Plans were made for the immediate resettlement from North Ogden to Cache Valley of the Campbell and other families, but the move was interrupted by the approach of the U.S. Army with orders to force a military occupation of Utah Territory. The Weber County settlers evacuated their homes and moved south for temporary sanctuary on the "Provo bottoms," and the Weber County brigade of the Nauvoo Legion passed through Cache Valley to conduct a defensive reconnoiter of the Bear River region. A number of these men subsequently returned to settle in Providence.

Settlers finally came to Spring Creek on 20 April 1859. Arriving first were Ira Rice, a sixty-five-year-old War of 1812 veteran from Massachusetts, and a thirty-five-year-old Welsh coal miner, Hopkin Mathews, accompanied by his teenage daughter Elizabeth. They were joined by the English-speaking Bowen, Busenbark, Campbell, Clark, Clifford, Dees, Dunn, Durfey, Gates, Hall, Lane, Maddison, Rammell, Thompson, Williams, and Wright families, plus the Gassman, Lau, and Theurer families, whose native tongue was German.