OCR Text |
Show Continuation Of History Of Early Days In St. George Told By Descendant (Editors Note Following Is the conclusion of the short history of St. George written by Mrs. Hazel liradshiiw. The first part of the story was published in last s-eek's issue of the News.) The first permanent home erected in St. George was built bJ. jielancthbn W .Burgess, and jj still standing at the present time. After drawing his lot on January 23rd, 1862, he left at once for the Parowan mountains where he cut. down timbers and made clap boards or shakes with his cross cut saw and claver. He made his na,ils from iron ore secured se-cured near Cedar Ciy and then proceeded to build one good sized room. Being an expert carpenter as well as blacksmith, he was able to complete his room and move his wife and two small sons into it in the spring of 1862, while the; neighbors were still living in dugouts and willow houses. He later lathed and plastered it, and it. seemed such a fine home tor those early days that it was often used ifor public occasions, some of the young brides even borrowing it to hold their wedding dance in. In it on November 15th of 1S62 the first High Council was organized. Lysander Dayton built the first rock dwelling across the street from the Burgess home soon after this but for some cause it was never completed when he moved away from here in 1865, and has now been completely destroyed des-troyed not even the .foundation stones being in place, tho the lot stands (pretty much as it did when he moved onto it. Homes began being erected at once, Erastus Snow building his first one of logs that had been used in a house at Tonaquint at the lower end of the valley by earlier settlers. Some of these early homes were made of sod, some of willows plastered over, while some were merely dugouts roofed over. Before long, however, how-ever, they began making adobes out of the clay of the old camp grounds, and using them for the walls qf their homes. Rocks were so abundant that the black volcanic vol-canic rock was used for foundations found-ations and the red sandstone for some of the walls. Good timber tim-ber was found in the surrounding mountains, so logs were used for a number of homes, but the erection of saw mills soon made lumber available for use. The first houses were built by Wm. Swapp, Wm. Fawcett, Orson Pratt, George Woodward, Solon Foster, Bro. Mclntire, Malancton ; Burgess, David H. Cannon, and Wm. Carter, i The Quorums of the Priest-: Priest-: hood were organized March 22, r 1862, and the first meeting for i the election of city officers was held April 7, 18 62, the city having hav-ing been named St. George in , : honor, of Apostle George A. Smith. Angus M. Cannon was i elected Mayor, with Easton Kel-sey Kel-sey and B. F. Pendleton as alderman. alder-man. Jacob Gates, Walter E. : Dodge, and Orson Pratt were se-, se-, lected for Councilmen. j The same day that the Priest-l Priest-l hood was organized (March 22, 1S62), less than four months after af-ter the arrival of the saints, the foundation corner stone was laid for the St. George hall, located at the intersection of 1st north and Main street. While waiting a for this structure to be completed, complet-ed, a temporary meeting house ' and dance hall was erected a little south of this on the same block. This was made of willows Plastered over much the same as K the first schoolhouse, with large 'ock fireplace and chimney occu-" occu-" Pying one end. Window panes of isinglass let in the light but ex-3 ex-3 eluded the cold. Tallow candles i Placed in wooden frames furn-S furn-S 'shed the light for parties, but ; U dancing was executed on the ' dirt floor. Many good socials were i held during these early days, j wm. R. Foster played the violin Wd was leader of the first string band, and the Zolinger Bros., Cal ;1 Cragun, Josh Alphin, Geo. Smith, rt and Chas. Smith being members. A'ex Mclntire was the caller. . The Barlow Band was the first martial band,. Alex FulLerton being be-ing fifer. The bass drum used had done duty in Salt Lake Lake City during the time of Johnston's John-ston's army and the' flute is still pressed into service for Patriotic holidays. As money was almost unknown dauce tickets were paid in. produce, pro-duce, molasses squash, etc., being be-ing carried along to pay for the fiddlers and callers. On June 1,. 1863 on the 62. anniversary of the birth of Pres. Brigham Young and just eighteen eight-een months after the arrival into the valley, the southeast cornerstone corner-stone of the St. George stake Tabernacle was laid, it being put in place by Orson Pratt, Am-asa Am-asa M. Lyman and Erastus Snow of the Council of Twelve Apostles, Apost-les, assisted by the High Council Coun-cil of the St. George stake, Bishops Bish-ops of the fou rwards of the city, and Edward L. Parry, chief mason of the structure. Miles Romney was Supt. of construction. That same year (1863) a small adobe room was built one half block from east of the Tabernacle Taber-nacle by John Pymn as a new post office to replace the one being be-ing used by Orson Pratt, Jr., in a tent. This was the first post office building erected in the State of Utah. The first social hall, begun in 1862 was completed, and then social and religious life took on a more genteel appearance. Dramas, Dra-mas, operas, and other forms of amusements were increased and religious gatherings were more comfortable. Later a larger opera and dancing house was built on 2nd North street. Other buildings and privately owned business houses were established. The. new settlers soon - found that they had come" into an Indian In-dian country and the natives were not always peaceable. Besides Be-sides killing some of the freighters freight-ers as they came from. California, Indian troubles broke out to the east in 1856-66 with the Navajo. Nava-jo. James Whitmore and Robert Mclntire lived at Pipe Springs east of St. George, where they were establishing herds of sheep and cattle. Later in '65 word came that the Indians had killed these two men. Fifty volunteers went from " here and thirty-five from- up the river settlements to recover the bodies. To the north in Pine Valley mountains, the Indians were troublesome and stole many of the settlers horses. Later, however, a treaty of peace was signed with the Indian Chief-tans Chief-tans and future trouble avoided. The city grew to such n extent ex-tent that President Young decided de-cided to erect a Temple here. The site was selected and it was dedicated November 9, 1871, and plows and scrapers were put to work that afternoon. rThe record stone was placed at the southeast south-east corner of the bulding on March 31, 1873. The foundation founda-tion of the entire basement story is of black lava rock and extends ten feet below the ground level. It is twelve feet wide at the bottom, gradually diminishing in width to three feet eight inches at the basement window sills. The building measures 142 feet long, 9 6 feet wide and 80 feet high at the to parapet. It is built of stone plastered inside and outside. out-side. The tower thirty-one feet square, is in the center of the east end and the vane which is of solid gold stands 175 feet above the ground. The General coference of the Church was held In April, 1877 with Pres. Brigham Young in attendance. The dedicatory prayer pray-er was offered by him on April 6, 1877, this being the. first Temple completed in Utah. Almost Immediately after the arrival of the settlers, the leaders lead-ers sought out the best location for the irrigation canals. The one from the Rio Virgin was taken out on the north side of the river southeast of the City of St. George. A tunnel was cut through a hill south of the Black Ridge and a wooden flume built over the low places that the water might be kept at the highest level possible. The farms were located in the southern part of the valley and farming became the main industry. The dam in the river was a source of trouble and was continually being taken out with every flood, or by the heavy load of quick-sand carried by the river. Even a pile dam made of heavy logs driven deep into the river bed was taken out by the treacherous stream, so finally a cement dam built on a solid rock foundation, and the course of the river changed, proved prov-ed successful. This brought many more acres of land under cultivations. culti-vations. The cotton Industry prospered in spite of the droughts and crickets to such an extent that a factory was built In 18 6 6 to care for the raw product. The first cotton ever raised in this southern country was grown by Samuel Knight at Santa Clara in 1855. A few years later it was raised at Washington and also at Heberville or Price City, as it was later called. With the arrival of the settlers at St. George and their interests in the new industry, the Church saw fit to move their machinery from their cotton factory near Salt Lake City down to the new factory erected at Washington. Before this time all seeds were removed by hand except those taken care of at the cotton gin established at the northwest entrance of the city by Samuel L. Adams about IS 6 5. Cotton batts, carpet warp, blankets, ginghams, etc., were made in abundance. In 1S69, Joseph Birch was sent back east for machinery for a woolen department, de-partment, and on its arrival an upper stoy was added to the factor fac-tor and yarn and different varieties vari-eties of woolen cloth were made. This business flourished to quite an extent and furnished fabrics for all local people for a period of thirty-five years, but with quicker and cheaper transportation transporta-tion from the east, as well as the increased use of machinery and shoddy in their materials, the factory found that it could not compete with their lower prices and so was brought to a close in 1901. Though the industry for which the call to Dixie had been made, was a thing of the past, the settlement was so thoroughly established es-tablished that it turned its attention at-tention to other industries and continued to grow and prosper. |