The Walker War in 10 Events

Statue of Walkara in Manti, UT

First off, who was Walkara?
When the first Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Walkara (alternately spelled as Wakara or Wahkara), best known to the settlers as "Chief Walker," was probably the most powerful and influential man of the American Indian population living in Utah.  By this time, he was believed to be in his late 30s or early 40s, having been born into the Timpanogos Ute tribe in the early 19th century near the Spanish Fork River.  Walkara attained great wealth and notoriety in the 1830s and early 1840s stealing thousands of valuable horses from the ranchos and Catholic missions along the Old Spanish Trail in California, occasionally with the help of trappers like James Beckwourth and Thomas "Peg Leg" Smith.  Fluent in the languages of many indigenous tribes, as well as English and Spanish, Walkara was also known as a skillful trader, sometimes trading in slaves captured from other tribes to Mexican traders.  His initial relationship to the Mormon settlers was usually peaceful, as he considered them a useful trading partner, but occasionally tumultuous, especially when the settlers used violence against native population, as they did in clearing out the Utah Valley of its "hostile" Timpanogos native people, or when the settlers interfered with Ute-Mexican slave trading.  In spite of the occasionally flaring tensions, Walkara invited Territorial Governor and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Brigham Young to send settlers to live alongside Utah people in the Sanpete Valley in 1849 and introduce them to their farming practices, and Walkara himself was even baptized into their church in 1850.

1.
The Affair at the Ivie Cabin
Modern-day Springville, UT
July 17, 1853
The events leading up to the Walker War, it could be argued, date back to even before the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers arrived in the Great Basin in July 1847, and certainly there was a series of conflicts that contributed after the arrival of Mormon settlers, but the formal beginning of long-term hostilities was initiated by events at the cabin of James and Eliza Ivie on July 17, 1853.  What transpired there is highly disputable, but the only account comes from James Ivie, himself.  According to Ivie, a Timpanonogos woman came to his cabin with three trout to trade for flour, but after the trade was made, a Timpanogos man, believed to be the woman's husband, became outraged at the her for trading for what he believed was so little flour.  The man began to beat the woman severely, and Mr. Ivie interfered on her behalf.  At this the man turned a rifle on Ivie, but Ivie grabbed the barrel and broke it off, then used it to strike a fatal blow to the man's head.  Another Timpanogos man present shot Ivie in the shoulder with an arrow, and Ivie dealt him a debilitating blow.  The Timpanogos woman he said he was trying to protect then attacked Ivie too with a piece of firewood, cutting a gash in his face, and struck her down with the gun barrel as well.  After news of the violence had spread, the Mormon militia was soon called up, well aware of the seriousness of the situation.  Walkara, or "Chief Walker," as he was known to the settlers, demanded that Ivie be turned over to the Timpanogos community so they could administer justice, just as the settlers would require of any Indian alleged to have committed a crime against a white person, but the settlers knew what that would almost certainly mean for Ivie and refused adamantly.  The day after, Walker and his kin killed Alexander Keele, a Mormon settler placed on guard at Payson (then called Peeteetneet Creek), and the war commenced as a series of raids and skirmishes.
Further reading: "Cause and Origin of the Walker War" by George McKenzie, History of Indian Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson, p. 32

2.
Ambush at Parley's Park
Modern-day Park City, UT
August 17, 1853
Four Mormon settlers were attacked by unidentified Indians while hauling lumber in Park City, then known as Parley's Park.  John Quayle and John Dixon were both shot and died instantly, while John Hoagland was shot in the arm.  Hoagland and John Knight (John being a very popular name) managed to unhitch two of their horses and escaped, riding to safety at Salt Lake City through Parley's Canyon.  The four horses and two mules they left behind were taken by their attackers, but the settlers noted the dead had not been mutilated, which was unusual.  Following this incident, Territorial Governor Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders decided to take new defensive measures, including building an adobe wall around part of Salt Lake City and around the larger outlying settlements.
Further reading: "At Parley's Park, Two Men Killed, One Wounded.", A History of Indian Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson. p. 46

Park City, formerly known as Parley's Park

3.
Skirmish in the Goshen Valley
Modern-day Goshen, UT
September 26, 1853
Colonel Stephen Markham of the Mormon militia and an unspecified number of men surprised an Indian camp at sunrise in Goshen Valley, south of Utah Lake.  The Indians begged to go in peace, which Colonel Markham granted on the condition that they turn over their weapons and hand themselves over to the Mormon settlements.  Reluctant to surrender their weapons, the Indians tried to negotiate further, but after several minutes, Colonel Markham ordered his company to attack.  Bishop Charles Hancock of Peteetneet Creek received a minor wound in the head, and a horse was shot in the hip.  The Indians escaped into a nearby swamp with their dead and wounded, their casualties reported to be as few as two or as many as twenty.
Further reading: "Further Particulars of the Walker War Given by John W. Berry of Palmyra, Utah County.", History of Indian Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson, p. 41

Goshen Canyon

4.
Massacre at Uinta Springs
Modern-day Fountain Green, UT
October 1, 1853
William Reed, James Nelson, William Luke, and Thomas Clark camped at Uinta Springs, now the site of Fountain Green, while transporting a load of wheat from Manti to Salt Lake City on the night of September 30, 1853.  They would have continued on through Salt Creek Canyon to Nephi the next morning before turning north along the Wasatch Front.  The next morning, an escort led by Isaac Morley arrived to take them through the canyon but found the men dead, stripped of their clothing with throats cut, bowels opened and scalps taken.  Clark was not found until a little after, with his head crushed and heart removed, his body being hidden beneath the load of wheat that the killers had emptied out, and was taken to Manti or burial.  The bodies other were taken through the canyon to Nephi, where they were buried in unmarked graves.
Further reading: "Four Men Killed at Uintah Springs, Sanpete County." History of Indiana Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson, p. 67

Uinta Springs marker at Fountain Green

5. 
Massacre at Nephi 
Nephi, UT
October 2, 1853
The day after Isaac Morley and company brought the badly mutilated bodies of four Manti farmers into Nephi for burial, several Ute (or Goshute) people appeared outside the Nephi fort asking for bread.  With the gruesome deaths of the four Manti men fresh in their minds, the Nephi settlers summarily executed all of the group except a woman and two children.  The killings were reported in the newspaper The Deseret News in vague detail as part of a "skirmish" in which eight Indians had been killed, but the diary of Nephi resident Martha Heywood revealed they "were shot down without one minute's notice" in a manner she described as "unhumanly [sic]."  When the remains were discovered in 2006 during foundation work being done on a Nephi house, forensic evidence revealed the victims had been shot through the back of their heads.  A Ute woman and two children were left alive but kept prisoner in the fort, probably to be adopted into Mormon households as "servants."
Further reading: "Native American remains reveal evidence of being executed," by Myrna Trauntvein, The Times-News, Nephi, Utah

The Old Hollow in Nephi, where the bones of several indigenous people were discovered in 2006

6.
Attack at Summit
Modern-day Santaquin, UT
October 14, 1853
Although the people of the fledgling settlement of Summit (now known as Santaquin) had relocated to the better protected Peteetneet Creek (Payson) settlement, a group of men ventured out one afternoon to harvest the potato crops that had been planted in the spring.  Possibly drawn by the sounds of gunshot when some of the more reckless among the harvesting party attempted to shoot a wolf, a Ute war party led by a man named Showan arrived and was not noticed by the settlers until they were already running at them and firing.  One of the Mormon settlers, Fernee Tindrell, was shot and fell while the others continued to flee on foot to Payson or seek shelter in the thickets, turning back to see one of the attackers waving Tindrell's scalp.  As the harvesting party neared the settlements, the war party pulled back, turning toward Santaquin Canyon.  When some of the men from the harvesting party went to retrieve Tindrell's body, they found him mostly stripped, scalped, with five arrows in his body, including one that pinned one of his arms to his torso and two that had skewered him through the chest, as well as two bullet wounds.
Further reading: "Attack at Santaquin, Utah County. Fernee L. Tindrell Killed.", History of Indian Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson, p. 71

7.
The Gunnison Massacre
Sevier River, Millard County, UT
October 26, 1853
Hostilities between settlers and Utah's native inhabitants became national news with the killing of government surveyor Captain John W. Gunnison of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers and seven men in his party along a bend in the Sevier River 30 miles west of the then territorial capital of Fillmore.  Gunnison; who had been to Utah before during the Battle at Fort Utah in 1849, acting as second-in-command to Major Howard Stansbury's surveying expedition of the territory; was in the territory surveying a potential route for the transcontinental railroad.  In October, the weather was turning frigid, and Gunnison resolved to explore the Sevier Lake region before returning to Salt Lake City to make winter quarters.  In the early hours of October 26, 1853, shortly after the men of Gunnison's party awoke, a shot rang out, and their cook fell dead by the campfire.  A series of shots and war cries then let out, and Gunnison's men ran about in a panic, some returning shots, others running to protect the horses or escape to safety.  According to Lights and Shadows of Mormonism by Josiah F. Gibbs, Gunnison was pierced by almost twenty arrows before he collapsed about 75 yards from the middle of camp.  One of the members of the Pahvant war party that attacked them later reported that he and a few others of their group found Captain Gunnison dying, and one among them referred to as "Jimmy Knights" fired his gun directly into him, killing him.
The Pahvant war party had been led by Moshoquop, whose father had been recently killed by white men, reportedly in an attempt to trade with a wagon party of emigrants passing through on their way to California.  The Pahvant Chief Kanosh, who strove for good relations with the settlers most of the time, despite being technically aligned with his brother Walkara during the war, called Moshoquop and his party to him for a stern rebuke, but they were permitted to go their way afterward and lived into old age.  The incident created an uproar in Washington however, where the Mormons were already commonly held in suspicion, and there was speculation that the attack was actually the work of white Mormon settlers or, at the very least, spurred on by them, prompting an investigation by the War Department.
Further reading: Lights and Shadows of Mormonism by J.F. Gibbs.

Site of the Gunnison Massacre, near a bend in the Sevier River

8.
Burning of the Allred Settlement
Spring City, UT
January 6, 1854 
Spring City, then known as the Allred Settlement (being settled mainly by James Allred and his family members), was one of the smaller settlements whose inhabitants had relocated to larger fortified settlements during the hostilities.  Abandoned, the buildings were burned to the ground by a Ute war party, similar to the previous burning of homes in Santaquin (then known as Summit) and the sawmill in Sanpete County.


9.
Capture of Peteetneet's Son
Near Palmyra, UT
February 1854
According to the testimony of John W. Berry, a resident of Palmyra, Utah at the time, a "Captain Hancock" (probably Bishop Charles B. Hancock, from the Peteetneet Creek settlement) of the Mormon militia captured two Timpanogos men, including a son of Chief Peteetneet.  Peeteetneet and his band had raided 50-60 cattle from the Palmyra settlement late in the previous summer and fortified themselves in Spanish Fork Canyon throughout the winter.  The other of the two captives was released to tell Peteetneet of his son's capture, so that he might come to negotiate terms of peace.  Peteetneet agreed to end hostilities in exchange for the release of his son.
Further reading: "Further Particulars of the Walker War Given by John W. Berry of Palmyra, Utah County.", History of Indian Depredations in Utah by Peter Gottfredson, p. 37

Statue of Peteetneet in Payson, UT

10.
Peace Treaty
Chicken Creek, near Levan, UT
May 1854
On an unspecified day in May 1854, less than a year after it had begun, the so-called Walker War came to an end about ten miles south from Nephi at Chicken Creek, near modern-day Levan.  Territorial Governor and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Brigham Young and his escort arrived to meet with Chief Walkara and Chief Kanosh to sign a formal treaty to end hostilities and return to peaceful cohabitation of the land.  Walkara died at Meadow Creek the following year on January 29, 1855.

Marker at Levan, commemorating the 1854 peace treaty at Chicken Creek