In 1871, 1872 and 1873 Hamblin did much exploration. He located a
settlement on the Paria River, started a ranch in Rock House Valley and
laid out a practicable route from Lee's Ferry to the Little Colorado.
Actual use of the Lee's Ferry road by wagons was in the spring of 1873 by
a party headed by Lorenzo W. Roundy, who crossed the Colorado at Lee's
Ferry, passing on to Navajo Springs, seven miles beyond, and thence about
ten miles to Bitter Springs and then on to Moen Copie. The last he
described as a place "a good deal like St. George, having many springs
breaking out from the hills, land limited, partly impregnated with
salts." He passed by a Moqui village and thence on to the overland mail
route. The Little Colorado was described as "not quite the size of the
Virgin River, water a little brackish, but better than that of the
Virgin." In May of the same year, Hamblin piloted, as far as Moen Copie,
the first ten wagons of the Haight expedition that failed in an attempt
to found a settlement on the Little Colorado.
Just as the Chiricahua Apaches to the southward found good pickings in
Mexico, so the Navajo early recognized as a storehouse of good things,
for looting, the Mormon settlements along the southern border of Utah. A
degree of understanding was reached by the Mormons with the Ute. There
was more or less trouble in the earlier days with the Paiute farther
westward, this tribe haying a number of subdivisions that had to be
successively pacified by moral or forcible suasion. But it was with the
Navajo that trouble existed in the largest measure.
Hamblin was absolutely sure of the identity of the American Indians with
the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. He regarded the Indians at all times
as brethren who had strayed from the righteous path and who might be
brought back by the exercise of piety and patience. Very much like a
Spanish friar of old, he cheerfully dedicated himself to this particular
purpose, willing to accept even martyrdom if such an end were to serve
the great purpose. Undoubtedly this attitude was the basis of his
extraordinary fortitude and of the calmness with which he faced difficult
situations. There is admission by him, however, that at one time he was
very near indeed to death, this in the winter of 1873-74. It is noted
that nearly all of Hamblin's trips in the wild lands of Arizona were at
the direction of the Church authorities, for whom he acted as trail
finder, road marker, interpreter, missionary and messenger of peace to
the aborigines.
So it happened that it was upon Hamblin that Brigham Young placed
dependence in a very serious situation that came through the killing of
three Navajos, on the east fork of the Sevier River, a considerable
distance into south-central Utah. Four Navajos had come northward to
trade with the Ute. Caught by snow, they occupied a cabin belonging
to a non-Mormon named McCarty, incidentally killing one of his calves.
McCarty, Frank Starr and a number of associates descended upon the
Indians, of whom one, badly wounded, escaped across the river, taking
tidings to his tribesmen that the murder had been by Mormons. The Indian
was not subtle enough to distinguish between sects, and so there was a
call for bloody reprisals, directed against the southern Mormon
settlements. The Indian Agent at Defiance sent an investigating party
that included J. Lorenzo Hubbell.