Mormons lived in the wild, wild west. Author Steve LeSueur has a tale of murder, involving his great uncle Frank LeSueur. How was Frank killed? Check out our conversation…..
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Gospel Tangents
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Mormons in the Wild West
Mormons lived in the wild, wild west. Author Steve LeSueur has a tale of murder, involving his great uncle Frank LeSueur. How was Frank killed? Check out our conversation…..
Interview
GT 00:52 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have a returning visitor back on the show. Tell us who you are.
Steve 00:59 I’m Steve LeSueur and I am the author of a new book, Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier: The murders of Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons by the Wild Bunch.[1]
GT 01:09 All right.
Steve 01:11 Published by Greg Kofford Books.
GT 01:13 Exactly. So Frank LeSueur, Steve LeSueur, there’s got to be a relationship somehow.
Steve 01:19 Yes. Frank LeSueur is my great uncle, my father’s uncle, my grandfather, Karl LeSueur’s older brother.
GT 01:29 Okay.
Steve 01:29 In our family, the LeSueur family, we’ve always known that my father’s uncle Frank LeSueur, had been killed by outlaws. That was no surprise to us. But we knew few details. And my grandfather, Karl, Frank’s younger brother, was only five when Frank was killed. And so, he didn’t know too much, himself, and didn’t tell us much at all. So, to a large degree, as far as we all knew, the killers got away. And there was, as far as we knew, little attempt to capture them. And it was just some minor episode in western history. And so that’s been the story, since 1900. However, in recent years, historians of outlaws, historians and biographers who are interested in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and other outlaws…
GT 02:35 Who has Mormon ties as well.
Steve 02:36 Yeah, Butch has Mormon ties, we can get to that. Anyway, these historians started pointing fingers at Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang as the likely culprits. And so, when I read that, that got me interested in the story. But, also, [as I was reading about it] from my perspective, reading the journals and diaries and reminiscences that the various Latter-day Saints in the community there, that brought me in. It was the notoriety, of course, of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch that drew me in. But what I found was, there was a story here to tell. Part of the story is that when historians write about outlaws, whether it’s Butch Cassidy or Billy the Kid, or Jesse James or other outlaws, they’re interested in the outlaws, their daring heists, and their exciting getaways and that kind of thing. And the victims, the people who get killed, they’re kind of bit players or extras in a movie that really aren’t important.
GT 03:47 Crewman number six, right? [Reference to Star Trek extras who often die in an episode.]
Steve 03:49 Yes, exactly. {both laughing} And so, in looking at this from the victim’s point of view, I found I had a pretty good story to tell of the ramifications of this [double murder]. And there were lots of insights, then, into the outlaws themselves, as well as this community.
GT 04:08 Wow. So not too many people have an ancestor killed by a famous outlaw!
Steve 04:13 Yes. Part of what was interesting to me, and really drew me in, was that this event took place in the year 1900.
GT 04:28 Okay.
Steve 04:29 And so, even though 1900 sounds somewhat modern, not like the Wild West, but it was [the Wild West.] The town of St. John’s, Arizona, [was located] on the eastern part of Arizona. It was a dusty cattle and sheep town, and there was no electricity. There was no running water in this town. And, of course, it was an era [where] cars and airplanes were unimagined.
Just set the stage. On March 27, year 1900, there were 14 to 16 posse members who were chasing five outlaws who were suspected of cattle rustling. And through a variety of circumstances, unfortunate circumstances, at the end of the day, there were only two men chasing the outlaws. The [unfortunate] circumstances were missed trails and bad judgment by some of the posse members, as well as just bad luck. At the end of the day, only Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons were on the trail of the outlaws.
GT 05:45 Oh, wow. Very cool. So, I’m trying to remember. I think St. John’s, that was the home of one of the Oklahoma City bombers, too. So that’s just a bad place, right?
Steve 05:55 Yeah. Well, the Mormons settled there in 1880.
GT 06:01 Is this like John Taylor, St. John?
Steve 06:04 No, it was not. As you probably know, or your listeners know, the Mormons arrived in Utah in 1847.
GT 06:15 Arizona was part of Utah back then.
Steve 06:19 Well, actually, it wasn’t but…
GT 06:24 Oh.
Steve 06:25 Brigham Young wanted it to be.
GT 06:26 Right.
Steve 06:26 He had his state of Deseret.
GT 06:28 Yeah, it was part of Deseret. That’s what I meant
Steve 06:29 Yes, State of Deseret, that included parts of California and Nevada.
GT 06:34 Nevada.
Steve 06:35 And all of what was Arizona at that time, as well as parts of New Mexico. So, Mormon leaders had designs on moving all the way down south. It took them a while. But in any case, starting in the mid-1870s, they started populating the Little Colorado River Corridor. The Little Colorado River feeds into the Colorado. And then in 1880, they called Mormon families to settle in St. John’s, which was already an established town. It had been called San Juan, established by Mexican Americans, and there were about 400 living there.
GT 07:15 It was also St. Johns.
Steve 07:16 Yeah, it was also San Juan. And then it got anglicized to St. Johns, and more than 100 Mormon families were called to come down there and settle by the hundreds along the Little Colorado River Corridor. And so that was the genesis of them coming down there. And among the things that I found fascinating was–there were several things. One is that this was a desolate area. Perhaps you remember, J. Golden Kimball talking about St. George, living in St. George, how harsh the environment was. He said, “If I had a house in hell, and a house in St. George, I would rent out the house in St. George, and then I’d live in hell.” {Rick chuckling} And the thing is, St. George was a paradise compared to some of these places along the Little Colorado River that people settled.
Steve 08:15 For example, when Brigham Young sent some explorers down, first to look into this area, they came back and called it things like, “It was an inhospitable waste.” And another man said, “It was the most desert-looking place he’d ever seen.” And part of the problem wasn’t just the desert, but the Little Colorado River itself. It was filled with sand and silt. And so, the water was not fit for human consumption. And again, one resident said, “It was like a stream of moving mud.” And another fellow talking about one of the tributaries. He said [that] it was so red with silt, that it looked like red paint that was mixed and ready to use.
And so it was just a harsh, difficult environment. Though, with that said, when reports came back to Salt Lake City that this was not necessarily a good place, to Mormon leaders, that was fine. This is what George Q. Cannon, who was one of Brigham Young’s counselors, said regarding this, “Good countries are not for us”. He said, “The worst places in the land we can probably get and we must develop them. If we were to find good country, how long would it be before the wicked would want it and seek to strip us of our possessions?” {Rick laughing}
So, among the things I found fascinating was that most of us are familiar with Utah history and the Latter-day Saints settling Utah and lots of the history surrounding that. Less well known is the history of Mormon settlement in Arizona. We know they went down there, but less is known. Well, this was just a very interesting tale of how these people arrived there, and what they were doing tangling with outlaws in the first place. And to that idea of outlaws, another interesting aspect of this was that St. John’s in Apache County where the Latter-day Saints were living, this was the wild west that we see in movies and television and fiction. I mean, we’re talking cattle rustling, horse stealing, thievery and lynchings and the like.
GT 10:49 Counterfeiting?
Steve 10:51 Yes and counterfeiting.
GT 10:53 Because Mary Ann Clements,[2] she’s my counterfeiting expert, especially in Nauvoo, but I’m sure she doesn’t know anything about Arizona. Maybe she’ll start looking into this.
Steve 11:02 Yeah, the counterfeiting I know of is what some people did and were thrown in jail. This wasn’t Mormons, but county warrants. When Apache County and any counties didn’t have enough money to pay their bills or pay for services, they would write out warrants, essentially promises to pay. Like say, here’s a promise to pay $10 for a service. Well, when forging warrants, what you would do is, if it said $10, well you’d just put a another zero on the end. And then you’d put it in the bank and say, “Here’s a county warrant for $100.” So, that did go on.
GT 11:44 Okay. That is just check fraud.
Steve 11:44 Yeah, {both laughing} But anyway, numerous gangs operated in this region. And again, I’ll rely on a couple of quotes here. But one of the things is this man, Charlie Kinnear, was an associate of the Clanton Gang and the Clanton brothers. And if you remember, the Clanton family, they were two of the families that fought the Earp brothers at the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. And that was in Tombstone, south of Apache County in 1881.
GT 12:02 Tombstone, Arizona.
Steve 12:03 Tombstone, Arizona. And so, after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, two of the surviving Clanton members, Ike Clanton and Finn Clanton moved north into Apache County, into Springerville. And they were reputed, among other things, to rustle Mormon cattle and then run them down to Mexico for sale. But in any case, this man, Charlie Kinnear, was an associate of theirs. And here’s what he said about living in Apache County. “Of all the places I’ve ever been in and all my association with bad men, I had never seen as bad a collection as was in Apache County.” And just one more quote for you is James LeSueur, who was Frank LeSueur’s older brother. He said in his reminiscence about what it was like growing up in St. John’s: “Cowboys would ride through the town shooting and yelling. They set up gambling dens and body houses in St. John’s and Holbrook. Drunkenness, together with its attendant crime flourished in the very doors of the Saints.” So, again, what I found interesting was, the Saints were settling right there in the wild west, and it created a lot of dilemmas for them. How do we preserve our Christian standards and justice, and law, but in a place where guns and violence seem to be necessary sometimes?
GT 12:06 Wow. So they’re having high noon shoot outs and everything, it sound like, that sort of thing?
Steve 13:49 Yeah, they weren’t, of course, common. Those types of shootouts were not common affairs, but the rustling was always a problem there, though there was one shootout in St. John’s itself, in 1882. The genesis of this was there was a Mormon family [who] came from Texas, the Greer family, and they were cattlemen. And they were brothers running a cattle ranch, and it was the days of open grazing. Well, the Mexican American community that already lived there, a lot of them were sheep herders. And so, the Greer family of cattle men and the Mexican Americans often got in conflict. The Greer brothers would run off the sheep and break up the camps of the Mexican Americans and then the Mexican American sheep herders might go scatter their cattle and that type of thing. In any case, there was animosity there and in 1882 when the Mexican American community was holding their annual San Juan Day celebration in St. John’s, they had a parade and they had bands and even magicians and a bullfight.
Steve 15:18 Well, the Greer brothers were warned by Mormon leaders not to come because there was probably going to be trouble, but they came anyway. And sure enough, they were first ordered to hand in their guns, being in the celebration itself, and they refused. Anyway, soon shots were ringing out and it was one of those occasions where there were shots across the street, people were scattering everywhere. And as it ended up, two men were killed. One of the Greer cowboys and several people were injured, as well. That was an example of this kind of shootout and the dilemma for Mormons was also exemplified by the Greer men. Some Mormons disliked them [the Greer brothers.] They thought they were a source of trouble when we’re trying to get along with the community. But many other Mormons liked them because these are men with Texas swagger. And they felt like the Greer men protected them. There was one diary account. I read a reminiscence of somebody saying at church– there was a discussion among the people and one of the men said; “Ah, those Greer boys, if they would just go on missions, all our troubles would be over. If they went on missions like everybody else, all our troubles would be over.” And then another man by the name of Charlie Riggs said, “Missions? Go on missions? Who would be here to protect us?” So, that was an example of the dilemma [facing Mormon colonizers]. Anyway, you got me off on that tangent because you asked about shootouts.
GT 17:02 Exactly. Exactly. Well, this is kind of fun. We don’t think, I mean, Mormons were involved in the wild west, absolutely. And so, it’s kind of fun to hear Billy or…
Steve 17:13 Butch Cassidy.
GT 17:14 Butch Cassidy. I was thinking Billy the Kid, but I meant Butch Cassidy and the Sundance gang. And you did say there was a relationship with Gus Gibbons in the Wild Bunch with Butch Cassidy. Is that right?
Steve 17:25 Well, actually, not exactly. Though, you bring it up, Gus Gibbon’s father was Bill Gibbons, and one of his cousins, Charlie Gibbons, who lived in Utah, was not an associate of the gang, but apparently, he knew Butch Cassidy. That was the only association.
GT 17:57 Pretty distant.
Steve 17:58 Yeah. Pretty distant. So, talking about outlaws and the book and what’s new, or what was fascinating to me in the case is that people of my era, we grew up with the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and other TV shows and movies too, that often portray outlaws as misunderstood individuals. They’re Robin Hood characters. They look out for the people in their neighborhood. And they’ve just had some bad breaks and that kind of thing. And that they’re not robbing the little guys. The Sundance Kid, in an interview with somebody, this is in my book, he said, “Well, we only robbed the railroads and the banks who can afford our requisitions.” {Rick chuckling}
So, in any case, that’s sort of the myth of them. But at least the events that I found, in this book, these murders and some others that they perpetrated, I mean, these were not people who were looking out for the little guy. They were looking out for themselves. {Rick laughing} And although they were skilled gunmen, they were never looking for a fair fight. Ambush was their preferred method of attack. And they weren’t opposed to shooting somebody in the back, even an unarmed man in the back. That was not against their morals.
GT 19:31 Okay, {chuckling}
{End of Part 1}
[1] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/46KP9Qt
[2] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/mary-ann-clements/
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Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission
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