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Show History MoOes Eoioi3year: Ion Ogcieoi) Area By DOROTHY DiCHELLIS On July 10, 1847 Orson Pratt was exploring near the Mormon camp on Sulphur Creek, about 25 miles west of Fort Bridger. From a hill he noticed smoke rising about two miles downstream downs-tream and Brigham Young sent four of the Mormon pioneers to investigate. ONE OF THE men around the cainpfire was 30 year old Miles Goodyear who accompanied ac-companied the Mormons to their camp and spoke to them of his place on the confluence of the Ogden and Weber Rivers, Fort Buenaventura. He also praised the surrounding country. Who was this young red headed mountain moun-tain man who had already settled in the valley the Mormons had chosen as their destination? MILES GOODYEAR was born in Connecticut Con-necticut Feb. 24, 1817. He was orphaned at age five and served most of his growing up years as a bound boy to a farmer. After serving his time he was so determined to live a life of unrestrained freedom that in 1838 he began walking towards the Rocky Mountains. Missionary Marcus Whitman, on his way to Oregon, met him heading towards Council Bluffs, wearing one moccasin, ragged clothing and carrying a gun but no powder. He was cold and hungry but asked only for powder to hunt some game. WHITMAN, reluctant to leave one so young alone in the wilderness, offered him a horse and food and company west in exchange for helping with the work of getting the wagons over the mountains. As they rode over South Pass Mrs. Whitman Whit-man and Eliza Spalding became the first white women to cross this passage to the West. Miles left the group at Fort Hall, determined de-termined to make his way alone. He learned the lore of the wilderness from Indians and trappers, finally becoming an independent trapper. IN 1842 he helped guide trapper Alf Shutes to Fort Wintey in the Uintahs, which had been established by Antoine Robidou in 1832, and was located near present Whiterocks, Utah. Miles had married an Indian woman, Pomona, in 1840 and now had two children, "one tied to a board and hung to the hom of a saddle and the other in a blanket tied to her back." PERHAPS GOODYEAR and Shutes discussed the country around the Great Salt Lake. At any rate Shutes left this description of Davis County in his diary: "I am of the opinion that on the east side of Big Salt Lake.. .would be a great place to establish a mission, and well calculated for raising all kinds of grain. It is good, rich land, a well watered and healthy country. Fish and fowls are very plenty. A beautiful prarie about one hundred miles long, lies between the lake and the mountains, are covered with green grass all winter and well calculated I for raising stock. Some pines on the mountains, and cottonwood along the creeks and rivers that flow into the lake." MILES was still at Fort Wintey when Marcus Whitman stopped by. Whitman : was on his way east and carried a letter ; from. Miles to his brother Andrew, the first word that Miles had sent to any of his . sue brothers and sisters. He wrote of the freedom he had found and said that he might come home in a few years. In four years Andrew would come to the mountains moun-tains looking for him. Miles did not see his friend Marcus Whitman again. On Nov. 29, 1847 Whitman, his wife and 11 men were killed near Walla Walla by Indians. Fifty men, women and children were taken captive and were never recovered including Jim Bridger's 11 year old daughter. MILES WAS seen at Fort Bridger in 1844 trading flour for a cow and plow irons. He was quoted as saying that he thought the country about the Salt Lake would be a good country to settle in and that he was going to try a little farming. On July 31, 1848 at Fort Bridger, California emigrant James Frazier Reed made an entry in his diary: "THERE ARE two gentlemen here-one of them an Englishman of the name of Wills, and the other a Yankee named Miles-who will leave here in a few days to settle at some favorable point on the Salt Lake, which in a short time will be a fine place for emigrants to recruit their teams, by exchanging broken down oxen for good teams." Miles and his partner "Wills" got their supplies and made their way to Great Salt Lake Valley. James Frazier Reed and his friend George Donner headed west to their own place in history. IN THE FALL of 1846 Miles left his partner in charge of Fort Buenaventura, and took a load of skins to California where he sold them and purchased horses to sell to the 1847 emigration. H had driven them as far as Sulphur Creek where he met the first permanent settlers of Utah, the Mormons. Goodyear's holdings included log buildings, corrals stockaded with pickets, a herd of cattle, horses and goats and a small vegetable garden, including corn. Before Brigham Young left for Winter Quarters on August 26 he advised the remaining Mormons to buy out Goodyear. THE MORMON High Council authorized Henry G. Sherwood and Captain Cap-tain James Brown, who had recently returned re-turned from California with $5,000 payment to the Mormon Battalion, to purchase the property and on Nov. 25, 1847 the transaction was completed for 1,950. This included 225 square miles, nearly all of present Weber County. Brown took over the holdings early in 1848, and the place was called successively succes-sively Browns Fort, Browns Settlement, Brownsville and finally in 1851 it became officially Ogden City. MILES AND HIS brother Andrew settled in Benecia, Calif, and located a rich claim on the Yuba River, but Miles became ill and died on Nov. 12, 1849. He had deserted his wife and children and Pomona married Chief Sampitch who so mistreated her that she died. Brigham Young took Miles' children into his home for a few years until Andrew Goodyear came for them. One of Miles Goodyear's cabins is preserved on Tabernacle Square in Ogden. Sources Dale L. Morgan, "The Great Salt Lake," (Albuquerque, New Mexico; University of New Mexico Press 1947) |