Robert Wiley

Robert Wiley, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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Robert Wiley

1809-1872

Biographical Sketch

Early Years in Yorkshire, England

Robert Wiley was born on November 22, 1809 in York, Yorkshire, England, the son of John and Elizabeth Wiley.

In 1832, he married Sarah Darling at St. Peter’s Church in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. Sarah had been born in 1814 in Liverpool, the daughter of John Darling and Elizabeth Ann Youd.

First Trip to America

A month later, Wiley and his wife joined his parents family in journeying to America where they settled in Newark, Licking County, Ohio. Four children were born to them there but evidently only one survived.

In 1840, Wiley and his wife and son, William, returned to familiar surroundings, the bustling port city of Liverpool, England. Wiley worked at his trade while his wife sold meat and produce in the local market. Wiley heard the preaching of Mormon missionaries and was impressed with their message. In spring 1843, he was baptized in the Mormon Church. During this time several more children were born to them. Wiley was enthusiastic about his new faith but not so his wife.

Permanent Immigration to American and onto Utah

In the late 1840s, Wiley decided to return to America, this time to join the Mormons in their new settlement in the American West. He took his two older sons with him, leaving his wife and younger children in England.

Arriving in the eastern seaboard, Wiley and his sons journeyed to the trail head in the Midwest. At the outfitting post at Kanesville (modern Council Bluffs), Iowa, they Joined the Milo Andrus Company and he was appointed a captain of a small company of ten travelers.

The Mormon Trail

In early June, the company departed on its overland trek. Outbreaks of cholera caused numerous deaths on the overland trail that season. 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 at the end of August.

Soon, Wiley became a member of a brass band organized in Great Salt Lake City.

To Southern Utah and the Ironworks

In December of that year, Wiley volunteered to join the exploratory company of Mormon leader George A. Smith to found settlements in southern Utah. In January 1851, they arrived in what was then known as Little Salt Lake Valley (now Parowan Valley) and soon established Parowan and several neighboring settlements. Also in the company were Thomas Cartwright, 36, William H. Dame, 31, Richard Harrison, 43, George Hunter, 22, Nephi Johnson, 17, John D. Lee, 39, and Carl Shirts. Smith appointed Wiley as the conductor and choir president of the “English” choir in Parowan.

In the early 1850s, Sarah Wiley decided to immigrant to America and join Wiley in Utah Territory. Her thriving business provided her with the means for a relatively comfortable voyage, travel across the eastern United States, and journey by wagon train to Utah. She arrived in 1852 where she was baptized into the Mormon Church and “sealed” to her husband in the Salt Lake Endowment House. Then they journeyed to the Wileys' Parowan home in southern Utah.

Stonemason in the Ironworks

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

The discovery of plentiful iron ore in the eastern mountains soon led to the founding of the so-called Iron Mission in southern Utah and Wiley played a role in attempting to establish a profitable ironworks. Wiley was also appointed to the first city council there. In fall 1853, he was elected a member of the Territorial Legislature for Iron County.

The Deseret Ironworks Company

In spring 1853, the Wileys were among the first families to move to the new settlement of Cedar City in Iron County. He was an early member of the Cedar City choir. A stonemason and bricklayer by trade, Wiley was involved from the beginning in the Iron Mission and lent his efforts to the repeated attempts to make it productive. Welch immigrant Elias Morris seems to have been the lead stonemason. (Morris was also implicated in massacre planning in his role as counselor to stake president Isaac C. Haight and adjutant to Haight in his role a major in the militia). For Wiley's work at the Ironworks, he received credit on the books of the Deseret Iron Company. However, he did not held shares in the enterprise.

In 1854, Wiley, Elias Morris, Joseph Clews, and other stonemasons built the new "Nobel" furnace. During this period the account book of the Deseret Iron Company usually refers to Wiley's role as that of stonemason.

Over the next four years, Wiley worked periodically at the Ironworks. There is some evidence that on several occasions between 1856-1858, Wiley and others may have traveled north to the new settlement of Beaver in Beaver County to assist in its founding.

The Ironworks in 1857

In April 1857, it appeared that new life had been breathed into the Ironworks with the arrival of a new steam engine. 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.

Wiley's Role in the Ironworks in 1857

During this period of 1857, Robert Wiley worked as a teamster. In late July, he hauled three-quarters of a ton of coal to the ironworks followed by another ton of coal in mid-August. At the end of the month, while intense efforts were underway to sustain an iron run, Wiley hauled another ton or more of coal. On October 12, he was credited with five days of work on the engine house. (This work may have been done in the spring.)

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 did Robert Wiley know those who mustered from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows, he had worked with them at the Ironworks. 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: Sergeant Robert Wiley, Company E, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion

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.

In 1857, Iron County militia records reflect that Robert Wiley, 42, was a sergeant in one of the companies of the Iron County militia. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

According to Samuel Pollock and John D. Lee, Wiley was at the Mountain Meadows. On Thursday evening, September 10, Lee identified Wiley and many others from Cedar City who attended the war council on the grounds of Mountain 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 Wiley was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

Wiley was not listed in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant. However, in the first trial of John D. Lee in 1875, Samuel Pollock identified Wiley. Lee and his attorney William Bishop also identified Wiley in Mormonism Unveiled, Lee's autobiography published after his execution in 1877.

Final Days in Cedar City; Moving to Beaver County

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Map of Beaver County, Utah.

In 1858, the ironworkers made their last attempt to make the ironworks productive. Wiley hauled coal from the mine in the canyon to the furnace for one of the last trials. But this effort, like all the earlier ones, failed to produce high-grade iron.

The following year, Wiley and his family joined the exodus from Cedar City, spurred by the failure of the iron project to produce high-grade iron, the threat of federal prosecution against those involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the general post-massacre malaise that hung over the settlement. They settled briefly in Toquerville in Washington County, but by fall 1860, they had moved north to Beaver in Beaver County.

During the 1860s, Wiley lent his stone masonry skills to several civic projects including the Parowan Rock Church and the Beaver Tabernacle. He served on the school board and in the choir led by John Weston/Western (also a reputed participant in the massacre).

Final Years

Wiley resided in Beaver until mid-1872 when he died of pneumonia at the age of 63. He did not live to see the federal indictment against nine Iron County militiamen in 1874, the first trial of John D. Lee in 1875, the second Lee trial in 1876, or Lee’s execution in 1877.

Robert Wiley was survived by his wife, Sarah, and three children. Sarah lived another two decades. She died in Circleville, Piute County, Utah in 1892.

Many thanks to Ruth Robbins for her contributions to the biographical sketch of Robert and Sarah Wiley.

Robert and Sarah Darling Wiley

References

Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 17, 18, 32, 70, 106, 108, 121; Bradley, A History of Beaver County, 84, 100, fn. 56; Collet, Orin, Personal History of Robert and Sarah Wiley; Desert Iron Company Account Book, 1854-58; Deseret News; Fish, Mormon Migrations, 283; Larson, ed., Journal of the Iron County Mission, Utah Historical Quarterly, 20/3 (Jul 1952), 260, 365; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; Merkley, ed., Monuments to Courage, 71, 134; NewFamilySearch.org; Robbins, Ruth, personal communication, May 12, 2010; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 56, fn. 32; 89, 238; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 89, 91, 123, 139, 154, 175, 177-78, 225, 292, 293, 331, 349, 354, 440, 476, 483, 495; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on Robert Wiley, 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.