Battle Creek, Utah

The first battle between Mormon settlers in Utah and the Timpanogos Indians who lived there occurred at Battle Creek, Utah. The sleeping Indians were outnumbered and outgunned, so they had no defense against the Deseret Militia who crept in and surrounded their camp before dawn on March 5, 1849. Mormon settlement of Utah Valley came upon the heels of the attack at Battle Creek, Utah.

At Battle Creek, now called Pleasant Grove, Utah, not long before the first Mormon settlers arrived in Utah Valley, a group of Timpanogos Indians was attacked in a pre-dawn maneuver by Mormon Militiamen. The Company of LDS men were called from Salt Lake City on March 1, 1849, to “go to the Utah Valley against some Indians who had been stealing a lot of horses from Brigham's herd.” They were under orders “to take such measures as would put a final end to their [Indian] depredations in future.” They camped in the snow the first night near Little Cottonwood Canyon where a rider brought “word that the horses were not stolen.” Before morning they received orders from Salt Lake City “stating that as the horses were not stolen...we need not spend any more time in search of them but to proceed with the Indians for killing cattle as had been directed so that the nature of our expedition was not in the least changed.”

In the morning the men continued southward to Willow Creek, (present Draper, Utah) and unanimously agreed to sustain one of their own in killing a beef from a cattle herd they came upon. The Company of men enjoyed a hearty breakfast then continued on to the Jordan River (near the border of present Salt Lake and Utah Counties) where they again camped. That day they had “learned that the stolen horses had returned to Brigham's Herd by one of his boys who came to inform us of the same.” Three times the company had now received word that the Indians had not stolen Brigham Young's horses. Even though rectifying alleged horse theft was the original stated purpose of their mission, not one of the thirty-five men turned back when that basis was shown to be a lie.

On the third day the Company crossed into the valley of the Utah Indians (Utah Valley, present Utah County) and was “divided into two Companies....the better to divide and scour the country as we did not know where the Indians were located.” They searched unsuccessfully all day and finally camped near Utah Lake on the American Creek (present American Fork, Utah). “We were now all very tired and cold. No sign could yet be found of the Indians.”

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Wikipedia