George Hunter

George Hunter, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

George Hunter

1828-1882

Biographical Sketch

Early Life

George Hunter was born in 1828 to William James Hunter and Mary Snadon in Devon, Clackmannan in the east Scottish Lowlands. In the 1840s, the Hunters heard the message spread by the Mormon missionaries and Joined the Mormon church.

Journey to Utah

In 1850, Hunter along with his parents and siblings immigrated to American and journeyed to Utah to live among the Mormons. Members of the Hunter family were among the original Iron County settlers in 1851. Hunter was identified as a miner from Scotland. He owned building and garden lots in the new settlement.

In 1853, the Walker War began and Chief Wakara's Ute raiders attacked outerlying settlements and drove away livestock. To reduce livestock losses, Brigham Young ordered that livestock from southern Utah be moved north. However, in Cedar City, George Hunter and other Scots viewed Young's order as a usurpation and forcibly resisted efforts to remove their livestock to Salt Lake City. He and others were found guilty and "put under guard for their rebellion." After a short detention, Hunter and the Scots were released. This and similar episodes run counter to the perception of Mormons in frontier Utah as rendering blind obedience to Young.

In the Iron Military District: Sergeant George Hunter, Company D, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion

In 1857, George Hunter, 29, was a sergeant in one of the platoons in Company D under Captain Joel White and his adjutant Daniel Macfarlane. Philip Klingensmith, Charles Hopkins and James Williamson were privates in Hunter's platoon. Company D was in the 2nd Battalion of Major Isaac Haight and his adjutant, John Macfarlane, also his stepson. According to John D. Lee, Hunter was a member of the city council.

Hunter was among those from Cedar City ordered to Mountain Meadows during the week of September 7, 1857, and among those who attended the fateful military council at Mountain Meadows on Thursday evening, September 10. On September 11, Hunter may have been among the Cedar militiamen who marched along side the emigrant men away from the safety of their wagon circle. But nothing else is known about his exact role in the final massacre. Although many of the Cedar City militiamen complicit in the massacre were named in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant, George Hunter was not. However, witnesses in the Lee trial identified him as at the massacre site.

Later Life

Unlike many who abandoned Cedar City after the twin catastrophes of the massacre and the failure of the iron works, Hunter remained there for the next quarter century. In 1858, Hunter married Mary Muir, from the same region in eastern Scotland as he was. He became father to her three children by a prior marriage. In addition, Mary bore him six children. In one of those unusual plural marriages that baffles the modern mind, in 1869, Hunter married Elizabeth Muir, Mary's daughter by her first marriage. (Another Scot, David Tullis, had a similar plural marriage relationship with a mother and daughter. Tullis also had some involvement in the massacre.) At any rate, between 1871 and 1877, Elizabeth bore Hunter four additional children.

George Hunter died in 1882, two days after his 54th birthday. Mary outlived him by nearly 40 years. She died in 1921 at the age of 90. Her daughter and George's second wife, Elizabeth, died in 1934 at the age of 83.

References

Bagley, Blood of the Prophets,171; Bitton, Guide to Archives, etc., ; Carter, Heart Throbs of the West,11:422; Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage,18:218; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, ; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission,179, 293, 324, 434, 452, 254, 278, 286, 294; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows,Appendix C, 259.

Further information and confirmation needed. Please contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.