ESTABLISHING COMMUNITIES
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community in April 1854, picked a site, and set the dimensions of a city wall. Young's visit prompted the survey of a fifty-four-block city plat, about half the size of his recommendation. Each lot owner was assessed twenty-five dollars as a property tax to fund construction of a wall entirely enclosing the city. By the end of November 1854 the m u d wall stood six feet tall, half the intended full height, but encircled the new city 27 In 1854 Young may have visited Centerville as well. Whatever the reason, residents resumed construction on the fort they had begun the previous year. Before snowfall that year, they completed the north and east walls of to a height of eight feet on a base six feet thick.28 In north Centerville, Judson Stoddard began a private eight-foot wall, eighteen inches thick, around his property north of Chase Lane.29 Kaysville residents started a fort wall in June 1854, after Jesse Fox laid out the city plat. Initially, the survey enclosed nine blocks, but it was later extended westward to contain fourteen full blocks and six half blocks. The adobe fort was to be six feet high, tapering from five feet at the base to three at the top. When construction began, each landowner was assigned a section. The men dug a moat-like ditch outside the wall and shoveled the clay soil into lumber forms to create a m u d wall. Only portions of the south and west sides were completed, however.30 The original Kaysville Fort District included people living some distance north of the fort in what later became Layton. Even though these distant settlers contributed funds and labor to the Kaysville project, several families built a smaller "Little Fort" (also known as Parish Fort). It was located about halfway up Kays Creek, near the present intersection of Fort Lane with Gordon Lane.31 Despite the progress made during 1854, Brigham Young remained unhappy with the efforts of Utah communities to build forts. In his message to the territorial legislature in December, Young reiterated his call to complete the forts. It was a time of peace, he acknowledged, b u t a time of need would yet come. 32 Lawmakers acted on his request with a bill replacing military oversight with civilian. As required by the new law, the Davis County Court created five fort districts and appointed three-member committees in each district to select and survey sites. A twelve-dollar poll tax, plus a tax on
