Swen Jacobs

Swen Jacobs, his personal and family background, and his involvement of the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Swen Jacobs

1823-1890

Biographical Sketch

Early Life in Norway

Svend Svendson (Swen Jacobs or Swen Johnson Jacobs) emigrated from Norway to the United States.

Immigration to America and onto Utah

Like many mid-19th century Europeans Mormons, Swen Jacobs decided to immigrate to America. In 1849, the sailed to America and steamed up the Mississippi River and then the Missouri River before disembarking. Swen, 25, his brother, John, 23, and Sarah Ellen, 18, joined the Ezra T. Benson Company. The company departed in mid-July from the outfitting post at Kanesville, Iowa. They combined with the George A. Smith company as they traveled close together crossing the plains.

The Mormon Trail

The Jacobs 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 late October.

To Cedar City and the Ironworks

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

The Deseret Iron Company

In the 1850s he was a pioneer in southern Utah. In moving to Cedar City, Swen Jacobs and his brother John were 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.

Swen Jacob's Role in the Ironworks in 1857

During this period in 1857, Swen Jacobs was an occasional teamster for the ironworks. In May, Jacobs hauled more than two tons of rock and a load of "adobies" to the ironworks. In late July, he hauled more than a ton of coal when massive amounts of coal to sustain an iron run in the blast furnace. Next, he joined the large crew of more than 40 to build the reservoir for the steam engine. When the iron run was underway at the end of August, Jacobs hauled another ton of coal.

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 Swen Jacobs knew 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 Swen Jacobs, 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, Swen Jacobs, 33, was a private in one of the platoons in the Iron County militia. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

After the attack on Monday, September 7, led by John D. Lee on the Arkansas company, Major Isaac Haight sent various militia detachments from Cedar City to Meadow Meadows. Jacobs was in one of these units that arrived there sometime between Tuesday, September 8 and Thursday, the 10th.

On Thursday evening, September 10, according to John D. Lee, Jacobs and many others from Cedar City 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 Swen 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 the 1859 federal arrest warrant.

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Map of Utah County, Utah.

Leaving Cedar City for Lehi in Utah Valley

Following the disaster at Mountain Meadows and the collapse of the Cedar City ironworks, Swen Jacobs and his younger brother John moved north to Lehi in Utah County. During the 1860s, Swen and John Jacobs were city policeman in Lehi.

References

Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, 10:458; 11:423; Gardner, History of Lehi, 161; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 380 (refers to "Irvin" Jacobs); Lee Trial transcripts; New.familysearch.com; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 231, 477, 487, 495; Turley and 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 further information on Swen 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.