It was the summer of 1776, when a party composed of ten Spaniards started on a journey, their only travelling companions were a few sturdy burros. This was the Escalante expedition from Santa Fe, who were seeking a more direct route to Monterey, California. After many days of travel they came to a river bordered by waving green trees and willows which Escalante named Rio Buenaventura (Beautiful Adventure). It was later called the Green River. After camping on the banks of the river for two days, they pushed bravely on to another area of dry country, not knowing where they would find more water.

They had not gone very many miles when, mounting the summit of a little hill, they gazed down into Ashley Valley. The land was dry and arid, the soil sandy, and the vegetation consisted mainly of sagebrush, cactus and other desert plants. Through the northern section ran a ribbonlike creek. This creek is now called Ashley Creek.

After Escalante's entrance there is no record of the valley being visited by white men until 1825, when General William Ashley passed through, leaving his name to both creek and valley. He was with Andrew Henry, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company on a trading expedition. With their party was a young man, Jim Bridger, who afterwards received much fame as a frontiersman.

On July 21, 1851, the Uintah Indian Agency was established by proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. Governor Brigham Young also held the office to superintend the Indian Affairs, under appointment made by the U.S. President, and the agency was made in the Uintah Basin. Lieutenant Pardon Dodds was the first agent to take charge of the reservation. He received his appointment in 1867.

Mr. Dodds was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, left home at age fifteen and went to Wisconsin. He finished common school and had entered college when the Civil War broke out. This was his schooling.He entered the Civil War and was appointed to the rank of Second Lieutenant and was discharged from the army in 1865, coming to Salt Lake City in 1866. He was appointed agent for the Indians and took over the agency in the fall of 1867. He was first located on the upper Duchesne and then moved to Rock Creek and from there to Whiterocks.

It seems some of the early settlers have questioned his appointment and in an excerpt written by himself he said "I was appointed agent under $20,000 bond under President Andrew Jackson." The journal reads that he reached Whiterocks on Christmas Day, 1868, where the Uintah agency was established. Whiterocks is the oldest white settlement in Uintah County, not counting the old trading post and fort. Critchlow succeeded Pardon Dodds as agent in 1872. Dodds came back as a stockman to Ashley Valley in 1873 and brought with him Morris Evans and Dick Huffaker. They erected the first house built by white men and all of the work from timber to dirt floor was done by them; the windows brought in from Salt Lake City. The main part of the building was first built to afford them a shelter and as time permitted, a lean-to was soon added. The house served as a home for the Dodds family from 1873 to 1897.

Alfred Harvey Westover and Jimmy Rineman came here together June 10, 1876. On November 16, 1876 Robert Snyder arrived, and later Mrs. Snyder, their daughter, Ida, and a girl by the name of Clara Crouch. On May 11, 1878, the first white child was born here and was named Robert Ashley Snyder. On June 16, 1878, Robert Snyder was killed by lightning in his dooryard, leaving Mrs. Snyder with two children to pioneer the wilderness. On Mar 22, 1881, at the age of three, little Robert died.

The Snyder Family

During 1876 and 1877, a number of persons moved in, among them were: Mr. and Mrs. William Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. John Fairchild, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hardy, Mr. and Mrs. Alma Taylor, William Powell, Lewis Kabell, Al Westover, S.P. Dillman, Jimmy Aiverman, Perry Decker, Pat Lynch, Robert Blankenship, Mr. Mason, Mr. Downing, William and Finn Britt, James Gibson, the Bingham party which consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bingham, The David H. Bingham family, Enoch Burns and son, the Frederick G. Williams family, Alma Taylor and two children, Joshua Chell and Lola Hall and child, Orson Hall, Charles Allan, Charles Nye, Ben Lofgren, Niels Lofgren, Charles Jenson, the John Nelson family, Allen Beceus, George Carry, Richard Veltman and Bill Bunnell. The Jeremiah Hatch and David Johnston families arrived early in the year of 1878. For more information on other early white settlers in Ashley Valley between 1879-80, see the Hard Winter.

The Bingham Party

In 1877 another company came to Ashley Valley under the direction of Thomas Bingham Sr. He had been a member of the Mormon Battalion and at this time was living in Weber County. In the summer of 1877 he with his son and some others came to look over the valley. He returned to his home in Huntsville and made a report of his findings to President John Taylor. From him Elder Bingham received permission to organize a small company and aid in the settlement of Ashley Valley. They left in November of 1877, and coming over the Uintahs via Evanston and Brown's Park, arrived in the lower end of Ashley Valley on the Green River in December 1877.

The party consisted of Thomas Bingham and wife, David H. Bingham and family, Enoch Burns and son, Frederick G. Williams and family, Alma Taylor and two children, Joshua Chell Hall and wife, Lola and child, Orson Hall, Charles Allan, Charles A. Nye, Ben Lofgren, Neils Lofgren, Charles Jensen and John Nelson and family. At Evanston these were joined by a party who then came along with the Bingham party. They were Allen Beceus, George Carry, Richard Veltman and Bill Bunnell. After contacting the people who had preceded him, he took a complete census of the whole population and sent it to President John Taylor at Salt Lake City. At a meeting held on the Green River in January, 1878, Thomas Bingham Sr. was chosen by those present to preside over them. Thus he became the first presiding elder in the Uintah Basin.

Deseret News, May 25, 1878:
There are about 100 inhabitants in this precinct...The roads that led to this place, whether by Fort Bridger or Heber, are very rough and twenty hundred is a heavy load for four animals...There are as yet no mills in the country...We have applied for a post office and mail route to this place and expect it will be established this summer."

In the early civil and ecclesiastic affairs the Binghams played an important role. Thomas Bingham eventually moved to Dry Fork. Mr. and Mrs. William Gibson landed here from Kamas on the first day of November, 1877. They brought 35 head of cattle and enough provisions to do them for a year or more.The winter was very mild and they lived in a house without doors or windows. While Mr. Gibson was away after supplies two years later, the Indian troubles began over the line in Colorado. Mrs. Gibson being afraid, went to Old Ashley Town where the rest of the settlers had gathered. When Mr. Gibson returned he moved their sawed log house which they had built on their ranch during the summer (sawing the logs with a whip saw) to Old Ashley Town where they lived for a year, then returned to their ranch. They sold their house in Ashley Town to the county for a courthouse. It was used for this purpose four or five years. The county then moved it to Hatch Town, which is now Vernal, where it was used for many years as a county building.

The Hard Winter - 1879-80

During the hard winter of 1879-80 the people of the valley went through some of the most trying circumstances of their pioneer days. People went hungry and lived on daily rations. There were no vegetables at all and no fruit. There were deer but they were so poor that not a globule of grease would rise in the pot in which they were cooked. There was no way out or in for supplies. The cattle huddled under ledges or anywhere nature had provided a little shelter and there they perished. Several hundred head were lost this way. Whole herds perished until by spring they had dwindled to small numbers and milk was a luxery of high order. So serious it became that some of the most valient and brave men undertook the trip via Brown's Park over the mountain, up to Green River City, Wyoming, for flour and provisions. The team of Al Hatch was one of the first to be offered for service, and the men got together the best horses available under the circumstances of no feed, and started over the rim of the northern mountains that cold day in the winter of 1879. Those who went from the fort were Jim Henry, Pete Peterson, Chell and Lee Hall and Dave Woodruff.

All the money available was put together and sent with these men to purchase flour and supplies and it is said that Archibald Hadlock and Chell Hall added their government pensions to this amount collected to help provide provisions for the needy in the fort that winter. The money was later returned.

The winter of 1879 and 1880 was indeed a hard winter and several things had occurred to make it hard. There were no stacks of alfalfa hay to feed the cattle and help them resist the cold, penetrating frost; and there were no trees or structures for windbreaks over the bench. There were no barns or sheds for shelter, and consequently the cattle became thin and were swept away in large numbers by the cold persistent winter. Ike Burton, W.H. Clark and A.A. Hatch and others recalled counting the dead cattle where they had huddled together in an attempt to keep warm. Besides this situation of natural consequence, the crops of the summer of 1879 had been greatly diminished by the grasshopper menace. They scourged the fields and left waste in their wake. Thus supplies were reduced to a great extent.

Coupled with these conditions and paralelling them in time was the Indian trouble which necessitated the constructing of a fort where the people could move into for protection. This trouble was a result of the Meeker Massacre. The Ute Indian leaders were on friendly terms with the Hatches and Jeremiah Hatch was told by the Indians to build a fort and "fort up" in case protection became necessary. He was informed not to allow opposition to be initiated among the settlers and "if touble occurs" he was cautioned to hoist a white flag over the fort under which conditions he was promised protection for the settlers.

The fort was constructed where the J.C. Penney store and Uintah State bank stand. Log cabins were to be placed about in a square, facing in, with a space between so that log buttresses could be put up for fighting purposes if necesssary. However, it was not finished so it formed a "U" shape.

Thus in the winter of 1879 to 1880 this community of fort houses, sometimes jovially spoken of as "Jericho" and sometimes as "Hatchtown" because of the great influence of Jeremiah Hatch (who had two wives), contained the families of Jeremiah Hatch Sr., Al Hatch, Al Johnston, Jim Henry, I.J. Clark (who had three wives), Bradford Bird, Bill Reynolds, John Harper and mother, Dave Woodruff who married Hatch's daughter, Pete Peterson, J. Dorathy, Charles Bartlett, Moroni Taylor, Lomoni Taylor, Ephraim Perks, William Gagon, Thomas Karren, Archibald Hadlock, James Hacking and one or two others. There may have been others coming in and out during the winter.

In an attempt to supply the settlers with water, a well was dug in the center of the enclosure. They dug down sixty feet but failed to strike the desirable objective and the project was abandoned. The closest available water was a streamlet which had been turned down a gulch, which ran in a southeasterly direction about five-eighths of a mile below the fort that winter. From there a beaten path was kept open in the process of securing water for the inhabitants of the fort that winter.

Not all families moved within the fort and among those remaining on their ranches were Nelson Merkley Sr., Joseph H. Black, T. Taylor, Alma Taylor, David Johnston, William Perry, J. Henderson and Beldon Reynolds. This of course does not account for all the settlers of the valley as there were many in Old Ashley Town, Dry Fork, Jensen and various others scattered along the river and up toward Brush Creek. There were in reality three localities that winter: The fort, Old Ashley Town, and the more scattered settlement on Green River. We are unable to give a complete list of families who were in the county that winter, but so far as we know at present they were as follows: See List Above

In the Spring of 1880 when the people of the fort were on their last rations, they saw winding back and forth across the foothills to their north and east, the returning wagons bringing flour from Green River City, Wyoming. Kate Merkley Peterson, the daughter of Pete Peterson who was a member of the returning caravan, went with two other girls to meet the men returning home. The first words uttered by her father were "Katie, who has died?" to which Kate answered "No one." Upon hearing this her father cried and Kate could not understand why her father would shed tears when no one had died, but later in life added "I could understand the meaning of his tears." and when the men drove into the fort and unloaded the sacks of flour in the square, "I tell you that pile of sacks standing before us was the most beautiful sight we ever saw."

On their return from Wyoming where they had ferried across the Green River, the men had camped for the evening when L. Henry, noted the torrential appearing of the "spring rising" of the river. Against the wishes of some of the party, he persisted in starting again and crossing the river that night. Happy they were for having done so, for by morning the spring floods had raised a wall of water several feet high and to cross would have been extremely dangerous and difficult if at all possible. The advent of spring was very late that season and the farmers were unable to begin operations until the first week in April. Steps looking to the organization of a new county were taken and early in the spring of 1880 Uintah County was organized. Mr. Dillman who recalled the winter vividly, made the following remarks. At this time his headquarters were in Ashley, not Hatchtown.
"New settlers had arrived in the fall, and had brought few provisions with them for they expected to purchase flour, sugar and the like in Ashley, but instead there were just that many more mouths to feed.