JEAN BAPTISTE
The Ghoul of Great Salt Lake
by Kerry Ross Boren
WHEN
BRIGHAM Young entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake
on
July 24. 1847, one of the sights he observed was a camp of more than one hundred persons who had arrived in
the valley two days earlier under the leadership of Orson Pratt. This advance company of pioneers with sixty
wagons had left the mouth of Emigration Canyon on July 22, following the stream in a south‑westerly
direction. On their way to the valley floor, they passed only a few blocks north of the present intersection
of 21st South and 11 th East. The company camped that night near what is now 5th East and 17th South, where
Wilford Woodruff built a brick house as the settlement expanded.
The
creek that ran through the natural park where the first company encamped was called Brown's Creek, later
Canyon Creek, and finally known as Parley's Creek in honor of Parley P. Pratt, who in 1850 opened Parley's
Canyon for vehicle travel.
The
land next to Canyon Creek was first settled and owned by Ira Eldredge, who purchased it in 1848 and built his
log home about one‑half mile southeast from the first penitentiary in Utah. A. P. Rockwood, a pioneer of
1847, set up the first territorial fish hatchery on Canyon, or Parley's, Creek in this location and became the
second warden of the penitentiary; he permitted inmates to work at the fish hatchery,
The
pioneers were basically a God‑fearing, hard working and honest group of people, but they brought wi th
them to Utah all the social problems that exist in every culture. By 1849‑50 prospectors and strangers
were passing through Utah on their way to the gold fields of California, introducing crime to the streets of
the newly erected Great Salt Lake City. It was not an uncommon sight to see convicts cleaning Main Street with
balls and chains shackled to their ankles.
In
1853 the Great Salt Lake Council voted to construct a penitentiary. A ten‑acre plot in Big Field (later
known as Sugarhouse Park) was selected, and by the end of 1854 it was completed. By January 1855 nine
occupants were behind adobe prison walls, twelve feet high and four feet thick.
The
first two inmates of Utah's first penitentiary hold a special significance to this writer, because they were
two Pah‑Ute Indians accused of murdering my second great grandfather, William W. Potter. Potter, the
first Mormon to explore the Great Salt Lake after John C. Fremont and Kit Carson in 1848, was a guide, scout,
and Indian interpreter. In 1853 he was guide for Lt. John Wesley Gunnison of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
in surveying various remote sites in Utah Territory. In October of that year, the entire company was massacred
by a renegade. band of Pah‑Utes while camped on the Sevier River near present day Delta, Utah. Only two
members of this band were ever captured and brought to justice, and they had the dubious distinction of
becoming the first inmates of the newly constructed prison at Sugarhouse. Ironically, the nearby city of
Gunnison, site of Utah's newest prison facility, is named for the leader of the massacred survey party.
The
following history of the Sugarhouse prison site, taken verbatim from a report of the Sugarhouse committee, May
24, 1956, is on file in the City Recorder's Office and is of special interest:
"The
Old Prison Site was owned by the United States prior to Utah statehood. The Federal government constructed the
prison there and operated it as a U. S. Penitentiary until Utah was admitted to the Union.
"By
the Enabling Act (approved July 16, 1894) the penitentiary, with all land and appurtenances connected
therewith, was granted to the State of Utah. The same section of the Enabling Act containing this grant also
granted other lands to the State of Utah and concluded with the proviso that the lands granted by that section
should be held, appropriated, and disposed of exclusively for the purposes therein stated. There was no other
description of the land thus conveyed, but the extent of its actual use for the prison seems to have been
known enough to serve the purpose of the grant.
"In
1937 the Utah Legislature passed a statute authorizing the government to investigate the feasibility of the
prison site and to contract for its transfer at such time as it might be vacated provided there was a
possibility of securing adequate advance payments thereon.
"This
statute was repealed in 1947 and another statute was passed setting apart the old Utah State Prison as a State
park. This 1947 statute contained a legal metes and bounds description of the property, reciting that it
contained 188.66 acres less 4.84 acres southwest and north of the State Highway (21 st South) thus making a
net of 183.82 acres so set aside for a State park. The Utah Legislature thus definitely stated what it
intended the phrase 'Old Prison Site' to include.
"In
1951 the Utah Legislature passed still another statute giving to Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County the right
to purchase the 'Old Prison Site' less 30 acres in the northeast portion to be sold to Salt Lake City Board of
Education. All water rights were to be included in the transaction .... Thus the area authorized by Utah
Legislature to be conveyed to Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County contained 124.13 acres.
"The Park City branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Western R. R. runs through
the property in an easterly‑westerly direction, the right of way for which is shown ... as containing
4.28 acres. So at the present time the area of the part of the Old Prison Site now actually available for use
by Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County comprises 119.85 acres, split by the D&RG Western right of way.
"The
1951 statue also contains the important proviso that the property is to be used perpetually for public
purposes and in the event it is used for other than public purposes and such use shall continue for 60 days,
the property shall revert to the State of Utah.
"Promptly
on the passage of the 1951 Statute, Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County agreed with the Utah State Board of
Examiners to purchase the Old Prison Site ... for $225,000, payable in five equal annual installments of
$45,000 each, the City and County agreed to share equally the burden of the obligation."
A
new prison was constructed at Point of‑the‑Mountain some twenty‑two miles south of the old
site at Sugarhouse. It was considered modem for the time, of concrete and steel, compared to the old adobe
structure
it had replaced. The site chosen for its construction was on land which once had been part of the ranch and
stage‑station owned and operated by the notorious Orrin "Port" Rockwell.
However,
before an account of the prison system is given, some effort must be spent to recount the unique and sometimes
astounding history of events and persons that very early formed the basis for corrections in Utah.
Jean
Baptiste
The
Ghoul of Great Salt Lake
On
December 31,1861, Governor Dawson fled from Utah, having made improper proposals to a well‑known Salt
Lake City society matron, who indignantly resented his advances and informed her friends of the Governor's
disgraceful conduct. On the following day‑New Year's Day, 1862‑the Governor was overtaken in his
flight at Hank's Station at Mountain Dell, set upon and badly beaten by a band of men, among whom were Jason
Luce., Lot Huntington, Wood Reynolds, and Moroni Clawson. One of these men was a relative of the insulted lady
and justified his behavior on that ground.
A
few days later, on January 16, 1862, Port Rockwell and a posse overtook three of the men at Fish Springs,
Faust's Station, near Tooele, and Rockwell shot and killed Lot Huntington. The other two were taken in charge
by the posse and brought to Salt Lake City. On the following morning, Friday, January 17, these two prisoners
made a break for freedom on Second South Street and were shot to death by Salt Lake City police. These
desperadoes had long been a terror to the community and general relief was felt after their dead bodies were
laid away in the city cemetery.
Henry
Heath had been a member of the Salt Lake police force in 1862. In 1893 he recalled events as follows:
"Rone
Moroni Clawson, one of the men above referred to, was buried at the expense of the County. I purchased his
burial clothing myself, and though he was a very bad man, I wanted to see him laid away as nicely as possible.
This I did and I don't believe that any pauper ever had better or cleaner burial clothing than he.
"Soon
after, I went south on official business, and on my way home stopped over at Willow Creek, now known as
Draper, Salt Lake County, Utah, where I learned from George Clawson, a brother of the deceased, who had had
the latter's remains exhumed and removed to Willow Creek, that, on opening the grave, the body was entirely
naked. George Clawson was indignant over the ghastly discovery and believed that his body had been buried in
that condition. Of course, having purchased the interment clothing myself, I knew better, but it was not an
easy matter to prove that fact off‑hand, as the circumstances were rather against such a conclusion.
Well, as a matter of course, the affair caused a great deal of talk, and I determined to sift the whole thing
to the bottom, as did Judge Elias Smith who was Probate Judge of this county at the time. The authorities
generally were anxious to have the matter investigated and very little time was lost."
Heath
and three or four policemen went first to the home of Sexton J. C. Little for his ideas about how it could
have happened that Clawson's body had been stripped of its clothing. The sexton could offer no information, so
they trooped to Third Avenue, between "P" and "R" streets, to the house of the
grave‑digger, Jean Baptiste. Baptiste was not at home, but his wife readily admitted them to the house.
The woman's mind was so feeble it was difficult to get any intelligent answers from her, but as they spoke
with her, the curiosity of one of them was aroused by many
U‑M boxes lying about the room. Idly poking into them, he discovered piles of clothing.
"Judge,
if you can," reported Heath, "of our horror and surprise when we discovered that these clothes were
the funeral robes of people who had been buried in the city cemetery for several years past. A horrible
thought entered my mind, a terrible feeling took possession of me. When I tell you that a short time
previously, I buried an idolized daughter, and when I feared that her grave, too, had been desecrated and that
her funeral shroud was among the motley, sickening heap of flesh‑soiled linen we found in the
gravedigger's hut, perhaps you can partly comprehend it."
Appalled
by their discovery, the policemen set out for the cemetery. None of them knew much about Jean Baptiste. One
had heard that he was an Italian who had come from Venice. Another had heard that he was not an Italian but a
Frenchman, and another that, although he was of French origin, he had come from Australia. A nondescript
little man, he had come to Great Salt Lake City half‑a‑dozen years before to sink into the
obscurity of his job in the cemetery‑‑2'John the Baptist," he was usually called. The truth
of his origins was even more amazing, for Jean Baptiste was grandson of the famous Sacajawea, guide of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition! He had spent time in Europe with his father, was well‑educated, but had been
illtreated by prejudice as a half‑breed, and had come to Salt Lake City seeking anonymity and solitude.
"There
were with me three or four friends, and together we proceeded to the cemetery where Baptiste was at
work," Heath's account continued. "In my breast rankled the unconquerable determination to kill him
then and there should my suspicions be confirmed. I at once charged him with robbing the dead and he fell upon
his knees calling God to witness that he was innocent. The evidence was too strong and I choked the wretch
into a confession, when he begged for his life as a human being never pleaded before.
"I
dragged him to a grave near my daughter's and pointing to it inquired, 'Did you rob that grave ?' His reply
was 'Yes.' Then, directing his attention to the mound of earth which covered my child's remains, I repeated
the question with bated breath and with the firm resolve to kill him should he answer in the affirmative. 'No,
no, not that one; not that one.' That answer saved the miserable coward's life."
Baptiste
was cuffed and taken directly to jail. At that time he was discovered to be wearing a broadcloth Prince Albert
suit in which a saloon keeper had been buried some time before. Carpenter, who kept a saloon and shoe shop on
East Temple Street near the "Clock Comer," accused an employee named Ferguson of knowing something
about a recent robbery, upon which Ferguson pulled a gun and shot Carpenter dead.
The
news of Baptiste's arrest spread around town with cyclonic fury. Hundreds thronged to the county courthouse to
examine the clothing brought from Baptiste's home.
"I
shall never forget," reported Heath, "the agonizing scenes of grief‑stricken parents,
especially mothers . . . as they came into the big hallway in the county courthouse through which extended a
broad table fifty feet in length, covered with several hundred funeral suits, from that which had encased the
lifeless form of a tiny infant to that which had been wrapped about the body of some aged man or woman. Yes,
it was a sorrowful spectacle to see a mother identify and weep over an article of clothing which belonged to a
darling child long since dead, or a husband or wife recognize the funeral apparel of the life partner who had
preceded them into the unseen world."
The
police locked Baptiste in the farthest recesses of the jail. Had they not done so, Judge Elias Smith wrote in
his journal, "The populace would have torn him to pieces, such was the excitement produced by the unheard
of occurrence."
Late
the following afternoon, Baptiste was placed flat in a wagon bed, covered with a blanket to screen him from
view, and taken back to the cemetery. He only identified about a dozen graves that he had robbed, but it was
evident he had wilfully lied, since about sixty pairs of children's shoes and small clothes were found in his
house, with about a dozen men's shoes, garments, and many articles of feminine. He had robbed children and
women's graves principally, and reports ran that he had robbed nearly three hundred graves.
Another
policeman, Albert Dewey, puzzled over this strange prisoner. Baptiste had used his victims' coffins for
kindling wood, and had hoarded the clothes of the dead as a miser might hoard gold. Though he greatly feared
death, he lacked fear of the dead, and had prowled about among the graves at night to divest the dead of their
apparel as routinely as eating his dinner. "Altogether," said Dewey, "he was a freak of human
nature that I could not understand. Robbing the dead was a mania with him and he made it a business."
Saturday,
February 1, 1862, Baptiste was brought from his cell, and Judge Smith, so he wrote in his journal, heard
Baptiste's statements " . . . as to how he came to engage in the business of robbing the dead, and his
confession as to the extent to which he had carried on the operation. According to his acknowledgments he had
robbed many graves, but how many‑he could not nor would not tell."
Distraught
families threatened to open the graves of their deceased to find out the conditions of the bodies and, if
necessary, reclothe them. The excitement did not begin to subside until Sunday, February 9, when Brigham Young
stood before a crowded congregation in the Tabernacle and responded to requests that he express himself
regarding the situation.
"It
appears that a man named John Baptiste has practiced robbing the dead of their clothing in our graveyard
during some five years past. If you wish to know what I think of it, I answer, I am unable to think so low as
to fully get at such a mean, contemptible, damnable trick. To hang a man for such a deed would not satisfy my
feelings.
"What
shall we do with him? Shoot him? No, that would do no good to anybody but himself. Would you imprison him
during life? That would do nobody any good. What I would do with him came to me quickly after I heard of the
circumstances; this I will mention, before I make other remarks. If it was left to me, I would make him a
fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth. This would be my sentence, but probably the people will not want this
done.
"Many
are anxious to know what effect it will have upon their dead who have been robbed. I have three sisters in the
graveyard in this city, and two wives and several children, besides other connections and The News, however,
never revealed its "unquestioned authority," and finally acknowledged that it was aware of no one
who knew anything positively about Jean Baptiste since he had been left on the island in the lake. However,
the facts speak clearly for themselves, and the whole episode is almost unparalleled in Mormon history.
The
Deseret News of 1862 had absolutely nothing to say of Jean Baptiste except for the stenographic report of
Brigham Young's sermon. The News had much to say of the Dawson scandal and the killing of Huntington and
Clawson, but nothing of the sensational events surrounding Jean Baptiste's ghoulish activities, and the
subsequent furor it caused. How was it that a newspaper could pass by such matters?
Moreover,
Jean Baptiste had been jailed for months, but there is no trace of his name on criminal records. How could he
have been given a judicial hearing and leave not so much as a mention upon the records of the court? The same
records afford minute details of the trial of Dawson's assailants, but yield up no mention of Baptiste. Who,
other than the Mormon officials of that period, could take upon himself the responsibility for sentencing a
man, without trial, to be marooned upon a desert island? Finally, even the Mormon Journal History on Monday,
August 4, 1862, admits that Baptiste was branded "Grave Robber" on his forehead and had his ears cut
off.
The
true fate of Jean Baptiste, alias John the Baptist, may never be known. The mystery attendant upon the entire
affair is wholly remarkable, and a unique example of early corrections in Utah.
Sources:
Deseret
News
Salt
Lake Herald
L.D.S.
Journal of Church History
L.D.S.
Journal of Discourses
Utah
Writers Project, Works Projects Admn. (Nov. 15, 1940)
The
Great Salt Lake, by Dale L. Morgan