miles. Strange as it may seem, at the time we started, in September,
1875, the valley of Salt River was not known even to Brigham Young.

"Our animals were beginning to fail, as they had lived on grass since
leaving Kanab. We bought corn at 4 cents a pound and commenced feeding
them a little. Although Salt River Valley is naturally fertile, owing to
the dryness of the climate, there is no grass except a little coarse
stuff called 'sacaton.'

"We camped on the north side of the river. On making inquiry, we learned
that Tempe, or Hayden's Mill, seven miles further up the river, would be
a better place to stop for a few days than Phoenix. C.T. Hayden, being
one of the oldest and most enterprising settlers of the country, had
built a grist mill, started ranches, opened a store, blacksmith shop,
wagon shop, etc.

"On arriving at Hayden's place, we found the owner an agreeable,
intelligent gentleman, who was much interested in the settlement and
development of the country, he being a pioneer in reality, having
been for many years in the west, and could sympathize with the Mormon
people in settling the deserts. He gave us much true and useful
information about the country and natives. Here we traded off some of our
pack mules and surplus provisions. We had already traded for a light
spring wagon, finding that the country before could be traveled with
wagons. We remained here a few days, camping at the ranch of Mr.
Winchester Miller. His barley was up several inches high, but he allowed
us to turn our animals into his fields and treated us in a kind,
hospitable manner. The friendly acquaintance made at this time has always
been kept up. Mr. Miller was an energetic man, and manifested a great
desire to have the Mormons come there and settle. He had already noticed
the place where the Jonesville ditch is now located. He told me about it,
saying it was the best ditch site on the river. What he said has proved
true. We wrote to President Young, describing the country."

The party tried some proselyting among the Pimas and Papagos. At Tucson
they met Governor Safford who offered welcome to Mormon colonists. Sonora
was in the throes of revolution, so they passed on to El Paso, on the way
talking to a camp of Apaches, given permission by the agent, Thos. T.
Jeffords. The San Pedro Valley was looked over for possible settlement.

In January, 1876, the party passed the international line at Paso del
Norte. Jones claimed this to have been the first missionary expedition
that ever entered Mexico. The party found it a good land and started back
in May with a rather favorable impression of the country for future
settlement. Return was by way of Bowie, Camp Grant and the Little
Colorado. At Allen's Camp were met Daniel H. Wells, Brigham Young, Jr.,
and Erastus Snow, with whom return to Utah was made. President Young was
met late in June, at Kanab, there expressing appreciation of the
determination that had brought Jones through every difficulty in the ten
months of journeying.

The Pratt-Stewart-Trejo Expedition

Of notable interest is the fact that certain members of the Jones
expedition were so deeply interested in what they saw that they made
request for immediate return. So, October 18, 1876, there started
southward, from Salt Lake, at the direction of the Church Presidency,
another expedition, in character missionary, rather than for exploration.
It embraced Helaman Pratt, Jas. Z. Stewart, Isaac J. Stewart, Louis Garff
and George Terry. Meliton G. Trejo joined at Richfield. Phoenix was
reached December 23, there being found several families of the Church who
had come the previous year. The day the missionaries arrived happened to
be exactly thirty years after the date on which the Mormon Battalion
passed the Pima villages on the Gila River, just south of Phoenix. The
members of the party worked all over southern Arizona, especially among
the Mexicans and Indians.

In February of 1877 headquarters were at Tubac. In April, after a Mexican
trip, a letter was received from President Brigham Young asking that
Sonora be explored as a country for possible settlement. Later in May the
Stewarts started eastward, in continuing danger from hostile Apaches
after they had crossed the San Pedro. On the road, while the missionaries
were passing, a mail rider was killed. At Camp Bowie the Apaches were
found beleaguering the post. East of that point the Stewarts had to
replace a wagon tire just as they were passing a point of Apache ambush.
Return to Utah was in December, 1877. It was concluded that border
settlements better had wait on Indian pacification.

Trejo was a remarkable character. He was of aristocratic Castilian birth
and had been an officer in the Spanish army in the Philippines. It would
appear that he became interested in the Mormon doctrine, which, in some
manner, had reached that far around the earth, and that he resigned
his commission and straightway went to Utah. There his knowledge of
Spanish, backed by good general schooling, made him valuable as a
translator, though his English was learned in the Jones family. His later
work was in Arizona and Mexico, as a missionary, his home in 1878 moved
to Saint David on the San Pedro, where he died a few years ago. He was a
fluent writer and sent many interesting letters to the Deseret News. In
January, 1878, he wrote from Hayden's Ferry:

"We are now between the Salt and Gila Rivers, on a very extensive rich
plain, covered with trees and small brush, watered in some places by
means of canals from the two rivers named. The river dams and canals are
very easy made, on account of the solid bottoms of the rivers and pure
farming clay of the plain. In fact, the people who are now living here
find it very easy to get good farms in one or two years without much hard
labor. They unite as we do in making canals. The climate is one of the
most delightful in the world and until a few years ago, one of the most
healthy too, but lately the people have been troubled with fevers, which
nobody seems to know the cause. The water is good and the sky is clear,
there being no stagnant pools; the ground is dry and the winds blow
freely in every direction. I don't believe these fevers are naturally in
the country, but are caused by the people not taking proper care of
themselves."

An interesting letter has been found, dated at Tubac, March 4, 1877,
addressed to President Brigham Young and written by Elder Jas. Z.
Stewart. It told that the country is "better than the north part of the
Territory, from the fact that the land is as good, if not better, the
water is good and regular and the climate more pleasant." He referred
to the ruins of whole towns, to the rich mines, to the abundance of game
and to the drawback of Apache raids. He described the southern Arizona
Mexicans as "all very poor, having no cows, horses, houses nor lands and
but very little to live on. Though they live for days on parched corn,
they are willing to divide their last meal with a stranger. They are
industrious, but ignorant, it being seldom you can find one who can
write."

Start of the Lehi Community

The reports from the south gave ample encouragement to expansion ideas
within the First Presidency. So, after due deliberation, was organized
another Jones expedition for the settlement of the land.

As letters of the time are read and instructions found, it becomes the
more evident that President Brigham Young and his counselors had in view
a great plan of occupation of the intermountain valleys, reaching down
into Mexico, or beyond. It was a time when the Church was growing
very rapidly and when new lands were needed for converts who were
streaming in from Europe or from the eastern States. Logically, the
expansion would be southward, though there was disadvantage of very
serious sort in the breaking of continuity of settlement by the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado River and by the deserts that had to be passed to
reach the fertile valleys of the southland.

When the second Jones party started, according to an official account,
"President Young sat with a large map of America before him, while saying
that the company of missionaries called were to push ahead as far as
possible toward the Yaqui country in Mexico, which would finally be the
objective point; but if they could not reach that country they might
locate on the San Pedro or Salt River in southern Arizona."

[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF LEHI]

In either case there would be a station on the road, or a stepping stone
to those who later would go on to the far south. President Young also
said to the brethren on that occasion that if they would do what was
right and be guided by the spirit of inspiration, they would know the
country as they passed through, and would know where to locate, the same
as did the Pioneers when they first reached the valley of the Great Salt
Lake.

The pioneering expedition was organized in St. George, in southwestern
Utah. In the party were 83 individuals, the family heads being Jones,
Philemon C. Merrill, Dudley J. Merrill, Thomas Merrill, Adelbert Merrill,
Henry C. Rogers, George Steele, Thomas Biggs, Ross R. Rogers, John D.
Brady, Joseph McRae, Isaac Turley and Austin O. Williams.

Start was made January 17, 1877. The way was through Beaver Dams to the
mouth of the Virgin. That profiteering was not unknown in those early
days is shown by the fact that the expedition, at Stone's Ferry on the
Colorado, had to pay ferriage of $10 per wagon. Much of this cost was
borne by Joseph McRae, who turned over one wagon, some horses and a
little money to the ferryman.

To the southward was found a road, well-traveled in those days, that led
from the Fort Mohave ferry to Prescott. But Prescott, then the capital,
was left to one side and a direct route was taken from Chino Valley,
through Peeples Valley and Wickenburg, to Phoenix. At the latter point
there was agreement that the travelers had about reached the limit of
their resources and of the strength of their horses. There was
remembrance of the valley section of which Winchester Miller had told. So
determination to stop was reached in a council of the leaders. There was
fear, apparently well grounded, that claim jumpers would cause trouble if
the destination of the party became known. On this account, departure
from Phoenix was not by way of Hayden's Ferry, but by the McDowell road,
as far as Maryville, an abandoned military subpost and station on Salt
River, at the Maricopa Wells-McDowell road ford. Here the river was
crossed, and the weary immigrants were at their journey's end. The day
was March 6, 1877. The camp was at the site of the canal head, the
settlement later placed a few miles below.

Henry C. Rogers took charge of the construction of the ditch, started the
day after arrival. Ross R. Rogers was the engineer. His only instruments
were a straight edge and a spirit level. This still is known as the Utah
ditch. Its first cost was $4500. There was the planting of a nursery by
George Steele, the trees kept alive by hauling water to them. Jones wrote
to Salt Lake that Salt River was at least four times as big as the Provo
and had to be tapped through deep cuts, as the channel was "too expensive
to dam."

Sunday, May 20, 1877, Jones baptized his first Indians in Salt River,
four of the "Lamanites" being immersed. In July, 1877, Fort Utah was
located as a place of protection. It was built upon the cross line of
four quarter-sections of land, enclosed with an adobe wall, and with a
well, on the inside, 25 feet deep. The families lived there while the men
went out to work.

President Young soon wrote Jones in a vein indicating that the stop on
Salt River was considered merely a camp on the way still farther
southward, saying:

"We should also like to know what your intentions are with regard to
settling the region for which you originally started. We do not deem it
prudent for you to break up your present location, but, possibly next
fall, you will find it consistent to continue your journey with a portion
of those who are now with you, while others will come and occupy the
places vacated by you. We do not, however, wish you to get the idea from
the above remarks that we desire to hurry you away from where you are
now, or to enforce a settlement in the district to which you refer, until
it is safe to do so and free from the dangers of Indian difficulties; but
we regard it as one of the spots where the Saints will, sooner or later,
gather to build up Zion, and we feel the sooner the better."

[Illustration: ON THE DESOLATE SANDY ROAD TO THE COLORADO CROSSING]

[Illustration: LEADERS OF UNSUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS
1--Horton D. Haight            2--Jacob Miller
3--Daniel H. Wells             4--Lorenzo W. Roundy]

[Illustration: THE FIRST EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO
Wiley C. Jones, A. W. Ivins
Heleman Pratt, D. W. Jones, Jas. Z. Stewart]

[Illustration: THE SECOND PARTY SENT TO MEXICO
1--Jas. Z. Stewart  2--Meliton O. Trejo
3--George Terry  4--Isaac J. Stewart  5--Heleman Pratt]

Transformation Wrought at Camp Utah

The newcomers found pioneering conditions very harsh indeed, for it is a
full man's task to clear away mesquite and brush and to dig a deep canal.
Joseph A. McRae made special reference to the heat, to which the Utah
settlers were unaccustomed. He wrote, "as summer advanced, I often
saturated my clothing with water before starting to hoe a row of corn
forty rods long, and before reaching the end my clothes were entirely
dry." But there was raised an abundance of corn, sugar cane, melons and
vegetables, and, in spite of the heat, the health of the people was
excellent.

Concerning the early Jonesville, a correspondent of the Prescott Miner
wrote:

"The work done by these people is simply astounding, and the alacrity and
vim with which they go at it is decidedly in favor of cooperation or
communism. Irrespective of capital invested, all share equally in the
returns. The main canal is two and a half miles long, eight feet deep,
and eight feet wide. Two miles of small ditch are completed and four more
are required. Their diagram of the settlement, as it is to be, represents
a mile square enclosed by an adobe wall about seven feet high. In the
center is a square, or plaza, around which are buildings fronting
outward. The middle of the plaza represents the back yards, in which
eleven families, or eighty-five persons are to commingle. They are
intelligent, and all Americans."

The settlers, with their missionary turn of mind, were pleased to find
the Indians of southern Arizona friendly and even inclined to be helpful.
One chief offered to loan the settlers seed corn and wheat. The Indians
gathered around to listen to whatever discourse the Saints should offer,
the latter, at the same time energetically wielding shovels on a canal
that "simply had" to be built in a given time.

An appreciated feature was that Salt River abounded in fish,
supplementing very acceptably the plain diet on which the pioneers had
been subsisting. Possibly it was as well that the Saints had rules
against the use of table luxuries. One pioneer of the Lehi settlement
told how his family had lived for weeks almost entirely upon wheat,
which had been ground in a coffee mill and then cooked into mush, to be
eaten with milk. "We thought ourselves mighty fortunate to have the
milk," he said.

Soon after the settlement of Camp Utah, Jones' methods of administration
excited keen opposition among the brethren. There was special objection
to his plan that the settlement should receive Indians on a footing of
equality, this being defended as a method that assuredly would tend
toward the conversion of the Lamanites speedily and effectively.

Jones was fair in his statement of the matter, and hence special interest
attaches to his own story of the earliest days of the settlement:

"We commenced on the ditch March 7, 1877. All hands worked with a will.
Part of the company moved down on to lands located for settlements. Most
of the able-bodied men formed a working camp near the head of the ditch,
where a deep cut had to be made.

"We hired considerable help when we could procure it, for such pay as we
could command, as scrub ponies, 'Hayden scrip,' etc. Among those employed
were a number of Indians, Pimas, Maricopas, Pagagos, Yumas, Yaquis and
one or two Apache-Mohaves. The most of them were good workers.

"Some of the Indians expressed a desire to come and settle with us. This
was the most interesting part of the mission to me, and I naturally
supposed that all the company felt the same spirit, but I soon found my
mistake, for, on making this desire of the Indians known to the company,
many objected, some saying that they did not want their families brought
into association with these dirty Indians. So little interest was
manifested by the company that I made the mistake of jumping at the
conclusion that I would have to go ahead whether I was backed up or not.
I learned afterward that if I had been more patient and faithful, I would
have had more help, but at the time I acted according to the best light I
had and determined to stick to the Indians.

"This spirit manifested to the company showing a preference to the
natives, naturally created a prejudice against me. Soon dissatisfaction
commenced to show. The result was that most of the company left and went
on to the San Pedro, in southern Arizona, led by P.C. Merrill. After this
move, there being but four families left, and one of these soon leaving,
our little colony was quite weak."

Departure of the Merrill Party

It was a sad blow to the settlement when the Merrill company departed, in
August, 1877, leaving only the Jones, Biggs, Rogers and Turley families.
Nearly all the teams available went with the Merrills, thus delaying
completion of the canal, which at that time had reached the settlement.
The fort also was left in an incomplete state. The few left behind mainly
were employed by Chas. T. Hayden of Tempe, who was described as, "so very
kind to the brethren and their families, giving them work and furnishing
them with means in advance, on credit, so that they might subsist."

A very interesting item in a letter written by Jones is:

"This country is so productive and easy of cultivation, but,
notwithstanding, this colony was too poor at seed time to buy a common
plow. From present prospects, we hope to be able to save up and have
enough for seed and plow the coming season. You speak of the ancient
Egyptians using a crooked stick for plowing; if you will call down here
soon, we can show you some 300 acres of good wheat patch plowed by our
colony with a crooked stick plow, without so much as a ram's horn point."

Probably Jones included a part of the holdings of his Indian wards in
this demonstration of primeval agriculture. For years following the
advent of the white man, the Pima Indians habitually plowed by means of a
crooked mesquite stick, connected by a rope to a pole, tied firmly across
the horns of a couple of oxen.

Whatever the dissension between Jones and the other pioneers, he appeared
at all times to have been popular with his Indian wards. This is
evidenced by the fact that to the north of Lehi is a thriving Pima-Papago
Mormon settlement, known as Papago ward. Dan P. Jones followed his father
in its administration. A few years ago it had a population of 590
Indians, mainly Pimas, and of four white families, headed by Geo. F.
Tiffany, with an Indian counselor, Incarnacion Valenzuela. This counselor
has been described by Historian Jenson as "one of the most intelligent
Indians I have ever met. He speaks Spanish fluently, as well as the
Papago and Pima language; he also understands English, but does not like
to speak it." Henry C. Rogers also was a successful Indian missionary.
Tiffany's son now is in charge of the Lehi Indians.

Besides the Indians directly belonging to the ward, is a record of 1500
baptized Mormon Indians, mainly Papago, in the desert region to the
southward, as far as the Mexican line.

Sunday schools and meetings are held in the Papago ward schoolhouse,
built a few years ago. The Indians farm and raise stock; some of them
live in good houses and all are learning the habits and ways of their
neighbors, who have been their friends from the beginning.

Jones was charged by the people of Phoenix and Tempe with protection of
Indians who had trespassed upon crops. He was warned by the Indian agent
at Sacaton that he must cease his proselyting, a warning he calmly
ignored. He seemed to have had assistance generally from the military
authorities at Camp McDowell, about fifteen miles northward, for a time
commanded by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee, Sixth Cavalry. Trouble was known with
Pima Indians, who lived across the river, where they had been placed a
few years before by Tempe settlers, as a possible buffer against Apache
raids. This reservation's extension cost Lehi several sections of land.

Altogether, Jones' life in the Salt River Valley was not an easy one.
Finally he joined a community in northern Tonto Basin, where his wife and
youngest child were killed by accident. After that he moved to Tempe.
Thereafter he went to Mexico, where he had mining experience. In the
winter of 1884, he helped Erastus Snow and Samuel H. Hill to cross the
border at El Paso. His latter days mainly were spent in Utah and
California. Early in 1915 he returned to Arizona. His death occurred
April 20 of that year, at the Mesa home of a son. His life work is well
set out in a book written by himself and published in 1890. The
descendants of the sturdy old pioneer are many in southern Arizona and
numbers of them have occupied responsible office with credit. A son, Dan.
P. Jones of Mesa, is a member of the current Legislature. Other sons and
grandsons have been prominent especially in educational work.

Lehi's Later Development

Lehi now is a thriving settlement in bottom lands along Salt River, where
growth necessarily is limited. Its school-house is about three miles
north of Mesa, which has made by far the greater growth. First known as
Camp Utah, or Utahville, for years it was called Jonesville, but finally
the postoffice name of Lehi, suggested by Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., has
firmly attached.

The first Mormon marriage in the Salt River Valley was at Lehi, that of
Daniel P. Jones and Mary E. Merrill, August 26, 1877. The first birth was
of their son. The first permanent separate house, of adobe, at Lehi, was
built by Thomas Biggs, in the spring of 1878. There was a public school
as early as 1878, taught by Miss Zula Pomeroy. In 1880 an adobe
schoolhouse was built at a cost of $142, the ground donated by Henry C.
Rogers, with David Kimball its main supporter. The following year was
built a much better schoolhouse.

The settlement has a townsite of six blocks, each 26 rods square, with
streets four rods wide, surveyed in November, 1880, by Henry C. Rogers.

Lehi was badly damaged February 19, 1891, when Salt River reached a
height never known before or since. The stream flooded the lower parts of
Phoenix and inundated a large part of the farming land at Lehi. A second
flood, a few days later, was three feet higher than the first. Five Lehi
Indians were drowned and several hundred of them lost their possessions.

Chapter Nineteen

The Planting of Mesa

Transformation of a Desert Plain

Though by no means with exclusive population of the faith, Mesa, sixteen
miles east of Phoenix and in the Salt River Valley, today includes the
largest organization of the Saints within Arizona and is the center of
one of the most prosperous Stakes of the Church. It is beautifully
located on a broad tableland, from which its Spanish name is derived, and
is the center of one of the richest of farming communities. In general,
the soil is of the best, without alkali, and its products cover almost
anything that can be grown in the temperate or semi-tropic zones.

At all times since its settlement, Mesa has prospered, but its prosperity
has been especially notable since the development, a few years ago, of
the Pima long-staple cotton. Nearly every landowner, and Mesa is a
settlement of landowners, has prospered through this industry, though
it has been affected by the post-war depression. The region is one of
comfortable, spacious homes and of well-tilled farms, with less acreage
to each holding than known elsewhere in the valley.

Mesa is second only to Phoenix in size and importance within Maricopa
County. There are fine business blocks and all evidences of mercantile
activity. The farming area is being extended immensely. The community was
one of the first to enter the association that secured storage of water
at Roosevelt. Thereafter, to the southward came extension of the farming
area by means of pumping, this continuing nearly to the Gila River, out
upon the Pima reservation. Now there is further extension eastward, and
the great plain that stretches as far as Florence is being settled by
population very generally tributary to Mesa. It would be idle to
speculate upon the future of the city, but its tributary farming country
is fully as great as that which surrounds Phoenix.

Mesa was founded by Latter-day Saints from Bear Lake County, Idaho, and
Salt Lake County, Utah. The former left Paris, Idaho, September 14, 1877,
were joined at Salt Lake City by the others and traveled the entire
distance by wagon, using the Lee's Ferry route, and coming over the
forested country to Camp Verde.

The immigrants included, with their families, Chas. I. Robson, Charles
Crismon (of the San Bernardino colony) of Salt Lake, Geo. W. Sirrine (of
the Brooklyn ship party), Francis M. Pomeroy (a '47 pioneer), John H.
Pomeroy, Warren L. Sirrine, Elijah Pomeroy, Parley P. Sirrine, all of
Paris, Idaho, Wm. M. Newell, Wm. M. Schwartz, Job H. Smith, Jesse D.
Hobson and J.H. Blair of Salt Lake. Altogether were 83 individuals.

The valley of the Verde proved a pleasant one, after the cold and
hardship known on the plateau, though Christmas was spent in a snowstorm.
Both humanity and the horses needed rest. So camp was made at Beaver
Head, a few miles from the river, while a scouting party went farther
to spy out the land. This party, which went by wagon, included Robson, F.
M. Pomeroy, Charles Crismon and G.W. Sirrine.

The scouts, within a few days, had covered about 125 miles that lay
between Beaver Head and Camp Utah. Their New Year dinner was taken with
Jones, who extended them all welcome. It was proposed that the newcomers
settle upon land adjoining that of the first party, but there was a
likelihood of crowding in the relatively narrow river valley, and there
were attractive possibilities lying along the remains of an ancient canal
shown them by Jones.

[Illustration: ORIGINAL LEHI LOCATORS
1--Daniel W. Jones
2--Philemon C. Merrill
3--Thomas Biggs
4--Henry C. Rogers]

[Illustration: FOUNDERS OF MESA: Charles Crismon, Francis M. Pomeroy,
George W. Sirrine]

Legal appropriation of the head of this old water way was made and
Crismon was left behind, with a couple of the Camp Utah men as helpers,
to start work on the new irrigation project. Incidentally, Crismon made
location of land near the heading and thus separated his interests from
those of the main party. Later, he started a water-power grist mill on
the Grand canal, east of Phoenix. He had rights to a large share in the
canal, as well as to lands on the mesa. These he later sold.

Robson, Pomeroy and Sirrine returned to the Verde Valley, to pilot the
rested travelers southward. The journey was by way of the rocky Black
Canyon road, with difficulty encountered in descending the steep Arastra
Creek pass. Fording Salt River at Hayden's Ferry, Camp Utah was reached
February 14, 1878. The journey had been a slow one, for cattle had to be
driven.

A few days were spent at Camp Utah and then the new arrivals moved
upstream five miles, where tents were pitched on a pleasant flat, a
couple of miles below the canal heading. There had been conclusion to
settle upon the tableland to the southwest. Pomeroy and Sirrine made a
rough, though sufficient, survey with straight-edge and spirit level,
along what then was named the "Montezuma Canal," eleven miles to a point
where a townsite was selected.

Use of a Prehistoric Canal

Nothing short of Providential was considered the finding of the canal,
dug by a prehistoric people into the edge of the mesa, which it gradually
surmounted. This canal, in all probability, had been cut more than 1000
years before. It could be traced from the river for twenty miles,
maintaining an even gradient, possibly as good as could have been laid
out with a modern level, and with a number of laterals that spread over a
country about as extensively cultivated as at present. A lateral served
the Lehi section and other ditches conducted water to the southwest, past
the famous ancient city of Los Muertos (later explored by Frank H.
Cushing) and then around the southeastern foothills of the Salt River
Mountains to points not far distant from the Gila River. The main canal
cut through the tableland for two miles, with a top width of even fifty
feet and a depth of twelve feet, chopped out in places, with stone axes,
through a difficult formation of hardpan, "caliche." The old canal was
cleaned out for the necessities of the pioneers, at a cost of about
$48,000, including the head, and afterward was enlarged. At the time,
there was an estimate that its utilization saved at least $20,000 in cost
of excavation. There were 123 miles of these ancient canals.

This canal undertaking was a tremendous one, especially in consideration
of the fact that for the first five months the Mesa settlers available
for work were only eighteen able-bodied men and boys. The brethren were
hardly strong enough in man power to have dug the canal had it not been
for the old channel. A small stream was led to the townsite in October,
1878, and in the same month building construction was begun. An early
settler wrote:

"We were about nine months in getting a small stream of water out at an
expense of $43,000 in money and labor, so that we could plant gardens and
set out some fruit trees. A man was allowed $1.50 and a man and team $3
per day for labor. Our ditch ran through some formation that would slack
up like lime; and as whole sections of it would slide, it kept us busy
nearly all the time the following year enlarging and repairing the canal.
Our labors only lessened as our numbers increased, and the banks became
more solid, so that today (1894) we have a good canal carrying about 7000
inches of water."

It would appear that a tremendous amount of optimism, energy and
self-reliance lay in the leaders of the small community, in digging
through the bank of a stubborn cliff, in throwing a rude dam across a
great flood stream and in planting their homes far out on a plain that
bore little evidence of agricultural possibilities, beyond a growth of
creosote bush, the Larrea Mexicana. There were easier places where
settlements might have been made, at Lehi or Tempe, or upon the smaller
streams, but there must have been a vision rather broader than that of
the original immigrant, a vision that later has merged into reality far
larger and richer than had been the dream.

Within this prosperity are included hundreds of Mormon pioneers and their
children. It often is said that the development of a country is by the
"breaking" of from three to four sets of immigrants. It is not true of
Mesa, for there the original settlers and their stock generally still
hold to the land.

Moving Upon the Mesa Townsite

The honor of erection of the first home upon the mesa lies with the
Pomeroy family, though it was hardly considered as a house. Logs and
timbers were hauled from the abandoned Maryville, an outpost of Fort
McDowell, at the river crossing northeast of Fort Utah. It was erected
Mexican fashion, the roof supported on stout poles, and then mudded walls
were built up on arrowweed latticing. This Pomeroy residence later was
used as the first meetinghouse, as the first schoolhouse and as the first
dance hall, though its floor was of packed earth. It might be added that
there were many dances, for the settlers were a lighthearted lot. Most of
the settlers re-erected their tents, each family upon the lot that had
been assigned.

The first families on the mesa were those of John H. Pomeroy, Theodore
Sirrine and Chas. H. Mallory. The Mallory and Sirrine homes quickly were
started. Mallory's, the first adobe, was torn down early in 1921.

By the end of November, 1878, all the families had moved from the river
camp upon the new townsite.

Early arrivals included a strong party from Montpelier, Bear Lake County,
Idaho, the family heads John Hibbert, Hyrum S. Phelps, Charles C. Dana,
John T. Lesueur, William Lesueur, John Davis, Geo. C. Dana and Charles
Warner. Others, with their families, were Charles Crismon, Jr., Joseph
Cain and William Brim from the Salt Lake section. Nearly all of the
settlers who came in the earlier days to Mesa were fairly well-to-do,
considered in a frontier way, and were people of education. Soon, by
intelligence and industry, they made the desert bloom. Canals were
extended all over the mesa. In 1879 was gathered the first crop of
cereals and vegetables and that spring were planted many fruit trees,
which grew wonderfully well in the rich, light soil.

An Irrigation Clash That Did Not Come

The summer of 1879 was one of the dryest ever recorded. Though less than
20,000 acres were cultivated in the entire valley, the crops around
Phoenix suffered for lack of water. Salt River was a dry sand expanse for
five miles below the Mesa, Utah and Tempe canal headings. The Mormon
water appropriation was blamed for this. So in Phoenix was organized an
armed expedition of at least twenty farmers, who rode eastward, prepared
to fight for their irrigation priority rights. But there was no battle.
Instead, they were met in all mildness by Jones and others, who agreed
that priority rights should prevail. There was inspection of the two
Mormon ditches, in which less than 1000 miners' inches were flowing and
then was agreement that the two canal headgates should be closed for
three days, to see what effect this action would have on the lower water
supply. But the added water merely was wasted. The sand expanse drank it
up and the lower ditches were not benefited. There was no more trouble
over water rights. Indeed, this is the only recorded approach to a clash
known between the Mormon settlers and their neighbors.

Mesa's Civic Administration

In May, 1878, T.C. Sirrine located in his own name the section of land
upon which Mesa City now stands, thereafter deeding it to Trustees C.I.
Robson, G.W. Sirrine and F.M. Pomeroy, who named it and who platted it
into blocks of ten acres each, with eight lots, and with streets 130 feet
wide, the survey being made by A.M. Jones. Each settler for each share
worked out in the Mesa canal, received four lots, or five acres. Two
plazas were provided.

For many years there was a general feeling that the streets of Mesa were
entirely too wide, though it had been laid out in loving remembrance of
Salt Lake City, and the question of ever paving (or even of crossing on a
hot summer day) was serious. It appears from latter-day development that
the old-timers builded wisely, for probably Mesa is alone in all of
Arizona in having plenty of room for the parking of automobiles. The main
streets have been paved at large expense. In several has been left very
attractive center parking, for either grass or standing machines.

Mesa was incorporated July 15, 1883. The first election chose A.F.
Macdonald as Mayor, E. Pomeroy, G.W. Sirrine, W. Passey and A.F. Stewart
as Councilmen, C. I. Robson as Recorder, J.H. Carter as Treasurer, H.C.
Longmore as Assessor, W. Richins as Marshal, and H.S. Phelps as
Poundkeeper. All were members of the faith, for others were very few in
Mesa at that time.

Growth was slow for a number of years, for in a city census, taken
January 4, 1894, there was found population of only 648, with an
assessment valuation of $106,000. The 1920 census found 3036.

Mail at first was received at Hayden's Ferry. Soon thereafter was
petition for a postoffice. The federal authorities refused the name of
"Mesa" on the ground that it might be confused with Mesaville, a small
office in Final County. So, in honor of their friend at the Ferry, there
was acceptance of the name Hayden. Though the Ferry had the postoffice
name of Tempe, there ensued much mixture of mail matter. In 1887, there
followed a change in the postoffice name to Zenos, after a prophet of the
Book of Mormon. In the order of things, Mesaville passed away and then
the settlement quickly availed itself of the privilege opened, to restore
the commonly accepted designation of Mesa.

Foundation of Alma

Alma is a prosperous western extension of Mesa, of which it is a fourth
ward. The locality at first, and even unto this day, has borne the local
name of Stringtown, for the houses are set along a beautiful country
road, cottonwood-bordered for miles. The first settlers of the locality
were Henry Standage (a veteran of the Mormon Battalion), Hyrum W. Pugh,
Chauncey F. Rogers and Wm. N. Standage, with their families. These
settlers constituted a party from Lewiston and Richmond, Cache County,
Utah, and arrived at Mesa, January 19, 1880. In that same month they
started work on an extension of the Mesa canal, soon thereafter aided by
neighbors, who arrived early in 1881. There were good crops. Early in
1882 houses were erected.

Highways Into the Mountains

In 1880, the Mesa authorities took steps to provide a better highway to
Globe, this with the active cooperation of their friend, Chas. T. Hayden.
Globe was a rich market for agricultural products, yet could be reached
only by way of Florence and the Cane Springs and Pioneer road, over
the summit of the Pinal Mountains, or by way of the almost impassable
Reno Mountain road from McDowell into Tonto Basin, a road that was ridden
in pain, but philosophically, by the members of the Erastus Snow party
that passed in 1878. The idea of 1880 was to get through the Pinal
Mountains, near Silver King. A new part of this route now is being taken
by a State road that starts at Superior, cutting a shelf along the canyon
side of Queen Creek, to establish the shortest possible road between Mesa
and Globe. The first adequate highway ever had from Mesa eastward was the
Roosevelt road, later known as the Apache Trail, built in 1905 by the
Reclamation Service, to connect the valley with Roosevelt, which lies at
the southern point of Tonto Basin.

Hayden's Ferry, Latterly Tempe

Tempe, eight miles east of Phoenix on Salt River, was first known as
Hayden's Ferry. Its founder was Chas. Trumbull Hayden, a pioneer merchant
who early saw the possibilities of development within the Salt River
Valley and who built a flour mill that still is known by his name.
Arizona's Congressman, Carl Hayden, is a son of the pioneer merchant,
miller and ferryman. The name of Tempe (from a valley of ancient Greece)
is credited to Darrell Duppa, a cultured Englishman, who is also
understood to have named Phoenix. It was applied to Hayden's Ferry and
also to a Mexican settlement, something over a half-mile distant, locally
known as San Pablo.

Hayden welcomed the advent of the Mormons, led to the country by Daniel
W. Jones in 1877, and befriended those who followed, thus materially
assisting in the upbuilding of the Lehi and Mesa settlements.

Tempe, as a Mormon settlement, started July 23, 1882, in the purchase by
Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Jos. E. Johnson and relatives, from Hayden, of
eighty acres of land that lay between the ferry and the Mexican town. For
this tract there was paid $3000. The Johnson party left Spring Lake,
Utah, in April and traveled via Lee's Ferry. There was survey of the
property into lots and blocks, and the Johnsons at once started upon the
building of homes. There was included also a small cooperative store. The
foundation was laid for a meeting house, but religious services usually
were held in a bowery or in the district schoolhouse that had been built
before the Saints came.

In the fall of 1882 there arrived a number of families, most of them
Johnsons or relatives. When the Maricopa Stake was organized December 10,
1882, David T. LeBaron was presiding at Tempe. June 15, 1884, Tempe was
organized as a ward, successively headed by Samuel Openshaw and Jas. F.
Johnson.

In August, 1887, most of Tempe's Mormon residents moved to Nephi, west of
Mesa, mainly upon land acquired by Benj. F. Johnson, the settlement
popularly known as Johnsonville. The departure hinged upon the building
of a branch railroad of the Southern Pacific from Maricopa, through
Tempe, to Phoenix. An offer was made by a newly-organized corporation for
the land that had been taken by the Johnsons, who sold on terms then
considered advantageous. Upon this land now is located a large part of
the prosperous town of Tempe, within which is a considerable scattering
of Mormon families, though without local organization.

Patriarch B.F. Johnson died in Mesa, November 18, 1905, at the age of 87.
At that time it was told that his descendants and those married into the
family numbered 1500, probably constituting the largest family within the
Church membership.

Organization of the Maricopa Stake

The Church history of Mesa started October 14, 1878, when Apostle Erastus
Snow, on his memorable trip through the Southwest, at Fort Utah,
appointed a late arrival, Jesse N. Perkins, as presiding elder and H.C.
Rogers and G.W. Sirrine as counselors. Perkins died of smallpox in
northeastern Arizona. In 1880, President John Taylor at St. George, Utah,
appointed Alexander F. Macdonald to preside over the new stake. He
arrived and took office in February of that year. Macdonald was a sturdy,
lengthy Scotchman, a preacher of the rough and ready sort and of
tremendous effectiveness, converted in Perth, in June, 1846, and a Salt
Lake arrival by ox team in 1854. In 1882, on permanent organization of
the Stake, Chas. I. Robson succeeded Sirrine as counselor. Robson
December 4, 1887, succeeded to the presidency, with H.C. Rogers and
Collins R. Hakes as counselors, Macdonald taking up leadership in the
northern Mexican Stakes, pioneering work of difficulty for which he was
especially well suited. In December, 1884, he headed an expedition and
surveying party into Chihuahua, Mexico, looking for settlement locations,
and secured large landed interests. He became ill at El Paso, on his way
back to his home at Colonia Juarez. He died at Colonia Dublan, thirty
miles short of his destination, March 21, 1903.

[Illustration: MARICOPA STAKE PRESIDENTS
1--Alexander F. Macdonald     3--Collins R. Hakes
               2--Chas. I. Robson
4--Jno. T. Lesueur        5--Jas. W. Lesueur]

[Illustration: MARICOPA DELEGATION AT PINETOP CONFERENCE OF THE FOUR
ARIZONA STAKES, JULY, 1892]

Chas. I. Robson served as President to the day of his death, February 24,
1894. He was of English ancestry, born February 20, 1837, in
Northumberland. He was specially distinguished in the early days of Utah
through his success in starting the first paper factory known in western
America. As a boy, he had worked in a paper factory in England. In 1870,
he was warden of the Utah penitentiary.

May 10, 1894, Collins R. Hakes (of the San Bernardino colony) succeeded
to the presidency of Maricopa Stake, with Henry C. Rogers and Jas. F.
Johnson as counselors. At that time were five organized wards, with 2446
souls, including 1219 Indians in the Papago ward, and to the southward
toward Mexico. Mesa then was credited with 648 people of the faith, Lehi
200, Alma 282 and Nephi 104.

In 1905, President Hakes transferred his activities to the development of
a new colony of his people at Bluewater, N.M., near Fort Wingate. His
death was in Mesa, August 27, 1916.

To the Maricopa Stake Presidency, November 26, 1905, succeeded Jno. T.
Lesueur, transferred from St. Johns, where, from Mesa, he settled in
1880. He is still a resident of Mesa. He resigned as president in 1912,
the position taken, on March 10 of that year, by his son, Jas. W.
Lesueur, who still is in office.

December 20, 1898, first was occupied the Stake tabernacle, 75x45 feet in
size, built of brick and costing $11,000. At its dedication were Apostle
Brigham Young, Jr., and a number of other Church dignitaries.

For more than a year plans have been in the making for erection at Mesa
of a great temple of the Church, to cost about $500,000. It is to be the
ninth of such structures. The others, in the order of their dedication,
are (or were): at Kirtland, Ohio, of date 1836; at Nauvoo, Illinois,
1846; at St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake, Utah, and at Laie,
Hawaiian Islands. Another is being built at Cardston, Alberta, Canada.
The Kirtland edifice was abandoned. That at Nauvoo was wrecked by
incendiaries in 1848. The great Temple at Salt Lake, its site located by
Brigham Young four days after his arrival, in July, 1847, was forty years
in building and its dedication was not till 1893.

Merely in the way of explanation, it may be noted that a Mormon temple is
not a house of public worship. It is, as was the Temple of Solomon, more
of a sanctuary, a place wherein ecclesiastical ordinances may have
administration. It has many lecture rooms, wherein to be seated the
classes under instruction, and there is provision of places for the
performance of the ordinances of baptism, marriage, confirmation, etc.

Especially important are considered the baptism and blessings
(endowments) bestowed vicariously on the living for the benefit of the
dead. There also is added solemnity in a temple marriage, for it is for
eternity and not merely for time. Due to this is the unusual activity of
the Church members in genealogical research. It is believed that the
Mormon Church is the only denomination that marries for eternity, this
marriage also binding in the eternal family relation the children of the
contracting individuals.

The temple administration is separate from that of the Stake in which it
may be situated and its doors, after dedication, are closed save to its
officers and to those who come to receive its benefits. In the past years
these ordinances have been received outside of Arizona, at large expense
for travel from this State. Naturally, there has been a wish for location
of a temple more readily to be reached by the devout.

The temple idea in Arizona appears to date back to an assurance given
about 1870 in St. George by Brigham Young. A prediction was made by Jesse
N. Smith about 1882, to the effect that a temple, at some future day,
would be reared on the site of Pima in Graham County. The first donation
toward such an end was recorded January 24, 1887, in the name of Mrs.
Helena Roseberry, a poor widow of Pima, who gave $5 toward the building
of a temple in Arizona, handing the money to Apostle Moses Thatcher. This
widow's mite ever since has been held by the Church in Salt Lake.
Possibly it has drawn good interest, for through the Church Presidency
has come a donation of $200,000 to assure the end the widow had wished
for.

Another "nest egg," the first contribution received directly for the Mesa
edifice, came from another widow, Mrs. Amanda Hastings of Mesa, who, on
behalf of herself and children, three years ago, gave the Stake
presidency $15.

The new temple, of which there is reproduction herewith of an artist's
sketch, is to rise in the eastern part of Mesa upon a tract of forty
acres, which is to be a veritable park, its edges occupied by homes. The
architects are Don C. Young and Ramm Hansen of Salt Lake. The temple
will rise 66 feet, showing as a vast monument upon a foundation base that
will be 180x195 feet. This base will contain the offices and preparation
rooms. While the structure will be sightly from all sides, on its north
will be a great entrance. Between the dividing staircase will be a
corridor entry to the baptismal room. The staircase, joined at the second
story, will stretch 100 feet in a great flight, its landings successively
taking the initiates to the higher planes of instruction. In this
respect, the plan is said by Church authorities to be the best of any
temple of the faith. The rooms will be ample in size for instruction
of classes of over 100.

The building of the Mesa temple was the primary subject at all meetings
of congregations of the faith on September 12, 1920, and from voluntary
donations on that day there was added to the temple fund $112,000.

Chapter Twenty

First Families of Arizona

Pueblo Dwellers of Ancient Times

In considering the development features of the settlement of central
Arizona, the Author feels it might be interesting to note that the
immigrants saw in the Salt River Valley many evidences of the truth of
the Book of Mormon, covering the passage northward of the Nephites of
old. There was found a broad valley that had lain untouched for a
thousand years, unoccupied by Indian or Spaniard till Jack Swilling and
his miners dug the first canal on the north side of the river a few years
before the coming of the Saints to Jonesville. The valley had lain
between the red-skinned agriculturists of the Gila and the Apache
Ishmaelites of the hills. There had been no intrusion of Spanish or
Mexican grants. The ground had been preserved for utilization of the
highest sort by American intelligence.

Yet this same intelligence found much to admire in the works of the
people who had passed on. From the river had been taken out great canals
of good gradient, and it was clear that they had been dug by a people of
homely thrift and of skill in the tilling of the soil. There still were
to be seen piles of earth that marked where at least seven great communal
houses had formed nuclei for a numerous people. These were served by 123
miles of canals.

These people were not Aztec. According to accepted tradition, the Aztecs
passed southward along the western coast, reaching Culiacan, in
northwestern Mexico, about 700 A.D., and there named themselves the
Mextli. The ancient people of the Salt River Valley probably had moved,
or were moving, about that same time. They appear to have been of
Toltecan stock and undoubtedly came from the southward, from a land where
was known the building of houses and wherein had been established
religious cults of notable completeness and assuredly of tenacious hold.
Just why they left the Salt River Valley is as incomprehensible as why
they entered it, and how long they stayed is purely a matter of
conjecture. Probably occupation of the valley was not simultaneous.
Probably the leaving was by families or clans, extending over a period of
many years. Probably they left on the ending of a cycle of peace, on the
coming to the Southwest of the first of the Apache, or of similar
marauders, who preyed upon the peaceful dwellers of the plains. That they
were people of peace cannot be doubted, people who in the end had to
defend their towns, yet sought no aggression.

[Illustration: ANCIENT CALALS COVERING 123 MILES, AND PUEBLOS OF SALT
RIVER VALLEY. Surveyed by Herbert R. Patrick]

Evidences of Well-Developed Culture

Possibly a great epidemic, of the sort known to have swept Mexico before
the coming of the Spaniard, gravely cut down the numbers of the ancient
valley settlers. Near every communal castle is to be found a cemetery,
filled with burial urns, their tops usually less than a foot below the
surface. These urns (ollas) are filled with calcined human bones. By them
are to be found the broken pottery, of which the spirits were to
accompany the late lamented on their journey to the happy hunting
grounds. These dishes once contained food, intended for the spirit
travelers' nourishment. When there was a child, ofttimes now is found
the clay image of a dog, for a dog always knows the way home. The dog is
believed to have been the only domestic animal of the time.

In some cases, in the greater houses, walled into crypts that might have
served as family lounging places, have been found the skeletons of those
who were of esoteric standing, considered able, by the force of will, to
separate spirit from body. In other cases the cleansing and
disintegrating effects of fire secured the necessary separation of the
spirit from the body.

With these mortuary evidences also are found domestic implements, stone
clubs, arrow points and, particularly valuable, prayer sticks and
religious implements that clearly show the archaeologist a connection
with the pueblo-dwelling peoples who still live, under similar communal
conditions, to the northward.

Northward Trend of the Ancient People

That these ancient peoples went north there can be no doubt. North of the
valley, nearly fifty miles, on the Verde, is a great stone ruin and
beyond it are cavate dwellings of remarkable sort. In Tonto Creek Valley,
a dozen miles north of the Roosevelt dam, is an immense ruin built of
gypsum blocks. To the eastward, Casa Grande, most famed of all Arizona
prehistoric remains, still stands, iron-roofed by a careful government,
probably of a later time of abandonment, but still a ruin when first seen
by Father Eusebio Kino in 1694. All the way up the Gila, and with a
notable southern stem through the Mimbres Valley, are found these same
evidences of ancient occupation. Chichilticalli, "the Red House,"
mentioned by Marco de Niza and by Coronado's historians in 1539-40, lay
somewhere near where another group of Mormons again reclaimed the desert
soil by irrigation in the upper Gila Valley. Ruins extended from Pueblo
Viejo ("Old Town"), above Solomonville, down to San Carlos.

Into the valleys of the Salt and of the Gila, from the north come many
waterways. In none of these tributary valleys can there be failure to
find evidences of the northward march of the Indians who lived in houses.
In this intermediate region, the houses usually, for protection, were
placed in the cliffs. Particularly notable are the cave dwellings of the
upper Verde and in Tonto Basin, near Roosevelt, and in the Sierra Anchas
and near Flagstaff.

[Illustration: THE ARIZONA TEMPLE AT MESA]

[Illustration: JONATHAN HEATON OF MOCCASIN AND HIS FIFTEEN SONS]

[Illustration: 1--Ira Hatch, Indian Missionary
2--Thales Haskell, Indian Missionary
3--Wm. C. Prows, Battalion Member
4--Nathan B. Robinson, killed by Indians]

Again there was debouchment upon a river valley, that of the Little
Colorado. Possibly some of the tribes worked eastward into the valley of
the Rio Grande. Another section, and for this there is no less evidence
than that of Frank Hamilton Cushing, formed at least a part of the
forefathers of the Zuni. Swinging to the northwest, the Water House and
other clans formed the southern branch of the three from which the Moqui,
or Hopi, people are descended. This last is history. The early Mormons
remarked upon the pueblo ruins that lay near their first Little Colorado
towns, above St. Joseph. These ruins are known to the Hopi as "Homolobi,"
and much is the information concerning them to be had from the historians
of the present hilltop tribes.

Reports of similarity have been so many, there can be no surprise that
the earlier settlers from Utah wrote home joyously, telling that proofs
had been found of the northern migration so definitely outlined in their
ecclesiastical writings, according to the Book of Mormon.

_The Great Reavis Land Grant Fraud_

For about ten years from 1885 all the lands of the Salt and Gila valleys
of Arizona lay under a serious cloud of title. There had been elimination
of the Texas-Pacific landgrant, which unsuccessfully had been claimed by
the Southern Pacific. Then came the Reavis grant, one of the most
monumental of attempted swindles ever known. James Addison Reavis, a
newspaper solicitor, claimed a tract 78 miles wide from a point at the
junction of the Gila and Salt Rivers, eastward to beyond Silver City,
N.M., on the basis of an alleged grant, of date December 20, 1748, by
Fernando VI, King of Spain, to Senor Don Miguel de Peralta y Cordoba, who
then was made Baron of the Colorados and granted 300 square leagues in
the northern portion of the viceroyalty of New Spain. The grant was said
to have been appropriated in 1757. Reavis had first claimed by virtue of
a deed from one Willing, of date 1867, but there was switching later,
Reavis thereafter claiming as agent for his wife, said to have been the
last of the Peralta line, but in reality a half-breed Indian woman, found
on an Indian reservation in northern California, and one who had no
Mexican history whatever. Reavis renamed himself "Peralta-Reavis," and
for a while had headquarters for his "barony" at Arizola, a short
distance east of Casa Grande, where he maintained his family in state,
with his children in royal purple velvet, with monogrammed coronets upon
their Russian caps. He arrogated to himself ownership of all the water
and the mines and sold quit-claim deeds to the land's owners. It is said
that the Southern Pacific bought its right of way from him and that the
Silver King and other mines similarly contributed to his exchequer. He
claimed Phoenix, Mesa, Florence, Globe, Silver King, Safford and Silver
City.

He planned a storage basin on Salt River and another above Florence on
the Gila, and advertised that he intended to reclaim 6,000,000 acres on
the Casa Grande and Maricopa plains, "thereafter returning to the Gila
any surplus water." Just how accurate his figures were may be judged by
the fact that government engineers have found that the waters of the
Gila, above Florence, are sufficient for the irrigation of not more than
90,000 acres. He viewed things on a big scale, however. At Tonto Basin
he was to build a dam 450 feet high and the water was to be taken from
the river channel by means of a 44,000-foot tunnel.

Whenever one of his prospective customers failed to contribute, he often
deeded the land to a third party. Some of these deeds are to be seen on
the records of Maricopa County. His case had been so well prepared that
many were deceived, even the lawyers who served him as counsel, including
Robert G. Ingersoll. Naturally something approximating a panic for a
while was known by the farmers of the valleys affected.

Meanwhile, very largely from moneys obtained as above noted, Reavis was
spending royally at many points. At Madrid, Spain, he had a gorgeous
establishment, whereat he even entertained the American Legation. At many
points in Mexico, he scattered coin lavishly and accumulated cords of
alleged original records and he even found paintings of his wife's
alleged ancestors. The grant was taken into politics and was an issue in
the congressional campaign of 1887.

About 1898 there was establishment of the United States Court of Private
Land Claims, especially for adjudication of many such claims in the
Southwest. Reavis' elaborately prepared case tumbled almost from the day
it was brought into court. Government agents found bribery, corruption
and fraud all along his trail. He had interpolated pages in old record
books and had even changed and rewritten royal documents, including one
on which the grant was based. Some of his "ancient" documents were found
to have been executed on very modern milled paper. On one of them
appeared the water mark of a Wisconsin paper mill. Others had type that
had been invented only a few years before. The claim was unanimously
rejected by the land court and on the same day Reavis was arrested on
five indictments for conspiracy. He was convicted in January, 1895, and
sentenced to six years in the penitentiary. After serving his sentence,
he made a brief confession, telling that he had been "playing a game
which to win meant greater wealth than that of Gould or Vanderbilt."
The district covered by his claim today has property valued at at least
one billion dollars.

When Mesa first was settled, every alternate section was called "railroad
land." claimed by the Southern Pacific, under virtue of the old Tom
Scott-Texas & Pacific land grant. Early in the eighties, this claim
vanished, it being decided that the Southern Pacific had no right to the
grant.

Chapter Twenty-one

Near the Mexican Border

Location on the San Pedro River

Much historical value attaches to the settlement of the Saints upon the
San Pedro River, even though prosperity there has not yet come in as
large a degree as has been known elsewhere within the State. It is not
improbable that within the next few years an advance in material riches
will be known in large degree, through water storage, saving both water
and the cutting away of lands through flood, and that permanent diversion
works will save the heart-breaking tasks of frequent rebuilding of the
temporary dams heretofore washed out in almost every freshet.

Elsewhere has been told the story of the Daniel W. Jones party that
settled at Lehi and of the dissension that followed objections on the
part of the majority to the rulings of the stout old elder, whose mind
especially dwelt upon the welfare of red-skinned brethren.

There had been general authorization to the Jones-Merrill expedition to
go as far southward as it wished. Under this, though not till there had
been consultation with the Church Presidency, the greater number of the
Lehi settlers left Salt River early in August, 1877. There was
expectation that they were to settle on the headwaters of the Gila or on
the San Pedro. There must have been a deal of faith within the company,
for the departure from camp was with provisions only enough to last two
days and there was appreciation that much wild country would need to be
passed. But there was loan of the wages of A.O. Williams, a member of
the party who had been employed by C.T. Hayden at Tempe, and with this
money added provisions were secured.

Necessarily, the journey was indirect. At Tucson employment was offered
for men and teams by Thomas Gardner, who owned a sawmill in the Santa
Rita Mountains. Much of the money thus earned was saved, for the party
lived under the rules of the United Order, and very economically. So, in
the fall, with the large joint capital of $400 in cash, added to teams
and wagons and to industry and health, there was fresh start, from the
Santa Ritas, for the San Pedro, 45 miles distant. The river was reached
November 29, 1877.

These first settlers comprised Philemon C., Dudley T., Thomas, Seth and
Orrin D. Merrill, George E. Steele, Joseph McRae and A.O. Williams. All
but Williams and O.D. Merrill had families.

Ground was broken at a point on the west side of the river, on land that
had been visited and located October 14, by P.C. Merrill on an exploring
trip. The first camp was about a half mile south of the present St. David
and soon was given permanency by the erection of a small stone fort of
eight rooms. That winter, for the common interest, was planting of 75
acres of wheat and barley, irrigated from springs and realizing very
well.

Malaria Overcomes a Community

As was usual in early settlement of Arizona valleys, malarial fever
appeared very soon. At one time, in the fall of 1878, nearly all the
settlers were prostrated with the malady, probably carried by mosquitoes
from stagnant water. That year also it was soberly told that fever and
ague even spread to the domestic animals. At times, the sick had to wait
on the sick and there was none to greet Apostle Erastus Snow when he made
visitation October 6, 1878. His first address was to an assembly of 38
individuals, of whom many had been carried to the meeting on their beds.
It is chronicled by Elder McRae that, "notwithstanding these conditions,
the Apostle blessed the place, prophesying that the day would come when
the San Pedro Valley would be settled from one end to the other with
Saints and that we had experienced the worst of our sickness. When he
left, all felt better in body and in spirit." It was a decidedly hot
season. "Vegetation grew so rank that a horseman mounted on a tall horse
could hardly be seen at a distance of a quarter of a mile. Hay could be
cut a stone's throw from our door."

The first death was on October 2, 1878, of the same A.O. Williams whose
money had brought the people to the new land.

Possibly the settlement needed the mental and spiritual encouragement of
Apostle Snow, for more than a year had passed of hardships and of labor,
and, including the Lehi experience, there had been no recompense, unless
it might have been in the way of mental and moral discipline.

The early malaria of the Arizona valleys nearly all has disappeared, with
the draining of swampy places, the eradication of beaver dams and
mosquitoes and the knowledge of better living conditions. Elsewhere has
been told of the abandonment of Obed and other early Little Colorado
settlements, because of chills and fever. Something of the same sort was
known on the upper Gila, from 1882 to 1890, around Pima, Curtis and
Bryce. In this same upper Gila Valley, Fort Goodwin had to be abandoned
on account of malarial conditions. The same is true of old Fort Grant,
across the divide, on the lower San Pedro. The upper Verde, the Santa
Cruz and nearly all similar valleys knew malaria at the time of
settlement.

According to Merrill, on March 26, 1879, the sick and sorry settlers went
into the Huachuca Mountains to summer, but, "the wind blew so much that
we moved back to the river, near where Hereford now is, rented some land
and put in some crops." This location is just about where the members of
the Mormon Battalion, in 1846, had their memorable fight with the wild
bulls. A Merrill report, rendered March 16, 1881, was far from hopeful
and asked that the writer be relieved of his responsibilities.

On the Route of the Mormon Battalion

This office has been unable to find any reference connecting Merrill's
later experiences in the San Pedro Valley with the time when he was an
officer of the Mormon Battalion, though it can be imagined that his later
associates had the benefit of many reminiscences of that period of the
march just prior to the taking of Tucson.

The San Pedro Valley is a historic locality. Down it passed Friar Marco
de Niza, in 1539, and the Coronado expedition of the following year. The
waters of the stream were a joyous sight to the Mormon Battalion, when it
passed that way during the Mexican War. The country then had been
occupied to some extent by Spaniards or Mexicans, who had established
large ranches, with many cattle, from which they had been driven by the
Apaches, years before the Battalion came. The country once had been the
ranging ground of the friendly Sobaipuri Indians, but they too had been
driven away by the hillmen and had established a village on the Santa
Cruz, near their kinsmen, the Papago, almost on the site where Tucson was
founded as a Spanish presidio in 1776.

The river, when the Merrill party came, was found usually in a deep
gully, in places twenty feet below the surface of the silty ground.
Naturally, difficulty has attended the attempts to dam the stream.

Chronicles of a Quiet Neighborhood

St. David was named by Alexander F. Macdonald in honor of David W.
Patten, a martyr of the Church, who died at the hands of the same mob
that killed Joseph Smith. Its first mail was received at Tres Alamos,
sixteen miles down the river. A postoffice was established in 1882,
Joseph McRae in charge. When the Southern Pacific came through, Benson
was established, nine miles to the northward. Tombstone lies sixteen
miles to the southeast.

In May, 1880, the present St. David townsite was laid out. John Smith
Merrill built the first house. The following year an adobe schoolhouse
was built, this used for public gatherings until shaken down by an
earthquake, May 3, 1887, happily while the children were at recess. Much
damage was done in the town.

The settlement had little or no trouble with Indians, though for nine
years Apache bands scouted and murdered in the nearby mountains and
committed depredations within the San Pedro Valley, both to the northward
and southward.

Early in 1879 John Campbell, a new member, from Texas, built a sawmill,
in the Huachuca Mountains, that furnished a diversity of industry, from
it much lumber being shipped to Tombstone.

Macdonald was a southern extension of the St. David community on the San
Pedro, established in 1882 by Henry J. Horne, Jonathan Hoopes and others,
and named in honor of Alexander F. Macdonald, then president of the
Maricopa Stake. It was of slow growth, owing to claims upon the lands as
constituting a part of the San Juan de las Boquillas y Nogales grant,
later rejected. In 1913, nine miles west of St. David, was established
the community of Miramonte.

Looking Toward Homes in Mexico

While the Saints were establishing themselves upon the San Pedro and
Gila, the Church authorities by no means had lost sight of the primary
object of the southern migration. January 4, 1883, Apostle Moses
Thatcher, with Elders D. P. Kimball, Teeples, Fuller, Curtis, Trejo and
Martineau, left St. David for an exploring trip into Mexico.

September 13, 1884, another party left St. David to explore the country
lying south of the line, along the Babispe River, returning October 7, by
way of the San Bernardino ranch, though without finding any locations
considered favorable.

In November, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant, with
a company from St. Joseph Stake, with thirty wagons, went into Sonora,
where they were given a hearty welcome by the Yaqui Indians, who
expressed hope of a settlement among them.

St. David was the scene of one of the most notable councils of the
Church, held in January, 1885, and presided over by none other than
President John Taylor, who left Salt Lake City, January 3, and whose
party at St. David included also Apostles Joseph F. Smith, Erastus Snow,
Brigham Young, Jr., Moses Thatcher and Francis M. Lyman, with other
dignitaries of the Church. At St. David were met Jesse N. Smith,
Christopher Layton, Alex. F. Macdonald and Lot Smith, presidents of the
four Stakes of Arizona. The discussion at this conference appeared to
have been mainly upon the Church prosecution, then in full sway, a matter
not included within the purview of this work. There was determination to
extend the Church settlements farther to the southward. According to
Orson F. Whitney:

"In order to provide a place of refuge for such as were being hunted and
hounded, President Taylor sent parties into Mexico to arrange for the
purchase of land in that country, upon which the fugitive Saints might
settle. One of the first sites selected for this purpose was just across
the line in the State of Sonora. Elder Christopher Layton made choice of
this locality. Other lands were secured in the State of Chihuahua.
President Taylor and his party called upon Governor Torres at Hermosillo,
the capital of Sonora, and were received by that official with marked
courtesy."

Historian Whitney states that the Taylor party then went westward by way
of the Salt River Valley settlements to the Pacific Coast. And this
office has a record to the effect that, in January, President Taylor
visited also the settlements of the Little Colorado section and counseled
concerning the disposition of several of the early towns of that
locality.

Of Arizona interest is the fact that for two and a half years thereafter,
the President of the Mormon Church was in exile, till the date of his
death, July 25, 1887, in Kaysville, Utah. Much of the intervening time
was spent in Arizona and a part of it in Mexico, in the settlements that
had been established as places of refuge. His declining months, however,
were spent in Utah, even entire communities guarding well the secret of
the presence of their spiritual head.

Arizona's First Artesian Well

Possibly the first artesian well known in Arizona was developed in the
St. David settlement. In 1885 a bounty of $1500 was offered for the
development of artesian water. The reward was claimed by the McRae
brothers, who developed a flow of about thirty gallons a minute, but who
failed to receive any reward. Five years ago, J.S. Merrill of St. David
reported that within the San Pedro Valley were about 200 flowing wells,
furnishing from five to 150 gallons a minute. The deepest valley well was
about 600 feet. At that time about 2000 acres were irrigated by the St.
David canal and by the wells, sustaining a population of about 600 souls.

Development of a Market at Tombstone

It happened on the San Pedro, just as in many other places, that the
Mormons were just a little ahead of some great development. September 3,
1877, at Tucson, Ed. Schieffelin recorded the first of his mining claims
in Tombstone District, which then lay in Pima County.

Schieffelin's first discovery was several miles from the later site of
Tombstone and about four miles from the San Pedro. Later, with Dick Gird
and Al Schieffelin, the original discoverer located the lower group of
mines in the camp of Tombstone, then established. A number of other
settlements sprang up, including the nearby Richmond, Watervale and the
mill towns of Charleston and Contention City, both on the San Pedro,
where water could be secured.

Several miles west of Tombstone, just where Ed Schieffelin camped at the
time of the discovery of his Tombstone claim, is a large monument of
cemented rock, under which lie his remains, brought back from the
Northwest for interment in the land he loved. His death was on May 12,
1897.

The Tombstone Gold & Silver Milling & Mining Company, of which former
Gov. A.P.K. Safford was president, in 1880 owned the original group of
Schieffelin claims, of which the Tough Nut was the main property. A stamp
mill was built on the San Pedro and a contract entered into with the
Mormons to build a dam and ditch, from which it was hoped to secure
motive power. Concerning this job, estimated to cost $6000, Merrill later
wrote that the contractors found themselves fined $300 for six days'
overtime on completion of the job. Joseph McRae's record tells that, in
1879, some of the brethren went up the river, twenty miles above St.
David, and put in a rip-rap dam and a mile and a half of ditch at
Charleston for the Boston Mining Company. This may have been the Boston &
Arizona Smelting & Reduction Company, a Massachusetts corporation which
had a twenty-stamp mill and a roasting furnace on the San Pedro, between
Charleston and Contention, ten miles from Tombstone. This job returned
$6000 in cash.

The mines brought a relative degree of prosperity to the San Pedro
settlement, furnishing a ready and profitable market for agricultural
products, but especially calling upon all transportation facilities that
could be afforded. Teams were busy hauling from the terminus of the
railroad at Tucson and at Benson, until, in October, 1882, there was
completion of the New Mexico and Arizona railroad, then a Santa Fe
corporation, from Benson to Nogales, much of the way through the San
Pedro Valley, past St. David and the milling towns. The mines paid $30 a
cord for fuel wood and even $40 a ton for hay.

Lean days descended upon the community, however, in the early summer of
1886, when the great pumps of the Grand Central mine were stopped by
fire. The following year Tombstone practically was abandoned and the
market it had afforded was lost. Not till 1901 did the camp revive. It
closed again in June, 1903, by the drowning of the pumps. Latterly the
old mines, consolidated, have been worked to some extent by the
Phelps-Dodge Corporation, but again have been closed, early in April,
1921.

Chapter Twenty-two

On the Upper Gila

Ancient Dwellers and Military Travelers

Possibly as representative a region as is known in the settlement area of
the Mormon people lies for about 25 miles along the Gila River in eastern
Arizona, in Graham County, and within St. Joseph Stake. Over a dozen
communities are contained within this section and all are distinctly
Mormon in settlement and local operation, save Solomonville, at the upper
end, and Safford, the county seat and principal town. Most of the land is
owned by the Saints, who control, as well, a dozen small canals. Within
the Stake have been included Mormon settlements of the San Pedro Valley
and those upon the upper Gila, in Greenlee County, extending over into
New Mexico and El Paso.

The settlement of the Graham County section of the Gila Valley did not
start with the Mormons. Far from it. In the upper end of the cultivated
region is one of the most notable groups of ruins in the Southwest. This
group, since the coming of the Spaniard, appears to have borne
the name of Pueblo Viejo (Sp., "Old Town"). Somewhere farther down the
stream is assumed to have been "Chichilticalli," the "red house"
mentioned in the chronicles of Marco de Niza and the Coronado expedition.

The valley was traversed, from east to west, by Gen. S.W. Kearny, on his
way, with a dragoon escort, in 1846, to take California from the
Mexicans, this command, from the Pima villages westward, forming the
advance guard for the Mormon Battalion. Much interesting data of the Gila
Valley trip was written by Lieutenant Emory, who later was chief of the
Boundary Survey. It is notable that in 1846 Mount Graham already was
known by that name.

Early Days Around Safford

A few Mexicans were in the valley as early as 1871, farming in the
vicinity of Pueblo Viejo, immediately below which later arose the town of
Solomonville. In 1872 was the first Anglo-Saxon settlement, a group of
farmers coming from Gila Bend, upon the Gila River, where they had
attempted farming and had failed because the wandering river had washed
away their dams and headgates. These farmers, financed in Tucson for the
building of the Montezuma canal, settled in the vicinity of Safford,
where about that time, was established a townsite, named in honor of Gov.
A.P.K. Safford who, from Tucson, then was making a tour of that part of
Arizona Territory.

One of the very earliest valley residents was D.W. Wickersham, who wrote
the Author lately, covering his early experiences. To later serve as the
first teacher, he arrived in Safford the summer of 1876, there finding
Joshua E. Bailey and Hiram Kennedy, who had come from Gila Bend. Bailey
he considers the founder of Safford and believes it was he who named the
settlement. Both Bailey and Kennedy came with California troops during
the Civil War. The former died in Michigan and Kennedy was murdered in
Safford in 1877. Others of the early settlers were Wm. A. Gillespie, John
Glasby, John Conley, A.F. Perigo, Edw. E. Tuttle and E.T. Ijams.

In 1876 appeared Isador E. Solomon, who for many years occupied a leading
position. He came primarily to burn charcoal for the rude adobe furnaces
that had been erected by the Lesynzskys to smelt the free ores of the
famous Longfellow mine in Chase Creek Canyon, a few miles above Clifton.
For charcoal Solomon found abundant material in an almost unbroken
mesquite forest that stretched for many miles along the river. Solomon
purchased a road house and small store that had been established near
Pueblo Viejo by one Munson, and the place soon became a trading post for
a large extent of country, its importance increasing with the development
of the great mining region around Globe. I.E. Solomon still is living,
an honored resident of Tucson, his children prominent in the business
affairs of the State. Solomonville was so named, in 1878, by none other
than Bill Kirkland, who raised the American flag in Tucson in 1856 and
who, for a while, carried mail from Fort Thomas to Clifton.

[Illustration: SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA. The Salt, San Pedro and Gila Valleys
and Routes of travel]

Apostle Erastus Snow appears to have been the first of the Mormon faith
to cross this Gila Valley region. His party arrived on the San Pedro
River, October 6, 1878. The most easterly point reached in the Gila
Valley was at old Camp Goodwin, not far from the present railroad station
of Fort Thomas and at the extreme western or lower end of the present
farmed area. It would require a separate volume to follow Apostle Erastus
Snow on his journeyings through the Southwest, where he appears to have
served as a veritable inspector-general for his Church.

On the 1878 trip, L. John Nuttall of Snow's company, writes of passing
into the Gila Valley through a rocky canyon, "a terrible place, almost
impassable, the dread of all who travel this way." The same road is very
little better to this day.

At one point was passed a ridge known as Postoffice Hill, where was found
the grave of a white man, killed several years before by Apaches. Every
time an Apache passed, he put a rock on the grave mound, at that time
about twenty feet square at the base and four feet high. The travelers
added another rock, on the principle of, "When in Rome, do as the Romans
do."

Mormon Location at Smithville

The Mormon settlement of the Gila Valley was one of the few made without
particular and direct instruction from the general Church authorities. It
was caused, primarily, by trouble over the land tenure at Forest Dale, in
the mountains to the northward, where settlers, at first permitted, even
encouraged by the reservation authorities, finally were advised that they
were on Indian land and would have to move. The first question before the
colonists immediately became where they should find a new abiding place.
All of them had come from the northward, seeking a better location than
afforded along the Little Colorado River or in the mountain settlements.
So there was determination to see what could be found in the way of
farming land on the Gila, to the southward.

[Illustration: THE TEEPLES HOME, FIRST HOUSE IN PIMA]

[Illustration: THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE AT SAFFORD]

[Illustration: GILA NORMAL COLLEGE AT THATCHER]
In February, 1879, an expedition started over the hills to view the
valley of the Gila. It included W.R. Teeples, John Wm. Tanner, Ben Pierce
and Hyrum Weech. The last-named told that the party looked over the
country and finally selected a location for a town. He wrote, "We
traveled from one end of the valley to the other on both sides of the
river, looking for the best place to take out a ditch, because we had
very little means and could not go to large expense. This (near the
location of Smithville, later known as Pima) seemed to be about the
easiest place on the river to take out water, so we decided on making
the location here."

The Smithville ditch was on the basis of prior location by Gillespie and
was extended to cover the Mormon land in 1880. Somewhat higher was the
Central ditch, which had been built several years before as far down as
the later site of Thatcher and which was extended above Pima in 1882.

Somewhat of a Samaritan was found on the ground in one Markham, from
Oregon, from whom were hired a team and wagon and who refused to take any
pay. With a pocket compass, Smithville was laid out. The settlement could
not be scattered, because Indians and outlaws threatened. Foundations
were laid on sixteen corners, each under the name of one of the families
expected to come from the north.

The pioneer party then made close investigation of the valley, traveling
up the Gila into New Mexico, and viewed the country around Clifton and
along the Blue and Black Rivers. The whole trip took about a month.

The report was, "that the country looked good for stock raising and
farming." On March 16, at Moses Cluff's camp, the proposed migration was
approved by Stake President Jesse N. Smith, who appointed Jos. K. Rogers
to lead it. In the first company were Rogers, Teeples, Weech, Henry D.
Dall, William Thompson and the families of all except Weech and Dall. To
these were added John and Thomas Sessions and Earlton Haws, making 28 in
all. Arrival was on April 8, 1879. The Cluffs (three families) came very
soon after the first party. In a later migration came Samuel Curtis,
Heber Reed, Edgar Sessions and William Asay.

E.G. Curtis, one of the earliest of the settlers, told that in passing
Fort Thomas in March, "the country is found entirely covered with
poppies, one of the most beautiful sights I ever expect to see. The grass
was high and when the wind would blow it down in great waves, you could
see great bunches of antelope."

A Second Party Locates at Graham

In the Church history of Graham Ward is found additional data concerning
the early Gila Valley settlement. It is told that, "the settlers of
Brigham City on the Little Colorado, getting discouraged because of
frequent failures of crops and poor prospects, sent explorers out to look
for new locations. Two went to the San Juan country in Utah, two to the
Salt River Valley and three, George Lake, Andrew Anderson and George
Skinner, to the Gila River." The journey was via Fort Apache, the arrival
at Smithville being in the latter part of November, 1880. At the Graham
settlement there was purchase of a water ditch and a quit-claim deed to
four quarter-sections of land that had been farmed by non-Mormons. The
record recites, "it was merely a rustlers' ranch, possessed by
horsethieves and speculators who had a small house on it, for which the
brethren paid about $1800, in cows valued at $35 per head."

Lake remained in the valley. Anderson and Skinner returned in December to
Brigham City, where the authorities of the United Order accepted the
purchase. Anderson and Skinner started again for the Gila, accompanied by
their families, by Moses M. Curtis and William Hawkins and their families
and a number of unmarried men, taking with them seed grain, farming
implements, cows, sheep and other animals. Transportation was by ox
teams. Christmas Day was spent at St. Joseph on the Little Colorado and
New Year at Showlow, arrival on the Gila being in January. Lake, in the
meantime, had been joined by Jorgen Jorgensen and Jerome J. Adams, the
two who had been sent to the Salt River Valley.

The new arrivals at once set at work, clearing their lands and putting in
grain, raising good crops. The manual labor, of the hardest sort, was
performed under the conditions of the United Order and on a diet
principally of bread and beans. The sheep band was turned over to the
Church, as profits of the Order, and the wheat and other products were
divided according to the number of families and the number of persons. A
stockade fort was built, but the homes for months consisted of sheds or
tents and even of the wagons. In 1884, on the newly-surveyed townsite of
Graham, was built a meeting house, called the "factory house," with
mesquite posts and dirt roof and with walls only of heavy unbleached
muslin, which appears to have been called "factory."

One of the early settlements of the Gila Valley is Matthews (successively
Matthewsville, Fairview and Glenbar), founded in December, 1880, by
Joseph Matthews and family, from Round Valley, and Wm. R. Waddill. In
1881 they built a stockade and though no local Indian depredations were
known, in that year the Matthews settlers moved to Pima for better
protection. A townsite was selected by the Stake President September 17,
1886, but was not occupied. A resident of note was the first district
school teacher, John F. Nash, who came with his father to Arizona in
1874, first settling in Williamson Valley near Prescott. He arrived in
the valley in 1881, the progress of the family toward Texas stopped on
the Gila by the stealing of a band of Nash horses by "rustlers."

Vicissitudes of Pioneering

Eden, first known as Curtis, lies on the northern side of the Gila, nine
miles northwest of Pima. It dates from early in 1881, when there was
arrival from Brigham City, Arizona, of a party of United Order settlers,
headed by Moses M. Curtis. Though other immigrants occupied holdings
nearby, M.M. Curtis and Wm. R. Hawkins were the only residents of the
present Eden townsite in 1881. The men first turned their attention
toward the construction of a ditch from the river, this completed the
following year. For a while the young community was on very short
rations. At times there could be only one meal a day, that a meager one
of beans, served at noon to the workers, who scarcely could summon
strength for more than a half day's labor.

Some of the early settlers built boweries of brush under which they
rolled their covered wagons, to secure better protection from the
pitiless Arizona summer sun, and with no other home for weeks. There were
Indian "scares," as elsewhere told, and life was far from comfortable,
with occasional crossing of the Gila at flood to secure protection at the
more populous Pima. In January, 1882, was a moving back to five log
houses that had been built on the Curtis townsite, but even after that
was flight to Pima when word came of an Indian raid. In the fall of 1882
eight families were living in a little stockade fort that enclosed a half
acre of ground, near the river. The present townsite was located May 10,
1883.

Gila Communities of the Faith

Thatcher, present Stake headquarters, derives its name from Apostle Moses
Thatcher, who was a Christmas visitor in 1882, in company with Apostle
Erastus Snow. The first settler was John M. Moody, who came with his
family from Utah, arriving when Nature had warm welcome indeed, on July
4, 1881. In 1882 he was joined by the Cluff and Zufelt families and by
James Pace of the Mormon Battalion, who built a stockade, and a little
later by Hyrum Brinkerhoff and wife Margaret, "Aunt Maggie," who bought
and occupied the Moody place. They were prominent among the Southern Utah
and Muddy pioneers.

The Thatcher townsite was selected by President Layton May 13, 1883, a
school district being established the following month. Among the arrivals
of the following year was Samuel Claridge, one of the pioneers of the
Muddy section. October 19, 1885, the presidency located a new townsite
about one-half mile to the southward and on higher land. Much of the old
Moody ranch since the Brinkerhoff purchase has disappeared, from the
encroachments of the Gila River.

Bryce, across the river from Pima, dates from January, 1883, when
Ebenezer Bryce, Sr., and sons commenced construction of a ditch,
completed the next year. The first house was that of Ebenezer P. Bryce,
occupied in December, 1884.

Central, between Thatcher and Pima, took its name from the Central canal,
which irrigates part of the settlement. Its first settlers were Orson and
Joseph Cluff of Forest Dale, from which they came southward in the spring
of 1882.

The Hubbard settlement is an outgrowth of the Graham and Bryce wards and
is of comparatively late occupation. It is named after Elisha F. Hubbard,
Sr., the first ward bishop.

The Layton settlement, named for the first stake president, is one of the
most prosperous, and is the third in order of population of the St.
Joseph Stake wards. The first settler was Hyrum H. Tippets, who came
January 13, 1883, direct from Brigham City, Utah.

The Franklin settlement, above Duncan on the Gila, is about seven miles
in length, most of it in Arizona, though lapping over into New Mexico.
Its first Mormon settler was Thomas J. Nations, in 1895. He joined, with
others of the brethren, in taking out a canal. Thomas A. McGrath is
understood to have been the first settler of the locality. The name was
given in 1898, at the time of the visit of Apostles John Henry Smith and
John W. Taylor, and is in honor of Franklin D. Richards, an apostle of
the Church, who in no wise had been associated with Arizona affairs. In
the same vicinity, wholly in New Mexico, is the settlement of Virden,
mainly populated by refugees from Mexico. In these upper Gila communities
the Mormons have created a veritable garden, where careless cultivation
had been known.

Graham County was created by the Arizona Legislature in the spring of
1881, the settlement south of the Gila theretofore having been in Pima
County. The first county seat was Safford, but county government was
transferred to Solomonville by an act of the Legislature in 1883. In
1915, after the setting off of Greenlee County, the court-house went back
to Safford.

Considering the Lamanites

In the entertaining flood of reminiscence that comes from almost any of
the devout pioneers, there often is found expression of abiding belief of
personal protection extended by Omnipotence. Possibly, save in the
development of character by trials and by tribulation, the average
pioneer of the faith, from a present viewpoint, would appear to have been
little favored, yet thankful devotion ever was present.

One story that indicated celestial intervention in time of danger, has
been told by Orson Cluff. He and several brothers and their families were
on the road south from Forest Dale to the Gila, and had camped at a point
twenty miles south of Fort Apache. In the morning there was the usual
prayer, from which the company arose, refreshed in spirit, for another
hard day's journey. A short time later, an Indian told how he was a
member of a band of redskins that lay in ambush about the Mormon camp
that very morning. The work of massacre was about to begin when the
intended victims were seen to drop upon their knees and to lift their
hands aloft in supplication. The startled Indians were overcome by some
mysterious power and stole away. Possibly they feared that potent
"medicine" was being made against them, but the Cluffs are sure that
the Holy Spirit had descended to save them for further earthly
experience.

The Gila Valley saw much of Indian rapine in its earlier days. The
section considered in this chapter lies just east of the San Carlos
Apache reservation and is flanked on the northward by the White Mountain
reservation. When the California Column, under General Carleton, was
established in Arizona in 1863, after beating the Confederates back
beyond the Rio Grande, it was found necessary to establish military
stations in that locality. Camp Goodwin, named after the first Governor
of the Territory, was at the lower end of the valley. A number of years
after its abandonment, there was established, five miles to the eastward,
Camp Thomas, maintained until after the final subjugation of the hostile
Indians. Thomas was a veritable guard post for the Mormon settlers. To
the southwest was Camp Grant, in the northern extension of the Sulphur
Springs Valley, this post a successor to old Camp Grant, which was at the
mouth of Aravaipa Creek, at the junction of that stream with the San
Pedro River. To the northward was Fort Apache and to the southward Fort
Bowie.

The Hostile Chiricahuas

The native Pinaleno Indians of the San Carlos region, while inclined
toward spasmodic outbreaks, were not as hostile as their western
neighbors, the Mohave and Yuma Apaches. A very dangerous element was
added when, in 1876, under direction of the army, Agent John P. Clum
moved to San Carlos 325 Indians of the Chiricahua-Apache strain from a
reservation in southeastern Arizona. Within a few years, 4500 Indians
were concentrated at San Carlos. The Chiricahuas, unsettled and forever
yearning to get back to the scene of their marauding along the emigrant
road to the southward and in Mexico, constantly were slipping away from
the reservation by individuals and by bands, and their highway usually
was up the river. In the early eighties the settlers along the Gila lived
forever in terror of the savage foe. The military was efficient.
Hardriding troopers would dash forth from one or all of the guardian
posts whenever danger threatened, and to these same troops undoubtedly is
due the fact that general massacres were not known in and around the Gila
Valley towns.

Often the Author finds in the manuscripts of personal experiences that
have been accumulated by the score in his office, a note indicating the
conditions under which the land was settled. There have been attempts in
other parts of this work to make clear the fact that the Mormons always
tried to be friendly with the Indians and suffered without protest
treatment from the aborigines that would have led to the shedding of
blood by others. One interesting little item of this sort is in a record
contributed by Mrs. W.R. Teeples. She found the Indians on the Gila Hirer
in 1879 were friendly, possibly too much so. She wrote, "When I was
cooking pancakes over the fire in our camp, the Indians would sit around
watching, and they would grab the cakes out of the pan before they were
done, so I had to cover the pancakes up to keep them for ourselves."

Mrs. J.N. Stratton wrote of the same period:

"Besides the fear of getting out of food was the greater fear of the
Indians. They were on the San Carlos reservation and were supposed to be
peaceful, but bands often went out on the warpath and spread terror
throughout the country, so the people never knew what to expect from
them. The mesquite and sage brush were so thick where Safford's streets
and houses are now, that one could only see a little distance, and it was
no uncommon occurrence for an Indian to slip out from behind the brush
and come walking in at the cabin door, or put his face up against the
window and peer in, if the door happened to be closed. One settler who
had two doors had her husband nail one up so that when the Indians did
come to call on them, she could stand in the other door and keep them
from coming in. The mothers never let their children get out of their
sight, for fear they would be stolen."

I.E. Solomon and his family had many experiences with the Indians, and in
several cases narrowly escaped death. A number of Solomon's employees
were killed in the open country toward Clifton.

An interesting chronicle is from Mrs. Elizabeth Hanks Curtis, who came
with her family in April, 1881. Incidentally, she is a descendant of the
Hanks family, tracing relationship to Abraham Lincoln. A mile above Eden
they built a log fort. In September this had to be abandoned, word
brought by a friendly Indian of the coming of a large band of Indians and
of imminent danger. Will Ransom from Pima provided a raft to cross the
river upon and the settlers concentrated at Pima. The settlers were
driven into Pima again in April of the following year, after huddling for
days in Moses Curtis' cabin. Protection came from Fort Thomas.

Murders by Indian Raiders

July 19, 1882, Jacob S. Ferrin of Pima was killed under circumstances of
treachery. A freighting camp, of which he was a member, was entered by a
number of Apaches, led by "Dutchy," escaped from custody at San Carlos.
Pretending amity, they seized the teamsters' guns and fired upon their
hosts. Ferrin was shot down, one man was wounded and the others escaped.

On the morning of December 1, 1885, Lorenzo and Seth Wright were killed
by Indians who had been combing the valley for horses. The Wrights had
started, with members of a posse, from Layton, and were joined at
Solomonville by Sheriff Stevens and two other men, after there had
been recovered a number of the stolen horses, for the pursuers rode
harder and faster than the fleeing thieves. There had been assumption
that the thieves were Mexicans and so there was an element of
recklessness in the pursuit that would have been missing had the truth
been known, that they were Apaches. The four leading men of the posse
were ambushed by the redskins, who had halted by the roadside. Seth
Wright was shot from his horse. His brother immediately dismounted and
opened fire upon the Indians. Lorenzo's right arm was broken by a bullet,
and then, while he was running, he was shot in the back.

This same band had killed a man and a boy at Black Rock and a herdsman at
Bear Springs Flat.

May 23, 1886, Frank Thurston of Pima, while starting a lime kiln, six
miles from the town, was surprised by eight Apaches and killed. This band
passed by the Curtis settlement, driving off a number of horses.

Concerning the Indian situation, James H. Martineau, on June 1, 1886,
wrote that the Apaches then were riding in many small bands, but were
kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles,
and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his
predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his
conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far
excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the
year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while pursued
by seventeen companies of United States troops, without losing a single
Indian.

Outlawry Along the Gila

The Mormons of the Gila Valley maintained most amicable relations with
their neighbors, but occasionally had to participate in some of the
ordinary frontier episodes. James R. Welker, an arrival in Safford in
1883, tells that, "The cowboys had things about their own way for a few
years. They would ride right into a town, go straight to the saloon and
commence shooting the place up. They were expert with the pistol too. I
have seen some very wonderful shots among those cowboys. They did not do
much killing around here, but they were pretty wild and did about as they
pleased." W.T. Barney wrote, "The rustlers gave us quite a bit of
trouble, perhaps even more than the Indians."

The peaceful Saints in the Gila Valley undoubtedly found much that was
foreign to their habits of life. A tale of the frolicsome cowboy is told
by Isaac P. Robinson of Thatcher, who was in Safford in 1884:

"There were but very few houses in Safford then. About the only business
house was the Glasby building, which had a saloon and also a store. The
cowboys had things about their own way. They would come into the store
and take possession. Mr. Glasby would go out and leave it to them. They
would shoot up the store, help themselves to what they wanted, pay for
everything they had taken, shoot up the town and go on. But I don't want
to see any more of it. You haven't the remotest idea what a lot of
trouble they made. This was the main route from the north into Mexico and
the principal rendezvous for a lot of those rough characters."

In the way of outlawry, the valley had unwelcome notoriety, when from its
rougher element was constituted a band which, May 11, 1889, ambushed
Paymaster J.W. Wham of the United States army, on the road between
Fort Grant and Fort Thomas, and stole about $28,000 in gold and silver,
intended for the pay of the troops at the latter post. An escort of
eleven colored infantrymen, led by a sergeant, apparently deserted by the
Major, fought well, but was driven away after five of the soldiers had
been wounded. Thirteen bandits were understood to have been implicated.
Eight individuals were arrested. There was trial at Tucson, where Wham
and the soldiers were notably poor witnesses and where the defendants
were acquitted.

A Gray Highway of Danger

Just as the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado providentially were
given assistance by the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad,
just so the struggling pioneers on the Gila found benefit in the opening
of the silver and copper mines at Globe. Freight teams were in demand for
hauling coke and supplies from the railroad at Willcox and Bowie and for
hauling back from the mines the copper bullion. Much of this freighting
was done with great teams of mules and horses, veritable caravans, owned
by firms such as Tully & Ochoa or M.G. Samaniego of Tucson, but enough
was left for the two and four-horse teams of the Mormons, who thus were
enabled from the hauling of a few tons of coke to provide provisions for
their families and implements for the tilling of their fields.

The road from the railroad to Globe ofttimes was a gray highway of
danger. After leaving the Gila towns, it led through the length of the
Apache Indian reservation. Usually the teams went in sort of military
order. The larger "outfits" had strict rules for defense, each driver
with his pistol and rifle and each "swamper" similarly armed. Every night
the wagons were drawn into a circle, within which the horses were
corralled or tied to the wagon poles, where they were fed. Pickets were
kept out and care was incessant day and night.

But, sometimes, a freighter, eager to earn extra pay for a quick trip, or
wishing to drive ahead of the cloud of dust that enveloped each large
convoy, would push along by himself. Possibly the next day, the train
would come to the embers of what had been wagons and their contents.
Nearby would be the bodies of the tortured and murdered teamsters. So the
careful ones united, remaining at the railroad until at least a score of
wagons had accumulated, and then made their way northward, relatively
safe through united vigilance.

In 1899 the Gila Valley, Globe & Northern railroad was completed from
Bowie, through the Gila Valley towns, to Globe, a distance of 124 miles,
though the loss to the freighters was more than balanced by the general
good to the community of bettered transportation facilities. Right-of-way
through the reservation was accorded by the Indians after a diplomatic
distribution to them by a railroad agent of $8000, all in silver coin.

Chapter Twenty-three

Civic and Church Features

Troublesome River Conditions

In the memory of Americans still living, the Gila River through the
Safford region, was a relatively narrow stream, over which in places a
stone could be tossed. There were occasional lagoons, some of them
created by beaver dams--picturesque, but breeding places for mosquitoes
and sources of malaria. Camp Goodwin was abandoned because of malarial
conditions in 1869-70, troops being transferred to the new post of Camp
Ord (Apache).

The river situation of later years has been very different indeed from
that known to the pioneers. The lagoons drained and the underbrush, grass
and trees cut away, the river floods have had full sweep and, as a
result, there has been tremendous loss in the washing away of the lower
lying land. The farms have been pushed back toward the mesas. Now under
consideration is a comprehensive irrigation system that will cost several
millions of dollars, with a great concrete diversion dam above
Solomonville and with two head canals that economically will serve both
sides of the river.

But in the early days the colonists did what they could, not what
economically was advisable. They did not have such trouble as was known
along the Little Colorado and their water supply was much larger and
somewhat more regular. They took out little canals at different points,
with headworks that were easily replaced when washed away.

For a few years around 1910, there appeared a prospect that the Gila
Valley farms would have to be abandoned unless something could be
done to stop the flow of tailings from the concentrating mills of the
Clifton-Morenci country, on the San Francisco River, a tributary of the
Gila. The finely pulverized rock was brought down in the irrigation water
and spread out upon the fields in a thick layer, almost impervious to the
growth of vegetation. Mit Simms, then a farmer near Safford, tells that
the dried tailings upon his farm spread out in a smooth sheet, that could
be broken like glass, with a blow from a hammer. The mining companies
refused to heed demand to impound their tailings flow, and so the matter
was taken into the courts. Decisions uniformly were with the settlers,
the matter finally being disposed of in their favor in the United States
Supreme Court. Then the companies, using the tailings material for the
making of dams, created great tailings reservoirs in the hills near their
plants, and filled up valley after valley with the rejected material.
Incidentally, they spent in this work enormous sums, believed to have
been sufficient to have bought all the farms of the Gila Valley, at the
price put upon them ten years ago. This expended money, however, may yet
be returned, for plans have been set afoot for leaching copper treasure
out of the tailings banks.

Artesian water was struck in the Gila Valley in 1887, according to John
A. Lee, understood to have been the first well borer in the artesian
district, within which are the present towns of Algodon (otherwise
Lebanon) and Artesia. The first water was struck at a depth of 330 feet
and better flows were secured with deeper borings down to 1000 feet.

The first few years of the Gila Valley settlement, every alternate
section was assumed to be the property of the Texas Pacific Railroad
Company, a land grant claimed by the Southern Pacific. This claim was
decided against by the United States authorities early in 1885, and the
lands thus were thrown open to entry by the settlers. Pima was on
railroad land and filing of its townsite formally was accomplished by
Mayor W.W. Crockett.

Basic Law in a Mormon Community

Interest attaches to the Church commission, dated February 20, 1883,
received by Christopher Layton on his appointment as head of the San
Pedro and Gila Valley settlers. It was signed by John Taylor and Jos. F.
Smith of the First Presidency and contains instructions and admonitions
that might well have served as a basic law of any God-fearing community.

President Layton was instructed to see that the settlers did not scatter
themselves promiscuously throughout the land, that surveys be made for
townsites, that the people settle in these localities, with facilities
for public schools and meeting houses, and that due provision be made to
protect the settlers against depredations of the lawless and unprincipled
combinations of brigands and other hostile marauders.

A notably interesting paragraph recites, "You will understand that our
object in the organization of the Stake of St. Joseph is to introduce the
Gospel into the Mexican nation, or that part of it which lies contiguous
to your present settlement, and also, when prudence shall dictate and
proper arrangements are entered into, that a settlement may commence to
be made in that country."

It was recommended, in forming cities either in Arizona or Mexico, "care
should be had to place them in proper localities, convenient to land and
water, with careful examination of the sanitary conditions. It is the
general opinion that it is more healthy and salubrious on the plateaus or
mesas than on the low land, the latter of which in your district of
country are more or less subject to malarial diseases, which ought,
always, when practicable, to be avoided."

The streets should be wide and commodious, with public squares for
church, county, school and ornamental purposes.

[Illustration: GILA VALLEY PIONEERS
1--Wm. R. Teeples  2--John M. Moody
3--Jos. K. Rogers   4--Ebenezer Pryce  5--Hyrum Brinkerhoff
6--Samuel H. Claridge  7--Frank N. Tyler]

[Illustration: PIONEER WOMEN OF THE GILA VALLEY
1--Elizabeth Hanks Curtis                   2--Mrs. W.R. Teeples
3--Elizabeth Moody 4--Margaret Brinkerhoff  5--Elizabeth Layton
6--Josephine Wall Rogers                    7--Rebecca Claridge]

School and church affairs should be kept separate. There was warning
against favoritism in the allotment of town lands and a recommendation
that the principles of the United Order be approached, without the
placing of the communities under rigid rules.

Another interesting paragraph recites, "The order of Zion when carried
out, will be that all men should act in the interest of and for the
welfare of Zion, and individualism, private speculation and covetousness
will be avoided, and that all act in the interest of all and for the
welfare of the whole community. We may not, at present, be able to carry
out these ideas in full, but without any special formality or rule, we
may be approaching these principles as fast as circumstances will admit
of it. We profess to be acting and operating for God, and for His
Kingdom, and we are desirous that our acts should be in consonance with
our professions."

In the selection of elders, care was enjoined that all such persons
should be honorable, free from any pernicious or degrading habits, "for
if men cannot control themselves, they are not fit to be rulers or
leaders in the Kingdom of God."

There was special injunction that the Lamanites, the Indians, be treated
with all consideration and shown that the Mormons do not teach one thing
and practice another. The Indians should be taught to be "friendly with
the government of the United States or Mexico and to live at peace with
one another, to be chaste, sober and honest and subject to the law of
God."

Tithing of one-tenth was stipulated as in the interest of the people. The
new leader was advised that, "God has placed you as a watchman on the
walls of Zion and He will hold you accountable for your acts," and he was
directed to see that the laws of God were carried out in his community,
irrespective of persons or families.

Layton Soldier and Pioneer

Christopher Layton was a rough diamond, almost illiterate, yet possessed
of much energy and a keen, practical judgment that served him and his
people well through the course of a long life. He was an Englishman, born
in Bedfordshire, March 8, 1821. His first practical experience was at 7
years of age, when he kept crows from the wheatfields for the large
salary of 56 cents a week, boarding himself. In 1843 he crossed the
ocean. Elsewhere is noted his experience with the Mormon Battalion.
Following discharge, for a few years he lived in California, finally
taking ship from San Francisco back to Liverpool, where he arrived in
March, 1850. On the same ship's return, James Pennell led 250 converts to
America, landing at New Orleans proceeding by river to St. Louis, and
then Utah.

In September, 1852, Layton first saw Salt Lake, arriving at the head of
an expedition of 52 wagons, including the first threshing outfit in Utah.
In 1856 he was in the Carson Valley of Nevada, where he proceeded toward
the very notable undertaking of building a wagon road across the Sierra
Nevadas to Hangtown, early Placerville. With the rest of the Utah Saints,
he was recalled to Salt Lake in the fall of 1857.

Layton arrived at St. David February 24, 1883. In May he organized wards
on the Gila, at Pima, Thatcher, Graham and Curtis, under Jos. K. Rogers,
John M. Moody, Jorgen Jorgensen and Moses Curtis. In March of the next
year, he organized Layton branch near Safford.

President Layton's own story of his advent in the Gila Valley includes:

"The Saints were wanting to settle close together, so I bought a 600-acre
tract of land of a syndicate living in Tucson. Then I bought out the
squatters' rights and improvements by taking quit-claim deeds of them.
Thus I was in a position to help the Saints to get homes. In July I
bought 320 acres of Peter Anderson (adjoining the other tract) and laid
it out in a townsite which we named Thatcher. I built a three-roomed
adobe house in Thatcher ward (it being the second house built on the
townsite) and we moved into it. I gave a lot for a schoolhouse and the
few Saints who were settling here then built an adobe building on it. The
mesquite was so thick that when we tried to go any place we were very
fortunate if we did not get lost. I gave the Seventies a lot, but they
never made any use of it; also gave the bishop a lot for tithing
purposes. The Academy was afterward built on it."

Layton, aided by his many sons, was active in business, as well as in the
faith, operating stores, a flour mill, an ice factory and a number of
stage lines, one of which stretched all the way from Bowie Station
through the Gila Valley, to Globe, and, through the Tonto Basin, to Pine
and Fort Verde, the longest stage mail line in the Southwest at the time.

The transfer of headquarters of St. Joseph Stake appears to have been
determined upon very soon after the arrival of Layton at St. David. One
of his counselors, David P. Kimball, visited Smithville March 10, 1883,
and in May Layton himself was on the ground, visiting Smithville (Pima)
and Safford. There was approval of the new settlement of Curtis on May 10
and on the 13th was location of the townsite of Thatcher.

At this time there appears to have been determination to move
headquarters of the Stake from St. David to Smithville, where the first
formal quarterly conference of the Stake was held June 3. No record can
be found of this transfer nor of the subsequent change to Thatcher.

A New Leader on the Gila

In 1897 President Layton's health declined and on January 27, 1898, he
was released from his spiritual office, to which was appointed Andrew
Kimball, this with a letter from President Wilford Woodruff, expressing
the highest appreciation of Layton's labors. Christopher Layton left
Arizona June 13, 1898, for his old home in Kaysville, Utah, where he died
August 7. At a reunion, about six years ago, of the Layton descendants
and their families, were present 594 individuals.

Andrew Kimball, successor to the presidency of St. Joseph Stake, had
formal installation January 30, 1898, at the hands of Apostles John Henry
Smith and John W. Taylor, at the same time there being general
reorganization of the Church subdivision. President Kimball, who still
most actively is in office, is a son of the noted Apostle Heber C.
Kimball, First Counselor to President Brigham Young. President Kimball
from the very first showed keen enthusiasm in the work of upbuilding his
community. In October of the year of his installation he returned to
Utah, like the spies returned from the land of Canaan, bringing equally
large stories of the fertility of the new land. Instead of bearing a huge
bunch of grapes, he had to take with him photographs, in order to secure
reception of his stories of corn that was sixteen feet tall, Johnson
grass eight feet high, a sweet potato that weighed 36 pounds, of peaches
too big to go into the mouth of a preserving jar, sunflower stalks that
were used for fence poles, weeds that had to be cut with an ax and sugar
cane that grew four years from one planting. On the strength of his
enthusiasm, very material additions were made to the population of the
Gila Valley, and the President even yet keeps busy in missionary work,
not only of his Church, but work calculated to assist in the upbuilding
of the Southwest along irrigated agricultural lines.

Church Academies of Learning

Every Mormon community gives especial attention to its schools, for
education in the regard of the people follows closely after their
consideration of spiritual affairs. The normal schools of the State
always have had a very large percentage of the youth of the faith,
training to be teachers.

Three of the four Arizona Stakes maintain academies, wherein the
curriculum also carries religious instruction. The largest of the three
Church schools, at Thatcher, lately was renamed the Gila Normal College.
It was established in January, 1891, under instruction that had been
received over two years before from the general Church Board of
Education. Its first sessions were in the meetinghouse at Central, with
Joy Dunion as principal. The second year's work was at Thatcher, where
the old adobe meetinghouse was occupied. Thereafter a tithing house was
used and was expanded for the growing necessities of the school, which
has been in continuous operation ever since, with the exception of two
years following 1896, when the finances of the Stake were at low ebb. The
academy was revived on assumption of Andrew Kimball to the Stake
Presidency, under Principal Emil Maeser, he a son of one of Utah's most
noted educators. Andrew C. Peterson has been in charge of the school most
of the time since 1906. In 1909 was occupied a new building, erected and
furnished at a cost of about $35,000. Leland H. Creer now is principal.

At St. Johns the St. Johns Stake Academy was founded January 14, 1889,
with John W. Brown as its first principal. The present building was
dedicated December 16, 1900. Howard Blazzard now is in active charge,
while Stake President David K. Udall, first president of the Academy's
Board, still occupies the same position, after 27 years of service.

The Snowflake Stake Academy was founded, with E.M. Webb in charge, only a
week later than that of St. Johns. The two institutions for many years
were the only means provided for local education, beyond the grammar
grades. At Snowflake industrial and agricultural courses are given
prominence in the curriculum. Thanksgiving Day, 1910, fire destroyed the
large school building, which was replaced by a more modern structure,
that cost $35,000 and that was dedicated Thanksgiving Day, 1913. For
years the school was directed by Joseph Peterson.

At Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert are maintained seminaries, mainly for
advanced instruction in Church doctrine.

Chapter Twenty-four

Movement Into Mexico

Looking Over the Land

The Mormon settlement of Mexico, as elsewhere told, was a cherished plan
of Brigham Young, who saw to the southward a land wherein his Church, its
doctrines and influence could find room for expansion. He died while
the southern migration started by him still was far short of a Mexican
destination, though that country had been explored to an extent by
several missionary parties.

The first Mormons to enter Mexico were the soldiers of the Mormon
Battalion who, in 1846, passed south of the Gila in Mexican territory,
and then entered the present Mexico by a swing of the column southward
from the San Bernardino ranch around to the valley of the San Pedro.
The D.W. Jones party was the first missionary expedition into Mexico,
crossing the Rio Grande at Paso del Norte, the present Juarez, January 7,
1876. The Pratt-Stewart party, including Meliton G. Trejo, was in
northern Mexico early in '77, and small missionary parties followed
thereafter from time to time.

November 15, 1879, Apostle Moses Thatcher was in Mexico City with J.Z.
Stewart and Trejo, there founding the first organization of the Church
within the Republic.

Decided impetus was given the southward movement when it became evident
that the national prosecution against plural marriage was to be pushed to
the extreme. January 4, 1883, with the idea of finding an asylum for the
Saints in Mexico, Apostle Thatcher traveled from St. David on the San
Pedro, to the southeast as far as Corralitos, where some arrangement was
made for lands. In the following September, another party from St. David
explored the country along the Babispe River. Still more important,
November 2, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant
investigated the Yaqui River section of Sonora, this with three companies
of prospective settlers from the Salt River, Gila and San Pedro Valleys,
together with some additions from Salt Lake.

In January, 1885, migration was under personal charge of President John
Taylor, who, after a notable conference at St. David, as noted in the
history of that section, led a party southward into Sonora and held a
satisfactory conference with Governor Torres, yet made no settlement. In
the same month, however, notation has been found that Alexander F.
Macdonald was at Corralitos, Chihuahua, from Mesa. A few parties were in
that locality in February, 1885, one expedition of seventy having come
from Arizona, under Captain Noble. Something of a setback was known when,
on April 9, 1885, the Governor of Chihuahua ordered departure of all
Mormon settlers within his State. Apostles Young and Thatcher, May 18,
visited the City of Mexico and secured from the federal government
permission for the immigrants to remain.

Colonization in Chihuahua

It was in 1886 that the main Mormon exodus traveled across the border.
The way had been prepared by the organization of a Colorado corporation,
the Mexican Colonization & Agricultural Company, this under the
management of Anthony W. Ivins, a northern Arizona pioneer. This company
had been granted the usual colonists' privileges, including the
introduction, without duty, of livestock, agricultural implements and
household effects, but had no special concessions. It was given the usual
exemption from taxation for ten years. Through this company, land was
acquired at Colonia Juarez and Colonia Diaz, by purchase from Ignacio
Gomez del Campo and others. Payment was made with money that had been
donated in Utah and from Church funds.

Colonies were established, in which were consolidated the Mormons already
south of the line and the newcomers. Diaz was on the Janos River, near
the Mexican town of Ascension, and Colonia Juarez was 75 miles upstream
on a branch of the Janos river, the Piedras Verdes. At the former place
about 100,000 acres were acquired and at the latter 25,000. A prior
settlement at Corralitos had been established in the fall of 1884. Juarez
had the first meeting-house, built January 31, 1886, but the town had to
be moved two miles, in January, 1887, on discovery that the site was
outside of the lands that had been purchased.

Largely from data secured from Mr. Ivins is found much of detail
concerning northern Mexican settlement. One important step was the
acquirement in 1886, of 100,000 acres of Mexican government timber land
in the Sierra Madre Mountains, near Colonia Juarez, and on this tract was
established Colonia Pacheco, wherein the main industry was lumbering.
Then two other mountain tracts were acquired, of 6000 acres each, upon
which were established Colonia Garcia and Colonia Chuichupa, sixteen
miles to the southwest of Colonia Juarez. In 1889 was established Colonia
Dublan, upon a 60,000-acre tract that was most valuable of all,
considered agriculturally. Naturally this became the strongest of all the
settlements of the colonist company.

There had been exploration, however, to the westward, in the State of
Sonora, and in 1896, a tract of 110,000 acres was acquired on the Babispe
River. There was established Colonia Oaxaca. The land was mainly valuable
for grazing, but some good farming land was along the river. Twenty-five
miles below Oaxaca, three years later was acquired a tract of 25,000
acres, whereon Colonia Morelos was established, to be the center of an
agricultural section, with attached grazing land.

Prosperity in an Alien Land

As colonization generally was directed from a central agency, each of the
colonies had somewhat the same method of establishment and of operation,
this founded upon the experience of the people in Utah and Arizona. There
would be laid out a townsite, near which would be small tracts of garden
land, and farther away larger tracts of agricultural and grazing land,
sold to the colonists at cost with ample time for payment, title
remaining in the company until all the purchase price had been paid. In
each colony one of the very first public works was erection of a
schoolhouse, used as a house of worship and for public hall, as well.
Graduates from the colony grammar schools could be sent to an academy at
Colonia Juarez, where four years' high school work was given. Skilled
teachers were secured wherever possible. Instruction was free, both to
the children of the colonists and to the Mexicans. Wherever sufficient
school maintenance could not be provided, the deficiency was made up by
the Church.

In each colony the rough homes of adobe or rock later were replaced by
houses of lumber or brick, until, it is told, these Mexican towns were
among the best built known in the Southwest.

Agriculture was notably successful. There were fine orchards, vegetables
were abundant and good crops of grain and potatoes were known. The best
breeds of cattle and horses were imported and improved agricultural
machinery was brought in. Hundreds of miles of roads were constructed by
the colonists, turned over to the government without cost, and taxation
was cheerfully paid on the same basis as known by neighboring Mexican
settlements.

Wherever water could be developed were well-surveyed ditches, heading on