USA > Utah > History of Utah > Part 31
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It is believed that he returned to California somewhat crestfallen,
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having failed to convince the Mormon leaders that the Pacific coast, where he had located his colony, was a more desirable place for the Saints to settle and build up a State, than the desert shores of the Great Salt Lake. Elder Brannan, always more a man of the world than a devout religionist, probably surveyed the subject from a business standpoint. Considering that alone he was undoubtedly correct. But Brigham Young and his associates, as shown, had other than material ends in view. Hence their determination to remain separate-at least for a season-from the Gentiles, whose worldly aims and pursuits, if in the majority, would have tended to thwart the spiritual plans and purposes of the Mormon colonists; rendering the "building up of Zion" difficult if not impossible.
Captain Brown's party were accompanied as far as Bear River by Jesse C. Little, Lieutenant Willis, Joseph Matthews, John Brown and John Buchanan. Passing up the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake they came to Weber River, where, as stated, Miles M. Goodyear, whom the Pioneers met on their way to the Valley in July, had built a log fort and was engaged in trapping and trading. Captain Brown called at the fort and conversed with its proprietor. This, perhaps, was the beginning of negotiations between them, ending, as we shall see, in the purchase of the Goodyear fort, lands and improvements by the Captain, on his return from California.
Colonel Little and his party, after separating from Brown and Brannan, explored Cache Valley, of which Major Harris had spoken so favorably to the Pioneers at South Pass. Lewis B. Myers and a companion also visited that valley about the same time. Returning, they confirmed the reports relating to that section. Cache Valley, it was found, was not only "a fine place for wintering cattle," but, when watered, an excellent farming region as well. It is known today as "Utah's Granary."
The explorers of the north returned to Salt Lake Valley on the 14th of August. A few days later, Albert Carrington, John Brown and others started on an exploring trip to Twin Peaks, being the first of the Pioneers and probably the first white men to plant their feet
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upon those well-nigh inaccessible summits, tipped with perpetual snow. The ascent was made on the 21st of August.
Meantime work on the stockade had begun and was progressing rapidly. The site selected for the fort was about three-quarters of a mile south-west of the City Creek encampment. A portion of the Sixth Ward of Salt Lake City still bears the familiar name of the "Old Fort Block," though the fort itself, which once enclosed it, has long since disappeared. There, on the 10th of August, 1847, were laid the foundations of the first houses erected in Salt Lake Valley,-the first built by the Mormons west of Winter Quar- ters. Brigham Young started four of these houses, Heber C. Kimball four, Stephen Markham one, Willard Richards one, and Lorenzo D. Young one. This was the beginning of the Old Fort. The first house finished and occupied was Lorenzo D. Young's. These houses extended continuously along the east line of the stock- ade, beginning at the northeast corner. Their order was as follows: Brigham Young, four rooms; Lorenzo D. Young, two; Heber C. Kim- ball, tive; Willard Richards, two; Wilford Woodruff, two; George A. Smith, two; Amasa M. Lyman, two; and Erastus Snow, one. These first dwellings were of logs. They had poles for rafters, willows for roofs and in lieu of shingles earth ; an insufficient shelter, as was found later, from autumn rains and winter's melting snows. Floors and ceilings were rare, and of the rudest and most primitive kind, while window glass was almost an unknown quantity.
Plowing and planting by this time had been suspended, thirty additional acres having been put under cultivation, making eighty- three in all. Most of the settlers were now busily occupied, chopping and hauling logs, making adobes and preparing to build.
The first white child born in Utah opened its eyes to the light on Monday, August 9th, 1847-two weeks and two days after the arrival of the Pioneers. This infantile re-inforcement was a girl, the daughter of John and Catharine Campbell Steele, both of the Mormon Battalion, who came into the Valley in Captain Brown's company on the 29th of July. Their child was born at 4 o'clock
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a. m., in her father's tent on Temple Block. She was named Young Elizabeth Steele, after President Young and Queen Elizabeth. The father, John Steele, was a mason, and according to his account built nearly one-third of the "Old Fort" with his own hands, using a trowel made by Burr Frost out of a saw-blade. Mr. Steele also claims to be the pioneer shoe-maker of Utah. He resides at Toquerville, in the southern part of the Territory. His daughter lives at Kanarra, in Kane County, and is now Mrs. James Stapley.
The first death in the pioneer colony followed hard upon the heels of the original birth. It occurred just two days later. The victim was a little three-year-old child of George and Jane Therlkill, -a grand-child of Robert Crow. Wandering away from camp a little to the south, it had fallen into the creek, where it was dis- covered, drowned, about five o'clock in the afternoon. Every possible effort was made to restore it, but without avail. The parents mourned bitterly their loss, and a shadow of sympathetic gloom rested for a season upon the whole encampment.
On August 12th an observation was taken by Orson Pratt and William Clayton to ascertain the height of Temple Block. It was discovered to be 4,309 feet above the sea level, and sixty-five feet above the Utah outlet. Ascending City Creek canyon one mile the altitude above the Temple grounds was found to be 214 feet.
Surveyor Sherwood and his aids were still busy laying out the city. Messrs. Tanner, Frost and their fellow sons of Vulcan were engaged in shoeing oxen and re-setting wheel tires for the com- panies that were about to return to Winter Quarters. Some of these were Battalion men who had not seen their families since bidding them adieu on the frontier thirteen months before. A party of men who had been to the lake to boil down salt, returned, reporting that they had found, lying between two sand-bars on the lake-shore, a beautiful bed of salt all ready to load into wagons. Several loads were brought to camp, and two of them taken east by the company that set out a few days later for the Missouri River.
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August 16th was the day of their departure. Most of the ox-teams started and traveled to the mouth of Emigration Canyon, where they were joined next day by the residue of the company. There were seventy-one men, with thirty-three wagons and ninety- two yoke of oxen; also some horses and mules. Their organization was similar to that of the Pioneers. There were two divisions, made up of companies of tens. Tunis Rappleyee and Shadrach Roundy were the two captains of divisions, and William Clayton was historian. The personnel of the company was as follows :
FIRST DIVISION :
Tunis Rappleyee, Captain.
FIRST TEN (SIX WAGONS) :
Joseph Skein, Captain, Artemas Johnson,
George Cummings,
Thomas Richardson,
William Burt,
Roswell Stevens.
James Dunn,
SECOND TEN (FIVE WAGONS):
Zebedee Coltrin, Captain, Chauncey Loveland, Lorenzo Babcock,
Samuel H. Marble,
George Scholes,
William Bird,
Joshua Curtis, John S. Eldredge, Horace Thornton.
THIRD TEN (FIVE WAGONS):
Francis Boggs, Captain, Sylvester H. Earl,
Seeley Owen,
George Wardle,
Clark Stillman, Almon M. Williams.
SECOND DIVISION :
Shadrach Roundy, Captain.
FIRST TEN (FIVE WAGONS):
John Pack, Robert Byard,
Benjamin W. Rolfe,
Thomas Colward, Lisbon Lamb, William Clayton.
R. Jackson Redding, William Carpenter, Henry W. Sanderson, Bailey Jacobs,
John H. Tippitts, Captain, Francis T. Whitney, James Stewart, Charles A. Burke,
SECOND TEN (FIVE WAGONS): William C. McLelland, Norman Taylor, Lyman Stevens, Lyman Curtis,
John S. Gleason, captain of guard of second division, Myron Tanner, Rufus Allen.
Joseph Shipley, Samuel Badlam,
James Cazier, captain of guard of first division,
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THIRD TEN (FOUR WAGONS):
Allen Compton, Captain, John Bybee, Jeduthan Averett, John G. Smith,
Philip Garner,
Harmon D. Persons,
Barnebas Lake,
Franklin Allen,
Solomon Tindell, Charles Hopkins.
David Garner,
FOURTH TEN (THREE WAGONS):
Andrew J. Shupe, Captain,
Benjamin Roberts, John Calvert,
Francillo Durfee,
Jarvis Jolinson,
Daniel Miller,
Erastus Bingham,
Albert Clark,
Luther W. Glazier,
Loren Kinney,
James Hendrickson,
Thomas Bingham.
The third and fourth tens of the second division were members of the Mormon Battalion, returning to meet their families on the plains or the frontier. For each man there had been provided eight pounds of flour, nine pounds of meal, and a few pounds of beans. For the rest of their subsistence they were to depend upon game killed by the way. A new roadometer was constructed for this company by William A. King; William Clayton having received special instructions from President Young to carefully re-measure the distance back to Winter Quarters, and collect such other information as might be serviceable to future emigration.
Their journey back to the Missouri consumed a little over nine weeks. It was prosperous and comparatively uneventful. Beyond Green River, on Big Sandy, they met Ezra T. Benson and Porter Rockwell, returning west with the mail, after delivering the Presi- dent's letter to General Rich and the on-coming trains. The leading one-Captain Daniel Spencer's first fifty-was encountered by the east-bound wagons on the 31st of August, at the "first crossing" of the Sweetwater. Here Shadrach Roundy joined his family and returned west, and John G. Smith took his place as captain of the second division. The other companies were met at various points within the next three days.'
Heavy rains, with snow, set in early in September. The pro- visions-breadstuffs-of the returning company gave out, and for several weeks dried buffalo meat was their sole subsistence. During the latter part of the journey the Indians annoyed them considerably,
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burning the prairies before them and stealing their stock. At the North Platte ferry they met Luke Johnson, William A. Empey and Appleton M. Harmon, of the nine men left there by the pioneers in June, and at Loup Fork Captain Hosea Stout and a party of mounted police from Winter Quarters, going out to meet President Young, who was now supposed to be on his way back to the Missouri
Captain Rappleyee's wagons rolled into Winter Quarters on the 21st of October. The distance from Salt Lake Valley, as re-measured by William Clayton, was found to be 1032 miles-twenty-two miles less than the former reckoning of the Pioneers.
In the Valley, after the departure of the "ox-teams," the work of exploring, building and surveying went steadily on. The laying out of the city was completed on August 20th; 135 blocks of ten acres each being included in this original survey. The building of the fort was pushed forward as rapidly as possible and by the last of the month twenty-nine houses had been erected at the stockade.
In the latter part of August President Young and the Apostles prepared to return to Winter Quarters. Though much remained to be done before the feet of the infant colony would be firmly planted, anxiety was felt by the leaders for the welfare of the Church on the frontier, and the success of the next year's emigration. None could so well organize and lead the main body of their people across the plains to their mountain retreat, as these experienced guides and colonizers of the Great Basin. That was doubtless the main reason why they resolved to return to the Missouri that season, instead of spending the winter with their friends in Salt Lake Valley.
Prior to their departure a special conference was convened on Sunday the 22nd of August, when the pioneer settlers assembled in the Bowery to receive the parting instructions of their leaders. It was emphatically a business conference, called to consider the tem- poral affairs of the colony. It was decided by vote to fence in and cultivate the city plat during the coming year, in preference to lands lying outside, also to organize in Salt Lake Valley a Stake of Zion,
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with Father John Smith, the Prophet's uncle, as President. Father Smith had not yet arrived, but was expected in the coming emi- gration. Other nominations were deferred until it should be known who were in the next trains.
The pioneer city then received its name. "I move," said Brigham Young, "that we call this place the Great Salt Lake City of the Great Basin of North America." The motion was seconded and carried. On the President's motion the post office was called "The Great Basin Post Office." Heber C. Kimball, by motion, named the river running through the valley "The Western Jordan," and Brigham Young christened City Creek, Mill Creek, Red Butte Creek, Emigration Creek, and Canyon (now Parley's) Creek, in like manner. It was many years before the city's title was abbreviated by legisla- tive enactment to "Salt Lake City," but the "Western Jordan" became plain "Jordan" almost immediately.
Colonel A. P. Rockwood, overseer of the stockade, was released from that position to return with the President, and Tarlton Lewis was appointed overseer in his stead. William McIntyre was chosen clerk to keep an account of public labor, and Edson Whipple was given charge of the distribution of water over the plowed lands. The President's parting injunction was as follows :
It is necessary that the adobe yard (the stockade) should be secured so that Indians cannot get in. To accommodate those few who shall remain here after we return, it would only be necessary to build one side of the fort, but common sense teaches us to build it all round. By and by men of means will be coming on, and they will want rooms, and the men who build them will then be entitled to their pay. Make your walls 4} feet high, so that they can keep the cattle out. Build your houses so that you will have plenty of fresh air in them, or some of you will get sick, after being used to sleeping in your wagons so long. We propose to fence in a tract of land thirty rods square, so that in case of necessity the cattle can be brought inside and the hay also be stacked there. In the spring this fence can be removed and a trench be plowed about twenty feet from the houses to enable the women to raise garden vegetables. I want to engage 50,000 bushels of wheat and the same amount of corn and other grain in proportion. I will pay you 81.25 per bushel for wheat and 50 cents for corn. Why cannot I bring glass for you and you raise corn for me ? Raise all the grain you can, and with this you can purchase sheep, cows, teams, etc., of those who come here later on. We desire you to live in that stockade until we come back again, and raise grain next year.
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HISTORY OF UTAH.
On the 26th of August the pioneer leaders bade farewell to their friends who were to remain, and set out upon their return journey to the Missouri. Such of the Pioneers and Battalion men present as had families at Winter Quarters or on the way west, were selected to accompany the President and his party.
The weather was now beautiful. The oppressive heat of summer was pretty well past, and the cool, bright days of our delightful mountain autumn were just about beginning. The roads, however, were very dusty, and the way through the canyons, though more passable than before, was still rough and difficult. Their noon halt on the 29th was at the head of Echo Canyon. There Ezra T. Benson joined them, bringing news of the approaching trains. Porter Rock- well came up later. After crossing Bear River the company was called together and organized. The full list of names was as here given :
Brigham Young,
William Wardsworth,
Alex. P. Chessley,
Jolın P. Greene,
Datus Ensign,
Thomas C. Chessley,
Truman O. Angell,
John Dixon,
John C. Gould,
Joseph S. Schofield,
Simeon Howd,
Samuel Gould,
Albert P. Rockwood,
Setlı Taft,
Amasa M. Lyman,
Stephen H. Goddard, Millen Atwood,
John P. Wriston,
Albert Carrington,
Stephen Kelsey,
John Brown,
Thomas Tanner,
Charles D. Barnum,
George A. Smith,
Addison Everett,
Wilford Woodruff,
Joel J. Terrill,
Sidney A. Hanks, George Clark, J. G. Luce,
James W. Steward,
Nathaniel Fairbanks,
John G. Holman.
Robert T. Thomas,
Charles A. Harper,
George R. Grant,
Jabez Nowlin,
Perry Fitzgerald,
Davis S. Laughlin,
James Case,
Isaac N. Wriston,
William Dykes,
James C. Earl,
Ozro Eastman,
Jacob Weiler,
Judson Persons,
Horace Monroc Frink,
David Grant,
Orson Pratt,
Levi N. Kendall,
Thomas Woolsey,
Joseph Egbert,
Stephen Markham,
Haywood Thomas,
Marcus B. Thorpe,
George Mills, Conrad Klineman,
Samuel W. Fox,
George Wilson,
Willard Richards,
Jesse Jolinson,
Horace K. Whitney,
Thomas Bullock,
John Brimhall,
Orson K. Whitney,
Benjamin Richmond,
A. L. Huntley,
George P. Billings,
Harvey Pierce,
Rodney Badger,
Ralph Douglas,
Dexter Stillman,
Solomon Chamberlain,
William C. A. Smoot,
William Terrill,
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HISTORY OF UTAH.
Ezra T. Benson,
William W. Rust,
Elijah E. Holden,
Matthew Ivory,
Joseph Matthews,
William Gifford,
David Powell,
Joseph G. Camp,
Albert Sharp,
Erastus Snow,
William Park.
Abel M. Sargent,
William McIntyre,
Green Flake.
Andrew S. Gibbons,
George Brown,
Benjamin F. Stewart,
Thurston Larson,
Orrin P. Rockwell,
John Crow,
Heber C. Kimball,
Charles Shumway,
Peter J. Meeseck,
Howard Egan,
Andrew P. Shumway,
C. Rowe,
Hosea Cushing,
Burr Frost,
William Rowe,
William A. King,
William Carter,
Barnabas L. Adams,
Carlos Murray,
The camp comprised one hundred and eight men, with thirty-six wagons and about three times that number of horses and mules. Stephen Markham was chosen captain of hundred; Barnabas L. Adams and Joseph Matthews, captains of fifties; Brigham Young, John Brown, Howard Egan, George Clark, George Wilson, Erastus Snow, Thomas Tanner and Charles A. Harper, captains of tens. Thomas Bullock was again appointed Clerk. The President's ten included six of his fellow Apostles, with Albert P. Rockwood, Stephen H. Goddard and Joseph Schofield.
Fording Green River, which was now quite low, the company, having crossed Big Sandy, came upon Daniel Spencer's first fifty there encamped. It was now the 3rd of September.
At this point let us briefly sketch the experience of these west- bound companies, the first to follow in the wake of the pioneers. They had been organized on the Elk Horn in June, under the direc- tion of Father Morley and Bishop Whitney, the committee previously appointed for that purpose. Due deference had been paid by this committee, however, to the Apostles, Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, who were present and took part in the organization. They were in- vited by the committee, inasmuch as it was their purpose to accom- pany the emigration, to exercise a general superintendency over all the trains. These aggregated five hundred and sixty wagons, with about fifteen hundred men, women and children, and five thousand head of stock. Most of the wagons were drawn by oxen.
The companies were organized as follows: John Young, brother
John Young
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of Brigham Young, had immediate general command, and John Van Cott was marshal. There were four captains of hundreds, namely : (1) Daniel Spencer, under whom Ira Eldredge and Peregrine Sessions were captains of fifties; (2) Edward Hunter, with Jacob Foutz and Joseph Horne as captains of fifties; (3) Jedediah M. Grant, with Joseph B. Noble and Willard Snow as sub-captains, and (4) Abraham 0. Smoot, under whom were Captains George B. Wallace and Samuel Russell. There was also another company called "the artillery company," having with it several pieces of cannon. It was more or less distinct and independent in organization, and was commanded by General Charles C. Rich. As usual, the divisions of fifties were sub-divided into tens.
Parley P. Pratt generally traveled with Daniel Spencer's hundred and John Taylor with Edward Hunter's. George Q. Cannon, then a youth of twenty, was with his uncle, Apostle Taylor, in this emigration. In Captain Grant's hundred was the poetess, Eliza R. Snow. Other notable names connected with this emigration were Father John Smith, Lorin Farr, Hezekiah, Moses and George W. Thatcher, Samuel and John Bennion, William Hyde, Jacob Gates, Archibald and Robert Gardner, John Neff, Jacob Houtz, Abraham Hoagland, William Bringhurst, Thomas Callister, John, George, Peter and Henry Nebeker, L. E. Harrington, Millen and Miner Atwood, Isaac Chase, Charles Crismon, Levi E. and William W. Riter, Silas S. and Jesse N. Smith, Joseph C. Kingsbury, Elijah F. Sheets, William C. Staines, Bryant Stringham, Harrison Sperry, Chauncey W. West and many others.
The first company left the Elk Horn on the 18th of June; the last one on or about the 4th of July. During the first few days considerable ill-feeling was manifested, owing to misunderstandings as to the order of traveling, but a general halt having been called, and a meeting of officers held, these differences were adjusted and the journey resumed. Then came stampedes and loss of cattle, almost crippling some of the companies, and sadly hindering their progress.
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A good idea of a stampede,-though not in this, as in most instances, caused by Indians,-is conveyed in the following bit of description penned by one of the pilgrims to the Valley that season. Says the writer: "Some one was carelessly shaking a big buffalo robe at the back of a wagon, from which some of the cattle in the corral took fright and started on the run; these frightened others; they commenced bellowing; and all in a huddle ran for the gateway of the enclosure, which being altogether too narrow for the egress of the rushing multitude that thronged into the passage, they piled one on top of another until the top ones were above the tops of the adjacent wagons, moving them from their stations, while the inmates, at this early hour, being so suddenly and unceremoniously aroused from their morning sleep, and not knowing the cause of this terrible uproar and confusion, were some of them almost paralyzed with fear. At length those that could, broke from the enclosure, the bellowing subsided and quiet was restored; but the sad effect of the fright caused much suffering to some whose nerves were not sufficient for the trying scene. In the encounter two wagon wheels were crushed, Captain K.'s only cow was killed, and several oxen had horns knocked off."
This stampede resulted from an accident. But the Indians resorted to just such tricks as shaking buffalo robes or blankets in order to frighten and scatter the horses and cattle of passing trains. It was their habit to follow them for hundreds of miles,-as sharks at sea some vessel with a dead body aboard,-warily concealing themselves and awaiting an opportunity to effect their purpose. Dark and rainy nights were their delight. Creeping like snakes through the long, dank prairie grass, so stealthily as to completely elude the eyes and ears of the watchful guard, they would cut the lariats of the horses, if staked outside the wagons, and then scare and scatter them pell-mell in every direction. After the trains had passed on, if pass they could after losing much of their stock, these cunning prowlers of the plains would hunt and capture the missing animals at leisure.
Damit Bonne
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Late in July and early in August, the companies from Winter Quarters met a squad of fourteen soldiers, members of the Mormon Battalion, the escort of General S. F. Kearney, then on his way from San Francisco to Fort Leavenworth. There they expected to be discharged. These soldiers were husbands and sons of women traveling in the companies. Their meetings therefore were more than ordinarily joyful. Nathaniel V. Jones was one of Kearney's escort. Colonel John C. Fremont was traveling with the party, being in custody, on his way to Washington, there to answer to the charge of insubordination in refusing to recognize Kearney's authority in California.
Six or seven deaths-mostly of children-occurred among the emigrants. The first death was that of Jacob Weatherbee, who was shot by Omaha Indians between Winter Quarters and the Elk Horn, on the 19th of June. Captain Jedediah M. Grant had just lost a child, and his wife was lying at the point of death, when he met Captain Rappleyee's wagons on the 3rd of September. Mrs. Grant died before reaching the Valley, but her remains were taken there for burial. Captain Grant's companies were particularly unfortunate. The alkali lands-or waters-along the Sweewater, killed many of their cattle, and a score of their horses were stolen by Indians. But death and disaster did not have it all their own way. Several children were born on the plains and after the emigrants passed the Rocky Mountains.
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