Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 2, 1994

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

MAXJ. EVANS, Editor

STANFORD J. LAYTON, Managing Editor

MIRIAM B. MURPHY, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

KENNETH L. CANNON II, Salt Lake City, 1995 JANICE P. DAWSON, Layton, 1996 AUDREY M GODFREY, Logan, 1994 JOEL C. JANETSKI, Provo, 1994 ROBERT S. MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1995 ANTONETTE CHAMBERS NOBLE, Cora, WY, 1996 RICHARD W SADLER, Ogden, 1994

GENE A. SESSIONS, Ogden, 1995 GARY TOPPING, Salt Lake City, 1996

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Phone (801) 533-3500 for membership and publications information. Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $20.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $15.00; contributing, $25.00; sustaining, $35.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00

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THE COVER Many pieces of horse-drawn equipment can still be seenat the Swett Ranch inDaggett County, including this intact Hoover-type hay wagon. The ranch, listed in the National Register of HistoricPlaces, has been owned and maintained bythe U.S.Forest Service since 1972. Hundreds of other artifacts as wellas the ranch buildings help visitors to the site discover what homestead life was like. Forest Service photograph in USHS National Register files.

© Copyright 1994 Utah State Historical Society

SANDRA C. TAYLOR Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment atTopaz SACHI W. SEKO 191 192

MARK ANGUS Salt LakeCityUnderfoot: Self-guidedToursof Historic Neighborhoods ROGER ROPER

R MCGREGGOR CAWLEY Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush RebellionandEnvironmental Politics JAMES MUHN 193

STEPHEN TRIMBLE. The People: Indiansof the American Southwest FLOYD A. O'NEIL 195

JACQUELINE PETERSON with LAURA PEERS. Father DeSmet andthe Indians of the RockyMountain West JEROME STOFFEL 195

RICHARD E TURLEY, JR Victims: The LDSChurch andthe Mark HofmannCase MAXJ. EVANS 196

GENE A. SESSIONS and CRAIG J. OBERG., eds. The Search forHarmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism... .MICHAEL P. DONOVAN 198

In this issue

Historians of the Powell expeditions have traditionally focused on the geological, geographical, and ethnological contributions of those well-documented explorations and in the process have spared little ink in describing the grit and egotism of the major and his men. The student envisions masculine images of boats, bruises, rapids, tempers, and sweat. Now, with the discovery of Ellen Powell Thompson's diary in the New York Public Library, generously excerpted in our first article, a much more complete picture emerges of the second expedition. The genteel Ellen, like her brother a keen and indefatigable observer of the Colorado Plateau, concentrated on floral specimens. Her careful documentation significantly expanded the collective botanical knowledge of that time and place, while her diary reveals much about herself, the expedition, and the red rock country of 1872.

Not far from the spot that Powell first launched his boats in the Green River, we shift to a later time and an engaging story of bucolic family life on a remote but picturesque homestead. Now gone, and their homestead incorporated as a visitor site within a national recreation area, the Swett family left a nostalgic record of life on Utah's agricultural fringe that served them well clear through the 1960s.

Our attention then shifts back to the nineteenth century and heroic achievement for the final two articles. One examines the philosophy and courage of Indian agent Garland Hurt and his tumultuous tenure in Utah Territory in the 1850s The other chronicles the incredible saga of the Parley P Pratt exploring party through southern Utah in 1849 Full of action and suspense, both are meant to be read and appreciated from the comfort and security of the living room on a pleasant summer evening

Buildings on Green Section of Swett Ranch. Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service.

The 1872 Diary and Plant Collections of Ellen Powell Thompson

BY BEATRICE SCHEER SMITH

Ellen Powell Thompson (1840-1909), 1870. Courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park, Museum file #8183.

Dr Smith, a resident of St Paul, Minnesota, holds three degrees in botany and is the author of A Painted Herbarium: TheLife and Art ofEmily Hitchcock Terry (1838-1921) (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1992)

"I never felt more exultant in my life ... I was looking on the most wonderful scenery I ever beheld."

"Drew a large cactus growing by the pool. Got heated. Went to bed sick."

"I feel used up. More so than I ever felt in my life."

So WROTE ELLEN POWELL THOMPSON, SISTER OF Major John Wesley Powell, in the small diary she kept briefly in 1872 as she accompanied her husband, Professor Almon Harris Thompson, through the canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona when he was geographer and first assistant to Powell on his second exploratory expedition of the Colorado River in 1871-72. The progress and accomplishments of this expedition are well documented: almost all members of the party keptjournals, which have been published, and some wrote articles for their hometown newspapers. 1 Now with this account of Ellen Thompson's diary, housed in the New York Public Library and heretofore unpublished, and recognition of her interest in the flora of the Southwest, a different voice is added to these records. "Nell," or "Nellie," as she was called, not only survived the rigors of the trip, which in itself is notable, but she collected plants along the way. She was among the early plant collectors of the area, and her specimens, including several species not described before, are preserved in the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University

As far aswe can determine from the fragmentary remains of the first pages of Ellen Thompson's diary, she did not begin recording her canyon experiences until several months after the Colorado River expedition was underway She was, however, with the group from the start. The members' first general rendezvous was scheduled for about May 1, 1871, in Green River City, Wyoming, a plan they carried out successfully. Nell was not the only woman in the party: Emma Dean Powell, wife of the Major (asJohn Wesley Powell was called), was also along. About ten of the expedition members had come by train from St. Louis via Omaha, Cheyenne, and Laramie, arriving at Green River Station the morning of April 29. The party made camp in some deserted adobe huts. Clem (Walter Clement) Powell, the Major's

1 Transcripts of the diaries, journals, and letters of members of the second Powell Colorado expedition and their biographies can be found in the Utah Historical Quarterly, volumes 7 (1939), 15 (1947), 16 (1948), and 17 (1949) Darrah (William Culp Darrah, Powell of the Colorado [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951], p 162) considers the following journals and diaries of particular interest and lists them in what he considers their order of value: A. H. Thompson, J. W. Powell, S. V. Jones, W Clement Powell, F M Bishop, and J F Steward

twenty-year-old cousin who had been hired as a boatman, wrote in his diary (April 30): "The river, railroad and our camp are in the Green River Valley surrounded by high bluffs. It is a picturesque place." The women stayed briefly with the party in Green River, helping to prepare the supplies for the descent of the river. Nell had sewn American flags for each of the three boats. On May 3, escorted by their husbands, they left for Salt Lake City, where they planned to spend the summer Clem noted on that day: "Cousins Emma and Nellie left for Salt Lake City.Will not see them again till next winter."2

Meanwhile, at Green River City preparations continued. The Major and Professor (as Thompson was known) had returned from Salt Lake City, the personnel of the river party was complete, and

Powell family siblings gathered in Topeka, Kansas, for thefuneral of sister Martha Powell Davis, November 10, 1900. Seated: Major John Wesley Powell, Mary Powell Wheeler; standing: Ellen Powell Thompson, Bramwell Powell, William Paul Powell (son of Bramwell), Almon Harris Thompson (husband of Ellen). From the William Gulp Darrah Collection, courtesy of Elsie Darrah Morey.

2 Charles Kelly, ed., 'Journal of W C Powell—April 21, 1871-December 7, 1872," Utah Historical Quarterly 17 (1949): 259

Ellen Powell Thompson101

with all in readiness on May 22 the expedition started their river exploration in three boats: the EmmaDean led the way, named by the Major after his wife and directed by him; followed by the Nellie Powell, in charge of Thompson who had named the boat in honor of his wife; and last the Canonita.

Apparently Nell and Emma rejoined the group in the field during the first week in December 1871. We know from Clem Powell's journal that they and the new Powell baby, Mary Dean, born in Salt Lake City on September 8, 1871,were in residence at the base field camp at Eight-Mile Spring, eight miles from ICanab, on December 5, 1871. William Culp Darrah, in Powell of the Colorado, gave an encouraging description of Kanab at that time:

Kanab, a Mormon settlement, had been laid out the year before [1870]. The old fort—an open square stockaded on one side—still housed a few families but most of them, about a hundred in all, had built substantial dwellings on the city lots Irrigation ditches on both sides of the broad streets made it possible to water any of the lots Kanab was a thriving village. The farms produced good crops of potatoes and corn. Grape vines, apple, pear, and cherry trees had been planted but were not yet old enough to bear fruit It was an ideal location for a base camp

He then noted:

Early in December the camp was transformed by the influx of feminine citizens. A hospital train of five wagons came in from Salt Lake City not only with Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Thompson, but also with the baby, Maiy, not yet three months old, and a very attractive young Mormon nurse The unmarried men in the party were charmed by her presence Nell had brought Fuzz, a little dog of uncertain ancestry which had been shipped from Normal [Illinois] to cheer her a bit.3

Frederick Dellenbaugh, in his first-hand account, ACanyonVoyage, said that the Powell family occupied a large army tent, the Professor and Mrs. Thompson were sheltered in another, while the remainder of the men occupied a third.4

With such a substantial amount of documentation available, one would expect to be able to determine quite readily Nell's activities in the three months between her arrival in the Kanab area in December 1871 and the beginning of her diary notes in March 1872 That is not the case. Her husband's diary offers only minimal help. The

3 Darrah, Poiuell of the Colorado, p 174

4 Frederick S Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Fxpedition down the Green-Colorado Riverfrom Wyoming, and the Fxplorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926), p 165

period in question coincides precisely with a time of concentrated effort on Thompson's part to produce a topographic map of the area, his primary responsibility His customary brief daily comments unfortunately are limited even more than usual to succinct scientific observations. As Herbert E. Gregory, geologist and editor of the Almon Thompson diaries, explained:

Beginning with December 7 and extending to May 25, 1872, Thompson and assistants gave their attention to the preparation of a topographic map The brief entries in the Diary for this period note chiefly the routine relating to personnel, equipment, methods of procedure, and areas surveyed The pleasures, hardships, disappointments, and dangers of work in an unexplored country are minimized as features incident to all new scientific exploratory work.5

This single-minded point of view left little room for personal details Clem Powell recorded in his journal that Christmas and the New Year were celebrated in the Kanab base camp, and during the first two weeks in January he referred frequently to his visits to the Thompsons' tent and to his outings with the Professor and Cousin Nellie into Kanab On February 4 he wrote: "Prof, intends breaking up camp and go on a trip to the Buckskin, Cousin Nellie and all of us"; and on February 23, "Started for the Buckskin Range [Kaibab Plateau]."6 From these few records of Ellen Thompson's activities during the winter months of 1872 we turn to her diary, beginning with the first full day's record on Tuesday, March 5.

THE DIARY

The New York Public Library card that identifies Ellen Powell Thompson's diary reads: "Thompson, Mrs A H., Diary, 1872-1873?, kept by Mrs. A. H. Thompson, while on a trip to the Colorado River with her husband. 132 p."7 It is housed in a green buckram manuscript box with her husband's diary for 1875.According to the labels affixed to the item, Nell's diary was presented to the library by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh on April 30, 1919; he had received it from her on November 3, 1908. Dellenbaugh, a lad of only seventeen

6 Kelly, 'Journal of W C Powell," pp 395, 397

7 Permission to publish the Ellen Thompson diary has been granted by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, which the author gratefully acknowledges.

s Herbert E Gregory, ed., "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson: Geographer, Explorations of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries, 1871-1875," UtahHistoricalQuarterly 7 (1939): 63

Ellen Powell Thompson109

years when he was hired as a boatman on the second Colorado River expedition, has written engagingly of his experiences.8

Ellen Thompson wrote her diary notes in pencil on a small unlined pad, 3 1/4 by 5 1/4 inches. The once-joined pages are now separate and darkened with age. The notes, written across the narrow dimension of the page, are sometimes too faint to read, and the words are often difficult and even impossible to decipher. The first 24 pages of the total 132 exist only as fragments. Among the remnants, the earliest decipherable date is February 19 [1872]. But beginning at the twenty-first page a continuous record can be followed from Tuesday March 5 through Thursday May 16 [1872]. After a blank page or two, and a lapse of a year, Nell resumed her writing in the spring of 1873 (erroneously labeled 1872), but made only brief notes for less than two weeks (April 5 to April 16). The remainder of the notebook, some twenty pages, is blank except for a few lines of notes not related to her canyon experiences.

For the sake of clarity, in the following diary transcriptions misspellings have been corrected and punctuation has been added By consulting the journals of other members of the expedition, Ellen Thompson's meanings and her location, if unclear, could generally be determined. Most useful were Professor Thompson's diary and Dellenbaugh's account in ACanyonVoyage.9 The general area covered by the survey during the winter and spring of 1871-72, when Nell accompanied the party in the field, included the Kaibab and Kanab plateaus, the region between the Paria and Virgin rivers, the Mount Trumbull district, and areas west to the Nevada line. People referred to are: "Harry," "Prof.," Almon Harris Thompson, Nell's husband, geographer, and Powell's chief assistant; 'Jones," Stephen Vandiver Jones, topographer; "Fred," Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, artist and assistant topographer, at seventeen the youngest member of the group; 'Johnson," "Willie," William Derby Johnson, Jr., topographer; "Cap," Captain Pardyn Dodds; "Clem," Walter Clement Powell, Major Powell's first cousin, boatman, and assistant photographer; 'Jack," or "Hillers," John K. Hillers, boatman and photographer; "Andy," Andrew J. Hattan, cook and boatman; and James Fennemore, photographer. Any material added to the original document is enclosed in brackets.

8 Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage.

9 Gregory, "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson," pp. 70-77; Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, p. 184-94

Tuesday, March 5, 1872, found the members of the survey field party, with Nell in attendance, on the Kaibab Plateau. The Professor recorded cliffs 1,400 feet high at the lower end of the canyon (tributary to Snake Gulch) in which they were camped The Moqui (Hopi) Indian ruins Nell mentions were apparently seen by the Powell expedition on the first exploration of the Colorado two years earlier, and Harry,Jones, and Nell went to see if they could locate them again.10

10 A photograph (no 136, without title) in the Hillers Collection of Photographs of the Powell Survey in the National Archives, Washington, D C , shows a cliff dwelling (?) with an American woman in the center of the picture. This is very likely the site Nell described. The finding guide to the collection suggests that the figure may be Mrs J W Powell or Mrs A H Thompson Unfortunately, the quality of the photograph did not allow clear reproduction It should be added that Mrs Powell did not accompany the 1872 field expeditions

Map of southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona showing the region where Ellen Powell Thompson botanized as she traveled with thefieldparty of the second Powell exploratory expedition of the Colorado River in 1871-72. Drawn by natural history illustrator Kristine A. Kirkeby to whom the author expresses gratitude.

Tuesday [March] 5th

Broke camp at [ ] and started for the first camp we made in this canon. As four of the horses could not be found we cannot go for the Kanab Wash. Got here at 12 o'clock. After dinner Harry, Jones, and self went to find old Moquis ruins in a side canon Found old walls of their houses under the ledge of rocks on the side of the walls on one side, two years since The Mormons thinking they might find some treasure hidden dug in the earth and tore down much of the wall But instead of tearing down anything that the Indians ever built they tore down a wall Nature made Ajoke on them!! Found a spring [Oak Spring, on a tributary to Snake Gulch] They are very rare in these canons Got into camp at 8 o'clock The men had found the horses It looks like a storm

The following day Nell recorded finding a new species of cactus (which the Professor notes in his dairy as well). Nell had a strong interest in the botany of the region Unfortunately her notes about her plant collections are only sketchy. Although meager, they are most welcome, since mention of plants is almost nonexistent in other accounts. What information can be gathered is discussed in a later section

Wednesday [March] 6th

Started at 9 for the "Kanab Wash [Kanab Creek]." Out of this Canon [Snake Gulch] into another to the West In a snow storm In half an hour it cleared off aswe supposed And for two hours I never felt more exultant in my life The sun shone so bright—and yet it was cool The air so pure, and I was looking on the most wonderful scenery I ever beheld Avery narrow canon about one-eighth of a mile in width with its walls on either side rising from 800 to 2000 feet At first for the first 5 miles the right hand wall layin waves of willows and was covered with small cedars The left hand rising in cliffs Then both walls were massive cliffs almost reaching to the sky of white sandstone, now seldom trees to be seen Harry, Fred, and I went on ahead of the others to sketch the hieroglyphics Now the walls on either side rise to 1500 feet It clouds up, and we are in a heavy snow storm for four hours, tho we stop several times to sketch. Found a new cactus (to us). Intend to secure the blossom if possible.Just aswe were about to leave the canon andjust as the sun wassetting we looked back of us. We saw the rainbow which looked as if it reached from one side to the other. Camped at dark at the Cedar tree [1 mile from junction of Snake Gulch and Kanab Creek], found water in pockets, making 24 miles.

Thursday March 7th

Started at 9o'clock Madewithin twomiles—the "Kanab Wash" another Canon. The sceneryjust as wonderful, tho not as beautiful to me. Making only 15 miles, the road being hard both of man and beast on account of the

willows.11 Also the rough road Got in camp at 6 o'clock Found three plants today

"Pipe Springs" Friday March 8th

Got here at half past two (2 1/2 o'clock) after one of the wildest rides have had.12 Broke camp at 9 o'clock, coming through still another canon [Pipe Spring Wash] in which I found a cactus in blossom, which I put up Then instead of following through the canon, Harry struck off for Pipe [Spring] The wind blew very hard, and I loped most of the wayfor 8 miles

Saturday and Sunday, March 9-10, were occupied with a trip to Kanab. Nell briefly noted on Saturday: "Cap D[odds],Jones, Harry and I came to Kanab today. My business was to get my boot mended, Harry to get supplies for another trip Slept in an empty house on the Fort." And on Sunday: "Finished work by three o'clock and started for Pipe Springs which we reached at 7 1/2. I rode Bay Billy Johnson joined the party Came with us."

Then follow ten days in which Nell's diary entries amount to little more than short and, for the most part, quite dismaljottings. Much of the time she was sick, but she managed to do some mending and write letters to family members and others from her bed On three of the

Cacti in Kanab Canyon near the Grand Canyon. Photograph byJohn K. Hillers in the Hillers Collection ofPhotographs of the Powell Survey, 1871-1900, National Archives.

11 Gregory, "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson," p 70; Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, p 185 The difficulty of dealing with the willows in Kanab Canyon the next day was mentioned by other members of the party besides Nell Thompson wrote: "Wash much obstructed by willows"; and Dellenbaugh added some detail to the problems for the horses, which Nell inferred: " the thick willows pulled the packs loose One horse fell upside down in a gully, but he was not hurt and we pried him out and went on."

12 The wild ride included seven miles in Pipe Spring Canyon and then the climb up and out over the 500-foot canyon walls It was not too exhausting, however, to prevent collecting and pressing an interesting cactus

Ellen Powell Thompson113

days she noted that she "took time," her contribution to the work of the expedition. Beyond this she had little spirit and little to say. Monday, 11th: "Sick all day Harry atwork on map Jones andJohnson went to put up a flag. Clem and Hillers came, took 50 views. Wind blows."

Tuesday, 12th: "Mended some but in bed most of the day. The wind has blown terribly all day."Wednesday, 13th, things improved: "Sewed most of the day. Feel some better. More wind than ever." And the following day, Thursday, 14th, was a good day: "I feel well again. Have done some washing, lots of mending, written to Martha, Mary, Bram [her sisters and brother] and Mother Thompson Took time." But it was a short-lived reprieve from her indisposition. The next four days' notes are brief and offer no explanations. Friday, 15th: "Sick all day.

Wrote to Mrs. [?].Took time." Saturday, 16th: "Wrote to Lida and Walter Mended." Sunday, 17th: "Sick, but wrote to Frankie [?]."Monday, 18th: "Sick all day. Took time." And on Tuesday, March 19, she recorded only that the mail came; she received several letters

During this period of inactivity for Nell, the rest of the party was busy around the Pipe Spring area: recording the topography, gathering survey data essential for the drawing of the map of the region, shoeing the horses, replenishing photographic chemicals, copying

Lake in Kanab Canyon about three miles above Kanab. Photograph byJohn K Hillers in the Hillers Collection ofPhotographs of the Powell Survey, 1871-1900, National Archives.

bearings, putting up a monument, making observations, putting up the flag, taking pictures The Professor was principally occupied, however, with planning and making preparations for a trip to Mount Trumbull, a prominent volcanic peak to the southwest in the Uinkaret Mountains. The entry in Nell's diary for Wednesday, March 20, makes it clear that she intended to be part of the party: "A very busy day for all Shall start in the morning." In spite of several days of poor health during the previous ten days, she obviously had no intention of staying behind On the following morning the horses were packed once more, and the party set forth on a straight route over level terrain from Pipe Spring to Trumbull

Thu[rsday

March] 21

Started at half past 10 o'clock. When not more than two miles from Pipe Springs Clem let go his horse while helping Hillers fix the pack Off it run—lost his gun Harry went back, helped him hunt for it—until two— did not find it. Clem remained to hunt.

Found a new plant—an Umbelliferae [Parsley or Carrot Family]. Made camp at the "Wild Bank pocket" at 6o'clock. Made 16 miles.

It was a four-day trip to Mount Trumbull. On the second night out (Friday, March 22) the party camped on a gulch, where there

Pipe Spring National Monument, 1881. Sketch by visiting French artist A. Tissard (inset). USHS collections.

was no water and the grass was poor. Nell said nothing of that day, only that they "made dry camp in the foothills of the [?] Mts." The following day, after an early start, they happily found water—clearly a lovely sight to Nell, who left a more detailed description than the other diarists—and camped for the rest of the day.

Sat[urday March] 23rd

Started out by 7o'clock without breakfast Harry,Jones, and Cap went on ahead to find water. At about 10 came to some wickiups and near by Harry's horse hitched. While waiting there I drew a very large cactus. Soon Harry halloued, then came. He had found water, half a mile away. We were all soon looking at the animals drinking out of the "Rocky Pool." It is a pocket in the rocks holding 500 bbls or so of water Had to climb down 80 feet over rocks to get to it. At first expected to have to bring it up to the horses, but on the opposite side found a trailwhere the Indians had gone in themselves and taken animals in to water. So they drove the horses around on the other side, then down, only letting four or five go at a time At 11we ate breakfast Picked and cut boughs for beds, put up tents, etc This is a lovely spot, or at least wonderful mountains in every direction. Here we are under the shade of cedars and pines. It is warm as a day inJune in central Illinois], tho we can see snow-capped mountains all around us. The water in the pool isvery clear, cold and soft, as it iswhere the sun never shines on it, and ismelted snow and rain [?] from the rocks and hills all around Took two pictures of it this afternoon. I climbed the rocks on the east of it which were covered with live oak, making a regular oak forest.

The following day provided an opportunity for undisturbed botanizing—successful, but with an unhappy ending

Sunday [March] 24th 1872

Harry and Cap. went in one direction,Jones and Fred in another, to explore. I took a long hunt for flowers. Got more of the same Umbelliferae. Found the Moss Pink—Polemoniaceae [Phlox or Polemonium Family] Drew a large Cactus growing by the pool Got heated Went to bed sick

In spite of not feeling well the night before, Nell climbed to the summit of Mount Trumbull the following day. According to Dellenbaugh, the top commanded a magnificent view in all directions. He also reported that it was not a very difficult ascent, which apparently could not be said for the route followed by Harry and Nell in the descent. 1 3

Monday [March] 25

Climbed Mt. Trumbull. Harry, Cap., Fred, Jones, Johnson, the photographer [James Fennemore] and Hillers went. Made flag on the Mt. Took time. Harry went to point out views to take—raised a monument.

13 Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, p 187

Harry and I came down a new way, very hard both for us and the horses. Found a flower, a Scrophulariaceae [Figwort Family].Got into camp at sundown. Very tired.

On March 26 the Professor decided to move camp to a nearby lava bed and spring Here they stayed until April 5 The men continued to explore the area, seeking trails that gave access to the river and gathering data for the topographic map. Part of the group returned to Kanab for supplies, which were running low. The weather was bad, too stormy and cloudy for photography Snow made trails very soft underfoot But with the advent of spring, flowers were coming into bloom: "Many flowers in blossom," the Professor recorded in his notes. During this interval Nell continued her plant collecting, apparently in the area of the campsite (she mentioned only one trip out in ten days), in spite of the fact that she was sick most of the time, unable to do anything or even get out of bed Although she nowhere gave a reason for her illness, she was probably debilitated by a gastroenteritis brought on by inadequate food and bad water (the Professor succumbed on one occasion) Her notation, "Have worked with my plants all day," suggests that she made more collections than the few she specifically mentioned in her brief daily record.

Clem's diary, written at the base camp in Kanab, gave a more graphic report of this interval: " Thompson's party snowed in at the lower end of Mount Trumbull. Feed for horses and wood for fires exhausted. ... It has stormed steadily."14

Tuesday [March] 26th

Started for the spring Harry found on the 24th. Found the Painted Cup—Scrophulariaceae, Castilleja—making camp at 2 o'clock in an oak grove. It seems quite like home, and as it isquite remarkable to see oaks so large, in this country, Imake a note of it. Tho' they are only what would be called Scrub Oaks in Ill[inois]. Our tent is under two of them. The spring is tinctured with iron—which makes the coffee black—and tastes in the bean soup

Went to bed sick Men came from Mt T[rumbull]

Wed[nesday March] 27th

Cap andJones went to the river Harry at work all daywith his topography. Went over to the ranch to see about getting into the river. I have done nothing. Sick.

14 Kelly, 'Journal of W C Powell," p 404

Thursday [March] 28th

In my search for flowers found two new ones of the Umbelliferae— and one of the Santalaceae [Sandalwood Family]—Comandra [Bastard Toadflax] Harry at work

Friday [March] 29th

Harry and Fred [and] myself went to see the crater of the lava bed Harry to show Fred what he wanted him to sketch I found and put up an Elaeagnaceae [Oleaster Family]—Fred remained Harry and I got in at 2— found Cap and Jones here Had been to the river and climbed down to it 500 feet, cannot get animals down Jones brought me three flowers, but do not make out what they are as he brought no leaves Hard snow storm

Saturday March] 30

Harry and Cap went to hunt a way into the river. Jones and Fennemore went to Kanab, are to bring the wagon and supplies in 8 days to us near St George They will have a hard day as it has been either snowing or raining all day. I have not been able to sit up.

Sun[day March] 31st

Been snowing all day, been reading in tent out of Harpers "The Scott Centenary of Eden [?]" "Old Books in New York" "English in School." In the latter are expressed my ideas —At four went to find flowers, found two While we were eating supper Harry came. Had found a way as he hoped to the river, and so he left them to go in and came back to do other work.

Monday Apr[il] 1

Harry was very sick all night—had an attack of cholera morbus—did not get to sleep until four o'clock this morning. Has been resting today. Is much better. Cloudy, so he and Fred could do nothing.Jack and Andy went to the river to get views.I made a peach dumpling for dinner.

Tuesday, Apr[il] 2nd

We woke this morning to find that snow had fallen to the depth of 2 feet during the night. Not too comfortable at least is it to be up on the mountains in such a storm with nothing for a cover but a small A tent. Have worked with my plants all day.

Wednesday [April] 3rd

Still very cloudy so that Fred cannot do his work. The men all got in today. Dodds andJohnson at 6 o'clock and Hattan at 8. The two first have been to find awayinto the river.

Thursday [April] 4th

It looks more like clearing off today Harry went over to Whitmore's [Ranch] to find out what he could about the trail to St George Harry says the stock can get little or nothing here to eat, and so theywander miles away. If it isclear tomorrow will stop another day and do the work here, tho as the men say "we are most out of grub." If not, will start for St. George. I have worked some with my plants, but have not been well enough to do much.

In her weakened condition Nell must have found it difficult to help break camp, get her plant collections and pressing supplies packed up, mount her horse, and take to the snowy mountain trail as they headed for St. George. "The ride has used me up," she wrote at the end of the day's journey on April 5 Despite the difficulties, Nell's account of the next four days' trip northward through snow and sleet and on critically reduced food supplies, finally arriving at Berry Spring near Toquerville, constituted the most descriptive and complete writing in her diary and contains details not recorded elsewhere

Friday

[April] 5th 1872

Animals ready—packed and saddled at 8o'clock, tho the snow is deep and ground under it very soft. Had a hard pull up Mt. Lucy—ground so soft that it has been hard for animals and tiresome for all the folks. Made 15 miles Are making dry camp, dry for horses, but we have enough water in kegs for bread and coffee. The ride has used me up.

Sat[urdayApril] 6th

Started early, looked dark, and really was so cloudy that Harry could find no wayout, but started in the right direction. Had gone not more than a mile before we were at the top of a perpendicular wall. Cap. Dodds, who finds the trail and leads, says, "Well, here we are come to thejumping off place." And sure enough it looked like it—as if, should his horse take another step, he would be to walk into the ocean One man said to another, "Fred, here is Buffalo Harbor," and one could not rid themselves of the idea that they were on the shore of an immense lake (Lake Michigan) in a storm. Until the fog cleared, and we could see that we were at the top of a line of cliffs, and at this point 600 feet down to the foot Asno use [to] try to go over mountains in such darkness, so we sort of unpacked, built fires—laid blankets—tents, to catch snow, and soon had our kegs filled. Still snowing, so beans and peaches are put on to boil.At 2o'clock we have eaten them and at half past are off again having had (jhust has gud a ting as ude want) or as the Mormon members of our party expressed it, This is as much of a Godsend as the Quails lighting in such numbers [on October 9, 1846, during the Mormon exodus]

And surely that expressed it, for the horses had had good grass with lots of snow in it for several hours—and we had snow melted for bread and coffee should we have to make dry camp But cannot really call it dry, for it has been raining or sleeting or snowing ever since we started, tho it has been clear enough to see where to go, and got down into the valley of the cliffs nicely. But as the snow melts as fast as it falls, our water which we melted will come in good Made not more than 10 miles [Thompson estimated perhaps only 5]. Came into camp early on account of wood being here in a grove of cedars, aswe are now come into a country where there is little wood.

Sunday [April] 7th

Started early. Sleeted till noon, and facing a Norwester makes one chilly, so that we walked much of the time to keep warm. And this in "Dixy Land" too—or at least we are verging into it [Dixie National Forest lies to the north]. Were very uncertain about the road or trail, sometimes striking one and keeping it for some miles, then leaving it, only aiming to keep the general direction. But this will not do in this country, for it is cut up with canons, many of them impassable. [?] did this P.M. to one where we could look down 1500 feet to itsbottom. Two or three went off to explore. I found four new plants. Meantime Harry said when he came back we had gone 20 miles out of our way,but had found water in a canon four or five miles away. Set off to it, had brush (sage and greasewood) to burn, brought water up out of the canon for bread and coffee. That night found five new flowers, put them to press. This country is perfectly wonderful to me, perfectly cut up with canons, no streams of water, but to take the place of creeks and rivers are canons Few springs, and where there is one some Mormon has settled and has a ranch, sometimes has his family or families with him and living in adobe houses with very few of what our ladies in the States would consider the necessaries of life much less the comforts His two or three hundred head of stock feeding on the grass and coming to the spring to water Ate all of our flour tonight. Put in beans to boil for breakfast.

Monday [April] 8th

After our breakfast of beans, started at 8 o'clock. While the horses were being watered Iwent down into the canon, found one new flower. Soon found a way down into the canon, rode an hour in it There were many cattle feeding. In Ill[inois] the people would think cattle would starve, and those really were quite on the verge of starvation. Were soon across the canon and in a valley with mountains on our left and high cliffs on

Region south of Toquerville, south of the Virgin River, with the Pine Valley Mountains in the distance.

Photograph byJohn K. Hillers in the Hillers Collection ofPhotographs of the Powell Survey, 1871-1900, National Archives.

our right, then up on the cliffs in front of us. And O! the view from this point—Mountains—mountains—cliffs—peaks—White, black, red, and with the glass can see St. George 20 miles away. Washington 15 miles, Toquerville 12 miles away Here Harry and Alfred [Zenny] leave us with the best horses to find what he can do for "grub,"asit istwo o'clock, and everything is gone but coffee and beans We overtook him at Gould's Ranch Had bought corn meal and milk, but had to wait for the cows to be brought, so Iwaited. In an hour the cows were milked. It was put into our kegs and we were off. I should mention here that the corn bread the woman gave uswith the cup of milk tasted good [underlined three times!]. Met an outfit of miners three miles from the ranch I forgot to mention a thing which looked strange to me. When the cows had come, the man came in and said, "Woman, the cows are here, be off and milk them and not keep the stranger waiting."And as the wife [sic] put the crying babe on the floor, snatched up the pail and started off, and as she passed out of the door he says "No dallying round and [?] woman." Well, she seemed to think it was all right "and so long asyou [?]."Meantime the man sat down after sending a larger baby out with the one put on the floor and talked with us, think[ing] he was agentleman, I suppose.

The viewfrom the top of Hurricane Hillwas fine. The sun wasjust setting. It is a mile or more from the summit to the foot and Toquerville is plain in sight—and is the most pleasing sight witnessed for months, for it reminds one of home, with its stone houses and many green trees. It receives its name from the black lava surrounding it on all sides, "Toquer" being the Pa-Ute for black. It is a town of inhabitants and has been settled years.At the foot of the hill we leave the home view of the village and before us on to our right is scenery for the painter. Way off and up reaching to the western skywhere the sun hasjust gone out of sight, but illumining the skywith the brightest hues, are the white-capped Pine Valley Mts. Then at their feet a range of lava hills [this word crossed out] peaks, then jutting right out of the black hills are sharp peaks of red sandstone, bright red—and lower down at the feet of these are white sandstone hills, and at the feet of this a green bank of the Rio Virgin, 'tho the river could not be seen. Reached Berry Spring at 9. Found Jones, George [Johnson], Fennemore, and Glen[?] with [?] and mail from Kanab Letters ["s" underlined three times] for me. Two from Martha and two from Bram. O! how cheering such dear letters are. (A nice little painting from Frankie, a little letter from Maud [?].Nothing to put under our blanket in bed.

For the next two weeks Thompson made his base camp at Berry Spring. The snowstorms in the mountain country had made topographic work well nigh to impossible, and he decided to move to the lower country around St. George. He sent his men out in small parties to various destinations to continue gathering data for the map He himself handled the business details of the expedition, checking supplies and equipment and taking care of monetary affairs in town.

Nell explored the region around the camp and visited with other campers at the site, but on the whole her diary entries reflect little enjoyment. Her energy seems spent by the long expedition in the field, and many days she is sick. "I am not well enough to drag round," she wrote.

Camp Berry Spring Tuesday [April] 9th

Went down to look at the spring and river. Found a willow in blossom. The spring comes out of the rocks, warm water and impregnated with sulphur and very hard So we shall not enjoy drinking or using it, tho' it is water so one [is] thankful to get it. The Rio Virgin. There is a fort here built of stone some three years since as a protection from the Indians, and three or four acres of land fenced with a stone wall for a corral for cattle. Two brothers by the name of Genny [?] were stationed here to take care of a cooperative heard [herd] One having a wife, they were not here one year when the Pa-Utes became so troublesome that the three started for a settlement to obtain help. They were found all killed, horses taken, harness and wagon cut to pieces and the ranch has not been used since.

Wednesday [April] 10th

Harry went to Toquerville. Three families in camp here today on their way to the Paria [River]. The wind blew fearfully today, thought it would surely blow the tent down and away. Sick all day, but this evening went over to see the women encamped and hard it looked to see poor fagged out women and children taking such a journey. An old man 80 years said he had been sent on missions for many years. Ten years ago he was sent into this southern country and had used up his all $1000 here, and must now die a poor man. He hoped this would be his last move. I think itwill. Several outfits of miners have passed here.

Thursday [April] 11th [The men] getting ready to start on trips tomorrow An outfit of miners stopped here this morning Had a quarrel Two of them wanted to go to the diggings one way, the other another, so they split up Harry bought the flour of the two that were going to return It is quite a common thing to meet men returning from the mines, everything used up

Friday [April] 12

Cap D, Fred,Jack and Fennemore started for the Wingkaset Mts [according to Thompson, the Mingkard Mountains, now called Virgin Mountains] with rations for 12 days Jones, Johnson and Andy with six days rations for the P b [Pine Valley Mountains] I tried to write letters today, but the fact isI cannot—I am not well enough to drag round

Sat[urday April] 13

Harry, George and I started at 11 o'clock for St. George. The wind hadjust begun to rise and by the time wewere half a mile off could not see one rod ahead of us for the sand in the air And it blew harder and harder

all the time until itseemed asifweshould surely be blown from our horses At one time when wewere riding bythe side of high cliffs, stone and gravel were blown into our faces. We reached St. George safely, however, at four making the 15 miles in good time, having seen nothing of the country Went to Mrs Ivins, she and Leady [?] were very cordial. Went to the theatre at night—saw the "Seven Years a British Soldier," all home actors, and all did well.

Sunday [April] 14th

Talked and read all the forenoon, P.M Harry, Caddy, Mrs Ivins both called on a lady by the name of whose husband was killed by the Ind[ians] five years ago. He had gone off on business for the settlement, left camp alone to look for horses, and did not return Went then to call [on] Mr Dogl [?], he a very outspoken pleasant man, she a real lady. Had things very homelike Were treated to cake and homemade wine Tell about St. George [then space on the page]

Monday [April] 15th

Caddy and I went up the bluffs north of town to some springs and a cave in the rocks Had a fine viewof the place Went to a dance at night

Tuesday [April] 16th

Went to the store and got calico etc for summer. Started at three for camp. Got in atjust dark.

Clearly Nell intended to describe the town of St. George in her entry for Sunday, April 14 (above). She left a space in her notebook but never filled it By chance, and quite uncharacteristically, her husband included in his notes for that day an interesting description of St. George, a refreshing departure from his usual brief comments on only scientific and business matters. To complete Nell's account, and fulfill her intentions of more than a hundred years ago, Thompson's record is included here:

St. George is a very pretty town. 1500 population. Is watered by springs, large lots, well built. Seems to be considerable enterprise in town. Nice Court House of cut stone. A tabernacle of cut stone, school house, etc. People seem much above common run of Mormons. Have two taverns, three stores, a tanning, shoe, and harness shop. Are talking about bringing the Virgin [River] into town Many trees, mostly cottonwoods along the streets Figs, apricots, peaches, apples, etc grow in open air, almonds as well Grapes are abundant; the black ham berry and mission flourish, but the Isabella is the most esteemed for wine making.15

The remaining ten days at the Berry Spring camp were lackluster ones for Nell She wrote only brief diary notes: the comings

15 Gregory, "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson," p. 75.

and goings of the men; an errand to get grain and flour; looking for a lost horse; one man lame from a fall while climbing the mountains to 10,000 feet; washing clothes; cooking a duck for dinner. She mentioned the weather: "Another windstorm," and "The weather is very warm, stood at 98 1/2 at 1 o'clock in a tent—this is almost unbearable. Have tried to read the newspapers some. Make but little out." One observation recurred with increasing frequency: "Sick all day," or "Very sick all day." But in spite of all, she managed to add some plants to her collections: on one day, "Found two new plants," and on another apparently good day for her, "Took a long walk on the bluffs. Found 7 new plants. Identified and put them up."And on the evening of the same day. "Tonight Harry and I went out for a walk, found two plants."

Then follow three days in St George, April 27-29 Some of the men went to the Pine Valley Mountains; others to the Paria River to check on the boats; Thompson explored the confluence of the various mountain ranges, washes, and canyons. On one of these days Nell was sick all day. The following day, the 29th, a note of despair entered her record: "Tried to write today but could not. I feel so sick all the time that I am afraid to go on."

St. George, Utah, 1876. USHS collections.

But go on she did. They broke camp at 10 the next morning (Tuesday, April 30), rode twenty miles, and ended up making a dry camp They had crossed the Santa Clara River, and heading westward their destination was the Beaver Dam Mountains. Nell wrote of the day: "Found three new plants. . . . Saw a whole band of Indians and their huts. One guided us to the trail for a string of beads." In hisjournal Clem wrote of this incident: "The Indians swarmed about as we passed; when they caught sight of the lady, they shouted in astonishment, 'Squaw! Squaw!'"16 The next day they broke camp early—6 o'clock, and after 10 miles found an alkali spring ("It was surcharged with alkali, and horrible to drink," Clem noted17), which furnished water for both man and beast. As they continued on Nell noted—"very hot. Found 15 new plants today. At 6 PM found a pool. Went in to camp." The following two days were disastrous for all apparently. Neither Nell nor her husband made any notes. Were they all sick? On the third day, May 4, Nell recorded: "Sick all day. Could not even change driers on plants Laid under trees all day The water yesterday made me much worse and in fact has made all sick and the horses too." But they continued their exploration of the Beaver Dam Mountains nevertheless. Then, after two days of hard riding and dry camps they returned to St. George. The next day, May 7, they moved on to Fort Pierce, sixteen miles. Nell found four plants that day. The following day they made fifteen miles, mostly in the rain, arriving at Pipe Spring by 7 in the evening "Sick all day," Nell wrote Two days later they were back at their base camp in Kanab. 'Very sick," Nell noted. On Sunday, May 12, Harry Thompson wrote simply, "In camp First day of rest for five weeks." Nell wrote on that same day: "It seems good to think we shall get some rest. I feel used up. More so than I ever felt in my life." Also on that day Captain Bishop, a topographer with the expedition, recorded in his journal: "Mrs. T[hompson] looks careworn and thin It has been a pretty rough trip on her."18

Nell was then thirty-two years old. That she looked and felt spent after such a grueling schedule under such difficult conditions is hardly to be wondered at. Rather one can only marvel at her durability, aswell as that of all the expedition participants.

16 Kelly, 'Journal of W C Powell," p 412

17 Ibid., p 413

18 Charles Kelly, ed., "Captain Francis Marion Bishop's Journal, August 15, 1870-June 3, 1872," Utah Historical Quarterly 15 (1947): 234

It comes as no surprise that Thompson decided that Nell should not accompany him on his next journey eastward across the unknown country of the Red Lake Utes, a hostile tribe, to the mouth of the Dirty Devil River. Dellenbaugh wrote: "Mrs. Thompson was to stay in Kanab, for Prof, decided that it would not be advisable for her to accompany him on thisjourney, although she was the most cheerful and resolute explorer of the whole company. A large tent was erected for her in the corner ofJacob's [Hamblin] garden, and she was to take her meals with Sister Louisa [one ofJacob's wives], whose house stood close by. With Fuzz, a most intelligent dog, for a companion in her tent and the genial Sister Louisa for a next neighbour she was satisfactorily settled."19 Nell's diary entry of May 14 added more details: "Came back [to Kanab] from Johnson [a settlement 14 miles east of Kanab] Found a yellow lily—14 miles seemed a long ride alone [the Professor remained in Johnson to work] Harry wants me to stop here [Kanab] Commenced to board at Hamblin's today at $5.00 per week. She doing my ironing and washing for it. She to buy [?] tea, sugar or anything I may have to sell her." Dellenbaugh's characterization of Nell as a "resolute explorer" is well demonstrated by this two-day trip to Johnson with Harry, fourteen miles each way—on horseback, of course—and botanizing as she went along. Only the day before she had declared herself more "used up" than she had ever known.

On May 16 Nell's diary for 1872 came to a close. The last entry is brief: "Worked on plants some. Am feeling better—Harry busy."

THE PLANT COLLECTIONS

Botany was not of primary importance to Major Powell on his Colorado River expeditions, although the description of him by one writer as a person of "only a limited interest in the biological sciences" would hardly seem to be borne out by the herbarium of almost 6,000 specimens he assembled in his early years. 20 Despite his wide range of interests, the Major's chief concerns on the second river expedition were the geology, topography, and physical characteristics of the area and the description and recording of the maze of

19 Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, p 195

20 Arthur Cronquist, Arthur H. Holmgren, Noel H. Holmgren, and James L. Reveal, Intermountain Flora: VascularPlants of theIntermountain West, U. S. A. (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, Inc., 1972), vol 1, p 56; Darrah, Powell of the Colorado, p 41

canyons that it comprised. That the plants did not go unnoticed we can lay to the efforts of Ellen Powell Thompson, described byJoseph Ewan as an "acute frontier collector."21

Ellen Thompson was not the first plant collector in Utah and Arizona. She was preceded by John Fremont (1843 and 1845), Howard Stansbury (1849 and 1850), and Edwin Beckwith (1854), all attached to various expeditions sponsored by the U.S. government. Nor was Nell Utah's first woman collector. Jane Carrington of Salt Lake City collected plants in 1857 in the Great Salt Lake basin. The fifty-nine herbarium specimens attributed to her, including at least two new species, are housed in the Durand Herbarium at the Musee National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.22 Efforts to find out more about Carrington's plant collecting and to identify her more completely have not been successful to date.

Ellen Thompson andJane Carrington are only two examples of the large number of nineteenth-century American women who made important contributions to our knowledge of the country's flora Early educators, such as Amos Eaton and Almira Lincoln Phelps, encouraged women to study botany, which was viewed as an ideal and healthful pursuit. Nell would have had at her disposal the popular text known as Mrs.Lincoln'sBotany{FamiliarLectures on Botany by Mrs Almira H Lincoln, Hartford, Connecticut), already in its third edition in 1832. In the 1850s when Nell was attending Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and perhaps getting her first exposure to the formal study of botany, there were 150,000 copies of this book in circulation. One can speculate that her interest in botany was also whetted by her older brother's intensive plant collecting at this time—John Wesley Powell must have worked continuously at it in order to amass 6,000 herbarium specimens. Having been reared in the Middle West, Nell doubtless found the plants of the Southwest's canyon country very enticing Such a different flora, combined with her natural love of adventure, resulted in an interest

21 Joseph Ewan, Rocky Mountain Naturalists (Denver: University of Denver Press, 1950), p 42 There is no indication that Ellen Powell had any official appointment or even recognition as botanist to the expedition Her interest in collecting the flora was apparently self-motivated Her diary makes it clear, however, that her husband was entirely supportive of her efforts and that the other members of the field party were interested and even sometimes contributors to her collections

22 James L. Reveal, "Comments on Two Names in an Early Utah Flora," Great Basin Naturalist 32 (1972): 221 Elias Durand of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in his article "A Sketch of the Botany of the Basin of the Great Salt Lake of Utah," written in 1859 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 11 [n.s.]: 155-180, 1860), summarized what was then known about Utah's flora, based on the collections of the individuals mentioned here

Ellen Powell Thompson127

compelling enough for her to endure the severe difficulties of life in the field that she records in her diary.23

An impression is generated in the literature, scant as it is, that Nell's plant collecting was a time-passing activity to fill the empty hours while her husband was away in the field. One account stated: "While the men were out exploring, Mrs.Ellen Powell Thompson . .. remained behind in Kanab. Asa non-Mormon in a newly established Mormon community, she likely had a great deal of spare time, and to fill it she collected plants."24 Another source described her diary as written "while staying in Kanab, Utah (1872) when [her] husband was off surveying the country."25 Numerous references in the journals of various expedition members and nowNell's own account give a quite different impression of Nell and her interest in botany

Clem Powell said that Nell "accompanied the Professor, being desirous of making botanical collections, and inspired by a love of adventure."26 As one of the youngest members of the expedition, Clem recorded more of the human side of the canyonlands exploration than the other participants. Thus hisjournal and letters are particularly helpful as sources of information about Nell's botanical pursuits. Far from remaining behind in Kanab, Nell accompanied her husband's field party far and wide: into territory north to Panguitch and the Sevier River, west across the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers, southwest to Mount Trumbull, and east to the Colorado.

Dellenbaugh reported an incident that well reflects Nell's love of adventure A land party that included Nell had assembled to visit the river party in August 1872 as they prepared to make their final descent of the Colorado from Lee's Ferry through the Grand Canyon. They tried out the EmmaDean by taking Nell and a few others up the river for a short stretch "so that they might see what a canyon waslike from a boat. Mrs.Thompson wasso enthusiastic that she declared she wanted to accompany us. Prof, took her as passenger on the Canonita [she rode on the cabin] . . . and . . . ran down through a small rapid or two about a mile and a half. . . . Mrs.

23 For studies of other nineteenth-century American women botanists see the following works by the author: "Maria L Owen, Nineteenth-Century Nantucket Botanist," Rhodora 89 (1987): 227; "Lucy Bishop Millington, Nineteenth-Century Botanist: Her Life and Letters to Charles Horton Peck, State Botanist of New York," HuntiaS (1992): 111; A Painted Herbarium: The Life and Art ofFmily Hitchcock Terry (1838-1921) (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992)

24 Cronquist, Intermountain Flora, p 56

25 Andrea Hinding, A S Bower, and C A Chambers, Women'sHistory Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in theUnited States (New York: R R Bowker Company)

26 Kelly, 'Journal of W C Powell," p 412

Thompson enjoyed the exhilaration of descending the swift rushing water and still thought it attractive."27

Doubtless Nell's continual efforts at plant hunting and collecting, even when the trail was difficult and she was decidedly unwell, aroused an interest in the flora among other members of the expedition. Captain Bishop, one of the topographers, built a plant press and was enough excited by a plant he found to record in his dairy: "Found some fine specimens of the Pulse family a variety of wild Pea."28 He had a Gray's ManualofBotany; Clem had requested it of his brother Morris to give to Bishop. And Jones helped with the collections, although not too successfully, as Nell recorded: 'Jones brought me three flowers, but do not make out what they are as he brought no leaves [March 29]." That Nell heightened Clem's awareness can be felt in his vivid description of the botanical wealth and diversity that the area offered the botanist-plant collector, enthralling under even the most difficult conditions. He was obviously moved by the scene surrounding the 2,500-foot-high Table Cliffs of the Aquarius Plateau, with their pink and white limestone sides and ledges:

Against this brilliant background, the deep green of the pines shows handsomely Soon the barren plain stretches out before us, with its wearisome world of sage There are scentless flowers in shady places, bright, hued, and welcome to the sight. The pride of the desert, the queen of the mountain, is the many-tinted cactus There is a great variety of new and handsome species of this plant in Utah Mrs Thompson has safely forwarded living specimens to botanists and friends in the States. A field of many acres, filled with blossoms varying in color from the purest white to the deepest crimson, with yellow, pale-pink, and scarlet intermingled, forms one of those rare sights that partly repay the traveler's toil. The prickly stalks and fleshy leaves of the cacti are fit emblems of the arid fields and desolate rocks from which they spring; but the delicately-pencilled flowers awaken thoughts of the dawning days when we will loose the rein, drop the oar, and hasten to fields more fertile.29

The only indication of the totality of the Ellen Thompson plant collections is found in Clem Powell's journal. When describing the accomplishments of the second Colorado expedition, he wrote: "The plants of Utah have been gathered and classified. Mrs. Thompson has over 200 varieties They will appear in late editions of standard works on Botany."30 Nell carried along her plant press and drying blotters

27 Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, p 216

28 Kelly, "Captain Francis Marion Bishop'sjournal," p 230

29 Kelly, 'Journal of W C Powell," p 418

30 Ibid., p 405

Ellen Powell Thompson129

thompsoniae

Three ofEllen Powell Thompson's plant collections that bear her name: Psorothamnus thompsoniae (ThompsonsDaka), Astragalus mollissimus var. thompsoniae (Thompsons Woolly Locoweed), both drawn by artist Bobbi Angell, and Penstemon thompsoniae (Thompson's Penstemon), drawn by artist RobinJess. Reprinted with permission from Arthur Cronquist et al., Intermountain Flora, vol. 3b (pp. 33 and 145, copyright 1989) and vol. 4 (p. 403, copyright 1984), the New York Botanical Garden.

and pressed her specimens while in the field. She told of working with her plants, that is, changing the driers so that good specimens would be obtained for later herbarium mounts. She corresponded with Dr. Asa Gray at Harvard University to whom she sent her specimens. They are still preserved in the Gray Herbarium there. She also sent live specimens to botanists and friends.

Psorothamnus thompsoniae Astragalus mollissimus var thompsoniae

Gray referred Nell's collections to Sereno Watson who identified and mounted them and wrote on the sheets the locality and the collector's name. The archives of the Gray Herbarium contain no additional information about the specimens, such as notes, records, or correspondence The only detailed account of some of Ellen Thompson's collections isfound in a paper byWatson in 1873, entitled "New Plants of Northern Arizona and the Region Adjacent." Watson assigned the specific epithet Thompsonae to two of the fifteen collections attributed to Thompson, PeteriaThompsonae and EriogonumThompsonae, indicating Nell's first collection of the species. In a later paper (1875) he described an additional new species collected by her, AstragalusThompsonae. There are more Thompson collections in the Gray Herbarium, but how many cannot be determined. A catalogue of the vast holdings by donor's name was only begun at the herbarium in 1890, many years after Nell's collections in the 1870s.31

Thompson plant collections are acknowledged in other accounts, such as that of Rothrock on the botany of the Southwest in the Wheeler geographical surveys (1878); and those of Brewer, Watson, and Gray on the botany of California in the Geological Survey of California reports (1880). Eaton (1879) records her collection of the fern Notholaena sinuata in the Arizona/Utah area In the more recent account of the Intermountain flora of the United States by Cronquist et al. (1984-89), we find the following three species attributed to Thompson: Thompson's Dalea {Psorothamnusthompsoniae), Thompson's Penstemon (Penstemonthompsoniae), and Thompson's Woolly Locoweed (Astragalus mollissimus var. thompsoniae) . 32

We can only lament that Thompson did not keep a more complete account of her plant collections. Specimens may well be preserved in other herbaria, but without the scientific names of the species it becomes virtually impossible to locate them In view of the great difficulties under which she worked we are fortunate to have

31 Sereno Watson, American Naturalist 7 (1873)): 299 Also S Watson, "Revision of the Genus Ceanothus, and Descriptions of New Plants," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 10 (n.s 2, 1875): 333 Changes in the botanical nomenclature used by Watson reflect changes in the taxonomic status of the species since Watson wrote his initial descriptions over a hundred years ago The generous help of Drs Hollis Bedell and Jean Boise Cargill, botanist-archivists at the Gray Herbarium, is gratefully acknowledged

32 J T Rothrock, Reportsupon theBotanical Collections Made in Portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona during the years 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875, is vol. 6 of the 7-volume report of George M. Wheeler's U.S. Geographical Surveys Westof the One Hundredth Meridian (Washington, D. C : Government Printing Office, 1878); Geological Survey of California, Botany, vol. 1 (by W. H. Brewer and Sereno Watson and Asa Gray), vol 2 (by S Watson) (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1880); Daniel C Eaton, TheFernsofNorth America, vol 1 (Salem, Mass.: S E Cassino, 1879), p 294; Cronquist, Intermountain Flora, vol 3, pt B (1989), pp 32, 144; vol 4 (1984), p 402

Ellen Powell Thompson131

such observations as she was able to make to add to our historic records.

EPILOGUE

Ellen Thompson made a few brief notes in her diary for ten days in the spring of 1873. She was in the field with her husband once again, north of Kanab in the Panguitch area and traveling along the Sevier River. She continued her botanical work: "Letter from Gray"; "I hunted flowers"; and "Put up cactus roots."

Professor Thompson kept diaries through two more seasons in the field in Utah—1874 and 1875 From his usual very brief notes one can deduce very little about Ellen's life, but it appears that she was with him in the West, although staying in Salt Lake City most of the time. There is no mention of her plant collecting. How long she continued to gather specimens—or if she did—we have no way of knowing.

After the Colorado River expeditions the Thompsons made their permanent residence in Washington, D. C, where members of the Powell family were living and Harry Thompson was employed at the U.S. Geological Survey, founded byJohn Wesley Powell.

In the 1890s Ellen was actively involved with the woman's suffrage movement and became a nationally known suffragette. Letters to her from members of Congress (1896-97, 1901-2) relating to her activities in behalf of this cause are housed with the records of the National American Woman Suffrage Association at the New York Public Library in New York City.

Ellen Powell Thompson's connection with the exploration of the Colorado is commemorated by her plant collections housed in the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University and the several new species that bear her name. In addition, Mount Ellen, at 11,485 feet the highest peak in the Henry Mountains of southeastern Utah, is named after her. And a fragment of the hull of her namesake vessel, the Nellie Powell, all that remains of the three boats that were used in the historic Powell exploration of the Colorado River, is on permanent display in the Visitor Center Museum at Grand Canyon National Park.

33

33 The help of Dr Sara T Stebbins, museum technician at the Visitor Center Museum, Grand Canyon National Park, is gratefully acknowledged A report of another memorial to Ellen Thompson is found in the Daily Pantograph, Bloomington, 111. of July 21, 1957, which states that a white Indian pony that Ellen Thompson rode "on one trip [in the Southwest] is mounted and in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington." According to Frank Greenwell, Department of Mammals and Curator of Exhibits, no such mount is in the Smithsonian at the present time, and no record of its having been there is known

The Swett Homestead, 1909-70

BY ERICG SWEDlN'

NESTLED IN THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF UTAH, high in the Uinta Mountains near Flaming Gorge Dam, is the area of Greendale Though now mostly National Forest with a sprinkling of private homes, seven decades ago this was a homesteading community of at least six families. Oscar and Emma Swettwere among the first homesteaders to arrive and were the last to leave Their homestead is now a visitor site in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, administered by the U.S. Forest Service. Their story of twentieth-century homesteading Ohio

Dwellings on the Swett homestead, left to right, are: original one-room log cabin, five-room house, two-room log cabin. Unless noted otherwise, all photographs arefrom a U.S. Fewest Service report in the USHS National Registerfiles.

illustrates the enormous technological changes that have swept this nation during the twentieth century and how people have reacted to those changes.1

The Swett and Green families, related by marriage, began to use the Greendale area in the first decade of this century as pasture for their cattle Coming from the area around Vernal, they were part of the Mormon pioneer heritage of expansion. By this time very little good agricultural land was still available in the public domain. The homesteaders' dream of an agrarian life of independence and self-sufficiency was dying.

Map from Swett Ranch visitors' brochure produced by the U.S. Forest Service.

Yet there was a final episode to this dream. In an attempt to open up more land Congress passed the Forest Homestead Act in 1906. Greendale was National Forest land, and within three years at least four families, Swetts and Greens, had moved into the area. Their new home encompassed marginal agricultural land. At that altitude, over 7,000 feet, alfalfa will not grow, but the native grasses, when irrigated, serve well as hay. Cattle ranching and sheep herding provided a way to survive.

Oscar Swett and Emma Eliza Osiek were wed in 1912. The next spring, Emma bore a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, the first of seven daughters and two sons. 2 Emma chose the names of all her children, and her husband gave each of them nicknames by which he called them. When their daughter Mary Elizabeth was only three weeks old, the small family moved up to Greendale. Oscar's older brother, Jim, and his family were already homesteaders there

1 This article is based on my M.S thesis, "The Swett Homestead: An Oral History, 1909-1970" (Utah State University, 1991), plus some additional research Research support and funding was provided by the Flaming Gorge Ranger District, Ashley National Forest, U.S Forest Service, and the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University

2 The children of Oscar and Emma Eliza Osiek Swett, including date and place of birth: Mary Elizabeth, May 24, 1913, Vernal; Alma Thomas (Tom), December 24, 1914, Vernal; Irma Eliza, May 22, 1917, Greendale; Myrle Augusta, May 27, 1919, Greendale; Verla Farnsworth, June 12, 1921, Vernal; Idabell, June 12, 1921, Vernal; Lewis Lyman, October 8, 1929, Vernal; Merne, August 4, 1932, Greendale; Wilda Beverly, August 9, 1936, Greendale A neighbor, Elvira Green, delivered Irma Eliza in the oneroom log cabin on the ranch Whenever Emma gave birth at the ranch Oscar took the other children with him and stayed outdoors during the delivery.

bAMING GORGE DAM

Four years earlier, in the summer of 1909, Oscar's mother, Elizabeth Ellen Swett, had filed a claim on 151 acres of land for him since he was not old enough to legally do so for himself. When he reached legal age he filed on additional land next to it, and he and his wife began to fulfill their dream of having a small ranch.

Oscar chose a beautiful spot for their new home, locating it at the north end of their homestead next to an aspen grove and East Allen Creek. The hillsides to the south were covered with Ponderosa pine, while to the north and west they enjoyed a commanding view of the meadow that made up most of their homestead. Beyond, in the distance, one could see all the way to Wyoming

Their first home was an abandoned one-room log cabin located in McKee Draw. Oscar disassembled the cabin, hauled the logs to the homestead, and put it back together. It had originally had a dirt roof, but Oscar replaced that with a wood roof which he shingled.

The Swetts and the other homesteaders altered the landscape to suit their needs by pulling sagebrush from the mountain meadows to create hay fields; by dredging a ditch some fifteen miles long—the Greendale Canal—to bring irrigation water to each of the homesteads; and by turning trees into miles of fence. The local economy was based on cattle. The families ran their herds of cattle on the surrounding National Forest land, using the hay on their homesteads for feed during the winter. In the fall they drove the cattle north to Green River, Wyoming, or south into the Uinta Basin to be sold.

During the first few years Oscar and his young family lived on their homestead only during the summer. Oscar's mother, who also lived up there, taught her new daughter-in-law how to cook the dishes Oscar liked. Daughter Irma described this food, much of it cooked in a small black kettle: "We ate good meals . . . potatoes, gravy and meat, bread and butter, and fruit and vegetables."3 During the winter the Swetts stayed on Oscar's mother's small ranch in Vernal, where Oscar helped his younger brothers with the chores. Those first years were rough as the Swetts labored to improve their homestead. They did not have a lot of money, but there were neighbors and relatives nearby to help. Emma did much of the work, pulling up sagebrush by hand while her young children followed her

3 Interview with Irma Eliza Swett Toone, Vernal, September 15, 1989, p 4 Copies of all the interviews cited herein are available in Special Collections, Merrill Library, USU, and the Flaming Gorge Ranger District office of the U.S Forest Service in Dutch John, Utah Interviews were conducted by the author unless credited otherwise

and made a game out of piling up the sagebrush into stacks for burning. It took them about twenty years to finally clear all the fields on their homestead. Emma also "took care of the milk cow, pigs, chickens and other chores as well as washed clothes, cooked, kept house, canned, gardened, and sewed. The children helped as they became big enough."4 When her husband needed assistance Emma helped, and when he was gone she did his chores. During the summer the fields had to be irrigated, so "even while nursing a baby, she would walk to the far fields to change the water, walk home to feed a baby, then head for the fields again."5 In addition to making their clothes, Emma even repaired her children's shoes with her own cobbler equipment

The Swetts present an interesting case study of self-sufficiency and interdependence with the larger economy. Although they made their own clothing, they bought the cloth in Manila or Vernal. Emma had her own garden and bottled incessantly, both fruit and meat, putting up somewhere between five hundred and a thousand quart

5 Ibid

Emma and Oscar Swett and their nine children at a 1944 reunion. A family photograph in the Ashley National Forest files.

4 Phil Johnson, "A Brief History of the Oscar Swett Homestead: Daggett County, Utah" (Forest Service study, November 1971, Swett Ranch file, Flaming Gorge Ranger District, Dutch John), p 7

bottles a year Whenever Oscar found a piece of metal along the road he took it home and added it to a collection of odds and ends in the field around his blacksmith shop. This enabled him to repair the farm implements they used. In the early years, before they owned an automobile, they made a trip by wagon down to Vernal in the spring and in the fall in order to stock up on supplies and foodstuffs. While in town they visited relatives, picked fruit to take back, and went to the rodeo if itwas that time of the year.

They bought supplies in bulk. Oscar made a separate trip to buy flour, since he bought it by the ton. Idabell remembered that

Mother used to get 100 or 200 pounds of sugar and a five-gallon can of honey and she canned all of her fruit And Dad used to think nothing of getting forty bushels of apples for fall And besides, Mother would can peaches and pears and whatever she could get before it got cold and they couldn't go to town. So we had plenty of fruit. She would pick wild berries, wild chokecherries, and elderberries and serviceberries and makejams and jellies out of them.6

Homestead life was not all work The Swett children recalled with fondness the festivities that the Greendale families engaged in with each other, creating a community social life. On holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Greendale families gathered together to celebrate Occasionally they held dances in the one-room Greendale schoolhouse, accompanied by music from Sanford Green's hand-cranked phonograph. The Swetts visited neighbors in their horse-drawn sleigh during the winter and stayed late into the night; the adults talked while the children played.

For several years Oscar, Emma, and three children lived in the cramped quarters of their single-room cabin. All five slept together in the only bed—a large box in the corner filled with straw and covered with blankets. When another daughter, Myrle Augusta, was born in the spring of 1919, Oscar, with the help of relatives and neighbors, built a two-room log cabin to provide more room for his growing family. Yet even in this larger cabin privacy was difficult to come by.As one daughter recalled, "we hardly knew what privacywas until we got older."7

In 1921 Oscar bought a steam-powered sawmill. When an elderly man from Manila came to show Oscar how to run it, the boiler exploded, killing the man. Daughter Irma, who was about four years

6 Interview with Idabell Swett Robinson, Lander, Wyoming, December 21, 1989, p. 24.

7 Irma Eliza Swett Toone interview, p 6

old, said that the earliest memory she has is of the man's dead body lying "on Mom and Dad's bed."8 Though disturbed by the death, Oscar did not abandon his hope of finding supplemental income for his family. The next spring he took two wagons to Price, Utah, purchased a water wheel, and carried it back to Greendale. He located this new water-powered sawmill north of his home, toward the Green River. During the spring runoff, before anyone needed irrigation water, he diverted the Greendale Canal down to power his sawmill.

The logs for cutting came from trees tagged by the Forest Service ranger on the surrounding National Forest Oscar and his sons cut and stockpiled the logs during the winter when they had the extra time and the logs were easy to drag over the snow. After sawing the logs in the spring, Oscar made several trips a year to Vernal with a wagonload of lumber. Besides selling the lumber, he used it to build more buildings on his homestead, such as a spring house, blacksmith shop, stable, and sheds. In 1929 he hired a carpenter to help him build a five-room lumber house for his family The new home included a kitchen, a living room, and three bedrooms. The older cabins continued in use as bedrooms and storerooms.

Oscar and the other homesteaders also took logs from the National Forest to make fences. Eventually, "approximately seven miles of pole fence . . . enclosed and divided" the Swett homestead.9 Over the years the poles rotted away, and during the lifetime of the homestead some of the fences had to be replaced up to three times. Lewis Swett remembered the excitement of collecting logs for the fences:

That was quite an experience. You go up this mountain [south of the homestead] and get you a load of logs on there and start off and there was no stop 'til you hit the bottom. Just as hard as the team would run. There was places where it would slack a little. But you could never stop. I used to load as high as a hundred of these fence logs on a single team and come down off there. We always tried to get it so we wouldn't run too awful far—maybe a mile—but when those roads got slick, there was no chance of a team ever stopping; all was they could do to outrun them.10

To protect the driver from the cold, the wagon had a sheepskin on the front seat The best covering, though, "if you were going to log all winter was a deerskin," because the deerskin would not absorb

8 Ibid., p 2

9 Johnson, "A Brief History of the Oscar Swett Homestead," p 6

10 Interview with Lewis Lyman Swett (conducted by Phil Johnson), Greendale, Utah, June 14, 1971.

Chicken coops, pigpen, stable, and attached workshop.

Meat house with older spring house behind it.

Above: old blacksmith shop, wood saw, and garage; inset: root cellarfor food storage near the main house.

moisture. "But a sheepskin is nice . . . if it's dry weather . . . anything to keep you off them cold, frozen logs."11

The homesteaders in Greendale were fortunate to get free logs for their fences, since they could barely stay afloat economically Nationwide the agricultural sector suffered a depression throughout the 1920s brought on by low farm prices Many farmers failed to pay their taxes and even lost their farms to foreclosures The county record is filled with Greendale settlers who had difficulty paying their property taxes. Though these homesteading families could subsist on what they raised and grew on their land, actual money was hard to come by.

On December 30, 1922, Oscar failed to pay his property taxes for the fifth year in a row, so Daggett County impounded his land. The tax bill was $41.63. The law allowed Oscar several more years to pay his bill, plus interest, and thus get his land released. During that time he could live on the land and earn a livelihood from it. A little less than a year later, on November 27, 1923, he paid his taxes and his land was released. This was not the last time that Oscar failed to pay his taxes. Coming up with cash continued to be a problem for the next decade as he struggled to increase his economic resources.

The Swetts' isolation from the world outside Greendale was severe by the standards of today's mobile society. The family saw a newspaper only "five or six times during a year." But Emma read to her children a lot. "She used to, in the wintertime, sit by the stove and read, and the rest of us would sit there and listen to her," a daughter recalled.12 They borrowed books from neighbors and from friends and relatives in Vernal.

The isolation of Greendale began to lessen in 1926 when a road was constructed from Manila to Vernal, passing near the Swett homestead At first the road was ungraded and rough, closed during the winter; and "in spring or after a storm, you took your chances on getting mired down in McKee Draw."13 By the mid-1930s, when the road was graded and trucks could make it to Greendale to pick up livestock, the cattle drives of earlier years had disappeared.

Even with the road, the journey to Vernal still took a long time because of the distance. Since the nearest towns, Linwood and

11 ibid

12 Irma Eliza Swett Toone interview, p. 6.

13

Dick and Vivian Dunham, Flaming Gorge Country: The Story ofDaggettCounty, Utah (1947; 2d ed., Denver: Eastwood Printing and Publishing Co., 1977), p. 321. The 1947 first edition was titled Our Strip of Land.

Manila, had no more than a few stores, the Sears catalog and other such catalogs were "everything" to the family. The Swetts could look at the "beautiful clothing" pictured in them and order goods not found in Manila or Vernal.14 These catalogs provided a tangible and constant link to the nation and its culture. In the early years Emma had used flour sacks to make clothes for her children. Later, when Oscar went to town, he would buy a bolt of cloth. Using a treadlepowered sewing machine Emma made the clothes from that single bolt, which meant that all the children wore the same color of clothing. As the thirties began the nation's economy foundered. This economic turmoil affected the Swetts relatively little compared to others in the country. Yet the Great Depression intruded even in their isolated location, affecting the family cattle business. Idabell remembered that during the depression

The government come in and told my dad he had to get rid of so many cattle So he went out and picked out so many head from his herd, his ranch cattle, and then he came to the house and got one of our old milk cows that we milked [and] that we used to ride to the pasture and ride back from the pasture She wasjust a good old cow to milk and she gave a lot of milk and he had to take her. . . . what I remember about the Depression is that old cow. 15

Another federal government move also affected the homesteaders. On February 18, 1933, the area north of the Green River was added to the Ashley National Forest, further enclosing Greendale. The settlement's few homesteads became islands of private land in a vast sea of national forest. And like islanders, the Swetts and their neighbors continued to take much from the surrounding "sea." Nevertheless, the 1930s saw the decline of Greendale. The original homesteaders had already started to move away during the twenties, discouraged by the economics of ranching and the harsh isolation, and that trend accelerated New people moved in, but more often than not they left after a few years

The Swetts had always been poor, especially compared to the people in Vernal, where many of their relatives lived. But compared to their Greendale neighbors, the Swetts were relatively prosperous. The Swett children have varied memories regarding their poverty. When asked, "Did you ever feel your family was poor?" one daughter answered, "No, we had all the food we wanted to eat and all the

14 Interview with Merne Swett Moore, Randlett, Utah, September 17, 1989, p 12

1' Idabell Swett Robinson interview, p 2

clothes we wanted to wear, so what else is there to worry about."16 Most of the other children felt their poverty more keenly, especially after they left home to attend high school in town, where they could compare themselves to children from more affluent families

The youngest child, Wilda, retained a vivid memory of the coming of World War II:

We was sitting around the dinner table and we had just eaten and had just cleaned up. We had the kerosene lamp sitting on the table, which is what we used for lighting And my Dad loved to make puppets, shadow puppets, and he was making shadow puppets for me. I can remember sitting on the wood box watching the shadow puppets The school teacher that was teaching [at the local Greendale school] at that time burst in through the door with the news of Pearl Harbor, because she had a radio We had one, but we didn't use it often And I can remember being so disappointed because my Dad got interested into talking to her about something that I didn't know anything about and here I am sitting on the wood box wanting him to come back and play linger puppets with me. 17

The Swett family, apprehensive about the war, prospered in the economic recovery that it created The government needed cattle to feed its troops, and consequently cattle prices went up The family's acquisition in early 1942 of a Dodge pickup truck is the most potent physical symbol representing the Swett's newfound prosperity Without telling his family of his intention, Oscar went into town with a friend and drove back in the pickup. Two decades earlier Oscar and Emma could not have even dreamed of making such a purchase, especially with cash.

The purchase of this pickup truck did not signal a major change in ranching operations, however; the Dodge was the only motorized vehicle on the homestead. Oscar still used a team of horses to work his land and continued to do so up until his death in 1968. He told a forest ranger that "he couldn't afford to" convert to motorized equipment "and still operate."18

The 1950s ushered in another period of considerable change for the family. The children, now adults, moved away, though the youngest son, Lewis, stayed on to help his father and planned to assume running the homestead when Oscar retired. Then, of even greater impact, on April 11, 1956, Congress authorized the construction of Flaming

"' Merne Swett Moore interview, p. 19.

" Interview with Wilda Beverly Swett Irish (conducted by Scott Christensen), Moab, Utah, August 13, 1989, p. 4.

18 Johnson, "A Brief History of the Oscar Swett Homestead," p 5

Gorge Dam, a section of the Colorado River Storage Project Part of the continuing reclamation movement in the American West, the dam and its reservoir were designed to provide electricity generation and water storage. Though reclamation had been controversial due to political and environmental conflicts, members of Utah's congressional delegation, such as Sen. Arthur V.Watkins, strongly supported reclamation. The effects of what had been a distant controversy now started to be felt directly in Greendale.

In 1957 hard-topped roads began to snake through Daggett County, following the contours of the rugged mountains. The road going past Greendale was paved. Across the Green River, in Dutch John meadow, construction workers built a small town to house themselves This meadow had been one of the places that Oscar Swett used to winter his cattle—a privilege now denied him. After the dam's completion Dutch John became the headquarters of the Flaming Gorge Ranger District of Ashley National Forest. Federal government land use policies defined the options the Swetts lived under; the family was greatly affected by the creation of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area surrounding the new lake.

Lumber wagon, road graders, bobsled, and parts ofseveral hay wagons.

Now that the forest had become an outdoor playground, the Swetts were cut off from a source of their livelihood, and the way of life they yearned for disappeared. When public campgrounds were built near Greendale, mostly around prominent springs, the Swetts could no longer water their cattle at the springs. The loss of such public resources created many problems for them. Rather than wintering his cattle on the National Forest land, Oscar now had to bring them in early and feed them hay grown the previous summer Moreover, his grazing permit was steadily reduced until he was allowed to have only 33 cattle on the National Forest

Cattle ranching was no longer economically viable, even on the small scale that Oscar and his son Lewis practiced. The family did own a small flock of about 150 sheep, from which they sold the lambs and wool. Since they kept the sheep entirely on the homestead they did not need a Forest Service permit for them. In essence, the creation of the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area took away the economic livelihood of the few and expanded the recreational opportunities of untold thousands.

The isolation of Greendale was gone On November 29, 1957, Orson Burton, the Swetts' neighbor and business partner for over three decades, sold his share of the cattle business to Oscar, increasing the Swetts' ranch to 397 acres. Oscar and Emma were now the only original settlers left in Greendale.

These were the twilight years for Oscar and Emma. All their old friends were gone, and their children were grown and raising their own families elsewhere, with the exception of Lewis, who still lived nearby. Oscar and Emma were quiet people. Wilda recalled that

in the summer . . . our days were real full because you worked pretty long days. After dinner was over, we would go out on the big porch . . . and just rest, talk a little. People would probably be terribly bored to do what we did, because we just sat there Somebody would make a comment here or somebody say something there But a lot of the time it was very quiet, we were alljust sitting there enjoying the evening, not really talking at all. But over the years it seemed like a lot; my Dad taught us about the stars, and the Milky Way. And I learned a lot about the weather from him, because he would tell us there was a rain storm coming "Oh," we would say, "we don't believe that," but we picked up a lot of pointers about weather, because he was observing it all the time And then pretty soon Dad would get up and pull his pocket watch out and he'd say "Well, the old Waterbury says it's time to go to bed," then he would wind it and everybody went to bed.19

19 Wilda Beverly Swett Irish interview, p. 8.

Several of Oscar and Emma's nephews liked to visit the homestead. They stayed in the log cabins and helped with haying and other chores. Because the ranch was a labor-intensive operation, their help was especially welcome. Capable handymen, they also painted the five-room house white, the first coat of paint ever to cover its lumber walls. During the mid-fifties, one of the nephews who "spent a lot of time up there" persuaded Oscar to install a pipeline to bring running water to the house. So Oscar told them, "to get the pipe and they put it in."20 They failed to bury the pipe deep enough, however, which forced Oscar and Emma to leave the water running during the winter so that the pipe would not freeze. Emma no longer hauled water from the spring but had it running from a tap into her sink. Because the Swett homestead is the only one in the area whose water source, a natural spring, isat a higher elevation than the house, constructing a water system for it was much easier. The Swetts were the first in Greendale to have running water and indoor plumbing.

With running water at last, the family added on a bathroom in the late fifties. Wilda remembered that

Dad decided not to move the bathroom into the house. That was not right, he said; you're not supposed to have a bathroom in the house. He finally conceded to let them build the bathroom, but he wouldn't let them open the door into the house. You had to go out on the porch and then go into it, but at least it was nicer for Mother They had to put a little electric heater in [there] to keep it from freezing.21

On January 27, 1960, electricity from the Moon Lake Electric Company, a benefit of the Flaming Gorge Dam, began to flow, replacing the Delco generator the Swetts had used since 1953 to provide lighting at night. With a steady supply of electricity available, the family soon purchased some electrical appliances such as a refrigerator, a black-and-white television, and an electric clothes washer. The Swetts' decision to adopt modern technology was made on a rational and economical basis not on the whims of fashion or newness. These appliances eased Emma's household duties in her old age. Oscar did not enjoy television, but Emma liked it, probably because it helped fill the loneliness of those later years. The house once crowded with children was quiet. To have her children far away was hard on Emma. Her youngest daughter, Wilda, recalled that her mother

20 Irma Eliza Swett Toone interview, p. 15.

21 Wilda Beverly Swett Irish interview, p 34

always hugged you when you come home, and she would hug you goodbye. . . .When we would go visit after I was married and [had] all these little kids. . . .We would always eat a meal just before we left, be it breakfast or lunch And she would say: "Leave the dishes and go." And I always felt guilty to get up and leave this mess for her to clean up And one time I said "Oh, Mom, I can't do that, let me get the dishes done up and then we'll go." She said, "No, let me do the dishes then I won't miss you so much while you are driving away." . . . That [was] her way. Get to work, it's the answer to every problem. And so she would clean up the mess; that was her way of getting out of saying good-bye to us. 22

Oscar accepted the inevitability of change and tried to cope with it, though it was hard for him to see his livelihood whittled away. Lewis had wanted to take over the homestead from his father and run it, but now the grazing permit was too small He looked for another place that he might buy for himself but "never could find the kind of place I could make it on. I couldn't find a place that I could even make interest on the money."23

Oscar decided to sell the homestead and find another small ranch, possibly in Vernal, where he could work a little in his retirement. In those final days in Greendale, it does not stretch the imagination to see the homestead as Oscar and Emma saw it. Standing on the porch of the house they had built with the help of family and friends, Oscar and Emma would have looked over a familiar vista. Around their trio of houses stood other farm buildings, all built by hand Two hundred acres of grassland stretched away toward the north, the result of their labors. A few haystacks and small sheds dotted the fields among the distant dark spots of cattle. They had come to a land little touched by settlement, carved out a life for themselves, and raised a large family. Oscar Swett had lived his dream of being a rancher

Oscar died on September 23, 1968, having worked on his homestead up until the very day he died. That evening he went to bed early, but his wife soon roused him since a porcupine was chewing on their porch post Oscar shot the porcupine The sound of the shot brought Lewis running from his nearby house. Oscar explained "Well, there's a porcupine trying to eat my house up and I couldn't stand for that, so I shot him." His daughter, Mary, said of his death: Well, he sat there and talked for a few minutes to Lewis, and Lewis said, "I guess I better get home and get to bed." Dad said, "Yeah, I think I

22 Ibid, p. 22.

23 Interview with Lewis Lyman Swett, Vernal, Utah, May 19, 1990, p 6

better go to bed too." And he went in and got in bed, and mother followed him in there just after Lewis had left. And she started getting undressed, and she said he made a funny noise And she said "Turn over, Dad, you're choking." And he was dead. That's an easy way to go after a hard life.24

Two years later, having sold their homestead, Emma moved to a small house in Vernal. She cared for herself, and nearby children kept an eye on her. She did not like city life and "was homesick for the ranch where she had given so much of her life."25 She passed away in May 1971 on the same night that a couple of her grandchildren graduated from Vernal High School.

Because the homestead lacked indoor running water and electricity during most of its existence and used horse power instead of tractors, many people might characterize it as a mere anachronism. Yet the members of the Swett family were like their neighbors when it came to adopting new technology. They lived on the frontier and

The Swett homestead in itsforest setting.

24 Interview with Mary Elizabeth Swett Arrowsmith, Vernal, Utah, September 23, 1989, p 28

25 Johnson, "A Brief History of the Oscar Swett Homestead," p 7

The Swett Homestead147

were self-sufficient in many ways, yet they were close enough to outside society to receive its benefits, such as manufactured products and an education for their children. Their isolation served as both a barrier and a buffer. They were shielded from many of the disadvantages of urban or suburban society but could take what they wanted from the products of an industrialized society.

Too much emphasis can be placed on the Swetts' self-sufficiency. For instance, they depended on selling their cattle every year to eastern markets. Combined with the sawmill, the cattle business was their only source of hard cash. Another example of this partial dependence on the outside world was in the area of clothing The family bought some clothes through the Sears catalog, but most were made at home from cloth purchased in town. Producing their own cloth would have been too time-consuming.

The children grew up under circumstances that have all but disappeared in the United States today, and most of them view their childhood with fondness. Lewis said, "it was a nice place to live at that time. . . . You have to grow up on your own two feet there. You don't depend on the other person giving it to you."26 This is an attitude his parents would have agreed with. The oldest daughter, Mary, felt that Oscar and Emma "were happy people" and that Oscar "enjoyed every bit" of his life She also thought that "if the kids [today] had to do the things I did when I . . .was their age, they would just drop dead. They wouldn't know how to do it."27 And finally, the youngest daughter saw a fundamental difference in the attitude towards entertainment: "We really didn't have what you would call entertainment. Our entertainment was what we were doing, and you didn't miss it; you enjoyed what you were doing, so you didn't think you needed to be entertained.28

The Swetts lived through an enormous amount of change, especially as this country urbanized and the small subsistence farmer or rancher became an endangered species. Everything the Swetts did as homesteaders and small-scale ranchers was connected to the natural environment and ecology around them When their environment changed with the construction of Flaming Gorge Dam, it wrecked their subsistence economy. The Swetts did not live their lives as hermits; though on the fringe, they were part of growing nation

26 Lewis Lyman Swett interview, p 52

27 Mary Elizabeth Swett Arrowsmith interview, pp 21-22

28 Wilda Beverly Swett Irish interview, p 11

In 1972 the U.S. Forest Service purchased the ranch and developed the site into a museum. The Swett Homestead provides an opportunity for tourists to leave their urban warrens and see how their forebears lived. Visitors can gain some insight into the enormous technological changes—and the resource decisions that facilitated those changes—that have altered the American landscape and the American milieu so much in the last century. The Swetts are representative of the caliber of people who homesteaded on fringe agricultural lands in Utah in the early part of this century, and, because of that, the record of their experiences is valuable. Through them, we see the lives of a family that was not influential in any traditional way.

Garland Hurt, the American Friend of the Utahs

BY DAVID L. BIGLER

Xo THE UTAH TRIBE HE WAS KNOWN AS "the American," a name that set him apart in native minds from the early Mormon settlers of Utah Territory. And he was probably the only person, at that time or since, to challenge Brigham Young's often repeated dictum that it was cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them. He was Garland Hurt of Virginia, a committed Jacksonian Democrat, self-taught

Garland Hurt, 1874. Courtesy of the St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society.

Mr Bigler, Sandy, Utah, a retired U.S Steel executive, has served as an officer of a number of historical organizations, including the Lincoln Highway Association, Oregon-California Trails Association, and Utah Westerners

physician, and devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) who came to Utah in 1855 at age thirty-five to serve as U.S. Indian agent. Over the next five years he would become not only a trusted friend of the Utah tribe but also one of the most controversial figures in the territory's early days. His story points up the importance of Indian relations during the first decade of Utah's history and throws needed light on the causes of conflict between Mormon leaders and federal authorities during this period

The year after he arrived, Hurt charged that Young's feeding or fighting policy had made the Indians "clamorous and insolent" and "imposed upon the people of the Territory a most oppressive burden."1 And in forwarding to Washington the claims of Utah settlers for losses suffered during the Walker Indian War of 1853 he was even more outspoken:

If half the amount that is here presented had been appropriated and used in a proper manner for the civilization of the Indians during the last three years, the whole of this same Utah tribe, and all others in the vicinity of these settlements might, by this time, [have] been happily located and in the enjoyment of many, if not all, the comforts of civilized life, and that, too, without the complaint of a single individual in the Territory for losses."2

Born on December 27, 1819, Garland Hurt was reared on a frontier farm in the Old Dominion's Russell County, the fourth of ten children born to William D Hurt, a War of 1812 veteran, and his wife, Elizabeth Crabtree.3 At age nineteen he began his formal education at Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia, a four-year liberal arts institution founded in 1836 by the Holston Conference of the Methodist Church, where he studied from 1838 to 1841.4 There he met John Milton Elliott whose influence would later win his appointment as Indian agent in Utah.

Meanwhile, Hurt taught school at nearby Tazewell in southwest Virginia and studied medicine as an apprentice of one Dr Henry F

1 Hurt to J M Elliott, October 4, 1856, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-81, Utah Superintendency, National Archives, reels 897-898, referred to hereinafter as OIA, Utah Superintendency. Microfilm copies of this correspondence are located in the Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City

2 Hurt to Manypenny, November 20, 1856, U.S., Congress, House Exec Doc 71, The Utah Expedition, 35th Cong., 1st sess., 1858, p 183

3 Mary Louisa Rice, "Biographical Sketches and Records of the Families: Leslie, Hurt and Rice or Mother's Scrap Book," 1926 This manuscript, owned by Mary Grace Rice Garland of Paintsville, Kentucky, was located and copied in 1992 for the Utah State Historical Society by Robert Castle of Auxier, Kentucky

4 Catalogueof the Officers and Students ofEmory & Henry College (Washington County, Va., 1840), copy in Kelly Library, Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.

Peery.5 In 1845 Hurt joined Elliott in eastern Kentucky, where his school friend practiced law, and offered his services as a physician

As the only doctor in the place he successfully amputated a man's gangrenous foot, without ever having seen the procedure, using a honed butcher's knife and small carpenter's saw. He later considered the operation one of his life's most important achievements

Besides medicine, Hurt was also interested in politics. In 1851 he won the seat in the Kentucky legislature formerly held by Elliott, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. An astute politician, Elliott soon became chairman of the powerful Committee on Public Expenditures. In September 1854 he delivered personally to Hurt a commission from President Franklin Pierce, also a Democrat, to serve as U.S Indian agent in Utah Territory Characteristically, the Virginian vowed "to reach the field of my official duties before winter sets in."6

Hurt underestimated the distance and the weather. Before this he had probably never ventured more than 300 miles from his birthplace on the west slope of the Appalachian Mountains He now began an overland journey of more than 1,500 miles at the end of the emigration season when travelers would be few. Reaching the head of the Oregon Trail at Independence on November 15, he wrote to the territorial governor and ex-officio superintendent of Indian Affairs, Brigham Young, that he had been held up by weather, but would come as early as possible in the spring.7 He did better than that

At 10 P.M. on Monday, February 5, the agent reached Great Salt Lake City with four "hardy mountaineers"8 who carried the first mail of 1855 from the East It included news that caused a "good deal of excitement through the city."9 President Pierce had named Lt. Col. EdwardJ. Steptoe, commander of a force then wintering in Utah, to replace Young as governor. Steptoe had been ordered to investigate the 1853 massacre of his 1837 West Point classmate, Capt John W Gunnison, and seven others by Pahvant Indians on the Sevier River,

5 See Logan Uriah Reavis, Saint Louis: The Future Great City of the World (St Louis, 1875), pp 781-89, copy in Missouri Historical Society, St Louis, referred to hereinafter as Reavis, "Hurt biography."

6 Hurt to Mix, September 7, 1854, OIA, Utah Superintendency

7 Hurt to Young, December 1, 1854, Brigham Young Papers, MS 1234, reel 93, folder 12, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, referred to hereinafter as Brigham Young Papers.

8 Reavis, "Hurt biography," p. 783.

9 Scott G Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruffs Journal (Midvale, Ut.: Signature Press, 1983), vol 4, February 6, 1855, p 304

near present Deseret, and bring the guilty natives to justice.10 Nor was this the only news that could affect Hurt's new assignment.

Less than a week before the agent's arrival, Wacca or Wakara, widely known as "Walker," chief of a roving band of Utahs called the Cheveriches, had died suddenly of "consumption" at his camp near Fillmore. The charismatic chief's death followed six years of intermittent conflict between Mormon settlers and the native people who inhabited the Utah and Sanpete valleys and the Uinta Basin. Both sides had perpetrated atrocities: cruel ambushes by one and outright executions, sometimes billed as "skirmishes," by the other.

For centuries the Utahs had lived in scattered bands close to Utah Lake, then one of the most productive fisheries in western America, whose waters yielded an abundance of cutthroat trout, suckers, chub, and whitefish.11 The earliest European explorers in 1776 had marveled as they watched natives catch fish in thousands by hand. The stable food supply had enabled the tribe to employ horses, acquired from the Spanish, for purposes other than simply eating them. The Utahs used their new technology to become the haughty overlords of the Great Basin and to oppress lesser tribes.

Before Brigham Young's followers reached Salt Lake Valley, mountain man James Bridger had warned them that the "Utah tribe of Indians are a bad people; if they catch a man alone they are sure to rob and abuse him, if they don't kill him."12 Hurt himself, no romantic when it came to his native charges, would say there was "not a braver tribe to be found among the aborigines of America than the Utahs, none warmer in their attachments, less relenting in their hatred, or more capable of treachery."13

Especially abhorrent to the white newcomers had been Walker's custom of raiding lesser Great Basin tribes to steal their children and trade them to Spanish slavers from Taos and Santa Fe for horses

The destructive practice had driven desert bands along the Virgin River and its tributaries into decline and potential extinction

10 Steptoe would decline the appointment as governor of Utah Territory, but not before he became convinced that the Mormons had been tampering with the Indians against the interests of the United States For more on this episode see David H Miller, "The Impact of the Gunnison Massacre on Mormon-Federal Relations: Colonel Edward Jenner Steptoe's Command in Utah Territory, 1854-55" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1968)

11 For more on this important but neglected subject see Joel C Janetski, "Utah Lake: Its Role in the Prehistory of Utah Valley," Utah Historical Quarterly 58 (1990): 4-31 Also see D Robert Carter, "A History of Commercial Fishing on Utah Lake" (Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1969)

12 Journal History of the Church, June 28, 1847, LDS Church Archives

13 Capt J H Simpson, ReportofExplorations across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah (reprint ed., Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1983), Appendix O, pp 459-64

Though baptized by the Mormons in 1850, Walker had been infuriated when Young put a stop to the slave trade in Indian children. But the Mormon leader's action had won the friendship of oppressed tribes, mainly the Piedes, in southern Utah.

Meanwhile, no sooner had Hurt arrived in Utah than he was called to placate the Pahvants at Corn Creek near Fillmore after their chief, Kanosh, had been forced to turn over six of his followers for killing Gunnison and his party.14 Nor was this the only problem Hurt faced that spring. Bloodied by the Mormon militia, threatened by more advanced fishing methods,15 and increasingly displaced from the lands around their Utah Lake food source, the once-dominant Utahs were growing desperate and ready to go to war against Mormon newcomers.

Hurt's first move was to call on Brigham Young for an "outfit and funds" to visit the tribes. He found the governor anxious for him to go but with no money on hand "to defray the expenses of the Agency."16 Forced to negotiate a loan, the dedicated agent issued a draft for $1,500 against the credit of the Office of Indian Affairs and, as he needed money, continued this practice. In the absence of administrative oversight by the governor to control agency expenditures, however, it would bring him to the edge of financial ruin.

With these funds the Virginian provided presents for Pahvant Chief Kanosh in exchange for the surrender of tribe members accused of the Gunnison massacre, and he attended the trial in March at Nephi.17 There he also acted as a physician in treating a "violent epidemic"18 among the tribe, which had moved to the outskirts of the settlement to follow the court proceedings. The agent reported that several natives had died of the disease, including Chief Walker himself some weeks before.

14 Pahvant Chief Kanosh said he "threw them away." Initially he agreed to surrender seven from his tribe, one for each of the slain Gunnison party, minus one for the native killed in 1853 by an immigrant party en route to California Six Indians were finally turned over, including a woman and two old men, one blind See Miller, "The Impact of the Gunnison Massacre on Mormon-Federal Relations."

15 Mormon Indian agent George W Armstrong in 1855 reported, "the chiefs complained to me that they could not catch their usual supply of fish, in consequence of some of the citizens using sein[e]s and nets to their disadvantage." To pacify the natives he requested one of the Mormon "fishing companies" to catch a supply offish for them, which it did See Armstrong to Young, June 30, 1855, in U.S., Congress, Senate Doc 1, 34th Cong., 1st sess., 1855, 521-28

16 Hurt to Mix, February 25, 1855, OIA, Utah Superintendency

17 The trial was a farce An all-Mormon jury under Nephi Bishop Jacob G Bigler, foreman, ignored Judge John F Kinney's orders and found three guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter Sent to the territorial penitentiary at Salt Lake, they walked away and went back to Corn Creek as soon as the soldiers had gone.

18 Hurt to Manypenny, April 2, 1855, OIA, Utah Superintendency

Hurt had found the Indians of the territory "exceedingly destitute and turned upon the white settlers to beg for their subsistence,"19 despite earlier Mormon efforts to establish Indian farms. Convinced these conditions would lead to future conflict, he named William Maxwell in Utah County,Jeremiah Hatch at Nephi, and John Ray at Fillmore to furnish tools and teach the Indians how to farm. For their services Hurt pledged a "reasonable compensation" and only afterward asked the head of Indian Affairs if he would fund this promise.20

Fortunately, Commissioner George W. Manypenny did approve, providing the Indians would not be encouraged to think "they will be fed & clothed and cared for" without working for these benefits. Payment to farmers would be sanctioned, he said, so long as they performed valuable work and were not permanently employed Too often, he said, "employees have rendered little service to the Indians or government, in comparison with the salaries allowed them."21

As he began these projects Hurt found his work directly affected by a development among the millennial-minded settlers of Utah that wasunlike anything known to the Indian service of his day. On April 7, two months after the agent's arrival, the man he reported to as superintendent of Indian Affairs observed the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the territory's dominant faith by making a significant announcement: "Prest. Young said the day has come to turn the key of the Gospel against the Gentiles, and open it to the remnants of Israel," reported one; "the people shouted, Amen, and the feeling was such that most present could realize, but few describe."22 It meant the time had come for the "remnant of Jacob," believed by Mormons to be the American Indians, to hear the gospel of their fathers and return as foretold by the Old Testament prophets to build up Zion before Christ came again.23

19 Hurt to Young, March 1855, OIA, Utah Superintendency

20 Hurt to Manypenny, April 2, 1855, OIA, Utah Superintendency

21 Manypenny to Hurt, June 20, 1855, Indian Office Letterbook, Records of the Office of Indian Affairs, Letters Sent, 52:189, National Archives, microfilm copies in University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City, referred to hereinafter as Indian Office Letterbook

22 Juanita Brooks, ed.,Journal of the Southern Indian Mission (Logan: Utah State University Press 1972), April 21, 1855

23 There was a dark side to this doctrine: When the Lord gathered His people for the last time the "remnant ofJacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces" (Micah 5:7-15). Also see Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 20:15-17, and Parley P. Pratt, The Essential Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), p 23 One early patriarchal blessing included the line: "And when the remnants of Jacob go through the Gentiles like a lion among the beasts of the forest, as the Prophets have spoken, thou shall be in their midst and shall be a captain of hundreds " See Journal ofJohn Borrowman, microfilm copy of typescript, Utah State Historical Society Library

To gather the natives, known as Lamanites, some 160 missionaries were named at the April 1855 General Conference of the church in Salt Lake City—the first of many who would be sent to the Crows, Cherokees, Moquis, Shoshonis, Piedes, Gosiutes, Navahos, Bannocks, Utahs, Paiutes, Nez Perces, and other North American tribes. This important millennial prelude followed the work of some two dozen Mormon missionaries who had gone the year before to the destitute tribes in southwestern Utah. There they had protected the desert natives from their predatory kinsmen to the north, taught them to farm, and baptized them by the hundreds. For those called to take up the hard life of an Indian missionary, Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt held out the hope of a shining reward: When the time came to gather the remnant of Israel, it had been promised, "then the Lord should appear unto them." So they should "not be faint-hearted when they go hungry and thirsty," he said, for the time was not far distant when "the face of the Lord will be unveiled."24 Lorenzo Brown, soon to be called on a mission to the Indians at Las Vegas Springs, summed it all up: "The Gentiles have rejected the truth 8c lo we turn to Israel."25

At this, the Methodist agent was not favorably impressed Before leaving to visit tribes in the south he fired off a confidential report to the commissioner of Indian Affairs Portraying the missionaries as "a class of rude and lawless young men," he warned, "there is perhaps not a tribe on the continent that will not be visited by one or more of them."26 His description suggested that some Mormon bishops may have taken advantage of an opportunity to rid their flocks of unwanted elements.

More serious was Hurt's opinion that the Mormons had created among the natives a distinction between themselves and "the people of the United States, that cannot act otherwise than prejudicial to the interests of the latter." He urged the commissioner to alert agencies across the country to keep the missionaries under close scrutiny and ensure that federal laws "to preserve peace on the frontiers" would "be properly enforced."27 His alert touched off a spate of

24 Deseret Neivs, May 16, 1855

25 Journal of Lorenzo Brown, Vol 1, 1823-62, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, entry dated April 8, 1855.

2fi Hurt to Manypenny, May 2, 1855, Exec Doc 71, The UtahExpedition, pp 176-77

27 Ibid.

reports over the next few years, alleging Mormon tampering with the Indians.28

Meanwhile, the dirty palls of smoke that draped the western slopes of the Wasatch Mountains in 1855 testified that at least one tribe had little love for the religionists who had taken over its land and fishing grounds. "Almost all of our kanyons, north and south, have been burned," Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball reported, "some by the Indians, and some by the carelessness of the whites."29 And a settler at Nephi that summer said, "a destructive fire in our pinerry has been burning for several days."According to the Indian arsonists, he reported, "the Mormons cut their timber &use it 8c pay them nothing for it, 8c they prefer burning it up."30

As Hurt set out to help the angry Utahs, he moved at the same time to improve understanding between the Mormons and the national government Invited to speak duringJuly Fourth observances at Salt Lake City, he began by extolling the American Constitution, sure to please his Mormon audience.31 He also allowed that he was not surprised at "the delicate relations that exist between the United States and the little colony of Utah," given the persecution his listeners had suffered. And he was "ready and willing," he pledged, to "consecrate his life and his feeble energies for the conciliation of your rights."32

Hurt also tried at first to establish good relations with Brigham Young. Soon after his Independence Day speech he acknowledged Young's "general supervisory role over conduct of his agents" and pledged to cooperate "in all your efforts to advance the interests of the Territory."33 Two months later, on returning from a trip to Gravelly Ford on the California Trail,34 he seemed genuinely touched by

28 For some examples see ibid., pp 124-205; Senate Exec Doc 1, 35th Cong., 2d sess., 1859, pp 335-39; Senate Exec Doc 42, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1860, pp 1-139; House Exec Doc 38, 35th Cong., 1st sess., vol 9, 1857-58, pp 2-13; House Exec Doc 102, 35th Cong., 1st sess., vol 12, 1857-58, pp 1-3; and House Exec Doc 1, Vol II, pt ii, 35th Cong., 2d sess., 1859, p 282

29 Latter-daySaints' Millennial Star, November 17, 1855

50 Diary of Andrew Love, 1852-1875, July 26, 1855, LDS church Archives, photocopy in possession of the author

31 Mormons believed the Constitution, with its guarantee of religious freedom, was divinely inspired to provide a place to establish the kingdom of God, which would eventually supersede its parent and prevail to universal dominion The Constitution was thus revered during this period as a steppingstone to a higher form of theocratic rule, not as an end in itself

32 Remarks by Garland Hurt onjuly 4, 1855, as reported by J V Long and revised by Hurt in his own handwriting, Brigham Young Papers

53 Hurt to Young, July 6, 1855, Brigham Young Papers

34 Emigrants often came under attack near Gravelly Ford where the California Trail crossed the Humboldt River about five miles east of present Beowawe, Nev There Hurt negotiated a simple treaty with the Indians that was never ratified A P Haws, a Mormon, operated a farm on the south bank of the river

a gift from Young of some "very delicious grapes" which "filled my heart with gratitude to the donor."35

The agent further demonstrated an ability, which other federal officials often lacked, to win the friendship and respect of his peers of whatever faith. Reporting on Hurt's visit to the Humboldt River natives, his interpreter C. L. Craig said, "my comrades willjoin me in saying that they never have traveled with a more perfect gentleman than Doctor Hurt whose energy and aim was always for the best."36

The Virginian now set his course between the two extremes of feeding or fighting. He undertook to teach the suffering Utahs how to feed themselves and, in so doing, to win their loyalty for the United States. His first move was to inform Brigham Young of his plan to establish farms for the natives "whose lands the whites have occupied" and "who have placed themselves almost entirely in a state of dependency on the white settlements." Hurt requested Young's views "in regard to this enterprise" and advice as to suitable locations.37

The governor's response was prompt and unqualified Not only did Young "highly approve" the idea, but he also said he was gratified that the agent's views "so strongly coincide with my own upon this subject." He recommended suitable sites for Indian farms in Utah, Sanpete, Juab, Millard, and Iron counties.38 Given Young's hearty approval, the agent moved with a zeal that bordered on recklessness. On November 27, 1855, he and a party of six left Salt Lake City "to select suitable places to establish and locate Indian reservations, with a view to persuade the poor unfortunate Indians to forsake their nomadic [ways] for a civilized life."39

Over the next three weeks Hurt laid out an entire township, 36 square miles, for an Indian farm at Corn Creek, some ten miles south of Fillmore, where he found good soil and enough water "to irrigate 700 or 1,000 acres." In Sanpete County he quadrupled this spread, marking off four full townships, or 144 square miles, from a point about five miles south of Manti to the mouth of the San Pitch River. The site bordering the Sevier River was large enough to encompass Chief Arapene's favorite hunting grounds in the rugged

35 Hurt to Young, September 15, 1855, Brigham Young Papers

36 Deseret News, August 30, 1855; Journal History, August 27, 1855

!' Hurt to Young, November 20, 1855, Brigham Young Papers

38 Young to Hurt, draft in handwriting of Daniel H Wells, November 23, 1855, Brigham Young Papers

39 See report by Lyman S. Wood, Indian interpreter, in Journal History, December 14, 1855.

canyon of Twelvemile Creek and today's towns of Gunnison, Mayfield, Redmond, and Centerfield. More modest at first was the 640acre farm set aside on the west bank of the Spanish Fork River in Utah County, but this was enlarged the following April into a "reservation" covering 12,380 acres. 40

In his fourth quarter report Hurt told Governor Young he intended "to stock these reservations during the ensuing season with such stock and implements ... as may be necessary to carry on a vigorous system of agriculture." Moreover, he said, "I wish through you to have an act passed by Congress confirming these reservations as the future home of these bands." He also asked that farming instruction be extended to the territory's other tribes before they were forced to "starve, or subsist by rapine and murder." To pay for these grandiose plans he called for an appropriation of $75,000 to $100,000, plus an additional $30,000 to cover his commitments to neighboring bands.41

All of this was probably more than Brigham Young had in mind when he first approved the farming scheme, which may explain why it took nearly four months for Hurt's request to reach Washington without the governor's endorsement It may also have been the reason why Young asked the agent in February 1856 to go off on a side trip of more than a thousand miles to visit tribes along the California Trail between Salt Lake City and Carson Valley.42

Meanwhile, as he waited for the weather to break, Hurt took up the study of law, unaware that his ambitious plans were heading into trouble on the fiscal front. On November 14, a month before the agent laid out his farming sites, Commissioner Manypenny had cautioned that "the rate of expenditure indicated by your accounts cannot be sanctioned."43 Even more forcefully, Manypenny on March 19, 1856, called on Hurt to reach an understanding with Governor Young and Mormon subagent George Armstrong on their expenditures. Otherwise, he warned, Hurt's drafts might be rejected in future.44

40

a point about two miles west of Spanish Fork to West Mountain and Utah Lake and taking in today's town of Lake Shore See David A Burr, "Map of a Survey of the Indian Reservation on Spanish Fork Cr., Utah Territory, Showing Its Connection with the U.S Survey of the Territory," National Archives, photographic copy of original in Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University Also see Kate B Carter, ed., Heart Throbs oftheWest, 12vols (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939-51), 1:126-28; and Elisha Warner, The HistoryofSpanish Fork (Spanish Fork: Press Publishing Company, 1930), p 60

41 Hurt to Young, December 31, 1855, OIA, Utah Superintendency, 1856-58

42 Young to Hurt, February 11, 1856, Brigham Young Papers.

43 Manypenny to Hurt, November 14, 1855, Indian Office Letterbook, 53:42.

44 Manypenny to Hurt, March 19, 1856, Indian Office Letterbook, 53:517

The Spanish Fork location eventually became the main farm, reaching from

Hurt saw these letters for the first time after his return from Carson Valley when copies arrived on August 28 with the commissioner's notification, dated July 9, that funds for the Utah agency had run out and his most recent drafts had been rejected.45 The agent's own zeal to help the Utahs, the lack of administrative control, and the unreliable nature of the mail service, mainly during winter, combined to put him in real financial jeopardy. For any unpaid drafts, which represented loans against the Office of Indian Affairs, he alone was responsible.

Faced with disaster, the Virginian mounted a spirited defense In his work, he told the commissioner, he had tried to correct the distinction Indians made "between Mormons and Americans, which was calculated to operate to the prejudice of the interests and policy of government toward them." He had applied through the governor, "for I supposed that the proper channel," for an appropriation to meet the costs of the Indian farms and had been encouraged to go ahead with this venture. Then Young had asked him to visit the natives along the Humboldt, Carson, and Truckee rivers that would require nearly four months and an expenditure of up to $6,000.46 Contrary to Manypenny's earlier charge that he had failed to consult with the governor and Agent Armstrong, Hurt said he had told Young he feared there "would not be funds enough to meet our engagements for farming purposes" if he went to Carson Valley Young's only reply, the agent said, "was that he had no doubt but my drafts would all be paid."47

It measured Hurt's desperation that he now sent two appeals to his friend in Congress, one by the eastern mail and the other four days later by the southern route to California In both missives the agent sharply criticized Mormon doctrines and policies toward the Indians He told John Elliott that Indian lands had been occupied and the game killed off, leaving the natives "to starve or fight." Although a few chiefs had been baptized into the church, he said, they had "about as much knowledge of Christianity as brutes." Admitting he had overrun his receipts by as much as $20,000, he urged the lawmaker to "use your influence to secure an appropriation at the next session of Congress."48

45 Manypenny to Hurt, July 9, 1856, Indian Office Letterbook, 54:454

46 Exec Doc 71, The Utah Expedition, pp 179-81

47 Ibid

48 Hurt to Elliott, October 1, 1856, OIA, Utah Superintendency, 1856-58.

The Kentucky congressman jumped to Hurt's defense. "From long personal acquaintance," he told Commissioner Manypenny, he knew his friend to be "a man of not only fine ability but great prudence." Said the powerful committee chairman: "I will be at your office on Monday in regard to the matter."49 As it turned out, his influence was not needed In September, Manypenny had notified Hurt that a new appropriation had made it possible to cover his drafts. It took six months for his letter to reach the worried agent.

After this incident Hurt dropped any pretense of trying to get along with Brigham Young The agent was outspoken in protesting an incident at Fillmore where the house of Edwin Pugh was stoned because he had invited two members of Hurt's visiting party, Richard James and James White, both Mormons, to stay overnight with him. The rowdies demanded to know, the agent said, what Pugh "was doing with those damned Americans about his house." Furthermore, he told Young, Mormon express riders had falsely warned the local Pahvant natives that "the Americans were coming to tie them."50

Photograph by surveyor David A. Burr of the Indian farmhouse at Spanish Fork. USHS collections.

49 Elliott to Manypenny, December 20, 1856, OIA, Utah Superintendency An ardent southerner, Elliott in 1859 gave up his seat in Congress to organize Confederate support in eastern Kentucky and to serve in the 1st and 2nd Confederate Congresses After the war he became a prominent judge in Kentucky where he was assassinated in 1879 by an angry litigant His memory is preserved in the name of that state's Elliott County

50 Hurt to Young, October 31, 1856, in Exec Doc 71, The UtahExpedition, p 182

On learning that the Indians in Utah "made a distinction between the Mormons and Americans," Hurt went on, he had always tried "to teach them that there is no distinction . . .but that we were all the Great Father's people." He then made a prediction that would come to pass sooner than he realized: "If they believe me they will accuse the opposite party with lying and attempting to deceive them, and then how easy it will be for men to imagine that I am stirring up prejudices among the Indians against the people."51

His blunt protest was returned in spirit by Mormon leaders as relations rapidly worsened during the time of Israel's cleansing, known as the Mormon Reformation, prior to an armed confrontation with the United States in 1857.52 Earlier that year Wilford Woodruff had told what happened when Hurt, along with U.S Surveyor General David Burr and some "smaller fry," tried to exercise his newly acquired legal skills in defending the primacy of federal law in the district court at Salt Lake City. Some of them, the apostle said, "went out of the house in the form of a sled, using the seat of their honor for runners."53 To such undignified treatment the agent was not long in responding.

On February 16, 1857, four spent Indian missionaries, whose "trail could be followed by the blood from our horses legs,"54 reached the Utah settlements after a heroic, 380-mile midwinter ride from Fort Lemhi, northernmost Mormon outpost on the Salmon River's east fork, near present Salmon, Idaho. They delivered to Brigham Young a report and map of an exploration of Bitter Root Valley by a party under B. F. Cummings who envisioned the rich region to the north as the future "abode of the saints."55 Less than a

51 Ibid

°

2 Before the Reformadon of 1856 "all was peace, sobriety and good order," Hurt later wrote Then in October of that year, he said, "a proclamation issued from the Lord's anointed, announcing the solemn fact that the people had violated their covenants with God and commanding them indiscriminately to bow at the Confessional, and repair to the streams of the mountains and be rebaptized forth with." He went on, "I have seen men and women, weeping in the utterest agonies of soul, and when I attempted to console them would say, they abhorred the idea of being forced into a confessional but dare not refuse." See Hurt to Cumming, December 17, 1857, U.S. Territorial Papers, Utah Series, roll 1, vol. 1, April 30, 1853-December 24, 1856, National Archives, copy on microfilm A-59, Utah State Historical Society Library

53 Woodruff to Smith, Journal History, April 1, 1857. This incident, which apparently occurred on February 14, 1857, was among the immediate causes of the armed confrontation between Utah Territory and the United States known as the Utah War See Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: TheDiaryofHoseaStout, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964), 2:622.

54 L W Shurtliff, "Life and Travels of Lewis Warren Shurtliff," microfilm (of handwritten copy made in 1926 from original manuscript owned by Elsie Van Leuven of Emmett, Ida.) in Idaho Historical Society, Boise The four express riders were Shurtliff, Mission President Thomas Smith, Pleasant Green Taylor, and Laconias Barnard.

55 Benjamin Franklin Cummings, "Biography and Journals," entry of November 19, 1857, typescript, Lee Library, BYU

Garland Hurt163

week later Young announced he would go "to Salmon River in Oregon"56 as soon as the weather allowed. This gave Hurt the opening he had been looking for.

His riposte was delivered on March 30, in a letter marked "private," to the commissioner of Indian Affairs. Hurt said he had learned unofficially that Governor Young planned to take up most of the current appropriation and throw the burden of settling agency expenditures "without the means of liquidating them" on him. Coming to the main reason for his confidential note, Hurt reported that "His Excellency is now arranging an outfit of goods to be expended by him on an exploring expedition through the Territories of Oregon, Washington, and perhaps British Columbia." It was impossible, he concluded, for him to serve any longer "under the supervision of one who would decoy me into ruin."57

Later that year Young himself was treated to a cutoff of funds and an unaccustomed dressing down by then commissioner of Indian Affairs J. W. Denver. It was the governor's obligation, Denver said, "to keep a supervisory control" over the agents and keep their expenditures "within the appropriations made for your superintendency." Young had failed to do this; moreover, Denver said, "you fitted out an expedition yourself, and conducted it northward, out of your superintendency, to give presents to Indians not under your control."58 Nor was that the end of it.

President James Buchanan included Denver's rebuke among nearly five dozen letters and reports covering a six-year period that he submitted to Congress tojustify his ordering in May 1857 a U.S Army expedition to escort a new governor to Utah and to enforce federal law in the territory. Of this number, forty-six came from files of the Office of Indian Affairs. And of those, Garland Hurt had written six, with two more unpublished because they were marked "private."

As other federal officials fled Utah Territory in 1857 and Brigham Young declared martial law and called up the Nauvoo Legion, Hurt stuck to his post. Apparently putting his trust in the tribe he had served and the friendship of local Mormon leaders, probably including Spanish Fork BishopJohn Butler, he moved to the Spanish Fork Indian farm where a two-story adobe building had recently

56 Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:623

57 Hurt to Manypenny, March 30, 1857, OIA, Utah Superintendency.

58 Denver to Young, November 11, 1857, in Exec Doc 71, The UtahExpedition, pp 186-88

been completed.59 From this sanctuary he urged the Utahs to reject Mormon overtures to form an alliance against U.S. forces, offering himself "as a hostage for the peaceful intentions of the troops."60

Hurt's control over the militant tribe, however, made him a potential threat to the heart of the Mormon settlements as up to 5,000 Nauvoo Legion troops mobilized to blockade the Echo Canyon approach to Salt Lake Valley from the east. As it became less likely that the invading U.S Army expedition would make it through the mountains that fall, the agent became more and more isolated and fearful for his own safety.

His decision to escape came soon after he heard that a party of California immigrants had been attacked on the Santa Clara River in southern Utah by Piede Indians, especially when the natives "insisted that Mormons, and not Indians, had killed the Americans." Hurt sent a native youth named Pete off by a secret route to discover the truth of what had happened. On September 23 the young warrior came back with an awful tale of blood. His report, as repeated by Hurt three months later, was the first essentially accurate account to the point of naming John D. Lee as instigator of the massacre by Mormons and Indians of some 120 emigrants from Arkansas at a quiet place on the Spanish Trail known as Mountain Meadows.61

The agent now decided to get out, but the question was which way to go. At the Spanish Fork farm he was hedged in to the north and south by Mormon settlements. He had also been told that no one could leave the territory or cross the mountains unless he applied to Brigham Young for a passport, which Hurt refused to do. The answer arrived with a party of Utah chiefs who had come from the Uinta Basin to urge the agent to go back with them and investigate the possibility of establishing a farm there But one or more of the natives also told local Mormon lookouts what Hurt had in mind.

So it was that early on September 27 a half-dozen Indians rushed into Hurt's office crying, "Friend! friend! the Mormons will

59

of being a friend of Hurt, a charge he hotly denied But he credited the agent with doing "a great deal of good at that time in giving employment to about fifty hands and in putting a little money in circulation." See John Butler, "Autobiography, 1808-1861," typescript copy, Utah State Historical Society Library A Daughters of Utah Pioneers monument about two miles south of Spanish Fork on State Highway 115 marks the site of the two-story adobe building where Hurt made his headquarters during this period

60 Reavis, "Hurt Biography," p. 785. Verifying Hurt's claim, Indian interpreter Dimick B. Huntington recorded on September 1, 1857, that he told Chief Ammon and other Utahs that "they [the soldiers] have come to fight us & you for when they kill us they will kill you they sayd the [y] was afraid to fight the Americans." See Dimick B Huntington, Journal, September 1, 1857, LDS Church Archives

61 Hurt to Forney, December 4, 1857, in Exec Doc 71, The Utah Expedition, pp 199-205

Bishop John Butler was later accused

kill you!" The Virginian looked from his window. He saw about one hundred armed men on horseback guarding the road to Spanish Fork Canyon on the east. As Hurt grabbed his papers more natives rushed in to report that another body of armed men was on the road from Springville and still more were gathering in Payson Then his interpreter came into the room and said, "Doctor, you're gone in!" The agent vowed to escape or "die in the attempt."

The troops Hurt saw had been ordered to arrest him by anxious Nauvoo Legion officers who feared he might get away before Gen. Aaron Johnson, head of the military district, returned from Salt Lake City with orders from Brigham Young on how to handle the troublesome agent. Col.John S. Fullmer, who commanded the force from Spanish Fork, wasjoined by mounted companies from Payson and Springville under Col. Charles B. Hancock and Maj. A. B. Wild, about 300 in all. Expecting the natives to fight for their agent "at the drop of a hat," the Mormon officers had tried to raise enough men "to awe them into submission" and make Hurt "a prisoner this day. "

This sketch by an unknown artist appears to show Hurt escaping as Mormon troops and Indians converge on the Spanish Fork Indian Farm. Hurt's two-story adobe headquarters, shown here, was located on property owned today by Nick and Kimberly Edman of Leland, Utah. At the lowerrightis the ditch that carried waterfrom the Spanish Fork River to the fields. USHS collections.

But within 80 rods of the Indian farm the Nauvoo Legion troopers ran into a growing swarm of Utah warriors, "armed and much excited." Two other companies often men each, ordered to block the Spanish Fork Canyon escape route, rode into more militant natives "who would not let them pass" at the mouth of the canyon. Meanwhile, an Indian boy saddled Hurt's horse, and off he rode with three young warriors, Pete, Sam, and Showers-hockets, heading first to West Mountain on Utah Lake to confuse his pursuers, then back that night for supplies before riding up Spanish Fork Canyon

Having been ordered to avoid an Indian war as a U.S. Army expedition neared Mormon settlements, Bishop Butler dismissed the troops. Too late Gen. Aaron Johnson arrived with orders from Brigham Young on September 28 to "convey the Indian Agent Dr Garland Hurt to this place." Finding the Indian farm a "perfect scene of waste and confusion," he regretfully reported, "the bush had been shook and the bird flown."62

The "bird" and his native lifeguards soon flew into a heavy snowstorm that "pelted without mercy the naked skins of my shivering escorts," and in crossing the mountains they waded "through snow knee deep." 6 3 Before they reached their destination, Brigham Young on October 7 reported to Commissioner Denver that Hurt "saw fit to leave the field of his official duty on the 26th of September last." He enclosed a copy of an alleged letter in which he had noted the agent's intention to take off "by some unfrequented route, and in company with certain Indians." Calling this course "very unsafe and highly improper," Young said he had pledged "a comfortable carriage" for Hurt's "speedy and safe transportation" to the American troops then approaching the territory.64

Hurt never said why it took twenty-seven days for him to go from

62 Quotations and other information on the escape of Garland Hurt are taken from Hurt's report in Exec Doc 71, The Utah Expedition, pp 205-8; "Autobiography ofJohn Lowe Butler," pp 28-30; and "Report of Genl. A.Johnson to Lt. Genl. D. H. Wells in regard to the flight of Dr. Garland Hurt, U S Indian Agent, Oct 1857," Territorial Militia Records, 1849-1875, Utah State Archives, copy in possession of the author The latter document complements Hurt's own account and raises questions about Brigham Young's forthrightness in reporting the episode.

63 Hurt to Johnston, October 24, 1857, in Exec. Doc. 71, The Utah Expedition.

64 Ibid., pp. 209, 210. In 1948 Dale Morgan in his article, "The Administration of Indian Affairs in Utah, 1851-1858," Pacific Historical Review, vol, 17, no 4, suggested the possibility that Young's letter to Hurt "was written after rather than before his departure, as a good joke on Hurt." Aaron Johnson's report, cited in n. 60, which came to light after Morgan's article, makes this possibility even more likely, but as ajoke it was surely not intended A longer draft of this letter on September 26 in the handwriting of Daniel Wells is located in the Brigham Young Papers Another draft of a letter to Hurt, same date, handwriting, and place, suspends him for alleged misconduct; but it apparently was not delivered or made public

Spanish Fork to South Pass on the Oregon Trail where he met Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the U.S. Army expedition, on October 23 Nor did he describe his route But it is more than likely that his Indian guides took him from Spanish Fork Canyon up Diamond Fork on the Escalante Trail of 1776 to cross the rim of the Great Basin into the Uinta Basin where he probably waited in the Indian camps, near present Vernal, Utah, until the way ahead was clear. They then rode over Diamond Mountain into Brown's Hole, following an Indian trail, later known as the Outlaw Trail, up Green River to reach the Oregon Trail at the mouth of Big Sandy River From there it was an easy ride over South Pass to the army camp on the Sweetwater River.

Hurt stayed with the army as Johnston ordered his scattered command to concentrate at Fort Bridger and blizzards that November swept the high plains in today's southwestern Wyoming. The march from Hams Fork near present Granger, Wyoming, to the trading post on Blacks Fork, a distance of thirty-five miles, took fifteen days and cost the lives of some 3,000 cattle, horses, and mules. To replace his losses to winter and Mormon raiders,Johnston sent Capt Randolph Marcy of the Fifty Infantry and a hand-picked party on a hazardous winter journey to Fort Union near Las Vegas, New Mexico, to obtain mules, horses, and beef cattle.65

Marcy's task gave Hurt a final opportunity for service when the agent heard of Johnston's concern over reports that the Mormons were organizing a mounted force of 300 to intercept Marcy at Green River on his return. Volunteering to serve as the eyes of the army in a region he now knew, Hurt and five young Utah warriors rode back to the Uinta Basin inJanuary 1858 where Hurt lived with the Indians for nearly three months on such food "as they were able to procure by hunting." At times he survived for days "upon roots alone" before returning to Fort Bridger in mid-April to find that his sacrifice had been in vain and the "Utah rebellion" was over. 66

Hurt returned to Utah in 1858 with the army, assisting Johnston in selecting a suitable location for Camp Floyd, near present Fairfield, and eventually returning to the Spanish Fork farm Much of

65 For the story of this expedition see Randolph B Marcy, Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border (Philadelphia and New York: J B Lippincott Co., 1963), pp 198-243

66

Reavis, "Hurt Biography," pp. 786, 787. Hurt's duty as a scout became unnecessary when Marcy was ordered to return from Fort Union by a different route From the Arkansas River, near present Pueblo, Colo., he took the line of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher Train north to the Oregon Trail on the North Platte River

the rest of his career as an Indian agent was spent defending himself against various charges, including running away without cause, misapplication of public funds, inciting the Indians, and even sleeping with mountain man Miles Goodyear's former squaw and fathering a child by her.67 Typically, Hurt allowed none of these accusations to pass unnoticed and took the offensive whenever possible.

The most serious allegation was a charge by Territorial Secretary William H. Hooper, a Mormon, that Hurt had caused the Utah Indians "who had always been friendly" to become abusive and threatening. Furthermore, Hooper told Utah's new governor, Alfred Cumming, Hurt had spent the winter in the Uinta Basin where he had urged the Utahs to "come out and join in the onslaught upon the Mormons."68

Johnston, by now a general, rejected the accusation. But Governor Cumming and Jacob Forney, the new superintendent of the Utah agency, not wishing to stir up trouble, simply ignored Hurt's repeated demands over the next eighteen months for an investigation to clear his name Forney even tried to demean Hurt's projects, finding his operations in a run-down state "with scarcely any stock or farming implements on any of them."69 He also reported that inhabitants in the neighborhood of the Spanish Fork farm denied that the agent had had any reason to take off the way he did.

With little or no support Hurt fought back as best he could, even to the point of gathering testimonials to his character from Mormon leaders in Manti, Fillmore, and Utah Valley. Testifying to the agent's "prudence, justice and moderation" were such local luminaries as Warren Snow, Isaac Morley,John Lowry, P. A. Jackman, Joseph Pugmire, Samuel Bennett, and more than a dozen others.

Hurt also struck back at the man he saw as his chief tormentor In a "private" letter direct to Commissioner Denver, Hurt reported

67 Miles Goodyear in 1846 had built a trading post, Fort Buenaventura, near the confluence of the Ogden and Weber rivers within the present city limits of Ogden, Utah, where he lived with his Utah common-law wife, Pamona, until he sold the location in 1847 to Mormon settlers and left the area Considering Hurt's religious faith and his earlier report on the high incidence of venereal disease among the Utahs, the story from an Indian source that Hurt had taken up with Goodyear's former mate is highly unlikely It was recorded in Huntington, Journal, May 1858

68 Hooper to Cumming, April 15, 1858, OIA, Utah Superintendency

69 A detailed inventory of the Spanish Fork farm by Bishop John Butler immediately after the agent's escape listed many items, including livestock, farming implements, and agricultural produce, as did an inventory Hurt himself prepared from memory after joining the army Except for the building and irrigation ditch at Spanish Fork, these things had largely disappeared by the time Forney visited the farms. For Butler's inventory, no doubt the best because it was done on the scene rather than by recollection, see Aaron Johnson's Report Also see James C Snow to George A Smith, February 8, 1858, Journal History

on January 6, 1859, that he had learned unofficially that Brigham Young had prepared a large number of claims for improvements on the Indian farms The agent did not wish "to delay or defeat the prompt payment of any just claims," but he feared some of the charges "do not come under that category."70

Hurt spent most of 1860 in Washington, D. C, settling his own records.71 But a year later his letter to Denver and his prior report of Young's 1857 Oregon venture had their intended effect when Congress directed the Office of Indian Affairs to examine Brigham Young's accounts Hurt also may have encouraged such an investigation while he was in the nation's capital. If so, the result only showed how much he had underestimated his old adversary.

Benjamin Davies, then Utah superintendent of Indian Affairs, admittedly "a comparative stranger" in the territory, examined dozens of witnesses under oath about Young's activities and reported back that he had never seen "in a practice of many years at the bar" a time when so many "concurred with such precision and exactitude." Their "perfect recollection" and testimony, he said, "could not have failed to convince the most skeptical of the truthfulness of their statements."72 Young was fully cleared of any wrongdoing.

By then Garland Hurt had closed the Utah chapter of his life and moved to Missouri where he completed his medical education at St. Louis Medical College and won election to the Missouri General Assembly in which he served two sessions. In 1874 he became president of the St Louis Medical Society

"Exceptionally pure in life and thought, his temperament isjoyous, and his manners dignified, though gracious," wrote a biographer of Hurt in 1875 Moreover, "The marks of confidence and esteem that have been bestowed upon him, by his profession and by the people of St. Louis, could have had no more worthy recipient."73

Late in life Garland Hurt married for the first time. He was nearly seventy when his only child was born, a son, also named Garland, who

70 Hurt to Denver, January 6, 1859, OIA, Utah Superintendency

'' Reavis, "Hurt Biography," p 788

72 See "Accounts of Brigham Young, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah Territory," in U.S., Congress, House Exec. Doc. 29, 37th Cong., 2d sess., 1862, which offers a rich source of material for further study. Among other things it shows that John D. Lee and Dimick B. Huntington both swore under oath that they saw more than $3,000 in listed goods distributed to Indians at Mountain Meadows less than three weeks after the massacre Contradicting his own testimony, Lee later said, "Brigham Young never spent a dollar on the Indians in Utah, while he was Indian Agent." See The Life andConfessionsofJohn D. Lee (St Louis: Bryan, Brand & Company, 1877), p 257

73 Reavis, "Hurt Biography," p. 789.

apparently left no descendants of his own. Soon after, he moved to his wife's home in Newport, Arkansas. There, "the American" friend of the Utahs died of pneumonia on December 9, 1903, less than three weeks short of his eighty-fourth birthday. By the members of his church he was remembered as "one of the saintliest and sweetest spirits we have ever known." They had lost, they said, "a man of sterling worth and uprightness, and faithful to every trust put upon him."

74 Rice, "Biographical Sketches," p. 56. Other information on Hurt's later life was provided by Susan B Park of Carson City, Nevada, who plans to write a full biography

Over the Rim to Red Rock Country: The Parley P. Pratt Exploring Company of 1849

BY DONNA T SMART

PENCILED ON THE FRAGILE INSIDE BACK COVER of a journal written by Robert Lang Campbell in 1849-50 are the fading words of a poem, a verse of which reads:

The Winds roared like thunder! the hurricane burst

The fires were all quenched And the cattle dispersed

Parley P. Pratt. USHS collections.

Mrs Smart is a retired school teacher A version of this paper was presented at the 1992 annual meeting of the Mormon History Association

The storm demons raging attacked the foe

And reared as by magic new breastworks of snow 1

As clerk of the 1849 Parley P. Pratt expedition to southern Utah, Campbell kept a daily, detailed record. His poem celebrates one of the worst of many trials faced by the company on this most ambitious Mormon exploration of the state.

Pratt had spent the summer of 1849 building a road through Big Kanyon (Parleys Canyon), hoping to provide an easier way into the Salt Lake Valley than that forged by the pioneers. In November of that year he confronted another challenge: "I now received a commission from the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the State of Deseret to raise fifty men, with the necessary teams and outfit, and go at their head on an exploring tour to the southward."2

On November 20 Brigham Young "met in council with Presidents Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards and several others, in relation to Elder Parley P Pratt and a company of brethren going on an exploring expedition southward to the outside of the Rim of the Basin. Parley P. Pratt and David Fullmer were blessed, preparatory to starting."3

Three days later, on November 23, the explorers bivouacked at Capt. Brown's on Cottonwood. Pratt, of course, wasvoted president of the company, with W. W. Phelps and David Fullmer as counselors. Brown was designated captain of thefiftywith Phelps as topographical engineer, Ephraim Green as chief gunner, Dimick Huntington as Indian interpreter, and Robert Campbell as clerk. They selected as captains often Isaac C. Haight,Joseph Matthews,Joseph Horn, Ephraim Green, and Josiah Arnold. Since the fifth ten was short of men, they planned to recruit some in "Sandpitch" (Sanpete).4

The entourage included 12 wagons, 1carriage, 24 yoke of oxen, 7 beef, 38 horses and mules, and supplies: trade items for the Indians,

1 Robert Lang Campbell, Journal, holograph, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City He began this record of the exploring expedition on November 23, 1849

2 Parley P Pratt, AutobiographyofParley Parker Pratt, ed Parley P Pratt, Jr (reprint ed., Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961), p 338

3 Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, November 20, 1849, LDS Church Archives

4 Pratt, Autobiography, pp 338-39; Campbell Journal, November 24, 1849 Both Sandpitch and Sanpete are corruptions of San Pitch, a Ute leader whose people lived in the area The Sanpete Valley was originally called the San Pitch Valley. The San Pitch River and the San Pitch Mountains retain the chiefs name

150 lbs of flour for each man, crackers, bread, meal, and 60 lbs coffee Since the expedition would drag on until March 28, 1850, this amount would prove inadequate The men completed general preparations by securing an odometer, a brass field piece, firearms, and ammunition. One historian described how important firearms were to early travelers on the overland trails: "Every man when starting out . . . considered that a rifle, revolver, and knife were as essential as flour and bacon and they were provided accordingly—the two latter secured by a belt to his person while the other idly swung in the wagon all loaded and ready for use."5 Despite arming themselves, during the bivouac Pratt instructed the company that peace and good will should govern the expedition, perhaps in a spirit of psychological preparation for the unknown.

Among those assembled were Samuel Gould, at age seventy-one the eldest, and Alexander Abraham Lemon, eighteen, the youngest of those whose ages can be verified. The average age was near thirtyfive. Eight men had been in the 1847 pioneer company of Brigham Young.6

From the beginning bad weather plagued the expedition. By 8 P.M. the day they left, November 24, the snow was falling fast. Nevertheless, according to Campbell, they were in good spirits. They told "manyjokes and stories" and sang songs and a hymn. Pratt offered a prayer, and a "fat and good" yearling was killed for food.

High spirits faltered, however, as the journey south began to challenge their endurance and patience Some days roads were passable and the weather cooperative; some days the company bucked snow, mud, swampy areas, and tricky creek crossings On the way to Sanpete they encountered twenty-three creeks or rivers and forded one, Salt Creek, east of Nephi, six times. Animals and men labored up rocky ascents and descents. North winds stung their faces and penetrated their clothing. At many campsites cattle went hungry; at others, neither man nor beast had fresh water to drink. The men's energy flagged during frequent backtracking to round up straying cattle and horses. The thermometer seldom stood above freezing. For twenty-one days the temperature dipped into the teens and single

5 C. M. Clark, A Trip to Pike'sPeak and Notesby the Way . . . , ed. R. Greenwood (San Jose: Talisman Press, 1958), p 18, quoted in James E Potter, "Firearms on the Overland Trails," OverlandJournal 9 (1991): 2

6 Rufus Chester Allen, John Brown, Sterling Graves Driggs, William Henrie, Joseph Matthews, Benjamin F Stewart, William Perkins Vance, and William Wadsworth entered the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847

digits; six times it registered below zero and on December 10 plunged to 21 degrees below.

The company lumbered toward Fort Utah (Provo), which had only existed since April 1849. Pratt, Phelps, and Fullmer took time to preach at a meeting in the fort, and there they obtained another yoke of cattle, vegetables, milk, and baking supplies. At Peteetneet Creek (Payson) Col. Marshall Scott asked the company for assistance in trailing the horse thief Purbelow. Pratt loaned Scott ten men with horses who pursued Purbelow asfar as the Sevier River with no success

Pratt then led his men up Salt Creek and on to Manti, the last Mormon outpost A few of the party had been there before In a meeting on June 14, Chief Walker had petitioned the Mormons to "settle" his land. Within three months of the request Brigham Young had sent four men to scout out Walker's territory. Three of them— Joseph Horn, W W Phelps, and Dimick B Huntington—became key members of the Pratt party. Phelps, in fact, had already proved himself a useful scout. On August 24 he had "ascended to the top of Mount Nebo south of Utah Valley, to make scientific observations." Itwas undoubtedly then that he made a rough but accurate sketch of the valleys southward.7

Making camp in Sanpete barely ten days after the new settlers had arrived, the explorers found one cabin already built. They repaired equipment, added five men and two wagons to their company, and pushed on, following San Pitch Creek to its confluence with the Sevier River. The next week, they snaked eighty miles up the Sevier, crossing it time and again Near present Salina, although they had joined the Spanish Trail, snow hindered their ability to identify it.8 '

Their trials increased. Where the Sevier River cuts through a narrow channel at Big Rock Candy Mountain, they had to hew a road over the mountain to the east and were so happy to get through to a valley on the other side that the name of Merry Vale (now Marysvale) came into Pratt's mind.9 On the spot he composed a hymn about a sweet southern vale and sang it "Extempore" to the camp

7 Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology (Salt Lake City, 1914), p 37 Phelps's original map is in LDS Church Archives

8 John Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, Saturday, December 8, 1849, typescript, LDS Church Archives

9 Campbell Journal, Wednesday, December 12, 1849

SOUTHERN UTAH EXPEDITION

The Parley P. Pratt Exploring Company

849-1850

South Bound Trail Return Trail

Cartography by Connie L S Bartos

In the High Plateau country west of Pratt's sweet vale rose the towering peaks of the Tushar Range. At a narrow canyon south of Circleville the men realized the time had come to attempt a crossing. On December 13John Christopher Armstrong lamented:

Traveled six miles today, had hard work breaking ice to cross the river One ox fell down in the river and the wagon went over it and broke one horn and cut it I went out with Bro pratt to explore the mountains, Rode hard all day and when we got back to camp I was so tired I cant stand nor sit down. I could not lift my leg up to step in the wagon. I walked as well as I could and blew the trumpet for prayer-slipped off to bed, rubbed my limbs trembling all the time with cold, my teeth chattering in my head. Truly I thought of home and a good comfortable bed10

The next dayJohn Brown described their plight:

.. . we came to the forks of the Sevier where we camped here we had another fall of snow . . . next day we traveled up the western fork [the main Sevier] and after going some eight or nine miles we came to an impassable canyon through which the river ran, we camped for the night brother Pratt road out some ten miles to the left to find a pass but did not succeed the mountains were very high on either side.11

On Sunday, December 16, Brown, accompanied by three men and two oxen, spent the day looking for a pass:

we road all day and found a pass over which I thought we could go, it was a long way through the mountain and very difficult snow 1 1/2 to 2

Big Rock Candy Mountain with the Sevier River in foreground. USHS collections.

"'John Christopher Armstrong, Diary (fragment), LDS Church Archives " Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, December 14, 1849

feet deep ... we did not know but we were to the end of our row when we reached this place after hearing a description of the pass, the cry [from the men] was we can go it. It was a great undertaking and a very hazardous one to cross so large a mountain at this season of the year, there was danger of being snowed under

The men could not foresee what lay ahead. "Going it" meant a harrowing ordeal of five days, hacking a road for sixteen miles through rugged terrain surrounded by 9,000-foot peaks and deep canyons. They fought against wind that clawed at their clothes and wagon covers, shoveling snow that, Pratt reported later, "was deeper than our heads, hanging over us like the cornishes of a cavern."12 Armed with picks, shovels, and axes, the exhausted and frostbitten men continued their transit. On precipitous downward slopes, twelve men worked to hold back wagons with locked wheels; to get up the steep grades they hitched ropes to the yokes and pulled up the oxen so that the oxen could then pull the wagons up. Five difficult ascents and five difficult descents took them barely two and a half miles.13

When the summits were finally conquered, Armstrong's eloquence burst forth. He wrote on Friday, December 21:

.

. .We have fought with the storms and tempests and it must have been by and thru the divine interposition of providence of God who led Nephi of old, that we were brought over these mountains, To look at them it would be said that no white man could do it or be rash enough to undertake it or have enterprising spirit enough to attempt it The Mormons are the boys for such expeditions, They fear neither canyon, mountain snow storms, gulleys or rivers, Because they know they are led by the mighty God of Jacob.

Once over the worst of the pass, Pratt and Brown explored ahead, as they often did, to where they could see the valley of the Little Salt Lake. So dramatically different was the landscape—there being only two or three inches of snow—that they called the narrow approach into the valley "Summer Gate." Known today as Fremont Wash, it is located about ten miles south of Beaver at the northernmost end of the Little Salt Lake Valley. Armstrong described rocks near the mouth of Fremont Wash as rising

perpendicular above our heads as if bidding defiance to man .. . at about a half mile farther the rocks at some sides [look] very much like

12 Parley P Pratt, Report of the Southern Exploring Expedition Submitted to the Legislative Council of Deseret, February 5, 1850, p 4, LDS Church Archives

13 Campbell Journal, Monday, December 17, 1849-Friday, December 21, 1849

the ramparts of some Baronial castle such as was used in feudal times one fourth mile farther there was a range of stupenduous rocks One was named Cornish rock on account of its resemblance to a Cornicework done by stone mason and cut to put over doors I cut my name on the face of these rocks, and may more had I the time 14

Armstrong's name written in big, bold letters, remains there, as do the more eroded initials and names of other expedition members, side by side with graffiti of a more modern time.

On December 23 the Pratt company found the road made only weeks before byJefferson Hunt and 100 wagons he was leading toward the California gold fields. They welcomed wagon tracks to follow, after forging their own wayfrom Sanpete.

After such an exhausting effort, a camp council determined that only twenty men and thirty horses should venture beyond the Great Basin rim, leaving behind all wagons and the remainder of the company and stock. Thus, they spent Christmas day fixing up the pack saddles, drying beef, and making other preparations. On December 26 Pratt's group spurred the horses and pack animals southward, while Schuyler Jennings and Joseph Matthews, carrying mail, turned north to return home.15

The southbound contingent roughly followed the present 1-15 freeway. This was the emigrant road, and they saw signs of recent passers-by. Brown noted that emigrants had lost cattle and burnt a wagon at their first campsite.16 Campbell found three wagon tires, the irons of a wagon, and a notice written on a board: "Capt Fly's Coy passed here 16th Deer 12 in deep of snow. M Beardsell of St Louis left wagon here signed by Sand."17 Indians, apparently, had burned the wagon.

The explorers were impressed with the rich possibilities for settlement. In his report to the Legislative Council in February, Pratt extolled the virtues of the Little Salt Lake Valley, admitting that the interim information he had sent with Matthews andJennings was inadequate.

Pratt's view of the countryside over the rim was less optimistic:

The Country Southward opening to the view as it were a wide expanse of chaotic matter huge hills, Sandy desert, cheerless, grassless, waterless

14 Armstrong Diary, Friday, December 21, 1848

15 Campbell Journal, Tuesday, December 25, 1849.

16 Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, Wednesday, December 26, 1849

17 Campbell Journal, Thursday, December 27, 1849

plains, perpendicular rocks, loose, barren clay, dissolving beds of Sandstone & various other elements lying in inconceivable confusion, in short a country in ruins, dissolved by the peltings of the storms of ages, or turned inside out, upside down by terrible convulsions in some former age. 18

Although the men were no longer hampered by wagons and oxen, they still found the going difficult. The gorge of Ash Creek proved impassable, and the party had to negotiate steep side hills. Snow covered the north side of the Black Ridge, while the summit and south side were so soggy that the horses sank into the mire up to their knees The men had to dismount and carry some of the load of the pack animals.

On December 31,after descending Ash Creek, they camped on the Rio Virgin By then their animals were failing, and when local Indians warned them of the perils of going farther south, they turned in a northwesterly direction and camped a little above the mouth of the Santa Clara, about eighty-five miles, they figured, from the Little Salt Lake

Hard rains hampered them continually, but they moved up the Santa Clara, again running into snow as they passed back over the rim into the vicinity of Mountain Meadows. On January 5 they encountered the horse thief Purbelow and his band, on whose trail Marshall Scott had been a few weeks earlier. Ten or twelve miles along they spent some time with the Fly company of about fifty wagons whose ruined campsite they had passed on the other trail There were more than a hundred people in this company engaged in repairs and resting. Pratt's men purchased some whiskey and "lodged in their tents and had the luxury of sitting in a chair. Here was seen some of the richest specimens of iron ore, which was scattered over the hills ... in inexhaustible quantities. . . ."19

Meanwhile, those left with the wagons at the Little Salt Lake felt less pressure and could rest themselves and their animals But they were not idle. They had moved to a more favorable campsite near present Parowan; explored the countryside, including the Little Salt Lake; found iron ore; and identified good sites for stone quarries, plaster of paris, and lime. They had also come across the dramatic petroglyphs on the soaring rocks at what is now the Parowan Gap and copied some of the strange figures chiseled there. Pratt later

18 Pratt, Report, pp 7-8

19 Ibid., p 9

reported to the legislature that Chief Walker called that place "Gods own house."20

Anticipating a reunion of the two contingents of his company, Pratt and Brown hastened ahead and arrived at the wagon campsite a day earlier than their companions, who rejoined their comrades onJanuary 8.

On January 10 the entire company headed homeward. The following day it rained and then snowed steadily until J Sunday, January 20, with the tempera- f! ture at 13degrees, the explorers reached the general area of Fillmore where they found themselves snowbound. Robert Campbell described writing a report under Pratt's dictation and, completing a clean copy, "had to write it laying on my belly 8c a hundred other positions, cold Snowy night open wagon, without a stove, cover not fastened down with tacks stitched it being 11 Pages 8c handed it to Parley while the company just starting. . . ."21

\ iJ , , , •

An inventory revealed that rations would sustain only part of the group until spring. They decided, therefore, to leave the wagons and men without families, for the most part, to winter there and to take twenty-six horses and mules and twenty-four men ahead to Fort Utah. Pratt was sick and vomiting when the contingent left, guided by compass as the storm was so heavy—distance 107 miles, route unknown At first, Pratt could hardly sit his mule, but his health improved; the weather did not. The men had to shovel snow away to make their beds; and one morning they awoke under a foot of snow, "only tiny mounds marking the locations of the sleepers. . . .Parley stood up in his own place and, raising his voice like a trumpet, he called to them to arise there was a shaking among the snow mounds; the graves opened, and the men stepped forth. They named this place Resurrection Camp."22

20 Ibid., p 10

21 Campbell Journal, Monday, January 21, 1850.

22 Pratt, Autobiography, p 340

To make headway, they were forced to break trails on foot and proceed single-file through three to four feet of snow, exchanging places as the leader gave out. According to Brown, the snow worsened in Juab Valley and with their food almost gone, on January 26 Pratt and Chauncey West took the two best mules and started for Provo and help,

. . . leaving the remainder to travel on as fast as we could, which was not very fast, our animals were near giving out and we had three men who could not walk two were frosted and one snow blind; our provisions were running very short We camped where we had nothing but small willows half dried to burn which gave us a very poor fire for one of the coldest nights we had on the whole trip, next morning the thermometer was 30 degrees below zero, it was the severest night I ever experienced

Isaac Haight toldjust how short rations were:

. . . had a little flower stired in boiling water 28th . . . 29th Same for breakfast and not half enough came 8 miles to petetenite [Payson] and to our great joy Br P Conon [Peter Conover] and Stoddord came to us with provisions for which we feel to thank them and our God came to Spanish Fork and camped. . . . 24

The rescue effort tested Pratt and West severely:

Traveled all day, averaging about knee deep in snow Camped at eleven at night on Summit Creek, extremely hungry and feet badly frozen. We built a small fire, it being the coldest night we had ever experienced, and after trying in vain to thaw out our frozen shoes, stockings and the bottoms of our drawers and pants, we rolled ourselves in our blankets, and lay trembling with cold a few hours Monday, 28th— Arose long before day; bit a few mouthfuls off the last black frozen biscuit remaining. Saddled up our animals, and, after another laborious day, living on a piece of biscuit not so large as our fist, we entered Provo at dark; raised a posse of men and animals, with provisions, and sent back same night.25

The men left with the wagons on Chalk Creek were making the best of their plight. They traded with the Indians and again copied what they called hieroglyphics. They organized a Ute Indian School and a Lyceum School for themselves and gathered for debate every evening Father Williams collected chalk rock from the banks of the creek The Sidney Willis and Sterling G Driggs tens each built a cellar

23 Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, January 28, 1850

24 Isaac Chauncey Haight, Journal, January 27 and January 28, 1850, typescript, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

25 Pratt, Autobiography, p 341

house. They remarked on the cries of wolves, washed clothes, and took turns trudging ahead on snowshoes, eagerly searching for optimistic signs that they could move homeward

At length, on February 4, the five Sanpete recruits, impatient to go home, decided to leave on foot. Two days later they returned to report that wagons could make it, despite the snow. On February 7 the men, wagons, and stock set out. It was a mistake. The first day they wallowed six miles to "Thorn Plum Creek" near the southern entrance to Scipio Canyon but could go no farther as the snow was too deep over the pass.After nearly a month ofwaiting there, exploring westward on snowshoes and filling their time by making wooden shoes, cleaning guns, tailoring, "ringingking" (whatever that is), reading, writing, and singing, they plunged ahead

In a heroic effort to win the battle against snow three to four feet deep—sometimes crusty and sometimes soft—they built sleds to place under wagon wheels, but the snow was too soft for even four or five yokes of cattle to pull the makeshift sleighs. The men shoveled trails and retraced their steps to drive the livestock forward. They altered their route, making their way around the shoulders of the hills where snow was not so deep. They melted snow for the cattle to drink, but several died anyway. One "violent gale" increased to a "tempest" and blew Pratt's wagon over, tore the cover off another, blew down tents, and dropped four inches of snow in four hours. They spent fourteen days going 27 miles; then, after reaching the Sevier where the snow was largely gone, they traveled the remaining 104 miles home in twelve days

Going and coming taxed the physical strength and endurance of the party unmercifully, but human relationships can bejust as taxing. Tension developed within the company, as will be seen later, but fortunately encounters with the Indians of the area went fairly smoothly. On the outward journey the company saw no white men, other than those associated with the Sanpete settlement, but throughout the expedition they frequently met Indians. Walker came visiting, saying he knew he would see them because he dreamed he would. According to Campbell, the chief

. . tells Parley no pass over these mts S.E. and no good country over there little Water, don't run far, Rocky, Shewed him the map he showd points in it & told what country he was acquainted 8c what he was not, like an experienced geographer, all astonished at him point out on the map, . . . Indians come in by the dozens . . . many of them sick with the measles, hear them making medicine, see them sucking one anothers

.

feet, forehead 8cc. . . . Sat 8th . . . Parley, Dan Jones & Dimic goes 8c prays for the Indians at Walkers request, rebukes their meazles, by laying hands on them in the name ofJesus Walker makes long speech, said he'd come with us but his ppl r all sick the best he can do for us send his Bro Anunomah with us he always listened to the good words of ours, wished all to come American, Mormon 8c live in peace, he would not fight any more, had done fighting , 26

Anunomah became sick and three days later left them, complaining that they did not make enough medicine for him and that he would visit an old medicine squaw.

As Walker had dreamed about meeting the Pratt party, so on December 29 Jones dreamed about Indians coming to meet their group and on December 30 Pratt dreamed "about talking with the Indian down a little ways who grow corn."27 Their dreams were fulfilled—abundantly. That very day near the Virgin River three Indians came into camp, informing the explorers that no water existed between there and the Colorado. Campbell wrote:

Smoke the pipe of peace . . . they r fat, tolerably clad for this warm climate, one of them has a Cassimere coat Black hair, no beard nor whiskers nor hair under their arm pits, all under the medium size. . . .

Dimic tells them we were Mormons not . . . Americans. . . . one of the Indians says he sold his wife to Walker , 28

One group of Indians would vanish and another appear— twenty or more at a time Dimick Huntington said some of them were afraid and

did not know whether come in peace or war, mean, dirty almost naked creatures - many come into camp Rain so hard I had to hurry 8c now stop writing. . . . Indians say . . . they willing we should come 8c live with them all talk at once, rude, dirty mean 8c filthy they wanted us to feed them . . . but now they wish us to make beds for them, seeing it Rains so the land is all ours if we come 8c settle among them, glad to av us. ... T at noon 74 . . . gave us lots of presents. . . . they say Mormons coming to live among them 8c help them to raise corn want we should come gave us all the land round here for a knife , 29

Meetings with the Indians were pleasant for the most part The Indians welcomed the interlopers and shared their knowledge of trails They seemed happy to accept the hospitality offered by the Mormons Dimick Huntington's assignment was to communicate

2fi Campbell Journal, December 7-8, 1849

27 Ibid., December 30, 1849

28 Ibid., January 1, 1850

29 Ibid., January 7, 1850

with all of them, and he did so passably, mutual respect being generally evident. Only once did a journal suggest that perhaps a missing animal had been stolen by Indians. Brown recounted a rather touching incident: One of the Indians requested a blanket to sleep with in the Mormon camp and was given a saddle blanket. He wrapped it around his shoulders and casually walked away—but he left his bow and arrow in exchange.30 On the way home Campbell noted that Father William Henry "leaves hisweak ox with the Indians."31 By the time the wagon contingent reached home, however, Indian-white relationships in Utah Valley had deteriorated to the point of bloody conflict.

Within the company itself, emotions flared occasionally, but the fifty men pushed and pulled, slept and ate, prayed and played together with remarkable unity A pattern established the first night in camp made it clear that this was to be a religious experience. They sang hymns and had prayers, a custom that persisted throughout the trip. Campbell described this nightly ritual as well as fervent religious discussions and remarkable healings By December 18, however, in the middle of the strenuous effort to cross the High Plateau country east of the Little Salt Lake Valley, tensions became more open. Pratt requested Campbell's presence in a carriage where Wadsworth and Dan Jones were waiting. Campbell confided in his journal:

Parley said he felt like praying - he prayed, asked the Lord to forgive the camp for their vanity, folly, 8c wickedness - interceded with the Lord not to hedge up our way, but to enable us to get out of these Mts 8c to find a pass, to have mercy 8c compassion on this Camp, & to treat us kindly & for the sakes of those in Camp who keep thy name sacred, 8c seek to fulfill our mission &c 8cc - SchylerJennings swore 8c dam'd Capt Jones in Gods name to take his horse away from near his waggon 8c threat at him with club in hand -Witness CaptJones -

Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, December 31, 1849 Campbell Journal, March 17, 1850.

Dimick Huntington. USHS collections.

The next evening, Pratt and others went ahead to explore and beat a track. Upon returning and making a report, he made a long exhortation 8c preach to the Bre told them, the Lords spirit grieved on account of the folly, nonsense, 8c vanity in camp, said some had threatened to knock one another down 8c cursed in the name of God, it was wrong to use the name of God have no fellowship for those who take our God's name in vain 8c especially to curse their Bre, said need for us all to pray 8c ask God's forgiveness . . .Yet the Lord has lead us, our Guardian angels vexed but have not left us, brought us to the only pass in these Mts very thankful to the Lord, prayed While Parley speaking Jennings said in hearing of George Matson & John Lowry, that he'd a good mind to black his mouth, &c using the word dam'd32

Clearly, all was not well in the mountain of the Lord's house. So it waswhen the company split, part to go southward and the others to wait at the valley of the Little Salt Lake, that Schuyler Jennings, a member of the first ten, andJoseph Matthews, captain of the first ten, were commissioned to carry mail home

Isaac Haight, at the wagon campsite in the Little Salt Lake Valley, also expressed concern about attitudes, saying that on December 31 he and Fullmer had spoken to the camp about "laying aside our folly and living in such a manner that we should not be ashamed to have Angles [sic] come into our midst and behold our acts."

But there were light-hearted times, too OnJanuary 1, 1850, the men fired a cannon and prepared a New Year's dinner in celebration. And when Pratt's men returned from the Rio Virgin, the brethren with the wagons threw a party.Armstrong wrote:

Monday Jan. 7th 1849 - A fine warm day, Boys got me to make them some boxing gloves 2 pair of boxing gloves, and spent the day boxing, bowling etc. I made some good apple pudding and it was a treat out here About six oclock in the evening the boys were dancing cotillions, when we heard a gun fired off at a distance Then we gave a few

Isaac C. Haight. USHS collections.

loud huzzahs, for we knew it was Parley Pratt Presently he was among us with Capt Dan Jones, He told us he had left the camp about eleven miles off and would be in tomorrow, We then gave loud huzzahs Then the little Captain told us he had a canteen full of whiskey, Then he handed it all around They then took supper, we were all overjoyed to see them Some went to boxing some to singing, some dancing to amuse them, They told us we must prepare a large dinner for the whole camp tomorrow, Put up a liberty pole and have aJubilee.

Tuesday Jan 9th 1849. . . . The sky is clear and the stars are twinkling bright and we are in hopes of a fine day. At half past five the horn was sounded, the camp got out of bed with one consent and commenced cooking with all their might. .. . At one oclock the boys that were returning got within two miles of us, the cannon was fired and then they fired their guns in answer to us The boys had got their handkerchiefs fixed on small sticks and attached them to their horses heads and rode up in front of our camp, gave us a volley with their guns and pistols We answering in return gave some loud huzzahs then they came into camp shook hands all around and heard some wonderful stories

The feast consisted of coffee, roast beef, pumpkin and squash, mince and apple pies, sugar and butter. The men laid it out on a wagon cover spread on the ground

Descriptions of the country this company explored are as varied as the men's personalities and ages. Armstrong's journal fragment usually reveals a light-hearted nature, but he observed some negatives about the landscape On December 5 he wrote:

Traveled 9 miles from San Pitch just in the mouth of Sevier valley, A very dreary place and very cold, I have two toes frozen Ought to be called "Severe Valley" A large dreary wilderness, A complete Barren waste . . . Dec 11 We have passed through valleys and between mountains of nothing but Desert and brown land

John Brown expressed similar sentiments about the country over the rim as did Pratt. Campbell's description of the red rock country was more objective:

Pass up stream, or creek [the Santa Clara], which is in places rapid current 15 ft Wide, 1 foot deep, clear water, narrow going over rocks, & steep ascents 8c descents Indian trail (they suppose we can go with our horses where they go on foot) Red bluffs, rise like a fortifications 5 or 600 ft high 2 miles long, we r going to day W 8c N West, over barren land, sandy, Pass Pebble rocks, good building Rock, & thousands of hugh, piles of Mts hills, rugged declivities, Rocks, petrified wood steep bluffs, caverns, see ahead of us West, very high Mountains, covered with snow. . . .

Isaac Haight shared quite different feelings about leaving the valley of the Little Salt Lake.

I shall leave this place with regret it is one of the most lovely places in the Great Basin On the East high towering Mountains covered with Evergreen forests and one of the most Beautiful creeks running from them On the West and South a large Valley of the most beautiful lands Little Salt Lake bordering the valley on the west and beyond a range of hills covered with verdure and backed with high towering Mountains covered with Eternal snows all of which contribute to beautify the scenery and while the clouds hang heavily on the Mountains and the storms and tempests are roaring the Valley enjoys a beautiful serenity.33

Pratt, however, gave the definitive report. Almost two months before the main division of the exploring expedition returned, the Journal History recorded that he "read a lengthy report of his journey." His recommendations foreshadowed the future settlement of much of the state.

He recommended Peteetneet Creek (Payson) as a good place for a settlement and also noted that the Yohab (Juab) Valley was "in every way calculated for a city and Settlement." Furthermore, he asserted that the Sevier River was "apparently navigable, for small steamers" (either the river was running unusually high at the time or he must have been thinking of very small steamers) but that the surrounding country was mostly a desert. Not all of it, however—he reported the presence of coal near the present site of Salina and was impressed by the rich bottom lands on the Sevier where Richfield would be built.

His strongest recommendations concerned the Little Salt Lake Valley and especially Cedar Valley Of the former, where Parowan, Paragonah, and other communities would be built, he wrote of "thousands of acres of rich soil convenient for water," of streams affording "most convenient mill sites" and "terminating in rich meadows and black soil," of foothills and canyons "clothed with inexhaustible supply of shrub pine and cedar fuel," and of mountains to the east with "inexhaustible stores of lofty Pine from the size of a fence pole to every desirable size for logs, for Sawing, hewing, shingles &c."And, he added, "stone quarries of Sand and Free stone and Lime, abound in the neighborhood."

About Cedar Valley, the "fine large valley" to the south, he waxed even more enthusiastic. Thousands of acres could be watered by streams running "nearly level with the surface of the ground [whose] waters are easily managed." But, he added, "the best part remains to

be told, near the large body of good land on the Southwestern borders are thousands of acres of cedar contributing an almost inexhaustible supply of fuel which makes excellent coal [charcoal?]." And the clincher: "In the centre of these forests rises a hill of the richest iron ore, specimens of which are herewith produced." This valley, together with Little Salt Lake Valley, he predicted, "constitutes a field of rich resources capable of sustaining and employing 30,000 inhabitants at present, and 100,000 eventually. All of which inhabitants would have soil, water, pasturage, plenty building timber and mineral wealth more conveniently situated than any other portion we have seen West of the states." After describing the area's pleasant climate, he concluded: "taken as a whole we were soon convinced this was the 'firstrate good place' we were sent to find as a location for our next Southern colony." His counsel was heeded; the Iron Mission was on its way to Parowan and Cedar City within the year.

Pratt's report recognized some potential settlement around the rim of the Great Basin (New Harmony), although, he noted, the area is "somewhat exposed to the weather." He had little enthusiasm for the Virgin River country but noticed 3,000 or 4,000 acres of desirable land in the twin valleys that now hold Washington and St. George. He also reported a couple of fertile valleys (Santa Clara and Gunlock) on the Santa Clara River. And of Mountain Meadows, in addition to fertile land, cedar fuel, a fine stream, and "pasturage inexhaustible," he noted "some of the richest specimens of iron ore, which was scattered over the hills and said to wait in inexhaustible quantities two miles up the kanyon." Of the expansive meadows, good soil, cedar groves, and tall pines in the present area of Beaver, he wrote: "This is an excellent place for an extensive Settlement."34

But, according to Campbell, Pratt had a special affection for Merry Vale, back on the Sevier: "he never felt so like home since we left the Yohab valley." Campbell said that his leader "has no doubt but this will be settled, intends to look into, explore it, and report it . . ,"35 Marysvale was indeed settled but not by many; despite rich minerals in the surrounding mountains only 350 people live there today.

So what came of this ambitious, grueling expedition? Among

34 Pratt, Report 35 Campbell Journal, December 12, 1849

Mormons, the fifty-two men of this expedition were the first to explore much of what is now Utah. Their contribution was significant in several ways. They discovered coal, salt, iron ore, and chalk. They described desert and forest, ground covers, and barren wasteland. They revealed their own inner and outer landscapes. They offered friendship to the Indians in the regions through which they passed and, in turn, accepted the friendship given them by the Indians Their camping grounds became many of the communities of our state

At the conclusion of the feast prepared for the reunion of the two divisions of the company, Campbell recorded that Pratt pontificated that in "these munitions of rocks .. . we r safe with all the riches we may possess, 8c we have the best defence the most rocks, the best women, most beautiful children & more of them than any ppl. on the earth in proportion to our number, therefore boys the Great Basin for me." Campbell enthusiastically added, "Am glad I had time to write it 8c that C[hauncey] West, got a candle & held it for me while I did it."36

This celebration occurred before the unforeseen struggle to get home. But, despite the fearsome conditions of the expedition's travel, almost all came home in relatively good health and spirits, the most serious injury occurring to Stephen Taylor who wandered after Pratt and West when they went for help. Fortunately, the rescue party from Provo found him collapsed in the snow and saved his life, although not without the loss of some of his extremities.

Pratt ended his report to the legislative assembly with these words:

I now wish to bear witness of the fifty who accompanyed me on this expedition, and to have them in honorable remembrance. With scarce an exception they were patient and cheerful under all circumstances Willing to be guided and controlled, and I can truely say that In twenty years experience in the toils and hardships of the church I have never seen men placed in circumstances better calculated to try them in utmost strenth and patience And at one time another half mile of deep snow entervening between them and camp would have caused every man to sink exhausted without being able to force their way any longer. They are first Rate men, and I have promised to remember them for the very next undertaking which requires toil - Labour and sacrifice.

Labor and sacrifice there would be. Three entries in Isaac Haight's journal reflect the spirit of the men and of the faith that

Ibid., January 8, 1850.

built Utah. In November, at the beginning of the expedition, he wrote: ". . . Bade adieu to all on Earth that is desirable my wives and children and home to go with Elder P.P.Pratt and a company of fifty men to find a vally for another settlement of the saints in the south part of the Mountains of Israel. ... " On February 2, 1850, he reported, "Arrived safely at home found my family all alive and well except Mary her health very poor So the Lord has brought us safely home after suffring much hardship " Two months later, at the LDS General Conference on April 6, he learned that he would once more leave home: "... I with six other Elders were appointed to go to England on a Mission and leave our Families which seems rather hard after enduring the fatigues of the winter Yet I am willing to go and forsake all [for] the Gospel Sake and go to work to prepare for the journey."

Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz. By SANDRA C TAYLOR (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 xx + 343 pp $35.00.)

I cannot listen to the sound of trains clattering on tracks without remembering Even a half-century later the metallic clicking pierces my memory. I was a girl then. Imagine, only fourteen And I, along with almost 110,000 others, was considered a potential danger to this, my country. Our only crime was that of ancestry. We were of Japanese descent Never mind that the majority of us, almost 70,000, were American citizens. We were American by birth and heart

But in the hysteria following the attack on Pearl Harbor we were exiled in one of the most disgraceful acts in our nation's history We were removed from our coastal homes and shipped from assembly centers to concentration camps We traveled in antiquated trains, guarded by soldiers with bayonets, ordered to keep the shades lowered But nothing could conceal our sin and shame, the color of our skin. One of the ten camps was located in Topaz, Utah During its existence near Delta it was the fifth largest city in this state. Topaz was dubbed "thejewel of the desert."

In her book, Sandra Taylor states, "the internment of the West Coast Japanese Americans was racist, illegal, unwise and highly destructive to the people involved." However, the author's conviction does not preclude her scholarly neutrality in presenting perspectives of both the incarcerated and their keepers. Her study involves

fifty internees who were primarily from the San Francisco area, "the jewel by the bay." In addition to the oral interviews, records of the War Relocation Authority, which administered the camps for the Department of the Interior, are the author's main resource Much of this information was compiled by the camp's community analyst who relayed his observations to Washington, D C

According to Taylor, the concentration camp experience remains the focal point in the lives of many internees She is correct in the sense that whenever Japanese Americans meet, a familiar question is, "Which camp did you go to?" We know we do not speak of recreational or summer camps. It will always be the separation point in our lives, events identified as being before or after camp Those were the years of loss and sorrow. I, a citizen, was reduced to a number for identification, stripped of freedom

Time, a half-century, has eased the pain of physical dislocation and relocation I think, I hope our faith has been restored in our nation's Constitution. For it was not the Constitution that failed us, but the men and women who were entrusted with its interpretation. The stigma of being accused of potential disloyalty to this, our country, solely on the basis of race has been legally, officially laid to rest. In 1988, forty-six years later, Congress finally apologized for the incarceration

Beginning on October 9, 1990, payments for $20,000 began to come to surviving internees. Payment is yet incomplete It should be noted that when redress was approved almost half of the exiled were dead.

Taylor concludes her book on this note: "For the former residents who have returned (to Topaz)—and many have—the site is full of memories One can only hope that seeing it again imparts a sense of closure, a personal ending to a national episode of shame."

I share that hope with Taylor. But observing the new world economic

competition and the Japan-bashing that has accompanied it here in this country, memory responds to the sound of trains clattering through the night And the lonely sound of a warning whistle echoes in the far away, long ago darkness Let Sandra C Taylor's book be a lucid reminder of what happened in this, our America, fifty years ago, and hope that that tragic mistake will never be repeated

SACHI W SEKO Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Underfoot: Self-guided Tours (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993

Too often the fascinating stories of a city's past, as told by its historic buildings, are buried in the filing cabinets of state or local historic preservation offices. This book brings those stories to light and, in the process, generates greater public awareness and appreciation for Salt Lake City's historic buildings Yet it falls short of achieving all that a historic site tour book should accomplish.

Salt Lake City Underfoot is the first attempt at a citywide tour of historic sites in Salt Lake City. Guidebooks of individual neighborhoods, such as the Avenues, South Temple, and Downtown, have been published previously and proven popular with local audiences. This book features over three hundred sites encompassed in five walking tours and six bicycle tours Maps accompany each of the tours, and high quality photographs of some of the more prominent sites accent the text. A three-page introduction summarizes the history of the city and

of Historic Neighborhoods. By MARK ANGUS . x+ 187pp. Paper, $10.95.)

provides an adequate background for better understanding the sites A bibliography and short glossary of architectural terms round out the book

Angus has included most of the major buildings in the walking tour neighborhoods, along with a number of less prominent structures. He has managed to condense the important historical facts and architectural descriptions into a short paragraph or two for each building—about the right length for most guide users He points out architectural details casual observers might otherwise overlook, including urban design features such as sandstone sidewalks, carriage steps, and historic light posts in some of the neighborhoods. Though his historical accounts are generally straightforward and fair, he has a tendency toward sensationalism at times, highlighting scenes of murders, prostitution, and other illicit and titillating activities more than they perhaps deserve.

Despite its wealth of facts, the book

Book Reviews and Notices193

has a number of shortcomings, some just irritating and others more serious. The format of prescribed tours is more rigid than most visitors need or want and involves detailed directions that clog the text at times and are occasionally inaccurate. This format creates some awkward routes in order to ensure that tours begin and end at convenient locations Most readers will be disappointed with the few photographs that accompany the text This is especially true for the large number of armchair tourists who will not venture into the neighborhoods to see the buildings in person The book's lack of an index will prove frustrating for those searching for a building by its historic name rather than its location. Even the maps, though excellent overall for the walking tour segments, have irritating glitches. For example, the prominent Union Pacific Depot and Devereaux Mansion are not numbered on the map and therefore appear to have been excluded from the book Descriptions of these buildings are included in the book, however; they are just buried, unlabelled, in the text of a side trip description

Officially designated historic districts are virtually unmentioned, and

only the more obvious National Register sites are consistently credited with the distinction. While this may seem like a small issue, it perpetuates the misconception that smaller, less distinguished vernacular buildings are not significant

The bicycle tours are disappointing in their historical coverage They rush headlong past too many key buildings and historical facts to give one an accurate perspective of the outlying areas The Sugar House tour, for example, fails to note that the area was once the incorporated town of Forest Dale and that its bungalow neighborhoods were formerly prime farmland. It also ignores a number of prominent sites, including the state's oldest golf course clubhouse (Forest Dale) and the striking Kearns/St. Ann's Orphanage (St. Ann's School), the only facility of its kind still standing in Utah

Even with its shortcomings this book is a commendable effort at promoting the city's historic sites. It will appeal to out-of-town tourists and satisfy local historic building enthusiasts as well.

ROGER ROPER Utah State Historical Society

Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics. By R MCGREGGOR CAWLEY (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993 xii + 195 pp $29.95.)

As rhetoric about a "War on the West" echoes throughout the West in response to the Clinton administration's public land policy reform agenda, R McGreggor Cawley's Federal Land, Western Anger is a timely study of the interest conflicts inherent in public land policy It analyzes the

confrontation between public land commodity users and the federal government that came to be called the Sagebrush Rebellion

Cawley seeks to provide readers with an understanding of why the Sagebrush Rebellion arose and what it hoped to accomplish by examining

how the people and groups behind the revolt saw the issues at controversy. This leads Cawley to conclude the Sagebrush Rebellion was motivated by more than economic self-interest but was mostly a debate over the meaning of "conservation."

The Sagebrush rebels adhered to the old definition of conservation which stressed use and development of resources, whereas the new definition that had arisen with the environmental movement underscored protection and preservation. Moreover, the new definition of conservation, in the eyes of the insurgents, had come to dominate public land policy and had resulted in an environmental bias in federal resource decision-making and greater power to federal land managers.

To Sagebrush rebels the only way to halt the changing situation was to bring about an open confrontation with the federal government "The shot heard around the world" for the Sagebrush Rebellion was the Nevada legislature's assertion that the public lands within its borders belonged to the state This challenge to the federal government's sovereignty set off a rancorous debate over federal land management policy and practices that led to calls from other states for the cession of federal lands

The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency and Republican wins in Congress should have brought victory to the Sagebrush rebels, but instead it resulted in schism The new administration and congressional allies, who had openly supported the insurgents, chose not to adopt the more radical changes wanted by libertarian economists and others. Instead they adopted "less dramatic policy shifts" through administrative policy processes, causing many Sagebrush rebels to feel abandoned.

Was the Sagebrush Rebellion successful? In addressing this question

Cawley feels that in the less tangible context of political influence, the movement did successfully slow the environmental movement's momentum. Yet at the same time the Sagebrush Rebellion actually served to strengthen the environmental movement, even helping to spawn a few of the more rabid environmental groups that exist today.

Although Federal Land, Western Anger is a timely study with useful insights into the motives of those behind the Sagebrush Rebellion, it unfortunately has several failings. The work would have profited by a better discussion and understanding of past public land controversies Cawley also fails to understand key elements of the debate over public land policy. For example, the disagreement between traditional users and environmentalists was less a debate about the underlying meaning of conservation than a question: To whom do the public lands belong? The author also at times makes assertions that his research cannot support He unconvincingly attempts to cast Secretary of the Interior James Watt as a political moderate. He also speaks of the Sagebrush Rebellion as a "pivotal event" in the shaping of federal land policy, similar to the conservation and environmental movements, but fails to show what significant legislative and legal changes the movement produced to justify such a contention Still, even with its shortcomings, this book will interest students of federal land policy politics.

JAMES MUHN Bureau of Land Management Denver, Colorado

The People: Indians of the American Southwest. By STEPHEN TRIMBLE (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1993. xvi + 496 pp. Cloth, $50.00; paper, $29.95.)

Increasingly books are dealing with smaller topics, shorter eras, and more discrete subjects. In this work, Stephen Trimble reverses all of these trends His subject is the Indian tribes of the American Southwest, more than twenty-five tribal groups This task is daunting, and the author tries to encapsulate the history and comments on the present condition of each of the tribes To achieve such aims with any sense of literary quality is difficult. But Trimble succeeds, and very well at that!

This work combines wide and deep use of libraries with personal interviews with tribal members The author conducted the interviews on the reservations and in the Indian communities. These interviews, liberally quoted in the text, add significantly to the Indian voice that is an important part of the book.

Trimble's work is doubly blessed by his writing and his photography He includes historic photographs as well as a formidable list of his own Many of his photographs are of excellent quality, and some are destined to become classics in the history of the Indians of our time He has carefully chosen his subjects, both persons and objects, and has included shots of spectacular scenery The photos are intelligently dispersed throughout the work rather than placed in groups as

are so many photos in recent publications The reading matter and the related photos are together—what a refreshing change!

There is an additional dimension that makes this book very important School teachers who come to the various reservations in the Southwest are usually unprepared to adjust to a new culture. Trimble gives a picture of the Indians of the area that is timely and accurate This volume should be required reading for all teachers of the region, Indian and non-Indian. The source material presented here will be of lasting value for educators at all levels.

For nearly a generation professional historians have written the large part of their product on narrower and still narrower topics. Historians have the tendency to write works that will please their fellow professionals. This pattern has left the broader interpretations to those who are not associated with universities In this book we find such a broader interpretation. Stephen Trimble is to be congratulated for a contribution that will be of great benefit to Indian and nonIndian alike. It will benefit readers in a wide range of fields.

This beautiful volume of fairly large size (10" x 11") is filled with not only beautiful full-page color panoramas of the mountain country of west-

ern Montana, northern Idaho, and western Washington but also myriad photos of the persons and artifacts of two very different cultures, the Native

FLOYD A. O'NEIL University of Utah

Father DeSmet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West. By JACQUELINE PETERSON with LAURA PEERS (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press in association with the DeSmet Project, Washington State University, 1992 192 pp Paper, $24.95.)

Americans who inhabited the land and the Christian heritage introduced among them Sacred Encounters is a printed record of these treasured items assembled by the DeSmet Project of Washington State University.

In the fall of 1839 Father PierreJean DeSmet, aJesuit priest originally from Belgium who was in charge of the St Joseph Catholic Mission on the frontier near present-day Council Bluffs, was visited by two Iroquois Indians then living among the Salish (Flathead) Indians far to the west They, like three previous delegations, had come to appeal to the Black Robes (as the Jesuits were called by the Iroquois) to come among the Salish and the Nez Perce tribes

Obtaining the permission of his superiors, Father DeSmet, guided by the two Indians, undertook the long journey up the Missouri River the following spring and summer to the Rocky Mountain country of present-day Idaho and western Montana. During the summer rendezvous that year he met with Salish leaders, became convinced of their sincerity, and promised to return the following summer to live and work among them.

Thus began the future Jesuit presence in the country of the Salish, the Nez Perce, the Coleville, the Coeur d'Alene, the Pend Oreille, the Blackfeet, and the Kootnai tribes, ever dogged by the conflict of world views And so too began the future career of DeSmet, the man who in succeeding

years would be recognized as one who understood the plight of Native Americans as they experienced the growing invasion of settlers on the lands of the American West

Sacred Encounters is indeed about Father DeSmet and his special talent at finding some common ground of understanding between the cultural heritage of the Native Americans and that of his historical Christianity. But it is more, reflecting through the art of photography—much in superb color—the persons, places, and artifacts that capture a feeling for that encounter. The volume is in fact a stunning catalogue of the multitude of materials assembled for an exhibition—items gathered from some thirty archival collections in the United States, Canada, and Belgium as well as special collections among the Coeur d'Alene, the Confederated Salish, and the Kootnai tribes

Only in the final pages of this book does one learn something of the full dimension of the exhibition this book catalogues, namely that it "examines the historical encounter and dialogue between peoples . . . [with] . . . two different world views" (p 182) The exhibition received an enthusiastic reception from the public when it opened in the spring of 1993 at its initial venue, the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana

Victims: The IJ)S Church and the Mark Hofmann Case. By RICHARD E. TURLEY, JR (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. viii + 519 pp. $27.95.)

This book comes long after the tragic bombings that shook Utah's Mormon history community in 1985

It follows Mark Hofmann's guilty plea to second degree murder in the deaths of Steve Christensen and

JEROME STOFFEL Salt Lake City

Kathy Sheets. And it comes after a host of other books, both scholarly and sensational, on this notorious subject. What can we gain from yet another work? Why would a Mormon church insider want to reopen what are, clearly, painful wounds to the church? What new information is now to be found?

Happily, this book provides valuable and fascinating insights and new information on the Hofmann case Written, as the author states, from the victim's point of view, it seeks to set the record straight It tries to "correct some misconceptions about the case"—misconceptions that, according to Turley, result when "in the absence of accurate data, speculation uncritically hardens into 'fact'. ..."

Because Victims relies heavily on the insights of those LDS church employees and General Authorities who were intimately associated with the case, it nicely complements Salamander (1988) Salamanders authors, Allen Roberts and Linda Sillitoe, had access to the inside workings of another group of Hofmann's victims: the Mormon history underground. This group consists of that informal collection of historians and buffs who pursue Mormon historical esoterica Both books make it clear that Hofmann cynically ingratiated himself into each camp to achieve his selfish and ultimately murderous purposes.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Turley's work is the use of contemporary writings of many church leaders and employees of the church's Historical Department Entries from their journals, diaries, and memos reveal much of the inside workings of church headquarters They also tell of the relationships between the church and Hofmann and later between the church and the investigators and prosecutors in the case

The author is clearly an apologist for the Mormon church. As the attorney he is, Turley presents an excellent brief for his client. He succeeds in showing that the church is, indeed, a victim But the picture painted is not altogether flattering

The church comes across as sometimes naively overeager, willing to trust a clever amateur, especially when faith-promoting documents are involved. Ironically, at other times the church seems secretive and suspicious, not only of the investigators and prosecutors but also of the professional staff in its own Historical Department

The most interesting example of the long-term and perhaps ongoing lack of trust is the revelation that the church did have, for nearly eighty years, a William McLellin collection. The fictional McLellin collection figured large in the events leading up to the bombings. Hofmann used it as collateral to raise money to keep his confidence game alive No one, including those closest to the top of the church hierarchy, was aware that the real collection had been kept in the First Presidency's vault since 1908. Turley's book, on pages 248-50, tells for the first time about this collection and how it came to light during the investigation. While the church's secretiveness did not make Hofmann a criminal, it did create a climate of susjDicion and doubt that allowed him to take advantage of so many people for so long

Victims makes a valuable contribution to the literature on Mormonism and Mormon historiography.

MAXJ. EVANS Utah State Historical Society

The Searchfor Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism. Edited by GENE A. SESSIONS and CRAIG J OBERG (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993 xxii + 297 pp Paper $17.95.)

Although the leaders of the Mormon church have expressed confidence in the methods and results of scientific thought in official statements since the church's first years, the members of the church, in a movement initiated by Joseph Fielding Smith, have in recent decades tended to join with the Christian fundamentalist movement in rejecting science in general and ideas of organic evolution in particular, especially human evolution. This anthology of sixteen essays explores efforts to harmonize and reconcile scientific and religious truths within the Mormon church. Fifteen of the collected papers were previously published between 1960 and 1988, ten of them in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Nine of the essays are focused directly on scientific theories of evolution and the Mormon religion

Several of these papers are thorough scholarly efforts. Duane Jeffrey's careful historic analysis of the church's statements on specific elements of evolutionary theory is excellent work and has often been cited Its accessibility is enhanced by its inclusion in this volume Together with accounts of evolution controversies among church figures in 1911 (Gary James Bergera), the 1920s and '30s (Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E Keller), and the 1950s (Stephen H Heath) it forms the core of the collection. Surrounding these five scholarly studies are various personal statements of accommodations made by contemporary Mormon scientists and academicians between faith and intellect, scripture and science, Mormon doctrine and evolution. A few essays in the collection, however, seem un-

connected to the book's theme. A catalog of ethical dilemmas posed by new capabilities in biotechnology discusses no science. Laudatory scientific biographies of Harvey Fletcher and Henry Eyring hardly mention their faith The story of James Talmage's desire for education in the eastern states recounts adjustments to the temporal demands of his church offices, not reconciliation of his science with his religious ideology

The editors' introduction and their concluding bibliographical essay provide useful overviews of changing attitudes within the church Even more useful would have been an account of changes in scientific thought on evolution since 1859 Brigham Young and Parley Pratt did not discuss the same body of theory and evidence that Henry Eyring and Joseph Fielding Smith debated in 1955, and even more extensive growth and development of evolutionary biology have occurred in the last thirty-nine years. A brief exposition of these changes in science would have created a context for the variety of attitudes expressed by Mormon figures in different eras. Also, several of the collected essays refer to each other The editors would have served their readers better by indicating in the bibliographical essay and footnotes to all the papers that some entries were reprinted in the present collection so that readers would not be inconvenienced by searching the library for a paper that was already in hand

As several of these papers point out, the official statements of the Mormon church have carefully avoided directly opposing the ideas of evolution and other scientific theories. Never-

theless, Mormons today encounter within their church a growing attitude of opposition to scientific ideas that allows no debate of narrow, literalist interpretations of scripture. This book offers Mormon men a demonstration that it was not always so and that "empirical and theological insights" can

readily be combined Mormon women, not represented among the authors or the subjects of these collected papers, may have to look elsewhere.

MICHAEL P DONOVAN Southern Utah University

Book Notices

Sandy City: The First One Hundred Years.

By MARTHA SONNTAG BRADLEY

(Sandy, Ut.: Sandy City Corp., 1993 x + 228 pp $25.00.)

Histories of Utah communities, whether compiled or written by a committee or a single author, often resemble scrapbooks containing masses of detail with little interpretation By contrast, Sandy City: The First One Hundred Years has a strong interpretive thrust, reflecting its authorship by a professional historian, Marty Bradley. The result is a highly readable narrative that should appeal to many readers outside the Sandy city limits

Residents of other Salt Lake Valley communities unfamiliar with the town will find its early history unique Settlers looking for farmland began moving into the Sandy area in the 1860s and 1870s, and a town resembling somewhat the typical Mormon village was eventually laid out. But Sandy really developed because of mining and quarrying in nearby Big and Little Cottonwood canyons. Sandy became, first, a supply station for the mines

and, later, a transportation and smelting hub with the completion of the Wasatch &Jordan Valley Railroad and the building of several smelters in the 1870s

Sandy incorporated as a city in 1893, the year of a nationwide financial panic With mining in decline, Sandy residents focused their attention on developing community structures, services, and small businesses The opening in November 1914 of Jordan High School marked a milestone in Sandy's evolution

Sandy emerged from two world wars and a depression with its quiet, rural image intact, but change was in the air The post-World War II demand for housing and the development of Salt Lake City as a major metropolitan area led ultimately to the explosive growth of Sandy as a sprawling suburban boom town.

Although population continued to increase at an astonishing rate through the 1980s, astute city planners managed to resolve many growth problems; but crowded schools and clogged highways continue to defy easy solutions Meanwhile, commercial

development—including retail businesses and light industry—has created jobs within the community, making it less dependent upon Salt Lake City.

Refusing to identify itself only as a suburb of Salt Lake City, Sandy has reclaimed its early identity as a town—at least in the minds of its residents.

buildings in the Logan Historic District. This annotated entry is typical: "68 West 1st South Thatcher Milling and Elevator Company, a rock building which used water power, built by Moses and B. G. Thatcher around 1880. It burned down in the 1930s. The rock shell is still visible behind VOne Gas."

History ofLogan. By RAY SOMERS 2 vols. (Logan, Ut.: Somers Historic Press, 1993. xviii + 468 pp. Paper, $35.00.)

For Ray Somers, writing History of Logan was a labor of love, the fulfillment of his life's goal "to leave something of worth for the next generation—an actual glimpse of the past."

Volume 1 of History of Logan is divided into eighteen chapters covering a wide variety of topics, including, among others, businesses, historic homes, city government, churches, schools, newspapers, and civic and religious organizations.

Researchers will find the detail in some chapters especially useful For example, chapter 8 lists known occupants of homes and commercial

Volume 2 contains hundreds of photographs arranged in fifty subject categories This impressive collection took Somers more than ten years to gather and identify.

"It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West. By RICHARD WHITE (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. xx + 644 pp. Paper, $21.95.)

This brilliant, if slightly eclectic, work is now available in paperback. Emphasizing conflict, ethnic domination, environmental exploitation, and other tenets of the new western history, it may well be the most significant synthesis of the American West to have been published during the past decade

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Department of Community and Economic Development Division of State History

BOARD O F STATE HISTORY

MARILYN CONOVER BARKER, Salt Lake City, 1997 Chair

PETER L. GOSS, Salt Lake City, 1995 Vice-Chair

MAXJ EVANS, Salt Lake City Secretary

DALE L. BERGE, Provo, 1995

BOYD A. BLACKNER, Salt Lake City, 1997

DAVID D. HANSEN, Sandy, 1997

CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN, Salt Lake City,1997

DEAN L MAY, Salt Lake City, 1995

CHRISTIE SMITH NEEDHAM, Logan, 1997

PENNY SAMPINOS, Price, 1995

THOMAS E SAWYER, Orem, 1997

JERRY WYLIE, Ogden, 1997

ADMINISTRATION

MAXJ EVANS, Director

WILSON G. MARTIN, Associate Director

PATRICIA SMITH-MANSFIELD, Assistant Director STANFORD J LAYTON, Managing Editor

DAVID B. MADSEN, State Archaeologist

The Utah State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, and publish Utah and related history. Today, under state sponsorship, the Society fulfills itsobligations bypublishing the Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials; collecting historic Utah artifacts; locating, documenting, and preserving historic and prehistoric buildings and sites; and maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs, museum, or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live up to itsresponsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 The U.S Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap in its federally assisted programs If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C 20240