Angus M. Cannon and Family Called to Utah's Dixie

Angus M. Cannon and family

Called to Utah’s Dixie

[This report borrows generously from a document written by John M. Cannon’s sister, Aunt Ann M. Cannon about the life of her mother, Sarah Maria Mousley Cannon.]

On October 6, 1861, Angus M. Cannon and his brother, David H. Cannon with their families were called from the pulpit during General Conference to move to Southern Utah to assist in developing a community in the area, later named St. George.  They were just two of 309 families called the same day to settle in the Cotton Mission.

At the time of this calling to a mission by President Brigham Young to help settle Southern Utah the family consisted of Father, Mother, Aunt Amanda, Mina and Angus M. Cannon, junior.  The latter two were Aunt Amanda’s and father’s children, Angus being but a few weeks old.

A little Adobe home in Salt Lake City on the west side of the the block where the post office now stands was sold or traded for two covered wagons and necessary equipment and the family started out well provided for the journey into that “burned out,“ now glorious, country.

Father furnished the necessities, but each wife’s treasure chest supplied fine household materials grandmother brought across the plains by ox team.  In addition, they had crude pottery from the factory father helped to start; flour, sugar, dried corn, beans and seeds to plant to start their new vineyard.

In the company were father's sister, Ann Cannon Woodbury, her husband and two or three children; his brother, David H. Cannon and wife, Aunt Willie (mother's sister), their little son David; mother's brother, Lewis H. Mousley and wife, Aunt Mary, in addition to many others.

For about a month they traveled, most of the way through unbroken roads - possibly following Indian trails or those of the coyotes.  Into the floor of two covered wagons had been loaded the boxes, chairs, and utensils not needed on route and on top all these, on grandmother's live goose feather beds, slept the travelers.  On and on the wagons journeyed, from the colder north into the warm south.  The sand clung to the broad tires, lifted with them and fell in a soft spray as the wheels turned.  The lonely coyote slunk away as they drew near by day, but at night his weird howl filled the women and children with terror.  Sagebrush-- miles and miles of it; rabbit brush; occasionally a clump of scrub oak -the only live green on the landscape.  Then long, long stretches, with only the green-gray of the desert growths, perhaps a yellow stretch of wild mustard; now a pink glow from the rising sun; a dark green-blue shadow from a passing cloud; a low twitter of birds from their cacti-fortressed nests; the desert billowing on like the waves of the ocean; the purple mountains; the promise of a far flung shore.  Journeying thither vistas of a lake to lave their weary bodies proved a mirage.  It vanished as they drew near.  A city with white temple spire arising from the sands vanished also, but it presaged the future.

Black Ridge the trail ended.  The wagon-boxes were let down almost sheer cliffs by ropes; the women and children found a less precipitous place and climbed down, clinging to the rocks or to the hands of their husbands.  On again to the Rim of the Basin. How balmy the uncontaminated air; they seemed never to have breathed before – so deep the breaths!

Just east of the present town of St. George the company went into camp formation – the backs of all wagons turned inward, forming a circle.  Father knew he must make a more permanent camp for the birth of Mother’s child.  A little to one side he found a level stretch, cleared it, measured the size of his circular army tent and began to dig.  About two feet deep he made it.  His friends helped place the tent over the excavated circle.  It left a shelf all around the improvised room and the excavated two feet, added to the four feet of the tent, gave six feet to the lowest part of the sloping ceiling.  The circular tent was supported by a center pole, and gave the effect outside of a huge, bulging wigwam.

Life settled down.  The country was explored. Negotiations started with the Indians.  On the morning of December 24 Father was detailed with some others and went to seek the Indian camp, down the river toward what is now Santa Clara.  Thales Haskell and Jacob Hamblin were there as missionaries.  As the day progressed a storm threatened and the men were urged to stay.  Father said, “No, I’ll go if I go alone.” And he did.

As he reached home the storm broke.  Toward midnight Mother was taken ill.  Father called Uncle David and sent him for “Aunt Dicey Perkins,” the midwife.  She had gone up the river to attend someone eighteen miles away.  The team was hitched up and Uncle David started after her.  Father called Aunt Annie Woodbury and Sister Church.  They were both women with children.  Uncle David returned in despair.  The Virgin River was on the rampage –a seething, boiling mass, through which nothing could pass and live.  Prayer was their only resource in that agonized moment.

            But Aunt Amanda wept and wrung her hands;

            “The doctor said she could never survive another childbirth.”

“Why didn’t he tell me:” Father demanded.

“She forbade him.  She forbade us all.”

Father lost no time.  He called Sister Church and Aunt Annie.  He blessed them, set them apart and sent them in to help my mother and her child.  The little group waited and prayed as never before.  That unseen power made those willing hands so skillful!  The presence of angels stirred the air.  The hosts of Heaven drew near and awaited..

Christmas Morn George was born at six o’clock – the first white boy in that country:  And Mother lived and smiled.  Once again “Peace on earth, toward men!”

That day they danced upon the green and sang praises to the God who had succored them.

“At this time, St. George was just a desert spot lying below red sandstone cliffs on the north and the wandering, sandy Virgin River in the South.”

One historian has said that at that time (in 1861) the journey from Salt Lake to St. George was harder than the journey from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City because the former was over dry, rugged desert while the Nauvoo journey followed the water ways.

In the six years Angus lived in St. George, he was made a member of the Committee to locate the City of St. George.  He was elected Mayor and reelected for a second term.  He was the first Marshall of the area and helped to organize the Dramatics Society and played a part in the first production.

He was on the committee to organize the St. George Public Library, the first public library in the State of Utah. To buy books, citizens were asked to bring a quart of molasses that was sent to Salt Lake City to be sold.

Along with this activity, he helped to organize the public school system.

His brother, David, was called to serve a mission to the Moquis Indians with Jacob Hamblin his first year in the valley.  He was called as the assistant to the first Temple President when it opened in 1877.  This was the first operating temple in the West.  Latter he was called to serve as the temple President and served in the temple for 45 years consecutively.