Cane Creek Murder Trial

I have decided that no trial occurred after the murders at Cane Creek. I have read conflicting stories about there being a trial or not being a trial. Some accounts appear to confuse the events with the Joseph Standing murder trial. They were at about the same time and in the same general area. The closest I can find was a note indicating that there was a grand jury which returned no indictment. I cannot even find confirmation of the list of the alleged perpetrators I found here. So I'm just going to accept that it probably didn't happen. I'll keep looking.


Part of my problem is that there is no definitive work on the matter. The most comprehensive treatment I have found has been an MBA dissertation by Patrick Mason, which looks at violence against religious outsiders in the south during the post civil war period. The other documents have been contemporary, or nearly so. B. H. Roberts wrote quite a bit. Marshall Wingfield wrote some good material. But none of the accounts comes close to the treatment other events in Mormon history. Being here in Nashville, just 80 miles from where it happened, I have access to some original documents I wouldn't have otherwise, so I've started collecting what I find into one place. Maybe I will find enough to justify publishing something.