Deseret News | Mountain Meadows: Church asked to turn over site, take names off records

Mountain Meadows: Church asked to turn over site, take names off records

Church asked to turn over site, take names off record

By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret Morning News

Published: Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007 12:53 a.m. MDT

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CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a story on the Mountain Meadows massacre in Saturday's editions reported that historical accounts have "erroneously" portrayed Brigham Young as the one who ordered the massacre. That sentence should have run as the bylined reporter wrote it: Other historical accounts — and a new fictionalized feature film, "September Dawn" — have portrayed Young as the one who ordered the massacre.

When three separate groups gather in southern Utah next weekend to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, it won't be a simple case of the living honoring the dead.

Two groups that include descendants of Mountain Meadows victims and survivors want The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to allow either federal control or a private trusteeship of the site about 35 miles northwest of St. George. One is seeking to have the church remove from LDS baptismal rolls the names of all wagon train victims and survivors.

And a third group said they simply are seeking to perpetuate a spirit of love and forgiveness.

While the LDS Church will be there to honor the memory of those who died, church historian Elder Marlin K. Jensen said the church has no plans to relinquish control of the site, where it owns about 125 acres, despite the anticipated requests.

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He told the Deseret Morning News the church already has "indicated we're not interested in doing that, that we've owned much of the property for many years."

The church recently acquired about 70 acres near the monuments it owns there "as a buffer to protect our access" and another 16 acres about a mile north of the existing monument site adjacent to state Road 18, where it is believed many of the massacre victims are buried.

At that so-called upper grave site, the church is working in cooperation with the three descendant groups to "provide parking and a walkway to the actual site where the grave apparently existed, along with some type of memorial structure. We've sought to preserve it and to provide an appropriate memorial for those who were killed there," Elder Jensen said. "We'll keep that commitment into the future and attempt to do it in a cooperative way with the three interested organizations.

"I don't think our position on that will change."

As to what his response will be on Sept. 11, when the groups all meet and two of them are expected to ask the church for private control of the property, he said, "I think that day is to honor and remember the people who were slain there rather than debate the merits of whether the government or the church or someone else ought to own that property. But I'm sure we'll face that issue again in the future."

A request earlier this summer for federal stewardship of the site was rejected by the church, as was a similar request in 1999. But among the activities planned by the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation during its meetings in Cedar City next weekend is a further discussion about stewardship of the site and another request that the church allow it.