Daniel Wood arrived in Salt Lake City July 23, 1848, moving to North Canyon the following October and built a cabin near where the H. C. Kimball mill was later built. This cabin and a wagon was their home. He traveled all over the valley and finally decided the most fertile land was west, in what we call Woods Cross. There he began to drain the swamps and cut the willows to prepare for a permanent home.

The saints, working together, made sun-dried bricks, and helped him so,that by October, 1850, Daniel Wood had completed a two-story home called the Big House. The lower floor was a kitchen and work room; upper floor was for bedrooms. Later he added a school room.

In 1854 he began a private school with six pupils of his own. His wife, Emma, was the teacher. Soon the neighbors' children attended with a young convert named Charles Pearson as teacher.

In 1863 he built a family meeting house under Brigham Young's instruction. It was a adobe building thirty by fifty having one large room with a bell tower. The bell rang fifteen minutes before meeting time. The first meeting was held November 18, 1863, at 7 P.M. with Daniel Wood presiding and with some of his wives and daughters in the choir. Many parties and entertainments were held here.

He adopted three Indian children who were made orphans following the Black Hawk War. They died quite young.--Daniel Wood Diarv.

Typed from photocopy of original by
Norma Jean M. Wood
5 July 1991