Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 1999 Over the Rim William B. Smart Donna T. Smart Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Smart, W. B., & Smart, D. T. (1999). Over the Rim: The Parley P. Pratt exploring expedition to Southern Utah, 1849-50. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OVER THE RIM Parley P. Pratt, 1850. Daguerreotype by Marsena Cannon. Copy photograph by Nelson B. Wadsworth. OVER THE RIM The Parley P. Pratt Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah, 1849-1850 William B. Smart and Donna T. Smart, Editors UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS LOGAN,UTAH Copyright © 1999 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7200 Typography by WolfPack Cover design by Michelle Sellers Front cover illustrations from Clarence E. Dutton, Atlas to Accompany the Monograph on the Tertiary History of the Grand CaiionDistrict (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1882; reprint, Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, 1977). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Over the Rim : the Parley P. Pratt exploring expedition to Southern Utah, 1849-50/ William B. Smart and Donna T. Smart, editors. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-87421-282-0 ISBN 0-87421-281-2 (pbk.) 1. Utah-Discovery and exploration. 2. Mormons-Utah-History-19th cen­ tury. 3. Pratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker), 1807-1857. I. Smart, William B. (William Buckwalter), 1922- II. Smart, Donna Toland, 1923-F826.084 1997 979.2'01-dc21 99-6764 CIP CONTENTS PREFACE VII INTRODUCTION 1 THE JOURNALS 17 Great Salt Lake City to Sanpete 19 Sanpete to the Little Salt Lake 37 Over the Rim to Dixie 81 Little Salt Lake & Cedar Valleys & Beyond 111 The Long, Cold Trip Home 127 THE OFFICIAL REpORT 171 Pratt's Report to the Legislative Council 173 EPILOGUE 187 APPENDICES 189 Related Papers 191 Biographies of Expedition Members 200 Robert Campbell's Ute Dictionary 249 Robert Campbell's Emigrant Guides 252 BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 INDEX 262 MAPS THE PRATT EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO SOUTHERN UTAH X SALT LAKE CITY TO SANPETE VALLEY 18 PHELPS MAP OF "UTAH, YOAB & SANPITCH VALLEYS" 29 SANPETE VALLEY TO LITTLE SALT LAKE VALLEY 39 THE VIRGIN RIVER EXPLORATION 107 PREFACE Among many who helped, one man is chiefly responsible for this book. He is-or was-William Henrie. A desire to know better this great-great-grandfather led to examination of the journals kept on the Southern Exploring Expedition of 1849-1850, of which he was a member. Henrie left no account of that adventure, but perhaps journals kept by others would tell something about him? They do, but not much. He is mentioned four times. The roster of the expe­ dition lists him as a member of the Fourth Ten. The list of contrib­ utors to meet expenses tells us he gave five dollars. Isaac Haight's journal reports that on January 3, at the present site of Parowan, "camp met at 7 ocl P.M. Singing Prayer by Br Henry." And on March 17, in the south end of Juab Valley, two weeks from home, Robert Campbell's journal records, "fa Henry leaves his weak ox with the Indians, gives it to them." That's not much. But examination of the journals in search of William Henrie led to a paper presented to the Mormon History Association in 1992 and published in the Utah Historical Quarterly, spring 1994. And it led to the conviction that these remarkable journals deserved to be published in full in their original spelling, punctuation, and grammar. This we have attempted to do, along with an effort to place them in context of other exploration and travel in the region, the land itself, and what has resulted from the expedition. So, first acknowledgment and thanks must go to those who made this book possible, the journal-keepers themselves. Other reminiscences were written years later, but the contemporary jour­ nals were four. Most detailed and accurate, and therefore valuable, is that of Robert Campbell, official clerk of the expedition. Thanks to cooperation of the staff of the Archives, Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we were privi­ leged to work from the original holograph that resides there. The Archives also houses typescript copies of the journals of John C. Armstrong andJohn Brown as well as holographs of various papers VII viii OVER THE RIM of the expedition, including financial accounts, letters, and, of course, the official report to the Legislative Assembly. The original holograph ofIsaac Haight's journal is in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California. All were made fully available to us. Special thanks to W. Randall Dixon and William W. Slaughter of the LDS Church Historical Department; Dixon for help in locat­ ing obscure materials, Slaughter for help in providing archival photographs to accompany biographies of expedition members. Cooperation was also unfailing from staffs of the Utah State Historical Society Library; Special Collections, Brigham Young University Library; Western Americana Collection, University of Utah Library; the Henry E. Huntington Library; and the small library in the Territorial Capitol Museum in Fillmore, Utah. The Southern Exploring Expedition is treated briefly in a number of histories of Utah and the LDS Church, but the only pre­ vious examination in depth is a master's thesis by Rick J. Fish, Brigham Young University, December 1992. We found his work useful and acknowledge it with thanks. Others helped. Lavoid Leavitt, St. George, indefatigable researcher of historic trails, guided us over the route the expedition followed from the time they crossed over the Great Basin rim into the Virgin River country until they exited it at Mountain Meadows. Alvah Matheson, nonagenarian virtual human encyclopedia of Iron County history, guided us through that region, including location of signatures carved into the rocks by the exploring company. With the late historian C. Gregory Crampton, we followed each foot of the Spanish Trail traversed by the expedition. James E. Bowns, Southern Utah University professor of biology and range ecology, was invaluable in identifying plants described by Campbell's jour­ nal, and archaeologist Mark Stuart was able to describe their use by Indians, prehistoric to the present. John R. Alley, executive editor of the Utah State University Press, has been unfailing in his support of the project and his counsel in how to accomplish it. His close attention to detail has done much to improve the product, as has his own expertise in western history and geography. Thanks to Tyler Leary for meticu­ lous copy editing, to J M. Heslop for generously photocopying many of the portraits and other illustrations in the book, and to Chantze Kin and Michael Spooner for preparing the maps. PREFACE IX Finally, though, thanks to Parley P. Pratt himself, to his offi­ cers and journal-keepers, and to the unsung members of the expedition-including William Henrie-for their fortitude, dedi­ cation, and grace under the harshest conditions. We feel honored to have known them, and to share their stories. -" Route of the Pratt Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah 1849-50 ity 1\ ,,I ,I fillmore, .1 I I ,I I"" Beaver I '. I, INTRODUCTION Brigham Young's accomplishment in bringing his 1847 Mormon Pioneer Company across 1,100 miles of prairie, mountain, and desert to Salt Lake Valley without death or serious accident required leadership, planning, competence, cooperation-and sacrifice. But as a demonstration of those qualities it pales by com­ parison with his accomplishment in the next two decades of bring­ ing to the valley in organized companies seventy thousand other Mormon converts from the eastern and southern United States and Europe. Even that was far from enough. There remained the challenge of finding places for all these immigrants to live, getting them there, and weaving them into the fabric of what was at one time a vast inland Mormon empire. This book is the eyewitness account of a little-noticed but important part of the latter effort. In its pages will be found abun­ dant evidence of the qualities demanded by Mormon pioneering, as well as the human weakness and questionable judgment that sometimes plagued it. The land to which the nineteenth century Moses led his cho­ sen people was harsh: little rain; thin, often-alkali soil; 95 percent of the land mountainous or desert unsuitable for habitation. With the nearest supporting civilization more than a thousand miles away to the east and nearly that far to the west, it was going to take a special kind of people to survive here. But there were compensations. Out of those mountains came streams of clear water that, the Mormons soon found, could soften the hard-baked soil and bring forth sustenance. The land was vast: in an area that included most of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau and stretched north in the Snake River drainage as far as the Lemhi River and south to the lower Virgin and across the desert as far as San Bernardino, there was room enough. And because the region was so harsh and remote, it contained no American or European competitors. Except for Indian tribes that the Mormons would ultimately push aside, there were no neighbors to trouble or 1 2 OVER THE RIM be troubled by. For a people whose peculiar beliefs, economic aggressiveness, and political cohesion had raised opposition that drove them from the church's birthplace of upper New York to Ohio and then, in turn, to Missouri, Illinois, and finally the Great Salt Lake, that was no small thing.