Chronology

Famous Trials

 
Mountain Meadows Massacre Trials
(John D. Lee Trials)

 1875-76

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  Images
Blood Atonement
Poland
Act
 
Sketch of the site of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre
(from the cover of the August 13, 1859 Harper's Weekly)
"The scene was one too horrible and sickening for language to describe. Human skeletons, disjointed bones,  ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles." (1859 report)
Nauvoo Legion
Command Chain
Young's Declaration of Martial Law
Report
on Massacre
Trial Transcript
Excerpts
The Mountain Meadows Massacre Trials
  • by Douglas Linder (c) 2006

  • John D. Lee
    Called "the darkest deed of the nineteenth century," the brutal 1857 murder of 120 men, women, and children at a place in southern Utah called Mountain Meadows remains one of the most controversial events in the history of the American West.  Although only one man, John D. Lee, ever faced prosecution (for what ranks as one of the largest mass killings of civilians in United States history), many other Mormons ordered, planned, or participated in the massacre of Arkansas emigrants as they headed through southwestern Utah on their way to California....
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