History of Salt Lake City, Part 87

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > History of Salt Lake City > Part 87

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The growth and social grading of Utah have deviated markedly from the rules and examples of all the rest of the western family of States which have grown up during her period of existence. Her development, in fact, has been according to the old and not the new social methods. The other States and Ter- ritories on the western line have sprung up out of almost superhuman energies in- duced by the vast mineral wealth of the West, which first appeared in the discovery of gold in California; but Utah has passed through the regular stages of social growth which reminds one of the old fashioned style of the founding of New England, notwithstanding that Utah is second to none in her mineral resources.

Here, in this Mormon Territory, we have had the agricultural period as well defined as it was in the Eastern Hemisphere four thousand years ago-when the

6,0

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

race kept sheep and tilled the land, while empire was being rocked in her cradle. True, the settlers of these valleys emigrated from the manufacturing nations. The majority of those who peopled Utah during the first decade were, as we have seen, from Great Britain ; and there were far more gathered from the manufactur- ing centres of England and Scotland and the mining district of Wales than from the agricultural counties.

In grading the settlers of Utah, we should, therefore, consider them chiefly as a manufacturing people; but who, after they came to these valleys, were greatly thrown out of the familiar spheres of their lives. Speaking of the emigrants from Great Britain, they were, as a class, skillful artizans, apprenticed mechanics and colonies of manufacturers which the Mormon Church every season poured into the Territory. Arriving here, they soon lost their original character in conse- quence of the necessities of the country and the strict methods through which the Mormons have built up their cities and settlements. Devoting their lives and in - dustries toward general results as a community, the emigrants were directed by the bishops over the whole extent of country mapped out by the authorities to be sub- dued by Mormon industry and enterprise. Thus, a people originally artizans and manufacturers, became agricultural in their pursuits of life; and it was not until the last decade, under the new era and development of the railroads and mines, that they resumed their original activities.

The fact is, Utah was necessarily founded upon an agricultural basis. The very life necessities of the Mormons as a community, and their isolated condition -so far removed from the centres of our national industries and commerce -for a time unduly balanced them on the agricultural side.

During the early period, it was in vain to urge the people into home manufac- tures-though it was certainly judicious in their leaders to so counsel them, for the ultimate prosperity of the community was in that direction. They had not the facilities for home manufactures, nor even the raw material ; while the idea of competition with States' goods was simply preposterous-and yet there were in Utah all the skilled laborers who could have produced those goods. The case simply was that Utah had not properly reached her manufacturing period; and it was be- yond even the power of wise and vigorous leaders to place the country prematurely on a manufacturing basis, or more strictly stated, beyond their power to build up trade and commerce excepting according to their own laws. A fresh opening of a season's stock of States' goods by our merchants, for instance, was quite suffi- cient to kill a whole year's preaching on home manufactures.

In reviewing the industrial history of our city it may be observed as a singu- lar feature, that nearly all labor, building and mechanic's business commenced on the Public Works, under Daniel H. Wells, the superintendent, and the means for the employment of labor, not only directly on those Public Works, but also in- directly in the building up of the homes of the citizens, came through the busi- ness management of the Trustee-in-Trust of the Church and his agents, the bishops.

The first development of the city was the Old Fort, with its log cabins and adobe huts and its school and meeting house. Next the settlers moved out upon their city lots to build their city proper. Saw and grist mills were erected for President Young, known as the Chase mills, located iu what is now called Liberty

Sich & B. Marget

671

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

Park, the remains of which are still standing. In rapid succession the several canyons were opened and other saw mills erected in City Creek, Neff's Canyon, Mill Creek and the two Cottonwoods. About this time the Public Works, on Temple Block, were started under the direction of the First Presidency, with Dan- iel H. Wells, superintendent. Here nearly all the emigrants were employed dur- ing the first year of their arrival, or at least so long as they needed such employ. ment. Until they were enabled to mark out a line of business or enterprise for themselves ; the Public Works were open to the industrial classes.

On Temple Block there were soon established a carpenters' shop, a large blacksmith shop and a machine shop, where they manufactured mill and other machinery, a paint shop, etc. The carpenters and builders were under the fore- manship of Miles Romney, father of the well known and influential master builder, George Romney. Thomas Tanner was the foreman of the blacksmiths' shop; Captain Pitt of the painters, and " old man Derrick " of the machine shop.

In 1850, the men in the blacksmith shop were Phil Margetts, of local cele- brity as " our favorite comedian ; " Jonathan Pugmire and Henry Margetts. Afterwards came in - Hamilton and Thomas Cartwright. In 1851, Richard B. Margetts worked there for a short time. A Brother Cook was the horseshoer of the shop.

The first casting that was done in Utah was done in this shop, under the supervision of John Kay, Phil. Margetts and -Hamilton : Kay was the pattern- maker. The casting was a large spur wheel, for President Young's mill, to supply one broken. It was cast out of old hub cast iron boxes. They melted the ore on a blacksmith's forge, in what they called a pocket furnace. Their furnace in- vented for the occasion, they made by hollowing out below the tool iron, filling in with sand, then placing layer after layer of charcoal and cast iron : they used an old Pennsylvania wagon skein as a spout to carry the molton iron into the ladle, which was made of old fashioned wagon hub bands.

And so in the other departments of the public works, there were combina- tions of mechanics some of whom had worked in the best shops in Great Britain, and who in the history of our city since that day have become quite historical men. It was on the public works that many of our citizens got their start in life, and while there they have built themselves homes with tithing office pay, or by the turns which the hands have been enabled to make with their fellows or by the managing men of the works. Hundreds of families in this city have obtained homes, without as much as seeing a dollar in their hands in a year, who to-day with a gold circulation in our city never could have obtained a home.

Among the representative men of Salt Lake City who in the early days were associated with the Public Works was John Sharp, often spoken of as the Mormon " railroad bishop." He was born in the Devon Ironworks, Scotland, November 8th, 1820, and was sent into a coalpit to work when but eight years of age.

In 1847, Mormonism found him in Clackmannanshire, still engaged as a coal miner. The Mormon gospel was brought to this quarter by William Gibson, one of the first Scotch elders sent out,-a man who obtained notoriety in the British mission as an orator and an able disputant. This elder converted the Sharp brothers (there were three of them) to the faith, and in 1848, they left Scotland

672

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

for America. They landed in New Orleans, came up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where they lived until the spring of 1850, and then took up their line of march for Salt Lake City.

The date of his arrival, August 28th, 1850, makes John Sharp one of the earlier settlers of Utah, and the sphere that he has filled so many years, properly classes him among the " founders." He first went to work in the Church quarry, getting out stone for the Old Tabernacle and Tithing Office, and next was made the superintendent of the quarry. Under his direction the stone for the Public Works, the foundation of the Temple, and the massive wall around the Temple block, was gotten out; and it must be understood that the quarrying and hauling of those huge blocks of granite was no indifferent undertaking. The sandstone quarry was in Red Butte Canyon and the Church quarry is eighteen miles from the city, and the rock, of course, had to be hauled by oxen, and the men employed directly or indirectly on tithing account. The numerous diffi- culties which the superintendents of the Church works have had to grapple with in raising teams upon the tithing offerings, the employment of regular hands and the finding of means generally to carry on the public works, are not easily imagined, unless one can fancy what the national income would mean if paid in flour, mo- lasses, potatoes, squashes, and the like, and distributed afterwards for the national service.

In the spring of 1851, Alderman Raleigh was called upon and appointed by President Young to take charge of and carry on the mason department of the Pub- lic Works, which he continued to do until those works were suspended during the Buchanan war and the " move south."

It is not possible to deal with the industries and enterprises of our city and Territory, without introducing occasionally a biographical passage of the men who have developed those enterprises and worn out their lives in the industrial activities, which have converted our once desert and isolated valleys into impor- tant commercial cities. Nor need the author apologize for biographically intro- ducing the class of men who form the subjects of this chapter considering that in the settling and growth of a new country, the men who struck the first blows of hard work and enterprise are truly historical personages. The men who founded our cities; the men who built the first houses ; the men who used the first plows and the men who made them ; the men who made the first leather and shoes, built the cloth factories and wove the cloth; the men who gave birth to Utah commerce, opened her mines and built her railroads ; these and their class gener- ally are Utah's real representative men with whom the historian will mostly deal in the local record of our Territory and its resources. It was they who gave im- pulses to the country. It was they who created society where, before they came, no society existed. It was they who laid the foundations of our western cities, with their own hands, and made the country habitable for the millions. It was they, in fact, who established the West and gave toit its life and its mighty energies, which in the short period of thirty-eight years, has made it the rival of the East. These are the true representative men of the West and they are the most worthy of historical record.

But we have in this biographical series to treat of those who have promoted and

673

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

developed the manufacturing industries of our Territory. Their importance in the history of Utah has never yet been sufficiently emphasized. It is only now, indeed, that we are beginning to appreciate their real value and mission. The farmers were from the beginning like the landed aristocracy of the country. Utah belonged to them ; while the merchant on his part held the " money bags," but the manufacturers had no dispensation, nor to this day have capitalists come to their help, excepting in the shoe manufacturing establishment of Z. C. M. I. Principally the capital that has been invested in manufactures has been by the in- dustrial classes themselves, and which they have earned by hard work and con- stant struggles. Indeed, it is due to these men, of whom we are here treating, that our home manufacturing industries have assumed anything like the impor- tance needful for the employment of an English and an American people.

The late Mr. R. B. Margetts, whose steel plate accompanies this chapter, is very suggestive of the subject. There is a record of hard work and enterprise stamped on his countenance. For over a quarter of a century he was identified with this country and some of its first industries were wrought by his hands. The fol- lowing is a brief biographical sketch of the man :

Richard Bishop Margetts was born at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, on the first of February, 1823. He left Woodstock, when he was six years of age and lived in and around London for seven years. He left school when he was thirteen years old to learn the trade of a blacksmith, so that he had not a very liberal scholastic education ; but was fitted by his early training for the hard work of a new country. He learned his trade under his father on several of the rail- roads in England, the last place where he worked being Watford, on the London and Northwestern Railway.

Mr. Margetts, with his brothers, joined the Mormon Church, and they have all made considerable mark in life. Mr. Thomas Margetts, over a quarter of a century ago, was famous as one of the ablest of the British elders.

Mr. Philip Margetts is also quite an historical character in Utah. He is as- sociated in the whole of our theatrical history as one of its principal characters, and is an old public favorite of the stage. We shall meet him in due time in our theatrical history.

Richard B. Margetts left England to emigrate to Utah in January, 1850, and after a voyage of nine weeks arrived in St. Louis. During the summer of 1850 he suffered severely from sickness; which caused him to bind himself, under oath, that he would not spend another summer in St. Louis, but would go through to Salt Lake Valley or die in the attempt.

On the 10th of March, 1851, Mr. Richard Margetts left St. Louis, taking his wagon, which he made for the trip across the Plains. We cannot here follow him through all the vicissitudes of his journey, but will note his arrival in Salt Lake City on the 28th of September, 1851, he having been six months and two weeks on the journey from St. Louis to this place. His narrative continues, and is strikingly illustrative of the development of the industries of our city. He says :

" I rested a few days, and October roth I commenced business as blacksmith- ing in a rented shop, and must say the change from a locomotive and machine 43

674

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

shop to that of a jobbing blacksmith was both strange and funny; particularly so as the first job that came in was a horse to be shod and I had to go to work alone and make the nails out of an old iror chain and the shoes from the iron off an ox yoke, and then take beef for pay. I did the job, and that satisfactorily, although it took me a long time and I got rather nervous when the man asked me who taught me to shoe a horse. After telling him hastily that it was none of his busi ness, I learned, to my chagrin, that he was going to give me credit for doing the work so well. I soon got acquainted with the requirements of the country, how- ever, and turned my attention to the manufacture of mill irons; and although there was nothing but the iron off old wagons to use, I made some very heavy mill irons, and enough to start thirteen grist and saw mills in a short time. I turned my attention to anything and everything that came along. During the emigration to California, I was very busy working for the emigrants; and when the overland stages were running through the city, I, in connection with my brothers, Henry and Phillip, did the work for that company for several years.

"About the year '55, I saw that something was required for the purpose of ex- pressing the juice of the cane for molasses, as the farmers were raising consider- able cane and there were none but wood rollers in use. I planned and made up the first cane mill. It took the prize at the fair, the whole machine being made of wagon tires. This led to the manufacture of a great many of those machines, which could be set to horse or water power and did good work for several years until foundries were started that could make cast iron rollers much cheaper. The making of those wrought iron machines was followed by the raising of large quantities of cane or sorghum, and proved to be a great benefit to the Territory. About the year '63, a little circumstance occurred which proved to be a turning point in my business. I wanted to get the patronage of a gentleman who was then running a tannery, and at the same time I wanted to get a pair of boots for one of my men. I asked the gentleman of the tannery, as a favor, to let me have a pair of boots and I would give pay in blacksmithing; but he blankly refused. This rather nettled me, and that same day I made up my mind to start a tannery myself ; and in less than two months I had vats in place and commenced to work in hides ; and in a very short time had the building in good shape and the busi- ness in a very satisfactory condition. I now found it necessary that I should withdraw from blacksmithing and turn my whole means and attention to the tan- ning business, and found it also necessary to add to the same the manufacture of leather belting-a great want of that article being experienced throughout the Territory. The whole business was very successful till near the approach of the railroad, when I found out that leather could be imported cheaper than it could be made here on account of the scarcity of tanning material. In '71, I con- cluded to gradually work out of the tanning business, and to establish a brewery on the premises."

We may now follow for awhile the leather and shoe trade. It is put first in the manufacturing series, because the shoe trade is the most primitive branch of the manufacturing industries-employing more laborers than any other branch until we reach the period of cloth and cotton factories. Moreover, the shoe fac-

Philip hugoley,

675

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

tory, attached to Z. C. M. I, is Salt Lake's manufacturing monument, as the Provo Wo . len Factory is to City of Provo.

Samuel Mulliner was the father of our Salt Lake tanners. He manufactured the first leather-a calf skin-which was exhibited at a general conference, before he went on a mission to Scotland from Utah in 1850.

Mulliner's tannery was where Walker Brothers' business block and banking house now stand. Ira Ames and Alexander Brim were the next to start tan- nerries in the city. Brim's was in the First Ward ; Ames', afterwards known as Pugsley's tannery, was near the Warm Springs.

Among the men who have been foremost in developing the industries of Utah is Mr. Philip Pugsley. Claiming simply the rank of one of the hard-workers of the country and promoters of our local enterprises, he has won a legitimate place in the history of our Territory. He was first known among our early leather manufacturers ; at a later date Pugsley & Randall built and successfully ran the Ogden Woolen Factory ; still more recently he engaged in the iron and coal in- dustries, and, indeed, there is scarcely a home enterprise with which the name of Philip Pugsley has not been identified.

Philip Pugsley was born in Somersetshire, England ; and ranks as a Mormon emigrant. In his youth he was engaged in the raising and shipping of stock and was afterwards in charge of a large brewery at Bristol, at which city he learned the process of the japanning of leather .; this was his start in the leather business in which he did so much after his emigration to Utah. He left England in 1853, emigrating in the famous {10 companies sent to this country by the Apostle Franklin D. Richards-His company, under the command of Captain Jacob Gates, arrived in Salt Lake City on the last day of September. . Pugsley's family at the time consisted of his wife and eldest son, Joseph, who. is now " boss " of the Salt Lake Soap Works. Sister Pugsley was sick and the family possessed not so much as a cent of money. The first thing to be done on their arrival was to get something to eat, so Brother Philip went to seek employment down at Brother Ira Ames', who was just starting in the tanning business. At this juncture Ames' son, Clark, was called to go on a mission in April with Parley P. Pratt to South America ; Pugsley was engaged to take his place in the leather manufactory. Isaac Young and Pugsley ran the tannery for Ames for a year ; and, at the death of Isaac Young, he ran it himself on shares with Ames, continuing up to the time of the move South. He also ran Golding & Raleigh's tannery on shares. The employers furnished the means and he the labor, for one third of the leather.

Those were the days that tried men's souls and the courage and self-sacrifice of the women not less. Pugsley and his wife shared with the early settlers of Utah the poverty of those times. The first winter after their arrival was very severe, and work was stopped. Brother Philip now brought his tools into requisition, in making chairs, tables and other things for household use. The family lived in a tent for several months, until very deep snow fell, when they got into an old house, which appeared ready to tumble down about their ears. Money and pro- visions were very scarce ; obtaining a few beets the wife boiled them down in a bake-skillet, pressed the juice out and then boiled it down into molasses.

The first "two-bits " that he got in money was for a piece of leather. With

676

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

this he bought a shin of beef, and his wife boiled it every day for two weeks, un- til broth could no longer be extracted from the bones.

It is only by the narration of such personal experiences, that the reader of to-day is enabled to realize the privations which the early settlers of this Territory had to endure, for the experience of one is the story of the whole, with merely some variety, and the example of a case is suggestive of a thousand-and-one needs of the community when a bushel ot wheat was worth its weight in silver.

When the spring opened, and the tanners got out a little leather, times grew better with Pugsley and his family, for leather and shoes, being among the most essential needs of a community, those articles, more readily than any others, commanded the limited supplies of the country in those times. The women could even do without their tea and sugar, the nien without their tobacco, but shoes to the workers who plowed the land and went into the canyons to haul wood, for building purposes and for fuel, were nearly as needful as the "staff of life." Philip Pugsley " kept pitching in," to use his own homely but suggestive word- painting of the hard work and constant struggle of those days, when all our self- made men were " pitching in" to get their own start in life, found cities and set- tlements in the Great American Desert, and to establish the many industries of the Territory of which we now can boast. As we have already said, Pugsley was among the foremost of these industrial men, and the branch of business in which he engaged was the earliest of our manufacturing activities. He made some means in the leather trade, which was the basis of the capital which he has since con- trolled and invested in other branches of enterprise, as fast as they developed.

In the spring of 1858, his folks were with the community in their " move south," but Captain Pugsley was left with the detail to guard the city, he belong- ing to the police force. Sometimes there was only himself in the city. But he kept the tannery going notwithstanding, working by day and guarding by night. Nathaniel Jones and James W. Cummings at that time owned the Fifteenth Ward tannery, but being principal officers in the militia they were out with their respec- tive commands ; so they sent down their unfinished leather to Pugsley-700 large kips and calf skins, and 500 sides of harness and sole leather.

The exodus of the people South had suspended the planting of crops, but there was a great deal of self-sown grain in the fields near the city, which promised a fair harvest. Much of this was in danger of being destroyed by the camping of the companies on their way back to the northern settlements, but Captain Pugsley was appointed by Marshal Jesse C. Little to station himself on the State Road from Gordon's to Salt Lake City, to prevent the companies from camping within that boundary ; and this guard duty being effectually performed , the self-sown wheat was saved and good crops were cut at harvest.

On the return of the people to their homes, Ira Ames concluded not to start his tannery again. It was just at this time that Cache Valley attracted so much attention, and the community having been disturbed by the exodus, multitudes poured into Cache Valley and founded the cities which now constitute Cache County ; and with these settlers of the north went Ira Ames, who sold his tannery and bark to Philip Pugsley. Nobody had peeled bark that season, and Pugsley had now the only bark in the city ; so he sold bark to re start the other tanneries

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Salt Lake City, Part 87

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194