An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 19

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014

USA > Idaho > An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day > Part 19

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HISTORY OF IDAHO.

are O. H. Harkness, founder of McCammon; John Watson, still living near Blackfoot; Will- iam Adams, living now, as then, at Market Lake; John Hill, now in Idaho Falls. John Kelly was prospecting for gold in 1865 and is prospecting still-a type of hundreds from the days of '49; now almost all dead and, let us hope, at last finding what they vainly sought on earth in the golden streets of the New Jerusalem.

Oneida county was organized, with Malad as the county-seat, one hundred and twenty miles south of Eagle Rock, the northern boundary of the county being the Montana line.

In September, 1871, J. C. Anderson came out and settled at Eagle Rock. From that time on till 1880 he was in charge of all business at Eagle Rock, and is now president of Anderson Broth- ers' bank. The Chief Joseph's war hardly dis- turbed the few people who made Eagle Rock their headquarters; though a number of freight- ers or travelers were killed by the Indians a little farther north. About 1871 Orville Buck, with his family, located on Willow creek, about fif- teen miles from Eagle Rock, where he still lives. Peter Kelly tried the experiment of raising a few potatoes and cabbages. He was successful, and this was the beginning of farming in what is now recognized as the most fruitful region in the Rocky mountains. Poor old Pete! He was one man who knew he could not resist whisky, if whisky could be had, and he voluntarily iso- lated himself and lived many years entirely alone in a remote locality in the mountains, not seeing a human face sometimes for months together. May St. Peter take it into count when old Peter applies at the gates of Paradise!

In 1879 Dr. Amos Woodward, of Ohio, B. F. White, now of Dillon, and the Anderson brothers, commenced the construction of the first irrigating canal in southeast Idaho. When fin- ished the work had cost seventy thousand dol- lars, and, with laterals, was about fifty miles long. At the present time the irrigating canals in Bing- ham county may be measured by the hundreds of miles.

The Utah & Northern Railroad reached Eagle Rock in June, 1879, and spanned Snake river with its bridge on the 12th day of the month. The town was laid off, shops located, new houses began to spring up, and the remote

wayside station was transformed into a busy town. Farmers began to locate and to fence and improve; other canals were constructed, one af- ter another, and the valley began at last to prove itself what Professor Hayden had so many years before said it was capable of becoming. Soon afterward came a division of Oneida county. Three counties were organized, Bingham, Ban- nock and Oneida, and any of the three is now larger than some of the eastern states. Black- foot was chosen the county-seat of Bingham.

In due time Eagle Rock organized its village government. Dr. F. Chamberlain, S. F. Taylor, Edward Fanning, Robert Anderson and W. H. B. Crow were the first trustees, in 1889.

A convention to form a state constitution was assembled in Boise City in July, 1889, and the delegates from southeast Idaho were Judge John T. Morgan, Sam. F. Taylor, D. W. Standrod, H. B. Kinport, F. W. Beam, H. O. Harkness, Robert Anderson, W. H. Savidge and Homer Stull. Idaho was admitted as a state into the Union, July 3, 1890.

In 1892 a "boomers' " company was organized at Eagle Rock by some easterners. One of their first moves was to change the name of Eagle Rock to Idaho Falls, because, forsooth, people would be led by the new name to imagine great water power at the "Falls." The boom, like nearly all booms, was a calamity. Fictitious prices were asked and paid, town lots were sold by the promoters to servant girls or any other victims, all over the northwestern states; and then came the reaction, from which the town has scarcely yet recovered. But you can't keep the sun at daybreak from rising by beating it back with a hoe-handle. Still the country improves and the town grows.

"Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur." No longer the "Great American Desert!" In the last year or two there have been world develop- ments. A trade is only now in its infancy that is going to revolutionize relative values of land on the American continent and the commerce of the world. Asia is calling to America; America is eager to answer to the cry. Huge cargoes of wheat leave some Pacific port almost daily. We do not yet realize what this all means. It means the west is coming to the forefront. It means that probably the greatest city on the American

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continent is to be on the western coast. It may be San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma; or it may be the foundation stones are not yet laid of what is yet to be the busiest metropolis of all Ameri- ca. Every acre of land on the Pacific slope, cap- able of producing, has a greater intrinsic value, acre for acre, than land in Illinois, Ohio or Mis- souri. It is nearer the market that is now just opening.

If we hark back to remote antiquity there is a lesson to be leaned. We see that the earliest de- velopments of civilization have been in irrigated countries. Culture follows wealth. They have been the most civilized because the richest. Egypt, with the great system of irrigation from the Nile, is first to attract our attention. Many other instances will present themselves, but we will only note that, while the abundantly rain-watered belt of country along the eastern coast of North America was a scene of Indian strife and savagery, irrigated Peru was wealthy and civilized. Cortez enriched Spain by robbing the temples of the Incas of their gathered wealth.

Crops never fail in an irrigated country: wealth is as sure to follow as light and life follow the rising of the sun.

Now we make the assertion, and we challenge contradiction, that the Snake river valley is the most favored locality in the great west. Nowhere else can be found so vast a body of fertile land and, at the same time, an ample supply of water. When the Nile fails to water Egypt, we may be- gin to fear Snake river may also fail. Not till then.

It is true beyond controversy that the one hundred and fifty mile stretch from Marysville at the north, above St. Anthony, to old Fort Hall, south of Blackfoot, can, and in due time will, produce more wheat, oats, potatoes, apples, etc., than a like number of acres anywhere else on the continent, and the apples are said to have a more delicious flavor. Not many years are to pass before Bonneville's desert is to become the Egypt of the west and a small farm to the moder- ate man will be an ample inheritance.

The "Goose Creek House," where the First Territorial Convention was held in Idaho, in the Spring of 1863. Built in 1862. Situated at the Crossing of Goose Creek, on the old Packer John trail, leading from Lewiston to Boise Basin.

CHAPTER XII.

POLITICAL-SECESSIONISM AND CRIME.

B EFORE the mining period, commencing in 1862, Idaho was a comparatively un- known region belonging nominally to Oregon and afterward to Washington. During the years 1862-3 such was the rush of immigra- tion to this section that Idaho was erected into a territory of the United States government. The enabling act to organize as such was passed by congress in the spring of the latter year, and on the 22d of September William H. Wallace, late delegate to congress from Washington, who had, on July roth preceding, been appointed gover- nor of Idaho by President Lincoln, issued his proclamation for organizing the territory, with the capital at Lewiston; but the fact of this proc- lamation was scarcely known to the miners in the wilderness, far removed from mail facilities, until the following spring. Meanwhile the laws of Washington were in force. The first occur- rence of the name Idaho territory in the public records seems to have been under date of August 7, 1863, in Boise. James Judge was on that day made assessor.

Previously to his election às delegate Wallace had districted the territory, for judicial purposes, as follows: First district, Nez Perces and Sho- shone counties, A. C. Smith judge; second, Boise county, Samuel C. Parks judge; third, Missoula county and the country east of the Rocky moun- tains, Sidney Edgerton judge. Florence, Ban- nack City and Hellgate were appointed as the seats of federal courts. Edgerton was named as the chief justice of the territory, and probably should have been given the more populous region of the Boise basin; but Wallace was prej- udiced against "imported" judges. Alexander C. Smith, being from Olympia, was given the region containing the capital. Parks, on assuming his duties at Boise City, expressed à hesitation in taking the place due to Edger- ton.

The act organizing the territory fixed the nun-

ber of representatives for the first session of the legislature at twenty-thirteen in the lower house and seven in the upper. Of the seven councilmen Boise county was entitled to two, Idaho and Nez Perces one each, Missoula and Shoshone one jointly, Bannack east of the Rocky mountains one, and all the remainder of the country east of said range, one. The men elected to the "senate" were: First district, E. B. Waterbury, Stanford Capps and Lyman Stan- ford; second district, Joseph Miller and Ephraim Smith; and third district, William C. Rheem. Miller was elected president of the council and J. McLaughlin secretary. The assemblymen were: L. Bacon, of Nez Perces county; C. B. Bodfish, M. C. Brown, R. B. Campbell, W. R. Keithly and Milton Kelly, of Boise county; Al- onzo Leland and John Wood, of Idaho county; L. C. Miller, of East Bannack; J. A. Orr, of Sho- shone county; and James Tufts, of the Fort Ben- ton district. Tufts was chosen speaker, S. S. Slater chief clerk, Benjamin Need assistant clerk, A. Mann enrolling clerk, P. H. Lynch sergeant- at-arms, and W. H. Richardson doorkeeper. The oath to the members was administered by Judge Parks. Rheem, of the council, and Parks, with a member of the assembly, were appointed a com- mittee to prepare a code. The legislature met December 10, 1863.

By the election, which had been held October 31, Wallace, Republican, was chosen as a dele- gate, and, being thus taken from the executive chair, W. B. Daniels, of Yamhill county, Wash- ington, became the acting governor.

The general laws passed at the first session of the legislature were not remarkable. Among the special laws was that which organized Owyhee county out of the territory south of Snake river and west of the Rocky mountains. The name "Owyhee" is from the Hawaiian lan- guage, and was applied to the river of that name by two Kanakas while trading with the Sho-

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HISTORY OF IDAHO.

shones in the service of a mercantile company. auditor; D. S. Payne, marshal; and D. S. Ken- The county of Oneida was erected, with the , yon, treasurer. county-seat at Soda Springs. Alturas county As might be expected, the greater increase of population in the southern part of the territory aroused a desire among the people here to have the capital removed from Lewiston to some point southerly and more central, the movement for a separate territory comprising the counties east of the Bitter Root mountains having been already under way, and naturally the contest grew more and more heated until a change was made. was defined as bounded by Snake river on the south, Idaho county on the north, Boise county on the west, and the one hundred and twelfth meridian on the east, with the county-seat at Esmeralda. Several counties now in Montana, east of the Bitter Root mountains, were outlined, with the designation of their county-seats, as fol- lows: Missoula, Wordensville; Deer Lodge, Deer Lodge; Beaver Head, Bannack; Madison, Virginia City: Jefferson, Gallatin; Choteau, Fort Benton; and three other counties, their respect- ive seats of government being left to the commis- sioners of the respective counties. This act of the Idaho legislature was a public testimonial of the comparative importance of those towns.

The legislature also incorporated Idaho City, changing its name from Bannack; but the char- ter was rejected by the election held there sub- sequently, while the people at the same time elected a full set of city officers. Bannack City was incorporated in Beaver Head county, and Placerville in Boise county.

Among the laws intended for the moral im- provement of society was one "for the better ob- servance of the Lord's day," which prohibited theatrical representations, horse racing, gamb- ling, cock fighting, or any noisy amusements on Sunday. Another act prohibited the sale of ar- dent spirits, firearms or ammunition to the In- dians, but the law allowed Indian evidence to be taken in cases of its alleged infraction. A law exempting homesteads from forced sales was passed in order to encourage permanent settle- ment. Congress was memorialized to appropri- ate fifty thousand dollars for the construction of a military wagon-road to connect the navigable waters of the Columbia with those of the Mis- souri namely, from the forks of the Missouri on the east to the junction of the Snake and Clear- water rivers on the west; also to establish a mail route from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, and to treat with the hostile Indians of the Yellowstone country. The mail route mentioned was estab- lished.

In the spring of 1864 the territorial officers were: W. H. Wallace, governor: W. B. Daniels, acting governor and secretary; B. F. Lambkin,

In the meantime acting Governor Daniels ren- dered himself very unpopular by his opposition to the legislature and other injudicious acts, among which was his threat to give the public printing to a San Francisco firm, after the legis- lature had appointed Frank Kenyon, publisher of the Golden Age, for the work. In consequence of the evidences of his unpopularity he resigned his office in May, leaving the secretaryship in' the hands of Silas Cochrane until another appoint- ment should be made.

In regard to Kenyon and the Golden Age, it will be interesting to notice further that this paper was started by A. S. Gould, August 2, 1862, at Lewiston. Being a Republican, he had hot times with the secession immigrants from the south. On raising the United States flag over his office-the first ever raised in that town- twenty-one shots were fired into it by disunion Democrats. Gould was succeeded by John H. Scranton for a short time, and in August, 1863, Frank Kenyon took charge of the journal and was soon afterward appointed territorial printer. With the decline of Lewiston and the close of the second volume, Kenyon started with his paper for Boise City, but was turned back by influ- ences brought to bear upon him. In January, 1865, the paper was suspended, and its plant was ultimately removed to Boise. Kenyon started the Mining News, at Leesburg, in 1867, and its publication continued eight months, when the enterprise was abandoned for want of support. The press was then removed back to Montana, whence it had been brought, and Kenyon after- ward went to Utah and finally to South America, where he died.

SECESSIONISM AND CRIME.

Idaho was opened to the world during our civil war, and a large proportion of the immi-

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HISTORY OF IDAHO.

grants were secessionists fresh from the southern Confederacy, while there were also not a few sympathizers with the southern cause from the northern states. During those exciting times it was easy to stir up hot blood. Boise county gave in 1863 four to five hundred majority for the Republican ticket; but such was the rush there of emigrants from the south that the very next year there was a majority of nine to ten hundred for the Democratic candidates, who were known to be in sympathy with the great rebellion. Both these and the criminal element generally had the cause of law-breaking in com- mon, and therefore the early government of Ida- ho territory was more or less influenced by these elements.

In Boise county alone there were more than twenty murders in 1864, with other crimes in proportion. The sheriff of the county was Sum- ner Pinkham, a native of Maine, who proved a faithful and fearless officer. At the district court held in February, 1864, the grand jury found in- dictments for forty-seven cases of crime.

Correspondingly, on the eve of the presidential election of 1864, the two great parties evidenced the differences in their platform. While the ad- ministration party, consisting of Republicans and Union Democrats, declared it to be their highest dutv to aid the government in suppressing the great insurrection by force of arms, the opposi- tion party advocated putting an end to the con- flict by peaceable means, among these means a possible convention of the states; declared that the interference of military authority with the elections in certain border states was a "shameful violation of the constitution, and that the repe- tition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary and resisted with all the power and means under our control." This language was specially aimed at the military or- ders of Colonel Wright, a government officer of Oregon, including this district. The adminis- tration was also charged with abusing prisoners of war. All this had the effect to encourage a disregard of all the laws in force in Idaho, as such were considered products of northern tyran- ny. Hence disunionism and lawlessness generally worked together. The result of the election was almost entirely Democratic, but one Union man being sent to the legislature; and the only Union

officers in the territory were those appointed by the general government.

Union editors throughout Idaho had to be "careful." The Boise News, ostensibly an inde- pendent paper, made excuses for the Democratic majority in 1864 by saying that the miners were driven to desert the administration by the policy of the government in proposing to tax the mines, and the very next issue announced the sale of the office to a Democratic publisher. J. S. Butler acknowledged that he sold "the best newspaper in Idaho" rather than encounter the opposition of the disunionists. Said he, "It was all a man's life was worth, almost, to be seen showing his head in the early days of Idaho." Knapp and McConnell gave the same account. During the hot campaign of 1864 the leading Democratic sheet was The Crisis, edited by H. C. Street, formerly of the Democrat, of Idaho, and of the Shasta Herald and Colusa Sun, of California.

To protect themselves and their property against the impetuous element described, the Re- publicans of the territory felt obliged to adopt the methods of secret societies, by organizing "vigilance committees." These methods seemed justifiable, as in the days of 1854 in San Fran- cisco, when the rapid spread of population out- stripped the cumbersome machinery of legisla- tion and court procedure. Criminals of all sorts flocked to Idaho, in part because here they were beyond the reach of law and refined customs. A local defense committee had been organized by miners on Salmon river as early as the autumn of 1862, which drove the worst element from their locality, only to make them more numerous in other parts of the territory. Histories of these crimes are abundant before us, but we must resist the temptation to repeat them, for there is no more reason for the recital of one than of thou- sands of others.

Lewiston was the second community to organ- ize for self-defense, and the occasion was one of the most atrocious crimes on record, the murder of Lloyd Magruder, a prominent citizen of that place, and four others. Magruder had taken a lot of goods and a band of mules to the Beaver Head mines, realizing about thirty thousand dol- lars, with which he started to return in October. Needing assistance in the care of many pack ani- mals and desiring company on the long and

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HISTORY OF IDAHO.

dreary route, he engaged four men,-James Ro- maine, Christopher Lowery, Daniel Howard and William Page,-all of whom he had seen in Lew- iston and who were well appearing, to return with him to that place. Indeed, the three first named had gone to Beaver Head with no other purpose than to rob and murder Magruder on his way home. Howard was a good-looking, brave young man, of a kindly temper, but reck- less in morals, and on account of his accomplish- ments, including some knowledge of medicine, he was called "Doctor" or "Doc." Romaine was a gambler. Lowery was a blacksmith, who had been with Mullan in his wagon-road expeditions. Page was a trapper, of none too good reputation.

The particulars of the return trip of Magruder and his murder, etc., we quote from H. H. Ban- croft's history :

When Magruder was about to start he was joined by the persons named, Allen and Phillips, having about twenty thousand dollars in gold-dust, and the unknown men with some money. They traveled without acci- dent to a camp six miles from the crossing of the Clearwater, where a guard was stationed as usual. Magruder and Lowery being on the first watch, and the snow falling fast. When the travelers were asleep, the mules becoming restless, both guards started out to examine into the cause of their uneasiness, Lowery taking along an ax, as he said, to make a fence to prevent the animals wandering in a certain direction. Magruder was killed with this ax in Lowery's hands. Howard and Romaine murdered the two brothers about midnight in the same manner, and soon after killed Allen and Phillips, Allen being shot. So well executed was the awful plot that only Phillips cried out, when a second blow silenced him. Page appears to have been frightened and to have taken no part in the killing. The bodies were wrapt up in a tent cloth and rolled over a precipice; all the animals except eight horses were taken into a cañon off the trail and shot; the camp equipage was burned, and the scraps of iron left from the burning were gathered up, placed in a sack and thrown after the bodies down the moun- tain. During all this time the murderers wore moc- casins, so that the damning deed, if discovered, might be imputed to the Indians.

The guilty men now agreed to go to Puget sound and attempted to cross the Clearwater forty miles above Lewiston; but the weather prevented them and they kept on to Lewiston; here, partially disguised, they took tickets by stage to Walla Walla, and thence to Portland and San Francisco. Something in the manner of the men, the "mark of Cain," which seldom fails to be visible, aroused the suspicion of Hill Beachy,

owner of the stage line, who, on examining the horses and saddles left in Lewiston, became convinced of the robbery and death of Magruder, whose personal friend he was, and whose return was looked for with anxiety, owing to the prevalence of crime upon all the mining trails. Accordingly, with A. P. Ankeny and others, he started in pursuit, but before they reached Portland the murderers had taken steamer for San Francisco, where they were arrested on a telegraphic requisition, and after some delay brought back to Lewiston, De- cember 7, to be tried. The only witness was Page, who had turned state's evidence, revealed minutely all the circumstances of the crime, and guided Magruder's friends to the spot where it was committed and where the truth of his statement was verified.

Meanwhile a vigilance committee had been formed at Lewiston, which met the prisoners and their guard on their arrival and demanded the surrender of the murderers; but Beachy, who had promised them an impartial trial, succeeded in persuading them to await the action of the law. On hearing the evidence the jury, without leaving their seats, rendered a verdict of guilty, January 26, 1864. and Judge Parks sentenced Howard, Romaine and Lowery to be hanged on the 4th of March, which sentence was carried into effect. Page was himself murdered afterward, in the summer of 1867, by a desperado named Albert Igo.

This was the first case in the courts of Idaho, and was tried at a special term, the term of court at Idaho City being postponed on account of it. The legislature of Idaho authorized the payment of Beachy's expenses, which were over six thou- sand dollars. He died in San Francisco, May 24, 1875.

The murders just described, in connection with the apparent increase of crime, caused a more rapid formation of vigilance committees elsewhere, but inasmuch as the courts proved themselves comparatively prompt in the convic- tion and sentence of criminals, the Lewiston conimittee was disbanded in April. By this time the place had become as quiet and orderly as any village in the east.

Owyhee had a few crimes and a number of quarrels among the miners, but on the whole, as Maize, a local historian there, said, "society was exemplary, except some high gambling. If a man was caught doing anything wrong we just killed him; that's all!" South Boise and the Lemhi mines were cursed with the presence of desperadoes from Montana, where a very active committee of safety was in operation. Warren, for no apparent reason, was never a resort for

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An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 19

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1014

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014