Joel White

Joel White's personal and family background and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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Joel William White

1831-1914

Biographical Sketch

Early LIfe in Pennsylvania and Illinois

Joel William White came from solid New England Puritan roots. From Massachusetts, his parents moved with their growing family to the western Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, then to northwestern Pennsylvania in Erie County. There in 1831, Joel William White was born in the town of Erie on the southern shore of Lake Erie.

Around 1837, his family joined the Mormons. In the early 1840s, they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Migration to Utah

In 1846, the White family joined the westering Mormon exodus from Illinois. In the spring of 1850, nineteen-year-old White married seventeen-year-old Frances Ann Thomas, a native of North Carolina.

In 1850, the families of Joel White and his brothers, John and Samuel D. White, joined the Aaron Johnson Company which departed for Utah Territory in early June. Also in the company was the Hamblin family, including Jacob and Oscar, each of whom would later settled in southern Utah.

The Mormon Trail

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 in mid-September.

Pioneering in Utah Valley

At the urging of David Savage, Joel White's brother-in-law, they traveled south to Utah Valley to a promising new area north of Utah Lake. They were among its original founders. Originally called Evansville, it was later named Lehi. Another group of new arrivals included William Sears Riggs, who would later move with the Whites to Cedar City. Using the beginnings of a crude sawmill and with much difficulty, they constructed among the first log homes in Lehi. White is credited with a few lines of verse describing the difficulties:

          "Of logs we built our houses,

               Of shakies made the doors,

          Of sod we built the chimneys,

              Dirt we had for floors.

          However, we did have a new broom everyday,

              A fresh stick of sagebrush was used, then

          Chucked into the fireplace." (Huff, Utah County Centennial History, 235; Gardner, History of Lehi, 19 (shorter version).)

Joel and Samuel White, Charles Hopkins and William Riggs were among the initial group of settlers who built the first cabins to form three sides of a fort on Snow Springs. The "fort" enclosed the spring but in the early years there were insufficient settlers to build the cabins along the fourth wall to make an enclosure. 

But when the Walker War commenced in 1853, the community was forced to "fort up." White was among those in the new fort.

To Cedar City and the Ironworks

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

In 1853, White and his wife followed White's older brothers, John and Samuel, to southern Utah, settling in and around Cedar City. In 1856, Beaver was founded in the future Beaver County, 100 miles to the north. Joel W. White was one of three selectmen for the inaugural term of 1856-57. Evidently, however, White spent only a portion of his time in the new settlement; the balance he spent in Cedar City.

In settling to Cedar City, Joel White 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.

White's Role at the Ironworks in 1857

During this period of 1857, Joel White performed a variety of tasks associated with the ironworks, including hauling lumber and "adobies" in May. He did nothing more until late July when he hauled nearly a ton of coal down the canyon to the Ironworks. When building a reservoir became a pressing priority in early August, White helped build it. In mid-August, he returned to the coal mines in the canyon to haul a ton of coal to the ironworks. The entry on September 3rd credits White with hauling another ton of coal to the ironworks.

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 Joel W. White 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: Captain Joel White D, Isaac Haight's 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.

White was 1st lieutenant in a platoon in Company D when, in the summer of 1857, he was promoted to captain of one of two companies in Isaac C. Haight's 2nd Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

In early September, 26-year-old Joel White and Philip Klingensmith carried an express from Cedar City to the nearby village of Pinto, ahead of the Arkansas wagon train.

Joel White was also part of the Cedar City detachment sent to the Mountain Meadows. He probably arrived early in the week. Ellott Willden maintained that on Monday or Tuesday evening, White was on patrol with William Stewart when they encountered two or three men from the emigrant camp. Stewart shot and killed Tennessean William Aden. White shot at the other men but one of the riders escaped and beat a safe retreat to the emigrant camp at the south end of Mountain Meadows.

John D. Lee mentions Joel White several times in his account of the massacre. However, at the war council on Thursday evening, September 10, which many of the Cedar City men attended, Lee did not list White among the participants.

On Friday the 11th, White was among the militia escort alongside the Arkansas men marching away from the emigrant camp. He later testified in the trial of John D. Lee that he was unarmed and did not fire on the emigrants. But years later, Ellott Willden said that at the time of the massacre, some of the militiamen fired into the air rather than shoot the emigrant beside them. This allowed several emigrant men to attempt an escape. Per Willden, Joel White and William "Bill" Stewart ran after and shot the escaping emigrants. In the confusion, they were nearly shot themselves by their fellow militiamen.

In 1859, White was among the many militiamen named in the arrest warrant issued by Judge John Cradlebaugh.

Leaving Cedar City for Northern Utah

Around 1859 the Joel White family, then with four children, departed southern Utah, going first to American Fork and then moving west to Cedar Fort in western Utah County.

Moving to Kingston, Piute County

Then after nearly a decade and a half in Utah County, the White family moved to the new settlement of Kingston, east of Circleville on the eastern fork of the Sevier River in Piute County. In 1877, White served as vice-president of the Kingston United Order but, following dissension in the order in 1879, White and family moved north to Plain City in Weber County.

John D. Lee at trial.

Witness at Both Trials of John D. Lee

During the Lee trials of 1875-76, White testified in both trials, the only witness to do so. In September 1876 during the second trial of John D. Lee, the prosecution called Joel White, and other former Iron County militiamen, Samuel Knight, Samuel McMurdie, Nephi Johnson, Laban Morrill, and Jacob Hamblin to testify.

Like Philip Klingensmith, White confirmed that he, accompanied by Klingensmith, carried expresses to Pinto and encountered John D. Lee while en route. Although there are discrepancies between their two accounts, they also corroborate one another on important particulars.

Final Years

By 1900, White and wife Frances had moved north to Brigham City in Box Elder County. To that point White had pursued farming as his primary occupation but the 1900 census lists White as a machinist. He and his wife remained in Brigham City. He died in 1914, his wife, in 1918, and both were buried there. The Whites had nine children, all of whom survived into the twentieth century.

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References

Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 100, 110, 128, 133, 146, 149, 184, 304, 318; Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 70 fn. 14, 235, 306, 307, 314, 341, 344-45, 399, 411, 416, 456; Bradley, A History of Beaver County; FamilySearch.org; Fielding, ed., The Tribune Reports of the Trials of John D. Lee, 113 115, 215, 216, 217; Gardner, History of Lehi, 13, 14 (photo), 15, 68; Huff, Utah County Centennial History, 234, 235, 236; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 217, 230, 235, 250, 274, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; Merkley, ed., Monuments to Courage, 172, 177, Newell, A History of Piute County,126, 132; Turley and Walker, Massacre at Mountain Meadows: Jenson and Morris Collections,150, 160, 202, 209; U.S. Census for 1900; Van Wagoner, Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town, 3; 5; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows,141, 157, 159, 163-64, 167, 173, 200, 216, 254, Appendix C, 263-64; Warner, Grass Valley, 9, 10, 14.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For additional information on Joel White, 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.