Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 2, 1967

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BOARD OF T R U S T E E S j . GRANT IVERSON, Salt Lake City, 1971 President MILTON c. ABRAMS, Logan, 1969

Vice-President EVERETT L. COOLEY, Salt Lake City Secretary DEAN R. BRIMHALL, Fruita, 1969 MRS. J U A N I T A BROOKS, St. George, 1969

JACK GOODMAN, Salt Lake City, 1969 MRS. A. c. J E N S E N , Sandy, 1971 T H E R O N L U K E , Provo, 1971

CLYDE L. MILLER, Secretary of State

Ex officio HOWARD c PRICE, J R . , Price, 1971 MRS. ELIZABETH S K A N C H Y , Midvale, 1969

MRS. NAOMI WOOLLEY, Salt Lake City, 1971

ADMINISTRATION EVERETT L. COOLEY, Director

T. H . JACOBSEN, State Archivist, Archives F. T. J O H N S O N , Records Manager, Archives

J O H N J A M E S , J R . , Librarian MARGERY W . WARD, Associate Editor

IRIS SCOTT, Business M a n a g e r

T h e U t a h State Historical Society is an organization devoted to-the collection, preservation, a n d publication of U t a h a n d related history. I t was organized by publicspirited Utahns in 1897 for this purpose. In fulfillment of its objectives, the Society publishes t h e Utah Historical Quarterly, which is distributed to its members with payment of a $5.00 annual membership fee. T h e Society also maintains a specialized research library of books, pamphlets, photographs, periodicals, microfilms, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts. Many of these items have come to t h e library as gifts. Donations are encouraged, for only through such means can the U t a h State Historical Society live u p to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

T h e primary purpose of the Quarterly is t h e publication of manuscripts, photographs, a n d documents which relate or give a new interpretation to Utah's unique story.

Contributions of writers are solicited for the consideration of t h e editor. However, the editor assumes no responsibility for the return of manuscripts unaccompanied by return postage. Manuscripts and material for publications should be sent to the editor.

T h e U t a h State Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinions expressed by contributors.

T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class postage, paid a t Salt Lake City, U t a h . Copyright 1967, U t a h State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84102.

SPRING, 1967 • VOLUME 35 • NUMBER 2

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Contents U T A H C O M E S O F AGE P O L I T I C A L L Y : A STUDY O F T H E STATE'S P O L I T I C S IN T H E EARLY YEARS O F T H E T W E N T I E T H C E N T U R Y

BY JAN SHIPPS K I M B E R L Y AS I R E M E M B E R H E R

BY JOSEPHINE PACE

-

91 112

T H E CRISIS A T F O R T L I M H I , 1858

BY DAVID L. BIGLER

121

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS: HISTORIC S T O P P I N G PLACE O N T H E SPANISH T R A I L

BY JUANITA BROOKS

137

M O U N T A I N MEADOWS BURIAL D E T A C H M E N T , 1859: T O M M Y G O R D O N ' S DIARY

BY A. F. CARDON

143

T H E S E T T L E M E N T S O N T H E MUDDY, 1865 T O 1871: "A G O D F O R S A K E N PLACE"

BY L. A. FLEMING

147

REVIEWS AND P U B L I C A T I O N S

173

The Cover Deseret Telegraph and Post Office Building, Rockville, Utah. The office of the Deseret Telegraph Company still stands, an addition to the rock house erected by Edward Huber (or Hubert) in 1864. (See following page 136.)

HABS, Library of Congress

EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR

L. COOLEY Margery W. Ward

EVERETT

SCHINDLER, HAROLD, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son of Thunder, 173

BY KLAUS J. HANSEN

ARRINGTON, LEONARD J., Beet Sugar in the West: A History of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1891—1966, 174

BY LEE SCAMEHORN

E L L I O T T , RUSSELL R., Nevada's Twentieth-Century Mining Boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely, 175

BY THOMAS G. ALEXANDER

REVIEWED

WALKER, HENRY PICKERING, The Wagonmasters: High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880,

BY DONALD R. MOORMAN

176

HEIZER, ROBERT F., AND CHARLES R. CRAIG, Karnee: A Paiute Narrative,

BY G. MELVIN AIKENS

SIMONIN, L O U I S L., The Mountain West in 1867,

177

Rocky

BY STANLEY R. DAVISON

178

BROPHY, W I L L I A M A., AND SOPHIE D. ABERLE, et al., The Indian: America's Unfinished Business. Report of the Commission on the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American Indian,

BY S. LYMAN TYLER

179

T H O R P , N. H O W A R D ("JACK"; Songs of the Cowboys,

BY J . BARRE TOELKEN

180

BAILEY, L. R., Indian Slave Trade in the Southwest,

BY CONWAY B. SONNE

181

Utah comes of age politically: a study of the state's politics in the early years of the twentieth century

BY J A N S H I P P S

A

cause can be a valuable asset to a man who sets out to save souls, or sell newspapers, or get himself elected to public office, and at the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States neither the preacher, the journalist, nor the politician lacked suitable crusade objectives. In 1896 William Jennings Bryan had applied the techniques of the tent meeting to convention politics, transforming thereby an economic question into a moral matter. Afterwards many Americans began to look on government as a means for the remedying of social ills. It was soon quite the fashion to decry the "Shame of the Cities," censure the dispensers of demon rum or to denounce the Rockefellers and Pierpont Morgan, and condemn the meat packers, the oil magnates, the railroads, and trusts in general.

When it became clear in 1904 that there were still men living in Salt Lake City who could, as Ray Stannard Baker put it, "take a [street] car Dr. Shipps teaches American history at the Denver Center of the University of Colorado.

She is continuing her work on the study of the Mormons in politics. The research on this paper (read at the Utah State Historical Society Thirteenth Annual Meeting, September 17, 1965) was made possible by a fellowship grant from the American Association of University Women.

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going in any direction and get home," 1 the Mormon practice of polygamy was, once again, elevated to the stature of a social evil which would surely, if it were left unchecked, destroy the American home. For some time thereafter, while the Senate tried to decide whether a legally elected legislator who was also an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints should be allowed to remain in Washington, the preacher, the politician, and the journalist all joined forces in a crusade which revived anti-Mormonism as an issue in national politics. The old charges about polygamy were renewed, and it was rumored, in addition, that the 1890 Manifesto against the practice had not stopped many Mormons from marrying several wives simultaneously. There were some who seemed just as concerned about the fact that the church was said to have retained its economic strangle hold on the Great Basin, and others who feared that the apparent success of the effort to separate church and state in Utah was illusion. But everybody seemed to agree that Reed Smoot ought to be excluded from the United States Senate. 2 And so for two years, from March 1904 till April 1906, Upton Sinclair's Chicago Jungle, Lincoln Steffens' bosses and their municipal grafting, Jacob Riis's strange four hundred-four million ratio, and Ida M. Tarbell's Standard Oil story were overshadowed while Mormon Church authorities, Utah and Idaho political leaders, newspaper editors, school teachers, supposed polygamous wives, professional busybodies, apostates, and even the town drunk traveled to Washington at the request of the Committee on Privileges and Elections to tell the "truth about Utah."

From the witness stand in that crowded committee room in the nation's capital, the Mormon story was told in a manner quite unlike any in which it had ever been told before — or since for that matter — and when it was done a majority of the committee, and most likely a majority of the American people, were convinced that the Kingdom of the Saints was a den of iniquity in which polygamy was continued and condoned and where the Mormon Church dominated the economic, social, and political life of the people.

Although they were wrong, their deduction did not proceed entirely from faulty logic or even from emotional reaction to the obviously malicious gossip and patent exaggerations about the Saints that had provided grist for journalistic mills throughout the country. Objective considera1 Ray Standard Baker, "The Vitality of Mormonism," Century Magazine, LXVIII (Tune, 1904), 177.

2 Milton R. Merrill, "Reed Smoot, Apostle in Politics" (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1950), 42.

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tion of the testimony given by many of the witnesses during the Proceedings in the Matter of the Protests against the Right of the Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from Utah to Hold his Seat leads to the conclusion that the church had retained direction of much of the Utah economy and even more of Utah politics in the years following the coming of statehood — a conclusion that has been clearly borne out by subsequent historical research. While the testimony with regard to polygamy was somewhat less persuasive, it is now generally conceded that the practice had by no means disappeared entirely. Plural marriages were being per-

Reed Smoot (1862-1941) Successful merchant, manufacturer, financier, and politician, Reed Smoot was an apostle in the Mormon Church from 1900 until his death. He was a United States senator for 30 years (1903—1933).

formed in Mormon colonies in Mexico, and perhaps surreptitiously even in Utah, long after the turn of the century; polygamous co-habitation was unquestionably continued in plural marriages of long standing. This mistaken assumption that was so prevalent did not issue, then, from an incorrect assessment of the evidence presented to the Senate committee.

A large proportion of the American public at the time, and many historians since, simply failed to realize that Utah was passing through a period of such accelerated social, economic, and political change that witnesses who sincerely believed they were making contemporary observations about the Mormons were, in reality, often presenting little more than extremely revealing historical descriptions of a society that no longer existed in its original form. In order to appreciate how very different Utah was in the early twentieth century from what it had been in the late nineteenth century, it is necessary to examine briefly how things were before.

During the territorial period two separate and distinct power structures developed in the Great Basin Kingdom. During Brigham Young's lifetime Mormon society was self-contained, and the Mormon establishment was monolithic and highly authoritarian; it was supported from within through the power of the priesthood and the faith of the people.

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From time to time after 1877, the authority of the priesthood was not clearly defined. But for almost three decades the cohesiveness of the Mormon community remained, allowing some vacillation at the highest levels without a serious loss of power.

The Gentile establishment, on the other hand, was a jerry-built association of federal officials, Mormon apostates, and non-Mormon businessmen and entrepreneurs. It was supported almost entirely from without by the power of the federal government — a power which proved strong enough in the nineties to force the general authorities of the church to abjure polygamy and renounce overt participation in politics.

Since more than 80 per cent of Utah's 250,827 people were Mormon, it was natural that the Saints should reassert their power when the federal government withdrew its support from the Gentile group just prior to the coming of statehood in 1896.

In the years immediately following, the church scrupulously adhered to the "unwritten law" of Utah politics that held elective offices should be evenly divided between the Saints and the Gentiles, but the nonMormons were fully aware that the church authorities could have ignored this understanding with impunity. As it was, the non-Mormons who were favored with public office were in all likelihood not the men whom the Gentile community would have selected. In important contests the leaders of the non-Mormon group were passed over; men like Orlando W. Powers, C. C. Goodwin, Charles S. Varian, Charles Zane, and E. B. Critchlow were not considered. Instead the Saints supported lawyers who had never openly opposed the church, men like Arthur Brown, Joseph L. Rawlins, and George Sutherland who had proved themselves notably friendly to the Mormons during the territorial period.

Joseph F. Smith, the president of the church after 1902, preferred men without independent means or political power, a preference he clearly demonstrated with the rejection of Thomas Kearns' request for support in the 1904 Senate race.

Since the protest against the seating of an apostle of the Mormon Church in the United States Senate was instigated by that portion of the non-Mormon community which had much to gain and little to lose by opposing the power of the Mormon hierarchy, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Smoot investigation was, in a very real sense, a direct invitation from this group for renewed federal intervention in Utah.

While the Salt Lake Ministerial Association formulated the primary protest against Smoot's serving in the Senate, the petition for hearings was signed by P. L. Williams, E. B. Critchlow, C. C. Goodwin, W. Mont

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Ferry, and C. E. Allen — all influential Gentiles who were, or wished to be, active in politics. Very soon thereafter this faction became the nucleus of the American party, a political movement based, at bedrock, on opposition to ecclesiastical influence in state politics.

In spite of all the charges the American party could muster against the leaders of the Mormon Church, however, or perhaps because of them — since the testimony given during the hearings convinced Theodore Roosevelt and a great many other Republicans that the church authorities controlled politics in Utah — the federal government refused to intervene in the domestic concerns of the state, even to the point of sending Reed Smoot packing. The fact that the investigation failed to unseat the apostle proved to be unimportant; it still accomplished its purpose by persuading the most important leaders of the church that the old order had indeed passed away, and so cleared the way for a fusion of the Mormon-Gentile establishments in the Great Basin Kingdom.

As a result of the hearings, a definite change occurred within the Mormon community. Joseph F. Smith, as president of the church, had been called to Washington to describe the situation that existed in the land of the Latter-day Saints. In all honesty the historian must point out that President Smith gave an account of things as they would be, rather than as they had been. But Smith was a pragmatist, and he returned to Utah determined to "make truth happen" to his statements. In the final session of the Seventy-Fourth Semiannual Conference of the church, he issued the "Second Manifesto" declaring officially that plural marriages had not been sanctioned by the priesthood since 1890 and that they would not, under any conditions, be sanctioned henceforth. He added that any person contracting a plural marriage would be excommunicated from the church. Although no wholesale expulsion of the polygamous Saints ensued, Apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley were forced to resign from the Quorum of the Twelve two years later, and a definite policy of excluding those who had taken plural wives after 1890 from responsible positions in the priesthood was followed thereafter. 3 At the turn of the century, the Deseret Telegraph had been sold to Western Union, and two years after that Henry O. Havemeyer had acquired control of the Utah Sugar Company from the church. Now, as a direct result of the hearings in Washington, control of the Utah Light and Railway Company was sold to E. H. Harriman, the Union Pacific magnate, and the church likewise disposed of its coal and iron land claims, 3 Kimball Young, Isn't 1 9 5 4 ) , 422.

One Wife Enough?

The Story of Mormon

Polygamy

(New York,

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the Saltair Beach Company, and the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Company. 4 During these same years, "the economic leadership [of Utah] passed from the agricultural valleys and scattered mining districts to the industrial and business communities in Salt Lake City and Ogden." 5 As a result, Utah's economy was drastically altered. The self-sufficient subsistence farm economy of the pioneer era was rapidly transformed into a modern commercial economy as sugar beets and wool acquired importance as cash crops, and as individual mining enterprises were consolidated into large corporate organizations. This shift in the structure of the economy was accompanied by the development of a less transient and more responsible non-Mormon business community. And slowly, hesitantly, carefully, but very surely, the church authorities and the leaders of the Gentile community drew closer together.

The integration of the leadership of these two sectors was neither complete, nor entirely effective. It was, and it remained for many years, a somewhat tenuous working arrangement institutionalized to an extent through the Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Provo commercial clubs and local chambers of commerce. To many non-Mormons, and perhaps even more Mormons, however, the status quo seemed vastly preferable to the entente cordiale being effected between the most influential Latter-day Saints and Gentiles in the state. Fearing loss of group identity and dreading the dimunition of individual prestige that an expanded power structure threatened, many members of both groups struggled to retain the segregated societies of an earlier day. This overt opposition to MormonGentile cooperation affected not only religion, but the economic and social life of the state as well.

In addition, it complicated an already complex political situation.

With the dissolution of the Liberal and the People's parties in the 1890's, Saints and Gentiles alike had abandoned the politics of religion. While the confusing circumstances of that decade make generalization difficult, it is possible to conclude that a majority of the non-Mormons moved into the Republican party in the subsequent political realignment. A few influential Gentiles followed Judge Powers, Joseph L. Rawlins, and Parley L. Williams into the Democratic party, but for the most part non-Mormons supported the Republicans. This merely meant a reaffilia4

Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, 1958), 407-8.

5 Leonard J. Arrington, "The Commercialization of Utah's Economy: Trends and Developments from Statehood to 1910," paper read at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, September 12, 1964.

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tion with the Grand Old Party for some, but it often represented a departure from a background of Democratic partisanship. Men who had been Democrats before they came to Utah refused to return to that party because there were so many Mormons in it. Even after a large proportion of leading Latter-day Saints had been "called" to be Republicans, thus creating a fairly equitable division of the Saints along national party lines, the Democrats failed to attract significant numbers of non-Mormons to their cause.

Consequently, notwithstanding the considerable influence of Orlando W. Powers and several other outstanding Gentiles who were active therein, the Democratic party in Utah was essentially an organization made up of members of the Mormon Church. It was not the church party, however. Joseph F. Smith and the First Presidency were usually directly opposed to its principles and to its candidates for public office.

The internal chaos and resulting breakdown in the party machinery following the Moses Thatcher incident and the congressional rejection of B. H. Roberts made the remaining Mormon Democratic leaders pause and reflect before beginning new political activities, This temporarily sapped the strength of Utah's Democratic party, causing observers to conclude that the political dispensation in Zion was Republican.

In reality, the overwhelming triumphs that made the state seem so safe for the GOP were deceptive, and no one knew that better than Senator Reed Smoot. Although he made no attempt to enlighten his colleagues in Washington who thought, as Professor Milton R. Merrill said, that Utah was a pocket borough belonging jointly to Reed Smoot and the president of the Mormon Church, the senator was fully aware that such was not the case.

As most successful political organizations are, Utah's Republican party was a coalition of diverse factions. Its two main divisions, of course, were the Mormons and the non-Mormons, but these two groups were, in turn, separated into subgroups. Until 1904 the Saints within the party had remained fairly well united, but after Smoot's election and the opening of the Washington hearings, a fissure developed between those who supported the senator and felt that he should be vindicated no matter what the cost to the church and those who felt that the apostle should resign and allow the furor which had been caused by the investigation to subside. Since President Smith made it crystal clear at the October conference in 1906 that "Reed Smoot had the confidence and support of the General Authorities of the Church in his present position as Senator for

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Utah," 6 those who were unsure that one man should be exalted in both the ecclesiastical and the public realms were faced with the same dilemma that confronted Democrats who opposed the "will of the Lord" in politics.

If the Gentiles did not have to worry about justifying their political opinions to uneasy consciences, they did have to decide whether to support Thomas Kearns or George Sutherland in an intrafactional struggle for power. After Kearns lost his bid to return to the Senate, he left the Republican party and joined the Utah Americans, Most of the antiMormons (this term should not be confused with non-Mormons) followed the Silver King into the American party to decry with almost equal vigor, the power of the "hierarch" and the "treason" of Gentiles like W. S. McCornick and D. C. Jackling who refused to attack the church. 7 The strength of the party of Frank J. Cannon, Kearns, and the Tribune was not negligible. The Americans controlled the municipal administration of Salt Lake City from 1905 until 1911, and their power was a major factor in the decision that was made by Joseph F. Smith and Reed Smoot to abandon John C. Cutler and make William Spry Utah's governor in 1908.8 Nevertheless, the main importance of the American party in state politics was its tendency to attract those who opposed Mormon-Gentile cooperation to its cause.

The policy of this third party was almost entirely based on opposition to the influence of Reed Smoot and the First Presidency of the Mormon Church in the state's politics. Ironically, by attracting those " J o h n M . Whitaker, "Daily J o u r n a l " (3 vols., typescript, University of U t a h L i b r a r y ) , I I , 597. v F r a n k J. C a n n o n and Harvey J. O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah: The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft (Boston, 1 9 1 1 ) , 336—37.

8 J o h n C. Cutler to Reed Smoot, November 30, 1908, Governor's Letterbook, Vol. V I , p .

216, State of U t a h , Governors' Papers (John C. Cutler [ 1 9 0 5 - 1 9 0 8 ] ) , U t a h State Archives, Salt Lake City.

Thomas Kearns (1862—1918) Mining magnate, Thomas Kearns made his first million dollars before he was 28 years old. He was at various times a member of the city council of Park City, a member of the Utah Constitutional Convention, and United States senator (1901-1904).

Mr. Kearns was affiliated with many business enterprises, among which was the Salt L a k e T r i b u n e . A devout Catholic, he contributed generously to their many projects.

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who were hostile to the senator to the new party, the Americans made it easier for Smoot to control the Republican party and thereby direct Utah's political destiny.

After the 1904 state Republican convention when the Kearns forces were decisively defeated, Reed Smoot set out to consolidate his hold on the party. Because he had recognized that he needed more than the support of the president of the church in order to keep his job in Washington, the senator collected a coterie of able lieutenants from both factions of the party to manage his interests in Utah. Most of the members of this group held federal offices at one time or another, and consequently the Tribune and the Herald referred to the Smoot "machine" as the "federal bunch." Its principals were C. E. Loose and James Clove from Provo, William Spry from Tooele, and E. H. Callister and James H. Anderson from Salt Lake City. Except for Loose, who was one of Smoot's business associates, all of them were "respectable Mormons, but men who did not have important positions in the church." 9 Loose was a "jackMormon"; his parents had been faithful Saints, but he had not held to the church. He did not oppose it however, and that tolerance allowed him to act effectively as the machine's liaison officer between the church and the Gentiles.10 Senator George Sutherland was not exactly a member of the "federal bunch"; he had considerable support from the non-Mormon community on his own account, but his alliance with the senior senator was essential to his reelection. The ruthless rejection of John C. Cutler's claim to a second term as Utah's governor in 1908 apparently convinced Sutherland that any idea he had about demanding Smoot's resignation from either the Senate or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had best be forgotten. After visiting Salt Lake City that summer, the junior senator returned to Washington fully in accord with Reed Smoot, and from that time forward the relationship between the two senators was highly satisfactory.11 Prior to the Kearns' bolt, the Salt Lake Tribune had served as the Republican newspaper. When that defection left the party without a voice, the Inter-Mountain Republican was established. Its editor, E. H. Callister, did his best to defend the party against the vitriolic attacks of the Tribune and Kearns' afternoon paper, the Salt Lake Telegramy 9

Merrill, "Apostle in Politics," 14.

Noble Warrum, ed., Utah Since Statehood: Historical and Biographical (4 vols., Chicago, 1919), II, 136. " J o e l Francis Paschal, Mr. lustice Sutherland, A Man Against the State (Princeton 1951), passim.

10

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advocating meanwhile the election of Republicans to every public office.

For the Mormon reader, Callister "sugared over" the policy of protection with frequent references to Brigham Young's home industry doctrine.

And for the non-Mormon he argued protection on the basis that the economy of the state would collapse if free-trading Democrats were allowed to direct the affairs of the nation, or even of Utah.

The publishing business was not new to Callister. He had been a printer's devil at 15, had risen through the ranks of the Star Printing Company to become manager, and then partner in the business. As able as he was, however, he found it impossible to make the new paper pay its own way. His problem was not unique though. In fact, with the possible exception of the Deseret News, every newspaper in Salt Lake City was losing money. The community, which had only 115,000 people by 1914, was already saturated with daily papers before the Inter-Mountain Republican entered the field. Thomas Kearns and David Keith were pouring the proceeds of their successful mining enterprise at Park City into the publication of the morning Tribune and the afternoon Telegram in an effort to lure adherents to the American party. The Democrats published the Salt Lake Herald. And always, except for Sundays, there was the Deseret Evening News which printed, according to the thinking of many, all the news fit for the Latter-day Saints to read. And so the Inter-Mountain Republican was a financial liability from the very first.

In spite of that, Reed Smoot and Joseph F. Smith thought the paper was essential to the success of their program of trying to hold enough Gentiles in the Republican party to win elections.12 In order to do so, some defense against the venom being spewed forth by the Tribune and the Telegram was vital, and while the Deseret News made vigorous efforts to answer Cannon and Kearns in kind, it was rarely read by nonMormons. The Republican was read by non-Mormons, and its continued publication worked to the advantage therefore of both the party and the Mormon Church.

Although most of the "federal bunch" had participated in the organization of the paper, the significant initial investments had been made

by Smoot, Sutherland, Loose, and Callister, and it was primarily this group that underwrote the Republican's losses. In times of crisis, however, church funds were also used to sustain its operation. Editor Callister thought that he could stop this constant financial drain on the resources 12

Merrill, "Apostle in Politics," 219.

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of the Republican leaders and perhaps even make the paper turn a profit if only a connection could be arranged with a national wire service.

Governor Spry, Senator Sutherland, and Senator Smoot all made attempts to secure the services of the Associated Press early in 1909, but they were unsuccessful.13 And the paper continued to lose money.

After the 1908 election, the backers of the Salt Lake Herald apparently gave up hope that the Democratic party would ever amount to much in Utah, and they offered the Inter-Mountain Republican corporation an opportunity to buy their paper. Reed Smoot, President Smith, and Bishop C. W. Nibley of the Presiding Bishopric (the ecclesiastical body which administers the business affairs of the church) considered the offer, and on the basis that a merger would remove at least one of the competitive papers from the scene, they decided that the Herald would be a good investment. While Senator Sutherland "and his friends" owned a large block of the stock when the merger was completed, the control of the Republican party's newspaper was held jointly by Apostle Smoot and the Mormon Church after 1909.14 The sale of the Herald was a symptom of the state of the Democratic party. Judge William H. King made an attempt to oppose Reed Smoot in the 1908 senatorial campaign, but the party leaders seem to have accepted the fact that no Democrat could be elected in the face of President Joseph F. Smith's semiannual conference address in which he said: I thank God that the State of Utah is and has been represented in the halls of Congress by honest men — men after God's own heart, men who love their own people and who are just and impartial and true to all the citizens of our state. . . . In the n a m e of c o m m o n sense I deplore the thought that any Latter-day Saint should regret that good men and true have been chosen, not by the Church, but by their own followers and by their own political parties. 15

These words implied, of course, that the Mormons should elect Republicans to Utah's Legislature since the man "after God's own heart" would have to be elected by the state legislature.

The outcome of the election cannot be wholly attributed to the influence of President Smith's words. The disorganization of the Democratic 13 Spry's correspondence regarding this matter may be found in the Personal Correspondence of Governor William Spry, Box 1, Governors' Papers (William Spry [1909-1916]), Utah State Archives.

14 Reed Smoot, "Diary of Reed Smoot" (typescript, University of Utah), April 18, April 20, April 22, August 28, and September 2, 1909.

15 As quoted in Reuben J. Snow, "The American Party in Utah: A Study of Political Party Struggles During the Early Years of Statehood" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1962), 183.

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party was so complete that they managed to nominate a gubernatorial candidate who refused to run, which made it necessary to find a substitute after the state convention had adjourned. The national election, moreover, tended to give the advantage to the GOP. William Jennings Bryan who headed the Democratic ticket had already been an "also-ran" twice, while William Howard Taft was known to have the enthusiastic approval of the highly popular Theodore Roosevelt. These three things, then — the fact that the Republican slate was strong nationally, that the condition of the Utah Democratic party was chaotic, and that the president of the Mormon Church gave a far from cryptic adminition to the Latterday Saints about electing Republicans to the state legislature — taken all together, explain the one-sided nature of the election returns.

When the Utah Legislature convened in 1909, it was composed of 61 Republicans and two Democrats, And when a joint session was held to elect a new senator from Utah, Reed Smoot received 61 votes, and William H. King got two. The choice of a senator was about the only thing that state legislature was agreed upon, however. The overwhelming nature of the Republican majority presents a false picture of unanimity, for the Republicans themselves were fundamentally divided.

The point of contention, not only in the legislature but in all Utah in 1909, was prohibition. The matter of temperance legislation was being pushed throughout the country during these years. People were getting excited about liquor laws in every section of the United States. Still, prohibition was probably of greater interest to the average citizen of Utah than elsewhere because it touched on a basic tenet of the Mormon faith.

In a revelation announced in 1833, the prophet, Joseph Smith, had offered a "Word of Wisdom" for the benefit of Zion, saying that strong drinks are not for the belly, b u t for the washing of your A n d a g a i n tobacco is not for the body . . . . A n d again, h o t drinks for t h e body or belly. . . . A n d all saints w h o r e m e m b e r to keep these sayings, walking in obedience to the c o m m a n d m e n t s , shall health. . . , 16

bodies. a r e not and do receive

In early Mormonism this commandment was not binding on the Saints, but during the "grow your own or do without" campaign which Brigham Young instituted in the late 1860's to counter the effect of the coming of the transcontinental railroad, the Word of Wisdom was greatly emphasized and "in less than two decades, abstinence from tea, coffee, tobacco, and intoxicating beverages was almost as strong a test of faith as carry16 The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . .

(Salt Lake City, 1954), Sec. 89, vss. 7, 8, 9, 18.

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ing out a colonization or missionary assignment." 17 After the practice of polygamy was renounced, the Word of Wisdom became even more significant because it was an overt means of setting the Mormons apart and keeping them a peculiar people.

Among the Twelve Apostles, Heber J. Grant and Francis M. Lyman felt more strongly about the Word of Wisdom than the rest of the apostles.

Yet all the members of the Quorum of Twelve felt that the Saints should abide by the prophet's advice. President Smith had restated the church's position with regard to liquor at the semiannual conference in April 1908: We believe in strict temperance; I sincerely hope that every Latter-day Saint will co-operate with the temperance movement spreading over the land; I and my brethren, at least, are in harmony with the movement.

He added, "we want nothing drastic, nothing that would be illiberal or oppressive," but his words came too late. 18 No doubt inadvertently, PresiJoseph F. Smith (1838-1918) Son of Hyrum Smith, Joseph F. Smith was ordained an apostle of the Mormon Church when he was 28 years old (1866).

He spent most of his life in the service of the church, and upon the death of Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith became president of the Mormon Church (1901). During his 17 years as president, many important church construction projects were inaugurated — Hotel Utah, L.D.S. Hospital, church offices, and Mormon edifices in Canada, Hawaii, Great Britain, and some Pacific islands.

dent Smith had opened a Pandora's Box which eventually led to the defeat of the Republican party in Utah.

Almost immediately Mormons of both parties began to agitate for statewide prohibition. Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, Francis M. Lyman, and George Albert Smith of the Council of the Twelve took steps to encourage political action through stake conference addresses and in signed articles in the Deseret News.19 Reed Smoot, however, correctly identified the prohibition issue as a new threat to Mormon-Gentile cooperation. He kept the Word of Wisdom himself, but he knew that if the church supported an attempt to 17

Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 250.

As quoted in Bruce T . Dyer, "A Study of the Forces Leading to the Adoption of Prohibition in U t a h in 1917" (Master's thesis, Brigham Y o u n g University, 1 9 5 8 ) , 14.

19 Ibid., 25.

18

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make everybody in Utah do likewise, the American party might gain control of the state and reopen the old struggle between the Saints and the Gentiles. He saw a strictly regulated local option law as the best solution to the vexing problem.

By this time Utah had a modest, yet thriving liquor industry. When the pro-prohibition propaganda in Utah referred to those vague and somehow unsavory "liquor interests," it generally was a reference to the three outstanding brewers in the state, Gus Becker of the Becker Breweries in Ogden, Frank Fisher of the Fisher Brewery in Salt Lake City, and Jacob Moritz of the Salt Lake Brewery. After Smoot and the "federal bunch" had managed to defeat a dry plank in the Republican platform at the 1908 state convention, it was widely charged, even by some of the apostle's fellows in the Quorum of the Twelve, that the senator and his machine politicians had sold out to the liquor interests. Despite a widespread contemporary conviction that some sort of understanding had been concluded, no proof has ever been produced to indicate that any kind of "deal" was ever formally made. It is probable that the action of the apostle and his associates in the convention was taken to guarantee that Becker, Fisher, Moritz, and other Utah brewers would not decide to join Thomas Kearns, Frank Cannon, and the Utah Americans in their anti-Mormon campaign.

Still, politics is politics, even in Utah. And when the legislature convened in Salt Lake City in 1909, it was made up of individuals who had been sent to the capital by an electorate which overwhelmingly favored prohibition. Almost as soon as the House of Representatives was organized, a stringent statewide prohibition measure, the Cannon Bill, was introduced. It was placed before the House by Joseph J. Cannon, and it was sponsored officially by the Anti-Saloon League. On an early vote this legislation passed 39 to four, and a week later, on February 18, it came up for debate in the Senate.

Callister was worried. He wired Senator Smoot in Washington that he would try to kill the bill in the Senate the next day. It all depended, he said, on Carl Badger, a state senator who had formerly served as secretary to Smoot. Callister was sure that a word from the apostle would help Badger stand firm in the face of the extraordinary popular pressure being placed on legislators to vote for statewide prohibition. He cautioned Senator Smoot, however, to "Be careful who you write letters to.

Heber J. [Grant] is using same against you." 20 20 The prohibition fight as it affected Reed Smoot is fully covered in Merrill, "Apostle in Politics," 233-49.

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The apostle did not need this warning to know that the prohibition question had caused a row within the Council of the Twelve. He had received a letter three days before from Hyrum M. Smith charging him with being out of harmony with the quorum. He feared, moreover, that President Smith was leaving for Honolulu to get away from the fight and that "in his absence [First Counselor John R.] Winder would withhold support from the InterMountain Republican."

Nevertheless, he felt that the time had not come to make Utah a dry state, and so on February 20, he wired Carl Badger to "Give us strict regulation and local option and vote against [the] Cannon bill." The senator's influence was vitally needed. When the bill came up for a vote on February 23, Callister and C. A. Glazier, a nephew of the apostle who functioned as one of the lesser cogs in the Smoot machine, were hard put to get a bare majority against the measure. Glazier described the fight in a letter to his uncle thus: "The Smoot 'boys' [the federal bunch] would get promises one day and Heber J. Grant would take them away the next." Defeat of the Cannon Bill was uncertain until the very last vote was cast.

Two weeks later Governor Spry indicated to a joint meeting of the legislature that he would welcome a good local option law. In less than three days, the Utah State Senate had unanimously passed a bill introduced by Badger providing for local option and strict enforcement. On March 17 the Badger Bill passed the House in amended form, and on March 20, just before adjourning sine die, the Senate accepted the House amendments and sent the measure to the governor. After the legislators had dispersed to tell their constituents that they had, after all, passed a liquor law, Governor Spry discovered that laws already on the books accomplished the same purpose. And besides, he said, certain parts of the law were unconstitutional. He vetoed the measure on March 23. 21 It was a grandstand play, and it brought the expected applause.

The Weber County Republican Club, of which Gus Becker was a guiding light, wrote to Spry praising him for having the "sound judgment of the business man" and being "made of the right kind of stuff when the critical time arrives." Fred J. Kiesel, an Ogden wholesale liquor dealer relayed a telegram to the governor from Adolphus Busch of the AnnheuserBusch Brewing Company of Saint Louis which read, "a rousing hurrah for Governor Spry." 22 21 22

Dyer, "A Study of Prohibition," 44-45.

Personal Correspondence, Box 1, Governors' Papers (William Spry).

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In reality Spry's veto was unimportant. The final vote on the Cannon Bill had killed statewide prohibition. The veto was merely a gesture made to show the non-Mormon business wing of the Republican party that Smoot's "Mormon boys" had kept faith with the program of cooperation between the two groups. It served its purpose very well, apparently, since Senator Sutherland who had been visiting in Salt Lake City, told Reed Smoot on April 10 that "the political situation [at] home is much better. The feeling worked up over prohibition is subsiding and the businessmen feel grateful for the action of the boys." 23 If the veto had no practical effect on the sale of liquor in Utah, it is nevertheless significant. It set a precedent for Spry himself which may help to explain the erratic independent course the governor followed in 1915 when the prohibition question came up again. The governor was a good Mormon, but he seems to have found the praise of the nonMormons, which gave him a feeling of self-sufficiency, very sweet: I will be frank enough to a d m i t t h a t m y first impression of you was t h a t you would t u r n out to be a tool in the h a n d s of the M o r m o n leaders, m e r e p u t t y to be molded to their will as they m a y desire. I a m delighted to see t h a t I was mistaken a n d t h a t you are really a great big m a n . 2 4

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William Spry (1864-1929) Beginning his political career in 1894 as Tooele County collector, William Spry held a variety of offices. In 1902 he was elected a state legislator, and in 1905 appointed to the Board of Land Commissioners.

Elected governor in 1908, William Spry served two terms, and in 1921 he was appointed commissioner of the General Land Office by President Warren G. Harding.

Non-Mormons, seeing the sound and fury of the crusade that had been waged by Grant, Ivins, Lyman, Hyrum M. Smith, and several other apostles in favor of prohibition, concluded that Spry had defied the authority of the priesthood. Yet President Smith did not seem unduly concerned. At the April semiannual conference priesthood meeting, he spoke,strongly in favor of prohibition, but he said that the saloons should be closed with the present laws, And that seemed to be that.

But it was not. The 1909 legislature's failure to enact a statewide prohibition law did not defeat temperance, as it was called, in Utah. It 23

Smoot, "Diary," April 10, 1909.

O. F. Peterson to William Spry, March 23, 1909, Personal Correspondence, Box 1, Governors' Papers (William Spry).

24

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107 Frank J. Cannon (1859-1933) Journalist and editor of several newspapers, Frank Cannon was Utah's first United States senator in 1896. Previously . he had been Utah's territorial delegate to Congress (1894). An active newspaperman, Frank Cannon was connected at various times with many Utah newspapers. He served as editor on the Logan Leader, Ogden Herald, Ogden Standard, Daily Utah State Journal, and Salt Lake Tribune.

Frank Cannon remained in newspaper work in Colorado after his defection from the Mormon Church in 1905.

A

merely destroyed its momentum. Even though Joseph F. Smith's reaction to the situation proved that he •— and therefore the church — would not repudiate the work of faithful Saints who believed it best to leave compliance with the Word of Wisdom up to the individual, prohibition remained an explosive issue in state politics. Heber J. Grant and the Democrats injected it into every election contest, and Smoot, Sutherland, and Howell were repeatedly plagued with the problem whenever they returned home to campaign.

Between 1909 and 1915 the whole tenor of Utah politics changed.

The American party lost control of Salt Lake City's municipal government in 1911, and shortly thereafter the Tribune's vitriolic and bitter editor, Frank Cannon, betook himself to Denver to rage against the evils of Colorado politics as the editor of the Rocky Mountain News. With his departure the American party movement collapsed. Thomas Kearns drifted back into the Republican fold, and for the most part, the Tribune discontinued its diatribes against Senator Smoot and the Mormon Church. And it soon became clear that the real danger of a MormonGentile political division had disappeared. With this final disappearance of the traditional religious division in Utah politics, the state stood at the threshold of political maturity.

Third parties were not a thing of the past, of course. This was the decade of Bull Mooseism, Prohibitionism, and Progressivism, and all three had a bearing on Utah politics. But Utah had essentially become a two-party state, and third parties found it difficult to gather significant support. It may be suggested that third parties were never so popular or influential here as they were in other sections of the country because the memory of the American party made independent politics objectionable to the populace. _,..,_•. ;

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In 1912, for example, Theodore Roosevelt had a wide personal following in the state, yet Utah was one of the two states in the nation to cast its electoral vote for William Howard Taft. Since Joseph F. Smith wrote a signed editorial in the Mormon publication, the Improvement Era,25 which was interpreted as an appeal to members of the church to vote for Taft, the outcome of this presidential election has sometimes been characterized as still another incidence of ecclesiastical influence in politics. Perhaps so. But the campaign was very complicated; Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were both popular, yet their policies so nearly coincided — at least as they were understood in Utah — that it is just as likely that they killed each other off, as it were, allowing the old guard Republicans to carry the state. Smith's Improvement Era article caused such a stir in Democratic circles, moreover, that its effect was somewhat mitigated by a subsequent statement that it was intended merely as an announcement of personal preference. This, in turn, impelled Simon Bamberger, a Democratic candidate for the State Senate, to publicly ponder what Taft thought of "his friend in Utah who was working for him without," as Smith's second statment had said, "having any intention to influence a single vote."

The results of the election of 1912 apparently forced the Progressives to recognize their limitations, and by 1914 the Progressive organization had accomplished a formal fusion with the Democrats in Utah.

It was a liaison of convenience, however, and it did not hold fast throughout the entire campaign, or throughout the entire state for that matter.

Just to take one case, the Progressives in Carbon County divided among themselves, one-half fusing with the Democrats and the other half joining the Republicans.

The effect of fusion, even so, was enough to cause Reed Smoot, running for reelection for the first time under the constitutional amendment providing for the popular election of senators, to worry about his chances.

The Democratic-Progressive coalition had nominated James H. Moyle to oppose the apostle, and Moyle, who was personally popular all across the state, acted like a man about to win. He visited every county in Utah making every attempt to exploit the opposition to Smoot's machine leaders. In this way he was able to conduct a campaign which did not reflect on the apostle's character while still emphasizing the need for a change.

25

Joseph F. Smith, "The Presidential Election," Improvement

Era, XV, 1120—21.

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The results of this election reflected the success of his tactics: Moyle, himself, was defeated by just over 3,000 votes, but the Republicans were defeated in Salt Lake County where the power of the federal bunch had been strongest. The Republican majority was wiped out in the lower house of the state legislature, and the fusion candidate for Congress, James H. Mays, defeated the machine candidate, E. O. Leatherwood.

With reference to Reed Smoot, Dr. Merrill was right when he quipped that the Senator "didn't win, he survived." 26 And there were those who contended that he did not even do that.

Democrats in Washington and Weber counties raised cries of fraud, and party leaders pleaded with the defeated senatorial candidate to take the question to the courts. According to Hinckley's biography, Moyle "sensed this would mean only muckraking and so declined." 27 All of which indicates just how tenuous the Republican party's hold on the state had become. Reed Smoot won, but only because he managed to keep prohibition out of the campaign. Two years later the Republicans were not that successful, and the temperance issue broke out again in full force. Once that happened, the Republican party divided against itself. Just as he had recognized the danger which prohibition threatened to the party in 1908 and 1909, Senator Smoot now realized that the only way the Republicans could win another election would be for the party to "take the lead in providing for future [state]wide prohibition." He thought, however, that the law should "allow the manufacture of beer for exportation and not destroy that business," and that it should also "give saloons ample time to dispose of their property." 28 He presented this plan to the Quorum of the Twelve, and also discussed the matter with Gus Becker who agreed that "perhaps it was the best that could be done."

Yet when the legislature met in January 1915, it seemed that even this was too much to ask. Neither the party affiliation nor the religious connection of the lawmaker appeared to matter this time. Prohibition — strict, statewide, immediate, and final — was what the legislature wanted, and that is what the Wooten Bill, which both houses passed, provided.

But Governor Spry, possibly with the advice of President Smith and certainly with the support of Becker and Fisher and the other Utah "liquor interests," vetoed this bill as soon as the legislature adjourned.

26

Merrill, "Apostle in Politics," 159.

G o r d o n B. Hinckley, lames Henry Moyle 28 Smoot, "Diary," November 14, 1914.

27

(Salt Lake City, 1 9 5 6 ) , 271.

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The governor had been warned that a veto, this time, would mean political suicide. And it did. In refusing to sign the 1915 prohibition measure, Governor Spry ended his own political career, and at the same time paved the way for the absolute destruction of the Smoot machine and the overwhelming defeat of Utah's Republican party.

Because he had been reelected in 1914 and had yet another four years to demonstrate to the people of Utah that he was the man who made the laws in Washington, Reed Smoot escaped the 1916 Republican debacle. He was the only outstanding member of the party to do so.

Sutherland was defeated by William H. King; Howell fell before James H. Mays; Nephi L. Morris, the former Progressive who had won the Republican nomination for governor on the basis of his strenuous proprohibition record, was routed by Simon Bamberger; and similar results were reported in election contests all along the line. In almost every case, from governor on down, public offices were filled with men who promised to bring prohibition to Utah.

U T A H STATE H I S T O R I C A L SOCIETY

Arch erected on Main Street and South Temple carries the Republican party campaign posters of 1916. This was the year of the Republican debacle in Utah.

Nephi L. Morris was defeated by Simon Bamberger; George Sutherland fell before William H. King; and Woodrow Wilson was reelected President of the United States.

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Practically before the legislators got settled in their new quarters in the new state capitol, a "bone-dry" liquor measure was approved by both houses and sent to the governor for his signature. When Simon Bamberger, Utah's first non-Mormon governor, signed this legislation making a portion of the Mormon prophet's sumptuary revelation a state law, a new era had begun.

Less than two years later Joseph F. Smith died, and Heber J. Grant became the new president of the Mormon Church. For well over a decade, Grant had been leading the Mormon Democrats in politics, and many members of his party probably expected that at long last it would be the "will of the Lord" for Democrats to win Utah elections. If so, they were disappointed. A full year before the 1920 senatorial election, President Grant announced that he intended to vote for Reed Smoot, and he made no public reference to what he thought the outcome of the state election should be.

Grant remained a nominal Democrat, but he was not really a party man. His activities in support of the party between 1908 and 1918 had been directed almost entirely to the bringing of prohibition to Utah.

Once that was effected, his interest in party politics subsided. Since that had been the only basic issue separating Grant and Smoot, their enmity to each other, too, abated, and in time Grant became as enthusiastically partisan in the senator's favor as Joseph F. Smith had been.

At the state level, however, politics during Grant's presidency operated, for the most part, in both parties with neither the advice nor consent of the president of the Mormon Church. It was still Utah, and the Mormon interest was still paramount. But it was not the same. Utah had finally come of age politically.

The Annie Lai Mine, better know as Kimberly, was a gold and silver mine located about 35 miles southwest of Richfield, Utah, in the Gold Mountain Mining District in Piute County.

KIMBERLY as I remember her

BY J O S E P H I N E PACE

A

lthough most people remember Kimberly as a bunch of shacks inhabited by hardrock miners, the Kimberly I remember was a land that only children could really know. There were two Kimberlys — Lower Kimberly and Upper Kimberly. Lower Kimberly was the oldest section and the one with the most memories, I suppose it had grown gradually, but as I remember it was a long street called Main Street. Shacks and tents made up the homes, but they were perched on a hill or in the draw, in the low places along the creek.

I didn't realize how the years had embellished the things I remembered about Kimberly until I went back to find them. The houses had shrunk, been moved, or fallen down in discouraged heaps. Isn't it strange how a house gives up when the people who love it go away. These deserted houses always make me think of the skeletons of the aged Indians who had been left to die when the tribe moved on.

However, when I went back the Kimberly I remembered was still there •— Old Gold Mountain, parts of the Annie Laurie Mill, and the stream that ran through the alley behind the stores on Main Street. The roads are now only trails, but they still arrive at the same destinations.

The manzanita still covers the hillsides, and the road from the valley still twists and climbs. All these things take you back through the years.

No one remembers Mr. Fruehn, but me. He had laughing black eyes and that was about all of his face you could see because of his long, silky beard that covered the rest of his face. He came to Kimberly with a mule and a packtrain of donkeys — all neatly packed with shovels, picks, cooking utensils, and blankets. He wore a brown corduroy suit with knee boots, and he made his camp just near enough for visiting. He didn't make friends with many, but he was mine. When he finally moved on, he gave me the smallest donkey on his string. He said the animal was too young for rough going. I named him Charlie Fruehn, although my father insisted he was a Jenny. The donkey was my "Open, Sesame" to the world of Kimberly. There wasn't a place, either sanctioned or forbidden, that I didn't visit.

At times my father carried the payroll money to Kimberly. He met the bank messenger at the Fish Creek turnoff, and the big leather bags Mrs. Pace, born and educated in Richfield, was active in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and the Sevier Valley Chapter of the Utah State Historical Society. She was a member of the Historical Committee that prepared Richfield's centennial history and author of one of the selections in the book.

Mrs. Pace's father, Charles Skougaard, built and managed a hotel in Kimberly when it was a boom town. Mrs. Pace presented her reminiscences of Kimberly to the Sevier Valley Chapter shortly before her death in August 1965.

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ELMO HERRING

Gold was first discovered in the area in 1875, but was not profitable to mine until 1895 when the cyanide-leaching process was introduced. The Annie Laurie Consolidated Gold Mining Company then constructed a 250-ton per day mill, and the mine and mill operated from 1901 to 1908. The first years of operation were very successful. In 1908 the company passed into the hands of a receiver and was subsequently sold.

were thrown over the horse in front and back of the saddle. When he was just a short way up the trail, he was always joined by a handsome man on a horse, who rode alongside and chatted as they climbed. The man was LeRoy Parker. Some people called him "Butch" Cassidy, but to my father he was just a boy from Circleville who joined a wild bunch of cattle rustlers. Many people claimed that Cassidy had as many good points as he had bad, and he was better than most because Cassidy never broke his word, betrayed a friend, or killed a man. As long as Butch Cassidy rode along with my father the gang never held him up for the payroll.

Among the residents of Kimberly whom I remember was Dr. Stiener. Dr. Stiener was the company doctor. I don't know where he originally came from, but he was married to Georgianna Blanchet, who lived in one of those lovely stone houses still standing in Sevier Canyon, just before you arrive at Marysvale. Georgianna's parents came from a small French village in Quebec. Georgianna Stiener had a sister named Mel Blanchet. I never did see her, but I nearly choked with excitement when they talked about her. Mel Blanchet was in love with one of the outlaws in Butch Cassidy's gang and was involved in a bank robbery with

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them. In fact, she reportedly held the horses for them to make their getaway. Her lover was shot in the leg. After this episode, she married him and later they lived on a ranch and raised cattle. It was then I lost interest in her.

One day Dr. Stiener came dashing up in his buggy and called father.

Together they disappeared in a cloud of dust. A cave-in at the mine had pinned a man under a fallen rock with his leg half severed. My father had to hold the man while Dr. Stiener amputated his leg. Afterward, I remember Dr. Stiener gave father a handful of pills, but he couldn't eat his supper that night.

The K & S Store at the south end of Main Street was the hub of my universe. K & S stood for Krotzy & Skougaard. I felt pretty important in that store. There was always a piece of free hardtack for me, and one of the boys from the store tied a sapling over the creek behind the store so I could swing across it.

Just across the street from the K & S Store was the Stiener home.

On the outside the house looked just like the rest of the town's lumber shacks, but inside it was pure elegance. The chairs in the parlor were covered with red velvet, and the carpet was covered with flowers. In full view the stairs leading up to the bedrooms above were covered with red carpeting. There was a small table near the door which held a silver dish for calling cards. And the house had a really, truly bathroom with a long tin tub, and you could pull the plug and the water ran out. When I revisited the house 30 years later I found that the stairs still led up, but you can imagine my surprise to find the stair treads were no wider than a step ladder and that I bumped my head on the ceiling as I turned at the first landing. It dawned on me just how wonderful it would be if the common and makeshift things of this world could be covered with red velvet.

A little farther south, on the west side of Main Street, was the saloon.

I can't tell you much about this place, because it was one of the two places "off limits" for me. The other one was the jail which was quite a way south of town. The jail stood for years after the town was abandoned. It looked just like a huge iron cage about 10 feet square right out in the open. It's now in Horace Sorenson's Pioneer Village in Salt Lake. It's no fun to see it now, there is no one in it. If my parents hadn't found out that I was casing these joints, I might have had an interesting paragraph right here. Finding that I didn't obey in spite of their threats, my parents promised to take a long switch to Charlie Fruehn and that stopped me cold. The world was probably deprived of some very vital historic facts because of this.

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The saloon was gone entirely when I went back, but in the pile of warped, gray boards where I remembered the building had stood, I found an old flask turned purple by years in the sun. I like to believe the bottle was opened on the last night the saloon operated, and someone who still had a few coins in his pocket drank a farewell toast and promised to come back when the mill started to turn again.

Next to the saloon was the livery stable. There were buggies, saddles, horses, and men always sitting around who liked to visit. Charlie Fruehn came this far willingly, because someone always gave him a handful of oats.

Across the street and about four steps up was John Sandberg's store and nearby was the barber shop. Parley Poulson, Josh Ogden, Russell Ivy, and Keith Fountain were all barbers there in the later days of the Kimberly. A sign on the window said "Haircuts 35^ Shaves 25^." Josh said this really was a bargain, because in Richfield the haircuts were 25 cents and 15 cents for a shave, but, when the miners came down from the hills, there was a lot more than hair to be taken off.

The dance hall was the first big building on the left as you entered Kimberly. Just north and down the hill from the dance hall, a Mr. Christiansen from Monroe and Charlie Leavitt of Richfield ran a dairy. Next to the dance hall was Mrs. Sim Larson's boardinghouse and bake shop.

The big excitment of the day was when the stage came in, and we were never late for its arrival. Four and sometimes six horses covered with lather arrived in a swirl of dust. Little Billy Morrison of Monroe would pull on the reins bringing the horses up sharp as he stopped to unload the mail from the stage. Then on the stage traveled down the draw and across the creek to the Lawson boardinghouse to let the passengers off.

Charlie Fruehn and I were hard pressed at times to make both these connections.

One really big day in Kimberly was on the Fourth of July. Two things I remember — a big fight at the dance hall, and the fact it snowed all day on a Fourth of July. Jimmy Burns was to fight Joe Wodinski, and Willard Bean was the promoter. This was no ordinary camp fight. These boys were big-time stuff. The miners came down from the hills, and the people came up from the valley. The big thrill to me was that all the children were taken to the Lawson boardinghouse to be tended. We slept on beds, on the floor, and on our chairs. Never had I known such excitement in my life. We were all gathered up after the fight, and I am sorry, but I never did find out who won.

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Down the hill to the south of town was the big Annie Laurie Mill.

Perhaps someone can explain the cyanide process of how gold is extracted from ore, but I cannot. The big vats holding the thick, choking cyanide liquid were there for all to see. To me the men with the long poles, tending and stirring, looked more like men from never-never land. The masks that covered their noses and mouths and their arm-high rubber boots disguised them. One of the men who tended the cyanide tanks gave me a pottery jug in which he had dipped out a part of the liquid, this green liquid is solidified and still in the jug.

I also remember the story about the gold brick that was lost when it was being freighted. The brick disappeared between the mill and the railroad station at Elsinore where they were taking it, as I remember.

I don't know that the brick was ever recovered. I can still remember so many things about the old mill, particularly the grinding of the machinery as the rocks were being ground or crushed before they were put in the cyanide mixture.

My father contracted to build a power plant for Kimberly, and mostly I remember the flume that was down at Fish Creek, and the fact the flume was held up by such a terribly high trestle. We used to walk over the flume from one side to the other — when we weren't caught at it. When you looked up, you thought you could touch the clouds, and when you looked down you began to hold tight.

I've heard the story of the first test of the plant so often that it seems I remember it happening. Everything was finished, and the time of the test arrived. Father warned everybody to keep an eye on the pressure ELMO HERRING

MMMMm WMMM:..i}>

ii There were two sections of Kimberly— Upper Kimberly and Lower Kimberly.

Lower Kimberly, shown here, contained the business district.

There were several general merchandise stores, three livery stables, two hotels, three saloons, two barber shops, one school, two combination bunk and boardinghouses, and the usual red light areas common in most mining towns.

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gauge. The water filled the pipes, the gauge began to rise, the wheels began to turn, and the machinery began to purr. Then, as dad told it, some danged fool rang the dinner bell and the men all ran down to camp.

Someone threw the switch back, and the water force ripped the pipes out with a roar.

It was here, at Fish Creek, I made up my mind never to become a Catholic. Two of the Catholic fathers had a fishing camp by the stream, and I made my trip down to bid them welcome, of course. There they sat in front of their tent, and just inside the tent was a big barrel filled with bottles with little blue ribbons that crossed and little seals on them.

And they were smoking cigars, so I lost my interest in their religion.

Another night I remember at this camp was when a young man named Erastus Utah Bean from Richfield came to see his brother and friends who were working at the plant. He had brought the script of a play he had written, which he called " F l o r i a n t a n . " The play was founded on the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon. The group built The Kimberly Band, shown here, performed when Kimberly was a thriving community. During the summer months of 1901 to 1908, logging operations for the mine required extra men, and with the regular employees of the mine, as many as 500 families lived in and around Kimberly.

ELMO HERRING

Kimberly, Utah

H"

a big bonfire, and everyone sat around in a circle while Erastus Bean read his play aloud. I was breathless, even though I didn't know what any of it meant. The play made its author famous throughout western Mormon territory.

Father contracted to build 12 bungalows and the then big, imposing lodge high upon the hill south and west of the mill. The place began to look more like a town than a camp. When the Annie Laurie was sold to an eastern syndicate, Kimberly became still more city-like. The town attracted many young blades with stiff straw sailor hats, good manners, and eastern accents. The pretty girls from Elsinore and Richfield had a ball. I still remember these boys helping the girls into buggies and holding their hats in their hands when they were talking to them. I remember some of the girls. Hazel Baker taught school at Kimberly. Olive Hansen's sister, Phena, was the postmistress. There were the Lawson girls from the boardinghouse — Kate, Agnas, and Hazel. Other girls came up for the Saturday night dances and the Sunday dinners at the lodge, where Anthony Sacka, who used to run the old Southern Hotel, was the chef or cook, and Jane Young, now Mrs. Follett, was one of the diningroom girls. Jim Long's daughter, Helen, was one of the girls, and she was so beautiful that she took everyone's breath. There was Ivy and Ruby Erickson, Chan and Anna Hansen, Floss Poulson, and Dot Wright who came to visit the girls they knew in Kimberly. My cousin married one of the young men from the East. She went to New York for a month's honeymoon, saw Lillian Russell, and arrived home with an eastern accent of her own. Bobby Hanks and Alfred Ackerson made life wonderful by speaking to me when they would see me on the street.

Alfred bought the Judge McCarty home and stayed in Richfield. My favorite of all these boys was C. I. Raider. He lived in an upstairs, corner room at the lodge. He had an enormous black leather chair and phonograph. C. I. Raider would let me sit in the chair and listen to his records while he put on his black jacket and tie and shined his already shiny shoes before he went down to dinner. He gave us the chair and the phonograph before he left, but somehow it didn't look as regal in our parlor. Later in my teens, I went to see the opera "Aida" and was surprised that I knew the whole story. "Aida" had been in Mr. Raider's collection of records. He also left an enlarged, colored picture of a beautiful girl in her Japanese kimono. He was going to send for the picture later, but he never did. For years the suspense was awful — did he find she hadn't waited for him or had she died. I'll never know.

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The parties at the lodge were very elegant. From my vantage point, belly boost at the top of the stairs, I could see it all — the ladies in their dresses with demitrains which they would hold just high enough to show the lovely petticoats under them. And mother, of course, was the prettiest one with her dress of brown voile, a rustling stiff petticoat of green taffeta, and her locket on a chain. One of the gentlemen passed a tray of tiny glasses filled with wine which the ladies sipped as slowly as I would eat my Sunday ice cream. The tables also had decks of cards and a game of whist was soon underway. The next morning I was the first one down and I hurriedly filled by overall pockets with the unclaimed cards, drained the wine glasses, rescued Charlie Fruehn from the corral, and was off for another day of adventure.

All of a sudden into my dream world came panic. Nobody talked about their fears to me, but rather around and over me. The payroll hadn't been met. There was a meeting of men, mine bosses, laborers, grocers, and saloon keepers. This was just a temporary thing they were assured, just an error by someone in the eastern office. Mr. Carr of New York would send an explanation and some good hard money. In the meantime all would go on as usual, except company scrip would be used instead of money in all transactions, and later the company would redeem it in U.S. currency. It seems the company representative's trip East was extended, his return postponed, and meanwhile things limped along.

The grocery stock sank lower and lower, and the cash drawers at the safe in the K & S were jammed with piles of Kimberly scrip. Some of little faith moved early, those with hope and big investments stayed on.

The cottage rentals had been paid in scrip, and mother said we had enough to pay for the whole house. We had our home in Richfield, and mother was an artist in making my blouses out of father's pongee silk shirts — his one concession to the eastern satorial elegance. But I shudder when I remember them now. Have you ever smelled pongee silk when it gets warm or damp? We lived on porridge and hope for a few years awaiting for Kimberly to come back, but I guess the vein had run out; we know that the syndicate had. And so Kimberly remains today mostly as a memory of a bygone era.

The Crisis at Fort Limhi 1858

BY DAVID L. BIGLER

The valley of Salmon River's east fork, now named Lemhi River, was the location selected by Mormon missionaries to the Indians in 1855 for the site of Fort Limhi.

I

he mild, south wind on Monday, March 8, 1858, began to blow the moisture from the communal "big fields," alongside Mormon settlements Mr. Bigler, a graduate in journalism from the University of Utah, is director of Public Relations, Mountain States District, United States Steel, at Salt Lake City. This article is a chapter of his study, now nearing completion, "Massacre at Fort Limhi, Early Mormons in Oregon Territory, 1855—58."

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on the western slope of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah Territory. It warned of possible changes in the weather, an unwelcome end to winter, or an onset of new snow to snap a short string of balmy days.

About to open was the eleventh spring since the arrival of the Mormons in the Rocky Mountains. But this was the first season on their frontier that men had looked to such promising fields of tender winter wheat, planted the fall before, without an inner flush of gladness.

By March, the instinctive responses of born farmers had vanished, smothered under a blanket of late winter reflection. Gone, too, on this day was the spiritual outpouring, boastful defiance, of the previous year.

Instead, the chosen people of God cast more heavily than ever their fears and hopes for the future on the Lord -— and Brigham Young. Emotionally emptied and sullen toward their American enemies, the people of the Kingdom of God got ready to plow their lands for planting, looking up uneasily at times toward the white wall of mountains on the northeast.

Out of sight, if not of mind, the reason for their apprehension was on the other side of the high peaks and ridges, near Fort Bridger. There, less than a dozen marching days away, an American army was poised like a frozen dagger, 2,500 strong, welded by its commander into a purposeful force that somehow had survived both winter and the punitive hand of God. Ice-bound and angry, the officers and men of Albert Sidney Johnston, newly promoted brigadier general, stamped the frozen ground to fight off frostbite, sharpened their fighting' edge, and waited impatiently for supplies, reinforcements, and the snow to melt. Eager now were the soldiers of the Republic for a frontal assault on the Mormon stronghold.

At their backs, an aroused American government finally moved with decision to support its isolated force in the mountains by starting to mobilize more than enough manpower and materiel to put down promptly the rebellion by a new territory.

The temper of the nation also supplied good reason for Mormon leaders at Great Salt Lake City by March 8 to face realistically the deadly seriousness of a confrontation, wrought by faith and eloquence. Silent this day were the emotion-filled voices of short months before that cried for the hosts of Zion to dispatch a so-called mob of armed Gentiles "to hell cross lots."

With time and the weather now favoring their enemies, the heads of Israel in the Last Days bent soberly, instead, over plans to evacuate the "valleys of the mountains" their followers had learned to love so

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deeply in only a decade. As they had done before departing from Nauvoo, the Mormon hierarchy screened the projected movement, this time behind a curtain of warnings and false clues that the exodus would head south.

But they planned to move the other way.

Meanwhile, the shifting wind from the south outside the Council House at Great Salt Lake and the serious faces on the inside were not the only omens on March 8 of change to come for the Kingdom of God in western America.

Early that morning, an intense figure on a splendid horse had galloped out of the Mormon capital toward the eastern mountains, flanked by the trusted Orrin Porter Rockwell and other picked Mormon scouts.

This mysterious newcomer, first introduced by Mormon leaders as "Dr. Osborne," a pseudonym, was in fact 35-year-old Thomas L. Kane, the psychosomatic son of a prominent Philadelphia barrister. Kane also was a past benefactor of the Saints during the Nauvoo exodus and an ardent defender of the weak and oppressed everywhere.

Arriving on the stage of crisis two weeks before, via California, this self-appointed mediator had urged Brigham Young and his council to hold out an olive branch to the United States by authorizing him to offer food for the nation's hungry soldiers in the mountains. But the blackbearded peacemaker finally had ridden off to seek talks with the federals at Camp Scott, headquarters for the Utah Expedition, with little indication that Mormon leaders had approved his design, despite their warm reception for an old friend.

This was the way Monday, March 8, 1858, had opened in the Great Basin, a mild, windy day, seemingly like the others before it, yet somehow stirring with subtle omens for the future. Then, without warning, change, drastic and everlasting, came to the projected Mormon state in western America like an icy gale from out of the north.

And the door to independence banged suddenly shut.

T,

he rolling drumbeat early on March 9 from the main gate of the square, adobe fort named Lehi, located at the north end of Utah Valley, snapped heads up to listen from fields, hills, and canyons nearby. The traditional alert of the Nauvoo Legion ordered the men of that settlement to put aside their plows and hammers — and harness up for war.

After weeks of uncertainty and waiting, the call to action was almost a welcome sound.

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Not long before, an express wagon from Legion headquarters at Great Salt Lake, some 20 muddy miles to the north, had rolled past the Jordan narrows that joined the two valleys, rumbled over the bridge, and into the Spanish-style fort on Dry Creek. The express bore shocking, unexpected news and military orders. " . . . from Fort Lemhi on Salmon River. . . Indains heded by some mountaineers attacted the bretheren . . . killed 2 also wounded 5 . . . stole most of their cattle." 1 The steady drum roll touched off by this report at Lehi sounded an unintentional salute to the riders who formed the settlement's mounted company of the Nauvoo Legion, or volunteer Militia of Utah Territory.

These rugged horsemen had met and defeated the best warriors of a proud Indian nation, the Utah tribe, in 1850, again in 1953-54 against the fearsome war chief, Walker, and a third time almost on their own doorstep against the braves of Chief Tintic in 1856. The Lehi cavalry had upheld its reputation in the fall of 1857 in raids on federal supply trains on Green River under the able Mormon commander, Major Lot Smith. Afterward they patrolled the ramparts of the Kingdom in the mountains until late December.

So it was not by chance that Mormon General Daniel H. Wells in March 1858 ordered up his reliable veterans from the north end of Utah Lake with other forces at hand that were closer to the scene of trouble.

In any Indian fight the seasoned horsemen from Lehi could be counted on to steady the two additional companies of 50 called out from Salt Lake Valley and settlements north of the capital.

While Saints on Dry Creek gathered at their new, adobe meetinghouse, the express carrying the news of the Fort Limhi massacre rolled south on a muddy wagon road that loosely beaded, for nearly 50 miles, the Mormon settlements in Utah Valley — a crescent of fertile land framed by the fresh waters of Utah Lake on the west and a sudden, 7,000-foot uplift of Wasatch Mountains a few miles opposite.

Spreading by the fastest means of the day was an alarm set off some 48 hours earlier by two Mormon missionaries to the tribes of Oregon Territory, 22-year-old Bauldwin Watts and a former trader on the trail to California named Ezra Barnard.

On March 6, exhausted and half-frozen, Watts and Barnard had arrived at Barnard's Fort, a Mormon outpost near present Malad, Idaho, 1 Samuel Pitchforth, "Diary of Samuel Pitchforth, Nephi, 1857—1868" (typescript, Brigham Young University), March 10, 1858.

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with a demand more desperate than their own survival — fresh horses to go on. In the heroics of a bloodless war, mainly fought by both sides against the common enemy of winter, the Mormon pair had turned in the most courageous feat of the Utah Rebellion.

On the night of February 28, after selecting and reshoeing the two best horses in the besieged Limhi corral, Watts and Barnard had slipped out of the stockade on horseback to ride 300 miles or more for help.

While the Fort Limhi settlers feared every moment to hear the darkness torn by gunfire, the pair had threaded silently past the Indian camps along the river, then galloped for the nearest Mormon settlement, closely pursued the first part of the way. They covered the frozen wilderness at an average of 50 miles a day to reach Barnard-s Fort in only six days. For the last 48 hours, they had pushed ahead without food and only one surviving horse between them.

Stitched into Barnard's coat lining by one of the women at Fort Limhi was a dispatch to Brigham Young from Colonel Thomas S. Smith, the grizzled president of the Salmon River colony in Oregon Territory.

It described a fateful turn of events.

Virtually without warning, about 250 hostile Bannock and Shoshoni braves on the morning of February 25, 1858, had attacked the Mormon outpost located just west of the pass over the Beaverhead Mountains, now named Lemhi, near present Salmon, Idaho. Surprised at work on a clear day and heavily outnumbered, the Mormons of the Northern Indian Mission saw two men killed and five others wounded in sharp, scattered fighting before they could pull back to the safety of their stockade. Among the wounded was the 40-year-old Colonel Smith, luckily only grazed on the arm during a burst of fire that had shot off his hat and cut loose his suspenders.

Lost to the attackers was the primary target of their raid, almost the entire mission herd, numbering well over 200 cattle and 30 or more horses and other animals.

But these losses, serious enough, paled alongside the heavier stroke delivered to Mormon plans to move the chosen people of the Almighty out of the path of the United States Army. For unexpectedly eliminated by the raid was the critical, halfway base of supply and refitting in a projected movement north over the mountains to the Beaverhead region of western Montana on the headwaters of the Missouri River, then on to Bitter Root Valley, and, if necessary, into Canada.

Another disturbing factor in the report was that nearly all of the attackers were Mormons, baptized into the faith by Salmon River mis-

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sionaries during the previous three years. In a revealing test of influence, Gentile mountain men, a troublesome crew for the Saints in the past, apparently had talked their Indian friends out of their new religion and into a raid on the fort.

The outcome was a cruel setback at a crucial hour. But, for Mormon children of Israel in the nineteenth century, there was rarely an hour for healing lamentation.

Now calling for instant action was the emergency that faced at least 48 Mormon settlers in Oregon Territory, 16 of them women and children, who were cut off and faced with sudden death nearly 400 miles north of Great Salt Lake City. When last seen alive over a week before, the Saints on Salmon River, hammering their scythes into spears at the blacksmith shop to impale attackers coming over the stockade, were stiffening their courage and defenses for a hopeless last stand. The men then able to resist were outnumbered by as much as 10 to 1. On March 8, however, these unequal odds began to change, counterbalanced by the actions of those who also took up the contest.

Of these Mormon leaders, one of the least likely to be impressed by such one-sided opposition was David Evans, 53-year-old bishop of Lehi and veteran of Zion's Camp in Missouri. His earlier experience fighting mobs in that state and Illinois also served him well in his position as bishop of the settlement. This high calling in the Mormon Kingdom DAVID BIGLER

The land on which Fort Limhi was constructed, near the Lewis and Clark pass over the continental divide, is owned today by rancher Stephen Mahaffey, of Tendoy, Idaho.

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also encompassed the lesser offices of mayor, representative to the territorial legislature, local commander of the Nauvoo Legion, election judge, probate judge, postmaster, and sundry other posts.

In keeping with his authority was the appearance of David Evans.

The bishop's bull dog face, wide open eyes, set jaw, and flat nose announced a servant of God who was unadjusted to enduring slackers or bodily tabernacles that housed apostate spirits. And while the years had loosened gently his waistline, his advancing age had touched the opposite way a mind and will that were unbending to start with.

Finally, one thing was certain. Whenever Bishop Evans called for volunteers, the response was nearly always the same. Everybody volunteered. The unanimous showing of uplifted hands, however, demonstrated not so much fear of the bishop, as it reflected the understanding of his people that obedience to him was a condition of exaltation and fellowship among God's elect by the injunction: "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not mine." 2 At the same time, in calling the men of Lehi to a hazardous winter expedition into Oregon Territory, there was little need for Bishop Evans to whip a few laggards with his practiced tongue. Almost every man well enough to saddle and stay on a horse was ready to go.

Meanwhile, named by Mormon General Wells to command the 140-man force to Salmon River was a 41-year-old Virginian, Colonel Andrew Cunningham, also a leader in Zion's cause in prior months. In January, while Mormon leaders still labored with words to win their quarrel with the United States, Cunningham and four others had been chosen to sign "An Address from the people of Great Salt Lake City to the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress assembled."

This defiant document had rehashed real and imagined Mormon grievances over the years and concluded that "we will no longer wear your cursed yoke of unconstitutional requirements," 3 Of the United States, it said: "The young Hercules has found an adder in his path, his once manly fame is feeble and emaciated; he sickens, pales and falters. . . ." 4 2 A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ.

Organized According to Law, on the 6th of April 1830 (Zion [Independence, Missouri], 1 8 3 3 ) , chap.

X L , vs. 22.

3 Deseret News (Salt Lake C i t y ) , J a n u a r y 27, 1858.

4 A possible reference to the secret M o r m o n order of the Missouri period, known as the Sons of D a n , or Danites. See Gen. 4 9 : 1 7 : " D a n shall be a serpent by the way, a n a d d e r in the p a t h , t h a t biteth the horse heels . . . ."

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More significant, however, had been Cunningham's mission the fall before in the stepped-up Mormon undertaking to string way stations northward along the projected evacuation route should all else fail. Then he had led a picked company of 50 to the crossing of Snake River, near the mouth of the Blackfoot River tributary, 5 roughly midway between Great Salt Lake and Fort Limhi. There, near the intersection of the route to Salmon River and the Oregon Trail, his party erected a settlement, located an improved crossing of Snake River, reportedly put up a saw mill, cached food, and planted winter wheat before returning to the valley.

While Cunningham was thus engaged, the second ranking officer in the mobilizing Fort Limhi expedition, Major Marcellus Monroe, had set out in fall, 1857, with a small party to deliver to Indian chiefs along Bear River what he later called in his report the "necessary instructions." 6 Similar orders, to at least one other Mormon officer at that time, were to tell the Indians that "our enemies, are also their enemies." 7 Finally, in addition to the Lehi volunteers commanded by a Nauvoo Legion veteran of 28, Captain Abram Hatch, military leaders of the Kingdom also ordered to Fort Limhi two full companies of 50 men each to fill out the mounted force under Cunningham.

Of these, the unit best outfitted and the first ready to ride announced somewhat prematurely the birth in January of a new American military force •— the Standing Army of the Kingdom of God. The commander of this detachment of regular Mormon soldiers from the Fourth Battalion, First Regiment, First Brigade, Standing Army, was Captain Christopher Layton, a 37-year-old Englishman from the settlement of Kaysville. The second company, mobilized under the Nauvoo Legion military organization, was commanded by Captain Joseph Grover of Farmington. Under each company leader were five lieutenants, so-called captains of 10, completing an organization patterned after the desert tribes of ancient Israel. 8 The Mormon soldiers supplied their own weapons •— usually a rifle and revolver — from 40 to 100 rounds of ammunition, personal gear, and at least three bushels of grain per man. Planning to ride one animal while breathing the other, most men also reported with two mounts.

5

Near the present location of Idaho Falls.

"Report of a Party of Observation" (Military Records Section, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City).

7 Adjutant General, Nauvoo Legion, to Colonel W. B. Pace, August 13, 1857 (Military Records Section, Utah State Archives).

8 Muster rolls and inventories of arms and provisions for the Salmon River Expedition, March, 1858, are located in the Military Records Section, Utah State Archives.

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Regular or volunteer, the Mormon companies more resembled large posses than formal military outfits, largely because of the lack of uniforms.

Instead, troopers dressed for warmth with too little to keep them warm.

They wore endlessly patched clothes, some buckskin shirts or pants, and boots that were mainly handmade or repaired. After 10 years, store clothing had grown dear in the Great Basin where people were instructed to make their own.

In weapons, there were almost as many kind as there were soldiers, although most men boasted rifles instead of muskets, even a few early repeaters like the one they called a "15-shooter." Some carried revolvers manufactured at a new Great Salt Lake arsenal. Many of these weapons, like everything else, were borrowed from somebody else.

But drawbacks like these were more than compensated by the raw calibre of the Mormon troops. They were youthful, adapted to the wilderness, and as strong as the horses they rode. Despite their close organization and conditioned obedience, the troops exhibited a distinct lack of piety, especially among the native Americans, in speech and manners. An old echo from the Missouri-Illinois period was their belief in roundly cursing the enemies of Zion, a rare avenue for creative expression that also opened too easily in moments of exasperation with balky oxen, straying horses, or stuck wagons.

Still, every morning and again at night, they would gather shoulderto-shoulder on the trail in a strong bond of common faith, heads bowed and bared to the wind, while one among them committed aloud their mission and safekeeping to an Almighty God, who seemed Himself to ride in the midst of them, more rough and ready than the rest.

Meanwhile, in advance of the main column, an experienced commander and 10 picked men rode north from Ogden. The survival of this company depended alone on speed and surprise. Their orders were to break through to Fort Limhi with a dispatch that help was coming.

By nightfall on Tuesday, March 9, a rapid mobilization of the Mormon forces already was underway to save, if possible, the Saints in peril far to the north. Only then did a proud, self-disciplined man turn to meet his sternest test of leadership.

At 8 P.M. that night Brigham Young swallowed the gall in his throat to dictate a letter to Colonel Thomas Kane, 9 dispatched "by my son, Joseph A." and a companion, who overtook the peacemaker before he reached the federals at Camp Scott. "We have just learned . . . that the 9

87, 88.

Young to Kane, U.S. Congress, 35th Cong. 2d Sess. (1858-1859), Senate Doc. 1, pp.

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troops are very destitute of provisions," his note started out. Only for the sake of his people did Brigham Young go on to offer the enemy in the mountains something to eat.

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lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Franklin Cummings of the Nauvoo Legion had just celebrated his 37th birthday at Ogden when the express rode up from Great Salt Lake on Tuesday, March 9. Before noon the next day, Cummings swung into his saddle to lead 10 men north to the stricken fort on Salmon River. His orders: "go through as quick as we could." 10 For the dependable native of Maine, command of the fast moving, advance force to Fort Limhi climaxed three exhausting years of service to the Kingdom of God. Called among the first missionaries to the Indians of Oregon Territory, Cummings had played a major role in locating Fort Limhi a few miles west of the pass over the Continental Divide in the Beaverhead Mountains, which had been crossed 50 years before

by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The site on the east branch of Salmon River, now named Lemhi River, also was near the birthplace of the Shoshoni maiden, Sacajawea, whose devotion to the American explorers became a legend in western history.

In November 1856 Cummings and two others from Fort Limhi had crossed the Lewis and Clark gateway over the Continental Divide to the Beaverhead and Big Hole headwaters of the Missouri River and ridden north to Bitter Root Valley, now in southeastern Montana. Their mission, they had said, was to enter Brigham Young's bid to purchase Fort Hall with Neil McArthur, northwest agent for Hudson's Bay Company.

But along the way, the Ogden officer had mapped and noted carefully the advantages of that region as a future gathering place for his people. His report had prompted Brigham Young the next spring to journey into Oregon Territory to see for himself. By such meritorious service, Cummings had won "permission to stay at home for a season." X1 Hardly had he returned to Ogden, however, before he again was ordered north, this time to lead a battalion of Mormon troops to Soda Springs on the Oregon Trail to halt a half-hearted move by "Buchanan's Army" to enter Salt Lake Valley from that direction.

"Benjamin Franklin Cummings, "Biography and Journals of Benjamin Franklin Cummings, Ogden, 1821-1878" (typescript, Brigham Young University), March 10, 1958.

11 Ibid., June, 1857.

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Past performance on the Kingdom's northern ramparts had earned Cummings the most dangerous assignment of all. Riding with him were the 10 he had chosen, four of them former Indian missionaries on Salmon River. The latter were: Bauldwin Harvey Watts, called "B. H . " or "Baldy" despite his wavy hair, who was one of the youths who rode from Fort Limhi for help two weeks earlier; George Washington Hill, an irrepressible, 36-year-old Ohioan, whose good-natured bravado was like catnip to Indians; Thomas Bingham, a sturdy veteran of the Mormon Battalion; and William Bailey Lake, a stocky optimist of 32, who was always looked to for cheering words by disheartened companions. 12 Following the road to Fort Hall, the little command on March 10 and 11 rode north through Brigham City; crossed Bear River near present Collinston, Utah; and headed up the valley of the Malad River, a sweep of sagebrush between the Bannock Mountains on the east and barren hills on the other side.

As they urged their horses up the open valley, the mild gusts from the south suddenly reversed with chilling effect to a cold wind from the northwest. Lowering skies warned of the heavy storm front moving in.

Ignoring the omen, the riders pushed steadily ahead and gained by Thursday night, March 11, a camp on Henderson Creek, some 70 miles north of Ogden near present Woodruff, Idaho. There, pinned down by a fall of snow heavy enough to blot out trail and landmarks, they fretted the next, precious day away.

In his own language, the Mormon colonel jotted down a terse account of the journey north as they went.

Crossed over the east m t a n d c a m p e d on a small creek about 2 miles from M a r s h Creek. Severe snow storm traveled down M a r s h crossed over a n d continued on d o w n a few miles a n d struck u p on to t h e b e n c h a n d d o w n on to Portniff a n d crossed over a b o u t 7 miles above the m o u t h of M a r s h creek. T r a v e l e d d o w n a b o u t 5 miles a n d c a m p e d . Stormy all day a n d cold.

Saturday dawned late with no sign of clearing weather. Unwilling to delay longer, Cummings decided to go on. But instead of continuing on the main road along Little Malad Creek, he gambled to make up lost time by risking a little-traveled shortcut north over a low divide in the Bannock Range to Marsh Creek. 13 12 Others in the party were Benjamin Cutler, Thomas Bloxham, Thomas Workman, J. Hammer, and John Munson. A tenth, unnamed, may have been Sylvanus Collett or George Barber, both of Lehi, or Fort Limhi's seldom-spoken mail rider, Abraham Zundel, 22, of Willard.

13 Route generally followed today by U.S. Highway 191 from Malad to Downey, Idaho, then U.S. 91 to Pocatello.

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Men and horses drove into the mountains on risky footing with their heads down and shrouded with snow; their visibility was cut almost to zero by a descending blanket of white. They rolled up at night in their buffalo robes for a few sleepless hours in the open.

Sunday, March 14, opened cold and grey on the Mormon horsemen pushing slower through deep powder snow. Without pause or much conversation, they advanced down Marsh Creek to pick up and follow Portneuf River, and camped for the night a few miles south of present Pocatello.

Mon. 15th. Start 8 A M continue on down the Canyon about 10 miles and came out into an arm of the valley about 8 miles and stoped for noon 12-1/2 P M Start at 2 P M and camp at the Black Foot creek mission.

The gamble had paid off. Cummings and his half-frozen company at last descended from the mountains into the milder climate of Snake River Valley. Heading now to the northeast, the force rested at midday near the intersection of the Oregon Trail, then rode on to camp in the comfort of the cabins built at Blackfoot Fork by Andrew Cunningham's pioneer party late in 1857. At this point they had covered about 180 miles, or about half of their journey.

If any of the party knew where to find the food cached by Cunningham a few months before, they also ate their first full meal in nearly a week. And they would benefit from the new crossing of Snake River located by the earlier Mormon company.

Tues. 16th Cross the river and travel up about 35 miles and camped.

On the seventh day the riders crossed Snake River and headed northeast at a faster pace along the north bank on the Flathead Indian Trail from Fort Hall to Bitter Root Valley. On their right the river curled its way along the valley. On the other hand a waterless carpet of crumbling lava and sagebrush, some 50 miles across, discouraged a direct approach to the mountains beyond.

Wed. 17th. Continue on left Snake river at the Big Slough stoped at the mouth of Carmash creek 2 P M to let our horses eat found the tracks of a number of ponies and mules in the road near the place where we stopped. Supposed to the Indians who had pursued the Brethern who came in with the express. 4 P M start on for Spring Creek where we arrived about 1 o'clock at night.

Near the big, marshy loop in Snake River about 20 miles north of present Idaho Falls, the Mormon party turned sharply away from the

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river on a new bearing northwest toward Mud Lake, then an aptly named, milky body in a barren region. They halted in the early afternoon to rest and graze their mounts on the grass along Camas Creek near the parting of the route to Fort Limhi from the Flathead Trail. Here, Watts pointed to tracks in the mud perhaps made by the war party that had pursued the 22-year-old and his companion less than three weeks before. As the hoofprints verified, Cummings and his men had traveled some 240 miles to pause at the very brink of peril.

Prior to Indian hostilities, the distance from this point to the Lewis and Clark pass over the Continental Divide near Fort Limhi had looked to Mormons like a divinely planned corridor of escape from the U.S. Army, a covered route through the mountains to fertile lands beyond.

"Bro Brigham said look to the west. . . and on the west side was high mountains . . . do you see where that creek comes out [?] there is room for one man to pass in at a time let us go in . . . and there was a beautiful valley." 14 This dream of an envisioned gateway to paradise by one Mormon leader had been drastically changed by the Indian attack on Fort Limhi to a trail of sudden death through a valley apparently designed by a redskinned creator as an ideal setting for his favorite war tactic — ambush.

The first leg, about 35 miles from Camas Creek to Spring Creek 15 at the narrow entry in the mountains, was an invitation to a massacre.

This naked approach to the mountains led the unwary across a sloping tableland of low brush and lava gravel unbroken by a shred of cover or DAVID BIGLER

"Pitchforth, "Diary," February 19, 1858.

15 Today named Birch Creek.

Beneath a protective shelter, crumbled ruins of the mud corral today offer the only physical evidence of Fort Limhi, built by early Mormon missionaries near Tendoy, Idaho, some 380 wagon miles north of Salt Lake City.

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protecting ravine. Any lookout in the mountains could see for miles anyone coming on this flat wasteland.

The rest of the way was an 80-mile gauntlet up a narrow, barren valley, ranging in width from a few thousand feet to eight miles and hemmed on both sides for the entire distance by impassable mountains. 16 The Lemhi Range on the west soared over 10,000 feet. Only a shade less rugged, the Beaverhead Mountain blocked any exit to the east. Between the imposing barriers, the wagon road northwest wound along birch-lined creeks, over broken benches of sagebrush, and through a maze of brush, side canyons, and dry creek beds.

For Cummings and his men, Fort Limhi was no haven of rest in a covered alley to freedom. Instead, the outpost was a compelling piece of live bait at the far end of a bushwacker's heaven. 17 To escape detection from the mountains, Cummings timed the start of his exposed approach for late afternoon. He pushed his command across most of the flat tableland under cover of night. By the first hour of morning, the party reached the cover of the birch willows and brush near the sink of Spring Creek, still a few miles short of their entry point into the mountains.

Stiff and cold from riding into a hard, freezing wind that blew up shortly after dark, the men worked their horses down into the heavy cover along the creek, where a small fire would be unseen for more than a few hundred feet. In this shelter, they thawed out and napped until earliest dawn, when they moved on.

T h u r . 18th W i n d continues very strong from t h e n o r t h which w e h a d to face Started a b o u t 6-1/2 A M a n d traveled 14 miles u p t h e creek a n d t u r n e d i n t o a small K a n y o n on the right opposite t h e first crossing [of] the creek a b o u t 10 A M found good feed a n d little wind.

After bucking ahead into a driving wind and blowing snow, the riders by midmorning that day passed the narrow entrance between the mountain ranges. From here on they would stay away from the exposed trail in the lower valley, favor the protective benches that hugged the east mountain, and travel mainly at night and early morning.

Fri. 19th w i n d continue[s] very high Start 9 A M T r a v e l u p to t h e m o u t h of Bear Creek K a n y o n 18 a n d c a m p , w i n d blow h a r d all day b u t ceased a b o u t Sunset considerable snow.

16

Route generally followed today by Idaho State Highway 28 from Mud Lake to Salmon.

Brigham Young, who had an instinctive eye for military terrain, made a similar comment on his first visit to the region in May of 1857.

18 Properly named Bare Creek Canyon, east of present Kaufman, Idaho.

17

Fort Limhi

135

The Mormon horsemen girded now for a final push of about 60 miles, with brief stops only to breathe their mounts. The last leg of their journey led over a low divide between the Snake River Basin and Eighteenmile Creek, a h e a d w a t e r of Salmon River, along the latter stream to the east fork of Salmon River, and another two dozen miles down river to their destination near present Tendoy, Idaho.

Sat. 20th Start 7 A M crossed the divide. Snow very bad crusted in many places so as to bear the horses.

From the snow-bound pass, their target came within striking distance, downhill all the way. With restored spirit the men urged their tired horses forward, kept their rifles checked, and ready, and scanned carefully every hill and ravine for any sign of Indians. It was after dark that day when the trouble Cummings so long had expected at last came.

The 11 horsemen reined up sharply at the glow of Indian sentinel fires on high ground that commanded a narrowing in the trail ahead.

After a whispered counsel the Mormon colonel again elected to gamble, this time on the odds that his hard-riding company had reached this point undetected and that he would not lead his men into a whole Indian camp on the far side of the flickering beacons.

Throwing caution away, they spurred their horses and drove straight into and past the threat, while surprised lookouts tried in vain to stir up a sleeping Indian encampment. Speed and decision delivered the hardy force when the moment of danger finally arrived.

Shortly after 1 A.M. on Sunday, March 21, near the end of the eleventh day, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Franklin Cummings and his jubilant company of 10 rode up to the log stockade on the east bank of the river. Shouting to the guard to hold his fire and open the gate, they charged inside the fort to cries of joy and tears of welcome and were pulled from their horses by the arms of those they had saved — all of them still alive.

Three days later, Captain Abram Hatch and the veteran Indian fighters from Lehi rode up as ordered by Bishop Evans. They arrived in company with the Standing Army regulars under Captain Layton, a total of nearly 100 troopers, all of them spoiling for a fight. The last company of 50 from Davis County reached the spot soon after to bring up the rear guard of Colonel Andrew Cunningham's force.

Even before the militia arrived, according to orders carried by Cummings, Mormon settlers on Salmon River had begun packing to evacuate

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their outpost in the northwest and bring to a close a significant episode on the Mormon frontier that had lasted less than three years.

As the colonists for the Kingdom of God loaded their wagons for the long journey home, Colonel Cummings and nine men, seven of these from his earlier company, saddled up and rode out ahead of the rest on Friday, March 26, with news of the rescue.19 On the ride north the Mormon officer from New England at least twice had studied unfavorable odds, then chosen to gamble. Both times his luck held. But this good fortune and the size of friendly forces now between his small command and the former point of danger apparently offered too much temptation to overconfidence.

For on the return trip, with no need to, Cummings took another chance. But this time his luck ran out.20 The outcome was a bloody footnote to a crisis that altered the course of the Kingdom of God in western America and to the heroic action in March of 1858 to rescue the Saints in distress on Salmon River in Oregon Territory.

19 Besides Cummings, the r e t u r n express included George W. Hill, B.H. Watts, T h o m a s Bingham, William Bailey Lake, Benjamin Cutler, George W. Barber, T h o m a s Bloxham, J o h n Blanchard, Jr., a n d T h o m a s W o r k m a n .

20 A later chapter of the forthcoming "Massacre at Fort Limhi, Early M o r m o n s in Oregon Territory," will describe the action touched off by Cummings a n d his m e n w h e n they seized three horses from a n I n d i a n w a r party near M u d Lake. I n the r u n n i n g g u n fight t h a t followed, William Bailey L a k e was shot to d e a t h and 17 of the party's horses were killed or captured by the Indians. T h e rest of the M o r m o n s escaped, most of them on foot.

ROCKVILLE TELEGRAPH OFFICE

The date the Deseret Telegraph reached Rockville, U t a h , is unknown. However, it was there before the close of 1868 from a telegram sent to Brigham Young from Erastus Snow in December of that year. The building (shown on the cover) that housed the telegraph office also served as the post office for Rockville, and for many years was the residence of the postmaster and telegraph operator. The building still stands today.

The foundations, walls, and fireplaces in the home were constructed of sandstone obtained from quarries near Rockville. The exterior frame walls of the two wings on the main building are filled with small adobe brick laid in adobe mortar. The windows, doors, frames, siding, shingles, mantels, millwork, and hardware were hauled by wagon from Salt Lake City.

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS: historic stopping place on the Spanish Trail

BY JUANITA BROOKS

T

he use of the Mountain Meadows on the Spanish Trail stretches back into prehistoric times. Although Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante in 1776, and Jedediah Strong Smith a half-century later, missed the Mountain Meadows by following Ash Creek to the Virgin River, traders on the Spanish Trail as early as 1805 had come to use this area as a place to recruit their animals. By the following decade, an annual caravan left Santa Fe each fall for California — autumn was the only time of year traders could safely brave the desert. _ Mrs. Brooks, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Utah State Historical Society, has lived in the southern Utah area most of her life and is an authority on the history of the region.

She is a past contributor to the Quarterly and author and editor of several books and numerous articles that have appeared in scholarly publications.

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The first description in English of the Spanish Trail and the Mountain Meadows area was written by John C. Fremont on his second exploring trip. He was headed north out of southern California with the Cajon Pass behind him, when on April 20, 1844, he recorded: . . . a general shout a n n o u n c e d t h a t we h a d struck t h e g r e a t object of our search — T H E S P A N I S H T R A I L — which here was r u n n i n g directly n o r t h . . . . A road to travel on, a n d the right course to go, w e r e a joyful consolations to u s ; a n d our animals enjoyed the beaten track like ourselves . . . our wild mules started off a t a r a p i d rate, . . -1

If Fremont found the trail clear and well marked, his caravan left it even more a road, for he had over a hundred horses and mules besides some horned cattle. "Our march was a sort of procession," he wrote, "Scouts ahead, and on the flanks; a front and rear division; the pack animals, baggage, and horned cattle in the centre; the whole stretching a quarter of a mile along our path . . . ."

They followed this well-marked trail past the Mojave, on to the springs at Las Vegas, over the desert to the Muddy River, up the Virgin to the Beaver Dams, over the summit to the Santa Clara Creek, and along its winding course to the Mountain Meadows, where they camped.

On May 12 in describing this oasis-like spot Fremont said: . . . we found here a n extensive m o u n t a i n m e a d o w , rich in b u n c h grass, a n d fresh w i t h n u m e r o u s springs of clear water, all refreshing a n d delightful to look u p o n . I t was, in fact, t h a t las Vegas de Santa Clara, which h a d been so long presented to us as the terminating p o i n t of t h e desert, a n d w h e r e the a n n u a l c a r a v a n from California to N e w M e x i c o h a l t e d a n d recruited for some weeks . . . . T h e m e a d o w was a b o u t a mile wide, a n d some ten miles long, bordered by grassy hills a n d m o u n t a i n s . . . . Its elevation above t h e sea was 5,280 feet; . . . its distance from w h e r e we first struck the Spanish trail a b o u t four h u n d r e d miles . . . . 2

After two days at the Meadows, Fremont continued his journey, leaving the Spanish Trail where it turned toward the mountain pass, and followed instead the course to the Salt Lake area earlier charted by Jedediah Smith. This route would soon become the Mormon Trail to California and much later U.S. Highway 91.

An early diary of the complete journey from Santa Fe to California was kept by Orville C. Pratt, a young lawyer, who with an escort of 16 men left Santa Fe on August 28, 1848. When he reached the Mountain Meadows, he was so impressed that he wrote: 1 Brevet Capt. J. C. Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1843-'44 (Washington, D . C , 1845), 258-59.

2 Ibid., 270.

Mountain Meadows

139

Wednesday Oct. 4th 1848. . . . Camped at the Vegas of Santa Clara, to stay for a day or two to recruit the animals. Found the best of grass and plenty of it Thursday Oct 5th 1848 Remained in camp today at the "Vegas." . . . The animals are doing finely on the excellent grass they get here. There is fine & tender grass enough growing on this Vegas to fatten a thousand head of horses or cattle. 3

With the arrival of the Mormons in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, this southern route to California took on great importance. The first wagon to be taken over it was brought by Mormon Battalion men traveling from Los Angeles to Great Salt Lake City in May of 1848.

That same fall a company was sent from Salt Lake to California for seeds, grape cuttings, and cattle. This party returned in the spring of 1849, leaving the trail quite well marked. Later that same year the California-bound company whose tragic end gave Death Valley its name followed the trail at least as far as the Meadows.

Brigham Young, ambitious to establish his inland "Kingdom," sent colonists south to the present site of Parowan in 1850, and in the years immediately following established villages along the road wherever there was sufficient water. Thus as far south as Cedar City the road was improved, bridges built over the most difficult places, and some guide posts set. While these improvements were primarily for the local travel, they impressed the overland emigrant also. But nothing delighted his heart so much as the grassy meadow where he could loiter as he pleased. And many writers echoed the words of Mormon George W. Bean who said it was "the most beautiful little valley that I have seen in the mountains south."

Wagon travel steadily increased. During 1853 so many cattle and sheep were driven to California that the grass well might have begun to be depleted. On August 4, of this same year Edward F. Beale, superintendent of Indian Affairs for California, traveled to his destination with a pack company. His historian, Gwinn Harris Heap, wrote of the Mountain Meadows: It is here that we saw the first of the meadows of Santa Clara, which give some celebrity to this region . . . . This vega was covered with tender grass and watered by numerous streams, which preserve its freshness even during the most sultry seasons . . . their uniform verdure and level surface, shaded in many places by extensive glades of cottonwoods, offered a de3 LeRoy R. and A n n W. Hafen, Old Spanish dale, 1 9 5 4 ) , 353, 354.

Trail:

Santa Fe to Los Angeles

. . . (Glen-

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lightful feeling of security, as t h o u g h we were once m o r e w i t h i n the confines of civilization. 4

The Meadows continued to be a haven for the traveler until September of 1857. On the eleventh of that month a tragedy occurred here which erased forever all connotations of delight and beauty and changed the place to one of horror and fear. On that date two companies of emigrants, temporarily traveling together and totaling about 120 persons, were massacred. Only 18 small children, placed in a wagon and sent on the road ahead were spared.

The motives behind this tragic event and the driving forces which exploded in it are too complex to be detailed here. 5 But in order to understand even partially the dark happenings of this day, we must consider briefly the Mormon background.

As they attempted to build up their "Kingdom of God," the early Mormons were constantly involved in conflicts with their frontier neighbors. Three times they had been driven from their homes, from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. There had been whippings, tar-and-feather parties, pillaging and burning of their homes, and even murder. The Prophet Joseph Smith had been assassinated. Finally, the Saints had been forced out of their city of Nauvoo on the banks of the Mississippi in the dead of winter. On their westward trek they had buried their dead — dead from exhaustion, disease, and hunger — in uncounted numbers.

And when Brigham Young led his people into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in July of 1847, there to build up their kingdom at last free and unmolested, he is reported to have said: "Give us ten years, and I ask no odds of my enemies."

Brigham had his ten years, but just barely. Word of an approaching U.S. Army reached Utah on July 24, 1857 — ten years to the day. To the Mormons the coming of the army meant just one thing: they were threatened once again with annihilation, this time by the power and might of the federal government.

Immediately the people were counseled to store their grain and supplies, to gird themselves for a terrible seige. Another vital factor was the Indians. For three years Mormon missionaries had been trying to cement their friendship, to teach them, to civilize them. Now in the face of an approaching army the natives supported the Mormons, who in turn 4 Gwinn Harris Heap, Central Route to the Pacific . . ., eds., LeRoy R. and Ann W. Hafen (Glendale, 1957), 230.

3 For the complete story of the massacre see Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (2nd ed., Norman, 1963).

Mountain Meadows

141

would be protected by their Great God. But a few Indian leaders had been killed or wounded in an early Indian-white skirmish, and the Indians demanded revenge — if not on the white emigrants passing through the territory then on the Mormons themselves.

Emotions and motives were fanned into a flame which culminated in this wholesale murder at the Mountain Meadows, this complete tragedy for all: for those who were killed, for the children who were orphaned, for the men who participated.

Many of these men moved their families to distant parts of the territory. Within a year Cedar City had lost about half its population.

Local people shunned the Meadows, believing the place to be haunted; they rerouted the road in order to miss all reminders of that dark day.

The so-called Mormon War, which had ignited the flames of passion culminating in the massacre, was really not a war at all. One of the soldiers reported: "Wounded, none; killed, none; fooled, everybody."

Except for the massacre at Mountain Meadows no blood was shed, and in the spring the army marched peaceably through Salt Lake City and took up quarters at Camp Floyd 40 miles to the west.

Some effort was made to investigate the tragedy at the Meadows, but while the Mormons ostracized those few who remained in the area, they would not turn them over to the law. In 1859 U.S. soldiers examined the site carefully, gathered up the bones that had been dragged from shallow graves by animals or washed out by rain, and buried them in two separate graves. Over one grave they erected a stone pyramid on the top of which they placed a large wooden cross bearing the inscription VENGEANCE IS MINE & I WILL REPAY SAITH T H E L O R D .

By 1864 the monument had been torn down, but was again replaced with the same cross or a similar one. By this time a total change had come over the face of the Meadows. Local folk believe that God had cursed the land. Scientists say that the grass was eaten down by too many herds, that the iron tires of hundreds of wagons had cut through the grass turf so that erosion set in. The winter of 1861-62, known as the flood year, played havoc, gutting out a great wash, draining off the top soil, and leaving only sterile gravel. The appearance of the place eloquently supports the belief that God has washed away the stains of blood and decreed that this land should never again be productive.

The pile of stones, with the cross gone, stood amid the shadscale and scrub brush that struggled for existence in the sterile soil. In 1907 a letter was written by relatives of the victims to government officials asking

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what procedure to follow in order that this spot be properly marked, dignified with a suitable monument, and beautified with shrubbery. Except for the exchange of letters nothing was done until 1932, when the Utah Trails and Landmarks Association in cooperation with local citizens erected a square stone wall around the crumbling pile of stones and placed on the west face a plaque that reads: NO. 17 ERECTED 1932 MOUNTAIN MEADOWS A F A V O R I T E R E C R U I T I N G PLACE O N T H E O L D SPANISH TRAIL IN T H I S V I C I N I T Y , SEPTEMBER 7-11, 1857 O C C U R R E D O N E O F T H E M O S T LAMENTABLE TRAGEDIES I N T H E ANNALS O F T H E WEST. A COMPANY OF ABOUT 140 ARKANSAS AND M I S S O U R I E M I G R A N T S LED BY CAPTAIN CHARLES FANCHER E N R O U T E T O C A L I F O R N I A , WAS A T T A C K E D BY

Mountain Meadows Monument over the grave of the men of the Fancher train. The women's grave is unmarked.

OLIVER SIGURDSON

«**» •../.:.:.-:.;MM-^, M MM ^'MMMM^MM

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.......

r i %MMM^ MM •' ' « ; jMMMMi

Mountain Meadows

143

WHITE MEN AND INDIANS. ALL BUT 17, BEING SMALL CHILDREN, WERE KILLED. JOHN D. LEE,6 WHO CONFESSED PARTICIPATION AS LEADER, WAS LEGALLY EXECUTED HERE MARCH 23, 1877. MOST OF THE EMIGRANTS WERE BURIED IN THEIR OWN DEFENSE PITS. THIS MONUMENT WAS REVERENTLY DEDICATED SEPTEMBER 10, 1932 BY THE PIONEER TRAILS AND LANDMARKS ASSOCIATION AND THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN UTAH

That was 35 years ago. Now the wall is crumbling and cracking, the land surrounding it is more bleak and barren than ever, and the road to it is almost impassable. Yet here lie the remains of 120 American citizens. Such other spots are suitably preserved, as witness the site of the Donner tragedy. Does not this one deserve better treatment — some trees and greenery about it, an access road and path so that the hundreds of citizens who visit here annually would not find this dismal sight? Would not it be in the best American tradition that this site on the Spanish Trail be given the dignity and continuity of some suitable recognition?

6 F o r the biography of the only m a n executed for the M o u n t a i n Meadows Massacre see J u a n i t a Brooks, John Doyle Lee, Zealot-Pioneer Builder-Scapegoat (Glendale, 1961).

Mountain Meadows Burial Detachment, 1859: TOMMY GORDON'S DIARY

BY A. F . CARDON

T

he spring following the Mountain Meadows Massacre saw Albert Sidney Johnston's army march through Salt Lake City and establish M r . C a r d o n , the son of " T o m m y G o r d o n , " has previously contributed articles to t h e Quarterly.

H e is a retired government employee living presently in Los Altos, California.

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Camp Floyd in Cedar Valley, about 40 miles distant from Salt Lake City. 1 The establishment of the camp stimulated the economy of the area by providing employment for Utah residents. Among those who applied for work was a young Mormon convert by the name of Thomas Cardon.

While working at the camp, Tommy became friends with another Frenchman serving as a clerk with the army. A firm friendship developed, and apparently because of his friend's persuasion, Tommy joined the army.

At the time of his enlistment, Tommy's English was poor and the enlistment officer understood his surname to be "Gordon," and it was so entered on the official records. Tommy Gordon's friend taught him to read and write English, and he began to keep a diary of his life as a soldier. His first recorded adventure was when he was sent with a detachment of troopers to bury the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The expedition started April 21, 1859. Since Tommy had hardly started to learn English, he wrote sparingly of the trip in the form of notes of the marches, the distance traveled each day, and the sites of each camp.

After burying the remains the soldiers proceeded to Santa Clara and then returned to Camp Floyd. The Tommy Gordon diary describes the trek and the Mountain Meadows, where "one of the most lamentable tragedies in the annals of the west" occurred.

T O M M Y GORDON'S DIARY DisMarched

1859 Apr. 21 "

22

"

23

"

24

"

25 26 27

Left Camp Floyd, U.T. at 6.15r A.M. and arrived at Goshen at 2.20' P.M Left camp 5.20' A.M arrived at Nephi 12.45' P.M Left camp 5.30' A.M arrived Chicken Creek 10.45' A.M Left camp 6.30' A.M arrived at Sevier Bridge 9.30' A.M. Left camp 6.5[0]' A. M arrived at buttermilk creek 2.20 P M Left camp 5.45 A.M arrived at Meadow creek 12.30 P.M. Left Camp at 6 A M arrived at Cove creek 3.15 P.M

Total

27 21

48

18

66

10

76

25

101

18

119

28

147

1 For the history of Camp Floyd see Thomas G. Alexander and Leonard J. Arrington, "Camp in the Sagebrush: Camp Floyd, Utah, 1858—1861," Utah Historical Quarterly, 34 (Winter, 1966), 3-21.

Mountain

Meadows

1859 28 29 30 May 1st 2

3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

145 DisMarched

Left Camp at 6.30 A.M. arrived at pine creek 9.30 A.M. Left Camp at 6 A.M arrived at Be[a]ver City 1 PM Lay over Left Camp at 6.15 A M arrived at dry creek at 10 A.M. Snow water Left Camp at 6.15 A M arrived at Parona [Paragonah?] 12 M 15 miles and at Parawine [Parowan] 1.30 P.M Left Camp at 6 A.M. arrived at Cedar City 12 M 17 miles Camped 3 from city Left Camp at 6.20 A M arrived at Iron or Cold Springs at 12.30 Left Camp at 6.15 A.M. arrived at Mountain Meadows at 12 M Lay over encamped on the ground where the Arkansas Train was massacreed Sept 10th, 1857 helped to bury the bones that was laying overground in two graves, the first one 2500 yards North of the Spring and 45 yards from left hand side of road (Mens grave). Second grave 150 yards north of first one (Womens grave) 50 yards from road on Same Side as the other. 2 Left Camp at 6.30 A M arrived at Camp on the Santa Clara at 12 M Left Camp at 7 A M arrived in camp Do. [ditto] at 10 A M ~ Lay over Do Do California Train passed Do Do. Do Do Left Camp at 5.30 A.M arrived at Mountain Meadows 3 P.M Lay over

Total

7

154

20

174

12

186

20

206 226

18

244

16 miles

260

18

278

8

286

26

2 T o m m y ' s description of the massacre site is very matter-of-fact a n d certainly lacks any dramatics. T h e historian, H u b e r t H o w e Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540—1886 (San Francisco, 1 8 8 9 ) , 556, described the scene the troopers found as follows: " O n reaching M o u n t a i n Meadows, the m e n found skulls a n d bones scattered for the space of a mile around the ravine, whence they h a d been dragged by wild beasts. Nearly all the bodies h a d been gnawed by wolves, so that few could be recognized, a n d their dismembered skeletons were bleached by long exposure. M a n y of the skulls were crushed in with the but-ends of muskets or cleft with tomahawks; others were shattered by firearms, discharged close to the head. A few remnants of apparel, torn from the backs of women and children as they ran from the clutch of their pursuers, still fluttered a m o n g the bushes, and near by were masses of h u m a n hair, m a t t e d a n d trodden in the m o u l d . "

Utah Historical

146

DisMarched

1859 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30

Left Camp at 7 A.M arrived at Iron Springs 1 1 A M Left Camp at 6 A M arrived at Cedar City at 1 P M Left Camp at 7 A M arrived at Summit Creek 1 1 A M Left Camp at 6.25 arrived Red Creek [?] near [?] Fort at Summit Creek at 10 A.M Left Camp at 6.15 A.M arrived at Little Salt Lake Valley at 11 A.M Left Camp at 6.20 A.M arrived Indian Creek 12 M Left Camp at 6.35 A M arrived at Cove creek 12 M Left Camp at 6.25 A M arrived Corn Creek 1 P.M. Left Camp at 5.45 A M arrived at camp near Cedar Springs Left Camp at 6 A. M. arrived at Round Valley 12 miles from Sev[i]er river 10 1/2 A M Left Camp at 5.25 A M arrived at Sev[i]er River 1 P.M camp 8 miles from Bridge Left Camp at 6 A M arrived at San Pete River at 1 P.M. Left Camp at 6.25 A M arrived at Camp 5 miles from Mantua [Manti?] & 2 from Ephra[i]m Fort at 12 M.

Quarterly Total

16

42

20

62

15

77

12

89

14

103

18

121

19

14[0]

20

160

20

180

12

192

21

213

20

233

17

250

The Settlements on the Muddy 1865 to 1871 ??

A God Forsaken place" af

BY L. A. F L E M I N G

Call's Landing or Callville looking toward the west as it appeared in 1926.

R. F. PERKINS AND LOST CITY M U S E U M , OVERTON, NEVADA

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C.

olonization in any area in North America presented no greater difficulties than those faced by the settlers on the Muddy River. First was the remoteness of the area — they were 450 miles from Salt Lake City and 90 miles from their headquarters in St. George; there were no cash markets for anything they produced; there were no roads — the original pioneers traveled down the Virgin River crossing it as many as 35 times; and there was the terrible summer heat — even the nights were unbearable. The country was desolate; the trees and palms that now line the valley were planted by the colonists. Then there were I n d i a n s — m a rauding, sneaking, thieving Indians — present everywhere. And always there was the wind — one day it blew from the south; the next day it blew from the north. In the winter it blew cold; in the summer it blew hot; and it always carried the drifting sand. Sand blew into food, into the cracks of houses, and on at least one occasion the people at St. Joseph awoke to find their water ditches blown full of it.

One wonders how these pioneers succeeded as well as they did. To understand, one has to know and consider the people themselves. These settlers were Mormons, members of a new church — a church whose very foundation was based upon the concept of a prophet who was guided by the Almighty to direct them to go places and do things. When that prophet stood up in the semiannual conference of their church, called them by name, and told them they had been selected to go and settle on the Muddy, the call carried the seal of Diety upon it. It was as though the Lord Himself had called them. And they went.

The name "Muddy," which was given to the stream, goes back to early packers who used the California Trail many years before any permanent settlements were there. Kit Carson referred to the river as the Muddy when he camped on it in the spring of 1847.1 Orville C. Pratt camped on the river October 10, 1848, and called it the Muddy in his journal. 2 James McClintock states that an early map of New Mexico Territory dated 1853 says the "Muddy is set down as the El Rio Atascoso," Spanish for "Boggy." 3 Joseph W. Young, in a letter to the Deseret M r . Fleming was born in southern Nevada. H e was a postal employee with a deep interest in history. M r . Fleming served as a m e m b e r and officer in the Weber Valley C h a p t e r of the U t a h State Historical Society from the time of its formation. At the time of his d e a t h in J a n u a r y of this year, M r . Fleming was serving as president of the chapter. This article is a portion of his work on the M u d d y River Mission.

1 LeRoy R. Hafen and A n n W. Hafen, Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles . . .

(Glendale, 1954), 314.

2 Ibid., 355.

3 James H . McClintock, Mormon Settlements in Arizona: A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the Desert (Phoenix, 1921), 102.

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News of June 19, 1868, gives the best clue as to how the name was derived. He says: The stream has it's [sic] name [Muddy] from the fact of there being a low alkali swamp on the east side of the creek where the California Road crosses, which is bad to cross in wet weather, but the creek is clear and very good water, with the exception of being too warm for pleasant drinking. 4

It became known as the Muddy Crossing and then the Muddy Valley. The Muddy Valley (now known as the Moapa Valley) lies in the extreme southeast part of the State of Nevada. It is approximately 30 miles in length from the springs in the northwest to where it empties into the Virgin River. At no place is the valley over two and one-half miles in width. It is composed of three separate valleys, the first or upper valley is the source of water. Here, in many separate, crystal clear, warm springs, the Muddy River is born. This upper valley is about two miles wide and five miles long, terminating at the lower end in what is called the Upper Narrows. The second or middle valley commences at the Upper Narrows and continues down to the Lower Narrows and is about two miles wide and about six miles long. The third valley begins at the lower end of the Lower Narrows and runs to the confluence with the Virgin River (now covered by Lake Mead) and is about 18 miles long. This is what has always been known as the Muddy Valley. Actually, it is a continuation of the great drainage system of that part of Utah and Nevada not in the Great Basin.

The climate is harsh, for it is true desert. The summer temperatures are extremely high, 5 and with little moisture in the air, the heat of the day in winter is rapidly dissipated so the nights are cold. The vegetation is limited to the creosote bush, cactus, mesquite, and other related hardy desert plants. Timber suitable for sawing into lumber was 60 miles away.

There were three basic reasons for the Mormon Church establishing these settlements on the Muddy, and it is difficult to state which was the most important. The first was the navigation of the Colorado River.

There were a thousand miles of wagon roads from the Missouri River to the Salt Lake Valley, all through hostile Indian country. By bringing freight and passengers around the southern tip of South America and up 4

A n d r e w Jenson, comp., " M a n u s c r i p t History of the M u d d y River Mission" ( C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake C i t y ) .

5 The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, 1 9 6 7 ) , X I V , 154a, gives the record of 122 degrees in Overton in J u n e of 1954.

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the Colorado as far as navigation was possible, the wagon haul to Salt Lake was only 450 miles, all through country dotted with Mormon communities.

The second reason was Brigham Young's desire to make his inland empire economically secure. Soon after establishing the Indian Mission on the Santa Clara, the colonists learned cotton could be grown there.

The Mormons knew from their explorations that there were valleys at lower elevations, with warmer climates, where cotton could be produced even better than in Utah's Dixie area. This no doubt was a very important factor for settling the Muddy Valley.

The third reason was to keep non-Mormons from settling in these valleys and gaining control of them. The mines at Pioche, in El Dorado Canyon, and throughout Arizona Territory were coming to life. The natural route for travelers to take from the Nevada mines to the Arizona country was down the Meadow Valley Wash to the Muddy, thence to the Virgin and the Colorado rivers, and into Arizona. If travelers were to pass this way, it was only a matter of time until people would locate here permanently.

At a meeting in St. George in 1864, President Erastus Snow 6 told his people that "in his recent visit to Clover and Meadow Valleys he was satisfied that it is the intention of Col. Connor and other Gentiles to settle there, and not only claim the mines of silver, in that vicinity, but also the farming lands, water priviledges, &c. in those and surrounding valleys." With that idea in mind, he thought it best to "strengthen those settlements." 7 CALL'S LANDING

With the outbreak of the Civil War and the supply of cotton cloth cut off, it became imperative that the Mormons produce their own cotton goods. In the October conference of 1861, 300 families were called to settle in the south on a "Cotton Mission." By 1864 these colonies were permanently established, and cotton was being successfully produced.

Steamship travel was becoming fairly common on the Colorado River by the summer of 1864.8 Regular service was in existence from the mouth of the river to Hardy's Landing, approximately 150 miles 6 Erastus Snow was a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church.

He was also president of the Southern Utah Mission, with headquarters in St. George. In this position he presided over all this area.

T James G. Bleak, "Annals of the Southern Utah Mission" (typescript, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City), 148.

8 Leonard J. Arrington, "Inland to Zion: Mormon Trade on the Colorado River, 18641867," Arizona and the West, 8 (Autumn, 1966), 239-50.

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below the confluence of the Rio Virgin and the Colorado rivers. The time was ripe for the Colorado River transportation to Utah to begin.

The idea of transporting goods from Europe and New York over the Isthmus of Panama, or around South America and up the Colorado River to the "head of Navigation" was to become a reality.

At a High Council meeting held in St. George on June 11, 1864, it was decided that it would be "advisable to explore for a more direct wagon-road from St. George to the head of navigation on the Colorado and especially for a distance of twenty miles, or so, from St. George in a S. W. direction." 9 Jacob Hamblin, Isaac Duffin, David H. Cannon, and Leonard Conger were selected as the exploring party for this purpose.

They were given authority to call others to assist, them if needed.

In the meantime a group of the leading merchants of Salt Lake City formed a company with the idea of "building a warehouse at some suitable place on the Rio Colorado, with a view of bringing goods into Utah by that River." Also it was thought, "the Mormon emigration might come into Utah from that direction should possible contingencies render it advisable."

At the general conference of October 1864, Anson Call of Davis County was directed by the First Presidency "to take a suitable company, locate a road to the Colorado, explore the river, find a suitable place for a warehouse, build it, and form a settlement at, or near, the landing." 10 By fall word had spread down the river to Hardy's Landing that the Mormons were embarking on the river freighting business. William H. Hardy immediately dispatched a letter to the leaders at St. George, which was read to the conference of November 4, 1864. Hardy invited trade with the Mormons . . . via the C o l o r a d o river a n d giving a list of prices of some articles h e will furnish at H a r d y ' s landing, on t h e C o l o r a d o : F l o u r $10.00 p e r h u n dred, Bacon 17ÂŁ per lb. General m e r c h a n d i s e a t a small a d v a n c e on S a n Francisco prices. T r a n s p o r t a t i o n t o or from San Francisco t o H a r d y ' s L a n d i n g , 3 to 4 ^ per lb. 1 1

Following the reading of Hardy's letter, President Erastus Snow proposed that a party of men be sent to the Colorado River for further exploration and to visit Hardy's Landing to see what arrangements for commerce could be made. Jacob Hamblin, James M. Whitmore, Angus M. Cannon, and David H. Cannon were selected for this purpose.

9

Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission," 147.

Ibid., 161.

11 Ibid.. 161-62. w

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On December 17, 1864, Anson Call had arrived at the Colorado River. He selected a site for the church warehouse and landing, 125 miles from St. George.

Elder Call found the river at this point to be the size of the Illinois River and landing, he states, is as good as the Peoria landing in Illinois.

He reports flowers to be in full bloom. On the 18th of December he picked a water melon, which was not ripe but growing thriftily. The explorers did not find any large body of arable land below the Muddy Valley. They found a good piece of farming land at Beaver Dams about 30 miles from St. George. It was estimated that it would cost $60,000.00 to make a good road to the new landing. 12

While he was exploring the river, Call and his party went to Hardy's Landing, 150 miles downstream. Very likely the purpose of this trip was to ascertain whether the best possible site for the church warehouse and landing had been selected. In telling of the trip, Call stated that "no steamboat was there but one was expected daily." Call also reported to President Snow that "during the prevalence of high water, it was judged that boats could go up the river to Jacob's Crossing [mouth of Grand Wash] on the Colorado, 75 miles from St. George." 13 On January 15, 1865, William Hardy of Hardy's Landing arrived at Call's Landing in a flat-bottomed barge, 50-feet long and 8-feet wide.

His crew had propelled the barge 150 miles upstream by poles and oars.

The barge was equipped with a sail, but due to strong head winds, it could be used but two hours on the entire trip. Hardy told Call that he had no difficulty in getting up the river and with a little improvement the stream would be safe for steamers. He offered, for $500.00 in currency, to remove all the rocks considered dangerous between Hardy's Landing and Call's Landing and declared "that he cannot see how more than fifty thousand dollars could be expended to advantage in improving the Colorado from it's [sic] mouth to Call's Landing." 14 Hardy promised Anson Call that 13

Ibid., 164.

This remark of Call's to President Snow t h a t the Colorado could be navigated to the m o u t h of G r a n d Wash called for further exploration in 1867. Snow, J a c o b H a m b l i n , a n d five other m e n took a 16-foot skiff a n d went to the river. Snow a n d four of the m e n continued on to the M u d d y with the wagon, while H a m b l i n and two m e n floated down the river in the skiff.

H a m b l i n described passing t h r o u g h Boulder Canyon, "the great black walls rose perpendicularly, as if it were into the heavens, shutting us in from light and hope, and filling us with a sensation akin to awe, as our frail skiff was carried down the silent stream, for the w a t e r moved slowly a n d silently along in its gloomy channel. Away up above us, a thin streak of light could be seen, looking like a rift in a m o u n t a i n top, while it appeared as if we were passing t h r o u g h a tunnel at its base. This continued for about twelve miles. This canon has to be passed t h r o u g h to have its full sublimity realized." T h e y drifted 65 miles and landed at Call's L a n d i n g . This boat trip through the canyon did prove t h a t Call's L a n d i n g was the head of navigation. Bleak, " S o u t h e r n U t a h Mission," 245.

14 Ibid., 166.

13

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. . . merchandise ordered in San Francisco in M a r c h w o u l d get to t h e m o u t h of the river in April, t h e n by the m i d d l e of M a y it could be delivered a t Call's L a n d i n g . I n J u n e the river would be too high a n d also dangerous because of drift-wood; b u t in July, August, September, O c t o b e r a n d probably in November, a steamer could m a k e , a t least three trips a m o n t h from t h e m o u t h of the C o l o r a d o to Call's L a n d i n g . 1 5

Hardy also brought a communication from the firm of George A. Johnson and Company, which operated a warehouse of 500-tons capacity at the mouth of the river. The communication stated, . . . this firm r e c o m m e n d s t h a t in t h e event of shipping direct from N e w York to the m o u t h of the river, it would be best to use the light b a r q u e rigged vessels of 500 or 600 tons b u r d e n a n d d r a w i n g 15 ft. of water.

Leaving N e w York a b o u t the m i d d l e of M a r c h , or first of April, which, allowing four m o n t h s for t h e trip, would bring t h e m to the river a b o u t August, "the very best time for boating the river."

W e can deliver your goods with any of our boats at El D o r a d o C a n o n 1 6 in August, September, October, a n d November. M y firguring [sic] is t h a t you can charter a vessel of the class m e n t i o n e d for eight or ten t h o u s a n d dollars currency, m a k i n g $16.00 a ton to the m o u t h of t h e River. I will agree to deliver 5 or 6 h u n d r e d tons to El D o r a d o C a n o n in the m o n t h s above n a m e d for $65.00 in coin, a n d as freight increases a n d d o w n freights come on will be diminished. By this figuring, calculating currency at 50^, your freight will cost, at El D o r a d o C a n o n , $7.16-2/3 per h u n d r e d pounds in currency. 1 7

The warehouse and a few dwellings, together with some huge rock corrals, were completed some time during the month of February. The warehouse, between 75- and 100-feet long and about 45-feet wide, was constructed of stone laid up in lime mortar. The walls were about three feet thick with no windows. There were some rooms petitioned off at one end of the building.18 The Saints were very optimistic about shipping along the Colorado River when the project was first considered. Two steamships, the Esmeralda and the Nina Tilden, made the trip somewhat regularly from the mouth of the Colorado to Call's Landing, connecting with other steamships plying between the mouth of the Colorado and San Francisco. The owners of the river boats carried a standing advertisement in the Salt Lake Telegraph seeking trade up to December 1, 1866.19 15

ibid.

El Dorado Canyon was a mining camp about 20 miles below Call's Landing. Johnson no doubt did not know the exact location of Call's Landing so used this location to base his figures on.

"Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission," 166-67.

18 There are no figures available covering the size of these buildings. The writer worked near here as a boy and this is as he remembers them.

19 B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (6 vols., Salt Lake City, 1930), V, 127.

16

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On December 18, 1865, Bleak stated that "Jacob Hamblin and Dr. James M. Whitmore, returned from a trip they had made to the Colorado River. Dr. Whitmore reports, that but little business is being done at Call's Landing." 20 No estimate is available as to how much freight passed through Call's Landing. Bleak on December 10, 1865, wrote, "Some of the teams that passed through St. George some time ago, on their way to Calls [sic] Landing on the Colorado, came in this morning on their way north," 21 no doubt loaded with freight.

In 1866 the Arizona Legislature, at Prescott, by resolution thanked Admiral Robert Rodgers, commander of the steamer Esmeralda, and Captain William Gilmore for the successful accomplishment of the navigation of the Colorado River to Callville (Call's Landing) "effected by the indomitable energy of the enterprising Pacific and Colorado Navigation Co." Both the Arizona and the Nevada legislatures petitioned Congress to improve the stream. 22 The port of Call's Landing had a short life. In June of 1869 the Deseret News printed an article mentioning that Call's Landing had been abandoned. The mention of Call's Landing in the newspaper was in connection with the escape of three horse thieves from St. George. These men wrenched four large doors from the warehouse for the construction of a raft upon which they committed themselves to the river at flood time. 23 Whether the Mormons could have made a success of the navigation and long, slow freight haul to Salt Lake City will never be determined.

Hardy claimed it would cost $50,000 to improve the river for navigation.

Call claimed it would cost $60,000 to construct a road from St. George to the river. In any event freighting on the river would be expensive. The warehouses and buildings at Call's Landing had hardly been completed when word came through that the Union Pacific had started laying rails west from Omaha in July of 1865. The dream of a transcontinental railway was to become a reality, after which the river project was dropped completely.24 20

Bleak, "Southern U t a h Mission," 192.

Ibid.

22 McClintock, Mormon Settlements in Arizona, 111—12.

23 Ibid., 116.

2i Francis Leavitt, " T h e Influence of the M o r m o n People in the Settlement of Clark C o u n t y " (Master's thesis, University of Nevada, 1934), 29, contains the following interesting comment. " T h e Callville landing was then deserted a n d remained so until the outbreak of the Civil W a r , when U n i o n soldiers were stationed there a n d it became known as Fort Collins." T h e construction of Call's L a n d i n g was completed in February of 1 8 6 5 ; the Civil W a r ended in M a y 21

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on the Muddy

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S E T T L E M E N T S ON T H E M U D D Y

W h e n Anson Call was called at the October general conference of 1864 to proceed to the Colorado River to select and build a warehouse a n d landing, he was also instructed to "form a settlement at or n e a r the landing." F r o m his party's exploration of the river a n d adjacent country, they knew the only area capable of supporting a settlement of any size would be at the lower end of the M u d d y . So at the same conference t h a t called Anson Call, the order went out for "missionaries to strengthen the Southern Mission a n d especially to settle on the M u d d y . " This proposed settlement on the M u d d y River very likely h a d a twofold purpose. It was a p a r t of the Southern U t a h Cotton Mission; a n d the M u d d y Valley, at a lower elevation, possessed ample water for irrigation, a w a r m e r and m u c h longer growing season, a n d was m u c h better a d a p t e d for the cultivation of cotton t h a n U t a h ' s Dixie. Also the settlem e n t could provide food a n d forage for those living at the warehouse a n d for the freighters traveling to and from there.

O n J a n u a r y 8, 1865, the first of the missionaries arrived on the M u d d y . Brigham Young h a d called T h o m a s S. Smith of Davis County to preside over this first settlement. T h e party consisted of 11 m e n and 3 women. Within a m a t t e r of days after the first party arrived, additional settlers came and the colony soon n u m b e r e d 45 families.

A typical M o r m o n village was laid out — dwellings in the center of town a n d farmland surrounding the area. T h e streets r a n north-south a n d east-west — "85 lots of one acre each and about the same n u m b e r of vinyard lots of two and a half acres each, and the same n u m b e r of farm lots of five acres each. T e n lots formed a block. T h e streets were six rods wide, including a 12 foot sidewalk." T h e town was given the n a m e of St. T h o m a s after their leader T h o m a s S. Smith.

As soon as the land was surveyed a n d apportioned out, settlers commenced the h a r d work of clearing the brush, grubbing out the mesquite, a n d planting gardens and fields. T h e Mission report that summer showed 55 acres of wheat were planted as well as considerable oats a n d barley. of 1865. It is difficult to understand w h a t Leavitt m e a n t . If it were ever occupied by soldiers a n d given the n a m e of Fort Collins, it was during the seventies when the government was r o u n d ing u p Indians a n d p u t t i n g them on reservations. Call's L a n d i n g would have been centrally located in connection with the Paiute, Havasupai, Mojave, Chemehuevi, and Shoshoni.

George Elwood Perkins, Pioneers of the Western Desert: Romance and Tragedy Along the Old Spanish or Mormon Trail. . . (Los Angeles, 1 9 4 7 ) , 35, states that on "two different occasions during the early days, steam boats got u p as far as the Bonelli Ferry [mouth of t h e Virgin River] a n d loaded back with rock salt b u t the sand bars, rapids a n d rocks m a d e it an unprofitable venture for steamers."

Joseph W. Young in a letter to the Deseret News in 1868 stated the Saints h a d shipped some rock salt "down the Colorado to Fort M o h a v e a n d other places." Jenson, " M u d d y R i v e r Mission."

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The August irrigation report for the Mission showed St. Thomas with a three-mile canal, eight feet wide and two and one-half feet deep, which cost $3,840 to construct. The colonists also had another small canal in process of construction which would cost $1,160. 23 25

Bleak, "Southern U t a h Mission," 183, 184.

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It was a harsh land, and to the eyes of Hannah Sharp anything but hospitable and inviting. She described it by saying, At length, after journeying a full m o n t h , they looked out on the b u r n t desolation of their new h o m e site; a little g r o u p of adobe h u t s with willow a n d m u d roofs mussed together into a fort, pitiful a t t e m p t s at w h e a t a n d corn fields; not a tree to i m p e d e the direct rays of the sun. T h e n there was t h e w a r m alkali w a t e r of the M u d d y t h a t h a d sickened H a n n a h from t h e first taste of it. Even n o w h e r m o u t h was r a w with canker, yet she m u s t drink t h a t water, a n d she w o n d e r e d if there would ever be a n y t h i n g to eat besides bread a n d treacle a n d p a r c h e d corn or wheat. 2 6

On April 26, President Erastus Snow; his secretary, James G. Bleak; and Brothers Cragun and Ensign arrived on the Muddy. Along with his ecclesiastical duties of checking on the people, President Snow was looking for a place to establish another settlement. The day following their arrival on the Muddy, the Snow party with Elder Thomas S. Smith and others traveled up the valley. About two miles above the settlement of St. Thomas, they came to a "fine meadow which was estimated to contain about 1000 acres, the grass of which was then ready to cut." About two miles above the first meadow they found another "meadow of about 600 acres." In the vicinity of the second meadow they found what they considered a good mill site and a fine body of farmland suitable for another settlement.

All spring additional settlers had been arriving in the valley. In June of 1865, the town of St. Joseph, about 12 miles upstream from St. Thomas, was established. It was organized as a branch of the St. Thomas Ward, and Warren Foote was appointed to preside over it.27 The town was surveyed and the land apportioned to the settlers. At this time 40 families were located there. 28 As with the first settlement the Saints immediately set to work clearing the land. The irrigation report for August showed the settlers at St. Joseph had constructed a canal three and one-half miles long, four and one-half feet wide, and one and one-half feet deep, which cost $1,000.

Another canal was planned that would be four miles long, fourteen feet wide, and three and one-half feet deep, to cost in excess of $5,000.

Some time after the town was established, Joseph W. Young in a letter to the Deseret News described the place.

2

* Jenson, "Muddy River Mission."

Both Perkins, Pioneers of the Western Desert, and Andrew Karl Larson, "I Was Called to Dixie," the Virgin River Basin: Unique Experiences in Mormon Pioneering (Salt Lake City, 1961), state that the town was named after Joseph Warren Foote. It was located near the present town of Logandale.

28 Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission," 175-76.

27

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At present, the inhabitants of this place are living in a fort built on a high bluff about midway between the upper and lower ends of the lower Muddy. The town is laid out on a level, sandy bench, laying west and north from the fort, and it is to be hoped that most of the people will get out on their lots this fall. In consequence of the people having to fort up, very little has been done in setting out trees and vines. Yet there is no doubt but this place will equal any settlement in the south in the production of the grape. This settlement is greatley [sic] blessed with an abundance of excellent hay land. I suppose one hundred and fifty tons have been cut and stacked this season and this is but a small portion of what could be had, if there was sufficient labor to get it. The wheat crop at St. Joseph is generally good, some pieces being very fine, while some later sowing is very light. Wheat in this country must be sown in the fall to do anything. 29

By December 1865 enough people had arrived in the valley that still another settlement was established. President Erastus Snow appointed Orawell Simons to preside over this new colony and it became known as Simonsville.30 By spring L . A. F L E M I N G a grist mill had been constructed at Simonsville and was being used to grind wheat, corn, and salt. Bleak in his history commented,

29 As quoted in Jenson, " M u d d y River Mission."

30 Perkins, Pioneers of the Western Desert, 32, located the town of Simonsville as " n o r t h of Overton on the east side of the valley on the low mesa overlooking the valley," or about a q u a r t e r of a mile northwest of the present Overton Cemetery.

T h e present buildings of the Overton Airport are sitting on the exact location, the remains of some old buildings can still be seen just west of the airport.

One of the first graves in the Simonsville Cemetery, now the Overton Cemetery.

Settlements on the Muddy

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A cotton gin is also being worked by the same power and has been ginning the cotton raised last year. Over five thousand pounds of cotton lint was obtained on the Muddy from 1865 crop. Rhodes obtained 695 pounds of first class lint from one acre. 31

The first year was a hard one. Along with clearing the land, building irrigation ditches, planting crops, and constructing homes, many of the people came down with malaria and dysentery. In the town of St. Joseph there were four deaths. Many settlers were discouraged, could not take the hardships, gave up, and moved out. By fall, out of the 40 families when the town was organized, only 25 remained. 32 By spring of 1866 the Indian depredations that had become so prevalent in southern Utah had spread to the large Indian population along the Muddy and the Virgin rivers. In February the Indians killed several head of stock and drove off about 60 more. One Indian, CoQuap, who had been branded an outlaw by the Indian chiefs in the area, was taken prisoner and executed at St. Thomas. A few weeks later a miner was murdered near Panaca. An Indian, forced to admit his guilt of this crime, was brutally treated and hung. Four other Indians were killed for participation in the miner's murder. 33 With their every success, the Indians became more brazen in their stealing. According to Andrew Gibbons, during the latter part of March all the Upper Muddy Indians "have pulled up their wheat, some 30 acres and have left for the mountains," taking with them 32 head of horses, mules, and cattle from St. Joseph and Simonsville. A posse of about 25 men, including 10 from St. Thomas had gone in pursuit but were unsuccessful in finding the stolen stock.

By May Indian-white relations in the Southern Utah Mission had deteriorated to the point that Brigham Young wrote President Snow a lengthy letter counseling him on the subject. The letter told the Saints to abandon all the small communities they were unable to defend and to collect in the larger settlements. The following are excerpts from Brigham Young's letter.

To save the lives and property of people in your counties from the marauding and blood-thirsty bands which surround you, there must be thorough and energetic measures of protection taken immediately. . . . . There should be from 150 to 500 good and efficient men in every settlement; . . . .

31

Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission," 202.

Ibid., 189-90.

3S Ibid., 200, 204-5.

32

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W h e n it m a y be necessary for wood, poles or timber t o be h a u l e d , one or t w o persons should n o t v e n t u r e into the K a n y o n s , b u t a c o m p a n y should be formed w h o , well a r m e d themselves, should also be a c c o m p a n i e d by a n a r m e d e s c o r t . . . .

W h e n settlements are a b a n d o n e d measures should b e taken t o bury the house logs a n d fence poles, &c. to prevent their destruction by t h e indians [sic] . . . .

T h e careless m a n n e r in which m e n have traveled from place t o place . . . should be stopped, . . .

A d o p t measures from this time forward t h a t n o t a n o t h e r d r o p of your blood, or t h e blood of anyone belonging to you, shall be shed by t h e indians [sic] a n d keep your stock so securely t h a t n o t a n o t h e r horse, mule, ox, cow, sheep, or even calf shall fall in their h a n d s a n d t h e w a r will soon be stopped . . . , 34

On May 30, President Erastus Snow and a company of 10 men with two wagons and 13 animals started from St. George for the Muddy for the purpose of organizing the defense of these colonies, At St. Joseph a meeting took place between President Snow, the valley leaders, and the Indians. The Indian chiefs present were Tut-se-gavitz, chief of the Santa Clara Indians; To-ish-obe, principal chief of the Muddy Indians; William, chief of the Colorado band and 17 of his men; Farmer, chief of the St. Thomas band and 20 of his men; Frank, chief of the Simonsville band and 12 of his band; Rufus, chief of the Muddy Springs band above the California road and 14 of his men; and Thomas, chief of the Indians at the Narrows of the Muddy and one of his men. A total of 7 chiefs and 64 of their men were at the council.35 President Snow addressed the Indians, with Andrew Gibbons as interpreter, assisted by James Pierce and Indian "Benjamin." A very good feeling prevailed, and the white settlers on the Muddy felt that much good was accomplished.

It was considered wise at this time to organize a battalion of the Nauvoo Legion 36 for the protection of the settlers. This was done under the guidance of Brigadier General Erastus Snow. Thomas S. Smith was given the rank of major and placed in charge of the Muddy River group.

The battalion consisted of 93 men, rank and file.

Several days after President Snow arrived back in St. George, he received the following letter from General Daniel H. Wells of the Nauvoo Legion. m

Ibid., 209, 210, 211.

Ibid., 217.

86 The Nauvoo Legion was first organized in Nauvoo, Illinois, for self-protection. It was reorganized in Utah as the territorial militia. The Legion was kept on an active basis for the protection of the people against Indian attack.

35

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Brigader Gen'l Erastus Snow at St. George Dear Sir: — Y o u r favor of the 21st ult. came to hand yesterday and was read to the President and duly considered.

If the brethern of the settlements on the Muddy build good and sufficient forts and otherwise take energetic measures to protect themselves and property, it would not be objectionable for them to remain; at least at the most of those respective places . . . .

On June 12, Brigadier General Snow sent an express to Major Thomas S. Smith giving such extracts from the above letter as applied to the settlements on the Muddy. Following these extracts General Snow stated, In the exercise of the discretion extended by the above, and in consideration of keeping a guard for the protection of the Mill at Mill Point [under the hill from Simonsville], I deem it best to divide the settlements, as nearlly [sic] equally as may be, between St. Thomas and that place, leaving the brethren of St. Joseph at liberty to choose, each for himself, whether to stop at Mill Point, and take hold with energy this fall and winter in putting the water as high onto the bench at that place as can be conveniently done, and building a permanent and commodious fort there, — or go on down to St. Thomas, as may best suit their several circumstances and feelings.

Those choosing to stop at Mill Point, will select a suitable place near the Mill, move their wagon and temporary dwellings into as compact and convenient positions as possible, so as to afford thereby as much protection to their families and property as the nature of the circumstances will permit; using all precautions in their power to guard against surprise or repel attack.

The brethren moving from St. Joseph to Mill Point can plant their corn and cane on lands in that vicinity instead of St. Thomas.

I would recommend that their crops be all gathered and secured at Mill Point and diligent preparations made at that place for the winter making adobes &c. for their fort, houses, granaries, and etc. Their adobes should be made of such clay as will wash the least; and if no more suitable place be found, I think they would do as well to make them on the bottom above the mill; as those made there seemed to be of fair quality.

The military protection of the settlements and the responsibility of maintaining guard and taking such other measures as may be necessary for the safety of the brethren and their property, together with affording necessary escort to moving families, &c. we will place, under your direction, upon Captain Alma Bennett, — and require of him the strictest watchfulness and care, that life and property be not sacrificed.

Whether to appoint Brother Bennett or some other person to the Presidency of the place in spiritual matters, I leave to your discretion and the choice of the people.

Your brother in the Gospel, Erastus Snow.37 37

Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission," 218, 220-21.

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Following the counsel of President Snow, most of the people of St. Joseph moved down to Mill Point. Here they built an adobe fort for their protection. The Mission census for that fall listed 167 settlers at Mill Point, 35 of them men. Their crop report showed 89 acres of wheat, 25 acres of corn, 23 acres of cotton, 9 acres of cane, and 4 acres of orchard and vineyard. A total of 151 acres was under cultivation. The wheat crop had yielded better than 31 bushels per acre, and the colonists had 2,793 bushels of threshed wheat.

The census report for St. Thomas gave a population of 129, 40 of whom were men. Their crop report showed 152 acres of wheat, 30 acres of corn, 24 acres of cotton, and 24 acres of cane; making a total of 231 acres under cultivation. The settlers had 3,812 bushels of threshed wheat, an average of 25 bushels per acre.

However, the prime crop for the area was cotton, and in 1866 3,000 pounds of lint were raised in St. Thomas which was an average of 222 pounds per acre. At Mill Point 17 acres of cotton had yielded 6,000 pounds of lint.

The harvest in the fall of 1867, found the cotton crop a huge success; 23 men at St. Joseph had produced over 14,600 pounds of first-class cotton lint, in addition to their other crops. The cotton culture on the Muddy was proving so successful that at the October conference of the church in Salt Lake it was decided to call additional families to strengthen this part of the Cotton Mission. As a result 158 new families received a call to proceed to the Muddy. 38 There were other changes in the valley also. Alma H. Bennett, who was the presiding elder at the settlement of St. Joseph, was now sustained as bishop, succeeding Warren Foote. In St. Thomas, Thomas S. Smith, bishop of that settlement had been released and gone north because of ill health. Elder James Leithead, one of the first settlers on the Muddy and assistant to Thomas Smith, was sustained as bishop.39 The Saints called at the October conference began to arrive at their new home. By the middle of February between 75 and 80 men out of the 158 called were there. The settlers at St. Joseph had been generous in sharing their land with the newcomers, but many were dissatisfied and talked Andrew Gibbons, the Indian interpreter, into going with them to the Upper Valley to establish a new settlement.

Hardly had the wagons arrived at the site of the proposed new settlement when they were approached by a large band of Indians with 3S 39

Ibid., 233, 241-42, 251-53, 255.

Ibid., 253-54.

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blackened faces and armed with bows and arrows. The Indians demanded that the new settlers pay for the land. Interpreter Gibbons addressed them, telling the Indians of the advantages arising from having their Mormon friends settle near them. This did not appear to satisfy the natives. The fact that the newcomers were all well armed appeared to pacify the Indians more than any argument.

President Erastus Snow in Salt Lake City was sent a report telling him of the new colony and the trouble with the Indians. This in turn was relayed to Brigham Young. Brigham was annoyed. The colonists were called to strengthen the present settlements, not to start a new one. On Monday, February 17, the following telegram was received in St. George and immediately relayed to the Muddy. "Bishop Gardner: — T h e brethern who are on the Upper Muddy must return to the place where they were sent, or else return home," signed Brigham Young. The result was that quite a number of the willful settlers left the Muddy for their homes in the north. 40 It is not recorded if the attempt to colonize the Upper Muddy at this time was abandoned or whether the colonists defied Brigham Young and stayed. Shortly thereafter, there was a settlement on the Upper Muddy. It became known as West Point 4 1 and had 20 families. It was a very desirable location. Here the creek ran almost on the level of the surrounding land. To get water in the ditches, it was only necessary to cut through sod banks. With the first harvest, these people reaped 2,000 bushels of wheat and raised a good cotton crop.

In May at the quarterly conference held in St. George, Bishop Bennett reported the affairs of the valley settlements. They were good and bad. Bad because of the 158 families called at the past October conference, only 25 or 30 now remained. Good because the crops had produced so well. In the coming year it was estimated that 80 men could produce from 200 to 250 acres of cotton with an average yield of 400 pounds of lint per acre or 80,000 to 100,000 pounds, but the cry was "send us more help." Following Bennett's appeal, President Snow noted that "any one in St. George or surrounding settlements was at liberty to go and settle on the Muddy, and such should have his blessing." 42 On the afternoon of August 18, a devastating fire broke out in the tule-thatched roofs of some of the buildings in St. Joseph. Before it was 40

Ibid., 258.

West Point was located a few miles southwest of present M o a p a , Nevada. T h e M o a p a I n d i a n Reservation is near or on the location.

42 Bleak, "Southern U t a h Mission," 263.

41

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over most of the settlement was destroyed. Bishop Bennett reported to President Snow in St. George by express.

St. Joseph, Aug. 19th, 1868.

Brothers E. Snow and J. W. Young: — Yesterday between one and two o'clock P.M. a fire broke out in our place, doing great damage; burning up nine rooms and nearlly [sic] all of the contents. It commenced on the East side of the Fort at Bro. O. P. Miles' and Wm. Streepers', destroying everything of theirs in their houses; also one wagon of Brother Streepers, loaded with clothing, flour etc. they saved nothing but what they had on. Brother Thomas and Billingsley lost all with the exception of their beds.

Brother Farmer saved some little of his clothing, Bro. Day lost house, and some little of his things; he is absent on a trip to St. George; this is the number of the East side that has sustained any loss. The Meeting House is burned down. On the West line Bro. Chaffin, Gibson, Watt and Cahoon are left nearly entirely destitute: — Clothing, flour, dishes, and in fact everything in fact with the exception of what they had on their backs was consumed by the flames. Ferguson saved the most of his things.

Moyes lost nothing but his house. The amount of damage is great; several thousand dollars. Those who were in the best circumstances are the greatest losers.

The wind blew a stiff gale from the N.E. and every thing being dry it made quick work; only lasting about 30 or 35 minutes. All the men, with the exception of two, were out at work consequently, could not render any assistance. Fortunately no lives were lost.

It has left us in a critical condition. Some are moving out on to their city lots, Several of the brethern [sic] who are on visits North are heavy losers.

Bros. Wiler, Pratt, Clayton, Rydalch and others have lost everything. Cause of the fire: — Some small boys went out to make a fire to roast potatoes back of Bro. Miles and Streepers houses.

Alma H. Bennett. 43

Not mentioned in the letter was the fact that Brother Chaffin's cotton gin was also consumed in the flames.

The following morning, after receipt of the letter, President Snow called an early meeting to discuss the catastrophe. An appeal was sent to the towns of Washington, Toquerville, and Santa Clara and also to the people in St. George to donate anything in the way of food, clothing, and household goods that could be spared to the settlers in St. Joseph.

As a result of the appeal for help, several wagon loads of the necessities of life were collected and dispatched to the burned-out people on the following Sunday.

By this time the mines in Pioche, Hiko, and farther west in Nevada were going full force. The mines in Arizona and El Dorado canyons were i3

Ibid., 276-77.

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also very active. The most logical place for people traveling to and from these mines was down the Virgin River and across the Colorado at the confluence of the two. Consequently, it was desirable that the Saints hold the crossing or ferry site.

Early in 1869 Brigham Young issued orders for a settlement to be established at the mouth of the Rio Virgin. Jacob Gates of the First Council of the Seventies was appointed to select suitable persons from St. George and adjacent settlements for this purpose. Joseph W. Young, who had now been appointed by President Snow to preside over the Mission on the Muddy, was appointed to make selections from the settlements there.

On February 22, 1869, Joseph W. Young wrote from St. Joseph to President Brigham Young telling him of the establishment of the new colony: "We have five men at the mouth of the Virgin, and will at once send more and carry out your instructions." 44 The new settlement was given the name of Junction City.

On August 30, a Mr. Asay and his two sons were out on the Colorado River fishing with a seine when out of the canyon floated Major John Wesley Powell and his exploring party. Major Powell recorded in his journal that . . . As we came near, the men seem far less surprised to see us than we do to see them. They evidently know who we are, and on talking with them they tell us that we have been reported lost long ago, and that some weeks before a messenger had been sent from Salt Lake City with instructions for them to watch for any fragments or relics of our party that might drift down the stream.

Our new-found friends, Mr. Asa [sic] and his two sons, tell us that they are pioneers of a town that is to be built on the bank. Eighteen or twenty miles up the valley of the Rio Virgin there are two Mormon towns, St. Joseph and St. Thomas. To-night we dispatch an Indian to the lastmentioned place to bring any letters that may be there for us . . . .

August 31. — This afternoon the Indian returns with a letter informing us that Bishop Leithead of St. Thomas and two or three other Mormons are coming down with a wagon, bringing us supplies. They arrive about sundown. Mr. Asa treats us with great kindness to the extent of his ability; but Bishop Leithead brings in his wagon two or three dozen melons and many other luxuries, and we are comfortable once more. 45

This colony on the banks of the Colorado River had problems — the Indians pestered and pilfered from them. Finally in desperation and to reinforce their ranks, Brother Asay induced three Gentiles to settle "Ibid., 289.

J. W. Powell, The 1 9 6 1 ) , 286.

45

Exploration

of the Colorado

River

and Its Canyons

( N e w York,

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there and go in partners with him. This so disturbed Bishop Leithead that he sent a telegram to President Snow, who was in Salt Lake. Snow's reply was to hold Junction City till President Young came in March, and to send help if Leithead could.

Early in 1870 Brigham Young, George Albert Smith, and others did come to the Muddy and on down to Junction City arriving there on March 16. Apparently President Young was not favorably impressed with the valley. One settler quoted him as saying it was a "God Forsaken place and the people would have to redeem it." 46 During the early years of these settlements, the creek did not run in a channel as it does now. The present channel is the result of floods and man's containing them. Joseph W. Young described the valley as it was in their day in a letter to the Deseret News. . . . the creek runs into a deep a n d n a r r o w canyon [Lower Narrows] w h i c h is passable only to those good a t climbing a n d is a b o u t five miles in length.

W h e n the creek puts out of this rugged canyon it breaks over all restraint 46

Jenson, "Muddy River Mission."

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Still visible are the remains of Nevada's first reclamation project — the irrigation ditch from St. Joseph to Simonsville.

The ditch ran around the side of a gravel hill for two miles, and it is a wonder how the colonists kept water in it.

•

Settlements on the Muddy

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and spreads into a tule swamp some two or three miles wide and five or six long.47

The first land farmed by the Saints was the land around the edge of the swamp where the water was easy to get upon the land. The irrigation of this marginal land caused the alkali and other mineral salts to rise so much that the land could be used for only one year. If the swamps were drained the rich bottom land, free of alkali, would be available.

Also there was a health factor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the settlers would be rid of the huge swarms of mosquitos that persistently bothered them from warm weather in spring to the first frost in the fall. On June 3, 1869, Bleak made the following entry in his journal. . . . This season they [settlers of St. Thomas] have made a water ditch, 10 miles long, 6 feet wide and 2 1/2 ft. deep, to drain the swamps above the settlement and to convey water from St. Joseph to St. Thomas. 48

Early in June, President Snow and a party of men left St. George on a visit to the Muddy settlements. This was a twofold mission, to sell the Saints living there stock in the newly established cotton factory at Washington, and to sound out the people on the advisability of extending the telegraph line to these colonies. A meeting was held at St. Thomas.

Both programs were "viewed with favor by the people," and they passed a resolution to build their portion of a telegraph line to St. George. Andrew Gibbons, with Joseph Young and such others as the Upper Muddy settlements might choose, was to locate the line. Seven hundred dollars was subscribed at the meeting to purchase stock in the cotton factory.

Snow and his party then proceeded to St. Joseph. The people were assembled and told of the telegraph and cotton factory proposals. Here also the people gave a "unanimous vote to build their pro rata share of the telegraph line."

The party went on to West Point. As in the other settlement, the colonists voted to construct the telegraph line and subscribed $400.00 in capital stock in the Washington cotton factory.49 "Deseret News, J u n e 19, 1868, as quoted in Jenson, " M u d d y River Mission."

Bleak, " S o u t h e r n U t a h Mission," 301.

49 At about the same time the Snow p a r t y was traveling in the area, the tragedy t h a t struck a family on their way from St. T h o m a s to St. George emphasized the dangers of pioneering along the M u d d y .

J a m e s Davidson, his wife a n d 12-year-old son, left St. T h o m a s in early J u n e . T h e i r wagon broke down at St. Joseph where it was temporarily r e p a i r e d ; they then proceeded on. After they were well on their way, the wagon broke d o w n again. Being out of water, Davidson p u t his son on a horse a n d started him for Beaver D a m where m e n were digging a well. T h e boy was given a canteen a n d a small keg to fill with water. Davidson a n d his wife remained with the wagon.

T h a t evening a riderless horse came into Beaver D a m . After watering him the brethren tied a n d fed the animal thinking t h a t he h a d strayed from some traveler. William Webb, one of the 48

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With the continued arrival in the valley of new settlers, another colony was established southwest of Simonsville about two miles. In the fall of 1869 it was organized into a branch of the church and given the name of Overton. Heleman Pratt was called to preside over this settlement of 20 families.50 Early in 1869 a valley cooperative was organized among the settlements. Its purpose was to enable the people to become, in effect, their own merchants and share in the profits of the business by wide distribution of shares of stock. It was also used as a means of marketing their cotton. Joseph W. Young was elected president, James Leithead, vicepresident, and a board of directors consisted of Brothers Stark and Elmer at St. Joseph, Foote and Johnson at St. Thomas, and Johnson at West Point. 51 Brigham Young again visited the Muddy River Mission early in 1870, and following his visit a feeling of doubt and uncertainty seemed to prevail over the entire valley. Many settlers were discouraged as indicated in James Leithead's letter to President Erastus Snow.

St. Thomas Nov. 24, 1870.

President E. Snow, Dear Brother: Since my arrival home I have visited all of the settlements on the Muddy. I found in all the settlements a spirit of uncertainty and doubt as to the permanency of the Muddy Mission. Very many feel since the visit of Pres. B. Young that there is little or no interest felt for the future of this country. The breaking up of the Upper Muddy settlements has helped to confirm this opinion. There are many, however, in all the settlements what wish to remain. They feel as though it would be hard, after so many years toil to abandon now what little progress they have made towards a home. I have tried to encourage the Saints, those who feel this way to perservere [sic]. I have also tried to encourage the raising of cotton as the only means to obtain clothing. If our present crop of cotton well diggers, followed the road on his m u l e a n d found a boy lying dead a b o u t a half mile from camp. T h e face and body were so bloated from exposure to the heat of the sun t h a t the boy could not be identified. H e h a d evidently perished from lack of water. T h e m e n buried the boy where they found him a n d p u t u p a small head board to mark the grave.

Following the road the m e n found Davidson and his wife lying by the side of the road, both dead. After the wagon h a d broken down, Davidson h a d constructed a shelter from the sun with a blanket. H e a n d his wife crawled u n d e r it to wait for the boy's return. H e r e they both perished from lack of water.

A burial party was sent from St. T h o m a s a n d they were buried by the side of the road where they were found. Bleak, " S o u t h e r n U t a h Mission," 3 0 3 - 5 .

T h e author located these graves by turning off Highway 91 at the w e a t h e r station t u r n off n e a r the east end of M o r m o n Mesa a n d going north along the road to the low east end of M o r m o n M o u n t a i n . This is a good dirt road and leads to two microwave stations. W h e r e the road leaves the last low hills of M o r m o n M o u n t a i n , turn south onto a road m a d e by a grader blade t h a t leads right to the Davidson graves. Ghouls have dug into the graves a n d probably robbed them, not even bothering to fill up the hole.

50 Jenson, " M u d d y River Mission." O n e of the early settlers stated that the n a m e of Overton was derived from the Saints moving from Simonsville over to the new town â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " O v e r T o w n , " became Overton.

51 Jenson, " M u d d y River Mission."

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would bring us goods, such as hoes, shirts, pants and other articles of common wearing apparel, it would be a blessing to many now destitute.

I mention this so that you might inform us on this point. The crop of cotton is small but if we could realize even 20 or 25 cents per pound in the most necessary articles of clothing it would be a blessing, present as well as a stimulant to more extensive cotton culture. I have urged and encouraged the extensive cultivation of cotton on a co-operative principle and I am satisfied instead of twenty thousand pounds a year there might be seventy or a hundred thousand pounds produced every year. We have grain sufficient for the present population and perhaps some to spare, but at present, there is no market, outside, nor in. The breathren are very anxious to sell the present crop of cotton for goods. Please communicate what the factory will do in this matter. 52

Conditions continued to be critical among the Saints all fall. They lacked the necessities of life, and many were disheartened. Finally Leithead wrote to James G. Bleak, the Mission secretary, what almost amounts to a prayer for help.

St. Thomas, Dec. 1 1870.

Bro. James G. Bleak: Dear Brother: I am pleased to say that all is quiet on the Muddy.

No apparent evil resulting from our little Indian trouble. I think a contrary effect will be the result.

Today some 25 or 30 Wallapies from over the Colorado came in with their head chief Che-Rum, they say they are friendly and have come on a visit to see the Mormons. I suppose they will stay a few days then leave for their own country.

In my letter of last week to Pres. Snow I said something about our cotton. I wish now to say or rather propose to the Rio Virgin M. Co. that if they will furnish us, I mean our Co-op institution with goods such as we will select, or rather such as we are really in need of, such as shoes, clothing partley [sic] homemade goods, shovels, spades, ploughs and articles of this kind that we are destitute of we will agree to* deliver our cotton some 20 or 25 thousand pounds, at the company factory at Washington at the average price of 25 cents per pound providing we get the goods at about the same rate that we have purchased from Southern Utah Co-op. We will freight our goods down and deliver the cotton at the factory.

I make the offer because we are destitute of such articles and our cotton is all our dependence to get them.

If the Rio Virgin Co. cannot accede to something of this kind, we must try and find some other market.

Besides it would encourage and stimulate the brethren here, in cotton culture.

We care less about the price, could we only obtain the articles needed.

Many are nearly naked for clothing.

52

James G. Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission, 1870" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), 58â&#x20AC;&#x201D;61.

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We can sell nothing we have for money and the cotton, what little there is seems to be our only hope in that direction. We might take quite an amount in the products of the factory, providing the cloth was good; but still there are many articles we are more in need of than cloth, such as boots and shoes and tools of various kinds to work with.

Please ascertain the company's mind on the subject as early a date as possible and communicate to me and you will much oblige, Your Brother in the Gospel.

James Leithead 5S

This area of the country is subject to very violent and devastating thunderstorms â&#x20AC;&#x201D; storms that come up suddenly and end suddenly, but literally pour out rivers of water while they last. Such storms usually come during the months of August and September. One of the violent storms struck the settlement of West Point. Bleak recorded the following from a letter to the Saints located there.

We sympathize with the brethren at West Point on account of the disasterous floods that have injured their crops and bred disease in the settlement.

After conferring with President Young on the subject, we are authorized to say to the brethren of that settlement, that if they prefer to vacate that place, they are at liberty to do so and seek locations at St. Joseph, Overton, or St. Thomas or any where else they may choose among the Saints.

Erastus Snow, Jos. W. Young. 54

But while a natural storm may have prompted the abandonment of West Point, storms of a political nature were responsible for the collapse of the other colonies along the Muddy. As in other parts of Utah, there was considerable uncertainty as to the exact location of Utah's border.

A careful survey line had not been run, and then the boundaries were altered in 1861, 1862, 1866, and 1868.

Three of these boundary alterations occurred in the area of the Muddy Mission. The one of 1866 actually cut the Mormons off from Utah and made them part of the new State of Nevada. But the Utahns did not know where the boundary was â&#x20AC;&#x201D; maintaining that it lay to the west of the settlements in the Upper Muddy country.

The Nevada officials, however, were sure that the settlements of Pioche, Panaca, and those on the Lower Muddy were indeed in Nevada and included them in Lincoln County, whose county seat was at Hiko.

B3

Ibid., 61-63.

West Point was a colony of 20 families and lasted but two years. The writer located the old cemetery with 20 graves in it about one-fourth mile east of the present Mormon chapel, up on the barren hillside.

84

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Furthermore, they attempted,to collect taxes and in at least one instance at the point of a gun.

Meanwhile, the Utah Legislature on February 18, 1869, created Rio Virgin County to include the Muddy settlements. St. Joseph was designated the county seat by the county court on April 3, 1869. Joseph W. Young had been named probate judge and Royal J. Cutler was named clerk of the probate and county courts. The court set the tax, most of which was paid in produce ($20.00 worth of flour, $12.45 worth of wheat, and $28.55 in cash) ,55 Nevada, on the other hand, required the payment of all taxes in "United States Gold and silver coin." 56 The stage was set for a real struggle. However, the law was on the side of the Nevadans. And despite pleas and petitions to Carson City, to Washington, D . C , and to Mormon friends elsewhere, the case was decided against the Mormon colonists. A survey line, run by Isaac James and Captain Monroe in the summer of 1870, proved that the 114 degree latitude was 30 miles east of the Mormon settlements. They were officially Nevadans not Utahns.

There was small liklihood that the taxes already paid in Utah would be recognized by the Lincoln County officials. This double tax burden, along with the many other already suffered by the Mormons, prompted Brigham Young to write the following to the leaders on the Muddy. . . . You have done a noble work in making and sustaining that out post of Zion against many difficulties, amid exposure and toil.

We now advise that you gather together and take into consideration your future course and if a majority, after fairly canvassing the subject, conclude to remain and continue to develope [sic] the resources which abound with you, all abide by the result. But if the majority of the Saints in council determine that it is better to leave the State whose laws and burdens are so oppressive let it be so done; but it will not be prudent to reduce your numerical strength much and attempt to remain.

May the blessings of Iserael's [sic] God rest upon you and guide you in your decision.

It would be adviseable, whether you conclude to leave the State or not to petition the Legislature for an abatement of all back taxes, setting forth the disadvantages under which you labor, being entirely an agricultural, instead of a mining people and far removed from market.

It would also be well to petition for a new county, with all it's [sic] priveleges [sic].

If perhaps the authorities of Lincoln County should see proper to enforce the collection on their old assessment, or a new one, it might be 55 56

McClintock, Mormon Settlements in Arizona, 126.

State of Nevada, Nevada Statutes, 1869, 51 Ch. VIII, Sec. 1.

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well to forestall the seizure of p r o p e r t y as far as possible by m o v i n g your stock a n d other p r o p e r t y out of the jurisdiction of the State. 5 7

At St. Thomas, the vote for abandonment was 61 for, two against — with Daniel Bonelli and his wife choosing to remain. In the Upper Valley all but three (S. M. Anderson, Joseph Asay, Sr., and James Jackson) chose to leave.58 Most of the settlers in the Upper Valley around Pioche stayed on and found a cash market from the mines of Pioche for their produce. In February of 1871 the more than 600 colonists of the Muddy Valley were once more in exodus — this time eastward from Nevada where they left behind 150 homes, 500 acres of cleared land, 8,000 bushels of wheat in the "boot," and an irrigation system valued at $100,000.

Moving back along the route which had brought them to the Muddy Mission, the colonists, for the most part, settled in Long Valley east of Utah's Dixie. Here they founded the towns of Glendale and Mount Carmel. Descendants of these Muddyites are still living along the approaches to Utah's national parks. Here they reminisce of what life would have been for them had their ancestors remained to be removed at a later date by the rising waters of Lake Mead.

57 58

Bleak, "Southern Utah Mission, 1870," 67.

Larson, "I Was Called to Dixie," 151.

U T A H , 100 YEARS AGO

April 20, 1867 — Richfield, Sevier Co., was deserted by its inhabitants because of Indian trouble. About the same time the other settlements in Sevier and those in Piute County were abandoned by the same cause, as well as the settlements of Berryville, Winsor, Upper and Lower Kanab, Shunesberg, Springdale and Northup, and many ranches in Kane County; also the settlements of Panguitch and Fort Sandford, in Iron County. [Church Chronology: A Record of Important Events Pertaining to the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compiled by Andrew Jenson [Salt Lake City, 1914])

R EVI EWS and PUBLICATIONS Orrin Porter Rockwell: Son of Thunder.

Man of God,

By HAROLD SCHIND-

Illustrated by DALE BRYNER. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966. 399 pp. $7.50)

LER.

Shortly after Joseph Smith organized the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830, his good friend and neighbor, Orrin Porter Rockwell, then not quite 17, was among the first to be baptized into the faith. Porter, as he came to be known, served as one of Joseph's most trusted and loyal associates, becoming one of the prophet's bodyguards. After Smith's tragic death, Porter was one of those who unquestioningly transferred his loyalty to Brigham Young. He moved to the Great Basin with the first pioneer company in 1847. In those years of turmoil, Rockwell, like his coreligionists, learned what it meant to be a Mormon â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to be hated, spat upon, cast out. But unlike many, he learned to fight back, and unlike even more, he learned to kill.

And so the legend of Porter Rockwell began. When he died in 1878, his obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune charged that he had killed as many as a hundred men.

In this prodigiously researched and extremely well-written book, H a r o l d Schindler has set himself the task of separating legend from fact. If he has failed to restore a life-and-blood image of Rockwell, it is in many ways a magnificent failure, for given the lack of primary source material on Rockwell, Schindler has set himself an almost impossible task, and it would be unfair to hold him too close to his stated objec-

tive. Much more relevant, then, is what the author has accomplished, namely, a scholarly and detailed examination of the legend. In doing so he has destroyed many myths and exonerated Rockwell from many of the killings laid at his feet. But in his eagerness to provide flesh for Rockwell's meager skeleton, the author has developed a tendency to mislead the reader through his use of sources. Not that it is absolutely illegitimate to rely extensively upon the testimony of such sensation mongers and enemies of Mormonism as Achilles, Beadle, Hickman, Swartzell, et al. T h e author has justified his method by stating that "Since an account of Rockwell's life must be the history of a myth, a folk legend, not less than the history of a man, the possible bias of an authority is in a sense immaterial for such a book as this." Moreover, a seemingly dubious source, as Schindler points out, may be corroborated by many other circumstances and authorities that cannot always be reduced to a footnote. Nevertheless, the reader should always be aware when such a source is used to substantiate fact or legend. Technically speaking, Schindler is usually quite scrupulous in making this distinction.

But a somewhat casual reader, one who does not carefully check every footnote, will easily mistake legend for fact. For it takes a conscious act of will on the part of the reader to constantly remind himself that a substantial part of the sources support legend only. In view of the author's strong interest in the legend, he might also have gone a little further and investigated the origins and the uses

174 of the Porter legend, perhaps exploring the use of symbol and myth in an important western subculture.

The author also might have treated Porter "the man" with a little more sophistication. It does not seem sufficient to point out that Rockwell was no monster. True (Schindler seems to say), he killed in cold blood. But he was also a regular guy: a devoted husband and father, a loyal friend, willing to help strangers, loyal to his church. But it is a tragic irony that this kind of image can be much more devastating than the myth created by his enemies. They, after all, portray him as a devil, thereby diminishing a possible indictment of Mormon society. But the very humanness of the kind of Rockwell the author is attempting to portray reminds me of Hannah Arendt's penetrating and controversial observation in Eichmann in Jerusalem, namely, that evil in our times is banal, committed by the "regular guys." If Schindler is right, has he not established a collective guilt of Mormons?

Perhaps this is pushing speculation too far, particularly since Schindler seems hard put to reveal enough about the "real" Porter. As a result, the author feels it necessary to fill in the historical background in minute detail, retracing almost the entire history of Mormonism in the light of Rockwell's career. The lengthy treatment of the Mormon-Gentile conflict in Missouri and Illinois provides excellent background for explaining the hardening of Porter's dogmatic arteries and the quickening of his vindictive pulse. Yet in the same detailed treatment of Mormon history in. the West, Rockwell sometimes gets lost in the vast sweep of larger events.

And yet, in at least one area, Schindler has ignored detail that might have been crucial for an understanding of Rockwell's actions. For many of these become more plausible if seen in the light of his activities in the Council of Fifty. Although Schindler duly records Rockwell's membership, he misses some

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important implications. Under United States law, many of Porter's actions were clearly illegal, his killings murder. But as a member of the Council of Fifty, Rockwell believed he was subject to a higher law, in fact belonged to the "highest court on earth," which was to administer the laws of the nations of the world. There is strong evidence suggesting that the Council of Fifty never accepted the superiority of United States law. In fact, the secret, full official name of the Council of Fifty was "The Kingdom of God and His Laws with the keys and powers thereof and judgment in the hands of His servants." One of the laws of the Kingdom of God was blood atonement.

These reservations, I hope, will not obscure the genuine value of this handsomely produced book about one of the most colorful characters on the western frontier.

K L A U S J. H A N S E N

Assistant Professor of History Utah State University Beet Sugar in the West: A History of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1891-1966. By LEONARD J. ARRINGTON. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966. xiv 4-234 pp. $7.50) On October 15, 1891, a new factory at Lehi, Utah, produced the first white g r a n u l a t e d sugar from beets in the Mountain West. That small plant grew into a vast corporation that produced more than 16 billion pounds of sugar in the next 75 years.

Beet Sugar in the West is the story of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company and the growth of beet cultivation in Utah and adjoining states. The author, an acknowledged authority on the economic evolution of the Great Basin, has written a valuable study of sugar refining and related agriculture in the West.

Reviews and Publications Founded as a "Mormon" enterprise, the sugar industry expanded from Lehi to suitable areas in Utah and Idaho, and eventually into five other states.

Inaugurated as a church industry, the business was secularized in the 1920's with the adoption of professional management. Today there are 7,000 stockholders. The L.D.S. Church retains the largest single investment with approximately 47 per cent of the stock.

The author's purpose in writing this book was "to choose themes that put U and I policies, problems, and achievements in their industrial and national perspective," and "to interpret the role of the company in the development of the industry and thus to integrate local and national history with respect to the beet sugar industry." The research and writing was supported by a grant from the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company to Utah State University.

Professor Arrington has examined the dual growth of sugar refining and beet cultivation. Utah-Idaho Sugar Company emerges as an enterprise characterized by resourcefulness and imagination in applying science, technology, and effective business practices to industry and agriculture in order to compete in a domestic market long dominated by producers of cane sugar.

The Utah-based company has grown apace with beet sugar refining in the United States. By the mid-twentieth century that industry had achieved maturity. Under the terms of the Sugar Act of 1965, beet sugar supplies 65 per cent of domestic consumption.

The "saga of sugar," as Professor Arrington views the industry's growth in the West, was founded on change. For U and I the years since the 1890's "have been a parade of progress and not just a passing of time." Numerous community factories have disappeared; in their places five modern plants operate with enormous capacities. Methods of transportation and marketing have also changed. During the company's early

175 years sugar was packed only in 100pound bags and sold locally mainly for household consumption. Today the output is packaged in many types and sizes of containers, and it is sold nationally, with the principal market in the Middle West. Sixty-five per cent of the company's production is purchased by commercial consumers.

Equally significant changes have occurred in the methods and techniques of beet cultivation. Disease-resistent varieties are now grown with mechanical devices, yielding beets that are far superior to the European species first planted at Lehi. U and I played a p r o m i n e n t role in p r o m o t i n g better plants, mechanical cultivation and harvesting techniques, and higher yields.

Students of business, agricultural, and technological history will delight in this careful analysis of the U t a h - I d a h o Sugar Company. N u m e r o u s illustrations, an extensive Bibliography, and a comprehensive Index enhance the value of the book.

L E E SGAMEHORN

Professor of History University of Colorado Nevada's Twentieth-Century Mining Boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely. By R U S S E L L R. ELLIOTT. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1966. xii + 344 pp. $5.95) Metal mining served as a catylist for economic development in the Mountain West. As Professor Elliott said, precious metal mining in southwestern Nevada and copper mining near Ely "came at a time when the mining industry in Nevada was in the throes of a depression which many thought threatened the existence of the state." He has shown that this development in the first two decades of the twentieth century though often neglected by historians has been as important as the earlier, betterknown discoveries.

176 Both of the twentieth-century boom areas had their beginnings in the prospector's discoveries. In both cases, however, as in other mining areas, outside capital was necessary for mining and subsidiary development. Eventually, the Brock family of Philadelphia furnished the capital which gave them control at Tonopah; and at Ely, the low-grade porphry ores attracted the Guggenheim family.

Mining development meant urban growth to these areas in Nevada. In southwestern N e v a d a came the unplanned boom-and-bust characteristic of earlier mining frontiers, whereas at McGill and Ruth, the Nevada Consolidated planned and built model towns. There, houses of prostitution and other undesirable features were excluded by company order.

Labor troubles came in both areas, though those in Goldfield and Ely were considerably worse than at Tonopah. In all districts, however, the major problems developed from activities of the Western Federation of Miners. In the Ely area, labor problems were compounded by the difficulty in assimilating immigrant groups.

Though the study is thoroughly researched and well written, its main failing is one of perspective. Some attempts are made at comparison, but in general, there is little to tie the Nevada story to general development during the period or to relate it to the historiography of the subject. No reference is made, in discussing McGill and Ruth, to the general study of company towns in James B. Allen's doctoral dissertation or book.

In attempting to analyze the impact of mining, no use was made of Leonard J. Arrington's The Changing Economic Structure of the Mountain West, 18501950, which helps sustain Elliott's major thesis. Though Paul Brissenden's and Vernon H. Jensen's works on the I W W and W F M are cited, no attempt is made to test Herbert G. Gutman's thesis concerning the impact of community feeling

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on labor relations. No attempt is made to test Richard Wade's thesis concerning western urban development. As a piece of Nevada history, Elliott's work is superb, but as an example of historical analysis it has some shortcomings.

T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER

Assistant Professor of History Brigham Young University The Wagonmasters: High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880. By H E N RY PICKERING WALKER. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. xii+ 347 pp. $5.95) The difficult process of evaluating high plains freighting and its effect on the development of the West have generally been neglected by serious students of Western Americana. Attracted by the unavoidable lure to study such firms as Russell, Majors and Waddell and suffering from the economy of time, historians have failed to produce a precise monographic study of western freighting. ^ High plains freighting from the opening of the Santa Fe trade until the completion of the major railroad lines near the end of the last century served as an embryo cord sustaining life and progress in the Mountain West. Reaching adolescence during the Mexican War, wagon freighting served the needs of the budding frontier and reached its apex when it provided logistical support for the western armies.

Wagon freighting stimulated the economic growth of the Missouri Valley and helped cushion the valley's economy against financial depression. The volume of equipment, draft animals, and supplies needed to sustain wagon crews, was either locally produced or handled by commission merchants. Acting as middlemen between eastern manufacturers and western freighters, these merchants extracted a margin of profit that

Reviews and Publications was subsequently reinvested in a variety of frontier enterprises.

The influence of the entrepreneurs, wagonmasters, teamsters, and clerks in the development of the wagon freighting industry are critically analyzed by Henry Walker. Of the four classes of men the entrepreneurs who provided the capital with which the big companies operated were of p a r a m o u n t importance. The wagonmasters supervised the daily routine of the trains, while the teamsters, a collective term which included bullwhackers, mule skinners, herders, and cooks, manned the trains.

The last category of men, the clerks, though ordinary in every sense, maintained the ledgers and inventory lists and gave order to the enterprises.

Classified within the meaning of entrepreneurs were three subgroups: promoters, financial men, and general superintendents. For example, the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell drew upon the combined talents of Russell who promoted the firm's commercial transactions, Waddell who helped finance its undertakings, and Majors who supervised the practical business of freighting.

Western writers who have labored with great diligence to decipher the technical processes of western freighting are indebted to Mr. Walker for his painstaking scholarship which has clarified the mechanics of overland freighting. Yet his labors do not suffer from pedantry for the narration is lucid and entertaining. Not only is the text free from numerous historical errors, but it is tightly woven which provides the reader with a clear comprehensive view of this western activity. Walker maintains that the settlement of the Mountain West would have been delayed at least a decade and would have been more difficult without the services of wagon freighters; however, one might take issue to the unqualified application of this thesis to the early settlement of Utah. "If it had not been for the wagon-

177 freighter, the attempt to colonize the Great Salt Lake Basin might have failed, or might at least have been much slower and more expensive."

DONALD R.

MOORMAN

Associate Professor of History Weber State College Karnee: A Paiute Narrative.

By LALLA

SCOTT. Preface by ROBERT F. HEIZER.

Annotated by

CHARLES

R.

CRAIG.

(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1966. xviii+149 pp. $5.25) Karnee is the biography of Annie Lowry, a "half-blood" born of a Caucasian father and a Northern Paiute Indian mother. Annie was born in the vicinity of Lovelock, Nevada, about 1867 (as she believed) and lived there until her death in 1943. Annie met Lalla Scott in 1936. Mrs. Scott was then working on a WPA writer's project, and had come to interview Annie about aspects of Indian life. The two women developed a friendship that lasted until Annie Lowry's death, and Karnee is Annie's story as told by Mrs. Scott from her early notes of interviews with Annie, and from personal knowledge gained by virtue of their long association.

The narrative may be divided into two parts. The first part deals with the life of Annie's mother and with certain incidents of Northern Paiute life and history, including their first encounter with the white man and the roles played during initial contact times by Cap John and John Pascal, prominent Northern Paiutes. The narrative is as Annie understood these events â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her knowledge of the earlier period covered by the narrative was, of course, derived from oral tradition, since she was not yet born.

The annotations and commentary by Charles R. Craig are chiefly concerned with this portion of the text, and comprise a scholarly discussion of matters of historical fact or conflicting reports of specific aspects of Northern Paiute life and history.

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The second portion of the book (beginning with Chapter 10) is Annie Lowry's personal story. Written in the first person, it tells of her early life with her white father and Paiute mother, of her education in the public school in Lovelock, of her father's abandonment of her mother and Annie's subsequent decision to remain with her mother's people. And, finally, it tells of her marriages and children. Running throughout the narrative is the contrast between the Indian and white ways of life, and numerous personal anecdotes illustrate the human aspects of the transition between Indian ways and white ways that were forced upon Annie and her Paiute kinsmen by the advancing western frontier.

Karnee is not a polished, organized history or ethnography of the Northern Paiute. The Preface by Robert F. Heizer and the commentary and annotation by Charles R. Craig authenticate by scholarly devices much of the historical and ethnographic content of the book, and establish it as a valid historical-ethnological document. Still, the chief interest and value of Karnee is as a personal chronicle of the western frontier, told for a change from the side of the Indian rather than from that of the conquering white man. As an absorbing personal account of Indian life during the Indianwhite accommodation period, as it was lived by Annie Lowry, Northern Paiute, the book is to be recommended.

C. MELVIN A I K E N S

Assistant Professor of Anthropology University of Nevada

The Rocky Mountain West in 1867. By Louis L. SIMONIN. Translated and annotated by W I L S O N L.

CLOUGH,

from Le grand-ouest des Etats-Unis.

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966. x i v + 1 7 0 p p . $5.50) Many Europeans visited America during the nineteenth century and wrote

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books about their adventures and impressions, but few of them ventured into the Mountain West before the transcontinental railroad was completed. M. Simonin was a perceptive French mining engineer who spent a few weeks around Denver in 1867 and who wrote long letters to friends at home. On his return to Paris, he gathered these letters into a book, The Great American West, now translated and supplied with notes and introductory material. T h e translation was accomplished without stiffness and quaint expressions, although the flavor of the nineteenth century is preserved in the choice of words and phrases current here a hundred years ago.

The titles, both original and present, seem too inclusive, suggesting a discourse on general conditions throughout the area. Most geographers describe the Rocky Mountains as stretching from central America into northern Canada, but Clough seems to have developed a narrower usage, limiting the Rockies to that section of skyline visible between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. In any case this is the area here concerned.

Simonin begins with his departure from Paris and hurries along with only brief mention of his voyage to New York and train ride via Canada to Detroit and Chicago. He has more to say about Omaha and the trip to the end-of-track at Julesburg. Chapter Four finds him on the stagecoach leg of his journey and arriving in Denver. His official mission is the examination of mines in the adjacent mountains, which takes him to Golden, Central City, and Georgetown.

But he reports only on the scenery, weather, and accommodations, except for a general word of praise for the mining properties and a mention of the difficulties which their complex ores present to the smelters.

Ten of the 21 chapters are devoted to a report of events leading to and including the Fort Laramie Indian Council of 1867. Nothing came of it, as

Reviews and Publications attendance was poor except for the Crows who came all the way from the Yellowstone Valley. Not until the next year was a peace agreement reached.

This close and amicable contact with the Crows and the few others present helped to relieve Simonin's apprehensions about Indians. In earlier chapters his attempt at a joking attitude to his frequent references to Indian atrocities did not conceal his concern. But after all, this was less than a year after the Fetterman Massacre and the Wagon Box Fight.

Simonin was pleased with most of what he saw in America, including the frequent French-derived names on the map and among the Indians. He did not hesitate to jibe his own country on matters where he thought the United States to be more advanced. His favorable attitude, along with an easy style and the absence of any real trouble to mar his visit, all make for a satisfying little book. It is not loaded with factual nourishment, but it does leave a pleasant taste.

STANLEY R. DAVISON

Professor of History Western Montana College The Indian: America's Unfinished Business. Report of the Commission on the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American Indian. Compiled by WILLIAM A. BROPHY and SOPHIE D. ABERLE, et al.

(Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. xix + 236 pp. $5.95) Published as Volume 83 of the Civilization of the American Indian Series, this work makes a truly significant contribution to the study of relations between the United States government and its Indian citizens.

A publication of comparable stature in this field has not appeared since the completion of the Meriam report, The Problem of Indian Administration, in 1928, under the sponsorship of the Insti-

179 tute for Government Research and at the request of Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work.

The Meriam report stressed heavily the need to have the federal government write the final chapter in its work with the Indian in such a way that its actions would be an example to other nations in their relations with tribal peoples. For some 20 years after that report appeared, it strongly influenced government policy, and it seemed that officials were following the above mentioned admonition. During the decade of the 1950's, however, the stress given to "termination" and "relocation" upset and distressed the Indian population.

The present study, which proceeded under the direction of the Commission on the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American I n d i a n (O. Meredith Wilson, chairman; William A. Brophy, executive director; W. W. Keeler, Karl N. Llewellyn, and A r t h u r S p r a g u e ; Sophie D. Aberle became executive director upon the resignation of Mr. Brophy; and after the death of Professor Llewellyn, Soia Mentschikoff was appointed to the Commission) satisfies a real need for an unbiased assessment of the situation that currently exists in the relations between the Indian and his government.

Although the members of the Commission had final responsibility for the content of the published report, a group of 12 scholars was engaged to make p a r t i c u l a r studies in their fields of competence. This added variety and brought different points of view to the consideration of Commission members.

In the various chapters under the headings: "Tribal Governments," "Economic Development," "Bureau of Indian Affairs," "Education," "Health," and "Policies Which Impede Indian Assimilation," one finds not only the most up-to-date treatment but usually the best work available (so concisely stated) on that subject.

180 A review that appeared in the Navajo Times, January 12, 1967, states: "If it were to be widely read, the outcries from shocked Americans would demand more justice for the Indians, . . ."

It is the hope of this reviewer that federal employees who work with Indians, members of Congress, members of the executive branch in the federal government, and state officials (particularly in the states with large Indian populations) as well as Indian leaders, Indians generally, and other Americans will read and consider this work. I trust that the result would be renewal of the desire expressed above from the Meriam report that this chapter in our relations with the Indians be an exemplary one.

Under the Constitution and by treaty it has been the federal government that the Indian has regularly turned to, and it is not likely that he will approve a change in this relationship until much more has been done to prepare the Indian, local governments, and state governments as well as the national government for an acceptably planned and orderly transition.

While the average educational attainment of the Indian remains half that of the nation, while the average income of the Indian is considerably lower than any other minority group, while over 80 per cent of Indian housing is sub-standard, while the death rate of Indian babies per thousand live births is approximately twice that of the remainder of the population, and while Indian health conditions generally are similar to those found in the rest of the United States a full generation ago, much remains to be accomplished to prepare these tribal peoples for full participation and for fully sharing in the blessings and the problems of the "American" way of life.

In a world where over half the population is found in underdeveloped nations and where great blocks of territory are still occupied by tribal peoples, with whom the United States is certain to

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become more deeply involved, let us hope that we will use this study to help us assess, to learn from, and make a success of our relations with our own tribal peoples, the American Indian.

The University of Oklahoma Press has done its usual fine job of bookmaking. The attractive dust jacket, the binding, the quality of paper, the choice of type, the illustrations, and the Index, all combine to make this a book one that anyone with an interest in the American Indian will be pleased to own.

S. LYMAN TYLER

Director Bureau of Indian Services University of Utah Songs of the Cowboys. By N. HOWARD ( " J A C K " ) T H O R P . Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife. Music Editor, Naunie Gardner. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1966. 346 pp. $7.95) The Introduction of this fine book sets forth clearly the scope and the intent of the editors: to present the texts of the first printed collection of cowboy songs and to provide sufficient background and commentary on those texts to illuminate in general "significant aspects of the cowboy and western myth itself."

In this double aim the book succeeds so admirably and competently as to make it easily the most valuable single critical text on cowboy songs in existence. Not the least of its strengths is the obvious depth and breadth of knowledge in his subject matter brought to bear by Austin Fife himself.

Since the editors presume to do no more than examine the songs in Thorp's original edition, they concern themselves with 23 songs; such focus allows them to develop an exhaustive (though succinctly stated) c o m m e n t a r y on each song, and it gives them space to present a number of variant texts that demonstrate the changes which have come

181

Reviews and Publications about through oral and literary transmission. It thus stands as the direct and refreshing opposite of the typical anthology, which presents mostly quantity, usually giving one text of each song sans music. By choosing depth over breadth and by providing a generous number of musical, as well as poetic, texts for Thorp's songs, the Fifes (with the able ear and hand of Naunie Gardner in the musical notation) have succeeded in giving a semblance of the live song with all its regional nuances; such a phenomenon is a distinct rarity in printed collections. The task is not only difficult; for the serious historian and folklorist it is imperative. And the knowledge that the attempt has come off badly in others' hands must make the job an uneasy one to boot.

Each song is presented with a discussion of its background, its possible authorship, its provenience in oral tradition, and its relation to the cowboy myths. After this come several variant texts of the song followed by an impressive critical apparatus that lists printed texts in other collections; points out especially significant texts, manuscripts, and field recordings held by archives and private individuals; and gives books, articles, commercial recordings, and notes in published sources where performance or discussion of the song may be found. Wherever possible, the informant and his part of the country are listed. All cowboy jargon that might not be readily familiar to the reader is explained in an admirable glossary toward the back of the book. The Bibliographies, Indexes (separately by first line, title), and Discographies are extensive and impeccable. Included, for its historical value, is a full reproduction of Thorp's 50-page book itself, with marginal notes by T h o r p indicating which of the songs he composed.

In the final analysis one may hesitate to accept Fife's rhapsodies on Jack Thorp as the first to recognize that cowboy songs could become "the nucleus

around which a new culture might identify itself" and as a song collector whose efforts "may well loom in our American culture somewhat as did Homer's early efforts to gather and preserve the heroic songs and poetry of ancient Greece."

But there can be no doubt that Thorp, himself the author of one of our most popular cowboy songs ("Little Joe, the Wrangler"), set in motion a valuable cultural exercise: the collection and publication of songs that might otherwise have remained beneath the notice of "normal" city folk until it was too late to find them. While we cannot neatly trace the popularity of the American cowboy "myth" to Thorp's book, we can see clearly in Thorp's collection, in his own compositions, and in his brief article "Banjo in the Cow Camps" (reprinted from Atlantic Monthly) that he understood and appreciated the poetic and cultural â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to say nothing of the historical â&#x20AC;&#x201D; values of cowboy song far better than did the famous "learned professor" (Lomax) to whom he jocosely pays deference. The new availability of this first text is thus of distinct value to anyone, scholar or layman, who holds an interest in the American West. Fife's edition of Thorp simply adds to the work in such a way as to make it patently indispensable to the serious student of western American history, literature, or folklore.

J. BARRE T O E L K E N

Northwest Indian Slave Trade in the

By L. R. BAILEY.

Editor Folklore Southwest.

( L O S Angeles:

Westernlore Press, 1966. xvi + 236 pp. $7.95) A little known or understood chapter in the long history of slavery was the Indian slave commerce in this country, particularly in the Southwest. Although forms of slavery undoubtedly existed among the natives before the Spanish came, it was Christopher Columbus who

182 introduced the E u r o p e a n system of bondage to the New World. The Spanish colonists used slavery not only to supply menial labor but also â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps more significantly â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as a calculated policy to sap the strength of those tribes that resisted the Spaniards Christianizing efforts. It was not until after the Civil War that Indian slavery as a viable institution was destroyed.

Slavery became interwoven into the social and economic fabric of the Spanish colonies, and the traffic in slaves was an underlying cause of conflict between the whites and reds. To further its political and economic aims, the Spaniards encouraged and even provoked raids between tribes by dispensing inferior guns and liquor and purchasing the loot and captives. It was the ancient technique of divide and conquer. No doubt this policy helps explain why a relatively few Spanish colonists were able to control the vast Southwest and Mexico for so long.

Not all tribes were easy victims. Particularly difficult to conquer and enslave were the Apaches. Bonuses were offered for Apache scalps, and their captors were given the right to sell the women and children into slavery. There were many pathetic stories of these and other Indian captives sold to other tribes and the Spaniards. While many such slaves were mistreated, there were others who were so well taken care of that they preferred to remain with their owners rather than be repatriated. Some slaves even earned full fellowship into the tribe of their captors.

As the author indicates, the slave traffic was the source of much bloodshed and turmoil. In Utah, the Walker War stemmed largely from the efforts of the Mormons to halt the vicious practice. Wakara, or Walkara as Mr. Bailey prefers, was the foremost slaver in the territory, and his turbulent career ended shortly after the slave trade was outlawed.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

This book gives a clear and well-documented account of the I n d i a n slave trade. It is written in a readable yet scholarly style. It has an adequate Index, an Appendix, and a useful Bibliography.

CONWAY B. SONNE

Palo Alto,

Author California

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS The Christmas of the Phonograph ords, A Recollection.

Rec-

By MART SAN-

Illustrated by JAMES W. BROWN. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966)

DOZ.

This delightful little book shows Mari Sandoz at her best. Her recollections of her girlhood in western Nebraska with her now famous "Old Jules" are a delight to read.

It is difficult for persons of the modern generation to comprehend what life must have been like without radio, hi-fi, and television, and that the introduction of a phonograph into the dreary frontier life could completely upset a family's quiet existence.

The starvation of the Sandoz family for a few of the objects of "culture," must have been repeated over and over again on the frontier, especially among immigrants who brought to America a tradition of opera, classical music, and a taste for culture.

Mari Sandoz has told her story well.

This is a most enjoyable recollection.

Gold in the Black Hills. By WATSON PARKER. ( N o r m a n : University of Oklahoma Press, 1966) Gold was known to exist in the Dakota Black Hills as early as 1804, but it was not until General George Armstrong Custer's well-publicized discovery in 1874 that a gold rush got under-

183

Reviews and Publications way. By the fall of 1875, United States troops guarding the Hills as a part of the Indians' reservation were withdrawn and the miners allowed to enter freely, opposed only by the now rebellious Sioux.

By the spring of 1876, the miners had discovered the placers along Deadwood Gulch, where Deadwood City, the biggest, richest, and wildest of the Black Hills mining camps, soon roared into existence.

"This book," says the author, "attempts to weave from the delightful chaos of Black Hills history the story of the rush and the men who made it. If it has a lesson, beyond the telling of a tale not told before, it is that no historical event is as simple as it seems, and that it takes more than gold to make a gold rush."

The Original Journals of Henry Smith Turner: With Stephen Watts Kearny to New Mexico and California, 18461847. Edited by D W I G H T L. CLARKE. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966) Captain Henry Smith Turner, adjutant of the Army of the West, actively participated in the conquest of New Mexico and California with Stephen Watts Kearny in 1846-47.

The letters he wrote his wife during his army campaigns present a keen and intensely personal reaction to the men and scenes around him. The journal of 1846, which he kept while marching with the Kearny expedition, is equally revealing. Turner never expected that what he wrote would be read by anyone except his wife, and his comments are frank and unrestrained. The shorter journal of 1847 was written when General Kearny returned to Fort Leavenworth from Monterey, California. This strictly factual and impersonal journal was the official report of the expedition.

Turner's importance in history arises from the graphic journals he kept and

the forthright letters he wrote his wife during his western campaigning.

Archeology and the Historical

By J. C. HARRINGTON.

Society.

(Nashville:

American Association for State and Local History, 1965) The Bureau of American Ethnology: Partial History.

A

By N E I L M. JUDD.

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967) History of North Dakota. By ELWYN B. ROBINSON. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966) Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah: Comprising Photographs-GenealogiesBiographies.

By F R A N K

ESSHOM.

(Salt Lake City: Western Epics, Inc., 1966) Sources & Readings in Arizona History: A Checklist of Literature Concerning Arizona's Past. Edited by ANDREW WALLACE. Decorations by A N N E M E R RIMAN PECK. (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, 1965) ARTICLES O F I N T E R E S T Agricultural History —• X L , October 1966: "The Canadian-American Irrigation Frontier, 1884-1914 [Mormons in Canada]," by LAWRENCE B. LEE, 271-83 — X L I , January 1967: "Science, Government, and Enterprise in Economic Development: T h e Western Beet Sugar Industry," by LEONARD J. ARRINGTON, 1-18; "Hand Laborers in the Western Sugar Beet Industry," by PAUL S. TAYLOR, 1926; "The Sugar Beet Industry and Economic Growth in the West," by GERALD D. N A S H , 27-30 American History Illustrated — I, January 1967: "The Saga of Butterfield's Overland Mail," by GLADYS MARIE

14-22; "Hotels: Pioneers in Progress," by L E O N S. R O S E N T H A L , 42-53 — February 1967: "Bancroft's WILSON,

184

Utah Historical

Assembly Line Histories," by H. K R E N K E L , 44-49

JOHN

The American West — IV, F e b r u a r y 1967: "Epic on Glass [photographs of the Union Pacific Railroad construction by A. J. Russell]," by ROBERT WEINSTEIN

and

ROGER

OLMSTED,

10-23; " H a y d e n in the Badlands [Ferdinand V. Hayden's surveys]," by GILBERT F. STUCKER, 40ff.

The California Historical Society Quarterly—XLV, December 1966: "A New Look at Wells Fargo, Stagecoaches and the Pony Express," by W. TURRENTINE JACKSON, 291-324 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought — I, Winter 1966: "From Pioneers to Provincials: Mormonism as Seen by Wallace Stegner," by JAMES L. CLAYTON, 105-14 Minnesota History-—40, Winter 1966: [entire issue devoted to the North American fur trade]; "The Fur Trade and Its Historians," by DALE L. M O R -

GAN, 151-56; "The North West Company: Pedlars Extraordinary," by W. L. MORTON, 157-65; "From Competition to Union," by K. G. DAVIES, 166-77; "Some American Characteristics of the American Fur Company,"

by DAVID LAVENDER, 178-87; "Fur Trade Sites: Canada," by J. D. HERBERT, 188-91; "Fur Trade Sites: The Plains a n d the Rockies [photographs]," by MERRILL J.

MATTES,

192-97; "Symbol, Utility, and Aesthetics in the Indian Fur Trade," by WILCOMB E. WASHBURN, 198-202; "Archaeology as a Key to the Colonial Fur Trade," by J O H N W I T T H O F T , 203-9; "The Growth and Economic Significance of the American F u r T r a d e , 1790-1890," by J A M E S L. CLAYTON, 210-20 Montana: The Magazine of Western History—XVII, January 1967: "The Short Incredible Life of Jedediah Smith," by PETER J. BURNS, 44-55

Natural 1967:

Quarterly

History — L X X V I , February "New Era for the American

Indian," by R O B E R T L. B E N N E T T ,

6-11 New Mexico Historical Review — XLI, October 1966: "Slavery Expansion to the Territories, 1850: A Forgotten Speech by Truman Smith," by CHARLES DESMOND HART, 269-86 Oregon Historical Quarterly —- L X V I I , September 1966: "Charles Becker, Pony Express Rider and Oregon Pioneer [experiences during Utah Expedition]," by MARIE PINNEY, 212-55 The Pacific Historian — X, A u t u m n 1966: "Jedediah Smith—Trailmaker Extraordinary," by DONALD CULROSS

4 - 8 ; " T h e Combine Made in Stockton," by J O H N T. SCHLEPEATTIE,

BECAKER,

14-21

True West—14, January-February 1967: " T w o Years on t h e Desert [Monument, Utah, in 1901-02]," by K. E. COVINGTON, 34ff.

Western Folklore — X X V , October 1966: "Twenty-Five Years of Folklore Study in the West," by ARCHER T A Y L O R and

W A Y L A N D D.

HAND,

229-46 Western Gateways: Magazine of the Golden Circle —• 7, Winter 1967: "Conversation with Emery Kolb, a dialogue with the uncommon man who took up residence in Grand Canyon long before it was a national park, and whose achievements there still provide a unique interpretive service for park visitors," 40ff.

The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book — 13, No. 4 : "The Women of the M o u n t a i n Men," by W A L T E R O'MEARA,

78ff.

Wisconsin Magazine of History — L, Autumn 1966: " T h e Passage of the National Park Service Act of 1916,"

by DONALD C. SWAIN, 4-17

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Membership in the Utah State Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions who are interested in Utah history. We invite everyone to join this one official agency of state government charged by law with the collection, preservation, and publication of materials on Utah and related history.

Through the pages of the Utah Historical Quarterly, the Society is able to fulfill part of its legal responsibility. Your membership dues provide the means for publication of the Quarterly. So, we earnestly encourage present members to interest their friends in joining them in furthering the cause of Utah history. Membership brings with it the Utah Historical Quarterly, the bimonthly Newsletter, and special prices on publications of the Society.

The different classes of membership are: Student

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For those individuals and business firms who wish to support special projects of the Society, they may do so through making tax-exempt donations on the following membership basis: Sustaining

$ 250.00

Patron

$ 500.00

Benefactor

$1,000.00

Your interest and support are most welcome.

Utah State Historical Society

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