Coming to Arizona -- The Welsh Legend Expedition

Picture of Jacob Hamblin, Mormon Explorer.

Before we get to the story of the first settlers, including Henry Martin Tanner and his new bride, we need to review how the country became known to the Utah Mormons as a place of possible settlement.

The trail from Southern Utah to Arizona crossed some of the ruggedest and most inhospitable country in the entire continent. Water was always a problem and the relatively high altitude made winter travel extremely dangerous. During the early years, there were only two practical ways to cross the Colorado River, either at the western end of the Grand Canyon at Pearce's Ferry or at the famous Lee's Ferry, located between Glen Canyon and Marble Canyon at the mouth of the Paria River.

One of the earliest attempts to find a pathway into the northern Arizona wilderness came in 1858, when President Brigham Young sent an expedition lead by Jacob Hamblin to investigate rumors that the Moqui (Hopi) Indians had a dialect that embraced many Welsh words. The expedition included Durias Davis, a Welshman, Ammon M. Tenney later a notable settler in Arizona, William Hamblin, Frederick Hambin, Thomas Leavitt, Samuel Knight, Ira Hatch, Andrew S. Gibbons, Benjamin Knell and a Piute guide, Naraguts. These early expeditions were conducted mainly during the winter months, causing the participants extreme hardships but necessary because of the need to maintain their farms during the warmer months.

Incidentally, descendants of Andrew S. Gibbons intermarried with my family and I have several Gibbons relatives.

Brigham Young had heard that hundreds of years before a group of Welsh explorers had settled in the area of northern Arizona. After a long and difficult trip into the Hopi/Moqui settlements, it was determined that the Hopi language had no Welsh words at all. In future posts I will discuss the legends that Welshmen may have come to the Southwest, but that is another story for now.

This early expedition was notable in that Hamblin and his party found two places to cross the Colorado, one was rediscovered at the location known as the Crossing of the Fathers. This crossing had been used by the Dominguez-Escalante expedition in 1776. The other potential crossing point was discovered at the mouth of the Paria River but was not used by the expedition. The explorers found the Hopi or Moqui villages just in time to keep from starving to death. They stayed for a time with the Indians and four of the expedition members, William Hamblin, Leavitt, Gibbons and Knell were left at the villages as missionaries. Those left behind returned that same winter.

The Crossing of the Fathers was found to be impractical for most purposes and future expeditions concentrated their efforts at the mouth of the Paria or avoided the issue altogether by starting out across the Colorado south of the Grand Canyon.

I have spent most of my life traveling around this area of northern Arizona. The general route followed by this original expedition and later ones roughly parallels Highway 389 (Arizona) and 59 (Utah). I am always amazed that these early explorers found a way to survive in this country.

Continued...

Source: (other than noted above)
McClintock, James H. Mormon Settlement in Arizona; a Record of Peaceful Conquest of the Desert. 1921.