A History of Davis County

An end to isolation

CHAPTER 5 AN END TO ISOLATION M,a naging natural resources proved to be much easier and more successful for the first settlers of Davis County than their attempts to shape commerce and industry for the common good. The land, the water, and timber all had some degree of scarceness, so it became imperative that users of these resources work together to conserve and share these earthy elements essential for survival. In contrast, manufactured goods offered by local merchants were available freely to those willing and able to pay the price. The prob­lems here centered around commerce, costs, and the availability of cash or marketable exchange goods. Davis County's Mormon settlers sought to avoid poverty and promote prosperity in their communi­ties by spreading out the profits from merchandizing and manufac­turing. They did so by implementing cooperative commercial ventures and pledging to support them rather than independent mercantile efforts. But market forces worked against this sharing of economic resources, and conflicting values challenged their ability to live a cooperative isolationist economic policy. When the Mormon settlers built wagon roads and railroads they 131 132 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY intended to encourage immigration of church converts and interac­tion among church members. They promoted good mail and tele­graph service to unify their society. But these networks of transportation and communication, this reaching outward, worked against the inward-focused tendencies of their economic ideals. Imported goods competed with poorer quality local manufactures, and competitive commerce smothered cooperative economics. The transcontinental railroad worked not only to smooth the inward flow of Mormon converts but also of gentile (non-Mormon) miners and merchants. This leavening weakened both the resolve and the ability to nurture an agrarian, self-sufficient cooperative community. The residents of Davis County, like their neighbors elsewhere in territorial Utah, made a good-faith effort to achieve both an expand­ing transportation and communication network and an inward-oriented commercial structure. These efforts dominated the shaping of the communities of the county during the 1860s and 1870s-the decades surrounding the coming of the transcontinental railroad. Transportation and Communication Roads. When the first Mormon settlers arrived in Davis County, they found a faint network of Indian trails. A few California-bound emigrant parties had followed the best known of these trails from the mouth of Weber Canyon south along the foothills to Farmington Canyon and then along the lowlands to the Jordan River. This became the county's first described route. The segment north of Farmington was known locally as the Indian Trail Or the Mountain Road; it later was the basic route of U.S. Highway 89.l Another route came into use along the county's western border to serve emigrants headed north around the Great Salt Lake to California. The general path in north Davis County no doubt had served Indians who lived along the lakeshore before it became a dis­tinct wagon road. In the fall of 1848 Samuel Hensley, en route to California, recognized it as a better route than the Hastings Cutoff, notorious as the route of the Donner-Reed party two years before. From Salt Lake City Hensley followed the main-traveled route, which took him along the lowlands west of Bountiful and continued through to Farmington. He then turned northwesterly to Hector AN END TO ISOLATION 133 Haight's herd station at the lake's edge. From west Kaysville his route followed the edge of the bluffs bordering the lake through what became Syracuse. He passed through Weber County by way of Ogden City and then continued on to Brigham City, where he crossed the Bear River and turned west to join the California Trail at City of Rocks in present-day southern Idaho. Hensley met returning mem­bers of the Mormon Battalion along the Humboldt River and sent them toward Salt Lake City along this route instead of toward Fort Hall and then south.2 Known locally as the Emigrant Road or, in north Davis County, as Bluff Road, this route served hundreds of California-bound Forty-niners. These adventurers knew it as the first stretch of the Salt Lake Cutoff or Salt Lake Road. The eastward-bound Mormon soldiers in 1848 camped for the night at Herd (now Haight) Creek. This waysta-tion also served as a stop-over point for many of the Forty-niners. For Utahns, the Emigrant Road was simply an alternative route through northern Davis County3 Neither the Mountain Road nor the northern portion of the Emigrant Road enjoyed immediate acceptance as designated high­ways. As the first Mormon settlements grew into towns, two other routes gained official recognition and tax support for grading and maintenance. They both were north-south routes more convenient for local travel. In 1850 the Deseret Assembly created a state road from Ogden to Provo, with a branch from Salt Lake City to Tooele, and gave it a 142-foot right-of-way. In southern Davis County it fol­lowed a route through lowlands west of the present Denver and Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) railroad line route below Centerville and Farmington. North of Farmington it went along the route of present-day Utah Highway 106, including the Main Streets of Kaysville and Layton, and then moved northwesterly through northern Davis County and on to Ogden along a route known as Highway 1, later designated as U.S. Highway 91. Later on, the southern portion of the state road was rerouted along 500 West in Bountiful and what became Interstate 15 to Farmington.4 The second official road was sanctioned by Davis County. It was laid out in 1852 to connect Bountiful with Centerville and Farmington, with various additions to the north added later. The 134 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY original route appears to have followed 200 West in Bountiful, con­tinuing in an almost straight line to Farmington. After a few years, increased settlement suggested the need for adjustments; therefore, in 1859 t h e county court annulled the entire county system. The selectmen appointed a three-member committee to identify a single good wagon road and declared that any abandoned roadways would be sold as surplus property5 D e t e r m i n i n g a r o u t e that would satisfy all interested parties proved difficult. The selection committee's proposal was rejected by the court for failing to heed the spirit of its instruction. Determined to involve broad citizen input, the county court asked the Mormon bishops to convene local mass meetings and to personally examine various routes to find one that was b o t h inexpensive and practical. This time, the court accepted the recommendation. With minor vari­ations, t h e r o u t e followed an existing local r o a d from the South Weber fort over a sand hill to the Little Fort in Layton and on to Kaysville. It c o n t i n u e d along "the main traveled road" t h r o u gh Farmington to n o r t h Centerville. It jogged west one block in Centerville and t h e n continued on t h r o u g h south Davis C o u n ty Even after construction began, however, this approved route required some adjustment in order to satisfy local interests.6 The route underwent additional changes in later years. In the early 1870s, residents of southern Davis County approached county officials about relocating the county road between Bountiful and the Hot Springs. Apparently, they could not decide the issue, so the court sent Bishop Christopher Layton of Kaysville and a companion to dis­cuss the matter with Brigham Young. The Mormon leader recom­mended orienting the road at right angles along surveyed property lines. This had not been what residents intended, but the county sur­veyor and Bishop John Stoker of Bountiful decided on the new route and it was opened. Two years later, the LDS bishops of Farmington, Centerville, and Bountiful wrote to Brigham Young on behalf of res­idents asking that the old road be reopened. The original route fol­lowed the natural terrain at the foot of the mountains, they noted. The bishops acknowledged that this road ran "diagonally across some surveys . . . [but] was located and in general use long before the farms were taken up." The new route, they explained, took a zigzag course AN END TO ISOLATION 135 and was hilly, rocky, and sloped in such a way that it was difficult to haul loose hay without losing the load. Bishop Anson Call delivered the letter in person and received verbal advice from Young. The diag­onal route was restored.7 Transportation in Davis County tended to orient itself along the most heavily traveled routes-the state and county roads extending on a north-south orientation between Salt Lake City and Ogden. To meet local needs, residents laid out local streets connecting to these official routes and, in the Kaysville area, extending to the Mountain Road. In the southern half of the county, east-west streets ran due east and west. By the early 1850s many of the streets were perma­nently in place at irregular intervals along pre-existing farm bound­aries and were being used as reference points for district boundaries.8 The pattern established in northern Davis County reflected the influence of natural features. Kaysville-Layton area residents found it more convenient to ignore the compass grid and let their connector roads parallel the local streambeds. These routes extended in a north­easterly direction from the lower roads to the Mountain Road. The earliest of these ran from the Kaysville fort up 200 North and along South Holmes Creek. Except for the streets inside the Kaysville city plat, only a few local roads in northern Davis County before 1870 fol­lowed the compass quadrants.9 The construction and maintenance of designated roads was a county responsibility, accomplished through road-district supervi­sors. Following the boundaries previously created for schools, the Davis County Court in 1853 organized nine road districts and appointed committees to raise taxes and supervise the work on state, county, and local roads and bridges. The district committees accom­plished their tasks with the direct support and encouragement of Latter-day Saint ward leaders.10 Funding came from both property and poll taxes. At first, citi­zens paid a separate road tax on their property In 1859 the county set aside for roads one-fourth of the regular county property tax (then at 0.25 percent).11 The poll tax required every able-bodied male over eighteen to work on the roads one day each year. In 1862, law­makers increased the poll tax to two days' labor and redefined eligi­bility as healthy males between twenty-one and sixty-three years of 136 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY age.12 Residents could opt to pay the poll tax in cash or to hire a sur­rogate to do the work. Cash was assessed at 12.5 cents per hour, later raised to 15 cents and figured at $1.50 per ten-hour day13 Taxes collected for roads in Davis County were initially expended at the discretion of the local supervisors. In early 1853 the county court assigned two-thirds of the funds to the heavily traveled north-south routes.14 Only one type of road in Davis County depended upon users' fees; this was the private canyon road, built under a ter­ritorial or county charter. Developers recovered their construction and maintenance costs by charging tolls on timber wagons. Very few of the designated roads of the pioneer era existed as more than well-traveled, graded but otherwise unimproved wagon routes. In summertime even the most-used roads were mere dusty lanes, often marred with ruts. Wet weather turned them into muddy quagmires. Wheels could sink to the hubs, and straining teams some­times broke single and even double wagon trees trying to extract the mired wagons. By the late 1860s Utah Territory claimed only thirty-two miles of improved graveled roads.15 In Kaysville an attempt was made in 1867 to improve a wagon road south from Kay's Creek through Kaysville to Haight's Creek. The territorial legislature incorporated the Kaysville Wagon Road Company to do the work. The company was allowed to charge a toll for ten years to recover its costs, and the road then would revert to the state. A newspaper reporter inspecting the site after two years found it no better than the rest of the route. Spring rains had turned the dirt tracks into fifteen inches of mud.16 Mail Services. The need of the first settlers to communicate within Utah and beyond led to the creation of mail services. Before a formal postal system was functioning, travelers carried letters as a courtesy. Distribution within the community would take place per­sonally or at the close of Sabbath meetings. This informal network continued even after the federal government established Utah's first post office in Salt Lake City in March 1849.17 At that time, the U.S. mail left Salt Lake City only four times a year, traveling on routes east to the Missouri River and west to Sacramento. In 1850 Congress organized internal territorial mail service, with a southern route to Sanpete Valley and a northern route to Ogden.18 AN END TO ISOLATION 137 The government contract for delivering mail to Davis County was awarded in 1851 to Phineas H. Young & Son. The company's two-horse stage carriage left the Salt Lake City post office every Monday and Thursday at 7:00 A.M. and reached Brownsville (Ogden) at 6:00 P.M. The stage made the return trip on Tuesdays and Fridays. Passengers, who paid two dollars each way, subsidized the mail ser­vice. This twice-weekly schedule remained in place throughout the pioneer period. After mail service was extended northward, first to Brigham City in the late 1850s and then into Idaho, the return trip passed through Davis County on Wednesdays and Saturdays.19 Thomas J. King arranged for a twice-weekly mail and passenger coach for the county in 1862. By the late 1870s, daily mail service in both directions was in place between Salt Lake and Kaysville.20 The first mail was left at designated local stage stops and distrib­uted informally In February 1854 Congress authorized a post office for Kay's Ward and named David Nelson postmaster. That same year, post offices were approved for Centerville and for Stoker (Bountiful). Aaron B. Cherry and David Sessions served as the respective post­masters. Ira Blanchard was named postmaster in Farmington in 1855. Thereafter, coaches made stops in each of these four towns in Davis County The post offices were kept in the homes of the post­masters, a common practice in nineteenth-century America. Some offices later moved in with area businesses or had their own small building.21 In all instances, patrons called at the post office for their mail. Service to South Weber was more difficult because of the town's location off the main mail route. Residents received mail through informal deliveries or at nearby towns. A South Weber post office operated in 1863-64, but from then until the coming of the railroad residents traveled to Riverdale for their mail.22 Pony Express. For eighteen months beginning in April 1860 the Pony Express followed a route across the country from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The route did not pass through Davis County, so Pony Express mail dropped off in Salt Lake City or Ogden was delivered to Davis County through the regular bi-weekly stagecoach deliveries. Persons or companies willing to pay the high cost could receive Pony Express mail through a connecting route at 138 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY the mouth of Weber Canyon. Riders from Ogden intercepted the Pony Express at the Echo Junction Station and carried mail down Weber Canyon to an express station on Ogden's 25th Street. The rid­ers had a Davis County hand-off point at Uintah. From that point, mail was carried by local riders to post offices in Davis County. Their pace was slower than that of riders on the cross-country route, so it was not called an "express." Several young men from the county worked as riders for the famous, but short-lived, pony mail.23 Telegraph Service. The Pony Express soon faced a competitor in the transcontinental telegraph. When the lines from the east and west were connected in Salt Lake City in October 1861, the days of the cross-country pony service were numbered. With the transcontinen­tal line in place, Brigham Young announced plans for a territorial line from Cache Valley to St. George, with a branch line from Nephi into Sanpete County The Civil War, which had prompted construction of the national line, made supplies impossible to get for local extensions, however, so work on the Deseret Telegraph was not commenced until the fall of 1865. "We should bring into requisition every improvement which our age affords . . . to render our intercommunication more easy," a cir­cular from Brigham Young to the LDS bishops said. The residents of each valley built the line under the direction of local Latter-day Saint leaders. They selected and surveyed the route, cut the twenty-two-foot poles, placed them seventy feet apart along the route, and strung the wire. Kaysville residents built six miles of the line, and residents of other communities in Davis County did their proportional share of the work. Local contributions paid for the project, and residents sup­plied a share of the teams and wagons that hauled the supplies and equipment to Utah.24 To learn how to use the new communications system, young men and women selected for the job by each town attended a telegraphy school in Salt Lake City The local telegraphers were ready when the system was put into operation through Davis County The line opened for business between Ogden and Salt Lake City on 1 December 1865 and at other Utah stations over the next six weeks. A specialist loaned by the Western Union company visited Centerville during a snowstorm on 4 December to install and connect telegra- AN END TO ISOLATION 139 phy equipment there. The new communications system was an immediate boon to businesses, church and government officials, and individuals. Salt Lake City's Deseret News was able to publish more immediate information, including news and weather reports from one end of the territory to another.25 Transportation Services Stagecoach Lines. Passenger service from the east and west to Salt Lake City was established by stagecoach companies organized to carry the mail under government contracts. The Butterfield Overland Mail began service in 1861. Ben Holladay then entered the business but sold out to Wells, Fargo & Company in 1866. The initial east-west routes did not pass through Davis County; but, as noted above, local passenger service was available on coaches carrying the mail to northern Utah. When Wells, Fargo 8c Company expanded its service northward to the Montana mining camps, it contracted for services at stops located every eight to ten miles through Davis County, the usual distance for securing fresh horses along mail routes.26 Stage stations operated along the main road in Centerville, Farmington, and Layton and on the Mountain Road through Fruit Heights to South Weber. Some of these stops served the Wells Fargo line; the others served other stage companies. Each stopover offered food for drivers and passengers, feed for horses, and fresh animals. At Centerville, William Reeves built the Wells Fargo station in 1866. Thomas Hunt provided livery service for Wells Fargo in Farmington in a building erected near his hotel just east of the adobe court­house. 27 John Green and Joe Harris built log barns in 1857 on what later became Layton's Main Street and furnished prairie hay for local mail stages. Isaac "Ike" Brown cared for the horses there. The Wells, Fargo & Company stages taking the old Mountain Road en route to Montana used a stop maintained by Grandison Raymond just north of present Green Road in Fruit Heights. The county's northernmost stop, operated by John Hill, was located at South Weber.28 A Mormon traveler northbound from Salt Lake City in 1869 described the ride along the Mountain Road to the railroad depot at Uintah as rough and dusty "The driver . . . recked not [took no heed] of rocks, ditches, nor creeks, but went clean through or over them 140 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY The "Livery and Feed Stable" at Farmington was still serving travelers in 1912, more than a half century after Thomas Hunt began the business for Wells Fargo. (Utah State Historical Society) without hesitation or remorse, bumping the passengers provokingly," he reported. "Uintah was the most miserable looking place on the whole route," he added. It is . . . a little town, covering a couple of acres or so, built of boards and c a n v a s . . . . Every house seemed to be a grogshop, 'restaurant,' or gambling den, none of t h em by any means inviting."29 Wells, Fargo & Company did a brisk business on the Overland Trail and on its Salt Lake-to-Montana route. Local passengers had difficulty booking seats out of Salt Lake City Even local stage com­panies filled available seats early With the arrival of the transconti­nental railroad, Wells Fargo set u p an office at Uintah. Within months, however, the company sold its stage business. A Salt Lake City partnership headed by Jack Gilmer bought the n o r t h e r n route and o p e r a t e d from the t e r m i n u s of t h e Utah Central Railroad in Ogden to Helena, Montana.30 Travelers aboard stagecoaches or trains and other people passing AN END TO ISOLATION 141 through Davis County on horseback or in wagons or carriages some­times needed overnight accommodations and food for themselves or their animals and repairs to their vehicles. Stagecoach stops were a specialized service to meet the needs of customers of the stage lines. But these were not the only services available for travelers. Early Davis County also had a few strategically located hotels that, together with blacksmith shops in every community, met transient and local needs. These inns served as both a home for the owner's family and a hostelry offering meals and a bed to travelers. Nor was it uncommon for private homeowners to host strangers passing through, a tradi­tional practice in the nineteenth century In the 1850s, when Brigham Young and his touring party visited Utah settlements regularly to hold church meetings and consult with local leaders, the travelers carried tents, bedding, and food with them. Within a few years, however, Davis County had a few homes in each settlement large enough together to accomodate Young and his tf av-eling companions. By the 1860s, the inns of Davis County had become places of choice for overnight stays.31 The distance between Salt Lake City and Ogden made the Farmington area a natural place for overnight stopovers. Three hotels opened there during the 1850s. The first evolved naturally at the homestead of Hector C. Haight, who provided an inn, blacksmith shop, stables, pasturage, and fresh livestock on his farm located con­veniently along the Salt Lake Cutoff (the Bluff Road) near the Great Salt Lake. Advertised in an 1851 emigrants' guide, Mormon Way-bill to the Gold Mines, as Blooming Grove, it was a popular campground for California emigrants as well as others traveling the lower road. In 1857, on Farmington's Main Street, Haight built a two-story adobe house with rooms to take in guests. It became known as the Union Hotel, and it still stands, south of the rock meetinghouse. On the north corner of the same block (now the church parking lot), Thomas Grover hosted visitors in a two-story adobe house called the Inn or the Halfway House.32 Travelers through the county could find formal accommodations in at least two other towns as well. Christopher Layton built his four-room Prairie House near Kay's Creek in 1858 on what became Layton's Main Street. He sold it three years later, after which it seems 142 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY One of the early hotels serving travelers through Davis County was Hector C. Haight's adobe inn on Farmington's Main Street. (East of Antelope Island) to have been used by stagecoach passengers. His toll bridge at the Kay's Creek crossing made wagon travel easier (although at a price). In Bountiful, a large adobe home built by Perrigrine Sessions on the main-traveled road along 200 West doubled as a hotel, post office, and c o m m u n i t y dance hall. A sign at the entrance announced "Refreshments." This led residents to call the place the Tavern.33 The Coming of the Railroad The Transcontinental Line. The driving of t h e golden spike at Promontory, Utah, on 10 May 1869 marked the completion of the t r a n s c o n t i n e n t a l railroad and ushered in a new era for Utah T e r r i t o r y Elsewhere in t h e United States r a i l r o a d lines h a d been expanding transportation and commercial opportunities for decades. Utah's leaders h a d lobbied Congress since 1852 for the transconti­nental line. They applauded when Abraham Lincoln signed autho­rizing legislation in 1862, and residents welcomed the benefits they received t h r o u g h the connecting iron road. T h r o u g h Brigham AN END TO ISOLATION 143^ Young's influence, northern Utahns got railroad construction con­tracts that brought jobs and money into the territory. Davis County residents helped push the Union Pacific line from Echo Canyon through the challenging Weber Canyon to Ogden. The coming of the rails made immigration to Utah faster and cheaper and reduced freighting costs dramatically. The easier movement of people and goods helped Utah's economy grow in the 1870s and 1880s.34 In Davis County, LDS ward bishops took subcontracts from Brigham Young on the Union Pacific project in Weber Canyon. They recruited laborers to do the grading and the masonry work on bridges during the summer and fall of 1868 and again the following spring. Several Bountiful men supplied railroad ties. Farmers and livestockmen sold meat and other supplies to the railroad crews. An especially lucrative business was furnishing feed for the work horses. An observer in central Davis County in January 1869 noted, "It is not uncommon to see ten to fifteen loads of hay off for the railroad at one time. Hay fetches $50 per ton with $10 per day for hauling. Greenbacks pass freely"35 Grading was hard work. The men used picks and shovels to break the ground and horse-drawn scapers and dump carts to move the soil. Work crews welcomed entertainment furnished by local resi­dents. On at least one occasion the Kaysville Brass Band serenaded the men who were laying the tracks. As a reward, they were invited to ride in a boxcar on the Union Pacific construction train when it first emerged from the mouth of Weber Canyon.36 The Utah Central. The connected transcontinental Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines served only a few of Utah Territory's resi­dents directly By offering land for a depot and shops, Brigham Young convinced the two rail companies to establish their junction in Ogden rather than in the gentile town of Corinne. To accomplish this, the Central Pacific bought the forty-seven miles of line between Corinne and Ogden from the Union Pacific.37 This placed the termi­nal in a Mormon city instead of the railroad boom town. Young already had plans for adding routes to serve communities north and south of Ogden. The first connecting railroad was a thirty-seven-mile line called the Utah Central, built through Davis County largely by local labor- 144 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Engineer Robert Bolt stopped his southbound engine at a point between Ogden and Farmington at 11:15 A.M. on 10 lanuary 1870, and Utah Central's Ogden agent, lohn Reeve, faced the camera from the step of the passenger car as a photographer recorded for history the first train to pass through Davis County. (Utah State Historical Society) ers recruited by the ward bishops. Brigham Young organized the cooperative railroad company on 8 March 1869. Christopher Layton was Davis County's sole representative on the five-member board of directors. Surveying and grading started in mid-May, and tracks were laid beginning in September. Crews were hindered only when they were delayed by the slow arrival of rails and spikes shipped from Omaha. By early December, passenger service was open from Ogden to Farmington. To celebrate construction of the road to the half-way point, Brigham Young and a group of church leaders rode in horse-drawn carriages from Salt Lake City to Farmington. The trip took two hours. Then, in a new railroad passenger car pulled by a steam engine, they glided along the completed line to Ogden in just one hour. A reporter said that the men did not miss the tedious horse-drawn drive over Sand Ridge. They expressed delight that the rail- AN END TO ISOLATION 145 road had been planned and constructed by Utah residents-an example of what cooperative community spirit could accomplish.38 Workers completed laying the tracks to Salt Lake City by late December. On a cold, foggy 10 January 1870, Brigham Young drove a polished spike made of Utah iron in ceremonies witnessed by thou­sands at the end point of the line at North Temple Street and Third West. Hailed as the "Pioneer Line of Utah," the Utah Central went into immediate operation, with daily service between Salt Lake and Ogden. After a few years, trains were making the round trip twice a day. The first fares matched those charged for the stagecoach-two dollars for the full distance, pro-rated for other stops. As traffic increased, the fares were halved.39 The construction and successful operation of the Utah Central depended heavily upon the efforts of Davis County residents. As president of the Mormon railroad company, Brigham Young invited local leaders to plot the route of the Utah Central through the county and to determine the site of a depot in each town. He expected the townspeople to build the grade and support the railroad with their patronage. From Young's perspective, the UCRR was a cooperative community project. "The Utah Central Railroad is not being built by a company solely to make money or for its own benefit," the Deseret News weekly editorialized, "but for the good of the people and . . . by the common consent of all concerned."40 Railroad officials carefully observed the building process during a two-day working trip through the county in June 1869. More than one hundred land owners and local leaders joined in selecting a route and sites for depots in the south half of the county. A depot site in the Bountiful area was picked at the northwest corner of Daniel Wood's farm and was named Wood's Crossing. Even though local tradition of a later date suggests that the name was derived because Wood was upset with Brigham Young for bisecting his fertile land, evidence from the time suggests otherwise. During the public dis­cussion, Wood actually offered to donate the land for a depot if the tracks would bisect his property and stay clear of the lane at its east border. The unanimous vote of townspeople present placed the depot on Wood's land. Wood left four months later on a short-term mis­sion to Canada-before the rails had been laid. When he returned in 146 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY March 1870 he seemed well pleased that he could travel home by train. "We arrived at Woods Cross 20 minutes to 9 o'clock," he wrote in his diary after a ninety-five-minute ride from Ogden. "We landed right on our own farm."41 The decision in Centerville followed the same town-meeting pat­tern. Landowners and citizens selected a site agreeable to UCRR offi­cials one-quarter mile west of the settlement. It was close enough for access "but sufficiently far off to prevent the occurrence of accidents to children or cattle from their straying on to the track."42 In Farmington, the process revealed the influence of local citi­zens. Bishop John W Hess had scouted three possible routes. His per­sonal preference was the westernmost, "through a barren piece of land" that preserved good farmland closer to town. After visiting the site, Brigham Young agreed and predicted that this more direct route between Centerville and Kaysville would save ten thousand dollars over other options. Young then "called upon the people to learn from them whether they wanted Farmington to come to the railroad or the railroad to come to Farmington." Citizens wanted the convenience of closeness. The route they chose invaded the fertile lands about a half mile west of the rock meetinghouse. Bishop Hess and President Young deferred to the common will.43 The management group traced the route to Kaysville and stopped for the night. The following morning, railroad officials and local residents agreed on a depot site right against the western bor­ders of the townsite, no more than a hundred rods from the adobe meetinghouse. Brigham Young led his party to the engineer's camp two miles north of Kaysville. From there to the north county line, three survey crews had completed their work. Grading had been completed for most of this surveyed route. Railroad officials contin­ued to Ogden for church meetings, observing along the way teams pulling scrapers to shape the cut that rose from the Weber River to the bench land. The workmen's goal was to bring the cut within the maximum slope of forty feet to the mile.44 From Kaysville to the southern county line, each community was given its own section of the route to grade. Ward bishops recruited construction crews and paid them-sometimes in borrowed cash furnished by the railroad company, but more often in railroad stock. AN END TO ISOLATION 147 Money was difficult to obtain, and, besides, the company was a coop­erative that paid dividends to its stockholders. Young men without steady work and recent emigrants welcomed the work. Some who had incurred debts to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund (which helped immigrants come to Utah) took credit on their accounts.45 Sawmills in Weber and Tooele Counties furnished most of the ties for the railroad. However, some ties came from North Millcreek Canyon, where contractors built Bountiful's first steam-powered lumber mill just for that purpose. Timber from Tooele County was hauled out of canyons there on bobsleds during the winter, and in the spring of 1869 it was transported on wagons to the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The ties had been cut sixteen feet long. In June 1869 a 300-foot raft made of one thousand of these double-length ties was assembled. Eighteen men poled the raft along the edge of the lake to Farmington, a trip of three days. The lengths were then hauled on wagons to the track site and cut in half.46 Completion of the $1.25-million Utah Central line left the com­pany short on funds for operation; it also needed a wider right-of-way. Once again officials turned to local residents in Davis County communities. "It appears that they want us to deed 50 feet of land on each side of the railroad to the Company," Bishop Hess told his local priesthood quorum. The families visited by the ward teachers agreed to donate the requested property. In addition, seven Farmington cit­izens subscribed nearly $6,000 in cash for Utah Central bonds, and prosperous residents in other towns did likewise. The Davis County Court also refunded the company's 1870 tax and reduced the assess­ment the following year to help.47 The Utah Central was the first of what became a Utah railroad network. The Mormon-built Utah Northern Railroad route from Ogden through Brigham City and Logan to Franklin, Idaho, was added between 1871 and 1874 and the Utah Southern line to Provo in 1871-1873. The local railroads were consolidated in 1880 as a sub­sidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. This company extended the lines in both directions. In 1899 the route became known as the Oregon Short Line. This expansion gave Davis County residents easy railroad access to visit friends and relatives elsewhere in the territory and beyond.48 148 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY A second major railroad company built a line across Utah from the Colorado border through Price and north to Ogden in 1881-1883. Routed through Davis County west of the Utah Central, the Denver and Rio Grande Western line was built by a Colorado company primarily to serve long-distance traffic. Davis County resi­dents boarded workmen during the construction period, and some landowners took contracts for building the grade. The resulting com­petition with the Union Pacific line lowered shipping rates in the state. Among the benefits to Davis County was that coal could be hauled directly from newly developed mines in Utah's Carbon County at a savings over the previous monopoly shipments from other coal sources by Union Pacific rail car. By 1900, D&RGW's sub­sidiary, the Utah Fuel Company, supplied 90 percent of Utah's coal. Smaller companies halved this dominance by World War I, the com­petition once again reducing coal prices for consumers.49 The Utah Central Railroad changed the way Davis County resi­dents received and sent mail and telegraph messages and it created new options for transporting goods and passengers. In addition, the railroad had social consequences and opened up economic opportu­nities. Jobs made available for local residents included those of crew­men, station clerks, and maintenance men. During the years of heavy grasshopper infestations, the train company hired local youths to keep the tracks clear. The insects became so thick at times that the wheels would spin and impede the forward movement of the train.50 Almost immediately, the transcontinental trains replaced stage­coaches as the primary carriers of out-of-state mail. Southbound Utah Central trains hauled inbound letters for Davis County resi­dents to depots in each of the four communities along the route. Couriers sent by the local postmasters retrieved the packets and delivered outbound mail to the railroad station. Residents of South Weber received mail at the Uintah post office along the transconti­nental route.51 The Deseret Telegraph soon moved its offices into the UCRR stations, making them important communication as well as transportation centers.52 The railroad did not immediately put the upper stagecoach route out of business. Railcar passengers headed to Salt Lake City from the east could save time by disembarking at Uintah and catching a south- AN END TO ISOLATION 149 bound stage along the Mountain Road rather than continuing into Ogden on the train for connections with a stage or the Utah Central train. Eventually, however, the stage stations in Davis County were closed and the buildings adapted for other uses. Centerville's station became an amusement hall named after operator William Reeves; it later was known as Elkhorn Hall.53 Cooperative Commerce and Agriculture Mormon immigrants to Utah after 1869 could disembark from their transoceanic ship or Mississippi steamer and make the entire journey across the continent by railcar. According to one travel writer, the five-day trip from New York City to Salt Lake City on five connecting lines cost $119. The ease of railroad travel and the pro­motional efforts of the railroad companies encouraged non- Mormons to settle in Utah. The establishment of mining also led to diversification-of peoples, employment patterns, and religion. The arrival of larger numbers of gentiles changed the social character of Utah. At first, the Latter-day Saints resisted the change, with defen­sive economic and social programs. Eventually, however, as the pio­neer generation died off, accommodation became the watchword.54 Economic patterns among Latter-day Saints in territorial Utah reflected a religious worldview that encouraged a unity of effort for the common good. From the beginning of settlement in Utah, Brigham Young encouraged settlers to provide for themselves by pro­ducing as much of their own food, clothing, and other material needs as possible. This emphasis encouraged farming, ranching, and agrarian-based industries. Young specifically discouraged mining. He nurtured a home-industry movement to minimize the flow of capital out of the territory by importing only those essential products that could not be made in Utah. Community leaders in Davis County were part of this movement to encourage self-sufficiency55 The 1850s Consecration Effort. Not long after the establishment of communities in Davis County, Mormon leaders reintroduced Joseph Smith's 1830s plan for consecrating property to the church. The California gold rush had tempted Latter-day Saints with wealth, and non-Mormon merchants were threatening the home-industry movement with their imported goods. To counter these threats, to 150 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY strengthen commitment, and to curb inequality in land holdings, Mormons were invited in 1854 to sign a formal deed conveying to the church their land, buildings, and marketable personal property, including livestock, furniture, and tools. The program called for the local bishop to return most of the property to the member to manage as a stewardship for the support of his or her family.56 Mormon leaders introduced the principle of consecration at the general conference in April 1854. They followed up with an epistle from the First Presidency and sermons in the old Salt Lake Tabernacle. Davis County residents who heard the conference talks repeated the message in local meetings. The response varied from family to family. Surviving records suggest that about one-third of Latter-day Saint families formally consecrated their property. In Davis County, that amounted to fewer than 200 of the 540 families living in the county in 1858, when the movement ended.57 The limited number who filled out deeds of consecration may have been a factor in launching the Mormon Reformation, but the onset of the Utah War diverted attention away from both efforts. The economic program did not move beyond the initial consecrations, nor did not the church take control of the deeded property. The con­secration movement proved to be only a symbol of religious dedica­tion to the principle of unity, an idea that would be revived later in the cooperative and united order programs.58 The Cooperative Movement, 1868-1874. In the first years after set­tlement, Davis County residents bought most of their hardware, selected clothing items, and other imported goods in Salt Lake City Gradually, enterprising individuals in each community began offer­ing goods carried west by immigrant companies. These first county merchants began with small inventories in rooms in their homes while continuing their full-time occupation as farmers. For a number of reasons, church leaders initially opposed all importation of goods. First, such goods were expensive and drained cash out of Utah's economy. Second, Brigham Young considered the markup on most imported goods to be price gouging. Finally, to counteract both of these effects, church leaders encouraged local manufacturing. Beginning in 1860, however, Young allowed a limited amount of inbound freighting by Latter-day Saints in conjunction AN END TO ISOLATION 151 with the church immigration wagons. Five years later, he opened the trade wider as part of an effort to control prices and keep capital from leaving the territory. He allowed members to organize freight­ing companies and urged Latter-day Saints to boycott non-Mormon merchants.59 With this liberalized importation policy, new stores opened in every Davis County town. This marked the beginning of full-scale mercantile operations in the county About this same time, Mormon church leaders in Salt Lake City decided to build a wall against the local non-Mormon merchants. With Mormon imports increasing, they organized a boycott of the gentile merchants and in the fall of 1868 set up a wholesale and retail operation in Salt Lake City known as Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI). More than a dozen men spread out from head­quarters to urge creation of similar general stores elsewhere. The result was more than 150 local retail co-ops in Utah. Horace S. Eldredge and William Clayton were the delegates sent to Davis County to preach the benefits of cooperation.60 The message from headquarters was magnified in Davis County through local preachings by the bishops, other ward leaders, and the priesthood teachers who visited each Latter-day Saint home. They explained that the policy of mercantilistic exclusiveness included two aspects: first, members were encouraged not to patronize gentile mer­chants, because these businessmen were said to be not always willing to support ward schools and other "public" programs; second, mem­bers should buy from cooperative stores and local manufacturers.61 With the encouragement of Mormon leaders, merchants in each Davis County community except South Weber followed the Salt Lake City example by organizing a local retail cooperative. During the early months of 1869, merchants in each of these towns merged their existing operations and received credit on the books of the new store. The officers were usually elected from among the leading stockhold­ers. In Centerville and Bountiful the local bishops were elected as cooperative presidents. Leading merchants of Farmington and Kaysville headed the stores in those places. South Weber had no exist­ing merchants and thus created no cooperative. The story of the emergence of commerce and the creation of co­op stores differs little from one Davis County town to another. In 152 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Kaysville, probably the first to offer imported goods was John Bennett. By 1863, residents could buy goods from William Blood, Ebenezer A. Williams, and John R. Barnes, who were hauling goods westward by wagon train from the railhead on the Missouri River. These four merchants merged their operations in 1869 to form the Kaysville Co-operative Mercantile Institution. Barnes, the firm's largest stockholder, became superintendent. Christopher Layton, a former partner with Blood, was elected president. The company was capitalized with nearly $8,000 in stock.62 By 1869 Farmington had one well-established storekeeper, John Wood, who had expanded his operation from a room in his rented log house in 1855 to a small frame building. He became president and superintendent of the Farmington Co-operative Mercantile Institution. Wood's only competitor was Frederick Coombs, an English immigrant of 1861, who was managing a store for a Mr. Bershome in a rented room in the adobe courthouse. When that store closed for lack of patronage, Coombs moved to Morgan as an employee of Gergor Cronin; but he soon returned to Farmington to oversee a Cronin branch store in the courthouse. A report in 1870 credited Coombs with doing as much business as did the co-op. However, Cronin's store closed after local church leaders repeatedly reminded Coombs and the Farmington Latter-day Saints of their responsibility to support the cooperative movement. Coombs then went to work for the church-sanctioned store.63 Among the early merchants in Centerville were John Holland and Nathan T. Porter. Holland soon moved to Weber County, but Porter remained to participate in the creation of Centerville's coop­erative store when it was capitalized in March 1869 with $2,000 in stock. Bishop William R. Smith became president, with Porter as vice-president, and Joel Parrish as manager. John Adams, who had been freighting goods from the east, was hired as clerk. Brigham Young had encouraged Utah's co-ops to employ women as store clerks. Hardy men, he said, should be producers-hoeing potatoes or harvesting timber. Davis County's early retail outlets ignored the church leader's counsel.64 During the canvass for the 1850 census, only one Davis County resident listed "merchant" as his occupation. Thus, twenty-five-year- AN END TO ISOLATION 153_ old David Floyd, an unmarried boarder, may have been the first in that business during his stort stay in Bountiful. Enoch Tripp kept a small stock of goods in Perrigrine Sessions's house. Abram D. Boynton, a storekeeper before migrating to Utah, was another early merchant. In 1860 Anson Call and Joseph Holbrook became partners in the mercantile trade. They established Bountiful's first full-fledged store. A small step toward cooperation in Bountiful came in November 1865, when a mercantile association was organized with community support. Holbrook was named president, with Anson Call and Sidney B. Kent as directors. These businessmen were responding to the new freedom to import merchandise. The organi­zation's stated purpose was to purchase goods in the east, freight them to Utah, and sell them to residents of the North Canyon LDS Ward. It was this association that formed the basis of Bountiful's retail cooperative in March 1869. Call served as one of five directors, and Bishop John Stoker became president.65 The cooperative stores in Davis County operated under policies and procedures defined by Brigham Young and his associates in dis­courses at the Mormon church's general conferences. Additional counsel came through meetings of the School of the Prophets, a group of influential Latter-day Saints organized in 1867 to discuss religious and political matters and to promote economic self-sufficiency Arthur Stayner of Farmington belonged to the select group, which met from time to time until 1874 in confidential meet­ings in Salt Lake City Stayner's voice was heard regularly in local gatherings in support of home industry66 Through public pronouncements in general and local confer­ences, the intent of the cooperative movement was made clear to every Utahn. Latter-day Saints were expected to show their loyalty to the church by supporting the cooperative stores with their purchases (and investments) rather than buying from competing private mer­chants, especially non-Mormons. To assess community support, at least one Davis County bishop asked the ward teachers to survey members about their shopping habits. They found that about two-thirds of the families were lending at least a share of their support to the ward store.67 Like the cooperative stores found elsewhere in Utah Territory, 154 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Davis County's mercantile operations suffered from several common problems. The principle of cooperation implied a broad investment in the business, with investors sharing in the profits. In fact, however, only a few owners held a large portion of the stock in virtually every cooperative venture in Utah, including those in Davis County. The intended dispersion of profits among many residents thus could not be achieved. Another common problem was that competing mer­chants continued to operate in many communities. Despite preach­ments to the contrary, residents succumbed to the temptation to buy imported manufactured goods from these merchants rather than inferior locally made goods from the church stores and factories. Added to these factors was the matter of financial stability. The national economic panic of 1873 negatively impacted a number of Utah's cooperatives and forced their closure. Those in Davis County survived the depression, however.68 Related to these challenges was another financial problem that may have been more severe than all the rest. Many residents of Davis County had little extra cash and depended upon a barter economy. Because of this, the co-ops often extended credit under a good-neighbor policy of trust. Surviving records from the ward store in Farmington reveal that the inability to collect on these accounts kept the business constantly on the verge of bankruptcy Arthur Stayner, one of the directors, finally convinced the Farmington board of direc­tors to quit offering credit. Bishop John W Hess sent the ward teach­ers out to collect on the overdue accounts, but they had little success. The good-hearted store manager gradually extended additional credit, and the store carried a heavy load of unpaid bills.69 Even with the economic challenges faced by the cooperative stores of Davis County, they remained in business during difficult times. They offered a variety of goods, including some sought-after imports, and netted sufficient income to keep the stocks replenished. Bountiful's cooperative store made an effort to expand beyond the mercantile business during the short-lived cooperative move­ment. A few months before the Bountiful Co-operative Mercantile Institution (BCMI) came into being, local citizens had organized a Co-operative Agricultural and Manufacturing Society As with other such societies, this one presumably intended to establish manufac- AN END TO ISOLATION 155 An unidentified group of wagon passengers pause in front of the brick store built in 1873 for Bountiful's Co-operative Mercantile Institution. (The City Bountiful) turing businesses. It appears, however, that it stepped aside to allow the new Bountiful mercantile institution to take the lead in all coop­erative efforts. During the summer of 1873 the BCMI opened a brickyard, operated by William Garrett. The company used some of the bricks to build a large, new general store on Main Street.70 "Let us have co-operative brick yards and co-operative every­thing else that benefits the people, and that has a self-sustaining and independent tendency," the Deseret Evening News said when its reporters first learned of Bountiful's plans to make bricks.71 Other cooperatives in Davis County did not establish manufacturing busi­nesses until after Brigham Young raised the stakes by introducing a new form of communal economics. The United Order, 1874. Near the end of April 1874, many resi­dents of Davis County attended a special meeting in the new Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City to hear Brigham Young explain a new economic order. In its ideal form, the "United Order" intro­duced in that meeting anticipated an all-inclusive communal arrangement, with the entire economy owned cooperatively. The res- 156 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY idents of Orderville, in southern Utah, came closest to achieving that ideal, including a common kitchen and standard clothing styles. Brigham City's successful cooperative movement, with a variety of manufacturing enterprises tending towards a self-sustaining econ­omy, became a model for the kind of united order program attempted in Davis County72 All Latter-day Saints were encouraged to join the local united order, but, as with the cooperatives, membership was a personal deci­sion. Those who chose to participate in the economic aspects of the program in Davis County were not asked to deed property to the order like with the Law of Consecration. Rather, they indicated sup­port by investments of time and resources in existing cooperative stores and by entering into new cooperative businesses established under church direction. In its practical application in Davis County, the United Order was merely an expansion of the cooperative move­ment marked by the founding of one or more new businesses to do such things as make shoes, tan hides, or make brooms.73 Those who joined a united order pledged to maintain certain religious standards similar to those preached during the Mormon Reformation twenty years earlier, and they agreed to support church cooperatives. The fourteen rules published as guidelines included pledges to patronize united order businesses, refrain from criticizing the managers of the order, give a full day's work for the credits recorded on the cooperative's books, and avoid the extravagant fash­ions and lifestyles of the world.74 Brigham Young took a personal interest in launching the United Order. In a series of visits to Davis County in May and June 1874, he and other church leaders organized the new order in each commu­nity where cooperatives existed. Many of the officers involved in run­ning the cooperative stores were carried over to run the new organizations, but new names also appeared on the rosters. In Farmington, the new organization in May placed Bishop John W. Hess in the president's post, with other bishopric members as vice-presidents and secretary. Over the next few months, these leaders discussed a communal option with local residents. Lacking support for a comprehensive system, they concluded instead to expand exist­ing cooperative projects by adding a tannery, shoe shop, and broom AN END TO ISOLATION 157 factory. "It was not the people's property that was wanted," said Hess, "but it was their whole faith in this thing."75 The Kaysville United Order was probably organized around the same time as the visit to Farmington, but details have not survived. Christopher Layton remained president of that order for a year; he was succeeded in 1875 by Rosel Hyde.76 Centerville leaders anticipated a large crowd in late June when Brigham Young, his counselors, and two apostles organized that town's united order. The bishop scheduled the gathering for the Young Men's Hall, a structure larger than the local meetinghouse. Even that building was inadequate, however. Some citizens listened from outside to the morning preaching meeting and the afternoon organizational session. Bishop William R. Smith and other officers who had headed the cooperative store were carried over in the new organization, supported by an expanded board of directors. Centerville's Mormon women lent their support to the home indus­try movement in 1875 by voting in their Relief Society organization to give their business to Elizabeth Whitaker in a milliner business.77 The reorganization in Bountiful took place early in June, at a meeting in the tabernacle. Anson Call was named president, replacing Bishop John Stoker, who had headed the co-op. The new leaders of the Bountiful United Order attempted to build the business and expand offerings. Most notably, in 1875 they hired Charles R. Jones to open a tailoring department in the firm's new Main Street store.78 The Davis County United Order, 1876. The several united orders in the towns of Davis County manifested a renewed energy to win patrons and investors. Their enthusiasm sparked such a spirit of competition between the projects in neighboring towns that it caught the attention of Mormon church officials in Salt Lake City. In the spring of 1876, Brigham Young appointed Joseph F. Smith, a mem­ber of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, to coordinate ecclesiastical and economic activities in Davis County Young asked the new "pres­ident" over the area's Latter-day Saint wards to bring competing united order businesses in the county under a central organization. In addition, Smith was asked to promote efficiency through the coop­erative purchase and use of farm equipment.79 Some potential conflicts had already been resolved locally When 158 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Centerville announced plans for a cheese factory in 1875, Farmington residents dropped their plans for a similar facility However, tanneries and shoe shops in Kaysville and Farmington vied for scarce hides and looked wherever they could to find customers for their crude locally made shoes.80 Investors in Farmington had been especially agressive. They ral­lied local residents in 1874 to build a new adobe building for their Union Tannery and then outfitted it with vats, a bark mill, tools, and supplies. Hides and the right kind of bark were difficult to find; yet, after struggling for a year, the co-op built a new shoe shop and reached out to other communities for support. Operators talked some Kaysville area livestockmen into selling them hides. Bishop John W. Hess secured pledges from the bishops of Bountiful and Centerville to direct raw materials toward the Union Tannery However, this local initiative was preempted by a new umbrella orga­nization coordinated from church headquarters.81 In March 1876 the Davis County United Order was incorpo­rated, with three directors from each of the four participating wards. These ward representatives managed the businesses in their own communities under Joseph F. Smith's general oversight. The firm's headquarters was in Farmington, and that town's cooperative busi­nesses dominated the new organization, transferring assets valued at more than $12,000. Other communities contributed less to the con­solidation. Together, they added goods and stock valued at just under $3,000. A $1,300 investment by the church's general tithing office and a small private purchase of stock brought the total capitalization to just under $17,000.82 Amalgamation failed to solve the problems inherent in the local tanning and shoe businesses. Scarce hides and bark were the most critical problems. Some local livestockmen continued to send their hides outside the county for processing. County tanneries sought hides as far away as Cache Valley. Local producers also could not find satisfied buyers for their products. Higher-quality imported leather and shoes dominated the market. Despite efforts to improve the tan­ning process, the county manufacturing businesses lacked sufficient income to meet operating expenses. Directors closed the corporation AN END TO ISOLATION 159 in November 1880, marking the end of the United Order manufac­turing effort in Davis County83 Cooperative Agriculture As noted in an earlier chapter, the earliest economically coopera­tive efforts in Davis County grew out of the need to manage limited natural resources-land, timber, and water-for the general good. In addition, settlers hoped to save time and money through collabora­tive efforts to meet certain agricultural needs. Farmers worked together to build common fences, and they hired community herders for their sheep and livestock. Through these New England-style cooperative efforts, they learned to depend upon one another. The first formally organized cooperative efforts in agriculture emerged in the mid-1850s in an effort to improve yields in both crops and livestock. For intercommunity cooperation, county resi­dents formed a branch of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, which had been organized in Salt Lake City in 1856. Directors were elected from the county's four towns. The organization recommended planting specific varieties of grains, fruits, and vegetables. To encourage excellence, the county organiza­tion followed the example of the parent society by sponsoring annual exhibits so that producers could show their best crops, livestock, flowers, and manufactured items. The Davis County residents who won top prizes in the annual fair held each September in the Farmington courthouse often then took their specimens to Salt Lake City, where they were regularly listed among the prizewinners at the territorial fairs. Those fairs were scheduled to coincide with the October general conference of the Mormon church.84 With the encouragement of the society, ward bishops and local agents of the parent society shared advice on agricultural matters with men during their weekly priesthood meetings. Bishops saw themselves as appropriate leaders in such matters and were supported by the citizens in this role. For example, in 1868, when residents adopted a countywide plan to sell hay to the mail stations, they appointed the bishops as their agents in the respective communities.85 One of the efforts of the county agricultural society and local church leaders was to encourage livestockmen to improve the breeds 160 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY of their cattle and sheep to increase the production of milk, meat, and wool. The improvement effort expanded to include beekeeping and fisheries in 1871, when delegates to a county convention in Farmington organized a specialized society, the Davis County Branch of the Deseret Fine Stock and Bee Association. A nominating com­mittee of bishops or their representatives picked five men for each of seven committees to encourage the improvement of horses, horned stock, sheep, bees, fish, swine and fowls, and general agriculture.86 Davis County livestockmen, like others in Utah, obtained some fine breeds of beef cattle by trading with California immigrants who needed horses and provisions. Later on, they sought out Short-horn, Devon, Hereford, Jersey, and Ayrshire cattle. To improve their sheep breeds over those brought with them from the east or purchased in New Mexico, they imported the Merino, long-hair, and fine-hair breeds from California, Canada, Ohio, and Kentucky87 Cooperative Livestock Herds. Davis County's first settlers came to the area as herders. For a few years, some of them continued to use the county as a range for surplus cattle and horses from the Salt Lake City area. They attacted business by word of mouth and through advertisements in the Deseret News. As populations grew, however, uncultivated bottomlands and foothill rangelands in Davis County were restricted to permanent residents. In 1856 the county court made ward bishops responsible for supervising the use of these com­mon areas. The court guaranteed non-Mormons equal rights with "the people." In each community, the bishops and ward teachers organized separate herds for the domestic cattle (milk cows and working oxen), surplus cattle (those not needed on a daily basis), and sheep. The districts hired herders and paid them with grain or cash. Boys often cared for the domestic cattle, adults for the surplus and sheep herds. These community arrangements worked well for more than a dozen years.88 From spring to fall, domestic herds were pastured within ward boundaries on designated bottomlands to keep the milk cows and oxen available to their owners. Around mid-October each year, after the crops in adjacent fields had been harvested and tight fences were no longer maintained, cattle were allowed to roam free on the low­land pastures until the spring planting season. In some towns, resi- AN END TO ISOLATION 161 dents organized a community herding arrangement for horses simi­lar to that for the domestic cattle.89 To accomodate the herds of surplus livestock, residents soon sought rangeland outside the heavily settled areas of southern and central Davis County They found such grazing lands in northern Davis County, in Weber, Morgan, and Box Elder counties, in Cache Valley, and in the Malad Valley of southern Idaho. Livestockmen in south Bountiful used summer ranges at Silver Creek and Parleys Park in Summit County and in Tooele County's Skull Valley. The first gen­eral use of the distant, virgin ranges was forced by the drouth and grasshopper plague of 1855. That year, Joseph Holbrook sent the Bountiful ward cattle herd to Bear River Valley, hoping to preserve the townspeople's investment. Nearly half of the weakened cattle died during the hard winter.90 In normal seasons, to prevent the overgrazing of local ranges, everyone was required to send their surplus stock to the "big range." Each April, the hired herders would meet at a collection point, accept the cattle that had been branded by their owners, and drive the cattle to the summer range. Any surplus stock found on local grazing lands afterward was declared a stray and locked in the local pound. Owners could claim these animals only by paying a fee. Similar arrangements existed for community sheep herds. Working together under the direction of a church-appointed committee, sheep owners built a local collecting pen, gathered the animals each spring, and sent them off with a hired herder. Some groups summered their sheep on mountain ranges east of town. Others found grazing land in Weber or Morgan counties.91 The Miller brothers, Henry W. and Daniel A., found an ideal grazing site on Fremont Island, where upwards of 2,000 sheep could roam freely without a herder. Beginning in 1859, and continuing for a quarter century, the Millers ferried sheep from Farmington to what became known as "Millers Island." They used a succession of flat-bottomed boats to transport the sheep back and forth across the lake. "The meat of this flock tasted more like venison than mutton," according to Seymour Miller, and it brought a handsome price on the spring market.92 Herding arrangements for surplus cattle and for sheep took new 162 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY ?f 1 | ?| This abandoned boat is believed to have been Jacob Miller's cattle boat, used in the late 1870s to haul sheep and cattle from Farmington to the island ranges of the Great Salt Lake. (Utah State Historical Society) forms during the cooperative movement of the 1860s and 1870s. In the spirit of cooperation, citizens of Kaysville, Farmington, Centerville, and Bountiful organized the Davis County Co-operative Stock Institution in February 1871, with a capital investment of one million dollars. Organizers promised high-quality care and protec­tion against theft and reminded owners of the need to protect crops from loose stock. Elected officers included leading men from every community, including some LDS bishops. The board hired Horton D. Haight to manage the operation; he was assisted by trusted appraisers for horses, cattle, and sheep.93 The county livestock cooperative became part of the Davis United Order three years later. To accomodate the huge cattle herds, the organization established its own ranch at Blue Creek in Box Elder County "No country can produce fatter or better flavored beef and mutton," claimed a report in the Salt Lake Herald. In addition, offi­cers negotiated for shares on Antelope Island, which had been reserved up to that time for the exclusive use of the Mormon church's Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company To transport sheep and sup­plies to and from the island, in 1879 officials engaged Jacob Miller of AN END TO ISOLATION 163 Farmington to build and operate a sixteen-by-forty-foot sloop-rigged sailboat.94 As with other cooperative organizations, the livestock co-op faced its share of challenges. The society at first tried to care for the herd by rotating herding assignments among participating livestock-men. In 1875, officers hired a permanent caretaker to oversee opera­tions. After another year, however, the cooperative disbanded and distributed the cattle to shareholders according to their investments. The responsibility for community herding returned to the local level. The Davis County Co-operative Mercantile Institution took over the grazing lands of the discontinued livestock co-op and for the next four years made them available to the local surplus cattle herds.95 Cooperative sheep herds also existed for a short time in Davis County in the early 1870s. The loosely organized community herds were affiliated with local cooperatives or united orders, but they failed to meet the expectations of directors. For a time, sponsors considered establishing a woolen factory in Farmington to save the cost of ship­ping the wool produced in the county to Provo's factory. When the unprofitable cooperative sheep herds were disbanded, the sheep were returned to the individual shareholders.96 The Privatization of Cooperatives Transcontinental railroad connections made increased amounts of imported merchandise available in Utah, including Davis County This influx of goods challenged the home industry movement and eventually supplanted much of the local production. Most imported goods came from San Francisco or St. Louis. The products were usu­ally cheaper than those made locally, and the quality was often bet­ter. In Utah during the early 1870s imports greatly outnumbered exports. They were paid for with cash received from California immi­grants, soldiers, and passengers on the stage lines. By the 1880s, half of the goods shipped into Utah were consumer products; the other half was mining equipment. Utah's export trade finally reached a bal­ance with imports only because of the mining industry Agricultural products could not compete with those of the West Coast because of freight costs and distance. Products brought into the territory for resale included dry goods, groceries, clothing, lumber, agricultural 164 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY When the United Order disbanded, the Kaysville Cooperative continued under private ownership. Its major investors started Barnes Bank in part of the co-op building on Main at Center Street, seen in this 1895 photograph. (Utah State Historical Society) implements, wagons, furniture, livestock, wool, leather and leather products, hides, and tallow.97 The cooperative mercantiles, shops, and herds failed due to this competition and the lack of local support. The spirit of cooperation had less appeal to the people of Davis County than did the spirit of independent enterprise and their hunger for the goods they could not produce locally. Latter-day Saints did not blame anyone but them­selves for the failure. In their view, cooperation would not succeed until those who participated in the effort were personally of a moral character willing to make it work. The Mormon Reformation and the rules of the United Order were attempts to help people govern their lives so they could unite harmoniously in economic and social enter­prises. Unlike the Owenites, another nineteenth-century group attempting to live a communal lifestyle, according to one historical assessment, "a Mormon did not enter a commune to become good, AN END TO ISOLATION 165 but because he was good. . . . Faith was the instrument of change- not institutions."98 Not long after Brigham Young's death in 1877, the remaining united order cooperatives in Davis County paid off their investors and either became private businesses or ceased operation. The gen­eral stores financially had been the most successful of the coopera­tive efforts in Davis County, and all four of them survived under private ownership. For many years these stores appealed to the loy­alty of Latter-day Saint shoppers by keeping the name "co-operative" in their title. The united order manufacturing companies shared many of the same economic challenges faced by the co-op stores, plus one addi­tional hurdle. The tanneries, shoe shops, broom factories, and tailor­ing shops specialized in a single product, and their locally made commodities could not always compete in quality with eastern fac­tory goods. For this reason alone, few of these enterprises survived the demise of the united order movement. Brickmaking in Davis County did well, since bricks were not a product easily imported. That industry continued in the private sphere beyond the 1870s in both Bountiful and Kaysville. Tailors and broom makers could also compete in local markets and did so until mass-produced products undercut them in variety and price. The leather industry in Davis County did not survive. Both the Barnes and Stewart Tannery of Kaysville and the Union Tannery of Farmington soon ceased operation.99 As noted earlier, the county livestock cooperative disbanded in 1876, after five years of deficit operation. The cooperative ranch in Box Elder County was sold at a private sale for a modest sum, along with a few remaining head of livestock and some wagons. The firm realized a greater return when it sold its ferry and its livestock, land, and equipment on Antelope Island to private buyers.100 With the end of the Davis United Order, herding was managed once again as a community effort in Davis County. But within a few years even that disappeared. One reason for the transition to private herds was a change in fencing practices. Community fencing of Big Field croplands ended and farmers began enclosing their individual lands. In addition, communities built fences around some of the 166 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY remaining common pastures. Serious ranchers purchased or leased private ranges outside the c o u n t y For others, in the late 1880s pri­vate herding arrangements once again became available for those needing the service.101 The management of i r r i g a t i o n water followed the p a t t e r n of o t h e r a g r i c u l t u r a l cooperatives. To remove the M o r m o n church from the management process, each existing irrigation district in Davis C o u n t y organized as a n o n - p r o f i t irrigation c o m p a n y The farmers in each of these corporations owned shares that defined the amount of water they could use. Together they named a watermas­ter, who apportioned the water by setting times for each water turn, j u s t as such men had done under the c o u r t - o r d e r e d , church-supervised system. The new irrigation companies lasted well into the twentieth century They finally disbanded and sold their water rights when Weber River water was piped into the county along the moun­tainside, increasing water supplies and making pressurized irrigation possible. ENDNOTES 1. Carol Ivins Collett, Kaysville-Our Town: A History, 54; Dale Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), 159. 2. Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 216; Clayton Holt, The Community of Syracuse, 1820 to 1995: Our Heritage (Syracuse: Syracuse Historical Commission, 1994), 9-13. 3. For the precise route see L. A. Fleming and A.R. Standing, "The Road to 'Fortune': The Salt Lake Cutoff," Utah Historical Quarterly 33 (Summer 1965): 248-71. 4. Annie Call Carr, ed., East of Antelope Island: History of the First Fifty Years of Davis County, 146. 5. Davis County, Court Minutes, 6 lune 1859, Davis County Clerk's Office. 6. Ibid., 13, 18 lune 1859; Leslie T. Foy, The City Bountiful: Utah's Second Settlement, from Pioneers to Present, 64. 7. Davis County, Court Minutes, 30 September, 31 December 1872, 3 March 1873; lohn W. Hess, William R. Smith, and Anson Call to Brigham Young, 1 September 1874, LDS Church Archives. 8. Foy, City Bountiful, 64-67; Glen M. Leonard, "A History of Farmington, Utah, to 1890," 46. AN END TO ISOLATION 167 9. "Kays Ward or Kaysville, As It Was October 27th, 1862, as remem­bered by loseph Barton," in Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 42-43, 54. 10. lames V. Barber, "The History of Highways in Utah from 1847 to 1860" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1949), 29-30; Foy, City Bountiful, 68. 11. Davis County, Court Minutes, 8 March 1859. 12. Barber, "History of Highways, 29-30. 13. Davis County, Court Minutes, March 1854, and 8 March 1859. 14. Ibid., March 1853. 15. lanice P. Dawson, "A Brief Look at the Development of Early Roads and Highways," 1, manuscript, in possession of lanice P. Dawson, Layton; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 135; Barber, "History of Highways, 149. 16. Myron W. Mclntyre and Noel R. Barton, eds., Christopher Layton (n.p.: Christoper Layton Family Organization, 1966), 115, 236 n. 51; Betty M. Madsen and Brigham D. Madsen, North to Montana!: Jehus, Bullwhackers, and Mule Skinners on the Montana Trail (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press), 131-32. 17. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1887 (San Francisco: The History Co., 1891), 769. 18. William Mulder and A. Russell Mortensen, eds., Among the Mormons: Historic Accounts by Contemporary Observers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), 236; Kate B. Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 12:54. 19. Deseret News, 29 November 1851, 4; 16 November 1864, 3. 20. Carter, Heart Throbs, 1:184; Deseret Evening News, 30 December 1878. 21. "Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 63; lournal History of the Church of lesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 21 December 1854, 3; Margaret Steed Hess, My Farmington: A History of Farmington, Utah, 1847-1976, 315. 22. Lee D. Bell, South Weber: The Autobiography of One Utah Community, 138-39. 23. S. George Ellsworth, Utah's Heritage (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1972), 248-50; Bell, South Weber, 136; Foy, City Bountiful, 127-31; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 55, 487, 492. 24. Leonard ]. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 199-200, 228-29; Deseret News, 9 November 1865; lournal History, 11 December 1866, 21 lanuary 1867; Collett, Kaysville- Our Town, 80; Foy, City Bountiful, 132. 25. Deseret News, 9 November 1865; lournal History, 11 December 1866, 15 lanuary 1867. Kaysville's telegraph office apparently did not open until 1867 (Carr, East of Antelope Island, 391). 168 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY 26. Ellsworth, Utah's Heritage, 247, 251-52; Madsen and Madsen, North to Montana!, 106-7. 27. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 68-69, 483, 492; Mary Ellen Smoot and Marilyn Sheriff, The City in-Between: History of Centerville, Utah, 317. 28. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 58; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 393; Bell, South Weber, 80-81, 299. 29. lournal History, 16 August 1869, 2. 30. Ibid.; Madsen and Madsen, North to Montana!, 173-75. 31. lournal History, 25 August 1868. 32. J. Roderic Korns and Dale L. Morgan, eds., West from Fort Bridger: The Pioneering of the Immigrant Trails across Utah, 1846-1850, rev. by Will Bagley and Harold Schindler (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994), 301; loseph Cain and Arieh C. Brower, Mormon Way-bill to the Gold Mines . . . (Great Salt Lake City: Willard Richards, 1851), 29; Steed, My Farmington, 312-15. 33. Mclntyre and Barton, Christopher Layton, 101-2; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 124, 484, 470; Foy, City Bountiful, 64-65. 34. Richard D. Poll, Thomas G. Alexander, Eugene E. Campbell, David E. Miller, eds., Utah's History, 218-19, 221; Ellsworth, Utah's Heritage, 252-55. 35. Foy, City Bountiful, 132-33; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 88; lournal History, 10 lanuary 1869. 36. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 88. 37. Ibid., 88-89. 38. Bancroft, History of Utah, 756-57; Deseret Evening News, 3, 12 lanuary 1870, 22, 23 December 1869; lournal History, 2 December 1869. 39. Deseret Evening News, 11, 28 lanuary 1870; 24 October 1882. 40. Deseret News (weekly), 16 lune 1869. 41. Ibid.; diary quoted in Arlene H. Eakle, Adelia Baird, and Georgia Weber, Woods Cross: Patterns and Profiles of a City (Woods Cross: Woods Cross City Council, 1976), 6-7. 42. Deseret Evening News, 11 lune 1869. 43. Deseret News (weekly), 16 lune 1869. 44. Ibid. 45. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 91. 46. Foy, City Bountiful, 133; lournal History, 25 lune 1869; Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 296. 47. Farmington Ward, Teachers Quorum, Minutes, 4 lune 1870; Davis AN END TO ISOLATION 169 County, Court Minutes, 9 September, 20 October 1870, 5 lune, 12 October 1871. 48. Poll et al., Utah's History, 219-20, 440, 735; Ellsworth, Utah's Heritage, 257-59. 49. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 485; Poll et al., Utah's History, 383, 435-36. 50. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 237. 51. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 58; Bell, South Weber, 139. 52. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 412; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 80; Hess, My Farmington, 324. 53. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 58; Smoot and Sheriff, City In-Between, 166. 54. lohn Codman, The Mormon Country: A Summer with the "Latter-day Saints" (New York: United States Publishing, 1874), 211; William Robb Purrington, "The History of South Davis County from 1847 to 1870," 51. 55. Leonard I. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 89. 56. Feramorz Y. Fox, "The Consecration Movement of the Middle 'Fifties," Improvement Era 47 (February-March 1944): 146-47; also in Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 68-75. 57. loseph L. Robinson, Autobiography and lournal, LDS Church Archives, 100-1, entries of 6 and 17 April 1854; Fox, "The Consecration Movement," 121, 187; Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 65-66; consecration deeds, LDS Church Archives. 58. Fox, "The Consecration Movement," 188; Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 65-66, 77-78. 59. Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 79-86. 60. Ibid., 90-91, 101; lournal History, 10 October 1868. 61. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 128-30. 62. Doneta M. Gatherum and Kent C. Day, comp., Kaysville and Layton General Stores (Kaysville and Layton: Kaysville-Layton Historical Society, 1987) 4, 11; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 94-95; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 393-95. 63. Hess, My Farmington, 6, 30, 231-32, 304-6, 342, 379; Leonard, "A History of Farmington," 127-28. 64. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 68; Smoot and Sheriff, City In-Between, 32, 188-89, 227, 233; Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 88, 98. 170 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY 65. U.S. Census, 1850; William Wallace Willey, "A Short History of Bountiful," manuscript, 1914, LDS Church Archives, 23; Foy, City Bountiful, 95, 141; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 415-18, 421. 66. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 126; Steven R. Sorensen, "School of the Prophets," in Daniel L. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1269-70. 67. Leonard, "History of Farmington, 130. 68. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 335-45; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 131. 69. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 131-34. 70. lournal History, 20 December 1868; Foy, Ciry Bountiful, 141; Deseret Evening News, 2 luly 1873. 71. Deseret Evening News, 11 lune 1873. 72. Deseret News, 13, 15 May 1874; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 330-37. 73. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 137-38. 74. Among other places, the list is available in Mulder and Mortensen, Among the Mormons, 393-98. 75. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 136-38. 76. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 94. 77. Deseret Evening News, 24 lune 1874; Collett, City In-Between, 113. 78. Foy, City Bountiful, 141-42. 79. Salt Lake Herald, 9 lune 1876. 80. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 141; Deseret News, 29 lune 1874. 81. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 140-43. 82. Ibid., 143, 146. 83. Ibid., 144-46. 84. Leonard ]. Arrington, "The Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society in Pioneer Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 24 (April 1956): 167-68; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 109. 85. Deseret News, 27 August 1862, 3 August 1864; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 109-10. 86. lournal History, 20 March 1860, 2; Deseret News, 21 lanuary 1871. 87. Bancroft, History of Utah, 729-31. 88. Deseret News, 27 luly 1850, 17 April 1852; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 118-20. 89. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 118-20; Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 26 April 1867. AN END TO ISOLATION 171 90. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 118; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 162-63; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 150-51. 91. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 118, 120-23. 92. David H. Miller and Anne M. Eckman, eds., "Seymour Miller's Account of an Early Sheep Operation on Fremont Island," Utah Historical Quarterly 56 (Spring 1988): 162, 169 n. 30, 170. 93. lournal History, 22 February 1871, 2. 94. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 119, 121-22; Salt Lake Herald, 9 lune 1876, 3; Peter G. Van Alfen, "Sail and Steam: Great Salt Lake's Boats and Boatbuilders, 1847-1901," Utah Historical Quarterly 63 (Summer 1995): 202-3. 95. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 121-24. 96. Ibid., 123-24. 97. Bancroft, History of Utah, 759-61. 98. Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, 8-9, 12-13. 99. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 93; Leonard, "History of Farming-ton," 144-45. 100. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 122-23. 101. Ibid., 123.