George Hunter

George Hunter, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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George Hunter

1828-1882

Biographical Sketch

Early Life

George Hunter was born in 1828 to William James Hunter and Mary Snadon in Devon, Clackmannan in the east Scottish Lowlands. In the 1840s, the Hunters heard the message of the Mormon missionaries and joined the Mormon Church.

Journey to Utah

In 1849, the Hunters sailed to America and steamed up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to disembark in the Midwest. They joined the Mormons in their temporary settlements in western Iowa. Since their names appear in the 1850 census for Utah Territory, they must have immigrated to Utah in either 1849 or 1850. While in the Iowa settlements, they gathered sufficient means to equip and provision an outfit and join wagon company for the trek west.

The Mormon Trail

The name of the company they joined is unknown. But crossing in either 1849 or 1850, they would have observed that the overland trail was flooded with travelers, most of them bound for the California Gold Rush. Their company would have begun its journey in late spring or early summer. Cholera was endemic in those years on the overland trail and their company may have experienced cholera-related deaths. They would have 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 travel, they would have arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in late summer or early fall.

To Cedar City and the Ironworks

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

The Founding of Cedar City

George Hunter, 22, and his family were among the original Iron County colonists in 1851. Also in the company were Thomas Cartwright, 36, William H. Dame, 31, Richard Harrison, 43, Nephi Johnson, 17, John D. Lee, 39, Carl Shirts, 15, and Robert Wiley, 41. The Hunters had a cabin in the original Cedar City settlement, the "Old Fort." Contemporary records identify Hunter as a miner from Scotland.

In 1853, the Walker War began and Chief Wakara's Ute raiders attacked outerlying settlements and drove away livestock. To reduce livestock losses, Brigham Young ordered that livestock from southern Utah be moved north. However, in Cedar City, George Hunter and other Scots viewed Young's order as a usurpation and forcibly resisted efforts to remove their livestock to Salt Lake City. Samuel Hunter, Sr., George's father, "threatened to bayonet anyone attempting to take" his cattle. George, with a gun in hand, "threatened anyone who tried to touch his cattle." He and others were found guilty and "put under guard for their rebellion." (Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 156-57.) After a short detention, Hunter and the other Scots were released. This and similar episodes run counter to the perception of Mormons in frontier Utah as rendering blind obedience to Young.

When they relocated the settlement from the Old Fort to Plat A, a temporary settlement, Hunter had a lot and home several homes away from fellow Scot, William C. Stewart. When in the mid-1850s they again relocated the settlement from Plat A to the southeast to Plat B nearer the foothills, Hunter also had a lot and rough home there. Plat B is in the area now occupied by the modern town of Cedar City.

In moving to Cedar City, George Hunter 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 into 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.

Hunter's Role at the Ironworks in 1857

During this period in 1857, George Hunter performed a variety of tasks including working on the canyon road to the coal mines, hauling "adobies," sand and coal, "fitting up" the steam engine, and working on the reservoir.

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 George Hunter acquainted with 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 George Hunter, 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 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, George Hunter, 29, was a sergeant in one of the platoons in Company D under Captain Joel White and his adjutant Daniel Macfarlane. Philip Klingensmith, Charles Hopkins and James Williamson were privates in Hunter's platoon. Company D was in the 2nd Battalion of Major Isaac Haight and his adjutant, John Macfarlane, also his stepson. According to John D. Lee, Hunter was a member of the city council. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

Hunter was among those from Cedar City ordered to Mountain Meadows during the week of September 7, 1857, and among those who attended the fateful military council at Mountain Meadows on Thursday evening, September 10.

On September 11, Hunter may have been among the Cedar City guard unit who marched alongside the emigrant men away from the safety of their 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 Hunter was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

Although many of the Cedar City militiamen complicit in the massacre were named in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant, George Hunter was not. However, witnesses in the Lee trial identified him as at the massacre site.

Map of Iron County, Utah

Later Life

Unlike many who abandoned Cedar City after the twin catastrophes of the massacre and the failure of the iron works, Hunter remained there for the next quarter century. In 1858, Hunter married Mary Muir, a fellow native of eastern Scotland. He became father to her three children by a prior marriage. In addition, Mary bore him six children.

Beginning in 1866, Hunter served a mission to Great Britain. Arriving in Liverpool in July, he spent considerable time there presiding over the Warwickshire Conference. In 1868, he returned to the United States. In the Midwest, he joined the John Murdock Company to return to Utah. One account mentions that he used his skills as a wheelwright to repair broken wagon wheels. He returned to his home in Cedar City that fall.

Then Hunter contracted a polygamous marriage that now seems particularly baffling. In 1869, he married Elizabeth Muir, Mary's daughter by her first marriage and his stepdaughter. In any event, between 1871 and 1877, Elizabeth bore Hunter four additional children.

Final Years

George Hunter died in 1882, two days after his 54th birthday. Mary outlived him by nearly 40 years. She died in 1921 at the age of 90. Her daughter and George's second wife, Elizabeth, outlived Hunter by 52 years. She died in 1934 at the age of 83.

References

Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 171; Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 157; Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, 11:422; Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, 18:218; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 379; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 179, 293, 324, 434, 452, 254, 278, 286, 294; Smith, ed., Journal of Jesse N. Smith, 240; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 259.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on George Hunter, 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.