Utah Centennial County History Series - Weber County 1997

NINETEENTH CENTURY SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY J. he society of Weber County changed during the nineteenth century. Initially, the society was one of Native Americans, and then the fur trade developed a society where Native Americans and trappers mingled together, as described by Osborne Russell. In the two decades following 1847, Weber County society became dominated by the Mormons; and, following 1869, the railroad and the changes it brought affected society drastically. With the arrival of the Mormons in 1847, the Native American culture and the Mormon culture of settlement clashed, much as the Mormon culture and the changes brought by the railroad later came into conflict.

The journals and diaries of the early Mormons relate their joys and tragedies, including establishing homesites, planting crops, working the fields, daily house chores, harvesting crops, relating to Indians, surviving the heat of the summers and the cold of the winters, bearing and raising children, tending the sick, burying the dead, and hoping for a better future. Women worked the fields and herded cattle along with the men and boys. Most families were involved with 151