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Show Issac Jimeson Riddle, Oldest Living Man Born In Pine Valley, Tells History lly M.niX JAKVIS I .sane Jimeson kiddle, tin; third child of Mary Ann Levi and Isaao Kiddie, wan born in J'ine Valley, WaBhiiiKU)n County, Utah, -(M-iiibi-r 17th, 18 5 7, bin par-mla par-mla having moved there in 1853 in rc-Kiion.sf- to a call from I'ren. JinglULin Young. Ho was thiif born a member) of tin! L. 1). S. Chinch and claims the distinction distinc-tion at this lime of beiny the oldest living man born in Pino Valley. In 1 H ,r !l the family moved to the town of (iiinlock and here at the age of four he witnesssed tin; great Hood of 18C2, in which they lost their home and practically practi-cally all of their belongings except ex-cept a few cattle and Morses. Discouraged - over this disaster they moved to I'into Creek and made) a new start, remaining until lNfia, then moving info J'eaver county where they spent the rext thirfoon years. In each of these places this Pine Valley born 1'ioner boy with his parents,, brothers ami sisters witnessed a repetition of trying experiences, heavy losses and discouraging af-tepts af-tepts to. get established. In January of 1875, after they moved to Beaver, there wis a call; for ten men with teams to come haul lumber for the "St. Georgo Temple for a period of forty days. laae ' Riddle : :wus then just past eighteen years of age and was one of the -Beaver boys sent to fill this brief but ' arduous mission. Under the -direct ion of Lafayette Shepherd, were the following boys, John Henry Jjlackner, Henry . M. . Tan-,, Tan-,, lier, Samuel Button, Franklin D Fainswortli, Clifton Blackburn, ' Isaac J. Riddle, John Jones, ' Charles Boothe, Jr., and ; one other whom Mr. Riddle' does not recall. Of the ten, he is the ... only one now known to be living. On , reaching, St. George the boys were., sent to Mt. Trumbull for lumber. "The first trip out to Mt. Trumbull", s a'y s Mr. Riddle, "we loardod the lumber , out ,.of 41. heavy bank of .snow, from what .was then known as the San Francisco forest on this '" side of the Colorado, returning the llrst night to the "water tank at the foot of Mt,.. Trumbull. I IE was raining then, and continued " to rnln .Til nisrht. We -were four days driving three miles out of that black mud and slush. The leader, Lafayette Shepherd, drove six mules, while each of the others had two spans of horses. We put in the full forty days traveling to and from Mt. Trumbull Trum-bull for the lumber,' and most of the time were working fully half of each night." . I shall continue the story in Mr. Riddle's own words. "Retiming home to Beaver from this mission, we found the place in hig excitment about "Po4 tato Valley", now Esealante. Six 'Of us including William J. Flake, Isaac Turley, William Hutehings, Charles D. White, my father, Isaac Riddle, and I fitted up with a pack horse and saddle horse ' each and started for this new: place with provisions enough for ten days. We left Beaver February 24th, 1S75, " reaching P o t a t o, Valley . February 28th where we found a band of wild Indians with whom w soon made peace through the instrumentality of my father who was an Indian Interpreter. When we rode to the entrance of the Valley we saw an Indian pony trail and feared trouble. Following Follow-ing the trail to the crest of the hill we could see their camp in the valley below. The six of us with our two horses each, gave appearance of a goodly company, and the frightened Indians scurried scur-ried to t'0Vr like a flock of quail. Father called to them i their own tongue and they halted to hear" i!, SOOU he had explained ex-plained to them our purpose in coming, and made friends Vic'n them. Thus they bac&nie our. (pilots through , this stretch ;of country aild were a, great help in many ways. - ' "We came back over Esca-;.lante Esca-;.lante Mountain, March 1st, camping camp-ing in what is known as, John's Valley. Here we split --camp, three of us undertaking a. shorter route home, the other three returning re-turning back around the ' head of the valley through Pangnitch, to Beaver. Those of us attempting the short-cut got snowbound high up on th stream which was afterwards after-wards was called Deer Creek. Here the deer were as thick ' as 1 one usually sees cattle on a well-stocked well-stocked range, far too numerous ', to count. We bagan to back : track that night, being compelled to take the old route through i Fanguitch and were two days j later than the other boys reach-1 reach-1 ing home. i The day after we began to back track we faced , a heavy : blizzard, camping that night on i the Flake Bottoms in the Cochner cabin. It was on these Flake Bottoms that the Panguitch people were at that time raising most of their hay. this being on the south prong of the East fork tributary of the Sevier river. 1 This cabin was certainly a welcome wel-come sight and offered comfort after the long hours marooned in the snow., . "In May of 1875. father and l"with four other men. John Hunt, Joseph Hunt, Gideon Murdovk and Walter Hyatt, again left Beaver, taking- -a herd of eighteen head of cattle and thirty head cf horses, to begin a settlement settle-ment in John's Valley. n o w called Kmery Valley. We located first at the mouth of the Sweet Water where we built a house end corral. Later we moved down the valley live miles onto a small stream which we named Ranch creek. Here we built cabins and corrals and this place became the headquarters of the Heaver Co-op ranch. During Dur-ing that year we moved about three thousand head of horses from Heaver county out into John's Valley, as located above." Following this, Isaac Jimeson Riddle rode for the Beaver Coop Co-op Cattle company for ten consecutive con-secutive years, becoming expert at breaking wild horses and cattle roping. At the end of this time he moved to Loa, Wayne county, Utah, becoming one of the Fathers of that country, and for the following fifteen years drove sheep in Rabbit Valley, through tli o Esealante country and through the vicinity now coming com-ing into prominence as the Wayne Wonderland of Utah. While in this section he was riding on one occasion with his son, George : llhtdle : and John Burr, Jr., crossing the mountain tO' Antimony!' 'with a band 'of saddle horses, when they saw a bob cat crossing the valley ahead of them. Mr. Riddle was on a well-trained horse and said, "Let's catch that cat,. John", speaking to John Burr. This -was agreed and they jset out. ; But Burr's horse was only halt broke and did not make a good helper. Soon the cat, sensing he was being purued, took shelter ' in a clump of brush. When Burr came up Mr. Riddle pointed out the cat's hiding'place- and- they bagan to worry it out of the brush. When the cat , emerged it took a . leap at John Burr, striking its claws into his heavy leather chaps 'without 'hurting him. Just' then Mr." Riddle raised his quirt, giving the 'cat a thud on the head which dazed the animal: As, he ;, sagged he .drove his teeth into John ..Burr's coat .which., was, tied behind the saddle and tore it '.to rags. Another An-other rap from' ' Mr. Riddle's quirt finished the cat and it fell to the ground where they' could .handle it when they got off their: horses. Seeing what .havoc he made of the coat, made the three men shudder at what might have been their fate - had ' trie- awful hangs contacted their flesh. Due to the failing health of Isaac Riddle,. Sr.7"tliese men ' were on their way out to gather ' up his cattle and horses and take them to Henry Mountains to winter, when this experience occurred. '.'-In the St. George Temple, April' ioth, 1S77,- Isaac Jimeson Riddle . married - Nancy Russell who is now. deceased. January 8th, 1886, he married Clara M. Berry in he Logan Temple, living liv-ing in polygamy a total of twenty-five years before the passing pass-ing away of his first wife. Six children of Nancy .Russell Riddle died but the following are now living: Parley A. Riddle, Taft, California; Edgar J. Riddle, Oakland, Oak-land, California; Mrs. Hazel G. Liston, Provo Bench, Utah; and Alfred L. Riddle,, Death Valley, Nevada. The living children of Mrs. Clara M. Berry Riddle are Mrs. Minerva Heaps and Mrs. Ruby Woolsey of Esealante; I. E. Riddle and , Mrs. Cora Porter of Cedar City, Utah; five having died. "In 1877, soon after my first marriage", says Mr. Riddle, "we took and orphan boy, Benjamin Seth Tanner, a cousin -of mine, aged 13, to raise. He had had no schooling whatever and being be-ing large for his age it was difficult dif-ficult for me to get him to attend school at all, but he was a splendid boy and an excellent worker, and ..was appreciative of all we did for him. With our assistance he accumulated about nine thousand dollars worth of jroperty and established the best name airy m.an :?uld take to lne grave. Se was: hottest, truthful,' and pleasant, and had a taut about, tliin that everybody liked. He remained . with-- us--almost continuously' until he ' was fifty-six fifty-six . years- of age, , passing away on February ' 1st, 1914. ' Soon after af-ter his death I did his. Temple work for him and was' glad of the privilege ' of ' thus'' serving him. ' " -. ; "During- the ..season o 1887, my .wife, Clara and I, with a boy, spent several months out in Colorado Colo-rado on; a trading expedition. During that time we helped the late . Preston Nutter the, cattle king of Utah and Arizona Strip, trail cattle from the Thompson Springs, Utah, to' Ohio creek, one of the high up tributaries of the Gunnison and Colorado rivers. Here we had many thrilling thrill-ing experiences with high water, horse races, etc. ."December 3rd, 1SSS, my wife Clara accompanied me on a Mission Mis-sion to England where we were gone twenty months. While there September " Sth, 18S9 'bur first daughter. Minerva was born. On leaving for my Mission, I told Willard Pace, a friend, to take care of everything. There was about forty-thousand dollars worth of property including sheep, cattle, horses, farm, store and grist mill. Mr. Pace was not a member of the L. D. S. Chinch, but he was a good and honest man and cared w-ell for everything. He pretended to pay himself for his services but took so little when I returned I gave him a check for ? 100.00 more. This, however, he was reluctant to take, such was his honest makeup. "We returned from England in September of 1S90 and in November No-vember of that year I was arrested ar-rested for having two families I went to Beaver and was indicted but they never got the witnesses , necessary .though t e n months , later I was called to Beaver with two others, George F. Jarvis and j Duckworth Grimshaw. We all: pleaded guilty. The judge asked ( me many questions and my answers ans-wers were so different to most : ethers that he became excited and called on the prosecutor for i information. 'When his e-xeit-m e n t subsided he questioned Johnnie Armstrong, the Deputy who had called to arrest me and learned from him that I had written him a letter in which I had stated I would be available for the trial whenever they were ready for me. So they had not kept me jailed pending the hearing hear-ing but had taken my word, and said Mr. Armstrong, 'When 1 went for him I found him without with-out a moments hunting'. The marshall took him at his word, for his talk was straightforward and his answrs fearless. He was turned loose with only a tine of $100.00. In March of 1S92. seventy-nine seventy-nine people from. Esealante set out to attend the Dedication Of the Salt Lake Temple. ' There was an immense depth of snow on the surrounding mountains and they were several days digr ging their way through the snow across the Esealante mountain. As they rounded the last curve of the dugway to the top of this mountain, the snow bank on the upper side rose to, a sheer four feet above the tops of .the covered cov-ered wagons. When they reached the top James Scow, a'niember of -''the party prospected,.-afoot down the other side of the 'niquntain, re.urning with the statement that they had better turn around and : go back ' home, for' they1 could not possibly make if. Isaac Jimeson .Riddle was, jn thee, .lead wiith ..a fpuiv, horse team and a light, wagon, , ,','Why; of course we can make it," he said,, as he gave Whip to His teams and pushed ahead.1 But he had not gone far till his outfit ' was swamped in the snow and they had to--dig-, his horses out: '-'-By this time the. .group of ishovelers, with the. party had come ahead, and they worked along, a few yards at a time, clearing oft' the show ' driving the teams forward. ' But -'it ' was a cold hard trip to Salina, where the wagons were i abandoned and the seventy-nine took the., train ,for the balance of the journey. . .During the ., lattter . part 'Of 1S.92, with the help of. several hired men. and .contractors,. Mr. Riddlo . put up a thirty-barrel, water power mill. This was the only mill within a radius of six- j ty-five 'miles and served thai j section of the country for many ' years, only being out of running j service at the present time mainly because of - the last few year ; drouth. j In September 1930 he made assignment of his store to credi- tors and untill September 193 4; lived a quiet life, battling against the' hardships of the depression. September 30th, 1934, with his wife . Clara, he came to St. George and worked in the Temple five months, returning home the last of February 1935 to settle with the renters on his place. The summer of 19 3 5 at home was tiresome for. him, but on October 14th, 1935 he and his wife returned again to St. George to continue their work in the Temple as long as their health will permit, and they have hardly missed a session while there. Mr. and Mrs. Riddle were happy to meet many old friends at the Blackhawk encampment at Cedar City recently and again at the recent Homecoming in St. George and to talk over old times i of ' Pioneering, which though difficult have been more of satisfaction! than otherwise to these igood people. They are . the grandparents . of : forty-six grand children and twenty-eight great grand children, and though they are not in the best of health, their hearts are full of goodness and of Joy.. of having had a. hand in building up the southern section sec-tion of Utah. ' And this life sketch, given fiom memory in his seventy-eighth seventy-eighth year may be -a little faulty as to. actual dates, but in the main is " a true bioography of the life of Isaac" Jimeson Riddle, a boy born, in Pine Valley, Washington Wash-ington county, Utah in the early years .of ..Pioneering,. .;r.'.;;i:. j ,, .. |