The cotton migrations were the prelude to the settlement of Parunuweap
and Zion canyons. Because of a disagreement with Erastus Snow, Orson
Pratt did not go to St. George, but led his group over the Johnson Twist
up the Virgin River to the last outpost at Adventure (the lower end of
the present Rockville fields), arriving in late November or early
December, 1861. Here he paused long enough to gather information and
make plans for settlement.
Coming up the river, Pratt undoubtedly conferred with Nephi Johnson and
other settlers at Virgin, Old Grafton and Adventure. Members of the
expedition, of course, went scouting for themselves, but the advice of
Johnson probably led some of them to decide upon Shunesburg, where on
his visit in 1858 he had reported a settlement could be made.
Adventure was a small place with limited prospects for expansion but
just above it was a much larger tract of land requiring more extensive
irrigation. A townsite was selected on the bench high above the river,
and at a meeting held at Old Grafton on December 13, it was decided to
name the new townsite Rockville because of the many boulders along the
foot of the hill where it was located.
Of those who went up the river above Adventure, three families stopped
at the forks of the Virgin at a place afterward called Northrop, while
six continued up the Parunuweap four or five miles to the farm of an old
Indian named Shunes. They purchased the land for a trifling
consideration, but the price proved to be only the first installment,
for the old Indian continued to live in the vicinity for many years,
working and begging for food from the whites to add to his native supply
of seeds, lizards and wild game.
The settlers were hardly located when a stormy period began. They were
digging irrigation ditches and cutting timber for log houses, but were
still living in their covered wagons when bad weather set in. Rain
started on Christmas day, 1861, and continued for forty days. The Virgin
became a raging torrent and, at least twice, great floods washed out the
dams, filled the ditches, undermined banks, overflowed the plains and
despoiled valuable farm lands. On January 8, the flood inundated the
village of Grafton, the water rising suddenly during the night. As the
waters swirled around the wagon box home of Nathan Tenney, several men
picked it up with his expectant wife in it and carried it to higher
ground north of the river, where a son was born. He was named,
appropriately enough, Marvelous Flood Tenney.
After the floods subsided Old Grafton was abandoned and a new site was
selected on the south bank on a higher bench a little farther upstream.
The area was surveyed and laid off in town lots and fields. A new ditch
costing $5,000 was dug within the next year. The new townsite of
Rockville was similarly laid off into lots and fields during the summer
of 1862, and an irrigation ditch was completed in time for use during
1863. In the meantime the settlers at Adventure continued to cultivate
the land irrigated by their first ditch. At the forks of the river at
Northrop, a ditch was built by James Lemon and others to irrigate a
stretch of land below the junction of the two forks of the streams. At
Shunesburg, the town and fields were surveyed and ditches constructed to
divert the water from both Shunes Creek and the east fork of the Virgin.
The known settlers in Adventure included the following: Orson Pratt, Dr.
S. A. Kenner, John C. Hall, Henry Stocks, William Ashton, and Elijah
Newman. Those at Northrop included James Lemon, Isaac Behunin, and
probably Joseph Black. The following went to Shunesburg, all of them
having come together from San Pete Valley: Oliver DeMille, Hyrum
Stevens, Alma Millett, George Petty, Hardin Whitlock and Charlie
Klapper.
Whether anyone was located at Springdale at that time is debatable. E.
C. Behunin says that his father, Isaac, stayed at Northrop until after
the flood and then moved to Springdale where others had already located.
Nevertheless, it is the impression of several early pioneers of the
region that Albert Petty was the first settler of Springdale in the fall
or winter of 1862-3. It is related that he took his wife to the spot he
had selected beside some large springs and asked her to name it. She
called it Springdale. It is probable, however, that the lower Springdale
irrigation ditch was taken out early in 1862. It is also probable that
Joseph Black came with the main group in 1861 despite his journal date
of 1862, written in his old age.[49] His parents came in 1861 and it is
almost certain that he was with them. He is credited by three different
sources with being the first to explore Zion Canyon after the settlers
arrived, although he says nothing about it.[50]
When Albert Petty came to Shunesburg, he brought with him the rock
grinding stones for a grist mill. Not finding a suitable mill site at
Shunesburg, he and his son, George, moved to the newly surveyed town of
Springdale where they set up the mill that served as a public utility in
grinding the coarse flour for the settlers of the upper Virgin.
The fall of 1862 saw another influx of settlers. Another general “call”
for 250 men to go south was issued Sunday, October 19, and many others
volunteered to go to Dixie. Charles L. Walker describes the incident in
his journal:
Sunday, October 19, 1862.... Went up to the Bowery.... At the close of
the meeting, 250 men were called to go to the cotton country. My name
was on the list and was read off the stand.
At night I went to a meeting in the Tabernacle of those who had been
called. Here I learned a principle that I shan’t forget in a while. It
showed me that obedience is a great principle in Heaven and on earth.
Well, here I have worked for the last seven years, through heat and
cold, hunger and adverse circumstances, and at last have a home and a
lot with fruit trees just beginning to bear and look pretty. Well, I
must leave it and go and do the will of my Father in Heaven ... and I
pray God to give me strength to accomplish that which is required of
me.
Monday, October 20, to Wednesday, October 22. Not very well. Working
around the home and fixing to dispose of my property.[51]
The spirit of “moving south” had been encouraged by the previous year’s
migration and many had become interested, some because of friends or
relatives who had preceded them, others because of crop losses or
because they were seeking better places to locate. John Langston, who
came to Rockville at this time, says in his journal that he had tired of
having his crops eaten up by crickets at Alpine, Utah County, so tried
farming at Draper. His crops in 1862 were destroyed by flooding of the
Jordan River, so he volunteered and was “called” on the mission to
settle Dixie.[52]
These recruits enlarged the settlements even to overcrowding. Rockville
suddenly expanded by the abandonment of Adventure and the influx of new
settlers to a town of nearly thirty families.[53] Shunesburg increased
to fifteen or sixteen and the others in proportion.[54] The townsite and
fields of early Springdale were surveyed during the fall and winter of
1862-63, and a town of some twenty families was established, with Albert
Petty as presiding elder.[55]
With crowded conditions and scanty food supplies, many became
discouraged and some left Dixie. Most, however, proved faithful to the
“call” and remained to make the settlements permanent.
The settlements were still in a precarious state, the pioneers moving
from place to place attempting to find suitable locations, some leaving
and others coming, when, in 1864, a church census enumerated 765 persons
(129 families), distributed along the upper Virgin River as follows: