Chapter 5

We returned in March. That summer I got a pair of oxen from George Messer and hauled wood on shares, up to Fort Douglas. We received eleven dollars a cord and if we had luck we could deliver two loads a week. At that we didn't make much; luck didn't favor us. We were forced to turn our cattle out at night to feed and one of my oxen had a habit of leaving the others and wandering away. He went one time and I searched for him for eight whole days in the heart of these mountains, and when I found him I decided I had had enough, and so started for home. I was almost starved to death. My wife was home alone with a little baby, and she was living on bread and onions and so had I. We were in desperate circumstances that summer; times were surely hard. While I was away, one day Bishop Hickenloper and his counselor, Samuel Evans, called at the house, and they were very excited because they thought my wife was dead. She was so weak for the want of something substantial to eat that she couldn't stand upon her feet. But after that, you bet, her father carried her dinner to her every day until we could replenish our larder. That was the poorest time for us of all of our married life.

From this I went to contracting and excavating, which was making canals, building railroads, and digging cellars, and we fared all right after that. I helped drain all of this West part of the city.

Right where the Oregon Short Line is located now, we were doing some leveling, just before I took the job of wood hauling on shares. We were taking away two large knolls; knolls they were to us, but burial grounds of the Ute Indians. We dug up great piles of bones scattered there about.

In the Fall of 1869, I worked at the Townsend Hotel on West Temple, as hosteller. I drove the big bus about town, and always met the trains as they came in. I worked here at the hotel up until spring broke in 1871.

You know, this work of draining the land was no small task, and we didn't accomplish it in one season either. Judge Smith, Bishop Reuben, Miller of Mill Creek, and Judge Stewart of Draper surveyed the job for us, and the piece of work kept us occupied for some years. We couldn't keep at it steady. It was worked in as sort of a side issue in between times.

The year "1870", was the year of the explosion. Our two powder magazines were located up north of the Capitol Building, where stands now a little reservoir for the north bench. The explosion was so heavy that it shook all the glass out of the windows in the main part of town. It happened about noon, while we were excavating the basement of Dinwoodey's Furniture Store. We have always supposed that two young boys who were hunting along the bench shot at the door of the magazine, and caused the explosion. There was no one really to tell how it did happen, because the two fellows were blown to atoms. A brother of the Richison boy, who was one of the victims, identified one of his brother's feet; he told me this himself.

In the Spring of 1879, in March, we went up Spanish Fork Canyon, my self, Peter S. Condie, Thomas Condie, John Burt, and Adam Burt to build the Denver and Rio Grande Road. I returned in June and that summer I peddled up in Bingham Canyon.

Om 1880, the winter found us building the City Canal. Myself, John Page, Joseph Winkless, and John Woodbury. The Spring following, we worked on a levy for the North Point Canal and in the summer on the Big Canal.

Spring again, of 1881, I took a contract out at Granger on the Oregon Short Line and worked there until Agust, then came home. William Irvin and myself took another contract, this time out of Coalville, to build the little narrow gauge road up to the Christman Mine for Craig Chambers, the big mining man of Park City.

In the Spring of 1882, William Irvin and myself did work on the City Canal through the Tenth and Twelfth Wards. About six weeks we spent at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. We were making a cut for the Union Pacific Railroad, which was being built there in opposition to the Denver and Rio Grande. After a while the companies compromised and we came back home, and went to work at building a switch into Pasco's Lime Kiln. It was in severe weather, the winter of 1883. About three miles and a half down to the Six Mile Ridge we built a canal, three miles west of Brighton, and known as Juab Laurance's Ranch.

The first little home we had built, my wife and I, we sold in November of 1884 to William Appleby, and with what I received for the same, plus a hundred dollars, I purchased a lot (ten rods by ten rods) on the opposite corner. Something else I recall was the birth of my daughter, Pearl. All during this winter I was hauling ice, filling the ice houses for different business concerns.

Through the summer months of 1885, I sold fish, fruits, and vegetables, a regular green garden, I conveyed into Bingham Canyon. And the days blended into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years, and each day had its sunset.

Through 1889, I was contracting, it was at this time that I dug a basement for the Scott-Auerback Hardware Store, and contracted excavating.

In 1890 with about twenty men, I went down to the "Jordan-Marrows" for the purpose of cleaning out the City Canal. We made our camp (of tents) and worked out all of that entire Winter, returning in the Spring.

The first work I did after I came back was to fill up the immense ice-pond belonging to Jesse W. Fox. Filled this reservoir, for that is what it was, that the same might be surveyed off and sold as city lots.

In May of this year, 1890, my eldest brother, David, died. My wife, my brother James and myself attended the funeral service at beaver, which was his home. John Sharp, a good friend of ours, and a railroad official gave us a pass (my wife and I). I am almost sure that it was John Sharp who was the Captain of our Wagon Train when we crossed the plains in the fifties.

Chapter 6