Mormon Settlement in Arizona Part 20

The general subject of land t.i.tles in the Mormon settlements that came within the scope of railroad land grants has been referred to on other pages. In St. Johns there was added need for defense of the squatter t.i.tles secured from Barth and the Mexicans, while there was a.s.sault on the validity of the occupation of the townsite. On several occasions, especially in March, 1884, there was attempted "jumping" of the choicest lots and there was near approach to bloodshed, prevented only by the pacific determination of Bishop Udall. The opposition upset a house that had been placed upon one lot and riotous conditions prevailed for hours.

reinforcements quickly came from outlying Mormon settlements and firearms were carried generally in self defense. A number of lawsuits had to be defended, at large expense. There was friction with the Mexican element, which lived compactly in the old town, just east of the Mormon settlement, and clashes were known with a non-Mormon American element that had political connection with the Mexicans.

About May 18, 1884, was discovered a plot to waylay and harm Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., and Francis M. Lyman, on the road to Ramah, but a strong escort fended off the danger. In the Stake chronicles is told that the brethren for a time united in regular fasting and prayer, seeking protection from their enemies.

Irrigation Difficulties and Disaster

St. Johns had its irrigation troubles, just as did every other Little Colorado settlement, only on a larger scale. In the beginning of the Mormon settlement, claim was made by the Mexicans upon the larger part of the river flow. Later there was compromise on a basis of three-fifths of the flow to the Mormons and two-fifths to the Mexicans, and in 1886 a degree of stability was secured by formation of the St. Johns Irrigation Company. A large dam, six miles south of St. Johns, created what was called the Slough reservoir. However, this dam was washed out in 1903, after years of drought. Then were several years of discouragement and of loss of population.

Thereafter came the idea of building a larger dam at a point twelve miles upstream, creating a reservoir to be drained through a deep cut. The plan was approved by the Church, which appropriated $5000 toward construction.

There was formation of an irrigation company, to which was attached the name of Apostle F.M. Lyman, who had taken a personal interest in the improvement. A Colorado company provided one-half the necessary capital and the community the balance, and plans were made for the reclamation of 15,000 acres upon higher land than had been irrigated before. After expenditure of $200,000, the dam was completed and the reservoir filled.

Construction was faulty and in April, 1915, the dam was washed away, with attendant loss of eight lives and with large damage to flooded farms below. There was reorganization of the Lyman Company and about $200,000 more was spent, with the desired end of water storage still unreached.

Then came appeal to the State, which, through the State Loan Board, advanced large sums, taking as security mortgages on the land and dam.

State investment in the Lyman project today approximates $800,000. The dam now is about finished and is claimed to be a structure that will stand all flood conditions.

Meager Rations at Concho

Concho was a Mexican village, at least a dozen years established, when the first Mormon settlers arrived. The name probably is from the Spanish word "concha," a sh.e.l.l. The settlement lies sixteen miles west of St.

Johns. There were two sections, the older, in which Spanish was spoken and in which stock raising was the main occupation, and the Mormon settlement, a mile up the valley, in which there was effort to exist by agriculture on what was called a "putty" soil, with lack of sufficient water supply. The first of the Mormons to come was Bateman H. Wilhelm, who arrived in March, 1879. Soon thereafter Wm. J. Flake and Jesse J.

Brady purchased the main part of the valley, the former paying for his half interest eight cows, one mule, a set of harness and a set of blacksmith tools. Before the end of the year, about thirty Saints were resident in the locality, some of the later arrivals being David Pulsipher, a Mormon Battalion member, Geo. H. Killian and Chas. G.

Curtis. A townsite was roughly surveyed by brethren who laid their stakes by the North Star. September 26, 1880, there was organization of a Church ward and there was a.s.sumed the name of Erastus, in honor of Erastus Snow, who then was presiding at a Snowflake conference. This name was abandoned for that of Concho at a Church meeting held in St. Johns December 6, 1895. In later years, the Mormon residents, after building a reservoir and expending much effort toward irrigation, generally have turned from agriculture to stock raising.

Hunt is an agricultural settlement seventeen miles down the stream from St. Johns and one mile below a former Mexican settlement, near San Antonio, above which at some time subsequent to 1876 there settled an army officer named Hunt, who left the service at Fort Apache and whose descendants live in the county. The first Mormon settler was Thomas L.

Greer in 1879, the old Greer ranch still maintained, a mile east of the present postoffice. Thereafter, the location was known as Greer Valley.

In 1901, D.K. Udall became a resident and in that year his wife, appointed postmaster, was instrumental in naming the office and locality after her father, John Hunt, of the Mormon Battalion, who had a farm in the locality a year or so thereafter, though not actually resident.

The Meadows purchase, eight miles northwest of St. Johns, was occupied November 28, 1879. Among the settlers was the famous Indian missionary, Ira Hatch.

Walnut Grove, twenty miles south of St. Johns, was settled early in 1882 by Jas. W. Wilkins and son, who bought Mexican claims. There was trouble over water priorities on the flow of the Little Colorado and the place now has small population, much of it Spanish-speaking.

Springerville and Eagar

Valle Redondo (Round Valley), 32 miles southeast of St. Johns, was the original name of the Springerville section. The first settler was Wm. R.

Milligan, a Tennessean, who established a fort in the valley in 1871. The name was given in honor of Harry Springer, an Albuquerque merchant, who had a branch store in the valley. A.F. Banta states that the first town was across the Little Colorado from the present townsite. Banta was the first postmaster, in Becker's store.

The first Mormons on the ground, in February, 1879, were Jens Skousen, Peter J. Christofferson and Jas. L. Robertson, from St. Joseph. Soon thereafter came Wm. J. Flake, with more cows available for trade, giving forty of them to one York, for a planted grain field. Flake did not remain. In March came John T. Eager, who located four miles south of the present Springerville, in Water Canyon, and about the same time arrived Jacob Hamblin, the scout missionary. The latter took up residence in the Milligan fort and was appointed to preside over the Saints of the vicinity, but remained only till winter.

In 1882, President Jesse N. Smith divided Round Valley into two wards, the upper to be known as Amity and the lower as Omer. In 1888 the people of these wards established a townsite, two miles above and south of Springerville, which was a Spanish-speaking community. The new town, at first known as Union, later was named Eagar, after the three Eagar brothers.

A Land of Beaver and Bear

Nutrioso, sixteen miles southeast of Springerville, is very near the dividing ridge of the Gila and Little Colorado watersheds. The name is a combination of nutria (Sp., otter) and oso (Sp., bear). "Nutria"

was applied to the beaver, of which there were many. The first English-speaking settler was Jas. G.H. Colter, a lumberman from Wisconsin, who came to Round Valley in July, 1875, driving three wagons from Atchison, Kansas, losing a half year's provision of food to Navajos, as toll for crossing the reservation. He grew barley for Fort Apache, getting $9 per 100 pounds. In 1879, at Nutrioso, he sold his farm, for 300 head of cattle, to Wm. J. Flake. The Colter family for years had its home four miles above Springerville, at Colter, but the founder is in the Pioneers' Home at Prescott. One of the sons, Fred, was a candidate for Governor of Arizona in 1918.

Flake parcelled out the land to John W., J. Jas. M. and Hyrum B.

Clark, John W., J.Y., and David J. Lee, Geo. W. Adair, Albert Minerly, Adam Greenwood, George Peck and W. W. Pace, the last a citizen of later prominence in the Gila Valley. The grain they raised the first season, 1700 bushels, chiefly barley, was sent as a "loan" to the Little Colorado settlers, who were very near starvation.

In 1880 was built a fort, for there was fear of Apaches, who had been wiping out whole villages in New Mexico. There was concentration in Nutrioso of outlying settlers, but the Indians failed to give any direct trouble. A sawmill was started in 1881 and a schoolhouse was built the following year. A postoffice was established in 1883.

In Lee's Valley, sixteen miles southwest of Springerville, is Greer, established by the Saints in 1879. The first to come were Peter J.

Jensen, Lehi Smithson, James Hale, Heber Dalton and James Lee. In 1895, was added a saw-mill, built by Ellis W. Wiltbank and John M. Black. The name Greer was not applied till 1896. The postoffice dates from 1898.

Alt.i.tudinous Agriculture at Alpine

Alpine, in Bush Valley, near the southern edge of Apache County, four miles from the New Mexican line, has alt.i.tude approximating 8000 feet and has fame as probably being the highest locality in the United States where farming is successfully prosecuted. Greer is about the same alt.i.tude. The princ.i.p.al crop is oats, produced at the rate of 1000 bushels for every adult male in the community. Crop failures are unknown, save when the gra.s.shoppers come, as they have come in devouring clouds in a number of years. The location is a healthful and a beautiful one, in a valley surrounded by pines. Anderson Bush, not a Mormon, was the first settler, in 1876. March 27, 1879, came Fred Hamblin and Abraham Winsor, with their families. For years there were the wildest of frontier conditions, between outlaws and Indians. the latter stole horses and cattle, but spared Mormon lives. This was the more notable in that many villages of Spanish-speaking people were raided by the redskins in New Mexico. Naturally, the settlers huddled together, for better defense. In 1880 the log homes were moved into a square, forming a very effective sort of fort, nearly a mile southeast of the present townsite. Until that time the community had kept the name of Frisco, given because of the nearby head-waters of the San Francisco River. In 1881 most of the settlers moved over to Nutrioso for protection, but only for a few weeks.

Alpine is the resting place of the bones of Jacob Hamblin, most noted of southwestern missionaries of his faith.

In 1920 the County Agricultural Agent reported that only two farmers in the United States were growing the Moshannock potato, Frederick Hamblin at Alpine and Wallace H. Larson at Lakeside.

In Western New Mexico

Luna, in New Mexico, twelve miles east of Alpine, Arizona, was on the sheep range of the Luna brothers, who did not welcome the advent of the first Mormon families, those of the Swapp brothers and Lorenzo Watson, February 28, 1883. Two prospectors had to be bought out, to clear a squatter's t.i.tle. In the summer came "Parson" Geo. C. Williams, also a pioneer of Pleasanton. The first name adopted was Grant, in honor of Apostle Heber J. Grant, this later changed to Heber, as there was an older New Mexican settlement named Grant's. But even this conflicted with Heber, Arizona (named after Heber C. Kimball), and so the original name endures, made official in 1895. The first house was a log fort. A notable present resident is Frederick Hamblin, brother of Jacob and of the same frontier type. There is local pride over how he fought, single-handed, with a broken and unloaded rifle, the largest grizzly bear ever known in the surrounding Mogollon Mountains. This was in November, 1888. The bear fought standing and was taller than Hamblin, a giant of a man, two inches over six feet in height. The rifle barrel was thrust down the bear's throat after the stock had been torn away, and upon the steel still are shown the marks of the brute's teeth. The same teeth were knocked out by the flailing blows of the desperate pioneer, who finally escaped when Bruin tired of the fight. Then Hamblin discovered himself badly hurt, one hand, especially, chewed by the bear. The animal later was killed by a neighbor and was identified by broken teeth and wounds.

New Mexican Locations

As before noted in this work, the Mormon Church sought little in New Mexico in the pioneering days, for little opportunity existed for settlement in the agricultural valleys. In western New Mexico, however, the country was more open and there was opportunity for missionary effort. Missionaries were in the Navajo and Zuni country in very early days and at the time of the great Mormon immigration of 1876 already there had been Indian conversions.

In that year, by direct a.s.signment from President Brigham Young, then at Kanab, Lorenzo Hatch, later joined by John Maughn, settled in the Zuni country, at Fish Springs and San Lorenzo. Thereafter, on arrival of other missionaries, were locations at Savoia and Savoietta. It should be explained that these names, p.r.o.nounced as they stand, are rough-hewn renditions of the Spanish words cebolla, "onion," and cebolleta, "little onion." Nathan C. Tenney and sons were among the colonists of 1878.

In 1880 were Indian troubles that caused abandonment of the locations, but a new start was made in 1882, when a number of families came from the deserted Brigham City and Sunset. A new village was started, about 25 miles east of the Arizona line, at first known as Navajo, but later as Ramah. The public square was on the ruins of an ancient Indian pueblo.

Ira Hatch came in the fall. A large degree of missionary success appears to have been achieved among the Zuni, with 165 baptisms by Ammon M.

Tenney, but at times there was friction with Mexican residents. The land on which the town stood later had to be bought from a cattle company, which had secured t.i.tle from the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUNDERS OF NORTHERN ARIZONA TOWNS 1--Henry W. Miller 2--Wm. C. Allen 3--George Lake 4--Wm. J. Flake 5--Charles Shumway 6--Geo. H. Crosby, Sr. 7--J.V. Bushman]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FEW MORE PIONEERS 1--Almeda McClellan 6--Benj. F. Johnson 2--Mrs. A.S. Gibbons 7--Martha Curtis 3--Mary Richards 8--Josephine Curtis 4--Joseph Foutz 9--Wm. N. Fife 5--Virginia Curtis 10--J.D. Fife]

Bluewater, near the Santa Fe railroad, about thirty miles northeast of Ramah, is a Church outpost, established in 1894 by Ernst A. Trietjen and Friehoff G. Nielson from Ramah. For a while, from 1905, it was the home of C.R. Hakes, former president of the Maricopa Stake. Bluewater now is a prosperous agricultural settlement, with a.s.sured stored water supply and an excellent market available for its products.

Most southerly of the early New Mexican Church settlements was Pleasanton, on the San Francisco River, in Williams Valley, and sixty miles northwest of Silver City. The first settler was Geo. C. Williams, who came in 1879. At no time was there much population. Jacob Hamblin here spent the few last years of his life, dying August 31, 1886. His family was the last to quit the locality, departing in 1889.

Chapter Seventeen

Economic Conditions

Nature and Man Both Were Difficult

To the struggle with the elements, to the difficulties that attended the breaking of a stubborn soil and to the agricultural utilization of a widely-varying water supply, to the burdens of drought and flood and disease was added the intermittent hostility of stock interests that would have stopped all farming encroachment upon the open range.

Concerning this phase of frontier life in Arizona, the following is from the pen of B.H. Roberts: