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Show Volume XVII Issue IX The Ogden Valley news Page 9 October 15, 2009 Memories of Huntsville and Its People By Donald D. McKay Note: This is the first in a multi-series of articles that are from the above titled compilation, which is being reprinted by permission of the McKay family. The information was initially printed in 1960. There were several white people in Ogden Valley before the town was actually settled. Peter Skeen Ogden, after whom the valley and Ogden City were named, belonged to at Canadian branch of the American family. They wanted their son to become a lawyer, as his father and his grandfather were, but he chose a different occupation. He joined the NorthWest Fur Company when he was seventeen, and in the latter part of 1821 joined the Hudsons Bay Company when he was thirty years old. He was courageous and well-trained. The trapping outfit he was to take into the Snake River County in 1825 consisted of fifty-eight men, sixty-one guns, two hundred sixty-eight horses and three hundred fifty-two traps. Mr. Kittson, the secretary, adds other details. He says, “The party is now together, consisting of twenty-two lodges which contain, besides Mr. Ogden and myself, Charles McKay, an interpreter of pigeon languages, ten engagees, fifty-three freemen and lads, thirty women and thirty-five children, all well-furnished in arms, ammunition, horses and traps.” All this information and more came to light when the Hudsons Bay Company found Ogden’s report and later the report of Secretary Kittson in their files and published them a few years ago. The outfit left Flathead Post, near Missoula, Montana, December 20, 1924, and trapped all the streams between there and Bear River in Cache County. On May 4 in 1825, by the description of the country they were passing, it seems quite certain they were as far south as Richmond, in Cache County. Then on May 16, 1825, they were apparently camped on a hill north of Liberty. They then COMMENTARY cont. from page 3 season, even after the Packers had won two Super Bowls, Lombardi would address his players and start with the basics: “Gentlemen, this is a football.” (And Max McGee, the team’s star receiver who scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history, would say, “Not so fast, coach, not so fast.”) There wasn’t a player who didn’t already know what Lombardi would say—blocking, tackling, mental alertness. But he said it over and over because they fell short on execution. Our leaders are obviously telling us it’s time to execute the basics better and bulk up our spiritual preparations to match whatever we’ve prepared for our physical survival. Having a house full of wheat, beans, and rice will be insufficient if we are not strong in spirit and mind as we face prophesied events. moved down to the meadows in the middle fork west of Huntsville, and on the 22nd of May they had got as far as Mountain Green in Morgan County. The report indicates that they had a rumpus with another trapping company while there and lost equipment and men. They had trapped five hundred sixtythree beavers during their stay in Ogden Valley. Mr. Kittson, Ogden’s secretary, made this recording under date of May 12: “McKay had set on a high mountain where he had a view of the country around us. A large lake, into which Bear River falls, is not above twelve miles from this and bearing about southwest from the spot.” Ogden himself recorded this same information, but added that “the lake was the size of Lake Winnipeg and the Bear and New (Ogden) Rivers empty into it.” On the 16th of May, Kittson wrote: “We are now in a hole, I may say, as the place is surrounded by lofty mountains and hills. This place Mr. Ogden named New Hole, and the river bears the same name. It (the river) is lined with poplar and willows and is about six yards in breadth.” On the 17th of May, Kittson wrote: “This hole is but small, not being above sixty miles in circumference, of oblong shape, through the middle of which runs the New River, coming from Northeast and taking a Southwest course near this place. It falls into the lake already mentioned.” President Young sent Thomas Abbott, with several companions, on an exploring trip up toward Bear Lake. That was in 1848. He probably came up Weber Canyon and entered the valley from the south, continuing up South Fork and thence to Bear Lake country to what is now called Dingle. In August, 1849, another person, Howard Stanbury, United States Captain of a Corps of Topographical Engineers of the Army, on an exploring trip came into the valley and spent Sunday, August 26 of that year, camping on the meadows of South Fork, allowing their horses to rest and no doubt observing the spirit of the Sabbath Day. A few years later the valley was used as a herd ground by some of the people from the lower settlements, who at that time were fairly numerous. Nathanial Levvitt was in charge of one herd that ranged here. They were brought in through North Ogden Canyon and were grazed on the present site of Liberty. A year or two later, Erastus Bingham also had a herd here, but he came further south, making his camp in a grove on the slope below the mouth of what is now called Geertson Canyon. It must have been at that time an ideal summer range, except for occasional Indian raids. My grandfather, William McKay, with his sons, Isaac and David and his daughter Williamena, came into the valley in midsummer through the North Ogden Canyon looking for hay. That was in 1860. They cut hay with a scythe in Middle Fork meadow, about where the Moffitt family later settled. They cocked the hay and went back to Ogden until it would dry. However, the Indians burned it up while they were gone. On a Sunday while they were here they walked up the south side of the South Fork to the vicinity of the old Co-op Farm, and returned by way of what we call now the “Middle Fields” and along Spring Creek. They saw no Indians or anyone else. However, the real settlement of Huntsville began in the early fall of that year (1860) when Captain Jefferson Hunt and three sons, Joseph, Hyrum and Marshall and their families, Edward Rushton and family, Joseph Wood and his mother and Nathan Coffin and his mother, arrived in the valley. At a later date another member of the Mormon Battalion, William Spreaugue, came into the valley also. The Hunt group built a fort of logs, and the necessary number of houses in a meadow near the river south of the present site of the town of Huntsville. During that winter, Katherine Conover Hunt taught school, and the first child, a girl, was born to one of the Hunt families. Jefferson Hunt was born in Kentucky on January 1803, the son of Thomas Hunt and Martha Hamilton, who also was a sister of General Hamilton of Revolutionary fame. Jefferson moved with his family in early childhood to Edwards County, Illinois. There when he grew up he met and married Celia Mounts in 1823. They joined the Mormon faith in 1834. Later, they moved to Clay County, Missouri. They were driven from there to Caldwell County and shared in the persecutions of the Mormons at that place. They lived in Nauvoo until the exodus in the spring of 1846. During the disturbance in Illinois, Jefferson was appointed a Major in the Nauvoo Legion. In July, 1846, at Council Bluffs, when the call was made for the Mormons to enlist for the service, he joined the Battalion and was chosen a Captain of Company A. His two oldest sons were also members of that company. Marshall was the youngest member of the organization, he being 17 years of age. The Hunt family was among those who accompanied them to Santa Fe. Gilbert Hunt was sent with a detachment that conveyed the sick of the company to Pueblo, Colorado. He there married Lydia A. Gibson and came to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Jefferson Hunt came back from California in October of that year, too, by way of Sutter’s Fort. The meadows on South Fork proved to be unsuitable for establishing a town, so the next spring (1861), a number of families made the move up on the bench. A lot of new people came into the valley that spring. The first thing they decided to do was to get a townsite located and surveyed in conformity with federal law. David Jenkins, the County Surveyor, was asked to come up from Ogden for that purpose. Thomas Bingham, Carl Hawkins, Charles Grow, George Langlois, Isaac McKay, Robert Aldous and Edward Rushton helped him with the job. Besides laying out a townsite with a Square, streets, lots, blocks, and alleyways, they ran a base line from Moffit’s Spring east to the southeast corner of Alanson Allen’s homestead, and laid out what is now the State Highway going east into South Fork. By the way, David Jenkins was surveyor for the City of Ogden as well as the county. He lived to the age of 84 years, and died March 4, 1898. The same year, Charles Grow and others laid out the first irrigation ditch to be constructed in the valley, known then as the “Town Ditch.” The instruments used were not expensive, nor were they adapted to very technical work, but they served the purpose. The ditch did not run its present length at first, but was extended as the development of the town made necessary. Historical Photo Gary Lawrence welcomes comments at <gary@lawrenceresearch.com> The Ogden Valley News is looking for Ogden Valley and Ogden Canyon historical biographies, stories, and photos to use in its publication. Please mail, email, or call Shanna at 745-2688 or Jeannie at 745-2879 if you have material you would like to share. BOy scOuts frOm liBerty On tOp Of Ben lOmOnd peak circa 1944. Back rOw: Scout Master Thomas Shupe, Don Shaw, Donald Whiteley, Donald Montgomery, and Mariner Shaw. Middle Row: Gerald Montgomery, Clair Shaw, Melvin Whiteley, and Joy Ward. Front Row: Dan Rhodes. 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