159 West 2nd Street
Arthur Stone (1841-1876)
In the 1850s and 1860s it was not uncommon for the Native Americans to come to the settlers’ houses to visit or to ask for things they needed. But it was not considered safe for the settlers to go casually into the Native camps. The white children were cautioned to always stay on the roads, be respectful to the Natives and never go into the Native American camps. Of course, there are always exceptions, and the exception to this protocol was Arthur Stone from England who developed a more personal friendship with some of the young Native bucks.
“Art” was sixteen years old when his parents settled in Bingham’s Fort in 1857. From 2ndStreet he could look into the Native American camps and see young men practicing to be warriors. They would paint their face with different colors of clay, ride bareback and practice horse maneuvers and target shooting, and yell war cries. There were numerous tribes of Indians encamped in the meadows simultaneously and the wicki-ups of the chiefs were decorated with rows and rows of scalps. Art was fascinated.
By the mid-1860s Art was a great favorite with the Indians. They would come to his house on Sunday, when there was never any work in the fields, and Art would be surrounded by a group of Indian bucks; he participated in their games of all kinds. Sometimes it was riding horses, and Art had a wonderful riding horse; the saddle and bridle trappings were ornamented or embroidered beautifully with Indian handwork. He had a wonderful suit of buckskin with leggings, moccasins, etc. to match. Everything he had seemed to be as nice as the greatest chiefs’ sons. The Indians seemed to admire him greatly. His face was painted like the Indian’s faces as he joined them in their games.
Art was a fiddler for dances, and it was not unusual for Native bucks to come to the white community dances. However, the bucks never danced with white girls, just with each other or a white boy; there were always more boys than girls at the dances. But Art took a Native with him to the dances who was handsomely dressed in white doe-skin, heavily embroidered and fringed. He was a beautiful dancer, and he danced with white girls. The girls liked to dance with that Native boy as he could dance as many fancy steps as any of the white boys. [1]
Art Stone built this rock house at 159 West 2nd Street in about 1863. Art’s father, William Stone, was the architect, and they built this sturdy rubble-rock house in a familiar English style with a cellar and an upper half story. At this time all other houses on 2nd Street were log or a few were adobe. Art’s rock house was meant to be a very permanent, long-lasting structure.
Arthur Stone’s niece, Mary Hutchens, recorded that her Uncle Art toured her through his house in about 1869; she said that it was the first house in that part of the county with a cellar underneath. She recalled that she “didn’t like the idea of a cellar under the house and she said, “I don’t like this. Aren’t you afraid it will cave in with all those rocks over us? I wouldn’t like to come down here very often.” Her Uncle Art laughed and said that it couldn’t cave in, as the foundation of the house was also the sides of the cellar.” [2]
His house was more than substantial, but his marriage did not endure. Sarah didn’t like Art playing the violin till late on Saturday nights and then failing to attend church the next day. She desired a more religious husband, and in 1871 she abandoned the children and Art when their third child was less than a year old. It brings to mind the possibility of postpartum depression. The next year she entered a polygamous marriage as the third wife of neighbor Daniel Francis Thomas.
With the help of his mother and siblings, Art raised his children until 1876 when he was killed in a buggy racing accident at the mouth of Weber Canyon. At that time Art's siblings took his orphaned children into their homes.
Alexander Brown
Alex and his brother Jesse Brown were the first Mormon settlers to Weber County, sent by their father in 1848 to take possession of the property purchased from Miles Goodyear. Two years before Art Stone’s death, in 1874, Art Stone sold the rubble rock house and 37-acre farm to Alex Brown. Alex and Amanda lived in the little rock house without electricity or plumbing until about 1890 when they moved to a modern house at 306 2nd Street, very close to Five Points.
Jesse Brown lived on the farm west of Alex which is today’s Down's Drive subdivision In their day Alex and Jesse entertained the boys of the 2nd Street neighborhood with adventure tales of the Mormon battalion along the old Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. Together Alex and Jesse were honored to lead the Lynne pioneer parade on the 24th of July, and they also gave talks around Ogden communities on the early settlement of Weber County.
Thomas Manley (1835-c. 1905) & Margaret Sheridan (1833-1913)
In about 1892 Thomas Manley, age 57, and his wife, Margaret Sheridan Hearn, purchased the little rock house and farmed here for about ten years. [3] They were both born in Ireland; Thomas may have retired from the railroad. The house did not have plumbing, and they used a well in the back yard. After the death of her husband, Margaret lived with her son, James Dennis Hearn, who served as an Ogden policeman for twenty-six years. Margaret gave her property to her son, and perhaps it was James Hearn who updated the 50-year-old rock house by attaching a brick bungalow to the east side of it in about 1911. At this time the upper half story of the rock house was removed, and one roof covered both sections of the house.
James Family Farm
In about 1915 Henry and Genevieve Kelly James purchased the new brick house attached to the old rock house and the 37-acre farm, and in time, they passed the property on to their son Brendan James and his wife Marjorie. The farm remained in the James family for about 80 years. In 2008 Ogden City’s Heritage School was built on five-acres of the historic Art Stone farm.
Rick & Tammy Creeger
Rick and Tammy Creeger purchased the farmhouse in 1995 and put the two-part house on the Ogden City Register of Historic Places in 2020.
[1] - Editor Milton R.Hunter, Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1944, p. 139; Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens, transcribed by Dorothy A. Hutchens, assisted by Laura Hutchens Welker, manuscript, 1933, p. 2, 88, 89
[2] - Ibid, p. 38.
[3] - Ogden City Directory, Thomas Manley, farmer, 1892.