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Iosepa: The Hawaiian Experience in Settling the Mormon West
Iosepa: The Hawaiian Experience in Settling the Mormon West
BY RICHARD H. JACKSON AND MARK W. JACKSON
The community of Iosepa in western Utah’s Skull Valley is significant as the only non-European migrant settlement in the Mormon West. Iosepa, the Hawaiian name for Joseph, was established in 1889 as a gathering place for Polynesian immigrants to Utah. It followed Joseph Smith Jr.’s “City of Zion” Plan, introduced in 1833, and used as a model for plotting Mormon towns in the Midwest and West. For twenty-five years Polynesian settlers worked to make Iosepa a success. In the end, Iosepa, like 15 to 20 percent of other western Mormon settlements, was abandoned.1
Iosepa’s abandonment was as unique as its demographic character among Mormon settlements because it resulted not from external environmental, political or economic forces, or internal dissension or economic failures as did other failed Mormon communities, but from the changing view of Mormon church leaders. An analysis of the unique aspects of Iosepa illustrates its differences from other Mormon towns and reveals its continued importance to current Utah residents of Polynesian ancestry.
Residents of Iosepa building a sidewalk c. 1910. Individuals include, John E. Broad, Archie Kennison, and William Pukahi, Sr.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The establishment of the Mormon settlements in the West was largely accomplished during the lifetime of Brigham Young. After his death in 1877, converts continued to “gather” to the Mormon West, where they and a new generation of western Mormonsneeded jobs and homes. Existing Mormon towns in the Great Basin often had little potential for expansion of their agricultural based economy and lacked a sufficient industrial base to employ both new migrants and second generation Mormons. Consequently a new settlement period emerged after the death of Young, but one with some important differences.2
Contrasting Paradigms of Mormon Settlement: 1847-1915
1847-1877: The Brigham Young Era
Planned settlements with church leaders in Salt Lake City directing timing and location.
Communities created to provide livelihoods for new immigrants and to implement Young’s geopolitical vision of Mormon empire.
Cross section of heterogeneous settlers assigned by church leaders to provide skills necessary for a successful self-sufficient community.
Concentration of settlement in core area of Utah and southeastern Idaho.
Settlements experimented with communal ownership of land as Young attempted to implement Smith’s vision of a utopian society.
1878-1915: The Post Young Era
Settlements founded by individual church members or groups with little or no formal direction from Salt Lake City church leaders. Communities established in any suitable undeveloped site in the Intermountain West to absorb overpopulation from the large Mormon families in earlier settlements.
Homogeneous settlement group, often drawn from one family or its relatives.
Expansion of settlements outside of core area, ultimately including sites from southern Canada to Northern Mexico.
Private ownership of land and other economic activities such as Mormon idiosyncrasies of communitarian life and polygamy were abandoned.
A major difference between the settlements before and after Young’s death are related to the replacement of the utopian ideals of communal settlements based on a formal church call (that attempted to ensure that a new settlement would include settlers with all the skills necessary for success) with settlements created by a group with little or no formal church direction. The creation of Iosepa in 1889 is notable among Mormon settlements established after the death of Brigham Young because it relied on the earlier Mormon settlement paradigm. Not only was it sponsored and planned by the church, it was funded, operated and subsidized by the church.3 Unlike other Mormon settlements of its period, it was located in Utah only scores of miles from Salt Lake City rather than in sites far removed from church headquarters.
Iosepa owes its origins to Mormon missionary work begun in the Pacific Islands in 1843, and one of the unique doctrines of the early LDS church, the“gathering,” of its members to the headquarters of the church in the Great Basin.Initially,Hawaiian converts were unable to join with fellowchurch members in Utah because of Hawaii’s anti-emigration laws but undertook a local gathering process first at Palawai on Lanai in 1854, and later at a new site purchased by the church at Laie on Oahu in 1865.4 At the same time only a few Hawaiians traveled to Utah with missionaries returning from Hawaii. Among them was J.W. Kauleinamoku who arrived in 1875 and started working on the Temple Block to learn the carpentry trade. He was given a piece of church owned land in the 19th ward where he built a home in the northwest part of the city at what was then known as Beck’s Warm Springs. In 1882,eight individuals in three families came with Harvey H. Cluff, a returning missionary. They located near the Kauleinamoku home and secured employment with the church.5 More Hawaiians came to Utah with missionaries after the King of Hawaii lifted emigration restrictions in the mid-1880s. In1889,seventy-six Hawaiians were reported to be living in Salt Lake City. Difficulties with year round employment opportunities, cultural differences, and unwarranted fear of leprosy “…made it necessary to seek another location for the Hawaiian people.”6
Three men, Harvey H. Cluff, William W. Cluff, and Frederick A. Mitchell, were appointed “as a committee to take into consideration the subject of locating and arranging to secure land suitable for the colonization of the Hawaiians who have immigrated or who may immigrate to Zion,” and summoned to a meeting with the LDS Church Presidency on May 22, 1889. 7 At that meeting three Hawaiians—J. W. Kauleinamoku, George Kamaka[naiu] and “Brother” Napela—were approved to assist the committee.8
The Iosepa Town Plat.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS
The group faced formidable obstacles in their task as the best sites along the well watered eastern margin of the Great Basin were already occupied, leaving only the marginal lands farther west in the drier western side of the Wasatch front or Great Basin Desert or marshy lands along the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake as alternative sites. Tooele County,in the Great Basin desert west of Salt Lake City with a population of 3,700, was one of the few places relatively near Salt Lake City with the potential for settlement. Of the seven sites investigated by the committee, including sites in Tooele, Weber, Cache and Utah Counties, all but one, Tooele County’s Skull Valley, were deemed unsuitable due to either expense or lack of water and suitable soil for irrigated crops.9
Located seventy-five miles west of Salt Lake City and thirty miles from the nearest town of Grantsville, Skull Valley is characterized by an arid environment of six to eight inches of precipitation annually, extreme variability in temperatures with hot summers of over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and cold winters with temperatures dropping below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Skull Valley is from ten to fifteen miles wide, bounded on the west by the Cedar Mountains, a typical block fault range of low hills of sedimentary rock. The valley opens into the Great Salt Lake Desert to the north with the eastern boundary formed by the Stansbury Mountain Range whose elevations reach eleven thousand feet. Soils on the alluvial fans at the base of the Stansbury Range are shallow and dry, but fertile when irrigated. Springs are found near the base of the mountains, some large enough to create small seasonal streams in wetter years. Native vegetation consists of bunch grass and scattered sagebrush, shad scale and creosote bushes and pinyon pine, with some aspen and pine available on the nearby mountains.
The dry summers and the limited water of Skull Valley deterred farming by earlier Mormon settlers, but the valley was used for livestock grazing. Harvey H. Cluff, president of the committee to select a site for the Hawaiian settlement,reported that although the valley was thirty miles distant from Grantsville, making the valley isolated and remote, there are some “great advantages.” The committee recommended purchasing the ranch of John T. Rich at a cost of$35,000. Equipment, improvements and the growing crops together “will amount to $12,000. This amount deducted from the former makes the real cost of land and improvements not to exceed $13.50 per acre.”Moreover, more land could be obtained if needed and in the nearby mountains there was “an abundant supply of fuel and fencing,” and sufficient building material nearby. The water supply was “extensive,” and with a mild climate would provide for the production of a large annual crop yield, sufficient to meet the settlers’ needs. A growing herd of livestock “judiciously managed” would enable the settlers to meet the annual payment of both the principal and interest. The committee was unanimous in its recommendation to locate the Hawaiian saints in Skull Valley.10
The church purchased the ranch with its 1,920 acres of land, 129 horses, 335 cattle, cattle sheds, a barn and blacksmith shop, a large spring and rights to irrigation water from five intermittent streams flowing from the Stansbury Mountains. On August 16, 1889, Rich and his wife were paid five thousand dollars cash by Harvey H. Cluff, with the balance to be paid bythe Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Companyin seven equal installments beginning on July 1, 1890. The notes, however, were endorsed by the First Presidency of the church, indicative of the actual financial source of support for the colony.11
This building was constructed in 1889 to house the administration offices for Iosepa.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The First Presidency manifested the importance of the colony by requesting Tooele Stake leaders to furnish volunteer teamsters to drive to Salt Lake City to pick up the possessions of the Hawaiians on August 26, and other volunteers to provide wagons and drivers to pick up the settlers at the train terminus in Garfield a day later. The night of the August26,“…the Hawaiians were assembled in the Ward house, where the Bishops of the 19th and 22nd wards had provided a sumptuous supper. There were present on invitation quite a number of Elders who had been on missions in the Sandwich Islands, and the evening was spent in music, songs and recitations.”12 The Tooele Stake was also assigned to provide a dinner and places to stay in Grantsville on the night of August 27. The next day, August 28, 1889, the first group of forty-six Hawaiian saints, (twenty males, twelve wives, two daughters, and twelve children,) were transported by wagon to the settlement site.13
The new colony was named Iosepa, Hawaiian for Joseph, in honor of Joseph F. Smith, a member of the First Presidency of the church and former missionary to Hawaii.14 The settlement was organized into a cooperative called the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company (IASC), an incorporated entity designed to circumvent the limitations of property ownership by the LDS church by incorporating as a private company under Utah law.15 The stockholders included Harveyand William Cluff and Frederick Mitchell, the three committee members who selected the site, who each owned 334 shares, and John T. Caine, Albert W. Davis and Henry P. Richards, each owning 333 shares. Shares were nominally valued at $25.00 per share, although there is no record of any of the shareholders actually investing any actual personal cash or property in them. Few, if any, of the Hawaiiansaints owned shares in the company.16
F. A. Mitchell accompanied the first settlers to their new settlement and from August 28 to 30 platted the Iosepa town siteto include:
The plan reflected the original plan drawn by Joseph Smith for his earlier proposed City of Zion in the Midwest. Smith’s original plan was unique in suggesting wider avenues in the center of the town, a proposal apparent in the Iosepa community but absent in most other Mormon settlements in the West.18 The actual survey was apparently not carried out until the following year, and the largest streets were dropped in favor of only the four 132 foot avenues and the 66 foot wide streets. The 181.5 foot wide streets would have been the widest in any town in the Mormon West, and even the smaller 132 foot wide main streets surveyed equaled those found in the burgeoning Mormon capital, Salt Lake City.
Residential lots were selected in a drawing and construction on the first houses began on September 9 with local stone and wood from a water-powered sawmill five miles away. The mill was acquired by the LDS church and the former owner paid to continue operating the mill.19
The first winter was extremely difficult. Cattle died from the harsh weather and influenza spread among the settlers, some of whom returned to Salt Lake City during the coldest months. According to one account, “The winter of 1889-90 was very severe and the Hawaiian colonists suffered intensely, having come from a climate where a balmy temperature prevails. They remained indoors hovering around fires most of the time and an epidemic of ‘flu’ rendered conditions unusually trying. Only one man (white) died, however.”20
A few settlers gave up the following spring and left, but most stayed to begin plowing, planting and making irrigation ditches to nourish the growing crops.21 The settlers’ work was rewarded with a bounteous crop after their first full year in the new community of Iosepa. In August 1890, the LDS church’s First Presidency visited Iosepa and, according to H.H. Cluff, “The Brethren were astonished at the good crop, especially the splendid crop of corn.”22 Others reported that there were 1,826 bushels of wheat, 1,837 bushels of barley, 2,267 bushels of oats, 400-500 bushels of corn and some potatoes and fresh corn.23
The dedication of the Salt Lake Temple was an important event for residents of Iosepa. When a special fast was held on May 1, 1892, to raise funds to push the temple to completion, Iosepa residents contributed $1,400 of their hard-earned and much needed money.24 When the temple was completed and dedicated in 1893, faithful LDS members in various settlements were assigned a day to attend the temple dedication ceremonies which began on April 6 and continued through April 18, and resumed for two days April 23 and 24. T.A. Waddoups, who was both the ranch manager and ecclesiastical leader of the church organization of Iosepa, reports that twenty-nine adults at Iosepa were so eager to attend that they came to him, confessed any minor sins they might have committed, and asked to be re-baptized to show their worthiness to attend the temple. All left Iosepa several days early to insure they would arrive for their appointed day, April 9, 1893.25 Because only worthy adults were able to enter the temple, the number from Iosepa must have been nearly all of the adults in the estimated eighty to one hundred residents, and their inclusion in the earliest dedicatory services suggests their continued importance to the church leaders. After participation in the temple dedication, Iosepa worthy adults made the uncomfortable two day wagon trip to the Salt Lake City Temple as often as possible, camping overnight in a cave en route.26
By 1893 the Iosepa settlement had eighty Hawaiians and fourteenAnglos, “who labor under the direct supervision of the First Presidency. The company finds employment for all men who will work, at $30.00 per month.”27 Cluff continued to serve as head of the community and president of the IASC until 1901 when he was replaced by Thomas A. Waddoups, another former missionary to Hawaii.28 The practice of assigning an Anglo fluent in Hawaiian to serve as both president of the Hawaiian Mormon congregation (which was conterminous with the Iosepa settlement) and manager of the corporation persisted throughout Iosepa’s existence.
Iosepa’s first twenty-five years witnessed relative success, although perennial concerns about water for crops and the broader American economy were evident.During the depression of the 1890s, for example, Grantsville Mormons were unable to pay the agreed upon rent to use Iosepa lands for winter grazing of sheep.29 Consequently, the IASC was unable to pay its county property taxes, prompting church authorities in 1897 to consider renting the ranch to a Grantsville Mormon who would hire the Hawaiian residents to operate it.30 With additional cash assistance from the church, however, the community survived and grew slowly.
Close examination of the settlement of Iosepa illustrates how unique it was in the Mormon settlement of the West. Other towns had also been settled partially or completely by Mormon converts from a distinct geographic area but each group shared a related European origin. Unlike Iosepa, the other Mormon ethnic settlements occurred during the early settlement period (1847-1877) when better agricultural lands were available. Mormon settlements established in this time used cooperative efforts to lay out the community, build schools and churches, but followed the example of Salt Lake City in dividing the land into privately owned town lots and farm lots which were allocated by drawing numbers assigned to the lots. Each head of a household was entitled to ownership of a lot and a small farm in the area surveyed for irrigated farms. Normally each family operated its own farm. Public works like irrigation systems, roads, and schools, were completed through community cooperation, but individual ownership of land and businesses was the norm in Mormon settlements until Brigham Young began the economic cooperative movement in 1868 when the first Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) was formed in Salt Lake City. The goal behind the ZCMI movement was to insure that Mormons rather than outsiders (referred to as Gentiles by Mormons) benefited from Mormon trade. By 1870 many Mormon settlements had a general store operated cooperatively for the community’s residents.31 Young expanded the idea of community cooperation when in 1873-74 he introduced the idea of the Order of Enoch, commonly referred to as the “United Order” in which all members of a community were to cooperate in all their economic activities.32 The arrival of the railroad in 1869 bringing cheaper manufactured goods from the east and new opportunities in mining,followed by the death of Brigham Young in 1877,led to a rapid abandonment of the cooperative or communal model except for the local ZCMI in all but a few communities. A variant of the communal model, however, resurfaced as the basis of Iosepa’s incorporation as a joint-stock company. Settlers drew lots to receive land for a home, garden, and privately owned livestock, but worked for the IASC were paid based on their labor and the value of the crops produced, as in Young’s United Order model. Initially,the settlers were simply credited for the amount of labor they devoted to the crop and livestock production of the IASC, and the corporation balanced their work against their purchases of food and clothing at the general store.33 In 1901 the IASC issued scrip to replace the cumbersome bookkeeping required to keep track of hours worked and value of goods produced. Workers were paid thirty dollars per month in scrip, which was redeemable only at the company store in Iosepa.34 Later the scrip was abandoned in favor of regular U.S. currency, but the United Order communitarian model in which all members of the community were part of a joint stock company and shared in the production from the cooperatively owned lands persisted longer in Iosepa than in any other Mormon settlement. A major difference, however, was that in Iosepa the land always belonged to the IASC rather than being originally owned individually and then pooled in the United Order.
Pioneer Day Celebration at Iosepa c.1914.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Iosepa was never a large community, but the initial settlers were joined over time by other Hawaiians and a few other Polynesians. The Deseret Evening News reported that at the 1908 Hawaiian Pioneer Day on August 28,there were “100 Hawaiians, 27 American Indians, 13 Samoans, 6 Maoris, 1 Portugese, [sic] 5 half caste Portugese, 3 families of Scotchmen, [and] several families of English [local Anglo Mormon residents]...” in attendance.35 The 1910 U.S. Census reports that there were 187 people in “Iosepa precinct.”36 Judgingfrom the numbers at the celebration and population listed by the census of 1910 the Iosepa precinct was as large as many other small Mormon agricultural villages elsewhere in the region.
The Hawaiian achievementsat Iosepa were especially noteworthy because the national financial recession of the 1890scoincided with an offer by the Hawaiian government to pay for the passage of all Hawaiian settlers who wanted to return to their native land as the Kingdom of Hawaii faced economic and political challenges that ultimately led to the United States acquiring the islands as a territory later in the 1890s.37 Few responded to the offer, and by 1915 Iosepa was reported to have a population of 228, similar in size to many other small Mormon settlements.38
The population growth was correlated with increased agricultural production of the IASC. In 1904, the Hawaiian settlers had 500 head of cattle and had raised1,000 tons of hay, 5,200 bushels of wheat and barley, and 800 bushels of potatoes and 50tons of squash.39 Six years laterthe colonists cultivated1,000 acres in crops besides their hay lands and by 1914 the IASC recorded $20,000 in profit after paying the workers and other expenses. A telephone line reached the community in 1906, and a railroad siding was opened on the Western Pacific Railroad at Timpie station fifteen miles north of the community the same year. In 1915, when Iosepa received a state award for the cleanest community, the settlement had5,000 acres of crops and hay under cultivation.40
Iosepa residents picking up goods at the railroad located fifteen miles north of Iosepa.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Iosepa continued to be unique among other Mormon settlements because it remained a joint-stock company under direct supervision of the leaders of the church.It was incorporated under Utah laws as a joint-stock company and managed by managers (who were also ecclesiastical leaders of the Iosepa branch) appointed by the First Presidency of the church. None of the First Presidency was on the company’s board of directors but the First Presidency did guarantee the company’s financial losses and provided additional funds for the company’s expansion and operation.While complete records detailing costs to the church for Iosepa are not available, there are a number of references to such expenses. For example, the church purchased additional land for the colony in 1890, 1893, and 1902,as well as a one-third interest in water rights from six small creeks entering the valley in 1896, and the church provided funds to improve facilities for hog production. Church assistance in meeting taxes and installing the pressurized water system are other examples.41
During their years at Iosepa the Hawaiian settlers sought to maintain their language, culture, and traditions. They continued to speak Hawaiian at church and other public meetings—although most were fluent in English—as did the IASC manager,a former Hawaiian missionary. 42 Culinary traditions continued in spite of the lack of traditional Pacific foodstuffs which forced adaptation of local substitutes. Pork, raised by the settlers, was one traditional foodstuff, which was also sold in Salt Lake City as was the beef raised at Iosepa.Missing from the local environment was a ready supply of fish. The solution was to plant carp in the 250 foot wide by 1500 foot long reservoir (named Kanaka Lake) dug for water storage.43 A variety of algae was also harvested from Kanaka Lake to use in place of seaweed in cooking several of the traditional luau delicacies, and corn husks were substituted for ti leaves to wrap pork and fish. Poi, another traditional food, was made from flour and corn starch poured into boiling water and stirred until the lumps disappeared. It was then strained through a flour sack and put into an earthen jar to sour. After it was soured, it was placed on a flat board and pounded with a ball stick until the mixture became fluffy and smooth, resembling ice cream, then it was returned to the jar ready to eat. The natives ate their poi, which took the place of bread, with their two forefingers.44
The Iosepa residents also maintained their distinctive music and dance. Pioneer Day celebrations and other festivities attracted local ranch families, sheep herders, visitors from Grantsville,and the rare passing motorist from the Lincoln Highway to hear traditional Hawaiian music.45 The residents also formed a Hawaiian band and a singing group called the Hawaiian Troubadours which performed in Grantsville and other communities.46
Life was fragile for all of the frontier settlers of the West and Hawaiian settlers at Iosepa especially weathered some unusual challenges. The first winter the influenza was so severe that when a death occurred there were only three men healthy enough to make a coffin and see to the burial.47 Typhoid fever, pneumonia, and diphtheria struck the colony from time to time. Three residents were diagnosed with leprosy in 1896, and, after all remedies failed, the colony constructed a small house outside the village where continued care was provided the victims until 1901 when the last victim died.48
The Iosepa Troubadours, c. 1910.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Church leaders had intended Iosepa to be a permanent gathering place for Polynesians. On August 28, 1890, the first anniversary of the Iosepa settlement, church president Wilford Woodruff, “dedicated Skull Valley as a gathering place for the Saints from the islands of the Seas.”49 However, Iosepa’s end came unexpectedly twenty-five years later with the announcement at the October 1915 LDS church conference that construction of a temple in Hawaii would begin immediately.50 The temple was dedicated four years later on November 27, 1919. With that announcement, many Iosepa settlers expressed their desire to return to Hawaii.51
There may have been multiple reasons for their willingness to abandon their oasis in the desert, but first and foremost seems to have been the desire to return to Hawaii to assist in building the temple and to gather genealogical information which would allow them to complete their ancestors’ temple work. The initial desire of Hawaiians to immigrate to Utah centered on their desire to “gather” with the saints where they could perform temple ceremonies for their dead ancestors. Some of the adult residents of the Iosepa colony had been involved in construction of the Salt Lake Temple before Iosepa’s founding.52
The prospect of having a temple in their own land was very appealing to the residents of Iosepa, and apparently to the church. More importantly, some of the people of Iosepa had been able to acquire an understanding of skills useful in construction of a temple, while others were familiar with those necessary to participate in temple ceremonies, and their presence in Hawaii would be an asset in the construction and operation of the proposed temple there. President Joseph F. Smith directed that “…if any of the Hawaiians wished to return to the islands, it was agreeable with the Church for them to do so and that the Church would pay such transportation expenses as the individuals could not afford to pay.”53 However, not all at the outset were desirous to return, but the generous offer by President Smithpersuaded nearly all of them to accept the offer and return to the Islands. Ella Brunt Kamauoha recalled that her husband John, “…did not wish to go back to Hawaii, but [did so] under the advice of President Smith who said that perhaps the next prophet would not have the same ‘aloha’for the Polynesians as he had.”54 T.A.Waddoups reported that “Some of the colonists did not wish to leave Iosepa but once the movement got under way, all were swept up with it.”55 President Smith counseled the Polynesians that if they returned they were “...to go to a location where there was an established LDS mission,” apparently emphasizing the importance of returning to Laie,since it was the location of the headquarters of the Hawaii mission.56
The settlers began to leave within months of the 1915 announcement, and by 1917 the settlement was abandoned, which forced the president of the IASC to hire non-Polynesians to assist in harvesting the crops. The land and community were sold to the Deseret Livestock Company (owned by the LDS church) in the fall of 1917.57 Not all of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians left Utah when Iosepa ended, however. A few continued to live in Salt Lake City or other towns in the state, one even continued to live in Skull Valley, attempting to “prove up” on a homestead just north of Iosepa.58
Since its abandonment, a number of explanations have been offered as unique reasons for the closing of Iosepa. The incidence of leprosy is seized upon by some as the cause of abandonment of the village. “Some say that the reason the project was abandoned, was that the government was afraid leprosy would be brought from the Islands to the United States.”59 Other authors repeated this explanation, combining it with other problems of disease faced by every frontier community: “The eventual disbandment of the community seems to have resulted in part from problems of health. The prospects of the colony took a serious turn for the worse in 1896 when the county physician found three cases of leprosy... The outbreak of leprosy was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the lack of enthusiasm of some of those participating in this colonization experiment.”60 Since the actual end of the town did not occur until sixteen years after the deaths of the only three individuals diagnosed with leprosy it is an unlikely proximate cause for its demise.
LDS church historian Andrew Jenson concluded that health reasons were the primary factor. “In 1917,it was considered best to discontinue the Iosepa Colony as the health of the Hawaiians was not good and the percentage of mortality was too high. The colonists were therefore advised to return to their native homes and assisted by the Church to doso.”61
Some observers have posited environmental causes for the sudden departure of the Polynesian saintsconcluding that the Islanders were simply incapable of living in such a hostile environment setting. Notes one author: [The] conditions in the desert valley were too difficult for this project, begun with such enthusiasm and pursued with such courage. Even the intense faith of converts was not enough to adjust dwellers of the Pacific islands to the conditions in Skull Valley, Utah. Picturing the contrast between the lush and verdant flora of the Hawaiian landscape and the sparse vegetation, the sagebrush and scattered cottonwoods of this desert region; and thinking of the all-year-round warmth and sunshine of the Islands and the extreme summer heat and winter cold of Skull Valley, it is easy to understand the inability of Hawaiians to adjust themselves physically and mentally.62
Others have suggested even a stronger assessment for the failure of the Iosepa colony.
While the author’s conclusion that Iosepa was a harsh geographic setting is correct, there is no evidence that the Polynesian settlers themselves were any different from those of other Mormon Great Basin settlements. Nearly a generation of Polynesians had lived and died in these very conditions, clearly they did not leave because their bodies and minds were somehow inferior and unable to adapt to the climate. The environmental difficulties as the proximate cause of failure may have some validity, however, if tied to the problems of financial costs versus benefits. The location was a harsh one in which the settlers would never become rich from agriculture, but numerous other Mormon settlements in the Great Basin persist to the present in situations that are clearly harsh compared to sites in more humid environments. Over time more and more of the inhabitants of these other Mormon settlements turned to other economic activities to supplement their farming incomes, and there is clear evidence that the same process was beginning in Iosepa prior to its demise as some male residents worked in Salt Lake City or Grantsville during the winter or part time during the summer.64
The financial problems of Iosepa were unusual among Mormon settlements because the joint-stock company was never completely independent from the church. This close tie also created an unusual financial drain on church finances. The ecclesiastical and business leader of the community was a Utah resident,familiar with the Hawaiian language and culture, appointed by church leaders, whichillustrates the paternalistic nature of the church’s relationship to the Iosepa community. When President Smith announced construction of a temple in Hawaii he removed the major
reason for the church’s support of Iosepa, access to the temple for sacred rites for Hawaiian converts. When he indicated that future church leaders might not be as supportive of Iosepa and offered to pay their fare to Hawaii as well as buy their stock in Iosepa,he effectively freed them from the commandment to “gather” to the Salt Lake area, suggesting that they could leave.
We can conclude that the abandonment of Iosepa was not because of widespread leprosy among its residents, nor the inability of the Hawaiians to tolerate the climate of the Great Basin. It is impossible to conclude how much of the decision to encourage the settlers to return to Hawaii resulted from continued financial costs to the church. The colony had been showing a profit in the years just preceding the advice to leave,except for capital investments like the water system, which was to have been repaid over time to the church. However, the ranch manager reported that all profits had always been re-invested in the colony instead of returned to the church so there was some financial drain.
Iosepa residents in front of one of the original houses, c. 1910.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
With the opportunity to participate in construction of a temple in their homeland and thepermission and assistance of the church to abandon their quarter century of gathering to Zion, some residents still sensed a great loss.Observers recorded that as the last Hawaiians left Iosepa in January 1917,“...the women refused to ride in the wagons and were determined to walk the distance to the railroad [fifteen miles]. They followed the wagons on foot and with big tears running down their faces they kept looking back at their homes and uttering ‘goodby Iosepa, goodby Iosepa.’”65
Today there is little physical evidence of the Hawaiian community that existed in the desert for nearly three decades. A road sign at the entrance to a ranch headquarters identifies it as Iosepa. Several of the buildings used by ranch employees were once homes of the Hawaiian settlers. Behind these buildings a few scattered trees and dead tree trunks are arrayed in line and close observation reveals a few sidewalk remnants partially visible through the brush, beginning in what were once streets, and ending in the sagebrush overgrown foundations of long removed houses. The little cemetery at Iosepa contains the graves of seventysix settlers dating from September 15, 1889, to December. 16,1915. 66 One headstone, that of J. W. Kauleinamoku, born in Hilo, Hawaii, on October 27, 1837, died at Iosepa, Skull Valley, Utah, July 21, 1899, records the life of a member of the original selection committee who devoted the last years of his life to the Polynesian colony. 67 His grave is joined by other Polynesian natives (mainly from Hawaii) as well as children only a few months old who had never known anything but Iosepa in their brief lives. All are mute symbols of the faithful saints who made Iosepa a Polynesian “island” in the Great Basin Desert.
Headstones in the Iosepa Cemetery.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Headstones in the Iosepa Cemetery.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Iosepa experiment has not been forgotten. An imposing granite monument recounting the accomplishments of the Iosepa colonizers was constructed at the old Iosepa cemetery in 1989 in commemoration of the centennial of the settlement’s founding.68 Mormon church president Ezra Taft Benson personally presided at the ceremony unveiling the monument, noting that: “Sometimes this [Iosepa] is looked at as a failure. But it was not a failure because of the spiritual conviction and influence it gave the islanders who lived there and their descendants living today.”69
From the perspective of Mormon colonization,Iosepa is an interesting example of how ideas introduced by Joseph Smith Jr. persisted long after his death in encouraging converts to gather to be near thecommunity of believers. In this respect,it is only marginally different from the founding of other Mormon communities in the West, but examination of the experience of Iosepa and other Mormon settlements suggests a model for explaining the success or failure of not only Iosepa but other Mormon communities.
The successful Mormon settlements established under Young’s direction shared five distinct characteristics:
(1) Thecharismatic leadership of Young who directed the settlers’ colonization efforts.
(2) The successful use of cooperative efforts in their settlement process.
(3) A shared millennialist ideology that included the view of themselves as a chosen people for whom God would intervene in the natural environment to facilitate their successful completion of the directions of their leaders.
(4) Continued conflict with non-Mormons fostering a defensive mentality.70
(5) Geographic resources of land and water sufficient to allow the initial settlement to become self-sufficient without continued outside subsidies.
Headstones in the Iosepa Cemetery.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
At least three of these factors were unique to the Mormon experience, but they changed markedly after Young’s death. The post-Young settlements (1877-1915)lacked the personal direction by a charismatic leader as growth in the church combined with outside political pressure to cause the church to give up its role as guarantor of businesses suchas the IASC.71 Abandonment of the practice of polygamy reduced the most vocal opposition to Mormons that typified political speeches and newspaper accounts during the 1870-1890 years, reducing the Mormon view of themselves as a beleaguered minority. At the same time the acceptance of a millennialistic utopian world-view based on communitarian principles was replaced by adoption of typical American frontier characteristics of individualism, private property and free enterprise economic practices.
Iosepa’s establishment, however, represents a reversion to the earlier settlement paradigm of the Brigham Young years. Joseph F. Smith, like the charismatic Young for earlier settlements, was the church leader for the Hawaiians who encouraged settlement of Iosepa. Smith helped direct the selection of a location for the settlement, and the resultant organization and settlement process. His ties to the Hawaiian community prompted differential treatment for them compared toEuropean immigrants of the time. While Europeans were expected to assimilate into the established Mormon society and economy, Smith’s intervention on behalf of the Polynesians created a unique paternalistic settlement form for the Mormon’s only Polynesian community in Utah. Albeit apparently inspired by good intentions, the establishment of Iosepa not only segregated the Hawaiian minority far from the Mormon capital on marginal land, but effectively implemented a plantation-like ranch under direction of a Caucasian overseer. Failure to become integrated into the mainstream Mormon communities and the continued need for church financial support of Iosepa probably factored into the decision to end the Hawaiian settlement and to repatriate them to the existing Mormon Hawaiian community in Laie, where a temple was to be constructed. The primary cause,however, seems to have been Joseph F. Smith’s concern about the future of the settlement after his death and the residents’ acceptance of his advice to return to Hawaii. The Iosepa colonists’faith in their leaders as inspired men who had encouraged them to gather to Utah also allowed them to accept the then prophet’s counsel to return to Hawaii.
The Polynesian impact on Utah did not end with the Iosepa memorial, however. Largely as a result of post World War II immigration, Utah today ranks third (after California and Washington) among states in the continental United States in numbers of Polynesians. The 2000 U.S. Census indicates 22,678 individuals claiming Pacific Island ancestry in Utah, of whom 20,021 are Polynesian. While ranking third in number, the percent of Utah’s population who claim Polynesian ancestry is twice as high as any other mainland state (0.7 percent of the total population) and seven times the national average. The rate of growth of the Polynesian population in Utah has increased by 70 percent for the decade of 1980 to 1990, and has more than doubled in the last decade of the twentieth century.72
Descendents of Iosepa and other supporters of the former Hawaiian community have taken a renewed interest in Iosepa and in 1985 organized the Iosepa Historical Society. Over the years the historical society has received various grants and contributions to construct a covered pavilion, which has kitchen facilities, and other amenities, to restore and maintain the cemetery and to make other improvements. The pavilion and adjacent cemetery provide a permanent location for events associated with the annual Memorial Day activities. The Iosepa Cemetery continues to be an “active cemetery” with new graves being added.
Today, after the abandonment of the settlement of Iosepa little remains of the town site except a few foundations and pieces of sidewalk. The poplar trees that once lined the main street are dead and largely have disintegrated while the outline of the streets that were clearly visible only a decade or two ago are hard to discern among the numerous cattle trails that bisect the old town site.
A granite monument dedicated in 1989, topped with the bust of a Hawaiian warrior, stands as a mute testimony that the people buried here are different from those in most Mormon cemeteries. Much effort goes into weeding and cleaning the cemetery prior to the Memorial Day weekend when a celebration consisting of classes in traditional island crafts and dances are taught, a luau is prepared and served, and other activities take place. Flags which represent the isles of the Pacific flank the monument and on Sunday a LDS church meeting is held where visitors reflect upon both the faith and perseverance of the original settlers and the symbolism of their sacrifice in the modern world of Polynesians. Today, Iosepa remains unique among Mormon settlements in the American West, a distinction recognized far beyond the borders of the Mormon West.73
NOTES
Richard H. Jackson is a professor of geography at Brigham Young University and Mark W. Jackson is an assistant professor in the same department. Their research interests focus on understanding the factors that affect land use over time, particularly those affecting growth and decline of communities.
1 Lynn A. Rosenvall, “Defunct Mormon Settlements: 1830-1930,” in Richard H. Jackson, ed., The Mormon Role in The Settlement of the West, (Provo: Brigham Young UniversityPress, 1978), 51-74.For general accounts of the Mormon settlement of the West see Leonard J.Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Boston:Harvard University Press, 1958); Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonismin Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996); James B. Allen and Marvin S.Hill, eds., Mormonism and American Culture, (New York: Harper and Row, 1972); and James B.Allen, et al. Studies in Mormon History, 1830-1997, An Indexed Bibliography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).
2 Todd Goodsell,“Maintaining Solidarity: A Look Back at the Mormon Village,” Rural Sociology 65 (2000): 357-75.
3 Andrew Jenson,“Iosepa Colony, Tooele County, Utah,” manuscript, LDS Church History Library Archives,Salt Lake City, Utah. Researching Iosepa is made somewhat difficult because of its uniqueness. Some records of the LDS church, such as correspondence of church leaders, cannot be accessed by the public, and no diaries by the settlers are known. This narrative relies on information that is available to the public in the LDS Church History Library, newspaper or other published accounts, the diaries of Anglo leaders of the settlement, and a few recollections of the Anglo leaders and Hawaiian participants.
4 Mormon missionary work in the Polynesian islands has been well chronicled. Two very good references are R. LanierBritsch, Unto the Islands of the Sea (Salt Lake City:Deseret Book Company, 1986)and S. George Ellsworth and Kathleen Perrin, Seasons of Faith and Courage (Sandy:Yves R. Perrin, 1994).
5 Andrew Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History”, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Jenson was Assistant Church Historian for years and compiled a history that is titled “M.S. History of Iosepa Branch,” which details events related to the first few years of the Iosepa settlement by specific dates. The history includes a number of pages entitled “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History,” which provide an overview of the arrival of the Hawaiians in Salt Lake City and the subsequent decision to relocate them.
6 Jenson, “Iosepa Colony,” 8; Matthew Noall, To My Children: Autographical Sketch, (Salt Lake City: privately published, 1947), 57-58 is a recollection that includes information about the Hawaiians. As a former Hawaiian missionary, Noall was involved with the Hawaiians in Salt Lake City and states that “Because of their racial, language, and cultural differences they had great difficulty in adjusting to their new environment. Fault finding and bickering were growing among them…” leading to the decision to relocate them.
7 Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History.” The First Presidency included Wilford Woodruff, who had been sustained as president of the church on April 7, 1889, and councilor Joseph F. Smith, a nephew of Joseph Smith and later himself, president of the church from 1901 until his death in 1918. Smith served a four-year mission to Hawaii beginning in 1854 at the age of fifteen, where he became fluent in the language and developed a great love for the Hawaiian people. He returned to Hawaii in 1864, selecting the site for a plantation at Laie to be a gathering place for the converts in Hawaii.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid. The Iosepa Ward Manuscript History contains the complete report of the committee, including general criteria for sites and reasons Skull Valley was superior. See also Harvey H. Cluff Diary, 25-27, Americana Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Cluff had been a missionary to Hawaii in the 1870s, and was later president of the Hawaii Mission. He was appointed to the committee to select the site for the community by theFirst Presidency of the Church, and became president and managing director of the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company when the land was purchased for the communityas well as the presiding elder of the Mormon ecclesiastical organization from the beginning of the settlement.
10 Andrew Jenson, “Journal History of the Church,” manuscript, Latter-day Saint Church, Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City, December20, 1928.
11 Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History,” and Harvey H.Cluff, Autobiography, 31,Americana Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
12 Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History.”
13 Cluff, “Autobiography,” April 1890.Tracy E. Panek, “Life at Iosepa, Utah’sPolynesian Colony,” Utah Historical Quarterly 60 ( Winter 1992): 66. Grantsville is only twelve miles away from Iosepa directly across the Stansbury Mountains, but the road goes north to the northern end of the range and then back south to Iosepa, making the actual journey longer.
14 Newspaper accounts often assumed that the town was named for the prophet Joseph Smith Jr.
15 T.A. Waddoups, Interview, April 5, 1958, in Dennis H. Atkin,“A History of Iosepa, the Utah Polynesian Colony,” (MA thesisBrighamYoung University, 1958), 22. In 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Act was passed by the U.S. Congress strengthening the Morrill Act of 1862 limiting the church to owning no more than $50,000 worth of property.
16 According to T. A. Waddoups, J. W. Kauleinamoku later bought ten shares in the company but very few others ever did so. Waddoups Interview, April 5, 1958,in Dennis H. Atkin,“A History of Iosepa,” 22.
17 Utah Enquirer (Provo), quoted in Panek, “Life of Iosepa,” 67.
18 Richard H. Jackson and Robert L. Layton, “The Mormon Village: Analysis of a Settlement Type,” The Professional Geographer 28 (1976): 136-41.
Those individuals selecting lots were charged twenty-five dollars to be paid by their work on the ranch and farm. Jenson, “M.S. History of Iosepa Branch.”
20 Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History.”
21 Cluff, “Autobiography.” Cluff records that at least five individuals left “as a thief in thenight.”
22 Cluff, “Diary,” August 28, 1890.
23 Edna Hope Gregory, “Iosepa, Kanaka Ranch,” Utah Humanities Review 2 (1948): 4. 24 Cluff, “Autobiography,” 102.
25 Ibid.
26 Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 71. Those going to the temple often hauled a wagon load of wheat to be milled near Grantsville and picked it up on the return trip. The fact that the school in Iosepa only included the first to the eighth grade meant that a few of the older children boarded in Salt Lake City or Grantsville during the winter to attend high school, and parents could combine a visit with them with a visit to the temple.
27 Jenson, “M.S. History of Iosepa Branch,” 1893.
28 In 1891 H.H. Cluff was replaced by William King, a former president of the Hawaiian Mission, but when King died suddenly in February 1892, Cluff was reinstated.
29 “From the Hawaiian Colony,” Deseret Evening News, July 13, 1892; Cluff, “Diary,” 117; Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 70.
30 “The Iosepa Colony,” Deseret Evening News, December 22,1894; Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 74.
31 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 88-91, 298-302.
32 L. Dwight Israelson,“United Orders,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed.Daniel H. Ludlow(New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), 4: 1493-95.
33 Cluff, “Diary,” 242, and T.A. Waddoups, interview, in Atkin, “A History of Iosepa,” 23, 50.
34 Tooele Transcript, February 27, 1976. The scrip states on the front that “Thisscrip is not to be used as money,” but that “This writing witnesseth that THE IOSEPA AGRICULTURAL and STOCK COMPANY agrees to furnish the beareran assortment of FARM PRODUCTS to the amount of FIFTY CENTS at the Iosepa Ranch in Skull Valley, Tooele Co. Utah August 1st1901.” Signed by the treasurer and president. In spite of this disclaimer that it is not money, it presents an appearance of currency, including the large denomination notation in the upper right hand corner of 50 cts, and in the left corner the number of the scrip certificate. The reverse side has two large shield shapes with the designation “Hapualua 50 Kala” in the center of each on each end and in the center of the scrip the words “This Script is payable in an assortment of Farm Products at retail prices and is not current except at THE IOSEPA RANCH Skull Valley, Tooele County, Utah.” This inscription is separated into the top part of the bill and bottom part by a coat of arms surmounted by an eagle with the inscription“UAMAUKEEAOKA AINA I KA PONO.” The scrip was lithographed in Salt Lake City and original examples of the scrip are in the Tooele County Museum.
35 Deseret Evening News, September 9,1908.
36 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States of America, Volume III, “Population 1910”(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), 871, table 1.
37 Deseret Evening News, December 22, 1894, and Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 74.
38 Atkin,“History of Iosepa,” 35.
39 “Conference at Iosepa,” Deseret Evening News, November 26, 1904.
40 Panek, “Life at Iosepa,”76.
41 “Big Event for Iosepa Colony,” Herald Republican , September 15, 1915, cited in Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 76.
42 Thomas A. Waddoups, “ The Iosepa Colony and the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company,” Interview, December 1956, 3, Brigham Young University Library. Atkin, “A History of Iosepa,” 36, 59.
43 Atkin, “A History of Iosepa,”35, 69.
44 Nona Shibley, “Iosepa, Kanaker Colony,” Sons of Utah Pioneer News (September 1959): 13.
45 The Official Guide of the Lincoln Highway (Detroit: The Lincoln HighwayAssociation,1916), 133.
46 Edna Hope Gregory, “Iosepa, Kanaka Ranch,” Utah Humanities Review 2 (1948): 5-7; Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 72.
47 Jenson, “Iosepa,” 6.
48 Gregory, “Iosepa, Kanaka Ranch,” 8; Panek, “Life at Iosepa,” 73; “Physician Recalls Utah Leper Colony,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 24, 1937.
49 Jenson, “M.S. History of Iosepa Branch,” August 28, 1890.
50 Deseret Evening News, October 4, 1915.
51 Jenson, “Iosepa Colony,” 5;Waddoups Interview, April 9, 1958, in Atkins, “A History of Iosepa,” 80.
52 Cuma SorensonHoopiiaina, Iosepa, (1982, Xeroxed pages, no publisher or publishing place), 22.
53 Waddoups, Interview, April 9, 1958, in Atkins, “Iosepa History,” 80; Jenson, “Iosepa Colony,” 5-6.
54 Ella Brunt Kamauoha, Interview, March 1958, in Atkins, “Iosepa History,” 80.
55 Waddoups, Interview, April 9, 1958, in Atkins, “History of Iosepa,” 80.
56 Deseret Evening News, November 1, 1917.
57 The Iosepa property was sold for$150,000.00 according to Waddoups. Waddoups Interview, April 9, 1958, cited in Atkin, “History of Iosepa,” 80.
58 Hartt Wixom, “Last Vestige of ‘Oasis?’” Deseret News, February 19, 1969; Rose Mary Pederson, “In Skull Valley- a Ghost of Hawaii,” Deseret News, July 10, 1976. These newspaper accounts tell of the family of John Kaili Hoopiiania, one of the early settlers of Iosepa. His five sons, Akoni, Ben, Neil, John and Pete, chose not to return to Hawaii. Akoni (generally called “Coe Nay”) attempted to homestead land but was never able to bring enough land under irrigation to obtain ownership. Akoni died in 1968 and was buried in the Iosepa cemetery. The Bureau of Land Management required his small cabin and shed be removed in 1969 a task accomplished by his brother Pete and a neighboring rancher. Pete Hoopiiania was reported to be the last living resident of Iosepa still in Utah.
59 J. Lyman Fawson, “A History of Iosepa,” Iosepa Hawaiian Colony, Skull Valley, Utah,” manuscript, American Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo.
60 Gregory, “Iosepa, Kanaka Ranch,” 7-8.
61 Jenson, “M.S. History of Iosepa,” 1917.It is unclear whether Jenson had access to minutes of meetings of the First Presidency or other sources in reaching his conclusion that the mortality was too high, but given his position he may have had access to materials not available for perusal today. The only available data indicated that there were forty-eight babies blessed and twenty-nine deaths between 1907 and 1916, and thirty-five babies blessed and seventeen deaths between 1911 and 1916.Without data on the age and sex characteristics, causes of death, fertility rate, etc. to compare to other similar Utah settlements of the time however, it is impossible to conclude whether or not these constitute poor health among the Hawaiians, Atkins, “History of Iosepa,” 69-70.
62 Gregory, “Iosepa, Kanaka Ranch,” 9.
63 Neil Murbarger, “Utah’s Tropic Island,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 24, 1952. The author does give passing mention to the fact that “with completion of the LDS Temple inHawaii in 1916, a majority of those remaining returned to their native land.” While there are numerous errors in the facts of the article, it does clearly present the idea that the climate was simply too harsh for Polynesians.
64 For examples of the failure of settlements in the Great Basin Desert that were not directed by the LDS church that included settlers from Mormon and non-Mormon backgrounds see Marshall Bowen, Utah People in the Nevada Desert: Homestead and Community on a Twentieth-Century Farmers’ Frontier (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994).
65 Alf Callister interview in Donald J. Rosenberg. “Iosepa Colonists Return to Hawaii,” Tooele Transcript, February 24, 1976.
66 Hoopiiaina, Iosepa. John Palikapee Nawahinbe was buried in the cemetery on August 26, 1923, and Akoni Hoopiiaina on September 6, 1968.
67 Jenson, “Iosepa Ward Manuscript History.” Kauleinamoku had immigrated to Utah in 1875, where he was employed as a carpenter on the Salt Lake Temple. He was the first Hawaiian sent on a mission from Salt Lake City, serving a one year mission in New Zealand from 1888-1889. Active in the Iosepa settlement from his time on the selection committee, he was a stockholder in the IASC representing the Polynesians’ interests and served as the Sunday School Superintendent in Iosepa for a time.
68 Lloyd Scott, “Iosepa Memorial Honors Utah’s Hawaiian Settlers,” Deseret News August 29, 1989; Myron W. Lee, “Church Leaders Praise Iosepa,” Tooele Transcript Bulletin August 29, 1989; “Centennial Held to Honor Hawaiians’ Settlement,” Magna Times, August 31, 1989. Newspaper accounts note that the monument was financed by the “Iosepa Historical Society with the help of donations from the LDS church and others.” Edwin Kamanola was one of the principal individuals behind the move to erect the memorial, personal communication with Dennis Atkin, July 26, 2001. Prior to the erection of a monument groups from the LDS church in Grantsville periodically tried to remove weeds, maintain the fence around the graves, and care for the site. See “Graves Restored,” Church News, July 16, 1977, for typical examples of activities to spruce up the cemetery.In 1971 Iosepa was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
69 Lee, “Church Leaders Praise Iosepa,” 1-2.
70 Goodsell, “Maintaining Solidarity,” 357-75.
71 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 407-12.
72 U.S. Census of Population (Washington: Government Printing Office,various years). 73 Michelle Nuhius, “Luau in the Desert,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 2007.
