The Self-Confessed
Biographical sketches of fourteen militiamen at the massacre with brief descriptions of their roles and statements about it.
- Samuel McMurdie
- Joseph Clews
- James Pearce
- Joel White
- John M. Higbee
- Nephi Johnson
- Ellott Willden
- John D. Lee
- Samuel Pollock
- Philip Klingensmith
- Samuel Knight
- William Edwards
- William A. Young
- Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane
In many respects the fourteen militiamen who left written statements, accounts or testimony of the Mountain Meadows Massacre were representative of the large group of militiamen who come together in the ad hoc detachments at Mountain Meadows. Generally, they were Northerners, Southerners and British Isles emigrants (Scots, Irish, North Britons and English.)
Their Identity and Background
The fourteen militia informants/massacre participants are in many ways representative of the others. They include the oldest, William A. Young; youngest, William Edwards; men in their twenties, John M. Higbee, Samuel Knight and Nephi Johnson; thirties, Samuel Pollock; and forties, Philip Klingensmith and John D. Lee.
The rich patchwork of ethnicities among the larger group of participants is also well represented among the self-confessed participants. Among the northerners, two, Philip Klingensmith and Joel William White, were from rural western Pennsylvania. Two others, Nephi Johnson and John M. Higbee, were from Ohio. Samuel Knight was born in Jackson County in frontier western Missouri and one might argue that he was a southerner. But his parents were New Englanders recently migrated to Missouri and Knight's early years were among the Colesville branch, New Englanders all, of the Mormon movement in Missouri.
Among the southerners, Mississippian James Pearce's forbears migrated across the northern portions of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, moving ever westward across southern Appalachia. Tennessean William A. Young, too, was from southern Appalachia. John D. Lee was born and reared in rural southern Illinois and was from Southern culture. Although Lee's father descended from the Lees of Virginia, they were not among the well-heeled plantation cavaliers of tidewater Virginia. Rather, Lee's father was from the backcountry of southwestern Virginia. His 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 was also Scots-Irish. Lee's cultural hearth was southern Scots-Irish.
From the British Isles, the patchwork of multiple ethnicities continues. The only Englishman from the political "center" of England was Samuel McMurdie, from a borough outside London. Two Englishmen at some distance from the center were William Edwards and Joseph Thomas Clews/Clewes from the West Midlands. Moving farther from the center, Ellott Willden was descended from North Britons. The remaining two were Daniel Sinclair Macfarlane (1837-1914), originally from the Scottish Highlands, and Samuel Pollock (1824-1891), an Ulster Scot from North Ireland.
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