The Mountan Meadows Monument

In the mid 1980's, my grandmother, who had done much of
the back labor in excavating John D. Lee's Mill, wrote me to
say that a descendent of one of the victims came to the Lee
family reunion to ask for a formal apology to the families.
My grandmother was involved in the decision to erect a memorial to the victims of their times.

A memorial listing all who are known to have died there was erected on the site with her strong moral and physical support.
Brigham Young hitched a rope to the original gravestone and pulled it down. Mormons of my and previous generations do and did not put crosses on their Gravestones, and the army did
put one on John D. Lee's. He was Brigham Young's adopted son [Gene England, BYU, 1976] and according to Juanita Brookes he quoted the bible when it fell over saying ''Vengence
is mine sayeth the Lord.'' I don't know whether this was on the
Army Cross or not, but the idea that one man could be held accountable for a massacre committed by many the Lord may know, but I certainly do not, neither did Brigham Young.

The massacre was caused by many, complex and hopelessly
intertwined forces, rooted in the genocides of New York, Ohio.
Missouri, Illinois, Winter Quarters, the trail West and the starvation and disease suffered during the trail building in 1847
and the first Winter in the Valley. The drought of that year,crop
failure, and the inability to plant a proper crop due to the strenuous need to evacuate many thousands of people Southward and build housing for them. Every available hand
was involved in the move, the harrassing of Federal troops on the Westward trail in which my Great,Great grandmother's husband Clayborn Elder participated.Young boys piled hay and prepared houses in the City of Salt Lake for quick burning.

The threat of Genocide by an Army from California was real. At the time of the Civil war 1/3 of the Federal Army was stationed on the East banks of the Great Salt Lake and near Cedar City.
They were recalled after the Civil War began at Fort Sumpter.