The Third Mill
In
1896 the initials "B.Y." and the date "1852" were added
to the south gable of the gristmill.
(Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of
the Utah Pioneers.)
The Third Mill--Chase and Young Become
Partners
Chase's goal was to produce high quality
white flour so he began enlarging the millpond and preparing
for construction of a third, more elaborate mill.
Work had begun on the sandstone foundation when Brigham
Young assigned men to help with the project. A crew,
headed by mill designer Frederick Kesler, ultimately build
the large mill that still stands a few hundred yards to
the south of the Chase Home. Known as both the Chase
Mill and Brigham Young's Lower Mill, it produced white
flour under Isaac Chase's oversight from 1852 until 1860.
The Mill Farm
Map
courtesy of Larry Clarkson |
Within a year of settlement, the
Salt Lake Valley was surveyed, families were assigned
individual plots of land and Chase was given the five-acre
plot on which his first sawmill was located. Young came
to control all of the remaining ninety-five acres in
that section and he built several mills there, including
ones for carding and threshing, creating what was later
recognized as one of the first industrial complexes
in the valley. The section was farmed and overseen by
Chase and commonly called either the Mill Farm, or the
Locust Patch, a reference to the black locust trees
Chase planted with seeds he transported from the East.
Though a formal partnership between Chase and Young
wasn't recorded until 1854, Chase had been farming on
Young's land and Young's mill building crew had worked
on Chase's flour mill well before then, suggesting that
their partnership in the farm and mill had begun several
years earlier.
Chase Home Construction
This is the earliest
existing photograph of the Chase Home.
(Photo courtesy of International Society of Daughters
of Utah Pioneers)
Construction of the Chase Home
Like other pioneer families,
the Chases moved from living in their wagon boxes to the
pioneer fort and ultimately into their own cabin. Chase
built a shanty for his family close to his mills using
logs and lumber from his sawmill. Though the shanty was
continually being enlarged, the family needed ever more
room to house their growing extended family and mill workers.
Finally, during the winter of 1853-54 after substantial
completion of the last flourmill, Chase began construction
of an adobe home.
With help from Young's
mill construction crew, the two-story eight-room Chase
Home was built using a very common central hall floor
plan featuring parlors on either side of a central hallway,
bedrooms upstairs and a cross-wing kitchen projecting
from the back. The exterior, with its symmetrical fa?e
and boxed cornice with gable end returns, was built in
the Greek Revival style popular with early Mormon builders.
The Chase family probably moved into the home well before
its completion in 1856 since a wedding feast for son George
was held there in 1854. Many stories have been passed
down about Phebe cooking bread in her sixteen loaf Dutch
oven to share with hungry neighbors during the grasshopper
plague of 1855.
Adobe Construction
Many of the earliest
structures in the Salt Lake Valley were built from adobes
-- bricks made from sun-dried mud. The
Chase Mill and the Chase Home were built with adobes
made at the Old Church Farm, reportedly one of the best
sources. The farm was located about a mile to the
south of Liberty Park in an area that is now the Forest
Dale Golf Course. Ox teams were used to tramp down and
mix the clay and mud. Then, using wooden forms, workers
shaped the adobes by hand and left them in the sun to
harden and dry. Clay mortar was used to hold them together
and after construction, the surface of adobe structures
was often covered with plaster. On the outside the plaster
helped protect the adobe from moisture and on the inside
it created smooth interior walls.
A worker from Koenig
Construction makes replacement
adobe bricks during the renovation of 2000.
In order to make sure
buildings were stable, adobe bricks were large and walls
were very thick. One benefit of thick walls is that they
provide good insulation keeping the inside either warm
or cool, depending on the season. The wide window ledges
and doorways in the Chase Home show how thick the adobe
walls are.
During
the renovation in 2000, all of the exterior plaster on
the Chase Home was removed to repair damaged adobes. The
contractor used both adobes salvaged from another old
structure in town and adobes they made in the old fashioned
way, by hand, using clay and mud dug up right behind the
home. In order to make the building more structurally
sound and bring it closer to its original design, they
also used adobe bricks to fill in two windows that had
been added to the southeast corner of the home sometime
during the twentieth century. Finally the adobes were
once again covered to protect them from exterior moisture.
Ten thin coats of a mixture of sand, lime, water and adhesive
will allow the building to breathe while safely protecting
the Chase Home adobes for many years to come.
