Tag Archives: Grafton

Duncan’s Retreat

17 Friday Mar 2017

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2017-03-04 16.44.46

Historic taken from wchsutah.org

Chapman Duncan, Alma Minnerly, and a few others settled this area in 1861. But a flood in January of 1862 washed away much of the good farmland. Most of the first settlers moved away and sold their claims to William Theobald, Joseph Wright, William Wright, Clayborne Elder, Jonathan B. Pratt, Robert W. Reeve, and Thomas Burgess. Other settlers moved into the area and formed the village of Duncan’s Retreat.

There are several theories about the origin of the name, Duncan’s Retreat. One of them is that the name came the idea that Chapman Duncan had retreated from this area. Another is that Duncan retreated to this area after botching a canal surveying job in Virgin.

Farming produced good crops of cotton, corn, wheat, and sorghum.

A post office was built in 1863 and a schoolhouse in 1864. They also built an L.D.S. meetinghouse.

In 1866, when the Black Hawk War caused widespread fear of Indian attacks, the town was evacuated to Virgin, although farmers returned to Duncan’s Retreat each day to work their fields. Residents moved back permanently in 1868.

The Duncan’s Retreat settlement was all but abandoned in 1891. By 1930, hardly a trace remained – only a few foundations and trees.

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Population

  • About 70 at the end of 1862
  • 50 in 1864
  • There were 11 families and 79 people in 1880
  • There were 9 families in 1890
  • The village was all but abandoned in 1891

L.D.S. Church History

  • William Theobald was Presiding Elder between 1864 and 1866.
  • William Martindale was Presiding Elder starting in 1868.
  • Joseph Wright was Presiding Elder and/or Branch President until he died in 1873.
  • The Duncan Branch of the Virgin Ward was formed in 18?? and continued until about 1891.
  • Samuel Stansworth was Branch President starting in 1873.
  • Moses W. Gibson was the next Branch President.
  • David B. Ott was the next Branch President.

Grafton Cemetery

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

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2017-03-04 13.28.30

In 1862 John W., William, Robert and Joseph Berry with their families, were called to help colonize the St. George area. In the spring of 1866, Joseph and Robert Berry with Isabelle Hales Berry, the latter’s wife, were returning from a trip to Salt Lake City. They stopped at Kanarraville and while there the two-year-old baby girl of Robert and Isabelle died. The Berrys resumed their journey, traveling in a light wagon, camping for noon, April 2, 1866, at Short Creek, where they were attacked by Piutes, who it is claimed had been following them from Corn Creek in Millard County.

Their dead bodies were found several days later by John and William Berry. The details of the tragedy will never be known. It appears that they attempted to escape by running their horses across the country and finding they could not do so, fought desperately for their lives, but in vain. One dead Indian was found nearby. Joseph was found lying face down in the wagon box; his leg had been bandaged, no doubt, while they were fleeing as fast as they cold from the Indians. Isabelle had been shot through the head with a six-shooter and was lying on the ground, while Robert’s body was astride the wagon tongue with the head leaning into the wagon. The Indians said afterward that Robert was a “heap brave fighter.”

Robert and Joseph were large men, tall of stature. The burial of these pioneers took place at Grafton, Utah. In Church Chronology it is recorded that this massacre occurred four miles from Maxfield’s Ranch on Short Creek, Kane County, Utah. There is a small knoll between Short Creek and Kane Beds which marks the place and is called Berry Knoll. When President Young heard of this outrage on the part of the Indians, he sent word to Cedar City for the men of that place to form a company of militia and go to Berryville and escort the people back to Dixie. The late John Parry of Cedar City was a member of that escort, and furnished the writer much of the information for this sketch.(*)

2017-03-04 13.26.19

Grafton, Utah

10 Friday Mar 2017

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2017-03-04 13.49.48

Grafton Posts:

  •  
  • Grafton Cemetery
  • Rockville
  • Russell Home (Alonzo and Nancy)
  • Russell Home (Louisa) 
  • Wood Home (George)
  • Wood Home (John and Ellen)

Grafton is a ghost town, just south of Zion National Park in Washington County. It is said to be the most photographed ghost town in the West and it has been featured as a location in several films, including 1929’s In Old Arizona—the first talkie filmed outdoors—and the classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The nearest inhabited town is Rockville.

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The site was first settled in December 1859 as part of a southern Utah cotton-growing project ordered by Brigham Young. A group from Virgin led by Nathan Tenney established a new settlement they called Wheeler. Wheeler didn’t last long; it was largely destroyed on the night of January 8, 1862 by a weeks-long flood of the Virgin River, part of the Great Flood of 1862. The rebuilt town, about a mile upriver, was named New Grafton, after Grafton, Massachusetts.(*)

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The town grew quickly in its first few years. There were some 28 families by 1864, each farming about an acre of land. The community also dug irrigation canals and planted orchards, some of which still exist. Grafton was briefly the county seat of Kane County, from January 1866 to January 12, 1867, but changes to county boundaries in 1882 placed it in Washington County.

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Flooding was not the only major problem. One particular challenge to farming was the large amounts of silt in Grafton’s section of the Virgin River. Residents had to dredge out clogged irrigation ditches at least weekly, much more often than in most other settlements. Grafton was also relatively isolated from neighboring towns, being the only community in the area located on the south bank of the river. In 1866, when the outbreak of the Black Hawk War caused widespread fear of Indian attacks, the town was completely evacuated to Rockville.

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Continued severe flooding discouraged resettlement, and most of the population moved permanently to more accessible locations on the other side of the river. By 1890 only four families remained. The end of the town is usually traced to 1921, when the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was discontinued. The last residents left Grafton in 1944.

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