Mountain Meadows

[Guest]

At the Mountain Meadows site, there are two monuments. One is owned by the Church and the other is operated by the state. The Church site marks the camp and siege site of the Fancher party. The state site is on Dan Sill Hill, overlooking the valley:



This image is looking down from Dan Sill Hill to the Church memorial:



This image shows the monument that was rebuilt by the Church in 1999:



This is an image of the north side of the monument where the main stone engraving is:



Here is a close up of the text. It reads:

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
GRAVE SITE MEMORIAL
Built by and maintained by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
out of respect for those who died and
were buried here and in the surrounding area
following the massacre of 1857.

Dedicated 11 September 1999


You will notice that if you read it carefully, the monument is to the Church, who generously built the site “out of respect…”. So the monument is, in effect, a monument to the Church for building a monument.



You can see the feelings are very real. These flowers were there when we visited. The flags are the Arkansas state flag, which was the state the Fancher party came from.



On the south side, there is another marker, but it is simply a history of monuments. This once again points to the fact that this is a monument to the Church for building monuments.



When the Church was rebuilding the monument in 1999, it turns out the bodies weren’t where they thought they were. They accidentally disinterred 29 bodies. This plaque sits on the ground on the East side and marks where they were interred:



It should be clear that at the Church site, there is no information about what happened or why. For obvious reasons, the descendants of the Fancher party and other interested parties were not happy about the monument and a second monument was created at the top of Dan Sill Hill. This site contains information about the events and a monument on which the name of all of the victims and their ages at the time of death is listed.



Here is one of the panels:



You will notice that children as young as 7 or 8 were part of the slaughter. Actually, the brethren didn’t feel comfortable killing children, so they had the Indians kill the children. The children were hacked up with hatchets. Children younger than that were spared, because, by Mormon theology, children under the age of 8 were innocent. They were sent to Mormon homes to be raised as Mormons.

The last shot is looking out North West from the hill. This is the kill site about where the fields are in the middle of the frame. Here, each male member of the Fancher party was marched under the pretense of truce each with a Mormon companion. The Mormons all had guns and when the order “Brethren, do you duty” was shouted, each Mormon murdered his prisoner. The women and children, who were loaded into wagons, were butchered in the wagons. After the shooting, Indians when up and down the lines and hatchet to death anyone who was only wounded.



The bodies were stripped naked and left to rot on the field. Later, they were buried in a shallow grave but were dug up by wolves that scattered the remains over the field.

[_Jersey Girl]

John Larsen,

You posted this copy of the memorial:

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
GRAVE SITE MEMORIAL
Built by and maintained by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
out of respect for those who died and
were buried here and in the surrounding area
following the massacre of 1857.

Dedicated 11 September 1999


I'm not sure why your images aren't posting because I, for one, would like to see them. What is there about the Memorial, including the inscription above, that indicates that those who died weren't Mormon's?

Let me say that another way so you are clear about what I'm asking. The inscription above claims that the Grave Site Memorial was built by and is maintained by the LDS Church. If I didn't know better, I would think that it was a memorial for Mormons who were massacred at MM.

[_moksha]

John, if you go back into edit and remove the ?v=0 from the pictures, they will show up on the screen.

[_moksha]

After the shooting, Indians when up and down the lines and hatchet to death anyone who was only wounded.

So there really were indians present? I thought this was just part of a cover story.

[_John Larsen]

John, if you go back into edit and remove the ?v=0 from the pictures, they will show up on the screen.

Thanks, I did it.

[_John Larsen]

After the shooting, Indians when up and down the lines and hatchet to death anyone who was only wounded.

So there really were indians present? I thought this was just part of a cover story.

Yes, they were promised the spoils.

[_John Larsen]

John Larsen,

Let me say that another way so you are clear about what I'm asking. The inscription above claims that the Grave Site Memorial was built by and is maintained by the LDS Church. If I didn't know better, I would think that it was a memorial for Mormons who were massacred at MM.

You are right, it is not very clear. Since this was done in 1999 it is by purposeful intent that the site is left with no information about what happened. I was at the site with another ex-Mo and he got into a discussion with some Mormons. It was clear they had no idea what had happened at all and the site merrily preserves the veil of silence, if you don't go to the top of the hill.

By the way, there were no Mormons who lost their life.

[_Blixa]

The issues surrounding the monuments on the massacre site are complex and ongoing. The Dan Sill Hill monument, though, was built before the reconstructed cairn on the site of the corralled wagons (in 1990). The original cairn was built by Brevert Major J.H. Carleton and included a cross and plaque. Brigham Young had the original cairn destroyed. It was rebuilt and torn down, and grafittied over the years (there are extent photos of the cairn in various stages of rubble from about 1915-1928). In 1932 it was rebuilt by local Southern Utahns with a retaining wall and steps. (Interestingly enough it was at the dedication ceremony that Juanita Brooks was first proposed to by her second husband Will Brooks.)

This 1932 monument was subject to erosion over the years. The whole meadows having been overgrazed are demolished by erosion making the topography one encounters now very different than that of 1857. In fact by 1877 when John D. Lee was executed on the same spot as the most recent monument (or at least close by...I think where the parking lot is now) it had changed utterly.

As for the Indians killing the children, while this was a staple of various official cover stories, it is pretty much disbelieved now. How many Indians were originally rounded up for the massacre is debatable, but it is certain than most of them left after the first day of fighting. I myself think that 6 or 7 is a high estimate for Indians remaining by the day of the slaughter. And the forensic work of Shannon Novak on the remains uncovered by the back hoes of the current monument revealed children and women's skulls that had close range bullet holes in them. One skull of a boy around 11 years old bore the clear outline of a gun butt (you can see it in the photographs accompanying her first article on her study) thus confiriming at least part of John D. Lee's narrative of the day's events.

Also the women and older children were also marched single file, though at about a half a mile (If I recall correctly) ahead of the men. The two groups were specifically separated. The wagons carried some younger children and those who had been wounded in the week long seige at the coralled wagons.

[_John Larsen]

The issues surrounding the monuments on the massacre site are complex and ongoing. The Dan Sill Hill monument, though, was built before the reconstructed cairn on the site of the corralled wagons (in 1990). The original cairn was built by Brevert Major J.H. Carleton and included a cross and plaque. Brigham Young had the original cairn destroyed. It was rebuilt and torn down, and grafittied over the years (there are extent photos of the cairn in various stages of rubble from about 1915-1928). In 1932 it was rebuilt by local Southern Utahns with a retaining wall and steps. (Interestingly enough it was at the dedication ceremony that Juanita Brooks was first proposed to by her second husband Will Brooks.)

This 1932 monument was subject to erosion over the years. The whole meadows having been overgrazed are demolished by erosion making the topography one encounters now very different than that of 1857. In fact by 1877 when John D. Lee was executed on the same spot as the most recent monument (or at least close by...I think where the parking lot is now) it had changed utterly.

As for the Indians killing the children, while this was a staple of various official cover stories, it is pretty much disbelieved now. How many Indians were originally rounded up for the massacre is debatable, but it is certain than most of them left after the first day of fighting. I myself think that 6 or 7 is a high estimate for Indians remaining by the day of the slaughter. And the forensic work of Shannon Novak on the remains uncovered by the back hoes of the current monument revealed children and women's skulls that had close range bullet holes in them. One skull of a boy around 11 years old bore the clear outline of a gun butt (you can see it in the photographs accompanying her first article on her study) thus confiriming at least part of John D. Lee's narrative of the day's events.

If I remember correctly, the Church blocked forensic examination of the bodies they uncovered in 1999.

[_charity]

John Larsen, you have completely misread the statement on the monument. It doesn't even take an English teacher to read it correctly. As DCP so correctly observed, people who are blinded by an ideology often can't see what is plainly obvious.


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
GRAVE SITE MEMORIAL
Built by and maintained by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
out of respect for those who died and
were buried here and in the surrounding area
following the massacre of 1857.

Dedicated 11 September 1999

You add this statement: "You will notice that if you read it carefully, the monument is to the Church, who generously built the site “out of respect…”. So the monument is, in effect, a monument to the Church for building a monument."

"Built out of respect to those who died and were buried here...." Quite an obvious statement.

Runtu, you have a degree in literature, I believe you said. Care to straighten John Larsen out about his erroeous interpretation?