Camp Floyd Gazette

Newsletter of the Friends of Camp Floyd Vol. 2 Summer 2013 No. 1

Curatorial Corner
By Megan Keller Summer is almost over! From our History Camps and Adventure Camps to new programs and exhibits, its an exciting time at Camp Floyd. This year we had two new programs we hope to make annual events. In April, we had out first Quest of the Pony Express 5k Fun Run. Each runner delivered the mail from Camp Floyd to St. Joseph, Missouri and back in a 5k (3.1 mile) interpretive run. Along the way, runners changed their toy horses, sampled hard tack, passed pony express stations, received payment for delivering the mail, and more. The run started with fireworks and we had a total of 85 participants. It was a successful event and we hope to have more participants next year. On June 15th, we had our first Archeology Day celebrating what we can learn about Camp Floyd from archeology. Visitors had the opportunity to make their own petroglyph, participate in a mock archeological dig with replicas of real items found in archeological digs at Camp Floyd, and more. We had two professional archeologists come help with the event and interpret the archeological process for visitors. We have several new exhibits in the commissary museum. Through a grant from Utah Arts and Museums, weve added an exhibit on archeology at Camp Floyd, the Masonic lodge, coins, Capitan Albert Tracys sketches, and revamped our current exhibits. Camp Floyd is integrating new technology and now you can take a tour with your smartphone. Thanks to our visitors and patrons, Camp Floyd won a contest to receive a Quest Mobile Scavenger Hunt App free for a year. Camp Floyd will have the Mobile Scavenger Hunt App until June 30th 2014. Never a shortage of things to do at Camp Floyd! We hope to provide the newsletter at more regular intervals. Look for the next newsletter in the fall! If you have any questions or comments please e-mail Megan Keller at MeganKeller@utah.gov.

Shaun Nelson, archeologist for the National Guard, and Tom Flannigan, archeologist for the US Forest Service, interpret the mock archeological dig for visitors.

Participants in the Quest of the Pony Express 5k fun run received a t-shirt, haversack, toy horse, payment for delivering the mail, and more.

Friends of Camp Floyd is a not for profit 501c(3) organized in 2010 as a private educational partner to Camp Floyd / Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum. Friends of Camp Floyd invites you to be involved our orgainization. We assist Park Managament with activites, seek to facilitate the purchase of privately owned land within the boundaries of Camp Floyd, and want to have a Visitors Center/Museum and other replica buildings in this historic location. Information may be obtained by e-mailing the Friends of Camp Floyd President Russ Felt at Russ@feltonline.com. The Friends of Camp Floyd meets the first Thursday of each month at 7pm in the Lehi City Historical Archives at 2100 North and North Pointe Drive in the old Satellite Library Building.

Through a grant from Utah Arts and Museums, Camp Floyd commissioned new photographs of four of Capitan Albert Tracys sketches from the New York Public Library. This is Tracys sketch of Camp Floyd drawn on March 3rd, 1860.

From the President

By Russ Felt
Mary Judd Johnson, a local artist, accomplished more than 20 watercolor paintings of scenes in Fairfield. She has graciously donated the paintings to Camp Floyd along with copyright privileges. The paintings were framed through grant money and voluntary contributions and are displayed in the restored School House. Lantis fireworks generously provided a very large fireworks show following the Open House for Mary and the displayed paintings. We deeply appreciate Mary and also thank Ken Lantis for his interest in Fairfield and Camp Floyd. Working telegraph sounder now in the We invite patrons to examine the display and also to provide Stagecoach Inn information about the scenes depicted in the works adding to our growing archive of information. Of the many focal points in history for Fairfield was the telegraph station that operated there. Recently telegraph keys and sounders were donated by the Florida Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club. Richard Fisher, an experienced telegrapher living in Utah, was kind enough to set up the equipment. Patrons will be able to tap short messages in the forgotten Morse Code to one another at Camp Floyd. As good weather appears on the horizon, we invite you and your families to visit Camp Floyd and enjoy this important part of Utah History and even of National History.

Major Franklin E. Hunt: Camp Floyds First Army Paymaster

By Ephriam D. Dickson III
In late May 1857, General Scott issued his circular calling for the organization of the Utah Expedition, to include a full complement of disbursing officers. A copy of the circular soon arrived at the desk of Colonel Benjamin F. Larned, in charge of the Armys Pay Department. From his office in Washington, D.C., Larned oversaw 26 paymasters scattered across the country and worked with the Treasury Department to ensure they had sufficient hard currency to pay the officers and enlisted men within their district. For the Utah Expedition, Col. Larned assigned two paymasters: Lt. Col. Timothy P. Andrews and Major Franklin E. Hunt. Andrews soon reported himself on sick leave, leaving the largest pay department in the Army to Major Hunt alone. The duty will involve the responsibility of safe keeping, and disbursing of large sums of money, wrote Col. Larned, but I have the most entire confidence in your ability to meet the emergency. Forty-eight years old, Major Franklin Eyr e Hunt had spent the past thirty years in the army. Graduating from West Point in 1829, he had initially served in the artillery until appointed to the pay department in 1855. He was first sent to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, as paymaster but in early 1857, he was ordered to Fort Leavenworth. As the troops gathered in preparation for the Utah War, Hunt hired Dr. Julian Rogers as his clerk and traveled to St. Louis to requisition the privations of a want of rations he later wrote. To pay the troops of the Utah Expedition, he sometimes had to transport the payroll on pack mules, traveling thirty miles to reach Henrys Fork on one occasion to find the Dragoons guarding horses and mule herds. It was three days to make the trip going & three days returning, Major Hunt recalled, through snow & over mountains, without tents. In late April 1858, Colonel Johnston instructed Major Hunt to halt the payment of soldiers until after they reached their destination. That June, Major Hunt and his paymaster wagons were part of the long cavalcade that wound through the deserted streets of Salt Lake City before eventually marching off to the Cedar Valley to establish Camp Floyd. After erecting their tent camp at the northern end of the Cedar Valley, Johnston ordered Major Hunt to resume paying the soldiers. Between July 12 and July 14, the paymaster handed out $82,893.20 in gold and silver coinage, the first Army payday in the Cedar Valley. In midSeptember as the Army began moving from their northern campsite to the permanent location of Camp Floyd at Fairfield, they were paid again. Examples of gold coins from these two paydays were later recovered from the original camp site and are now on exhibit at the Camp Floyd museum. Shortly after arriving at Camp Floyd, Major Hunt was allowed thirty days leave which he soon got extended so he could return to the States to see

sufficient gold and silver coinage to pay the soldiers for the next year. An inspection of the column on the eve of their departure shows that Major Hunt was bringing an iron safe with him containing $348,829.29 in cash. To protect this large sum of money, the Fifth Infantry was ordered to provide the necessary guard and protection on the march and in camp to the public property & funds in Major Hunts charge. Departing Fort Leavenworth on July 21, Hunt traveled with the Fifth Infantry for the next three months, finally arriving at Fort Bridger as snow began to fall, thus preventing the Army from reaching Salt Lake City. Amid this new city of tents erected near Fort Bridger, Major Hunt set up his quarters and paymaster office, encountering the cold & inclement winter with all

his family, just as a new paymaster arrived in Utah. Major Henry Prince assumed the responsibility of paying the troops in Utah, utilizing additional funds he had brought with him. Running out of cash in the spring of 1859, Prince had to travel to California to draw additional cash for the troops in the Department of Utah. Major Hunt returned to Camp Floyd in the fall of 1859 and relieved Prince as paymaster. This time, Hunt his son with him to serve as his clerk. As the Civil War drew closer, President Abraham Lincoln ordered all commissioned officers in the Army to retake their original oath of allegiance to the United States. Whilst I regret the necessity which has caused the President to give such an order, he wrote as he forwarded his document, I at the same time cheerfully renew my former oath of fidelity to my country & consider it binding on me through life whether in or out of the service.

Camp Floyd was officially abandoned on July 27, 1861. As the troops marched away from the Cedar Valley, Major Hunt could reflect that he was one of the only staff officers to have been there both for the establishment and the closing of the post. Hunt remained in the Army for another twenty years. In 1878, he was appointed Deputy Paymaster General, the second highest position within that department. Hunt retired the following year and died Feb. 2, 1881. Iron safe (right), reportedly from Camp Floyd. This may be Major Hunts original iron safe, brought to Camp Floyd in 1858 or it could be one of several others brought to the post later for use by the pay department and by several regimental quartermasters. This safe is now on exhibit at the Daughter of Utah Pioneers museum in Provo.

Use this QR code to try our Quest scavenger hunt or go to http://tinyurl.com/ o87r8gm

Come to the premiere of Camp Floyds new 10-minute documentary Camp Floyd: Forgotten City in the Desert on August 17th at 3:30pm. The executive producer, scriptwriter, actor in the film, and more, Roger Blomquist will be on hand to answer your questions on this new film.

Camp Floyd: Forgotten City in the Desert Premiere

Check out our website at CampFloyd.Utah.gov to learn more on these events and others on the calendar.

Sunday

Monday

August 2013
Tuesday Wednesday 5 12 19 6 7 13 Cub Scout 14 Camp 20 27 21 28
Friends of Camp Floyd meeting

Thursday 1

Friday 2 9

Saturday 3 10

4 11 18 25

8 15 22

16 Documentry 17
Premiere

23

24

Field trip 26 registration starts

29 Fireworks!! 30 Camp Floyd 31

Days

Sunday

Monday 1 Camp Floyd 2 Days 8 15 22 29

September 2013
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 3 10 17 4 11 18
Friends of Camp Floyd meeting

Friday 5 Adventure Camp

Saturday 6 Christopher 7 Corbett 14 21 28

9 16 23 30

12 Adventure 13 Camp 19 Adventure 20 Camp 26 Adventure 27 Camp

24 Cub Scout 25 Camp

Sunday

Monday

October 2013
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 1 2 9 16
Friends of Camp Floyd meeting

Friday 3 Adventure Camp

Saturday 4 5 12

6 13 20 27

7 14 21 28

8 15

10 Adventure 11 Camp 17 24 31

18 Ghosts of 19 Camp Floyd 25 Ghosts of 26 Camp Floyd

22 Cub Scout 23 Camp 29 30