“Places that Can Be Easily Defended”: A Case Study in the Economics of Abandonment During Utah’s Black Hawk War

“Places that Can Be Easily Defended”: A Case Study in the Economics of Abandonment During Utah’s Black Hawk War

By W. PAUL REEVE

It was December 1862, when Mormon colonizer James Jepson arrived at Virgin City, Utah, a small agricultural community crouched at the bottom of a shallow pocket along the banks of the Virgin River. Jepson had received his call to the Cotton Mission just three months earlier; he shortly sold his home at Salt Lake City and began the tedious journey south. 1 For Jepson, this was only the latest in a string of dislocations he and his family had endured since converting to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormonism decades earlier. In 1842, he and his wife left their native England to join the main body of saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, and then relocated three more times before settling for seven years at Mill Creek in Salt Lake County. It was the longest Jepson had stayed in one place since becoming a Latter-day Saint and in the words of his son, “the future looked bright with promise”—that is until the call came from Mormon leader Brigham Young to move south.

For Jepson’s family the first winter in Utah’s Dixie proved challenging as they began the rigorous task of building a new life in the harsh desert environment of southwestern Utah. Initially they lived in a tent and wagon, but, come spring, Jepson commenced work on a new, more permanent dwelling. He hauled logs from Kolob Mountain, had them “sawed on shares,” and then fastened them to smoothed cedar poles with wooden pegs which his family whittled “at odd times.” Jepson topped the new abode with a lumber roof, which his son, James Jr., remembered let the rain “sift through the knot holes and cracks during storms.”2 Nevertheless, it was home and served the Jepson family well.

A few years later, in 1866, word arrived at Virgin City from Brigham Young that would yet again disrupt Jepson’s life. Young’s instructions stipulated that due to “Indian trouble small settlements should be abandoned, and the people who have formed them should, without loss of time, repair to places that can be easily defended.” 3 According to James Jepson Jr., Virgin residents “were ordered to move into forts at Rockville and Toquerville.” In response the elder Jepson disassembled his lumber home and hauled the entire structure about ten miles upriver to Rockville. This time Jepson was able to secure nails, saving his family the task of whittling new wooden pegs. However, the day Jepson finished rebuilding the house two riders charged into Rockville at full speed, spreading the news that there would be a fort erected at Virgin City after all. As a result, James Jr. recalled, “father and I tore the house down again and hauled it back to Virgin, where we rebuilt it and lived in it for two years.”4

Clearly for Jepson this “Indian trouble” interrupted an already difficult community building effort. Similar dislocation stories repeated themselves throughout central and southern Utah among Mormons and Native Americans alike. The Black Hawk War (1865-1872), as the “Indian trouble” came to be called, proved the worst Indian uprising in Utah history. According to John Alton Peterson, the war’s foremost historian, at least seventy whites were killed and perhaps twice as many Native Americans. Young’s abandonment policy led to the closure of dozens of major settlements and hundreds of ranches, as Mormons built forts and banded together for safety. 5

For the Mormons, dislocations prompted by the Black Hawk War were only the last in a string of ousters which Peterson contends took their place in the Latter-day Saint psyche next to the saints’ earlier banishments from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. There was an ironic difference in the Black Hawk War relocations however. Desperate, dispossessed, and starving Native Americans, by raiding and plundering Mormon communities, set Mormons in southern and central Utah in motion, but it was the two decades of dislocations suffered at the hands of ever-encroaching Mormon settlers that fueled the Native American hostilities in the first place. 6

Even though Young’s abandonment policy no doubt saved lives, Peterson contends that at times it conversely produced “serious frictions” among members of disparate communities forced to merge under already tense circumstances. At some places town consolidations quickly created overcrowding as refugees occupied any available cover, including dugouts, chicken coops, and sheds. Elsewhere residents expressed resentment over their town being selected for abandonment and suggested priesthood favoritism in the process. Others bemoaned the economic impact that leaving their homes and land created: Robert W. Glenn, for example, upon being ordered to leave Glenwood in 1866 lamented losses of about $1,700. Farther south, Levi Savage especially resented his lost rights to grazing lands near Kanab, because, he contended, “local churchmen” took advantage of abandonment and jumped his claims. 7

Young’s mandated frontier population shifts no doubt burdened already struggling Mormon towns, the economic impact of which begs further study. Clover Valley and Shoal Creek, two Cotton Mission settlements forced to merge as a result of the Black Hawk War, offer a notable opportunity to do just that. Under orders from Mormon apostle and Cotton Mission president, Erastus Snow, Clover Valley saints abandoned their community in 1866 and moved more than thirty miles east to combine with a small kinship group already occupying Shoal Creek Fort, an outpost resting on the southern end of the Escalante Desert in Washington County. By 1868 Snow deemed it safe to abandon the fort. Most residents responded by founding Hebron, a new town just outside the walls of the former fort. Some settlers, however, rejected Snow’s admonition and quickly returned to reoccupy land at Clover Valley.

It is evident that the forced mixing of Clover Valley and Shoal Creek caused social tension and power conflicts that persisted long after the Black Hawk War, but what of the economic impact on residents of both towns?8 Clover Valley denizens abandoned their crops and homes, placing themselves at the mercy of Shoal Creek residents. But, those at Shoal Creek also sacrificed as they voluntarily redistributed land to make room for the Clover Valley refugees. Were the social tensions manifest at the fort merely surface manifestations of underlying economic anxieties as these two communities struggled to unite? Were Clover Valley movers relegated to the monetary margins while Shoal Creek residents maintained advantages critical to determining their positions of wealth?

Tax assessment records for the ten years surrounding life at the fort (1865-1875) highlight the economic impact this coming together had upon total wealth, land, livestock ownership, and social stratification. Young’s abandonment policy also raises intriguing questions concerning key economic principles. For example, economists J. R. Kearl, Clayne L. Pope, and Larry T. Wimmer, contend, after studying household wealth in Utah from 1850 to1870, that “time of entry into the economy was critical in the determination of a typical household’s wealth position.” This is true they argue, for two reasons. First, land of the highest quality is brought into production first, leaving only marginal land available to alleviate pressure from population growth and capital accumulation. Second, those who participate in an economy for a longer period of time generally amass “a larger stock of useful and valuable economic information” about prices and skills relating to a particular region. They conclude for nineteenth-century Utah, “time of entry or duration in an economy to be a significant determinant of wealth” and that “the distribution of wealth becomes increasingly unequal through time.” 9 These findings, when applied at a community level suggest that settlers uprooted by relocation would be at a decided disadvantage due to their late entry into an established economy.

In southwestern Utah, hostility between Mormon settlers, silver miners, and Southern Paiutes predated the Black Hawk War. However, it was the heightened nature of that conflict that eventually led Young to order the abandonment of outlying communities on the Cotton Mission frontier. 10 Those orders came in May 1866, when Young instructed Erastus Snow that in order “to save the lives and property of people in your counties . . . there must be thorough and energetic measures of protection taken immediately”; he then ordered the abandonment of all “small settlements” deemed “too weak to successfully resist attack.” Young left the selection of towns for relocation in the hands of Snow, but did stipulate that gathering sites should be chosen “that can be easily defended, and that possesses [sic] the necessary advantages to sustain a heavy population.” Young further added that “there should be from 150 to 500 good and efficient men in every settlement; but not less than 150 well armed men. . . . Where there are several settlements which do not have this number of men, there should be places selected at which the requisite number can concentrate.” 11

In implementing this advice Snow apparently modified it to suit local circumstances as well as to fit his own vision of colonization in southern Utah. Snow had presided over southern Utah from the Cotton Mission’s beginning in 1861 and would continue to be an influence there until his death in 1888. As Mormon apostle and colonizer he was responsible for the spiritual, economic, and social well being of southwestern Utah Mormons. He involved himself in a variety of economic pursuits, including cattle ranching, the Washington Cotton Factory, and the Southern Utah Cooperative Mercantile Association. In these various capacities he developed an overarching vision for southern Utah, which no doubt, came into play as he began to implement Young’s directive. 12

Snow traveled to Shoal Creek in July 1866, and complimented its residents on the “good place” they had selected to build a fort and predicted that in the near future “there will be a flourishing settlement here.” He then significantly reduced Young’s suggested numbers and advised Shoal Creek denizens: “I feel that you need a good Ft. & 40 good men filled with the power of god and well armed” and proceeded to announce that he would instruct Clover Valley settlers to vacate their homes and settle at Shoal Creek. 13

Clover Valley had more residents than Shoal Creek and had a longer established fort, but Snow still selected the latter as a gathering spot. A closer examination of the two communities prior to their merger helps explain Snow’s rationale as well as set the stage for exploring the economic effect the forced blending of towns produced.

John, Charles, and William Pulsipher, along with David Chidester, first settled the Shoal Creek region of Washington County in 1862. Snow sent them off from St. George the year before to find good herd ground to graze the ever-increasing number of livestock being brought to the Cotton Mission. They selected a site more than forty-five miles northwest of St. George along Shoal Creek and soon spread out to tend the large herds under their charge. Before long Chidester abandoned the small ranching outpost, but the Pulsipher brothers, joined by their father Zera and brother-in-law Thomas S.Terry, persisted in what quickly became a family business.14 Occasionally others came to Shoal Creek looking to take advantage of the good herd grounds the Pulsiphers had found and settled at different spots along the creek. In response, the Pulsiphers expanded their ranching operations and moved to occupy more land. By 1865, one report described the settlers’ strewn condition, noting that they had built “two or three houses in a place and the locations from 2 to 7 miles apart.” 15

Apparently friendly relations with Native Americans allowed such a dispersal. John Pulsipher, for example, recalled first exploring the area and visiting a band of Southern Paiutes living there. He remembered that “they expresst themselv[e]s well Pleased with our coming to live with them” and later commented that “we were blessed wonderful[l]y & we had no trouble with th[e] natives altho we were few, but always ready.” In 1864, Pulsipher did note that the scattered families at Shoal Creek coalesced for a time “for mutual Defense,” against the Indians, but this temporary gathering only lasted for about a month before the ranchers returned to their homes. 16

At Clover Valley, in contrast, increasingly hostile relations with Native Americans directly affected the settlers, making fort life the most logical choice. In early 1864 a group of Mormons under the direction of Edward Bunker founded Clover Valley, approximately thirty miles southwest of Shoal Creek in present-day Nevada. According to Orson Welcome Huntsman, who arrived at Clover Valley in 1865, the “valley was only about one mile wide and three or four miles long, running east and west, carpeted with green meadows, watered by nice springs . . . and surrounded by low rolling hills, which were covered with wild sage brush and cedar trees and a very good stock range.”17 By 1865, the county surveyor had laid out a “little village” at Clover into twenty-five lots, eight rods by sixteen, and the townspeople had built a “well finished school and meeting house . . . of squared logs.” 18 Rather than spreading out with their herds like the Shoal Creek group, those at Clover Valley “were mostly all living in a little fort.” Huntsman recalled that the people “had built their log houses close together, forming a hollow square, in order to protect themselves from the indians [sic] as they had been hostile.” 19

In early 1864, even before the Black Hawk War began, Mormons at Clover, as well as neighboring Eagle and Meadow valleys (all in present-day southeastern Nevada), fought with their Southern Paiute neighbors. In August 1864, according to Mormon reports, a “large number of Thieving Indians” raided these tiny outposts perched on the Cotton Mission’s western frontier and drove off “considerable stock & tried to kill several of the men.” In the process the Mormons took three Paiute prisoners. Apparently, the prisoners dared an escape attempt, but the Mormon guards killed them in the ensuing confusion. Needless to say, this “greatly enraged” other local Indians and set the frontier settlers on edge. Upon learning of these difficulties Erastus Snow recommended to Edward Bunker, the ecclesiastical head over the frontier settlements, “the policy of taking no prisoners, but of killing thieves when taken in the act.” Snow did “hope,” however, “that God will over rule it for the best.” Beyond that, he admonished the settlers at Panaca and Eagle Valley to “either concentrate and adopt the measure of defense recommended, or abandon the place with your families and stock.” He then added, with uncanny foresight, “what is said of Panaca, will apply with still greater force to Clover Valley.” 20

It seems, then, that relations with Native Americans proved a determining factor in the type of spatial arrangements chosen at the two hamlets as well as the primary consideration behind Snow selecting Shoal Creek as the gathering spot. Clover Valley had a longer established fort, three times as many families, and a “well finished” meetinghouse; nevertheless, Snow advised its residents to relocate to “Shoal Creek & other Places where u will be more safe.” 21 Snow’s implication is clear: Clover Valley would likely continue to suffer from hostile relations with Native Americans, while Shoal Creek might be spared.

Besides its more favorable Indian relations, Snow seems to have envisioned Shoal Creek as a “flourishing settlement” and perhaps saw more economic potential there. The tax assessor in 1865 collected taxes from seven property owners at Shoal Creek: Hyrum Burgess, Zera, William, and John Pulsipher, E. R. Westover, Moses N. Emmett, and Thomas S. Terry. This group controlled a total of $5,245 in wealth, producing a median of $650. The two largest property owners, William and John Pulsipher, commanded 47 percent of the Shoal Creek total and, when combined with the next two largest holders, Zera Pulsipher and Thomas Terry, this kinship group’s portion rose to 76 percent. 22 Clearly the Pulsipher clan dominated the area economically, a factor that carried over into persistence at Shoal Creek. John Pulsipher, for example, lamented in September 1865, the rapid turnover of settlers, writing that “of all that have lived here there has been but few that we could depend upon regular to keep up the settlement.” 23

Figure 1. 1885 Shoal Creek Total Wealth

Economic considerations likely played a role in the fluid nature of the settlement at Shoal Creek and illustrate a key economic principle. As Shoal Creek founders, the Pulsipher clan enjoyed an advantage over later arrivals. They claimed the best land early and gained a working knowledge of the region so that when newcomers attempted to encroach upon their herd grounds they simply spread out to occupy additional lands.24 Of the seven taxpayers listed in 1865, only four, the Pulsipher group, remained by 1868 to move into the fort, the rest sought refuge elsewhere.

The least wealthy, Hyrum Burgess, for example, reported owning no land or improvements, two cows, three horses, one vehicle, and $25 worth of additional property for an impoverished total of $265. Burgess it seems, possessed somewhat of a wandering spirit, a character trait that may help to account for his lack of wealth. He was a grandson of Zera Pulsipher and a nephew of John Pulsipher. He came to Utah in 1850 at the age of thirteen. Four years later he was in southern Utah as part of the Southern Indian Mission. By 1861 he was married and had a son who was born in Summit County, Utah. Three years later he was back in southern Utah living at Shoal Creek where he stayed for one year. In 1865, he moved to Nevada because, as John Pulsipher put it, “he thinks there is more money somewhere else—(at the mines West).” 25

The vast majority of the 1865 holdings at Shoal Creek, 76 percent, existed in the form of livestock, including cattle, horses, sheep and goats (see Figure 1). Interestingly, land and improvements only comprised 8 percent of the total wealth; however, within a decade, this category’s importance rose as population pressure escalated and available lands grew increasingly marginal, a factor that would once again give the Pulsipher bunch an important edge. In short, Shoal Creek denizens controlled very little wealth, and most of that which they did have was portable.

As for Clover Valley, the 1865 assessor levied taxes on sixteen men, who shared a total wealth of only $5,968, just $700 more than the much smaller group at Shoal Creek. Clearly those at Clover Valley were poor, with a median wealth of $255, almost a third of the Shoal Creek median. Dudley Leavitt topped the Clover Valley list, reporting a total wealth of $1,260, most of which ($955) existed in the form of 52 head of cattle. Jonathan Hunt, the poorest at Clover Valley, reported owning two cows, one horse, and six sheep or goats, worth only $83. There was no kinship domination of wealth at Clover Valley; the top third of property owners controlled 62 percent of the wealth, the middle third 23 percent, and the bottom third, 15 percent. Only one person at Clover Valley, Samuel Knights, claimed any land or improvements, the rest apparently did not view their cabins at the fort as personal property. Like Shoal Creek, Clover Valley was clearly a pastoral community with cattle, horses, sheep and goats representing 82 percent of the townspeople's total wealth (see Figure 2). 26

Source:Washington County Tax Rolls, 1865.

By the end of 1866, ten families from Clover Valley—Amos, James, and Jonathan Hunt; James, Joseph and Hyrum Huntsman; Dudley and Jeremiah Leavitt; Zadock Parker, and Benjamin Brown Crow—moved to combine with the Shoal Creek group while the remaining Clover families relocated to Panaca and “other places,” leaving Clover Valley entirely abandoned at least temporarily. 27 Even under the best of circumstances, a merger of towns would be trying for people of both groups. Clover Valley settlers essentially became refugees, dependent upon the mercies of those at Shoal Creek. Shoal Creek inhabitants, too, faced challenges as they attempted to fit these new families into previously established geographic, social, and economic orders.

Clover Valley settlers were accustomed to life in a fort and likely had little difficulty adjusting to physical conditions at Shoal Creek. Orson Huntsman remembered the new accommodations this way: “we all built in a fort with houses joined together with most of the doors and windows facing the inside of the square or fort, some houses built of logs, some of rock and some of adobie [sic], and all of the houses were covered with dirt.” He also described the locale as “a very dry desolate looking place” and complained that “when it rained . . . our houses would leak mud for a day or two after the rain was all over.” 28

Issues of land ownership quickly surfaced at the fort, especially for Clover refugees. According to Huntsman, at the time of the merger there were only “two or three acres of land farmed on the creek all told and a very small piece of land that hay was harvested off of.” He also despaired that for more than the five families already located at Shoal Creek “it was a very discouraging outlook.” In Huntsman’s eyes “there was nothing for them [the Clover Valley brethren] to subsist on, only in raising stock, this was a good place for that but there was no market for stock, butter or cheese.” 29 Understandably, then, the dismal economic outlook for the Clover Valley group became a point of concern.

Not long after moving together, the “Shoal Creek brethren” and the “Clover brethren,” as they called themselves, met to address the issue of land distribution. Zera Pulsipher chaired the meeting while the Clover brethren selected father James Huntsman as their spokesman. Huntsman began by expressing “some fear that there was not land enough” for everyone, especially because the Shoal Creek brethren “claimed the best.” Without hesitating, the Shoal Creek settlers responded with ingrained egalitarian principles: they “offered, not only their claims, but their enclosed & cultivated lands—all to be used for the public good.” Those gathered then selected father Huntsman, Thomas S. Terry, and John Pulsipher as a committee to divide the land and before adjourning also decided to drop the “Clover brethren” and “Shoal Creek brethren” labels. As John Pulsipher put it, “we are all citizens of this place. So let us be united.” 30

By May 1867, the committee had laid out one public field for gardens, one as a pasture or hay field, and a third for unspecified use. Of the garden spot, each family received about half an acre, the hay field, one acre and the last field, two or three acres depending upon the size of the family. As was customary among Mormons, the settlers drew for land by ballot and “the people were very well satisfied.” 31

And well they should have been, especially former Clover Valley denizens, as it seems that their move to the fort proved economically advantageous. In 1868, median wealth at the fort equaled $427, a vast improvement for former Clover residents, but a loss for Shoal Creek persisters. In fact, the nine traceable Clover Valley taxpayers living at Shoal Creek Fort in 1868 enjoyed a combined 28 percent increase in total wealth over their 1865 total. 32 A significant portion of that increase came in the form of land and improvements, no doubt due to the Shoal Creek residents’ willingness to redistribute land. Interestingly, in doing so the Shoal Creek settlers parceled themselves into minority holders. The Clover Valley movers collectively reported $675 worth of land and improvements, or 55 percent of the total land value at Shoal Creek Fort. Even Jonathan Hunt, the poorest of the Clover Valley movers, managed to improve his standing, doubling the number of his cattle to four, picking up $50 worth of land and nearly tripling his total wealth to $242. 33

While it seems evident that Clover Valley movers benefited economically from the merger with Shoal Creek, it does not necessarily signify the converse among Shoal Creek persisters. True, by 1868 Shoal Creek settlers controlled only 45 percent of the community’s total land value, but even still the value of that 45 percent increased dramatically over its 1865 amount, likely due to the road work, fence building, and ditch digging spurred on by life at the fort. It is evident too, that the land being distributed was farmland, while the two communities primarily relied upon livestock for subsistence, giving Shoal Creekers the advantage over available herd grounds by virtue of their experience in the area. The Shoal Creek brethren enjoyed an edge in other ways as well. Their 1868 median wealth, for example, grew to $1,403, more than double what it was before moving to the fort. In terms of distribution of total wealth, however, life at the fort seemed to end the Pulsipher clan’s strangle hold on economic power as two of the wealthiest fort dwellers, Amos Hunt and Dudley Leavitt, came from Clover Valley. The top third of the fort community controlled 61 percent of the wealth, the middle third, 24 percent and the poorest third 15 percent. 34

Certainly, then, despite the discouraging outlook reported by Huntsman upon arriving at Shoal Creek, and the perceived inequality of land holdings, the Shoal Creek group’s willingness to redistribute land proved a boon to the Clover Valley movers so that by 1868 as residents prepared to leave the fort they did so on average better off than when they arrived.

It was August 1868, when Erastus Snow deemed it safe to abandon the fort at Shoal Creek and to found a proper Mormon village. Accompanied by G. A. Burgon, the county surveyor, Snow traveled to the area for that purpose. Before long the Mormon grid system scarred the earth as the surveyor laid out three streets running east and west and five north and south. Burgon also surveyed four areas into fields for farming. In choosing a name for the new town John Pulsipher borrowed from Old Testament scripture and suggested Hebron, after the site where the ancient prophet Abraham had tended his flocks and herds. The people voted to accept the name and Snow then blessed and dedicated the locale for a new town. 35

Even before founding Hebron, however, some settlers began moving away. Pulsipher, as early as the spring of 1867, noted a dispersal from the fort as several Clover brethren returned to their former lands at Clover Valley, initially to farm, and later to settle. He wrote of the removal of Jeremiah Leavitt and Jonathan Hunt, for example, and then chided them: “The brethren have had no counsel to go—nor did they ask for any that I know of—They cant see inducements sufficient to stay here & work altho this is the place we are couns[e]led to live by the Presidency . . . of the mission.” 36

Apparently Snow felt similarly. After dedicating Hebron he expressed sorrow over the families that had gone to Clover Valley. He remarked that he “wished they had stayed here & tried to fulfil the counsel that he gave to build up this place....[He] Wished [the] Sts to feel the Spirit of gathering–build good houses &c & make themselves comfortable homes, have good schools & meetings & Educate the children & not scatter off & live like Piutes.”37

Despite Pulsipher’s perception of a dispersal, and perhaps in response to Snow’s admonition, only three members of the 1868 fort population were tax payers at Clover Valley by 1870. Benjamin Brown Crow, James W. Hunt, and Jonathan Hunt elected to try and reclaim property at Clover, and, according to Huntsman, several others, at least temporarily, did too. In September 1868, Huntsman traveled to Clover Valley where his brother Hyrum and mother Hannah had just moved, preparing to make that place their home. Huntsman, however, told them that Snow had just supervised the creation of Hebron and had informed the settlers he did not want them returning to Clover Valley, but they should “help build up the new town.” Hyrum and Hannah “did not like it very well,” Huntsman recalled, but they “were soon reconciled to it and were willing to comply with Brother Snows [sic] request, to go back and try to make a living of it.” 38

Devotion to authority undoubtedly played a role in at least some of the fort dwellers’ decision to remain along Shoal Creek and help pioneer Hebron. However, it is difficult to determine which was the better choice, staying at Hebron or returning to Clover Valley. Clover Valley resurfaces on the tax rolls in 1870, for the first time since its abandonment, with a list of primarily new family names among its taxpayers, suggesting that there was little regard among settlers in the region for the Clover Valley refugees’ former claims. Apparently, the town was thrown open for settlement anew, although Huntsman, in describing his mother’s and brother’s attempt to return to Clover, noted one reason for doing so was because “the place we left in the fall of ‘66 had not been sold,” suggesting that the old Clover refugees had some chance of selling their former claims. 39

The three former denizens who chose to return to Clover, the two Hunt brothers and Benjamin Brown Crow, became part of a community that by 1870 shared a median wealth of $570, only slightly lower than that of Hebron ($585) for that year. Judging by broader standards, the poverty of both Hebron and Clover Valley becomes clear: both towns clung to holdings that were below Utah Territory’s 1870 average wealth per household, a mere $644, which in turn was significantly lower than the $1,782 national average. 40

In selecting a community, then, it seems that neither Hebron nor Clover Valley allured settlers with prospects of riches. The true difference between the towns, however, lay in the spreading of what riches were available among their peoples. On the surface Hebron’s and Clover Valley’s 1870 distribution of wealth closely mirrored each other: the top third at Hebron controlled 71 percent of the wealth versus 68 percent at Clover, the middle third 20 percent and 24 percent respectively, and the poorest third survived with only 10 and 8 percent of the Hebron and Clover totals. 41

Interestingly, the Clover distribution seems to defy a key economic principle regarding the likelihood of a more equal sharing of wealth in the initial periods of settlement, but a closer look reveals a significant outlier in the data. John and William Sherwood, taxed collectively as a business entity called the “Sherwood Brothers,” are listed as the wealthiest of the Clover taxpayers in 1870, yet they reported owning no land or improvements. Their $3,920 worth of wealth consisted primarily of cattle and company stock. The Sherwoods operated a sawmill at Clover Valley and a lumber yard on Main Street at Pioche, Nevada. They likely took advantage of the Mormon abandonment of Clover Valley as a good time to locate their sawmill there. Relations between the Sherwoods and the returning Mormons proved friendly, so much so that by 1879 the Sherwoods fully integrated into the community when they were baptized members of the LDS faith. 42 Economically, however, the small size of the community dictates removing the Sherwood brothers as outliers. Doing so produces a remarkably flat distribution of wealth, as expected for a new community. Excluding the Sherwood brothers, the wealthiest third at Clover controlled only 46 percent of the total assets, the middle third, 31 percent, and the poorest third a respectable 23 percent. Juxtaposed against other available data, it becomes clear that if economic equality was important in deciding where to live following the break up of Shoal Creek Fort, Clover Valley offered it, Hebron did not. Hebron, in fact, gave rise to an increasingly stratified society (see Figure 3). 43

Figure 3.1870 Distribution of Wealth

Source:Washington County Tax Rolls, 1870.

For the three fort residents who decided to disobey Snow and try their luck at Clover Valley, it did not prove a bad decision economically. Each increased his holdings over what he controlled at the fort and collectively the three men’s wealth grew 66 percent from 1868 to 1870.This is certainly not to suggest that similar growth was unavailable at Hebron. By 1870, Hyrum and Hannah Huntsman, who begrudgingly complied with Snow’s request to stay at Hebron, experienced a combined 37 percent growth over their 1868 total, a rate not equal to those who chose Clover, but respectable nonetheless. In the end, whatever allured the three away from Hebron after the break up of the fort, two of them, the Hunt brothers, had made their way back to Hebron by 1875. 44

The true significance of the forced mingling at Shoal Creek becomes apparent by 1875. Of the taxpayers at Hebron for that year only two of the original nine Clover Valley movers, Benjamin Brown Crow and Dudley Leavitt, had settled elsewhere, the rest responded to ecclesiastical orders and cast their lots with Hebron.The infant town also attracted outsiders, so that by 1875 the total number of taxpayers grew to twenty and included a coop store and co-op herd, two vestiges of the town’s miserable failure at implementing Young’s communitarian United Order. Median wealth in 1875 remained low, growing only five dollars in five years, in large part likely due to the influx of poor newcomers who kept the average down. The distribution of that wealth, however, grew increasingly stratified by 1875, so that the top third of taxpayers controlled 78 percent of the wealth, the middle third only 16 percent, and the bottom third, a pittance of but 6 percent, a distribution terribly top heavy. All four members of the Pulsipher clan were in the top third and collectively controlled 57 percent of the total wealth. 45

Unquestionably, the Shoal Creek region continued to hold good fortune for the original settlers (the Pulsipher clan) and conclusively demonstrates the importance of time of entry into an economy. Even still, those from Clover Valley were by no means shut out of opportunities for upward mobility.While median wealth for the entire community remained relatively low from 1865 to 1875, the merger at the fort and then newcomers at Hebron pulled it down. Separating out the Pulsipher core, for example, produces a median wealth of $2,850, over three times the Pulsipher’s median ten years earlier. Those who moved from Clover Valley enjoyed a $795 median in 1875, also over three times that of their 1865 wealth (see Figure 4 on next page). 46

Figure 4.Median Wealth Over Time

Hebron definitely provided opportunities for economic growth, but for the Clover Valley group it seems to have offered an additional attraction: land for its next generation of settlers. Four sons of Clover Valley movers, for example, became property owners by 1875 and as a group enjoyed a median wealth of $358, over $100 greater than the Clover Valley median when their parents left ten years earlier. Orson Huntsman’s experience is likely typical. While living in the close quarters of Shoal Creek Fort, he recalled spending all of his leisure time with his “girl,” Mary Ann Terry, whom he called “the Bell of the fort.” She was a daughter of Thomas S. Terry, and on December 29, 1867, she married Huntsman in a small, pineslab room at the fort. According to Huntsman it was “not a very public” wedding on account of the room being small and “so wet and muddy” from the dirt roof leaking rain. 47

Despite the obscurity of the occasion, Huntsman’s wedding illustrates a key point. Life at the fort offered opportunities for social interaction that in Huntsman’s case resulted in marriage into the locale’s key family group. Upon wedding, Huntsman detailed his economic situation: “My wife and I had two cows each, but I now claimed all four. I had a very good horse team, and I had very little land of my own. . . . My father-in-law, who I soon got in the habit of calling father Terry, had some stock that he was tending on shares. He let me have some of them which helped me out.” Huntsman also described occasionally trading for more land, and when the surveyor laid out the Hebron town site he recalled getting nearly an acre town lot, “the first piece of land that I ever had, together with my one and one half acres of meadow land.” He then added, sarcastically, “I am getting to be a large real estate owner, this making in all, two and a half acres.” 48

Hebron plainly offered opportunities for not only Clover Valley movers, but for their children as well. By 1875, Huntsman paid taxes on $250 worth of land and controlled $565 in total wealth, almost even with the community median. Besides Huntsman, his brother David and two additional Hunt brothers, Amos P., and Jefferson, also became new property holders at Hebron by 1875. 49

The final story at Hebron is of the changing importance of land over time. The value of land and improvements at Hebron had jumped from 8 percent in 1865, to 32 percent by 1875.The four members of the Pulsipher clan dominated 42 percent of that land value, while the other sixteen taxpayers had to split the remaining 58 percent. It seems that by 1875 the Pulsiphers had begun exploiting their stock of useful information about the region to claim more land and increase their herd sizes. 50

That fact becomes even more evident when exploring the Pulsiphers’ actions following the break up of the fort. In January 1869, John and William Pulsipher moved south of Hebron a few miles to little Pine Valley where they built a saw mill and dairy. Their brother-in-law, Thomas Terry did likewise, moving to the group’s old “upper” herd location and establishing what came to be called Terry’s ranch. It is no wonder that Terry claimed $2,000 worth of land by 1875, the most land value of any Hebronite. 51

Another economic principle suggests that inequality in an economy grows over time, a factor equally evident at Shoal Creek and then Hebron (see Figure 5). Given the religious nature of Hebron colonists and their attempted devotion to nineteenth-century Mormon communitarian ideals, the imbalance of wealth evident by 1875 shouts for attention. Most likely, ranching, as an occupation of independence accounts for this stratification. It allowed the Pulsipher clan to benevolently redistribute small parcels of farmland at the fort with little effect upon their ranching operations. They were not farmers, so they were easily able to give up the small acreage of lands under cultivation for the good of the community, while still increasing herd sizes year after year, as well as dominating herd grounds. One Clover Valley mover, Amos Hunt, also wisely accumulated wealth through dramatic growth in the size of his herd, adding additional imbalance to an already skewed distribution.

Figure 5.Shoal Creek/Hebron Distribution of Wealth Over Time

The other important shift in the makeup of wealth at Hebron was the move away from sheep and goats toward an exclusive cattle and horse based economy. Sheep and goats plummeted from their 20 percent chunk of the total assets in 1865 to a minuscule half of one percent by 1875. Only one Hebronite, Thomas S. Terry, still herded any sheep or goats, the rest of the town wealth clearly resided in land, cattle, and horses (see Figure 6). For the Pulsipher clan, herd sizes increased dramatically in the ten-year period under scrutiny. In 1865, the four men grazed an average twenty-three horses and cattle, whereas ten years later the average herd had swollen more than four times to reach eighty-seven. The Clover Valley movers, on the other hand, had the same average herd size (fifteen horses and cattle) in 1875 as they started with in 1865, once again demonstrating the Pulsiphers’ dominance of the ranching economy. 52

Source:Washington County Tax Rolls.

Even though the conclusions that can be drawn from a case study of this sort are limited to the small number of people inhabiting Clover Valley and Hebron, such close scrutiny of the economic impact of Black Hawk War relocations can teach important lessons. Only by slogging through the historical minutiae of tax records, ward records, journals, and diaries, does the full impact of Brigham Young’s abandonment policy begin to accrue the weight it deserves. Mormon dislocations did not end with the faith’s troubled sojourn through Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Nor did it end with the better known move south during the Utah War. The major difference for the Black Hawk War dislocations is that they were of the Mormons own making, both as a result of Indian relations and as a matter of policy.

There is no doubt that Young’s abandonment policy created considerable economic hardships across Utah Territory, but particularly among small settlements on the Mormon fringe. It set frontier populations in motion and forced peoples of separate communities into what appears to be, in the case of Shoal Creek and Clover Valley, troublesome attempts to wed their diverse social and economic orders into one. As argued elsewhere, their attempt at social unification proved challenging and perhaps never fully occurred. 53 However, the economic integration of the two towns appears more successful and leads to suggestive conclusions about the nature of these two peripheral Mormon ranching communities.

Key economic principles manifested themselves as Shoal Creek and Clover Valley merged and later became Hebron. The Pulsiphers, as original ranchers at Shoal Creek, maintained an economic advantage over the area, which they simply exploited as time progressed.

Despite the perceived dearth of economic opportunities expressed by some Clover Valley refugees upon arriving at Shoal Creek Fort, the evidence detailed here seems to hint otherwise. The ranching nature of these two communities likely played an integral role in the Clover Valley brethren’s ability to integrate into an established economy. The majority of the ranchers’ wealth existed in livestock, not land, and therefore was easily transportable. Clover brethren, in essence, brought their economy with them. True, division of land quickly became an issue at the fort, but Shoal Creek settlers instantly responded by parceling their claims for the good of the whole. It was a generous act that reflected Mormon egalitarian aims and gave Clover refugees a majority share of the land value at the fort.Yet, in looking beyond this sharing of small agricultural spots it appears to have had little effect on the Pulsiphers’ ability to make a living.They were dividing up farmland, not grazing land, allowing their ranching economy to continue to expand unencumbered. Shortly following the founding of Hebron the Pulsiphers established ranches outside of town and vigorously enlarged their operations, all of which led to a remarkably top heavy distribution of wealth at Hebron by 1875.

The ranching economy at Shoal Creek seems to be the key variable producing these curious results and raises questions that demand further study. What economic impact did the Black Hawk War’s forced relocations have upon Mormon agricultural communities where wealth lay in the soil and was not transportable? The findings at Shoal Creek seem to suggest that such mergers would generate a much greater shock to agricultural communities than is evident at these two ranching outposts. Perhaps, too, Hebron and Shoal Creek are anomalous and additional ranching to ranching comparisons would be more appropriate. For Hebron itself new questions also bubble to the surface. Given the town’s early economic inequality and its expanding herd sizes, how long could the region sustain such growth and how long could the impoverished middle and bottom thirds of the wealth distribution hold out in an economy that highly favored the original settlers? By 1882, due to overgrazing, Amos and James Hunt elected to move elsewhere in search of good herd grounds; the Pulsiphers, however, stayed put, suggesting that their dominance continued into the next decade. 54 Perhaps for Shoal Creek and Clover Valley the final answer to the economic nature of the disruptions spawned by the Black Hawk War lies in that decade, or beyond.

NOTES

W.Paul Reeve is an assistant professor of history at the University

1 Brigham Young formed the Cotton Mission in 1861 as part of his overall effort to achieve economic self-sufficiency.That year he sent more than three hundred families beyond the southern rim of the Great Basin to settle what became known as Utah’s Dixie,and charged them with growing cotton and other warm climate crops.St.George became the capital of the mission from which local Mormon leaders directed the founding of additional towns throughout the region.See Andrew Karl Larson, “I Was Called to Dixie”;The Virgin River Basin:Unique Experiences in Mormon Pioneering (Salt Lake City:Deseret News Press, 1961) and Douglas D.Alder and Karl F.Brooks, A History of Washington County:From Isolation to Destination (Salt Lake City:Utah State Historical Society and Washington County Commission,1996) for broader studies of the region.

2 Etta Holdaway Spendlove,“Memories and Experiences of James Jepson,Jr.,”12,typescript,Utah State Historical Society Library,Salt Lake City.

3 Brigham Young,Salt Lake City,to Erastus Snow and the bishops and saints of Washington and Kane counties,May 2,1866,in James G.Bleak,“Annals of the Southern Utah Mission,”vols.A and B,A:226-29, typescript,accn.#194,special collections,manuscripts division,University of Utah Marriot Library,Salt Lake City.

4 Spendlove,“Memories and Experiences of James Jepson,Jr.,”10-11.

5 John Alton Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War (Salt Lake City:University of Utah Press,1998),2,32935.The Black Hawk War officially began on April 9,1865,at the central Utah town of Manti where a confrontation between Mormons and Utes produced a spark that ignited complex and long standing tensions.See Peterson chapters one,two,and three for a thorough analysis of the forces that led to the outbreak of war in 1865.

6 Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War, 329-35.

7 Ibid.

8 Many of the assumptions concerning social strife made in this paper are based upon W.Paul Reeve’s, “Cattle,Cotton,and Conflict:The Possession and Dispossession of Hebron,Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 67 (Spring 1999):148-75.

9 J.R.Kearl,Clayne L.Pope,and Larry T.Wimmer,“Household Wealth in a Settlement Economy: Utah,1850-1870,” Journal of Economic History 40 (September 1980):447-96.Kearl’s,Pope’s,and Wimmer’s explanations are centered upon key Ricardian economic principles named for British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823).

10 For a more complete discussion of these competing forces and of the Southern Paiutes’role in the Black Hawk War see W.Paul Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier:Mormons,Miners,and Southern Paiutes (Urbana and Chicago:University of Illinois Press,2006),69-72.

11 Young to Snow and the bishops and saints of Washington and Kane counties,May 2,1866,in Bleak, “Annals of the Southern Utah Mission,”A:226-29.

12 See Andrew Karl Larson, Erastus Snow:The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church (Salt Lake City:University of Utah Press,1971),especially chapters 22 and 30 and pages 519-21 for evidence of his leadership and economic activities in southern Utah.

13 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1862-1897,3 vols.,1:78-82,emphasis in original,microfilm,Church History Library,Family and Church History Department,The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter cited as Hebron Ward General Minutes).

15 Bleak,“Annals of the Southern Utah Mission,”A:195.

16 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:6-7,8,29.

17 Orson Welcome Huntsman,Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,typescript,vol.1:12,L.Tom Perry Special Collections Library,Harold B.Lee Library,Brigham Young University,Provo,Utah.

18 Bleak,“Annals of the Southern Utah Mission,”A:195.

19 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,1:12-13.

20 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:29-30;Erastus Snow to John D.L.Pearce,Meltiar Hatch and Samuel F.Lee,in Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (chronology of typed entries and newspaper clippings,1830 to the present),August 27,1864,1-3,Church History Library, Bleak,A:170-71;see also Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier, 49-58,69-72 for additional context on Mormon relations with Southern Paiutes before and during the Black Hawk War.

21 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:82.

22 Tax rolls,1865.

23 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:61.

24 For a detailed description of the Pulsipher clan’s response to newcomers see Reeve,“Cattle Cotton, and Conflict,”156-58.

25 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:22,25,62,emphasis in original;Tax rolls,1865.

26 Tax rolls,1865.

27 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,1:14-15;Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:88.

28 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,1:15-16.

29 Ibid.

30 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:95-96,emphasis in original.

31 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:110-11.See also,Reeve,“Cattle,Cotton,and Conflict,”161-65.

32 James William Huntsman was part of this traceable group,but did not arrive at Clover Valley until October 1865,after the tax assessor made his stop there.Consequently,for the purposes of the collective comparison of total wealth for those who moved to Shoal Creek,I have used Huntsman’s 1866 Clover Valley assessment with the eight other 1865 assessments.See Tax rolls,1865,1866.

33 Tax rolls,1868.

34 Ibid.

35 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,vol.1:29-31;Hebron Ward General Minutes,2:34-35.

36 Hebron Ward General Minutes,1:111;2:20,21.

37 Ibid.,2:38,emphasis in original.

38 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,vol.1:31.

39 Tax rolls,1870;Huntsman,vol.1:22.

40 Tax rolls,1870;see also Kearl,Pope,and Wimmer,“Household Wealth,”484.

41 Tax rolls,1870.

42 Huntsman,vol 1:118-19;Hebron Ward General Minutes,1872-1897,vol.3:145-47 holograph photocopy,Enterprise Branch,Washington County Library,Enterprise,Utah.

43 Tax rolls,1870.

44 Tax rolls,1868,1870,1875.

45 Tax rolls,1875.

46 Tax rolls,1865,1875.

47 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,vol.1:21-22;Tax rolls,1875.

48 Diary of Orson W.Huntsman,vol.1:21-23.

49 Tax rolls,1875.

50 Tax rolls,1875.

51 Tax rolls,1875;Reeve,“Cattle,Cotton,and Conflict,”167.

52 Tax rolls,1875.

53 Reeve,“Cattle,Cotton,and Conflict,”148-75.

54 See Newell R.Frei,“History of Pioneering on Shoal Creek,”(master’s thesis,Brigham Young University,Provo,Utah,1932),45.