Shonesburg: The Town Nobody Knows

Shonesburg: The Town Nobody Knows

BY JANICE F. DE MILLE

WADING ACROSS THE Rio Virgin and trudging up the brush-covered hill, one cannot help pausing to marvel at the surrounding beauty. High above tower the pink cliffs of the Parunuweap Canyon, majestic in their lofty splendor. Below, the river sparkles. To the west, encompassed by a rickety fence, lies a small cemetery. To the east, the fence along the boundary of Zion National Park is visible. Atop the small hill stands the large cut-stone house of Oliver DeMille, and in the valley below are a few chimneys and portions of walls, the only clues that here a town once existed.

Although the neighboring canyons of Zion National Park (which the Indians called Mukuntuweap) are yearly visited by thousands, Parunuweap Canyon and the remains of the pioneer village are rarely seen. But the beauty of the cliffs towering above is no less striking here than in Zion. If anything, its very seclusion fills the occasional visitor with awe.

Down through the years, the story of Shonesburg has been lost. There are still a few alive, however, who were born there or who remember visiting there from neighboring pioneer settlements. And descendants of the Shonesburg pioneers have material in their own families about parents' and grandparents' experiences, trials, joys, and sorrows in Shonesburg.

Shonesburg began with President Brigham Young's call of pioneers for the Dixie Cotton Mission on October 7, 1861. Among those called from Sanpete County were Oliver DeMille, George Petty, Hyrum Stevens, Alma Millett, Hardin Whitlock, and Charlie Clapper and their families. These pioneers looked forward to their new homes. One said, "The Lord is kind in calling us to this wonderful mission. I like a warm climate better than a cold one." Little did they realize the difficult task ahead.

They left Sanpete for Dixie together, arriving below the area that became Rockville. Accounts vary in details of ensuing events, but at least some of the settlers spent part of the winter below Rockville, where the great floods of 1861-62 washed away their farms, causing them to move on to a new location. Traveling two miles up the Virgin to where it forked, they followed the east fork. The traveling was slow and rough as they made their way through the mud with their ox teams. After crossing the stream several times, they left the river bottom and climbed over some low hills onto a torchbrush flat that led them to a spot by the river. On three sides were low sand hills covered with grass, brush, scrub cedars, and pinion pines; to the back were pink cliffs towering fully fifteen hundred feet into the air. Out of the canyons came Shones Creek and South Creek, which joined to empty into the east fork of the Rio Virgin.

When they arrived, Oliver DeMille purchased land from an old Paiute Indian chief named Shones (or Shunes) and gave the name Shonesburg to the settlement. DeMille family records claim that Oliver was there first in 1861, while some records state that the settlers arrived together in early 1862. DeMille sold pieces of land to the other settlers, although some of them may have purchased their land directly from Indians in the area. Available land was divided into small lots to accommodate newcomers. According to Oliver DeMille II, ten families made their homes there at that time. A townsite was laid out on the northwest side of the river and the settlement of Shonesburg began.

Although there was trouble from the beginning for this new community, trouble was not new to early Utah settlers. The heavy rains, which had made travel in the mud with no roads slow and difficult, continued for sixteen more days. Finally they could begin clearing the land and building homes. Most of them built log cabins, helping each other. Oliver II wrote that his father built two log cabins, one with a dirt floor and roof and the other with a rock floor and cedar bark roof.

The men began immediately working on a ditch to bring water to their farms. Oliver DeMille, George and Albert Petty, Hardin Whitlock, Hyrum Stevens and George Cathen cleared land, planted orchards and vineyards, planted corn, and made the irrigation ditch. Using pick and shovel, crowbar and scraper, they built dugways along the river as the first semblance of a road into this little valley. The way along the river was narrow and steep; making their road required much hard work and patience. The settlers' hard work yielded only a small crop. They built dams across the river in attempts to make better use of the farmland by raising the water to the level of the ditches. But they could not control the Rio Virgin; floods carried away their clams, sometimes two or three in a season. Only constant effort kept their farms going. By July 1864 Henry Stevens was presiding over seven families, a total of fortyfive souls, and seventy-five acres of cotton. Most of the land was planted with corn, but one acre of wheat had been planted.

In 1865 Shonesburg residents finally had a good harvest of cotton, corn, and cane. Cotton was used by some of the people for beds. O. D. Gifford, who was a small boy at that time, remembered having only cotton for a bed. When the weather was cold, they would cover themselves with the cotton; when it was hot, they would lie on top of it.

The necessities of life were scarce. White bread was a luxury. When the John Allred family had company for dinner one Sunday, there was not enough room for everyone at the table. The children had to wait and eat after the adults. As young Ed Allred stood and watched intently while the adults ate, he began to cry loudly. His mother jumped up to see what was wrong, but Ed continued screaming and could not answer. Finally he blurted out, "Brother so and so took the last biscuit." A correspondent wrote to the Deseret News in 1866:

We had an unusual amount of snow for this region the past winter. We have had an unusually late frost this spring doing damage to some of the early fruits such as apricots and grapes, peaches are not hurt and of these there will an abundance. A short time past six of us Shonesburgers (by order of our probate Judge) penetrated these hither-to impassable mountains and made a trail over to Berry's Valley (Long Valley). We have already received impatches by this new trail, one having reached Grafton is from Manti.

This was the same trail—referred to on early maps and papers as the Wiggle or Wriggle Trail—they used to take their cattle up the mountain for summer grazing. Some say that only native old-timers could possibly make it up such a narrow trail.

During the southern Utah Indian wars of 1866-67 the authorities in St. George advised settlers to gather in Rockville. Residents of Grafton, Springdale, Shonesburg, and even Virgin arrived in Rockville with only the bare necessities. Those few who could moved in with relatives, but most of these pioneers, torn from their homes, camped outside. They used wagon covers for tents, or merely lived in their wagons. They made campfires for cooking and warmth. School was held under the old boweries in the winter with Nancy Briggs as the teacher. Men were stationed on the south mountains to watch for Indians. The farms in other communities had to be kept alive, so people went out in groups to work on their farms during the clays, coming back to Rockville at night to sleep. Oliver DeMille II recorded:

I was not old enough to stand guard or help fight the Indians at the time of the Indian War, but I remember that Father couldn't ride horses, so he hired men to go in his stead. One time he hired one of the Averett boys to go on the mountain to scout for him, and the Indians killed the boy with arrows. They surrounded him and he had no means of escape, so was killed. When the rest of the party arrived the Indians had fled. Another time, Brother Russell, an elderly man, and Hy Stevens were up on the Shonesburg mountain on guard and the Indians shot Hy through his side with a gun. Mr. Russell put Hy on his horse behind him and went all the way to Cedar City to get help, and Hy got all right.

In 1868 Shonesburg was resettled by some of those who had been there before and others.

Following resettlement, a windlass was built up over the ledge at the head of narrow Shonesburg canyon to take the mail up and down the mountain without climbing the trail. Mail carriers were hired to go from Toquerville to Shonesburg Canyon and back. Lorenzo and Horace Slack, carriers at one time, would leave Toquerville Monday morning and go to Shonesburg town the first day, camping there that night. The next day they went up to the head of the canyon, a distance of about four miles. They ran the mail up the windlass, took the Kanab mail that came down the windlass, and went back to Shonesburg for the night. The next day they returned to Toquerville. They made two mail trips a week, not working on Sunday, of course. When high water prevented crossing the river, as it did for about a month every spring, they stationed someone on both sides and ran the mail across on a wire. A mule was used to pack the mail, with an alforja on each side of the saddle to hold the mail.

Shonesburg's main street was not very long. It went up on the hill south of the cemetery. The fences were made with big Cottonwood logs, so big they had to be put into place with oxen. Most of the houses were made of adobe or logs. The Alma Millett home was made of rock. The only public building in Shonesburg was the old log schoolhouse built about 1870. Measuring fourteen-by-twenty-two feet and constructed of cottonwood logs with a board floor and roof, it was used for all public purposes, including church services.

Prior to 1866 there was no ward organization at Shonesburg, so the people went to Rockville when they could for services. After the Indian trouble, enough people went back to Shonesburg to organize a branch of the church. Oliver DeMille was presiding elder; John J. Allred was Sunday School superintendent.

School terms were short. Students had to work early in the spring and late into the fall, leaving only about three months for school. Olive Stevens recorded that the youngsters would set the benches back and dance before school started at 9:30 A.M. The schoolmaster whipped the boys with a willow if they broke the rules.

After whipping two one day because they failed to come in immediately after recess, he called the third one up and every time he'd hit him it sounded like a drum because he had on a coat made of a goatskin with very short brown hair. The scholars all laughed and he laughed too. Then he said, "Now take your seat, the next time I whip you, my young man, I'll have you take that coat off first.

The schoolmaster taught two weeks longer than was required but accepted no extra pay.

Walt Slack was one of the teachers there. Some of the students made up a little rhyme, referring to Eagles Peak in nearby Zion's Park:

An eagle flew from peak to peak Carrying Walter in his beak. When he found he was a fool He dropped him down to teach our school.

Brigham Young had sent the settlers to raise cotton and make wine. Oliver DeMille II wrote in his diary that their main crops were cane, corn, and cotton. They grew nearly all kinds of produce, especially watermelons. Their fruits included peaches, apples, pears, apricots, plums, and grapes, which thrived there. They grew little wheat. Ida DeMille Millett, a daughter of Oliver I, said their wheat was often cut in time to make new straw hats for the Twenty-fourth of July. Emily, Oliver's first wife, was an expert at braiding and sewing straw hats. They took their produce north and traded it for flour and potatoes. There were a few good orchards besides the small farms. Lucerne was grown in abundance. They also planted mulberry trees so they could raise silkworms.

From Olive Emily DeMille Stevens came this insight into their cotton industry:

I picked cotton on shares for other people after having helped pick my father's fields of cotton. People hired the Indians to pick their cotton only when they couldn't get enough white help—for the Indians ran all over the fields and picked only the best and left the rest to waste.

When eight years of age I picked enough cotton to come to four hundred pounds of ginned cotton for my share. In 1865 we sold our cotton to a man who took it to Salt Lake City and got store pay for us. I failed to ever receive all the cloth I'd ordered because his sister in Toquerville did not keep her promise to him to send it all up to Brother Oliver DeMille, my father, in Shonesburg.

The farmers used oxen for travel and work instead of horses, although some had one team of horses for nice occasions. Oliver II said, "When I was just a young fellow, father told my brother and me that we could break a couple of oxen he had to work; that was the most sport I ever had."

The usable farmland ranged from about four miles up the river from town to two miles below. The land was fertile and these Saints lived in peace and prosperity, for those times, through laboringhard together. Day-by-day life was hard; nevertheless, they were almost self-sustaining. Sometimes they had to grind the cane seed up to make flour for bread. The women and girls corded, spun, and wove the raw cotton into cloth, then made their own clothes by hand because they had no machines. The smaller children were used to pick the seeds out of the cotton after it was brought in from the fields.

Rachel Hirschi, a daughter of Oscar DeMille who was born in Shonesburg, still remembers their homemade "shuck cakes." They shucked the corn and put the husks in a tick or mattress that they called shuck cakes. Their beds were fastened to the corners of the house with wooden pegs for stands.

The people of Shonesburg had large families, with just midwives to help. Several women died in childbirth. Doctors were scarce in small pioneer settlements and Shonesburg did not boast of sucha luxury. Home remedies were used. Some of the women became quite famous in the settlements for their skills as midwives and nurses. A rattlesnake bit one oldtimer, and his wife, a pioneer nurse, took care of him. The Indians around could not believe he did not die. They kept coming and looking at him, saying, "Indians—kill him every time. Don't kill white man."

Versatility was the order of the day. For example, Joseph Millett, Jr., was a master at basketmaking. Using willows from aboveShonesburg, he made many baskets to sell, then later taught others how. If things were not going quite right, Millett found temporary escape from worldly pressures by going up the river to make baskets. Whatever his reasons, he was very proficient. He was a carpenter by trade, a good blacksmith, mason, farmer, casketmaker, and shoemaker. He made shoes by hand for all of his older children. He also made chairs from ash trees and carved vases from wood. He had beautiful penmanship, was an artist, poet, and violinist, and made brooms and barrels. In addition, he held many community positions.

Sometime around 1880 Oliver DeMille and his family moved into their large rock house on the hill, a two-story, solid rock dwelling. Each of the wives had her own apartment and fireplace. On the upper floor was a large room where dances were held, with space for three sets of quadrilles. Wagons full of people came from nearby towns for the dances and socials held at DeMilles'.

The house commanded a view of the surrounding country, an important consideration because of the Indians. The hill was also considered a more healthy spot than the valley because there was a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. Some have said that Oliver DeMille's sons did not want the house built on that hill, so they refused to help. One day the workers needed some rock, so Christian Larson went to the edge of the hill and called to one of Oliver's sons to bring the team up. He said Joe Millett had broken his leg. After hurrying up the hill with team and wagon, the boy was chagrined to find that there had been no accident—he was just wanted to haul rock. Joseph Millett, Jr., did the masonry, with Christian Larson helping on the carpenter work. The care taken in setting the cut stones into place, the decorative molding along the eaves of the house, and the stone work on the chimney show the skill of the Millett family. Theirs was an artistic endeavor as well as a practical task of building a sturdy home.

The DeMille house was never completely finished the way Oliver planned. A water ditch was taken out four miles above the town and Oliver intended to bring the water up the hill to his house. This was never accomplished, and their water was brought to them in a big barrel fastened to a dray or sled made from a Y-shaped fork from a cottonwood tree with a plank across it. They were then ready to drag their barrels of drinking water up the hill to the house. Si Gifford, as a child of four or five, was up at Shonesburg with his father. Being very thirsty, he went to the water barrel at the end of the rock house. He was just starting to drink when Oliver's wife Amina called from the window, "Are ya sure your face is clean?" Si thought the DeMilles were very fussy.

Brigham Young stayed at the home of Oliver DeMille from time to time. Oliver II recorded, "Whenever Brigham Young came to town, which was once a year, he always stopped to our place. He was a fine man. Everybody thought a lot of him. He was friendly to everybody's children, and all." One time when the church president visited, the little girls dressed in white and carried flowers, the boys dressed in their best, and with their drums and fife they met and welcomed Brother Young and his company.

The early Dixie settlers had a cultural life uniquely their own, a compromise between what they would have liked or had known before and what was within their grasp in their new homes. Very few celebrations were held in Shonesburg; the people usually went to Rockville or other early settlements for holidays. May Day was one of the great days for the children, filled with trips to other towns or the canyons. They took their lunches, made swings, and played games. What they lacked in the form of formal culture was made up for with their informal good times. It was hard to get around and there were not a lot of exciting things to do, so they entertained themselves. In the evening, the folk congregated to sing and entertain each other. Many of them played the harmonica. Someone would start playing and singing; soon the whole town would be there listening, singing, and dancing.

Shonesburg was known for good dances. Folk came from several neighboring towns, even as far as Virgin, for the dances at DeMille's rock house. Good musicians were very important to the people. Walter Stringham played the violin and sang. Byron Millett was a favorite banjo player. Dock Kenner, Jim Thaxton, and Christian Larson were other good violin players. These fiddlers were paid in produce (or whatever the people had) for providing the dance music. Almost everyone who remembers their parents' or grandparents' talking about the dances mentions that the Shonesburg folk danced barefooted.

One night before a dance in Shonesburg, the women became angry with the men and refused to dance. So the men proceeded to have their own dance; some of them dressed up as women. A song was made up about this occasion. It became a favorite and has been passed down through the years:

O Walt was to fiddle Sam was to call While pickin the banjo To have a fine ball. O there was Jim Saxton He's a fine little lad. He put on a dress To dance with his dad. Horray! Horrah! The boys indeed They found very much The girls they did need.

When Shonesburg was first settled, the river ran in a deep, narrow channel; there was farmland on both sides. Year by year floods came and washed away more and more land. Although the people were extremely hard workers, they could not control the waters of the Rio Virgin. One family after another left as their farms were washed away. At one time many settlers had moved away from Rockville, so the Shonesburg people bought their places. Finally there were just a few small farms left in Shonesburg; it was harder than ever to get along. The year 1897 was the last there were enough children to hold school. By 1900 everyone was gone except Oliver DeMille and his children.

Years before, Oliver had wanted to move away but Brigham Young had told him to stay, saying the day would come when there would be a family for every acre of land. Oliver was obedient to counsel. Conditions did not get any better, but the floods did wash away enough land that finally there was a family for every acre left. After forty-one years of struggle, the DeMilles moved to Rockville in 1902 where they went into the mercantile business with a dry goods and grocery store. This industrious man who had been a prominent figure in Shonesburg throughout its history was the last to leave.

The little town of Shonesburg is no more. What remains of the once-thriving community is now privately owned farmland without public access. Most of the original townsite has been washed away; a few chimneys and ruins mark the spot. The solitary stone house on the hill overlooks the desolate scene. Below the Rio Virgin winds along its w r ay, the final victor.

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