Ellott Willden
Ellott Willden, his personal and family background, and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Ellott Willden/Wilden
1833-1920
Biographical Sketch
Ellott Willden/Wilden descended from northern British borderers. Born in 1833 to Charles and Eleanor Turner Willden, Elliott Willden and other family members were baptized in 1845 and attended the Mormons' Derbyshire conference.
His family immigrated to the United States in 1849 and arrived in Utah in 1851. By 1853, these working class immigrants from the West Midlands had joined other Englishmen as well as Scots, Welsh, Irish and others in the Iron Mission in southern Utah. In September 1857, Willden was a private in Company F in Cedar City.
In 1861, the Willden family established Fort Willden on Cove Creek midway between Beaver and Fillmore. For a time, Willden and his wife along with his parents and other family members lived at the log-pole fort. In 1862, following cultural patterns familiar to them in northern England, the Willden family brought the first sheep to southern Utah after which sheep raising expanded rapidly in the region. In 1865, however, the outbreak of the Black Hawk War forced the Willdens to abandon their fort and retreat to the relative safety of settlement at Beaver. Two years later, others returned to Fort Willden and built a larger fort nearly, Cove Fort, that still stands today, an artifact from pioneer-era Utah.
Willden established his home in Beaver where he lived for more than fifty years. He raised livestock and pursued farming. He also had some renown in his community as a fiddler. For years he played fiddle for the Beaver choir, brass band and dance orchestra.
In 1874, Willden was among nine militiamen indicted for their involvement in the 1857 massacre. He was among several lower-ranking militiamen who were named in the indictment and it has never been entirely clear why they were included in the indictment. At any rate, Willden was arrested but eventually released on bail. The charges against him were ultimately dismissed.
In his family life, Willden married serially two English emigrants, both from Staffordshire near his own homeland. In 1856, he married Joseph Clews's sister, Emma Jane Clews (1839-1890) and she bore him nine children. After her death in 1890, Willden married Christiana Brown (1859-1936) in 1892 and she bore him three more children, the last when he was sixty-four years old. In 1920, Willden died at the age of eighty-seven and was buried in Beaver. He was survived by his second wife, Christiana, and numerous children. Our special thanks to Gary D. Young for generously sharing his research on Elliott Willden with us.
Private Ellott Willden/Wilden, 3rd Battalion, Company F, Cedar City
His Role and Statements Relative to the Massacre
In September 1857, 23-year-old Ellott Willden was a private in Company F in Cedar City. Probably on Saturday, September 5, he and Josiah Reeves entered the Arkansas emigrants camp at Mountain Meadows to ascertain their plans. On Monday the 7th at the time of the first attack, Willden may have be present or in the vicinity but there is no corroborated report of Willden's whereabouts or role that day. Nor is there for Willden's actions at the massacre on Friday the 11th, other than that he was present at the Meadows. In the 1859 arrest warrant, Willden was listed as "E. Welean."
In 1874, the federal district court in Beaver issued an indictment against nine Iron County militiamen. Willden was among the nine. Yet it is unclear what role Willden played in the massacre that caused him, a private, to be singled out and indicted. In any event, Willden did not testify in the Lee trials and the case against him was eventually dropped.
In the 1890s, when Andrew Jenson of the LDS Church's Historian's Office travelled to southern Utah to gather information and interview aging Iron County militiamen with knowledge of the massacre, Ellott Willden played an important role. Based on personal knowledge of the massacre, Willden made corrections to Hubert Howe Bancroft's massacre account in his History of Utah: 1540-1886. Willden also provided a personal account with many details not contained elsewhere. He also helped Jenson gain access to men who had participated in the massacre. In 2009, Willden's statements were published for the first time. They can now be evaluated along with other sources known since the 19th century.
According to Ellott Willden, Major Isaac Haight ordered Major John M. Higbee to have Willden and Josiah Reeves shadow the Arkansas company to ascertain their intentions. It was probably Saturday, September 5, when Willden and Reeves entered the emigrant camp at Mountain Meadows. Significantly, Willden noted that the emigrants treated them civilly. Willden also credibly shows that the original plan to attack the emigrants was not at Mountain Meadows but in a narrow canyon on the Santa Clara River some miles to the south.
Willden described a key event that occurred either in the afternoon or evening of Monday, the 7th or, more probably, Tuesday, the 8th: the killing of William Aden. Willden identified William Stewart and Joel White as the Mormon sentries who killed Aden and fired on his Arkansas company companion. But Aden's companion successfully retreated to the safety of the emigrant camp. Willden also described how Joseph Clews and he raced past the emigrant camp in mid-week, dressed in Indian garb.
Willden does not describe his own role in the massacre and his account probably contains some chronology errors, but he provides many significant and unique details. His account may be the most important new source material since the mid-20th century when Juanita Brooks's published her groundbreaking history of the massacre and included several key militia accounts in the appendix.
References
Bradley, A History of Beaver County, 71; Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 4:135; Fielding, ed., The Tribune Reports of the Trial of John D. Lee; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, ; Lee Trial transcripts; Lyman and Newell, A History of Millard County, 105-106; Merkley, ed., Monuments to Courage: A History of Beaver County, 2nd ed., 33, 37, 52, 134-35; Olsen, "The History of Charles and Eleanor Turner Willden" (accessed at http://handfamily.org/02360004.htm); Palmer, “The Early Sheep Industry in Southern Utah, Utah Historical Quarterly, 42/2 (Spring 1974), 179; Seegmiller, A History of Iron County, 374, fn 7; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah's Iron Mission, 62 fn. 69, 175, 288, 293, 297-98, 329, 331, 474, 484, 487, 496; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Jenson and Morris Collections; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C; Charles Willden, "Biography of Charles Willden, 1806-1883" (accessed at http://handfamily.org/02360002.htm); and Gary Young, family history records of Ellott Willden.
Special thanks to Gary Young for providing his family histories of Ellott Willden!
External Links
For further information on Ellott/Elliot Wilden/Willden see: http://contentdm.li.suu.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/beaver_murdock_academy&CISOPTR=479&CISOBOX=1&REC=17 (Charles Willden family photographs)
For further information of the family of Charles and Eleanor Turner Willden, see: "History of Charles and Eleanor Turner Willden" at http://www.handfamily.org/02360004.htm
Biography of Charles Willden at http://www.handfamily.org/02360002.htm
Fort Willden at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willden_Fort
Charles Willden, Sr., Pioneer 1852, (following Our Pioneer Heritage) at: http://heritage.uen.org/companies/Wc463efbdb2289.htm
Charles Willden (diary and family history) at: http://keithwyoung.com/CharlesWillden.pdf
Further information and confirmation needed. Please contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.
