Hole in the Rock Foundation
Bluff Fort Visitor Center

   In 1877 the Church leaders called a conference in St. George to discuss the problem various exploration plans were discussed, but action was delayed because of the death of Brigham Young 29 August 1877. Later President John Taylor authorized the colonization. Church leaders activated the project December 28 and 29, 1878, at Stake Conference held in Parowan and in Cedar City on March 22 and 23, 1879. The Church issued mission calls at these conferences to fifty families by reading their names and having them sustained. It carne us a surprise to many of those who were involved. Most of them faithfully accepted. They were later set apart us LDS missionaries. They were to leave their homes, farms, friends and relatives to go on a full-time permanent mission to an unspecified area in the heart of the Navajo territory; It was later called the San Juan Mission.

   Most of the missionaries who were called were healthy and young. The average age of the entire group, including children, was eighteen years. Among adults the average age was twenty-eight, the oldest being fifty-nine year old Jens Nielson.

   A thirty-man exploring party (also accompanied by two women and eight children) set out to determine the best route into the area. By the end of this journey the group had traveled over 1,000miles on an expedition that took them through northern Arizona to southeastern Utah and then on a return loop over the Spanish Trail and back to the southwestern part of Utah. In June 1879 the exploring party built Fort Montezuma on the San Juan River about two miles above its junction with Montezuma Creek.

   The Harrison H. Harriman and James L. Davis families remained each had a log room in the fort for their protection. They were dependent on food brought in from the markets of Colorado until the main body of settlers arrived a year later. These two families worked hard to grow their own crops but met with little success.

   For two months the exploring party along with a substantial group of non-Mormons from Colorado who had already settled in the area, constructed 11 dams to channel the river's water into irrigation ditches near the present town of Aneth. Many of them labored strenuously before they abandoned the project. Only a little corn was successfully planted at the mouth of McElmo Creek, and even that burned from lack of water, By the lime the explorers left on 13 August 1879, some members of the party were already disgruntled about the prospects of living along the Sun Juan River

   Silas S. Smith, age 49, prominent citizen and legislator of Utah, had been chosen to preside over the San Juan Mission His son, Silas S. Smith Jr., and wife Betsy, age 26, and two children, Clarinda, J, and Silas S. III, I, were also in the company. There were 230-250 people in the group, traveling in 83 wagons drawn by horses.

   According to David E. Miller, Hole-in-the-Rock, an Epic in the Colonization of the Great American West (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1959), they left their homes in the Cedar City area in October, 1879; and their journey, including the descent of the treacherous Hole in the Rock road, which they had to build before they could use it, lasted six months-to April, 1880.

   In October 1879, elements of the 230 person expedition, under the direction of Silas Smith, got underway and eventually rendezvoused at Forty-mile Spring, southeast of Escalante. For three weeks, from 15 November to 5 December, the party's ranks swelled while the leaders sat and wondered where to go from there, Smith left the group under the command of Platte D. Lyman while he returned to Fillmore to ask Utah territorial legislature for equipment. He did not rejoin the group until after its arrival in Bluff.

   Snow had closed the pass in the mountains behind the wagon train: the only way to go was forward. Ahead lay seemingly impassible terrain and the cold winter months that seemed to stretch interminably into the future. Scouts returned with news of a narrow cleft between the red rock cliffs above the Colorado River, and so half of the pioneers moved to that spot. The remainder camped at fifty-mile Spring, but both groups supplied men for the three different work-forces that either widened the passage through the rock wall, developed the road beneath the steep cliff-face that descended the 1200-foot-deep gorge, or graded a route out of the canyon bottom on the opposite side of the river.

   The people set to work with a vengeance. As Elizabeth Decker reported, "It is about a mile from the top down to the river and it is almost straight down, the cliffs on each side are five hundred feet high and there is just room enough for a wagon to go down. It nearly scared me to death." (Miller Hole-in-the-Rock, p. 116) Cornelius Decker, one of the crew members laboring on the far side of the river said, "I don't think I ever seen a lot of men go to work with more of a will to do something than that crowd did. We were all young men; the way we did make dirt and rock fly was a caution."."(lbid., p.104)

   On 25 January 1880 the workers declared the road completed. Months of labor were put to the test the next day when the first of eighty-three wagons groaned, scraped, and rumbled its way to the bottom to be ferried across. Most were lowered by rough-locking the back wheels and attaching a large rope that ten men could pull back on, while others controlled the front by guiding the wagon tongue. Down the forty-foot drop off at the top of the crevice, then over a trail built of rock and brush held in place with oak staves, and finally to the river bed below, the wagons descended. All of the vehicles along with more than 1000 head of livestock arrived safely at the bottom, Almost equally difficult terrain, unexplored by any previous group, waited across the 300-foot-wide Colorado River. Cedar forests, Clay Hill Pass, and San Juan Hill each demanded its toll in effort before the main body arrived at the site of Bluff on 6 April 1880, too exhausted to finish the last eighteen miles to their intended destination at Montezuma Creek."

   Until the pioneers reached the Colorado River, there was little to differentiate this expedition from dozens of others launched by the LDS Church in the past. At this point, however. an important attitude, called by Jens Nielson in his Scandinavian accent "stickie-ta-tudy" was born as part of the Sun Juan heritage. Various members distinguished themselves through sacrifice and by maintaining even tempers to make good a bad situation. Take, for instance. Ben Perkins, who hung suspended over the side of the cliff to mark and drill holes for explosive charges; or George Hobbs and three other men who wandered lost in deep snow and blinding storms without food for four or five days in order to find a passable route on the far side of the Colorado or L. H. Redd, Sr., who later could not recall his horses' struggles up San Juan Hill outside of Bluff without weeping. It was this type of commitment that allowed the Hole-in-the-Rock party to survive equally unpleasant challenges after they arrived in Bluff.

   The real impact of this six-month venture lay not in the valiant struggle to open a new thoroughfare in the wilderness. Indeed, within a year's lime the route had been abandoned. Rather, its importance lay in the impact it had on many of the members of the families who remained in San Juan and over the next century played a dominant political and economic role in the county.

   On their arrival the exhausted, hungry travelers were enthusiastically welcomed by the Harris family from Colorado who had settled on the river the previous summer and harvested a meager crop. Here there was plenty of water, grass, fuel and sunshine.

   The tired pioneers and their animals could ask for little more and virtually collapsed when the urgency of moving on was no longer upon them. It was April, spring again, one year since the first exploring party of missionaries had left Paragonah to explore the way and settle the first two families in the San Juan Mission. It had been the most memorable and hazardous year in the lives or all who had come on tile mission. They had left their established homes to settle in a wild country, to be reached by an unexplored route over un-built roads. The fact that they had all survived was a miracle in itself. They had even added two healthy babies to their number along the way. Their wagons had blazed a trail through two hundred ninety miles of the roughest, most difficult, unexplored country in North America. Roads had to be built for over two hundred miles of the way, mountains climbed, and rivers crossed. Wagons were driven down frightening chasms over improvised dugways. Instead of a six week trip they had anticipated, the missionaries had been on the road for nearly six months, during the most severe winter in the area in many years. On the trek they had been able to average only 1,7 miles per day, the slowest rate of any American wagon train that had brought settlers west. They had done what no one else had ever done, and it had required all that they could give.

   Mormons had founded Bluff as an outpost of civilization in the wilderness, and subsequently a handful of them gathered strength and moved (15-18 Miles) beyond to Montezuma Creek. Silas S, Smith, Zachariah B. Decker, and Thales Haskell (famous for his work with the Indians in southwestern Utah and northern Arizona) all decided to settle in the Montezuma Creek area .William Hyde, a Mormon trader sent from Salt Lake City by church president John Taylor, set in motion a large waterwheel sixteen feel in diameter and twelve feet across, capable of sloshing 2,300 gallons an hour onto the parched soil of the Montezuma Creek settlement. This area was more fortunate than Bluff, because it had rock shelves on which to anchor its waterwheels, while the people downstream had to depend upon riprap darns and backbreaking shovel work to keep water in the fields and sand out of the ditches. Soon Harriman, Davis, and John Allen had each built a wheel on different sections of the river. Allen, in his deep Scottish brogue, is quoted as saying of his wheel, "It's aya fine; I'd wish nothing better."

   In the newly created San Juan County's government, a month after the settlers arrived Smith was appointed as probate judge, a position he relinquished to Decker three months later when he left Montezuma." (Robert S. McPherson, A HISTORY of SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah Centennial County History Series, 1995, p. 101)

   It appears that the Smiths left San Juan County in the year 1880. [See entries in Platte D, Lyman, "Journal." Special Collections, Brigham Young University Library, pp. 10-- also on microfilm at Family History Library in SL, for specific details about settlers, including Silas S. Smith. We are not certain that they moved directly to Manassas, Colorado, though we do know that their daughter, Betsy Leonora, was born in Manassas in September, 1883.

   Others who stayed longer did not fare well, and eventually the town of Bluff was [nearly] abandoned: After the missionaries' arrival at Bluff City they felt that their trials would end, They felt they could start a new life and began working with renewed efforts to build for the future. Due to the light crops that were harvested, because of various reasons, many of them found work wherever they could. Others freighted between Durango, Colorado, and Bluff, Utah, to supplement their earnings, Due to the long distance they had to travel to get timber, and the problems they had with renegade Indians and ruffian whites, the first four years were very difficult. But their trials and tribulations were not over, The winters of 1883 and 1884 there were heavy snowstorms that left big snowdrifts. Spring came and brought rainstorms lasting for several weeks, causing a heavy runoff that washed away their roads, crops and sod roofs. The San Juan River flooded its banks, completely destroying their canal, which had already cost them thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours. By the time the river had receded, one half of their fort and cabins were destroyed. Their hope was gone-all of their efforts for the past four years had simply been washed away. To continue the mission they would have to completely start over. As far as the missionaries were concerned, there was no alternative but to abandon the outpost and with it the mission.

   The missionaries immediately wrote a letter informing the Church leaders what had happened. Erastus Snow and Joseph F. Smith made the journey from Salt Lake to Bluff to look over the situation. After careful consideration and fervent prayer the Apostles asked the missionaries to remain and start over again. Joseph F. Smith then stated, "l promise those who are willing to remain and face the difficult situation will be doubly blessed of the Lord."

   The few families who felt they did not have enough resources to stay received the Apostles' blessing and well wishes as they, embarked from the settlement. (Dail D. Nielson, "The Hole in the Rock," article in The Generations of Montell and Minerva Guymon, compiled by Maurine G. Nielson, 1987, PI'. 391,2. Privately published, copies in possession of Kathryn P Sccly.) Silas and Betsy's other four children were born after they moved to Manassas, Colorado: Betsy Leonora, born 20 September 1883; John William, born 26 July 1886; James Albert, born 26 May 1889; and Don Samuel, born 16 September 1894. On the 4th of October, 1893, their oldest daughter died at the age of 17, In 1899 the oldest son died 16 July at the age of 20, and the father was called to fill a two-year mission in the North Central States.

   Betsy bravely endured the hardships or those pioneer days. All in all, it proved to be more than she could stand. Her health broke, and time after time we thought that any breath might be her last. On one occasion they had all given her up, as the Doctor had said that she could not live more than an hour or so. They all knell at her bedside, and a prayer was offered in her behalf She had neither opened her eyes nor spoken a word for hours. Her youngest son, unnoticed by anyone, slipped out of the room and went to the stairway-a boy of eight or nine years of age. He knelt down and in his childish way pleaded with God to spare the life of his mother. He had just finished his prayer when she opened her eyes and asked for Don. This was the first time he had been missed by the family. They found him on the stairway and took him to his mother. She put her arms around him and said, "My boy, the Lord has heard and answered your prayer." Upon the advice of the Doctor, it was decided to take her to a lower altitude, but they had not yet picked a place. At about this time, Heber J. Grant was attending stake conference and stayed at her home, being a very good friend of the family. He was asked to give Betsy a blessing for her health. In her blessing he promised her that she should regain her health and live to see her family grow to maturity. She said, "Brother Grant, haven't you made a mistake in giving me a wonderful promise like that?" Brother Grant said that the Lord never makes mistakes.

   That fall (1902 or 1903) in the latter part of September, Silas and Betsy, with two of their boys, left for Salt Lake City where they attended General Conference, after which John William went to Provo to attend school at the BYU. Betsy and son Don went to southern Utah to visit Betsy's brother and two sisters; it was the first time she had seen them for many years. Silas went to locate a place for a new home; he decided that Rexburg, Idaho, would be a good place to raise his family, because of its churches and schools.

   Having sold the farms and home before, Silas returned to Manassas, Colorado, to get his horses, wagons and household goods, sell what other things that he could, and get the other son, James Albert, who had stayed at home to take care of things in the absence of his father. They loaded the things they wanted to take with them into a boxcar and shipped them to Idaho, arriving in Rexburg on 6 January 1906. Silas then returned to Salt Lake where he met Betsy and Don. They arrived in Rexburg on the l5th of January of the same year.

   The move proved to be a success, for Betsy's health was very much improved, and they lived very happily for the next five years. When they first lived in Rexburg, they lived in a rented house for three months while they were building their new home. It was in Rexburg that Betsy and Silas spent the rest of their life together. Silas died 9 January 1911.

   The following year brought more trials. John William was married and died three weeks to the day following a chivaree party on 24 April 1912. That fall Bert (James Albert) was married to Jessie Stoddard Walters (2 October 1912), daughter of William W. And Agnes Eliza Kershaw Stoddard Walters. That left Don, then just a boy of eighteen, to take care of his mother and to run the farm. She told him many very wonderful and interesting stories of pioneer life, of the hard times and the many wonderful blessings. These stories would be very valuable now if they had just been written down while they could still be remembered.

   In 1917 Don was married to Adelia Struhs, and Betsy spent most of the rest of her life with her daughter Leonora (Mrs. John S. Knight) at Richfield, Colorado.

   On 18 February 1923 James Albert died, following an operation for goiter. This left Betsy with only the two children, Leonora in Colorado and Don in Rexburg, Idaho. It might be said that she was "the last leaf on the tree," as she lived to see her father and mother and all her brothers and sisters, her husband and four of her six children laid to rest in the grave. Two years later, on the 25th of March 1925, after a few days illness, she said she was completely tired out, and she died in the arms of her daughter. The funeral services were held in the Richfield LDS Ward; the speakers told of her splendid traits of character and of her preparedness for the last call. Interment was in the Manassas Cemetery, by the side of her two oldest children. Her husband and two sons, John William and James Albert, are buried at Rexburg, Idaho.

   Originally written in the 1940's by Don Samuel Smith, son of Betsy Williamson and Silas Sanford Smith, Jr.; revised in 1963 by Kathryn Pincock Seely, granddaughter of James Albert Smith. (paragraphs about the Hole in the Rock Expedition added in 1997 by Kathryn.) .