It is called Mountain Meadows Dot Org. Make sure you bookmark the new address at www.mtnmeadows.org At the new site you can also see photographs by Frank Kirkman, Anne Leavitt, J.K. Fancher Jr. and Genevieve Fancher taken during a Memorial Re-interment Service on September 10, 1999.
Hello. My name is Terryl "Terry" Nolan Fancher and this is a brief outline with pictures of the massacre site over a fifteen year period of time. The wagon master, Captain Alexander Fancher was my first cousin, four times removed. At the bottom of the page are email links to descendants of the survivors. You can reach me by email at
My Father J.K. Fancher Jr., along with a group of
people, government and religious leaders, were responsible for the construction
of a monument in 1990, commonly known as the
My Grandfather John Kenner Fancher was responsible for
the planning of a monument in
In addition there is a Power Point presentation, with sound. If you do not have a Power Point Reader on your computer you can download a reader version from the site. We hope you enjoy the presentation.
Click here for download link for a Power Point Reader Mountain Meadows Power Point Presentation
The pictures are pictorial accounts of a number of trips my wife Kathleen and I have taken to the site over the past 15 years. Most of the pictures below were taken in October, 1995. If you "click" on the individual images, you can see larger pictures. They can be printed out on your computer. Please remember, the photographs are property of Terry Fancher, and may not be used for commercial purposes, without prior written permission.
The ill-fated Fancher-Baker wagon train began its long trek westward in the spring of 1857 from Beller's Stand, an open area near Milum Spring, about 5 miles south of Harrison, Arkansas. Shown below is the sign on Highway 7 for Caravan Spring (at Beller's stand), now called Milum Spring, the open area of Beller's Stand from where the wagon train left, and the spring itself.
In September 1955 an
historic monument was erected in the town
In 1932 the following plaque was placed at the Mountain Meadows Massacre "siege site." This photograph was taken in 1989.
An updated account of what transpired at Mountain Meadows is given in the following graphic. The marker is physically located near the old "siege site" in southern Utah. It replaced the one shown above in 1990.
The following images were taken between Salt Lake City
and Cedar
The site is located along Route 18 and is roughly 30 miles North of St. George, and roughly 30 miles South West of Cedar City.
From
Here is a picture of
The pictures below are along the
We turned right off the
The area of the massacre spreads out in front of passing motorists along Route 18. Here you can see 4 panorama shots spread out over 2-3 miles, with the actual massacre site probably in the third shot from the left, roughly in the middle of the photograph. You can click on any of the photos to see the area better, but the third shot from the left will come out larger.
Shown here is a picture of roughly the third and fourth shot above, taken in 1989.
In the shot on the left, you can basically see how the area is laid out from a graphic at the site of the new monument. This shot closely details the panorama in the preceding four shots. In the second shot from the left you can see the monument on Dan Sill Hill, which was dedicated September 15, 1999. The shot second from on the right is the suggested site of the massacre as shown through the eye of a pipe at the 1990 monument.The shot on the right shows a closeup of the area suggested as the massacre site.
The left shot is a daytime shot of the moon, looking
southeast from the new monument site. I took this shot because historical
records had indicated the moon was a waxing full moon during the time of the
massacre and it was close to being full the night we visited the site. The
second shot from the left is down at the parking lot near the original site of
the Massacre monument. It is about a mile down the turnoff from Route 18 and
further down the road from the new memorial site. The middle photograph is that
of the rock cairn, constructed with the assistance of the Utah Pioneer Trails
and Landmarks Association and dedicated on September 10, 1932. The cairn was
said to contain the remains of 34 massacre victims. The area between the
wildflowers and the cairn is where the spring ran in 1857, and still runs to
this day. The second shot from the right is of the newer plaque on the rock
cairn. This plaque was placed during the dedication of the new monument on
September 15, 1990. It replaces the plaque placed in 1932, which has been
previously shown. The photograph on the right shows an area just to the west of
the original plaque. It is the site on which the Fancher Wagon Train kept their
wagons prior to the attack, and from which they attempted to defend themselves.
Some of the attackers may have fired their weapons from the low rise in the
middle of the picture. PLEASE NOTE: The photographs of the cairn and plaque were
taken before the new Siege
In September 1999 a new monument was dedicated at the former seige site. In 2000 the photographs show how the grass had grown in, one year after the re-dedication. And so, if you go to our http://www.mtnmeadows.org site you will see that we have added an icon for 2000-2003 pictures. When you click you will see a graphic with links to six pictures. At the top you can take a look at the Dan Sill Hill monument, dedicated in 1990. In the middle you can click on four panorama shots taken along the west side of Route 18, near the site now referred to as the upper burial site, since it was located on the upper, or northern side of the Mountain Meadows. The bottom icon will give you an idea of what the memorial, dedicated in September 1999, looks like at that time.
This is a painting my mother Genevieve Fancher did of the Mountain Meadows site based on photographs taken July 23, 1988. The painting is copyright protected.
The nine granite plaques of the new memorial, dedicated in 1990, were repaired in 1998. They had fallen in March 1998 due to a combination of weather and possibly design. They were repaired over the summer and put back in place with design improvements in November 1998.
This link will take you to a series of photographs taken during the fourth of July weekend, 1998. The pictures show how the monument looked while the plaques were down, and how the work crew removed them for repairs. The photographs are the property of Allan Varney. Click on them and they get larger, and can be printed from your printer. Captain Alexander Fancher was Allan's first cousin, five times removed.
Pictures taken by Allan Varney.
The Harrison Daily News ran the following story concerning the problem on March 29, 1998. The story was written by J.K. Fancher. It was titled, "Granite Panels Tumble at Mountain Meadows."
"All nine of the granite inscription panels that
make up the face of the new (1990) Mountain Meadows Memorial, near
"Sources in Cedar City, about 40 miles from Mountain Meadows, say that water seepage between the six-inch thick granite panels and the six-inch thick concrete supporting wall coupled with freezing and thawing process over a period of time caused the separation."
"Todd Prince, at the
"Dixie Leavitt, former
"The fallen panels will be temporarily moved to the parking lot to make room for equipment to be moved into the damaged area. One of the name inscription panels was broken in half and most likely will have to be replaced..."
The story did not end at Mountain Meadows. Shown below
is a marker at Old Carrollton, near Osage,
I hope you gained some benefits from this pictorial tour. Take the link below to the Mountain Meadows Resource Guide.
For more in-depth research on the subject, check out the following links:
Mountain Meadows Resource Guide
If you are interested in the current weather conditions
in
Thanks for taking a Virtual Walk through the Mountain Meadows Site.
Back to Fancher Family Homepage
Mountain Meadows Dot Org - created by J.K., Genevieve and Terry Fancher
Number of times this page has been accessed since
9/12/1997
This
page was last updated 4/9/2009
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