For years, Darren Parry has visited community groups around northern Utah to tell the story of his ancestors who lived in the Cache Valley, including his great-great-great grandfather, Chief Sagwitch, a revered leader of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Indians.
Sagwitch was one of hundreds wounded or killed at the Bear River Massacre. He dove into an icy river to escape with his life. Ten years later, he and 100 of his followers converted to Mormonism, served as missionaries and helped build the Logan temple.
It is a rich part of northern Utah’s history, and one that was almost entirely obliterated in Wellsville’s wildly inaccurate and culturally insensitive cowboys-and-Indians re-enactment where white residents paint their bodies red, put on war paint, and whoop and fire guns, attacking the humble settlers before being driven off by the cavalry troops.