A History of Garfield County

Settlements on the Upper Sevier river

CHAPTER 6 SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER W,it hin a year after the second settlement of Panguitch south­ern Utah pioneers began to establish additional townsites in close proximity to the upper Sevier River. In some cases their efforts proved to be tentative and misguided, as they chose locations inca­pable of sustaining economic prosperity or even a reasonably com­fortable existence. High elevations and their associated short growing seasons and extremely cold winters combined to discourage many newcomers. But those who stayed found ways to adapt their liveli­hoods to the harsh conditions. Perhaps they felt compensated for their struggles as they daily viewed the surrounding beauty and enjoyed its peaceful influence. Of these early settlements, only two have endured as towns to the present, but the other villages con­tributed to the overall settlement of the area. Hillsdale In an effort to find an ideal location for a sawmill, two mill­wrights, George Deliverance Wilson and his brother-in-law Joel Hills Johnson, brought their families and other settlers to the east bank of 108 SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 109 the Sevier River in 1871 and established a community. Hillsdale, named either for Johnson or in memory of his mother, is about nine miles south of Panguitch and six miles north of present-day Hatch. Besides the extended Wilson and Johnson families, other early settlers included the Alveys, Asays, Cloves, Fredrick Cooke, the Degraws, William W. Eagar, David Fredrick, the Henries, Brigham Knight, Henry King, the Martineau brothers, the Merrills, Jacob Minchey, Jesse Perkins, the Pinneys, Teancum Pratt, the Schows, Andrew S. Siler, Leveret Vanleuven, Henry White, James V. William, and the Workmans. The pioneers surveyed their townsite south of the mill in August 1872 after being instructed to do so by ecclesiastical authorities.1 Although the site fulfilled the promise of adequate water to power the mill and accessible timber for building the town, the high elevation- almost 7,000 feet-also meant long, cold winters and short growing seasons. Johnson and Wilson had arrived in the region from warmer climes-the Mormon Dixie and Muddy missions, respectively. The two were relatively advanced in years for the tasks of beginning a new settlement, Johnson being almost seventy years old and Wilson sixty-three. 2 George Wilson had been a member of the Mormon Battalion and had crossed the plains on foot three times-once with the bat­talion, then returning back east to get his family and bring them west. Two of Johnson's sons, Seth and Nephi, came to help settle Hillsdale and also had an impact on the community's progress. In fact, descen­dants of both Wilson and Johnson remained in the Hillsdale area throughout its relatively brief history. For a number of years the town's social life-church and com­munity meetings, Sunday School, dances, and other events-revolved around a sawed-log home belonging to Nephi Johnson. Eventually the townspeople built a log house specifically for such purposes, and it became the town hall, church, school, and center of most social functions. An old Hillsdale Ward ledger includes a record of dona­tions of lumber and labor between the years 1879 and 1881, and per­haps this is when residents constructed the community building.3 Among the earliest schoolteachers were Martha A. Wilson, Seth Johnson, William Lumar (or Lewman), and an "old Welshman" 110 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY named James A. Williams. One of Seth Johnson's sons described the old log schoolhouse: On the sides of the building the desks were hung with hinges to the wall. A bench made of a slab of plank was the seat with no back. A large fireplace was in one end of the room and on cold days we were sometimes allowed to stand with our backs to the fire to get warm.4 Children generally attended school three or four months out of the year during the coldest part of the winter. When school was not in session they spent time helping with family chores, including the usual tasks associated with farming. One former resident, Lydia Johnson Henderson, recalled wash days when she was growing up in Hillsdale. She first went with her mother to gather sagebrush along the hillsides. After the brush was burned, they used the ashes to soften the water used for their laundry. She also remembered having to search the nearby hills for any dead sheep left behind from passing herds, "from which she secured wool to put in quilts and for other miscellaneous uses."5 One of her brothers, Anthony, recalled a time when he was five or six years old. Their father had taken the children to a field he was clearing and wanted them to pile up the brush to be burned. The children worked with a marked lack of enthusiasm, but when lunch time came and their father spread out a quilt for them all to sit on they ate their stewed dried apples and loaves of bread with zeal. This prompted the father to remark, "You all seem to have a much better appetite than you have a 'work-a-tite.'"6 With the exception of the sawmill, Hillsdale residents engaged in few commercial enterprises beyond agriculture. Typically each family raised a few cattle, pigs, and chickens, and they planted hay and farmed wheat. Together with kitchen gardens, this became the basis of their subsistence economy. They took butter and cheese to Utah's Dixie area to trade for commodities unavailable at home. But the cold weather often hindered even these modest enterprises. One res­ident recalled that food often became so scarce during the winter that she and her brothers and sisters were "forced to live on cooked wheat and milk with sometimes a piece of bread."7 The winter of 1879-80 was particularly harsh. After a deep and SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 111 early snow the water froze at the gristmill ten miles away before Hillsdale residents could haul their grain to be ground. Vegetables froze in their storage pits and cattle froze to death even though the men attempted to move them to lower ground. However, as Joel H. Johnson's grandson and namesake reported, even though "some ran short of provisions neighbor helped neighbor and by keeping the old coffee mill grinding grain, we were able to provide plenty of chaffy bread." Despite their circumstances, Johnson recalled a joyful Christmas in his home that included the retelling of the story of the first Christmas by the fireplace, carolers, homemade woolen stock­ings filled with meager but appreciated fare, a children's Christmas dance in the afternoon, and a "grownups" dance in the evening.8 Practically all of Hillsdale's citizens were members of the LDS church. Church authorities created a branch there of the Panguitch Ward in 1874 and Nephi Johnson served as the community's first presiding elder.9 By 1877 Hillsdale had about thirty-five families, enough to form their own LDS ward on 15 August. Seth Johnson became bishop, and the residents of nearby Hatch Town and Asay became separate branches of this ward. Most of the early settlers were devout Mormons and eagerly hosted church leaders, including church presidents, when they visited Hillsdale. They contributed to the building of the St. George and Manti LDS temples, and leaders of auxiliary organizations carried out the programs mandated by church leadership.10 Most of the children, when eight years old, were baptized in the millrace pond. Two of Seth Johnson's offspring recalled being baptized in the winter through holes cut in the ice because their father insisted that all his children be baptized on their eighth birthday.11 Seth Johnson was a Mormon polygamist, and he brought one of his two wives, Lydia Ann Smith, from Toquerville when he came to Hillsdale in 1872. His second wife, Martha Jane Stratton, and her children later joined them. Lydia's children recalled that the trip took less than a week in their wagons pulled by oxen. They left Toquerville on son Seth Alvin's eighth birthday and arrived in Hillsdale on daughter Mary Julia's tenth birthday. Lydia Ann was a practical nurse and midwife in addition to being proficient in the processing of buckskin and in making gloves and hats. The sale of her home-man- 112 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY ufactured items along with butter and cheese helped her to be able to buy additional clothes and food for her family. Seth Johnson con­structed one long house for his two families; Lydia Ann's family occu­pied one end and Martha Jane's the other. Both families met in the center of the house for meals and morning and evening prayers. Everyone worked together to cook meals and carry out other house­hold tasks. Mary Julia, the oldest of twenty-five children from both marriages, recalled, "During all the years that I lived there I never remember hearing my father quarrel with either of his wives or of his wives quarreling with each other." She further stated: Mother was quite a nurse and Aunt Martha [her father's second wife] always thought when she was sick that there wasn't anyone she would rather have care for her than mother, and she was, as always, willing to do all she could for mother, or for either of the families that needed her help.12 Many of these residents of Hillsdale became discouraged over the years and slowly started to move away, in part because of the cold cli­mate but also because of periodic floods that washed out dams and hampered irrigation efforts, eventually causing much of the farmland to dry up. Of the two founders of Hillsdale, George Wilson lived out his life there, dying in 1912. Joel Johnson, however, returned to the Dixie town of Bellevue (now called Pintura) in 1886. George Wilson then became local LDS bishop and later presiding elder as Hillsdale's population began to decline and the town once more became a branch of the church. By the 1920s the branch itself was dissolved and what few Hillsdale residents remained became part of the Hatch LDS Ward. Today, some descendants of the early settlers together with other newcomers maintain a few summer homes in the area. The pastures and other farmland are still used for grazing, but most of what remains is a few old frame and rough-sawn-log houses, barns, and other outbuildings that give evidence that Hillsdale was once a bustling village established in a beautiful location. Hatchtown Besides Panguitch, Hatch is the only other enduring town along what is now well-traveled U.S. Highway 89. (In various records this SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 113 community is referred to as Hatchtown, Hatch Town, and Hatch. This work will use the name Hatchtown when referring to the early settlement period prior to the town's relocation, at which time the residents officially changed the name to Hatch.) For those who live in this community and for its visitors perhaps the town's most strik­ing feature is the spectacular view to the east at sunset. When the waning sun shines on the cliffs of the Paunsagaunt Plateau, which dominates the whole eastern side of the valley, the sight is truly breathtaking. The settlement of other southern Utah and eastern Nevada com­munities affected the eventual founding of Hatchtown. In the early 1860s Brigham Young admonished LDS families to establish the Dixie Mission in the St. George area. Then, in 1867, he made addi­tional calls to the Muddy and Western, or Eagle Valley, missions. The settlers in these regions suffered extreme hardships as they struggled to acquire even the basic necessities of life. Then, in 1870, the United States Congress revised the eastern boundary of Nevada, moving its borders one degree of longitude to the east. This took terrain from the western edges of both Utah and Arizona territories. The agrarian settlers of the Muddy and Eagle valleys now found themselves living in Nevada counties dominated by mining activities and governed by people not of their faith. In addition, the Nevada state government began suits against these Mormon residents for back taxes which they could ill afford to pay. Brigham Young released the settlers from their missions and advised them to return to Utah Territory. Many of the Muddy Valley people went to Long Valley; most of the Eagle Valley people relocated to either Panguitch or Long Valley. Both groups were encouraged to occupy dwellings in towns abandoned during the Indian hostilities of the mid-1860s.13 One of the settlements in Long Valley was Windsor, later called Mt. Carmel. About 1872 Joseph and Sarah Ann Pedric Asay estab­lished a summer ranch several miles north of Windsor, along a stream they named Asay Creek, one of the main tributaries near the head of the Sevier River. By the 1880 census six families resided in the area. Heads of families included Sarah Ann Asay (Joseph had died in 1879), her son Eleazer, Richard Gibson, James Little, Oliver Anderson, and John Jones. For a time this community was called 114 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Aaron, after one of the Asay sons. Other very small settlements in the area of the upper Sevier River included Johnson, Castle, and Proctor; but these consisted only of a scattered ranch or two here and there, and organized communities never really developed. They were later absorbed into Hatchtown. Asay, however, showed greater promise. Later arrivals Tom Jessup and Dan Leroy established a sawmill along the creek, and Joseph and Sarah Ann Asay's son Amos operated another sawmill and a shingle mill. Although the town's residents enjoyed little success in cultivat­ing wheat due to the short growing season at that high altitude, they did harvest oats and wild hay. The area proved ideal for fishing and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses. Eventually others came to the area to settle. Jerome Asay, Sr., another of Joseph and Sarah Ann's sons, estab­lished a grocery and hardware store and later added a restaurant to accommodate travelers.14 In 1887 Jerome applied to U.S. Post Office authorities to authorize the Asay post office. He served as the town's first postmaster in a log building located next to the rock house built by his parents. This office served about twenty-four families. Later the post office was transferred to the old Hatchtown location, but it still retained the name of Asay. The residents built a small log school-house that also functioned as a church and public meetinghouse. Sarah Meeks, Rebecca Wilson, Mamie Foy, George Haycock, and Dicy Delong were among those who taught the children of Asay in this structure. In the late 1800s one of the area sawmills burned down. This event, coupled with the usual trials engendered by a short growing season and severe winters, doomed the little town of Asay. One by one, area families began to leave. Some went only a short distance to the community of Hatchtown, however. Others relocated farther afield, until, by 1900, no one was left. For its founders, Joseph and Sarah Ann Asay, the rugged mountains, plentiful pasturage, and sparkling streams of the area "must have seemed a very beautiful and fertile country . . . after the hot, dry, desolate land of the Muddy."15 It was not easy to eke out a living in the mountains, however. Among those called to the LDS Dixie Mission was Meltiar Hatch, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion. He brought with him two wives, SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 115 Permelia Snyder Hatch and Mary Ann Ellis Hatch, and their families. Hatch had answered the call issued by Mormon church leaders to go to Eagle Valley, where he had served as a bishop. Following Brigham Young's advice, he took his families to Panguitch when the Nevada state boundaries were redefined. He began the move by taking Mary Ann and her family together with Permelia's boys to drive their stock to their new home. When he attempted to return for Permelia, how­ever, winter snows in the mountains forced him to postpone his trip until late spring. Meanwhile, Permelia was confined to her bed gravely ill for most of this time, with only a sixteen-year-old daugh­ter, Weltha Maria, and a kind neighbor to care for her and her four younger daughters. Hatch did return to Eagle Valley for this family as soon as the snow melted from the passes in the spring. During the move to Panguitch, however, Weltha Maria was "thrown from the wagon and both wheels ran over [her] leg, breaking it in two places." She also suffered broken ribs, but finally both families were relocated in Panguitch.16 The people of Panguitch formed a co-op and gathered together a sizable herd of cattle. They decided to locate the animals about twenty miles south of town, and Meltiar Hatch and one of his sons took charge of this enterprise. They built a log home and corrals where Mammoth Creek tumbles down Cedar Mountain to join the Sevier River. Hatch brought his wife Mary Ann to live at the ranch. She cooked for the ranch hands and offered hospitality to newcomers and travelers alike. Neils Peterson Clove and his wife Sophia Rasmussen also moved their family from Sanpete County to Hatchtown during the 1870s. Clove's full name was originally simply Neils Peterson; but, accord­ing to family tradition, he was encouraged to change his name by Mormon church president Lorenzo Snow due to the many people named Neils Peterson working on the Manti LDS Temple in Sanpete County. In selecting Clove he explained that in his native Denmark it meant "smart aleck." 17 Clove had two additional wives, Kareen Marie Jensen and Neilsanna Anna Johanna Nielson (a childless woman known as "Aunt Hannah"), whom he settled in Panguitch. He and Sophia built their home where the Hatch Reservoir would later 116 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY This log school, church, and recreation hall was built in old Hatchtown in 1893-one mile south of the present town of Hatch. (Courtesy Beth Alfred) be located. Because of the site's lower elevation, the weather proved a little milder, allowing them to establish the first garden in that local­ity. Clove, a shoemaker by trade, became well known for the lime that he burned in the Mammoth area. The lime was used in building a number of early Garfield County homes, including some in Panguitch. The two families of the Hatches and the Cloves formed the nucleus of what became the community of Hatchtown. Abram Smith Workman and his brother Dave came from the Dixie Mission to work in the fields of Panguitch in 1878. They sought Clove out when they heard about his lime kiln. Impressed with the area, they relocated there with the Hatch and Clove families. Abram Workman later recalled: In the fall of 1878, a government man came from Beaver to inquire why the land in this section had never been filed on. . . . I helped survey the land in the area and located the 160 acres on which Brother Peterson [Clove] filed. I went with him to Beaver as a wit­ness in the filing of his claim.18 SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 117 Abram Workman later married Julia Hatch, a daughter of Meltiar and Mary Ann, and taught school in the area for a brief period. In 1877, when Hillsdale received LDS ward status, with Seth Johnson as bishop, church organizations at Asay and Hatchtown became branches of the Hillsdale Ward. Presiding elders included Abram Workman, Aaron Asay, and James Dutton. Abram Workman aptly described the Mammoth Creek area when he wrote, "The river had rapids and waterfalls, a better place for fishing than for farming."19 Along with producing quality butter and cheese, the settlers gathered gooseberries, currants, and serviceber-ries to make jams and jellies, all of which they traded to the peddlers from Dixie who brought fruits and molasses in the fall. In time Hatchtown attracted other settlers. By 1880 about 100 residents lived in or near the community.20 Although Samuel Barnhurst died within a few months of his arrival to the Mammoth area in 1889, his widow, Anna Marie Jensen, played an important role within the community. She served as midwife, as postmistress of the Asay post office from April 1891 to February 1898, and as the Mammoth LDS Ward's first Relief Society president. Descendants of the families already mentioned, along with later arrivals including the Allreds, Riggs, Lynns, Sawyers, Burrows, Andersons, Huntingtons, and Elmers, swelled the ranks of Hatchtown residents. Within the next decade, these people would witness great changes when the Sevier River began to live up to its turbulent Spanish name. Antimony Although the community of Antimony has historic ties and close geographic proximity to Piute County, it is physically located within the borders of present-day Garfield County. The area's lush vegeta­tion and abundant grasses induced settlement in the Antimony area. Albert K. Thurber and George Bean traveled through Grass Valley in early 1873 as part of a twenty-two-man peacekeeping mission to the Indians at Fish Lake. When they entered the valley, the tall grasses reportedly rubbed against the bellies of their horses, thus prompting the men to name the region Grass Valley. Near the present site of Antimony, Bean and Thurber caught several coyote pups and gave the name Coyote Creek to the stream running close by that emptied 118 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY ,:,,, •• * * - ' - . An early photograph of Antimony. (Utah State Historical Society) into the East Fork of the Sevier River. The name Coyote was later applied to the community established near this confluence.21 In 1873 Albert Guiser, the first white man known to settle in the area, established his ranch about a mile north of where Coyote Creek and the East Fork came together.22 Others followed Guiser but, like him, did not stay long. In May 1875 Isaac Riddle, his son Isaac J., John and Joseph Hunt, Gideon Murdock, and Walter Hyatt of Beaver herded cattle and horses through the grassy tract and into John's Valley to the south. As superintendent of the Beaver cattle coopera­tive, Riddle later returned to the valleys with additional stock and cre­ated a small town he called Coyote near the mouth of Black Canyon. He is believed to have been the first Mormon settler in Grass Valley. Isaac Riddle was an early missionary associate of Jacob Hamblin in southern Utah. There had been some problems between a McCarty who settled for a time in upper Grass Valley and some Navajo Indian traders, which resulted in the deaths of three Indians in 1873. It might have been through Riddle's association with Hamblin and the latter's subsequent involvement in bringing about a peaceful solution to the incident that Riddle first became aware of the Grass Valley area. SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 119 Later that fall, John Rice King of Fillmore also began herding stock in the area with some of his brothers. In 1876 King bought Albert Guiser's Grass Valley ranch and moved there with his wife Helen Matilda Webb and their family. Two of his brothers also bought land west of Grass Valley in Circle Valley in Piute County. That same year, King's sixty-three-year-old father, Thomas Rice King, following Mormon church directives, organized a family united order (communal cooperative) while yet residing in Fillmore. He and other members of his family decided to establish their order in Circle Valley just north of the Garfield line. Those who moved from the Millard County united order founded the settlement of Kingston, where most of them resided and took part in the experiment of communal living. Neither John King nor his sister Delilah and her husband Daniel Olson joined the order at that time; however, later they agreed to do so under pressure from their father and brothers. John and Helen King chose to continue living in Grass Valley, or Coyote, as the area was known by both names. They planted the first crop of wheat in Grass Valley the following year.24 King dug an irri­gation ditch from Coyote Creek to bring water onto his land in 1878. Although early settlers struggled to establish themselves in this new location, the united order flourished in Kingston, which became the center of area commercial, social, and ecclesiastical activities. Residents of Grass Valley participated in the united order enter­prise as well. John King took charge of the horse herds while Culbert Levi King, his brother, took responsibility for the cattle herds. This necessitated Culbert's move in 1878 to Coyote along with his three wives, Eliza Esther McCullough, Elizabeth Ann McCallister, and Sarah Pratt. Most of the order's butter and cheese came from Grass Valley, and other families came to run sheep and farm the area. One humorous incident occurred while a man and an older boy were herding sheep in Coyote for the local united order: One night John Junior was taking his turn tending the sheep when the bears made a raid on them. A scaffold had been built upon which [the herders'] bed was made. The older herder became frightened and suggested they pray. While kneeling in prayer, the frightened sheep crowded under the scaffold, knocking it down. 120 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The men fell amid the sheep and bears, but frightened the bears away and no harm was done.25 Thomas Rice King died in 1879 at Kingston. Without his leader­ship, the united order began to flounder. It persisted, however, for four more years, until visiting LDS church officials advised the people to disband it. Many of its members moved to Coyote or just north of there to Wilmont (considered part of Coyote). John and Culbert King's brother Volney and his wife, Eliza Syrett King, were part of this group. Additional united order families who came to Grass Valley or Coyote between 1879 and 1883 included widower Franklin Henry Wilcox, who brought his nine-year-old son Frank Eber, his two-year-old daughter, Kate Effie, and his mother, Catherine Wilcox Webb. Catherine was a nurse. She already had three daughters residing in the valley, at least two of whom, Helen Matilda Webb King and Lydia Webb Huntley, also served as nurses. Other early arrivals included George and Esther Clarinda King Black, George and Inez Forrester Dockstader, James and Sophia (or Eliza) Huff, Hans Jensen and his wives Louisa Mahitable and Josephine, Peter Nelson, Niels Nielson, Mortimer W and Christina Brown Warner, Canute Peterson, Charles E. Rowan, Christian Sorensen, John D. and Mary Theodotia Savage Wilcox, Walter and Elizabeth Barrowmen Gleave, Albert Clayton, Archie M. Hunter and his sister Jane Talbot, Bill H. Link, Angus and Edward McEdwards, J.C. Jones, Dave and Josiah Nicholes, John Smoot, and John Steen. Many of these settlers did not stay in Grass Valley more than a few years, but others remained to establish permanent residences. The first babies born to the new settlers of Grass Valley were Forrest King, son of John R. and Helen King, born 1 April 1879, and the daughter of James and Sophia (or Eliza) Huff.26 The years 1879 and 1880 brought interesting changes to Grass Valley. Although the event was not recognized at the time as signifi­cant, in late October 1879 a group of pioneers passed through the valley and camped near John King's place on Coyote Creek. These fourteen people, who included five women and three children, joined a larger group that came by way of Parowan and Panguitch and made SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 121 Grass Valley's one-room school where Antimony children were taught. Teacher Carrie Henrie is in the center of the back row. (Utah State Historical Society) up the famous Hole-in-the-Rock expedition called to settle San Juan County in southeastern Utah. For residents of Grass Valley the winter of 1879-80 proved to be most severe. An early blizzard forced some men who were rounding up horses to return to their homes without completing their task. They found the carcasses of some of these animals the following spring in the tops of pine trees, which indicated the depth of the snow that year.27 In the late winter of 1879-80, the children of Grass Valley began attending the Wilmont (or Wilmot) School in a one-room log build­ing situated on "Clover Flat," one mile southeast of present Otter Creek Reservoir, just north of what came to be the Garfield-Piute county line. Archie M. Hunter, one of the few settlers not a member of the LDS faith, served as the first chairman of the school's board of trustees. Carrie Henrie taught these first students. Her salary and other school maintenance funds came from private donations. Since 122 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY funds were limited, the children attended school only about five months out of the year. The schoolhouse served another function as well-in February 1880 twenty-five members met and organized the first branch of the LDS church in Grass Valley. John D. Wilcox became the local presiding elder. Later the following spring someone discovered the chemical ele­ment antimony (or stibnite) up Coyote Canyon, about eight miles from the present town of that name. The bluish-white, brittle metal had been used by Indians to make weapons and tools. Whether or not they told the settlers about it is not known. Antimony's value, however, was as an alloy to strengthen lead and other metals. Since antimony alloys such as pewter expand when cooled, they retain fine details of a mold. Some modern-day uses of antimony alloys include in bearings, storage barriers, safety matches, and as red pigment in paint. The first mining company to utilize the ore in Garfield County was the Utah Antimony and Smelting Company, which American Antimony Company eventually bought out. Active mining of the ele­ment initially lasted only a few years, largely due to a drop in the price of the metal and the high cost of shipping it. However, mining activ­ity would later enjoy a resurgence. As was often the case in other early Utah settlements, life during the first few years often proved precarious. Except for the antimony mining, a sawmill run by James Huff up Coyote Canyon, and a couple of dairies, there were no other enterprises except ranching and subsistence farming. Since the cattle were able to feed on grass almost year around, the settlers did not raise hay. The men helped one another get their crops in. The grain har­vest often was not sufficient for their needs, in part because farm implements were few and often homemade. It was written that in the fall "They cut their grain with a cradle, raked it up with a garden rake, and bound it by hand. They didn't have twine to bind their grain, so they used a little bunch of grain to tie up a bundle."28 Later, a Mr. Whittaker would come each season from Circleville with a horse-powered threshing machine to thresh the grain. According to Kate Effie Wilcox Jolley, when local residents ran out of flour during the harsh winter months, "they made their bread out of shorts, that is, a kind of leftover of the grain [the bran and coarse pieces remaining SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 123 Spry School about 1907. (Utah State Historical Society) after grinding]. Sometimes they would gather pig weeds and cook them for greens to go with their bread."29 To obtain other commodi­ties one had to go to Kingston or places farther afield. Coyote had no stores, so many residents traveled to Fillmore or elsewhere to get sup­plies each fall. Spry In 1876 Daniel F. Tebbs moved his family six or seven miles north of Panguitch along what would become U.S. Highway 89. He located his farm in an area near the now-abandoned Fort Sanford, close to the warmwater Lowder Spring. Eventually a community developed there consisting of farms and widely separated homes in an area about five miles wide and ten miles long that ended at the mouth of Circleville Canyon. This settlement underwent several name changes through the years-Tebbsville, Cleveland, Orton, Bear Creek- finally, in 1908, the name was changed to Spry, in honor of Utah Governor William Spry. Besides the Tebbs family, William LeFevre with two wives and 124 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY their families moved to the area. Other early residents included the Veaters, Robinsons, Kesslers, and Wilcocks. These settlers and those who followed established some of the best cattle and dairy ranches in Garfield County, which have remained the only enterprises in Spry up to the present day. Daniel Tebbs served as the first postmaster in the district, operating the post office out of his house. The post office later moved to William Orton's home at the m o u t h of Bear Creek. Daniel Tebbs functioned in several other capacities in the sparsely p o p u l a t e d locale. He built t h e first log schoolhouse and became the school's first teacher, receiving his salary in produce and other goods. Jane LeFevre succeeded him. As was the case in other small settlements, residents held their church meetings, dances, and parties in the little schoolhouse. Tebbs donned additional hats as he became the fiddler and leader of community social functions. He is remembered in a verse from a song sung by the boys and girls dur­ing dances and parties: There's old Father Tebbs, who takes his old fiddle, Goes to the dance and plays "Yankee Doodle," He pats his old foot, and he wiggles about, And plays the same tune, until the dance it lets out.30 These opportunities for social exchange brought all the area res­idents together. Whole families came in wagons and on horseback. When it was bedtime, the youngest children would normally be put to bed in a nearby home or on the benches of the schoolhouse. For the residents of Spry, life was uncomplicated-a true pastoral exis­tence. ENDNOTES 1. Effel Harmon Burrow Riggs, History of Hatch, Utah and Associated Towns Asay and Hillsdale (Beaver, UT: Hatch Camp of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1978), 341; and Stephen L. Carr, The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1972), 124. 2. Joel Hills Johnson was married four times, but it is unclear how many of his family members came with him to Hillsdale. His first wife, Anna P. Johnson, died in 1840. Later that year, Johnson married Susan Bryant. In 1845 he wed Janet Fife, and much later, after he emigrated west, he married Margaret Thrylkeld. See Joel Hills Johnson, "A Sketch of the Life SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER SEVIER RIVER 125 of Joel H. Johnson" in "The Seth Johnson Family History," compiled by James A. Ott in 1947. George D. Wilson probably came to the area with only one wife, Martha Ann Riste, who bore him eleven children. His first wife, Mary Ellen Johnson (Joel's sister), died in 1845. She had two sons, one of whom died shortly after birth. See Riggs, History of Hatch, 352. 3. See Riggs, History of Hatch, 344-45. 4. Joel H. Johnson, "Life Sketch of Joel H. Johnson," 1933, copy in possession of authors. This was the grandson of Joel Hills Johnson who helped settle Hillsdale. 5. Udell Jolley, "Life Sketch of Lydia Drusilla Johnson Henderson," in "Seth Johnson Family History." 6. Udell Jolley, "A Sketch of the Life of Anthony Stratton Johnson," in "Seth Johnson Family History." 7. Lydia Annie Johnson Wilson, "Life Sketch of Lydia Annie Johnson Wilson," 1933, copy in possession of authors. 8. Joel H. Johnson, "Life Sketch." 9. Ida Chidester and Eleanor Bruhn, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County, 57; Riggs, History of Hatch, 341. 10. Riggs, History of Hatch, 342-45; Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 57-58. 11. Nephi Johnson, "A Sketch of the Life of Nephi Johnson," 1933, copy in possession of authors. 12. "A Sketch of the Life of Mary Julia Johnson Wilson"; Mary Julia Johnson Wilson, "Some Special Incidents and Stories I Remember About Members of My Father's Family," copy in possession of authors. 13. See Riggs, History of Hatch. 14. Carr, Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 125. 15. Quoted in Riggs, History of Hatch, 93. 16. As told by Weltha Maria Hatch in Riggs, History of Hatch, 14. 17. Riggs, History of Hatch, 20-21. 18. Ibid., 31. 19. Ibid., 32. 20. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 107. 21. John W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 11. See also Larry R. King, The Kings of the Kingdom: The Life of Thomas Rice King and His Family (Orem, UT: Larry R. King, 1996), 91. 22. M. Lane Warner, Grass Valley 1873-1976: A History of Antimony and Her People (Salt Lake City: American Press, 1976), 6. 126 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY 23. Ibid., 7; Pearson Corbett, lacob Hamblin Peacemaker (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973), 367. 24. King, Kings of the Kingdom, 91. 25. Kate Carter, as quoted by Warner, Grass Valley, 13. 26. For names of early residents see Warner, Grass Valley, 14, 69-172; and King, Kings of the Kingdom, 152-53, 178-88. 27. Warner, Grass Valley, 18-19. 28. Ibid., 168. 29. Ibid., 167. 30. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 53.