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Show OMS No. 10024-0018 NPS Form 10-900-a Mi/:rosott Word 2.0 Format United States Department of the Interior N(')al Park Service N'ational Register of Continuation Sheet Section No. -1L Historic Page ~ Places Gratton Historic District, Gratton, Washington County, UT 5U:J~l-e11~octV~Iic::Sllgnaled a major turning point for Grafton. Utah's Black Hawk War had been declared in April, 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 Pip~Spring Ran,ch ..28 Nearby Pahrea9~~nch was also besieged for a period of two months, althoug.h no one di~d . .-/Then begmnlng on January 18t~ 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 of town. 29 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 Pajute Indians while returning home after a visit at ~ Spanish Fork. ~ I" :..Y" c.-L1\ \':;"V' uation c:~ attalion of the Iron Military District had been organized for the continue~tection of the Cotton onaries from Indians, and Grafton resident James Andrus led the 10Cal£ giment; however, by the spring r-C.o ~ ~ ,be er protected from increasing of ~ 866 it was clear tha~ th~ towns scattered along :he Virgin R~'V Indian attacks by consolldatmg. Erastus Snow, preSident of the outhern MI · Sl ,sent a letter to the each of the communities on the upper Virgin River, urging them to unify at oCKViT e, two miles east of Grafton. On June 10th the residents of Grafton vacated the town. Most of the log and frame homes were moved to Rockville, as this relocation was co.nsidered 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,30 and the following January it became the Kane County seat. Ev Resettlement By the spring of 1868 troubles 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. 31 As a result, the Grafton Ward of the Mormon Church was reintegrated into the Rockville Ward as at1)ran~,) and Alonzo ~ussell replaced Anson Winsor as the,tresiding (ider. ~-+v~"{.....~(':.-~~ J.r ~Q" ., _ ( e... v-~ v0c.kcQ1 'Ai ~~li,"\L~J6..""'\ ,.)...J . .. ~ ...lL.see continuation sheet ~. OrnaL History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, January 22, 1866, 29Bethers, op. C~ lt., 14. . -' 30Slou, l op. Cl., 't 6• 31 Jenson. A History of the Grafton Ward, 1868. 7 ~\-~ ~c "V' . |
