Continual trouble was known with the Indians, though, after a few years, was written, "many of the Indians are being taught to labor and are learning better things than to rob and murder."
When the first agricultural settlers came, they were visited by To-ish-obe, principal chief of the Muddy Indians, and a party of other redskins, who transmitted information that had been sent them to the effect that President Erastus Snow had planned to poison the Muddy and kill off all the Indians. The chief was disabused of the idea.
The same chief appears to have been decent enough. In February, 1866, there is record how he had declared outlaws two Indians who had stolen horses and cattle. One of these Indians, Co-quap, was taken prisoner and was killed at St. Thomas. About the same time, Indians on the Muddy, above Simonsville (a grist mill site), stole wheat from about thirty acres and left for the mountains, threatening the Muddy settlers. Within a month, 32 head of horses, mules and cattle were driven off by Indians, from St. Joseph and Simonsville. An expedition of 25 men started after the marauders, but failed to recapture the stock.
Andrew S. Gibbons (who had come in 1864), sought To-ish-obe on the upper Muddy, to interpret and make peace, if possible. In June at St. Joseph was a conference between Erastus Snow and a group of the leading Indians, representing the Santa Clara, Muddy, Colorado and other bands, in all seven chiefs and 64 of their men. The conference was an agreeable one and it was felt that some good had been done.
[Illustration: A STREET IN FREDONIA]
[Illustration: WALPI-ONE OF THE HOPI (MOQUI) VILLAGES]
[Illustration: WARREN M. JOHNSON'S HOUSE AT PARIA FERRY]
[Illustration: CROSSING THE COLORADO AT THE PARIA FERRY]
There was more trouble with the Indians in February, 1868, when the tribesmen on the upper Muddy, where a new settlement had been formed, came to the camp in anger, with blackened faces, armed with bows and arrows, to demand pay for grain lands that had been occupied by the whites. Gibbons acted as peacemaker, but told, "the fact that the brethren were all well armed appeared to pacify the Indians more than any arguments." The farmers formed in battle line, with Helaman Pratt as captain, Gibbons in front, interpreting.
The Indians of the region, mainly Paiutes, were a never-ending source of irritation and of potential danger to the settlers. They had grown fields of a few acres along the Muddy and hence resented the coming of the settlers who might include the aboriginal farms within their holdings. In accordance with the traditional policy of the Church, however, conciliation was used wherever possible, though the settlers sometimes, when goaded to the last extremity, had to exhibit firearms and make a show of force.