Jacob Hamblin - Utah War and The Mountain Meadows Massacre

Utah War and The Mountain Meadows Massacre

See also: Mountain Meadows massacre and Utah War

In August 1857, Brigham Young made Hamblin president of the Santa Clara Indian Mission. Young directed Hamblin by letter to

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continue the conciliatory policy towards the Indians which I have ever commended, and seek by works of righteousness to obtain their love and confidence. Omit promises where you are not sure you can fill them; and seek to unite the hearts of the brethren on that mission, and let all under your direction be united together in holy bonds of love and unity."

Young had become aware in July of an approaching United States army ordered to invade the Utah Territory to put down a supposed "rebellion" among the Mormons. Anticipating what would become known as the Utah War, Young urged Hamblin to "not permit the brethren to part with their guns and ammunition, but save them against the hour of need." He wrote to Hamblin that the Indians "must learn to help us or the United States will kill us both."

In late August, Hamblin traveled north to Salt Lake City with George A. Smith, who had been dispatched to the southern Mormon colonies to warn of the approaching US army and recommend against colonists' trading with non-Mormons then traveling through their territory. At Corn Creek near Fillmore, Utah, Smith, Hamblin, and Thales Haskell encountered the Baker-Fancher party, a wagon train of Arkansans en route to California. Hamblin suggested to them that they stop further south in the grassy Mountain Meadows, where he maintained a homestead at a traditional stopping point on the Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico to California.

Hamblin and his party continued on to Salt Lake City, where he stayed for roughly a week to "conduct Indian business and take a plural wife." This "Indian business" included bringing a delegation of Southern Paiute to meet with LDS church leaders. In Salt Lake City, Hamblin reported later that he was told that the Fanchers had "behaved badly" and had "robbed hen-roosts, and been guilty of other irregularities, and had used abusive language to those who had remonstrated with them. It was also reported that they threatened, when the army came into the north end of the Territory, to get a good outfit from the weaker settlements in the south."

On his way home, Hamblin was met by his adopted Indian son, Albert, who recounted the horror of the slaughter of the Baker-Fancher Party in the infamous Mountain Meadows massacre. In fact, on his trail south, he also met John D. Lee who was on his way to Salt Lake City. In both his autobiography and his testimony at the second trial of Lee for the massacre, Hamblin claimed that to his great distress, Lee admitted to him his role in the killings along with other whites although he placed the blame for the attack on the Paiutes. Many accept Hamblin's account of his meeting with Lee as he was well known for honesty. (Professor A. H. Thompson of the US Geological survey once said, “I would trust my money, my life and my honor in the keeping of Jacob Hamblin, knowing all would be safe”), "However, others believe that Hamblin either did not give a full accounting of events or his testimony amounted to perjury and was given to implicate Lee while shielding other Mormons. Indeed, in his book Mormonism Unveiled, an embittered John D. Lee refers to Hamblin as "Dirty Fingered Jake," and spins tales of Hamblin's attempts to waylay non-Mormon travelers in Utah, kill them, and take their property. He relates, "Hamblin was in Salt Lake City when the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place, and he pretends to have great sympathy with and sorrow for their fate. I can only judge what he would have done towards the massacre had he been home by what he did to help the next train that passed that way."

As Hamblin continued south towards Santa Clara, he was told that a band of Paiutes was planning to attack a second wagon train, the Duke party. Perhaps believing Lee's account that the Indians were primarily responsible for the Mountain Meadows massacre, he quickly returned south to prevent another slaughter. He recounts that he did not himself overtake that wagon train, but as he had been traveling very quickly without sleep he sent Samuel Knight and Dudley Leavitt before him. These overtook the train and were able to negotiate with the Paiutes wherein the Indians took the trains' loose cattle (nearly 500 head) and left the train in peace. Knight and Leavitt continued with the company and saw it safely through to California. Hamblin was later able to return that stock to the Duke party after conferring with those Indians involved.

Upon reaching the massacre site, the diary of Sarah Priscilla Leavitt, Hamblin's third wife, recounts the horrors of her lying in the covered wagon as they got to the scene. Although Hamblin warned her to not look out, she peeked for a few seconds, with which she always held regret. Hamblin & a few other local men buried all the bodies. The remaining children that survived (some accounts say 17, some say 20) were mostly cared for by Jacob & Sarah. Some children were recovered by extended family, while others were adopted by Hamblin, or families in the area. Not long after the massacre, Hamblin's young son, Albert, who was the one to first tell Jacob what had happened at Mountain Meadows, was found lying face down dead in a cactus. In Sarah's diary, it is written that both her & Jacob felt his knowledge of what really happened on that fateful September 11 day, is what got him murdered before he could testify at the trial.

Hamblin spent the rest of 1857 and early 1858 shepherding non-Mormons through Utah on the trail to California and Mormons returning to Utah from outlying settlements in order to participate in its defense should the army attack.

After the conclusion of the Utah War, Hamblin claims to have been willing to testify to his knowledge of the Massacre at the behest of Apostle Smith. However, due to the amnesty proclaimed by the President of the United States to the Mormons, the new governor, Alfred Cumming, did not wish to discuss the matter. He did, however, testify at John D. Lee's second trial for the massacre in 1876.