This canal undertaking was a tremendous one, especially in consideration of the fact that for the first five months the Mesa settlers available for work were only eighteen able-bodied men and boys. The brethren were hardly strong enough in man power to have dug the canal had it not been for the old channel. A small stream was led to the townsite in October, 1878, and in the same month building construction was begun. An early settler wrote: "We were about nine months in getting a small stream of water out at an expense of $43,000 in money and labor, so that we could plant gardens and set out some fruit trees. A man was allowed $1.50 and a man and team $3 per day for labor. Our ditch ran through some formation that would slack up like lime; and as whole sections of it would slide, it kept us busy nearly all the time the following year enlarging and repairing the canal. Our labors only lessened as our numbers increased, and the banks became more solid, so that today (1894) we have a good canal carrying about 7000 inches of water." It would appear that a tremendous amount of optimism, energy and self-reliance lay in the leaders of the small community, in digging through the bank of a stubborn cliff, in throwing a rude dam across a great flood stream and in planting their homes far out on a plain that bore little evidence of agricultural possibilities, beyond a growth of creosote bush, the Larrea Mexicana. There were easier places where settlements might have been made, at Lehi or Tempe, or upon the smaller streams, but there must have been a vision rather broader than that of the original immigrant, a vision that later has merged into reality far larger and richer than had been the dream. Within this prosperity are included hundreds of Mormon pioneers and their children. It often is said that the development of a country is by the "breaking" of from three to four sets of immigrants. It is not true of Mesa, for there the original settlers and their stock generally still hold to the land. Moving Upon the Mesa Townsite The honor of erection of the first home upon the mesa lies with the Pomeroy family, though it was hardly considered as a house. Logs and timbers were hauled from the abandoned Maryville, an outpost of Fort McDowell, at the river crossing northeast of Fort Utah. It was erected Mexican fashion, the roof supported on stout poles, and then mudded walls were built up on arrowweed latticing. This Pomeroy residence later was used as the first meetinghouse, as the first schoolhouse and as the first dance hall, though its floor was of packed earth. It might be added that there were many dances, for the settlers were a lighthearted lot. Most of the settlers re-erected their tents, each family upon the lot that had been assigned. The first families on the mesa were those of John H. Pomeroy, Theodore Sirrine and Chas. H. Mallory. The Mallory and Sirrine homes quickly were started. Mallory's, the first adobe, was torn down early in 1921.