Massacre services reopen wounds

Some Mountain Meadows families seek apology

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, Washington County — William Henry Tackitt was a baby when his parents and several extended family members were murdered, so his descendants came to southern Utah to remember him this weekend, knowing he was lucky to come out alive.

His father, Pleasant, age 25, and mother, Armilda Miller Tackitt, 22, were among 120 California-bound emigrants killed Sept. 11, 1857, during the Mountain Meadows Massacre. William and his 4-year-old brother, Emberson, were among the approximately 18 child survivors who were spared by Mormon militiamen because they were too young to tell the tale.

On orders from Latter-day Saint leaders in the Cedar City area, the militia exterminated everyone else in the unarmed wagon train party after promising them safe passage if they would surrender their weapons.

After 150 years, William's great-granddaughter, Milene Rawlinson, finally came to see the place that remains large in family memory. A retired teacher from the San Francisco Bay area, she remembers traveling through the terrain north of St. George as a child, but her father couldn't find any monument or memorial to the victims.

Like many of his generation, he didn't talk much about the massacre. But the Internet has opened a new world of both answers and questions to Rawlinson, as she has sought to find her family history and genealogy.

In her search, Rawlinson came upon Arkansas census records from 1860, listing both William and Emberson — by then ages 5 and 8, respectively — as survivors of the massacre. The two, along with 15 other child survivors, were returned to family members in Arkansas by federal authorities in 1859. They were raised by their maternal grandparents.

Emberson Tackitt was old enough to remember some of what occurred, Rawlinson said, and actually testified against John D. Lee, the only man ever found guilty and executed for the crime. Over time, she's heard a few family stories that came through her great uncle's family.

One was his memory of when the "Indians" had him and were threatening to kill him, but he offered them his pants and his boots if they would spare his life. "He was surprised when they went down to the river and washed off the war paint, and he discovered they were white men," she said.

Through e-mail contact with one of Emberson's descendants, she has also learned that the boy "remembered seeing people wearing his mother's clothing and using family items" that had apparently been taken following the massacre.

While many of the descendants seem to have come to terms with what took place, others "are incredibly angry still," Rawlinson said, noting conversations she has had with others who are in southern Utah this weekend for a variety of memorial events. The largest events have been sponsored by the Mountain Meadows Association, whose mission has been to seek reconciliation and forgiveness.

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