Utah
Territory
Cedar County
James Lynch of lawful age being first duly sworn,
states on oath: That he was one of the party who accompanied Dr. Jacob
Forney, Superintendent of Indian affairs in an expedition to the Mountain
Meadows Santa Clara &c in the months of March & April last, when we
received sixteen children, sole survivors of the wholesale massacre
perpetrated at the former place in the month of September 1857. The
children when we first saw them, were in a most wretched and deplorable
condition; with little or no clothing, covered with filth and dirt. They
presented a sight heart rending and miserable in the extreme. The scene
of the fearful murder still bears evidence of the atrocious crime, charged
by the Mormons and their friends to have been perpetrated by Indians but
really by mormons disguised as Indians, who in their headlong zeal,
bigotry and fanaticism deemed this a favorable opportunity of at once
wreaking their vengeance on the hated people of Arkansas, and of making
another of these iniquitious “Blood offerings” to God so often recommended
by Brigham Young and their other leaders. For more than two square miles
the ground is strewn with the skulls, bones and other remains of the
victims. In places water has washed many of these remains together,
forming little mounds, raising monuments as it were to the cruelty of man
to his fellow man. Here and there may be found the remains of an innocent
infant beside those of some devoted mother, ruthlessly slain by men worse
than demons; their bones lie bleaching in the noon day sun a mute but
eloquent appeal to a just but offended God for vengeance. I have
witnessed many harrowing sights on the fields of battle, but never did my
heart thrill with such horrible emotions, as when standing on that silent
plain contemplating the remains of the innocent victims of Mormon Avarice,
fanaticism & cruelty. Many of these remains are now in possession of Mr.
Rogers, a gentleman who accompanied us on the expedition. Why were no
these remains interred if not in a Christian like and proper manner, at
least covered from the sight? But no the hatred of their murderers
extended to them after death--there they lay, a prey to the famished
wolves that run howling over the desolate plains to the unlooked for
feast, food for the croaking ravens that through the tainted air with
swift wing wended their way to revel in their banquet of blood.
I
enquired of Jacob Hamblin who is a high Church dignitary, why these
remains were not buried at some time subsequent to the murder? he said
that the bodies were so much decomposed that it was impossible to inter
them. No longer let us boast of our citizenship freedom or civilization.
There was one hundred and forty poor harmless Emigrants to California
butchered in cold blood, by white men too, with attending circumstances
far exceeding anything in cruelty that we have ever heard of or read of
being perpetrated by savages. It is now high time that the actors and
perpetrators of this dreadful crime should be brought to condign
punishment. For years the Mormons have possessed an immunity from
punishment or a sort of privilege for committing crimes of this nature,
but soon it is to be hoped a new state of things must dawn--a retribution
must come, vengeance must be had--civilization humanity and christianity
call for it, and the American people must have it. Blood may be shed,
difficulties may be encountered, but just as sure as there is a sun at
noon-day, retribution will yet overtake the guilty wretches--their aiders,
abettors, whether open or hidden under disguise of Government employment.
John D. Lee, a Mormon President has knowledge of the whereabouts of much
of the property taken from these ill fated emigrants, and if I am not
misinformed in possession of a large quantity of it. Why not make him
disgorge this illgotten plunder--and disclose the amount escheated to, and
sold out by the Mormon Church, as its share of the blood of helpless
victims? When he enters into a league with Hell and covenants with death;
he should not be allowed to make feasts and entertain government officials
at his table as he did Dr Jacob Forney Superintendent of Indian Affairs,
while the rest of his party refused in his hearing and that of Lee, to
share the hospitalities of This notorious murderer--This scourge of the
desert. This man Lee does not deny, but admits that he was present at the
massacre, but pretends that he was there to prevent blood shed, but
positive evidences implicate him as the leader of the murderers too deeply
for denial. The Children point him out as one of them that did the bloody
work. He and other white men had these children, and they never were in
the hands of the Indians, but in those that murdered them and Jacob
Ham[b]lin and Jacob Forney know it. The children pointed out to us the
dresses and jewelry of their mothers and sisters, that now grace the
Angelic forms of these murderer’s women and children--verily it would seem
that men and women alike combined in this wholesale slaughter. This ill
fated train consisted of 18 wagons 820 head of cattle household goods to a
large amount, besides money estimated at 80 or 90,000 dollars the greater
part of which it is believed now make rich the harems of John D. Lee. Of
this train a man whose name is unknown, fortunately escaped at the time of
the massacre to Vegas one hundred miles distant from the scene of blood on
the California Road. Here he was followed by five mormons, who through
promises of safety &c prevailed upon him to begin his return to Mountain
Meadows & contrary to their promises and his just expectations they
inhumanly butchered him--laughing at and disregarding his loud and
repeated cries for mercy as witnessed and told by Ira Hatch one of the
five. The object in killing this man was to leave no witness competent to
give testimony in a Court of Justice, but God whose ways are inscrutable
has thought proper, through the instrumentality of the “babes and
sucklings” recovered by us to bring to light this most horrible tragedy,
and made know its barbarous and inhuman perpetrators. Already a step
has been take by Judge Cradlebough in the right direction, of which we see
evidence in the flight of Presidents, Bishops, and Elders, to the
mountains, to escape the just penalty of the law for their crimes. If the
vengeance of the Lord is slow ‘tis equally sure. The Mormons who know
better, have reported that the principles and in fact all the actors in
this fearful massacre were Indian savages, but subsequent events have
thrown sufficient light upon this mystery to fix the foul blot indellibly
on the Mormon escutcheon. Many of the leaders are well known, John D. Lee
was the Commander in Chief, President height and Bishop Smith in Cedar
City and besides these one hundred actors and accomplises are know to
Judge Cradlebough and Dr. Forney. Some of these implicated are and have
been in the confidence and under employment of Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, Bishop Hamblin for instance who is employed by Dr. Forney among
the Indians down south, who knows all the facts but refuses to disclose
them, who falsely reported to Dr. Forney that the children we brought away
were recovered by him from persons who had bought them from Indians, and
who know that what he reported was false and was so done to cheat the
government out of money to again reward the guilty wretches for their
inhuman butcheries. It is pretended that this man is friendly towards the
United States Government, yet is a well known fact that he screened some
of these murderers about his house, from justice, among whom are an Indian
named George and a white man by the name of Tillis, recognized by one of
these children--a little girl eight years old, who has been sent off to
the States by Dr. Forney, as the man who killed her mother. Hamblin cannot
be a Mormon Bishop and a friend of the United States at least where
Mormons and Mormonism is concerned. His creed & oaths forbid it and he
could not if he would with safety to himself do it. Then why not out with
him? Dr. Forney can find another and more trustworthy Agent than he. Why
then keep and patronize the abettor of a crime? Before I close, my duty
to my country calls upon me to state to the public the course of Dr.
Forney to engender in the minds of the Mormons feelings of antipathy and
opposition to the Judiciary, and the many obligations which he violated
and promises which he desregarded this trip.
I left Camp Floyd in March last in charge of 39 men, emigrating to
Arizona, about the 27th of that month we came up with Dr. Forney at Beaver
City who there informed me that he was en-route to the scene of the
Mountain Meadows massacre and Santa Clara, to procure evidence in relation
thereto, and to secure the surviving children. He informed me that all
his men had left him being Mormons and who before leaving had informed
him, Forney, that if he went down South, the people down there would make
an ewnuch of him, and asked us for aid & assistance. I cheerfully placed
the whole party at his command telling him that he had started upon an
errand of mercy, and it was strange that he should have employed
mormons--the very confederates of these monsters, who has so wantonly
murdered unoffending Emigrants, to ferret out the guilty parties.
He was left without a man and we
found him guarding his mules & wagons. He requested two of the men of my
party (Thomas Dunn & John Lofink) to return to Great Salt Lake City with
him, promising to give them employment during the following summer and the
winter. They consented to abandon their trip to Arizona upon these terms
and returned with the Doctor, and I am sorry to say he violated his
plighted faith, and his solemn contract on reaching the City, by
immediately discharging them without cause and hiring mormons to take
their place, as I am informed has been his custom since he came into the
Valley. I was with Dr. Forney from the time I joined him until he
returned to the City of Salt Lake, having voluntarily abandoned my
expedition to Arizona to aid his humane enterprise and during the trip I
repeatedly heard him tell the Mormons “That they need not fear Judge
Cradlebough (whose disclosures & energy had created some alarm) that he
(Forney) would have him removed from office; that the Mormons (Murderers
and all) were all included in the Presidents proclamation and pardon, and
would not be tried or punished for any offence whatever committed prior to
the issuing of the pardon--That Judge Cradlebough was not a fit man for
office” in fact abusing and slandering the Judge in unmeasured terms--no
language being too low or filthy to apply to him. I could arrive at no
other conclusion from his conduct than that the Doctor desired to
influence the minds of the Mormons against the judiciary, and that he
cared more to create a prejudice against Judge Cradleboughs course in
attempting to bring these murderers to light, than he did to elicit the
truth relative to the murders, and that he was only following out his
instructions from the General Government in going after the children,
while he was availing himself of this journey to make a pilgrimage to the
south settlements to abuse & traduce Judge Cradlebough and arouse a
feeling of resistance to his authority among the guilty murderers.
It is to be regretted that the Doctor has
manifested so hostile a feeling to his associate Federal Officer and that
the course of the Judges especially that of Judge Cradlebough has to be
citicised by such a man as Jacob Forney--a more veritable old granny than
whom, in my opinion never held an official position in this country, and
in this opinion I am borne out by the concurrent opinions of nearly all
the Gentile population in Utah who know him, as well as by many of the
Mormon people. I now reside in Cedar County U.T.
James Lynch being duly sworn
states on oath that all the material facts stated by him in the foregoing
affidavit, so far as he states the same as of his own knowledge are true
and so far as he states the same as from information derived from others
as also the conclusions drawn from the same he believes to be true and
further saith not.
Signed: James Lynch
Sworn and subscribed to
July 27th 1859. (Signed) D.R. Eckels
Chief Justice of Sup. Court.
The undermentioned state on oath
that the foregoing affidavit had been carefully read to them that they are
the identical persons named in it as having been employed by Dr. Jacob
Forney to return with him to Salt Lake City--that they went from Beaver
City with said Forney South and back again and that we fully concur in the
statements made by James Lynch Esqr. in the foregoing affidavit, as to
what we saw and heard on the trip and the conduct of Dr. Forney
Superintendent of Indian Affairs and further say not.
(Signed) Thomas Dunn
(Signed) John Lofink
Subscribed & sworn to before me
July 27th 1859.
Signed. D.R. Eckels
Chief Justice of Sup. Court
Source: Letters From
Nevada Indian Agents 1859,
Compiled by the publisher of The Nevada Observer in 1980-1981.
Original in the collection of Letters Received by the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, Utah Superintendency, National Archives microfilm.
