nd an abundance
of cedar at hand. At the Sevier River they met Charles Shumway, James Allred, and Elijah Ward; also Walker, the Utah war chief, and his people, many of whom were sick with the measles. They proceeded to explore the country for some distance round. On the 1st of January, 1850, they were on Virgen River, whence they passed up the Santa Clara, and came to "the valley subsequently named Mountain Meadows." One division of the party explored Little Salt Lake. Beaver Creek was pronounced an excellent place for a settlement. In a half-frozen condition they reached Provo the 30th, and next day some of them were in Salt Lake.
The report of Parley being favorable, a party of about one hundred and seventy persons, well supplied with wagons, implements, live-stock, seeds, and provisions, 33 set forth, in charge of George A. Smith, on the 7th of December, 1850, toward the south; and on Centre Creek, in a valley of the Wasatch Range, about two hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake City, built a fort near the site of the present town of Parowan. 34 Pasture and timber were plentiful, the soil was of good quality, and in the season of 1851 a bountiful harvest was gathered from about one thousand acres of land. 35 The main attraction, however, was the immense deposits of magnetic iron ore found in the neighboring mountains. In May, Brigham and others visited Parowan and addressed the people in the fort. The Indian name Parowan was then recommended and adopted. Brigham
urged the people to buy up the Lamanite children as rapidly as possible, and educate them in the gospel, for though they would fade away, yet a remnant of the seed of Joseph would be saved. 36
At Cedar City—or, as it was then called, Cedar Fort—seventeen miles to the south-west of Parowan, a furnace was built in 1852, but at the close of the year stood idle for lack of hands. 37 Here, in May 1851, coal had been discovered near what was then known as the Little Muddy, now Coal Creek. In November of that year the site was occupied 38 by a company from Parowan. The winter was passed amid some privation, mainly from lack of warm clothing; but on the 30th of January a dry-goods pedler making his appearance—probably the first who had ventured so far south into the land of the Utahs—the settlers were soon clad in comfort. 39 In October it was resolved to move the settlement to a point farther to the west and south, and before the end of the year a number of iron-workers and farmers arrived from Salt Lake City. 40
In 1851 a party under Simeon A. Carter, sent to explore the country north of Ogden, founded a small settlement at Box Elder Creek. 41 The soil was of the
poorest, but near by were a few spots of meadow and farm land, on which, with irrigation, a fair crop could be raised. A number of emigrants, principally Welsh and Scandinavian, joined the party, and two years later a new site was surveyed 42 under the direction of Lorenzo Snow. To the town then laid out was afterward given the name of Brigham City.
A few weeks later a small settlement was formed about five miles south of this point, and in 1853 was removed to the present site of Willard City. 43
On Red Creek, about twenty miles north of Cedar City, a small settlement was formed in the autumn of 1852, named Paragoonah, the Pi-Ede name for Little Salt Lake. 44 Six miles south of Cedar City, Fort Walker was built, containing at the close of 1851 only nine men capable of bearing arms; and on Ash Creek, nineteen miles farther south, was Fort Harmony, the southernmost point in the valley occupied by white men, 45 and where John D. Lee located a rancho in 1852.
Thus we see that within less than two years after the founding of Salt Lake City, the population there had become larger than could be supported in comfort on the city lots and the lands in their vicinity, and it had been found necessary to form new settlements toward the north and south, the latter part of the territory being preferred, as water, pasture, and land fit for tillage were more abundant. Instead of merely adding suburb to suburb, all clusteri