WEST OF THE RIVER, A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

 

                               

Forward

 

Many of the Mormon Pioneers that came to Utah Territory during the mid-to late 1800’s settled in the southwest half of the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, west of the Jordan River. They built homes, cleared and worked the land, had children, saw their children die of disease and problems in child-birth, had more children and saw their older survivors marry and have children. By the early 1900's several viable communities had been created in the western section of Salt Lake Valley and most of the first-generation settlers had died. West of the River is a collection of short stories that chronicles a first, second and third generation of families that settled in one of those communities, West Jordan . . . the family and descendants of Joseph John Williams Senior who emigrated from Cornwall England, eventually settled in West Jordan and raised his children on the homestead he created. The stories are about the lives and some of the activities of Joseph Senior, Joseph Junior, and their families and those who followed including Joseph Junior’s youngest son, Jabez Mark Williams, or Mark as he was called most of his life. The author of this account, Mark’s son who was nicknamed Jack, was named after his grandfather and great grandfather, but was rarely called by his full name. This document is basically accurate as far as dates and names of people and places. However, to complete the document some literary license was employed. Since it was developed through research of family records, stories the author heard from parents and others that knew the family, most parts of the stories can be counted on as being the best known evidence of what occurred with the families that are included in the stories.

 

PREFACE

Joseph John Williams Junior’s family line began with his marriage to Fannie Kesiah Beckstead in 1875. Fannie was a twin born to one of three wives of her father Alexander Beckstead who was a polygamist. Fannie was sixteen and Joseph was twenty one when they were married. Fannie’s father was a Mormon Pioneer family settled in the community of South Jordan a few miles south of the settlement of West Jordan. Joseph, Jr. and Fannie’s first home was the log cabin built by Joseph’s father . . . the original home Joseph Senior built on the property (now a vacant lot on the northwest corner of 2200 West and 7800 South Street) was in the town of West Jordan. This couple’s first of fourteen children was born in 1876 and their last, sixteen years later. By 1916 this family of sixteen was down to eleven in all, and by1936, Joseph Jr. and Fannie had passed away at ages seventy-six and seventy-nine, respectively, and only four children remained of the original fourteen.

Such was the normal for that day. Families were large and death was common at all ages. But family lines survived somehow, despite sickness, lack of money and other resources. They survived through strength in their religious beliefs, through hard work and by living a form of tough family rules and morals. This second generation Williams family of West Jordan was not unique in its size, the number of early deaths of its children, or in the way the family members lived their lives, but it was different with unusual characteristics carried on through succeeding generations. The essence of many of those characteristics has been passed down from generation to generation by stories told, and records kept. An example, briefly related here, happened in the early 1900’s when two of Fannie Williams’ boys put a bull in the milking stall to dupe their blind mother into attempting to milk the bull. It happened something like this:

“Jabez Mark!” Fannie Williams screamed when she discovered she was attempting to milk the bull, “Where are you and that scoundrel brother of yours? Elizabeth, come out here. When you see Mark and Millard, you tell them their father is going to hear about this. And you, Kizzie, get that damned bull out of the milking stall, and bring in Sassy in so I can finish my milking.”

The fifty-three years old short, staunch mother, blind from sugar diabetes and always in-charge, had been deceived. Her daughters also had been fooled, and they all knew that their brother Millard was at the bottom of the ruse, and that Mark, their twelve year old brother, once again, had been sucked into the deal so that he could share the blame or take all of it, like it was his idea. The girls knew the boys would pay when their Blacksmith father returned from Harriman, and they, too, would have their day when the chance presented itself. This, they were convinced, would be the last time Millard would pull the wool over their eyes and play such an awful trick on their mother and ultimately on them in the process.

Jabez Mark Williams, “Mark” as he was called by everyone except his mother, the youngest son of Joseph Jr. and Fannie by twelve years old was already a very stable and independent boy. Mark, being the youngest male in the family had been pestered by his oldest brother Wallace until he (Wallace) got married and left home; and then his brother Millard, who was three years older than Mark, had taken over, continually domineering over Mark in all matters. So Mark had learned to play his own game with its own rules. But despite all of the abuse he received, he was determined to be his own person. Most of the time, he was a good boy, but occasionally, partly because he was the youngest boy in the family, but more likely because he was a good target due to his easy-going ways, Mark got drawn into things that went against the rules of family and society. Unlike his older brothers, he modeled his behavior after his father and his older sister and first born, Fannie Kesiah, or Kizzie as she was called, who had been named after her mother, but died soon after her twentieth birthday.

Mark’s mother, had faith in him above all her remaining four children and always felt he would be the leader in the family, over and above all the rest. “He has much of his father in him,” Fannie was often quoted. His father had been an exemplary man all his life and Fannie knew that Mark would grow out of his mischief-making, even though he was “so downright different” in his mannerisms.

Fannie made most of the decisions in the family, despite the fact that when she turned fifty, she became blind from sugar diabetes, a family disease rampant throughout her family, and a disease that would strike and kill six of her children as they got older and had families of their own. Fannie’s husband was away so much of the time so that for her taking the lead in the family was the natural thing to do, despite the many children she had to watch over and her later disability.

Joseph Jr. rarely worked the farm when he was home, but rather worked in his blacksmith shop and in his later years fixed automobiles. Fannie’s blindness did not slow her down much. Throughout her marriage, Fannie had been the boss of the eighty acre farm and even took much of the work of the farm on herself. Her polygamist father husband to three wives simultaneously, and father to over thirty six children insisted that all his children, boys and girls alike learn all there was to learn about farming. Milking of the cows twice a day was only one of the tasks Fannie learned to do and exclusively did on her own farm. Later after she was blind, she continued milking daily with the help of her daughters. Twice daily, two of her daughters would take her to the barn and bring in the cows. Then they would direct her to the three-legged milk stool, where she would sit milking the cows as the girls stood by and watched and took care of the filled buckets. “Mother,” as she was called lovingly by all the children, didn’t want her girls to be Milkmaids like she had been all her life, so she never allowed them to milk the cows.

Mark was a hard worker and lived for his work all his life. He learned the value of work from his father who was uniquely staunch on quality and demanded it of all the children, in whatever they were good at. Joseph was not demanding or domineering in his ways with the children, he just taught by good example, and insisted that the children always be proud of everything for which they were responsible, even the most mundane chores. And, knowing that he would be away from home much of the time, Joseph demanded that all his children respect their mother and follow her lead.

The three boys that survived to adulthood, Wallace, Millard and Mark were all ones to seek out many different things they wanted to learn. Mark took more interest in the affairs of the farm and learned good farming methods from his mother. Mark also learned blacksmithing and mechanics from his father and accompanied his father on undertakings in the community when he took his portable equipment and forge and worked sometimes for days repairing farm machinery, shoeing horses and designing and making farm tools and mining equipment. Both Wallace and Millard became Carpenters. Their youngest and only remaining sister, Juanita, or Nita as she was called, married young and began a family.

Joseph Jr. was a highly skilled technician for his time, always looking for new ways to improve on a piece of equipment or invent another tool that would make the farmer’s or the miner’s job easier. As a result, he was sought after all along the valleys of the Wasatch Front working as far north as Southern Idaho and south to Northern Arizona and west to Eastern Nevada. His blacksmith shop at his home was full of special tools that he had invented and forged to make his work a little easier.

Mark traveled with his father on many of the shorter trips he made . . . ones that were only one to two days long, but he rarely followed his father on the long assignments. Joseph believed the children should stay at home and work around the farm and assist their mother in taking care of the animals and bringing in the crops.

The Williams’ nearby neighbors and families included the Buckley, Hubbard, Webster, Gardner, Sprat­ling, Steinfeldt, Olson, Wood, Jones, Fulmer, Burmester, and Diamond families. Most of these same families were active members of the LDS Church (Mormons) and all had heritages that went back to the Pioneers that first settled Utah. Joseph John Williams, Senior had been one of these Mormon Pioneers, leaving Cornwall, England sometime in the late 1860's and trekking across the U.S. by horse and wagon with his family. He eventually settled in West Jordan on forty acres of fertile land. The family of his oldest son Joseph Jr. continued moderate active in the Church, and most of Joseph Junior’s children were active in their youn­ger years.

It being primarily a Mormon population west of the Jordan River, in the early 1900’s most social activities in the Southwest Salt Lake Valley took place at churches in the various communities of West Jordan, Taylorsville, Bennion Ward South Jordan, Riverton, Bluffdale, Herriman, Lark, Welby, Hunter, Magna and Bingham. Most of the larger functions, reunions and many Church-related activities that involved the communities south of Taylorsville took place at the old rock Pioneer Hall on the east side of West Jordan.

The original Quarter Section of forty acres of the Williams homestead, first settled by Joseph John Williams Sr. and his family ran north and west from the corner of two streets informally called in later years Sugar Factory Road  (2200 West) and the Bingham Highway (7800 South) in the town of West Jordan, Utah. Joseph Sr. had emigrated from Cornwall, England after conversion to the Mormon Religion eventually taking up residence on the property allocated to him in West Jordan by Brigham Young. He was a well-educated man when he arrived in Utah, later becoming a Circuit Judge in Salt Lake Valley. He was considered “well off” and was recognized formally as an outstanding citizen in the community. Soon after his arrival in Utah he built small log home that was soon replaced by a much larger modern wood frame structure on the southeast corner of the eighty acre allotment that served as his home and later that of one of his sons, Joseph John Williams, Jr. and his family.

Originally, the house was painted white, but was later painted in a dull gray color, remaining that color until it was abandoned in the late 1980's and tore down in 1998. Some trees in the yard survived over one hundred years until the area was leveled. An old apple tree next to the east side of the house still bore wormy fruit until about 1990 when it fell over taking one side of the abandoned structure with it. During its many years of existence one could see along the fence flowers and a well-kept lawn that greeted visitors. A large wide porch with white simulat­ed Greek pillars supported the overhanging roof of the upstairs in this large multi-bedroom home. In those years on the narrow strip of property between the irrigation canal and the house, there was a large barn, a blacksmith shop used by Joseph Junior and several other sheds that served as chicken coops, pig pens, a car garage, other storage and animal shelters. A large garden took up the property next to the road on the east side of the house and extended north to the canal weir where the canal converged on the Sugar Factory Road. An outside hand-operated water pump was located over the well just west of the house and a small orchard filled up the remaining property behind the house to the north. The tall, two-story structure with its short white picket fence all round was kept immaculate by the efforts of Joseph Senior’s wife, Johanna, and later his married daughter in law, Fannie. Fannie, the five foot tall blind “master” was the last of the Williams families to live in the house.

For many years this house on the corner stood as a stately reminder of the families who lived there and took part in the community. It was also the place where eight of the eighteen children of Joseph Sr. were raised along with the thirteen living survivors of Joseph Jr. In about 1931 after her husband died, Fannie Williams decided that the forty acre Quarter Section that made up the original homestead was to be sold off or divided into smaller units. The twenty acres on the north end of the section were purchased by the Steinfeldt, Olson, and Malstrom families. The remaining twenty acres was given to her surviving children, Wallace, Millard, Mark and Juanita. Millard acquired the most westerly five acres, built a home on it and raised his large family there. Mark took the five-acre parcel along the west side of the South Jordan Canal that cut through the entire Quarter Section. He built a home there in 1940 raising five children before it was sold by Lila, his widow, in 1955. Juanita, the youngest daughter, was given the middle five acre piece but never occupied it. Early in her marriage to Lon Buckley, she and her family lived in the old homestead on the corner, renting it from Wallace who was willed the easterly most five acres on which the old home and all the out-buildings stood. Wallace never lived in old Williams’ home after it was willed to him. Rather, it was continually rented by him and later his children to various families (Juanita Buckley being the first) until the house was demolished.

The following group of short stories making up the document West of the River begins and ends on this property. Its roots, heritage, sadness and joy fan out in all directions from this original homestead of the Williams Family.

                      – Chapter One --

                 Arnold Webster--1915

 

“Joseph, I would like to use two of your boys for the day tomorrow to assist me and my boys kill and dress out four of my grown hogs,” said Arnold Webster, Joseph’s neighbor to the south.  “I have everything ready and it will be an all-day affair. I would sure be obliged if you could free up your boys for tomorrow. I can pay them two dollars each if they can help.”

“I think we can arrange it, Arnold,” Joseph answered.  “Wallace isn’t available; he’s married and moved on, you know, and I was going to use Millard to assist me on fixing my forge in my blacksmith shop, but it can wait. And Mark can help if you don’t mind using him. He’s strong and pretty wiry for his age; I think he could do it. He’s been helping me fix Willard Malstrom’s car, but I’m almost through with that job and can spare him.”

When Joseph told the boys that he had offered them to help Arnold they were less than enthusiastic, but the money was good and they both needed it. The next day at 7:00 a.m. they were at the Webster’s farm. The walk south along the canal bank to Webster’s place gave to boys a chance to talk about the day’s activities. Their father had taught them well about slaughtering animals, so there was no apprehension in accepting the duties assigned them. However, they knew that at best it would be a muddy, sloppy and smelly job and that they would earn their money since it had rained hard a couple of days before and the pens would surely be a mud hole. They knew also that the pigs they were going to slaughter would be slimy and covered with pig shit and mud. Understanding that, Joseph warned them to wear their oldest clothes and their boots for the operation. By late afternoon they had taken care of three of the pigs Arnold had ready for slaughter. There was only one left.

“Boys,” Arnold said, as he gathered his two boys and the two Williams neighbors around the pen where the largest and oldest hog was plowing the dirt with his nose in the back of the pen, “we have only this one big hog left now and he’s been nothing but trouble. He went after me the last time I got into his pen to turn back his feeder trough that he tipped over. If I hadn’t been able to get my fat body across that fence or if it would have been a little higher, I’m sure I would have lost a leg or my life. He came after me with a vengeance. I think we are going to have to shoot him while he’s still inside his pen. I hate to do that, but I just can’t afford to have any of us get hurt if we try to drag him out with a rope nearer the hoist. Millard, I understand you are a pretty good sharp-shooter. Do you think you could hit him clean between the eyes from this side of the fence?”

Millard nudged closer to Arnold and took a good look at the pig from another angle. The hog was just standing in one place, but he was busy grousing in the muddy hole with his nose; he was about ten feet away from the fence. It’s going to be a tricky shot from this distance, he thought, but I also believed I can do it.

“I will try it, Mr. Webster,” Millard answered after taking some time walking back and forth to get a better angle for a shot. “That’s all I can say. But I believe I can get a good shot from here, and I’m sure that old Remington of yours carries a wallop. I think I can bring him down.”

“Good, good,” Arnold answered.  “You’ll only get one shot, so make it good. It’s got to hit him right between the eyes, you know, otherwise we’ll have a problem on our hands.”

True to their expectations, the day had been one of mucking around in the mud and manure in the pen. The stench was almost overpowering, and the other pigs they had already slaughtered had been a mess until they were dunked into the boiling water barrel and cleaned.  This operation with the largest hog was really going to be a mess.

Arnold knew from years of raising hogs that these old boars that weighed five hundred pounds or more could be a real problem if the shot wasn’t accurate. Usually a well-placed bullet between the eyes with a high powered twenty-two long rifle was enough to bring them down, but he had seen misplaced shots where the hog was only outraged and created more troubles.  Arnold’s eyesight was going bad, so that was why he suggested Millard place the shot to bring the pig down. He didn’t really have that much confidence in his sons; they were younger and much less experienced with guns. They would have loved to take the shot, but with Millard being older, Arnold thought this one time, he would play it safe.

The other boys were nodding approval as Millard positioned himself and braced the gun against the long corner pole of the pen. Mark had seen Millard shoot, and was sure he could do it, but if he missed or grazed the hog, he knew they would be in trouble.

Since he was little Millard had loved guns much more than Mark. When he was twelve he was given his first gun after begging his father endlessly. Joseph had found an old single shot twenty-two long rifle and purchased it for Millard. The gun was already old, but it had a long barrel and Millard had learned to shoot so accurately there was no one thatl was a better shot in the entire community.

All was quite while Millard took good aim and finally fired off the one shot from the rifle. The bullet seemed to hit perfect as the hog raised his head, stood there for a moment as if dazed, with a small drop of blood oozing out of the hole where the bullet entered right between his eyes, then the boar dropped to the ground. There were sighs of approval; then another full moment of silence while all of the onlookers focused on the hog to see if it was breathing, or kicking like the others had when the bullets entered their brains.

They had been at this process all day long and now there was just this one animal to dress out.  Hog slaughter was a community effort for most of the farmers in the region. Lionel Diamond had an especially designed slaughtering truck that was equipped with a mechanical winch and derrick and other equipment that he took around the community and slaughtered animals for some of the farmers. But on occasions like this when a farmer like Arnold or any of the other neighbors who were not so well off and couldn’t afford Neil’s ten dollar charge for each animal, the farmers would usually assemble a few of the more robust boys or men in the neighborhood and do the job themselves. Mark’s brothers, Millard and Wallace had done this many times, but Mark had only been involved at home with slaughtering of their own animals.  Their father had taught all the Williams boys well, and they could always be depended on to earn the little money they would get for the job.

By late afternoon the Williams brothers had more than earned their two dollars but there was still several hours left on the largest of the hogs that Millard had just shot. What was ahead was some very hard work, they both knew and dreaded.

On these operations where the farmer took care of the slaughter of his own animals, a significant amount of work had to be done to get ready for the job. Usually large barrels or copper pots were used for boiling water needed for the slaughtering process. The barrels or pots were placed on stands close to where the pigs would be cleaned and dressed so a fire could be built under them. A third empty barrel was set aside, later to be filled with boiling water for scalding the dead pig. Scalding of the skin of the pig was necessary since after the dipping in the boiling water, the hide could be scraped with a tool that removed all the hair from the animal and created a smooth hide on the outside. The animal was usually gutted on the ground or gutted after it was hoisted up on the hanging frame to working height with a block and tackle on some sort of device. After that the animal was hoisted to a convenient height an empty barrel would be placed under it, and then it would be filled from another barrel with the boiling water. This way the animal could be dunked into the barrel by simply letting off the block and tackle and then pulling the animal back to working height above the barrel. They barrel was then removed and work could begin on skinning and cutting up the slaughtered animal.

For his operation, Arnold Webster made had up a large tripod derrick using lodge pole pines on which he could attach the rope block and tackle. Arnold’s boys had been tending the fires under large copper pots since five that morning. The copper pots were only twenty five gallons each, but they would be ready each time a pig was ready to be scalded when the time came.  Once the animal was in place, the Webster boys would quickly pour the boiling water into the barrel placed under the hung animal, and then they would go off to the well and fill them again for the next slaughter. By the time the next pig was ready, the water was usually hot enough to use.

When Millard and Mark arrived at seven, most everything was ready. The water was close to boiling, all the tools were in place to gut the hogs, and Mark had brought along the scrapers his dad gave him to take the hair off the pigs when they were seared in the water.

As each of the smaller pigs were brought out of the pen, Arnold shot each with the rifle, and then someone on the crew would cut an animal’s throat and let it bleed out before it was hoisted up on the tripod. While the pig was still on the ground, several of the workers would then lift the pig and roll it into position so most all of the blood from the cut would drain out of body.  It was important that this be done quickly sinde the more blood the animal had left, the more chance there was that the meat would be spoiled. After a few moments of full bleeding, the animal would be carried or drug over to the tripod where a sturdy hardwood spreader with a lifting ring in its middle, made for that purpose, would be inserted between the tendons and the leg bone of the hind legs next to the hoofs so the animal could be hoisted up, upside down, and the bleeding-off could be completed. While the final bleeding was taking place, one of the workers would carefully open the gut of the pig with a sharp knife and pull out all the intestines and other innards. The Heart, liver and kidneys would always be kept in a large pan, usually taken immediately into the house by one of the girls or women of the farmer’s household. If the guts were not captured and drug off by the dogs, they would be taken to the fields and buried. In some cases where pigs were being slaughtered, the long gut of the animal would be saved, washed out and used later for sausage or pepperoni.

When the gutting and preliminary cleaning of the cavity were concluded with several buckets of the hot water from one of the hot water containers, the animal would be pulled up high enough to clear the top of the barrel that was then placed under the animal. Then when the hot water was put in the barrel, the animal would be submerged in the hot water for several minutes while the hair and the surface skin on the animal were sufficiently softened so that the animal’s skin could be scraped smooth and free of hair.

To allow easy scraping of the skin, Arnold had taken several smooth planks and placed them on saw horses, making large bench that could accommodate the weight of the animal and put it horizontal so this step could be done efficiently. Up until the time of the shooting of the largest hog, all three previously killed animals had been gutted and scraped and were now hanging next to Arnold’s barn, up high enough to keep the dogs off while the meat stiffened and cured some before cutting. The cutting and taking of hams, loins, bacon and other part would be a process handled by Arnold and his family at a later time. Now it was due for the taking of the largest of the hogs that was lying prone in the mud hole where Millard had shot him.

“God damn, Millard,” Arnold finally broke the silence and exclaimed to Millard.  “I think the old bastard is finished. Let’s get in there and get this job done.”

The gate was opened and the boys and Arnold went in. Arnold was ready with his slender razor-sharp knife to cut the animal’s throat. Arnold’s oldest boy Arny grabbed the pig’s head, twisted it aside so his dad could get at the throat, and Arnold carefully thrust his knife into the large fatty neck of the pig. His knife was razor-sharp, but it missed the juggler vein only grazing it. Blood spurted out on him and others standing by, but not in the gushing flow like the other animals had. To the great surprise of all the crew, at once the huge animal came to, shook his head loose from Arny, turned over and wallowed in the mud and was on its feet heading for the gate on a full run. Everyone that was in the pen scattered for the closest fence to climb so they could get out of the way of the raging animal.

Arnold cried at the same time, “My God, get out of the way, that old bastard is not dead after all.”

No one dared try to stop the fierce animal and all just stood in amazement as the hog headed east down the lane, leaving a trail of blood behind. At the end of the lane, the pig made a sharp left turn on the Canal Road and then headed north.

Arnold Webster, being a hundred pounds overweight, didn’t attempt to go after the beast on foot but headed for his old truck. The boys were already on their way carrying ropes running after the hog when Arnold shouted orders to be careful in hopes they could lasso the creature and bring it down before it got too far.

By then, however, the hog had gotten to full speed and was past the Lapore’s place and was still heading north toward the Bingham Highway. The fleet-footed boys in full chase now were not far behind, but were not gaining much on the animal that was running as if it had no injuries. Blood was still flowing out of the cut in its throat, but the animal was not slowing in the least.

While the boys were running along the road behind the pig, they were cautiously aware that the animal could turn on them at any moment, so no one was really intent on catching the beast. As they ran along conversing between breaths, they were amazed that the animal with its throat cut could run so far.

As it got to the Beckstead’s on the corner of the Canal Road and the Bingham Highway, it stopped as if it were going to run into their yard, but its hesitation lasted only a second and it was on its way around the corner and heading west on the Bingham Highway right up the middle of the south lane on the graded gravel highway. In another hundred feet it was directly in front of the Williams’ place still heading west at full speed.

At that same time, Donald Hogan was driving his new Model T Ford along the highway going east at forty miles per hour quickly approaching the pig that was centered and coming right for him in his lane. Unfortunately, Don was not watching the road as he should have been, but was rather distracted by something that was floating in the canal when he crossed the old wooden canal bridge that had been constructed a few years before to make crossing the canal easier. The pig, still running in his lane was also not looking out for cars either, and soon the two were coming together . . . the car at a steady forty miles per hour and the pig likely moving at a good six miles per hour.

By now with its great loss of blood, the pig’s head was almost touching the ground as it continued it run west. When the pig and the car intersected, the Model T’s high bumper rode up and over the pig’s razor-like back. The impact stopped the pig and the car also stopped almost rolling over in the process. The driver much shaken by the event was out of the car in a split second and was running around the front of the car to see what he had hit. The running boys arrived at the scene of the accident about the same time as the car stopped.

“My new car!” Donald Hogan shouted to no one in particular. “My new car.  I’ve hit a damned pig with my car”

The pig was completely under the car. The new car’s front bumper was bent, and the car’s two side wheels were completely off the ground, but no more damage was apparent.  The pig was obviously dead by now, but a major problem still existed, how to get the car off the pig, and how to get the pig back to Webster’s farm.

Before any decisions were made, Joseph Williams, hearing the commotion was out of his blacksmith shop and heading for the accident scene. The Beckstead family and the Williams women were also out of their respective houses having heard the screaming pig as it gasped it last breath. Arnold Webster soon arrived at the crash scene in his old pickup truck. 

Had a newspaper cameraman been available this would have made a wonderful headline picture for the Deseret News: “Runaway Pig with Its Throat Cut Stops Car Dead on Bingham Highway in West Jordan.”  At least twenty people would have been in the picture and Butterfield Motors in Riverton would have been baited for the day when Don Hogan would be bringing his new car back to the Ford Dealership to get a new bumper put on. But that was not to be on that fatal day. The Williams and the Webster boys and a few of the other hearty neighbors were soon lifting the car off the pig, and plans were being constructed by Arnold on how to get the five hundred pound animal in the back of his truck for the short ride back to the tripod. Don Hogan said he would take care of his bumper since he realized that the whole thing was an accident, but the truth was, he didn’t want to admit that he was not watching where he was going when the pig and his car came together. Within another few moments the group was on its way back to the Webster’s farm, and Beatrice Beckstead and Fannie Williams, her sister, were flooding the blood stains with buckets of ditch water on the smooth gravel road in front of their respective houses.

By six thirty that night, Mark and Millard were dragging themselves home along the canal bank still talking about the pig that stopped Don Hogan’s Model T Ford.  It would be a story retold and likely elaborated on for decades.

                                   

 

                   – Chapter Two –

                 Diamond’s Hole--1915

 

After the first three irrigation canals built west of the Jordan River were completed in the late 1800’s a large part of the west side of Salt Lake Valley could then support irrigated farms. Suddenly on their completion, the entire valley was economically enhanced. About the same time they were in full use they also became the center of much summer swimming fun. It soon became the tradition that most of the ten to seventeen year old boys in the towns of Bluffdale, Riverton, South Jordan, West Jordan Bennion, Taylorsville and Hunter found some relief from the hot summer by sneaking off to swim at least once or twice a week in any one of the many deep holes or weirs that were part of their construction. In West Jordan three swimming holes existed with names taken from the nearest neighbors to those holes, namely, Webster’s Hole on the Little Canal, Diamond’s Hole on the Big Canal, or Abbot’s Hole on the South Jordan Canal. Every town along the canal routes had these same type meccas almost exclusively used by boys from each town. Each “Hole” was a place on the canal downstream of a weir that was designed to take into account the changes in elevation of the areas through which the canals flowed. These concrete weirs also had head gates where water was diverted from the canal into ditches that ran along to the various farmer’s fields. Where the water flowed over the concrete weir, the surge of the water widened and deepened the canal a few yards downstream from the weir forming a suitable swimming hole that was normally six to ten feet deep and at least thirty feet in length. Everywhere one of these holes existed along the canals, if the holes were far enough away from their homes, the neighboring youth gave the hole their family’s name and used it as a place where they could swim naked without being seen by their parents or other adults. Most of the time the swimming holes were jealously guarded by older boys in the neighboring areas, and conflicts soon arose if a group from another neighborhood invaded the local neighbor’s hole. 

The three canals on the west side of Salt Lake Valley originated from different points along the Jordan River beginning on the very south end of the Salt Lake Valley. From there they ran parallel through the valley about one half mile apart until they reached the towns of Hunter and Magna. All along the canals weirs were constructed and at each weir ditches fed water to the farmlands below the canals. What water was left entered several small lakes at the north end of the valley that eventually were used for recreation, fishing and ultimately to feed the copper mills in Magna and Garfield.

Webster’s Hole was one of the many swimming holes along the “Little Canal” . . . the middle of the three parallel west valley canals.  Likewise, the “Big Canal” that paralleled the Little Canal to the west had its special holes. The South Jordan Canal that was the nearest to the Jordan River in the western part of the valley also had its special swimming holes.

The largest and most jealously guarded swimming hole in West Jordan was located just north of the Bingham to Midvale Railroad Spur where the Big Canal went under the tracks.  The older of Lionel Diamond’s boys that lived north of the hole were considered by some as the sole users of this hole, and many rumors abounded around town that this was the place to go at night if one wanted to see naked girls swimming with the boys.

Late in the afternoon on one hot summer day in 1915, fifteen year old Mark Williams and his buddy Elmer Olsen and two of the Webster boys snuck off for a short swim at Webster’s Hole, one of the less-guarded swimming places. They were enjoying the swim, were fighting and splashing each other as boys would do and generally catching up on the gossip of the neighborhood.

“The other day when Dan and I were delivering grain at Lionel Diamond’s,”  Arny Webster added to the conversation,  “I heard Neil and Lee Diamond saying that they and Parley Spratling were cooking up a swimming party with some wild girls from Midvale at Diamond’s Hole on Saturday.”

“Yeah? Next Saturday?” Mark questioned, “are you sure that’s what you heard?  I heard there are some real wild Bohunk girls in Midvale that will do anything for fun. And I have seen some of those girls. They are real knockouts. Wouldn’t it be fun to be there for the show? I mean not so anyone could see us, but in the willows along the canal were we could watch the show?”

“I’m for that, Mark,” Arny jumped in, “can you other guys get away?  We could be there a little early, leave our horses near the old abandoned barn behind Fred Schmidt’s and sneak along the tracks.”

“”They would never see us if we kept low in Schmidt’s ditch,” Mark excitedly added.  “I think there is a long stretch of willows along the canal right before the weir, if I remember correctly. We could hide out in those willows on the east side of the canal bank since they would be coming in from the west side of the canal, so they could use the swing on that old tree that hangs out over the water. We would never be seen there and could get away fast to the east down toward the old barn if we had to.”

“I don’t know,” the more cautious Elmer Olsen added. “I heard the Diamond boys caught Dick Jones, his younger brother and two other guys about our age swimming in their hole about a week ago, and beat the holy crap out of them. You sure we ought to be doing this? Neil Diamond is a tough bugger, so I hear, and so is Parley Spratling. I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Oh come on, Elmer,” Mark assured him. “With those long legs of yours, they would never catch you even if they used their horses.”

Saturday evening, just after dark, Mark and his friends met at Webster’s and the four boys began the mile trip west to Schmidt’s abandoned barn. Once their horses were secure on the south side of the barn out of sight from the Schmidt’s house, they started up the dry ditch bottom toward the Big Canal.

“We’ve got to make this good, boys,” Mark said as the four boys got closer to the canal bank and started into the willows along the bank. “Now remember we have to be stone quiet.  Not one sound. You know how sound carries over water.”

Long before the Diamond boys and Parley Spratling and the three girls from Midvale arrived on the west side of the bank across from the grove of willows, Mark and his friends were securely hidden, but had pushed the willows aside well enough so each would have a clean view of the swimming hole. Will Webster had brought some jerky along and all had shared it while they waited, but now they were all so thirsty they could almost drink the murky canal water. But their patience paid off as they finally heard the whispers of the other group as they worked their way along the west side of the canal to the place under the big tree where they would take off their clothes and skinny dip in the weir, almost straight across from the boys hidden in the thicket of the willows.

The whispering didn’t stop even after the group of six girls and boys were under the big tree. Their voices across the water, however, were clear to the hidden spies as if they were right next to the swimmers. They were able to make out everything that was said:

“I don’t know if we should be doing this,” one of the girls was heard saying. “What if someone caught us here?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” one of the boys said, comforting the frightened girl. “You saw how far we are from anyone’s house. Why, if we heard anyone coming along the canal bank on either side, we could be out of here in seconds. There’s no chance of getting caught. Us boys come here all the time at night, and we have never seen anyone, especially this time of night.”

Under the big tree, the group that had come to swim was almost invisible. Only their silhouettes could be seen against the green open field in the background west of the canal. In the open, however, with the half moon and the clear skies, one could make out features almost as clear as day. Mark figured by the long dark hair of all the girls that had come along that they were in fact some of the choice Bohunk girls he had seen many times walking along Center Street or in Vincent’s Drug in Midvale.

As preparations and procedures were discussed and agreed upon between the girls and the boys on how they would undress and get into the water, the hidden group waited in great anticipation for what they were about to see. Of course, all the boys had seen their sister’s in one phase of undress or another, but this was special. They could see by the dresses the girls were wearing, and what they imagined was underneath, that this was going to be very special show.

“Boys,” one of the girls whispered loudly to the three boys who had undressed and slid down the bank into the murky water.  “We kept our backs turned while you undressed and got into the water, now you give us the same courtesy or we are leaving right now.”

“We promise,” Parley Spratling whispered back. “In fact, we will swim downstream and slide in next to the bank until you are all in the water.”

Mark and his friends on hearing this gave each other hand signals indicating their fortunate position on being able to see the girls undress and slide into the water. They were only mildly disappointed when the girls stayed mostly behind the large tree trunk and carefully hung their clothes on the large sage brush bushes near the tree. But as they emerged into the moon light, hesitatingly inching toward the bank of the canal, to make sure the other boys were not watching them, Mark and his friends did get the view they had waited so long for. They didn’t recognize any of the girls, but by their breast sizes they were sure they were all at least seventeen or eighteen. Two of the three girls were beautifully proportioned, but the other one, Mark noted, was built much like his oldest sister, but beautiful to look at.

As the girls squeamishly entered the water testing the coldness and complaining on how dirty the water was, the other boys, true to their word who had been under the grass overhang downstream, swam up the bank side and joined the girls. It was hard for the hidden boys to get views of what was happening as the group of six played in the water, splashed each other and fondled each other’s bodies. But they knew something good was going on, and they would have given anything to be more than on-lookers.

At times there were girl’s bodies floating downstream by the boys face up, and likewise the boys displayed their wares as they floated by the girls. There was much giggling among the girls, but the entire group kept relatively quiet. If anyone spoke out, someone was sure to hush them. On at least three occasions, one or another of the girls or boys would venture out of the water, bravely take hold of the swing rope that would be thrown to them from the water, and in full view of the others swing out over the water and cannon-ball in.

For almost an hour, the group frolicked in and out of the water, getting braver and more revealing as time went on. Sometimes one or more of them would get out of the canal, run along the bank in full view of the others for a jumping dive into the water. Then finally, the girls started to complain that they were getting cold and wanted to get out. Another long discussion ensued before they decided on a procedure for exiting the canal, but soon it was decided that the girls would get out first, dry off and get dressed, and then the boys, after discretely hiding under the bank side again, would get out themselves. 

There was obviously a lack of trust among the girls about whether the boys would keep their word, but that was settled once and for all when one of the girls made the statement that if anyone tried to sneak a peek or later if any word got out in the community that this had occurred, this would be the last time the boys would ever see the girls.

The boys, true to their word a second time, hid out under the overhang downstream while the girls got out, dried and put on their clothes. Once again, the hidden viewers got their eyes full, and though they were getting stiff from crouching so long in the willows, remained utterly quiet and out of sight the entire time. They all knew by now that if word ever got out that they had witnessed the entire hour or more of any naked boys and girls swimming and playing in Diamond’s Hole running along the canal bank, and cannon balling from the rope swing, their lives wouldn’t be worth spit.

When Mark and his friends slid out of the willows and into the deep dry ditch along the railroad track, they couldn’t help starting to whisper their delight about what they had seen.  They were sure this was a first, and hoped it wouldn’t be the last. But even if it were, they had a secret that no one else in the community would ever be told. As they mounted their horses for the ride home, they all swore on a “stack of bibles” that this was their secret and it would remain so.  And they all knew that if Parley Spratling or the Diamond brothers ever heard one word of their Saturday night escapade, they would all be beat to within an inch of their lives.

That same summer, Mark and his buddies went to their hideout on the Big Canal several other times on Saturday nights in hopes of having a repeat of their fortunate skinny-dipping at the Diamond Hole, but they were never as fortunate as that first time. On only one occasion, by chance during the day, Mark and Ralph Gardner were riding their horses to Welby to pick up some of the ice that the Greeks stored during the winter under straw and sold in the summer for ice cream, when as they crossed the railroad bridge just south of the Diamond’s Hole, they saw five girls naked jump into the water on seeing them ride by. They didn’t know who the girls were and for fear of there being one or more of the Diamond boys or their friends already in the water, they didn’t see risking the chance of getting a better view.

Ralph and Mark had both heard that the Jones girls from down by Bennion Ward came there on occasion to swim, but they were too far away to see who it was that took to the water when they passed. Mark also was careful not to hint to Ralph about his earlier visit to Diamond’s Hole with his other friends on that fateful Saturday night. That was a secret he and his friends kept most all of their lives.

 

                                   

 

                       – Chapter Three –

                    Mark Williams & Burt Buckley -- 1917

 

“Burt,” Mark questioned of his best friend of those early days of his life, “how about we go to the South Jordan Ward Dance on Saturday and see if we can round up some of those young South Jordan fillies to dance with us?”

“I’m pretty busy right now with Mom being sick and all,” but maybe I can get Lon to look after her while we go. Lon’s not one to dance much, so I don’t think he will mind missing this dance.”

Later in the week, Burt caught up with Mark, told him things were covered with his mother so they made their plans to attend the South Jordan Ward Harvest Dance that next Saturday. Dances like this were common among all the West Valley communities . . . almost always functions sponsored by the Mormons in the area. LDS Wards at that time usually included all the identified boundaries of the town, so there were Wards and Ward Houses where people attended Church meetings on Sunday, where children met for Primary during the week, where twelve years and older youth met on Tuesday or Wednesday for MIA (Mutual Improvement Association or “Mutual” as it was called) and Relief Society Meetings held during a week day made up of adult women of the Ward. 

Usually one could plan on going to at least one dance every other month in one or another of the towns, always sponsored by the MIA of the respective Ward. Mark and Burt had learned to dance when they were students in school, and now that they were out of school, were ardent dancers and were regular visitors to all the dances if they could get away from the work at home. Both were tall and handsome, so for the out-of-town dances, they were sought out by all the single girls who said they were the best dancers anyone had ever seen.

Being a good dancer and being popular with the girls in the towns other than their own West Jordan, was not always the best situation for Mark and Burt. Add to that the natural rivalries of the towns, anytime they visited these other towns for a dance, they could expect to be challenged by some of the jealous boys that were residents of that town.

“Williams,” Van Bateman challenged Mark just as he was entering the doors to the South Jordan Ward dance hall, “didn’t I tell you and your lanky friend over there that the next time I saw either of you barging into one of our dances, it would be your last one?”

“You know, Van,” Mark countered as he pushed his way past Van and grabbed for the door handle of the old hall entrance, “you may have said something like that, but this here is a free country, and I’ve come to dance with some of your lovely South Jordan girls who I know wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

On hearing that, Van jumped for Mark, but missed as Mark side-stepped him and gave him a hard rap to the back of the neck with the edge of his bony hand. Burt saw what was happening as did another couple of the South Jordan boys who were hanging out next to the corner of the building. Burt’s immediate reaction was to jump in and assist Mark if he needed it.  But when Burt arrived at the door by Mark’s side, he could see that Van was still holding his neck where Mark had hit him with the side of his hand; and he wasn’t about to get up. Other boys came to see what was happening, but none of them were ready to challenge the two wiry West Jordan boys, so they just stood their distance.

“Burt,” Mark said as he opened the door and Burt shuffled by him, “gentleman first.”  As Mark positioned himself to enter, he looked down at the still kneeling Van Bateman and gave him a shove with his foot off the porch into the bushes, and then he walked casually into the hall.

Elizabeth Shields was the first of the South Jordan girls to see Mark and Burt enter the hall, and she immediately dashed over to Mark’s side and led him out into the dance floor.  Another of the Shield girls, Elizabeth’s cousin, was there in a flash to gather up Burt and take him to the middle of the floor. From that moment on, and for the next hour or more, neither Mark nor Burt missed a dance. When the orchestra finally stopped for Intermission, and they were able to go to the stage and get some punch and cookies, they spotted Van Bateman and his friends sitting glumly on the sidelines. Apparently none of them had danced one dance so far.

Though Burt and Mark snickered at the sight of the boys on the sidelines, neither was vindictive nor wanted to cause any trouble with them. They just saw all the Bateman boys and some of their friends as South Jordan hicks who were jealous that they were good dancers and had the favor of the local girls. Later in the dance, when Mark was dancing with one of the Hansen girls, he casually asked her why those boys over on the side were not dancing.

“They hardly ever dance at these affairs,” the girl answered Mark. “They’re all right boys, I guess, they just never learned how to dance like you fellows do.”

“Well,” Mark cautiously encouraged the girl, “why don’t you and some of your friends go over there and ask them for a dance. I’ll bet they are just bashful to ask and would love to have a dance with such a pretty girl as you or your equally attractive friends.”

The next time Mark got a chance to speak to Burt in private, he told Burt what he had suggested and they both had a private laugh over it. But then, almost at the same time as they were having their laugh, Burt and Mark saw four of the South Jordan girls, including Elizabeth Shield and the Hansen girl, go over to the sitting boys bring them to their feet and lead to the dance floor. Mark and Burt just stood there feeling foolish and embarrassed for treating the matter so lightly.

At 11:30 p.m. sharp Bishop Hartland stopped the dancing, thanked everyone for coming, asked someone to give a closing prayer and invited the dancers to go straight home and be sure to be on time to Church the next day.

Mark and Burt quickly departed the hall, thanking the girls they had danced with and invited them to come to West Jordan in November when the West Jordan Ward was having their dance.  It had been a long day and the two of them were not looking forward to the long ride home. 

As they exited, the Bateman boy was waiting outside the hall, along with the others who had been on the sidelines for so long during the program. Both Mark and Burt kept walking toward the boys, but braced themselves for a confrontation.

“Mark,” Van Bateman said as he waved Mark over next to him, smiling sincerely for the first time Mark had seen him smile all night. “Was it you that set up those girls to ask us to dance?”

Mark, thinking this was another challenge to fight positioned himself for attack should it come and answered defensively, “Yeah, so what?”  Then following that with a mild sarcastic tone, Mark added, “You guys looked like you were lonely over there on the sidelines and I just suggested that someone take pity on you.”

That was not what Van really wanted to hear, and for a moment it looked like he was going to take a punch at Mark, but then he stepped back and meekly said, “Well, whatever your reason, I want to thank you for what you did. We really wanted to dance, but none of us dance as good as you fellows, and we didn’t want to be embarrassed. Those girls were really nice and they didn’t mind that we were not so good. Sorry for my earlier threats. You fellas are really all right.  You’re welcome to come to our dances any old time.”

Throughout his life, this was the usual result of Mark’s interventions with people all over the West Valley; and moreover, wherever he went. He was never one to be walked over, but often found ways of mitigating potentially negative situations to make them better. He was never one to hold a grudge, and was always the last one to throw a punch if needed. But when he did, it was well placed, and with his wiry power, was usually effective enough to stop the situation from getting any worse.

Mark’s and Burt’s ride home to West Jordan that night was quiet and reflective. Neither boy had more than three words to say the whole way. As they reached the Gardner Lane, Mark parted company with Burt and headed toward the shortcut a little west of Redwood Road to catch the lane along the canal that would take him straight home. Burt continued north on Redwood to the lane a little south of Gardner Lane where his mother’s modest home was located.

When Burt got home that night and was attempting to go to sleep, he couldn’t help but reflect that he was thankful to have such a good friend as Mark who liked to do many of the things he did. And, he also mused, it was always nice to visit the Williams Family, where, for the most part, the family was together and all showed love and respect for each other. Burt’s family was not so much that way; in fact, most of the time it was quite the opposite. Burt’s father had died quite young leaving him and Lon, one sister and their mother who never got over her husband’s death and continually throughout their lives, took her anger out on her children. 

Alisa Buckley, Burt’s mother was an angry woman who passed on much of that anger onto the boys and her sickly daughter. Now that she was sickly herself and needed special care, the boys were the ones who received all the blunt of her anger and frustration. When Lon became older he acted much like his mother. Lon did his part to make the farm a success, but he always seemed to hate and resent every moment of it. The Buckley’s never seemed to have any money to spare, and that only made things worse. Their mother’s medicine and medicine for their sister complicated things and loaded them down, so the boys, in addition to working the ten acre farm they had, also had to work part time jobs to bring in a little extra cash.

Burt was easier going and knew things would work out for him eventually. He was smart and resourceful and was always able to get those extra jobs that gave him the needed money.  For Lon, it was different. He seemed possessed to make more money and when things didn’t work out for him as he wished, he got even more angry and lost many of the possibilities he had just because of his bad attitude. He often complained privately to Burt that he could hardly wait to get out of the grips of his bitchy mother and get on his own. He knew between the two of them, they would always have to support their mother and sister, but he just wanted to get away so he could do it without her domineering and telling him all the time what he should be doing.

For Burt it was not much different. He too, wanted to get away from his mother’s constant complaining and domineering, and couldn’t wait until he got old enough to be on his own. But he really loved his mother and understood that she was still not over the unfortunate accident that caused their father to die before his time. He always said privately to himself, that no matter what, he was going to be a success in his life and he would always be there for his mother with money and medication.

From the first time that Mark met Burt when the Buckley family moved to West Jordan from Burley, Idaho, Mark liked Burt. And when Mark got to know Burt better and they became good friends, Mark even respected Burt more, watching him tolerate his constantly angry mother. In some ways the hardships that he saw Burt going through only reminded him how fortunate he was to have a loving mother and father and a family that showed respect for each other most of the time.

Because of the mean streak in both of his older brothers, Mark, didn’t have it all that good, when it came down to the real truth of the matter. Wallace and Millard were constantly mean to him, bringing down all sorts of wrath on him for even the smallest things. Mark always believed that they thought their father favored him over his other boys. So when there was anything they could pin on Mark, they did. They bullied him into doing their chores, picking up after them and generally leaving him out of activities in which most brothers would have been participating together. Even later in life when the three brothers were married and had families, Mark’s relationship with Millard and Wallace was never like it could have been. They did participate in various family affairs, and their respective wives got along very well, but the older boys seemed always to be only tolerating and placating their younger brother in most of their interactions that involved him.

 

 

                      – Chapter Four–

                 Spratling’s Barn, 1914

 

“Mother,” Joseph exclaimed excitedly as he entered the back porch of his house not taking his hat off like he usually did when he entered the house, “do you know where the boys are?  There’s some smoke rising in the sky down near what seems to be the Gardner Lane. I’m afraid that someone’s house or barn is on fire and I want the boys and me to go there immediately and see if we can help.”

“Oh my, Dad, that’s terrible,” Fannie said in deep appreciation for the seriousness of the matter. “I don’t know where the boys are right now, but we must find out. I’ll see if any of the girls know where they are. You go out and get the horses and the buggy ready and I will see if I can round someone up.”

“Kizzy!” Fannie shouted immediately. “Do you know where Wallace or either of the other boys are?”

From upstairs, Kizzy called back, “Yes, Mother, I know where Mark is, but I don’t know where the others are. Mark said he was going down to Kistanice’s to look at old man Kistanice’s car.  Dean was up here asking for Mark a half hour ago, so that’s where he is, I think.”

“Run and get him,” she shouted back. “There’s a fire down by the Gardner’s and Father wants the boys to go with him to see if they can help put it out. And have Johanna come down here right now. I want her to run to the back field and see if Millard and Wallace are back there.”

It had been a long time since anyone in the town had witnessed a large fire, and this seemed to be a big one. Like the Williams’ people from everywhere west of the river were assembling their buckets, saddling their horses and hooking up their wagons to get to the scene of the fire that could be seen from almost every part of the area from Bennion Ward to Bluffdale.  The Williams’ didn’t know it at the time, but the fire was not actually at the Gardner’s, but about one mile south near the Big Canal on the Spratling’s property. Parley Spratling’s father’s barn was on fire, and there was a good chance the chicken coops and the milk house were going to get caught up in the fire if more help didn’t arrive in time. At the time Parley Spratling was a good friend of Mark’s.

In the early stages of the fire, Parley Spratling who like Mark Williams was about fourteen years old had been up in the loft passing some hay down to his brother in the early evening of this winter day, when he accidently misjudged a fork-full of hay and knocked the lantern off the hook on the support post. The kerosene lantern fell to the ground level of the barn hitting a big block and tackle hanging on the support post and the cork that had been stuffed into the fill hole fell out and kerosene spilled all over the dry hay on the floor. The wick was still burning when it hit the ground and the kerosene burst into flame immediately.

Parley couldn’t come down the ladder off the loft to help his little brother put out the flame, and by the time he jumped down over on the far side of the loft and reached the flames where his brother was trying to put them out with his fork it was too late.

Both boys knew the danger to the cows and the horses that were in the stalls under the loft and on the other side, so they quickly took care to get the animals out of the barn and let the fire go for the time being. No one from the house saw the flames until they had jumped to the loft and could be seen from the house through the open hay loft door near the eaves of the barn.

As soon as the animals were safely out of range of the fire, Jerry Spratling ran to the house, meeting his parents and older brother and sisters coming out with buckets. The family started a bucket brigade from the water trough next to the coral, but was only mildly effective in dousing some of the flames on the ground floor. Already the hay in the loft was on fire and it looked like the roof of the barn was next. The family’s only hope was that their neighbors would see the flames and come to their aide.

The Turpin family about one half mile down the lane along the canal was the first group to arrive to help the Spratlings. Bill Turpin had arrived with his four boys and one older girl and they all had buckets. Next the Shields were arriving in two wagons and five hardy people with buckets. That force made enough people to get a bucket line going from the canal to the trough by the coral. By then, flames were getting too hot to do anything about the barn and attention was now being placed on the chicken coops and pig pens that were all near the barn. The pigs were let loose and herded out to the back field that was fenced. They would be safe, but the chickens were still a problem. The Spratlings had about five hundred chickens in two coops and the thoughts of those being let loose were too much. The coops had to be saved. Harlin Spratling realized that and got the bucket line to shift to the coops and start covering them with water as best they could.

Within a half hour after the first flames sprung out of the barn and could be seen by the neighbors the Gardners had assembled some help and were on their way. They arrived about the time the work was going on to save the chicken coops. From down on the Redwood road, several families had seen the flames and were on their way, and the Williams, Burmesters, Diamonds, Dauls, Steinfeldts, Malstroms from Welby and the Greeks who worked on the rail siding in Welby were all on their way to the Spratlings.

Most arrived there too late to help save the barn. It was a total loss, but the increased help with the bucket lines from the canal was enough to save the coops and the pig pens. But since the milk house was tied to the south side of the barn, it was soon consumed except for the milk chilling shed next to the milk house that was miraculously saved by the bucket brigade.

The fire was well underway at about 7 p.m. just as it was getting full dark. The people that came to assist were still pulling water out of the canal at 1:30 a.m. to douse the small fires that continued to spring up in what was left of the barn. Most difficult to put out was the large hay pile next to the barn. The neighbors tried to pull as much of the loose hay away from the pile as they could with Harlin’s large hay fork that was attached to the derrick, but they were only able to get about half of it out of the way of the flames before it got too hot to be near the pile. Only about half of the pile was saved, and the rest smoldered for days after the fire.

Margaret Spratling had made some hot chocolate for the fire fighters and was passing it out to the group that had assembled after most of the flames were out and before the group started to disband and go home. All were speculating on how the fire started but no one had the answer. Soon the group was huddled around Harlin Spratling giving him encouragement and asking questions about the fire.

“Do you know how it started, Harlin?” one onlooker asked.

“I don’t really know, but I think Parley might know something,” he replied. “Parley, would you mind putting down your bucket coming over here for a moment?”

“You were in the barn when the fire started, Parley,” his father started.  “Do you have any idea how it got started?”

“Actually, Pa, I do,” Parley confessed. “It was my fault. I was up in the loft throwing some hay down for the morning feeding when I accidently hit the lantern with an extra big fork full of hay and knocked the lantern to the lower level.  That darn old cork we had stuffed into the fill spout fell out, I guess, and the kerosene came out at the same time as the glass broke and the whole thing went up on flame. Me and Jerry didn’t have a chance to put it out, Pa.  By then the flames were way out of hand, and we had to get the animals out of the barn, so we just left the fire and worked on the animals . . . ”

By the time Parley told the entire story he was crying and his older sister was at his side comforting him. Parley had begged his father for forgiveness and Jerry was crying too by then, also feeling the same guilt that Parley was feeling. The group was silent waiting for Harlin’s reaction, and it wasn’t long coming when Parley got through.

“It’s okay, son,” he started. “Those things happen. I know you did all you could, and the lantern . . . that was my fault. I should have fixed that fill spout long ago. That cork stuffed in the hole was just a bad piece of judgment on my part. I’m just thankful that you had presence of mind to get the animals out of the barn before it was too late. Why, I’ve seen two or three barns go up around this town over the last few years, and most of the times the animals have gone up with them.

“And you folk that have turned out to help us in this time of need. I owe you all a vote of thanks for all you did. Without your help, I would have lost everything. I will forever be grateful to you. Many thanks. Any time I can help any of you, please let me know and me and my family will be there.”

The group nodded in respect of what Harlin said. They all felt good too. Had it been any one of them, they would have felt the same way.

It was obvious that little could be done by that time, so the exhausted groups quickly and quietly moved to their horses and wagons and started for their respective homes.

“Father,” Mark asked breaking the silence when they were about one half mile from the Spratlings and were on their way home. Have you or Grandfather ever had a fire like that on the farm?”

“Everybody has fires from time to time, son,” Joseph answered reflectively. “We’ve been very fortunate not to have a serious fire on any of our property. So far God has blessed us in that way. But when Alexander Beckstead first settled the property across the road, he lost the first barn he built, I understand, only three months after it was completed. Before Alexander left for Idaho, as you may have heard, he had three wives and enough children in the three houses he had on his farm to take care of any fire, one would think. But his barn burned to the ground anyway.  Our canal was not here then, so they didn’t have the luxury of water nearby to put out the flames. They were forced, I understand, to just stand by and let the barn burn. He also lost four horses in that fire. I was too small to remember, but I understand it could have devastated him had not the Brethren from the Church set up a Barn Raising and built him a new barn. His brother in Rigby after hearing of the tragedy also brought him two teams down and gave them to him to use on the farm.”

“Will something like that happen for the Spratlings, do you think?” Johanna chimed in.  She was the only girl from the Williams family that had been allowed to go on the firefighting trip.

“Well, as you know, Bishop Hubbard made it there just before the fires were out, and I am sure he will be organizing something to help the family out,” Joseph replied reassuredly. “I saw him talking to Harlin just as we were getting ready to leave, so I am certain that something like that will be announced next week in Church. The High Priest Quorum will be looking into the matter, as well, I am sure. Earl Bateman the High Priest Quorum Leader was not there tonight, but he will be finding out about this and will assuredly take some action along with the Bishop.”

A month after the Spratling barn fire, the bishop of the West Jordan Ward had organized a Barn-Raising for the Spratlings and all of the Ward members were encouraged to attend and help on the rebuilding of the barn. The Bishop’s Storehouse provided  most of the materials and in a day or two the barn was rebuilt and the Spratlings were back in business. That was just one example of the on-going support these small west of the river communities handled things during those early years of 1900.

 

 

 

– Chapter Five –

      Hyrum Malstrom’s Outhouse, 1917

 

“How long has it been since anyone tipped Malstrom’s shit house over?” Burt Buckley said to Mark as they were riding home from Gardner’s on a cool fall evening. “Old man Malstrom really got my goat when he shot his shotgun over our heads and chased us out of his cantaloupe patch last week.”

“Yeah,” Mark countered, “he should have known we were just trying to help him thin out his crop so those melons wouldn’t rot on the vine. I guess we owe him a little visit for shooting at us.”

For the next while as their horses plodded along the Canal Road, Burt and Mark laid out their strategy for tipping over Hyrum Malstrom’s outhouse as a way of getting even with the old man. Later that night they would ride their horses over to the lane coming down along the ditch line north of Steinfeldts that led into the back of Malstrom’s property. When they got down close to Hyrum’s cow shed, they planned that one of them would post as a lookout behind the granary and watch the back door of the house for anyone who might be coming out. Then the other one would quietly direct his horse over by the outhouse, lasso it, tie the rope to the horn of his saddle and pulled the structure over. The whole operation, they figured, would take less than a minute and they would be out of there heading west. If Old Man Malstrom happened to wake up, all he would see is the silhouette of the back end of two horsemen riding west. At best he might conclude it was a couple of the Jones boys, who, as it was well known, were scoundrels anyway, and were always out vandalizing people’s places for one reason or another. No one would ever suspect that it was Mark or Burt.

“Do you think Nita might want to go with us, Mark?” Burt asked later about Mark’s youngest sister, Juanita, as they concluded their strategic plan. “She was disappointed the last time we tipped an outhouse over that she hadn’t been invited. I think we ought to invite Lon too.  I hear your little sister has a crush on him anyway, and would like to be with him on something like this.”

“I don’t know, Burt,” Mark countered, “I don’t mind asking Lon to come along, we could use another lookout. But if Mother ever found out we had invited Nita to come, even though I am sure Nita would love to go, I know there would be hell to pay.”

They picked away at a decision for another few minutes to add bodies to their escapade, and then concluded they would split up. Burr would drop down to his house and talk to his brother Lon, and Mark would go home and figure out a way to sneak Nita out of the house, if she wanted to go. They would meet at midnight on the upper road in front of Vance Woods’ place.

Saturday was a good night to pull something off like this. The boys were always taking off on Saturday for a dance in Riverton or South Jordan or somewhere else, and it wasn’t unusual for any of them to be out late on a date or off to one of the dances. What would be tricky was getting Nita out under cover . . . that is if she wanted to go along. Fannie Williams was a real watch dog with her girls; she could wake at a pin-drop and was always suspicious whenever the kids huddled together whispering. Mark would at all cost avoid alerting his mother that anything was up that night, and to be sure, would not even go into the house when he got home if he could find Nita without going in. It turned out that he didn’t have to seek her out at home at all.

“Nita,” Mark called to his sister seeing her walking home along the Canal Road as he approached from the south. “You want a ride the rest of the way home?”

“Sure, Mark,” she answered enthusiastically. She craved any chance to do things with Mark, her favorite brother who was also closest to her in age. She hardly knew her older brother Wallace and didn’t really get along well with Millard; and her older sisters were more like mothers or slave drivers to her than sisters. Mark on the other hand was fun to be with. He always treated her well and often invited her to go places and do things with him.

As Mark signaled her to get on the horse, Nita reached her foot into the saddle stirrup, grabbed Mark’s big hand and threw her leg over the saddle in one easy motion. She was a good rider herself. Since she was ten when her father gave her a small roan mare of her own, she had been riding and had become an excellent rider.

“Where have you been?” the feisty teenager asked Mark as she gave him a hug around his waist from behind him where she had taken her place on his saddle.

“Oh, Burt and I have been over at the Gardner’s most of the evening,” he answered.  “Harold’s mother invited us to stay for dinner and the barn dance they had organized. We stayed a little while, but there wasn’t anyone there that we liked to dance with, so we decided to come on home.”

“Was Lon with you?” she coyly asked.

“No, he’s home I guess. Why did you want to know?  Have you got a crush on Lon? Burt says you do. But anyway, you’ll get to see him later tonight if you want to, and that brings me to a question I have for you. You remember two weeks ago when Old Man Malstrom chased us out of his field with his shotgun?”

“Yeah, who could forget that?” she quickly answered. “I was real scared. Why?”

“Well, Burt and I decided old Hyrum needs a payback, and we’re planning to take care of that tonight. Would you like to come along?”

“Not if I’m going to get shot at again, no-sir-ee,” she answered cautiously. “What are you fellas up to anyway?”

“You don’t have to worry about getting shot this time,” Mark assured her. “We thought we would pay Hyrum a visit late tonight and tip over his outhouse, and we were thinking that four people would be better than two. Burt is on his way home now and is going to invite Lon. You’d go along as a lookout for us. Guaranteed, no risk to you, no matter how you cut it.”

“That sound fun, Mark,” Nita replied, “but how do you plan to get me out of the house without Mother knowing. You know how she is about me being out late at night? I suppose you are going to do this pretty late, aren’t you?”

“Yes. What we thought we’d do, Nita,” Mark began to explain, “was to meet at midnight up near Vance Woods’ and slip down along the ditch bank from the back of Malstrom’s property. That means you’d have to get out of the house by about 11:30 p.m. without Mother finding out or hearing you. I’ll leave that part up to you. Do you think you can do that with without waking her? If you can, I will hang out in the barn until then and not even go into the house tonight, then about eleven fifteen I’ll saddle our two horses and meet you behind Father’s blacksmith shed. You just meet me there and we’ll be on our merry way. Be sure to wear some dark clothes.”

“You can count on me, Mark,” Nita said, not hiding her excitement and enthusiasm. “I’ll be out at the shop right on time. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

A little worried at her verbosity and excitement, Mark gave her one last warning as the horse turned into the yard. “Now you be sure that you don’t let on to anyone what we’re cooking up tonight. You know our sisters. One hint from them and Mother will be all over you and maybe me, too. And you know what we’ll get from Father when he gets home Sunday night. I’ve been there before, and his razor strap is not something I want to feel again.”

“You needn’t worry, Mark,” Nita assured him as she slid off the horse. “My lips are sealed from this moment.”

That night, the plans at the Williams’ went smooth as silk. Nita went upstairs to bed early claiming that she was tired from helping old Mrs. Shield with her housework all day. Without undressing, except for her shoes, she slipped into bed and pulled up her covers. The clothes she had on were suitably dark, so she didn’t have to change. Later when Beth and Veda came upstairs and got into bed, Nita pretended to be asleep and remained totally still as Beth slipped into the old double bed with her. Soon Beth was out. Nita knew that for sure when Beth’s body gave a few subtle jerks. Across the room Veda was soon asleep, it was clear, from her steady nasal snore. When she was sure it was safe, Nita quietly slipped out of the bed and was downstairs and out of the house like a thief in the night. To be sure, however, on the way down the stairs, she peaked around the corner of the landing to make certain her mother was not in her usual place in her special settee where she sat late almost every night sewing, mending or crocheting. Her mother’s chair was empty, so Nita was sure she was safe if she walked quietly. One of the older sisters had obviously helped their blind mother to bed before they came to bed themselves, which was the usual routine. 

Mark was waiting behind their father’s blacksmith shop under the trees next to the canal where he was out of sight of anyone who might pass on the road or come out of the house.  As Nita appeared around the corner, the two were off and were taking it slow until they got across the canal and out into the field so they could cut across to Woods’ place on the upper road.

Burt and Lon were already waiting in the grove of wild plum trees that flanked the side of the road south of the Woods’ farm. Before they left for the Malstrom’s last minute plans were reviewed and assignments were doled out. Once in the Malstrom’s back yard, Nita would secure her horse behind the cow shed and would sneak down the ditch bank where she could have a good view of the Malstrom’s back door. Once there and if the coast was clear, she would whistle quietly to the boys. Lon would go over to where Malstrom’s dog would be tied up. He had been to the Malstrom’s on many occasions and he was certain the dog knew him and wouldn’t bark. They thought if he approached the dog, which was pretty gentle anyway, he could calm him down and halt any barking that might arouse Old Man Malstrom. Mark and Burt would both ride up to the outhouse, and Burt would be Mark’s backup if his first toss of his lasso did not hit the mark.

Once the plans were finalized, the group slowly made their way down the ditch line toward Malstrom’s. The dog first spotted Nita and started barking as she appeared around the corner of the granary, but Lon was almost immediately at the dog’s side calming him down with a hunk of beef jerky he had brought along. The dog barked a couple more times at Nita, but was soon quietly gnawing away on Lon’s treat.

Mark’s first ride by the outhouse was successful and in about two seconds the rope was taut and the horse was straining against it as the knot tightened around the saddle horn. One jerk and the outhouse was over on its face.

What none of the party had expected, however, as the old wood outhouse creaked and fell over with the door on the bottom side, was the blood-curdling scream of someone who was in the facility at the moment it tipped over. Furthermore, the person was trapped in the inside now, as the facility was facing down with the door on the ground.

The screaming didn’t stop, and the boys knew it was Mrs. Malstrom. The dog heard the screaming and started barking again, more determined now than before. Suddenly, the place was in chaos. Mark struggled to recover his rope pinned under the outhouse; Nita was running over to see what had happened at the crime scene; Lon was making a beeline to help Burt recover Mark’s rope, and the dog was howling and jumping against the small chain trying to get to the scene. The screaming wasn’t stopping either.

Just as Lon got the rope free and they were all signaling each other without talking to take leave of the place, the dog broke his chain and started after the assailants. As they all rounded the corner behind the cow shed with the dog on their heels, barking ravenously, the deep voice of Hyrum Malstrom was heard calling his wife who was still screaming, made worse now that she knew she was trapped inside the toilet and would have to wait while somebody rescued her.

It was a good ten minutes later when Hyrum Malstrom and his oldest son were able to roll the outhouse over and free Mrs. Malstrom.  She was bruised, but not harmed, but was in complete shock by the time she was free.

Much discussion followed as Hyrum grilled his frantic wife to understand if she had heard anyone’s voices, if she knew how many people were in on it, and if she, the only witness, had any idea who they were. Their final conclusion was that it must have been Henry Jones’ boys from over on the Steadman Road who did the dirty deed. Hyrum vowed he would make a visit to Henry’s place first thing in the morning after first light and get to the bottom of who was responsible.

“This is the worst outrage anyone could ever pull on a person,” Hyrum Malstrom said, still complaining over an hour after he and his wife were back in the house and in bed. “It’s just a shame that something can’t be done about those damned Jones boys. They’ve been a menace ever since they were old enough to walk.”

“I agree, Hyrum,” his wife commented, still in shock and feeling achy all over from being dumped over in the outhouse. “The County Sheriff ought to know about this, and if Henry won’t listen to you about his boys pulling this stunt, I think we ought to go to let the Sheriff handle it from there.”

“You can bet that Henry is going to get a piece of my mind, Mother,” Hyrum said, trying to sooth his poor, almost demented wife. “Now why don’t you just roll over here and try to go to sleep.  It’s been quite a night.” 

Mark and Nita slid quietly into the house about 1:30 a.m. that morning. They, too, had experienced quite a fright when they discovered that Mrs. Malstrom had been in the toilet when they tipped it over. Who on earth would have imagined that anyone in their right mind would take short and have to go to the outdoor toilet at that outrageous time of the night? Didn’t they have a chamber pot in the house for such emergencies? They were almost ready to conclude that it was Old Lady Malstrom’s own fault for being out there when she really didn’t need to be.

The group discussed what had happened when they cut through the fields on the way home. Nita kept arguing that they should have gone back and rolled the toilet over before leaving. What if Mrs. Malstrom had been injured? But the boys talked her out of that notion, saying that Hyrum was already out of the house before they were out of the yard, and he would have her out of there in minutes. Besides, anyone who could scream and curse that loudly as Mrs. Malstrom had, could not have been hurt very bad. They also knew they could all go to jail for such an offence if they were caught, and they knew that Old Man Malstrom likely had a gun in his hand when he came out of the house, thinking maybe there were people in his cantaloupe patch again. They had no choice but to leave the scene and get as far away as possible, so they all slinked on home taking every short-cut they could find through people’s fields so they wouldn’t be seen.

Lucky for them their escape was clean and no one spotted them. Mark and Nita were even able to get into the yard and put the horses away without detection. Getting into the house, however, was another matter. They knew that since their mother had become blind, her hearing had sharpened, like a rabbit . . . she was able to hear a pin drop from one hundred yards. So when Mark and Nita went into the house they took their shoes off and moved as quietly as they could.

“Jabez Mark, is that you?” Fannie called out from her downstairs bedroom as Mark and Nita were quietly ascending the stairs. 

“Yes, Mother, it’s me,” Mark answered as calmly as he could, not to arouse suspicion. They thought they hadn’t made a sound.

“Who’s that with you, son? And why are you so late?” Fannie continued, as Nita dashed up the rest of the stairs and quietly entered her room praying one of her sisters wouldn’t hear their mother talking to Mark.

“No, it’s just me, Mother,” Mark lied quietly. “No one’s with me. I was just down to Gardner’s all evening. The Gardners had a little private barn dance and a few of us were there having some fun.” Mark used that alibi, since he knew it could be checked out if needed. He and Burt had been to the dance, and people had seen them. Even thought they had left a little early, no one would have noticed.

“It must be pretty late by my reckoning,” Fannie persisted, seeming satisfied with Mark’s alibi. “You better get some sleep. It’s Church tomorrow and your Father’s coming home. I want everyone up early so we can get this place ship-shape and straightened up for your Father. And I also need you to take me to Church tomorrow. Millard says he’s going off somewhere in the morning and won’t be able to help me with the horses and the wagon.”

As Mark slid into bed beside Millard, Millard rolled over and grumpily said to Mark, “Where the hell have you been so late?”

“A barn dance at Gardner’s, Millard,” Mark replied. “You should have been there.” But his answer wasn’t heard, as Millard was snoring before Mark finished his sentence.

By Monday, the Malstrom’s outhouse story was all over town. Malstrom’s weren’t liked by too many people in town, so most everyone who heard the story laughed a little under their breaths when they heard that fat, grumpy old Mrs. Malstrom had been the victim of the deal.  She was a retired school teacher who had taught in West Jordan Elementary School for years.  A lot of the students that had been in her classes said it only served her right to be in the toilet and that she had likely been there all evening because of her constipation. Rumors grew as the story spread. One rumor had it that Hyrum Malstrom didn’t hear his wife’s cries after all, since he was sound asleep and didn’t even hear her get up to go outside. It was said that she finally escaped her prison by lifting the hinged clean-out trap door that was part of the toilet seat, and had crawled out the hatch, narrowly missing a fall into the latrine pit. The rumors and stories of course got back to the Williams’ and were discussed over dinner on the Tuesday following the incident.

“I suppose you all heard by now,” Joseph started as he began his lecture about tipping over outhouses, “that it has been suspected that Henry Jones’ boys went over to Hyrum Malstrom’s on Saturday after midnight, and tipped over their outhouse with Edna Malstrom inside.”

There was complete silence from the family and in addition, sober faces, as they knew a lecture on morals was about to begin. “Well, I bring this up as a sad commentary on what our world is coming to,” Joseph continued. “In my opinion, anyone who would pull a stunt like tipping an outhouse over that had someone in it is about the lowest class individual around . . .”

As Joseph continued, Nita flushed noticeable until Mark gave her a sharp kick on the leg.  She settled back then, nodding approval of her father’s wisdom and insight into this deplorable matter.

The older girls had questions and comments and even asked about the rumor they had heard that Mrs. Malstrom was trapped inside the toilet until morning when Mr. Malstrom woke and discovered her gone from the house. Millard also related the rumor he had heard that she was trapped for over an hour before she thought to open up the clean-out trap door in the seat and crawl out through the hole. 

Joseph discounted all the rumors for what they were and said he had personally talked to Hyrum on Monday and got the straight story. He then chided the family for taking the matter so lightly, as he knew from hearing the buzzing in the house, that the children had been laughing about it. Mark and Nita sat calmly taking in all and innocently nodding their approval of their father’s “wisdom” in such matters.

No one was ever charged for the incident. True to his word, Hyrum went to the County Sheriff after getting ordered off Jones’ property when he accused Henry Jones’ sons of pulling off the incident. The Sheriff had gone to the Jones’ himself later and also got nowhere since there was no evidence and the boys had a solid alibi for the time of the incident. The only thing that came out of the incident was more bad feelings from the community against the Jones.

In the months that followed the Malstrom outhouse incident, there was a ground swell of other similar incidents as far south as Riverton. All were blamed on the Jones boys, but no charges were ever filed against them since no one could muster up any hard evidence against them.

Mark, Lon, Burt and Nita had learned their lesson well this one time and never participated in toilet tipping activities again. But the tipping over of outhouses continued well into mid-1900 when finally people abandoned their precious outhouses in favor of indoor plumbing. Thereafter, the Williams and Buckley clans and other community roustabouts had to find something else on which to spend their time. The era of outhouse tipping was pretty much over.                                    

                                   

 

                       – Chapter Six –

                       Beckstead Reunion, 1917

 

The 1917 Beckstead Reunion at the Pioneer Hall in West Jordan, Utah was the fourth reunion to take place there over the previous five years. That year the hall was almost too small to accommodate the crowd. The next year’s reunion, it was being said, would have to be held in the Midvale Civic Hall or some other location large enough for the big crowd. Alexander Beckstead started the reunions, and until he was quite old, looked upon them with great pride.

Shortly before his conversion to the Mormon Religion in 1823 Alexander married his first wife, Catherine Elinore while he still lived in Canada. Before they left Canada, in about 1838 she had already given birth to eight of their children of which six were still alive at that time. Two more would be born in Illinois before their long trek west to Utah, and one of them would die in route.

From the early days of the Mormon Church plural marriages had been accepted and encouraged by the leaders of the Church who themselves were polygamists. Among the members of Church certain worthy individuals would be called to participate in arranged plural marriages. Thus was the official beginning of polygamy in the Mormon faith. Alexander Beckstead was one of the few men that was deemed worthy by the leaders of the church, and in 1854 he was given the nineteen year old a Kesiah Albine Petty to be his second wife. They had their first child one year later. Ten more children soon followed. While Alexander was still married to his first two wives, in 1862 he was assigned to marry a Clarissa Ann Gilson. She was twenty five when they were married. Alexander’s third wife eventually bore eighteen children making him the father of forty one children in all during his married years as a polygamist.

Fannie Kesiah Beckstead, a twin, was the fifth child of Alexander’s second wife. Fannie later became the wife of Joseph John Williams, Junior. When Fannie became a Williams she brought with her the heritage and “benefits” of the entire Beckstead family. One of those was to be part of the Beckstead Family Reunions that started in the late 1800's and continued into the mid-1900’s years after the death of Alexander Beckstead in 1870.

Over the next few years the children of Alexander and his three wives married and had children of their own, and by the time the 1917 Beckstead Family Reunion rolled around there were well over one hundred members of the family that qualified as direct blood descendants of Alexander with married family names that included Williams, Holts, Shields, Webster, Bateman and many others.

The Beckstead clan was a loyal group and when reunions were planned descendants came from all parts of the state, and from Idaho where many of them had migrated by the new century. Fannie Kesiah Beckstead never missed a reunion even after she was struck with blindness. All of her children went with her. Mark Williams was seventeen when the 1917 Beckstead reunion was called. By then he had become quite well know and sought after by people as singer, actor and comedian. From year to year, Mark and others were called to participate in plays and songfests that were always a big part of the reunions. During one of the later reunions in the 1940's Mark had by then developed his well-known ethnic dialects and would tell the story about the toilet seat that was bought in Woolworths Department Store.  Of course the story was told in an Italian dialect. This story along with many others was just part of his repertoire and is repeated here just as he told it. The anonymous, well known story was entitled, A Letter To Mr. Woolworth.  It went like this:

 

Mr. Woolworth, I got a complaint

About one can of ten cent paint.

My wife she buy from your darn store ‑

She did once ‑ but not no more.

 

You see last week the spring she come

And everything she's on the bum.

 

Do walls, do floors, do windows, too.

She clean like mad I tell’a you.

 

My wife she always clean and neat

She buy paint for the toilet seat.

 

And one whole week we watch wit' eye

But gosh darn paint she no get dry.

 

My wife she's short and kinda fat

Now you can see just where she sat.

 

She's got a big ring around complete

Where she sat down on toilet seat.

 

I say to her, “it serves’a you right

You try to be so doggone tight.”

 

That ten cent paint she no darn good

She won't get dry on no darn wood.

 

My daughter she got ring around, too,

Where from the seat it soaked through.

 

For one whole week by gosh we wait

And now we all got constipate.

 

But dang we don't know what to do

We got to eat ‑ she must come through.

 

My wife she cry and cry and cry

But goldarn paint she won't get dry.

 

My wife she got a Sis, Marie.

She lives all time in home with me.

 

Last night I look where she sat down

By gosh she, too, got ring around.

 

I try to clean with turpentine

She howl like wolf, she lose her mind.

 

I'm scared like hell most all day ‑

The skin come off, but paint she stay.

 

I live long time but never see

A man what got so mad as me.

 

When I think about that paint

I get so mad I almost faint.

 

Now, Mr. Woolworth, I ask you

What in the hell we gonna do?

 

For how can home be nice and neat

If paint no dry on toilet seat?

 

During many of the reunions that were held over the years, more creative Becksteads got together and fashioned hour-long skits. One that was played over and over involved a baker and several “employees” that were working in a mime designed along the lines of the Charlie Chaplin movies that were popular at that time. In this skit, played over and over later in LDS Ward and Stake functions as well as numerous community affairs, Mark, as the leading character of this small group that worked together often climaxed the mime by being dumped into a barrel of flour by another of the actors.

Typical invitations for Mark Williams to act at functions usually went like this:

“Say Mark,” a function planner would ask, “I hear you’ve really been bringing down the crowds with your English, Swedish and Italian dialect stories. And that skit about the Bakery, I wonder if you could bring this show to our next function. We would be able to pay you seventy five dollars to cover your expenses if you could come. Of course, your group would be fed while you are there. What do you think?”

Mark almost always accepted on behalf of the troupe and two or three times a year shows were put on from as far as Bluffdale and Herriman on the south end of the western valley to Magna and Hunter on the north. It got so that everyone west of the river in the Salt Lake Valley that had a desire to act wanted to join the group.

“Mark,” his sister Juanita begged him one day in 1924. “I want to go along on the next reunion or affair you have planned for your acting company. I hear you have one planned in Taylorsville next month. I know you have lost some of your actors and singers recently, and I want to fill in if I can. I can play the part of a boy or girl, I don’t care. Just give me a chance. I like to act and would really like to work with you.”

Nita always liked to do things with Mark, but since he was married, she was not seeing him as much as before. Her idol had grown up and now things were different between them.

“I would be happy to have you help out, Nita,” Mark answered without hesitation. “I have a place in the old Bakery skit where you would fit in perfectly. We’re going to have two rehearsals at the West Jordan Ward House next week and the week after. Just plan to be there and we will put you to work.”

So Nita joined the comedy troupe and participated that year and several times around the community until Mark moved out of the valley for his work. Communities west of the Jordan River never tired of home-grown talent in the years 1900 through the Second World War years.  Community was life for people like Mark Williams. He lived for community and loved all aspects of community life except politics. He was a hell-raiser in his earlier years as evidenced by some of his activities. But as he got older, his sense of community grew and developed and while he never participated in politics of the community, he was none-the-less a community patriot.

In the early 1900’s crowds and individuals at various community or church gatherings opened up “opportunities” for mischief for the youth and Mark and his peers never passed up a chance to embarrass certain individuals or create some havoc when the chance came . . .

“Mark,” Burt Buckley whispered to his best friend as he was conversing with some girls at the 1915 Beckstead Reunion in the South Jordan Ward Church recreation hall. “Lon’s outside with the two Shield brothers. We’ve got something cooked up with old man Joseph Beckstead when he leaves here today. Want to join in?”

“You fellows are always cooking up something,” Mark answered, “but it sounds interesting. I’m in favor of anything that would rile up Ol’ Joe. He needs a little excitement in his life.”

As the two boys left the hall to join Burt’s older brother and the two Shield brothers, Burt explained the caper they were planning:

“You know that fancy surrey Joe Beckstead parades around town in showing off his wealth?” Burt explained. “Well, he brought it here with those two fast horses he uses to pull it. And you know how he shows off any time there’s a crowd around and whips those horses into action on takeoff? Well, Lon and Don Shield have looked at the double tree on his surrey and are sure the pins can be rigged so that when Joe goes to take off and whips the reins of those two bays, those pins are going to fall out and the horses will lurch forward and take off, but the surrey will just sit there.”

“That sound good to me,” Mark agreed most enthusiastically. “Besides, can’t you just see the look on the faces of those two stuck up daughters of his? Those two gals will be so embarrassed they won’t be able to look anyone in the face for the next ten years. Man, I hope there are lots of other people leaving when Joe and his girls decide to go.”

“Well you know how big a show-off old Joe is,” Burt chimed in just as they reached the other boys sitting on a bench next to the pavilion. “He’s not going to leave until there’s a crowd to see him prance off with his horses and that swell new buggy of his. I hate how some of these rich people act, don’t you, Mark?”

“Hey, what an idea you guys have cooked up,” Mark added when they reached the other partners in crime. “I can’t wait to get started. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, Lon and Donald will take care of the pins . . . I guess Burt told you what we’re going to do, didn’t he?” Sal Shields the oldest and obvious leader of this caper began to explain. “You and me and Burt will be lookouts for them. One of you . . .why don’t you do this, Mark . . . will post at the East entrance to the Hall, and you and me, Burt, will cover the main hall entrance. We have to have a good signal. I say a sharp whistle. Can you whistle loud, Mark?”

Mark nodded his head and demonstrated his piercing whistle.

“Okay, okay, Mark,” Sal said.  “That’s good. Now you let us know if anyone is coming out of the hall. We don’t want to get caught tinkering with that buggy.”

Once the lookouts were posted and the area appeared to be clear, the other boys took less than a minute to get the pin jimmied on the new surrey. Now it was just a wait to see how their plan would play out. It was almost 11:00 p.m. when the program was finished and people would be coming out any minute, they figured. As expected, they did, right on time. A few of the people went right home, but most of the people stood around while other family members tried to round up their scattered youth and keep them together long enough to load up on their wagons and the one of two cars that people brought to the program. Others stayed long that had something more to say to their clans; there were also the extended goodbyes to those who were from out of town.

Mark and his pals hung around talking and passing the time, delighted that the crowd around Joe Beckstead’s surrey was getting larger by the moment. Joe had purposely parked the new surrey in a place where it would be seen, and it was certainly attracting a lot of attention.

Finally, at about 11:20 p.m. Joe Beckstead, his wife, two daughters and an older son sauntered out seemingly pleased that people were noticing their new surrey tied up at one of the circle entrance hitching posts. Joe’s loud bellowing voice could be heard over the crowd as he spoke greetings and goodbye’s to his relatives. While this was going on, Charlie, Joe’s son busied himself uniting the horses and getting into the driver’s seat of the surrey. It was apparent, as Joe got in the rear seats with his wife and daughters that he intended for Charlie to do the driving home.

This was good; the boys whispered their approval to each other. A good crowd would see the horses lunge away from the surrey and Charlie would likely get blamed by his dad for the incident because he didn’t check the doubletrees.

At first Charlie backed the surrey around so he would be in line with the exit lane. The pins held as the pressure was against the tongue of the surrey and nothing happened. The boys maneuvered around the crowd to get a better look. Then, consistent with his father’s manner, with all the onlookers drawn to the flashy surrey leaving the lot, Charlie whipped the reins on the backs of the two mares and they flew forward. The pin fell out as planned and the surrey only jerked a bit when the tongue of the surrey fell and the horses raced ahead. 

The amazing part came, however, when Charlie, realizing that was happening reared back to stop the horsed and stood up, still pulling on the reins. Never thinking to let go, Charlie flew off the front of the surrey, hit the ground on his feet, but was straddle of the wagon tongue. He never ceased pulling on the reins attempting to stop the horses.

The spirited horses, startled by the incident didn’t respond to Charlie’s tugging on the reins, but rather kept going forward full speed. Charlie was determined not to let go and continued reining in the horses, but nothing was working. By the time he took two or three more steps still straddling the tongue of the surrey, he was off balance and was soon on his face being drug through the dirt for at least ten or more feet before it dawned on him to let free the reins.

Someone on the far end of the lot who was observing escaping horses, jumped in front of them waving his arms effectively stopping the mares from completely leaving the area. As the man was tuning them around to return to the surrey some one hundred feet away by now, poor Charlie was picking himself up, dusting his clothes off and wiping off the dirt and gravel imbedded in his chin. Bleeding and bruised, Charlie fell back against the picket fence along the lane and just stood there as if in shock.

Joe’s family was still sitting stunned in the surrey. Joe himself was out of his seat soon after the horses ran away and was running to meeting the man that had turned the horses around and was bringing them back. The man was having trouble, since the double tree was still dragging on the ground, exciting the horses more. He attempted to pick it up at the same time trying to settle the horses down, but nothing was working . . . the horses were certainly not cooperating.

Joe ran right past his son leaning on the fence and without looking at him, angrily said, “I’ll be talking to you later, young man.” It was obvious Joe held Charlie to blame for the incident like the perpetrators had hoped. No one liked Joe’s son anyway, so they all believed this was perfect.

“Thanks Edward,” Joe said to his second cousin whom he recognized when he got close enough to him. “I really appreciate you’re stopping my two mares before they got out on the highway. I can’t imagine what happened, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this tonight before I leave. Listen, if you could keep these horses calmed down a little, I will hold the double tree up and carry it so it doesn’t continue to spook them any more than they are now.”

The crowd was by then double in size that it was when the horses first broke loose. Many of the onlookers were laughing at the sight and those who had arrived late were asking what had happened. Charlie was still leaning against the fence and Joe’s wife and two daughters were sitting in the surrey wishing they were invisible. Some concerned onlookers had already crowded around the surrey and were asking Edna Beckstead and the girls if they were all right. That only made them feel worse.

Soon the horses were backed into place and were positioned so the hookup could be properly made again. Ignoring the crowd, Joe mounted the driver’s seat of the surrey and called to his son who was still leaning dazed against the fence . . .

“Get over here right now, son,” the angry Joe shouted. “We need to be on our way.”

When Charlie didn’t immediately respond, several men stepped out of the crowd to assist him. Still wobbly, Charlie was carefully helped onto the driver’s seat next to his father. The crowd quickly quieted down after hearing Joe’ angry voice calling his son hoping they might hear something of interest from Joe. Many others looked away and began getting ready to go themselves. But when Joe slowly pulled away from the hitching post, there was still a lot of snickering among the youth especially, and many parents were trying to calm them down.

Mark, Burt, Lon, Donald and Sal stayed aloof keeping quiet so no one would suspect that they had created the incident, but even they could not help but snicker at what had just happened and to gloat privately over their apparent success. It had really turned out better than they had ever hoped it would when Charlie had taken the reins. They were happy now that it had not been Joe Beckstead who got pulled off the surrey onto the ground. What they could not anticipate and were left out because the Beckstead family was by then far down the road, was what was going to happen with Charlie.

Down the road a way and out of earshot of the crowd, Joe started in on Charlie . . .

“For the life of me Charles,” Joe started, “I can’t understand how before you took off you didn’t see that pin that was loose. If I told you once, I have told you a dozen times, that whenever the horses are tied to any of our rigs and left for a while, like today, you have to check all the rigging to make sure that everything is okay.”

“But I did, Pa,” Charlie claimed weakly, hoping for some forgiveness.  “I, I, . . .  ”

But before he could explain what he had done, Joe was back on him with his voice getting to a higher pitch than before . . .

“I’ll tell you this, young man; this is the last time we are going to get humiliated like that.  Look at your mother and sisters and imagine how they must feel. Why, it must have been pure hell for them sitting there while our horses were running down the lane and you were dragging on the ground behind them like an ass who didn’t have sense enough to let go of the reins.”

Seeing the chance to join the fray, stopping her weeping for the time, one of the sisters broke in . . .

“Charlie, Father’s right, I have never been so humiliated in all my life. I will never live this down. Everyone is going to be talking about this at Church tomorrow. You heard people laughing. They were having a good old time out there tonight at our expense.”

Before she could say more, the other sister chimed in . . .

“I can just see my boyfriend tomorrow. For sure he will have heard what happened and will not have a thing to do with me because of it. This is the worst day of my life.”

Edna now saw her chance to get a few words in and she started in on her son like the others had . . .

“I have never been so humiliated by any of my children, Charles Andrew,” she started, using his full name, like she did when she was mad at him. “I am totally ashamed of you. Your father and I are going to have to endure laughter behind our back now. Things are never going to be the same.”

Joe got back into the chiding as soon as his wife and daughters got through, telling Charlie that he was in for it when they got home. Charlie tried on several occasions to say his side of the story, and to explain that he had held onto the reins only to save the horses from bolting out of property, but every time he did, one of the four of them would interrupt and get right back at him.

Finally, when Charlie had heard enough, he bolted off the still fast-moving surrey, hit the ground running and promptly fell into the weeds along the road. The wagon pulled on leaving him behind as he cursed the day he went to the reunion, and cursed his parents and sisters under his breath.

Charlie was a good two miles from home when he jumped off the surrey. So in about forty minutes when he arrived in the yard, he could see his dad was still waiting up in the kitchen of their old farm house. He hesitated going in at first, but when the dog started barking hearing the noise in the front, he knew his father would be alerted. So, finally, Charlie went in the kitchen, took his medicine of several straps across his behind from his father’s razor strap, and went to bed.

The next morning the family went to Church leaving the new surrey home and taking the old shay instead. At first Charlie told his father that he was not going to Church, but begging out of Sacrament Meeting for any member of the Joe Beckstead family was only allowed if the family member was deathly sick.

In Church, the word was out among the Ward members; this was obvious by the way people seemed to shun away from the family when they arrived. Rumors had spread by then, but most people had taken them lightly and concluded that someone else, not Charlie, was responsible for the incident. Some even felt Charlie was a hero for trying to save the horses from running away. Several others in the community over the past few years had experienced similar practical jokes played by some of the wilder boys in town and they were convinced it was one of them that had snuck out the Reunion program and pulled the pin loose. No one, however, mentioned that to Joe as a possibility, so he continued to believe it was the work of his errant son.

The Beckstead girls were most cautious about who they talked to at Church and mostly kept to themselves. No mention of the incident was made to either of them and the relationship with the younger sister and her boyfriend was not hampered as far as she could tell. For the Becksteads, the incident was pretty much forgotten after they returned home from Church.

Incidents like this, however, continued sporadically over the next many years until horse-drawn vehicles were replaced by cars and trucks. It seemed there would be a flurry of these things happening when the word got out that someone’s horses had broken loose from a wagon, but then it would die down for a spell and no one would hear of any new incidents. Only the stories remained to be told and retold over the years.

In the summer of 1941 another one of these pranks was created that involving Mark Williams’ oldest son Hal, along with his friends the Jones Boys, descendants of the same family blamed in previous years for outhouse tipping. Together, these boys created an incident involving the Midvale City Police. Midvale, a thriving community on the east side of the river was the hub for shopping for most of the communities on the west side of the river, had a small police force that reckoned with law breakers with a vengeance. Hal and his buddies had already been caught speeding through town and otherwise causing havoc on occasions, to the police were always on the lookout for these west-side boys.

Hal had taken up with these wild boys while working at the local gas station in West Jordan. One of the things they liked to do was race through Midvale Main Street in their hopped-up, straight exhaust pipe, noisy cars showing off the car’s power. Whenever the Midvale Police would hear the bellowing cars racing through town, they would immediately take chase, but usually too late. One day, however, the Police were waiting for the boys to come to town on their usual Saturday night drag through Main Street. This time they caught and pulled the boys over, giving Virgil Jones a ticket that resulted in a hefty fine for him.

A few weeks later Virgil Jones decided to get even with the Midvale Police and enrolled his brothers and Hal in the scam. It was Saturday night at about 1:00 a.m. that they quietly drove into Midvale and slowly taking the right turn on the Smelter road they pulled their car to a halt about a block south of the Midvale Police Station that was on the corner of Main and Center Streets in Midvale. They had a cable with them with hooks on each end that they hauled over next to the police car that was parked outside the Police Station. Hooking one end of the cable around the flag pole about twenty feet from the car, they hooked the other end to the back axle of the car leaving about thirty feet of slack in the cable and hiding the loose section in the hedge next to the car. Just as quietly as they had come, they returned to their car, exited back the way they came and reentered Main Street about three blocks west of the Police Station. With motors revved in low gears, they now sped through town. The Police, that had been in the office drinking coffee heard the noise, and took off to their waiting car, not seeing the cable hooked to the back axle. Wheels spun along the curb as they raced toward the intersection, but they only got about thirty feet when the cable became taut and the rear drive assembly was completely pulled off the car leaving the car sitting on the ground with the wheels behind.

The police were sure who did the dastardly deed, but were never able to find enough evidence to convict the boys. If the Second World War had not broken out soon after the incident causing many of the boys in the communities around Midvale to be drafted, the Midvale Police would have soon had their own version of revenge.

Mark Williams, Hal’s father, heard about the incident. For that matter, almost everyone in all the communities around Midvale did, but he never learned that his oldest son was part of the caper. Hearing about the Police Car Incident, however, did bring back old memories of his own capers around the west of the river communities. 

 

                  - Chapter Seven -

                  Irrigation Canal Construction 1872 to 1874

 

The Jordan River begins at the north end of the Utah Lake located in Utah County, runs through all of Salt Lake Valley and eventually dumps into the south end of Great Salt Lake. The river takes in waters from several streams originating in the Wasatch Mountains along the east side of Salt Lake Valley and is the only drainage of the Utah Lake. The river runs almost forty miles before it terminates in the Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake. Since the Utah Lake is a shallow, muddy lake, the river, too, is a murky gray, and is only purged at times along its way as creeks from the Wasatch Mountains on the east feed it and rainwater reaches it from both sides of the river including drainage from the Oquirrh Mountains in the west. The river flows almost exactly through the middle of Salt Lake County.

 When the Pioneers arrived in Utah and began the process of populating the valley, irrigation of the land quickly became an issue, especially for those people that were designated to homestead the west side of the valley west of the river. The east side of the valley had ample water flowing out of several canyons along the Wasatch Mountains, but little or no water was available from the dribbles out of the Oquirrh Mountains. In fact there was barely enough water on the west side of the valley to serve much more than that needed to give some drinking water to the small mining towns that were quickly springing up in the late 1900's. 

Alexander Beckstead who homesteaded a large section of land in what later became South Jordan Community was one of the first settlers west of the Jordan River. He was also the first settler to set up an irrigation system that he and his boys put in by hand. Since he owned much of what is now South Jordan, Alexander began his project at the Jordan River, then called the West Jordan River, by constructing a ditch beginning at the south end of the valley that is now part of Riverton. He routed the ditch northwesterly along the gradient until it was above his farm located along the river-bottom below the first crest of the hill that ran parallel to the river.  From there he flooded the land as needed to irrigate his crops.

When more people moved into the west side of the valley, plans for irrigating more of the west valley were made and surveys were conducted throughout the west side of the valley confirming the feasibility that an entire flood irrigation system was possible using the waters from the Utah Lake. All the needed water, it was envisioned, could be drawn directly out of the Jordan River. Three canals would eventually be constructed west of the Jordan River paralleling each other about one half mile apart traversing the entire valley from the “Point of the Mountain” where the Oquirrh Mountains and the Wasatch range come together at the very south end of the Salt Lake Valley.

Since in those early days of Utah settlement most of the direction for building the canals came from the leaders of the LDS Church, men in the valley that had horses and scrapers were assigned (or “called” as it was termed) by the various Bishops of Wards along the route to assist in building the canals. The entire project, something like ninety miles of canal, would be dug with hand-held scrapers drawn by single horses. The scraper design of that age was a flat plate of heavy steel approximately four feet square formed with three sides that rolled up about twelve inches. On two of the sides, hardware would be attached to a singletree on which a horse would be harnessed, and behind that a dumping device with a single wide handle that was held by the operator.

To fill the scraper, the operator would have the reins of the horse draped over his shoulders while he followed behind the horse holding the wide handle-bar, lifting it slightly making the front sharp end of the scraper dig into the ground as the horse moved forward. Once the scraper was full of soil, the handle would be pushed down toward the ground and the scraper would simply slide on the smooth surface of its bottom until the horse was guided to the dumping site. Each pass with the scraper took about six inches of earth with it along a space about twenty feet long. When the operator got to the dumping location, the handles would again be lifted, causing the front to dig into the soil, but now, instead of holding the handles, the operator would let them go, causing the scraper to tip completely over, dumping the load.  The swivel dumping assembly would allow the scraper to be in any position. This process would be repeated over and over again with the excavated soil being placed along the lower side of the hill or area where the canal was being constructed. Each of the three canals when completed was different size depending on the irrigation needs of the farms the water would serve.

Joseph John Williams, Sr. was one of the local men called by his bishop to participate in the canal-building project. Most of the assigned residents supplied their own scraper since it was a common tool for farmers to use to construct basements for new houses, potato and vegetable cellars, and dugouts for primitive homes. Joseph Senior, himself, was busy with his judgeship, so he assigned his oldest son, Joseph Jr. to this “Church Calling,” as the Bishop’s request was referred to, to be the scraper operator. With that arrangement, Joseph J. Sr. was able to continue his own work and still fulfill his Calling.

Months upon months passed as hundreds of men and their equipment scraped at the clay soil that made up most of the west valley floor. Conditions were ideal for canal building. The clay soil provided an impervious wall along the canal sides that would assure the water did not seep out or break through the banks.

None of the canals were very large. The one nearest to the river and the second one about a half mile west were almost the same size, averaging about four feet deep and ten to twelve wide.  The largest of the canals, informally called the “Big Canal” averaged five feet deep and fourteen to eighteen feet wide. A very accurately surveyed slight slope downhill canal grade was maintained by surveyors to keep the water flowing to the north at a slow rate. Weirs placed at random locations would cause slight steps in the canal level, and also allow the taking of water through metal head gates to tributary ditches for purposes of irrigation of adjacent farm land. Each of these canals had its starting point along the Jordan River. Water was diverted into the canals by small dams or weirs constructed across the river.

Water Management Districts that were created soon after the canals were complete would manage the water delivery on behalf of the farmers. Each farm by its size was dolled Water Shares and schedules were set up for sharing the water by each farmer. Later, these Water Shares would become perpetual “partners” to the land on which they served. When land was sold, the shares went with the land, and if the shares were not used, the District would absorb the shares back into the system.

 Any water that was not used for irrigation would be used by the Utah Copper Mining Company that by the early 1900's was in need of water at its Magna Ore Concentrator and Garfield Smelter operations at the very northwest end of the valley. In later years after the irrigation system was no longer managed by the LDS Church and became a private entity, fees were assessed for the shares that covered operating and maintenance costs for cleaning of the canals and bringing the water to the users.

In the early 1940's about one mile west of the Big Canal, a forth canal was constructed as part of the War Effort (World War II) to put more land under irrigation west of the river. Unlike the original three west valley canals, water for this canal came from a new lake, Deer Creek Reservoir, near Heber Utah that was fed by the Provo River. This reservoir with an earth-filled dam was constructed as a special project of then President Delano Roosevelt. A tunnel was driven through the mountain from what would be the west side of the new lake to feed this new canal. The tunnel exited the mountainside on the East Bench of the mountains south of Draper in Salt Lake Valley and from there a large pipe was laid in the ground to take the water by siphon system down to the bottom of the valley, under the Jordan river and under the three existing canals and back up to the elevation needed on the west side of the valley to keep the canal about a half mile in distance west of the Big Canal. This canal had a short life, and by 1955, most of the north end of the canal was abandoned.

“Settle down, you old devil,” Joseph Williams, Jr. said to the large bay workhorse that he was working with to install its harness for the work ahead on the Canal Project.  “We have a day’s work ahead and I have to have your cooperation.”

Bessie sensed what was going on since this process had been repeated day after day for the previous month. Joseph Jr. would come to the barn in the predawn light, feed the horse a portion of oats while it was still tied up to the manger, lay out the harness assembly that would be used to pull the scraper, and then he would mount the horse and they would be on their way south to the canal construction location for that day location. The ride Joseph would take to the current site would be long, since the canal was just now reaching the north end of South Jordan and from his home that was over three miles away. The horse only trudged along at about three and one half miles an hour, so each day’s ride now was getting shorter, but would still be almost an hour long one way.

Joseph Williams, Sr.’s “Calling” to participate in the building of the Middle Canal (later informally called the Little Canal) was only to include that portion that was included in the boundaries of the town of West Jordan. Each LDS Ward along the routes of the various canals were assigned portions that would be completed by these callings for volunteer workers. Families along those same routes would be assigned to provide food for the workers and the animals.

During the early stages of the work where it began at the Point of the Mountain where there were no farms or settlers, the workers lived in tents and provisions were made in camps along the way for feeding and resting the horses and men, as well as feeding the crews working on the canals. Now that the work was closer to farms those farmers near the canal projects took charge of the work. While Joseph, Junior worked on his section of the canal, he preferred to go home each night, even though it meant an hour bare-back ride on the horse twice a day.

The morning pre-dawn air was fresh that day, as fall was approaching and the evenings were becoming cooler. Joseph, however, loved the ride, as uncomfortable as it was. This was a time to be alone, to think about what he wanted to do with his life, and dream of his future.

Joseph Junior, at seventeen, was a robust, six foot tall lad that was powerful and healthy.  Already he had seen much in his life, having spent fifteen of his years growing up in Falmouth, Cornwell England, then enduring the long trip across the Atlantic, and then the difficult trek across the plains to Utah. But after two years in West Jordan in their new homestead, he had matured even more. Much of the responsibility of the farm was on his shoulders since most of his siblings that were born after he and his twin sister were already dead by then, and the survivors were too young. Joseph being the first born son was the natural heir since his father took up law practice and assumed a Circuit Judgeship soon after their arrival in Utah.

Joseph enjoyed the ride south along well-rutted tracks paralleling crude fields that were being opened up for agriculture once the canals reached the areas. The sage brush was along most of the trail, giving off its pleasant sage odors and filling the air with misty haze as the wind from the south dried the dew on the leaves of the undergrowth. Birds of all kinds were flushed as the solitary horse plodded along with Joseph slapping the reins occasionally when his horse paused momentarily to grab a tuft of grass, or pick off the top of a mature wild oat sprig. 

The doves were Joseph’s favorite of all the birds that lifted into the air as they passed.  Living in the mature sun flowers, they rose into the air with a burst of speed that was awesome to watch. Occasionally a quail would be flushed from the trail, too, blasting the air with the fast whiz of their wings. Here and there in the quiet morning, Joseph would also see a jack rabbit or a small cottontail rabbit that had not yet hidden away for the day. Flushed by the noise of the horse coming nearby, the rabbits scurried to and fro along the trail as if they could not make up their mind what direction to take. Then, as suddenly as they appeared on the trail, they would disappear into the grass or under a large sage brush not to be seen again that day.

Overhead in this morning’s dim light chicken hawks also hovered hoping to catch an unawares rabbit that might somehow find itself in a suitable opening nibbling on the dew-soaked grass of the early morning. Often on these rides, Joseph saw these same hawks dive suddenly from hundreds of feet into the air, catching their victims and taking flight almost without slowing down. All this made his daily ride to the canal site worthwhile. The ride home in the evening was another story.

“Joseph,” the Foreman instructed him when he arrived at the site, “I am going to have you and Harvey Egbert pull this new section between those stakes I put in the ground and the small willow you see there in the distance. As the grade goes around the base of that rise there to the left, I want you to begin the long curve of the canal that will take us about level around that rise. There would be too much excavation to contend with if we cut straight through.”

These were the simple orders the boys took each day, then they got about their work as soon as the orders were clear and any questions were handled with the Foreman. From that point, the workers plowed along, two at a time, each taking a swath of the soil along the stake line about six inches deep into the hard clay soil. Round after round they made, digging a path about twenty feet at a time, loading the slip scraper full to overflowing, sliding it along the lower edge of the canal and dumping it where the pile would become the bank on the low side of the cut.

Crews of two horses and two scrapers were spread out along the canal route, each taking a section about three hundred feet long until it was done, leaving small sections in between to allow a place where the horses could be turned around, brought back along the bank with their loaded scraper, continue to the next cutoff then enter the same slip trail as they had just left.  Each driver was positioned so that one would always be ahead of the other, and overflow of the scraper would dump into the notch of the other and be picked up as the other driver passed through that section. More than two drivers working parallel would be too much for the final width of the canal. One double crew could almost finish one three hundred-foot section of the canal in a day if they didn’t encounter a hard pan in their section. Hardpans, stones or gravel were rare on the areas where they were working, however, and were usually found only in the deeper sections of the canal bed if at all.

In the late summer/early fall the hardest part of the dig was the first layer consisting of the sage brush that didn’t yield to the scraper well, coupled with the dryness of the soil down to about one or more feet in depth. From there, the clay soil was much more amenable since there was still some moisture at the lower levels, and more importantly for the driver, the dust was much reduced.

Meals were brought out to the crews by wagon from nearby farms that were also assigned or “called” by the Bishops to assist in the Canal Project. Women and girls prepared the meals, brought them to the work sites along the canal and set up the blankets and table cloths on the ground or in the backs of their buckboards. Young women of the Church found these meal-times to be very desirable since they got to meet boys from the adjoining villages and towns that they may not have otherwise met. Mother’s cautioned the girls not to be flirtatious, but when they had the chance, they did anyway. In fact, it was during their coursing through South Jordan and across Alexander Beckstead’s homestead with the Canal Project on which Joseph Williams, Junior was assigned that he first met and began the courting process that would bring him to marry Alexander’s fifth daughter by his second plural marriage, Fannie Kesiah Beckstead.  Joseph had seen Fannie and taken a fancy to her at joint church functions, but he had never met her formally until she started to bring meals to the canal workers along with other sisters and her mother.

Water for washing was brought out with the wagons, and girls and women assisted the men to clean up from their dusty morning labors by pouring water on their hands out of the wooden barrels on the wagons. On one of the days, it just so happened that Joseph found himself getting water poured onto his hands out of a ladle from this girl he had seen at a distance, but never met. He knew she was a Beckstead, and now at close range he could see she was very attractive and appealing to him. She immediately took a fancy to Joseph too, but only giggled a little as she spilled the water down Joseph’s shirt and onto his trousers, quickly getting scolded by her mother. Joseph took it lightly, however, and no trouble was caused.

A few days later, the same thing happened, but in a more flirtatious way by this girl whom Joseph now knew as Fannie. After the first encounter, he found out from Harvey Egbert who also lived in South Jordan, who she was. From that point there was no turning back; the courtship had begun. Three years later in 1875, Joseph John Williams Junior and Fannie Kesiah Beckstead would be married. (There’s another story to be told later on in this document about how that all occurred and how the fathers of both of these young people played a part in the eventual marriage of these two people.)

The canal project Joseph was working on moved fast through South Jordan and on into West Jordan. The centerline of the canal slowly inched westward as it meandered through these two towns. By the time they reached the Bingham Highway the grade put the canal about two hundred feet west of Joseph’s home on the southeast corner of his father’s property. From there the canal line moved east again a little then headed north-westerly again as it reached the north end of the Williams’ property.

On one of the sections on which Joseph was working where the canal construction crossed the Williams family farm, while Joseph was ripping another six inches from the surface, about three feet below ground level his scraper suddenly stopped. The scraper had hit something that was buried there. It had been rare that anything more than small gravel was ever encountered in this mostly clay ground, and furthermore, to be stopped by a large object was almost unheard of. The jolt was so sudden and so unsuspected, that Joseph was thrown to the ground as the handle of his scraper flipped up and the scraper and its load turned over and dumped on the ground.

“Hey, Harvey,” Joseph called to his parallel driver Harvey Egbert who was just ahead of Joseph, as he picked himself off the ground and dusted the clay off his trousers. “Stop your rig a minute and come here. I think I have run into a large bolder and may need some help getting it out.”

Harvey pulled his reins in and stood his horse for a welcome stop. It was well past noon anyway, so it was about time they stopped and had some lunch. These past few days, the boys had been taking advantage of being close to Joseph’s home, so Joseph’s mother had been inviting them both to have lunch at the house every day, instead of having lunch brought out to them.

When Harvey got back to the spot where Joseph’s slip had stopped, they immediately got busy down on their hands and knees moving the loose clay that had dumped out of the way so they could see what the scraper had hit. Sure enough, there was a large blackish-green stone buried in the ground that had not even budged when the scraper hit it. Only the top end of the rather odd-shaped stone was uncovered, but it was enough for the boys to get hold of, so they tried wiggling and loosening it so it could be removed. It was solidly buried and it seemed to be long rather than round. It would require a shovel to remove it and the closest shovel was about a quarter mile back along the canal at Joseph’s house. Given that they could not immediately remove the stone, they decided to take their lunch break. So they unharnessed the horses and rode them back to the house to have lunch. They would bring a shovel back with them to remove the stone after lunch. Joseph’s father had been in the area that day and was also home for lunch when they arrived.

“How are you fellows doing on the project?” Joseph Senior asked them as they came into the house, slipping off their boots when they came in as was the rule.

“We have been doing very well, Mr. Williams,” Harvey answered.  The digging has been easy in this clay soil. We’ve been very fortunate, since I hear the crews down on the Lower Canal Project are having quite a time of it. Their canal grade has caused them to have to work on the side hills above the river most of the way, so their digging has been in gravel and sand a good part of the way. I understand from my older brother who is working down there that the canal authorities are concerned that in some places the water loss in the canal may dry it up before it gets fully across the valley.”

Harvey tended to be a little verbose whenever he was asked a question. There was rarely a short answer that came out of his mouth. He was a good boy, however, and Joseph was patient with him until he finished his story.

“What about you, Joseph,” the senior Joseph asked his son now quite directly.  “How has your work been progressing?”

“I was doing well, Father,” he began to explain, “until my scraper hit a big rock of some kind. I was so surprised by it since we have not seen a stone for miles, that when the scraper hit the rock, the impact was so hard the scraper pulled out of my hands and dumped over. With the reins still over my shoulders, I was thrown to the ground and narrowly missed hitting the scraper with my head.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Joseph Senior answered, “good thing you were not hurt. Did you remove the stone? It’s so rare around here to see a stone . . . especially one as so big that it stops the scraper. What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to pick up a shovel and a bar on the way back, Mr. Williams,” Harvey jumped in. “We should be able to dig it out without much effort.”

After lunch, the boys picked up their horses that had been put in the coral behind the barn where they could get water from the trough and nibble a little on the hay the boys threw into the manger for them. It was a beautiful day and the boys didn’t want much to go back to work, but they had a job to do, and they had that rock that had to be removed. A little diversion was better than nothing, they thought. On the way back they began talking again about the rock Joseph had hit with his scraper . . .

“Did you notice the color of that stone, Harvey?” Joseph asked. “I don’t believe I ever seen a rock that color anywhere around here. Up on the hill by the Lark mines where Father and I went together one time I saw rocks about that color coming out of the mining works, but this one is very smooth. And besides, it’s also quite greasy feeling. You remember how hard a time we had holding onto it?”

“You know, Joseph,” Harvey said, “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was a strange color. I haven’t seen anything like it either.”

In a short time they were back at the construction site. The foreman had not come by that day, but they were expecting him. They hoped that taking the rock out wouldn’t be much of a problem and delay their regular production for the day. To make sure they didn’t spend the day trying to get some enormous bolder out of the digging, they decided they would bring along a small rope along with the bar and shovel so they could tie onto it if needed and then they would pull it out with their horse.

But they didn’t need to go to all that trouble. The rock was only about eighteen inches long when they were finally able to dig around it so that it simply fell over in the hole. It was shaped rather oddly, they noticed, more like a large fat tomato worm, almost cigar shaped, narrowing on each end, and perfectly smooth as if it had been polished. It was colored a very dark green, tinged with black and red spots. In fact, they realized after they had rolled it over and cleaned it with some water they had with them, that the stone looked like a fish of some sorts. The stone was rounded on each end then got larger in the middle, and again to the smaller size on the other end. What was even more extraordinary, the rock that one would expect to weigh maybe thirty pounds judging from its size, weighed, they guessed more than fifty pounds . . . maybe even, as much as seventy five pounds, as if it were made from solid steel. In fact, they noticed as they examined the clean stone closely, where the blade of the scraper had hit the stone, it was only slightly scratched it, not chipped at all.

Never before had either of them seen any rock anywhere that even slightly resembled it.  They wondered if it was some sort of petrified wood or some large fish or something like that, which had turned to stone, but it didn’t have the characteristics of wood or a fish for that matter.  This was something that they would just have to take home and have someone with a little more knowledge figure out.

“You said you found this stone buried about three feet underground and that it was sitting vertically, not lying down?” Joseph Senior asked his son when they laid it down on the wash bench at the back of the house. “How heavy would you say it is? It is extraordinarily heavy for its size. And besides, it is very hard to hold onto.”

“What do you make of it, Mr. Williams?” Harvey asked.

“I’m not sure son,” Joseph answered to Harvey. “I haven’t a clue at what it may be, but I would say that it is a very special stone that we must keep and see if we can find someone who could figure it out. But if we do that, we have to have an easier way of carrying it about.  I wonder if we could drill a hole in one end and put a piece of raw hide through it to make it easier to carry. Joseph, please run out in the tool shed and bring me that small star chisel and my ball-peen hammer and let’s see if we can fashion a hole in the one end of this stone.”

Joseph immediately went to the barn and was back in moments with the tools. They padded and cushioned the stone on the heavy wash table so it wouldn’t break and started cutting away at the surface about three inches back from the end, and in its narrowest place. The stone did not respond as a soap stone or piece of sand stone would, rather, it resisted all their efforts to drill through it. However, after a good hour with each of them trading off several times on the hammer, they had a hole cut in the stone that was about one quarter inch deep. By then the star drill was beginning to become somewhat dull.

The three were determined, however, that this strange stone was not going to beat them, so they sharpened the drill and continued. Later that evening after the three of them had worked on the stone for hours, they had a hole cut through and the mysterious stone was sitting on the mantle of the fireplace where all the family could examine it. Everyone was cautioned not to try to lift if off because it was so heavy, and Joseph Senior had pledged to take it to the University of Utah the next time he traveled to Salt Lake City and have an expert geologist he knew examine the stone.

The stone stayed on the mantle off and on for the next few weeks before Joseph had a chance to take it to Salt Lake. In the meantime, the word got around to many people in the community and the Canal Project District Manager even came over to the house to examine the stone. There was much speculation about its origin. Many who had mining backgrounds claimed it was a stone that had somehow migrated from the mining region in the west to this spot in the middle of the valley, but those ideas were many times refuted. Other persons who knew some Indian lore believed that when the valley was a lake may eons ago someone hauled the stone from the east mountains and it fell out of the boat they were using and stuck into the ground, later to be covered with silt of the lake. This person’s explanation was considered valid for a time since he had been in on some of the excavation of the granite stones in the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon on the East Mountains, and he had seen granite-like stones that looked exactly like this one. However, no one could explain adequately the weight of the stone.

Not until many years later was the mystery solved. Joseph took the stone to the University as promised, but there only more speculation arose and more possibilities were opened as to the stone’s origin. For years the stone rested at the University and it became quite point of interest for people in the new Geological and Mining Departments. It was not until a geologist traveling through the area in about 1890 who saw the stone resting in a glass display case at the school, did he make an intelligent guess at the origin of the stone. He claimed it to be a meteorite fragment that had fallen to the earth at some time in the past and lodged itself in the ground at the exact spot where the boys found it. Chemical tests were taken of the stone by this man who found the material to be richly laden with minerals not found in the area. However, the stone was primarily made of iron, which accounted for its great density and weight. Joseph had never actually donated the stone to the University, so when the identification was made, and the analysis was termed correct, the people at the University contacted Joseph and told him the story and about the stone being a meteorite. The next time Joseph was in Salt Lake he made a trip to the University and picked up his stone, later placing it on the mantle where it stayed as a point of conversation for many years to follow.

The project to build canals west of the Jordan River continued for about three years after its start in 1872. When the project was completed, Joseph Williams, Junior and his partner had put in over two years total toward this massive community effort. All three of the original canals have continued to carry water every year well into modern times serving the same purpose for which they were built.

 

 

                     – Chapter Eight –

                        Herding Sheep in the West Desert -- 1873

“Joseph,” his father Joseph Williams Senior suddenly announced at the table on an early spring evening of 1873, “I believe you are old enough now at nineteen to take on a job for me this summer. I want you to be in charge of herding our sheep out at Table Mountain in the West Desert. As you know I have had Henry Butler doing it for me the last two years, but this year I want you to handle it for me, and I want to have you take your younger brother Samuel with you.”

Dinner time was always Joseph’s time to announce important family decisions and this was one of those evenings. Even at home he handled things like he did on the Bench. He was very formal, demanded respect from the children and spoke in tones like any judge would while sitting on the Bench. He had already spoken to his wife about it and had told Henry Butler he was having his boys do the job this year, so the stage was set for an adventure for the two boys.

After the winter lambing on the West Jordan Ranch was complete, the herd had increased to almost four hundred sheep. The weather had been good so the lambs were healthy this year. The entire herd was to be taken to the West Desert for the summer. About ten days would be required to take the herd out over Johnson’s Pass by Vernon and into the valley south and west of Simpson Springs between the Simpson Mountains and Table Mountain and there they would feed and grow through the summer and return in early October.

“Are you sure you want to trust me with such a responsibility, Father,” Joseph Junior replied after a thoughtful moment. “And what about Sam?  He’s pretty young for such a trek.”

“Nonsense, son,” Joseph answered, “I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t think you and Samuel could do the job. Your mother supports me in this, right, Johanna? I want you boys to be ready on Saturday to leave. Henry has drawn up some maps for you that show you all the landmarks, trails and watering places along the way and also in the valley where you’ll keep the sheep through the summer. I’ve been there, fellows. It’s quite a wonderful place. There’s ample food for the sheep; there’s open space as far as the eye can see; and I’ll bet for you boys it will be quite an adventure.”  There was a long quiet pause, and then Joseph Senior continued. “What do you say, Samuel? You’ve been sitting there quiet as a mouse.”

Samuel sat silent just staring alternatively at his father then at his mother, expecting some note of approval, at least from his mother.

“Speak up, Samuel,” Joseph Senior said lovingly, “cat got your tongue?”

Finally Samuel blurted out, “It’s all right, sir, I guess.” Then he fell silent again.

“You will be all right, Samuel,” his mother said, speaking for the first time. “As your father says, we discussed this matter and decided together that the both of you are old enough, and that this would be good for you.”

Johanna had retained her English accent, not switching into Americanisms that many of the immigrants were adopting. Her voice was soothing and convincing when she assured Samuel that a summer in the desert with his older brother would be a good thing.

Over the next few days the old sheep camp wagon that Henry Butler had used was cleaned up by the girls and under their mother’s direction, a second bunk bed was installed inside; and the unit was stocked with provisions to last the five or more months, the boys were going to be gone. Joseph Senior purchased a new high-powered rifle for Joseph Junior, and Samuel was awarded with the Winchester repeater that his father had purchased in the East before coming across the Plains. Ample ammunition was provided, but their father cautioned them not to use the rifles for practice, but to reserve the ammunition for use with any predatory animals they would see getting after their sheep. He also mentioned to them that when it was warranted, they might have to go into the foothills for deer or shoot an occasional antelope, so they could replenish their meat supply and give them some variety from the mutton they would be eating more regularly.

Three goats were purchased from a Greek family that had moved into the valley and settled in Midvale. The goats would easily integrate into the sheep herd and would be available to the boys as a source of fresh milk most of the summer. Their mother provided them with a new batch of sourdough starter, and showed Joseph how to make bread, so they could have bread when they wanted it. All the provisions were planned around simple meals that the boys could manage with their minimal experience as cooks.

Henry Butler came over the day before the boys were to leave to explain his maps and to go over some of the landmarks they would be looking out for on the way. He spent several hours with the boys going over the route and answering the multitude of questions they had about some of the wildlife and possible predators in the desert that might attack the sheep. They were assured that they would have little trouble in the area they would be going to, but that in crossing the Quaqui Mountains by Johnson’s Pass, they would have to keep their eye out at night, especially, for wild cats that were known to be in that area. Henry claimed one had come into the sheep herd one night when he was returning from the desert the previous fall and carried off a small lamb before the dogs woke him. He was able to fire of a shot in the direction of the attack but did not hit the predator. Samuel was concerned for his own life when he heard about the cougar, but Henry assured him that the only time a cougar was dangerous was if they were cornered or had been wounded. He knew of no cases, what-so-ever, that a man had been attacked by a cougar anywhere in the West Desert region.

Like one would expect, before he left, Henry was asked to explain about Indians in the area, and he passed that one off with the explanation that most of the Indians he knew of lived in the north end of Cedar Valley near Cedar Fort, and there were a few in Skull Valley west of the Stansbury Mountains quite a way north of Johnson’s Pass; but he assured them that the main reason that they had picked the area where they would summer the sheep was because it was free from any Redskins as far as he knew. He had not seen one in the area in two years he had been there, he assured them.

Henry did warn them, however, that coyotes tended to roam the areas occasionally and could be expected to get into the herds if they had a chance. But most of the time they sat on the outskirts of the herd and the dogs kept them at bay. He suggested that any chance they got, they should shoot any of these creatures. He had noticed on his trips that if he once shot a coyote and left it in place, it was quite a while before any other would come sniffing by the sheep.

Saturday’s day of departure came too fast for the boys. But, all the plans were sufficiently completed and they were at least ready as far as equipment and supplies were concerned. It was a brisk, clear morning, with a cool breeze blowing in from the south that morning when they departed. Samuel shouted “gittyup” to the two mares harnessed to the sheep camp and the gates to the West Field were opened to let the sheep out for their eighty mile journey to the West Desert. The entire family was there to wish them well, and the boy’s mother had baked a special English sweet for them to take as a snack later on. The three dogs sensed the excitement too, and when Joseph sicced them after the sheep they soon had them rounded up and were pushing them through the gate and out onto the road. When the herd hit the road, many of the excited yearlings began jumping around and over each other, not unlike the sheep in the Fairy Tale books their mother read them when they were younger. Jumping the way the sheep did reminded the boys of how the books described sheep jumping fences and rock walls in the stories.

An immediate cloud of dust floated up around the sheep, but it was soon dissipated by the breeze and pushed off to the north. It would not always be that way, however. Over the next ten days the boys would eat and spit more dust than they ever imagined was possible.

It was planned that Samuel would drive the sheep camp for the first few hours, and then he would take to the saddle of his riding horse that was tied to the camp and take over Joseph’s job of controlling the dogs and generally steering the sheep in the right direction.

The route would take them west a short distance to the West Section road (later to be known as the Pole Line Road). They would then follow the wagon trail that went along the surveyed Section Line south until they reached the outskirts of Riverton. From there the route would take them back to the east to the Redwood Road then south again through the small hamlet of Riverton, through Bluffdale, up the foot hills continuing south until they reached the Point of the Mountain. They hoped to make it that far, about twelve miles, that first day since they would be pushing the sheep hard to get them past any farmland opened up by new settlers on the southwest end of the valley.

Their second day, they hoped would take them over the Point of the Mountain pass and on around the foothills in a westerly route that by the third day would put them somewhere in Cedar Valley near Cedar Fort. From there the boys would continue south to Camp Floyd, then west over the pass that cut through the end of the Oquirrh Mountains. At the time of their travel, this route west was called the Overland Trail, the only route leading west from Salt Lake City and eventually through Nevada and to California. This track would later earn its fame as the route of the Pony Express.

From Camp Floyd the boys would travel very slightly southwest for another twenty five or more miles before they saw the next inhabitants in the fertile Rush Valley where the small communities of Vernon and Rush Valley were just beginning to develop. The westerly route would continue between to two villages to a break in the Quaqui Range called Johnson’s Pass. On about the sixth or seventh day they would hope to be through Johnson’s Pass and on their way to the West Desert, following the Overland Trail around the southerly tip of the Great Salt Lake Desert. Going south along the Simpson Mountains, they would pass another water hole called Simpson Springs and after about three days of hard travel from Johnson’s Pass they would leave the Overland Trail and circle around to the east side of a large flat top mountain called Table Mountain into the valley where they would summer the sheep. Tall grass and plenty of water was promised for them there, and their long adventure would be just beginning. By good luck and if they didn’t miss any of the landmarks Henry Butler gave them on their maps, they would be settling the sheep down after ten to eleven days travel.

Joseph Senior rode along with the boys the first day as far as South Jordan to see how they did and to take care of some business with his old friend, Alexander Beckstead. Initially, the sheep were wily and hard to control. They had been in the five-acre West Field of the Williams’ homestead most of the winter and had only been brought down to the barns and sheds of the property for lambing in January. After the new-born lambs were sufficiently strong, and there was little danger of them dying from the winter cold, the entire herd of females and their young had been taken back to the West Field where they were fed regularly on the stacks of hay put there for that reason.

Now that the sheep were free and there were occasional patches of untouched grass abounding along the marked trails, the sheep were easily distracted and would run off helter-skelter in small groups that kept the dogs overly busy. Joseph Jr. was used to the dogs and them to him, so in the first few hours as his father plodded along and observed, Joseph managed the dogs and thus the herd with confidence. He was riled a few times, however, when several of the small groups of sheep, more than the three dogs could handle at once, strayed off and had to be rounded up with his horse. Joseph Senior jumped in to help on a few of these occasions, but more or less stayed next to the sheep camp talking to Samuel and encouraging him to be brave about being alone in the desert for over five to six months. It was about four hours into the first day, however, before the sheep settled down and quit splintering off into small groups. By one o’clock that day the herd was well over half way into their first day’s goal and they all stopped for a quick prepared lunch that the boy’s mother had prepared. Joseph Senior was satisfied by then that the boys could handle the task, and after lunch begged off to take a side trip over to Alexander Beckstead’s property in South Jordan to handle some business he had with Alexander.  The boys would go on alone from that point.

“Joseph, how nice to see you,” Alexander enthusiastically greeted Joseph Senior as he dismounted from his horse and walked through small gate of the white picket fence surrounding one of Alexander’s three South Jordan homes. Joseph had taken a chance that Alexander would be at this house, and he had been correct. “We’re just sitting down for a bite of late lunch today, Joseph.  We’d love to have you join us.”

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten lunch, Alexander,” Joseph apologized, “I just had a bite with my boys down the road a piece. You see, I have Joseph and Samuel, my two sons, taking our sheep herd out to the West Desert for the summer and I accompanied them this far to see how they would do. A short time ago we stopped and ate the lunch Johanna prepared for us. Thanks anyway.”

“Well, Joseph,” Alexander insisted, “you’ll come in and sit with us a moment and maybe take a glass of water or something. What brings you out of the way to honor us with this visit? Is it a legal matter? Should I be calling you ‘Your Honor’?”

“No. No. Nothing like that, Alexander,” Joseph laughed, explaining as they stood on Alexander’s porch before entering the house. “This is a personal matter I wanted to discuss with you privately if I may. Do you have a moment before your lunch is served?”

“I have the time, Joseph. That would be fine,” Alexander agreed, “Kizzie has just fixed us a cold meal, so it can wait until I get in the house. Why don’t we just sit here on the porch? It’s quieter here”

They sad down on separate rattan chairs while Joseph began his delicate questioning of Alexander . . .

“Alexander, you know when the Little Canal project was pushing through your property a year and one half ago? Well, I understand your wife and daughter Kesiah, brought lunches out to the canal workers several days in a row while the boys were digging through this area. My son Joseph was one of the workers the women served.”

“Yes, I remember,” Alexander asserted, now puzzled at what Joseph was leading up to.

“Well,” Joseph continued, “my son Joseph and your daughter Kesiah got to know each other on those few days that lunches were provided by your wife and daughters, and their acquaintance, from what I have observed, developed quite fast into something quite serious. I think they may even be considering marriage down the road a piece.”

“My daughter has indeed spoken of your son Joseph,” Alexander added, “but I didn’t think anything serious was happening. Why, Kesiah is only about fourteen . . . much too young to be considering marriage. She’s mature, I’ll say that, but marriage? I just don’t know.”

“That’s exactly my point, Alexander,” Joseph went on. “Joseph’s only nineteen as well, and I want him to have a trade before he gets married. And, I know your daughter is quite young, but I didn’t know she was that young. One of the reasons I asked Joseph to take the sheep out himself this summer rather than hire Henry Butler again, was to get him away from thinking seriously about marriage at this time.”

“That sounds very good to me, Joseph,” Alexander agreed enthusiastically. “I would not want any of my daughters to marry before they were sixteen, at least, and if we can keep these kids separated a while, let’s say another two years, I would be more than happy to have Kesiah marry your son. I’ll have a talk with her and their mother. And you keep me posted if you will about how your son handles this matter. I personally would feel very privileged to have one of my daughters marry a Williams. Now won’t you come in and sit with us a moment?”

Joseph went in and had a sweet roll one of Alexander’s wives had prepared for her family’s lunch; then he left shortly after. As he was riding home he pondered how Alexander’s first wife, who was much older than his second one, handled this while Alexander divided up his time between this wife, his first wife and now his third marriage to a sixteen year-old bride he had taken on recently. Plural marriage was an issue for Joseph from the time it was condoned by the leaders of the Church many years earlier. Furthermore, he had experienced several occasions on the Bench as Judge in dealing with problems associated with plural marriage and he hadn’t liked what he had seen and heard. Joseph had all he could manage with Johanna and all his daughters. Having another wife to deal with, or several for that matter, was just not in the cards for him.

In the afternoon, the wind whipped up stronger than it had been in the morning. Joseph kept Samuel and their sheep camp out ahead of the herd as much as he could so he would be out of the dust, but as he circled back and forth at the tail-end of the herd making sure no strays wandered off, he was continually wiping his eyes and blowing the dust out of his nose. The bandana mask he was wearing helped some, but it didn’t keep all the dust out.

At about 3:00 p.m. they were just going through the small township of Riverton when Joseph had experienced enough dust that he decided to get Samuel behind the herd and he would take over the sheep camp. Just outside of town Joseph spurred his horse to move around the sheep and pull along the side of the wagon.

“Get this sheep camp a little out ahead of the herd, Sam,” Joseph shouted over the noise of the wheels sliding in and out of the hard crusted ruts in the road and the clanking of the pots and pans rattling in the sheep camp. “I want you to get ahead far enough so you can stop and unhook your horse and trade me off.  I’ve about had it with this dust back there and want a spell-off.”

“Sure,” Samuel quickly answered as he whipped the two draft horses into a quick trot.  “I’ll pull off right up there by that tree. That should give us time before the herd pushes into us.  My behind is about ready for a soft saddle anyway. This seat and the ruts coming through town about finished me off.”

About three hundred feet ahead of the prodding dusty herd the boys stopped the sheep camp and made the trade. Joseph pulled on now, continuing into Bluffdale, while Samuel circled off into the back of the herd to get the stragglers pulled back into ranks that had wandered off while Joseph was up front negotiating the tradeoff. Three hours later after almost ten hours of prodding the animals along, they found the spring that had been marked on the map just short of the top of the pass leading over the Point of the Mountain. The animals sensed or smelled the water, so they didn’t even have to herd the sheep into the little gully where the stream tickled down out of the hillside spring, the sheep found it themselves. Once the sheep were settled down, the boys decided to spend their first night out camped next to the spring.

Supper that first night amounted to warming up some baked beans their mother had sent along. They used the loaf of home-made bread she had prepared early that morning to dunk into the beans. That first day was the most tiresome they would experience in the next ten days, partly because of the long hard push to the Point of the Mountain from home, but equally, because of their nervousness at having such an awesome responsibility thrust on them by their father.

On the new dawn of their second day, they were awakened by the unfamiliar blurting of the lambs and the light breaking into their sheep camp from the east over the majestic mountains, still blanketed with winter snows. The morning was cold, so the boys quickly got dressed, rolled out of their bunks in the sheep camp, stoked up the coals of the previous night’s fire and talked about their coming second day away from home.

This was Samuel’s first full day that he had been away from home. It was also great not having sisters fussing over him. It was a good feeling, he thought, being able to be around his older brother whom he thought of as his idol anyway. This was really the first time they had been together for other than a day of fishing, or a part-day ride to Midvale and back. He was excited, but also frightened at the same time, but he had made up his mind that neither would be allowed to show much, lest his brother think badly of him.

It was different for Joseph. He remembered clearly their departure from Cornwall and the frightening trip across the Atlantic. The days they spent in New York before their father had secured passage west on a wagon train had also been difficult and challenging for all of them.

Since he was the oldest, and was old enough to be a big help to his parents, he was given much of the responsibility for the smaller children. Margaret, his twin sister was relegated to assist her mother since she was pregnant once again and had suffered much on their journey across the ocean. But in a few days, burdened with confusion and crowds of strange people speaking many languages, none of them had even heard, they were assigned to a Wagon Master and a Wagon Train and were soon on their way to the West, and to Zion that they had been promised when they joined the Church back home in Cornwall.

At first when the trip across America was explained to the family and the hardships they might bear along the way were described, Joseph Junior believed that like their first trip from Cornwall to the shipping port, their trip across America would be only a few easy days long. But to his surprise, the wagons rolled on day after day after day. They continued trekking over the plains for over a month before they arrived in the Territory of Missouri, by crossing the Mississippi River settling for a time at Winter Quarters; then the headquarters and the departure point for Mormons on their way to Zion.

While there, they found people, many like them that were on their way to Great Salt Lake City as it was originally called. Mormons all, they were part of a group now with common goals and religious beliefs. Mormonism was new to most of the travelers, but they were a faithful group that made their stay in Winter Quarters much more pleasant than their stay in New York City had been.

Joseph remembered that their sojourn in Winter Quarters was short since the remainder of the trip, over fifteen hundred miles they were told, was a rough one and the groups had to leave soon to beat the winter snows. They still had plenty of summer left, but they were told the coming of fall many times brought snow. And since they would be crossing a very high mountain range before arriving at Great Salt Lake City they could encounter an early snow storm.

As the boys were readying their morning mush over the open flame, they had rescued from the hot coals left over from the previous night, Joseph asked Samuel who was sitting pensively thinking many of the same thought Joseph had on his mind. . .

“Do you remember much about our trip by wagon train to our new home here, Sam?”

“No much, Joseph,” Samuel replies as thoughts of the trip vaguely presented themselves to him. I remember the dust and the long hot days when all we had to do was sit and look out of the back of the wagons.  I remember playing with other children in places where we stopped, but most of it is unclear to me and is like trying to remember a dream. What about you, Joseph? What do you remember?”

“It is all very clear to me, Samuel,” Joseph answered.  “I’ve not talked much about it to anyone except a few friends, but there are many details about the trip that remind me a lot of what we might expect out of this trip.”

The boys didn’t say much more that morning. There were chores to do: hobbled horses to round up and bridle and harness to the sheep camp, and sheep to round up and get ready to move. They were already starting to wander into the oak brush up on the side-hill and would have to be brought down before they could be on their way. When they finally departed their first night’s campground, the sun was fully breaking over Mt. Jordan above Draper and Crescent warming up the air considerably. Already fine dust particles were rising in the air around them, made more visible and dramatic by the angle of the sunlight bleeding through them. Sheep bells were ringing here and there, with their dull, tinny sound, and the blatting of lambs trying to find their mothers was increasing in intensity. The dogs were barking regularly as they dashed from one group of sheep to another bringing some sense of order and direction to the mass. By the reckoning of Henry Butler’s map they had about another twelve miles to go, they figured, to reach Cedar Fort and water where they hoped to spend their second night.

Once the boys reached the summit of the low hills marking the west side of the Point of the Mountain, they could see the great expanse of the Utah Lake. At that time they didn’t know the lake by that name since Henry had not shown it on his map, nor had they ever remembered hearing what it was called. He had only indicated by a note on the map that there was a body of water to the south and west of where they would be going.

The Jordan River that drained the lake was easy to see, meandering along through lush meadows of the valley below, and then disappearing into the gorge at the narrowest point at which the two mountain ranges met briefly at the place called the Point of the Mountain. The river appeared again to them on the north end of the cut through the mountain and when the dust of the herd was blown to the west, they were able to see for the first time the vast Salt Lake Valley, and even parts of the Great Salt Lake and the large island in the lake that blocked any northerly view of the rest of this body of water. The clear, crisp day made the view even more spectacular and the boys halted their trip for a few moments to take it all in, knowing as they looked north that this would be their last view of the valley west of the river that they would see for several months. When they strained their eyes taking in the view to the north, they speculated where their home was in West Jordan and whether this speck or that one was their large barn at the southwest side of their home yard. What they didn’t realize was that the hills and vast expanses of open sage fields would have obscured any view they might have had of their home. It was only a dream they wanted to have implanted on their minds as a reminder of their home and where they would return to after five or six months. Focusing south and west now, they had to move on if they were going to make Cedar Fort by sundown or before.

            The boys hugged the foothills as they worked their way around the corner of the Point of the Mountain heading westerly. They could see in the far distance to the west, a good ten to twelve miles away, the last southerly remnant of the Oquirrh Mountains and the pass they vaguely had an idea they would be crossing on entering Rush Valley. This valley would be the last place they would see civilization before reaching the West Desert, they had been told by Henry Butler. They could also see their destination for the day, Cedar Fort up against the cedar-covered bench along the east side of the Oquirrh Mountain range.

Looking straight east back of where they had just passed, they now had a broad view of the Wasatch Mountains that had at its base, the town of Provo they had only heard of but not seen. Provo was often mentioned from the pulpit by visiting speakers that spoke of the town and the mountain peaks above the town along with the newly established Mormon-run Brigham Young Academy. They had also heard the Indian legend that spoke of the remnant of a dead Indian Chief, Timpanogos, who had fallen on the top of the mountain after a great battle. The boys looked at this mountain as Joseph rode alongside of his brother who was driving the sheep camp horses again that morning and they speculated on which end of the range of mountains above Provo represented the headdress of the fallen Indian Prince and where the rest of his body was. Before they turned it to continue their focus west, they concluded that the north peaks of that particular stretch of the mountain was Timpanogos’ head, and his body made up the rest of the peaks continuing south. It was plain to see how the Indians could have such a legend, they concluded. Having mentioned Indians, they both hoped they would not encounter any Indians between where they were and Cedar Fort, which they heard had originally been set up to protect the travelers through that area against Indian raids.

By noontime that second day the boys and their mass of animals had made it to a small depression coming out of the hills to the north. Their map told them they would find water there. On seeing the depression, Joseph rode on ahead to investigate the possibility of a creek. There was no creek in line with where they would be crossing, but about one quarter mile up the moist stream bed, he did find a small trickle of water and signaled Samuel to pull the sheep camp more northerly where there was an easy crossing and where the sheep and horses could find water.  Samuel followed Joseph’s orders and once he was in the depression, stopped the wagon to let his horses drink. He also untied his riding horse from the back of the wagon in anticipation that Joseph would be trading off with him again for the rest of the day’s journey west. 

The boys broke crusts of bread for the noon meal, took on water from the little clear stream, had some cheese and jerky their mother had stashed in their supply and soon they were ready to push on. The mountain to the west with its high peaks hovering over Cedar Fort had been clear and distinct from the distance as the boys rounded the Point of the Mountain where they had seen them first. The morning sun outlined their features with such clarity that it rivaled a detailed oil painting. Now with the mid-day sun beating down on them, the mountains had taken on a bluish to purple hue that denied any detail. Where trees on the mountainside had been distinct early in the morning, it was now hard to distinguish which were trees and which was sage brush or undergrowth. What was clear was that in the lower sections of the mountain, the trees on the mountain side were cedars and pinion pine, but in the gullies and canyons near the top, they believed the trees were a mix of quaking aspen and large majestic pines. Both boys said, as they spoke from time to time, that they suspected those mountains were full of deer and elk and they hoped similar mountains were going to be near where they were staking out the herd for the summer.

Once the boys could clearly see Cedar Fort in the near distance, they pulled off the side hills and made a bee-line for the Fort. Now they were more in the open with no oak brush to worry about and less chance of having sheep wander off and get lost. There was ample new green grass along their route and the sheep continually had to be rousted by the dogs to keep them going. Twice as they looked north at the edge where the oak brush and cedar and pinions started, they saw men on horseback moving along parallel with them just on the edge of the tree-line in the foothills. It was clearly unnerving to the boys. The riders were too far away to determine who they were, so Joseph stopped the wagon for a spell, dug out the old field glasses their father had lent them and took a closer look. Like he suspected they were Indians. He hoped they were just curious about what was causing the five hundred foot long dust cloud that followed the sheep as they prodded along.

“What should we do, Joseph?” the more nervous Samuel asked once when he broke away from the sheep and rode up alongside of the sheep camp and heard from Joseph what he had determined with the glasses. “Now we are sure they are Indians, do ya suppose they might come down here?”

“You remember what Father said, Sam,” Joseph assured Samuel. “Most of the Indians in this region are pretty friendly and we don’t have to worry about them. But occasionally they will see someone traveling through some of the areas where they have been relegated to live, and they will come and ask for handouts like salt or sugar or flour. If that happens, Father instructed us to be generous with our gifts to them, but to limit our giving so as not to run short ourselves.  They should leave us alone after that. You remember, too, what Henry said about Cedar Fort? It was set up originally as a place to control a tribe of Indians who were pushed into the foothills from Cedar Valley, so settlers could begin farming this land we see to the south of us. There is supposed to be some Army troops at the Fort even now to protect the few settlers that have already established themselves in the valley. It’s my bet that these soldiers have already seen us by now and it’s a good chance that if they have, they have also seen those Indians up in the hills that are watching us. I think we can be assured that if the Indians come down from the foothills, those soldiers would be here in a flash.”

Samuel seemed satisfied with Joseph’s speculation  and didn’t stay to debate the issue any longer, but rather pulled his horse left, made a big sweep around the sheep encouraging the dogs to keep the herd tight as they continued the last five or so miles toward the Fort. He never once quit glancing to the north, however, to see if the riders they had spotted were coming any closer. They didn’t, and by about 7:00 p.m., Joseph traded places with Samuel and rode ahead to the Fort to ask if they could put up their sheep and camp outside the Fort that night. He also wanted to find the water for the sheep and their horses that Henry Butler had mentioned ran down into the valley along the north side of the Fort.

The soldiers stationed at the Fort all came out to greet the boys and get any news they might have from Salt Lake. The boys apologized for not having any, explaining that their farm life left them pretty isolated from the outside world. When the boys asked about the riders they had seen that day the Captain explained to them that indeed, the riders were Indians and that their display was normal for almost any travelers moving either way on the trail. 

            It had been quite a long time, the Captain explained, since there had been any traveler’s incidents, and they only expected these incidents when winter deprived the Indians of some hunting options and they came down to either beg for food or if they felt brave, to pillage travelers for anything they might use for food. The boys asked about the situation with Indians further west and the soldiers explained there was a small band living on the south west end of Rush Valley, the next large valley to the west, but they rarely ventured north to the Overland Trail. They also explained that there was another larger group living in Skull Valley about twenty five miles north of Johnson’s Pass where they would be crossing. The Captain said, however, that they were rarely seen that far south, and if they were, it was usually a hunting band after deer or elk on the Stansbury Range.

            The boys were invited to come into the Fort and eat in the Captain’s Mess after they got their animals settled down. They willingly accepted knowing this may be their last regular meal in many months. When they did join the soldiers to eat, the Williams boys learned that many of the soldiers they met were near the age of Joseph and they were from all parts of the East. None made much of the boys being assigned to spend the summer in the desert, but there was much discussion about their being Mormons, and especially about the plural marriage customs they assumed all Mormons participated in. The boys didn’t stay long after supper with the officers, but went directly to the sheep camp to spend their second night on the trail.

            Being on the far west side of a valley with only hills for mountains on the east compared with the high Wasatch Range bordering the east side of the Salt Lake Valley, caused the early morning sun to beat in on the boys earlier than they expected. The sun woke them and by the time they were wide awake, the lambs were already blatting and the dogs were running about keeping the herd together. The signal was clear to the boys: hurry through a cold breakfast and move out. While Samuel gathered the can of goat’s milk from the creek where it had been cooling for the night, Joseph rounded up the four hobbled horses, got the team hitched to the sheep camp and saddled the other two horses for their departure. The Captain and a few enlisted men came out of the Fort before the boys departed to ask if there was anything they needed. They said no, but the camp cook brought them some fresh cooked baking powder biscuits anyway that were still warm. The boys willingly accepted them and soon left the area.

            They were facing an uphill grade leaving Cedar Fort that looked like it might slow them down on the start south to Camp Floyd. They had experienced this when they left the north side of the Point of the Mountain, and expected it would be the same leaving Cedar Fort. Like they expected, their day did start out slow, but picked up some when the sheep were able to see the green surrounding Camp Floyd and the promise of water to be found there.

            The next two days of their travel were uneventful. They were traveling in open land with low sage brush all round, so there were few problems keeping the animals focused and heading in the proper direction. Their third day put them about midway between the pass they went over a few miles west of Camp Floyd and the stream that cut through the middle of Rush Valley. Their stopover on their third night was a dry camp, so they had to break out the long trough that was secured to the side of the sheep camp and dip water out of the wooden barrel they had lashed to the front of the sheep camp to water the animals. This was a lot of work, but Henry had told them ahead of time to anticipate at least one dry camp on the way and preparations had been made to accommodate the animals sufficiently well.

            On the forth, day after pushing hard across the east half of Rush Valley, they finally came to the small creek that cut through the valley. They watered the animals there then moved on about another mile west before stopping. Their stopping point put them close to a small settlement that seemed to be inhabited and the boys were more than anxious to see who lived there. Just as they were about to ride ahead of the animals and approach the property, two teen-age boys that lived at the settlement who had been in a large pasture bordering the stream to the south, rode up to meet the Williams boys and welcomed them to the Faust Ranch, as they called their property. The Faust boys also told them they were welcome to stay for dinner. They naturally accepted, and when the boys had the animals settled down about a quarter mile from the residence, they rode over to the house on their horses to meet the Faust family.

            They arrived at the home at dusk and were warmly greeted by what they quickly learned was a Mormon family that had been sent to Rush Valley by Brigham Young shortly after their arrival in the territory some fifteen years earlier. In that fifteen years they had opened up several hundred acres of ground near the creek that could be irrigated and had even fashioned a canal of sorts about two miles long that brought the water to most all of their fields around the homestead. The Fausts were delighted to greet the boys and explained to them they were one of ten families that had already moved into and settled Rush Valley by then. All but one family was Mormon, so the community all met in Vernon for Church on Sunday in a small chapel they had fashioned from stone. The small town of Vernon was about eight miles to the south of the Faust residence. So far, they exclaimed, only two other families had settled in the area they were calling Rush Valley Town that was located a few miles north of the Overland Trail. The boys were told that most of the original families that had moved into the valley lived in or near Vernon at the time.

            The boys had another wonderful and unexpected dinner that night and listened to a short sermon from the head of the family that he called their “Family Night” or regular weekly meeting. This was new to the Williams boys since they were not isolated like these people were from other members of the Church and the regular Sunday and weekly meetings they had for youth and adults in West Jordan sufficed for their religious teachings. Brother and Sister Faust welcomed them for breakfast the next morning, but the boys begged off saying they had to push on early in hopes they could reach Johnson’s Pass by nightfall.

            As they hoped, on the evening of their fifth travel day after a long and hard push across the rest of Rush Valley and up the foot hills through the cedars and pinions, they reached the top of Johnson’s Pass. The west side of Rush Valley had been distinctly different that the east side.  The entire trail from the Faust Ranch to the summit of Johnson’s Pass had been lined with dried sunflower weed. They imagined that it would be a blush of yellow when they came back in the fall. But now, because of the abundance of sunflower seeds, there were literally thousands of mourning doves that rose up out of the dry sunflowers almost every twenty feet along the trail.  Another surprise for them was a large bird neither had ever seen that they spotted along the trail in the sage brush. They had their small caliber rifle ready after the third time they saw a flock of these birds milling around near the trail and shot two of them that they would plan to eat that night. The birds were larger than any chicken they had ever seen and had funny, fan-shaped tails that were quite colorful. They would learn after their return in the fall, that what they had shot were Sage Fowls.

            There was a large clearing just over the pass, on the west side of the trail and a meadow fed by a spring where they planned to stay that night. They had arrived at the summit of Johnson’s Pass just as the sun was lowering in the west, glaring on the southern tip of the Great Salt Lake Desert. They had heard of this huge expanse of salt that covered the whole northwest side of the territory, but they didn’t dream it would be so large, and they could only see the very southern tip of the old dry lake bed. Later on as they were finishing up with the camp and horses, they got the final view as moment by moment the day closed off and night covered their realm.  The colors of the distant mountain ranges changed gradually along with the hues of the sky and the salt desert that slowly turned from white to a dull pink, until there was nothing left in the west but a silhouette of the mountains and the pastel redness of the sunset sky blending into the deep blue of the heavens over their heads.

            As they ate dinner and listened to the howls of coyotes they pondered whether they should spell each other off through the night and guard against cougars raiding their herd.  Neither liked the idea as it would really put them under pressure the next day as they tried to push for the next stopover half way between where they were and Simpson Springs. They finally agreed that it was a good idea to stand guard and before they bedded down, both boys took their horses and rode into the cedars with ropes and drug out some large dry cedar branches they could use to keep the fire going full throughout the night. They agreed that each would take about four hours on guard, and then the next day they would work out something to have the sheep camp behind the herd led by one rider while the other tried to get some sleep on the way to their next camp.

            While each of the boys was separately on guard duty, rifle in hand, pacing around the fire keeping it high through the night, they marveled at the late-night sky and the brightness of the stars. Nothing they had ever seen at home came even close to this view. It seemed to both of them that the stars were twice as close here on the pass as they were at home in the valley west of the river. After their long wistful night, both boys commented on how wonderful it was for the first time in either of their lives to stay awake in the lone expanse of the desert. The sounds around were their only company. These included their own breathing, the crackling of the cedar fire, the occasional snorting of their horses, blatting of lambs lost from their mothers, and an occasional howling of a coyote. 

            They were a little frightened by the regular passing of bats, silently taking flight wherever they flew for their nightly meals. Samuel even saw a large owl swishing almost silently by that terrified him at the moment it passed only yards away. Neither of the boys saw any sign of cougars during the night, but each heard in the far distance more than once what they believed must have been the blood curdling screeching of a cat of some kind. They were relieved to have escaped any encounter with a big cat. Both had dreaded what it might be like if he saw one close by, wounded it then experienced a wounded, maddened attack. Neither wanted that experience.

            That morning while they were packing and organizing the sheep camp, the boys noticed a major cloud front moving in from the west. In the predawn distance over the West Mountains they saw lightening and felt the change in air pressure the winds from the west were pushing along as they increased in intensity. They were told by Henry to expect a few April showers preceding the normally dry summer, but he didn’t say how long they would last or how intense they would be.

            By about 10:00 a.m. that day the storm clouds had moved in bringing with them a gusty hard west wind that also brought with it a blinding white dust they figured must have been picked up as the winds crossed the Salt Desert. The sheep were already stirring anxiously and were becoming harder and harder to control. It was a clear signal to the boys that they were in for a blustery day, so they stopped the movement of the sheep and began preparations for the worst.

            They readied themselves for the rain, but were not ready physically or mentally prepared when the storm front moved their way unencumbered by mountains, trees or heavy underbrush.  It was like the wind had some super force behind it and there was little or no resistance to slow it down.

            All the animals were spooked by this tempest. The sheep were almost inconsolable and the dogs were going crazy trying to keep them bunched together. Even the horses showed their fear of the coming storm as their eyes got wider and the whites of their eyes glistened while their nostrils flaired. The first phase of the storm hit them like they imagined a large wave of the ocean must be like. As the dust accumulated crossing the Salt Flats, it rolled along about one hundred feet high boiling and churning as if it were going to engulf and absorb the boys. Joseph moved up alongside the sheep camp to be with his younger brother. As the dust cloud came closer the boys faced the sheep camp so the horses would have their backs to the wind, tied off the reins of the team, and their saddle horses, and got inside the sheep camp attempting to close all the openings they could to keep out dust.

            Moments later, when the tempest hit them it suddenly turned dark outside. Huddled together as the sheep camp rocked back and forth from the force of the wind, they heard things outside that indicated that some of the pots and pans and other equipment they had tied to the sheep camp were being blown away. At one point before the tempest passed, the half section of the A-frame roof of the sheep camp broke loose and was blown into a nearby gully. When they could they peeked out of the spaces in the canvas sidewalls to see how the animals were doing, but with the dust blowing as it was at first, there was no hope of seeing anything.

            Almost as soon as it started, the dust storm passed and the rain started. The boys were able in the short calm that ensued to check the animals and get the dogs to move the sheep back into some order, but they did not attempt to move on, hoping the rain would be short-lived. It was, in fact short lived, but what followed was even more frightening. Just ahead of where they had stopped the herd was a dry, deep stream bed that had its origin in the hills south and east of them. There were a lot of items that had blown away that had to be picked up, so there was a natural delay for them before they could move on. Then, just as they were about to push on they heard a loud roar emanating from the cedars above them. Then they saw it . . . a flash flood preceded by a wall of water at least six feet high coming their way roaring down the dry creek bed just ahead of them.

            The raging flood was several hundred feet wide as it passed but the boys and their herd were luckily on high ground at the time; then in moments it was gone and all that was left were puddles, large boulders, and even larger tree stumps and full sized trees that had been washed down by the flood.

            “Joseph,” Samuel asked when the incident was over and they were able to catch their breaths. “Have you ever seen anything quite like that? We are so lucky we were not in that gully a few moments ago.”

            “No, Sam,” Joseph answered, still in awe at this demonstration of nature’s forces.  “Nothing I have ever seen comes even close to what we saw today. It is fortunate that we didn’t move ahead when the rains stopped. Our herd and possibly we and our sheep camp would be out there in the valley if we hadn’t hesitated about moving on.”

            They waited another twenty minutes before they dared move and even then they moved through the now rock-laden depression with haste. One positive thing came of the incident. The sheep seeing the water puddles in the dry creek bottoms soon took advantage and filled themselves with needed water for the continued push to the south and west. It was great for the boys to have had this experience and the needed water since they knew from what Henry said that it was a two day march from Johnson’s Pass with no water available until they reached Simpson Springs.

            That evening the boys decided not to stand guard. Both were terribly exhausted anyway since the dust storm and rain had kept them busy along the way and they hadn’t taken time to trade off sleeping in the sheep camp. The moisture from the rain was still hanging in the air that night as the sun set behind the mountains far to the west. The colors were even more striking and the sun itself was magnified by the water in the air appearing to be double its usual size.  When darkness approached the sheep settled down better than they had any of the previous nights. It was so apparent even to the dogs that the three of them circled around the sheep one last time, and then they worked their way back to the sheep camp to enjoy some leftovers from the boys’ supper. As everyone bedded down, the dogs positioned themselves on their haunches, ever alert of any pending predator approaching the sheep. From then on through the night that had cleared and become totally calm, the only noise to be heard was the echoes of coyotes in the foothills above camp. The boys slept through the night without waking.

            The next three days the boys pushed hard to reach their goal, but only made it to the deep gully some five to seven miles short of the north base of Table Mountain. When they approached Simpson Springs three days earlier and pushed the sheep over the rise and around the rocky outcrops north of the springs, for the first time Table Mountain, their goal, had come into view in the distance. Where they stopped was on the edge of a deep gully that was still quite a distance from the base of Table Mountain. This was where they would leave the more beaten track of the Overland Trail and would be making their way around the east side of the large mesa that opened up to a valley they could yet not see east of the mountain. They knew they had to work their way to the east, so they pushed the sheep along the edge of the embankment of the gully about another mile until they found a way to cross. Both boys were cautious of the weather and made sure they were not going to get in the bottom of the gully and get caught in a flash flood. The previous experience up near Johnson’s Pass had made them more wary than they really needed to be since it was a perfectly clear day. Once they crossed the ravine they realized it was the dry creek that fed out of the valley they were supposed to locate for the summer. Now they were on the south side of the gully, they noticed it turned to the south and led them right to their final location.

            When the early afternoon of their last day ended . . . their tenth day of hard pushing the sheep, they found themselves in a flat, rather narrow canyon that wound around the east side of this massive mountain they had recognized as soon as they saw it as Table Mountain. The valley was beautiful when they finally reached the middle of it, with sage brush that in places was over six feet high and a small stream that trickled down the middle and eventually disappeared in the lower end of the valley just above where they had crossed the ravine. Farther up the valley as the elevation got higher, there were thicker wooded areas that even had quaking aspens and a few sparse pines showing. A large range of mountains rose up farther east of them that was the same mountain range, the Stansbury Range, they had crossed when they came through Johnson’s Pass.  What appealed to them most, however, was that for the most part, the valley was flat on the bottom and supported a very heavy growth of foot-high grass that the sheep were already munching on with delight. In every other location they had passed through during the trip, the grass was much sparser, shorter and of a different kind they would learn later was a form of Salt Grass that was not good for the sheep. They had mistakenly believed the salt grass was a wild version of rye or some other grain. It seemed like this valley was all that Henry had described and even more. They were delighted and soon were looking for a place to make their permanent camp.

            In an effort to find that ideal camping spot, they left the team and sheep camp and the sheep grazing, and mounted their saddle horses to explore the area. Over to the east as they rode up over a knoll that cut through the middle of the valley, they found that ideal spot. In a gully they followed toward a small grove of large quaking aspen they had seen from a distance, they found a spring and a flat area that was ideally suited for their summer home. It overlooked the entire valley, there was water, and there was shade that they figured later on when it got hot would come in handy. The spring seemed strong enough they believed to keep running through the summer without drying out. It was, in fact, as good a spring as they had seen at Simpson’s Springs . . . a bubbling clear, cold source of good tasting water surrounded by tall grass, willows and even a small depression they figured could, with a little help of a rock damn, be turned into a nice place to bathe when they needed to.

            With still a few hours of daylight left, they collected their sheep camp and herded sheep over to the newly found camping area and to their new summer homestead. The sheep immediately settled down and began eating the tall grass. The dogs kept them bunched together and all appearances made them believe they were in a heavenly place to continue their adventure.  They had been ten full days traveling and all were ready for a rest.

            In a few days the boys had a routine going in the valley east of Table Mountain. Early each morning they rolled out of their bunks at the bleating of the lambs, usually at the breaking of dawn or a little before. One or the other looked out of the sheep camp at the valley below and would first check the dogs that would usually be crouching in three different places, their eyes and ears always alert for a change of sound or an attack on the sheep, but waiting ready to spring left or right if a single sheep or group of sheep broke ranks and wanted slip away from the others.

            Next, the boys usually had a little breakfast. They were using cedar for their fires, so they could always expect hot coals in the morning that with only a little coaxing would burst into a solid fire. So, over the open flame in the pit they had fashioned next to their sheep camp, they could quickly have some hot water boiling for their oatmeal mush. Cold goat milk was always available from the pot they kept in the stream. Their goats even seemed to produce more milk as they got used to the abundant feed that was available for them. The readily available cedar fire was enormously hot, so in the cool mornings the heat was always nice by which they could quickly warm up. All one had to do was stir the coals around, drop in a few dry sticks or grass into the coals and the fire was suddenly alive again. They had taken to putting the milk from their goats in a container each night after milking and leaving it in the cold water of their spring. So almost every morning their meal was the same, oatmeal mush with rich cold goat’s milk and sugar.

            Their next task every morning was to saddle their horses and check the sheep close up. They didn’t always count the herd, but rather rode the area where the sheep had been over night to look for any signs of wool or blood from a lamb or old sick sheep that might have been carried off by a coyote or cat. In their first two weeks they had lost two lambs and they were sure they had been carried off, but they suspected a cat had done the deed, not a coyote. After these incidents they had taken to driving the sheep a little further out in the middle of their valley to get them away from the tall sage brush near the foot hills and the cedars and pinions that could give a cat or roaming coyote cover. 

            The dogs could take care of the rest of their potential problems and their largest dog, Billy, as they called him, because of his aggressiveness that reminded them of their Uncle Bill Beckstead who was known as a fist-fighter in town, they knew could handle any coyote he met up with. As time went along, in fact, the dogs almost completely took over with the sheep until it seemed almost like the dogs owned the sheep. This was not something they had prepared themselves for, nor had anyone mentioned it, but they noticed by the first month that Billy had taken over and if they wanted to take the sheep into an area where they had not been before, old Billy would turn them around and the other dogs would follow. Then they would take the sheep right back where they started. Several times the brothers had to arrest and hold back Billy while they took the sheep to a new location. Once they got them there, Billy would usually let them be, but not always, and then they had to take more stringent means of holding Billy at bay by tying him up to the sheep camp or to a tree until the sheep had eaten their fill.

            By the time their first month was up, the boys had their routines down so pat and the dogs seemed to be under such control, that they took to exploring the area around the valley and on the foothills surrounding Table Mountain. At first they would venture out on their horses for at most an hour before coming back to check the sheep, but as they found the sheep were always content, and the dogs seemed always to be in charge, they extended their exploring a little further and for longer durations.

            It came as a surprise to them in the month they had been there, that there was only one short spring rain, which lasted a few hours in the evening and drizzled on them through the night. It was nothing like the tempest they had experienced coming over Johnson’s Pass that day on their way out. Rather, it was just an ordinary rain that delivered a lot of water, but never got so it created any flash floods in the valley. They did bring the sheep to high ground during the rain and kept them there all that night, but all they noticed was that the dry creek bed in the bottom of the valley ran a stream of water during the heaviest rain and dribbled a little after. But the next morning, except for puddles of water behind boulders, the water had disappeared in the ground or ran out into the desert to the north and dissipated there. The next morning after the rain, it was a little misty, but after that the sun shined its normal brightness with rarely a cloud in the sky.

            It was their first week into the second month and the boys were itchy to get up a little higher on Table Mountain to see a little more of the country. The east side of the mountain was steeper than the west side, so rather than risk injuring one of the horses on the rocky outcrops and a steep climb, they decided to take a longer, but less steep route around the north end of the mountain and see if the terrain from the northwest would lead them up on the top of the more or less flat mesa that had obviously been what had led the first arrivals to the area to call this several mile long mesa, Table Mountain.

            The route around the north end of the mountain was like they had hoped. It was much flatter than the east side and was easier on the horses. They were able to ride the entire piece easily without getting off and the horses didn’t seem to tire much. They were a good two miles from camp, they figured when they rounded the last point that put them squarely on the ridge on the northwest side of the mountain that would lead them up on the top. Furthermore, they had only been away from camp less than a half hour and had plenty of time left to explore. They figured today if it took them a little longer, it wouldn’t matter. When they left, the sheep seemed content. Besides they would eventually be working their way around the northeast end of the mountain, and they would be able to check on the herd’s activity from there. For this exploration, they had brought along the old field glasses that their father had lent to them, so they would even be able to check on the dogs, if need be.

            In another half hour they had followed the easily sloping ridge in a southeasterly direction and had gained at least a thousand feet in elevation from the valley floor where their sheep were. To be sure at that point, they left the ridge and followed a flattened area around to the northeast side of the mountain and checked out the herd. They were okay at that point, so they decided to backtrack around this flat bench and work their way around to the west where they had seen an easy route to the top.

            Gaining more elevation and working their way around to the west side, they soon came to another bench like the one they had been on before. This was strange and very distinct on this mountain and seemed exactly like the benches on the east side of Salt Lake Valley along the Wasatch Mountains. They had been told that those benches were really high water marks and had been beaches of an ancient lake. What they were speculating on now was that these benches they were seeing and riding along there on the Table Mountain were from the same lake.

            Crossing along the ridge they continued to work their way around to the west side of the mountain. When they got there they encountered a rock outcrop cutting across the bench that they either had to go around below or cross back to the north and go over. Both route required some steep hill side climbing and Joseph was concerned again about safety.  Above all, they didn’t want to have one of the horses slip and put them out of commission for riding and herding their sheep. After a short talk, the boys decided to take the lower, easier route and go below the rock outcrop, even though they would lose elevation and possibly not have time to make it to the top of the mesa.

Slowly working their way around and below the big outcrop and managing to make it to a more gentle slope, they thought they were going to be okay. Then suddenly, and without warning, Joseph’s horse that was in the lead, seemed to trip and fell partly down on its front knees. The fall was so sudden, that Joseph was thrown completely over the horse’s head and hit the ground quite hard, rolling down the hill about ten feet where he finally stopped. The horse quickly recovered and got to its feet, and luckily, Samuel was close enough behind that he was able to spur his horse around the hole the horse had fallen into and grab the reins of the Joseph’s horse before it bolted and ran away. By that time, Joseph had regained his composure, though embarrassed, and was sitting somewhat dazed on a rock along the side-hill where he came to rest.

            “Are you hurt, Joseph?” the concerned Samuel shouted while he wrestled with the horses to settle them down.

            “No, I’m not hurt. I’m okay, Sam,” Joseph answered quickly, though a little weakly.  “I’m just a little shaken. I don’t think I hurt anything, but I really haven’t tried to walk yet.  How’s my horse?”

            “She seems okay, too,” Samuel answered with assurance.  “She walked right past the hole once she regained her balance, and she doesn’t seem to be limping or anything. What happened, anyway? There’s a big hole up here. Didn’t you see it when you came by that rock shelf?”

            “I really don’t know,” Joseph answered quickly. “You say there’s a hole up there? I was watching the ground very closely, but I didn’t see any hole. Are you sure, or is it just a depression in the ground?”

            “No, Joseph, I swear there’s a hole here,” Samuel answered a little defensively. “It looks like it goes back into the mountainside. I can still see it from where I’m standing. Maybe you better get up here and take a look for yourself.”

            As Joseph slowly got up from his seat, Samuel dismounted and led the horses about twenty feet away from the hole and tied them to a branch of a large bush. Then he started back toward the hole.

            “There’s for sure a hole here, Sam,” Joseph told his brother as he slowly crawled and dug his way up the steep loose gravel to the entrance of the hole.

“You say you didn’t see it?” Samuel remarked.  “Sara must not have seen it either, but I don’t know how either of you missed it.”

            The boys now stood together looking at the hole that was about two feet wide and very dark inside.  It was clear as they looked at it that it had been completely covered over before the horse stepped on the spot where the gravel broke through. The weight of the horse was apparently enough to cave the gravel down into what now looked like quite a large opening in the side hill.  Beyond the opening, however, it was completely dark, and as the boys stuck their heads inside the hole and cupped their hands around their eyes, it was still too dark to see inside.

            “Do you have any matches with you?” Samuel asked Joseph excitedly.  “Let’s get some sage brush and light it up and see if we can see inside.”

            “I don’t have anything with me that we can start a fire with, Sam,” Joseph answered as he searched his shirt and trouser pockets. “But maybe if one of us slides in a little ways and gets our eyes used to the darkness, we can see how big the hole really is.”

            “I’ll do it. I’m the smallest,” Samuel quickly volunteered as he dropped quickly to his belly and started sliding part way into the hole that was barely large enough to accommodate his body. “You grab my feet. I’m pretty light. You just hold on to me and I will slide in as far as I can go and let you know what I see.”

            By that time Samuel’s voice had already taken on an echoed, hollow sound as it bounced around inside the depths of what now seemed to the boys a cave that had been closed off by caving soil and rocks from the hillside above. Joseph hung on tight to Samuel’s feet while the slid farther down into the hole.  When his full body length was into the hole, Samuel shouted out for Joseph to just hold him there while his eyes got used to the darkness.

            About two long minutes later Samuel started to wiggle his feet and shouted to Joseph, “We’ll have to get our lantern up here if we want to see anything. I can see a ways in, but it’s just a hole in the ground like a cave or something. I can’t see a thing. You better just pull me out.”

            Joseph slid his brother out of the hole and together they dusted each other off. They both knew that to explore the cave further, they would have to have light and a shovel to open the hole up wider. That would be left to another day since they had to get back to camp and do their chores for the afternoon and make sure their sheep were all right. They knew by now the sheep would have pushed up the valley quite far and they didn’t dare leave them any longer.

            On the way back to camp the two excited boys talked about their cave and what it might be like exploring it. They speculated why the cave was there in the first place and why the entrance was somehow closed off. On that matter, they concluded it was just the hillside and natural disintegration of the surface rocks that had caused it to be closed off. They had seen other cave entrances before on the east side of Table Mountain, but these were usually on the face of a cliff or rock outcrop and didn’t seem to be too large and deep like this one. In fact, on one of their earlier rides up the east foothills of Table Mountain near their camp they had run onto a cave that was about thirty feet wide at its entrance, but it was only about ten feet deep at its deepest point. Unlike the others they had seen, their newly found cave was opened onto a gravely side hill, and was obviously much deeper than the others by the way Sam’s voice had echoed inside. This was going to be a great adventure as they delved deeper inside. Too bad it was so far from their valley on the east side of the mountain. While they talked about going back again they speculated they could move their herd over to this side of the mountain for a day or so. With no visible water on the west side of the mountain, however, moving the sheep would not be practical. They finally agreed that was not such a good idea and began to explore other options. They would have to do the job in short trips they could afford.

            The next day, the boy’s chores could not get done quickly enough. The plan was to take shovels back to their cave and spend no more than an hour digging out the entrance so they could have easier access inside. They knew they had to ration their time since it took nearly an hour to get there from the sheep camp and another to get back. Three hours away from the sheep was all they dared manage for now. Even that was a stretch, since they had been given strict orders from their father not to leave the sheep at all for fear that predators or Indians in the area might see their inattention as an opportunity to pillage the herd. Well, they hadn’t seen any Indians at all since arriving at their valley and for predators in daylight; it was unlikely, especially with their dog Billy on guard. But anyway, they decided they had all summer to explore the cave. It sure wasn’t going away and no one else would likely find it either. They hadn’t seen another soul, either white or red, since arriving in the desert.

            Thus, the boys returned to the cave and worked at opening cleaning the debris and rocks away from the entrance so they could safely go inside. Some places under the loose gravel, they found large stones that seemed to be placed in some order like someone had put them there to cover the hole. There wasn’t that much evidence of this, however, so at first they discounted it as random piling of stones that had rolled down from the hill above the cave. It was a much bigger job than they had hoped. The ground was hard baked, and all had to be picked at bit by bit with their simple tools. The first three days they did this, they purposely never took lanterns since they felt the temptation would be too great to hold back exploring before they made the opening safe to enter.

            On the fourth day they went back they made their first trip inside with lanterns. Once inside, they noticed a strange thing about the walls of the cave . . . its uniform size. First, it was flat on the floor and went straight into the mountain in the direction of the outcrop that was a little left of the opening. They also noticed that both could stand up without hitting their heads any place they walked. This cave was strangely rough on the walls, unlike the other cave they had seen on the east side of the mountain that was smooth.  As they looked closer at the rocks on the walls, there were places where the sides seemed to have been hit by hammers or showed chisel marks like the walls had been cut with tools. To these novice spelunkers, it was appearing to them that they had found a mine tunnel instead of a cave.

            At first they took it quite slow, inching along to be sure their lanterns didn’t go out from lack of oxygen. They had heard from miners back home that often mine tunnels could become very dangerous when oxygen was lost from the decay of rocks. And one could find himself suddenly out of air and expire. This first day of exploring the cave, they only went in about twenty feet before they came back out. They had been at the site for over an hour by then and had to get back, so they had agreed this was enough for the first day. They would go back to camp, and maybe since they had the opening completely clear now, fresh air would enter before they came the next day. But both were still quite cautious and frightened by the prospect of having found a mine tunnel.

            The next two days they did not return. There were some sheep that had wandered off into the foot hills and they spend most of the next two days getting them back. During the night on one of the days, they had heard a commotion and the dogs had started barking, so they were concerned a coyote had come down into camp. The next day one of the dogs wanted to break from the sheep and go into the gully east of their camp, so they were quite sure one or more of their animals had gone that way. On looking closely, they found fresh tracks in a muddy spot in the bottom of the gully where a stream broke out and ran a few feet, so they were concerned the sheep had gone that way.

            On the second day of their search they found the band of five sheep on a steep side hill back in a canyon a good half mile from their camp. One of the dogs they brought with them was sent to round the animals up and turn them around so they were headed for the valley. None were scared or bitten, so the boys just assumed that somehow they had just eluded the watchful eyes of the dogs and were looking for greener pastures. As they were slowly working the sheep down the canyon to the valley below, Samuel brought up the cave matter . . .

            “Joseph, what do you think caused that tunnel we’ve been exploring to be the way it is?  I’ve looked up on the hill side up above our camp on the east side of Table Mountain and all of the caves up there are on the side of a cliff or under an overhanging rock. Our tunnel is right out on a smooth side hill with only rocks showing here and there.  I’m getting more convinced that our hole was dug into the side hill by someone.”

            “Yes, Sam,” Joseph answered thoughtfully as he rocked comfortably in his saddle, “I, too, am convinced we have found a tunnel dug by someone. What I’ve been thinking the last couple of days is about our Book of Mormon where it says the Lamanites, who we know lived on this continent, had gold and silver and stuff like that. They must have mined it somewhere.  Maybe what we have found is a Lamanite mine. That might explain why the entrance was covered over, too and why we found those rocks piled like they were meant to be there.  Someone might have wanted to hide the entrance, I’m thinking.”

            The boys speculated on that possibility all day and later that night they both read from the Book of Mormon their father had sent with them to find out if there was any mention of Lamanites being miners. Just the possibility of them running into a lost or hidden gold mine was more than either of them could bear. Neither slept well that night as they dreamed of the powerful Lamanites roaming this same desert region they were in, possibly camping at this same spring where they were camped hundreds of years before. Off and on through the night, the boys had dreams of the Lamanite miners walking on the same paths as them, picking a spot on a hill side on the foothills of Table Mountain and finding gold there.

            Their excitement was so heightened the next day they hurried through their chores in record time. The sheep seemed okay and they were in a place where the grass was very good. The boys figured they could take four hours in all today and not have any worries about the herd.  They were on their way at 9:00 a.m. with shovels and two lanterns. It was going to be a real day of discovery, they hoped. If this was a gold mine, as they now fully expected, they also took along two gunny sacks in which to bring back some ore samples. Neither had a clue what gold-bearing rock should look like, but both had a picture in their minds of gold nuggets gleaming in the soil the size of kernels of corn and shining like the nugget their father had gotten from a miner for pay for some legal work he did. This nugget was now on a tie pin he had made.           By the time the boys tied off their horses at the shaggy tall sage brush near the tunnel entrance, they were both out of breath mostly from anticipation of their possible discovery. Quickly they both stepped inside the tunnel out of the strong breeze that was coming out of the west and pushing up the slope of the mountainside. Once inside they lit their lanterns, waited a few minutes while their eyes adjusted to the low intensity of their lights and the darkness of the tunnel, then they began their push slowly, further inside than they had gone before.

            Samuel wanted to move fast, but Joseph was more cautious making sure that for every step in that they took, the wicks of their lanterns were still burning strong. While they moved along they took more care to look at the walls and notice the level surface of the ground. On several occasions, they were able to make out marks on the rocks on the tunnel wall that they believed for sure now were made by some sort of hard tool like a pick. They could not be absolutely sure, but they were now convinced this was a man-made tunnel.

            When they were inside about thirty or more feet, Joseph noted a distinct change in the roof of the tunnel. Their eyes were getting more adjusted to the dim light and things were becoming clearer. What they noticed was a narrow seam of rock running almost dead center of the tunnel that was about four inches wide, but was noticeably different than the surrounding rock. It was white and almost clear rock while each side of the seam was brown and black. There were crystals in some of the places where the rocks were broken all clear and some, a good one half inch long. They shone like diamonds when they brought the light closer.

            “I’ve heard of miners following a vein, Sam,” Joseph remarked after this new discovery.  “Do you suppose this is a vein someone was following, and what we are seeing in this narrow strip along the ceiling is a vein of gold or something?”

            With a small ball peen hammer Samuel had brought along in case they needed it for something, he whacked one of the rocks on the seam and brought down a piece they could examine more closely in the light of their lantern. Expecting to see gold, they saw only white and clear crystalline rock with small nodules and rounded depressions lined with the brightest blues and green they had ever seen intertwining in with the clear crystals. They were not finding gold nuggets hanging from the walls or lying on the floor of the tunnel, but what they were finding was significant enough to keep. Joseph immediately sent Samuel out of the tunnel to get a sack and bring it back while he hammered away at the hard rock on the ceiling hoping to break off another sample for their taking.

            Another twenty feet inside the tunnel they found a side tunnel that cut to the left, right in under the big rock outcrop they saw on the outside of the tunnel. The main tunnel continued straight ahead, but this new one took off almost at a right angle to the other tunnel. When they looked around and examined the walls and ceiling of this new tunnel they found that there was a much wider vein now that this new tunnel was following. On this one, instead of the vein being white crystal, it was mostly made up of this green and blue rock with some orange crystals mixed in with it. In the dim light the seam literally glowed with its brilliant colors.

            Just as they were about to enter this new tunnel, Joseph tripped over a small pile of rocks that were piled on the floor, apparently by someone who meant to come back and pick them up.  On looking at the rocks they noticed that they were almost pure samples of what they saw on the ceiling, but some of them had in addition to the colored minerals, some crystals that looked almost like the gold nuggets their father had. The crystals appeared like gold, but the color was much duller and when they hit the crystals with their hammer, they broke and shattered like glass. They had seen gold coins before and they knew they did not break. In fact, they had seen people actually biting the gold coins and they were so soft that they could make teeth marks in them. They soon discounted the possibility that what they had found was gold, but rather a rock they had heard of but never seen . . . fool’s gold.

            While they went further into this new cave, it began to open up and in places they could not even touch the ceiling and it was becoming wider. At one point, they estimated the room was over twenty feet wide and at least thirty feet long with a ceiling that went up farther than their lanterns would show. The floor of the room was littered with rocks of all sized indicating that the ceiling may have caved in at one time or another. This frightened the boys, and they didn’t want to be caught in a cave-in, for sure.

            When they contemplated the safety of this bigger room, fearing it might cave in on them at any moment, they decided with the few minutes they had left before going back to camp that they should back out of this one tunnel and explore the longer straight tunnel they had left moments before. Just as they were milling around before leaving the large room, Samuel had worked his way into the far side of the room attracted by something he saw buried in the loose rock.

            “Joseph,” Samuel whispered to get his attention, not wanting to disturb the rock ceiling with any loud sound. “Come over here, I think I have found a tool of some sort here in the rocks.”

            When Joseph made his way over the crumbled rocks on the tunnel floor to where Samuel was he could see him kneeling next to a heavy metal tool that looked like a pry-bar in some respects. It was heavy, about one inch in diameter and two feet long and it was pointed on one end and flat on the other. They were sure it was used for breaking the rocks or prying large rocks out of the wall.

            A few feet away from this tool, they found a sort of hammer lying almost buried in the fallen stone, but it was different from any hammer either had ever seen. It appeared to be made of steel like the bar and had a wood handle that was made from a root of some tree. The handle was perfectly preserved to their surprise because they were convinced the hammer had to be at least nine hundred to a thousand years old if it was of Lamanite origin. The way the head of the hammer was attached to the handle was nothing like their hammer or any other hammer either of them had ever seen. Instead of the head of the hammer having a hole in it for a handle, the metal was made in such a way that a pointed section of the metal was pushed through a hole drilled into the end of the wood handle. The handle itself appeared to be part of a root of the tree made into a handle. It was a sturdy, well-balanced tool, and they figured it weighed at least six to eight pounds.  It was for sure heavy enough to be used to hammer this other tool they had found and even heavy enough, they surmised to be used to break the hard rocks of this entire tunnel system.

            In the darkness of the tunnel and the nominal light the boys had, they decided to take the tools and ore samples out of the cave and examine them in the daylight. They had been away from the herd too long, anyway, so both were getting nervous to return. When they came out, and after their eyes had adjusted to the light again, they were amazed to see what they had found. They knew they had an ancient treasure with these tools, but they could only guess at their origin and age. Without further hesitation, even though both were anxious to return to their mine tunnel, they departed and trotted their horses almost all the way back to camp. Once again, to their good fortune, their herd and the dogs were at peace and all was well. 

            Over the next two weeks the boys made it back to the old mine several times; each time exploring every inch of the cave for gold nuggets and more mining tools. But nothing more than what they had turned up before revealed itself to them. Finally, they just gave up going there and sought to find another adventure. They had their tools and the bag of very beautiful rocks samples, but they had concluded it was not a gold mine and that the gold-colored crystals were indeed fool’s gold. And they were right. What they would learn years later, was that the mine was the remnant of a very rich copper deposit and that the tools were of Spanish, not Lamanite origin.  

            Before they left the mine for the last time, they stood on the mouth of the mine and agreed on a way the mine could be found again if they ever had the chance or come back or if they ever had to direct any others to the mine site in years to come. What they concluded was that in a northwesterly direction while they looked at the mountain ranges that were in the distance, there were two peaks that lined up perfectly with their line of site, and they tried to define those peaks as best they could so they could note it in the journal they had been instructed to keep while in the desert. They did record the bearings, but with no compass and many hills in the distance to pick from, they were hard pressed to do a very good job of the description. Many years later the brief details of their find and the location were recorded in a family Bible where they can be found today.

            One thing that continued to puzzle the boys was where had all the rocks gone that were taken out of the tunnel?  Joseph had seen mine workings before on the hills above their home, and there was always a large dump on the outside of the tunnel. Here there was only a small pile, very little resembling the large amount of rock that had to have been carried out of the tunnels.  What they finally concluded was that over the years, and they knew it must have been several hundred or even a thousand years, the dump at the opening of the tunnel had just deteriorated and was washed down the mountain side.

            The revelations that the mine was a copper mine rather than a gold mine took years to determine. Over two mothers after the boys arrived home from the desert their father still had not promised he would find someone in Salt Lake, perhaps at the University, who could identify the tools and tell what was contained in the rocks they found. They had told their father their story and left the tools and ore samples in his care, right after they arrived home, but he being a busy Circuit Judge with a heavy court schedule, soon discounted the importance the boys had put on the find and eventually the boys quit dogging their father to find out the mine’s origins. 

            It was almost ten years before an answer about the mine was laid before the boys. By chance one day, a University Geology professor came to West Jordan to meet with Joseph Senior on a legal matter. During their short meeting, Joseph mentioned the sack of ore samples and tools he had put his tool shed. After the meeting was over, Joseph took the man to his shed and allowed him to examine the items. It took the man only moments to determine that the samples were copper ore, mentioning that they were Malachite and Azurite, and that they appeared to be very high grade. Curious where these fine samples had been found, he asked Joseph and heard the story of the findings as best as Joseph Senior could remember it, but his clear memory of the find the boys had described was at best vague. All he could be sure of was that the boys found the tunnel in the West Desert on the west side of Table Mountain. The man had never heard of Table Mountain, so Joseph explained where it was, roughly. Neither of the boys was there at the time, so the entire story could not be told. Joseph Junior was married by then and had moved away and Samuel had moved away and was attending University.

            The man asked and got permission to take the tools and the ore samples back to the University where he would assay the samples and find someone who could determine the origin of the tools. About a year later, the man wrote a note to Joseph mentioning that he had let some experts look at the tools and that they were very sure the tools were of Spanish origin. The geologist asked that Joseph give him the more exact location of the tunnel, and when Joseph got around to talking to Joseph Junior he got the location and gave it to the man by letter. The man wrote another letter later thanking Joseph for the information and said that someone was going to look into the possibility that a large high-grade mine was indeed waiting to be rediscovered and that when he got a team out that way and found the mine, he and his boys would be given due credit for the discovery. Further in this second letter, the man said that the tools had precipitated a lot of discussion about their Spanish origin. He explained that it was a well-known fact that the Spaniards had come as far north as Southern Utah in their quest for the Seven Cities of Gold, but nothing had ever been determined that they had come as far north as Table Mountain in the West Desert. The man asked permission to retain the tools and that they would be put in the archives of the University. That permission was given and the tools were never heard of after that. As far as the Williams boys knew, nothing else ever came of the affair thereafter. It was near the time of his death in 1930 and twelve years after Samuel died that Joseph Junior wrote the short account about their find in the Family Bible. None of the family recalled every seeing Joseph’s journal of the boy’s trip to the desert that summer.

            For the two boys, Joseph Jr. and Samuel Williams, the rest of the summer while they were still herding their sheep in the desert, their activities were normal with few adventures of the scale of their mine tunnel find.  However, on one occasion while they were still in the desert, a small band of Indians, apparently a single family, came into their camp from the north and asked the boys for salt. At first the boys were very frightened at their sudden appearance while they were eating dinner one night, but the Indians seemed peaceful and only wanted a little salt and nothing else. The boys didn’t stop with salt, however, but added some lamb chops and two sage hens they had shot the day before. The Indians seemed grateful and left, continuing south up through the valley. The exchange was made by the boys without knowing one word of their visitor’s language and the Indians were also unable to speak one word of English.

            The boys never saw any more Indians, but one early morning the dogs woke the boys by barking and running about as if they sheep were stampeding. The sheep were nervously milling about and they soon saw why. About one hundred yards up the foot hills behind their camp a cougar had made its way into the clearing and was eying the sheep.  Joseph quickly retrieved Samuel’s rifle, took aim and fired off one shot that dropped short of the cat by about five feet.  The gravel must have sprayed the big animal because before Joseph could pump another shell in the rifle, the cat had leaped into the cedars and was gone. Joseph was angered for not using his higher-powered rifle for this long shot, knowing too late that the Samuel’s Winchester was underpowered for that range. The boys stood waiting all that day and took turns staying awake that night, but neither saw any signs of the cat again.

            In mid-August, a very still morning and one of the hottest days they had experienced the entire summer, the boys had retreated up on the north side of Table Mountain where they could get a little fresh breeze blowing in from the north. They dismounted the horses and were sitting on the bench of the side hill day dreaming and talking about whatever came to their minds. After about a half hour, Samuel was looking west where the faint trail of the Overland Trail was visible running east and west through the valley. From their vantage point they could see at least twenty miles of the trail before it meandered over the next mountain range. Usually only the faint line of the trail was visible, but this day, miles away, he saw dust rising along the trail. For over an hour, they watched the dust rise and slowly dissipate to the south. At first they could not see what it was, but finally, they guessed that it was a wagon being drawn by a team. It was not a prairie schooner like they had come across the plains during their stay there, but rather something quite a bit smaller. It was so far away, however, that they had a very hard time telling even what it was, but it did move quite fast, they noticed.

            In some ways it was exciting to see some life other than animals so far out in the desert, and they wanted to intersect the travelers when they passed below where the trail passed the mountain, but as they discussed the matter, they felt the five or six mile ride to the intersection of the trail where it passed by Table Mountain was too much, just to see some other human beings.  So after about another half hour of gazing out into the desert and occasionally looking to see what progress the travelers were making, they decided to give up the observance and get back to the sheep.

            From their camp in the valley, though it was a long way from the trail, they still could see almost all of that part of the Overland Trail that came south from Simpson Springs to Table Mountain where it turned and headed west the twenty or so miles to the pass on the next mountain range to the west. So all through the day they kept looking at the trail to see how the travelers were progressing and if they were going to make it to Simpson Springs by dark.

            By early evening, they left the herd and went up to their camp to get ready for dinner.  The campsite was higher so they had a better view of the north-south section of the trail from there. From camp they could not see any of the westerly part of the trail they had seen from the bench. They had watched the trail to the north all day, but they had not seen any sign of the travelers. There was still plenty of daylight left after they finished dinner, so the boys decided to take their horses up to the bench on the north side of the mountain and using the old field glasses they had, determine if they could see the travelers from that vantage point. In about a half hour they were standing next to their horses scanning the trail with their field glasses.

            Samuel was the first to spot the wagon. He saw it even without the glasses. It had progressed only a few miles east from where they saw it just before noon when they left their observation point to return to the herd. Joseph found the travelers with his glasses and with this slightly better magnification that the glasses gave him, he was able to tell that the wagon was one of the newer styles they had seen in the Salt Lake Valley occasionally that were called Desert Surrey. These were normal two-seated surreys that for the hot desert travel had been converted to include side curtains, which could be rolled up or let down to shade the occupants.

            As they changed off use of the glasses, the boys were able to only guess the situation the travelers were in. The horses had been unhooked from the tongue and were grazing in the dry grass several hundred feet from the surrey. There were people around the surrey and some activity near the vehicle, but after that, it was pure guesswork. One thing that seemed obvious to the boys was that the people had been there all day in the hot sun and had only moved a mile or so from where they had first seen them. From that, the boys concluded that the people were in some sort of trouble.

            After a few more minutes of discussion about the situation, Joseph and Samuel concluded that at least one of them needed to go down into the valley and check things out. Though they didn’t know what was wrong, it did appear that there might be something mechanically wrong since they were not moving, and the horses were untied from the rig. Joseph was the ideal candidate, it was concluded, because he was so handy with tools and fixing things, and Samuel was not. Samuel would stay behind and Joseph would ride to the rescue.

            It took the boys another half hour to return to their camp where Joseph filled several canvas water bags with fresh water and collected up some basic tools, wagon pins and harness leather and repair equipment for the ride down to the Overland Trail. With it being early evening already and knowing there was only a few hours of light left in the day, Joseph also took a lantern and told Samuel that he may be quite late coming back. 

            The ride to the rig took over one and one half hours. He pushed his horse some, but didn’t want to push her too hard. It was getting cooler now so he had some latitude, but he didn’t want to over-tax his mare. The people saw Joseph from some distance, and when he got closer he could see that the travelers were made up of one man, possibly his wife and two children who looked like they might be about twelve and fourteen years old.

            When he slowed his horse to a slow walk from a mild trot just before he reached the travelers, he tried to assess the situation and rehearse what he was going to say when he got there. The man left his kneeling position by the front of the surrey and walked to greet Joseph.

            “My god, boy,” the man blurted out, at the same time extending his hand to Joseph, “Where did you come from? We haven’t seen any travelers for two days since we left Callao, and for sure no one lives out here in the desert.”

            Stammering for the right thing to say, Joseph introduced himself and quickly explained how they had seen the travelers early in the day and then wondered why they hadn’t passed Table Mountain. He told them that he and Samuel were herding sheep in the area and were camped on the east side of Table Mountain for the summer. Then he asked what was wrong with their rig.

            As Joseph dismounted and walked over to the surrey, the man introduced himself as Jonathan Tripp, and that they were farmers living in Trout Creek south of Callao and were on their way to Salt Lake to purchase their fall supplies. He introduced Joseph to his wife and children then explained what was wrong with the surrey . . .

            “This is a new design we purchased from a carriage-maker in Salt Lake last year and brought it out to use for this purpose. It’s light so it can be drawn easily by two horses; and being light, we can cut down our travel time by about two days over our old methods using our heavier horses and wagons. But we started having trouble after we came over that pass back there about ten miles. The road was very rough and somehow the tongue pin latch wore through and finally the pin dropped off back a piece. I’ve been hours trying to rig something up that will hold up until we get to Vernon, at least, but I just didn’t bring the right tools or spare parts along to make it happen. We were getting pretty desperate before you showed up. Our water supply is low, and it’s been very hot here today. Your coming, Joseph, was really timely, and we appreciate your making the effort. If you hadn’t come along when you did, I was about to consider riding double on to Simpson Springs tonight with our two horses where we would have some water, leaving my family there and riding on into Vernon. I didn’t want to do that, but we were just out of options.”

            “Me and my brother had a hunch something was wrong, Mr. Tripp,” Joseph cut in. “When we didn’t ever see you on that north-south section of the trail, going toward Simpson Springs, we started to get worried. We couldn’t see this part of the trail from our sheep camp, so we had to ride back to the bench up there on the side of Table Mountain before we spotted you again. But anyway, I’ve brought you some water, and I have tools and some extra double-tree parts that we might get to work on your tongue.”

            With that, the family crowded around Joseph’s horse to help him with the water and the tools, and Joseph got right to the problem at hand. Mr. Tripp could immediately see that Joseph was handy with the tools and seemed to have a solution to the problem figured out, so he just let him get about the task of fixing the broken equipment. It took a good lot of hammering and working with the new latch because the one Joseph brought with him was heavy duty, more suited to their heavier sheep camp wagon, and it was slightly larger. But within a half hour, Joseph stood up and announced the job was complete and the surrey should be ready to move on.  It had become dark by the time the job was finished, but the lantern was not necessary. It was a clear starry night and the ambient light would be fine for the Tripps to get their horses rigged again and be on their way.

            Joseph waited around as the Tripps got everything packed up again and settled, then he followed them for the first several miles as the travelers continued east. When he was sure the fix was going to last, he prodded his mare into a slow trot and left the family behind. By the time he got back to camp where he and Samuel could see the north-south section of the trail, they watched for the Tripps to appear. In the dim light that was available from the stars they watched the white curtains of the surrey with the Tripps making good time on their way to their night’s campsite, Simpson Springs.

            About two weeks later Joseph Senior received a letter from a Jonathan Tripp, mailed from Salt Lake City. In the letter, Tripp explained the gallant effort of Joseph to assist them fixing their surrey, and praised Joseph Senior for the sensitivity of his boys. Joseph senior was surprised to know that people even lived in that part of the territory. He would never know that one of his grandsons would marry a relative of the Tripps who was raised in Callao in the Snake Valley where these people that had been stranded made their home.

            The boys had been given strict orders to pack up and leave the area by the first day in September or after the first frost whichever came first. They had kept good track of the days and never failed to make notes in their journal each day, so they knew well ahead of time when the first day of September was arriving. It had been a long summer for the boys, but as the hot August days came to an end and they knew September was close at hand, they were ready to return home and end the adventure.

            The sheep were very fat and healthy. All the lambs from the previous winter birthing were now quite mature and all the older sheep’s wool that had been sheared off before they went to the desert was now fully developed again for the winter ahead. One day before they left, they made an accurate count of the sheep. They were down only ten sheep from the number they started with including those they ate and the ones that were lost to predators. Otherwise, they concluded the entire summer had been a complete success.

            Both boys had matured more than even they would believe. Each was strong and very wiry anyway, but now from constant riding, much wrestling and racing with each other both on foot and horseback, they were twice as strong as they had been when they left home and even wirier than before. Samuel was now as tall as his brother and could almost whip him in a wrestle.  As the summer rolled on it became harder and harder for Joseph to fully maintain his superiority over his younger brother.

            Joseph had preserved his practicality and good judgment throughout the summer being always the one to think up new ways of solving problems and fixing things. Samuel on the other hand, put balance into their life by his forward thinking and willingness to take risk. Many times during the summer, Samuel had wanted to and did jump into things, never weighing the consequences. He was faster on his feet, rode his horse with freedom and aplomb that Joseph would not ever consider until goaded into it. But the balance was good. It kept them active and able to take charge when emergencies arose, but at the same time kept them healthy and safe for the ensuing time.

            No frosts came before the first of September, so on that early autumn day they packed up, turned their equipment north and began the long trip home. The adventure was pretty much over and their return, they were sure, would be much easier than their trip out.

            Going home was slower than coming to the desert, however. The sheep seemed to sense that leaving meant a long hard walk for them for many days and that the winter soon ahead would mean a diet of dry hay instead of the lush grass they had come to love during the summer.  The boys, too, were hesitant to move very fast to get home. Even Billy, their top dog, didn’t want to leave the area, and for the first two days had to be chastised for turning the herd around and heading the sheep back to Table Mountain. 

            Every night, they relished the sunsets over the West Mountains and couldn’t get enough of the stars at night that seemed bigger here in the desert than at home. They had experienced over five months of complete freedom to plan their days, to have fun and gain new experiences almost daily. That, they knew, would be over for them when they got home. But they were looking forward to their mother’s meals again and clean clothes they didn’t have to manage on their own.

            On the way back they passed over Johnson’s Pass without incident, remembering the tempest they had experienced on the way out. They stopped at the Faust’s family farm again on the way through Rush Valley, and they met with the soldiers again at Cedar Fort. They even picked up mail for them to be dropped off at the Riverton Post Office. Once again they were paced by three Indians just after they left Cedar Fort, the same as their ride out. The Indians stayed with the boys all the way across Cedar Valley and only left them when the boys rounded the corner of the mountain and started up the slope to the ridge of the Point of the Mountain where they could see the Salt Lake Valley again. Their first view of the Valley from the pass over the Point of the Mountain was at night. They just made it to the water hole on the north side of the pass when darkness was catching up to them.

            On the twelfth of September Joseph rode ahead of the herd into the Williams homestead yard to announce their coming. They had flipped a coin when they passed through South Jordan to determine who would go ahead, and Joseph won the flip. Joseph Senior was not home when the boys arrived, but the next day he returned. After hearing their success stories, he praised them. That night the family gathered around the boys and Joseph Senior gave a prayer thanking their Heavenly Father for the boy’s safe return. After the prayer, Joseph Senior read the letter from Jonathan Tripp, letting the boys hear about it for the first time. The next day it was back to the routine at home, but the boys did not forget what they had done for many years to come. 

            That year was the last year that Joseph Senior moved his sheep to the West Desert, and none of the Williams family of that generation ever returned to the desert. Joseph Junior’s youngest son Mark was the next one to go to the desert, but it was in the early 1940's before that happened, almost thirty years after his father had experienced the trip. Mark never saw the account that was written in the Family Bible, but heard about the mine from his father just before he died in 1930. By 1940 his father’s memory of the location as it had been explained to Mark by his father was quite vague. Mark’s purpose in traveling to the West Desert for the first time was not to try to locate the old lost mine, but rather to take his wife, Lila Kearney Williams to Callao to see her relatives. His wife had grown up in Callao and lived there her first seventeen years. At the time she still had relatives in several communities along the Snake Valley as far south as Baker Nevada and west to Ely.

            Several concerted efforts were made between 1960 and 2001 by the author of this account, Jack Williams, grandson of Joseph J. Williams Jr. whom he never met, to find the tunnels on Table Mountain.  From what is known of the family history, these were the first and only efforts made to track down Joseph Junior’s and Samuel’s story of the copper mine by Table Mountain. No sign of the tunnel was ever found, but on two occasions during these excursions Jack Williams and others who were with him found traces of copper-bearing rocks on the west side of Table Mountain.  However, on the entire Table Mountain’s west and east sides there are no signs of mining of any kind, unlike the mountain ranges to the west and south of Table Mountain that are known for their rich deposits of Beryllium that is still being mined there, and for now inactive Copper, Gold, Silver, Lead and Topaz mines that dot the area everywhere. Over the years many deposits were discovered on other mountain ranges west of Table Mountain, but no record exists of copper being discovered and mined over the years on Table Mountain.

            In the year 2001 Jack Williams took a geologist and experienced prospector friend to Table Mountain to once again look for the lost copper mine. They spent two full days tramping all along the western foothills of the Table Mountain with no luck finding any sign of any mine operations or surface rock that would suggest the existence of high grade copper-bearing ore.  It was the conclusion of this geologist that the description that had come down through the legacy of Joseph John Williams Jr. about finding the mine on the west side of Table Mountain was more likely a miss-judgment on the part of the boys of the mountain on which they had found the mine, or that the camp for their summer of sheep herding was located a few miles to the south of Table Mountain and not directly behind it to the east. If that were the case, the geologist concluded, there would have been a greater chance of finding an abandoned mine than on Table Mountain, as the next mountain to the south was known to be rich in a number of mineral-bearing rocks that had been mined by American miners since the early 1900’s and were at that time continuing to be mined to present days.

 

Author’s Note: A good part of this account was extracted from memory of the author’s reading of Joseph J. Williams Junior’s account of the mine he and his brother found in the West Desert that was hand written in the back of the Williams Family bible. He was given access to the account by his aunt and youngest daughter of Joseph Jr., Juanita Buckley. She died around 1980 and all efforts to find the bible that had was held by Juanita have been unsuccessful. 

 

              – Chapter Nine –

  Blacksmith Apprenticeship, Late 1800’s

 

            From the results of his own schooling, Joseph Williams, Sr. had never seen an academic potential in his first-born son Joseph Jr.  Joseph Jr., so he was not allowed to return to school after his the sixth grade. His father thought that was enough school for this boy and took him out of school to work on the farm. Unlike his first-born son, Joseph Sr. had been able to compete his primary and secondary education and had gone on to take advanced degrees to enter into the law practice. This he managed before he left Cornwall England. His education eventually allowed him to secure a Judgeship that he commanded the rest of his adult life after he came to Utah. He saw the same potential in his younger son Samuel from the very beginning of his school years, and prompted him to continue school beyond the age that most young men went to school.  Samuel eventually went to University and used that schooling to begin his career in bookkeeping and accounting.

            For Joseph Jr., however, he would be relegated to learning a trade, and the choice Joseph Sr. chose for his son was that of blacksmithing. This was not a random choice for Joseph Junior’s father. While he was growing up Joseph Jr. had shown a special aptitude on the farm for fixing things and handling horses. He was forever finding ways of repairing farm implements and he seemed to enjoy getting his hands dirty in tasks of that kind. He was good at farming, in general, too, but his father saw more potential in him for blacksmithing than he did for farming.  He planned that Joseph Jr., as his first born, would take over the farm at some stage of his life, but he also believed that a side-business of blacksmithing would be a good addition for steady future earnings.

            Shortly after Joseph Jr. and Samuel returned from the desert in the fall of 1873, Joseph Sr. took Samuel aside to inform him that he would be ongoing with his education beyond sixth grade and that his hopes were that Samuel would continue until he finished University and received a degree in Law. Shortly after he made that announcement to Samuel, he told Joseph Jr. about the choice he had made to have him begin an apprenticeship in blacksmithing with James Gardner. He would start as soon as the details of Joseph’s apprenticeship had been worked out.

            James Gardner was the only practicing professional Blacksmith west of the river in 1873.  James was also known as the region’s best Blacksmith, and was very much in favor of having the young Williams boy as an apprenticeship since he had no sons of his own. In addition, Gardner knew that with the growth in the valley west of the river and the heavy emphasis being placed on mining in the Oquirrh Mountains farther west, business was growing so fast he couldn’t keep up with his work adequately on his own.  When Joseph Sr. approached James Gardner with his proposal, he asked that James consider Joseph Jr. as an apprentice, but that he also prepare him to start his own business after he learned the trade and had enough experience. James was not threatened by Joseph’s program for his son, and acknowledged that there was room for more than one new blacksmithing business west of the river, and he knew if he had trained his competition that the users of that business could always be assured of quality work and honest dealings. James was proud of his own profession and his status in the community and he was anxious for that to be perpetuated through Joseph Junior. James already knew some things about the boy’s strength and his size, and he was confident that Joseph Jr. had the wherewithal to make a good Blacksmith.

            When Joseph Jr. heard the news and learned that he would be moving in with the Gardner family to begin his apprenticeship he was very excited and thanked his father profusely for the opportunity. This would mean leaving West Jordan and moving to Riverton where James Gardner had his blacksmith shop, but Joseph Jr. believed also that the move would put him closer to Kesiah Beckstead’s home where he might more easily follow up on his desire to eventually marry the girl.

            The arrangements were made that Joseph would move on the first week in October. But before he left, his father had a private conversation with his son that would put a kink on Joseph’s dream with the Beckstead girl.

            “Joseph,” Joseph’s father started on evening just after the family’s dinner. “Please come into my office with me. I need to speak to you privately about something.”

            They moved into the small office while the rest of Joseph’s siblings giggled and speculated about the trouble Joseph was in to be called into his father’s office. Joseph Sr. maintained a small office in his house mostly for his personal records and also did some of his legal business there. Joseph Jr. was nervous since these type meetings in Father’s office were often serious and always very important. At first Joseph thought his father had changed his mind about sending him to Riverton. He knew he had done nothing wrong requiring discipline, so he was safe there.

            At first when they sat down, Joseph stroked his beard and just looked at his son thoughtfully, and then he started . . .

            “Son, I want to discuss this matter between you and this young daughter of Alexander Beckstead. I know you have an interest in her and that you may be thinking of courting her now that you have returned from your spell in the desert. I have also had a discussion with Alexander about this matter. Here is what I want to say about this: I want you to finish your apprenticeship with James Gardner and for you to have your own business established before you really consider marriage. This young woman will be about eighteen by then, I understand, and you will be more mature and at a better age to marry. With a business established, and I incidentally want to assist you with that here on our ranch property, you will be much better suited to marriage and raising a family.”

            This long demand from his father stunned Joseph Jr. and he sat there quietly looking down at the floor in front of his father. This big man, his father, had always been intimidating to people, especially his family. His stately Judgeship carried over into the family, and all his decisions seemed to have the same weight as if they were a court decision.

            Joseph Sr. sat there silently until his son looked up, and then he continued . . .

            “I am certain, Son, that this is the best decision for you. I have discussed this with Mother and she agrees. As you know, your mother was only sixteen when we married, and now that I look back on it, I am convinced that marrying that young is a mistake. We were not very mature. And I will tell you from experience that our decision to marry that young brought us many hardships, and we had to learn many lessons from it. I just don’t want you to have to go through what we experienced.”

            Joseph Jr. continued to sit quietly looking up on occasions, but saying nothing to his father or arguing with him about a decision he was thinking now was unfair and unwarranted.  Joseph Sr. finally began again after a long silence when his son did not comment . . .

            “Joseph, I would like to hear what you have to say about my suggestion. You can be frank with me.”

            “Father,” Joseph responded after a few more seconds of thoughtful silence. “First, Kesiah and I have talked about marriage, but we have made no plans in that regard. She is fourteen now, as you may know already, and I agree we are too young to marry. But, Father, you are requesting that we wait four years before deciding. I think this is a long time to wait. Indeed there is some advantage, I am sure, of being established in a business, but on the other hand, during my apprenticeship, I am certain there will be plenty of opportunities to work and make money and get myself financially able to take on marriage and start a new business as well.”

            Joseph Jr. continued the rebuttal with his father but his voice began to shake and his stand on the matter slowly weakened. He felt like he was on trial while his father listened to him so thoughtfully and without comment. The only reaction he had to what Joseph Jr. was saying was an occasional stroking of his beard. To Joseph Jr. it was like his father was behind the bench with his robe on. His stately demeanor and gray hair and beard just added to the mood.  Joseph Junior’s argument soon diminished to a quiet whisper . . .

            “I just feel, Father, that it’s a little early to make a commitment to you on this thing between Kesiah and myself. I would rather that we wait and see how things go with my apprenticeship before making a commitment to you.”

            Joseph Jr. was exhausted and faint when he finished and his father continued his gaze, deep into his son’s very soul. Joseph Senior paused to see if his son had anything else to say then he made his final statement . . .

            “Son, I have listened to your argument and understand your concern. What I would like to say is this: I want you to remain focused on your apprenticeship above all and to complete it in the best qualified manner you can. I know this is what you want as a vocation and as my firstborn you are entitled to this from me. I will tell you this, as well; you will also be inheriting our farm, and will be running it completely on your own as I get older. Samuel will be going on to school and we will have to see what happens with Thomas and Francis as time goes on. But as far as the girls are concerned, they will all eventually marry and will have their own farms or businesses. But for now, let’s concentrate on your welfare. I request only that you be prudent with this young woman. You will be seeing her on Sunday’s and other evening occasions, I’m sure, but keep your focus on your goal and let’s see where it goes from there.”

            At that, Joseph Sr. slapped his hand lightly on the corner of his desk as if he were banging his gavel at the end of a case, then he stood up and strode out of the room. Joseph jumped to his feet and watched his father exit completely into the living room before he made any move to leave.

            Joseph Jr. found that working with James Gardner was an enlightening challenge and day by day as he progressed on his apprenticeship he learned more and found that he enjoyed the work on an increasing scale. He was good at what he did, and was rarely criticized for making mistakes. When it came to shoeing horses, he was a master at calming the horse and expediting the job so the horse did not feel uncomfortable with the new shoes. He was strong and quick and was frequently complimented by the owners on the way he did his job. 

            In the first year Joseph was with James Gardner he progressed so fast that James was amazed and began to believe that Joseph would be a qualified Blacksmith in less than the four years it had taken him to become qualified. He noticed, also, that Joseph had a special quality in working with the mining equipment and farm equipment that they were often asked to maintain, rebuild or repair. On several occasions the first year of his apprenticeship, Joseph accompanied James to the mining projects in the Oquirrh Mountains and was even taken underground to assess damage to equipment and work out solutions to their repairs.

            Joseph was also asked on several occasions to go to West Jordan to the Gardner Flour Mill and Lumber Yard owned by James’ Brother, Francis Gardner, and repair or rebuild equipment on their facilities. While the year progressed and Joseph learned more, James sent him out on these missions on his own, and was always confident that Joseph was completely trustworthy and would get the job done expeditiously. 

            On occasions when Joseph was in or near West Jordan, he always took time to visit his mother and father if they were home. It was good getting home on these occasions and his mother and sisters and brothers were always glad to see him. The family was always full of news, and this was also a time to find out about how Samuel was doing in school. During their time together in the West Desert, Joseph had gained a special love for his younger brother and cared for and favored him more than any of the other members of his family, except for his twin sister, Hanna who was now married and away from home. Joseph had never gotten to know the other members of his family on the intimate basis that he knew Hanna and Sam. Those that had survived and lived to become mature were so much younger than Joseph that they were almost like a separate family to him.

            Every Sunday, his day off from his apprenticeship, he dressed up and rode to South Jordan to attend Church with the Beckstead family and spend some time with Kesiah. Alexander Beckstead had made a ruling with Kesiah’s mother that under no circumstance would Joseph be allowed to visit with Kesiah unless one or another of her sisters or her mother was with her as a chaperone.  Alexander had remembered and maintained the commitment he had made to Joseph Senior about the budding relationship Joseph Jr. was developing with his daughter, and he meant to maintain it. His wife, however, was more tolerant with the two youngsters and did allow them to be with each other alone on Sunday occasions and on evening programs that were sponsored by the Ward. Alexander was not always present, since he had obligations with his other wives and lived in the main home more than a mile from where she lived, so his middle wife Kesiah Albine was most of the time on her own to make decisions that fit hers and her children’s needs.

            Because of the relative freedom that Joseph Jr. and Kesiah had with their relationship, they were seriously talking about marriage after the first year that Joseph was working on his apprenticeship. They knew they had to wait some time, but the more they talked about marriage, the more the time to get married crept up on them. They were always chaperoned to some extent by Kesiah’s mother or her sisters, so there was not much time to really be alone. But in these rare times their love for each other grew and it became more apparent to Kesiah’s mother that the time for them to get married was not far into the future.

            A second year passed with Joseph learning more and more about his trade and getting more used to being alone on jobs, now taking major projects that James had no time for in his own busy schedule. All over the valley west of the river, Joseph was getting to be known, and even people from Sandy and Draper were bringing things to Riverton to have them worked on by Joseph or James, whom ever was available in the shop.

            The word of Joseph’s success with his apprenticeship was also being heard by his father.  Without letting Joseph Jr. know, Joseph Sr. had been making plans to expand a shed he had west of the homestead and make it into a blacksmith shop. A carpenter had been hired and by the time Joseph Jr. was completed with his second year apprenticeship, it would be completed and equipped with a forge and all the tools that Joseph would need to begin his own business.

            In the spring of 1874 and just before Joseph Junior’s twentieth birthday, Joseph Sr. got word to James Gardner that he was to release Joseph from his apprenticeship and let him come home for good. James had been expecting this to happen and was prepared for it, but was not joyful over the decision Joseph Sr. had made to take Joseph Jr. out of the program two years early. He conceded, however, that Joseph was ready to start his own business and had been prepared to do just that. It was only that now James would have to find another replacement for Joseph and this was not easy to do.

            Joseph came home that day on the second of April to find a completely new shop waiting for him for his birthday. James had not told him about it, but had told him that his father had contacted him and made the arrangement for Joseph to come home to “take care of the farm.”  Joseph Jr. was excited to come home, but was totally unaware of all his father had been preparing on his behalf.

            “Joseph,” his father started once they had a time to visit and Joseph had become aware of his father’s plans to have him begin his own business immediately. “I have expedited this decision to have you start your own business because of what I have been hearing from the community about your progress as a Blacksmith and what James Gardner has told me about your skills and devotion to your work. I am proud of you, Son. For that matter, we are all proud of you and for the accomplishment you have made to make your goal a reality. We are all happy to have you back in the fold. I am ready now to have you take over all the duties of the farm and manage that for me and you can plan and do your business in your new shop in whatever manner you wish. I will retain Henry Butler to work as a hired hand, but eventually you will be in charge of all the work on the farm, and will have to train your younger siblings to assist with the work.  You cannot count on much from Samuel since he will be continuing his schooling, but now that Francis and Henry are getting of age, they will be a great help to you. My work with the State has expanded, so I will be taking a less and less part in the farm, so I am counting on you to make it a success. And, I know you will.”

            That was again one of Joseph Sr.’s final statements and although he did not have a gavel to bang on his bench, it was like he had issued a court order to Joseph to begin his new life and suddenly become a responsible adult. It was a big shift for Joseph, and he knew it. But he thanked his father for the opportunity and especially for all he had done to equip a shop and make things ready for him to become a full-fledged Blacksmith on his own.

            Less than a year after Joseph Jr. completed his apprenticeship, in January of 1875, he married Fannie Kesiah Beckstead. He was a few months under twenty one and she had just turned sixteen. They moved into the old original log cabin behind the main Williams homestead Joseph’s father had built and used when he first arrived in West Jordan, and they had their first of fourteen children one year and one month after their marriage.

            Joseph Junior and Fannie Williams lived full lives in years much beyond the normal for that era. Joseph lived to be seventy six and Fannie lived to age seventy nine, outliving Joseph by six years. Most of their children did not fare so well. Their first born, Fannie Kesiah lived to be sixty five, raised a family of her own and fared well most of her life. Another child, Joseph Alexander lived only four years then died. The third child to be born died at birth and the next born one year later lived to be twenty two years old.  Their fifth child, Margaret Blanche lived to be fifty. William Wallace the next lived to be sixty four. Johanna Belle the seventh lived to be forty three and Zenobra Ann born two years after lived only one year. Laurel Veda lived to be forty two but the next child, Bathsheba Grace only lived to be twenty five. The next child Elsie Elizabeth died at birth. Elmer Millard the twelfth child of the family lived to be sixty six and his younger brother, Jabez Mark lived to be fifty three.  Mary Juanita the last of fourteen children born of the family died when she was ninety four years old.

            Mother Fannie lost her sight soon after the birth of her last child in 1902 and remained completely blind until her death in 1936. Her blindness was caused by sugar diabetes that also affected several of her children and many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren many years later. Blindness, however, was only an inconvenience to this vibrant small-built woman.  Just a little over five feet tall, Fannie was a woman of power and a woman who took charge.  Joseph Junior, her husband, was away much of the time with his blacksmithing work so she had to take charge. Having such a large family and living through the many hardships and deaths of her children only made her stronger.

            Since he was away much of the time, Joseph taught his male children to take charge of all aspects of the farm in his absence. Each was made to learn all there was about farming and some, like his son Mark, followed his blacksmithing business with interest and became a good mechanic in later years. But all the boys knew how to farm, how to raise and take care of the farm animals and all there was about taking care of the produce and meat that was produced by the farm. While all of the boys knew how to farm and three of them took up farming on a very small scale on the pieces of the original homestead that they inherited, none became farmers.

            Of those who survived to older age, only two, Millard and Mark, even lived on the property they had earned from their inheritance. Both raised gardens, had some pasture land for one or two beef cattle, cultivated a few acres of wheat or oats and each had a parcels planted in alfalfa. Both had a few small animals like chickens, sheep and pigs. And each had one or two milk cows for their own use. But overall, for reasons unknown, farming did not appeal to the children of Joseph Junior and Fannie Williams and most went their separate ways into business, carpentry, mechanics and other trades.

 

                  – Chapter Ten –

                  Following Traditions      

 

            Few of the descendants of Joseph John Williams Junior through the line of his son, Jabez Mark Williams, youngest son of Joseph Jr. took on the traditions of the family. Only one of Mark’s son’s took up farming, the rest found occupations that included electrical and electronics work, construction, human resources, and consulting. Of those that remained who were direct descendants of Mark, one grandchild become a farm specialist having completed his doctorate degree in biological matters concerning the production of potatoes. Other male members of Marks ancestors became car sales people, electronics specialists, writers and artists, maintenance supervisors among other worthwhile occupations such as homemakers.

            Most inherited the traits of their grandparents and great grandparents that included a strong work ethic, devotion to family, and a strong sense of self, not much different than those characteristics we see in the history of Joseph John Williams Senior and Junior and their stalwart wives. Whether genetically inherited or learned by rote or example, they all represent a legacy that is difficult to match or exceed.

 

                                   

 

Epilogue

 

A Little More About Jabez Mark Williams:

Jabez Mark, youngest son of Joseph John, Jr. and Fannie Williams, who lived from 1900 to 1953, was the only one of his family who was an avid sports fan, and from the time he could throw a ball he wanted to be a baseball player. There wasn’t much to offer in the Salt Lake Valley for a ball player, but when games were being played and Mark knew about them, he would be there to watch or to play. First Base was his favorite position, but he also had a good arm and would pitch whenever the chance was given to him. Later in his life, Mark would become a Professional Umpire, well known in the Valley, as a fair but strong Umpire who made decisions that were not always liked by the players.

Though he was mild-mannered in most instances, Mark was also a fighter, and was known for his temper that flared when he thought he was being wronged. West Jordan, the community where Mark’s grandfather homesteaded and where Mark lived most of his life was a community of fighters, which in the mid-1950’s would see two World Champion Boxers, brothers Gene and Don Fulmer, whose father, “Tough” Fulmer spared with Mark on occasions when they were young men. All the Fulmers were fighters that led the community with organized boxing matches with boxing gloves and bare fist street fights when the occasion demanded. Mark, however, was not as good in the ring as he was settling his accounts bare-fisted with a few on-lookers cheering him on.

Despite the fact that most of the time Mark was known as an easygoing person, he had a temper if seriously provoked, and never let anyone walk over him for any insurrection; more often, however, he was easy going, gentle, compassionate and humorous to both men and animals. Mark was never known to carry a grudge or remain angry for very long after an insurgence that affected him.

Early in his life when his father took him along on his blacksmithing jaunts, Mark would be exposed to many individuals of ethnic, non-English backgrounds. In the mining communities where Joseph did much of his contract work. Throughout his business career Joseph had many jobs he did for local ethnic groups like Italians, Greeks, Swedes, British and Albanians. Joseph and Mark got along with all groups equally well and were respected by all. But Mark was secretly amused by their accents and attempts to speak American English “properly,” so Mark took it upon himself to learn to mimic the accents until he had all their accents down pat. When he heard stories about these people, he had a memory like an elephant and told the stories in the appropriate accent, much elaborated on by exaggerated hand and body movements and humorous adjustments to the plots.

When Mark was in his forty’s people who socialized with him were always asking him to repeat the Italian monologue, The Paint That Didn’t Get Dry on the Toilet Seat, or the story about the Swedish duck hunter who had diarrhea in the duck blind. Mark never tired of telling stories and collected new ones everywhere he went. In those instances, Mark with his many talents, and unlimited dialects was the center of attention.

Mark’s independence stemmed more from his need to be seen, heard and being an entertainer than anything devious. He was active, always wanted to be on the-go and sought out others who supported his ideas and style. That often got him in trouble with neighbors and peers, but more so, in trouble at home. Once, he went along with the joke planned on his mother by Millard . . . the milking scene antidote mentioned above . . . though Mark was not the planner of the event, he went along with his older brother and “volunteered” to assist his mother with the milking and to excuse the two older girls who usually took their mother to the barn and sat her down to do the milking. The full story is related in one of the narratives above.

By the time Mark reached seventeen years of age in 1917, he had learned from his father a lot about a reasonably new discipline, auto mechanics. With the help of his father and by spending much of his time in Ellis Jones’s gas station and automobile repair garage down on Redwood Road and the Bingham Highway, looking over Ell’s shoulders and volunteering to assist, Mark had mastered most all there was to learn at that time about motors, transmissions, electrical systems and other components of those early Twentieth Century cars. 

Having learned so much about mechanics, when the “Great War” came along (World War I), Mark wanted to join the Army and become a Mechanic. The war was just beginning and he wanted to take his part. His mother and father strongly disputed his reasoning for wanting to join, but Mark persisted and finally, without their permission, went to the U.S. Army Recruitment Center at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake and volunteered. Medical examinations were given to all recruits before they were accepted, but Mark failed his due to almost complete deafness in his left ear. Two years before, a mosquito had entered Mark’s ear, injected its stinger into his ear drum that became seriously infected, with the result that most of his hearing was lost in that ear for the rest of his life. Mark returned home from Fort Douglas depressed and wishing he had been able to go. The family members, on the other hand, were delighted, as Millard and Wallace had both enrolled earlier and the family didn’t want their last remaining boy leaving home and risking his life to fight the Germans . . . a war neither Fannie nor Joseph believed in.

Mark attended school at the West Jordan School . . . then just one small building housing about one hundred students. Most of his classes in those years (about 1907 - 1916) were made up of a mix of grades one through twelve. The building had only one large classroom that had a pot-belly stove in the middle for keeping students warm in winter. Most studies took place with the different age groups gathering in separate locations in the room. On cold winter days, the stove became the focus of learning while the stu­dents huddled around it to keep warm. Mark managed to finish the eighth grade in school and then was taken out by his father to assist him on the farm and in his blacksmithing business.

While it lasted, Mark was a very good student. He left school able to read and write well, and was quite good at mathematics. But most of all, he was very articulate with his hands. He was known for being "practical" and constantly preached to his children that learning how to work was more useful than all the schooling one could achieve. Throughout his life he stressed practicality, frugality, hard work and simplicity in all things.

Mark was active in the LDS Church in his youth, but he dropped from activity in his late teens and stayed inactive thereafter until many years after he was married. Though he was inactive, he remained true to the Mormon Religion, but often spoke negatively about how the local church leaders were hypocrites and dishonest in their dealings with their neighbors and families. Even in his later years when he became active again, many of Mark’s religious tirades were about Church leaders' dishonesty and hypocritical ways. In his heart and in his actions, however, Mark always carried on as if he were a good church member. His morals were high; he only cussed when he got real mad and rarely if ever took Lord's name in vain. Above all, Mark was honest and his word was always good. When he said he would do something, he always did it. He was charitable and would willingly help a friend or neighbor or stop on the road to assist someone who was in trouble.

Mark grew up to be tall and thin (over six feet tall) and took up heavy smoking in his late teens that until he was married believing that smoking helped to keep him thin. After getting married, and quitting smoking, he thereafter gained weight up to two hundred and fifty pounds, carrying that weight around most of his adult life, until just before he died at fifty three years of age in 1953.  Mark’s death stemmed from his many years of being overweight.

Mark’s outgoing personality and independence won him many friends as he was growing up.  It was apparent that those people remained friends even into his later years. Those same friends often dropped by the house to enjoy his company and to ex­change stories and jokes and to play cards . . . a favorite pastime of both he and his wife Lila. In his early school days, Mark sang in musical presentations and did some acting. He told stories and was often called to act parts in skits and plays, especially in Beckstead Reunions. He had a good singing voice and around 1940 he bought a piano and learned to play after a fashion . . . a hobby that kept the family together and gave them all much pleasure especially through long winter nights.

Mark was sick and didn’t work for over two years before he died. His ailments began with diabetes, continued with severe Edema and ended with a massive coronary attack that happened while he was sleeping in early spring of 1953.