Document: HISTORY OF THE BEHUNIN FAMILY
Source: L.D.S. History Library g.s., call# 1320828 project and roll# XLIB7-102#2752Alphus Behunin I was an Irish soldier in the British Army. He married an Irish girl and moved to, America. Shortly after he was married he set sail back to Ireland to get furniture to furnish his home. The ship he was on, was lost at sea, and we have no further record of him. But to him and his Irish wife was born a son whose name was Alphus II.
There is a tradition that he fought in the Revolutionary War, under General Washington for,71/2 years. Also in the War of 1812 under General Putnam for 3 1/2 years. He married a girl by the name of Nancy. She lost her life while crossing the St. Lawrence River. Her body was found, frozen in the ice next spring, in Lake Ontario.
Alphus Behunin II was a fisherman of Lake Erie. He told his son Isaac Behunin, who told his son Elijah Cutler Behunin, who told his son Isaac Martin Behunin of a band of Indians, a friendly tribe who lived around Lake Erie. The men were about 9 or 10 feet in height and very rawboned, weighing about 250 lbs. The women were 8 feet tall. These Indians were very fleet footed and could run down deer and other animals. Other Indian tribes were so jealous of them that they all off.
To them was born a son whose name was Isaac. `He fought in the Walker War of Utah. He married Elmina Tyler, Oct. 1834 He and his family arrived in Salt Lake City in 184? To them were born 14 children. One was Elijah C. Behunin. He crossed the plans with his parents at the age of 3. He had a faint recollection of the crossing of the Platt River. His father and mother lived in Rockville, Utah. Isaac Behunin helped build the Kirtland Temple and at one time was a body guard to Joseph Smith.Elijah moved with his parents to Provo, Utah in 1852. They called to settle at Ephirum, Utah in 1853. From there they were called to Southern Utah, to help settle Washington Co. He married Tabitha Jane Earl, March 22, 1868, at Rockville, Utah. To them were born 13 children.
Elijah C. Behunin fought in the Black Hawk War in 1866-67 under James T. S. Alldred. Much of his time was spent in Dixie. His record may be found in record 19, Indian War Veterans, in the state office at Salt Lake City. He was killed while driving his car in Siguerd Canyon, Sevier County, Utah on Nov 8, 1933 and was laid to rest at Torry, Utah.
Elijah C. Behunin and Jane Earl built many homes in partes in southern Utah. They built 5 homes in Wayne Co.; one near one near Zion National park and one in St. George Utah.
In the fall of 1882, President Thurber called Elijah C. Behunin from Sevier Co. to go down into what is now called Caineville to open up this little valley for settlers. They left Sevier Co. on the 7th of Nov. 1882 with their family and all of their belongings in a wagon.
There were no roads from Torrey on down into this valley so therefore they were compelled to build a road as they traveled. They reached this valley 12 days later. On Nov. 18th 1882, having traveled a hundred miles, they cleared a spot of ground and built a little log cabin which is yet standing on the left hand side of the road as you enter this valley. Their little log cabin has stood there for 73 years. The following spring they cleared the ground and planted and rased the crop. That same year a number of families came and settled there. A town was organized and was named Caineville because the valley was full of wild cane.
They lived in there a number of years, then moved on up to the valley to a place called Notom. Then they moved to Emery Co. Utah, but sickness compelled them to leave there and they moved back to Caineville. But not being satisfied with there home they bought a place at Frutia, Wayne Co. and there they lived for several years farming and rasing their family. Finally misfortune over took them in the loss of their home which burned down.
From there they moved to a ranch called Fish Creek. There they prospered real well until they decided it was a lonely life, so they bought a home in Torrey, Wayne Co. From 1913 to 1915 they spent in St. George, working in the Latter Day Saints Temple.
Statement of Elijah C. Behunin
Published in S.L. Tribune & Richfield Reader
August 21, 1930
At Zion National Park
This is the place where my Father Built the first house in Zion Canyon in 1862, when I was a boy of fifteen. We built the house of cottonwood poles, and stuffed the cracks with mud. The roof consisted of a ridge pole, with ash and maple sticks on each side covered with corn stalks and dirt. Inside we had a fireplace, but we cooked on a step stove, usually placed outside, as we only lived in the summer, going to Springdale in the winter. The room had a door, and a window, whose panes were glass.
The grape vines on the flat, where the lodge is now, were so thick we could hardly get through with a horse. We paid a yolk of steers to get one acre, and then did the work ourselves. We waited until the leaves fell and then set fire to the grape vines. That was about the only way that the ground would be cleared. We set out fruit trees, ane grew corn and let the water out of the river for irrigation.
It was some tough job, getting up into this canyon. We came along the river bed as far as we could, but where the canyon narrows, and the bed became rough, we had to take to the sides. The hill where we made the first climb, was awfully steep, and it was a hard climb to the top. I. am sure that if I could get up along that side there, I could find some trace of the old trail. They can't all be gone. The old trail took Out here, just below the Dry Run on the east side and came back into the canyon floor, up where it begins to widen out.
At first we took carts up there. These carts consisted of the hind running gears of our wagons with a tongue fastened, into them. We used either horses or oxen. Oh yes, we had cattle, fifteen or twenty head, and they were all broke to work.
I have been-up be canyon many times after poles and wood, and we always followed the river bed for the underbrush and trees were too thick along the sides for us to get through.
There were three houses built in here, after we built ours. Heaps built one over in the canyon across from the lodge. Their house was there below the cliffs on the north side. His farm was not very large, but he raised corn on his side of the river to the south and planted an orchard between his house and the river bank. The boundary line between ours and Heaps farm was the river.
To the north of our farm which extended. up the river about 80 rods was Ralph's farm. His first house was just north of the dividing fence between him and us, and his second house was north of where the museum ow stands.
We had two orchards, one down towards the house and the other at the top of the field. There are some of the old trees there ~'iow. On the flat where the lodge now stands, we raised corn. We first planted our corn with shovels and hoes. But later we followed the plow and dropped the corn in the furrows. This country grew wonderful corn, once we got it cleared and leveled, so that it could be irritated. The corn grew very rank, and had three or four ears to the stalk.
We had hand plows and "V" shaped harrows that were pulled by oxen o~ horses. The sides of the harrows were made of hewed timbers, with holes bored about a foot apart with woodei1~ pegs, running through them. These pegs were made o~ oak and were sharp so that they scratched the ground. If we wanted them to dig deeper into the earth, we loaded something into t~e harrow to weight it down. We had steel shovels and hoes. At first the shovels we had were fitted with short handles, but later we got what we called lazy mans shovels, because the handle was longer, and a fellow did not have to bend his back so much when working. Our rakes were hand made, and were all of wood. We had the scythe, and the cradle, but as we did not raise ~very much hay or grain, we, did not use them.
We built fences from the cliffs to the river on each end of our claims. We patched up the river banks and they served as one of the boundary lines and the cliff s on the other side completed the enclosure. We built brick fences or rip--gut fences from the trees that grew in the canyon.
Nature does not change much. The canyon is the same as it was, when left 57 years ago. The only changes that I can see, have been caused by man and the river. The river ran in pretty well defined channels when we were here. I am sure the meander toward the east side of the canyon just north of the lodge was not there. when we were in the canyon. That would have placed our upper orchard on the west of the river, and it was on the east. That crook has been made since we left, for our farm extended up past, where that old orchard now is, and there was no creek bed there at the time. We planted straight on through to the north line.
When we left the house, to go down the canyon, we crossed to the west side of the river just below the house and re-crossed it again to the east side, down towards where it began to narrow up. Then we mounted the side of the mountain and continued down the canyon along the bench until we were south of Dry Run, where we again took to the river bed and continued along down it, until we reached Springdale. There was more water in the river when we were here, than there is now. We used to cross it on poles from the cottonwoods, that had fallen or been platted across the river.
Heaps married Ralph's stepdaughter. Ralph's lived on one side of the river and heaps on the other. They crossed back and forth on~a cottonwood tree, placed across the river. There were many more trees, than there is now, and the river bed had not been cut out so much. There were groves everywhere along the sides and there was much grape vine1 and squaw bush. There were not very many grassy spots or meadows in the canyon but we found many willows. Among the trees that were here in abundance were be cottonwood, maple, box elder and ash with some coniferous trees, growing in certain places.
I never saw a deer or a mountain lion in this canyon. I saw five mountain sheep one day. Of course there were the smaller animals such as porcupine, badger, squirrels, chipmunks and skunks. We called one place "pole cat canyon." One day the dog killed a skunk on the bed. We had to bury the bed to get rid of the smell. We dig it up later, but the dirt had not removed the smell. There
side of St. George. They moved to Rockville in the fall of 1867.
I never saw an Indian this side of Springdale. We used to try to get them to work for us, but they never ventured into this part of the canyon. I never saw an Indian entirely naked. The bucks always wore a breech cloth and the squaws a skirt. The rest of the body was bare. They were very strict about their morality. They had one wife, and anything resembling promiscuity was not practiced or allowed.
They moved around the country from place to place, u~ua1ly on foot. They had no horses at first They camped under rocks and in wickyups. Pine nuts were their main food. They had dried fruit, when we came to "Dixie" and used corn meal that they ground themselves from the corn, in a rock grinder. They also had dried jerkey (meat) They mixed the meal with water and made a batter. This they, spread on a flat rock, that had been heated. Before they spread the batter on the rock, they always went over the surface to be covered by the batter with a piece of clay to keep it from. sticking. The heat from the rock soon set the batter, so that it would not run, and then the rock was set on edge, near the fire, so that the cake might be cooked from both sides. When the cake was done. it was rol1ed and put away. They made as many of these as was necessary to feed the group.
We never traded with the Indians because they never had anything to trade. They were beggars, and came frequently in the houses to beg flour or meat or anything that you might have. Sometimes you could get some pine nuts from them but not very often.
The squaws made skirts from rabbit skins. They would take strips and sew the ends together with sinew thread. Then they would take a string either of buckskin or yucca fiber and roll the strip around it. They did this so that they could have the fur inside and out. They then took the long strips and sewed them together into a skirt that would reach about to the knee.
Don't talk about money. There was none in the country. Sorghum was the currency of the country, and the value of an article was measured in the amount of sorghum that it would take to buy it. The women spun the yarn from the cotton raised in Springdale and from some small supplies of wool. They wove the cloth and made the clothes. I had one pair of buckskin pants. They got wet and shrunk up so far they showed my crooked bowlegged limbs. My wife still spins the yarn and makes her own stockings. She has a bushel basket full of them. "I have two or three of them" said the wife. "In Grover Clevelands time I spun the yarn end wove fifty six yards of cloth, and I had done much of it before that time."
When we had a dance we paid the musicians in sorghum or squash or any other produce. The price charged by the fiddler was equivalent to three or four dollars. If the people did not pay, then the fiddler didn't get what was coming to him, or what he expected to get. We used to run horse races and foot races and wrestle side holds. These were the big sports. We would bet horses, cattle, knives, saddles, and anything that we had, but no money, for we had none. The first money appeared in the country after Pioche opened up.
We left Zion in 1872 and left the country in '73. -My father left Zion in 1872 and went to Long Valley. He left because he was old and couldn't do the work that the place required. My brother Hyrum who took care of the o1d people, had cattle interests in Long Valley, so he sold out my fathers place to Heaps for -two hundred bushels of shelled corn, which was worth
two dollars a bushel, and moved the old folks over. My Father died and is buried there. My Mother was taken to Castle Valley to my sisters where she died, and was buried in the town of Ferron.
My Father never left Zion because of trouble with anyone. He was a quiet unassuming man who minded his own business and wanted everyone else to do the same. He was a very temperate man and believed in Mormonism. He died in the belief of a glorious resurrection.
I will be 83 years old on the 7th of November. Tabitha Jane Earl Behunin, my wife, was 77 years old on the 23rd of July. We have been married 62 years. We were married on the 22n41 of March 1868 in Rockville, at the home of James Calvin Earl Ray Wiles father. In fact it was her father who performed the ceremony that made us man and wife. They had a big supper for us and the close relatives, and a dance for everybody that evening. We waltzed and danced any dances that we wished. We moved into Zion with Father Behunin and helped in its development We built a house south east from his and bought the east side of his farm. We have had 13 children, 11of whom are living.
I never heard of this canyon being called "Joseph's Glory." It may have been called that, by some people without my having known it. I never heard of the names Mukuntuweap and Parunaweap being applied to this canyon. We never called this section 'little Zion either, it was always Zion to us. When Brigham Young came to Springdale he advised the peop1e to call this sect ion "No Zion", but I only know of two people who ever app1ied that name to this canyon. Brigham Young always thought of "Zion" as Jackson Co. Missouri but this canyon Was Zion to us people who lived here. Brigham Young never care up into the canyon. In fact he was at Springdale about 1867, there was nothing but a trail reaching up into Zion at that time. My wife remembers very well, when Powell came into this canyon in 1872. I was away working in Nevada at the time, but she remembers that he was here, and went up into the canyon. Just how far we do not knob We do not remember anything about the visit, or the trip of Dr. Gilbert down this canyon.
THE END
by Elijah C. Behunin
This narrative was oked by Moroni Palmer and Alferd Hall, two of Mr. Behunin's neighbors.
(signed)
J.W. Thornton (Ranger Naturalist, at Zion National Park.)
Isaac Behunin was one of the early members of the Church who knew the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the April 1966 issue of the Instructor, these is the following article.
It must have been Isaac Behunin to whom the Prophet was speaking, as he was the person who changed the family name to Behunin. We don not at the present time know what the original name was, but my father Isaac Martin Behunin told me that his father Elijah Cutler Behunin told him that the sounding of the name was Behun, and the syllable-in-- was added because it sounded like Behunin when it was pronounced.
(signed) Lila B. Miller
On NEUTRAL Ground
When the Prophet M~I ended telling how he had been treated., Brother Behunnin remarked.: "If I should leave, this Church I would not do as those (apostates) have done: would go to same remote place where Mormonism had never been heard of and settle down, and no one would ever learn that I knew anything about It.
The great Seer immediately replied: "Brother Behunnin, you don't know what you would do. No doubt these men once thought as you do. Before you joined this Church you stood on neutral ground. When the gospel was preached, good and evil were set before you. You could choose either or neither. There were two opposite masters inviting you to serve then. When you joined. this Church you enlisted to serve God. When you did that you left the neutral ground, and. y4u never can get back on to it. Should. you forsake the Master you enlisted to serve it will be by the instigation of the evil one, and you will follow his dictation and be his servant."
Daniel Tyler
(Taken from The Instructor of April 3, 1966, page 492)