Lead letter raises plenty of questions

LEES FERRY, Ariz. — The authenticity of a letter allegedly written by Mountain Meadows Massacre figure John D. Lee was called into question Thursday as the letter went on display for the media.

The writing, which implicated pioneer leader Brigham Young in the slaughter, was discovered on a rolled-up piece of lead inside Lee's fortress here, which is now near the launch ramp on the Colorado River maintained by Glen Canyon National Recreation area.

The lead was discovered with only about a quarter-inch of animal droppings on it, but it rested on top of 2 inches of droppings and 1 inch of sand that had accumulated on the concrete floor of the 1874 fort.

Glen Canyon's official archaeologist, Chris Goetze, was asked how it could be authentic from the time of Lee if deep accumulations of material were beneath the lead.

"I guess you'll have to draw your own conclusions," she said. "I mean, all we can give you is the information that we have."

Pressed as to whether she has an opinion about the object's authenticity, Goetze replied, "No, I really don't know one way or the other. We'll kind of have to wait till all the evidence is in."

National Park Service officials called the press conference here to show the piece of lead and discuss its discovery.

The writing, which includes numerous misspellings, is signed J. D. Lee. It claims that the massacre of 120 wagon-train immigrants in 1857 was carried out on LDS Church President Brigham Young's orders. That alone aroused suspicion soon after Glen Canyon officials announced its discovery because historians say Young did not know of the wagon train until after Mormon Iron County militiamen and local Indians had killed all except 18 small children.

Another suspicious feature is that the note is dated 1872 while the fort in which it was discovered was built in 1874.

Allen Malmquist, a retired schoolteacher who is a volunteer for the Park Service, described how he found the object.

As part of a stabilization project to preserve the buildings at Lees Ferry, a new roof is to be constructed at the fort. To ensure no hantavirus could infect construction workers, Malmquist cleaned out various buildings at the site.

He wore a hazmat suit and used disinfectant to wet down the droppings before hauling them away. He described wetting down the fort's main room Jan. 21 and then returning to find the object actually visible on the top of the huge accumulation of material. There was other trash in the room.

Park Service officials displayed a photograph taken in that room in 1999 in which the object can be discerned.

Malmquist said the lead sheet was rolled up. "I thought it was either cardboard or canvas . . . It came apart very easily, like very thick aluminum foil," he said.

Goetze said the roof of the building was redone in 1976. Glen Canyon officials are trying to find documentation about whether the building was cleaned out at that time.

"And then it's our understanding that the building was open to the public until sometime in 1982-83," she said.

In fact, on the stucco walls are graffiti, including the scratched word "poopy" and the notation "D.D.D. 1989."

Since the other side posted their viewpoint on this "discovery", I felt I should post the other side. For most, this certainly casts doubts over the letter's authenticity but, as I stated before, when there are those who continue to refer to proven forgeries as "historical documents", no amount of evidence to the contrary will suffice for them.

The bottom line is that the tin letter - whether authentic or not - has no significance. Its contents merely reflect the thoroughly discredited public statements made at the time by John Lee, an admitted mass murderer. There is nothing new in the letter, so its authenticity has no bearing one way or the other on the content of his long-known assertions. They were thoroughly rejected and not substantiated at the time, and nothing since then has added any credibility to them.

This episode makes a convenient opportunity for enemies of the LDS church to attack its foundations in yet another venue, but they have always been without evidence to support the John Lee claims. To the contrary, the entire life of Brigham Young stands in stark contrast to these unsupported allegations made by a mass-murderer trying (unsuccessfully) to save his neck.

You got that right. I just felt the need to post a contrasting article to the one previously posted that started out with condemnation and only towards the end made a back-handed attempt at fairness. So, here it is for what it is worth.

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