Children from Mountain Meadows

No 61x Probate Court Salt Lake County

In the Matter of the Estate and Guardianship of Mountain Meadows children. Jacob Forney Guardian Minor S.

Sophronia Mary Hough Betsie Baker Jane Baker Jane Baker Prudence Angeline- Parents names unknown Jane- " " "

Petition for Guardianship Jacob Forney

To the Hon. Elias Smith Judge of the Probate Court of Salt Lake County Utah Territory.

Your petitioner Jacob Forney Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Utah Territory respectfully represents that on the 8th or 9th day of September 1857 a party of Emigrants numbering as is believed between one hundred and thrirty and one hundred and forty persons on their way from their Territory to California were massacred by a party com prsied of Whites and Indians at a place known as the "Mountain Meadows" in the Territory, that out of said party of Em -igrants seventeen children between the ages of two months and eight years were spared alive and your petitioner has by direction of the Department of the Interior collected said children for the purpose of sending them to Fort Smith Arkansas near which place the parents of most of them it is believed resided before starting on the trip which ended in their destrutc tion. Your petitioner further states that

he has cause to believe that the party of emigrants referred to at the time they were murdered possessed a large amount of property and that a portion of this property can with proper diligence be recovered. Your Petitioner therefore asks as he has been already directed to take charge of said children by the "Department of the Intererior" and as they are left by the massacre of their parents without natural guardians or protectors in this Territory that he be appointed guardian over said children with full power to collect and receive all property belonging to the murdered emigrants rendering a due account to the Probate Court of all property so recieved and of the appreciation made of the same

The names of the children as far as your Petitioner has been able to learn them are as follows,

Rebecca Dunlap Louisa Dunlap Sarah Dunlap Ambrose Miran William Taggit John Sorough Lewis Sorough Mary Sorough Frances Horn Charles Francher Anna Francher Elijah Wm. Hough