In October, 1850, he responded to a call to assist in colonizing Little Salt Lake Valley, under the leadership of Apostle George A. Smith. Those who went occupied one hundred wagons. They were organized into two companies of fifty wagons each. Anson was made captain of the first fifty. They left Salt Lake City on the 7th of December and camped on the present site of Parowan, Iron County, on the 12th of January, 1851. On the 17th he was elected justice of the peace of the new colony. He was active and energetic not only in the founding of Parowan, but also in exploring the surrounding region. Being directed so to do by the First Presidency, he returned to Salt Lake City in the spring of 1851 to raise more colonists for the settlement of Iron County, which he succeeded in doing, and returned south with them the latter part of April. Before returning (on the 15th of April, 1851), he enlarged his family and added to his responsibility by taking to himself a second wife (Ann Mariah Bowen) a native of New York State, who was born January 3rd, 1834, at Bethany, Genesee Co., and took her with him to Parowan. The First Presidency and other Church officials visited Parowan soon afterwards, and called upon Anson to return to Salt Lake City and raise a company of fifty families to colonize Pauvant Valley. He accordingly returned north in June accompanied by his wife, spent the summer in looking after his affairs in Davis County, and started southward with the new colony in October, 1851, his wife Mariah, accompanying him. Before starting he was made president of the new colony by vote of the general conference, and at a special session of the Territorial Legislature he was made probate judge of Millard County, which he was directed to organize. He arrived on Chalk Creek, Pauvant Valley, November, 13th, 1851. He found Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, a surveyor and about fifty others in the valley ahead of him. They had laid out a city and called it Fillmore. By act of the Legislature it had been designated as the capital of the Territory. Anson devoted his energies to the development of Fillmore and the surrounding region, with telling effect. At the August election in 1852 Anson was elected to represent Millard County in the legislature. On going north to attend the legislature he took with him an Indian boy and girl whom he had purchased, and left them with his family in Davis County. After attending the legislative session of 1852-3 in Salt Lake City he had great difficulty in returning to Fillmore in February because of the deep snow. He attended an adjourned session of the legislature in the following June and then spent some time with his family, but had to hasten back to Fillmore in July on account of Indian troubles in the south. About the 2nd of November, 1853, he, in company with eleven men, gathered up and buried the remains of Captain Gunnison and party, who had been massacred by Indians on the Sevier river about ten days previously.