Old Fort Hall

The Old Fort Hall was built in 1834 as a fur trading post on the Snake River in eastern Oregon County.  After being included in United States territory in 1846 upon settlement of the northern boundary with Canada, Fort Hall developed as an important station for emigrants through the 1850s on the Oregon Trail; it was located at the end of the common 500-mile (800 km) stretch from the East shared by the three far west emigrant trails. Soon after Fort Hall, the Oregon and California trails diverged in northwesterly and southwesterly directions. An estimated 270,000 emigrants reached Fort Hall on their way west.

A marker was placed on the original site of the first Fort Hall by the National Register of Historic Places. 

Reproduction of the Old Fort Hall recreated in Pocatello Idaho

Interior of Old Fort Hall reproduction.  

Click here to see an interactive 360° panorama of the reproduction of Old Fort Hall

Click here to see an interactive 360° panorama of the interior of the reproduction of Old Fort Hall

Brigham Young

Brigham Young (born June 1, 1801) was 5' 10" tall and weighed 190 pounds. Note the Freemason pin on his shirt.  

Brigham Young.  Daguerreotype by Marsena Cannon reportedly taken in Cannon's gallery in the Old Fort in December 1850 about the time he was appointed Governor of the Territory of Utah by U.S. President Millard Fillmore.

Daguerreotype by Marsena Cannon 1851-1852

Brigham Young in an 1853 engraving by Frederick Piercy with a facsimile of his signature.

Daguerotype taken by Marsena Cannon in Great Salt Lake City in 1853.  

This popular portrait of Brigham Young was cropped out of the daguerreotype below.  

Marsena Cannon took this rare daguerreotype portrait of Brigham Young with Margaret Pierce, one of his plural wives, in the late 1850's.

Brigham Young photographed by Charles Roscoe Savage circa 1855.  

Another daguerreotype portrait of Brigham Young taken by Marsena Carson in 1858 during the Utah War.

Brevet Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston

Albert Sidney Johnston (February 2, 1803 – April 6, 1862) served as a general in three different armies: the Texian Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his 34-year military career, fighting actions in the Black Hawk War, the Texas War of Independence, the Mexican–American War, the Utah War, and the American Civil War.   - Wikipedia

Portrait of Gen. Albert S. Johnston, taken at Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, 

by Samuel C. Mills, during the winter of 1858-59.  He is wearing the uniform of a brevet brigadier general. 

General Johnston stood over 6' tall and weighed 200 pounds.  He had thick brows over intense eyes that commanded with a glance.  He was 55 when he took command of the Utah Expedition.  He was a popular leader with his soldiers.  

General Johnston was briefly furloughed in 1860 in Kentucky before the War Department sent him to California to command the Department of the Pacific from San Francisco.  He resigned his commission when he heard Texas had joined the secession.  He soon became the Confederacy’s leading General in the field.  On April 6, 1862, the 59 year old General bled to death from an untended leg wound received while astride the horse he had ridden throughout the Utah War.  He died at the Battle of Shiloh, the highest-ranking officer, Confederate or Union, killed during the Civil War.  He was buried in Austin, Texas. 

The Old Adobe Tabernacle on Temple Square

Work began in 1851.  It was dedicated April 6, 1852.  Truman O. Angell was the architect.  

The Old Adobe Tabernacle with a Bowery.   By 1854 the congregations had already outgrown the Old Tabernacle so they built a bowery over the outdoor space.  

Joseph Ridges installed his pipe organ in the Old Tabernacle in 1857.  This is the organ Connal Lee heard.  

The adobe Tabernacle was used until 1877 when it was razed to make way for the Assembly Hall built on the same site.  

(The following examples of construction techniques were photographed in the new Tabernacle, completed in 1867.  The notes refer to the old Adobe Tabernacle.)

Since metal nails were a rare and expensive commodity in the newly settled Great Basin, the Saints often used other means of binding timbers, such as the wooden pegs visible in this photo.

Grow notes, "Wherever they were cracked the timbers were wrapped with green rawhide, which contracted when dry and made a tight binding. This rawhide is still steel tight" (original thesis, 74). The builders used leather strips to strengthen timbers without adding excess weight.

David Candland

David Candland, born 1819, was baptized a Mormon by Lorenzo Snow in 1841.  In 1842 he moved to Nauvoo where he worked as a school teacher and store clerk and eventually became secretary to Brigham Young.  He served a mission to Great Britain in 1846 where he wrote the first Mormon pamphlets published in England.  They were known as The Fireside Visitor, or Plain Reasoner.  He signed the tracts David C. Kimball because Heber C. Kimball adopted him in Nauvoo as his spiritual son. 

In 1852 he traveled to Utah with the Ezra T. Benson company.  In 1855 he was appointed paymaster in the Territorial Mormon Militia.  In Great Salt Lake City, he taught school, clerked, was stage manager for the Deseret Dramatic Association and served as doorkeeper at the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

David Candland circa 1864 - 45 years old

David Candland with wife (Mary Anne) Anna Long Woodhouse Candland circa 1855.  David was 40 when he met Connal Lee.  

In 1856, under the direction of Brigham Young, David Candland opened the Globe Restaurant and Bakery with his partner, William Staines.  In 1859 he was appointed to represent Salt Lake County in the Utah Territorial Legislature. 

The Candland / Marriott Connection

Many of the American Candlands are also members of the Marriott family, as in, Marriott Hotels. Harry Candland (1903-1962) married Eva Fontella Marriott (1905-1992). Her brother, J. Willard Marriott Sr (1900-1985) was the founder of Marriott Hotels.

Mary Ann Angell Young - known to the Mormons as 'Mother Young'

After Brigham Young's first wife died, Mary Ann married Brigham Young on March 31, 1834.  She had six children with Brigham.  Mary Ann was a skilled herbalist and folk doctor.  During her trek across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley in 1848, she used these skills to treat many fellow pioneers. She also brought many seeds with her and is credited with planting the beautiful trees that grow along the eastern end of South Temple Street in Salt Lake City, which was once known as Brigham Street.  

A daguerreotype taken around the time Connal Lee met her.  She was 57 in 1859 when she introduced Connal Lee to her brother, Truman Osborn Angell, who designed the Salt Lake Temple.   

Social Hall - State Road (now State Street)

 On l January 1853, Amasa M. Lyman dedicated the Social Hall which, according to Orson F. Whitney, was "the chief altar in Utah upon which incense was burned to the dramatic muse" throughout the 1850s.  The hall was located just south of the Lion House on State Road (now State Street) in Great Salt Lake City. The auditorium was 40 by 60 feet, which could hold approximately 300 patrons. However, according to one actor, nearly 400 people often crowded into the small building to see a play. The basement held two dressing rooms and a banquet hall. The building was made of adobe brick with shingle roof.  The newly organized Deseret Dramatic Association gave their first performance on the 20 by 40 foot stage on 19 January 1853.

Earliest known photograph taken in 1858 before the walls were covered in stucco.
The adobe house on left was leased by Governor Cummings during his term.  

Social Hall on right, home leased by Governor Cumming on left. 

Replica built in 1980 in This is the Place Heritage Park near the mouth of Emigration Canyon

Orrin Porter Rockwell and his Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel

Orrin Porter Rockwell, the Mormon's 'Destroying Angel', photographed by Mary Evens in June 1866

On July 29, 1858, Orrin Porter Rockwell counted out $500 and purchased from Evan M. Green sixteen acres of real estate at Hot Springs near Point of the Mountain (on the road between Great Salt Lake City and Lehi). The trail was traveled by every city bound trooper in Johnston's Army.  Mr. Rockwell had it in mind to build a place where a man could buy a glass of home brewed beer, stable his animals, stay overnight, or just stop to pass the time of day. He called it the Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel. In it's prime this property included a hotel with dining facilities, stable, and brewery.  A Pony Express station was added in 1860.  At the peak of business, the Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel claimed to produce 500 gallons (16 barrels) of "good lager beer" each day.  ---Harold Schindler's biography, Orrin Porter Rockwell

Advertisement for Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel, The Valley Tan, 1859-06-01

Sketch of Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel, Stable

Photograph of Rockwell's Stable 

County Courthouse on the northeast corner of 2nd South and 2nd West

The first County Courthouse was built of adobe bricks in 1855.  

Council House on the corner of Main Street and South Temple

Built in 1849 and 1850, the first public building in the territory.  Used as territorial offices and housed the University of Deseret.  Housed the territorial library.  The Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah met in this building.  It was also the first police headquarters of the city.  The Mormon church performed endowments here until the Endowment House was completed in 1855.  Built of local red sandstone and adobe bricks.  

Major Robert Harris of The Nauvoo Legion

The handsome Robert Harris was photographed here in his Nauvoo Legion uniform.

William Carter Staines, the "English Gentleman"

William Carter Staines “had little liking for books when a boy, and hated the confinement of the school room.  He had a passion for floriculture and horticulture, manifested most practically in after years, when also he deeply regretted his early indifference to education. What helped to make school distasteful to him was an accident which befell him when he was 13 years of age. While playing on the ice, he fell, injuring his spine and causing a deformity, attended with much pain, from which he suffered severely for twenty years. In fact, he was never entirely free from it. This misfortune, while it materially lessened his stature, did not detract from the pleasant impression made by his frank, open countenance and kindly manner. As a youth he worked with other laborers in his father's garden.” – Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia by Andrew Jenson (1914)

William Carter Staines

William Carter Staines, first territorial librarian, member of the territorial legislative assembly, a wine and spirit merchant, co-owner with David Candland of The Globe Restaurant and Bakery

The parlor in the Staines mansion during the time Governor Cumming was in residence.  

The Staines Mansion in 1858 when Governor Cumming stayed in it during the Move South.

William Jennings purchased the house in 1867 and expanded it.  Jennings named it Devereaux House after his family's estate in England.  

Governor Alfred Cumming and his wife Elizabeth Wells Cumming

Alfred Cumming, 2nd Governor of the Territory of Utah

Elizabeth Wells Cumming, wife of Governor Cumming, great-granddaughter of Samuel Adams.  Her letters describing her adventures on the journey with the Utah Expedition from the Missouri River to the Salt Lake Valley in 1857-1858 were published in a booklet which can be found here:  The Genteel Gentile, Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857 - 1858

Elizabeth wrote about wintering in Camp Scott, “We live in five tents – One a dining room.  Second a store room of trunks boxes & so forth, & such little provisions as we have.  Third a kitchen, in which we are building a chimney.  Fourth-a sleeping tent for the young girl.  Fifth-a double wall tent divided into parlour & bed chamber – eight feet by 10 each & is the admeasurement thereof, I believe.  In my parlour I have a carpet made of a grey blanket – in the center is a little rug – A settee, covered with chintz, fills one side & a long but narrow table with two littles shelves of books upon it, fills the opposite side – one chair stands in the center.  I have also a little stand for a work box & at the side of the entrance is a tiny stove.”

Captain Alfred Cumming, the Governor's nephew, served in Fort Floyd.  A few years later he served the Confederate States of America during the civil war and retired as a Brigadier General.

Chief Arimo of the Shoshone Nation and his son

Chief Arimo, born 1806, was a leader of all the Northern Shoshone, called the Snake Indians by other tribes and clans because they primarily lived on the Snake River.  Before the Utah War, the Shoshone tribe had 28 clans averaging 600 people in each clan – 16,800 strong.  Illness and warfare quickly depleted their ranks.   

He befriended the Mormons when they first arrived.  He was baptized.  Later he helped them build a chapel in what eventually became Logan, Utah.  The Mormons in Cache Valley named a building after him in his honor.  

Arimo had seven sons and one daughter.  His name was later anglicized to “Edmo” by the Indian Agent on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.  17 photographs of him and his children, taken by Miss Benedicte Wrenstead towards the end of his life, still exist.  He died in 1896.  The Town of Arimo, thirty miles southeast of his preferred winter camp near what became Pocatello, Idaho was named after him.  His ancestors still live in the Idaho-Wyoming area to this day.  

The story of Arimo’s son being saved by a Mormon farmer is true.  It happened to my maternal great grandfather shortly after he settled in Call’s Fort.  It is part of the author’s family history.  My great grandfather and Arimo remained friends until my ancestor died.  

Chief Arimo, photographed shortly before his death in 1896.  He was 45 years younger when he adopted Connal Lee in 1857.  

Jack Edmo photographed about 15 years after Connal Lee met him.  After the Indian Wars, he was not permitted to use his given name of Arimo by law.  The Superintendent of Indian Affairs changed the name Arimo to Edmo.