John Mangum

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

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John Mangum

1817-1885

Biographical Sketch

Early Years: Westward From Alabama

John Mangum was born in Albemarle, Surry County, Virginia. His earliest American forebears were from Boydton, Mecklenburg County in south-central Virginia, close to the border with North Carolina. His parents moved from Mecklenburg County to Warren County in southwest Ohio before moving south to St. Clair County, Alabama where Mangum was born.

Around 1844, the Mangums had relocated to Mississippi where Mangum married Mary Ann Adair (1822-1892), a native of Pickens County, Alabama. She was part of the large Adair clan which had converted to Mormonism. Mangum and Mary Ann eventually had twelve children.

Migration to Utah

Mangum, his wife, his mother and many of his siblings joined the Mormons and immigrated to Utah in 1852. Initially, they settled in Nephi, Juab County, where Mangum served as marshal. In 1853, Mangum married Ellen Bardsley (1819-1864), an emigrant from Lancashire, England.

The Cotton Mill in Washington County.

Joining the Southerners in Washington County and the Cotton Mission

In spring 1857, many of the Mangums were part of a migration of southerners to Washington County. These southerners founded the Cotton Mission in what came to be known as Utah's Dixie. John Mangum and his brother James and their families were pioneers in Washington County and founders of the new settlement of Washington.

Although it eventually proved commercially unsuccessful, it 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 John Mangum, Company I, John D. Lee's 4th Battalion, Washington

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, John Mangum, 40, like his younger brother James Mangum, was a private in the fourth Washington platoon in Harrison Pearce’s Company I in John D. Lee’s 4th Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

Mangum and his brother James was among the southerners recruited from Washington, probably on Sunday, September 6. On Monday, they joined with the recruits from Fort Clara on the Santa Clara and traveled toward Mountain Meadows. Late that night, they met their battalion commander, John D. Lee, some miles south of the Meadows and camped for the night. They moved up to Mountain Meadows the next day, arriving around mid-day.

According to Lee, one evening in the middle of the week, the Indians became restive and again attacked the beseiged Arkansas company. Lee, with the help of John Mangum and William Young, tried to quiet Indians. Lee credits Oscar Hamblin with aiding him in pacifying the Indians while further word was received from Isaac Haight in Cedar City.

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The next day, Lee conversed with John Mangum before he (Lee) set out to reconnoiter the position and defenses of the emigrant train from a prominence at the far (western) side of the valley.

John Mangum's role in the massacre on Friday, September 11, is unknown. He was listed in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant and in Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, (which follows Judge Cradlebaugh's arrest warrant).

Two decades later, John D. Lee mentions the above episodes with John Mangum in Lee's autobiography, Mormonism Unveiled, which was published after his execution. Lee's counsel also mentioned John Mangum in his list of participants at the end of Lee's book.

In Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Turley and Leonard question whether John D. Lee confused John Mangum with his brother James, whose presence at the siege and massacre is confirmed by multiple sources.

Later Years

The Mangums remained in Washington County for many years where he worked as a farmer and stockraiser. According to Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, Mangum also married Mary Hamblin, the daughter of Jacob and Priscilla Hamblin.

Move to Kane County

In the 1860s, Mangum was a founder of the settlements in Long Valley, Kane County. At the beginning of the Black Hawk War, Kanab and the other Long Valley settlements were abandoned and the Mangums and other families returned to Washington County.

Return to Kane County as Part of Jacob Hamblin's Kanab Mission

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Map of Kane County, Utah.

A fort had been established at Kanab in the early 1860s but it had been abandoned during the Black Hawk War (1865-68). By 1869 the Black Hawk War had been settled, but the Mormon-Navajo War was still raging, with Navajo raiders crossing the Colorado River to appropriate Mormon livestock in southern Utah. Kanab was the closest settlement to where the Navajos made the river crossing on the Colorado River to enter Mormon lands. Because of Kanab's relatively close proximity to the river crossings on the Colorado River, Jacob Hamblin had his own reasons for liking the location: his expeditions to the Hopi would be much easier to mount from Kanab.

In mid-1869, Mormon leader Brigham Young instructed Hamblin to establish a "Kanab Mission," beginning with an Indian farm at Pipe Springs. This would serve as an early warning outpost to protect other southern Utah settlements. Immediately, Hamblin set out to establish an Indian farms at Pipe Springs. John Mangum accompanied Hamblin to Pipe Springs and planted the first crops of turnips and corn. John was also in the work crew sent from St. George to rebuild the old Kanab fort. After completing the work, he returned to Washington. However, John liked what he saw at Kanab. He convinced his wife, his brother James and their families to relocate to Kanab.

Hamblin immediately began using Kanab as the staging area for his expeditions across the Colorado to Hopi land. That fall, he mounted his eighth crossing of the Colorado to visit the Hopi. John Mangum assisted in the preparations for the journey but he remained at Kanab. After his return, Hamblin, John Mangum and others were assigned to guard the frontiers against Navajo raiders in the winter of 1869-70. They crossed the Kaibab Plateau several times and suffered many privations.

In 1870, John and his younger brother James and their respective families were living in the fort at Kanab. There was a serious measles outbreak which caused much sickness. Reportedly, there were two deaths, one of which was John's brother's "Indian wife."

Compare with this:

In 1871, a outbreak of measles spread through Kanab resulting in two deaths among whom was a seventeen-year old Indian girl who was reported to be John Mangum's wife.

By summer 1870, John Mangum and family were beginning to pioneer a new settlement, Pahreah, on the Paria River some miles east of Kanab.

With Jacob Hamblin on His Tenth Crossing of the Colorado River

In fall 1871, John Mangum was accompanying Jacob Hamblin on another of Hamblin's historic journeys across the Colorado River into northeastern Arizona. Also on this expedition were George Adair, Isaac Haight, and others. Traveling south from Kanab, they arrived at the Colorado River and moved upstream to the Crossing of the Fathers where they left a man with provisions for the 1871 Powell expedition. After crossing they continued southeast to Hopi land. After visiting the Hopi Mesas they continued to Ft. Defiance. Hamblin's peace negotiations the previous years had yielded an uneasy truce in the Mormon-Navajo War of 1868-70. The specific purpose of this journey was to gain indemnity from the federal Indian agent for the hard bargains the Navajos had insisted on in their recent trades with Mormons at Kanab. They did not receive any indemnities but they did further cement the uneasy peace. On the return trip several Navajos accompanied them. On the Colorado at the mouth of the Paria River they encountered the second Colorado River expedition of John Wesley Powell. After ferrying men and animals across, they spent the evening with the Powell party, dancing a “war dance” with the Navajos and singing Navajo “war songs” and Mormon hymns.

Through this contact, John Mangum, George Adair and Isaac Haight became acquainted with the Powell party and impressed them with their hardiness in that forbidding wilderness. Over time, they provided guide and freighting services and other logistical support to Powell's exploratory party. For instance, in November 1872, Jacob Hamblin instructed John Mangum and non-Mormon George Riley to resupply Frederick Dellenbaugh and the Powell survey team. They started from Kanab with supplies for the party but became lost on the Paria Plateau, delaying their arrival at the Colorado River. Hamblin then sent Isaac Haight and William Riggs to restock the Powell team in Paria Canyon. The Riley-Mangum party arrived at the mouth of the Paria River to deliver their provisions and the following day the Haight-Riggs party arrived with additional supplies.

Nearly 60 years later, long after Haight had died, Dellenbaugh praised Powell's Mormon crews as "faithful, agreeable and competent." (Dellenbaugh letter to Rose Hicks Hamblin, August 25, 1934, cited in History of Kane County, 51, 52.)

Providing Support to Powell Survey Team

Through this contact, John Mangum, George Adair, and Isaac haight became acquainted with the Powell party and impressed them with their hardiness in that forbidding wilderness. Over time, they provided guide and freighting services and other logistical support to Powell's exploratory party. For instance, in November 1872, Jacob Hamblin instructed John Mangum and non-Mormon George Riley to resupply Frederick Dellenbaugh and the Powell survey team. They started from Kanab with supplies for the party but became lost on the Paria Plateau. Meanwhile, when it was noticed that the Mangum-Riley party were delayed, Hamblin then sent Isaac Haight and Charles Riggs to restock the Powell team in Paria Canyon. Finally, Mangum was able to find the old Escalante trail and follow it down the face of the 2,000-foot cliffs into Paria Canyon to Dellenbaugh and the expedition. The following day the Haight-Riggs party arrived with additional supplies.

Nearly 60 years later, Dellenbaugh praised Powell's Mormon crews as "faithful, agreeable and competent" and recalled Mangum's risky route down the cliffs into Paria Canyon to resupply them. (Dellenbaugh letter to Rose Hicks Hamblin, August 25, 1934, cited in History of Kane County, 51, 52.)

In the mid-1870s, when the United Order, a community-wide cooperative, was established in Kanab, John Mangum and his son Joseph were appointed the herders of the community herd.

Final Years: Move to Arizona

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In April 1872, Mangum accompanied John D. Lee to Jacob's Pools, a key waterhole en route to Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River. They fenced the springs and commenced building the walls of a cabin to serve notice on passing miners of their prior claim to the springs.

Later, like his brother James, Mangum and his family were among those called to Arizona. They joined the stream of Mormon colonizers who pioneered a series of new settlements beginning on the lower Colorado River. Gradually they moved upriver in search of more hospitable surroundings. By the 1880s Mangum, his brother John, and his brother-in-law, George W. Adair, were in Nutrioso in the pine forests on the flank of the White Mountains in southern Apache County.

The usual hardships of pioneering in southern Utah -- building dams, constructing irrigation ditches, planting, harvesting, heat, drought, crop failure, and dam washouts -- all existed in the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado of Arizona, plus several additional hardships: the notorious Hashknife outfit of the Aztec Land & Cattle Company, marauding Apache Indians, the Pleasant Valley War, and the uncertainty of Mormon land titles and claims.

Mangum died in Apache County in either 1881 or 1885. He was survived by his first wife and nine children. Their children later settled in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

References

Alder and Brooks, A History of Washington County, 29 fn. 11; Bradley, A History of Kane County, 52, 66-67, 69; Bradshaw, ed., Under Dixie Sun, 235; Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, 155-57, 223; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1022; Gregory, "Journal of Jones, 1871-1872," Utah Historical Quarterly, 16,17 (1948-1949), 106, 108, 112, 250; "Journal of ... Powell, Utah Historical Quarterly, 16-17 (1948-1949), 358 fn. 78; Kelly, "Captain . . . Bishop’s Journal, 1870-1872," Utah Historical Quarterly, 15, 1-4 (1947), 232, 233; Larson, ed., Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, Vol. I, 295-97; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 229, 231, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 74 fn. 21; Robinson, ed. History of Kane County, 6, 14, 18, 38, 44, 45, 52, 68, 223, 524; Woodbury, "A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks, Utah Historical Quarterly, 12/3-4 (Jul.-Oct. 1944), 179; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 261.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on John Mangum, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10357026

Further information and confirmation needed. Please comment or contact 1857_militia@roadrunner.com.