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John D. Lee is most often remembered as the only man executed for his role in the infamous 1857 massacre by Mormons of a California-bound emigrant train at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. This classic biography examines the circumstances and events which brought Lee to that end. It also, however, looks at the other dimensions of his active life, showing that he was a far more important and complex man than subsequent generations, eager for a dark symbol, have acknowledged. He was a leader in the Mormon colonization of southern Utah and northern Arizona. With the title Indian Farmer, he became his church's emissary to Indians in the area. During and prior to the Mormon migration west, he participated in and kept detailed accounts of the conflicts and other events in Missouri, Illinois, and along the trail. An early practitioner, and recorder, of the custom of plural marriage, he was the adopted son of Brigham Young and a close associate of other Mormon leaders. His occupations included builder, farmer, missionary, ferry operator, town founder, and faith leader.

Using Lee's extensive diaries, bolstered by numerous supporting accounts, Juanita Brooks has not only written a thorough and objective portrait of one man's life, a life which would be worthy of study even if it were not controversial, she also has provided numerous insights into early Mormon society and culture. Anyone interested in Mormon polygamy, family life, leadership, relations with Indians, or other aspects of their frontier existence will find this a storehouse of information.

This classic biography is now in its fourth Utah State University Press printing. It is unparalleled in providing a thorough and accurate account of John D. Lee's involvement in the tragic 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre. 

George Corning Fraser, who lived in the days before automobile travel became a way of life, was an easterner who loved to vacation on horseback in the American Southwest. No mere tourist, he sought out the most remote and forbidding landscapes he could find: the seldom-visited country north of the Grand Canyon, the vast slickrock expanses of the Navajo Reservation, and sites such as Zion Canyon and Capitol Reef before they became national parks. An amateur geologist, Fraser penned his own memorable observations of the region’s landforms and jotted down engaging accounts of local ranchers, sheepherders, and villagers.
 
Frederick H. Swanson has edited Fraser’s voluminous journals into a single volume covering three trips taken from 1914 to 1916. As Fraser wades the bone-chilling waters of the Zion Narrows, crosses the Grand Canyon in midsummer heat, and rides through the trackless forest of the Aquarius Plateau, he conveys impressions of the land that will fascinate any reader who wonders what the canyon country was like before it became a popular tourist destination—and one that will inform historians interested in early accounts of the region. Accompanied by a selection of photographs taken by Fraser and his fellow travelers, Journeys in the Canyon Lands brings to life the Southwest’s breathtaking backcountry on the brink of discovery.