The pioneer party then made close investigation of the valley, traveling up the Gila into New Mexico, and viewed the country around Clifton and along the Blue and Black Rivers. The whole trip took about a month.
The report was, "that the country looked good for stock raising and farming." On March 16, at Moses Cluff's camp, the proposed migration was approved by Stake President Jesse N. Smith, who appointed Jos. K. Rogers to lead it. In the first company were Rogers, Teeples, Weech, Henry D. Dall, William Thompson and the families of all except Weech and Dall. To these were added John and Thomas Sessions and Earlton Haws, making 28 in all. Arrival was on April 8, 1879. The Cluffs (three families) came very soon after the first party. In a later migration came Samuel Curtis, Heber Reed, Edgar Sessions and William Asay.
E.G. Curtis, one of the earliest of the settlers, told that in passing Fort Thomas in March, "the country is found entirely covered with poppies, one of the most beautiful sights I ever expect to see. The grass was high and when the wind would blow it down in great waves, you could see great bunches of antelope."
A Second Party Locates at Graham
In the Church history of Graham Ward is found additional data concerning the early Gila Valley settlement. It is told that, "the settlers of Brigham City on the Little Colorado, getting discouraged because of frequent failures of crops and poor prospects, sent explorers out to look for new locations. Two went to the San Juan country in Utah, two to the Salt River Valley and three, George Lake, Andrew Anderson and George Skinner, to the Gila River." The journey was via Fort Apache, the arrival at Smithville being in the latter part of November, 1880. At the Graham settlement there was purchase of a water ditch and a quit-claim deed to four quarter-sections of land that had been farmed by non-Mormons. The record recites, "it was merely a rustlers' ranch, possessed by horsethieves and speculators who had a small house on it, for which the brethren paid about $1800, in cows valued at $35 per head."
Lake remained in the valley. Anderson and Skinner returned in December to Brigham City, where the authorities of the United Order accepted the purchase. Anderson and Skinner started again for the Gila, accompanied by their families, by Moses M. Curtis and William Hawkins and their families and a number of unmarried men, taking with them seed grain, farming implements, cows, sheep and other animals. Transportation was by ox teams. Christmas Day was spent at St. Joseph on the Little Colorado and New Year at Showlow, arrival on the Gila being in January. Lake, in the meantime, had been joined by Jorgen Jorgensen and Jerome J. Adams, the two who had been sent to the Salt River Valley.
The new arrivals at once set at work, clearing their lands and putting in grain, raising good crops. The manual labor, of the hardest sort, was performed under the conditions of the United Order and on a diet principally of bread and beans. The sheep band was turned over to the Church, as profits of the Order, and the wheat and other products were divided according to the number of families and the number of persons. A stockade fort was built, but the homes for months consisted of sheds or tents and even of the wagons. In 1884, on the newly-surveyed townsite of Graham, was built a meeting house, called the "factory house," with mesquite posts and dirt roof and with walls only of heavy unbleached muslin, which appears to have been called "factory."
One of the early settlements of the Gila Valley is Matthews (successively Matthewsville, Fairview and Glenbar), founded in December, 1880, by Joseph Matthews and family, from Round Valley, and Wm. R. Waddill. In 1881 they built a stockade and though no local Indian depredations were known, in that year the Matthews settlers moved to Pima for better protection. A townsite was selected by the Stake President September 17, 1886, but was not occupied. A resident of note was the first district school teacher, John F. Nash, who came with his father to Arizona in 1874, first settling in Williamson Valley near Prescott. He arrived in the valley in 1881, the progress of the family toward Texas stopped on the Gila by the stealing of a band of Nash horses by "rustlers."
Vicissitudes of Pioneering
Eden, first known as Curtis, lies on the northern side of the Gila, nine miles northwest of Pima. It dates from early in 1881, when there was arrival from Brigham City, Arizona, of a party of United Order settlers, headed by Moses M. Curtis. Though other immigrants occupied holdings nearby, M.M. Curtis and Wm. R. Hawkins were the only residents of the present Eden townsite in 1881. The men first turned their attention toward the construction of a ditch from the river, this completed the following year. For a while the young community was on very short rations. At times there could be only one meal a day, that a meager one of beans, served at noon to the workers, who scarcely could summon strength for more than a half day's labor.