A TRIP SOUTH WITH PRESIDENT YOUNG

IN 1870.

BY C. R. SAVAGE.

III.

It was the intention of President Young to go to the San Francisco mountains, on this trip. This district had been represented as a paradise for settlers, with plenty of soil, timber, water, and all the elements to make an elysium; but by the time the Colorado was reached, the prospect of finding such a goal seemed very remote. Some one had told him of the distance, the bad roads, the lack of water and feed, so that his ambition to go farther on seemed to wane. Then, again, we were not the company to make such a trip, we were too many, and were short of supplies. I happened to be walking with him on a ridge whither he had gone to survey the country; all at once, he stopped, planted his walking-stick into the sand with the remark, "This is a God-forsaken country, I am going north." This was all he said; then the word passed that we had reached the most southern point on the trip. Our eyes would hereafter be turned north.

Another of the objects of this trip was to look over the Muddy settlements, and into a project that had been elaborated, which was the founding of a city where we were located, to be called Montezuma. The spot selected was the broad, open, sandy bench north of the Colorado. The water supply was to be taken from the Virgen river, six miles from the junction, so as to be brought out upon the upper part of the bench. This place today is a kind of wonderland covered with thousands of curiously formed volcanic pebbles; there are also some pools of water of

unknown depth, where the water rises and falls without perceptible escape.

Another proposition was to have light draught-steamers come up the river from Call's Landing, with goods for the settlers in southern Utah, thus securing for Utah products an outlet to the sea via the Colorado river, and the Gulf of California.

A lone settler, Brother Asay, from Trenton, New Jersey, was located in a wattled house, made of willows and daubed with mud. It was a house without a nail in it; he was there with his wife and eleven sons, his vocation being to catch fish for the settlers, and to run the ferry boat which had been made at a big cost to accommodate the President's company, and other travel. A small patch of sandy meadow land, situated near the mansion, would have supplied feed for our animals, if Brother Asay's ox-team had not previously grazed upon it for two weeks, but it was barren now. No other spot near by offered feed for the animals; what the citizens of Montezuma would have to do to obtain grazing, I will leave to the imagination of my readers.

As a souvenir of my visit, I took views of the party on the river bank. With three of Brother Asay's boys, I traveled through deep sand to the mouth of the Black canyon, eight miles distant. It was a very difficult trip. We tried to return by following the bank of the Colorado, and were surprised to find that the river runs over veins of copper ore for miles. In talking with the boys, I learned that five kinds of fish inhabited the river salmon, hunchbacks, suckers, white-fish and chub.

After my return, the party broke camp and returned to St. Thomas, where meetings were held, all the citizens as well as the Indians being out in full force. These Indians would work a whole day for a yard of muslin; they were a poor, low-down, gambling race. Such were the neighbors of the "Mormon” pioneers of the Muddy valley.

I took particular notice that President Young had very little to say during his stay in that region; not a word about Montezuma, about steamers, about San Francisco mountains, nor any other project. He left the preaching to the rank and file of the company. The faith, perseverance, and indomitable will of the settlers, were grand; they performed marvelous works under such condi

tions. The wind was so severe that piles of dry sand could be seen blown up several feet around the houses, but the soil in the bottoms near by was very rich, and the prospects for crops were good.

We passed through Overton on our way up the valley, reaching St. Joseph's twelve miles from St. Thomas, where we remained over night.

Our next stopping place was West Point, the most northern settlement in the valley. Here our reception was more enthusiastic. This place is colder than St. Thomas, and for the first time for several days we enjoyed the luxury of having milk and butter. There was a very fine tract of farming land in close proximity. It was during our stay there that Brother Gibbon, one of our party, addressed the Indians in their own language. It was quite amusing to see the effect of his oration upon this motley crowd. A very strange event happened while we were there; it was the arrival of a lone camel into the place. The poor brute was very hungry and desolate. Brother John W. Young took possession of the creature, and sent him north to help out his menagerie in Salt Lake City. Who owned him, or where he came from, was one of the unsolved mysteries of our trip. I remember hearing a few years prior to this time that some person had brought a number of these animals into Arizona as beasts of burden. The young man who took the camel to Salt Lake had a terrible experience. Every animal that saw him on the road became frightened and ran away, compelling him to travel in the night.

In going to the Colorado, we had followed down the Virgen River to be near water. It was now spring-time, and the President decided to return by the desert road which is shorter, although in summer it is unsafe. At 7 a.m., March 23, we bade goodby to our friends at West Point, and to the brave settlers on the Muddy.

No people could do more than they had done to show their loyalty, love, and veneration for the "old chief" as they called the President; they ministered to the needs of the party with the best they had. They were a long distance from supplies, and were short of many necessities, but no one grumbled; they had been called there, and were going to stay until released. They were going to "stick to the rack," hay or no hay. The President said

but little of what he thought, he read the conditions and continued thinking.

When well out upon the desert, we met a courier who brought letters and papers for the company. Copies of the Keepapitchinin, published by George Taylor, son of the late President Taylor, caused great merriment. It was like a breath of sunny spring to get news from home.

The letters having been read, and the contents noted, we toiled on to the Cocyop Wash, a distance of thirty-five miles from West Point. Water was found in holes in the rocks, the dried up cacti wood serving as our fuel; not a blade of grass was to be seen, nothing but prickly shrubs, pebbles, and sand all around us.

Before reaching our camping place, we passed a pile of rocks, a kind of mound, which covered the bodies of old Brother Davidson, wife and boy, who had tried to cross the desert in the hot season but out of lack of water had perished of thirst; their friends informed them of the risk they were taking, but they heeded not that advice. Their lonely grave was only two and a half miles from the Virgen river, but they had become bewildered and no doubt partially insane. Kind friends who found them after their death, buried their bodies as best they could, and placed the mound above them to keep away the wolves, and to serve as a monument to their lives sacrificed in the desert.

Over the dreary, sandy waste we drove the next day, expecting to find water at the crossing of the Beaver Dam wash, but not a drop was to be found; the creek sinks into the sand about four miles above the road and reappears near the Virgen river. The animals were whining for water. We were compelled to drive on to a place called the Cedar Pockets where a supply of water was found, and there we camped for the night, in a forest of yuccas, a distance of thirty-two miles from the other camp.

While there, another courier arrived bringing the tidings that the Cullom bill had passed the House. I shall never forget the effect of this bit of news upon the campers. President Young read the dispatch carefully, not a word escaping his lips; the rest of the party were much excited, and gave vent to their feelings in loud talking and gesticulations, but the leader said nothing. All

around the camp, the question was asked, "What did the President say?" To their great mortification-nothing.

If ever there was a time when a few words from him would have been welcome and timely, it seemed that then was the supreme moment. The news was unexpected, and unlooked for, and excited everybody, but he alone was silent. An after-thought led me to ask, "What could he have said?" One of the reasons for his magnetic influence rested in the fact that he never lost himself in talk; whatever he said was always welcome; he never spoke too long, and always sought inspiration before deciding any issue. This characteristic entered into his everyday doings; he never went against the promptings of the divine influence which he continually sought. This was the secret of his quiet power, and prestige. It is a delightful thought that we all have the same source of daily guidance to help us in the battle of life, if we will only seek it.

The next day, about noon, we reached St. George renewing again the friendships with the people. I left the party there to go to Little Zion Valley on a spur of the Rio Virgen, on a photographic trip. It was given out as a remarkable fact that thousands could find a hiding-place up there, so my ambition was aroused to see it. Some enthusiasts had reported the place to President Young as a veritable Zion. "Call it Little Zion," said he, and that is the name it still bears.

I found it to be a remarkable valley with high, vertical cliffs, towering upward from two to three thousand feet, and so completely locked that there was no outlet other than the way of entrance. From a picturesque point of view, it was grand, sublime, and majestic, but as a place of residence, lonely and unattractive, reminding one of living in a stone box; the landscape, a skyscrape; a good place to visit, and a nice place to leave. The whole region of the headwaters of the Rio Virgen is very beautiful for the artist, and the river banks afford good places for settlers. I rejoined the President's party at Kannara. I observed all the attractions of Rockville, Grafton, Virgen City, and Toquervilleon my return trip, and reached Kannara a day or two before the arrival of the party. When the President saw me, he chided me