Beaver, Utah, appears in the account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre as the venue of the first trial of John D. Lee, one of the massacre’s principal suspects. The trial ended without a conviction, making the town a significant setting in the prolonged effort to assign legal responsibility for the killings.

Setting and Association

In November 1874, U.S. marshal William Stokes arrested Lee in Panguitch, where he had been visiting one of his remaining wives. Eight months later, Lee was tried in Beaver. The account gives no further description of the town; its significance here rests on the proceedings held there and their consequences.

Lee’s First Trial

The jury in Beaver deadlocked and failed to convict Lee. The result provoked widespread outrage: newspapers across the country condemned the outcome, generating a surge of anti-Mormon sentiment that reached Brigham Young and his counselors in Great Salt Lake City.

Aftermath

In response to the pressure, Brigham Young stopped claiming that Native people were responsible for the massacre and instead placed the blame on Lee. Lee was tried again in 1876. For that second trial, the LDS First Presidency screened an all-Mormon jury to ensure Lee alone would be convicted. Beaver’s trial thus marks the failed first prosecution in a sequence that ended with Lee’s conviction and the concentration of responsibility on him.