Page 15

The Mormons were caught up in the warfare with the expanding hostile Navajos, the first incident of which was the killing of George Albert Smith, Jr. in 1860 near Moenkopie Wash. After this the Navajos appear to have aligned themselves with some of the Paiute bands, smarting under the advance of the Mormon frontier in southern Utah, on the western side of the Colorado to make a sporadic raiding warfare on the whites. Early in 1865, Navajos stole some horses at Kanab. Jacob Hamblin again crossed the river in an unsuccessful attempt to recover the stolen stock and to have another talk with the Hopis. From the Hopis he learned that the old Navajo chief, Spaneshanks, a friend of the Mormons, had been deposed by his band in favor of his son whose policy was to raid at every opportunity. The outbreak of the Black Hawk War (1865-1868) in central Utah between the whites and Utes encouraged the war-like Paiutes and Navajos. Paiutes raided Kanab in December, 1865 and in January, 1866, Dr. J. M. Whitmore and Robert McIntyre were killed by Paiutes and Navajos near Pipe Spring. Although some of the culprits were caught, the rest were tracked to the Crossing of the Fathers by a force of the territorial militia of the Iron Military District, Captain James Andrus commanding. Friendly Indians reported that the Navajos had escaped across the Colorado River on solid ice; they had made a trail of sand on the ice from shore to shore over which they led the stolen stock. Crossing on the ice commonly occurred in Glen Canyon later during the mining period but there are fewer records pertaining to the Indians crossing in this manner though it would have been easy for them to do so when conditions permitted. In the spring of 1866, Joseph Berry, Robert Berry, and the latter's wife, Isabella, were killed by Indians in Long Valley at Berryville (now Glendale). Martial law followed. The outlying settlements were abandoned and armed patrols, often assisted by friendly Paiutes, watched the trails between the Colorado and the Mormon frontier, a vigilance that was necessary for several years. The Indians often eluded these guards as well as the forces sent after them. For example, two platoons of the territorial militia under Captain Willis Copelan attempted to avenge a Navajo raid which had occurred in February, 1869. The Navajos were tracked to the Crossing of the Fathers by the militia, which was in the field February 25 to March 12, but they had escaped across the river. The journal of the expedition, filed by Edwin G. Woolley, makes it evident that the fleeing Indians traveled through the "Gunsight" [Gunsight Pass], and reached the ford by the left bank trial into Navajo Canyon. Although the militia did not attempt to ford the river, some of the men 15Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 13,910,016 byte