THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
~ SEPTEMBER 11, 1857~
Eerily sharing the same September 11 date, the 1857 Meadows Massacre was the largest religious massacre in America's history until September 11, 2001. Before the tragedies of Oklahoma City in 1995, and September 11, 2001, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was the largest civilian massacre in our Country's history. It was the worst atrocity in the annals of the West. Yet the massacre of more than 120 innocent men, women, and children of the Baker-Fancher Train in Mountain Meadows, Utah is still largely unrecognized, and rarely recorded in history books...
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In Memorium |
Please help to memorialize and preserve this historic site in Mountain Meadows.
"This is the saddest place in Utah. It may even be one of the saddest places in the West.
It is called Mountain Meadows...
Today, the site, which is just off state Route 18 as it winds through the foothills of the Pine Valley Mountains, is heavy with the judgment of history. It is somber, and quiet... The public memorial is actually on a low bluff overlooking the valley. The short winding trail has several explanatory plaques along it. At the top is a granite memorial listing the names of the dead. Viewing scopes, cold to the touch, direct the eye to the site of the attack, the encampment, the killing." (www.Utah.com)
"As the occasional visitor, with bared head, stands by the desert grave, his imagination recalls the death march up the valley... The shrieks of women and children mingle with the frenzied cries of fiends incarnate, then the death like silence returns. He seems to feel the touch of spirit hands, to hear the murmur of spirit voices pleading for remembrance..." (Mountain Meadows Massacre by Josiah F. Gibbs)
THE BAKER-FANCHER TRAIN
When they began their long journey from Arkansas, the wagon train was identified by some as the Baker Train, a reference to Captain John T. Baker. Later, in Utah it became known as the Fancher Train, for its leader, Captain Alexander Fancher. There were probably individuals and elements of other wagon trains that joined the wagon train along its journey, as was the custom at that time. Because of this, we will never know with certainty the names of all of those who were members of the wagon train on the fateful day it reached Mountain Meadows, in the Utah Territory. Today the wagon train, and the men, women, and children who were murdered at Mountain Meadows, is most often referred to collectively as the Baker-Fancher Train, the Fancher-Baker Train - or simply as the Fancher Train.
"As many as 140 men, women, and children, traveling in one of the richest California bound wagon trains ever assembled, had been attacked, besieged for five days, persuaded to surrender under a flag of truce and a pledge of safe passage, and then murdered. According to contemporaneous accounts, including the evidence presented at the trial of the one figure held legally responsible for the murders, John Doyle Lee, the attack on the train and the ensuing killings were carried out by a combined force of Paiute Indians and members of a local militia of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons. Lee was an adopted son and longtime intimate and military commander of the Mormons' leader, Brigham Young, and the atrocity he was part of, known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre after the pastoral valley where the murders took place, was the worst in the annals of the West."
(Sally Denton, American Heritage Magazine, October 2001)
More Information On The Mountain Meadows Massacre.Those believed to have been killed at or near Mountain Meadows
Lineage: Captain Alexander and the Fanchers Who Were Killed At Mountain Meadows
Seventeen children, all under the age of eight and considered "too young to tell tales," were spared by the Mormons. The children who survived were initially placed with Mormon families in the area. They were later gathered up by Federal officials and returned to their relatives:
The children who survived and were returned to their families in Arkansas
What's New? MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE BULLETIN BOARD
THE KILLING FIELD
The Scene Of The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Utah Territory
Steel engraving from Dunn's Massacres of the Mountains
Said to have been made by a person who helped re-bury the victims nearly two years
after the Massacre. This haunting depiction appeared in Harper's Weekly August 13, 1859.
"On Sept. 11, 1857, a group of California-bound pioneers camping in southern Utah were murdered by a Mormon militia and its Indian allies. The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was over, 120 men, women and children had been clubbed, stabbed or shot at point-blank range. Their corpses, stripped of clothes and jewelry, were left to be picked apart by wolves and buzzards." (New York Times, October 11, 2002)
"The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands without a parallel amongst the crimes that stain the pages of history. It was a crime committed without cause or justification of any kind to relieve it of its fearful character... When nearly exhausted from fatique and thirst, (the men of the caravan) were approached by white men, with a flag of truce, and induced to surrender their arms, under the most solemn promises of protection. They were then murdered in cold blood." (William Bishop, Attorney to John D. Lee)
Engraving of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, 1857
Artist Unknown
Maj. James H. Carleton, commanding a troop of U. S. dragoons from California, was the first federal officer to investigate the massacre. He visited the site two years after the bloody massacre. In a special report to Congress in 1859, Carleton stated: "In pursuing the bloody thread which runs throughout this picture of sad realities, the question how this crime, that for hellish atrocity has no parallel in our history, can be adequately punished often comes up and seeks in vain for an answer." Major Carleton's Report.
THE FIRST MONUMENT AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS
Major Carleton, and others, gathered up skulls and scattered bones representing the partial remains of thirty-six of the emigrants that had laid strewn across Mountain Meadows for almost two years. They erected a stone cairn which covered these remains, and added a small granite marker set against the north side of the cairn which was dated 20 May 1859: "The Entire Number Killed was 121, 10 at the camp, 107 at the massacre, young Aden and three scouts". On top of the cairn Major Carleton erected a cedar cross on which he carved the legend: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord." Some time later the cedar cross disappeared. Military officials marked some other burial sites in the valley with simple stone cairns.
According to Mormon Apostle Wilford Woodruff 's diary, Mormon President Brigham Young visited the site of the Mountain Massacre: "May 25 (1861)... The pile of stone was about twelve feet high but beginning to tumble down. A wooden cross is placed on top with the following words, Vengeance is mine and I will repay saith the Lord. Pres. Young said it should be Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little."
Artist UnknownALL THE LAND OF MOUNTAIN MEADOWS IS A GRAVE SITE
The remains of all of those who died in the Mountain Meadows Massacre have never been recovered. 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.
Before Carleton’s arrival, Captains Reuben T. Campbell and Charles Brewer, along with men from Camp Floyd, Utah, had 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 18 were buried in one grave, 12 in another and 6 in another.”
The 1859 stone cairn was not maintained. In September 1932 the Utah Trails and Landmarks Association built a protective stone wall around what remained of the 1859 grave site and installed a bronze marker. The 1932 marker was replaced, and a new memorial located on San Dan Hill, overlooking the Mountain Meadows Valley, was dedicated on September 15, 1990.
Under the direction of President Gordon B. Hinckley and with the cooperation and efforts 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. The new memorial was dedicated on September 11, 1999.
On September 10, 1999 the remains of the twenty nine individuals, recovered during the construction of the new 1999 monument, were re-interred in a pine-lined concrete burial vault.
There are currently two Memorials at the Mountain Meadows site:
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE LINKS
Associations:
Mountain Meadows Association ~ Join Today! The MMA is having a membership drive!
The MMA is a non-profit, volunteer organization that works to identify, remember, and honor those killed in the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. It is their goal to protect and preserve the graves of the victims, and surrounding areas, and to remember those who were killed in deference to the wishes of the descendant families. The MMA acts as a resource for research, and provides historical data and genealogical information about those who died at Mountain Meadows, and promotes inquiry, discussion, and dissemination of accurate information about the event. MMA membership is open to everyone!
Mountain Meadows Massacre Resources:Articles
Books
Papers
Songs
Videos
Websites
Other Resources:
The Origin of the American Fancher Surname - Fanshawe
Thank You For Stopping By!
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