William Bateman

William Bateman, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

William Bateman (1824-1867?)
Biographical Sketch

A native of Lancashire in the Northwest of England, William Bateman was a British emigrant to the United States and a pioneer in southern Utah who later settled in Cache Valley in northern Utah.
Bateman was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England. In 1843, he married Sarah Lavender (1824-1898) from Bedfordshire, East Anglia, England. They converted to Mormonism, immigrated to the United States and by the mid-1850s he, his wife and their family were in Cedar City in southern Utah where many British Mormons with iron mining or smelting experience worked at founding the "Iron Mission."
In 1857, William Bateman, 33, was listed as a sergeant of a platoon under Captain Eliezar Edwards in Company G in Major John M. Higbee's 3rd Battalion. (A William H. Bateman was a private in Company E under Captain Elias Morris in Major Isaac C. Haight's 2nd Battalion.) According to Philip Klingensmith, Samuel Pollock, William "Billy" Young, Nephi Johnson and John D. Lee, Bateman was at Mountain Meadows, and according to Lee, Bateman attended the fateful military council on Thursday evening, September 10. Also according to Lee and others, Bateman carried flag of truce to the emigrant camp to gain admittance to their wagon circle where Lee delivered deceptive terms of surrender to them. Beyond that, his exact role in the massacre is unknown.
Like many of the massacre participants from the Cedar City area, he was listed in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warranty.
By 1859 the Batemans had moved to West Jordan in Salt Lake County. In the 1860s they moved to Richmond in Cache Valley where he died in either 1867 or 1869.
References: Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Lee Trial transcripts; FamilySearch.org.
Further information and confirmation needed.
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