Utah Historical Quarterly Volume XII

Early explorations

EARLY EXPLORATIONS 123 Early Explorations Zion Canyon was known to the Indians from time immemorial, but its discovery by white men, so far as is known, dates only from the middle of the 19th century. However, the series of explora­tions in this region which finally led to its discovery cover the period of three quarters of a century beginning in 1776. In that year a party of Spaniards passed through the region and crossed the Virgin River within twenty miles of Zion Canyon without knowing of its proximity. This was the remarkable ex­pedition led by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante through por­tions of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. The object of the expedition was two- fold. The Spanish government desired a direct route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Presidio of Mon­terey, California, and the priests themselves had dreams of found­ing new Indian missions in the unexplored territory beyond the Colorado River. The governor of New Mexico furnished provis­ions, Father Dominquez provided the horses and mules and Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante was the diarist of the party. 6 The expedition set out July 29, 1776 from Santa Fe, passing through explored territory as far as the Gunnison river in south­western Colorado, whence it struck out into the unknown. The priests were fortunate in finding a couple of young Ute Indians from Utah Lake, who acted as guides and who led them safely across the Colorado ( Grand) and Green Rivers up the Duchesne to its headwaters and across the Wasatch Range to their home on Utah Lake. Obtaining fresh guides, the party proceeded about two hun­dred miles into the deserts of southwestern Utah to Black Rock Springs near Milford, heading for the Pacific coast. They had been longer than expected on their journeyings. Fall was rapidly advancing. A snowfall on October 5 dashed their hopes of being able to cross the great Sierras still blocking their path to Monte­rey. Provisions were getting low and they were a long way from either Monterey or Santa Fe. Casting of lots determined that they should go back home. Instead of retracing their circuitous route, they determined to take a short cut. They turned southeast, coming out of the desert " Escalante, " Diario," in Documents para la historia de Mexico ( Mexico City), ser. 2, Vol. 1, p. 37. Cf. also: H. S. Auerbach, " Father Escalante's Journal, 1776- 77" in Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. XI, pp. 1- 142; H. L. Bolton, " Escalante in Dixie and the Arizona Strip," New Mexico Review ( Santa Fe, 1928), Vol. Ill, No. 1; H. E. Gregory, " Spanish Entradas in Kaiparowits Region," U. S. Geological Survey Prof. Paper ( Washington, D. C., 1931), p. 164; W. R. Harris, The Catholic Church in Utah ( Salt Lake City, 1909); Philip Harry, " Brief of Escalante's Journal in Simpson's Explorations, 1859, Appendix R. ( Washington, D. C., 1860), p. 490. 124 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY that now bears Escalante's name, a few miles west of Cedar City. The high mountains to the east forced them southward nearly a hundred miles along the foot of the rough and rugged escarpment known as the Hurricane Fault. This deflected them far from their intended course. It was on this detour that they discovered the Virgin River and came closest to Zion Canyon. The party left the vicinity of Cedar City, crossed over the rim of the Great Basin at Kanarra and descended Ash Creek, tributary of the Virgin. A short distance below Toquerville they passed the three Indian cornfields with well made irrigation ditches, to which reference has already been made, and reached the Virgin River at the point where Ash Creek and La Verkin Creek joined it. Escalante called Ash Creek the Rio del Pilar. The main stream of the Virgin River above this point he named the Sulphur River because of the hot sulphur springs that flow into the stream about a mile distant from the point where the great Hurricane Fault crosses the river. The party climbed out of the canyon alongside a volcanic ash cone or crater standing north of the present town of Hurricane. While some of the members of the party probably lingered to in­vestigate the hot sulphur springs, others went ahead across the Hurricane bench and striking some Indian tracks, followed them out of the proper route and found themselves in the midst of an area of red sand dunes several miles in extent, sometimes called the Red Desert. This may be seen from the road approaching Zion from either St. George or Cedar City. The sand dunes made traveling very difficult and by the time the party had plowed its way through and stood on top of a high bluff overlooking the corrugated valley below, both the horses and men were so tired they could scarcely make their way down the bluff to water at the site of, old Fort Pearce. Here they found a desert shrub, the creosote bush ( Hedionditla) and tamarisk trees ( supposed to have been introduced from the old world). Here their provisions became exhausted, and from then on they had to subsist largely upon horse flesh and such food as they could procure from the Indians. The next morning, as they start­ed on their journey, they met a group of the Parrusits Indians who were living in scattered bands along the Upper Virgin River, form­ing one of the dozen or more clans belonging to the Paiute tribe, and who warned them that they were headed toward the Grand Canyon at a place where it could not be forded. After much per­suasion they agreed to show the explorers a route by which they could climb the Hurricane Fault and proceed eastward toward a ford of the Colorado. The Indians led them four or five miles up a narrow canyon along a footpath that became so steep and ledgy that the horses EARLY EXPLORATIONS 125 and mules could not follow. Perceiving this, the Indians fled and the party was forced to retrace the rocky trail to the foot and press southward again, crossing the present line into Arizona. They be­came suspicious that the Indians were purposely misdirecting them. That night they made a dry camp, and having neither food nor water, both men and animals suffered intensely. Early next day they found water but after traveling about twenty- five miles some of the men were so weak and hungry they had to stop to rest. After ransacking their camp outfit, they found odds and ends enough to satisfy their worst needs. At this point they found a way to climb the bold face of the Hurricane Fault. Hungry and thirsty, they headed for rough country to the southeast where they found water after about eight­een miles. They also found Indians from whom they procured some food. Again being warned by the Indians of the great im­passable Grand Canyon ahead they swung off sharply to the north­east. Continuing the journey, guided only by the vague directions given by the Indians, the party spent several days during late Oc­tober and early November in crossing the Arizona Strip and south­ern Utah before they found a ford of the Colorado, a few miles upstream on the Utah side of the state line, since known as the " Crossing of the Fathers." The hardships of the party in travers­ing Northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to get back to Santa Fe, however, are not a part of this story. The journey lasted from July 29, 1776 to January 2, 1777. It covered a circuitous route through four states and the priests had been pathbreakers in new and unexplored territory. One objec­tive, the route to the Pacific coast, had not been attained, but the other, that of locating sites for missions, had been abundantly ful­filled. Many possibilities were marked along the route, but ap­parently none gave the Fathers more satisfaction than the pro­spects among the Parrusits Indians on the Pilar River ( now Ash Creek and Virgin River) who were already farmers. On finding the cornfield and irrigation ditches of the Parrusits, Escalante remarked: By this we were greatly rejoiced, now because of the hope it gave of being able to take advantage of certain supplies in the future; especially because it was an indica­tion of the application of these people to the cultivation of the soil; and because we found this much done toward re­ducing them to civilized life and to the faith when the Most High may so dispose, for it is well known how much it costs to bring other Indians to this point, and how diffi- 126 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY cult it is to convert them to this labor which is no neces­sary to enable them to live for the most part in civilized life and in towns.' The Spanish Fathers never fulfilled their dreams of missions beyond the Colorado, but they explored an uncharted area, into which other Spaniards followed. The records, however, are meager and information incomplete about these later expeditions. Two other Spaniards, Mestes in 1805 and Arze and Garcia in 1812- 13, seem to have penetrated as far as Utah Lake and perhaps south­ward, but so far as is known, their trips had little significance* Still later, other Spaniards developed the route from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast which the Fathers had failed to do. Known as the Old Spanish Trail, this passed northwestward from Santa Fe through southwestern Colorado and central Utah and then southwestward to Los Angeles. It crossed Escalante's trail near Cedar City. But before this route was developed, other explorers had opened the way. After Dominguez and Escalante, the next pathbreakers of im­portance to enter the region was Jedediah Strong Smith, a trapper and trader bent on expanding his fur business. He was probably the first to finish the task started by Escalante, that of finding a route to the coast, which he traversed in 1826 and again in 1827. Smith's epochal explorations, like Escalante's a half- century earlier, were circuitous in nature and his first trip covered an area now embraced by four states, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Calif­ornia. The eastern side of his loop overlapped the western side of Escalante's and probably their trails coincided for short dis­tances where they crossed. Smith belonged to the firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette, which had purchased General Ashley's fur interests and was trap­ping through the region southward from Montana through Idaho and Wyoming to northern Utah. The summer camp or rendez­vous of the firm was at Bear Lake near the Utah- Idaho line and most of the trapping grounds were to the north and east. Know­ing nothing about the region lying south and west of. the Great Salt Lake, Smith fitted out a party of about sixteen men to explore and trap the unknown region. He left the shores of the Great Salt Lake, August 22, 1826, and proceeded south and west to Los Angeles, arriving there late in November. His exact course through Utah has long been a mat­ter of controversy due to a dearth of definite records and his in­complete or poor description of the country through which he traveled. Out of the maze of theoretical routes proposed by dif- 7Cf. Auerbach, toe. cit.. pp. 85- 86. ' Ibtd.. p. 5. EARLY EXPLORATIONS 127 ferent writers," it seems probable that he traveled southward from Utah Lake, reached the Sevier River in the vicinity of Fayette, followed it up to the mouth of Marysvale Canyon, and mistaking Clear Creek for the head of the river ( evidently not recognizing the stream coming through Marysvale canyon), passed over the divide at the head of Clear Creek and down by Cove Fort, south along the west foot of the mountains to Beaver River ( which he called Lost River), on past the present site of Cedar City to the rim of the Great Basin, thence to Ash Creek along the route Es­calante had taken to the Virgin River, down the Virgin to the Colorado River and across the Mojave Desert to the Coast. Smith called the Virgin the Adams River in compliment to President John Quincy Adams, although it was in territory then claimed by Mexico. At the mouth of Santa Clara Creek, he fell in with a group of Paiute Indians ( his printed word is Pa Ulches, probably a misprint for Pa Utches), who wore rabbit skin robes and raised a little corn and pumpkins. He called the Santa Clara, Corn Creek. On his first trip of 1826, he followed the Virgin River down through the narrows below the mouth of the Santa Clara, a haz­ardous undertaking since most of the channel is barely wide enough to accommodate the stream. This would have involved much wad­ing of the stream over shifting quicksand, through deep holes and around giant rocks and boulders. On his second trip, a year later, he avoided these narrows by going up Corn Creek ( Santa Clara) about twenty five miles, crossing over a pass to the drainage into Beaver Dam Wash which he followed down to the Virgin, rejoin­ing his old route about ten miles below the narrows. 10 These pioneering trips of Smith's not only opened two new routes to the Pacific, westward and southwestward, but his reports of his travels and stories of adventure undoubtedly incited oth- ° H7H. Bancroft, History of Utah ( San Francisco, 1884- 86), pp. 22, 23. H. M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West ( New York, 1935), 2 Vols. Robert Glass Cleland, From Wilderness to Empire ( New York, 1944). H. C. Dale, The Ashley- Smith Explorations ( Los Angeles, 1918). T. E. Farish, History of Arizona, ( Phoenix, Arizona, 1916). Albert Gallatin, Synopsis of Indian Tribes ( Worcester, Mass., 1836) map, p. 265. P. T. Hanna, " California's Debt to Jedediah Strong Smidi," in Touring Topics ( Los Angeles, California, September 1926). C. H. Merriam, " Earliest Crossings of the Deserts of Utah and Nevada to Southern California; Route of Jedediah S. Smith," California Historical Society Quarterly, 1923, Vol. 2, pp. 228- 237. J. G. Neihardt, The Splendid Wayfaring ( New York, 1920). Maurice Sullivan, The Travels of Jedediah Smith ( Santa Ana, California, 1934). A. M. Woodbury, " The Route of Jedediah S. Smith in 1826 from the Great Salt Lake to the Colorado River," Utah Historical Quarterly, 1931, 4: 35- 46. " From letter of Jedediah Strong Smith, Maurice Sullivan, The Trav­els of Jedediah Smith, pp. 15, 27- 28. 128 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY ers to follow. One of these was George C. Yount, who was in the mountains with Smith for several months. Smith's stories inflamed in him a desire to visit California. In the fall of 1830, Yount joined a party organized by William Wolfskill at Santa Fe for the purpose of reaching the coast. Coming up through the corner of Colorado and eastern Utah, they reached the Sevier River, probably through Salina Canyon, arrived at the Virgin River and followed it down to the Colorado. The story of this trip was told by Yount in his old age and the details of the route are not precise, but it appears that his party must have attempted to fol­low Smith's trail." It is probable that these explorations had a great deal to do with the development of the Old Spanish Trail, then in its formative stages." Subsequently, the Old Spanish Trail, became a regular over­land route, following the Sevier River nearly to Panguitch, then over the Bear Valley pass to Paragonah, across the desert to the Mountain Meadows, down the Santa Clara past Gunlock, over the divide to Beaver Dam Wash, paralleling the Virgin River, across desert hills to the Muddy River and thence across toward Los Angeles via Las Vegas. By 1844, when Captain John C. Fremont of the U. S. Army came over the route from the coast to Paragonah, this was a well defined trail, over which annual caravans traveled back and forth from Santa Fe to the coast." Untold numbers of Spaniards may have traveled the route that Escalante had tried vainly to find, leav­ing their impress along the way in the Spanish names given to many of the important places, several of which have persisted to this day. The names, Rio Virgen ( River of Virgins), Santa Clara Creek and La Verkin Creek, all probably originated with the Spaniards, between the time of Jedediah S. Smith and John C. Fremont." Fremont followed the route from the coast past Las Vegas and encamped on the Muddy River after a fifty to sixty mile jaunt across the parched desert, sixteen hours of uninterrupted traveling " C. L. Camp, ed., " The Chronicles of George C. Yount," California His­torical Society Quarterly, 1923. MCf. Herbert S. Auerbach, " Old Trails, Old Forts. Old Trappers and Traders," Utah Historical Quarterly. Vol. IX, 1941, pp. 13- 63. " Cf. J. C. Fremont, Narrative of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains ( New York, 1846). " What is now the Virgin River was called Sulphur Creek by Escalante in 1776. Jedediah S. Smith named it Adams River, to which he adhered in letters written on both trips of 1826 and 1827. This upsets the idea that he named it for Thomas Virgin, a member of his party. George C. Yount, as recorded. in 1923 by Charles L. Camp, ( loc. cit„ p. 10), told of entering die Virgin River valley on a trip in 1830, but this is no assurance that it was so named at that early date. It bore die name of Rio Virgin in 1844 when Fremont passed over die Spanish Trail and doubtless die name was given between 1827 and 1844. In Fremont's time, the Muddy River was called " Rio de Los Angeles," and die Mountain Meadows " las Vegas de Santa Clara" ( the Meadows of St. Clara). EARLY EXPLORATIONS 129 without water. The Indians were numerous and insulting, evi­dently intent upon raiding the camp and stealing anything they could. Horses fatigued and left behind the night before were found butchered the next morning. The party remained in camp all day on May 5, 1844, to let their animals recuperate from the hard trip of the day before. They remained constantly armed and on watch. Fremont called the natives Digger Indians. They fed largely upon lizards and other small animals of the desert. Many of them carried long sticks, hooked at the end for extracting lizards from the rocks. As Fremont traveled up the Virgin River, the Indians fol­lowed stealthily in the rear and quickly cut off any animals that were left behind. While encamped near the present site of Little-field, Arizona, one of the men, Tabeau, was killed by the Indians when he went back alone a short distance to look for a lost mule. The party that went in search of him found where he had been dragged by the Indians to the edge of the river and thrown in. His horse, saddle, clothing, arms, and the mule had all been taken by the Indians. The two thousand- foot mountain gorge above Littlefield forced Fremont to leave the Virgin and turn off to the north where he regained the Old Spanish Trail which he had lost in the sands of the desert. Surmounting a pass, he reached the Santa Clara and followed it up to the Mountain Meadows where, he states: We found an extensive mountain meadow, rich in bunch grass, and fresh with numerous springs of clear water, all refreshing and delightful to look upon. It was, in fact, that las Vegas de Santa Clara, which had been so long represented to us as the terminating point of the desert, and where the annual caravan from California to New Mexico halted and recruited for some weeks. It was a very suitable place to recover from the fatigue and exhaustion of a month's suffering in the hot and sterile desert. The meadow was about a mile wide and some ten miles long, bordered by grassy hills and mountains . . . . In passing before the great caravan, we had the ad­vantage of finding more grass, but the disadvantage of finding also the marauding savages, who had gathered down upon the trail, waiting the approach of their prey. . . . At this place we had complete relief from the heat and privations of the desert and some relaxation from the severity of camp duty. 16 After a day of rest ( May 13) at the Meadows, Fremont pushed to the northeast across the south end of the Great Basin " Fremont, op. cit.. p. 168. 130 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY until he reached the Little Salt Lake near Paragonah. Here he left the Old Spanish Trail and cut off to the north along the edge of the desert at the western foot of the mountains. On May 20 he met a band of Ute Indians under the leadership of the well known chief, Walker ( Wah- kerr), journeying southward to levy the an­nual toll upon the California caravan. Fremont says, " They were all mounted, armed with rifles, and use their rifles well. . . . They were robbers of a higher order than those of the desert. They conducted their depredations with form and under the color of trade and toll for passing through their country. Instead of at­tacking and killing, they affect to purchase, taking the horses they like and giving something nominal in return." Early Mormon Settlement While trade between California and New Mexico was beat­ing the path of the Old Spanish Trail into a road across south­western Utah, events elsewhere were leading to the elimination of Spanish influence and the rise of Anglo- Saxon power. The Mex­ican War ended Spanish domination, but it was the Mormon mi­grations which were to fill the region with settlements. In 1847, the Mormons began to move west from the Missouri River to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The precedent of Texas breaking away from Mexico was before them as they traveled across the plains to enter Mexican territory, where they would be free from those who had persecuted them, and where they would be practically isolated from Mexican authority by the bar­rier of the Grand Canyon. What dreams of empire held their thoughts as they trekked across the plains can only be conjec­tured." Outposts, forts, and settlements were scattered throughout the vast area they hoped to dominate. Western Colorado, south­western Wyoming, southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada, northern Ari­zona and southern California were all included in their coloniza­tion plans. Strategic points throughout this whole vast empire were to be occupied and controlled. The intervening territory would be filled in later with the great number of converts to the faith pouring in from Europe. The transfer of this entire terri­tory to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe- Hidalgo exercised a restraining influence upon their ambitions and brought them once more under the hand of the Federal government. During the first few years of settlement, there was little change in governmental organization and the people were for the most part guided and controlled by their religious leaders. In March, 1849, they set up a provisional government for their pro- MCf. Franklin D. Daines, " Separatism in Utah, 1847- 1870,' in Annual Re­port of the American Historical Association for the Year 1917 ( Washinatan. D. C., 1920).