Lee's Ferry was a remote crossing of the Colorado River where geography, exile, and religious settlement converged. First a crucial route through the Kingdom of Deseret and the source of a meager livelihood for John D. Lee, it later sheltered polygamous families and helped connect the settlement of Short Creek to the movement that took root there.

Setting and Strategic Importance

At a sweeping bend in the Colorado River, Lee's Ferry lay just below the lowest rapids of Glen Canyon and upstream from the river's descent into the Grand Canyon. For many miles it was the only place where travelers could cross the torrent. That scarcity made the desert site strategically important to the Kingdom of Deseret: Saints journeying between Utah and Mormon settlements in Arizona and Mexico, along with occasional Gentile prospectors, depended on the crossing.

The ferry was a small wooden scow operated by Lee. Its location made it more than a local service point: it joined distant settlements across a difficult stretch of river and situated its operator along a route used by both Mormon travelers and outsiders.

John D. Lee's Exile

After the Mountain Meadows massacre, Brigham Young feared that Lee might be arrested and disclose damaging information about the church. During an excursion with John Wesley Powell in 1870, Brigham instructed Lee to take his wives and children into the wilderness and settle far from Washington and Iron Counties. Lee responded without enthusiasm, but Brigham insisted. A month later, he excommunicated Lee, who was sent to the upper end of the Grand Canyon to run the ferry.

Lee called the isolated settlement Lonely Dell; it later became known as Lee's Ferry. Operating the crossing provided him with a meager living. The order also reshaped his family life: eleven of his wives divorced him, and only two of his remaining spouses eventually joined him at the outpost. His local ties endured, however. When a U.S. marshal arrested Lee in 1874, he was visiting one of his remaining wives in Panguitch.

A Settlement Sustained Across Generations

After Lee was captured and jailed in 1874, the LDS Church recruited Warren M. Johnson to move to the river's north bank with his two wives and children. His assignment was to help Lee's wife maintain the crossing. On June 12, 1888, one of Johnson's wives gave birth there to LeRoy Johnson, later known as Uncle Roy, who rose to become a prophet of the fundamentalist church.

The river settlement thus acquired a place in the movement's family and leadership history as well as its geography. Johnson's descendants were among the polygamous residents whose connections to Lee's Ferry would later link the outpost to Short Creek.

From River Crossing to Fundamentalist Haven

After the Manifesto, the remoteness of Lee's Ferry made it especially attractive to polygamists. Short Creek, an isolated settlement on the Arizona Strip founded in 1911, also became a haven for those who continued plural marriage. By the early twentieth century, close ties joined the two communities, including ties among the Johnson family at Lee's Ferry.

When improved access brought increasing numbers of outsiders through Lee's Ferry in 1928, some members of the Johnson clan, including LeRoy, moved to Short Creek. It remained farther off the beaten track and therefore less likely to attract cohabitation hunters. Lee's Ferry's historical significance consequently extends beyond Lee's own exile: its river crossing supported a succession of travelers and residents, while its remote setting helped shape the geography and continuity of the polygamous communities that became associated with Short Creek.