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Utah Office Building to be Named After Noted Mormon
Murderer!
Orrin Porter Rockwell could have killed up to 100 people. Much of Mormon history tries to cover up his notorious past.
The Salt Lake Tribune -- Murderer Honored
Monday, June 14, 1999 -- Editorial Opinion
Much to my dismay, I see there is an office building under construction at the point of the mountain just west of I-15 named after the most prolific hit man murderer that ever lived in Utah or probably anywhere else. Orrin Porter Rockwell died at age 65 in a horse stable in Salt Lake city on June 9, 1878, trying to sober up from a drunk. At the time of his death he was under indictment for the murderer of Thomas and John Aiken in Levan, Utah, and would have gone to trial in September. On June 11, 1878, The Salt Lake Tribune stated " Thus the gallows was cheated of one of the fittest candidates that ever cut a throat or plundered a traveler."
The Tribune further described Rockwell as extremely ignorant, illiterate, and superstitious. His calling in the Mormon church was to murder apostates and gentiles with the help of other Danite murderers such as William A. (Bill) Hickman. It is believed that he participated in at least 100 murders for the church.
After Joseph Smith Jr. offered $500 to anyone who would kill ex-Gov. Lilburn Boggs of Missouri, it was Porter Rockwell who took him up on the offer and on May 6, 1842, he shot Boggs at night through a window while he was reading by candlelight. Smith was so thrilled that Rockwell had attempted the murder of Boggs that he named him the "Samson of the church."
Porter Rockwell is also believed to have killed Dr. J. King Robinson, a surgeon who came into the Salt Lake valley in 1861 with General Conner's army. Robinson married a Mormon woman, Nellie Kay, and practiced medicine until Oct. 22, 1866, when he was called out of his house at night. Within blocks of his house he was clubbed and shot to death simply because he had filed a claim of ownership on what was later known as Wasatch Springs. Robinson is buried in the Fort Douglas cemetery.
None of Porter Rockwell's murders were more unjustifiable than the killing of Kenneth and Alexander McRae, who were 18 and 21 years old. It was reported they had stolen a mule though no mule was missing or in their possession when Rockwell and a "deputy" blasted them with shotguns in Emigration Canyon on Aug. 30, 1861, and later dumped their bodies in the mother's yard.
Again, I am appalled that a building could be named after this cowardly murderer.
GLENN D. HUBBARD
Page Modified December 28, 1999