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Show Pages From The Past By Doris Karren Burton Uintah County Historian New settlers are building homes today, to-day, 1982, in the Dry Fork area. They, like the earlier settlers one hundred and four years ago, are looking for an ideal place to live and raise families. Teancum Taylor liked the looks of this beautiful little canyon and took his cattle there. He took up a land claim. It was large enough to afford him ample feed for his stock. It included a spring where he visioned a settlement with a street running north and south past the spring. Mr. Taylor told Chellus Hall he would give lots, on either side of the road, to anyone who would move there, so they could make a settlement. Joshus Chellus Hall had come to Ashley Valley with the Thomas Bingham, Sr. party and settled in Jensen. The well they dug was so bitter from the soapstone element in its base that they were not satisfied with the location. Hearing of Mr. Taylor's offer and with the good spring water there, they decided to relocate in that area. On Feb. 8, 1878, with a camp outfit, he and his family moved to Dry Fork, which they called Mountain Dell. He dragged logs with his mules and built the first house in Dry Fork. He was helped by Orson Hall. The house they built became the boarding place for the many settlers who followed them. (As had the Pardon Podds home in Ashley Town and the Isaac Burton home in Jensen), until they could build for themselves. Charles A. Nye moved up from the Burns Bench at Jensen as did most of the first settlers at Mountain Dell. In March of 1878, the Thomas Bingham family and Mark Halls came also. Annie, daughter of Thomas Hall, Jr. was the first white child born there. Some farming was done in 1878 when a small ditch was taken out on the north side of the creek for irrigation. The settlers here were like one big family sharing their sorrows and joys. Lola Hall, wife of Chellus, delivered babies, took care of the sick, and it has been said she had a formula which could and did cure many cancer victims. vic-tims. She often took people into her home for long periods and nursed them back to health. Mark Hall built a home and with the help of neighbors, a puncheon floor was put in his house. (This kind of floor was made by hewing logs square and placing plac-ing them on the ground, side by side.) Then they held a dance on the new floor, and Harvey Meaks went up with a team and sleigh and played music for the dance. . Dancing, singing, and visiting were all the entertainment available. However, Lola Hall had an almanac, and she learned to tell fortunes with it. The young people liked to have her tell them what the future had in store for them. The winter of 1879 brought with it two threats: Indians and starvation. It was one to be long remembered as the hard winter of 1879. First the Meeker Massacre had taken place in Colorado, which brought much concern for protection. pro-tection. Then the winter came early and stayed late. It was said there were 60 days that the frost never thawed off the trees. Quite a few deer roamed the mountains but they were so poor they were hardly fit to eat, and you couldn't tell which ones were diseased. They winter before had been a mild one and they were not prepared for the deep snow. They did not have hay for their cattle and had turned them loose and many of them starved to death. One day in the fall, two big buck Indians In-dians came to Lola Hall's house and told her they wanted "Fire Water." She , tried to tell them she didn't have any, but they started into her house. She walked to the mantle, picked up a gun Chellus had given her, and point it at them, saying, "You get out of here or I'll shoot you." They ran away and she set the dogs on them. The gun was broken but the Indians didn't know it. Another time word was spread through town that a large band of Indians In-dians were coming. The people were told to go to the fort at Ashley center for protection. The Indians did not make a general attack, but they too were hard pressed for food, and the settlers decided decid-ed it was better to feed them than to fight them. The Indians were given rations ra-tions at the agency and thev were also given shoes. They often brought these shoes or moccasins they had made to trade to the settlers for food. The people were glad to have these as most of them did not have shoes, especially the children. The food situation got so desperate that the men decided to try breaking through the settling snow and go to Green River, Wyo. for flour. Before they returned many of the mothers were fasting to feed the children the small amount of remaining food. Also, a dreaded diphteria epidemic broke out taking a great toll of lives. The Taylor Mountain is named after Teancum Taylor. Mr. Taylor, Cap Taylor, Oz Ney, David Bingham and J. Chellus Hall made the road up to the mountain to the timber. As soon as the first settlers of Mountain Moun-tain Dell had built themselves places of shelter they worked together and built a school house. This was heated with a fireplace. The first teacher was Mark Hall. The settlement soon became prosperous pro-sperous with many families. In the year 1887 the Dale Post Office was estalish-ed, estalish-ed, with Matthew Caldwell as the first postmaster. The mail was brought from Vernal twice a week. There was also a blacksmith shop operated by Wallace Edwin Potter in 1889. In the year 1880, a large water trough of cottonwood was placed in the spring at the settlement to make easy access to the water. This remained in use until 1933, when it was necessary, because of the school bus, to improve a short turn in the road. No doubt sentiment entered in at the thought of the removal of this old historic marker being moved. ' The route of the Dry Fork creek was plagued with many sink holes that drained the creek dry after the high water run-off, leaving the Dry Fork community high and dry except for those fortunate enough to have a spring on their property. The creek usually dried up in August. Around 1887 they attempted to dig a ditch around the largest sink hole, only to have the water and fish disappear into in-to the next hole. After this experience, the water users decided that a flume over the sink areas would solve the problem. pro-blem. In the fall of 1895 Dan Adams and Charley Searle hauled lumber down from a sawmill on sleighs to the flume site. The following summer construction construc-tion on the flume began. It leaked so badly that the dirt supporting the trestles was washed away and the trestles gave way and toppled over. Although the project was a failure, part of the structure still stands. In 1900, one hundred and forty people resided in Dry Fork. By 1930 only a few families were left. But with the activity going on in Dry Fork today, it may not be long before they will be wanting to form their own city ! Materials used in this article have been taken from the following histories: The Life of Teancum Taylor, Dry Fork by Iva Gray, History of Lola Ann Elmer Hall, History of Thomas Bingham Sr. and Jr., History of Wallace Edwin Potter, Mountain Dell Ward by Andrew Jensen, Vernal Express Ex-press microfilm. A special thanks to Liz Weist for gathering these histories and presenting them to the regional room at the Uintah County Library. |