Daughters of Utah Pioneers McQuarrie Memorial Museum

An early plat of the town of St. George is on display in the DUP McQuarrie Museum, with the names of the 309 families who arrived in 1861 beneath. The town was chartered and platted in early 1862. The traditional way of determining who would receive which town lot was to put names of the Mormon men aged 18 and up into one hat and the numbers of the blocks/ lots into another hat. After all had drawn their lots, trading was allowed.

Two photographs of the St. George Mormon Temple show the original building and a later version. When Brigham Young visited St. George to dedicate the temple in April 1877, he remarked that the temple's cupola looked out of proportion and too short, making the building look more like a government building. It was too late to change it, so the cupola stayed as it was. Brigham Young died of illness four months later, and the cupola was hit by lightning during a storm in 1878. The town decided maybe it would be better to rebuild that cupola after all. An oversized bed built for Brigham Young to use on his visits to St. George is housed in the museum, along with a wooden wardrobe.

Uniforms worn by Erastus Snow are housed in a display case. Snow was a member of the Utah militia and the Nauvoo Legion. The militia uniform features beehive-shaped buttons, a topcoat, top hat and cane; the emblem of the state of Utah is the beehive and the honeybee is the state insect. A Utah Territorial flag on display also; Utah did not become a state until 1896.

A Black silk dress made in 1890 was made by Anne Cannon Woodbury. Mrs. Woodbury did not order the material for the dress but raised the silkworms to make the cloth. The crocheted collar on the dress was the handiwork of Jean Coates. A cotton bedspread in the museum is equally impressive. A sixteen-year-old named Susanna Adams Harris planted, tended, and picked the cotton. She spun the cotton fibers and died some of the fibers blue to make the checked blue and white pattern, which she sewed herself, of course!

The Odlum family donated some family heirlooms, including a painting of George Washington that is a copy of a Stuart Gilbert painting. The McQuarrie family's piano made its way across the plains but would not fit in the house so it sat on the front porch. While tours of the museum are free, it is requested that groups of fifteen or more call to schedule at least an hour in advance.

Tull, Patricia L. Helena B. Stites. Museums and Collections in Utah Open to the Public. Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. XXI 43 - 56. Published January 1st 1953. University of Utah.

Washington County Chapter Daughters of Utah Pioneers. McQuarrie Memorial Building, DUP McQuarrie Memorial Museum. Accessed September 7th 2020. https://dupstgeorge.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Script-revised-12-2019.pdf.

Washington County Chapter Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Tours, DUP McQuarrie Memorial Museum. Accessed September 7th 2020.https://dupstgeorge.org/pioneer-museum/tours/

Washington County Historical Society. Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) McQuarrie Memorial Museum, Washington County Historical Society. January 1st 2020. Accessed September 7th 2020. https://wchsutah.org/dup/museum.php.