James Williamson: Difference between revisions
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=== Early Years in Scotland === | === Early Years in Scotland === | ||
James Williamson was born in | James Williamson was born in 1813 in Ballochney in the Scottish Lowlands to James and Margaret Cummings Williamson. He was the fourth of five children. Little is known of his childhood. In 1838, he married Mary Rae (1818-1889), from Skillhill, Scotland. She was the daughter of Thomas and Mary Thompson Rae. Eventually, they had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In the 1840s, they lived in Whiflet, Lanackshire, Scotland, near Glasgow, which was the most populous city in Scotland located in the west central lowlands. In 1843, he received baptism to become a member of the Mormon Church in Scotland. | ||
=== Immigration to America and onto Utah === | === Immigration to America and onto Utah === | ||
Latest revision as of 10:05, 28 January 2014
James Williamson, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
James Williamson
1813-1869
Biographical Sketch
[edit]James Williamson was a Scottish Lowlander who immigrated to America and initially pioneered in southern Utah and later in Cache Valley in northern Utah.
Early Years in Scotland
[edit]James Williamson was born in 1813 in Ballochney in the Scottish Lowlands to James and Margaret Cummings Williamson. He was the fourth of five children. Little is known of his childhood. In 1838, he married Mary Rae (1818-1889), from Skillhill, Scotland. She was the daughter of Thomas and Mary Thompson Rae. Eventually, they had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In the 1840s, they lived in Whiflet, Lanackshire, Scotland, near Glasgow, which was the most populous city in Scotland located in the west central lowlands. In 1843, he received baptism to become a member of the Mormon Church in Scotland.
Immigration to America and onto Utah
[edit]Following the common practice of European Latter-day Saints of that era, Williamson and his wife and family embarked from Liverpool, England in early 1848, bound for America. They arrived at New Orleans and steamed up the Mississippi River where they disembarked in St. Louis, Missouri.
They stayed there until spring 1851 where, having gathered sufficient means to continue their journey, they joined the James W. Cummings Company, which departed from the outfitting post at Kanesville (present day Council Bluffs), Iowa in early July. However, by the second week of July, the Williamsons and other Scots had separated from the company to form the James Easton Company, sometimes known informally as the Scotch Independent Company. They were dissatisfied with the pace of the company and were concerned that they would not have enough provisions for the entire distance.
It was a very heavy travel season on the overland trail that year due to the California Gold Rush. Cholera was also epidemic and there were deaths due to cholera. They passed the usual milestones on the trail: Fort Kearney, the South Fork of the Platte River, Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, the Sweetwater River, Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, Green River, Fort Bridger, Bear River, and Weber River. They reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake in mid-September, several weeks ahead of the Cummings Company.
To the Ironworks at Cedar City
[edit]The company continued on to southern Utah where Williamson and his family were among the original settlers in Cedar City in 1851. Williamson was a private in original company F (foot) of the 2nd Battalion, Iron Regiment. He was listed among the original iron workers in 1851-52. However, in 1852, Williamson and another Scot, Alexander Keir, opposed Henry Lunt’s efforts to press company F into building fences.
Mining and Processing Coal for the Iron Works
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Williamson was involved from the beginning in the Iron Mission. He was among those who searched for iron ore near Iron Springs. He received credit for work on the ironworks and held shares in the Deseret Iron Company. However, in late 1853, he was among six who asked permission to withdraw as shareholders, evidently for lack of capital to fund their investment.
In 1854, he was one of the miners who mined coal and quarried rock for the new so-called "Nobel" furnace. The account book of the Deseret Iron Company consistently refers to Williamson's role in connection with coal: exploring for coal, starting a new coal mine, digging coal, and converting coal to coke. In the coal crews, his name is frequently listed first. Williamson was effectively the foreman of the coalminers. While the common laborer typically received $2 per day, Williamson's daily pay rate was frequently higher than the base rate. In other words, when it came to coal for the Ironworks, the Cedar City ironworkers recognized Williamson for his skill and expertise. See Summary of Deseret Iron Company for a brief summary of the early development fo the Ironworks.
The Ironworks in 1857
[edit]In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to breathe new life for the Ironworks. Working from April to June they installed the steam engine and completed the new engine house. In the first week of July, they were ready to begin smelting. They “put on the blast” and had a modicum of success. But they continued to be plagued with problems ranging from poor quality raw materials to smelting equipment that lacked technical sophistication. When in late July the steam engine seized with sand from the dirty creek water, they speedily dug a reservoir to store a supply of clean water for the boiler. They continued making smelting runs through August. All the while crews at the ironworks manned all the necessary functions there, while other crews, mainly miners and teamsters, gathered the raw materials – iron ore, coal, limestone, and wood – necessary to sustain smelting.
The smelting continued until September 13. In other words, around September 3, when a dispute arose between some settlers and several men in the passing Arkansas company, the blast furnace was running nonstop. And when Cedar City militiamen, many of them ironworkers, mustered to Mountain Meadows where they were involved in the massacre on September 11, other ironworkers in Cedar City continued the smelting runs night and day. For additional details, see Smelting at the Ironworks in 1857.
From late April to September, 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.
Williamson's Role in the Ironworks
[edit]During this period in 1857, few ironworkers performed more work than Williamson and he proved to have both strength and versatility. In the late winter, he traveled up canyon in search of better routes to the coal mines. After the new steam engine arrived in April, he worked on the site of the new engine house. In May, he improved the road up canyon to the coal mines. As the mechanics "fitted up" the steam engine and the masons built its foundation, Williamson acted as a mason's helper and later helped them build the new engine house. In June, Williamson moved back to the canyon to mine more coal which would be converted to coke. Later that month when mechanics worked on the flywheel and counterwheel for the engine, he again worked as a mason's helper in the engine room. He helped dig a line to the cistern. When they worked on adjusting the height and configuration of the furnace stack, Williamson hauled lumber and shingles. In July, when the masons built up the hearth in the furnace, he helped the masons. Next, when they worked more on the blast pipes, furnace and raceway, he hauled necessary materials. Late that month and extending into August, he returned to the canyon to dig coal to support the iron run. When it proved necessary to build a reservoir for water for the steam engine, Williamson helped build it. Then he returned up canyon to dig more coal to convert to coke for the furnace.
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 James Williamson knew 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.
In the Iron Military District: Private James Williamson, Company D, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion
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In September 1857, Williamson, 44, was a private in one of the Cedar City platoons in Captain Joel White’s company in Major Isaac Haight’s 2nd Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.
Williamson was among those from Cedar City who mustered to Mountain Meadows sometime between Tuesday the 8th and Thursday the 10th. However, at the war council on Thursday evening, September 10, which many of the Cedar City men attended, John D. Lee did not list Williamson 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 marched northward from their fortified position inside the wagon circle. 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 James Williamson was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.
James Williamson was not identified in Judge Cradlebaught's 1859 arrest warrant, in T.B.H. Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, in Lee's autobiography, Mormonism Unveiled, nor in his counsel, William Bishop's, list of massacre participants. However, during the first trial of John D. Lee in 1875, Iron County militiaman Joel White identified "Jimmy" Williamson several times as among those at Mountain Meadows with the Cedar City militia contingent.
Later Life
[edit]After the twin disasters of the failure of the ironworks and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Williamson and his family departed Cedar City in spring 1859 for Cache Valley in northern Utah. By late spring the same year, Williamson, the Scot emigrant, was in the future site of Wellsville, the "Scotch Town" of this northern county. However, the inhabitants were still occupying Maughan's Fort, which had been founded in 1857. The Williamsons lived in their wagon until they could build a crude cabin. As soon as he arrived in the settlement, he was assigned as a road supervisor to open a road through the nearby canyon, connecting it with the road to Box Elder County. He would have used the same roadbuilding skills he used several years before in the canyons above Cedar City in Iron County. In 1860, another contingent of Scot emigrants swelled the ranks of the pioneers at Maughan's Fort.
In 1861, Mormon leaders discontinued the handcart experiment in immigrating poor European church members to Utah Territory. The new method of transport was the "down and back" companies. These companies left Utah in the late winter, traveled to the Missouri River, retreived poor European emigrants and their few belongings, and transported them to Utah where they arrived in the summer or early fall. In 1863, Williamson joined one of these wagon companies, traveling though high waters for a portion of the trip. Traveling 2200 miles round trip, they brought about 250 members of the Willaim B. Preston train to Utah that summer.
In 1865, when the Cache Militiary District was reorganized, James Williamson was a private in Company E of the 3rd Battalion of the Cache Brigade. The brigade consisted of 177 officers and nearly 1400 men and its major duty was to protect the settlements from Indian attacks. Soon, the Black Hawk War erupted in central Utah and spread to the south. However, there were few problems with Indians in Cache Valley during those years.
In 1868, his son James Rae Williamson married Esther Ann Nowlin, the daughter of Jabez and Amanda Nowlin. Jabez Nowlin was a fellow Iron County militiamen allegedly involved in the 1857 massacre at Mountain Meadows. The Nowlins had moved to Wellsville in Cache Valley in 1867.
Final Years
[edit]James Williamson died in 1869 in Cache Valley at the age of 51, survived by his wife, Mary, and children. Mary died in 1889 at the age of 70.
The headstones of James Williamson and his namesake son each proudly note that they were pioneers to Utah in 1851 and to Cache County in 1859.
Note: A Case of Mistaken Identity: Scot James Williamson (1815-1891) vs. Englishman James Williamson (1804-1882)
[edit]An Englishman named James Williamson (1804-1882) was born in Lancashire and immigrated to Utah in the 1850s. He established himself in Paragonah, more than twenty miles north of Cedar City. He was a polygamist who married two women. He and his wives lived and died in Paragonah. Williamson and several generations of his descendants remained there. He is listed in Esshom's, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, which also contains his photograph, right. A brief biographical sketch is in A Memory Bank of Paragonah, 428, which provides some of the details noted here.
For some time, I thought he was the James Williamson who mined and hauled coal in Cedar City for the ironworks and was at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. However, he was not in Cedar City and did not work at the Cedar City ironworks. Furthermore, no one from Paragonah was involved in the massacre.
After James Williamson (1813-1869), the Scot who mined coal for the ironworks, left Cedar City, he moved to Wellsville in Cache Valley in northern Utah. He did not live in Paragonah.
We would appreciate further information about the Scot James Williamson who lived in Cedar City and later moved to Cache Valley.
References
[edit]Christensen, et al, Windows of Wellsville, 82, 229, 341, 519, 698 (biographical sketch and photos of James and Mary Williamson), 699, 701; Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867 (accessed at footnote.com/document/241907093/); Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Papanikolas, The Peoples of Utah, 66; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 45-55, 57-60, 320-326; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 142, 145, 210, 212, 226, 243, 268; 283 fn. 54, 348, 353, 365 fn. 14, 453, 465, 485, 493-94; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, 236; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 264.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
External Links
[edit]For additional information on James Williamson, 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 comment below or contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.
