Samuel Pollock, a Mormon Shooter and Clubber, held the rank of Sergeant in the Iron County Militia at the Time of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
A Mormon convert who immigrated from
Donahdue Tyr, in the
north of Ireland to Nauvoo, Illinois, and married Elizabeth Reeves. They later moved (via Iowa) to Salt Lake City, then Spanish Fork, Cedar City, Toquerville, and finally to Kanarraville, Iron County, Utah. Descendants and relatives lived in Utah, Arizona and elsewhere. B-
3 Jan
1824, D-1891
(For more information click on image to the right.)
They emigrated to Utah in 1850 and Pollock immediately went to work as a laborer. By 1853, they had moved to Spanish Fork in Utah County. Evidently he took Elizabeth Brockbank (1838-1926) of Lancashire, England as a polygamous wife but this marriage was of short duration.
By 1855, Pollock and his first wife, Elizabeth, moved to Cedar City in southern Utah where several more children were born. In 1857, Pollock was a sergeant in Company E of Cedar City.
By 1860, the Pollock family were among the first settlers in the new community of Toquerville and by 1862, they had moved to Kanarraville where Pollock spent the remainder of his life. In 1864, his wife Elizabeth died, having bore Pollock eight children. The following year he married twenty-nine-year-old Welsh emigrant Ann Meredith Mathews (1836-1889) who became step-mother to his children and also bore him three other children.
According to census records Pollock was farming in 1860, blacksmithing in 1870 and farming in 1880. Pollock and his wife Ann and children lived on in Kanarraville. Ann died in 1889 and Pollock died two years later. At least seven of this children survived into the twentieth century.
He likely was only following the orders of his local authorities. The local authorities received their orders from George A. Smith, second in command and directly under church President Brigham Young.
These men acted on orders, direct or implied, from LDS Church President Brigham Young through his chain of command (the aforementioned George A. Smith) to commit this crime.
