Daniel Macfarlane

Daniel Macfarlane's background and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane

1837-1914

Biographical Sketch

Daniel S. Macfarlane was born to John and Annabella Sinclair Macfarlane in Stirlingshire in the Scottish highlands. In 1842, his mother was impressed with the message of the newly arrived missionaries of Mormonism and joined the new church. His father died in 1846 when Daniel was less than ten. During the 1840s, several other members of the Macfarlane family joined the Mormons and attended the Glasgow conference. They were unable to immigrate, however, until the church established its Perpetual Emigration Fund to assist indigent European converts to immigrate to Utah Territory in the American West.

With that assistance, Daniel Macfarlane, his mother, Annabella Macfarlane, and his older brother, John Menzies Macfarlane, began their journey in early 1852 to the Mormon "Zion" in Utah. In Liverpool, they met Mormon elder Isaac C. Haight and traveled under his direction in their voyage. After the long, arduous journey, they arrived in Utah in the fall and settled in Bountiful. The following year they joined their friend Isaac Haight in settling in Cedar City in the newly-founded Iron Mission. Daniel's mother Annabella became a plural wife of Isaac Haight and Daniel became his step-son.

Dan Macfarlane was an early member of the Cedar Dramatic Association where his bearing and deep voice made him successful in both tragedies and farces. He also joined other Scots as well as English and Welsh in the choir where he met his future wife, Temperance Keturah Haight, the daughter of Isaac and Eliza Ann Haight. Through this marriage, his step-father became his father-in-law.

In 1857, 20-year-old Daniel Macfarlane was a 2nd lieutenant in a one of the Cedar City platoons and then was promoted to adjutant to the captain in one of the militia company. His older brother, John Menzies Macfarlane, was adjutant to Major Haight.

In 1862, Macfarlane married Keturah Haight, who bore him twelve children. In 1879, he took a second wife, marrying Elizabeth Ford, a Welsh emigrant, who bore him nine children. His last child was born when he was 63.

During the mid to late 1860s, the Black Hawk War caused the militia units in southern Utah to be reorganized and strengthened to provide greater security to the white settlers. Daniel Macfarlane was in some of the militia units that patroled for raiding Paiute and, later, Navajo Indians.

In the late 1870s, Macfarlane served as a missionary to his native Scotland. Later census records list Macfarlane as a "day laborer" who did "odd jobs." He lived for more than 60 years in Cedar City, died in 1914 and was buried there. He was survived by his two wives and numerous children.

Daniel Macfarlane, Adjutant to Captain Joel White, Company D, in Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion

His Role and Statements Relative to the Massacre

A 2nd lieutenant in a platoon in Company D in early 1857, Macfarlane was assigned as adjutant to Captain Joel White of Company D, one of the Cedar City militia companies attached to Major Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion. In September 1857, when the Arkansas emigrant train became besieged at Mountain Meadows, Macfarlane was among those who mustered there. In the recently-published statement of Ellott Willden, he maintained that Dan Macfarlane was in the small continent consisting William C. Stewart, Philip Klingensmith and others who encountered two emigrants seeking help from the Mormon settlements on (probably) Wednesday evening. Willden said that Klingensmith killed one of them; he did not identify who killed the other one.

Macfarlane was at the military council at the Meadows in the evening of Thursday the 10th. On Friday the 11th, according to John D. Lee, Macfarlane was on horseback, carrying "orders from one part of the field to another." For instance, while Major Lee was negotiating with the Arkansas emigrants inside their wagon fortification, Dan Macfarlane carried a message from Major Higbee to Lee to hurry the emigrants along. As the emigrant column proceeded north, Macfarlane headed the cluster of women and children on horseback. As the firing commenced, Macfarlane was among two or three on horseback who ranged over the field, preventing any emigrants from escaping. Lee later claimed that the Scottish emigrant Macfarlane was among the most violent in the massacre but his account is uncorroborated. On the day after the massacre, Macfarlane heard Col. Dame and Major Haight arguing over which one was responsible for the orders that led to the massacre. "Daniel McFarlan" was included in the 1859 arrest warrant. However, he did not testify in either of the Lee trials of 1875 or 1876.

In 1892, Mormon Church historian Andrew Jenson interviewed many of the surviving Mountain Meadows militiamen, including Daniel Macfarlane. His accounts are somewhat contradictory but contain important details. Jenson's interviews with others also revealed some details on Macfarlane's role, described above. In the ongoing dispute over the relative responsibility of William Dame and Isaac Haight for the orders from the Iron County 10th Regiment, Macfarlane sided more with Haight than Dame. But Macfarlane may have been biased because of his strong familial ties to Isaac Haight.

In 1896, nearly four decades after the massacre, Macfarlane prepared an affidavit of some events surrounding it. John M. Higbee, Joel W. White and William Tait also made affidavits around the same time. This Macfarlane affidavit is of lesser importance and value. Somewhat vague and conclusionary in nature, its primary purpose appears to have been to minimize the role of John M. Higbee in the massacre. Higbee had been under indictment for more than twenty years but the criminal prosecution had only recently been formally dismissed in 1896.

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This portrait of Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane and Keturah Haight Macfarlane and their child was probably taken in the 1860.

 This portrait of Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane and Keturah Haight Macfarlane and their child was probably taken in the 1860s.

References

Affidavit of Daniel Macfarlane, June 29, 1896, in Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Appendix III; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 237; Lee Trial transcripts; Macfarlane, Yours Sincerely, John M. Macfarlane, 35-37, 41-45, 49, 50, 55-56, 64, 77, 79; New.familysearch.org; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 55-56, 64-69; Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 489, 492; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Jenson & Morris Collections, 16-17, 86-87, 88-108 (rough notes of interview), 109-119 (formal report), 189 ; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.

External Links

For further information on Daniel S. Macfarlane see: http://macfarlane-sinclair.org/index.php?page=7

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