A History of Salt Lake County

The Contested Kingdom, 1847-1860

T h e day Mormon wagons entered the Salt Lake Valley, life therein began to change. Mountain streams turned in their courses at the command of shovels and spread their waters. Plows struck the soil now expected to yield the crops the newcomers sowed. Certain valley inhabitants, ranging from coyotes to crickets, were decreed "destroyers and wastersm1a nd would be energetically killed. The Indians living near the Great Salt Lake, and other bands accustomed to moving through the valley, became almost immediately unwel-come. Descriptions by Orson F. Whitney, a prominent nineteenth-century historian, convinced future generations that the Mormons entered a desolation with "interminable wastes of sagebrush," a "par-adise of the lizard, the cricket, and the rattlesnake."' Yet settlers recorded whooping with joy at sighting "the most fertile valley . . . clothed with a heavy garment of vegetation, . . . with mountains all around towering to the skies, and steams, rivulets and creeks of pure water running through the beautiful alley."^ As they enthusiastically claimed their new home, the Mormons Black Rock is visible behind the Davis farm house near the Great Salt Lake. (LDS Church Archives) represented only one group of determined and intrepid pioneers in a saga of western settlement which expanded the dream of the American colonists. Their practical success at causing "the desert to blossom as a rose," in fulfillment of scripture and conception of leg-end, became evident that first decade within the valley. More unique, however, and more improbable was their own dream of building the Kingdom of God. They defied the American individualism that per-meated their time in designing a communal utopia that thrived suf-ficient unto itself; for that first decade or so, this dream almost became reality. The priesthood hierarchy that directed the westward movement also presided in the valley. Settlement was orderly and obedient, cooperation the hallmark virtue. Despite their loyalties as Americans, the colonists planned to manage everything themselves from Indian affairs to local governance. When, within a few years after entry, these determined refugees petitioned Congress to empower Deseret as the nation's largest state, they revealed the immensity and fragility of their vision. Brigham Young and the members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles present in the valley convened within the first few days. Young "waved his hand over a spot between two forks of City Creek, and designated a forty-acre site for a new tem~le."T~h e city he then described commenced from that religious center, laid out in a grid of ten-acre blocks with eight lots per block. Streets measured eight rods wide with twenty-foot sidewalks along each side; houses were to rest twenty feet back from the sidewalk. The apostles affirmed this plan, a vote echoed that evening when the company met on the temple ground. Young explained that timber, water, and other natural resources would be held in common under church governance. While the Mormons were not the first on the continent to irrigate fields, they were the first known to legally regulate the use of water for agricul-ture. Each household would receive land and water rights; each would be expected to obey church leadership and to tithe to support common projects and the needy. The egalitarian aspects of the society formed a paradox with the strong hierarchy that governed all things. Just as top church leaders took plural wives in far greater numbers than the two or three encouraged for ward bishops, so did they select their lots first, most near the temple site. Later, church members drew numbers for their own homesites and farming plots. None of this land was legally titled, and a federal land office would not arrive for twenty-two years. When it did, problems arrived, The company that summer included nine women and several children, enlarged after leaving Winter Quarters in April by the "Mississippi Saints" en route. Along the trail, the women served as scribes and diary keepers as well as cooks, seamstresses, and caretak-ers for the children. Ellen Sanders, the "strong, young Norwegian wifen6 of Heber C. Kimball, Young's counselor, was among them. Her husband left Young's conveyance mid-journey for Sanders's wagon. By the time their infant, Samuel, became one of the first white chil- dren born in the valley, the number of females had increased dra-matically until the female population roughly equaled the male. On the first Sunday in the valley, Young addressed the company in a bowery erected on the temple site. Open along the sides and roofed by leafy limbs, the bowery resembled smaller Native American arbors and combined social and religious functions. There the set-tlers could gather in vested suits or long skirts and petticoats and find shelter from the sun while refreshed by a wandering breeze. On the second Sunday, the settlers effectively shut down trade with the Indians in hopes of keeping the native peoples at a distance. While the belief that Indians descended from Book of Mormon peoples softened the Mormons' biases as compared to other immi-grants', overall they moderated only from outright hostility to avoid-ance, popularly summarized as, "it's better to feed than fight them."' Young had selected the Salt Lake Valley in part because it seemed uninhabited in contrast to the large encampment of Timpanogos Utes, led by Wakara, near Utah Lake. Young wrote: "[As] the Utes may feel a little tenacious about their choice lands on the Utah [Lake], we had better keep further north towards the salt lake, which is a more neutral ground. . . ." In this way, he added, "we should be less likely to be disturbed and also have a chance to form an acquain-tance with the Utes, and having done our planting, shall select a site for our location at our lei~ure."~ Two small bands did live in the valley near the Great Salt Lake but were not nearly as well known or impressive to Americans as the Utes. One band, led by Wanship, had split from the Utah Valley Utes and intermarried with Goshutes; the other was led by Gosip who died in 1850.9 Both Ute and Shoshone delegations visited the pioneer camp within the first week after wagons arrived; thereafter, increasing num-bers of Indians returned, hoping to trade for guns, ammunition, and clothing. The colonists also recorded that the Indians begged. Cultural differences were immediately apparent. Not only did some bands find it difficult to sustain their lifeways, but native cul-tures supported a strong gift ethic. For centuries Europeans and then Americans had offered gifts to tribal leaders when they entered their territories. Even more basic was the native tradition of hospitality, requiring that visitors be offered at least food and drink and usually a place to sleep. Yet the settlers crossed or lived on Indian land, reaped its bounties, and offered a pittance or nothing in return. Unlike the traders before them, they were reluctant to part with the possessions they had transported, and they cared far less for pelts and skins.'' Now the settlers' resolution forbade trade with the Indians except at their own encampments; thus Indians would have no reason to visit the settlers. Clearly, the Mormons expected little contact with native peoples except to convert and absorb any who were willing. To the extent they displaced the unwilling, they hoped to do so without a battle, but complaints about the Indians continued. The settlers felt pressured to preserve and produce the necessities of life. They were no more prepared to abandon their agricultural diet for game, nuts, and roots than inclined to discard their layers of broadcloth and woolens for woven grasses or tanned hides. While few Indians lived in the valley, the native presence was strongly felt. A fort went up on the block later filled by Pioneer Park. The first winter about 1,700 people moved into its huts with slanting roofs and doors opening on a center court. There seventeen-year-old Mary Jane Dilworth opened a school in her tent for six pupils. As the city grew, so did twelve-foot high mud walls that provided employ-ment but were intended as fortifications. When settlers ventured south in the valley they would build additional forts. Roundabout, the tilled earth yielded arrowheads, artifacts, wells, and burials; at least once, settlers took over an Indian cemetery. Encounters with native peoples would enliven the settlers' journals for decades to come. In addition to the temple and fort sites, church leaders reserved other areas for public use. The block between State and Main and Fourth and Fifth South Streets (which would later hold the City and County Building) was immediately plowed and planted with pota-toes. The site also welcomed arriving immigrant trains and later was used for a stray dog pound and by visiting circuses and shows. The city was laid out in plats, one plat in each of the first three years. Within each plat, buildings, roads, and ditches grew with aston-ishing speed. Diverted streams lined the main streets, and teams of workers built ditches to the Big Field which spread beyond Ninth South Street. Water turns became of paramount importance as set-tlers alternated at unleashing the precious flow. On the northeast incline, the leadership designated a three-hundred- acre cemetery, a desolate place with no water supply. A rock wall guarded the perimeter and a rock house sheltered the dead until burial. In a tragic irony, the sexton and his wife were the first to need a plot, for their daughter, born at Winter Quarters in February, died 26 September 1847." A macabre incident at the cemetery shocked the valley in 1860 when gravedigger Jean Baptiste (nicknamed John the Baptist) was discovered with stacks of burial robes and other clothing in his cabin. Charged with robbing the dead, Baptiste was unable to say which coffins he had ransacked. Some residents had their loved ones exhumed to check on their wellbeing even as the city's new police force debated how to deal with this horror. Finally Baptiste was exiled to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. The legend of his bizarre crime grew when he simply disappeared, leaving evidence of neither his death nor his escape from exile.'' The settlers' first winter in the valley was mild yet difficult due to insufficient food. As livestock had entered the valley with each wagon train, the animals scavenged whatever crops they could find and trampled the rest. Winter deepened, and hungry Indians and wolves raided the livestock. The Council of Fifty, the chief governing body, rationed food to one-half pound of flour per person per day, and people experimented with eating crow and various indigenous plants such as sego lily roots, bark, and thistle tops which they discovered with the help of friendly Indians." An outbreak of measles added to the misery and became deadly when it infected Indian people who had no immunity. Although the afflicted natives tried the usual remedy of bathing in the warm springs at the north end of the valley, large numbers died. The set-tlers buried thirty-six natives in one grave alone." The spring of 1848 brought relief and renewed energy. The set-tlers planted five thousand acres with corn, beets, onions, turnips, peas, beans, cucumbers, melons, squash, lettuce, and radishes, all from seed brought across the plains. Seed from winter wheat filled another nine thousand acres. As sprouts appeared, so did hungry crickets. That summer church authorities matter-of-factly wrote to Brigham Young, then in the Midwest, that the crickets "were still quite numerous and busy eating, but between the gulls, our efforts, and the growth of crops we shall raise much grain in spite of them."15 Communal herds of sheep and cattle grazed land that could not be irrigated. With the encouragement of warm weather, the settlers spread out. The Mississippi Company, led by John Holladay, struck out for Spring Creek, later known as Cottonwood Creek. They built dugouts and began shoveling a canal from the creek mouth. Cottonwood, also called Holladay's Burgh, thus became the first farming district out-side the growing Great Salt Lake City. John Neff had lugged his milling machinery to the valley; now he reassembled it on a stream. Before the year's end he was producing flour on what became known as Mill Creek? Two main roads soon connected the southeastern homesteaders with Great Salt Lake City. The Upper County Road ran north from Big Cottonwood Canyon to Sixteenth South Street and would later be called Holladay Boulevard. The Lower County Road collected the higher road's traffic and continued north. Sugarhouse, named for a sugar mill (that failed), would develop between Salt Lake City and Holladay, and the Lower County Road was renamed Highland Drive. l7 The Berger family was among those attracted by the willows and cottonwoods in the southeast valley. Gottlieb Berger described the area as "quite a barren looking place," but then delineated the thick growth of trees and creek basins and banks that were "pretty much alive with birds and small animals. There were many blackbirds, cat birds, mourning doves . . . skunks, minks, badgers, muskrats, otters, and foxes, and along the river a few beaver. A little farther up there were a few wolves.7718 A century later, when this same area wore convenient concrete, asphalt, and lawn, and only robins, sparrows, and pets amused the numerous children, young Gottlieb's wilderness playground might seem lush. But by then even the word "wilderness" had a different ring, for it had become less something to tame than something to seek. A year after Holladay got its start, William Stuart Brighton and Clara Brighton homesteaded a site at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon. With their son William, the Brightons staffed a store and a post office in the village that took their name.I9 (Another town called Brighton, probably named for the seaside resort in England, would be settled in the 1860s west of the County Road-Seventeenth West Street. The townsite was laid out to the south of Thirteenth South Street and surrounded by farms.) All summer immigrants streamed into the valley where they were evaluated as to both needs and skills, then sifted into the settlement plan. The newly developed Perpetual Emigrating Fund functioned internationally, providing loans to prospective emigrants and super-vising their embarkment on chartered ships. Mormon officials over-saw everything from sleeping quarters and meal preparation to social activities and religious services. Once in the United States, church agents arranged for the journey west, providing the travelers with teams and wagons, instructions, and sometimes a guide. For several years, relief trains set out from Salt Lake City to meet incoming wagon trains; later, waystations were established?' Immigrants' skills were noted even before they embarked for the New World. One list of Mormons leaving from Liverpool detailed occupations from accountants to engineers, ironmongers to masons, printers to cabinet makers, weavers and spinners to yeomen." The incoming Saints found a city in the making. The General Tithing Office acted as the valley's first bank and centralized the com-munal effort. Tithing scrip remunerated workers on public projects and was redeemed for merchandise in tithing stores. Both loans and savings could be managed through careful records kept in tithing books. Meanwhile the Council of Fifty passed a speeding law. The fort now included three parts, and the council ruled that "no person shall ride or drive through the Forts or their lanes faster than a slow trot under a penalty of $1 .OO for each offense." To handle speeders, thieves, and rowdies, the council appointed a public complainer to act as both police and prosecutor. Offenders were fined or whipped, but there was no jail. The Nauvoo Legion was revived as a militia to handle larger problems such as protection against Indian raids." One historian called Great Salt Lake City an "instant city," for by its first anniversary it boasted a population of nearly five thousand. Here wagons stand in front of the William Jennings Store. (LDS Church Archives) That summer, too, members of the Mormon Battalion entered the valley. Their march south to join troops fighting the Mexican War had missed seeing action and had been rerouted to California where the troops were discharged. They brought excited reports of a gold strike evidenced by the packets of gold they placed into circulation. The council tried to mint gold coins, but the effort failed until the following year. Still later the mint produced paper notes signed by Brigham Young. As some Saints pondered a move to California, Young doused the infectious gold fever with stern advice to eschew worldly wealth and continue to build Zion. Thomas and Sanford Bingham received a similar response when, in August 1848, they drove a herd of cattle into a southwest canyon to graze. There the brothers found outcroppings that obviously contained ore. Young heard their report then told them to keep their minds on the cattle. Nevertheless, the brothers' name marked the canyon where they settled, a place that ultimately would be turned inside out for the metals it contained-but not with Young's appr~val.~' The assertive and mounted Utes sought a business relationship with LDS leaders, but friendly exchanges ended in the Black Hawk War. Armed horse-men pose before the Eagle Emporium, which was later absorbed by the church-owned ZCMI. (LDS Church Archives) That same summer of 1848, several hundred Timpanogos Utes rode in a cloud of dust and buckskin into the growing city. Wakara and his brother Sowiette led this impressive delegation and came in peace. According to Apostle Parley P. Pratt, the brothers "expressed a wish to become one people with us, and to live among us and we among them, and to learn to cultivate the earth and live as we do." The Timpanogos Utes invited the settlers "to commence farming with them" in their valleys about three hundred miles to the south.14 In making this offer, the Ute leaders knowingly or unknowingly echoed the arrangement Dominguez and Escalante had described for the Tumpanawach in 1776 except they suggested joining efforts con-siderably south of the Utah Valley. As a show of good faith, the Utes assisted that summer in rounding up stolen livestock for the Mormons. A year later, Young sent settlers to Utah Valley where they built a fort; another party settled the San Pete area farther south. When summer waned and the weather turned chilly, the colonists "forted up" for a second winter which would prove harsher than the first. The foodstuffs and livestock were better secured than during the first winter, but the settlers found the howls of wolves at night unnerving, "a constant reminder of the wilderness they had been forced to take refuge in. . . ."25 In response, the Council of Fifty organized two teams to compete in a community shoot, aiming to rid the valley of predators. On Christmas Day rifle reports echoed from the foothills as John Pack led one team and John D. Lee the other. Eighty-four settlers killed two wolverines, 33 1 wolves, 216 foxes, ten minks, nine eagles, 507 magpies, and 898 raven^.'^ The following spring, the settlers could not shoot the crickets that returned to gobble the expanding fields of sprouting crops. The ravenous insects took on monstrous proportions, described by the settlers, with forced humor, as a "cross between a spider and a buf-fa10."~' With this round of battle, the onslaught of the crickets and the rescue by the gulls acquired religious overtones. One diarist described the seagulls' appetite for the insects as "a miracle in behalf of this severe insect infestation in 1855 underscored that feel-ing, and the legends grew. The cricket hordes gradually vanished. Bungling into the grow-ing number of irrigation ditches, they were snapped up by swine and poultry; but the seagull won a niche in history and a statue on Temple Square. One modern historian noted, "It is equally out of gratitude and hunger of miracle that the white-winged seagulls today wheel across the Utah skies with their sharp, shrill cry, protected alike by taboo and written law."29 Once again warm weather renewed both the urge to colonize and calls from Young. Ebenezer and Phoebe Brown moved their five chil-dren to the rich pasturelands around South Willow Creek due south of Salt Lake City. Streams from Bear Canyon, Rocky Mouth, South Dry Creek, and Middle Dry Creek as well as various springs provided water. The settlers built a canal along the base of the Wasatch Range to the channel of Big Dry Creek. The town was named Brownsville then changed to Draper for William Draper, the town's first bishop, who brought his family a year later.30 Meanwhile, a few enterprising colonists "crossed Jordan" and set-tled in the grasslands stretching thirty miles to the west. Dugouts provided shelter in the hills above the river while the settlers plowed fields and built forts, homes, and meetinghouses. Elias Smith, the first Salt Lake County judge, chose the name Granger because the land looked productive. Early residents of Granger and adjoining Hunter included Joseph Harker, Alfred and Hannah Gibbs Jones, John Gerber, David Warr, and Peter Rasmussen." George A. Smith purchased land in what would become South Jordan, and Alexander Beckstead moved his family there after first farming in the future West Jordan, along with the families of Marius Ensign and Samuel Egbert. Archibald and Robert Gardner in 1850 built a canal to carry water from the Jordan River to the area around 7800 South Street. A sawmill, flour mill, tannery, and woolen mill clustered in this area as other settlers joined them.32 Butterfield, near the Oquirrh Mountains, was named for Thomas Butterfield, Sr., then renamed for Henry Herriman, a member of the First Council of Seventy." Increasingly, as conversions and emigration continued among the peoples of northern Europe, the settlements became culturally diverse. In the early years, a Norwegian contingent arrived. Dan Jones and Reece Williams established a Welsh settlement near Granger, and in 1852 the community staged a St. David's Day celebration in Great Salt Lake City. English Fort-located between the future Bennion and Taylorsville-heralded the growing number of British settler^.'^ When Julius Gersom Brooks and Fanny Brooks became the first Jewish residents in Salt Lake City in 1854, they found themselves sud-denly considered gentiles, as all non-Mormons were called.'" Fort Union, south and slightly east of Salt Lake City, housed a virtual gathering of nations. (The area later became known as Union Fort.) Twenty-two families of Scandinavian, Italian, Finnish, Dutch, Welsh, and Canadian descent struggled to understand one another even as they strove to learn English. Each family kept a vegetable gar-den beside their adobe house while animals were corralled outside the fort. African-American Green Flake and his family also lived Historians still debate the number of Brigham Young's wives, but his teenaged daughters were widely known as the "Big Ten" in Salt Lake soci-ety. While Young argued for modest homespun, his younger wives and daughters led the fashionable. (LDS Church Archives) there." Flake, who tradition maintained had driven Young's wagon west, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay all had been sent to the valley as slaves of southern Mormons, entering the valley in the first company. Other black families were free, including Isaac and Jane Manning James. She became the matriarch of the first African-American com-munity in the Salt Lake Valley, partly due to the status accorded her for having lived and worked in the Nauvoo home of Joseph Smith. When Jane Manning James died in 1908, current church president, Joseph F. Smith, spoke at her funeral.37 Elijah Abel, a mulatto, also held special status since he had been ordained to the LDS church's priesthood in Nauvoo, a privilege soon revoked for men of African descent. He and his wife, Mary Ann Abel, managed the Farnham hotel, and he worked as a carpenter on the building of the Salt Lake temple." These were exceptional people indeed, for slavery was legalized in the Utah Territory in 1852 and then lasted a decade. The law allowed the buying and selling of slaves of African descent and for- bade miscegenation. It required slave owners to provide sufficient food, shelter, clothing, and recreation, as well as eighteen months of schooling to youngsters between six and twenty years of age. Slaves were required "to labor faithfully all reasonable hours, and do such service with fidelity as may be required by his or her master or mis-tres~.''~~ Indian "prisoners, children or women" also became legal posses-sions, essentially shifting Mexico's slave trade toward the white colonists. The intent, however, was described in the law as an effort "to ameliorate their condition, preserve their lives, and their liberties, and redeem them from a worse than African bondage. . . ." The own-ers of Indian slaves were required to educate them three months of each year and a school was accessible to children between seven and sixteen years of age. Miscegenation was not forbidden; in fact "some Mormons were induced to take Indian wives" and many raised Indian ~hildren.~' Both laws regarding slavery reflected most settlers' views, as Americans and Mormons, of their possessing a superior lifestyle. Their "higher regard for Indians than for people of African descent"" indicated a policy of assimilation for those they believed to have descended from peoples depicted in the Book of Mormon. However, the Mormons' interference in the Utes' longstanding market for both slaves and horses eventually became a provocation to war. In Salt Lake City, Zion's heart, the west side of Main Street became increasingly commercial, and the east side followed suit. The Council of Fifty organized public work projects for wages credited to tithing. As a result, the Council House, the Deseret Store, an adobe church office building, a public bathhouse at the warm springs, a wall around the temple block, and an armory on Ensign Peak rose rapidly. Throughout the early years of settlement, the LDS ward served as the essential unit of governance, society, and religion; the log or adobe meetinghouse, no matter how humble, became a community hub in the guise of chapel, school, and social hall. Long after Salt Lake City boasted theaters and ballrooms, the ward meetinghouse bound the Saints in each neighborhood and village together. Only two years after settlement, the valley held nineteen wards. Army Captain Howard Stansbury observed the social aspect as he created a topographical map of the Great Basin. A typical dance might be attended by the prophet or apostles and likely would open with prayer, he noted; "and then will follow the most sprightly danc-ing in which all will join with hearty good will from the highest dig-nitary to the humblest indi~idual."~' Despite the Saints' unity, as early as 1849 the first breach appeared in the doctrinal wall of self-sufficiency. Eastern goods became available when James A. Livingston and Charles A. Kinkead opened the first retail store on West Temple Street near where West High School would later stand. Silk, calico, and linen began replac-ing worn-out clothing and homespun, and saddles, tools, and house-hold goods were a welcome sight. Ben Holladay procured surplus oxen and wagons from the army, hauled in $70,000 worth of mer-chandise and sold it all. The following year he brought more than twice as much and retailed the goods with equal success.43 Young viewed these entrepreneurial efforts with a jaundiced eye, for outside merchants came only to make money, not to build Zion. They paid no tithing for the common good and showed no inclina-tion to enter the fold. To his followers, Young stressed self-sufficiency as gospel. "If they impoverished themselves to buy things that couldn't be provided within the territory, they would forever be the slaves of the gentile^."'^ Yet the market for eastern goods existed within the valley, for the imported items not only offered convenience but spoke of home and civilization. Brigham found his most thorough defeat, perhaps, in assaulting fashion. He protested trousers newly tailored with a front fly rather than a drop seat; he tried to persuade women to wear a plain "Deseret costume" as a daily uniform. All the while, Brigham's wives, especially the younger ones, set the standard of fashion as Great Salt Lake City offered increasing society and entertainment. If non-Mormon merchants took advantage of the valley's con-sumers, Mormons saw the 15,000 goldseekers sprinting through town that year as a mobile windfall. These travelers were willing to pay greatly inflated prices for horses, mules, vegetables, and flour, and the Mormons were glad to charge whatever the market would sus-tain. Many who were California-bound also offered surplus wagons and harnesses at greatly reduced prices, a second boon. Young saw the Mormons' purpose in exploiting this situation as appropriate given their isolation and lofty goals; he saw the non-Mormon merchants' aim as purely selfish. As a third benefit, the gold rush also brought business; black-smiths, teamsters, wagonsmiths, laundresses, and millers were in high demand. Although Young turned his followers away from the gold rush to save their souls, gold mining in California actually "saved" the Saints financially, for "the most important crop of 1849-185 1 was harvested, not in the Salt Lake Valley, but at Sutter's Mill. . . ."45 Still, the outflowing currency, which Young estimated at $500,000 between 1849 and 1852, rankled. He and the church historian inspected the merchants' wagons as they were readied to travel East. The historian reported them loaded "with more gold dust than had come to the [church] mint that fall. In one box was as much gold as a man could carry and there was a box of silver that required three men to lift it into the wagon."46 Freighting quickly became a big business during the 1850s. Holladay's company grew to a thriving enterprise that would later lead to stagecoaches and the backing of the Pony Express. In turn, Young established the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company, offering direct competition. In addition, a toll was exacted as early as 1849 from travelers entering the valley through Parley's Canyon. More than money lay at issue as this situation developed. The valley's natural role as a crossroads was proving a disadvantage as well as an advantage. As Salt Lake became the only major city between the Mississippi River and the West Coast, it provided a natural stopping-off place for travelers; the Overland Trail itself attracted commerce. "Through traffic" was one thing in the leadership's eyes, and out-siders moving in on the market quite another. Yet by 1854, at least twenty-two non-Mormon merchants did business in the valley. The Utes had already found that not everyone would be willing to spend their dollars and move on. By 1850, the first friendly over-tures between the Utes and Mormons were turning dark. Settlers at Fort Utah (built the previous year in Utah Valley) deplored Ute raids on livestock and beseeched Young for justice. In an eerie echo of a Brigham Young (center), posed with his counselors and apostles behind the Lion House. (LDS Church Archives) Missouri governor's extermination order against Mormons, Young now ordered a "selective extermination campaign" against the Timpanogos Utes. "All the men were to be killed. The women and children were to be saved, only if they behave [dl themselveslq7 A militia of the Nauvoo Legion rode from Salt Lake City and laid siege to a group of about seventy Utes. Led by Big Elk and Ope-Carry, the group dug in near the fort but fled after two days of fighting. One cluster hurried up Rock Canyon where most died of wounds, expo-sure, or their old enemy, measles. The main group traveled south and, with their families, surrendered to the militia. Even then peace failed, for the next morning the Ute warriors were killed in a skirmish. The extermination policy continued for another year. When raids occurred, the militia rode out, and the offenders were tracked down and killeda4' Although the provisional State of Deseret was a self-declared entity, in 1850 it organized along more conventional governmental lines. On 3 1 January 1850, Salt Lake County officially came into being, with a population of over 11,000 residents. A high birth rate offset the proportion of European immigrants as a second generation con-tinued to be born in the valley. Salt Lake County's adjusted borders extended south to the Point of the Mountain, west to the summit of the Oquirrh Mountains and Black Rock beach beside the Great Salt Lake, east to the summit of the Wasatch Range, and north to the hot springs beyond Ensign Peak. Within each county, the assembly designated judicial precincts, a standard unit of local government. Originally the precincts did not align with the boundaries of LDS wards. By 1862, however, the two were united.49 Inevitably church and state remained entwined. The Legislative Assembly met in the Council House on the southwest corner of South Temple and Main streets. Assembly members had been elected from a docket of candidates approved by Young and the Council of Twelve Apostles and confirmed by a vote cast on numbered ballots. Young explained, "It is the right of the Twelve to nominate the OR-cers and the people to receive them."50 Essentially this method dupli-cated the way church leaders called members to various positions, affirmed by the congregation's show of hands. The Legislative Assembly also passed an ordinance creating the University of Deseret, funded with $5,000 from the treasury. The uni-versity opened with characteristic optimism, and Orson Spencer became first chancellor; it operated on a limited basis for four years before financial stresses curtailed its activities. Public schools opened as well, with bishops appointing teachers determined by availability and qualifications. Students paid a fee for their attendance. The assembly incorporated Great Salt Lake City by ordinance, calling for a city council, a mayor, four aldermen, and nine coun-cilors. A newly-formed Public Works Department arranged for vari-ous mechanics and tradesmen to donate tithing labor within specialized fields. Full-time foremen were appointed to supervise the work of carpenters, joiners, masons, and "tithing hands."" The city council also passed a liquor tax to generate revenue. Although few non-Mormons lived in the valley, abstinence from alcohol was stressed far less by church leaders in the nineteenth cen- tury than it would be in the twentieth. Still, passing a 50 percent liquor tax implied a deterrent as well as a contribution to the city cof-fers. A year later, in fact, the city council banned the sale of hard liquor altogether. The next year it licensed certain establishments and rejected others, closing the Deseret House in 1853 for "distributing liquor freely."52A tradition of complex liquor controls and taxes thus began and continued to bring both revenue and controversy. During 1850 regular postal service was established to the East, and the following year to the West. Communication was particularly enhanced by the appearance of a newspaper. The first edition of the weekly Deseret News appeared on 15 June 1850, delayed until then by an absence of national news. The press had been freighted in and assembled, and a paper supply secured, but until mail and newspa-pers became available with news from the States, a local newspaper wasn't deemed worth printing-and the first companies of gold-seekers that spring had not bothered to bring any newspapers on their quest.53 When newspapers did reach the valley, editor Willard Richards and his assistants sifted them for world and national news which they summarized. "Sometimes one paragraph carried topics ranging from a report of an organist with four hands playing for the emperor of Russia to gold diggings on Mormon Island in California." The first edition consisted of eight pages, and its columns largely covered the slavery debate in Congress. In time the weekly paper would also offer practical hints, anecdotes, jokes, poetry, wedding and holiday toasts, and bits of fi~tion.'~ Once news arrived, keeping a steady supply of paper became the next challenge. Editors solicited rags for paper making, and the foun-dation for a paper mill was laid in Sugarhouse. Like the sugar mill, the venture proved unsuccessful and was moved to a new site. Within Salt Lake City, civic pride abounded; residents were encouraged to care for the linden and poplar trees planted since set-tlement and to add flowers and shrubs to their carefully tended veg-etable gardens. The national press was developing a gradual hostility toward Mormonism, yet journalists and other visitors were usually impressed with the city that struck one traveler as "a large garden laid out in regular square^."'^ Other advantages of city life blossomed, for cultural organiza-tions flourished and the bowery on Temple Square expanded. More than one thousand people attended the first concert held there, and many concerts and plays followed, encouraging additional theatrical fare and the building of the Social Hall. The Nauvoo Brass Band revived, and a Tabernacle Choir formed even before the first taber-nacle was completed in 185 1. The physical health and moral well-being of the community also received attention. The Society of Health was organized to look after the needs of an ever-growing population, offering "information to the masses of the people, to lessen their burdens, and to enable them to help themselve~."T~h~e Old Fort which had lent shelter through the first winters was destroyed when city fathers learned "it had become a trysting place for persons of loose morals." In addition, cer-tain veterans of the Mormon Battalion were "roundly censured for becoming 'idle, lazy and indolent, indulging in vice, corrupting the morals of the young females.'"" Several veterans were even ousted from the church and fined $25 each. The workings of the United States Congress were foremost in the minds of Salt Lake County residents, and not only for the discussion of slavery. Bolstered by an elected government, mail service, a news-paper, and cultural life, the State of Deseret applied to Congress for admittance into the Union. Its designated boundaries encompassed much of the remaining West which would make it by far the largest state. At this apex of optimism and efficiency, the Mormon commu-nity would be termed a "near nation" by one historian. Another explained that while the Mormons "rejected secession and other forms of rebellion, they saw themselves in nationlike terms and assumed an increasingly deviant approach to the objectives and char-acter of g~vernment."'T~h e settlers regarded the United States Constitution as God-inspired, particularly its guarantee of freedom of religion, yet they also considered it imperfect. Just as church and civil government inherently merged within Deseret, so did distinctions blur regarding ideas of church and gov-ernment. The Mormons saw themselves as "the true heirs of the [American] revolution. Sovereignty was God's, the right to rule divine, government the special province of the priesthood, and the rights of voters properly limited to consent."59 So strong and persuasive was this vision, although territorial sta-tus was received in 1850, that the colonists were shocked and disap-pointed when Congress denied their petition in February 185 1. Nevertheless, the colonists' July Fourth celebration that year ensued on a grand scale. A military escort led a parade from the city along the Old Territorial Road (North Temple Street), followed by a brass band in a mule-drawn carriage. Next came the carriages of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball with various of their wives and children. Apostles and their families followed, trailed by invited non- Mormons and their families, then "lesser dignitaries and townspeo- ~le."~' The caravan of carriages and wagons carried nearly the entire valley population on a four-hour trek to Black Rock beach on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. "When the contingent arrived they erected an American flag on a tall 'liberty pole,' prepared a picnic din-ner (which included snow from the Oquirrh Mountains), and spent the afternoon picnicking, swimming, and ~inging."~N'o r did the party end before dusk. Still garbed in appropriate Victorian attire, the celebrants applauded orations and speeches, then slept on the sandy beaches. The settlers showed similar adaptability when it came to the statehood denied them. With Brigham Young as governor, territorial government simply absorbed the Legislative Assembly, incorporated existing law into territorial law, and established legal civil govern-ment. Federal funding was quickly accepted to establish a public library. In reality, little changed. Bishops, stake presidents, and other church leaders were elected to public office, a pattern that would endure. Men with leadership ability frequently held multiple posi-tions. At general conference in October 1852, Young announced that the long-envisioned temple would be built with stones cut from the craggy granite ledges in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Although the cornerstones were laid the following year, more than a decade would pass before huge granite blocks, measured, cut, and numbered to match the architectural design would travel by ox cart and later by P ' I*" The Salt Lake Temple cornerstones were laid in 1853. For decades, granite blocks, chiseled in Little Cottonwood Canyon, traveled north by ox-cart, then by rail. The temple's dedication in 1893 drew widespread national publicity. railroad car into downtown Salt Lake City. This project's impact was felt the length of the valley. The name "Granite" became popular in the southeast valley as enterprises multiplied, and Sandy, to the south, became an essential waystation and agricultural town. Young would not live to see the temple completed, however, for serious chal-lenges to Deseret interrupted the work. The first came from the Utes, who initially drew hope from the establishment of the Utah Territory. An Indian agency was estab-lished by Congress, and some aid became available. As the Mormon population continued to grow, however, and the displacement of bands, wild game, and vegetation continued, the Utes recognized the settlers as true enemies. Furthermore, the Mormons found repre-hensible the Utes' centuries-old trade "in horses, slaves, and tribute between the Ute People and Mexicans"" and acted to curtail it. Meanwhile, it was quite evident to the Utes that some Indian people were legally enslaved by Mormons. Although Young withdrew the extermination policy after a year, skirmishes continued. Finally a trade dispute left one Ute dead and two others wounded, and the Utes declared war. Wakara and his brother Arapeen began raiding Mormon settlements in what would be called the Walker War. Over the next ten months, fewer than "twenty white and many more Ute People were killed."63 Forts went up in Herriman in the west valley and in Holladay in the east valley as fear raced through the outlying settlements. William C. Crump, a multi-lingual liaison, patrolled the west and south area, and also visited the Indian campgrounds." The fort system on both sides of the Rockies and the curtailment of the arms and ammuni-tion trade with Indians prevented the Utes from amassing a united front. Most significantly, they were vastly outnumbered. "In the six years since their arrival, the Mormons had become the majority."65 Young and Wakara made peace at Chicken Creek in May 1854, and the demoralized Wakara died the following year. Arapeen became the leader of the Timpanogos Utes and deferred to the LDS authorities. For the next several decades, the Indian presence in the Salt Lake Valley was sometimes cordial, sometimes tense, but no longer vio-lent. Occasionally a group of yelling horsemen would encircle a schoolhouse or cabin and scare the inhabitants. In the south valley, children were warned to stay clear of the willows along the river and creeks where Indians still lived. Many residents watched companies of Native Americans migrate through the valley, camping in familiar spots and sometimes begging, trading, or putting on exhibition dances? One Murray settler identified Paiutes, Shoshones, and Bannocks in the area, though most recorded incidents without reference to tribe or band. "I was too young to smoke the peace pipe, but I have seen this done by some of the older people and the Indians,'' John Berger wrote. "They would all smoke the same pipe, passing it around the ~ircle."~' Settlers' journals also recorded pranks and mischief, seasoned with colloquial terms and storytellers' relish. One settler wrote how "young bucks," who had migrated from the north and raced around whooping and yelling, stole the "young and beautiful" Elizabeth Morgan and took her to their camp. The men who went after her found her safe. "The Indians considered it a prank but the pioneers didn't take it quite so lightly."68 Hyrum Beckstead, a Riverton resident, told how Indian people requested his father to dig a grave in which to bury two tribal mem-bers. "When the two departed members had been laid in their robes, along with articles of food, weapons, etc. one Indian took hold of me and said, 'Hump, put um in papoose.'" This suggestion, Beckstead recalled, was "anything but a joke to me. . . . The minute he let me go, it did not take long to run to the house and tell my mother she wanted me.''69 The second challenge to the Saints' sovereignty was announced amid a great celebration of a decade of living in the valley. This involved another trek-this time up cool Big Cottonwood Canyon rather than to the burning sands of the Great Salt Lake. Below and behind them, the celebrants of July Twenty-fourth could glimpse the decade's triumph. At Salt Lake City's heart, construction had begun on the Lion House, which, along with the Beehive House, would host Brigham Young's family. The first tabernacle was replaced by the dome-roofed Tabernacle in 1857. The Endowment House on Temple Square allowed sacred rites to be performed for the first time since the Nauvoo temple fell during the Saints' chaotic exodus from the burn-ing city. The Devereaux House, Salt Lake City's first mansion, had been erected just west of the city center. Sophistication had arrived in the form of intellectual and cul-tural pursuits, including the Universal Scientific Society, the Deseret Theological Association, the Horticultural Society, and the Polysophical Society. The Deseret Philharmonic Society toured the territory, and the first tabernacle organ had arrived by schooner and mule-drawn wagon. Portraitist Solomon Nunes Carvalho had begun memorializing whoever would pose (and pay), and artist C.C.A. Christensen arrived in 1857 to begin painting the changing scenes all about him. On the bench above North Temple, the city's first strictly resi-dential district grew, providing homes for artisans and clerks who worked in the city. The Avenues were also called the North Bench or Dry Bench and were platted in blocks half the size of those down-town. Almost thirty years after the sector was designed, hawks, jackrabbits, and coyotes still inhabited the surrounding fields and foothills. A mule-drawn streetcar traversed Third Avenue, but many residents simply walked downhill to town and carried their purchases and culinary water back up. Some hired water and ice delivery from the drivers of horse-drawn carts.70 John Saunders recalled how, as a boy, he hunted rabbits, snakes, toads, lizards, and wildflowers between the Avenues and what would later become Fort Douglas. "One chore or errand I always dreaded was being sent by my mother to a very prominent business firm at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, called Wagener7s Brewery, to get yeast for the family bakery," he recalled. "This was when cow herds were always rambling over the country, along the roadways and water ditches, and they were wild cows to a little boy like me. . . .77 Fortunately, he could often hitch a ride with a passing wagon. "It was a frequent occurrence for the brewery wagon to run over a snake and cut it in two. There was no fear about that, because we would rather see two dead snakes than one live With so much accomplished, the celebration at the top of the canyon began, merry and justified. Amid the camping, feasting, and programs, however, Brigham Young announced frightening news. President James Buchanan had ordered the largest peacetime army in the nation's history to subdue a rumored rebellion in the Salt Lake Valley and to replace Brigham Young as governor. The Utah Expedition, led by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, moved steadily toward the valley. Immediately the Mormon leaders prepared for the worst. They sent out teams of guerrillas who slowed the approaching army by "raiding its supply trains, driving off its livestock, and burning the grass before The church ordered all missionaries home and con-solidated the population. Settlers in outlying areas moved into the central valleys, and all families north of Utah Valley were ordered to make an exodus south. The Saints covered over the cornerstones of the Salt Lake temple, filled in the excavation, and leveled the grounds. As the army advanced, indignant editorials sizzled in the pages of the Deseret News, lit by the pen of editor Albert Carrington. "All that we ask and all that we have ever asked of government [are] sim-ply our constitutional rights . . . ," he wrote. If the government con-tinued to "deprive us of every privilege upon the earth . . . they will learn that American citizens upon American soil will not be driven, any further than they may be willing, or than they may see fit to drive themselve~."~~ The move from the northern valleys commenced in March 1858, continuing throughout the spring. One report noted an average six hundred wagons passing through Salt Lake City during the first two weeks of May. Thousands joined the exodus, leaving straw and kin-dling on their doorsteps. Every structure would be torched if the army occupied the Salt Lake Valley, for the Mormons refused to relin-quish another mecca to their enemies. Instead, the army moved through the silent, empty city and established Camp Floyd beyond Salt Lake County's southern border. Buchanan declared a "free and full pardon" for whatever defiance the government had perceived, and the siege ended without violence or destr~ction.~~ From Fillmore in central Utah, the Deseret News announced on 14 July 1858: "RETURNING TO THEIR HOMES-the First Presidency and a few others left Provo at 6 P.M. of June 30, and arrived at their homes in G.S.L. City at 3 A.M. of July 1. All who wish to return are at liberty to do so."75 Despite this peaceful conclusion to what had seemed impending catastrophe, change arrived along with the army, for Camp Floyd rooted the non-Mormon presence in the Great Basin. A newspaper called the Valley Tan appeared, and for two years gave the Deseret News hostile competition. A more neutral voice, the Mountaineer, came the next year, and similarly lasted two years before falling victim to the paper shortage. A plethora of small newspapers followed, most of them shortlived. The Deseret News offered something new, as well, adding the Pony Dispatch based on the reports raced to the valley by the Pony Express. Salt Lake County residents could read Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address eight days after he presented it "in front of the unfinished, domeless capitol in Washington. . . ."76 Camp Floyd offered a base for Masonic activity with the found-ing of the Rocky Mountain Lodge which received authorization in 1859 from a Grand Lodge in Missouri. The Mormon and Masonic histories had mixed bitterly in the Midwest, for Joseph and Hyrum Smith had become Masons, rising through several degrees. When cer-tain symbols in Mormon temple rites later proved similar to secret Masonic symbiology, enmity flared between the two groups. In fact, many Mormons believed that Masons had been present in (if not leading) the mob that killed their prophet and his brother. The Masons in the Salt Lake Valley felt this tension keenly, for they organized additional lodges to "better protect themselves from opposition and persecution." The same day the Wasatch Lodge received its dispensation, Dr. John Robinson, a local physician and Mason, was murdered near his residence. "The apparent apathy of the civil authorities toward apprehending the perpetrators of this atrocity caused great alarm among the non-M~rmons,"a~ M~a sonic history recorded. Although, or perhaps because, they felt endangered, the relatively few Masons within the valley would prove during the next decades a small group's potential to effect change. Overall, the Mormon vision succeeded during the first decade of settlement, for growth, communalism, and a religious lifeway pre-vailed. Both Indian rebellions and the impending apocalypse feared from the approaching army were resolved. A thriving city, a county with expanding settlements, and multiplying social, intellectual, and cultural opportunities all boasted the value of planning and cooper-ation. The Salt Lake Valley had become a busy western crossroads and a religious center whose influence would continue to expand to many nations, drawing people toward Zion. Territorial, county, and city governments all operated in concert with the Mormon vision. Nevertheless, Brigham Young's most formidable battles lay ahead, not behind him; they involved neither arrows, guns, nor can-nons. The most dangerous enemies were those who appreciated the Great Basin, he would find-as had tribal leaders and earlier peoples before them. New neighbors brought their own ideas, claims, and rights, their own vision of how the territory ought to run. 1. This pioneer term is quoted by Victor Sorensen in "The Wasters and Destroyers: Community-sponsored Predator Control in Early Utah Territory," Utah Historical Quarterly 62 ( 1994): 26-4 1. 2. Orson F. Whitney, History of Utah, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons Co., 1892), 1:325. 3. Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 24 July 1847 (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Library), 313. Both the Whitney quote above and Woodruff s reaction are discussed in a revisionist essay by Richard H. Jackson, "Righteousness and Environmental Change: The Mormons and the Environment," Charles Redd Monographs in Western History no. 5, Essays on the American West, 1973-1 974, Thomas G. Alexander, ed. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975). 4. Thomas G. Alexander and James B. Allen, Mormons and Gentiles: A History of Salt Lake City (Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing Co., 1984), 23. 5. John S. McCormick, Salt Lake City: The Gathering Place (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications, 1980), 17-1 8. 6. Stanley B. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 198 1 ), 150-5 1. 7. For a thorough discussion of early Indian policy, see Howard Christy, "Open Hand and Mailed Fist: Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah, 1847-52," Utah Historical Quarterly 46 (1978): 216-35. 8. Deseret, 1776-1 976: A Bicentennial Illustrated History of Utah by the Deseret News (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing Co., 1975), 62. 9. Ibid. For a comprehensive discussion of Native Americans in the Great Basin, see Jesse D. Jennings, Prehistory of Utah and the Great Basin, University of Utah Anthropological Papers no. 98 (Salt Lake City, 1978); and Warren L. D'Azevedo, ed., Handbook of North American Indians; Great Basin (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1986). 10. For a richly broad view of the impact of the European and American incursion on native peoples, see David Hurst Thomas et al., eds., The Native Americans: An Illustrated History (Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc., 1993). 11. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, comp., Tales of a Triumphant People: A History of Salt Lake County, Utah, 1847-1900 (Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis Press, 1947), 25. 12. Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), 275-81. 13. Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 48-49. 14. Fred A. Conetah, A History of the Northern Ute People (Fort Duchesne, Utah: Uintah-Ouray Ute Tribe, 1982), 37. 15. Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 215. 16. Stephen L. Carr, ed., Places and Faces (Holladay: Holladay- Cottonwood Heritage Committee, 1976), 9-26. 17. Ibid. 18. Murray Bicentennial History Book Committee, The History of Murray City, Utah (Murray: Murray City Corporation, 1976), 456-57. 19. Carr, ed., Places and Faces. 20. McCormick, Salt Lake City, 3. 2 1. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 44. 22. Deseret, 1776-1976, 188. 23. Lynn R. Bailey, Old Reliable: A History of Bingham Canyon, Utah (Tucson: Westernlore Press, 1988), 13. 24. Deseret, 1776-1 976, 70-7 1. 25. Sorensen, "Wasters and Destroyers," 27-3 1,40. 26. Ibid. 27. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 49. 28. Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 2 15. 29. Ibid. 30. John W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 115. Crescent, a small outgrowth of Draper, was named by Nils August Nilson for the crescent-shaped curve in the Wasatch Range. 3 1. Michael J. Gorrell, A History of West Valley City 1848-1 990 (West Valley City: West Valley City Civic Committee, 1993), 1. 32. Glen Moosman, "West Jordan," Utah History Encyclopedia, Allan Kent Powell, ed. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 63 1. 33. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 184. 34. For a discussion of the British contribution to the Salt Lake Valley, see Frederick S. Buchanan, "Imperial Zion: The British Occupation of Utah," Peoples of Utah, Helen Z. Papanikolas, ed. (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), 6 1-1 14. 35. For a discussion of this ethnicity, see Jack Goodman, "Jews in Zion," ibid., 187-220. 36. Murray Bicentennial History Book Committee, History of Murray, 438-39. 37. Ronald G. Coleman, "Blacks in Utah History: An Unknown Legacy," Peoples of Utah, 119-20. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid, 120-21. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Quoted in Joseph Heinerman, "The Mormon Meetinghouse: Reflections on Pioneer Religious and Social Life in Salt Lake City," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 ( 1982): 34 1. 43. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 80. 44. Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 288. 45. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 66. 46. Ibid., 82. 47. Conetah, History of the Northern Ute People, 38. 48. Ibid. 49. Steven K. Madsen, "Precinct Government in Salt Lake County, Utah, 1852-1 904," M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1986,45. 50. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 39. 51. Ibid., 109. 52. Alexander and Allen, Mormons and Gentiles, 55. 53. Wendell J. Ashton, Voice in the West: Biography of a Pioneer Newspaper (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1950), 41-42. 54. Ibid., 47. 55. Alexander and Allen, Mormons and Gentiles, 56-57. 56. Melvin M. Owens and Suzanne Dandoy, "Utah's Public Health," History of the University of Utah Medical Center, Henry Plenk, ed. (Salt Lake City: Utah Medical Association, 1992), 546. 57. Charles S. Peterson, Utah: A History (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1977), 49. 58. Ibid. Peterson explains Thomas O'Dea's use of the term "near nation." 59. Ibid., 79-80. 60. Nancy D. McCormick and John S. McCormick, Saltair (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985), 1. 61. Ibid. 62. Conetah, History of the Northern Ute People, 38-39. 63. Ibid. 64. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Tales of a Triumphant People, 268-69. 65. Conetah, History of the Northern Ute People, 38-39. 66. Such incidents are reported in many histories of early settlement including the previously cited Tales of a Triumphant People, The History of Murray City, Utah, and Melvin L. Bashore and Scott Crump, Riverton: The Story of a Utah Country Town (Riverton: Riverton Historical Society, 1994). 67. Murray City Bicentennial History Book Committee, History of Murray, 456. 68. Ibid., 464. 69. Bashore and Grump, Riverton, 3-4. 70. As described by Michael W. Earl, in Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Tales of a Triumphant People, 11 1-12. 71. Ibid., 138. 72. McCormick, Salt Lake City, 25. 73. Ashton, Voice in the West, 86-87. 74. McCormick, Salt Lake City, 25. 75. Ashton, Voice in the West, 93. 76. Ibid., 115-16. 77. John Elliott Clark and Frederick William Hanson, History of Wasatch Lodge Number One Free and Accepted Masons of Utah: 1866-1966 (Salt Lake City: N.p., 1966), 5.