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Show f DAM ) m VOLUME NUMBER 240. JODENAT1 OGDEN, UTAH SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1904 REMINISCENCES OF OGDEN QTY AND WEBER COUNTY RELATED Interest-- always Reminisce6 and more particularly bo when to the section and scene tl)ey jaiate Immediate neighboihood. own of one's la consequently Utah, rich In romance, and although reminiscence, wealthy In and told off written been much has of the heartaches and hardships the and victories, failures, lnj struggle, of a glor- the end the consummation out of an uncouth, loua commonwealth waste by desolate dreary, uninviting, this of stalwart pioneers the of this section there is still much of interest to be told, and In the reading of It much good can be derived by the coming generation. "They were giants In those days and their achievements were in keep- But there are ' Ing with their stature. few of the stalwarts left. The Grim Reaper has not been Idle In these latfullIn one the ter years, and one by ness of time they have been gathered Prominent among the survl- home. vora Is President Charles F. Middle-- i ton of this stake, who, though over 70 years of age, still looks like a man In his prime. Knowing how closely his life has been associated with this county, a reporter city and Weber called at his residence on Twenty- sixth street and solicited an Interview, to. consented which was cordially Middleton was born In President Washington county, 111., February 24, 1834, and when eight years old was baptised by the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo. Fifty-fiv- e years ago he came with his parents to the land of promise, and during those many years has held many responsible civic, religious and commercial positions. SETTLERS IN BROWNS FORT. When I came here first," he said In conversation with the reporter, I located with my father In Brown's Fort, which was where Pacific avenue now is, between Twenty-nint- h and Thirtieth streets. The fOrt was built by Captain James Brown, the object of its erection being protection against attacks from the Indiana While we were at Echo, In the canyon, we heard there hnd been trouble here between the whites and the redskins. The cause of the turbulency among the red men was the killing of one of their number by a white man because the former was stealing the latter's grata. Incensed beyond masure the bucks returned and after slaying a settler made off with some of the stock of the other settlers. Hearing of the Indiana Intended attack the settlers looked for a place of safety and as Captain Brown had already built the nucleus of a fort It was completed by the settlers. Hostilities between the forces continued for some time, but gradually peace was restored When we first came here we obtained our lumber for building purposes. and our fuel, from the timber that grew along the banks of Ogden and Weber rivers. My first occupation was herding stock on the Weber river where now Is located the thriving township of West Weber. My father also tended the herds. We alao assisted in the construction, Inside the frt. of the first meeting-hous- e and schoolhouse combined built In this section. It was a modest structure, consisting of a double-logge- d house. "In these days the stock was not BY PRESIDENT C. F. M DDLETON. M and my comrade held on to the vet with ropes to It from liiv.ikiiig loose and dashing down the sleep incline. hicle j state, i J i ' i j but grazed on the oii A VIEW IN OGDEN and stripping the hark from the smaller limbs fed It to the starved animals. Subsequently I succeded In getting the animals to eat boiled meat that Is, the cooked carcasses of their dead comrades, doing to and fro between my camp and home once a week, carrying my provisions on my back and wading the Weber river at Twenty-fourt- h street, I was, by this means, successful In saving one yoke of oxen, two cows and a calf. The balance perished like many others. While I can give no estimate of the number of the cattle that died during that terrible wlner, in my Judgment, If they had lieen laid out side by side, the carcasses would have stretched from Ogden to the Oreat Salt Lake. While I was camped there many of the citizens of Ogden, driven to the greatest straits by hunger, came down and cut strips from the dead bare of anything green us a macadamized road. Then as time wore on the fields of grain that had escaped these ravages would be attacked by the flying grasshopper, which would completely devour the oats and wheat, leaving the fields devastated. As an Instance of their destructiveness, I have seen large cottonwood trees in the evening covered black with grasshoppers and the next morning the pests would decamp without leaving a single leaf on the tree. OGDEN IS FORTIFIED. During the yearn referred to, the attitude of the Indians had been be- ruining more and more menacing to the settlers, so that It became necessary to fortify the settlement. This was commenced In the spring of 55, and the plan contemplated was the construction of a wall around the settlement. measuring eight feet at the THIRTY YEARS AGO "Although at that time Irrigation hud not been developed to the high and exact science which It has now, because of the lack of profier facilities, still the water of the small mountain rivulets, not the rivers, was fully utilized, and the system was of great assistance to the settlers In the construction of the wall, as they always had a full supply of water on hand. The system of Irrigation which had been established, however, was done entirely on the principle. THE HIGH WATERS.' About the year 1K63 another difficulty. to express it mildly, con front ed the settlers, anil that' Is what was colloquially known as the high w liters of the Ogden and Weber rivers. At this time many of the farmers had cleared their farms on the bottoms of tbe rivers. The brush and undergrowth had lieen removed nnd fields sur- rounding range, where there was ample forage. At night, however, they hnd to he corraled, as the country at that time was Infested with large, ferocious wolves and the havoc the beasts played among the stock was Incalculable. TTIF. "HARD WINTER These conditions continued. said he president, "until lg'iS-R- d, and then came the memorable hard winter. It (ts Indeed a hard winter. At that time thousands of head of stock be longing to people of this. Salt Lake and other counties grazed on the test Weber range. About Christmas he heavy snows came (It waa a black Christmas.) The snow plied up and it was impossible for the stock to obtain feed. Added to this was the dire f!,ct that In the summer of 55 the grasshoppers destroyed the grain rrP. so that not only did the cattle "it hundreds of people suffered from r"nt of food, , T had a herd of twelve or fifteen had of stock. One morning I started fftr the bottoms, west of West Weber. Tn"n I arrived there I collected the Jew head of stork that remained alive. down several cottonwood trees Subsequently my father and others large herd of cattle into the valley, this being the first stock to enter the hitherto untrodden solitudes assisted my father, but the itnik could not be wintered there because ( the heavy snows and waa brought out in the fall. The pressing need of timber, however, lorced the to !md new stores and every morning a gang of sturdy pioneers would shoulder their axes and climb-- ! mg the low mountain on the south side of Ogden canyon, high above the present pipe line of the water sys-- j tern, they descended Into the gorge about tbe site of what Is now known ' ns the Hermitage. The trees growing m.ir the banks of the river wera hewn down, each man putting hla personal mark on his logs, nud they lucre run down the river In the fall and with the spring floods they were carried down the stream to the valley. When t In Moods hud subsided arii settlor look his team and trav- crsccl i hi river banks between AVnsh-inctavenue ami the mouth of the caiiyini singling out his timber. Then the logs were hauled to the sawmill owned by I sirln Farr, and situated woolen mills where the aliandoned now stand, where they were prepared of for use, the miller getting one-ha- lf the amount sawed as hla compensaBroom's bench. The facilities at hand tion. This was how lumber was sewould nut permit the farmers to clear cured to make Improvements and at and deepen the channels of the rivers, that time It was worth f 10 per hunso gradually the streams encroached dred. upon the furms, carrying away fields "But a more easy access to the where wheat was knee deep and by source of timber had to tie found and Its deposits making what Is now It was about 157 that the construcknown as the gravel beds. tion of the road through the canyon "Time but the impression stronger waa commenced. It was an arduous makes task and it was all done on the As streams their channels deeper principle, no one being In cash wear. a dollar wealthier. The facilities for HL'lLDIXt! THE (AN VOX ROAD. road building In those days were meaThe fiiundalinn. the real work of ger. Blasting operations could not he I'OiiKtrilrtlnii on the Ogden ciiuynil carried out, but where It was necesrond. that highway of which we are sary cribs of logs were built from the was done now xii Juxtly by side of the mountain Into the river those curly settlers ami It was a work and around the projections snd filled of necessity. Coni inning his narra- with brush, rock and dirt. After the Prior to fills had reached such a state of pertive Mr. Middleton said: 1r. or lsr.T there vere no setllers In fection that they were passable with I he only access teams their condition was, of course, Ogden valley beea-isto these mountain fuel nesses was over Improved by hauling more ballasting. This work continued for years. One spring one of the main portions of the road, the work of years, was swept away by the heavy floods, and as soon as tbe torrent subsided the breach had to he repaired. Work of repair, however, on a greater or lesser scale, hnd to be done yearly. Those veterans who done the work hauled their tools and provisions up to the mouth of the canyon and from there packed them on their backs to the point where and on arising they were employed, some mornings they found a coating of six Inches of snow on their blankets. The compensation for this labor was In the form of tickets which permitted the holder to take out so much lumber at 1 per ticket" HOW A PLOW WAS MADE. Rnck to the land" Is an old but true adnge and from the rugged Middleton mnuntnln sides President to the cultidescended again suddenly vation of the soil. This is speaking figuratively. Speaking practically the To Illustrate genial pioneer salrl: the Inconveniences and difficulty of our farming operation in those days our plow shares were manufactured from the tires of old. broken-dow- n wagons. The tires were taken to the tilncksmlth who heat them out Into strips, the share being made of a number of strips and the woodwork being fashioned by the farmer himself. probably with the assistance of a carpenter. Our harvest Implements were what we called grain cradles, manufactured by the farmer, as were the divide at North Ogden canyon, also other Implements such as the settlers had not brought west with But timber began to get scarce on them, and even these were bound to the river bottoms and s new source of wear out on account of abundant .use. The first This was supply had to be found. long before the day of the wsgon to be taken into Ogden valley Implement company, and the blackwas taken there by a scouting party smith was a mighty man Indeed. A of which I was a member. We went a such has been described was plow there to reconnolter the country for worth a cow and the value of a row the purpose of bringing a road In there was about $40." from the east, thus making the valley .. . .Fshrdlshrdlhr mb mh mh mh more accessible. The first wagon that FIGHTING THE INDIANS. was taken Into the valley was taken In Just prior to the attempted Invasion by the hand of man. No mulea or of this territory by the Johnson army. oxen hauled that vehicle. I steered the wagon. The wheels were locked (Continued on rage 4.) took a j home-fe- d, 4ett444 A VIEW , stock, which they took home and dried or pickled and subsisted on until their grain waa harvested the following season. THE GRASSHOPPER WARS. Reverting to what he called the "Grs shopper Wars, Mr. Middleton related some interesting experiences of that dreaded pest. In some Instances." he said, "we would see s field of grain bursting forth to fruition in the springtime, snd then the grasshoppers would hatch out snd before they were able to fly they would absolutely strip the field as OF THE SAME LOCALITY AT THE PRESENT TIME base, twelve feet high and two feet wide at the top. It was built of mud or adobe and the radius encircled by It was from Twenty-fir- st to Twenty-eight- h streets on the north nnd south, nnd Wall street and East street (now Monroe avenue) on the east and west. The cost of the construction of the protection wall. If the term Is permissible. was defrayed by levying a tax of 25 per cent on nil our possessions, nnd. ss this came Immediately after the destruction of our crops by the grasshoppers, it bore particularly hard on the settler. of grain hnd waved and been harvested along the banks of the rivers where but a few years before had been but a Jungle. But the streams had narrow, , shallow channels, and when a freshet came trees and debris would fall into the streams, blocking the channel and causing the rlveis to overflow their banks. All the country west of Ogden would be inundated, nnd where now stands the t'ninn depot nnd the railroad yard would. In the springtime, he a sheet of water. The same condition existed from street north and down to Twenty-fir- st |