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Show FALL 2013 UHQ pp 304-385_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 9/16/13 1:25 PM Page 382 UTAh hISTOrICAL QUArTErLy cattle outfit, was found dead with a hole in his back, the Indians took the blame. Some felt Hopkins had been a target for a wandering Indian, others pointed to a Navajo with whom he had argued, and still others suggested that lightning was the culprit. No blame was ever officially affixed, but the Utes still smarted from the Beaver Creek Massacre from two years before and were not friendly to cowboys roaming their territory. Harold Carlisle quickly posted letters to both the Ute agent and the military requesting troops. Colonel P. T. Swaine, Twenty-Second Infantry at Fort Lewis, dispatched a company of infantry on July 20 to the Blue Mountain area; three days later, he sent a second company to the San Juan River.31 If they accomplished little else, these troops would quash the rumor that a secret organization of white vigilantes was preparing to either kill or otherwise remove the Indians from the area. While the Indians drew the most prolonged glance from the military, there was no missing the activities of the ranchers, Edmund and Harold Carlisle in particular. Captain J. B. Irvine, with thirty-eight men of Company A, Twenty-Second Infantry, camped on the North Fork of Montezuma Creek from July to September 5 at a site that received the name Soldiers Spring. Irvine soon reported that the two Carlisle brothers had set out to obtain “range for their cattle to the exclusion of all farmers, settlers, ranchmen or cattlemen” by fencing off large tracts of land to deny others any resources. “He [Edmund] has claimed through his numerous employees, lackeys, and henchmen . . . the best sections of pasture land where the grass is from two to three feet high and other fertile sections of country abounding in springs, timber, facilities for irrigation and other conveniences so attractive to farmers and settlers.”32 To enforce this intent, Carlisle had at his ranch what local historian Albert R. Lyman referred to at different times as a roost for evil birds or a lair for robbers, horse thieves, and other unscrupulous riff-raff.33 Criminals traveled from as far away as Texas to hide amidst the shadows of Blue Mountain, with its convenient escape hatches to the west that helped criminals melt into oblivion. So when a group of Bluff Mormons began settling in South Montezuma Creek (now called Verdure, seven miles south of today’s Monticello) in May 1887, their newly established cabins and irrigation ditch were anything but welcomed. The LDS church had called these men to survey the future site of Monticello, a task they completed by July 7, 1887. They also surveyed an irrigation ditch for the anticipated town and started to divert the water from various creeks for their use. Much of this was in the territory claimed by the Carlisles. Since Harold Carlisle had assumed ownership of the area, 31 Charles F. Stollsteimer to Swaine, July 14, 1887; Swaine to Assistant Adjutant General, August 5, 1887, Letters Received—AGO. 32 J. B. Irvine to Commanding Officer, Fort Lewis, August 8, 1887, Letters Received—AGO. 33 Lyman, Indians and Outlaws, 100–13. 382 |
