John Jacobs

John Jacobs, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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John Jacobs

1825-1919    

Biographical Sketch

Early Years in Norway

John Jacobs was born in 1825, in Byglandsfjord, Berjnisley, Norway, the son of Sven Jacobsen and Johanna Johnsen. In the 1840s, he accepted the message of the Mormon missionaries and converted to Mormonism.

Immigration to America and onto Utah

Like many mid-19th century Europeans Mormons, Jacobs decided to immigrate to American to Utah Territory.

In 1849, he and his mother traveled to Utah in the Ezra T. Benson Company. They passed the usual milestones on the trail: Fort Kearney, the South Fork of the Platte River, Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, the Sweetwater River, Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, Green River, Fort Bridger, Bear River, and Weber River. After suffering the usual hardships of overland trail they arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in the fall.

The Mormon Trail

One account states that Jacobs was among the first to pass through the future site of Lehi on his way to California. In 1852, Jacobs had returned to Evansville (now Lehi), purchased a lot there and took of residence.

To Cedar City and the Iron Mission

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

Two years later, he moved to the new settlement of Cedar City in southern Utah. He married Elizabeth Coleman, the daughter of Prime Coleman and Sarah Thornton. Between 1856 and 1869, they had ten children, six of whom survived to marriageable age.

The Deseret Iron Company

In moving to Cedar City, John Jacobs was settling in an area dominated by the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. See Summary of Deseret Iron Company for a brief summary of its early development.

The Ironworks in 1857

In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to breathe new life for the Ironworks. Working from April to June they installed the steam engine and completed the new engine house. In the first week of July, they were ready to begin smelting. They “put on the blast” and had a modicum of success. But they continued to be plagued with problems ranging from poor quality raw materials to smelting equipment that lacked technical sophistication. When in late July the steam engine seized with sand from the dirty creek water, they speedily dug a reservoir to store a supply of clean water for the boiler. They continued making smelting runs through August. All the while crews at the ironworks manned all the necessary functions there, while other crews, mainly miners and teamsters, gathered the raw materials – iron ore, coal, limestone, and wood – necessary to sustain smelting.

The smelting continued until September 13. In other words, around September 3, when a dispute arose between some settlers and several men in the passing Arkansas company, the blast furnace was running nonstop. And when Cedar City militiamen, many of them ironworkers, mustered to Mountain Meadows where they were involved in the massacre on September 11, other ironworkers in Cedar City continued the smelting runs night and day. For additional details, see Smelting at the Ironworks in 1857.

From late April to September, those working up the canyon in mining or hauling wood, coal, limestone, rock, sand or “adobies” to the ironworks were Isaac C. Haight, James Williamson, George Hunter, Joseph H. Smith, Ira Allen, Ellott Wilden, Swen Jacobs, Alex Loveridge, Joel White, Ezra Curtis, Samuel McMurdie, Samuel Pollock, John Jacobs, John M. Higbee, John M. Macfarlane, Samuel Jewkes, Nephi Johnson, Thomas Cartwright, William Bateman, Elias Morris, Benjamin Arthur, Joseph H. Smith, Robert Wiley, and Philip Klingensmith. Those working at the ironworks on the furnace, engine, coke ovens or blacksmith shop included Elias Morris, John Humphries, Ira Allen, John Urie, Benjamin Arthur, James Williamson, Joseph H. Smith, Samuel Jewkes, Joseph Clews, Richard Harrison, William C. Stewart, William Bateman, John M Macfarlane, John M. Higbee, John Jacobs, George Hunter, Samuel Pollock, William S. Riggs, Alex Loveridge, Ellott Wilden, Ezra Curtis, Eliezar Edwards, Swen Jacobs, Joel White, and Thomas Cartwright. (The two lists overlap because some worked both in the canyon and at the Ironworks.) Other prominent figures at the ironworks who were not later involved at Mountain Meadows were Samuel Leigh, George Horton, James H. Haslem, Laban Morrell, John Chatterley, Thomas Gower, Thomas Crowther and others.

John Jacob's Role in the Ironworks in 1857

During this period in 1857, John Jacob's specific role at the ironworks was as a teamster, hauling lumber and "adobies" to the ironworks. In early August when constructing a reservoir became a pressing concern, Jacobs was in the large crew who built the reservoir. In mid-August, to sustain the pending iron run, Jacobs again acted as a teamster and hauled more than a ton of coal from the coal mine down the canyon to the ironworks. He hauled another ton of coal around the beginning of September to sustain the iron run.

The majority of the southern Utah militiamen at Mountain Meadows were from Cedar City. Of these, nearly all of them had worked at the Ironworks or supplied raw materials to it. Indeed, in the weeks before the Mountain Meadows Massacre, they had worked intensely together, hauling materials, building a new water reservoir, and making the latest run of the blast furnace. One perennial mystery of the massacre has been why the militiamen mustered to Mountain Meadows in “broken” militia units; that is, from different platoons and companies, none of which had a full compliment of its members. Perhaps the reason lies with the Ironworks. Those in the Ironworks knew each other and had worked alongside one another. Not only was John Jacobs acquainted with those who mustered from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows, he had worked with them at the Ironworks as recently as the week before. Perhaps the answer is that the men of the Ironworks were on hand and available and Isaac Haight, who himself had worked closely with them, assigned them to muster to Mountain Meadows.

In the Iron Military District: Private John Jacobs, Company E, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion, Cedar City

In 1857, the Iron Military District consisted of four battalions led by regimental commander Col. William H. Dame. The platoons and companies in the first battalion drew on men in and around Parowan. (It had no involvement at Mountain Meadows.) Major Isaac Haight commanded the 2nd Battalion whose personnel in its many platoons and two companies came from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the north such as Fort Johnson. Major John Higbee headed the 3rd Battalion whose many platoons and two companies were drawn from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the southwest such as Fort Hamilton. Major John D. Lee of Fort Harmony headed the 4th Battalion whose platoons and companies drew on its militia personnel from Fort Harmony, the Southerners at the newly-founded settlement in Washington, the Indian interpreters at Fort Clara, and the new settlers at Pinto.

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In 1857, Jacobs, 31, was a private in one of the militia platoons in Cedar City. He was one of those in the ad hoc detachments formed in Cedar City that rode to the Mountain Meadows during the week of September 7. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

According to John D. Lee, John Jacobs was at the fateful militia council on Thursday evening, September 10, at the Meadows.

On Friday, September 11, many members of the militia contingent from Cedar City acted as guards alongside the emigrant men as they marched northward from their fortified position inside the wagon circle. As the massacre commenced, the duty of the guards was to wheel and fire on the emigrant men, quickly dispatching them. Yet during the actual massacre, reactions varied among the guards. Some shrank from their duty, others fired over the heads of their victims, while others still undertook their bloody duty with zeal. Within minutes, members of the Cedar City unit had killed all but three of the emigrant men. However, whether John Jacobs was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

Jacobs was not listed in Judge Cradlebaugh's arrest warrant, perhaps because he had already left southern Utah.

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Map of Utah County, Utah.

Abandoning Cedar City for Central Utah

In 1858, the Jacobs family returned to the village of Lehi at the northern end of Utah Lake in Utah County and resettled there. Following the municipal elections in Lehi, John Jacobs was appointed a city policeman. At different times, he and his brother Swen were on the police force. In the mid-1860s, John Jacobs was also in the militia that patrolled and scouted during the Black Hawk War.

In 1867, Jacob married Harriet Austin, the daughter of John Austin and Emma Grace. They had eleven children but many of them did not survive to adulthood. His last child of his second marriage was born when he was 63.

Final Years

John Jacobs spent the remainder of his life in Lehi, Utah where he passed away in 1919 at the age of 93. He was survived by his many children from his two marriages. There were only a few militiamen at Mountain Meadows who lived longer than did Jacobs.

References

Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 10:458; 11:423; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 956-957; Gardner, History of Lehi, 8 (photo), 52, 161, 165; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; New.familysearch.org; Turley & Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Jenson and Morris Collections, 235; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 259.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For additional information on John Jacobs, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/

Further information and confirmation needed. Please contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.