Under instructions from the Church, Ammon M. Tenney returned to St. Johns
late in 1879 and, November 16, succeeded in effecting the purchase of the
Barth interests, including three claims at The Meadows. The purchase
price was 770 head of American cows, furnished by the Church, though 100
were loaned by W. J. Flake. The value of the livestock, estimated at
$19,000, in later years was donated by the Church toward the erection of
the St. Johns academy. Other land purchases later were made by arriving
members.
Tenney was the first head of the colony, which was started in December,
by the arrival of Jos. H. Watkins and Wm. F. James, missionaries sent
from Ogden, who came with their families. In December, Apostle Wilford
Woodruff, later President of the Church, held the first religious
meeting, this at the home of Donasiano Gurule, a New Mexican. The Church
authorities were active in their settlement plans and at a quarterly
Stake conference in Snowflake, March 27, 1880, 190 souls were reported
from the St. Johns branch.
A few days after the conference, Apostle Woodruff located a townsite one
and a half miles below the center of the present site. This location,
though surveyed and with a few houses, was abandoned the following
September, on recommendation of Apostles Erastus Snow and Francis M.
Lyman, for higher ground, west and north of the Mexican village. In the
summer of 1880 the settlement, named Salem, was given a postoffice, but
the Mormon postmaster appointed, Sixtus E. Johnson, failed to secure his
keys from a non-Mormon, E.S. Stover, incumbent at San Juan.
A notable arrival, October 9, 1890, was David K. Udall, called from Kane
County, Utah, to serve as bishop of St. Johns ward. With continuous
ecclesiastical service, he now is president of St. Johns Stake, elevated
in July, 1887.
Occupation of the new townsite started early in October, 1880, the
public square designated by President Jesse N. Smith on the 9th. Twenty
square-rod city lots were laid off in blocks 24 rods square, with streets
six rods wide. In the spring of 1881 the farming land was surveyed into
forty 40-acre blocks, these later subdivided. During the winter of 1881
was built a log schoolhouse, through private donations. The first teacher
was Mrs. Anna Romney. The first church was a "bowery" of greasewood.
That the years following hardly were ones of plenty is indicated by the
fact that in the spring of 1885 President John Taylor issued a tithing
office order for $1000 and $1187 more was collected in Utah stakes, to
aid the St. Johns settlers in the purchase of foodstuffs and seed grain.
A.F. Banta started a weekly newspaper, "The Pioneer Press," soon after
occupation of the townsite, this journal in January, 1883, bought by
Mormons and edited by M.P. Romney.