Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily JournalsWoodruff, Wilford
Religion
Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily Journals
Woodruff, Wilford
Woodruff, Wilford, 1807-1898
Elder Woodruff soon became active in exploring the valley, and
penetrating southward to the Utah Lake. He came in contact with roaming
Indians but found them friendly and desirous of trading with the
whites. After exploring a couple of days, and seeing the new land, with
here and there a herd of mountain goats, sheep, and antelope, he and
his brethren returned to the pioneer encampment.
Four days after the arrival of the pioneers in the Valley, they
selected the site upon which to build the Temple of the Lord. President
Young called the Twelve together on this important occasion, and all
were united in the choice of the Temple Block. Those who were present
on that occasion were President Brigham Young, Elders Heber C. Kimball,
Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Amasa
Lyman, and Ezra T. Benson.
At that time it was moved and carried that the Temple lot {317} should
contain forty acres, but later it was deemed too large a tract to care
for properly, and the lot was limited to the ten acre block upon which
the Temple now stands.
The city was laid out in blocks of ten acres, divided into eight
lots, of equal size, one and a fourth acres in each. President Young
expressed a desire that the houses be built in the center of the
lot, so that in case of fire the neighbors' houses would not be
endangered, being so far apart. The design of President Young was that
no speculation in lands by the brethren should be allowed whereby the
first comers should enrich themselves at the expense of their brethren
who should follow.
Close up to the city limits, the farming land was parceled out in
five acre plats, joining them a little farther out into ten acres,
and outside of these, twenty acre fields. This arrangement prevented
any one man from holding a large tract near the city, and by so doing
prevented speculation by the individual to the detriment of the whole
community.
The city could easily extend its borders without purchasing much land
from any one individual. In other words, the interest of the whole was
to be uppermost in the mind of each man, and the spirit of greed and
avarice seldom asserted itself on the part of those noble founders of
Utah's great commonwealth.
I have heard my respected step-father, Jesse W. Fox, say that he
surveyed many of the cities and much of the land between Logan and St.
George, a distance of over 400 miles, and the desire to select a town
lot or a farm lot in any of the places for speculative purposes never
entered his heart; and if any one asked him to select one for him he
promptly refused, saying that those who owned the land should be the
builders on it and that no one by his assistance should ever speculate
at the expense of the poor Saints coming to the Valley to serve God and
keep His commandments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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