Mountain Meadow Massacre - A Memorial
Published by DanM September 9th, 2007 in Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions, Southern Utah People, Southern Utah Places.
The nation’s eyes will be focused on the “other” 9/11 on Tuesday. But here in Color Country, the 150th anniversary of the first 9/11 will be memorialized at the site of the massacre.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, a memorial service will be held at the gravesite. The parties represented during the memorial will include:
- The Mountain Meadows Association
- Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation Inc.
- Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- The Paiute Nation
On Tuesday, 150 years will have passed since Sept. 11, 1857. On that date, 120 unarmed men, women and children were murdered in this remote meadow by Latter-day Saint militiamen on orders from local leaders of the LDS Church in the Cedar City area. The involvement of Brigham Young has long been suspected but never proven.
Since the location of the monument is not well known, a map of the region with the site pointed out has been provided. The site is served by a well paved road from either Cedar City or St. George and there is a convenient parking lot serving the site.
There is an interesting article in the New York Times 9/10/07, “In Polygamy Country, Old Divisions Are Fading”, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us/10jeffs.html?ref=todayspaper. It reports on a developing new sensibility brought on by the modern incursion of new comers to the Color Country.
Awesome article, Leo. Thanks for posting the link!
I think that there’s a lot of truth to the proposition that the FLDS practices parallel polygamy and the rest of the country practices serial polygamy.