Mormon Settlement in Arizona Part 4

Both adjutants of the Mormon Battalion later became permanent residents of Arizona. Geo. P. d.y.k.es for years was a resident of Mesa, where he died in 1888, at the age of 83. Philemon C. Merrill, in 1881, was one of the custodians of the Utah stone, sent from Salt Lake, for insertion in the Washington Monument, in Washington. He and his family const.i.tuted the larger part of the D.W. Jones party that founded Lehi in March, 1877, and it was he, who, soon thereafter, led in the settlement of St. David in the San Pedro Valley, on the route of the Mormon Battalion march. He died at San Jose, in the Gila Valley, September 15, 1904.

Pauline Weaver, the princ.i.p.al guide, was a Frenchman, who had been in the Southwest at least since 1832, when he visited the Pima villages and Casa Grande. In 1862, while trapping, he was one of the discoverers of the La Paz gold diggings. The following year he was with the Peeples party that found gold on Rich Hill, in central Arizona. Thereafter he was an army scout. He died at Camp Verde in 1866.

Antoine LeRoux, the other guide named, was with the Whipple expedition across northern Arizona in 1853. His name is borne by LeRoux Springs, northwest of Flagstaff, and by LeRoux Wash, near Holbrook.

Pa.s.sing of the Battalion Membership

No member of the Mormon Battalion now is living. The last to pa.s.s was Harley Mowrey, private Co. C, who died in his home in Vernal, Utah, October 21, 1920, at the age of 98. He was one of the men sent from New Mexico to Pueblo and who arrived at Salt Lake a few days after the Pioneers. On the way to Salt Lake he married the widow of another Battalion member, Martha Jane Sharp, who survives, as well as seven children, 41 grandchildren, 94 great-grandchildren and thirty of the latest generation. Mowrey and wife were members of the San Bernardino colony.

A Memorial of n.o.ble Conception

On the Capitol grounds at Salt Lake soon is to arise a n.o.ble memorial of the service of the Mormon Battalion. The legislature of Utah has voted toward the purpose $100,000, contingent upon the contribution of a similar sum at large. A State Monument Commission has been created, headed by B.H. Roberts, and this organization has been extended to all parts of Utah, Idaho and Arizona.

In the 1921 session of the Arizona Legislature was voted a contribution to the Battalion Monument Fund of $2500 this with expression of State pride in the achievement that meant so much to the Southwest and Pacific Coast.

From nineteen designs submitted have been selected the plans of G. P.

Riswold. A condensed description of the monument is contained in a report of the Commission:

"The base is in triangular form, with concave sides and rounded corners.

A bronze figure of a Battalion man is mounted upon the front corner.

Flanking him on two sides of the triangle are: cut in high relief, on the left, the scene of the enlistment of the Battalion under the flag of the United States of America; on the right a scene of the march, where the men are a.s.sisting in pulling the wagons of their train up and over a precipitous ascent, while still others are ahead, widening a cut to permit the pa.s.sage of the wagons between the out-jutting rocks. The background is a representation of mountains of the character through which the Battalion and its train pa.s.sed on its journey to the Pacific.

"Just below the peak, in the center and in front of it, is chiseled a beautiful head and upper part of a woman, symbolizing the 'Spirit of the West.' She personifies the impulsive power and motive force that sustained these Battalion men, and led them, as a vanguard of civilization, across the trackless plains and through the difficult defiles and pa.s.ses of the mountains. The idea of the sculptor in the 'Spirit of the West' is a magnificent conception and should dominate the whole monument.

"The bronze figure of the Battalion man is dignified, strong and reverential. He excellently typifies that band of pioneer soldiers which broke a way through the rugged mountains and over trackless wastes.

"Hovering over and above him, the beautiful female figure, with an air of solicitous care, guards him in his reverie. Her face stands out in full relief, the hair and diaphanous drapery waft back, mingling with the clouds, while the figure fades into dim outline in the ma.s.sive peaks and mountains, seeming to pervade the air and the soil with her very soul."

Battalion Men Who Became Arizonans

Of the Battalion members, 33 are known to have become later residents of Arizona, with addition of one of the women who had accompanied the Battalion to Santa Fe and who had wintered at Pueblo. There is gratification over the fact that it has been found possible to secure photographs of nearly all the 33. Reproduction of these photographs accompanies this chapter. When this work was begun, only about ten Battalion members could be located as having been resident in this State.

Some of those who came back to Arizona were notable in their day, for all of them now have made the last march of humanity.

Jas. S. Brown, who helped find gold in California, was an early Indian missionary on the Muddy and in northeastern Arizona. Edward Bunker founded Bunkerville, a Virgin River settlement, and later died on the San Pedro, at St. David. Geo. P. d.y.k.es, who was the first adjutant of the Battalion, did service for his Church in 1849 and 1850 in Great Britain and Denmark. Philemon C. Merrill, who succeeded d.y.k.es as adjutant, was one of the most prominent of the pioneers of the San Pedro and Gila valleys. There is special mention, elsewhere, of Christopher Layton. In the same district, at Thatcher, lived and died Lieut. James Pace. Henry Standage was one of the first settlers of Alma Ward, near Mesa. Lot Smith, one of the vanguard in missionary work in northeastern Arizona and a leader in the settlement of the Little Colorado Valley, was slain by one of the Indians to whose service he had dedicated himself. Henry W.

Brizzee was a leading pioneer of Mesa. Henry G. Boyle became the first president of the Southern States mission of his church, and was so impressed with the view he had of Arizona, in Battalion days, that, early in 1877, he sent into eastern Arizona a party of Arkansas immigrants.

Adair, in southern Navajo County, was named after a Battalion member.

A complete list of Arizona Battalion members follows:

Wesley Adair, Co. C.--Showlow.

Rufus C. Allen, Co. A.--Las Vegas.

Reuben W. Allred, Co. A.--Pima.

Mrs. Elzada Ford Allred--Accompanied husband.

Henry G. Boyle, Co. C.--Pima.

Henry W. Brizzee, Co. D.--Mesa.

James S. Brown, Co. D.--Moen Copie.

Edward Bunker, Co. E.--St. David.

George P. d.y.k.es, Co. D.--Mesa.

Wm. A. Follett, Co. E.--Near Showlow.

Schuyler Hulett, Co. A.--Phoenix.

John Hunt--Snowflake--Accompanied his father, Capt. Jefferson Hunt.

Marshall (Martial) Hunt, Co. A.--Snowflake.

Wm. J. Johnston, Co. C.--Mesa..

Nathaniel V. Jones, Co. D.--Las Vegas.

Hyrum Judd, Co. E.--Sunset and Pima.

Zadok Judd, Co. E.--Fredonia.

Christopher Layton, Co. C.--Thatcher.

Samuel Lewis, Co. C.--Thatcher.

Wm. B. Maxwell, Co. D.--Springerville.

Wm. C. McClellan, Co. E.--Sunset.

Philemon C. Merrill, Co. B.--Pima.

James Pace, Co. E.--Thatcher.

Wilson D. Pace, Co. E.--Thatcher.

Sanford Porter, Co. E.--Sunset.

Wm. C. Prous (Prows), Co. B.--Mesa.

David Pulsipher, Co. C.--Concho.

Samuel H. Rogers, Co. B.--Snowflake.

Henry Standage, Co. E.--Mesa.

George E. Steele, Co. A.--Mesa.

John Steele, Co. D.--Moen Copie.

Lot Smith, Co. E.--Sunset and Tuba.

Samuel Thompson, Co. C.--Mesa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MORMON BATTALION MONUMENT Proposed to be erected at a cost of $200,000 on the Utah State Capitol Grounds.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD SPANISH TOWN OF TUBAC. Map made 1754. Where a Mormon Colony located in the fall of 1851; 42 miles south of Tucson.]

Chapter Four

California's Mormon Pilgrims

The Brooklyn Party at San Francisco

The members of the Mormon Battalion were far from being the first of their faith to tread the golden sands of California. Somehow, in the divine ordering of things mundane, the Mormons generally were very near the van of Anglo-Saxon settlement of the States west of the Rockies. Thus it happened that on July 29, 1846, only three weeks after the American naval occupation of the harbor, there anch.o.r.ed inside the Golden Gate the good ship Brooklyn, that had brought from New York 238 pa.s.sengers, mainly Saints, the first American contribution of material size to the population of the embarcadero of Yerba Buena, where now is the lower business section of the stately city of San Francisco.

The Brooklyn, of 450 tons burden, had sailed from New York February 4, 1846, the date happening to be the same as that on which began the exodus from Nauvoo westward. The voyage was an authorized expedition, counseled by President Brigham Young and his advisers in the early winter. At one time it was expected that thousands would take the water route to the west sh.o.r.e, on their way to the Promised Land. Elder Samuel Brannan was in charge of the first company, which mainly consisted of American farmer folk from the eastern and middle-western States. The ship had been chartered for $1200 a month and port charges. Fare had been set at $50 for all above fourteen years and half-fare for children above five.

Addition was made of $25 for provisions. The pa.s.sengers embraced seventy men, 68 women and about 100 children. There was a freight of farming implements and tools, seeds, a printing press, many school books, etc.

The voyage appears to have been even a pleasant one, though with a few notations of sickness, deaths and births and of trials that set a small number of the pa.s.sengers aside from the Church. Around Cape Horn and as far as the Robinson Crusoe island of Juan Fernandez, off the Chilian coast, the seas were calm. Thereafter were two storms of serious sort, but without phase of disaster to the pilgrims. The next stop was at Honolulu, on the Hawaiian Islands, thence the course being fair for the Golden Gate.

When Captain Richardson dropped his anchors in the cove of Yerba Buena it appears to have been the first time that the emigrants appreciated they had arrived at anything save a colony of old Mexico. But when a naval officer boarded the ship and advised the pa.s.sengers they were in the United States, "there arose a hearty cheer," though Brannan has been quoted as hardly pleased over the sight of the Stars and Stripes.