A short time after pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, settlers began moving into other parts of the Territory of Deseret, including the area near Crystal Hot Springs south of Salt Lake City that later became Bluffdale. In 1858 Orrin Porter Rockwell bought sixteen acres there and built and operated a hotel/tavern, stable, brewery, and Pony Express station. Jens and Rise Sophie Neilson Madsen homesteaded on the east side of the Jordan River in 1862 and lived in a dugout with a Petersen family until they could build a log house, while Timothy Gilbert settled on the west side that same year. Dr. John Lewis Dunyon traded his Salt Lake home for the Rockwell property in 1865, John and Robert Spencer arrived in 1868, David Rees Jones brought his family in 1871, Alfred John Dansie came in the fall of 1879, and Jedediah G. Casper arrived in 1880. The Salt Lake County Court created the Bluffdale Precinct on December 14, 1883, and William Wallace Merrill, who had come in the spring of 1880, became the first Justice of the Peace, while Louis Petersen, a settler in 1883, became the first constable. By September 1887 the community had grown to twenty-three families. Merrill and John Spencer donated land for a church built in 1887-1888 of adobe bricks that served as a meetinghouse for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a gathering place for community socials, and a schoolhouse. Hyrum Brown was the first schoolteacher, followed by Edward Orgill, Ernest A. White, and George P. Garff. A post office was established in 1888 in Merrill's home, where he served as postmaster, and it was first called Mousley in honor of the first LDS bishop, Lewis H. Mousley.