Chesterfield brings the past to life

As is tradition, the townsite of Chesterfield opened to visitors on Memorial Day in epic fashion.  A full day of food, family, history, and more greeted those who made their way to Chesterfield for the kickoff of the summer season.  While no official count was taken, hundreds of visitors throughout the day toured the town’s historic cabins and buildings, shopped at the Holbrook store, and got a good dose of history from the volunteer tour guides who were excited to talk about Chesterfield’s history.

“Wagon” rides took guests around the streets that are among the main concessions to the modern world.  As they did so, visitors caught just a tip of the iceberg of the long and storied history of the small, but very important town.

It doesn’t take very long in Chesterfield before you realize that while the town undeniably exists, there are actually some polite disagreements about how or why.

The name itself is either derived from Chester Call, one of the earliest settlers in the area, or from an early Church elder’s pronouncement that the area reminded him of the mission he had served in…Chesterfield, Derbyshire.  It’s also not completely impossible the name came from both sources independently of one another, although that would put a strain on even the most
robust credulity.

 The Chesterfield opening saw the influx of visitors from out of town to take a closeup look at a place that is important in LDS church history, as well as the general history of the settlement of the west, and what would eventually become Idaho and Utah (with the town predating Idaho’s statehood by a number of years).

But the opening is also a time for ancestors and descendants to return to town, many of whom serve as summer tour guides in the homes built by relatives gone but not forgotten in time.

And lastly, of course, it’s a time for those who live in the Chesterfield/Bancroft area to meet back up with one another after a long winter in a place with a common draw—the call of history and the heartland.  The guides at the cabins and building sites were people who have family roots in the town, many with the same names as those found on the exteriors of the cabins.  Some are from nearby and drive in during the summer to maintain and work on the building restoration and upkeep.  Others come from much farther away and spend their summers nearby in various accommodations.  All are committed to keeping the history of the town available to the public, and preserved for future generations.

If you for some reason just haven’t made your way to Chesterfield, it’s a quick drive north of Bancroft on the way to the reservoir named for the townsite.  It’s a fun mix of living history and the preserved past, with as many family legends and stories as you’d ever want to hear.  Each of the cabins provides a great and informative look into the lifestyle and living conditions of the settlers to the area more than a century and a quarter ago.  Guides like Steve Jensen, at the Denmark Jensen Cabin, have an amazing depth of knowledge about the original construction of the structures in town, as well as the history of the settlement of the site itself.  As the history is very steeped in the shared history of the expansions of Mormon settlement outside of Salt Lake, there are better records than are sometimes the case in early western settlements with less stable or permanent populations.

Steve is happy to talk about what brought his forbears to Chesterfield, and so are the other guides, like Chester Call descendent Scott Barney, whose relatives lived in the Chester Cabin within the living memory of some residents.  As the distance to those events of the past increase, the connection to them only grows.  One thing that you’ll notice as you make your way through Chesterfield is that as many older folks as there are around, there are just as many kids, many of whom are learning the stories that are told sitting on rocking chairs in the Chesterfield shade.  The efforts of the community to preserve and maintain the townsite are impressive, but they can always use more help.  So the next time you head through, be sure to stop and stay awhile.  And the next time you think about it, stop by even if you aren’t necessarily heading through!