Concerning the early Jonesville, a correspondent of the Prescott Miner wrote: "The work done by these people is simply astounding, and the alacrity and vim with which they go at it is decidedly in favor of cooperation or communism. Irrespective of capital invested, all share equally in the returns. The main canal is two and a half miles long, eight feet deep, and eight feet wide. Two miles of small ditch are completed and four more are required. Their diagram of the settlement, as it is to be, represents a mile square enclosed by an adobe wall about seven feet high. In the center is a square, or plaza, around which are buildings fronting outward. The middle of the plaza represents the back yards, in which eleven families, or eighty-five persons are to commingle. They are intelligent, and all Americans." The settlers, with their missionary turn of mind, were pleased to find the Indians of southern Arizona friendly and even inclined to be helpful. One chief offered to loan the settlers seed corn and wheat. The Indians gathered around to listen to whatever discourse the Saints should offer, the latter, at the same time energetically wielding shovels on a canal that "simply had" to be built in a given time. An appreciated feature was that Salt River abounded in fish, supplementing very acceptably the plain diet on which the pioneers had been subsisting. Possibly it was as well that the Saints had rules against the use of table luxuries. One pioneer of the Lehi settlement told how his family had lived for weeks almost entirely upon wheat, which had been ground in a coffee mill and then cooked into mush, to be eaten with milk. "We thought ourselves mighty fortunate to have the milk," he said. Soon after the settlement of Camp Utah, Jones' methods of administration excited keen opposition among the brethren. There was special objection to his plan that the settlement should receive Indians on a footing of equality, this being defended as a method that assuredly would tend toward the conversion of the Lamanites speedily and effectively. Jones was fair in his statement of the matter, and hence special interest attaches to his own story of the earliest days of the settlement: "We commenced on the ditch March 7, 1877. All hands worked with a will. Part of the company moved down on to lands located for settlements. Most of the able-bodied men formed a working camp near the head of the ditch, where a deep cut had to be made. "We hired considerable help when we could procure it, for such pay as we could command, as scrub ponies, 'Hayden scrip,' etc. Among those employed were a number of Indians, Pimas, Maricopas, Pagagos, Yumas, Yaquis and one or two Apache-Mohaves. The most of them were good workers.