Captain Alexander Fancher was the son of Issac Fancher and Anne
Tully, born abt. 1813 in Overton County, Tennessee. The Fanchers
descended from English Puritan stock, who had immigrated to the New
Haven (Connecticut) Colony in 1643, while the Tullys were of Irish
descent. Alexander Fancher's father, Isaac Fancher, fought in the War
of 1812 in Capt. William H. McClellan's Kentucky Company of the U.S.
7th Infantry Regiment, and the ball that wounded his hand during the
battle of New Orleans was never removed. Alexander's father was the first
settler of the Muddy Point Settlement, that today is called Pleasant
Grove, and located in southwestern Coles County, Illinois. One of 7
known children, Alexander Fancher spent his formative years in the
wilderness of
Illinois. On 12 May 1836 he married Elizabeth (Eliza) Ingram,
the daughter of William and Mary Ingram, in
Coles County. For a few years after their marriage, they resided in Clay County, Illinois. After the death
of his father, Isaac, Alexander Fancher and his family went to Miller
County, Missouri for a few
years before settling in Piney Township in Carroll County, Arkansas to
be in closer proximity to his paternal uncle Colonel James Fancher. In
Arkansas he became known as "Piney Alex" because of the location of
his land along Piney Creek in Piney Township, in the present town of
Metalton. Alexander Fancher
served in the Carroll County Militia during the 1849 Tutt-Everett War,
an event that grew out of a feud between two powerful families in
Marion County.
Alexander Fancher had made one documented trip to San Diego County,
California with his family, and his brother John Fancher and his
family, in the spring of 1850 and is believed to have made another trip to California
around 1853. Planning to return to his homestead farm
in Piney Township once again, Captain Alexander Fancher and his family
began, what was probably their third trip to California, sometime after
10 April 1857, when he was in Fayetteville to sell the final parcel of
his Benton County property. He sold all of his Benton County property
before his departure, but did not sell his Carroll County 40 acre homestead. He was the leader of "The Fancher Train" that departed from Benton
County, Arkansas independently and met up with the other elements of
the Arkansas Emigrant Trains near Salt Lake, in the Utah Territory. He is said to
have had 4 large wagons, a carriage or two for the ladies, oxen,
mules, horses, and was driving approximately 200 head of
cattle, which were raised on the 200 acres of land he had purchased in
Benton County, Arkansas in 1854 for that purpose. In business with his
brother John Fancher (who had moved to California in 1850 and
established a cattle ranch in Tulare County), and financed by his wealthy uncle James Fancher in
Arkansas, who also was a cattleman, Alexander's role was delivering the cattle to his brother
John to be sold for profit in the lucrative California market.
Alexander Fancher is
believed to have died in one of the earlier attacks, and he may be one
of the ten men killed during the five-day siege that the Arkansas
Emigrants buried somewhere within the circled wagons of the encampment
(located west of the 1999 Monument in the valley.) Alexander's wife
Elizabeth (Ingram) Fancher, and seven of their nine children (Hampton,
William,
Mary,
Thomas,
Martha,
Margaret A, and
Sarah G.) died in the
Mountain Meadows Massacre on 11 September 1857. Alexander's two
youngest children, Christopher "Kit" Carson Fancher, born
abt. 1853 and Tryphenia D.
Fancher, born 10 November 1855, survived the Massacre and were returned to Arkansas in 1859
to be raised by Alexander's Uncle James Fancher's son Hampton Bynum
and his wife Eliza Olin (McKennon) Fancher.
Captain
Alexander Fancher's first cousin, Robert
Fancher, also died in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Robert
Fancher was not traveling with "The Fancher Train", he had departed
from Carroll County, Arkansas with
"The Baker Train", under the
leadership of Captain John Twitty Baker.
© 2008 A.C. Wallner for the Mountain Meadows Association. All rights
reserved
Inscription:
IN MEMORIAM
IN THE VALLEY BELOW BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 7 AND 11, 1857, A COMPANY OF
MORE THAN 120 ARKANSAS EMIGRANTS LED BY CAPT. JOHN T. BAKER AND CAPT.
ALEXANDER FANCHER WAS ATTACKED WHILE EN ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA. THIS
EVENT IS KNOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
ALEXANDER FANCHER, 45
Please note that the names of the victims of the 1857 Mountain Meadows
Massacre that appear here are those who we have personally researched
and verified as actual victims. In some cases this list will differ
from the names that were inscribed on the 1990 Monument on Dan Sill
Hill.
 Leave
virtual flowers - MMA FIND A GRAVE
MEMORIAL
FOR
CAPTAIN ALEXANDER FANCHER
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