The Great Virgin River / Santa Clara Flood — Preservation of the Settlers (January 1862)

In early 1862 (January 1862) the Virgin River basin experienced the catastrophic event variously called the “Great Flood” or the “Big Flood.” The river and its tributaries rose to unprecedented heights and torrents swept through settlements along the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers. Iva Balmforth Price’s family history recounts that Alice Parker Balmforth and Charles Balmforth, living in a temporary settlement near the banks of the Virgin River, experienced a distinct spiritual prompting or “warning” to move their meager belongings and livestock immediately to higher ground. Responding to that warning, the Balmforths relocated to a nearby rocky ridge; shortly thereafter the site of their initial dugout and shelter — and the area around it — was completely inundated and swept away, but the timely move preserved the family’s lives and the few supplies they had for the winter. Contemporary histories of the Cotton Mission record that, in January 1862 just months after the arrival of the main Cotton Mission body, the Santa Clara River rose to unprecedented heights, completely washing away Santa Clara’s stone fort, the schoolhouse, and the settlers’ homes. Jacob Hamblin and Mary Adeline Knight appear in the documentary record of that community; the settlers evacuated to the high bluffs just before the floodwaters claimed their shelters, and the entire community of Saints in Santa Clara was preserved from death. Both lines of testimony attribute the evacuations and preservation to providential warning or protection during the same winter flood that destroyed nearby settlements such as Adventure and Grafton.