Parley Pratt and Van Buren Arkansas

Parley P. Pratt,  one of the first members of the  Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was sent to explore a southern route from Utah to California in 1849. He reached San Francisco from Los Angeles in the summer of 1851, remaining there until June, 1855.

While in San Francisco, Pratt met Eleanor, the wife of Hector McLean, a custom-house official, the mother of 3  children.  She agreed to accept the Mormon faith and elope with him to Utah as his wife.   Hector rejected Mormonism and opposed his wife's membership in the church, leading to the collapse of their marriage although they never divorced.

Fearing Eleanor would take the children to Utah Territory, Hector sent his sons and daughter to New Orleans to live with Eleanor's parents. Eleanor followed the children to New Orleans, eventually leaving with her children for Utah; they arrived in Salt Lake City on Sept 11, 1855.   On Nov 14, 1855, she and Pratt underwent a "celestial marriage" sealing ceremony and became the 12th woman to be sealed to Pratt. Although still married to Hector, she considered herself unmarried.

Because Eleanor took the children, Hector blamed Pratt and pressed criminal charges, accusing Pratt of assisting in the kidnapping of his children.  Hector traced his wife and Pratt to Houston and then to Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory, near Van Buren, Arkansas.  He had Pratt arrested,  May 1857.

Pratt and Eleanor were charged with theft of the clothing of McLean's children -- The laws at that time did not recognize the kidnapping of children by a parent as a crime.  Pratt was acquitted because of a lack of evidence and, after interviewing Eleanor,  Judge Ogden was disgusted by Hector's drinking and wife-beating.

Shortly after being secretly released, May 13, 1857, Pratt was shot and stabbed by Hector on a farm northeast of Van Buren; he died 2 hours later.   Despite his wishes to be buried in the Utah Territory, Pratt was buried near Alma, Arkansas.

Many believe that the murder of Pratt led to the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah later that year. A party of 137 men, women and children - most of them from Arkansas - were attacked by Mormon militia and Indians. Only 17 children survived; 120 other emigrants were slaughtered.

In 2008, Pratt's family received permission from an Arkansas judge to rebury his remains in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, but no human remains were found at what was believed his gravesite. No further search efforts for Pratt's burial site have been planned.