An Enduring Legacy

An Enduring Legacy: Volume Six

Native Pioneers

Adella Cowley Gibson

My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were among the very early converts of the LDS Church, believing in the Prophet Joseph Smith and sharing all the trials of the early days. They were faithful to President Brigham Young. They crossed the Plains in the summer and fall of 1848, settling in Salt Lake for many years. In 1863 my ancestors were called by President Young to settle Utah's Dixie. I was born in St. George, September 8, 1868, the third child of William Edward and Sarah Ann Alger Cowley. My first recollections were of Clover Valley, Nevada. Father, with some twenty-seven other families, was called to settle there, but after two years the project was abandoned because of the lack of sufficient water. We then moved to Pine Valley, getting out timber for the St. George Temple. Travels and experiences of our family were too numerous to relate everything.

Today I noticed a picture in the paper of the old Windsor Castle (as it was called in early days) at Pipe Springs, Arizona. It seems that the Park Service is going to include Pipe Springs as a national monument. I thought you would like to hear the story of how it got its name, since you have heard me mention that this was the place where I was baptized.

Anson P. Windsor was sent by President Brigham Young to this northern Arizona fort to help protect the settlers from the Indians. In the mountains above the fort was a lovely clear spring of water that was necessary for the existence of the people who lived within the fort. To obtain this water was a problem, because the Indians were determined to cut off the supply, so the early pioneers of the fort hollowed out small mahogany trees, joined them together and made an underground pipeline. It came to the surface inside the fort, ran through a trough out the south side and into a reservoir, where my cousin Ida Pulsipher and I were baptized. My father and Uncle Charles Pulsipher were called to relieve Anson P. Windsor (for whom the fort was named), Father as blacksmith and foreman and Uncle Charles as presiding elder over that vicinity.

Our family had many experiences and happy memories of this place. Because of the warm climate they were able to raise sugarcane in the neighboring village of Moccasin, and this added greatly to their exchangeable products. This sugarcane was raised about the same as corn. It was cut when ripe and pushed through a handmade press, and the juice ran into a vat. When the vat was full a fire was built underneath and the juice was cooked until it was the consistency of molasses. It was then drawn out into containers. Sometimes there was enough left over for us to have a candy pull, which was a highlight of the harvesting of the cane. There was also soap making from the soap lily and candies from tallow. When the pioneers first came to Utah they used up many things they had brought with them, including soda. Brother A. C. Piper, a pioneer, took alkali (similar to soda but called saleratus) and used it to make bread rise. A Danish immigrant, Dorcus Christensen, brought the salt-rising sponge which was used all over Utah. Sugar beets were also grown in home gardens. Pioneer mothers learned to boil down the juice, which made dark syrup, and use it for sweetening.

In the fall friendly Indians would come to Windsor Castle with bags of pine nuts and pinion gum to exchange for the products of the fort. It was the advice of President Young, who visited the fort frequently, to "feed, not fight, the Indians." This time of year brought cowboys from the range to spend the evenings, entertaining by singing and playing their guitars. One song that was popular at the time and that I remember well was "Fair Charlotte Lived by the Mountain Side in a Cold and Dreary Spot."

One night, between two and three o’clock, there was a terrible howling which awakened all hands. It was a dreadful sound to hear in the middle of the night and the worst was expected. Everyone thought the Indians were on the warpath, so they opened up the big gates and drove the stock, wagons, etc., into the fort. Then they found it was an Indian squaw who was suffering from blood poisoning in her big toe. She was coming to the fort for help, accompanied by several of her tribe who were howling and wailing in sympathy.

When I was a small child in St. George, Utah, the first patriarch of Utah, John L. Smith, came to our town. My father took my older brother, Roy, to receive his blessing, but he didn’t take me, which was a bitter disappointment. Years passed and I became a scribe for my uncle, Charles Pulsipher, who gave my two older children their blessings. He said to me each night, "Della, tomorrow night I will give you your blessing." But tomorrow never came, and I didn’t get my blessing. Time passed and in Sunnyside, Utah, Patriarch Nad Olson offered to give me a blessing, but I still had hopes of receiving it from Patriarch John Smith. More years passed, and while we were living in Mack, Colorado, we came to Salt Lake City to attend April conference. I raised the receiver on a party line telephone and heard Patriarch John Smith’s voice. He was telling a lady he would give her a blessing before conference that morning. I waited until the conversation was over then asked him if he would give me a blessing. I told him who I was and that I had come to Salt Lake for conference. He said, "Yes, come right over." After all those years! I felt repaid for waiting, for it was a wonderful blessing. By October conference of that year Brother Smith had passed away.

The first telegraph line in Arizona was from St. George to Fort Windsor, Arizona. President Young’s last visit before his death was for the purpose of dedicating the Manti Temple, but he visited the little towns, talking to and encouraging the people to hold fast to the faith. I will always remember his last visit with us at the fort.

Father had the wanderlust, and after the death of President Young he decided to leave the hard life of the Dixie Mission. He resigned as blacksmith and foreman of the Church Ranch at Fort Windsor, or Pipe Springs, and we went home to St. George. But Father was never satisfied; he thought there better opportunities for his large family of boys in Castle Valley, Emery County, Utah. To me, it was the greatest mistake of our lives. It was never home to the boys or to Mother or Father. We tried hard to adjust but never could. The boys, as they grew older, drifted away trying to find something they had lost but never found.

On my way from Salt Lake in 1888, I stopped at Price, Emery, County, Utah, while riding the Rio Grande narrow-gauge railroad train, to visit a friend. Here I met a young man, Arthur Ernest Gibson, lately from Nevada. He was operator for the Rio Grande Railroad, with Heber L. Cummings of Springville, Utah, as station agent. Arthur was a telegraph operator and, dissatisfied with the town of Ryland, Minnesota, came west and landed in Nevada. That did not suit him so he went to San Francisco, where he found himself broke, so he went to the railroad company for work. They told him the only opening they had was in a little hick town in Utah called Price, with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. They would transfer him there to a day job at good wages. That is where I met him. We were married January 11, 1890. In 1892 Arthur was made station agent and paymaster for the soldiers at Fort Duchesne.

Our home, now known as the Dooley home, was located on Third West, where we lived for five years. Water was hauled from the river at a cost of twenty-five cents a barrel and filtered for drinking. Our first child, a baby girl, died after eleven days. At that time I could look out my east window and see the cemetery, as there was not a house or tree on the townsite. All the Church activities and amusements were held in a log church where the Tabernacle was later built.

After five years we had two children. Arthur decided he would like to have a ranch, so we bought one, located at Cleveland, Emery County, Utah. After two years it proved to be a failure and it was here we lost our two-year-old baby, Emery Don. Arthur met an Eastern man by the name of Dueling, who had heard of uranium in Eastern Utah and Rock Creek, Western Colorado. That was another failure, as Mr. Dueling thought they had found and gotten all there was. Arthur was called home at the death of our baby and left Dueling to ship the ore, which he did. He sold all, collected the money and that was the last of Mr. Dueling. Arthur never went back to the uranium mines.

At that time the Pleasant Valley Coal Company was opening up some coal mines, which they were calling Utah Mines, at Sunnyside, Emery County. They had just changed from Emery County to Carbon County, and we were among the first families there. I had always tried to keep in touch with my Church and do all I could in every way, the best I knew how. When we moved to Sunnyside, I found there was no end to the work I could do .... We were there seven years when my husband was transferred to Summerset, Colorado, to open a coal mine. We were there one year.

The Uinta Railroad was just finished and Arthur was offered the position of station agent and train dispatcher for both the Uinta Railroad and Rio Grande Railroad at Mack, Colorado. After three years there, he was called back to Utah Fuel as superintendent of Clear Creek. Believing there was no future 'in the Uinta Railroad, we returned to Utah. We now had six children who had not had the opportunity of good schools, so I decided to move to Provo where they could get a proper education. I believe the happiest time of my married life was while we were in Provo. We could all attend Church regularly and I was principal of the Religion Class. We were all happy, all but Arthur. So when he was home on vacation, Bishop T. N. Taylor told him Jesse Knight was thinking of opening up some coal mines in Carbon County and asked how would he like the job? Needless to say, he accepted the offer.

After three years of happiness, we again started a new life. Our daughter Lottie, a brokenhearted girl at leaving her school friends and the BYU, and Arthur, Jr., stayed to finish, and Irma stayed to finish the eighth grade. This was in the spring of 1913. I took the rest of the family and moved to Storrs.

When President Joseph F. Smith came to Storrs to organize the ward with Leonard Adams as bishop and Betha Adams as Relief Society president, I was appointed to be her first counselor and Sarah Leichty was second counselor. I thought I had more than I could do, but in Storrs it really took the cake! It was the job of the Relief Society to care for the sick and cover coffins for the dead. Then I was put in charge of all the county Red Cross during World Ward I. I was also a Sunday School teacher and handyman all around.

We moved to Price, Carbon County. Bishop William Stoker, another fine man, asked me to stay on the stake board with Joseph H. McKnight. I was also a Sunday School teacher and president of the Young Ladies Mutual for two years, as well as charter member of DUP and Service Star Legion.

I have been a Relief Society visiting teacher since I was eighteen, except when I was in Colorado. Now, at ninety-six, I am on the shelf, but thankful to my Heavenly Father for all the many blessings he has given me, thankful for my membership in his Church, for my health, my family and a million other blessings. I am grateful for my pioneer parents and for the privations they endured to give me this gospel. Because of their experiences, as well as my own, and for the wealth of literature available to me, I have gained a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. Therefore, to my future generations le me say: If they will humble themselves and live by all the teachings and commandments of the restored gospel, for they are all true, they will receive the blessings which have been promised by the scriptures.

I expect some day to meet my dear husband, and if he will overlook all my shortcomings and misdeeds and failings, I will surely be happy to do the same by him. Also all my children, friends and neighbors.

Daughter Irma concludes the history as follows:

Father passed away March 10, 1951. Mother maintained her home alone for the next seven years, then my sister Maude and her husband, who had been living in Price, moved to Orem, so we thought it best for Mother to sell her home and move with them.

Mother had a gall bladder operation when she was eight-nine years of age. She lived with one or the other of her children for the next eight years. She loved to travel. We used to joke about it, saying if two cars were leaving in opposite directions, Mother would want her foot in both. She had a keen sense of humor and there isn’t a day that I don’t find myself using some expression of hers.

* Note – From the book, "Castle Valley: A History of Emery County",1999, it states on page 115 "The first wedding was at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Cowley when their daughter Adella became the bride of Earnest Gibson, January 11, 1890. Carl Valentine, Justice of the Peace from Price, Utah, performed the ceremony."