Pioneer's Information
Type of Pioneer: Early Pioneer
Pioneer's Name: Adams, NathanWilliam (more stories about this Pioneer)
Birth Place: Adamsville, Ontario, Canada
Date of Birth: Thu, 02 Feb, 1832
Date of Death: Thu, 28 Dec, 1916
Father: Arza Madsen Adams (more stories with this pioneer)
Mother: Sabina Clark (more stories with this pioneer)
Spouse: Mary Malinda Plunkett (more stories with this pioneer)
Other Spouses: (more stories with this pioneer)
Arrived in Utah: Tue, 25 Sep, 1849
Education:
Profession: Farmer
Honors:
Civic Activities:
Church: Kanab Stake Patriarch
Authentic Mormon Pioneer: Yes
Excerpt from Pioneer Story
Much fanfare accompanied the completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah on May 10, 1869. Two weeks later Major John Wesley Powell and nine companions in four row boats left Green River, Wyoming, with almost no fanfare, to explore the Green and Colorado Rivers. It was a trip fraught with danger that only six of the men completed. Although not involved in running the river, my great uncle, Nathan Adams, would later share the adventures experienced by Powell’s second exploration crew as they mapped the Grand Canyon area during the 1870s. A hundred and forty years later only a few intrepid tourists visit Promontory Point each year, while tens of thousands of tourists, many of them from foreign countries, enjoy the marvelous scenery discovered by Powell and his colleagues.
Full Pioneer Story
THE ADVENTURES OF NATHAN W. ADAMS
Submitted By: Dale W Adams (more stories by this author)
Much fanfare accompanied the completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah on May 10, 1869. Two weeks later Major John Wesley Powell and nine companions in four row boats left Green River, Wyoming, with almost no fanfare, to explore the Green and Colorado Rivers. It was a trip fraught with danger that only six of the men completed. Although not involved in running the river, my great uncle, Nathan Adams, would later share the adventures experienced by Powell’s second exploration crew as they mapped the Grand Canyon area during the 1870s. A hundred and forty years later only a few intrepid tourists visit Promontory Point each year, while tens of thousands of tourists, many of them from foreign countries, enjoy the marvelous scenery discovered by Powell and his colleagues.
****
Nathan William Adams was born near Perth, Canada on February 2, 1832. While just a lad, he accompanied his family when they migrated to Far West, Missouri in 1838. After only a year, Nathan’s family was driven out of Missouri and took refuge on a rented farm near Quincy, Illinois where cholera took two of his brothers. Adult duties were soon thrust upon him while his father, Arza, was away on a yearlong mission in Canada.
In 1841 Nathan’s family moved north to Nauvoo and later in 1844 to a rented farm on the north edge of Carthage. He was old enough to remember the nearby murders of the Smith brothers, his father delivering the first official notice of their deaths to Nauvoo, their move back to Nauvoo, and the ensuing persecution of the Latter-day Saints. Later, he drove one of two Adams wagon teams from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1846. Now a young man of 17, Nate again drove a wagon team when the family migrated to the Salt Lake Valley in 1849.
Nate, his father, and two Chipman relatives were freighting goods between Salt Lake and Provo in the early summer of 1850. They spent the night in a cluster of cottonwoods along American Fork Creek in Utah County and Nate and his cousin scouted the area. He returned and told his father that he thought it would be a good place to settle. Later in the year, Arza and Nate returned to the area and built the first permanent cabin in what was later called American Fork.
Young Nathan grew restless in the spring of 1852 and took a job with William Cleaver to drive several oxen to Carson Valley, Nevada. The lure of gold led him to continue west over the Sierra Nevada to the boom town of Coloma in El Dorado County, California, near where gold was discovered in 1846. By the time Nate arrived, there were thousands of eager miners working small claims around Coloma with only a few lucky individuals striking it rich. It was hard work and Nate failed to find a bonanza, but he did return to American Fork in 1854 with a small stake, including enough gold to make an engagement ring, a necklace, and matching ear rings. The next year, on February 15, 1855, he married Mary Malinda Plunkett, giving her the gold jewelry as a modest dowry.
In October, 1856 Nathan and his brother-in-law Alexander Nicoll were part of frantic efforts to rescue survivors of the Martin/Willie Handcart Companies. They drove a wagon loaded with food and other supplies into southeastern Wyoming and then hauled back frozen and starving survivors. The next Spring Nathan accompanied his father on a trip to Fort Supply in Southwest Wyoming. Arza had earlier established a farm/ranch there and planned to build a saw mill nearby. These plans were aborted after it was learned that Johnson’s Army was in route to Utah Territories. The settlers burned all their improvements to deny Johnson’s Army their use.
Nathan’s chance to step out of his father’s shadow came in late 1868 when he was called to fill a church mission in Utah’s Dixie. He moved his family to the community of Washington, accompanied by relatives Alexander Nicoll and wife Sabina Ann, Nate’s sister. Wind, blowing sand, droughts, malaria, voracious grasshopper, and difficult transport added to the problems of settlers in Dixie. Like others, Nathan soon looked elsewhere for better opportunities. He heard there was plenty of grass around Kanab, a new community located about 60 miles east of Washington and he visited the area to scout-out opportunities in late 1870.
The small settlement in Kanab had sporadic Indian problems for several years. Despite these threats, Nathan saw opportunities there and subsequently moved his family to Kanab in March, 1871, only three months after Mary had her eighth child. They wedged themselves into a single dirt-floor room. Early inhabitants described the place as being infested with lice and other vermin. The year Nathan brought his family to Kanab he joined more than a dozen other men in a joint farming venture in what was called Upper Kanab. It is located about 20 miles north and east of Kanab along the trail that was then used to get to Long Valley. The men planted a substantial acreage to wheat but suffered almost a complete loss in the venture.
The individuals who first settled Kanab were independent, restless, self-reliant people who were hard to herd. Nonetheless, most were members of the LDS Church, which encouraged and facilitated cooperation. Initially, group efforts were imperative for protection, to master the harsh environment, to build roads, and to develop a critical watering system. Nathan was one of two dozen men who jointly claimed about sixteen hundred acres of land south of the fort. Nate was also a member of another land partnership that involved three community leaders: Jacob Hamblin, Levi Stewart, and Zadok Judd. This claim was for about a section of land some six miles north of Kanab around the Three Lakes and Cave Lake area.
One of the persistent challenges faced by the settlers was to control and distribute the small stream coming out of the canyon. Nathan and other men spent large amounts of time dealing with the water problem, both for irrigation and culinary purposes. For a few years ditches that ran along the side of the town’s main streets were the source of culinary water. Typically, water would be turned into the ditches early in the morning and each household filled a barrel out of the ditch. The water, of course, was flavored and colored by up-steam events and actors. Perhaps this was one of the reasons the Adams soon chose to live up canyon near Cave Lake.
The Kanab Association accounts show that Nathan was an active participant from 1873 until 1876 when the organization was folded into the United Order. On two occasions he received credit for erecting 15 ½ rods of fences (1873) and two days helping with ditches (1874). On at least ten occasions he withdrew mostly flour, but also bran and shorts, from the Association. This was produced by a cooperatively owned grist mill. The amount of flour he withdrew each time ranged from 25 to 100 pounds. On one occasion, he also withdrew seven pounds of seed corn. When the United Order was liquidated the ownership of land appears to have reverted back to the original members of the Association who had had informal use rights to individual parcels.
There were various dairy herds north and northeast of Kanab during the time that Nathan lived in Kanab. He, and especially his wife, managed one herd a few miles north of Kanab, near Cave Lake, on the jointly-owned land mentioned earlier. The Adams name was also associated with dairies in Cottonwood Canyon and at Buttermilk Ranch or Springs near the border with Garfield County. The dairy may have been owned by a separate cooperative, or by private investors, comprised of the original owners, and their associates, of the section of land around Cave Lake. The Adamses probably received some pay for their efforts, but also likely earned a share of the butter and cheese they produced, possibly half. Much of the butter and cheese was sold or bartered in Kanab to immigrants passing through on their way to Arizona.
Especially during the time that Nathan worked for the Powell Expedition from 1872-76, Mary and her older boys took the lead with the dairy. Somehow Mary managed to tend six children, have three more babies, survive for long periods without neighbors, and still operate the dairy. On numerous occasions she walked the six miles to Kanab carrying dairy products to sell to people passing through the community. Sometimes she traded dairy products with locals for other goods her family could use. On one occasion, in the early years of the dairy operation, she and her teenage son, Nathan Jr., loaded a wagon with butter and cheese and sold or bartered the goods from St. George all the way to Nephi in Central Utah.
A highpoint in Nathan’s life was working with Major John Wesley Powell’s 2nd Expedition during the 1870s. Powell’s two explorations of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon straddled the settlement of Kanab. His first trip down the Colorado in 1869 from Green River, Wyoming to Call’s Landing (Callville), in what is now Nevada, was the last great American exploration. From start to finish he, and his eight companions, saw few civilized footprints and were ignorant of the dangers that lay around the next bend in the river. The latter part of the trip through Grand Canyon was so frightening, and the group was so short of food, that three of his starving companions gave up and hiked out of the Canyon, attempting to reach Toquerville, Utah. On the way, they were killed by Paiute Indians near Mt. Trumbull.
The primary objective of his second expedition was to map the area around the Colorado River. Powell delegated most of this to his brother-in-law, Professor Almon Harris Thompson who was the chief topographer. The second trip began, as did the first expedition, at Green River, Wyoming on May 21, 1871. His group arrived at the Paria River (later called Lee’s Ferry) on October 23, 1871. Powell’s crew stashed their boats there and then moved to a winter camp near Kanab.
The expedition was a god-sent for Kanab. It provided employment and injected cash into a mostly barter economy. Even the Indians benefited by selling tanned buckskins to members of the expedition. During 1872 Powell hired a number of locals, but six men were his primary guides and packers: William D. Johnson, George W. Adair, Jacob Hamblin, Fred Hamblin, George Riley, and Nathan Adams. On February 22, 1872 Adair signed an agreement to work with Powell for two years at the rate of $40 a month as horse wrangler, packer, and man-of-all-work. Nathan and the other men likely were paid at the same rate when they worked. Over the next your years Nate was often on Powell’s payroll, but he worked mostly with Professor Thompson.
The first mention of Nate’s work with Powell occurs in early September, 1872 when he, George Adair, and Joe Hamblin delivered supplies to Powell and Thompson at the mouth of Kanab Creek on the Colorado River. After transporting part of Powell’s group to Kanab, Nate and Hamblin immediately returned with ten horses and mules to retrieve equipment and two crew members, Clem Powell and Jack Hillers who had been left behind with almost no rations. In his journal, Clem Powell made a couple of curious comments about the arrival of their transport. He noted that Nathan and Hamblin, “made a forced drive from Kanab to here in a couple of days and played out 2 or 3 of their animals.” But, he then goes on to complain that their rescuers “had been too lazy to cook anything since leaving Kanab so are about famished.” The ungrateful, young Powell was perturbed because he had to cook a meal for the group. Apparently Nathan overlooked Clem’s peevish behavior and a few days later attempted to show him the frontier skill of sharpening a scythe. The young man described the experience as making him feel, stupid and miserable.
Thompson liked Nathan’s work and a couple of weeks later hired him to assist with survey work east, and south of Kanab. He also hired two Indians, Ang-E-quet and To-qui-tow, to locate trails and water sources. Family tradition is that Nathan was a camp cook, but Thompson’s journal indicates he had Nate do all of the tasks involved in roughing it in the wilds: wrangling animals, driving a wagon, finding places to camp, setting up and tearing down camp, repairing equipment, going for supplies and water, building fires, and erecting survey monuments on high points. Hiking up and down rugged terrain, sometimes drinking bad water, finding feed for the animals, and retrieving animals that wandered off were other chores for Nathan.
After being back in Kanab to resupply for only a few days, Thompson, Nathan, and George Adair left on November 1st to do survey work southwest of Kanab around Mt. Trumbull, an area occupied by the Shivwits band of Paiutes. With two Indian guides named Paantung and “Judge,” the group spent two cold weeks doing survey work around Mt. Trumbull, Mt. Dellenbaugh, and Mt. Logan. Powell had met earlier with Shivwits leaders and received permission to survey their lands, with a single restriction. Curiously, the Indians differentiated between the Mormons Nathan and George Adair, and the other whites in Powell’s group. Dellenbaugh wrote that, “An assistant (Nathan Adams) from Powell’s party was advised to remain in camp, so that he would know as little as possible, and should not tell that little to the ‘Mormoni’ whom the Shivwits disliked. The annoyed Indians didn’t want Mormons to know their watering places, about trails down to the Colorado River, and where their religious sites were located.
The Shivwit’s had multiple reasons to dislike Mormons. In January 1866 a Mormon militia killed/executed 7 Shivwits south of Pipe Springs in revenge for the killing of James Whitmore and Robert McIntyre. Later, the introduction of large cattle herds near Pipe Springs, intrusive miners, and men from St. George prospecting for timber around Mt. Trumbull further enraged the Shivwits. Nathan and his fellow Mormon George Adair often looked over their shoulders, and slept nervously with their guns at the ready while they were in Shivwit’s territory.
With some judicious gifts to Indians, Powell partially overcame their reservations about allowing Thompson and company on their lands. When the Professor proposed to climb Mt. Dellenbaugh with Adams, however, Paantung objected to Nathan joining the assent, so Nate and George Adair stayed in camp. There were ancient ruins on the summit of the mountain that had religious significance for Shivwits. Thompson’s group returned to Kanab via St. George. Upon returning to Kanab, Nathan expressed relief about finishing his two weeks in hostile Shivwit’s territory. He is quoted as saying that the two weeks spent there seemed like years, and that his only comfort was the assurance of safety he realized from wearing his endowment garments.
Nathan was conscious, honest, and easy to be around. Thompson liked him and on several occasions he visited the Adams’s home at Cave Lake. Thompson was eager to rehire Nathan for his work during the last half of 1873. While travelling south through Panguitch in June 1873, Thompson hired a cook by the name of Thomas Haycock. He may have wanted someone who knew the area north of Kanab, and possibly hoped for cooking that was tastier than Nathan occasionally provided. From Panguitch, Thompson also sent a letter to Nathan offering him a job at $45 per month. Nate went on the payroll on June 30.
In early July Nathan accompanied Thompson on a trip to Toquerville, St. George, and Pine Valley where the Professor placed a survey monument on the highest peak. Afterward, Nathan hauled the camp and expedition supplies from St. George and Toquerville to Kanab. Thompson caught up with Nathan and his wagon along a dry stretch of trail between Hurricane and Pipe Springs. Thompson was ill from drinking bad water and he found Nathan out of water and nearly exhausted. The climb up and over the Hurricane Ledges in the hot weather had worn out both driver and team. The Professor rode ahead to Pipe Springs and sent water back to Nathan and Haycock, who was driving some loose animals ahead of Nathan. In his journal, Thompson laments that, “Had we had a few miles more to have gone, some of us would have given out entirely.”
On August 4th Nate and Jack Hillers escorted Thomas Moran, a budding artist, and Justin Colburn, a reporter for the New York Times on a ten day trip to the vicinity of Mt. Trumbull where they viewed one section of the Grand Canyon.
Nate and Thompson spent a few days during August in Kanab resting and preparing for another mapping trip north along the Sevier River. While in Kanab, Thompson was asked to treat an Indian boy who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. The boy’s parents assumed that Professor Thompson had some medical skill, which he did not. Trying to help, the good professor sent for alcohol and whiskey and then gave the boy a half pint of the alcohol, perhaps reserving the whiskey for himself. Thompson didn’t record the results of his treatment, but one might conclude that both patient and physician felt better, at least for a short time.
On August 13th the Major, Moran, Colburn, and the Professor took the day off to visit the Adamses at their Cave Lake home. They must have enjoyed a home cooked meal there that included the best the Adamses had to offer. Most likely, the trio returned to Kanab loaded down with Adams-brand cheese. Soon after, Thompson asked Nate to care for the expedition’s livestock -- mainly horses and mules -- during the upcoming winter. He received 30 cents per head per month for tending the animals, and was also allowed some use of the horses and mules.
The latter part of August Thompson started his crew north along the trail that ran up Johnson Canyon, through Upper Kanab, and into Long Valley. Along the way a bear (or a cougar) slashed the flank of one of Thompson’s horses named Fanny. Being resourceful, Thompson had his crew throw the grey mare on her side and hold her while he sewed up the wound.
A few days later the group camped near Panguitch Lake and Thompson sent Nate and John Renshaw to climb the nearest high point, only one of dozens of peaks that Nathan climbed while working for Thompson. In addition to climbing, Nate also assumed some cooking duties again when the cook, Tom Haycock, left the group in Panguitch. Thompson continued up the Sevier River mapping the area. Between Panguitch and Circleville Thompson recognized Nate by naming a prominent point Adams Head. It is on the Sevier Plateau just south of Cottonwood Peak in Garfield County. Earlier, the group passed only a few miles west of spectacular Bryce Canyon, but Thompson makes no mention of it. The group reached Glenwood where they damaged a wagon wheel. Thompson sent Nate to nearby Richfield to repair the wheel, a repair that cost $6.50. From Glenwood the group continued up through Gunnison to Nephi, where Thompson terminated work for the year. On October 1st Nate left Nephi with 6 animals belonging to the expedition and planned to pick up another 13 animals left along the way before returning to his home in Cave Lake. Thompson notes in his journal that he paid Nathan $130 for his work through October 7th (p. 119).
Thompson spent the next six months back east before returning to Utah in June 1874. By then the Utah Southern Railroad had reached as far south as York, now a ghost town near Santaquin. He had earlier written to Nathan asking him to meet him at York with the expedition’s animals and wagons. Thompson notes that Nate, Billy Hawkins, and Zadok Judd Jr. met him in York. Judd was named cook, again relieving Nathan of culinary duties. On June 21st Nate and his companions left for Gunnison with supplies for the expedition. Unfortunately, Thompson didn’t leave a record of his surveying work during the latter part of 1874, but it may have included more carefully mapping the Sevier River Basin that he traversed in 1873. There is, likewise, no record of how long Nate worked for Thompson in 1874 but it was likely 3 or 4 months. Perhaps Nathan again cared for Thompson’s animals and equipment during the winter of 1874-75.
For a fourth year, Thompson employed Nathan, along with Judd, and Hawkins to help him during the third quarter of 1875. Judd was again designated the cook, Hawkins was the packer, and Nathan did the rest of the camp duties, including driving a wagon. From York the group travelled to Gunnison, then southeast through the Fish Lake and Thousand Lake Regions. They continued mapping the Fremont River, around the Henry Mountains, and into the headwaters of the Escalante River. While camped near what is now the town of Escalante, Thompson’s group met four Mormons from Panguitch who were exploring the region for possible settlement. Thompson suggested that they name the new settlement Escalante, a suggestion that was eventually accepted. Later, part of the group went down the Paria River and then returned to Panguitch. It’s unclear if Nathan retired from the group there, or if he accompanied Thompson back to Nephi where he left for the east the middle of September. After spending so much time together, Nathan must have felt remorseful as he saw his good friend leave for the last time.
In addition to wages, Nathan received a graduate education during the years he travelled around southern Utah and northern Arizona with Powell’s group. Nathan received an education in map making. He learned to read rocks and to become more aware and tolerant of Indian lore and customs. He also learned much about photography. Like many of the other early Kanab settlers he must have learned some of the Paiute and Ute languages, at least enough to communicate with Indian guides. Two of his colleagues, Jacob Hamblin and Ira Hatch, were Indian linguists. Most of all, Nathan came away from his travels with a comprehensive knowledge of the terrain and natural beauties of Southern Utah. Much of this area is now included in National Parks or Monuments.
An interesting aspect of western life that is not often discussed is story or yarn telling. Men such as Nate, Major Powell, and Jacob Hamblin spent hundreds of hours sitting around camp fires in the evenings. Stories and yarns were primary forms of entertainment and were key elements, along with kidding, in male bonding. Some stories involved interesting events from the teller’s life, but good yarners were not bound by the truth, and were expected to exaggerate. A good tale was often based on real events that were then spun into some fanciful and funny ending. Other yarns poked fun at someone in the group. Those who could tell a good yarn or story, and who had a sense of humor, such as Jack Hillers, were more appreciated than were those who lacked these talents.
In additional to what they learned from several well educated members of their group – Powell and Thompson were university professors -- Nathan and others learned a lot from each other. This was especially true for young Frederick Dellenbaugh, a self taught artist, who was only 18 when he joined Powell’s second expedition, and Walter Clement (Clem) Powell, who was only 21 when he started down the Colorado River in 1871. These two young men must have been spell bound as they listened to stories told by the men in Powell’s Expedition. The Major undoubtedly told numerous tales about his Civil War experiences, about knowing U.S. Grant and other famous generals, and the excitement of exploring the Colorado River for the first time. Thompson, Bishop, Hawkins, and other veterans could also share wartime experiences. Jacob Hamblin was a walking book on Indian lore in southern Utah and Northern Arizona. John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, Ira Hatch, and George Adair were involved in the Mountain Meadow Massacre and most likely told stories about this tragedy that glossed over their complicity. In addition to his war experiences, crusty Billy Hawkins could have told some riveting stories about trapping, gold mining in Wyoming, and his brushes with the law.
Zadok Judd likely related harrowing details of the Mormon Battalion’s heroic trek from Ft. Leavenworth to California, along with intimate knowledge of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill. Lee and Hamblin were confidants of Brigham Young and could have said much about the early history of the LDS church. Before he saw the Grand Canyon, Thomas Moran visited the Yellowstone area and could tell numerous stories about what he saw in Coulter’s Hell. Bishop was a fervent Protestant Christian and Jacob Hamblin read the Book of Mormon most days. Powell and Thompson could have chimed in with some of their secular views. The group most likely had interesting, perhaps heated, give-and-takes on their respective beliefs.
If Nathan was anything like his father and some of his brothers, he was a good story teller and contributed to campfire discussions. He might have stretched the truth a bit and said he heard the shots that killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith, although it wouldn’t be stretching the truth all that much. He didn’t have to bruise the truth to tell about the suffering he saw among the Handcart survivors. His experiences in the gold fields of California offered additional grist for campfire stories. Nathan, Dellenbaugh, and young Powell, though they likely didn’t recognize it at the time, were in a travelling adventure seminar each time they sat around the campfire.
Brigham Young revisited Kanab on March 11, 1874 and directed the community to organize a United Order. Nathan, of course joined, and he, Ira Hatch, and Annie McConnell were assigned to work in the dairy. Initially, the chances for the Order to succeed were promising. It built on earlier cooperative efforts in Kanab. Many residents were members of the Kanab Association. Despite encouragement by Church leaders, however, some members of the Order soon became disenchanted with a collective economy, including the Bishop, Levi Stewart. The Order was reorganized in early 1876 with only sixty heads of family deciding to continue in the Order. Nathan was appointed as one of three appraisers in the new organization and regularly attended meetings of the directors. Eventually the Order was dissolved in 1878.
In about 1880 the Adamses quit their dairy business at Cave Lake and thereafter lived in Kanab. Nathan became a full-time farmer/rancher. Mary was known as an excellent gardener, housekeeper, and cook. For a time she worked in a local boarding house, the McAllister Hotel, sometimes as a cook. She also occasionally took boarders into her home.
Mary and Nathan encouraged their children in church activities, but two of their sons were a bit on the wild side and occasionally snuck off to drink wine with older men in the community. One night Mary found out where the wine was stored and rearranged the configuration of the wine barrel with an axe. Nathan had mixed emotions about Mary’s actions, supporting her intent, but not her method. The next day Nathan talked with Luke, the owner of the barrel of wine, and agreed to give him one of his best dairy cows to compensate for the damage inflicted by Mary.
Late in life, 1904, Nathan was appointed the Kanab Stake Patriarch, his first prominent church position. He was often called upon to give blessings, including administering to the sick. Nate and Mary were remembered for holding family prayer each day and records show the family regularly contributed to fast offerings in the Kanab Ward, often in the amount of six pounds of flour. When Nate was elderly, for six years running he won ribbons for perfect Sunday School attendance. He proudly stood with his grandchildren, who were also winners, to receive these awards.
One of Nathan’s contributions to Kanab was in an unexpected area. Flies were a problem in a community with lots of livestock, and Nate disliked these pesky insects. Late in life one of his hobbies was making fly swatters and then giving them to others, especially children. He also made fly traps that he passed around the community for people to place in their privies. He offered children 10 cents for each quart of dead flies they collected. There is no record of the amount of money he paid out, if any, but at least he called attention to a serious social problem.
No one left a physical description of Nathan, but a picture of his oldest son, Nathan Jr., shows a man who was much taller than average. This suggests that Nathan Sr. was also tall like most of his Adams ancestors. One writer described Nathan as being serious, but also having a sense of humor. He never spoke against anyone, was honest, and was always a straight dealer. Unlike most of his male ancestors, Nathan had a fondness for music and appreciated poetry. Several of his sons inherited his musical tastes. Nathan Jr. played a drum in the local band and also was light on his feet like his father.
Nathan died in 1916. He, his mother-in-law, and his wife are buried in the Kanab Cemetery only about a mile east of where they first lived in the Kanab Fort. In 1955 the Daughters of Utah Pioneers recognized Powell’s second expedition by erecting a monument on the west side of the Kanab Elementary School at 200 West and 100 North. On the back of the monument the names of 12 white men from Kanab and three Paiutes are listed, including Nathan’s.
In some respects, Nathan was notably unexceptional. He was like most of the other men that lived around him who neither sought nor achieved the limelight. Nonetheless, he experienced an adventure-filled life that moved from cold and green Canada, through persecutions in Missouri and Illinois, to settling on the frontier in Utah, to gold mining in California, to the handcart disaster, to moving to dry and brown southern Utah, to Indian threats, to exploring the Colorado River basin, and to making a home on the edge of where humans can survive.
Sources:
Gregory, Herbert E. (ed.), Diary of Almon Harris Thompson: Explorations of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries, 1871-75, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009.
Madsen, Julius V., “Notes from an Interview with Nathan Adams (Jr.) at Kanab, Utah, Tuesday, October 20, 1929,” Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah. [George A. Croft collection (Ms. 8)]
Robinson, Adonis Findlay, History of Kane County, Salt Lake City: The Utah Printing Company, 1970.
Dellenbaugh, Fredrick S., A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926.
Virtues: Endurance, Faith, Hardship, Difficulty, Trials