Dr. Jacob Forney, the U.S. Superintendent of
Indian Affairs, arrived in Utah to investigate the
Mountain Meadows Massacre, and collected the Arkansas
Emigrants' seventeen surviving children from Mormon homes
in April of 1859. The children remained under the care of
Dr. Forney while they were in Utah, and the Salt Lake
Probate Court appointed him guardian of the orphans. Dr. Forney's attempts to reclaim any of the
Arkansas Emigrants' stolen property, as authorized by the
Court at that time, were unsuccessful.
Mormon
Jacob Hamblin, who assisted Dr.
Forney in retrieving the children from the Mormon homes
where they were being kept, was paid handsomely for his
efforts. Although it had been claimed otherwise, by this
time, Dr. Forney realized that the children "did not live
among the Indians one hour". He rejected a number of
claims for ransom of the children. He did authorize a
payment of $2961.77, from the more than $7000 in claims
from the Mormons, for the care of the children. Reports on
the condition of the children varied dramatically. Dr.
Forney stated that the orphaned children were in better
condition than most of the other children in the Mormon
settlements, while Captain James
Lynch was angered by the childrens' "most wretched and
deplorable condition."
In 1859,
Congress appropriated $10,000 in the military budget to
transport the children back to Arkansas. Fifteen of the
surviving children departed Salt Lake City, Utah on
Tuesday, 28 June 1859. General Johnston ordered two companies of the Second
Dragoons, under Captain R. Anderson from Camp Floyd, to
accompany the children as far as Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The children were provided with four
female matrons, three male camp assistants, provisions,
clothing, blankets,
three spring ambulances, and one baggage wagon with teams
of six mules each.
Two of the older boys, John Calvin Miller, and Emberson
Milum Tackitt, were retained in
Utah as
witnesses for the U.S. District Attorney. Dr. Jacob Forney
accompanied the two boys on their journey from
Salt Lake City
to Washington, D.C. Passing through St. Louis, Missouri
around December 3, they were interviewed by Federal
officials on, or after, their arrival on 12 December 1859
in Washington, D.C.
(To date, no record of the boys’ testimony has been
located.)
The government had
appointed Arkansas State Senator William C. Mitchell as an
agent for the children, and authorized him to meet the
orphans at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and escort them home.
Mitchell had lost two of his adult sons, Charles Roark
Mitchell, and Joel Dyer Mitchell, in the Massacre.
His daughter-in-law Sarah C. (Baker) had also died. He was
anticipating that his infant grandson, John, would be
among the surviving children. Mitchell departed for Fort
Leavenworth on 12 August, and arrived there on 22 August,
1859. On 26
August, the fifteen children arrived at Fort Leavenworth,
and Mitchell learned that his grandson was not among the
survivors. Captain James Lynch was among those who
delivered the children to Kansas. There the children were were met by William C. Mitchell, Eliza
Olin (McKennon) Fancher, Elizabeth Dunlap, and possibly
others from Arkansas, who cared for the children on the
last leg of their journey home. (Thirty-four years later,
in 1893, when Captain James Lynch was 73 years old, he
married Sarah Elizabeth Dunlap, who was one of the
children who survived the Massacre. Sarah was 38 years old
at the time of their marriage, and had been blind since
the time of the Massacre, due to a gun powder injury that
affected her eye sight.)
On
Thursday, 15 September 1859, thirteen of the seventeen surviving
children were finally reunited with their families at the
Carrollton Court House, located in the town square, in
Carrollton, Carroll County, Arkansas. (Two of the
children, Christopher Carson Fancher and Tryphenia D.
Fancher, were met by members of the Fancher family before
they reached Carrollton, and reunited privately with their
families. Eliza Olin (McKennon) Fancher, who accompanied
the children from Fort Leavenworth, was the wife of
Hampton Bynum Fancher. Hampton B. and Eliza O. Fancher
became the guardians of the two surviving Fancher
children.)
Survivor Accounts of the
Massacre
Earliest Accounts of the
17 Children Who Survived
The
37 Children Who Died in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre
Visit of the Superintendent of
Indian Affairs to Southern Utah - Deseret News, May 5, 1859
Return of Sup't
Forney From The Mountain Meadows - Valley Tan, May 5, 1859
Affairs In Utah,
The President's Instructions To The District Attorney Of The Territory
- Valley Tan, July 6, 1859
