THROUGH MARYSVALE TO KINGSTON.
Piute Count---Days of small things--A swop in the sage-brush; two
Bishops for one Apostle--The Kings Of Kingston--A failure in Family
Communism.
FROM the brow of the cedared hill south of Munroe a splendid view
is obtained, and Piute County opens with fair promises; for a
superb-looking valley, all natural meadow, lies spread out on either
side of the Sevier, while from a gulch in the mountains on the right,
a stream of vegetation seems to have poured down across the level,
carrying along with its flood of cotton-wood and willow a few stately
old pine-trees. From among the vegetation peeps out a cluster of
miners' houses--for there are the Sevier mines up beyond that pine
gulch--and a ranch or two. Much of the enchantment of distance vanishes
of course as we come down to the level of the plains ourselves and
skirt it close under the hills on the left. But it is a fine location
nevertheless, and some day, no doubt, may be a populous valley. After a
mile or two it narrows, and we cross the river--a wooden bridge, with
a store and barns--("Lisonbee's place") making a pleasant interval of
civilization.
From "Lisonbee's" the road passes up on to and over a stony plateau,
and then descends into the valley again. Cattle and horses are grazing
in the meadow, and the dark patches of wire-grass are spangled with
yellow lupins, and tinted pink in places with patches of a beautiful
orchid-like flower. On the edge of this pleasant-looking tract stand
two small cottages, and to one of these we are welcomed by its
Mormon occupants. To me the whole country had an aspect of desperate
desolation. Yet our host had just come back from "the Post;" his
children were away "at school;" the newspaper on his table was the
latest we had ourselves seen. It is true that the post was literally
a post, with a cigar-box nailed on the top of it, standing all by
itself among the brushwood on the roadside. The school was a mile or
two off, "just over the hill," and, till the regular teacher came, a
volunteer was making shift to impart education to the little scholars
who came straggling over the dreary hill-sides by twos and threes.
Yet, rudimentary though they be, these are the first symptoms of
a civilization triumphing over sage-brush, and give even to such
desperately small beginnings a significance that is very interesting.
All the thriving settlements I have visited began exactly in the
same way--and under worse conditions, too, for the Indian was then a
stronger power than the Mormon.
Our host here had shot among the reeds in his meadow a large bird, the
size of an average goose, black with white spots, which he had been
told was "a loon." It was one of the larger "divers," its neck being
very long and snake-like, terminating in a comparatively small head,
its wings very short and its legs (the feet webbed) set, as in all
diving birds, far back on the body.
Leaving this very young "settlement," we found ourselves again in a
wretched, waterless country, where the vegetation did not compensate
for its monotony by any attractions of colour, nor the mountains for
their baldness by any variety of contour. Here and there stunted cedars
had huddled together for company into a gulch, as if afraid to be
scattered about singly on such lonesome hill-sides, and away on the
right, in a dip under the hills, we caught a glimpse of Marysvale.
Traversing this forbidding tract, we met another waggon on its way to
Munroe, and stopping to exchange greetings, it suddenly occurred to
one of the strangers that by our exchanging vehicles the horses and
their teamsters would both be going home instead of away from it, and
thus everybody be advantaged! The exchange was accordingly effected,
our teamster getting two Bishops in exchange for an Apostle and a
correspondent, and the waggons being turned round in their tracks, the
teams, to their unconcealed satisfaction, started off towards their
respective homes.
Sage-brush and sand, with occasional patches of tiresome rock
fragments and unlimited lizards--nature's hieroglyphics for sultry
sterility--were the only features of the journey. Away on our left,
however, the track of a water-channel, that when completed will turn
many thousands of these arid acres into farm-lands, scarred the red
hill-side, and told the same old story of Mormon industry. Where it
came from I have forgotten, where it was going to I do not remember,
but it was in sight off and on for some thirty miles, and was probably
carrying the waters of the Sevier on to the Circle-ville plains.
We are there ourselves in the evening, and passing through some
ploughed land and meadow, find ourselves upon the wind-swept, lonesome,
location of
THE KINGS OF KINGSTON.
Among the social experiments of Mormonism, the family communism of the
Kings of Kingston deserves a special notice, for, though in my own
opinion it is a failure, both financially and socially, the scheme is
probably one of the most curious attempts at solving a great social
problem that was ever made.
Kingston is the name of a hamlet of fifteen wooden cottages and a
stock-yard which has been planted in the centre of one Of the most
desolate plains in all the Utah Territory--a very Jehunnam of a
plain. Piute County, in which it is situated, is, as a rule, a most
forbidding section of country, and the Kingston "Valley" is perhaps
the dreariest spot in it. The mountains, stern and sterile, ring it in
completely, but on the south-east is a great canyon which might be the
very mouth of the cavern in which the gods used to keep their winds,
for a persistent, malignant wind is perpetually sweeping through it
on to the plain below, and the soil being light and sandy, the people
live for part of the year in a ceaseless dust-storm. One year they
sowed 300 acres with wheat, and the wind simply blew the crop away.
That which it could not actually displace, it kept rubbed down close to
the ground by the perpetual passage of waves of sand. They planted an
orchard, but some gooseberry bushes are the only remaining vestiges of
the plantation, and even these happen to be on the lee side of a solid
fence. They also set out trees to shade their houses, but the wind
worked the saplings round and round in their holes, so that they could
not take root. It can be easily imagined, therefore, that without a
tree, without a green thing except the reach of meadow land at the foot
of the hills, the Kingston plain, with its forlorn fifteen tenements,
looks for most of the year desolation itself. That any one should ever
have settled there is a mystery to all; that he should have remained
there is a simple absurdity, a very Jumbo of a folly. Yet here,
after five years of the most dismal experiences, I found some twenty
households in occupation.
At the time when Brigham Young was exerting himself to extend the
"United Order" (of which more when I come to Orderville), one of the
enthusiasts who embraced its principles was a Mr. King, of Fillmore.
He was a prosperous man, with a family well settled about him.
Nevertheless, he determined from motives of religious philanthropy to
begin life anew, and having sold off all that he possessed he emigrated
with his entire family into the miserable Piute country, selected in
an hour of infatuation the Kingston--then "Circleville"--location,
and announced that he was about to start a co-operative experiment
in farming and general industry on the basis of a household, with
patriarchal government, a purse in common, and a common table for all
to eat at together.
Having been permitted to examine the original articles of enrolment,
dated May 1, 1877--a document, by the way, curiously characteristic of
the whole undertaking, being a jumble of articles and by-laws written
on a few slips of ordinary paper, a miracle of unworldly simplicity and
in very indifferent spelling--I found the objects of "the company,"
as it is called, were "agricultural, manufacturing, commercial, and
other industrial pursuits," and the establishment and maintenance of
"colleges, seminaries, churches, libraries, and any other charitable
or scientific associations." It was to be superintended by a Board,
who were to be elected by a majority of the members, and to receive
for their services "the same wages as are paid to farm hands or other
common labourers."
To become members of this Family Order it was necessary that they
should "bequeath, transfer, and convey into the company all their
right, title, and interest to whatever property, whether personal or
real estate, that they were then possessed of, or might hereafter
become possessed of by legacy, will, or otherwise for the purposes
above mentioned, and further that they would labour faithfully and
honourably themselves, and cause their children who were under age to
labour under the direction of the Board Of Directors, the remuneration
for which shall be as fixed by the board both as to price and kind of
pay he or she shall receive." It was "furthermore understood and agreed
that a schedule or inventory of all property bequeathed or transferred
to the company should be kept, together with the price of each article,
that in case any party becomes dissatisfied or is called away, or
wishes to draw out, he can have as near as may be the same kind of
property, but in no case can he have real estate, only at the option of
the Board, nor shall interest or a dividend be paid on such property."
"We further agree" (so run the articles of this curious incorporation)
"that we will be controlled and guided in all our labour, in our food,
clothing, and habitations for our families" (by the Board), "being
frugal and economical in our manner of living and dress, and in no case
seek to obtain that which is above another."
"We also covenant and agree that all credits for labour that stand to
our names in excess of debits for food and clothing, shall become the
property of the company."
In these four articles is contained the whole of the principles of
this astonishing experiment. Men were to sell their all, and put the
proceeds into a family fund. Out of this, as the wages of their labour,
they were to receive food and other necessaries to the value of $1 a
day, and if at the end of the year their drawings exceeded the amount
of work put in the company "forgave" them the excess, while if their
earnings exceeded their drawings, they "forgave" the company. Thus the
accounts were annually squared by reciprocal accommodation.
If anyone seceded from the Order, he was entitled to receive back
exactly what he had contributed. Mr. King, the father, started by
putting in some $20,000, and his sons and others following suit,
the fund rose at once to some $40,000. (I would say here that the
entirely original method of "keeping the books" makes balance-striking
a difficulty.) With this sum, and so much labour at their disposal,
the Family Company should have been a brilliant success. But several
circumstances conspired disastrously against it. The first was the
unfortunate selection of location, for, in spite of the quantity of
promising land available elsewhere, Mr. King pitched his camp in the
wretched sand-drifts of the Piute section. The next was the ill-advised
generosity of the founders in inviting all the country round to
come and join them, with or without means, so long as they would be
faithful members of the Order. The result, of course, was an influx of
"deadheads"--the company indeed having actually to send out waggons to
haul in families who were too poor to be able to move themselves. Of
these new-comers only a proportion were worth anything to the young
settlement, for many came in simply for the certainty of a roof over
their heads and sufficient food. The result was most discouraging,
and in short time the more valuable adherents were disheartened, and
began to fall off, and now, five years from the establishment of the
company, there are only some twenty families left, and these are all
Kings or relatives of the Kings. The father himself is dead, but four
sons divide the patriarchal government between them, and, having again
reduced the scheme to a strictly family concern, they are thinking of a
fresh start.
What may happen in the future is not altogether certain, but it will be
strange if in this country where individual industry, starting without
a dollar, is certain of a competence, co-operative labour commencing
with funds in hand does not achieve success. At present the company
possesses, besides its land in the valley, and a mill and a woollen
factory, both commencing work, cattle and sheep worth about $10,000,
and horses worth some $12,000 more. This is a tolerable capital for an
association of hard-working men to begin with, but it is significant
of errors in the past that after five years of almost superhuman toil
they should find themselves no better off materially than when they
started. Nor, socially, has the experiment hitherto been a success, for
Kingston is, in my opinion, beyond comparison the lowest in the scale
of all the Mormon settlements that I have seen. It is poverty-stricken
in appearance; its houses outside and inside testify, in unmended
windows and falling plaster, to an absence of that good order which
characterizes so many other villages. The furniture of the rooms and
the quality of the food on the tables are poorer than elsewhere, and
altogether it is only too evident that this family communism has
dragged all down alike to the level of the poorest and the laziest of
its advocates, rather than raised all up to the level of the best off
and the hardest working. The good men have sunk, the others have not
risen, and if it were not so pathetic the Kingston phenomenon would be
exasperating.
But there is a very sincere pathos about this terrible sacrifice of
self for the common good. I do not mean theoretically, but practically.
The men of "the company" are the most saddening community I have ever
visited. They seem, with their gentle manners, wonderful simplicity
of speech, and almost womanly solicitude for the welfare of their
guests, to have lost the strong, hearty spirit which characterizes
these Western conquerors of the deserts. Yet even the hard-working
Mormons speak of them as veritable heroes in work. It is a common thing
to hear men say that "the Kingston men are simply killing themselves
with toil;" and when Western men talk of work as being too hard, you
may rely upon it it is something very exceptional. Almost against
hope these peasants have struggled with difficulties that even they
themselves confess seem insuperable. They have given Nature all the
odds they could, and then gone on fighting her. The result has been
what is seen to-day--a crushed community of men and enfeebled women,
living worse than any other settlement on the whole Mormon line.
Their own stout hearts refuse to believe that they are a failure; but
failure is written in large capital letters on the whole hamlet, and in
italics upon every face within it. The wind-swept sand-drifts in which
the settlement stands, the wretchedness of the tenements and their
surroundings, the haphazard composition of their food, their black
beans and their buffalo berries, the whistling of the wind as it drives
the sand through the boards of the houses, the howling of the coyotes
round the stock-yard--everything from first to last was in accord to
emphasize the desperate desolation. But those who have known them for
all the five years that the experiment has been under trial declare
that their present condition, lamentable as it is, is an improvement
upon their past. When they ate at a common table, the living, it is
said, was even more frugal than it is now, and there was hardly a piece
of crockery among them all, the "family" eating and drinking out of tin
vessels. The women, either from mismanagement among themselves, or want
of order among the men, were unable to bear the burden of ceaseless
cooking, and the common table was thereupon abandoned by a unanimous
vote.
Yet they are courtesy and hospitality itself, and their sufferings have
only clinched their piety. They have not lost one iota of their faith
in their principles, though staggering under the conviction of failure.
Their children have regular schooling, the women are scrupulously neat
in their dress, while profanity and intemperance are unknown.