Uintah County, Utah Pioneers

Heber Timothy, sixth of twelve children, was born Apr. 2, 1861 in Wales. When he was one year old, his Mormon parents, John Griffiths Timothy and Martha Davis Timothy, emigrated to Utah. In 1890 Heber married Esther Elizabeth Vernon, a Mormon convert from Kentucky. They had ten children. They came to Ashley Valley in 1879. Heber wrote from memory his personal account of the settling of Ashley Valley because, "there were no historians in this country until S.R. Bennion and R.S. Collett came here in 1887. His account was published in the Vernal Express and excerpts follow:

In 1879 I resided in Wallsburg, Wasatch County. On the 12th of November, 1879, I went to Heber City with my brother John's ox team, to assist W.G.B. Reynolds move his family and household goods to Hatch Town, later known as Vernal. On the 14th of November 1879, all being ready, we yoked our oxen, which consisted of three yokes of oxen, hitched two yoke to one wagon and one yoke to another. Bob Reynolds drove four and I drove two to the mouth of Daniels Canyon that night, to the residence of Martin Oaks. Mr. Oaks played the fiddle and we danced. In the morning we started up the canyon, joined by Martin Oaks and family, consisting of his wife, Abigail, sons William and Edwin and Sarah M. (Fletcher).

In Daniels Canyon the road crossed the creek seventy-two times in fifteen miles. The stream was considerably frozen, the road rough, and cold winter weather made travel very slow. We reached the head of Strawberry Valley Nov. 19, with snow 15 inches deep. This evening I froze my toes. We were joined here by Ben and Eph Green and several others, having ox teams and loose cattle and saddle horses. On Nov 25 we pulled up Red Creek Hill. The hill was steep, the trail icy and slick so that it required 14 yoke of oxen to draw one wagon up the hill. We moved about a half mile that day. We went north to the Duchesne where Tabiona now stands. There for the first time we got out of the snow. We had bare ground to travel on until we got to Rock Creek. There a snow storm came on and we had winter until Mar 20, 1880. Dec. 4 we entered Ashley Valley through a gap in the west. Travelling down the valley, our wagons were singing on the frozen snow. We arrived at Hatch Town on Dec 7th, having been on the road twenty-two days.

We took up our abode in a one-room log cabin, dirt roof and dirt floor, which belonged to Calvin Henery, situated about one-half mile west and one-half mile south from the co-op corner. There were nineteen souls wintered there. They were W.G. Reynolds and family, Martin Oaks and family, George Brown and family who joined us here, Bob Reynolds, Otto Peterson, who joined us at the head of Daniels Canyon, and myself. We hauled a few loads of wood for fuel to do us through the winter, then turned our oxen loose to go where they would. We never saw them anymore until spring or late winter. This winter was known as the hard winter. During the month of December the snow fell in the valley to a depth of about sixteen inches, but it was not as ordinary snow is, the extreme cold froze the snow into crystals, some of them were six inches long. We would walk through it with ease and the crystals or sword blades as we called them, would rattle like ice.

He then tells of the hard winter and of W.G. Reynolds making a pair of burrs to grind flour and the trip to Green River, Wyoming to get flour. They arrived with the flour about May 25th. "Chopped wheat became scarce, in fact the common people ate the last of their chopped wheat for breakfast, when about three o'clock the same day the teams arrived from Rock Springs with flour. When I say that the common people lived on chopped wheat, that is what I mean; only they added a little salt to suit their taste. They never had any vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, beets, etc. Neither did they have butter, cheese, milk honey, molasses, jellies or fruit of any kind; they lived on chopped wheat and salt.
Since that day I have been told that there were a few families in the valley who had sufficient flour and a variety of food during the hard winter but they kept it hid. If that be true, they lost the valuable opportunity of a lifetime to demonstrate their love for their fellowmen. I heard a man offer twenty dollars for a hundred pounds of flour. He could just as well have offered one hundred dollars. Evidently, those who had flour, had they known that he was going to starve to death, would have let him keep his money as long as he lived and given him wherewith to eat. In April of 1880, after the snow had gone out of the valleys and foot hills, I could cross the Ashley Stream at Silver Gate, stepping from one stone to another, and not get my feet wet.

In the early eighties the settlers declared there was not enough water in the Ashley Creek to justify extending the upper canal south of the Bingham Street The question was warmly debated but was settled at a meeting by Elder Jeremiah Hatch; who in his prophetic way predicted in the name of the Lord that if the settlers would lay aside their selfishness and go to work and build canals that the day would come when the upper canal would extend to Green River and that there would be sufficient water to irrigate all the land that would come under it. Since that predication was made, in my judgement, the natural flow of the water in Ashley Creek has increased at least four fold. The canal has been extended fourteen miles , and as far as the people have gone the water has been supplied. The high line canal is in the proper place, and the farmers will adopt it, and selfishness dies either with it's evil deeds or with the body, sufficient water will be added as needed, until that prediction of Uncle Jeremiah Hatch will be literally fulfilled.

P.S. I have written the above article July 28, 1929 from memory.

Heber filled an LDS mission in Wales in 1893-95 and he became recognized as an outstanding scripturist. About 1910 he moved his family to Roosevelt where he made gypsum. He died March 10, 1933. His wife died Oct. 12, 1942. Children were: Vern, Lewis, Weston, Parley, Evan, Presley, Harden, Esther, Lynn and Talintha.

Excerpts from "Builders of Uintah", courtesy of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers