Oral History Program William Dewey Brown Intervied by Marcene Montgomery 02 May 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah William Dewey Brown Interviewed by Marcene Montgomery 02 May 1972 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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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Brown, William Dewey, an oral history by Marcene Montgomery, 02 May 1972, 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 William Dewey Brown. The interview was conducted on May 2, 1972, by Marcene Montgomery, in Liberty, Utah. Brown discusses homesteading and the experiences and trials he has had with it. MM: Dewey, according to record, the Homestead Act was enacted May 20, 1862. It provided for the disposition of public lands to homemakers free of charge, requiring only residence, cultivation and improvement. You acquired some land here in Liberty by homesteading. Could you tell me what you had to do to become eligible for homesteading here? WB: You had to go to Salt Lake City and pay seventy-five dollars for filing fees. Then they granted you the homestead. You had three months to get onto the homestead. Then you had to go and live there. You had to put up a tent and live in a tent until you could get your log cabin started. The foundation for the cabin was four logs laid together. Then you could live in a tent if you wanted to for three years. But you had to have a twelve by twelve cabin on it with a doer and two windows. Then you had to live there six months out of the year and put 11.25 in. improvements upon the land, half of those improvements had to be on it in three years. MM: In what year did you file for your homestead? WB: 1919. MM: How did you come to choose your land? It's way up on the mountains. WB: This land had been homesteaded before I took it. It had been homesteaded by Joe Bailey. He never did put a cabin on it. It went four years and then we filed on it. MM: Would he lose his homestead if he didn't follow the law? WB: Yes. He lost it on account of he didn't even put a cabin on it. He didn't do anything only take the cattle up there and put them on it during the summer time. MM: He just used the land but didn't do anything to improve it? WB: Yes. MM: How much land was included in your homestead? WB: 640 acres. MM: At the time you took the land, what were your plans for its use? WB: For grazing land to run cattle and sheep on. MM: How would a person find your home steed if he wanted to ride up and look at it today? WB: You could go up Durfee and up to the right hand fork and then it’s just a little ways down in the right hand fork of Durfee. Or you could go over Cache Valley Divide to the first road leading to the west after you get on top. It's right by the sign about, (a sign showing the dividing line between Weber and Box Elder Counties) Go over through the head of Flat Canyon. There is a road there. Then drop off into the right hand fork of Durfee. MM: About how many miles would you say it is from the center of Liberty? From the Church? WB: It's around about five miles. (This is correct if you were to ride straight through the fields and sections. However, by way of roads and trails it is about nine miles.) MM: You mentioned the improvements. Just what kind of improvements did you make and did you have any help in making these improvements? WB: I put two miles of fence. I put up a corral there. I had three or four boys working for me for a week or two putting fence up. Then I had Jake Southwick help me on my corral and Mr. Wheeler helped me on my Corral. He had sheep over there at that time and I had rented the land to him. MM: Did you put up a corral to hold the stock in? WB: Yes. MM: The fencing that you mentioned, was it all barbed wire or did you put up any log fences? WB: Barbed wire...all barbed wire. MM: That must have been a lot of work....digging in that stony ground? WB: We didn't dig the holes. We drove the posts. MM: Did you? You didn't have an automatic post hole digger? WB: No! We had to make a hole with the bars (crow bars) deep down and then sharpen the post and put the post into the ground and then drive it in with a mall. (A mall is a heavy metal hammer) MM: I bet it still was a lot of work! WB: I'll say it was a lot of work! MM: What percentage of your land would you say was graze-able in comparison with the dense brush and tree growth or maybe just sage brush and rocks? WB: Well, it is mostly all sage brush and rock and Doc Weed over on the top. (Top as he refers to it, is his land) Doc grows good. MM: Wasn't there much grassy meadow? WB: There was a few springs around in there that had meadow but it wasn't too much meadow. MM: It was mostly rocky and sage brush then? WB: Yes. MM: How did the cattle do on that? WB: They did fine. The cattle did real good on that. MM: In one clause in the Homestead Law, there is a statement saying that the applicant must reside upon the land and make it his home to the exclusion of any other residence during a period of three years. This seems reasonable down on land in lower valleys but your homestead was high in the mountains. Did you reside there? WB: Yes, I lived there most of the time. I was there off and on all through the summer time. I would go there and stay, go out and work, then I'd go back and stay there. MM: It was your home? WB: It was my home. The only home I had. MM: During the winter—the winders are so severe here, would you stay up there then? WB: We didn't have to stay there in the winter. As long as you stayed there in the summer. Six months out of the year. The first fall I took it on the 18th of September. On that day I went up there and lived. I got my cabin logs and drug them to the cabin site. I lived there in a tent. We got Christmas trees out that year up until Christmas time. I was there until after Christmas that year. MM: Was there a lot of snow up there then? WB: About two feet up there? MM: Not too bad of a year then? WB: No, it wasn't too bad. MM: Since you were away some distance from town, what did you do for food? WB: I bought it in Liberty and took it up on horseback most of the time. MM: Did you ever have to live off the land? Did you ever have to kill the birds for food or the deer? WB: Yes, I killed a few chickens and ate them and had deer. MM: About how often would you say that you came down into Liberty from off your homestead? WB: Probably about every 4 or 5 days. MM: Did you come down to the ballgames and dances? WB: Yes, I came down and played ball and I came down and practiced. MM: I would like to know more about your cabin. Were there any specific requirements according to the law as to the size it should be or the type of cabin you should build? WB: It had to be twelve by twelve, a door and two windows. It had to have a roof on it. It had to be livable. MM: How did you get your supplies up there? I've ridden past your place and saw that heavy stove. I wondered how you got that up to the cabin site. WB: I took it up there with a team and wagon. MM: Did you cut the road through yourself? WB: Yes. I made a road where it had to be made so I could get through there and down to the cabin. Both ways. I blasted the road and put dynamite in the road going up Durfee. Three or four places I put dynamite in and blasted the rocks and made a road. MM: Was there very much travel upon this trail? I know sometimes trails like that grow back over if they are not used very much. WB: All there was outside of me would be horseback riders. MM: If you had 640 acres of land, your property would have been classified as an enlarged homestead. The Kinkaid act in 1904 required that enlarged homestead entry men, at least in some states, had to spend at least $1.25 per acre in permanent improvements upon the land. How you said that you had to do this. Was this a requirement in Utah? WB: Yes. I had to do that. MM: Were there any specific requirements as to the exact type of improvements you should make? WB: Yes. They wanted you to seed grass seed, put fences and improve the water holes. You could plant grass seed and you didn't have to cultivate the ground. But you could plant it in the time of the year that it would grow in the spring or late fall. MM: Just by throwing seed out on the land it would grow? WB: Yes. Just to make grazing better. MM: And the see would take hold if we had enough rains? WB: Yes it would if you planted in the spring. It doesn't get too dry up there until way late in the summer. It stays damp so that the grass will grow if you just throw it on top. MM: How was your homestead classified? In one of the laws that was passed about enlarged homesteads, owners were required to cultivate. Yours was a mountainous land. So how would your homestead have been classified? WB: It was classified for grazing land is all. MM: Called a grazing homestead? WB: Yes. That was the Grazing Homestead Act. MM: And this would eliminate any requirement for cultivation? WB: Yes. MM: I asked you what kind of stock you grazed. About how many did you have? WB: Me and Harvery Montgomery, he had a homestead too, we run abound two-hundred head between us. MM: How big was his homestead? WB: His was the same size as mine. (Grazing Homes teed Act -64O acres) MM: Was there plenty of feed even in dry years? WB: Yes. Of course we didn't herd them. We just traded with the sheep men. The sheep men went on our land god we went on theirs. MM: You shared the land you had? WB: Yes. That's the way we ran for a couple of years up there. MM: You said something about making water holes. How did you make these? Were there requirements about how this should be done? WB: No. Just to enlarge them aid make than for the purpose for cattle to drink out of them. Just so they could go get a drink anytime they wanted to. So they didn't have to go a mile or so to get water. In the hot part of the summer if it weren't for the springs they'd have to go to Forth Pork for water. MM: They could get water near where they were grazing. Where did you get the water that you drank? WB: I had a spring right behind the cabin. I just dug it out and ran it down in front of a big pine tree. There I made a trough and run the water into it. MM: Oh, that sounds good. I love fresh spring water from the mountains. At one time your legal ownership to this land was contested by a local resident. Would you mind telling why your ownership was questioned and what resulted from it? WB: Well, I think one reason was James L. Shaw wanted to go in with me on the homestead at first. He wanted me to go and stay there and he would help me with the improvements. MM: And he would share the profits? WB: Yes, share the profits, half of it. I got to thinking...What is the use of doing that? There is no use of me putting my work; I'd work just as hard as he would on it. And besides I'd have to live there and improve the place. So when we planned it, I told him I wouldn't do that. I think it made him a little mad. And I think he thought at the time that he could probably get it after I had done all I had done on it. He'd contest me and get it. MM: How long had you owned the land before he contested you? WB: The fifth year he contested me? MM: Was he trying to obtain the whole homestead from you? WB: Yes. MM: Can you tell me a little bit about the court proceedings? What happened? WB: Each one of us...I had nine witnesses and he had seven. It went for about four days. MM: Where did you go for the trial? WB: To Salt Lake. MM: Who won? WB: I won. He appealed it to the higher court. Of course there wasn't any trial. They just took the trial as it came in writing. MM: And you won both times? WB: (nodded yes) I could tell you a lot more if I had my book. I had the whole trial in a book but I lost it someplace. MM: Did this happen very often with people who had homesteads? Someone else would seek their land from them? WB: Yes. The government would contest you if somebody else didn't as a rule. MM: Oh really? If they didn't think you were keeping the requirements or your part of the agreement? WB: Yes. The government men. There was a government man come and talk to me. He went up and looked it over. MM: You no longer own this land. When did you sell it and why? WB: I sold it in the depression. I mortgaged this land for $1600 on a place I bought over in Riverdale. Then the depression came and I could not make the payments on my Riverdale home or on this…the $1600. I had to make the payments on this too. I mortgaged it to buy that place down there in Riverdale and I was supposed to pay, so much on the principle to hold this. MM: To hold the Liberty property? WB: Aid so much on that down there too. I couldn't make it. The depression came and I got out of work so I just couldn't make it. MM: Who did you sell the land to? WB: Ole Pete Nelson. He lives in Corrine. MM: What did he use the land for? WB: He uses it right now for sheep and cattle both. He runs cattle. MM: Does he rent it? WB: No. MM: I figured this out. $1600 for 640 acres is less than $2.50 an acre. How much is your land worth today? WB: I figure it would be worth five or six thousand dollars. MM: I believe it would be worth more than that. WB: It probably would be. I don't really know what range land is going at right now. MM: Range land would be quite a bit cheaper than farmland. WB: A lot cheaper, yes. You see at that time, farm land was going for about $100 an acre. Good farm ground. MM: How did the depression affect other land owners here? WB: It affected a lot of them the same as I was. They got in a boat and had their places mortgaged. MM: Not many people would have had money to buy land. What happened to the land that they lost? WB: The banks took it back! MM: And what would they do...just leave it sitting there? WB: That’s what broke the banks. The banks all went broke. You see the banks at that time loaned more money on places than they were really worth. So the banks took the places back and they couldn't sell them. So a lot of the banks went broke. MM: But what would they do with the land? WB: Well they had to lower the land and the government had to step in and help. They had to fix it so people could go buy it and make a go of it. (Mr. Brown later explained how the government had helped the people. To make land available, they set up a Homeowners Loan that made it possible for people to buy property at a reduced rate with extended time to pay for it. He also said the government established a work program whereby men could support their families by working on public property. While this program helped many, Mr. Brown said many abused it and accepted the handout without working as hard as they should have) MM: Did the land just stand idle during this time? WB: Some of it did. MM: Isn't that a shame. The depression was really a hardship. Did many people leave the Valley because they couldn't afford their land? WB: I don't think there was many in Liberty that left at that time. (However, later he said, many people in Ogden and surrounding communities lost their homes) Of course the people in Liberty was fixed a little better than a lot of places. They inherited a lot of their land. MM: Then they owned their land? Where did you go when you left Liberty? WB: I went to Riverdale. When I bought the place. I left Liberty and went to Ogden and I worked two years down there and then bought that place out there. (Riverdale) MM: You moved out of state. What year was it that you moved out of Utah? WB: I went to Oregon in 1948. MM: How did land prices in Utah compare with land prices in Oregon? WB: Well Oregon was cheaper than Utah. MM: Quite a bit? WB: Yes, quite a bit cheaper. MM: Did you buy farmland up there? WB: Yes. I bought about 120 acres up there...all irrigated land. MM: Now you are back in Liberty. Were you born here? WB: No. I was born in Ogden. MM: What made you decide to move back to Liberty? WB: We just decided we'd like to live here. I've always made this my home; I lived here until I was twenty-five years old. MM: I agree with you. This is a good place to live! In my discussion with Mr. Brown following this interview, I learned that many people were anxious to obtain the mountainous lands for grazing their livestock by homesteading. Malay built their cabins aid began making improvements. However, to many of these people, living upon the land for the required three years was a difficult requirement to meet. Because the land was situated high and so far away, in most cases, from the social activities such as church and school it was impossible for the man to move the family with him on the homestead. Being away from the women and children for the specified amount of time was hard and many refused to do it. As a result they lost their claims to the homestead. Mr. Brown was not married at the time he took his homestead.