A History of Garfield County

Establishing Garfield County

CHAPTER 8 ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY W, hen an assassin's bullet struck down the twentieth president of the United States on 2 July 1881 early residents of the aforemen­tioned communities in southern Utah could not have guessed it would have any particular connection to them. Not long after President James A. Garfield's lingering death that September, how­ever, the Utah Territorial Legislature agreed to the formation of a new county in southern Utah that would eventually bear Garfield's name. National politics also influenced the creation, location, and manage­ment of community post offices. During the 1880s local schools were organized into a countywide system. The long arm of national gov­ernment reached into the personal lives of many county residents as it attacked the Mormon practice of polygamy. The decade also pro­duced a new settlement and saw numerous citizens of local towns within and outside of the county periodically gravitate to county locations of pristine beauty to assuage their hardships and trials. The Birth of Garfield County As early as February 1876 the territorial legislature had received a 168 ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 169 James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States, for whom Garfield County was named. (Utah State Historical Society) 170 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY petition from William Sevy and other citizens of Panguitch, then in Iron County, requesting that a new county of their own be formed. The representatives sent the petition to the legislative committee on counties for its consideration.1 It took several years before the Panguitch request bore fruit, but on 8 March 1882 Utah's House passed a bill changing the boundaries of Kane and Washington counties and creating Snow County. The representatives selected this name in honor of Erastus Snow, a LDS church authority who had figured prominently in the settlement of southern Utah. The next day, Utah's upper chamber, or Council, ini­tiated an act that changed the boundaries of Iron County. Later that day, the Council received word through Erastus Snow that Governor Eli H. Murray would approve the formation of the new county if the representatives amended the bill and changed the name of the county to Garfield in honor of the slain president. Snow moved to accept the amendment; the Council passed it and sent the bill to the House, which also approved the change. Later that night, 9 March 1882, Governor Murray signed the bill creating Garfield County.2 The leg­islature defined the boundaries of the new county essentially where they are today, that is, with Piute and Wayne counties on the north­ern boundary, the Colorado River defining the eastern line, Kane County the southern neighbor, and Iron County along the western border. From north to south Garfield County measures forty-two miles, from east to west it averages 124 miles in length. The county comprises 5,234 square miles. The legislature designated Panguitch as the county seat and decided that Garfield would remain connected to Iron County for legislative representation. Garfield also came under the jurisdiction of the Second Judicial District of the Territory, headquartered at Beaver, where court proceedings took place and prisoners were taken to await trial. As officers of the county, the legislature appointed James Henrie, probate judge, and Andrew P. Schow, Ira Elmer, and Jesse W Crosby as selectmen to organize the new county government and to serve until regular elections that fall. These men appointed additional officers mandated by the legislature. They included M.M. Steele, Sr., county clerk; Jesse W. Crosby, county recorder; John Myers, county treasurer; William P. Sargent, prosecuting attorney; ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 171 John E. Myers, sheriff; David Cameron and James B. Heywood, jus­tices of the peace; William Alvey, justice of the peace for Escalante Precinct; Joseph Houston, constable; Enoch Reynolds, road supervi­sor; and Albert DeLong, poundkeeper of Panguitch Precinct.3 When Garfield County residents went to the polls the next year (1883), the following won offices: John Myers, treasurer; Robert P. Allen, assessor and collector; James A. Worthen, recorder; Erastus Beck, James Houston, and Allen Miller, selectmen; John M. Dunning, court clerk; David Cameron, probate judge; John Houston, prosecut­ing attorney; R.C. Pinney, coroner; Joseph Marshall, sheriff; James B. Heywood, superintendent of schools and county surveyor; Joseph S. Barney, constable for Escalante Precinct; James W Pace, constable for Panguitch Precinct; Martin W. Foy and John E. Myers, justices of the peace for Panguitch Precinct.4 During the early years of territorial organization national poli­tics and national political parties held little interest for residents of southern Utah communities. People did not divide along party lines, especially in local elections; usually voters had only one slate to vote for, and civic leaders were usually prominent LDS church leaders as well. Later, LDS voters favored candidates of the People's party; non- Mormons chose those running for the Liberal party. Voters in Garfield County as well as throughout the territory usually did not become members of the Democratic or Republican parties until the 1890s, at which time the local parties were disbanded and the Mormon church agreed to promote the national political parties as a condition of Utah statehood.5 Mail Service in Early Garfield County National politics, however, did influence local affairs in early Garfield County when it came to locating post offices and naming postmasters in each community. Private homes housed the early post offices. At first, mail came to Panguitch through the Little Creek and Bear valleys from Parowan and Beaver. Beaver continued to be the distribution center for Garfield County until 7 August 1890, when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad opened a spur from Thistle through Sevier Canyon to Marysvale in Piute County. As mentioned, William D. Kartchner served as the first postmaster of Panguitch. In 172 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY 1878 John W Norton succeeded him, having built an addition onto his home to accommodate the post office. With each succeeding change in presidential administrations came new people to this posi­tion. From 1889 to 1893 Susan B. Tebbs served the town as post­mistress, the first woman to hold the job in the county.6 Hillsdale was the site of the second post office established in what became Garfield County when Seth Johnson was appointed post­master in December 1872. Others followed Johnson until the Hillsdale office was closed in 1886.7 After the closure townspeople received their mail in a sack delivered from Panguitch. In April 1887, however, the U.S. Postal Service allowed Jerome Asay to establish a new office in Asay (Aaron) and serve as postmaster. Even after the office transferred to Hatchtown, it retained the name of Asay. It was not until the town of Hatch relocated to its present site that the post office carried the town's name. During the late 1880s and early 1890s Neils Ivor Clove, J.C. Barnhurst, Annie M. Barnhurst, and William R. Riggs succeeded one another in directing the Hatchtown post office. One of the early mail carriers from the area was Abram S. Workman. His contract specified that he carry mail from Panguitch to Kanab-a distance of about seventy-five miles. During the summer months this presented no real challenges, but winter was another story. Abram wrote: "It was a job to try the metal of any man. The mail had to go six days a week, no matter what the weather. . . . There were times when I got on snow shoes and, with the mail sack on my shoulder, went to face the weather."8 He recalled deep snow and drifts that sometimes piled up to ten feet. Although he did not specify how much he earned, he did say that when he got a new contract after his first term of four years expired he received an additional $450 per year. At that time there were few jobs that paid in cash, so he figured he made out quite well. In Escalante the townspeople lacked regular mail service for the first three years of the town's existence. As various citizens made the sixty-three-mile trip to Panguitch they would bring back with them any mail for other residents. On 2 January 1879 David R. Adams was appointed to be Escalante's first postmaster. Robert P. Allen succeeded Adams in 1881 and located the office in a store that occupied one room of his home. While Allen sorted the newly arrived mail the ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 173 townspeople often gathered in his yard and used the occasion for impromptu entertainment, "complete with musical instruments." Allen then "would call out the name on each letter, and the owner or a member of his family would claim the letter at the small window."9 After the establishment of the Escalante co-op store, clerk Rob Adams moved the post office to the store. The first post office in the Coyote (Antimony) area was known as the Otter Creek Post Office. It was built at Clover Flat in the mid- 1880s, about five miles north of the present town. Jim Forshey ran the office for a few years until it was moved to Wilmont, also located on Coyote Flat, just north of the Garfield County line in Piute County.10 John D. Wilcox took over at this new location. Mail came by horseback once a week from Junction. It wasn't until 1896 that Antimony had its first post office in town, located about one block south of the present LDS chapel. Henry J. McCullough, son of Mormon Battalion member Levi Hamilton McCullough, became postmaster.11 As mentioned, Henrieville's first post office began serving the community in 1883 when William Thompson became the postmas­ter. Mail service there later was suspended for about two years, at which time local residents again received their mail from a combina­tion post office/blacksmith shop when Melissa (or Melicia) Ingram was appointed postmaster and her husband, Joseph, ran the shop. For a period of time Seth Johnson carried mail from Panguitch to the upper Paria River Valley. On one occasion, as he was making a trip from Pahreah to Cannonville, he reached a part of the route that took him through a narrow canyon with perpendicular walls on either side. At a point called "Devil's Elbow" he encountered a flash flood. Hurriedly unhitching his horses from the wagon, he grabbed the mail sack and headed for higher ground. Upon reaching what he thought was a safe distance above the flood, he watched in alarm as the waters rose dangerously close to his perch. Just as they were about to reach him, the waters began to subside and he finally could continue on his way. As for his wagon, he surmised that "it was on the way to the Pacific Ocean."12 Similar to almost everything else in the pioneering experience, mail service was fraught with hazards. 174 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Education Shortly after the creation of Garfield County, an administration headed by Superintendent of Common Schools James B. Heywood created six school districts on 1 May 1882.13 The six included Cannonville, Clover Flat (Antimony), Escalante, Bear Creek (Spry), Hillsdale, and Panguitch. M.M. Steele and William P. Sargent served with Heywood as board members. Heywood was also a member of the county board of school examiners and functioned as the county surveyor as well. Each district had three elected school trustees, whose duties were "to superintend the school in their respective dis­tricts." These boards were concerned with the construction of schools and collecting taxes to support them. They hired the teachers, secured furnishings and textbooks, and provided fuel to heat the buildings. Although the local boards had the power to levy school taxes, the main source of funds to pay teachers came from tuition-generally about three dollars for a ten-week term. In addition, the territorial government assessed three mills on the dollar in property taxes to help fund district schools. In a report issued at the close of 1883, Heywood pronounced the Panguitch district to be in fairly good shape. There were two schools, with 160 students "taught by two competent teachers, with one assis­tant." He considered these schools to be well furnished with desks and supplies. He also stated, however, that the Hillsdale, Cannonville, and Bear Creek districts were supporting only about one term of school per year, that the teachers were underqualified, and that the district populations were scattered. Hatchtown (presumably within the Hillsdale district) actually began holding school as early as 1879, when Abram S. Workman taught local children in one of the bedrooms of the Mary Ann Ellis Hatch home. He only taught for two months, however, and wrote that he "did not realize much from the venture."14 Schooling resumed in Hatchtown in 1882 when the county and school districts were organized. Mary Ann Clove taught the children of Hatchtown in her own home periodically over the next several years. Some of the area's other early teachers included Lucy Windsor from St. George, Lizzie Bell (the first to teach in the new log schoolhouse), Rebecca Wilson, ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 175 James B. Burrow, and Adolph G. McClasky, "a small man of Spanish descent" whose students finally had "real" school desks provided by the school district. Both parents and children remembered James Burrow as one who believed in posting mottoes above windows and doors for the moral education of his pupils.15 In his report, Heywood judged the Escalante district, with a com­parable population as Panguitch, to be operating on a sub-par level, as it had only one primary school in a poorly furnished house. The superintendent wrote, "There is evidence of lack of interest in this district, which, in my official visits, I have endeavored to improve."16 Figures provided by Heywood indicate that by the end of 1883 there were 296 children between the ages of six and eighteen enrolled in county schools out of the 445 school-age children living in the county districts. Eight teachers taught these students. Their job would have been difficult at best, with an average classroom load of thirty-seven students for each teacher, and most taught multiple grades at the same time and in the same facility. Given that some teachers had fewer students than the average, many classrooms had an even larger student/teacher ratio. Interestingly-but not surprisingly for the period-male teachers earned nearly twice as much as their female colleagues. Men earned an average of $41.34 a month, compared to $25.20 for women. Unfortunately, Heywood's report does not cri­tique the qualifications of those teaching in the county. The superintendent also failed to include in his report the edu­cation situation in one of its districts during the time period-the district of Clover Flat (the Coyote, or Antimony, area). By 1883 the population in Coyote had increased to the point that residents decided to build their own schoolhouse, since the facility at Clover Flat was about five miles away. While the new one-room structure was under construction, local children attended school in a portion of the George Black home, with Esther Clarinda King Black teaching the classes. She, along with Joe Dameron, also taught in the newly completed school, referred to as both the Marion Ward School and the Coyote School.17 This building was deemed insufficient by 1887. Across the road to the west the townspeople built a new edifice to serve as school, church, and hall for social gatherings. In her diary, Irene King recalled her reaction to this new school, which was a 28- 176 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Cannonville School. (Courtesy Dorothy Leavitt) by-40-foot building: "It looked mammoth to we children. . . . There were t h r e e windows on each side, about a 12 or 14 foot stage on which stood the neat, homemade pulpit and b o o k cupboard." She also recalled that a Mr. Winters taught a singing school in the facil­ity. Her description of the dances and entertainments that took place in the school revealed that they were similar to those in other small towns in the county and across the territory: John Smoot was a fine singer and entertainer. . . . One song we loved to hear him sing was "Coons, Have You Ever Seen My Sweet Susanne?" Aurella [Smoot] used to sing with him. Then John Wilcox, the town comedian and mimic, always gave comic read­ings and songs. . . . Many a time the sun would be coming over the mountain as we were going home.18 As for county school organization as a whole, the next few years saw John M. Dunning, James A. Worthen, and George Dodds succeed one another as district superintendents. Dodds especially h a d a rep­utation for being an outstanding educator. Educators in each district respected his ideas and professionalism. Serving as Dodds's assistant, John C. Swensen, who later became a professor of sociology at ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 177 Brigham Young University (BYU), related his impressions after tour­ing the district schools in 1892. He mentioned, in particular, John Dunning of Cannonville as being "an effective old-time teacher. I recall very distinctly a twelve-tail switch in the corner of the room which aided materially in his discipline."19 In addition to the other schools in the county, he visited the school in Escalante, taught at that time by Walter M. Woolf, who also later became a professor at BYU. Perhaps this fact can be seen as an indication that the quality of edu­cation in Escalante had improved since Heywood's earlier report. A half century later, Swenson wrote: "The schools at that time were somewhat ungraded and from our present point of view, somewhat primitive, nevertheless, they served a useful social and educational purpose."20 Superintendent George Dodds's statistical report for 1890 indi­cated an increase in students, with 496 enrolled out of 748 school-age children living in Garfield County. The students were taught by thirteen teachers; thus, the average student/teacher ratio had increased by one-to thirty-eight pupils per teacher. A seventh dis­trict had been added to the county. Although the record is not clear what that district was, evidence indicates it was Henrieville, since a later report lists that town among the seven districts. In 1890 the Utah Territorial Assembly passed a law doing away with all tuition charges for schoolchildren aged six through eighteen. In addition, it passed a companion compulsory school-attendance law that specified that children between six and fourteen years of age had to attend school at least twenty weeks out of each school year. According to Effel Riggs, in Garfield County these provisions "liter­ally filled the school house."21 Polygamy The 1880s became one of the most disruptive but interesting decades since the Black Hawk War years of the 1860s, as confronta­tion increased between Mormon church members and federal offi­cials over the Mormon practice of plural marriage. LDS church members considered the practice to be a divinely inspired tenet of their religion, but outsiders regarded it not only as an abomination but also as a violation of the law of the land. Although Congress had 178 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY passed and President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti- Bigamy Act in 1862, that law seemed only a minor threat to the prac­tice of polygamy among LDS church members because it included few enforcement provisions. The nation also was preoccupied with the Civil War and then Reconstruction. But when the Mormon church decided to test the constitutionality of certain sections of the Morrill Act, the Supreme Court ruled against it, causing antagonism towards polygamy to intensify. Congress subsequently passed, and President Chester A. Arthur signed, the Edmunds Act of 1882, which made unlawful cohabitation a misdemeanor, disfranchised polygamists, and prohibited them from holding public office or serving on juries. It also permitted counts of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation to be combined in the same indictment. Along with these provisions, a board of five presi­dential appointees, known as the Utah Commission, replaced elec­tion officers in the territory.22 Anti-polygamy raids on Mormon households began throughout the territory in 1884. It became a time of turmoil for many families, as fathers-and sometimes mothers-went into hiding, causing both emotional and financial hardships. Deputy U.S. marshals, who were paid well for apprehending polygamists, were determined in their efforts, and Garfield County Latter-day Saints were as committed to frustrating those efforts as were Mormons in other counties through­out the territory.23 Certainly not all the LDS families who lived in Garfield County were polygamous, but enough were to cause unrest for the residents when the federal government began to put teeth in the laws pro­hibiting the practice. Also, since most residents belonged to the LDS faith, they openly defended the practice against outside attacks. Most of the early prominent leaders in the various county settlements had more than one wife. George Sevy of Panguitch, Meltiar Hatch of Panguitch and later Hatchtown, Andrew Schow of Escalante, and Seth Johnson of Hillsdale and later the Cannonville area are just a few examples of polygamous Mormon men. The Thomas King family that established the Mormon united order in Kingston had little experience with the practice. Thomas was sealed to another woman, Rebecca Henry, but the two never lived ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 179 together as husband and wife. When asked why Thomas did not take another wife, his first wife, Matilda, replied that he "was never cut out for a polygamist-he don't know how to go about it."24 A son, Thomas Edwin, lived in polygamy for a brief period; however, after his first wife died, leaving him with just one wife, he did not marry again. His brother John Robison and sister Delilah both had monog­amous marriages. Although brother Volney wanted to adopt the practice, his wife, Eliza, made it clear that if he took another wife "he would still be left a monogamist."25 Another brother, William, mar­ried Mary Ann Henry after the death of his first wife. When church leaders put pressure on him to take another wife or have his bishopric taken away he married Lucy White. Although Mary Ann acknowl­edged that Lucy was a good person, she could never be reconciled to living "the Principle," as plural marriage was known to Mormons, and at times made William's life miserable over the issue. William King never went to prison over polygamy, although he was indicted by a grand jury in 1885. In 1886 he hastened off to a church mission in Hawaii. He was arrested when he returned in 1890 but pled guilty and was fined. He never served prison time or paid the fine. Culbert King of Coyote was not as fortunate. He became one of the community leaders who went to prison for violating the Edmunds Act. Of all the King family he was the most active polyga­mist. He married and lived with three women, who together bore him twenty-four children. In 1885 Culbert attempted to hide out in the mountains to avoid capture by federal marshals after his indict­ment; however, he finally turned himself in to avoid harm coming to his family. Judge Jacob Boreman in Beaver, well-known for his active prosecution of polygamists, handed King the usual sentence of six months in the penitentiary and fined him $300 plus court costs. He served from 25 December 1885 to 28 June 1886. Future church pres­ident Lorenzo Snow and future apostle Rudger Clawson were num­bered among his fellow inmates.26 At the time he was sent to prison, Culbert King served as bishop of the Marion LDS Ward in Coyote. John D. Wilcox then took over as presiding elder, since both of King's counselors were away from the area. Isaac Riddle, also a polygamist and the ward's first counselor, 180 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY had left on an exploring mission for the church in Arizona, and James E. Peterson, the second counselor, had gone on a mission to the southern states. Wilcox presided in the area until Peterson could be recalled from his mission and assume leadership until King was released.27 As with most inmates who served time for polygamy, Culbert King returned home to a hero's welcome-complete with a picnic and public speeches. To members of the LDS church, these men were martyrs for the faith, not ex-convicts. Polygamous wives also sometimes suffered incarceration. This could occur when plural wives received a subpoena to testify against their husbands in court and then refused to take the oath or to give testimony. This prompted judges to find them in contempt of court, and U.S. marshals took them into custody. To avoid this scenario, many plural wives chose to go into hiding similar to that of their hus­bands. About the time of the settlement of Cannonville, civil authorities aggressively sought out those practicing polygamy in the area. Apparently these federal marshals traveled about in "white-topped buggies [which were] light spring wagons painted red, with white canvas tops." Locals could see them from a distance traveling between the fields before they reached the community. The alarm quickly spread, so the hunted had time to hide. Some local Mormons did end up serving prison time for adhering to the Principle.28 A grandson of Martha Jane Stratton Johnson later wrote about his grandmother's situation. Martha, the plural wife of Seth Johnson, Sr., came to the Paria Valley in 1886 from Hillsdale. According to her grandson, she had to live in many "out of the way places under adverse conditions" as "she was in almost constant fear of being caught and taken to prison."29 Indeed, records indicate that Martha Johnson lived at various times at Paria (Pahriah) and Georgetown in Kane County and at Cannonville and Tropic in Garfield County. President Wilford Woodruff's Manifesto dated 6 October 1890 and issued because of enormous federal pressure on the Mormon church and its properties advised Mormons not to contract new polygamous marriages, and, although church members ratified the measure, many continued to live in polygamy. Some church leaders and members even contracted such unions after that date. This ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 181 resulted in continued conviction and prison time for many of the offenders. Some polygamous families made their own trouble. A case in point was shoemaker John M. Dunning, Garfield's first county super­intendent of schools and the first county clerk. Dunning also pub­lished The Cactus, Garfield's first newspaper, and he had two wives, Lydia and Debbie. That these two women disliked each other was no secret in Panguitch. Soon after Dunning died unexpectedly in 1897 at age forty-two, Debbie moved with her children back to Beaver, where she had lived before her marriage. But the thought of John still being close to Lydia in Panguitch-albeit in the cemetery-rankled her. A Salt Lake Tribune reporter uncovered the story nearly a hun­dred years later: Debbie enlisted the help of a brother-in-law with a horse and wagon. They made the long trip to Panguitch, . . . and by dark of night dug up John Dunning, loaded him and his tombstone on the wagon, leaving the base of the stone in the cemetery where it still remains. . . . When the sexton went to the cemetery . . . the next day, he discovered the empty grave and went into town to report that someone had stolen John Dunning. The town was in an uproar. Lydia wanted the sheriff to go to Beaver and arrest Debbie for grave robbing, but he told her he couldn't do that because Debbie had been married to John, too.30 No one is sure how the gravestone, which was more t h a n three feet high and weighed several hundred pounds, ended u p in a canyon near Castle Creek, half buried in the sand; but that is where young David Herrell found it many years later while on a camping t r ip with his family. Carved in the stone were the words "John M. Dunning, Feb. 26, 1854, May 21, 1879." The Villa Park, California, family returned to the area on a later t r ip and decided to take the gravestone home with them, where it remained in their yard until 1989. At that time, they decided to r e t u r n the tombstone to Panguitch, where it resides today.31 Boulder: A New Community for a New County Once again the quest for virgin range for livestock stimulated the founding of another village in Garfield County-the town of 182 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Boulder. Positioned the farthest east of any of the county's settle­ments, it has always been one of the most isolated towns in Utah. This condition is rapidly changing today, however, because the com­munity is located along upgraded Utah Highway 12, judged by many to be one of the nation's most scenic highways. As early as 1879 stockmen started to bring their herds to the east­ern slope of Boulder Mountain, which was so named on Almon Thompson's 1872 map. Nicoli Johnson, William Meeks, and Willard Brinkerhoff drove their cattle from Richfield to this range. August Nielson was among those who followed, and he built a corral of aspen poles for the fall round-up. By the early 1880s the new range-land beckoned several other herdsmen, including those tending cattle belonging to LDS church cooperatives. In 1887 Wise Cooper and John King helped Mack Webb of Oak City bring 300 head of horses to the mountain area. Still later, Alma Durfey from Rabbit Valley north of Boulder Mountain in present Wayne County brought in his herd. After spending much of the summer on the mountain, the horse herds drifted to rangeland at lower elevations southeast of the mountain as winter arrived. Meanwhile, dairying had become a lucrative enterprise in Rabbit Valley, where the products produced found a ready market in Richfield and Fillmore. Amasa Lyman and his family worked at one of the dairies owned by Frank Haws. In September 1888 Lyman and his wife, Rosanna, decided to take a break from their chores. They saddled up two horses, brought along a picnic lunch, and went exploring. Their travel took them south and east around Boulder Mountain as they enjoyed the golden aspens against the backdrop of green foothills. Eventually, after crossing Boulder Creek, they came to the head of a long valley that stretched to the south. They stopped beside a clear stream, and within the shade of pine trees they ate their lunch and made the decision to return to this valley to homestead the following spring. Amasa Lyman and his twelve-year-old son Vern left Grover in Rabbit Valley in April 1889 with a wagonload of supplies to establish a new homestead. As they traveled through the foothills east of Boulder Mountain, they first used a logging road and then followed a cow trail, chopping down trees and removing numerous boulders to ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 183 An old postcard depicts a stake and rider fence near Boulder made from posts cut to clear the land. A few of these fences still stand which were described as "horse high, bull strong, and hog and sheep tight." get their wagon through. Sam Shefield and a Mr. Myers from Colorado soon caught up with them with their own light wagon filled with provisions. Eventually the group encountered huge snow­drifts by Oak Creek that forced them to abandon their wagons, load­ing as much as they could on their horses. Shefield hefted a hand plow onto his shoulders and carried it into the valley. They reached a round-up corral at Pine Springs, where the Lymans decided to estab­lish their homestead. Shefield and Myers continued on farther west and south to locate their own homesteads. As Lyman and his son began clearing their land, they discovered an old ditch, undoubtedly dug by Native Americans years before. Father and son spent most of May lengthening the ditch, eventually diverting water from Deer Creek onto their chosen land. When warm weather continued, they left to recover their wagon and take it back to Grover to bring the rest of the family to their new home. The Lyman family then camped out all summer and planted alfalfa, field corn, and other vegetables; but the corn did not ripen before winter came. Two other early settlers in the area, George Baker and Willard 184 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Brinkerhoff, followed the Lymans to Rabbit Valley in October 1889. Baker had partial ownership in the corral at Pine Springs and offered its ponderosa pine logs to Lyman to begin building his cabin east of Deer Creek. Lyman also hauled some lumber from a sawmill in Rabbit Valley, and by December the family had a home with a dirt roof, a lumber floor, and a door-rather nice accommodations for such recently arrived pioneers. Rosanna Lyman built a fireplace of flagstone and clay. During the winter local game they were able to hunt augmented their food sup­plies. Amasa spent the winter months reading to the children from the Bible and having them memorize scriptures. He also taught them songs and poems. Rosanna became skillful at making buckskin gloves and coats for her family and later sold some for profit. The following year, in September 1890, Rosanna gave birth to stillborn premature twin daughters and the saddened family buried them under a big pine tree on the homestead. In the meantime, Shefield and Myers had explored the valley and foothills for a week. Myers decided to return to Rabbit Valley and thence to Colorado, but Sam Shefield staked his claim in what is now the central part of Boulder where the schoolhouse stands. The ground there had been previously cultivated by Native Americans. Indeed, just northwest of his land Shefield came upon ruins where he found pottery, arrowheads, and grinding stones strewn about the area. Having brought corn seed with him, Shefield soaked it overnight and planted it the next day. He then built a small dam on Deer Creek and dug a ditch to carry water to his corn patch. Unlike that of the Lymans, his corn grew and ripened in time to harvest that year, the first successful corn crop grown in that valley by white settlers. Shefield also built a small cabin with a horse corral close by. Sam Shefield became known for his generous nature, as he helped out many of his fellow settlers. On one occasion, during a harsh winter when the Lyman food supply ran dangerously low, their son Vern walked over the Death Hollow trail to Escalante. When he reached town he ran into Shefield, who purchased a 100-pound sack of flour for the family at the Riddle gristmill and loaned the boy a horse to take it back to his family.32 ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 185 When George Baker and Willard Brinkerhoff paid a visit to the Lymans that first autumn of 1889, they decided to claim some land of their own. Lyman and Shefield rode with them to find a suitable location. Instead of a homestead plot, the two decided to each take up a desert entry claim of 640 acres, as provided for by the Homestead Act. Brinkerhoff chose an area in lower Boulder; Baker picked out some property to the northwest of his friend's place. The following spring they came back and made arrangements to have water diverted onto their land through ditches and a canal, accessing both Deer Creek and Boulder Creek. Although Brinkerhoff contin­ued to come each spring to work his land, he never settled in the area. Finally, in 1897 he sold it to Baker's father, William Baker of Richfield. In September 1890 George Baker averted a possible altercation with some Paiute Indians who took exception to white settlement in an area they used for hunting. Baker gave the roving band a pony as payment for the land, which seemed to satisfy them. Before winter set in Baker had the men who dug his canal help him raise his log cabin. The following spring he brought lumber to complete his home. In 1891 Baker brought his wife, Amanda Jensen Baker, with their four daughters and one son to the Boulder area to live. Eventually Baker had to relocate his residence to higher ground to the north when the area around his house became too swampy and his orchard suffered from poor drainage. Along with George and Amanda Baker came Franklin and Wilhelmine (Minnie) Smith Haws and their family, who staked a claim for themselves. Although the land was north of the Baker entry, with land on both sides of Boulder Creek, Frank Haws built his fam­ily's cabin close to that of the Bakers so when he was away riding the range his family would not be alone. That same year, the men built a road from Haws's pasture to the Baker property. Minnie Haws served the community as midwife for many years. She not only helped deliver babies but also cared for mother and child for ten days free of charge. George Baker's brother, Henry, also took up land in the Boulder area. He came in 1891 and began to clear land and grow alfalfa. He built a two-room log house, complete with fireplace and a garden spot nearby. Although Henry Baker came each summer to tend to his 186 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Wilhemine (Minnie) Smith Haws, a midwife and, with her husband Frank, among the first settlers of Boulder. (Courtesy Fay Jepson) acreage, his wife, Hannah Ramsay Baker, and three sons did not leave Richfield and come to live in the home until 1897. A very proper lady who never appeared in public without hat and gloves, Hannah Baker insisted that the new community be called Boulder at a meeting held at the schoolhouse to discuss the naming of the settlement. Hannah Baker's mother, Elizabeth Ramsay, also came to live with the family. A handcart pioneer to Utah, in her declining years Mrs. Ramsay had mental lapses, at which times she thought she was still taking a handcart to Zion. The Bakers had a small express wagon which she would commandeer and pull down the road to the Haws residence. Minnie Haws's daughters would meet her along the road and help her get to their mother's place, where some tea awaited her. After her third cup of tea and a visit with Minnie, she would return home, with young Ralph Haws keeping an eye on her from a discreet distance.33 ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 187 Other early settlers in Boulder included Frank Haws's mother and stepfather, John and Sariah Hilman Haws Safely. Safely was known by locals as the "old Union soldier" because he fought in the Mexican War. Frank Haws's sister and her husband, Dora and Fred Simons, and their children also came to upper Boulder, where they settled on a homestead next to the Safelys. When William Baker bought the Brinkerhoff desert entry, more of his children moved to Boulder. The elder Baker never did live there himself, but he subdi­vided his land for his offspring, who included Ruth Rio and her hus­band, James C. Peters, who came during the 1890s. Other siblings and their mates followed later. Willis and Louise Thompson, William and Harriet Elmer Osborn, and Christian and Mary Justett Moosman were additional early settlers who remained long enough to have an impact on the new community of Boulder. Another settlement southwest of the town's present site, an area called Salt Gulch, was homesteaded by Ben McGath and his partner, a well-educated German named Jabours; Cal and Josepha Shefield Gresham, who was Sam's sister; Warren and Margaret Aveline McCartney Ogden and their family of six; and John and Sally May Stringham King and their three children. These last three families had been living in Escalante. The Kings were known for their friendly hospitality; John especially had an outgoing personality and keen sense of humor. Salt Creek became the main source of irrigation water for the Salt Gulch settlers. William Osborn, Jr., and Warren Ogden constructed a wagon road to Sand Creek, where they installed a whipsaw they had acquired. With this they made lumber for a flume that carried water from the head of Sand Creek across a lava bed and to a ditch they dug to their acreage. Warren and his sons also rebuilt some wagon roads in the area, making the trip from Escalante less hazardous. Sparsely populated Boulder had no school, a fact that concerned its residents. In October 1892 the Lymans decided to move to Escalante so that their children could be educated. Rosanna Lyman and her daughters made a large quantity of cheese that year, so the family felt they could afford the move. However, the road to Escalante was treacherous and made for a very difficult trip. By the spring of 1894 the family decided to move back to Boulder; they were worried 188 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY * ' • ; ' ! Ice Cutting in Boulder. The ice was cut in the winter and packed in sawdust and lasted throughout the summer to provide the only refrigeration avail­able. (Courtesy Fay Jepson) about holding on to their land as more settlers moved into the val­ley. The return trip seemed even more difficult than the one two years before, partly because Rosanna was pregnant. When they finally made it to their cabin door the family rejoiced to be "home" again. On 10 October midwife Minnie Haws helped in the delivery of a baby boy to Rosanna and Amasa Lyman, the valley's first birth of a white child who lived. Meanwhile, the Haws and Baker families traveled each fall to Thurber (known as Bicknell since 1924) in Rabbit Valley in order that their children could attend school. Each spring they came back to Boulder. On one return trip the Haws brought an organ wrapped in quilts to protect it on the bumpy mountain road. Finally, during the spring of 1896, Frank Haws, Amasa Lyman, and George Baker made the trip to Panguitch to meet with school superintendent George Dodds. They told Dodds they wanted to remain on their land in Boulder but that they needed schooling for their children. Dodds assured them that in a year or two the county would be able to build them a schoolhouse and supply them with a teacher. The three men ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 189 Boulder's first post office was in this home. (Utah State Historical Society) declared that if the county could send a teacher they would have a schoolhouse built by fall. Sam Shefield donated to the community the piece of ground where he had built his cabin and corral in order that the one-room log schoolhouse could be built in central Boulder; he then relocated to what was known as Upper Boulder, on the west side of Deer Creek. Amasa Lyman, George Baker, Frank Haws, Willis Thompson, Chris Moosman, Sam Shefield, and the older boys in the settlement con­tributed labor to the project. Each father built the desks for his own children. There were long wooden benches, some built lower for the smaller children. Nineteen pupils attended classes taught by John Houston of Panguitch from November to the end of March. The stu­dents rode horses from their homesteads to the school, bringing their lunches in buckets. As was the case in other Garfield communities, the schoolhouse became the local meetinghouse and social hall for church, parties, and dances. Frank Haws and John Safely played music for the dances, which generally lasted until the ladies served supper at midnight. The 190 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Mail carrier Franklin Hansen ready to leave Boulder for Escalante. (USDA Forest Service) adults lingered to visit over coffee and dessert while their little chil­dren slept on quilts laid out on the floor next to the wall. Boulder's isolation created ongoing problems when it came to mail service. Townspeople were dependant on visiting relatives, friends, and even strangers to bring letters into town. Although most mail eventually reached its destination, the settlers finally decided to take matters into their own hands. The men took turns once a month carrying the town's mail on horseback to Escalante, where they col­lected the incoming mail and personally delivered it when they returned. Boulder residents had to wait until 1902 to finally get their first post office. The LDS church did not have any organization in the settlement until church president Lorenzo Snow authorized Victor E. Bean, who was moving to Boulder from Richfield, to begin a Sunday School in 1898. Members and non-members attended the meetings and sang songs together. A few times Sunday School was held in the homes of Salt Gulch settlers, sometimes even in those owned by non- Mormons. After these meetings everyone ate dinner together. They especially enjoyed those meals prepared by Margaret Ogden, who was ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 191 an exceptional cook. Administration of LDS ecclesiastical affairs in Boulder came under the direction of the Thurber Ward in Wayne Stake during this early period. Panguitch Lake About the time Garfield County was organized, great changes were occurring south of Panguitch-around the lake from which the community derived its name. Many residents involved with the sec­ond settlement of Panguitch located second homes and ranches around Panguitch Lake. They built a crude dam across the outlet of the lake to enlarge the capacity, with the intention of storing some water from the spring runoff.34 They also cleared the surrounding land, creating wide meadows and pastures ideal for dairy and sheep herds. Along with the dairy products from the vicinity, mountain trout from the lake and the many streams that fed it became a lucra­tive- seemingly inexhaustible-export for the residents. As the lake developed into a more important source of irrigation water for Panguitch residents, they replaced the old dam in the 1880s with a masonry structure several feet high. Over the years its height has been increased from time to time to ensure greater storage capac­ity, benefiting especially those farming the south and west fields of Panguitch. During that same time and into the early 1890s, Panguitch Lake also became important as a recreational center for residents of the county and for visitors from more distant locales. Those employed at the Silver Reef mines, long-time customers of the bounty from the lake and surrounding dairy ranches, began to come in large numbers to vacation at the lake, where they usually camped on the James S. Montague property to the south. The area soon became known as "Little Silver Reef." James Montague and his wife ran the first hotel in the area. Guests considered Mrs. Montague to be an excellent cook, and her trout dinners became well-known attractions. The lake developed into a popular destination for Independence Day and Pioneer Day celebrants, with festivities lasting up to a week for each occasion. Southern Utah residents commemorated these holidays with other tourists, church dignitaries, and even some Indians, who were doubtless more intent on the festivities than the 192 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY & • ' • * ' .•» Pioneer Day celebration at Panguitch Lake on 24 July 1894. (Utah State Historical Society) occasions, neither of which they had much cause to celebrate. Local Native Americans, usually Paiutes, camped on a knoll not far from the white settlement and contributed to the festive mood by staging games and dances of their own. They welcomed white spectators to take part around their giant campfires. Interest naturally spawned entrepreneurial activities related to recreation. A Mr. Fennemore from Beaver included a mile-long straight racetrack as part of a resort he established near the Montague Hotel. The track attracted racing enthusiasts from throughout the territory and surrounding states. Vacationers also attended foot races, prize fights, and wrestling matches. A group of prominent Panguitch men later formed a company that built a circular racetrack, complete with grandstand and stables. Three members of this organization, John F. Chidester, William T. Owens, Sr., and George E. Hanks, con­structed a dance pavilion on the lake's south shore during the early 1890s; it was reputed to be the largest south of Salt Lake City. This trio also built Panguitch's first large dance hall. These men and other Panguitch musicians provided the music for large crowds of dancers, sometimes so many that they had to take turns coming to the dance ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 193 floor. In addition to dances, the pavilion became the venue for plays and other entertainment, some presented by traveling stock compa­nies, including the Stuts Company of New York City and the Colmenia Pratt and Redic companies. Personal dramas also added to the lake's fame. On one occasion a leading lady of the Stuts Company, Mable Rico, almost drowned in the lake, perhaps in a suicide attempt. James Ipson, who was return­ing to his home on the north side of the lake after attending a dance, came upon an overturned boat and found Rico. After pulling the unconscious actress aboard his craft, he rowed back to the resort. She survived the ordeal. Another drama did not turn out so happily. During a Pioneer Day celebration in 1895, a likable young Paiute known as Wint was enjoying himself and visiting with friends at a saloon by the lake. Before long, however, a group of drunken white men entered the saloon. One of their number, a man from Texas by the name of Frank Hagglestead, boasted that he was going to shoot Wint's hat off his head. In his inebriated condition he missed and the bullet entered Wint's head, killing him instantly. Hagglestead fled the scene. Local authorities avoided a serious confrontation when they assured the local Indians that Hagglestead would be brought to jus­tice. He actually turned himself in to authorities rather than risk apprehension and vengeance by the local Native Americans. After spending some time in the Panguitch jail, Frank Hagglestead was transferred to Beaver, where he received a sentence of sixteen years in the state prison and had to give assurance that he would leave the state after he served his term. The residents of the lake made it their home during the summer months. To provide for their ecclesiastical needs, local Mormon church authorities organized a ward in the early 1880s under the direction of James H. Imlay. Thirty-five Mormon families met in the Montague home; William Prince served as the presiding elder. Two circumstances brought an end to the huge popularity of Panguitch Lake. The first occurred in 1896 after Utah statehood when a law passed the first state assembly prohibiting horse racing and its associated gambling. This had been one of the lake's biggest draws. Then came the introduction of a different type of fish into the lake. 194 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Concerned that the native mountain trout had been overharvested, the Utah Fish and Game Commission restocked the lake with chubs, which eventually filled the lake and ruined the trout fishing. Panguitch residents remembered the two game wardens who intro­duced chubs into the lake-their names were Walker and Sharp. Later, residents called chubs "sharp-walkers."35 Interest in the lake declined in the area, and the resort and its buildings fell into disre­pair. It would be several decades before Panguitch Lake enjoyed a resurgence in reputation. The lake, however, remained from a scenic point of view much as it did when Andrew Jensen described it in 1891: If the scenery from the shore or a neighboring peak is grand and awe inspiring, the view obtained from the center of the lake is dou­bly so. The transparent water, in which the mountains cast their shadows all around, the numerous crags, cliffs, massive rock walls, canyons, meadows, forests, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, which greets the eye in every direction, fills every admirer of the wonderful creations of the Almighty with lofty and sublime thought, and fills the heart with respect and reverence for Him who created "the heavens and earth, the sea and the fountains of water."36 In addition to the creation of a new community within Garfield County, towns that had been established earlier experienced healthy growth. By 1890 Panguitch boasted a population of 1,015 residents, Hillsdale 333, Escalante 667, and Cannonville 273.37 Although no offi­cial population figures exist for Antimony during the 1880s, the Mormon church's Marion Ward in Grass Valley had 147 members divided among twenty-nine families in 1889.38 Since not all residents within the valley were Latter-day Saints, the area's population figure would have been a little higher. Within the next several years Garfield County would have two new communities established and one relocated. One of the new settlements endured; the other was short-lived. The next decade also produced statehood for Utah, thus bringing about additional changes in the county. ESTABLISHING GARFIELD COUNTY 195 ENDNOTES 1. Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, Twenty-second session, 1876, 108, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City. 2. Council Journal of the Twenty-fifth Session of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1882, 251, Utah State Archives. 3. Ida Chidester and Eleanor Bruhn, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County, 29. 4. Election results and copies of certificates of elections obtained from Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City. 5. Walter Kirk Daly, "The Settling of Panguitch Valley, Utah: A Study in Mormon Colonization" (Master's thesis, University of California, 1941), 61. 6. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 283-84. 7. Effel Harmon Burrow Riggs, History of Hatch Utah and Associated Towns Asay and Hillsdale, 304. 8. Ibid., 299. 9. Nethella Griffin Woolsey, The Escalante Story: 1875-1964, 197. 10. M. Lane Warner, Grass Valley 1873-1976, 18. 11. Ibid., Appendix, 17. 12. "Seth Johnson Family History," 17-18. 13. J. Oral Christensen, "The History of Education in Garfield County, Utah" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1949), 59. 14. Riggs, History of Hatch, 282. 15. Ibid., 215-16. 16. Christensen, "Education in Garfield County," 61. 17. Warner, Grass Valley, 21. 18. Ibid., 24. 19. Christensen, "Education in Garfield County," 64. 20. Ibid., 64. 21. Ibid., 65. 22. Stan Larson, ed., Prisoner for Polygamy: The Memoirs and Letters of Rudger Clawson at the Utah Territorial Penitentiary, 1884-87 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 3-4. 23. Ibid. 24. As quoted in Larry R. King, The Kings of the Kingdom: The Life of Thomas Rice King and His Family, 131. 25. Ibid., 132. 196 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY 26. Ibid., 134-36, 27. Warner, Grass Valley, 22, 142. 28. George W. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 6. 29. "Seth Johnson Family History," 3. 30. Salt Lake Tribune, 8 October 1989, 6B. 31. Ibid. 32. Lenora Hall LeFevre, The Boulder Country and Its People, 72. 33. Ibid., 29. 34. See Daly, "Settling of Panguitch Valley," 68-76, and Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 216-25. 35. Information furnished by Marilyn Jackson, Escalante. 36. As quoted in Daly, "Settling of Panguitch Valley," 75. 37. Allan Kent Powell, ed., Utah History Encyclopedia, 434-35. 38. Warner, Grass Valley, Appendix, 179.