Grafton, Washington County, Utah Genealogy

United States Utah  Washington  Grafton

History
Grafton is a ghost town in Washington on the South side of the Virgin River. Originally settled in 1859, forty days of straight rain flooded washed away much of the original farm lands and town was reestablished on Jan 1862. Residents of Virgin saw the houses of Grafton go floating by.

Grafton is famous as the site where part of the movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was filmed. It is located across the Virgin River from present day Rockville, which is at the South entrance to Zion's National Park.

Location

 * GPS Location: 37°10′02″N 113°04′48″W

Time Line

 * 1859, December: First Settled, assigned to plant cotton
 * 1862, January 8: Settlement completely flooded after 40 days of rain
 * 1862: Rebuilt 1.5 miles north from original site and renamed Grafton after Grafton Massachusetts
 * 1866 to 1867: County seat of Kane County
 * 1866: Removed to Rockville, Indian concerns
 * 1882: Boundary realignment put Grafton in Washington County
 * 1890: Resettlement was sparse due to flooding and irrigation problems; 20 families remained
 * 1921: Town was nearly abandoned; LDS church branch discontinued
 * 1944: No known residents

[The following is copied from Wikipedia.]

Old Grafrton was first settled near here in December 1859 as part of a southern Utah cotton-growing project ordered by Brigham Young (see Utah's Dixie). A group led by Nathan Tenney in company with Benjamin Platt and Henry Barney and others from Fort Harmony and Virgin City established a new settlement they called Wheeler. The tillable land was divided between the six families settling the area. Wheeler didn't last long; it was largely destroyed on the night of January 8, 1862 by a weeks-long flood of the Virgin River.[3] The rebuilt town, about a mile and a half upriver, was named New Grafton, after Grafton, Massachusetts.[2]

The town grew quickly in its first few years. There were some 28 families by 1864, each farming about an acre (0.4 hectare) of land.[4] The community also dug irrigation canals and planted orchards, some of which still exist. Grafton was briefly the county seat of Kane County, from January 1866 to January 12, 1867,[5] but changes to county boundaries in 1882 placed it in Washington County.[6]

Flooding was not the only major problem. One particular challenge to farming was the large amounts of silt in Grafton's section of the Virgin River. Residents had to dredge out clogged irrigation ditches at least weekly, much more often than in most other settlements. Grafton was also relatively isolated from neighboring towns, being the only community in the area located on the south bank of the river. In 1866, when the outbreak of the Black Hawk War caused widespread fear of Indian attacks, the town was completely evacuated to Rockville.[4]

Continued severe flooding discouraged resettlement, and most of the population moved permanently to more accessible locations on the other side of the river. By 1890 only four families remained. The end of the town is usually traced to 1921, when the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was discontinued.[7] The last residents left Grafton in 1944.