Tempe, eight miles east of Phoenix on Salt River, was first known as
Hayden's Ferry. Its founder was Chas. Trumbull Hayden, a pioneer merchant
who early saw the possibilities of development within the Salt River
Valley and who built a flour mill that still is known by his name.
Arizona's Congressman, Carl Hayden, is a son of the pioneer merchant,
miller and ferryman. The name of Tempe (from a valley of ancient Greece)
is credited to Darrell Duppa, a cultured Englishman, who is also
understood to have named Phoenix. It was applied to Hayden's Ferry and
also to a Mexican settlement, something over a half-mile distant, locally
known as San Pablo.
Hayden welcomed the advent of the Mormons, led to the country by Daniel
W. Jones in 1877, and befriended those who followed, thus materially
assisting in the upbuilding of the Lehi and Mesa settlements.
Tempe, as a Mormon settlement, started July 23, 1882, in the purchase by
Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Jos. E. Johnson and relatives, from Hayden, of
eighty acres of land that lay between the ferry and the Mexican town. For
this tract there was paid $3000. The Johnson party left Spring Lake,
Utah, in April and traveled via Lee's Ferry. There was survey of the
property into lots and blocks, and the Johnsons at once started upon the
building of homes. There was included also a small cooperative store. The
foundation was laid for a meeting house, but religious services usually
were held in a bowery or in the district schoolhouse that had been built
before the Saints came.
In the fall of 1882 there arrived a number of families, most of them
Johnsons or relatives. When the Maricopa Stake was organized December 10,
1882, David T. LeBaron was presiding at Tempe. June 15, 1884, Tempe was
organized as a ward, successively headed by Samuel Openshaw and Jas. F.
Johnson.
In August, 1887, most of Tempe's Mormon residents moved to Nephi, west of
Mesa, mainly upon land acquired by Benj. F. Johnson, the settlement
popularly known as Johnsonville. The departure hinged upon the building
of a branch railroad of the Southern Pacific from Maricopa, through
Tempe, to Phoenix. An offer was made by a newly-organized corporation for
the land that had been taken by the Johnsons, who sold on terms then
considered advantageous. Upon this land now is located a large part of
the prosperous town of Tempe, within which is a considerable scattering
of Mormon families, though without local organization.
Patriarch B.F. Johnson died in Mesa, November 18, 1905, at the age of 87.
At that time it was told that his descendants and those married into the
family numbered 1500, probably constituting the largest family within the
Church membership.