That promise was kept when in the spring following the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, several families, with Joshua T. Willis as branch president (from Harmony Ward), built log cabins near Toquer's village along Ash Creek. That fall, Indian interpreter Nephi Johnson, guided by a local Paiute, took an old Indian trail from Toquerville up over the Hurricane Ledge to explore as far as the Zion Narrows in the upper Virgin River Basin. His report to Isaac Haight at Cedar City was so positive regarding the establishing of settlements that orders were given to begin immediately to build a wagon road over the path taken by Johnson. A half-dozen men started work in early December, got their wagons up to the mouth of North Creek where it reaches the Virgin River, built an irrigation system, and laid out the town of Pocketville (Virgin). All of the farm sites were promptly taken by Mormons who had abandoned San Bernardino during the Utah War. Additional settlements soon followed along the upper Virgin River drainage--Duncan's Retreat, Grafton, Shunesburg, Adventure, Springdale, and Northrup. All of these communities, along with Toquerville, became part of the LDS Church's Cotton Mission.