FEATURE — Led by Parley P. Pratt, the expedition during the winter of 1849-50 is not a well-known undertaking, but it directly led to the initiation of settlement of Southwestern Utah. 

Pratt and his company were far from the first to explore the area. Many other European-Americans had been before, but none with the express purpose of searching for sites for permanent settlement, William and Donna Smart wrote in their introduction to their book “Over the Rim: the Parley P. Pratt Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah, 1849-1850.”

The party of fathers Dominguez and Escalante had tread some of the same path in 1776. Mountain Man Jedediah Smith came through in the 1820s and twenty years after that so did explorer John C. Fremont. The Smarts mention that then-President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Brigham Young, did not have access to any maps of the area, but had access to the Fremont’s expedition through the area and carefully studied it. Fremont didn’t provide a glowing report of the area, calling the Virgin River, “the most dreary river I have ever seen.” However, he described the Santa Clara River as “prettily wooded with sweet cottonwood trees.”

Young also received information about the area from Mormon Battalion veterans traveling to and from California, but it wasn’t enough. He stated his ambitious intentions in a March 9, 1849 letter to a fellow apostle, saying: “We hope soon to explore the valleys three hundred miles south and also the country as far as the Gulf of California with a view to settlement and to acquiring a seaport,” the Smarts quoted in their book. By November of that year the Legislative Assembly of what was then called the “State of Deseret” voted to commission Parley P. Pratt to assemble an exploration party of 50 men and outfit them with the provisions they needed.

“The expedition would be called the Southern Exploring Company,” the Smarts explained. “Its instructions were to explore south of the rim of the Great Basin, over the rim to the Virgin River country and on to the springs called Las Vegas.”

After the commission, things moved quickly. Not even a week after, Pratt reported that he was ready to go. Much of the funding towards the journey was raised via donation at a meeting the following day. By November 23, the future exploring party met at the home of John Brown, one of its members, in Murray with 12 wagons, 38 horses and mules and other supplies requisite for the journey, the Smarts noted.

It was a diverse group of men, many selected for certain skills needed for the journey. For instance, the Smarts noted William W. Phelps, a surveyor and engineer, served as topographical engineer, Robert Campbell served as secretary and clerk, and Ephraim Green as chief gunner. Ages of the men ranged from Samuel Gould, the oldest at 71 to Alexander Lemon, who was 18. The average age was 35. Pratt, their leader, was 42.

Looking at the map of their journey, they made a loop. On the way down, they essentially followed the route of today’s U.S. Highway 89 and on the way back, they traveled the basic course of today’s Interstate 15.

The journey proved more taxing than they thought it might with deeper snow and colder temperatures than they were expecting. They never reached Las Vegas, however, cutting the trip short “because of failing teams, dwindling supplies and the unpromising character of the 120 miles of desert between what are now St. George and Las Vegas,” the Smarts explained.

Four of the party kept journals of the expedition: Campbell, the clerk, John C. Armstrong, the company’s bugler, John Brown, captain of the expedition as well as Isaac Chauncey Haight. Campbell’s journal is the most detailed.

“He recorded to a quarter mile the distance traveled each day,” the Smarts explained. “He recorded daily temperatures, often both morning and night. He recorded the width and depth of streams, the nature of the soil, the abundance or lack of grass or sage or timber.”

What was perhaps most unique about the party is they explored during the winter, suffering frequent and heavy snowstorms and temperatures often below zero. Despite this, “almost every night, chilled and sometimes frostbitten after a day of exhausting labor, holding camp prayers, singing, sometimes even sermonizing, before crawling into their bedrolls,” the Smarts wrote.

On one occasion, while traversing Scipio Pass after six weeks of being unable to move through four feet of crusted snow, they fashioned their wagons into sleds, and when the snow became too soft, they shoveled trails and retraced their steps to drive their livestock forward, the Smarts explained of their travails. 

Visit to the Virgin River Country

Twenty-one men who separated from the larger party reached what is now Washington County in late December 1849, with Pratt as leader. 

After pausing at a spring near today’s Enoch as well as the banks of Coal Creek, the company followed the same route as Dominguez and Escalante, noticing the Kolob Fingers of what today are part of the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park, something the Franciscan Friars did not write about. By the same token, the journal writers of the group did not mention the Pine Valley Mountains, visible to the west from the point they saw the Kolob Fingers to the east.

Campbell, in his December 29, 1849 journal entry, called them “high red cupolas, their tops buried in clouds, but can see them when the clouds pass away.” Campbell called today’s Taylor Creek, “Cupola Creek.”

The party also passed by Ash Creek, whose banks would later be the home of Fort Harmony, established just over two years later as the headquarters of the southern Indian mission. It would become the first settlement in Washington County.

The expedition, also like Dominguez and Escalante before them, traveled down the rough terrain of Black Ridge, camping near present-day Pintura, which is Exit 31 on Interstate 15 (Dominguez and Escalante camped near Exit 33, which they called the “San Daniel” campsite). At this point, Brown notes in his journal that the group encountered three Paiute Indian men who invited the group to settle in the area to teach the natives how to farm and make clothing.

The next night they likely camped in the vicinity of Toquerville or Confluence Park. Chief Toquer persisted in the invitation to settle in the area. Toquerville became the third settlement in the Virgin River basin after Santa Clara and Washington City. The next day, December 31, they climbed the bluff to the south to the present site of Hurricane. Dominguez and Escalante continued south over Sand Mountain and into Warner Valley, but Pratt’s party headed west over “a large track of barren, some greasewood and sage, cactus and soap mesquite (changed to modern spelling),” Campbell wrote. This barrenness he described is today’s Sky Mountain golf course.

From present-day Hurricane, the party headed west following the Virgin River and camped at present-day Washington City on New Year’s Day 1850. Seven years later, Brigham Young sent settlers to Washington to raise cotton in his quest to be self-sufficient. They continued to follow the Virgin River’s course to its confluence with the Santa Clara River, near today’s Dixie Center and then camped somewhere between the Southgate Golf Course and Green Valley. That day, Campbell wrote that some of their mules had to be lifted out of a mire, which is most likely in the wetlands now within Tonaquint Park.

At the advice of some Indians and because their horses were giving out, Pratt’s party decided not to traverse the Virgin River Gorge farther south and decided, instead, to head home. To do so they followed the Santa Clara River’s course and headed north to make a loop back. They camped on what is now the Shivwits Reservation west of Ivins, what they called the “Paiute Garden Patch” with its corn fields, well-known to travelers along the Old Spanish Trail. Next they passed through what would become Gunlock, settled seven years later by Jacob Hamblin’s brother Will Hamblin, who was known as “Gunlock” because he kept his guns in such good condition, the Smarts explained.

They camped at the southern edge of Mountain Meadows the night of January 4, 1850. Mountain Meadows was a popular spot to graze livestock along the Spanish Trail and just over seven years later, the site of the tragic massacre of over 100 overland emigrants at the hands of Mormon settlers and Paiute Indians. At today’s Pinto, the Pratt company encountered another group camped there, the Pomeroy brothers, freighters from Missouri and a few California-bound gold seekers.

While Pratt and his 20 men explored the Virgin River country, another group explored west of Parowan and ran onto the Parowan Gap. That group’s journal, most likely written by Isaac Haight, describes the Gap as, “very narrow and the rocks two or three hundred feet high on either side . . . the rocks are covered with ‘Hyeroglyphics’ on either side especially on the North as high as there was a face stone some of which they drew off.”

On January 8, 1850, the two exploring parties reunited and headed home on an arduous trip plagued by bad weather. They reached Salt Lake City in late March.

Overall, Pratt himself was not very enthusiastic about the Virgin River country, calling it “a wide expanse of chaotic matter . . . a country in ruins,” but did note that 3,000-4,000 acres of desirable land sat in what would become Washington City and St. George, calling the ground “extremely fertile” and “easily watered.” He also gave high praise for the future Santa Clara in his report to the Legislative Council, saying it was “first-rate bottomland, easily watered and liberally timbered.”

The Expedition’s Aftermath

The most direct result of the expedition’s findings was the settlement first of Parowan and then of Cedar City to exploit the iron ore in the region, the Smarts wrote. Pratt was most enthusiastic about what would become Cedar City because of its soil and access to water for irrigation. By January of 1851, the first settlers arrived in Parowan, some of whom moved on to found Cedar City the next year. Pratt also wrote that what is now Beaver would be “an excellent place for an extensive settlement.”

Soon after the expedition, Pratt would travel to Chile to open South America for missionary work, come home for a time, then serve another mission to Chile, his 11th mission. On his 12th mission to Arkansas, in 1857, he was murdered.

Many of the expedition’s men later served faithfully in the church as bishops, stake presidents and mission presidents. A few others served in the territorial legislature. Some were called to settle the very region they had explored. For example, Haight was sent to Cedar City only a few years later, called to serve as manager of the iron works. He served as stake president until the Mountain Meadows Massacre, when he was cut off from the church for his role in the massacre. His membership was later restored.

The best reminder of the Southern Exploring Party in Washington County is a monument at the trailhead down into Confluence Park from the Hurricane side. It is located at the very north end of Main Street in Hurricane.

For more information about the Southern Exploring Party, visit the Washington County Historical Society’s web page about it.

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About the series “Days”

“Days” is a series of stories about people and places, industry and history in and surrounding the region of southwestern Utah.

“I write stories to help residents of southwestern Utah enjoy the region’s history as much as its scenery,” St. George News contributor Reuben Wadsworth said.

To keep up on Wadsworth’s adventures, “like” his author Facebook page.

Wadsworth has also released a book compilation of many of the historical features written about Washington County as well as a second volume containing stories about other places in Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada.

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