Mormon Settlement in Arizona Part 9

Tuba had a remarkable trip. He was especially interested in the spinning mill at Was.h.i.+ngton, for he had made blankets, and his wife, with handmill experience, thought of labor lost when she looked at the work of a flour mill. At St. George they saw President Young, who gave them clothing.

Tuba was taken back home to Oraibi in safety in September, 1871, and his return was celebrated by feasting.

Of date December 24, 1870, in the files of the Deseret News is found a telegram from George A. Smith, who was with President Brigham Young and party in Utah's Dixie, at St. George. He wired:

"Jacob Hamblin, accompanied by Tooby, a Moqui magistrate of Oraibi village, and wife, who are on a visit to this place to get information in regard to agriculture and manufactures, came here lately. Tooby, being himself a skillful spinner, examined the factory and grist mill at Was.h.i.+ngton. Upon seeing 360 spindles in operation, he said he had no heart to spin with his fingers any more."

On the trip southward in 1871, on which Hamblin returned Tuba and his wife to their home, he served as guide as far as the Ute ford for a party that was bearing provisions for the second Powell expedition. He arrived at the ford September 25, but remained only a day, then going on to Moen Copie, Oraibi and Fort Defiance, where he seems to have had some business to conclude with the chiefs. In his journal is told that he divided time at a Sunday meeting with a Methodist preacher. Returning, with three companions and nine Navajos, Hamblin reached the Paria October 28, taken across by the Powell party, though Powell had gone on from Ute ford to Salt Lake, there to get his family. The expedition had reached the ford October 6, and had dropped down the river to the Paria, where arrival was on the 22d. Hamblin went on to Salt Lake.

The Sacred Stone of the Hopi

The trust placed in Mormon visitors to the Hopi was shown by exhibition to them of a sacred stone. On one of the visits of Andrew S. Gibbons, accompanied by his sons, Wm. H. and Richard, the three were guests of old Chief Tuba in Oraibi. Tuba told, of this sacred stone and led his friends down into an underground kiva, from which Tuba's son was despatched into a more remote chamber. He returned bringing the stone. Apparently it was of very fine-grained marble, about 15x18 inches in diameter and a few inches in thickness. Its surface was entirely covered with hieroglyphic markings, concerning which there was no attempt at translation at the time, though there were etched upon it clouds and stars. The Indians appeared to have no translation and only knew that it was very sacred.

Tuba said that at one time the stone incautiously was exhibited to an army officer, who attempted to seize it, but the Indians saved the relic and hid it more securely.

The only official record available to this office, bearing upon the stone, is found in the preface of Ethnological Report No. 4, as follows:

Mr. G. K. Gilbert furnished some data relating to the sacred stone kept by the Indians of the village of Oraibi, on the Moki mesas. This stone was seen by Messrs. John W. Young and Andrew S. Gibbons, and the notes were made by Mr. Gilbert from those furnished him by Young, Few white men have had access to this sacred record, and but few Indians have enjoyed the privilege. The stone is a red-clouded marble, entirely different from anything found in the region.

In the Land of the Navajo

In 1871, 1872 and 1873 Hamblin did much exploration. He located a settlement on the Paria River, started a ranch in Rock House Valley and laid out a practicable route from Lee's Ferry to the Little Colorado.

Actual use of the Lee's Ferry road by wagons was in the spring of 1873 by a party headed by Lorenzo W. Roundy, who crossed the Colorado at Lee's Ferry, pa.s.sing on to Navajo Springs, seven miles beyond, and thence about ten miles to Bitter Springs and then on to Moen Copie. The last he described as a place "a good deal like St. George, having many springs breaking out from the hills, land limited, partly impregnated with salts." He pa.s.sed by a Moqui village and thence on to the overland mail route. The Little Colorado was described as "not quite the size of the Virgin River, water a little brackish, but better than that of the Virgin." In May of the same year, Hamblin piloted, as far as Moen Copie, the first ten wagons of the Haight expedition that failed in an attempt to found a settlement on the Little Colorado.

Just as the Chiricahua Apaches to the southward found good pickings in Mexico, so the Navajo early recognized as a storehouse of good things, for looting, the Mormon settlements along the southern border of Utah. A degree of understanding was reached by the Mormons with the Ute. There was more or less trouble in the earlier days with the Paiute farther westward, this tribe haying a number of subdivisions that had to be successively pacified by moral or forcible suasion. But it was with the Navajo that trouble existed in the largest measure.

Hamblin was absolutely sure of the ident.i.ty of the American Indians with the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. He regarded the Indians at all times as brethren who had strayed from the righteous path and who might be brought back by the exercise of piety and patience. Very much like a Spanish friar of old, he cheerfully dedicated himself to this particular purpose, willing to accept even martyrdom if such an end were to serve the great purpose. Undoubtedly this att.i.tude was the basis of his extraordinary fort.i.tude and of the calmness with which he faced difficult situations. There is admission by him, however, that at one time he was very near indeed to death, this in the winter of 1873-74. It is noted that nearly all of Hamblin's trips in the wild lands of Arizona were at the direction of the Church authorities, for whom he acted as trail finder, road marker, interpreter, missionary and messenger of peace to the aborigines.

So it happened that it was upon Hamblin that Brigham Young placed dependence in a very serious situation that came through the killing of three Navajos, on the east fork of the Sevier River, a considerable distance into south-central Utah. Four Navajos had come northward to trade with the Ute. Caught by snow, they occupied a cabin belonging to a non-Mormon named McCarty, incidentally killing one of his calves.

McCarty, Frank Starr and a number of a.s.sociates descended upon the Indians, of whom one, badly wounded, escaped across the river, taking tidings to his tribesmen that the murder had been by Mormons. The Indian was not subtle enough to distinguish between sects, and so there was a call for b.l.o.o.d.y reprisals, directed against the southern Mormon settlements. The Indian Agent at Defiance sent an investigating party that included J. Lorenzo Hubbell.

Hamblin's Greatest Experience

In January, 1874, Hamblin left Kanab alone, on a mission that was intended to pacify thousands of savage Indians. Possibly since St.

Patrick invaded Erin, no bolder episode had been known in history. He was overtaken by his son with a note from Levi Stewart, advising return, but steadfastly kept on, declaring, "I have been appointed to a mission by the highest authority of G.o.d on earth. My life is of small moment compared with the lives of the Saints and the interests of the kingdom of G.o.d. I determined to trust in the Lord and go on." At Moen Copie Wash he was joined by J.E. Smith and brother, not Mormons, but men filled with a spirit of adventure, for they were well informed concerning the prospective Navajo uprising. At a point a day's ride to the eastward of Tuba's home on Moen Copie Wash, the three arrived at a Navajo village, from which messengers were sent out summoning a council.

The next noon, about February 1, the council started, in a lodge twenty feet long by twelve feet wide, constructed of logs, leaning to the center and covered with dirt. There was only one entrance. Hamblin and the Smiths were at the farther end. Between them and the door were 24 Navajos. In the second day's council came the critical time. Hamblin knew no Navajo and there had to be resort to a Paiute interpreter, a captive, terrified by fear that he too might be sacrificed if his interpretation proved unpleasant. His digest of a fierce Navajo discussion of an hour was that the Indians had concluded all Hamblin had said concerning the killing of the three men was a lie, that he was suspected of being a party to the killing, and, with the exception of three of the older Indians, all present had voted for Hamblin's death. They had distinguished the Smiths as "Americans," but they were to witness the torture of Hamblin and then be sent back to the Colorado on foot. The Navajos referred especially to Hamblin's counsel that the tribe cross the river and trade with the Mormons. Thus they had lost three good young men, who lay on the northern land for the wolves to eat. The fourth was produced to show his wounds and tell how he had traveled for thirteen days, cold and hungry and without a blanket. There was suggestion that Hamblin's death might be upon a bed of coals that smoked in the middle of the lodge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY MISSIONARIES AMONG THE INDIANS

1--Andrew S. Gibbons 2--Frederick Hamblin 3--James Pearce 4--Samuel N. Adair]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOEN COPIE-FIRST HEADQUARTERS OF MISSIONARIES TO THE MOQUI INDIANS]

The Smiths tightened their grasps upon their revolvers. In a letter written by one of them was stated:

"Had we shown a symptom of fear, we were lost; but we sat perfectly quiet, and kept a wary eye on the foe. It was a thrilling scene. The erect, proud, athletic form of the young chief as he stood pointing his finger at the kneeling figure before him; the circle of crouching forms; their dusky and painted faces animated by every pa.s.sion that hatred and ferocity could inspire, and their glittering eyes fixed with one malignant impulse upon us; the whole partially illuminated by the fitful gleam of the firelight (for by this time it was dark), formed a picture not easy to be forgotten.

"Hamblin behaved with admirable coolness. Not a muscle in his face quivered, not a feature changed as he communicated to us, in his usual tone of voice, what we then fully believed to be the death warrant of us all. When the interpreter ceased, he, in the same easy tone and collected manner, commenced his reply. He reminded the Indians of his long acquaintance with their tribe, of the many negotiations he had conducted between his people and theirs, and his many dealings with them in years gone by, and challenged them to prove that he had ever deceived them, ever had spoken with a forked tongue. He drew a map of the country on the ground, and showed them the improbability of his having been a partic.i.p.ant in the affray."

In the end, the three were released after a discussion in the stifling lodge that had lasted for eleven hours, "with every nerve strained to its utmost tension and momentarily expecting a conflict which must be to the death."

The Indians had demanded 350 head of cattle as recompense, a settlement that Hamblin refused to make, but which he stated he would put before the Church authorities. Twenty-five days later, according to agreement, he met a delegation of Indians at Moabi. Later he took Chief Hastele, a well-disposed Navajo, and a party of Indians to the spot where the young men had been killed, and there demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the Indians, the falsity of the accusation that Mormons had been responsible.

In April, 1874, understanding that the missionaries south of the river were in grave danger, a party of 35 men from Kanab and Long Valley, led by John R. Young, was dispatched southward. At Moen Copie was found a gathering of about forty. It appeared the reinforcement was just in time, as a Navajo attack on the post had been planned. Hamblin persisted in braving all danger and set out with Ammon M. Tenney and a few others for Fort Defiance, but found it unnecessary to go beyond Oraibi.

The Utah affair, after agency investigation, was brought up again at Fort Defiance, August 21, with Hamblin and Tenney present, and settled in a way that left Hamblin full of thanksgiving.

In 1875, Hamblin located a road from St. George to the Colorado River, by way of Grand Wash.

The Old Scout's Later Years

In May, 1876, Hamblin served as guide for Daniel H. Wells, Erastus Snow and a number of other leading men of Utah on their way to visit the new Arizona settlements. The Colorado was at flood and the pa.s.sage at Lee's Ferry, May 28, was a dangerous one. The ferryboat bow was drawn under water by the surges and the boat swept clear of three wagons, with the attendant men and their luggage. One man was lost, Lorenzo W. Roundy, believed to have been taken with a cramp. His body never was found. L.

John Nuttall and Hamblin swam to safety on the same oar. Lorenzo Hatch, Warren Johnson and another clung to a wagon from which they were taken off by a skiff just as they were going over the rapids.

In the same year, in December, Hamblin was a.s.signed by President Young to lay out a wagon route from Pearce's Ferry, south of St. George, to Sunset on the Little Colorado. The Colorado was crossed at a point five miles above the old crossing. The animals were made to swim and the luggage was conveyed in a hastily constructed skiff. The route was a desert one, about on the same line as that to be used by the proposed Arizona-Utah highway between Grand Wash and the present Santa Fe railroad station of Antares. Returning, Hamblin went as far south as Fort Verde, where Post Trader W.S. Head advanced, without money, provisions enough to last until the party arrived at the Colorado, south of St. George.

An interview at St. George with President Young succeeding this trip was the last known by Hamblin with the Church head, for the President died the following August. In that interview, December 15, 1876, Hamblin formally was ordained as "Apostle to the Lamanites."

In the spring of 1877, Hamblin journeyed again into Arizona by the Lee's Ferry route to the Hopi towns, trying to find an escaping criminal. On this trip, the Hopi implored him to pray for rain, as their crops were dying. Possibly through his appeal to grace, rain fell very soon thereafter, a.s.suring the Indians a crop of corn, squashes and beans.

There was little rain elsewhere. When Hamblin returned to his own home, he found his crops burned from drought.

The estimation in which the Indians held the old scout may have indication in a story told lately in the Historian's office by Jacob Hamblin Jr. It follows:

"One day my father sent me to trade a horse with an old Navajo Indian chief. I was a little fellow and I went on horseback, leading the horse to be traded. The old chief came out and lifted me down from my horse. I told him my father wanted me to trade the horse for some blankets. He brought out a number of handsome blankets, but, as my father had told me to be sure and make a good trade, I shook my head and said I would have to have more. He then brought out two buffalo robes and quite a number of other blankets and finally, when I thought I had done very well, I took the roll on my horse, and started for home. When I gave the blankets to my father, he unrolled them, looked at them, and then began to separate them. He put blanket after blanket into a roll and then did them up and told me to get on my horse and take them back and tell the chief he had sent me too many. When I got back, the old chief took them and smiled. He said, 'I knew you would come back; I knew Jacob would not keep so many; you know Jacob is our father, as well as your father.'"

In 1878 Hamblin moved to Arizona and was made a counselor to President Lot Smith. He was appointed in 1879 to preside over the Saints in Round Valley, the present Springerville, living at Fort Milligan, about one mile west of the present Eagar.

He died of malarial fever, August 31, 1886, at Pleasanton, in Williams Valley, New Mexico, where a settlement of Saints had been made in October, 1882.

Hamblin's remains were removed from Pleasanton before 1889, to Alpine, Arizona, where was erected a shaft bearing this very appropriate inscription:

"In memory of JACOB V. HAMBLIN, Born April 2, 1819, Died August 31, 1886.

Peacemaker in the Camp of the Lamanites."

Chapter Nine

Crossing the Mighty Colorado

Early Use of "El Vado de Los Padres"