Mountain Meadows affidavit Hofmann forgery?
But this time, instead of bogus documents surrounding the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an embarrassing affidavit on the Mountain Meadows Massacre has surfaced.
Just shy of the 25th anniversary of Hofmann’s deadly Salt Lake City-area bombing spree, a written record quoted by historians has become the focus of an investigation.
“The 1924 William Edwards affidavit” seems to give insights into the 1857 attack by Mormon settlers and American Indians in southern Utah that resulted in the deaths of 120 men, women and children in an Arkansas wagon train. The paper was tied to Hofmann two years before the admitted forger killed Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets in separate 1985 bombings.
A probe by two historians for the LDS Church paints the document as a forgery. But not everyone is convinced.
Although it may not carry the significance of the so-called “Salamander Letter” or other perplexing documents Hofmann forged to pry large sums from wealthy LDS buyers, the single-page account does hearken back to another sensitive subject for Mormons.
Dated May 14, 1924, the affidavit is purportedly from William Edwards, then an 82-year-old Beaver County resident. In it, he states that in September 1857 — at age 15 — he accompanied about 30 men to Mountain Meadows, “Where, we were told, an Indian massacre of a emigrant train had been consummated, and our services needed to bury the dead.”
“We arrived at said Mountain Meadows early in the evening only to find John D. Lee and several other white men already present, and the said emigrants alive and well and fortified against the Indian siege,” the affidavit reads. “After surveying the situation for some time, we were called to a council of white men by said John D. Lee and by him ordered to assist the Indians in their purposes.”