In 1872, Thomas Kane traveled with his wife, Elizabeth, and two of their children from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City. There they joined Brigham Young and some of his family members on a 12-day journey to St. George, Utah, where they would spend the winter together. Elizabeth wrote about the trip, including her experience spending the night of December 18, 1872, at Cove Fort. This exhibit pairs Elizabeth’s written impressions with views of the fort as it appears today.
The renovated fort opened as a historic site in 1994.
“The sun was sinking when we reached Cove Creek Fort, and drove in under its archway. . . . [Tom] soon called me outside to look at the landscape, and see how lonely a place we were in. All round it were oddly-peaked, ragged looking mountains glowing in purple and gold, looking no more substantial than the cloud-mountains of sunset with which they mingled.”
As Elizabeth’s carriage approached the fort’s gates, she noted the structures outside of the fort that supported the property’s function as a ranch. Cove Creek’s water supply was not enough for an entire town, but it provided enough water for a large household of people, plus livestock, gardens, and hayfields.
“Round the fort were fields with unusually strong and high fences.”
“Outside [the fort] on the north was a very large barn with a well-filled yard, surrounded by a stockade.”
“Our teams were being led in, to the discomposure of some cows who had a proprietary air as they moved sulkily aside to let the intruders enter. The smoke of their warm breath made a cloud in the frosty air.”
“Cove Creek is led into the fort in summer—though its supply cannot be depended upon, as it frequently dries up.”
Elizabeth Kane remembered the courtyard “filled with our vehicles” when the party’s six carriages and as many baggage wagons pulled in. Hosting Brigham Young that winter evening meant finding room for over 30 people. Though the quarters might seem cramped by today’s standards, Elizabeth praises her hostess in her writing for her good taste in providing a warm, clean place for guests.
“Our room was nicely furnished, and looked very cozy as we drew our chairs around the centre-table, which had a number of well-chosen books upon it.”
“Six doors opened to the north and as many to the south, giving admission to large and lofty rooms. I was not sorry to see a magnificent pitch-pine fire blazing on the hearth in mine, for . . . the night was very cold.”
“We were called to supper on the other side of the fort, feeling our way over the icy ground, guided by a stream of light from the open door of a guard-room, where stacks of arms were piled, and a group of stout fellows sat before a blazing fire.”
“We supped in the telegraph office, where the ticking of the instrument insisted on being heard as we all knelt down for prayers.”
“Our dinner-supper was excellent.”
“The shining cleanliness of the table-linen and glass was worthy of a Quakeress, when she has ‘given her mind to it.’”
“Darkness had fallen by the time supper was over; but the great gates were left open later than usual, as one of our baggage wagons had not yet come up.”
“I went to sit for half an hour with the ladies of our party.”
“I saw but one woman in the fort, and she had a group of children hanging to her skirts.”
One of the children that Elizabeth Kane saw hanging to the skirts of Adelaide Hinckley was Bryant S. Hinckley, the father of Gordon B. Hinckley. Bryant was five years old in 1872. Other Hinckley children who were likely seen that evening included Frank, age six; Edwin, age four; Arza, age four; and Nellie, age two.
“We did not rise next day till the fires were blazing. The chimneys of Cove Creek Fort, I can attest, draw superbly.”
“When we set out the sun was fully up, though it seemed to give no warmth. . . . The horses’ hoofs rang merrily on the iron-bound ground. Looking back on the fort, I watched the U.S. flag waving us farewell, until it was no larger than a carnation flower.”
In 1939, Elizabeth’s grandson Elisha Kent Kane brought his family to Utah, where President Heber J. Grant and others had made arrangements to retrace the Kane family’s 1872 journey with Brigham Young. The group stopped at Cove Fort on October 12, 1939.
Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona, ed. Everett L. Cooley, Brigham D. Madsen, S. Lyman Taylor, and Margery W. Ward (Salt Lake City, University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, 1974 [Philadelphia: 1874]), 71–80.
Matthew J. Grow and Ronald W. Walker, eds. The Prophet and the Reformer: The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. [Call Number: M270.3 P965 2015]).