By his daughter, Katie Haslam Horrocks
Joshua Haslam was born February 2, 1865, the son of John S Haslam and Martha Hamer. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the tenth child in the family. His father had joined the church in England, having been converted to the Gospel by Apostle Orson Hyde. Grandfather Haslam suffered many hardships along with the other pioneers who gave their all for the Church and came across the plains.
Joshua
was born after his parents arrived in Salt Lake City. They built a home
on the ten acres that was allotted to the pioneers in Salt Lake. They lived
in the 16th Ward. For a while the family moved to Panaca,
Nevada, as Grandfather was sent there by Brigham Young
to help settle the country. They later moved back to their home in Salt
Lake City.
Joshua
was two and one half years old when his mother died of childbirth when
his baby sister Ruth
was born; the baby also died. Grandfather later married Mary Ann Kay
of Salt Lake City, who was a wonderful mother and a great blessing to the
family. The children loved her very much. She had a child named Martha
Jane who was two years old at the time of her marriage to Grandfather.
1880 census, Salt Lake City, Utah
Grandfather
John S Haslam had five children by his second wife. Three of them died
as children, but James
and Annie
lived long, useful lives. Grandfather died when Joshua was nineteen years
old.
Joshua
Haslam had a sister, Martha;
she and her husband Charles Holmes
were going on a trip to Vernal,
Utah, and Joshua decided to go with them to see the country. He got a short
leave from his work and planned to return; but he liked Vernal and the
Uintah Basin so well that he stayed, working around at different jobs,
helping stockmen and doing some prospecting.
Uncle
Harry Southam
tells of his acquaintance with Joshua Haslam thus: "The first time I saw
Joshua was up at the old Pack Allen mine about 1886, he was working in
the coal mine. I got a wagon load of coal at the time and paid $1.25 for
it, one ton. Joshua was living with his sister Martha Holmes and family
down on the Creek on a homestead which Mr. Holmes had taken up. The Holmes'
had quite a family at this time. Joshua worked around at different jobs.
He helped a great deal in supporting the Holmes family as it took some
time for them to get started on their farm, as times were hard and the
money was scarce. He could not see the children go without things that
they needed. He worked a the coal mine for awhile and then in the spring
he worked for the Lillie Park Cattle Company on the Yampa River. He received
$40 per month wages. Before leaving on this job, he told his sister to
got to the store and get what they needed and he would pay the bill, so
when he got his first month's wages and went to pay the bill it was just
$40- which took all of his wages. But he said he just could not see them
go without, as this was in the spring before the crops began coming in.
Then later on he and Nate Hunting
did some prospecting on Blue Mountain. It was on their return home from
one of these from one of these trips that they met Butch Cassidy,
an outlaw. They had made camp on the banks of Green River just above Sam
Haslam's Ranch in Jensen as that is where the ferry was at that time. Seeing
the ferry on the opposite side of the river they knew they would have to
stay there until someone came across the river to bring it to them. They
were in the act of preparing supper at the time Mr. Cassidy rode up on
his horse. He asked them where they were going, they told him. When he
saw them preparing supper and that they had no meat he asked them if they
had any meat and they said "no", so he left them. He soon returned with
a leg of beef. He said, "Here is some meat, this is God's country, we are
God's children, these are God's cattle and He put them here for us to eat,
so have some meat."
In
their conversation he asked them how they were going to get the ferry over.
They said they would have to wait until someone brought it over. He said,
"I will get it for you in the morning. So, in the morning he swam his horse
over the river and got the ferry so they could go home. He may have been
an outlaw, but he was a big-hearted man. Father,
Nathan Hunting,
and Dick Pope,
were some of the first men to discover Gilsonite at Bonanza. They were
down there herding cattle at the time. They noticed some of the black mineral
on top of the ground, so picked it up thinking it must be coal. When they
put it on the fire and saw that it melted like grease and caused such black
smoke, they decided there must be oil in it so they staked out some claims
and later sold the claims to people from Salt Lake City.
Mother, Alice Southam, tells of her first meeting with Joshua Haslam: "It was at the time I was working for Mr. Gibson who lived at Old Ashley town, when I first met Josh at a dance in Maeser. But once before that he was riding with a friend on a horse when they saw me and a girlfriend walking down the street, and he remarked, "See that girl with the dark hair and the brown eyes, she is going to be my wife one of these days." Then in the spring after that I was living with Mrs. Hadlock who lived in Vernal, downtown, and I was there until June. Joshua and I were well-acquainted by this time and we decided to go with them and get married in the Logan Temple. The Salt Lake Temple was not yet completed. We went by way of East Bridger and Evanston, Wyoming. Aunt Lizzie Bennett lived near Evanston, so we visited a day or so, then went on to Logan and were married in the Temple July 27, 1887. After we were married we stayed in Salt Lake until fall. During this time Joshua worked for Bishop Brighton on a farm and earned enough money to buy his own team and wagon to take back home to Vernal; also the other expenses to come home with. Joshua was offered his old job back working for the railroad, but I did not want to live in Salt Lake, so we came back home in the fall and took up a homestead in Naples Ward, Vernal, Utah. We had 160 acres of farm land there." After Joshua was first married he did some prospecting, as well as farming. He and some other men had a mine at Browns Park in Jessie Ewin Canyon. It was a copper mine. They staked out claims, and worked this for two years- he made quite a little money out of this when he sold it. He also worked at the Dyar Mine up Brush Creek Mountain. Mother has told about how she and Johnny, our oldest brother driving the team and wagon from their farm in Naples up to the mine with supplies for the men. Teddie Longhurst and Nathan Hunting were working at the mine for a short time. Alice's brother, George Henry remembered: "My sister, Alice, and her husband, Josh Haslam, lived down on Ashley Creek in a one room, 14 by 16 foot, log house. We lived with them until I could get logs out and build a house on some ground I had homesteaded on the Creek. We were as happy as young people could be under those circumstances."
At
the time Joshua
took up his homestead at Naples, the ward was called River Dell Ward; most
of the families lived down on the Creek at that time. Father's farm was
just above the Bench. Some of the families living there at that time were:
Nathan Hunting,
Charles Holmes,
Nelson Merkeley,
Dick Velton,
John Shivers,
Nathan Hunting,
Jr., Harry Southam,
three families of the McCarrels,
Doctor Hullinger,
Marion Mecham,
John Rasmussen,
John Neilson.
At this time Nathan Hunting, Sr. was Bishop of the Ward, John Chive,
a First Counselor, and Moroni Meacham,
Second Counselor. Father was First Counselor in the Sunday School, and
both he and Mother worked in the Mutual. One year the potato crop was a
failure, and potatoes were scarce. There were only two families on the
Creek who had any potatoes, and some Government men from Fort Duchesne
came and bought all they had, offering them a very good price.
One
Sunday after having Stake Conference, Bishop Hunting called Father
and Uncle Harry Southam,
Will Hunting
and Teddie Longhurst
to a meeting and said, "I want you to go on a mission down to Burns Bench
(now Jensen), and find out who are Mormons and who are not. There has been
a lot of new people move in and we do not know who they are and what kind
of people they are. You find out, and bring us back the record"- so that
was their mission for that year. Soon after this the Chapel was burned
and all records lost. Also some of our family records of baptism were lost.
Uncle Sam Haslam
and family lived with Father and Mother
when they first came to Vernal, before they bought the old Burton Ranch
at Jensen. The ferry was by their house when they bought the Ranch. Alice's
brother George Henry was also called on the same mission, and remembered:
"At about this time Bishop Hunting called on Joshua Haslam, my sister Alice’s
husband., Edward (Ted) Longhurst and me to come and see him. He said, “I
have been authorized by the Stake President to call you brethren to go
to the Burns Bench District as missionaries. We have been down and looked
over the district and it consists of many people moving in from settlements
throughout Utah and other places and there are some good church members
and the other element too. The area reaches along the mouth of Ashley Creek
up along Green River to Brush Creek. Go among the people, live with them,
if necessary, but bring us a report of conditions, membership and also
do some preaching and instructing." We did as we were told and found
some members. Some have been members who were dead branches who came to
life afterward and were very active members; others who could not see it
and never did. We had some wonderful experiences and made some lasting
friendships. Did a lot of blessing babies and blessed some larger children
where it had been neglected and the Lord blessed our efforts when we were
called in to administer to the sick." (Life of George Henry Southam)
One
year when wheat was scarce, Leslie Ashton
gave Charles Holmes
ten sacks of wheat for flour for his family, as Mr. Ashton happened to
have a good crop of wheat, and knew Mr. Holmes had a large family, and
needed it. Bill Reynolds
ran the flour mill in town at this time.
Joshua Haslam
spent twenty years farming and had nine children, five sons and four daughters.
They lost two babies, George,
who was born Dec. 20, 1890, died of croup on April 7, 1892. Willie
died at birth in 1905.
1900 census, River Dale, Utah In
1904, Father sold his home in Vernal for one in American Fork, Utah County,
Utah.
1910 census, American Fork, Utah County, Utah
In
American Fork the home was in Second Ward for a few years. While living
there a daughter, Katie,
was born. Then the Haslam family moved to a larger farm in Third Ward.
At this time the oldest son John
had married. While living there Mother
was a Relief Society teacher. The family all had typhoid fever, and as
the mother was sick, Mrs. Wagstaff
took care of the youngest baby, Von.
Grandmother Southam
came and helped nurse the family, then later on Joshua
traded for a home and farm in First Ward. There was a lovely fruit orchard
as well as farm land. They also rented land down by Utah Lake and raised
sugar beets. At this time there were eleven living children. Three of the
oldest had married. In 1916 Joshua
traded his farm on American Fork First Ward to John Bennett
in Uintah County for 160 acres of land. Again the family moved to this
little country farm in Bennett, Uintah County. Here they raised cattle
and farmed.
A
year or so after moving to Bennett, World War I started. It was during
this time that the terrible epidemic of influenza broke out among the people
every where. There were may lives lost. Our oldest son John
and his family were all ill with this flu as they called it. Flossie,
John's wife, died leaving him with five small children. One was a baby
ten months old. John was living in Salt Lake City at the time. At that
time Mother
had gone in to help nurse. Also, Ruth
was in Salt Lake going to Business College. She had the flu also, and when
she heard about Flossie's death she got out of bed and came to Johnnie's
to help care for the children. As soon as they were able and things could
be arranged, John and family moved to Bennett, leaving the baby, Glen
with his Grandmother, Mrs. Wagstaff, Flossie's
mother. She loved him so much that she could not let him leave. He lived
with her until he was married.
John
and four children: Kenneth, Niles, Helen,
and Dean
moved in with the Joshua Haslam
family at Bennett. The children were loved and cared for as much as our
own family. John bought him a large truck and hauled freight from Bennett
to Price, Utah for some time. In 1921 he married Rebecca Alice Hartle,
a nurse, and taking his four children, they moved to a house and farm two
miles south.
Vernal Express, July 14 1922
While
living in Bennett, Mother
was First Counselor in the Primary, and also Counselor to the Relief Society
President, Mrs. Earnshaw.
Vernal Express, August 29, 1924 The
Haslam family lived in Bennett for nine years, and then after the older
children had married, they moved to a small home in Vernal.
Vernal Express, August 29 1924 There
were three children left at home then: Von, Florence, and Velda. This was
in 1925. After moving to Vernal, Grandmother Southam came to live with
the family. She divided her time at our house and Aunt Emma Holmes'- spending
winters with us, and a month or so of the summers with Aunt Emma. She suffered
with cancer for many years. Although she was not well, she was independent
and of a happy disposition. She made many nice quilts and other useful
things. She died during the summer while at Aunt Emma's, August 1929, at
the age of 82.
1930 census, North Ashley, Uintah County, Utah After
spending about two years in the small home in town in Vernal, the Haslam
family bought the Snow
Farm in Maeser Ward, just two miles out of town. There were a little
over thirty acres of land, a large two-storied house made of stone block,
east and north of town near the canal. This was a nice home and had a small
apple orchard, a nice garden, and pasture and farm land. There was enough
land to raise feed for the live stock. Both Vernal Express, July 23 1931 Joshua
died August 4, 1934 at the age of 69, and Alice died March 6, 1952.
"Last picture of Grandpa"
Joshua Haslam, Keith Green, Beulah Green, Herman Green,
Virginia Morris, Ruth Haslam, Alice Southam Haslam, Alice Haslam
Green,
Lawana Green, Jean Green (in front)
In
telling the story of the lives of Joshua and Alice Haslam there is much
that has not been said. Being the parents of thirteen children is a glorious
accomplishment. To say the least, we think of the scriptures when we think
of their lives: "They earned their bread by the sweat of their brow", lived
wisely, seeking the counsel of our Heavenly Father at all times. Yes, we
can say that they indeed did much to make this world a better place to
live, living wisely and walking humbly with their God.
Katie
Haslam Horrocks
HISTORY OF MY FATHER
JOSHUA
HASLEM
Written by his son, John Henry Haslem
Joshua
Haslem was born Feb. 2, 1865, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the son of
John S Haslem (or Haslam),
and Martha Hamer,
and the tenth child in the family. His mother died when he was two years
old, on June 16, 1867. He lived with his sister, first one, then another,
until some time after his father married Mary Ann Kay.
According to what my father told me, he being the youngest child in his
family, his sisters had spoiled him by not making him mind; so when he
did go to live with his father and Mary, they didn't get along too will.
Father has always said it was nobody's fault but his, as Aunt Mary tried
to be good to him; but his sisters kept telling him to run away and come
to their house, because they had children that he could play with. I think
from what Dad said, his father wouldn't let him live with his sisters any
longer. When he was twelve years old he did run away, and he rode the freight
train to Idaho. He soon ran out of money. All he had to eat for three days
was the orange peelings that he would pick up on the street, but he hated
to contact his father. Then he found John L. Sullivan,
and a few other prize fighters that were going through the towns of Idaho
putting on demonstrations either in saloons for 25 cents a person, or in
public halls for 50 cents a person, if they had one in town. Fighting or
boxing was their main sport in those early days. John L. Sullivan was one
of the best boxers, and he held the crown for many years. He picked Dad
up and took him along from town to town, and gave him lessons each day
so Dad got to be good at it. They put on preliminary fights with Dad matched
against the bully of each town, in which he always won due to his expert
training.
(Alice's
note: Joshua is found in the 1880 federal census in Salt Lake City, living
with his sister Lizzie's family:
George Bennett, age 31, born in Missouri, occupation: Silver miner
After
he settled in Vernal, Utah, he furnished all the boxing entertainment that
they had there until his Bishop Merrill
told him to quit or he would cut him off the church. His former bishop,
Bishop Hunting,
was very disappointed at Bishop Merrill's decision, as he said they needed
prize fighting in Vernal as there wasn't enough other sports there in Vernal.
My Dad received no pay for this. Dad had travelled with John L. Sullivan
for more than a year before he came back home. Soon after he returned,
his sister Martha
and husband Charles Holmes
were moving to Vernal, so they asked his father if he could go too. Grandad
consented. It was the last time he saw his Dad. Dad always felt bad that
he didn't get to see his father again, especially after he went blind,
but it was too far to come on horseback, and that was his only way then.
He wanted to go back to tell Aunt Mary
that he appreciated what she had done for him before he went to Idaho,
as he knew that she had done the best she could for him. After he married
my mother, Alice Southam,
when he was 22 years of age, he built a new two room cabin of logs with
a board floor which was quite a luxury. Most floors were dirt, and dirt
on the roof also. The boards were 16 inches wide, and when they would shrink,
the mice could come in through the cracks until this was corrected, by
removing the boards and placing them closer together.
We
had no screens so the flies were bad. We would drive them outdoors with
towels two or three times a day. We were always glad for cold weather to
get rid of the flies. One day Mother
reached into the wood box in back of the stove and almost put her hand
on a four-foot rattlesnake that was there to keep warm. It must have come
in when the door was open.
Dad
farmed all summer. He and nine others owned the gilsonite mines in what
was later called Watson, Utah, seventy or eighty miles from Vernal. He
worked the mines all winter. When he left Vernal in 1904 he sold his interest
in the mines for $780. The present owners have sold many millions of dollars
worth of gilsonite from it. This product was used in paint for ships, as
it was the only product that the barnacles couldn't stick to. He also had
copper mines in Jesse Ewing Canyon on Green River. They had a one-room
cabin there, and when they went there the year after the Montpelier Bank
in Idaho was robbed, they found the outlaws had taken possession of their
cabin. The outlaws told them they would keep it as long as they wanted
to. They invited Dad and his three partners in, and made them welcome all
winter. It was just a little crowded, so many in one big room, but Dad
said he never lived better. They had everything that they needed that money
could buy (plenty of T-bone steaks). Dave Lant
was the outlaw that got the meat. Dad thought that he bought it from farmers
twenty miles up the river. He only brought the back end portion of the
freshly killed beef. Dad asked him how he got such good beef. "They are
the Lord's cattle", he said.
Dad
also sold the copper mines when he left Vernal, but only got $200 or $300
for his share. When we moved to American Fork, Utah in 1904, he only had
two acres of orchard. He got a job at building the new Latter-Day Saints
Hospital in Salt Lake City. John Shepherd
was the contractor, and he taught Dad how to mix and lay cement. They mixed
all with flat point shovels on a 16-foot square board platform. When he
completed the job in Salt Lake City, he started in business for himself,
making cement walks in American Fork for 15 cents a square foot; then made
cement foundations for houses. Before that, all of the foundations in American
Fork were built with quarried rock. With American Fork being only 3,000
population, it just furnished him this work for a few years, so he bought
ten acres of land on which he raised potatoes and beets. Then he purchased
a larger farm to raise fruit on. The first year that his peach trees produced,
he hauled them to Provo, Utah to the Roylance Fruit Company. They shipped
several hundred bushels East. They claimed that they spoiled before they
could sell them, so Dad lost the peaches, and 17 cents for the bushel baskets.
In 1917 he traded his fruit farm for 160 acres in Bennett, Utah (three
miles east, and five miles north from Roosevelt), and lived there until
he got hurt falling off a twenty-foot high haystack. He then got a smaller
place in Vernal
until his death of a heart attack on the fourth of August, 1934.
Now
to relate some of Dad's
life's experiences that were always interesting to me when he would tell
us. The reason that he had such a good big cabin at his copper mines, he
was required to do $100 worth of work, or dig each tunnel ten feet, for
each mining claim, and I think they had twenty claims; so the work on the
house gave them credit as much as on the mines. So they built the best
cabin they could without any lumber, as they had to chop the building material
all out of the trees that grew there, mostly red cedar. They also were
glad that the outlaws were there as they would all help them work their
mines for exercise. Dad invited them to join him, but they said they could
get their gold much easier than to dig for it.
The
one winter that Dad
was away up there, all of his kids but me had the whooping cough awfully
bad. Mother
took the two littlest ones in her bed, andme
the older three. One would start choking, and the rest all at once. Mother
and I had them all marked up, beating their shoulders to get them out of
convulsions. They would cough so hard for seven or eight weeks, that I
rode a horse all over Ashley Valley each day to milk mares, as the horses'
milk seemed to help the most to stop them from coughing. Dad didn't know
about it until he came home late in April.
Dad
liked the outlaws as he knew most of them at his fights before they went
to robbing banks. Dad said they always boasted that they had never taken
one dollar form a poor man or family that needed the money; but they had
given much of their ill-gotten money to the poor, and Dad said he had seen
them help many poor people. Dave Lant
was a swell boy in Vernal until a fellow shot him while in a saloon, and
he was a long time recovering. Dad took turns nursing Dave Lant. The first
thing he done when he recovered was to kill the fellow that shot him. Then
Dave joined the outlaws for security, and was never brought to trial. He
eventually enlisted in the Spanish American War under an assumed name and
they said he was an outstanding soldier during the war; then he went to
South America and that was the last Vernal people heard of Dave Lant. They
all loved him just the same. The outlaws always went in pairs so they could
defend each other if they got in trouble, so Lant and Tracey, and Butch Cassidy
and Elza Lay,
and the other four were the ones that never got caught. (I can't remember
their names now, but I have heard Dad name them dozens of times.) Butch
Cassidy's real name was George LeRoy Parker.
One
year there wasn't much snow in the Vernal Mountains, so Dad
knew that he couldn't raise many crops. So he and John Shivers
got a contract to sell the U.S. government 200 tons of hay for the army
at Ft. Duchesne. The soldiers were cavalry and all rode horses. With hay
being scarce in Vernal, and 35 miles to haul it, they decided to rent Little
Joe's farm five miles from the fort, and raise the hay there. Little
Joe was one of the more intelligent Indians that the U.S. government had
educated to be an interpreter when the U.S. officers dealt with the Indians.
It was a good job and good wages. He had a good farm mostly in alfalfa
hay, and his was the only farm that raised much on the whole reservation.
Quite a few Indians grew corn, but just for their own use. Some of our
Indian neighbors told Dad that he would never harvest his crop, but Dad
didn't seem to worry as he had a lot of confidence in Little Joe; but when
Dad got most of his hay all bunched ready to deliver to the fort, here
came about sixteen young Indians that Little Joe had gotten drunk. Little
Joe had a still out on the hills three miles east, so we learned later,
and he would steal the Indians' corn and make whiskey out of it, and sell
it to the Indians. Nobody else dared to sell or give an Indian any liquor
in those days, but Little
Joe had loaded these young ones up. They were from 18 to 22 years of age,
I think, and Little Joe had told them not to shoot us, but to scare Dad
and John Shivers
so badly that we would go back to Vernal and leave him the hay. So here
they come on their horsed, hollering and shooting their .38 pistols over
the house and into the roof as they rode around the house as fast as they
could go on their horses. (When the soldiers discarded these guns every
two years, the Indians picked them up.) Mother
shoved me under the bed, and tried to get there too, but the bed was not
high enough. John Shivers
was trying to get under the other side of the bed as he was as scared as
Mother was. I
was only six years old, and not old enough to be very frightened. Also
I had a lot of confidence that Dad would stop them some way. We had a 45.70
rifle all loaded. Dad could have shot them all, as drunk as they were,
but he wouldn't, nor would he let John Shivers either. So against Mother's
and John's advice, Dad decided to go out and try to talk to them; but they
kept racing around the house on their horses and still shouting. So he
would grab their legs, as they had no saddles on, and then he would pull
them off; and as they hit the ground he would take their guns. If they
would try to get up, he would hit them with their guns, so they crawled
away. The very last one was named Grant,
about nineteen years of age and 190 pounds, so Dad couldn't pull him off.
The wagon was parked only seven or eight feet from the house, and Grant
had to come between it and the house as the corral was on the other side
of the wagon. Dad picked up the neck yoke, which is about four feet long,
and three inches through, and the next time around Dad hit Grant over the
head with it, and knocked him cold. We all thought he was dead. We couldn't
see him breathe, and very little heart beat if any, so Dad went on his
horse to Ft. Duchesne and told the officer that he had killed Grant. The
Colonel just laughed and said he had expected it; that it had happened
other years, and then the United States would have to buy Little Joe's
hay. He told Dad not to worry, as he thought after a clubbing like that,
the Indians wouldn't bother us again, and they didn't bother us any more.
Dad thought the Colonel told Little Joe to lay off his rough stuff, as
the Colonel knew Little Joe was causing all the trouble. It was real hot
in July, so about ten o'clock in the morning, the Indians hadn't come to
get Grant, and Dad could see a little life by then; so we all got a hold
of him and drug him into the shade of the house; then Dad went to get their
Medicine Man, and some more Indians, to take him away. By then Grant
had bloated up until we thought he would burst, but nobody showed up until
about four o'clock p.m. the next day. Here come six of their Indians with
their Medicine Man, and Grant had started to moan a little by then, so
we thought he would soon come out of his stupor. He had been unconscious
until now, and had never said a word. The Medicine Man had them all hold
hands and ki-yi around him (I guess they were praying). We couldn't understand
them, but it looked like a religious ceremony. Then they stretched him
out on his back,and held his hands and feet, and the Medicine Man just
tromped on his stomach with his feet. Grant's stomach looked like it would
burst with gas anyway after lying in the heat of summer two days; but the
gas sure went out of him, and then they all left and took him away, we
didn't know where, but we were sure glad to get rid of him. He recovered
as we saw him about three months later, and he had lost about forty pounds
of weight. But this isn't the end of the hay story. Dad
had only hauled a few tons of hay to Ft. Duchesne and it rained and made
the hay quite black, so the Colonel turned it down. Dad knew the hay wasn't
molded enough to hurt the horses, but he was stumped and didn't know what
to do. He knew if he had to buy the hay in Vernal, and haul it 35 miles,
he would be broke. So he told John Shivers
that he was going to try bribing the Colonel, so he went to Vernal and
got the store to loan him ten $20 gold pieces, as there were no banks in
Vernal at this time. So Dad took a load of hay back and the Colonel still
said no, so Dad got close enough to him to slip a $20 gold piece into his
pocket, and started back to the wagon as if to drive home. The Colonel
said, "Here, wait a minute. Let me sample the hay again", so he shoved
his hand in and pulled out a couple of handfuls and said, "That is better
hay than I thought. We will take it", and was Dad and Mr. Shivers happy!
But he had to repeat the bribe seven times to get the Colonel to buy the
200 tons of hay. It was a good wage for Dad and John Shivers. If I remember
it right they got $12 per ton for the hay, and I think they only paid Little
Joe about $200 rent for his farm this summer, plus $100 for some hired
help. This was the only dishonest (?) thing I ever saw my Dad do, but he
was in a pinch. It was the stores in Vernal that asked Dad and John to
get this hay contract, as it was during President Grover
Cleveland's reign and I think during the worst depression the United States
ever had. You just could not get cash in Vernal. All the trading was exchange,
or scrip on the stores. But they had to pay cash for new merchandise, and
it was so scarce their shelves were getting very low, so the stores must
get the cash that Ft. Duchesne paid of hay and grain for their horses.
So Dad's $2,000 that he got in gold sure helped the merchants out.
Now
in Vernal, we lived in the last house in Ashley Valley that had drinking
water, until they (the Indians) got to the Green River; so they always
would stop for dinner in our yard, and Mother
would usually take them a loaf of bread. It made them so happy as they
never cooked except for flapjacks, and usually out of cornmeal. Quite often
they would have a baby born, in not over 1 1/2 hours, while stopped for
dinner. They would wash him in the cold ditch water as soon as he arrived,
(how he would yell!) then they would strap him on his mother's back, and
put her on her pony, and jog on their way. I never heard of a mother or
baby dying. Dad
would take a bucket of hot water out, but they wouldn't use it for the
baby, but used it themselves to wash in when they were leaving the campground.
Dad asked why, and they said if the baby couldn't stand cold water, he
wasn't worth saving. In the late summer they would travel with about thirty
in each band. They went to Colorado for deer to dry for their winter meat.
They were plentiful there, and easy to trap. They had no wagons then; just
a pole tied on each side of the pony, with the big end dragging on the
ground; and cross sticks across the back end. They had about twenty ponies
in each band, loaded with 150 to 200 pounds of jerky. They loaded on deer
hides first, then the jerky wrapped inside to keep the dust off on the
way home. They travelled slowly as the ponies were loaded heavily, and
everyone walked that was able; but going over empty, everyone would ride,
and travel on a jog trot, probably twenty miles a day. The little kids
were so dusty behind those dusty drags they could hardly open their eyes
when they would stop. They looked like little mummies, until they blinked,
or opened their eyes. They were tied on so they wouldn't fall off. It was
always a mystery to me why the ponies didn't kick them to death, riding
so close to their heels. I don't think white people could train horses
to be so gentle; and they always just turned the ponies loose with these
drags, and I never heard of a pony running away, or hurting the little
Indians.
This
is all for this time, and maybe more than you will enjoy hearing about.
John
(Johnnie) H. Haslem
Thanks
to Jim Drennan
for taping this on Feb. 10, 1971. Typing was done by Gladys Haslam
Drennan, (niece of Joshua Haslem) from handwritten notes of John Henry
Haslem, age 82 ½ years old.
If you have any additional information about this
family, please contact me at alice@boydhouse.com.