The Author here might be permitted to make reference to the impression generally held in the Southwest that Lot Smith was a "killer," a man of violence, who died as he had lived. Close study of his record fails to bear out this view. Undoubtedly it started in Utah after his return from Mormon Battalion service, when he became a member of the Mormon militia that harassed Johnston's army in the passes east of the Salt Lake Valley. There is solemn Church assurance that not a life was taken in this foray, though many wagons were burned in an attempt, October 3, 1857, to delay the march of the troops. Smith (who in no wise was related to the family of the Prophet Joseph) became a leader in the Deseret defense forces, but there is belief that in all his life he shed no blood, unless it was in connection with a battle with the Utes near Provo, in February, 1850. In this fight were used brass cannon, probably those that had been bought at Sutter's Fort by returning Mormon Battalion members. According to a friendly biographer, "There never was a man who held the life and liberty of man more sacred than did Lot Smith." Ten years after his death there was re-interment of his remains at Farmington, Utah. Moen Copie Reverts to the Indians In 1900 Moen Copie ward embraced 21 families and about 150 souls. There had been an extension of the Navajo reservation westward and the Indians, though friendly, had been advised to crowd the Mormons out, on the ground that the country in reality belonged to the aborigines. There was no title to the land, which had not been surveyed and which was held only by squatter rights. There had been some success in a missionary way, but conditions arose which made it appear best that the land be vacated to the Indians. There was much negotiation and at the end there was payment by the government of $45,000, this divided among the whites according to the value of their improvements and acreage. In this wise the Mormon settlement of Tuba City was vacated in February, 1903, the inhabitants moving to other parts of Arizona and to Utah and Idaho. A large reservation school has been established on the Wash, many Indians there being instructed in the arts of the white man, while government farmers are utilizing the waters of the stream and of the springs in the cultivation of a considerable acreage. A feature of this school is that fuel is secured, at very slight cost, from coal measures nearby. Woodruff and Its Water Troubles Closely following settlement of the ephemeral lower Little Colorado towns came the founding of Woodruff, about 25 miles upstream from St. Joseph and about twelve miles above the present Holbrook. It is still a prosperous town and community, though its history has been one in which disaster has come repeatedly through the washing away of the dam which supplies its main canal with water from the Little Colorado and Silver Creek.