Samuel Pollock
Samuel Pollock's background and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Samuel Pollock
1824-1891
Biographical Sketch
Early Years in Ireland
Samuel Pollock was born in County Tyrone in Ulster (North) Ireland.
Immigration to America and onto Illinois
He joined the Mormon church, emigrated from Ireland to America and traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, the main church center.
Migration to Utah
In 1846, Pollock and other family members joined the Mormon exodus from western Illinois. Around 1847, he married Elizabeth Reeves (1829-1864) of Shropshire, England and their first child was born while they resided in Nebraska territory. They immigrated to Utah in 1850 and Pollock immediately went to work as a laborer.
Settling in Utah County
By 1852, they had moved south to Utah County and pioneered in Spanish Fork (or nearby Palmyra, another new settlement), on the Spanish Fork River, which flowed west into Utah Lake. The settlement was organized that year and Pollock was appointed as the first secretary or recorder of the fledgling community.
The Walker War erupted in summer 1853 and the area surrounding Utah Lake was an active zone of the conflict. Ute Indians raided livestock and settlers rode out to recover their stock. They fortified their settlements and guarded them closely. Presumably, Pollock helped guard life and property during the conflict which lasted until late summer 1854. Evidently, Pollock took Elizabeth Brockbank (1838-1926) of Lancashire, England as a polygamous wife during this time, but this marriage was of short duration.
The conflict with the Ute Indians was especially intense in Utah Valley. Did Pollock's concern for future conflict with the Utes prompt him to leave their traditional lands? That is unclear but what is certain is that moving to southern Utah, he moved beyond the traditional lands of both the Utes and Pauvant Utes.
To Cedar City and the Ironworks
By 1855, Pollock and his first wife, Elizabeth, moved to Cedar City in southern Utah where several more children were born. In moving to Cedar City, Pollock was settling in an area dominated by the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. See Summary of Deseret Iron Company for a brief summary of its early development.
In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to breathe new life for the Ironworks. 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.
Samuel Pollock was only an occasional worker for the ironworks. According to the Ironworks account book, in 1857 the only work Pollock did all year was to help construct the reservoir in early August to provide a water supply to the steam engine.
In the Iron Military District: Sergeant Samuel Pollock, Company E, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion
By summer 1857, Samuel Pollock was a sergeant in one of the platoons under Elias Morris, captain of Company E in Major Isaac C. Haight's 2nd Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.
In September 1857, between the first attack and the final massacre, Samuel Pollock, 33, was among the contingent that arrived at the Meadows during the week.
On Thursday evening, September 10, according to John D. Lee, Pollock and many others from Cedar City attended the war council on the grounds of Mountain Meadows.
On Friday the 11th, Pollock later testified, he was sick and observed the massacre from one of the militia camps where he heard the volleys of shots and saw the pall of smoke rising from the field.
Pollock was listed in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant.
Later Life
By 1860, the Pollock family were among the first settlers in the new community of Toquerville and by 1862, they had moved to Kanarraville where Pollock spent the remainder of his life. In 1864, his wife Elizabeth died, having bore Pollock eight children. The following year, the 40-year-old Pollock married twenty-nine-year-old Welsh emigrant Ann Meredith Mathews (1836-1889) who became step-mother to his children and also bore him three other children.
Testifying in Lee's First Trial
During the summer of 1875, Pollock traveled to Beaver where he testified as both a prosecution and defense witness in the first trial of John D. Lee. He testified concerning muster in Cedar City, the march to Mountain Meadows, and the massacre itself. Contrary to the myth that militia witnesses never identified anyone at the massacre other than John D. Lee, Pollock named eight other militiamen at the Meadows besides himself and Lee.
Last Years
According to census records, Pollock was blacksmithing in 1870 and farming in 1880. Pollock and his wife Ann and children lived on in Kanarraville. Ann died in 1889 and Pollock died two years later. At least seven of his children survived into the twentieth century.
Note: A Samuel Pollock was appointed county commissioner in Garfield County, but it is unclear whether this is the Samuel Pollock (1824-1891).
References
Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 158, 292; Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 235, 307; Chidester, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County, 36; Fielding, ed., The Tribune Reports of the Trials of John D. Lee, 118, 119; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232, 380; Lee Trial transcripts; Seegmiller, The History of Iron County; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace 272, 331, 355, 463, 477, 488, 495; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 193, 198, 204-5, 214, Appendix C, 261.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
External Links
For further information on Samuel Pollock, 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 contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.
