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Show Highlights In The Life Of Charles'F. Foster as Related in His Autobiography I was born in Pigeon Town, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, August Aug-ust 22, 1948. With my parents, Solen Foster and Sarah D. Fostti. I came to Salt Lake City in 1850. We were members of Zlon's camp and came all the way by ox team. When we arrived in Salt Lake City, lather traded a cow for a lot and on this lot built a two room cabin, where we lived until we moved to St. George. The year I became 8 years of . age I started to school but was , only able to attend three months . out of a year, until I was 14 years of age. Until I was 10 years of age I put in most of my time ! working in gardens and then started start-ed to herd cows for our neighbors. neigh-bors. My herding ground was over Jordan River, six miles from town, this making it necessary to drive the cows back and forth each day walking both ways. In this way I was able to help pay the grocery supplies up for the family. In 1861 father was called to St. George. He and I made the trip that year with our mule team and wagon, we arrived in St. George December 12, 1861. The camp was formed with our wagons wag-ons for protection where . the old adobe yard now stands. Some of the people lived in tents and some in wagons for the remainder of that year. Christmas eve, 18 61, we held our first dance in a big tent; Angus An-gus A. Cannon and Ann Whipple leading, as the first couple that ever went on for a dance iu the valley of St. George. When we arrived here we found about ten families in log houses about one and one-half miles south of St. George. The only ones I remember of those families are Harrison Pearce, Brother Richy, three different families by the name of Mangrams, Brother Adair, and Al Young's father. Parts of these old houses are still standing. In 18 62 father and I went after af-ter mother and the balance of the family, father driving the team and me helping with the horses and cows. In the fall of 1862, father J. W. Crosby Sr., and myself went to California to purchase grapevines, trees, hives filled with bees and' the balance was made up with freight; this being the starting of said products in iSt. George. During the years of 1863 and 1864 I helped on the farm, making mak-ing ditches, canals, and raising molasses, our principal crop, which we took north and traded for other produce. During this time I spent all the spare time I had in school. In the winter of 1865 and 18.66 the company of calvalry which I belonged to was called to go after the Indians. We had previously had trouble with the Kababs and Navajo tribes but always able to make peaceable settlements until about the. month of January, 1866, when a cowboy reported in from Whitmore's ranch at Pipe Springs and notified Capt. David H. Cannon Can-non of the death of James Whit-more Whit-more and Bud Mclntyre.- Gen. Erastus Snow sent word to Capt. James Andrus , at Virgin to meet us at Short Creek with his company. com-pany. When we arrived at Pipe Springs and camped for the night, Capt. Andrus went out to do a little private scouting and found one Kabab Indian; lassoed him, brought him into camp, where we kept him for several days, trying to force him to tell us where the bodies were, but he did not do so until we promised him his freedom. free-dom. He then directed us to a place about two miles south of Pipe Springs, where the bodies were covered with snow. One had been killed with an arrow and the other with a bullet. The Indians had taken all their clothing excepting ex-cepting their garments. We sent the bodies in with a few of the cavalrymen, the balance of the men continued the hunt for the Indians, lost sheep and cattle. The snow was so deep we could not get over the Buckskin mountain moun-tain and indications were that the Navajos had driven the cattle and sheep over the mountain. We did find a few Kababs who were wearing wear-ing the clothing of the men that were killed, one of these Indians had a twenty dollar gold piece, which had been taken from one of the dead men. We took these Indians captive. Later I went out several times after Indians. In the spring of 1866 I was called to drive four yoke of oxen to the Missouri river after emmi-grants; emmi-grants; walking all of the way. Two of the yoke had never been yoked together until we started. Coming back there were thirty-one thirty-one men and women in our company. com-pany. Ezra Thompson was our captain and Rufus Allen, our chaplin. I was IS years of age at that time. It required about five months to make the trip. Just before we reached the Piatt River, Joe Perkins, our cook, accidently shot himself through the arm. This happened when he was climb ing out of the wagon with his gun, intending to go out and hunt some wild game as we had nothing noth-ing to eat but sour dough bread and dried peaches, being entirely out of sugar. This is all we had for the balance of. the trip of five hundred miles. Joe remained with us until we reached a settlement of a few houses, where we left him with George Crosby and Rass Mclntyre to care for him. After they had cared for him for some time they sent for me as they could see that he was getting worse; blood poison having set in. I returned, but he died the night after my arrival. We took him to a mormon grave yard and hurried hur-ried him. After Joe died I was selected as cook, taking care of this job besides driving the oxen. When we arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, Ne-braska, I went in to Iowa with . others after flour, while the balance bal-ance of the company got the immigrants im-migrants ready for the return trip. I took the lead wagon half the way going and half of the way returning. We were paid $16.00 per month in labor tithing for time spent on this trip. In 1867 D. H. Cannon, Mahonri Snow, James Andrus, Dick Blake, myself and others went to Jules Burg, north Piatt, to the railroad station after merchandise for the Salt Lake store. When we returned re-turned and unloaded our merchandise merchan-dise we went on to Sevier, Nevada, Neva-da, loaded with salt then onto Pioche, Nevada. During the winter of 1867 and 18 68 I herded cattle for Tibbits and Burdock, there were 460 head in the herd. In the spring of 1868, Thomas Judd, myself and others took these cattle to California. Calif-ornia. There were five deserts to cross and we were three days crossing one of them, without water wa-ter for the cattle but rain came at last to give us relief. The distance dis-tance across one of the deserts was sixty miles, forty-five miles, and another forty miles, another thirty-five miles and another eighteen miles. At last we reached reach-ed Mojave valley, and after another an-other eighteen miles we were in San Bernardino. Arriving safely, with only a small loss, in Los Angeles. An-geles. We made the return trip with pack horses, arriving home July 22. This Tvas a very hot and dry trip. In 1868 Capt. James Andrus, D. H. Cannon, myself and others returned to California for freight for the St. George Co-op store, I drove a six mule team. Prank Wooley went to San Francisco, purchased the goods and then sent them to the landing point south of Los Angeles, where we were to load. On our way down we dug holes in the ground, deposited bags of grain in them, and made fires over these places so the Indians In-dians could not find them; thus insuring us feed for our stock when coming back. Frank Wooley Woo-ley decided to come back with us as his brother Dee had bought some horses that he wanted to bring home. We got as far as Mohave valley. When Captain Andrus gave orders to hobble the horses. Wooley did not obey these orders and the next morning his horses were missing. We spent one entire day hunting for them but that night Frank did not return to camp and none of us had found any of his horses or knew where Frank was. We scattered in different directions in making the search. Dee Wooley decided to remain and hunt for his brother broth-er and the missing horses as provisions pro-visions were getting low, it waB absolutely necessary that the camp move on or starve. Dee remained re-mained behind, staying with a rancher and later they found Frank's body, both he and the mules he was riding, having been shot and killed. The horses were not found. Dee brought his brother's broth-er's body home with the next bunch of freighters which came a few days later. This happened in the spring of 1869, and the balance bal-ance of the year I -spent driving mail between Kanarra and St. George. May 3, 1870 I married Pamelia Duncan, going to the endowment house in Salt Lake City in company com-pany with R. C. Lund and his prospective bride. We were In Erastus Snow's company. In July 1870 we went to Salt Lake for machinery for the Washington Wash-ington factory. Part of this machinery ma-chinery was freighted in a few years previous and the factory started in 18 66. Additional machinery mach-inery was brought in gradually until 1870. I continued to freight the next two years, being home only seven weeks out of thirteen months. In 1872 I met with an accident, when a heavily loaded wagon tipped over on me, laying me up for a couple of years and I haven't known what good health is since that time. January 1, 1S74, I moved onto1 the farm ten miles south of Pine Valley, where we lived until 188 9,1 making our living by farming.! freighting, and accumulating what horses and cattle Icould. In 1884 I took my first band of horses to Mt. Trumble, where I had purchased pur-chased a ranch. October 12, 1886, in company with D. H. Morris and others, I went to Great Britain to fulfill a mission. We only had two weeks notice before we were expected to leave" home. When I left, my health was very poor. When I arrived in Salt Lake, the members of the twelve held a counsel to decide whether to send me, under such serious conditions, or not. After administering to me for my health, they decided I had better go. The next day we started it taking four months to reach New York. We remained in New York one day, then took the ship Arizona, to Liverpool. During the first part of the voyage I felt fine but when we were about half way across we had a high sea and I was very sick. The captain told D. H. Morris Mor-ris it would only be a few days until he would be compelled to throw me overboard, but I lived through it, arriving in Liverpool safely. Squire Wells was our president there. He set me apart in labor in the Manchester conference, William Price, being president of that conference. My health was so poor that they gave me an honorable hon-orable release from my mission and I returned home; arriving in July, 1887. I am now in my 78th year and since 1887 have devoted most of my time to cattle raising, farming, merchandising and banking. Having Hav-ing been quite successful in these industries. |