I

SETTLEMENTS AND BEGINNINGS IN WESTERN UTAH

            Jedediah Smith, Walker, Bidwell, Fremont and their contemporaries in journeys across Nevada were conscious trespassers in a foreign land. As soon as they crossed to the south of the 42d parallel or went over the western side of the continental divide they were nominally within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Mexico. North of the 42d parallel and west of the mountains was the "Oregon country," with a divided jurisdiction between Great Britain and the United States until the treaty of June, 1846. The occupation of Oregon by the process of "peaceful penetration" had started in 1831 with the inauguration of the Oregon trail. Americans after ten years outnumbered the English, so it was a diplomatic triumph based on the consent of the majority when President Polk won the compromise of the 49th parallel to the Pacific as the northern boundary of the United States.

            A similar process was going on with respect to Northern California. It is proper to state that the only definite limit to the region known as Upper or New California was the treaty line of the 42d parallel on the north and the crest of the Rock Mountains on the east. But of the five or six thousand Mexicans dwelling in Upper California in 1846 all were located in scattered settlements from San Diego to the Sacramento Valley. From the Oregon settlements on the north, by occasional parties from the other overland trails, and from ships that landed at the California coast, Americans had been filtering into the Sacramento Valley from 1839, when Sutter established his post on the American River. In increasing numbers the emigration over the Oregon trail after 1843 was diverted into California. Careful students of the westward movement are convinced that the American conquest of California would have been accomplished in perhaps a dozen years without the intervention of political or military means. Had President Polk and his advisers kept their hands off the Pacific situation, employing none of their diplomatic, military and naval agents, such as Larkin, Fremont, Sloat and Stockton, the powerful lever of the pioneer, the American homesteader, trader and business maker, would have accomplished and fulfilled the vision of the statesman for a nation with continent-wide boundaries. The war with Mexico starting in 1846 substituted arms for a more orderly but no less inevitable process of "manifest destiny."

Mormon Hegira.

            Even before the United States resorted to arms to settle its differences with Mexico, another element was projected into the situation in Upper California, and destined to constitute an important influence in the development of Nevada. In 1844 the

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leaders of the Mormon church had suffered martyrdom at the hands of an Illinois mob at Nauvoo. During the following year the relations of the inhabitants of Nauvoo and the people and government of Illinois were those of an armed truce, amounting to a forcible expulsion of the sect. The new leader, Brigham Young, determined to take his people beyond the Rocky Mountains, if possible completely out of the jurisdiction of the United States. Accordingly, early in 1846, when the ice was still solid on the Mississippi, his followers crossed over into Iowa and throughout the year were toiling from camp to camp over the Mormon trails through Southern Iowa to their "winter quarters" on the Nebraska side of the Missouri. In the meantime Brigham Young was negotiating for a permanent home for the Saints. Beyond the crest of the Rocky Mountains he had two alternatives, either the Oregon country, to which the American claims had not yet been ratified, or the region of Upper California, south of the 42d parallel, then a. part of Mexico. But the manifest destiny of American history played a strange trick on Young. Before the Nauvoo exiles had fairly gotten away from the Mississippi River, the Oregon treaty was signed, and President Polk had announced that war existed with Mexico and expeditionary armies were being hastily organized to proceed to California, Santa Fe and beyond the Rio Grande. Brigham Young through his agent at Washington did not hesitate to make a profitable deal in return for the allegiance which he and his followers could give to the government in the conquest of California. Among the camps in Iowa men were recruited for the "Mormon Battalion" which marched away to Santa Fe and thence to Southern California. Thus the Mormons had their part in the conquest of the country beyond the Rocky Mountains, to which Brigham Young led his first band of emigrants to the shores of Salt Lake in the fall of 1847. By the spring of 1848 the population of Salt Lake City was over 1,600, and before the close of the year at least 5,000 of the Saints had assembled in the valley. Such was the beginning of that remarkable political-religious-economic experiment known as Utah.

            As a result of these colonizing forces, supplemented by war, what is now the region of Nevada was partly enclosed by 1848 with a frontier line of settlements, reaching up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the west, in the colonies around Salt Lake on the east, and the scattered colonies along the Oregon trail and in the Oregon country on the north.

Gold Rush of 1849.

            With the ratification in May, 1848, of the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Upper California became formally a territorial supplement to continental United States. What government should be extended over the area of the conquest, what disposition by way of division or otherwise should be made of the territory, was a problem for Congress. But every major subject presented in Congress was involved sooner or later with the interminable slavery issues and the acquisition of the new region beyond the Rockies added fresh fuel to those passionate controversies. Even before the treaty was signed, in 1847, David Wilmot had proposed his famous proviso excluding slavery from any territory that might be acquired from Mexico. In 1848, after the ratification of the treaty, Congress considered a bill to organize the territories of

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Oregon, New Mexico and California. The slavery forces permitted the Oregon bill to become a law, and it was signed by the President in August, 1848. But the people of California and New Mexico were allowed to shift for themselves under the supervision of the officials of the War and Navy departments and under the existing Mexican system of laws.

            During this year of congressional neglect, with the conquered territory rated as a "military dependency," gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill and in a few months California occupied a place in the attention of the world that made even the struggles of the giants in Congress of secondary consideration. Early in 1849 the great migration started, reaching San Francisco by shiploads and by caravans of wagon trains over the Oregon and Mormon trails to Fort Hall or Salt Lake and thence across the deserts to the passes in the Sierra Mountains. This great emigration brought to the Pacific Coast within the space of a year more people than had come during the first century of the colonization period to the shores of New England. And like the New Englanders, they were people of independent initiative and were well able to help themselves in the matter of law and government. In 1849 the Mormon colonies around Salt Lake constituted themselves into the state of Deseret. In calling their convention they appealed to "all the citizens of that portion of Upper California lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains." The convention framed a constitution. They proposed as a boundary of their projected state not only all of that portion of Upper California lying east of the Sierra Nevadas, but also an opening to the Pacific Coast now included in Southern California. A little later the state of Deseret chose a delegate to Congress, who took with him to Washington a memorial declaring that the people of Deseret had done "more by our arms and influence than any other equal number of citizens to obtain and secure this country to the government of the United States," and justified the establishment of the state government because of the neglect of Congress to provide any law except "the revolver and the bowie-knife."

            Only a little behind the inhabitants of the Salt Lake Valley were the American pioneers of California in creating a form and plan of the state government. Without an enabling act or any permissory legislation from Congress, a constitutional convention met at Monterey in September, 1849, formulated a constitution, which was ratified by the people in the following November, and in December a full set of state officials was elected and the state government was in operation in all its functions before the request for admission to the Union was presented to Congress.

            The chief interest in the California Constitutional Convention as to the history of Nevada lies in the proceedings culminating in the establishment of the eastern boundary line of California.

California's Eastern Boundary.

            The California delegates either had no knowledge of the Mormon state of Deseret with its extended boundaries, or chose to ignore those boundaries. In fixing the boundaries of their proposed state some of the delegates felt it incumbent upon the convention to provide for the entire region that had previously been the Mexican Province of California, thus extending eastward to the Colorado River and the Rocky Mountains. The first report

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of the boundary committee proposed that the 116th meridian should be the Eastern California boundary from the 42d parallel to the southern line then being fixed by the boundary commission between the United States and Mexico. The 116th meridian extends directly through the Great Basin. Had it been adopted, the greater part of Western Nevada would have been given to California, while a considerable portion of the Imperial Valley and all of the district adjacent to the Colorado River would have been thrown into the territory or state erected out of the area to the east of that meridian. Other boundary proposals were made by members of the committee and also on the floor of the convention, one being that California should include all the area as far east as the 105th meridian (the longitude of Denver). The controversy over the boundary revealed such profound differences of opinion that the work of the convention was nearly wrecked on this obstacle. One of the delegates argued that it was not desirable that California should extend its territory further east than the Sierra Nevada, the great natural boundary. Force was given to this argument because the thousands of inhabitants around Salt Lake had no representation in the convention. Moreover, Congress would never consent to the admission of such an enormous and unwieldy state, particularly since the admission of the state would involve a settlement of the slavery question for a district as large as all the northern states then in the Union. In the course of the debate the suggestions for a boundary included various points east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Finally, with the day of adjournment already fixed and the convention apparently in a hopeless deadlock over the boundary, the delegates were recalled to their senses by a speech made by the youngest member of the convention. His proposal, after several alternatives had been voted down, was accepted and the eastern boundary was thus defined :

            The following year the work of California's constitution makers was accepted by Congress after the prolonged struggle which resulted in what is known as the compromise of 1850. On September 9, 1850, President Fillmore signed the bill admitting California to the Union, with the boundaries designated in its constitution. On the same day the President approved two other bills which gave territorial government to the remainder of the district acquired from Mexico. In dividing this region, extending from the 42d parallel on the north to approximately the 32d on the south, the 37th parallel was used as a line which would split the district approximately in half. South of this 37th parallel was the Territory of New Mexico, and north of it the Territory of Utah. The representatives of the state of Deseret had in the meantime failed to receive recognition from Congress. From 1850 until 1866 the 37th parallel from its intersection with the Cali-

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fornia line and eastward constituted the southern boundary of Nevada and Utah. During this period of sixteen years all of the southern tip of Nevada, including all of Clark and portions of other counties was in the jurisdiction of the Territory of New Mexico (and after 1863 Arizona).

            From 1850 to 1861 the Territory of Utah embraced within its jurisdiction all the region from the California state line east to the continental divide, and between the 42d and 37th parallels, including nearly all of the state of Nevada, all of Utah, and Southwestern Wyoming and Western Colorado. Since the territory was one of the products of the compromise of 1850, the Organic Act bore the impress of this struggle in the provision that when the territory should be admitted as a state "the said territory or any portion of the same shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."

Mormon Colonies.

            The census officials in 1850 found in California a population of 92,597, and in the Territory of Utah 11,380. California's population was located almost entirely along the seacoast or in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. The population of Utah was grouped in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. From and between these two centers of settlement were set up the influences which contributed to the first settlements in Nevada. The Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young exhibited a genius for colonization and development in the Great Basin. Settlements were steadily extended south of Salt Lake. Within a year or so after the creation of the territory all the area south to the 37th parallel had been blocked out in great longitudinal strips running to the California line as counties, the southernmost being Washington County. Early in 1851 President Young had deputized two of the Mormon elders to lead a company to California, to form the nucleus of a settlement in the Cajon Pass, one of the chief objects of the colony being to establish an outfitting post for the converts who arrived on the California coast to continue their journey to Utah. In 1852 this California colony purchased the San Bernardino Rancho and started the first improvement in what is now the city of San Bernardino. One of the leaders of this San Bernardino colony was Capt. Jefferson Hunt, who had been an officer in the Mormon Battalion, and after being mustered out had with many of his comrades rejoined the Saints at Salt Lake City, thus during the journey becoming familiar with the old "Spanish Trail" as a practicable route between Southern California and Salt Lake.

            Not only was there increasing communication after 1851 between Salt Lake and San Bernardino, but the more attractive regions along the route were selected as points for settlements and colonization. In 1854 several Mormon missionaries were sent among the Indians in the Valley of the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers in Washington County, and during subsequent years a number of settlements were established along these tributaries of the Colorado River, one of the chief of which became the city of Saint George. In July, 1854, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the construction of a military road, commencing at Great Salt Lake City and running by way of Provo City, Fillmore City, Parawan and Cedar City to the eastern boundary of California in the direc-

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tion of Cajon Pass. This appropriation indicates the early interest in the overland route between Salt Lake and Southern California. In an advertisement in the Deseret News, December 14, 1854, asking proposals for the construction of this road, Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe stated:

            The present Provo road will of course be followed generally, but it is conjectured that some advantage may be gained by departing from it at certain points—especially from the head of the Santa Clara, where a more direct route avoiding the Rio Virgin to the Muddy, may possibly be obtained. The road must be made practicable for wagons over the whole distance from this city to the eastern boundary of California—some thirty miles beyond Las Vegas.

John Reese and Mormon Station.

            Despite the enormous traffic over the California trail along the Humboldt from 1849 on, no settlements resulted, even to the extent of establishment of trading stations. The reason for this was, of course, the desolate character of the country through which the trail ran. A supply station along this route would have been the means of saving many lives and preventing untold suffering, and in addition would have been immensely profitable. But the difficulties of maintaining and supplying such a station, which would have involved a transport organization comparable to that of an army, was beyond the resources of any individual or company at that time.

            After the difficulties of the Humboldt section of the trail had been overcome, the surviving travelers, men and animals, came into the fertile and well watered valleys on the eastern water-shed of the Sierra Nevada range. Here the gold seekers were well content to spend a few days resting their stock, recovering from the heat and dust of the desert and refitting in preparation for the last difficult stage, the passes through the mountains. Here, as has been noted, some enterprising men established ranches and trading stations beginning in the first year of the great emigration. Such stations would naturally depend for a large part of their supplies upon their California communications, and these establishments were in a sense the "last way stations" on the road to California. Nevertheless, the chief among them was founded by a man from Salt Lake City of Mormon affiliations, Col. John Reese, who in 1849 had joined his brother at St. Joseph and had transported a train of goods over the plains to Salt Lake City. From Salt Lake, Col. John Reese extended his operations to the Carson Valley in the spring of 1851. In after years this pioneer of the Carson Valley wrote out the main facts of his life in an auto-

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biography, from which the following account of the establishment of the first business in Western Nevada is taken.

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            These little settlements at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevadas were a fringe of California. Their affiliations, their essential interests, were closely bound up with the activities on the other side of the mountains and the imaginary line which had not yet been surveyed separating them from the state of California. Legally they were a part of the jurisdiction of the Territory of Utah, but from the seat of which they were separated by a distance of 500 miles of road through "the Valley of the Shadow," a physical distance that might be multiplied many times to express the other differences between this community and the political and economic ideals of the population around Salt Lake.

            In the adjustment of personal rights a pioneer community has little need for a formal system of laws and the institutions of civil government. But even frontiersmen are confronted with the necessity of some rough and readily understandable agreement as to property rights. The first application of law in Western Utah was "squatter law," resulting from the voluntary action of citizens committees. Several such citizens' meetings were held in November, 1851, participated in by Mormons as well as Gentiles. Such meetings, here as elsewhere in the West, were of a spontaneous character, resulting from the instincts of the pioneer for law and order. The first provisions made by these squatter meetings was the appointment of such offices as a surveyor and a recorder to handle the business regarding claims. Later steps were taken to provide some system of judicial procedure, including a sheriff and clerk of court and a tribunal of justices from whose decision the appeal lay to another "court of twelve citizens," from whose decision there should be no appeal. It is noteworthy that in formulating this squatter government there was no thought apparently of asking official sanction from the seat of territorial government. In fact, these squatters went over the head of the Utah territorial government and made a direct appeal to Congress,

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Carson County.

            As has been noted, the Utah Legislature had divided the territory, except in the immediate vicinity of Salt Lake, into counties comprising long and narrow strips extending from the California line to the eastern borders of the territory. The act of January 17, 1854, made provision for a separate county, comprising most of the western part of Utah and including all of the settlements in Carson and adjoining valleys. The act read as follows :

            Section 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah : That all that portion of country bounded north by Deseret county; east by the parallel of longitude 118 ; south by the boundary line of the Territory ; and West by California, is hereby included within the limits of Carson county, and until organized is attached to Millard county for election, revenue, and judicial purposes.

            Section 2. The Governor is hereby authorized to appoint a probate judge for said county, when he shall deem it expedient; and said probate judge, when appointed, shall proceed to organize said county, by dividing the county into precincts, and causing an election to be held according to law, to fill the various county and precinct offices, and locate the county seat thereof.

It will be noted that the 118th meridian referred to in this act would intersect the California boundary line before reaching the southern (37th parallel) line of the territory.

            For the office of probate judge Governor Young appointed one of the leading dignitaries of the Mormon Church, Orson Hyde. At the same time the federal judge, George P. Styles, was appointed to preside over the Third Judicial District, comprising Carson County. On June 15, 1855, more than a year after the creation of Carson County, there arrived at the Mormon Station a party including Orson Hyde, Judge Styles and the United States marshal, with an escort of thirty-five men. Under the direction of the probate judge the county was formally organized, and the era of squatter government ended. An election was held for the choice of such officials as sheriff, surveyor, prosecuting attorney and others.

            Whereas a large number of the citizens of Carson Valley in Utah Territory have petitioned Congress to be set off from the said Territory of Utah and to be attached to the State of California, for good reasons as set forth in their petition . . . . Resolved . . . . that we acquiesce in the wishes of the citizens of Carson Valley .. . . and we request our senators and representatives to urge the passage of a law making the 118th meridian . . . . the eastern boundary of California (that is, to the intersection of this meridian with the diagonal southeastern line of the state) .

            The march of an army across the plains to put down the "Mormon rebellion" made an opportune time to raise again the issue of a separate territory for Western Utah. On August 3, 1857, a meeting was held at Genoa, with Col. John Reese as chairman. One of the resolutions adopted at this meeting was :

            That a mass meeting of the inhabitants of the Territory of Utah lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, west of the Goose Creek. Mountains, and between the Colorado River on the south and the Oregon line on the north, be held on Saturday, the eighth day of August, 1857, to take into consideration this subject, and to provide ways and means for presenting this whole question to the earnest consideration of the President of the United States and both Houses of Congress.

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            The population in the various valleys lying between the Goose Creek Mountains on the east and California on the west number at present at least 10,000. . . . The actual settlers of the valley have erected mills, cultivated farms, built cities, made preparation for working mines. . . .

            They further represent that they have been under the government control of Utah. The revolutionary condition of that government . . . . their withdrawal of all protection from those residents of their territory who are not of the Mormon faith ; their instigating the Indians all over the country to suffer none to pass but such as have the permit of their revolutionary commander—all leave the constituents of this county destitute of military or political protection.

            After the partial restoration of federal authority in Utah in 1858, and after Governor Cumming succeeded Brigham Young as territorial governor, one or two efforts were made to extend the authority of the territory over Carson County. Governor Cumming appointed John S. Child probate judge of Carson County. Judge Child called an election for county officers October 30, 1858. Most of the votes cast were thrown out, so that the official vote counted aggregated 114. Among the precincts represented in this election were Gold Canyon, Washoe Valley, Eagle Valley, Smith's Station, Sink Humboldt. The results of the election would indicate that there were over 200 persons who claimed the privilege of voting in Carson County, but within a few months afterward the population was swelled to thousands and the movement for local government was given an impetus which could no longer be resisted.

Judge Crane.

            The man who by common consent and popular choice was the leader of a movement to effect a provisional government in Western Utah and to give it validity from Congress was James M. Crane. His untimely death in September, 1859, just as he was about to depart for Washington with a new sanction as delegate to Congress, was regarded at the time as a serious blow to the hopes of the people for early recognition. But with Congress embroiled as it was in sectional issues it is doubtful if any western territory could have been erected before the winter of 1860-61. Concerning this interesting and prominent early figure in Nevada's political history, the following account is taken from the "historical sketch" in the Nevada Territory Directory of 1862:

            James M. Crane, who had taken up his residence in Carson Valley, in 1857, was that year elected a delegate to proceed to Washington, and urge upon Congress favorable action in the premises. Being thoroughly acquainted with the situation and wants of the people, as well as conversant with the resources of the country, he was admirably qualified to present their case intelligently before that body, and to effectually urge a compliance with the popular desire. But the politicians of that day were too much absorbed with personal schemes and partisan measures to pay any attention to the wants of a distant and isolated community, or to make any provision for their relief ; hence, Judge Crane, after the most earnest and

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indefatigable efforts, returned from Washington, without having been able to accomplish the object of his mission. . . .

            Judge Crane, who was a native of Virginia, came to California in 1850, and was about forty years of age at the time of his death. He was a printer by trade, and, as is common with that craft, a man of large and varied information. He was conversant, not only with the current politics and questions of the day, but also with general literature, and the political history of the country. In short, he was a student and lover of books, and had found time during the pursuits of business to train his mind to careful thinking and enrich it with learning. On his arrival in California he settled in San Francisco, and soon after started the first Whig paper on the Pacific Coast—The California, Courier—he being an old line Whig of the conservative Henry Clay school. This able and popular paper owed much of its success to his pen, but the party upon which it was mainly dependent for support, having at length been dissolved, this most excellent journal perished with it; after which Judge Crane, as did many of his political confreres, kept aloof from the partisan organizations of the day, acting independently, or lending their support to such measures alone as met their approval. After the discontinuance of the Courier, he wrote much for various papers, either as editor or contributor, and in 1855 commenced the work of compiling a series of lectures on the early discoveries and explorations on the Pacific coast; a work of great research, which led him into a thorough and careful examination of all the old Spanish books and records connected with the subject. These lectures were delivered in California, and afterwards in the principal towns of the East, everywhere attracting much attention and favorable comment. Having collected a large amount of matter, and his mind being deeply engaged in this branch of inquiry, he determined to publish a book upon the same subject. Accordingly, he traveled much over California, and was finally drawn over the Sierra Nevada on the prosecution of his enterprise, his friend, Major Ormsby—having casually met him at Marysville, and being himself a resident of the "Eastern Slope," and a great believer in its destiny,—persuaded him to accompany him to his home on the other side.

            Here a field opened exactly suited to the purpose and enthusiastic soul of Crane. Unexplored and unknown, the vast deserts traversed by numerous chains of mountains, and inhabited by savage races, stretched out on every hand, inviting the daring and hardy adventurer to penetrate their depths and reveal their hidden secrets. Well he knew this was a land of traditionary wealth, into which the early Spaniard had pushed his way centuries ago, and about which many a legend of marvelous riches had been told. Here, far across the burning sands, were the ruins of famous cities—Balbecs and Palmyras in the desert—while mountains of gold, guarded by powerful tribes, shone in the distance. Such were the tales floating through tradition and chronicled in history, concerning the Great Basin ; certainly sufficiently wild and exciting to arrest the attention of one less dreamy and imaginative

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than Crane, and awaken within him a strong desire to explore its strange solitudes.

            Upon his arrival on this side of the mountains, Judge Crane at once set out to examine the country, visiting various localities, collecting information, and acquainting himself with the views and wants of the people. It soon became apparent that the prevailing social and political disorder resulting from a want of laws, and a suitable form of government, was running everything, and defeating the progress of the country. As the creation of a new Territory, and a total separation from the Mormons, had now become an obvious political necessity, it was resolved, on the part of the leading inhabitants, that a suitable person should be sent to Washington, to represent the desires of the people, and true condition of affairs to Congress, and urge upon the body the passage of an act creating the western portion of Utah into a separate Territory. Judge Crane was unanimously chosen to fill this honorable and responsible position, and at once set out for the National Capital, where he exerted himself to the utmost to carry the measure. With the Kansas question, and the Mormon war on their hands, Congress had little time or inclination to listen to propositions for creating more territories—those already formed being a source of so much vexation and trouble ; hence, although Judge Crane, by his persistence, and the favorable light in which he placed the whole subject before Congress, won many of the members over to his views, and prepared the way for the subsequent success of this measure, he did not at that time carry his point. Returning to his constituents he was again chosen delegate, the country having, in the meantime, received a mighty impetus by the discovery of the silver mines, which fired him with a new ambition for its independent organization, when as has been related, he was suddenly cut off, in the prime of life, and in the midst of his useful and arduous labors.