Oral History Program Parley P. Kendell Interviewed by Dixie Stratford 27 February 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Parley P. Kendell Interviewed by Dixie Stratford 27 February 1973 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Kendell, Parley, an oral history by Dixie Stratford, 27 February 1973, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Parley P. Kendell. The interview was conducted on February 27, 1973, by Dixie Stratford, in the location of 1179 East 6600 South, Ogden, Utah. Mr. Kendell discusses his personal history during his life in Weber County, Utah. DS: Mr. Kendell, I understand that you have lived in Uintah all your life, and that your father lived here most of his. Could you tell me why this areas was settled? PK: Yes. Brigham Young sent my grandfather. He got into Salt Lake City in the fall of 1854 and helped cut up meat to divide amongst the pioneers so they would all get some and some wouldn’t get all. Then in the spring of 1855, he sent Grandfather Kendell up here to settle. He came up here, got his homestead, and that is the reason he settled here. DS Were there many other people here at that time? PK: That was in 1855 and the first settlers came in 1850. DS: How many families were here when he came? PK: Very few. But after 1850, there was quite an influx of people. They got making charcoal and shipping or hauling it to Salt Lake City. Later on, when the railroad came in, they estimated 2-3,000 people lived here. DS: What was the main occupation? PK: Farming. That’s all there was to do until the railroad came in 1869. DS: What part did the railroad play? 1 PK: Well, it was like the lifeblood of the country coming in when the railroad came in. It brought all kinds of merchandise. People got wages working on the railroad. There were three telegraph offices worked here, and an agent. DS: What about businesses? PK: My father said that when he was a boy there were about 30 businesses on the north side of the road from the fox farm to where Bill Hill lives (1947 East 6600 South). Businesses were here when the railroad was built in, but when the railroad at Promontory was finished everything went flat here. Stagecoaches and freight moved to Corrine. Those going to Salt Lake City and Southern Arizona stayed here. In 1872 the railroad, the Central Pacific from Ogden to Salt Lake, was finished so the rest moved out and left no need for the stagecoach or anything else anymore. They rode into Salt Lake on the railroad. DS: Was the community, and the businesses you described, here when you were born? PK: I was born 20 years after the railroad. Most of the houses were log houses covered over with siding. Now there are newer brick homes. The fox farm and Neal houses were there. DS: What kind of schools were here? PK: Just elementary. There were two rooms, one for the first and second grades, and a big room which was larger and wider for the rest of the grades. DS: How many schoolteachers did they have? 2 PK: Two schoolteachers. My first teacher was Miss Bridges, and the second was Miss Olive Pratt of Salt Lake City. Miss Bridges taught two years, and Miss Pratt taught two or three years. When I was in the fourth grade, they built a new schoolhouse - 1898. It was made of brick, had two rooms and four classes in each room. DS: Where was the school from your home here? PK: About a mile and a half up the road. Do you know where Laura Bybee lived? That was the schoolhouse where I went (2091 East 6550 South). They turned it into a double apartment, but that was where I got most of my education. DS: How many kids in your class? PK: I imagine 30 to 35 in the little room of first and second grades. In the large room, there were 20-year-olds down to the fourth grade, or about eight-year-olds. Mr. Rogers, Mr. Reynolds, and Charlie Saunders taught here. Rubin Saunders taught here when I graduated from the eighth grade. He got me to stay in school. I’d been going to school. We started in the fall, then in March would quit. When there was nothing else to do, we’d go to school. He got me to stay and get my diploma. He told me I would appreciate it. I’m glad I did. DS: How did you spend most of your time when a youth? PK: Working here on the farm. When I was a kid about eight years old, I picked berries for Mr. Ham Dye. He shipped a lot of fruit east into Wyoming and western Nebraska. I picked cherries, strawberries, raspberries, red currants, cherry currants. I worked for Mr. Andrew Anderson from 1908 until the time I got married in in 1912. They built a canning factory here in 1902. I worked in it their second year, 1902. Worked all season. Canned 3 tomatoes, plums, fruits, apples, prunes, and pumpkin in the fall. Worked there until about 1910, or a little after. DS: Where was it located from here? PK: One mile east of here, up the road. DS: Tell me about the wildlife in this area when you were a youth. PK: Well, there was plenty of coyotes, bobcats, weasels, not many mink, but plenty of coyotes. You could see them about every day along with bobcats. There were some deer, but not as many as I’ve seen since then. My dad said that the deer would migrate down in the winter and there would be quite a few. DS: When you dad lived here, were there any bear or other animals? PK: Very few. Oh, they would come down toward the mountains and get quite close sometimes. DS: What kind of contact did you have with Indians? PK: Very little, myself. I was too scared of them. When we started off to school, that was our worry, that we would run into them. After I went to school two or three years, I found out they wouldn’t hurt you. I’d have to be to school about nine, so I’d leave home here about eight and walk up there. The morning train came in about 8:30. I’d see about a dozen or 15 bucks sic and squaws sic get off that train, and walk up the road to their camp. DS: Where was their camp from here? 4 PK: About a mile and a half up the road where Claude Stuart lives (2110 East 6550 South). I’d see about a dozen or 15 wickiups in there, with about 25 to 30 Indians, as well as papooses. DS: What did you call them – wickiups? PK: Yes, they would take about three poles stuck in the ground with deer hides wrapped around them. DS: Like tepees, only wickiups. PK: Yes, they would stay in them and build a small fire, never a big one, a small one so they could lay up close to it and pull a bear hide or a deer hide up over them. When I was a kid and before I started school, they would make moccasins for me and sew a design on top. When I started school, my folks bought me some leather shoes. DS: So you must have had a good relationship with the Indians. PK: Sure, they made buckskin pants for my dad when he was a kid. They would roll them up when they got wet so they didn’t drag. When they got dry, they would unroll them every day until dry. They also made buckskin shirts and things until the railroad came in, and that was when things changed. They brought in all kinds of clothing and material. DS: Tell me about the Indian honeymoon grounds. PK: The clump of oak brush they used was here when I built my house. After I got married, I don’t remember many Indians. I burned some of the trees, about one-half to threefourths of an acre. A young buck would pick out a squaw for his wife, and they would get married. Don’t know how marriage ceremony was before whites. They always got a 5 bishop or someone to come down and marry them. My dad was justice of the peace for 40 years. I don’t know if he married any Indians though. Little Soldier was the chief of the Shoshone tribe. He would bring a young buck and his wife here and tell them to stay. They would build a wickiup, and the chief would appoint two squaws to bring food, morning and night. After they had been here about a week to 10 days, he would tell them to get on their own. They had to leave. I don’t know where they settled. DS: They did settle in this area then? PK: No, I don’t know where they went, but somewhere else. Hardly any Indians camped here in the summer. They left and went somewhere, and then came here in the winter where it was warmer. There were more Indians here before my time. I remember when I was a kid, the Indians would come through with two or three horses, with poles tied behind on each side. There would be hay, two or three papooses, and dogs riding. The squaws walked behind carrying what they owned, which wasn’t much, maybe a gunnysack of grasshoppers that they gathered in the fall. DS: What did they do with the grasshoppers? PK: Ate them. They would gather hawthorns and dry them up as hard as rock candy, and they would eat them, and also what they could get my mooching off the people. People gave them meat and bread that they made. I remember when I was a kid and lived in that log house over there, there was a little window at the east end of the house. Mom had hops planted, and it grew on a vine for shade by that window. They would crowd behind that and knock on the window. Dad would tell them to come out to the door and ask what they wanted. They would say, “You give me some ‘biskey,’ meaning a little 6 bread and butter or meat, maybe. They always fed them. I never remember them turning them away. They would sit down on the ground and eat, and then go on down the road to my grandma’s. There were only the two houses up here when I was a kid. Another house I remember was at the fox farm. Samuel Dye lived in that. They came in 1862. Joined the church in England and came here and stayed. There were two brothers, Samuel and Jonathan that stayed and died here. Another brother, Richard, went to Riverdale. He had four or five boys who all moved to Idaho except Samuel G. Dye. He was a prominent businessman in Ogden. DS: Are the Dyes that live here now from that same line? PK: Yes, three original brothers. The old Dye or fox farm was where the turkey farm is now (1550 East 6600 South). There were also some Curry brothers here. Most of the people here were farmers and shipped fruit out of here. When I worked for Mr. Anderson, we shipped goods as far east as Nebraska. I’ve seen as many as 400 trucks of berries a night loaded on the train. DS: You mentioned that you worked for the railroad, too. What did you do? PK: In 1916 I worked on the railroad constructing double track from Emery to Wasatch. The first war stopped it for a while. Then they sent me here to work in the depot. Mr. Donald Donaldson was the agent, and I helped him with the express. In 1918 I started double tracking again from Evanston to Altamont. DS: What do you mean by double tracking? PK: Building another track so they didn’t go on the same line. Eastbound went up one side and westbound down on another, like they do today. The helper engine would pull the 7 train up to the Devils Gate Bridge, switch over so the train could go by, and then back down canyon to here. It would then wait for another train. A lot of young fellows, 16 years on up, would ride this helper up the canyon and then take care of about six cars by tightening brakes so they could come down the canyon. This was before air brakes. They would help unload then train, and then it went on in to Ogden. A couple of guys would go on in so it wouldn’t run away. DS: How did they signal if they wanted a helper? PK: Whistle three times. The train coming up, if stuck, would whistle three times. That was the sign for the helper to back up. A great big rod would be raised up by a brakeman, run it in, and drop it. That was before coupling hands came on. Several would lose fingers when it would bang and drop in. Of course they would give them a job of something else. The first I remember was an Irishman named McQueen. He lost fingers by being a brakeman trying to couple up. You would hold a link pin with a brake stick. The trains backed into each other and it was supposed to drop through. If it didn’t, they would have to hit it with their hand. They had to be careful because if it jerked too hard it pulled the pin out. A lot of kids, when they grew up to be 18 or 19, would get jobs firing on the helper. The helpers were here from the time of the railroad until the turn of the century. They took the helper out of the Ogden run right through to Wasatch. These young kids that helped in Weber Canyon went from Evanston to Ogden. They would brake a train on the way back. When they got automatic brakes that did away with a lot of them. Didn’t have trains like now with 100 to 140 cars, and only two brakemen on. There was a land brakeman in the engine. He does the switching with the engineer if you have to go into the siding. The other brakeman rides in the caboose with the 8 conductor, and when the train comes out, he closes the track behind. Used to do that with the helper. DS: Was there a road up Weber Canyon then? PK: Oh yes. When the pioneers came in, Brigham Young sent three men down to see if they could find a way through. Jim Bridger said they would never get through. When they got to Hells Gate, they thought it was too narrow. They decided they couldn’t get through, so they camped at Echo. Then they went up through Hennifer, over the top, and down through Emigration Canyon to Salt Lake City. There was travel through here before the railroad came in, teams, buggies, horses. Before the railroad, they hauled coal from Coalville in the winter on bob sleighs. Hauled all winter long. When the railroad came, they set cars up in Echo, pushed to Coalville, filled with coal then distributed all along the way. There were tons and tons of coal. I’ve seen six or eight trainloads of coal a day go through here that were loaded in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and all in there. DS: Do you remember the first automobile? PK: I remember the first one I ever saw. In 1901 Brewer, the manager of the canning factory, brought one out here. It was a one lunger, or one cylinder. Every time it would go off, it would jerk. It had a rod or stick up from the steering wheel. You would sit in and turn the rod back and forth. If you hit an old wagon track, and the stick was in, you couldn’t get out. And then all at once it would get out and jump back on the road and go off again. The biggest handicap in building cars was how to steer them. I’ve read that two or three times. DS: Tell me about the Morrisite war. 9 PK: Joseph Morris came out here with Brigham, and was a very devoted member of the LDS church. When he got out here, he started pushing things too much, and Brigham told Morris to forget it, that he was the leader of the church. Morris wrote Brigham a letter and asked him to move out and let him move in and take over. He believed he was the real prophet. They ran them the Morrisites out of Salt Lake, and they moved into Sanpete County. I don’t know the name of the town over there. They kept up the same ruckus over there. He kept writing to Brigham and said that he was going to destroy the whole works if he didn’t let him move in and take over. They ran him out of there because they got sick and tired of his preaching and practicing. He and his group came back and settled out in Slaterville for a while, and then they ran him out of there because of his activities. He heard of South Weber or Kingston’s Fort, one mile north of here (776 East 6600 South). He and his bunch moved in; Dad said about 1,000 or 1,200 people moved into the fort in the spring of 1861. He Morris was so sure that he was right and an apostle of God, and was to bring the church here, that they wouldn’t plant crops. They believed that the second coming of Christ was near at hand, and that He would destroy the enemy. Morris knew they would be taken up to heaven. In 1862 he still said Christ would come. They had about five acres that was so pretty and green that it all looked like it had been clipped with sheep shears. He would have a revelation or two and would say that Christ was coming but nobody showed up. He had a big tent and would take in his 12 apostles. It was the same as in our LDS Church. DS: He actually started his own church then. PK: Yes, but when the second coming didn’t show up, the people started to complain. He would come out and start to talk to them. Then he would take his 12 back in and decide 10 what to do, and on some reason for postponing the second coming. Dad said, “Damn fools, they ought to know better when no one showed up.” In 1862 William Jones went to them and wanted to move out. He didn’t want to listen to their lingo any longer. He wanted his eight cows, four pigs, his team, wagon, plow, and wanted to move out. They arrested him, took a chain, and fastened him to a log building and another guy who was with him. They held them for two weeks without trial. He Jones came over to my Grandfather Kendell, who was in the field plowing. He came through the brush. Grandfather said, “Billy, they are after you. Do you know they are going to get you? How did you get away?” He said, “Yeah, I do know. Well, the guard brought my breakfast to me. I slugged him in the jaw just as hard as I could and knocked him out. I reached over and got him by the leg, pulled him over, and got the key out of his pocket. I unlocked the lock off the chain and got away. My team of horses were in the brush. I came over to see what you thought I should do.” Grandpa said, “I don’t want a thing to do with you.” He told him to get away from there and not to bother him. Said they would be after him. It hadn’t been 15 minutes when here they came, about 25 or 30 horses, all with rifles in full view. They asked if he Jones had been here. Grandpa said that he hadn’t been here and he hadn’t seen him. They said he had started through the brush but maybe he hadn’t got here yet. The brush was really thick in those days. They said they would ride along. There was one man about every 50 feet through the field and brush up to the mouth of the canyon. They didn’t see him, so they headed south to Salt Lake City. He came again on his hands and knees. Grandpa said, “I thought I told you to get out of here and get to Salt Lake and put your trouble before the government there.” He said, “I didn’t have time yet.” “Well, they are going to kill you. I know because I heard the 11 buggers talking.” He went as far as Kaysville and came back again. The people here told him to get to Salt Lake and plead his complaint to the marshal, or the Morrisites would find and kill him. He got into Salt Lake and pleaded his complaint to the marshal. He told what they had done. The marshal sent three guys from Salt Lake City to see the Morrisites and tell them to surrender the men held captive. With the marshal came 200 militia and with them five or six cannon with two to four-inch balls. They set them along the hill. Then they went down to talk with the Morrisites in their camp. They wanted them to surrender and come to Salt Lake. John Banks, who was an apostle for the Morrisites and a little hot head, took the summons and threw it on the fire and burned it up. The three men went back up and told what had happened. They decided to give them a half hour more, and then if they didn’t surrender, they would open fire on them. They never surrendered so they opened fire. Cannon balls came down and tore down houses. They battled for three days, and 11 got killed. One half dozen of those killed were soldiers, and the rest were from the Morrisite band. They finally came out on a horse with a white flag. DS: You said that you have some of the cannon balls. PK: We found two of them when plowing the field. There were two or three women killed. Morris was killed and also his apostle, Banks. One woman was hit and killed while sitting and holding her baby. The ball hit and killed her and glanced off and hit the baby in the chin and took it off. It tore the side of her face away. She lived, moved to Soda Springs, and raised quite a family. Her husband lived to be quite old, over 90. DS: How did your father meet her again? 12 PK: They were on a summer trip to Yellowstone and stopped in Soda Springs on the way back. They needed milk, so Dad got a bucket and went over to a farm and saw this lady that looked kind of odd with part of her chin gone. She asked where he was from, and he said down on the Weber. She asked if he knew about the Morrisites. He said that that was all they heard about when he was a kid. Some said it was the Mormons, some said not. There were more arguments about this war than anything else. She said that she was the little girl that got hit. There was that bunch in Soda Springs and another in Montana. My dad’s aunt went out to Carson City, Nevada, with a fellow named Cook in polygamy. They never heard anything from here again. DS: You said that there weren’t any here in Uintah that lived in polygamy that you knew of? PK: I don’t know of any polygamists living here in the valley. Cook lived here for a while. He was a bishop but left the Mormon Church and joined the Morrisites. Grandma had already married him so she went to Carson City. Dad went out years later to try to find them but couldn’t. He said they must have been pretty prosperous because they had a large barn, and he counted about 20 harnesses in their barn. DS: This really has been good information, and I thank you very much for giving it to me. 13