"Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!" The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse

 
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Chapter II. 

UTAH AND THE MORMONS.

RETURNING home at the close of the war, I remained for nearly two years, a portion of the time with my father, and the remainder with friends in Madison County, Ohio. This period I will pass over without further notice.

In 1863 an uncle, my mother's brother, went to California. He was continually writing for me to come to him. I hesitated a long time. Finally he became, as he thought, permanently located in Piute County, Utah Territory. Then he again wrote me, holding out inducements so strong that I could no longer resist. He wrote to his brothers and to me of the enormous fortunes that were made in a few days (like Jonah's gourd, that sprung up in a night), and that people who would or did come there would amass fortunes ten and twenty times faster than they could in Ohio.

Consequently I could not rest satisfied until I had turned all my resources into cash, and the Fall of '68 found me in Utah, in a new mining camp located two hundred miles south of Salt Lake City. I was green in the business of mining. I had some money; but I loaned it to uncle and his friends. The consequence was, I must work or starve. This now brings me up to the beginning of a three years' sojourn in Utah.

 
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Utah is situated in the great basin between the Rocky Mountains on the East and the Sierra Nevada on the West. Some of the valleys owned and worked by the Mormon saints are as fertile as any on the continent. They raise everything for their own use, and have considerable of an export trade with the adjacent States and Territories. But, for all that, I found it was as much as people could do to live there, for the Territory was populated with fanatics, and unless you were one of their creed, and agreed with them in their wild notions, you were liable to be forever lost unless you passed through the ordeal of Blood Atonement. You should be murdered for the remission of your sins. And they were careful that this should be done in secret. Not that the chosen of the Lord should operate with deadly revenge, on dark nights; but that the perpetrators of their criminal deeds might be the better concealed from the eyes of the Law and of the Christian world. Unless persons residing there were of their faith, or upheld them in their deeds of violence, such as murdering, stealing, and burning the property belonging to the Gentiles, they were regarded as evil doers, by the Mormon profession. Violent acts, fully premeditated, and without any cause or provocation whatever, were committed time and again; were almost daily occurrences, indeed. Numbers of instances could I mention, but they have been fully narrated heretofore by others, such as following up and murdering in the most brutal manner, one whole emigrant train of men, women, and children, who were on their way to California.  
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To this day their bones lie bleaching in the sun. Some claim that they did have a burial; but, judging from appearances and the manner in which I saw the bones lying scattered over the plain, it would be very difficult for Brigham Young, Haight, Higbee, and Delee, and their hordes of destroying angels to verify the statement

MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE.

that they did bury those that were massacred at Mountain Meadow.

Taking a view of the picturesque and beautiful landscapes which compose the Mountain Meadows, one would hardly think that this had been the scene of such a wanton outrage. But this was no worse than hun-  
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dreds of others. Several incidents have come under my own observation. One I may mention, occurred in Manti, San Pete County. There was a young man living there who had become entangled in a love affair with a young lady of the same place. It so happened that Bishop S—, of the precinct, had had revelations; that is, the Lord had commanded him to take this young lady as his wife, notwithstanding the fact that he had several wives already. The bishop tried to reason the young lady out of having anything to say to the young man. But the fact was, the young couple were engaged to be married; and the bishop, finding that loving words to his desired darling were of no avail, resolved not to be outdone, but to seek revenge on the young man. Consequently he had a secret conference with a few of the brethren, and they decided to hold a meeting in the school-house, which meeting the young man should be prevailed upon to attend. At this meeting these plotters in a most cruel manner destroyed the manhood of the young man. He, after lingering some time in great suffering, died. Several instances of like character have taken place in Utah, all in obedience to the "revelations of the Lord," as given to those whose lives have been passed worse than brutes of the field. Another way of seeking revenge is for some one to sell horses or cattle to one not belonging to the faith. Then officers are sent to arrest him for stealing. He is certain to receive no mercy, because they will murder him on the road to trial, and make a report to the effect that he had been some desperado of the worst dye. The case of  
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D. P. Smith, of Piute County, is a good illustration. He bought a span of mules from a certain saint who resided in Ogden, a settlement thirty-six miles north of Salt Lake City, and took them to the mines on the Sevier River. They followed and arrested him on the charge of stealing the mules, and started to take him to the city for trial. They soon became tired of him, and, after hauling him twenty-five miles, they shot him, and buried the body in an old manure bank.

One more illustration of their saintliness. Captain Hawley, now living at Pleasant Grove, Utah, hired a young man of seventeen years of age to work for him. After the young fellow had labored six months Captain Hawley paid him off with an old horse that was not worth a cent, since good broncos were selling at only ten and twelve dollars, a piece. The young fellow, glad to get anything, took the horse, and started toward Corinne. Captain Hawley waited a sufficient time for his victim to get well on his way, then got the sheriff and followed and arrested him, before he had reached Corinne, on the charge of having stolen the horse. The Mormons, being so bitterly opposed to worldly immigration into Utah, would charge any criminal offense against a Gentile already in the Territory. So it was with the young man with the horse. He was taken to the nearest tree and hung by the neck, his hands being untied. When he was swung off he commenced to climb the rope hand over hand. Captain Hawley then took a small cedar post that lay there and broke both of the young man's arms, and, after pounding him with the club until  
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satisfied, he rode off and left the poor fellow to the mercy of some one who could show enough sympathy for such unfortunates to give him a burial.

The people in Utah who profess to belong to the Mormon Church are two-thirds of them direct from Europe (Danes and Swedes being largely in the majority), and among the most of them ignorance predominates. I have seen in Southern Utah the women out plowing with cattle, breaking up the ground, harrowing and seeding it, and tending and gathering their crops, while the men were too shiftless to either help them or otherwise to provide sustenance for their household.

Hundreds of them live in

MORMON PERSECUTION.

adobe houses. These are made by mixing black earth to the consistency of thick mud and forming it into very large-sized blocks shaped like bricks. Then they are spread over a piece of ground leveled off for the purpose, there to be sun-dried, when they are considered fit material of which to build their houses. Then they go to the canon and there cut small straight poles for the roof. The poles are laid along the sides of the house, one end resting on a large log that is laid up for a center beam, the other on the top of the adobe wall; after which they mix more mud and water together  
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and plaster these poles all over. This forms the roof. Shingle and all other expensive roofs are dispensed with. Here in these castles the saints have their wives brushing up their dirt floors, washing, mending, ironing, cooking and indeed providing for the support of the household, while they themselves spend their time in receiving revelations from the Lord regarding the future prosperity of Mormondom and the number of additional wives it would be necessary to take in order to obtain celestial glory.

The following illustration is given to convey some idea of marriage in Utah. A certain Mr. Buntz, who is now living in San Pete County, Utah, received a revelation from the Lord, as he claimed, that, notwithstanding he had already a number of wives, he must still increase his better half by taking to his arms and marrying three sisters who were living near by. He married all three at one and the same time with as much unconcern as if it were an every-day occurrence. Another instance I will notice. There was a certain bishop then living in Provost City, who became enamored with a married lady of one of the adjoining villages. In order to obtain his sixth loved one he went to the lady's husband, and there in pleading tones he narrated the revelations he had received from the Lord, setting forth the way in which he must do in order to receive his share of celestial glory in the world to come. The husband listened very attentively until the bishop had finished his request; then, in a good-natured way, he showed him the fallacy of such proceedings both in a moral and religious view  
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But the bishop was not to be argued out of his hope of celestial happiness. That night the husband was followed and murdered in cold blood upon his own doorstep. Some who read this may think that I am overstating the facts. Indeed such is not the case; for I have given only a few instances when I could recount more than one hundred such, most of which can be verified by many who are still living in Utah, and in surrounding States and Territories.