John M. Higbee
John M. Higbee's background and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre
John Mount Higbee
1827-1904
Biographical Sketch
Early Years: From Ohio Westward
John Mount Higbee was born in Clermont County, Ohio. His father's forebears were seventeenth century English religious dissenters who settled in Rhode Island and New Jersey before their descendants moved to the frontier, first, to western Pennsylvania and then to the Ohio territory. His mother's forebears were German emigrants to the Pennsylvania Dutch settlements.
Around 1800, Higbee's parents moved to Clermont County, Ohio, where Revolutionary War veterans were receiving land grants. His grandparents and parents joined the Mormons and moved to Jackson County in western Missouri in the spring of 1833. That fall when Higbee was six years old, the original settlers of the county drove the Mormons from their homes. In cold and inclement weather, Higbee's grandparents, Isaac and Sophia Higbee, his parents, John S. and Sarah A. Higbee, and their families were compelled to move. John S. Higbee feared for his wife's life but she survived and they relocated to nearby Ray County. In 1836, however, they were forced to leave, moving north to Caldwell County.
Over the winter of 1838-39, they were driven permanently from Missouri to Illinois. There his grandparents, his father and his uncle Elias Higbee wrote statements documenting their dispossession and prepared claims for their losses against the state of Missouri. His grandfather Isaac Higbee died within months of the departure from Missouri. In Nauvoo, Illinois, Higbee's father was bishop of one of the wards.
Migration to Utah
In 1846, the Higbees were forced from their settlements in western Illinois. Higbee's grandmother Sophia Higbee died while they crossed Iowa territory. From Higbee's perspective, the Illinois dispossession made the fourth time that he and his family had been "driven."
In 1847, his father, John S. Higbee, 30, was recruited into the company of Mormon pioneers who led the western migration. John M. Higbee, his mother, younger sisters and brother arrived in the Salt Lake Valley later that fall as part of the "big company" that trailed behind the pioneer company.
Pioneering in Utah County
Within two years they moved south to Utah County and helped found a new settlement at Provo, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive.
In summer 1853, the Walker War erupted and the conflict was particularly intense in Utah County. The pioneering settlers abandoned exposed settlements, made fortifications, guarded settlements and livestock and after their stock had been raided by Ute Indians, went in pursuit of it. The Higbees including John would have played some part in these events.
Perhaps the intensity of the Walker War conflict played a role in John M. Higbee's decision to relocate to the south, outside the traditional lands of the Ute Indians.
To Cedar City and the Ironworks
Several years later, they moved to southern Utah. In 1853, Higbee married Ohio native Mary Clark (1833-1918) who was to bear him eleven children. In 1860, he married English emigrant Eunice Blanden (1844-1908), the daughter of Thomas Bladen, the chief engineer of the new ironworks. She eventually bore him eight children.
In the mid-1850s, Higbee was president of the Cedar Dramatic Association and a counselor to Isaac C. Haight in the Cedar City stake (diocese) presidency.
In moving to Cedar City, Higbee was settling in an area dominated by the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. Here is a brief summary of its development. After iron ore and coal deposits were discovered in the region, Cedar City was founded. In the first years of 1851-52, they investigated whether the region had the necessary raw materials – iron ore, limestone, wood, coal, and waterpower – to support smelting on a large scale. After confirming the presence of the necessary materials and relying heavily on the British Isles immigrants who had worked in iron-related industries in Great Britain, they set to building an iron manufacturing plant. They sited the ironworks at the mouth of Coal Creek near the present location of Cedar City. They mined the coal up canyon and transported it by team and wagon to the furnace located on the stream bank below the mouth of the canyon. The iron ore was transported from nearby Iron Springs by wagon. In 1852, after a small test furnace produced a low quality pig iron, they set about building a full-scale blast furnace.
Progress was impeded, however, in 1853-54 during the Walker War. They shifted their energies from iron making to “forting up” to increase their safety. After a peace treaty was reached with the Ute chief Wakara in 1854, they returned to improving the ironworks. By 1855, they had achieved their greatest success with a sustained run of the furnace producing several tons of pig iron. But most of the runs both before and after failed to achieve a sustained run producing good quality iron. One problem was the fickle nature of Coal Creek, which continued to alternate between flooding and droughts. They determined to develop a more dependable source of power.
In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to provide the answer. After its arrival, they built a new room to house the engine, connected its boiler to a steady water supply and modified the furnace to accommodate the engine.
In early June they started an iron run using the steam engine. However, the new machinery created its own set of problems. Through the end of July, they experimented with different configurations of furnace, engine and piping, attempting to optimize the blast furnace.
From late April through July, 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.
By the time reports reached them in early August of a threatened “invasion” of U.S. troops into Utah, they had decided on further changes to the ironworks. They determined that a reservoir was necessary so as to provide a steady supply of filtered water to the steam engine. Immediately, they set to work, digging, lining and filling the reservoir. From late August to early September, shortly before the crisis involving the passing Arkansas emigrant company, they began a new furnace run. But it, too, ended in failure, probably around the time that a dispute arose between some community members and several of those in the passing Arkansas wagon train.
During this period in 1857, Higbee served briefly as a teamster, hauling sand. He was more involved in August because of pressing concerns at the ironworks. In early August, he was a part of a large crew of more than 40 who built the reservoir to provide a constant supply of clean water to the steam engine. At mid-month, he was among a large crew that hauled coal down the canyon to the ironworks. He also hauled wood to the ironworks.
In the Iron Military District: Major John M. Higbee, 3rd Battalion, Cedar City
In June 1857, Higbee was captain of Company D in the Iron Military District, but during the militia reorganization that summer, Higbee was promoted to major of the 3rd Battalion, most of whose companies and platoons were from Cedar City. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.
After the first attack on the emigrant train on Monday, September 7, Higbee led a detachment of militiamen from Cedar City that arrived at Mountain Meadows on Tuesday, the 8th. During the week, Higbee carried expresses between the Meadows and Cedar City.
On Thursday the 10th, he brought orders from Col. William Dame and Major Isaac Haight to the Meadows and attended the council meeting that evening.
During the final massacre on Friday the 11th, Higbee's role is controversial. According to some sources, Higbee was the one who gave the signal to commence the slaughter. Higbee and John D. Lee each accused the other of leading the final massacre.
Higbee was named in the 1859 arrest warrant.
Leaving and Returning to Cedar City
In 1858, the Higbee family was among those who moved to the new settlement of Toquerville. In 1859, Higbee was among the accused in Judge John Cradlebaugh's arrest warrant. In 1866 during the Black Hawk War, Higbee lead various militia operations.
By 1874, Higbee had returned to Cedar City where he served as president of the United Order (community cooperative) in Cedar City.
Higbee Goes into Hiding After Being Indicted for his Role in the Massacre
The same year he was among nine Iron County militiamen indicted for murder stemming from the 1857 massacre. As arrests were made, Higbee, Isaac Haight and William Stewart fled. The 1880 census lists his wives, Mary with seven children and Eunice with six, living next door to each other in Cedar City. Higbee was absent, reportedly in Arizona. But funding and enthusiasm for prosecuting the massacre perpetrators waned in the 1880s. In the 1890s, the criminal case was still technically pending but federal officials had not actively pursued it for years. In those years, Higbee eventually returned to Cedar City.
Higbee's Statements Relative to the Massacre
In those years Higbee prepared two written accounts of the massacre, one in his own name, the other under the pseudonym of "Bull Valley Snort." They include many important particulars. However, like John D. Lee's statements, an evident purpose of Higbee's statements was exculpation and blame-shifting and they must be read in that light.
In 1896, the federal district judge in Beaver formally dismissed the long pending criminal indictment against Higbee. He was the last of the principal indictees (William Dame, John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, Higbee and William Stewart) still alive.
Final Years
According to the 1900 census, Higbee and wife Mary were living together with an adult son. In 1904, at the age of seventy-seven, Higbee died and was buried in Cedar City, survived by his two wives and eleven children.
About five years after his death, Higbee's widow, Mary C. Higbee, applied for Indian War veterans benefits for Higbee's service under Captain Peter Conover during the Walker War while he lived in Provo in the early 1850s.
References
Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 82, 83, 116, 117, 119, 120, 126, 127, 224, 326-29, 242, 275, 280, 290, 298, 323, 326, 328, 329, 344; Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Appendix II (statement of John M. Higbee); FamilySearch.org.; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 217, 226, 232-38, 240, 241, 243-45, 247, 250-51, 272, 273, 283, 293, 379; Lee Trial transcripts; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, ; U.S. census records; Utah State Archive and Records and Service, Commissioner of Indian War Records, Indian War Service Affidavits, affidavit of Mary C. Higbee re service of John M. Higbee, accessed at http://archives.utah.gov/research/inventories/2217.html; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
External Links
For further information on John M. Higbee, 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 or contact 1857_militia@roadrunner.com.
