– Voiced by Dan Frezza and Holly Barrick
1 Henry Lunt – Letter to George A. Smith, Feb. 11, 1853
Dear Brother Smith,
Knowing your most anxious desire at all times for to hear of the welfare and prosperity of the saints in Iron County, I will endeavour to say a little.
It has always been peace and prosperity since we first rolled into camp on Center Creek…In but a little over two years, what is the appearance — three large cities are being built and a number of forts and smaller settlements made and cattle ranches established stretching out for more than fifty miles, including some of the best fenced fields, I will venture to say, in the Territory. Manufactories of different kinds are erected and being erected, among which is the blast furnace sending forth its clouds of smoke above the mountain tops. And verily I may say, this part of the Lord’s vineyard bids fair to become – and that, too, in a very short time – the great emporium for manufacture, commerce and wealth, and also an endless quantity of the very choicest land which will grow any kind of grain and vegetable, for we have proved it.
2 Henry Lunt – Pioneer and Settler
Noted southern Utah historian William R. Palmer wrote,
“Henry Lunt was twenty-six years of age when he helped to establish [the town of ] Parowan and ten months later [he] was chosen to lead the company sent to found the Iron Industry on Coal Creek. He worked hard, planned and he led others to work hard to accomplish [that] end.
Henry was a deeply spiritual man, yet with all, he had a practical wisdom that elevated him to leadership and kept him there through all his active hears. [Yet,] he was no empty visionary. While the people sang hymns and prayed, they were also building good homes, reclaiming farms, building churches and temples and roads and telegraphs lines and establishing schools for their children. Then they developed good choirs that were singing great anthems, and good bands and orchestras and good dramatics. As a leader in Southern Utah, Henry Lunt, gave active encouragement and support to all these cultural things.”
3 Henry Lunt – Mrs. Lunt’s Telegraph
In her book, Twelve Mormon Homes, published in 1874, Elizabeth Wood Kane, made this interesting observation of Henry’s wife Ellen
“[The Lunts] had turned [their] house into an inn and … it was spotlessly clean, as I know, for I sat a part of the afternoon in the kitchen. The wife who was busiest there had the neat kitchen strangely furnished. One end was carpeted with oilcloth, and in front of the window, full of scarlet geraniums, stood a table with a brightly polished telegraph apparatus; and, she turned from her stove and its pots and pans to her battery and clicking [needle] without flurry or emabarrasment… She spoke of herself as a rough and uneducated woman… but she had mastered her profession well enough to tell by ear what was going over the wires.
I like to see women telegraphing, it is dainty work well suited to our sex; and, on Eastern roads, the officers tell me that the women telegraphers are more steadily attentive to their duties than men and, of course, seldomer, I hope I may say never, stupefied with the fumes of tobacco or liquor.”
From Twelve Mormon Homes, by Elizabeth Wood Kane, 1871