The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-01-21
HIS BODY TURNED TO STONE.
"A Story of Early Days in the Land of
the SIormons.

the Mormons.
A human body from which life had
been extinct nearly forty years. but
which is so we'll preserved that old ac-
quaintances could recognize it, was car
ried from Pleasant valley. Utah, re-
Gently by Mrs. Lippinworth, now of
Cape Town Africa The story, as told
by the San Francisco Chronicle, is one
of the early days of Utah
James Lippinworth and boyhood
friend, Paul Harris, came out to the
newly created territory in 1855 looking
| for gold and silver in the mountains
southeast of this place. One day the
youthful prospectors heard that the
Indians We're rising against them and
made hurried preparations to cross
Green river. But on their way they
ran into prowling band of redskins,
who fired upon them and wounded
Harris with poisoned arrow They
succeeded, however, in escaping after
killing three of the seven Indians. and
went on their way to a spot where they
knew ten or twelve Mormon farmers
to have camped. But, after the first
twenty miles, Harris foot grew so
painful that he was obliged to stop
HIS companion waited on him, but at
last the poor fellow declared that if
l1ippinworth stayed with him it would
be death to them both and urged Lip
plnWorth to go on and bring back as
slstance to carry him on. He kept his
revolver and told his friend that if the
Indians appeared he would kill himself
| before he would fall into their hands
again.
With much reluctance Lippinworth
| agreed to go on, as to stay meant only
for both to die there of hunger or to
IA III NV r1,0
Harris was left alone he made his
TREND promise that if it were possible
for him to come back, and if on COM
ing back he found him dead, he would
bury his body and when he was able
to take it back to his home in Ala
bama, where he wished it buried beside
his mother and father This Lippin-
worth promised, and went on He
found the Mormons, who had made
friends with the Indians by judicious
gifts, and they accompanied him to
the spot where he left mis- friend But
Harris was dead and his scalp was
gone, this having been taken by the
indians as they passed his dead body,
for on their approach he had sent a
bullet through his temple, as he had
said he would. Lippinworth. reduced
still more in fortune than when he
entered on this prospective object. now
left the territory, and not having the
means of sustaining the expense Of re-
moving his friends remains, as he had
promised, deferred it until he was able.
He drifted out to Africa and soon did
well there. One of the first uses he
made Of his money was to come to
America to carry out his pledge to
Harris, who had been dead nearly
forty years. f
Lippenworth counted on the climate
having preserved the bones, at least,
but was, not prepared for the way in
which nature had kept the body. He
identified the place after some little
trouble and had the grave opened, but
the men with him called out that there
was ONE mistake and that they mad
opened the grave of some newly buried
person, as the body had not vet begun
to decay. Lippenworth came to see
for himself and easily recognized fiar-
ris. who looked as if he had just been
buried, but on attempting to remove
the body it was found more than six
men could accomplish and more help
had to be obtained. The body had
been converted entirely into stone; the
very mark of the bullet as it entered
his temple and the gashes Of the knife
as his scalp was taken were to be seen.
The body weighed in the neighborhood
of 1000 pounds, the clothes and beard
even having been reproduced in stone.
1t was carted to the railroad and
shipped to Harris old home. where it
will be inferred as he Directed