Utah’s early history is certainly not boring. From the dinosaurs to Utah’s first inhabitants, and much more recent history of mountain men and pioneers, the stories from the Beehive State are all fascinating. Here’s a story from the 1800s that sounds like something straight out of the tabloids. It involves crimes, corpses, a lonely island, and a missing man.
The Mormon settlers who first arrived here in the mid-1800s experienced a lot of tragedy. Death from illnesses, accidents, and childbirth was common.
Robert Hoetink/iStock/via Getty Images Gravedigger Jean Baptiste buried many settlers in the Salt Lake City Cemetery throughout those early years.
In January of 1862, a man named Moroni Clawson was shot by lawmen during an altercation. No one in his family showed up to bury him.
Thomas_Zsebok_Images/iStock/via Getty Images
Local Salt Lake City police officer Henry Heath paid for Clawson’s burial. Shortly afterward, the young man’s family showed up and wanted to move his body to rest in the family cemetery.
By Henry Heath - Deseret News, March 31, 1908, Public Domain
When the body was exhumed, it was stripped of all its clothing. The gravedigger was an immediate suspect.
Jack Zalium/flickr Officer Heath went to Jean Baptiste’s home, where he found the personal clothing and belongings of more than 300 men, women, and children whom Baptiste had buried.
Baptiste was arrested and the community was outraged. The thought of him stealing the clothes right off the bodies of deceased children was horrific, and soon a lynch mob had gathered outside the prison.
Shyam Ebenezer/EyeEm/via Getty Images
Inmates inside the jail were also threatening to kill Baptiste, so it was decided that he should serve out his term in isolation on Antelope Island.
r.nial.bradshaw/Moment Collection/via Getty Images Because the water levels were low, law enforcement worried that Baptiste would be able to wade to shore, and he was moved instead to Fremont Island.
Two weeks after Baptiste had been left on Fremont Island, cattle ranchers showed up to check on their herds. They found that the little house Baptiste was supposed to be living in had been knocked down and he was nowhere to be found.
schweizup/flickr The theory was that he had used the wood from the house to make a boat, and had escaped.
No one ever saw Jean Baptiste again. Some believe that his homemade boat capsized and he drowned in the Great Salt Lake; others think that the made it off the island, hopped a train, and got out of town.
Amir Hamja/EyeEm/via Getty Images There’s also a creepier version of this tale. Some people swear they’ve seen a man walking along the shores of the lake, who disappears into the mist. They think it’s Baptiste’s ghost, bound forever to the place where he was exiled.
Have you heard the story of Jean Baptiste before? Tell us your theory… did he escape, or die out there on the Great Salt Lake?
Robert Hoetink/iStock/via Getty Images
Gravedigger Jean Baptiste buried many settlers in the Salt Lake City Cemetery throughout those early years.
Thomas_Zsebok_Images/iStock/via Getty Images
By Henry Heath - Deseret News, March 31, 1908, Public Domain
Jack Zalium/flickr
Officer Heath went to Jean Baptiste’s home, where he found the personal clothing and belongings of more than 300 men, women, and children whom Baptiste had buried.
Shyam Ebenezer/EyeEm/via Getty Images
r.nial.bradshaw/Moment Collection/via Getty Images
Because the water levels were low, law enforcement worried that Baptiste would be able to wade to shore, and he was moved instead to Fremont Island.
schweizup/flickr
The theory was that he had used the wood from the house to make a boat, and had escaped.
Amir Hamja/EyeEm/via Getty Images
There’s also a creepier version of this tale. Some people swear they’ve seen a man walking along the shores of the lake, who disappears into the mist. They think it’s Baptiste’s ghost, bound forever to the place where he was exiled.
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