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 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

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

During the late 1840s to early 1850s, the Adair clan and the Prices immigrated to Utah Territory. Price and his wife and family settled first in Salt Lake City.

The Cotton Mill in Washington County.

Joining the Southerners in Washington County and the Cotton Mission

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."

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 lists 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 determine how they would have misspelled young Pearce's last name as "Price" when his father, Harrison Pearce, was also in the same arrest warrant.

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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 not known.

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

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