Aiken massacre (Utah)

The Aiken massacre was an 1857 lynching in central Utah of 5 Californian travelers at the orders of top leaders in Mormonism's largest denomination the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[1]: 457 [2][3] The victims were apprehended on trumped up charges of spying, imprisoned, then murdered, though two escaped with injuries, but were killed two days later.[1]: 471–472 [4][5] This occurred a month after the Mountain Meadows massacre and was part of the impetus for the Utah War (1857–1858).[1]: 457 [6] In 1877 Porter Rockwell and Wild Bill Hickman were indicted for the massacre.[7][8] The massacres name comes from the Aiken brothers Thomas and John of the group who were killed.[1]: 457 [9]

Aiken massacre
LocationNephi area of the Sevier River; Willow Creek, Mona; and Warm Creek Hot Springs area of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, United States[1]: 471–472, 474 
Coordinates39°24′33″N 112°03′01″W
DateNovember 25 and 28, 1857
Target
  • Murdered: John Aiken (25), Thomas L. Aiken (27), John Achard (33), Andrew Jackson Jones, and Horace Bucklin[1]: 464 
  • Escaped: John Chapman[1]: 463 
Attack type
False imprisonment then mass lynching
WeaponsIron bars, Guns[1]: 471 
Deaths5
PerpetratorsBrigham Young, Porter Rockwell, Wild Bill Hickman, Jacob G. Bigler, Sylvanus Collett, John S. Lott, John R. Murdock, and George Dalton[1]: 469–470, 474 
Motive

References
  1. Bigler, David L. (2007). "The Aiken Party Executions and the Utah War, 1857–1858". Western Historical Quarterly. 38 (4): 457–476. doi:10.2307/25443606. ISSN 0043-3810. JSTOR 25443606.
  2. Schindler, Harold (1983). Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son of Thunder. University of Utah Press. pp. 271–278. ISBN 978-0-87480-204-7.
  3. Bancroft, Hubert Howe; Bates, Alfred (1889). "Chapter XIX: The Utah War". History of Utah, 1540–1886. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. XXVI. San Francisco: History Company. pp. 562–563. OCLC 4694895 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Keenan, Jerry (April 27, 2016). The Terrible Indian Wars of the West: A History from the Whitman Massacre to Wounded Knee, 1846–1890. McFarland Publishing. pp. 379–380. ISBN 978-1-4766-2310-8.
  5. Bigler, David L.; Bagley, Will (October 22, 2014). The Mormon Rebellion: America's First Civil War, 1857–1858. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 235. ISBN 978-0-8061-8396-1.
  6. MacKinnon, William P. (October 27, 2016). At Sword's Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 316. ISBN 978-0-8061-5726-9.
  7. Hall, Roger A. (August 16, 2001). Performing the American Frontier, 1870–1906. Cambridge University Press. pp. 93, 228. ISBN 978-0-521-79320-9.
  8. Kelly, Charles; Hoffman, Birney (November 22, 2019). Holy Murder: The Story of Porter Rockwell. Pickle Partners Publishing. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-83974-043-5.
  9. "The Aikens Murder Trial". Salt Lake Tribune. October 15, 1878. p. 2 – via University of Utah. Higher quality image available here.
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