Part 28 (2/2)

In September, 1852, Layton first saw Salt Lake, arriving at the head of an expedition of 52 wagons, including the first thres.h.i.+ng outfit in Utah.

In 1856 he was in the Carson Valley of Nevada, where he proceeded toward the very notable undertaking of building a wagon road across the Sierra Nevadas to Hangtown, early Placerville. With the rest of the Utah Saints, he was recalled to Salt Lake in the fall of 1857.

Layton arrived at St. David February 24, 1883. In May he organized wards on the Gila, at Pima, Thatcher, Graham and Curtis, under Jos. K. Rogers, John M. Moody, Jorgen Jorgensen and Moses Curtis. In March of the next year, he organized Layton branch near Safford.

President Layton's own story of his advent in the Gila Valley includes:

”The Saints were wanting to settle close together, so I bought a 600-acre tract of land of a syndicate living in Tucson. Then I bought out the squatters' rights and improvements by taking quit-claim deeds of them.

Thus I was in a position to help the Saints to get homes. In July I bought 320 acres of Peter Anderson (adjoining the other tract) and laid it out in a townsite which we named Thatcher. I built a three-roomed adobe house in Thatcher ward (it being the second house built on the townsite) and we moved into it. I gave a lot for a schoolhouse and the few Saints who were settling here then built an adobe building on it. The mesquite was so thick that when we tried to go any place we were very fortunate if we did not get lost. I gave the Seventies a lot, but they never made any use of it; also gave the bishop a lot for t.i.thing purposes. The Academy was afterward built on it.”

Layton, aided by his many sons, was active in business, as well as in the faith, operating stores, a flour mill, an ice factory and a number of stage lines, one of which stretched all the way from Bowie Station through the Gila Valley, to Globe, and, through the Tonto Basin, to Pine and Fort Verde, the longest stage mail line in the Southwest at the time.

The transfer of headquarters of St. Joseph Stake appears to have been determined upon very soon after the arrival of Layton at St. David. One of his counselors, David P. Kimball, visited Smithville March 10, 1883, and in May Layton himself was on the ground, visiting Smithville (Pima) and Safford. There was approval of the new settlement of Curtis on May 10 and on the 13th was location of the townsite of Thatcher.

At this time there appears to have been determination to move headquarters of the Stake from St. David to Smithville, where the first formal quarterly conference of the Stake was held June 3. No record can be found of this transfer nor of the subsequent change to Thatcher.

A New Leader on the Gila

In 1897 President Layton's health declined and on January 27, 1898, he was released from his spiritual office, to which was appointed Andrew Kimball, this with a letter from President Wilford Woodruff, expressing the highest appreciation of Layton's labors. Christopher Layton left Arizona June 13, 1898, for his old home in Kaysville, Utah, where he died August 7. At a reunion, about six years ago, of the Layton descendants and their families, were present 594 individuals.

Andrew Kimball, successor to the presidency of St. Joseph Stake, had formal installation January 30, 1898, at the hands of Apostles John Henry Smith and John W. Taylor, at the same time there being general reorganization of the Church subdivision. President Kimball, who still most actively is in office, is a son of the noted Apostle Heber C.

Kimball, First Counselor to President Brigham Young. President Kimball from the very first showed keen enthusiasm in the work of upbuilding his community. In October of the year of his installation he returned to Utah, like the spies returned from the land of Canaan, bringing equally large stories of the fertility of the new land. Instead of bearing a huge bunch of grapes, he had to take with him photographs, in order to secure reception of his stories of corn that was sixteen feet tall, Johnson gra.s.s eight feet high, a sweet potato that weighed 36 pounds, of peaches too big to go into the mouth of a preserving jar, sunflower stalks that were used for fence poles, weeds that had to be cut with an ax and sugar cane that grew four years from one planting. On the strength of his enthusiasm, very material additions were made to the population of the Gila Valley, and the President even yet keeps busy in missionary work, not only of his Church, but work calculated to a.s.sist in the upbuilding of the Southwest along irrigated agricultural lines.

Church Academies of Learning

Every Mormon community gives especial attention to its schools, for education in the regard of the people follows closely after their consideration of spiritual affairs. The normal schools of the State always have had a very large percentage of the youth of the faith, training to be teachers.

Three of the four Arizona Stakes maintain academies, wherein the curriculum also carries religious instruction. The largest of the three Church schools, at Thatcher, lately was renamed the Gila Normal College.

It was established in January, 1891, under instruction that had been received over two years before from the general Church Board of Education. Its first sessions were in the meetinghouse at Central, with Joy Dunion as princ.i.p.al. The second year's work was at Thatcher, where the old adobe meetinghouse was occupied. Thereafter a t.i.thing house was used and was expanded for the growing necessities of the school, which has been in continuous operation ever since, with the exception of two years following 1896, when the finances of the Stake were at low ebb. The academy was revived on a.s.sumption of Andrew Kimball to the Stake Presidency, under Princ.i.p.al Emil Maeser, he a son of one of Utah's most noted educators. Andrew C. Peterson has been in charge of the school most of the time since 1906. In 1909 was occupied a new building, erected and furnished at a cost of about $35,000. Leland H. Creer now is princ.i.p.al.

At St. Johns the St. Johns Stake Academy was founded January 14, 1889, with John W. Brown as its first princ.i.p.al. The present building was dedicated December 16, 1900. Howard Blazzard now is in active charge, while Stake President David K. Udall, first president of the Academy's Board, still occupies the same position, after 27 years of service.

The Snowflake Stake Academy was founded, with E.M. Webb in charge, only a week later than that of St. Johns. The two inst.i.tutions for many years were the only means provided for local education, beyond the grammar grades. At Snowflake industrial and agricultural courses are given prominence in the curriculum. Thanksgiving Day, 1910, fire destroyed the large school building, which was replaced by a more modern structure, that cost $35,000 and that was dedicated Thanksgiving Day, 1913. For years the school was directed by Joseph Peterson.

At Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert are maintained seminaries, mainly for advanced instruction in Church doctrine.

Chapter Twenty-four

Movement Into Mexico

Looking Over the Land

The Mormon settlement of Mexico, as elsewhere told, was a cherished plan of Brigham Young, who saw to the southward a land wherein his Church, its doctrines and influence could find room for expansion. He died while the southern migration started by him still was far short of a Mexican destination, though that country had been explored to an extent by several missionary parties.

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