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T H E U T A H HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF KAYSVILLE, UTAH By Henry H. Blood On a tract of high ground, half a mile from the shore of Great Salt Lake, with dense growth of black-willows to the north and south of it, with a stream of water flowing near, and a never-failing spring not far away, was the site of the first known habitation of man within the confines of Kaysville. The earliest settlers found no houses standing there; no tents, no wickiups to mark a permanent abode; but strewn all about, over an area of several acres, were evidences of man having made the spot a dwelling-place. Here women had ground seeds into meal, and made meal into bread, and the task done had laid aside the rude stone implements that served to crush the grains and render them edible. Here painted warriors and dusky hunters had chipped volcanic rock and fashioned spearpoints and arrowheads, and departing, ,had left these evidences of the stern exigencies of savage life to mark the place of their rendezvous. Here children had played with queer shaped toys, and, childlike, lost them in the dusty playground. And here these utensils, implements and toys have been found, mute evidences of conditions now long past. Over this spot it has been my good fortune to guide the plow that has turned up the beaten floor of the once tented village, and eagerly have I sought for the buried mementoes of the daily lives and habits of the race of noble aborigines. The site of the once populous camping-place, this Indian village of the past, is now marked by a modern home of brick and stone and timber. Upon the spot where dark-skinned children played, and hard worked women prepared the meagre family meals from the handfuls of seeds gathered with much care and labor, now are seen rising granaries and barns filled with bounteous plenty for man and beast. It has been generally thought that the portion of Davis County in which Kaysville is located had been uninhabited, except by Indians, up to the time of the arrival here of the "Mormon" pioneers, but testimony of the first settlers indicate that white men, whose identity will probably always remain a mystery, but who are thought to have been trappers, lived in this vicinity earlier than 1847. At least two rude huts, or partial "dugouts" are known to have been found here when the first "Mormon" explorer pushed northward from the Salt Lake City colony to see what the valley in this direction contained. These abandoned habitations were found on a hillside about two miles almost due south of the Tabernacle. They were dis-
