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Show OMB No. 1024-0018 , NPS Fonn United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. §. Page § Grafton Historic District, Rockville, Washington County, UT On January 16, 1864, the Territorial Legislature created Kane County, and Grafton was chosen as the county seat. At this time a statistical census of the church counted twenty-eight families and 168 people in Grafton, the highest population the town would ever have. It remained the largest settlement on the upper Virgin River until 1866. Indian Conflicts The year 1866 signaled a major turning point for Grafton. Utah's Black Hawk War had been declared in April of 1865, signaling open hostilities between the Mormon settlers and the Native Americans. The first tragedy hit on January 9th when two Kane County residents identified as Dr. James M. Whitmore and Robert McIntyre were robbed of their cattle and killed by Indians about thirteen miles south of town at Pipe Spring Ranch.36 Nearby Pahreach Ranch was also besieged for a period of two months, although no one was killed. Then beginning on January 18, 1866, all three sons of Asa Bartlett York and Mary Jane Bethers died over the course of three days from diphtheria. In February two girls, Letty Russell and Lizzie Woodbury; were killed while playing on a swing that was fashioned from the burnt cotton gin at the center oftown.37 The two girls were buried together in a single grave at the Grafton cemetery. Before the townspeople had a chance to recover from these events, tragedy struck again on April 2nd when Joseph S. and Robert M. Berry and Robert's wife, Mary Isabel Hales, were ambushed and killed outside of town by native Paiutes while returning home to Long Valley after a visit at Spanish Fork, Utah County. Evacuation The Battalion of the Iron Military District had been organized for the continued protection of the Cotton Missionaries from Indians, and Grafton resident James Andrus led the local regiment; however, by the spring of 1866 it was clear that the towns scattered along the Virgin River could be better protected from increasing attacks from native tribes by consolidating. Erastus Snow, president of the Southern (Cotton) Mission, sent a letter to each of the communities on the upper Virgin River, urging them to unify at Rockville, two miles east of Grafton. On June 10 th the residents of Grafton vacated the town. Most of the log and frame houses were moved to Rockville, as this relocation was considered a temporary measure. The men commuted back home daily to tend and secure their crops, and they raised twenty acres of wheat, forty-five acres of corn, eight acres of sugar cane, and eighteen acres of cotton in 1866. The population of Rockville increased :from ninety-five to approximately five hundred people as the result of this consolidation,38 and the following January it became the new Kane County seat. Resettlement By the spring of 1868 conflicts with the Indians had settled down enough for the missionaries to move back to their own settlements. Most of the families that resettled Grafton were former residents; however, less than half of the pre-evacuation population returned. 39 As a result, the Grafton Ward of the Mormon Church was 36 Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. January 22, 1866, p. 5 37 Bethers, op. cit. , p 14. 36 Stout, op. cit., p. 26. 39 Jenson. A History of the Grafton Ward, 1868. |
