The Salt Creek Canyon massacre occurred on June 4, 1858, when four Danish immigrants were ambushed and killed by unidentified Indians in Salt Creek Canyon, a winding canyon of Salt Creek east of present-day Nephi, in Juab County, Utah.
The Salt Creek Canyon massacre occurred on June 4, 1858, when four Danish immigrants were ambushed and killed by unidentified Indians in Salt Creek Canyon, a winding canyon of Salt Creek east of present-day Nephi, in Juab County, Utah.
In early June 1858, Danish immigrants Jens Jorgensen, [a] his pregnant wife Hedevig Marie Jensen Jorgensen, Jens Terklesen, [2] Christian I. Kjerluf, [b] and John Ericksen were journeying, unarmed, to settle with other Scandinavian immigrants at the Mormon colony in the Sanpete Valley. The group was traveling with an ox team hitched to a wagon and another ox hitched to a handcart.
On the afternoon of June 4, they had come within a mile and a half of Salt Creek Canyon's opening into the Sanpete Valley when members of an unidentified Indian tribe emerged from hiding places and attacked them. Two of the men were killed and burned with their wagon. Another was killed after running about 50 yards (46 m). The pregnant woman was killed near the wagon with a tomahawk, [2] which received special note from historians. [1] Ericksen, who had been walking some distance ahead of the others, escaped unharmed and made it to the nearby town of Ephraim around dark. The ox attached to the handcart, frightened by the attack, fled back to Nephi. [2] The victims' bodies were brought to Ephraim for burial. The motive for the attack remains unclear.
A Daughters of Utah Pioneers monument (number 11), erected in 1936 on Utah State Route 132 between Nephi and Fountain Green, Utah, marks the site of the massacre. [3]
Sanpete County is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 28,437. Its county seat is Manti, and its largest city is Ephraim. The county was created in 1850.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a series of attacks during the Utah War that resulted in the mass murder of at least 120 members of the Baker–Fancher wagon train. The massacre occurred in the southern Utah Territory at Mountain Meadows, and was perpetrated by settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints involved with the Utah Territorial Militia who recruited and were aided by some Southern Paiute Native Americans. The wagon train, made up mostly of immigrant families from Arkansas, was bound for California, traveling on the Old Spanish Trail that passed through the Territory.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
This Is the Place Heritage Park is a Utah State Park that is located on the east side of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, at the foot of the Wasatch Range and near the mouth of Emigration Canyon. A non-profit foundation manages the park.
The Mormon pioneers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Latter-day Saints, who migrated beginning in the mid-1840s until the late-1860s across the United States from the Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley in what is today the U.S. state of Utah. At the time of the planning of the exodus in 1846, the territory comprising present-day Utah was part of the Republic of Mexico, with which the U.S. soon went to war over a border dispute left unresolved after the annexation of Texas. The Salt Lake Valley became American territory as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war.
Chief Walkara was a Northern Ute leader of the Utah Indians known as the Timpanogo and Sanpete Band. He had a reputation as a diplomat, horseman and warrior, and a military leader of raiding parties in Wakara's War.
The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah, who used handcarts to transport their belongings. The Mormon handcart movement began in 1856 and continued until 1860.
Carl Christian Anton Christensen was a Danish-American painter who painted the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of him, it has been said that he "did more than any other person to capture the images of the history of Mormon migration to Utah and the life lived there".
Ephraim Knowlton Hanks was a prominent member of the 19th-Century Latter Day Saint movement, a Mormon pioneer and a well known leader in the early settlement of Utah.
The Black Hawk War, or Black Hawk's War, is the name of the estimated 150 battles, skirmishes, raids, and military engagements taking place from 1865 to 1872, primarily between Mormon settlers in Sanpete County, Sevier County and other parts of central and southern Utah, and members of 16 Ute, Southern Paiute, Apache and Navajo tribes, led by a local Ute war chief, Antonga Black Hawk. The conflict resulted in the abandonment of some settlements and hindered Mormon expansion in the region.
State Route 132 (SR-132) is a 63.132-mile-long (101.601 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Utah. It connects U.S. Route 6 (US-6) in Lynndyl to US-89 at Pigeon Hollow Junction, crossing Interstate 15 (I-15) in Nephi.
Old Ephraim was a large grizzly bear that roamed the mountains of Logan Canyon, Utah, in the early 20th century. He became known for killing livestock and evading capture for over a decade. Frank Clark, a local sheepherder, eventually trapped and killed Old Ephraim on August 22, 1923. The bear's death and legacy have since become part of local folklore, and he is often remembered as one of the last grizzly bears in Utah.
The National Society of the Sons of Utah Pioneers (SUP) is an organization dedicated to preserving the legacy and studying the history of the Mormon Pioneers of Utah and the West. The organization is open to "All good men of every age and circumstance who have an interest in the early Utah Pioneers. It is not necessary to have pioneer ancestry to join."
The Fountain Green massacre was an incident in 1853 near Fountain Green, Utah when a group of Utes killed four Mormons. The next day, Mormons in nearby Nephi, Utah killed eight Goshutes who had no connection to the earlier killings.
Sanpitch was a leader of the Sanpits tribe of Native Americans who lived in what is now the Sanpete Valley, before and during settlement by Mormon immigrants. The Sanpits are generally considered to be part of the Timpanogos or Utah Indians
Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail in the Western United States, was a seasonal wagon road pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of Spanish explorers and the Old Spanish Trail across southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert of California to Los Angeles in 1847. From 1855, it became a military and commercial wagon route between California and Utah, called the Los Angeles – Salt Lake Road. In later decades this route was variously called the "Old Mormon Road", the "Old Southern Road", or the "Immigrant Road" in California. In Utah, Arizona and Nevada it was known as the "California Road".
The Battle at Fort Utah was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo River, and laid siege for two days. They eventually shot between 40 and 100 Native American men and one woman with guns and a cannon during the siege, as well as during the pursuit and capture of the two groups that fled during the last night. One militiaman died and eighteen were wounded from return fire during the siege.
Handcart Pioneers is a 1926 bronze sculpture by Torleif S. Knaphus, installed in Salt Lake City’s Temple Square, in the U.S. state of Utah.
The Willie and Martin handcart companies were two companies of LDS handcart pioneers that were participating in the migration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah and used handcarts to transport their belongings. The LDS handcart movement began in 1856 and continued until 1860. The trek was disastrous for these two companies, which started their journey dangerously late in 1856 and were caught by heavy snow and severe temperatures in central Wyoming. Despite a dramatic rescue effort, more than 210 of the 980 pioneers in these two companies died along the way. John Chislett, a survivor, wrote, "Many a father pulled his cart, with his little children on it, until the day preceding his death."
Media related to Salt Creek Canyon massacre at Wikimedia Commons
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