Oral History Program Isaac Hallman Interviewed by David Schoenfeld 25 July 1974 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Isaac Hallman Interviewed by David Schoenfeld 25 July 1974 Copyright © 2012 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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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hallman, Isaac, an oral history by David Schoenfeld, 25 July 1974, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following interview with Mr. Hallman was conducted July 25, 1974, at 6:00 PM, at his home in Centerville, Utah, by David Schoenfeld. The main topic of this interview is irrigation companies in Davis County during the 1900's and some of Mr. Hallman's personal experiences in relationship to irrigation in the county. DS: Why don't you just tell me a little bit about yourself and how long you have lived in the area? IH: Well if I knew what you wanted, I know how to start. I was born the Second day of June, 1885 at Cross Plaines, Carroll County, Georgia. I lived there to the age of seventeen and then father sold out to...then we moved to Mississippi. DS: Then you originally weren't a member of the church, were you? IH: No, but I lived in Georgia when I first heard of the Mormons. I was fourteen years old. DS: Now that is something I would be interested in. Now what was your first recollection of hearing of the Mormons? IH: I had read something about them in the history books in school; the Mormons moving to Utah and it showed a picture of them, with the oxen, and horses, and the dogs, and hand carts following along. It didn't impress me much and when these Mormon missionaries come around, I was just curious, because, very curious. Now I'll tell you why I was so curious. I had done a lot of reading and reading the Bible, and we had a good large library. DS: Was your family original Baptist? IH: No, they were Lutheran. I had read part of it and I was baptized, as they called it, when I was an infant. They call it christening. I had read the Bible, but I could conform to the idea of sprinkling, as being baptism. I couldn't accept that, in my own mind. When I reached the age twelve, at that age, you are supposed to be confirmed and then you become a full-fledged Lutheran. Now I refused to accept that confirmation and that grieved my father and it grieved me, because I was grieving him. My mother did however join the Lutheran Church and she was a Baptist when she married him. She sympathized with me. Then reading all the stories in the Bible and what I had seen and how the church was I assumed should be run and my trouble with the pastors and with my parents. Why don't we have apostles and prophets in the church today? They didn't know, you'll have to ask your pastor. Ask my pastor and the pastor was very hard on me. They'd say, why one of them said I was balmy, to even think that there would be apostles and prophets in the church today. They were done away with when the apostles were killed off, and there's no more and will never by no more. Well, I couldn't digest that, that doctrine that they would teach me. So, I still went to church, I went to Sunday School, my father was a Sunday School teacher, either a teacher or superintendent of the Sunday School. But it was a "union" Sunday School, because Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterian, and Lutheran were all connected there at the little community called Cross Plaines. Therefore, coming up with what I had gleaned from reading the Bible and my own understanding of it and my interpretation of the Bible, I could not accept what these Christian denominations was preaching to me. I had reached a state of mind where I said in my own mind, Christianity is a farce. I was fourteen years old, when they come around. Well, I went to hear them. Father Grant, he 2 was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the school board there and he granted them the privilege of using the school house to hold their services in. DS: You were fourteen then, when they, when you first heard them? IH: Yes, that was 1899. Is when, when this was. I don't remember the time of year. I knew that I pondered in my mind when they told about the story of Joseph Smith, being fourteen years old when he had his first vision. That worried me, how could a kid fourteen years old have a vision. But then I thought and the story of Samuel in the Bible. He had a conversation with the Lord when he was younger than that. So, well, I guess maybe that is all right. Up until that time, when they came around, I had decided in my mind that all Christianity was a farce. Well, it went on later, I went to school at the Mississippi State University and while I was at Mississippi State University, the people, the young people I wanted to associate with, students and others there and back home, all went to church. The class that didn't go to church, was a class that I didn't care to associate with. They were, you might say, well, they didn't have the standards of morality that I was brought up in in my home. We were very religious in my home. My father would never allow a lick of work that was unnecessary to be done on the Sabbath Day. We had to get every bit of the work done on Saturday, prepare everything for Sunday. That's the attitude that I was brought up in. Then when these Mormon missionaries come along, that sounded good to me, but then I just threw it off, passed it off. I didn't pray about it. I just threw it off and said that's just some more preacher's talk for you. DS: You didn't read any of the Church literature or the Book of Mormon? 3 IH: Yes, yes I read the Church literature, but I didn't pray about it. And all the while I was reading it, it appealed to me as being the truth, and yet I didn't pray about it. Went on and I got married and then I moved to Texas. We first moved to Mississippi, and then there's where I met my wife. We got married and then we moved to Texas. Then the missionaries come along there, and if you’re interested in that story, tell you something that is very interesting. I was working on a farm, for a man by the name of Frankham, and I was driving a bull- rig. I had never seen a bullrig until that morning, farm owner was a one armed- man and he gave me a team, a bull-rig, showed me the levers and how to work it and I was going out there to push those shocks of hay up to the bailer. We're going to bale that hay today. DS: Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a bull-rig? IH: Well, it's a contraption. This one was an old homemade one. Frame back here where you raise and lower it. Big tines, big wooden ones; they’re as big around as the spread of them three fingers, oak, hard wood, and you run out and you lower that tine and horses come around, one on each side of that shock of hay and you run that tine under it and pull a lever and raise it up and wheel around and go right back to where the bailer is and then you dropped that and drop it down there. Then with a pitchfork, we grabbed on to that and then we would go to pitch it into those docks. Well, they don't do it that way now. They cut it and bail it all on one machine. Well, that's what a bull-rig is. Well, it would go under that and pull a lever and I was having a time keeping those tines from running into the ground. Well, I was running along there and this young man, he couldn't have been any older than you and maybe not as old, and he come and jumped up on the rig by the side of me and he called me by name. I never had seen him. But it 4 happened that the lady that was living on the ranch there and her husband was one of the men who was operating the bailer. She was a member of the Church, but he wasn't. The missionaries were staying with her. This young elder, raised on a farm in Idaho, just outside of Preston, he come along and he knew how to handle that thing. He got up there and then just a minute and he had me out of all my worries. Then we just talked on and he rode around with me for two or three rounds. Then he finally says, Brother Hall, I've got a book down at Sister Walch's. Now why was he calling her Sister Walch? Was she a Mormon? He had not even told me who he was. She and him were of the same faith. It never occurred to me about them being Mormons. He didn't say that he was. DS: How old were you at the time? IH: I was twenty-eight years old. That was fourteen years later. It was 1912 when he was there and I was baptized in the fall of 1913. Then when he said that, he said he had it in his grip or suitcase. He had it down at Sister Walch's home. DS: Now is a grip just another name for a carrying case? IH: Well, it’s a grip, or just a small suitcase. What do you call those cases now? It was square, hard-metal on the outside. They carried their missionary materials and maybe a change of clothing. That's what the missionaries carried. Same principle they were operating on when they came to my father's home in Georgia. Then he says, I got a book that I would like to give to you on one condition. I thought, what in the world would he want a condition for, if he is going to give me a book, why doesn't he give it to me? I thought a moment about it, and then said, all right, what is your condition? I was beginning to get a little mysterious there. Then he said, that you'll promise me that you 5 will read it. I laughed when he said that, I just laughed. I said, mister don't you know that that would be the easiest thing in the world to get a book, easiest way in the world to get a book. I could promise you that I would read that and when your back was turned, I could throw it in the river, or someplace else. No, but you won't. Now here is the point. It struck me very forcefully, that you won't, if you promise me that you will read it, you will read it. Now, how did he know that? You ever been a missionary? Well, then he said, if you'll promise me that you will read it, you will read it. It hit me with so much force. I don't know, but you see the point with me is, I know now. I know that he was laboring under the influence of the Holy Ghost. He knew when he was talking to me that if I'd promised him that I'd read it, I'd read it. But if he just gave it to me without some promise, I would not read it. Well, I might not have. I said yes and then later on, he talked a little further and he said perhaps your pastor might tell you not to read it. I said my pastor does not control my reading. I am my own judge. All right, what is your book? He says, it's the Book of Mormon. I laughed, and says, I have seen that, I fingered through it, and I have read a little in it, but I have never really read it. But I had already promised him that I would read it before I said that. I knew what it was then. Well, I took it home and I kept my promise, then I read Moroni's statement in the back, I got to that verse, that says, when you shall receive these things, if it be the wisdom of God that ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that you ask God the eternal father, in the name of Jesus Christ, if these things are not true, and if you will ask with a sincere heart, having faith, and wavering not, ye shall receive this...then it goes on in the next verse and says, by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may receive the truthfulness of all 6 things. Now, when I read the book through, my wife and I read it together. Now my wife come in there, and her grandfather was a big Baptist minister, on her mother's side. DS: Where was she born? IH: Mississippi, born and raised there. She was a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist, couldn't be anything else, because of her grandfather, and he was a great man. She had an uncle also, who was a Baptist minister. But she didn't dote on her uncle too much, but he was a little more modern than her grandfather. Grandfather, when I knew him, was an old man. So, that's my background and I was baptized and you will accent this Gospel or you will not live. That likely scared me to death and I had said that. That prayed on my mind for days and days, months, and I could never get it out of my mind. Then when we got up to Kelso, Texas, she was still fighting the Church. She didn't want anything to do with it. She got this serious sickness and disease, and it’s called pellagra. Then on her hands, both of them, back of her hands were swollen up and broke out and you've seen steaks where they have been hacked? Back of her hands looked just like that. She had become perfectly helpless, she couldn't even take care of herself. We had two small children and I was running a crop and I couldn't work my crop, I had to stay at the house and take care of her and I had to take care of our two children. Because everybody and my neighbors were afraid to come in, they was afraid of it. So, eventually she broke down and she says, I want you to go get President Marsh, he was President of the branch. Have him come over to me. I went and got him. He lived about a mile and a half away. He came over there and he talked to her, and she told President Marsh that she wanted him in the Church Sunday to ask the members of the ward to fast and pray for me and then I want the Elders to come and administer to me in the afternoon, after you 7 have fasted. He set Tuesday as the day for them to fast. Men, women, and child, nearly every person, little children and all, in that Kelso Branch and there were about 500 members, fasted. Then there were four or five Elders came in that evening and I didn't even hold the Priesthood, and they administered to her. She was healed and began to get well. She got well very rapidly. She told me when she was well enough to go to the creek, she would be baptized. She did. {At this point part of the conversation was lost in changing tapes; the interview picks up with Mr. Hallman discussing the Bernard Creek Irrigation Company and its early history.} IH: Known as the Bernard Creek Irrigation Company, and at that time there was a list of Thomas Barber, and I don't remember his initial, was President, and I think a Charles Streeper was secretary. He was president for many years and then some time about the early 40's I was elected president of the ditch company. In its articles of incorporation, it states who was the first original owner of it and I can't remember who it was. But I can remember some of the names. There was a Garns, Emmet Garns, who lived right down there and he owned a strip of land through here and he owned a good lot of the land. Then there was Thomas Barber. He was a heavy stock owner. There was Charles Rawlins, and George Rawlins were the two other heavy owners along with George Chase and Charlie Streeper. They were about the limit of the stockholders and there were some few small share owners like I was, two or three shares. Most of these others had anywhere from twenty to forty shares, and I only had six that went with the land I bought. But that was not enough water to irrigate and the thing prompted me to move out here was the fact that at that time there was a lot of discussion about the Weber River Project coming in to existence. On the basis of that and the possibility of the 8 development of some of this undeveloped land because of the lack of water, I come out here and bought eighteen acres. We moved from Salt Lake City to here. I was working with the Post Office, beginning in 1926, and in 1929 I moved out here, but I didn't buy when we first moved. I thought I just check it over to see if I liked it or not and I leased a piece of ground from 1929 until 1932. DS: How much did that cost? IH: About $35 a month and that was cheaper than I could rent a house in Salt Lake. I had eight children and we had two rooms of a lean-to here. My first year I was here I built this kitchen and dining room over here. Built this myself. DS: Did you originally build it out of rock? IS: This is, but that part is over one hundred years old. They told me it was nearly a hundred years old when I moved here. I couldn't find those articles of incorporation or I could have given you originals, from the beginning, when the company was first incorporated. The Church owns over 90% of all the stock and a lot of people just quick using it when they bought Weber Basin water. They forget about the Bernard Creek water, but I sold mine to the Church. DS: When did you finally move out here permanently? IH: On the 17th of April, 1929- I come out and leased it one day and moved out the nest. DS: Did you have your shares of water in the company at that time? IH: The owner of Cannon Beneficiary Company, George M. Cannon Sr., owned it and he was president of the Cannon Beneficiary Company and he bought this whole section of land here, from the Union Pacific Railroad. 9 DS: The railroad owned this? IH: The railroad owned this originally. When the Union Pacific Railroad was built all the way from Omaha, every other section of land was given to them and this section happened to be one of them. Now I know that, because when it was deeded to me Mr. Cannon held out the rights to any minerals or oil to the Union Pacific Railroad and I didn't own that right. Now I sold fifty-four lots here, cut mine up into lots and sold it and they built homes on it. On every deed that I write they have to reserve and hold out for the Union Pacific Railroad the oil and mineral rights on their land. So this section of land, Section #5, and maybe #6 also...it's every other section. DS: How did the Depression effect you and Centerville? IH: My wages was 2100 a year and eight children. That's one reason I moved out of Salt Lake City, was the fact that I had six boys running the streets in Salt Lake City and they would run their mother crazy. They were full of life, and there wasn't a thing for them to do. They could pick up jobs now and then and they would sell paper. Go down on Main Street and sell papers and then when they would sell the papers, they hold out enough to buy papers for the next day or go to a picture show. The family was getting no benefit out of what they were doing. I was just observing those things so I began to, and I was working an afternoon shift, swing shift, from three till eleven-thirty. I would get up every morning and I would go south and drive all over hunting property. I saw this one advertised in the paper and I went to the Cannon Beneficiary and there was a man in his office that was coming out here to look at it. Mr. Cannon come along with us, we come out here and looked it over and the other fellow said he would not be interested in it. It was a desolate looking place, but the fact that the Weber River Project was in 10 progress of being talked of and the possibilities of it being exploited, on the basis of that after the other man told us, I bought it. It didn't have running water and it had an outhouse, but we got use to that; the very first year we were here I built the other part of the house. Mr. Cannon bought the lumber from the lumberyard and had it delivered here and I built it in the mornings before I had to go to work. I had done some building, prior to that time, and I had worked with a contractor in Logan some. But he had an architect to draw up the plans. DS: You told me over the phone about a drought in Centerville during the 30's, I think? IH: If I did it was on the order of shortage of water. It must not have been me. {The tape was again interrupted for technical reasons and resumes talking about irrigation in Davis County.} IH: That was nearly every summer or late in the fall, when the water was very low. But there isn't very much rainfall in the summertime, and that's what happened with Bernard Creek. We had a pretty good stream of water in the spring, but in the fall of the year the watersheds leeched out because there was nothing left. I seen the time when, these people right down here could hardly get water enough to them, using the entire creek. If somebody down at the lower end wanted to water and the people up here had been using the stream through their dirt ditches, they would not get any. DS: Did you have a pretty good share of the water being this far up? IH: Yes, I had the advantage. I was right up close to the hill and the head of the creek. It came down into a diversion box and I was only one hundred yards from that box. I got 11 the benefit of the entire creek. From the diversion box it was divided up and had to go in different directions. Later, after I moved here, we got concrete ditches. DS: When were the concrete ditches built? IH: They were put in during the late 40's or early 50's. DS: You were president at that time weren't you? IH: No, they were in before I was made President. I became President shortly after they were put in. I guess they were put in more nearly in the early 40's. DS: How long were you President of the company? IH: Close to twenty years. I came in as President in the early 1940's and I went out in the early 1960's. But I stayed in till the Weber Basin was in and I then sold out my stock to the Church. Then I was out of it entirely. DS: When did the Weber Basin Project come through here? IH: It was in here before I retired and that was in 1951 and I sold out. DS: How many shares of stock did the company have when you finally sold out to the Church? IH: Well, they had a total of about two hundred shares. DS: What was the greatest number of people holding stock at one time? IH: Not over twenty. Just a few that lived right along the borders of the creek. It was not a very big creek, except in the spring of the year with the runoff, then it's a good big creek. But when the spring runoff was over with and on the out fringes of the mountains when the snow would melt and run down then the runoff was steady, but when the runoff was 12 gone, it was lighter, but did hold up well into July and August. From then on very light runoff. DS: Did you have a Watermaster? IH: No, there never was a Watermaster, as president I was Watermaster. We collected no money to pay a Watermaster and I got no salary. DS: There was a yearly charge for the water, wasn't there? IH: Oh yes. Three dollars a year per share. DS: What about making improvements, did you ever charge an extra fee for improvements? IH: Yes, we just took what money we had and extended it. Our company would have workdays when people would donate their work when we had no money. It was kept up through labor contributions. Now, there were always a few expenses that we had to have cash for. I don't know. I said two hundred shares, couldn't be, because we never collected no more than a $100 a year. The shares must not have been worth more than 50 a share. I had six shares and I don't think I ever paid over three dollars a year. DS: You know some of the canal companies farther north in Kaysville, Layton, Clearfield area going back towards Weber County were able to tie into the Davis and Weber Counties Canal Company when it extended its main line out north to Kaysville in the early 30's; a number of companies had borrowed money from the federal government or state, did you ever borrow money or consider expansion beyond what you had or was it just so much of a local type project that you didn't need to? IH: No, we never borrowed any money. But I went before the board and we met them when they was out here from Ogden and we wanted to borrow money. We had to bring a map 13 showing the boundaries of the stock owners, the number, who they were, and the acreage each had. We carried that map before them and presented our case and they turned us down. They said you haven't got enough land or supporters; the government will never lend you money on that. What are they going to do in there? Well I began to look around and inquire around and I found out that I could buy water with this Deuel Creek Irrigation Company. Well I immediately bought stock and had an engineer give me an estimate of the amount of water necessary for my acreage and he gave me an estimate and I bought that water and paid Deuel Creek Irrigation Company for it. I had to borrow the money to do it, but I did it. DS: This was just you as an individual, right? IH: Yes, me as an individual. With the Deuel Creek Irrigation Company and I bought their water for this particular plot of ground. DS: Did you have it piped over here or via a ditch? IH: They did that themselves. I had to pay for the piping into my property; pay 70% of the cost of the piping, as an extension to some of the last land I bought two years ago and that cost me about $8 a lineal foot. That was a total cost and I paid 70% of it. Each individual who buys the property gets the water rights to it and has to buy the Weber Basin water. DS: Did any people oppose the government coming in with that Weber Basin Project? IH: There was none that I know of here that definitely opposed it, but the manager of the Church Welfare farm here he opposed the Company entering into any borrowing. Many people bought into Deuel Creek, because Bernard Creek was a 14 little affair that nobody could depend on. It would do well in the spring, but towards the end of the year we had no water. I was better off being I built a reservoir up there that would hold almost my total three hours that I would get once every four days. I get the total creek for three hours. DS: When did you build your reservoir? IH: Well, that reservoir was built when I bought the property. I did enlarge it at the top. DS: Is it a concrete one? IH: Yes it is. That reservoir now has a house built right over where it was. DS: Did you ever have any trouble with people stealing water? IH: They've had their shovel fights over that before I ever moved out here and I never heard of any though after I had moved out there. There was tension. DS: Now what were the shovel fights? IH: Well, some fellow would go up to steal their water, because of the shortage of water and before his turn came and then some fellow would hide in the brush and he would come along at night and frail him with the shovel. Now I've heard of those stores right up by the diversion; and he would go two or three hours ahead of his turn and take the water at night. He wouldn't do it in the daytime. But nothing like that ever happened after I moved out here. I never had any trouble. I have thought a few times, because I did not get quite as much water in my reservoir as I ought to, that somebody turned the water before my time was over. But I knew, because I made out the tickets for the water turns and I know who followed me and who was ahead of me. I did that for years. DS: Did the company meet once a year as a group of stockholders? 15 IH: Yes. In the spring before the runoff. We discuss our situation and amount of finances, for the coming year. I generally would walk down the ditch as far as it went and meet with them to make suggestions. As to where there was work to be done on the creek and have them do this work on Saturdays. They were farming a little land, but most had other jobs. DS: Was there a drought in the early 1960's? IH: I don’t really know, because I was already out of the company by then. But in the Deuel Creek we were rationed and only certain sections of town could use water at a given hour of the day. Now for the last three or four years we have had plenty of water on the Deuel Creek system. DS: Were you ever involved in any kind of litigation or civil suits? IH: No, never had any problems of that kind. DS: When somebody sold their property didn't the water go with the land? IH: Yes, the shares were supposed to go with the land. Far as I know there has not been any land sold for many years in this area. There has been development out here. I was the first one to start any building, when I started to divide my eighteen acres of land. DS: How much land do you have currently? IH: Just this lot I own here. I have sold off fifty-three building lots. There are only a couple of lots that do not have houses on them now. DS: When did you say the Church bought majority control in the company? 16 IH: After the Weber Basin water come into operation. I can't tell you the exact date. DS: Did they offer to buy it or was there some reason why you happened to sell to them? IH: Oh, they owned some and offered to buy the rest. I waited too long with mine and didn't get a real high price, buy they did take it. {The last fifteen minutes of the interview were personal memories of Mr. Hallman and are rather off the subject of the conversation. It is suggested the tape be listened to if more information is desired.} 17