--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Nibley, Preston collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 18 number: 12 published: 1915-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Nibley, Preston, "Ownership of Land," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 12 (October 1915): 1065–1067.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18012unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera18012unse start_page: 1065 end_page: 1067 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18012unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Ownership of Land Ownership of Land BY PRESTON NIBLEY It is to be hoped that the Latter-day Saints will always main- tain their reputation as an agricultural people. Agriculture is the rock on which, up to the present time, they have built their ma- terial prosperity ; and that they have built well, few will gainsay. We are wont to tell with great pride to the tourist who visits our city and state, that seventy-five per cent of the "Mormon" people own their farms and homes. This is the general average. In cer- tain localities the percentage runs much higher. For example, the Bannock stake reports ninety-three per cent ; Big Horn, ninety-six; Hyrum, ninety-two; Malad, ninety-three; Moapa, ninety; Panguitch, ninety-four; Snowflake, ninety-two. Such averages are very phenomenal, and bespeak a solidarity of which those stake members might well be proud. The wisdom of our great and splendid leader, Brigham Young, was manifest on every side, but nowhere, I think, did he manifest it more than when he sent the people out, far and wide, to take up land. The Great Basin was their home, where there had never been a farm. That old trapper, Jim Bridger, who had lived in this vicinity almost twenty-five years prior to the coming of the "Mormons," and who .was about their sole source of practical information, met them on the way out, and gave them a discouraging report. "Bridger considered it imprudent to bring a large population into the Great Basin until it was ascertained that grain could be raised," reports President Young. (Bancroft's History of Utah, page 257.) But grain was raised, and more and more people came to raise it. Though the country was wild and new, these emigrants were not kept clustered about Salt Lake City. It was the wish and intention of their leaders that they should go at once into the adjoining vallevs, reclaim the land and build up self-supporting communities. I think it is to their everlasting praise that they scattered throughout these chains of valleys, a few here and a few there, founding what now are prosperous cities and counties. Tt took brave men and brave women to do this. And what a pity it is today to see some of the sons of these pioneers cooped up -Aith little jobs, in our larger cities, wishing they had land, and yet afraid to go out and endure a small fraction of what their fathers endured to get it ! Such as these form a weak link in our chain ot 1066 IMPROVEMENT ERA growth. They must be encouraged, and mayhap requested, to go out into the growing farming communities, where there is so much opportunity to establish themselves as permanent and inde- pendent citizens. Those pioneers of the first years of Utah had the right mettle in them. Here they were amidst unfamiliar surroundings, un- learned in the art of subduing the soil in an arid climate, menaced by wild animals and savage tribes, with the poorest of farming equipment and practically no seed ; in fact, with everything unfa- vorable and nothing favorable ; yet my history of Utah does not tell me that they remained on city lots in Salt Lake City trying to earn a living out of odd jobs. Far from that. Let the history speak for itself. In the fall of 1847 a pioneer, Thomas Grover, left the struggling community in Salt Lake City and moved north twelve miles to Centerville Creek, founding the first white settlement north of Salt Lake City. In June, 1848, James Brown, one of the "Mormon" battalion, bought an old Spanish grant at the junction of the Ogden and Weber rivers. Others of the brethren from Salt Lake City followed him to this fertile spot, and in August, 1850, President Young and his counselors laid out a city, called Ogden, after the name of the river. In 1848, Isaac Morley and two hundred others settled in the southern part of Sanpete Valley. In the spring of 1849, about thirty families settled along the Provo river, near Utah lake, and from this beginning we have the present city of Provo. Early in 1850, President Young learned that water was plentiful, as were wood and pasture land, on a site south and west of Salt Lake, in Tooele valley, and he recom- mended a settlement there. This place is now Tooele City, called after the "tules" found growing in that neighborhood. In De- cember, 1850, Apostle George A. Smith led a party of one hun- dred seventy-five people out of Salt Lake City in search of a place for settlement. After traveling about two hundred and fifty miles south, they located a town on the present site of Parowan, in Iron County. In the spring of 1851, Simon Carter founded a small settlement on Box Elder Creek, north of Ogden. Here, two years later, the town of Brigham City was laid out under the direction of Lorenzo Snow. In March, 1851, there were five hundred vol- unteers in answer to a call for people to go to Southern California and form a settlement there. I believe I have quoted enough, though these instances might be multiplied many times, to show that our "Mormon" parents and grandparents were indeed brave and fearless and independ- ent. I have no doubt that they all would far rather have re- mained in Salt Lake valley where there was greater protection from the Indians, a country better developed agriculturally, and a constant association with their leaders. But they did not remain. At the suggestion and encouragement of their leaders they went OWNERSHIP OF LAND 1067 into the surrounding valleys, far and wide, got something for themselves, and became strong and independent citizens. What greater doctrine economically, could Brigham Young, and those about him, have preached to the people than owner- ship of land? To own .some soil, to get a living from it, and have a home on it. It seems to me to be the very foundation of all prosperity, religious and otherwise. The bishops of the wards, in Salt Lake City, complain that they have a vast moving population, people here today and gone tomorrow, people, many of whom are willing and capable enough, but who cannot be counted on for much, as they are nomadic, roving. Ah, that is the chief fault with your people who have never exerted themselves to own a home, a farm ! Your land- owning citizen, is not a nomad or a rover. He can be found at all times and be counted on for his full share of duty to the commu- nity. He is a full-fledged man, a fixed, permanent part of both the Church and the State. He is rooted to the soil, and, like the plants that grow upon it, will yield useful fruit. He is worth a hundred of your rovers, your nomads, who can never be found when needed, and usually are in need themselves. It seems to me a most necessary thing that the members of the Church continue to encourage, as in the early days, the own- ership of land. There is such a vast acreage in the West yet to be reclaimed, that even the free land, the homestead land, will not be exhausted for many years. But we will not find it by set- tling down to little jobs in our larger cities. We have got to go out and pioneer, and endure, even as our fathers and forefathers endured. The same longing for independence, and a life of useful- ness, must be in us that was in them, if we are to succeed as well as they did, and carry on the great work they have left us. Walk the Path that Jesus Trod Be in earnest, Saints of God; Walk the path that Jesus trod. Yield to naught but truth and right ; Never weary in the fight. If the battle should be long, Trust in God ; he'll make you strong, And you'll surely conquerors be In time and through Eternity. Elizabeth G. Barney.