Part 22 (1/2)
An interesting letter has been found, dated at Tubac, March 4, 1877, addressed to President Brigham Young and written by Elder Jas. Z.
Stewart. It told that the country is ”better than the north part of the Territory, from the fact that the land is as good, if not better, the water is good and regular and the climate more pleasant.” He referred to the ruins of whole towns, to the rich mines, to the abundance of game and to the drawback of Apache raids. He described the southern Arizona Mexicans as ”all very poor, having no cows, horses, houses nor lands and but very little to live on. Though they live for days on parched corn, they are willing to divide their last meal with a stranger. They are industrious, but ignorant, it being seldom you can find one who can write.”
Start of the Lehi Community
The reports from the south gave ample encouragement to expansion ideas within the First Presidency. So, after due deliberation, was organized another Jones expedition for the settlement of the land.
As letters of the time are read and instructions found, it becomes the more evident that President Brigham Young and his counselors had in view a great plan of occupation of the intermountain valleys, reaching down into Mexico, or beyond. It was a time when the Church was growing very rapidly and when new lands were needed for converts who were streaming in from Europe or from the eastern States. Logically, the expansion would be southward, though there was disadvantage of very serious sort in the breaking of continuity of settlement by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and by the deserts that had to be pa.s.sed to reach the fertile valleys of the southland.
When the second Jones party started, according to an official account, ”President Young sat with a large map of America before him, while saying that the company of missionaries called were to push ahead as far as possible toward the Yaqui country in Mexico, which would finally be the objective point; but if they could not reach that country they might locate on the San Pedro or Salt River in southern Arizona.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUND PLAN OF LEHI]
In either case there would be a station on the road, or a stepping stone to those who later would go on to the far south. President Young also said to the brethren on that occasion that if they would do what was right and be guided by the spirit of inspiration, they would know the country as they pa.s.sed through, and would know where to locate, the same as did the Pioneers when they first reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake.
The pioneering expedition was organized in St. George, in southwestern Utah. In the party were 83 individuals, the family heads being Jones, Philemon C. Merrill, Dudley J. Merrill, Thomas Merrill, Adelbert Merrill, Henry C. Rogers, George Steele, Thomas Biggs, Ross R. Rogers, John D.
Brady, Joseph McRae, Isaac Turley and Austin O. Williams.
Start was made January 17, 1877. The way was through Beaver Dams to the mouth of the Virgin. That profiteering was not unknown in those early days is shown by the fact that the expedition, at Stone's Ferry on the Colorado, had to pay ferriage of $10 per wagon. Much of this cost was borne by Joseph McRae, who turned over one wagon, some horses and a little money to the ferryman.
To the southward was found a road, well-traveled in those days, that led from the Fort Mohave ferry to Prescott. But Prescott, then the capital, was left to one side and a direct route was taken from Chino Valley, through Peeples Valley and Wickenburg, to Phoenix. At the latter point there was agreement that the travelers had about reached the limit of their resources and of the strength of their horses. There was remembrance of the valley section of which Winchester Miller had told. So determination to stop was reached in a council of the leaders. There was fear, apparently well grounded, that claim jumpers would cause trouble if the destination of the party became known. On this account, departure from Phoenix was not by way of Hayden's Ferry, but by the McDowell road, as far as Maryville, an abandoned military subpost and station on Salt River, at the Maricopa Wells-McDowell road ford. Here the river was crossed, and the weary immigrants were at their journey's end. The day was March 6, 1877. The camp was at the site of the ca.n.a.l head, the settlement later placed a few miles below.
Henry C. Rogers took charge of the construction of the ditch, started the day after arrival. Ross R. Rogers was the engineer. His only instruments were a straight edge and a spirit level. This still is known as the Utah ditch. Its first cost was $4500. There was the planting of a nursery by George Steele, the trees kept alive by hauling water to them. Jones wrote to Salt Lake that Salt River was at least four times as big as the Provo and had to be tapped through deep cuts, as the channel was ”too expensive to dam.”
Sunday, May 20, 1877, Jones baptized his first Indians in Salt River, four of the ”Lamanites” being immersed. In July, 1877, Fort Utah was located as a place of protection. It was built upon the cross line of four quarter-sections of land, enclosed with an adobe wall, and with a well, on the inside, 25 feet deep. The families lived there while the men went out to work.
President Young soon wrote Jones in a vein indicating that the stop on Salt River was considered merely a camp on the way still farther southward, saying:
”We should also like to know what your intentions are with regard to settling the region for which you originally started. We do not deem it prudent for you to break up your present location, but, possibly next fall, you will find it consistent to continue your journey with a portion of those who are now with you, while others will come and occupy the places vacated by you. We do not, however, wish you to get the idea from the above remarks that we desire to hurry you away from where you are now, or to enforce a settlement in the district to which you refer, until it is safe to do so and free from the dangers of Indian difficulties; but we regard it as one of the spots where the Saints will, sooner or later, gather to build up Zion, and we feel the sooner the better.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE DESOLATE SANDY ROAD TO THE COLORADO CROSSING]
[Ill.u.s.tration: LEADERS OF UNSUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS 1--Horton D. Haight 2--Jacob Miller 3--Daniel H. Wells 4--Lorenzo W. Roundy]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO Wiley C. Jones, A. W. Ivins Heleman Pratt, D. W. Jones, Jas. Z. Stewart]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SECOND PARTY SENT TO MEXICO 1--Jas. Z. Stewart 2--Meliton O. Trejo 3--George Terry 4--Isaac J. Stewart 5--Heleman Pratt]
Transformation Wrought at Camp Utah
The newcomers found pioneering conditions very harsh indeed, for it is a full man's task to clear away mesquite and brush and to dig a deep ca.n.a.l.
Joseph A. McRae made special reference to the heat, to which the Utah settlers were unaccustomed. He wrote, ”as summer advanced, I often saturated my clothing with water before starting to hoe a row of corn forty rods long, and before reaching the end my clothes were entirely dry.” But there was raised an abundance of corn, sugar cane, melons and vegetables, and, in spite of the heat, the health of the people was excellent.
Concerning the early Jonesville, a correspondent of the Prescott Miner wrote:
”The work done by these people is simply astounding, and the alacrity and vim with which they go at it is decidedly in favor of cooperation or communism. Irrespective of capital invested, all share equally in the returns. The main ca.n.a.l is two and a half miles long, eight feet deep, and eight feet wide. Two miles of small ditch are completed and four more are required. Their diagram of the settlement, as it is to be, represents a mile square enclosed by an adobe wall about seven feet high. In the center is a square, or plaza, around which are buildings fronting outward. The middle of the plaza represents the back yards, in which eleven families, or eighty-five persons are to commingle. They are intelligent, and all Americans.”
The settlers, with their missionary turn of mind, were pleased to find the Indians of southern Arizona friendly and even inclined to be helpful.
One chief offered to loan the settlers seed corn and wheat. The Indians gathered around to listen to whatever discourse the Saints should offer, the latter, at the same time energetically wielding shovels on a ca.n.a.l that ”simply had” to be built in a given time.
An appreciated feature was that Salt River abounded in fish, supplementing very acceptably the plain diet on which the pioneers had been subsisting. Possibly it was as well that the Saints had rules against the use of table luxuries. One pioneer of the Lehi settlement told how his family had lived for weeks almost entirely upon wheat, which had been ground in a coffee mill and then cooked into mush, to be eaten with milk. ”We thought ourselves mighty fortunate to have the milk,” he said.