Mountain Meadows Massacre descendants meet
BY GERALD CARROLL
Tulare Advance-Register
September 11, 2010
Sept. 11 is a special day for more reasons than the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, say a group of visitors convening this weekend in Tulare On Sept. 11, 1857, an incident known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place in southwest Utah when 120 members of an Arkansas-based wagon train bound for Tulare were killed by a violent faction of the Mormon church, experts say.
"You might call it the original 9/11," said former College of the Sequoias history professor Newell Bringhurst, who wrote a biography of Mormon patriarch Brigham Young published in the 1980s. "It was a perfect storm in terms of why such a massacre could happen."
The incident remains buried in political turmoil, even to this day, and was a media sensation for more than 20 years after it happened. However, only in the 21st century is the full accounting of the massacre gaining public attention, foundation members say.
Movie released in 2006
A 2006 movie, "September Dawn," starring Jon Voight, is based on the massacre.
"I was at the premiere," said 83-year-old Dr. Burr "Old Doc" Fancher, an Albany, Ore., resident with Arkansas roots whose life's work in recent years has been piecing together the story and tracking down ancestors of 17 young children who were spared that day.
"Voight encouraged us," said Fancher, the main speaker in today's 5 p.m. dinner and historical presentation. Organizers reported 56 signups as of Friday night, many from other states and many who have never been to Tulare.
Fancher is a direct descendant of Capt. Alexander Fancher, who led the wagon train and who was killed in the attack.
"I lost 30 ancestors that day," Fancher said.
Media attention was widespread in the massacre's aftermath.
"That incident drew just as much media attention for that time in history as the 9/11 attacks did in 2001," said Ron Wright, another descendant of the victims.
Massacre chronology
Militant Mormons in the southwest part of Utah were said to have dressed as Indians and attacked the wagon train on Sept. 7, 1857. However, defenders of the wagon train fought back, and held off the assault until Sept. 11. At that point, the attackers removed their Indian disguises and posed as "white" liberators, only to kill the wagon-train defenders after luring them away from their belongings.
Decades of high-profile litigation followed, with survivors' families accusing the Mormon church of as coverup, and eventually one man was convicted of participating in the massacre and executed by firing squad in 1877.
"The wagon train was crossing Utah at the worst possible time," said Bringhurst, a non-practicing Mormon and local expert in Mormon history. "A U.S. army was heading toward Utah. Mormons considered outsiders enemies."
Fancher said the foundation harbors no ill will toward Mormons and that the primary mission of the group is to "memorialize" the slain wagon-train members and the 17 children — deemed "too young" to bear witness to the tragedy — who were spared.
Fancher said that 15 of the 17 surviving children's graves have been located in various states, and that the foundation is closing in on the other two.
"All the confirmed graves of those surviving children will be marked with a $500 historical memorial," Fancher said.
Tulare's historical museum is one of seven locations around the country where a repository of documentation about the Mountain Meadows Massacre can be found.
"Tulare would have made a great home for those people." Fancher said. "They just didn't make it."
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