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

 
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James Lynch Affidavit 

Utah Territory, Cedar County, ss:

James Lynch, of lawful age, being first duly sworn, states on oath, that he was one the party who accompanied Dr. Jacob Forney, superintendent of Indian affairs, in an expedition to the Mountain Meadows, Santa Clara, &c., in the months of March and April last, when we received sixteen children, sole survivors of the wholesale massacre perpetrated at the former place in the month of September 1857. The children when we first saw them were in a most wretched and deplorable condition; with little or no clothing, covered with filth and dirt, they presented a sight heart-rending and miserable in the extreme. The scene of the fearful murder still bears evidence of the atrocious crime, charged by the Mormons and their friends to have been perpetrated by Indians, but really by Mormons disguised as Indians, who, in their headlong zeal, bigotry, and fanaticism, deemed this a favorable opportunity of at once wreaking their vengeance on the hated people of Arkansas, and of making another of those iniquitous “blood offerings” to God, so often recommended by Brigham Young and their other leaders. For more than two square miles the ground is strewn with the skull bones and other remains of the victims. In places the water has washed many of these remains together, forming little mounds, raising monuments as it were to the cruelty of man to his fellow man. Here and there may be found the remains of an innocent infant beside those of some fond, devoted mother, ruthlessly slain by men worse than demons; their bones lie bleaching in the noon-day sun, a mute but an eloquent appeal to a just but offended God for vengeance. I have witnessed many harrowing sights on the fields of battle, but never did my heart thrill with such horrible emotions, as when standing on that silent plain contemplating the remains of the innocent victims of Mormon avarice, fanaticism, and cruelty.

Many of these remains are now in possession of a Mr. [William H.] Rodgers, a gentleman who accompanied us upon the expedition. Why were not these remains interred, if not in a Christian-like and proper manner, at least covered from the sight? But no, the hatred of their murderers extended to them after their death. There they lay; a prey to the famished wolves that run howling over the desolate plains to the unlooked-for feast, feed for the croaking raven that through the tainted air with swift wing wended their way to revel in their banquet of [death?].

 
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I inquired of Jacob Hamlin, who is a high church dignitary, why these remains were not buried at some time subsequent to the murder. He said the bodies were so much decomposed that it was impossible to inter them. No longer let us boast of our citizenship, freedom, or civilization. Here was one hundred and forty poor harmless emigrants to California butchered in cold blood, by white men, too, with attending circumstances far exceeding anything in cruelty that we have ever heard of or read of being perpetrated, even by savages. It is now high time that the actors and instigators of this dreadful crime should be brought to condign punishment. For years these Mormons have possessed an immunity from punishment, or a sort of privilege for committing crimes of this nature, but seen, it is to be hoped, a new state of things must dawn—retribution must come—vengeance must be had, civilization, humanity, and Christianity call for it, and the American people must have it. Blood may be shed, difficulties may be encountered, but just as sure as there is a sun at noon-day, retribution will yet overtake the guilty wretches, their aiders, abetters, whether open or hidden under disguise of government employment.

John D. Lee, a Mormon president, has knowledge of the whereabouts of much of the property taken from these ill-fated. emigrants, and, if I am not misinformed, [is] in possession of a large quantity of it. Why not make him disgorge this ill-gotten plunder, and disclose the amount escheated to and sold out by the Mormon Church as its share of the blood of helpless victims? When he enters into a league with hell and a covenant with death, he should not be allowed to make feasts and entertain government officials at his table as he did Dr. Jacob Forney, superintendent of Indian affairs, while the rest of his party refused, in his hearing and that of Lee, to share the hospitality of this notorious murderer—THIS SCOURGE OF THE DESERT. This man Lee does not deny, but admits that he was present at the massacre, but pretends that he was there to prevent bloodshed; but positive evidence implicates him as the leader of the murderers too deeply for denial. The children point him out as one of them that did the bloody work. He and other white men had these children, and they never were in the hands of the Indians, but in those who murdered them, and Jacob Hamlin and Jacob Forney know it. The children pointed out to us the dresses and jewelry of their mothers and sisters that now grace the angelic forms of these murderers’ women and children. Verily it would seem that men and women alike combined in this wholesale slaughter.

This ill-fated train consisted of eighteen wagons, eight hundred and twenty head of cattle, household goods to a large amount, besides money, estimated at eighty or ninety thousand dollars, the greater part of which, it is believed, now makes rich the harem of this John D. Lee. Of this train a man, whose name is unknown, fortunately escaped at the time of the massacre to Vegas, one hundred miles distant from the scene of blood, on the California road. He was followed by five Mormons who, through promises of safety, &c., prevailed upon him to begin his return to Mountain Meadows, and, contrary to their promises and his just expectation, they inhuman[e]ly butchered him, laughing at and disregarding his loud and repeated cries for  
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mercy; as witnessed and told by Ira Hatch, one of the five. The object in killing this man was to leave no witness competent to give testimony in a court of justice but God, whose ways are inscrutable, has thought proper, through the instrumentality of the “babes and sucklings” recovered by us, to bring to light this most horrible tragedy and make known its barbarous and inhuman perpetrators.

Already a step has been taken by Judge Cradlebaugh in the right direction, of which we see the evidence in the flight of presidents, bishops, and elders to the mountains, to escape the just penalty of the law for their crimes. If the vengeance of the Lord is slow, it is equally sure. The Mormons, who know better, have reported that the principals and, in fact, all the actors in this fearful massacre were Indian savages; but subsequent events have thrown sufficient light upon this mystery to fix the foul blot indelibly upon the Mormon escutcheon. Many of the leaders are well known. John D. Lee was the commander-in-chief. President Haight and Bishop Smith, of Cedar City, and, besides these, one hundred actors and accomplices, are known to Judge Cradlebaugh and Dr. Forney. Some of those implicated are and have been in the confidence and under employment of the superintendent of Indian affairs. Bishop Hamlin, for instance, who is employed by Dr. Forney among the Indians down south, who knows all the facts, but refuses to disclose them, who falsely reported to Dr. Forney that the children we brought away were recovered by him from persons who had bought them from Indians, and who knew that what he reported was false, and was so done to cheat the government out of money [and] to again reward the guilty wretches for their inhuman butcheries. It is pretended that this man is friendly towards the United States government; yet it is a well-known fact that he screened some of these murderers about his house from justice, among whom are an Indian named George, and a white man by the name of Tillis, recognized by one of these children—a little girl eight years old, who has been sent off to the States by Dr. Forney—as the man who killed her mother.

Hamlin cannot be a Mormon bishop and a friend of the United States, at least, where Mormons or Mormonism is concerned. His creed and oaths forbid it, and he could not, if he would, with safety to himself, do it. Then, why not out with him? Dr. Forney can find another and more trustworthy agent than he. Why, then, keep and patronize the abettor of crime?

Before I close, my duty to my country calls upon me to state to the public the course of Dr. Forney to engender in the minds of the Mormons feelings of antipathy and opposition to the judiciary, and the many obligations which he violated and promises which he disregarded during this trip.

I left Camp Floyd in March last, in charge of thirty-nine men, emigrating to Arizona. About the 27th of that month we came up with Dr. Forney, at Beaver City, who there informed me that he was en route to the scene of the Mountain Meadow massacre and Santa Clara, to procure evidence in relation thereto, and to secure the surviving children. He informed me that all his men had left him, being Mormons, and who before leaving had informed him (Forney) that  
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if he went down south the people down there would make an eunuch of him, and asked us for aid and assistance. I cheerfully placed the whole party at his command, telling him that he had started upon an errand of mercy, and it was strange that he should have employed Mormons, the very confederates of these monsters, who had so wantonly murdered unoffending emigrants, to ferret out the guilty parties. He was left without a man, and we found him guarding his mules and wagons. He requested two of the men of my party (Thomas Dunn and John Lofink) to return to Great Salt Lake City with him, promising to give them employment during the following summer and the winter. They consented to abandon their trip to Arizona upon these terms, and returned with the Doctor; and, I am sorry to say, that he violated his plighted faith and his solemn contract, on reaching the city, by immediately discharging them, without cause, and hiring Mormons to take their place, as, I am informed, has been his custom since he came into the valley.

I was with Dr. Forney from the time I joined him until he returned to the city of Salt Lake, having voluntarily abandoned my expedition to Arizona to aid in his humane enterprise, and during the trip I repeatedly heard him tell the Mormons “that they need not fear Judge Cradlebaugh,” (whose disclosures and energy had created some alarm;) “that he (Forney) would have him removed from office; that the Mormons (murderers and all) were all included in the President’s proclamation and pardon, and would not be tried or punished for any offense whatever committed prior to the issuing of the pardon; that Judge Cradlebaugh was not a fit man for office.” In fact, abusing and slandering the judge in unmeasured terms, no language being too low or filthy to apply to him. I could arrive at no other conclusion, from his conduct, than that the Doctor desired to influence the mind of the Mormons against the judiciary, and that he cared more to create a prejudice against Judge Cradlebaugh’s course in attempting to bring these murders to light, than he did to elicit the truth relative to the murders, and that he was only following out his instructions from the general government in going after the children, while he was availing himself of the journey to make a pilgrimage to the south settlements to abuse and traduce Judge Cradlebaugh, and arouse a feeling of resistance to his authority among the guilty murderers.

It is to be regretted that the Doctor has manifested so hostile a feeling to his associate federal officers, and that the course of the judges, and especially that of Judge Cradlebaugh, has to be criticised by such a man as Jacob Forney, a more veritable old granny than whom, in my opinion, never held official position in this country; and in this opinion I am borne out by the concurrent opinions of nearly all the Gentile population in Utah, who know him, as well as by many of the Mormon people. I now reside in Cedar county, Utah Territory.

JAMES LYNCH.

James Lynch, being duly sworn, states on oath that all the material facts stated by him in the foregoing affidavit, so far as he states the  
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same as of his own knowledge, are true, and so far as he states the same as from information derived from others, as also the conclusions drawn from the same, he believes to be true, and further saith not.

JAMES LYNCH.

Sworn to and subscribed July 27, 1859.

D. R. ECKELS, Chief Justice of Supreme Court.

The undersigned state on oath, that the foregoing affidavit has been carefully read to them; that they are the identical persons named in it as having been employed by Dr. Jacob Forney to return with him to Salt Lake City; that they went from Beaver City with said Forney south, and back again, and that we folly concur in the statements made by James Lynch, Esq., in the foregoing affidavit, as to what we saw and heard on the trip, and the conduct of Dr. Forney, superintendent of Indian affairs, and further say not.

THOMAS DUNN. JOHN LOFINK.

Subscribed and sworn to before me July 27, 1859.

D. R. ECKELS, Chief Justice of Supreme Court.