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Show THE HISTORY BLAZER ilrE1t5 OF LTTA H'S PAST FROM THE Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. VT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 333- 3503 Life on the Garfield County Frontier HERDERSH, E RIFF, LEGISLATOR- THOMSAESW wore a'fl those hats while living on the rugged frontier in Garfield County. He was born in New Harmony, Iron County, in 1867 to Phoebe Butler and George W. Sevy. Four years later his family moved to Garfield County to help resettle Panguitch- abandoned in 1866 during the Black Hawk War. His father ran a sawmill 12 . miles up a canyon. At age eight Tom began to work at the mill even though he was too young to operate the machinery. His job was to catch fish for the sawmill gang to eat: ' With meager fishing tackle and grasshoppers for bait, he caught so many fish that the men had to carry them back to camp for him. Luscious native trout literally packed the creek that drained Panguitch Lake." Before long Tom got his ' fust real job" herding 75 horses that his uncle had brought from California. Many Utah farmers were still using oxen to plow and pull wagons, so the horses were welcome amvals in the community. For herding the horses Tom was paid $ 7.00. To him it looked like a fortune. He asked his father to buy him a book the next time he went to Salt Lake City: ' When he returned he had bought me a book teliing how to doctor sick horses. This was a disappointment to me, but I read every word of it several times." Later, Tom hired on as a sheepherder and was to receive five sheep a month. The pay turned out to be " just promises." At age 18 Tom began to work as an ' under- sheriff" in Gadield County. His first assign-ment was ' to help capture 5 train robbers who had escaped from Arizona.. . . [ including] such men as Buckie O'Neil and Jim Black. My companions on the trip into the rugged country east of Panguitch.. . were Carl F. Holton, a railroad detective, and Tom Haycock.. . . Holton was later killed on San Juan HiIl with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders.. . . We went down on the Wauweep Wahweap]. Here we ran into the five renegades. It was pretty exciting for a while and we ex-changed a good many shots. No one was hurt, although we did shoot one horse from under a rider and a cartridge belt was shot off one of the robbers. Within a few days we had captured all five of them. " Tom also helped round up a local gang " that had been robbing stores and we had to chase these men into the back country before cornering them. I remember when we brought Bill Lee back to Panguitch, we had no prison, so I simply took him into my home- had to keep him chained up for a while, but later I gave him a littIe more freedom until he was taken to Beaver for trial. " In 1886 Tom manied Sarah E. Crosby; she died in 1899. In 1900 he married Amy Clark. He was the father of five sons and four daughters. ( more) Tom still had an interest in livestock and had managed to get a small herd of sheep together. This led to another " exciting episode when I took my sheep into the Wauweep country. Waterholes were scarce, although the food was lush.. . . There had been a line of demarcation made by the cattlemen, and one morning as I started my sheep toward the waterhole the man in charge of the cattle told me to bring my sheep no farther or he would shoot, but I talked and bluffed him out of it, and from that time on we took our sheep into any range we desired." When the two major national political parties were organized in Utah, Tom Sevy became active in the Republican party. He was elected to the first House of Representatives for the new state and elected to the House again in 1914. He also served as mayor of Panguitch for four years and as a councilman for 12 years. While mayor he worked to have the town's first water system installed. He was also a member of the first State Tax Commission. When interviewed by Lee Kay in 1949 for the Utah Fish and Game Bulletin, Tom remembered the abundant wildlife- sage hens, deer, mountain sheep, wolves, cougars, and coyotes- as well as the clear water of the Sevier River and " grass. .. belly deep to my horse and the white sage growing everywhere.. . . " He told Kay that overgrazing had changed the environment, but he remained optimistic about the ability of rangeland to recover: " Why, only 35 years ago I purchased a ranch that had been practically grubbed into the rocks. I have used it wisely and you should see it now." When Tom died in the Panguitch hospital in April 1953 at age 86, newspapers in Salt Lake City believed him to be the last survivor of the first Utah State Legislature. For a man who ' really got to go to school one quarter only.. .[ and] actually learned to read out in the sheep camp, * he accomplished a great deal with his life. His recollections of frontier conditions in Garfield County help to preserve the flavor of a significant era in the state's history. Sources: Utah Fish and Game Bulktin, April 1949; Garfield County Chapter of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County ( Garfield County, 1949); Deseret Nous, April 4, 1953; Salt Lake Tribune, April 4, 1953. THEH ISTOBRLYAZ ERi s produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533- 3500. 961111 ( MBM) |
