Mountain Meadows rites help bridge animosities

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, Washington County — The paths of two seemingly divergent groups violently collided more than a century and a half ago here in the mountains some 35 miles southwest of Cedar City — one a wagon train of emigrants from northwest Arkansas bound for California and the other members of a Mormon community in southwestern Utah.

That tragic intersection on Sept. 11, 1857, has long since been known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre as men used their local church, community, militia and Indian-relations roles in leading an attack against the wagon train, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 120 men, women and children and the 17 surviving children ages 6 and younger taken in for two years by local families.

Over the next few generations, appropriate memorials were slow in coming, as were acknowledgements and expressions. Frustrations festered rather than forgiveness fostered.

That is, until the past two decades, with the most recent event — Saturday's 150th "Carlton Reburial" commemoration at the Mountain Meadows site — the latest in a healing process that has taken the intersecting paths and slowly turned them toward parallel directions.

Three associations dedicated to massacre victims and survivors now work closely with the help of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in telling the story, building monuments, preserving property and seeking National Historic Landmark status for the Mountain Meadows site.

"There is a spirit of openness that continues to blossom," said Terry Fancher, president of the Mountain Meadows Association, underscoring the combined efforts toward national-landmark status. "We have to protect this hallowed ground."

In 1990, descendants of victims and perpetrators met together with church officials and started in earnest reaching out to one another in a spirit of understanding and forgiveness — and more followed.

In 1999, a massive monument and protective retaining wall was completed with the LDS Church's assistance. In 2007, church historians co-authored an extensive historical book, "Massacre at Mountain Meadows," about the same time President Henry B. Eyring, then a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve, issued "profound regret" on behalf of the LDS Church for the tragic event.

So it comes as no surprise that for Saturday's event — recalling the May 1859 effort of Brevet Major James H. Carlton and his U.S. troops locating and appropriately reburying the remains of massacre victims — there were descendants of Dunlap and Francher victim families sitting beside descendants of attack instigator John D. Lee .