Richard E Turley
Richard E. Turley Jr. serves as managing director of the Public Affairs Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Previously he served as Assistant Church Historian and Recorder, managing director of the Church Historical Department, and managing director of the Family History Department.
He has published numerous books on Mormon and Western History, including Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) (with Ronald W. Walker and Glen M. Leonard); Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections (Provo: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009) (with Ronald W. Walker); Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); Preserving the History of the Latter-day Saints (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University/Deseret Book, 2010) (with Steven C. Harper); Women of Faith in the Latter Days, vols. 1, 2, and 3 (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book) (with co-editor Brittany Chapman); How We Got the Book of Mormon and How We Got the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book) (with William W. Slaughter); Stories from the Life of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005) (with Lael Littke); and most recently Fearless in the Cause (Deseret Book, 2016) (with Brittany Chapman) and Wagons West: Brigham Young and the First Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016). He was also general editor for The Journals of George Q. Cannon print volumes To California in ’49 (Deseret Book, 1999) and Hawaiian Mission, 1850-1854 (Deseret Book, 2014). He has two book-length works at press right now, volume 4 of Women of Faith, and the two-volume Mountain Meadows Massacre: Collected Legal Papers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) (with Janiece L. Johnson and LaJean Purcell Carruth). He is also completing a sequel to Massacre at Mountain Meadows that will be published by Oxford University Press.
He has served as a member of the executive committee of The Church Historian’s Press, chairman of the editorial board for the Joseph Smith Papers, and on various committees for professional associations. Currently, he serves as a member of the Mormon Studies Fellowship board at the University of Utah Tanner Humanities Center and on the Juanita Brooks Prize Committee for the University of Utah Press.
He is the recipient of the 2015 Honorary Lifetime Member Award for the Utah State Historical Society; the 2013 Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association for distinguished contributions to public history; the 2013 Best Anthology Award from the John Whitmer Historical Association; a 2012 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Utah Board of State History; the Smith-Petitt Foundation 2010 Best Documentary Book in Utah History Award; the 2010 Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary Book on Mormon History; the 2009 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association; a Special Award for History from the Association for Mormon Letters in 2009; the 2008 Co-Founders Best Book award from Westerners International; and the Historic Preservation Medal from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2004.
Mr. Turley received a bachelor’s degree in English from Brigham Young University, where he was a Spencer W. Kimball Scholar. He later graduated from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as executive editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
He has published numerous books on Mormon and Western History, including Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) (with Ronald W. Walker and Glen M. Leonard); Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections (Provo: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009) (with Ronald W. Walker); Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); Preserving the History of the Latter-day Saints (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University/Deseret Book, 2010) (with Steven C. Harper); Women of Faith in the Latter Days, vols. 1, 2, and 3 (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book) (with co-editor Brittany Chapman); How We Got the Book of Mormon and How We Got the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book) (with William W. Slaughter); Stories from the Life of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005) (with Lael Littke); and most recently Fearless in the Cause (Deseret Book, 2016) (with Brittany Chapman) and Wagons West: Brigham Young and the First Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016). He was also general editor for The Journals of George Q. Cannon print volumes To California in ’49 (Deseret Book, 1999) and Hawaiian Mission, 1850-1854 (Deseret Book, 2014). He has two book-length works at press right now, volume 4 of Women of Faith, and the two-volume Mountain Meadows Massacre: Collected Legal Papers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) (with Janiece L. Johnson and LaJean Purcell Carruth). He is also completing a sequel to Massacre at Mountain Meadows that will be published by Oxford University Press.
He has served as a member of the executive committee of The Church Historian’s Press, chairman of the editorial board for the Joseph Smith Papers, and on various committees for professional associations. Currently, he serves as a member of the Mormon Studies Fellowship board at the University of Utah Tanner Humanities Center and on the Juanita Brooks Prize Committee for the University of Utah Press.
He is the recipient of the 2015 Honorary Lifetime Member Award for the Utah State Historical Society; the 2013 Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association for distinguished contributions to public history; the 2013 Best Anthology Award from the John Whitmer Historical Association; a 2012 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Utah Board of State History; the Smith-Petitt Foundation 2010 Best Documentary Book in Utah History Award; the 2010 Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary Book on Mormon History; the 2009 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association; a Special Award for History from the Association for Mormon Letters in 2009; the 2008 Co-Founders Best Book award from Westerners International; and the Historic Preservation Medal from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2004.
Mr. Turley received a bachelor’s degree in English from Brigham Young University, where he was a Spencer W. Kimball Scholar. He later graduated from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as executive editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
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Books by Richard E Turley
On September 11, 1857, a group of Mormons aided by Paiute Indians brutally murdered some 120 men, women, and children traveling through a remote region of southwestern Utah. Within weeks, news of the atrocity spread across the United States. But it took until 1874—seventeen years later—before a grand jury finally issued indictments against nine of the perpetrators. Mountain Meadows Massacre chronicles the prolonged legal battle to gain justice for the victims.
The editors of this two-volume collection of documents have combed public and private manuscript collections from across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the massacre’s aftermath. This exhaustively researched compilation covers a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre to the dismissal of the last indictment in 1896. Of special importance in Volume 2 are the transcripts of legal proceedings against John D. Lee—many of which the editors have transcribed anew from the shorthand. Because of the extensive length of Lee’s trial transcripts, the editors have made the transcripts available at their accompanying website, MountainMeadowsMassacre.org. The two trials against Lee led to his confession, conviction, and ultimately his execution on the massacre site in 1877, all documented in this volume.
Historians have long debated the circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, one of the most disturbing and controversial events in American history, and painful questions linger to this day. This invaluable, exhaustively researched collection allows readers the opportunity to form their own conclusions about the forces behind this dark moment in western U.S. history.
On September 11, 1857, a group of Mormons aided by Paiute Indians brutally murdered some 120 men, women, and children traveling through a remote region of southwestern Utah. Within weeks, news of the atrocity spread across the United States. But it took until 1874—seventeen years later—before a grand jury finally issued indictments against nine of the perpetrators. Mountain Meadows Massacre chronicles the prolonged legal battle to gain justice for the victims.
The editors of this two-volume collection of documents have combed public and private manuscript collections from across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the massacre’s aftermath. This exhaustively researched compilation covers a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre to the dismissal of the last indictment in 1896. Volume 1 contains the first half of the story: the records of the official investigations into the massacre and transcriptions of all nine indictments. Eight of those indictments never resulted in a trial conviction, but the one that did is documented extensively in Volume 2.
Historians have long debated the circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, one of the most disturbing and controversial events in American history, and painful questions linger to this day. This invaluable, exhaustively researched collection allows readers the opportunity to form their own conclusions about the forces behind this dark moment in western U.S. history.
--Winner of the Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary Book on Mormon History, Mormon History Association, 2010.
As Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard were researching their book "Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy" (Oxford University Press, 2008), they discovered several oral interviews, written statements, and letters from some of those participants. These documents were crucial to their research, and now they are available in a new book, "Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections," copublished by Brigham Young University Press and University of Utah Press. This new book makes available two significant archival collections known but largely unavailable to previous researchers.
On September 11, 1857, in a highland valley in southern Utah known as the Mountain Meadows, dozens of Mormon settlers and some Paiute Indians massacred more than a hundred California-bound emigrants, most of whom hailed from northwest Arkansas. This horrific crime, which came to be known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is arguably the worst incident in Latter-day Saint history and one of the great tragedies of the American West.
"There can be no catharsis to this terrible tragedy without full and open disclosure," says Walker. "That has been our goal from the beginning, and this new book will carry on this process. Here readers can see for themselves the words of individuals who participated in the massacre and make their own judgments."
"During our years of research," write Turley and Walker in the book's preface, "we hoped to leave no source unturned. One bystander, hearing of our aspiration, asked where we thought we'd find the richest vein of materials. 'Perhaps here in Salt Lake City,' one of us said. That prediction proved to be accurate." These two collections were both in possession of the LDS Church, but each has its own story.
In January 1892, Andrew Jenson, a full-time employee in the Church Historian's Office, was invited to the Church President's office, where he received a startling assignment. He was asked to go to southern Utah "on a special mission to gather historical information, concerning the Mountain Meadow massacre." His nine-day, whirlwind circuit took him 620 miles, 176 of those miles by grueling wagon travel during the wintertime. "I . . . have been successful in getting the desired information for the First Presidency," he wrote upon returning to Salt Lake City. "But it has been an unpleasant business. The information that I received made me suffer mentally and deprived me of my sleep at nights."
Jenson's documents consist of both field notes from his interviews and prepared reports, expanded and polished by Jenson to present to the First Presidency. The prepared reports remained in the First Presidency's possession, while the field notes went to the Church Historian's Office, where they were separated by topic and some of them forgotten. In 2002, the Jenson material resurfaced when Church Historian's Office employees combed through collections searching for massacre references.
David H. Morris, by contrast, was an attorney and judge in St. George, Utah, who had professional, geographical, and family ties to the massacre. He lived less than forty miles from the Meadows, and he and his family knew men who had a role in the killing. After conducting official business with the old-timers, Morris would ask them privately about what had happened at the Meadows. Because he said little about his purposes, many details about Morris's collection are likely to remain a mystery. When he died in 1937, the collection fell into the hands of his foster daughter, Helen Forsha Hafen, who recognized the sensitivity of the material and gave it to the First Presidency of the LDS Church.
The Jenson and Morris collections are now available in their entirety for the first time. In "Mountain Meadows Massacre," images of the original documents are accompanied by typed transcriptions, which reproduce original spelling, punctuation, strikethroughs, and inserted words or characters. Introductory text explains in detail how each document collection came to be, how the Church came to possess these materials, and where they were archived. Brief biographical sketches introduce the individuals who provided the information that appears in the document collections.
According to historian Klaus J. Hansen, "The editorial standards employed [in this new book] are cutting-edge." He goes on to explain that "this volume is an essential contribution" to understanding this tragic event.
"While the massacre continues to shock and distress," write the editors, "we hope that the publication of these documents will be a further step in facilitating understanding, sharing sorrows, and promoting reconciliation. We are honored to present these documents as supplements to 'Massacre at Mountain Meadows.'"
--Winner, Special Award for History, Association for Mormon Letters, 2009.
--Winner, Co-Founders Best Book Award, Westerners International, 2008.
From Oxford University Press website:
"A vivid, gripping narrative of one of the most notorious mass murders in all American history, and a model for how historians should do their work. This account of a long-controversial horror is scrupulously researched, enriched with contemporary illustrations, and informed by the lessons of more recent atrocities." --Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
"Three Mormon scholars have thoroughly researched one of the most shameful events in Mormon history. They have produced a very detailed, insightful and balanced account of the events leading to the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 9/11, 1857." --Robert V. Remini, Professor Emeritus of History and the Humanities, University of Illinois, Chicago
"An institutional effort at truth telling in service to reparation, this book provides in unflinching detail and with scholarly transparency the story of one of the West's most disturbingly violent moments. The authors tell the story well and get the history right, in no small part because of LDS Church sponsorship that underwrote a level of professional staffing and research that is impossible, even unimaginable, to the most diligent of lone writers. This uniquely well-documented account of a highly contested event may make obsolete previous studies and without doubt will constitute the necessary starting point for all future ones." --Kathleen Flake, author of The Politics of American Religious Identity
"The authors of Massacre at Mountain Meadows have written the best researched, most complete, and most evenhanded account of the Mountain Meadows incident we are likely to have for a long time. Above all they tell a gripping tale. Though I knew the end from the beginning, I began to sweat as the narrative approached its fatal climax. The authors won't let us turn our gaze away from the horrors of that moment." --Richard Bushman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University
"Massacre at Mountain Meadows is arguably the most professional, transparent account of a controversial event in Mormon history produced under church auspices. The work may well mark a major turning point in Latter-day Saint historiography." --Journal of American History
"Massacre at Mountain Meadows deserves to be the standard account of the massacre for both LDS and non-LDS researchers and readers...Walker, Turley, and Leonard have provided a tightly written, riveting narrative ...In this excellent volume readers of every stripe--from undergraduates to scholars to the general public--will find not only the finest extant account of the tragedy of Mountain Meadows but also a window onto the potential, but by no means inevitable, power of religion to contribute to mass violence." --Church History
"It may be tempting to disregard this work as just another in a long line of books written about this tragic event, but it would be a mistake to discount it. The authors have compiled a staggering amount of research, some of which has never been seen before, and present a more thorough and detailed history of Mountain Meadows than has ever been written. . . This meticulously researched book is an important contribution to the study of Mormonism in America and the authors succeeded in telling the story of an often polarizing event in a scholarly and historically responsible way."--Religious Studies Review
Papers by Richard E Turley
On September 11, 1857, a group of Mormons aided by Paiute Indians brutally murdered some 120 men, women, and children traveling through a remote region of southwestern Utah. Within weeks, news of the atrocity spread across the United States. But it took until 1874—seventeen years later—before a grand jury finally issued indictments against nine of the perpetrators. Mountain Meadows Massacre chronicles the prolonged legal battle to gain justice for the victims.
The editors of this two-volume collection of documents have combed public and private manuscript collections from across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the massacre’s aftermath. This exhaustively researched compilation covers a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre to the dismissal of the last indictment in 1896. Of special importance in Volume 2 are the transcripts of legal proceedings against John D. Lee—many of which the editors have transcribed anew from the shorthand. Because of the extensive length of Lee’s trial transcripts, the editors have made the transcripts available at their accompanying website, MountainMeadowsMassacre.org. The two trials against Lee led to his confession, conviction, and ultimately his execution on the massacre site in 1877, all documented in this volume.
Historians have long debated the circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, one of the most disturbing and controversial events in American history, and painful questions linger to this day. This invaluable, exhaustively researched collection allows readers the opportunity to form their own conclusions about the forces behind this dark moment in western U.S. history.
On September 11, 1857, a group of Mormons aided by Paiute Indians brutally murdered some 120 men, women, and children traveling through a remote region of southwestern Utah. Within weeks, news of the atrocity spread across the United States. But it took until 1874—seventeen years later—before a grand jury finally issued indictments against nine of the perpetrators. Mountain Meadows Massacre chronicles the prolonged legal battle to gain justice for the victims.
The editors of this two-volume collection of documents have combed public and private manuscript collections from across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the massacre’s aftermath. This exhaustively researched compilation covers a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre to the dismissal of the last indictment in 1896. Volume 1 contains the first half of the story: the records of the official investigations into the massacre and transcriptions of all nine indictments. Eight of those indictments never resulted in a trial conviction, but the one that did is documented extensively in Volume 2.
Historians have long debated the circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, one of the most disturbing and controversial events in American history, and painful questions linger to this day. This invaluable, exhaustively researched collection allows readers the opportunity to form their own conclusions about the forces behind this dark moment in western U.S. history.
--Winner of the Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary Book on Mormon History, Mormon History Association, 2010.
As Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard were researching their book "Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy" (Oxford University Press, 2008), they discovered several oral interviews, written statements, and letters from some of those participants. These documents were crucial to their research, and now they are available in a new book, "Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections," copublished by Brigham Young University Press and University of Utah Press. This new book makes available two significant archival collections known but largely unavailable to previous researchers.
On September 11, 1857, in a highland valley in southern Utah known as the Mountain Meadows, dozens of Mormon settlers and some Paiute Indians massacred more than a hundred California-bound emigrants, most of whom hailed from northwest Arkansas. This horrific crime, which came to be known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is arguably the worst incident in Latter-day Saint history and one of the great tragedies of the American West.
"There can be no catharsis to this terrible tragedy without full and open disclosure," says Walker. "That has been our goal from the beginning, and this new book will carry on this process. Here readers can see for themselves the words of individuals who participated in the massacre and make their own judgments."
"During our years of research," write Turley and Walker in the book's preface, "we hoped to leave no source unturned. One bystander, hearing of our aspiration, asked where we thought we'd find the richest vein of materials. 'Perhaps here in Salt Lake City,' one of us said. That prediction proved to be accurate." These two collections were both in possession of the LDS Church, but each has its own story.
In January 1892, Andrew Jenson, a full-time employee in the Church Historian's Office, was invited to the Church President's office, where he received a startling assignment. He was asked to go to southern Utah "on a special mission to gather historical information, concerning the Mountain Meadow massacre." His nine-day, whirlwind circuit took him 620 miles, 176 of those miles by grueling wagon travel during the wintertime. "I . . . have been successful in getting the desired information for the First Presidency," he wrote upon returning to Salt Lake City. "But it has been an unpleasant business. The information that I received made me suffer mentally and deprived me of my sleep at nights."
Jenson's documents consist of both field notes from his interviews and prepared reports, expanded and polished by Jenson to present to the First Presidency. The prepared reports remained in the First Presidency's possession, while the field notes went to the Church Historian's Office, where they were separated by topic and some of them forgotten. In 2002, the Jenson material resurfaced when Church Historian's Office employees combed through collections searching for massacre references.
David H. Morris, by contrast, was an attorney and judge in St. George, Utah, who had professional, geographical, and family ties to the massacre. He lived less than forty miles from the Meadows, and he and his family knew men who had a role in the killing. After conducting official business with the old-timers, Morris would ask them privately about what had happened at the Meadows. Because he said little about his purposes, many details about Morris's collection are likely to remain a mystery. When he died in 1937, the collection fell into the hands of his foster daughter, Helen Forsha Hafen, who recognized the sensitivity of the material and gave it to the First Presidency of the LDS Church.
The Jenson and Morris collections are now available in their entirety for the first time. In "Mountain Meadows Massacre," images of the original documents are accompanied by typed transcriptions, which reproduce original spelling, punctuation, strikethroughs, and inserted words or characters. Introductory text explains in detail how each document collection came to be, how the Church came to possess these materials, and where they were archived. Brief biographical sketches introduce the individuals who provided the information that appears in the document collections.
According to historian Klaus J. Hansen, "The editorial standards employed [in this new book] are cutting-edge." He goes on to explain that "this volume is an essential contribution" to understanding this tragic event.
"While the massacre continues to shock and distress," write the editors, "we hope that the publication of these documents will be a further step in facilitating understanding, sharing sorrows, and promoting reconciliation. We are honored to present these documents as supplements to 'Massacre at Mountain Meadows.'"
--Winner, Special Award for History, Association for Mormon Letters, 2009.
--Winner, Co-Founders Best Book Award, Westerners International, 2008.
From Oxford University Press website:
"A vivid, gripping narrative of one of the most notorious mass murders in all American history, and a model for how historians should do their work. This account of a long-controversial horror is scrupulously researched, enriched with contemporary illustrations, and informed by the lessons of more recent atrocities." --Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
"Three Mormon scholars have thoroughly researched one of the most shameful events in Mormon history. They have produced a very detailed, insightful and balanced account of the events leading to the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 9/11, 1857." --Robert V. Remini, Professor Emeritus of History and the Humanities, University of Illinois, Chicago
"An institutional effort at truth telling in service to reparation, this book provides in unflinching detail and with scholarly transparency the story of one of the West's most disturbingly violent moments. The authors tell the story well and get the history right, in no small part because of LDS Church sponsorship that underwrote a level of professional staffing and research that is impossible, even unimaginable, to the most diligent of lone writers. This uniquely well-documented account of a highly contested event may make obsolete previous studies and without doubt will constitute the necessary starting point for all future ones." --Kathleen Flake, author of The Politics of American Religious Identity
"The authors of Massacre at Mountain Meadows have written the best researched, most complete, and most evenhanded account of the Mountain Meadows incident we are likely to have for a long time. Above all they tell a gripping tale. Though I knew the end from the beginning, I began to sweat as the narrative approached its fatal climax. The authors won't let us turn our gaze away from the horrors of that moment." --Richard Bushman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University
"Massacre at Mountain Meadows is arguably the most professional, transparent account of a controversial event in Mormon history produced under church auspices. The work may well mark a major turning point in Latter-day Saint historiography." --Journal of American History
"Massacre at Mountain Meadows deserves to be the standard account of the massacre for both LDS and non-LDS researchers and readers...Walker, Turley, and Leonard have provided a tightly written, riveting narrative ...In this excellent volume readers of every stripe--from undergraduates to scholars to the general public--will find not only the finest extant account of the tragedy of Mountain Meadows but also a window onto the potential, but by no means inevitable, power of religion to contribute to mass violence." --Church History
"It may be tempting to disregard this work as just another in a long line of books written about this tragic event, but it would be a mistake to discount it. The authors have compiled a staggering amount of research, some of which has never been seen before, and present a more thorough and detailed history of Mountain Meadows than has ever been written. . . This meticulously researched book is an important contribution to the study of Mormonism in America and the authors succeeded in telling the story of an often polarizing event in a scholarly and historically responsible way."--Religious Studies Review