John W. Shawcroft
from a recording he made in February, 1963
together with additional information provided by Melvin Morgan
We were called by John
Taylor. He was President of the Church at that time when we came to this country
(San Luis Valley).
Some
of the people in our company were my father, the Jensens, the Petersons, the
Nelsons, John Morgan, and the Cornum family. We have been told since that we
were called here to this country to help with the farming. There were more of
the Southern people coming to this country but they knew nothing about
irrigation and the method of farming in this Western country and this company
was called here for this purpose, to come and help the Southern people and help
them to become acquainted with irrigation. We were six weeks on the road out
here. John Morgan and Pete Cornum drove a bunch of cattle that far. Today it
looks like that was an awful undertaking to drive a bunch of cattle that far,
but they did. They came clear to this country.
There were no ox teams in our company, only
horses and mules. We did not have any real experiences. I remember how we
stopped for several days along the Colorado River to let the cattle rest up. We
stopped in the country where Moab is now. It was good country and there was not
anything there at that time.
I have been interested
in livestock all my life, ever since then. I came here as a young boy and the
country was open and free to everybody. I started by riding horseback
(bareback). My father was afraid to let me ride with a saddle because he was
afraid I would get my foot hung in the stirrup and have an accident, so I rode
bareback.
As far as the trip was concerned, I was a young
boy and I don't remember about a lot of things that took place. We came in over
the Cumbres Pass from Pagosa Springs and Durango. I remember very well that when
we got the company to Durango there was the train whistling and coming down the
track. We never saw anything like it from the time we started and it seemed like
we were coming into civilization or a new world. We had been on the road a long
way.
We landed in
September, 1882.
The Peterson Company came in
1880 and my father and his company came in 1882 and there was George Morgan and
his brother Fred, and Uncle Ephraim and that company came in later. They were
not called here, but came because my father came here and because of the success
which he had had.
The first year they didn't
think they could raise grain here.
My father told Dan Newcomb
what prospects he had for a crop and Dan laughed at my father for building
prospects here, and said they couldn't raise crops here, but my father did raise
a crop. My father raised 600 bushels of wheat the first year and at that time,
that was a big crop. Their efforts here were successful and others followed
after them.
President Taylor
called our company, and Grandad Jensen's. They came together. The Cornums
located at Ephraim, but the rest of the company located here at Richfield.
Mel Morgan's Grandad Jensen lived across the
street by where Lou lives now and my father lived in the block south of there
and the Petersons lived where the brick house is and Crowthers lived across the
street from there. Carl Frederickson lived on the corner of the block this way
from where Brother Jensen lived. Dad and Uncle Tom built a cabin where John
Knight used to live. As I remember, your father (Mel Morgan's) and Don built a
cabin just east (in the east part of town) just a block east from where the
Jensens lived and across the street.
They bought land from the state when they came here. It was all state
land and they bought it for a reasonable price of
QUESTION:
Where did your dad raise the
600 bushels of wheat?
The people all went in together to make their
fences and fenced all of the land they took and fenced it in together and
divided the fences and had to build a fence so far and so much fence as the
amount of land that they had in the enclosure. It was not like it is now where
every farmer fences his own and takes care of his own, but they all went in
together in one enclosure.
Afterwards, they took
in the North field.
It was taken the same way.
Everyone was allowed so much and they were only given ten acres but of that
around where Warren Shawcroft lives now. It was cut up in ten-acre plots.
They worked together at the
time. The big plot ran down the road that runs north from Sanford.
QUESTION:
Where did you get the water
for irrigation?
We got the water from the Conejos River. Brother
Peterson had farmed the year before down in here. He and Tommy Crowther and
Wallace Young farmed the year before. He made a canal. There was real pioneer in
Brother Peterson. He surveyed all that canal with an instrument he had fixed up
with a level. He could tell the slope. He had surveyed this ditch and they had
had water in it. When this new company came in and they needed more water, they
enlarged the Richfield Canal. It is one of the oldest canals in this country.
They did the same thing at Ephraim.
QUESTION:
Did they dig that ditch to
Sanford at the same time?
Sanford did not come in until many years later. I moved across Sanford to look for water in the Conejos River. They used to travel back and forth (cattle). There wasn't any civilization whatsoever there at that time. They were counseled to move to Sanford from this end and to come from Ephraim to the other end. Sanford was not started until years after we came.
When I came here there was not a house nor a
ditch nor a fence between Guadalupe and Alamosa, only the water tank and the
section house here at La Jara and nothing else here. A little further west where
Dan Newcomb and them lived, there were some houses and farms up that way, but
from Alamosa to Guadalupe, there was no civilization of any kind.
There was a lot went on that I did not know
about because I was only seven years old when we came to this country.
I got here the first of September and I was eight in
December.
There was no road at all. The main road went
along west of the railroad here across the prairie until it got to where Dave
Shawcroft lives now and crossed the track and went to Alamosa.
We harvested with a self-rake. I have seem them
harvest with a cradle, but there was too much to harvest with a cradle. They all
went in together and bought a self-rake.
It had wheels and would come up and shave off a bunch
and make a bundle.
I can make a band yet and tie a bundle of grain.
We twisted the heads together and put it around the band
and put the two ends together around the band. They had a horse power thresher
to thresh the grain. Everyone went in together and everyone helped everyone else
to thresh and do things that could not be done alone.
QUESTION: Were there any animals here?
No, there was a lot of Mexican people here then.
Above Conejos and down the river there. There wasn't any settlement until
Conejos, but there were families above there. The Mexican people lived here at
that time. How they did it, I don't know, but they lived. Mrs. Young said they
used to live on jackrabbits. I don't think we lived on jack rabbits very much.
We had our cattle. I don't think they had any grain at all. The grain all froze
the year we came in here.
QUESTION: How come they did not buy land by where Dan Newcomb was?
The Mormons used to settle in their settlements
and they discouraged them going out to themselves at all and getting any thing
from the outside. The system of the Church at that time was to meet together and
stay together to work together and farm together and to help one another and
protect one another. My father once said that he wanted to buy the place that
Milt Guymon has now and he was told he should keep together with the others. He
said he could have sold the hay that year and paid for the place that year. The
land near Dan Newcomb was not taken up for years after that. All the land
between here and Conejos was all open at that time.
The Mormon Church did not sanction going out and
getting a piece of land to themselves, but you were to stay in the settlement
and that is the reason the Richfield field was fenced together. They had
separate pieces of land, but they were all fenced together.
They could not branch out a whole lot, but they
could have got a lot of land that they did not get. There was much land open for
several years after Richfield was taken up. They c6uld not see what was in the
future and they worked together on a small scale and got their land that way.
The people did not advocate going out and getting a piece of land or going out
and putting up a house and establishing it.
At that time the Empire Canal was not built near
Sanford and there was no water for the country near Sanford. They had to stay
where there was water. I can remember well when that canal was built. The Empire
Canal was built several years after I came here. Then they got the land near
Nortonville after the canal was built.
The drinking water used to be terrible.
It was the surface water. They dug wells and had it
boiled up with rock. It was strong with alkali and hard. At that time, I think
we had the poorest water in the world and now we have the best. It was a good
many years afterward that we started drinking artesian water and digging
artesian wells.
The first artesian well that was dug here in our
part of the country was dug just west of the old Catholic Church right on the
corner there. They started to build a hotel and dug that well there. I remember
before we got wells in Richfield, my father used to haul barrels to get water to
wash clothes. The surface water was hard and you could not get any suds at all.
Soon after that, they dug the first one here. My father dug our well where the
brick house is now, where Sarah lived so long. That was where we dug the first
well that we had.
It is surprising the number of families that
used to live in Richfield. The number of acres allowed to each man differed and
depended on what he was doing. Where Warren Shawcroft lives, the North field,
they were allowed ten acres apiece. I don't think that was over a townsite.
There was no cash system of buying things. There
was not very much money at that time. We did not live like we do today, but we
lived and got along. From that time to the present time, we have never had a
failure of crops in Richfield. Some years have been better than others and some
years are pretty dry and we did not have crops like we did other years, but we
never had a failure.
The winters were not too severe. Our cattle
wintered down south in the flag country. We did not have any hay. The cat tle
lived and when we got the fields fenced, then they kept the cattle in there and
in the winter time, they did not go down on the flags.
We used to have a big flour bin. When we did go
to the mill, we would unload and take a big supply of this flout. We would
exchange wheat for flour.
We did not have much recreation at first. We had
to make our own recreation. There were theaters and programs, but they had to
make them themselves. They built the first church building the first winter that
we were here. I remember hearing my father say that all turned out and went to
the mountains to get logs for the church house. They got home during a big snow
so they just got the logs at that time and they just got them in time. The
bricks were all made out north of La Jara and Richfield. The Dodds used to make
bricks. They used to make them out of mud and warmed them up and let them dry
and then burned them. All of these old brick houses were made that way. Most of
the bricks were made north of La Jara and Richfield, mostly Richfield. There
were several years that they made bricks.
They were not all made at the same time. They
were all made here. None of them were imported bricks like we have now.
It was not every man for himself then. He had to cooperate and work together with the others. When they threshed, they went from one place to another and exchanged work. They did not pay out money and hire it done, but they exchanged work. Every man got what his land produced.
QUESTION:
Where did they get money to buy overalls, etc.?
I don't know. There was not much money in
circulation. They used to sell eggs and butter, etc. There were the D. L. Smith
Store and the Gurtison Store in Alamosa. Jim McDaniel (the father of Jim
McDaniel who is here now) ran the first store in La Jara. He ran the first store
and it was right on the street just across the street from where Monte Cornum's
place is now. Then there was a drug store and the Post Office was in that drug
store. They had a little Post Office out west of La Jara, out there where
Braiden's Ranch is now. It was the Garret Ranch. They had a little Post Office
there, but there was very few there. That was where they used to get the mail.
Our folks got our mail in Manassa. Manassa was quite a little town when we came
here.
We used to go to school in the log house where
they had the meeting house (what school there was). There was not very much
school.
After that, they built the brick school house there. It was built
before the school in La Jara was.
They had a school out west too, right near where Howard
Shawcroft lives. Then, they consolidated the three districts together and built
the school house in La Jara. That was one of the best things ever done in this
country.
After this time, the Mexican people started getting educated and came to
the front. Before that time, they did not have very much. I was on the School
Board. There were thirty-five kids in all the grades.
That was the best thing ever done for the people of this
country when they consolidated the three districts and made the big school in La
Jara.
Everyone west of here had to go to the school
west by Newcomb Road. The bus system was started when they consolidated the
districts.
I don't think we had any horses at that time, but we had buses
(Studebaker buses).
SPEAKING TO MELVIN MORGAN: I knew your dad and
mother before they were married.
I remember when they got married.
I remem ber the first land that he and Tom Morgan
farmed when they went to make the crop.
It was down there on the road going east from Richfield.
There is a house on the corner there.
They made their first crop there. They did not know
anything about dragging by rail.
They grubbed up the brush and broadcasted the grain to
sow it. They broadcasted it and then harrowed it
AS TOLD BY JOHN W. SHAWCROFT TO MEL MORGAN:
My dad and Uncle
Jim were called on a mission at the same time.
Grandpa Jensen called them. If they would go, he would finance them. My dad did
not go after all and from that time on, he did not have a good time of it. If he
had gone on a mission, he would have been all right.
I remember when W. O. Crowther got married. T.
A. Crowther lived in Richfield. He was the son-in-law of Thor Peterson. He
lived across the street from the house where Sarah's house is, where the barn
is. Thor lived here in a brick house. Nel son lived across the street. Jim
Jensen's brother-in-law was my father. My mother was Maria Jensen. He lived back
there where the other brick house is now. Mother was related to
I am the only one living now who was here when
we came to this country. John B. Reed's family came in 1880, but they lived in
Ephraim, not in Richfield. I think Fred Christensen came in 1883. They went into
Manassa. Ross Beck was raised by Thor Peterson. The Youngs came in 1883.
I think that the company my father came with
(Jensen, Nelson, and others) was the only company that was really called here.
They were called by John Taylor. I have lived under every President of the
Church, except the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Brigham Young died in 1877, and I was born in
1874.
Nathan and I were the only two for a long while that we were here when
they first settled this part of the country. I don't think my father regretted
coming over here after getting established.
At one time he said he never wanted to go to
Colorado, but when he was called, he came and I think he liked it after that.
In his later years, he went fishing a lot and he really
enjoyed his life.
I think that Brigham Young was a wonderful
colonizer. Those little towns like Fountain Green, Moroni, Nephi, etc., had
nothing for them to spread out. They had to get out and go. John Agaard's family
were sheep raisers and were well off in Fountain Green. There was a lot of
country they could have got.
Dow Escreege came and took up country west of
here. He owned the ranch above where Howard lives now and Dan Newcomb owned the
one where Howard lives now. Dan Newcomb came a long time before we did. My dad
brought a stud horse and he went up to Dan Newcomb's and stood that horse there.
I remember that, when the polygamists began to come in, the non-Mormons around here began to holler about the Mormons. The polygamists came from Utah. They left one wife in Utah and brought one wife here. Polygamist wifes went through hard-ships.
My granddad was out of the Church for a number
of years because he did not want his daughter to marry a polygamist.
Wilford Woodruff came out with the Manifesto stopping
polygamy.
That was one of the greatest things ever done for the Church.
They got to where they could not live any more and the Church was in debt.
The leaders were in fear of being arrested and thrown
into jail.
Silas Smith was President of the Stake when we
came. His son, Albert Smith, replaced him as Stake President. I lived here in
this Stake under every President who was here. Thor Peterson was Bishop in
Richfield. His counselors were Brother Evans, a Southerner, and my Uncle, Jens
Jensen. They tried to work in one from the South, one from Utah, and one from
this Western country. Dave was Bishop for a long time. He was twenty-five when
he was put in as Bishop. He was Bishop longer than any man who lived in
Richfield. I was Bishop before Dave.
QUESTION:
Who did you serve with in the Stake Presidency?
W. 0 Crowther (Alma's dad) was President, Sam
Jackson was the first counselor and I was second counselor. W. 0. Crowther went
to Manassa to work in the bank. James P. Jensen was Stake President for a long
time. He was a good preacher and a very religious man. He could not sing.
I was just a poor boy from a poor family, raised
without any education hardly. I was elevated in Church positions and then went
to the Legislature and served as a Representative for the first two years and
then served as a Senator for sixteen years. I have been interested in cattle and
sheep all of my life. We had 5,000 head of ewes at one time. I used to do
everything with the sheep when I was a boy. I have had wonderful experiences. We
used to have our sheep on the west side of where the reservoir is there, over
the west hills and when we got that lease and gave my father the privilege of
having anybody's lambing ground, the grass grew up fine and it looked so
enticing to be in the cattle business and we went into the cattle business. I am
87 years old now. I have five brothers and four sisters, and nine children.