Cedar City bishop, participant
Philip Klingensmith
1815–c.1881
1 topic · 5 dated events
Their part in each topic
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Cedar City bishop, participant
Klingensmith ran the Cedar City mill that charged the emigrants an exorbitant price, carried orders for the settlements west of Cedar City, took part in the massacre and gathered up the seventeen surviving children afterward. He later left Utah, turned state's evidence and testified against Lee at the 1875 trial, describing a meeting with Brigham Young about the disposal of the emigrants' property.
In the timeline
5 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Cedar City refuses to supply the company
The company reached Cedar City, the last settlement on the road where grain could be ground and supplies bought. The store had little to sell; Bishop Philip Klingensmith's mill charged an extreme price to grind their wheat. Angry words followed; the town marshal tried to arrest some of the men for intoxication and blasphemy and was faced down. The company left after about an hour.
The massacrehinge
William Bateman carried a white flag to the corral. Lee entered and offered terms: give up the weapons, load the wounded into wagons, and walk out under militia escort. The emigrants, out of water and low on ammunition, accepted. The youngest children and wounded went first in two wagons, then the women and children on foot, then the men, each walking beside an armed militiaman. At a prearranged signal the militiamen turned and fired. Roughly 120 people were killed. Seventeen children, all six or under, were spared.
The children at the Hamblin ranch
Klingensmith gathered seventeen small children and carried them to Jacob Hamblin's house at the north end of the valley, where Rachel Hamblin took them in; one one-year-old girl had been shot through the arm. Lee wanted to separate the wounded Dunlap girl from her sisters and Rachel persuaded him not to. The next morning Haight and Dame came to the ranch and, at the massacre site, quarrelled over who had ordered what.
A territorial grand jury indicts nine men
Nine men were indicted for the massacre. Most were eventually arrested. Only Lee was tried, convicted and executed; one indicted man turned state's evidence and others spent years as fugitives. William Dame's case was severed and postponed and never came to trial.
First trial: hung jury
Lee was tried at Beaver before Judge Jacob Boreman, with Robert N. Baskin among the prosecutors. Philip Klingensmith testified for the prosecution. The jury deadlocked: the Latter-day Saint jurors and one other voted to acquit, three non-Mormons to convict. The prosecution had used the trial to attack Brigham Young.
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People who share the most dated events with Philip Klingensmith.
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