Orson Clark-11/23/81 - Pg 2

pioneers, he came from North Canyon where he had spent the winter, in the spring of 1850. He settled right out here, west of where my house is. Now that country, from here it came down and then there was quite a little hill and then it dropped off to the railroad. Right on the top of that hill he dug a well to get water, culinary water. My brother Ed said he saw it when they were excavating there. He accumulated qμite a little property. But at one time he owned all the property on what is now state street, from the railroad up to Second West.

Interviewer: That is a lot of property.

Orson Clark: He owned on both sides of the street. Now, I don't know the cause for it or the whereabouts, but he had the two families. One family, it seemed as though, had homes on the north side of the street and those of the other family had homes on the south side. Like I say, I don't know how that came about but there was Mary Stevenson, his first wife, was on the north side. And Susan Legate's [Susan Leggett's] family on the south side. However, they were very friendly, the families both.

Interviewer: How long did you live in that house in which you were born?

Ruth Knowlton: Do you mean raised?

Interviewer: Yes; raised. Did you grow up in that house, the second house?

Orson Clark: The Rock House?

Interviewer: Yes, the Rock House.

Orson Clark: The folks moved the family down because of the conditions. My father, Edward B. Clark, was running the farm for his father. There was that distance with the horse and buggy from uptown to down here. so they just exchanged homes. So I was raised in what is known as the Old Rock House.

Interviewer: That's interesting. What are some of your earliest memories of the house and the farm?

Orson Clark: Well, the house was well built. In the beginning, they built a room or two of adobe. Then they built the outside of rocks.

Interviewer: Around the adobe?

Orson Clark: On the outside of the adobe. As a result, that house was a very warm house in the wintertime and very cool in the summertime. It was a very comfortable home to live in, quite appropriate. My father was one of the first ones to put into his