This is an amazing turn of history!
The connection of Mitt Romney to the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 is via
Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857), an original member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles (
Quorum of the Twelve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS).
Parley P. Pratt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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On a preaching mission in the southern United States in 1857, Pratt was being tracked by
Hector McLean, who was upset with Pratt for marrying his legal wife Eleanor McLean. Pratt had met Eleanor a few years earlier in San Francisco, California, and she later left Hector and moved to Utah where she married Pratt. Though for religious reasons she considered herself "unmarried", Eleanor was not legally divorced from Hector at the time of her Celestial marriage to Pratt.
McLean pressed criminal charges, accusing Pratt of coming between him and the woman. Pratt managed to evade him and the legal charges, but was finally arrested in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). He was tried before Judge John B. Ogden, but was only charged with stealing children's clothes. He had helped his wife Eleanor retrieve her children who had been taken from her by McLean. Judge Ogden acquitted Pratt of the charges against him and released him. However, shortly afterward, on
13 May 1857, he was killed by Hector McLean on a farm northeast of
Van Buren, Arkansas. Pratt was buried near
Alma, Arkansas.
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Both Van Buren and Alma are located in present-day Crawford County, in
northwestern Arkansas.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre, which occurred in
September 1857 in southwestern Utah, was perpetrated against the
Fancher-Baker wagon train traveling from
northwestern Arkansas to California. Practically the entire traveling party was murdered by a combined group of Mormon settlers and Paiute Indians.
Mountain Meadows massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Parley P. Pratt was the paternal grandfather of Mitt Romney's paternal grandmother,
Anna Amelia Pratt (1876-1926).
George W. Romney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anna Amelia Pratt's father
Helaman (b. 1846) was one of four children of Parley P. Pratt's plural marriage union with this FOURTH WIFE,
Mary Wood, born June 18, 1818, in Glasgow Scotland.
History of Parley Parker Pratt
Parley P. Pratt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mormons viewed Pratt's death as a martyrdom, a view first expressed in Pratt's own dying words. Brigham Young compared his death with those of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and many Mormons blamed the death on the state of Arkansas, or its people. Due to his personal popularity and his position in the Council of the Twelve, Pratt's murder in Arkansas was a significant blow to the Latter-day Saint community in the Rocky Mountains, when they began hearing about it in June 1857. The violent death may also have played a part in events leading up to the Mountain Meadows massacre five months later. This massacre resulted in the deaths of the majority of the Baker-Fancher Party travelling to Southern California along the Mormon Road (a portion of the Old Spanish Trail). After the massacre, some Mormons claimed that rumors had circulated throughout the southern Utah Territory that one or more members of the party had murdered Pratt, poisoned creek water which subsequently sickened Paiute children, and allowed their cattle to graze on private property.
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According to this web site, Eleanor was Pratt's TWELFTH WIFE:
History of Parley Parker Pratt
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Elenor J. McComb was born December 29. 1817 in Wheeling, West Virginia, the daughter of James McComb. Elenor married Hector McLean and they went to San Francisco, where she became acquainted with the Mormon elders and was later baptized. Elenor was the mother of three children, a girl and two boys. Her sons were baptized, but Mr. McLean did not accept Mormonism and did not want his children to belong to the Mormon Church, so he sent them around the Horn to New Orleans to be cared for by Elenor McLean’s parents.
Elenor became acquainted with Parley P. Pratt on one of his missions and divorced her husband, then came to Utah where she was married to Apostle Pratt Novem*ber 14, 1855, in Salt Lake City. Hearing that her children were in her father’s home, she made plans to go to New Orleans and gain possession of them. Elder Pratt was called on a mission and she accompanied him and immediately went to her father’s house where she was united with her children.
Following the assassination of her husband, Parley Pratt, by her former husband, Hector McLean, Elenor returned to Salt Lake City, where it is said she taught school, including one in the Brigham Young school*house. She died 24 October 1874 in Salt Lake City.
...
In the Territory of Utah, Brigham Young declared, concerning Elder Pratt’s death, “Nothing has happened so hard to reconcile my mind to since the death of Joseph [Smith, Jr., founder of the LDS church].”
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So there is some evidence that the perpetrators of the massacre believed that it was in retribution for the murder of Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas only a few months prior. And
Mr. Pratt had been murdered by Mr. McLean due to the latter's belief that Mr. Pratt had immorally and illegally "stolen" his wife. Mr. Pratt had met his FOURTH and TWELFTH wives during his missionary activities for the LDS church. If these facts are true, it is understandable why non-Mormons, even non-Mormon married men, might feel that Mormon plural marriage was a practical threat to the well-established conventions and moral practices of that day regarding marriage.
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This is about as pertinent as
