Books: Mormon Settlement in Arizona

J >> James H. McClintock >> Mormon Settlement in Arizona

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MORMON SETTLEMENT IN ARIZONA

A RECORD OF PEACEFUL CONQUEST OF THE DESERT

BY JAMES H. McCLINTOCK

ARIZONA HISTORIAN

1921

[Illustration: THOS. E. CAMPBELL Governor of Arizona]

[Illustration: COL. JAS. H. McCLINTOCK Arizona Historian]

[Illustration: "EL VADO," THE CROSSING OF THE FATHERS Gateway of the
Pioneers Into Arizona]

FOREWORD

This publication, covering a field of southwestern interest hitherto
unworked, has had material assistance from Governor Thos. E. Campbell,
himself a student of Arizona history, especially concerned in matters of
development. There has been hearty cooperation on the part of the
Historian of the Mormon Church, in Salt Lake City, and the immense
resources of his office have been offered freely and have been drawn upon
often for verification of data, especially covering the earlier periods.
There should be personal mention of the late A.H. Lund, Church Historian,
and of his assistant, Andrew Jenson, and of Church Librarian A. Wm. Lund,
who have responded cheerfully to all queries from the Author. There has
been appreciated interest in the work by Heber J. Grant, President of the
Church, and by many pioneers and their descendants.

The Mormon Church maintains a marvelous record of its Church history and
of its membership. The latter record is considered of the largest value,
carrying out the study of family genealogy that attaches so closely to
the theology of the denomination. During the fall of 1919, Andrew Jenson
of the Church Historian's office, started checking and correcting the
official data covering Arizona and New Mexico settlements. This involved
a trip that included almost every village and district of this State.
Mr. Jenson was accompanied by LeRoi C. Snow, Secretary to the Arizona
State Historian and a historical student whose heart and faithful effort
have been in the work. Many corrections were made and many additions were
secured at first hand, from pioneers of the various settlements. At least
2000 letters have had to be written by this office. The data was put into
shape and carefully compiled by Mr. Snow, whose service has been of the
largest value. As a result, in the office of the Arizona State Historian
now is an immense quantity of typewritten matter that covers most fully
the personal features of Mormon settlement and development in the
Southwest. This has had careful indexing.

Accumulation of data was begun the last few months of the lifetime of
Thomas E. Farish, who had been State Historian since Arizona's assumption
of statehood in 1912. Upon his regretted passing, in October of 1919, the
task of compilation and writing and of possible publication dropped upon
the shoulders of his successor. The latter has found the task one of most
interesting sort and hopes that the resultant book contains matter of
value to the student of history who may specialize on the Southwest. By
no means has the work been compiled with desire to make it especially
acceptable to the people of whom it particularly treats--save insomuch as
it shall cover truthfully their migrations and their work of development.
With intention, there has been omitted reference to their religious
beliefs and to the trials that, in the earlier days, attended the
attempted exercise of such beliefs.

Naturally, there has had to be condensation of the mass of data collected
by this office. Much of biographical interest has had to be omitted. To
as large an extent as possible, there has been verification from outside
sources.

Much of the material presented now is printed for the first time. This
notably is true in regard to the settlement of the Muddy, the southern
point of Nevada, which in early political times was a part of Arizona
Territory and hence comes within this work's purview. There has been
inclusion of the march of the Mormon Battalion and of the Californian,
New Mexican and Mexican settlements, as affecting the major features of
Arizona's agricultural settlement and as contributing to a more concrete
grasp of the idea that drove the Mormon pioneers far afield from the
relative comfort of their Church centers.

JAS. H. McCLINTOCK,
Arizona State Historian.

Phoenix, Arizona, May 31, 1921.

SUMMARY OF SUBJECTS

Chapter One

WILDERNESS BREAKERS--Mormon Colonization in the West; Pioneers in
Agriculture; First Farmers in Many States; The Wilderness Has Been Kept
Broken.

Chapter Two

THE MORMON BATTALION--Soldiers Who Sought No Strife; California Was the
Goal; Organization of the Battalion; Cooke Succeeds to the Command; The
March Through the Southwest; Capture of the Pueblo of Tucson;
Congratulation on Its Achievement; Mapping the Way Through Arizona;
Manufactures of the Arizona Indians; Cooke's Story of the March; Tyler's
Record of the Expedition; Henry Standage's Personal Journal; California
Towns and Soldier Experiences; Christopher Layton's Soldiering; Western
Dash of the Kearny Dragoons.

Chapter Three

THE BATTALION'S MUSTER-OUT--Heading Eastward Toward "Home"; With the
Pueblo Detachment; California Comments on the Battalion; Leaders of the
Battalion; Passing of the Battalion Membership; A Memorial of Noble
Conception; Battalion Men Who Became Arizonans.

Chapter Four

CALIFORNIA'S MORMON PILGRIMS--The Brooklyn Party at San Francisco;
Beginnings of a Great City; Brannan's Hope of Pacific Empire; Present at
the Discovery of Gold; Looking Toward Southern California; Forced From
the Southland; How Sirrine Saved the Gold.

Chapter Five

THE STATE OF DESERET--A Vast Intermountain Commonwealth; Boundary Lines
Established; Segregation of the Western Territories; Map of State of
Deseret.

Chapter Six

EARLY ROADS AND TRAVELERS--Old Spanish Trail Through Utah; Creation of
the Mormon Road; Mormon Settlement at Tubac; A Texan Settlement of the
Faith.

Chapter Seven

MISSIONARY PIONEERING--Hamblin, "Leatherstocking of the Southwest";
Aboriginal Diversions; Encounter with Federal Explorers; The Hopi and the
Welsh Legend; Indians Await Their Prophets; Navajo Killing of Geo. A.
Smith, Jr.; A Seeking of Baptism for Gain; The First Tour Around the
Grand Canyon; A Visit to the Hava-Supai Indians; Experiences with the
Redskins; Killing of Whitmore and McIntire.

Chapter Eight

HAMBLIN AMONG THE INDIANS--Visiting the Paiutes with Powell; A Great
Conference with the Navajo; An Official Record of the Council; Navajos to
Keep South of the River; Tuba's Visit to the White Men; The Sacred Stone
of the Hopi; In the Land of the Navajo; Hamblin's Greatest Experience;
The Old Scout's Later Years.

Chapter Nine

CROSSING THE MIGHTY COLORADO--Early Use of "El Vado de Los Padres";
Ferrying at the Paria Mouth; John D. Lee on the Colorado; Lee's Canyon
Residence Was Brief; Crossing the Colorado on the Ice; Crossings Below
the Grand Canyon; Settlements North of the Canyon; Arizona's First
Telegraph Station; Arizona's Northernmost Village.

Chapter Ten

ARIZONA'S PIONEER NORTHWEST--History of the Southern Nevada Point; Map of
Pah-ute County; Missionaries of the Desert; Diplomatic Dealings with the
Redskins; Near Approaches to Indian Warfare; Utilization of the Colorado
River; Steamboats on the Shallow Stream; Establishing a River Port.

Chapter Eleven

IN THE VIRGIN AND MUDDY VALLEYS--First Agriculture in Northern Arizona;
Villages of Pioneer Days; Brigham Young Makes Inspection; Nevada Assumes
Jurisdiction; The Nevada Point Abandoned; Political Organization Within
Arizona; Pah-ute's Political Vicissitudes; Later Settlement in "The
Point,"; Salt Mountains of the Virgin; Peaceful Frontier Communities.

Chapter Twelve

THE UNITED ORDER--Development of a Communal System; Not a General Church
Movement; Mormon Cooperative Stores.

Chapter Thirteen

SPREADING INTO NORTHERN ARIZONA--Failure of the First Expeditions;
Missionary Scouts in Northeastern Arizona; Foundation of Four
Settlements; Northeastern Arizona Map; Genesis of St. Joseph; Struggling
with a Treacherous River; Decline and Fall of Sunset; Village Communal
Organization; Hospitality Was of Generous Sort; Brigham City's Varied
Industries; Brief Lives of Obed and Taylor.

Chapter Fourteen

TRAVEL, MISSIONS AND INDUSTRIES--Passing of the Boston Party; At the
Naming of Flagstaff; Southern Saints Brought Smallpox; Fort Moroni, at
LeRoux Spring; Stockaded Against the Indians; Mormon Dairy and the
Mount Trumbull Mill; Where Salt Was Secured; The Mission Post of Moen
Copie; Indians Who Knew Whose Ox Was Gored; A Woolen Factory in the
Wilds; Lot Smith and His End; Moen Copie Reverts to the Indians; Woodruff
and Its Water Troubles; Holbrook Once Was Horsehead Crossing.

Chapter Fifteen

SETTLEMENT SPREADS SOUTHWARD--Snowflake and Its Naming; Joseph Fish,
Historian; Taylor, Second of the Name; Shumway's Historic Founder;
Showlow Won in a Game of "Seven-Up"; Mountain Communities; Forest Dale on
the Reservation; Tonto Basin's Early Settlement.

Chapter Sixteen

LITTLE COLORADO SETTLEMENTS--Genesis of St. Johns; Land Purchased by
Mormons; Wild Celebration of St. John's Day; Disputes Over Land Titles;
Irrigation Difficulties and Disaster; Meager Rations at Concho;
Springerville and Eagar; A Land of Beaver and Bear; Altitudinous
Agriculture at Alpine; In Western New Mexico; New Mexican Locations.

Chapter Seventeen

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS--Nature and Man Both Were Difficult; Railroad Work
Brought Bread; Burden of a Railroad Land Grant; Little Trouble with
Indians; Church Administrative Features.

Chapter Eighteen

EXTENSION TOWARD MEXICO--Dan W. Jones' Great Exploring Trip; The
Pratt-Stewart-Trejo Expedition; Start of the Lehi Community; Plat of
Lehi; Transformation Wrought at Camp Utah; Departure of the Merrill
Party; Lehi's Later Development.

Chapter Nineteen

THE PLANTING OF MESA--Transformation of a Desert Plain; Use of a
Prehistoric Canal; Moving Upon the Mesa Townsite; An Irrigation Clash
That Did Not Come; Mesa's Civic Administration; Foundation of Alma;
Highways Into the Mountains; Hayden's Ferry, Latterly Tempe; Organization
of the Maricopa Stake; A Great Temple to Rise in Mesa.

Chapter Twenty

FIRST FAMILIES OF ARIZONA--Pueblo Dwellers of Ancient Times; Map of
Prehistoric Canals; Evidences of Well-Developed Culture; Northward Trend
of the Ancient People; The Great Reavis Land Grant Fraud.

Chapter Twenty-one

NEAR THE MEXICAN BORDER--Location on the San Pedro River; Malaria
Overcomes a Community; On the Route of the Mormon Battalion; Chronicles
of a Quiet Neighborhood; Looking Toward Homes in Mexico; Arizona's First
Artesian Well; Development of a Market at Tombstone.

Chapter Twenty-two

ON THE UPPER GILA--Ancient Dwellers and Military Travelers; Early Days
Around Safford; Map of Southeastern Arizona; Mormon Location at
Smithville; A Second Party Locates at Graham; Vicissitudes of Pioneering;
Gila Community of the Faith; Considering the Lamanites; The Hostile
Chiricahuas; Murders by Indian Raiders; Outlawry Along the Gila; A Gray
Highway of Danger.

Chapter Twenty-three

CIVIC AND CHURCH FEATURES--Troublesome River Conditions; Basic Law in a
Mormon Community; Layton, Soldier and Pioneer; A New Leader on the Gila;
Church Academies of Learning.

Chapter Twenty-four

MOVEMENT INTO MEXICO--Looking Over the Land; Colonization in Chihuahua;
Prosperity in an Alien Land; Abandonment of the Mountain Colonies; Sad
Days for the Sonora Colonists; Congressional Inquiry; Repopulation of the
Mexican Colonies.

Chapter Twenty-five

MODERN DEVELOPMENT--Oases Have Grown in the Desert; Prosperity Has
Succeeded Privation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PLACE NAMES OF THE SOUTHWEST

CHRONOLOGY

TRAGEDIES OF THE FRONTIER

INDEX

MAP OF ARIZONA MORMON SETTLEMENT

_THE ILLUSTRATIONS_

"El Vado," Pioneer Gateway into Arizona

Mormon Battalion Officers

Battalion Members at Gold Discovery in California

Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona

Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona

Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona

The Mormon Battalion Monument

Old Spanish Pueblo of Tubac

Jacob Hamblin, "Apostle to the Lamanites"

The Church Presidents

Lieutenant Ives' Steamboat on the Colorado in 1858

Ammon M. Tenney, Pioneer Scout of the Southwest

Early Missionaries Among the Indians

Moen Copie, First Headquarters of Missionaries to the Moquis

Pipe Springs or Windsor Castle

Moccasin Springs on Road to the Paria

In the Kaibab Forest, near the Home of the Shivwits Indians

A Fredonia Street Scene

Walpi, One of the Hopi (Moqui) Villages

Warren M. Johnson's House at Paria Ferry

Crossing of the Colorado at the Paria Ferry

Brigham Young and Party at Mouth of Virgin in 1870

Baptism of the Tribe of Shivwits Indians

Founders of the Colorado River Ferries

Crossing the Colorado River at Scanlon's Ferry

Crossing the Little Colorado River with Ox Teams

Old Fort at Brigham City

Woodruff Dam, After One of the Frequent Washouts

First Permanent Dam at St. Joseph

Colorado Ferry and Ranch at the Mouth of the Paria (G.W. James)

Lee Cabin at Moen Avi (Photo by Dr. Geo. Wharton James)

Moen Copie Woolen Mill

Grand Falls on the Little Colorado

Old Fort Moroni with its Stockade

Fort Moroni in Later Years

Erastus Snow, Who Had Charge of Arizona Colonization

Anthony W. Ivins

Joseph W. McMurrin

Joseph Fish, an Arizona Historian

Joseph H. Richards of St. Joseph

St. Joseph Pioneers and Historian Andrew Jenson

Shumway and the Old Mill on Silver Creek

First Mormon School, Church and Bowery at St. Johns

David K. Udall and His First Residence at St. Johns

St. Johns in 1887

Stake Academy at St. Johns

Founders of Northern Arizona Settlements

Group of Pioneers

Presidents of Five Arizona Stakes

Old Academy at Snowflake

New Academy at Snowflake

The Desolate Road to the Colorado Ferry

Leaders of Unsuccessful Expeditions

First Party to Southern Arizona and Mexico

Second Party to Southern Arizona and Mexico

Original Lehi Locators

Founders of Mesa

Maricopa Stake Presidents

Maricopa Delegation at Pinetop Conference

The Arizona Temple at Mesa

Jonathan Heaton and His Fifteen Sons

Northern Arizona Pioneers

Teeples House, First in Pima

First Schoolhouse at Safford

Gila Normal College at Thatcher

Gila Valley Pioneers

Pioneer Women of the Gila Valley

Killed by Indians

Killed by Outlaws

SPECIAL MAPS

State of Deseret

Pah-ute County, Showing the Muddy Settlements

Northeastern Arizona, Showing Little Colorado Settlements

Lehi, Plan of Settlement

Ancient Canals of Salt River Valley

Southeastern Arizona

Arizona Mormon Settlement and Early Roads

Chapter One

Wilderness Breakers

Mormon Colonization In the West

The Author would ask earliest appreciation by the reader that this work
on "Mormon Settlement in Arizona" has been written by one entirely
outside that faith and that, in no way, has it to do with the doctrines
of a sect set aside as distinct and peculiar to itself, though it claims
fellowship with any denomination that follows the teachings of the
Nazarene. The very word "Mormon" in publications of that denomination
usually is put within quotation marks, accepted only as a nickname for
the preferred and lengthier title of "Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints." Outside the Church, the word, at least till within a
decade or so, has been one that has formed the foundation for much of
denunciation. There was somewhat of pathos in the remark to the Author by
a high Mormon official, "There never has been middle ground in literature
that affected the Mormons--it either has been written against us or for
us." From a religious standpoint, this work is on neutral ground. But,
from the standpoint of western colonization and consequent benefit to the
Nation, the Author trusts the reader will join with him in appreciation
of the wonderful work that has been done by these people. It is this
field especially that has been covered in this book.

Occasionally it will be found that the colonizers have been referred to
as "Saints." It is a shortening of the preferred title, showing a lofty
moral aspiration, at least. It would be hard to imagine wickedness
proceeding from such a designation, though the Church itself assuredly
would be the first to disclaim assumption of full saintliness within its
great membership. Still, there might be testimony from the writer that he
has lived near the Mormons, of Arizona for more than forty years and in
that time has found them law-abiding and industrious, generally of sturdy
English, Scotch, Scandinavian or Yankee stock wherein such qualities
naturally run with the blood. If there be with such people the further
influence of a religion that binds in a union of faith and in works of
the most practical sort, surely there must be accomplishment of material
and important things.

Pioneers in Agriculture

In general, the Mormon (and the word will be used without quotation
marks) always has been agricultural. The Church itself appears to have a
foundation idea that its membership shall live by, upon and through the
products of the soil. It will be found in this work that Church influence
served to turn men from even the gold fields of California to the
privations of pioneer Utah. It also will be found that the Church,
looking for extension and yet careful of the interests of its membership,
directed the expeditions that penetrated every part of the Southwest.

There was a pioneer Mormon period in Arizona, that might as well be
called the missionary period. Then came the prairie schooners that bore,
from Utah, men and women to people and redeem the arid southland valleys.
Most of this colonization was in Arizona, where the field was
comparatively open. In California there had been religious persecution
and in New Mexico the valleys very generally had been occupied for
centuries by agricultural Indians and by native peoples speaking an alien
tongue. There was extension over into northern Mexico, with consequent
travail when impotent governments crumbled. But in Arizona, in the
valleys of the Little Colorado, the Salt, the Gila and the San Pedro and
of their tributaries and at points where the white man theretofore had
failed, if he had reached them at all, the Mormons set their stakes and,
with united effort, soon cleared the land, dug ditches and placed dams
in unruly streams, all to the end that farms should smile where the
desert had reigned. It all needed imagination and vision, something that,
very properly, may be called faith. Sometimes there was failure.
Occasionally the brethren failed to live in unity. They were human. But,
at all times, back of them were the serenity and judgment and resources
of the Church and with them went the engendered confidence that all would
be well, whatever befell of finite sort. It has been said that faith
removes mountains. The faith that came with these pioneers was well
backed and carried with it brawn and industry.

"Mormon Settlement in Arizona" should not carry the idea that Arizona was
settled wholly by Mormons. Before them came the Spaniards, who went north
of the Gila only as explorers and missionaries and whose agriculture
south of that stream assuredly was not of enduring value. There were
trappers, prospectors, miners, cattlemen and farmers long before the
wagons from Utah first rolled southward, but the fact that Arizona's
agricultural development owes enormously to Mormon effort can be
appreciated in considering the establishment and development of the
fertile areas of Mesa, Lehi, the Safford-Thatcher-Franklin district,
St. David on the San Pedro, and the many settlements of northeastern
Arizona, with St. Johns and Snowflake as their headquarters.

It is a remarkable fact that Mormon immigrants made even a greater number
of agricultural settlements in Arizona than did the numerically
preponderating other peoples. However, the explanation is a simple one:
The average immigrant, coming without organization, for himself alone,
naturally gravitated to the mines--indeed, was brought to the Southwest
by the mines. There was little to attract him in the desert plains
through which ran intermittent stream flows, and he lacked the vision
that showed the desert developed into the oasis. The Mormon, however,
came usually from an agricultural environment. Rarely was he a miner.

Of later years there has been much community commingling of the Mormon
and the non-Mormon. There even has been a second immigration from Utah,
usually of people of means. The day has passed for the ox-bowed wagon and
for settlements out in the wilderness. There has been left no wilderness
in which to work magic through labor. But the Mormon influence still is
strong in agricultural Arizona and the high degree of development of
many of her localities is based upon the pioneer settlement and work that
are dealt with in the succeeding pages.

First Farmers in Many States

It is a fact little appreciated that the Mormons have been first in
agricultural colonization of nearly all the intermountain States of
today. This may have been providential, though the western movement of
the Church happened in a time of the greatest shifting of population ever
known on the continent. It preceded by about a year the discovery of gold
in California, and gold, of course, was the lodestone that drew the
greatest of west-bound migrations. The Mormons, however, were first. Not
drawn by visions of wealth, unless they looked forward to celestial
mansions, they sought, particularly, valleys wherein peace and plenty
could be secured by labor. Nearly all were farmers and it was from the
earth they designed drawing their subsistence and enough wherewith to
establish homes.

Of course, the greatest of foundations was that at Salt Lake, July 24,
1847, when Brigham Young led his Pioneers down from the canyons and
declared the land good. But there were earlier settlements.

First of the faith on the western slopes of the continent was the
settlement at San Francisco by Mormons from the ship Brooklyn. They
landed July 31, 1846, to found the first English speaking community of
the Golden State, theretofore Mexican. These Mormons established the
farming community of New Helvetia, in the San Joaquin Valley, the same
fall, while men from the Mormon Battalion, January 24, 1848, participated
in the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort. Mormons also were pioneers in
Southern California, where, in 1851, several hundred families of the
faith settled at San Bernardino.

The first Anglo-Saxon settlement within the boundaries of the present
State of Colorado was at Pueblo, November 15, 1846, by Capt. James Brown
and about 150 Mormon men and women who had been sent back from New
Mexico, into which they had gone, a part of the Mormon Battalion that
marched on to the Pacific Coast.

The first American settlement in Nevada was one of Mormons in the Carson
Valley, at Genoa, in 1851.

In Wyoming, as early as 1854, was a Mormon settlement at Green River,
near Fort Bridger, known as Fort Supply.

In Idaho, too, preeminence is claimed by virtue of a Mormon settlement at
Fort Lemhi, on the Salmon River, in 1855, and at Franklin, in Cache
Valley, in 1860.

The earliest Spanish settlement of Arizona, within its present political
boundaries, was in the Santa Cruz Valley not far from the southern
border. There was a large ranch at Calabasas at a very early date, and at
that point Custodian Frank Pinkley of the Tumacacori mission ruins
lately discovered the remains of a sizable church. A priest had station
at San Xavier in 1701. Tubac as a presidio dates from 1752, Tumacacori
from 1754 and Tucson from 1776. These, however, were Spanish settlements,
missions or presidios. In the north, Prescott was founded in May, 1864,
and the Verde Valley was peopled in February, 1865. Earlier still were
Fort Mohave, reestablished by soldiers of the California Column in 1863,
and Fort Defiance, on the eastern border line, established in 1849. A
temporary Mormon settlement at Tubac in 1851, is elsewhere described. But
in honorable place in point of seniority are to be noted the Mormon
settlements on the Muddy and the Virgin, particularly, in the very
northwestern corner of the present Arizona and farther westward in the
southern-most point of Nevada, once a part of Arizona. In this
northwestern Arizona undoubtedly was the first permanent Anglo-Saxon
agricultural settlement in Arizona, that at Beaver Dams, now known as
Littlefield, on the Virgin, founded at least as early as the fall of
1864.

The Wilderness Has Been Kept Broken

Of the permanence and quality of the Mormon pioneering, strong testimony
is offered by F. S. Dellenbaugh in his "Breaking the Wilderness:"

"It must be acknowledged that the Mormons were wilderness breakers of
high quality. They not only broke it, but they kept it broken; and
instead of the gin mill and the gambling hell, as corner-stones of their
progress and as examples to the natives of the white men's superiority,
they planted orchards, gardens, farms, schoolhouses and peaceful homes.
There is today no part of the United States where human life is safer
than in the land of the Mormons; no place where there is less
lawlessness. A people who have accomplished so much that is good, who
have endured danger, privation and suffering, who have withstood the
obloquy of more powerful sects, have in them much that is commendable;
they deserve more than abuse; they deserve admiration."

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