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202 Utah Historical Quarterly and supported dissidents, including the Morrisites. Led by Joseph Morris, the Morrisites had fanned much bitterness among the Mormons and had run athwart of territorial law7, with the end result that a posse had killed Morris and one or two others in a bungled attempted arrest shortly before Connor arrived in Utah in 1862. Although Soda Springs at the big bend of Bear River was out of his jurisdiction, Connor wasted no time after his victory over the Indians in establishing a military camp there. Offering the leaderless Morrisites asylum, Connor located them near this new outpost in a place called Morristown. Not surprisingly, Morristown was a hotbed of anti-Mormonism, and while it did not flourish it did set a pattern of hostility toward Mormons that became an article of political faith in Idaho for many years.15 Spurred by Connor's colonizing efforts, the Mormons immediately initiated a move north. Brigham City, the oldest community in Bear River's drainage area, was strengthened numerically and by the initiation of the cooperative movement under Lorenzo Snow's careful supervision.16 Under Charles C. Rich, settlers moved into Bear Lake Valley. E. T. Benson and William Preston located villages in the northern part of Cache Valley, and, as w7e have seen, Malad w7as founded along a major spur of the freight road north. Cooperative herds from Farmington and elsewhere in Davis County were also moved into the areas where Plymouth, Portage, and Howell were later founded.17 Within a decade or so, village settlements similar to the earliest Cache Valley towns were established throughout the three valleys of the Bear. Although Mormon influence was strong in the three valleys, each was different. Bear Lake was isolated. Its climate was cold, timber abundant, and log and frame buildings far more dominant than elsewhere. Until after 1880 it was not on the road to anywhere. Timbermen like James Nounan cut ties on neighboring slopes, but the valley nevertheless long remained the preserve of an isolated Mormon society in which people came as near living up to the church's ideal of self-sufficiency as anywhere.18 In the earliest years, Bear Lake was the most Mormon of the 15 Good accounts of the Morrisite difficulties and their move to Idaho are found in C. LeRoy Anderson and Larry J. Halford, "The Mormons and the Morrisite War," Montana 26 (Autumn 1974) : 4 2 - 5 3 ; C. LeRoy Anderson, "The Scattered Morrisites," Montana 26 (Autumn 1 9 7 6 ) : 5 3 - 6 8 ; and Brigham D. Madsen, "Introduction," to Agnes Just Reid, Letters of Long Ago (Salt Lake City: University of U t a h Library, 1973), pp. xi-xviii. 30 Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company 1976), pp. 111-34. 17 Glen M. Leonard, "A History of Farmington, Utah, to 1890" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1966), pp. 117-24; and Joseph Royal Miller and Elna Miller, eds., Journal of Jacob Miller (Salt Lake City: Mercury Publishing Co., 1967), p. 176. IS Accounts of settlement are in M. D. Beal, A History of Southeastern Idaho (Caldwell: