Listening in on our pioneer past

Pioneer Songs

By clicking on the link above you will be treated to several songs sung by the pioneers as they carved civilization out of the West, as sung by their descendants in 1947, when they were recorded for the Library of Congress's Archive of Folk Culture.  These examples were recorded in 1946 and 1947 by Austin Fife and his wife Alta as they gethered songs passed on in the folk tradition—either learned firsthand from the writer or passed down in families and communities.

Of particular interest to the Laws family is a song written about the railroad. William Hart Laws, who was in his 20s, was present at the laying of the last rail at Promontory, Utah. He wrote that he was near the back, not close enough to see the actual driving of the spikes. Directly after the Transcontinental Railroad was finished, he worked on the Utah Central Railway from Ogden to Salt Lake.

A. J. Russell photo of laying of last rail at Promontory

William Hart Laws was here at the laying of the last rail at Promontory, Utah, although he said he was near the back, not close enough to see the actual driving of the spikes. Directly after the Transcontinental Railroad was finished, he worked on the Utah Central Railway from Ogden to Salt Lake. He was in his 20's and not yet married.

Wm. Hart Laws and the Utah Central Railway

In January of 1920, W.H. Laws received a letter from the Utah Central Railway Jubilee Committee inviting him to attend a celebration commemorating the building of the railroad between Ogden and Salt Lake (begun one week after the transcontinental railroad was finished). 

Granddad Laws was 70 years old and living in Richfield at the time.  (It appears that he worked on this railroad 50 years prior, in the years 1869-70.) Unfortunately, he did not receive the letter in time to attend the celebration which included an informal reception, banquet and evening meeting.  I have a copy of both his invitation and his reply letter (I'll post in another post). 


From the invitation info I was able to locate a copy of the original program. You can find it below and in several downloadable formats on the following Web site: http://www.archive.org/details/utahcentralrailr00utahrich


Granddad is listed as W. H. Laws on the last page as a "builder" of the Utah Central Railroad. During the commemorative program I guess they introduced those in attendance according to groups: surveyors, graders, track layers, construction trainmen or train operators, but it doesn't list the jobs by the names of the people who performed them in the program.  Now I am searching for some sort of text of the speech or another document that might indicate what job each person actually performed. 


The big question is, "Does anyone what Grandpa Laws actually did on the railroad?" 

According to a history I have (author unidentified, came with Grandma Fern's books) William H. arrived in Salt Lake City on 29 August 1868 with Captain Seeley's ox train after riding the rails to Laramie, Wyoming from Long Island, New York.  So, if he started right away on the railroad, he would have worked from September 1868 to May 1869, or at the very most, 8 months.  It is assumed he then immediately began work on the Utah Central Railroad.  
Donna Laws Hemingway (see links in the link list) added:


"William H. must have stayed in this business of helping build the railway for some time, at least until 1870 when the tracks were laid all the way to Salt Lake City. We have a copy of an invitation he received to attend the Utah Central Railway Jubilee, and his reply with regrets that he did not get the invitation in time to make the trip." (And then she includes the newspaper article about the celebration). 

Transcontinental service is here!

This is an example of early newspaper display advertising for full schedule transcontinental rail passenger, freight, and express service.

With the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, U.T., on May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific were finally joined after almost six years of construction to complete the first link between the Atlantic and the Pacific to be made entirely by rail. One week later on May 17th, full scheduled transcontinental rail passenger, freight, and express service officially opened to the public for the first time with the commencement of daily east and westbound Express train service by the CPRR over its entire 690 miles of track between Sacramento and Promontory to meet the UPRR's 1,086 mile line to Omaha. (A short time later the official interchange between the lines was moved 61 miles further East to Ogden.)

http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Salt_Lake_Tel_Ads_1869.html#Done