Copied from Annals of Wyoming, vol. 26, pg 7. Excerpt of a letter from Brigham Young to Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated Great Salt Lake City, May 28, 1852.

“With the exception of a few, perhaps fifteen or twenty white men at Fort Bridger and vicinity, who make no improvements nor raise grain, no settlement has been made or attempted upon the Shoshonees or Uinta Utes land. Some twenty years ago the Shoshonees claimed a small tract at the mouth of Weber upon which there is now a settlement,* but abandoned it as the Buffalo receded, and it has since been held by the Cumembahs or Snake Diggers who united by marriage with a broken off band of Shoshonees which the Shoshone Indians do not claim as at all belonging to their nation.”

*East Weber, aka Uintah.

*Despite Brigham Young’s claims here, Mormon settlements already existed on Shoshone and Uinta Ute lands by May 1852. The documentation relating to the lands that were most favored by Mormon settlers frequently underplays or dismisses Native claim to such lands.