In the winter of 1855-6 we were instructed to build a fort for our protection. There were at that time on the Santa Clara, ten missionaries, and four stonemasons from Cedar City. We employed Indian help, and everything we put our hands to prospered, so that in less than ten days we built a fort one hundred feet square, of hammer-faced rock, the wall two feet thick and twelve feet high. It was afterwards said by President Young to be the best fort then in the Territory.
We invited the Indians to assist us to construct a strong, high dam to take the water out of the Santa Clara to a choice piece of land.
For this purpose they gathered into the settlement to the number of about thirty lodges, but rather reluctantly, for they believed that the Tonaquint, their name for the Santa Clara, would dry up the coming season, as there was but little snow in the mountains.
With much hard labor we completed our dam, and watered our crops once in the spring of 1856. The water then failed, and our growing crops began to wither.
The Indians then came to me and said, "You promised us water if we would help build a dam and plant corn. What about the promise, now the creek is dry? What will we do for something to eat next winter?"
The chief saw that I was troubled in my mind over the matter, and said, "We have one medicine man; I will send him to the great mountain to make rain medicine, and you do the best you can, and maybe the rain will come; but it will take strong medicine, as I never knew it to rain this moon." I went up the creek, and found it dry for twelve miles.
The following morning at daylight, I saw the smoke of the medicine man ascending from the side of the Big Mountain, as the Indians called what is now known as the Pine Valley Mountain.
Being among some Indians, I went aside by myself, and prayed to the God of Abraham to forgive me if I had been unwise in promising the Indians water for their crops if they would plant; and that the heavens might give rain, that we might not lose the influence we had over them.
It was a clear, cloudless morning, but, while still on my knees, heavy drops of rain fell on my back for about three seconds. I knew it to be a sign that my prayers were answered. I told the Indians that the rain would come. When I returned to the settlement, I told the brethren that we would have all the water we wanted.
The next morning, a gentle rain commenced falling. The water arose to its ordinary stage in the creek, and, what was unusual, it was clear. We watered our crops all that we wished, and both whites and Indians acknowledged the event to be a special providence.