Brigham Young's Homes

Chapter 7. The Brigham Young Farm House

Chapter 7 The Brigham Young Farm House Elinor G. Hyde Forest Farm holds a place in Utah’s history. Its clay soil was used for making adobe bricks. The farm became known for its experiments in the silk industry, the sugar beet industry, and the first alfalfa farming in the area. Several wives of Brigham Young lived at Forest Farm at different times, and the produce and dairy products provided for his family and needy people in the Salt Lake area. Location of the Farm Within a few years after the Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Cornelius Lott, who had established a church farm in Nauvoo, started a similar farm near the eastern foothills in part of what was originally known as the Big Field south of Salt Lake City. Listed in historical records as “the President’s Farm,” it became President Brigham Young’s farm and was later called the Forest Farm, or often simply “the Farm House.”1 There food could be grown for the common good. It was located approximately four miles out of town, and was evidently large. Some sources say the farm encompassed about nine hundred acres, but other estimates say the farm covered a square mile.2 It eventually included up to 11,005 acres of the Big Field, which extended from Ninth South into the south part of the valley.3 Property fencing was begun in 1848. Since fencing material was scarce, the city council in 1849 proposed fencing be done in common, with the farmlands allotted into five-acre lots for mechanics and artisans, and ten-acre lots next, with the larger ones beyond that. However, all were to be close to the city for protection. These were fenced into the Big Field, similar to what had been done in previous settlements for the Saints, and communal crops were grown there. Forest Farm initially bordered the five-acre lots of the Big Field, and the boundaries of the Forest Farm were set as a plat from Ninth South (now Twenty-first South) on the north to what is now Twenty-seventh South on the south, from Third East on the west to about Thirteenth East.4 However, since boundaries were loosely set and subsequent sales or changes were made, this description is approximate at best. A natural spring, known later as the Fairmont Springs, was included on the Farm House property.5 In time, the property of President John Taylor lay to the north of the farm, while on the west and along Park Boulevard (now Fifth East) was the farm of Wilford Woodruff. While most of the area south of Ninth South was originally fields, settlers arrived in the vicinity on a regular basis until there were enough to be considered a ward. On 16 February 1849 the entire area encompassed in the original five-acre survey was declared to be Canyon Creek Ward; however, the few Saints living in the area attended meetings in Salt Lake City, so no ward was actually organized. On 23 April 1854 the Saints who lived on Canyon Creek were organized into the Sugar House Ward, named after the Sugar House, a factory for refining sugar from the beets grown in the area. Abraham O. Smoot became the first bishop of the new ward, which extended from Fifth East, west to the Jordan River, and south past Twenty-seventh South.6 Experiments at Forest Farm Pioneers used the resources they found in that vicinity, but they brought in new items as well. One of the naturally occurring resources was the adobe clay on the land just south of Forest Farm. As early as 1852 adobe bricks were being made on the farm. The adobe clay was taken from the area now known as the Forest Dale Golf Club, south of 2700 South. The large adobes were made by having ox teams tramp the clay and mud, then workers shaped the blocks by Brigham Young’s Homes 148 Black walnut and black locust trees lined the drive to the Forest Farm when the Young family lived there. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved. hand on tables. By adding a binder of dried wire grass or preferably cowhide hair to the adobe mud, a permanent brick was made. Without the binder, the adobes crumbled in wet weather. The finished adobes were fastened together with clay mortar.7 It...