History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

546 THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.
In May of 1857 Parley P. Pratt was arraigned
before the supreme court at Van Buren, Arkansas, on
a charge of abducting the children of one Hector Mc-
Lean, a native of New Orleans, but then living in
California. He was acquitted; but it is alleged by
anti-Mormon writers, and tacitly admitted by the
saints, that he was sealed to Hector McLean's wife,
who had been baptized into the faith years before,
while living in San Francisco, and in 1855 was living
in Salt Lake City. 6 McLean swore vengeance against
the apostle, who was advised to make his escape, and
set forth on horseback, unarmed, through a sparsely
settled country, where, under the circumstances, escape
was almost impossible. His path was barred by two
of McLean's friends until McLean himself with three
others overtook the fugitive, when he fired six shots
at him, the balls lodging in his saddle or passing
through his clothes. McLean then stabbed him twice
6 The account given in the Millennial Star, xix. 417-18, is that McLean,
after treating his wife in a brutal manner for several years, turned her into
the streets of San Francisco, and secretly conveyed the children on board a
steamer for New Orleans, where the woman followed him; buc finding that
her parents were in the plot, set forth for Salt Lake City. Returning to New
Orleans in 1S56, she rescued her children and fled to Texas; but was followed
by her husband, who had previously returned to California, and now regained
possession of the children. Parley, who had already befriended Mrs McLean,
had written to inform her that her husband was in pursuit. Hence the
prosecution. McLean and his wife finally separated in San Francisco in 1S55.
See also Autobiog. of Parley P. Pratt, app. Stenhouse relates that Mrs
McLean was married or sealed to Pratt in Utah, that she met Pratt in Arkansas
on her way to Utah, and that the apostle was acquitted on account of her
assuming the responsibility for the abduction. He admits, however, that the
apostle did not abduct the children. Pocky Mountain Saint*, 429. Burton
says that Pratt converted Mrs McLean and took her to wife, but on what
authority he does not state. City of the Saints, 412. The fact, however, that
Mrs McLean arrived on the scene of the apostle's assassination just before his
death, as mentioned in the Millennial Star, xix. 478, wears a suspicious look.
In the S. F. Bulletin of March 24, 1S77, it is stated that the apostle made the
acquaintance of Mrs McLean while engaged in missionary work in San Francisco;
that her husband, who was a custom-house official and a respectable
citizen, ordered him to discontinue his visits, and kicked him out of the house
for continuing them surreptitiously; and that the woman was so infatuated
with the Mormon elder that she devoutly washed his feet whenever he visited
her. On arriving at Fort Smith (near Van Buren), McLean found letters
from Paidey Pratt addressed to his wife, one of them signed ' Your own,
.' The McLean residence in San Francisco, on the corner of Jones and
Filbert streets, was in 1S77 a dilapidated frame building, a story and a half
in height. As to the apostle's assassination, the Bulletin merely states that he
was overtaken by McLean and shot within eight miles of Van Buren, and
that he died of his wounds an hour afterward.