Upon leaving California, Zemira went to Utah with a detachment of the Mormon Battalion, who, late in the year of 1848, reached Salt Lake City, which was pretty well established by then. Other settlements also were springing up, spreading outward from the center of the Church.
Clearly one of President Young’s prime goals was to colonize the Territory of Utah. Places of residence were needed for the increasingly great number of immigrating Saints to make their homes. He said he “wanted Latter Day Saints to be living on every habitable place, because if they are living on it they control the mountains, and the country. . . We could not find a better place for the Latter-day-Saints than in those valleys of the mountains, or in those rugged parts further south.” —Erastus Snow—A. Karl Larson, p. 314.
If Zemira had been permitted to see into his future, he’d have seen himself being involved in the growth of new settlements, for he participated in the earliest settlement of two communities in Northern Utah, Draperville and Heber, and of several locations in Lincoln County, Nevada, namely: Panaca, Spring Valley, Dry Valley, and EagleVille or Eagle Valley. Also in southern Utah he significantly assisted in the growth of Springdale, Leeds, Washington, and Orderville.
Zemira’s activities after reaching Utah are interesting. He lived first at Salt Lake City. There he went to school and worked at the carpenter trade. With further research we may be able to find information concerning some of the following activities he is reported to have participated in.
In the Church Journal History June 14, 1849, it mentions Zemira as
1- “being in company with nine men to ferry the California and Oregon Emigration over the Green River. The Company took wagon-makers and blacksmith tools with them.
2- was in the snow with the handcart companies;
3- and was one of the guards in Echo Canyon during the Buchanan War.”
4- In 1863, with his own team he crossed the plains to help gather the poor.
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