134 years later, murdered prison warden gets headstone

More than 130 years later, law enforcers on Monday gave one of Utah's first prison wardens the headstone he apparently never had.

While trying to stop an escape in March 1873, Mathew B. Burgher was clubbed to death by inmates using a woolen sock in what is now the Sugar House neighborhood.

The federal appointee was never given a proper burial. Burgher was a newcomer to Utah without any known family members, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was practically at war with the government.

After years of research, Utah law enforcement historian Robert Kirby, also a Salt Lake Tribune columnist, concluded Burgher had to have been laid to rest at the Fort Douglas cemetery in Salt Lake City.

He and others pinpointed an unmarked grave where they believe Burgher was buried.

"We are 95 percent certain," said Kirby, author of "End of Watch," a history of Utah's murdered lawmen. "I'm not digging him up to run a DNA test on him."

Board members for the Utah Law Enforcement Memorial gathered Monday to set a simple military headstone for Burgher, who was 37 when he was killed. State prison officials and others stood by as taps was played.

The headstone is etched with Burgher's name, Army rank, date of death and the words "killed in action."

Kirby said the warden's three killers — murderers and horse thieves — were "really bad guys" who bludgeoned him with a "slung shot," a heavy sock filled with rocks. They managed to escape again three months later and were never returned to Utah to answer for the murder.

Burgher was sent to the state at a time when the Mormon church and federal government were clashing over polygamy and Utah's theocracy.

Given that backdrop, "nobody was really that concerned" about giving Burgher a proper burial or headstone, Kirby said.

In his research, Kirby wandered Burgher's home state of Michigan but didn't find a grave. He has been in touch with a Texas woman who is a descendant of a Burgher brother.

Kirby said one inmate who tried to nurse Burgher's injuries was John D. Lee, who was executed for the Mountain Meadows massacre, the killing of 120 people from an Arkansas wagon train crossing southern Utah in 1857.

Burgher died a day after he was attacked. The Fort Douglas cemetery near the University of Utah holds the graves of hundreds of military personnel and prisoners, from the Civil War through the Vietnam War.