Dear Wilford and List. Thank you for posting this. I wondered if my ancestors were actively engaged in this struggle. I recently read a book entitled "Hearts Afire" by Blaine Yorgason. I may have the title incorrect. I can't find the book right now, it is undoubtedly under a pile of genealogy and good intentions. At any rate, it tells this story, with some fiction and some fact. I was so impressed with what they went through to blaze a new trail. I am so proud of them. Joseph Smith Woolsey is my ggrandfather. If I remember what I read correctly, he isn't mentioned by name in the book. A Thomas Woolsey is mentioned in the book. But my memory is occasionally vague. Carolyn Gibbons -----Original Message----- From: Wilford W. Whitaker <wwwhit@integrityonline3.com> To: WOOLSEY-L@rootsweb.com <WOOLSEY-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 8:58 PM Subject: Woolsey & Hole-in-the-Rock >To all interested Woolsey researchers: > >When you see the words "Hole-in-the-Rock", what comes into your mind? > >Do names like Butch Cassidy, Etta Place, The Sundance Kid, Robert Redford, >and other desperadoes, come into mind? > >Do you picture western badmen holing up in out-of-the way places in the >badlands of Utah? Where bank robbers, train robbers and other desperate >men could hide out, with the assistance of a few of their neighbors, from >the law? And you wouldn't be far wrong. > >However, there is another 'Hole-in-the-Rock' which stands as a monument to >the pioneers' courage and strength, and endurance. > >Even before the Mormons were settled in the Great Salt Lake Valley, Brigham >Young was sending out scouting parties in every direction from Salt Lake, >exploring the country and determining all the habitable areas, and as fast >as he could, he sent families and groups of individuals to colonize these >outlying areas. > >>From Fort Limhi in Idaho to San Bernardino in California, to San Juan in >Utah and across the Colorado river into Colorado and Arizona and even down >into Mexico, colonies were sent to raise permanent dams and school houses >and churches and homes. They took with them their knowledge of irrigation >and began to make the "desert blossom as the rose". > >And some of the Woolseys were on the cutting edge of this migration out >from Salt Lake. > >In 1879, Joseph Smith Woolsey (s/o James Hopkins Woolsey and Lavina >Patterson; s/o Joseph Woolsey and Abigail Schaeffer; s/o Richard Woolsey >and Nancy Plumstead) was among the group of 70 families (250 men, women and >children); with 83 wagons, 1000 head of stock, sent by the Mormon Church, >under Silas S. Smith and Platte D. Lyman, to colonize the San Juan, Utah, >area. > >They travelled unmapped areas, moving at the head of deep, slick-rock >canyons as they tried to find a way down the steep canyons to the Colorado >River. They spent the winter from Nov 1879 to 6 Apr 1880 in heroic effort >pushing a road through the canyon-lands from Escalante, Utah, to Cottonwood >Wash on the San Juan river where they founded Bluff City (now known as >Bluff, Utah). San Juan area is the "Four Corners area, where Utah, >Arizona, New Mexico & Colorado join together. > >At last they found a cleft in the perpendicular canyon walls, where it was >determined that it may be possible to build a road down the steep, narrow >canyon. This group of pioners found this place and built a wagon road at >"Hole-in-the-Rock" in Glen Canyon on the Colorado River. > >Part of the group began working backwards, improving the trail on which >they had just come, others were sent back for supplies and dynamite. >Others were dispatched to far canyon areas where trees grew and others >dispatched to carry soil and brush to the head of the canyon. > >Others began the perilous task of leveling the steep, narrow, precarious >canyon floor so that a team and wagon could descend from the head of the >canyon. > >There were places where the floor dropped away precipituously and holes had >to be blasted in the canyon walls in order to place logs which then acted >as the base of the road, and brush and soil was placed on top of the logs >which hung precariously over empty space for some distance. > >At several places, channels were cut into the canyon walls so that the >inside wagon wheels would fit and keep the wagon on track. Some places >were so steep that one could only walk upright with some difficulty. And >mothers carrying their small children were expected to walk down this trail. > >At Last, they deemed it ready to travel, and the first team, of carefully >picked animals, not skittish, but known horses, to make the first descent. >They tied a large log behind the wagon to slow its downward flight, and >attached ropes which were held by several men to keep the wagon from >overtaking the team of horses. The wagon wheels would be blocked to keep >them from turning. > >At last the intrepid driver nosed his team into the cleft of the canyon and >urged his team forward. It was so steep that the team disappeared from his >sight as they started down the steep incline. And the race was on. Even >with all the restraints, the wagon threatened to overtake the team, and >they had to be encouraged to keep moving faster, which would propel the >wagon even faster, and team and wagon and driver and heavy log, and >sweating men clinging to ropes, trying to keep away from the outside edge, >which dropped straight down for over 1,000 feet, were soon dashing madly >down hill. Horses where neighing, men shouting, babes and women left back >at the head were crying, each fearing the worst, and praying for the safety >of all. > >At last, a cry came up from the valley floor. They had all descended in >safety and thus began the descent for which they had all worked so hard, >that winter of 1879 and 1880. > >Of course, that wasn't the end of their troubles. They had to cross the >turbulent Colorado and make their way up the steep canyon walls on the >other side, which was as difficult, it not more so, than Hole-in-the-Rock. > >And Joseph Smith Woolsey was part of this great endeavor. He was married >at this time and had five children, but it is not known by this writer if >he took his wife and family with him on this first trip. > >By 1880 Joseph Smith Woolsey and family was living in Escalante, Utah, and >were an upstanding pioneer family. > >Sincerely, > >Wilford W. Whitaker > >