Dancing In Mt. Pleasant ~ taken from "Highlights In The Life of James Monsen".

James Monsen

As the years came, so did responsibility; and yet associated with care and toil,  our pleasures were many and varied.

Those who had wagons with boxes on and spring seats to fit in were among the high class.  Ordinarily, for a real pleasure ride, two span of horses were hitched to one wagon containing four spring seats, with as many as three in each seat.  The pleasure, of course, was fast driving; so much that officers were delegated to order and enforce a slow down.  However, there were no speed limit signs.

photo courtesy of  wikipedia commons

For a long time, our dancing was done  in the different homes.  Old man Bramstead, we called him, was our fiddler.  He usually played the fiddle with his eyes closed, and I am not so sure that he didn't often play in his sleep.  Being hard of hearing, he sometimes continued playing after the dancers were all seated or until someone touched him.  

Eventually, the Jessen Hall was built, where theaters and dances were both carried on.  I don't know whether or not John Hasler became the owner of the hall, but he furnished the orchestra, and accepted cedar posts for the dance tickets.  I think two posts were required for each ticket.  

Six or eight boys would go with one team into the cedar hills, and in one day get enough posts for several dances. In that manner Hasler procured enough posts to fence a quarter section of land he had homesteaded just east of town.  I didn't join any of the boys in hauling posts, but I thought I was big as they were and could also dance.  On presenting fifteen cents at the door for admission, Brother Hasler, in his broken English, said, "You ish too leetel".  However, I was admitted and had a good time as though I had furnished two cedar posts.

The Madsen Hall finally took the place of the Jessen and all other halls.  We danced every Tuesday and Friday nights, beginning at eight o'clock and dancing until three or four o'clock in the morning, except for a recess at about 12 o'clock.  The older dancers went to different places for a midnight supper, while the younger people went to the store just beneath the hall.  It was opened an hour for the purpose of selling things to eat.  The counters were lined with youngsters eating crackers and cheese, canned salmon, and all kinds of canned goods. These were early dancing days.

Early Dancing Days~ As Remembered by James Monsen

The Settlement (from Nickles From a Sheep's Back by Pearle M. Olsen)

The Mt. Pleasant Fort was similar to the one above, which is Cove Fort.
Mt. Pleasant pioneers did not cut the rocks, they left them whole.

About four months after Mt Pleasant's very beginning (March 1859) it was reported that there were eight hundred inhabitants who were industrious and enterprising.  Already they had 1200 acres planted and crops looke promising.  The foundation for a fort wall had been laid and was 26 rods square, built of stone - - - four feet thick at the base.  The wall, when finished, was to be twelve feet high and two feet wide at the top.

A grist mill and a new saw mill had been erected.  A bowerey, 40 by 60 feet, built of upright cedar posts was covered with large, fresh green boughs and willows.  It was located in the southwest corner of the fort, and became the center of community activities.

Settlers celebrated July holidays that first summer with salutes, and drums beating at daybreak.  After a meeting consisting of singing and prayers, spirited speeches and instrumental music, a meal was served to everyone - - - and dancing began.

People still lived in their wagons and dugouts.  On the 11th of August they began harvesting limited crops consisting of native grasses called wild hay.  Their only means of cutting the grass was with homemade scythes and they raked it with pitchforks someone made from native wood and whatever iron could be obtained.  The simple method was time consuming.  They accomplished the hauling of the hay by using oxen, sometimes pairing one ox and one cow.

After they had harvested the wild hay it was time to harvest the grain crop.  It was also scythed - - - then cradled and raked into bundles - bound and hauled to the yards.  There it was threshed by trampling of oxen - - -or flailed by men with willows and flails.  To separate grain from chaff required a light wind or breeze.  Piled on a canvas and tossed into the air the grain fell into another canvas as the chaff blew away.  The process was repeated several times to thoroughly clean the grain.  Wilhemina ( the author's grandmother) took an active part in the harvesting of crops, as did other girls and women who helped with the raking, binding and gleaning.

Settlers drove oxteams to Manti to gather salertus that was in plentiful supply south of town.  That which was to be used for bread making was carefully gathered with spoons, and the less desirable saleratus that could be used for washing of clothes was scooped up with shovels.

THE FIRST HOUSES

When their harvesting was finished that first year, the settlers began to build houses in the fort and prepare for winter.  Roadways and alleys were marked off and nearly two hundred houses were erected - - - many of them using the rear wall of the fort for the rear wall of the house.  A slant roof and adobe walls were characteristic, but a few were made of logs.  Most houses had one door, two windows, and sod roofs, with dirt floors in all of them.  There were some houses along the alleys and a few of them were built both inside and outside of the fort.  Some men were brave enough to risk Indian attack on their families and decided to live outside the fort.

The fort wall was spaced with portholes every sixteen feet that were seven feet from the ground.  A flat roofed house in the corner provided a platform upon which guards could stand for a good view of possible Indian trouble.  Wide wooden gates centered the north and south walls, and narrower wooden gates were in the east and west walls. 

A huge fireplace in each house was used for night light, also for heat and  cooking.  Pitch pine and cedar wood made excellent fuel.  Matches were unknown so it was important to keep fires burning constantly, banking them well at bedtime.  If a fire died out, live coals were obtained from a neighbor by carrying them in a bucket, shovel or pan.