COMING UP IN NEXT WEEK'S EDITION: TALES FROM THE FORT -- “Arrivals”

 

Pictured above: Some sixty-six years after arriving at Peteetneet Creek, John Courtland Searle (far left, standing) posed in this circa 1916 photo with a small group highlighted as Payson City’s oldest men. Photographed with Searle (left-right): Alexander Cowan, Thomas H. Wilson, John Perry Loveless, and Jonathan S. Page. John C. Searle would live until his 92nd year, passing away on November 17, 1920. His wife Jerusha Morrison Searle preceded his death on August 4, 1904 at age 71.

An impromptu burial ground was prepared beneath a grove of trees near the grieving family’s wagon home. A tiny grave was dug in the wintered earth by John Courtland Searle for his infant daughter, Jerusha Morrison, named after her mother nine days before: January 10, 1851. The newborn was wrapped in a quilt difficult to spare in a time of scarcity and cold.

Jerusha Morrison Searle is said to have been the first white child born near Peteetneet Creek, a little stream named after Pah-ti't-ni't, the respected clan leader of the native Timpanogos Utes. She was also the first in the new Mormon colony to die.

Find the rest of this story in next week's print edition of The Payson Chronicle.