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Show the BOX ELDER NEWS, WASH A history of the Indian village reads like a romance f this county The is intensely interesting. the intention of Mr. Hill was formation given below, Indians, to take out a com; near the Bear River Canyon, and bring the water down the land; which they had located on. The colony worked under rath- by Bishop Moroni Ward, lives at Riverside, and about as follows : was story Sometime along in the early a law per'0s. Congress passed to renounce the Indians rho now iling tribular relations and take land under the homestead act. leir p Bear River Valley large area of sage cov-reland, no homesteads having een filed and settled on. In 1875 a number of Indians the Shoshone tribe from Fort all. desired to change their mode life and take up farming and In ac-- , ve like the white man. ordance with their desires, John oemburg, a full blooded Indian pplied to George W. Hill of Og-ewho bad had considerable to with the Indians, having acted (0 t that time ras one d n, interpreter for them on numer-u- s occasions after his return om a mission among them, and iked him to assist them to get Mr. Hill immediate v me land. resented the matter to Presidin' righam Young, who considered e matter, and authorized Hill to cate the lands and assist the to make. their filings. The lands selected were the two rivers, north the north boundary line of Tp. X R. 2 W., andincludeda large The papers were ea of country. s Tn-iia- loeat-betwee- n of the Indians their lands and reived their titles clear. Others orked their farms for a while en became discouraged and went 'aok to the reservation. It was ed and some oved up on (By P. L. Pierson.) The Plymouth ward has an area I miles or so north and south, miles east and west, that is, the raiing area, which ltivated. Of course, is mostly there are iveral hundred acres in this at are too rocky to cultivate, a also have some mountain land eated east and west of the above &tion. It is in townships 13 and north, ranges 2 and 3 west. It Lake meridian. It is a dry rming section, as only a small untain stream of water is le at present, but the writer impressed that in the not far stant 1iiure the government a pi construct canal that pi furnish water for consider-o- f the farm land. If so, it ill come ' from Bear river by 15,1909. 27 An Indian Colony Second to None in the United States The fur-she- d WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER iuui tko er discouraging conditions for a time, until Pres. Young, while on one of his trips to Cache Valley, looked over the Rear River Valb'v from Collinston Ilill. calmly surveying the country, and pointing far away to the northwest said, There is where I want the Indian colony to locate, this is the wrong His finger pointed in the place. direction of the present Washakie. Tlje move was made in aeeord-anewith the Presidents wishes, and Washakie was located. At a conference held in Brigham City in the fall of 1877, the last public gathering at which President Young spoke, George W. Ilill was released as President of the Indian Mission, and I. E. D. Zundel appointed to succeed him. In the following March I was called by President John Taylor, who was then president of the Twelve Apostles, to take my family and remove to the Indian Farm ami assist in establishing the Indian colony. This was before the Indians had moved to Washakie. We went there and labored that season until March of next vear, when the Church was asked for 200 acres of irrigated farm land on the Church Farm in Cache Valley, to have as a place of refuge should the dry farm fail. At that time. President Lorenzo Snow, in behalf of the Brigham Mercantile and City Association, profManufacturing fered the Co op Farm which was e making a reservoir of Bear lake, and starting a canal not many miles below Soda Springs, running west into Idaho for some distance, then by a circutious route come to Plymouth, which is at the north end of what is called Bear River Flat, north and The Malad west of Collinston. branch of the O. S. L. R. R. runs of it, through the western part two and a half miles from the It has one of the finpostoffice. est locations for a town in northern Utah, and with plenty of water there could be a fine town. water By united effort, the inbe from the mountains could creased enough to irrigate many more acres of land, which would furnish homes for about three times its present population. near the present location of Washakie. to the Church ou a debt vvhich was accepted, and the land was turned over to the Indians to use as long as they desired. A location was made and a canal constructed far enough to see that the water would come out at another place, so a half section of land was purchased from Orson Merrell, which was situated a little farther north from the Church harm, and there the present village was located, X. P. Anderson being the engineer who laid off the ground. The Church purchased other ground adjacent to that already acquired and turned the whole over to the Indians to work. About 300 Indians first settled on the Farm, but a number became discouraged and went back to the reservation. Mr. Zundel was made bishop of the Indian village after the move and for 1 years we labored raising wheat and storing it in bins. A sort of United Order was in force, as no one had any particular ground nor grain of his own, hut the wheat was stored in bins and flour was issued to the families as they needed it. No wages were paid but all worked in common, and for a number of years the Indian men drove header boxes, wrapped as they were in blankets, herded sheep and did all their work in native costume. We owned our own harvesters and thresher and the Indians became the Indians did not become discouraged. Some of the individual Indian farmers raised as much as 1000 bushels of grain a year, and the Indians owned the first header that ever came into Box Elder County. Alexander llunsaker and myself acted as counselors to Bishop Zundel until the fall of 1888, when I was released to return to my home in Woodruff, in the Malad Valley, where I had to begin life all over again. At the March conference of the Malad Stake in 1890, I was called to go to Washakie and this time was set apart as bishop, in which capacity I labored until 1903, when I was released and removed with my fam ily to Riverside. George M. Ward, my son, is at present presiding over the Indian village. Death and removals have diminished he ranks of the Indians, but of course children are born every year, and the village is maintained. A meeting house has been erected which is also used as a school house, and the children have the benefits of a common grade education, the teacher being provided by the County Board of Education. The Indians live in houses as well as in tents, and for the most part have adopted the costume of the white man. For many years the Federal Government assisted the school with an appropriation, but since the Rob erts Investigation nothing has been received. The Government Inspectors called regularly, and were loud in their praise of conditions as they found them, and complimented the Indians with having one of the most perfect colonies in the United States. The village is not under Government control, however, but is a branch of the dominant church, supported by the same, and the inhabitants are, as a rule, thrifty and honest, having a desire to become good citizens. Their worst foe is the white man who fills them with liquor. If they could only be kept away from that class of people, they would progress more rapidly. 1 v' v 4 rfv expert in handling that machinery. We had considerable success with sheep and cattle for a number of years, also run a store successfully. A fire destroyed the store and stock, while reverses used up our sheep and cattle, but It now has 52 families, some of them still living on their farms. The most of the people belong to the L. D. S. Church. They have a nice rock church which was built last year, costing $6,890, also a good rock school house The with three departments. school house is being enlarged and a furnace being installed to heat it by steam, and this season will find our school house second to none in the County. Locations were first made here in April, 1869, by Harmon D. Pierson, Isaac E. D. Zundel, John Taylor. Orson and Joseph and 'William Merrell of Willard. At that time B. Y. Hampton, then owning a toll bridge on the Bear river near Collinston, said I do not to the writer: BEAR RIVER GORGE. see what you people are thinking about. Why, .you cannot raise grain on- that land, for it will not produce it, there is too much which has proved false. mineral, He had reference to the whole flat, which is now Fielding, Riverside and Plymouth, for there have been millions of bushels of wheat and other grain raised on the land mentioned. Plymouth only has a few small - orchards, apples, plums and small fruit, but peaches have been raised here and no doubt if proper care and selection were taken would do well. Raising when and barley is the principal industry, which averages from 15 to 25 bushels per acre ;Plymouth store is conducted by W. II. Thornton, who deals in general merchandise. Two steam threshers are operated in this locality, one of which is equipped with a plow attachment. Thos. II. Archibald, Robert Nish and Leon A. Rose form the Bishopric. BOX ELDER COUNTY SCHOOLS (Continued from page 24.) beet piles at the sugar factory. class. In consequence of the of this evil I recommend and will endorse the appointment of a good truant officer. High School I point with pride to the splendid achievement of your honorable body in Hie erection of the Box Elder High School, the equal if not the peer of any high school in the State of Utah, which means many states of the union as Utah is in the front ranks of the states in education. refer to its possibilities in its new home with thanksgiving. Our high school is one of the first in the State of Utah to offer a domestic science and domestic arts I course. I feel that these courses will do much to unite the schools with the homes and lend dignity to the work of both. I feel it will aid our children in their preparation for life. desire our high school to enter the higher ingraduates stitutions of learning and go on to fame, we see the truth and prepare our pupils for life first and While wTe Conclusion. After summing up all divisions of our work I come to the conclusion that I feel to congratulate you gentlemen most heartily and commend you for the splendid condition of the work over which you have had supervision during the past school year ending June 30th, 1909, and I desire to make mention of the harmony that has existed in the labors of the board, and to commend the labors of the superintendent and clerk. Very respectfully yours, P. M. HANSEN, colleges after. Our high school stands at the head of the school system of Box Elder County as the University stands at the head of education in the State. The ambition of every graduate in the grades should be to enter the Box Elder high school, as it affords equal opportunities to any high school in the State, and will lea greater saving to the students in the way of general school ex penses, by being nearer home. When you spend a dollar in another county you take from your own to build up your neighbor. Every Box Elder County student should have an ambition to graduate from his own county high school and then go on and on and render in return the better service which his education has made President. Residence: 463 Canyon Road Bell Phone 260K Dr. F. Parker Veterinary Surgeon : : Graduate Ontario Veterinary College possible. I hope to see this splendid Box Elder High School duplicated In the Box Elder school district as conditions and circumstances may ' warrant. OFFICE: 324 24th ST. Bell Phone 886Y Ogden, Utah |