ANN ELIZA YOUNG.
When this lady came into notice, a few months ago, the public greeted the announce-ment of her appearance as a lecturer with comparative indifference, regarding her simply as another addition to the already large stock of female lecturers who are fertile in words and barren in ideas, and, after a brief course of lecturing here and there, she disappeared from public view. Her retirement was merely temporary, for circumstances have conspired to give her more notoriety than she ever had before. The investigation of the damning tragedy at Mountain Meadows has brought to light the fact that Brig-ham Young was at least particeps crim-inis in, if not the actual instigator of, the diabolical crime, and since common report and actual testimony pointed so strongly in his direction, he deemed it prudent to give testimony in the case, and his affidavit, to-gether with that of First Counselor George A. Smith, was taken at Salt Lake City and forwarded to Beaver City, where they were offered in evidence. The Judge ruled them out, but it would seem, from a careful ex-amination, that even if they had been received in evidence they would have thrown no light on the subject, and tended very little to help Lee and his associates. The statements of the affidavits are exceedingly indefinite, unsatisfactory, and at complete variance in many essential points with the testimony given during the seventeen years since the massacre, by hundreds of witnesses, many of whom saw the bloody deed, and even helped to plunder the wagon.
The affiants also assert that neither of them knew of the massacre until some time after-ward, and then only by general rumor. Lee's confession acknowledges that he related the whole circumstance to Young, and the testimony of other witnesses goes to confirm the same story. And now comes the part Ann Eliza has in the business. She is in New York, and, since the trials have begun, has devoted her time to preparing an account of the transaction. Her narrative has not yet been published, but the salient points of it have been given to the press, and, if true, throw much light on a very dark deed. A large portion of her knowledge is from personal experience and observation, and the remainder is drawn from sources which appear to be reliable. She says that the Mountain Meadows horror was but a repetition, on a large scale, of what had often before taken place in Utah. She recounts an instance which she herself remembers. A company of emigrants came through Utah, and on their way took with them three women who had become discontented with the Mormons. The Mormon Guards pursued the train, overtook it, and by a show of force recovered the women and plundered the train. The women were afterwards put to death. She asserts that Young had a band of desper-ate men, called Danites, or Destroying Angels, whose sole business it was to rid the Church of dangerous or offending persons. As an instance of their proceedings, she narrates a circumstance that took place when she was a girl. A young man and his mother lived near to her house, and had, unfortunately, excited the enmity of these men. Pistol shots and screams were heard in the night, and the next day the dead bodies of mother and son were drawn through the city in a wagon placarded with a warning to apostates.
On another occasion, one Morris, with a few associates, determined to start a rival Church. They removed about thirty miles from Salt Lake City, and encamped; but Young dispatched his ruffians, who massacred them all. Mrs. Young asserts that religious zeal, fanned into fury by the exhortations of the leaders, was the prime cause of all these horrid deeds. The Mormon Church was habitually described as the abode of God's peculiar people, -and all outsiders were Gentiles, the enemies of the Lord and of his saints. It was not considered wrong to cheat or defraud out-siders; on the contrary, robbery, or even murder, when done to a heretic, was a service acceptable in the sight of the Al-mighty. The cause of the last and greatest horror at Mountain Meadows was the fact that General Johnson's force was about to enter Utah, and the Mormons, being deter-mined to make a resistance to their progress, were arming, drilling and arranging them-selves in military array for the war. Great excitement prevailed, and some person had started a report that the emigrants were in sympathy and alliance with the United States troops. This rumor, added to the fact of the great wealth of the train, there being not less than $400,000 worth of goods, live stock, wagons and other effects, instigated them to the attack and massacre. The division of the spoils caused much dissension among the Mormons, since each desired for himself the larger share; the common soldiers affirmed that the leaders got more than their portion, and, in the quarrels that ensued, the whole story leaked out.
Mrs. Young affirms most positively that her husband, the President, gave the order for the massacre. While she admits that direct proof is, and possibly always will be, lack-ing, she adduces, as confirmative evi-dence, the presence in his family of jewelry which had previously belonged to the emigrants, and that he, with his wives, used for a series of years a car-riage which had been seen with the emigrant train before it reached Mountain Meadows, and that was brought to Salt Lake City di-rectly after the massacre. She predicted that there would be very little chance for justice. The Judge is true to his calling, but the jury are largely Mormon, and it is well known that very few “Saints" have ever been brought to justice under the laws of the United States Courts. Should the case reach the Supreme Court of Utah, the majority of its bench are men under the control of the Mormon Church, and even with the gratuitous testimony of Lee and the blasting evidence of the numer-ous witnesses, some of whom participated in the massacre as private soldiers, there is little hope of a just retribution. Lee has made himself very obnoxious to the Mormons by offering to turn State's evidence, in order to save himself, and should he escape the halter, his life would not be worth a moment's purchase while he remains in Utah. It is possible, then, that he may be made a scape-goat for the sins of the rest and convicted; if so, it will be only because the Mormons per-sonally hate him for the revelations he has made, and desire him out of the way. The other leaders have mostly fled to the moun-tains, where they are for the present safe from pursuit.
19th Century Mormon Article Newspaper Index
