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1999 MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MONUMENT

Erected in 1999, this monument honors those who died in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah

 


Mountain Meadows is a National Historic Landmark
 This site is also on the National Historic Register

      

1999 Grave Site Memorial
Mountain Meadows, Utah


The Original
Stone Cairn

Virtual Tour of 1999 Monument

Plaques At 1999 Monument Site
   



 

                           
                                  History Of The Grave Sites
:
 

1857: The Arkansas Emigrants buried the bodies of ten men killed during the five-day siege somewhere within the circled wagons of the encampment located west of the current (1999) monument in the valley.
 

1859: Brevet Major James H. Carleton, commanding some eighty soldiers of the First Dragoons from Fort Tejon, California, gathered scattered bones representing the partial remains of thirty-six of the emigrants, interred them near the wagon camp, and erected a stone cairn at the site. The STONE CAIRN was topped with a cedar cross and a small granite marker was set against the north side of the cairn and dated 20 May 1859. (Before Carleton’s arrival, Captains Reuben T. Campbell and Charles Brewer along with 207 men from Camp Floyd, Utah, collected and buried the remains of twenty-six emigrants in three different graves on the west side of the California Road about one and one-half miles north of the original encampment. Brewer reported that “the remains of [an additional] 18 were buried in one grave, 12 in another and 6 in another. Most of the Arkansas Emigrants died at various locations northeast of the 1859 memorial.)  


1932: The Utah Trails and Landmarks Association built a protective stone wall around the 1859 grave site in September 1932, and installed a BRONZE MARKER. This Association’s president was George Albert Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and later President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   


1999: Under the direction of President Gordon B. Hinckley and with the cooperation of the Mountain Meadows Association and others, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints replaced the 1932 wall and installed the present Grave Site Memorial.

"In the course of preparing to put that new monument there, we made every effort in the [Mountain Meadows] Association to discover where the remains were because we knew that cairn had migrated a bit over the years -- farmers had knocked it down, vandals had carried off rocks and so forth. Brigham Young ordered it knocked down once according to Dudley Leavitt, he was there with a party in the 1860s and they came up to it and he ordered it destroyed."
Gene Sessions, Mountain Meadows Association

On August 3rd, 1999,  workers excavating for the wall around the new monument accidently uncovered the 1859 Carleton grave. On September 10th, 1999, the remains recovered from that grave were re-interred in a burial vault inside the new wall, along with some soil from Arkansas, during a private ceremony.

The monument was dedicated the following day, September 11, 1999.

The victims: The names of the Arkansas Emigrants who died on September 11th, 1857, along with the names of the children who survived and were returned to their relatives in 1859, are engraved on the 1990 Monument.

Videos Available From The MMA:

September 1999 Reburial Service Video

September 1999 Dedication of Rock Cairn Grave Site Video

1990 Monument

Men and Boys Memorial

 


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