This book chronicles the life of Captain Alexander Fancher as a Tennessee infant, Illinois teenager, Missouri hog man, Arkansas cattle drover, and leader of the ill-fated Mountain Meadows wagon train. Alexander Fancher started his third overland trek in 1857 with some 140 family members, 900 cattle, over 20 wagons, four carriages, many horses, and gold to establish a ranch in California. That trip ended with $100,000 worth of property stolen, 121 men, women, and children killed, and 17 orphaned children. After an exciting life, 45-year-old Captain Alexander Fancher was robbed and killed by religious fanatics on September 11, 1857.

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The massacre at Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857, was the single most violent attack on a wagon train in the thirty-year history of the Oregon and California trails. Yet it has been all but forgotten. Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets is an award-winning, riveting account of the attack on the Baker-Fancher wagon train by Mormons in the local militia and a few Paiute Indians. Based on extensive investigation of the events surrounding the murder of over 120 men, women, and children, and drawing from a wealth of primary sources, Bagley explains how the murders occurred, reveals the involvement of territorial governor Brigham Young, and explores the subsequent suppression and distortion of events related to the massacre by the Mormon Church and others.

Court-certified expert on Soviet Communism and controversial figure in the Pacific Northwest, Albert Canwell, born in Spokane, Washington, followed his father (one-time Pinkerton detective), with his brother Carl (Spokane Public Safety Commissioner) and nephew David (CIA), into law enforcement. He married the daughter of a prominent Harvard-educated surgeon and raised six children at Montvale Farms on the Little Spokane River. Elected Washington State representative, Canwell was aptly chosen to investigate the notorious Democratic Capitol Club, and served as appointed chairman of the states un-American activities committee. After unsuccessful campaigns for Congress, Canwell established the American Intelligence Service providing material from his personal files to private parties, businesses, and government agencies (FDA, FBI, INS). His life, effective activism, and network (security experts J.B. Matthews, Louis Budenz, and Whittaker Chambers; legislators, and U.S. presidents) were a lightning rod for approbation and condemnation by friends and enemies. Repeated smear campaigns, professional agitation, and uninformed pseudohistorians, left a wake of disinformation and historical inaccuracies about his career and data contained in his files. As political historian and biographer, Kienholz shares the contents of his files and corrects a web of distortions and propaganda promoted by adherents to Soviet Communism.

How did the beautiful, peaceful mountain meadows of the Utah Territory become the killing fields of The First 9/11 in America? The leaders of the Mormon church knew and so did these men: John D. Lee, George W. Adair, Jr., William C. Stewart, Nephi Johnson, Ira Hatch, Samuel Jukes, Jacob Hamblin, William H. Dame, Elliott Wilden, David W. Tullis, Daniel Hammer Wells, and dozens more. All of these men knew! But the Arkansas and Missouri members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train did not know until it was too late!

On September 11, 1857, a band of Mormon militia, under a flag of truce, lured unarmed members of a party of emigrants from their fortified encampment and, with their Paiute allies, killed them. More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter. Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormons settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young's rhetoric and military strategy during the infamous "Utah War" and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiute Indians to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas. The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an exposé, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides the clearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history.