Lawson A. McEntire was the third son of Daniel Champion McEntire
and Sarah Black Waters, born abt. 1836 in Rutherford County, North
Carolina. His father was a wagon maker and farmer, and was the first
settler of Bruno, Marion County, Arkansas in the mid 1840's. By 1857 the
McEntire family was living in Yellville in Marion County.
Lawson A. McEntire departed for California
from Marion County, Arkansas with "The Mitchell Train" in April 1857, and
probably worked as a drover for brothers
Charles Roark Mitchell and Joel Dyer
Mitchell. Also working as drovers with the Mitchell Train were
brothers John Prewit and
William Prewit, whose family, like the
McEntires, had come from Rutherford County, North Carolina to Marion
County, Arkansas. (Lawson McEntire's sister Rachel Dulcina McEntire, was
married to George Francis Elam. George Francis Elam's father, William
Thomas Elam's, second wife was Sarah Prewit, the sister of John and
William Prewit.) Lawson A. McEntire was 21 years old, and single, when he
died in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Lawson McEntire is said to have
had a brother John who had gone to California several years earlier.
However, according to the account of Elizabeth (Watkins), the wife of Lawson's older
brother, John Oliver McEntire, she and John met on a wagon train "headed
for California", to look for gold, in 1859. They were married "on the trail"
on 22 December 1859. The birth of their first child ten months later
supports the 1859 date of their marriage, and the date that John Oliver
McEntire was traveling to California. In 1860, John Oliver McEntire, and
his family, are living in Tulare, San Joaquin County, California. It would
appear that Lawson's brother John traveled to California two years after
the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre took place.
© 2008 A.C. Wallner for the
Mountain Meadows Association. All rights reserved
Inscription:
IN MEMORIAM
IN THE VALLEY BELOW BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 7 AND 11, 1857, A
COMPANY
OF MORE THAN 120 ARKANSAS EMIGRANTS LED BY CAPT. JOHN T. BAKER
AND CAPT. ALEXANDER FANCHER WAS
ATTACKED WHILE EN ROUTE
TO CALIFORNIA. THIS EVENT IS KNOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MOUNTAIN
MEADOWS MASSACRE
LAWSON A. MCENTIRE, 21
*Please note
that the names of the victims of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre that
appear here are those who we have personally researched and verified as
victims. In some cases this list will differ from the names that
were inscribed on the 1990 Monument on Dan Sill Hill.
Leave
virtual flowers - MMA FIND A GRAVE
MEMORIAL