AVARBON VALLEYIDAHO · OUR SHARED HISTORY
FAMILY HISTORY · PAULINE AND WEST FORK AREA

Daniels

From Malad, Idaho · earlier Wales (Carmarthenshire); the Dives stepfamily English (Sussex)

Six children of the Welsh pioneer Thomas Daniels of Malad — Thomas D., David M. and John M. “Donum,” and their half-siblings Jennett Price, Henry and George — took up land at the north end, in the Big Meadows below the West Fork spring and at Pauline. Their Rattlesnake Creek water right shares the earliest settler priority (1892) in the 1907 Bannock Creek Decree, United States v. Daniels, which bears the family name; the family account dates David’s coming to 1885. Most of the Big Meadows land is now within the Fort Hall Reservation, but sons and grandsons farmed at Pauline into the 1930s, and T. C. Daniels’s family kept the Arbon store from the 1940s.

Arrived
By 1892 (decreed water priority); March 1885 by the family account no later than
Homesteads and land
17 places on the map below ↓
People recorded
28 across 4 generations ↓
Follow them on the valley map ▶6 photographs ↗
Photograph from Thomas Daniels
Photograph from Thomas DanielsDate unknown
FOREWORD · THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT

From the family history

The account first written for this family on ArbonValley.com, kept in full. The chapters after it add what the records and the other family histories tell.

The Daniels family has been in the Arbon Valley since 1885 when David Moroni Daniels applied for a water right on the Bannock Creek drainage. This water came from West Fork, on the north-west end of the valley. At least five Daniels settled in the West Fork: David, Henry, Jennette Daniels Price and her husband Thomas Price (their water was dated 1891), and John M. (“Donham”) Price. The way the water was set up, the tribal members, who had 812 acres, had first right of the water, while the owners of the “Big Meadows” in West Fork had second rights – these were the Bolingbroke, Lusk, and Price families. Dave Daniels had third rights, and Henry Daniels and Tom Price had the next right, granted in 1891.

In 1934, much of this land was returned by the government to the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation. Before the government took back the land, many families had homesteaded the area known as the Big Meadows. At one time the area boasted its own log school house, where the LDS Meadows Ward met on Sundays. Today the only evidence of by-gone homesteaders are the occasional wild yellow rose bushes they planted, and one cement cellar with a rounded roof under a large shade tree. No Daniels families live in Arbon today.

Source: Ward, Laurie Jean, Bannock Valley (Providence, Utah: Keith Watkins and Sons, 1982).

THEIR STORY · FROM THE RECORDS

Their story

By the family account (Zella Daniels Bolingbroke, in Bannock Valley), David Moroni Daniels came in March 1885 while snow still lay deep; West Fork was known for milder winters than the valley to the south. The original ArbonValley.com dates his water-right application to 1885 and its grant to 1887, from the West Fork spring; neither has been found in the land, water-decree or newspaper records searched. The oldest Daniels records are the Rattlesnake Creek right of Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels, decreed in 1907 with a priority of April 1, 1892, and Gertrude Daniels’s desert-land claim of July 17, 1895, in the Big Meadows, patented in 1901 — the first Daniels title. Dave’s ranch stood above the mouth of West Fork; he became a large cattleman (600 head were assessed to him in 1913), leasing grazing on the reservation and along the Snake, and in 1911 he was named “to confer with the Indians” about a road through the reservation. He later turned to business in Pocatello; his obituary calls him a hotel man and cattleman.

Six of Thomas Daniels Sr.’s children took up land here: Thomas D., David M. and John M. “Donum” (children of Mary Davis) and their half-siblings Jennett Daniels Price, Henry and George (children of Jennett Thomas Dives). They filed together at the Blackfoot land office in March 1901 — Jennett and Henry on the 12th, Donum on the 19th and Thomas D. on the 25th, the first entries recorded for the West Fork township — and most of their patents came in 1908–09. Thomas D.’s homestead lay at Pauline, east of the Big Meadows; George’s was by the West Fork spring. By the family account Donum was run off a first claim on the upper Bannock Creek meadows by the Sparks cattle outfit; his obituaries say he married Martha Richards at Anaconda, Montana, in 1890 and came to West Fork from Montana in 1896.

The Daniels ranch, central to the north end, was a stopping place for travelers to Pocatello and a scene of Sunday dinners and dances. Sarah “Aunt Sal” Daniels was midwife to many young mothers. The first generation sold out in 1918–21 — Dave was reported in spring 1920 to have sold his farm “at the end of the Indian Reservation” — and in the later 1930s the United States bought West Fork and Big Meadows land for the Fort Hall project, probably from later owners. Most of the Daniels Big Meadows land now lies inside the reservation; today only wild yellow roses and a concrete cellar mark the homesteads.

Sons and grandsons stayed. Walter, David A., Thomas V., Eli, Theodore, Earl and Raymond patented homesteads around the Big Meadows and Pauline in 1913–17, and Elva Daniels Reese’s son Lou homesteaded at Pauline. Theodore kept a Pauline grocery in 1919 and carried the Pocatello–Crystal–Pauline–Arbon mail from 1922; Lester and Ella Mae Daniels farmed at Pauline in the 1930s, when she led the Pauline 4-H sewing club. Thomas Calvin Daniels’s family kept the Arbon store from the early 1940s (Ora was managing it in 1950), and it passed to his daughters Jean Evans (1960–75) and LaRue Gunter (1975–78). Granddaughter Zella Daniels Bolingbroke wrote the Bannock Valley chapters on which the family’s pages rest.

Sources: Daniels · David Moroni Daniels · George Daniels Sr. · John Moroni Daniels (Donum) · Thomas Daniels · Pauline and West Fork (area history) · Timeline: Through the years · IDWR water-right report 29-10990: Rattlesnake Creek, priority April 1, 1892; original owners Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels (old right 29-468, combined with 29-475)

Where they came from

IDAHOUTAHMaladSamariaSnowvilleLoganMendonWellsvilleBrigham CitySalt Lake CityPocatelloAmerican FallsAlmoArbon Valley
Earlier: Brechfa, Carmarthenshire, Wales (Thomas Daniels Sr. born 1831) → Across the plains with the Dan Jones Welsh company (1849). Route drawn only between places named in the family history; the lines are schematic, not trail routes.
  1. Brechfa, Carmarthenshire, Wales (Thomas Daniels Sr. born 1831)
  2. Across the plains with the Dan Jones Welsh company1849
  3. Brigham City, Utah1850s–60s
  4. Malad, Idahoabout 1864–65
  5. Big Meadows and Pauline, north end of Bannock Valleyby 1892 (family account 1885)

Sources: David Moroni Daniels · Church History Biographical Database: Thomas Daniels (1831), George A. Smith / Dan Jones company, 1849 · Salt Lake Herald-Republican, September 3, 1909, page 3: “Pioneer of Malad is laid to rest” (Thomas Daniels Sr.) · 1880 U.S. census, Samaria, Oneida County, Idaho Territory, ED 26 (David P. Davis and Mary D. Price households)

THE PEOPLE

The people

28 people of the Daniels family on the valley map, household by household, and 4 histories of their own in the archive. Names open their histories; portraits open in the family album.

The households 4

Each with the people who married in, and their children and grandchildren below, oldest first.

Thomas Daniels Sr.

1831–1909

Father of the West Fork Daniels: of Thomas D., David M. and John M. “Donum” by his first wife Mary Elizabeth Davis (died 1866), and of Jennett Price, Henry and George by his second wife, the widow Jennett Thomas Dives

More about Thomas

A Welsh Latter-day Saint who crossed the plains with the Dan Jones company in 1849, lived at Brigham City and settled at Malad about 1864–65, where family accounts say he served as an Oneida County commissioner. His second wife’s daughters Sarah and Gertrude Dives probably married his sons Thomas D. and David M. Six of his children took up land at the north end of Bannock Valley; he held none there himself.

3 children

  1. Thomas D. Daniels Jr. 1855–1917

    Eldest of the West Fork Daniels brothers (son of Thomas Sr. and Mary Davis)

    Married Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels (1875)

    1. Lavina Daniels Thomas 1878–1963

      Married Daniel R. Jones (1897) and William M. Thomas (1900)

    2. Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels 1880–1966

      Husband of Jennie Estella Jenkins (married 1912)

    3. Theodore “Theo” Daniels 1886–1957

      Husband of Emma Josephine (Bensen) Cheesman (married 1917)

    4. Raymond “Ray” Daniels 1891–1959

      Husband of Rose Schwartz (married 1932)

    5. Albert Clarence “Bert” Daniels 1895–1982

      Husband of Lissette Hassenpflug (married 1917)

    6. Sarah Ella Daniels Evans 1899–1958

      Wife of Leslie M. Evans, probably the son of L. B. “Ren” Evans of Arbon (married 1923)

  2. David Moroni Daniels 1859–1952

    Married Gertrude Grace Dives Daniels (1880)

    1. Walter M. Daniels 1881–1925

      Husband of Alice B. Thews (married 1904)

    2. David Albert Daniels 1883–1915

      Husband of Amelia Davis (married 1904)

    3. Eli Moroni Daniels 1887–1969

      Husband of Lillie Rose Bischoff (married 1913); father of Zella Daniels Bolingbroke

  3. Henry “Hen” Daniels 1873–1969

    Married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Williams Daniels (1894)

John and Martha Daniels family

John Moroni “Donum” Daniels

1863–1959

Brother of David M. Daniels

More about Donum

Freighter to the northern mines from seventeen. By the family account he was threatened off a first claim by a cattle outfit; he married Martha Richards at Anaconda, Montana, in 1890 and, by his obituary, came to West Fork from Philipsburg in 1896 (the original ArbonValley.com account says he settled there in 1890). Probably the “Donam Daniels” who judged the first valley election in 1900. He sold out in 1918 after losing his sight, and the family had left the valley for Rupert by 1921. Their son John Emer died in army service in 1918 and is on Power County’s roll of war dead.

Read their history ↗

Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels 1869–1967

Married 1890 · probably a sister of Claudia Richards Waylett of Pauline

Married 1890 · 4 children

  1. Earl Richards Daniels 1891–1945

    First husband of Jessie Noble (married 1912)

  2. Thomas Calvin “T. C.” Daniels 1898–1965

    Husband of Irene Condit (married 1922; she died in 1930) and then of Ora Curtis

    Married Ora Curtis Daniels (1933)

    1. LaRue Daniels Gunter 1934–2017

      Half-sister of Jean Daniels Evans; wife of George Wesley Gunter (married 1951)

  3. William Lester Daniels 1900–1993

    Husband of Ella Mae Claunch (married 1930)

  4. Ralph L. Daniels 1905–1976

George and Mary Daniels with their children

George Daniels Sr.

1875–1978

Half-brother of David and Donum; husband of Mary May Bolingbroke

More about George

Drove horses to Butte at seventeen; later sold his West Fork ranch and moved to the Daniels area near Malad. Oneida County’s oldest resident at his death. In 1927 he married Emeline Mecham, widow of David Evans of Malad (not of the Arbon Evans family).

Read their history ↗

Mary May Bolingbroke Daniels 1876–1921

Married 1897

Emeline Ann Mecham Evans Daniels 1887–1963

Married 1927 · widow of David Evans of Malad

Lewis Lorenzo “Lou” Reese

1891–1974

Grandson of Thomas Daniels Sr. (son of Elva Daniels and Lorenzo L. G. Reese); husband of Nettie Abter (married 1915)

More about Lou

Homesteaded beside his Daniels cousins at Pauline, where the newspapers place him and Nettie in 1916–18; his obituary says he “homesteaded in Arbon Valley.” His father probably patented a homestead at the Crystal edge in 1917.

THE LAND

Homesteads and land

17 places the Daniels family took up or held, 1892–1914, placed from the land patents, the entry registers and the family accounts.

Map of the Daniels family’s homesteads and land, numbered as in the list1234567891011121314151617
Numbers match the list. A solid ring marks a place documented from the land records; a dashed one, an approximate place. See the Daniels family on the valley map ↗

  1. Dave Daniels ranch (by the family account)

    1892 · David Moroni Daniels Approximate location

    By the family account, Dave Daniels’s ranch stood “above the mouth of West Fork” on Bannock Creek. Bannock Creek flows north here, so “above” probably means upstream (south); the household’s only title, Gertrude Daniels’s 1901 desert-land patent, lies about 1.3 miles south-south-east in Secs. 2–3 T10S R33E (mapped separately). The point is kept where first placed; the house site has not been located. Now within the Fort Hall Reservation.

  2. Gertrude and David M. Daniels desert-land claim, Big Meadows (entry 1895; patent 1901)

    July 17, 1895 · Gertrude Grace Dives Daniels, David Moroni Daniels Strongly documented

    Gertrude Daniels’s desert-land claim of 1895, patented in 1901: 316 acres in Secs. 2–3 T10S R33E, in the Big Meadows. It was the David M. Daniels household’s only title and probably the site of “the old Daniels ranch” above (upstream of) the mouth of West Fork; the house site itself has not been located. Inside today’s Fort Hall Reservation.

  3. Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels homestead, Pauline (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    entry March 25, 1901 · Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels Strongly documented

    Thomas D. Daniels’s homestead at the Pauline crossroads, entered March 25, 1901, and patented in 1909: SE¼SE¼ Sec. 12 and NE¼ Sec. 13 T10S R33E with Lot 1 Sec. 18 T10S R34E. The homestead is probably part of the later Sod Williams ranch.

  4. John M. “Donum” Daniels homestead, West Fork (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    entry March 19, 1901 · John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels Strongly documented

    Donum Daniels’s West Fork homestead, entered March 19, 1901, and patented in 1909: SW¼ Sec. 4 and NW¼ Sec. 9 T10S R33E. H. M. Saulsberry had moved onto the place by January 1919. The Sec. 4 part lies inside today’s reservation.

  5. Henry Daniels homestead, West Fork (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    entry March 12, 1901 · Henry “Hen” Daniels, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Williams Daniels Strongly documented

    Henry Daniels’s West Fork homestead, entered March 12, 1901, and patented in 1909: Sec. 3 and the SE¼ of Sec. 4 T10S R33E. By 1924 the tracts were taxed to J. V. Williams. Inside today’s reservation.

  6. George Daniels homestead and cabin by the West Fork spring (patent 1908)

    1908 · George Daniels Sr., Mary May Bolingbroke Daniels Strongly documented

    Cold water bubbling up close to the mountain and feeding Bannock Creek. George Daniels’s cabin stood near the spring at the foot of “George’s Mountain”; his homestead (SE¼ Sec. 5 T10S R33E, patent 1908) lay beside it.

  7. Sarah Daniels’s desert-land claim (entry 1901; patent 1908)

    entry on March 21, 1901 · Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels Strongly documented

    Sarah E. Daniels’s 240-acre desert-land claim on Bannock Creek just north-west of the Pauline crossroads: SE¼SW¼ Sec. 2 and NW¼, SW¼NE¼ Sec. 11, T10S R33E, entered on March 21, 1901, and patented on June 8, 1908. In 1907 the family’s 1892 Rattlesnake Creek right was used mainly here, and in 1918 her sons Ray and Verl ran the ranch. Inside today’s reservation boundary.

  8. Walter M. Daniels’s homestead (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    1910 · Walter M. Daniels Approximate location

    Walter M. Daniels’s homestead, patented May 3, 1913, lay in Sec. 3 and the NW¼ of Sec. 10, T10S R33E, with a forty in the SE¼ of Sec. 3 bought in 1914. The forties are not known, so the point is the centre of Sec. 3, the section holding most of the land. Inside today’s reservation.

  9. David A. Daniels’s homestead (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    1910 · David Albert Daniels Approximate location

    David A. Daniels’s homestead (patent May 1913) and adjoining isolated-tract forty (June 1913) in Sec. 10, T10S R33E. With Claud Price’s 1912 S½S½, Thomas V. Daniels’s N½S½ and Thomas D. Price’s and Walter Daniels’s forties in the NW¼ accounted for, his land was probably the NE¼ with one forty of the E½NW¼. His widow’s farm was rented in 1920. Inside today’s reservation.

  10. Verl Daniels’s homestead (patent 1915; entry about 1912)

    1912 · Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels Approximate location

    Thomas Veurlam Daniels’s 160-acre homestead in Sec. 10, T10S R33E, patented October 25, 1915. The county recorder’s 1921 list, in poor newspaper copy, reads N½SE¼ and SW¼; since Claud Price’s 1912 patent holds the S½SW¼, the land was probably the N½SE¼ and N½SW¼, where the point is placed. Inside today’s reservation.

  11. Eli and Lillie Daniels’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    1914 · Eli Moroni Daniels Approximate location

    Eli M. Daniels’s 160-acre homestead in Sec. 8, T10S R33E, patented May 7, 1917 (entry by about 1914). Lewis Reese held land in the SE¼, and the 1920 and 1924 tax lists put 160 acres in the north part of the section (NW¼NE¼ and three forties of the NW¼) under Tom Daniels’s name, possibly this homestead. The point is the section centre. Part of the section lies inside today’s reservation.

  12. Theodore Daniels’s homestead (patent 1915; entry about 1912)

    1912 · Theodore “Theo” Daniels Approximate location

    Theodore Daniels’s 160-acre homestead in Sec. 32, T9S R34E, north-east of Pauline toward Crystal, patented October 25, 1915. The 1938 USGS map shows the Armstrong school in this section. Outside today’s reservation.

  13. Earl Daniels’s homestead (patent 1916; entry about 1913)

    1913 · Earl Richards Daniels Approximate location

    Earl R. Daniels’s 169-acre homestead in Sec. 31, T9S R34E and Sec. 6, T10S R34E, patented September 13, 1916. The east part of Sec. 31 was patented to Lorenzo L. Reese and Robert Wheatley, so the point is placed where the west halves of the two sections meet. Outside today’s reservation.

  14. Ray Daniels’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    1914 · Raymond “Ray” Daniels Strongly documented

    Raymond Daniels’s homestead, patented January 27, 1917: SW¼SE¼ Sec. 6 and Lot 1, NE¼NW¼, NW¼NE¼ Sec. 7, T10S R34E, beside the Bolingbroke land. The forties are those listed under Earl R. Daniels’s name in the 1925 delinquent-tax notice, which add up exactly to the patent’s 152.97 acres.

  15. Lou Reese’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    1914 · Lewis Lorenzo “Lou” Reese Approximate location

    Lou Reese’s 160-acre homestead in the SE¼ of Sec. 8 and the SW¼ of Sec. 9, T10S R33E, patented May 7, 1917 (entry by about 1914), beside Eli Daniels’s land. The forties are not known; the point is on the line between the two quarters.

  16. Lorenzo L. Reese’s homestead, probably Elva Daniels’s husband (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    1914 Approximate location

    A 156-acre homestead in the SE¼ of Sec. 31 and SW¼ of Sec. 32, T9S R34E, and the NW¼ of Sec. 5, T10S R34E, patented June 28, 1917, to Lorenzo L. Reese, probably Elva Daniels’s husband. The forties are not known; the point is central to the three quarters.

  17. Lavina Thomas’s forty (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    1910 · Lavina Daniels Thomas Strongly documented

    The SW¼SE¼ of Sec. 12, T10S R33E, patented September 24, 1913, to Lavina D. Thomas, Thomas D. Daniels’s daughter, on a claim begun by her late husband William M. Thomas; it adjoins her father’s homestead, and 19 of its acres are now watered by the 1892 Daniels right.

The land patents

The federal patents that made the homesteads theirs, from the General Land Office records.

Homestead patent to John M. Daniels, 1909Homestead patent to John M. Daniels, 1909May 11, 1909Homestead patent to Thomas D. Daniels, 1909Homestead patent to Thomas D. Daniels, 1909May 11, 1909
THROUGH THE YEARS

93 dates in the family’s history

Every date the valley map shows when you follow the Daniels family, era by era: the most telling of each era first, the rest a click away. Dates keep the sources’ own wording.

Homestead or landFamily historyEventValley firstTragedy

BEFORE 1884 · 4 DATES

Before Homesteading

A Shoshone and Bannock homeland; trails, travelers and cattle range.

  1. February–October 1849Family history

    Thomas Daniels crosses to Utah with the Welsh Saints

    Eighteen-year-old Thomas Daniels left Wales with his parents in Dan Jones’s company of Welsh Latter-day Saints, sailing on the Buena Vista. The George A. Smith company brought them into Salt Lake City at the end of October 1849.

    Thomas Daniels Sr.

  2. 1864–65Family history

    The Daniels family settles at Malad

    Thomas Daniels Sr. first came into the Malad valley in the winter of 1864 and made his home at Malad, where his father Daniel was later bishop. Thomas served as an Oneida County commissioner and on the Malad school board.

    Thomas Daniels Sr.

  3. 1877Family history

    The first house in the Daniels section

    Thomas Sr.’s son Daniel M. Daniels, a freighter, built the first house in what became the Daniels section north-west of Malad, a district named for the family. His formal homestead entry there came only on March 30, 1901.

  4. June 1880Family history

    Three Daniels households at Malad

    The June 1880 census found Thomas Sr. and his wife Jennett at Malad with their children and her father, aged 88, as well as the young households of Thomas D. Jr. and Sarah and of David M. and Gertrude. David, then 21, gave his work as herding stock.

    Thomas Daniels Sr., Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels, David Moroni Daniels and 1 more

1884–1892 · 6 DATES

Early Claims

Possessory claims and water rights before the valley opened.

  1. 1884–1892Event

    Possessory claims and water rights

    Before the valley was formally opened to homesteading, settlers took up “possessory” claims — squatter’s rights — and filed on water. When homesteading opened they had to file again and prove up over five years. The oldest dated settler records are water rights on Rattlesnake Creek with a priority of April 1, 1892 (Daniels, Lusk and Bolingbroke), decreed in 1907; the family dates of 1884–89 have not been found in any record. Until the townships were surveyed in 1901 the only federal claim open was the desert-land entry, which Lorenzo Evans (1894) and Gertrude Daniels (1895) used.

  2. March 1885Event

    David Moroni Daniels comes to West Fork (family account)

    By the family account (Zella Daniels Bolingbroke, in Bannock Valley), David Moroni Daniels came from Malad into the snowbound valley in March 1885. The family overview and the archive timeline date his water-right application on the Bannock Creek drainage to 1885, and his biography says the first legal record is a water right granted in 1887, fed by the large West Fork spring. Neither has been found in the land, water-decree or newspaper records searched; the earliest documented Daniels record is the 1892 priority of Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels’s Rattlesnake Creek right.

    David Moroni Daniels

  3. 1887Event

    Daniels water right from West Fork (family account)

    By the archive’s account David Daniels was granted a water right on the Bannock Creek drainage from the West Fork in 1887; under the arrangement it describes, tribal members holding 812 acres had first right, the Big Meadows owners (Bolingbroke, Lusk, Price) second, Dave Daniels third, and Henry Daniels and Tom Price a right dated 1891. No 1887 or 1891 Daniels or Price right appears in the decree records of the Bannock Creek Decree (United States v. Daniels, 1907). There the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ rights carry the oldest priorities, and the earliest settler priority is April 1, 1892, shared by the Daniels, J. W. Lusk and John Bolingbroke rights on Rattlesnake Creek.

    David Moroni Daniels

  4. between 1887 and 1889Event

    Donum Daniels is driven off his first claim

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels set cedar posts for a possessory claim on the upper meadows of Bannock Creek in the Arbon area. Cowboys of the Sparks cattle outfit threatened him and built a cabin inside his posts, and he gave up the claim; after his 1890 marriage he filed in West Fork.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels

  5. about 1887–89 (date compiled)Tragedy

    A cattle outfit jumps Donum Daniels’s claim

    When young Donum Daniels came back in the spring to the land he had staked, a cattle outfit had built a cabin inside his posts, and he let it go.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels

  6. 1892Homestead or land

    Dave Daniels ranch (by the family account)

    By the family account, Dave Daniels’s ranch stood “above the mouth of West Fork” on Bannock Creek. Bannock Creek flows north here, so “above” probably means upstream (south); the household’s only title, Gertrude Daniels’s 1901 desert-land patent, lies about 1.3 miles south-south-east in Secs. 2–3 T10S R33E (mapped separately). The point is kept where first placed; the house site has not been located. Now within the Fort Hall Reservation.

    David Moroni Daniels

1893–1899 · 7 DATES

1890s Settlement

Homesteads, the first ditch, and the first winters.

  1. 1893 (claims staked; federal entries from 1901)Event

    Squatters’ claims staked

    The Arbon area timeline marks 1893 as the year homesteading opened. The townships were not yet surveyed, so the settlers of 1893 staked squatters’ claims — the 1917 valley history has J. N. Arbon, Ed Davis, D. J. Bowen and others staking land that year — and could file at the land office only after the plats were opened in 1901. Filing on 160 acres then cost $16, followed by five years of fencing, breaking ground and building a cabin to prove up. The first families — Andersens, Daniels, Arbons and Evans among them — lived in wagon boxes, tents or dugouts.

  2. August 24, 1894Valley first

    The earliest dated land claim

    Lorenzo Evans's desert-land entry of August 24, 1894, is the oldest dated federal land claim found on the Arbon floor.

    Gertrude Grace Dives Daniels

  3. from the 1890s (not dated)Valley first

    The first midwives

    With no doctor in the valley, babies were delivered by neighbour women whom their families remember as the valley's midwives.

    Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

  4. 1895Event

    Stockmen settle the north end (later Pauline)

    Latter-day Saint stockmen, among them the Daniels brothers, located at the north end of Bannock Valley “in 1895 and following years” (Jenson); the original ArbonValley.com account’s 1895 list also names Bolingbroke, Davis, Evans and Lusk families. Federal homestead entries at the future crossroads began in March 1901 (Thomas D. Daniels), and Pauline grew into a named crossroads with a store, post office and ward from 1911, on the roads to American Falls and Pocatello. The original ArbonValley.com account’s wider, undated list of “prominent first residents” adds the Nobles and Kowallises, who came in 1905 and 1909.

  5. July 17, 1895Event

    Gertrude Daniels’s desert-land claim in the Big Meadows

    Gertrude Daniels, wife of David M. Daniels, filed desert-land entry no. 2072 at Blackfoot on July 17, 1895, for 320 acres of then-unsurveyed land, giving her residence as Malad City. She made the yearly proofs and on July 15, 1901, received a patent for 316 acres in Secs. 2–3 of the West Fork township — the earliest dated Daniels land entry found and the first Daniels title.

    Gertrude Grace Dives Daniels, David Moroni Daniels

  6. July 17, 1895Homestead or land

    Gertrude and David M. Daniels desert-land claim, Big Meadows (entry 1895; patent 1901)

    Gertrude Daniels’s desert-land claim of 1895, patented in 1901: 316 acres in Secs. 2–3 T10S R33E, in the Big Meadows. It was the David M. Daniels household’s only title and probably the site of “the old Daniels ranch” above (upstream of) the mouth of West Fork; the house site itself has not been located. Inside today’s Fort Hall Reservation.

    Gertrude Grace Dives Daniels, David Moroni Daniels

  7. 1896Family history

    Donum and Martha come to the valley from Montana

    After six years at Philipsburg, Montana, John M. “Donum” Daniels and his wife Martha moved to Arbon Valley in 1896. Their obituaries say they farmed there until 1921.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

1900–1912 · 29 DATES

Early 1900s Growth

Schools, churches, stores and post offices in every area.

  1. entry March 12, 1901Homestead or land

    Henry Daniels homestead, West Fork (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    Henry Daniels’s West Fork homestead, entered March 12, 1901, and patented in 1909: Sec. 3 and the SE¼ of Sec. 4 T10S R33E. By 1924 the tracts were taxed to J. V. Williams. Inside today’s reservation.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Williams Daniels

  2. March–September 1901Event

    The first homestead entries

    Once the townships were surveyed, the settlers who had squatted on the valley floor since the 1890s filed at the Blackfoot land office. The register dates the first entries: Jennett Daniels Price and Henry Daniels on March 12, 1901, at West Fork, then Donum and Thomas D. Daniels later that month; Charles A. Bailey on March 28, the first on the Arbon floor; D. B. Evans and Julius Abter in April; John Payne’s and Jane Dalton’s desert-land claims in May; Thomas Gibbons, the Bailey brothers, George Arbon, David T. Davis and Jesse Ward’s desert land in late May; D. J. Bowen and J. A. R. Gibbons on June 6 and William Arnn on June 8; the first Summit entries — Joseph T. Wood, Peter Larsen of Mendon and Frederick J. Manning — on July 2; and John C. and Otto Andersen on September 6. Most gave their residence as “Arbon, Oneida.”

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr., John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Henry “Hen” Daniels

  3. entry March 19, 1901Homestead or land

    John M. “Donum” Daniels homestead, West Fork (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    Donum Daniels’s West Fork homestead, entered March 19, 1901, and patented in 1909: SW¼ Sec. 4 and NW¼ Sec. 9 T10S R33E. H. M. Saulsberry had moved onto the place by January 1919. The Sec. 4 part lies inside today’s reservation.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

  4. entry on March 21, 1901Homestead or land

    Sarah Daniels’s desert-land claim (entry 1901; patent 1908)

    Sarah E. Daniels’s 240-acre desert-land claim on Bannock Creek just north-west of the Pauline crossroads: SE¼SW¼ Sec. 2 and NW¼, SW¼NE¼ Sec. 11, T10S R33E, entered on March 21, 1901, and patented on June 8, 1908. In 1907 the family’s 1892 Rattlesnake Creek right was used mainly here, and in 1918 her sons Ray and Verl ran the ranch. Inside today’s reservation boundary.

    Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

  5. about 1906 (West Fork); 1911 (Pauline); 1913 (two-room school)Valley first

    The first schools at West Fork and Pauline

    The north end's first school was a schoolhouse built in West Fork about 1906, and Pauline's first classes met in a log cabin in the autumn of 1911.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

  6. June 1911Event

    Meadow Ward at Pauline

    In June 1911 the north part of the Arbon Ward was set apart as the Meadow Ward, with Wilhelm F. Kowallis — whose mother Pauline is said to have given the area its name — as first bishop, W. E. Dawson as clerk and Anna E. Lusk as first Relief Society president. It met in a T-shaped log meetinghouse which, by Andrew Jenson’s distances, stood on the main north–south road near Pauline or the Lusk Loop corner rather than in West Fork. Daniels, Lusk and Bolingbroke families attended; about half the area’s people were not Latter-day Saints. Later bishops were H. Perry Howell (1918–21) and Robert Wheatley (1921–29).

Show 23 more from these years

  1. undatedTragedy

    George Daniels shoots himself crawling through a fence

    On a Fourth of July George Daniels’s gun went off as he crawled through a fence, and Indian friends’ sage tea saved the leg the doctor wanted to take off.

    George Daniels Sr.

  2. May 21, 1900Family history

    A post office named Daniels

    A post office called Daniels opened on May 21, 1900, in the Daniels section north-west of Malad, the district named for the family. It closed in 1906, its mail going through Arbon, and reopened in 1914; a Theodore Daniels became postmaster in December 1916.

  3. fall 1900Event

    The first election

    The valley’s first election was held at George Arbon’s place in the fall of 1900, with George Arbon, D. J. Bowen and a Daniels — probably Donum — as judges.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels

  4. March 12–25, 1901Event

    The Daniels family files on the West Fork and at Pauline

    Once the township had been surveyed, the Daniels siblings filed together at the Blackfoot land office: Jennett Price and her brother Henry Daniels on March 12, 1901 — the first two entries recorded for the West Fork township — John M. “Donum” Daniels on March 19 and Thomas D. Daniels on March 25, his at the future Pauline crossroads; Sarah Daniels made a desert-land entry on March 21. Most of the patents came in 1908–09.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels, John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

  5. entry March 25, 1901Homestead or land

    Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels homestead, Pauline (entry 1901; patent 1909)

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

  6. night of May 19–20, 1903Tragedy

    A rancher shot on the Snake River by a man who said he worked for Dave Daniels

    A night visitor who asked for blankets, saying he worked for the West Fork cattleman Dave Daniels, shot rancher Richard Driscoll in his own dooryard.

    David Moroni Daniels

  7. about 1906Event

    A school house in West Fork

    About 1906 a school house was built in West Fork, after which Martha Daniels could stay through the winter instead of taking the children to town.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

  8. April 9, 1907Event

    The Bannock Creek Decree

    A federal court decree of April 9, 1907, United States v. Daniels, settled the water rights of Bannock Creek and its branches, and it still governs the creek. It gave the earliest settler priorities on Rattlesnake Creek — April 1, 1892 — to Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels, J. W. Lusk and John Bolingbroke: the oldest dated records of the Malad families’ use of the north end. The Idaho Department of Water Resources records the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ rights with an 1867 priority, older than any settler’s.

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

  9. 1908Homestead or land

    George Daniels homestead and cabin by the West Fork spring (patent 1908)

    George Daniels Sr., Mary May Bolingbroke Daniels

  10. February 17, 1908Family history

    George Daniels proves up by the West Fork spring

    George Daniels received the patent for his 160-acre homestead, the SE¼ of Sec. 5 beside the West Fork spring. By the family account his one-room cabin stood close to the spring, at the foot of “George’s Mountain.”

    George Daniels Sr., Mary May Bolingbroke Daniels

  11. June 8, 1908Family history

    Sarah Daniels’s desert claim is patented

    Sarah E. Daniels received the patent for her 240-acre desert-land claim on Bannock Creek, in Secs. 2 and 11 just north-west of the Pauline crossroads, which she had entered on March 21, 1901. In 1907 the family’s 1892 Rattlesnake Creek water right was used mainly on this land.

    Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels, Thomas D. Daniels Jr.

  12. May 11, 1909Family history

    Donum Daniels proves up on the West Fork

    John M. “Donum” Daniels received the patent for his 160-acre West Fork homestead in Secs. 4 and 9, entered on March 19, 1901.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

  13. May 11, 1909Family history

    Thomas D. Daniels proves up at the Pauline crossroads

    Thomas D. Daniels received the patent for his 153-acre homestead at the future Pauline crossroads, in Secs. 12 and 13 with a lot across the range line, eight years after his entry of March 25, 1901.

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr.

  14. May 24, 1909Family history

    Henry Daniels proves up on the West Fork

    Henry Daniels received the patent for his 160-acre West Fork homestead in Secs. 3 and 4, entered on March 12, 1901, the same day as his sister Jennett Price’s.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Williams Daniels

  15. 1910Homestead or land

    Walter M. Daniels’s homestead (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    Walter M. Daniels

  16. 1910Homestead or land

    David A. Daniels’s homestead (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    David Albert Daniels

  17. 1910Homestead or land

    Lavina Thomas’s forty (patent 1913; entry about 1910)

    Lavina Daniels Thomas

  18. April 1910Family history

    Daniels households in the Arbon precinct

    The 1910 census of the Arbon precinct listed Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels, their son Theodore, 24 and single, and John M. and Martha Daniels with seven children, near the Noble, Charles Bolingbroke, Kulok and Bischoff households.

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels, Theodore “Theo” Daniels, John Moroni “Donum” Daniels and 1 more

  19. May 1911Family history

    Dave Daniels on the reservation road committee

    In May 1911 the Oneida County commissioners named Dave Daniels one of two men to confer with the Indians about building a road through the Fort Hall Reservation.

    David Moroni Daniels

  20. July 1911 – July 1912Family history

    The American Falls road starts at the Daniels ranch

    When the new road from American Falls over the Moonshine divide was measured in July 1911, the distances were taken from the Daniels ranch: 13.97 miles to the divide and 22.97 to American Falls. A year later the road was reported graded “to the Daniels place.”

    David Moroni Daniels

  21. 1912Homestead or land

    Verl Daniels’s homestead (patent 1915; entry about 1912)

    Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels

  22. 1912Homestead or land

    Theodore Daniels’s homestead (patent 1915; entry about 1912)

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  23. August–November 1912Family history

    Henry Daniels runs for county commissioner

    A Henry Daniels, probably this Henry, was the Democratic candidate for Oneida County commissioner from the second district in 1912, polling 24 votes in the August primary. Andrew May won the seat in November.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels

1913–1929 · 39 DATES

Community Development

A new county, roads and phones — and the first departures.

  1. 1913Homestead or land

    Earl Daniels’s homestead (patent 1916; entry about 1913)

    Earl R. Daniels’s 169-acre homestead in Sec. 31, T9S R34E and Sec. 6, T10S R34E, patented September 13, 1916. The east part of Sec. 31 was patented to Lorenzo L. Reese and Robert Wheatley, so the point is placed where the west halves of the two sections meet. Outside today’s reservation.

    Earl Richards Daniels

  2. 1914Homestead or land

    Eli and Lillie Daniels’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    Eli M. Daniels’s 160-acre homestead in Sec. 8, T10S R33E, patented May 7, 1917 (entry by about 1914). Lewis Reese held land in the SE¼, and the 1920 and 1924 tax lists put 160 acres in the north part of the section (NW¼NE¼ and three forties of the NW¼) under Tom Daniels’s name, possibly this homestead. The point is the section centre. Part of the section lies inside today’s reservation.

    Eli Moroni Daniels

  3. 1914Homestead or land

    Ray Daniels’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    Raymond Daniels’s homestead, patented January 27, 1917: SW¼SE¼ Sec. 6 and Lot 1, NE¼NW¼, NW¼NE¼ Sec. 7, T10S R34E, beside the Bolingbroke land. The forties are those listed under Earl R. Daniels’s name in the 1925 delinquent-tax notice, which add up exactly to the patent’s 152.97 acres.

    Raymond “Ray” Daniels

  4. 1914Homestead or land

    Lou Reese’s homestead (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    Lou Reese’s 160-acre homestead in the SE¼ of Sec. 8 and the SW¼ of Sec. 9, T10S R33E, patented May 7, 1917 (entry by about 1914), beside Eli Daniels’s land. The forties are not known; the point is on the line between the two quarters.

    Lewis Lorenzo “Lou” Reese

  5. 1914Homestead or land

    Lorenzo L. Reese’s homestead, probably Elva Daniels’s husband (patent 1917; entry about 1914)

    A 156-acre homestead in the SE¼ of Sec. 31 and SW¼ of Sec. 32, T9S R34E, and the NW¼ of Sec. 5, T10S R34E, patented June 28, 1917, to Lorenzo L. Reese, probably Elva Daniels’s husband. The forties are not known; the point is central to the three quarters.

  6. October 1916 – spring 1918Valley first

    The first mail route from Pocatello, and the first mail by car

    In October 1916 Lorin Bailey won the contract to carry the mail from Pocatello by way of Crystal and Pauline to Arbon, and he carried it by car when the roads allowed.

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  7. 1918–1926Valley first

    The first trucks

    Motor trucks came to the valley first for hauling grain, gravel and mail, and only later into the farmyards.

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  8. October 22, 1918Tragedy

    John Emer Daniels dies in an army camp

    The son of a Pauline family died of influenza and pneumonia at Camp Fremont before his father could reach him, and is on Power County’s roll of the war dead.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

Show 31 more from these years

  1. January–June 1913Family history

    David A. Daniels’s homestead and isolated tract

    Dave and Gertrude’s second son, David A. Daniels, received a homestead patent for 160 acres in Sec. 10 in May 1913, and in June he bought forty more acres in the same section, land offered on his application at an isolated-tract sale that winter.

    David Albert Daniels

  2. May 3, 1913Family history

    Walter Daniels’s homestead

    Dave and Gertrude’s eldest son, Walter M. Daniels, received the patent for a 160-acre homestead in Secs. 3 and 10 of the West Fork township, and in August 1914 he bought another forty acres in Sec. 3.

    Walter M. Daniels

  3. September 24, 1913Family history

    Lavina Thomas’s forty acres

    Thomas D.’s daughter Lavina D. Thomas received the patent for forty acres in Sec. 12, beside her father’s homestead, on a claim begun by her husband, William M. Thomas.

    Lavina Daniels Thomas

  4. December 1913Family history

    Six hundred head of cattle

    Power County had assessed Dave Daniels for 600 head of cattle in 1913; in December the commissioners gave him a rebate when he showed that the same cattle had been taxed in Bingham County.

    David Moroni Daniels

  5. 1914Family history

    The Pauline cattle breeder

    Polk’s 1914 Idaho gazetteer listed “Thos. Daniels,” probably Thomas D., as the cattle breeder at Pauline.

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr.

  6. 1914–1920Family history

    Dave Daniels in Pocatello business

    Dave Daniels helped incorporate the Pocatello Traction and Storage Company in 1914 and the Pocatello Cold Storage Company in January 1915, and in 1920 he held stock in a Pocatello bank with L. L. Evans. His obituary called him a hotel man and cattleman.

    David Moroni Daniels

  7. October 25, 1915Family history

    Theodore Daniels’s homestead toward Crystal

    Thomas D.’s son Theodore Daniels received the patent for a 160-acre homestead in Sec. 32 of T9S R34E, north-east of Pauline on the way to Crystal, on the same day as his brother Verl.

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  8. October 25, 1915Family history

    Verl Daniels’s homestead

    Thomas D.’s son Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels received the patent for a 160-acre homestead in Sec. 10 of the West Fork township.

    Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels

  9. March–April 1916Family history

    Back to the Pauline farms for the summer

    The families still wintered at Malad: in March 1916 “T. and V. Daniels,” probably Thomas D. and his son Verl, came out from Malad, and in April Henry Daniels and his family moved back to their Pauline farm for the season.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Williams Daniels, Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels

  10. September 13, 1916Family history

    Earl Daniels’s homestead

    Donum’s son Earl R. Daniels received the patent for a 169-acre homestead in Sec. 31 of T9S and Sec. 6 of T10S R34E, north-east of Pauline.

    Earl Richards Daniels

  11. January 27, 1917Family history

    Ray Daniels’s homestead

    Thomas D.’s son Raymond Daniels received the patent for a 153-acre homestead in Secs. 6 and 7 of T10S R34E, beside the Bolingbroke land. By 1925 the county’s delinquent-tax list showed the same tracts under his cousin Earl’s name.

    Raymond “Ray” Daniels, Earl Richards Daniels

  12. March 1917Family history

    Among the county’s biggest cattle shippers

    In March 1917 the American Falls Press counted “Evans and Daniels,” of American Falls and Pauline, among the oldest stockmen and largest cattle shippers in Power County.

  13. May 7, 1917Family history

    Eli and Lillie Daniels’s homestead

    Dave’s son Eli M. Daniels received the patent for a 160-acre homestead in Sec. 8 of the West Fork township; under the three-year law his family probably lived on it from about 1914. The 1920 and 1924 tax lists show 160 acres in Sec. 8 under the name of his cousin Tom Daniels.

    Eli Moroni Daniels, Thomas Calvin “T. C.” Daniels

  14. May 7, 1917Family history

    Lou Reese’s homestead

    Elva Daniels’s son Lewis “Lou” Reese received the patent for a 160-acre homestead in Secs. 8 and 9 of the West Fork township, beside his cousin Eli’s. He appears in the Pauline news of 1916–18, and his obituary says he homesteaded in Arbon Valley.

    Lewis Lorenzo “Lou” Reese

  15. June 28, 1917Family history

    Lorenzo L. Reese’s homestead at the Crystal edge

    A 156-acre homestead in Secs. 31–32 of T9S and Sec. 5 of T10S R34E, next to Earl and Theodore Daniels’s land, was patented to Lorenzo L. Reese, probably Elva Daniels’s husband.

  16. January 1918Family history

    Ray and Verl run their mother’s ranch

    In January 1918 the paper reported that Sarah’s 240-acre ranch north of Pauline on Bannock Creek was being run by her sons Ray and Verl, along with 200 acres of wild-hay meadow south-east of Pauline.

    Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels, Raymond “Ray” Daniels, Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels

  17. March 1918Family history

    Feeding cattle on the West Fork

    In the winter of 1917–18 Henry Daniels’s cattle were fed on the West Fork by his nephew Jack Price, and another man was feeding cattle there for Dave Daniels.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels, David Moroni Daniels

  18. January 1919 – 1921Family history

    Donum’s family leaves the West Fork

    By January 1919 H. M. Saulsberry had moved onto “the Donum Daniels place on West Fork,” and Donum and Martha’s family left the valley about 1919–21; they were living at Rupert by 1923.

    John Moroni “Donum” Daniels, Martha Rosetta Richards Daniels

  19. 1919Event

    Theo Daniels’s grocery at Pauline

    By May 1919 Theo Daniels was keeping a grocery at Pauline (he was also the game-licence agent there). In October he sold it to Joe T. Thomas and moved to Malad; in January 1920 Joe Thomas was listed as a general-store merchant at Pauline.

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  20. September 1919Family history

    Walter Daniels moves to Pocatello

    In September 1919 Walter M. Daniels left Pauline for Pocatello.

    Walter M. Daniels

  21. January 1920Family history

    The second generation at Pauline

    The January 1920 census at Pauline found Bert Daniels managing a farm, Verl Daniels on his own farm free of mortgage, Donum’s son Tom (T. C.), 21, owning a mortgaged farm, and Earl Daniels farming his own place. Eli’s wife Lillie and their children were living with her parents, the Bischoffs.

    Albert Clarence “Bert” Daniels, Thomas Veurlam “Verl” Daniels, Thomas Calvin “T. C.” Daniels, Earl Richards Daniels

  22. spring 1920Family history

    Dave Daniels sells his farm

    In April 1920 the Arbon news reported that Dave Daniels had sold “his farm at the end of the Indian Reservation.” The buyer’s name is lost in the surviving copy, and which holding it was is not stated.

    David Moroni Daniels

  23. March 1921Family history

    An auction at Earl Daniels’s farm

    Farm machinery was auctioned at the Earl Daniels farm at Pauline in March 1921, but the family stayed; in December 1923 Earl moved down to Pauline so that his children could get to school.

    Earl Richards Daniels

  24. December 1921 – January 1922Family history

    Earl Daniels, a witness in the Ball case

    Earl R. Daniels was among the Pauline neighbours the county paid as witnesses in the Ball case, after the December 1921 trial for the shooting of Ed Brandt.

    Earl Richards Daniels

  25. July 1922Event

    Theo Daniels carries the Pocatello–Arbon mail

    Theo Daniels of Pauline was awarded the star-route mail contract from Pocatello by way of Crystal and Pauline to Arbon, beginning in July 1922 and succeeding Oliver Foutz; in 1924 his truck was carrying the Pauline mail.

    Theodore “Theo” Daniels

  26. November–December 1923Family history

    Henry Daniels still trading cattle

    That winter the Pauline school children’s news reported Henry Daniels, Perry Lusk and Venal Williams taking beef to Pocatello, and Henry and his brother-in-law Jink Williams buying cattle at Malad.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels

  27. December 1923Family history

    Lester Daniels and Jack Price start freighting

    In December 1923 Donum’s son Lester Daniels and his cousin Jack Price began freighting together out of Pauline.

    William Lester Daniels

  28. December 4, 1924Tragedy

    A moonshine still on Bannock Creek

    Officers raiding a ranch-house still on Bannock Creek during Prohibition arrested two men named in the report as Earl Daniels and Melvin Price.

  29. by 1924 (tax list published 1925)Family history

    Henry’s homestead passes to Jink Williams

    By 1924 the tracts of Henry Daniels’s 1901 West Fork entry were taxed to his brother-in-law J. V. “Jink” Williams. A family memory says Henry sold to the Indians.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels

  30. September 1924Family history

    Parade judge at the American Falls Roundup

    “Dave Daniels of Arbon” was one of the three judges of the American Falls Roundup parade in September 1924.

    David Moroni Daniels

  31. November–December 1929Event

    The Meadow Ward and the Pauline post office close

    The Pauline post office was discontinued on November 15, 1929, its mail going to Arbon, and in December 1929 the Meadow Ward was disorganized and its sixty-three remaining members transferred to the Arbon Ward. The original ArbonValley.com account says the whole bishopric had moved away by 1928, but Bishop Robert Wheatley and the John E. Kowallis family were still at Pauline in the 1930 census.

1930–1949 · 7 DATES

Depression & Change

Drought, closures, tractors, electricity, the reservation boundary.

  1. April 1930Family history

    Daniels farms at Pauline in 1930

    In April 1930 T. C. Daniels owned a wheat farm at Pauline, Lester Daniels farmed his own place with his brother Ralph, and Theodore owned a farm where his brother Ray lived with him. Earl’s children were growing up at Pauline in the home of their mother and her husband Park Lusk.

    Thomas Calvin “T. C.” Daniels, William Lester Daniels, Ralph L. Daniels, Theodore “Theo” Daniels and 1 more

  2. 1932Family history

    Mrs. W. L. Daniels leads a 4-H sewing club

    In 1932 Lester’s wife, Mrs. W. L. Daniels, led the Pauline 4-H sewing club, one of the first 4-H clubs found in the valley.

    William Lester Daniels

  3. undated (while Jean Daniels was a girl, probably the 1930s)Tragedy

    Puppies first: the Arbon store burns

    When the Daniels family’s log store caught fire, the children inside threw the puppies out of the window first and then climbed out after them.

  4. 1930sFamily history

    Henry Daniels at Lava Hot Springs

    In the 1930s Henry Daniels lived at Lava Hot Springs; he went to Long Beach, California, with his son-in-law’s family in 1935 and wintered there again in 1938–39.

    Henry “Hen” Daniels

  5. late 1936 – 1939 (project approved 1935)Event

    West Fork land bought for the Fort Hall project

    In the later 1930s the United States bought farms in and beside the Fort Hall Reservation as “submarginal land” for the Tribes’ use — 8,711 acres in nineteen tracts under project LI-ID-2. The project was approved by July 1935, owners’ options were being closed and paid from November 1936, and one Power County tract was deeded on December 14, 1936. The West Fork and Big Meadows tracts of the Prices, the Finks and Perry Lusk, which now lie inside the reservation, were probably among them. The land was held by the United States and used by the Tribes under permits until Congress placed it in trust for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in 1975. The archive says homesteading families were paid but had to relocate; today no roads reach the old ranch sites.

  6. October 16, 1940Family history

    Ralph Daniels registers at Arbon

    No Daniels household was counted in the Arbon or Crystal precincts in April 1940, but Donum’s son Ralph L. Daniels registered for the draft at Arbon on October 16, 1940, naming his father.

    Ralph L. Daniels, John Moroni “Donum” Daniels

  7. after April 1940 and by August 1943 (the original ArbonValley.com: about 1930)Event

    The Daniels family keeps the Arbon store

    Thomas Calvin (T. C.) Daniels’s family came back to the valley in the early 1940s and kept the Arbon store, with his wife Ora managing the grocery at the 1950 census. By the archive’s account it passed in 1960 to his daughter Jean and her husband Waldo Evans, who ran it until 1975, and then to his daughter LaRue Gunter (1975–78).

    Thomas Calvin “T. C.” Daniels, Ora Curtis Daniels, LaRue Daniels Gunter

1950 ONWARD · 1 DATE

Generations

Fewer, larger farms; descendants on the old homesteads.

  1. Snake River Basin Adjudication, about 2005Family history

    The 1892 water right is re-decreed

    In the Snake River Basin Adjudication the 1892 Rattlesnake Creek right of Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels, merged with J. W. Lusk’s, was re-decreed to Barry T. Williams, Sod Williams’s son, with a place of use on 148 acres of Thomas D.’s Pauline homestead.

    Thomas D. Daniels Jr., Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels

Follow the Daniels family on the timeline: all 93 dates ↗

STORIES OF THE VALLEY

Firsts and tragedies

The valley firsts the Daniels family had a hand in, and the hard times it lived through, most remembered first.

Firsts 10

  1. 1885–1894 by different accounts; earliest record 1892

    The first settlers

    Who settled the valley first is one of the oldest questions in its history, and the records settle only part of it.

  2. priority April 1, 1892 (decreed April 9, 1907)

    The oldest settler water rights

    The oldest dated records of settlers in the valley are three Rattlesnake Creek water rights with a priority of April 1, 1892.

  3. from the 1890s (not dated)

    The first midwives

    With no doctor in the valley, babies were delivered by neighbour women whom their families remember as the valley's midwives.

  4. March 12–28, 1901

    The first homestead entries

    Once the townships were surveyed, a woman, Jennett Daniels Price, made the first homestead entry recorded for West Fork, on March 12, 1901.

All 10 firsts with the Daniels family ↗

Tragedies 7

  1. decree of April 9, 1907; warning of August 1935

    United States v. Daniels: the fight over Bannock Creek water

    The federal government took the upstream settlers to court on behalf of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and the 1907 decree still divides the creek.

  2. October 22, 1918

    John Emer Daniels dies in an army camp

    The son of a Pauline family died of influenza and pneumonia at Camp Fremont before his father could reach him, and is on Power County’s roll of the war dead.

  3. about 1887–89 (date compiled)

    A cattle outfit jumps Donum Daniels’s claim

    When young Donum Daniels came back in the spring to the land he had staked, a cattle outfit had built a cabin inside his posts, and he let it go.

  4. undated (while Jean Daniels was a girl, probably the 1930s)

    Puppies first: the Arbon store burns

    When the Daniels family’s log store caught fire, the children inside threw the puppies out of the window first and then climbed out after them.

All 7 tragedies with the Daniels family ↗
THEIR PART IN THE VALLEY

What they built

WATER

The family’s water right

The archive dates David Daniels’s West Fork water right to 1885 (application) and 1887 (grant), and a Henry Daniels–Tom Price right to 1891; none of these has been found in the records. The oldest documented Daniels right is Thomas D. and Sarah Daniels’s Rattlesnake Creek right, decreed in 1907 in United States v. Daniels with a priority of April 1, 1892 — the joint-earliest settler priority in the decree, shared with the Lusk and Bolingbroke rights.

RANCHING

Cattle on a large scale

David managed large herds — 600 head were assessed to him in Power County in 1913 — leasing grazing on the Fort Hall reservation and at the Snake River bottoms and shipping cattle east to Omaha.

HEALTH CARE

“Aunt Sal”

Sarah Elizabeth Dives Daniels was midwife to many young mothers at the north end of the valley.

ROADS

A road through the reservation

In 1911 the Oneida County commissioners named Dave Daniels one of two men “to confer with the Indians” about a road through the reservation; the Daniels ranch was the landmark at the valley’s north entrance.

STORES

The Pauline grocery and the Arbon store

Theo Daniels kept a grocery at Pauline in 1919; from the early 1940s T. C. and Ora Daniels kept the Arbon store, which passed to their daughters Jean Evans (1960–75) and LaRue Gunter (1975–78).

MAIL

The Pocatello–Arbon star route

Theo Daniels carried the mail from Pocatello by way of Crystal and Pauline to Arbon from July 1922.

THE FAMILY ALBUM

Photographs

Portraits and family groups first. Each opens with its caption, date and where it came from.

Photograph from Thomas DanielsPhotograph from Thomas DanielsDate unknownDavid Moroni Daniels (portrait published 1913)David Moroni Daniels (portrait published 1913)Published 1913Photograph from David Moroni DanielsPhotograph from David Moroni DanielsDate unknownGeorge and Mary Daniels with their childrenGeorge and Mary Daniels with their childrenDate unknownPhotograph from George Daniels Sr.Photograph from George Daniels Sr.Date unknownJohn and Martha Daniels familyJohn and Martha Daniels familyDate unknown

6 PHOTOGRAPHS · 2 LAND PATENTS · 4 FAMILY TREESOpen the Daniels family album ↗

HOW WE KNOW

Sources and open questions

Everything above comes from the archive’s family histories and the public records the valley map checked them against. Where accounts disagree, the page says so rather than choosing silently.

Where the accounts differ

  • 1885 water-right application (overview) versus first legal mention in 1887 (biography).
  • Neither the 1885 arrival nor the 1887 water right has been found in the records searched, nor refuted; the Oneida County water-right and possessory-claim books of 1885–92 are unsearched.
  • Whether the Daniels ranch house stood on Gertrude Daniels’s Big Meadows patent; the mapped point follows the archive’s description.
  • Whether the first election judge “Donam Daniels” (1917 history) was Donum or Dave (“D. D. Daniels” in the 1920 version).
  • When, and from whom, the government bought the Daniels Big Meadows land.
  • David M. Daniels’s Yellowstone Hotel partnership is not verified.

Sources 26

Show every source
Research notes
  • Zella Daniels Bolingbroke’s recollections (Bannock Valley, page 189) describe the old ranch.
  • The Bannock Creek Decree that still governs the creek is titled United States v. Daniels (D. Idaho, April 9, 1907); which Daniels was the named defendant is not known.
  • The family filed together at Blackfoot in March 1901 (Jennett Price and Henry on the 12th, Donum on the 19th, Thomas D. on the 25th) — probably the first four entries for the West Fork township.
  • Thomas D. Daniels’s homestead lay at Pauline, east of the Big Meadows; the Thomas page’s “West Fork land” may be Sarah’s desert-land claim at the Big Meadows edge.
  • Dave Daniels was reported in spring 1920 to have sold his farm “at the end of the Indian Reservation,” and Henry’s tracts were taxed to J. V. Williams by 1924, so the 1930s federal purchases were probably made from later owners.
  • Daniel M. Daniels (1856–1938), the West Fork brothers’ full brother, was the first settler of the Daniels area north-west of Malad, which was probably named for the family; he and the Dives stepbrother Veurlam Dives (an Oneida County commissioner) had no valley land and are not given records here.
  • Part of the family belonged to the Reorganized Church (Donum and Martha at Nampa).
← All articlesExplore the families ↗
FOLLOW THE GENERATIONS

The Daniels family

100%
Your current story

Choose a name to read its history. Scroll or drag the space around the branches to explore.

YOUR BRANCH

Daniels

Showing the family histories in this archive.