Wood, Lyman S., "The Story of the Welsh Mormon Contradicted by a Mormon," New York Daily Times, 1 Oct. 1857.
- Related Companies
- Company Unknown (1857)
To the Editor of the New-York Times:
Confiding in your regard for truth, I take the liberty of contradicting the report published in your paper of Monday, from the pen of JOHN DAVIES, against the inhabitants of Utah.
JOHN DAVIES left Great Salt Lake City on the 17th of April, on foot, with two or three persons as he affirmed, but they were not alone, escaping from the Mormons; they were with a team company coming to the States. The representation in that letter of being pursued from the city, is being armed with six revolvers in his belt, and two in his boots, his rifle and the heroic stand-up fight with his pursuers, and afterwards with Indians, is purely fiction. I left Great Salt Lake City only a few days after his departure with the Express, and was close on the track of this young man and his company all the way till we joined in with them a little this side of Laramie, and do know that he had no trouble with either Mormons or Indians, and so far from his being overloaded with weapons of war, he had scarcely a shirt to his back, and arms he had none. He is a poor Welsh lad about 18 years of age, who went to Utah with his parents, and returned to Iowa evidently, from that letter, because he could get along better there than in Utah. Dollars are a little more plentiful in the States than in our poor Territory; he found that out and followed after what suited him best.
I beg to inform you, Sir, that JOHN DAVIES saw no murder in Utah. He very probably told the writer of that letter what he had heard on the plains about Utah, as he came with an apostate train, where such reports are generally sweet morsels. The letter is written by some one anxious to dig into the Mormons, but his pen reveals too faithfully the nervous brain and poisoned heart to do any harm to the people of Utah. Shooting down on the streets by dozens is too great a stretch; still, it harmonizes with a poor boy's belt dangling with six revolvers, and the two hidden in his boots!—and a rifle, too.
After we joined the party, as already stated, JOHN DAVIES was under my command, as I had, with A. P. WINZER, charge of that company into the States, and I knew him well. The Crow Indians stopped the company in which I was, before we over took the others, so they did not see them at all, and knew nothing of our stoppage till we related it to them. In justice to the Crow Indians, referred to, I should say that not a shot was fired. They detained us, bothering about trafficking with them; otherwise they were kind enough in their intercourse. Your obliged servant,
Late Government Indian Interpreter in Utah.