Just Desserts And Scapegoat Shenanigans

 March 20, 2025

   We're wrapping up the tangled web of historic intrigue that still surrounds and haunts the Mountain Meadows affair. Even with the massive amounts of recent scholarship, it's still very difficult to close the circle, or to put it another way, to get closure on the circle. It's like all our efforts to capture and tame the truth are stored in a broken jar.

Daily Whip Out: "The Scapegoat"

A Timeline of The John D. Lee Saga

• The tragic culmination of threats and religious hatred combined with a crazy plan, doomed an entire wagon train at Mountain Meadows, September 11, 1857

• Col. James Carleton's savage report unveils the true perpetrators at Mountain Meadows but war clouds delay any move towards justice.

• The Civil War intervenes 1861-1864

• New government efforts by the Justice Department reopen the case. In 1874 indictments are issued against eight alleged Mountain Meadows participants with a $500 reward on each. They include, John D. Lee, Issac Haight, William Dame, John Higbee, among others.  

• John D. Lee is arrested in Panguitch, Utah, November 4, 1876

• John D. Lee's first trial

• John D. Lee's second trial

• John D. Lee is executed at Mountain Meadows

• Some of the remaining co-conspirators scatter to the wind while one came out of the troubles somewhat unscathed.

Dueling Confessions

   One of the problems with understanding exactly what happened at Mountain Meadows is all the conflicting confessions. Klingonsmith gave a confession—and John D. Lee gave several at different times. In addition to those, one of Lee's wives, Emma Lee, claimed that three men came to Lonely Dell (Lee's Ferry) looking for Lee's 1857 diary. According to Emma the diary contained "the three orders from Dame and Haight to go and take part in the massacre." Emma also claimed the men destroyed the diary. Damning testimony against Dame and Haight, if it's true. Unfortunately, as Will Bagley put it, "All of Lee's confessions were a tangled mix of truth and fiction."

Daily Whip Out: "John D. Lee In Red"

Guilty As Sin

   A short list of what happened to the remaining Mountain Meadows co-conspirators who were known derisively as "The Mountain Meadows Dogs." This notorious pack included Lee, Haight, Higbee and Stewart, among others.

Daily Whip Out: "Issac Haight"

    Issac Haight, fled Utah under the alias of "Horton" and wandered between the LDS settlements in Arizona, Colorado and Mexico and died as a member in good standing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Thatcher, Arizona in 1904.

Daily Whip Out: "Philip Klingonsmith"

  Philip Klingonsmith was kicked in the head by a horse and soon after lost his position as leader of the LDS church in Cedar City. After fleeing to Nevada he confessed his involvement at Mountain Meadows and named names. Afterwards he was forever fearful of being assassinated. Rumor says he died in either Nevada or Mexico.

Daily Whip Out:

"Colonel William H. Dame"

The One Dude Who Basically Skated

Col. William H. Dame was the mayor of Parowan, Utah and he controlled the military in Iron County. He was also a stake president of the LDS church in Parowan. Although he was arrested and spent time in jail for his role, Dame was subsequently acquitted of his charges—the prosecutor dropped charges against Dame as part of a deal to convict Lee—and Dame went on to hold other offices. At the end of his life Dame refused to clear Brigham Young and died of paralysis, actually a second stroke, in 1884. He was 64.

Daily Whip Out: "Jacob Hamblin"

   Jacob Hamblin was in Salt Lake City meeting with Brigham Young at the time of the massacre, and Young allegedly instructed Hamblin about the Paiutes, that they "must learn to help us, or the United States will kill us both." Hamblin was away when the massacred happened but he met John D. Lee on the trail and Lee admitted his roles in the killings. After the massacre, the surviving children were initially taken to Hambin's ranch, and three of them resided there for the next two years. A year after the massacre Hamblin went on a mission to the Hopi in Arizona where he took a Hopi wife (he eventually had four wives and would father 24 children). Hamblin also advised John Wesley Powell's second expedition into the Grand Canyon. Following the Edmunds Act of 1882, an arrest warrant was issued for Hamblin for practicing polygamy. From then on he continually moved to avoid arrest, moving from Arizona to New Mexico and then Chihuahua, Mexico where he died on August 31, 1886.

Daily Whip Out: "John B. Higbee"

   The field commander at Mountain Meadows John Higbee saw his career blossom after the massacre and he was elected mayor of Cedar City from 1867 to 1871. Brigham Young appointed Higbee president of the town's United Order in 1874. After Lee's arrest in 1874, Higbee went into hiding. Using the alias "Bull Valley Snort," Higbee wrote a  document for his family, giving his version of the massacre in February 1894. At the end of his self-serving excuses—his basic claim is "the Indians made us do it."—Higbee said the massacre had left him "damned, his family scattered, some dead, others grown up and strangers to him." He died in Cedar City in December of 1904.

"It seems Somebody has contracted a Great debt."

—Bull Valley Snort