John M. Urie
John M. Urie, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre
John Main Urie
1835-1921
Biographical Sketch
John Main Urie was a Scottish Lowlander who immigrated to American and became a pioneer in southern Utah.
Early Years in Scotland
Urie was born in Airdrie, Lanackshire in the English-speaking Scottish Lowlands. In the 1840s, Urie converted to the Mormon Church.
Immigration to America and onto Utah
In ____, Erie immigrated to America and traveled to Utah to join the Mormon gathering there.
To the Ironworks in Cedar City
By the mid-1850s he was living in Cedar City in southern Utah. He assisted in the many tasks involved in mining iron ore and coal and smelting iron in the new-formed Iron Mission. In 1855, Urie was among the many who owned a lot in what was to become the permanent location for the Cedar City settlement. In 1856, he married Elizabeth Hutcheson (1839-?), in a Reformation-era marriage.
In the Iron Military District, John Urie, Adjutant to Major John Higbee, 3rd Battalion, Cedar City
In September 1857, Urie, 22, was adjutant to Major John Higbee in the 3rd Battalion in Cedar City. According to Nephi Johnson and John D. Lee, Urie was at Mountain Meadows and attended the military council on Thursday evening, September 10. Since he was adjutant to Major Higbee, he may have departed Cedar City with the Higbee contingent on Monday evening, September 7. His exact role in the massacre on September 11 is unknown. Following the massacre, Urie helped transport emigrant property to Cedar City.
Since he was adjutant to Major Higbee, who played a very prominent role in the siege and massacre of the Fancher-Baker party, it seems perhaps surprising that Urie was not listed in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant.
Urie Remains in Cedar City
In 1858, he married Sarah Ann McMillan (1826-1891), a native of Waterford, Waterfordshire, in southern (Catholic) Ireland. (However, both her parents were from County Down in Ulster Ireland, indicating they were likely Scots-Irish Protestants, probably Presbyterians.)
In 1873, Urie married Priscilla Klingensmith (1855-1942), a daughter of Philip Klingensmith. Writer Anna Backus claimed that Priscilla was a Fancher child from the slaughtered emigrant party, adopted by the Klingensmith family after the 1857 massacre. Thus far, however, DNA evidence has not supported this claim.
Historian of Cedar City
Urie was a long-time resident of Cedar City whose history chronicles the successes and failures there. Around 1886, he also provided his life story to the history project of American historian Hubert Howe Bancroft.
Final Years
Urie remained in the Cedar City area for more than six decades and died in nearby Hamilton Fort, survived by his third wife and many children.
References
Ellsworth, "A Guide to the Manuscripts in the Bancroft Library . . ., " Utah Historical Quarterly, 22/3 (July 1954), 224, 228; Garner, "Book Review: "Mountain Meadows Witness: the Life and Times of Bishop Philip Klingensmith," Utah Historical Quarterly, 64/3 (Summer 1996), 288; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, ; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 70; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 147-48, 164, 396, 485, 492; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C.
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