History of Utah, Part 33

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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him in 1841. His claim was particularly described as follows: Beginning at the mouth of Weber Canyon, and following the base of the mountains north to the Hot Springs, thence westward to the Great Salt Lake, southward along the shore of the lake to a point opposite Weber Canyon, and thence to the point of beginning. Its extent is said to have been twenty miles square. This tract, at that time, was one of the most desirable spots in all this region. On these lands Goodyear had built a picket fort, enclosing a few log cabins, situated on the right bank of the Weber, about two miles above the junction of that stream with the Ogden river. Having established himself as a trapper and trader he was there living with his Indian family, and a few mountaineers and half-breeds, when the pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley .*

It has been related how Captain James Brown, on his way to San Francisco in August, 1847, called at the Goodyear Fort and became acquainted with its proprietor. Goodyear's principal reason for offering his place for sale,-as he is said to have done soon afterwards,-was his lack of success in farming. It was also due, no doubt, to the advent of local immigration, which would necessarily interfere with his success in trapping. As soon as Captain Brown returned from the coast, the purchase of the Goodyear lands, im- provements and live stock was by him negotiated and effected.

The Captain returned to the Valley some time in December, 1847. He brought with him from San Francisco $10,000 in Spanish doubloons, most if not all of it the amount received from the U. S. Paymaster for the men of his detachment. This was the first money put in circulation among the Mormon colonists, save perhaps a few coins remaining to them after purchasing the outfits with which they had crossed the plains. Captain Brown was accompanied

* The Goodyear Fort was situated near a large sand mound, still visible, about half a mile south-west of the Union Railway Depot in Ogden.

Most of the mountaineers living in the west had squaws. Barney Ward, well remembered by the early settlers of Salt Lake Valley, was dwelling with his Indian family in this region when the pioneers arrived.

John Stoker

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on his return by his son Jesse, Abner Blackburn and Lysander Woodworth, of the party who had gone with him from the Valley, and by Samuel Lewis, a member of the Battalion, who joined them at Sutter's Fort. The rest of his party remained in California. Threading the Truckee Pass, at the foot of which so many of the Donner party had miserably perished, and taking the Hastings Cut- Off, the Captain and his party accomplished the hazardous winter journey in safety. Immediately on his return he entered into or concluded negotiations with the proprietor of the Goodyear lands, and late in December, or early in January, 1848, purchased them for the sum of $3,000.

It has more than once been published that this purchase was made on the 6th of June of that year, and that a part of the amount brought by Captain Brown from California was in gold dust. We have it on the authority of the Captain's sons, Jesse, Alexander, William and Moroni, that January and not June was the time. Jesse and Alexander, who accompanied their father when he first took up his abode on the Weber, state positively that the snow was on the ground,-which would hardly be the case in June,-and that they "kept bachelor's hall at the fort all winter." This being so, and Captain Brown's returning from the coast in December, 1847, renders highly improbable the statement that he brought any gold dust with him; as gold was not discovered in California until January, 1848. Whether or not the Goodyear purchase was made at the suggestion of President Young-who was then at Winter Quarters-it was manifestly in perfect keeping, as was the occupation of the Davis County lands, with the grand colonizing scheme of the pioneer President, as foreshadowed in his instructions to the explorers in July, 1847.

In about a month after the purchase of the Goodyear tract the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed-February 2nd, 1848-and the vast region now known as California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, previously Mexican territory, was ceded to the United States. The terms of the treaty, it was expected, would confirm

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Captain Brown's title to the Goodyear lands, but for some reason it was not recognized, and the Federal Government, many years later, ignored the claim, assumed ownership of the lands,* gave to the Union Pacific Railway on its subsidy each alternate section of the tract, and required the old settlers, including Captain Brown's immediate descendants, to re-purchase the homes and farms that they had held for two decades. The inference is that Government, not purposely oppressive and unjust, did not regard the grant to Good- year from Mexico as valid. Similar cases occurred in California.

In the spring of 1848, Captain Brown, his sons and hired help, went to work with a will on the Weber, plowing and sowing a few acres with wheat, the seed of which he had brought with him from California. He also planted corn, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and water-melons. A man named Wells, who had formerly dwelt at the fort, told the Browns, as Goodyear had previously told them, that their crops would not mature. The frost, he said, would kill the corn about the time it began silking,-at least such had been his experience as a farmer in that region. Nothing daunted, they went on putting in their crops, and in due time reaped a goodly harvest. Jesse S. Brown, the Captain's eldest son, today wears a medal for plowing the first furrow in Weber County. Mary Black, the Captain's wife, was the pioneer cheese-maker of Utah. While awaiting their first harvest they procured supplies of flour from Fort Hall. And thus was laid the foundation of Weber County.

Other Mormon settlers soon followed the Browns to that locality. Retaining but two or three hundred acres of his immense purchase for himslf, the Captain generously allowed his brethren to settle on the tract, and would take no pay from them for the lands they built upon and cultivated. The Farrs, Canfields, Moores, Brownings, Wests. Shurtliffs, Herricks, Peerys, Richardses and other representa- tive Weber County families,-too numerous to mention here, but all

* Fort Bridger, purchased of its proprietors by Brigham Young in 1853, shared a similar fate. Bridger had claimed the property by virtue of a Mexican grant, which claim, in Brigham Young, the United States government ignored.

Tn AB Holl: Sons New York

Lavin Far

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of whom shall receive due notice at the proper time,-eventually took up their abode in the county, and helped to make it what it is today. Lorin Farr, who has before been mentioned, though not the pioneer of Weber County, was the virtual founder of Ogden, Utah's second city, of which he was the first Mayor, many times re-elected.

The opening of the spring of 1848 in Great Salt Lake City saw nearly seventeen hundred souls dwelling in upwards of four hundred log and adobe huts inside the "Old Fort." Over five thousand acres of land had been brought under cultivation, nearly nine hundred of which had been sown with winter wheat, the tender blades of which were now beginning to sprout .* A few months more and the settlers, whose breadstuffs and provisions of all kinds were getting quite low, and would just about last, with due economy, until harvest-time, would be rejoicing with their friends in the north in reaping and partaking of their first harvest in the Rocky Mountains.

But now came a visitation as terrible as it was totally unex- pected. It was the cricket plague. In May and June of that year myriads of these destructive pests, an army of famine and despair, rolled in black legions down the mountain sides and attacked the fields of growing grain.+ The tender crops fell an easy prey to their fierce voracity. They literally swept everything before them. Starvation with all its terrors seemed staring the poor settlers in the face. In the northern sections the situation was much the same, though at Brownville, on the Weber, the ravages of the crickets were not so great.

With the energy of desperation, the community, men, women and children, thoroughly alarmed, marshaled themselves to fight and if possible repel the rapacious foe. While some went through the

* To be exact, there were 1671 souls, 423 houses, 5133 acres of cultivated land, and 875 acres sown with winter wheat.

+ Says Anson Call : "The Rocky Mountain cricket, as now remembered, wlien full grown, is about one-and-a-half inches in length, heavy and clumsy in its movements, with no better power of locomotion than hopping a foot or two at a time. It has an eagle-eyed, staring appearance, and suggests the idea that it may be the habitation of a vindictive little demon."

25-VOL. 1.

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fields killing the crickets, and at the same time, alas! crushing much of the tender grain, others dug ditches around the farms, turned water into the trenches, and drove and drowned therein myriads of the black devourers. Others beat them back with clubs and brooms, or burned them in fires set in the fields. Still they could not prevail. Too much headway had been gained by the crickets before the gravity of the situation was discovered, and in spite of all that the settlers could do, their hopes of a harvest were fast vanishing, and with those hopes the very hope of life.

They were saved, they believed, by a miracle,-just such a miracle as, according to classic tradition, saved ancient Rome, when the cackling of geese roused the slumbering city in time to beat back the invading Gauls .* In the midst of the work of destruction, when it seemed as if nothing could stay the devastation, great flocks of gulls appeared, filling the air with their white wings and plaintive cries, and settled down upon the half-ruined fields. At first it seemed as if they came but to destroy what the crickets had left. But their real purpose was soon apparent. They came to prey upon the destroyers. All day long they gorged themselves, and when full, disgorged and feasted again, the white gulls upon the black crickets, like hosts of heaven and hell contending, until the pests were vanquished, and the people were saved. The heaven-sent birds then returned to the lake islands whence they came, leaving the grateful people to shed tears of joy at the wonderful and timely deliverance wrought out for them.

Is it strange that among the early acts of Utah's legislators there should be a law making the wanton killing of these birds a

* This event is said to have occurred in the year 390, B. C. The Gauls were invading Roman territory, and had inflicted a disastrous defeat upon the Romans just outside the city. Marius Manlius, at the head of a handful of his countrymen, held the citadel against the barbarians, but according to the legend had neglected to place sentinels to warn him against a night attack. A few of the geese, considered holy by the Romans, had been spared by the famishing soldiers, and during the siege the Gauls determined upon a night attack. They were advancing toward the citadel, when the geese, alarmed at their approach, set up a cackling and aroused the defenders, who drove off the besiegers.

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punishable offense ? Rome once had her sacred geese. Utah would henceforth have her sacred gulls. Ye statesmen and state-makers of the future ! When Utah's sovereign star, dawning above the dark horizon of factional strife, shall take its place in the blue, unclouded zenith of freedom's empyrean, and it is asked by those who would frame her escutcheon, What shall her emblem be? Name not at all the carpet-bag. Place not first the beehive, nor the eagle; nor yet the miner's pick, the farmer's plow, nor the smoke-stack of the wealth-producing smelter. Give these their places, all, in dexter or in middle, but whatever else the glittering shield contains, reserve for the honor point, as worthy of all praise, the sacred bird that saved the pioneers.

And barely saved them, too, for even as it was, there was famine in Utah before another year. This was largely owing to the crickets, but was due also to drought and frost. These mishaps, with the coming of the fall immigration, depending upon the settlers for much of their support, rendered the harvest wholly inadequate, and caused much inconvenience and some suffering before another crop could be raised. During the days, or rather months of scarcity, such as had food put themselves and their families upon rations, while those who were without or had but little, dug sego and thistle roots, and cooked and ate raw-hides to eke out their scanty store. Wild vegetation of various kinds was used for "greens" by the half-famished people, many of whom went for weeks without tasting bread. The raw-hides were boiled and converted into a gelatinous soup, which was drank with eager relish. The straitness began to be felt even before the crickets came, and after that event, owing to the prevailing scarcity, the arrival of the fall immigration was looked forward to with positive apprehension .**

* " During this spring and summer," says Parley P. Pratt, "my family and myself, in common with many of the camp, suffered much for want of food. *

* * We had lost nearly all our cows, and the few which were spared to us were dry. * I had ploughed and subdued land to the amount of near forty acres. * * * 1 nthis labor every woman and child in my family, so far as they were of sufficient age and

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Before the worst of those days arrived, however, on August 10th, 1848, the glad settlers celebrated with a feast their first harvest home. It was quite a grand affair with them. In the center of the fort a bowery had been erected, and underneath its shade, tables were spread richly and bounteously laden. Bread and beef, butter and cheese, cakes and pastry, green corn, water-melons and vegetables of nearly every variety composed the feast. For once at least, that season, the hungry people had enough to eat. Says Parley P. Pratt: "Large sheaves of wheat, rye, barley, oats and other productions were hoisted on poles for public exhibition, and there was prayer and thanksgiving, congratulations, songs, speeches, music, dancing, smiling faces and merry hearts. In short it was a great day with the people of these valleys, and long to be remembered by those who had suffered and waited anxiously for the results of a first effort to redeem the interior deserts of America."

The fort now contained eighteen hundred inhabitants; the increase since March being due to the arrival from the west of several parties of the disbanded Mormon volunteers. They returned laden with gold-dust from the California mines." The discovery of the precious metal west of the Sierras being due to the labor of Utah men, it is but proper to give here a brief account of that very important event.

It has already been related that in September, 1847, a party of the discharged Battalion men, on their way to Salt Lake Valley, met, east of the Sierras, Captain James Brown and Samuel Brannan, and that a portion of the soldiers, pursuant to advice sent them by President Young, turned back to obtain work for the winter in California. These men, about forty in number, secured employment

strength, had joined to help me, and had toiled incessantly in the field, suffering every hardship which human nature could well endure. Myself and some of them were compelled to go with bare feet for several months, reserving our Indian moccasins for extra occasions. We toiled hard and lived on a few greens, and on the thistle and other roots."

* One company brought with them two brass cannon purchased for $512 and used as a means of protection against hostile Indians.

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at Sutter's Fort, the proprietor of which, Captain John A. Sutter, was just then in need of help for the erection of a flour-mill and a saw-mill. A site for the flour-mill was selected near the fort, and most of the men were put to work thereon. But the saw-mill had to be built among the mountains, in the little valley of Coloma, forty-five miles away. To that place Sutter sent ten men, one of whom was his partner, James W. Marshall, who superintended the erection of the mill. The other nine worked under him. Of these, six were Mormons and late members of the Battalion. Their names were Alexander Stephens, James S. Brown, James Barger, William Johnston, Azariah Smith and Henry W. Bigler. The other three were non-Mormons, who had been more or less associated with the Saints since the days of Nauvoo. They were Peter Wimmer,

William Scott and Charles Bennett. Sutter also employed about a dozen Indians. For four months these men labored at Coloma, and the saw-mill was approaching completion. Late in January, 1848, the water was turned into the race to carry away some loose dirt and gravel. It was then turned off, and the superintendent, Mr. Marshall, walked along the tail-race to ascertain the extent of some slight damage that had been done by the water near the base of the building. While pursuing his investigation, his eye caught sight of some yellow metallic particles on the rotten granite bed-rock of the race. He picked up several of them, the largest of which were about the size of wheat grains. He believed-but did not know-that they were gold. Subsequently they were assayed, and the fact of the great discovery was verified.

The first record of the finding of the gold was made by Henry W. Bigler, a Mormon,-now a citizen of St. George, Utah. To him, among the first, Marshall announced his discovery. A diary note in Bigler's journal, made on the same day, runs as follows :

"Monday, 24th. This day some kind of metal was found in the tail-race that looks like gold."

Another note of January 30th, which was Sunday, reads: "Clear, and has been all the last week. Our metal has been tried

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and proves to be gold. It is thought to be rich. We have picked up more than a hundred dollars' worth last week."

Thus was originally chronicled the world-renowned discovery at Coloma. Henry W. Bigler, of St George, Azariah Smith, of Manti, in Utah; and Peter L. Wimmer, of San Diego, California, are today the three survivors of the party of workmen whose picks and shovels first brought to light the auriferous wealth of California.

Meantime on the far-off frontier, President Young and his associates, early in 1848, had set about organizing the main body of their people prior to leading them to the Rocky Mountains. On the 27th of the previous December, at a conference of the Saints held in a new log tabernacle on the east side of the Missouri, the First Presidency-vacant since the death of Joseph Smith-had been re- organized. Brigham Young was now President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in all the world, and Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards were his Counselors .* This event was sup- plemented by preparations for a general emigration in the spring. Still it was desirable to maintain, for the benefit of future emigration, an out-fitting post on the frontier. Winter Quarters was soon to be vacated, but the Legislature of Iowa granted a petition for the organization of Pottowatomie County-east of the river-and there, on the site where stood their historic Log Tabernacle, the Mormons built the town of Kanesville, a few miles above the present city of Council Bluffs. Kanesville became for several years a point of out- fit and departure for Mormon emigration. Their companies from Europe by way of New Orleans would now steam up the Mississippi and the Missouri to Kanesville. The first company to follow this river route was one led by Franklin D. Richards. It sailed from Liverpool in February, 1848, and reached Winter Quarters some time before the early summer emigration started across the plains.

It was about the beginning of June that the First Presidency

* This action was pursuant to a decision of the Council of the Apostles made on the 5th of December.

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broke up their camp on the Elk Horn, and again set out for the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. First went Brigham Young, with a company of 1229 souls and 397 wagons; next, Heber C. Kimball, whose trains numbered 662 souls and 226 wagons. Willard Richards brought up the rear, with 526 souls and 169 wagons. The last wagon left Winter Quarters on the 3rd of July. That place was now nearly deserted.

Along with this large emigration went such notables as Daniel H. Wells, who, having joined the Church at Nauvoo in August, 1846, had left the city with the expelled remnant of his people and joined the main body in their prairie homes; Lorenzo Snow, who had figured in the British Mission before the Prophet's death, and was now fast rising to prominence; Franklin D. Richards, of whom that mission had also heard and was destined to hear much more; Joseph F. Smith, who, however, was only a lad of nine years, in the care of his heroic mother, Mary Fielding Smith, who, with other Mormon women of that period, drove her own ox-team wagon across the plains. Bishop Newel K. Whitney also accompanied this emigration, which carried with it such notable women as his wife, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Vilate Kimball and Mary Ann Angell Young. Robert T. Burton, George D. Grant, William Kay, Phineas Richards, Horace S. Eldredge, Hosea Stout and others who became prominent or well known in Utah history were also included.

Brigham Young had general command of all the companies, and Daniel H. Wells was his aide-de-camp. Horace S. Eldredge was marshal, and Hosea Stout captain of the night-guard. Amasa M. Lyman, Erastus Snow and other prominent men who had returned with the President from the Valley, now went back with him, having charge of various sub-divisions of the emigration. Several of the Apostles remained at Kanesville; some to go upon missions, and some to superintend Mormon affairs on the frontier. One of these was Orson Hyde, who had not yet been to the Valley, and still tarried behind to transact important business for the Church. A few months after the President's departure, Apostle Hyde began the

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publication, at Kanesville, of a semi-monthly paper called the Frontier Guardian .*

On went the emigration, crossing the plains and the Rocky Mountains along the same route formerly traveled by the Pioneers. President Young, with a portion of his division, reached Salt Lake Valley on the 20th of September. Heber C. Kimball came a few days later, and within another month the trains had all arrived.

President Richards' companies lost many of their cattle through the alkali on the Sweetwater. This so hindered his progress that teams from the Valley had to be sent out to help in the rear trains.

Immediately after the President's arrival a conference was called to convene on the 8th of October. This conference, which was held in the Fort Bowery, ratified the action of the Apostles and the main body of the Saints on the frontier, relative to the reorganiza- tion of the First Presidency. Newel K. Whitney was sustained as Presiding Bishop of the Church, and John Smith was appointed its Patriarch. This caused a vacancy in the Stake Presidency, which Charles C. Rich was chosen to fill; John Young and Erastus Snow were his counselors.

These spiritual matters attended to, the temporal needs of the colony came in for their share of thought and labor. The recent immigration, which aggregated nearly 2500 souls, had swelled the population in the valley to between four and five thousand. These people must be housed and fed through the winter. How, was the problem facing the Mormon leaders that fall, as the signs of a long and unusually severe winter began to show themselves. More houses might be built, for the materials were at hand, and before the heavy snows fell the number of huts might be materially increased. Some of the families could make shift with their wagons until spring. But where was the food to come from,-the loaves and fishes to feed these five thousand? The immigrants had not all brought sufficient,

* The first number of this paper was issued February 7th, 1849.

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and the valley harvest, upon which they had largely depended, had measurably failed. Thus the food question was the principal problem, and before it was fully solved, there had been much suffering and privation in the Valley by the Lake.

It was during these days of scarcity, when the half-starved, half- clad settlers hardly knew where to look for the next crust of bread, or for rags to hide their nakedness,-for clothing had become almost as scarce with them as breadstuffs, *- that Heber C. Kimball, in a public meeting, declared to the astonished congregation that it would not be three years before "States goods" would be sold in Salt Lake Valley cheaper than in the eastern cities. The astonishment of his hearers was not based upon any expectation that this prediction would or could be realized. Rather were they astounded at the seemingly preposterous statement. "I don't believe a word of it," said Charles C. Rich, and he but expressed the sentiments of nineteen-twentieths of the congregation. President Kimball, after a moment's reflection, rather doubted the prediction himself. And yet, as we shall see, it was literally fulfilled, and in a manner totally unanticipated.

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History of Utah, Part 33

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026