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.
Urie was born in Airdrie, Lanackshire in the English-speaking Scottish Lowlands. Urie converted to the Mormon Church and immigrated to Utah. 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 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.
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. 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.
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, History of Iron County, 70; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission, 147-48, 164, 396, 485, 492; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C. 
Further information and confirmation needed.
Please comment below or contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.Thank you!