Joseph Seely, Mayor of the Month ~ June 2011 ~ He served during 1926 and 1927.

The following notes are taken from Hilda Madsen Longsdorf's "History of Mt. Pleasant".

 Pages 184-185:  A conference was held, after a few minutes discussion, they were united and agreed upon calling a mass meeting on the 17th day of February, 1909. At this meeting, Daniel Rasmussen was elected chairman and Joseph Seely secretary. The plan was pre­sented to erect in some suitable place, a large monument in honor of the Pioneers. After a few minutes discussion, this was unanimously agreed upon.

A conference was held, after a few minutes discussion, they were united and agreed upon calling a mass meeting on the 17th day of February, 1909. At this meeting, Daniel Rasmussen was elected chairman and Joseph Seely secretary. The plan was pre­sented to erect in some suitable place, a large monument in honor of the Pioneers. After a few minutes discussion, this was unanimously agreed upon.

Two committees were appointed. One, Ferdinand Ericksen. E. C. Johnson, James Larsen, James Monsen, and Andrew Madsen, to select the character of monument to be erected, and a like com­mittee, consisting of five members, Daniel Rasmussen, Joseph Seely, James Borg, C. W. Anderson and Joseph Monsen, were to devise ways and means by which to raise the necessary funds for the erection of a suitable memorial.

February 27th, another meeting was called and the two com­mittees were consolidated. The committees worked earnestly and it was only by stick-to-it-tive-ness and constant efforts with renew­ed vigor that they were able to make such rapid advancement.

The census of the descendants were taken and an assessment of $35.00 to the family was made. Any male in Mt. Pleasant over ten years of age in 1859, was eligible to have his name on the monument. Some responded promptly, while some were lax. Madsen made a trip to Carbon County, meeting with a number of the descendents at Price and Wellington, who, after receiving full explanation of the progress and intentions of the committee, did not hesitate and at once contributed their portion. In March, a mass meeting was held to prepare for the celebration. The city

appointed the following committee chairmen: 

James Monsen  general chairman; C. N. Lund, program; Daniel Rasmussen,  

decoration; W. D. Candland, finance; Ferdinand Ericksen, amusement; Joseph Seely, entertainment; and also made an appropria­tion of $200.00. The work was completed in due time and a beautiful monu­ment, which is composed of white bronze metal was erected on the northwest corner of the Church Block, intersecting Main and State Streets. It stands upon a cement foundation, ten feet square, and is surmounted by six foot figure representing "Faith" typi­fying the devotion and confidence of the Pioneers. The total height of the monument is twenty-seven feet, six inches. The estimated cost about $2,500.00 p. 194: After the Pioneer Monument was erected and the committee who had charge of it considered their work practically finished. Andrew Madsen proposed that the present committee be dissolved and that a permanent organization be formed, consisting of pio­neers and descendants of pioneers from 1859 to 1869. He further suggested that the present committee, naturally very much inter­ested, be retained and that four women be added to the committee. Later a meeting was held at the North Ward Chapel and an or­ganization formed, the name Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Historical Asso­ciation was adopted. It was decided to meet annually in March. The following officers were elected: President, Andrew Madsen; Vice President, James Larsen; Secretary, Daniel Rasmussen. Treasurer, James Monsen; Directors, Ferdinand Ericksen, Joseph Monsen, Edmund C. Johnson, James Borg, Joseph Seely, Chris­tian W. Anderson, Mr. John H. Seely, Mrs. Henry Ericksen, Mrs. Miranda Omenn, and Mrs. Thomas West. p 203: September 3, 1927, Colonel Charles A. Lindberg, aboard his famous Spirit of St. Louis, flying from Cheyenne, Wyoming, en­ route to Salt Lake City, paused to greet the citizens of Mt. Pleasant. He arrived over the mountains east of the city. Mayor Joseph Seely having received a telegram announcing his intentions, Mt. Pleasant had been gaily decorated for the oc­casion and all was in readiness to receive him. The massive plane from which a message of greeting was dropped, circled low sev­eral times over the city. After a stay of about fifteen minutes, he left by way of Fairview for Salt Lake City.        During 1928, the Mt. Pleasant Press, a weekly newspaper, was published by Margaret DeLay and R. V. Tuve. In 1929, O. M. Aldrich and Sons, Ray and Clair, purchased the building erected and formerly occupied by the Sanpete County Co-op, and there established a general merchandise business. p 238: 1926-27. Mayor, Joseph Seely; Recorder, Calvin Christensen; Treasurer, Effie R. Larsen; Councilors, M. C. Peterson, four years; C. L. Stewart, Paul Monsen, Joseph Monsen, O. F. Wall. p 257:  Alif Ericksen was chosen as president of the North Ward, with Hans Madsen and Joseph Seely as counselors; Lars Christian  Ras­mussen, Secretary. The North Ward Association was re-organized November 2, 1886, as follows: Joseph Madsen, president; Mangus G. Rolph and William Sorensen, counselors. The South Ward Association was re-organized with George Christensen as president; Ferdinand Clark and Lauritz Clark, counselors; Ferdinand Ericksen, Secre­tary. Mangus G. Rolph became president of the Ward February 29, 1888.

p 328:  Other meat dealers were DeLong, Niels Rasmussen, Evan Ivie, and Keen Tidwell. In 1889 the Ericksen Meat & Grocery Company was established by Henry Ericksen and Alif Ericksen. Later Joseph Seely, Al Peterson, John Ericksen, Andrew O. Mad­sen, and Stewart Seely were located on the north side of Main Street, between State and First West. 

Robert H. Hinckley ~ Mayor of the Month ~ May 2011 ~ He Served As Mayor 1924-1925

The following are are references and page numbers to Robert H. Hinckley from Hilda Madsen Longdorf's "History of Mt. Pleasant".

June 24, 1917, Mary Elizabeth, thirteen months old child of Charles M. and Josephine Peterson, was drowned in Twin Creek channel east of the city.

For a number of years, a Traveling Library, free to the public, was sponsored by members of the Twentieth Century Literary Club and the Home Culture Club of Mt. Pleasant.

During Daniel Rasmussen's term as mayor, the Carnegie Li­brary was built, being formally opened to the public, February 15, 1917. This year the Seely-Hinckley building, corner First West and Main, was built by John H. Seely and Robert H. Hinckley.  P 199

In December 1925, during Robert H. Hinckley's term as mayor, the White Way was completed by the paving of Main Street. This was celebrated by an appropriate program and danc­ing on the pavement. This year the Lion's Club was organized in Mt. Pleasant, with Charles Eatinger as president, and Earl F. Gardemann, as secretary. P 202

The new city hall was dedicated August 23rd. Following  aparade, a program was held on the steps of the building. Senator Ed Johnston presided. Invocation was offered by Daniel  Rasmussen and the dedicatory prayer by C. W. Sorensen, and an historical sketch was given by Mrs. S. D. Longsdorf. Talks by Judge.  George Christensen, of Price; Robert H. Hinckley, of Ogden, Chairman Civil Aeronautics Commission; and Darrell Greenwell, of Salt Lake City, State WP A Director, who also, in behalf of the WP A, presented the building to Mt. Pleasant. The response and acceptance speech was given by Councilman A. L. Peterson. Mus­ical numbers were rendered by Mr. and Mrs. Roger Hansen, Dean and Wayne Peterson, Grant, Vernon, and Don Johansen, Mrs. G. B. Madsen, Mrs. S. H. Gill, and Mrs. H. G. Ericksen. P 207-208

1924-25. Mayor, Robert H. Hinckley; Recorder, Calvin Christen­sen; Teasurer, Effie R. Larsen; Councilors, O. F. Wall, four years; P. A. Poulsen, Joseph Matson, M. C. Petersen, Joseph Johansen Jr.

P 238

W. D. Candland ~ Mayor of the Month ~ April 2011

The following are references to W.D. Candland in the " History of Mt. Pleasant" by Hilda Madsen Longsdorf: 

    May 1893, the Mt. Pleasant Electric Light

Company filed articles of incorporation, with William Zabriskie, President, and     W. D. Candland as Secretary  p 172

There

were fully 500,000 head of sheep owned in the county, and with Mt. Pleasant,

the Queen City of Sanpete, fast becoming the commercial center, two prominent

wool companies were formed. In 1893 the Mt. Pleasant Wool & Live Stock

Company was organized by N. S. Nielsen, J. H. Seely, F. C. Jensen, James

In

1895 :

W.D. Candland was elected on the Republican ticket as the .first Senator from

Sanpete County.

February 1906, the North Sanpete Bank was

incorporated with a capital stock of $50,000.00. W. D. Candland,      president; A.

J. Aagard, vice president; and H. C. Beaumann, cashier. They were installed in

their new building on the 

north side of Main Street, midway between State and

First West. p 183

June

18, 1918, during W. D. Candland's term as mayor, Mt. Pleasant was visited by a

number of floods, one being the biggest in the history of the city. Great

boulders and rocks were carried with the stream of mud, damaging bridges and

fences, sweeping down the streets and through city lots, covering gardens and

filling basements, and completely filling the channels with debris, rocks, etc.

One life was lost, that of Louis Oldham, who, near his home east of the city,

slipped and fell into the stream. Some days later, his body was found in the

debris west of the city.

A few days after the flood, a group of convicts were

sent from the state penitentiary to assist in clearing out Pleasant Creek

channel. Many local men volunteered their assistance. p 200  

1918-19. Mayor, W. D.

Candland; Recorder, A. O. Neilson;    

     Treasurer, Hannah Barnette;

Councilors, John Gunderson, four

years; A. E. Mcintosh,

James Monsen, O. M. Aldrich, Bent R. Hansen. p 238

The flood gave W. D.

Candland and his associates financial and other troubles. A $25,000.00 bond

issue was voted for the purpose of piping pure spring water into the waterworks

system.

And now my friends, we

are in the hands of the undertaker. (Note: The mayor at that time, Bent R.

Hansen, was also an undertaker. ) p 242

It will perhaps be proper to

here give the names of those, who,

in addition to those

heretofore mentioned, assisted in instructing the youth up to about the year

1880.  Joseph S. Day, Joseph Page, John

Carter, Jeramiah D. Page,  Christina

Bertelsen,  Lucy Wheelock, Hans Jorgen

Shultz, Mrs. H. J. Hutchinson, John T. Henniger,  ­Eli A. Day, and Hilda Dehlin were those who

now come to the  memory of the writer.

A little later and in the

order given, the following teachers came upon the scene: Samuel H. Allen, Amasa

Aldrich, Abram Johnson, H. P. Jensen, Tina M. Morrison, Au­gusta Dehlin, Hans

Madsen, Joseph Madsen, George Christensen, C. W. Sorensen, William 1. Tidwell,

Ferdinand Ericksen, Ida Dehlin, Cecelia Winters, Olof C. Anderson, W. D.

Candland, and Som X. Christensen.  

pp 268,269

318

                        EXCERPTS FROM ADDRESS

             By W. D. Candland,

1922

I remember the days when the big drum was heard, and

the women, with blanched faces and trembling limbs, gathered their children

around them and fled to the fort; how men, with grim set faces, took their

ever-ready rifles from the wall and hastened to the square, ready to meet the

merciless, treacherous foe, know­ing how he lurked in the shadows, or stealthily

crawled on his belly to get near enough to fire a deadly shot. How the stoutest

hearts quailed when that blood-curdling yell broke on the still night air,

knowing it meant death in the most horrible form that the fiends could devise,

unless they could for the time beat them back.

I have watched the small hamlet founded by that brave and hardy band,

through all the vicissitudes of frontier perils, grow into a beautiful,

prosperous city. I have known their lives and aspirations, their hopes and fears,

and as they have been gathered one by one into the fold of the great beyond.

I desire to follow, for a few moments, another line of thought, and ask

you this question:

Did these things just happen in a haphazard way, or was there an

impelling, guiding force that actuated and directed events and caused men to

come here who were needed, whose training in various avocations, made them

exceedingly valuable in the new order of things?

If you say it was just an accident, you will admit at least it was

fortunate that William S. Seely, who had such a happy faculty of making friends

with the Indians, settled here.

Wasn't it fortunate that men and women settled here who could make the

things that were so sadly needed? That John Tidwell could make tubs and churns

and pails out of wood, bound

with

wooden hoops? That James Porter could take the hide from the ox and make it

into leather and then into shoes? That Abram Day knew how to survey and build

roads and sawmills? That Fechser and others knew how to build a flour mill?

That P. M. Peel could fashion things from iron and make a threshing ma­chine?

That Erick Gunderson was a carpenter? That Alma Staker

319

and Paul Dehlin could

make furniture? That Wellington Seely could set broken bones and pull teeth?

But most fortunate and most wonderful of all were the women, brave as their

husbands, and even more industrious, who could shear the sheep, wash, card, and

spin the wool, weave it into cloth, then make from the cloth raiment for the

whole family and the blankets and sheets they slept in. The men did nobly, but

my admiration and- respect, my profound reverence, is for the women who not

only performed their full measure of the work, but went many times into the

shadows of the valley of death in the throes of motherhood; their names are not

engraved on the monument, but they are enshrined in the archives of heaven and

are hallowed in the immutable love of Almighty God. Be you Mormon, Jew, or

Gentile, it is your privilege to determine in your own mind whether these

things all came by chance, or by some irresistible governing power.

Would

that our forefathers, who have passed beyond, might have lived to see and enjoy

the fruits of their labors as we now do.

ADDRESS BY  W. D. CANDLAND  

                        1932

      This is the seventy-third anniversary of

the founding of Mt. Pleasant.

What

wonderful changes have taken place since then. Con­sider the train of events

that has led up to the settlement of this place. In the short period of less

than thirty years, people from many countries had trickled into Mt. Pleasant,

Utah. If it had not been for an announcement of a new plan of salvation, made

in 1830, I doubt that any of us would be here today. And what sort of men and

women were they who came here? Those of us who can remember the first Seelys,

Bartons, Reynolds, Monsens, Madsens, Christensens, Rasmussens, Peels, Larsens,

Sorensons, and all those names recorded on the Pioneer monument. Such people

are the salt of the earth, they tilled the soil and planted trees, and they

built a beautiful little city with fine homes, churches, and schools.

In

the short space of seventy years the little settlement blos­somed into a

thriving, prosperous farming community of three thousand inhabitants; two banks

had opened.  But as opportunity

320

was limited, many of her

sons and daughters had moved on to newer fields in other counties and other

states.

As this is a

historical narrative, it seems proper to discuss some history that is now in

the making. During the war, prices climbed to levels never dreamed of before.

Money was plenti­ful and people acquired extravagant habits; stocks and bonds

sold far above their actual value. Farm lands in this vicinity went up to $225

an acre. Butter went up to 90c a pound, eggs to 75c a dozen, cattle and sheep

went up out of sight. So the thrifty man, who had a little spare money, went to

the bank and de­posited it, saying to the cashier, "Here is some money I

want to leave with you, and I want you to pay me some interest on it." The

cashier informed him, "We can only do that by lending it to some farmers

who will give us a mortgage on his farm to secure it. Of course, we cannot pay

you unless he pays us, but we can take his farm." Now the only security

the people in agricultural communities have to offer is their farm and

livestock. If a bank is to serve its people, it must accept as security for

loans that which they have to offer.

In this transaction we

set up a triangle, the depositor, the banker, and the borrower. The arrangement

is perfect, but it all depends on the borrower's ability to pay. Now, what hap­pened?

Prices began to go down. The farmer went to the bank and said the price of

wheat has gone from $2.50 a bushel to 50c a bushel.  The dairyman says, "Butter has declined

from 90c to 25c." The sheep man says, "Wool has gone down from 40c a

pound to 12c. We cannot pay the money we owe, not even the interest due."

The cattleman, the poultryman all have the same tale of woe. But says the

banker, "We must have some money. Mr. Depositor demands his money, which

we lent to you, and which you agreed to pay back at a certain time."

"But," says the borrower, "I just haven't got it. I can't sell

anything to get it. I am awfully disappointed. I guess you will just have to

take the farm." If this situation were true of only one line, it would not

be so bad. But when it is true of all lines, a deplorable condition exists. At

this time, Mr. Depositor goes to the bank and demands his money; not one

depositor only, but all the depositors. There is not enough money in any bank

in the country to pay all the

 321

depositors at one

time. So the banker says, "We cannot pay you now; if you will wait until

these farmers, cattle, and sheepmen, and poultrymen and dairymen pay up, you

will get your money. But the depositor says, "No, I want it now." The

law says in such cases the bank commissioner shall take charge of the bank and

close it up. Now, who. is to blame? The depositor, in good faith, left his

money with the bank expecting to get it in due time. The bank lent it to the

farmer expecting he would return it as prom­ised. The farmer expected to sell

his products for money enough to pay at the appointed time. It is no fault of

his that the bottom dropped out of everything. He couldn't foresee, neither

could the banker, nor the depositor, that the whole world would be suddenly

turned upside down. If the borrower knew these things would happen he should

not have borrowed the money. If the banker knew, we should not have loaned the

money. If the depositor knew, he should not have deposited the money. Neither

of the triangle is to blame. And each one must take his share of the

responsibility. Did each one think he was doing for the best? Did each act in

good faith? I think they did. If I may be per­mitted at this time, I would like

to say for the bank that I was connected with, that its every act was taken

with the full belief that it was in accordance with the law, with good banking

practice, and for the best interest of all concerned. Every officer or stockholder

who borrowed from the bank was required to put up ample security. The loan was

passed on by the board and ap­proved by the bank examiner. Every one of them

will be paid. The bank set up a secondary reserve of thirty thousand dollars in

bonds. It had the backing and approval of its Salt Lake Cor­respondent Bank,

and that bank on the very morning it was decided not to open, offered to lend

us seventy five thousand dollars, but we knew that would only delay the

inevitable. While the situation is lamentable, we cherish the knowledge that

not a whisper of wrong done can be truthfully brought against the management of

the bank. I think I can say the same thing for the other bank in this town. If

we were the only ones that had failed you might think we were at fault, but

when you know that

322

twenty-five banks in

Utah closed their doors in the last few months, that hundreds of banks all over

this country have failed, that banks, and even governments in Europe have

failed, that the bank of England, supposed to be the soundest financial

institution in the world, was shaken to its very foundation, that every bank in

Utah has had anxious moments, you realize that we are only a small part of a

world-wide disaster. I watched a run on Zion's Savings Bank a few years ago. I

saw people draw their money and then wonder what to do with it. I talked with a

policeman, a former Mt. Pleasant boy, who told me people called him in all

hours of the night asking what to do to protect their money. They had it and

were afraid of being robbed, which is exactly what did happen to some of them.

Tell me, what is the best thing to do now. The matter is in the hands of the

depositors of the two local banks. If they want to drive the banking department

in the time of financial depression, to foreclose on these borrowers and sell

their property for virtually nothing, they can make of Mt. Pleasant the

blackest spot in America. They can depreciate the security they hold for their

money to ten cents on the dollar, and thus suffer a loss themselves. Or they

can say, "No, we will sit tight and wait; things will come back."

There is no better

security in the world than a good farm. It may not pay much, it may not sell

readily, but it won't burn up, it won't run away, and it will produce something

to live on. It is safer than government bonds; much safer than European govern­ment

bonds, and when a good farm in this country has no value, the country won't be

any good either. Be patient, give the borrower time to work out his problem.

The government of the United States has recognized the awful condition and has

provided some relief, but we must help our­selves and cooperate, or it will do

us no good. Will the record of the next few years be a time of blight and

despair, or will it be mutual cooperation and material progress?