Moccasin Springs, a few miles south of the Utah line and eighteen miles
by road southwest of Kanab, has had no large population at any time, save
that about 100 Indians were in the vicinity in 1900. The place got its
name from moccasin tracks in the sand. The site was occupied some time
before 1864 by Wm. B. Maxwell, but was vacated in 1866 on account of
Indian troubles. In the spring of 1870, Levi Stewart and others stopped
there for a while, with a considerable company, breaking land, but moved
on to found Kanab, north of the line. This same company also made some
improvements around Pipe Springs. About a year later, a company under
Lewis Allen, mainly from the Muddy, located temporarily at Pipe Springs
and Moccasin. To some extent there was a claim upon the two localities
by the United Order or certain of its members. The place for years was
mainly a missionary settlement, but it was told that "even when the
brethren would plow and plant for them, the Indians were actually too
lazy to attend to the growing crops."
That the climate of Moccasin favors growth of sturdy manhood is indicated
by the history of one of its families, that of Jonathan Heaton. At hand
is a photograph taken in 1905, of Heaton and his fifteen sons. Two of the
sons died in accidents within the past two years, but the others all grew
to manhood, and all were registered for the draft in the late war. With
the photograph is a record that, of the whole family, not one individual
has tasted tea, coffee, tobacco or liquor of any kind.