OCR Text |
Show Record Those ferry boats carried freight and passengers at high water. They carried freight and passengers when they were operating. Parley Rogerson Butt testified for complainant on direct examination as follows: 541 I am 69 years old. My home is at Dove Creek, Colorado, about 15 miles from the Eastern line of Utah. My occupation has been principally stock raising and farming. I am pretty familiar with the San Juan River. I went there when I was 17 years old and have lived there about 30 years. 542 I lived first at Bluff City, then at Monticello. I own lots of property there now. I came from Iron County, Utah and hit the San Juan River in 1879. We crossed the Colorado River at Lees Ferry. That was the same expedition that Mr. Jones was in. I 543 followed the route that he has detailed here. My first experience we grubbing land, cutting cottonwood trees and planting corn and mellons and so on the San Juan River near Bluff City. There have been lots of changes in the conditions in and about Bluff City. We were doing pretty well farming the land and in 1884, I think it was, a flood came and washed the lands down the river, cut them all to pieces, and washed the land away. We had spent hundreds of dollars to get the cottonwoods off for cultivation. I have assisted in trying to protect the land at Bluff from the ravages of the river. I cut cottonwood trees, hauled lots of rock, rip- rapped the side of the river to keep the water from caving the balance of 544 the rearming land. We did that in 1882 or 1883, I think. That work is not still there. It has been gone a number of years. I quit when my land was washed away. I went to Venture, Utah. I have not been down the San Juan River between Bluff City and the Colorado. I forded at Clay Hill South and West of Bluff about 50 or 60 miles, below Mexican Hat. I forded the river several times at Mexican Hat with a crowd of geological surveyors. 545 They hired me to go with them and pilot them through the country. - 81- 1197 |