The start was made November 1. By day all possible progress was made, the boat being kept in midstream and away from bushes, for fear of ambush by Indians. At night a place for camp would be selected in a secluded spot and a fire would be lighted only when safety seemed assured.
There was some delay in securing transportation eastward from Fort Yuma. Indians had been active along the stage route and had just waylaid a coach and killed its driver. Thus it came that the members from Pah-ute were six days late in their taking seats in the territorial assembly.
At the close of the legislative session, Gibbons journeyed home on horseback, for much of the way through districts infested by wild Indians of several tribes, a trip of at least 500 miles. Gass went to California before returning home. Such a return journey is not mentioned, however, in an interesting record, furnished the Author by A.V., Richard and Wm. H. Gibbons, sons of the pioneer.
Royal J. Cutler, on April 3, 1869, came again into official notice as clerk of the Probate and County Court of Rio Virgen County, which had been created out of the western part of Washington County, Utah, by the Utah Legislature. The first session of the court was at St. Joseph, with Joseph W. Young as magistrate. This county organization is not understood, even under the hypothesis that Utah claimed a sixty-mile strip of Nevada, for St. Joseph, on the Muddy, lies a considerable distance south of the extension of the southern Utah line, the 37th parallel.
A tax was levied of one-half of 1 per cent, this later increased to three-quarters of 1 per cent. Direct taxes in 1869 had been received of $156.19, and the amount transferred from Pah-ute County was $24.10, a total of $180.29, which hardly could be considered an onerous levy or fat treasury for the support of a political subdivision. The treasurer had on hand $28.55 in cash, $20 in flour and $12.45 in wheat.
Later Settlement in "The Point"
Bunkerville, settled January 6, 1877, was named for Edward Bunker, a member of the Mormon Battalion. Latterly to a degree it has become connected with Arizona through the fact that lands in its vicinity are to be irrigated from a reservoir to be established upon the Virgin within Arizona. January 24, 1877, there were visitors of notable sort, Capt. Daniel W. Jones and company, on their way to a location in the Salt River Valley of Arizona. Bunkerville had elaborate organization under the United Order, and it is agreed that the large amount of irrigation work accomplished hardly could have been done under any other plan. The organization lasted until the summer of 1879, it being found that some of the members, "through their economy and industry were gathering and, laying up in abundance, while others, through carelessness and bad management, were wasting the funds of the company, each year being increasing in debt." This was very unsatisfactory to those whose ambition was to assure at least the necessaries of life.
The Mesquite settlement, across the Virgin from Bunkerville, was established in 1880, but was abandoned a few years later, again to be settled in 1895, from Utah.
There was a returning of the Saints to the Muddy Valley early in 1881, the Patterson ranch, which included the town of Overton, being purchased by Mrs. Elizabeth Whitmore of St. George. Among the names of the settlers was at least one of Arizona association, that of Jesse W. Crosby. In 1892, when visited by Andrew Jenson, in the locality of the main four settlements of the older occupation were only a score of families.
Salt Mountains of the Virgin