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150-year-old picture of Utah Valley

"FORT UTAH ON THE TIMPANOGAS — VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE."  Lithographed illustration plate taken from Howard Stansbury's Expedition to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah (Philadelphia, 1852; image lithographed by "Ackerman" on Broadway, New York City).

 

The image measures 11½ X 19½ cm. (4½ X 75/8 inches). Complete leaf is 14 X 22.7 cm. A nice, clean illustration lithographed on fine paper, verso blank. This would make an ideal framed piece in a Utah Valley home.

postpaid:  $90

 

AN ADMIRABLE, QUIET SCENE from the first winter (1849-50) spent by Mormon colonists near what would become Provo, Utah, likely drawn by a well-chilled artist! Ducks cavort in the stream, untroubled by a man with oxen or the cannon looming nearby. I do not know what may have been the first published view of this area, but the striking 1852 plate offered here must be an early contender. It served as the frontispiece to Stansbury's book, and should not be confused with the similar view entitled, "Fort Utah - Valley of the Great Salt Lake."

Hubert Howe BANCROFT provides interesting background for this very scene:

  In the spring of 1849 a stockade was built and log houses erected by the pioneer settlers of Utah county, numbering about thirty families, 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. Within the space enclosed by the stockade was a mound, the top of which was levelled, and on a platform built thereon were mounted several twelve-pounders [cannons] for the purpose of intimidating the Indians. But the Indians were not to be thus intimidated. In the autumn they began to steal the grain and cattle of the white men, and one of their number being killed while in the act of pilfering, hostilities broke out and the fort was soon in a state of siege.
. . . . .

  On the 31st of January, 1850, Isaac Higbee, of Fort Utah, reported at Salt Lake that the Indians of Utah Valley had stolen fifty or sixty head of cattle or horses, threatening further depredations, and asked permission to chastise them, which was granted. . . . The Indians were attacked on the 8th, and took refuge in a log house, whence they were dislodged next day, and driven into the thicket along the Provo River. In this encounter Joseph Higbee was killed . . .

  On the 11th the Indians fled from the thicket to Rock Cañon, whither the volunteers pursued them; but failing to find them, the white men proceeded to the west and south sides of Utah Lake, and shot all they could find there.

  During the expedition twenty-seven warriors were killed. The women and children threw themselves upon the settlers for protection and support, and were fed and cared for in Salt Lake City until spring. Thus Utah Valley was entirely rid of hostile Indians. Until 1852 there was no further trouble with them of a serious nature; and thus ended the first Indian war of Utah, which like all the others was rather a tame affair. It was the mission of the Mormons to convert the Indians, who were their brethren, and not to kill them.

  Later in the year was founded the city of Provo, somewhat to the eastward of Fort Utah, near the western base of the Wasatch Mountains . . . [History of Utah (San Francisco, 1889), pp. 308-10 (emphasis added)]

Modern LDS historians update the statistics of the struggle, and add a connection with the author from whose history the plate now offered here was taken . . .

Encounters between the newcomers and older residents during the first years [in Utah] were generally peaceful, although during the winter of 1849-50 Indians threatened war against the LDS farmers of the Provo River settlement, Fort Utah. The state militia responded to the settlers' appeal, and in a two-day battle about forty Indians and one settler died. The confrontation effectively ended Indian resistance in Utah Valley and allowed the Saints to move out of their protective fort onto city lots and farms.

Lending assistance in the Fort Utah War was Captain Howard Stansbury, who arrived in August 1849 to conduct a government survey of the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. When the Saints first heard of Stansbury's expedition, they were apprehensive about its military and political implications, fearing another invasion of their rights. However, once the mission of the Army Corps of Engineers was made clear, Brigham Young cooperated fully and Albert Carrington, a Mormon, was hired by Stansbury to superintend the chain line. Stansbury's published report included the first accurate maps of the two valleys and much important scientific information about plant and animal life in the Great Salt Lake region. [James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (SLC, 1976/86), pp. 254-5 (emphasis added)]

 

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