Michael Carbis Murder
If one believed everything they saw on the silver screen, they’d believe that lawlessness and vigilante justice ran rampant across the American West. One such story did occur in Silver Reef when a well-liked man was murdered by a troublemaker as the boomtown began to fade. The residents of Silver Reef couldn’t wait for the courts, so they took justice into their own hands and found the troublemaker guilty.
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Watch the two videos that tell the whole story |
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Learn more about the Boom & Bust Years of Silver Reef |
Compared to other Western mining towns, Silver Reef was fairly docile. Nevertheless, the boomtown had plenty of grit under its fingernails as miners from around the world chased fortunes in the red-rock hills of southern Utah.
Among them was Michael Carbis, a seasoned Cornishman who had crossed oceans, raised a family, and worked his way through the mining camps of California and Nevada before settling in Silver Reef and worked for the mines of the Stormont Companies. Known for his steady temperament and quiet competence, Carbis was the sort of man people trusted in a place where trust mattered.
After experiencing its boom years, Silver Reef was beginning to simmer by the fall of 1880. Silver prices had fallen, wages were possibly going to be cut, silver that was easy to mine was running out, and tempers flared among miners hardened by years in nearby Pioche, Nevada, one of the West’s most violent camps. When Carbis, now a foreman, was asked to dismiss a miner named Thomas Forrest, the tension snapped. The next day, Forrest confronted him on the path to work, drew a hunting knife, and stabbed him. Carbis died later that day, and the shock of his murder tore through the entire community.
After hiding in a nearby mine shaft, Forrest was found and arrested, then put into the small jail at Silver Reef. Hearing talk about what to do with Forrest around town by the upset residents, the local deputy had Forrest transferred to a more secure jail in St. George. A vigilante group soon rode to St. George under cover of darkness, overpowered the sheriff, and dragged Forrest from the jail. Their first attempt to hang him snapped a telegraph pole in half; the second, carried out from a cottonwood tree, ended his life. No one was ever charged, and to many frontier residents, justice, in its roughest form, had been served.
Adding a bit of humor to the story, Sheriff Jim Prince reportedly said when he saw Forrest hanging from the tree the next morning, “I’ve watched that tree grow here for many years, and this is the first time I’ve seen it bear fruit!”
Today, you can trace this true Wild West story throughout Washington County. Walk among the ruins of the Silver Reef Museum & Ghost Town, step inside the historic Pioneer Courthouse in St. George, and wander the quiet paths of the Pioneer Cemetery near Silver Reef, where Michael Carbis rests beneath a headstone marked with the Masonic Square and Compasses. These places echo a time when life in southern Utah was raw, real, and unforgettable.
Pictures
How the final resting spot of Michael Carbis looks today at the Protestant Pioneer Cemetery.
(*Please respect the privacy of our neighbors and remain on public property*)
Sources: Washington County Historical Society (wchsutah.org); Silver Reef historical archives; Salt Lake Herald, 5 October 1880.
Videos
The following two videos dramatizes the details of the Michael Carbis murder and showcases the Pioneer Courthouse in St. George where Thomas Forrest was jailed before vigilantes hung him.
The Murder of Michael Carbis and Hanging of Thomas Forrest
Tour of Pioneer Courthouse and St. George
The following video tour explains the beginnings of St. George and why the Pioneer Courthouse was built in 1870 and, ten years later, was the site of the Thomas Forrest lynching.
