Nichole Osinski

nosinski@thespectrum.com

It was a haunting reminder of the murders that had taken place as the descendants of the Mountains Meadows Massacre victims and relatives walked the same land their ancestors had before being killed.

The descendants traveled from across the country to visit what are believed to be newly-found gravesites holding the remains of men, women and children who had been traveling through Southern Utah on the Baker-Fancher wagon party. Only a handful of people had previously been allowed on the private property where the graves had been located, but on Saturday morning that would change. As for the timing, it couldn’t have been better planned as Sunday would mark the day of the murder of about 120 people that took place on Sept. 11, 1857.

The group, some dressed in pioneer clothing, gathered together on a parcel of land owned by rancher Kay Ence. It was in August 2014, that California archaeologist Everett Bassett first made the discovery of the two alleged gravesites on Ence’s property, about 35 miles southwest of Cedar City.

Archaeologist: Mountain Meadows Massacre graves found

As Ence’s grandson, Taylor Ence, looked on, the descendants followed Bassett along a wash to the first gravesite where the remains of the men and boys are believed to be buried under a giant mound of dirt and rock. At first glance the site could be overlooked as a worn away building foundation or a pile of stones a farmer had removed from the land. However, Bassett’s research has led him to believe otherwise.

“It doesn’t look like any other feature that I or other archaeologists working in the area have seen,” Bassett said, making his way around the rocks that sit within the wash.

Bassett explained to the group one reason he believes the mound is a gravesite is that it's almost identical to the second site he found a couple hundred yards north on the same property. If Bassett is right, this second gravesite would hold the bodies of the women and children of the Baker-Fancher party.

Though Bassett pointed out both sites are piled with rocks not found in the area and the lichen growing on those rocks are around 120 years old, most evidence for the areas being graves comes from the way it looks as if the sites were constructed by members of the military.

“This is exactly what you would expect if an Army lieutenant told them what to do but then they sent two different work groups to do it,” Bassett said, noting when he first saw the stone piles he, “didn’t quite know what to make of it.”

Phil Bolinger, president of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, believes Bassett is correct about the two sites being graves and has found it a relief to know the location, especially as he is a descendant of the Fancher, Dunlap and Miller families.

Bolinger said it never made sense that the property the LDS Church owns held all the graves of the massacre victims. When Bassett found the newest sites by using old Army documents, Bolinger knew they had found what many of them had been looking for.

Voices of the Mountain Meadows descendants

“We think we’ve actually truly found it,” Bolinger said. “We never were satisfied with the previous findings because…according to historical records the Army came here in 1859 and buried the dead… the things that were done here in the last 10 years or so just didn’t match up to that report.”

Shannon Novak, a professor at Syracuse University, said while she believes Bassett has a solid argument for the sites being actual graves, it could be difficult confirming this. Novak studied the bones of the victims that had been unearthed in 1999 when a backhoe had been used to erect a monument to those very people who had been killed.

According to Novak, some people would like to use ground-penetrating radar or cadaver dogs, but these techniques could be hit or miss as the sites are more than 150 years old. Especially as the area is in a wash, Novak said much of the soil has been moved downstream and would make testing difficult.

“There’s so much still to learn,” Novak said. “That’s what it really teaches us is that history is never finished, especially this case, it keeps unfolding.”

For some of the descendants present on Saturday, the potential graves are finally bringing a kind of closure the different Mountain Meadows Massacre groups have been working toward.

Scott Fancher, general counsel for the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, came to the area for the first time more than 50 years ago when there were no markers or indicators of two more grave sites. Fancher, who has between 23 to 27 relatives that were victims of the massacre, said the next step would be designating the property or two sites as a national historic landmark. He said many of the descendants would also like to see ownership of the gravesites be placed in their hands.

“The massacre itself was one of the most sort of important footnotes of our contribution to America’s westward expansion,” said Fancher. “And this is an incredibly significant historical event, and so as a descendant, I’m proud of the progress we’ve made.”

Follow reporter Nichole Osinski on Twitter, @nrosinski, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/osinskireporter. Call her at 435-674-6231.