The Indians then blockaded the trail to the Moquis towns, forcing the Mormons to retreat, who placed the dying man on a mule and started homeward with the Navajos in hot pursuit. Traveling thus, it was nearly dark before Smith died. His body had to be abandoned as the Navajos seemed unwilling to give up the chase until they had taken his scalp. The balance of the party returned home safely.
Reporting the loss of George A. Smith, Jr., was a sorrowful duty for Hamblin. The young man’s father was deeply shocked, but like a good Saint, consoled himself with the thought that the Lord wished his son taken that way. Brigham Young sent instructions for a company of twenty men to retrieve the remains. Despite the hardships of mid-winter, they gathered up the few bones that were left of Smith’s body and returned with them for interment.
Several other trips to the Moquis by different routes resulted in detailed knowledge of northern Arizona and southern Utah. Crossings of the Colorado were explored thoroughly and ferries were established at the south of the Virgin, at the mouth of the Grand Wash (1862) and at the foot of Grand Wash Cliffs about five miles upstream (Pearce’s Ferry, 1863). These supplemented the old Ute ford in Glen Canyon. Further exploration did not reveal a more direct route until 1869, when the crossing later known as Lee’s Ferry was discovered. These routes were so well explored that no better ones have been discovered since.
Stockmen began to graze their herds of cattle and sheep on the plains of the Arizona strip. Some time prior to 1863, W. B. Maxwell established a ranch at Short Creek; not long after, James M. Whitmore located ranches at Pipe Springs and Moccasin, and Ezra Strong of Rockville settled on Kanab Creek. In the spring of 1864, several ranches were established in the mountains and two settlements were started, one at the present site of Kanab, where a small fort was built, and another housing eight families at Berryville (later Glendale) in the north end of Long Valley. In the fall, Priddy Meeks located in the south end of the valley. He was joined the next spring (1865) by several settlers[69] from the Virgin River, who brought livestock for the range and nursery stock for orchards. The new settlement was called Winsor (later Mt. Carmel).
In the autumn, with indications of an impending rift between whites and Indians, the Winsor settlers moved to Berryville and helped build a stockade for protection during the winter. In the spring they returned and planted crops, but during the summer settlement was again interrupted by Indian difficulties and had to be abandoned.
Indian Troubles
The period following early settlement was marked by Indian troubles with both Paiutes and Navajos. These are sometimes called the Navajo raids, and in part were an outgrowth of the “Black Hawk War” which broke out in Sevier Valley, central Utah, in 1865. The whites had brought with them their livestock, which they grazed upon the public domain, turning the cattle and horses loose and herding the sheep. These animals multiplied rapidly and quickly depleted the edible fruits and seeds upon which the Indians subsisted. Indian resentment not unnaturally was inflamed, and with starvation staring them in the face, there was little left for them to do but beg or steal.
The Indians had claimed the lands, the vegetation and the wild game, and although they had given the first white men permission to come, yet so many others had followed, like the proverbial camel’s nose, that they were destroying the means of subsistence of the Indians. Not only were seeds and fruits being eaten by the livestock, but game also was getting scarce and hard to find, due largely to encroachment of cattle and sheep which were taking the place of deer upon the range. The white man hunted the Indians’ deer so why should not the Indian hunt the white man’s cattle? There was some compensation to the Indians, however; they could glean in the grain fields of the settlers and gather waste grain as easily as they could seeds, and pine nut crops were uninjured by the whites.
Gradually, friendly feelings of the Indians for the settlers began to deteriorate. Begging in the settlements and the depredations on the range increased. The Paiutes in some instances aided and abetted the raiding Navajos, but the majority sided with the whites. The Navajos were wont to cross the Colorado, scatter into small bands, make swift raids on the Mormon settlements, gather up horses, cattle and sheep, and flee back across the river before they could be overtaken.
From the beginning a military force had been held in readiness against any emergency. As the southern Utah settlements expanded, improvements in this organization became advisable. In May, 1864, the Iron Military District was recast to include Beaver, Iron, Washington and Kane counties and William H. Dame of Parowan was named adjutant. Nearly all the eligible men were enrolled and companies of fifty were organized in towns wherever that many were available. Companies consisted of five platoons of ten men each, the first platoon of each company often being cavalry, the balance infantry. Three companies made a battalion and about seven battalions made a brigade. The men were occasionally called together for inspection and drill and sometimes these included battalion or brigade reviews. Training was emphasized during the Indian troubles between 1865 and 1869. On February 17, 1866, Erastus Snow, the Mormon leader at St. George, was elected Brigadier General and brigade headquarters were transferred from Parowan to St. George.