Entertainment at the Chase Home

Photo of salon musicians typical of the late nineteenth century when the Chase Home was a popular place for old-time dance parties. (Photo courtesy of the Lynn Clark Historical Collection, St. George)

From the very early years, the Chase Family was known for their hospitality.  Even while living in the shanty, before they moved into the two-story adobe Chase Home, they hosted dances at the Mill Farm by laying boards down on the old sawmill floor.  Later the home's large rear kitchen later became the place where young people often gathered informally in the evenings to dance a Cotillion or a Scottish Reel to the sound of a fiddle. After traveling to this "out-of-town resort" by sled in the winter or by buggy in the summer, they pushed back the table along with Phebe's spinning wheel, and sometimes danced until the morning.  Afternoon teas in the parlor were another Chase tradition featuring the music of the family pump organ, carefully transported across the plains along with the all-important mill equipment and black locust seeds.  Not only young people, but also many pioneers of 1847 as well as Brigham Young and other community leaders were all frequent visitors.

 

Chase-Young Partnership Ends

Many members of Chase's extended family of wives, children and grandchildren lived in the home during the 1850s.  But towards the end of that decade, the partnership between Chase and Young seems to have changed, and Young gained more control over the activities at the mill and on the farm.   In 1857 Chase's step-daughter and Young's wife, Clarissa, died at the young age of 43.  Then in 1859 Chase's two polygamous wives, Elizabeth Calvert Chase and Charlotte Walters Felshaw Chase and their children, as well as Chase's son George and his wives and children, all moved to Centerville.  By early 1860, Chase had left the Mill Farm with his first wife Phebe and their daughter and grandson, Harriet Louisa and George Whitney, to live in a home in downtown Salt Lake, purchased from Young.  He lived in that home for just over a year, passing away in 1861 at age 69. 

Concurrently Brigham Young Jr. and his family moved into the home taking over management of the flourmill and the farm.  The home remained in the Young family and was occupied by family members and other millers until the late 1870s when development east of the farm cut the flow of water and the mill was no longer productive.  In 1881 the entire Mill Farm was sold to Salt Lake City Corporation for $27,000 as part of the probate of Young's estate, following his death at age 76 in 1877.

 

The Twentieth-Century Chase Home

During the early 20th Century, the home was a residence
for Salt Lake City Parks employees.
(Photo courtesy the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers)

In 1883, the Mill Farm became Salt Lake's Liberty Park, a green space devoted to public recreation. The Chase Home, located right in its center, became a residence for city employees. The first park employee to live there was Superintendent Charles Henry Wilcken, formerly a miller who worked at the flour mill in earlier years. He lived in the home from 1882 until 1915. For the next half century the Chase Home housed park employees, while the Brigham Young 1852 Mill, as it became known, weathered several attempts to tear it down, serving as a blacksmith shop, a shelter for animals, and storage.

In 1933 the mill was taken over by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) for offices and a relic hall, and in 1964, the Chase Home also became a DUP relic hall and was filled with furnishings from the pioneer era. In the early 1980's, a century after the farm became a park, a partnership between the Utah Arts Council and Salt Lake City resulted in the renovation of the interior of the Chase Home for use as an art gallery.

Since 1987 the annual Mondays in the Park concerts attract
audiences to the Chase Home on summer evenings.

For several years the Chase Home displayed the State Fine Art Collection. In 1986 the Utah Arts Council's Folk Arts Program moved into the home and since has offered exhibits of the State Folk Arts Collection and concerts featuring Utah folk and ethnic performers.