OCR Text |
Show 44 of land as their future permanent homes, and to assist them in opening farms and putting in crops, there is scarcely a doubt that a general state of hostilities would have been commenced before this time, exposing the exterior settlements to the most savage havoc, and rendering the prosecution of the United States surveys in the Territory impossible without the aid of an armed force. But, without authority from government for making permanent arrangements of this kind, and without funds to meet expenditures thus incurred, the adoption of such a course was, to say the least of it, assuming high responsibilities. But, the only apology I shall .offer is, that the circumstances left me without an alternative.2 In 1855, sub-agent George Armstrong wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommending that farms be established at suitable locations in the Utah Valley for the support and sustenance of the 3 Utes, and that farmers be employed to farm them. The following year, the energetic Dr. Hurt, without approval of Governor Young and entirely without permission from Washington, D.C, established three Indian farms-at Corn Creek in Millard County, at Twelve Mile Creek in Sanpete County, and at a point on the banks of the Spanish Fork River where it empties into Utah Lake in Utah County. Again, in- the same letter quoted above, he related to Brigham Young: The lands selected on the Spanish Fork, being covered with a dense growth of brush wood, were more expensive to 2Dr. Garland Hurt to Brigham Young, September, , 1856, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1856, (Washington, D.C, 1856), p. 782. (Hereinafter referred to as RCIA with date given). 3George Armstrong to Commissioner George W. Manypenny, in RCIA, 1855, p. 543. |