Traveling Over Forgotten Trails

Traveling Over Forgotten Trails

BY HON. ANTHONY W. IVINS

The Pioneer Trail, from the Wyoming border to the SaltLake Valley, will never be forgotten. Each year people travel it,and say, "Over this trail passed the men who laid the foundationof a western empire. Here they struggled up the mountain; here,crossed the stream; here they cut away the trees and removedthe rocks to make possible passage through the canyon, and on thisspot they established camp after a weary day's journey."

Other trails, trodden by the feet of men and women as de-voted as those who first entered the Salt Lake Valley, are forgot-ten. No monuments will ever be built to mark their course. Thetrails are obliterated. The men who made them have passedaway. Lest the children forget the sacrifices of the fathers, comeand travel with me over some of these forgotten trails.

Since the events here chronicled took place, more than fiftyyears ago, conditions, social, religious, political and industrial,have so changed that if met by the younger generation of today,they would be scarcely recognizable. Journeys made by mule andox trains, which required months to accomplish, are now madein a day. The conveniences and comforts of home-life weremeager, compared with the present. Communication between set-tlements was difficult and slow, agricultural, industrial and com-mercial pursuits were prosecuted unler the most disadvantageouscircumstances; and, worst of all, the pioneers who blazed the wayand established outlying settlements were constantly exposed tothe danger of attack by roving bands of Indians who opposed theinvasion of. their country by white men.

Eternal vigilance was the price of safety, constant industryand rigid economy the price of substance.

In the fall of 1861, the writer passed his ninth birthday. Heresided, at the time, with his parents, in the Fifteenth Ward, SaltLake City. On the same block lived John M. Moody and family,consisting of his wife, Margaret, and her children, Robert, Sam-uel, William and Mary, the three first being the sons of a formerhusband whose name was Mclntire. They had identified them-selves with the Church in Texas; and, like many others, had gath-ered to Utah to participate in its activities, and share its destinies.

James M. Whitmore and family were also Texas people whohad gathered with the Church, and were friends and neighborsof the Moodys. They were people of refinement, and had brought

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with them to the Valley property which, b> comparison at thattime, entitled them to be regarded as possessed of wealth.

One afternoon in October, 1861, the writer was at the homeof John M. Moody, playing with other children, when a messengercame with the announcement that theMoody family had been called by thepresiding authorities of the Church, togo to Dixie to raise cotton and de-velop the resources of that part of theterritory. Frightened by the thoughtof such a move, he ran through Hieblock to the home of his parents, andbursting into the house exclaimed tohis mother and sister, who were inthe room,

"Brother Moody is called to go toDixie."

"So are we," said his sister, be-tween sobs.

His mother said nothing, but tearsfilled her eyes as she thought of leav-ing a good home and comfortable sur-roundings, and of facing the hardshipsand dangers of frontier life, in thebarren country known as Utah's Dixie.

Several hundred families hadbeen so called to go upon this mission.It was the manner in which the affairsof the Church were conducted, at thattime—one of the forgotten trails.

Some offered excuses. Some weretoo poor to go, some were too rich. Some would .send substi-tutes, but the great majority, with that devotion which has char-acterized the members of the Church from the beginning, silentlybut resolutely made preparations for the accomplishment of thetask assigned them.

Valuable homes were disposed of for but a small part oftheir real value. Farms were exchanged for teams or live stockwhich could be driven through to their destination; and thelate fall and early winter of 1861 found hundreds of teams on therough and dreary road to the South, among them the familiesof John M. Moody and James M. Whitmore.

The road from Salt Lake to the Rio Virgin passed throughthe country of the Ute, or Utah Indians, a powerful tribe whoseterritory was bounded on the north by the Shoshones and Chey-ennes; on the east by the Cheyennes, Arrapahos and Comanches;the west by the Pah-utes, who occupied a strip of country lying

TSE-NAH-GAHT, (THEMOUNTAIN SHEEP)

The young Pah-ute whorefused to surrender toFederal Officers when ac-cused of killing a MexicanSheep Herder, and whoseresistance almost resultedin an Indian war in SanJuan county.

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between the Kio Virgin, Santa Clara, and Colorado rivers, ex-tending- as far east as the San Juan, and separating- the Utesproper from the Navajos, Apaches, and Moquis, on the south. |

While Wah-ker, Arapeen, Black Hawk and Kanosh wererecognized, each in his time, as chief of the Utes, the Pah-utes, inthe south, were broken up into fragmentary bands, each with itsown chief, but recognizing no general leadership. The Moapas,occupying the Muddy Valley and lower Rio Virgin, were ledby To-sho; the Tonaquint and Pa-rusche Indians, on the SantaClara and Upper Virgin, by Tut-se-gavit; the Kai-bab (Mountain

A NAVAJO INDIAN AND HIS PAH-UTE WIFE

This photograph disposes of the oft repeated statement that othertribes never intermarry with the Pah-utes

That Lies Down) Indians, by the father of Kanab Frank, whosename the writer has forgotten, while a branch of this same tribe,which extended to the San Juan river, and across the Coloradoto the borders of the Navajos, was led by the renegade Ute Pah-nish, a bad man, who was responsible for a great part of thetrouble which later developed between the settlers of SouthernUtah and the Navajos and their Pah-ute neighbors.

In an article published by one of the Salt Lake dailies at thetime of the recent uprising of the Indians in San Juan County,which resulted from the attempt to arrest Tse-nah-gaht (TheMountain Sheep), who was accused of the murder of a Mexican,it was stated that the word Pah-ute meant renegade, and that it

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had been applied to the tribe occupying the country between theUtes and Navajos, because of their bad character. The Indiansthemselves say this is not the case. All they know is that it isthe name by which they have always been known, and is appliedto all of their people. Pah,in the Indian language, iswater, and is frequently usedby them in the names appliedto places and things, for ex-ample : Pah-ra-gon, the In-dian word for Parowan,means a lake or long body ofshallow water, the Little SaltLake. We have Anglicised it,and call it Parowan, while weapply the Indian word, Pah-ra-gon, to Paragoona which,in the Indian tongue, is Un-coppa, or Red—Red Creek;Pah-rusche, Water ThatTastes of Salt, (the Rio Vir-gin) ; Pah-reah, Elk Water;Pah-rah-shont, Much Water;Pah-coon, Water WhichKeeps Boiling Up. Followingthis rule, Pah-ute would beWater Ute, or the Utes livingalong the rivers which consti-tuted the southern boundariesof the tribe.

These Pah-utes intermar-ried with the tribes adjacent tothem until they became a kind Note the difference in the intellec-

of mongrel race, recognized £,a,htyt of hls face and *hat °f J,het. , ° , ', & , Pah-ute woman, or Tse-nah-ghat

neither by the Utes on the (The Mountain Sheep)north, or the Navajos and

Apaches on the south. They were greatly inferior to their neigh-bors in intelligence, as the photographs here reproduced willshow. Tse-nah-gaht (The Mountain Sheep) is a typical Pah-ute,as is the Pah-ute woman shown with her Navajo husband. Notethe difference between the intellectuality of these faces and thatof the Navajo husband, and the other here shown. The man andwife disposes of the oft repeated statement that other tribes willnot intermarry with the Pah-utes.

The trail of the Dixie pioneers passed, as stated, through thecountry of the Utes, and into the country of the Pah-utes. Whilepeaceful relations existed between the whites and Indians at this

A TYPICAL NAVAJO WARRIOR

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time, the latter were jealous and suspicious, and it was only bycareful diplomacy, and following the wise course outlined byBrig-ham Young-, that it was cheaper to feed than to fight them,that peaceful relations _^^MI^^^

were maintained.

The Whitmoreand Moody families,with others, located atSt. George, and im-mediately appliedtheir means and ener-gy to the develop-ment of the resourcesof the country.

In order to pro-vide grazing facilitiesfor his herds of cat-tle, bands of horsesand flocks of sheep,which were noted fortheir excellent quality,James M. Whitmorelocated and improvedthe Pipe Springsranch, which liesabout fifty-five mileseast from St. George,and twenty miles westfrom Kanab. Atthis ranch, Whitmorepassed a portion ofhis time, and had em-ployed Robert Mcln-tire to assist him in caring for his flocks and herds.

One evening, about the 10th of January, 1866, the people ofSt. George were gathered at the Social Hall, where a party wasto be given. The Whitmore and Moody families were there, withthe exception of the head of the former and Robert Mclntire, whowere at the ranch. The cotillions had been formed, the musicianswere tuning their instruments, the people were in a happymood, when they were unexpectedly called to order. What hadoccurred to mar the pleasure of the occasion? The writer wellremembers the death-like silence which ensued, the suppressedexcitement, and deep apprehension manifested by the merry-makers. The manager announced that a messenger had just ar-rived with despatches stating that a traveler, passing PipeSprings, had observed that there was no one at the ranch house,

JAMES M. WHITMORE

Killed at Pipe Springs, Arizona, by Pah-uteand Navajo Indians, on the 8th of January,1866

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and that signs indicating the recent presence of Indians wereplainly visible.

A call was made for men, armed and equipped, to start atonce for Pipe Springs. Silently, hurriedly, the people went totheir homes. The remainder of the night was spent in prepara-tion, and the following morning a company of sixty men, a partof the local militia,-was ready to start on one of the most tryingexpeditions ever undertaken by men. They were armed andmounted, that was indispensable, but there were no shelter-tents.The equipment was primitive and inadequate, the commissaryscanty. At least one man now living, sat the time a mere boy, wasmounted on a mule without a saddle, and had no coat. With afew quilts which served as saddle, cloak and bed, in his shirtsleeves, he did a soldier's full duty on the trying campaign.

THE PIPE SPRINGS RANCH AS IT APPEARS TODAY

After the killing of James M. Whitmore and Robert Mclntire, asrelated in this article, a strong stone building was erected there byorder of Brigham Young, which was called Winsor Castle.

As stated, the expedition was made up of a part of the localmilitia, and was commanded by Colonel Daniel D. McArthur,Lieutenant Colonel Angus M. Cannon, Major John D. L. Pierce,and Captains James Andrus and David H. Cannon. Of these menDavid H. Cannon is the only survivor.

The weather was intensely cold. Snow had fallen, and onthe high plateau, at Pipe Springs, it was three feet deep, with themercury below zero. When Pipe Springs was reached; no trace

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could be found of either the ranchers or Indians. Tracks andsigns which ordinarily guide the scout were obliterated by theheavy fall of snow. Finally, after several days of scouting, JamesAndrus found two Indians, ah elderly man and a boy, engaged indressing" a beef which they had killed, and brought them to camp.They refused to talk until the following morning, when they ad-mitted that Whitmore and Mclntire had been shot by Navajoand Pah-ute Indians, and offered to conduct the soldiers to theplace where the bodies were, and to the camp of the hostiles.

Dividing into two companies, one under command of ColonelMcArthur, and the other under command of Captain Andrus, thetroops left camp, the older Indian leading Colonel McArthur outon the plain, east of Pipe Springs, the boy leading Captain Andrusin a southerly direction to the vicinity of the Kanab Gulch. Cap-tain Andrus encountered the hostiles in their camp, and nine In-dians were killed. While the cavalry rode over the plain, search-ing for the murdered men, a horse's hoof brushed away the snowexposing the hand of a man. It was the body of Whitmore!

"Is it the man with a beard, or the one without," asked theIndian.

"The one with a beard," was the answer.

The Indian walked some distance and, pointing, said,

"The other is there."

The snow was removed, and the body of Mclntire found, asstated. Each man had been shot with both bullets and arrows,the body of Mclntire having received many wounds, the Indiansaid, because he had carried a pistol, and had fought desperatelyfor his life.

The remains of the two men were packed in snow and takento St. George, where impressive funeral services were held.

The details of the tragedy were never known. The Indiansadmitted that they had attacked the men while they were ridingon the range, and had killed them after a short fight. A largenumber of horses and sheep were driven off by the Navajos, thePah-utes retaining the personal effects of the murdered men. Itwas the first depredation in the Dixie country in which white menlost their lives, but they were not the last victims of the long warwaged by the Navajos and Pah-utes against the white settlers ofsouthern Utah.

James M. Whitmore was the father of Hon. George C.Whitmore of Nephi, James M. Whitmore of Price, and BrighamWhitmore of Davis county; and Robert Mclntire was the elderbrother of our fellow townsmen Samuel and William Mclntire.