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.

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

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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 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.

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. 

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 Mangum in his list of participants at the end of Lee's book.

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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

In 1869, Mangum and others reestablished the Kane County settlements. They were troubled by Navajo raiders for a time and Mangum helped establish a fort at Kanab. Mangum was among the guards at the temporary frontier settlement in Kanab who endured many hardships during the winter of 1869-1870.

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.

Between 1869 and 1873, John Wesley Powell conducted expeditions down the Colorado River, followed by extensive surveys of its unexplored regions. On Powell's second voyage down the Colorado in 1871-72, he was accompanied by artist and topographer Frederick Dellenbaugh, who later memorialized many of Powell's exploits in the Southwest. During the voyage and surveying in 1871, Powell hired Mormons from Kanab to assist him. Late that year, John Mangum was hired to guide a pack-train laden with supplies to the Powell expedition, including Dellenbaugh, at the mouth of the Paria River. However, Mangum and the supply team became lost on the Paria Plateau. 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 supplies were eventually delivered to them. 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.

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Final Years: Move to Arizona

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 to establish new Mormon colonies. They moved upstream on the Little Colorado River through a series of Mormon settlements in southern Apache County. The usual hardships of pioneering in southern Utah -- building dams, constructing irrigation ditches, planting, harvesting, heat, drought, bad water, crop failure, and dam washouts -- also existed in the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado of Arizona, plus one additional hardship: 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; 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.

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.