History of Utah, 1540-1886, by Hubert Howe Bancroft, , at sacred-texts.com
Founding of Centreville—Bountiful—Ogden—Lynne—Easton—Marriotsville—San Pete—Provo—Indian War—Walled Cities—Evansville—Lehi—Battle Creek—Pleasant Grove—American Fork—Payson—Nephi—Manti—Chief Walker—Fillmore—Site Chosen for the Capital—Tooele—Grantsville—Kaysville—Little Salt Lake—Parowan—Cedar City—Paragoonah—Forts Walker and Harmony—Box Elder Creek—Brigham City—Willard City—San Bernardino in California.
In the autumn of 1847 one Thomas Grover arrived with his family on the bank of a stream twelve miles north of Salt Lake City, and now called Centreville Creek. His intention was to pasture stock for the winter; and for this purpose a spot was chosen where the stream spreading over the surface forms plats of meadow-land, the soil being a black, gravelly loam. Here Grover, joined by others in the spring, resolved to remain, though in the neighborhood were encamped several bands of Indians, and this notwithstanding that as yet there was no white settlement north of Salt Lake City. Land was ploughed and sown in wheat and vegetables, the crops being more promising than those to the south. But in May of the following year the settlers were startled, not by the war-whoop of the Utahs, but by hordes of black monster crickets, swarming down from the bench-lands, as at Salt Lake City, and bringing destruction on field and garden. They turned out to do battle with the foe; ditches were dug around the grain-fields, and the
water of the stream diverted into them, while men, women, and children, armed with clubs, checked the advance of the devouring host. Enough of the crop was saved to supply the wants of the settlers, and their energy, on this occasion, coupled with a supposed
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SETTLEMENTS AT THE END OF 1852.
miraculous visitation of gulls, probably saved a foretaste of the disaster of 1848. 1
A site for a town was
surveyed in the autumn of 1849, and the place was named Centreville.
Near Centreville, in what was afterward Davis county, a settlement was begun in the spring of 1848 by Peregrine Sessions, the place being called Bountiful. 2
As early as 1841 the country round where the city of Ogden was laid out was held as a Spanish grant by Miles M. Goodyear, who built a fort, consisting of a stockade and a few log houses, near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers. 3 On the 6th of June, 1848, James Brown, of the battalion, coming from California with $5,000, mostly in gold-dust, purchased the tract from Goodyear. 4 As it was one of the most fertile spots in all that region, grain and vegetables being raised in abundance, not only numbers of the brethren from Salt Lake City, but after a while gentiles from the western states, settled there. In August 1850 Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, and others laid out the city of Ogden, so called from the name of the river. 5 The
president urged the people to move at once to their city lots, and to build for themselves substantial dwellings, a meeting-house, and a school-house, to fence their gardens and plant fruit-trees, so that the place might become a permanent settlement, and the headquarters of the northern portion of the territory. Before the end of the year a log structure was finished, which served for school and meeting house, and soon afterward the settlers commenced to build a wall for protection against the Indians, completing it about three years later at a cost of some $40,000. 6 So rapid was the growth of the town, that in 1851 it was made a stake of Zion, 7 divided into wards, and incorporated by act of legislature. 8
In 1848 Isaac Morley and two hundred others settled in the southern part of the valley of the San Pete 9—particulars to be mentioned hereafter.
In the spring of 1849 a stockade was built and log houses erected by the pioneer settlers of Utah county, numbering about thirty families, 10 near the Timpanogos or Provo River, and below the point where a small creek issuing from it discharges into Lake Utah. To
this settlement was given the name of Fort Utah. Withi