Columbus R. Freeman (1838-1907) - Biographical Sketch

A native of rural Kentucky (or Missouri per the 1880 census records), Columbus Reed Freeman moved to western Illinois before traveling with the Mormons to frontier Utah. He was an American frontiersman and early pioneer to southern Utah.

Freeman was born in 1838 in Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky, the son of John J. Freeman (1804-1871) and Nancy Beal Smoot (1807-1891). (Other records indicate that he was born in Missouri.) His father’s forebears were from southern England and immigrated to Jamestown, Virginia. Generations later they moved to Kentucky. His mother was in the Smoot clan, some of whom later rose to positions of some prominence among the Mormons.

Freeman's parents joined the Mormons and moved to western Illinois in the early 1840s. As a child, Freeman experienced the "Mormon War" in western Illinois and the forced expulsions of the Mormons. Eventually, the Freeman family joined the Mormon migration to frontier Utah.

By 1857, Freeman was a 19-year-old youth living in southern Utah. He is listed in June 1857 muster list but for unknown reasons, not in the October 1857 list. According to the muster roll, he was a private in a platoon in Company C of Parowan. No one else from Parowan is known to have be involved in the massacre so why was Freeman identified? In Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Turley and Leonard opine that since Freeman's parents and siblings were living with the other Southerners in the new settlement of Washington in Washington County, he may have been living in Washington and was recruited from there to march to Mountain Meadows. He was among the young men ordered to muster to Mountain Meadows.

According to John D. Lee's account in Mormonism Unveiled, Freeman attended the fateful military council at Mountain Meadows on the evening of Thursday, September 10, just before the final massacre the following day. However, the youthful private could not have played a significant role in the deliberations of the council. His exact role at the time of the final massacre is not unknown, althought he could have been among the contingent of militiamen who accompanied the emigrant men from their camp on their northbound march just before the massacre commenced.

In 1862, Freeman married a native of Kentucky, Lydia Clementine West (1840-1912). He had left southern Utah for Corn Creek in Millard County. They had eight children. The 1880 census for Kanosh in Millard County lists Freeman as being born in Missouri, 41 years old and employed as a laborer, with a wife, Lydia, born in Kentucky, 39 years old, keeping house, with four sons and three daughters, ages two to sixteen. The 1900 census indicate that Freeman's residence was in Graham County, Arizona. At the time of his death in 1907 he may have been visiting or living in Los Angeles, California.

References: Membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1848; New.familysearch.org; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Lee Trial transcripts; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Appendix C; 1850, 1870, 1880 and 1900 U.S. Census.