My Memories of the Black Hawk War
I was just a small child when the Blackhawk War with the Ute Indians began in April, 1865. We lived in Manti, Utah.
All the people living in the east part of town were told to move onto our street or into houses not farther east than the second row of blocks east of Main Street. That would make it easier to defend the town against the Indians.
In our home there was one large living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. Under the living room was a large cellar with a trap door in the living room. There were steps going down to the cellar, which was the store house for the barrels of pork, molasses, groundcherry and fruit preserves (all made with molasses), dried fruit, and dried squash. The bread barrel was there and there were cupboards for milk, butter and cheese. The vegetables were kept in an outside cellar.
During the war we were in danger of Indian attacks at any time of day or night. Mother told us and the neighborhood children to be on the lookout in the daytime. If we saw a group of horsemen coming at any time we were to all run to our house and she would hide us in the cellar.
We had one such scare. A large group of horsemen came riding around Temple Hill and came galloping up our street. We all ran and were quickly hidden in the cellar. Then Mother discovered that it was a scouting party who had been out looking for Indians.
[Page 11] South of Manti the country was covered with an alkali called saleratus. It was crude soda, and supplied Utah with soda. It was used in combination with lime and a solution made from wood ashes to make soap.
One day during the Indian War Father was going to get a load of it. He told us children we could go along, as he was just going a little way from town.
When we got there Father and the boys were busy shovelling it into the wagon, and we smaller ones were dipping it up with tin plates.
All at once Father looked to the south and saw horsemen coming over a hill. They were too far off for us to tell if they were Indians or whites. It didn’t take us long to hop into the wagon. Father made the ox team run until we were well into town. Again, it was a scouting party returning.
These two scares were false alarms, but there was plenty of real excitement, too.
The worst possible sound at that time was the sound of the big bass drum in the night. That was the signal of trouble. Perhaps the Indians had stolen some cattle, or attacked some traveller. Perhaps they were attacking our town. The drum was the signal for every man in town to hurry to the public square to do his part, if need be, in fighting the Indians.
While the men were gone the women and children huddled in dark corners, hiding and hoping that the Indians were going some other way. They stayed hidden until some of the menfolk returned to give the word that they were not in danger. When we finally got to bed again, we were always so excited that it was almost impossible to get back to sleep.
At one time a group of Indian prisoners were lodged in the Manti jail, which was the upstairs of the old court house. This was near our home.
The Indians were chained up, and so considered helpless so far as making an escape was concerned. The people took turns cooking food for them. It was delivered to the guards at the jail. The members of the guard took the food to the prisoners, up a back stair on the east side of the old court house to an upstairs door in the jail room.
[Page 12] The place was heavily guarded, but in some unknown way the Indians had gotten a knife. They made the knife into a saw, and at last sawed their chains in two. One day, as the guard opened the door to pass the food in, the Indians rushed and overpowered him and the other guards nearby. They jumped from the stair and headed east toward the mountains. Other guards, on the ground, sent a shower of bullets after them.
My sister, Huetta, lived east of the jail. When the firing started she looked out of her back door. She saw the Indians with the guard after them, running straight for her open back door. She was too frightened to move. Her husband grabbed her and held her against the inside of the adobe wall, away from doors and windows and out of the way of stray bullets. Luckily the Indians passed the house without coming in.
The Indians hadn’t gotten out of town, instead they hid in corrals and among haystacks. Darkness came on. There was no moon and it was really dark. There were few lanterns to be had. Every man in town who was brave enough was out hunting Indians in the eastern part of town, while the women and children in that part of town sat or laid on the floor below the range of the windows, that they might be protected from bullets which might come through the windows. Our large living room floor was filled with people. One of our neighbors came running with his whole family of children to our house, as soon as the fleeing Indians and guards had passed his door. His family stayed there until the trouble was over.
There were other battles near town and many scares. Men were killed. We had guards posted along the road.
One night the guards heard someone coming along the road. “Who goes there?” they called. There was no answer. The guard got ready for trouble. They called again. Still no answer. A guard called out, “Answer or I’ll shoot!”
Suddenly a voice came out of the darkness. “Oh, ve is yust two peoples going to the south. “ It was a couple just arrived in Utah from Norway or Sweden. They had been travelling at night, since they thought that was safer.
Another day of awful excitement was the day that the Indians on their way from the Ephraim east mountains going after the herds of cattle in the region of Sanpich River had killed people in the Ephraun fields. A messenger arrived at Manti in a very short time, and the [Page 13] news spread like wild fire. Men, women, and children filled the streets. The more excitable ones were crying, others trying to soothe them. I remember that Mary Ellen Snow Peacock was the most excited person which I saw that day.
The first day of the war when Peter Ludvickson was killed, and the day that Vance and Houts were killed at 12 Mile Creek were exceptionally exciting days. But I think there are never times of great stress that are not intersperced with some slight amusing incidents.
The soldier boys who came to Manti to help protect the people from the Indians camped in the little fort which was just back of our corrals, and the neighborhood children were delighted with the bugle calls night and morning.
The soldier boys enjoyed many fine dancing parties in Manti, while protecting the people from Indians. Several were making marriage dates with some of the fine girls. And weddings took place later.
Joseph Noble, a nephew of mine, came to Manti, and was our guest for a while. He had a fine riding horse and used to put me upon the horse’s back when he took it to water. That was my first experience with a horse.
The war had scarcely closed when William (Billy as we called him) and John Black came from Washington, Dixie, with a mule team. They stayed at our home for a few weeks, and the neighborhood girls had a great time riding those mules. Three or four of us would get on each mule, and the boys would take turns leading the mules all over town. On one occasion I slipped off when we were in the extreme south part of town, and I could not get on again. The boys were too small to lift me on and so I was compelled to walk until finally a young lady saw my plight and came and lifted me on.
One day I wanted to show the crowd the spring which I believe now supplies the Manti Temple with water. Father owned the spring then, and I had heard him tell where it was located. Well we went moping with those mules along the south side of the stone quarry going east, until it looked like the town’s houses were getting too far away to suit me and the thought of Indians was running through my mind quite rapidly, so I told them we had better go back, and we would see the spring another day.
[Page 14] The next Sunday Billy and John hooked the mules to the wagon and told us to come and take a ride. After we had gone a few blocks we thought it would be nice to go to Ephraim. I told them when we got to Ephraim we would go to Willardsons and have dinner. Willardsons were special friends of my parents. But when we got there we could not find Willardons, so we went to an old couple’s home by the name of Hanson. Their daughter Maria was one of the 6 wives of Billy and John’s daddy. The Hansons were so glad to see us. They shook hands with each one. The table was laid with the best linen and dishes in the house, and we were served in fine style to the best food they had.
They had pumpkin butter on the table and as Sister Hanson passed it around, little Tom Bowles asked what it was, and when told he said he didn’t want any of that stuff. We were all horrified and each one decided that Tom should never come with us again.
When we were through with dinner Sister Hanson found that our parents did not know where we were. And in her kind way urged us to hurry home. We found on arriving at Manti that they had been searching for us everywhere.
A few months after the treaty of peace was signed with Blackhawk and his warriors, one late afternoon I was sitting near the hearth in our living room, with my back toward the open door. I heard a light footstep and turned quickly, and to my amazement and horror, there stood two large Indian men in the doorway grinning at me. They were the first Indians I had seen since the war. I was so terrified that I never knew how I got past them and out into the garden where Mother and the rest of the family were.
In the fall of 1868 or 9 Mother went to Utah County to dry fruit, and put up preserves. She took me with her. My brother Hyrum drove the ox team. We camped in Salt Creek Canyon one night near where some people had been killed during the Indian war. That event had been talked about after we made our camp that evening. I scarcely slept a wink during that night. Early next morning I was up and dressed waiting for the folks to go on. And wondering if we would ever get out of that canyon alive.
I saw a carriage coming toward us, and ran out and hailed it, and asked the driver how much farther it was through that canyon. My people laughed heartily and could not imagine what prompted me to run out and stop a passing stranger.
[Page 15] While we were in Springville drying fruit William Black who, married my half sister Amy Jane as second wife, and had a few years later married as fourth wife Lanet Richardson who applied for, and received a divorce from him. And at this period, if I remember rightly was married to another man.
Mother and I were staying at the time with an old friend of mother’s, who was the second wife of a Mr. Sanford; and just across the street to the east, lived the parents and brothers of Lanet Richardson.
William Black as I remember him was tall and angular, with red hair which was braided in such a manner that it had the appearance “at a glance” of being cut evenly around the neck. The ends of the braids were tucked under out of sight. He always had a pleasing smile on his face, and his voice was angelic. Well he came to Springville from Washington, Utah’s dixie, traveling in a big white top buggy, with a young lady whom he was taking to Salt Lake City to marry as fifth wife; but he had the audacity to go and stop with Richardson’s the parents of his divorced wife. Richardsons and Sanfords were close friends, and as he decided to stay over one day and rest, while his bride to be did a little washing, the two ladies of the Sanford home, and Mrs. Richardson got busy and had an afternoon tea and social chat with the traveling young lady, and during the conversation they related to her how brother Black had neglected some of his wives, and although he was such an angelic man, any woman marrying him must expect to earn her own living. After the young lady left the house and went for a walk, the ladies said well she won’t marry him unwarned anyhow.
The next morning this young lady asked permission to be the guest of the Richardsons and Sanfords for a while. They readily consented, and she told Brother Black she had decided not to get married just now; his persuasions did not change her mind. Oh how those women did giggle to think of the chagrin he would feel going back and facing his family and community jilted.
Sanfords had a fine young son named Cyrus and in a few months Cyrus and the young lady guest were married.
Mother went home at the end of the fruit season, with the wagon loaded with sacks of dried fruit, barrels of preserves, peaches, plums, pears and apples, cooked in molasses. Mother’s table was always loaded with good things to eat. [Page 16]
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