Protection was afforded by buck or rip-gut fences from cliff to river at each end of the farms. These were made of short poles set in the ground and pointed in various directions so as to effectively prevent large animals from breaking through.
Hand plows pulled by horses or oxen were used for turning the soil. Harrows were fashioned of hewn timbers fastened together in a triangle. Sharpened pegs of oak were fixed in holes bored in the framework and turned downward so that they scratched the ground when pulled by a team. The first shovels were short-handled, but later they had what they called “lazy man’s shovels,” because the handles were longer and a man did not have to bend his back so much when working. The rakes were handmade of wood with sharp pegs for teeth. Scythe and cradle were seldom used since little hay or grain was raised.
It was about this time that the canyon received its name. The three settlers, hardy mountaineers though they were, nevertheless were of a devout and religious turn of mind. It seems to have been old father Behunin who proposed the name of Zion, to which the others agreed. Isaac Behunin had been with the Mormons ever since they left New York. He had helped build the Temple at Kirtland, Ohio, and had at one time acted as body-guard to the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith. He had been through all the “drivings of the Saints” in Missouri and Illinois and nourished the typically bitter resentment towards the “enemies” who had been responsible for such “atrocities.” Here in Zion he felt that at last he had reached a place of safety where he could rest assured of no more harryings and persecutions. No wonder he proposed the name Zion, which implies a resting place. He went even further, maintaining that should the Saints again be harassed by their enemies, this would become their place of refuge.
On one of Brigham Young’s visits to Springdale, probably in 1870, he was told of Zion. He inquired how it came to be so named. The explanation, it seems, was not satisfactory to the Mormon leader after a toilsome journey into the canyon and he questioned its propriety, saying that “it was not Zion.” Some of his more literal-minded followers thereafter called it “Not Zion.”
The first settlers made their way into the canyon on horseback, using the river bed, crossing and recrossing the stream. It soon became necessary, however, to provide other means of transportation. A wagon road was no problem through the flats in both the upper and lower valleys, but the precipitous canyon between was baffling. It is related[59] that Hyrum Morris, Shunesburg settler, and a companion were the first to enter the upper valley by means other than horseback. They hitched a yoke of oxen to the hind wheels of a wagon and lashed a plow and supplies on it. When they entered the canyon, near the present site of the bridge, they climbed the west bank over the sand bench, down into Birch Creek and thence into the upper Zion Valley. This did not prove to be a practicable route, and no one seems to have followed it. Today one can hardly traverse the route on foot.
The remains of an old cart road which followed the east bank, high up opposite the sand bench, coming out into the upper valley about half a mile above the present Union Pacific garage, may still be traced. This route was used for some years, but was far from satisfactory. Other settlers from the towns below began to cultivate tracts in the upper valley and the timber resources of the canyon made a better road imperative. During the winter of 1864-65, a wagon road[60] was built up the river bed, crossing the stream many times. This is the road which, with minor improvements, served as the main highway into Zion until the National Park Service built the road that first made it fully accessible to the public. This road in turn served until 1930, when the present well-graded highway was constructed midway between the river and the older road that it replaced.
It was while constructing this first wagon road on January 9, 1865, that George Ayers was killed. A short dugway was being graded on the slope above the river. With no blasting powder, the men were excavating a large boulder, and George Ayers and Orson Taylor had stopped to rest in the shade of the huge stone, rolling cigarettes. Suddenly it began to move. A shout of warning came from Samuel Wittwer and Heber Ayers. Taylor was able to scramble out of the way but Ayers was squarely in its path and it fell directly upon him, crushing and killing him instantly—the first victim of Zion Canyon.
Indian troubles, treated in a later chapter, broke out in the spring of 1866. Martial law was declared and instructions were issued from the military headquarters for the settlers to concentrate in towns of at least 150 families. It was at first decided to gather all the settlers of the Upper Virgin River at Rockville and Toquerville, and later, at Virgin. James Jepson[61] recalls that his father had just moved his cabin from Virgin to Rockville when the revised decision reached him and he moved back to Virgin again. This was the fifth time the cabin had been moved and his father dryly remarked that it was so used to the process now that all he had to do was throw the logs into the yard and they would fit themselves together.
This concentration order meant the abandonment of all smaller places: Duncan, Grafton, Northrop, Shunesburg, Springdale and Zion. Those who could not buy or rent a house simply dumped their belongings in the shade and set up housekeeping under the trees. Some moved their log houses with them, others made dugouts and still others built new log houses.
Although the outlying towns had been abandoned, the crops had been planted and had to be tended. Workers went in armed groups of ten, twenty, or thirty to the fields, usually remaining during the week in the more distant places and returning to Rockville on Sunday. In Zion, headquarters were at the Behunin cabin, where eight or ten men usually camped while working the crops. In Springdale, they usually stayed at Albert Petty’s home or nearby. Petty himself refused to abandon his ranch and stayed there throughout the Indian scare.