Joseph H. Smith

Joseph H. Smith, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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Joseph Hodgetts Smith

1819-1890

Biographical Sketch

Early Years in the West Midlands of England

Joseph Hodgetts Smith was born in Dudley, Worchestershire, in the West Midlands region of England, the last of three sons born to John Smith (1785-1854) and Elizabeth Hodgetts (1769-1852). Little is known of his early life.

In 1843, Smith married Eleanor Marie Stanford (1809-1896), in Staffordshire, near his homeland in Worchestershire in the West Midlands. Together they had six children, three of whom survived to adulthood.

Immigration to Utah and onto Utah

After their conversion to Mormonism, they followed the familiar pattern of many Latter-day Saints in the British Isles: After gathering the means for emigration, they journeyed to American and crossed the plains to Utah Territory.

To Cedar City and the Ironworks

The early ironworks in Cedar City.

By the early 1850s, Smith was in Cedar City where the Deseret Iron Company was located. Smith lent his assistance to the efforts to create an efficient blast furnace that would convert iron ore to produce high grade iron. The Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks, dominated activities in Cedar City. Here is a brief summary of its development. After iron ore and coal deposits were discovered in the region, Cedar City was founded. In the first years of 1851-52, they investigated whether the region had the necessary raw materials – iron ore, limestone, wood, coal, and waterpower – to support smelting on a large scale. After confirming the presence of the necessary materials and relying heavily on the British Isles immigrants who had worked in iron-related industries in Great Britain, they set to building an iron manufacturing plant. They sited the ironworks at the mouth of Coal Creek near the present location of Cedar City. They mined the coal up canyon and transported it by team and wagon to the furnace located on the stream bank below the mouth of the canyon. The iron ore was transported from nearby Iron Springs by wagon. In 1852, after a small test furnace produced a low quality pig iron, they set about building a full-scale blast furnace.

Progress was impeded, however, in 1853-54 during the Walker War. They shifted their energies from iron making to “forting up” to increase their safety. After a peace treaty was reached with the Ute chief Wakara in 1854, they returned to improving the ironworks. By 1855, they had achieved their greatest success with a sustained run of the furnace producing several tons of pig iron. But most of the runs both before and after failed to achieve a sustained run producing good quality iron. One problem was the fickle nature of Coal Creek, which continued to alternate between flooding and droughts. They determined to develop a more dependable source of power.

In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to provide the answer. After its arrival, they built a new room to house the engine, connected its boiler to a steady water supply and modified the furnace to accommodate the engine. In early June they started an iron run using the steam engine. However, the new machinery created its own set of problems. Through the end of July, they experimented with different configurations of furnace, engine and piping, attempting to optimize the blast furnace.

From late April through July, 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.

By the time reports reached them in early August of a threatened “invasion” of U.S. troops into Utah, they had decided on further changes to the ironworks. They determined that a reservoir was necessary so as to provide a steady supply of filtered water to the steam engine. Immediately, they set to work, digging, lining and filling the reservoir. From late August to early September, shortly before the crisis involving the passing Arkansas emigrant company, they began a new furnace run. But it, too, ended in failure, probably around the time that a dispute arose between some community members and several of those in the passing Arkansas wagon train.

During this period of 1857, Joseph H. Smith played various roles at the ironworks. In early May, he labored for 10 days on the canyon road to the coal mine. Returning to the site of the ironworks, he tended the masons as the worked on the new engine house for the steam engine. The following week he spent three more days with the masons. Toward the end of May, he spent another five days assisting the masons. The on the engine house continued in early June with Smith working another five days for the masons. He did no further work until early July when he spent a day cleaning the iron house. Around the beginning of August, Smith spent a day and a half as a keeper's helper. They were preparing for or making a run on the blast furnace. In mid-August, he spent three days as a keeper's helper on the furnace. The next week he hauled wood. Around the latter part of August, he spent a day and a half cleaning around the furnace. Around the beginning of September, the coal crews dig and hauled many tons of coal to the ironworks. Smith was credited with coking more than 103 tons of coal in the coke ovens adjoining the blast furnace. This was to sustain the current iron run. Following that he spent three days as a keeper's helper on the blast furnace while the run was in progress.

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 did Joseph H. Smith know 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, who himself had worked closely with them, assigned them to muster to Mountain Meadows.

There was little work at the ironworks after the massacre. However, Smith was among a small group who continued working. Around the end of September, Smith spent two days tending the masons working on the cupola. Then he spent another two days in "Melting down [the] Furnace." This was to clean up the iron run that failed at the beginning of September. In the first part of October, Smith spent five and a half days with others in melting iron in the cupola. Persumably, this involved removing iron in the blast furance and melting it down in the smaller cupula.

In the Iron Military District: Private Joseph H. Smith, Company F, John Higbee's Battalion, Cedar City

By the time of the outbreak of the Utah War in September 1857, Smith, 38, was a private in Company F, First Platoon, lead by First Lieutenant William C. Stewart and Sergeant John Weston. Joseph Clews and several others were also privates in the same platoon. Company F was lead by Captain William Tait and it was attached to Major John M. Higbee's 3rd Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

Concerning the massacre, it seems probable that Smith marched from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows in one of several detachments sent there during the week of September 7-11, under the operational command of Major John M. Higbee. Smith could have arrived as early as Tuesday the 8th or as late as Thursday the 10th.

At the war council on Thursday evening, September 10, many from the Cedar City detachment attended the council. However, John D. Lee did not list Smith among the participants.

On Friday, September 11, many members of the militia contingent from Cedar City acted as guards alongside the emigrant men as they left the wagon circle and marched, unknowingly, to the north toward their ill-fated destiny. 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 Joseph H. Smith was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

In spring 1859, Judge Cradlebaugh arrived to southern Utah to investigate the massacre at Mountain Meadows. Joseph H. Smith was among those listed in Judge Cradlebaugh's arrest warrant as were many other Cedar City militiamen who had been involved in the massacre. Smith was likewise listed among those complicit in the massacre in T.B.H. Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, published in 1873, which follows Judge Cradlebaugh's list. William Bishop listed "Joseph Smith of Cedar City" in his list of "assassins" appended to John D. Lee's Mormonism Unveiled, published posthumously in 1877. Lee, however, does not mention Smith in any of his statements.

Aftermath in Cedar City

Because of the perceived threat posed by the advancing U.S. Army expeditionary force bound for Utah, Mormon leader Brigham Young order Isaac Haight to close the iron works. About a month after the massacre, Smith was among those melted down the furnace.

In January 1858, iron operations were restarted on a limited scale and in the coming months they slowly refurbished the furnace and steam engine. In June, they made another test run of the blast furnace but the results were again disappointing. During this trial, Smith worked as a furnace keeper. They made some later trial runs in September and October 1858, but again without success. By then, Brigham Young had determined to shut down the iron works and all related operations. In his letter directing its discontinuance, Young noted that the project had been fraught with frustrations and was exhausting the "patient," "vital energies" and "power" of the community. (Shirts, Trial Furnace, 396).

At the 1858 Proceeding Involving William H. Dame

Meanwhile, back in August 1858, William H. Dame was brought up on charges before a church tribunal in Parowan and Smith was among those who attended the council. Considering those known to be in attendance, including Isaac Haight and Nephi Johnson, it seems likely that the massacre was among the issues discussed during the three-day tribunal. In the end, Dame retained his church and militia positions, but the next year, Isaac C. Haight was released from his ecclesiastical, civic and militia positions and went into hiding to avoid being arrested by Judge John Cradlebaugh.

Marriage and Continued Life in Cedar City

Late in 1858, Smith married Mary Dutton (1823-1867). There were no children from this union. After the death of Mary in 1867, the following year Smith married a Swiss emigrant, Barbara Elizabethe Lattmann Elliker (1841-1919), who had four children from a prior marriage. Together they had five additional children, all of whom survived to adulthood.

It appears that after Smith arrived in Cedar City in the 1850s, he and his family remained there for the next three decades. In 1875, the city paid Smith for some of his land to convert it to streets. In 1878, he served for a time as a member of the town police force.

Final Years: Moving to New Mexico

Sometime in the 1880s, he and his wives and children moved to San Juan County, New Mexico. He died there in 1890 at the age of 70, survived by two of his wives and many children and grandchildren.

References

Deseret Iron Company Account Book (accessed at footnote.com/image/#241903584); Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 391, 394, 496; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C; York, ed., Mayors of Cedar City and the Histories of Cedar City, Utah, 42, 45-46.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For further information on Joseph H. Smith, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/

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