George Thomas Price

Following is an account written by Kenneth Price Staheli Nov. 13, 1955.

Most of it was given him by Joseph Adelbert Price (his grandfather).

This account is about the events leading up to George's death, and is also found on Joseph Adelbert's page.

(Soon after Bert's mother, Rebecca, died in 1885,) My father decided to move back to St. George. He put Don and me in a covered wagon it wasinJanuary and cold. It took us ten hard days of traveling to get there. After we reached St. George we moved in with Uncle Joe Price and Aunt Ann. (Joe Price was Tom Price’s youngest brother) She was a sister to Uncle Bill Alger. Aunt Addie, my stepmother was also a sister to Bill. After my father married Aunt Addie they had three children, Lawrence, Erma and Andrew who always went by the name of Biz Price.

My Father had a lot of horses and cattle and ran them in the Washington Fields. He was always busy working at something. He was one of the best cowboys in those days and was not afraid of any horse. From what old timers say he could ride any horse, bareback or any way. One time he walked from Hebron over to Holt‘s ranch, about six miles east of where Enterprise now is to get an unbroke horse that theyhad correlled for him. He started to walk home and lead it, but he decided that was too far to walk across that old long desert. He had a hackamore and a rope, and he took his jumper and tied it on for a blind, then climbed on and pulled the blind up. Later he said the horse took turns bucking and running, but along late in the afternoon he rode into Hebron on him.

He spent most of his time alone in the mountains working and breaking horses. We hauled all our wood from the Bunkerville Summit, so called the Indian Farm Summit. Up next to the top of the Summit was where my father was killed.

We left St. George Friday morning and after traveling most of the day we reached the top of the Summit.

We made our camp in the bottom of the canyon. Dad left me in camp while he went up the top to see if he could find some wood for the next days load. I can remember just as plain as if it was yesterday seeing my Dad as he walked up that hill from camp.

Early the next morning we hitched up our team to go get our load of wood. We left our camp stuff there as it was only about one mile to the top where we would get our load. I can remember just the way my Dad stood as he cut down those big trees to load the wagon. He was a real ax-man. After a lot of hard work we finally had our load of wood. As we left the top of the hill it was so steep we had to rough lock the left hind wheel. We just got started down when the front wheel lodged against a large rock. As we were unable to get over it, dad got off the wagon to cut a small tree to pry the rock away from the wheel. He had me stand in front and hold the horses. I can remember how nervous they acted as he was trying to get the rock away from the wheel. Dad just got back on the wagon when the horses took off like a flash down the steep grade.

Dad had told me to walk because it was so rough and steep. As they ran down the hill Dad was thrown off the wagon. When he was thrown he held on to the lines and as they went through the brush and rocks he was pulled under the wagon. He was dragged and forced to let loose the lines. The rough locked wheel ran over his chest. After a short distance the wagon tipped over and away went the horses with the neck yoke and double trees. I hurried down to see what had happened to Dad. He told me he felt like he was crushed to jelly. I ran to camp to get some quilts to make Dad as comfortable as possible. He told me to go catch the horses and take the harness off. He said to get on old Mack and go to St. George and get Dr. Ashby. This was a distance of about 20 miles and I was a boy 14 years old.

One of the horses had fallen down and couldn’t get up or I probably wouldn’t have been able to have caught them. I jumped on Old Mack and started running as Dad told me he didn’t think he would be alive when I got back. I ran that horse as fast as he could go. As we came up the grade out of Santa Clara my horse was winded. As we reached the top he got his second wind. We barely made it to St. George. The lather was pushed up in front of my legs like a saddle when I got to Dr. Ashby’s he was out of town. So Dr. Higgins and Aunt Addie went back to get Dad in a one horse buggy. Most of the people in town came out too. As I was coming in to St. George, shortly after leaving Dad, I met some other wood haulers. They said they would go see about him. Dr. Higgins and Aunt Addie met them coming in with dad. They met near the Indian reservation. They said he died just as they put him into their wagon. This was Nov. 13, 1896. He was taken to St. George and buried there.