John Price

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

John Price

1815-1893

Biographical Sketch

[There is uncertainty whether John Price participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre or was on the ground when the Arkansas company was besieged or killed.]

John Buren Price was a native of Tennessee with other American forbears from backcountry Virginia. He moved from Tennessee to Mississippi, then to frontier Utah where he was a pioneer in southern Utah.

Early Years: From Tennessee to the Deep South

John Buren Price was born on November 11, 1815 in Tennessee. His mother had been born in Tennessee; his father in Virginia. His earliest known American forebears were in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and were from Scots-Irish descent.

Price married Eliza Jane Adair (1811-1892), a native of Tennessee whose parents were from South Carolina. His wife was nearly five years his senior. Evidently, in the mid-1840s they were in Pickens County, Mississippi. Price’s wife was part of the large Adair clan who joined the Mormons en masse.

Migration to Utah

John and Eliza Jane Price had a son, George Thomas, born in Iowa in July 1847. This confirms that they were in Iowa in 1847 and they may have arrived in 1846 because the Adairs reached Iowa that year. At any rate, they passed several years in the temporary Mormon settlements in western Iowa. Their second son Hyrum Wiley was born April 5, 1851. By that year, the Prices had gathered sufficient means to equip and provision an outfit for the trek west.

The Mormon Trail

The name of the company they joined is unknown. But they crossed the plains during the 1851 travel season, traveling that summer. They started the trek with their two sons, George Thomas, 4, and Hyrum Wiley, who could not been more than two or three months when they started their journey. There was a flood of travelers on the overland trails that season, most of them bound for the California Gold Rush. Cholera was endemic that season and the company in which the Prices traveled may have experienced cholera-related deaths. They would have 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 would have arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in late summer or early fall.

Price and his wife and family settled first in Salt Lake City. They may have later settled in Payson to the south of Utah Lake in Utah County where the Adairs, Mangums, Pearces, and other southern families settled there for a time.

Joining the Southerners in Washington County and the Cotton Mission

The Cotton Mill in Washington County.

By early 1857, the Prices had joined the Adairs and other kin in the Southern colony in southwestern Utah. Price was among the original settlers in Washington, Washington County. The Adairs, Mangums and Prices were all interrelated by marriage. The mission of these Southerners was to establish cotton culture in Utah's "Dixie."

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, the 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 John Price, Company I, John D. Lee's 4th Battalion, Washington

In 1857, the Iron Military District consisted of four battalions. 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 summer 1857, Price, 42, was a private in the third Washington platoon in Captain Harrison Pearce’s Company I in Major John D. Lee’s 4th Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

On September 7, after the Fancher-Baker company was attacked at Mountain Meadows, John D. Lee left the Meadows to find the militiamen he was expecting to join him. He met those from Washington and Fort Clara, possibly including John Price, some miles to the south late that evening. They arrived at the Meadows around mid-day on Tuesday, the 8th.

During the week while the wagon train was beseiged, where John Price was present and if so, what his was role and actions were is unknown. Similarly, on the day of the final massacre, September 11, Price's exact role, if any, is no known and will probably never be known with certainty.

A "James Price" was listed in 1859 arrest warrant and also in T.B.H. Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, which followed the 1859 arrest warrant. But in Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Leonard and Turley observe that "James Price" may refer to James Pearce, the son of Harrison Pearce who was also listed in the arrest warrant. At any rate, John Price was not mentioned in any other list of participants. Did Judge Cradlebaugh intend John Price or James Pearce? The argument that the arrest warrant intended John Price is that had they intended James Pearce, it is difficult to understand how they would have misspelled young Pearce's last name as "Price" since his father, Harrison Pearce, was also in the same arrest warrant.

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Map of Washington County, Utah.

Later Years

Price remained in Washington County the remainder of his life. Among other things, he worked as a stone mason, cutting tombstones. According to the 1880 census, he also worked as a "bee raiser." Southwest of St. George, a small settlement named Price was founded on the east bank of the Virgin River opposite Bloomington. Whether this was named after Price or one of his children or descendants is unclear.

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In August 1892, Eliza Jane Adair Price died at the age of 81. Less than six months later, on January 15, 1893, John Price died at the age of 77. He was survived by three of his children.

References

Bradshaw, ed., Under Dixie Sun, 235; Larson, The Red Hills of November, 14, 170; Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 251; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on John Price, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• http://www.visitourfamilytree.net/showmedia.php?mediaID=74&medialinkID=211
• http://myfamilysearch.net/getperson.php?personID=I1410&tree=2005217a

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