A History of Davis County

Living on the land

CHAPTER 4 LIVING ON THE LAND I n its present definition, Davis County is the smallest in area of Utah's twenty-nine counties. With fewer than 300 square miles, it is noticeably smaller than the second and third smallest counties, neighboring Weber and Morgan, with their 600 or so square miles. Within Davis County, the Great Salt Lake on the west and the steep Wasatch Range on the east taken together reduce the habitable area by almost one-third. Furthermore, Antelope Island-dry, and iso­lated by the briny lake-was useful in the nineteenth century only as a range for cattle. For all practical purposes, Davis County exists as a narrow strip of land east of the lake measuring twenty-three miles from north to south and varying in width from three miles at the Farmington-Centerville boundary to fifteen miles at the county's northern border.1 Reference to this contiguous land area does not entirely define the county's size. For hundreds of years, the shallow lake's meander­ing shoreline has reached into some of the adjacent lowlands, leaving alkaline sediments and creating marshy areas unsuitable for agricul­ture and many other uses. As they have done for ages, however, these 96 LIVING ON THE LAND 97 wetlands do sustain native and migratory birds and other wildlife. On the gently sloping ancient lake terraces and foothills between the saline flatland and the mountain slopes Mormon settlers found a fer­tile soil rich in humus, moistened naturally by a sparse sixteen inches of water in an average year. In its native state, grasses and sagebrush covered the lower vegetation zone. Cottonwoods appeared along the streams and scrub oak on the upper benchlands. It was in this envi­ronment along the eastern shore area of the ancient lake that the Numic peoples had cultivated gardens, gathered seeds and berries, and stalked game. In this same area the new settlers established irri­gated farms, planted orchards and gardens, and grazed livestock.2 Humans and the Land For the Weber Utes of the early nineteenth century, the east-shore land was a resource to be used communally but not claimed individually. Small bands occupied definable sites, with designated living and farming areas, sacred places, and burial grounds. They hunted wildlife, gathered berries, and raised corn and squash. These peoples undoubtedly loved the place of their homeland and respected the land and its resources.3 The Latter-day Saints who occupied these same lands beginning in the late 1840s also came to call the land home. But they defined the use of natural resources differently They brought with them the patterns of Anglo-Saxon property ownership as refined in the early American colonies and tempered by a pattern of cooperative eco­nomics drawn from their religious worldview. The early Mormon settlers of Davis County accepted the guidance of their religious lead­ers in the allocation of scarce resources, including land, timber, and water. In many aspects of daily life, they survived by helping one another. They cooperated to tame the wilderness, to provide for their needs, and to minimize the impact of natural and human hazards. Through the entire pioneer period, the chief economic interest of Davis County's residents was agriculture. Most of the men farmed either as a full-time occupation or as a sideline. Agriculture provided the raw materials for other industries, including gristmills, tanneries, and creameries. It supplied work for farm laborers and for some skilled workers. Older boys helped their fathers with chores, irriga- 98 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY tion, and harvesting of the crops. Many women worked in the fields alongside their husbands. In addition, women tended the gardens, helped with the dairying, prepared meals, and made clothing for the family. Girls helped in household duties, gardened, and sometimes herded livestock.4 Merchants appeared gradually on the scene in Davis County, at first as a sideline, and later as a full-time occupation. Similarly, skilled workers in clothing production and other crafts sometimes worked both in their specialized skill and as farmers in order to provide for their families. Blacksmiths, coopers, and millers were among those most likely to find a full-time need for their services. The census reports of occupations in 1850 and ten years later suggest the steady evolution from an essentially agrarian economy to one more diverse. In the 1850 census report four times as many residents listed them­selves as farmers as all other occupations combined. Ten years later, however, farmers accounted for only half the working adults.5 By 1870, at the end of the settlement period, economic diversification was firmly established on a solid agrarian base. Residents turned often to neighboring Salt Lake County and, at times, to Weber County for some services and products, making it less necessary to develop such sources inside Davis County The avail­ability of highly specialized services and trades and the presence of import merchants in Salt Lake City allowed agriculture to remain a more dominant occupation in Davis County than it might otherwise have been. And the county prospered as an agricultural mecca. Near the end of the pioneer period, a reporter traveling with Brigham Young on one of his regular visits to the northern settlements observed with a note of optimism, "There is an air of thrift and plenty about Davis county that assures the traveler that the farmers of that favored section are well-to-do. It would be difficult to find a richer spot of ground in the Territory; even the weeds along the sides of the road attain a rank luxuriance that is not seen elsewhere."6 The patterns of the workaday world common to most men in early Davis County centered around the seasonal cycle of the farmer. A typical year followed a pattern known to farmers over countless centuries. As soon as the soil dried sufficiently in the spring, the farmer would hitch a harrow behind a horse or ox and break up the LIVING ON THE LAND 99_ clods that had been turned by a plow the previous fall. This was fol­lowed by the sowing of wheat or other grains, broadcast style, and the planting of garden crops in rows. During the growing season, the challenge was to nurture the crops to provide the largest possible yield. Row crops were hoed to control weeds, then furrowed and irri­gated to moisten the summer-dried soil. Farmers used flood irriga­tion on grain and hay fields. Gathering the harvest often involved hired hands or cooperative efforts among neighbors. It took many hours to scythe the grain, bind and haul it from the field, and then separate it on a threshing floor. After field crops were stored away, the farmers turned to fall plowing. As the weather cooled, they obtained firewood from the canyons. Winter months were spent repairing equipment and tools and caring for livestock. In all seasons, the daily chores of a farmstead continued.7 Securing and Surveying Farmland. The first Latter-day Saint set­tlers claimed their homesites and surrounding farmlands and described them by terms of metes and bounds. Inevitably, without the benefit of a surveyor, claims of this type created the potential for misunderstanding among neighbors. When such disputes arose, it was often the LDS bishop and his council who were called upon to propose a fair resolution. Sometimes parties called in outside help; for example, in 1850 Brigham Young accompanied surveyor William Lemon to Bountiful to resolve a boundary feud.8 Latter-day Saint bishops in Davis County saw to it that those emigrants arriving soon after the first settlers also received land. Under a policy established by Brigham Young in July 1847, land was alloted without charge, the only obligation being that a farmer "must be industrious and take care of it." Thereafter, with certain restric­tions, landowners could sell or trade their property9 To avoid land speculation, individual claims in Utah were kept small and produc­tive, typically from five acres to forty acres. Only a few squatters claimed more than sixty acres, and rarely was a full section-160 acres-or more claimed.10 Because fertile soil was vital to their survival as farmers, settlers in Davis County sought the best irrigable agricultural land available. By the end of 1850, the 149 farmers of Davis County reported more than 2,000 acres of farmland under cultivation, or about 28 percent 100 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Because millers kept a portion of the flour they ground for clients as pay­ment for their services, they became important flour merchants during times of shortage. The large rock mill that Frederick Kesler built for Franklin D. Richards at the mouth of Farmington canyon is Davis County's only surviving pioneer grist mill. (Utah State Historical Society) of their total holdings. The average size of a farm was fifty-two acres, only slightly above the average for the territory. An average of four­teen acres of this was improved and thirty-eight acres unimproved, including pastures and foothills. Holdings in the county ranged in size from ten acres to 185 acres. The farms in Centerville and Farmington, the narrow part of the county, averaged just over forty acres, those in Bountiful and Kaysville around sixty acres.11 Within a few years, and until dry farming and canals made the northwestern portion of the county more agriculturally productive, all that remained of this limited pool of land was the shared pasture and grazing land. Some families filed on more than they could imme­diately use. In Brigham Young's view, this was speculation on future sale, even t h o u g h landowners may have seen it a reserve for their m a t u r i n g sons or as a commercial o p p o r t u n i t y manageable with hired help. During the Mormon consecration movement in the late LIVING ON THE LAND 101 1850s, some bishops asked local farmers to relinquish their fertile but uncultivated land. In one Davis County community, thirty landless residents received property through this redistribution effort.12 Until January 1848 the Great Basin was part of Mexico's Upper California province and no government officials were nearby to reg­ulate immigrants' claims to the lands used by the Numic peoples and their predecessors. The Latter-day Saint settlers established their own governmental system, first under the Council of Fifty and high coun­cil, then under the Provisional State of Deseret. The first step at reg­ularizing property lines east of the Great Salt Lake was taken between 1848 and 1850, probably working through the county from south to north. An official surveyor visited each cluster of farmers to establish common fields and to describe existing individual claims. Following the pattern established in Salt Lake County, and imitating a practice used by Latter-day Saints in Far West, Missouri, each community sur­veyed a "Big Field." It included many smaller private farms enclosed by a single, community fence. According to Nathan T. Porter, at least one field in Centerville was surveyed in 1848. The general surveys in Bountiful and Centerville probably took place in 1849.13 The typical process can be illustrated with information available on what hap­pened in Farmington. In mid-November 1849 William M. Lemon of Salt Lake City enlisted the help of local assistants. Together they cre­ated garden plots along the west banks of North Cottonwood Creek as well as a community field farther west and south.14 Edward Phillips remembered that he helped Lemon survey west Kaysville in 1850.15 These first land surveys in Davis County were underway when government agent Captain Howard Stansbury arrived in Utah for a scientific survey of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding lands. His 1850 map clearly identifies the surveyed parcels as a continuous strip extending from Bountiful through Farmington, with additional patches for the three clusters of settlers in the Kaysville-Lay ton area. The land between Holmes Creek and Kay's Creek was surveyed later that year.16 After Utah became a territory in 1850, government surveyors continued the process of defining land ownership. In 1855-56 terri­torial surveyors established section lines and laid out townsites. County surveyors confirmed the boundaries of farmlands that had 102 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY been divided into individual parcels. The Mormon squatters had staked out their farms by placing a pole at each corner. They regis­tered their claims with the surveyor for a small fee and received a cer­tificate as evidence of ownership. Territorial law required the owner to fence the surveyed land within one year or the title would be nul­lified and the land become common property subject to claim by others. Owners could sell land with a written quit-claim deed regis­tered with the county recorder.17 Only after the United States government established a land office in Utah in 1869 were federally recognized titles secured. Once the office was functioning, Davis County's landowners individually filed their claims to confirm the titles they had obtained over the previous twenty years. To make certain of the accuracy of the new claims, county officials paid Utah Surveyor General Jesse W Fox to resurvey all section lines.18 Crops and Livestock. The farmlands of Davis County proved fruitful right from the first harvests. For the year ended 1 June 1850, with 2,075 acres under cultivation, the county's farmers reported har­vesting more than 13,000 bushels of wheat, nearly 7,000 bushels of potatoes, and more than 2,000 bushels each of oats and corn. These were the major field crops and were used primarily for human con­sumption. The crops averaged out per household at eighty-eight bushels of wheat, forty-six bushels of potatoes, sixteen bushels of oats, and fourteen bushels of corn. Two-thirds of the farmers har­vested wild hay to help feed their livestock during the winter, with an average yield of more than six tons per harvester. The yield typically ranged from one ton to a dozen, with highs of forty and seventy tons from two large fields.19 Most farms in early Davis County included livestock-both working stock and animals that helped feed and clothe the pioneer families. The most common working animals were oxen, needed to prepare the fields for planting. The 1850 census reported 616 oxen in the county, enough for each farm to have four. Of course, they were not evenly distributed, but only 20 percent of farms reported having no oxen. Almost all of those who reported no oxen owned one to three horses. Eighty percent of all households in the county owned at least one horse. Very few families owned mules; of the forty-four LIVING ON THE LAND 103 head reported, ten belonged to John Barnard in Centerville, eight to his neighbor Justin Stoddard, and six to Eric Hogan of Bountiful.20 All but five homes in the county (all of them in Bountiful) reported owning milch cows. Most homes kept at least one cow to provide fresh milk for drinking. Other families owned several cows in order to make butter and cheese. A typical family kept two or three cows. Enough butter was produced in Davis County during the year period ending 1 June 1850 to provide 107 pounds per household. Cheese production averaged eighty pounds per family. About 40 per­cent of the households reported owning "other cattle," presumably beef cattle. Most of the owners reported having at least a single ani­mal to as much as a herd of a dozen or so. Other useful animals serving the needs of Davis County's pio­neers were pigs and sheep. Nearly 70 percent of the county's residents kept swine in 1850. The average was two pigs per household, and the number seldom exceeded four or five. Bacon, ham, and lard were typ­ical products. Sheep were owned by only 15 percent of the residents, and the herds were typically small. The exceptions were Alonzo Buckland's herd of 250 sheep and Joel Ricks's herd of 125. The other owners averaged twenty head each. The spring shearing yielded a reported 1,800 pounds of wool for use in making yarn and cloth.21 Food Processing and Production Gristmills. The earliest businesses in Davis County supported the agrarian economy by processing grain for human and animal food and by providing materials for housing. Getting a commercial milling operation underway to grind corn and wheat into meal and flour was a high priority for pioneers. During the first years, residents hauled their wheat to Salt Lake City to the small City Creek gristmill opened in 1848 by John Crismon or to John Neff's large flouring-mill oper­ation finished later that summer at Mill Creek. Recognizing the need for service closer to home, Samuel Parrish built a crude gristmill at Centerville in 1848 to provide temporary service.22 By the mid-1850s three of Davis County's towns had their own full-scale gristmills. The first was a frame structure built for Willard Richards at the mouth of North Cottonwood Canyon in Farmington. It began operating before 1 September 1852 and was replaced a few 104 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY The couple in this 1907 photograph are posed in front of the abandoned Heber C Kimball rock and adobe grist mill, opened in Bountiful in 1860. (Utah State Historical Society) years later by a handsome-and more expensive than anticipated- three-story rock building built for Franklin D. Richards, Willard's nephew. It opened not far from the original site in April 1860, outfit­ted with new equipment and grinding stones.23 In Bountiful, Heber C. Kimball began a gristmill in 1852 and opened it the next year. This may have been a small mill, because the larger, more efficient three-level adobe building on North Mill Creek seems to have been built in 1859-60. It measured forty-eight feet by thirty feet, the largest in the county24 In 1854 John Weinel, a German-born miller who had worked for several years with John Neff, began serving residents of the Kaysville area with his small mill on Spring Creek, just outside the fort. He served patrons as far away as South Weber. Settlers in that community also sometimes took their grain to mills on the Weber and Ogden rivers.25 These first gristmill operators eventually had competitors, who saw t h e opportunity to meet a growing demand for their services. By t h e mid-1860s Farmington's s t r e am powered two new mills. The "Red Mill"-a frame structure p a i n t e d red-was built by Charles Bourne a n d H e n r y Steed near the m o u t h of t h e canyon, a n d an LIVING ON THE LAND 105 adobe mill owned by Thomas Steed operated on the city ditch just inside the mud-wall fort's northeast corner.26 In Kaysville, Christopher Layton teamed up with Salt Lake businessman William Jennings in 1866 to build a turbine gristmill not far from Weinel's pioneer mill. Business was sufficient to keep both in operation for a time.27 Anson V. Call and several associates in the cooperative associ­ation at Stoker opened a new gristmill on Deuel Creek in May 1867. Though named the Centerville Rock Mill, the large facility served a clientele extending into the north Bountiful area.28 Most owners of the early water-powered gristmills turned to experienced millwrights to design and construct their facilities. Heber C. Kimball hired Frederick Kesler, one of Utah's best-known mill builders. Appleton Harmon installed the milling equipment.29 Henry Lyman Hinman built the two Steed mills in Farmington and, with his sons, Henry and Morgan, built other mills elsewhere.30 John Weinel built his own mill over a three-year period, using native stones for the foundation, local timber for the framing, and red brick from Bountiful for the walls of the twenty- by-forty-foot mill. Anson Call's rock mill was built by a millwright named Lancaster.31 The buildings and their machinery followed the patterns of grist­mills built elsewhere in the United States. The larger mills built for Franklin Richards and Heber Kimball by Frederick Kesler had three levels. They followed Kesler's preferred style, with a stepped gable roof, known as the clerestory monitor pattern.32 Weinel and Call (and possibly Willard Richards) built smaller structures-a main floor over a basement level, where the cog pits held the gear wheels. These buildings had a simple gable roof. For fifteen years, Weinel's mill used hard, porous millstones hauled from the Oquirrh Mountains near Bingham Canyon; imported stones later replaced them.33 The princi­pal products of the mills were a course meal (from corn or wheat) and fine whole-wheat flour. By-products included feed for livestock, pigs, and chickens, including shorts, middlings, and offal.34 Even though mills were strategically placed to try to ensure a steady flow of water, variations in annual snowfalls and streamflows impacted the millers' work. Heber C. Kimball reported in August 1855 that water was so scarce he was not able "to grind over 7 or 10 bushels in the twenty-four hours."35 Other appropriation of water 106 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY could also jeopardize milling. Because irrigation depleted a stream, by common agreement the mill had first claim to the water. If farm­ers attempted to access the stream above the mill, the county court and Latter-day Saint church officials stepped in to enforce the milling rights. On the other hand, if the miller lost the valuable liquid by fail­ing to keep his millrace in repair as the water exited, the farmers com­plained. Both problems surfaced from time to time during Davis County's early years.36 The day-to-day operation of each of the county's mills was entrusted to a skilled miller. Only in the case of John Weinel's mill in Kaysville was the mill built and operated by an owner who was him­self a miller. As his pay, the miller retained a one-third portion of the grain he milled. Because community members interacted regularly with the miller and depended upon him for an essential service, he usually was trusted as a friend, and the building where he worked was viewed as a community landmark. In addition to their economic and social contributions, most mills also played a religious role in the community. Latter-day Saints used the millpond for baptisms and the miller's home as a dressing room and a place for confirmations.37 Molasses mills. If corn meal and wheat flour provided the bread to sustain life, sugar supplied the sweetener. Yet it was many years before large-scale sugar factories appeared in Utah. Besides a little wild honey that some were able to gather, the initial solution in every community was to squeeze the juice out of carrots, pumpkins, water­melons, or parsnips and then boil out a molasses sweetener. By the 1850s, molasses was being produced from sugar cane and sweet sorghum (a sweet-stalked, corn-like grass). Every Davis County town had several small molasses mills functioning during the pioneer period. Some were turned by horses; many others used water-powered crushers. For consumption, women mixed the fresh molasses with peaches or crabapples to make a candied fruit preserve. Some of the sweetener was stored in barrels for winter use. A thick­ened syrup could be pulled to make candy38 These local mills may not have survived had Brigham Young's hopes for a sugar beet industry succeeded. Experiments with sugar beets began in Utah in 1850. Despite a huge investment in equipment and attempts over several years to refine the process, the effort failed. LIVING ON THE LAND 107 Young then shifted his emphasis to the production of sorghum cane. He distributed free seed to encourage the commercial production of molasses by farmers.39 As was the case with other mills in Davis County, it was neces­sary to obtain permission from the county court to divert water from local canyon streams to power the molasses machinery. The court set specific restrictions with each grant to protect local irrigation and culinary needs.40 The court also left to local ward bishops the resolu­tion of problems created by conflicting claims caused by its willing­ness to grant multiple permits on the same stream or main water ditch in a town.41 A few molasses producers in each community followed Brigham Young's counsel and became suppliers to neighbors and to mer­chants. In some instances, especially after sugar cane was introduced locally in the 1860s, these businessmen supplied a substantial number of customers, including some in adjacent towns. Settlers preferred the higher-quality cane sweetener to their own homemade substitute. The local molasses industry was phased out in the final years of the century after Utah-made beet sugar became available through a pro­cessing factory in Lehi.42 Kitchen gardens. Every family supplemented the basic farm crops of wheat and other grains, hay, potatoes, and corn, with vegetables and fruits grown in a backyard garden on their city lot. Settlers also gathered some wild berries and used wild game. Kitchen gardens provided squash, turnips, carrots, and other crops for winter storage and a variety of summer foods. Pioneer women also raised herbs for seasoning foods and for medications.43 Apples were quite easy to grow. Many families also raised peaches, plums, and cherries. All of these fruits could be dried for storage. Apples were used as well for cider and vinegar. The backyard produced other food besides that grown in gardens and small orchards. Chickens and pigs provided meat. Butter, eggs, cheese, and milk were often produced in quantities that gave a family surplus for use in paying tithes and offerings or for bartering for dry goods from merchants or services.44 Challenges of nature. The task of turning a newly settled land into a productive agricultural Eden challenged the hardworking early set- 108 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY After Davis County's farmers became settled, they often built barns after an English pattern seen in this example owned by Charles A. Miller in Farmington. The large doors (behind the shed) open on a central threshing floor, with side aisles for stock or hay. (Charles G. Miller) tiers of Davis County. They fought crickets and grasshoppers, weeds, wolves, a n d fires. They faced the vagaries of climate and weather, including threats of frost, wind, and drouth. From one season to another, in order to survive on the food they raised, the first genera­tions maintained a constant vigilance against nature's challenges. The earliest Davis County settlers experienced the cricket inva­sions of 1848 and 1849. "The crickets came like the locusts in the days of Moses," Perrigrine Sessions reported. Like the settlers in Salt Lake County, farmers harvested diminished crops those years, the dam­aged mitigated by swarming seagulls that ate some of the insects. Over the next several years, the number of crickets in Davis County was reduced and the threat they posed to agriculture largely disap­peared. 45 Grasshoppers threatened tender spring plants throughout the pioneer period. At least six times before 1870 these insects seriously damaged crops in Davis County Hardest hit were the crops of 1849, 1854, 1855, 1860, 1868, and 1870. The combined impact of insects, late frosts, cold winds, summer hailstorms, smut, and drouth resulted LIVING ON THE LAND 109 in a substantial variation from year to year in the yield of crops.46 Even in the same year, the damage could vary from field to field. In 1868, for example, while most grain and hay crops in the county dropped by one-third because of losses to grasshoppers, some farms suffered a near total crop loss.47 During the summer of 1855, after two years of grasshopper inva­sions, a severe drouth further diminished the supply of wheat and created one of the most severe grain shortages recorded in pioneer times. Joseph L. Robinson lost his entire wheat crop to grasshoppers in 1854. The following year he planted three different times and still only harvested twenty-eight bushels instead of the expected 400. "The winter of 55 and 6," he recalled, "was what we called the hard winter." Because the grasshoppers had stripped the pastures of their grass, hundreds of cattle, horses, and sheep died from malnutrition while foraging on the hostile range during that cold winter of heavy snow and hard winds. Water was so scarce in 1855 that few backyard gardens survived. The following spring, awaiting the harvest of 1856, families rationed the meal they had ground from their corn, oats, and wheat. Wheat supplies were estimated at no more than fifteen bushels to a family48 "We all lived on weeds and roots and many nearly starved to death," Emily Stewart Barnes remembered. "We had to go early in the morn­ing to gather nettles to e a t . . . . We also gathered some sego roots and pulled some wild onions to eat." Settlers everywhere in the county felt the brunt of that bad farming year. For food they depended upon rationed flour and meal, a little meat, and wild greens and roots cooked in milk.49 A combined community campaign proved the best way to face the challenge of the "iron clads," as the grasshoppers were called by the settlers. When pulling brush drags over the insects failed during the insect onslaught of 1868, the citizens of one Davis County town "turned out en masse with spades, shovels, and pounders, and caught the enemy from one to four inches thick under the shelter of weeds . . . and slaughtered some millions," according to one account. To expand the slaughter, men, women, and children worked to prepare water-filled ditches. Driving the hoppers into the ditches, the citizens scooped them up with sacks and baskets, and then smashed them or 110 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY burned t h em with straw. As one grim-humored reporter put it in a mock toast to the grasshoppers, "Peace to their ashes if t h e y are mashed, and to their ashes if they are burned."50 Natural processes dispatched many of the insects when they migrated to the Great Salt Lake and were killed by the saltwater. "Their bodies formed little islands 2 feet deep, 3 to 4 feet across, so firm, a dog could walk with­out sinking," Anson Call wrote. Winds spread the decaying mass along the shore, and it was reported that "the stench was unbearable" for many weeks.51 Another challenge to both crops and clean communities were the noxious weeds of the region. After twenty years in Utah, area citizens decided it was time to j o in forces in eliminating the most trouble­some weeds from fields and meadows and from along fences, hedges, and roads. Residents j o i n e d in an unsuccessful effort to eradicate mustard, sourdock, sunflower, parsnip, cocklebur, and other nuisance weeds, though they did reduce their number somewhat.52 The pioneers of Davis County very quickly discovered the impact of t h e weather when high pressure built in Wyoming and a low-pressure system settled into the Great Salt Lake Valley-the result was a bank of clouds near the crest of the Wasatch Mountains and strong canyon winds. "The first night we arrived there was a heavy east wind," Daniel Miller of Farmington r e p o r t e d in the fall of 1848. Conditions that could create winds of near hurricane force existed most often during the late fall and early spring. The east winds piled snow in drifts, unroofed houses and barns, tore off shingles, uprooted trees, overturned carriages, scattered haystacks, and wreaked damage to fences and sheds. The best the settlers could do to protect their homes was to tie down roofs with molasses barrels, discarded mill­stones, or logging chains.53 In February 1864, while John Rigby of n o r t h Centerville was away getting medicine for his fifteen-month-old son John, the wind unroofed his family's house. His wife of two years, Elizabeth, tried to get to a neighbor's house with the child, but the two were pinned against a fence and died in the sub-zero temperatures. These are the only known deaths from an east wind in Davis County54 Fire was a constant threat to p r o p e r t y and life in early Davis County. Sparks from fireplaces and their chimneys could destroy LIVING ON THE LAND 111 houses, barns, and fields quickly, with little hope of human interven­tion saving the structures. A bucket brigade was the only system available to fight a fire, and often that could not be organized in time to douse the flames. In 1860, one family lost a straw stack, several tons of hay, a mule, and 116 sheep when a windstorm carried sparks from a fireplace twenty rods to the straw stack. Besides the threats they posed to homesteads and property, fires also sometimes dam­aged grazing lands and the mountain watershed. For example, fires started by Indians and whites swept most of the canyons of Davis County clear of timber and underbrush in 1855, a summer of dry, hot weather.55 The wildlife of Davis County was generally not a threat to human life, but some animals could be a nuisance; others could be a source of food. Emily Stewart Barnes remembered, "There were many wild animals; some of them are: rattlesnakes, blow snakes, blue racers, lizzards, ground hogs, wolves, porcupines, skunks, rabbits, mink and deer in the mountains, as well as wild ducks and all kinds of birds." When wolves became a threat to livestock and fowl, the county court offered a bounty for each wolf killed.56 Managing Timber Resources Even though the weather and wildlife challenged the pioneer generation, it was from the natural resources-the land, the timber, and the water-that they received sustenance and protection. Along with policies for distributing land, the first settlers managed the access to and harvesting of timber in the canyons to serve commu­nity interests and allocated mill rights along the major canyon streams. Trees and water were considered community property in Mormon society, and they were managed for the common good. Officials appointed individuals to develop canyon roads for commu­nity use and often gave these same people the first rights to build sawmills and gristmills on the canyon streams.57 In addition, Latter-day Saint leaders reminded sawmill operators that, because the tim­ber was community property, "every mill in the Territory is legally bound to give one tenth of all they saw to the tithing office."58 This corporate timber tithe was used in public buildings, given to the poor, or traded for other goods. 112 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Limited timber resources existed in the mountains east of Davis County. Among the forested areas harvested was one stretching from Mueller park toward Bountiful Peak, captured in this 1906 Shipler photograph. (Utah State Historical Society) The first stewardships over canyons and their resources were granted by Mormon leaders; later ones were granted by civil govern­ments. In 1849 the rights to the major canyons in the first areas of settlement were assigned to members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and a few others. Heber C. Kimball held the rights to North Mill Creek Canyon in Bountiful and Willard Richards had the rights to North Cottonwood Canyon in Farmington. Kimball also received rights to convey water from the next canyon north to ensure suffi­cient flow to power mills. These men were expected to build canyon roads, then recover their costs by charging a toll of twenty-five cents per wagonload of logs or firewood removed from the canyon. They also held the exclusive right to build mills on the canyon streams. The Deseret Assembly (and later the territorial legislature) confirmed these rights. In February 1851, legislators authorized county judges to grant timber, mill, and water rights for the remaining canyons.59 LIVING ON THE LAND 113 The Davis County canyons with unassigned useable resources were claimed within two years. The selectmen (commissioners) assigned them upon request, usually to a group of business partners. Those given the rights to build mills of various kinds and to cut roads into the canyons acted quickly on their opportunity and responsibil­ity to meet community needs.60 In 1855 the court authorized the bishops in each Latter-day Saint ward to issue and monitor addi­tional canyon grants and to supervise the use of the water flowing from the canyons.61 The question of rights at times became confused. Brigham Young insisted that the timber itself was community property, available for free use by anyone who wished to cut or collect it, subject only to a toll for using the canyon road. Unless the owners of existing saw- or gristmills or others in the community objected, the court could grant multiple milling permits on a single stream. The county court expected the bishops to settle disputes over the use of canyon water for milling and to resolve questions of access and use of the canyons and their valuable timber. Building Materials and Construction Sawmills. As had been the case in Nauvoo, the construction industry was second only to agriculture in importance during Utah's early years of Mormon settlement. The first settlers secured their own materials, and the most accessible timber was cottonwood. Even with a log home, however, some sawn lumber was needed to finish doors, windows, and floors. John Marriott's response was to dig a hole in the ground in early Kaysville and create a saw pit. Then he and Robert W Burton fashioned lumber for their own homes and those of their neighbors along Holmes Creek. One of the men climbed down into the pit while his partner took the top end of the steel saw, and together they sliced the logs lengthwise to fashion rough boards. Makeshift operations like this also existed in other parts of Davis County until more sophisticated sawmills could be erected.62 Given the demand for lumber, those who received the rights to manage canyon resources quickly hired men to build wagon roads and water-powered sawmills. Bountiful had the county's first sawmill, followed by one in Farmington and another in Kaysville. 114 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY In Bountiful, Norton Jacob, William Wallace, and E. Whipple had a sawmill operating on North Mill Creek Canyon by June 1849. Built for Heber C. Kimball, eventually the successful operation became known as Whipple's sawmill. William Atkinson and his son-in-law M.W Merrill set up an independent operation to make shingles, and they produced 17,000 during the winter of 1853-54.63 In Farmington, Willard Richards launched the most energetic program in the county when his agent Andrew Lamoreaux advertised in August 1850 for fifty workers to build a sawmill, a millpond, and a millrace. He also sought men to begin chopping and sawing logs at a site four miles into North Cottonwood (Farmington) Canyon. Work on a road into the steep canyon was already underway Richards drew $2,300 from the central tithing office to help pay for the project. It was almost a year before the mill produced its first timber and shin­gles, because it took that long to finish the mill and get the steep, winding road and bridges in a condition to allow wagons with timber to reach the mill. In the meantime, Richards's agents set up a shingle mill at the mouth of the canyon. By late January 1851 they were sell­ing pine shingles in exchange for cash, beef, wheat, and potatoes. Richards offered to buy for resale shingles produced by others.64 A third pioneer sawmill was set up at the east end of Grove Creek, later known as Bair Creek, east of Kaysville. A three-man part­nership organized by John Bair secured the mill rights from the county court in 1852. The sawyers also soon gained exclusive rights to the saw timber in South Holmes Creek Canyon when it was found that a single canyon could not supply logs in sufficient numbers to make the mill commercially viable.65 A few other sawyers joined these pioneer county entrepreneurs during the next decade. Typically, payment for services was made in shares, with one-third of the customer's logs kept by the miller for sawing and finishing the timber. The local industry did well for a time, but steam mills, diminished local timber sources, and imported lumber gradually forced the closure of local timber and shingle mills.66 By the end of the pioneer period, the county's mostly shallow canyons and sparsely timbered mountainfaces had been stripped of their trees. It became essential to seek other sources. Imported mate- LIVING ON THE LAND 115 rials became widely available in local lumberyards soon after the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.67 Providing Shelter. The timber industry helped provide the basic need for every resident for shelter. Living in wagons, tents, dugouts, and wattle-and-daub summer homes served the purpose temporarily while settlers awaited the time and means to prepare a more secure dwelling. Logs harvested in nearby canyons provided the building materials for the first permanent homes. Builders selected trees for their evenness, then notched the ends of the logs where they inter­sected. They then filled the cracks between the logs with a moist clay A blanket or hide filled the framed doorway. Within a few years, "dobie" pits appeared at convenient places in every town, as adobe bricks-sun-dried clay and mud bricks-became a popular material for house walls. A roof of planks and sod-eventually replaced by shingles-kept rain out sufficiently to make a comfortable home. Plank flooring, simple windows, and a fireplace completed the home. Both logs and adobe bricks provided excellent insulation from the summer's heat and the winter's cold. Because of its insulating value, adobe continued to be used as a wall liner after lumber was available in adequate quantities and quality to build frame homes. Another popular local building material was stone. Gathered from fields or the highlands near the mountains, the rocks were laid up in walls sta­bilized with a lime mortar obtained near the hot springs at the south­ern county border or in Weber Canyon.68 The county's first kiln-fired bricks were produced in Bountiful when Joseph Holbrook hired John Dale to establish a brickyard in 1849. Dale's bricks were used as far north as Kaysville. Other brick-makers later worked in the Bountiful-Woods Cross area and, after 1870, in Kaysville. It was not until the later decades of the century that fired bricks became commonly available.69 The county's first residents furnished their homes meagerly, using the few pieces of furniture most of them had hauled west in wagons, and supplementing them with locally made or imported items. Cooking utensils and chairs were among the items commonly brought to Utah by immigrants, along with trunks and boxes con­taining clothing and dishware. Marriner W. Merrill of South Bountiful reported that he and his wife, Sarah, set up house in 1854 116 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY John W. Young's barn in Centerville was one of many in the Farmington and Centerville area built entirely of common fieldstone. (Utah State Historical Society) in a one-room log home with "one old bedstead, one baking skillet (borrowed), one frying pan (borrowed), my chest for a table, two three-legged stools, two knives, two forks, six small tin spoons, etc., but we were happy and felt at home."70 After providing for a home, landowners next turned their atten­tion to barns, sheds, granaries, and other improvements. They pat­terned these farm buildings after those they or others had built elsewhere in the United States or in England. A typical barn was built of square timbers, planks, and shingles produced by local sawmills. For fasteners the builders used wooden pegs and locally made spikes and nails. Most buildings sat upon rock foundations. Some barns and granaries were built entirely of the plentiful native field stones. Friends and neighbors joined in the work and enjoyed the hearty food and socializing that accompanied a "barn-raising bee."71 For more than thirty years, Davis County farmers used a fencing policy they had known before their migration to Utah. It was based on the notion that if everyone worked together the load would be lighter. Cultivated fields needed to be fenced, because it was the tra­dition to let livestock wander freely. Rather than build a fence around LIVING ON THE LAND 117 each field, settlers cooperated in building one long perimeter fence enclosing the private fields of a large number of farms. This large enclosure was called the "Big Field." If several such fields existed in the community, they were designated by location, such as the "Big West Field." Farmland not enclosed in this way because of its loca­tion was privately fenced, and some private corrals and fences were built to enclose livestock. Bountiful's 315-acre Big Field was fenced in the spring of 1850 under the supervision of two men appointed at a town meeting held in the schoolhouse.72 Other communities made similar arrangements. Latter-day Saint bishops provided general oversight for the fenc­ing of land in Davis County for at least the first dozen years. Each spring, the bishop appointed committees to oversee the building or repair of cooperative fences around one or more large agricultural tracts. The committees monitored the work of volunteer laborers, considered requests for new fences, handled complaints of damaged sections, and watched to see that sheep and roving cattle were kept out of the crops. After the crops were harvested, the fences were aban­doned until the following spring. In 1865 this arrangement was for­malized under a county cattle law adopted by a vote of 445 to 36. This shifted the responsibility away from ecclesiastical oversight and gave the existing practice a legal civic basis. Thereafter, the local fenc­ing committees drafted formal contracts that were signed by the owners of the enclosed land.73 Managing Water Resources The water that flowed from the canyons along the Wasatch Front in Davis County served three major purposes. First, mill operators needed water to power their machinery to saw lumber, grind grain, and produce sorghum. Secondly, farmers quickly learned that Utah soils needed added water in the form of irrigation to coax the crops to the fall harvest. Both purposes were essential for survival-pro­viding housing and food for settlers. In the first years, the streams also supplied culinary water. The county's water supply was derived from melting snows in the nearby mountains. The depth of the previous winter's snowfall influ­enced this supply. Canyon streams began flowing each spring around 118 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY An outdoor summer kitchen, like the one seen here behind a home in Centerville, made cooking and canning tolerable during hot weather. Note also the water tap at the right and the ground-level doors to the cellar under the building at left, where fruits and vegetables were kept cool. (Utah State Historical Society) the end of March and continued until late summer, dwindling with the onset of fall in September. Supplementing the water supplied by the aboveground watershed were the natural springs that issued from gullies in the benchlands. In later years, farmers dug artesian wells to tap underground water sources.74 In time, most families found a more convenient source for culi­n a r y water-a well located as near the house as a reliable supply could be found. Each community had its specialists in digging wells and lining t h em with rocks. More t h a n 150 wells were dug in Bountiful alone, ranging in depth from 60 to 100 feet.75 Utah's sparse rainfall made a roof-collection system, using barrels placed under downspouts on the roof, an unreliable system for obtaining culinary water. Some early settlers were skeptical about allowing new settlers to claim land because of the limited amount of water. Bishop Kay dis- LIVING ON THE LAND 119 couraged some applicants in 1854 with the words, "I should be glad to have you settle here; there is plenty of land but no water." In Bountiful, some of the early settlers began looking for other places to live.76 Careful management, the nurturing of natural springs, and the digging of wells made it possible in most years to meet the needs of the expanding settlements. But if little snow fell during the winter, water could become scarce, leading to smaller stream flows, dimin­ished yields of summer crops, and higher prices for foodstuffs and commodities. When a dry summer followed a mild winter in 1863, territorial officials froze prices to protect the poor against specula­tors. Crops were light again the following year because the streams dwindled in June. Joseph Holbrook told the Deseret News that "he sowed twenty bushels of oats, planted fifteen acres of corn and ten of sugar cane this year, and that he does not expect to get a bushel of oats or corn nor a pint of molasses, owing to the drouth."77 Distribution Systems. Because water was scarce, even in good years, landowers cared about the methods of its allocation and dis­tribution. In developing a water-management system, the Mormon settlers set aside the familiar doctrine of riparian rights. That law, used in the eastern United States, required that users maintain the stream flow undiminished in volume. This worked well for water-powered machinery but not for irrigation agriculture. Therefore, in Utah, water was appropriated for industrial, agricultural, and culi­nary use under new principles adopted in 1852 that allowed water to be used up. With minor variations, sixteen other western states later adopted this same principle of "prior appropriation." Utah's interests in benefiting as many users as possible minimized litigation and soft­ened the rights of the first claimants. Secondary and tertiary rights and rules were established to set priorities in dry years. Everyone in each class was treated alike and shared the available water. Ownership rights were also influenced by Brigham Young's policy of community ownership. Throughout the pioneer period it was customary for water rights to pass with the land to a new owner. Not until after Young's death did the legislature separate land and water rights.78 The first party of Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley com­menced the practice of irrigation in Utah on 23 July 1847, diverting the waters of City Creek by blocking the stream with clumps of sod 120 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY and digging diversion ditches. Davis County farmers also applied the simple diversion system on their own farms. The first canals, laterals, and ditches for the Big Field farms were built by cooperative effort. Hitching oxen to a plow, the men marked out a channel, then widened and deepened the ditch with scrapers and shovels. They flooded their fields and furrowed their row crops to control the moistening of the soil. Within a few years a network of distribution ditches had spread out across the foothills and along the borders of the farmlands to disburse the water.79 Once established, this cooperative network of ditches, large and small, needed maintenance. Individual landowners took care of their own ditches, keeping the weeds out of the channels and securing the ditch banks. If farmers shared a ditch, or when the streambed itself needed care, the work was shared cooperatively This was true also with the city water sects that carried water to the backyard orchards and garden plots within each town. These sects were authorized by the county court and developed by court-appointed committees. Needs for upkeep of the city sect were resolved in discussions during Latter-day Saint priesthood meetings, a weekly gathering of men that effectively served as a town meeting. Every spring, the ward teachers supervised the work of cleaning and reinforcing the main channels serving the town.80 Water masters. Of special importance in the regulation of agri­cultural water was the watermaster system, which was developed to give farmers fair access to extremely limited water supplies. In the water-scarce Midwest, sodbusters of the late nineteenth century homesteaded the land under the belief that the rain would follow the plow. In early Utah, a similar expectation prevailed. Latter-day Saint settlers established a complex system of canals and ditches and then regularly reported an increase in water supplies to irrigate their farms. Clearing the natural streambeds of clutter and an annual scouring of irrigation ditches also helped conserve water.81 The key figure in water allocation was the local watermaster. Appointed watermasters managed the use of the water by assigning water turns to protect both individual and community rights. The system was launched only a month after Brigham Young's arrival in Utah, when the Salt Lake High Council appointed Edson Whipple to LIVING ON THE LAND 121 superintend "the distribution of the water over the plowed lands" in Salt Lake City82 The pattern set up by Brigham Young in the Salt Lake City LDS wards in April 1849, of bishops overseeing such affairs, was adopted in Davis County as wards were created there. In 1851 the new territorial legislature gave incorporated cities the authority to appoint watermasters. The following year, county courts gained the same privilege, along with the power to assign timber and mill rights.83 Davis County was the first to act on this new law, in March 1852. Salt Lake County followed in April, and Weber County in June, with Box Elder and Cache Counties making such appointments in 1856 and I860.84 Before designating agents for the area's sixteen canyon streams, the Davis County Court consulted with the four local Latter-day Saint bishops. Watermasters nominated by the bishops were local farmers living along the streams whose waters they would supervise.85 For ease of administration, the court soon created water districts that included one or more streams, and they chose boundaries already in use by school and road districts.86 Beginning in 1855 the court named separate watermasters for the east and west ends of the major branches of the creeks in the Kaysville-Layton area. Over the next decade, the practice grew in many communities of naming sep­arate watermasters for each major ditch spreading out from the larger streams.87 In South Weber, for example, since all irrigation water came from the Weber River, it was only the ditches or canals that needed regulating. The most important was the South Weber Canal, built by fourteen farmers in 1852 along a four-mile-long channel used later by the Bambrough Canal.88 For ten years, the court made annual appointments of the water-masters nominated by the ward bishops. Then, to simplify the process, in 1863 Judge Thomas Grover named a single head water-master in each community-the ward bishop-and allowed him to appoint the district watermasters.89 In 1865 a territorial law challenged the involvement of religious leaders in the irrigation management process. At the same time, the law recognized the importance of the cooperative irrigation system. It authorized a new type of irrigation district with self-governing authority. To create a district, a group of water users would petition 122 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY the court. The stockholders then would elect a board of trustees to build and maintain water diversion projects and manage them. This secularization of water management helped prepare the way for Utah's transition to a more diverse population-the influx of non- Mormons-with fewer social strains.90 In Davis County the new law had little initial impact. It simply prompted a temporary reversion to civil appointment of the water-masters. For two years-1865 and 1866-Judge Joseph L. Holbrook appointed the nominated watermasters himself. But after that brief respite, and continuing until 1875, the court once again appointed the bishops as general watermasters and allowed them to manage the selection of local watermasters.91 In the late 1860s some of Davis County's bishop-watermasters allowed the local choices to be made by nomination in a priesthood meeting. This shift was a weak nod toward the 1865 territorial law but preserved ecclesiastical influence. More typically, the general watermaster simply "called" the water-masters for each creek or ditch and the priesthood quorum sustained his actions.92 It was not until 1876 that water management in Davis County moved more definitely toward democratic self-government within the irrigation districts. Beginning in that year, the court cre­ated a water district for each community and appointed watermas­ters nominated locally in a secular mass meeting.93 Haight Creek, which served settlers in two towns, had its own water district. The watermaster assigned each farmer times and length of water use. Generally, it was the watermaster who resolved questions of missed or misappropriated water turns. Only when a dispute crossed town/ward boundaries or when petitioners wanted to adjust a grant previously mandated by the court did the county judge step in to resolve questions. The court did offer a general guideline during the drought year of 1863 "that in times of scarcity of water the oldest improved Farms shal[l] have the preference." Also, in one dispute involving the use of water from Haight Creek (the boundary between Farmington and Kaysville), the court and local bishop referred the matter to the LDS First Presidency.94 Another duty of the watermaster was to supervise new construc­tion and routine maintenance of the main ditches. Each water user was expected to turn out for work duty on the appointed date or to LIVING ON THE LAND 123 Layton's first brick home was built in 1870 by Elias Adams, a brickmaker. His son rigged up a pulley system to transport buckets of water to the house from a spring in a nearby hollow. (Rebecca A. Nalder) (Layton, Utah: Historical Viewpoints) hire someone else to do his work. Widows were exempted from this duty. If residents failed to heed the call, watermasters could appeal to the bishop, who had one last recourse. As Bishop John W. Hess put it, "If men would not do their duty and quit finding fault he would try them for fellowship," that is, threaten to disfellowship them from the Mormon church.95 Dams and Canals. Most farmers managed with the water avail­able during the seasonal flow of the particular stream they used. But Elias Adams, one of those using the waters of the n o r t h fork of Holmes Creek, decided in the spring of 1852 to create a pond to pre­serve the early stream flow for later use and thus extend his irrigation season after the streambed went d r y Using shovels, Adams and his sons created a bank four feet high and forty feet long and stored enough water to irrigate his nearby farm. Early in 1863, under the direction of the Kays Ward bishop, local residents hauled in addi­tional soil in wheelbarrows to raise a new dam to a height of fifteen feet on top of the earthen dam. Unfortunately, this work was done in winter and melting ice under the dam weakened its base. The new dam washed out the following June. The community gave up on the 124 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY project, but Adams steadily reinforced the surviving original dam and created a useful pond. This first Davis County reservoir built for irri­gation purposes was also the earliest reservoir in Utah.96 Several neighbors imitated Adams's efforts to conserve water. Robert Knell and others gained county permission in 1857 to dam the north fork of Kays Creek. A dam existed on the south fork of Holmes Creek before the fall of that year and a road crossed it. The county court approved these and other attempts to husband water, including the use of waste water from irrigated farms. The judges held the builders of the dams liable for any damage caused by washouts.97 The widespread use of reservoirs would become a com­mon practice only after the end of the pioneer period, however, due to the engineering problems and the limited availability of equip­ment and manpower. One other early effort to provide more water received the active endorsement of Brigham Young and his counselors. They promoted a canal to carry water from the Weber River along the benchline to a point just above Heber Kimball's millpond in Bountiful and then to Davis County's southern boundary. A route south to Kay's Creek had been explored a few years earlier. The territorial legislature incorpo­rated the Davis County Canal Company in January 1856, and, at a meeting in the county courthouse in August, community leaders accepted the LDS First Presidency's challenge to build the canal. Territorial surveyor general Jesse W. Fox and his assistant had just completed a survey of the proposed route. It would take "much labor . . . and perhaps some tunneling and flumeing," they reported. Engineers decided to tunnel through the sand ridge, expecting to find a compacted clay material. Instead, they found loose sand. It was dan­gerous for workers and prohibitively expensive to create a lined chan­nel and protective roof. The Utah War delayed a decision on the project, and the idea would not be revived for many years. By then, the local economy would be undergoing a transition that would move Davis County from the agrarian pioneer era of cooperation to a time of independent business partnerships and individual entre-preneurship. 98 LIVING ON THE LAND 125 ENDNOTES 1. Ward Roylance, Utah: A Guide to the State (Salt Lake City: Utah: A Guide to the State Foundation, 1982), xvi. Roylance gives the size in square miles of the six smallest counties as: Davis, 297; Weber, 581; Morgan, 603; Daggett, 682; Piute, 754; and Salt Lake, 764. Tillable land in Davis County is around 200 square miles, or about 128,000 acres. 2. Deon C Greer et a l , eds., Atlas of Utah, 28-31. 3. Ibid., 77. 4. Glen M. Leonard, "A History of Farmington, Utah, to 1890," 96. 5. Ibid., 36. 6. lournal History of the Church of lesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 17 August 1868. A similar observation appears in Edward L. Sloan, ed., Gazeteer of Utah, and Salt Lake City Directory (Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Herald Publishing Co., 1874), 65. 7. Glen M. Leonard, "Truman Leonard: Pioneer Mormon Farmer," Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (Summer 1976): 251-52. 8. Record of Members and Historical Record of Farmington Ward, 1851-65, Book A, 29 December 1851, microfilm, LDS Family History Library; Journal History, 4 May 1850. 9. Wilford Woodruff s Journal, 1833-1898: Typescript, ed. by Scott G. Kenney (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983-85), 3:236. 10. Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 51-52; "The Settlement of Bountiful" manuscript, 1912, 4, 46, LDS Church Archives; Andrew Jenson, "Centerville Ward," [11], manu­script, LDS Church Archives. 11. Analysis of information in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census, Territory of Utah, Davis County, Schedule 3 "Productions of Agriculture," manuscript, LDS Church Archives. 12. Clifford Westenskow, "The Economic Development of Davis County, Utah" (M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1946), 56-59; Leonard, "A History of Farmington," 99. 13. An 1849 survey in Centerville is mentioned in Mary Ellen Smoot and Marilyn Sheriff, City In-Between: History of Centerville, 7. Porter is quoted in Jenson, "Centerville Ward," [11]. 14. Kate B. Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 2:270-71, 4:328; Historical Record, Farmington Ward, 29 December 1851. 15. Andrew lenson, "Kaysville Ward," entry for 1850, manuscript, LDS Church Archives. 16. See Howard Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the 126 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Great Salt Lake of Utah (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1852), map; Jenson, "Kaysville Ward," entry for 1850. 17. Acts, Resolutions, and Memorials . . . of the Legislative Assembly . . . (Great Salt Lake City: loseph Cain, 1855), 66-67, 6 March 1852; Gustive O. Larsen, "Land Contest in Early Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (October 1961): 312-13. 18. Lawrence L. Linford, "Establishing and Maintaining Land Ownership in Utah Prior to 1869," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (Spring 1974): 139-43; Davis County, Minutes of the Davis County Court, 1 July 1869, Davis County Clerk's Office, Farmington, Utah. 19. Seventh Census, Utah Territory, Davis County, "Productions of Agriculture." 20.Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1887 (San Francisco: The History Co., 1891), 279, 327. 23. Deseret News, 4 September 1852; "Farmington Grist Mill," an account listing work done by Kesler and Laub, 1 November 1857, to December 1858, LDS Church Archives; lournal History, 5 April, 20 November 1860. 24. Wallace N. Cooper II and Allen D. Roberts, "Report on the Isaac Chase Mill (Brigham Young's Lower Mill), ca. 1852-79, Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah," typescript prepared for Salt Lake City Department of Parks and Recreation, January 1980, 26; Annie Call Carr, East of Antelope Island: History of the First Fifty Years of Davis County, 379-80. 25. Inez Barker, John Weinel, Miller: Early Pioneer and Operator of the First Flour Mill in Kaysville, Utah (Kaysville: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1983), 1-3, 7; Kate Carter, ed., Treasures of Pioneer History (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1952-57), 2:422. 26. Margaret Steed Hess, My Farmington: A History of Farmington, Utah, 1847-1976, 342. 27. Henry H. Blood, "Early Settlement of Kaysville" (1912; typescript reproduced by Kaysville Historical Society, 1995), 12. 28. Journal History, 15 May 1867. Dates of "about 1854" and "about 1860" are suggested in Smoot and Sheriff, City In-Between, 35; and Carr, East of Antelope Island, 382. 29. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 379-80; Cooper and Roberts, "Report on the Isaac Chase Mill," 26. 30. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 382. Margaret Steed Hess, My LIVING ON THE LAND 127 Farmington, 340, misidentifies the Hinmans' mill with the Richards sawmill and both Richards's gristmills. 31. Barker, John Weinel, Miller, 7, 10, 19; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 380; lournal History, 15 May 1867. 32. Cooper and Roberts, "Report on the Isaac Chase Mill," 38. 33. Barker, John Weinel, Miller, 7-8, provides a useful description of Weinel's mill. For photos of Davis County mills see Barker and various town histories. 34. Barker, John Weinel, Miller, 8; Cooper and Roberts, "Report on the Isaac Chase Mill," 37. 35. Heber C. Kimball to Franklin D. Richards, in Journal History, 31 August 1855, 3. 36. lournal History, 25 luly 1864; Davis County, Court Minutes, 7 December 1863, 5 September, 5 December 1864, 7 March, 5 December 1865; Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 21 lune, 28 June 1868. 37. Hess, My Farmington, 340-42; Foy, 86; Smoot and Sheriff, City In-Between, 35; Carol Ivins Collett, Kaysville-Our Town: A History (Kaysville, Utah: Kaysville City, 1976), 36-40; Barker, John Weinel, Miller, 12, 24; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 379-83. 38. Lester T. Foy, The City Bountiful: Utah's Second Settlement from Pioneers to Present (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1975), 90-91; Smoot and Sheriff, The City In-Between, 38; Hess, My Farmington, 340; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 34; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 397, 411. 39. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 116-20. 40. Examples are in Davis County, Court Minutes, 2 December 1861, 1 lune 1863, 1 lune 1868. 41. Davis County, Court Minutes, 7 September 1863; loseph L. Robinson, Autobiography and lournal, 30 August 1863, microfilm, LDS Church Archives. 42. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 238, 277, Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 21, 28 August, 25 September 1870; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 120. 43. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 154-55. 44. Ibid., 136, 156. 45. Foy, City Bountiful, 48-49; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 64. 46. For further analysis see Leonard, "A History of Farmington," 111-12; and Foy, City Bountiful, 49-50. 47. Arthur Stayner to editor, 4 August 1868, in Deseret News, 12 August 1868. 48. Robinson, Autobiography and Journal, 105-10, entries for May 128 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY 1855-summer 1856; Deseret News, 2 May 1855; Heber C. Kimball to Franklin D. Richards, in Journal History, 31 August 1855, 3; Deseret News, 29 August 1855,8. 49. Quoted in Claude T. Barnes, The Grim Years, or The Life of Emily Stewart Barnes, 44, 53; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 65, 173; Lee D. Bell, South Weber: The Autobiography of One Utah Community, 48. 50. Deseret News, 20 May 1868; Journal History, 17-18 May 1868. 51. Anson Call, Diary, in Carr, East of Antelope Island, 372. 52. Deseret News, 20 May 1868. 53. Hess, My Farmington, 417; Foy, City Bountiful, 52-55; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 46-47; Deseret News, 23 November 1864. 54. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 238; Foy, City Bountiful, 54; Hess, My Farmington, 417. 55. Journal History, 16 November 1860; Heber C. Kimball to Franklin D. Richards, in Journal History, 31 August 1855, 3. 56. Barnes, The Grim Years, 33; Foy, City Bountiful, 71. 57. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 50-54. 58. Deseret News, 14 May 1853. 59. Laws and Ordinances of the General Assembly (Great Salt Lake City: Willard Richards, 1851), 8 and 15 January, 4 February 1851; Journal History, 8 January 1851. 60. For examples see Davis County, Court Minutes, 19 September 1853, 30 January 1854. 61. Davis County, Court Minutes, June term, 1855. 62. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 10; Foy, City Bountiful, 85. 63. Foy, City Bountiful, 70-71, 85; Davis County, Court Minutes, 4 December 1854; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 150. 64. Deseret News, 24 August 1850; Journal History, 15 December 1858; 31 May, 14 lune 1851; 25 January, 8 February, 17 May 1851. 65. Davis County, Court Minutes, 30 October 1852, 4 December 1854. 66. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 150, 383-84. 67. Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 2, 6, 9 June 1867; William R. Purrington, "History of South Davis County," 24, 71-72. 68. "The Settlement of Bountiful," 17-24; Carlos Sessions, "Colonization of Home Town of Sessions Settlement Now Called Bountiful," quoted in ibid., 45-46; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 150. 69. Foy, City Bountiful, 89; Collette, Kaysville-Our Town, 35-37. 70. "The Settlement of Bountiful," 17-18; Barnes, The Grim Years, 28; George W. Givens, In Old Nauvoo: Everyday Life in the City of Joseph (Salt LIVING ON THE LAND 129 Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 182-88; Marriner W. Merrill, lournal, quoted in Carr, East of Antelope Island, 151. 71. Leonard, "A History of Farmington," 106. 72. Ibid., 100-2; William W. Willey, "A Short History of Bountiful," 7, manuscript, 1914, LDS Church Archives. 73. Leonard, "A History of Farmington," 102-5. 74. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 52-53. 75. Foy, City Bountiful, 69; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 159. 76. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 40; Foy, City Bountiful, 69-70. 77. Foy, City Bountiful, 51-52; Deseret News, 27 July 1864. 78. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 52-53; Richard W. Sadler and Richard C. Roberts, The Weber River Basin: Grass Roots Democracy and Water Development (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994), 21-23; George Thomas, The Development of Institutions under Irrigation, with Special Reference to Early Utah Conditions (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 43-47, 53-55); Larsen, "Land Contest in Early Utah," 313. 79. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 41, 53; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 108, 158-59, 173. 80. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 116. 81. Lowry Nelson, Mormon Village (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1952), 47 n. 30; Blood, "Early Settlement of Kaysville," 5; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 105. 82. lournal History, 22 August 1847. 83. "First General Epistle," Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 2 (1 August 1849): 228-30; Sadler and Roberts, Weber River Basin, 19-20. 84. Thomas, Development of Institutions, 58-59. Claims that the idea for watermasters originated in Davis County maybe a misreading of this quick action by the Davis County Court (see Westenskow, "Economic Development of South Davis County," 12). 85. Leonard, "History of Farmington, 113; Davis County, Court Minutes, 22 March 1852, 27 January 1862; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 360. 86. Foy, City Bountiful, 71; Davis County, Court Minutes, March 1853. 87. Davis County, Court Minutes, March term, 1855, 7 March 1865. 88. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 173; Bell, South Weber, 149 (chart), 151-52. 89. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 113-14; Davis County, Court Minutes, 27 January 1862; 6 February 1863, 4 March 1867. 90. Thomas, Development of Institutions, 53-55, 117-24; Roberts and Sadler, Weber River Basin, 20. 130 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY 91. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 113-14; Davis County, Court Minutes, 4 March 1867; Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 30 May 1869, 26 lune 1870. 92. These observations are based on information from the Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 30 May 1869, 26 June 1870, and 8 June 1873. 93. Thomas, Development of Institutions, 59; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 113-14. 94. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 114; Foy, City Bountiful, 70; Thomas, Development of Institutions, 66-67, 84-87; Davis County, Court Minutes, 1 June 1863, 7 March 1870; John W. Hess to First Presidency, 14 February, 24 February, 25 March 1871, LDS Church Archives. 95. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 115; Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 16 July 1865. 96. Frank D. Adams, ed., Ancestors and Descendants of Elias Adams, the Pioneer, 600-1930 (Layton, Utah: Author, 1929), 111-14; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 41. 97. Davis County, Court Minutes, 2 March, 7 September 1857; Thomas, Development of Institutions, 70-71. 98. Purrington, "History of South Davis County," 63-65; Deseret News, 20 August 1856, 10 October 1860.