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The Ute then tried to steal another horse belonging to the Shoshones, but while driving the animal toward the mountains he was pursued by four of the band and shot dead. The two tribes had long been at enmity, but now there was additional bad blood between them, caused by the coming of the Utes to trade with the settlers. The Shoshones claimed SaltLake Valley and the country north, while the Utes held Utah Valley and the region South. It angered the Shoshones to find any of the settlers trading with the Utes.

This was a warning to the Saints of the potential Indian trouble they were in. They decided to get out of their wagons and tents and into better protection as quickly as possible. They started hauling in material immediately and August 10 they started in on what they ultimately called “The Fort”. They progressed rapidly. Preston Nibley in his “Brigham Young, The Man and His Work” page 104 says, “By the 26th of August, the four adobe houses being sufficently completed to form a crude shelter, Brigham moved in some of the members of his family, his few effects that he had brought with him, mounted his horse in front of his dooryard, called out “Goodbye” to all who tarry. I feel well” and rode away toward Emigration Canyon. beginning the thousand mile return to Winter Quarters.” From the list of the Pioneers, I’d say that Brigham’s family at this time were his wife Clara, his mother-in-law Harriet, his two brothers Lorenzo and Phineas, and the two boys Lorenzo Dow Jr. and Perry Decker. These must have been the first inhabitants of the fort.

Beginning at the northeast corner of the structure, Brigham had four houses and Lorenzo two. They were multiplex in design with 9 foot walls 27 inches thick on the outside with a door and a window facing inside the fort. The roof slanted to the middle and was made of brush covered with earth. The record doesn’t say but in as much as it was regarded as temporary, I suppose the floors were dirt. Also I presume that the wagon boxes were used for bedrooms and storage. The houses themselves were 14 X 17 feet. During the summer it wasn’t too bad, but when it started to rain and snow it was a terrible mess. The roofs leaked mud all over the place.

On the eve of his departure, Brigham had urged everyone to stick inside the fort until his return, but Harriet
couldn’t see it that way. She was too unhappy. Her baby was born within a month and in anticipation she made Lorenzo build her a decent home on his alloted lot on the south fork of City Creek where the Beehive House now stands. He built two of them there, moving into the first one the 23rd of November the second one December 23. His was the first house built outside the fort, but others followed rapidly. Harriet had successfully gained her privacy.The influx of pioneers during September and October 1847 brought in nearly two thousand more people. The fort had to be enlarged to care for them. Among these arrivals were family, relatives and friends. Eliza R. Snow, with whom Clara lived through the Winter in the fort, Lorenzo’s two sons John and Franklin, Harriet’s widowed daughter, Harriet Amelia Decker Little, Harriet’s older son Charles and his wife Vilate, Mary Ann Angel Young, and many many more of their intimates.

Lorenzo had no trouble selling his two houses in the fort and putting all his building efforts on the new home. Here on Christmas day Harriet entertained with dinner served on the fine china she had in some way saved from the depredations of the mobs in Illinois and Missouri. What might be called the ecclesiastical aristocracy was off to a good start.

During 1848 Lorenzo’s two sons William and Joseph came to Utah, as did Lucy Ann Decker Seeley Young and her children. Lucy reigned as hostess of the Bee Hive House for twenty years (1860-1880). Also in September 1848 Harriet Amelia married Ephraim K. Hanks. a returned member of the Mormon Battalion destined to be a leading business man of the valley.

In 1850, after marrying Dr. Levi Richards, Persis and her daughter Harriet Maria came to the Valley as did Isaac Decker Sr.

In 1851 the pilgrimage of Isaac Perry and Harriet and their family was complete. The youngest daughter Fanny Maria arrived. Her marriage to Feramorz Little (nephew of Brigham Young) was just four days after Lorenzo and Harriet left Nauvoo on their first lap to the Rocky Mountains. Feramorz Little was mayor of Salt Lake City 1878-1882. To many of the present crop of Deckers this little family is most noted as founders of Holiday Park, our summer home area on the headwaters of the Weber River.
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