James Williamson

James Williamson, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

James Williamson

1811-1869

Biographical Sketch

James Williamson was a Scottish Lowlander who immigrated to America and pioneered in southern Utah.

Early Years in Scotland

Williamson was born in 1811 in Barony, Lanackshire in the Scottish Lowlands to James Williamson and Margaret Cummings. He was the fourth of five children. In 1838, he married Mary Rea/Ray (1813-1889) who was from neighboring Stirlingshire. Eventually, they had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In 1843, he received baptism to become a member of the Mormon Church in Scotland.

Immigration to America and onto Utah

In 1851, following the common practice of European Latter-day Saints of that era, Williamson and his wife and family immigrated to America. There they crossed the plains to Utah Territory as part of the Scotch Independent Company.

To the Ironworks at Cedar City

The company continued on to southern Utah and was among the original settlers of Cedar City in 1851. Williamson was a private in original company F (foot) of 2nd Battalion, Iron Regiment. He was listed among the original iron workers in 1851-52. However, in 1852, Williamson and another Scot, Alexander Keir, opposed Henry Lunt’s efforts to press company F into building fences.

Mining and Processing Coal for the Iron Works

The early ironworks in Cedar City.

Williamson was involved from the beginning in the Iron Mission. He was among those who searched for iron ore near Iron Springs. He received credit for work on the ironworks and held shares in the Deseret Iron Company. However, in late 1853, he was among six who asked permission to withdraw as shareholders, evidently for lack of funds to fund their investment.

In 1854, he was one of the miners who mined coal and quarried rock for the new so-called "Nobel" furnace. The account book of the Deseret Iron Company consistently refers to Williamson's role in connection with coal: exploring for coal, starting a new coal mine, digging coal, and converting coal to coke. In the coal crews, his name is frequently listed first. While the common laborer typically received $2 per day, Williamson's daily pay rate was frequently higher than the base rate. In other words, when it came to coal for the ironworks, the Cedar City ironworkers recognized Williamson for his skill and expertise.

Here is a brief outline of how the Ironworks developed in Cedar City. After iron ore and coal deposits were discovered in the region, Cedar City was founded. In the first years of 1851-52, they investigated whether the region had the necessary raw materials – iron ore, limestone, wood, coal, and waterpower – to support smelting on a large scale. After confirming the presence of the necessary materials and relying heavily on the British Isles immigrants who had worked in iron-related industries in Great Britain, they set to building an iron manufacturing plant. They sited the ironworks at the mouth of Coal Creek near the present location of Cedar City. They mined the coal up canyon and transported it by team and wagon to the furnace located on the stream bank below the mouth of the canyon. The iron ore was transported from nearby Iron Springs by wagon. In 1852, after a small test furnace produced a low quality pig iron, they set about building a full-scale blast furnace.

Progress was impeded, however, in 1853-54 during the Walker War. They shifted their energies from iron making to “forting up” to increase their safety. After a peace treaty was reached with the Ute chief Wakara in 1854, they returned to improving the ironworks. By 1855, they had achieved their greatest success with a sustained run of the furnace producing several tons of pig iron. But most of the runs both before and after failed to achieve a sustained run producing good quality iron. One problem was the fickle nature of Coal Creek, which continued to alternate between flooding and droughts. They determined to develop a more dependable source of power.

In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to provide the answer. After its arrival, they built a new room to house the engine, connected its boiler to a steady water supply and modified the furnace to accommodate the engine.

In early June they started an iron run using the steam engine. However, the new machinery created its own set of problems. Through the end of July, they experimented with different configurations of furnace, engine and piping, attempting to optimize the blast furnace.

From late April through July, those working up the canyon in mining or hauling wood, coal, limestone, rock, sand or “adobies” to the ironworks were Isaac C. Haight, James Williamson, George Hunter, Joseph H. Smith, Ira Allen, Ellott Wilden, Swen Jacobs, Alex Loveridge, Joel White, Ezra Curtis, Samuel McMurdie, Samuel Pollock, John Jacobs, John M. Higbee, John M. Macfarlane, Samuel Jewkes, Nephi Johnson, Thomas Cartwright, William Bateman, Elias Morris, Benjamin Arthur, Joseph H. Smith, Robert Wiley, and Philip Klingensmith. Those working at the ironworks on the furnace, engine, coke ovens or blacksmith shop included Elias Morris, John Humphries, Ira Allen, John Urie, Benjamin Arthur, James Williamson, Joseph H. Smith, Samuel Jewkes, Joseph Clews, Richard Harrison, William C. Stewart, William Bateman, John M Macfarlane, John M. Higbee, John Jacobs, George Hunter, Samuel Pollock, William S. Riggs, Alex Loveridge, Ellott Wilden, Ezra Curtis, Eliezar Edwards, Swen Jacobs, Joel White, and Thomas Cartwright. (The two lists overlap because some worked both in the canyon and at the Ironworks.) Other prominent figures at the ironworks who were not later involved at Mountain Meadows were Samuel Leigh, George Horton, James H. Haslem, Laban Morrell, John Chatterley, Thomas Gower, Thomas Crowther and others.

By the time reports reached them in early August of a threatened “invasion” of U.S. troops into Utah, they had decided on further changes to the ironworks. They determined that a reservoir was necessary so as to provide a steady supply of filtered water to the steam engine. Immediately, they set to work, digging, lining and filling the reservoir. From late August to early September, shortly before the crisis involving the passing Arkansas emigrant company, they began a new furnace run. But it, too, ended in failure, probably around the time that a dispute arose between some community members and several of those in the passing Arkansas wagon train.

During this period in 1857, few ironworkers performed more work than Williamson and he proved to have both strength and versatility. In the late winter, he traveled up the canyon in search of better routes to the coal mines. After the new steam engine arrived in April, he worked on the site of the new engine house. In May, he improved the road up the canyon to the coal mines. As the mechanics "fitted up" the steam engine and the masons built its foundation, Williamson acted as a mason's helper and later helped them build the new engine house. In June, Williamson moved back to the canyon to mine coal which would be converted to coke. Later that month when they worked on the flywheel and counterwheel for the engine, he again worked as a mason's helper in the engine room. He helped dig a line to the cistern. When they worked on adjusting the height and configuration of the furnace stack, Williamson hauled lumber and shingles. In July, when the masons build up the hearth in the furnace, he helped the masons. Next, when they worked more on the blast pipes, furnace and raceway, he hauled necessary materials. Late that month and extending into August, he returned to the canyon to dig coal to support the iron run. When it proved necessary to build a reservoir for water for the steam engine, Williamson helped build it. Then he returned to the canyon to dig more coal for coke for the furnace.

The majority of the southern Utah militiamen at Mountain Meadows were from Cedar City. Of these, nearly all of them had worked at the Ironworks or supplied raw materials to it. Indeed, in the weeks before the Mountain Meadows Massacre, they had worked intensely together, hauling materials, building a new water reservoir, and making the latest run of the blast furnace. One perennial mystery of the massacre has been why the militiamen mustered to Mountain Meadows in “broken” militia units; that is, from different platoons and companies, none of which had a full compliment of its members. Perhaps the reason lies with the Ironworks. Those in the Ironworks knew each other and had worked alongside one another. Not only did James Williamson knew those who mustered from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows, he had worked with them at the Ironworks as recently as the week before. Perhaps the answer is that the men of the Ironworks were on hand and available and Isaac Haight, who himself had worked closely with them, assigned them to muster to Mountain Meadows.

In the Iron Military District: Private James Williamson, Company D, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion

In September 1857, Williamson, 44, was a private in one of the Cedar City platoons in Captain Joel White’s company in Major Isaac Haight’s 2nd Battalion. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

Joel White later identified "Jimmy" Williamson as among those at Mountain Meadows with the Cedar City militia contingent.

However, at the war council on Thursday evening, September 10, which many of the Cedar City men attended, John D. Lee did not list Williamson among the participants.

On Friday, September 11, many members of the militia contingent from Cedar City acted as guards alongside the emigrant men as they marched northward from their fortified position inside the wagon circle. As the massacre commenced, the duty of the guards was to wheel and fire on the emigrant men, quickly dispatching them. Yet during the actual massacre, reactions varied among the guards. Some shrank from their duty, others fired over the heads of their victims, while others still undertook their bloody duty with zeal. Within minutes, members of the Cedar City unit had killed all but three of the emigrant men. However, whether James Williamson was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

Later Life

Sometime between 1857 and 1859, Williamson and his family left Cedar City for northern Utah. They eventually settled Cache Valley. By 1859, Williamson was a road supervisor in Wellsville. In 1869, James Williamson died in Wellsville at the age of 58.

Note: A Case of Mistaken Identity: James Williamson (1811-1869) vs. James Williamson (1804-1882)

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An Englishman named James Williamson (1804-1882) was born in Lancashire and immigrated to Utah in the 1850s. He established himself in Paragonah, more than twenty miles north of Cedar City. He was a polygamist who married two women. He and his wives lived and died in Paragonah. Williamson and several generations of his descendants remained there. He is listed in Esshom's, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, which also contains his photograph, right. A brief biographical sketch is in A Memory Bank of Paragonah, 428, which provides some of the details noted here.

For some time, I thought he was the James Williamson who mined and hauled coal in Cedar City for the ironworks and was at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. However, he was not in Cedar City and did not work at the Cedar City ironworks. Furthermore, no one from Paragonah was involved in the massacre.

After James Williamson (1811-1869), the Scot who provided to coal to the ironworks, left Cedar City, he moved to Wellsville in Cache Valley in northern Utah. He did not live in Paragonah.

We would appreciate a photograph and any other information about the Scot James Williamson who lived in Cedar City and later moved to Cache Valley.

References

Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867 (accessed at footnote.com/document/241907093/); Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, ; Lee Trial transcripts; FamilySearch.org; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 45-55, 57-60, 320-326; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 142, 145, 210, 212, 226, 243, 268; 283 fn. 54, 348, 353, 365 fn. 14, 453, 465, 485, 493-94; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, 236; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C, 264.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For additional information on James Williamson, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/

Further information and confirmation needed. Please comment below or contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.