Oral History Program George Lythle Interviewed by John Chugg 09 February 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah George Lythle Interviewed by John Chugg 09 February 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lythle, George, an oral history by John Chugg, 09 February 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with George Lythle. The interview was conducted on February 9, 1971, by John Chugg. Lythle discusses his knowledge of the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah and the history of the Mormon Church. Editor’s notes are included in italics and brackets. JC: George, I’m thrilled beyond any way of saying it that we happen to be on a historical spot in Utah. I understand this is the spot where the Mountain Meadow Massacre occurred. GL: Yes. This spot we are looking at now is the grave site of most of the men that were killed during the Mountain Meadow Massacre. This is the spot where the camp was that the emigrants stayed in during the two or three days when they were under siege by the Indians. The old road, the Spanish trail, came down this valley to the point that we are here now, and then it turned back up the road we came in just now, and then went on down to central, and then back down to this same wash and followed the wash on to California. This meadow, on the edge of the great Escalante Desert, was a popular place for emigrants to rest and refurbish their supplies before continuing west. These emigrants dug pits here at this spot and tried to hold the Indians off and local militiamen disguised as Indians. President Buchanan had dispatched an army toward Utah to quell what he believed to be a rebellion. In response, Brigham Young declared martial law, and all the Mormon militias were on alert. Young discouraged the Mormons from their usual practice of selling food to emigrant trains; each wagon train was supposed to obtain a pass, which this wagon train – known as the Fancher Party – failed to do. After a good many days, the local people came in with the flag of truce. And they told the 1 emigrants, “If you will give us your arms, we will take you into Cedar City for trial.” The real killing started here about one-half mile north. The emigrants lined up in March afoot, one man and to the side of him a local man, walking to his side. The women and children were loaded in wagons and were sent on ahead of the men. At a certain signal that was given by one of the local people, each man turned and killed the companion he was walking with. Now, we have two diaries, two signed statements by Cedar City men, saying that a rider was sent to Cedar City and told the people that a massacre had happened here, and they wanted some people to come and help bury the dead. They rang a bell in Cedar City – gathered up a posse of people, and took shovels and came over to the Meadows. When they got here, they found out that the massacre had not happened, and that they had been brought here on a false ruse. They said, “We will not participate in any massacre or taking of any lives.” And so later they said, “If you’re so much of a coward not to participate in this, when this gunshot goes off by Klinghon Smith, you lay down on the ground, and the Indians will rush over you, and you won’t be implicated in it at all.” As I stated before, the white man walking beside an emigrant turned and killed his companion. Then the Indians came in to get in on the scene and finished it off. And then the young Indian bucks sic overtook the wagons with the women and children, and massacred all the people in that company, with the exception of about 17 children. The 17 children who were spared and placed in Mormon homes were returned by the U.S. Army to relatives in Arkansas two years after the massacre. The belief that the Indians did most of the killing is contested by both mainstream and Paiute historians . This was not in the plan. The plan was to just kill the men, and to give the Indians the cattle. And some of the wagons they had here. But the women were not 2 to be touched. But the young bucks just lost complete control of themselves. The women and children were buried about one-half mile, or three quarters, north of here. The men were buried right where they were killed. And a few weeks later, the wild animals began to dig up the bodies, and so the soldiers came in and got what local help they could, and dug up the remains of the men and brought them here and put them in one big community grave. Some records describe the impoverished colonists taking the cattle, wagons, and even the clothing of the dead and distributing these goods through the LDS bishop’s storehouse. This pile of rocks surround that grave and marks the spot. The Pioneer Association of Utah came in and put a bronze plaque describing the massacre. JC: George, I understand you are a Mormon. Are you? GL: Yes. Yes, I am a Mormon. JC: What part do you take credit for all this, you being a Mormon? As part of it, or in other words, do you blame John D. Lee? Do you blame him in particular? Do you think he got a fair shake? As I understand it, from just my memory, he is the only one that paid for this with his own life. GL: I’m a Mormon, and I have met this issue from a good many standpoints. I filled a mission for the church, and I have never had any trouble in convincing people about the church’s interest in this affair. A rider was sent from here to Salt Lake City to the church authorities asking them what to do with the emigrants. This man changed horses and came back just as fast as he could go to get here in time. And Brigham Young in his instructions, this man said, “By all means, let these people pass and don’t do anything to hinder them.” The church had nothing to do with it. This ride took six days, and the 3 rider returned two days after the massacre. John D. Lee was the captain of the local militia known by Mormons as the Nauvoo Legion, which included all males between the ages of 18 and 45 . John D. Lee was in charge of the Indians appointed an Indian agent in 1856, to distribute tools, seed, and supply to the local Indians, mainly Southern Paiutes at that time, and he had a part to play there. It is questionable just how much of a part he had in it. But as a member of the church, he had nothing to do with it. At the first trial in Salt Lake City, they had a hung jury and they couldn’t convict anyone. Consequently about 20 years passed, and nothing was done about it. Then the courts or the federal authorities came in and said, “If you will find someone that can go to trial and clear this thing up, we will wipe it off the books entirely.” John D. Lee was chosen. The thing they did was hang it on the murder of one or two particular people, and in that manner the whole thing was cleaned up. John D. Lee was the scapegoat as far as this incident was concerned and took the blame. John D. Lee, by the way, was an adopted son of Brigham Young. So Brigham Young was keeping it in his own family in getting this thing wiped off the books and forgotten about. JC: Did John D. Lee play an active part in the Mormon Church, such as a bishop or an authority? GL: I don’t know just what authority he had, but John D. Lee was an active member in the church. Lee was a member of the Council of 50, a group of high church leaders. Now, I think it is in history, and I know this one for sure – my uncle, Anthony W. Ivins, came down to the site of the monument at the time that the Utah Pioneers Association put the plaque up, and he told me the story. He said, “This may be the only time this story has ever been told.” And, of course, his individual findings as he interviewed the men that 4 participated in it hasn’t been told and won’t be told by me. But he did make this statement. He said that John D. Lee was brought back to this spot that the tongue of a buckboard was propped up in the air, and a tarpaulin was placed on the tongue of the buckboard between the soldiers and Lee. Lee was placed on his coffin, and they fired through the tarpaulin. Nobody knew which one had the bullet that killed him. But John D. Lee said, on sitting on his coffin, “I have worked in the church all my life, and this is what it’s brought me to.” Excommunicated in 1870 by Brigham Young, Lee’s church membership was restored post mortem on April 20, 1961. JC: Now, George, I was reading in Church History History of the Church by B. H. Roberts, a little bit about how this emigrant party had poisoned a steer that had died – had poisoned the spring that had killed several Indians. And they got this Indian group very mad and very angry and very revengeful. Now, what part did Indians have to play, and do you think this was a true story? GL: Yes, this part which you have mentioned is absolutely true. The emigrant party that was coming through the country was made up of two groups. One was a group of women and children and families going to California to buy homes and make a home for themselves. Somewhere back before they got into Utah, they were joined by a group of men that called themselves the Missouri Wildcats. Most of the emigrants came from northwest Arkansas, a state in which LDS Apostle Parley P. Pratt had recently been murdered; the Arkansans may have been joined by some individuals from Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, and northeastern Texas. These Missouri Wildcats claimed at the time that they were part of the people who were the instigators of the Haun’s Mill Massacre, where a group of Latter-day Saint families were massacred by a group of 5 Missouri mobocrats. These men even boasted that, “This is the gun that shot Joe Smith.” They were not like the other people they had joined, but these people, their whole history coming down through the State of Utah, was one of plundering. They would move into a person’s farm and cut the fences, and turn their cattle in. If they wanted a pig or a chicken, they would go shoot it and eat it. And they were entirely troublesome all the way down through the state. They actually poisoned a spring, and a critter drank the water and died. And the Indians ate the meat from this critter that had died, and several Indians died. The chief that represented the southern division Southern Paiutes? was one of the men that died on account of eating that meat. These tales of gross misconduct were believed by the colonists, then in the grip of war hysteria, who rehashed the old troubles in the Midwest. Although the stories survived through generations locally, their accuracy has never been verified by modern historians. There isn’t any question at all but what these Missouri Wildcats deserved what they got. But I can’t see any justification at all for the women and children and those other peaceful people to have been touched. There is just no justification for it at all. JC: Now, George, as we sit here today in front of this monument, we see this big, large gully. Was this gully here at the time when the emigrant party went through? GL: No, this country here was called the Mountain Meadows because it was a low, wet meadow that extended from just under the end of the Great Basin on down the canyon on both sides. One is called the Old Meadow, which is four miles north of our present site here, and that was the home of Jacob Hamblin, that also was a meadow. This country was grazed quite heavily, and then one winter it rained all winter long until late 6 in the spring. This country became so water soaked that when the spring runoff started, the country just simply went down the wash, one branch going down on the desert, the Escalante Desert, and the other coming down this way into the Santa Clara River. This creek here, that we’re standing on now, is called the Magotsu, an Indian name, and it has its headwaters on this range. This goes in on the Santa Clara River and finally ends up in Lake Mead. At that time, this was a beautiful country, and some people have said that it was cursed and nothing would grow on it since. But it is now all in permanent pasture grass, and the grass just waves all summer long. So that was just a myth. JC: I see this monument, it’s not exactly like most monuments. Yet you can see someone has put quite an effort into making this. Can you tell me who put it here, and why, and what the future of this monument can be? GL: This monument was placed here under the direction of the Sons of the Pioneers, or specifically by the Utah Pioneers Trail Association. Dr. George A. Middleton, who is one of our noted doctors in our time, and President Palmer, president of the Parowan Stake, were the instigators of it. All there was here at that time was just a big pile of rocks. They built a rock wall around the grave, put a few rocks to keep the water from washing it away, and then put a bronze plaque to hold it. A cairn built in 1859 was surrounded by a wall erected in 1932. On July 23, 1988, 17 years after this interview, private and state representatives met at the site to discuss erecting a permanent memorial, which was dedicated September 15, 1990. The Utah State Division of Parks and Recreation is now responsible for its maintenance. Now not much has been done about this. There has been criticism all through the years that the church had something to do with it, and so the church leaders have said, “Let’s just forget it. The least we can do about it the 7 best, so we don’t have to answer it.” So they haven’t done too much with it. But now in the last two or three years, the church has purchased the ground that the monument sits on, and they are holding it. Last year, Washington County and the Forest Service built a road down to the monument and put picnic tables up here. And this place is used extensively. Several years we have tabulated the tourist travel here, and during the month of June, we have counted 100 people a month that have come to this place. JC: How large of acreage is owned here then, and is this off your ranch? George, did you inherit this ranch, or how long have you been in possession? And did they buy this particular piece of ground and roadway from you? GL: When the land was set aside for homesteading, the government selected 7 ½ acres to be held as a national monument. But the spot where the monument stands is in Section 16, which is a school section. The government couldn’t or didn’t select that 2 ½ acres, and so we purchased this ranch in 1918. Shortly after, we purchased the School Section 16. Then I inherited my part of it in about 1950. We’ve been on the ranch since 1918. We’ve had extensive cattle interests. Tony Ivins one time, introducing Dad, said, “This is the man the poet had in mind when he said, “One thousand cows on the one thousand hills.” The church bought this 2 ½ acres, so now there is a 10-acre plot reserved for future development. JC: George, do you remember any other incidents that you can think of white people being killed, or massacred, or something? I was talking to a rancher here another trip I had in this area, and he was telling about a man and his wife and the man’s single brother that were up here, and were massacred by the Indians. Do you know anything of that occasion? Could you maybe comment on it? 8 GL: No, I can’t. I don’t remember that, but I have an interesting story if you have time. I had a hired man plow a little piece of ground. It’s just right up there. It’s called the island because the washes went on all sides of it and left it rather stranded. This man plowed up an iron spur. It had been handmade. It had a monogram on it. It had a rowel sic that was at least 3 ½ inches in diameter, and it had a bell hanging down on one side that was used to lock the rowel in the early days. I wondered where that spur came from. We thought of Father Escalante, this being the Old Spanish Trail. Maybe he came this way. So my uncle, Anthony W. Ivins, who was at one time in the Council of Twelve Apostles to the presidency of the LDS Church, was still alive in Salt Lake. So I wrote out the monogram that was on the spur and sent it in to him. He wrote back and gave me this story. He said that when the settlers moved into St. George and vicinity, a country named Bull Valley, just down here maybe five or 10 miles, extends from there on down about opposite St. George. It is awful rough country. I remember in my day that the old men on the ranch said they could ride down there when they were kids and see 30 head of long-eared bulls together in Bull Valley. Well, these cattle became so numerous that the local people couldn’t turn their domestic cattle out, and the county was quite upset about it. So they called a meeting and decided that they would send a man to California and get him to get someone to come up here and get these cattle out. They were able to contact some Spaniards, and the Spaniards were hired to come up here and rid the country of these cattle. They came up in the winter while the cattle were in Bull Valley and gathered the wild cattle together and took them to California. And their first drive, they drove out about 1,500 head of cattle. Then for the next two years, the Spaniards came in here with wagons and camped there and shot the cattle and dried 9 the beef and took it to California as jerky. One of their camps was at Blue Spring. It is right up that hill where you see that little blue canyon. Undoubtedly that spur that I have was lost in this flat by one of those Spaniards. The question has often been asked, “Where did these cattle come from?” This being on the Spanish Trail and also the emigrant trail to California, the people coming down through this country met opposition from the Indians. Just above Gunlock there is a wash that runs out of mountains up into Bull Valley that’s called Manera Wash. An Indian chief lived there with his tribe. They would raid these camps, pick the cattle they wanted, and drive the rest up into Bull Valley. On up another 10 miles, there was another Indian hangout. The chief was Toban. Toban Bench, we still call it now. These Indians engaged in the same deal. Then, of course, in the massacre, the emigrants had many cattle. We purchased this ranch in 1918, and those older cattle, of course, were gone. But some of the older men we talked to then said they could remember occasionally finding a critter on the range that had one of these foreign bands on that they could link back to the past. I still have the spur and have written the story. Two years ago, I wrote 22 stories of this western country. Things that only happen once in a lifetime, like roping a wild wolf on the Grand Canyon and riding bucking horses. I went on a mission in 1926, and on this ranch alone, I knew by name 100 horses that we owned. JC: George, this is immensely interesting to me. I know you’re a lover of horses, and maybe you can tell us now, in a few minutes, what you do to pass your time away. I understand you’re at least semi-retired. GL: Yes, I’m semi-retired and sure enjoying it to the point now where we can just enjoy the things we do. I have five head of nice horses in St. George now. Two of them are 10 papered quarter mares and one papered American saddler and another a papered thoroughbred. And the other is a horse we have raised through this combination to get one just suited for what we want. I have 12 grandsons; the fathers are all city men, and these boys delight in coming to the ranch and riding the horses and enjoying the things we do. We still maintain the farm here and have a couple of hundred acres. We have room here for 100 head of calves and raise our living at the ranch, and there just isn’t a dull moment. We have something to do all the time. So I’m going to finish these stories, if I can in another year, along with the pictures, and hand them down to my grandchildren so they can remember this country. JC: I have to say this for George. I’ve never enjoyed a few hours more than I have the past few hours. He took me to his ranch house built on this place. Of course he lives in St. George. It is a very nice place, a big fireplace. Places outside, as he calls it a place for his grandchildren. Place to eat, a place for a Dutch oven and cooking. And it’s just something – well, I told him he couldn’t live this good if he were a millionaire and trying to live a life. Now, George, what about the Indians and the Indian situation here now? Do you ever see any anymore? Do any of them ever come around here, and what is your association with them at this date? GL: We have a number of good friends that are Indians. Some of my better friends are getting old now, but I have made friends with the other Indians too. The Indians right around this vicinity have rather congregated in Enterprise, where they work at the potato harvest and in planting potatoes in the harvest, too. And then some of these Indians have gone out to Kanab and Moccasin. In Moccasin, Arizona, they have a large area where the Indians have their own cattle. They have a tribal herd, and each man has his 11 individual cattle. These Indians do live better. For a long time, they didn’t seem to improve much – but I think there is some improvement in things. Some of them are mighty nice fellows. During the 1950s, the Paiute tribe was terminated by Congress, at the behest of Utah Senator Arthur Watkins, even though Bureau of Indian Affairs documents clearly recognized that the tribe was not prepared to survive without the benefits of the trust relationship negotiated earlier with the United States government. Following termination, the Paiutes lived miserably and diminished in number. On April 3, 1980, President Jimmy Carter restored federal recognition; on February 17, 1984, the Paiutes received 4,470 acres of poor Bureau of Land Management land scattered throughout southwestern Utah and a $2.5 million fund from which they could draw interest for economic development and tribal services. But I can see that this thing, that they had those emigrants, really they pestered the Indians to quite an extent, and the Indians were rather wrought up, and you can see how they could turn. I’ve had to answer the questions a lot of times, and haven’t had any opposition at all. What about the atom bombing of Hiroshima? We do that in our day, so I don’t think we need to worry too much about what happened here. Now, as far as memories, there is many incidents in that massacre that are not good. It was murder, that was all there was to it. I can’t see any justification for murder in that degree, and I’m sure the thing that happened there was just mass hysteria. I remember one story told by a Pierce man and his son who were in that raid – the man is dead now, of course, but I remember his story. He said that there were two girls that hadn’t been killed. The father told his son, “You kill them.” And he said, “I won’t kill them.” And the father, in his anger, shot at his son with his rifle, and just grazed the top of his head. The scar the bullet hit went with 12 this boy to his grave. So cases like that are murder. But there isn’t any curse to this valley. It’s one of the nicest places to live that I’ve had anything to do with. Last summer we had a group of temple workers from the St. George Temple, and one of them said, “This, to me, is the Celestial Kingdom.” Its 6,000 foot elevation, and we have plenty of water to keep things green, and it’s a beautiful place to live. For more information, see, “Mountain Meadows Massacre” by Morris A. Shipps: The Utah History Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Kent Powell, University of Utah Press, 1994; Desert Saints, by Nels Anderson; The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks; Mormonism Unveiled and Confessions of John D. Lee, by John D. Lee; Blood of the Prophets, by John Philip Walker; and Red Waters, (a historical novel) by Judith Freeman. 13