Beehive History, Volume 22, 1996

13EEHIVE22 HISTORY

The Spirit of Pioneering

Max J. Evans, Director Stanford J. Layton, Coordinator of Publications Miriam B. Murphy, Beehive History Editor

Villages on Wheels

Recreation and Socializing on the Way to Zion

BY STANLEY B. KIMBALL

Q Copyright 1996 Utah State Historical Society 3 0 0 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1 1 8 2

BEEHIVE HlSTORY

22 Contents

Recreation and Socializing on the Way to Zion Stanley 6.Kimball2 The Story of Children on the Mormon Trail Jill Jacobsen Andros 5 Those Pioneering African Americans Miriam B. Murphy 10 The Book of the Pioneers Linda Thatcher 13 From Pioneer Fort to Pioneer Park Julie Osborne 16 Celebrating Pioneer Day W Paul Reeve 20 The Piscatorial Adventures of the Pioneer Company D. Robert Carter 21 A Memoir of John W. Hess 25 The Comings and Goings of 1847 Lyndia McDowell Carter 26 Cover: Osmyn Deuel log cabin built in the Old Fort was later moved to Temple Square. It is presently located adjacent to the Church Museum of History and Art on West Temple. Painting by Cherie Hale.

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the National Park Service. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior.

Regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior str~ctly prohibit unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, or handicap. Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of federal assistance should write to: Equal Opportunity Program, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, P.O. Box 37127, Washington, D.C. 20012-7127.

Despite the many trials associated with the Mormons' move west, many pioneers actually found time and occasions for recreation, socializing, and even old-fashioned fun en route to Zion. Activities among immigrant groups included singing, dancing, concerts, stargazing, games, celebrations, feasting, drinking, mock trials, horseplay, recitations, climbing, fishing, hunting, parties, parades, baseball, snowballing, pitching quoits and horseshoes, quilting, horse racing, and even making graffitiwriting their names on famous trail landmarks.

Among women, visiting and tea parties were popular ways of promoting domesticity and of preserving the social niceties of their former lives, something very important to most westering women. In 1846 near Mount Pisgah, Iowa, Mormon women held an outdoor quilting party. They served simple refreshments in a tent around a table made of bark supported by poles resting on crotched sticks. There are other stories of trailside entertaining. One evening in 1849, for example, Margaret Gay Clawson decided to host a reception. She issued verbal invitations, and everyone came. The guests talked, sang, and enjoyed berry pies.

As traffic on western trails increased, entrepreneurs began offering crude forms of entertainment to passersby. The Mormons too were drawn to these activities. A favorite along the Missouri River was viewing panoramas-a sort of travelog "movieM-a long pictorial canvas moving between two slowly revolving cylinders. Theater productions and even trained bears could be seen at places like Kanesville, Iowa, and Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and at military posts. Sometimes immigrants visited traveling shows and exhibits, looked through a telescope at the moons of Jupiter, or observed mammoth bones. A most unusual form of entertainment was provided by a Mormon who crossed Iowa in 1849 with a "learned pig and a magic lantern."

When they could, Mormon immigrants celebrated birthdays, July 4, and, later, July 24.

Sometimes just meeting old friends was reason enough to have a party.

On February 4, 1847, in Winter Quarters, Patty Sessions reported that on her birthday "We had brandv and drank a toast to each other

Saints. USHS collections.

desiring and wishing the blessings of God to be with us all and that we might live and do all that we came here into this world to do."

The Fourth of July was observed throughout the migration period. In the mid-19th century it was the main secular holiday of the year.

Such celebrations must have been impressive, for many accounts of them remain. They generally started at daybreak with gun and cannon salutes and cheers, followed by speeches, toasts, feasts, parades, dancing, and some drinking. If instruments were available they were played; if not, some were improvised. A fife could be made out of a box elder branch (the pith was forced out of the center of the branch and holes bored along one side), and dough pans became makeshift drums.

One pioneer group in 1850, while camped on the Bear River on July 4, fired off a salute of 13 guns for the original 13 states and gave 3 1 cheers for the number of states at that time.

Sarah M. Cannon described an 1857 celebration: "Rested from traveling, washed, ironed, & baked, attended two meetings and a musical entertainment consisting of dancing, singing etc ....retired to rest at 11."

On July 4, 1861, at Florence, Nebraska, F. W. Blake recorded that all were awakened at daybreak by gunfire, and there was dancing off and on into the night. Zebulon Jacobs, one of the best male journalists among the Mormons, added: "Oh, being the glorious day of which every true American is proud, we tried to be as

jolly and happy as possible. In the forenoon we had an Indian war dance in costume; in the afternoon sham battles between Indians and whites which was well done. Towards eve,ning we had a grand circus which pleased the people very much. Our Indian exercises frightened some of the new comers very much until they were made acquainted with the program."

The 24th of July was celebrated in Utah as early as 1849 and on the trail a year later as an opportunity to reinforce Mormon identity and uniqueness. July 24, 1855, "was a day of joyful celebrations....As the wagons moved out of camp with flags flying from staffs, the women ran alongside of the column bedecking the heads of oxen with garlands of prairie flowers and throwing wreaths around the necks of the men. That night the spirit was still festive."

Richard Ballantine gave the most detailed account of an elaborate July 24 celebration by immigrating Mormons: The ladies were busily employed in...cooking.... The brethren painted a flag on a canvas 14 by 6 feet. On an upper corner was a star representing Deseret. On top were the wide spread eagle with the ribbon motto, 'Oh God, save Israel.' Under the eagle was a large bee with the ribbon motto 'We never give up the ship.' On the opposite side of the canvas were the Star of Deseret with a large beehive having the ribbon motto 'Glory to God and Brigham Young.'

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xodus from Nauvoo, Illinois. ea up s Since most large immigrant groups includyp:83 . . yards [was] covered with $hire fable cloths. ed young and handsome teamsters as well as ,ma@?*i : .iui1~~ William Pin t# the Nauvoo Brass band was zs?' $g$$C ," there ': too with his violin. Tha ladies dressed i r$ blossoming young women, romance became g4B$ : ; , very nnnrt. libe was venison, bailed and gr.l.part ;:i:lof the trail experience. Weeks and months i ~ b r ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - ;,8 8 spent in close quarters gave people a chance to . masted bufaIo9 puddings$ tarts, tea, c&ee, eetc. stgt?qK E:, r, ~ g a ~ g { + p"'become well acquainted, and for many ;s&g;k2qg 2F The day c o n c l w ~'kith speeches md an romance followed. Singing, dancing, strolling &-iSfg p:<8 arm in arm,or riding double on horseback in i5l~ir$; m$ion; smeone: told comic ando&s; and " the moonlight, especially if bouquets of wild,=@ t h m was &ncing to the flute and dulcimer %? ; = a until I*' at r&#t. flowers were added, encouraged flirting as well -as plans for marriage. gWon Jacobs desxxibd what must have Young people quickly adapted to the circumstances of travel. Seventeen-year-old Margaret Gay Clawson had a "gentleman martial :i&f -. ; . caller" in 1849 on the trail somewhere west of ;the Missouri. He "often called at our wagon, ' (the band was that is our wagon yard. Everyone was supposed pails, pans, bake kettle lids, to own all the land that was occupied by ox yl: bells, and various other instruments), then yokes, camp kettles, and everything that goes to mother volley, the guard at sunrise firing a canmake an outfit for traveling. So when any of the ,,? no,, iand concluded the morning's performance ,.;?r" 35a + j ~ ~ young folks called I was as much at home sitwith an Indian jig."

They then traveled west icy! ting on an ox yoke as if I were sitting in a par=" miil atmet at which time they c m fired lor in an easy chair. Such is life on the plains." the cannon again, and held a grand ball.

Newlyweds also adjusted to life on the Most pioneer companies had at least a fidtrail. In Iowa in 1846 Heber C. Kimball's olddl@, mouth organist, or an accordion player in est daughter, Helen, and her husband, Horace their midst, Some had s d l ensembl~ssuch as K. Whitney, were on their honeymoon. They a violif%,We, and m,a d same even had an were permitted the luxury of a wagon to thementire band. The e s t bandcart wmpatry of selves-a 34 square foot bridal chamber on 1856incftlded &e Birmingham Band. AU of the wheels. Lamps, rugs, pillows, and a little furnic o ~ s@g, ~ m of course, especially popular ture made the wagon fairly comfortable. Their songs and ' h y ~ M. o m s favored hymns bed was made upon boxes and bags of grain in Us 'me Moping Brwdcs" and others that are the rear; a provision chest in the front served as still sung W y . The most famous Mormon a table; and in the middle was a chair in which hymh "Come, Come Ye Saints:' was eomHelen sat to read or knit while Horace reclined posed by MIEm Clayton on April 15, 1846, nearby, reading or playing the flute. while c t m p d at Lwtlst Creek Iowa, during

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Are We There Yet?

The Story of Children on the Mormon Trail

BY JILL JACOBSEN ANDROS While reflecting on her experience crossing the plains in a Mormon handcart company at age nine, Agnes Caldwell recalled:

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From their departure from Nauvoo in 1846 until the transcontinental railroad reached Utah, more than 70,000 Mormon immigrants traveled to the Salt Lake Valley in well-organized wagon and handcart companies. Their religion sustained them and created a viable group structure on the trail for more than 20 years. Socializing and recreation also contributedemuch to the success of Mormons moving as villages on wheels.

Dr. Kimball is professor of history

5

Although only tender years of age, I can yet close my eyes and see everything in panoramic precision before me-the ceaseless walking, walking, ever to remain in my memory. Many times I would become so tired and, childlike, would hang on the cart, only to be gently pushed away. Then I would throw myseyby the side of the road and cry. Then realizing they were all passing me by, I would jump to my feet and make an extra run to catch up.

When historians look at the period of Mormon immigration to Zion they usually focus on the adult experience, while the stories of the many children who crossed the plains remain virtually unknown. But a thorough study of the journals and memoirs of LDS pioneers who crossed the plains as children reveals that their historical value is actually very great.

The accounts of children provide information about trail life in general; they reveal the importance of the family unit in migration and settlement; they entertain and inspire; and they show how experiences on the trail affected children and prepared them for the later challenges and hardships associated with settling the frontier. Studying the trail through the eyes of children gives us a fuller understanding of Mormon migration and settlement.

Children bring the trail to life as they share the perceptions, impressions, and feelings they had as they traveled. Elliott West, a well-known children's historian, explains that the diaries of adults who crossed the plains are filled with practical things such as 'miles covered, weather, or the quality of the grass. Furthermore, they described things in terms of the familiar world they left behind. Children, on the other hand, were literalists and sensualists. They wrote of their experiences literally and tended to notice and remember things that produced physical sensations. Examining these impressions helps us understand more about the geography and life on the trail and allows us to see trail life

Devil's Gate and Chimney Rock, but because they are so literal they were sometimes disappointed by these famous landmarks: Devil's Gate was only a rocky ridge, and the Sweetwater River tasted bitter.

Another common experience on the trail was death. Because the passing of loved ones was a fairly common, some historians say children became accustomed to it. It naturally hardened them somewhat and prepared them mentally and emotionally for tragedies they would encounter later in settling the frontier.

Elliott West wrote that parents did little to shield children from the deaths of others. He says that youngsters accepted death very mat-

Devil's Gate on the Sweetwater River: Children found many landmarks disappointing: Devil's Gate was just a rocky ridge, and the Sweetwater tasted bitter: USHS collections.

through different eyes.

One aspect of the trail that impressed children and is commonly mentioned in their accounts is the newness to them of many natural wonders, including buffalo, lightning, thunderstorms, and geographical landmarks. For example, William B. Ashworth wrote of the time he saw "what looked like a black cloud which soon showed itself to be a herd of hundreds of buffalo." He also recalled a dramatic storm: "The lightening and thunder increased terrifically and the good women lifted up their dresses and covered us completely with their full skirts ....We boys were crying as hard as we could." By comparing this description with that of an adult we see how the sensualist and literalist nature of children adds a new dimension to the way we view trail life. For example, adult accounts depict storms in romantic metaphors, describing them as a "natural meteoric exhibition" of "electrik fluid" or a "hellish blast that severed pole from pole." Children, however, describe them in terms of how the storms made them feel.

Children also told of landmarks such as

ter-of-factly and that journal entries concerning death "sit calmly beside notes of the ordinary."

This is seen in the accounts of Mormon children over and over. For example, Elizabeth Pulsipher told of the death of her baby sister: She died the third day after we had started, and as there was no one to take care of her body, I had to bathe her and put a little dress on he^ and sew a cloth around her body to be buried in as there was no cofin. As small as I was, no one came to help me and mother was not able to do anything.

Other children also told about death with the same lack of emotion. Caroline Pedersen Hansen, age seven, wrote about the hot weather and sunburns and the problems of crossing the rivers; and in between these seemingly trivial things she inserted one sentence about waking up one morning and finding her brother lying beside her, dead. Hyrum Weech who crossed the plains at age eleven described how a man in his company was accidentally shot in the leg while hunting buffalo and added simply:

"The weather being very warm, they could not save him and he died and was buried there. Out of all the men who went, they got only one buffalo." Although Hyrum's account might have shown more emotion if he had recorded it at the time it occurred, the fact that he still remembered getting only one buffalo indicates that grief and shock probably had not affected him a great deal.

Other historians argue that children did show a great deal of emotion and sorrow at deaths on the trail. This is seen in an account by Heber Robert McBride who traveled in the Martin handcart company:

hardships the pioneers endured, but when we read accounts of the suffering of children we begin to feel the force of the struggles they faced. John Stettler Stucki recalled: I have never forgotten how when I, a nineyear-old boy, would be so tired that I would wish I could sit down for just a few minutes.

How much good it would do to me. But instead of that, my deal; nearly worn-out father would ask me if I could not push a little more on the handcart.

B. H. Roberts remembered feeling very tired during the journey. He knew that riding in

C. C. A. Christensen's painting of Mormon immigrants shows children in several diflerent roles.

Photograph in USHS collections.

...I went to look for Father and at last I found him under a wagon with snow all over him and he was stifland dead. I felt as though my heart would burst[.] I sat down beside him on the snow and took hold of one of his hands and cried oh Father Father[.] there we was away out on the Plains with hardly anything to eat and Father dead.

Heber's six-year-old brother, Peter, viewed the same death a little differently. He, too, showed great emotion at the death of his father and during his burial ran away crying. When someone tried to console him, he cried more and, reflective of his youth, said, "My father had my fish hooks in his pocket and I want them."

Just as children's feelings of fright merit interest, so do their descriptions of fatigue.

Adult accounts give us an idea of the extreme

the wagon was not allowed but climbed into the wagon anyway and found a barrel he could hide in. He was surprised to find as he lowered himself into the barrel that it contained three or four inches of molasses at the bottom: "The smarting of my chapped feet almost made me scream with pain, but I stifled it. Too tired to attempt to climb out, I remained and gradually slipped down and went to sleep doubled up in the bottom of the barrel." He had to face laughter from the other immigrants when he later came out from his hiding place dripping with molasses, but the rest had been worth it.

In many accounts children mention hunger.

Some in the less fortunate handcart companies had their rations reduced to a mere two ounces of flour per day and nothing else. Heber Robert McBride wrote: "then was the time to hear children crying for something to eat nearly all the children would cry themselves to sleep every

night my 2 little Brothers would get the sack that had flour in and turn it wrong side out and suck and lick the flour dust." Some children would find a piece of rawhide and chew on it all day to alleviate the hunger pains.

Although children experienced intense suffering on the trail, their journals and personal histories also contain many references to the fun times they had as they traveled. As some pioneers reflected on their experiences, the enjoyable times stood out the most in their memories. Evan Stephens, who made the journey in 1866 at age 12, said: "The journey across the plains was such an experience of pleasure to me, that I found it difficult to sympathize with the pioneers who thought it a hardship."

Members of the Martin and Willie handcart companies, on the other hand, suffered tremendously and did not write about fun or pleasure.

Adult perceptions of the frontier were affected by the pull of the society behind them and fears of what lay ahead. Children, however, did not look far into the future or remember the past as vividly. Their world of thought extended only to the farthest landmarks within their sight. Because children focused in the present-their minds uncluttered by the past and future-they were able to view their immediate surroundings with a clarity their parents could not. Life on the trail helped to prepare children for what lay ahead. They learned to push forward despite extreme fatigue and hunger, to endure other hardships, and to be resourceful in trying to solve problems. Furthermore, children had to confront their fears. Whether the object of their fear was death, separation, Indians, or some other aspect of trail life, they learned to face it head on. These hard-won skills undoubtedly prepared them for the struggles involved in making homes in the wilderness.

While trail life was molding children in these ways, one can also see that young people had a great impact on trail life. Just as frontier settlement is credited to the family, successful immigration should also be credited to the family, with children playing an integral part. The duties they performed and the responsibilities they held contributed to the success of Mormon immigration.

The most common job given to children was collecting buffalo chips for fuel. Every night when the companies made camp the adults were usually busy pitching tents and organizing while children and often women gathered buffalo chips to make fires for cooking. Understandably, it was not the most enjoyable task, so children would sometimes make a game of it by having contests to see who could

collect the most. Edwin Alfred Pettit, who crossed the plains at age 13, remembered all the children going out to collect buffalo c h p s "and some of the daintier sex, instead of picking them up with their hands, used tongs to gather them with. Before we had gone very far, they got very brave over this, and would almost fight over a dry one."

Older children were often left with the more challenging responsibility of caring for younger brothers and sisters and even their parents at times. When parents became ill and could not take care of the family, children often shouldered those responsibilities. Heber Robert McBride told of his experience:

...The team was give out intirely and we had to take more load on our carts and had to haul Father and Mother sometimes we would find Mother laying by the side of the road first then we would get her on the cart and haul her along till we would find Father lying as 'if he was dead then Mother would be rested a little and she would try and walk and Father would get on and ride and then we used to cry and feel so bad we did not know what to do....

Elizabeth Pulsipher had a similar experience. She recalled: "Being the oldest child the responsibility of the family rested upon me, and nearly every night I had to be up with the sick baby." She added: "Many a night I have lain and held a quilt over mother to keep the rain off her." Margaret McNeil Ballard, who crossed the plains at age 13, walked with her sick fouryear-old brother strapped on her back the entire journey. She would sit up alone at night and hold him in her lap.

Because children worked so hard along the trail-cooking, caring for sick and feeble family members, gathering fuel, pushing handcarts, and driving teams-families were able to complete the journey successfully. Children played a vital part in westward migration as they performed the essential daily tasks on the trail.

And certainly the emotional support they gave to their families was also important.

Diaries and memoirs reveal that children viewed the whole experience in terms of the family, especially in terms of their mothers.

They mentioned their mothers far more frequently in the accounts than any other common aspect of trail life such as Indians, buffalo, fatigue, or hunger. Looking at the references to mothers and also fathers, we see the interdependence of children and their parents and thus the importance of the family unit in Mormon migration to Utah.

Spiritual strength and physical determination are recurring themes in the various accounts. Parents often set examples for their children that helped them as they struggled through the trials of pioneer life. Mary Jane Mount Tanner was particularly impressed by her mother's fortitude. Halfway through the journey their driver quit, leaving Mary's mother to drive the team. One of the oxen was particularly unruly and would not learn to hold back when going downhill. Mary recalled:

...She had to hold his horn with one hand and pound his nose with the other to keep him from running into the wagon ahead of him, a feat which would astonish some of our belles of the present day, and yet she was reared as tenderly and as little accustomed to hardship as any of them. Many times the bushes caught her dress, and she had no choice but to rush on, leaving it in pieces behind hex Children seemed especially sensitive to the suffering of their mothers. Mary Ann Stucki Hafen, age six, recollected: "By this time Mother's feet were so swollen that she could not wear shoes, but had to wrap her feet with cloth ....She would get so discouraged and down-hearted ...." Likewise, John Stettler Stucki, her nine-year-old brother, recalled:

My dear mother had a little baby to nurse, and only having half enough to eat and to pull on the handcart all day long, day aBer day, she soon got so weak and worn out that she could not help father anymore. Nor was she able to keep up with the Company. Sometimes when we

camped, she was so far behind the Company we could not see anything of her for quite a while, so that I was afraid she might not be able to get to the camp.

This sensitivity can be attributed to several factors. First, for a Mormon child traveling to Utah life was very unstable. These youngsters had come from different countries, crossed unfamiliar waters, traveled unfamiliar terrain, moved from house to house, and then had no house on the trail. Mothers provided the one element of stability in their lives, someone they could always count on. So if a mother became ill or suffered hardship, thus threatening the one stable part of their life, children became concerned. As Elliott West explains, all children suffer from separation anxiety; they fear the loss of their main source of comfort and protection-usually their mother.

While we generally think of children as dependent upon their parents (which they are), trail accounts show us that often the roles were reversed and parents depended upon their children. Obviously they relied on them to perform their usual daily chores. In addition, there were often circumstances that required children to assume adult roles at an early age. Young boys in fatherless families found themselves driving teams during the day and standing guard at night. Elliott West tells of one 13-year-old girl with 10 brothers and sisters whose parents could not meet all of the challenges of the trail.

One fellow traveler wrote of the girl: "They all depend on her. The children go to her in their troubles and perplexities, her father and mother rely on her, and she is always ready to do what

Reenactment of the Mormon migration. Sign on handcart says: "Handcart Pioneers, 1856-60. Family of Archer Walters as they left Iowa, June 7th, 1856.

Children walked 1200 miles." USHS collections.

she can." As noted earlier, Heber Robert McBride and his siblings had to load their worn-out parents on the handcart and pull them along. This interdependence of children and their parents shows the significance of the family in western migration and settlement. Family members supported each other, and the hardships of trail life taught them to rely increasingly on each other. This bonded the family and strengthened it to endure later struggles.

The contributions children made as they traveled along the trail were great indeed.

Youngsters provided physical and emotional support for their families and left illuminating accounts of the trail and the lifestyle on it. At the same time, the trail was a introduction to the kind of life they would lead on the frontier.

Ahead of these children lay the challenges of building homes and farms on the varied land that would become Utah. Frontier life would require children to deal with demands and pressures of adult proportions. The overland trail served as a training ground for children who would soon face these challenges. Their experiences as they traveled west taught them to work, strengthened their emotional endurance, often boosted their confidence, encouraged resourcefulness, underscored the importance of cooperation, and gave them a determination to achieve. Endowed with these skills, children were better prepared to successfully face the challenges that awaited them.

Mrs. Andros presented a version of this paper at the 1996 meeting of the Mormon History Association. Sources include Kate B. Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City: DUP, 195877); Susan Arrington Madsen, I Walked to Zion (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994); manuscripts,journals, and autobiographies in the Lee Library, Brigham Young University; and Elliott West, Growing Up with the Country: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989).

Those Pioneering African Americans

BY MIRIAM B. MURPHY The names Green Hake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby are inscribed on monuments and remembered by Utah school children as the three African American slaves who came to Utah with the first company of Mormon pioneers. Beyond that, most children and adults h o w little about the three men and even less about the free blacks, members of the James family, who also immigrated to Utah in 1847.

Green Flake was born in Anson County, North Carolina, ca. 1828. In 1841 he traveled with his owners, James Madison and Agnes Love Flake, to Kemper County, Mississippi, where the farnily cleared land for a farm* During the winter of 1843-44 Madison, as he was called, and Agnes were baptized as members of the Mormon church and so was their servant Green. When the Flakes decided to join the main body of the church in Nauvoo, Green accompanied them. For a time he served as a bodyguard for Joseph Smith.

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nd at Union Fort, in the Salt thereupon married Martha When Brigham Young beca sby and at Union, on the east side of 9th East, they grew garden crops, maintained an present Utah-Wyoming border on July 12, Green Flake-as well as Hark Lay and Oscar orchard, and bred fine livestock. They had two Crosby-joined a group of men under O r ~ o n ~ ~ ~ ~ c h i l d r e n .

Pratt's leadership to find the best route through.&&& . .. the mountains to their destination in the valley.

They formed what is known as the advance company. Behind them were the main body of pioneers and a smaller group with the ailing Brigham Young.

The advance company pr Echo Canyon, around Little Mountain, and through Emigration Canyon. The men used shovels, axes, and other tools to create a passable road for the main body of wagons to follow. Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow rode into the valley on July 21, and the foll 22, all of the immigrants, Young's small group, ente Plowing, planting, and digging irrigation dit es occupied almost every man, including African Americans. Green Flake, as instructe also built a home for Madison and Agnes Flake.

Some sources suggest that Green accompanied Brigham Young east in the fall of 1847, taking the Flakes' wagon and then returning to Utah with the family in 1848.

In 1850 Madison Flake w where he was hlled in an ac widow Agnes decided to go to the Charles C. Rich company, Flake in Salt Lake City to "work for th Church, as a way of paying the family's bac tithing."

Arrington stated: Green worked for Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball in a variety of capacities for a year or two, and then was given his freedom

his grave.

Although children of African American descent could and did attend school alongside whites in Utah, territorial law prohibited blacks from voting and from serving on juries and in the legislature until the "free, white7'qualification was deleted on February 5, 1868. The 1870 census shows four black children attending school in Union. Some half-dozen black families lived in the area, and Green Flake seems to have been the leading figure among them.

Sometime after his wife's death in 1885, Green moved to Idaho to live with his son, Abraham, until his own death on October 20, 1903. Both Martha and Green Flake are buried in the Union Cemetery. Arrington wrote:

Cemetery.

Isaac and Jane Manning James and their sons Sylvester and Silas were the first free blacks to settle in Utah. They immigrated with the Ira Eldredge company, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley on September 19, 1847. Both Isaac and Jane had embraced the Mormon faith before they met in Nauvoo, Illinois. Jane and her brother had worked for Joseph and Emma Smith, and after the Mormon prophet's murder she "resided in Brigham Young's home." She was living there when she met and married Isaac.

In the spring of 1848 the Jameses became the parents of Mary Ann, the first black child born in Utah. Coleman noted:

An exciting event in Green's later life was an invitation to attend the Jubilee Pioneer Celebration of the settlement of the Salt Lake Valley in 1897. One of the small handful of persons who were in the Pioneer Company who were still alive, Green was given a special cert$cate which he proudly hung in his home.

Like many early pioneers, the James family experienced difjcult times and sought assistance from more fortunate neighbors, a consideration they returned by sharing their later good fortune. Slowly the familyJs$nancial status improved, and by 1865, they were doing relatively well. In addition to a land claim and a home, they owned household items and a small number of livestock. Isaac listed farming as his occupation, but between 1849 and 1851 he also worked as a coachman for Brigham Young.

Sylvester James was listed in 1861 [he was then about age 161 as a member of the Nauvoo Legion and was in possession of his ten pounds of ammunition and musket.

Much less is known about Oscar Crosby and Hark Lay. Both men traveled to Utah with a group of Mississippi Mormons that made a difficult journey from the South to Winter Quarters and then west with the first pioneer company in 1847. Like Green Flake, Crosby and Lay helped forge a road through Emigration Canyon and worked to establish the initial settlement in the Salt Lake Valley.

Oscar Crosby, born in Virginia ca. 1815, left Utah in the early 1850s with William Crosby, his owner, who was headed for the Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, California. Since California was a free state, Oscar could have claimed his freedom upon arrival there. He died in Los Angeles in 1870.

Hark Lay (Wales is sometimes shown as another surname) was born in Mississippi ca. 1825.

According to Coleman: Hark Lay, the slave of William Lay, was married to a slave owned by either George or John Bankhead. William Lay was planning to move to San Bernardino and did not have the funds to purchase Hark3 w$e. He attempted to find other solutions to the problem, but the record is unclear as to whether or not the couple were able to avoid separation.

Hark, a son of Vilate Crosby, was the brother of Martha, Green Flake's wife. At some point Hark apparently lived near the Flakes in Union.

He died ca. 1890 and was buried in the Union

Jane Manning James became the matriarch of Utah's black community. Poised and dignified, she was widely admired. Mormon leader Joseph Fielding Smith spoke at her funeral in 1908.

By the end of 1847, Coleman estimates, there were perhaps a dozen African Americans living in Utah. From that small number the black community would grow and change during the next century and a half. Although they shared the pioneering era with Euro-Americans and participated in Utah's later development, African Americans faced difficulties and challenges unknown to most of their white neighbors. That they endured these with remarkable courage is their monument to the human spirit.

Mrs. Murphy is the editor of Beehive History.

Sources: Ronald G. Coleman, "A History of Blacks in Utah, 1825-1910 (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1980); Leonard J. Arrington, "Black Pioneer Was Union Fort Settler," The Pioneer (SUP), September-October 1981.

"I am happy to be remembered among the Pioneers"

The Book of the Pioneers

BY LINDA THATCHER In July 1897 the residents of Utah celebrated the 50th anniversary of the pioneers' arrival into the Salt Lake Valley. The Utah Pioneer Jubilee started on July 20 and closed July 24.

There was a continuous round of pageantry, processions, celebrations, reunions, and meetings. The main event was a parade in which some of the wagons actually used by the pioneers to cross the plains were driven by the same pioneers who had made the journey.

Among the notable achievements of the celebration was the compilation by the Utah Semi-centennial Commission of The Book of the Pioneers: A Record of those who arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake during the year 1847.... Preprinted pages were sent to known pioneers with spaces for their name, present residence, date of birth, date of their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, and names of their company's captains of 100, 50, and 10.

The Semi-centennial Commission also asked if they still had any pioneer relics in their possession and if they would be willing to donate or loan them to the state, to exhibit in the Deseret Museum. Finally, there was a space for "remarks." It was hoped that the pioneers would write about what they considered interesting and important incidents dealing with their pioneer experiences.

The compilation ended up as a leather bound, two-volume set which, according to Spencer Clawson, cost $900. The volumes were bound by Albert J. Gill who worked for publisher George Q. Cannon & Sons. The metal work was done by the E. J. Swaner Co., Jewelers and Diamond Setters, located at 134 South Main in Salt Lake City. The two volumes contain 721 pioneer entries-for the most part in the pioneers' own handwriting. Some, though, could not write or were too feeble to make their own entry, and notes to that effect were placed on the page. William F. Critchlow, for example, wrote: "Mother [Mary Black] Brown cannot use the pen to write and has not written for [a] year. But by her request I rln this."

Such arnplifylng statements make the book very interesting to read, but almost 60 percent recorded only basic information and did not

Elaborate metal work is a unique feature of The Book of the Pioneers. The Historical Society, founded in 1897, became the custodian of the two bound volumes compiled by the Utah Semi-centennial Commission.

write any "remarks." Data was gathered from both men and women ranging in age from their early 50s (infants in 1847) upward. Some of the men had marched with the Mormon Battalion.

Many listed the artifacts still in their possession, including such generic items as scales, flat irons, pistols, hammers, chairs and tables, spoons, trunks, kettles, candlesticks, wooden bowls, and looking glasses. Specific items were also listed: Charles C. Rich's Masonic apron, a buckslun purse, the first plow used to break ground in the valley, and a U.S. musket used by James T. S. Allred, a member of the Mormon Battalion, who noted, "I would like to keep my gun if you do not insist that I should give it to the State."

Lois R. Harrington, age 74, wrote that she had "One Red and white coverlet" that she had made when she was 18. "It is in a good state of preservation," she added, "but like myself is as old fashioned as the hills." A. P. Shumway and William W. Casper both wrote that they had no relics but themselves. Thomazin Downing Woodward simply stated, "I have no relics left."

Heber C. Kimball's pioneer wagon was included in the Semi-Centennial Parade in 1897. USHS collections.

One of the most poignant entries was made

by Mariah Jane Davidson Dodge who was 16 when she crossed the plains: I have no relics[. I] had nothing but my clothes. [I] started with a family by the name of Boss but by permission of the Priesthood was transferred to the above named family [Russel.]

After arriving in the valley my Uncle...Andrew Lytto of the Mormon Battalion provided me with some clothes and I was again sent to live in another Family by the Name of Madison D. Hamilton who died in Manti[. Clrewl treatment was the cause of chang[e]from one family to another[.]

Many writers told of the journey: Thomas H. Woodbury simply stated, "A very hard journey," while Joseph Moenor Glad provided more detail: "I cant rember mutch aboute the planes but I know that we Had a Hard time in Gittin' here too Salt Lake[.] I cane re[me]mber now seeing Grate Hurds of Buffalow[,] they Looked Like Grate Big seader trees on the Hills."

Joseph Egbert wrote: "I killed all the meat for our company. Killed six Buffalo one day and they lasted on the journey," and Horace Thornton remembered that he was "one of the select guard who had to stand guard every other night."

Urlan V. Stewart recorded the first wagon train's arrival at Fort Bridger and their encounter with Jim Bridger:

One thing the companies traveled to geter up the Plat River & according to my count there were 605 wagons all told in the companies we saw lots of Buffaloes as we came we had several Stampedes we met some of the Pioneers at the Pacific Springs the 12th of August & it snowed that day when we got to the Mountains we had to travel in tens when we stopped at Fort Bridger ME Bridger said he would give one thousand Dollars for the first year of corn Raised in Salt Lake Valley.

Esther W. Bennion offered a rare glimpse into trail discipline when she recorded that she "Remember[ed] vividly a man [punished] for disobeying orders. his hands were tyed, & he was compeled to walk behind the waggon for two or three days."

Others remembered nothing of the journey.

Namah Brown Hawks wrote, "Being only two years old when my parents William and Pheba Brown started for Utah I am unable to remember any thing that transpired." Adelia Brown Stanley stated: "I have found out all I can about it...[as] I was too young to remember much of the journey." Others could not remember the company that they were with. Pricilla Parish Roundy wrote, "I dont remember the name of co it was the same ten that the Thatcher family came in." William Coleman Allen, age four when he crossed the plains, "was too young to remember anything of interest."

To help explain discrepancies in the dates the pioneers claimed to have reached the valley George J. Taylor wrote:

There may be apparent discrepancies in dates of the arrival of persons in the same tens, or even the same families, due to the fact that strick organization was more or less abandoned when we got to the narrow caAons where roads were bad and breakages of wagons were frequent necessitating delay of certain teams, while others passed on ahead of them.

One of the surprising finds was the number of women and children who helped drive teams of oxen to Utah: was the Rebecca A. Cherry Porter-"I driver of four yoke of cattle from Winter Quarters to the Valley." drove a team of Esther W. Bennion-"I bullocks, from Nauvoo to the valley. had a broken arm . . . ."

Harriet Higbee at age 10-"Helped yoke up oxen & cows...bare footed."

Martha Ann Bronson Ferrin-"I drove an ox team across the plains at the age of 13 years."

Sallie Shoemaker Fugate-"I was 17 years old at that time and drove a team of three yoke of oxen from the Missouri River into Salt Lake."

Henry James Horne-"I drove my mothers team of yoke of oxen a good share of the way across the planes being only nine years old."

Some commented on the extreme hardships of the first few years in the valley. Joseph Hunt recorded that he "suffered many privations lived on thistleroots and segoes for six months."

Joseph Moenor Glad also "lived on roots for a long time Had know shoes fore three years and winter.. .." And Helen Mar Callister wrote:

1897 Semi-Centennial badge. USHS collections.

In the Spring of 1848 in company with my husband Thomas Callistel: I moved out on Mill Creek where we began farming during that summer we had no bread but lived on thistle grens and milk and

many times my oldest daughter Helen Mac cried herself to Sleep pleading for bread but we had none to give her.

Justifiably proud of what they had accomplished, many pioneers attributed "firsts" to themselves and their families: Joseph S. Murdock-"I brought 8 Sheep into this valley 1847 the first brought into the state."

John Darwin Chase-"in company with Isaac Chase we build the first sawmill that sawed lumber in Utah situated in liberty park near pres youngs gristmill."

Charles F. Decker-"one of three to carry

Davis County's Semi-Centennial ParadeJZoat in 1897 jeatured Native Americans and desert sagebrush. USHS collections.

the first United States mail to Missouri river." of the first John T. Dilworth-"one minute men in Utah worked on first waterwheel and Hourmill in U[tah]." of the three that Ozro F. Eastman-"one first discovered Utah in A.D. 1847" and "I caried the instrument for Orsen Prat to take the first observation July 3rd 47."

Josephine S. Evans-"I atened the first school taught in SL City taught by Mrs. Mary Miles.

Mary E. Hadlock Shurtleff-"I was the first woman maried in Salt Lake City, John Taylor performed the ceremony. Leonora Taylor as witness. Dresses in silk brought from Vermont."

Elijah K Fuller-"I killed the first Buffalo that was killed in our company after arriving in the Valley."

Jarvis Johnson-"Helped to make the first water di[t]ch and the first Adobes for the fort."

Stephen Kelsey-"Assisted in getting out the Logs for the first House also in laying it up,

From Pioneer Fort to Pioneer Park

PIONEER

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Green Flake, one of three African Americans with the Pioneer Company of 1847, was living in Idaho in the jubilee yea? 1897. In The Book of the Pioneers he recalled an encounter with the Pawnee Indians and a close-up view of a buffalo calf:

labored till Aug 30th."

Mary Ann Riser Hayes-"My Father G. C. Riser made the first shoes made in Utah and had the second shingle roof hous in Utah."

Lucas Hoagland-"Helped to build the first house in Provo [and] Helped to build the first mill in Salt Lake." helped to raise the John P. White-"I United States flag on Encine [Ensign] Peak."

Although The Book of the Pioneers is not a complete record, leaving many unanswered questions concerning pioneer life, it does give a great deal of insight into the trek to Utah and the early settlement there. Perhaps more significant, it records what the pioneers themselves thought was important-both good and bad.

The Book of the Pioneers is in fragile condition, but a microfilm copy of it is available for research in the Utah History Information Center at the Utah State Historical Society.

Ms. Thatcher is coordinator of collections management at the Utah State Historical Society. Note: spelling in this article has been left uncorrected in quotes from these pioneer accounts

BY JULIE OSBORNE After traveling many long weeks in wagons or pushing handcarts to their land of Zion, the Mormon pioneers first stopped at what became known as the Old Pioneer Fort-later Pioneer Park. There they met with others, rested, and learned of their ultimate destination before moving on to establish homes. Does this mean that Pioneer Park could be compared to Ellis Island? Perhaps it is not a national symbol, but it is important in the story of Mormon settlement. A Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) pamphlet proclaims: "What Plymouth is to New England, the Old Fort is to the Great West." The fort was a focal point of early Mormon activity, and the present park continues to reflect the city's patterns of growth.

The building of the fort began a week after the arrival of the first immigrants in July 1847.

Following the Mormon pattern for colonization that consisted of central planning and collective labor, the settlers formed groups to work for the common good. For example, one group began farming 35 acres. Another located the site for a temple and laid out a city of 135 ten-acre blocks. Each block was divided into eight lots (1.25 acres each). One block was selected for a fort or stockade of log cabins. The pioneers would live inside the fort until they could build permanent structures on their city lots. A large group began to build log cabins and an adobe wall around the fort. Within a month there were 29 log houses 8 to 9 feet high, 16 feet long, and 14 feet wide. In the fall of 1848 two additional ten-acre blocks were added to the fort. There were 450 log cabins, and the adobe wall around the fort was complete.

Clara Decker Young, one of the first to move into the fort, was one of three women with the first group of pioneers. She felt relieved and satisfied when they reached their destination. The valley did not look so dreary to her as to the other women who felt desolate and lonely in the emptiness of the Great Basin with its lack of trees. Clara recalled the building of the houses within the fort and described "some crude contrivance for sawing lumbern-most likely a pit saw, commonly used to saw logs before sawmills were built. (It is a two-man operation using a large whipsaw with one man down in the pit and the other on top.) They

Drawing used in H. H. Bancroft's 1889 History of Utah.

made puncheon floors for the fort cabins of logs split in the middle and placed with the rounded sides down. Fireplaces for cooking and heating had chimneys of adobe brick (made in the adobe yard near the fort) and clay hearths.

The first homes were built along the east side of the fort for church leaders. The pioneers assumed that they had settled in a dry climate and used clay for plaster and piled dirt atop log and bark roofs. When the spring rains of 1848 came they caused considerable problems. The clay plaster could not stand exposure to rain and quickly melted. Historical accounts speak of the need to protect women and children indoors from the rain and mud with umbrellas while they were cooking and/or sleeping. Bread and other foods were gathered into the center of the rooms and protected with buffalo skins.

Another serious problem plagued the fort dwellers-mice. One account says that frequently 50 or 60 had to be caught at night before the family could sleep.

Much of the furniture inside the homes was hand-made in Utah. Pioneer wagons carried few items of furniture. Bedsteads were built in a m e r with the cabin walls forming two of the sides. Rails or poles formed the other two sides. Pegs were driven into the walls and the rails, and then heavy cord was wound tightly between the pegs to create a webbing on which

to lay the mattress. Furniture often served severd purposes. For example, a chest could be used as a table.

Community activities, including meetings f dl kinds and even dances, were held in the ort's log cabins. The home of Heber C. Kbball, consisting of five rooms built on the east side of the fort in August 1847, was the site of moat civic and legislative meetings. On " i i -December 9, 1848, some 50 leaders met there to cons,i&r petitioning Congress for a state or territorial government. The first elections were held in an adobe school constructed inside the fort. Public meetings were often held near the liberty pole in the center of the fort.

Seventeen-year-old Mary Jane Dilworth held the first school classes in October 1847 in a small tent outside the fort. In January 1848 Julia Moses began teaching school in his log house? inside the fort. In November 1848 a sehool was completedjust east of the northwest comer of h e fort. In a letter to the Deseret News w e d August 10, 1888, Oliver B. Hmhgtan, who taught school from November 1848 through February 1849, fold about the school and the fort. The houses were built as part of the fort wall with porth~lesfor dsfense on the outside walls. Usually, a cabin had a sixlight (pane) window opening to the inside of ,_the fort. The roofs were made of poles or split gether and covered with bark. ": --:logs

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Drawing by architect Edward 0.Anderson for Nicholas G.Morgan's book, The Old Fort (1964).

Heber C. Kirnball's cabin is in the lefr foreground.

Note: though based on research, the fort layout is conjectural.

"Such was the general makeup of 'the first schoolroom,' with an immense quantity of dirt piled on the flat roof as probable protection from the rain," Huntington wrote. The 30-by40-foot room where he taught had a hardened clay floor. The window opening was large enough for six panes of 8-by- 10-inch glass, but glass and milled lumber for a sash were not available, and so thin cotton cloth that had been oiled was tacked to the primitive window frame. Writing tables, seats, and benches consisted of pieces of a wagon box laid on trestles, and a stove heated the school. The books on hand were inadequate for preparing pioneer children for life in the wilds, but education was still an important part of the early settlers' lives.

The building of the fort and the laying out of Salt Lake City probably gave the pioneers a sense of security and inspired feelings of accomplishment. Although the fort no longer remains, the significance of the site and the Below: March 1910 view of Pioneer Park with the new Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad depot in background.

Inset: The park was a popular recreational area for fawlies when this photograph was

beginning of Mormon settlement in the West has not been overlooked or forgotten. For two decades the fort was a center of city activity.

Then the site became a campground for newly arrived immigrants. After 1890 it was used as a playground, and on July 24, 1898, the location was dedicated as Pioneer Park-one of 5 city parks. By 1900 there would be 9 parks in Utah's capital city and a decade later 17.

The popularity of city parks was influenced by local and national trends. In 1906 women and men in Utah, like Progressives throughout the United States, embraced the ideals of the City Beautiful movement. They believed that the construction of parks and boulevards, combined with good urban planning, would improve the quality of life for city dwellers. In 1908 the Parks and ~ l a ~ ~ r o uAssociation nds was organized in an effort to improve existing playgrounds and open new facilities. In 1913 the Salt Lake City

Drawing by Deseret News artist Charles Nickerson, June 25, 1955, of Sons of Utah Pioneers proposal for development of Pioneer Park with replicas of historic buildings and a museum to attract tourists. Note: Second West is present Third West.

Commission created the Civic Planning and Art Commission to coordinate efforts to create a City Beautiful by proposing and implementing a 20-year plan to beautify Salt Lake City with boulevards, parks, playgrounds, street parking, and cleanup. In the 1920s a citywide beautification plan was adopted. These beautification efforts during the early 20th century were significant in the development of Salt Lake City.

They also helped to keep Pioneer Park alive despite shifting population and land-use patterns during the 1920s-50s.

During 1948-55 city officials explored other uses for Pioneer Park, such as turning it into a larger complex that would include a golf course or even selling it because of financial problems. Commissioner L. C. Romney tried to justify these options by noting that "recreational use of the park has dropped off in recent years, largely because the surrounding area is industrialized." Still, many Utahns objected to any change in the park's status. The Sons of Utah Pioneers and Daughters of Utah Pioneers were the most vocal in opposing those plans.

Gaylen S. Young, a grandson of Brigham Young, also protested the sale of Pioneer Park, pointing out that the city, when soliciting the property from his father in 1889, had promised to preserve it as a public park. Others joined the chorus of those opposed to changing the park.

Utah State Historical Society executive secretary A. R. Mortensen told the Salt Lake Tribune: Sure, it's down by the tracks on the socalled wrong side of town, but so what? Here's

where it all began. The first settlement, the first houses, the first government, the first division of the city into its ecclesiastical wards, the reorganization of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, and a host of other firsts took place right here, not on the Temple Block, not on the old Eighth Ward Square, not on the old Union Square, but right here on the old Pioneer Square.

City officials heard and accepted the outcry against selling the property or changing the park to a golf course, and Pioneer Park has remained to this day a city park.

In 1955 the Sons of Utah Pioneers Memorial Foundation created an elaborate plan for Pioneer Park, including a reproduction of the old Salt Lake Theatre, a model of the first schoolhouse, a museum, a log wall, and replicas of the original log cabins. Nothing came of this plan, but the idea of a replica of the fort surfaced again in 1971 as one of several projects under consideration by state officials. They wanted to replace the deteriorating areas west of downtown Salt Lake City with new residential areas, shopping centers, a concert hall, and museums. The Old Pioneer Fort Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

In 1990 a Deseret News writer recounted the many attempts "to treat Pioneer Park as a monument to the founding of Utah and the settlement of the West," but fear of violence, real or perceived, kept many away from the park. Its location near facilities such as the bus station, the Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army, and

men's and women's shelters has made the park a natural congregating place for transients.

Pioneer Park and its nearby amenities are known all over the country, drawing many vagrants to the city.

Plans for the revitalization of Pioneer Park and the west side of Salt Lake City's downtown area seem to resurface about every 20 years. In the mid-1990s actual progress has been made to return portions of this industrialized area to residential use. Condominiums, apartments, and hotels have replaced weed-strewn vacant lots and deteriorating buildings. The city's efforts to keep the park free from drugs and violence continue, and new activities such as

the farmers' market on summer weekends are attracting families to the area.

The place where people first came when arriving in Utah to find a new home was the area now called Pioneer Park. Something about this site continues to draw to it people who are seelung to find their way. Perhaps the efforts to regain the use of the park as a wholesome and safe place to congregate will reach fruition in the near future.

Ms. Osborne is an architectural historian in the Preservation Office, Utah Division of State History

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Celebrating Pioneer Da

BY W. PAUL REEVE On July 22, 1847, the first Mormon wagons rolled into Salt Lake Valley. By the following day the colonizers were camped near present 400 South and State streets and had already started plowing in preparation for planting crops. Brigham Young and the rest of the Pioneer Company arrived on July 24. The weary travelers immediately began establishing a permanent home in the Great Basin and under Young's leadership began one of the greatest colonizing efforts in the American West. The first anniversary of the pioneers' arrival went unheralded, but beginning in 1849 and continuing to the present it has been marked with a variety of festivities, including the Days of '47 parade (one of the nation's largest) in downtown Salt Lake City, a popular rodeo, and other events.

In 1849 the first known "Pioneer Day" celebration took place in the Salt Lake Valley.

Nine rounds of artillery fire, accompanied by music from a martial band, awakened residents.

Two carriages carried both brass and martial bands through the streets playing lively music.

The two bands returned to the bowery where an American flag 65 feet long was hoisted to the top of the Liberty Pole. The nation's banner was saluted with the firing of guns and "spirit stirring" band music. The rest of the day was filled with speeches, a parade, and more music.

As settlements began to dot remote regions, settlers continued 24th of July celebrations in the new towns. In St. George, for example, the holiday typically involved a parade featuring civic and church dignitaries and a place of honor for pioneers of 1847. Charles L. Walker

songs, reciiations, speeches, toasts and feasting."

In other years St. George residents joined other southern Utahns in the cool mountain village of Pine Valley to escape the intense summer heat. On Pioneer Day 1865, for example, many St. George residents began the 35-mile trek to Pine Valley on July 22 or 23 to be on hand when the celebration began. In Pine Valley they gathered in a large grove of pine trees where the festivities began with an early morning devotional service. Later, the men laid a temporary dance floor, and the crowd danced until 5 P.M. when all attended a program of speeches, songs, and recitations. Dancing then resumed for the rest of the evening. The following morning speeches by Mormon leaders began a second day of entertainment. Dancing then occupied most of the southern Utahns on into the night.

Other towns in the south enjoyed similar celebrations. In Bicknell, Pioneer Day often included sports such as baseball and horseshoes, horse racing and pulling matches, and even a little betting. Panguitch residents often made a week-long event of the holiday with picnics, games, dances, and other activities at Panguitch Lake.

No matter the location, it seems 19th-century Pioneer Day activities were largely the same. Many such events persist to the present and continue to give Utahns an opportunity to celebrate the state's colorful heritage.

Mr. Reeve teaches history at Salt Lake Community College.

Fishes

BY D. ROBERT CARTER Early in April 1847 members of the Pioneer Company left Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in small groups and headed west. Their trip to the Great Basin is well documented. It was not the typical Mormon pioneer wagon company. In fact, it may have more closely resembled a group of forty-niners on the way to California.

The male-dominated group was composed of 144 men and only 3 women and 2 children.

Because of the group's mostly masculine makeup the journey would also be atypical.

Yes, there would be the usual drudgery, dust, camp chores, river crossings, broken axles, straying cattle, and Indian encounters, but the many men would make the daily tasks easier and give each person more spare time. In addition, this initial group traveled at a more leisurely pace than most wagon trains. The Pioneer Company took over 100 days to make the crossing, but the typical Mormon wagon company would later make it in 90. The men tended to use this spare time to indulge in masculine pastimes: card playing, gambling, checkers, dominoes, mock trials, and "levity, loud laughter, whooping and halooing among the elders"-even considerable swearing.

These activities stirred the wrath of Brigham

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Young. It was much more acceptable to spend time writing in journals, exploring, and hunting.

It is also very likely that the Pioneer Company indulged in more fishing along the trail than any other Mormon group headed west. Available records show that at least 13 men fished on the way west, and there were probably more. Fishing was not only perrnissible but also desirable. Fish added variety to a somewhat monotonous diet and helped save food supplies for the coming winter. Later groups would have the benefit of arriving at a previously settled site-but not the Pioneer Company.

There is evidence that Mormon leaders planned to take advantage of the fish along the trail to supplement their food supply. At least two experienced fishermen traveled with the company, John S. Higbee and William S. Wordsworth, and a leather skiff secured from Ira Eldridge was attached to the running gears of a wagon and taken on the trek. Erastus Snow said the boat was specifically for the use of the fishermen. A long seine or net used for fishing was carried in the boat. The men named the skiff the Revenue Cutter.

Camping in the same area for several days gave the men a chance to engage in intensive

fishing. The first layovers were only several days' distance from Winter Quarters along the Elkhorn and Platte rivers. Some who arrived at the Elkhorn early did not wait long to begin fishing. Heber C. Kimball, who came on April 11, wrote, "one of my hunters, John S. Higbee, having killed a crane, a Raccoon and caught a number of fish, he presented me with a very nice one, which made us an excellent supper...."

Along the Platte some people were in camp up to four days waiting for latecomers. This gave the fishermen ample time to test their skill. On April 14 John Higbee, Jackson Redden, and others headed up the river with the seine. They returned with about two dozen fish.

Some travelers, including Wilford Woodruff, arrived in time for "a splendid supper composed of fried Cat fish pork beans, short Cake, Honey comb, coffee....We all eat vary Harty."

On the last day at this camp several men crossed the Elkhorn to fish and came back with a fine catch, mostly pike.

On April 17 the group traveled only seven miles. Since the next day was Sunday, they stayed two nights in this location. The previous Sunday Heber C. Kimball had counseled the men not to fish or hunt on Sundays. If they did, they would not prosper. Despite this warning, John S. Higbee tried his luck and wrote in his journal, "catched with my net about 100 fish."

On Monday the journey resumed. After camp was made that evening, William Clayton visited Luke Johnson who was acting as a doctor for the group. Clayton had a toothache and wanted Johnson to pull his troublesome molar.

But before he had a chance to mention his tooth, Stephen Markham came to ask Johnson to drive the leather boat back to a lake they had seen along the route and do some fishing.

Clayton repressed the feeling of pain and joined the fishing expedition. The tooth would have to wait until the next evening. Such was the power the finny tribe held over the minds of men. When the fishing trip was over Higbee wondered if Kimball's warning about fishing on Sunday had caught up with him a day late.

The fishermen made three hauls of the net with little success. Clayton reported, "They only caught a snapping turtle, four small turtles, one duck, two small cat fish, and two creek suckers."

Meanwhile, Porter Rockwell had arrived from Winter Quarters bearing a few gifts from Thomas L. Kane, including a bottle of brandy he shared. Clayton received gifts of more lasting value-a few fish hooks and a ball of fish line. He would put them to good use later in the journey.

The next day Higbee, Markham, and Johnson took the skiff and went ahead of the other travelers to fish in a small lake near present Monroe, Nebraska. Using the net, they had the most successful fishing day of the whole trip, which may have put Higbee's mind at ease. According to Wilford Woodruff, the men brought into camp that evening 213 buffalo fish (a humpbacked fish of the sucker family) and carp that they divided among the group: "We had a Buffalo would weigh 10 lbs & carp 2 lbs & had a good supper." There were enough fish left over for some of the men to have fish the next morning for breakfast.

WiIJbrdWoodrufi ca. 1853, was an avidfisherman.

USHS collections.

The pioneer column traveled up the Loup River, found a place to ford it on Saturday, April 24, and traveled about three miles farther before camping beside a small lake near the river. Porter Rockwell found the lake full of sunfish. Clayton provided him with a hook and line and fixed one for himself. The two men joined others fishing in the lake. Many of them made good catches. Clayton wrote, "I caught a nice mess which Brother [Howard] Egan cooked for supper, and although they were small they made a good dish." Heber C. Kimball thought "they tasted good and palatable for a change."

On Monday they likely fished in a small lake that A. P. Rockwood found "fresh & cold & well stored with Fish." Then they traveled over sandy country back toward the Platte and the present site of Grand Island, Nebraska.

They were moving out of good fishing country

I

and into an area where antelope and later buffalo were easier to find. These animals replaced fish in the pioneers' diet. The switch to fresh meat did not agree with everyone. Wilford Woodruff wrote, "I have been obliged to keep [to] my bed a part of the day have suffered much with Bowel complaint." Levi Jackman also lamented, "fresh meat always gave me bowel complaint."

In early May the buffalo became so numerous that the men were tempted to kill more than they needed. Appleton Harmon wrote that Brigham Young counseled the men that "thair should be no more game killed until such time as it should be needed for it was a Sin to waste

Soon after we camped, Horace Whitney went to fishing in this stream. We were soon satisfied that there are plenty offish in it. I got a line and went to fishing also and in a few minutes caught two which would weigh a half a pound each. We then went a piece below the ford and by fishing till a little after dark I caught twenty-four nice fish which would average over a half pound each, and some ...over a pound each. The ones I caught were of a very

Humpback sucker, also called bufSalo fish, Xyrauchen texanus. From Fishes of Utah (1963).

Cutthroat trout, Salmo clarki, also called native or mountain trout. From Fishes of Utah (1963).

life & flesh." He had to repeat this advice several times during the trip.

The men continued to fish, with limited success, the small streams that ran into the Platte. Horace K. Whitney wrote on May 11, "I went back to the creek, to try my luck at fishing, & returned in about an hour without any success, as there were but few fish in the stream, and those very small." The next day a few small dace were caught.

On May 28 just east of Scott's Bluff the men spotted speckled trout in a stream that had been backed up by beaver dams. This caught Wilford Woodruff's attention. They were the first trout he had seen since he had left the New England states. In western Nebraska, near the present border with Wyoming, the company saw few buffalo and other game. The scarcity led Norton Jacob to muse, "we have mush and milk every night for supper for nine of us."

Luckily the company was approaching Fort Lararnie where a short layover would give the fishermen a chance to use the seine.

While camped near the fort on June 2, John Higbee and several others took the seine and the skiff to the Laramie Fork. That evening they returned to camp with 60 or 70 fish of various species: carp, catfish, trout, sucker, and pike.

These helped add variety to what appears to have been a very bland diet.

Even though they crossed several creeks

bright color and very much resembled the herring, but much larger: Horace caught a catfish and two suckers.... There is an abundance of fish in this stream and we might have caught enough for all the camp with the seine but it is ahead with those who are gone to build a raft....

the following week, the next good fishing awaited the pioneers on Deer Creek where several diarists reported an abundance of fish.

William Clayton wrote:

The company camped for three days in mid-June near the present city of Casper while they crossed the North Platte River. Leaders decided to leave a small group of men and the leather skiff at the North Platte to earn money ferrying later immigrants across, so from this point on all fishing was done with rod and line.

This did not present a problem; the fishing in this area was phenomenal. Orson Pratt reported a fisherman's extraordinary success on a stream that entered the river below the ferry: "One man with a hook caught fifty in a short time they would average about 1 pound each the most of them resembled herring in appearance." Three days later William Clayton caught 65 fish that averaged half a pound each. He had so many fish he needed help carrying them back to camp.

The next good fishing stream they encountered was the Green River on June 30. While waiting for all the wagons to cross, the avid fishermen went to work and so did the mosquitoes. The men caught some very nice fish, but the insects made it very difficult to stay out-

Fort Bridger on Black's Fork of the Green River in

doors. The diehards caught several large trout in a slough near the ferry. One weighed 7 pounds. Horace K. Whitney reported, "I tried my luck at fishing & caught a good sized salmon [trout], weighing between 2 & 3 pounds, with which kind of fish this river abounds."

The men also had success trout fishing on Black's Fork. On July 6, near Church Buttes, Orson Pratt wrote, "A number of fish by some called salmon trout weighing from 1 to 10 lbs. have been caught with hook in the different streams on this side of the South Pass." The next two days the Pioneer Company camped at Fort Bridger, crossing more than a dozen trout streams on the way to their campsite. This temptation was too much for Wilford Woodruff who had apparently resisted fishing until now.

On the morning of July 8 he rigged the trout rod he had brought from Liverpool, England, and attached an artificial fly. One of Mormondom's most devoted fishermen described the action in his journal : The man at the fort said there were but vary few trout in the streams, And a good many of the brethren were already at the creeks with their Rods & lines trying their skill baiting with fresh meat & grass hoppers, but no one seemed to ketch any. I went & flung my fly onto the [stream]....I watched it as it floated upon the water with as much intens interest As Franklin did his kite when he tried to draw lightning from the skies....I [was] highly gratzJLed when I saw the nimble trout dart [at] my fly [,I hook himself & run away with the line....Ijshed two or three hours...& cought twelve in all...half of

them would weigh about 3/4 of a pound each while...the rest of the camp did not ketch during the day 3 lbs of trout in all...p roofpositive to me that the Artificial fly is far the best thing now known to Jish trout with.

For the rest of the journey Woodruff sought to verify this notion. He and others fished Bear River. Woodruff found the stream hard to fish with a fly because of the thick underbrush along its banks. At one point he rode his horse down the middle of the stream, fishing from its back. Sometimes he would fish for a half-hour without a strike, but "then I would find an eddy with 3 or 4 trout in it & they would jump at the hooks as though there was A bushel of trout in the hole. And in one instance I caught two at a time."

When Brigham Young became ill, Woodruff stayed behind with him. That gave him time to fish more often, and he fished the rest of the way into the valley. He tried his skill with the speckled beauties in Weber River and Canyon Creek and was successful in both.

When the pioneers reached the valley, the real work began. It had been a grand journey and the fish they had caught had helped provide recreation and conserve food supplies. Many of the men made the crossing several more times during their lives, but it was just not the same.

Later journeys were usually more hurried, and the men had more responsibilities. They were simply unable to spend as much time trying their luck with the finny tribe.

Mr. Carter, a retired history instructor and local historian, is writing a book on Utah Lake.

the bread supply. rhen began our want of food; through the winter we dug what we called "thistle-roots," but by this time they began to leaf out, which spoiled the root. We then resorted to tops, gathering and cooking them in salt and water; this with some buttermilk (which I begged of Jim Brinkerhoof and carried one and a half miles), was all we had to eat for two urr

John W.H m was only 22 when he arrived in the Salt L,uk Valley in 1847.

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I

"

A Memoir of John We H ~ S S About the 15th day of April [I8471 we started due north [from Pueblo, Colorado] for Fort Laramie, three hundred miles distant...at which place we' expected to find or hear of the Pioneer Company. On our way we were met by Amasa Lyman and others who had come from the Pioneers' Camp. This was a happy meeting, and to get news of our loved ones greatly relieved our anxieties, as we then learned that the Camp was ahead of us, led by President Brigham Young. So we pushed on with fresh courage and finally struck their trail, but did not overtake them as we expected to. The Pioneers reached Salt Lake Valley July 24th, and the [Pueblo] Detachment [of the Mormon Battalion] on the 28th, and on the same day we were discharged from the service of the United States, and I became a free man once more.

I was now in a country that was untried, and one thousand miles from where any plies could be got, with only the outfit of a charged soldier, which consisted of a sm tent, a sheet-iron camp-kettle, a mess pan, tw tin plates, two spoons, two knives and forks, pair of blankets badly worn, two old quilts, te pounds of flour, and my dear, precious wife, Emeline, who had been with me through all of the trials and hardships and had endured them all without a murmur.

I went in partners with Jim Bevin and put up a whip saw-pit and began to turn out lumber.

As there was none except what was sawed by hand, I found ready sale for mine as fast as I could make it, which was slow, one hundred feet being all we could turn out in a day. In this way I was able to get a little bread-stuff-corn meal at twelve and a half cents per pound and flour at twenty-five cents per pound. ....In the spring we moved out on Mill Creek, and I began to put in what seed grain I had, which was very limited; this of course cut

months.

On the 9th day of September, 1848 I started back to Council Bluffs after my mother....I found my mother and her family all alive and well. It was a joyful meeting. I stopped with them a few days to arrange for the move in the spring, then.. ..engaged to work for Apostle Orson Hyde for twenty dollars a month. I worked one month, and then the weather got so severe that outdoor work stopped, and I was out of employment the rest of the winter.

In the spring I took all the means I had and bought a wagon and a yoke of oxen...and went down to Pisgah to bring mother's family...not knowing where the rest of the outfit would come from; but ...I found the country swarming with emigrants on their way to the gold fields of California. On finding that I had come over the road, they hired me for guide, giving me two hundred dollars in cash in advance. This as truly a blessing from the Lord.

About the 15th of April, 1849, we started, t a difficulty soon made its appearance in that my emigrant friends had not thought of,-they had horse teams with light loads, while I had an ox team with a heavy load, so that I could not travel as fast or as far in a day as they could.

They would put me in the lead, and I would urge my team on...as far as I could to try to give them satisfaction. I kept this up until they saw that my oxen began to fail and would soon give out, then they went on and left me. I felt quite relieved,...taking time to hunt the best feed, and my team soon began to recruit, On the 27th of July I again arrived in Salt Lake Valley [with] my dear mother and her four children. I found my dear wife Emeline well, t in her arms, which had and with her f ~ schild been born January 6, 1848.

While I was away, the land I had the year before was given to other parties, so I went north to a place afterwards called Farrnington....Daniel A. Miller came out and brought my team and wagon with its contents, which I left two years before with him when I went into the [Mormon] Battalion. With this, and the outfit which I had brought with me, I felt quite well fixed to what I had been.

Extracted from Utah Hi

uarterly 4 (1931).

Scene from the motion picture Brigham Young-Frontiersman

( 1940). USHS collections.

Heavy Traffic at the Crossroads

he Comings and Goings of EE7

BY LYNDIA MCDOWELL CARTER Through the late summer and fall of 1847 the Salt Lake Valley resembled an anthill, or more appropriately a beehive, as the newcomers dove into a frenzy of activity to begin the work of settlement. Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow had ridden into the valley for a look around on July 21, but the first Mormon settlers arrived the following day. Knowing that hundreds more of their religious group, seeking isolation in the West, would reach the valley within a few weeks, this hand-picked vanguard immediately began preparing for them. Parley P. Pratt, George A. Smith, and seven other men rode ahead of the advance party and explored the valley on July 22. By nightfall 33 others had joined them in their camp.

Moving the next day north to City Creek in the heart of what is now downtown Salt Lake City, these men began the mundane and backbreaking tasks of farming new land. They plowed, began digging irrigation ditches, and got ready to plant, all before the arrival of their leader, Brigham Young.

Young and the rest of the Mormon Pioneer Company, some members of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion, and a group of Mormons from Mississippi who had wintered in Pueblo, Colorado, rolled out of Emigration Canyon and toward the workers' camp on July 24, 1847. This was just the beginning of many arrivals and departures in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake from July to December of that year.

There was little timber in the valley for building. Adobe bricks could be made, but wood was also needed. Within days, men had left the valley for the Wasatch Mountains to procure logs and poles for homes, fences, and barns and dry, fallen timber for firewood. On July 26 Lewis Barney and Joseph Hancock were sent to the mountain canyons on a timber exploration; they were gone two days. They reported that there was plenty of pine, balsam fir, and cottonwood, but it would be difficult to get out. Several others had also gone to the mountains looking for building materials and firewood. A primitive road was built up City Creek Canyon to facilitate logging there. Loads

hauling wood." USHS collections.

the Pioneer Company on the trail to the Great Basin. Samuel Brannan was with them. Lyman and Brannan joined Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Albert Carrington, and a dozen others on an exploration of the southern end of the Great Salt Lake. They followed traces of an 1846 trail across the Jordan River, around the Oquirrh Mountains, and along the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. At Black Rock they decided to go for a swim. John Brown wrote in his autobiography: "We all went in to take a bath and, to our surprise, the water was so strong of salt it would bear us up so that we could not sink."

The men also took a brief look at Tooele Valley.

of wood would also come from Emigration Canyon and later Mill Creek Canyon. Men like Howard Egan kept a steady stream of wagons moving back and forth from the settlement to the timber sources throughout the remaining summer. As other immigrants arrived they carried on the work through the fall and early winter.

Another necessary task was much more adventurous and exciting than farming, hauling wood, and constructing shelters. The area surrounding Salt Lake Valley needed to be explored. Brigham Young and other prominent leaders went exploring on July 26. Among their accomplishments were the scaling of Ensign Peak at the northeast end of the valley and the discovery of sulfur hot springs in which some of them bathed. That same day, Joseph Matthews and John Brown traveled to the west side of the valley, noting that the land was rather dry and poor. They found a horse, perhaps left by immigrants using the Hastings Cutoff in 1846.

Other settlers began to arrive in the valley.

On the morning of July 27 Arnasa M. Lyman, Rodney Badger, and Roswell Stevens rode into camp. They had been with the Pueblo detachment of the Mormon Battalion that followed

The 1847 pioneers built a primitive road in City Creek Canyonfor logging. Graded road shown here is of a later date. USHS collections.

Black Rock, Great Salt Lake. Savage & Ottinger photograph, USHS collections.

The next day they explored the east base of the Oquirrh Mountains. Orson Pratt traveled south to a sandy ridge from which he could see Utah Lake and Utah Valley. By late afternoon the party had returned to camp on City Creek.

Approximately 200 people, not counting children, descended into the valley on July 29, bringing the total to nearly 400 residents.

Mormon Battalion soldiers of the Pueblo detachment under Captain James Brown accounted for 140 of the newcomers. The group included 18 laundresses and the rest of the families from the Mississippi party. The soldiers marched into the valley in military formation.

-.----.-

Immigrants kept arriving in Utah until late fall of 1847.

Painting By J. Leo Fairbank is titled View of Salt Lake

Valley. USHS collections.

Many of the "Battalion Boys" rode on horseback. The immigrant wagons rolled along behind them.

Before long immigrants from Winter Quarters would begin arriving. On August 2 Brigham Young sent Ezra T. Benson, Orrin Porter Rockwell, and two of the recently arrived soldiers east on the trail to intercept the immigrants with a message from their leader.

There was other exploration going on as well. Lewis B. Myers, a mountain man who had acted as scout for the Mississippi people from Pueblo, explored on his own time and in his own way. He independently visited Utah Vdey, returning to Salt Lake Valley on August 3. He told Howard Egan of the good timber around Utah Valley that could be floated to Salt Lake Valley on the Jordan River.

Myers's report of Utah Valley must have sounded pretty good. The next day, Samuel Brannan, Jesse C. Little, Lieutenant Willis, and others left on an excursion to see Utah Valley for themselves. They returned on August 5, reporting its good farm land and other advantages. Mormon occupation of Utah Valley would wait, however. Brigham Young had heard reports of the hostility of the Utes there and wanted more time to build favorable relations with them.

Money was scarce in Utah, and the back pay of the Mormon Battalion soldiers was needed by the community. On August 9 Brigham Young sent Captain James Brown to California to pick up the pay from the government. Young also wanted to tell the discharged battalion members in California to stay there and work rather than come to Utah that fall.

There was not enough food and other resources in Utah to support them; besides, they could

bring needed supplies the following spring.

Samuel Brannan went with Brown; Brannan wanted to return to the Mormons he had left in California after traveling with them on the ship Brooklyn in 1846. Five former battalion men would accompany them to California by way of Fort Hall and the California Trail. In addition, a small exploring expedition would go along as far as Bear River.

Jesse C. Little led the four-man exploring group. They stopped at the Weber River and visited mountain man Miles Goodyear's compound there. His vegetable garden, buildings, and domestic animals impressed them. At the Bear River, the explorers parted with Captain Brown and made their way into Cache Valley to check the possibilities there. They returned via Box Elder Creek and then south to Salt Lake Valley, arriving at the infant settlement on August 14. Meanwhile, Lewis Myers and a companion had gone north to inspect the land along the Weber River and Hastings's route through Weber Canyon. They decided that it would be a bad road for travel but that the area could be a good source of timber.

Secretly, on August 11 and 12, a few men left the valley and set out to find their loved ones. They were battalion boys impatient to return to their families who were either somewhere on the trail or at Winter Quarters. They had been separated for over a year and did not want to wait any longer. An officially sanctioned group also left on August 12. Welve hunters, including Lewis Barney, rode east on the immigrant trail headed for the buffalo country in Wyoming to shoot game for the pioneers who would be returning to Winter Quarters with Brigham Young.

Other men on the move included Albert

Carrington and two companions who took a boat on a wagon to just north of the point of the mountain between Salt Lake and Utah valleys on August 12. From a low divide they saw Utah Valley but did not enter it. They launched the boat in the Jordan River. While one of the men took the wagon back to the Salt Lake Valley, Carrington and his companion drifted downstream, doing a little fishing as they went.

Utah Lake. USHS collections.

Jordan Rivel: USHS collections.

Apparently, another group had also gone down to Utah Valley, since the LDS church's Journal History entry for August 15 states that a group returned from a fishing and exploring expedition there. They bore favorable reports of that valley, confirming the information Jim Bridger gave the pioneers on their way to the Great Basin.

In the midst of all this activity 24 men of the Pioneer Company and 46 battalion men started east with ox teams on August 16 to return to their. families at Winter Quarters.

Some of them met their wives and children on the trail coming to Utah. There is no record of how many turned around and came back to Salt Lake with their families.

Ten days later, 108 men, including Brigham Young, left with horse- and muledrawn wagons to return to Winter Quarters for the winter. Some members of this group may also have returned after meeting their families on the road. This departure left about 130 settlers in the valley, but many more were expected in September and October.

Visitors had been arriving in the valley of the Great Salt Lake as well. On August 19 four mountain men and two Indian women arrived from Fort Bridger to see what was going on with the new settlers. They camped about a mile from the Mormons. Then, on August 20, Henry G. Sherwood, who had been exploring in Cache Valley and possibly trading with the

Indians there, came with a man named Wells, an Englishman who had been living at Goodyear's fort.

On the last day of August, Captain Higgins brought word that 566 wagons full of immigrant families were on their way. Joseph W. Young also came as a forerunner of the new group of immigrants. On September 16 Thomas Bingham and William Staines brought the news that some of the immigrants needed help. Men drove 50 yoke of oxen from Salt Lake Valley to help them in.

The first wagons, captained by Daniel Spencer, arrived in Salt Lake Valley on September 19, according to John Steele's journal. From then until October 10, wagons and immigrants were arriving almost daily, swelling the population to about 1,700. Teams were frequently sent back along the trail to assist the newcomers. Emigration Canyon was virtually a thoroughfare. Jedediah Grant's was the last train to arrive. He had previously arrived at the end of September with the body of his wife who had perished on the trail. Then he had gone back for the rest of his company.

These later wagon companies consisted of many women and children. Providing food and shelter for them through the winter was to become a major challenge.

Two of the newcomers felt that the fort in Salt Lake City was a bit crowded. Three days after arriving on September 26, Perregrine Sessions, seeking grass for his animals, took his wagons ten miles north near the mouth of North Canyon and encamped. Samuel Brown was with him. Thus was the town of Bountiful born. About the same time, Hector C. Haight took a herd of cattle to better grazing and located about six miles north of Sessions.

A few people were still leaving Salt Lake Valley for Winter Quarters as late as October, risking winter storms on the way. According to

Perregrine Sessions found the Salt Lake Valley too crowded in September 1847 and camped 10 miles north, thus founding Utah's second town, Bountifil. USHS collections.

James Smithies, "Milt Thorn left the valley with 6 or 7 more for winter quarters" on October 6. Smithies also noted that in midOctober members of the Mormon Battalion who had been discharged in California began to come into Salt Lake Valley. Most of them stopped but briefly, long enough to find out if family were there, before continuing on to Winter Quarters. From about October 11 through 16 they arrived in small groups, ignoring Brigham Young's message to stay in California. On October 16 John Forsgren, Edward Martin, Jefferson Hunt, Eph Hanks, William Casper, and others with pack horses loaded with grain reached the valley. Feeling an urgent need to be with their families, many headed east on October 18. Others remained at the Mormon fort for the winter, dependent on friends and the church for survival.

As provisions in the Mormon settlement dwindled it became obvious that supplies would be needed by early spring. Jefferson Hunt suggested to the governing body that an expedition be sent over the southern route, the Spanish Trail, to California to get seeds, livestock, and provisions. Hunt, along with A. A. Lathrop, Porter Rockwell, Elijah Fuller, and 14 others began the journey south on November 18. It took them about a week to reach present southern Utah, but then the journey became terribly difficult. They did not return to the Salt Lake Valley until the following May. James Brown, Abner Blackburn, Jesse Brown, and Lysander Woodworth made their reappearance in Utah on November 19. They

had been to California, collected the battalion pay, and returned over the Hastings Cutoff, crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert from the west. Samuel Lewis had joined them in California. The former soldiers saw little of their pay. The money was to be used for the common good. Nearly $2,000 was used to buy out Miles Goodyear's holdings and livestock on the Weber River.

On the last day of November an expedition was sent south to Utah Lake to explore and catch fish for the settlement. Parley P. Pratt, John S. Higbee-a fisherman by occupationand others explored both the lake and the valley. They carted along a boat that had been built the previous summer. They tried fishing with a net but had little success, catching only a few "mountain trout" and other species, despite the fact that the lake abounded with fish. The party explored Utah Valley for a day or two before starting back to Salt Lake Valley. Pratt and a companion left the group to explore west into Cedar and Rush valleys before returning to the Salt Lake settlement via Tooele Valley.

Abner Blackburn did not stay put for long

Jegerson Hunt suggested a trip to Californiafor supplies. USHS collections.

Porter Rockwell went on the dificult winter journey to Californiafor provisions.

USHS collections.

after getting back from California. He was soon off trading with Native Americans. Leaders had determined early to do no trading in the Mormon fort. Instead, traders would have to go to the Indians. In October the High Council named Thomas Williams, Ebenezer Hanks, and Charles Shumway as official traders. Orrin Porter Rockwell was also given trading privileges. Blackburn wrote in his narrative: "Tom Williams, Eph Hanks, and myself fitted out for a trading scheme to barter with the Utes on the head watters of the Severe River away to the south of Utah Lake." The men went up the Sevier to its source. They met Jim Baker and another mountain man who warned them not to visit those Utes, probably because they wanted the trade themselves. However, Blackburn's group went anyway and were successful. They were back in Salt Lake Valley by late December.

On December 7 the settlement received an important visitor. Captain Richard Grant, chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Hall, came to investigate the possibility of trade between that company and the Mormons. He had a successful meeting with John Smith, president of the colony, and the High Council.

On his return Grant carried a message from Mormon leaders to his board of management suggesting trade arrangements.

Not all residents were pleased with the strict rules and difficult economic circumstances of life in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

A few malcontents had at various times attempted to leave for California only to be forbidden to do so. Toward the end of December

Miles Goodyear's cabin and other holdings on the Weber River were bought by the Mormons in 1847.

USHS collections.

the situation reached a climax when six men tried to leave for California with Miles Goodyear. One last time the marshal "fetched" them back. They appeared before John Smith and were finally granted permission to go with the mountain man. With their departure on December 28, the year's traffic to, from, or through the Crossroads of the West ceased.

Mrs. Carter, a former history instructor, is an independent researcher and author of a forthcoming book on the Martin handcart company.

In 1897, during the Pioneer Jubilee celebrating 50 years of settlement, survivors from 184 7 assembled on Temple Square for a group photograph.

USHS collections.

I

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ACROSS 1. Mormon camp on the Missouri River (2).

6. Large herd mammal on the plains.

8.49ers' activity. .

9. The Salt Lake 15. Nation that claimed Utah before 1848.

16. Volunteer unit in the Mexican War (2).

18. Large bovines that pulled wagons.

19. Many pioneers kept a journal or .

20. This helped travelers cross a large river.

22. Cast iron frying .

23.Oregon/California/Mormon trails followed this stream (2).

25. Popular pastime for pioneer couples.

27. Even children pulled these wooden vehicles.

29. Native Americans of easternlcentral Utah.

33. Sun-baked clay building material.

34. Wide, low crossing of the continental divide in Wyoming (2).

35. Mary Jane Dilworth started the first one in Utah.

37. Make a solemn promise or oath.

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38. Rod and reel activity.

39. America has been called a nation of these.

40. African American pioneer of 1847 (2).

41. Many historic trails crossed this midwestern state.

17.

Goodyear.

20. Agriculture.

21. The Jordan River connects it to the Great Salt Lake (2).

22. Site of the old is now a city park.

DOWN 24. Jane Manning , African American 1. Three and two children were in the pio- matriarch.

26. Huge bowl-shaped geographical feature in neer company of 1847.

UtahINevada (2).

2. Utah dwellers when the pioneers arrived (2).

28. City in Illinois abandoned by the Mormons in 3. The Oregon .

4. The lily bulb was eaten by pioneers.

1846.

30. Prominent hill climbed by pioneer leaders on 5. Tall landmark on the trail in Nebraska (2).

6. Leader who directed Mormons' mass migration July 26, 1847 (2).

31. Water from this stream watered settlers' first (2)7. Outpost in southwestern Wyoming named for a crops (2). mountain man (2).

32. parties, like Lewis and Clark, find 10. Travelers liked to shout in Canyon. out about a place.

36. Mules, horses, or oxen pulled them.

11. Pioneers planted this grain immediately.

12. River/canyon/county named for early trapper. 38. Barbed-wire 13. Pioneer dwelling (2).

14. It is many times saltier than the ocean (3).