One day, as I passed Uncle Brigham's office, he called to me, then came out and walked with me to Brother Wells' corner. We sat down on a pile of lumber, and I told him my plans. He counseled me not to go to California, to let the law alone, to find a good girl, get married, and make me a home.
During the winter I attended a school taught by Sister Eleanor Pratt, and here became acquainted with Miss S. E. Carmichael, one of Utah's most gifted daughters.
On January 1, 1859, I married Albina Terry, eldest daughter of William Reynolds and Mary Phillips Terry. During the summer following, I worked as a farm hand for my brother-in-law, Joseph G. Brown. On November 12, 1859, I moved to Payson and bought a home of David Crockett, paying for it during the winter by hauling tithing wheat from Sanpete valley to Salt Lake City.
November 16, 1859, my eldest son, John Terry, was born. The mother came near dying with hemorrhage at the nose, but Elders Levi W. Hancock and William McBride laid hands on her, and she was instantly healed.
In the spring of 1861, I was called, with ten other families of Payson, to help settle the Uinta country. I sold my home, bought two good teams, and loaded up my things; then going to Salt Lake City, I reported to President Young for specific instructions. After a long talk, in which he seemed pleased with my labors, he told me the Indians had become hostile, and he should release those who had been called. He advised that I return to Payson and buy another home. I did so, trading my teams for a house and lot and ten acres of farm land.
I also rented a ranch, with twenty cows and a flock of sheep, for three years, of James McClellan. During the summer I picked up sixty calves, to be kept on halves. I also married as second wife. Miss Lydia Knight, daughter of Newell Knight, a life long trusted friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Everything that I touched seemed to prosper, and I was happy—but the "best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." In the fall, I was called, in connection with my Brother Franklin W., who at that time was bishop of Payson, to go to Dixie.
I purchased two yoke of oxen and a big wagon. My Brother Franklin W. accompanied me as far as Toquer, where we parted. I going to the Santa Clara, I bought an Indian farm situated on the creek just below the Old Mission fort. I worked hard during days, fencing with timber that grew on the place. The long evenings I spent in grubbing the heavy sage and squaw brush that covered a great portion of the farm. My wives, Albina, and Lydia, would pile the brush, and keep up fires so that I could see to work. We were ambitious to make a good home; and the only capital we had was health, strong-arms, and resolute will.
Just as I had completed the fence, and had several acres ready for plowing, the Big Flood came like a thief in the night. The wall of water, which was ten to fifteen feet high, struck the west side of the fort, a rock structure two hundred feet square, in which several families were living. The solid wall stood as a dam, causing the stream to divide the greater part following the creek channel to the south, but a sheet of water four or five feet deep spewing over the creek bank, and running along the fort wall until it came to the north side, where it swept through the gate like a mill race, flooding the inside of the fort to a man's armpits.
Such were the conditions when the inmates of the fort were awakened to their peril. The alarm was given to those living outside of the fort; and soon all the men, and some of the women, were gathered at the point of danger. The first care was to rescue the women and children.