OCR Text |
Show 152 the canyon leading i n t o Meadow Valley ahead of the main company and followed i t into the v a l l e y , making camp for the evening. Martineau found four heavy, iron wagon t i r e s when he entered the v a l l e y , which had been l e f t behind by the Death Valley company. In the morning, however, twelve Indians came into camp and claimed t h a t the iron belonged t o them. According t o t h e i r i n s t r u c tions from Brigham Young t o " c o n c i l i a t e the I n d i a n s , " Nephi Johnson purchased the t i r e s from them. Tbe Indians were a l s o given some flour which they made into a mush and a t e scalding hot from the k e t t l e . From the n a t i v e s , one of whom had never seen a white man b e f o r e , they learned that the snows f a l l s only three inches deep in the winter and t h a t ash and cottonwood timber was a v a i l able in the canyon which e n t e r s the v a l l e y from the south. The main company a r r i v e d a t the advance camp in Meadow Valley about 9 A.M. This valley was by far more s u i t a b l e for settlement than anything yet found. Dame, who was making an e m i g r a n t ' s guide e n t i t l t e d "Guide for the Desert Camp," recorded in the manual t h a t the valley was sixteen miles long and five to twenty miles wide with t h r e e hundred acres of meadow grass. 46 A careful reconnaissance was made of the e n t i r e v a l l e y . Nephi Johnson, James H. Martineau, Ansel Twitchel, and Asahel Bennett explored the north end of the valley, while J . Ward C h r i s t i a n and James Cliff explored to the south. Martineau's report was even more o p t i m i s t i c than Dame's assessment. "There are several thousand acres of good g r a s s , " claimed Martineau, "the most of i t f it for mowing, and a stream running through i t . " ' The stream came from s jome large warm springs a t the north end of the v a l l e y . As i t ran south, the water "spreads over a marshy, wire and broadleaf grass bottom, forming a meadow half a mile wide." This stream was reported to be l a r g e r than Center Creek at Parowan by Colonel Dame,^9 and s u f f i c i e n t to t u r n a small g r i s t m i l l . 5 There were a l so fish in the stream from t h r e e t o eight i n c h e s . 5 1 Although Dame |