Music:
Wayfaring Stranger
Eerilying 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
Fancher Train by
Mormons in
Mountain Meadows,
Utah is still
largely
unrecognized, and
rarely recorded in
history books...
Mountain
Meadows Monument
Mountain
Meadows, Utah
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In Memoriam
"Between
September 7 and
11, 1857
A Company of
More Than120
Arkansas
Emigrants
Led By Capt.
John T. Baker
And Capt. Alexander Fancher
Was Attacked
While En Route
to California.
This Event Is
Known In History
As
The Mountain
Meadows Massacre"
Do not stand at
my grave and
weep,
I am not there,
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand
winds that blow,
I am the diamond
glint on snow,
I am the
sunlight on
ripened grain,
I am the gentle
Autumn rain.
When you wake in
the morning
hush,
I am the swift
uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds
in circling
flight,
I am the soft
starlight at
night.
Do not stand at
my grave and
weep,
I am not there,
I do not sleep…
Mary Frye
Please
help
to memorialize
and preserve
this historic
site in
Mountain Meadows
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"
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 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)
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)
Photos
courtesy of
George & Audrey
DeLange
ADDITIONAL
PHOTOGRAPHS OF
SITE
Maps &
Directions
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"As the
occasional
visitor, with
bared head,
stands by the
desert grave,
his imagination
recalls the
death march up
the valley...
"The public
memorial is
actually on a
low bluff
overlooking the
valley. The
short winding
trail has
several
explanatory
plaques along
it.
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"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)
The Fancher Train
Detailed Map & Information Tour of The Fancher Train Route
Today some records and tales relate a story about one large wagon
train, and the men, women, and children who were murdered at
Mountain Meadows, which is often referred to collectively as the
Baker-Fancher Train. This is not accurate. This designation
developed in 1990, intended as a recognition that there was more
than one wagon train involved in the massacre. In addition to the
Fancher Train which is the most remembered, there were many other
wagon trains that joined up along the way, broke off, or joined up
again. Those other wagon trains included the Poteet-Tackett-Jones
Train, the Crooked Creek Train, the Campbell Train, the Parker
Train, the Baker Train, and others. (Some of these trains escaped
the Massacre.) The Baker Train, named for Captain John Twitty
Baker, was the last to arrive in Utah of those who had chosen to
join up and travel south together through Utah. Each Spring,
thousands of wagon trains left for California and the
story of the Arkansas Emigrants and the Mountain Meadows Massacre
has incorrectly morphed into one large, all-inclusive, "Baker-Fancher Train" that
departed from Caravan Springs, Carroll County, Arkansas. Such
a Train never existed.
The
Fancher Train, under the leadership of Captain Alexander Fancher,
left from Benton County, Arkansas. The Huff Train also left from Benton
County. The Poteet-Tackett-Jones Trains (all relatives)
originally left from Johnson County and traveled up through Washington
County. The Baker Train left from Carroll County,
near present day Harrison. The Cameron and Miller
Trains (previously from the Osage area) left from Johnson County,
while the Mitchell, Dunlap and Prewitt Trains departed from Marion
County. These trains all left at different times and were under
the organization of each individual wagon train master. There were
probably individuals and elements of other wagon trains that
joined these trains along their journey, as was the custom at that
time. Because of this, it will never be known with certainty the
names of all of those who were members of the trains on the
fateful day they reached Mountain Meadows, in the Utah Territory.
(From the upcoming book "1857: An
Arkansas Family Primer To The Mountain Meadows Massacre", by
Lynn-Marie Fancher and Alison Wallner. Copyright 2006.)
Arkansas Map
showing the counties where some of the victim's trains originated.
More
Information On The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Those believed to have been
killed at or near Mountain Meadows
Estimates range from 120 to 150. There
are 82 names inscribed on the Monument, and 26 others are
noted, but their
identities remain unknown. 17 Children survived.
Senator William
C. Mitchell's List of the Victims
Lineage:
Captain Alexander and the Fanchers who were
killed At Mountain Meadows
The children
who survived and were returned to their families in Arkansas
Identifying The
Children Who Survived
The Fancher Survivors:
Christopher "Kit" Carson Fancher &
Tryphena D. Fancher
1860 Depositions
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)
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.
Engraving of the Mountain Meadow
Massacre
by
T.B.H.
Stenhouse
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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 fatigue 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)
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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 marked
"Here 120 men, women, and children were
massacred in cold blood early in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas."
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. Replica
of Original Stone Cairn Monument
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."
All the Land of Mountain Meadows Is A Gravesite
The remains of all of those who died in
the Mountain Meadows Massacre have never been recovered. The Fancher Train
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 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. (Photograph
of the old stone cairn ca 1898.) 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.
That which we have
done here...
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.
Burial Sites Plaque
The 1955 Harrison, Arkansas
Monument
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 Descendants ~
Open to those with a blood connection to the Massacre, or an historical
interest. Only descendants have voting priviledges.
Mountain Meadows Massacre Resources:
Articles
Books
Maps
Papers
Songs
Videos
& Film
Websites
Other Resources:
The Origin of the American
Fancher Surname - Fanshawe
Thank You For Stopping By!
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