Most all of my ancestors were born in the Western Territories of the United States, we used to get together for reunions in Colorado when I was a kid. In 1964,when I was 9 years old, we all drove to Taylor Park reservoir in Colorado. The dirt road was over 12,126 ft high. Cottonwood pass was quite a trip in those days. It is still a remote and incredibly beautiful experience for the adventerous spirit.
It was like heaven for us many kids in a large Mormon family. My Grandma preferred cooking on the open campfire with dutch ovens and cast iron griddles and skillets. We all slept in tents. I think this is how I also learned to cook, as I helped tend the fire and I loved bluing the skillets and flipping the pancakes. I knew that by helping, I would get a favored front row seat at the nightly bonfire where my grandmother would tell Pioneer stories from the "olden days". Great stories of her parents and Grand parents who settled into the valleys of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Old Mexico over 160 years ago.
Grandma wanted to tell about her version of her Great Grandpa John D. Lee, the infamous Mormon pioneer, zealot and martyr of the Mormon Church. She wanted her descendants to know the truth about our Great Grandfather. She was quite the storyteller as she smiled at all of us assembled (about 50 in all). All six of my aunts and uncles (her 7 children) and their familes as we jockeyed for position with our marshmallow sticks for a place around the fire next to Grandma.
Grandpa Lee was a man whose life was met with tragedy. Many things have been said and written about him, but MY Grandfather explained to me the truth when I was a little girl.... the truth about his father, John D. Lee.
Her voice would choke back the tears as she proudly enunciated his name. Her eyes would well up with emotion as they sparkled in the cackling campfire. Thinking back 45 years...I know the dignity and stigma she must of suffered as a young girl growing up in the closed, remote, tightly knit communities of the Mormons in Arizona before it became a state. I was transfixed even at 9 years old.
A billion stars overhead twinkled that night in the Colorado sky, as my Grandmother told us a dark story of intrigue and shame. A blot on our little band of beloved ones. A scar that even my Grandmother could scarcely relate to her children and grandchildren so many years ago.
In 1857, prompted by complaints from the eastern establishment about church power in the territory and a public outcry against polygamy, the United States Government sent an army to Utah, raising Mormon fears that the final annihilation was at hand. This invasion was the backdrop for the still-controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which a wagon train of about 120 immigrants from Missouri, suspected of hostility toward the church, was destroyed by Mormon and Paiute forces in southwestern Utah.
Grandpa Lee's involvement in the massacre is still vigorously disputed and will probably never be known, although he always maintained his innocence ultimately to his execution by firing squad in 1877. He had written a letter to Brigham Young shortly after the massacre which laid the blame squarely on the Paiute Indians, however he believed, in the end, that he was the scapegoat for the Prophet and Govenor of Utah, his Father in law and adopted Father... Brigham Young.
Old Mormon Bull, how came you here?
We have tugged and toiled these many years,
we have been cuffed and kicked with sore abuse
and now sent here for penetentiary use.
We both are creatures of some Note.
You are food for Prisoners and I, the scape goat.
-from the diary of John D. Lee-
John D. Lee had 19 wives and 64 children and all but 3 of his wives eventually left the Church when he was convicted, excommunicated and executed. We descend from Rachel his youngest wife. She ran the famous ferry at Lee's Ferry, Arizona crossing the mighty Colorado river for 5 cents a trip with her children and my Grandfather John A. Lee! It was the only way for the pioneers to cross into Arizona and Mexico from Salt Lake City before the turn of the century. Rachel and her decendents remained loyal to the Church AND to John D. Lee to the end!
I remember Grandma always puntuating that sentence with a proud nod of her head...even in subsequent retellings of the story.
Grandpa Lee owned profitable farms, developed large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, experimented successfully with many new agricultural products, including silk and cotton, founded settlements, built fences, dug irrigation ditches, erected saw, grist, and sugar-cane mills, played the role of explorer, dealt kindly with the Indians as he was the official Indian Agent for the Federal Government and The Church. He served as a Parowan (Utah) Alderman (1851), as Washington County's probate judge (1856), and Utah legislator (1857-58).
But he was solely convicted for the slaughter of 120 people in the Fancher wagon train at the massacre at Mountain Meadows...
There were always great animated discussions and debates by the adults.I mostly remember how everyone agreed that the Church and Brigham Young had abandoned and marginalized the widowed families to scorn, tauntings and shunnings. It is still a highly charged discussion in my family to this day.
In 1877 March 23, John D. Lee is returned to Mountain Meadows to be executed, Lee was given a moment to speak:
"I have but little to say this morning. Of course I feel that I am on the brink of eternity, and the solemnities of eternity should rest upon my mind .... I am ready to die. I trust in God. I have no fear. Death has no terror .... I ask the Lord my God, if my labors are done, to receive my spirit. "
Lee shook hands with those in attendance, had his picture taken sitting on his coffin, gave away articles of his outer clothing sitting defiantly in his Temple garments (Mormon Underwear), and instructed the firing squad to aim for his heart so as not to mutilate his body. He was shot while sitting on the edge of his casket. He was sixty-five. His body was taken by the family to Panguitch, Utah, for burial.
On June 22, 2007 Black Diamond Pictures will release a film about this story starring John Voight; September Dawn. (Check out the trailer.)
It is a story about the massacre of innocent people by religious zealots on September 11, 1857, 150 years ago. It will explore the secrecy, cover-up, channels of power and corruption that led to the massacre at Mountain Meadows.