In Southern Arizona the first pioneering was done by devoted Franciscans
and Jesuits, their chiefest concern the souls of the gentile Indians. In
similar wise, the pioneering of northern Arizona had its initiation in a
hope of the Mormon Church for conversion of the Indians of the canyons
and plains. In neither case was there the desired degree of success, but
each period has brought to us many stories of heroism and self-sacrifice
on the part of the missionaries. In the days when the American colonists
were shaking off the English yoke, our Southwest was having exploration
by the martyred Friar Garces. Three-quarters of a century later, the
trail that had been taken by the priest to the Hopi villages was used by
a Mormon missionary, Jacob Hamblin, sometimes called the "Leatherstocking
of the Southwest," more of a trail-blazer than a preacher, a scout of the
frontier directly commissioned under authority of his Church, serene in
his faith and confident that his footsteps were being guided from on
high.
The Author has found himself unable to write the history of northernmost
Arizona without continual mingling of the name and the personal deeds of
Jacob Hamblin. Apparently Hamblin had had no special training for the
work he was to do so well. It seemed to "merely happen" that he was in
southwestern Utah, as early as 1854, when his Church was looking toward
expansion to the southward.
Hamblin's first essay into the Arizona country was in the troublous fall
and winter of 1857, a year when he and his family were living in the
south end of Mountain Meadows, Utah. He happened to be in Salt Lake when
the famous Arkansas emigrant train passed through his district. Brigham
Young sent a messenger southward with instructions to let the wagon train
(an especially troublesome one) pass as quietly as possible, but these
instructions were not received and Hamblin learned on the way home, of
the massacre. The information came personally from John D. Lee, the
assassin-in-chief. In Hamblin's autobiography is written, "The deplorable
affair caused a sensation of horror and deep regret throughout the entire
community, by whom it was unqualifiedly condemned."
Thereafter, Hamblin and his associates rode hard after other emigrants
who were to be attacked by Indians, and found a company on the Muddy,
surrounded by Paiutes preparing to attack and destroy them. As a
compromise, the Indians were given the loose horses and cattle, which
later were recovered, and the Mormons remained with the company to assist
in its defense.