Dog Creek
In Southern Daviess County
In August, 1836, as the Saints commenced settling in Caldwell County, Waldo Littlefield initially selected a location about two miles south of Far West, on the road leading to Liberty, Clay County. He formed a partnership with Mr. Calvin Graves, and purchased a stock of dry goods and family groceries and commenced business in Far West. When Adam-ondi-Ahman was founded, they took a stock of goods to Grand River, in Daviess County. Because they were selling many goods in both places and prospering, the Littlefields moved to Dog Creek in Daviess County, Missouri. Probably early in 1838, Waldo Littlefield purchased a farm about half way between Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman. The family, including Waldo's wife Mercy Higgins and son Lyman Omer, moved to Daviess County. [Lyman Littlefield, Reminiscences (1888), 34].
Waldo's son, Lyman O. Littlefield, ca. 1880
The Littlefield's new farm improvement consisted of a comfortable house, appropriate outbuildings and cultivated fields. The family succeeded in raising a crop of splendid Missouri corn. [Lyman Littlefield, Reminiscences (1888), 103-04].
In order to accommodate the large numbers of church members gathering to northwestern Missouri, the church presidency began surveying lands lying north of Far West. Toward the end of summer 1838, the presidency and Judge Elias Higbee, as surveyor, traveled to the location of Waldo Littlefield's farm along Dog Creek in southern Daviess County. On Saturday, 1 September, they laid out a new city at the site. This new place of gathering was named Seth, a city of Zion. The intent was to encourage members to immediately begin gathering to Seth. When sufficient numbers arrived, they were to organize the city according to the laws of God. The survey party returned to Far West that same evening.
The name is reflective of the same scriptural theme that served as the basis of the naming of Adam-ondi-Ahman. As Diahman refers to the place where Adam will come to visit his people, Joseph wished Seth to allude to Adam's youngest son. [DHC, Vol. 3, 34-35; LDS Doctrine and Covenants, Section 116].
But, troubled times prevented Seth from developing into the grand city Joseph envisioned.
During the dark days leading up to the church's expulsion from Missouri, Eliza R. Snow observed, Brother Littlefield was forced to leave his home, "with his family to escape being robbed."
[Maurine Ursenbach Beecher, Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow (1995), 13]. Lyman Littlefield explained that his father removed his family from their home "to seek shelter in a wilderness, there to combat the rugged blasts of winter, as best he could, in the noble endeavor to preserve the lives of wife and dependent children." [Lyman Littlefield, Reminiscences (1888), 103].
Mormon Land Holdings in the Area of the Proposed City of Seth
Click on Map for Larger Image
In December, shortly after the Littlefields fled their home, Eliza R. Snow's family was also forced to leave Adam-ondi-Ahman. Two days into their journey south, the party stopped to rest "over night at what was called the Half-way House, a log building perhaps twenty feet square, with the chinkings between the logs, minus- they probably having been burned for firewood... The northwind had free ingress through the openings, wide enough for cats to crawl through. This had been the lodging house of the hundreds who had preceded us, and on the present occasion prove the almost shelterless shelter of seventy-five or eighty souls... About twenty feet from the house was a shed, in the center of which the brethren built a roaring fire, around which some of them stood and sang songs and hymns all night, while others parched corn and roasted frosted potatoes, etc." [Beecher, Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow, 13].