Page:History of Utah.djvu/369

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.



ham urged the people to buy up the Lamanite children as rapidly as possible, and educate thera in the gospel, for though they would fade away, yet a remnant of the ^-eed of Joseph would be saved.^*^

At Cedar City — or, as it was then called, Cedar Fort — seventeen miles to the south-west of Parowan, a furnace was built in 1852, but at the close of the year stood idle for lack of hands. ^^ Here, in May 1851, coal had been discovered near what was then known as the Little Muddy, now Coal Creek. In November of that year the site was occupied ^^ by a company from Parowan. The winter was passed amid some privation, mainly from lack of warm clothing; but on the 30th of January a dry-goods pedler making his appearance — probably the first who had ventured so far south into the land of the Utahs — the settlers were soon clad in comfort.^^ In October it was re- solved to move the settlement to a point farther to the west and south, and before the end of the year a number of iron-workers and farmers arrived from Salt Lake City.**'

In 1851 a party under Simeon A. Carter, sent to explore the country north of Ogden, founded a small settlement at Box Elder Creek.'*^ The soil was of the

'^Hisl. B. Young, ^MS., 1851, 46. On the same page is mentioned the first use in the country of the stone-coal at Parowan, used in blacksmith work.

^'George A. Smith, in Frontier Guardian, Aug. 8, 1851, and in Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1S52.

^^This valley had been explored as early as 1847. In December of that year, a party of the pioneers passed through it, as already mentioned, on their way to California to purchase live-stock and provisions.

^'Building progressed rapidly, and during the following summer one Burr Frost, a blacksmitia from Parowan, started the manufacture of iron, making nails enough to shoe a hovse. Deseret News, Nov. 27, 1852.

^'John Urie, in Utah Sketches, ^IS., 93-4. See also Deseret News, July 24, 1852. The scarcity of nails hindered building. Workmen were brough"; from England to manufacture them from native ore, but the experiment failed; as the work could not be done on a sufficiently large scale to make it profit- able, and it was abandoned. Years later, when the soldiers were ordered away from Camp Floyd, the settlers bought old iron cheap, and nails were manu- factured to advantage. The price in market then was 30 or 40 cts a lb.; afterward the railroad brought them in and they were sold at 3 to 5 cents a pound.

" About 60 miles north of Salt I.ake City. A. Christensen, in Utah Sketches, M