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Show OM S No. 1024-0018, NPS Form 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 efforts to settle the region. Upon their return to Salt Lake City they asked for volunteers to move south. After just one man offered to go of his own free will , President Young drew up a list of missionaries to be assigned the task. John Harvey Ballard and Alonzo Haventon Russell were among the elders "called" or assigned to Grafton at this time, and their families would subsequently be among the longest-standing residents of the town. Flooding and the Move to New Grafton On December 17,1861 a survey was completed for the new location and farming lots were drawn by lottery. There were more people than lots that resulted in several families leaving Grafton before the move. This shortage of suitable farmland would ultimately be a contributing factor in the demise of the town . We drew for our farm lots of lottery[sic]. I got a very good lot but bro. Woodbury , a nursery man, got a very poor one and was going to move away, but I wanted him to stay, as I knew it would help the place to have a good nursery here, so I let him have my lot and I took his. In the evening we had a dance in bro. A.H. Russell's big tent. The remarks of bro. Snow has [sic] caused a spirit of uneasiness [sic] in the minds of many, and now those who did not get lots are about moving out, in fact, I may say and that truly although I do not find a bit of fault with what bro. Snow said, yes, it has drew at least one half away from the place and Rockville too, 18 and has almost killed both places. History has traditionally held that the settlers decided to move the town after a rain storm and flood that started on Christmas Day of 1861 and lasted forty days and nights; however, Franklin W . Young 's journal clearly stated that, while the river did rise approximately four feet on December 25 th , there were seven days of fair or cloudy weather and four days of snow during the subsequent forty days. Furthermore, his diary, along with the minutes of the December 13, 1861 , ward meeting, prove that the decision to move the town was made at least a month before the "big flood ." During the early hours of January 18, 1862, the rising water carried away one of Nathan Tenney's houses and its contents and destroyed another. His wife, Olive, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was washed from the house and caught in the river. All of the men were called out of bed to save her, and they carried her to Hyrum and Mercy Barney's home (possibly a wagon) where she gave birth to a boy. In celebration of the event she named the child Marvelous Flood. 19 The winter and spring of 1862 were devoted to digging the new irrigation ditch, clearing and fencing the land, and planting crops. The location and depth of the trenches were such that residents were able to get water during the wet season, but by May the river was too low to fill the ditches, 2°and the irrigation system had to be 21 modified . Ultimately the ditch cost $5,000 and the labor of twenty-four men. By summer, the ditches were sufficiently watering the corn, sugar cane, wheat and cotton that had been planted in the spring. A log schoolhouse/meeting house (demolished) measuring eighteen by twenty-six feet was 18 Franklin Wheeler Young . 19 Ibid., January 18, 1862. 20 Ibid., May 19, 1862. 21 James Bleak. Journal, Wednesday, December 18,1861 . Annals of the Southern Utah Mission, p. 1234. |
