The Colonel told of a "delightful day of hunting in that beautiful valley of Mountain Green" as a guest of Ben Simons. In the biography of George W. Higley, Higley stated that he moved to Mountain Green in 1855 and built the third house there. He was granted permission by Simons to build a water-powered churn run on the Weber and to graze his dairy cattle in the Valley. In August of 1857, James S. Brown, missionary and Indian language interpretor, had an encounter with Ben at the mouth of Weber Canyon. The Indian was very drunk and the two rode up the Canyon with Brown hanging onto Simon's gut to keep from being shot. They stopped at the ranch of Gordon Beckstead where the latter assured Ben that Brown was not an enemy, but a friend to the white settlers. (Giant of the Lord, by James S. Brown, pg 400) Later the Simons moved from Mountain Green to parts unknown. MORE SETTLERS ARRIVE Ira Newton Spaulding and his wife, Elizabeth Wright, were living in Mountain Green when their son, Ira Eugene, was born in August of 1857. The following year Myron Spencer Higley moved his family to the valley. In 1858 the Higleys and Spauldings were joined by the families of Abiah Wadsworth, William Andrew Bills, Joseph Lee Robinson and John Robinson, Jr. Records show that John Jr. was granted water rights in Gordon Creek in 1858. Land was cleared and hardy crops of hay and grain planted. Each settler had livestock for his own use. Early houses were of logs with a few dugouts located in the sides of hills for temporary living quarters. In 1860 a combined school and chapel was built of logs east of Gordon Creek. The upper Weber Valley was rich in timber. Probably the first sawmill was built on Strawberry Creek by the McLane family. Later David Bowman Bybee and son milled lumber out of Cottonwood Canyon and Jacobs Creek Canyon. "SKIDDING" THE TIMBER 10