Strangers for Ancestors #14: The Mountain Meadows Massacre
The Mountain Meadows Massacre of women and children, as drawn by Henry Davenport Northrop in 1900
My great great grandfather, William Clinton Wilson was born in Nauvoo, Illinois on October 21, 1847 to my great, great, great grandparents George Clinton Wilson and Mary Elizabeth Kinney. He was six years old when the family migrated from Illinois across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming to Utah as early members of the Mormon Church. As noted in the last post, George and Elizabeth settled with their family in an area west of Ogden, Utah, the land they stole from the Shoshone peoples known as Ho-quip. In an act of erasure, the area came to be known as the Wilson Ward; today it’s known as Wilson Lane and is marked on Interstate 1-15, leading directly to West Weber.
The term ‘ward’ originally referred to the political subdivision of municipalities in the mid-western United States in the 1840’s, such as Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Mormons first departed from on their way to Utah. Bishops were assigned duties and responsibility over specific ward boundaries in these cities, and over time individual congregations were defined by these boundaries. Based on the records I’ve found, it seems the Wilson family always lived at a distance geographically from the center of Mormon civic life. This space was likely because the extended Wilson family was so large with seven core families, who had 6 - 12 children each and with some of those already married with children, which is why they would have needed a large plot of land solely for themselves and why they would also be considered an entire ward.
William Clinton and Mary Ann Western Wilson, dates unknown
William Clinton married Mary Ann Western in 1872 on January 2, 1872; he was 29 and she had just turned 19. They had seven children:
Nancy Jane Wilson - born October 5, 1873 in Ogden, Utah
William Clinton Wilson - born June 16, 1876 in Ogden, Utah
Matilda Wilson - born November 18, 1877 in Ogden, Utah
John Arthur Wilson - born July 25, 1880 in Ogden, Utah
George Lewis Wilson - born October 10, 1882 in Ogden, Utah
Elizabeth Ellen Wilson - born March 1, 1885 in Camas, Idaho
Martha Wilson - born April 20, 1890 in Camas, Idaho
Mountain Meadows Massacre, T.B.H. Stenhouse, 1873
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
In September 1857, four years after the Wilson family settled on the land they stole from the Shoshone peoples, a wagon train left Arkansas with a group of wealthy families destined for California, the Baker-Francher wagon train. As the party traveled west there were rumors spreading among the Mormon settlers that the Baker-Francher party was a military expedition sent to take the Mormons down. President James Buchanan had recently issued an order to send troops to Utah which led to these rumors being spread in the territory about its motives. In response, Mormon leader Brigham Young issued orders urging the local population to prepare for the arrival of the troops. Eventually Young issued a declaration of martial law.
After arriving in Salt Lake City, the Baker–Fancher party made their way south along the Mormon Road, stopping to rest at Mountain Meadows. While they were camped at the meadow, local Mormon militia leaders made plans to attack the wagon train. The Mormon militiamen disguised themselves as Native Americans in preparation, with the intent being to blame the attack on the Southern Paiutes. One can only imagine how obviously not Indigenous these Mormon men must have looked to anyone; much like white people who disrespectfully wear American Indian headdresses at Burning Man.
During the militia's first assault on the wagon train, the emigrants fought back, and a five-day siege ensued. Soon fear spread among the militia's leaders that in fact, the party knew exactly who had attacked them, and it was not Indigenous tribal people, but rather white settler colonizers like themselves. As a result, the militia were ordered to kill the emigrants.
Megan Wilson Stains Series: Mountain Meadows, quilling (paper craft) on paper, 12” x 12” unframed, 16.5” x 16.5” framed, 2021
On Friday, September 11, 1857, two militiamen approached the Baker–Fancher party wagons with a white flag and were soon followed by Indian Agent and militia officer John D. Lee. Lee told the battle-weary emigrants that he had negotiated a truce with the Paiutes. Under Mormon protection, the wagon-train members would be escorted safely back to Cedar City, 36 miles (58 km) away, in exchange for turning all of their livestock and supplies over to the Native Americans. Accepting this offer, the emigrants were led out of their fortification, with the adult men being separated from the women and children. The men were paired with a militia escort and when the signal was given, the militiamen turned and shot the male members of the Baker–Fancher party standing by their side. The women and children were then ambushed and killed by more militia that were hiding in nearby bushes and ravines. Members of the militia were sworn to secrecy. A plan was set to pin the massacre on the Southern Paiutes.
The Mormon militia did not kill small children who were deemed too young to relate what had happened. Nancy Huff, one of the seventeen survivors and just over four years old at the time of the massacre, recalled in an 1875 statement that an eighteenth survivor was killed directly in front of the other children. "At the close of the massacre there was eighteen children still alive, one girl, some ten or twelve years old, they said was too big and could tell, so they killed her, leaving seventeen." The surviving children were taken in by local Mormon families. The children were later reclaimed by the U.S. Army and returned to relatives in Arkansas. The treatment of the children while they were held by the Mormons is uncertain, but Captain James Lynch's statement in May 1859 said the surviving children were "in a most wretched condition, half starved, half naked, filthy, infested with vermin, and their eyes diseased from the cruel neglect to which had been exposed." Lynch's July 1859 affidavit added that they when they first saw the children they had "little or no clothing" and were "covered with filth and dirt".
The livestock and personal property of the Baker–Fancher party were distributed or auctioned off to Mormons. Some of the surviving children saw clothing and jewelry that had belonged to their dead mothers and sisters subsequently being worn by Mormon women and the journalist J.H. Beadle said that jewelry taken from Mountain Meadows was seen in Salt Lake City.
In 1858, continuing to stay on brand, Brigham Young sent a report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs stating that the massacre was the work of Native Americans. In 1859 the U.S. federal government conducted investigations. Major James Henry Carleton's investigation at Mountain Meadows found women's hair tangled in sage brush and the bones of children still in their mothers' arms. After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a cairn and cross.
Mountain Meadows Massacre marker, Utah, 1900
Carleton interviewed a few local Mormon settlers and Paiute Native American chiefs and concluded that there was Mormon involvement in the massacre.
In March 1859, Judge John Cradlebaugh, a federal judge brought into the territory after the Utah War, convened a grand jury in Provo concerning the massacre, but the jury declined any indictments. Nevertheless, Cradlebaugh conducted a tour of the Mountain Meadows area with a military escort. He attempted to arrest John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, and John Higbee, who fled before they could be found.
Further investigations were cut short by the American Civil War in 1861, but proceeded in 1871. In the end, John D. Lee took the hit for the massacre, and at his execution he expressed he was being used as a scapegoat for the others involved. Mastermind Brigham Young stated that Lee's fate was just, but it was not a sufficient blood atonement, given the enormity of the crime.
The Mormon Church denied any involvement and remained relatively silent on the issue. In September 2007, the LDS Church published an article marking 150 years since the tragedy occurred, containing its first official apology about the massacre.
Mormon Lies, Crimes and the Impacts on Indigenous Tribal Communities
The Southern Paiute Peoples
The Avenging Angels
While I do not know who exactly; someone in the extended Wilson family was either present for, or close to someone who witnessed the massacre. In what I can only imagine as late night hushed and whispered accounts, the story of the massacre was passed down through the family in secrecy. Or so they thought. Sometime after 1880, William Clinton and Mary Ann Western Wilson learned the Avenging Angels (the name given to Mormon vigilantes) were being sent to silence their family. They packed up and headed north to Idaho, where they first settled in Camus and then moved south to Idaho Falls.
This was the beginning of the end of this line/branch of my family’s membership with the Mormon Church. While the family continued to be a part of the Church of the Latter Day Saints after leaving Utah, knowledge of the massacre clouded their relationship to the church and ultimately would lead to dissent and departure.
William Clinton Wilson in Idaho, date unknown
Idaho, Montana, and The Passing of Mary Ann Western Wilson
The following was written by William’s and Mary’s daughter Elizabeth Ellen Wilson in 1958, recalling her family:
My earliest recollections center around my mother. I remember standing at the end of the sewing machine and she was singing the old song "Take this letter to my mother far across the deep blue sea, it will fill her heart with pleasure. She'll be glad to hear from me." I remember the sound of her voice as clearly as if it had been recently although I was only about 3 or 4 years old. I also remember she was making mince meat and had it in a large jar on a chair chopping it with a bladed chopping knife and she told me several times I'd better keep my fingers out or I'd be mince meat too, which rather scared me.
At another time she hit her finger while pounding on a bedstead ·and she fainted. Till threw some water in her face. I can just see her hair all wet and stringing down the side of her face and she was so pale.
I remember my brother George who died when he was six years old. He never learned to walk or talk. He had been seriously ill when a tiny baby and I believe he was a premature child. I was about three year at the time of his death. He got out on or near the railroad track one day. Till rescued him.
I remember going to Ogden with my mother on the train to visit relatives at my Grandmother McFarland's. I got my dress caught as I crawled under a fence and a red headed freckled faced boy came to my rescue. He was my half Uncle but I was afraid of him. (Frances Joseph McFarland) He carried me to the house and kept telling me he wouldn't hurt me and he didn't. We had a meal at my Aunt Nancy's house and all I remember was pickled peaches and a lot of people at the table talking. I liked the pickled peaches. I remember having a piece of bread and butter with sugar on it as Lizzie Wardsworth's house and I didn't like it with sugar on so I just held it and didn't eat it. My mother smiled at me and shook her head to keep me from complaining about it. I don't know what became ofit. It was still on my hand the last I remember about it. When we left my grandmother's house we were in the wagon ready to go. I was looking down at my grandmother and seen a white spot or wart on the end of her tongue. On the way to town I could smell the peach orchard and still remember the fragrant smell of ripe peaches. After mother and I were on the train to go home I wanted her to stop the train so I could play with some children I seen swinging by a little white house. She laughed at me but I couldn't see why. We had a large sack of pears we were taking home. They were sure good and I kept pestering for more.
We lived at this time in a house that belonged to people named Tout and we moved to another house that belonged to some people named Grow. It was in this house that my mother died, April 1890. While we were moving from the Tout house to the Grow house, Till and Bill put me in a trunk and carried me over. It's a good thing it wasn't very far because I was getting awful hot in there. I remember seeing my mother all dressed and read to go up town. She had on the dress a sort of olive green and brown mixture made with bustle over skirt design an d tight fitting blouse with buttons closely fit together all the way down the front. My sister Jane made me a dress out of a skirt when I was sixteen years old. My mother's hat matched the dress and had a large ostrich plume as trimming. I can just see her yet standing there looking so pretty and smiling down at me.
My next sad memory I was present when my mother died. I remember seeing a gray paler go over her face and years afterward I asked my sister Jane what it was. I also was present at the funeral and saw the casket being lowered into the grave and hearing them singing "There is Sweet Rest in Heaven". She was buried at Idaho Falls by the side of her only brother, John Western who died a short time before she did. Mother's sister Sally Drake died 5 months before she did too, and each of them was buried with a tiny newborn baby in their arms.
There were five of us children. Jane the older was 16 and one half and engaged to be married so friends urged her to get married right away and make a home for herself and me, which she did. I was just 5 years old. On May 2, 1890 just four days after mother's death Jane was married to W.J. Bill Adams and kept me and took good care of me until I was married. The other three children Bill, Till, and John were scattered among relatives or anyone else who would keep them which resulted in very unhappy lives. My father didn't contribute much to their support and none at all to mine, but after all I was the lucky one for at least I had a home and my sister Jane to anchor to.
The first winter they were married we lived in Teton Basin. I remember seeing the Teton peaks from the log cabin we lived in. One day a man on horseback chased a herd of seven elks right past the house. A widower by the name of Latham used to come over with his son Alex and they gave me a nickel to sing for them. (It must have been good) Then we went back to Camas and Jane's first baby George was born November 26, 1891. When he was about 18 months old we went to Redrock, Montana and they worked on a sheep ranch for a short time for some people named Moyer. The hired man taught George to swear. Mr. Moyer used to put me on a pinto pony and lead it to the gate about one forth mile and turn me loose, and the pony would go back to the haystack and eat hay and sleep with me on his back. I couldn't make him go and I couldn't get off so I'd sit there and cry until someone came to my rescue. The old kitty nursed a baby rabbit along with her kittens. We went from there to Dillon for a month then to Big Hole Basin where we lived about 6 years. My father followed us there, then Till and Bill came and late that first winter poor little John came and he sure was happy to be with his own family again. (John was about 13 years old.) We all lived together the first winter on a pretty scanty supply of food. Our main diet was beef and fish. While we was living in Big Hole Basin Jane had four more children, Emery who died when he was 19 months old. Jane Ann and Stell. My sister Till was married April 13, 1895 at Gibbonsville, which was just over the divide from big Hole, to Charles Sorenson. She had two children, which died. The first was a premature boy in November 1895 and the other was an 8 months old girl.
My father and two brothers Bill and John left Big Hole about October 1895 and went to Canada and w didn’t see them again for about seven years. I used to go to bed and cry myself to sleep many times because I was so lonesome for them.
William Clinton Wilson, Idaho, date unknown
We went to Salmon Idaho when I was 14 and we lived there 2 years where Jane had 2 more boys, Johnnie who died at age 4 months and Phil was born there Oct 24 1900. The John Adams family lived at Salmon when we did. We left Salmon in June 190i and was on the road 6 weeks going about 500 miles. I drove one wagon and Bill Adams drove the other one. It was the most disgusting tiresome trip. It seems like a nightmare to me . We would travel about 12 to 20 miles a day. The wagon broke down and had to stop over for repairs, which always took 2 or 3 days. One morning one of the horses died as we was just about ready to start. All this long weary trip we were camping with just a small tent and cooked on a campfire. Five small children to care for, rain or shine mud or dust. Ah Horrors! Who said "The good old days?" Well anyway we finally came to Laurel, Montana where Till and Charlie lived and Carl was 2 weeks old when we got there. My father and brothers lived there too and I guess the joy we had in being with them again for a few days was worth the miserable trip. We all cried for joy when we met. We hadn't seen Till and Charlie for about three years and it had been seven years since we had seen my father and brothers. While we were there John gave me a little banjo, which he had made out of a cigar box. I learned to play it and so on my 19th birthday he sent me a real nice new one.
We went from there after our visit to Fairview, which was a large sheep ranch about half way between Billings and the Musselshell River. We lived there about 8 months. The ranch belonged to a rich man from Chicago. His name was Dr. Wm. X. Suddeth. I would have fainted if I had known that would some day be my name, for we didn't like him at all. Jane and I cooked for about 8 to 15 men who worked on the ranch and believe me everything was done the hard way. One evening all the family were at the table eating supper. Janie, then 5 years old, piped up and said" Mamma wouldn't we be surprised if Aunt Till came over?" It just happened that Till had come in at that very moment and heard Janie say it so to our very great surprise she answered and said "Yes you would be" She had driven a team with a spring wagon all that 50 miles over the dry dusty road with a ranch house about every 10 to 15 miles apart, just her and her baby Carl who by this time wasn't more that 3 or 4 months old. She was either brave or foolish. I don't know which but anyway we were sure glad to see her.
We moved on another 25 or 30 miles and lived a month at the Musselshell River. It was there that my brother Bill came over on a bicycle to drive us back to Laurel to visit before we went over to the Judith Basin to live. He was so exhausted from the long ride, heat and thirst that he had to rest over a day before we could start. Well He drove us over in the wagon and we visited for a few days. We had a family group picture taken in Billings and Jane got some teeth pulled and got so terribly sick in the dentists office that we were afraid she would die. John drove us home and rode back on the bicycle. He made the trip with more success than Bill did.
William Clinton Wilson died on April 4, 1926, in Idaho Falls, Idaho at the age of 78, and was buried there.
Sources
Kemp Jeff Wilson Family Oral History Volume 1 recorded by videographer and storyteller Mark Edwards in 2007/08, prior to Kemp's death in April 2008, https://youtu.be/ljz882GIYVU
Mountain Meadows Massacre, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre
Elizabeth Wilson Suddeth, Memories of My Mother, 1958