Thomas H. Cartwright

Thomas H. Cartwright, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Thomas h. cartwright 1a.jpg

Thomas H. Cartwright

1814-1873

Biographical Sketch

Early Life in the Industrial North of England

Thomas Henry Cartwright was born in December 1814 in Lancashire, England, the son of Thomas and Jane Cartwright. He converted to Mormonism in 1843.

In late November 1843, a freak accident occurred in Chester, England. Mormon elder Jonathan Pugmire and Cartwright were attempting to baptize Cartwright's wife in a creek. They had used the creek before for the same purpose but this time the creek was swollen. Entering the water, Pugmire and Mrs. Cartwright fell into a hidden hole and she was swept away. Cartwright went in after her and they were both swept downstream. Pugmire and others were able to save Cartwright but Mrs. Cartwright drowned. Cartwright and Pugmire were arrested and held for trial. At trial in January 1844, the two were acquitted.

Later in 1844, Cartwright married Jane Allen (1818-1888), the daughter of Robert Allen and Jane Allen and a native of Ireland. She became the mother to his children.

Immigration to America and onto Utah

In 1848, the Cartwrights immigrated to New York City. In 1850, they traveled by rail and steamer to the end of the road where they joined a Mormon wagon company. In early June, they departed in the Milo Andrus Company on the overland trek. By then the Cartwright family consisted of Thomas, 35, Jane, 31, Sarah Ann, 10, Ellen, 8, Joseph Hyrum, 5, Mary jane, 3, Thomas Henry, 1, and an infant, Caroline, who had been born in late April while they were en route from the East Coast to Iowa. At their departure, she was only a month old.

The Mormon Trail

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.

By then, Parley Pratt's Southern Exploring Expedition of 1849-50 had successfully reconnoitered southern Utah, finding plentiful sources of coal and iron ore near the future site of Cedar City. Soon, the first recruits for the "Iron Mission" were being organized and Thomas Cartwright was among them. Mrs. Cartwright and their children would stay in Great Salt Lake City for several years while Cartwright settled in southern Utah to help found the Iron Mission.

To Cedar City and the Ironworks

Cartwright, 36, was among the company who in 1850-51 went south to settle in the Little Salt Lake Valley of Iron County were he helped found Fort Louisa (later Parowan), the first Mormon settlement in the south. Also in the company were William H. Dame, 31, Richard Harrison, 43, George Hunter, 22, Nephi Johnson, 17, John D. Lee, 39, Carl Shirts, 15, and Robert Wiley, 41.

Founding Cedar City

In November 1851, Cartwright was in a company which moved south to settle on Coal Creek (later Cedar City), down canyon from the iron ore and coal deposits which they hoped to process into iron. Along with the others, he endured the privations common to pioneering in a new region. Among other things, he lost his wagon when it caught fire in high winds and was destroyed. Later while cutting logs, he accidentally severed one of his toes. Undeterred, in the spring of 1852, Cartwright sent for his wife and family who joined him in Iron County.

Adjoining the original Compact Fort was a long row of garden plots. Cartwright's plot was near those of fellow Englishmen Richard Harrison, Joseph Clews, Thomas Bladen, Henry Lunt and the Scot, James Williamson. Cartwright would become well acquainted with each of these men in the ironworks. Robert Wiley, another Englishman, started the English Choir consisting of Henry Lunt, Richard Harrison, Cartwright, and other English immigrants. Cartwright also was the company fiddler at holiday dances. When they first organized the Second Battalion of the Iron Regiment of the militia, Cartwright was assigned to Company F, the foot soldier unit, rather than Company C, for cavalry. In mid-1854, T. D. Brown made him a Seventy in the church organization.

Cartwright was one the original list of ironworkers in Cedar City and a member of the Iron County Council. In the beginning as time allowed, they began designing a rudimentary furnace. As they worked, they developed a method of labor exchange in which those without iron-making skills harvested Cartwright's crops while he worked on the furnace and other paraphernalia of iron processing.

The First Iron Run

Over the summer of 1852, they worked on a small furnace and Cartwright is credited with making the first iron run on September 9. Later that month, another run produced an iron sample. Although Englishman Henry Lunt recognized it was of middling quality with a high sulphur content, the other men -- Cartwright, Richard Harrison, Thomas Balden, Philip Klingensmith and George Wood -- set out for October Conference, the large Mormon gathering in Great Salt Lake City. There they told of their efforts and showed the sample to prove their evident success. Mormon leader George A. Smith, who supervised the Iron Mission, preached an "iron sermon," encouraging others to immigrate to the new ironworks.

Forming the Deseret Iron Company

In early 1853, steps were taking to reorganize the ironworks that included privatizing the enterprise by forming the Deseret Iron Company. Cartwright was one of many shareholders in the new company. As they refined the design of their blast furnace, Cartwright used his skills to make tuyeres and other specialized equipment for the complicated blasting process. During this time, while most men worked an average of thirty days on the furnace, iron specialists such as Cartwright, Thomas Bladen, and Jonathan Pugmire each worked more than one hundred days.

Impact of the Walker War, 1853-54

In summer 1853, the Walker War broke out and compelled the ironworkers to shift priorities. Forced to reduce work on the furnace, they extended the wall around their fort. Soon the failure to complete the wall became a sore point of contention. At Christmas, Bishop Klingensmith decreed that there would be no holiday dance until the wall was completed. However, the young people felt otherwise and convinced Cartwright, the community fiddler, to play for them. When the dance was underway, Bishop Klingensmith found the holiday revelers, closed the dance, and "cut off" all those, including Cartwright, who had violated his edict. Cartwright appealed Klingensmith's precipitous decision to the high council. Finally, cooler heads prevailed and Cartwright and the others was restored to full fellowship in the church and community.

Cartwright's Family and Living Arrangements

As the years passed, records show that the Cartwright family consisted of Thomas and Jane and their six children, Sarah, Ellen, Joseph, Mary, Thomas, and Caroline. When they had moved from the Old Fort in 1853 to the larger, interim Fort in Plat A, Thomas "Cartwrite" had a lot near Elias Morris, Charles Hopkins, Isaac Haight, and his old friend, Jonathan Pugmire. In the mid-1850s, they moved the fort location a third and final time, to Plat B on higher ground near the base of the mountains, Cartwright had a lot there, too. On or near his block were Samuel Pollock, William Riggs, James Williamson, Charles Hopkins, Samuel Jewkes, William Bateman, Daniel Macfarlane, and Philip Klingensmith, all well-known to him. All would be involved later in the massacre at Mountain Meadows.

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

Cartwright and the Ironworks in 1857

Between 1855 and 1858, there are numerous references to Thomas Cartwright in the Deseret Iron Company account book. Focusing on 1857, the ledger shows that on March 12, Cartwright was crediting for stocking a thousand pounds of coke. By then, the engineers had determined that water was unreliable for motive power because the creek froze in the winter, ran dry in the summer, and was liable to dam failures at other times. That spring, they had taken delivery on a steam engine which would replace water power. 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.

On July 24, while James Williamson and his crew mined coal in the canyon, Cartwright, Swen Jacob, Samuel McMurdie, Isaac Haight, Ezra Curtis, Samuel Jewkes, Nephi Johnson, and William Bateman (Cedar City militiamen involved in the massacre) each hauled one to two tons of coal down the canyon to the ironworks. Cartwright and others were again credited with hauling coal on August 3. On the same day, Cartwright, John Humphries, William Stewart and others were also credited for digging clay to line the reservoir they were constructing. It would hold the necessary water to supply the new steam engine. On August 24, Cartwright, Haight, Ben Arthur, Jonathan Pugmire and George Hunter began hauling coal again in preparation for the iron run. The same thing was repeated on August 27 when James Williamson's crew mined coal and Cartwright, Haight, Arthur, and Hunter hauled it to the ironworks.

On Thursday, September 3, Cartwright, Ben Arthur, Alex Loveridge, Isaac Haight, Swen Jacobs, Philip Klingensmith, Samuel Jewkes, John Higbee, Ezra Curtis, Robert Wiley, William Bateman, and Samuel McMurdie again were credited with hauling more coal. Each one would be involved in the massacre the following week.

In the Iron Military District: Private Samuel Cartwright, Company D, 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 outlying 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 outlying 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, Thomas Cartwright, 42, was a private in the Fourth Platoon attached to Company D led by Captain Joel White and the company was attached to Major Isaac C Haight's 2nd Battalion. Benjamin Arthur was the sergeant of the platoon. Others in the company included Nephi Johnson, 2nd lieutenant of another platoon, George Hunter, sergeant of a platoon, and privates Philip Klingensmith, Charles Hopkins, and James Williamson. Of course, Cartwright knew each of these men from the ironworks; indeed, he had hauled coal with many of them the previous week during the most recent iron run.

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Thomas h. cartwright 1a.jpg

Cartwright was in one of the detachments of Cedar City militiamen that rode to Mountain Meadows during the week of September 7-11. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

He probably arrived on Tuesday, September 8. On Thursday evening, September 10, according to John D. Lee, Cartwright 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 Thomas Cartwright was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

In 1859, Judge John Cradlebaugh's arrest warrant listed Cartwright and he was also mentioned in T.B.H Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, published in 1873. In 1875, during the first trial of John D. Lee, Iron County militiaman Samuel Pollock identified Thomas Cartwright and seven other militia members who were present at Mountain Meadows. Cartwright was also listed in John D. Lee's Mormonism Unveiled, Lee's autobiography published in 1877 after his death, and in William Bishop's list of "assassins" appended to it.

Moving North to Beaver County

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Map of Beaver County, Utah.

Cartwright may have gone to California to recover a debt and then returned to Cedar City. However, by the late 1850s, Cedar City was under a pall because of the failure of the ironworks and the disastrous massacre at Mountain Meadows. Among many others, the Cartwrights abandoned Cedar City and moved north to Beaver County.

Robert Wiley, the Cedar City choir director, had also removed to Beaver and soon formed a new choir. Again, Thomas Cartwright was a choir member. He also played in Beaver's first brass band. Besides his musical talents, Cartwright also relied on his mechanical skills. After getting established in Beaver, he and the Gillies brothers built the first woolen carding machine in southern Utah. When it burned down, they erected another carding machine and later built several threshing machines. Cartwright also assembled some of the machinery for a sugar beet press.

In 1866, he married Catherine Beswick Hooton. This was his first polygamous marriage but there were no children from this union. During the Black Hawk War of the late 1860s, his son, Joseph Henry Cartwright was identified as a "[m]inuteman in [the] Utah militia."

Final Years

In 1873, Thomas Cartwright died in Beaver, Utah, at the age of 58. He was survived by his two wives and their children.

In his last years, public interest in the Mountain Meadows Massacre had been simmering. Cartwright did not live to see it explode into a consuming controversy with indictments of nine of his fellow militiamen, arrests, trials, the conviction of John D. Lee, and his execution. Some of these events, particularly the first trial of John D. Lee, became a leading story throughout the nation.

References

Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 235; Brammer, "Thomas Henry Cartwright (1814-1873): Mormon Pioneer" (accessed May 5, 2010 at http://dykins.webs.com/thomascartwright.htm); Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 33; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 797; Fish, Mormon Migrations, 283; Jenson, ed., LDS Church Chronology, 24; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 379; Lee Trial transcripts; Merkley, ed., Monuments to Courage, 134; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 238; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 9, 51, 107, 119, 150, 156. 178-79, 210, 213, 224, 225, 244, 246, 268, 270, 272-73, 300, 306, 327, 428, 451, 461, 488, 494; Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints, ; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 256.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on Thomas Cartwright, see:

• http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2012/08/14/the-cheshire-tragedy-1843/ (on the death of Cartwright's first wife in 1843)
• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• http://dykins.webs.com/thomascartwright.htm
• Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/

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