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Hawley’s Opposition to MMM

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John Pierce Hawley rode with the Fancher-Baker party through Utah for a short time.

Mel: On the way back, the Hawleys end up riding along for about a week with the Fancher-Baker wagon immigrant train, and then they go on their way.

GT: So they got on their way before they got to the Mountain Meadows,

Mel: Yes.

GT:  Good thing for them.

Mel:  Well, they still met up again. John says that he was very opposed to the plans to wipe out the train.

GT:  So he was aware of these plans?

Mel:  Early on [he was aware]. He was part of the men that were called out.

GT:  So part of the Nauvoo Legion?

Mel:  Well, it wasn’t the Legion, though they were Legion members. Notice the units were not called out. They were called out by priesthood relationship, and family relationships. Look at the number of brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins, that are among those 50 men. You don’t have a pattern, a militia organization. You have a pattern of family and relationships, and that makes sense.

Was his pistol used in this atrocious crime?

Mel:  Several Masonic Mormon scholars have suggested that John D. Lee gave Masonic signs and promises that the immigrants would be protected. Whatever. They were lured out and we have all read the stories of the massacre. The only small thing other than John Hawley’s story that I’ve come up with would have been…

GT:  Because you said the John Hawley was involved in the planning?

Mel:  No, no, not at all. Let me finish this, then we’ll go to John Hawley. Medical forensics work showed that there were a number of pistol holes in the skeletons and skulls of men, women and children. The only two revolvers that I can find in the Iron County Militia Musters: men who owned revolvers that were thought to be at the killing fields was Indian missionary Ira Hatch and John Pierce Hawley.

Mel:  Now Hawley says that he did not approve. Hawley says he was not there. But his brother, George, was there. His brother, William, was there and at least one, if not both, actively participated.  Maybe George or William borrowed John’s pistol. I don’t know. But, also, there’s another possibility for those pistol shots. Maybe revolvers were removed from the possession of the immigrants and then used against them.  But, there’s indication that John could have been there. John D. Lee said John was there.

Historian Mel Johnson tells us that Hawley was a vocal critic of the crime.   Check out our conversation….

John P. Hawley was opposed to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but was his pistol used in the crime?

Don’t miss our previous conversations!

278: Mormon Pioneers in Texas & End of Wightites

277: More on the Zodiac Temple in Texas

276: Lyman Wight & Mormon Colonies in Texas

275: Intro to Hawley

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Mormon Pioneers in Texas & End of Wightites (Part 4 of 8)

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We’re continuing our conversation with Mel Johnson and we’ll finish out the Wightites settlement in Texas.  What happened to them?

Mel  49:24  After 1853 they take about a year to get down to their final colony place, down in Bandera, Texas, in Bandera County. It is West of San Antonio about 55 miles. Bandera is a typical Texas western town and county. The Frontier Times Museum is located there. I am the staff historian for the Frontier Times Museum. They have a good Mormon exhibit there and there they were for four years. That is where the colony finally dissolved, and more than half of the Wightites stayed in Bandera and their descendants are there today.

Mel  50:21  They became cattlemen, they became storekeepers, they became farmers. They owned lots and built houses in Bandera. Some are still there. An 1865 RLDS revival mission came to Bandera, Texas after the Civil War, and all of the Banderites supported the Confederacy, so did the Mormons, they were very militant, very anti-union.

GT  50:54  Because of states’ rights because the Mormons wanted to practice polygamy and they thought that was the…

Mel  50:59  And the government, the federal government had not protected them in Missouri or Illinois.

GT  51:04  Right.

Mel  51:06  And 40 of them were baptized into the RLDS church, and they had an active chapel there in Bandera for 120 years. For any of you watching and listening, I’m going to put in a plug for 2021 John Whitmer Historical Conference is going to be held in Fredericksburg, Texas. I am trying to get the leadership to organize tours down to Bandera and up to Burnet County into the cemetery.

GT  51:42  What’s the nearest airport to Fredericksburg?

Mel  51:44  San Antonio.

So there you have it!  Are you going to check out the JWHA meetings?  Check out our conversation….

Many of the Wightites joined the Reorganization.

Don’t miss our other episodes with Mel!

Melvin Johnson on Life of John Pierce Hawley

277: More on the Zodiak Temple in Texas

276: Lyman Wight & Mormon Colonies in Texas

275: Intro to Hawley

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More on the Zodiac Temple in Texas (Part 3 of 8)

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We’re continuing our discussion of the Mormon settlement in Zodiac, Texas.  Historian Melvin Johnson describes reading the registers from RLDS Archives that document the many temple ordinances that were completed.  He also told me that there was more than one Endowment House in Utah!

GT :  Oh, 1874, so, essentially, what we’re saying here is between 1846 and 1874, at least in the LDS church, there was no temple to do this. But they would do some of these ordinances outside the temple, on a case by case basis, essentially.

Mel:   Correct, and then, of course, the Endowment House was built to be a bridge between that and when the temples came online. Orson Hyde was very jealous of that, so he had an endowment house built down in Sanpete County.

GT:   Oh, wow. I didn’t know that.

Mel:   Yeah, there were a number of them. And maybe the Endowment House was built earlier than what I think and I need to look at that…

He also discusses a recent forgery on the Zodiac Temple.

Mel:   There is a forgery called Zodiac Temple records, Rituals and Rites by John Hawley. It’s 32 pages written of these supposed rites and rituals in the Zodiac Temple. One: John Hawley was not the clerk of the temple. His brother-in-law, John Young was. And secondly, Zodiac was like Kirtland and Nauvoo and early Utah, in that all of the ritual and rites ceremony was oral. It was not written down until 1874 for the opening of the St. George temple.

Does it have ties to Mark Hofmann? Check out our conversation….

Historian Mel Johnson tells more about the Zodiac Temple in Texas and the Wightites.

Don’t miss our other conversations with Mel!

276: Lyman Wight & Mormon Colonies in Texas (Johnson)

275: Intro to Hawley (Johnson)