Note 189 — Chapter VII · Third Week at Great Salt Lake City.—Excursions.

See Translation, vol. i., p. 463.

[190] The following is the account of that affair, officially given, of course, by anti-Mormons: On the 4th or 5th of September, 1857, a large emigrant train from Arkansas, proceeding to California with horses, mules, and ox-wagons, conveying stores of clothing and valuables, was suddenly attacked near a spring at the west end of Mountain Meadow Valley. The Indians, directed by white men, cut off from water the travelers, who had fortified themselves behind the vehicles, which they filled with earth, and killed and wounded several. When the attacked party, distressed by thirst and a galling fire, showed symptoms of surrender, several Mormons, among whom the leaders, John D. Lee and Elder Isaac C. Haight, are particularly mentioned, approached them with a white flag, and by soft words persuaded them that if they would give up their weapons they should be safely forwarded to Panther Creek and Cedar City. The emigrants unwisely disarmed themselves, and flocked toward the spring. The work of murder and robbery began near a patch of scrub-oak brush, about one mile and a half from water. Between 115 and 120 adults were slain. Three emerged from the valley; of these, two were soon overtaken and killed, and the third was slaughtered at Muddy Creek, distant about fifty miles. One of the Mormons—the name has been variously given—is accused of a truly detestable deed; a girl, sixteen years old, knelt to him, imploring mercy; he led her away into the thicket—and then cut her throat. Seventeen children, aged from two months to seven years, were taken from the Indians by the whites, and were distributed among the several Mormon families in Cedar City, Fort Harmony, Santa Clara, etc. Of these, sixteen were recovered, and the seventeenth was found in the April of 1858. Mr. Jacob Forney, the late Superintendent of Indian Affairs, conducted the investigation on the part of the federal government; he reported that white men joined in the murder and the robbery. The Mormons of course deny, in toto, complicity with the Indians, and remark that many trains—for instance, to quote no others, the emigrants at Sublette’s Cut-off, Oregon, in August, 1858—have similarly suffered, and that they can not be responsible for the misfortunes which men who insult and ill-treat the natives bring upon themselves.

[191] The following is an extract from the “Millennial Star,” July 25th, 1857. The article is headed “More of the Assassination:” “We publish the following extract from a letter written by two gentlemen to the editor of a New York paper. The letter was dated Flint-Cherokee Nation, Arkansas, May 17th, 1857, and says that after Elder Pratt was arrested in the Indian country, he was ‘placed under a strong guard, and by a military escort conveyed in chains to the Supreme Court, Van Buren, Arkansas. The case being promptly investigated, and there being no evidence upon which a bill of indictment could be found, he was liberated on the 13th instant. Brother Pratt, being without arms, and without friends to protect him, and knowing that M‘Lean was thirsting for his blood, and that he had the aid of a mass of the corrupt, money-bought citizens of Van Buren, endeavored to make his escape on horseback, unmolested; but every road and passway being under strict watch, he did not succeed in getting far till his path was discovered. M‘Lean and half a dozen other armed fiends pursued him; and Brother Pratt being totally unarmed, they succeeded in killing him without being hurt. Two of the party in advance intercepted his road, and brought him to a halt, while M‘Lean and the others came up in the rear. M‘Lean discharged a six-shooter at him, but the balls took no effect: some passed through his clothes, others lodged in his saddle. The parties now being in immediate contact, M‘Lean stabbed him (both being on horseback) with a heavy bowie-knife twice under the left arm. Brother Pratt dropped from his horse, and M‘Lean dismounted, and probed the fatal wounds still deeper; he then got a Derringer from one of his aids, and, as Brother Pratt lay dying upon his back, shot him in the upper part of the breast, dropping the pistol by the side of the victim. The assassin then mounted his horse and fled. This occurred within a few steps of the residence of a farmer by the name of Wire. Two gentlemen, being at the house at the time, saw the whole affair, and have made oath to what they witnessed before a coroner’s jury. Brother Pratt survived the work of this assassin two hours and a half, and was enabled to tell those who came to his assistance who he was, that he had been murdered by a fiend for doing his duty, and gave full instructions as to what course should be pursued in interring his body, and the disposition of the means and property connected with his person. His instructions were fully attended to by Elder Higginson and Mrs. M‘Lean, who reached the place of his assassination the same evening. Those who saw his last moments state that Brother Pratt died without a murmur or a groan, and apparently without a pain, perfectly resigned to the will of Heaven. Brother Pratt told Elder Higginson, the morning after his arrest, that his enemies would kill him, and requested Elder Higginson to go through with this spring’s emigration to Utah, and carry the news of his death to the Church and his family. This Elder Higginson will do, the Lord helping. After perpetrating this heaven-daring deed, M‘Lean returned to Van Buren and made it known. After remaining in town several hours, and walking the streets with impunity, he was escorted by a number of citizens of Van Buren to the boat, and took his leave of the place. Verily we had long thought that the bloodthirsty mobocrats of Missouri and Illinois were without a parallel in the world, but we now yield the palm to the Church-going citizens of Van Buren, for they have proven to the world that they are a den of murderers and assassins. George Higginson. George Crouch.’”

[192] On this occasion, Cedar Fort, a neighboring settlement, with cultivation, and a few huts, near Camp Floyd, was attacked at night by camp-followers (soldiers); a single calf was killed (the whole place was burned to the ground), and the damages speedily rose from a dozen to $10,000, claimed from Congress (which did not half repay the injury done).