Utah Historical Quarterly State Capitol, Salt Lake City Volume 4
October, 1931
Number 4
BLACK HAWK'S LAST RAID—1866 By Josiah F. Gibbs Utah histories carry few details of Black Hawk's frequent raids on the settlers of Sanpete and Sevier valleys prior to, and including his spectacular invasion of Round Valley (Scipio), in 1866—the last of his capital crimes. The rugged country in the south part of Emery County, extending east to the Colorado River was uninhabited, save by Black Hawk and his tribe. From that Chinese puzzle of box canyons Black Hawk emerged into Sevier and Sanpete counties by way of Salina Canyon, and ravaged the settlements north and south of his exclusive line of retreat. From the mouth of Salina Canyon it is 20 miles to the northeast base of the Pahvant Range; thence northerly 13 miles over the low divide to Round Valley, then a hamlet of perhaps 20 families. A pass leads southwesterly over the range to Holden, then a Village of a half dozen families, 14 miles from Round Valley; thence south 10 miles to Fillmore with a population of probably 400. The localities and distances are indicated because of the important bearing on the desperate courage of Chief Black Hawk and his band in their dash of close to 35 miles and return through an open country, and, as Black Hawk well knew, in defiance of several hundred Utah cavalrymen presumably alert to their every movement. By repeated forays the chief had driven the residents of the smaller settlements of Sevier Valley from their homes to Richfield, 20 miles southwesterly from Salina, whose inhabitants had fled to Gunnison and to other sizeable towns in Sanpete Valley. Such were conditions that by early June, 1866, there was not a white family within 15 or 20 miles of the dimly marked Indian trail from Salina Canyon to Round Valley.