Chapter XIII.
Settlement and Occupation of the Country.
1847-1852.

Founding of Centreville — Bountiful — Ogden — Lynne — Easton — Marriotsville — San Pete — Provo — Indian War — Walled Cities — Evansville — Lehi — Battle Creek— Pleasant Grove — American Fork — Payson — Nephi — Manti — Chief Walker — Fillmore — Site Chosen for the Capital — Tooele — Grantsville — Kaysville — Little Salt Lake — Parowan — Cedar City — Paragoonah — Forts Walker and Harmony — Box Elder Creek — Brigham City — Willard City — San Bernardino in California.

    In the autumn of 1847 one Thomas Grover arrived with his family on the bank of a stream twelve miles north of Salt Lake City, and now called Centreville Creek. His intention was to pasture stock for the winter; and for this purpose a spot was chosen where the stream spreading over the surface forms plats of meadow-land, the soil being a black, gravelly loam. Here Grover, joined by others in the spring, resolved to remain, though in the neighborhood were encamped several bands of Indians, and this notwithstanding that as yet there was no white settlement north of Salt Lake City. Land was ploughed and sown in wheat and vegetables, the crops being more promising than those to the south. But in May of the following year the settlers were startled, not by the war-whoop of the Utahs, but by hordes of black monster crickets, swarming down from the bench-lands, as at Salt Lake City, and bringing destruction on field and garden. They turned out to do battle with the foe; ditches were dug around the grain-fields, and the

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A site for a town was

    Near Centreville, in what was afterward Davis county, a settlement was begun in the spring of 1848 by Peregrine Sessions, the place being called Bountiful.²

    As early as 1841 the country round where the city of Ogden was laid out was held as a Spanish grant by Miles M. Goodyear, who built a fort, consisting of a stockade and a few log houses, near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers.³ On the 6th of June, 1848, James Brown, of the battalion, coming from California with $5,000, mostly in gold-dust, purchased the tract from Goodyear.⁴ As it was one of the most fertile spots in all that region, grain and vegetables being raised in abundance, not only numbers of the brethren from Salt Lake City, but after a while gentiles from the western states, settled there. In August 1850 Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, and others laid out the city of Ogden, so called from the name of the river.⁵ The

³The tract is described as commencing at the mouth of Weber Cañon, following the base of the mountains north to the hot springs, thence westward to the Great Salt Lake, along the southern shore of the lake to a point opposite Weber Cañon, and thence to the point of beginning. Stanford's Ogden City, MS., l; Richards' Narr., MS., passim.

⁴Some say for $1,950; others place the amount at $3,000. See Richards' Narr., MS.; Stanford's Ogden City, MS.

⁵Utah Early Records, MS., 112. See also S. L. C. Contributor, ii. 240; and Deseret News, Sept. 7, 1850. Stanford's Ogden City, MS., 1-2. The site was selected as early as Sept. 1849, on the south side of the Ogden River, at the point of bench-land between the forks of the Ogden and Weber rivers, so that water from both streams might be used for irrigation. Utah Early Records, MS., 94. North Ogden, formerly called Ogden Hole, once the resort of a noted desperado, was laid out in 1851. Amos Maycock, in Utah Sketches, MS., 114. 'Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, J. M. Grant, Brigham Young, and several others ascended a sand hill, Sept. 3d, to discover the best location for a town, which we finally decided should be on the south side of (cont.)

    In 1848 Isaac Morley and two hundred others settled in the southern part of the valley of the San Pete⁹—particulars to be mentioned hereafter.

    In the spring of 1849 a stockade was built and log houses erected by the pioneer settlers of Utah county, numbering about thirty families,¹⁰ near the Timpanogos or Provo River, and below the point where a small creek issuing from it discharges into Lake Utah. To

⁶Raised by taxation. Stanford's Ogden City, MS., 4.

⁷Of which Lorin Farr was appointed president, and R. Dana and David B. Dillie councillors. Id., 3.

⁸The first municipal election was held on Oct. 23d, Farr being chosen mayor, Gilbert Belnap marshal, David Moore recorder, and William Critchellow justice of the peace. Four aldermen and twelve councillors were also elected. Id., 4. According to the statement of John Brown, a resident of Ogden in 1884, there were 100 families in Ogden in 1852. Brown, a native of Yorkshire, England, came to Winter Quarters in 1849, remained in the church for 21 years, and was then cut off at his own request. In 1883 he was the proprietor of the hotel which bears his name. Two miles north of Ogden a settlement named Lynne was formed in 1849. Stanford's Weber Co., MS., 1. Near Lynne a few families formed a settlement named Slaterville in 1852-3, but on account of troubles with Indians, moved into Lynne in 1854. Id., 3. Eight miles south-east of Ogden, at the month of Weber Cañon, on the line of the railway, a small settlement named Easton was formed in 1852, a branch of the church organized, and A. Wadsworth appointed bishop. Three miles northwest of Ogden a settlement named Marriotsville was formed in 1850 by three families. The neighborhood was infested with wolves and bears, and near by were the lodges of 200 Indian warriors. Id., 10.

⁹So called from the name of an Indian chief. Richards' Narr., MS., 66.

¹⁰Under the leadership of John and Isaac Higbee and Jefferson Hunt of the battalion. Albert Jones, in Utah Sketches, MS., 54.

    Indeed, ill feeling on the part of the Indians had begun to show itself the previous year. Vasquez and Bridger wrote to Brigham on the 17th of April, 1849, that the Utes were badly disposed toward Americans, and that chiefs Elk and Walker were urging the Utes to attack the settlements in Utah Valley. The brethren were advised to protect themselves, but if the Indians were friendly, to teach them to raise grain, and "order them to quit stealing." Brigham was persuaded that Bridger was his enemy, and expressed the conviction that he and the other mountaineers were responsible for all the Indian trouble, and that he was watching every movement of the Mormons and reporting to Thomas H. Benton at Washington.¹¹ Alexander Williams and D. B. Huntington were empowered by the council to trade exclusively with the Indians on behalf of the community.

    On the 31st of January, 1850, Isaac Higbee, of Fort Utah, reported at Salt Lake that the Indians of Utah Valley had stolen fifty or sixty head of cattle or horses, threatening further depredations, and asked permission to chastise them, which was granted. General Daniel H. Wells then called for volunteers from the militia, and on the 4th of February Captain George D. Grant started with a company for Utah Fort, followed soon after by Major Andrew Lytle.

    On the 11th the Indians fled from the thicket to Rock Cañon, whither the volunteers pursued them; but failing to find them, the white men proceeded to the west and south sides of Utah Lake, and shot all they could find there.

    During the expedition twenty-seven warriors were killed. The women and children threw themselves upon the settlers for protection and support, and were fed and cared for in Salt Lake City until spring. Thus Utah Valley was entirely rid of hostile Indians. Until 1852 there was no further trouble with them of a serious nature;¹² and thus ended the first Indian war of Utah, which like all the others was rather a tame affair. It was the mission of the Mormons to convert the Indians, who were their brethren, and not to kill them.

    Later in the year was founded the city of Provo,¹³ somewhat to the eastward of Fort Utah, near the western base of the Wasatch Mountains, on a site where timber and pasture were abundant,¹⁴ and where the gradual fall of the Timpanogos affords excellent water-power. In March 1851 it was organized as a stake of Zion. The settlement was pushed forward with the energy characteristic of the settlers. Before the close of 1850 more than twenty dwellings

¹³At a general conference of the church, held in October 1849, it was ordered that a city be laid out in the Utah Valley, and called Provo. Utah Early Records, MS., 97.

¹⁴A heavy growth of cotton-wood and box-elder covered the river bottom, with a large belt of cedar extending some four miles north from the river and about half a mile in width. Bunch-grass was very plentiful. Albert Jones, in Utah Sketches, MS., 55.

    On Dry Creek, near the head of Lake Utah and about sixteen miles northwest of Provo, a settlement was formed in 1851, named Evansville.¹⁷ The neighboring lands were surveyed in lots of forty acres, and to each new settler as he arrived was given a plat of this size until the tract was exhausted. The soil was rich; but here, as elsewhere in the northern part of Utah county, water was scarce. A supply was obtained by diverting a portion of the waters of American Fork creek,¹⁸ and thereafter the affairs of the settlement prospered so rapidly that, in February 1852, the place was incorporated under the name of Lehi, or as it is sometimes written, Lehigh.

    South-east of Lehi, on a plain about three miles east of Lake Utah, was founded, in 1850, a settlement

¹⁶Letter in Deseret News, Feb. 21, 1852.

¹⁷A few houses were built on an adjacent site by David Savage and others in 1850. David Evans, in Utah Sketches, MS., 37.

¹⁸By a ditch seven miles in length.

    In the neighborhood of Pleasant Grove were good farming land, good range for stock, and water-power, inducements which quickly attracted emigrants, and caused the place to thrive rapidly. In 1853 the present site was laid out,²⁰ and to this spot were transferred, on July 24th of that year, the effects of the community, then numbering seventy-five families.

    Between Lehi and Pleasant Grove the village of American Fork was founded in 1850, on a site where were farming and grazing land of fair quality, a little timber, springs of fresh water, and a stream that could be easily diverted for purposes of irrigatiom.²¹

    About twenty miles south of Provo the settlement of Payson was laid out on the banks of the Peteetneet Creek;²² a few miles to the north-east of Payson was founded a village named Palmyra, containing, at the close of 1852, fifty families; and in 1851, on Salt Creek,

²⁰By George A. Smith and Ezra T. Benson.

²¹The site was laid out by George A. Smith, assisted by L. E. Harrington, Arza Adams, Stephen Chipman, William Greenwood, and Stephen Mott. A. J. Stewart was the surveyor. The first house was built by Adams and Chipman in 1850; the first grist-mill by Adams in 1851; and the first store was opened by Thomas McKenzie in the same year. L. E. Harrington, in Utah Sketches, MS., 121.

²²The first settlers were James Pace, Andrew Jackson Stewart, and John C. Searle, Joseph S. Tanner, in Utah Sketches, MS., 3.

    I have mentioned that Isaac Morley with two hundred settlers went into the San Pete country in 1848. On the 14th of June, 1849, a council was held at Salt Lake City, at which were present a Ute chief named Walker,²⁵ and twelve of his tribe. After the pipe of peace had been passed around, Walker declared himself a friend of the settlers, and asked their sachem to send a party southward to the valley of San Pete, where they might teach his people how to build and farm. "Within six moons," answered Brigham, "I will send you a company." In the spring of this year the party sent to explore this valley had already selected the site of the present town of Manti, on a branch of the San Pete Creek, though there was little in the neighborhood to invite the settler, sage brush and rabbit brush, the red man and the coyote, being

²⁴The first settler was Timothy B. Foote, who, with his wife and six children, took up his abode in this neighborhood in the autumn of 1851. Before the end of the year he was joined by seven other families. Id., 107; and before the end of 1852, 35 additional families settled at Nephi. Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1852.

²⁵'Walker was the chief of the Ute Indians…Uinta was the great chief of this region, and Ora was the head chief of the Ute nation…Walker's headquarters were the Sevier, generally; he would pay a visit to San Pete once a year.' Wells' Narr., MS., 48, 56. 'Walker used to go into California to steal horses; had a place of concealment among the mountains. At one time, while there, people were so incensed that they turned out to capture him and his band. In the dead of night be quietly took possession of their horses and trappings and came into Utah triumphant. He would boast of his proceedings some time later. He never brought stolen goods into the settlements, but secreted them among his people.' Utah Notes, MS., 8.

    On Chalk Creek, in Pahvan Valley, south-west of Manti and about a hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake City, a site was chosen by Brigham, in October 1851, for the capital of the territory, and named Fillmore, in honor of the president.²⁸ During 1852 the foundations of the state-house were laid, and many private buildings erected, the settlement numbering about seventy families at the close of the year.

    In the autumn of 1849, John Rowberry, Cyrus Tolman, and others set forth from Salt Lake City to explore the country west of the Jordan Valley, in search of grazing lands whereon to pasture their stock. Crossing the mountain range which forms the western boundary of Cedar and Jordan valleys,²⁹ they discovered a spot where grass, timber, and water were abundant, and encamped for the winter on the banks of a stream now called Emigrant Cañon creek. Returning in the spring, they made their report to Brigham, who recommended them to form a settlement in that neighborhood. To this the men consented. "By what name will you call it?" asked the

²⁷In June 1852 a fort was completed, the walls being eight feet high and two feet thick. Deseret News, July 10, 1852.

²⁸In the Deseret News of Jan. 24, 1852, is a letter to Brigham from Anson Call, one of the first settlers, dated Nov. 24, 1851. 'We have had an addition of three to our camp since you left; have built a corral according to your instructions, including about two and a half acres of ground. We found, upon trial, that the ground was so dry and hard, being also rocky, that it was next to an impossibility to stockade or picket in our houses with the tools we have to work with; so we have built our houses in close order, having our doors or windows on the outside.'

²⁹Now called the Oquirrh Mountains, Oquirrh being probably an Indian word.

    In the winter of 1849-50, Edward Phillips and John H. Green proceeded northward from Salt Lake City, intending to settle in the neighborhood of Ogden. When within twelve miles of that place, the snow-drifts prevented further progress, and turning aside to Sandy Creek, or as it was later termed, Kay Creek, where the land was covered with bunch-grass, they resolved to take up their abode in that neighborhood. After passing the winter in Salt Lake City, the two men set forth in the spring of 1850, accompanied by William Kay and others, and founded the settlement of Kaysville.³¹ In September it was organized as a ward, Kay being appointed bishop, with Green and Phillips as councillors.³²

    In the winter of 1849-50, it was ordered by the first presidency that Parley P. Pratt, with a company of fifty men, should explore the southern part of the territory in the neighborhood of Little Salt Lake. They found the brethren at Manti well pleased with their location, there being a good stone quarry and an abundance

³¹From 5 bushels of club-wheat, planted during this year, 250 bushels were raised. Edward Phillips, in Utah Sketches, 81-2.

³²A mile and a half south of Sandy Creek was a herd-house, the property of S. O. Holmes. Near this spot a fort was built, surrounded with a mud wall.

    The report of Parley being favorable, a party of about one hundred and seventy persons, well supplied with wagons, implements, live-stock, seeds, and provisions,³³ set forth, in charge of George A. Smith, on the 7th of December, 1850, toward the south; and on Centre Creek, in a valley of the Wasatch Range, about two hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake City, built a fort near the site of the present town of Parowan.³⁴ Pasture and timber were plentiful, the soil was of good quality, and in the season of 1851 a bountiful harvest was gathered from about one thousand acres of land.³⁵ The main attraction, however, was the immense deposits of magnetic iron ore found in the neighboring mountains. In May, Brigham and others visited Parowan and addressed the people in the fort. The Indian name Parowan was then recommended and adopted. Brigham

³⁴James G. Bleak, in Utah Sketches, MS., 67-8. On the south-east corner of the fort a meeting-house in the shape of a St Andrew's cross was built of hewn logs. Utah Early Records, MS., 163. The name was first spelt Paroan. Frontier Guardian, Aug. 8, 1851. A view of the fort, with Little Salt Lake in the distance, painted by W. Majors, was presented by Brigham Young to the Deseret University in 1870. Contributor, ii. 270.

³⁵In the Deseret News of March 6, 1852, is an account of the pioneer anniversary celebrated at Parowan on July 24, 1851.

    At Cedar City—or, as it was then called, Cedar Fort—seventeen miles to the south-west of Parowan, a furnace was built in 1852, but at the close of the year stood idle for lack of hands.³⁷ Here, in May 1851, coal had been discovered near what was then known as the Little Muddy, now Coal Creek. In November of that year the site was occupied³⁸ by a company from Parowan. The winter was passed amid some privation, mainly from lack of warm clothing; but on the 30th of January a dry-goods pedler making his appearance—probably the first who had ventured so far south into the land of the Utahs—the settlers were soon clad in comfort.³⁹ In October it was resolved to move the settlement to a point farther to the west and south, and before the end of the year a number of iron-workers and farmers arrived from Salt Lake City.⁴⁰

    In 1851 a party under Simeon A. Carter, sent to explore the country north of Ogden, founded a small settlement at Box Elder Creek.⁴¹ The soil was of the

³⁷George A. Smith, in Frontier Guardian, Aug. 8, 1851, and in Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1852.

³⁸This valley had been explored as early as 1847. In December of that year, a party of the pioneers passed through it, as already mentioned, on their way to California to purchase live-stock and provisions.

³⁹Building progressed rapidly, and during the following summer one Burr Frost, a blacksmith from Parowan, started the manufacture of iron, making nails enough to shoe a horse. Deseret News, Nov. 27, 1852.

⁴⁰John Urie, in Utah Sketches, MS., 93-4. See also Deseret News, July 24, 1852. The scarcity of nails hindered building. Workmen were brought from England to manufacture them from native ore, but the experiment failed; as the work could not be done on a sufficiently large scale to make it profitable, and it was abandoned. Years later, when the soldiers were ordered away from Camp Floyd, the settlers bought old iron cheap, and nails were manufactured to advantage. The price in market then was 30 or 40 cts a lb.; afterward the railroad brought them in and they were sold at 3 to 5 cents a pound.

⁴¹About 60 miles north of Salt Lake City. A. Christensen, in Utah Sketches, MS., 102.

    A few weeks later a small settlement was formed about five miles south of this point, and in 1853 was removed to the present site of Willard City.⁴³

    On Red Creek, about twenty miles north of Cedar City, a small settlement was formed in the autumn of 1852, named Paragoonah, the Pi-Ede name for Little Salt Lake.⁴⁴ Six miles south of Cedar City, Fort Walker was built, containing at the close of 1851 only nine men capable of bearing arms; and on Ash Creek, nineteen miles farther south, was Fort Harmony, the southernmost point in the valley occupied by white men,⁴⁵ and where John D. Lee located a rancho in 1852.

⁴³The first settlers on the old site were Jonathan S. Wells, who built the first house, and was the first to commence farming, Elisha Mallory, who with his brother Lemuel built the first grist-mill, M. McCreary, Alfred Walton, and Lyman B. Wells. George W. Ward, in Utah Sketches, MS., 44-5. The city was named after Willard Richards. Richards' Narr., MS., 67.

⁴⁴In December, 15 or 20 families had settled there. Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1852. On June 12, 1851, a company with a few wagons started for this point from Salt Lake City, Utah Early Records, MS., 128.

⁴⁵This settlement was 20 miles north of the Rio Virgen. It was thought that the route to California might be shortened by way of the fort about 35 miles. Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1852. In addition to those mentioned in the text, a number of small settlements had been made in various parts of the territory. Farmington, now the county seat of Davis co., and on the line of the Utah Central railroad, was first settled in 1848 by D. A. Miller and four others. In 1849 it was organized as a ward. Mill Creek, in S. Lake co., was settled in 1848-9 by John Neff and nine others; Alpine City and Springville, in Utah co., in 1850, the former by Isaac Houston with ten others, the latter by A. Johnson and three comrades. Santaquin, in the same county, was settled in 1852; abandoned in 1853 on account of Indian raids, and reoccupied in 1856 by B. F. Johnson and 23 associates. The site of Harrisville, a few miles north of Ogden, was occupied in the spring of 1850 by Ivin Stewart, abandoned the same autumn on account of an Indian outbreak, and resettled in 1851 by P. G. Taylor and others· In 1883 Taylor was bishop of this ward. Slaterville, in Weber county, was first settled in the fall of 1850 by Alex. Kelley, who was soon afterward joined by several families; in 1853—the year of the Walker war—it was abandoned, the inhabitants taking refuge in Bingham Fort, but was again occupied in 1854. South Weber, in the same county, (cont.)

    When, for instance, at the close of 1850, it had been resolved to form a settlement in the neighborhood of Little Salt Lake, a notice appeared in the Deseret News of November 16th, giving the names of those who had joined the party, and calling for a hundred additional volunteers. They must take with them 30,000 pounds of breadstuffs, 500 bushels of seed wheat, 34 ploughs, 50 horses, 50 beef-cattle, 50 cows, and 25 pairs of holster pistols; each man must be supplied with an axe, spade, shovel, and hoe,⁴⁶ a gun and 200 rounds

⁴⁶The party must also have 17 sets of drag teeth, and of grain and grass scythes, sickles, and pitchforks, 50 each.

    A company was organized in March 1851, at the suggestion of Brigham, to go to California and form the nucleus of a settlement in the Cajon Pass, where they should cultivate the olive, grape, sugar-cane, and cotton, gather around them the saints, and select locations on the line of a proposed mail route.⁴⁷ The original intention was to have twenty in this company, with Amasa M. Lyman and C. C. Rich in charge. The number, however, reached over five hundred, and Brigham's heart failed him as he met them at starting. "I was sick at the sight of so many of the saints running to California, chiefly after the god of this world, and was unable to address them:"⁴⁸

⁴⁸Hist. B. Young, MS., 1851, 14. The object of the establishment of this colony was that the people gathering to Utah from the Islands, and even Europe, might have an outfitting post. In 1853, Keokuk, Iowa, on the Mississippi River, was selected by the western-bound emigrants as a rendezvous and place of outfitting.