William A. Young

William A. Young's background and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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William Alma Young

1804-1875

Biographical Sketch

Early LIfe in Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois

William Alma Young was born in August 1804 in the backcountry of Robertson County, Tennessee, the son of Jacob and Mary Boren Young. His forebears had been in the Appalachian backcountry for several generations and had fought in the Indian wars on the frontier and in the War of Independence.

When Young was three, his parents separated and later divorced. His mother moved to southwestern Illinois where at age twenty-four and with five children, she married her sixteen-year-old cousin, Willis Boren. Boren became stepfather to her children and also fathered eight other children. They remained in Union County, Illinois during most of the 1810s, then passed several years in Kentucky. In the 1820s, after the removal of the Chickasaw Indians from Tennessee, they followed the legendary Indian fighter and frontiersman David Crockett to Gibson County, Tennessee.

In 1826, at the age of twenty-two, Young married sixteen-year-old Leah Holland Smith (1810-1897). They eventually had eleven children. In 1841, they heard the message of the Mormons and joined the Mormon church. Eventually some sixty members of their extended family became Mormons.

In departing Tennessee and traveling north, they proselytized with great backcountry enthusiasm. Mormon elder John D. Lee traveled to Tennessee behind them and while Lee baptized some members of the Young-Boren clan, he also sharply criticized William Young and his brother Squire as false teachers and imposters. In Nauvoo, Illinois, the Mormon prophet sided with Lee, attempting to curb some of the excess of enthusiasm which the Youngs had displayed as recent converts to the new religion.

Move to Illinois

In 1842, the Youngs moved north several hundred miles to Nauvoo, Illinois, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. On their arrival, they were called before a church council to answer Lee's charges. They were censured and not returned to full fellowship until several months later. Yet most in the new community considered it a misunderstanding and the ill feelings passed. John D. Lee later married Young's cousins, Polly and Lavina Young. The Youngs homesteaded in the surrounding area. The Mormon founding prophet was murdered in 1844. The following year as civil strife continued between the Mormons and original settlers in western Illinois, the Youngs moved into Nauvoo for greater security.

Migration to Utah

In 1846, like most of the Mormons, they removed from western Illinois into Iowa territory. During their sojourn in Indian territory in 1848-49, Young's mother and three of their children died.

The Youngs immigrated to Utah in 1849. They joined the Samuel Gully-Orson Spencer Company, which departed from the outfitting post at Kanesville (present day Council Bluffs), Iowa in late May. By then the Young family consisted of William, 44, Leah, 38, Willis Smith, 19, Ethalinda Margaret, 15, Rachel Derinda, 10, William, 6, Harriet, 4, and James Marion, 2. At their departure, Leah was pregnant and she gave birth to a boy, William Alma, in early August when somewhat more than halfway through their journey. Less than four weeks later, two-year-old James Marion expired.

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 travel, they arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in mid-September.

Pioneering in Utah Valley

In 1850, they settled in the new settlement of Provo in Utah County. The first inhabitants of Utah Valley constructed a fort for protection from Ute Indians who frequented Utah Valley and Utah Lake. Young and the others settled in the new colony of Provo, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive.

Move to Fort Harmony in Southern Utah

In 1852, Young and his family moved to southern Utah, first settling in Cedar City. Next, they moved to Fort Harmony where John D. Lee was a dominant figure. Serving as counselor to the Fort Harmony bishop, Young clashed and cooperated by turns with Lee.

Joining the Southerners in the Cotton Mission in Washington County

The Cotton Mill in Washington County

In spring 1857, the William Young family became part of a larger migration of southerners to the new settlement in Washington County in southwestern Utah. These southerners founded the Cotton Mission in what came to be known as Utah's Dixie. There Young reunited with some of his kin from Tennessee and elsewhere.

Washington appeared to have many advantages over other nearby locales. It was located near several fine springs and the Washington fields seemed to provide a lush expanse of farmland. However, appearances proved to be deceiving and soon "Dixie" was considered one of the most difficult areas to colonize. The broad fields were actually floodplains so if their dams washed out, as they did with discouraging frequency, their crops were jeopardized. Meanwhile the springs, so inviting in an arid, hot country, created marshes, the perfect habitat for mosquitos. Many of them suffered from bouts of malaria (the "fever and ague" or "chills") for many years.

Although it eventually proved commercially unsuccessful, Cotton Mission did succeed in producing cotton goods for local use and export at an important stage in Utah Territory's economic development.

In the Iron Military District: Private William Young, Company I, in John D. Lee's 4th 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 September 1857, William "Billy" Young, 52, was a private in Company I in John D. Lee's battalion, the 4th. The captain of Company I was Harrison Pearce. Other members of the platoons in the company were 2nd Lieutenant James Mathews, Sergeant William Slade, and privates George W. Adair, John W. Clark, William R. Slade, James Mangum, John Mangum, Jabez Nowlin, James Pearce, and Oscar Tyler. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

It was probably Sunday, September 6, that the militia in Washington received orders to recruit a detail from their ranks. On Monday the 7th, along with militiamen from Fort Clara and Indians from the Santa Clara, the Washington detachment moved upstream on the Santa Clara River toward Mountain Meadows, meeting John D. Lee that evening some miles south of the Meadows.

They moved up to the Meadows on Tuesday the 8th, establishing a separate camp from the Cedar City contingent. Few of their number participated in the militia council on Thursday the 10th.

On Friday, September 11, Young maintains that he was ill in camp and observed the massacre from a distance.

William Young was not named in the 1859 arrest warrant issued by Judge John Cradlebaugh against many of those involved in the massacre, nor was he mentioned in T.B.H. Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, published in 1873. However, he was a witness in the first trial of John D. Lee in 1875.

Later Life

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In the years that followed, Young worked as a farmer and carpenter in Washington County. He participated in public work projects such as building dams, factories and meeting houses. He was present at Fort Clara in early 1862 during the time of the Great Flood when rising floodwaters washed away the foundations of Fort Clara and Jacob Hamblin nearly drowned. Some accounts credit Billy Young, Samuel Knight, and several others with helping pull Hamblin from the roiling waters.

In 1867-68, Young was among the carpenters who built the cotton factory (photo above) in Washington. It became operational in 1869. In the early 1870s, Young helped build a new grist mill to replace John D. Lee's grist and lumber mill that had washed away in another flood on the Virgin River.

According to family tradition, in the early 1870s William Young and his wife took the recently completed transcontinental railroad back to Tennessee to visit kin where they stayed for several years. They returned to Utah around 1874 or 1875, in time for Young to be subpoened as a witness in the murder trial of his acquaintance of nearly 35 years, John D. Lee.

Young Testifies in John D. Lee's First Trial

John D. Lee at trial

In 1875, William Young was called as one of twenty prosecution witnesses during the first trial of John D. Lee. Lee's defense counsel also called him as a defense witness. His testimony confirmed many details of the main massacre. In addition, like Samuel Pollock, Young identified others present at the massacre, naming, besides himself and Lee, seven others: Harrison Pearce, William R. Slade, James Mangum, John M. Higbee, Philip Klingensmith, Oscar Hamblin, and William Bateman. Contrary to the persistent myth that militia witnesses only named other participants who were already dead, all of these named by Young, except Oscar Hamblin who had died prematurely in 1862, were living.

The Passing of Old Mister Young

At the close of John D. Lee's first trial, assistant federal prosecutor, Robert N. Baskin, commented that while testifying, "Old Mister Young" had looked "crushed" with a "death rattle" in his throat. In fact, Young was seventy years old and not a well man. He died in September 1875, after turning seventy-one. He was survived by his wife and seven adult children. So passed the life of the oldest member of the militia contingent present at Mountain Meadows in September 1857.

Our special thanks to Gary D. Young for generously sharing his research of William Young with us.

References

Bradshaw, ed., Under Dixie Sun, 235; Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 90, 98, 99, 102, 113, 116, 118, 120; Fielding, ed., The Tribune Reports of the Trials of John D. Lee, 118; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 228-229, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 140-41, 149, 151-52, 159, 163, 171-72, 179, 230, Appendix C, 264; Young, The Life and Times of William Alma Young, Tennessee Frontiersman, Utah Pioneer.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further on William Young, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• "The Life and Times of William Alma Young, Tennessee Frontiersman, Utah Pioneer," by Gary D. Young at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~utwashin/history/wmyoung.html

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