RIP Michael Carbis

The grave of Michael Carbis, located in Silver Reef's Protestant Cemetery. Michael Carbis was the foreman of the California mine, and he was tasked with firing Thomas Forrest, a miner who was nothing but trouble. Forrest liked to cause trouble in the mine and around town, so Carbis fired him on October 1, 1880, and told him to find work elsewhere.

Forrest was furious with Carbis and planned to get even. On the evening of October 3, Forrest came across Carbis near the Forsha Boarding House. Leaning against the building, Forrest told Carbis to approach, which Carbis did. Forrest then pulled a gun on Carbis and told him that he was upset over his firing. Carbis remained as calm as he could and even managed to convince Forrest to put away his gun. But that's when Forrest drew a knife, stabbed Carbis once in the gut, and fled the scene.

Carbis was immediately taken into the boarding house and a search party was quickly organized to find Forrest. Carbis remained alive for several more hours before finally dying surrounded by his family and most of the boarding house residents. The search party eventually found Forrest hiding away in the Tecumseh mine, which was idle at the time and had no workers in it. He was put in Silver Reef's tiny wooden jail, but threats of lynching (hanging) were soon in the air and the Washington County sheriff, August P. Hardy, had Forrest transferred to the county jail in St. George. Only a day had passes since Carbis's murder at this time.

A lynch mob quickly formed and followed about a mile behind the sheriff. The night after Michael Carbis was murdered, the lynch mob, which consisted of dozens of men, broke into the county jail. They overpowered the sheriff and the guard and instructed them to give them the key to Forrest's cell, which they did without hesitation. They then unlocked Forrest and dragged him out while he vainly tried to escape. They tried to hang him on a telegraph pole but the thing broke before the job was finished, so instead they hung him on a nearby cottonwood in front of a home owned by a man named George Cottam. George's little boy heard the commotion but was afraid to look.

The next day, the citizens of St. George were surprised to see such a gruesome sight. Although Silver Reef was relatively quiet when it came to mining town crime, St. George, a peaceful Mormon farm town, wasn't used to seeing this kind of violence (nor, in a way, were the residents of Silver Reef). None of the lynch mob members were ever tried (nobody knew for sure just who was in the group).

Forrest was supposedly buried in the St. George cemetery, but his grave cannot be found. Meanwhile, Carbis's grave remains in one of Silver Reef's two cemeteries. This one headstone tells the tale of one of the most gruesome events in the history of Utah's Dixie.