John M. Macfarlane

John Menzies Macfarlane, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

John Menzies Macfarlane (1833-1892)
Biographical Sketch

John Menzies Macfarlane was born in October 1833 in Stirling, Stiflingshire, Scotland, the son of John Macfarlane and Annabella Sinclair. His brother Daniel Macfarlane was born in 1837. He was baptized into the Mormon Church in 1845. In 1852, he, his mother and his brother immigrated to American and crossed the plains in a wagon company to Utah Territory.
In October 1853, the Macfarlanes arrived in Cedar City, the headquarters of the Iron Mission where many Mormon converts from the British Isles had settled. Shortly before their move, his mother had become a plural wife of Isaac C. Haight. Her sons, John and Daniel, became his stepsons. Soon after their arrival, Macfarlane began teaching school which he continued for several years. Late in 1854, Macfarlane married Ann Chatterley (1837-1926), the daughter ofJoseph Chatterley and Nancy Morton, and the brother of John Chatterley. In the coming years, they had ten children together.
In June 1857, 23-year-old Macfarlane was listed as an adjutant to Captain John M. Higbee in one of the companies of the Iron County militia. However, over the summer the militia was reorganized. By September 1857, at the outbreak of the Utah War, Higbee had advanced to major of the 3rd Battalion, and Macfarlane became adjutant to Major Isaac Haight in the 2nd Battalion. lf John Macfarlane was at Mountain Meadows, he would have rode from Cedar City and arrived sometime between Tuesday, September 8 and Thursday, September 10. In John D. Lee's autobiography posthumously published in 1877, Lee named many Cedar City militiamen in attendance at the Thursday night militia council at Mountain Meadows that decided the fate of the Fancher-Baker company. Lee is categorical in naming most of these men. But as to Macfarlane, he was less certain. "I honestly believe that John Macfarland . . . was there -- I am not positive that he was, but my best impression is that he was there. . . ." There is considerable evidence that his brother, Daniel Macfarlane, was present at the massacre on September 11, and played a significant role in it. However, we have no information on the role, if any, that John Macfarlane played. In Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Turley and Leonard express uncertainty whether John Macfarlane was present at Mountain Meadows.
In 1859, Judge John Cradlebaugh interviewed anonymous militiamen and citizens of Cedar City and based on this information, found probable cause to issue an arrest warrant against 38 militiamen, most of whom from Cedar City. "John McFarlan" was named. Rocky Mountain Saints, published in 1873, also listed him. He had a role in the first trial of John D. Lee in 1875, discussed below.
In 1859, Macfarlane moved to the new settlement of Toquerville in Washington County where he became the postmaster. He also worked as surveyor, surveying towns, fields and canals. By 1862, Macfarlane was one of those who mediated a dispute over water rights between the settlers in St. George and Santa Clara. Samuel Knight was among those who represented Santa Clara. In 1866, Macfarlane became the superintendent of schools in Iron County. In October of the same year, he took a second wife, marrying Agnes Eliza Heyborn (1846-1932) in Salt Lake City, the daughter of John and Sarah Ann Heyborn. Over the years, they had nine children together.
In Mormon communities, choir director was an important assignment. When John Weston/Westernmoved from Cedar City to Beaver, Beaver County in 1859 to build the choir there, Macfarlane was requested to return to Cedar City in Iron County to head the community choir. Then in 1868, Mormon leader Erastus Snow requested that Macfarlane move to St. George to take over the choir. Macfarlane turned over the reins of the Cedar City choir to his brother-in-law John Chatterley. In St. George, he assumed the leadership of the community choir and held the position for nearly 20 years.
While Macfarlane worked variously as teacher, surveyor, postmaster, lawyer, and justice of the peace, what garnered him the most renown in his community was his ability as a musician, chorister and song writer. His most famous composition was the Christmas carol "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains," composed in 1869. More than 140 years later, it remains a Yuletide favorite in the English-speaking world. In addition, Macfarlane's St. George choir performed at important occasions and ceremonies. In the 1870s, a spirit of cooperation among Catholics in the mining town of Silver Reef and Mormons in St. George led the Mormons to offer Father Lawrence Scanlan the use of the recently completed St. George Tabernacle to celebrate mass. MacFarlane's choir provided music for the mass.
In 1875, after John D. Lee was arrested and charged with complicity in the massacre, five attorneys represented him in his first trial. Church leaders offered him the services of Jabez G. Sutherland. Lee also used Judge E.D. Hoge; Wells Spicer, who later conducted an inquest into the infamous shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona; and William Bishop, who later edited and published John D. Lee's autobiography, Mormonism Unveiled. John Macfarlane also provided Lee with legal assistance. Because of his Mormon contacts and familiarity with massacre participants, his main role seems to have been to aid Lee's defense team in providing background on the massacre and contacting witnesses. Macfarlane testified briefly in the 1875 trial on collateral matters such as the whereabouts of certain witnesses. He did not work for Lee in the 1876 trial.
In January 1879, Macfarlane took a third plural wife, marrying Elizabeth Jane Adams (1858-1948) in St. George, the daughter of Samuel Lorenzo Adams and Emma Jackson. They had seven children.


The choral group in St. George during the 1870s. Macfarlane, the choral director,is in the back row, center, with his hand on his lapel.

In 1888, Macfarlane helped in establishing the first academy for advanced schooling in Washington County. During the anti-polygamy raid of the late 1880s, Macfarlane fled to the Mormon colony in Mexico to escape the warrants of federal marshals. He returned to St. George where in died in 1892 at the age of 58, survived by his three wives and many children.
References: Alder and Brooks, The History of Washington County, 115-16, 143, 170, 171, 194; Book Review, “Yours Sincerely, John M. Macfarlane," Utah Historical Quarterly, 49/1 (Winter 1981), 100; Bradshaw, ed., Under Dixie Sun: A History of Washington County, 51, 321, 325; Buchanan, "Scots Among the Mormons,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 36/4 (Fall 1968), 342; “Culture in Dixie, Utah Historical Quarterly, 29/3 (July 1961), 257; Esshom, ed., Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1018; Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 30, 52, 326, 344, 383, 481-85, 487-489, 497 506, 579, 608; Lee trial transcripts; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Macfarlane, Yours Sincerely, John M. Macfarlane; Pendleton, “Memories of Silver Reef,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 3/4 (Oct. 1930), 116; Peterson, “Life in a Village Society, 1877-1920,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 49/1 (Winter 1981), 81; Seegmiller, The History of Iron County, 191, 192, 239-40; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission, 484, 492; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix A. 
For further information on John Menzies Macfarland see:  • http://macfarlane-sinclair.org/index.php?page=5 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Menzies_Macfarlane • http://www.stgeorgelive.org/stop4.html • http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/xmas/farfarawayonjudeasplains.shtml
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