of the others, told him he would have to go through with it, He said Higbee told him: “Brother Lee, I am ordered by President Haight to inform you, that you shall receive a crown of Celestial glory for your faithfulness, and your eternal joy shall be complete.”

I don't know whether or not that ís true, but that is what Lee said, and he claimed he had to follow orders because Haight was president of the Stake of Zion, or division of the church, at Cedar City.

But anyway, on the morning of September 11, John D. Lee and another Mormon came down toward our camp carrying a white flag, and our men sent out a little girl dressed in white, to show that they were ready to come to terms. Then Lee came on down to the camp, and said the Indians had gone hog wild but that the Mormons would try to save us, and take us all to Cedar City, the nearest big Mormon settlement, if our men would give up their guns.

Well, our men didn't have much choice, it was either stick it out and fight till the last of us was killed or starved, or else take Lee up on his proposition, even though it did sound fishy. So the guns were all put in one wagon, and sent on ahead. Then the wounded and the young children, including me, my two sisters and my baby brother, were put in another wagon. My mother and father had been wounded during the fighting, so they were in the wagon with us children.

It ís funny how you will recall unimportant details, after so many years. I remember, for instance, that the blankets we had with us in that wagon, were bright red and had black borders.

After the wagon I was in had set out, the women and the older children followed us on foot. Then the Mormons made the men wait, until the women and children were a good ways ahead before starting the men out single file, about ten feet apart. I think my grandfather must have been in that procession, Betty and I never could find out for sure just when he was killed, all we could learn was that he was killed during the massacre.

Each of our men had an armed Mormon walking right by his side, yhey said that was because the Indians might start acting up again, but that wasn't the real reason, as you will soon see ...The line had been moving along slowly for some little distance, when all of a sudden the figure of a white man, appeared in the bushes with Indians all around him, I've heard that he was Higbee and that he shouted: “Do your duty!”

Each Mormon walking along with our men, wheeled around suddenly and shot the man next to him, killing most of them on the spot. The women and older children screamed at the top of their lungs, and scattered every which way, but Mormons on horseback ran them down, they poked guns into the wagon, too, and killed all of the wounded, as I have already said, my father and mother were killed right before our eyes.

One of the Mormons ran up to the wagon, raised his gun and said: “Lord, my God, receive their spirits, it is for Thy Kingdom that I do this.î Then he fired at a wounded man who was leaning against another man, killing them both with the same bullet. A 14 year old boy came running up toward our wagon, and the driver, who was a Mormon, hit him over the head with the butt end of his gun, crushing the boys skull, a young girl about 11 years old, all covered with blood, was running toward the wagon, when a Mormon fired at her point blank.

In the midst of all the commotion, the two Dunlap girls I spoke about before, Ruth, who was 18, and Rachel, who was 16 made a wild dash for a clump of scrub oaks on the far side of a gully, hidden in the scrub oaks, they must have thought they were safe but they weren't, their bodies were found later, and the evidence is that they suffered far worse than any of the other women.

John D. Lee confessed to a lot of things about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, before he was finally executed for his part in it, but he never would admit, that he had anything to do with what happened to the Dunlap girls. Just the same, a 16 year old Indian boy, named Albert, who worked on the ranch of Jacob Hamblin, a Mormon who lived near the Meadows, said that he saw the whole thing and here ís the way he told it:

Albert said another Indian found the girls, and sent for Lee, at first, Lee wanted to kill them then and there, because they were old enough to tell tales, but the Indian begged him to wait a while, because they were so pretty. Ruth was old enough to realize what that meant, so she dropped on her knees and pleaded with Lee to spare her, promising that she would love him all her life if he would.

But, according to Albert, Lee and that Indian mistreated those poor girls shamefully and then slit their throats.

Lee sitting on his coffin prior to being shot!!

I don't know whether or not Lee himself, attacked the Dunlap girls and murdered them, or was directly responsible for what happened to them. But there doesn't seem to be much doubt, that they were brutally mistreated by somebody, before being murdered just as Jacob Hamlin's Indian boy said they were. Hamblin was on his way back to his ranch from Salt Lake City, at the time of the massacre, when he got home Albert told him about the Dunlap girls. Then the Indian boy led Hamblin to a clump of oak bushes, not far from where the massacre took place and showed him the bodies of the two girls, stripped of all their clothing.

At Lee's second trial, Hamblin took the stand and testified that what he saw seemed to bear out Albert's story, and that later on he talked to the Indian who was supposed to have been with Lee at the time, and that his account of it was pretty much the same as Albert's.

There has been a lot of argument over how much part the Indians played in the massacre, and how much of it was due to the Mormons, some people even saying, that the Indians didn't have anything to do with it at all, and that some of the Mormons disguised themselves as Indians, just to lay the blame on them. I can't say as to the truth of that, but I do know that my sister Betty, who died only a few months ago, always insisted that she had seen a lot of the Mormons down at the creek after it was all over, washing paint off their faces, and that she some that some of them at least, had disguised themselves as Indians.

At any rate while the Indians, or a crowd of savage looking men that appeared to be Indians, went around making sure that all the grown ups were dead, and giving a final shot to any who looked as if they had a spark of life left in them, and also robbing the bodies of valuables well, while that was going on the Mormons rounded up all us children, and took us off to their homes.

As I said, there were 17 of us, John Calvin Sorel, Lewis and Mary Sorel, Ambrose, Miriam and William Tagget, Francis Horn, Angeline Annie and Sophronia Mary Huff , Ephriam W. Hugg, Charles and Triphenia Fancher, Rebecca, Louise and Sarah Dunlap and us three Baker children, Betty, Sallie and William Welch Baker.

The only unpleasant thing that happened while we were there, was when one of the older Mormon children in the house got mad at me, and pushed me down stairs. I hurt my right hand, pretty badly and as a result of it I still have a long scar across the knuckles, that makes two scars I got from the Mormons.

The way Captain Lynch and his soldiers found us, was by going around among the Mormons in disguise. I got to know him right well later on, and, he used to slap his leg and laugh like anything, as he told how he said to those Mormons: “You let those children go, or I'll blow you to purgatory.”

I never will forget the day we finally got back to Arkansas, you would have thought we were heroes, they had a buggy parade for us through Harrison . When we got around to our house, Grandma Baker, the one who refused to go to California, was standing on the porch, she was a stout woman and mighty dignified, too, when we came along the road leading up to the house, she was pacing back and forth, but when she caught sight of us she ran down the path , and grabbed hold of us, one after the other and gave us a powerful hug.

I remember I called all of the women I saw Mother, I guess I was still hoping to find my own mother, and every time I called a woman “mother,” she would break out crying.

A good ways back, I spoke of how the John S. Baker party set out behind our party, but never could catch up with us, and now I want to tell what happened to them. At the time of the massacre, they were only about two days travel behind us, and somebody came along and told them about it. They were just about scared out of their wits, of course, so the next morning they broke camp early, and set out to skirt around the Meadows, and head on across the desert.

The women had just tied their sunbonnets to the covered wagon bows, and taken off their shoes, as they usually did while traveling, when somebody shouted “...Indians coming!” I don't know whether they were some of the same Indians, that were in on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, or another band that heard about it, and decided to do a little killing on their own hook.

But anyway, they opened fire and galloped around and around, whooping and yelling.

As near as I can recollect, the members of the John S. Baker party were: Mr. and Mrs. Baker; their young daughter, who later became Mrs. Perry Price and died a few years ago near Berryville, Arkansas; their baby son, William Baker, who shouldn't be confused with my baby brother, Billy Baker; Dal Weaver, Mr. Baker's uncle; Mrs. Dal Weaver; Dal's brother, Pink Weaver; two Weaver sisters; and three young men named Smith and their old mother.

Dal Weaver was shot and killed in the first attack, and later robbed of $1,000 in gold he had in a money belt. One of his sisters was killed in the first attack, too, and a bullet hit little William Baker, inflicting a scalp wound, but he got over it. Several others were also wounded, but not seriously.

There were several wagons in the train, and before the men could wheel them around and form a corral, one of the teams got away and lit out with its wagon. Some of the Indians took out after that wagon, and when they captured it they found it had a couple of ten gallon kegs in it, one of whiskey and the other of peach brandy. So that whole band of Indians took time out from the pleasure of killing, for the pleasure of getting drunk.

That is the only reason any of the John S. Baker party managed to escape, it gave them a chance to figure out a trick. Meanwhile, one of the Smith brothers jumped on a horse, and took out in the hope of getting help, but the Indians saw him and one of them lassoed him. The last anybody saw of him he was being dragged away.

When the Indians were all good and drunk, they started to close in on the little party, huddled behind their wagons. But just as the Indians were about to pounce on them, the men ripped open all the feather beds they had, and threw a big cloud of feathers into the Indians faces, setting up a kind of smoke screen. Before the stupefied Indians had time to figure out what had happened, the grown folks in the party lit out for the bushes, carrying the children. Two of the Smith boys carried their old mother, by making a pack saddle with their hands. I guess by that time the Indians were too drunk to follow them up.

Pink Weaver hurried on back down the trail as fast as he could, looking for help, and finally he ran across some of the soldiers sent out to back up Governor Cumming. Meanwhile, the others followed him, as best they could. When the soldiers finally located them, they were so weak they could hardly walk, they were taken to Fort Leavenworth Kansas, and cared for till they were able to travel on back to Arkansas .

In the Spring of 1859, Major James H. Carlton passed through Mountain Meadows, and stopped there long enough to gather up the bones of the victims of the massacre, he found 34 skeletons and buried them in one place, under a heap of stones, and put up a cedar cross with these words on it ...Vengeance is Mine I will repay, saith the Lord.

Later on, Captain R. P. Campbell passed through the Meadows, and found another twenty six skeletons, which he buried, which accounts for about half of the victims, nobody knows what became of the other bodies.

In later years, a granite slab was put up in the Meadows, and on it were these words, Here one hundred and twenty men, women and children were massacred in cold blood in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas.

Long after I had grown up and married and settled down, Captain Lynch, the man who rescued us, came to see me one day. He was in mighty high spirits and I could see right away he had something up his sleeve. He asked me if I remembered little Sarah Dunlap, one of the children he had rescued, and a sister of the two Dunlap girls who were killed. I said I sure did. Sarah was blind, and had been educated at the school for the blind in Little Rock. I don't recall whether any injury she might have gotten in the massacre, was what made her blind, but I do remember she grew up to be a really beautiful girl. Well, Captain Lynch said: “Guess what? I'm on my way to see Sarah.”

When he mentioned her name, it looked like he was going to blow up with happiness, then he told me why, he was on his way right then to marry Sarah, and he did. I guess he must have been forty years older than she was, but he sure was a spry man just the same. I never saw anybody could beat him when it came to dancing and singing.

Some time after the massacre, Federal Judge Cradlebaugh held an investigation, and tried to bring to trial some of the Mormons, he was convinced were responsible for the crime, but he never got anywhere with it, and he was finally transferred from the district at his own request. Then the Civil War came on and nothing more was done about it until 1875.

[MartnTimothy]

Means the M's had a camera man to record all the action, NOW DOES IT NOT, and they are sittin on photo's that are sporadically released, just to let everyone know they still have a handle on it all. Seems Old BY got his kicks killing ppl, else what was the camera doin there, and why have none of the M historians said anything!!

Should, that be the case, would a jury determine culpability, vis a vis it is an offense to withhold evidence in a murder case, even at this late date!! We are gonna keep updating this thread!!

John Doyle Lee, is head of Brigam Young University in Salt Lake City, he has been instrumental in removing his great grandsire's name, from the Monument at the massacre site!!

Here's one for jolly John, what with all that book learnin, I'd expect a good answer too!!

Say a Court orders him to hand over any photographs, that might be within his jurisdiction relating to the event, ie shots taken at the scene on the day, like the one above, and the one on the six minute 2007 vid, of the men's bodies!

Then say he refuses ... would he be culpable as a capital offender, even as the time frame is so great,

this is the kinda sh*t they come up with, squeaky clean imbo's, up front... killer men on the meadows at top... else the hats on the pipe organ are supposed to represent something else!!

Hell you could demand the pictures then go on from there, if he don't hand them over, and he is charged with hindering a capital investigation... who knows?? Maybe he could get hung!!

[Mainbeach]

John Doyle Lee is head of Brigam Young University in Salt Lake City, he has been instrumental in removing his great grandsire's name from the Monument at the massacre site!!

Personally, I sincerely HOPE that descendents of the victims of Mountain Meadow Massacre reinstate Lee's name on the monument .. over and over and over again until it STICKS there, where it belongs !

What next ... the Mountain Meadows Massacre to be expunged from history ?

And then what .... 'revisionist' laws to make it a 'crime' to tell the truth about Mountain Meadows and early Mormonism ?

[Mainbeach]

Quite recently, I learned that ancestors had been duped by missionary Mormons back in the mid-1800s and coerced into converting to Mormonism. They'd travelled to the US, then later to Salt Lake. Talk about a nightmare

Then I learned that ancestors on both sides of the family had done so.

This is what motivated my research into Mormonism and into Utah's early pioneers.

On one side of the family, they made their way by wagon to Salt Lake (that's after enduring the UK to US crossing). Tough people, believe me. The average person knows nothing about the hardships suffered by those early Mormon converts all the way through. But after they'd been in Salt Lake a short while and had learned about the debauched perverts running the settlement (which was basically a labour-camp/jail/brothel ) this particular side of the family decided they didn't want any part of it.

BY and his Avenging Angels were preventing (for several reasons) converts from escaping Salt Lake. Defectors were murdered, quite often. But the ancestors were resourceful and took their chances. They managed their escape, but not without massive risk, difficulty and dangers. On the way, they came across a woman who was escaping on foot. She begged them to take her with them. Told them her husband was powerful in Salt Lake. He'd taken all her children away to stop her from leaving, but she'd left anyway.

The ancestors knew they'd really be punished if they aided her escape, but couldn't just leave her alone in the desert so said she could join them. They made their way to Nebraska. Then back to UK (with their 12 children .. going up along the Canadian border). Then back to Nebraska, losing only 2 children out of their eventual 22. They died in Nebraska and are featured in a book about Nebraskan pioneers.

The other side of the family remained in Salt Lake (after their equally hazardous sea and overland journeys, etc.) But they too were unprepared to be involved in what became virtually mandatory polygamy. For this, they were banished to southern Utah which was a living hell. BY wanted to shore up the southern borders by establishing a presence there.

The ancestors were ordered to go to what became the St.George region and this only after the husband had agreed to 'marry' a second wife. Had he refused even this, he would have lost his life most likely and his wife and daughters would have been shared out between the old perverts running Salt Lake and Mormonism.

When the Mountain Meadows Massacre was in the plotting stage, BY sent 'express' riders throughout the southern Utah region to say that BY demanded all men in the region take part in the Massacre. By then, the converts were terrified of each other, for spies were everywhere. People were starving in southern Utah, whilst in the process of attempting to obey BY's edict that they develop cotton and other plantations. They were all terrified, paranoid, hungry and diseased in the hell-hole that was southern Utah. Neighbours ratted on each other in the hope of evading BY's insane punishments and in the hope of gaining a little favour. BY arranged it by ensuring no-one trusted anyone else. The old Divide and Conquer (the tool of the Usual Suspects).

My ancestor succeeded in being 'absent' for the massacre by leaving in his cart before dawn and going to outlying areas. He claimed he needed his young sons to help him with the water-crossings and other impediments. He was a master tradesman in the old-country and in Utah provided much needed metal and household implements which he took around the country by horse and cart, often being absent this way for weeks at a time. It was also the only way he could keep his brood fed, for southern Utah farming attempts were an acknowledged disaster.

He was never permitted to leave the St.George region afterwards. BY insisted he remain, even though the area was a failure and prone to considerable diseases.

The ancestor was still required to work, even at the advanced age of 74 when, for example, he was required to make the top of the steeple on the St.George temple. He and his family were aged well beyond their years due to constant fear, threats, punishments, banishments, endless work, scarce food, diseases, etc. etc.

So worth knowing that the majority of those who took part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre were Mormons who'd been ordered to do so and who'd already been banished to southern Utah and lived under fear of punishment, 'vanishings' and death. BY's express-riders told people BY would tolerate no disobedience as far as the imminent massacre was concerned. People were told neighbours would be questioned afterwards about failures to show up and anyone who failed to obey the summons to attend would be put to death for treason.

Lee and the others from Salt Lake were henchmen for the heirarchy .. soldiers and pimps, basically. They did the hit-man work and kept the rank and file obedient.

Utah was a descent into hell for most converts. They were prevented from leaving, forced to slave for the Salt Lake 'elite', lived under fear of death and worse.

Guess you've learned about the castrations inflicted on the young men ?

And know about how men were instructed to make their wives and young daughters available to the old perverts with power ?

For example, both sets of ancestors were amongst the original Salt Lake pioneers. They landed there when the place was just dirt. They built substantial homes and developed fields of crops. One was later approached by the US government for assistance in developing suitable crops for the Nebraska region. The other was a tradesman who helped build the Temples, etc. Both had built substantial homes in the centre of Salt Lake. Both had to surrender them .. give them up -- one in order to escape across the desert because he and his wife refused to succumb to the polygamy and other corruption -- and the other because he was banished by BY to Southern Utah for failing to toe the polygamy line. One of those homes still stands today in Salt Lake as a museum.

Worth noting here also that the UK converts (in common with many European converts) were deceived by the Mormon missionaries who decided (prior to going to Europe) that they would not tell the Europeans about the polygamous element of Mormonism. They knew the Europeans were Christians who would refuse to have any part in a religion which preaced and enforced polygamy. To this ends, the missionaries provided potential European converts with a special edition of the Mormon handbook .. one in which all mention of polygamy had been removed.

I used to have a copy of it saved, but lost it when I had to get a new computer. Somewhere, I think I have hard copy. It's online somewhere, unless the powers that be have removed it again.

It was only after European converts had made the sea-crossing to the US .. had struggled against all odds to build towns in other States .. and after they'd trudged across the plains to what was to become Salt Lake City .. that polygamy was imposed upon them.

When you scrutinise Mormonism, its founders, its beliefs, etc. .. you cannot help but see the Usual Suspects behind it. Their handiwork and characteristic 'blood' signatures are all through early Mormonism. These days, it's Church of Latter Day Saints and they are doing their best, on the surface, to clean it all up.

We can't blame the current LDS followers -- it's what they've been taught since birth, it's their religion. Many of them have been told, authoritatively, that 'it's all lies' as far as early Mormon atrocities are concerned. And of course, the LDS has a great record in some areas. The legacy of all that inadvertent in-breeding is nowadays becoming manifest, unfortunately, and is causing grave health problems for many innocents.

And equally unfortunately, the legacy of Mountain Meadows must torture many descendents of the perpetrators.

But again, we see the fingerprints of the Usual Suspects within the supression of the truth of that massacre .. the same old lie, deny, cover-ups and veiled threats against those insistent that the truth must be known .. must be seen .. must be owned. If it is not, the past will continue to torture and sicken the souls of those who still haven't escaped the seventh generation.

Shame on the Lee descendent who contrived to have Lee's name removed from the monument. Removal of the name won't remove the stain.

[MartnTimothy]

Originally Posted by Famous Trials

The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, and the Trials of John D. Lee: An Account by Douglas O. Linder, 2006.

Called the darkest deed of the nineteenth century, the brutal 1857 murder of 120 men, women, and children at a place in southern Utah called Mountain Meadows remains one of the most controversial events in the history of the American West.

Although only one man, John D. Lee, ever faced prosecution, many other Mormons participated in the massacre of wagon loads of Arkansas emigrants, as they headed through southwestern Utah, on their way to California.

Brigham Young, the fiery prophet of the Church of Latter day Saints who led his embattled people to the "promised land," in the valley of the Great Salt Lake ...what exactly he knew, and when he knew it, are questions that historians still debate.

The tragedy in Mountain Meadows on September 11, a date that would later come to stand for another senseless loss of life, can only be understood in the context of the colorful history of the most important American-grown religion, Mormonism.

Today, Mormonism has gone mainstream and Mormons seem to be just one more strand among many in the nation's religious fabric, Mormonism, however, as it existed in the mid nineteenth century, was an altogether different matter.

Brigham Young's provocative communalist religion endorsed polygamy, supported a theocracy, and advocated the violent doctrine of "blood atonement, the killing of persons committing certain sins, as the only way of saving their otherwise damned souls.

It is not surprising that practitioners of such a religion might grow suspicious of persons outside of their religious community, nor should it be surprising that non-Mormons living in, or traveling through, the very Mormon territory of Utah might feel like "strangers in a strange land."

In July 1847, seventeen years after Joseph Smith and a group of five other men founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York and three years after an Illinois lynch mob killed Smith, Brigham Young and his band of followers entered Salt Lake valley.

When a territorial government was formed in Utah in 1850, Young, the second head of the Church of Latter-day Saints, became the territory's first governor.

The principle of "separation of church and state" carried little weight in the new territory. The laws of the territory reflected the views of Young, in a speech before Congress, federal judge and outspoken Mormon critic John Cradlebaugh said, "The mind of one man permeates the whole mass of the people, and subjects to its unrelenting tyranny the souls and bodies of all.

It reigns supreme in Church and State, in morals, and even in the minutest domestic and social arrangements. Brigham's house is at once tabernacle, capital, and harem; and Brigham himself is king, priest, lawgiver, and chief polygamist."

Tensions between federal officials and Mormons in the new territory escalated over time, the struggle often resembled comic opera more than a political battle.

As both sides talked past each other, hostile rhetoric fanned the Mormons resentment of government, from their standpoint, they had patiently endured two decades of bitter persecution with great forbearance, but their patience with their long list of enemies had worn thin, as early as 1851, Governor Young said in a speech said ...any President of the United States who lifts his finger against these people, shall die an untimely death and go to Hell!!

When drought and grasshopper infestations, produced desperate economic conditions in Utah, or Deseret as the Mormons called the territory, Brigham Young concluded that the problem stemmed from a loss of righteousness among his people, in early 1856, Young launched the Reformation, a campaign to arouse religious consciousness, Mormon leadership urged spiritual repentance and rebaptisms.

All those unwilling to make the necessary religious sacrifices were invited to leave Utah, the most troubling aspect of the Reformation was its obsession with the doctrine of blood atonement, Young asked his followers to kill Mormons who committed unpardonable sins, ...if our neighbor wishes salvation, and it is necessary to spill his blood upon the ground in order that he be saved, spill it.

While Young aimed his fiery words about blood atonement at Mormons who committed serious sins, his speeches undoubtedly contributed to a growing culture of violence, the Reformation might have had a spiritual goal, but it fueled a fanaticism that led to the tragedy at Mountain Meadows.

In 1857, conflict between the Mormon leadership and Utah and the federal government reached the boiling point, worried that a federal army might be sent to the territory, the Mormon dominated Utah legislature, enacted legislation in January reactivating the territorial militia, called the Nauvoo Legion.

Federal officials in Utah complained of harassment and destruction of records by Mormon citizens. On April 15, 1857, a federal judge, the territorial surveyor and the US Marshal, all the federal officials in Utah except one Indian agent, fled the state convinced that they were about to be killed. When the army got an order from President James Buchanan to quell the Utah "rebellion," the Mormons became alarmed, seeing it as nothing less than a threat to the existence of their religion, past persecution they had experienced in the Midwest, made the danger seem especially real.

Church officials referred to Federal officials and the US Army as enemies, and Utahans readied for what many saw as a life or death struggle for their faith, Young embarked on an effort to rally Indian support for the Mormon cause, support that he saw as potentially critical in the battle to come.

Meanwhile, several extended families left Arkansas by wagon train on what they planned to be their long emigration to southern California, unfortunately for the groups of families which came to be called the Fancher party, a revered Mormon apostle, and the great great grandfather of
2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney , Parley Pratt, was murdered in western Arkansas within two weeks of their departure.

News of the Pratt murder, committed by a non Mormon angered over Pratt's taking of his wife, soon reached Utah, and greatly inflamed local hostility toward non Mormons, when further word reached Salt Lake in July 1857, that the army was headed its way, Utah became a place hungry for retribution.

On September 1 1857, Brigham Young met in Salt Lake City with southern Indian chiefs, according to an entry in the diary of Dimick Huntington, Young's brother in law who was present at the meeting, Young encouraged the Indians to seize all the cattle of emigrants that traveled on the south route, through southern Utah to California ...the journal entry actually says Young gave the Paiute chiefs the emigrant's cattle.

The meeting increased the likelihood of a violent encounter between Indians and emigrants, something Young apparently saw as a useful shot across the federal government's bow, in fact, Young had been working on such a plan even before his September 1 meeting, having sent apostle George A. Smith, south with instructions to let the Indians know that Young considered emigration through Utah, a threat to the well being of both Mormon and Indian residents of the territory.

The same day that Young talked with Paiute leaders...
the Fancher Party, consisting of about 140 Arkansans, camped about seventy miles north of Mountain Meadows, on its way through Utah, rumors spread that some of its members participated in the killing of Parley Pratt, and the lynching of Joseph Smith in Illinois.

John D. Lee, a Mormon living in southern Utah, believed the stories to be true ...this lot of people had men amongst them that were supposed to have helped kill the prophets in the Carthage jail," he said later, in an attempt to rationalize the slaughter, Utahans would accuse the Fancher party of committing all sorts of manufactured sins and depredations ...tormenting women, swearing, insulting the Mormon Church, brandishing pistols, even poisoning cattle.

There is virtually no evidence to support any of these charges, undoubtedly, the Fancher party understood it was not welcome in the territory, and simply wanted to get out as fast as possible.

On September 4, Cedar City was gripped in the white heat of fanaticism, as the Fancher train rolled into the southwestern Utah town, the wagon train's imminent arrival had prompted Isaac Haight, second in command of the Iron Brigade, the Nauvoo Legion's force in southern Utah, and President of the Cedar City Stake of Zion, the highest Mormon ecclesiastical official in southern Utah, to call a meeting to discuss the course of action to be taken against the emigrants.

According to Lee's later account of the meeting, Haight said it was ...the will of all in authority, to arm Paiute and incite them to, kill part or all, of the party," Haight sent Indian interpreter Nelphi Johnson, off on a mission to stir up the Indians, so that they might give the emigrants a good hush.

Haight shed no tears for the party's fate, telling Lee ...there will not be one drop of innocent blood shed, if every one in the damned pack are killed, for they are the worse lot of outlaws and ruffians that I ever saw in my life.

Sunday September 6, was a day for dramatic speech making at Mormon services around Utah ...in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young took the occasion to declare that the Almighty recognized Utah as a free and independent people, no longer bound by the laws of the United States.

In Cedar City, meanwhile, Isaac Haight told those gathered at the morning service that ...I am prepared to fee to the Gentiles the same bread they fed to us, God being my helper, I will give the last ounce of strength, and if need be my last drop of blood in defense of Zion.

That Sunday evening, the Fancher party crossed over the rim of the Great Basin and encamped at a place called Mountain Meadows.

The next morning's calm at the meadows was interrupted by gunfire, a child who survived the attack wrote later ...our party was just sitting down to a breakfast of quail and cottontail rabbits, when a shot rang out from a nearby gully, and one of the children toppled over, hit by a bullet.

The shots came from forty to fifty Indians, and Mormons disguised as Indians ...the well armed emigrants returned fire, soon the gun battle turned into a siege, meanwhile in Cedar City Isaac Haight, responding to pressure from Mormons lacking enthusiasm for the attack on the emigrants, sent a courier on a six hundred mile, six days round trip to inform Brigham Young of the situation at Mountain Meadows, and to ask his guidance about what to do next.

Over the next three days, Mormon reinforcements totaling about one hundred men, continued to arrive at the battle scene... men on horseback carried messages back to Haight, and his immediate superior in the Nauvoo Legion, and head of southern Utah forces William Dame, who reportedly reiterated his determination to not less the emigrants pass ...my orders are that all the emigrants, except the youngest children, must be done away with, he said.

On September 10, the messenger send to Salt Lake City arrived and handed Haight's letter to Young, who had according to published Mormon reports, sent the messenger back to Haight with a note telling him to ...let the Indians do as they please, but as for Mormon participation in the siege, if the emigrants will leave Utah let them go in peace!!

By September 11, Legion officers had devised a plan for ending the stand off, most of the Paiutes had left after growing weary of the siege, and would play no role in the bloody conclusion, the plan was devious but effective, Major John Higbee in command of the forces at Mountain Meadows, persuaded John Lee and William Bateman to act as decoys, to draw the emigrants out from the protection of their wagons, Lee and Bateman carrying a white flag, marched across the field to the emigrants camp.

The desperate emigrants agreed to the terms promised by Lee, they would give up their arms, wagons, and cattle, in return for promise that they would not be harmed, as they embarked on a 35 mile hike back to Cedar City.

Samuel McMurdy, a member of the Nauvoo Legion, took the reigns of one of the wagons into which were loaded some of the youngest children, a woman and a few seriously injured emigrant men were loaded into a second wagon. John Lee positioned himself between the two wagons as they pulled out, following the two wagons, the women and the older children of the Fancher party walked behind, after the wagons had moved on Higbee ordered the emigrant men to begin walking in single file, an armed Mormon "guard" escorted each emigrant man.

When the escorted men had fallen a quarter mile or so behind the women and children, who had just crested a small hill Higbee yelled, ...halt, do your duty ...each of the Mormon men shot and killed the emigrant at his side. Meanwhile, on the other side of the hill, Nelphi Johnson shouted the order to begin the slaughter of the women and older children, men rushed at the defenseless emigrants from both sides, and the killing went on amidst ...hideous, demon like yells, Nancy Huff, four years old at the time of the massacre, later remembered the horror, ...I saw my mother shot in the forehead and fall dead.

The women and children screamed and clung together, some of the young women begged the assassins not to kill them, but they had no mercy, clubbing their guns and beating out their brains.

It was over in just a few minutes, one hundred and twenty members of the Fancher party were dead, the youngest children seventeen or eighteen in all, were gathered up, to later be placed in Mormon homes, none of the survivors was over seven years old.

The next day, Colonel Dame and Lt. Colonel Haight visited the site of the massacre, with John Lee and Philip Klingensmith , Lee in his confession, described the field on that day.

The bodies of men, women and children had been stripped entirely naked, making the scene one of the most loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined, Dame appeared shocked by what he found said, ...I did not think there were so many women and children, or I would not have had anything to do with it.

Haight, angered by Dame's remark, expressed concern that Dame might try to blame him for an action that Dame had ordered, the men agreed on one thing, however. Mormon participation in the massacre had to be kept secret, within twenty fours hours, Haight had another reason for concern, Brigham Young's reply to his inquiry arrived in Cedar City ...too late, too late, Haight said as he read Young's letter, and began to cry.

Brigham Young declared martial law on September 15, in his proclamation of dubious legality, Young prohibited all armed forces from entering this territory, and ordered the Nauvoo Legion to prepare for an expected invasion by federal forces, the proclamation also prohibited any person from passing through the territory, without a permit from the proper officer!!

Shortly after his proclamation, Young learned of the tragic events at Mountain Meadows, first from Indian chiefs and then from John Lee, who traveled to Salt Lake City to provide a detailed account of the massacre.

According to Lee, Young at first expressed dismay about the Mormon participation in the massacre, he seemed especially concerned that news of the massacre would damage the national reputation of the Latter Day Saints, the next day, however Young said he was at peace with what happened.

According to Lee, Young said ...I asked the Lord if it was all right for the deed to be done, to take away the vision of the deed from my mind, and the Lord did so, and I feel first rate, it is all right, the only fear I have is from traitors.

The first published reports of the massacre begin appearing in California newspapers in October, one came from John Aiken, who with mail carrier John Hunt, passed by Mountain Meadows in late September, with a pass signed by William Dame.

I saw about twenty wolves feasting upon the carcasses of the murdered, Aiken wrote ...Mr Hunt shot at a wolf, and they ran a few yards and halted.

I noticed that the women and children were more generally eaten by the wild beasts than were the men, The Los Angeles Star called it the foulest massacre ever perpetrated, and added that responsibility for the attack, will not be known until the Government makes a full investigation of the affair, the San Francisco Bulletin was far less restrained, calling for a crusade against Utah ...which will crush out this beast of heresy forever.

Public outrage grew, Americans from California to Washington DC, begin calling for military action against those responsible for the crime.

Aware of the sensitivity of the events at Mountain Meadows, Mormon officials from Young on down worked to shift the blame for the massacre either to Indians, or the emigrants themselves. By November, John Lee completed a fictionalized account of the massacre, attributing all the killing to Indians, and sent the report on to Young.

Young, as Superintendent of Indians in addition to his other titles, prepared a report blaming the massacre on the mistreatment of Indians by non Mormons, and sent it on to the Indian Commissioner, Capt. Fancher & Co. fell victim to the Indians wrath near Mountain Meadows, Young wrote ...lamentable as the case truly is, it is only the natural consequences of that fatal policy which treats Indians like wolves, or other ferocious beasts.

None of the Mormon drafted reports, however, prevented Congress from debating the massacre, on March 18 1858, Congress ordered an official inquiry into the cause of the tragedy of September 11, the next month one fourth of the United States army reached Fort Bridger, in present day Wyoming, rather than fight the Nauvoo Legion forces guarding the canyons leading to Salt Lake.

General Albert Alston decided to overwinter at the Fort, President Buchanan expressed his determination to put down the "rebellion" in Utah, with force if necessary ...humanity itself requires that we should put it down in a manner, that it shall be the last, he said!!

In this dark moment of Mormon history, Brigham Young had the good fortune in April 1858 of being replaced as Governor of Utah by Alfred Cumming, a gullible man who believed Young's promise to get to the bottom of the Mountain Meadows matter, and who established, as his principal goal, preserving peace in the Utah territory.

Governor Cumming planned a trip south to Mountain Meadows almost as soon as he took office to investigate ...that damned atrocity, as he put it, Young, in a visit to Cumming's office, succeeded in convincing the Governor of his genuine desire to identify the perpetrators.

Cummings decided to put the whole matter, in Young's hands, trusting him to put the finger upon the miscreants, he also recognized, as he later told Young ...I can do nothing here without your influence, pushing to open again free emigration on the south route, Cummings took pleasure in announcing on May 11 ...the Road is now open.

Over time, Cummings became convinced that the threats to the territory's peace of an aggressive inquiry into the Mountain Meadows massacre, in his mind, outweighed the benefits, he also lacked the will to challenge Young and was, in the words of one observer, "mere putty" in the Mormon leader's hands.

In the latter half of 1858, the federal government began to reassert some measure of federal control in the Utah territory, on June 26, federal troops marched through Salt Lake City, on their way to a fort forty miles from the city under the terms of a deal brokered with Young. The deal included a pardon for those acts considered part of "the rebellion."

In November, U. S. District Judge John Cradlebaugh arrived in Utah and, unlike the Governor, saw no reason not to aggressively pursue justice, for the victims of the Mountain Meadows massacre, after several months of investigation, Judge Cradlebaugh issued arrest warrants for John Lee, Isaac Haight, and John Higbee for the murders.

Angered by his discovery that the massacre was committed, by order of council, the judge wrote a letter to President Buchanan, seeking his commitment to secure convictions for the guilty, Cradlebaugh's efforts however, were frustrated when the federal case is essentially dropped, after the US Marshal declared his unwillingness to execute arrest warrants, without federal troops to protect him from local citizens, and that help was not provided.

By 1860 with the Union ready to split apart, interest in prosecuting the Mountain Meadows case waned, Governor Cumming saw little reason to press for prosecution, especially in a territory where the law put jury selection entirely in the hands of Mormon officials ...God Almighty couldn't convict the butchers unless Brigham Young was willing, Cumming said.

Renewed interest in the Mountain Meadows case developed in the early 1870s, thanks largely to a series of stories in the Utah Reporter by Charles W. Wandell, writing under the pen name Argus, that challenged Brigham Young's response to the massacre.

Wandell's articles produced the first confession in the case when, on April 10 1871, Philip Klingensmith, a former LDS bishop who subsequently left the Church, appeared in a Nevada court, and swore out an account of the massacre, including a detailed description of his own role in the crime, still however Mormon control of the Utah justice system stymied any prosecution in Utah.

The key to a possible successful prosecution finally came in 1874, Congress passed the Poland Act, which redefined the jurisdiction of the courts in Utah, the law restricted the authority of Mormon controlled probate courts, and opened all Utah juries to non Mormons.

Within months of passage of the Poland Act, arrest warrants for nine men, Lee, Higbee, Haight, Dame, Klingensmith, Stewart, Wilden, and Jukes, Federal authorities arrested John Lee, long considered Mormon officials most likely candidate for scapegoat for the massacre, after finding him hiding in a chicken coop near Panguitch, Utah on November 7 1874.

Shortly thereafter, Dame was also arrested, the best prospects for conviction seemed to rest with Lee, so the decision was made to proceed first with his trial.

The trial of John D. Lee opened on July 23, 1875 before US District Judge Jacob Boreman in Beaver Utah, US Attorneys William C. Carey and Robert Baskin, managed the prosecution, while four attorneys bankrolled by Brigham Young, comprised Lee's defense team.

Talk of possible mob action against witnesses filled the crowded streets of Beaver, Marshal Maxwell sought to preserve order by threatening potential instigators, ...we will hang any god damned Bishop to a telegraph pole, and turn their houses over their heads, the crowd so reported the Bailiff to Judge Boreman, got the message that the government meant business!!

Throughout the trial, conflicts arose among Lee's lawyers, with two members of the defense team, including Wells Spicer who, six years later as a magistrate in Tombstone, ruled, after a several week hearing, that the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday should face a criminal trial, for the famous shoot out at the OK Corral .

Determined to provide Lee with his strongest possible defense, even if it meant implicating higher Mormon officials, while two other members of the team seemed equally focused on protecting those same higher officials, the jury, gathered in the improvised courtroom on the second floor of the Beaver City Cooperative, consisted of eight Mormons, one former Mormon, and three non Mormons.

After Carey opened the case for the prosecution with a compelling description of the massacre, a parade of witnesses took the stand, to describe various aspects of a concerted plan by Mormon officials, to make life for emigrants traveling through Utah in 1857, as difficult as possible.

Several witnesses testified that they had received orders not to sell grain or provisions to the Fancher party, one said he was hit over the head by fence paling, because he sold onions to one member of the party who was a friend of his from years back, another witness testified Church officials excommunicated him, after he traded one emigrant cheese for a bed quilt.

Still other witnesses recalled the fiery sermons of George A. Smith, and other Church leaders, all warning of the threats posed by emigration through the state, in that 1857 summer of high passions and fanaticism.

The prosecution's star witness was Philip Klingensmith, the former Bishop of Cedar City, and the apostate Mormon whose affidavit given in a Nevada courtroom, had first renewed hopes of achieving long delayed justice in the Mountain Meadows case, the heavyset Klingensmith began his account slowly, but his emotions showed as the events he described moved toward their tragic climax.

He recounted how the Mormon men responded to the militia call, by traveling to the emigrant's camp by wagon and horseback, he told of the men watching in formation as John Lee conducted his negotiations, with the emigrants, finally, he described the killing, from his vantage point, he could see only the shooting of the men, Lee was over the crest of the hill with the wagons and the women and children.

About fifty of the emigrant men, Klingensmith testified, died with the first volleys from their guards, a few started to run away, but none got very far, Lee appeared downcast as the prosecution's chief witness told his story of death.

Klingensmith said Lee, and the other men acted on orders from Higbee, which had come from Isaac Haight, and, in turn, he thought from Dame, the former Bishop testified that a few weeks after the massacre, he was among a group of Mormons that met with Brigham Young.

Young he said, discussed how the emigrant's property should be divided, and counseled them against discussing the massacre ...what you know about this affair do not tell to anybody, do not even talk about it among yourselves.

For the defense, Wells Spicer presented Lee as a reluctant participant, he said the bad behavior of the emigrants was largely responsible for the massacre, and that Lee had cried, and tried to protect the emigrants, when their killing had first been proposed by Haight and Higbee.

Lee only did what he did, Spicer said, after having John Higbee aim a loaded rifle at his head, according to the defense attorney's version of events, hundreds of Indians at Mountain Meadows forced the few dozen white men into helping in the killing ...if they didn't, he said, the Indians would kill them and sweep off their homes, and families and settlements.

In the trial's oddest turn of events, Spicer came back after a courtroom recess to withdraw all his remarks concerning Lee's having acted under orders, Spicer's about face, according to a report of the trial, left the gentlemen of the jury in a hapless state of mystification, clearly, some people were not at all happy, that Spicer had adopted a strategy of pointing fingers at higher officials.

The defense never presented a cohesive story of the massacre itself, instead, it presented witnesses that testified, members of the Fancher party had done things to earn the enmity of local Indians, one witness claimed to have seen members of the wagon train leave bags of poison, by a spring at Corn Creek.

The defense witness testified that Indians told him, that members of their tribe had died after drinking poisoned water from the spring, on cross examination however, the defense's poison story fell apart, in his summation Defense Attorney Jabez Sutherland, said the massacre was all the doing of the righteously angered Paiutes, the Indians were implacable in their wrath, and even threatened the Mormons for their efforts to pacify them.

The prosecution, in Brigham's Young's Utah with a jury that included eight Mormons, never expected a guilty verdict, and they didn't get one, the jury hung, with the eight Mormons and the one former Mormon voting to acquit Lee, and the three non Mormons voting to convict.

A newspaper in Idaho presented a typically cynical view of the trial's outcome, it would be as unreasonable to expect a jury of highwaymen to convict a stage robber, as it would be to get Mormons to find one of their own peculiar faith guilty of a crime.

The second trial of John D. Lee bore almost no resemblance to the first, Mormon witnesses against Lee suddenly materialized, many with enhanced memories that put Lee in the middle of the killing, the prosecutors rejected the strategy in the first case, which placed shared blame well up the Mormon command chain, and suddenly seemed only too willing to present Lee as the driving force behind the massacre!!

A deal, or at least an understanding was reached in April 1876, Sumner Howard replaced William Carey as the US Attorney for Utah, under pressure from Washington and the public, to convict someone for the massacre, Howard pondered how a unanimous jury verdict could ever be achieved in the case, without Brigham Young giving the prosecution his blessing.

It couldn't, he concluded, an agreement with Young had to be struck... Howard and Young met in Salt Lake, Young was anxious to put the Mountain Meadows matter behind, and accepted that someone had to be sacrificed, the excommunicated Lee was the obvious candidate, the terms of the agreement between Howard and Young were never disclosed, former US attorney Robert Baskin outlined his speculation as to the key understandings.

Baskin believed that Howard agreed to impanel an all Mormon jury, place Brigham Young's 1875 affidavit in evidence, present testimony that would tend to exonerate higher Mormon officials, and, after trying Lee, promised to prosecute no one else for what happened at Mountain Meadows, in return, Young would help round up witnesses who would incriminate Lee, and see to it that the jury returned a conviction.

Not everyone was willing to accept Baskin's speculation as truth, Howard denied that a deal had been struck in a letter he sent to Attorney General Taft, suggesting that Lee's attorney manufactured the deal theory, in a last ditch attempt to gain sympathy for his client.

Critics of the deal theory also note that the government made some efforts, although rather half hearted, to pursue other massacre perpetrators until 1888, when the case was finally dropped.

The second trial began on September 14 1876, soon after the prosecution dropped all charges against William Dame, jury selection went quickly, as a report sent to Brigham Young noted, Howard made no effort to get Gentiles on the Jury, in fact the word Mormon was scarcely mentioned in court all day.

The surprising turn of events, the Church aiding the prosecution, left Lee's defense attorney, William Bishop angry and confused, before the trial began, Bishop assumed that the Mormon leadership would protect his client, writing a few months after trial, Bishop's anger poured out.

I claim that Brigham Young is the real criminal, and that John D. Lee was an instrument in his hands ...Brigham Young used John Lee, as the assassin uses the dagger to strike down his unsuspecting victim, as the assassin throws away the dagger, to avoid the bloody blade leading to his detection, so Brigham Young used John Lee to do his horrid work, when the discovery becomes unavoidable, he hurls Lee from him, and casts him far out into the whirlpool of destruction.

From its opening statement on, the prosecution made clear that its goal was to convict John Lee, not try the entire Mormon hierarchy.

The prosecution case made Lee to appear even more guilty than he was, Lee incited the Indians to attack the wagon train, through deception, Lee lured other Mormons into the battle, he hatched the plan that led to the massacre and Lee himself killed a number of emigrants, then helped divide the plunder.

Out of the Utah woodwork, came a whole host of loyal Mormons ready to testify as to Lee's bad deeds ...Samuel Knight testified that he watched Lee club a woman to death ...Samuel McMurdy said he saw Lee shoot a woman, as well as two or three of the wounded emigrants ...Jacob Hamblin told the court, he witnessed Lee throw down a girl, and cut her throat ...Nelphi Johnson testified that Lee and Klingensmith, seemed to be engineering the whole thing.

Lee could do little against the onslaught but complain, pacing his cell floor during a break in the trial, bitterly complaining that witnesses were charging him with the same awful deeds, that they did with their own hands.

Everyone could see the game plan, the buck stops with Lee, the memories of witnesses suddenly faded, when asked to name other Mormons present at the battle scene, and no one could remember who else might have participated in the killing.[/quote]
Resigned to his fate, Lee asked his attorneys to present no defense after the prosecution closed its case, with little evidence from which to draw, William Bishop in his summation could only note the obvious.

The Mormon Church had resolved to sacrifice Lee, discarding him as of no further use, on September 20 1876, at 3:30 in the afternoon in Beaver, the all Mormon jury returned its verdict, John Lee was guilty of murder in the first degree.

When asked by Judge Boreman if he wished to say anything prior to sentencing, Lee remained silent, Boreman sentenced Lee to be executed in three weeks, Lee told the judge, ...I prefer to be shot.

Appeals delayed Lee's scheduled execution over five months, he used much of the time to write his autobiography, on a March afternoon in 1877 in Beaver, Utah, US Marshal William Nelson led John Lee to a closed carriage, that would take him south over the emigrant trail to Mountain Meadows.

On March 23 Lee, dressed in a red flannel shirt, enjoyed breakfast and a cup of coffee near the site of the 1857 massacre, a minister walked the condemned man to his own coffin, Lee sat down on the coffin while the Marshal read his death warrant, when the reading ended, he rose to address the federal officers, the firing squad, and seventy or so spectators.

I feel as calm as the summer morn, Lee told the gathering, and I have done nothing intentionally wrong, my conscience is clear before God and man... Not a particle of mercy have I asked of the court, the world, or officials to spare my life, I do not fear death, I shall never go to a worse place that I am now in...I am a true believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I do not believe everything that is now being taught and practiced by Brigham Young, I do not care who hears it, my last word ...it is so, I believe he is leading the people astray, downward to destruction, but I believe in the gospel that was taught in its purity by Joseph Smith, I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner, having said this, I feel resigned... I ask the Lord my God, if my labors are done, to receive my spirit.

Lee shook hands with those around them and resumed his seat on his coffin, he shouted to the firing squad, hidden in three wagons forming a semi circle around him ...Center my heart, boys, don't mangle my body!" ...when the shots came he fell back without a cry.

Five months after Lee's execution Brigham Young died, the cause of death was uncertain, but appendicitis was suspected.

William Bishop, Lee's attorney in his second trial, sent the manuscript Lee had completed in prison to a publishing company in St. Louis, Mormonism Unveiled or the Life and Confession of John D. Lee, became an immediate bestseller, it provided an important history of early Mormonism, as well as offering Lee's somewhat self serving account of the events leading to the Mountain Meadows massacre.

Lee reconstructed his chronology to distance himself from the initial attack, and provided blistering attacks on the men who testified against him, his list of murderers, aside from those who admitted killing emigrants, included only his enemies.[/quote]
In 1998, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Latter Day Saints, visited Mountain Meadows, he found himself embarrassed at the dilapidated condition of monument at the site and committed the Church to building a proper memorial ...we owe the dead respect, Hinckley declared ...that land is sacred ground.

On September 11, 1999, a new monument was dedicated at Mountain Meadows, President Hinckley, in the afternoon sunshine, told the assembled crowd ...the past cannot be recalled, it cannot be changed, it is time to leave the entire matter in the hands of God.

Update: On the 150th anniversary of the massacre on September 11 2007, Scott Fancher spokesperson for the Mountain Meadows Foundation, said the group aims to boost awareness, and to gain federal stewardship of the property where the events occurred.

The effort pits the foundation, against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, which controls the burial sites, which has never taken responsibility for the deaths blamed on church leaders and militia members.

Fancher whose relatives were killed in the attack said, "they have never once apologized to the families of the massacred victims, frankly, we think it's high damn time they did," the original cairn was destroyed and rebuilt several times, the most recent monument was built in 1999 by the church.

Phil Bolinger another member of the Mountain Meadows group said ...it has a little plaque embedded in it, that says the site is owned and maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that's all the interpretation we get for the victims, for our families.

The foundation won some initial support from Elder Marlin Jensen, the church's liaison with massacre descendant organizations, but lost that after church leadership declared it was not in the best interest of the church, to pursue federal stewardship, as a compromise, the foundation has asked the church to consider national historic landmark designation, as a way to protect and preserve the site.

The LDS church as an institution promotes many of its historic sites to be designated including Nauvoo and Temple Square, Scott Fanchon said ...they say we don't want the federal government involved, we say it's a bit hypocritical," Church spokespeople in Salt Lake City did not return a call, in a June story by the Associated Press, spokeswoman Kim Farah said Mormon leaders are committed to appropriately preserving the site.

The church has owned the monument site at Mountain Meadows for many years, the property is open to the public, and considerable time and resources are allocated to ensure that the property is well maintained,
open to the public, and that those who perished there are appropriately remembered ," she said.

Bolinger said ...it's not right for the church to own the site, how do you think the Kennedy family would feel if the Lee Harvey Oswald's family, had control of the Kennedy tomb?