A county's name is, naturally, the first element in any identification. The sources of the names for most of Utah's 29 counties are clear cut, ranging from descriptions of the regions or their inhabitants to memorials to specific individuals.
However, the origins of a few are in a bit of dispute, and one - "Weber" - is extremely obscure. Only in recent years has new evidence seemed to clarify the story behind the county's name. Weber County school students have over the years learned next to nothing about the background for the county's name, with history lessons jumping quickly ahead to tales about trappers and traders like Peter Skene Ogden and Miles Goodyear.Where did Weber County's name originate? Consider these theories:
- The book "Utah Place Names" indicates the name probably came from John W. Weber, a trapper killed by Indians near today's Weber River in 1823.
- The Weber River and Weber County could have been named for another trapper, Pauline Weaver, who became a frontiersman in Arizona, according to "Weber County . . . Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." The name Weaver was corrupted to Weber. The book also refers to the story of John Weber, indicating he was killed by Indians near the river in the winter of 1828-29.
- Some have suggested the name came from a member of Peter Skene Ogden's trapping party. However, Weber is a not a French-Canadian name. So, it may be Capt. John G. Weber of Danish nativity who is the namesake. He is said to have died in 1859 in Bellevue, Ill., according to an undated historical sketch of Weber County.
- John H. Weber was in the Ogden area from 1822-27 and discovered the Great Salt Lake, Weber Canyon and the Weber River, summarizes the book "Beneath Ben Lomond's Peak."
- Weber County, says "A History of Ogden," was named for Capt. John B. Weber, who was with trappers in the area until 1827. He died in Iowa in 1859.
- Several other books, such as "Utah: A Guide to the State" and "Ogden: Junction City," simply state the river and county were named for "Capt. Weber." John G. is listed in the first of those books; John H. is named in the second.
So what's the most plausible story behind the name?
William W. Terry, an Ogden historian now in his 90s, spent many years sorting out the facts. He came up with this:
John H. Weber (note the middle initial) was born in Altona, near Hamburg, then a part of Denmark. He joined the William Henry Ashley trapping party in 1822. Weber was described as a large man, with a nose like a Roman emperor and eyes like an eagle. But he was also said to be very moody, as well as brash.
The Ashley party eventually split in two, and Weber led one group, with Jim Bridger also belonging to it for a while.
In the fall of 1824, Weber, then 44 and much older than most mountain men, likely discovered Bear Lake. In the winter of 1824 he took his group along what is today's Weber River to the Great Salt Lake, reaching it almost six months before Peter Skene Ogden.
Bridger had discovered the Great Salt Lake the preceding summer, and Weber and his party trapped on the Weber and Ogden rivers for about six months.
The trappers called the larger river the Weber, in honor of their leader. When Ogden arrived on the scene, the river was already known as the Weber.
Weber went east in 1827. Although he had earned $20,000 trapping - a small fortune in that day - dishonest partners apparently swindled him out of his money. He died in 1857 at age 78. Weber is buried in the Bellevue, Iowa, cemetery. Terry visited the community and found Weber's grave to prove Indians didn't kill him at the river named in his honor.
Terry also discovered that some of the men in the Ashley-Henry trapping group were the ones who misspelled the name Weber as "Weaver." Hence some of the confusion over the name.
Today Weber is a prominent name in the area, with Weber State University making it nationally known - though it is often incorrectly pronounced "Webber" outside of Utah.