Levi, along with some witnesses, came to the court house in St. George Utah on Jan 14, 1896 and responded to multiple questions in front of a notary. I don’t know what his property looked like, but I wonder if it looked like any of the pictures above.
He said that he lived in Kanab Utah during the fall of 1865 and until 1866 (when depredations were claimed to have occurred) and his occupations were farming and stock raising.
“I lost thirteen cows, they were excellent good cows, worth thirty dollars a piece, one calf, worth ten dollars, six yarling cattle woth eleven dollars a head and nine two year olds worth eighteen dollars a piece, one yoke of oxen worth fifty dollars a piece, nineteen young steers worth twenty eight dollars a head, also three head of horses, two horses at seventy five dollars each and one fine carriage and saddle horse worth two hundred dollars, also the possession of twenty acres of land with the improvements on it, a dwelling house, fencing, water right and the making of dams and ditches on it, and corrals, these were the improvements. they were worth six hundred dollars. I also lost thirty acres of land, the possession of it, with its improvements, worth seven hundred and twenty five dollars.”
He also mentions “the building of a fort with a house with two rooms in” which we valued at six hundred dollars, along with a “strong serviceable corral” valued at one hundred dollars.
After feeling threatened in their remote location and “to make ourselves more secure, we vacated the fort and joined the settlement in Long Valley, twenty miles distant; here I made other improvements, I lost the possession of land, five acres, the tilling of it, planting the crop corn and other grain, building material gathered and then left that part of the country and moved out to Toquerville, Washing County, under a strong guard, because of the danger of Indian depredations.”
There follows a series of questions about who was doing the depredating and the details of why he left, which will be covered next time.
Finishing up this post, I wonder about the building of a fort and other structures in what seems like such a short time. I re-read his son’s autobiography and he said they moved to Kanab in the fall of 1863 and his father purchased much of the land and improvements in July 1864 from other settlers. It turns out it wasn’t such a short amount of time after all, and many of the improvements had probably already been started, if not finished, when he bought the property in the summer of 1864 for $1000.
I do wonder where he obtained the $1000 needed to purchase the land and improvements from the other settlers. He was a day laborer, farmer, and dairyman throughout various parts of his life–none are occupations that give easy access to cash or allow accumulation of wealth. It is possible he owned land in Salt Lake and made enough money when he sold that land.
I also wonder how big the fort was. Above is a picture of Fort Utah (what would eventually become Utah) in 1850. I think the fort in Kanab was probably much smaller, but would love to find a picture or a description of what it would look like.
As usual, reading through this document has raised as many questions as it has answered.
What do you know about the land and buildings that were owned and/or built by your ancestors in the mid 1800s? Do you have an idea of what they looked like?
Information from the Indian depredations claims are from: Record Group123, Records of the United States Court of Claims, Indian Depredation Case File #9173, Levi Savage (this is how NARA referred to it when asking if I wanted a copy).
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