CALL'S FORT ESTABLISHED—ACTS AS DEPUTY U. S. MARSHAL—MISSION TO COLONIZE CARSON VALLEY—OPPOSES ENTRANCE OF ARMY—ABANDONS AND PREPARES TO BURN HOME—THE "MOVE" SOUTH—BROTHER KILLED BY INDIANS—CALL'S LANDING ESTABLISHED—HIS LAST DAYS.

In the fall of 1854, Anson's ability as a colonizer was again called into requisition. He opened a large farm in Box Elder County at a place since known as Call's Fort, one of the purposes being to find employment for poor Saints brought from Europe by the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company. He sowed forty acres of grain, and wintered a number of poor families there.

On New Years Day, 1855, Anson made a feast for all of his father's family. It was the last gathering of the Call family during the life of Father Call.

At the general conference in April, 1855, Anson was given another mission to go to Fillmore and settle up the business connected with the building of the State House at that place, which he accomplished in twelve days, then returned home.

In May, 1855, the United States Marshal for the territory, Joseph L. Heywood, appointed Anson to act as his deputy, and left the business connected with his office for him to care for while he went on a trip to California. That same year the grasshoppers were very destructive, and Anson spent much time trying to prevent their ravages, and suffered a heavy loss of crops as well.

Brigham Young having counseled Anson to build a fort on his farm in Box Elder County for the protection of the settlers, he constructed a stone wall, enclosing a space of 120 feet square, the wall being three feet thick and six feet high.

The notorious Judge W. W. Drummond having arrived in Utah to hold court, Anson, as Marshal Heywood's deputy, escorted him to Fillmore, and made the necessary arrangements for the session of his court, which was in session two weeks, and adjourned in January, 1856.

On the 16th of March, 1856, Anson's mother died in Bountiful, aged sixty-five years.

At the general conference in April, 1856, Anson was again called upon a colonizing mission, this time to Carson Valley, then in Western Utah, but now a part of Nevada. After a strenuous experience he arrived home from there October 13th, 1856. His wife Mariah also accompanied him on this mission, and remained there after he returned; in fact, she did not return until the summer of 1857, arriving in Utah soon after word was received of the approach of Johnston's army.

On the 28th of October he started in charge of thirteen teams furnished by North Canyon Ward to go to the relief of the hand-cart companies, who, while en route across the plains, were then perishing in the snow. They traveled to the Rocky Ridge, three hundred miles from Salt Lake Valley, were absent thirty-three days, and were successful in rescuing a large number who would otherwise doubtless have perished. In February, 1857, Anson again exhibited his faith by taking two additional wives, both of whom crossed the plains in hand-cart companies. The first of these was Margaretta Clark, of Nottingham, born May 28, 1828, the other being Emma Summers, born in Worcester, England, August 1828.

In the latter part of 1857, as the army (whose supposed purpose was to drive the "Mormons" from their homes or exterminate them) was nearing Utah, Anson and his two sons went forth to assist in their people's defense. Anson and his son Chester assisted in building fortifications in Echo Canyon, and his son Vasco was doing scout duty in the region of Green River. In the spring of 1858, when preparations were in progress for abandoning homes and burning them if necessary rather than have them possessed by the enemy, Anson stored four thousand pounds of flour at Payson, to be available for the support of his family, and later removed his family to the shore of Utah lake, below Provo. Before leaving their home they prepared it and their other buildings for burning at a moment's notice. Fortunately that extremity was never reached, for the family returned and reoccupied their home on the 4th of July following.

About the 1st of October, 1858, Anson received a visit from his brother Josiah, whose home was at Fillmore. After a short stay he set out to return to his home, accompanied by a friend named Samuel Brown. When near Chicken Creek in Juab County, on their homeward journey, they were ambushed by Indians, and both killed. When their bodies were found on the 15th of October they had been partially devoured by coyotes.

On April 9, 1861, Anson showed his faith by complying with the Bible rule requiring a man to marry and care for his brother's widow, by taking to wife Henrietta Williams Call, whose husband was killed by Indians as already mentioned. She had six children and he reared them to maturity, treating them as well as his own offspring.

At the general conference in October, 1864, Anson, in connection with others, was given a mission to establish a colony near the Colorado river. The merchants of Salt Lake City had such difficulty in securing the necessary supply of merchandise, either from the east or from California, owing to the long distance it had to be hauled in wagons and the limited season during which the roads were passable, that the idea occurred to some one that, if shipped by steamboat up the Colorado river to as high a point as possible and there stored in a warehouse the cost of freighting might be materially reduced. It was thought too that immigrants might be brought to Utah by the same route with advantage. The merchants and others organized a company to build and own a warehouse on the Colorado river, and they employed Anson to act as their agent in carrying into effect a part of this scheme. He accordingly started about the 1st of November with a company to locate a road to the most suitable place on the Colorado river, and there build a landing and warehouse. This he did to the satisfaction of those who employed him, and returned home in March, 1865. After remaining home about one month he went again to Call's Landing on the Colorado river, accompanied by his wife Mary, and returned two and a half months later.

On the 4th of August, 1867, Anson's eldest son, Anson Vasco, while returning from a mission to Europe, upon which he had been absent nearly three and a half years, died at Rock Creek, on the Laramie Plains, four hundred and twenty-three miles east of Salt Lake. He was a young man of great promise, and his death was keenly felt by his family and friends.

On the 28th of October, 1870, Anson accompanied by his wife Mary and sister-in-law, Mrs. Hannah Holbrook, started on a visit to their numerous relatives in Ohio, Vermont and other places in the east, from which they returned home in January, 1871.

In 1872 Anson accompanied the Palestine party, of which President George A. Smith was the leader, to England, and spent five months traveling in Great Britain and Ireland.

When the Davis County Stake of Zion was organized in 1877 Anson became counselor to President Wm. R. Smith, his son Chester succeeding him as Bishop of Bountiful, formerly North Canyon Ward.

The later years of Anson's life were spent in comparative peace and quietude, largely on his farm in Davis County, where, surrounded by his numerous family, he set an example of thrift and industry. But, though relieved of those strenuous duties of pioneering that occupied so much of his time in earlier years, his time was still to a very great extent devoted to laboring for the public welfare, but chiefly in Davis County, where, as a member of the Stake presidency, he was looked up to as a safe and reliable leader, who was just as ready to sacrifice his own interests and devote his influence and energies to the public weal as he had been during his more vigorous days.

He retained the use of his faculties up to the last, and died at eighty years of age, honored and respected by all who knew him, leaving to his numerous posterity an untarnished record of service and devotion to the cause of Truth.

Anson Call depended upon no man for his knowledge of the truth of "Mormonism." His confidence in the Lord was supreme. His loyalty to the Church and the Church leaders was unwavering. His consecration to the service of the Lord was without reservation, and from the time he embraced "Mormonism" up to the very day of his death he hesitated at no sacrifice required of him in that service. Many made greater pretensions to piety than he did, but no man surpassed him in sincere devotion to the cause of God and in the modest practice of true religion as he understood it, and this included strict honesty, charity, self-denial and unfeigned love. He had a large family—six wives and twenty-three children in all, though only eighteen grew to maturity and had families. He was a kind and provident husband and father, but exacting withal. He had strict ideas of duty, and expected every member of his household to conform thereto.

He was essentially a man of peace. That he did not lack courage, was amply proven by the personal risk he deliberately assumed in numerous instances throughout his life, but he was wise enough to see that the ends so often sought by quareling and fighting might be more easily and effectively attained by peaceful methods, and so he advocated and practiced peace and discountenanced strife and contention.

At no time in Anson Call's life was he really wealthy; in fact, he was generally financially strained in carrying out his numerous enterprises; yet he never contented himself with simply providing for his own family; but always sought to give employment to many others, and not always because of their being profitable employes.

One of the most striking characteristics that Anson Call possessed was his ability to return good for evil. If he was ever wronged by any one he attributed the act to the ignorance or prejudice of the individual, and felt it to be his duty to impress that person with the friendliness of his motives, and would go out of his way to do him a kindness. He was full of charity, and abhorred a disposition to harbor malice.

Anson Call never betrayed a trust. When he gave his promise or conceived it to be his duty to do anything it was as good as done. If he had adopted "Do it now" as his motto he could scarcely have been more prompt in action throughout life. He was the very embodiment of probity. The Church authorities understood his character, and when they required anything of him they had the utmost confidence that he would not only do it promptly but well, for it was his habit to give his very best service to whatever task he undertook. He was not a theorist, not given to much meditation; but quick in deciding and instant in executing. He was essentially a man who did things. His energy was boundless; his perseverance unlimited.