As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Mormon Church President Brigham Young sent out pioneers in all directions from Salt Lake City to claim territory by settling in desirable locations for agriculture.
One crop he believed would help the Mormons achieve self-sufficiency was cotton. He sent settlers to what would become Santa Clara, a community west of present-day St. George, to plant cotton in 1854.
The experiment was a success, which caused Young to send out more settlers to do the same. The cotton-producing area of southern Utah became known as Dixie as a nod to the American South. One of Dixie’s cotton settlements, begun in 1859, was Grafton, a community established on the south side of the Virgin River and reportedly named after Grafton, Massachusetts.
Two years later, the Civil War made cotton a more precious commodity outside of the Confederacy, and Young’s foresight made him look like the prophet the Mormons believe he was.
But you can’t eat cotton, and originally the Grafton farmers overplanted the crop in lieu of others and had trouble feeding their families. From then on, cotton production was secondary to corn and other staples, including fruit orchards.
A Virgin River flood in 1862 that destroyed their townsite caused Grafton residents to relocate a mile upstream, on higher ground, the present location of Grafton today. Despite frequent battles with the unpredictable river (irrigation ditches were constantly being destroyed, filled with sand, and rerouted), the small community of fewer than two hundred prospered.
The town was abandoned temporarily between 1866 and 1868 when hostilities with Ute Indians caused Brigham Young to order a consolidation of villages for mutual protection. During that time, Grafton residents tended their crops by day and retreated at night. At least three graves in the Grafton Cemetery attest to the dangers of that time. When hostilities ceased, Grafton returned to its former life.
In 1906, many Grafton farmers assisted in the digging of the Hurricane Canal, which promised a more reliable and predictable source of irrigation water for agriculture. They also were digging the grave of Grafton, because most families moved to the new area, about twenty miles downstream from the townsite. Grafton slowly became a ghost town. The last residents to leave were the son and daughter-in-law of Alonzo Russell, who lived in his father’s house from 1917 until they moved to St. George in 1944.
Hollywood has used Grafton at least a half-dozen times because of its lovely buildings and remarkable backdrop of Zion National Park. On the left is the town’s combination chapel and school; on the right is the home of Alonzo and Nancy Russell.
The headstones of the Grafton Cemetery blend in seamlessly with their surroundings. Several of the dead in the graveyard died from Indian attacks.
But Grafton was not a completely forgotten ghost town. Hollywood has featured the picturesque spot several times, most notably in the 1969 film classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND GRAFTON
You will pass the Grafton Cemetery as you approach the townsite. I suggest that you first go to the townsite and, when you have explored it, return to the cemetery, because you will then be able to attach more importance to at least two graves.
As you enter Grafton, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, you’ll pass a wooden barn and the 1877 brick home of John and Ellen Wood. Beyond that house is a parking area in front of one of the most picturesque ghost town sights in the American West: Grafton’s 1886 adobe schoolhouse and the 1862 Alonzo and Nancy Russell home, also made of adobe, both constructed with bricks crafted on the site. Behind the buildings rise the stunning red cliffs of Mount Kinesava in Zion National Park. Across an open area from the Russell home stands the 1879 hand-hewn wood cabin of Louisa Maria Foster Russell, who was Alonzo Russell’s third wife. She and her six children lived in the home directly across from Alonzo and his first wife, Nancy. (I have read no mention of his second wife.)
The schoolhouse, which also served as a church meetinghouse and community center, has a foundation of lava rocks quarried nearby and features beams that were brought more than seventy-five miles to this site from Mount Trumbull in northern Arizona. The building last had students in 1919. The schoolhouse has been saved from deterioration and vandalism by a complete restoration, finished in 2000.
The two-story Alonzo Russell house exterior was restored in 2004; an interior restoration is planned.
The Grafton Cemetery contains, according to a sign at the site, between seventy-four and eighty-four graves. In addition to the original settlers, that includes some Southern Paiute Indians, who assisted the early residents.
The cemetery features the graves of Alonzo Russell (1821 to 1910) and his first wife, Nancy (1825 to 1903), who is remembered on her epitaph as “a kind and affectionate wife, fond mother, and a friend to all.” His third wife, Louisa, who was thirteen years younger than Nancy and who outlived Alonzo by seven years, is buried on the other side of Alonzo.
Grafton’s John and Ellen Wood residence is on private property. It and a neighboring barn have been stabilized by the owners.
Other markers attest to the violence of frontier life. According to their head-stones, Robert M. Berry, his wife Mary Isabelle, and his brother Joseph were killed on the same day in 1866 by Navajo raiders. They were not Grafton residents, nor were they killed there, but their bodies were brought to this cemetery because Grafton was the county seat at that time. They were attempting to reach their home in Glendale, a now-vanished town near present-day Colorado City, Arizona.
The year 1866 was particularly difficult for settlers: In less than four months, eleven people died in the small community because of diphtheria, scarlet fever, or murder by Indians. In addition, two young girls, Loretta Russell (age fourteen) and Elizabeth Woodbury (age thirteen), died in a “swing accident.” This last seems unnecessarily tragic and makes one wonder about the circumstances; playing on a swing shouldn’t, after all, be fatal.
WHEN YOU GO
From Silver Reef, return to Interstate 15 and drive 3.6 miles north to Exit 27, for Toquerville, and head southeast on Utah Highway 17 for 6 miles to La Verkin. From there, take Utah Highway 9 southeast for 15 miles to Rockville.
In Rockville, a sign on the east side of town directs you to Grafton, 3.4 miles away. That sign is on Bridge Road, the only street in Rockville that crosses the Virgin River. Not long after traversing the 1924 steel truss bridge, you’ll turn west as Bridge Road becomes Grafton Road. The route turns to dirt in 2.2 miles from Rockville, which in dry weather should be fine for a passenger car. The left turnoff to the cemetery is .9 of a mile from the road’s turning to dirt, and the townsite is .3 of a mile to the right, toward the river, beyond that turnoff.