Attempt to Implicate Brigham Young

Attack on President Young.—When Judge Cradlebaugh organized his court at Provo, he expressed his determination to investigate the Mountain Meadows massacre and other crimes. This action would have been commendable if it had been taken with a desire to execute justice, but it was a flagrant attempt to connect President Young and the leading Church authorities with the crime. He inferred that the guilty parties were among the leaders of the Church and should be brought to justice. Later, accompanied by a United States deputy marshal and a detachment of troops, he visited southern Utah and collected what evidence could be obtained respecting the Mountain Meadows massacre, leaving no stone unturned in the endeavor to implicate President Brigham Young and others, in which attempt he miserably failed. Nevertheless, to the grand jury he said: "The very fact of such a case as that of the Mountain Meadows shows that there was some person high in the estimation of the people, and it was done by that authority; * * * and unless you do your duty, such will be the view that will be taken of it. You can know no law but the laws of the United States and the laws you have here. No person can commit crimes and say they are authorized by higher authorities, and if they have any such notions they will have to dispel them."

Cradlebaugh's Insult to the Jury.—As the grand jury failed to act with the promptness he thought they should, the judge dismissed them "as an evidently useless appendage of a court of justice." This unjustifiable attack was resented by the grand jury in a written protest.

In a spirit of anger the judge dismissed criminals who were before his court awaiting trial on grave charges, giving for his reason the following excuse:

"When this people ['Mormons'] come to their reason, and manifest a disposition to punish their own high offenders, it will be time to enforce the laws also for their protection. If this court cannot bring you to a proper sense of your duty, it can at least turn the savages in custody loose upon you."


(Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1950], 428 - 429.)