A Biography of Ezra Thompson Clark

Ezra Clark, page 025

EZRA THOMPSON CLARK 25 riculum was to include many of the living languages and general sciences. As yet, there were no graduate students from the common school so it was attended by parents, prospective teachers, and those interested in a general edu- cation. The Deseret News was also published for the first time in 1850 and was gladly received at the house of Ezra Clark, as magazines and papers from the East were about four months after date when they reached Utah. During the winter of 1849-50 a portion of the State of Deseret was divided into counties. The limits of Davis County were settled in 1848 and named Davis for a captain in the Mormon Battalion who was one of the first settlers in the county. Farmington, the town which Ezra Clark helped to settle, was chosen as the county seat. The Mormon maxim regarding the Indians was that it was better to feed than to fight them. The Utes and the Shoshones were friendly, and the pioneers taught them how to till the soil and helped them to plant corn and squash. When numbers of them made their frequent calls for provisions with their pack horses, they were never denied. The writer remembers their loaded ponies after their visit to the Clark farm when meat, flour, and potatoes were given them, and warm clothing was supplied for their babies. History records that on the fifth of April 1851, the Gen- eral Assembly of the State of Deseret was dissolved. One year later this state was officially merged into a territory and named Utah. Brigham Young had the appointment of governor and superintendent of Indian affairs. Utah was greatly shorn of her proportions when California was admitted as a state in 1850, and Nevada in 1861. With the founding of this new Territory of Utah, the