Meltiar Hatch, Presiding Bishop of the Carson Mission

Orin and Meltiar Hatch

 “The colonists gathered in Salt Lake City on May 7^th, 1856, where each company was organized in the traditional Mormon military fashion, into groups of ten, fifty and one hundred. Among them were butchers, tanners, shoemakers, weavers, brickmakers, bricklayers and other mechanics and artisans, as well as farmers. They were heavily equipped and had many cattle and other livestock” (Hatch, Colonizer, 153).

They camped at Black Rock the second night out, and in the morning they found several inches of snow on the ground, which made it rather unpleasant for the babies, but the women all took matters cheerfully, and they had breakfast and traveled on. Nothing much happened except on one or two nights when the cattle started back home, causing some delay. (Hatch, “History of Christopher Layton,” [pg#])

When they reached Gravelly Ford on the Humboldt, they found the river much swollen and still rising, so most of the company were afraid to cross it that night, but Brother Layton put his family in a large wagon called the “Santa Fe,”, which was loaded with salt, then he hitched twelve yoke of oxen to it and started into the water. All went well until they reached the middle of the stream where the cattle lost their footing and began to go downstream. (Hatch, “History of Christopher Layton,” [pg#])

 With much effort and concern from all those in the company they arrived on the other side. The next morning the river had lowered, and the rest of the company could forge.

As Orin and Maria were crossing, their wagon capsized in midstream, and they were thrown into the stream of water but were able to get hold of the wagon box, and no damage was done. After everyone was safely across they had a joyful prayer circle together.

They halted when they reached the Sink of the Humboldt to rest the cattle, for they had crossed one eighteen-mile desert and also a twenty-six mile one, and now they had one which was forty miles wide. (Hatch, The Pioneers, Time Life Books, [pg#])

Other pioneers described their journey through the forty-mile desert in western Nevada as the most grueling ordeal of their entire journey across the United States. The desert crossing entailed pulling wagons through heavy sand, drinking water was a premium and no grass or feed for the animals other than that which they carried with them. The desert was the scene of suffering and death.

Meltiar’s son, Ira Wilder, related:

I remember while traveling I wanted to obey nature’s call, and my mother undid my pants and let me out of the wagon, and when I saw the great trains of wagons I tried to get out of sight, but being as we were traveling on the desert there were no bushes or trees to get behind, and being so small (not quite four years old) and overly sensitive over it, I ran and ran until I finally did my job in my pants after all.

They started in the afternoon and traveled all night, and in the morning just at daybreak the sand was so deep in places that it drove before the axle of the wagon; but they had only ten miles of it left, and they got through all right and then rested again. (Hatch, “History of Christopher Layton,” [pg#])

Meltiar and Orin, along with several other families, chose to settle in Eagle Valley (Carson City). Meltiar, designated as the presiding elder or bishop, purchased the ranch from the old settlers and divided the land into farm lots and began to build cabins. In the meantime, they were still living out of wagons.

Orin’s history states, “When they arrived at their destination they built a one room house with only one window. They used factory (white cloth) for glass and fresh cut grass for carpet.” (Orin Hatch Journal History).

A long standing tradition in the Hatch family had the men hunting on Saturdays. Meltiar looked forward to this. His son Ira W. wrote in his personal remembrances how thrilled he was when he would see his father return home with ducks, geese, and other wild game. It provided for some delicious meals.

During the summer, the Hatch brothers made a number of trips with a train of pack mules over the Sierra Nevada to Hang Town (Placerville, California) and back to Carson, thus keeping their store supplied with dry goods and groceries of all kinds.

A story told by Ira W. Hatch about his father Meltiar stated that he and another man had a band of horses traveling in California. When they camped for the night, some bandits came along and demanded something to eat. Meltiar’s traveling companion excitedly jumped out of his blanket, but Meltiar lay quietly with his gun in hand under the blanket. When the appropriate time came he rose up and put his gun in the ruffians’ faces. Meltiar unarmed them both and sent them scampering off. 

James T. Wilson's Account of the Carson Mission

James T. Wilson

We left Salt Lake about the 8^th of May. It was appointed for all the companies to rendezvous at Bear River where President Young was to meet us, and council in relation to the object of the mission. Accordingly after doing as required, he came up and we had a good time together and on the 15^th of May we struck tents, heading for the west. It was a beautiful clear day. All was happy and cheerful. Carson Valley is 750 miles from Salt Lake. . . . we moved along all o.k. till we arrived at the Humboldt, when a circumstance occurred which came very near leaving me a widower. My wife against my many warnings had a habit of going in the mornings and washing her face in the River, often doing so while standing upon caves which had fell from the banks of the River, so it came to pass that as she was hankered down one morning washing her face, all of a sudden the bank she was standing on gave way and in an instant she was precipitated in the muddy raging stream. The River was very high and turbulent. She went in feet down. Her clothes being dry they held her up quite a while before she sank.

I was some 30 rods above her and heard her give a loud scream as she went in. I was on horseback, and was soon at the scene. I jumped off my horse and would have went in to try to save her or die in the attempt. She had disappeared either once or twice and came up again, when I went to the edge of the water. As far as it was for them to venture, [James] Rathall was up to his shoulders scarcely able to keep his feet, and it seemed God directed the current for she came floating towards him, her head under the water, her dress merely in sight. Brother James seized her with the grasp of a tiger, and brought her safely to land. She was pretty well gone with fright, and the water that she swallowed, but in a few minutes she was able to get in the carriage, when we proceeded on our journey. I shall ever remember with gratitude the heroic exertions these brethren made to save my wife’s life.

We arrived at our destination about the last of June being about [6]–- 7 weeks on the road. A new valley was chosen for the place of rendezvous. I do not remember as there was a house in the valley. This valley was called Washoe. It contained a beautiful lake bearing the same name. The new city soon presented a busy scene and the hand of industry soon manifested itself on every hand. Apostle Orson Hyde who had charge of the mission had proceeded the companies and crossed over the Sierra Nevada’s to California and purchased a steam saw mill and ere long the buzz of the great circle saw could be heard from the new laid off city flat, and ere long horses were in course of construction. The mountains was covered with fine timber. It grew down to the very edge of the valley, so the facility for obtaining homes was comparative easy.

So one beautiful morning about the first of July, 1856 . . . starting early in the morning with blankets and lunch that if necessary to remain over night. Two hours ride brought us into Steamboat Valley. This name is given to it on account of a warm spring—the steam issuing out from among the rocks, making a noise similar to that made from the waste pipe of a steamboat. In this valley we seen large herds of antelope grazing in the distance. The valley contained miles and miles of fine sage—brush land, and a great quantity of beautiful rich meadow. The grass reaching up to our horses girths thick and luxuriant. To the right on the top of the mountain is located the worlds renown Comstock load, and the far famed Virginia City. But at this time both were unknown. After looking around for some time we proceeded on our course down to the Truckee River, some 6 or 8 miles in the distance. Here we camped for the night, but found nothing to attract our attention. It was on this river in 1846 that a large company of emigrants perished through meeting mutiny, except a very few who were so fortunate. After untold sufferings they were rescued by a few hardy men from Sutters Fort, California. We seen the bones of their cattle bleaching on the banks of the River, and some of their wagon tires. The Truckee is a beautiful clear stream some 3 rods wide, and is well stocked with fine mountain trout. The head of this river is Bigler’s Lake [Lake Tahoe] up the Sierra Nevadas. But in the providence of God I never beheld that valley again.

On the 22^nd of August, 1856, James B., my oldest son was born and on the 26^th Jered his twin was born dead. [James was the first white child born at Mormon Station] In this confinement my wife came nearly losing her life and it was only by the power of God that she survived her confinement. (Permission to print this story granted by the family. Some grammatical errors were corrected.)

Frank Richard Bentley of the Carson Mission

Frank Richard Bentley

       “In 1855 I put in fifteen acres of wheat, ten acres in one lot and five in the other. When the wheat was about six inches high, the grasshoppers came down like a cloud and devoured everything before them. They commenced at one side of the field and cleared it as they went.

 About this time, Marshal Heywood was ordered to get up a company of men to go to Carson Valley as guard to the U.S. District Court, to organize Carson County.

The marshal proposed that I go along, which proposition I accepted as by this time the grasshoppers had taken ten acres of my wheat and the prospect was fair that they would take the other five. The terms were five dollars a day with everything furnished for a man and his horse. I thought it would be a good chance to get my bread and other provisions for my family.

 We were in Carson about two months. At the U.S. District Court at this time I took out my final papers of citizenship. Orson Hyde was clerk of the court.

When I returned home at the end of two months, I found my family all well, and my wife had one hundred bushels of wheat stored in the house which was quite a surprise to me. My wife informed me that after I left she thought she would try to save the other five acres of wheat which the grasshoppers had not reached. So, she took the children, the pigs and chickens and went to the field every day to fight the hoppers, and by that means saved the wheat. That was the only wheat saved in the settlement.

At the October conference, I, with about one hundred others, was called to move to Carson County and colonize that county.

In the winter, I sold out my possessions in Nephi and made preparations to start for Carson. In the spring of 1856 with my family and all I possessed, I started for Carson Valley. I had one wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows with several loose cows in the herd. The company was very large numbering over one hundred wagons and a large number of loose cattle. We made the trip in about six weeks. On reaching the Carson River the company was disorganized; the people locating on the river in Carson Valley and in several small valleys adjacent. Washaw [Washoe] Valley was selected by Apostle Orson Hyde, who with his wife Mary Ann was with the company as head quarters of the mission.

A beautiful stream of pure mountain water ran through the town site and formed a lake on the south side of the valley. The valley is about six miles long east and west and about three miles wide and is situated close at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I bought a lot at the mouth of the creek and built a hewed log house. . . . A log school house was built and improvements made and we soon had quite a comfortable little settlement.

August 14, 1856, my son Frank was born and being the first child born in the new colony had the honor of having the town named Franktown after him.

I was very much pleased with Carson and the surrounding valleys also with the climate and the many crystal streams coursing down the mighty mountains. Mountain trout was very abundant in the river and small streams emptying into it, so much so that after the spring overflow on the bottoms had subsided, a great amount of fish was left in the low places and pools, so the farmers turned their hogs loose and they got fat on the fish. I bought some of the bacon gut, it was so fishy that I could not eat it.

In the summer the white clover grew so high (8–-10 feet) the wind blew it down flat and in the fall, so I am told, it would rot off at the bottom and the wind would roll it into wind rows ready for the farmers to haul it off for hay in the winter.

There was a great deal of fish in Washoe Lake and in the spring they ran up the creek to spawn. A few rods above my house the creek forked. When the Indians wanted fish they put a dam in one fork and turned the water all down the other; and when the water drained out of the fork they had dammed off, they followed it down and picked up the fish with their hands that were struggling to get from one pool to another. My house was not more than twenty feet from the creek and my children could throw out a mess of fish for breakfast in a few minutes. (Memoirs of Frank Bentley)

A number of Frank Bentley’s descendants live in the Reno-Sparks area.

From Genoa to the Carson Mission

From Genoa to the Carson Mission

    In August 1850, Amasa Lyman and 30 Mormon men passed through Carson Valley on their return to Salt Lake City from California and confirmed its desirability.       

    By 1851, John Reese from Salt Lake City had established a trading post in Carson Valley, about a mile away from the Abner Blackburn trading post. He and his partners quickly cleared an acre of ground and built a stockade around the plot. Inside the stockade, a 30-by-50-foot log hotel and store were built. They began planting crops to sell the following season. Within a year it was a full- fledged commercial operation that many emigrants mentioned in their journals as Mormon Station. Seventeen men worked for Reese, cutting timber, building log houses, a blacksmith shop, with fenced acreage for wheat, barley, corn, watermelons, and turnips (Davies, Mormon Gold).

    Establishing a full-fledged trading post attracted a number of people, both Mormon and non-Mormon alike. By 1851, the residents established a squatter’s government to maintain some regulation concerning the amount of land a resident could hold. A heated discussion about the boundary line of California and the Utah Territory arose in the new community. The non-Mormon residents maintained Carson Valley was in California and refused to send their taxes into Salt Lake. The Mormons, including Brigham Young, maintained the area belonged to the Utah Territory. By 1855, the Utah legislature passed an act creating Carson County. Brigham Young sent an impressive entourage to organize the county government seat.

    Orson Hyde, a probate judge, was sent to Carson Valley to be the spiritual leader of the community. He was also to fulfill the mandates of the Salt Lake legislature. Along with Orson Hyde, Governor Young sent Marshal Joseph L. Heywood and U.S. District Judge Styles. These astute men were assigned to meet with officials from the state of California and establish the proper boundary between the state of California and the Utah Territory.

To assure the county would remain in the Utah Territory, Governor Young made a major investment of human resources by sending 257 people to establish their homes in the Carson Valley. In the spring general conference of the church, Brigham Young called these families to establish a firm government over the region. Indeed, when Carson Valley held an election, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the “Mormon ticket” rather than what was called, “the Human Ticket.” Nine of the twelve offices established by the election were held by Mormons.

    At that point, one of the purposes of the new community was met, but there were other important reasons Brigham sent folks to settle a mission. He planned to establish a midway station between the Utah settlements and the Pacific coast. Carson Valley was to be a major outpost of Zion.

    Orson constructed a saw mill in Washoe Valley to prepare for the families coming from Salt Lake. He spent $10,000 on its construction including materials donated from members of the church in California. The mill would provide families with lumber for flooring, finish for their houses, and fence for their land. It later became the subject source for the famous “Orson Hyde Curse.”

    Hyde was unfaltering in his zeal to accomplish all of his given mandates. He conducted surveys and secured water, land, and timber rights for settlers moving into the area. He had a bridge built on the Carson River as well as a road cut into Carson Canyon. When the surveys showed Carson Valley was located inside the territory of Utah, Orson changed the name of Mormon Station to that of Genoa. The area reminded him of Genoa, Italy, Columbus’s birthplace. He established other communities in surrounding valleys. He mapped out Franktown in five-acre lots with the same intention of establishing the area as that of Salt Lake City, with broad streets. In a report given by Orson, he concluded, “This is a beautiful valley. . . . There are so many valleys in this vicinity rich and fertile sufficient to make a state or an empire” (Arrington, Mormons in Nevada). There was an enthusiastic feeling in these valleys—a feeling that the colony was going to be successful, both economically and politically.

    “On September 28, 1856, Orson Hyde held the first conference of the Church in Carson Valley. Sermons were delivered on such subjects as swearing, prayer, keeping away from grog shops and the respectful treatment of non-Mormons. Elder Hyde’s advice to the new settlers was as follows: ‘Labor hard, settle up, mind your own business, be slow of speech, and live your religion. Fear God and work righteousness.’ (Arrington, Mormons in Nevada).

    At the time of the annual stake conference, the Mormon membership was reported to be as follows:

Carson Valley Branch, 116 members, of whom 5 were high priests and 31 seventies and elders:

Washoe Branch, 111 members, of whom 12 were high priests and 10 were seventies and elders:

Eagle Valley Branch, 60 members, of whom 4 were high priests and 7 seventies and elders. (Arrington, Mormons in Nevada)

As presiding elder of the local church, Orson organized the church members into a stake. “William Price was president; Chester Loveland, president of the high council, and Richard Bentley, stake bishop. Home teachers were appointed for each of these branches, as well as the full quota of twelve men for the stake high council” (Hatch, “History of Christopher Layton,”)

The members included some prominent men in Utah history. William Jennings, a butcher and meat dealer whose entrepreneurial spirit is evidenced by the fact that he later became Utah’s first millionaire and was a principal organizer of Z.C.M.I.; Chester Loveland, who later became the first mayor of Brigham City; Christopher Layton, founder of Layton, Utah and of Layton, Arizona; Meltier Hatch, a prominent colonizer in southern Utah and eastern Nevada and whom Hatch, Utah is named after; and Abraham Hunsaker, a prime colonizer in northern Utah, who was one of the best stockmen in the territory. Many of the men were also veterans of the Mormon Battalion.” (Arrington, Mormons in Nevada) 

    When the saints from Salt Lake arrived, they dissembled to spread out among the small settlements in Eagle Valley (Carson City), Washoe Valley, Jack and Pleasant Valleys, and Franktown.

    Currently, several Carson Mission immigrants of 1854, are remembered by their posterity who live within the same broad scope encompassed by the old Carson Mission .

Abner Blackburn

Abner Blackburn

Abner was a member of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion who wintered in Pueblo, Colorado. He and 12 others caught up with Brigham Young and the vanguard group around Fort Laramie, Wyoming, then continued into the Salt Lake Valley approximately the same time as the Brigham Young Company. Abner stayed in the valley for two to three weeks, after which, he traveled with Sam Brannon back to California. This was the first of many treks across the Sierra for him. When he returned to Utah after obtaining the battalion’s back pay, he continued to Missouri where he joined his family to help them move to the valley. The family wintered in Salt Lake that year, 1847–48. By that time he heard about the battalion’s gold discovery in California. He and several other battalion members planned their return to gold country the following spring.

In 1849 he joined a company who intended to take the new road carved out by the Mormon Battalion members who had previously wintered in California. When Abner’s group stopped near the Carson River for a couple of days to let their animals rest, he asked why no one had discovered gold on the eastern side of the Sierras. They responded by saying no one ever looked. Being curious, Abner took a bread pan and a butcher knife to a nearby ravine to dig around. Sure enough, he found a small quantity of gold. Abner remembered the location being in the vicinity of present-day Dayton, Nevada, a few miles south of what later became Virginia City. He “calculated to return some time in the future”(Will Bagley, Frontiersman,141). The company continued over the Sierras into California gold country. Abner worked several locations along the American River with great success, rescuing thousands of dollars of “the needful.”

After Abner’s stint in the gold fields he went back to Utah in 1849 for the winter.

Following his routine, he traveled east again in the spring of 1850. He and several others went back to the Nevada location where he had found gold the previous year, but the gold had been mined by others. His memoirs establish the first gold found in the area.

Abner was an adventurer. He, his brother, and four other men established a trading post in the Carson Valley. The post was later dubbed “Mormon Station.” He states in his memoirs, “There was no better place” in Carson Valley for this site had “cold watter [sic] comeing [sic] out of the mountain and pine trees were plenty on the edge of the valley. There was [sic] oceans of good feed for stock.” (Bagley, “Nevada Town’s 150-Year Party Salt Lake Tribune, June 17, 2001; B1).

“My place was about 50 yards from the place where [Reese later] built his trading post. We put up a log cabin. It was not standing when I went bak. Timber was very plentiful. I left there in September and we sold out to someone named Moore. I think Reese bought this man out. We did no fencing or planting. We went to make a station for the purpose of supplying provisions to the emigrants who came along. We built a corral there to keep the stock in. The cabin was a double-logged one story house about 20 by 60 feet containing two rooms. We put no roof on nor a floor as it did not rain that season—at that time we did not know but what we would winter there when we would have to put a roof on. I don’t recollect the object of our putting up the log house only we had nothing to do so we put a house up. We had no trouble with Indians. My house was the first one built in the valley and I think in Nevada.” (Bagley, Frontiersman, 263)

 Business was good that year. He said, “Trade flowed in onto us” (Bagley, Frontiersman). Hundreds of hungry 49ers bought and traded goods before the final push through the mountains to California. At the end of the season the partners divided their proceeds and went their separate ways.

Abner traversed this area many times leaving in his wake a colorful stamp on Truckee Meadows history. He would have made a greater impact if he and his friends had gone a little farther up the hill toward Virginia City where they would have found the rich veins of the Comstock. The last time he wintered with the saints in Utah was the year 1850. He then took permanent leave of the saints in Utah to live in California.

In 1897, Abner was invited to return to Salt Lake to participate in a commemoration celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the pioneers’ arrival in 1847. He wrote asking for financial assistance, saying, “California is not a land of gold and we are nearly all poor.” (Bagley, Frontiersman, 220). Abner had foolishly spent his gold money, letting it slip through his fingers. He did obtain funds to attend the Jubilee celebration of the battalion held in Salt Lake City. He proudly marched down Main Street, and posed for an historical picture of the remaining battalion veterans.