by Jay Mark - Sept. 18, 2012 01:50 PM
Special for The Republic | azcentral.com
Years before Anglos rediscovered the agricultural potential of the Salt River Valley and began settling communities on land farmed centuries before by the Hohokam, there was the Mormon Battalion -- a unit of the U.S. Army -- over 500 volunteers organized to help the U.S. military's fight in the Mexican-American War.
Although in existence for just one year, 1846-47, the battalion achieved several remarkable accomplishments, including a nearly 2,000-mile march from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, thereby establishing one of the earliest southern land routes to California.
New column explores Mesa's long, rich past | 
Historic Mesa
The battalion traveled across the southern breadth of what is now Arizona, but was then Mexico. Along the way, it was involved in a skirmish in the San Pedro Valley, it's only fight in Arizona.
The battalion learned much about territory and about desert farming from Native Americans, information that would prove valuable three decades later.
Almost from the time Salt Lake City was settled in 1847, Mormons were exploring and traveling throughout Arizona on missions to the native peoples.
A longstanding goal of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Brigham Young was to colonize into Mexico. To that end, he sent his most experienced envoy, Daniel Webster Jones, an LDS convert who fought in the Mexican-American War as a Missouri volunteer.
Jones and his party of seven began a horseback journey to Mexico from Nephi, Utah, on Sept. 10, 1875. When they reached Kanab near the Arizona border, a telegraph message from Young was waiting, instructing Jones to make a reconnaissance stop in the Salt River Valley.
Years later in his memoir, titled "Forty Years Among the Indians," Jones recalled his first visit to the Valley:
"We were much surprised on entering the Salt River Valley. ... there opened before us a sight truly lovely. A fertile looking soil and miles of level plain. In the distance the green cottonwood trees; and what made the country look more real, was the little settlement of Phoenix, with its streets planted with shade trees for miles."
While resting their animals, Jones learned about the fledgling community of Tempe.
The party's first encounter with Tempe founder Charles Trumbull Hayden "... found the owner an agreeable, intelligent gentleman, who was much interested in the development of the country ... and could sympathize with the Mormon people in settling the deserts."
It was the start of a warm relationship that would last until Hayden's death in 1900.
While camped at the nearby ranch of Winchester Miller, Jones learned of an ideal settlement site, just up the Salt River from Tempe, in which an ancient irrigation ditch could be excavated.
It's where present-day Lehi was established two years later by a party of 84 immigrants: Thus beginning a settlement that would one day lead to an urban center of nearly 450,000.
But that's for later.
A 46-year Mesa resident, Jay Mark has a long association with the museum and preservation communities and has been researching and writing about East Southeast Valley history for many years. Reach him at jaymark@twtdbooks.com.
19 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2012/09/10/20120910mission-mexico-veteran-stakes-out-lehi-mesa.html
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