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Show 9 The Settlement of Dixie XN MAY 1861, President Brigham Young, George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, John Taylor, Bishop Edward Hunter, and others visited the southern settlements. They reported twenty families in Santa Clara and seventy-nine in Washington County. The Deseret News reported: At Santa Clara there are several fine young peach orchards. It is estimated that 1000 bushels will be produced there this season. Jacob Hamblin has a hundred bearing trees. Mr. E. Dodge has a fine young orchard and vineyard consisting of apples, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, pears, quinces, almonds, figs, English walnuts, gooseberries, currants, and Cata-waba, Isabella, and California grapes, all in thrifty and promising condition. The cotton crop looks very well, but not as forward as usual, and crops in general were backward. The result of all these reports was that Brigham Young decided to colonize southern Utah. He would establish the city of St. George, with some 300 families. He also decided to send a colony of Swiss immigrants to Santa Clara to raise grapes and fruit. Among all the Mormon colonizing in southern Utah, perhaps none was more heroic than this. These people had come from Switzerland across the ocean and to the Missouri River with the help of the Perpetual Emigration Fund. There they found handcarts which they loaded with their belongings On the Ragged Edge 101 and dragged all the weary fourteen hundred miles to the Salt Lake Valley. When it was decided to send them another three hundred miles south to this last frontier, local people were asked to provide teams and wagons for their transportation. One man would haul a family from Salt Lake City to Provo, another from Provo to Nephi, from there to Fillmore, Fillmore to Parowan, and from there to Santa Clara. An old Brother Jones of Cedar City, in speaking of this, said, I was just a boy, sent to drive my father's team from Cedar City to Santa Clara to take a father, mother, and four children. I unloaded them in the sand underneath an old willow tree. I can never forget my feelings as I turned my team around and drove away. I thought I was leaving that family there to starve. They had a roll of bedding, a small box of clothes, a chest with some carpenter's tools in it - all that they had been able to haul across the plains in their handcart. There was not a shovel, a hoe, or an ax, any of the tools they would really need. There was little food, and no evidence of where they might get more when that was gone. All my life the memory of those people has haunted me. The morale of the company seemed to be high, however, for George A. Smith, writing in the Millennial Star said, We met a company of fourteen wagons led by Daniel Bonelli, at Kanarra Creek. They excited much curiosity by their singing and good cheer. They expected to settle at Santa Clara village where there is a reservation of land selected for them that is considered highly adaptable to grape culture. Six of their wagons are furnished by the church. The company arrived November 28, 1861, and camped around the adobe meetinghouse. As soon as their first rude shelters were made, they began on their ditch and dam. It was completed on Christmas Eve and was the occasion for a town celebration. At $2.00 a day, it had cost $1,030.00 in labor. 102 The Settlement of Dixie The next day the rain began. Oldtimers claim that it rained for forty days. At least the rainy season did last more than a month, and the storm was general, reaching even into southern California. The three hundred families at St. George had not been able to leave their wagons, but waited the storm out in them. Clothes and bedding were wet and could not be dried. Food molded. Fires could hardly be kept going. It was a month of misery and suffering for all southern Utah. The Fort at Harmony literally melted away. Then came the flood. For days the creek had been rising, until it was many times its normal size. One night the people were awakened by its roaring like a wild beast unleashed. Every few minutes there would be a loud splash as a large piece of bank fell into the water. The fort had been built well back on higher ground, but now it was plain that it was in danger. These nearest the stream started to higher ground. They picked their way through the darkness carrying their quilts to the top of the hill and tucking shivering children into their damp folds. A few pine torches flitted about; one or two had made lanterns of candles stuck into the side of tin cans. But the light was a feeble flicker, making the darkness outside its tiny circle seem even more dense. Those in charge ordered everybody out of the fort. But it was not enough just to get out; they must move their food and clothing and bedding. A woman who had given birth to a baby the day before must be carried to safety. Long before they were through, the water was nearly waist deep through the fort. They tied a rope from the gate to a tree on the higher ground, which was a real lifeline for the people so frantically trying to carry out their stores of wheat and molasses. By keeping a firm hold on the rope, they could be sure where they were going and more sure of their footing. The horror of it all, the darkness and the savage stream, made some of them wonder if this might be the end of the world. When the first faint streak of light along the eastern horizon told them morning had come, it brought only a more clear predicament. The mad river was slashing On the Ragged Edge 103 into the bank, carving out pieces as big as a house. Already one corner of the fort was gone. Jacob Hamblin ventured too near the edge, and the piece of ground on which he was standing slipped into the water. Such a panic! While the women and children screamed and cried, his Indian boy, Albert, untied the rope which had been their guide all through the night, made a lasso of it, and threw it to him just as the last of the soil on which he stood dissolved into the water. With the help of all hands on the bank, he was hauled back to safety. All day long they watched the fruits of their six years' labor go. Tree by tree their largest orchard went, each one bending down slowly as if bowing to the will of the river. The men had been frantically trying to move the wheat from the storeroom in the fort. They went on until one corner and part of the wall had caved in. With all their efforts, much of their bread supply was lost. By nightfall the whole little colony was washed away, and the people stood shivering and shelterless on top of the hill, their few household effects piled in confusion about them. The flood was receding but somewhere away downstream buried in mud were the grist mill, the molasses mill, and the homemade cotton gin. Left now to start all over, they decided to locate the town up round the point of the hill from where the fort had been. They lost no time in marking lots, the men drawing cuts for their locations. Shelters were erected, most of them dugouts against the hill with the fronts held up by poles and thatched with willows and earth to protect them against the cold weather. Work on the new ditch and dam commenced at once, February 17, 1862. It was finished March 16 at a cost of $4,000. According to the irrigation reports of 1865, Santa Clara had a main canal three miles long, five feet wide and three feet deep, costing $8,000. Before the flood the creek could be stepped across in many places. After 1862 it was 150 yards wide and 25 feet deep. At the time of this flood Dudley had his families all at Gunlock, each in a log house. They were built close 104 The Settlement of Dixie together in the shape of a fort. When the rain continued and the creek began rising, the women cooked up what they could and moved a part of their things up the hill. When the heaviest flood came in the night, they all had to get out. Hannah, then only six years old, remembered the incident well and told of this in her later years. Her uncle, Joseph Huntsman, carried Dudley, Jr., in his arms and her on his back up into the rocks for safety. The mothers and Dudley had all they could do to handle the others. Mary had two, Orin and Orson, both very small; Mariah had two, Orilla and Elsie; Thirza had one; and Janet one - eight babies under six years of age to move in the night to beds in the open. The houses were washed away, but through the family's foresight, nearly everything else was saved. This spring and summer was a hard one for all the Santa Clara settlement. St. George did not fare so badly, for they had brought provisions to last until another harvest. But the Swiss colony was in dire circumstances. It was at this point that Dudley and his brother Lemuel had a chance to show their true character. Dudley made a trip north for a load of flour which he divided among the people according to the need and the size of the family, a pan full here, a part of a sack there. Every dust of it must be saved. During the summer, he killed several beeves and divided them in the same way, giving each family a piece of flesh and some boiling meat. He had cattle of his own, and he also killed wild cattle from the Bull Valley herd. Every part of the animal was used. One old lady said that the sweetest meal she had ever eaten was of tripe or part of the stomach lining of one of these. Dudley's daughter Mary Ellen tells this incident: I was visiting Santa Clara years later as a young woman. My cousin and I were going down the sidewalk when we met one of these old Swiss ladies. My cousin introduced me as the daughter of Dudley Leavitt. The old woman threw her arms around me and began to hug and kiss me between laughing and crying at the same time. I didn't know what to make of it. I wondered if she On the Ragged Edge 105 had lost her mind. "I love anyone who is anything to do with Dudley Leavitt," she said. "I love the sound of his name. He saved our lives. He brought us flour and meat when we would have died without food. He didn't sell them to us. He gave them to us; he divided what he had. May the Lord bless him." When Mary Ellen got home she said, "Father, why didn't you ever tell us about the early days at Santa Clara when you took the settlers food?" "It was nothing," Dudley answered. "I couldn't see them starve, could I ?" Dudley not only had his own families to care for, but he had other obligations. His mother lived with him much of the time. He had children not his own to provide for. One was Jerry Steiner, a boy whose mother had died on the plains and whose father went on to California. Dudley kept the boy in his home until he was old enough to go out for himself. During the years that he lived in the Leavitt home, Jerry took a team and a load of provisions back to meet immigrants on the way. Two different times Dudley sent outfits back to Missouri to help bring to Utah those with no way to come. In her later years, Aunt Hannah Terry wrote an account which gives some interesting highlights. Let her tell it: On one of Jerry's trips for emigrants, he brought home a cotton gin, or Spinning Jinny, as it was called. Ike Sears ran the Spinning Jinny both in Santa Clara and later when we moved to Clover Valley. I used to feed it for him. When I did extra well, he would tell me I was a lady, all but my feet, and they were pig's feet. It used to make me feel so bad to have them called pig's feet; I used to go barefoot, and of course my feet got chapped and dirty. A Spinning Jinny would take the seed from the cotton, card it and spin it into yarn, about six spindles at a time. It could be turned by water power, but Ike turned it with a crank. With all the work to get the yarn made and then to thread it onto the frame of the loom and weave it by hand, we can understand why the mother could not move 106 The Settlemen t of Dixie until she had finished the web of cloth, which was something of the value of a new dress or shirt. Jerry also brought mother a stove, the first I ever saw, and some coal oil in a can under the bed. I remember how the children used to crawl under the bed and come out holding their noses, making an awful fuss over it. In the spring of 1864, father started to move his families to Clover Valley. Aunt Mariah and Aunt Janet went first. Later, he took Aunt Thirza and mother's three oldest children, myself, Dudley and Orin. Mother had a web of cloth in the loom at Santa Clara and stayed behind to finish it. I think a number of families were called to be on guard there for treacherous Indians. Brothers Luke and Matthew Syphus, Brothers Amos and Bradford Hunt, Brothers Brown and Hamilton Crowe and Brother Young all had their families there. Also Brother Blair had both his families there. Minty Young was a girl about my age, Lavina Syphus was a little older, Leath Crowe, Eliza Elian and Linda Hunt, Louisa and Eliza Leavitt, Uncle Jerry's daughters, were all girls together and we used to have real good times dancing and skating. The houses were built close together in the shape of a fort, the school house being partly across one end, and the town ditch ran through the center of the fort. The first corral was built at the northwest end of the fort. The fence at one end of the fields forming one side of the corral. Later, a big public corral was built on the south side of the fort. We used to take out knitting and go out in the shade of the big haystacks. Lavina Syphus always took more yarn than the rest of us; she was a faster knitter. We all knit our own stockings. The Indians were quite peaceable when we first moved there. They would bring dried berries and pinenuts to trade for flour and potatoes. I remember the large sacks of pinenuts that used to stand behind the door. Once, when the Indians got hungry, they sold Susie to father. The Indian put down a blanket and father poured wheat on it as long as any would stay on without rolling off. I can still see father holding the bucket and pouring it on. He also let them have some sheep that were killed before they went away. Susie was a little On the Ragged Edge 107 Indian girl about five years old. Aunt Janet took care of her. I can still see her crying when the Indians went away. Father kept her five years and let Brother William Pulsipher have her for a span of oxen. This extract from the oldest child in the family tells many things about their home economy. Though she was only twelve years old at the time, she had always assumed responsibility and was mature for her years. Besides knitting her own stockings, she must help with those of the rest of the family, while she seemed never through with dishwashing. By this time there were eleven children in the family younger than she. Her own mother, Mary, had four others, Mariah had three, Thirza two, and Janet two, a total of twelve children under twelve years of age. The custom of buying Indian children was quite common. Earlier, the Utes had carried on a business of buying or stealing them and selling them to the Mexicans for slaves. The Mormons opposed this, and through their influence had it stopped. But they themselves sometimes bought children, always if the parents were forced to sell one to get food for the others. The thing that prompted this was their belief that the Indians would be redeemed, that they would become a "white and delightsome people." This was one way in which the Mormons could help the process of civilizing the natives. The Indian children were taken into the family, trained to do home work and farming, and taught religion. They were not, in the common sense, slaves. When the colony first moved to Clover Valley, they thought it was in Utah, but later surveys showed it to be in Nevada. It was a delightful spot, a small valley running east and west, carpeted with grass and watered by several fine springs. Surrounding it on all sides were low, rolling hills covered with sagebrush and cedar trees, an excellent range for cattle. By this time, Dudley had a good herd. The first year was very happy and successful, the winter, mild and open, and the crops good. During the next summer a sickness came among the babies. One 108 The Settlemen t of Dixie writer said that it terminated in the death of every baby in town under six months of age, twelve in all. Hannah Terry's account said that all but three babies died; Thirza's baby, Mary Ellen; Aunt Selinda Huntsman's baby, Luna; and the Syphus baby, Levi, were spared. During the second summer a camp of prospectors had begun some mining activities at the lower end of the Meadow Valley. Soon they began to have trouble with the natives. Instead of using the Mormon methods, they decided to fight it out. When some Indians stole their horses, they took three of them prisoners. One of them got away. In her story of it, Minerva Judd says, "I never saw such running before. They shot at him, but he darted this way and that and evaded them. He went like a kite in the wind. He beat both horse and foot." The others tried also to escape and fought like bloodhounds. In the struggle they were killed. That was the way the trouble began, and the spirit of unrest and enmity grew. Throughout the southern part of the state the Indians seemed to be watching every opportunity to harass the settlers. Chief among the troublemakers in the Clover Valley section was old Bushhead. Though the whites gathered their cattle in at night and kept a strong watch around the corral, some were missing. One night it was Bradford Hunt's turn to stand guard. Several times they had found evidence that the natives were trying to break into the corral. So Bradford Hunt was cautioned to keep a careful lookout for any attempt to break through. The night was stormy. As Brother Hunt made his rounds, a flash of lightning revealed the crouched figure of an Indian with his bow drawn, sitting in the corner of the fence. The same instant Bradford fired. They found the Indian next morning slumped down where he sat, his bow dropped, and a bullet through his heart. Knowing the Indian temperament and fearing for his own safety, Bradford Hunt soon moved north. Bushhead continued his thieving. Again and again he took cattle; always he was inciting the others to mali- On the Ragged Edge 109 cious attitudes. At one time Dudley led a group of men to the head of the Beaver Dam Wash in search of the band. They saw the camp fire after night, the Indians gathered around roasting a beef that they had killed. At the approach of the white men the Indians scattered like quail. Dudley called out to tell them that it was Wamptun and that he would not hurt them. They came back hesitatingly, knowing that he had plenty of cause to be angry. They sat around the fire and talked things over, and Bushhead promised to do better. In the meantime the wives and children at home were filled with fear because the pony which Dudley rode, Buttermilk Dave, had come back with his reins dangling, and they were afraid the rider had been shot by an Indian. Again and again Bushhead broke his word until he became a menace to the whole section. Finally, Dudley went to St. George to ask Apostle Erastus Snow what should be done. He was advised to have Bushhead killed but to have the Indians do it. Bushhead had killed some miners who were going through the country which made him an outlaw even among his own people. When Dudley came back he called the Indians together and told them the decision of the Mormon chief. He showed them how to build a scaffold on which to hang Bushhead for murder. Then Dudley left the Indians to carry out the orders. When the old chief was caught, he called all day for Wamptun. If Wamptun were here he would do something to save him. But Dudley was gone and did not come back, and Bushhead had to pay the penalty. The next winter was severe. The Navajos from across the Colorado raided parts of the country. Whitmore and Mclntvre were killed at Pipe Springs in January. The Berry brothers were murdered near Short Creek, and two of Powell's men were ambushed and killed near Mt. Trumbull. The uprising seemed to be so general that President Young sent word for those living in scattered communities to move together for safety. Apostle Erastus Snow visited Clover Valley on July 12, 1866, and advised the people to abandon the place because they were 110 The Settlement of Dixie so few and so far from help that the Indians might slaughter them all. Obedient to counsel, the people hurried their harvests and prepared to move before another winter should set in. Part of them went to Shoal Creek above where the town of Enterprise now stands. Since Shoal Creek had so few homes, Dudley decided to send two of his wives, Mariah and Thirza, to Santa Clara for the winter. Jerry Steiner, then quite a large boy, would go along to do the chores and outside work and would also go to school. Janet and Mary would go to Shoal Creek. It was hard, this dividing the family up, but all understood that it was only temporary. At this time there were five families living along Shoal Creek and two on ranches eight miles apart. They all moved together and located at the big willow patch at the junction of the stream. Those living there were Zera, John, and William Pulsipher; Thomas S. Terry; and Levi H. Calloway. Those coming in from Clover Valley were old Brother James William Huntsman and his sons, Joseph S., and Hyrum R.; Dudley Leavitt and his brother, Jeremiah; Amos Hunt and his sons, James W. and Jonathan; Zodac Parker; and Brown B. Crowe. As before, they built their houses in a hollow square or fort, leaving room in the enclosure for other homes, and several of the young men married during the winter. Some of the houses were made of logs, some of adobe, and some of rock. They all faced in, with no doors or windows opening to the outside. All were thatched with grass and willows covered with dirt, a good enough shelter unless it rained hard and long, when they leaked mud for days. The settlers sank a well in the center of the fort, which gave plenty of clear, cold water. The first colonists reserved the small plot of two or three acres, which they had previously used for a garden, but they divided their farm land equally, and the men drew lots for it, the oldest having the first chance. On January 2, 1867, an express from Pine Valley brought word that the Indians had taken a band of horses from Cyrus Hancock and left him wounded. A scouting party, of which Dudley Leavitt was a member, On the Ragged Edge 111 was sent out to watch the various passes and to warn the people at the Meadows. In a few days William Pulsipher came back with the word that he was a member of the posse from St. George which pursued the thieves eight miles, surprised and killed all but two of the gang, and brought back the stolen stock. In the fall of 1867 they built their new school house. Orson Huntsman's account gives a good picture of community activities: Later in the fall the brethren got pine logs out of Little Pine Valley and hewed them and built a meeting house 18 by 25 feet, with a big stone fireplace in one end. It was built at one end of the fort, covered with lumber and dirt, and was ready for use on the first of January, 1868. This house was used for meetings, schools, and a dance hall. And to get wood to warm the building and to make work light they chose up sides; there was five men to each side to do the chopping and four teams with teamsters. They were to work two hours and the side that got beat was to furnish supper and a dance for the town. One side got nine cords of good cedar wood, the other twelve, making 21 cords in all in two hours work. This wood lasted two or three years, besides making a good lively time and a good dance and supper. That winter the rains began in December, and great floods came down, washing out deep gullies and making the roads impassable. Later, it began to snow, so that the people were completely shut in for months. So long as they had plenty of fuel and enough food, they got along very well. They made their own amusements. One town activity was the organization of a Mutual Benefit Society, for the improvement of the speech of old and young and particularly for practice and experience in public speaking. The winter storms meant good crops in the spring and summer. On July 15, 1868, Erastus Snow, Joseph W. Young, Jacob Gates, and others paid them a visit. The whole southern section was going to celebrate the Twenty-fourth of July among the tall pines in Pine Valley, so the people of Shoal Creek decided to join them. The Staheli band was up from Santa Clara. Many people from all the towns were there, and there was a general 112 The Settlement of Dixie celebration which lasted several days, enough to make up for the forty long miles they had covered to get there. About a month later Erastus Snow and James Burgon came to survey the little town. Heretofore they had all lived in the fort; now they were to form a regular settlement. Erastus Snow went over the ground and said the land was all right, but the water was in the wrong place. He advised laying out the town by the water, but the people were partial to the level open space, and he acceded to their wishes. John Pulsipher suggested that they name the place Hebron, the scriptural name of the place where Abraham took his flocks. It was accepted without a dissenting vote. On Monday, August 31, the survey began. After chopping their way for three days through the sage, some of it above their heads, they finished laying out the town. There were three streets running east and west, the center one for Main Street, and five running north and south, with nine blocks, each containing four lots, and some half blocks. They figured a total of forty-seven lots, each with a frontage of thirteen rods. The streets were all five rods wide, except the main street, which had an extra rod. When the survey was completed, the people met again, selected a central lot for the church and meetinghouse, and drew for the others. This time, instead of putting numbers into a hat and each drawing one, they gave the men their choice of lots, the oldest first, and so on, according to age. The record, kept by John Pulsipher, says that "the best of feelings prevailed." People immediately began to move out onto their lots, so that before winter set in most of them were on their own places, and the old fort site was abandoned. In all the town there was but one house with a shingle roof (John Pulsipher's), though many secured them later. Dudley now had all his family together again, each wife with her own small home and large family. During the summer one might go to Gunlock to take care of the fruit there, and one or two to the Mountain Meadows to look after the dairy there, while one remained at Hebron. In this way all the families would have dried fruit and butter (packed into large five-gallon crocks) and cheese On the Ragged Edge 113 for winter. The older children were sent wherever their work would be most helpful, regardless of which mother presided at the place. Dudley moved among them as he could, directing and helping, but the united efforts of all were needed to succeed. From accounts of the living children, they did seem to manage with a minimum of friction. During the winter they were all back at Hebron, living on the same block. Toward the end of September 1868, Dudley and his first wife, Mary, went in to Salt Lake with a load of produce, and to attend conference. It was her first trip back since she had come down as a young wife fourteen years before. They traveled in company with Hyrum Huntsman, Levi Calloway, and others, and took only their younger children along. This was really an event for them. The city had grown and changed so much that they could not get enough of looking around at the stores and public buildings. As they listened to the instructions of their leaders, they felt the importance of the work they were doing in the southern settlements to help establish Zion. They started home strengthened and renewed. They had shopped in Salt Lake City, exchanging their fruit and molasses for cloth, shoes, spices, coal oil, and notions. But they could not begin to supply their needs. So on their way down, they stopped at George Hancock's general store and purchased cloth by the bolt and shoes and clothing for all the children of all the families on credit. The next month they rounded up the cattle necessary to pay the debt and had some of the older boys help drive them up. Upon their arrival home, all the wives were called in and the goods divided. This rule, begun early, was never deviated from. Dudley always divided what he brought; no wife ever touched anything until it was given to her. If she could not be present at the division, her share was carefully put away for her. |
