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Show CATHOLIC CHURCH IN UTAH i Trailing the Padres Escalante Camped j in Many Now Well Known Towns and j Creeks Describes Four Utah Rivers j , Indians at Spanish Fork Burn Grass ! to Drive Him Away Visits American j Fork, Santaquin, York, Nephi and Other Utah Villages Met Bearded Yutas" j at Sevier River. Carefully and unu.-ually accurate as Escalantes descriptions of the country are. from the camp of t San Leno to the junction of Thistle creek with i Soldier Fork, and which two streams arc then I known as Spanish Fork, it seems impossible ti If reconcile his description in the journal with the topography as it exists. He must, however, havn : j gone down Thistle creek to its junction with Sol- ' j dicr Fork, for, from this point down Spanish Fork j to the lake, his journal can leave little doubt as to i f V the course he traveled. j , j f Nearing the hike and the home of the .Indians, j j who had been notified of their presence in the. j f country by smoke signals from distant hills, Esca- lante shows some fear that the Indians, not know- I -f ing the purpose of their trip, might prove hostile, instructs his Laguna guide, Silvester, to announce the friendliness of his party and their peaceable intent. Passing the junction of Soldier Fork and This- j , tie Creek, Escalante proceeded on down the Spanish Span-ish Fork, and, when near the valley, ascended a high hill, from the top of which he first of whito men looked down upon the pleasant waters o ; Utah lake. Descending again to the river, he fol- j - : lowed it on down to where it enters the valley, and ' j soon after, on the 23d of September, 177'), made J j ." his first encampment within the valley of L'tah ! ! , lake on the north bank of the Spanish Fork, which I he named Aguas Calicntcs, about two miles above ; . the present village of Spanish Fork. ; For many years the impression has prevailed that Escalante, when reaching for Utah lake, came f ! down the Provo river and entered the valley j through Provo canyon. There can be little doubt j ;" but this supposition is erroneous. 1 . Whatever reasons may have induced Escalanto to travel so far to the nortli of the actual direction j he should have taken to reach Monterey, it is ap- ! parent from his journal that, long before arriving j at Green Iiiver, he had determined to visit Utah - I l lake, and his course from the camp on Green Iiiver '. was generally westerly until approaching the Wa- satch range, when the rugged and broken face o j the country forced him daily to travel southward. ' It is not to be supposed that an experienced trav- ( eler like Escalante would have gone straightfor- f ward to the west from Green River into the rough- est and steepest portions of the Wasatch mountains moun-tains without a motive. From his camp on Currant creek, and there can I be no doubt thrown upon the approximate location of this camp, he begins to swing steadily to the. ; southwest, and the daily courses and distances, a-j t recorded in the journal, could only take him in a direction leading away from the Provo rirer. As already stated, the only portion of the course from Green river to Utah lake about which there can be any question is. for a distance of fifteen miles from the camp of San Leno, near Indianola, I down Thistle creek to its junction with Soldier f Fork. "Referring to that portion of the journal where- f in he gives a description of the valley of Utah lake, he writes: "From the four rivers which wa- . ter it the firt Hows from the south and is the I Aquas Calicntcs (river of warm water)." This ia I the stream down which he came when entering tho I valley, and upon the banks of which he camped. Again, quoting from that part of his journal whero he refers to the four rivers, he says: "The second sec-ond following the first three leagues to the north and with more water than the first," ho names th;: Tiio San Nicholas, and which could only be th? Provo river. The Provo river has more water ! than Spanish fork and the distance of three Span- : ish which he gives, equivalent to about seven and f one-quarter miles," is exceedingly accurate. Ho ; continues: "Three leagues and a half from this to the northwest is a river," and this he names Tiio de San Antonio de Padua. The distance of three and j one-half leagues (about eight and one-half miles) j could bring him only to American Fork river, and finally, describing the fourth river, he addst, "To j the fourth river we did not go, although we saw M its groves. It is to the northwest of the San An- j tonio, and we saw it; it has on each side much ' (Continued on Paga 5.) i ! Si ' t CATHOLIC CHURCH IN UTAH (Continued from page 1.) level ground." This he names Rio de Santa Ana. Looking across the valley from American Fork river to the Jordan, we have no difficulty in recognizing recog-nizing the Santa Ana as the latter stream. The record, as given in the journal, must fix beyond dispute the fact that to the stream, down which he came when entering the valley, he gave the name of Aquas Calientes. and with this fixed there are to the north of this stream or Spanish Fork only the rivers mentioned. It is to be borne in mind that in giving the name of river to the streams he ereissed that Esealante differentiates between be-tween those currying sufficient water to be dignified by the name of river and others having a lesser quantity. It is not to be assumed that he gave the names of these rivers to some ef the smaller streams which flow into the valley. In closing his description of Ihe water available for irrigation purposes and for the uses of possible future settlement, settle-ment, he says that in addition to the rivers already enumerated. "Aside from these rivers there are in the plain many pools of good water and several fountains which flow down from the mountains.""' "A mas elc csfos hay en el piano muchas ujos de aqua bucna y varias fuentcs que bajan do la sierra.". While the Spanish words "ojos" and "fuoutes" are properly translated pools and fountains, the latter word, however, can only be interpreted as streams, considered in the sense in which Esealante Esea-lante used it. If we are to assume that Esealante did reach Utah valley by coming down Provo river, and to which in that case he would have given the name Aquas Calientes, it- is certainly impossible to see how be could have given the names of three streams located to ihe northwest of Provo river when only two exist. Pitching cam) upon Spanish fork, they find the Indians bave burned the grass in order to force them to leave the valley at once, and that the Indians In-dians were gathered in hostile attitude in their village vil-lage on American fork. Tired as their horses were, I Esealante at once sends Father Domitiguoz. with the two Laguna guides and interpreter, to visit the j Indians, by whom they are heispitably received as soon as their peaceful mission is made kimwn. The day following his arrival in tint valley E-ealaiile E-ealaiile moves his camp to the Indian village on American Fork, where he spends the day talking to the Indians, instructing them and preparing them: i for conversion 1o Christianity. However, the principal prin-cipal object of bis mission is still uppermost in his mind, for on September 24th we find in the journal this entry: "We now determined to proceed pro-ceed on our journey the following day for the settlement set-tlement and post of Monterey." At about 1 o'clock in the afternoon of September 'Joth he said "goodbye" "good-bye" to the Lagunas. who treated him with great kindness, and leaving behind, with much regret his Laguna guide, Silvester, he again starts on the long journey to Monterey, retracing his steps to Provo river, where he camped for the night. Pushing on the following day he swung to the westward of his first camp on Spanish Fork and prepared to leave the valley by its southerly end. stopping for the night upon the site of the present town of Payson. Taking a southerly course he went out of the valley of Utah lake, and passing near the present village of Pondtown, he passed the salt pits from which ihe Indians obtained their supply bf salt, and to which he gave the suggestive name of Valle de las Salinas; thence on up Suit creek and through the pmsent towns of Santaquin and York, following follow-ing the line of the olel Utah Central railway, and camped upon the site of the little village of Mono. Here the party visited a band of Indians, gave, them some presents and, as Esealante writes in his journal, "found them as kind and gentle as the Lake Indians." Still pursuing a southerly course they pushed on the following day across the ground where Xephi is now located, near, but to the westward of Levan. and through Juab. sliJl following the line of the present railroad, to .where thy road turns t to the westward and crosses ih- divide into the; Sevier valley, when they continued n the seutb r f ly course some six miles further, turned abrupt!.--, and crossed the divide, coming down t the Sevier j river at a point where they did not uspeet i'-i i'-i existence tietil they reached it. and to whi'-l, they gave the name of Santa Isabel. Here the Indians vi-iieu them and caud l.ca-. i . lante ouw confusion bv giving to the rivet tin J ; same name as he 1 1 m 1 1 previously heard their, apply, ' to the San Buenaventura or Greeti riv: r: he con- j ' eluded that the Indians bad made a mlst::k; audi I was satisfied in his own mind that il was the sime; stream his Indian guide. Silvester had told him of. and Avhich later he found to be correct. Camping the night of September JPtit on the banks of Sevier river, they visited the Indians again and saw for the first time the "Bvardejj ' Yutas." whose heavy beards gave, them the ap-l ' pearance of Spaniards, anil whose country was to; I the south of a large river known as the Tiroti.j ! This Esculantc assumed to I.e a river termed by the) waters of the Dolores and the Xavn.h-. and which i he apparently thought to be a large river flowing " to the south other than the Colorado. This river j is not identified in the journal, nor in it anywhere mentioned by name in the journal. j Leaving the camp on the Sevier river, audi which was almost on the identical ground on which the village of Scipio is now built, they moved west j across the Sevier desert until ihe line of the old! Utah Central railroad was again reached; here j they halted for the night 'with neither water nor grass for their animals, and without water and but " scanty food for themselves. ! WI1IIW 1 Mill I I I III III, II II II I I I I III I |