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Baker–Fancher party

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The Baker-Fancher Party' was the name used to collectively describe the American western emigrants from four northwestern counties in Arkansas, specifically Marion, Crawford, Carroll, and Johnson counties, who departed Carroll County in April 1857 and "were attacked by the Mormons and Santa Clara tribe of Indians near the rim of the Great Basin, and about fifty miles from Cedar City, in Utah Territory, and that all of the emigrants, with the exception of 3 women and 17 children, were then and there massacred and murdered"[1] in the Mountain Meadows massacre. Sources estimate that between 120 and 140 men, women and children were killed on September 11, 1857 at Mountain Meadows, a rest stop on the Old Spanish Trail, in the Utah Territory. A small group of children under 7 years, innocent blood according to Mormon custom, were spared and parcelled out to Mormon families in Southern Utah. Still, other children were killed while in their mothers' arms or after being crushed by the butts of rifles or boot heels.

Background

The Baker-Fancher party consisted of several smaller parties that set out separately from the Ozarks in northwestern Arkansas, and then joined up along the way.[2] Many of the families in the group were prosperous farmers and cattlemen with ample financial resources to make the journey west. Some of the groups had family and friends in California awaiting their arrival, as well as many relatives remaining in Arkansas. Among the groups were the Baker train, led by John T. Baker from Carroll County, and the Fancher train, led by seasoned expeditioner Alexander Fancher,[3] which left from Benton County.[4] Other groups included the Huff train, which also left from Benton, the Mitchell, Dunlapp, and Prewitt trains which left from Marion County, and the Poteet-Tackitt-Jones, Cameron, and Miller trains which left from Johnson County.[5] Pleasant Tackitt, from the Poteet-Tackitt-Jones train, was a Methodist minister who led the others in worship and prayer services while on their journey.[citation needed] When the groups left Arkansas in April 1857, the total company numbered more than 200.[6] However, during the journey, some groups split off and others joined.[7] Some of the trains that joined the company may have been from other states, such as Missouri.[8]

Fanchers' livestock brand,
a monogrammed J-F.
Registered in 1852 at
Tulare County, California—
intended destination of ill-fated
Fancher-Baker train—to
Captain Alexander Fancher's
older brother John

The party was well outfitted with wagons, traveling carriages, a large herd of cattle estimated at close to 1,000 head, oxen, as well as numerous horses. They joined the expedition for various reasons; some to settle permanently in California, some to drive cattle west for profit, and some to find California gold.[9] Like other emigrant groups traveling to California, they took money with them and planned to replenish their supplies in Salt Lake City for the remainder of the trip.[10] The actual date of arrival is unknown, but Brooks places the arrival as August 3 or August 4, 1857 based on reports in the "Journal of Church History."[11] The Arkansans arrived in Utah with over 800 head of cattle and were low on supplies when they reached the Salt Lake area, a major resupply destination for overland emigrants.

Massacre

Main article: Killings and aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre

On Friday, September 11, 1857, two Mormon militiamen approached the Baker-Fancher party with a white flag and were soon followed by Indian agent and militia officer John D. Lee. Lee told the battle-weary emigrants that he had negotiated a truce with the Paiutes, whereby they could be escorted safely the 36 miles back to Cedar City under Mormon protection in exchange for turning all of their livestock and supplies over to the Native Americans.[12] Accepting this, the emigrants were led out of their fortification. When a signal was given, the Mormon militiamen turned and executed the male members of the Fancher party standing by their side. According to Mormon sources, the militia let a group of Paiute Indians execute the women and children. The bodies of the dead were gathered and looted for valuables, and were then left in shallow graves or on the open ground. Members of the Mormon militia were sworn to secrecy. A plan was set to blame the massacre on the Indians. The militia did not kill 18 small children who were deemed too young to relate the story. These children were taken by local Mormon families. Seventeen of the children were later reclaimed by the U.S. Army and returned to relatives, while one (a girl) was not returned and lived out her life among the Mormons[13].

The cattle, money, wagons, carriages and animals were all taken to Salt Lake City, while some of the personal property of the Baker-Fancher party was taken to the tithing house at Cedar City and auctioned off to local Mormons. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Families leaving party before reaching Utah Territory

  1. Smith
  2. Morton
  3. Hudson
  4. Basham
  5. Haydon
  6. Reed
  7. Stevenson
  8. Hamilton
  9. Farmer
  10. Lafoon and/or Laffoon
  11. Poteet

Families leaving in Utah Territory

The Page Family
The Page family - siblings Lewis (rear), L to R - Samuel, Clarissa (Coffman), and John. Taken before 1918 in Clarksville, El Dorado County, California.

There is some dispute on whether young women from the party left with them (ie Tackitt and Dunlap women) listed below.

  1. Eaton, William M.
  2. Edwards, Silas
  3. Rush, Milum L., 28
  4. Stallcup, Charles, 25

The Page family from Madison County, Arkansas left the wagon train in Utah and took the Northern route safely to California, settling in El Dorado County. John Robert Page born-1819, his wife Frances (Ralston) Page born-1823, their children Elizabeth Emley Page born-1841, Clarisa Jane Page born-1843, James K. Page born- 1844, Moses Caleb Page born- 1848, John Robert Page born-1849, Lewis Johnson Page born-1851, Sarah Frances Page born-1853, Samuel M. Page born-1855 and Henry Towel Page born -April 1857 just before they left Arkansas.

Members of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher wagon train

The Baker-Fancher party's constituent trains left from four northwestern Arkansas counties.

  • From Benton county left the Fancher family—as did the Huff—
  • while from Johnson county left the Cameron, the Miller, and (a trio of cousins) the Poteet-Tackett-Jones families;
  • from Marion county left the Mitchell, the Dunlap, and the Prewitt families
  • while from Beller's Stand near Harrison in Carroll county (today Boone county) left the (John Twitty) Baker family—the wagon-master/captain historians reference when they call the grand company the "Baker-Fancher trains". Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
  1. Jones, Eloah Angeline Tackitt, 27
  2. Jones, John Milum, 32
  3. Jones, Newton
  4. Jones, Possible unknown daughter[14]
  5. McEntire, Lawson A., 21
  6. Miller, James William, 9
  7. Miller, Josiah (Joseph), 30
  8. Miller, Matilda Cameron, 26
  9. Miller, ?, 12 (possibly 14)
  10. Mitchell, Charles R., 25
  11. Mitchell, Infant (possible)[15]
  12. Mitchell, Joel D., 23
  13. Mitchell, John,
  14. Mitchell, Sarah C. Baker, 21
  15. Prewit, John, 20
  16. Prewit, William, 18
  17. Tackitt, Armilde Miller, 22
  18. Tackitt, Cynthia, 49
  19. Tackitt, Emberson Milum, unknown
  20. Tackitt, James M, 14 (It is possible that this was Jones M, and that he was 12, but they are most likely the same person.)
  21. Tackitt, Marion, 20
  22. Tackitt, Matilde, 16
  23. Tackitt, Sebron, 18
  24. Tackitt, Pleasant, 25
  25. Tackitt, William Henry, unknown
  26. Valentine, Vincent, 21
  27. Wood, Solomon R., 38
  28. Wood, William Edward, 26

Children who were returned to live with relatives

Nancy Sephrona Huff
Christopher "Kit" Fancher

Seventeen small children, all under the age of seven, survived the Mountain Meadows massacre. Two years after the Massacre, the orphans were returned to their families. These children were: Mary Elizabeth, Sarah Frances and William Twitty Baker, the children of George and Minerva Baker; Rebecca, Louisa and Sarah Dunlap, the daughters of Jesse and Mary Dunlap; Prudence Angeline and Georgia Ann Dunlap, the daughters of Lorenzo and Nancy Dunlap; Christopher and Tryphenia Fancher, the children of Alexander and Elizabeth Fancher; Nancy Sophronia Huff, the daughter of Peter and Saleta Huff; Felix Marion Jones, the son of John and Eloah Jones; John Calvin, Mary and Joseph Miller, the children of Josh and Matilda Miller; and Emberson Milum and William Henry Tackitt, the sons of Pleasant and Armilda Tackitt.[16]

  1. Baker, Mary Elizabeth, 5
  2. Baker, Sarah Frances, 3
  3. Baker, William Twitty, 9 months
  4. Dunlap, Georgia Ann, 18 months
  5. Dunlap, Louisa, 4
  6. Dunlap, Prudence Angeline, 5
  7. Dunlap, Rebecca J., 6
  8. Dunlap, Sarah E., 1
  9. Fancher, Christopher "Kit" Carson, 5
  10. Fancher, Triphenia D., 22 months
  11. Huff, Nancy Saphrona, 4 (Huff is prominently featured in the documentary Burying the Past: Legacy of the Mountain Meadows Massacre)
  12. Jones, Felix Marion, 18 months
  13. Miller, John Calvin, 6
  14. Miller, Joseph, 1
  15. Miller, Mary, 4
  16. Tackitt, Emberson Milum, 4
  17. Tackitt, William Henry, 19 months

Fate unknown or evidence of survivorship in Utah Territory or Wyoming

  1. Dunlap, Lorenzo Dow, 42
  2. Dunlap, John H.,16
  3. Dunlap, Mary Ann, 13
  4. Dunlap, Talitha Emaline, 11
  5. Dunlap, Mary Ann, 9
  6. Dunlap, Thomas J., 17
  7. Dunlap, Nancy M., 16
  8. Dunlap, James D., 14
  9. Dunlap, Susannah, 12[17]
  10. Dunlap, Lucinda, 12[18]
  11. Dunlap, Margerette, 11
  12. Dunlap, Nancy, 9
  13. Dunlap, America Jane, 7
  14. Tackitt, Cynthia, 49
  15. Tackitt, Marion, 20
  16. Tackitt, Armilda Miller, 22
  17. Tackitt, Sebron, 18
  18. Tackitt, Matilda, 16
  19. Tackitt, James, 14
  20. Tackitt, Jones M., 12

Aftermath

United States Army officer James Henry Carleton was sent to investigate the massacre and was convinced that the Mormons were the perpetrators, most probably with the agreement of Young. The murdered members of the wagon train (known as the Baker-Fancher Party) were left unburied. Some of these children, who had seen their families killed, recalled seeing white men dressed as Paiute among the attackers. Carleton examined the scene of the massacre and was convinced that the Paiute had played a minimal role, and that the attack had been planned and executed by the Mormons. The remains of about forty people were found and buried and Carleton had a large cross made from local trees, the transverse beam bearing the engraving, "Vengeance Is Mine, Saith The Lord: I Will Repay" and erected a cairn of rocks at the site. A large slab of granite was put up on which he had the following words engraved: "HERE 120 MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN WERE MASSACRED IN COLD BLOOD EARLY IN SEPTEMBER, 1857. THEY WERE FROM ARKANSAS."

For two years the monument stood as a warning to those travelling the Spanish Trail through Mountain Meadow. Some reports indicate that in 1861, Young brought an entourage to Mountain Meadows and had the cairn and cross destroyed. As his men took the cairn apart, Young is reported to have said, "Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little".[19]

Today, author and noted archeologist Shannon Novak who studied some of the victim's remains unearthed in 1999, states in her book, "House of Mourning, A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre," that "This notorious massacre was, in fact, a mass execution: the victims were bludgeoned to death or shot at point-blank range. The perpertrators were local Mormon militiamen whose motives have been fiercely debated for 150 years."

Notes

  1. ^ Uncle Dale's Old Mormon Articles: Misc. Southern States, 1845-1919
  2. ^ Fancher & Wallner 2006.
  3. ^ Finck 2005 Fancher had journeyed to California from Arkansas previously in 1850 and 1853. (Fancher & Wallner 2006; Bagley 2002; the 1850 San Diego County, Calif. census Roll: M432_35; Page: 280; Image: 544.)
  4. ^ Fancher & Wallner 2006.
  5. ^ Fancher & Wallner 2006.
  6. ^ Bagley 2002, p. 55-68; Stenhouse 1873, p. 424-427.
  7. ^ Fancher & Wallner 2006.
  8. ^ Bancroft 1889, p. 512; Gibbs 1910, p. 12.
  9. ^ (Fancher & Wallner 2006).
  10. ^ Stenhouse 1873, p. 428.
  11. ^ Brooks 1850, p. 28-29
  12. ^ Shirts, (1994) Paragraph 9
  13. ^ Brooks, 1950, pp 101–105
  14. ^ Likely a Dunlap child listed in fate unknown - evidence of guardianship by head of household
  15. ^ Unsure if child had died prior to massacre
  16. ^ Bagley pp. 239-242 Also see: Inscription on 1990 Mountain Meadows Monument [1]
  17. ^ May be same person as Lucinda Dunlap
  18. ^ May be same person as Susannah Dunlap
  19. ^ Sally Denton (2003). American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadowns, September 1857 (New York: Vintage Books, ISBN 0375726365) p. 210.

External links

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