History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

PROVO AND LEHI. 311
had been completed; 15 and before the end of 1851
the place began to wear the appearance of a town,
among the buildings in course of erection being a
flouring-mill and two hotels; manufactures were
started; all were busy the livelong day at farm or
workshop, and in the evening, writes Elder Isaac
Higbee, in February 1852, "We have on Monday
singing-school, on Tuesday lyceum, on Wednesday
seventies' meeting, on Thursday prayer-meeting, on
Friday spelling-school, and on Saturday the meeting
of the lesser priesthood." 16
On Dry Creek, near the head of Lake Utah and about
sixteen miles northwest of Provo, a settlement was
formed in 1851, named Evansville. 17 The neighboring
lands were surveyed in lots of forty acres, and to
each new settler as he arrived was given a plat of this
size until the tract was exhausted. The soil was rich
but here, as elsewhere in the northern part of Utah
county, water was scarce. A supply was obtained by
diverting a portion of the waters of American Fork
creek, 13 and thereafter the affairs of the settlement
prospered so rapidly that, in February 1852, the place
was incorporated under the name of Lehi, or as it is
sometimes written, Lehigh.
South-east of Lehi, on a plain about three miles
east of Lake Utah, was founded, in 1850, a settle-
15 Deserel News, Jan. 24, 1852. Ross R. Rogers 1 uilt the first adobe
house in 1S51. Albert Jones, in Utah Sketches, MS., 53. A large building
was erected in 1852 for George A. Smith, the prophet's cousin, then president
of Utah co. stake. It was afterward used as a school-house and known as
the seminary. In 1851 an adobe wall was commenced, 14 feet in height
and four feet at the base. Three sides of it, with bastions, port-holes, and
gates, were completed in 1S55, the finished length being then two and a half
miles. A portion of this wall remained in 18S0. Id., 57. These walls
were built about several of the settlements. ' It was usual for our people
to protect themselves by building what we call a fort—a place the people
could get into in the event of a raid. Our wall was a kind of concrete.
In Mount Pleasant their walls were built of cobble rock, parts of which
are now standing. At that place they put a grist-mill inside, so the Indians
couldn't cut them off. At Nephi the Indians did cut them off from their'
grist-mill.' Welts' Narr., MS., 60.
16 Letter in Deseret News, Feb. 21, 1852.
17 A few houses were built on an adjacent site by David Savage and others
in 1850. David Evans, in Utah Sketches, MS., 37.
18 By a ditch seven miles in length.
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