Great American Crime Stories Page 11

  At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They retired to the upper end of the “Meadows,” resumed civilized apparel, washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag of truce!

  The leaders of the timely white “deliverers” were President Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded:

  They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders known in our history.

  The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was one hundred and twenty.

  With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what a spectacle it must have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, deriding them by turns, and by turns “breathing threatenings and slaughter!”

  An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of him and of the occasion:

  He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson; but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in his course.

  Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a committing magistrate, he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to save their necks; and developments of the most starling character were being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight years.

  Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in his work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use them. But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious pretense of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh’s proceedings.

  B.G. Parker’s account:

  Monday morning, just as daylight began to appear, the emigrants were getting up and beginning to prepare for cooking breakfast, when suddenly they were fired on by a band of Mormons and Indians in ambush.

  At this first murderous assault, coming without warning and totally unexpected, about twenty of the emigrants were killed or wounded and for a few minutes the confusion and consternation rendered them helpless, but their situation soon recalled them to the fact that immediate action was needed. They soon saw they were attacked and nearly surrounded by an enemy of perhaps ten times as many as themselves, and their assailants concealed in the brush. Then as soon as it was light enough they saw that all their stock, except a few favorits [sic] that were staked near the wagons, had been run off.

  Just think of the anguish and despair of those mothers and little children, wives and sweethearts. Consider, what must have been the thoughts of the survivors as they realized that twenty of their comrads [sic] and friends were dead or dying, and expecting every moment to receive the same fate themselves! They were alone, one small band of humans, far from their home and kindred. They were surrounded by a horde of human fiends who thirsted for their lifes blood. And yet, desponding as their thoughts were, little could they realize the hideous end of their long, toilsome journey.

  They were in a desperate plight and as soon as possible corralled the wagons and commenced throwing up intrenchments so as to get what protection they could, and for a time doubtless felt that they could make a brave fight for their lives, as the intrenchments rendered some protection, but they were soon made aware that untold agony was before them. For they were cut off from the water, and although the spring was within sight, yet it was certain death to attempt to go to it.

  The emigrants fired whenever an Indian or a Mormon appeared in sight, but this was seldom as the besiegers were very careful to keep out of sight, while, with the exception of the wagons the emigrants were on open ground.

  By Monday evening this ill-fated train began to suffer for want of water, especially the little children and the wounded persons.

  For four days and nights the emigrants were kept within their camp, as to leave it meant certain death. On the evening of the fourth day, what appeared to be a ray of hope came toward them. But it was destined to be the most base betrayal of human confidence, ever, perhaps. encountered in the history of any part of the civilized world.

  The Emigrants Surrender. Their Betrayal. The Frightful Butchery.

  I have described the journey of the Baker train from its start until they were camped at Mountain Meadows, and had been besieged for four days and nights.

  The Mormons found it a hard task to capture those people without exposing themselves and this, such cowardly fiends would not do.

  At last John D. Lee, Jaws Hamblin and two other Mormons named Higby and Haight, procured three wagons and came driving down the road leading from Salt Lake toward the fortified camp of the emigrants. This sight filled the suffering camp with wonder, and a hope of deliverance cheered their souls.

  What did it mean! Was it a messenger of relief or destruction? They dressed a little girl in white and sent her out with a flag of truce; the Mormons in the wagons waved a flag in return, then Captain Francher, one of the leading men of the emigrants, went out to meet the Mormons.

  They told him that the Indians were very hostile, and the Mormons were afraid to pass by them, because the Indians accused the emigrants of putting poison in some dead cattle and giving it to the Indians to eat, thus causing the death of two chiefs. Nothing but the blood of the emigrants and the possession of the outfit would appease the Indians.

  The Mormons also added that “the Indians now have possession of most of your stock and are living off them, and we are powerless to get the stock back from them, however, we want to compromise with them and save the lives of you emigrants. We think that
if you will give up your firearms to our Mormon soldiers, that the Indians will understand you do not care to fight any more, and will allow you to go in peace. We will guard you out about two miles to Mr. Hamblin’s tonight, and from there on to Cedar City we will see that you have protection. Then, if you wish, you can go on to California, or back to the home you left, just at you wish.”

  Francher asked them to drive into camp and give the terms; the Mormons did so, then the emigrants began talking among themselves as what was best to do. To stay as they were meant sure death; to continue on to California without teams or fire arms was out of the question; “What shall we do?” they asked each other. They were still in doubt when a Mormon rode up in a great hurry, and cried out:

  For God’s sake decide at once. I cannot keep the Indians quiet any longer.”

  The emigrants then said, “Tell them that we surrender to the Mormons, and give up all our fire arms, and ask for mercy.

  The fire arms were then all put into one of the Mormon’s wagons, and the wounded and sick emigrants into another, and some of the smaller children into the third wagon.

  The women marched in front, and the men in the rear with the wagons between. The men were guarded by Mormon soldiers who were kept in ambush for that purpose.

  The march then began.

  There had been but little firing that day, the Mormons waiting to see if they could not betray the suffering camp, and now their plans were so well carried out the result will be described in the next chapter.

  The Horrible Massacre. Seventeen Children Saved. A Babe’s Experience. Burial of The Dead.

  The emigrants were ordered to march single file, but they had not advanced more than some sixty or eighty rods until they had entered a thicket of sage brush and dwarf oaks. In hiding here were the Indians and Mormons.

  Suddenly one of the Mormon leaders fired off a pistol and shouted, “Do your duty.” At this signal nearly five hundred Indians bounded from the brush, in among the unarmed emigrants, and with guns, pistols, knives and clubs began their deadly work, all the time keeping up the most horrible war-cries, yells and fiendish laughter, as they brained their helpless victims and cut the throats of innocent babies.

  Think of the terror of those helpless men, women and children! Driven like rabbits into a corral for slaughter! I can almost imagine I hear the wild shrieks of agony and despair as the victims were being butchered. Think of those women and their children, the men powerless to protect them; they had no one to look to but their God. Not over thirty minutes was taken to complete the frightful deed.

  Then what an awful sight appeared. More than one hundred mutilated bodies were piled in heaps just as they fell, here and there, in and out through the sage brush; left to be devoured by wolves or birds of prey.

  It is said that three men escaped at the time of the massacre, but were hunted down and killed. My informant, however, said that while none escaped from the massacre, two young had escaped before the surrender. They had crawled out one dark night, and made their way to Muddy River, some eighty miles away, but were overtaken by some Mormons and decoyed back until they met some Indians, by whom they were killed. The Mormons and Indians then rode back together.

  In the big massacre, the most heartrending scene was that through which the little children had to pass; trampled under foot, splashed with human blood, deafened with the cries of the murderers and the shrieks and groans of their friends or parents, and so frightened the knew not what to do or where to go. Two girls who had been captured by an Indian chief were brought to John D. Lee. The Indian asked what should be done with them, and Lee replied “You know what your orders are.”

  “They are too pretty to kill,” said the chief.

  “They know too much,” answered Lee.

  The chief then shot one of the girls, while Lee deliberately cut the other one’s throat and threw the quivering body from him.

  A young lady was brought before Maj. Higby and she fell upon her knees begging for mercy for him to spare her life, She would work for him! She would be his slave! Anything if he would only save her. When the dead were gathered up this girl’s body was found with the skull crushed in.

  Two Mormon teamsters, named Shultz and Tullis, the latter being a son-in-law of Hamblin were ordered to kill the sick and wounded who still lay in the wagon; the two men were heard to exclaim, as they proceeded to their ghastly work: “O Lord receive their spirits, it is for the good of the Kingdom of Heaven that we do this deed.” And then they killed the helpless prisoners, one by one.

  The little children who remained alive, were then gathered up. One of the little Dunlap girls, now Mrs. Evans, wrote me not long since all she knew of the terrible time. She was between five and six years old at that time and remembers a little about it. In writing she says:

  “While the massacre was going on, myself and one younger sister hid among the sagebrush

  “After it was all over, it then being dark, I heard my little baby sister crying. I listened and could not hear any Indians around so we ventured out of the brush and went to my baby sister. I found her with one arm around our dead mother’s neck, the other poor little arm was nearly shot off. I saw a man collecting up the children and putting them in a wagon. I ran to him and begged him to save my two little sisters and self. He put us in the wagon and took us all to his house.”

  There were seventeen little children gathered up by the Mormons; they were all frightened nearly out of their sences [sic], hungry, covered with blood, clothing all torn, amid cruel strangers, no beds, no comforts and above all no kind words to soothe them in their grief.

  The next morning John D. Lee started to Cedar City with all the children except Jesse Dunlap’s baby girl—the one whose arm was broken—who he intended to leave with Mrs. Hamblin, but the affection of the three sisters was so great that the Mormon’s wife persuaded Lee to let all three of them remain.

  He then took the others to Cedar City to distribute among other Mormon families. Just as they were entering the city a little girl who was riding behind Lee, on his horse, pointed to some of the stock they were driving, and said: “That is my mamma’s cow.” Lee reached around and seizing her by the hair, dragged her around in front of him, and said, “You know too much,” then cut her throat, and threw the body in the street in Cedar City.

  A band of men was then sent out to gather up the bodies of the emigrants, and throw them into a deep ravine or washout. It was done with the aid of horses, and long ropes to drag the bodies to the ravine. One report said that no dirt was thrown over them, but my informant told me that just enough dirt was thrown over them to hide the bodies, but the wolves and vultures dug them up.

  The bodies were stripped of all valuables and even the clothing, but what became of these is hard to tell. The Indians afterward complained that they did not receive half what was promised them. My informant told me that there was about four hundred head of nice American beef cattle sold at some place on the Jordan River, to our Government soldiers, the following winter. It is generally understood that the Mormons got most of the booty, and these cattle were supposed to have been the emigrants’.

  The statements made in this book were told me as true facts, while I was in Utah and near Mountain Meadows in 1877, but I was put tinder the most solemn pledge not to repeat it for twenty years. As the time is up I want the public to know the truth, for I feel sure from all I have read or heard, that this is the most correct history of the affair ever published.

  10

  Rachel Wall, Pirate and Robber (1789)

  Born in Pennsylvania and hanged in Boston on October 8, 1789 (giving her the dubious distinction of being the last woman ever hanged in Massachusetts), Rachel Wall was one of only a few women to practice piracy. After marrying George Wall, she moved to Boston. After a brief stint as fishermen, George and several male friends and their female companions decided piracy would be a more lucr
ative occupation. Rachel agreed. Setting up shop in 1781 on a borrowed schooner in the Isles of Shoals off the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, they waited for storms to pass, then set their trap, pretending the schooner was in distress. Rachel was the gang’s decoy, standing on the deck and screaming loudly for help. When passing ships and boats came to offer assistance, the pirates murdered everyone aboard and stole everything of value. In just a few years’ time they murdered at least two dozen people. George and his fellow cutthroats were lost at sea, and Rachel continued her thieving ways in Boston until her arrest.

  Life, Last Words and Dying CONFESSION, OF RACHEL WALL, Who, with William Smith and William Dunogan, were executed at BOSTON, on Thursday, October 8, 1789, for HIGH-WAY ROBBERY.

  BOSTON-GAOL,WEDNESDAY EVENING, October 7, 1789.

  I RACHEL WALL, was born in the town of Carlisle, in the state of Pennsylvania, in the year 1760, of honest and reputable parents, who were alive and in good health not long since: They gave me a good education, and instructed me in the fundamental principles of the Christian Religion, and taught me the fear of God; and if I had followed their good advice should never have come to this untimely fate. When I left home I had three brothers and two sisters alive and well.

  Without doubt the ever-curious Public, (but more especially those of a serious turn of mind) will be anxious to know every particular circumstance of the Life and Character of a person in my unhappy situation, but in a peculiar manner those relative to my birth and parentage.

  With regard to my Parents, I have only room in this short Narrative to observe, that my father was a Farmer, who was in good circumstances when I left him. [She then professed to being of a devout and well bought-up family, both her parents] being of the Presbyterian, or rather Congregational Persuasion, I was educated in the same way. . . .