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Show 11 A mix of church ( both central and local), territorial government, and individual layers of control with respect to water began to be felt in administration and allocation by the late 1850s. As mountain valleys became more fully settled church and legal practices were blended. There developed legal and social institutions based on the pioneer experience which regulated relations between the government, church leaders, communities, and the individual users. Church Mediation of Conflict With Respect to Water Rights As we have seen, the Mormons gathered in an isolated zone. In the initial years the church hierarchy was utilized as a substitute for the adjudicative systems they had left behind. Local institutions had to be developed to fill the needs of pioneers with respect to a legal system. The area of water rights was an area where Mormons were establishing new systems of water ownership and use. Adjudicative substitutes were also necessary that would function in a manner consistent with the principles implied by broad community rights. Fairness and beneficial use characterized the decisions of church mediation boards and courts with respect to water use. 30 In the earliest years of settlement, village isolation made it impractical for conflicts to be settled by any means other than appeal to local authority. In addition, the Mormons, as a body, were soon involved in bitter conflicts with the federally appointed district courts, and the Mormon leaders made it clear that taking anyone to " law" was to place the Mormon community under a threatening outside influence that could not be tolerated in a vital interest such as water rights. As a result, disagreeing parties often turned to church leaders to settle water controversies. 31 Local leaders ( bishops or perhaps stake presidents) were the first recourse of contestants. If these leaders were involved in the controversy, as they often were, appeal could be had to higher church tribunals. As the only jurisdiction to begin with, church courts continued to settle key issues, as in the 1882 Compromise Point ruling in which church president John Taylor delivered a decision which essentially settled the relative nature of Salt Lake and Utah Valley water rights in Utah Lake. 32 This characteristic of the pioneer mode had been reflected in the actions of the territorial legislature when in 1852 the control of water resources was placed in the hands of the county courts, a multi- powered agency comparable to the modern county commissions. 33 The county court was locally manned and less specifically a judicial institution than the federal district court of the territorial era. Leonard J. Arlington, and Dean L. May, " A Different Mode of Life," pp 18- 19. Speaking of the church court system as it applied to water the authors state: The small number of cases involving disputes over water which have survived in the records of bishops' courts or high council courts would suggest that the great majority of disputes were handled informally by the bishops... . Few records were kept of such events, but those which have survived make it abundantly clear that church courts were courts of equity rather than law. There was no great effort to determine and follow precedent or to preserve records for the purpose of providing precedents for later cases. ... It would appear that disputes brought before the church courts were settled on the simple basis of what " looked like justice" to the church leaders. 31Ibid., pp 53 and 60. 32 For an excellent treatment of the process leading up to John Taylor's intervention and the effects of his ruling see Charles S. Peterson, with John Lamborn, " Agriculture in Salt Lake County 1890 to 1915" ( Prepared under contract with the Henry Wheeler Living Historical Farm, 1980), pp 28- 29. Cited in George Thomas, Institutions Under Irrigation, p 57. |