Research plan: Grafton, Utah

KeErah Hutchings
Historical Archaeology ANTH 2530-001
Dr. Chris Merritt
December 15th 2015

Site Name, Location, Map references. Who owns the property?

Introduction
I chose to research Grafton, located in Washington County, Utah just south of the border of
Zions national park. The only way to get to it is a small dirt road. Its Coordinates are,
371002N 1130448W. It was hard to single out one person who owns the land as there are
several land owners including the BLM as well as the Grafton Heritage Partnership. Im not sure
if they also own some of the land or are just helping restore it. Grafton became a ghost town
when the towns people were forced to move due to so much flooding in the area they had to
move to higher ground. The town was destroyed except for some of its larger features they
rebuilt again and it flooded again forcing them to relocate.
Current Condition of the Site, i.e. what is there now? Is your project site being impacted
negatively, is so, by what and how?
In 1997 Grafton Heritage Partnership, a non-profit organization, that has brought together
more than 20 groups with diverse interests to preserve Grafton, Utah's most picturesque ghost
town, and the surrounding agricultural environment. Before the Grafton Heritage Partnership
project the towns buildings where suffering serious deterioration and vandalism. Lu Wayne
Wood initiated a new effort to stabilize the towns church/school in 1995. Since then most of the
features of the Grafton Ghost town such as the old church, Russel Home, Louisa Foster Home,
the Berry fence in the cemetery, and John Wood home were restored, with new windows, doors,
roofing and other structural enhancements to represent the period in which they were built. In
addition, 150 acres of farmland were purchased, on which agricultural operations are performed
to enhance the farming appearance. The site is currently under 24-hour surveillance. I think that
having the project to restore the town is a good thing as long as they continue to restore it as
authentic as they can and not turn it into a tourist trap ae that changes the whole point of what the

site used to be. According to the website Grafton Heritage Partnership will continue working on
the restoration and interpretation of the town site, it has eliminated the major threats to Grafton's
future and the deterioration of its buildings.
Why does this site matter for investigation?
I think that this site qualifies for the National Register under A, C, and D. It falls under A
because, Graftons remaining buildings stand as a place holder, a physical memory of a time and
life few living today recall. Towns like this are rare, and becoming rarer. Most pioneer villages
either lost their historic flair as they grew into modern towns or were washed away in flash
floods. Thats why I think that it is a good idea to continue to investigate and preserve this site. It
falls under criteria C because I think it is important that they are restoring buildings and should
continue to restore building so that the community can have a piece of history that was once
lively and was forced to be abandoned. Its also good to have a site like this because we can see
how early Mormon settlers lived. We can study their architecture and see where they put things
in the town to function as a community. I would like to add another aspect to why the site is
important. I think we should find out where the Paiute tribe camps sites that used to exist in
Grafton. And try to learn more about what they were going through during the same time the
Mormon settlers were there. We hear a lot of talk about the Mormon settlers but there are barely
any mention of the Paiute Indians or other tribes that where there at the time. One of the only
things that people mention was that they terrorized the settlers. I would like to also try and find
their side of the story to the area. After all they were there first. This is where I think the site
would fall under criteria D because depending on what we find about the Paiute camp could
change and further our knowledge on the site.
Historical Background

In 1847 the Mormons arrived in Utah after fleeing persecution. In 1850 Utah became a US
territory. In order to acquire resources so they could be self-sufficient, Brigham Young, the leader
of the Mormon Church, sent families throughout the west on colonization missions. He sent
families to southern Utah in 1851 to Cedar city and Saint George to complete the iron mission.
To fulfill the cotton mission which was to grow cotton so the religious group would have money
to support their faith. Brigham Young also sent a large group to settle the Virgin River, Ten
farming settlements grew along the upper Virgin River in the only places they could: Virgin
(1857), Grafton (1859), Adventure (1860), Duncans Retreat and Northup (1861), and
Shunesburg, Rockville and Springdale (1862).
In 1859, Nathan Tenney led five families, the Barneys, Davies, McFates, Platts and Shirts
to a site one mile downstream of modern day Grafton. They built homes, and worked the land to
plant crops and prepare for cotton, in 1861 cotton became scarce because of the civil war.
Grafton was booming in cotton the first year of cultivation but they didnt plant enough crops to
feed their families, as time went on farmers choose to plant more food than cotton because there
wasnt enough land and water to sustain both. In January 1862 a large flood destroyed most of
Grafton and the surrounding areas. The settlers were forced to move to higher ground one mile
upstream from the town. That is where Grafton exist today. In the new town of Grafton they
continued to have problems. Irrigation dams were getting washed out constantly from two to
three time a year or more. They had to fix them weekly, on top of that rain was scarce and
farmland was getting limited. However they were still able to form some crops and they had fruit
trees that did better than the crops.
Disease and death was another thing that the Grafton settlers had to face. Babies didnt make
it pass the one year mark, people died of tuberculosis and poor health, and then there were

people who died because of the harsh terrain. Joseph C. Field, a 9 year old boy was dragged to
death by a horse. Despite all the bad people keep slowly coming from Salt Lake to join the
community. By 1864 Grafton had about 164 residents according to the 2000 Church census.
Grafton became a ghost town for the first time in 1866, due to the Indian Problem. When
the Utah territory was settled, the upper Virgin River valley was already inhabited by native
Southern Paiute people. Because of the competition for land and scarce resources those led to
conflict between both peoples. In 1866 When Navajo raiders killed Mormon settlers in Colorado
Springs Brigham Young required all of the settlement to combine into towns of at least 150 or
more people. Grafton and the other Virgin River settlement abandoned their homes and moved to
Rockville. The Grafton farmers returned to tend their crops every day until 1868 when they were
able to return to Grafton because the Indian problem had passed.
In 1868 the Grafton residents gathered lumber and clay to build an adobe school house that
still stands today. They held dances, school, and town meetings. In 1896 Utah became a U.S.
state and Grafton boomed according to the Grafton heritage partnership, until 1906 when a
newly built canal delivered Virgin River water to the wide, flat Hurricane bench twenty miles
downstream. The men of Grafton helped build the Hurricane Canal to escape years of limited
land and loss of fields because of flooding. Many Grafton families left, taking everything in
some cases, taking their houses and moved to Hurricane. In 1929 the barely inhabited Grafton
was discovered by movie crews and became the set for the first outdoor talking movie ever
filmed called old Arizona. Warner Baxter, Raoul Walsh, Edmund Lowe, and Dorothy Burgess
starred in the film. Many movies followed "The Arizona Kid" in 1930, "Ramrod" in 1947, and
the most famous movie filmed here, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in 1969. They built a

building for this film. "Child Bride of Short Creek" was filmed there in 1981, then "The Red
Fury" in 1984, according to the Grafton brochure.
In 1945 the last of the residents move away from Grafton Because Graftons irrigated land
was so limited the children of the first generation immigrants didnt have available farmland for
their families. Men were forced to move their families elsewhere. Because of that there were not
enough children the school shut down, lack of water and electricity compared to other
communities, Grafton gradually became a ghost town for the second time and remains that way
to this day.
Southern Paiute people
To make this report well rounded I wanted to cover the history of the Paiute people as
well, not just the Mormon settlers. Prior to contact with the Europeans the Paiutes land covered
an area of 30 million acres according to Tom, G. and Holt, R. who wrote about Paiute Tribes in
Utah from southern California to southern Nevada, south-central Utah, and northern Arizona.
These areas provided not only a wide variety and choice in food but a good climate to live in.
The Paiutes knew the environment and were able to exist and maintain a way of life without
overtaxing the resources of the land. They had a seasonal lifestyle, moving with the season and
following animal migration. They made temporary structures that they could take apart and move
easily. Starting in the 1850s many Paiutes began to use canvas or skin teepees adapting to a
plains style of dwelling from their contact with the Utes. According to the website about the
Paiute Tribe in Utah, Paiutes were highly sophisticated botanist they used ninety-six species of
edible plants as well as plants with medicinal value. They hunted hoofed animals, rodents, birds,
carnivores, reptiles and insects. They would get nuts like pine nuts from the pinyon trees and
fished from lakes these were the main socialization for Paiute people. There are at least sixteen

major groups or thirty-five smaller groups according to Utah On the Go the list includes, the
Parowan area; Santa Clara--three to seven groups; Kaiparowits; Cedar City--at least two groups;
Beaver Dam area; Tonoquints--multiple groups; Ash Creek--Toquer's group and possibly others;
Antarianunts; Panguitch Lake; Harmony; Uinkarets; Virgin River--multiple groups; San Juan-two groups; Beaver; and Kaibab (Tom, G. and Holt, R.).
In 1776 the Dominguez-Escalante party from Santa Fe made the first recorded European
visit to Utah Paiute lands. Through the mid-1800s the Paiutes had encountered only a few EuroAmericans such as traders, travelers, and trappers. The Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to
California flourished from 1830 to about 1850 and passed right through the middle of Paiute
territory. Most of the travelers were passing through to the fertile fields of California. Eventually
the traffic through some Paiute farming areas was so heavy that the Paiutes had to abandon fields
that were too close to the trail.
In 1849 Brigham Young started sending the increasing population of Mormons to expand
their colonization efforts and create a Mormon corridor Salt Lake City to California. The
Mormons identified some good sites for settlement. Unfortunately for the Paiutes, these sites
were often their core living and foraging areas. The lives of the Paiutes shifted dramatically as
Mormons became full-time residents in Paiute country in 1851. The Paiutes utilized various
adaptive strategies in an effort to keep their population and culture intact. The Mormon settlers
also brought large numbers of domesticated livestock to Paiute country. Allowing their livestock
to graze anywhere, and eventually overgrazed the land taking a toll on the Paiutes' food sources.
Not only was the land taken but, the seeds that provided a significant portion of the people's diet
were consumed.

By the end of 1858, eight years after colonization efforts began, Mormons had
established eleven settlements in Southern Paiute territory. The best farmlands and sources of
water were taken for the new Mormon towns. The industrious Paiutes were hired to provide
much of the labor needed to create the new settlements. They helped prepare the fields for
planting and performed various domestic chores. And The Mormons, provided new sources of
material goods, food, and agricultural knowledge. Lyman D. and Karen Platt wrote in their book,
Grafton, Ghost Town on the Rio Virgin, that the Indians had lived in the upper Virgin River area
long before the pioneers settled it. With the first arrivals the Indians were friendly and assisted
them in working their lands and tending their flocks and herd, digging water ditches, cutting
firewood, carrying water, finding plants for medicine and other similar chores. Brigham Young,
always the practical statesman, argued that it was cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight with
them. However, it was not long before these first settlers created resentment with the Indians
because they brought many head of cattle, horses and sheep which began to consume the
Indians food source and this naturally led to hostilities( Lyman D. and Karen Platt).
The Mormon presence provided some protection from the wagon trains and the slave
raiding of the Utes, Navajos, and Mexicans, but the Mormon settlers also brought with them
many diseases such as cholera, scarlet fever, whooping cough, measles, mumps, tuberculosis,
and malaria. Since Paiutes were frequently living near the settlements, they soon contracted these
diseases. Because they had been exposed to these diseases sparingly they hadnt acquired an
immunity to them like the Mormon settlers. Causing some Paiute groups to experience more than
a 90 percent drop in their population.
The Black Hawk Indian War was a long and destructive conflict between pioneer settlers
and Indians in Utah history. The war erupted as a result of white expansion on Indian Territory

and the destruction of their resources which caused the native people like the Paiute to starve. So
they stole from the settlers. In Grafton the effects of the war lasted for a couple years and
relations between the Paiute people remained strained.
In the fall of 1867 Chief Black Hawk made peace and in 1868 families began returning to
Grafton. However, less population returned than when they left. Peace with the Southern Paiute
people were relatively established. The Paiutes had a camp of tepees above the irrigation ditch
south west of town. By the mid-1870s most Southern Paiutes had abandoned efforts to live off
the land in the traditional manner and had moved into areas adjoining the communities or moved
to another area because they had to.
Grafton Cemetery
The cemetery is located away from the town and has many original headstones from the various
residents that died there from accidents to diseases. The most famous headstones are the graves
inside the wooden fence at the site. The grave site is the Berry family who was told not to travel
back to their home to Berryville (now Glendale on Highway 89), near Colorado City. According
to the Grafton Heritage Partnership, but they didnt listen and went anyway and were killed by
Indians in retaliation for Mormon militia men killing some of their people in Pipe Springs. Also
in the cemetery there are many unmarked grave mounds that are thought to be Paiute Indian
graves, I will have to do more research of descendants that might know if these rumors are true
or if they are in fact just rumors.

Research Questions
These are the research questions that interested me I was able to find some answers to an extent
without actually going out in the field. To get more information I would have to excavate the site
and perform other methods to gain the answers I seek.
Why did Mormon settlers choose to settle here?
Brigham Young sent her to fulfill the cotton mission which was to grow cotton in the
warm climate of Southern Utah so the religious group would have money to support their faith.
Young also wanted to be able to show that the Utah Territory could sustain themselves and
contribute to the United States. There are many accounts of volunteers coming to Grafton to help
the cotton mission. In the field we could do pollen analysis to get all the crops that where planted
or are still there. We could also find more information by looking at maps to see why they chose
this side of the Virgin River instead of the other side.
Why did the Mormon settlers keep going back?
Even though the land was good for cotton, it was a lot of work and took time away from
crops. The irrigation ditches filled with sand every time they flooded and the whole town was
destroyed because of the flood, not only that but they had a strained relationship with the Paiute
people so why did they keep coming back. I think it was because they had nowhere else to go or
didnt have the means to go somewhere else but without further research and possible accounts
like diaries its hard to say.
What happened to the Paiute people?
According to my research the Paiute people were forced to leave because of the drastic
change to their environment of Mormon settlers. Their land and food source was taken, they had
Mormon settlers trying to convert them to their religion or curing them of their way of life. They

were being killed off by disease and other enemy tribes like the Utes and the Navajo stealing
their women. It was hard to recover and adapt from all the change. They were forced to
assimilate or find somewhere else to go. There is only so much you can learn from research we
would have to see if we could back up these accounts in the field.
Why did they leave the site?
The Paiutes left because the Mormon settlers overgrazed their land and diverted water for
their irrigation ditches. They also took land to plant cotton and food crop, which the Paiutes used
for their main food source. Because of lack of food they were on the brink of starvation and were
forced to leave, the Mormon settles also brought many diseases with them killing a lot of the
Paiute people.
Is there still evidence that they occupied Grafton before they were forced to leave/ assimilate?
Without actually visiting the site and doing a survey or excavation it is hard to find the
answer to this question. There are different accounts of what happened and where the Paiute
camp was. Also because of the constant flooding and the materials that the Paiute people used
their might not be anything to recover. There is one account that says that some of the Paiute
people joined the Grafton community before it was abandoned the second time. I would need to
do more research and find first or second hand accounts this was true.
Methods
It is easy enough to find out information about the why the Mormon settlers came here,
and by looking at their buildings we might be able to figure out why they kept coming back. But
what I want to focus on is my research questions about the Paiute people, the methods I would
use to find out more information about them would be to find their original camp site. We could
do this by finding journals or stories of where people think the camp was, or by hunting down a

hand drawn map of the area. If we had an old map or references to the old town site we could use
that to help us find where things were to narrow down our search and save time. Once we had a
good idea where the camp or camps might be then we could set up a workable area that a team
can do a pedestrian survey. Due to flooding in the Grafton area we will need to do excavation to
see what was covered by the sand. We could use a grid system to make sure we record exactly
where we found each artifact. We can then use screening to sort out any artifact and ecofacts that
we might encounter. Once we find artifacts we will record what it is or take a picture if we dont
and write where we found it.
Summary
In summary Grafton was a Mormon settlement that Brigham Young ordered to grow
cotton, it was successful for a while until they focused more on farming rather than profit. The
site was an unfortunate place to settle because of the constant flooding and the strained relation
with the native people. The Paiutes were welcoming until the Grafton settlers overgrazed and
took all the land that had once belonged to the Paiute people. They were forced to leave due to
starvation and disease. Grafton was abandoned after the second location and flood. Today it
remains the most picturesque ghost town in Utah, and the buildings that are left are being
restored by the heritage partnership project, who protect the site as well. I think they should
include the Paiute people at the Grafton site and find out what happened to them and get their
side of the story not just the Grafton settlers.

Bibliography:
Grafton Heritage Partnership Project. 2015. St. George Design. Retrieved from
http://graftonheritage.org/
In the Desert. (2013). Grafton, Utah. Retrieved from http://www.in-thedesert.com/grafton.html
Lyman D. and L. Karen Platt, Grafton, Ghost Town on the Rio Virgin, 1998.
Mauro, S. (2008). Grafton, Utah. Wild West, 20 (5).
Tom, G. and Holt, R. The Paiute Tribe of Utah. (2015). Utah History to go. Retrieved
from
http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic_cultures/the_history_of_utahs_american_in
dians/chapter4.html

Grafton Historic District (added 1999 - - #99001007)

1861 town site of Grafton , Rockville
Historic Event
Significance:
Area of Exploration/Settlement, Community Planning And
Significance: Development, Agriculture, Architecture
Period of 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874
Significance:
Owner: Local , Private
Historic Agriculture/Subsistence, Domestic, Education,
Function: Religion
Historic Sub- Animal Facility, Religious Structure, School, Single
function: Dwelling, Storage
Current Vacant/Not In Use
Function:

Arrows

point to sites
Southeast of
Grafton

Evidence of Paiute sites irrigation, and fences