Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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JOHN D. LEE



The Overland Trail opened through Utah in 1857 for commerce and mail delivery to California. President Buchanan sent a full brigade of soldiers to Utah under command of Col Albert Sydney Johnston to protect the trail and to assure that members of the Mormon Church adhere to federal law. Rulings of the federal court had been routinely ignored by church members whose first loyalty was to Church President Brigham Young, and not to the federal court. The approach of troops was seen by church leadership as an invasion of sovereignty and the Nauvoo Legion was ordered into battle against the army. The entire territory was ordered into readiness for war. Preparations forbid the sale of livestock or supplies to emigrants passing through. It was an unfortunate situation for the Fancher – Baker Party of emigrants passing through Utah that summer on their way from Arkansas to California along the Old Spanish Trail. They were suddenly and surprisingly unable to obtain the supplies they needed that would enable them to travel across a long and forbidding desert. Cedar City was their final hope for resupply and they were refused there too. To the emigrants it had become a desperate situation and a bitter confrontation ensued at Cedar City that angered local churchmen who took the matter up with the local church leadership. The church leaders had crossed the prairie too and knew full well the extent of privation and travail those emigrants would face in crossing the desert without supplies. Being all good practical men they knew those emigrants were doomed to perish in the desert. In an act of good Christian humanity the decision was made to attack those emigrants and rob of them of their goods and livestock before they could make it to the desert. No sense in prolonging the suffering of those good people and allowing those valuable belongings to simply go to waste. John D. Lee was the missionary to the Paiute Tribe and he was ordered to persuade the Indians to attack the wagon train and loot would be split. On the morning of September 6 the Paiutes attacked the train at Mountain Meadows but failed to overcome them. In subsequent attacks the Paiutes suffered more casualties than they cared to sustain for a few of the white man’s goods. The train was put under siege and Mormon militiamen were called upon to join the fight. On September 10 Lee approached the train under flag of truce with an offer to escort the emigrants back to Cedar City under militia protection, but they would have to surrender their livestock to the Paiutes and disarm themselves. Next morning the emigrants gave up their guns, the men and boys were marched off under guard and women and children followed along behind. At a given signal a mile from camp the militiamen turned and fired on the unarmed men and boys, and the Paiutes fell onto the defenseless women and children. All of them were ruthlessly murdered, except for 17 young children who were adopted into the faith by Mormon families. A few months later the unburied bodies were discovered by passing soldiers and buried in a common grave. An investigation was launched and a few years later the children were located and returned to homes back in Arkansas. John D. Lee was eventually excommunicated and sent in exile to operate a ferry across the Colorado River. In 1877 Lee was convicted of murder and executed by firing squad near the scene of the common grave of those slaughtered. He maintained to the very end that the attack was not his idea and he was opposed to it from the beginning. He was the only one ever thrown under the bus. The photo shows the mound of rocks under which lies the body of John D. Lee, an unfortunate victim.

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