History of Salt Lake City, Part 90

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

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Through the winter they made a stock of sash, doors and flooring from which during the next season they expected to realize enough to clear off their indebt- edness.

But they were doomed to fresh trials. On the forenoon of the 23d of June, 1868, their factory took fire, and though they were on the premises at the time, so strong was the wind and so combustible the building and its contents, that within twelve minutes the whole concern was burned to the ground. Nothing was saved; one of the proprietors went home without his coat and the other without his hat. They were without means, heavily in debt, and out of business.

Taylor here relates an incident that he is always fond of telling: One old lady living in one of the outside wards, as soon as she heard of the fire, came down to his house (walking ten blocks) and told him not to be discouraged, as he

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had burned down in the right time of the moon. He says he has often heard of the moon having an influence over planting, reaping, and various other events, but never thought it extended far enough to cover his case at that time.

It being the most extensive fire that had occured here up to that time, they had the sympathy of the community, which took practical shape through the efforts of Bishop Thomas Taylor, who collected from the business men of the ' place, both Mormon and Gentile, about one thousand dollars, in sums of about fifty dollars, which Latimer & Taylor would not take as a gift, but gave their joint notes to pay as soon as they were able, without interest, all of which they paid within two years, as far as they have any knowledge. They then bought the burnt and damaged machinery from their former partners for one thousand dollars, giving to each a note of five hundred dollars. Latimer set to work to repair the damaged machines, while Taylor worked to support the two families. After a whole season spent in repairs, they formed a new partnership in 1869 with W. H. Folsom and George Romney, starting a steam mill on Folsom's lot on South Temple Street. W. H. Folsom was a leading architect, and Romney had been for years foreman at the Public Works. For several years previous to the part- nership they, under the firm of Folsom & Romney, had been the leading con- tractors and builders in the city. The uniting of these four practical hard work- ing men made a strong team and insured them success, otherwise the introduction of capital and lumber from the west about that time from the great Truckee com- panies would have been too much for the old company.

After a successful business of five years, during which this company built a number of our principal stores and dwellings, Mr. Folsom sold out his interest to Mr. Francis Armstrong, and has since held the position of Church architect for the Manti Temple. The company then purchased the grounds where they now are, put up a large mill, and continued to run under the name of Latimer, Taylor & Co. until the death of the senior partner, Mr. Latimer, in October, 1881, when the remaining partners purchased the interest of their former partner and changed the firm to Taylor, Romney & Armstrong.

It has always been the aim of the company to sustain home industries, and for a long time after the introduction of foreign lumber, they were the only ones keeping a yard who dealt in the home-made article, and to-day, in connection with their outside stock, they take the entire proceeds of three home saw mills, besides a large amount from several others, and also manufacture many things that they could import and make more profit on. Thus the little struggling con- cern of sixteen years ago is to-day standing in the front rank in contracting, building and manufacturing. Their lumber contracts for the present year are about four million feet, and during the building season they have had on their pay roll about sixty names, paying over one thousand dollars a week in wages. These hands, with their families, together with the men employed in the saw mill and their families, must aggregate about five hundred persons who draw their support from this firm. They have also built a number of houses on the instalment plan, taking legal interest on the outlay, for people who would otherwise have been paying rent to-day.

The late Thomas Latimer was born at Burslam, Staffordshire, England, in

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1828. He served as a potter. When he was about twenty years of age he was baptized into the Mormon Church at about the same time that the " Eardley Brothers " and "Croxall and Cartwright " came into the Church. They all worked at the same shop and the latter, as is well known, established the pottery industries of our Territory, while Latimer branched out into the lumber business with Mr. George H. Taylor.

Latimer emigrated to St. Louis at about the year 1850, where he stayed for two years and then journeyed west with Mr. Eardley.

After his arrival in Salt Lake City in 1852, Latimer engaged in ditching and adobie making for a season, after which he worked for Mr. Samuel Snyder selling lumber and making sash and doors, which business he had learned since his arrival in America. In that day mechanics were scarce ; and he, devoting himself ex- clusively to sash and door making and had all the work he could do the year round, people coming to him from all the neighboring settlements. Thus commenced this branch of business in our City as a specialty, the history of which is briefly sketched in the foregoing.

Thomas Latimer died in the latter part of October, 1881, after two years of illness in consumption. He was a genial, social, honest man ; his partners would have trusted him with all they had, and by our citizens generally he was highly respected.

George H. Taylor was born at Bloomfield, New Jersey, November 4th, 1829. He was apprenticed to a calico engraver, and served five years.

Mr. Taylor and his wife came to this Territory in 1859, by ox team, landing without a dollar on the 16th of September. Three days after his arrival in Salt Lake City he went up to the saw mill in Big Cottonwood to work for Feramorz Little, as a tail sawyer. There he worked six weeks and got his winter's provis- ions, when he went down to Sugar House Ward to spend the winter, during which season he hauled lumber for Little from the mill to the city. In the spring of 1860, he moved into the city with his family, and sought employ on the Pub- lic Works. He went into the carpenter shop, of which Mr. George Romney, one of his present partners, was the " boss." Here he worked six weeks, learn- ing his new trade, at a wage of $1.50 per day, at the expiration of which time he found somebody to give him $2.00

When Mr. Taylor commenced to learn the carpentry business he was thirty - one years of age. He served his time with Mr. Charles King, the well known Salt Lake builder. During his engagement with King, covering a period of two years, Taylor had a hand in building some of the first principal stores on Main Street, such as Walker Brothers' old store, the Town . Clock store, and others which at one time gave prominence to the merchants' street.

In those early days of struggle Mr. Taylor devoted his " overtime " at nights to the engraving business, to which he was apprenticed, engraving on maple wood for the stamping of embroidery. It was Taylor who started this class of work in our city, in which he was afterwards succeeded by Mr. Druce, who had his pat- terns. After he had left Mr. King he went into business for himself, continuing till 1867, when he joined partnership with Mr. Latimer, from which date the fore- going sketches his industrial career.

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In the business and industrial history of Salt Lake City, Henry Dinwoodey, the furniture maker and upholsterer, stands at the head of his class as a home manufacturer and employer of labor. Commencing business in the city ere scarcely a commercial house was established, Mr. Dinwoodey's branch of home manufactures has grown from small beginnings to his present fine establishment on First South Street, which carries a stock equal to any Eastern house.

On his arrival in Salt Lake City in September, 1855, Mr. Dinwoodey en- gaged by himself in the carpentry business, and soon afterwards in the cabinet business in partnership with James Bird, occupying a stand just south of the pres- ent Continental hotel. They continued thus until the fall of 1857, when trade and commerce were almost entirely suspended by the Buchanan expedition.

In the spring of 1858 he and his partner moved south, as did the whole peo- ple of the northern cities and counties. With his partner, Mr. Bird, he went into American Fork Canyon, repaired an old saw and grist mill, and commenced making lumber. In the fall of this year he returned to Salt Lake City and went into business for himself, hiring men and manufacturing furniture out of native lumber.

Mr. Dinwoodey rented a piece of ground of Levi Richards, a little above the corner where afterwards was erected Kimball & Lawrence's store. At this time that corner, and the adjacent ground, was distinguished by nothing more imposing than a pole fence, which will sufficiently suggest the primitive character of Main Street when Mr. Dinwoodey pulled down a portion of that fence and built his first furniture shop and store. Previous to this date, on this block, which is now one of the principal business blocks of the City, the Old Constitu- tion buildings was the only monument of trade in that part of Main Street ; for, though commerce commenced at the upper part of Main Street, it very soon took a direction south towards the "Old Elephant Corner, where both Mor - mon and Gentile clustered, especially after the date of the return from the " move south" and the evacuation of Camp Floyd. There were on the two sides of Main Street, limited on the west side by what is now known as "Walker's Corner " and " Jennings' Corner," and on the east side by " Godbe's Corner" and the "Old Elephant Corner," nearly all the commercial and business houses of the City. On the east side there were Gilbert & Gerrish, William Nixon, Ransohoff, Walker Brothers, Staines & Needham, John Kimball, Godbe's Drug Store, the Salt Lake House (which was the first hotel in the City), and T. D. Brown ; on the west side Gilbert Clements (the first manufacturer of brushes in the City), Dan Clift, John M. Brown, Howard (tanner, harness and boot and shoe maker), H. E. Bowring (also carrying on the same business), and on Jennings' corner his butcher stall and store, which in time gave place to the Eagle Emporium.

But, Mr. Dinwoodey having pulled down a portion of the fence on the Rich- ards' lot, building his furniture shop and store thereon, business began to return towards the Old Constitution Buildings, at the head of Main Street, where Livingston, Kinkade and Bell opened the commercial activities of the city in 1849, where also Postmaster Bell kept the Post Office; the Council House, in which

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both the State of Deseret and the Territorial legislature passed their measures and constructed their governmental work, stood as the crowning edifice of the early times.

The location which Mr. Dinwoodey chose was at that time very suitable for the furniture business. It possessed the advantage of being in the front street where the merchants dwelt and sold " States goods" for enormous profits, without his expenses draining the home manufacturer's small percentage of cash needful to carry on his business, in purchasing imported goods or furnishings, and that class of material which could not be bought by exchange of home goods. It was im- possible, at that time, for the home manufacturer to carry on business in a locality where several hundred dollars in cash were required per month for rent, or to compete with the merchants who sold States goods, and drained the city of its cash while the manufacturer had to carry on his business and pay his men by the primitive system of trade and barter.

Following close after Henry Dinwocdey came John Kimball and Henry W. Lawrence, who pulled down the fence at the corner and built the Kimball & Law- rence store. " States goods' " commerce and the home manufacturing trade had now joined hands, supporting each other on the same block, while the Post Office, under the management of Postmaster T. B. H. Stenhouse, gave bustle and pres- tage to this portion of Main Street. Good stores soon sprang up along the entire block, including stationers, music dealers, jewelers and millinery stores, and Sav- age's art gallery.

Mr. Dinwoodey stayed on Main Street from 1858 to 1869 ; and it was at his original stand that he established himself as a successful business man who was able to " pull down his old barns and build up greater ;" to employ more hands in the home factory and to import periodically large stocks of the finest eastern furniture.

Being unable to obtain sufficient room on Main Street for his largely in- creased trade, Mr. Dinwoodey, in 1869, purchased a part of the " Bullock lot," where he erected his fine capacious establishment. & When the U. P. R. R. ap- proached the city, he commenced to import furniture ; he was in the States pur- chasing machinery and furniture when the last spike was driven, since which time he has imported all classes of fine " States furniture," without diminishing his large home manufacturing business.

But it is to Dinwoodey and his class as home manufacturers that the reminis- cences of our city attach with particular historical interest ; and here may be noted, as suggestive of this, one of the peculiar features of our home trade and early industries, which will also illustrate how hundreds of our citizens obtained houses and lots, and comfortably furnished homes, without scarcely ever handling a dollar of cash.

Upon the shoulders of perhaps not more than a score of master business men and employers, the home trade and the life of the city rested ; and it was they, indeed, who found the ways and means to supply the chief wants of the people, while less than a score of merchants were sufficient to carry on commerce in " States goods."

After all the seeming commonality of the home manufacturer and the home

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tradesman, the burden not only of the business of the city, but of the provisions and comforts of the homes of the citizens rested on their enterprise and business capacity. Indeed to keep their various businesses alive, and to make their own homes desirable, they had to do very much the same for their employees, and even for their customers. There were certain classes of home-made goods which ranked on a par, others nearly so, with " States goods." Among such, most fa- miliarly named, were furniture, boots and shoes, leather, harness, home-made cloth and its class, earthenware, and particularly might be named the supplies of the butcher's stall. Undoubtedly the people, through the sharpening pinch of necessity, became smart traders, but much had to be done for them by the home tradesman and employer, or by business compeers helping each other. They is- sued due bills for the home trade, and for their employees, purchased lots, lumber for building, adobies, the winter's firewood, etc., placing their workmen perhaps a year's service in their debt. Indeed, it required no small amount of business capacity, as well as integrity in honoring " due bills," to carry on the home busi- ness ; and upon these requirements their own success rested.

It was just in the fulfillment of the requirements of trade in those times, that Dinwoodey and a few others, made themselves successful tradesmen in their various lines. He opened accounts with every tradesman, or honest customer, who sought him or he them, often opening accounts for his men in his own name, thus also creating his own business ; not a few of his employees since 1857, have obtained their homes through his management for them. His home-made furniture is seen from one end of the Territory to the other.

Thus home manufactures have struggled up these thirty-eight years, since Salt Lake City was founded, to their present prosperous and promising condition.

We are of an opinion that Utah is destined to yet make her mark as a manu- facturing State as well as a mining State; and there are many signs already given that she has fairly entered into her manufacturing period of growth. All who are familiar with the resources of the Territory know that if Utah is rich in her sil- ver she is more abundantly wealthy in her coal and iron ; and this should mean a promise in due time of at least manufacturing importance, and perhaps, also, of manufacturing greatness.

Freeph. D Markiv.

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CHAPTER LXXXI.

OPENING OF THE MINES. EARLY COUNSELS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG TO THE MORMONS AGAINST THEIR GOING INTO MINING. GENERAL CONNER AND HIS TROOPS PROSPECTING IN OUR CANYONS FOR GOLD AND SILVER. GODBE AND HIS PARTY ANTAGONIZE "THE PRESIDENT'S" HOME POLICIES AND ADVOCATE "THE TRUE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERRITORY." MINING OPERATIONS OF THE WALKER BROTHERS. EPITOME OF MINING OPER- ATIONS.

We reach here the mining industries of our Territory, which since 1870 have changed the very face of Utah history, and reconstructed the trade and commerce of Salt Lake City.

When Utah was first settled, General Taylor said, "The Mormons have got on the backbone of the continent." President Lincoln made a parallel statement : " Utah will yet become the treasure-house of the nation."

The early history of the Territory is familiar to our readers,; it, constitutes one of the most wonderful chapters in the religious annals of the world .. Three important circumstances have combined to excite an interest in the public mind regarding Utah, not as the abode of an independent religious.community, but as a region in which American enterprise and American ideas are destined to prevail. These are : I. The discovery of silver mines everywhere in -the Territory ; 2. The opening of the Pacific railroad, followed by the building of Utah railroads; 3. The influx of a Gentile population, influential in numbers, abounding with men familiar all their lifetime with grappling, with large enterprises and experi- enced in mining operations in the Pacific States and Territories, and these backed both by American and European capital. The mining population that began to pour into Utah about the years 1869-70, from the onset caught a glimpse of a new era and saw in the future of Salt Lake City one of the principal centres of the continent. They saw a vast Territory-once devoted exclusively to Mormon colonization and Mormon ideas-transformed under their new auspices into an important section of the nation occupied by millions of United States citizens. They have also be- lieved that ultimately the Gentile population would largely predominate, and that the Mormon community would be substantially blotted out, while the Mormon people, as the tillers of the soil, the workers in iron, and as home manufacturers and mechanics, would survive as the bone and sinew of the country. This pros- pect has been very pleasing to the Gentile view, but as distasteful to the Mormon view : hence the social discords of our local history.

The first mining record of Utah is that of the Jordan Mine in favor of one Ogilvie and some others. Ogilvie, in logging in the canyon, found a piece of ore which he sent to Colonel Connor, who had it assayed. Finding it to be good ore,

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Connor organized a party of officers and ladies of his camp and went over and located the mine-the Jordan. A day or two afterwards, Colonel Connor wrote mining laws and held a miners' meeting at Gardner's mill on the Jordan River, where the laws were adopted and Bishop Gardner elected recorder. The district was called the West Mountain Mining District.

It was thereupon that General Connor issued a circular announcing to the world that he had " the strongest evidence that the mountains and canyons in the Territory of Utah abound in rich veins of gold, silver, copper and other min- erals, and for the purpose of opening up the country to a new, hardy and industrious population, deems it important that prospecting for minerals should not only be untrammelled but fostered by every proper means. In order that such discoveries may be early and reliably made, the General announces that miners and prospect- ing parties will receive the fullest protection from the military forces in this dis- trict in pursuit of their avocations, providing, always, that private rights are not infringed upon."

In March, 1864, another circular was issued by General Connor, which was considered to be very threatening towards the leaders of the Mormon community in regard to the Utah mines ; and in July of the same year he wrote to the War Department an account of his action and policy, in which he said :

"As set forth in former communications, my policy in this Territory has been to invite hither a large Gentile and loyal population, sufficient by peaceful means and through the ballot-box to overwhelm the Mormons by mere force of numbers, and thus wrest from the church-disloyal and traitorous to the core-the absolute and tyrannical control of temporal and civil affairs, or at least a population nu- merous enough to put a check on the Mormon authorities, and give countenance to those who are striving to loosen the bonds with which they have been so long oppressed. With this view, I have bent every energy and means of which I was possessed, both personal and official, towards the discovery and development of the mining resources of the Territory, using without stint the soldiers of my command whenever and wherever it could be done without detriment to the public service. These exertions have, in a remarkably short period, been pro- ductive of the happiest results and more than commensurate with my anticipa- tions. Mines of undoubted richness have been discovered, their fame is spreading east and west; voyageurs for other mining countries have been induced by the discoveries already made to tarry here, and the number of miners of the Terri- tory is steadily and rapidly increasing. With them, and to supply their wants, mer. chants and traders are flocking into Great Salt Lake City, which by its activity, increased number of Gentile stores and workshops, and the appearance of its thronged and busy streets, presents a most remarkable contrast to the Salt Lake of one year ago Despite the counsel, threats, and obstacles of the church, the movement is going on with giant strides."*

Thus the understanding grew prevalent in the public mind throughout America hat Brigham Young and his compeers were implacably opposed to the opening

*These circulars and the communication to the War Department will be found entire in Chapter XXXVI. of this history.

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of the Utah mines ; but it is only common justice to them to give a passing ex- position of the real facts of the case.

It has been seen that the Mormons migrated to the valleys of the Rocky Mountains as a religious community and to preserve themselves as such, and that they had not the remotest idea of coming west for the discovery of gold or silver.

Their brethren, however, of the Mormon Battalion were strangely fated to discover the gold of California jointly with Mr. Marshall. This actually pro- duced a crisis more seductive and dangerous to the existence of the community than anything which had occurred in their history from the beginning ; and per- haps no people in the world but the Mormons could have withstood the awful temptation of gold. It was most consistent in the case that these Mormon high priests should steady the ark of their own covenant and counsel the community which they had transplanted to these Valleys not to go to the mines. The Cali- fornia gold seekers wrote home and told the public of Brigham's sermons on the subject of gold, " showing the wealth, strength and glory of England, growing out of her coal mines, iron and industry, and the weakness, corruption and degradation of Spanish America, Spain, etc., growing out of their gold, silver, and idle habits." This passage indeed, from his sermon on gold and silver hunting, delivered in the summer of 1849, is the very index of his social policy as regarding the Mormon community, to whom, as their leader, it was his duty to speak and counsel upon such a vital question of the hour. The following is his counsel to the first company of emigrants from Europe brought out by the P. E. Fund :

" Do not any of you suffer the thought to enter your minds, that you must go to the gold mines in search of riches. That is no place for the Saints. Some have gone there and returned ; they keep coming and going, but their garments are spotted, almost universally. It is scarcely possible for a man to go there and come back to this place with his garments pure. Don't any of you imagine to yourselves that you can go to the gold mines to get anything to help yourselves with : you must live here ; this is the gathering place for the Saints. The man who is trying to gain for himself the perishable things of this world, and suffers his affections to be staid upon them, may despair of ever obtaining a crown of glory. 'This world is only to be used as an apartment, in which the children of men may be prepared for their eternal redemption and exaltation in the presence of their Savior ; and we have but a short time allotted to us here to accomplish so great a work."

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 90

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