Alexander H. Loveridge: Difference between revisions
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In 1851, Alex Loveridge moved south to a promising new region north of Utah Lake in Utah County. Originally called Evansville, it was later named Lehi. It was located thirty miles south of Great Salt Lake City and a mile north of Utah Lake. Loveridge and his group was among the second influx to Lehi. The initial group had included [[Charles Hopkins|Charles Hopkins]], [[William S. Riggs|William Riggs]], and [[Joel White|Joel W. White]] with his brothers John and Samuel, all of whom Loveridge would know several years later in Cedar City. Loveridge and the others pioneered the new colony of Lehi, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive. | In 1851, Alex Loveridge moved south to a promising new region north of Utah Lake in Utah County. Originally called Evansville, it was later named Lehi. It was located thirty miles south of Great Salt Lake City and a mile north of Utah Lake. Loveridge and his group was among the second influx to Lehi. The initial group had included [[Charles Hopkins|Charles Hopkins]], [[William S. Riggs|William Riggs]], and [[Joel White|Joel W. White]] with his brothers John and Samuel, all of whom Loveridge would know several years later in Cedar City. Loveridge and the others pioneered the new colony of Lehi, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive. | ||
There had been some conflict between the Timpanogas Ute Indians, who claimed Utah Lake as traditional territory, and white settlers in 1849-50 and there would be more beginning in 1853. The Walker War erupted | There had been some conflict between the Timpanogas Ute Indians, who claimed Utah Lake as traditional territory, and white settlers in 1849-50 and there would be more beginning in 1853. The Walker War erupted that summer and the conflict was particularly intense in Utah County. The pioneering settlers abandoned exposed settlements, made fortifications, guarded settlements and livestock and after their stock had been raided by Ute Indians, went in pursuit of it. Loveridge would have played some part in these events. | ||
=== To Cedar City and the Ironworks === | === To Cedar City and the Ironworks === | ||
Revision as of 19:47, 18 March 2012
Alexander H. Loveridge, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Alexander Hamilton Loveridge
1828-1905
Biographical Sketch
Alexander Hamilton Loveridge was an American frontiersman and pioneer to southern Utah. A native of rural Ontario County in western New York, he followed the westering arc of Americans in general and Mormons in particular, first to Michigan, then to western Illinois, and finally to frontier Utah.
Early Life: Moving West From New York
Loveridge was born in 1828 in Bristol Hollow, Ontario County, which then adjoined Lake Ontario in western New York. Loveridge came from old New England stock. All of his known ancestors through his 3rd-great grandparents were born in Massachusetts or Connecticut. His earliest American ancestors where religious dissenters from the Church of England who immigrated to North America.
By 1841, the family had moved to Pleasant Valley, Michigan. In 1844, Loveridge and his mother, continuing a long family tradition of religious dissent, joined the Mormon Church and made their way to Illinois.
Migration to Utah
In 1846, the Loveridge family departed Illinois as part of the Mormon migration. In 1849, Loveridge married Malinda Stillwell Thomas (1832-1870) in Pantamant, Nebraska. She was a native of Tennessee. In 1850, they immigrated to Utah.
An Early Pioneer in Utah Valley
In 1851, Alex Loveridge moved south to a promising new region north of Utah Lake in Utah County. Originally called Evansville, it was later named Lehi. It was located thirty miles south of Great Salt Lake City and a mile north of Utah Lake. Loveridge and his group was among the second influx to Lehi. The initial group had included Charles Hopkins, William Riggs, and Joel W. White with his brothers John and Samuel, all of whom Loveridge would know several years later in Cedar City. Loveridge and the others pioneered the new colony of Lehi, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive.
There had been some conflict between the Timpanogas Ute Indians, who claimed Utah Lake as traditional territory, and white settlers in 1849-50 and there would be more beginning in 1853. The Walker War erupted that summer and the conflict was particularly intense in Utah County. The pioneering settlers abandoned exposed settlements, made fortifications, guarded settlements and livestock and after their stock had been raided by Ute Indians, went in pursuit of it. Loveridge would have played some part in these events.
To Cedar City and the Ironworks
By 1854, the Loveridge family had resettled in Cedar City where their son Alexander, Jr. was born in March. While establishing themselves in Cedar City, they shared a dugout with another family, that of John Jacobs and his wife. In 1854 or 1855, Loveridge was sealed to his first wife. Loveridge was listed as a lot owner in the early Cedar City land records, both in Plat A and Plat B. Plat A was the area of temporary relocation after moving from the site of the original fort. Plat B was a larger section of land located southeast of Plat A, at the base of the foothills. Modern Cedar City occupies all of Plat B and extends beyond it.
The Deseret Iron Company
In moving to Cedar City, Loveridge had settled 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.
Between 1855 and 1858, there are a number of references to Alexander Loveridge in the Deseret Iron Company account book. For instance, on April 30, 1855, a day of intense activity at the ironworks, Loveridge and dozens of other men were credited for two days work with his team and wagon during a sustained run of the furnace. In February 1856, his and other accounts were debited for the expense of herding his livestock in the community herd, presumably charges incurred over the winter. In June and July 1856, Loveridge was credited for hauling coal with his team and wagon for the ironworks.
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.
Loveridge's Role in the Ironworks in 1857
During this period in 1857, Alex Loveridge acted as an occasional teamster for the ironworks. In May, he hauled adobes probably used in construction of the engine house of the ironworks. He hauled coal the next month. In mid-August, while James Williamson and his crew dug coal in the canyon, Loveridge, Samuel McMurdie, Ezra Curtis, Elias Morris, John Jacobs, Ira Allen, John Higbee, Joseph H. Smith, Isaac Haight, Philip Klingensmith, Nephi Johnson, William Bateman and several others hauled coal with their teams to the ironworks in preparation for another sustained run of the furnace.
As August turned to September, James Williamson's coal crews continuing digging coal up the canyon. Loveridge and many others including Ben Arthur, Isaac Haight, Swen Jacobs, Philip Klingensmith, Samuel Jewkes, John Higbee, Ezra Curtis, Samuel Bateman, William McMurdie were credited for hauling more coal. They worked to sustain the iron run that was underway at the blast furnace.
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 Alexander Loveridge 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 assigned them to muster to Mountain Meadows.
In the Iron Military District: Sergeant Alexander Loveridge, Company F, John M. Higbee's 3rd 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.
In September 1857, Loveridge, 29, was elected sergeant of his platoon in Company F of Major John M. Higbee's 3rd Battalion. It was probably Monday, September 7, when Cedar City herdsman Henry Higgins observed Loveridge among a militia detachment leaving Cedar City for Mountain Meadows. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.
On Thursday evening, September 10, according to John D. Lee, Loveridge and many others from Cedar City attended the war council held 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 Loveridge was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.
Later Life
Late in 1857, Loveridge, his wife and their family returned to Lehi where they remained for the rest of their lives. Loveridge helped build the first meetinghouse in Lehi and he worked on the Salt Lake Temple. In late 1870, his wife Malinda died from complications of her eleventh childbirth. The baby also died. In 1874, he married Mary Finn Reynolds but she died in 1877.
The 1880 census lists Loveridge (age 52) living with his wife, Caroline, age 60. He seems to have married his deceased wife’s mother. This may have been a caretaker arrangement to provide care for his children. After she died, he married for a fourth time to a Mrs. Harvey. Loveridge died in Lehi in 1905, survived by seven children.
Many thanks to Craig Dalley for his generosity in providing biographical information on Alexander Hamilton Loveridge.
References
Cradlebaugh arrest warrent, Speech of John J. Cradlebaugh, in Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 235; Higgins affidavit, Speech of John J. Cradlebaugh; Family history research in the possession of Craig Dalley; Gardner, History of Lehi, 66 (photo); Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Latter-day Saints, "Lehi," 423-24; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled 232, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 331, 477, 484, 496; Van Wagoner, Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town, 3; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 260.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
External Links
For further information on Alexander Loveridge, see:
- http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
- Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/
- http://www.geni.com/people/Alexander-Loveridge/6000000002134742663
- http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
For excerpts from the history of Alexander Hamilton Loveridge, see:
Further information and confirmation needed. Please contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.
