History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

312 SETTLEMENT AND OCCUPATION OF THE COUNTRY.
merit first known as Battle Creek, and afterward called
Pleasant Grove. It was here that the first engagement
with the natives occurred. Captain Scott with
a band of thirty or forty men started south in pursuit
of Indians who had stolen fourteen horses from Orr's
herd, on Wilson Creek, in Utah Valley, and several
cattle from Tooele Valley. The band was found encamped
on a creek in the midst of willows and dense
brushwood in a deep ravine. After a desultory fight
of three or four hours, four Indians were killed, but
none of the settlers. As was their custom, the women
and children of the slain followed the victorious party
to their camp. 19
In the neighborhood of Pleasant Grove were good
farming land, good range for stock, and water-power,
inducements which quickly attracted emigrants, and
caused the place to thrive rapidly. In 1853 the present
site was laid out,' 20 and to this spot were transferred,
on July 24th of that year, the effects of the commu-
nity, then numbering seventy-five families.
Between Lehi and Pleasant Grove the village of
American Fork was founded in 1850, on a site where
were farming and grazing land of fair quality, a little
timber, springs of fresh water, and a stream that could
be easily diverted for purposes of irrigation. 21
About twenty miles south of Provo the settlement
of Payson was laid out on the banks of the Peteetneet
Creek; 22 a few miles to the north-east of Payson was
founded a village named Palmyra, containing, at the
close of 1 852, fifty families; and in 1851, on Salt Creek,
19 Hist. B. Young, MS., 1849, 24-5; John Brown, in Utah Sketches, MS.,
30. The first Indian ti'ouble was a little skirmish between some sheep-herders
and Indians. Wells' Narr., MS., 43.
20 By George A. Smith and Ezra T. Benson.
21 The site was laid out by George A. Smith, assisted by L. E. Harrington,
Arza Adams, Stephen Chipman, William Greenwood, and Stephen Mott. A.
J. Stewart was the surveyor. The first house was built by Adams and Chipman
in 1850; the first grist-mill by Adams in 1851; and the first store was
opened by Thomas McKenzie in the same year. L. E. Harrington, in Utah
Sketches, MS., 121.
22 The first settlers were James Pace, Andrew Jackson Stewart, and John
C. Searle. Joseph S. Tanner, in Utah Sketches, MS., 3.