Part 13 (2/2)
December 20, 1870, the people of the Muddy met with John W. Young of Salt Lake and resolved to abandon the location and to look for new homes. The only opposing votes were those of Daniel Bonelli and wife. Bonelli later was a ferryman on the Colorado and his son now is a prominent resident of Mohave County. Among those who voted to move were a number who later were residents of the Little Colorado settlements of Arizona.
In accordance with the suggestion from Salt Lake, the Nevada Legislature was pet.i.tioned for relief. It was told that seven years before had been established St. Joseph and St. Thomas. Thereafter Congress had taken one degree of longitude from Utah and Arizona and attached this land to Nevada. Taxes had been paid in Utah and Arizona. For two years the authorities of Lincoln County, Nevada, had attempted to a.s.sess the back taxes. To the Nevada authorities was presented statement of a number of facts, that $100,000 had been expended on water projects, that the settlers had been compelled to feed the Indian population, outnumbering their own, and that they had been so remote from markets that produce could not be converted into cash. It was asked that a new county, that of Las Vegas, be organized, taking in the southern point of Nevada. Attached to the pet.i.tion were 111 names of citizens of St. Joseph, Overton and St.
Thomas.
A similar pet.i.tion was sent to Congress. There was detail how lumber had to be hauled 150 miles at a cost of $200 per 1000 feet. There had been constructed 150 dwellings. Orchards and vineyards had been planted and 500 acres of cotton fields had been cleared. In all 3000 acres were cultivated. Nevada had imposed a tax of 3 per cent upon all taxable property and $4 poll tax per individual, all payable in gold, something impossible. It therefore was asked that Congress cede back to Utah and Arizona both portions of country detached from them and attached to Nevada.
At that time, the State gave the Muddy-Virgin settlement a population of 600. St. Joseph had 193, St. Thomas about 150, West Point 138 and Overton 119. In other settlements around, namely Spring Valley, Eagle Valley, Rye Valley, Rose Valley, Panaca and Clover, were 658, possibly two score of them not being of the Church. Thus was shown a gross population of 1250.
Most of the settlers on the Muddy left early in 1871, the exodus starting February 1. On returning to Utah, very largely to Long Valley, they left behind their homes, irrigating ca.n.a.ls, orchards and farms. The crops, including 8000 bushels of wheat, were left to be harvested by an individual who failed to comply with his part of the contract and who later tore down most of the remaining houses.
Political Organization Within Arizona
Including practically all the Mormons then resident within the new Territory of Arizona, the first Arizona county to be created by additional legislative enactment, following the Howell Code, was that of Pah-ute, in December, 1865, by the first act approved in the Second Arizona Territorial Legislative a.s.sembly. The boundaries of the county were described as: Commencing at a point on the Colorado River known as Roaring Rapids; thence due east to the line of 113 deg. 20 min. west longitude; thence north along said line of longitude, to its point of intersection with the 37th parallel of north lat.i.tude; thence west, along said parallel of lat.i.tude, to a point where the boundary line between the State of California and the Territory of Arizona strikes said 37th parallel of lat.i.tude; thence southeasterly along said boundary line, to a point due west from said Roaring Rapids; thence due east to said Roaring Rapids and point of beginning. Callville was created the seat of justice and the governor was authorized to appoint the necessary county officers.
The new subdivision was taken entirely from Mohave County, which retained the southernmost part of the Nevada point. It may be noted that its boundaries were entirely arbitrary and not natural and the greater part of the new county's area lay in what now is Nevada. October 1, 1867, the county seat was moved to St. Thomas. November 5, 1866, a protest was sent in an Arizona memorial to Congress against the setting off to the State of Nevada of that part of the Territory west of the Colorado. The grant of this tract to Nevada under the terms of a congressional act approved May 5, 1866, had been conditioned on similar acceptance by the Legislature of Nevada. This was done January 18, 1867.
Without effect, the Arizona Legislature twice pet.i.tioned Congress to rescind its action, alleging, ”it is the unanimous wish of the inhabitants of Pah-ute and Mohave Counties and indeed of all the const.i.tuents of your memorialists that the territory in question should remain with Arizona; for the convenient transaction of official and other business, and on every account they greatly desire it.” But Congress proved obdurate and Nevada refused to give up the strip and the County of Pah-ute, deprived of most of her area, finally was wiped out by the Arizona Legislature in 1871. At one time there was claim that St. George and a very wide strip of southern Utah really belonged to Arizona.
Pah-ute's Political Vicissitudes
In the Second Legislature, at Prescott, in 1865, at the time of the creation of Pah-ute County, northwest Arizona, or Mohave County, was represented in the Council by W. H. Hardy of Hardyville and in the House by Octavius D. Ga.s.s of Callville. In the Third Legislature, which met at Prescott, October 3, 1866, Pah-ute was represented in the Council by Ga.s.s, who was honored by election as president of the body, in which he also served as translator and interpreter. He was described as a very able man, though rough of speech. He explored many miles of the lower Grand Canyon. He was not a Mormon, but evidently was held in high esteem by his const.i.tuents, who elected him to office in Arizona as long as they had part in its politics. Royal J. Cutler of Mill Point represented the county in the House of Representatives.
In the Fourth Legislature, which met at Prescott, September 4, 1867, Ga.s.s, who had moved to Las Vegas, was returned to the Council where again he was chosen president, and Cutler, who had moved to St. Joseph, again was in the House. On the record of the Legislature's proceedings, Ga.s.s is styled ”ranchero” and Cutler ”farmer.”
Though most of the area of Pah-ute County already had been wiped out by congressional enactment and given to Nevada, Ga.s.s again was in the Legislature in 1868, in the fifth session, which met in Tucson, December 10. The House member was Andrew S. Gibbons of St. Thomas, a senior member of a family that since has had much to do with the development of northeastern Arizona. A very interesting feature in connection with this final service in the Legislature, was the fact that Ga.s.s and Gibbons floated down the Colorado River to Yuma and thence took conveyance to Tucson. They were in a fourteen-foot boat that had been built at St.
Thomas by James Leithead. Gibbons' son, William H. (now resident at St.
Johns), hauled the craft to Callville, twenty miles, and there sped the legislators.
At the outset, there was necessity for the voyageurs to pa.s.s through the rapids of Black Canyon, an exciting experience, not unmixed with danger.
Gibbons knew something of boating and so was at the oars. Ga.s.s, seated astern, firmly grabbed the gunwales, shut his eyes and trusted himself in the rapids to providence and his stout companion, with at least one fervent admonition, ”For G.o.d's sake, Andy, keep her pointed down stream.”
The pa.s.sage was made in safety, though both men were soaked by the das.h.i.+ng spray.
The start was made November 1. By day all possible progress was made, the boat being kept in midstream and away from bushes, for fear of ambush by Indians. At night a place for camp would be selected in a secluded spot and a fire would be lighted only when safety seemed a.s.sured.
There was some delay in securing transportation eastward from Fort Yuma.
Indians had been active along the stage route and had just waylaid a coach and killed its driver. Thus it came that the members from Pah-ute were six days late in their taking seats in the territorial a.s.sembly.
At the close of the legislative session, Gibbons journeyed home on horseback, for much of the way through districts infested by wild Indians of several tribes, a trip of at least 500 miles. Ga.s.s went to California before returning home. Such a return journey is not mentioned, however, in an interesting record, furnished the Author by A.V., Richard and Wm.
H. Gibbons, sons of the pioneer.
Royal J. Cutler, on April 3, 1869, came again into official notice as clerk of the Probate and County Court of Rio Virgen County, which had been created out of the western part of Was.h.i.+ngton County, Utah, by the Utah Legislature. The first session of the court was at St. Joseph, with Joseph W. Young as magistrate. This county organization is not understood, even under the hypothesis that Utah claimed a sixty-mile strip of Nevada, for St. Joseph, on the Muddy, lies a considerable distance south of the extension of the southern Utah line, the 37th parallel.
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