From the
Special Report On The Mountain Meadow
Massacre, by Brevet
Major J. H. Carleton,
May 25,
1859
"On the
20th instant, I took a wagon and a party of men and made a thorough search
for others amongst the sage bushes for at least a mile back from the road
that leads to Hamblin's house. Hamblin, himself, shewed Sergeant Fritz, of
my party, a spot on the right hand side of the road where he had partially
covered up a great many of the bones. These were collected, and a large
number of others on the left hand side of the road, up the slope of the
hill, and in the ravines and among the bushes. I gathered many of the
disjointed bones of thirty-four persons. The number could easily be told
by the number of pairs of shoulderblades, and by lower jaws, skulls, and
parts of skulls, etc., etc.
These, with the remains of
two others, gotten in a ravine to the east spring, where they had been
interred at but little depth, 34 in all, I buried in a grave on the northern
side of the ditch. Around and above this grave, I caused to be built of
loose granite stones, hauled from the neighboring hills, a rude monument,
conical in form and fifty feet in circumference at the base and twelve feet
in height.
This is surmounted by a cross, hewn from
red cedar wood, from the ground to the top of the cross is twenty-four feet.
On the transverse part of the cross, facing towards the north, is an
inscription carved deeply in the wood:
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
And on a rude slab of granite, set in
the earth and leaning against the northern base of the monument, there are
cut the following words:
In 1932 the Utah
Trails and Landmarks Association built a protective stone wall
around the 1859 stone cairn 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.
In 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 1999 Grave Site
Memorial. On August 3,
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, during a private ceremony. The
monument was dedicated the following day,
September 11, 1999.
Also see:
1932 Marker
1990 Monument
1999 Monument
2011 Men
and Boys Memorial
