| OCR Text |
Show October, 1945 THE CENTERVILLE NEWSETTE 3T Written for The Sagamore Camp, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, by the late Mabel S. Randall during her last illness. Situated on the eastern shore of the Great Inland Sea, the Great Salt Lake, twelve miles north of Salt Lake City, is a stretch of very fertile land; the soil being a black gravelly loam. This land is irrigated by four streams of pure mountain water known as Deuel, Parrish, Barnard, and Ricks Creeks, flowing from the Wasatch mountains on N. T. PORTER tlement, which was first named after the Deuel brothers; later it was called the Cherry Creek settlement and finally was named Centerville from the fact that the settlement was situated about half-wa- y between Bountiful and Farmington. Those settling on the lower part of Deuel Creek were Chas. C. Rich and Nathan Porter on the north side of the Creek and the Tingey family on the south side of the creek. Later John W. Woolley bought out the land of Chas C. Rich; in the fall of 1848 John Evarts moved from the settlement in Salt Lake to the settlement on Deuel Creek, settling on the land lying in the southeast part of the settlement. Others who settled there later were the Duhursts, Blaisdells, William Evans, Hugh Thomas, Alfred Randall Sr., and his wife Margaret and their sons, Orin and Melvin, who bought the farm owned by John Evarts; Thos. Spencer, and John J. Smith. In 1848 Samuel Parrish Sr., who for many years was a prominent man in Centerville and Davis County, settled on a stream one-hamile north of Deuel Creek, later named Parrish Creek. Later, he was joined by the Chas. Duncan family, Henry Dalton, Jenkins, Col. Jesse C. Little, Zacheus Cheney, Joseph Cheney, Hannah Evans (mother of William, Benner and Parley Evans), and Samuel Rigby and the Capeners. In the spring of 1848 Thos. J. Thurston took up a farm of 80 acres on the south side of Barn- lf the east; making the valley green and fertile and then draining into its natural home, the Great Salt Lake. Here, in the early spring of 1848, Thomas Grover It is not certain whether the Grovers or the Deuels were the first to settle here.l and family, who arrived in Salt Lake City October 2, in Chas. C. Richs Company, settled on the stream later named Deuel Creek. His intention was to pasture stock for the winter and for this purpose a spot was chosen where the stream, spreading over the land, formed plats of meadow land. Here the Grovers were joined by William and Osmyn M. Deuel. Early in the spring of 1848, these were joined by Aaron B. Cherry and family, Nathan T. Porter, John Evarts, and James Brinker-hoo- f and later by William R. Smith, the Daltons, William Browns family, John Seamans family, John J. Harris, Joanna Thos. Brandon, Philo Dibble, the Randalls, James Adams, the Geo. Leavitt, Thos. Schofield, Mary Ann Harmon, Ket-tleman- Andrew THOMAS WHITAKER Dal-rympl- e, Centerville in 1850. He was the first Presiding Elder over the set ward named for him, and later he sold this property to Phillip James Garn, who owned the land for many years. Later it was sold to the L D S Church as a home for orphaned boys called Lund Home School for Boys. Judge CHARLES C. RICH Stoddard also settled on Barnard Creek on the property later owned by William H. Streeper who moved to Centerville in the early seventies. Another early settler on this creek was Jake Winters, who settled on the property later owned by Steuben Rollins. John Spencer settled on the land east of Steuben Rollins property and his brother Alfred between settled about half-wa- y built the old and the two creeks rock house now owned by Hugh Folsom just north of the rock home built by William Capener and now owned by Samuel business at Farmington. They also engaged in farming and the raising of sheep and cattle. Later other families made their homes on Ricks Creek, among them were Cal Miles and family, the Austins and Shurtliffs, and later these were followed by the Gooseboroughs, Chas. Hoag, Jos. France (who bought the home of Thos. Ricks), John Rigby, Ira Parks, Stenhouse, and the John Ford family, who bought the property owned by Joel Ricks. When a new settlement was made on a stream the men took their broad axes and went into the near-b- y canyons to cut timber for logs, hauling them with ox teams. They shaped the logs with axe and pit saw, and soon had comfortable homes. Some roofs were made with boards and thatched, and others had dirt roofs. The cracks between the logs were chinked with wedges of wood and daubed with clay. The floors were often just dirt but later, when the people had their crops gathered and were assured of a food supply, the men would floor the cabins with logs flattened with an axe or adze. They did not have nails with which to build their homes so many of the early homes were held together with thongs of cow hide or raw hide or buck skin, or held in place by wooden pegs made by boring a hole and then fitting the peg to it. Later the people made homes adobe. It took hard careful work to make adobes. The men had to dig the clay, wet it and tramp it with their bare feet in order to mix it of home-mad- e Shad-rac- h Roundy and family, including Lorenzo and Jared Roundy, pioneers of 1847 settled about one mile and a half north of the Deuel Creek settlement, on a beautiful canyon stream later named Ricks Creek for Joel Ricks who settled on the land at the mouth of the canyon in the spring of 1849 (after spending the winter of 9 in Mill Creek Canyon where he helped Alfred Randall in building the Heber C. Kimball saw mill, one of the first saw mills erected in the valley). Here they built homes of logs, obtained from near-b- y canyons. Thos. Ricks built the old adobe house later owned and lived in by Adelaide France. Soon after locating at Centerville, Joel Ricks and his son, Thomas, engaged in the tanning 48-4- s, Fredrick Walton, Thos. Waddoups, Mills, and Horsleys. Sanford Porter, father of Nathan Porter, followed his son to Geo. O. Chase family still stands on part of this property. Jas. Barnard settled on the land on the north side of the creek, after- Coombs. In the spring of 1848, Reeves, Henry Yates, John Myers, John Holland, Henry A. Cleveland Sr., Thos. Whitaker, Nathan Cherry, Page Three ard Creek, one mile north of the settlement on Deuel Creek; this was afterwards given to Isaac Chase in exchange for his mill property in Salt Lake City, and Chase Park the home of the thoroughly. Then the clay ws; put in wooden moulds and placed on a smooth surface and dried in the sun. These adobes were put together with mortar much Turn to page jour |
