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 of the Mormon missionaries and joined the Mormon Church.
Journey to Utah
In 1850, Hunter along with his parents and siblings immigrated to America and journeyed to Utah to live among the Mormons.
To Cedar City and the Ironworks
Members of the Hunter family were among the original Iron County settlers in 1851. They had a cabin in the original Cedar City settlement, the "Old Fort." Contemporary records identify Hunter as a miner from Scotland.
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 other Scots were released. This and similar episodes run counter to the perception of Mormons in frontier Utah as rendering blind obedience to Young.
When they relocated the settlement from the Old Fort to Plat A, a temporary settlement, Hunter had a lot and home several homes away from fellow Scot, William C. Stewart. When in the mid-1850s they again relocated the settlement from Plat A to the southeast to Plat B nearer the foothills, Hunter also had a lot and rough home there. Plat B is in the area now occupied by the modern town of Cedar City.
In moving to Cedar City, George Hunter 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.
During this period in 1857, George Hunter performed a variety of tasks including working on the canyon road to the coal mines, hauling "adobies," sand and coal, "fitting up" the steam engine, and working on the reservoir.
The majority of the southern Utah militiamen at Mountain Meadows were from Cedar City. Of these, nearly all of them had worked at the Ironworks or supplied raw materials to it. Indeed, in the weeks before the Mountain Meadows Massacre, they had worked intensely together, hauling materials, building a new water reservoir, and making the latest run of the blast furnace. One perennial mystery of the massacre has been why the militiamen mustered to Mountain Meadows in “broken” militia units; that is, from different platoons and companies, none of which had a full compliment of its members. Perhaps the reason lies with the Ironworks. Those in the Ironworks knew each other and had worked alongside one another. Not only was George Hunter acquainted with those who mustered from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows, he had worked with them at the Ironworks. Perhaps the answer is that the men of the Ironworks were on hand and available and Isaac Haight, who himself had worked closely with them, assigned them to muster to Mountain Meadows.
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. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.
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 City guard unit who marched alongside the emigrant men away from the safety of their wagon circle. As the massacre commenced, the duty of the guards was to wheel and fire on the emigrant men, quickly dispatching them. Yet during the actual massacre, reactions varied among the guards. Some shrank from their duty, others fired over the heads of their victims, while others still undertook their bloody duty with zeal. Within minutes, members of the Cedar City unit had killed all but three of the emigrant men. However, whether Hunter was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.
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, a fellow native of eastern Scotland. 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.
Final Years
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, 232, 379; Lee Trial transcripts; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 179, 293, 324, 434, 452, 254, 278, 286, 294; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 259.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
External Links
For further information on George Hunter, 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.
