Regional and Ethnic Background of the Militiamen
Ethnic and Regional Background of the Militiamen at the Mountain Meadows Massacre
What Was the Regional and Ethnic Background of the Militiamen?
None of the militiamen involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre was born in Utah. Many of them had lived there for five years or less and the longest that any had been there was ten years. Thus, all of them were immigrants to Utah. Further, the militiamen had been part of the Mormon "gathering" for varying amounts of time. Some of the younger men such as John Mount Higbee (1827-1904), Samuel Knight (1832-1910), and Nephi Johnson (1833-1919) had been raised among the Mormons since childhood. Yet even among these who had lived all their lives in Mormon society, they were exposed to many cultural influences beyond the values of a rapidly changing Mormon culture still in its infancy.
This was even more true among the senior men. Many of these had converted to Mormonism during adulthood. Among these was Tennessean William Young (1805-1875) who had been in his mid-thirties when he cast his lot with the Mormons. The same was true of British borderer Robert Wiley (1808-1872), Englishman Richard Harrison (1808-1882), New Jersey-born Charles Hopkins (1810-1863) and Louisianan William Rufus Slade (1810-1872).
Another example is John D. Lee (1812-1877), whom we know most about because of his autobiography. As of 1857, Lee had spent twenty years among the Mormons, longer than most. Yet his first culture until age twenty-five had been the frontier culture of the Mississippi River Valley. Lee had come from the southern culture region. His father was a Virginia Lee, but not from the well-heeled plantation cavaliers of tidewater Virginia. Rather, he came from the backcountry of southwestern Virginia while Lee’s mother was a Scots-Irish Doyle from Nashville, Tennessee. When his mother died and his father sank into alcoholism, Lee was raised by his mother’s sister, Charlotte Doyle Conner and her husband, James Conner. Conner, too, was Scots-Irish. Thus, Lee’s cultural hearth was Southern Scots-Irish. Leaving home, Lee passed a stint working, gambling and fighting in a Mississippi river town. After returning home, he joined his uncle James in serving as an Indian fighter in the Illinois Black Hawk War.
From what backgrounds did the militiamen come? During the formative years of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, what were their first cultures? What regional or ethnic groups were represented among the planners and participants of the massacre?
Among the militia participants in the massacre many came from the same region or ethnic group. Ignoring two Norwegians, the militiamen at Mountain Meadows consisted of three primary groups: American frontiersmen from the trans-Appalachian West, American frontiersmen from the South, and immigrants from the British Isles. The American frontiersmen were nearly equally divided between trans-Appalachian Westerners and Southerners, about eighteen of each. There were also around eighteen British Isles’ immigrants and a smattering of other European immigrants.
European Immigrants to Utah
Those that had traveled the farthest in coming to Utah were the European immigrants. Of those from the British Isles, a small number – approximately six – were "English" from the cultural core of Great Britain. Many were from the "non-English" regions of Great Britain mainly composed of the North Britons from the English borderlands, Highland and Lowland Scots from Scotland, Ulster Irish from Ulster (or North) Ireland and the Welsh from western England.
Only Samuel McMurdie (1830-1922) was from the English "center," a borough outside London. William Rees Davies (1827-1862) was from Somerset in the South West while Joseph Thomas Clews/Clewes (1831-1894), William Edwards (1841-1925), Richard Harrison (1808-1882), and Samuel Jewkes/Jukes (1823-1900) were from the West Midlands.
The displaced Scottish Highlanders were Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane (1837-1914), John Menzies Macfarlane (1833-1892), and William Cameron Stewart/Stuart (1827-1895). The Scottish Lowlanders were George Hunter (1828-1882), Alexander G. Ingram (1822?-1881), David Wilson Tullis (1833-1902), John Main Urie (1835-1921), and James Williamson (1813-1869).
The North Britons were William Bateman (1824-1867), Thomas Henry Cartwright (1814-1872), Elliot Willden/Wilden (1833-1920), "John"? Willden/Wilden, and Robert Wiley (1808-1872). The Ulster Irish were Samuel Pollock (1824-1891) and William Tait (1818-1896). The Welsh were Benjamin Arthur (1834-1883), and Eleazer Edwards ( - ). The two Norwegians were Swen Jacobs (1823-1890) and John Jacobs (1825-1919).
American Southerners and Westerners
Southerners
But the bulk of the involved militiamen were trans-Appalacian Westerners and Southerners. The southern frontiersmen were George Washington Adair (1837-1909), Samuel Adair ( ), John Wesley Clark (1818-1880), Columbus Reed Freeman (1838-1907), John Doyle Lee (1812-1877), James Mangum (1820-1888), John Mangum (1817-1885), Sims Lafayette Matheny (1833-1881), James Nicholas Mathews (1827-1871), Jebez T. Nowlin/Nomlen (1821- ?), Harrison Pearce (1818-1889), James Pearce (1839-1922), John Price (1815-1893), William Rufus Slade (1811-1872), William Slade (1834-1902), Anthony Johnson Stratton (1824-1887), Oscar Tyler (1825-1871), and William Alma Young (1805-1875).
Several examples from Mormons with Southern or Scots-Irish roots will serve to illustrate some common migration patterns among these Southerners. The earliest American forebears of Sims Lafayette Matheny (1833-1881) were in Virginia and South Carolina. His parents migrated to Mississippi before moving north to Tennessee where Matheny was born. In the late 1830s they moved to Arkansas and by the early 1840s they pushed into Texas territory, later the Republic of Texas. The Mathenys immigrated to Utah territory in the 1850s. Matheny married a Mississippi native and in 1857, Matheny and his wife joined the colony of Southerners in the new cotton-growing settlement of Washington, Washington County, in southern Utah.
Two previous generations of James Pearce’s (1839-1922) Scots-Irish forebears had followed a similar westerly arc from coastal South Carolina to the hill country of north-central Georgia to west-central Alabama, then to northeastern Mississippi where Pearce was born. In the 1840s, members of the Pearce clan joined the Mormons and moved westward. From 1849, the Pearces passed several years in the Mormon settlements in Iowa and Nebraska. They immigrated to Utah in the early 1850s. Briefly settling in Payson, the Pearce clan were part of a migration of Southerners to Washington in southern Utah in spring 1857.
Westerners
Among the Trans-Appalachian Westerner frontiersmen were Ira Allen (1821-1900), Andrew Allen (1836-1907), Ezra Curtis (1822-1915), Jabez Durfee/Durfey (1828-1883), Oscar Hamblin (1833-1862), Ira Hatch (1835-1909), William Schroeder Hawley (1829-1893), John Mount Higbee (1827-1904), Charles Hopkins (1810-1863), Nephi Johnson (1833-1919), Philip Klingensmith (1815-1881), Samuel Knight (1832-1910), Dudley Leavitt (1830-1908), Alexander Hamilton Loveridge (1828-1905), William Sears Riggs (1830-1923), Don Carlos Shirts/Shurtz (1836-1922), Amos Griswold Thornton (1832-1902), and Joel William White (1831-1914).
Rural Origins of the Southerners and Westerners
Among the Southerners and Westerners who constituted two-thirds of those involved in the massacre there was another salient characteristic. With the possible exception of Charles Hopkins, all were from rural backgrounds and many of them were from the American backcountry. Most had lived their lives in the Old Northwest or the Old Southwest of the antebellum era. They had frontier or pioneering experience before moving to Utah. All of them were, or were becoming, American frontiersmen with the traits necessary to survive in a harsh and insecure environment. As these Mormons moved westward into new frontiers they sharpened their frontier skills.
Involvement in the Missouri and Illinois Conflicts
Many of the militiamen were part of the early Mormon settlements in western Missouri and western Illinois and had passed through conflicts with their non-Mormon neighbors. They had also been expelled from their homes. John Higbee and Samuel Knight each had been the victims of four of these expulsions (Missouri in 1833, 1836 and 1838-39, and Illinois in 1846). John D. Lee had gone through two of these expulsions while nearly all of the Westerners and a large number of the Southerners discussed above lived in western Illinois at the time of the 1845-1846 Mormon War and ensuing expulsion. Many of them had retaliation on their mind. Some of those who knew them best opined that their desire for revenge was an important factor in the massacre.
Experience as Western Frontiersmen
[Under Construction.]
