In the days of Cedar when the old bell rang the time for the herd boys to start off to the feeding grounds with the community animals, we were very new in the game. Many of our pioneers knew nothing of handling animals for profit. The Church proposed to take care of all surplus cattle belonging to the settlements, by taking them to Antelope Island; two such herds were taken from Cedar. It was not meant to compel the people, but some people took it that way. The cattle never came back, but settlement was made for them.

The earliest minutes of a cooperative cattle company are dated in 1857. These give no details, only to mention the new cattle company. This was probably the beginning of the Cedar Co-op which expanded into a milling and mercantile institution. A note of interest says that in August 1877 the city gave permission to install their weighing scales out in front of their store, provided they did not extend out into the street too far.

During the late '70's cattle rustling became alarming. One of the most outrageous outlaws was Ben Tasker, who boasted that he "dealt in hindquarters only." Brig Clemons and Jim Marshall were others. This rustling reached its peak within a few years after the new mining camps came into production.

In 1875 a new cattle company was organized with Henry Lunt, president; Jens Nellson, vice-president; George Wood, John Parry, David Bulloch, directors; John Chatterly, secretary; H. Leigh, treasurer. This was known as the CCCC. Its object was to expand the stock industry, promote the manufacture of butter and cheese. The Bulloch brothers leased the herd for a number of years, then the Jones brothers took it. The last minutes of the company are dated May 15, 1884, when the Bullochs bought the company out, leaving the Co-op store with the roller mill to carry on under C. J. Arthur, followed by William R. Palmer, and later F. B. Wood. Last, Sam W. Leigh.

Homer Duncan owned and operated extensive herds of cattle during the 1870's, and at one time grazed 500 head of Longhorn steers in the Quitchiapa and Shurtz canyons. Martha Adams tells of watching herds being driven through the east end of town to a stout corral near the hills east of the creek, and of how terrified she became of the long, wicked horns as the animals passed.

Roundup. The old herd house on the open desert north of the present Lund Highway was the rendezvous for all the men who owned stock that fed on the adjacent ranges. Stock from Cedar and Parowan valleys, frem Iron Springs, south Escalante Valley, Antelope, Mountain Meadows, Newcastle or Pinto, Quitchiapa Canyon, as well as Beaver, Minersville, Milford and up the valley toward the north were driven to congregate at this place once and sometimes twice a year. Stock owners came prepared to feed their horses, camp in the house -— if there was room -— otherwise camp outside, in or near their wagons. The water, in a sixty foot well, was barreled to the surface on a windlass or block and tackle, the barrel being fixed with a trap in the bottom or side, and when touched, dumped its load into a trough. A horse was commandeered to lift the loads. Lacking [p.567] snow or surface ponds or someone to fill the troughs each day, the cattle were trailed to water at Mud Springs.

Among those who were on regular duty at the herd house were Dave and Tom Urie, Dave and Robert Bulloch, some of the Jones brothers, Hebe Harrison, George Wood, Mort Woolsey, J. J. Chatterly, Mackleprangs, Yardleys, Adams, J. Hyatt, Saunders' men and Ed and Collie Clark. Heber Harrison related the following story shortly before he passed away:

On this certain roundup, George Wood was selected as boss. At other roundups the boss was chosen by the men in the house after we arrived for our community drive. Whether the well had been tampered with or not, we couldn't tell, but we thought that a charge of dynamite had been dropped into it. The season had been so good, heretofore, that there had been no shortage of water this year. This time, however, the barrel would come up with a foot or so only of water on the top of half a barrel of sandy mud. Tempers grew short as, the bawling, thirsty cattle milled around, and only a few of the gentler ones got enough to half satisfy them.

After a long hard day of riding over the outer reaches, the men came in bringing more thirsty cattle and were able to get only enough water to satisfy themselves and their saddle horses. What to do? George asked, "Shall we drive everything back to Mud Spring or south to Iron Spring and work from there?" A Beaver fellow said, "Let's separate tomorrow and get the hell out of here. With this size of a bunch on either of those little streams, all they'll get anyway will be a mouthful of mud." The men knew that he was right. "But this is the only water in twenty miles or more, what cattle we would ordinarily leave here will just hang around and choke to death." "If it will help any, I'll go down on the rope and see what's the matter in the well," spoke up a small wiry fellow from up north, can't recall his name now, "won't matter if it's day or night down there, I'd have to have a good light anyway."

A lantern was brightened up and he was let down. When two-thirds of the sixty-foot hole had been negotiated, the men signaled frantically and he was hurriedly pulled up..."Get back, all of you," he urged, "the bottom's gone out and great chunks of earth are falling all around the hole!" Well, we got back, no one wanted to be buried in a cave-in. He said the cedar cribbing had all fallen, and we knew that it had been put in at the forty-foot level.

The night herders drove the cattle off and held them a mile or so away while the rest took a sketchy night's sleep and prepared for an early start on the cutting and holding. The cattle were weary, thirsty and ornery, but shortly after noon when the call came, "everyone satisfied?" as the last critter was run out, Wood who had called, shouted, "Hold on there," and motioned to the Beaver group. "You have an animal that belongs with this bunch," pointing to the Cedar bunch. "We'll wait while you run it back." "Like hell you will," answered the Beaver spokesman. "It is a yearling heifer belonging to that cow -— you see her bawling," commented George. "I'll give you five minutes. If you are not willing to prove it, I'll know that you are guilty of this and maybe other and worse deals, and we'll forever after have cause to suspicion you." Seeing the two men arguing and gesticulating, one of the Beaver riders having heard the yearling bawl, seemingly in answer to the bawl of the cow before mentioned, let the animal go by him, upon which it ran joyfully into the Cedar bunch to its mother and began sucking. This is one proof of ownership that thieves cannot deny or philosophers question. These two men sat on their horses and cooly surveyed each other. The Beaver man's eyes dropped first. Silently he rode into his own group. Those of us who watched were thankful it ended thus, for they were both determined men. The cow in question belonged to a widow who had asked George to look out for it, as did nearly all of the poorer people who had no way or were not able to ride herd for themselves. (End of quote.)

This well had to be abandoned. Another was dug further away and cribbed all of its length to insure against caving. The big old herd house became a prey to itinerant sheep herders, who by close grubbing of desert plants for a time, forced cattle into smaller areas, until government regulations set the lines by survey and designated the areas where each might go. -— Rhoda Wood

The following story was told by G. U. Wood to his daughter-in-law, Rhoda Wood:

I was close to eight when Pa put me on the bare back of a small bay cayuse and went with me to where the town cattle were being turned out of the community corral to feed for the day, which this day happened to be out north of the knoll. A slim wiry man was in charge of the cattle and the boys who were to help him, six or eight older boys, were given their positions—two in a place as protection against Indians or slinky timber wolves around the herd. To Pa, Jimmie Clark said, "I'11 keep George with me for a few days and make a cattleman of him for you." I think he did, anyway, I learned more about roads, cattle, Indians, coyotes, plants, insects, snakes and scouting from Jimmie Clark during those few days alone with him than in all the time since. I even changed my pony's name to Jim, I learned to trust and love Jimmie Clark so much.

He also taught me to "first get your directions; when the sun is bright study your shadow; you don't need a watch to tell the time of day, and you needn't ever be lost. Next look at the horizon -— on all sides —- hills and rock have different shapes and colors; make these things your landmarks. Don't ever let a cow-critter or an Indian think you are afraid." Caution and courage were his watchwords, and though I was young, or perhaps because of it, my life has been spared when I took his advice as I remembered it.

Mountain lion's choice of meat is colt or young horse. By belling these it seemed to protect them, but we lost many fine animals, even with that precaution.

The Escalante Desert and eastern Nevada were our winter feed grounds after the first few years. The horses that were lured away from their favorite area -— which was Horse Hollow and the Bald Hills area —- were seldom ever recovered if they got with wild bands on the desert; but once a horse is established and likes his feed grounds, it takes drastic measures to change his likes. Cattle and sheep are drifters to a great extent. Up to 1875 many of the horses were driven off by Navajos who would cross the river at Lees Ferry or further west, come onto the desert west of Pine Valley Mountains, drive off any kind of horses they could get and go back along trails that they alone knew. Then in the early '70s, when Nevada mining began, rustling also started up in a big way. Much of the beef stock was driven through unused mountain passes on foot and sold at various camps, though there is still evidence in out-of-the-way places where it was butchered and hauled out of our western areas by ox team. Utah provided the timber used for mine props and engine fuel. Those old roads and the livestock business are quite closely linked. In 1959 there still stands in a little-traveled, hidden valley the remains of a fenced meadow with gallows and wintch for raising butchered critters for dressing out, along with the apparatus for shoeing oxen, and living quarters half burned, built with square nails. A big operation was carried on at Woolley Springs; another in Nigger Liz Canyon pass, whether legitimate or not is not now known. If legitimate, why the hidden butchering operation?

Herds that summered on the mountains were rounded up and driven usually to the tithing yard to be processed for the winter feed grounds. The old tithing lot enclosed by a high rock wall occupied the ground north of the Cedar Park. People who liked to watch the men cutting and sorting the stock would go and sit around on the top of that wall till the job was finished; this was real rodeo. When the cattle were rounded up on the desert, they were gathered at the old herd house where water was barreled to the surface from a dug well. With no corrals, men night-herded in order to hold the stock till the various brands and owners were satisfied and moving away.

Many were the near-tragedies here. Whiskey was responsible for frequent quarrels and upsets, and I was usually in the middle of it. After I married your mother and the little ones began coming along, I realized that they must have a respectable dad, and though I was pretty rough, I have tried to be fair and straight.