The Autobiography of
James Horace Skinner

Part 2:

Life in California

Not long after Uncle's arrival, father sold out and all moved to San Jose where they bought a farm of a hundred and twenty acres. I attended school again. The school house was about two miles from home, out on the open plain. When there were no wild cattle in the way I could make it all right, but when they were between our place and the school house, I had to follow fences and under a steep bank until I got within some thirty or forty rods, then make a run for it. There were thousands of wild cattle when we first moved to San Jose Valley. Many times in going to school a fighting cow or bull would be on one side of a wire fence and me on the other, hooking and bellowing and trying to reach me. I tell you it made my hair pull more than once. Sometimes the men or father would take me on a horse.

We had a beautiful place here. Our farm bordered on a fresh water lake, or as it was called, La Genes. Ducks and geese by the thousands! I knew of one man who killed twenty one ducks at one shot, as I helped to pick them up with the boat. Many wounded got away, wings broken.

Oh, what fun I used to have in the boat on the lake! I have caught many a duck that had his wing broken and not able to fly. They would dive a few times, get out of breath, I would hit them over the head with the oar, then it was mine. One after another, what fun!

Often the Goodwin boys or the Switcher boys would come over and spend the day with us, then wouldn't we have a fine day of it. Oh no!

This is a most lovely country; a God's country to live in; neither too hot or too cold; a live plain for miles covered with grass and not a brush or shrub; could mow for miles, grass to your knees; with flowers of all colors by the thousands as far as the eye could see. I used to pick a bouquet for mother every morning, early while the dew was still on.

In the year of 1854 we sold our farm and moved to San Bernardino. Father and Uncle Farnsworth let a friend and a supposed "brother" have our mules and horses with wagons and an outfit to go by land to San Bernardino with, as he wanted to gather with the church. He being a "good brother", he sold the whole outfit and pocketed the money and we never saw him again. That was our pay for trusting to a good man's honesty. We had some twelve or fifteen head of horses and mules, harness, a saddle, two or three wagons; all lost.

The first school I attended in San Bernardino was in an adobe house with a dirt floor. Here we bought a farm and two city lots, and built us a six room house and planted out an orchard and vineyard and ate the fruit thereof. On the farm we raised wheat, barley, corn and potatoes; and hay, lots of barley hay.

I was baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints by William Mathews and confirmed under the hands of President Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich. This was at the time of the general reformation of the church. What was expected of this reformation I do not know, nor found anyone that did. This took place about the year 1856 as near as I can make it.

Mountain Meadow Massacre

While we were living in San Bernardino, California, in peace with all nations, minding our business, treating everyone right and just and getting along well and having paid for our house and lot and our farm, thinking that we would be able to live many years in comfort and peace, the Mountain Meadow Massacre took place, upsetting all our plans and causing a terrible amount of prejudice, not without just cause, for it was a dastardly outrage committed by people who had been taught and knew better than to kill their fellow man. It has left a stain on the church that they never will outlive. As to the church or the head of the church, they had nothing to do with it, in any shape or form, nor knew anything about it, until it was all over, as I well know as I was a juror when John D. Lee was tried as one of the leaders of the foul deed. The court tried hard to implicate the leaders (Brigham Young of the Mormon Church) but it was proven there and then that they had nothing to do with it, and did not know anything about it until it was all over, nor did they sanction what had been done. Even when tithing was offered from the spoils it was rejected with scorn and contempt.

I do not like to talk, much less write about such a dastardly overact, but my history would not be complete without it, as it was the cause of our leaving home, that we had made with much labor and expanse, and moving to Utah. But who knows but this was our destiny? On our way here we encamped not a great way from where it took place and where their bodies were left. Many of the company visited the scene: sculls both of men, women and children, with bones and long tresses of fine silky hair, were scattered around unburied. Oh, it was a ghostly looking scene. One, once seen, never to be forgotten.

I had it to contend with while a missionary in the New England states and what all elders will have to contend with as long as they are in the field. As Lee was executed while I was in the field many would be friends were lost. We had it to meet at every turn and meet it hard. It was well that I knew as much about it as I did. Had I not have been as well posted it would have been almost a mobbing. When I told the people what I knew it layed a lot of prejudice to our cause and misrepresentation.

I think it right that I write somewhat of the cause of the massacre as I understand it, not in any way to justify the deed. I will try and do it in as few words as I can. First we must go to the beginning.

It is the prosecution of the saints in Missouri. The mob had killed their prophet, driven the people from their homes, burned their houses, killed their stock, ravished their wives and daughters, driven to a dreary waste without home or shelter. Many of this company, as I have been told, were of those that had committed these acts of violence. They admitted the same and bragged about it to the people in every town and told that they would go to California and raise a company and drive the d_ _ n Mormons out of the country and commit the same acts as in Missouri.

In traveling through the territory of Utah they camped at a place called Meadow Creek. There was a band of Indians under a chief named Kanosh, a very friendly Indian to the whites and remained so all his life. While camped here they had an ox die. It was a rule for the Indians to eat any animal that died no matter how they perished. Instead of letting the Indians have this ox to eat as they saw fit, they poisoned it. The outcome of this was that one died, if not two, several were made sick. This shows what kind of people they were. After they left Cedar City they poisoned a spring thinking perhaps to catch some Mormons.

When Kanosh's warriors found what the company had done, they armed and took the trail, determined on revengence. Recruited by a band of Piutes, they attacked the emigrants as they encamped at the mountain meadows. A few men without principle or regard to what the consequences might be, or who would suffer by their overacts, seeing a chance for spoils, took sides with the Indians thinking that it would never be found out, but laid to the poor Indians, and they would enrich themselves with the spoils and none would be the wiser for it. Everyone was killed but some fifteen or sixteen young children. They were taken care of and kindly treated by some kind hearted families in Cedar until taken away some years later by relatives. It was a sad parting between the children and their foster parents who had learned to love them as their own.

Feeding the Indians

When we left San Bernardino, California, we took with us a sack of shorts to feed the Indians with. This is how we did it. We would take a pot that would hold say ten or twelve gallons of water, fill it half full of water, place it on a fire, as soon as it boiled, put in the shorts and let it cook as long as we could keep the Indians away, which was not long if you believe me. It was a fight to keep them back. They seemed so starved and hungry. When it got too hard work keeping them back we would turn them loose and at it they would go. With both hands, eating it out of the kettle boiling hot. Sometimes there would be so many that all could not get to the pot. Then one would catch another by his G string and out he would come and in would go the other and so it went, another not being able to get what he considered his share would throw handfuls of sand or dirt in the pot but that made no difference as it all went to the same place.

The name that it was called by was "sap sap". In less time that it takes me to write it the pot would be licked clean and they would be calling for more sap.

Eaten alive

We reached the Muddy (now Moapa) River sometime about three o'clock in the morning, some one and a half or two miles out one of the oxen gave out. Next morning some of the party went back and managed to get him to camp. We rested here a few days. As the ox was not able to travel they concluded to kill him and let the Indians have a feast. You perhaps know that when an animal is shot in the brain that they are apparently dead. In a little while they come to life again. As soon as shot he was drug out a few rods from camp. Then, commenced a scene that I will never forget. As the Indians commenced to cut, the ox began to kick. That made little difference, for the more he kicked the more they hung to him and cut. He would knock them down, but no matter, up and at him again.

Jess Taylor and I were close by watching the performance. One Indian cut his heart out and laid it down close to our feet. It may be hard to believe, but that heart was still beating and beat for some time. That beat anything that I had seen before or since. That ox never had time to die, he was cut up alive.

Surrounded by Indians

We camped one night on the Clary; a small stream then supposed to be in Utah. The camp was in a bend of the creek almost surrounded by willows. The last wagon only had to go a few rods before the train was all out of sight. Jess Taylor and I drove the band of loose horses all the way across. We had to stay behind the train, as the loose stock would fret and worry the teams. The next morning we gathered up our horses as usual and waited our turn. The camp was full of Indians but we thought nothing of that as we were used to them being around. As soon as the last wagon was out of sight the Indians completely surrounded us and our horses. They apparently had been peaceable before this time, now it looked liked war. They strung their bows and threw their quivers around so as to be handy to get at their arrows, they had very few if any guns, for quick work. They had a way of making their bow strings sing by snapping them with their fingers that was not very pleasant to hear. I tell you it looked kind of dangerous for a while, almost make a persons hair pull. As soon as we saw what was up we drew our pistols and prepared for the worst; we had no guns. Jess road ahead through the mob flourishing his pistol and hollered at them to get out of there. He likewise used some hard words. Of course, they didn't understand what he said but by his actions they understood that he meant business. By his prompt action he cleared a space in the road and I rushed them through in a hurry, you can bet, expecting every minute to hear or feel the whiz of an arrow in our backs. They followed us until we got in sight of the train. Then, they left and we were not very sorry at parting, you can believe. I don't want anymore experiences of that kind, one is enough in a lifetime. The next time they may not want to part company so soon and easy.

A person can't always tell what an Indian is going to do next. They may take a notion to a person and take him or her to some convenient place and tie them to a stake or tree, then to make them warm and comfortable, build a nice fire around them and have a jolly time dancing, etc. The next night we camped at the Mountain Meadows, a shot distance from where the horrible dead was committed. Most of us visited the place where they were buried. A horrible sight met our gaze; not a very pleasant sight.

Here we encountered our first snow, the first that many, especially the younger people, had seen.

When we left California we expected to make our home in Springville. Our folks had a friend by the name of Messenger living there, who we were acquainted with in the States. He had wrote to father, inviting us to make our home in Springville. But by the advice of the authorities of the church, that all the emigrants that could, they wished them as much as possible to locate in the Southern portion of the territory and help build up that part of then a desert.

Hard times in Utah

We arrived in Utah in February 1859 and located in Beaver, Beaver County, Utah. We arrived in time to share in the trials and hardships of making a home in a desert waste. Beaver had only been settled about two years. What with providing something to keep life in the body and clothes to cover our persons, to building a shelter to protect us from the cold winter storms, and the summer heat, building roads, grubbing sagebrush, making water ditches, guarding against Indian attacks, herding our stock, we were kept pretty busy. Clothes to wear; that was a serious question.There were no stores where a person could go to buy, even if one had money to buy with. That was out of the question.

The only chance to buy was when some freighters from California were passing through and needed some grain or other supplies. Most all our clothes were made by our mothers, wives, or daughters, carding and spinning the wool shorn from the sheep that some were lucky enough to have. The wool after being carded with hand cards was spun with the old fashioned spinning wheel, and that was hard work for the women. After being spun, next came the weaving. That too was by hand, then making up, all done by hand; no sewing machines. After a while some parties built a carding machine that took a lot of hand labor off from the women. You women who think you have hard work to do now know little of what the women of the early settlers had to pass through, with baking on an open fire place with bake skillet and frying pan, no carpets or rugs on the floor, no stoves and few conveniences to cook or work with, and I may say, less to wear, with poor and uncomfortable houses to live in, not good enough in may cases to keep the wet or cold out, even many lacked enough bed clothes to keep them from suffering from the cold. In some cases some of the family would sit up and keep a hot fire going while the rest tried to sleep. Talk about hard times now, little do you know what hard times is, and I hope none of my family ever have to pass through what their fathers and mothers have passed through.

I will say this, that the people were more united and contented and enjoyed themselves more in those times than they do today. There wasn't that class distinction that there is now. The people weren't after that almighty dollar as they are today. Today all are trying to see how much more money they can get than their neighbor. That brotherly love that we had then is gone. It is now how much money have they got and how I can get hold of some of it? Pride and vanity, how much longer will it last and we are all going to heaven.

I wore clothes that it would be hard to tell which was the original make. When my father came home from going after emigrants to the Missouri River we were both so destitute of clothes that we were ashamed to go out to meet him and bid him welcome home. You think you're poor! You don't know what poverty is.

Indian raid

About my first experience in Utah was when the Indians made a raid on our stock and stole a band of horses, mostly belonging to the Tanner boys, (Free, Joe, Miron) and a few head belonging to people in Beaver. They also took some ten or fifteen head of horn stock, mostly work oxen and cows. A company of some twenty one or twenty three men was soon collected and took the trail in pursuit. We followed them as far as what is now known as Fish Lake, long known as Read Lake. When we got there we were so close to them that they left meat cooking on the fire. We could see their dust as they were getting away as fast as they could.

A council of war was held to see whether we should follow them or return. We were out of food. We had eat all we took with us, only about a peck of salty crumbs, too salty to eat alone. While the leaders were debating what to do, some wanted to follow, while others wanted to turn back; four of us went fishing. Our tackle was a short club. We caught enough for all of us for supper, roasting them on the fire and salting them with our salty bread crumbs. They were not hard to take. We caught some that would weigh four or five pounds.

After a long debate it was decided to abandon the chase and return home, as we were out of provisions and some of our animals were too sore footed, and some most ready to give out to go much further. Had we gone on we would have overtaken them and had a fight with them.

Before we left home, Bishop Farnsworth sent and Indian runner across the mountain trail to Salina for the people there to send out a company and head off the Indians, which they did. They met them and had a fight with them and recovered some of the stock. Had we followed up we would have had them between two fires and got back most all the stock. Maybe it was a good thing we didn't as some of us might have got hurt. We had men in our party that would fight, that had been tried, and were some of the best shots in this part of the country. As for me, I guess I would have run if I could; if I hadn't been to scared to run.

From the lake home, the mess that I was in, four of us, had one poor sage hen that had just come off with a litter of young. That was all we had from there until we arrived at home. Hungry? Oh no, not much! 'Twas the other fellow that was hungry.

From then on we had to herd all our stock; herd days and corral them at night. I and a young man by the name of Charles Bills herded the horse herd (about 250 or 300 head) for one month to pay our share for others herding ours. I was on the go all the time, herding, riding, grubbing, making ditches, guarding, etc.
 

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