The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-10-13
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS.
The Scene of the Terrible Mormon Butch
cry m 1881.

The scene oil the Terrible Mormon Butch
cry m 1881.
Beaver (Utah) Cor. Chicago Inter-Ocean.1
Nineteen years ago an emigrant train
of 1877 persons, while on their way to
California, were massacred in this Terri
tory at a \ lace called Mountain Meadows,
and, beyond doubt, it was done by
the Mormons, at the instigation of their
Prophet, Brigham Young. John ID. Lee,
an adopted son of Brigham, figured
most conspicuously in the awful trag-
edy.
Feeling that to intelligently conduct
the prosecution it was necessary to visit
the scene of the butchery, Summer How
ard, Esq, United States District Attor-
ney for Zion, determined to do so. Ac-
companied by Marshal Nelson, Official
Court Reporter A. 8. Patterson, your
correspondent, and Mormon guide, he
set out for that place on the morning OF
the 7th instant.
At the scene of the massacre we came
across numbers of human bones. A rib
as white as snow, shoulder. blade half
buried in the sand, and other fragments
of human frames, scattered for mile lay
bleaching in the sun. The old camp
ground where the emigrents coralled
their wagons was level strip of meadow
terminating in bluff like manner, and
commanding view of half mile down
the canon, and in turn commanded from
the hills on every other side. There it
was the train had determined to stop for
a week or ten days to allow their teams
to recruit on the rich grass which grew
in abundance on the hills and in the
meadows. The Indians and Mormons
attacked them furiously; and, notwith-
standing they barricaded by throwing
up sod breastworks under tfeir wagons,
quite number of their men were picked
off by arrows and bullets. For several
days they held their murderers at bay,
but finally, by treachery of John u. Lee,
they were decoyed out, and the whole
company, men, women and children, ex-
cepting seventeen babes, were slaugh-
tered. Their effects, even the clothing
in which they were shot down, were car
ried off and appropriated by the Mormon
priesthood and the Indians.
In 1859 a detachment of Col. John
ston's command of United States sol
diers from Camp Floyd did the Chris
tan service of gathering together all
they could find of the bones of these vic
tins and burying them in two graves.
One of these graves was made within
the limits of the little corral where the
Arkansans had SO CALAMITY defended
their wives and children against the Zoe,
and where several of their number had
been shot before the treachery of Lee
brought death and ruin on them all.
Above their sacred dust the soldiers
erected rude monument of granite
boulders and wooden cross to their
memory. Brigham spat upon the cross,
and the Mormons demolished the mOnu-
ment. 1t is now simply heap of stones
three feet wide and rod long running
east and west, and is all, save the
blight which has come upon the spot,
that marks their hallowed resting place.
In 1862 cloud-burst cut the meadows
into gullies, one of which, twenty feet
deep, turned from its course and missed
this grave. Thus, it seems, Providence
spared the rude monument and moulder-
ing bones, but the Mormons did not
The other grave was half mile north
of the monument at the fork of the road
which led back to the main route, but at
the present time it is lost The spring
is almost: dry what there is of it is ooz-
ing out in the bottom of the gulley which
just misses the monument; the meadow
where the train stood is now q shifting
sand hill; the barricade thrown up is
blown away; it is barren of vegetation,
recognizable only by the heap of boul-
ders once serving to designate a common
grave. A few feet west of it there are
three rocks lying il line, and at one
end an oaken stick stands in the ground,
evidently marking the grave of one who
fell before the train had surrendered.
Our party picked up few bits of china
ware, nail from the wooden cross, an
ounce slug, navy bullet, few flint and
mossagate arrow-heads, and fragments
of human remains. These mark the
scene of the siege, and the bleaching
bones strewn among the sage-brush for
a mile above show that the butchery was
not confined to single spot.