Last week we took a trek to southern Utah to escape – a few
days at least – a grim Salt Lake valley winter. While there we visited the
Jacob Hamblin home in Santa Clara. The house, like many others nearby, was built
using stones from Fort Clara after it was washed away by a flood on New Year’s
Day 1862. It consists of a parlor between two matching ground-floor bedrooms
(one for each wife), cold storage in back where the house extends into the hillside, and a great room
upstairs. The home belongs to Utah State Parks and Recreation, but tours are
provided by missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The
missionaries told us Hamblin was well known for his honesty. Professor A. H.
Thompson of the U.S. Geological survey once said, “I would trust my money, my
life and my honor in the keeping of Jacob Hamblin, knowing all would be safe.” I
can’t think of a better epitaph.
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