USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 18
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 18
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 18
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43 Commissioners of Mono county appointed by the Cal. legislature were P. J. Hickey, W. M. Boring, E. W. Casey, C. N. Noteware, L. A. Brown, G. W. Bailey, and T. A. Lane. These provided for the election in June.
# The officers elected were, for co. clerk, R. M. Wilson; sheriff, N F. Scott; dist. atty, R. E. Phelps; assessor, J. H. Smith; treas .; William Feast; sur., L. Tuttle; supervisors, E. Green, Charles R. Worland, and J. S. Schulz. The judge appointed by the governor of Cal. was J. A. Moultrie. 45 Judge Moultrie had resigned and J. C. Baldwin had been appointed in his place. Sheriff Scott had been killed by Indians and G. W. Bailey appointed to the vacancy,
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two counties, one in California and one in Nevada. This duplex government continued, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, for all the years during which the boundary was in dispute. Lake county was similarly situated, being partly claimed by Plumas county, California, with the difference that in this instance Nevada failed to substantiate her claim to the Honey Lake valley, which was supposed to be within the territorial limits. It had been the home of Isaac Roop, the governor elected by the people of western Utah in 1859, and was made the 9th council district for the election of members of the first Nevada legislature by Governor Nye. The commissioners appointed in 1861 did not provide for an election in January, nor were county officers chosen before Sep- tember 1862, the county remaining unorganized until after the second meeting of the legislature.46 The representative, C. Adams, did not take his seat, and Councilman Roop, who held over from 1861, was the last member from Honey Lake valley. But the legislature in 1862 fully organized the county, chang- ing the name to Roop, the governor commissioning the officers elected in September, appointing a pro- bate judge, John S. Ward, and ordering a special term of court to be held in January 1863. This assumption of the control of municipal affairs in that region brought on a conflict with arms, as I have mentioned " in a former part of this chapter. Before
46 The officers chosen were W. H. Naileigh, sheriff, H. J. Barette, clerk; Z. N. Spaulding, recorder. Frank Drake, treas .; E. A. Townsend, assessor; Henry E. Arnold, collector; E. R. Nichols, sur .; A. A. Holmes, school sup .; Franklin Strong, S. J. Hill, and J. C. Wimple, commissioners.
47 The trouble began by the judge of Plumas county enjoining from hold- ing court a justice of the peace of Roop county, who failing to obey was fined $100. The sheriff and probate judge of Roop co. were next ordered to cease the exercise of authority in the disputed district, failing of which the Plumas co. sheriff arrested them. The citizens then arose and recaptured the prisoners. A few days later the Plumas co. sheriff, E. H. Pierce, reappeared with a posse of between 100 and 200, and a piece of artillery. He arrested the judge and sheriff a second time, and again they were rescued. Opeu war ensued on the 15th of Feb .. 1863. The Roop co. forces fortified in a log building, and the Plumas co. forces in a barn near by, one of the latter being severely wounded by the Roop co. men. The battle then grew hot, resulting in the wounding of two of the latter, when an armistice was at length agreed
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the final survey, which left all of Roop county which was populated or desirable in California, another elec- tion had been held in that district, but the persons chosen never were permitted to hold office,48 and Roop was in. 1864 attached to Washoe county for judicial purposes.
By the action of the first territorial legislature the whole of Carson county was eliminated, and the records ordered to be delivered to the secretary of the territory for safe keeping. The expenses of the session were estimated at $35,000, and congress had appropriated but $20,000 in a depreciated currency." The members were paid three dollars a day, and three dollars for every twenty miles' travel to and from the capital. The per diem was obviously below the actual expense of living in Nevada at this period, but it might be assumed without fear of contradiction that twenty-four legislators, with the necessary clerks and officers, could have subsisted themselves comfortably for the forty-nine days they were in session upon $12,000, the lowest sum to which the depreciated appropriation had fallen. Compare the expenses of the first Nevada legislature with those of the first Oregon legislature, and we have the difference between the views of a mining and an agricultural population. The salaries of the federal officers were entirely in- adequate to their expenses,5° and these the legislature
upon by the leaders of the two factions, who promised to withdraw their men from the field, leaving it neutral, and to report to their respective governors, requesting them to find some peaceable way of settling their difficulties. Frank Drake was chairman of the conference, H. W. Jennings secretary, and the two sheriffs, Pierce and Naileigh, principals to the agreement which was entered into and a copy forwarded to the governors of Cal. and Nev. I have already stated that they immediately appointed a commission to survey the boundary, and the results.
48 The officers elected in 1863 were William V. Kingsbury, councilman; John C. Partridge, representative; and H. L. Partridge member of the con- stitutional convention.
49 Ner. Comp. Laws, i. 239; S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 13, 1861; Cong. Globe, 1861, app., 30. Says Clemens: 'They levied taxes to the amount of $30,000 or $40,000; and ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million.' Onee in a fit of economy a member proposed to abolish the chaplain and save $3 per day to the country. Roughing It, 191-2.
50 Report of Nye to Seward, in Sen. Ex. Doc., 36, v., 37th cong. 2d sess .; Parker's Letter Book, MS., 43-5, 98.
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might have been justified in increasing had there been a population sufficient to pay the tax. But no such population existed, and the career of extravagance entered upon in 1861 entailed upon the state a debt from which it was not free twenty years later.51
With regard to the seat of government, there was not in the case of Nevada that strife concerning its location which distracted several of the Pacific group of territories. By act of November 25, 1861, Carson City was declared the permanent seat of government, and the city plaza was dedicated to the use of the public buildings. While the bill was pending a peti- tion was presented by citizens of Virginia City ask- ing that the capital might be located there. Silver City also asked for it, but it properly remained away from the mining district. 52
Governor Nye, by proclamation on the 17th of July, 1861, divided the territory into three judicial districts, the 1st district to embrace all that portion of Nevada lying west of the 118th meridian; the 2d district all between the 118th and 117th meridians ; and the 3d district all east of the 117th. To the first he assigned Judge Mott, to the 2d Judge Turner, and to the 3d Judge Jones. If Nye had been content to give Mott all the populated territory west of the 119th meridian there would still have been left Ragtown and Aurora west of that line for Turner, though there was noth- ing east of them for Jones except overland stage stations. Once a year, according to the organic act, the three judges, or a majority of them, were compelled to hold a term of court at the seat of government, and on this occasion at least the two supernumeraries had the privilege of occupying the judicial bench with Mott,
51 The number of senators in the first state legislature was 17, and assem- blymen 36. The state constitution limited the number of members to 75. Nev. Laws, 1864-5, 61.
52 In 1864 a company laid out a town on the flat south from Gold Hill and called it American City, offering the territory $50,000 to remove the capital to that location
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who perhaps was assigned to the whole inhabited part of the country because he was first to arrive.
That his presence was required is undoubted, as the governor called for a second term, on the 21st of August, "to meet the necessities and wants of the people." 53 >> 53 A part of these wants arose from the great number of mining suits which were brought during the scramble for claims on the Comstock, but crimi- nal cases were by no means infrequent. On the 18th of November Deputy marshal John L. Blackburn, an excellent officer, was assassinated while attempting the arrest of a criminal by William Mayfield, one of the gang to which the criminal belonged.54 A reward of $3,000 was offered by citizens of Carson for the capture of Mayfield. So great was public indignation that the clergyman who performed the funeral ser- vices called upon the people to secure the murderer, and volunteered to assist in the pursuit. Mayfield was arrested on the 21st, and placed in irons in the log building which did duty as a jail at Carson. Threats of lynching were openly uttered, and it was observed that a large number of "secessionists, gam- blers, and sympathizers with the murderer" were gathering in Carson from the neighboring towns, so that the chances were divided between rescue and summary hanging. The governor visited the jail in person several times during the night, finding it neces- sary to disarm a former deputy of the marshal, and to send to Fort Churchill for a military guard, a lieu- tenant and fifteen men arriving next day, whose pres- ence, it was thought, averted a general jail delivery. The desperate social element was not so large as it afterward was in Idaho and Montana, but it possessed the advantage of being thoroughly organized, as it was in those territories, and was a dangerous force to
53 Nye's Report in Sen. Ex. Doc., 36, v. 37th cong. 2d sess.
5ª Blackburn had killed one of these men in self-defence, in Nov. 1859, while acting as watchman, as well as deputy marshal, in Carson. Doubtless he was marked. Blackburn was formerly a resident of Dutch Flat, Cal. Parker's Letter-Book, MS., 36-S.
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encounter. By its assistance Mayfield escaped from prison and fled to Montana, where he was killed in a drunken brawl. The condition of society was chaotic. The population consisted chiefly of men, who gath- ered in the mining towns, one third of the whole popu- lation in 1860 being at Virginia City,55 where very few women of the respectable class were to be found.56 Gold Hill, which was a suburb of Virginia City, had something over 600 inhabitants, and only fourteen women. Silver City was a place of about the same importance, these three towns containing over half of all the inhabitants of the territory. Before the or- ganization of Nevada, the following year, the popu-
55 The number of white male and female inhabitants in 1860 was 6,102 of the former, and 710 of the latter; total of colored, 45; number of dwellings, 2,037; hotels 19, boarding houses 29, restaurants 15, saloons 63, stores 109, barbers 17, carpenters 118, teamsters 131, blacksmiths 54, boot-makers 22, jewelers 4, printers 6, physicians 19, dentists 4, livery-stables 14, harness- makers 1, upholsterers 10, tinners 11, painters 9, school teachers 3, tailors 4, brewers 9, milliners 2, gunsmiths 1, speculators 21, lawyers 5, bakers 28. The majority of the population were miners; a few were agriculturists and stock-raisers. About one third of the whole were of foreign birth, Irish, German, and English, with a few of all other nationalities.
56 Total population of Virginia City in 1860 was 2,390, only 118 of whom were women. It was incorporated under the laws of Utah, in Feb. 1861. The first board of trustees, elected in March, consisted of N. W. Winton pres., J. C. Bateman sec., George H. Shaw, Joseph Scates, and Louis Feusier, city treas., C. P. Robinson; marshal, D. Bailey; justice of the peace, Joseph F. Atwill. Kelly's Nev. Dir., 1862, 108. The editor of the Territorial En- terprise is the author of the following reminiscences concerning Virginia City: The first child born in that town was Virginia Tilton, born April 1, 1860, named in honor of the then new mining camp. The parents were John H. and Levina S. Tilton, who immigrated from the east to the mines in 1859. From Sept. to March they lived in their wagon, after which they occupied a house built by the father, whose first employment was carrying mortar for the Ophir office, while Mrs Tilton earned money by sewing. The first school was taught by Miss Downing, on South C street, near Taylor, in 1860. Miss Gregory opened a school subsequently on D street. The first public school was organized in October 1862, the school-house being on the site of the present third ward school-house. Mr Melville was principal, Miss Fida Collins assistant, and John A. Collins supt. Only 17 children were in attendance at the first term. A year afterward there were 360. The first religious services were held in 1861, by an episcopal minister of the diocese of Cal. In the spring of 1862 the American Church Missionary so- ciety sent Franklin S. Rising of New York to organize a church. The first death was that of a young daughter of Lyman Jones, who was buried in a cemetery near the Ophir works. The first ball was held on Christmas eve, 1860, at which the following women were present : Mesdames Dirks, Paxton, Tilton, Bryan, Blair, Flick, Hastings, Dill, Howard, Adams, Ross, R. J. Smith, Howard, C. Barstow, and Leonara Dirks. A sleigh was made by Mr Whipple expressly to carry these persons to the ball.
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NEWSPAPER PRESS.
lation of Virginia had increased to 3,284, and of Gold Hill to 1,294.
Carson City, on account of its more agreeable cli- mate and favorable situation, was expected and in- tended to be the business centre of Carson valley. While mine owners bought and sold and speculated in mining ground at Virginia and Gold Hill, speculators in town lots bought and sold, and built, and planned the future metropolis, which it was soon found would go. whither the gold was, in spite of their efforts. Yet Carson City had made a good beginning in 1860. It had an able and flourishing newspaper," the Territorial
57 The first newspapers in western Utah were published in manuscript, as early as 1854. The Scorpion, edited by S. A. Kinsey, was published at Genoa; the Gold Canon Switch, edited by Joseph Webb, was published at Johntown. They were humorous and satirical in their character, and fur- nished amusement, if not any great amount of superior journalism. On the 18th of Dec., 1858, the Territorial Enterprise was started at Genoa, by William L. Jernegan and A. James. It was removed to Carson City on the 5th of Nov. The Enterprise contains a complete history of Nevada since its organi- zation, and has been conducted from time to time by able writers. In 1860 it was a 20-column weekly, printed on a sheet 21 by 28 inches. Jonathan Williams and J. B. Wollard purchased and removed it to Virginia City in Nov. Its place in Carson City was immediately filled by the Silver Age, another weekly, published by John C. Lewis and Sewall. It was 24 by 36 inches in size, and union in politics. In Sept. 1871 it was issued as a daily, 16 by 20 inches. The Silver Age was favored by the legislature with the first public printing, to which I find reference in Nev. Jour. House, 1861, 85. This journal was also sold to John Church, S. A. Glessner, and J. L. Laird, who removed it in Nov. 1862 to Virginia City, and changed its name on the 4th to the Daily Union. In the autumn of 1868 it was again sold to W. J. Forbes, who called it The Trespass. Not long after, John 1. Ginn and Robert E. Lowery took the stock and published the Safeguard for a few months. It was then removed to White Pine co. by J. J. Ayres and C. A. V. Putnam,
who published the Inland Empire. Finally Gov. L. R. Bradley pur- chased the stock and sold it again te Holmes C. Patrick, who took it back to Cal., whence it came. It served afterward to print the Stockton Republican, the Narrow Gauge, and the Daily Courier, respectively, subsequently to which in 1874, Laura De Force Gordon purchased the remains of the plant, and pub- lished with it the Daily Leader for two years, after which the press was taken to Oakland.
The 3d paper published in Carson City was the Daily Independent, started July 27, 1863. It was a 24-column sheet, 21 by 27 inches, published by W. WV. Ross, and strongly union in sentiment. Israel Crawford became business manager in August, when 4 columnns were added to the size of the paper, and in Oct. Crawford purchased the establishment. A company consisting of G. W. Calwell, George A. Eades, Andrew Mante, and Charles J. Miller, pur- chased the Independent, Feb. 28, 1864, and published it as it first appeared. Within a month Crawford bought it back, and it expired Oct. 11, 1864.
On the 27th of Aug., previous to the suspension of Crawford's paper, H. W. Johnson & Co. began the publication of the Daily Evening Post. The press was one on which had been previously published the Message at Gold Hill, by an association of printers under the firm name of George W. Bloor &
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Enterprise, a water company,68 a seminary of learning,
Co. The Post was 23 by 32 inches, and contained 28 columns. John C. Lewis was employnd to edit it until Oct., when he purchased and changed it to a morning paper, and as such published it till Jan. 1865, when it sus- pended. In the following Dec. Lewis started a weekly journal called the Eastern Slope at Washoe City on the Post material, continuing the publica- tion until 1868, when he again suspended, removing his press to Reno in July, where he printed the Crescent until 1875, when he sold to J. C. Dow, who commenced the publication of the Daily Nevada Democrat, which was fol- lowed by the Reno Daily Record. In 1878 the press was again removed to Bodie to print the Bodie News.
The 5th paper started at Carson was the Daily State Democrat, by A. C. Ellis, Oct. 25, 1864. It was a campaign paper, 17 by 24 inches, containing 20 columns, and supported Mcclellan for the presidency. It suspended at the end of the campaign, leaving the capital without a newspaper.
On the 16th of May, 1866, E. F. McElwain, J. Barrett, and Marshall Robinson started the Carson Daily Appeal, a republican journal, the first number of which announced the capture of the rebel chief, Jefferson Davis. Henry R. Mighels was at first only the salaried editor, but soon became joint proprietor in place of Barrett. In 1870 the paper was sold to C. L. Perkins and H. C. Street, the same who fought the newspaper battles of secession in Idaho. The politics of the paper were changed to democratic, and the name to Daily State Register. In September 1872 Mighels repur- chased the office, and issued the New Daily Appeal, republican in politics, on a new press. William Witherell and D. R. Sessions were employed on the paper as local editors, and soon Robinson became again a partner in the ownership. Several changes were made in the size of the paper, and it re- sumed its old name of Carson Daily Appeal in 1874, and in 1877 it was changed to Morning Appeal. On the 27th of May 1879, death deprived this journal of its inspiring spirit.
Henry R. Mighels was born in Norway, Maine, Nov. 3, 1830, his father being a physician and a learned naturalist. Henry received an academic education at Portland, and removed with his father to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1849, whence he came to Cal. in 1850. Possessing artistic talent, he engaged in the business of decorative painting, but in 1856 took the more congenial po- sition of editor of the Butte Record at Oroville and later of the local columns of the Sacramento Bee. He was the first editor of the Marysville Appeal, and established his growing reputation on that paper. On the breaking out of the civil war he went east to enlist in the union army. He was commissioned asst adj. - gen. with the rank of capt. on the staff of Gen. Sturgis. He was in eight battles, and wounded in June 1864, from the effects of which he was disabled for duty and honorably discharged the following Nov. In 1866 he married Nellie Verrill, also of Maine, by whom he had 4 children. A short time before his death, being in broken health, he adopted the advice of his friends and collected for publication some of the morceaux which had dropped from his pen in his journalistic experience, which were published under the title of Sage-Brush Leaves in a volume of 335 pages; San Francisco, 1879.
The semi-weekly Nevada Tribune was first published at Carson City July 16, 1872 by E. J. Parkinson and Joseph McClure. It was changed to an evening paper the following year. The Daily Evening Herald was started August 9, 1875, by Wells, Drury, & Co., with C. A. V. Putnam editor. The Carson Daily Times, republican, was first issued March 18, 1880, by Edward Niles. It suspended in 1881. The Daily Index, published by Marshall Rob- inson, commenced its existence Dec. 25, 1880.
58 Organized Feb. 9, 1860, with Wellington Stewart prest; Thomas J, Moore, supt; John Leach, sec .; and William De Kays, treas. The legislature of 1861 granted the right to lay water-pipes for supplying Carson City, to J. J. Musser, Jonathan Wild, Saralı A. Blackburn, and John G. Kelly, and their associates. A gas company was also chartered by this legislature for
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founded by Miss H. K. Clapp,59 a telegraph office, stage lines, and other adjuncts of comfortable and re- fined living. The plenitude of money in the early days of the Comstock lode's development, while it made possible a rapid realization of unwonted luxu- ries, was in Nevada, as it always is, a temptation to vicious habits, and the occasion of glaring absurdities. 60 In Virginia might be found, notwithstanding statutes
illuminating Carson City. J. J. Musser and George Lewis receiving the franchise.
59 Miss Clapp was formerly a teacher in Ypsilanti, Mich., and very en- thusiastic in her profession. She was one of the first women to take up her residence at Carson City. Associated with her in the Sierra Seminary were Miss E. C. Babcock, and Mrs E. G. Cutler, who with the principal did much to give tone to Carson society. Nevers' Nevada Pioneers, MS., 3.
Go There came to Carson valley in 1855, with Orson Hyde's company from Salt Lake, Alexander Cowan and wife. The maiden name of Mrs Cowan was Eilley Orrum, and she was born in the highlands of Scotland. At the age of 15 years she married Stephen Hunter, who immigrated with her to Salt Lake in 1850, where he, entering into polygamous relations, caused her to leave him. In 1853 she married Alexander Cowan, with whom she re- moved to Carson valley. She kept a boarding-house for miners in Gold Canon in the winter of 1855, and the following summer with her husband took a land claim in Washoe valley. When Orson Hyde and the Mormons were recalled to Salt Lake, Mrs Cowan refused to return, preferring to re- main at her farm in summer and keep boarding-house at the mines in the winter. In 1858 she married a miner named Lemuel S. Bowers, an illiterate Irishman, who owned 10 feet on the then undiscovered Comstock ledge, alongside of which she also owned 10 feet, for which she had paid $100. When it came to be known what lay underneath their claims, the Bowers became famous alike for their riches and their ignorance of the uses of wealth. But being urged by the mischievous miners to make the tour of Europe, they set out in 1861 to perform this pilgrimage, having first contracted for the crection and furnishing of a mansion on their land in Washoe valley, at a cost of $407,000. Before leaving Virginia they gave a farewell entertain- ment to their friends at the International hotel, on which occasion Bowers remarked that he had money to 'throw at the birds;' yet Sandy, as he was familiarly called, was as innocent of boasting and as kindly intentioned as ever was Dickens' Boffin of Boffin's Bower. They remained three years abroad, and probably gave some color to the popular English prejudice against rich Americans, although there was nothing American about them but their money. Four years after their return, 1868, Bowers died, owning an estate valued at $638,000. The business of her mine and mill being left to the care of a superintendent, Mrs Bowers soon found herself hopelessly in debt. Her fine mansion became a public resort, and the brave Scotch woman, with so much that is dramatic in her life, supported herself in her old age by telling fortunes. Reno State Journal, Jan. 9, 1875, and Jan. 5, 1878.
In strong contrast to this phase of Nevada life was that of a Scotch miner who made himself an abode in an abandoned tunnel near Silver City, and excavated for himself a number of apartments. A vein of gold-bearing quartz ran along the roof of his dwelling and he had silver ore for his door-sill, and silver in the walls of his living rooms. The eccentric owner had a good library, and being of a serious turn of mind sometimes held religions services in his cave dwelling. Grass Valley Union, July 28, 1870.
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