It may have been a steady team of oxen that gave William Carter a place in Church history as the man who plowed the first half-acre in the Salt Lake Valley, beginning at noon on July 23, 1847.
As Carter told it, he was only one of three from the vanguard company who had plows that historic Friday morning.In addition to Carter, Shadrach Roundy and George W. Brown rigged up plows to turn the sod. They met at a five-acre plat, staked off by others of the Pioneers late that morning, northeast of the campsite. The plot was located near present State Street between Second and Third South.
Had Carter deferred to age, Roundy, a 58-year-old Vermont native and Church member since the winter of 1830-31, would have received the honors. Had youth been given preference, 20-year-old Brown, an Ohio native who had joined the Church at Nauvoo just four years earlier, would have become Utah's first Mormon plowman.
But claiming the credit for launching agriculture in the new settlement was apparently not on anyone's mind. Carter, a 26-year-old English convert of 1840, would be first because the others tried and failed.
That's how Carter remembered it. He said that both Roundy and Brown broke the wooden beam on their plows as they attempted to cut into the hard, gravelly loam. Before they could repair their plows and return, Carter had turned a half-acre of virgin sod.
The steady pull of his team cut through the firm turf without snagging the plow and snapping the beam by which the plow was pulled along.
By the end of the day, the threesome had plowed 2 1/2 acres. They continued on Saturday, July 24, and by the time Brigham Young arrived in camp, 15 minutes before noon, George A. Smith had planted the first potatoes.
The plowing continued on Monday, July 26. By late afternoon, sowers had planted three acres of potatoes, plus peas and beans, and were planting four acres of early corn. The next day, Burr Frost set up a forge. With the help of carpenters, he rigged up additional plows.
After eight days in the valley, Stephen Markham was able to report that 13 plows and three harrows had been at work most of the week. To rest the teams, they had worked four-hour shifts from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m.
By July 31, workers had 52 acres under cultivation. They plowed and planted another 30 acres the following week. Then, the plowing and planting stopped. The men turned their attention to making adobes and hauling logs for houses in the fortress that would become their winter home.
Carter's historic plow followed him to St. George in late 1861, where he was called as one of the pioneers. In February 1862, he scratched a ditch, the first furrow in that area, to mark a campsite for the wagons.
In 1888, the first plowman of Salt Lake and St. George received a ribbon acknowledging his accomplishment in plowing the first half acre in 1847.
Not many years afterward, the old Deseret Museum acquired the commemorative ribbon and the iron moldboard, all that remained of Carter's famous iron plow.
These early reminders of the importance of agriculture to the first Latter-day Saint settlers in Utah will be included in a display in the new Church history exhibit, "A Covenant Restored." The exhibit will open in late spring at the Museum of Church History and Art, just west of Temple Square.
The concern of the 1847 pioneers in getting crops planted was to preserve the seed they had brought with them, and, if possible, to get a crop that fall.
That first week's plowings established three farm plots. The first was the five-acre plot, expanded to eight acres to include corn and beans. A larger, 35-acre farm plot was planted to buckwheat, corn and oats. The third was a 10-acre garden plot about two miles southeast of the camp. In it, the pioneers sowed garden seeds.
Because of the warm July weather, several thundershowers, and the irrigation water turned onto the plots, the corn and beans sprouted rapidly and could be seen above ground in the first plot by the time the third was planted.
Irrigation of the first plots began almost immediately. While Carter and his associates turned sod, other men diverted water from City Creek to soften the soil and moisten the seed.