Part 24 (1/2)

Highways Into the Mountains

In 1880, the Mesa authorities took steps to provide a better highway to Globe, this with the active cooperation of their friend, Chas. T. Hayden.

Globe was a rich market for agricultural products, yet could be reached only by way of Florence and the Cane Springs and Pioneer road, over the summit of the Pinal Mountains, or by way of the almost impa.s.sable Reno Mountain road from McDowell into Tonto Basin, a road that was ridden in pain, but philosophically, by the members of the Erastus Snow party that pa.s.sed in 1878. The idea of 1880 was to get through the Pinal Mountains, near Silver King. A new part of this route now is being taken by a State road that starts at Superior, cutting a shelf along the canyon side of Queen Creek, to establish the shortest possible road between Mesa and Globe. The first adequate highway ever had from Mesa eastward was the Roosevelt road, later known as the Apache Trail, built in 1905 by the Reclamation Service, to connect the valley with Roosevelt, which lies at the southern point of Tonto Basin.

Hayden's Ferry, Latterly Tempe

Tempe, eight miles east of Phoenix on Salt River, was first known as Hayden's Ferry. Its founder was Chas. Trumbull Hayden, a pioneer merchant who early saw the possibilities of development within the Salt River Valley and who built a flour mill that still is known by his name.

Arizona's Congressman, Carl Hayden, is a son of the pioneer merchant, miller and ferryman. The name of Tempe (from a valley of ancient Greece) is credited to Darrell Duppa, a cultured Englishman, who is also understood to have named Phoenix. It was applied to Hayden's Ferry and also to a Mexican settlement, something over a half-mile distant, locally known as San Pablo.

Hayden welcomed the advent of the Mormons, led to the country by Daniel W. Jones in 1877, and befriended those who followed, thus materially a.s.sisting in the upbuilding of the Lehi and Mesa settlements.

Tempe, as a Mormon settlement, started July 23, 1882, in the purchase by Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Jos. E. Johnson and relatives, from Hayden, of eighty acres of land that lay between the ferry and the Mexican town. For this tract there was paid $3000. The Johnson party left Spring Lake, Utah, in April and traveled via Lee's Ferry. There was survey of the property into lots and blocks, and the Johnsons at once started upon the building of homes. There was included also a small cooperative store. The foundation was laid for a meeting house, but religious services usually were held in a bowery or in the district schoolhouse that had been built before the Saints came.

In the fall of 1882 there arrived a number of families, most of them Johnsons or relatives. When the Maricopa Stake was organized December 10, 1882, David T. LeBaron was presiding at Tempe. June 15, 1884, Tempe was organized as a ward, successively headed by Samuel Openshaw and Jas. F.

Johnson.

In August, 1887, most of Tempe's Mormon residents moved to Nephi, west of Mesa, mainly upon land acquired by Benj. F. Johnson, the settlement popularly known as Johnsonville. The departure hinged upon the building of a branch railroad of the Southern Pacific from Maricopa, through Tempe, to Phoenix. An offer was made by a newly-organized corporation for the land that had been taken by the Johnsons, who sold on terms then considered advantageous. Upon this land now is located a large part of the prosperous town of Tempe, within which is a considerable scattering of Mormon families, though without local organization.

Patriarch B.F. Johnson died in Mesa, November 18, 1905, at the age of 87.

At that time it was told that his descendants and those married into the family numbered 1500, probably const.i.tuting the largest family within the Church members.h.i.+p.

Organization of the Maricopa Stake

The Church history of Mesa started October 14, 1878, when Apostle Erastus Snow, on his memorable trip through the Southwest, at Fort Utah, appointed a late arrival, Jesse N. Perkins, as presiding elder and H.C.

Rogers and G.W. Sirrine as counselors. Perkins died of smallpox in northeastern Arizona. In 1880, President John Taylor at St. George, Utah, appointed Alexander F. Macdonald to preside over the new stake. He arrived and took office in February of that year. Macdonald was a st.u.r.dy, lengthy Scotchman, a preacher of the rough and ready sort and of tremendous effectiveness, converted in Perth, in June, 1846, and a Salt Lake arrival by ox team in 1854. In 1882, on permanent organization of the Stake, Chas. I. Robson succeeded Sirrine as counselor. Robson December 4, 1887, succeeded to the presidency, with H.C. Rogers and Collins R. Hakes as counselors, Macdonald taking up leaders.h.i.+p in the northern Mexican Stakes, pioneering work of difficulty for which he was especially well suited. In December, 1884, he headed an expedition and surveying party into Chihuahua, Mexico, looking for settlement locations, and secured large landed interests. He became ill at El Paso, on his way back to his home at Colonia Juarez. He died at Colonia Dublan, thirty miles short of his destination, March 21, 1903.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARICOPA STAKE PRESIDENTS 1--Alexander F. Macdonald 3--Collins R. Hakes 2--Chas. I. Robson 4--Jno. T. Lesueur 5--Jas. W. Lesueur]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARICOPA DELEGATION AT PINETOP CONFERENCE OF THE FOUR ARIZONA STAKES, JULY, 1892]

Chas. I. Robson served as President to the day of his death, February 24, 1894. He was of English ancestry, born February 20, 1837, in Northumberland. He was specially distinguished in the early days of Utah through his success in starting the first paper factory known in western America. As a boy, he had worked in a paper factory in England. In 1870, he was warden of the Utah penitentiary.

May 10, 1894, Collins R. Hakes (of the San Bernardino colony) succeeded to the presidency of Maricopa Stake, with Henry C. Rogers and Jas. F.

Johnson as counselors. At that time were five organized wards, with 2446 souls, including 1219 Indians in the Papago ward, and to the southward toward Mexico. Mesa then was credited with 648 people of the faith, Lehi 200, Alma 282 and Nephi 104.

In 1905, President Hakes transferred his activities to the development of a new colony of his people at Bluewater, N.M., near Fort Wingate. His death was in Mesa, August 27, 1916.

To the Maricopa Stake Presidency, November 26, 1905, succeeded Jno. T.

Lesueur, transferred from St. Johns, where, from Mesa, he settled in 1880. He is still a resident of Mesa. He resigned as president in 1912, the position taken, on March 10 of that year, by his son, Jas. W.

Lesueur, who still is in office.

December 20, 1898, first was occupied the Stake tabernacle, 75x45 feet in size, built of brick and costing $11,000. At its dedication were Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., and a number of other Church dignitaries.

For more than a year plans have been in the making for erection at Mesa of a great temple of the Church, to cost about $500,000. It is to be the ninth of such structures. The others, in the order of their dedication, are (or were): at Kirtland, Ohio, of date 1836; at Nauvoo, Illinois, 1846; at St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake, Utah, and at Laie, Hawaiian Islands. Another is being built at Cardston, Alberta, Canada.