Nephi Johnson

Nephi Johnson, his personal and family background, and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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Nephi Johnson

1833-1919

Biographical Sketch

Early Days in Ohio and Illinois

Nephi Johnson was born at Kirtland, Ohio, to Joel Hills Johnson and Anna Pixley. His parents were New Englanders who with other members of the extended family were early believers in Joseph Smith's restoration movement and followed him from New York to Ohio and later to western Illinois. By 1839, members of the extended Johnson family were in Carthage, Illinois and Johnson was baptized in 1842.

Migration to Utah

The Johnson family departed Illinois in 1846 and immigrated to Utah in 1848.

The early ironworks in Cedar City.

Moving to Southern Utah

The Johnson family settled in Parowan in 1850 but by 1851, they had relocated to Johnson's Springs (modern Enoch) seven miles north of Cedar City and a dozen miles south of Parowan. From an early age, Johnson began learning the local Indian languages and became a proficient interpreter.

Members of the Johnson family including Nephi also provided labor or materials to the ironworks of the Deseret Iron Company in Cedar City, especially in times leading up to a sustained run of the blast furnace. The DIC ledger book notes Nephi Johnson's labor in connection with the ironworks. Here is a brief summary of the development of the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. In moving to Cedar City, ______ was settling in an area dominated by the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. 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, Nephi Johnson was an occasional teamster for the ironworks. In April, he was among the teamsters who hauled steam engine parts from Great Salt Lake City to Cedar City. He did no other work for the ironworks until the end of July when he hauled three-quarters of a ton of coal from the mines to the ironworks. In the intense period of activity in mid-August, Johnson hauled nearly two tons of coal to the ironworks. That is the extent of his work at the ironworks in 1857.

In the Iron Military District: 2nd Lieutenant Nephi Johnson, Company D, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion, Fort Johnson

In 1857, Johnson was 2nd lieutenant in a platoon in Company D of the Iron Military District. Joel White was the captain of Company D and Daniel Macfarlane was his adjutant. Company D was attached to Major Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion. However, the members of Johnson's platoon were from Johnson's Springs, not Cedar City, and none of them, except Johnson, were at Mountain Meadows. The reason Johnson was singled out was because of his skill as an interpreter: Haight specifically sent for Johnson because Haight needed someone with Johnson's linguistic skills to deal with the Paiutes whom he and John D. Lee had unleased at Mountain Meadows. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

Johnson rode to Mountain Meadows on Thursday, September 10. The following day, he delivered orders to the Indians to disburse and hide. At the time of the massacre he probably translated the orders to attack the women and children.

He was listed in the 1859 arrest warrant issued by Judge John Cradlebaugh for those suspected of complicity in the massacre.

Later Life

In 1858, he was in the exploring party into western Utah and Nevada, scouting for new areas for possible settlement. He also helped found the colony at Virgin City, where he lived for fourteen years and acted in succession as presiding elder, acting bishop, and bishop's counselor.

Johnson explored the upper Virgin River drainage and he along with his brothers were the first whites to enter Zion Canyon. In 1862-63, he traveled with Jacob Hamblin to the Hopi mesas in northeast Arizona.

In 1856, he had married Mandana R. Merrill who bore him ten children; in 1860, he had married Conradina A. Mariger, who bore him sixteen children; in 1889 he married a widow with six children, who bore him one additional child.

Move to Kanab, Kane County

He moved to Kanab, Kane County in 1871, where he fulfilled a series of positions including first counselor to the bishop, county commissioner, town president, superintendent of waterworks and road commissioner. Johnson was employed by John Wesley Powell in Powell's 1872 Colorado River expedition.

By 1874, Johnson had moved north into the Sevier River Valley where his father, Joel H. Johnson, established a sawmill at Hilldale south of Panguitch. His brother Seth Johnson was also there. In that year, Nephi Johnson was appointed presiding elder of the small church congregation there. (Note: A Nephi Johnson served as a city attorney in Garfield County.)

Testifying in Lee's Second Trial in 1876

In 1876, Johnson testified in the second trial of John D. Lee.

He moved to Juarez, Mexico, 1889-1894, then relocated and lived his remaining years in Bunkerville, Nevada, were he served in the church in the office of patriarch to the Mormon community there.

Final Statements about the Massacre

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As the years passed and the threat of criminal prosecutions receded, he made several other important statements about the massacre. Part of the importance of Nephi Johnson was that in his later years he became more forthcoming about lesser known aspects of the massacre.

His later statements have now been published in Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Jenson and Morris Collections, .

Final Years

Nephi Johnson died in 1919, survived by many children and descendants. On his deathbed, a young schoolteacher witnessed his tortured, delirious recollections of the massacre more than six decades before. The experience prompted her in later life to write The Mountain Meadows Massacre. She was Juanita Leavitt, the granddaughter of massacre participant, Dudley Leavitt. Later, she was better known by her married name, Juanita Brooks.

References

Alder and Brooks, A History of Washington County, 32, fn. 13; Bagley and Bigler, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 406-411; Bitton, Guide to Mormon Diaries, 183; Bradley, A History of Kane County, 151; Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Appendix I, 224-226; Chidester, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County, 37, 57; “Diary of Almon Harris Thompson,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 7/1-3 (1939), 79; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 970; Fielding, The Tribune Reports of the Trials of John D. Lee, ; Goodman, “New Look at Old Treasures,” Utah Historical Quarterly 26/3 (July 1958), 283; Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church . . . , 230; Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia III: 131-132; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 220, 232, 237, 242, 243, 270-272, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; Newell, A History of Garfield County, 109; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 366; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, 324-34; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

Nephi Johnson's testimony in the 1876 trial of John D. Lee:

• http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/johnson.htm
• 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.