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Show Genealogy Research of the West Elijah Barney Ward-Mountain Ward-Mountain Man rw f !?y Kerry Ross Borer, One of the earliest residents of Utah and long-time resident of the Uintah Basin, Brown's Park oh L . Ulntan West war y, k and the American esi, was Elijah B. "Barnev" Ward His contributions to this VpLn numerous, but hi name ht nearly forgotten alongside thos contemporaries, Jim Bridger Kit Carson and others. ' . Elijah Barney Ward was born in son of0nFrViHginia n March 29 1813 son of Elijah and Malinda Ward Barney left home at the age of LTfrsinrithfteindia-:" lyLas 1832- He was probablv a h , in taS 0ne of tne founders and builders of Fort Hall, Idaho In 1837 Barney Ward joined with Montana pioneer John W. Patrick when ;ey left Whitman's Mission on S Walla walla and went ''to Salt Lake in September, 1837. In 1837 Mr. Patrick and Barney Ward established a trading Post at (the site of) Provo, Utah fifty miles south of Salt Lake, and kept it until 1848. Mr. Patrick traded to Sante Fe from 1842 to 1845. " From 1838 to 1840 Barney Ward resided at Fort Davy Crockett in Browns Hole, and it was said of him.... "he was a companion of Kit Carson, Baker, Smith, and other prominent mountaineers of those early times and he spent many years of his life among Indians, becoming master of several Indian languages." Soon after Bridger constructed his famous post, Barney Ward moved there to live, taking up residence with his friends, the Shoshone Indians, in their village near the post. On July 4 1843, in a "frolic", Ward's friend Baptiste Exervid was shot and before dying, he asked Ward to care for his Indian wife and small daughter. Ward later married the Indian widow, Sally, and took the child, Adalaide, as his own. Adalaide had been born at Fort Laramie in 1838. Ward then had two daughters by his wife Sally ; Polly, born at Fort Bridger on July 15, 1847, and Louisa Jane, born in Salt Lake City on May 26, 1948. His adopted daughter, Adalaide, later married James M. Brown, son of the founder of Ogden, Utah, on July 24, 1855. Many of their descendants still reside in the Uintah Basin. Barney Ward became prominent in guiding settlers to sites in Utah, including in-cluding the Uintah Basin many years prior to the settlement of Vernal, and was baptized a member of the Mormon ; "Church on February 25, 1850. Together with William Washington Potter (great-great-grandfather of this writer), another Mormon guide and interpreter, Ward covered all of the territory from Utah to California guiding wagon trains, exploring for gold, and establishing routes for pioneer settlers. Potter was slain in the Gunnison Massacre near Delta, Utah in 1853. Barney Ward lived at Fort Supply near Fort Bridger from 1853 until 1857. With the approach of Albert Sidney Johnston's army to Fort Bridger, Barney's wife thought she would be safer among her own people, the Shoshones, and died there shortly afterward. af-terward. Barney Ward lived until April 10, 1865 when he became one of the first casualties of the Black Hawk Indian War, when he and James Anderson were killed and scalped near Salina, Utah. |