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William Naylor Eyre
William Naylor Eyre
Born: 12 February 1864 at Parowan, Iron, Utah Territory, USA
Parents: John Eyre and Ann Gillins
Married: Julia Victoria Smith on 31 December 1885 at St. George, Washington, Utah, USA
Died: 9 January 1938 at Cowley, Big Horn, Wyoming, USA
Exerpts from the History of William Naylor Eyre taken from a typewritten copy provided by his descendants to David E. Miller, and contained in his book, Hole in the Rock, Appendix XII.
I was born on February 12, 1864, in Parowan, Iron County, Utah to John Eyre and Ann Gillins. At the time of my birth Parowan was just a new pioneer town, the first south of Utah County. I was the fifth boy in a family of sixteen children. [Editor's note: Parowan was settled January 13, 1851 and by 1860 had a population of 526.]
Because of the danger from Piute [Paiute] Indians, Parowan was surrounded by a mud wall about ten feet high. Apostle George A. Smith was the leader of this pioneer settlement. The town started reorganizing in 1851, January 13. They settled on Center Creek and there build a little saw mill which was run by water power.
The imigrants had to go into the canyons for timber to build their log houses. Our house was one-half block south of the meeting house.
The first school I attended was Old Father Holmes', a log room fourteen by twelve. It was heated only by a fireplace, while the benches were made of slats. There were no books, so we learned to read from the black-board.
I next went to school in the West Log School House. My teachers were Dina and Ada Dalton. This school-room was larger than the previous one, being about twenty feet by thirty feet. This room was heated by a fireplace. Our books were the Primer and McGraph's Spelling Book [Editor: McGuffey's Eclectic Primer and Spelling Book]. Small slates took the place of paper. They taught up to the third reader, and by this time, I was about sixteen years old.
My next schooling was in the district school. Unlike the others this was made of concrete. My teacher in this district school was John E. Daly. The principal was Mary Hanson, assisted by Hulda Mitchell. I graduated from the fourth grade.
I had no high school education, but instead began herding sheep and helping with the farm work.
In 1880 I went to San Juan where I stayed until the following year. A colony of people were called to settle that country in 1879. The leader was Bishop Nielson of Cedar City.
We left the first of January, 1880, for San Juan [Miller points out the date is two months off]. Our route took us across the Wasatch Range from Parowan to Panguitch, from Panguitch up through Red Canyon, across East Fork Valley and over the Escalanta Valley, and over the Escalanta Mountains. The snow was about two feet deep and it was extremely cumbersome. We passed through into the town of Escalanta, which had been settled for quite a number of years. From there on we had to make our own road for nearly two hundred miles. We went south from Escalanta down to the Fifty Mile Spring, then a little to the south-east into very rough country.
The worst part of the road was the hole in the rock at Colorado River. We had to blast through a big cliff large enough to let covered wagons through. It was so steep going through that we had to use horses ot help hold the wagons back.
We found, when we were down, we were on the [west] bank of the Colorado, so we had to make a ferry to take us to the other side. It was a raft large enough to hold two wagons and a man on the back to paddle. When the raft was paddled to the other bank, four men would jump into the water and pull the raft to shore with the aid of ropes which were fastened to each corner of the raft. We would then unload it and the current would take it to the other shore once more. This continued until fifty wagons were ferried across the river. The cattle and horses swam across.
After all were across, we struck out in a south-east direction, up a seven mile slope over solid rock. When we reached the top of this incline, we found a beautiful lake in a rock basin. We named it Henry [Hermit] Lake. The water for the lake as supplied from rain and snowfall, as there was no spring which could supply it.
We went along the top of this range for about thirty-four miles -- due east. The end of the range dropped straight down on a large bluff. This necessitated making a dugway in order to get down.
As the mountain was very soft, ploughing was easier than expected and we soon had a dugway built.
After about four miles of traveling across a flat rocky country, we reached Box Canyon [Grand Gulch]. We had to go around this canyon to evade the wash and instead work on a road through the trees. The water in this forest was of an extremely inferior nature; however, for want of any other we used it for ourselves and for our cattle.
Then, after leaving the Cedar Base, we continued eastward until we came within two miles of the Comb Wash where there were no cedars, but some favorable brush and pretty good grass.
Striking another mountain [Comb Ridge], and as it was an impossibility to cross it, we turned due south and went down the Comb Wash for a number of miles hitting the San Juan River. We had to make another ferry boat here, or else a dugway around the end of the mountain which was practically straight off and the river ran against the end of it. So we decided that it would be best to make the dugway. We filled the river up with rocks and trees and dirt. We made this dugway two hundred and fifty feet around the edge of the ridge. We were up against it again when we got around, for we were in the north-east Butler Wash, but fortunately was not straight up and down. We decided that the best and only way to get down would be to make another dugway up the hill. We went to work and built holes along the upper side of the road and made the dugway one-fourth of a mile up the hill.
The San Juan River at this point was the line between Arizona and Utah [Miller points out that this is in error]. We were on the north side; hence in Utah. Along the bend of the river there was about two hundred acres of land laying to the west and north. On the north-east part of the flat we established the town of Bluff.
I first cut down cottonwood trees in order to get logs for our home. We then set to work to make a fort. Our houses faced each other in a square with the block houses on each corner and an opening for the wagons to come in and out. Each house left out a log in order to protect their house from any invading Indians.
At this time Bishop Nielson of the settlement, set to work surveying an irrigation ditch whose
water would be supplied from the San Juan. It was a very difficult job. At the head it was about six
miles from Bluff up to where the canal came out of the river. This required a heavy cut from six to
maybe fifteen feet deep. Here we used our teams and the old Mormon scrapers (tongue scrapers). They were
easy to work, but hard to pull out. From there on, it was surveyed. The men made this ditch about fifteen
hundred feet long. It became necessary to make cribs, also. While doing this we uncovered a den of
reptiles. Rattle snakes, bull snakes, centipedes, triantulars, and scorpions. There were enough snakes
to fill a good sized tub. We rolled them into the river and they were drowned. Some of them attempted to
swim but the water was much too cold for that. But to our disappointment it ran through the cribs
like through a sieve. The next bit of work was to dig out clay from the side of the mountain and dump
it into the cribs so that they would be cemented enough to hold the water. Thus, we were able to
get the water into Bluff...
Sources:
1 Miller, David E., Hole-in-the-Rock, University of Utah, 1966.
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William Naylor Eyre