Additional Information
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Just For Kids!
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Compiled by William W. Terry
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The earliest Indians to utilize to any extent the limited food resources of the Weber County area entered the region about 500 to 600 years ago. The Shoshones did not plant crops such as corn, etc. They gathered the edible foods when they became available each growing season. They lived off the land. They gathered the foods for immediate consumption and for winter storage. The plants they gathered were sometimes great distances apart.
During the winter months, the Shoshones would gather together in groups, sometimes as many as a thousand. As the winter snows melted, small roving bands scattered in all directions in search of different types of edible plants, berries, fruits, roots, tubers, nuts, etc.
Because the localities where different foods grew were scattered some distances apart, a well defined network of trails came into existence. These trails were indelibly marked on mountain slopes, through the valleys, and across the level lands. They invariable led to the only practical passes through the mountains and to the best places to cross the streams.
We suggest that you visit the Indian Trails Monument on the summit of North Ogden Canyon to learn more about these trails and their use by trappers, mountain men, and settlers.
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Jim Bridger
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The first white man trappers to enter the region of the Great Basin arrived in 1824. John Henry Weber led the first party of American trappers who crossed the Continental Divide. They were trappers for William Henry Ashley and Andrew Henry. The Weber party ascended the Yellowstone River from its junction with the Missouri in eastern Montana in early 1823. By a circuitous route the party had reached Cache Valley by the summer of 1824. During that summer, Jim Bridger, a member of the Weber party, discovered the Salt Lake. Later that fall, Weber led his party of trappers to the river which now bears his name. The saga of John Henry Weber, explorer, trapper, adventurer, is found in a booklet by William W. Terry.
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The second party of white man trappers to enter the region came under the leadership of Peter Skene Ogden. In 1825 the Ogden brigade of the Hudson Bay Company entered what is now called Ogden Valley. They had traveled over a well-worn Indian trail out of Cache Valley. William Kittson, chronicler for the Ogden brigade, described the valley as they crossed it from north to south, "made seven miles south and two southeast along the border of a new river and put up. We are now in a hole as I may say, as the place is surrounded by lofty mountains and hills...the hole in circumference is in oblong shape."
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Peter Skene Ogden
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The Ogden party left "New Hole", as Ogden called it, going over a well defined Indian trail southward. Here is Ogden's account. "Taking a course over a rugged trail and making about four miles, we fell on a small branch running north and south." The small branch led them to present day Mountain Green on the Weber River where a suitable monument has been erected which tells of the Ogden brigade's encounter with a detachment of the Weber trapping party.
The Ogden brigade looped back over the trail which they had entered to Morgan Valley. Many free trappers later followed the same route and returned by looping back. Trapper's Loop is well named.
Many free trappers and skin trappers visited the area of Weber County. Skin trappers were grub-staked by companies or individuals.
The site of Weber County, west of the mountains, was chosen year after year by trappers and Indians as a place to stay during winter because the climate was milder than that in Cache Valley or on the Green River. The area along the Weber River and Ogden's Fork afforded grass and other edibles for the horses and edible plants for men along with the wild meat.
In 1840 Osbourne Russell with some mountain men and Indians held the first recorded Christmas feast in Utah. The menu included stewed elk, stewed venison, dried fruit pudding, a sauce of sour berries sweetened by a bit of sugar, and some strong coffee.
When felt hats made from beaver hair were no longer in vogue, the great demand for beaver pelts was over. Beginning about 1835 the mountain men began to leave the scene.
Let us now look at a Connecticut Yankee, not in King Arthur's court but in the Rocky Mountains. Miles Goodyear, born in 1817, was orphaned before he was four. During the following 12 years, he was "bound out" first to relatives and then to Squire Peck. During that time, he experienced the harsh and sometimes brutal treatment experience by such unfortunate individuals. Upon the "expirations" of this servitude, young Miles set out for the western frontier.
Goodyear arrived at Fort Hall in Idaho in 1836, having journeyed west with the Marcus Whitman Company of missionaries on their way to the Oregon Territory. For the next six years, Goodyear used Fort Hall as his home base as he traveled from Yellowstone to central Utah.
In 1842 Miles wrote a letter to his brother back east. From this we quote, "I have for the last six years been in the Rocky Mountains, far from the land of civilization. To use the words of the poet 'free as the native air'...tell my friends and associates in youth.
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Miles Goodyear's Cabin
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In 1845 Miles Goodyear, with others, built for himself, his wife, and two children a log cabin on the Weber River upstream from its confluence with Ogden's Fork. The Goodyear cabin can be seen to the rear of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum of Temple Square in Ogden.
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In 1843 John C. Fremont visited the area on the Weber River and rowed out onto an island in the Great Salt Lake, which island now bears his name. Fremont wrote an excellent account about his observations in the area, whose journal was carefully read by Brigham Young and the Council of the Mormon Church.
July 24, 1947 the first company of Mormon pioneers entered Great Salt Lake Valley. Four months later, James Brown, under instructions from the Church Council, purchased Fort Buenaventura along with all the land west of the mountains to the lake and from Weber to Ben Lomond Peak, plus 75 cattle, 75 goats, and 12 sheep for $1,950.00.
In 1848 James Brown and several families arrived at the Fort traveling over an Indian trail. Grown was an ideal man to direct the founding of the new settlement. He know how to plow and plant previously unplowed ground; he knew ow to build log cabins and dug-out shelters. Results: the first year's harvest was very successful.
All the grain grown in the community the first two years, 1848 and 1849, was either ground in hand mills or hauled to Salt Lake City to a gristmill.
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In January 1850 Lorin Farr arrived in Brownsville, as it was called. Lorin Farr had learned in his youth in Vermont the operations of gristmills. Mr. Farr brought with him some irons to make such a mill. Lorin Farr did not stop at the Fort where James Brown and others were well settled, but went north of Ogden's Fork to the home of his father-in-law, Ezra Chase, who had arrived in Brownsville in late 1848.
Lorin Farr selected a spot northeast of the Chase farm for the location of a sawmill and gristmill. He first built the sawmill to cut lumber for building the other mill. This sawmill-gristmill was the beginning of industry in the community of the Weber River. They were the earliest example of employment as a full-time occupation.
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Lorin Farr
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Toward the fall season of 1850 Brigham Young visited the growing community at which time he suggested that the county be named Weber and the city Ogden. These two names were the oldest Euro-American named places in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake-Weber River and Ogden's Fork as it was then called.
January 26, 1851 the Territorial Legislature named six counties in what was to become the State of Utah: Salt Lake, Weber, Tooele, Utah, San Pete and Little Salt Lake (now Iron). This action was made official January 31, 1851 by Brigham Young's signature. February 6, 1851 Ogden City was chartered by the legislature.
April 24, 1952 the legislature created a "County Court" with a judge and three members, which were called "Selectmen" to run the county affairs. The county courts managed the business concerns of each county until statehood in 1896.
The 850's were a period of population growth in Weber County as more and more settlers came north from Salt Lake City.
Beginning almost immediately after the first group of families arrived at Fort Buenaventura with James Brown in 1848, expansion commenced. The initial expansion was southeast up the small creek which was later named Canfield Creek.
About the same time, other newcomers went up the Weber River to find places where the larger stream could be easily diverted onto level lands nearby. Before long gardens and farms were scattered all the way to Weber Canyon. They became known as Stringtown.
The expansion north of the Ogden River also followed the available water for irrigation. By 1850 a few families had gone northwest and settled of Four Mile Creek (now Harrisville). It was there in late summer of 1850 that an unfortunate incident occurred. Urban Stewart shot Chief Terikee in his corn patch. He though that the Indian was stealing corn when in reality he was searching for his strayed horse.
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This incident led to the construction of the first of nine forts built by the Mormon settlers in the county beginning in 1850 with Farr's Fort. The Shoshone Indians were friendly people and not one of the nine forts was ever attacked by them, even after the shooting of one of their chiefs, thanks to the pacifying efforts of Lorin Farr.
Other settlers went north to the present-day North Ogden, Garner Creek and Cold Water Creek. That community eventually expanded to Pleasant View.
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The water that furnished power for the Farr mills was permitted to find its way westward. It became known as Mill Creek. Water was diverted from Mill Creek to furnish irrigation for Slaterville and part of Marriott.
Ditches and canals were diverted from the Ogden and Weber Rivers until all the fertile lands westward to the lake were under cultivation.
Besides the annual crops such as potatoes, grain, etc. nearly all the settlers planted some kind of fruit trees to provide another dimension of their diet of milk products, vegetables and meat.
Industry had its growth. Eventually there were 11 gristmills in Weber County. One of them, built in 1853 by Daniel Burch, became the longest running flour mill in the state. It closed its doors as the All-O-Wheat Mill in 1985.
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For further information on agriculture and industry, it is suggested that you consider the following two sources:
Ogden-Junction City by Drs. Roberts and Sadler of Weber State University and Weber County is Worth Knowing by William W. Terry, a local history buff.
Ogden/Weber Chamber 2484 Washington Blvd., Ste 400 Ogden, UT 84041 Ph: (801)621-8300
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