| Seth Benjamin Tanner | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 6, 1828 Bolton, New York |
| Died | December 3, 1918 (aged 90) Taylor, Arizona |
| Occupation | explorer, settler, prospector, stockman, Indian trader |
| Religion | Mormon |
| Spouse | Charlotte Levi, Anna Marie Jensen |
| Children | 7 |
| Parents | John Tanner and Elizabeth Beswick |
Seth Tanner (6 Mar 1828 - 3 Dec 1918) was a Mormon settler who established the Tanner Trail in the Grand Canyon National Park.[1]
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Seth's full name was Seth Benjamin Tanner. He was one of John Tanner's 21 children. He was born in Bolton, New York, and was with his father's family as they were driven across the U.S. from place to place with the early Mormons. By the time he reached Salt Lake City in 1848 he was 20 years old. Soon after arriving in Salt Lake, he left for the California gold rush with his older brother Myron. In 1851, he and Myron joined other family members in helping to settle San Bernardino. For a time, Seth and his brothers made money breaking in semi-wild horses and driving them up from California to sell in Salt Lake. In 1856, he went to San Diego for a while to invest in the coal business with some partners and prospect for coal, although they didn't find much success in this venture.
Seth married Charlotte Levi in 1858 in Pine Valley, Washington County, Utah, and they settled in North Ogden, Utah and had seven children. After Charlotte's death in 1872, Seth moved his family to Payson, Utah to be near other family members. In 1875 he was chosen by Brigham Young to go on an exploring mission with James S. Brown to Arizona, to search out a suitable place for settlement on the Little Colorado River. He later returned to Utah and married Anna Maria Jensen in 1876, then moved his family to Arizona, to an isolated cabin on the Little Colorado River near Tuba City, on the present-day Navajo reservation. Apparently his cabin was on the main travel route and visitors often stopped over there. Wilford Woodruff, third prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, mentioned it when on the underground, hiding out from the federal marshals. Seth's second wife had no children of her own, but raised the children of Seth's first wife in this lonely cabin in the wilderness.
Seth Tanner also helped with the Hole-In-The-Rock expedition; he joined the expedition as a guide for the initial exploring party, guiding them up to the Bluff area after they had reached Moenkopi in the Navajo country. The whole expedition would have been much better off had they followed the route which Seth showed them, instead of taking the insane "short cut" down through the hole and across the redrock country. This "short cut" took them 6 months, instead of the 6 weeks it took to go the "long way" around.
Apparently Seth got along well with both the Navajo and Hopi Indians; he and his children learned their languages, and they called him by a Navajo name (Hostiin Shush) which meant "the man who is strong as a bear," and his children were known as the young bears (Shush Yazzii). Seth Tanner's descendants even today operate a chain of Indian trading posts throughout the Southwest. "He was often appointed to deal with the natives, having the happy faculty of making friends with them ... Seth was a modest man but he was always thoughtful of others, and during his travels and life-long experiences when he was associated with others in travel, he was generally set apart as a hunter and fisher and to provide meat for the company." Seth Tanner was a gentle, solitary man of the desert, and he did a lot of traveling and exploring through Northern Arizona. He engaged in prospecting and mining in the area, but does not seem to have had too much success in these ventures. It is said that his name is somewhat of a legend in northern Arizona, and many natural features bear his name. He died in Taylor, Arizona, on 3 Dec 1918, at the age of 90.