Published ca. 1896, 2nd Edition, 1910

THE DOOMED ARKANSAS COMPANY

Little is known of the personnel of Fancher's company. No doubt the larger number was from Arkansas. There were many from Missouri, and a few from other states.

William Eaton, whose niece is living in Salt Lake City, was a native of Indiana. During the early fifties he went to Illinois, where he secured a farm. Early in 1857 he met some men from Arkansas who were visiting relatives in Illinois preparatory to moving to California with the Fancher company. Eaton sold his farm, took his wife and little daughter back to Indiana, and joined the company in Arkansas. The last letter received by Mrs. Eaton from her husband stated that all was well, but subsequently she learned that the company had been exterminated.

William A. Aden, another of the victims, was born in Tennessee, and was about twenty years old at the time of the massacre. A recent letter from his brother, James S. Aden of Paris, Henry county, Tennessee, states that his brother was an artist, and relates an interesting incident that occurred in Paris several years prior to his brother's departure for California, and which forms the basis for another interesting incident at Parowan, Utah.

William Laney, a Mormon elder from Utah, was proselyting in the vicinity of Paris. He secured the courthouse and proceeded to expound Mormonism. A number of mischievous lads, among whom was William A. Aden, pushed a small cannon to the rear of the courthouse, and while Elder Laney was preaching the boys discharged the small piece of ordnance. Elder Laney thought that an armed mob was upon him. He abruptly discontinued his discourse, ran from the building and sought safety in hurried flight. On his mad race out of town he met the father of young Aden, who took him home and cared for him during the elder's stay in the vicinity.

Early in 1857 young Aden left Tennessee for California. He sketched scenery along the route, and on his arrival in Utah went on to Provo, about 47 miles south of Salt Lake City, where he did some scenic painting for the Provo Dramatic association. On the arrival of the doomed Arkansas company he joined them and went on to the Mountain Meadows.

Frank E. King and wife traveled with the Fancher company from Pacific Springs, Wyoming, to Salt Lake City, where, owing to the sickness of Mrs. King, he was compelled to remain until December 4, when he went on to Beaver, 210 miles south of Salt Lake City, and thus escaped the fate that lurked for the company in southern Utah.

The author of this story of the massacre is indebted to Mr. Frank E. King for much interesting data relative to the company, and of his experience in Utah about the time of the massacre, and will, therefore, introduce him more fully to the reader.

On Mr. King's arrival in Beaver the bishop of the ward advised him to remain during the winter as the Indians, after the massacre, were more than usually hostile toward Gentiles. Mr. King remained during the winter, and, notwithstanding the friendliness of the bishop, was twice ordered to move on by some of the fanatics. On May 15 Mr. King again started for southern California, and reached Cedar City on the 17th. Quoting from Mr. King's letter, he says:

"I had not unhitched my team when John M. Higbee and Elias Morris, second counselor to Isaac C. Haight, ordered me to leave before the sun rose the next morning."

Mr. King regarded the order as ominous, and returned to central Utah. After living in Manti and other towns he joined the first colony of settlers in Marysvale, Piute county, Utah, where he resided until some five years ago, when he moved to Grant's Pass, Oregon.

Although the writer's intimate acquaintance with Mr. King extended over a period of twenty-five years, I never heard him mention the Mountain Meadows massacre, and knew nothing of his association with the unfortunate company until his son, Charles, who resides in Marysvale, last Winter (1910) told me that his father traveled in Fancher's company. Soon after the discovery I wrote to Mr. King and received some of the information which is used in this history of the massacre.

There were certain questions in dispute, and with my first letter to Mr. King I inclosed a list of questions which, with the answers, are given herewith:

Ques. -- Kindly give the names of as many members of the company as you can remember?
Ans. -- Fancher, Dunlap, Morton, Haydon, Hudson, Aden, Stevenson, Hamilton, a family by the name of Smith and a Methodist minister.

Ques. -- Give the Christian names of the two Dunlap girls and their ages?
Ans. -- Rachel and Ruth, aged sixteen and eighteen years, respectively.

Ques. -- How many wagons and carriages in the train?
Ans. -- Forty.

Ques. -- How many men capable of bearing arms, and about how many women -- married and single, large girls included?
Ans. -- About sixty men, forty women and nearly fifty children.

Ques. -- About how many horsemen in the train?
Ans. -- About twelve, as near as I can remember.

CONDITIONS IN SOUTHERN UTAH

The settlements in Iron and Washington counties were less than six years old, and distant 240 to more than 300 miles from Salt Lake City. Mail lines had not been established. All communication with Salt Lake was necessarily by special messenger or by the slower means of those who occasionally went to and fro on business. At the time of which we are writing the people of those remote southern settlements were in the throes of the Mormon "reformation," and the news of the approach of Johnston's army served to intensify the frenzy. They had three years' breadstuff on hand, but were continually urged to husband it for the expected "big fight" with the United States.

PERSONNEL OF THE LEADING ASSASSINS

Isaac C. Haight resided in Cedar City, about 260 miles southwesterly from Salt Lake City, and forty miles northeasterly from the Mountain Meadows. He was president of the Parowan "stake of Zion," and as such was the ecclesiastical agent in Iron county of President Brigham Young. to whom all the presidents of "stakes" reported, and to whom they were directly responsible for their acts. Haight was also lieutenant colonel in the Iron county militia, and upon him must ever rest the larger part of the odium for the inception and details of the massacre.

As bishop of the Parowan ward of the Parowan "stake of Zion,'' William H. Dame was under the ecclesiastical direction of President Haight. But as colonel in command of the military district comprising Iron and Washington counties Dame was the military superior of Haight.

John M. Higbee resided in Cedar City, was first counselor to Isaac C. Haight in the Parowan "stake of Zion," and was major in the Iron county militia.

The practice of conferring ecclesiastical, civil and military powers on the same individual has been a distinguishing feature of the Mormon church from its beginning in 1830. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was at once the representative of the Mormon god upon the earth, mayor of Nauvoo, and lieutenant general of the Nauvoo legion. And just before his death in 1844, the Mormon "prophet" was nominated for president of the United States by the Democrats under his spiritual control. And it is an inexorable law that the ecclesiastical power of the Mormon hierarchs is superior to that of the civil and military divisions, or adjuncts, of the church.

And there is no doubt that Dame reluctantly became an abettor of butchering the emigrants because of the fact that Haight was his ecclesiastical superior.

There is a popular and widespread impression that John D. Lee was the leader and arch criminal of the massacre. That is not true. He held no special office in the priesthood, but was farmer to the Indians under Superintendent Brigham Young. Lee was a man of medium height, heavy build, and possessed more than average intelligence. As an abject slave of the Mormon priesthood he was a willing tool of his "file leader" in deeds of violence. Lee's father was a member of the "First Families of Virginia," and had not the son become tainted with Mormon superstition, and the victim of the fatuous doctrine of unquestioning obedience to the self-constituted vicegerents of God, he would doubtless have lived and died an honored member of society.

Philip Klingensmith was bishop of the Cedar ward and Samuel McVurdy was his first counselor.

Except in so far as it is necessary in the discussion of the details of the tragedy, it would be an act of wanton cruelty to name the others of the fifty-five white men who were present at the massacre. The public naming of those men would serve no purpose, and would add unnecessary weight to the cross which hundreds of their innocent descendants are bearing.

The great majority of the men who participated in that almost unparalleled crime were not murderers in the generally accepted definition of the word. They were irresponsible victims of gross superstition, and, almost without protest, they stained their souls with blood in the effort to perform the will of God, as they understood the order to commit murder. The execrations of those now living, and of those who will read the story of the tragedy at the Mountain Meadows in the years to come should fall upon those who taught the doctrine of unquestioning obedience and blood atonement, and upon those present day "prophets, seers and revelators" who teach that a Mormon "lies in the presence of God" when he declines to surrender his temporal being to the representatives of an alien and despotic priesthood.

Such were the people, and such were the conditions that awaited Captain Fancher's company of one hundred and fifty souls.

ROUTE OF THE EMIGRANTS

It was about the middle of August, 1857, when the Arkansas emigrants emerged from Emigration canyon and camped on Emigration square, the present site of the Salt Lake city and county building.

After laying in such supplies as could be obtained in Salt Lake City the emigrants proceeded southward, following the well beaten road that stretched out southerly and then southwesterly to southern California.

According to Mr. Frank E. King the company was short of supplies when they left Salt Lake. At Nephi, about 100 miles south of Salt Lake, they made the attempt to purchase flour of "Red Bill" Black, who ran the flour mill, but were peremptorily refused. A like effort was made at Fillmore, sixty miles south of Nephi, and with like results.

At Corn creek, fourteen miles southwesterly from Fillmore, the emigrants laid over a day or two to permit their work animals and cows which they were taking to California to graze on the then luxuriant pasturage of that locality. During their sojourn at Corn creek one of the emigrants' animals died. A portion of the carcass was eaten by some of the Pahvan Indians, who yet have an encampment near the creek. It is reported that four of the Indians died, presumably from the effects of eating the diseased meat.

That incident has been worn threadbare by Mormon and pro-Mormon historians, who charge that the emigrants poisoned the carcass for the express purpose of killing some of the Indians.

And those same historians also assert that, as an act of revenge, the Indians followed the emigrants to the Meadows and there exterminated them. Those historians also charge that the emigrants poisoned the water of a spring with the purpose, as is alleged, of killing more Indians. The second charge will receive first attention.

The nearest spring is a half mile or more north of where the emigrants were camped, and twice that distance from the old camp ground of the Indians. The spring is in the nature of a slough in soil highly charged with alkali, of which the water contains an appreciable quantity. Not even an Indian would drink the water from that spring while the pure mountain water of Corn creek was within a few rods of where the Pahvans were camped. It would have required many pounds of poison to have been effective on life, and the emigrants would have poisoned their cattle, which were grazing on the bottom land near the slough.

The emigrants were well within that section of Utah where the Indians were periodically at war with the Mormons, and which continued until the close of 1866. The Pahvan tribe was strong and restless. Less than four years previously Moshoquop, the war chief of the Pahvans, and a fraction of his band murdered Lieutenant Gunnison and his exploring party of nearly a dozen men as an act of revenge for the killing of Moshoquop's father by a hot headed emigrant.

The Fancher company was not an aggregation of fools or lunatics. They knew that they were within the power of an enemy that was then preparing for war with the United States. Their failure to obtain food supplies, and the sullen behavior of the Saints would have convinced men of ordinary sense and caution that theirs was a dangerous situation. And they knew that scores of places, like the defile known as Baker's pass, not twenty miles away, where a dozen Indians could waylay and murder a hundred men, must be traversed before they could reach the open country of the Nevada deserts.

And at the second trial of John D. Lee, in 1876, Nephi Johnson, a devout Mormon and Indian interpreter, forever disarmed the lying Mormon historians by declaring that no Pahvan Indians were present at the massacre. A portion of Johnson's evidence, as also that of other witnesses, is given in the appendix at the close of this narrative.

The fact is, western Indians, when pressed for food, eat the flesh of diseased animals; and that the Pahvans knew that the emigrants were blameless in the matter of the death of four of their braves is abundantly proved by the fact that they did not molest the strangers.

At Beaver, about forty-eight miles from Corn creek, the emigrants made another unsuccessful attempt to purchase supplies.

On their arrival at Parowan, thirty miles south from Beaver, the emigrants encamped outside the "fort" or earth wall surrounding the Mormon residences and gardens. By some means the emigrants succeeded in purchasing a small quantity of wheat, but there was no mill in the settlement.

Among those who visited the camp of the emigrants was Elder William Laney, who has before been mentioned as a missionary in Tennessee. William A. Aden immediately recognized Elder Laney as the man whom he, with other boys, had frightened by the discharge of a small cannon in the rear of the courthouse at Paris. Aden at once made himself known to the elder, who recollected that Aden's father had given him shelter when he believed that his life was in danger, and cordially invited the young Tennesseean to visit him within the fort. Aden accepted the elder's hospitality and visited his home where Elder Laney had two wives living in the same cottage. Aden noticed that the elder had a fine patch of onions growing in his front yard and asked to purchase some of them. Elder Laney called his wives and instructed them to pull the onions for Aden. The onions were presented to the son of Laney's benefactor in Tennessee. For that slight act of reciprocal kindness the bishop of Parowan sent two young men by the name of Carter to Laney's house. The latter was called out to the sidewalk where one of the young thugs beat him into insensibility with a club. Laney's wives dragged him into the house and protected him from further assault by the emissaries of the Mormon priesthood. Laney's injuries affected him during the remainder of his life. The incident serves to illustrate the fanaticism and hatred that inspired the Saints to commit the final act of extermination of the emigrants.

From Parowan the road turns sharply to the southwest, and thus continues eighteen miles to Cedar City, where the emigrants made another ineffectual effort to purchase provisions. But Joseph Walker, who was running the flour mills, ground the wheat which had been obtained at Parowan. Bishop Klingensmith sent an elder to Walker and ordered him not to grind the wheat. The sturdy and bluff old Englishman said to the bishop's agent: "Tell the bishop that I have six grown sons, and that we will sell our lives at the price of death to others before I will obey his order." During many weeks after the incident the emissaries of the bishop hounded Walker, and one night while at work in the smutting room of the mill he saved his life by blowing out the candle, thus thwarting the assassins who were lurking near the window of the room. And although Joseph Walker knew by whose orders, and by whom, the Mountain Meadows massacre was perpetrated, he lived and died a Mormon. Once thoroughly converted to the belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, a little thing like the massacre at the Meadows doesn't even jar the faith of the average Mormon.

It is very likely that the emigrants had neglected to apply at Salt Lake City for "permits" to pass through the territory of the United States. They were American citizens, pioneers of Arkansas and Missouri, and were not accustomed to asking for permits to travel the public highways. If defenders of the Mormon "prophets" accept the theory that Brigham Young's "proclamation" declaring martial law was not in effect at the time the emigrants were en route to the Meadows, and that "permits" were not necessary, they abandon the only possible excuse, or apology, for the massacre -- that under all the circumstances it was a military necessity, and must, forsooth, concede that it was a religious murder and that "by their fruits ye shall know them."

Cedar City was the last town on their route to California, and the last place where Brigham Young's order regarding permits could, without a massacre, be enforced. And "Brother" Isaac C. Haight was the last man on the route who was "authorized" by the Mormon "prophet" to issue permits. And there is no doubt that Haight insisted that the orders of his religious master in Salt Lake City be fulfilled to the letter, and that the emigrants resented the insult.

Whether true or false, unfortunately the emigrants cannot be called in rebuttal, the Mormons of Cedar City have been insistent in their charges that the emigrants' conduct was rude, defiant and boisterous. It is alleged that they fired their pistols in the air, "swore like pirates," and defied the town authorities to arrest them. It is also asserted that some of the emigrants from Missouri boasted of having aided in driving the Mormons from that state, and with having helped kill "old Joe Smith" at Carthage jail in Illinois. It is also affirmed that the emigrants swore that they would take provisions by force from the small hamlets and ranches through which they expected to pass on their way down the Santa Clara river.

Fancher's company turned westerly, following the old emigrant trail to California, and camped at the southwest corner of the Cedar co-operative field. According to Mormon statements, it was there that the emigrants committed their last depredation, although they passed through Pinto, six miles northeasterly from the Meadows. According to rumor, they used some fencing for fuel, thus opening the Cedar field to the trespass of range cattle and horses.

The emigrants were then about thirty miles northeasterly from the Meadows. We will precede them and make the reader acquainted with the topography of the locality.