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Duncan's Retreat
The final remains of Duncan's Retreat are visible along the highway between Virgin and Rockville. Very little remains today
- an old gravesite, signs of an old irrigation ditch, a section of a rock wall. Like the town of
Grafton upriver, Duncan's Retreat was another victim of the unpredictable, flooding Virgin River.
Duncan's Retreat was first settled by Chapman Duncan, Alma Minnerly and a few others in late 1861. The flood in January
1862 washed away nearly all of the land that they hoped to farm. These first settlers moved away
and sold their claims to
William Theobald, Joseph Wright, William Wright, Clayborne Elder, Jonathon B. Pratt, Robert W. Reeve, and
Thomas
Burgess.
Up to a dozen families settled there and began farming
raising corn, wheat, sorghum cane, and cotton. A post office
was established in 1863 and a schoolhouse was built the following year. Indian troubles and a flooding Virgin River which
constantly changed courses and washed away most of the cultivated land soon had most of the settlers
moving downstream
to Virgin City and going to their farms upriver each day. Later after a period of reoccupation and many years of trying to
keep
a dam in and their farms from washing away the Virgin River finally won the battle, forcing the settlers from their homes and
farms and Duncan's Retreat was virtually a ghost town by 1892.
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