Pioneer Incidents

Pioneer Incidents RELATED BY BISHOP HMAM B. CLAWSON [Some weeks before the death of Hiram B. Clawson, he was in the habit of meeting with his family and telling them of incidents in his early and later life. These were reported by a stenographer, and from them we have been permitted to condense the following selections.— Editors.] I In the spring of 1849, as soon as we had built some shacks to live in, we moved out of the fort. It was very difficult to get fuel in the winter. I had a wagon and a yoke of oxen, and I went out into the canyons east of here to get a load. I knew nothing about hauling wood, and after I got it on the wagon I could not make it stay. The consequence was, I came nearly getting badly hurt, by the load shoving forward onto the oxen. The next time I was more successful. I took a rope with me, bound it round the load, and fastened it where I wanted it, and then I got along all right. At that time there was only one house in the valley. I do not know whose it was. It was somewhere near the Cedar Post (an old land-mark on corner of Sixth East and Third South Streets). It was a kind of a log house. Of course, they commenced to put up buildings right away. Some put up log houses, while others started to put up adobe houses. I built the first adobe building in the valley. It was an office located on the ground where the Deseret Nezvs building now stands. Later it was replaced by a stone structure called the Council House. It was used for meetings, consultations, and such affairs in those days. It was not used a great deal, but it was the largest house in the valley. In those days the streets and the roads up by President Young's house and the Gardo House were very steep indeed, leading down to Main Street. A branch of the old City Creek ran down through there. I saw quite a battle there one day — the soldiers got rather ugly, and our boys who lived thereabout had a fight with them. A number of the soldiers were knocked down.

734 IMPROVEMENT ERA II I met my wife Emily when she was a girl, at the theatre, which I was managing then. I also met her at her home, being at the house a great deal. There were ten of President Young's girls. One day they were passing and President Young was looking at them, as they went by. I said to him : "President Young, don't you think those girls are all getting round-shouldered ?" He looked at them closely and said : "Really, that is a fact. Would you do anything about it ?" I said, "Yes ; they ought to have a course in calisthenics." "Now," says he, "I wish you would have them drilled right here, and see if you cannot get them straight." I did ; and the girls, up to this day, say that if it had not been for that exercise they would have been round-shouldered, hump-backed, and everything else. Ill President Brigham Young wanted me to drill his boys, including his grandsons and others, in the militia drill. I understood that, also the broad-sword exercises, and so on. He wanted me to teach these things to them. I got the boys all together, fifty of them, and drilled them all, out on the hill, right in front of where the White House stood. I continued that way for a long time, and had them pretty well drilled; but one day Oscar Young got a little angry at something or other, I don't know what, and when I ordered him to "ground arms," he threw his gun clown on the ground. There were fifty boys, and I wanted strict drills, no foolishness, and so they all looked to see what was going to happen. I was standing in front, about thirty feet away, sheathed my sword and went up to him. He was a boy really bigger than I was, but I went up to him, and the minute I made a movement it was to grab him by the collar and drag him out of the ranks. He was staggered, could not get his balance, and down he went. Then I went back to my place, and said: "You go home, and stay there. I don't want any boys who cannot attend to this properly." By that sudden, quick, and decided movement, I got perfect control over the whole lot of those boys. They all minded me

PIONEER INCIDENTS 735 well, and went through the drill in good shape, after that. That is what they needed — to have some real discipline. IV Speaking of the grass-hopper famine, Hiram B. Clawson, who was for many years President Young's business manager, says that Heber C. Kimball gave a sermon about a year before the famine, predicting that it would come. President Young got up in meeting after he had spoken, and said: "Now, brethren, we don't want you to sell your grain. You keep it. If you must sell it, however, sell it to me." As a general thing the people all sold their grain to him. He took it, ground it, put it into bags, and stored it away until he had his big house full. The store-house and cellars all around were chuck full. When the famine came, he told me to have the doors of the store-house opened, and deal out that flour, and when anyone came who did not have any money or means, to give them some. Where they could pay for it, they should pay a modest sum. He ordered all that flour dealt out in that way, and thus saved the lives of the people in a great many instances. They were very short of food-stuff. One man came up who was a stranger. He had a fine, 16-hand high, sorrel, young horse, with a saddle and bridle, and he said : "Take the whole outfit, the horse, saddle and bridle, all for a hundred pounds of flour." I could not sell the hundred pounds, and did not sell it to him. I had no authority to sell the flour. I was only dealing it out on a certain principle. I gave him twenty-five pounds of flour, but not on account of his horse and saddle. This was during the grass-hopper famine. Speaking of the grass-hopper famine reminds me that the crickets came before the grass-hoppers. They came down the mountain over toward the lake, and the people tried every way in the world to stop them. They dug a ditch, put in straw, set it afire, and did everything else they could. It looked as if the crickets were bound to have that field of grain, but just as they did that, here came the sea-gulls from the islands. They came in large numbers and settled down on the fields, ate the crickets, threw them up in piles, half a bushel in a pile, all over that field, until they cleared them out entirely. They disgorged them in this way, and the grain was saved.