Massacre site service focuses on forgiveness

The Deseret News ^ | 9/9/2007 | Carrie Moore

[Utah Girl]

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, Washington County — The lilting melody of a lone bagpipe and a Christian sermon on forgiveness echoed across this small mountain valley Saturday, as did the names of 120 men, women and children who were massacred here.

Their memory is a solemn warning about the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric, peer pressure and myth disguised as fact, according to Western historian and author David Bigler.

Members of the Mountain Meadows Association and others whose ancestors were either killed or did the killing on Sept. 11, 1857, joined in a memorial service — and later, a dinner meeting — to honor those who were members of the Fancher-Baker wagon train headed through southern Utah 150 years ago.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre, carried out by Mormon militiamen led by local Latter-day Saint leaders in the Cedar City area, is a tragic chapter in the long history of human conflict that began when Cain slew his brother Abel, said a local pastor.

The Rev. Buddy Harrington of Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church told more than 300 people gathered for the memorial service that faith in Jesus Christ liberates all from the burden of sin and bitterness.

When one man who was angry about the lack of historical detail surrounding the massacre told him "the truth will set us free," the Rev. Harrington replied that Christ's declaration of himself as "the truth and the life" is the ultimate liberty, "even more than the facts as interpreted by the best historians."

"There are three kinds of people in this world: those who need to be forgiven, those who need to be forgiving, and the largest group, those who need both," he said.

A choir joined with the congregation in singing Christian hymns before MMA President Terry Fancher read the name and age of each of the 120 massacre victims. Many in the crowd dabbed at tears. Most were struck by the fact that so many of those murdered were children.

Flowers were placed at the large rock memorial here, constructed in 1999 by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns about 125 acres at the site and has erected two separate memorials about a mile apart. Fancher told reporters after the service that each of the monuments "has been an attempt at reconciliation" among the descendants of both victims and perpetrators. Noting the continued angst the event has generated among some, he said, "I guess we have to keep doing monuments until we get reconciliation."

He said he hoped that properly memorializing those buried at a large, unmarked common grave site north of the existing monuments along state Route 18, and finding a way to tie all of the monuments together in cooperating with all the interested parties, would help move all toward healing.

Fancher said federal control of the properties, which are owned by the LDS Church, "will never be the answer to that," though two groups of massacre victims' descendants are exploring other options for control of the site.

During the evening dinner meeting at the St. George Convention Center, Bigler told a standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 that if there "had only been a few more good men" that had resisted the murderous plot by local LDS leaders, history would have happened very differently.

Quoting John F. Kennedy, he said, "the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie ... but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." Such myths have held parties on each side of the massacre hostage for too long, he said, adding the wagon train, "unlike the tales surrounding it," did not come through southern Utah "for the sole purpose of mistreating 40,000 of their fellow Americans."

In fact, "their passage was notable for the absence of harm to person or property or contemporary notice by journal-keeping Latter-day Saints," he said. "These myths live on still today because these myths cannot be proved or disproved. There was not one (victim) left to defend against such defamation."

For much too long, such stories have stood "in the way of mutual understanding," and "it's time to remove that," he said.

Leaders in Washington, D.C., can take a lesson from what happened in frontier Utah, he said, noting "inflamed rhetoric that some Utah leaders at all levels gave vent to during this period cannot be excused by past wrongs (against Latter-day Saints) and the oncoming American army. Some just dismissed it as letting off steam, but some took it serious."

One southern Utah leader who gave the massacre order later admitted to "a craze of fanaticism stronger than we would be willing to admit today," he said. "The duty of leadership bears obligation to use language with moderation and self-discipline," especially "in the realm of religion where belief and emotion are so closely tied."

Common men also bear an obligation for courage to stand against the crowd, he said noting 23-year-old Nephi Johnson, who led the killing of women and children, including at least 18 girls age 7 to 17, later said he "didn't think it was safe for me to object" when the order was given.

Bigler lauded a man named John Holly, who stood and opposed the plan and was later warned his life was in danger. His reply: "Tell them I stand on the same ground I took yesterday."

Living in the present also "requires good men and women to stand together and possess the courage to defend the freedom we too often take for granted," he said. "There is no room for unrealistic barriers to stand between us."

[Utah Girl]

Wow, if I post an article and no one reads it, is it really posted? :)