"Pig King" of Davis County

The pig business is still in the family. These piglets were raised by my husband and son.

James Smuin Harvey was the "Pig King." Dorrit Brough Harvey wrote that she doesn't know whether anyone else in the state had as many pigs as her father did, or not, but that she was certain that no one in Davis County did.

He had over 100 pigs, and more during farrowing season. He was pretty well equipped to take care of the. He had a row of pens where expectant sows were put. These pens had a roof over the rear of the pen and the front was open where there was a trough for food and water. A new litter of pigs had to be watched closely to see that the mother didn't lay on them and smother them.

They always lost a few this way, even with the best of care. It wasn't that the mother didn't care for her babies as she would fight if anyone got in the pen with them, but it seemed she could be laying on one and not even know it was under her. The west end of spring hollow (now under the road) was fenced with combination wire (pig mesh) with a barbed wire strung tight about an inch off the ground and two of them above the mesh. This prevented them from rooting under.  This provided a 20 or 30 acre pig pasture with plenty of running water, grass, shade and lots of acorns in the fall. After the grain was cut, James would haul loads of the bundled grain and throw it over the fence to the pigs and let them thresh it themselves. 

When he put them into the fattening pen, which was a small enclosure with lots of feeders in it, he fed them barley that he had choppd at the mill. He thought chopped barley made top grade pork. He was proud of his superior pork and on returning from a hog selling trip, would say, "Well, I did it again, I topped the market." He always sold his pigs in February and August, as this was the high point of the year, price-wise. The Stewart boys, Al, Roan, and Clarence (Walt) always came to help him butcher his hogs for market. He thought they were extra efficient at it.

He had a metal vat about 10 feet long, which was set in the ground with a hole under it for a fire. Water was heated in it to boiling and the pig rolled in it on ropes until it loosened the bristles. It was then  put on a low table and scraped clean. Then it was taken by block and tackle and hung to cross arms on poles where the insides were removed. The livers and hearts were kept and the intestines were run to remove the fat. There were several buckets full of this which Mary, his wife, rendered into lard in the oven and poured into lard buckets provided her by the Salt Lake butcher shops. She sold it or gave some it away, but never used a spoonful of it in her own cooking, or did the family use any of the pork.

James had to be up at 4 a.m.  in the summer-time, in case a pig got out of the pasture and went "visiting." If there was anything unwelcome among the neighbors, it was a pig. This was quite understandable as it only took a few minutes for a wandering pig to dig a whole row of potatoes if he found a garden. The family was upset once themselves,  when one dug their row of beets when they were ready to pickle.

James also had 35 or 40 head of stock cattle and three or four milk cows. The family used a lot of milk, cream, and butter. Sometimes Mary sold eight or 10 pounds of butter a week to the store.