SKINWALKER RANCH

 

Mt. Pleasant City News June 2024

 

Carolyn Anderson Larsen Hafen ~~~~ Our Sweet Beautiful Sister in Law

 

LIFT WHERE YOU STAND (Dieter F. Uchdorf) ~~~ Shared by Duane Hansen

 

GROCERY PRICES 2020 vs 2024

 

ONE OF OUR MOST POPULAR POSTS

 

Chief Walker and a band of Ute Indians appeared in Salt Lake City, June 14, 1849 and requested that BrighamYoung send settlers to the Sanpitch Valley to teach the natives how to build houses and til the soil.  On the following August 20th, Chief Walker and an exploring party reached the present site of Manti  and were well entertained by the natives.  Favorable conditions for settlement must have been evident, because on November 19, 1849,  some fifty families under the spiritual leadership of  Isaac  Morley and Captain Nelson Higgings, made their camp on the north side of the creek  bottom and began what was destined to become Manti City.

All was not so rosy as might at first seem possible.  The  following winter proved severe and the  settlers lost 127 head of their cattle from a band of 240.  The male population was forced to shovel snow into winrows to provide shelter for the cattle and to uncover the dry grass for them to eat.  even the horns of the cattle were sharpened to enable them to break the snow crust and also as a better protection against the wolves. 

The first warm days of spring brought a most unexpected and unwelcome party to the camp.  Just after sunset on this memorable occasion, a weird hissing and  rattling was evidently heard coming.  It seems from all points at once and the very earth appeared to be writhing with spotted backed rattlesnakes which, to the horror of the pioneers  were invading the quiet camp.  They took quarters in their beds, cupboards and in every accessible place in these outlying domiciles.  And among a less hardy band would have created a perfect chaos of confusion.  The whole male population with pine tordches casting a lurid light upohn the wierd scene, began an extermination campaign, which resulted in nearly 500 rattlesnakes being killed the first night.  Although the fight against the deadly serpents continued for several days, not a single person was bitten.
 Excerpts taken from an  article written by Gerald Henrie for the Salt Lake Trubune in about 1922.
 It is  taken from Hilda's Scrapbook.

Mt. Pleasant Kindergarten 1951

 

Kindergarten was held in the basement of our Mt. Pleasant Library. Posted by Kathy Rigby Hafen

 1.  Arthur Candland,  2. Ted Poulsen, 3. Rex Christensen, 4. Mrs. Rasmussen, 5. Bruce Larsen, 6. Michael Porter,  7. David Ream.

I am somewhere in the picture.  Probably in the above area where we played house.  Do you remember our little cubes where we kept our blankets? 

 I remember the sand pile where I accidentally flipped a shovel full of sand into Tyler Tuttle's face. (I don't see him here).  

I remember Mrs. Rasmussen full of anger and would not believe it was an accident.  

I remember Michael Porter always came to school wearing socks that matched his shirt. I was so envious.

The Lives of Six Pioneer Girls

 

Becky Bartholomew:
History Blazer, September 1996

The life stories of six cousins--Clarissa Wilcox, Martha Wilcox, Mabel Wilcox, Luella Hurst, Ida Hurst, and Mary Young--born in three Utah towns between 1863 and 1893 reveal what it was like to be a girl growing up in pioneer Utah.

First memories: Martha was only five years old when someone came to the house to tell her mother that Mormon President Brigham Young had died. Martha remembered that moment all her life.

Clarissa received her first pair of buttoned shoes at age five. Her father, a shoemaker, cut them out of the bootlegs of a man's discarded hightops because leather was so scarce.

As a young girl Luella was afraid of the Indians who went house to house begging. Actually, Utah Indians by that time were friendly, but Luella had heard stories from male relatives about the Indian wars of previous decades, and they filled her with imaginary terrors.

Play: When not helping their mothers, the girls played games they called nip-cat, pomp pomp pull-away, Sister Parute, and rounders (a ball game). They also played hide-and-seek in the sagebrush.

Treats: For treats the girls ate parched field corn and homemade molasses candy. As an old woman Clarissa confessed, "I couldn't stand to eat another bit [of molasses candy] to this day." They also gathered grass and shrubs on which honeydew had condensed during the night and then boiled it down into a sweet syrup. As they grew older and went to community dances; the girls sometimes went at intermission to buy crackers, cheese, and tinned salmon for refreshments.

Clothing: In warm weather small pioneer children mostly went barefoot, especially in towns like Moab where they could not have kept the sand out of their shoes anyway when they went to fetch a bucket of water.

Their mothers made all the families' clothing. In summer the girls wore calico dresses (not slacks or shorts) and in winter dresses made of a homespun material they called "lindsey" (actually linsey-woolsey). One girl's mother would get up early on winter mornings and warm the children's clothes on the stove.

Clarissa somehow got the idea that the only dress appropriate for special occasions was black satin. One year her mother made her a black satin dress, and for the rest of Clarissa's life she always owned such a dress. The year before she died her granddaughter made her a maroon satin dress. It took some persuading before Clarissa agreed to wear non-black.

Work: Martha, when eight years old, was sent on an urgent errand. But on the way she met a friend, and they lallygagged until Martha's mother finally sent someone else. When Martha got home, fully expecting to be punished, her mother just told her to go and play. Martha felt so bad she told her mother she needed "a good licking." So her mother sent her to cut a fresh willow stick. Martha brought back a green one, and her mother gave her several stinging lashes. When Martha yelped, her mother asked, "What's the matter? Didn't I give you enough?" Martha answered, "I didn't think you would whip me so hard." "Well," said her mother, "you asked for it."

At age nine or 10 the girls got their introduction to serious work. Mabel, as the oldest daughter in her family, and Ida, because her mother was a midwife and gone frequently, took over most of their families' household duties: cooking, cleaning, scrubbing clothes on a washboard, milking cows, and tending the younger children. Early morning and late evening work was done by the light of coal-oil lamps.

By age 10, especially if there were few boys in the family, the girls began to help in the fields. At first they weeded or dug potatoes, then (for 25 cents a day) gleaned the wheat after the harvesters had gone through. By age 14 they were able to help shock bundles of grain or hire out in other peoples' homes. Since her mother died when Martha was 13, she spent her teenage years cooking and keeping house for her father and older brothers.

Schooling: School was held only a few months a year in one-room, log schoolhouses. The girls started at about age seven and usually quit by 13 or 14 to work. Most did not go past the eighth grade, but they learned the skills needed to survive in their day.

By today's standards these six cousins had hard lives. They could not even go to the store and buy material to make their own clothes. But they had loving families, lots of friends, and games and dances to enjoy.

Source: Histories of Clarissa Jane Wilcox Meiling, Martha Anna Wilcox Westwood Foy, Mabel Wilcox Johnson, Alice Luella Hurst Nielson, Ida Susannah Hurst Patten, and Mary Ethel Young George; in Montel and Kathryn Seely, Seely History, vol. 2 (Provo: Community Press, 1996).

Mabel Wilcox - From The Lives of Six Pioneer Girls

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How Did Mt. Pleasant Celebrate It's 50th Anniversary? (from our Archives, now 2024)

 

MT. PLEASANT PIONEER MONUMENT

Did You Ever Wonder
How Mt. Pleasant Celebrated Its First 50 Years? Well, for starters, they sent out a letter to each household with the following statement in the first paragraph, “The labor of opening up a new country amid the vicissitudes of pioneer life surely draws upon the admiration of everyone who appreciates integrity. The pioneers made habitable for us this uninviting land and laid the foundation for all the comforts that we enjoy; and that too, under conditions of extreme poverty and constant fear of attack from the Indians. These facts place us who enjoy the fruits of their labor, under a debt of gratitude to which all will acknowledge by taking a part in the erection of a suitable monument to their honor.”
The monument to which reference was made is the very one that stands in front of the Mt. Pleasant Carnegie Library today. The names inscribed on the base of the monument are the original heads of families who settled here in 1859. The money raised to erect the monument came from the families of those original pioneers. Each family was assessed $35.00 to have their pioneer ancestor included on the monument. That $35.00 sum in the year 1909 would be the equivalent of today’s $850.00, according to Consumer Price Index of 2009.
The names that follow are the names found on the base of the monument:

RIGHT PLATE:

Wm. Seely
Neils P. Madsen
Rasmus Frandsen
M. C. Christensen
Nathan Staker
Jens C. Jensen
John Tidwell
Henry Wilcox
Peter Mogensen
John Carter
Orange Seely
George Coates
George Farnsworth
Jens Larsen
Peter Hansen
Svend Larsen
Rudolphus R. Bennett
Christian Brotherson
Daniel Page

Back Plate
Niels Widergreen Anderson
Andrew Madsen
Mads Madsen
Neils Madsen
Christian Madsen
John Meyrick
Jens Jorgensen
Jens Jensen
Peter Johansen
Neils Johansen
Justus Seely
James K. McClenahan
John Waldemar
Christian Hansen
Henry Ericksen
Andrew P. Oman
C.P. Anderson
Christian Jensen
James Harvey Tidwell
Martin Aldrich

Left Plate
Jefferson Tidwell
Paul Dehlin
Mortin Rasmussen
Hans C.H. Beck
Peter M. Peel
Erick Gunderson
Alma Zabriskie
Soren Jacob Hansen
John F. Fechser
Andrew P. Jensen
Wm. Morrison
Hans Y. Simpson
George Frandsen
Peter J. Jensen
Jacob Christensen
Frederick P. Neilson
John L. Ivie
Christian Neilson Christensen
Isaac Allred
Andrew Johansen


And the endeavor itself took only a short time to complete. The proposal letter was sent out March 1st of 1909. The monument was in place and unveiled on July 5th, 1909, less than 6 months later. One can only imagine how long a similar endeavor would take today, not to mention the money that would need to be raised.

And what about the celebration itself? Who was there, who spoke at the unveiling of the statue? Joseph Fielding Smith, President of the Latter Day Saint Church, dedicated the monument. President Smith delivered an eloquent and impressive Dedication speech and prayer. President Smith began by saying “ it was rather out of his line to attempt to address on any subject except church work ; that to this discourse he would have to deal principally with the Church or he would not talk of the pioneers of Utah, but he did not wish any nonmember to take offense to his remarks or think that he considered no one else worthy of mention as he estimated all men by the lives they lived and their value as loyal, useful citizens”.
A three-day celebration on the 5th 6th and 7th of July was held, according to the book of Mt.Pleasant, authored by Hilda Madsen Longsdorf. The following are excerpts from her book. The celebration was the greatest in the history of the town. People in the hundreds came from far and near. A non-resident described it as “ an unsurpassed success, without any unpleasant incident to mar the pleasure of the occasion under skies bright and blue – with stirring strains of music from martial and military bands, with salutes from canon and cracker; with eloquent oration and sweet singing, pleasing the large audiences; and to those inclined towards athletics, sports were provided daily”.

The monument was unveiled by Mrs. Sarah Borg, the second girl born in Mt. Pleasant. When the veil released by her from its fastenings, the flag with which the monument was covered, fluttered slowly to the ground, and amid the cheer of the vast crowd gathered, the beautiful shaft was revealed in all its splendor and glory; a splendid fitting tribute destined to stand throughout the years to come, to the work, trials and achievement of the Pioneers. A silent but emphatic testimonial of the great appreciation of the present generation for the mission so successfully performed by the brave men and women who settled Mt. Pleasant fifty years ago. (one hundred and fifty years ago in 2009).

This year, we the citizens of Mt. Pleasant have the opportunity to celebrate the founding of Mt. Pleasant with our own style and appreciation for those original brave pioneer families. On March 28th we hold our annual Pioneer Day, which is held at that time because it is significant to the fact that those original pioneers came north from Manti, Ephraim, and Spring City in March of 1859 to once again try a new settlement, having been driven south a few years before by hostile Indians. Because they recognized there was good ground here to raise crops, and good prospects to raise their families. We honor those families for their faith, courage, and perseverance. We indeed owe them a great amount of gratitude whether we are a descendant or a newcomer, we reap the many abundant rewards of their unselfish labors.

Mt. Pleasant Third Grade (circa 1977)

 Teacher: Danny Dyches

Teacher's Aid: Erma Shelley

The only children we recognize is Michael Hafen in the Cub Scout uniform on the front row.

Directly behind him also in a scout uniform is Jason Perry.

1963 Beautification Plea

 

In this 1963 picture you can see the old service station that stood east of old Dry Cleaners at 107 west main.  You can also see in the distance the Ursenbach Funeral Home and   Eldon Beck's Appliance Repair to the west. 

1907 EIGTH GRADE GIRL'S BASKETBALL TEAM

 

GREAT PHOTOS FROM MOTHER NATURE ~~~ Shared by Larry Staker