History of Salt Lake City, Part 49

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

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a party, the United States shall have the same right to challenge jurors that the other party has.

" SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of the United States marshal, in person er by his deputies, to attend all the courts held by the United States justices or judges in said Territory, and to serve and execute all process and orders issued or directed by said courts or by the judges thereof.

"SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the probate judge shall be ap- pointed by the Governor," etc.

"SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the judges of the Supreme Court of said Territory may make rules and regulations as to the mode and manner of taking appeals from one court to another in said Territory, so that the just rights of the parties may be secured and preserved."

"SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That marriages in said Territory may be solemnized only by any justices of the Supreme Court, justices of the peace duly elected and qualified in their proper townships or precinct, or by any priest or minister of the gospel (not Mormon), regularly ordained and settled or estab- lished in said Territory, between parties competent to enter into the marriage contract. And the person solemnizing such marriage shall sign and deliver to the husband and wife a certificate thereof, wherein shall be set forth the names, the ages and the places of the parties, and the place and date of such solemniza- tion, together with the names of witnesses, not less than two, present at such solemnization, which certificate may be recorded in the office of the proper reg- ister of the county. And such certificates or a certified copy of the record shall be evidence in any court of the facts therein set forth as above required."

"SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That if any officer herein authorized to solemnize marriage shall, knowingly and wilfully, solemnize a marriage to which either of the parties are disqualified to enter into the marriage contract he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction before a court having com- petent jurisdiction, he shall be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than one hun- dred dollars, and stand committed until the fine shall be paid.

SEC. 14 proposed to annul all the land grants and water privileges to the first settlers made by the Legislature up to that date. About one-sixth of the bill was devoted to that part. Had it passed it would have despoiled and ruined hun- dreds of families who made these Rocky Mountain colonies successful.

"SEC. 15. And be it further enacted, That all that part of Section two, of the act or ordinance entitled 'An ordinance incorporating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which declares that the real and personal property of said church shall be free from taxation; and all that part of Section three of said ordinance, which declares that the said church has the original right to solemnize marriages compatible with the revelations of Jesus Christ ; and also, all that part of said section which declares that said church does and shall possess and enjoy continually the power and authority in and of itself to originate, make, pass and establish rules, regulations, ordinances, laws, customs, and criterions for the good order, safety, government, conveniences, comfort and control of said church, and for the punishment or forgiveness of all offences relative to fellowship, according

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to church covenant-that the pursuit of bliss and the enjoyment of life, in every capacity of public associations and domestic happiness, temporal expansion or spiritual increase upon earth may not legally be questioned-be, and the same is hereby disapproved and annulled.

SEC. 17. " Marriage, so far as its validity in law is concerned in said Terri- tory is hereby declared a civil contract, to which the consent of parties, capable in law of contracting, is essential."

" SEC. IS. That it shall not be lawful for said church or its officers or mem- bers to grant divorces or solemnize marriages."

Sections 19 and 20 compelled the Trustee-in-Trust of the Mormon Church to make a full report on oath every year, between the first and last days of No- vember, to the Governor of the Territory, of all church properties, moneys in bank, notes, deposits with the church, etc. The Trustee failing to comply, the Governor, within the expiration of three days after the time was authorized to file a complaint before one of the U. S. justices, requiring a warrant for the marshal to arrest said Trustee, who " shall, on a day set by said justice," be tried, and if found guilty, be liable to a fine of not more than $2,000 and imprisonment in the Penitentiary of not more than two years, or fine not less than five hundred dollars and not less than six months in the Penitentiary. All church property and revenues above $20,000 were to be taxed.

"SEC. 25. And be it further enacted, That in prosecutions for the crime of polygamy, proof of cohabitation by the accused as husband or wife, or the acknowledgments of the party accused of the existence of marital relation shall be sufficient to sustain the prosecution."

Evidently the design of Senator Wade's bill was to dismantle both " church and state," and to take from the people all their inherent powers, placing them in the hands of Congress and Federal officers appointed specifically for the pur- pose of suppressing the people of Utah as a Mormon community-styled at that time the " Mormon hierarchy," and a year or two later still more acceptably dubbed by Chief Justice Mckean " the Mormon polygamic theocracy." Hence the grand enabling sections of the bill were, either to altogether abolish the Utah militia, or to transform it to an anti-Mormon force, to act as the Governor's posse commitatus, under the directions of the Secretary of War, to whom he was peri- odically to report.

A few months later Senator Cragin's bill superseded Wade's bill. It was, however, substantially the same, with trifling addenda and a few idiosyncracies of its own ; of the latter the following is an extract :

" No man, a resident of said Territory, shall marry his mother, his grand- mother, daughter, step-mother, grandfather's wife, son's wife, grandson's wife, wife's mother, wife's grandmother, wife's daughter, wife's granddaughter, nor his sister, his half-sister, his brother's daughter, sister's daughter, or mother's sister. No woman shall marry her father, grandfather, son, grandson, step-father, grandmother's husband, daughter's husband, granddaughter's husband, husband's father, husband's son, husband's grandson, nor her brother, half-brother, brother's son, sister's son, father's brother or mother's brother."

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If he or she did either of this, the penalty was to be imprisonment, at hard labor, in the penitentiary, for not more than fifteen years nor less than six months.

But this special legislation against Mormon Utah was suspended by the great controversy which arose between Congress and President Andrew Johnson. Moreover, President Johnson was opposed to the special legislation contemplated ; Delegate Hooper was consulted in the choice of officers not objectionable to the people ; and in 1868 the delegate succeeded in obtaining the passage of several bills of most vital interest not only to Salt Lake City but the entire Territory.

CHAPTER XLIII.

OPENING OF THE FIRST COMMERCIAL PERIOD. REMINISCENCES OF THE EAR-

LIEST MERCHANTS. CAMP FLOYD. THE SECOND COMMERCIAL PERIOD. UTAH OBTAINS AN HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE IN THE COMMERCIAL WORLD. ORGANIZATION OF Z. C. M. I.

It is time that we take up the commercial vein of the history of our city and Territory, having reached a period when the commercial thread became closely woven in the general and political history of our most peculiar commonwealth.

The history of Utah commerce is very unique. In some respects there is not a State or Territory in America whose commercial history will compare with that of our Territory. Its character has been as peculiar as its commonwealth, and that has given to it a typing quite uncommon in its genius ; yet the typing is in accord with the co-operative policies which the age has devised in solving the prob- lem between capital and labor. There is also much stirring romance in its his- tory. Its story and incidents are almost as romantic as the commerce of Arabia, whose mammoth caravans, in their journeys across the deserts, have given subject and narrative to the most gorgeous romances in the whole range of literature. The journeys of the trains of these merchants of the West over the Rocky Moun- tains and the vast arid plains between Salt Lake City and the Eastern States, and their arduous tasks and adventurous experiences will fitly compare with the his- tory of the merchants in the East in olden times when civilization herself was fostered by commerce ; and, moreover, in the early days of Utah, it took as much commercial courage, perseverance and ability to establish the commerce of this Territory as it did that of any nation known in history. On the very face of the record, we may discern that the men who did this work were no ordinary men. They were capable of making their mark in any land; and if Utah, in the early days, afforded them great opportunities, it was their boundless energies and commercial ambitions that first created those opportunities and made a peo- ple comparatively affluent who had been buried in isolation and in the depths of poverty.

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In the year 1849, which was two years after the entrance of the Pioneers, the first regular stock of goods for the Utah market was brought in by Livingston & Kinkead. Their stock was valued at about $20,000. They opened in John Pack's adobe house in the Seventeenth Ward. It is now pulled down. It stood on the northeast corner of the lot now occupied by the new residence of the late John Pack and near where is now built the Seventeenth Ward Schoolhouse. In that day, it was the most convenient house in the city that these merchants could obtain and also one of the largest.

The following year, 1850, Holliday & Warner appeared, who constituted the second firm in the commercial history of our Territory. William H. Hooper came to Salt Lake City in charge of their business. They opened in a little adobe building which had been erected for a school house on President Young's block, east of the Eagle Gate. This little school house was esteemed a big store in those days. Holliday & Warner next removed to the building now occupied as the Museum.

The merchant's quarter soon began to'define itself better than we see it in the primitive examples referred to, and Main Street grew into importance. The unerring scent of commerce tracked the direction which business was about to take, notwithstanding Main Street was dubbed Whiskey Street and often rebuked in the Tabernacle presumably for its many demerits ; but such men as Jennings and Hooper, J. R. Walker, Godbe and Lawrence-who have been temperate all their lives,-redeemed it from the odium and made Main Street the quarter of princely merchants.

Main Street first began to define itself from the extreme upper quarter. John && Enoch Reese were the third firm in historical date established in Salt Lake City, and they built the second store on Main Street, upon the ground now occu- pied by Wells, Fargo & Co. J. M. Horner & Co., was the fourth firm, and they did business in the building occupied by the Deseret News Co. This firm con- tinued in business but a short time and was succeeded by that of Hooper & Wil- liams. Livingston, Kinkead & Co., changed to Livingston & Bell. Their com- mercial mart was the Old Constitution Buildings, which was the first merchant store erected in Utah. It was undoubtedly in the " Old Constitution " that the commercial focus of Main Street was best defined in the earliest days ; and when Mr. Bell became postinaster the street also put on some official dignity. Business, however, gravitated down street. In this quarter, Gilbert & Gerrish, before the Utah war, became noted as one of the principal Gentile firms ; and Gilbert occu- pied his stand after the settlement of the difficulty with the United States and the evacuation of the troops. It was also at this quarter of Main Street where William Nixon flourished and where the majority of the young commercial men of Salt Lake City of that epoch, including the Walker Brothers, were educated under him.

William Nixon was an Englishman and a Mormon. His commercial career was first marked in Saint Louis. To this day the " boys" educated under him speak of William Nixon as the "father of Utah merchants;" it was the name that he delighted in while he lived. He was proud of the distinction. In some respects he seemed to be an uncommon man-like William Jennings, a natural

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merchant who did business sagaciously by instinct and found the methods and di- rections of trade by commercial intuition. The Walker Brothers were his chief pupils, and they speak of William Nixon much in this vein.

On the arrival of the Walker family in St. Louis, Father Walker became ac- quainted with William Nixon, to whom he sold goods purchased by him at auction. Nixon, at that time, was a regular merchant doing business on Broadway, in St. Louis. The elder Walker secured his son, David F. Walker-Mr. " Fred." as he is more familiarly known -- a clerkship under the St. Louis merchant. At that date young Walker was but thirteen years of age. John Clark, who was one of the managers of departments in Z. C. M. I. from its commencement, was with Nixon before the Walker Brothers ; so also was another of our prominent citizens and capitalists, Mr. Dan. Clift. These young men emigrated to Utah; Mr. " Fred" Walker went to fill their vacant place. Soon afterward, William Nixon himself emigrated, and Father Walker having then recently died, the four sons with the mother resolved to emigrate to Utah that same season, -the Walker Brothers, it will be remembered, being originally Mormon boys. As soon as they arrived in Salt Lake City, which was in September, 1852, Mr. " Fred " again went to clerk for Nixon and soon afterwards Joseph R. Walker also went into the same employ, Henry W. Lawrence, John Chislett, George Bourne, James Needham, David Candland and John Hyde were also commercially educated under Mr. Nixon ; Thomas Armstrong was his book-keeper. William Nixon soon became rec- ognized in our commercial history as a very successful merchant doing a large busi- ness. It was he who built the second store down street. Gilbert & Gerrish, who had been doing business at the Old Museum followed with a new stock of goods ; and John Kimball, with his brother-in-law Henry W. Lawrence, as his clerk, opened next door to Nixon. This removal threw the main business into that quarter of the street ; and it was not until Jennings' Eagle Emporium was reared, with Kimball & Lawrence on the opposite corner, and Godbe's Exchange Build- ings were erected on the east side of the street, that business returned towards the original location, which at length has been crowned with the erection of the mag- nificent buildings of Z. C. M. I. Other Mormon merchants also rose, some of whom have since left Utah. There was the firm of Staines & Needham, John M. Brown, Gilbert Clements, Chislett & Clark; and, after the period of the Utah war, Ransohoff, Kahn, and other Jew merchants began to pour into the city.

Here something should be noted of Thomas Williams, Hooper's first part- ner. The merchant Williams was a Mormon young man of much promise in Nauvoo before the exodus. He was with the people in their exodus and was a member of the famous Mormon Battalion. He was one of the company of J. M. Horner & Co., which was afterwards changed to Hooper & Williams, and he built the third store on Main Street, on the site now occupied by the Deseret National Bank.

The firm of Hooper & Williams, existed until the spring of 1857, when Wil- liams sold his interest to W. H. Hooper, and emigrated, with his family, to Weston, Missouri, where he engaged in the hotel business. Subsequently, in 1858, he returned to Utah, and in 1860 he, together with his brother-in-law, Pimena Jackman, was killed by Indians while en route to Southern California, to

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which point they were proceeding for a train of merchandise. Thomas Williams was the man who first took William S. Godbe by the hand and gave him a com- mercial training. It is said that he was a man of excellent business qualities.

It was the merchants of Utah who first brought the Mormon community fairly into socialistic importance. And this affirmation is true of them, both in their results at home and the influence which they exercised abroad for the good of the people and the glory of Utah. Moreover, in the general sense of the public weal, this affirmation is as true of the Walker Brothers and Godbe and Lawrence as it is of Jennings and Hooper, or Eldredge and Clawson. The very construction of society and the necessities and aims of commerce convert the enterprises and life work of this class of men into the public good. Over quarter of a century, for instance, the Walker Brothers and Godbe and Lawrence have been identified with the material prosperity and destiny of this Territory. The welfare of the country is their own good as a class ;- the glory of the commonwealth glorifies their houses and augments their own fortunes. Of all men, the life-work and enter- prise of the class who establish commerce, build railroads, develop the native mineral resources of the country, and construct the financial power of the State, must perforce tend to the public prosperity as well as conserving and preserving society. And if this is the case with those influential men of commerce and great enterprises who have gone outside the pale of the Church, yet are still identified with the community in all their essential interests, how much more, specially speaking, is it the case with those men who have remained inside the pale of the Church and built up her commercial and financial power? The Church owes to her apostles of commerce and finance more than many would like to confess ; and yet in this point of their extraordinary service to the Church is at once the significance and potency of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution. This will be strikingly illustrated in the circumstantial history of Z. C. M. I.

A cursory view has been given of the destitute condition of the Mormon people during the first period of the settlement of these Valleys. As late as 1856, there was a famine in Utah, and the community was barely preserved by the leaders wisely rationing the whole and dividing among the people their own sub- stance. But it was neither the economy and wisdom of the leaders, nor the plentiful harvests that followed, that redeemed Utah from the depths of her pov- erty, and the anomalous isolation of a people reared in lands of civilization and plenty. She was redeemed from her social destitution by a train of providential circumstances on the one hand, and the extraordinary activities of her merchants on the other. As we have seen, the providence came in a United States army ; the temporary existence of Camp Floyd ; the departure of the troops, leaving their substance to the community ; the needs of the Overland Mail line ; the construc- tion of the telegraph lines; and then again the arrival of another U. S. army under Colonel Connor, and the establishment of Camp Douglass with several thousand soldiers to disburse their money in Salt Lake City after their pay-days, be- sides the constant supplies which the camp needed from our country, and often labor from our citizens. It was then, under these changed and propitious circumstances, that our Utah merchants put forth their might, and built up a commercial system for our Territory as strange and wonderful in its growth and history as that of any

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State that has risen in America. As early as 1864, and right in the time of the great civil war of the nation, when the cities of the South were under devastation, Hooper and Eldredge purchased in New York a bill of goods at prime Eastern cost of over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the freight of which added to it another eighty thousand. A little later in the same year, William Jennings purchased of Major Barrows a train of goods in Salt Lake City worth a quarter of a million, including the freight. In 1865, this merchant purchased in New York at one time a stock of goods amounting to half a million, Eastern cost, the freight upon which was $250,000. During these same years Godbe and Mitchell went East and purchased for the people on commission goods to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars; and Kimball & Lawrence were at that period also in their most flourishing condition. And all this commercial activity in- stanced above was on the Mormon side, exclusive of the mammoth merchandise business carried on by the Walker Brothers, besides that of lesser merchants not ranked among the Mormon commercial houses. During this period also, William Jennings built his Eagle Emporium ; Godbe his Exchange Buildings; Wood- mansee Brothers their stone store now occupied by Osborne & Co .; and Walker Brothers the new store where they still do business, but which, like the Eagle Em- porium, has been since enlarged.

Here we pause in the historic record before the era of Z. C. M. I. began, not touching as yet the boundaries of the great commercial period in which has risen the Deseret National Bank, and the commercial palace reared by Z. C. M. I., which will compare favorably with almost any mercantile building in America. Consider then the primitive condition of the community in their isolation and destitution, and behold what wonders these apostles of commerce wrought in so short a time. It was their work, be it repeated, that first brought Utah into so- cial importance, carving out a material prosperity for the Mormons. This affirm- ation is not made to underrate the Apostles of the Church, who had done a still more wonderful part in their missionary operations, their emigrations, peopling these Valleys of the Rocky Mountains and founding the cities and settlements of as rare a State as ever sprang up in the history of the world,-and these commer- cial and financial apostles, whom the Church herself has brought forth have built a temporal superstructure upon the foundation which their prophets and elders laid.

Utah in her early days was utterly destitute of cash; all her internal trade being conducted by barter and the due-bill system. Yet as early as 1864, para- doxical as it may seem, her merchants were dispersing for her millions of gold and greenbacks. Some of them, as we have seen, could purchase in New York from a hundred thousand to half a million dollars' worth of goods at a time. The great wholesale houses of New York, Chicago and St. Louis scarcely ever met any such customers in all America as their Utah patrons, either in commercial integrity or weight. These achievements were only possible by these Utah mer - chants creating the millions before they disbursed them. True, no small amount of money was brought in by the emigrants from the old countries, but this was soon exhausted by their need of States goods and the purchase of homes ; thus sim- pły exchanging the money into hands eager to send it out of the country for States

Um firming

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goods. In fine, the bulk of the money was created at home by our merchants in their commerce, turning the produce of the country into cash. For example, one of Wm. Jennings' contracts with the Overland Mail line was to supply it with 75,000 bushels of grain ; another contract to be filled to General Connor for 6,000 sacks of flour at a time when flour brought five dollars in gold per hundred weight. On their part the Walkers and others shipped immense quantities of flour, fruit, etc., to the mining Territories. Thus, it will be seen that these mer- chants did not take money out of the people, but created it for them; besides supplying the home market with gigantic stocks of States goods. It must be con- fessed that Utah commerce, before the opening of our mines, gave all the money to a few hands. And this was one of the immediate causes that brought forth Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution ; as the leaders of the Church con- ceived it to be their duty, at length, to construct for the community a broader and more equitable system of commercial existence ; so that all could participate, to the extent of their means, in the profits realized and the reduction in price of the co-operative system. That this was the genuine aim of the Institution its history will show, notwithstanding some blunders may have been made in the execution of the design.

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 49

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194