Monday, June 6, 2022

Researching the Mormon Trail, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the Graham family's arrival in Utah

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #18

by Tonya Graham McQuade

Mormon Pioneer Handcart Statue in Salt Lake City's Temple Square

In my previous post, I discussed some of the religious persecution Mormons faced that led them to decide to head west to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake starting in 1846, when that area was still part of Mexico. On their journey, they did not follow the same “Oregon Trail” many others followed, as was pointed out in the family letter written by Jane Kennedy Hale in 1862 (see Post #14). Perhaps they wanted “to avoid competition for forage and food with the emigrants on the Oregon Trail across the river” (1), or perhaps they followed a different trail due to the hatred, fear, and suspicion that was common between them and the “Gentiles,” or non-Mormons, on the other side of the river (see Post #17).


Whatever the reason, church leader Brigham Young became “convinced that the Latter-day-Saints would never find peace in the United States," and despite having little knowledge of the West and no specific destination in mind, he "made a bold decision: the Latter-day-Saints would move to the still wild territories of the Mexican-controlled Southwest” (2).


Young led about 1600 Mormons in a mass exodus, departing from Nauvoo, Illinois, on February 10, 1846. From there, the group made the westward trek in stages, with the first major stop being opposite Council Bluffs on the Missouri River in Iowa. Young “sent out a reconnaissance team to plan the route across Iowa, dig wells at camping spots, and in some cases, plant corn to provide food for the hungry emigrants. The mass of Latter-day-Saints made the journey to the Missouri River, and by the fall of 1846, the Winter Quarters were home to 12,000 Latter-day-Saints” (3).


On April 5, 1847, an advance company led by Brigham Young set off from Winter Quarters on the 1040-mile trek across the country to their new home. Made up of 143 men, three women, and two children, this advance company “was to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley as early as possible for the purpose of planting crops to feed the large numbers of saints to follow” (4).


After  a long and difficult journey, they reached the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, and Young looked out at the glistening lake and announced they had reached their destination. “That year, some 1,600 people arrived to begin building a new civilization in the valley. The next year, 2,500 more made the passage” (5). Between 1846 and 1869, some 70,000 Mormons traveled west on the trail, crossing parts of five states: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah.


Approximately 3,000 of these pioneers made the trek pulling handcarts. At the Handcart Pioneer Monument in Salt Lake City, where the statue pictured above is located, a nearby marker reads: "The Handcart Pioneer Monument is a tribute to the thousands of hardy Mormon pioneers who, because they could not afford the larger ox-drawn wagons, walked across the rugged plains in the 1850s pulling and pushing all their possessions in handmade all-wood handcarts. Some 250 died on the journey, but nearly 3,000, mostly British converts, completed the 1,350-mile trek from Iowa City, Iowa, to the Salt Lake Valley. Many Latter-Day Saints today proudly recount the trials and the triumphs of their ancestors who were among the Mormon handcart pioneers."


Mormon Handcart Tragedy of 1856 - Legends of America

Within two years of their initial arrival, the land on which the Mormons had settled changed hands. The U.S. defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American War, and with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, “Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, to the United States. Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas, and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary with the United States.” That meant that while the Latter-day-Saints “had finally found a permanent home along the Great Salt Lake … its isolation and freedom from persecution was short-lived” (6). 


This huge “Mexican Cession” led to many debates over how best to incorporate the new land - as U.S. states or territories, large or small, slave or free. Brigham Young and his Latter Day Saints sought to create a State called Deseret that would encompass most of present-day Utah, as well as portions of many other surrounding states. Their petitions, however, were repeatedly denied - and it wasn’t until the Mormon church’s outlawing of polygamy that Utah was admitted as the 45th state in 1896.


Map of Utah Territory (in Blue) and proposed State of Deseret

In September 1850, however, as part of the Compromise of 1850, an Act of Congress created the Utah Territory; and in 1851, Brigham Young was inaugurated as the first governor of the Utah Territory. Under Young’s leadership, the Utah territory continued to seek “Deseret” statehood and operated with its own sort of “shadow government,” with church elders establishing many of the laws rather than the territorial legislature. Eventually, hearing distorted reports of activities in the state and believing he needed to subjugate a “Mormon Rebellion,” President James Buchanan sent federal troops to Utah in May 1857, along with a new governor to replace Brigham Young.


While all this tension was building, the Baker-Fancher wagon train was making its way to California from Arkansas, and their planned route required them to pass through the Utah Territory. Little did they know they were heading into a massacre - the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to be exact. Between September 7-11, 1857, Mormon militiamen disguised as Indians, as well as some Mormon-allied Paiute Indians, killed an estimated 120 men, women, and children, sparing only seventeen children under the age seven.


Drawing depicting Mountain Meadows Massacre


As explained on the LegendsofAmerica.com website: “The Mormon people feared their own destruction by the federal government. As a result, Brigham Young issued a proclamation of martial law on August 5th which, among other things, forbade people from traveling through the territory without a pass. In addition, the citizens of Utah were discouraged from selling food to immigrants, especially for animal use. It was into this atmosphere that the weary emigrants [of the Baker-Fancher wagon train] arrived in Salt Lake City on about August 10, 1857. A critical stop, the wagon train members needed to refurbish their equipment, refresh themselves and their stock, and replenish their supplies. The once friendly Mormons, usually eager to trade agricultural commodities for manufactured goods, were now hostile and reluctant to trade. The wagon train was then told by a Mormon guide that they should take the southern route because the northern route was dangerous due to Indian attacks and had the potential for severe winter weather, while the southern route provided for more fodder for their stock and less danger” (7).


Some in the train decided, despite this recommendation, to head north - and that group eventually reached California. Those who headed south basically walked into an ambush. In the months and years immediately following the massacre, Mormon leaders tried to blame the attack on Paiute Indians, but numerous investigations and various confessions eventually revealed the truth. It was not until twenty years later that the first punishment was meted out. In 1877, Maj. John D. Lee was finally convicted and executed - “before his death, Lee wrote out a full confession admitting his reluctant complicity. He claimed he was a scapegoat for the many Mormons … responsible for the massacre” (8).


Since the attackers made no effort to give the bodies a decent burial, the victims’ bodies and bones were scattered by foraging animals over a couple miles, with later travelers passing by and reporting on the remains. As one traveler passing through in 1859 stated: “The scene was one too horrible and sickening for language to describe. Human skeletons, disjointed bones, ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles” (9). It was two years before federal troops came through and gathered up whatever remains they could find, gave them a proper burial, and erected a rock cairn memorial.


Mountain Meadows Massacre Site National Historic Landmark

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the most deadly consequence of President Buchanan’s Utah Expedition (1857-58), aka. Utah War, Utah Campaign, Mormon War, Mormon Rebellion, and Buchanan’s Blunder (10). As 5,000 federal troops marched into Utah under U.S. General Albert Sidney Johnston, both the U.S. soldiers and Mormon militia, known as the Nauvoo Legion, prepared for war. However, the Mormon strategy was to avoid direct confrontation or engagement, and rather to hinder the federal troops as much as possible. 


Nauvoo Legion Lt. Gen. Daniel Wells instructed Major Joseph Taylor: “On ascertaining the locality or route of the troops, proceed at once to annoy them in every possible way. Use every exertion to stampede their animals and set fire to their trains. Burn the whole country before them and on their flanks. Keep them from sleeping, by night surprises; blockade the road by felling trees or destroying the river fords where you can. Watch for opportunities to set fire to the grass on their windward, so as, if possible, to envelop their trains. Leave no grass before them that can be burned. Keep your men concealed as much as possible, and guard against surprise” (11).  


No major battles occurred between the militia and federal army, but there were some small skirmishes, as well as some thefts and destruction of property. An estimated 150 people died during the one year war, including the 120 killed in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At one point, Brigham Young prepared his followers to leave Salt Lake City to find somewhere new to live, with many packing up to begin the journey. However, such a move proved unnecessary - “negotiations between the United States and the Latter-day Saints resulted in a full pardon for the Latter-day Saints (except those involved in the Mountain Meadows murders), the transfer of Utah's governorship from church president Brigham Young to non-Mormon Alfred Cumming, and the peaceful entrance of the U.S. Army into Utah” (12).


That negotiated settlement, however, did not mean that fears disappeared for travelers going west. As I mentioned in my previous post, the diarists in Everell Cummins’s Train of Innocents: The Story of the Kennedy Train repeatedly mention fears and suspicions of Mormons working with Indians to steal their horses and other livestock and to attack their train. That was the same wagon train with which Jane Kennedy Hale and William S. Hale traveled in 1862 to Walla Walla, Washington, which Jane described in her letter to the family back in Missouri (see Post #14).


In his diary entry on July 22, 1862, James McClung wrote: “Some Mormon guerrillas pretending to be in pursuit of some Indians that had stolen some stock at Fort Bridger came riding up, some in front and some in the rear, and others passing through the middle of the train. We suspected them, and the company got their guns and fell into line, and the guerrillas scattered off in every direction … after we camped some time, we saw persons riding over the hills watching us” (13).


The following day, on July 23, McClung wrote: “After traveling several miles we passed a company of emigrants that had their stock stampeded last night. No doubt the Mormons done it. They were guarding it in their corral when it broke loose, running over tents, wagons and everything which came in their way and broke several wagons in running over them and crippling several of the guards” (14).


Author Everell Cummins goes on to say, “McClung’s comments about Mormon guerrillas and his certainty that the Mormons caused a stampede are the first but not the last indications that the emigrants of 1862 were quick to look to the Mormons as the cause of any misfortune” (15). The Kennedy Train had frequent issues with stampedes, which was one of the main reasons they took so much longer than expected to reach their destination. Whether some of those stampedes were caused by "Mormon guerrillas" seeking to steal their horses and cattle remains unproven.


When my great great grandparents, Robert Neville Graham (1830-1915, b. Ireland) and Mary Elizabeth Park Graham (1848-1928, b. Ohio), made the journey to Utah, it was sometime between 1883 (when their daughter Olive Lavina Graham (Bennion) was born in Covington, Fountain County, Indiana) and 1886 (when their son Robert Neville Graham was born in Bountiful, Davis County, Utah). I don't know whether they arrived by wagon train or transcontinental railroad (which reached Utah in 1869) - but I doubt they were pushing or pulling a handcart.


Photo of Robert and Mary Park Graham (seated) and Family:
Daughters Mattie Graham Nebeker, Olive Graham Bennion, and Belle Graham Smith
Sons Harry Hunt Graham, second from left, and Robert Neville Graham
Not Pictured: youngest daughter Helen Graham Lesueur
- Photo colorized using Ancestry.com's new "colorizing tool" (cool, huh?)

My great grandfather, Henry "Harry" Hunt Graham (1880-1963), is something of a mystery. Some records say he was born in Illinois; some, in Indiana; and one, in Utah (which I'm fairly sure is incorrect). He is listed as Robert and Mary's "son" in the 1900 census records (unfortunately, the 1890 records burned in a fire) and in their obituaries; but according to my dad and to another family history record, he was adopted into the Graham family and his original last name was "Hunt." I have tried and tried to find an actual adoption record, but so far I have had no luck.


So, if anyone reading this has any insights into the Graham family history to share, I'd love to hear what you have to say!


Robert & Mary Elizabeth (Park) Graham


I hope you've enjoyed this "shallow dive" into some Mormon Trail history. Check back next time to hear about my family "gold rush" and "silver mining" connections, and to read another excerpt from the book I'm working on, Missouri Daughter.


Endnotes:

  1. “Mormon Trail History.” Utah.com, https://www.utah.com/things-to-do/attractions/mormon/mormon-trail-history/. 

  2. Latter-day Saints begin exodus to Utah, 16 November 2009, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mormons-begin-exodus-to-utah. 

  3. Ibid.

  4. Nemec, Bethany. “Oregon Trail Chronology – End of the Oregon Trail.” End of the Oregon Trail, 3 April 2019, https://historicoregoncity.org/2019/04/03/oregon-trail-chronology/. 

  5. Latter-day Saints begin exodus to Utah, 16 November 2009, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mormons-begin-exodus-to-utah. 

  6. “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) | National Archives.” National Archives |, 20 September 2022, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo. 

  7. “Mountain Meadows Massacre – Legends of America.” Legends of America, https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ut-mountainmeadows/. 

  8. Ibid

  9. Ibid.

  10. “Utah War.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBancroft1889-8. 

  11. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Utah, 1540-1886. San Francisco: The History Company, 1889.

  12. “Utah War.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBancroft1889-8. 

  13. Cummins, Everell. Train of Innocents: The Story of the Kennedy Train. AuthorHouse, 2005, pg. 86.

  14. Ibid, pg, 87.

  15. Ibid, pg. 87.









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