Jabez Nowlin

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Jabez T. Nowlin, his personal and family background, and his alleged involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre


Jabez Townsend Nowlin

1821-1893



Biographical Sketch

[There is uncertainty whether Jabez Nowlin participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre or was on the ground when the Arkansas company was attacked or besieged.]


Jabez Townsend Nowlin was a native of rural Tennessee. From there he moved to western Illinois, then to the Iowa-Nebraska territories and finally to frontier Utah. He was an American frontiersman and pioneer in southern Utah and later in northern Utah and southeast Idaho.

(In historical records, "Jabez" was sometimes "Jebez" or more rarely "Javis," while "Nowlin" was sometimes rendered as "Nomlin," "Nowland," "Nowlen," "Newlin," and "Norman.")

Early Life in Tennessee and Illinois

Nowlin was born in Bedford, Bedford County, Tennessee in 1821 to Peyton Wade Nowlin and Margaret Phagan. He was converted to the Mormon religion through the teachings of James W. Cummings, a Mormon missionary to the Southern states. In the mid-1840s, he arrived in Nauvoo, Illinois, the largest Mormon community at the time.

With the Mormon Battalion and onto Utah

Nowlin experienced the "Mormon War" of 1844-45 and the expulsion of the Mormons in 1846 from western Illinois to Iowa Territory. In April of that year, he married Amanda A. Thomas (1827-1909) in Iowa Territory.

Detail of route of Mormon Battalion sick detachment from Illinois to Nebraska, then Pueblo, Colorado and onto the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

That summer, Nowlin was among those recruited into the "Mormon Battalion" of the U.S. Army. He was listed as a First Corporal in Company C under the command of Captain James Brown. In July 1846, the Battalion recruits departed from Council Bluffs, Iowa Territory, for Fort Leavenworth in present-day Kansas. During the Battalion's service in 1846-1848, it undertook a historic trek from Iowa to California. Their arrival coincided with the outbreak of the Mexican-American War and they helped secure California for the United States. In 1848, several Mormon Battalion veterans discovered gold on the American River while working for John Marshall at Sutter's Mill. This sparked the Gold Rush of 1849. In 1850, the new state of California would be admitted to the Union.

But Nowlin's journey with the Battalion only took him as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. En route to Santa Fe, Nowlin was evidently among those who became sick during the difficult march. Weak from illness, he was reassigned to a sick detachment that traveled north to the headwaters of the Arkansas River at Pueblo in present-day Colorado. There they passed the winter in hastily constructed cabins.

In summer 1847, Nowlin and his companions were discharged from the battalion and they traveled north to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Finding that Brigham Young's Pioneer Camp had passed only days before, they headed west in pursuit of the company. They arrived on July 27, 1847, three days behind the pioneer company, in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in what would soon become Utah Territory. Nowlin returned east and reunited with his wife, Amanda. Several years later, they traveled west to Great Salt Lake City.

Moving to Utah Valley

The Utah County Centennial History notes that in 1849, "Jabez Norman (Nowland)" was a pioneer in Provo, Utah. Also, a daughter was born to "Jabez Nowlen (Nowland)" and his wife in 1849 or 1850. The first Mormon-Indian war broke out in Utah Valley in 1850. During a two day pitched battle between settlers and Utes, there were fatalities on both sides and Nowlin was wounded. Finally, the settlers were able to repulse the Ute fighters.

The first inhabitants of Utah Valley constructed a fort for protection from Ute Indians who frequented Utah Valley and Utah Lake. In August 1852, Jabez Nowlen was made a counselor to Bishop James Bird of the Provo Second Ward. During the summers they met under the bowery in Pioneer Park; in the winters, they met in individual homes. Nowlin and the others pioneered the new colony of Provo, building cabins, planting crops and digging irrigation ditches to keep their crops alive.

The Walker War erupted in summer 1853 and the conflict was particularly intense in Utah County. The pioneering settlers abandoned exposed settlements, made fortifications, guarded settlements and livestock and, after their stock had been raided by Ute Indians, went in pursuit of it. Nowlin would have played some part in these events. Although the Walker War ended in a truce in summer 1854, the sharp conflict in Utah Valley may have impacted Nowlin's decision to relocate to other parts.

The Cotton Mill in Washington County.

To Washington and the Cotton Mission

By spring 1857, the Nowlins had joined fellow Southerners in the new colony in Washington, Washington County, in southwestern Utah where they intended to establish cotton culture. These and a later influx of southerners founded the Cotton Mission in what came to be known as Utah's Dixie.

Although it eventually proved commercially unsuccessful, it did succeed in producing cotton goods for local use and export at an important stage in Utah Territory's economic development

There is some evidence that Jabez Nowlin may have married Mercy Wilson (1829-1921), a native of Yorkshire, England, in 1857. If so, this marriage was another of those contracted during the Mormon "Reformation" of 1856-57.

Iron Military District: Private Jabez Nowlin, Company I, John D. Lee's 4th Battalion

Map southern utah 1.jpg

In 1857, the Iron Military District consisted of four battalions led by regimental commander Col. William H. Dame. The platoons and companies in the first battalion drew on men in and around Parowan. (It had no involvement at Mountain Meadows.) Major Isaac Haight commanded the 2nd Battalion whose personnel in its many platoons and two companies came from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the north such as Fort Johnson. Major John Higbee headed the 3rd Battalion whose many platoons and two companies were drawn from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the southwest such as Fort Hamilton. Major John D. Lee of Fort Harmony headed the 4th Battalion whose platoons and companies drew on its militia personnel from Fort Harmony, the Southerners at the newly-founded settlement in Washington, the Indian interpreters at Fort Clara, and the new settlers at Pinto.

In September 1857, Jabez Nowlin, 36, along with George Washington Adair and James Pearce, were privates in a platoon in Company I, under young Pearce's father, Captain Harrison Pearce, in the 4th Battalion under Major John D. Lee. It seems likely that Nowlin was among the Southerners recruited over the weekend of September 5-6. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

They departed for Mountain Meadows on Monday, September 7, and arrived there around noon the following day. However, Nowlin's role during the week of siege and the final massacre on September 11 is not known.

In 1859, Judge John Cradlebaugh issued an arrest warrant naming more than 30 southern Utah militiamen. Nowlin was listed in the warrant as "Jabes Nomlen." However, in their list of actual and alleged participants in Appendix C of Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Turley and Leonard do not include Jabez Nowlin for lack of corroborating evidence.

Later Life

In later years, Nowlin was among those who "helped in quelling the Indian disturbances in Southern Utah." Later still, the Nowlin family moved to Springville, where he set up a molasses mill.

Map of Bonneville County, Idaho.

In 1867, they moved to Wellsville, Cache County in northern Utah and Nowlin engaged in farming. Still later, Nowlin moved north into Idaho Territory.

Final Years

In 1893, Jabez Nowlin died at the age of 72 in Ucon, some miles northeast of Idaho Falls, in Bonneville County, Idaho. He was survived by his wife, Amanda, and their three children.

References

Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 7:13; 8:415; Carter, ed., Treasures of Pioneer History, 4:492; Fish, Mormon Migrations, 317, 416; Fleek, History May Be Searched in Vain, 237, 390; Huff, Utah County Centennial History, 55, 66, 116; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 232; New.FamilySearch.org; Tyler, A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion, 121, 168, 169; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 393 fn. 2.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For additional information on Jabez Nowlin, see:

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