The following is an excerpt from a book by Utah Valley historian D. Robert Carter -- "Founding Fort Utah: Provo's Native Inhabitants, Early Explorers, and First Year of Settlement." It is reprinted here by permission of the author. The book was sponsored by Provo City. It is currently for sale ($17) at Heritage Books in downtown Provo, The Read Leaf in Springville and at the BYU Bookstore. Copies can also be obtained by contacting the author at 489-8256.

Although Utah Valley was not selected as the site for their initial Mormon settlement in the Great Basin, this desirable vale was too valuable a potential resource to be ignored. The land along the lower stretches of the Provo River contained everything desirable for a settlement site. Abundant grass and fertile soil beckoned ranchers and farmers. Timber along the river and in the surrounding canyons promised building material and fuel. Utah Lake, Provo River, smaller streams, and clear springs offered fish for food and water for power, irrigation, and culinary purposes.

However, because of the presence of the Timpanogos Utes in Utah Valley and their territoriality over fish, game, and other food resources, the valley initially became an area for the pioneers to pass through or visit rather than to settle. For almost two years after the Mormons entered the Great Basin, explorers investigated the terrain, and fishermen periodically paid short visits to the lake. Then the visitors returned to their homes in Salt Lake City without delay. During those years, travelers passed through Utah Valley as they made their way to or from California on what became known as the "Southern Route." Mormon traders stayed in the valley only briefly or passed through it on their way to Indian villages farther south. Armed Mormon disciplinary forces chastised cattle thieves among the Utes and without delay headed back north out of harm's way. Consequently, the pioneers were well acquainted with Utah Valley and the future site of Provo long before Fort Utah was established.

Soon after the majority of the first company arrived in the Great Basin, some of the men began to explore Salt Lake Valley and the surrounding area. On 23 July, Lewis B. Myers, the former mountain man, and William Crow gathered some pack horses and set off on a hunt to provide meat for the under-provisioned Crow family. The two men headed south up the valley and intended to be gone a month or so, but they were forced to return two days later after one of their pack horses strayed. The hunters brought in a single deer on the afternoon of Sunday, 25 July. (Ironically, they arrived in the pioneer camp shortly after Heber C. Kimball finished a sermon in which he admonished the brethren, "If you wish to go hunting, fishing, or see the country select a week day, & not the Lord's day, for that purpose.") One of the hunters reported "plenty of Timber up the Valley."

It is possible that Crow and Myers' journey south on horseback brought them within view of Utah Lake. Their hunt lasted the better part of two days, time enough for them to see not only Utah Lake but also Utah Valley. However, if they did see the lake, none of the journal keepers in the camp recorded the feat.

It is Orson Pratt, one of the first men in the pioneer company to view and enter Salt Lake Valley, who is usually credited with the honor of being the first pioneer to view Utah Lake and the Utah Valley. Pratt, Brigham Young, and fourteen others who were apparently bitten by the exploration bug left the pioneer camp 27 July. The party traveled to the Great Salt Lake and swam in its waters near Black Rock. Then they camped close to the lake's south shore.

The next morning the explorers began their return trip. They traveled eastward then circled about ten miles to the south where the stopped for lunch. Leaving the others, the intrepid Pratt continued southward another three miles or so where he climbed a ridge near the Point of the Mountain and viewed Utah Valley and Utah Lake. The lake he said, "appeared to be nearly 20 miles distant to the south."

The Mormons seemed to be anxious to learn more about the valley to the south that had become the site of their initial settlement, for within the next few days, several pioneer men completed investigations of it. Jesse C. Little claimed in a letter he wrote forty-three years later that he and several other men were the first from the pioneer company to explore Utah Valley; they were not.

On 2 August, the gentile mountain man who came into the basin with the Mormons, arrived back in the Salt Lake settlement after visiting Utah Valley. Available records do not tell when Myers began his trip, why he took it, or if he took others with him, but pioneers journals do indicate that he returned to Salt Lake City on 2 August. Myers reported the north end of "Eutaw Lake" lay about thirty miles south from the settlement in Salt Lake Valley. He observed abundant timber on the east side of Utah Valley. Myers suggested the pioneers could easily transport this timber to their settlement by floating it down the Jordan River which he said originated from Utah Lake and flowed into the Great Salt Lake.

On the morning of 4 August, Jesse C. Little, Samuel Brannan, and Mormon Battalion Lieutenant William Willis began a hurried trip to Utah Valley. They returned the next day and gave a more extensive report than the one given by Myers. The explorers observed no timber in the valley itself but stated most of the soil could be made tillable by irrigation. They inspected the waters of the lake and found them to be "fresh, but muddy & poor for drinking."

In early August, the Mormons made their first attempt to explore Utah Lake by boat. On 26 July, just two days after his arrival in the Great Basin, Brigham Young ordered workmen to go to the canyons, cut down trees, haul them to the settlement, saw them into planks, and construct a boat. His orders and their timing indicate the importance Young placed on the completion of an expeditious exploration of Utah Lake, Great Salt Lake, and Jordan River.

Energetic men rapidly responded. The day after Young issued his orders, laborers pulled a fourteen-foot long twenty-inch thick pine log into camp, and they hauled in others during the following weeks. Other workmen were already engaged in "preparing a saw pit to saw the log and make a skiff as soon as possible."

This saw was not a water-powered mill. It consisted of a long trench dug about as deep as a man's shoulders. The sawyers built a strong trestle over the pit on which the men placed the log which was to be sawed. The laborers used a long saw with handles at each end. One sawyer stood on top of the log and the other worked from the pit. The man on the log pulled the saw up, and the workman in the pit pulled it back down. By this slow process, the men worked from one end of the log to the other. In late July, workmen finished the pit saw, and sawyers busily transformed logs into planks.

As soon as planks were available, craftsmen began work on a skiff constructed in the form of a bateau, a lightweight, flat-bottomed boat. This well-chosen design not only made the boat easy to transport but also made it easy to sail on shallow water. This was important because in places the Great Salt Lake, Jordan River, and Utah Lake were not very deep.

On 10 August, Norton Jacob worked "on the Skiff we are building to fish in Utah Lake." The next day the carpenters "finished the skiff and launched her in the creek to soak." By doing this, they hoped to swell shut the seams between the planks.

Albert Carrington, Amasa Lyman, Jesse C. Little, and two others impatiently awaited the chance to launch the skiff. On 12 August, the day after craft was finished, the men "started with the boat on wheels for Eute Lake to fish & explore the country." When they reached the crest of the Point of the Mountain, they looked down the steep southern slope into Utah Valley and decided to take the boat no farther. They worried that if they took the boat down that long steep hill, they would not have enough men or animals to get it back up again without doing considerable road work. Since they had no tools, they turned back with the boat.

Still yearning for a boat ride, however, they took the craft to the Jordan River just below the mouth of its narrow canyon and launched it. The men loaded the boat with fishing equipment and supplies. Albert Carrington and two others climbed aboard, and the three men floated northward toward the Great Slat Lake. They tried fishing but found that the "water runs so rapid in the outlet & its banks are so thickly fringed with willows that the net count not be at the pioneer ford on the Jordan River 14 August and left the boat in the river pending further use. The men soon busied themselves with other necessary activities, and dreams of fishing on Utah Lake were stowed away in the backs of their minds. The finny tribe swimming in the lake had nothing to fear from pioneer fishermen for another three-and-a-half months.

The observations of these boatmen and other pioneers who visited the Jordan in 1847 provide us with our earliest glimpse of what Norton Jacob reported to be a beautiful river. Early visitors noted that the Jordan ran rapidly through the Jordan Narrows near Point of the Mountain and flowed in Salt Lake Valley. Once the Jordan entered the valley's gently sloping plain, its current became slower and more gentle. A thick growth of willows lined its channel, and Carrington's boatmen notice "faint traces of Ore in the Creek & River banks." According to earliest estimation, the river averaged eighty-three feet in width, but was one hundred to one hundred thirty feet wide at the ford. The pioneers reported the ford had a gravel bottom and was about three feet deep.

Pioneer evaluations of the quality of the Jordan's water help us formulate an idea of the condition of the water in the river's source, Utah Lake. After Orson Pratt viewed the Jordan, he wrote that it was "not quite so transparent as the mountain streams" flowing through the Salt Lake Valley. William Clayton wrote that the Jordan's waters were "a dark lead color." These descriptions of the river indicate that the water in Utah Lake was not crystal clear.

Other pioneers visited Utah Lake during the fall of 1847. William Wordsworth, who had experience as a professional fisherman, scouted Utah Lake and the surrounding valley. He explored along the eastern shoreline of the lake as far south as Hobble Creek. Wordsworth then followed that stream bed nearly to the mouth of Hobble Creek Canyon and found it dry almost the entire distance.

Utah Lake remained a curiosity. On 30 November 1847, after they had finished sowing their wheat and rye, Parley P. Pratt, John S. Higbee, Henry Russell and others returned to the flat-bottomed boat Carrington's group had launched in the Jordan River several months earlier. This new party loaded the skiff onto a wagon bed once more and started for Utah Lake on a fishing and exploring expedition. Pratt and his party took sufficient oxen to pull the wagon and boat up steep hills, and some of the men rode horseback. This time the potential fishermen reached the lake, and if, like Carrington, they made the journey to the Point of the Mountain in one day, it was likely 1 December when they launched the initial Mormon boat to sail on the lake.

Pratt's men used the skiff to explore many miles of Utah Lake's western shore. They also cast their net and tested their luck at fishing. The pioneer fishermen caught only a small number of fish among which were a few trout.

The men must have been very surprised and disappointed at their lack of success. All the information they had gathered indicated that the lake teemed with fish. Subsequent experience showed that lake trout went to deep water during the winter and that the west side of Utah Lake never was a prime trout fishing area. Such was fishermen's luck.

In the future, after they had learned how and where to fish the lake, fishermen would see plenty of fish at the mouths of the streams on the east side of the lake during spawning season. Pratt and his group spent several days exploring the lake and the valley. Then they returned to Salt Lake City.

A few days after the pioneers arrived in Salt Lake Valley, Indians visited the new settlement and traded horses and peltries for guns, powder, lead and clothing. Norton Jabob found them to be "Shrewd harmless People verry familiar in their manners but not Beggars like the Indians East of the mountains they slept in our camp, & molested nothing."

However, the Indians soon posed a threat to the settlers. Utes and Shoshones, traditional enemies, argued and fought with each other, destabilizing the area for Mormons. Occasionally, so many Indians visited the Mormon colony that it became bothersome for the settlers.

For instance, on 11 August 1847, about 150 Utes arrived at the settlement. As a result of these inconveniences, trading in the pioneer settlement was discouraged and soon forbidden.

Eventually, the Salt Lake City High Council, the temporary governing body of Salt Lake City, appointed a few representatives of the people to go to the Indian villages and do the trading there. By November 1847, the council had selected Thomas Williams, Charles Shumway and Ebenezer Hanks as Indian traders, and "O[rrin] P[orter] Rockwell was permitted to go & trade with the Indians at his pleasure."

In a way, the Utes encouraged the exploration of Utah Valley. Even though their presence in the valley prevented the immediate settlement of the area, Ute villages near Utah Lake did welcome visits from Mormon traders.

Commencing in the fall of 1847, small trading groups left Salt Lake City under the direction of trading of trading representatives and went south to Ute villages located on the streams in Utah Valley and on the Sevier River. Abner Blackburn accompanied Thomas Williams and Ephraim Hanks on one of these trading expeditions in December of 1847. Blackburn wrote that this expedition had "come to Provo [River] and had a palaver with Old Elk, the chief of the Utahs."

These traders and others who visited Utah Valley undoubtedly noticed its many desirable qualities, but all visitors expeditiously finished their business and returned to Salt Lake City. Thoughts of settlement may have begun to form in their minds, but for now the pioneers were just passing through.

Other Mormon groups traveled through Utah Valley in 1847. One company journeyed through on the way to California to procure supplies for the new colony in Salt Lake Valley. During the summer and fall of 1847, new settlers traveled the trail west and swarmed into the Great Basin. A number of former Mormon Battalion members also arrived from California. Some of these newcomers were low on supplies, which foreshadowed a lean lifestyle until the settlers brought in their first harvest during the summer of 1848.

Jefferson Hunt, who had served with the Mormon Battalion and had witnessed the bounties of California, thought of a possible remedy for this lack of food. On 13 November 1847, Hunt asked the Salt Lake City High Council, the new colony's temporary governing body during the winter of 1847-48, for permission to take a small pack company to California and back.

Hunt planned to travel to Utah Valley and then follow the Spanish Trail to California, where he would buy wheat, seeds, cuttings, livestock and food and bring these supplies back to Salt Lake Valley. If everything went well, Hunt hoped the company could arrive back in the valley the next spring.

The council authorized the expedition and appointed Horace Lathrop, Elijah Fuller and Orrin Porter Rockwell as leaders. Jefferson Hunt, two of his sons, a foster son and 11 others also made the journey. Part of the company left on 17 November and the rest followed the next day. They likely took note of Utah Valley's desirable qualities as they made their way toward California over the Southern Route.

Not all of the people who traveled through Utah Valley during the waning days of 1847 planned to stay in the Great Basin. A few of the pioneers of 1847 were dissatisfied with the prospects of ever having a comfortable life in Salt Lake Valley and the surrounding region. A number of these dissidents used Utah Valley as a route on which to escape from the Great Basin.

Early in October, the Salt Lake City High Council was disturbed by the news that four men, whom the council did not consider to be in good faith, had traveled north with their families and set up camp at Miles Goodyear's Fort Buenaventura. It appeared that the dissidents intended to return to the Midwest. The actions of these men unsettled the leaders because nobody was permitted to leave the Mormon settlements without the high council's consent. The council also worried that Goodyear's fort would become a gathering place for apostates.

Apprehensive that these families planned to leave the basin in the near future without permission, the Salt Lake City High Council discussed the matter on 7 October 1847 and dispatched Marshal John Van Cott and a few men north to find the dissidents and instruct them to return. When the marshal came back, he reported that the defectors had promised to return, though they used harsh language and said they "did not like so much bondage."

The defectors had still not returned by 24 October, and this time the council instructed Marshal Van Cott to take nine men and bring the dissidents back to Salt Lake City. He contacted the families again, and within 10 days they returned and camped near the city.

Four members of the returning group, William Gardner and his son and a Mr. Babcock and his son, were still determined to leave the basin. Leaving Salt Lake Valley in secret, they passed through Utah Valley in December on their way to California. When they reached Sevier River, Jim Baker, the mountaineer, and Miles Goodyear's former partner, Captain Wells, warned them that the Indians would likely kill them before they reached California.

This disquieting news turned the dissidents back. Again they traversed Utah Valley. This time they headed for the mouth of Provo Canyon, where they turned eastward toward Fort Bridger. They spent the winter at Bridger's establishment. In the spring, the four defectors left for Missouri where they found employment.

Partly as a result of these problems with dissenters, the Mormons bought out Miles Goodyear's establishment at the confluence of the Ogden and Weber Rivers. At Christmas time after selling his fort, Goodyear and four others, including his brother, Andrew, started on the Southern Route to California. They were joined by five or six dissatisfied Saints. The marshal and several men were again sent out to turn back the departing Mormons.

The dissenters made no opposition and returned to report to John Smith, the president of the high council. They asked for and received his permission to leave the Great Basin on 28 December and resumed their journey south through Utah Valley and on toward California.

By the time the calendar turned to a new year, the Mormons had accumulated much useful information about Utah Valley. However, available records covering 1847 say almost nothing about Mormon contact with the area's native inhabitants.

There was certainly some interaction between the two races, but it seems to have been mainly limited to the business of trading.

It is possible that when the pioneers arrived during late summer of 1847 and subsequently began to explore the valley, many of the Timpanogots had left the lowlands and camped in the canyons to gather berries and hunt big game.

Perhaps to minimize the chance of causing friction between the two cultures, the settlers followed Brigham Young's earlier instructions "not to crowd upon the Utes." For whatever reasons, 1847 ended without any apparent altercations between the newcomers and the Indians of Utah Valley.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C6.