Willden Family History

By 1859 the iron works had become a failure, and great numbers of people
moved away to seek new homes. The Willden's moved to the badlands or sinks
southeast of Beaver, then called lower Beaver. They arrived there Sunday,
March 24, 1859. Here Charles Willden and his four sons, Ellot, Charles,
John and Feargus each took up 10 acres of land.

Many times Charles had thought of making a home on Cove Creek and as
their land in Beaver proved to be poor, Charles bought 160 acres there
from Matthew McEwen of Beaver who had sheep there. - John Willden

Here in the fall of 1860, with no financial aid or manpower backing
from the Church they built an adobe house on the south bank of Cove Creek
and enclosed it at some time with a corral and cedar post stockade. The
posts were 8 to 10 feet high and placed so close together that they formed
a sold wall. The doors and windows were not put in that fall. They cached
some wheat for spring planting and returned to Beaver for the winter.

In February or March of the following spring, 1861, as Ann, who had
married at the age of 14, and her husband, Neils Johnson, were returning
home from Salt Lake after a fruitless effort to find work, they were caught
in a terrible snowstorm between Fillmore and Cove Creek. By the time they
reached Cove Creek, Wild Cat Canyon between there and Beaver was blocked
for wagon travel so they stopped at the house where they hung blankets
and quilts at the doors and windows and built a fire in the fireplace.
Even these did not keep out the cold so Ann and her husband made a dugout.

It wasn't long before they ran out of food so found the wheat her father
had cached and boiled it. For a change her husband ground some of the wheat
between two stones and she strained it through her veil, using the coarse
siftings to make some salt rising bread.

After several days someone passing through on their way to Beaver noted
their plight and told her parents. Charles and Eleanor loaded the wagon
with the doors, windows, provisions, and other necessities and moved to
Cove Creek in March. Before long, Ellott and his wife moved there and built
a two-room house for themselves.

On April 24, 1891, in her cellar home, Ann's first child, a girl, was
born, her mother being the midwife. Little Hanna Jane Johnson was the first
child born at Cove Creek. At this time, Ellott's wife, Emma, was ill with
an attack of rheumatism so Eleanor had her hands full, taking care of Ann
and the new baby, Emma, and her own family.

Willden's Fort, as their site was known for the next few years, afforded
food, rest and protection from the Indians to weary travelers passing through.
It was built seven years before the rock fort which stands on the site
and is know as Cove Fort.

Here I quote from the Compiled Laws of Utah for 1888, Vol 1:261 "Cove
Creek Fort".

"Cove Creek was well know to early pioneers as a favorite camping
place for travelers, but no attempt was made to settle on this little creek
until the fall of 1860 when Charles Willden and his son Ellott commenced
to make improvements on the creek with a view of making homes. But Brother
Willden did not move his family there until March 1861. For sometime afterward
the place was known as Fort Willden. By this name it was still known in
January 1866 when Utah was divided into counties, Beaver County was then
described as being bounded on the north by a line running East and West
through a point 2 miles South from the South side of Fort Willden on Cove
Creek.

Cove Creek then ran north of the present store and filling station.

In May 1861 President Brigham Young and party visited Cove Creek on
their way to St. George. The scribe of the company wrote the following:
"At Fillmore, on the morning of May 20, 1861, President Joseph Young
left to return home, the rest of the company proceeding to Cove Creek,
a distance of 35 miles which they made by 3:20 p.m. and encamped. There
is at that ranch, a corral, two houses, one dugout, and three families
including five men who had sown 9 acres of grain. An extensive range surrounds
the ranch and there is an abundance of sulphur in the vicinity.

- Deseret News 11:116

The three families mentioned above Charles Willden Sr. and family, Ann
Willden Johnson and husband and baby, and the Ellot Willden family. The
other two men were probably John and Feargus.

In 1862 John married Margaret McEwen of Beaver and brought her to live
at Fort Willden. Their first two children, John Hyrum, and Mary Mahala
were born there. They probably lived in the dugout.

Once day while they lived there the horses were lost, and Charles Sr.,
gave John and one of his brothers a lunch and sen them to look for the
horses, telling them not to return until they had found them. Night came
and they still hadn't found the horses, but found a cave they thought of
sleeping in. There was an awful roaring coming from the cave as well as
the odor of hydrogen sulfide.

Fort Willden was only 3 miles from Sulphurdale named thus because of
the rich deposits of sulfur there. During the iron working days of Cedar
City sulfur was hauled from this vicinity to use in their dynamite for
blasting the iron ore.

While living at Fort Willden, Charles Willden married a second wife,
Sarah Smith, 19 March 1864. Two children, Sarah Eleanor and Alice were
born to them in Beaver after they had left Cove Creek. Sarah Smith later
divorced Charles and married Joseph Walker. Both of the children died as
children, one of them dying after the age of eight. Her temple work has
been done. No additional information has been found on Sarah Smith. Charles' diary of 1869 mentioned that they were still living together.

The Deseret News of February 8, 1865 published the following:

"Shocks of Earthquake were felt by residents of Cove Creek"

By letter from Brother Charles Willden of Cove Creek, Millard County,
we have received the following items respecting shocks of earthquake that
have been felt in that neighborhood of late.

"On Monday morning the 23rd, we experienced quite a shaking and
on Wednesday, the 25th, we had an almost continuous shaking from one o'clock
till seven. There were four heavy shocks and 18 light ones, the heaviest
ones occurring at the last named hour. The effects were that the bell in
the clock rang, being struck by the hammer very rapidly; the crockery rattled
and the tables and chairs got a terrible shaking." John's wife told
of the young cottonwood trees swaying until their top almost touched the
ground.

Indian depredations were becoming more prevalent and serious by 1865.
The Willden sheep got the scab and many of them died. It was a discouraging
year so in the Fall of that year, the Willden's moved back to Beaver, however,
Charles still claimed the land at Fort Willden

In 1867 President Brigham Young called Ira N. Hinckley to head the building
of a rock fort on the land at Cove Creek. Men were called to build this
fort, Charles Willden and some of his sons worked hard and diligently on
the rock fort, living in their old home while so doing. Eleanor cooked
for some of the men. Feargus got lime in his eyes and had to return to
Beaver to have them treated for a few days. There was a mail and telegraph
station there between the time the Willden's left and Hinckley came.

As far as we can learn the Willden's received very little credit for
the work they did at Cove Creek and no remuneration. A search has been
made at the Church Historian's office in salt Lake but no early record
could be found of the Willden's ever being paid for this land. The last
remains of Fort Willden were leveled off in 1948 or 1949 by the Kessler
family, who have owned the land and fort since 1904.

There are many outside the Willden family who think Fort Willden should
be given more recognition. The Kesslers who now own the property wish the
Willden's to erect a marker there in honor of Charles and his family.

J.F. Tolton, a church and civic leader of Beaver published an article
in the Beaver paper, 28 November 1938, giving credit to the Willden family
as the real pioneers of Cove Fort. Part of his article is quoted as follows:

Old Cove Fort

"Old Cove Fort, by right should become a National Monument on State
Highway 91, some twenty five miles North of Beaver, Utah. It has withstood
the ravages of time for more than seventy years and is still in a fair
condition of preservation.

Several years since a marker monument was erected on the site with fitting
ceremonies eulogizing the President of the LDS Church, Brigham Young and
Ira N Hinckley, for the erection of this structure. In the course of said
ceremonies no credit was rendered the pioneer family which first established
a claim on this now famous site. This article is intended to establish
the claim for the Willden family as the original pioneers and not to detract
from the honor of those who erected the building now extant.

When Beaver County was created by Legislative Act in 1866 its Northern
boundary was fixed as a line running east and west two miles south of the
south line of Fort Willden. It was more than a year later when the present
structure was completed and consequently the fixing of the boundary line
could have had no reference to the existing fort.

Some thirty years ago the writer, then County Surveyor of Beaver County,
was advised to establish said Northern Line. He appealed to Ellott Willden
for information as the location of Fort Willden and was informed that it
was located some 500 feet East and 300 feet North of the Southeast Corner
of the present structure on the South bank of Cove Creek. At that time
a cottonwood trees still marked the site and yet exists, together with
stubs of cedar posts which marked the boundaries of the stockade enclosure
then existing."

The plaque on the Rock Fort bears the following inscription:

Completed April 12, 1867, by direction of Brigham Young, with L.D.S.
Church funds as a traveler's way station and refuge from Indians. Ira Hinckley
built and maintained it as a hostelry and residence until 1877. A well
within the fort provided culinary water. Cove Creek supplied irrigation.
One of its twelve original rooms was a telegraph station. Early in 1861,
Charles Willden built three rooms and a dugout known as Willden's Fort.
This was a convenient campsite for President and other travelers."
Cove Fort is now a well preserved museum.

We as a family should feel highly honored, for of the 80,000 Pioneers,
many of whom gave their lives en route to Utah, very few have had the privilege
of having their names immortalized on a plaque, and at such a historical
place.,