Corinne: The Gentile Capital of Utah by Brigham D. Madsen

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03RINNE

Brigham D. Madsen

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THEGENTILE CAPITOL OFUTM

Utah State Historical Society SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

Contents

Preface

1

ix

The Burg on the Bear The Pacific Railroad; Founding of Corinne; Lawlessness of Early Corinne; A Gentile Newspaper; Locating the Junction City; The Montana Trade

Trail Town

31

A City Charter; Municipal Government; Law and Order; Freighting and Stagecoaching; Merchants and Storekeepers; City Improvements

Gentile Capital

65

Descriptions of Corinne; Resident Population; A Governor and Annexation to Idaho; Capital of Utah; Statehood for Deseret; Lobbying for a Canal

4 The Liberal Party

93

Cullom Antipolygamy Bill; The Godbeite Schism; Woman Suffrage in Utah; Founding the Liberal Party; Liberal vs. People's Party; Republicans and Democrats in Utah; Decline of Corinne's Liberal Party

5 Bearding the Prophet

123

Grant Appointees in Utah; Mormon and Gentile Militia; Chief Justice James B. McKean; The Saints of Box Elder County; The Cattle-stealing Case; Brigham's Curse; The Corinne Free Market; Junction Placed at Ogden

vu

6 By Land and by Sea

l55

Paddlewheel Steamboat; The Smelting Works; The Utah Northern Railroad; The Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad; Corinne Branch of U N R R ; Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake Railroad

7 Corinne the Fair

1"^

Utah and Corinne Reporter; Daily Mail and Corinne Record; Episcopal and Methodist Churches; Presbyterian and Catholic Worship; Sunday Laws; A Free Public School

8

Culture on the Bear

223

Holiday Extravaganzas; Baseball Champions; The Opera House; Sports and Fraternal Orders; Chinatown

9

Indian Scare

259

Extension of the Utah Northern; Menace of Franklin; Malad Irrigation Company; Colonization Plans; Northwestern Shoshoni; Indian Scare

10

The Gentiles Flee

295

A Profitable Centennial Year; Utah and Northern Railroad; The Freighting Ends; A Curse Consummated; Conclusion

M a p : Corinne and Vicinity

30

M a p : The Montana Trail

64

Index

Vlll

321

Preface

Until the driving of the Golden Spike on May 10, 1869, the Mormon people had been able to establish their Great Basin empire mostly undisturbed by any influence from the rest of the nation. All at once their isolated silence was broken by the steam whistles that inaugurated an influx of outsiders coming by train from east and west. The construction crews building the railroads were the first to meet the Saints of Utah, and some of the entrepreneurs accompanying the railroad penetration immediately saw the possibility of founding a railroad town that could capture the lucrative wagon trade to the Montana mines, heretofore controlled from Salt Lake City. Corinne, the first large Gentile town in Utah, was the product of that dream. Located about six miles west of Brigham City on the west bank of Bear River where it flows into Great Salt Lake, Corinne became the freight transfer point for goods from the Central Pacific Railroad to Idaho and Montana.

The town also became a center of anti-Mormon activity and, until 1878 when the narrow-gauge Utah and Northern Railroad gained control of the Montana traffic, Corinne existed as a burr under the Saints' saddle, annoying and threatening Mormon political and economic control of the territory. The competition with Mormon Utah of the small Gentile town with a population of perhaps fifteen hundred people would have been laughable if its assault on Mormondom had not coincided with national attempts to break Brigham Young's con-

i.\

trol of Utah and to eradicate the practice of polygamy. President Ulysses S. Grant, his federal appointees, and the Congress were determined to destroy the remaining "relic of barbarism" in the nation and, at the same time, to bring the Mormon prophet to heel. Corinne, therefore, became a symbol of resistance to the Mormons and gained much support in Washington, D.C., to further its aims to establish itself as a permanent and progressive city and as a leader in the attack on the Mormon stronghold.

The history of Corinne is also interesting and significant for the scene it presented of a Gentile culture of Protestant religions, a free public school, and an atmosphere of fun, frolic, and freedom a frontier end-of-the-trail town offered in contrast to the more orderly and conservative culture of the Utah Saints. Situated on the transcontinental railroad, Corinne was an excellent midpoint stopping place for tourists and visiting easterners making a short visit in Mormondom, and the town benefited from these contacts. Corinne conceived many wondrous projects that failed to materialize, but not through lack of some tremendous effort on the part of her citizens. To Corinnethians their failures seemed attributable, in almost every instance, to the machinations and evil workings of their Mormon neighbors who continually derided and discounted the town's prospects. The rivalry was intense despite the David-Goliath aspects of the relationship.

I first became interested in Corinne as the result of doing research on the Montana Trail. As the freight transfer point from railroad cars to wagons, Corinne was the terminus of the trail. Everett L. Cooley, curator of Western Americana, Marriott Library, and professor of history at the University of Utah, encouraged me to undertake the project, and I hope he will find the effort worthwhile. I am also grateful to the staff members of the following libraries and repositories for their assistance and interest: Montana State Historical Society; Idaho State Historical Society; Utah State Historical Society; University of Utah, Marriott Library; Utah State University, Merrill Library; Brigham Young University, Lee Library; Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; University of California, Bancroft Library; Huntington Library; Library of Congress; and the U.S. National Archives. A grant from the University of Utah Research Committee was very helpful in defraying travel and typing expenses, and I should like to express my appreciation to the

Corinne

members of that committee. I am particularly indebted to LaVon West for her interpretation of my far-from-perfect handwriting and her typing of the manuscript. For any errors of fact or interpretation, I am solely responsible.

BDM

Preface

TheT3urg on theT3ear The Pacific Railroad As the Mormon pioneers of 1847 drove their slow-moving ox trains west to the Rocky Mountains, the tired emigrants were already looking forward to the day when a transcontinental railroad would end the enforced isolation of their new Great Basin home and bring an easier passage through the wastelands of the Plains. In a later reference to the original journey, Brigham Young said that he and his followers "never traveled a day without marking the path for the road to this place." 1 Twenty-one years later, as the rails of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines converged on Great Salt Lake, Young reiterated his belief that the Pacific road would be advantageous for his people: So far as we are concerned we want the railroad, we are not afraid of its results. . . . And when this road is finished our friends can come and see us, and witness the peace, the order, the freedom from crime, that possesses the cities of Zion, and they will compare them with the sinful depraved cities of our neighbors, and we shall loose [sic] nothing by the comparison. 2 The editor of the Deseret News supplied an economic advantage, explaining that Salt Lake City would act as a great inland seaport to draw trade from the surrounding states that would be established around the mecca of the saline metropolis. Another Mormon journal,

The ceremony of laying the last rail at Promontory, Utah, May 10,1869.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

the Millennial Star, predicted that the Union Pacific would aid the Saints in publicizing their doctrines to the world. 3 But concomitant evils raced ahead of the civilization being advanced by the iron horse. At the railroad towns of Bear River City, Echo, Wahsatch, and Uintah, wondering Mormons could observe "unblushing depravity, gross intemperance, gambling hells, and kindred places" in "full swing." In addition, railroad workers and other Gentiles began to have visions of opening the rich mines of Utah now that there was a means of transportation for ores to the smelters and markets of the East. Even the well-established Mormon towns of Ogden and Brigham City along the line of the railroad began to feel the crush as laboring men, travelers, and salesmen descended on the too-few hotels and restaurants, asking for accommodations. One correspondent at Brigham City bravely wrote the Deseret News, "Notwithstanding we are surrounded by many indications to suddenly

Corinne

become a railroad town, the spirit of the gospel is nowise restrained in its usual bearings. . . ." 4 To the pragmatic Mormon leadership it seemed that more than courage was needed to stem the Gentile encroachments on the society and economy of Utah. As early as 1864, long before the railroads reached Utah, Brigham Young had counseled Lorenzo Snow, church leader at Brigham City, to establish cooperatives as a means of making the Saints self-sustaining and, at the same time, to encourage outside merchants to leave the territory. In a sermon in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in April 1866 the prophet reminisced with his followers that he had predicted the destruction of Zion unless some kind of control were exercised over the Gentile storekeepers who were beginning to crowd into Utah. 5 And the program the shrewd leader had fashioned to control the trade and commerce of Mormondom was based squarely on the cooperative scheme tried by Lorenzo Snow. It included a plan (1) to contract to build the railroads through Utah to keep out as many of the hell-on-wheels construction camps as possible, (2) to establish a churchwide wholesale establishment under the name of Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution that would move all imports, (3) to organize cooperative retail outlets in each local church ward to eliminate non-Mormon stores, (4) to support only local producers and manufacturers, and (5) to boycott all Gentile merchants and bankers.1' Brigham Young had earlier sermonized about the chief motive for the prohibition of trade with non-Mormon firms.

Our outside friends say they want to civilize us here. What do they mean by civilization? Why, they mean by that, to establish gambling holes — they are called gambling hells — grog shops and houses of ill fame on every corner of every block in the city; also swearing, drinking, shooting and debauching each other. Then they would send their missionaries here with faces as long as jackasses' ears, who would go crying and groaning through the streets, "Oh, what a poor, miserable, sinful world!"

That is what is meant by civilization. That is what priests and deacons want to introduce here; tradesmen want it, lawyers and doctors want it, and all hell wants it. But the Saints do not want it, and we will not have it. (Congregation said, Amen!). 7 The near approach of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific roads in late 1868 and early 1869, therefore, brought a torrent of appeals from Mormon leaders to their people to support the new

The Burg on the Bear

3

cooperative movement. Brigham Young led off with the admonition that despite the expected complaints from outside merchants, they would be left to take care of themselves, while the church would attempt to control its own storekeepers for the benefit of faithful members and would excommunicate all dissidents who continued to trade with Gentiles.8 William Clayton, newly appointed secretary and cashier of the Salt Lake City branch of the ZCMI, emphasized the move to dispossess Mormon storekeepers of their business by writing that the cooperative had not only bought out Jewish merchants such as N. S. Ransohoff and received assurances that the former Mormon Walker brothers were anxious to sell but had also purchased the assets of such Mormon traders as A. C. Pyper, Eldredge and Clawson, and William Jennings. Clayton concluded, "I am in hopes the spring will see a pretty general clearing out." 9 And finally, Young's counselor George Q. Cannon bluntly warned the Saints to stop trading with the Gentiles or be cut off from the church. He continued that he would prefer to excommunicate the disloyal members now than be forced to do so after the church had been driven to the mountains and dispossessed of its property.10 While Mormon Utah prepared to freeze out all outsiders, newspaper reporters representing the eastern and California press ridiculed the fear of violence and sin that railroad civilization was introducing into the Great Basin kingdom. John Hanson Beadle of the Cincinnati Commercial thought that if Salt Lake City, which had had a stable government for twenty years, feared the arrival of a few roughs, its officers of the law confessed a weakness they should carefully hide.

Even the Salt Lake papers recognized that the intrusion of lawlessness would be of short duration and that the waves of affliction introduced by the misnamed Gentile "civilization" would soon disappear. 11 The New York Herald, along with most national news journals, expected that the new Pacific railroad would solve the Mormon problem and the issue of polygamy by introducing not only border ruffians to Utah but also by opening to the gaze of all the world the hidden sores that supposedly scarred the religious and political body of Mormondom. The New York Tribune was sure that the railroad would transform Brigham Young's peculiar society.12 As for the attempt to force Gentile merchants out of Utah, both New York newspapers were of the opinion that Young's revelation

Corinne

establishing stores under "The All-Seeing Eye" or, as they called it, the "bulls-eye cooperative," would be counterproductive because the Mormon people would not obey the dictum. Also, said the Sacramento Union, with women "everywhere clamoring for more rights," they would not "be put off much longer with the fourth, tenth or sixtieth of a man for a husband." To sustain such foolish and insidious customs as cooperatives and polygamy, wrote the Herald, might require Brigham Young to move all his people to the Sandwich Islands, even if this were only a Gentile joke at present.13

Founding of Corinne With such speculations by the eastern press about the impact the Pacific road would have, and while the Mormon people resolutely prepared to stand off the influx of Gentiles, some far-seeing men began to wonder about the possible founding of a "Great Central City" that would control trade to vast areas of the Intermountain West. J. H. Beadle, in a surprisingly accurate forecast, wrote to his Ohio newspaper on October 17, 1868: Somewhere, then, between the mouth of Weber Canon and the northern end of the lake, at the most convenient spot for staging and freighting to Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, is to be a city of permanent importance, and numerous speculators are watching the point with interest. But the location is still in doubt. . . . Going north, the valley of the Salt Lake seems to narrow gradually, and imperceptibly becomes the valley of Bear River, . . . and at no very distant day Salt Lake City will have a rapidly-growing rival here. It will be a Gentile city, and will make the first great trial between Mormon institutions and outsiders. . . . It will have its period of violence, disruption and crime, . . . before it becomes a permanent, well-governed city.14 By early spring of 1869 Wahsatch and Echo had already "gone up the spout" and the new sites of Promontory City, Blue Creek, and Bear River at the head of Great Salt Lake and the rich silver district of White Pine in eastern Nevada were beginning to attract attention.

Mormon leaders were convinced that their well-established town of Ogden would become the great trade metropolis, but the non-Mormons insisted that they must locate apart from the Saints where they

The Burg on the Bear

5

could control their own municipality and establish a separate Gentile monopoly.1" To ensure that the Union Pacific would enjoy the advantages and profits of the new center, its agent, J. M. Eddy, laid out a town on Broom's Bench seven miles north of Ogden and christened the new settlement Bonneville after Capt. Benjamin L. E. Bonneville who had traded for furs in the area during the early 1830s. An auction of one hundred lots was announced for March 18, 1869, with the understanding that Bonneville would be the terminus of the Utah Division of the Union Pacific, that it would be the location of roundhouses and machine shops, and that it would also become the "switching off place" for Idaho and Montana. But investors were not convinced that it would become a bona fide railroad town. Sales of lots were meager, and by March 26 Bonneville was "considered among the defuncts" by speculators, although Union Pacific officials continued to boost the prospects for the place.16 As early as February 1869 the Salt Lake Telegraph announced that the "New Bear Riverites" were confident that the city of the future would be located at the spot where the rails crossed Bear River, and in far-off Montana an observer gave the reasons why this was the proper site for the grand railroad emporium: (1) it was the nearest point on the line of the railroad to Montana, (2) it was the nearest point to the fifteen thousand people living in northeastern Utah, (3) it was an excellent place for the junction of the Oregon and Puget Sound branch of the Union Pacific, (4) it was located in Bear River Valley where some four hundred square miles of the prettiest land awaited only an irrigation system to divert water from Bear River for an acreage that was already producing sixty bushels of wheat per acre without irrigation, and (5) Bear River offered the only abundant supply of water between the Wasatch and Humboldt mountains. 17 Speculators seemed to agree, as lots were on sale at Bear River by March 19.

Many were hopeful that their fortunes would be made on the banks of the stream.18 Even earlier than March 1869 Box Elder County authorities at nearby Brigham City had recognized a need for some authority in the area of the proposed railroad crossing at Bear River. The county court, in a special session of December 15, 1868, established license fees of one hundred dollars for retailers of "Vinous Spirituous Liquors"

Corinne

located within five miles of the county seat and twenty-five dollars for ordinary dram shops — any "house, booth, or Shantee, Dug out, or tent, or any other place" — situated beyond the five-mile limit. Under this ordinance A. Stubblefield was permitted to sell liquor at Booths Ferry on Bear River beginning December 19, 1868, while the firm of Frost and Cole was granted a license on February 15, 1869, to dispense whiskey on the west side of Bear River near the lower ferry.19 J. H. Beadle visited the spot on January 16, 1869, and reported the Stubblefield saloon "where one could get bread, meat, coffee, and sage brush whiskey, on a pinch"; another saloon under construction

by Green and Alexander; a man named Gilmore of Brigham City who had laid two foundations for buildings; and others who were considering the site as a natural location for the proposed town. 20 Two other visits by Beadle on February 6 and 18 revealed a town of fifteen houses and one hundred fifty inhabitants. The citizens held a meeting, called the place Connor City in honor of Gen. Patrick E. Connor, and hoped that the Union Pacific officials would lay out a city at the site.

Beadle reported: There is no newsstand, post office or barber shop. The citizens wash in the river and comb their hair by crawling through the sagebrush. A private stage is run from this place to Promontory, passing through Connor. The proprietor calls it a Tryweekly, that is, it goes out one week and tries to get back the next. . . . 21 Although Beadle thought that the squatters on Bear River were "a little fast" inasmuch as all the lands within twenty-five miles of the track had been withdrawn from sale by the Department of the Interior acting under the provisions of the Pacific Railroad Act, he nevertheless maintained his interest in the rapid growth of the town. On March 11 he visited the crossing in company with twelve other interested men: Col. C. A. Reynolds, Maj. F. Meacham, Lieut. A. E. Woodson, Gen. J. A. Williamson, Capt. E. B. Zabriskie, Capt. John O'Neil, M. T. Burgess, S. S. Walker, M. H. Walker, N. S. Ransohoff, N. Boukofsky, and J. M. Worley. This combination of former officers in the Union Army and Gentile merchants from Salt Lake City, all looking for a business opportunity away from the restrictions and competition of the Mormon towns, met on the grassy bank of the river, partook of a cold drink, and then spent the rest of the day drinking

The Burg on the Bear

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A distant view of Corinne from the northwest. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum. toasts to President Ulysses S. Grant; to the vice-president; to the United States, "May their jurisdiction soon be extended over Utah"; to "the twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy. May the one soon follow the other to perdition"; "And so on, all day and nearly all night, the brunt of the business finally settling on Capt. Zabriskie, who was well able to bear it." After a rapid recovery the next morning most of the party located claims on even sections of land as near the crossing as they could get but, at the same time, were still uncertain if the Union Pacific would establish a town at the spot.22 Having attempted, unsuccessfully, to interest speculators in Bonneville, the railroad company now surveyed the Bear River site and designated Gen. J. A. Williamson as its agent to auction off the lots.

Beadle reported, on March 15, 1869: The Mountain Metropolis. The child is born, and her name as you see, is Corinne. Gen. Williamson was given permission to name the town at the crossing of Bear River, North, as the Saints

8

Corinne

call it, and he has christened it after one of his daughters, Corinne.

Whatever may be thought of the name, it has escaped the all but inevitable 'city' attachment under which most new towns in the West suffer during their infancy. Corinne is euphonious; new, short enough and long enough, pretty, grand. . . ." 23 A New York Herald reporter explained further that General Williamson's daughter was "a pretty, sprightly young lady of some fourteen summers, named Corinne, after the heroine in Madame de Stael's novel of that name," and the newsman thought the name "a very pretty one, of which the citizens need never feel ashamed." 24 The Salt Lake Telegraph editor later voiced a complaint with which countless other Utah citizens have since agreed. He said that he could not remember how to spell the town's name. It was like trying to spell Cincinnati or Tennessee, and he suggested a couplet to help those of short memory: Two n's, an i, and an e, An r, an o, and a C. As a final dig, he suggested dropping the name altogether and christening the settlement, "Bar Town," "Fulcrum," "Forlorn Hope," or "Last Ditch." 25 By the middle of March, Capt. John O'Neil was busy laying out the town west of the river at the crossing, surveying lots on section 31 north of the track and on the north half of section 6. Under the railroad charter, section 31 was railroad land while the half of section 6 was government land that had to be purchased by the Union Pacific from claimants who had settled it under the Preemption Act of September 4, 1841. The city plat was one mile square, laid off with blocks of twelve lots each, 22 by 132 feet in size, and with an alley through the center of each block. The railroad company received alternate lots in compensation for surveying and platting the site and so became a powerful joint owner of the town. On March 25, forever after celebrated as Pioneer Day by the Corinnethians, a grand auction resulted in the sale of $30,000 worth of lots, ranging in price from $400 to as high as $1,000 each. Within the first week, about $100,000 worth of lots were sold in what investors hoped would soon become the "Queen City of the West." 26

The Burg on the Bear

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Panoramic view of Corinne and some of the town's earliest structures.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

At the time of its founding the lilliputian town of Corinne consisted of sixty or seventy tents and shanties and three or four hundred inhabitants. As one of its first citizens, J. H. Beadle, wrote: It was a gay community. Nineteen saloons paid license for three months. Two dance-houses amused the elegant leisure of the evening hours, and the supply of "sports" was fully equal to the requirements of a railroad town. At one time, the town contained eighty nymphs du pave, popularly known in MountainEnglish as "soiled doves." Being the last railroad town it enjoyed "flush times" during the closing weeks of building the Pacific Railway. The junction of the Union and Central was then at Promontory, twenty-eight miles west, and Corinne was the retiring place for rest and recreation of all employees. Yet it was withal a quiet and rather orderly place. Sunday was generally observed: most of the men went hunting or fishing, and the "girls" had a dance, or got drunk. 27 A more detailed and shop-by-shop description by a reporter of the Salt Lake Telegraph was even more revealing: One house, or tent, of feminine frailty, one bar room and chop house adjoining, one grocery, one saloon with "convenient" apartments, one toggery institution of Jewish origin, one punk roost, one keg saloon, two mercantile adventures, one mayor, marshal and his deputy and city councilors, one vacant lot, one town liquor store, one billiard hall, one bachelor's retreat, one large and inexhaustible stock of general merchandise yet to arrive, one "Gentile boarding house," two private concerns, one "its my

10

Corinne

treat," one washing, ironing and plain sewing erection, one old maid, ah! old as the venerable U.P.R.R. and equally irrepressible, together with one young Americaness, much dilapidated through constant service from Omaha; one faro table, and three card monte; one square meal and round chowder-house, one drug, nostrum, dry-goods, hardware, a spicy peppering of the nymphs du grade, and oyster shop; one corn depot, minus the corn; one lumber yard, fenced with sagebrush; one corral, feed and sale stable, one ton of hay thrown out in the cold; several promiscuous ladies, in eight-by-ten duck domiciles, accommodatingly interspersed for catching stragglers; one or two wholesale and retail liquor establishments, one news depot without the Telegraph; one trio-bagnio, one pale apothecary's shop, where the ills to which Christian flesh is heir are speedily put in trim to call again; one Montana blacksmith shop; . . . one Ping-Chong tea dealer. . . .

The correspondent ended his long one-sentence account with the comment that Corinne was "the hope and sheet anchor of civilization for the Mormons, 'the only point on earth where Christianity can be brought into contact with Mormonism and make itself felt.' " The writer implored the government in Washington, D.C., to "patronize such an outgrowth of Christianity." 28 With a tent city founded and expectant merchants eagerly awaiting the trade that would surely come, construction workers finally laid the tracks of the Union Pacific across Bear River and through Corinne on April 7. J. E. Howe, chief engineer of the railroad company, had by this time decided that Corinne rather than Bonneville should be the point of concentration, and the town plat was extended to encompass three square miles of area. Beadle thought that perhaps as much as one-half of the merchant capital and three-fourths of the brains and energy of Salt Lake City would be immediately transferred to the new town. Certainly the high prices for lots, lumber, beef, and other commodities beckoned to the Gentile entrepreneurs of the territory.29

Lawlessness of Early Corinne To bring a semblance of order to the new settlement, the citizens, following good republican practice and without any pretense of asking the Box Elder County authorities at Brigham City for permission, elected Gen. J. A. Williamson as mayor, William Kenney as marshal, M. C. Bowers as deputy marshal, W. Spicer as city attorney, and five

The Burg on the Bear

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councilors: John O'Neil, J. C. Shepherd, John McLaughlin, J. A. McCabe, and Joseph Crabb. The marshal and his deputy were not without work, because two days after the founding of the town, Beadle reported the incident of a drunken brawler who began firing at random among the tents with the result that an innocent man was shot through the hips.30 The Deseret News thought the place was "fast becoming civilized; several men having been killed there already, the last one was found in the river with four bullet holes through him and his head badly mangled."

One visitor merely passing through the town had just alighted from the Wells Fargo stage about a half-mile from Corinne when three ruffians seized him, took him to the city where he was imprisoned in a small room, and threatened him with hanging unless he surrendered his valuables. After losing his belongings he traveled to Brigham City, obtained a warrant, and returned to Corinne where the town marshal refused to serve the warrant unless he was paid $100 in cash for the service, a request the victim could not meet.31 Still another resident of the town played policeman and robbed an individual of $150.

When a Jewish merchant lost a stock of goods to a Gentile and had the latter "incarcerated in the cotton calaboose of Ba-ar-town," forty citizens retrieved the thief from the jail and freed him.32 But perhaps a correspondent of the New York Herald, traveling through the West, best expressed the lawlessness of early Corinne: I was compelled to remain there one night, and after inspection of the locality, and noting the number and variety of the faces of the men portion of the community, I deemed it best for the safety of my person and pocket to leave if possible. Looking eastward I happened to espy a neat looking town or village, . . . about eight miles distant, and upon inquiry found that it was Brigham City, a thoroughly Mormon settlement but a place where one could stay with comparative comfort and safety . . . .

I chartered a wagon, or rather a pine box on four wheels and left.

I drew a long sigh of relief when Corinne was behind me, and I retained but one thought about it, viz., that by reason of the number and evident character of the females inhabiting it its name should be changed to Camille.33 The sedate and quiet Mormons of the county seat at Brigham City were appalled at the eruption of violence just next door and took immediate action to grant the petition of J. A. Williamson and others

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Corinne

to appoint O. J. Hollister justice of the peace and David R. Short as constable in the newly formed Malad Precinct. Although correspondent Beadle could write the Cincinnati Commercial that the free city of Corinne was exercising all the powers of sovereignty, the founders of the town were happy to appeal to constituted authority at the county seat for help. 34 And the lawlessness of Corinne became an object of concern as the Saints at Brigham City watched their heretofore seldom-used jail fill up with criminals from the town at Bear River. Especially disturbing was the case of James Marley, Morris Kahn, and William Smith, alias "English Bill," charged with robbing Edward Kinney of $130. On June 17 the prisoners broke jail and were shot dead by the prison guard. Unfortunately, during the attempted escape one of the guards, Jonathan T. Packer, was shot in the thigh by a bullet from the revolver of another guard. 35 Surely, Box Elder County had become the abode of a Sodom by a Salten Sea. It was little wonder that the Mormon press very early attached the name "The Burg on the Bear" to the apparently sin-filled city of Gentiles, and, as often happens to a phrase of euphonious alliteration, the title has since found a place in nearly every article written about Corinne. The Salt Lake Telegraph started the attack just two days after the birth of the town by noting that "Already, a good sprinkling of 'frail ones' are on the ground, and in less than a month 'civilization' bids fair to be under full headway." A correspondent, writing from Ogden, pointed out that many of the transient merchants in the city were heading for the new El Dorado on Bear River and he was glad to see them go: They came, they went, and when they left us, They only of themselves bereft us !30 William Clayton was of the opinion that "hell is let loose in earnest," while Brigham Young hoped the rowdy element accompanying the construction of the railroad would soon "pass away," especially at that "sink of pollution," Corinne. 37 A correspondent agreed with the editor of the Salt Lake Telegraph that a thriving town could not "be resolved from the foetid elements rankling at Corinne" but that the place could serve as a sewer to drain off the accumulating filth that had built up during the previous ten years in Utah. 3 * A Deseret News reporter approved the sentiments of an eastern gentleman who said,

The Burg on the Bear

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"God Almighty have mercy on the people of Ogden, if the carcass of Corinne is to be disemboweled in their streets!" Except for this blast and an occasional reference to Corinne as the "Chicago of the mountains . . . with its few miserable huts and shanties and 'deadfalls,' " the Deseret News as the churchly voice of the Mormon leaders allowed the Salt Lake Telegraph and the later Salt Lake Herald to deride and condemn Corinne. As the News editor patiently explained to his Brigham City correspondent who had reported the town election news for Corinne, "Being a matter so utterly void of significance, we do not wish to attach a seeming importance to it by publishing it in the News." 39

A Gentile Newspaper Such lofty and disdainful aloofness on the part of the Mormon scribe became increasingly difficult to maintain when the Burg on the Bear sprouted its own newspaper by early April 1869. John Hanson Beadle, finding himself temporarily out of funds in October 1868, had volunteered to write a few editorials for the almost defunct Salt Lake Reporter. The owner, S. S. Saul, was so impressed with the new reporter's pungent wit and acrid style that Beadle was immediately hired and, along with two partners, A. Aulbach and John Barrett, soon bought the paper and moved it to the more hospitable Gentile clime of Corinne. 40 Here, Beadle found magnificent support for his unceasing anti-Mormon articles as he and his colleagues struggled to keep the infant Utah Semi-Weekly Reporter alive. By November the paper had burgeoned into a triweekly sheet, but its three owners had, by then, surrendered their interests to the Printers' Publishing Company whose new management announced that delivery would stop to all patrons who failed to notify the company about their subscriptions.

Before the change in ownership and throughout the summer and fall of 1869, editor Beadle had full opportunity to establish his point of view and philosophy and, with one brief exception, what came to be the policy of all other Corinne newspapers: attack Mormon theocracy and polygamy at every opportunity; if there were no other news, always fall back on further derision of Mormon practices and theology; and continue a drumfire of boosterism to publicize the grand potential of Corinne as a thriving metropolis and place of settlement

14

Corinne

for other Gentiles. Beadle agreed with his successor that "Ours is a fight of no ordinary consideration. . . . We have the banded influence of Mormonism against us on three sides, and rival towns on the fourth." 41 The extravagant chamber of commerce editorials exceeded even the well-known propensity for small western towns to blow their own horns. The Boise Idaho Statesman, despite its usual support of the Reporter's anti-Mormon tirades, could not refrain from commenting that one would think that according to the columns of the Corinne newspaper "New York, Chicago and San Francisco were situated too far from Corinne ever to amount to much," and although a good paper, the Reporter's "inordinate, uncontrollable weakness is Corinne.

It seems to suppose that adjectives and assurances will build a city." 42 Although boosting the prospects of Corinne was a necessary and vital part of /promoting the financial success of the town's business, including that of the Reporter, the barrage of anti-Mormon attacks, asides, and ridicule became almost an obsession with the various editors who tended to look upon themselves as the intellectual and cultural leaders of the town's citizenry. Nothing was too far-fetched that it could not be enlarged upon not only to the delight of the Gentile readers of Utah Territory but also to the consternation and exasperation of easterners far removed from the field of the newspaper battles.

For example, the New York Tribune of May 1, 1869, quoted the Utah Reporter's account of a sermon by Brigham Young in which the prophet was supposed to have censured Thomas L. Drake, a vociferous Mormon-hater and associate justice of Utah Territory in 1863: There was old Drake, the D dest old rascal in the country, that said he "loved to d n the Mormons, he'd get up at midnight and walk ten miles over thistles to d n them, and he'd d n any man that wouldn't d n them"; and I say G d d n him, and God will d n him and all such scalawags as they send out here.

The Tribune writer attested that the Corinne paper had the most positive proof that the above remarks were reported word for word and concluded that if such things could be said publicly what thoughts and feelings must the Mormon leaders keep hidden in their wicked souls.43 Typical onslaughts against the Utah Saints by the Reporter included disparagement of Mormon leaders, charges of injustices perpe-

The Burg on the Bear

15

trated against defenseless Gentiles, learned analysis of Mormon character or lack of it, and exaggerated accounts of the pernicious effects of Mormon theology on the benighted followers of the "Profit" as Brigham Young was customarily called. When N. P. Woods was appointed deputy U.S. marshal for Utah, editor Beadle attacked him as the nephew of Daniel H. Wells, the supposed evil genius of Mormonism. In illustration of the second category above, the Reporter editor gave an account of a young Gentile gentleman who was attacked by five armed men for "paying attention to some of the Mormon girls" of Salt Lake City. The editor concluded, "the life of a Gentile . . . is not worth a feather in the hands of the Mormon police."

In a leading editorial the Reporter explained why the Saints were so downright mean: "The difference between inherent and ordinary meanness is this: The ordinary mean men are usually only mean where their own interests are involved, whereas the inherent mean men [Mormon] are blind to all interests, personal, local or general." As for From their tent office, 1869, the staff of the Reporter initiated one of the liveliest news sheets in Utah journalistic history. William H. Jackson photograph, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

16

Corinne

the questionable doctrines of the Utah church, the editor quoted a New York Post article that emphasized the frightful mortality rate among Mormon children, Young's counselor Heber C. Kimball having reportedly buried forty-eight of his sixty-three children. The Reporter insisted that the Post was misinformed, the editor apparently personally knowing of one polygamous family that had buried one hundred forty-eight children. He was sure that polygamy was the reason for the high death rate. But sometimes it was just easier to dismiss a Utah leader with a succinct "once an ass always an ass," as in the case of T. B. H. Stenhouse.44 The internecine newspaper war between the Utah Reporter and the Mormon journals of Salt Lake City finally erupted into a cause celebre that received national attention. In early autumn Beadle published a severe criticism of polygamist Judge Samuel Smith of Brigham City, charging the jurist with having married two of his cousins and two of the daughters of his own brother to increase his total family complement to six wives. On November 1 Beadle appeared at the Brigham City courthouse, one of twelve Gentiles among twelve hundred Mormons, to answer charges of a debt of $886.82/ 2 supposedly owed to O. H. Elliott for supplies furnished to the Beadle Printing Press. Presiding Judge Samuel Smith dismissed the suit in favor of Beadle. As the editor was leaving the courthouse a young man approached him and said, "You're the man that wrote that lie about my father." He then knocked Beadle down and stomped on him. The assailant, Hyrum Smith, a son of the judge, was tried for the offense and fined $50, although Beadle later maintained it was only $5.

Beadle suffered a broken collarbone, in two places, a badly cut temple, an injured right eye, a section of his scalp torn off, and some internal injuries. He was taken to Corinne where he was given medical attention and endured a convalescence of about five weeks before leaving for his home in Rockville, Maryland, having "no desire to try it again" in Mormondom. 45 The eastern press read with avidity the stream of articles pouring forth over the wires and in the editorials of the Reporter. According to the editor, it was Hyrum Smith's intention to murder Beadle; the Mormons of Utah were "sordid barbarians . . . when native-born American citizens are plotted against, shunned, abhorred, driven, persecuted and murdered by a horde of unscrupulous, outrageous, lying,

The Burg on the Bear

17

thieving, murdering fanatic foreigners, it is time for action. . . .

"There is no such thing as justice or security for their persons or property here." 4G The Salt Lake newspapers, on the other hand, explained that it was a personal quarrel only and did not represent the views or practices of the general Mormon population, although the Salt Lake Telegraph could not refrain from concluding, "What are we coming to, when in a free country a man cannot slander his neighbors through the press to his heart's content, without getting a bloody nose for it?" 4?

The Deseret News was forced to recognize the existence of Corinne again by acknowledging that "Mr. Beadle is the editor of an insignificant sheet . . . which only maintains a circulation of a few scores by continually loading its columns with diatribes against the Mormon Church, . . . remarkable for nothing but scurrilous abuse and sheer lack of truth." While deprecating the attack by young Smith, the News nevertheless warned that "When . . . such parties make their slanderous aspersions personal, they must look for and abide by the consequences." 48 The whole affair was important not only for highlighting the antipathy evident between the two groups but also for exacerbating the Mormon problem in the East and especially in the nation's capital where some lawmakers rejoiced at the new ammunition furnished them to help in the passage of even stricter anti-Mormon legislation.

Locating the Junction City Despite the developing friction between Saint and Gentile in Utah, especially at the focal point of Corinne, with the completion of the transcontinental railroad and the gradual disappearance of the rough construction element, Mormon leaders were relieved by the summer of 1869 to see quiet and peaceful visitors coming by the scores to Salt Lake City and other northern Utah towns.49 In the minds of both Gentile and Mormon businessmen, the immediate question to be resolved was the location of the final junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific roads because that spot would become very important as a freight transfer point for goods to Idaho and Montana as well as being the end of the line for both companies where roundhouses and machine shops would provide employment for hundreds of workers with the concomitant of prosperous retail trade.

18

Corinne

East and West shaking hands at Promontory, Utah, May 10,1869.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

Within a few days of the driving of the Golden Spike, speculation had narrowed the choice between the Gentile village of Corinne and the Mormon town of Ogden, and now began a long struggle in both Utah and Washington, D.C., to make a final determination that could mean prosperity or decline for Corinne or added growth for the already substantial Ogden. 5 " Brigham Young had anticipated the need for a junction city as early as December 1868 when he determined that the location should be at Ogden. Recognizing that the two railroad companies could be swayed by a proper inducement and that available land at Ogden was already appropriated for other uses, he met with certain property owners and arranged with enough loyal brethren of his church to agree to sell sufficient land at $50 an acre to furnish a site for a railroad station and shops. The railroad officials were astounded, Dr. Thomas C. Durrant of the Union Pacific commenting that there "was not another man on earth could have done the same."

The church, of course, assumed the cost of the land and then awaited the expected decision in favor of Ogden.

To strengthen the claim of the Utah leaders for Ogden as the site of the junction and to give Salt Lake City a railroad connection to the

The Burg on the Bear

19

Pacific road, Brigham Young proposed to build a branch line from the capital to Ogden, using what finally amounted to $530,000 worth of iron, rolling stock, and construction equipment secured from Mormon contracts in building roadbed for the Union Pacific. The balance of $320,000 in cost was met by calling on the Mormon people who lived along the route to furnish labor and some materials in exchange for railroad tickets and merchandise or, in some instances, to repay the church for having furnished transportation for immigration to the Utah Zion.51 A ground-breaking party was held just seven days after the driving of the Golden Spike, and soon the various Mormon wards had crews at work on the sections of roadbed through their areas. Brigham's son John W. Young, in charge of construction, told the men that he wanted the track laid "without the name of Deity being once taken in vain. And the prospects are that his wish will be gratified."

At least that was the pious hope of the Deseret News.52 The last spike on the Utah Central Railroad was driven on January 10, 1870, and as the Saints exulted in their unique achievement an official of the Union Pacific attending the rite declared that the thirty-eight mile railroad was the only line west of the Missouri River built without any subsidy from the government. 53 The new railroad offered a number of advantages to the Utah Saints. It aided immigration to Salt Lake City, gave easy passage to the semiannual conferences of the church, allowed low-cost transportation for Mormon officials and missionaries traveling in line of duty, and, above all, made the new mines in the Salt Lake Valley and Tooele regions economical and profitable to work.54 No wonder the Corinne newspapers tried to belittle the influence of the new line by referring to the U C R R as the "Un Certain R. R." 55 The road certainly strengthened the position of Ogden as the probable meeting point for the two transcontinental roads.

Congress had apparently considered the matter settled when it passed in April 1869 the Pacific Railroad bill that decreed "the common terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad shall be at or near Ogden, and the Union Pacific Railroad Company shall build and the Central Pacific Railroad Company shall pay for and own the railroad from the terminus aforesaid to a promontory summit, at which point the rails shall meet. . . ." The words "or

20

Corinne

near Ogden" gave the Union Pacific just enough leverage to continue attempts to capture the Montana trade that now seemed destined to fall to Corinne as the nearest railroad point of departure for the north.

By late April rumors had spread that the Central Pacific had completed the purchase of that section of the Union Pacific line from Ogden to Promontory and that as an appendage of the Union Pacific Corinne was definitely "on the fence," as Leland Stanford refused to give assurance of patronage from his company to the new town on Bear River.50 While Mormon newspapers began to refer to Ogden as "Junction City," Corinnethians became desperate. Other speculations had the Union Pacific willing to sell its road west of Ogden, although preferring to keep Corinne as its terminus. Still others in the know were sure that the two roads would finally agree to own jointly the section between the two towns. The Salt Lake Telegraph described a conversation between two gentlemen, one of whom suggested that if Ogden were finally chosen, "Corinne would fold up its tents and not very silently steal away to Ogden." 5T A correspondent writing from Salt Lake City in October thought it a scandal that the two roads were still meeting at Promontory as they haggled over the price the Central Pacific should pay for the road to Ogden. 5S The latter company threatened to build its own line to Ogden to share in the Utah trade. The Union Pacific moved its shops into Ogden, which the Deseret News thought would mean the demise of "Bar-artown"; and one disgusted patron thought that Corinne might be a reasonable compromise to settle the problem and that the Gentiles' real headquarters were at Corinne. 59 The two companies finally settled upon Ogden as the de facto junction of their two roads, and by December 1, 1869, the Central Pacific had dispatched three hundred Chinese workers to improve its new section of the line to Ogden. The Deseret News editor worried over the influx of undesirables from Promontory and Corinne into Ogden but reassured himself that there were no lots available for purchase by these owners of gambling hells and rum holes.00 The Utah Reporter put on a brave face about the ostensible location of the junction at Ogden, reporting that Leland Stanford was inspecting Corinne and would probably offer some help to the Gentile town but more realistically admitting that the location of the junction

The Burg on the Bear

21

was not really important as long as Corinne controlled the Montana trade. 61 The Idaho Statesman was of the opinion that "the Corinnetheans look 'sick.' They fear that railroad connection with Montana will go with the junction to Ogden . . . ," a prophecy that eventually was fulfilled. The Boise paper was also certain that the transportation of goods and passengers to western Idaho would come from Kelton, west of Great Salt Lake on the Central Pacific, another realistic appraisal.02 But the people of Corinne continued to push the prospects of their chosen city at the expense of their Mormon rivals. A typical blurb explained that Corinne handled more business and paid more taxes than did Salt Lake City.03 In solid support of fellow Gentiles, newspapers like the New York Herald also saw comfort in the inevitable decline of the new temporary junction at Ogden, because Corinne was still the depot for Montana and Idaho freight and had better prospects for growth than Ogden.

The Herald was certain that although many people were leaving Corinne for Ogden, the lack of available land, the exorbitant rents charged by Mormon landlords, and the insufficient profits available at Ogden would "be conducive to a speedy return to their first love, .onnne.

The Montana Trade The founders of the place had been confident from the first that the natural advantages of the settlement would make it a terminal town that could monopolize the Montana and Idaho trade. It lay at the head of what Capt. Howard Stansbury in 1849 had called "the best natural road I ever saw," from the mouth of Bear River, north over the easy Malad Divide, down Marsh Creek and the Portneuf River to Fort Hall and Snake River Valley, across the Snake at Idaho Falls and then due north again across the Continental Divide at another low elevation at Monida Pass, and finally down Red Rock Creek to the headwaters of the Missouri River."5 The location on the west bank of Bear River not only removed a formidable river crossing but also placed the town at a point where the stream was eighteen feet deep and two hundred feet wide, water enough for a lake port that could draw trade from the mines south of Great Salt Lake. Finally, the location placed the town on the most northerly point of the Pacific

22

Corinne

railroad, four hundred seventy-five miles from Helena, Montana, and twenty days or less time for goods from the East. Realizing these advantages, the Union Pacific had very reluctantly given up ownership of the track from Ogden to Corinne to the Central Pacific which now controlled the transfer of freight to the northern mining camps and towns of Idaho and Montana, the shipment of goods to Boise and western Idaho by way of Kelton, and the trade of northern Utah as well through its terminal at Ogden. Corinne, quite naturally, became Montana-minded, realizing that its very existence and potential for growth were almost solely dependent on its position as the point where freighters transferred goods from the trains to their wagons for the long ox-team trip to the north. 00 Since the opening of the mines in western Montana and eastern Idaho in 1862—63, the two areas had been supplied along two main routes: by wagons on the Montana trail from Salt Lake City and by steamboats up the Missouri River from Saint Louis. Of the approximately 25,000 tons of manufactured goods and other articles shipped into western Montana and eastern Idaho each year to supply the 50,000 residents there by 1869, probably 6,000 tons came from Salt Lake City and the balance from Saint Louis. The river route offered cheaper transportation but an unreliable delivery date because periods of low water would often strand the boats several hundred miles downstream, necessitating the dispatch of wagon trains to pick up the goods for delivery to Fort Benton, the head of navigation. Merchants in Helena, Virginia City, Bannack, Deer Lodge, and the other towns had, therefore, become accustomed to ordering bulk or heavy goods by way of the Missouri but more critical items such as tools, clothing, fresh fruit in season, and other necessities or luxuries via freight wagons from Utah. One of the chief disadvantages of the latter route was the long wagon haul from Omaha or Saint Louis to Salt Lake City even before other freighters could pick up the goods for transshipment north. This meant that orders had to be placed far in advance of delivery to Montana businesses. Then, all at once, the driving of the Golden Spike had eliminated the long trip by wagon and had further shortened the distance to Montana by placing the terminus of the road at Corinne, some seventy miles north of Salt Lake City.07 Wholesale dealers at Omaha and San Francisco, the people at Corinne, of course, and Montana merchants all expected that the Mis-

The Burg on the Bear

23

souri River route would now become obsolete or that, at least, the proportion of goods sent from Corinne would rise dramatically. The everlastingly optimistic promoter at the helm of the Utah Reporter expected that the town would now command the entire trade to the North; and, as far as passenger travel was concerned, the editor was sure that with the temperature at ten degrees below zero at Fort Benton, "People are not going in and out of Montana that way when they can come through Corinne, where everything is warm and lovely as the heart could wish." In support of Corinne's hopes, forty-three Helena merchants dispatched a telegraph to the eastern firm of Graham, Maurice and Co., offering their support for a proposed fast freight line from New York which the company intended to establish by way of the Pacific railroad and Corinne to Montana. 09 These sanguine expectations of both Corinnethians and Montanans were not realized, as lower rates and higher water continued to make steamboat traffic on the Missouri River the most economical and satisfactory means of supplying the northern territory with bulk goods. But the new freight-transfer point on the Central Pacific became so important for the rapid and sure delivery of critical articles that the people of Montana became quite Corinne-minded.

The shift to freighting via the Central Pacific was a gradual process, however, the old law of physics that a body in motion tends to remain in motion operating very well in this instance. The uncertainty of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the lack of a definite location for a freight-transfer point, and the deliberate underbidding in 1869 for freight by the Missouri steamboat lines, all worked to discourage northern merchants from attempting to change their pattern of obtaining supplies or goods for their Idaho and Montana customers.70 As a result, Corinne seemed, to many observers, to be a dying town during the summer of 1869. The editor of the Deseret News was glad and noted that many people were deserting the town which he thought was nothing more than a bilk anyway. Other newspapers in Utah and Montana agreed that Corinne was quiet, flat, and fast disappearing and that its rival, Ogden, was in no better shape.71 In fact, T. B. H. Stenhouse, sent by Brigham Young to establish the Telegraph newspaper at Ogden, wrote in July that there were no prospects for success; the people's pockets were empty; the town was dull; and there was nothing to provide any interest for a paper. 72

24

Corinne

One bright spot in an otherwise gloomy panorama was the flight of those lawless and discordant individuals who had brought Corinne into disgrace in the eyes of its Mormon neighbors. The Deseret News, surprisingly, wrote on July 28, "Those vile blots on the social surface, which made Uintah and Corinne moral pest spots, have been removed, and the element that remains is courteous, peaceable, gentlemanly and business-like." 73 Only one dance hall and gambling hell remained by late June, and the Helena Herald was pleased that "the town is casting aside its cotton overalls, and will soon appear in a more pleasing and goodly raimant." The Montana paper also noted, on September 23, that Corinne was quite brisk in comparison with any other town in the area outside of Helena, which emphasized that Montana merchants were beginning to place orders for goods from the wholesale houses at the Central Pacific location.74 The resulting pick-up in business worried the local newspaper editor, who began to expostulate with his fellow Enthusiastic crowds at the laying of the last rail of the transcontinental railroad.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

The Burg on the Bear

25

townsmen to lay in large stocks of goods for the mountain orders and to wake up to their own interests.75 To counteract the gloom exhibited by some Corinnethian businessmen and the impending doom, which throughout the history of the Gentile town seemed always to hover like a black cloud of Mormon locusts on the horizon, the Utah Reporter started very early what came to be an interminable newspaper campaign of puffs and spouting about the absolute inevitability of the supremacy of that metropolis of the mountains — Corinne. 70 By late 1869 the editor was devoting long editorials and special articles in praise of his favorite town, noting that Thomas C. Dunn of Salt Lake City or some other distinguished citizen had decided to become a Corinnethian, reporting that four local stagecoach company men were visiting in town, and taking pride in "our H O M E . . . an American city." 7T After all, Corinne was becoming a town of no ordinary importance, the stepping-stone between the prairies of the Midwest and. the vast resources of the Pacific Slope, the halfway house between Mexico and Canada, a harbor of rest for the weary transcontinental traveler, a point of departure for the northern territories, and a natural outfitting place for miners and explorers. The Idaho Statesman commented, "that lest its modesty shall be its ruin, we advise the Reporter to 'stand in' and blow a little for Corinne." 7S Nevertheless, the year of the Golden Spike had marked the birth of the first important Gentile town in Mormon Utah, had seen it struggle through an infancy of turmoil and trouble, and had finally ended watching and wondering if the fledgling would survive to adulthood. To loyal Corinnethians, at least on the surface, there was no doubt about the potential for growth and greatness. All that was necessary was the development of trade with the eager customers of Idaho and Montana and the establishment of a stable city government to direct and supervise the building and expansion of the new industrial and commercial center of the Rocky Mountains. As a new year approached, the citizens of Corinne turned their attention to the internal problems that must be solved if the bright future that beckoned were to be realized.

26

Corinne

NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1 1 Deseret News, 11 September 1868; see also Robert G. Athearn, "Opening the Gates of Zion: Utah and the Coming of the Union Pacific Railroad," Utah Historical Quarterly 36 ( 1 9 6 8 ) : 291-314.

2 Brigham Young to George Nebeker, 4 November 1868, Brigham Young Letter Books, microfilm, reel 16, 208, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

3 Deseret News, 7 August 1867; Millennial Star 30 (1868) : 4 4 0 - 4 2 ; "Journal of Leonard E. Harrington," Utah Historical Quarterly 8 (1940) :46. * Deseret News, 19 December 1868; 10 February, 25 March 1869.

5 Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), pp. 112-13; Sermon of Brigham Young, 8 April 1869, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool, 1854-86), 13:36.

6 Leonard J. Arrington, From Quaker to Latter-day Saint: Bishop Edwin D. Woolley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 428.

7 Sermon of Brigham Young, 8 October 1868, Journal of Discourses, 12:287. ÂťIbid., 29 November 1868, 12:312; 7 April 1869, 1 3 : 4 ; George A. Smith to Brigham Young, 1 May 1869, BY Letter Books, reel 17,512.

9 William Clayton to Dear Friend, 23 March 1869; William Clayton to Heber Young, 4 April 1869; William Clayton to F. M. Lyman, 2 May 1869; William Clayton to Karl G. Maeser, 5 July 1868; William Clayton to Bro. Jesse, 19 December 1869; in William Clayton Letter Books, vol. 4, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

10 Sermon of George Q. Cannon, 7 October 1868, Journal of Discourses, 12: 294; see also Ronald W. Walker, " T h e Godbeite Protest in the Making of Modern Utah" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), p. 36; and Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 293-322.

11 John Hanson Beadle Scrapbook, 22 November 1868, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Salt Lake Herald, 5 January 1869; Deseret News, 7 July 1869.

12 New York Herald, 12 May 1869; New York Tribune, 19 May 1869; Salt Lake Herald, 24 December 1868.

13 New York Tribune, 19 August 1869; New York Herald, 10 November 1869; Sacramento Union, 10 November 1869.

14 Cincinnati Commercial, 17 October 1868.

1! >Salt Lake Telegraph, 19 December 1868; 8, 10, 24 March 1869.

10 Salt Lake Telegraph, 15, 23, 26 March 1869.

17 Salt Lake Telegraph, 2 February, 5 March 1869; Montana Post, 19 March 1869; Beadle Scrapbook, 21 February 1869.

18 Salt Lake Telegraph, 23, 24, 26 March 1869; Deseret News, 24 March 1869.

19 Box Elder County Records, Book A, 15 December 1868, 148; Book A-B, 1856-86, 207, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

20 Corinne Journal, 25 May 1871.

21 Ibid.; Beadle Scrapbook, 18 February 1869.

22 Beadle Scrapbook, 11 March 1869. '" Ibid., 15 March 1869.

24 New York Herald, 29 December 1869. Corinne ou I'ltalie, published in 1807, is considered to be Madame de StaeTs best work of fiction and a strong influence on the romantic novel.

25 Salt Lake Telegraph, 26 April 1869.

The Burg on the Bear

27

2 ° Beadle Scrapbook, 15 March 1869; Salt Lake Telegraph, 27 March 1869; Corinne Journal, 25 March 1871; S. H. Goodwin, Freemasonry in Utah (Salt Lake City: Committee on Masonic Education and Instruction, 1926), p. 7; Bernice G. Anderson, "The Gentile City of Corinne," Utah Historical Quarterly 9 (1941): 141-42.

27 John Hanson Beadle, The Undeveloped West; or, Five Years in the Territories (Philadelphia, 1870), pp. 120-21; John Hanson Beadle, Polygamy; or, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (Philadelphia, 1904), p. 234.

28 Salt Lake Telegraph, 13 April 1869.

29 Salt Lake Telegraph, 9 April 1869; Deseret News, 14 April 1869; Montana Post, 16 April 1869; Beadle Scrapbook, 27 March 1869. so Salt Lake Telegraph, 13 April 1869; Beadle Scrapbook, 27 March 1869.

31 Deseret News, 7 April, 26 May 1869.

32 Salt Lake Telegraph, 15 June 1869; Deseret News, 9 June 1869.

33 Salt Lake Telegraph, 26 May 1869.

34 Box Elder County Court Records, 18 March 1869, 2 1 1 ; 13 July 1869, 213; 6 September 1869, 213; 6 December 1869, 216, U t a h State Archives; Cincinnati Commercial, 30 September 1869.

35 Box Elder County, First District Court, Book A-B, 1856-76, 15 June 1869, 304, Utah State Archives; Salt Lake Telegraph, 23 June 1869; Deseret News, 23 June 1869; see Jesse H. Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1951), p. 64.

Jameson says that the legend of nightly killings during 1869 is just that — a legend.

In fact, there was less recorded crime in Corinne. during that summer than in Salt Lake City.

36 Salt Lake Telegraph, 27 March, 1 April 1869.

37 William Clayton to Heber Young, 4 April 1869, WC Letter Books, vol. 4; Brigham Young to A. Carrington, 13 April 1869, BY Letter Books, reel 16, 482.

38 Salt Lake Telegraph, 22, 26 April 1869.

39 Deseret News, 5 May, 18 August, 1 December 1869.

40 Beadle, The Undeveloped West, pp. 115-17.

41 Utah Reporter, 2, 13 November 1869.

42 Idaho Statesman, 25 November, 21 December 1869.

43 New York Tribune, 1 May 1869.

44 Utah Reporter, 23 October; 4, 9, 21 December 1869.

43 Beadle, The Undeveloped West, pp. 183-87; Box Elder County, First District Court, 12 October, 1 November 1869, 9; Utah Reporter, 23 October 1869.

46 Utah Reporter, 4, 6 November 1869.

47 Salt Lake Telegraph, 4, 7 November 1869.

48 Deseret News, 10 November 1869.

49 William Clayton to John Gillibrand, 24 July 1869, WC Letter Books, vol. 4.

50 Montana Post, 14 May 1869.

51 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 265, 270-72, 485-86.

52 Deseret News, 14 November 1869. r.3 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 272-73. =4 Ibid., pp. 273-75.

D5 Utah Reporter, 15 January 1870. ™ Deseret News, 28 April, 5 May 1869; Idaho Statesman, 29 April 1869.

57 Deseret News, 26 May 1869; Salt Lake Telegraph, 27 May, 23 July, 18 August, 14 September 1869.

08 Letter from Salt Lake City, October 1869, Bancroft Scraps, Utah 1 170, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

59 Ibid.; Deseret News, 2 September, 6 October 1869.

28

Corinne

60 Salt Lake Telegraph, 12, 30 November 1869; Idaho Statesman, 27 November 1869; Deseret News, 1 December 1869. oi Utah Reporter, 30 November; 2, 23 December 1869.

02 Idaho Statesman, 20 November, 4 December 1869.

M Utah Reporter, 27 November 1869. ÂŤ4 MOT ForA; tferaW, 29 December 1869. a:i Salt Lake Telegraph, 5 April 1869; Howard Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake . . . (Philadelphia, 1852), p. 93.

G6 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 6-43.

67 Ibid., pp. 20-47.

88 New Northwest (Montana), 3 December 1869. e9 Utah Reporter, 27 October, 11 November, 28 December 1869.

70 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 85. ™ Deseret News, 12 May 1869; Salt Lake Telegraph, 14, 22 May; 20 J u n e ; 20 July 1869; Helena Herald, 13 May 1869.

72 T. B. H. Stenhouse to Brigham Young, 20 July 1869, BY Letter Books, reel 62.

73 Deseret News, 28 July 1869. '^Salt Lake Telegraph, 20 June 1869; Helena Herald, 23 September 1869.

75 Utah Reporter, 6 November, 14 December 1869.

70 Idaho Statesman, 25 November 1869.

77 Utah Reporter, 6, 27 November; 23 December 1869.

78 Idaho Statesman, 25 November 1869.

The Burg on the Bear

29

Clorinne and Vicinity

Tooele O Stockton O O Ophir

30

Corinne

'xHMr*-n^S'fl

Trail Town

A City Charter Although a city government of the popular style had served Corinne fairly well during its first year of existence, the absence of an official charter and a legally constituted election process had led to abuses and charges of irresponsible administration. The whole matter came to a head in February 1870 when leading citizens representing the Chamber of Commerce Association called on Constable Patterson to request his resignation which "would be cheerfully accepted and no questions asked" because his supervision of the office had proved unsatisfactory.

The same delegation then asked Justice of the Peace S. G. Sewell to vacate his office for, as the Utah Reporter explained, the two officials had been chiefly responsible for the bad management of city affairs that was standing in the way of "the brilliant future awaiting us. . . .

Corinne is no longer a harum-scarum western town. . . . " Sewell answered the charges by presenting an itemized statement of his handling of the money provided for building a jail and employing special police, an accounting the Reporter called inaccurate, hinting that more serious derelictions would shortly be published. As for Patterson, before he could be removed, he became involved in a public fight with a Mr. Wright, to the disgrace of himself and his fellow townsmen.'

31

The dismayed citizens circulated a petition on February 14, 1870, asking the territorial legislature, then in session, to grant the city a charter. According to a member of the petitioning committee, Orson Hyde Elliott, writing his reminiscences later, the legislature rejected the request until he secretly traveled to Salt Lake City, made a personal appeal, and within one hour saw the passage of a bill incorporating Corinne. But personal memories tend to build the esteem of the author as he looks back in time at his own tremendous exploits. The Utah Reporter merely noted that Elliott had been appointed by the citizens to present the petition and had gone to Salt Lake for that purpose.2 The charter, approved February 18, 1870, granted all of section 36 and about half of section 31 of township 10, and all of section 1 and about three-fourths of section 6 of township 9, of ranges three and two west, to the new Corinne City.3 This was a larger area than the original city plat recorded by J. E. House in Douglas County, Nebraska, on May 24, 1869, but even that vision had encompassed sufficient land for a magnificent metropolis. The Central Pacific Railroad divided the town into roughly northern and southern areas, although the business section lay almost completely south of the tracks while the northern section came to be the staging grounds for freighters readying their trains for the trip to Montana. From North Front Street just above the railroad line, the town was planned for ten blocks beginning with Washington Street and extending to Nevada Street. South of the tracks, Montana Street became the main thoroughfare with adjoining Colorado Street offering sites for overflow business. The city extended thirteen blocks to the south, ending with Canal Street.

All the streets led from the west to the banks of Bear River. It must have been somewhat galling to the Corinnethians to note that their charter was signed by George A. Smith, president of the territorial council but also a Mormon church counselor to Brigham Young, and

by Orson Pratt, speaker of the Utah Territorial House of Representatives and the leading philosopher and expounder of Mormonism.4 The act of incorporation, in eighteen sections, granted powers somewhat typical for most western towns. Provision was made for a mayor and ten councilors, five of whom were to be elected for one-year terms and five for two-year terms, with annual elections for five councilors thereafter. Elections were established for on or before the first Monday in April of each year, with the first election to include as

32

Corinne

voters all those who had been residents of the town for at least six months prior to election day. There were to be two justices of the peace, and a recorder, treasurer, assessor and collector, marshal and supervisor of streets, or as many of the latter officials as the citizens should desire. The city council had the necessary powers to levy and collect taxes upon all taxable property, real and personal, within the city limits. Appeals from city courts were to be heard by the probate court of Box Elder County. 5 And, finally, neither the mayor, members of the council, nor the justices of the peace were to receive salaries, with the justices being allowed to collect only such fees as the mayor and council prescribed. The Utah Reporter was especially pleased that there were to be police justices who could punish such offenses as disturbing the peace and other breaches of good order with appropriate fines that would also provide a considerable revenue for public improvements.0 Proceeding under authority of the new charter, a municipal election was held on March 3, 1870, during which several political parties appeared under such names as up towners, down towners, north siders, Malshites, and Munrorers, the latter two designations deriving from the two principal candidates for mayor. W. H. Munro, for the Citizen's ticket, received 110 votes, while Julius Malsh received 112 votes on the People's ticket. But when several individuals filed sworn statements that they had not been entitled to vote, with the contest then ending in a tie, the election judges decided to have the two candidates draw lots. Munro was the winner and took office with the following councilors: J. W. McNutt, S. L. Tibbals, John H. Gerrish, Samuel Howe, and F. Hurlbut for two-year terms; Hiram House, J. W. Guthrie, John Kupfer, J. W. Graham, and A. J. Fitzgerald for one-year terms; and T. J. Black and C. Bernard as justices of the peace. With one or two exceptions, the new officials were among the founders of the town and all were businessmen and property owners.

A month later Julius Malsh was installed as a councilor to replace A. J. Fitzgerald who had resigned.7

Municipal Government The mayor and council met to organize several standing committees and to adopt rules of procedure both of which remained in

Trail Town

33

Montana Street, Corinne. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

effect with only minor changes throughout the decade of the 1870s.

The committees, composed of three members each, were: Finance and Claims, Ordinances, Licenses, Police, Streets and Public Improvements, and Credentials. The council agreed to meet on the first Monday in April, June, August, October, and December; adopted a fine of $1.00 for every absence; allowed a temporary replacement for any member absent from the city for twenty days; and ordered that no member could speak more than twice on a given subject.

The recorder was to be the tax assessor, and the town marshal was also going to serve as the supervisor of streets and the collector of taxes, a significance not unobserved by all property owners. The Utah Reporter was named the official paper, expected to publish the actions of the council without expense to the city. But Dennis J. Toohy, editor, made up for this altruism by being named city attorney, a position that did return small amounts such as $5.00 per day to prepare

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Corinne

the ordinances passed by the council. Toohy reported his own selection "as the most fitting which could have been made. . . ."

Apparently, city revenues did not provide for any grand perquisites of office as the council first met in the office of Dr. O. D. Cass and, then, at the hay scales where the marshal was told to furnish the necessary seats and lights. The marshal must have been busy elsewhere; the next minutes recorded, "There being no lights or seats on motion the Reading of the minutes and all business was dispensed with . . . ." The recorder was instructed to purchase twelve chairs at $3.50 each and one table at $12.00 for the council, and the marshal was further ordered to compel the attendance of every member at the next meeting, a maneuver that evidently was not successful because, again, there was not a quorum present.

At its working sessions in 1870 the council did undertake the passage of some necessary ordinances that revealed the needs and aspirations of the young town. Regulations were adopted to license dogs and to prevent swine from running at large, the latter problem being a continuing irritant throughout the town's early history. At its second meeting the council passed, on first reading, an ordinance "abolishing polygamy within the City Limits" but did not again bring up the subject, apparently deciding that Corinne must first put its own house in order before attacking the despised Mormon practice. 9 The very next ordinance proposed to restrain "Gaming and Houses of 111 Fame" failed on first vote but finally was passed on April 4, 1870. The regulation must not have been very effective because the council adopted another provision on August 18 to suppress disorderly houses. In another reference to the same problem, a resolution was adopted ordering the justice of the peace to remit onehalf of a fine "imposed by him against certain women found guilty of violating an ordinance of the city." Also, there were ordinances devoted to public health, licenses for circuses and other exhibitions, to prohibit swimming and bathing in Bear River within the city limits, instructing the marshal to inspect the flues and chimneys of all houses for possible fire hazards, to allow Councilman John Kupfer to "discharge Fire Arms on his own premises," to permit S. J. Lees to maintain a tent standing on the corner of Fourth and Montana streets, and to prohibit individuals from carrying concealed weapons or discharging firearms in the streets.10

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35

Recognizing the need for a "Calaboose or City Jail," because, as the Utah Reporter phrased it, "we are a young and impetuous town, and need the discipline of law to check and control us," the town fathers ordered a building twenty-two feet square to be erected at the rear of the city hall. The cost reached a total of $260.33, for which orders were given to draw warrants to pay the bill. But, apparently, the jail was hauled away by the creditors, because the Reporter inquired, "Mr. Winschell broke a jail all to pieces, loaded it up and carried it off, without a dissenting voice. How is this?" Later in July a Mr. Schultz refused to accept city warrants in pay for feeding the city prisoners. To solve the problem, the council advertised that prisoners could be hired out to citizens if the townspeople involved would feed those under sentence. 11 Things were almost as bad as earlier in the year when the editor of the Reporter had complained, "The saloons in town are infested by loafers to such an extent that citizens are compelled to forego the genial pleasures of the decanter." lz As in many frontier settlements of the West, the town marshal had an unenviable job — attempting to enforce restrictive laws against a very independent clientele and for a salary that often did not exist.

In June 1870 the council revoked the $100 per month salary of Marshal J. M. Langsdorf with the understanding that the members would decide later how much less the stipend would be. Thereupon, the marshal asked for and was granted a six weeks leave of absence while N. Kanady was appointed deputy marshal to keep the peace.

A month later the council decreed that the marshal would be granted 5 percent of all the unpaid taxes he could collect. Evidently this did not supplement his income enough because in October he resigned, having been charged with the embezzlement of $227.25 of public money for which the city attorney was asked to start criminal proceedings. In reply, ex-Marshal Langsdorf presented the council with a bill for unpaid salary amounting to $436.30, which request, after due consideration, was tabled. After a brief search the town fathers then chose J. Q. Harnish as marshal from a list of six applicants, a number surprisingly high in light of the dubious probability of regular pay."

The obvious lack of revenue was not due to a deficiency in the law allowing the city to levy one-half of one percent per annum on assessed value. As the Reporter explained, the tax on a lot worth one

36

Corinne

thousand dollars would return only five dollars and with three thousand improved lots available for taxation, there should be sufficient income from an assessment that was "too light for complaint." 14 Nevertheless, there were appeals from the Central Pacific Railroad whose assessment was reduced to an amount computed at $4,000 per mile of track, $1,000 for buildings, and $3,500 for personal property.

Individuals such as Alexander Toponce requested and received a correction in the levy, and the business firms of Tolan & Campbell and F. P. Winschell gained approval for a reduction of quarterly licenses for breweries from $15.00 to $7.50. From this time on, the council minutes reflect a continuous stream of such requests from supposedly hard-pressed businessmen. The town leaders were constantly extending deadlines for tax payments, making October 15, 1870, the due date instead of August 1, and then moving the time forward to November 1 without any penalty being charged. 15 Revenues, nevertheless, seemed to be adequate, and in February 1872, the council suspended the collection of all license fees for the first quarter of the year.10 In fact, times seemed to be so prosperous that the mayor was granted a salary of $100 a month, 17 and the fines against dance houses were suspended for the month of August, a very busy period when many end-of-the-road freighters were in town seeking entertainment.1S The Corinne Reporter, in a panegyric on July 12, 1872, praised the city's volunteer officials whose administration had been so honest and frugal that for the period from March 10, 1870, to June 10, 1871, only $4,506.16 had been expended to deliver necessary services to the citizens and to inaugurate a general prosperity.10 In addition to a balance already on hand, total receipts had reached $4,335.59 with the largest amount, $2,491.21 coming from a city tax and grade tax for the main thoroughfare in town, with lesser amounts of $868.38 in mercantile licenses, $685.00 from the police courts, $176.00 for taxes on dogs, and $95.00 for shows and exhibitions.

Expenditures included major amounts for building another jail, maintaining the police force, and improving the streets, for a total sum of $4,506.16, leaving a balance of $224.32 in the treasury.20 Prosperity soon disappeared, and by November 1871 the Reporter was complaining that $500 worth of unpaid fines had accumulated on the records of the city courts. 21 By year's end matters became so desperate that the collector was ordered to make persistent efforts to

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collect overdue taxes, and a "Retrenchment Committee" was assigned to determine what expenses could be curtailed and to examine the possibility of dispensing with the services of the city marshal. The committee finally recommended that the marshal's salary be reduced to $50 per month but that he be allowed certain fees on all arrests made, a provision that probably ensured an excellent law-and-order program for the town. Also, the two justices of the peace were ordered to make detailed reports once a month on their income from fines assessed. In these straitened circumstances, the council rented an old paint shop for $25 per month, used the front room as a council chamber and police court, and assigned the back room to the town's Board of Trade. Even the city recorder had troubles when he fell "with an ink bottle in his hand, [and] blotted and rendered sightless" pages 61 through 74 of the record book.22 In the city election held in March 1871 the one-year councilmen were all reelected, but because of a double vote in the contest for justice of the peace the council had to declare a new election which resulted in the selection of O. H. Elliott for the position.23 The taxpayers, in the August countywide election for other officers, named Alex Toponce as supervisor, T. J. Black and G. A. Bruce as justices of the peace, and John B. Nelson and John Q. Harnish as constables, "All good men, and the stuff out of which faithful servants of the people are made . . . ." 24 The hot issue in the next election on March 1872 centered around the choice for justices of the peace. Evidently there were citizen complaints about exorbitant fees being assessed by the justices, because the Reporter warned against candidates who "intend to rob and swindle the poor," such ingrates being "perjurer[s] and rogue[s]."

T. J. Black and Allen Hardenbrook were finally chosen to fill the sensitive positions as justices of the peace; five new councilors were chosen; and a new mayor, J. W. Graham, was selected.25 A few disgruntled taxpayers, resentful over taxes levied against them, circulated a petition to ask the territorial legislature to repeal the city charter and substitute another form of government. Editor Toohy was almost beside himself with anger as he described these discontented spirits who did not like the way the city revenue was being apportioned. He suggested a more reasonable approach to these men: to ask to see the financial records which were open to public scrutiny

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Corinne

and not "sealed up from the people as they are in Mormon cities."

But then, abandoning his temperate advice, he launched into sarcasm: By the Alcoholic Telegraph. The Charter Repealed! Salt Lake City, Feb. 16. The Charter of Corinne City was repealed today, by unanimous vote in the Endowment House, and a pension of four dollars a month for life, granted to each of the petitioners, the money to be paid out of the Boxelder tithing funds.

A bishop will be appointed next week, and the book of Mormon, bound in calf, presented to the first man engaging in polygamy on Bear river. Brigham Young, not being at liberty to go up and see his new subjects, that duty will be assigned to the presiding elder at Copenhagen [present Mantua, Utah]. 26 Three days later the editor continued the attack, explaining that when the petition was presented to the legislature, "there was no man to be found in Salt Lake City capable of interpreting the villainous jargon on the paper," and, therefore, "a motion to lay it under the table for two years, was passed, to give the signers a chance to study the 'Doctrine and Covenants.' " Toohy finally concluded that the repeal had been repealed and that the anticharterite agent had been arrested as a lunatic. The dissidents and status quoers alike received some satisfaction when the legislature amended the charters of Corinne, Logan, Provo, and Ogden, granting more extensive powers to the municipalities and defining more specifically their taxing jurisdiction.27 The latter powers seemed quite necessary for Corinne where the council meetings were flooded with protests about high tax assessments while at the same time the city government could barely pay its bills.

The financial report for the period June 10, 1871, to February 1, 1872, listed receipts of $2,825.47 and expenditures of $2,724.44, with unpaid bills amounting to $116.72 above the balance of $101.03. The city fathers also faced such dilemmas as that of V. Cordelia who was still asking that his bill of $65.00 be paid for entertaining Gov. J. Wilson Shaffer back in 187028 and of the jury that refused to bring in a verdict until its per diem was assured. To meet these pressing needs the council began punitive measures: Action would be taken against all individuals who had not paid their poll taxes; 29 an ordinance was passed that the property of delinquent taxpayers would be seized and sold at public auction; and, in November 1872, the city attorney was instructed to begin suit to collect delinquent taxes. Also, a new list of

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39

license regulations was adopted for quarterly fees: wholesale liquor and tobacco dealers, $25.00; billiard tables, first table, $10.00, second table, $7.50, and $5.00 for all others; banking houses, $25.00; breweries, $10.00; job wagons, $5.00; ice cream and soda fountains, $10.00; livery stables, $2.50 per horse; auctioneer, $10.00; and China wash houses, $5.00. 30 A stiff $50.00 fine was to be levied against anyone traveling over the northside bridge at a faster gait than a walk, an implicit warning to all who approached the rickety structure.31 A few special ordinances were passed by the city council during 1872, one establishing the Lake View Cemetery and another setting up an additional Standing Committee on Schools.32 John M. Johnston was granted permission to erect a gas works when he discovered a source of good illuminating gas while drilling an artesian well,33 and some citizens proposed a petition for an ordinance "prohibiting cat serenades" at night.34 An indication of the struggle between Christian morals and devilishly pleasant profits occurred when, on April 1, 1872, the blacksmiths of the city petitioned for and were granted an ordinance prohibiting blacksmith shops from being kept open on Sunday.

But by August 19 the blacksmiths were back requesting the repeal of their own ordinance, an action approved on September 2.35 The Corinne Reporter rationalized the behavior of its Sabbath-breaking mechanics by explaining that those "who delight in paying respect to the Sabbath, require no Mormon style of enforcement." 36

Law and Order The obvious bustle of activity and good times, emphasized by the action of the blacksmiths, meant a greater number of freighters and travelers thronging the streets of Corinne in 1872, with an attendant rise in law enforcement problems.37 The city marshal contracted an illness that would not allow him to perform his duties properly, and after some pressure from the council he offered his resignation.38 A former Civil War officer with a reputation as a gunfighter, Daniel D. Ryan, who had been hired in April as a $60-a-month town night watchman to reinforce the meager police force, was installed as temporary marshal and then given the full-time assignment.39 Marshal Ryan then began a rather long career as the chief law enforcer of the town, living up to the romantic tradition of the fearless lawman. Before he

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Corinne

assumed the position, the Reporter had often noted drunks and disorderlies around town who were not being arrested, but soon the editor could write that Marshal Ryan had corralled a number of drunken loungers, that he had "a knack of filling the calaboose" with night-brawlers, and that he "seems bound to keep the streets clean and preserve order throughout the city. He is the right man for the right job." 40 On November 11, 1872, the Reporter described an incident that reinforced the editor's opinion about the competence of the town marshal: On last Saturday night, about one o'clock, Paschal, in company with three of his companions, entered the Diamond Q billiard hall and proposed three cheers for Greeley, and was answered by some outside party that Greeley was "played out," which caused some hard words, and a free fight ensued; during which, Marshal Ryan was called in to make peace and arrest the guilty parties. He (Ryan), in attempting to arrest Paschal, was shot through the left hand with a ball from a navy revolver in the hands of Paschal. Some say it was accidental, while others are equally confident that it was intentional. The Marshal then fired at Paschal, who was on his knees, the ball taking effect in his right breast, making a fearful wound. After the shooting, Paschal walked down to the Osceola Saloon, soon after entering the house, he fell on the floor, and was picked up by his companions and carried to the Diamond R warehouse, where he now lies in critical condition.41 Under the ministration of the mayor, Dr. J. W. Graham, Paschal eventually recovered.

Ryan was forced into a six-month retirement as a result of the duel, and Taylor Shipley was appointed marshal on December 23, 1872, concluding one of the shortest terms in the position by resigning on December 30, 1872. The office was not a sinecure by any means. 42 There were so many brawls and gunfights during the crowded summer and fall days of 1872 that the Reporter could even make light of some of them: In an animated political discussion last evening, one of the parties got worked up to such a pitch that he undertook to demonstrate his position by a resort to what he considered final arbitration; viz. the presentation of six death-dealing chambers,

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41

ingeniously arranged to revolve and deal in their turn; but the dealer came to grief as the opposite party intimated he had seen those things before and seen the dealer, and went for him a few better by slapping him in the face. Steady, gentlemen, keep cool!43 Toohy even reproved two distinguished visitors, Jay Cooke and Horace Greeley, who hired a turnout and then proceeded to drive at breakneck speed up and down Montana Street until the marshal had to remind them they were not on the Bowery.44 To replace Taylor Shipley, the one-week marshal, the council, on January 6, 1873, appointed Eugene Moore to the position as chief law enforcer for the town. 45 He proved to be rather officious in the performance of his duties. . . . four leading citizens [of Corinne] were engaged in a friendly game at cards with a stranger, who suddenly gave utterance to the most ungentlemanly remarks, reflecting upon the honor of the party. The gentlemen felt both grieved and indignant, and simultaneously directed a fusilade at the person of the offensive stranger, which they interred the moment their excitement was over, with every mark of delicacy and respect.

The Corinne Reporter's only comments on the homicide reflected criticism of the "conduct of the law officers who have thrust themselves into what was purely a private affair amongst gentlemen" and condemned the "arrest of four of our leading citizens. . . . So far as the crime is concerned we don't think the matter worth referring to." No further action seems to have been taken against the four townsmen.46 Apparently, the wrong people were being arrested, as the town newspaper continually noted occurrences of lawlessness such as three different fistfights in one night and a gang of "swindlers, three card monte scoundrels, and pickpockets" who plied their "hellish calling" on the trains between Corinne and Ogden. The Reporter called for the help of "Chief Justice Lynch" to give these latter ruffians a taste of rope.47 Appalled at the disturbances, an appropriate number of fortyfive citizens finally petitioned the council to retain the still-convalescing Dan Ryan as city marshal, and a month later he was added to the police force.18 But Eugene Moore continued as marshal.

Dissatisfaction with Moore's performance now mounted: Justice of the Peace T. J. Black complained that the marshal would not serve

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Corinne

warrants in certain cases, and finally, in another petition, the leading citizens asked the council to declare the office of marshal vacant and to assign Officer Ryan to perform the duties and thus save the city $900 a year. The council failed to act, so the citizens then petitioned the council to compensate Dan Ryan for the medical bills he had accumulated as a result of his gunfight with Paschal. The town fathers responded with a grant of salary of $75 a month from January 1, 1873, to May 12, 1873. Eugene Moore finally resigned on November 17, 1873, explaining that there was nothing for him to do. A week later the doughty Ryan was reinstalled as marshal, much to the relief of the citizens. To aid him in his arduous task, a committee from the council was instructed to meet with the Malad Precinct constables residing in Corinne to ascertain if they would assist Ryan in making arrests.49 The council itself did not seem as energetic or responsible as the earlier ones had been. The election of March 1873 retained most of the original members, but the 1874 campaign returned almost an entirely new slate of officials including a new mayor, H. E. Hurlbut.

There were a number of resignations during these two years, including the new Mayor Hurlbut. 50 The Reporter rather acidly commented that although no members had resigned or died there were two vacancies on the council, which prompted Julius Malsh to say that there were "more than two vacancies in the heads of his colleagues." 51 Quorums were present for only two of the eight meetings of the council from December 29, 1873, to February 16, 1874.52 The revenue problems seemed as serious as ever, the marshal being instructed to seize the property of delinquent taxpayers and sell it at public auction. The office of city attorney was abolished, and when a committee reported that a city-owned building could be remodeled for use as a hospital at a cost of $100, the council recommended that "no action be taken till the occasion requires." Further evidence of a slight deterioration in civic affairs came with council orders that the Western Union telegraph office and three other buildings be declared nuisances and that they be abated and removed, the latter within seven days.53

Freighting and Stagecoaching By 1874 this apparent decline in the interest of city officials in their government and perhaps even in the prospects of continued

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The freighting wagons of Mormon merchants Kimball and Lawrence near the head of Echo Canyon. Utah State Historical Society collections.

prosperity for Corinne reflected fluctuations in the trade that constituted the basis for the very existence of the Gentile station on the Central Pacific Railroad. During these five years, from the dull business summer of 1869 to 1874, the town witnessed a significant growth in the freight-transfer operations that dispatched great wagon trains along the Montana trail to customers in the mining camps and the flourishing towns of eastern Idaho and western Montana. The development of city government, just described, was a necessary process to bring order and organization to Corinne but was only adjunct and supportive to the all-consuming task of providing the facilities to outfit and to load the merchant caravans and crowded stagecoaches that used the town as a point of departure.

When the fall of 1869 ushered in the long-awaited freighting boom and the year 1870 saw the solid establishment of trade to the north, an activity model was formed that stamped the life of the town and its people with a pattern determined by the ebb and flow of goods and passengers to Montana. In early March the bullwhackers and teamsters would begin to arrive with their oxen, mules, and wagons assembled north of the tracks and their campfires at night resembling an army in bivouac. The merchants would begin to burn their lamps late at night trying to fill the orders for harnesses, food supplies,

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Corinne

wagons, and the other paraphernalia needed on the trail. As soon as the roads had dried enough, usually in April, the big freight wagons would load at the warehouses near the depot and then head for the Malad Divide. May and June were busy months as freight began to pile up in the buildings and sometimes along the tracks under the stars, awaiting the latecomers.

The trip to Montana and return might take as long as three months or as little as five weeks, depending on whether you were whacking bulls or skinning mules. Most teamsters counted on two loads to the north during the freighting season, while a few of the more efficient and more adventurous might get in three or, occasionally, four trips. The logistics of travel, therefore, made July a dull business month for Corinne shopkeepers who were always happy when the more "lovely" days of August and September came. The forwarding agents and commission merchants, however, began to worry about the freight in their bulging warehouses, kept constant watch over weather conditions, and hoped they could encourage the professional freighters to attempt one more trip before the snows of winter closed the Pleasant Valley Divide at Monida Pass. A few might attempt a late journey only to find their wagons embedded in snowdrifts and faced with the back-breaking task of sledding their goods to market.

Some of the merchants might travel to Montana to arrange for orders for the next spring; others would go east to purchase new supplies or visit in their old home states; but most would settle down in Corinne to enjoy a busy social calendar with ice-skating parties, formal dances, and perhaps an occasional visit to the opera house to hear a distinguished visitor from the East discourse on the Mormon problem.

Although a number of Mormon farmers in northern Utah often left their grasshopper-ravaged fields to try to make an honest dollar in carrying trade to the north, the largest share of goods was transported by the professional freighting outfits using trains of wagons that could carry up to 100,000 pounds or more. Return cargoes were usually made up of rich ores on their way to Swansea, Wales, or an eastern smelter in the United States. Sometimes buffalo hides or furs were loaded. But the main profits were made on the manufactured articles and luxury goods carried to Montana from the railroad.

By the spring of 1870 Corinne was already beginning to accept the name of the "Bullwagon Metropolis" as the ox teams began to

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gather on the prairie north of town awaiting the freight being assembled by such concerns as Creighton and Munro and the giant Diamond R Company, recently moved from Montana. 54 The northern merchants anticipated much better times now that they could telegraph New York City to place an order and start their teams for the railroad on the same day. 5 ' The number of Missouri River steamboats docking at Fort Benton decreased from forty-two registered in 1869 to only eight in 1870, so sure was nearly everyone that Corinne was the place to go for supplies. By May the Corinne Reporter could proudly report that 180 freight cars had disgorged their cargoes at Corinne and that 2,176,820 pounds of freight had been sent to Montana. 50 Wagonmasters like Hugh Kirkendall, Thomas M. Monroe for the Diamond R, Garrison & Wyatt, and Henry Schodde left in midApril on their first trips, and the Reporter could exult, on July 7, that the Diamond R had shipped out 100,000 pounds of freight. "It wasn't much of a day for freight either, in fact it is considered quite out of season," the newspaper asserted. "With this showing in the dullest month of the season, what may we expect when the fall business sets in, in August and September?" 57 An unusually mild fall led some of the outfits to try another journey in mid-December, and, by the end of the year, Corinnethians were sure that a firm basis had been established for a prosperous and enduring community at the Central Pacific station on Bear River.

During 1871 Hugh Kirkendall's Montana Fast Freight and Express Line merged with the Diamond R Overland Express to offer eight-day service from the railroad to Helena and Deer Lodge, a stupendous achievement, according to the Reporter which explained that the light freight wagons, each drawn by six mules, would change relays every few miles and would run day and night. It was a good year for Corinne, the local paper explaining, in May, "The man who used to talk of dull times has left this part of the country in disgust. . . ." 58 Some delays were experienced in getting groceries and other supplies to Helena and the other Montana towns. One wagonmaster found that his bullwhackers had settled down to some heavy drinking in Corinne and refused to budge until he put a barrel of whiskey in one of the wagons and thus managed to get the men out of town. The train moved rather slowly and uncertainly until the barrel was drained.'" Too often, runaway teams disturbed the peace of Corinne,

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Corinne

and the local editor advised, "Tie up your animals when you get thirsty." 00 The freighting season for 1872 started in mid-April with hundreds of wagons gathered around the warehouses and on the plain above the tracks, awaiting loads the town optimists thought would exceed the previous year's totals of tonnage by at least another thousand tons.01 A revival of trade by way of the Missouri River, where twelve steamboats left Saint Louis for Fort Benton, did not seem to diminish the bullish activity at "the dirty little burg on the banks of the Bear," as the Salt Lake Herald liked to call it. By June about a million pounds of freight were stacked up in the warehouses and out in the fields waiting for more teamsters to load up. 02 The streets of the town were thronged with muleskinners and bullwhackers whose rough language dismayed the permanent residents, one citizen commenting that "the bull vocabulary would be a very interesting work to peruse under a state of delirium tremens. . . ." °3 The autumn of 1872 turned out to be as mild as the previous fall and winter had been severe, and trains left for Montana up until December.

The year 1873 started out with even brighter prospects for Corinne as a freight-transfer point for shipments to the north. As many as 800 wagons were on the road at one time, carrying close to 5,000 tons of goods to Montana and returning with 500 tons of rich silver ore. A horse disease, the epizootic, threatened the trade for awhile but subsided by late summer. Of much greater concern to Corinnethians was the building of a narrow-gauge railway, the Utah and Northern, by Mormon promoters, into Cache Valley. Its extension to Logan in 1873 shifted some of the trade of Corinne to the terminus but did not seriously affect business at the Bear River location. A more important threat was the plan of the railroad's builders to extend the line to Franklin, Idaho, at the north end of Cache Valley which would immediately cut off Corinne trade to the north. So many observers thought, at least, and as the spring of 1874 approached, Mormon leaders were confident that they would soon capture the Montana traffic. The Corinne Reporter, truly a freighter's newspaper, lost its editor, Dennis J. Toohy, in July 1873 when he perceived a loss of business and sold out to Horace Myers."4 But for the years from late 1869 to the summer of 1874, Corinne had lived up to the expectations of its founders in gaining control of the northern trade.

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In similar fashion, the town also became the terminus for passenger traffic between the railroad and the northern territories. Wells Fargo, after buying out the Ben Holladay interests in November 1866, had continued stage operations from Salt Lake City to western Montana until the approach of the transcontinental railroad convinced the company the time had come to get out of the transportation business.65 In August 1869, therefore, Wells Fargo sold its interests to J. T. Gilmer and Munroe Salisbury of Salt Lake City who ran their Gilmer & Salisbury Overland Stage and Express Line to the north until the Utah and Northern Railroad penetrated the Montana area in the 1880s.06 The stage business was important to Corinne. The hotels, restaurants, and shops catered to the passengers who alighted from the railroad cars and awaited passage aboard a Concord coach for the threeday ride to Helena or Butte. The stages traveled day and night and often delivered their fares in a rather battered condition because of the bad roads. Travel in winter was even worse, and, of course, the journey was usually extended to five or six days or canceled during blizzard conditions. At such times travelers were forced into longer stopovers at Corinne, to the profit of the businessmen of the town. Furthermore, Stagecoach in front of a commercial photography shop, probably in Montana.

Photograph courtesy of the Montana Historical Society.

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Corinne

there was such a demand for reservations that passengers were often forced to telegraph at least three days ahead to get accommodations, and the Helena Herald thought "the whole world . . . [was] coming to Montana to dwell." 0T An additional advantage for Corinne in having the stage terminus was that the government mail contracts for the northern towns were granted to Gilmer & Salisbury. And if the Corinne newspaper was oriented toward news concerning freight movements, it was equally interested in stagecoach affairs and daily listed the arrivals and departures of passengers.

Merchants and Storekeepers The care of travelers and the transfer of freighting goods from railroad cars to wagons dictated the types of business that came to dominate the mercantile interests of the town. Very early, some observers insisted that many of the first merchants of Corinne were Gentile wholesale and retail businessmen who had been forced out of Salt Lake City by the Mormon cooperative movement and the establishment of the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution. J. H. Beadle wrote that after the "decree" went into effect in 1868-69, "Gentile stores were empty. It was amusing and provoking to take a walk along Main Street that winter, and see the melancholy Jews standing in the doors of their stores looking in vain for customers." He was convinced that by July 1869 there were only one hundred fifty Gentiles left in the Mormon capital and that the more enterprising of those had begun to look around for another place to settle, which, he said, was Corinne, where he moved in April.08 However, one careful study has concluded that only 5 percent of the Corinne merchants from 1869 to 1877 had lived in Salt Lake City before 1869, and many of these stayed only a short time at the railroad town. F. Auerbach and Brother, the Walker Brothers, the Hurlbut Brothers, J. W. McNutt, and O. D. Kuhn were among the first merchants to settle at Corinne, but only the latter two were still there in 1878.""

Of all the mercantile establishments, the most significant were the forwarding and commission firms that handled the dispatch of goods to the north. Four important ones existed during the first decade of the town's history. Creighton and Munro operated their firm from April 1869 to 1871 when they dissolved their partnership, with Creigh-

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ton founding the California and Montana Transportation Company and Munro starting the Far West Freighting Company. The Creighton and Munro firm was one of the largest in town, often holding as much as a million pounds of goods in its warehouse at one time. Later, in 1874, Creighton moved his firm to Franklin, Idaho, where he did not meet with as much success.70 The Diamond R or E. G. Maclay Freighting Company was the second firm to be established at Corinne. The company, which had already demonstrated its hold on Montana freight transportation, became the dominant force in shipping from the railroad to the north, often sending out as much as one hundred and fifty tons of goods a week. On November 10, 1872, Maclay closed his warehouses in Corinne, moved his offices to Montana, and formed a new concern, E. G. Maclay and Company. By May 1873 he had established an office at Logan where he expected to gain even greater advantage, but Maclay was not able to compete successfully with freighters still traversing the shorter distance from Corinne to Montana. He was again active in Utah transportation during 1877-78 but on a lesser scale.71 The third commission and forwarding merchant was Fred J. Kiesel, who had a long and interesting career as a businessman in Utah. Born in Germany in 1841, he came to the United States, settled in Tennessee and later in Missouri, served in the Confederate Army at Shiloh, and came to Utah in 1863.72 The following year he opened a store in his own name in Wellsville, Cache County, for the firm of Gilbert & Sons who "were under a cloud with the Church authorities."

Compelled to sell out to the Mormon cooperative store after a year and a half, he opened another store for Gilbert & Sons at Ogden but again was forced out by what he termed Mormon intolerance. Finally, he started a store at Montpelier, Idaho, in the Bear Lake region but "was driven out again . . [as] during my absence from there the young man whom I left in charge was killed." Kiesel later explained this incident: It was the despotism of Brigham Young that drove nearly all the Gentile firms out of the Territory or broke them up in business. That was the case until 1871, when the mining commenced, and of course it was the salvation of all of us out here . . . it was only by pursuing a conservative course that I got along at all.

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I had to keep very dark, so that I often doubted whether I was on American soil . . . [Brigham Young told the Bear Lake Mormons] to let me severely alone, that I was their enemy — an enemy of this people. That was the reason my clerk got killed. They said the Indians did it, but it was inside a settlement. I would have trusted myself with the Indians in those days quicker than with the Mormons . . . . the Mormons just took occasion to sit down on us whenever we were in their way, in the matter of contracts or anything of that kind. . . .73 Later, he opened other stores in the mining camps of Ophir and Bingham, sold out in 1873, and then moved to Corinne where he operated the Fred J. Kiesel Company from 1873 to 1878 in partnership with Gumpert Goldberg. His competitor, Creighton, warned Kiesel that he was building his own coffin to locate at Corinne, but the Kiesel Company had good success during the four years to 1878 as Corinne's leading forwarding house. In 1878 he moved his business to Ogden where he built a large grocery store.74 In 1875 a man named Hardenbrook, a long-time resident of Corinne who had operated a livery stable since 1871, joined forces with John McCormick of Helena, Montana, to organize the commission house of McCormick & Hardenbrook. The company had a very successful first year and continued in business until forced out in 1878 when the Utah and Northern was extended into Idaho. 75 There were a few lesser lights engaged in the forwarding trade, and, in fact, almost any merchant in Corinne was somewhat involved.

J. W. Guthrie, banker and commission merchant; Goldberg, grocer and produce merchant; the Kennady Fast Freight and Express Company; Sisson and Wallace; and a few smaller companies like those of the Kuhn Brothers, J. D. Farmer, Ransohoff and Company, and Louis Regel, all contributed to the trading activities from Corinne to the north.70 Supplementing the forwarding agents, retail and wholesale store owners, who did not have to travel to the East to buy merchandise like the commission merchants, supplied limited articles from their own stock for shipment to Montana or other areas. For example, in June 1871 David Auerbach visited Corinne to buy goods for his store at Ophir, located south of Great Salt Lake.77 A typical store was that of A. Kuhn and Brothers, whose stock was described by a journalist from

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the Corinne Reporter as including a wide variety of dry goods, clothing, trunks and valises, and hats for both ladies and gentlemen. He concluded that "the firm . . . will not only compete with other merchants of this country, but for style, quality and price of goods, they will compete with any firm outside of New York."

The fine clothing and delicate fabrics available in the stores of Corinne help explain, as described later, the unrelenting effort made

by Mormon families to trade farm products for these quality goods not available to them in their own cooperative stores. Throughout the first decade of Corinne's history, approximately forty-five such retail and wholesale houses were in operation for various periods of time.79 Of vital importance to the freighting companies loading out of Corinne were the blacksmith shops, wagon agents, and animal dealers.

Apparently, there were never enough blacksmiths to satisfy teamster needs during the busy season, and the anvils rang seven days a week in Corinne. Wagon dealers sold Studebaker, Schuttler, Bain, and LaBelle wagons, names as familiar in the 1870s as Ford and Chevrolet are today. Several hundred freighting wagons were sold each year, one of the reasons being that after the trip to Montana they were disposed of there for use in the mines. A few companies manufactured wagons on a made-to-order basis. And the mules, horses, and oxen needed to pull or push the wagons furnished a prosperous business for dealers like Alexander Toponce and others who, evidently, did not need to advertise and so have left a rather meager history of their trade. Off and on there were about thirty-two companies engaged in the above businesses.80 To feed, house, and offer recreation for the teamsters, freighters, stagecoach drivers, tourists, and others who called Corinne home during the traveling season, the town offered chop houses, restaurants associated with the local hotels, and home-cooked meals in the various boarding houses. The regular price of meals was 50 cents. Meal tickets could be purchased for $5.00 a week, or, if a customer were brave enough, he might be able to cadge a free lunch from one of the saloons.

The first hotel was the Uintah House, a two-story adobe structure that soon deteriorated and was abandoned. It was replaced by the Metropolitan in 1870 as the leading hostelry of the town. Then came the Central where the most formal affairs were held. Other well-known establishments were the Silver Star, International, Bear River House,

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Corinne

Corinne House, Masonic House, Closser's House, Montgomery House, and the Western Hotel. Most were frame and adobe buildings of one or two stories. Finally, but not last by any means in the estimation of the hard-drinking teamsters, were some forty liquor dispensing establishments that provided necessary end-of-the-trail beverages. Any temperance movements in Corinne appeared rather weak, sporadic, and usually church-sponsored, based on a voluntary control exercised by the saloonkeepers. Corinne had its own breweries where the local product, made with Bear River water, achieved a certain renown. A composite directory of saloons, hotels, restaurants, and other places of recreation from 1869 to 1878 would include: fifteen saloons, sixteen liquor stores, thirteen restaurants or eating places, fifteen hotels or rooming houses, and four amusement parlors.81 A survey of Corinne business houses would not be complete without a description of the banks that handled the financial accounts of local firms and arranged for exchange credit with banks in Montana, San Francisco, New York City, other American cities, and even such institutions as the Alliance Bank in London and the firm of D. La Touch in Dublin, Ireland. Corinne hoped to become the commercial center of the Intermountain West, and its first bank, that of Wilson and Morton, was soon bought by Hussey, Dohler and Company of Salt Lake City, a financial house strong enough to withstand a run on its accounts during the disastrous financial panic of 1873. Warren Hussey eventually took over the firm but closed his Corinne branch in 1874. The quarters were immediately transformed into the appropriately named Bank Saloon. The Bank of Corinne, a financial house of some lesser importance, was founded in 1871 by Dr. O. D. Cass, with W. T. Field as cashier, and continued operation until early 1875 when it closed its doors. Left with no banking facilities at all, the businessmen of the town agreed to back J. W. Guthrie, soon to become the long-time mayor, in organizing J. W. Guthrie and Company which continued operations from 1875 to 1910 when it was bought by S. N. Cole who moved the firm to Tremonton, Utah. By 1885 Guthrie had housed his business in a substantial brick building and had begun to buy out a number of other businessmen who foresaw little chance of rejuvenating the dying town. A careful inventory of all Corinne businesses that advertised in the local or other Utah newspapers during the years 1869 to 1878 shows 258 companies active for all or part of that time. 82 Trail Town

53

Banker J. W. Guthrie built one of Corinne's most substantial brick Utah State Historical Society collections.

buildings.

Although the life of Corinne was bound up in the freight-transfer business, a few enterprising men tried to make the city an industrial center as well. One of them, Hiram House, outshone all others with his entrepreneurial skills. One day in October 1874 a reporter for the Corinne Daily Mail took a "short stroll by the Bear" and discovered, in the "Pittsburgh" of the town north of the tracks, a carpenter shop with equipment for boring artesian wells; a corn and feed mill on Bear River that was also capable of grinding twelve tons of salt a day plus all the malt used by the town breweries; a saw and planing mill with a boom across Bear River to secure the logs floating down the river; the "magnificent" waterworks of the city composed of a main, a 28,000 gallon capacity tank, and a system of pipes leading to every doorstep in Corinne; two ice-houses with a capacity of 1,512 tons of ice which was sold as far as Franklin, Idaho, on the north and Salt Lake City on the south; and extensive orchards of many varieties of fruit, all the property of H. House, Esq. The land of House, especially the waterworks, brought pride and joy to all Corinnethians and engendered

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envy in Salt Lakers who had no workable municipal system. House installed five hydrants throughout the city to provide a stream of water capable of reaching a height of one hundred and twenty feet or to the top of any building. Corinne had the reputation of being one of the safest cities in the territory and never suffered a major fire after the installation of the House waterworks.83 Next in importance to the people of Corinne, after the water system, was the ice business. The Corinne Reporter bragged one day, "Hiram House has shipped fifty tons of ice to Zion within the short space of three days, and has still enough on hand to convert the Milky Way into a solid mass of ice cream." S4 There were less adventurous industrialists who, nevertheless, supplied Corinne with flouring mills, brick kilns, slaughterhouses, glove factories, harness manufacturing plants, and cigar factories.85 To encourage mining enterprise, local businessmen organized the Corinne Mining District, elected officers, and published by-laws early in 1870 to take advantage of the supposed mineral wealth in the nearby mountains.80 Minor industries, if they can be called that, consisted of caring for the needs of Texas cowboys on their way to Montana with herds of up to 3,000 cattle87 and providing sustenance and recreation for the many soldiers whose units used Corinne as a staging area on their way to and from the various army posts of the Intermountain area. ss

City Improvements The industrial growth of Corinne, the development of trade for the north, and the improvements residents were making on their homes and businesses, all came into question when title to the lots in the townsite was challenged by the Central Pacific Railroad. The original sale of lots in the spring of 1869 was apparently carried on in rather haphazard fashion with little regard being paid to whether or not the lots were situated on railroad lands granted under the Pacific Railroad Act or on alternate sections of government land that would become open to homesteading and the award of patents of ownership.89 The United States attorney general, in 1871, found that the railroad company had acquired ownership of its grant in 1867, which meant that title to lots on that portion of the city was now in doubt. 00 By the spring of 1872 the Corinne Reporter was advising residents of the town that all real estate titles were in question. Each

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supposed owner of a lot was notified to appear before the probate court with proof of ownership. The uncontested claims would be settled first, after which the more litigious contests would be pursued.91 The probate judge issued a certificate in August 1872 awarding ownership of the townsite to the City of Corinne. The mayor inquired in October 1872 if the commissioner of the United States Land Office had made a decision to support the city's claim as granted by the court. Mayor J. W. Graham wanted to know if he could issue deeds to the lots prior to the issuance of the patent because "the citizens are continually pressing me. . . ." By January 28, 1874, Graham was still trying to get an answer, and for some time thereafter uncertainty clouded the land titles in Corinne. 92 Four years later, in November 1878, the attorneys for the city were appealing a decision by the Salt Lake Regional Land Office which had awarded the Central Pacific Railroad 295.17 acres of property within the corporate limits of the town on the basis that the railroad had sold the property to Charles Crocker and Silas W. Sanderson on October 1, 1870. The city officials argued that Corinne had already sold lots worth $25,000 in the contested section in March 1869 and that improvements worth $50,000 had since been made on the property. The appeal to the commissioner remonstrated against an attempt by leading citizen Hiram House to file on the land. Finally, in June 1883, Mayor J. W. Guthrie was still forced to apply for an additional townsite entry of 119.69 acres to get ownership of land improvements on which was situated the city hall, the jail, the opera house being used for school purposes, three churches, a hotel, a bank, three stores, a drug store, and twenty-two residences — the total being valued at $87,000.93 Thus, throughout its early history, the town and its citizens were never certain of legal ownership of the land within the corporate limits, a deficiency certainly not conducive to a feeling of permanence or security.

Despite the problem of land tenure, of occasional lapses in law and order, and of a seasonal business dominated by weather and road conditions, the people of Corinne were optimistic, confident of the future, and determined to transform their city from a rough frontier settlement into a progressive and modern metropolis. To help effect this change a Chamber of Commerce Association was formed in February 1870 to "draw the line between good and bad men, between

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respectable and other classes of society." Working with the city council, the members of the association very early had an ordinance passed prohibiting the erection of any more tents or canvas-roofed houses in the central portion of town; tried to deal with a transient population which included a few " 'women' who practice polygamy on a free plan"; established a committee to improve a new freighting road to Malad on the north with the posting of finger boards, the erection of flags along the route, and other changes at an expense not to exceed one hundred dollars whenever there happened to be some money in the treasury; and demanded that the nuisance of an "accumulation of filth near the River Bank and Several dead animals lodged in the old Railroad Siding" be removed.94 Because of the heavy traffic through the town, a major concern was the upkeep of the main thoroughfares, particularly Montana Street which was graded and surfaced with gravel in 1870 at a cost of $1,560.12, only $868.50 of which consisted of tax money collected from the owners of businesses along the street.95 The Reporter thought that "Eight thousand [dollars] would have been cheap considering what we had to go through last Winter." 'M Later on, the town fathers allowed residents to work out their poll tax assessments by improving a section of the town roads. There were demands that other streets be improved also."7 Street lighting was usually provided by lamps placed on the balconies of business structures and sometimes along the streets leading from the railroad depot to the main hotel.os In grading Montana Street and the other roads, evidently competent surveys were not made because there were constant complaints about the "serpentine beauty" of the meandering thoroughfares and the "stagnant and pestiferous" pools of water in the low areas of the gutters.99 Sanitary conditions were not improved by the practice of allowing the contaminated water from the hotels and bathhouses to flow into the Montana Street gutters.100 The editor of the Corinne Reporter finally exploded in an unaccustomed burst of derogation of his favorite town: If that slough of green water, filled with all kinds of rotten, putrefied and stinking matter, just north of Montana on Sixth street, is permitted to remain, the sexton will have employment enough to keep him busy. If ever a town needed a vigilance committee to clean its streets, this is the place. Look at the slimy

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ditches, maggoty carcasses of dead animals and other evidences of taste wherever you turn. . . . If anybody thinks this is a "fancy sketch" let him hold his nose tight and then take a walk on our principal street. . . . Members of the common council are particularly recommended to make the filthy expedition. For good honest dirt and nastiness we stand ahead of the world today.101 During the summer requests came for sprinkling wagons to settle the thick dust on the streets. Teamsters and herders were in the habit of driving their large herds of cattle and horses directly through town to take them to water at Bear River. As a result, the newspaper explained, housewives could not hang out their clothes to dry and painters could not work on houses because clouds of alkali dust poured in through doors and windows making the homes almost uninhabitable. In the next issue of the Reporter, a letter appeared from one outraged stock owner expostulating that "If any person don't like the dust he ought to move to where it rains all the time"; and another pointed out that it should be recognized that the freighters' stock was important to the business that was keeping the town alive. One disgruntled teamster advised the Reporter to write its editorials against fast driving and the practice of men and boys setting dogs on stock.

The newspaper controversy soon disappeared because, as the editor observed, "Better have business and dust, than solitude and clear air." 102 Pedestrian walkways were also matters of concern, the newspaper in early 1870 noting that "Saw-Dust side and cross walks are all the rage now days. . . . " To enlist support for the building of sidewalks, the editor encouraged a competition between the uptowners and the downtowners, offering a prize to the group that built the first plank walk to the depot on Fourth Street. The downtowners won, and soon there was a walk constructed for Fifth Street as well. The board affairs did not hold up. Within a year the paper was complaining about the dilapidated sidewalks and the habit of replacing worn-out boards with new ones but not nailing them down. The city council finally approved a contract to construct sidewalk crossings of the streets, two boards wide, and Captain Howe was paid to build three thousand feet of sidewalks. But there were never enough. The Reporter often complained that "the supply of mud in this vicinity far exceeds the demand" and that "we haven't seen a lady out of doors since Christ-

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mas." A final hazard was the freight house practice of stacking surplus goods on the front walks, forcing the citizens of the town who wished to "promenade for pleasure [to] take the back streets." 103 In late 1874 the Reporter was calling for yet another walk.104 Of even more importance to the community, in a day of frame and canvas buildings, was an efficient fire department and an adequate supply of available water. The Hiram House waterworks ensured access to water, and the owner offered to sell fire hydrants to the city for $ 110 each. They were installed, but there is no evidence that he was ever paid for them. 105 The Mormon Deseret News could poke fun at House who, when he drilled one well, brought forth only illuminating gas which caused the editor to exclaim that all House had done was to demonstrate the precise location of Hell.100 But the Corinnethians could overlook such attempts at wit, especially when a fire broke out in the Chinese quarter of the city on September 24, 1871, and the nearby hydrants were found to be in full working order.

The flames were extinguished, the major portion of the town was saved, and the citizens immediately improved their fire department by organizing the "Pioneer Hook and Ladder Company of Corinne" with forty-four prominent townsmen as members.107 The city council granted $200 to help purchase the proper equipment and passed ordinances forbidding the erection of dangerous buildings by the Chinese inhabitants and requiring that all stove-pipe flues be replaced with brick chimneys within a thirty-day period.1(IR The short memories of the citizens soon resulted in a deterioration of the fire equipment and a disappearance of the high resolve of the char-blackened days of September 1871. Another fire a year later revealed that the engines, hooks, and ladders were out of repair, but the House fire hydrants again saved the day.109 After two years of municipal existence, the city fathers decided to attempt to improve the cemetery whose graphic description by the Reporter could well be used to depict some melancholy burial grounds today: "A dreary place; repulsive in appearance; low mounds, sunken and ragged, of white, dry, hot sand; head-stones listed and leaning . . . hogs, cattle and mules rooting and tramping . . . an occasional fence, some warped, twisted and unpainted, others spectral in white and gloomy in black. . . . Not a flower, tree or shrub." 110 The council passed an ordinance establishing a forty-acre cemetery and thereafter,

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over the years, made continuing efforts to fence, plant and keep the grounds in proper appearance. 111 Perhaps concern over a decent place of burial meant that Corinne had reached a stage of maturity after five years of struggle, of hopes and fears, and of commercial and industrial growth, for its everoptimistic citizenry. Throughout the period from 1869 to 1874 Corinnethians had participated in forming and energizing a city government; in establishing law and order; in constructing a revenue and taxing system; in expanding the ever-important freighting and stagecoaching business to the north; in developing commercial and banking institutions and a nascent industry; and in providing rather humble but promising improvements for their bustling town. These years had not meant growth in isolation as a freight-transfer point and way station on the Central Pacific Railroad but had thrown Corinne and its supporters into sharp conflict with Mormon neighbors from Cache Valley to Salt Lake City and especially with the inhabitants of the Box Elder County seat at Brigham City. National interest was focused on Corinne as the important Gentile town of the territory, with hopes that it would serve as a catalyst to help eradicate the last of the "twin relics of barbarism" from the social fabric of the United States and to aid in the destruction of the Mormon theocracy that controlled Utah.

Most Corinnethians relished the fight and tended to follow the lead of their bellicose newspapers in denouncing the sins of Mormondom and the business competition so assiduously furthered by Brigham Young and his followers. Corinne was not to win in the ensuing struggle, but the town drew attention to itself far beyond the importance that should have accrued to a small Burg on the Bear.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 2 i Utah Reporter, 12, 17, 19, 22 February; 7 April 1870.

Orson Hyde Elliott, "Reminiscences," p. 514, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City; Utah Reporter, 15 February 1870.

3 Box Elder County Recorder's Office, Brigham City; see also, Jesse Harold Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1951), pp. 12, 51.

4 Utah Territory, Acts, Resolutions, and Memorials of the Legislative Assembly from 1851 to 1870 Inclusive (Salt Lake City, 1870), pp. 128-31; "An Act Incorporating Corinne City, February 18, 1870," original charter in Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

5 "Act Incorporating Corinne." o Utah Reporter, 26 February 1870. ' Utah Reporter, 5, 10 March 1870; Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 10 March 1870; 1, 26 April 1870, Utah State Archives. s Corinne City Minute Book, 11, 14, 17 March; 7 April 1870; Utah Reporter, 28 April 1870. ° Corinne City Minute Book, 14 March; 26, 29 April; 27 June; 19 May; 14 March; 6 June; 1 August; 17 March 1870. io Ibid., 26, 31 March; 4 April; 18 August; 6 May; 7 April; 6, 27 J u n e ; 7 June; 19 May; 14 March 1870. " Ibid., 26 March 1870; Utah Reporter, 3 March 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 4 April, 6 June, 18 July 1870. i 2 Utah Reporter, 26 February 1870.

13 Corinne City Minute Book, 6 June, 18 July, 12 October, 1 November 1870.

14 Utah Reporter, 26 February 1870.

15 Corinne City Minute Book, 16 J u n e ; 1 August; 16 J u n e ; 5 September; 3, 17 October 1870.

16 Utah Reporter, 8 February 1871.

1T Corinne Reporter, 25 April 1871.

1S Corinne City Minute Book, 24 July 1871. »» Corinne Reporter, 12 July 1871.

-° Corinne City Minute Book, 11 July 1871.

21 Corinne Reporter, 2 November 1871.

-- Corinne City Minute Book, 13, 20, 6 December 1871; 9 March 1872.

23 Ibid., 6, 28 March 1871; Corinne Reporter, 3 March, 3 April 1871.

24 Corinne Reporter, 12 August 1871.

25 Corinne Reporter, 4 March 1872; Corinne City Minute Book, 7 March 1872.

20 Corinne Reporter, 16 February 1872.

27 Corinne Reporter, 19, 23 February 1872.

28 Corinne City Minute Book, 22 January, 19 February, 7 May 1872.

29 Corinne Reporter, 3 February, 12 September 1872.

30 Corinne City Minute Book, 30 September, 18 November, 1 May 1872.

31 Corinne Reporter, 8 February 1872.

32 Corinne Reporter, 2 April 1872.

33 Corinne City Minute Book, 22 January 1872.

34 Corinne Reporter, 12 July 1872.

35 Corinne City Minute Book, 1 April, 20 May, 19 August, 2 September 1872.

2

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61

36

Corinne Reporter, 3 September 1873.

See Corinne Reporter tor October through December 1873.

38 Corinne City Minute Book, 2 January; 3, 10 June 1872.

39 Ibid.; Corinne Reporter, 2 April 1872; [Dale L. Morgan, ed.], Utah, A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), p. 362.

40 Corinne Reporter, 22 August; 19, 23 September; 3 October 1872.

44 Corinne Reporter, 11 November 1872, 15 May 1873.

42 Corinne City Minute Book, 23, 30 December 1872.

43 Corinne Reporter, 27 July 1872.

44 Corinne Reporter, 19 March 1872.

40 Corinne City Minute Book, 6 January 1873.

40 Corinne Reporter, 8 January 1873.

17 Corinne Reporter, 10 March, 8 May 1873.

45 Corinne City Minute Book, 9 April 1873; Corinne Reporter, 15 May 1873.

49 Corinne City Minute Book, 14 July; 11 August; 3, 17 November 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 22 November 1873; Corinne City Minute Book, 26 November 1873. so Corinne City Minute Book, 5 March 1873; 12, 16 March, 23 February, 9 November 1874.

51 Corinne Reporter, 3 May 1873.

52 Corinne City Minute Book, 24 December 1873, 2 February 1874.

53 Ibid., 11 August, 9 December, 12 May 1874; 14, 7 April 1873. r4 ' Montanan, 31 October 1872.

•"'•"' Helena Herald, 4 March 1870. r6 ' Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 87.

57 Corinne Reporter, 8 July 1870. r,s Corinne Reporter, 20 May, 15 July, 6 December 1871.

09 Henry P. Walker, The Wagonmasters: High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), p. 225.

60 Corinne Reporter, 5 May 1871.

G1 Corinne Reporter, 14 March 1872.

02 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 92.

63 Salt Lake Tribune, 9 September 1872.

04 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 95, 96-97.

00 W. Turrentine Jackson, "A New Look at Wells Fargo, Stagecoaches and the Pony Express," California Historical Society Quarterly 39 (1960) :301, 306.

00 Alvin F. Harlow, Old Waybills: The Romance of the Express Companies (New York: Appleton-Century, 1934), p. 266. <-- Helena Herald, 10 June 1875.

08 John Hanson Beadle, The Undeveloped West; or, Five Years in the Territories (Philadelphia, 1870), pp. 116-20.

G9 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. viii, 64-65.

70 Ibid., pp. 113-15.

74 Ibid., pp. 115-19.

72 Ibid., pp. 119-21.

71 John Hanson Beadle, Life in Utah; or, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (Philadelphia, 1870), p. 538; "Fred J. Kiesel," Biographical Sketches, Utah, pp. 52-55, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

71 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 121-23.

7 "'Ibid., pp. 123-25. r « I b i d . , p p . 125-27.

77 Corinne Journal, 17 June 1871.

37

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Corinne

78

Corinne Daily Mail, 22 May 1875.

Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 129-31.

89 Ibid., pp. 131-35.

84 Ibid., pp. 135-43. s2 Ibid., pp. 143-48, 292-306.

S3 Corinne Daily Mail, 7 October 1874; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 148-56; Corinne Reporter, 20 February 1871.

84 Corinne Reporter, 17 August 1872.

80 Corinne Daily Mail, 12, 17 November 1874; Corinne Reporter, 31 March, 4 June 1870; 30 March 1872.

86 Corinne Reporter, 31 March, 2 April 1870; William Clayton Letter Books, vol. 4, p. 673, Bancroft Library.

87 Helena Herald, 19 June 1873 ; Charles A. Beehrer to H. Elling, 26 May 1874, Lewis Brachman Collection, Helena. ss Letter to Assistant Adjutant General, Department of Dakota, in Fort Ellis Post Letters, Book 9, 1 January to 8 November 1873, Old Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 89 H. D. Moon to Willis Drummond, 15 November 1871, Old Townsites, Docket 1 (150-56), box 28, National Archives.

90 Corinne Reporter, 24, 27 May 1871.

94 Corinne Reporter, 16 March, 29 June, 9 July, 23 August 1872.

92 J. W. Graham to Willis Drummond, 28 October 1872, and J. W. Graham to Commissioner, General Land Office, 28 January 1874, Old Townsites, Docket 1.

93 Johnson & Onderdonk to Register and Receiver, United States Land Office, November 1878; Jno B. Neil, Register, and Moses M. Brue, Receiver, to Commissioner, General Land Office, 5 December 1878; J. W. Guthrie to U.S. Land Office, June 1883, in Old Townsites, Docket 1.

94 Utah Reporter, 22 February; 21 March; 7, 23, 29 April, 14 May 1870.

'•''• Utah Reporter, 26 February 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 21 November, 30 December 1870.

9 « Utah Reporter, 23 November 1870.

97 Corinne Reporter, 14 October 1871, 19 August 1872.

98 Utah Reporter, 30 June 1870.

99 Utah Reporter, 22 October 1870; Corinne Journal, 11 May 1871.

109 Corinne Reporter, 2 April 1872.

401 Corinne Reporter, 5 May 1873.

192 Corinne Reporter, 13, 24, 25, 31 July 1872.

193 Corinne Reporter, 3, 22, 24, 26 February; 26 March; 21 April; 17 August 1870; 19 August 1871; 3 January, 18 February, 26 December 1872; 17 January, 16 April 1873.

404 Corinne Daily Mail, 10 November 1874.

105 Corinne City Minute Book, 28 November 1870; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study , " p - 1 5 1 .

10(i Deseret News, 17 December 1873.

197 Corinne Reporter, 25, 26 September 1871.

108 Corinne City Minute Book, 25 September 1871.

109 Corinne Reporter, 9 October 1872.

140 Corinne Reporter, 6 May 1871.

114 Corinne City Minute Book, 10 June 1871.

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63

64

Corinne

<°jBjfia

Gentile Capital

Descriptions of Corinne In considering the war waged by the Gentiles of Corinne against the Goliath of the Mormon western empire, it will be helpful to contrast the image Corinnethians had of themselves with that of moreor-less objective visitors who spent a day or so in the town as they interrupted their travels across the continent. Discounting as much as possible the bombast endemic to most frontier newspapers, the Reporter of Corinne, nevertheless, has left a picture of the optimism and hope, tempered by the unspoken fears and uncertainties, that permeated the articles and editorials of the town's daily journal.

A constant theme, pursued by the various editors, compared the potential of Corinne with the already evident success of other well established and much larger western cities. When a traveling correspondent spoke glowingly of the extensive business conducted in Sacramento, the Reporter rejoined that the California metropolis was twenty times the age of the new Utah town and that as soon as Corinne had accomplished about a dozen major objectives, among them building a railroad to Montana and colonizing the entire Bear River Valley, it would rival Sacramento or any other western city.

Later, the editor pointed out that of the $7,920,708 in earnings for the Central Pacific Railroad in 1870, Corinne ranked second only to Sacramento in importance on that rail line. Even Seattle came in for

65

its share of disparagement as the Reporter discounted the prospects of the city on Puget Sound.1 But Ogden and Salt Lake City received the most concentrated attacks, the former being "merely a lunch station . . . a village more stupid than Sleepy Hollow," while the latter "is today a more gloomy place than Ogden itself. Daily in the many stores of that decaying city can be seen the merchant vacantly staring at the deserted street and behind each counter the idle salesman doing the monotonous duty of a statue." The editor advised the merchants of Zion to come to Corinne to buy their goods and supplies at the emporium of the western hills. And in response to a Salt Lake Herald editorial about a possible upswing in business at Corinne, the Reporter thanked his Mormon rival for his conversion but refused to admit that Salt Lake City would remain for long the metropolis of the Intermountain region.2 Whenever possible, the town newspaper liked to quote statistics proving growth and superiority: The average monthly mail of the post office amounted to 15,000 letters, or taxable property worth only a dollar and a quarter an acre at the time of the founding of Corinne was estimated to have a value of a million dollars just fifteen months later.3 As for new stores and hotels, the Reporter noted in August 1870 that there were more buildings under construction in Corinne than in the entire territory of Utah, and yet travelers were still desperate for accommodations. Despite the elegant appointments of the Metropolitan and the Uintah House, a new and larger hotel was needed, one that could compete with any rival between Chicago and San Francisco. One cautious home owner who had put his house together in sections, using wagon bolts so that he could easily move hearth and home to whatever new town might offer better possibilities, now wished to sell the "iron fastenings [as] no longer needed in the immovable structure." The editor complained that many who might settle in Corinne could not do so for lack of suitable dwellings.4 The Reporter thought that everybody in the western territories was on the way to Utah, especially to Corinne, the gateway to the riches of the West. In fact, San Francisco and Chicago were locked in competition to supply Corinne, with the former seemingly in control but with Chicago also filling its share of orders.' The town's prosperity

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was reflected by the fact that citizens of fourteen different states and six foreign countries were registered at one of the hotels during one week; that real estate was selling for seventy dollars a front foot on Montana Street; that one saloon had sold forty-one barrels of whiskey during one day's business; and that several mercantile houses considered it a dull day when their cash sales fell to a thousand dollars a day. By the late spring of 1872, the railroads were so busy they were "vomiting Montana freights . . . at a fearful rate," and the editor of the Reporter cautioned his fellow townsmen to "be careful that our rapid strides toward metropolitan precedence does not render us overweening toward our lesser neighbors in the Territory." ° This grandiloquent boosterism became particularly evident as Pioneer Day approached on March 25 of each year and also at any other random time. As the Reporter explained in July 1871, "two years ago the play ground of jack rabbits and lizards," Corinne was now larger than many towns of ten years existence with its earlier transient population replaced by established families.7 Newcomers were crowding into this most stimulating and attractive valley and to the town built by workers of true grit. In short, said the Reporter, "The future has no cloud save it be one of silver lining." s When mapmaker B. A. M. Froiseth approached the town fathers with a proposal to print a map of Utah including one of Corinne, they insisted that he must give the town a prominent place in his portfolio and that the map of Corinne must be as large as that of any other city in the territory.9 The Reporter even fell into the habit of jocularly announcing that prominent world leaders were on the verge of visiting Corinne, until residents came to believe that the Grand Duke Alexis was actually on his way to Bear River, only to discover that the duke was a bear that was to be butchered by a local meat shop.1" The friendly Salt Lake Tribune often helped promote Corinne by advertising such products as Ransohoff's Pride of Corinne, a choice smoking tobacco. One lady traveling to Corinne "on the strength of the praises sung by the Reporter" became very angry upon arrival "to find things so misrepresented." " A New York Tribune correspondent painted a truer picture of Corinne in June 1870 with his description of the frame and canvas shanties and the row of drinking saloons fronting the railroad track.

And a year later George A. Crofutt could still note the primitive

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appearance of most of the buildings, although he did see more substantial structures being erected.12 About the same time, a reporter from the Ogden Junction observed that although Corinne was not "pleasant to the eye" at first glance and looked "like a scattering pile of good sized dry goods boxes," nevertheless, "the street is graded and gravelled splendidly, dashing teams and fine vehicles spin along at a spanking rate. . . . " Perhaps a Salt Lake Herald writer made the most objective appraisal, indicating that Corinne was "neither an incongruous mass of dilapidated canvas structures, nor an Athens." in Most strangers noted at once the contrast between the tree-lined and shaded Mormon towns and the Bear River town's entire absence of trees, shrubbery, and, as far as we could see, vegetation of any kind. . . . Corinne looks bald and barren, like a head without hair, like a face without eyelashes. It has a dry and parched appearance and makes one thirsty to look at it.14 Baron de Hiibner agreed that, except for some feeble attempts at gardening, there was no greenery at all, not even a single tree to provide an oasis in the desert that was Corinne. Even after four years of existence and attempts to improve the parched appearance of the town, the Salt Lake Herald thought, "Corinne smacks of the plains.

It is sandy, new, business-like, and comparatively unshaded." ir' Visitors to Corinne were unanimous about one thing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; its hustling, bustling activity. The adjectives most commonly used in description were: brisk, live, earnest, and important. 10 John Codman was there on "an unusually lively day" and underscored the frontier boisterousness and rawness of a town whose chief business was catering to the needs of freighters, teamsters, cattlemen, miners, and the entrepreneurs who hired them. The founders of Corinne meant to plant a Christian landmark in its midst; to set up a bright and shining light that should throw its pure rays far and wide to scatter the darkness in which the "twin relic of barbarism" had shrouded the land. For this purpose churches and grog-shops were to act in harmony. Therefore there had been opened three of the former and twenty of the latter. The churches are supported by home missionary societies; the grog-shops are maintained by the voluntary system.17 The Reverend L. B. Stateler, a minister of the Methodist persuasion and just arrived from the East, described the scene he observed:

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Corinne

Heavy, slow-going freight wagons, coupled together and drawn by oxen or mules, and rapidly moving stagecoaches jostled against each other, while the crack of whips and the sound of the oxdriver's voice as he made emphatic and free use of the vernacular peculiar to plainsmen in talking to his animals, together with the numerous crowded saloons and business houses all wide open on Sunday the same as other days, gave things truly a Western air.

The well-traveled Baron de Hiibner also paid tribute to the frontier spirit of the town: The streets of Corinne are full of white men armed to the teeth, miserable-looking Indians dressed in the ragged shirts and trousers furnished by the Central Government, and yellow Chinese with a business-like air and hard intelligent faces. No town in the Far West gave me so good an idea as this little place of what is meant by border-life; i.e., the struggle between civilization and savage men and things.10 Finally, the cosmopolitan Bayard Taylor, crossing the continent by way of the new railroad, wrote to his New York Tribune that as he surveyed the row of drinking saloons along the track and the rough The Central Hotel, ca. 1875, at the corner of Sixth and Montana streets.

Utah State Historical Society collections.

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miners from Montana and Idaho lounging about the station, he fully expected that during the ten-minute stop he would "hear the pop of the cheerful pistol and see the gleam of the smiling bowie knife." He seemed somewhat disappointed that nothing happened. 20 The town marshal might have suggested that Taylor stay more than ten minutes to see the long-term effects of the outpourings of the sixty-eight saloons that C. C. Clawson noted as he passed through Corinne in late 1869.21 Hotel accommodations or the lack of them in Corinne occupied much of the space each writer gave to his or her descriptions of the town. Baron de Hiibner was the most vociferous in his denunciation of the "Hotel of the Metropolis, a wretched plank hut" that offered him a room six feet square with partitions so thin that he was serenaded by a guitar-playing Mexican couple on one side and poisoned by the "foetid exhalations" of a Chinese merchant on the other. In a more jocular vein, a veteran of the Montana scene wrote a friend, "Ah yes — one little item I forgot to mention — Bed Bugs — Town full of them — stay here — Metropolitan Hotel full of them — every body got lots of them and some to spare — I got some — stop when you come through and get some — Dont cost a cent." 22 Martha Plassman thought the only hotel in town was a wretched shack and that the food was execrable. Four years later John Codman could write of the shanty that its proprietor had misnamed the Bear River Hotel, but he was still in better circumstances than the Reverend Stateler who could not afford the high prices for a hotel room and was forced to pitch a tent which a sand storm almost blew into Bear River.23 Other travelers were not so critical, the Earl of Dunraven praising the comfortable little inn at Corinne and the Pacific Tourist noting that the Central Hotel was a brick structure.24

Resident Population Differences of opinion about hotel accommodations, lack of vegetation, or the raw appearance of Corinne all faded into insignificance when visitors to the town on Bear River began to record their impressions of the antipathy of the Gentile citizens toward their Mormon neighbors of Utah Territory. The Right Reverend Daniel S. Tuttle reminisced later that most observers were of the opinion that Corinne would soon absorb all of the Gentile population and business of Utah. 2 ' Baron de Hiibner was more explicit:

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Corinne

And here we are at Corinne, the sworn enemy of the New Jerusalem. From Rome to Carthage in three hours! All the Utah Territory belongs to the Saints. Corinne alone, this thorn in the flesh of Mormonism, has dared to hold its own, in spite of Brigham Young, and to act as a city of refuge to those apostates from the faith of the Prophet who have been fortunate enough to escape the avenging sword of the Danites. 26 John Codman wrote that both saints and sinners were attempting to advance the fortunes of Corinne â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not Latter-day Saints but all other varieties who looked upon Mormonism "as the abomination of desolation, anti-Christ, the scarlet woman, and the beast of the Apocalypse." 2r An editorial writer for the Danbury, Connecticut, News thought that Corinne was a purely Gentile town, avoided by Mormons who had had nothing to do with building the unregenerate place.

Seven years after the founding of the town, the Pacific Tourist was still continuing the theme that Corinne, as the largest Gentile town in Utah, was cordially hated and ignored by most Mormons who made it an object of malice and slander. But perhaps an early evaluation by Bayard Taylor of the New York Tribune best expressed at least one motive for Corinne's opposition to Mormondom. Taylor opined that the town had become the headquarters for all Gentile opposition to Brigham Young and his followers and that out of their expected confrontation with the federal government Corinnethians would benefit from improved prices for their speculations in real estate.23 Combining this hope of financial gain with an ingrained abhorrence for the practice of polygamy and with a strong opposition to Mormon theocratic control of territorial government, the people of Corinne had sufficient incentive to mount a full-scale attack on the stronghold of the Utah Saints with every expectation that eastern interests would support the Gentile strategy planned by the residents of the Burg on the Bear.

One of the first points of dispute between Corinne and its Mormon rival, Brigham City, county seat for Box Elder County, was the simple matter of an accurate census. The official 1870 count showed that Corinne had 806 permanent residents, with 699 white inhabitants, 89 of Chinese descent, and 18 black citizens. The sudden appearance of Corinne made that town the second in size in the county to Brigham City which had a population of 1,315.29 A year later the Corinnethians

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were claiming a permanent citizenry of 3,000, and by 1872 the Reporter boasted that the figure had doubled in one year to a ridiculous 6,000. As the Brownsville Advertizer of Nebraska explained, Corinne presented such a lively appearance that it was difficult to enumerate its actual population. 30 Certainly to the biased editor of the newspaper or even to casual strangers, given streets crowded with freight wagons, teamsters, stagecoaches, and pilgrims headed for Montana, it would be possible to succumb to the delusion that the whole world was descending on Corinne.

A controversy with Brigham City developed when the county officials appointed Col. Chester Loveland, a prominent Mormon leader of that town, to take the census of the various voting districts in Box Elder County. 31 When Loveland reported 863 residents for Corinne, the Reporter editor exploded, "If this be not a clumsy Mormon trick, then we are most mistaken." He pointed out that the official census of 1870 had given the town a population of 873 which had now been neatly reduced by 10 after two years of growth. He challenged the accuracy of the count by the "Church of J. Smith & Co." and claimed that an official census would show 2,300 inhabitants.

The editor called for a new canvass to obliterate the slander perpetrated on Corinne's progress. Following the bombastic lead of the Reporter, the town fathers hired W. D. Damon to count the citizens.

His tabulations showed a population of 1,004, with 645 males, 359 females, and 413 voters, totals that evidently silenced the editor who meekly reported the figures with no comment. 32 From the high tabulation of 1,004 residents in 1873, the population of Corinne declined to 783 in 187433 and then fell gradually until late 1877 when the projection of the Utah and Northern Railroad to Montana brought a precipitate exodus from the town that resulted in a report of only 277 inhabitants in 1880. Whereas the town had made up about 17 percent of the Box Elder County population in 1870, a decade later Corinne comprised only 4 percent of the total.

Brigham City had risen to a population of 2,184 by that time. Later census figures showed the population of Corinne to be 215 in 1890, and 323 in 1900 when the construction of an irrigation system tied to Bear River brought a gradual increase. By 1960, with the development of agriculture in the surrounding area, the population had grown to 510 but decreased again to 471 by 1970.34 During its heyday in the

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Corinne

1870s, however, Corinne's bloc of Gentile voters posed a real threat to Mormon control of Box Elder County while the town's supporters from outside Utah aided in attempts to overthrow the power of Brigham Young in the entire territory.

A Governor and Annexation to Idaho With President Ulysses S. Grant sympathetic to their anti-Mormon cause, Corinne's leaders called a mass meeting in April 1869 to elect O. J. Hollister chairman of a committee to draft a resolution petitioning the president to appoint Gen. Patrick E. Connor as governor of Utah, claiming that Gentile lives and property in Utah were imperiled.3"' When Connor, for a long time the unofficial leader of the Utah Gentiles and supporter of mining developments in the area, withdrew his name from consideration, the citizens prevailed upon the town's founder, J. A. Williamson, to stand for governor. As a brevet major general during the Civil War, a loyal supporter of Grant, and an Iowa delegate to the Chicago Republican Convention of 1862, Williamson seemed to boast impeccable credentials. Corinne residents were confident "that the end of toadyism in Utah is close at hand."

The Reporter was sure that Williamson was the proper choice to ensure protection and justice to the non-Mormon citizens of the territory as they began their struggle with the Saints.36 Grant did not respond to the suggestion, but he did appoint O. J. Hollister collector of internal revenue for Utah, replacing a leading Mormon, Robert T. Burton.37 Unsuccessful in getting a Gentile chief executive, the people of Corinne next supported a congressional plan to dismember Utah Territory by adding sections of it to adjoining states and territories. Rep. James M. Ashley of Ohio hoped thereby to cut off the least populated areas of Utah and to reduce the remaining part to such "pigmy proportions" as to preclude statehood for the Salt Lake region. The Mormon Salt Lake Telegraph ridiculed the whole project as "about the thing for Rum Hole Organs to grind discordantly and dismally over. . . ." â&#x20AC;˘1X But the organ referred to, the Utah Reporter, was exuberant and excitedly backed a plan to add the northern one degree of Utah Territory to adjoining Idaho Territory. This would wrest all the area north of an east-west line eight miles above Salt Lake City from

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control of the Saints' hierarchy. At a grand rally held on January 6, 1870, the assembled citizens of Corinne listened while Judge Dennis J. Toohy addressed the meeting in the most elaborate terms, taking in everything from the exploring of the "Great Basin" . . . to the brilliant future awaiting us . . . [and lambasting the] reign of terror . . . that has blighted one of the most favored spots of God's Green earth. Call it by what name you wish, Polygamy, Bigamy, Brighamy, or even religion.

The participants then formally adopted a set of resolutions favoring the annexation to Idaho of all the area of Utah north of the fortyfirst degree of latitude and directed that the memorial be dispatched at once to Congress. There was such a run on requests for copies of the Reporter that the editor had to apologize for not having enough paper to print the glorious news for his eager readers.39 Apostate Mormons and Gentiles from the adjoining towns heartily supported the annexation move but expressed some fears that Mormon leaders would adopt strong action against them if any overt measures were undertaken. A Logan resident wrote the Reporter that he and his fellow Gentiles in Cache Valley favored the move because they could not afford to pay tithing any longer. The writer claimed that the Mormon church had dispatched many of the best men on missions and that when he did get a rare copy of the Utah Reporter, he and a few of his friends burned it after reading for fear that their bishop or the ward teachers would discover their sin and subject them to further harassment and possible expropriation of their property.

A correspondent from Ogden agreed that he would be better off living under Idaho law and that all the polygamists would then leave for Salt Lake City. According to him, one supporter of the annexation had been handled rather roughly for being too eloquent in favor of the proposed change. The Ogdenite then added, "it's most too soon to come out so strong against Brigham yet." Another Gentile friend from Brigham City wrote that it was not wise for people in the smaller settlements to come out in favor of the change because their property would be placed in jeopardy if they did. Finally, an apostate from Salt Lake City explained that while Brigham's fanatics had regularly been sent south to fight the Indians, the more intelligent Mormons had gone north to Weber, Bear Lake, Ogden, Cache, and Malad valleys

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and their property would be in immediate danger. He, therefore, advised moving with some caution. The writer did think that the annexation would punish Salt Lake City economically.40 A firm Mormon-hater, Robert N. Baskin, testifying in Washington, D.C., before a congressional committee, pointed out another difficulty: It would be a mistake to break up the natural community the Great Basin formed by its geographic boundaries. 41 In announcing a second mass meeting to support annexation to Idaho, the Reporter touted the dismemberment of Utah as a less costly and more effective way of destroying Mormon control than such legislation as the Cullom bill, a measure that was arousing a lot of controversy in Congress. The editor thought that immigration to the valleys of northern Utah was being inhibited and that they would remain a wilderness unless Brigham Young's autocracy was destroyed.42 The Idaho Statesman, of course, approved the move and agreed that the Mormons living in the area under consideration were of antipolygamous inclinations and would welcome the more civilized approach of Idaho's enlightened administration. 43 Idaho's aspirations to gain more territory and, incidentally, control of almost three hundred miles of the Pacific railroad came under unexpected attack when Sen. William M. Stewart of Nevada proposed a bill that would add the area south of the Snake River as well as a portion of Utah to his state. The boundary separating Idaho from Utah and Nevada had been in dispute for some time, and apparently Stewart seized the excuse to enlarge the Silver State.44 The Utah Reporter was enraged and editorialized against the "yelping curs" who were trying to follow its lead by dismembering not only Utah but also Idaho. The newspaper charged that there was no reason for Stewart's move "unless Nevada wishes to secure a water front on Snake river, or requires a larger amount of the aquious [sic] fluid to water mining stock." *n The Idaho Statesman was, if possible, even more aroused. It supported a strong remonstrance in Boise County opposing the Stewart land-grab, tried to explain the apparent contradiction in wanting to add Utah territory to Idaho but opposed any loss of Idaho area to Nevada, and argued vociferously that no settlement of the Mormon problem was possible without destroying Utah as a territory. In a long editorial, the Statesman also explained why it was a mistake to fragment the Bear River Valley by an artificial line dividing it between Utah and Idaho. 40 Gentile Capital

75

While the Gentiles of northern Utah and those of Idaho fought the good fight against the alleged abhorrent practices and political control of Mormondom, the Saints rallied to the defense, pointing out that the passage of the Ashley bill would not affect the authority of their church. 47 Farmington and Kaysville residents held their own mass meetings and dispatched memorials to Congress. The Farmington people were especially emphatic in expressing fears that they would be saddled with the debts of Idaho Territory, and they were particularly incensed about the prospect of being moved like medieval serfs from a lord of their own choice to a nearby barbarous lord.48 The Ogden Junction also attacked the petitions from Corinne, "a small and obscure railway town northward," to which the Reporter editor replied in kind, disdaining the abuse and impertinence from Ogden to assail "the crimes which have made Utah a stench in the nostrils of the nation." In a final mixture of venom and frothy anger, the Corinne journalist fulminated that the noisy advocates of Mormonism in Utah "may rant of patriotism and howl in religious frenzy till the jaws of Lucifer are moist with the tears of pity, . . . " but they could no longer deceive the government.49

By April 1870 the Reporter believed that the Supreme Court would eventually have to decide whether or not Congress could legislate polygamy and theocratic control out of existence either through the Cullom bill or some other law. The editor was quite certain that the government should cut off sections of Utah, leaving only enough room for a "Mormon reservation," a proposal the Idaho Statesman approved. The Boise paper looked forward to having the little city of Corinne within the borders of Idaho. 50 The Deseret News, for once, agreed with its northern neighbor and hoped that a divorce could be arranged between Gentile Corinne and Mormon Utah. 51 After a year of work with no prospect of success in sight, the people of Corinne sought to support Idaho efforts to annex the sixtymile-wide strip of Utah Territory. To that end, they held a mass meeting in late December 1870 to petition Congress so that their city could become part of a Gentile territory. The adoption of this memorial evidently ended active attempts to change the boundary between Utah and Idaho, perhaps because many observers agreed with the Missoula Pioneer that a large Gentile representation in the Utah legislature, the influx of a large Gentile population into the territory, and the eventual

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Corinne

designation of Corinne as the capital of Utah would solve the "disgusting Mormon question." 52

Capital of Utah The proposal to move the capital of Utah Territory from Salt Lake City to Corinne originated in Washington, D.C., where several congressmen, in February 1870, suggested the change if Corinnethians wanted it to gain more political and legal control over affairs in Utah.

The eager citizens of Corinne responded with a petition to Congress signed by eighty-six residents and "with thousands to follow" favoring the move."'3 Eastern journals editorialized on the proposal. The New York World expressed some exasperation over one argument advanced Corinne, looking toward rival Brigham City. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

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in favor of it: "Out of pure regard for the morals of our unsophisticated army officers, Congress proposes removing the capital of Utah from Salt Lake City to Corinne, which, containing but few Mormons, is deemed a fitter place to put the military corps in." r'4 But the Reporter editor rejoiced in the attention focused on his town and cited the reasons why Corinne was the logical place for the territorial center of government as well as the county seat of Box Elder County: As in war, it was essential to have a secure base of operations to proceed against the Mormon theocracy; in Salt Lake City federal officers were so secluded that they became virtual exiles "compelled to serve out their weary mission in Zion"; and, lastly, if Congress decided to reform rather than divide Utah Territory, Corinne would support the new program. As part of the strong anti-Mormon Cullom bill, then before Congress, one newspaper thought that the proposed change would make Corinne the point of battle between the Mormons and Gentiles in legislative matters, to which the Reporter replied that the seat of war would more likely "be nearer the Tabernacle." 5:" Eastern journals like the Chicago Post and the New York Tribune generally favored removing the administration of territorial affairs from Salt Lake City to Corinne as a means of placing federal patronage in non-Mormon hands and thus reducing the corruption thought to be so prevalent in Utah. The Reporter was positive that the move would help destroy priestcraft in Utah. 50 In an attempt to gain the support of the current government officers, Dennis J. Toohy wrote Acting Gov. George A. Black in December 1870 inviting him to attend a mass meeting in Corinne where another petition to Congress would be prepared. 57 There is no indication that Black accepted the kind offer. The Utah Saints took seriously the congressional threat to move the capital to Corinne. Some, like William Clayton, became quite emotional about the issue: "This country, the mountains, valleys, streams, lakes, land, water, buildings, farms, fences, etc. has all been dedicated to our Father in Heaven. They are His and he will hold our enemies in check." ,s But most ridiculed the suggestion while, nevertheless, advancing strong arguments for retaining the capital at Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Herald noted that a Corinne newspaper "which very few people outside of Washington, D.C., ever heard of" had been selected as the journal to publish the acts of Congress in Utah Territory and concluded that they might as well be published in

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Alaska.59 One by one the Herald discounted the reasons advanced for the proposed removal of the capital to Corinne: that there were practically no Gentiles at all residing in Salt Lake City; that the lives of federal officials were not safe in the City of the Saints; that Corinne was a Gentile town where such officials would find a "fit society, which, to those who know Corinne, bespeaks a worse opinion of the Government officials than we have entertained of any of them, excepting, probably, one or two." And, in conclusion, the Herald asserted that the entire affair was tied to a real estate speculation of the worst character.00 The Corinne Reporter was quick in defense, choosing to attack the Herald's argument that removing the seat of government from the "cesspool of Mormonism" would be in conflict with the idea of true republicanism. The Reporter charged, in rebuttal, that Mormon officials had stolen most of the federal property by diverting it to their chosen capital at Fillmore where it was being used for religious purposes in a real "satire on the immorality of Gomorrah." Dispensing with the insignificant comments of the Mormon journal, the Reporter announced that the citizens of Corinne were sending Dr. O. D. Cass, president of the local bank, to Washington, D.C., to present the largest petition ever sent from the territory asking that Congress forthwith move the capital to the Gentile town where fundamental rights could be preserved.01 The newspaper debate between the Salt Lake Herald and the Utah Reporter over the proposed capital move was downright dignified in comparison to the slugfest with which the latter journal engaged its closest rival, the Ogden Junction, over the issue. Referring to Corinne as "that delectable burgh on the banks of Bear," the editor at Ogden wrote, "We believe this is the first time that we have permitted the name of the disreputable little hole to appear in the columns of the Junction." He then warned his Mormon readers to take all necessary steps to defeat the earnest attempt to stir up mischief and ended his discourse with a blast at Corinne which, he said, "has become a synonym for blackguardism and corruption . where the coarser and fouler vices of modern civilization find room to flaunt their hideous and shameless forms." ""' Responding with alacrity and equal use of frontier polemics, editor Toohy defended the proposed move of the capital to Corinne "where

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incest and debauchery are not lifted up for worship in the name of morality. . . ." Gaining fury with every line, he next attacked the "temples of Sodom and Gomorrah . . . [which] under the aegis of a licentious creed proclaims the total depravity of woman. . . ." and where " 'church and state,' united in debauchery, govern the submissive but too credulous member." But the sound and the wind of this particular issue soon died away as the Congress failed to pursue the objective of a new capital for Utah. Several years later, in 1875, another Corinne newspaper, the Daily Mail, tried to revive the prospect of Corinne as the seat of government in connection with the establishment of a United States mint at the town on the Bear, but this was an ephemeral reference of only passing notice to a citizenry then engaged in a fight for survival.63

Statehood for Deseret The strength of the Gentile attack and its support in the East and at Washington, D.C., had, however, given some concern to Mormon leaders who had anticipated the outside mercantile competition by establishing their cooperative stores but had not realized how sudden and widespread would be the opposition to other aspects of Mormondom. A fundamental reason for the sudden general interest in Utah was, of course, the end of the Civil War and Republican party and national determination to eradicate from the American scene the remaining evil of the twin relics of barbarism â&#x20AC;&#x201D; polygamy. A second, and in some ways an even more important, cause was the completion of the Pacific railroad which opened to the gaze of the American people the hidden secrets of Mormonism. In earlier days, only a few widely read travelers like Mark Twain and Richard F. Burton had braved the western wastes to write about the "harem" of Brigham Young and all the other titillating and romantic themes that had come to be associated in the public mind with the mysteries of the Mormons.

After May 1869 countless visitors to the Pacific Coast or elsewhere along the railroad route would not count their trips complete without at least a nominal stop in Salt Lake City to provide subjects for many an evening's entertainment for the folks back home. Furthermore, experienced journalists, some of them part-time correspondents in Salt Lake City for prestigious eastern newspapers, found only a train ride

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between them and exotic Utah where they could find interesting material to interrupt the tedium of readers sated with the frauds of the Grant regime, the travails of Southern Reconstruction, or the battles of the Commune of Paris. And their editors liked the increase in circulation figures.

To eastern financiers, the opening of the Utah mines at Alta, Stockton, Ophir, Tintic, and other areas meant opportunity for mineral exploitation in perhaps the last virgin area of the nation. Now that Brigham Young's empire had been breached, it was particularly necessary to invalidate Mormon land claims if the metals were to be mined. Pressures were exerted on congressional and administration leaders as well as on local federal officials to aid in the process. Utah's federal officers could no longer hide under cloaks of mediocrity or mendacity as they enjoyed their sinecures, for incentives were now present to draw national recognition for performance of duties that before would have received but scant notice. Breaking the Mormon stranglehold of political affairs in the territory might also allow the Republican and Democratic parties to move in and win converts among the suddenly freed and enlightened serfs of Mormondom. This was particularly true of the apostates and silent Gentiles who began to speak out openly as they struggled for financial and political advantage, secure in the knowledge that an awakened nation would protect them.

All of the above hidden or overt motives were used to concentrate national effort on the destruction of the abhorrent practice of polygamyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a project on which nearly all the diverse interests could agreeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; with the concomitant advantage of overthrowing the Mormon theocracy that seemed to stand in the way of financial and political development of Utah Territory by interested Gentile entrepreneurs. The scene was, therefore, set for a series of legislative attempts by the Congress to curtail or prohibit polygamous marriages and to overturn Mormon control in Utah. Corinne, as the only important Gentile town in Utah, was looked upon as the natural funnel, small though it was, through which national energy could flow to arouse public support for the overthrow of Mormondom. Thus followed the attempts detailed earlier to place a Gentile governor in power, to add northern Utah to Idaho, and to move the capital out of the grasp of Brigham Young and his cohorts.

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Well aware of the suddenly unleashed power of the nation to subvert their theology and to gain political and financial control of their assets, the Mormon people in 1872 sought for a fourth time to achieve the statehood long denied them but now absolutely necessary for the continuance of their religious and economic way of life.04 As early as October 1869 the New York Herald, in commenting on the news that Brigham Young was expected to propose statehood for Utah, wrote that polygamy stood in the way and that the Mormon prophet should prepare to move his people to some other area of the world. Agreeing that Utah should not become a state, the Utah Reporter listed three reasons in opposition: Utah having only 80,000 citizens, it would be unfair to New York and its five million people to grant equal status to Utah; there was a backlog of two hundred unsolved murders in the territory that must first be explained; and Utah would not be an American but a Mormon state governed by the dominant church. The Herald finally changed its opinion about moving the Mormons out of the nation, recognizing that their financial investment was too great and that Brigham Young could "much easier abandon faith than gold."

The Corinnethians were involved in helping to fashion the New York paper's editorials through their own journal which was available to the Salt Lake City correspondent of the Herald. In response to one long article from its Salt Lake reporter, the New York editor advised President Grant to attack Mormondom along true republican lines and continue the fight even if it should take all summer, advising that such action would win the votes of the West in the next election.05 Another New York newspaper, the Tribune, received regular contributions from its Utah correspondent and a first citizen of Corinne, O. J. Hollister, whose letter of December 1871 argued against admitting Utah as a state as long as polygamy was retained and because statehood would "deliver them [Gentiles] bound hand and foot to their foes. . ." 00 The Utah legislature, in January 1872, brought the matter of statehood into focus by calling for a territorial election to decide whether a constitutional convention should be held. The Utah Reporter's reaction was to deride "the burlesque of an election call . . . to a convention which is to ratify a constitution for the State of Ignorance, soon or never, to be adopted into the Union." The New York

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Tribune expressed the fundamental reason for Gentile opposition to statehood â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that the United States courts had jurisdiction under territorial status but that federal jurisdiction would be lost under a state government.07 When Utah's citizens voted on February 5 to call for a convention to be held two weeks later, the Gentile Liberal party called for a meeting on February 18 to discuss the question of the admission of Utah as a state but ran into immediate difficulty with the Corinne and Salt Lake factions at loggerheads about the strategy to be followed.

A more detailed account of the origin and objectives of the Liberal party and Corinne's prominent role in its organization will be given later, but it is sufficient here to note that an attempt was made to heal the wounds by adopting a new name, the Utah National party. Displeased by this change, the Corinne Reporter wrote, "The 'gnash-inal' party of Utah will be a thing of short life. . . Let it rot." 0R The Mormon Salt Lake Herald was in hearty and contumacious agreement : "The organ of the pie-bald, double-headed party of Toohy and Tullidge [a Salt Lake leader], oil and water, acid and alkali, bane and antidote, and any other opposites, proposes a new christening for the mottled and discordant organization. . . ." The principal and underlying reason for the division between the two groups was that although the Gentiles of Salt Lake City had an electoral base from which to gather support, the people of Corinne looked to the national administration and the Congress for help in resolving the Mormon question.''1 The overwhelming Mormon vote determined that a convention would be held to approve or reject a constitution for the proposed state. The Corinne Reporter led an attack on the alleged frauds perpetrated during the voting at the polls. The Reporter's correspondent in Salt Lake City telegraphed dispatches to several newspapers in the nation charging that young women and children had voted. The election judges denied these allegations but had no power to stop the vitriolic Toohy's dissertations on the later convention proceedings by the "ignorant fanatics . . . the most illiterate and boorish set of beings in Christendom," who represented "the swinish theology of the LatterDays." The editor agreed with one of his subscribers that the theocracy of the Mormons would eventually pass away but wanted that event to transpire before statehood was granted. 70

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Then, in an amazing but only transitory repentance, Toohy announced on March 4 that the convention had done a creditable job and Congress would ensure that polygamy would be eliminated. His only reservation concerned adoption of a secret ballot and the disqualification of women voters. But the conversion was short-lived as he began to censure the mass meetings held by the Mormon citizens in preparation for the election scheduled for March 18 to accept or reject the constitution adopted by the convention. A typically caustic comment was his reference to the Box Elder County meeting as "a filthy gathering of the rustic masses, or asses, of the foot-hills." 71 The Corinne editor's verbal assaults were his only consolation, as the electorate voted 25,324 to 368 in favor of the constitution.

There would have been a much larger turnout of Gentile partisans, but the Liberals chose to boycott the election and to alert the national government by petitions and memorials in opposition to the admission of Utah. While the Deseret News thought its opponents were trying to keep the area out of the Union and in "territorial serfdom" because of their greed and ambition, 72 the National party sent a committee of three men, composed of J. Robinson Walker, Henry W. Lawrence, and Robert N. Baskin, to Washington to counter the efforts of the elected delegates who were presenting the new constitution. The New York Tribune supported the committee's efforts and editorialized that the "hierarchy of morbid fanatics" would, with statehood, drive out every Gentile and that if the "pernicious fruits of Mormonism are to be destroyed" it must be done under territorial influence.7' Corinne did its part by dispatching a memorial to Congress signed by eighty residents and by several other non-Mormons from Tooele and elsewhere.74 In urging the citizens to sign, the Reporter wrote, "We should have the flag of the free float over us instead of the black ensign of the Endowment. . . ." 7"' Familiar reasons for the retention of territorial status instead of statehood were included in the memorial: insufficiency of population, the control by a political theocracy, and the supposed Mormon doctrine that the priesthood would eventually replace democratic government. The Corinnethians need not have worried about losing their favored position under territorial government because the Congress refused, once again, to heed the plea of the Mormon people for Utah statehood.

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Lobbying for a Canal All of the attempts to advance the interests of Corinne and to deny political supremacy to the Great Basin Saints did not depend solely upon eastern newspaper support and independent action by the Congress. The people of Corinne, understanding quite well the legislative process in the nation's capital, decided very early to send a delegation of prominent citizens to Washington to represent their interests.

The lobby consisted of O. J. Hollister, Dr. O. D. Cass, Gen. J. A. Williamson, Gen. Patrick E. Connor, John Hanson Beadle, and, later, Adam Aulbach, publisher of the Utah Reporter. Hollister led the way, leaving for the East in November 1869, while the others soon followed, spending various periods of time in the capital and mostly paying their own expenses.76 Of course, there were hopes that individual interests might be advanced, also, as each lobbyist waited in the halls of Congress to get the attention of important representatives and senators.

The chief objective of the Corinnethian lobby was to get a canal company organized and some federal lands assigned to the project that would bring water to their thirsty acres from the Bear River at the point where the stream left Cache Valley and entered Salt Lake Valley. The hostile Salt Lake Telegraph explained in July 1869, Corinne is getting desperate . . . . The dust is bad, and the water is worse and it takes a frightful amount of whiskey to enable that town to worry through between trains. By making a ditch or canal of some twenty odd miles in length, it is said that good water could be had, when Corinne would become a good place for a town.77 During the winter of 1869-70 the Utah Reporter and the town leaders mounted a campaign to advertise the possibilities of bringing irrigation water to the lower Bear River Valley and to interest prospective immigrants in productive farms that could be developed in the area around the town. A Union Colony Committee from the state of New York announced that, in addition to looking at prospective locations for members in Kansas and Colorado, it would also examine lower Bear River Valley as a result of the efforts of Dr. Cass and others in furnishing maps and information to the New Yorkers. The Reporter agreed that colonies should settle in groups of from two to five hundred, for if they came to Mormon Utah "in little squads . . they

Gentile Capital

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could have no peace or protection." The Reporter also called for the organization of an immigration society to boost the tremendous potential of the almost one million acres of land the editor thought could produce up to one hundred bushels of wheat per acre and could thus become "an agricultural paradise." A week later the editor had reduced the expected production of wheat to sixty or seventy bushels per acre but had not curtailed in the least his magnificent hyperbole.78 The Corinne, Bear River, and Salt Lake Canal Company had been organized in the late fall of 1869 under the leadership of J. A. Williamson and seven other prominent citizens of Corinne. A survey had been completed, and the cost to build the project was estimated to be $75,000. All that remained to be done was to obtain an act of incorporation and a grant of land from Congress to get the work going. A bill was introduced into the House of Representatives in late April 1870 asking for one hundred sections of land in the amount of four sections per mile on each side of the canal. The Reporter expressed its thanks to Williamson for the initial success at Washington.

The general had been helped by certain members of Congress, including Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, who the year before had visited Corinne and discussed the agricultural possibilities of the area. Also, some of the eastern newspapers had helped to boost the prospects of legislation by writing about irrigation in the Corinne region of Bear River Valley. The Chicago Tribune, for example, noted, "It is the only spot on the road [Pacific railroad], from Fremont to Sacramento, that a bird would care to light on. . . ." 7n After the canal proposal was introduced, J. H. Beadle, the editorin-chief of the Reporter who was sent to Washington by the citizens of Corinne, bore the brunt of the lobbying efforts to have the bill enacted into law. Leaving for the capital on May 13, 1870, he spent two and a half months working unsuccessfully with one Congress and then went back again in December 1870 and January 1871 to achieve only further frustration. During the second Congress he discovered that the Republican party was in a much weaker position and that excessive land grants had caused the loss of much of its support."" In his prepared statement before the Senate Committee on Public Lands he, nevertheless, emphasized a number of projected benefits: Almost two hundred fifty thousand acres of land could be brought under cultivation, the canal would extend for a distance of from twenty-five to

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twenty-seven miles, sixteen homesteads on each side of the requested one hundred sections of land would provide homes for nearly two thousand families of the workers who would build the canal, another five thousand homesteads would be provided on what was then only a dusty plain, and the Gentiles of Utah had now concentrated in the Corinne region "where is the only chance left by God and nature to plant a loyal American population . . and bring Christianity into peaceful contact with the barbarians of Utah." He added that there was some prospect that the Josephite branch of the Mormon church might be induced to settle in Bear River Valley and concluded that this was the first Gentile request from Utah to the Congress and certainly a small favor to ask. The Senate amended the proposal by suggesting that the Central Pacific Railroad donate fifty of the hundred sections of land which sent the leaders of Corinne scurrying to plead with the railroad for this small favor.s1 As Congress argued and Beadle languished in despair, news came to Corinne that the Mormon apostles, afraid that the Gentile town would be successful in getting the canal legislation enacted, were attempting to defeat the measure by petitioning Congress for similar grants of land elsewhere in Utah, thus eventually driving out all Gentile farmers/ 2 To counter this threat, Corinnethians dispatched a memorial to Congress, signed by nineteen leading citizens, explaining the details of their proposed irrigation project and then making a strong plea for aid against the machinations of the Mormon priesthood that had excluded "every American from the soil who would not bow to the Mormon prophet and adopt their Asiatic customs." The memorial listed sixteen acts of the Utah legislature granting most of the available water supplies in the territory to the leaders of the Saints.

The petitioners further explained that no Gentile citizen had been allowed to acquire or homestead any of this well-watered property and that none would unless the Congress would help the people of Corinne to settle a population in Utah whose influence would fianlly solve the Mormon problem. In fact, said the memorial, "This city, the only Gentile foot-hold in Utah, is an eye-sore to the Mormon leaders, and every possible effort is being made by them to crush it out." S3 The petition went unheeded, Beadle retired from the fray, and as Corinne looked forward to the next congressional session of late 1871, the Reporter editorialized, "Don't Give Up the Ship" and urged

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a third try for a grant of lands for a canal. Throughout the year, editor Toohy pursued his optimistic course, describing the eastern capitalists who were examining the agricultural possibilities of Bear River Valley if only water could be brought to the parched earth. He exhorted his fellow citizens to organize a colonization society. And finally, he gleefully announced in December that Adam Aulbach, formerly of Corinne but now living in Washington, D.C., had reported a new bill introduced into the Senate providing for the irrigation of Bear River Valley. Two days later, the editor stated that another bill seeking the same purpose had been started through the Senate, but the new one was the same old omnibus bill Mormon Delegate William Hooper had tried earlier. Toohy reluctantly agreed that if this general law could be passed it would be well "so that Mormon and Gentile alike may be watered." M As the Congressional Globe routinely reported the progress, or lack of it, of the various House and Senate bills being referred, recommended, read a first and second time, amended," 5 and on and on, the people of Corinne seemed to lose any hope of action and began to talk of bringing water from the smaller and nearer Malad River through the application of a free enterprise project. Cyrus Thomas of the Hayden expedition had already observed that the Malad, although narrow, carried a large enough volume of water to irrigate all the valley down to the gate through which the Bear River emerged.80

By May 1871, therefore, the Reporter was writing of a ditch large enough to carry four feet of water from the Malad, the financing to be arranged by fifty Corinne businessmen buying stock in the proposed irrigation company."7 It was expected that the Central Pacific Railroad Company would donate up to one-half of its lands along the canal route to aid in the project. When both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads claimed the land, however, the Reporter, in some discouragement, acknowledged that the plan would have to be postponed. ss At the end of 1871 the people of the town were left with only faint hopes of a much smaller irrigation project to be built, connecting their own fields and gardens with the rather alkaline and aptly named Malad River.

The lack of life-sustaining water for their crops and the development of their valley had not been the only disappointment faced by the Gentile town on Bear River. As they had examined their prospects

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during the first five years of existence for Corinne, the residents had seen a rose-colored future, especially as described by the blowing of the local news sheet. The Mormon and outside press had observed a much more frontierlike and less appealing settlement whose barren landscape and treeless and dusty streets were in marked contrast to the neat and green Mormon villages nearby. Furthermore, frustration had met the attempts to enhance Gentile prospects while seeking to destroy or at least to lessen the power and prestige of Mormon theocracy. Washington officials had demonstrated sympathy with movements to appoint a Corinnethian as governor, to annex northern Utah to Idaho, to move the territorial capital to Corinne, and to oppose statehood.

But only in the latter objective had Corinne found many allies outside Utah. In Washington, the town's lobby had worked energetically, to no avail, to provide the means for bringing a large Gentile population as a leavening influence into the Bear River Valley of northern Utah.

The delegation in the nation's capital did have some success in supporting congressional efforts to eradicate Mormon polygamy and theocracy, and that, at least, brought comfort and satisfaction to loyal Corinnethians.

Gentile Capital

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 3 4

Utah Reporter, 3 March, 29 September 1870; 13 January 1871.

Utah Reporter, 24 May, 7 April, 4 June 1870; 10 June 1871.

3 Utah Reporter, 7 April, 4 June 1870 * Utah Reporter, 8 August 1870; 15 July, 18 October, 24 November 1871; 29 February, 22 August 1872.

5 Corinne Reporter, 24 February 1871; New York World, 30 April 1871. " Corinne Reporter, 19 April, 22 July, 6 September 1871; 29 March, 20 May, 23 August 1872.

7 Corinne Reporter, 29 July 1871; Utah Reporter, 21 April 1870. s Corinne Reporter, 2 January, 13 March 1872.

9 Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 6 February 1871, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City. This source misspells the mapmaker's name.

10 Corinne Reporter, 27 December 1871.

11 Salt Lake Tribune, 30 May, 3 June 1871.

12 New York Tribune, 23 June 1870; George A. Crofutt, Crofutt's Transcontinental Tourist's Guide . . . (New York, 1871), p. 109.

13 Ogden Junction, 24 May 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 24 May 1871; George A. Crofutt, International Tourist Guide .. . (New York, 1874), p. 113.

14 Ogden Junction, 24 May 1871.

15 M. LeBaron de Hiibner, A Ramble Round the World, 1871 (New York, 1875), p. 121; Salt Lake Herald, 11 July 1873.

1(5 C. C. Clawson Diary, 1870, quoted in Barzilla W. Clark, Bonneville County in the Making (Idaho Falls: Author, 1941), p. 79; de Hiibner, A Ramble, p. 120; E. J. Stanley, Life of Rev. L. B. Stateler (Nashville: Smith & Lamar, 1907), p. 217; Corinne Reporter, 15 November 1871; Ogden Junction, 24 May 1871.

17 John Codman, The Mormon Country . . . (New York, 1874), pp. 79, 80.

18 Stanley, Life of Rev. L. B. Stateler, p. 217.

19 de Hiibner, A Ramble, p. 120.

20 New York Tribune, 23 June 1870.

21 Clawson Diary, p. 79.

22 de Hiibner, A Ramble, pp. 118-20; A. B. Knight to Old Boy, 3 July 1873, Charles Bovey Collection, Virginia City, Montana.

23 Martha E. Plassman, "Incidents of Stage Travel . . ," quoted in Opheim Observer, 8 February 1923, clipping file, Montana State Historical Society, Helena; Codman, The Mormon Country, p. 79; Stanley, Life of Rev. L. B. Stateler, p. 218.

24 Earl of Dunraven, The Great Divide: Travels in the Upper Yellowstone in the Summer of 1874 (1876; reprint ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 36; Henry T. Williams, The Pacific Tourist . . . (New York, 1876), p. 163.

20 Daniel S. Tuttle, Reminiscences of a Missionary Bishop (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1906), p. 106.

20 de Hiibner, A Ramble, p. 118.

27 Codman, The Mormon Country, p. 79.

28 Salt Lake Herald, 11 July 1873; Williams, The Pacific Tourist, p. 162; New York Tribune, 23 June 1870.

29 U.S., Ninth Census of United States, 1870: Aggregate Population (Washington, D.C., 1872), pp. 8-18. so Corinne Reporter, 27 May, 15 November 1871; 2 January 1872. " Box Elder County Court Records, 8 March 1872, 248, U t a h State Archives.

2

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Corinne

32 33

Corinne Reporter, 22, 28 March; 2 April 1872.

Johnson's New Universal Cyclopaedia (New York and San Francisco, 1874),

p. 1155.

34 U.S., Tenth Census of United States, 1880: Compendium (Washington, D.C., 1883), p. 309; U.S., Compendium of the Eleventh Census of United States, 1890: Population (Washington, D.C., 1892), p. 402; U.S., Twelfth Census of United States, 1900: Report (Washington, D.C., 1901), 1:447; U.S., Census of Population of United States, 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1973), vol. 1, part 46, p. 15.

35 Salt Lake Telegraph, 21 April 1869; Montana Post, 23 April 1869.

39 Utah Reporter, 11,13 November 1869.

37 Salt Lake Telegraph, 21 April 1869.

38 Andrew Love Neff, History of Utah, 1847 to 1869 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1940), p. 719; Salt Lake Telegraph, 15 January 1869.

39 Utah Reporter, 16 December 1869; 6, 11, 15 January 1870.

49 Ibid.

41 U.S., Congress, House, Execution of the Laws in Utah, p. 14, House Report no. 21, parts 1-3, Serial no. 1436, 41st Cong., 2d sess., 1870.

42 Utah Reporter, 15, 18 January 1870.

43 Idaho Statesman, 18 January 1870.

44 Idaho Statesman, 21 August, 29 January 1870; U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Globe, part 1, p. 65, 41st Cong., 3d sess., 1870-71.

4 = Utah Reporter, 3, 5 February 1870.

40 Idaho Statesman, 15, 27, 29 January; 5 February 1870.

47 Salt Lake Telegraph, 4 February 1869.

43 Deseret News, 9, 16 February 1870.

49 Utah Reporter, 10 February 1870.

59 Utah Reporter, 26 April, 22 June 1870.

01 Deseret News, 11 January 1870. : >- Utah Reporter, 13, 27 December 1870; 12 January 1871.

53 Utah Reporter, 22, 24 February 1870. " G r a c e Winkleman, from New York World, 1870, WPA file, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

55 Utah Reporter, 5, 8 March 1870.

59 Utah Reporter, 22 December 1870.

07 Dennis J. Toohy to Acting Gov. George A. Black, 26 December 1870, Utah Territorial Papers, no. 3465, Utah State Archives.

5S William Clayton to William W. Cluff, 19 December 1870, in William Clayton Letter Books, vol. 4, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. r u Âť Andrew Jenson, Corinne Ward Manuscript History to 1930, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. u0 Salt Lake Herald, 23 December 1870.

C1 Utah Reporter, 27 December 1870; 12 January 1871.

"- Ogden Junction, 14 January 1871.

B3 Utah Reporter, 19 January 1871; Corinne Daily Mail, 19 June 1875.

04 Other attempts to attain statehood had been made in 1849, 1856, and 1862.

6 *New York Herald, 13 October 1869; 26 J u n e ; 14, 15 December 1871; Utah Reporter, 2 November 1870.

00 New York Tribune, 30 January 1872.

07 Corinne Reporter, 2 February 1872; New York Tribune, 12 February 1872. cs Ronald C. Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics: 1847-1876" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), pp. 252-54; Corinne Reporter, 21 February 1872. oÂť Salt Lake Herald, 10 February 1872; Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 258.

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79 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 265-66; Corinne Reporter, 23, 24 February 1872.

74 Corinne Reporter, 4 March 1872; Box Elder County Court Records, 8 March 1872, 248, Utah State Archives; Corinne Reporter, 18 March 1872.

72 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 272; Deseret News, 20 March 1872.

73 New York Tribune, 18, 30 April 1872.

74 U.S., Congress, House, Memorial of Citizens of Utah against the Admission of Utah as a State, 6 May 1872, pp. 37-40, House Misc. Doc. no. 208, Serial no. 1527, 42dCong., 2d sess., 1872.

79 Corinne Reporter, 3 April 1872.

79 Utah Reporter, 30 November 1869.

77 Salt Lake Telegraph, 23 July 1869.

78 Utah Reporter, 19 February, 31 March, 5 April, 28 May 1870.

79 Utah Reporter, 19, 28 April; 14 May; 3 June 1870.

89 Utah Reporter, 14 May, 1 December 1870; John Hanson Beadle, Western Wilds and the Men Who Redeem Them . . . (Cincinnati, 1878), p. 120; John Hanson Beadle, The Undeveloped West; or, Five Years in the Territories (Philadelphia, 1870), pp. 190-93.

81 Utah Reporter, 1, 7, 23, 26 J u n e ; 2 July; 21 October 1870.

52 Utah Reporter, 30 January 1871.

83 Citizens of Corinne, Utah, Memorial Asking for a Grant of Lands to Aid in Constructing a Canal for Irrigating Bear River Valley (Washington, D.C., 1871), pp. 1-5.

84 Corinne Reporter, 9 March; 31 August; 12 September; 21, 23 December 1871.

85 Congressional Globe, part 2, p. 997, 41st Cong., 3d sess., 1870-71; part 1, pp. 47, 58, 663, 1128, 1701, 42d Cong., 2d sess., 1871-72.

8(i U.S., Congress, House, United States Geological Survey of Montana and Portions of Adjacent Territories, by F. V. Hayden, pp. 238-40, House Exec. Doc. no. 326, Serial no. 1520, 42d Cong., 2d sess., 1872.

87 Corinne Journal, 11 May 1871.

88 Corinne Reporter, 7 May 1871.

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^r^flf-jW^GPa

The Liberal Party

Cullom Antipolygamy Bill A significant objective of the Corinne lobby in Washington was to aid in the passage of federal legislation that would stamp out forever the doctrine and practice of polygamy and would at the same time deprive the Mormon people of judicial control in Utah Territory. The Congress had enacted in 1862 the Anti-Bigamy Act which prohibited polygamy, annulled a territorial act incorporating the Mormon church, and forbade the church from owning real estate worth more than $50,000.1 Many outside of Utah looked upon the law as unconstitutional, but it became a dead issue anyway because Mormon juries would not indict against their strongly held religious belief.2 Two other pieces of legislation, the Wade and Cragin bills, had been proposed to remedy the deficiencies of the 1862 act, but the first failed to pass while the second was withdrawn in favor of a measure presented by Rep. Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois in 1869-70. The Cullom bill made jury selection the responsibility of the United States marshal and the United States attorney; federal judges were to have sole jurisdiction over polygamy cases; plural wives could be called to testify against their husbands; cohabitation was declared a misdemeanor; the property of Mormons imprisoned or leaving the territory on account of the law was to be used under Gentile authority for the support of Mormon families; and the president was empowered to raise 25,000

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militiamen in Utah and send the United States Army into the territory to enforce the law.3 The Idaho Statesman thought that Corinne was the only place in Utah where it might be "barely possible" to get a jury to do its duty.

Corinnethians were quite pleased with the introduction of the Cullom bill, and the Reporter faithfully printed all available news and correspondence concerning its progress through Congress, at one time facetiously remarking that the legislation was being given prominence in the newspaper's columns for the edification of all Mormons.4 Letters from chief lobbyist J. H. Beadle were, of course, of special interest as he reported his strategy meetings with Utah Gov. J. Wilson Shaffer, the congressional delegation from his home state of Indiana, Vice-president Schuyler Colfax, and various senators and representatives to round up support for the bill. Beadle was told by Shaffer that President Ulysses S. Grant had promised "to fully sustain him; but thought it would take ten thousand men." ' Beadle was one of four leading Gentiles from Utah asked to testify by the House committee considering the Cullom bill, and later he also appeared before a Senate committee. In the two-hour questionand-answer session with the House group, he recited the specific reasons for Gentile support of the Cullom proposal: The bill limited the power of the Mormon-controlled probate courts, provided for a secret ballot to protect non-Mormon voters at the polls, and gave additional powers to the United States marshal. He asserted that most residents of the territory were hostile to the federal government because, first, a large proportion of them were newly arrived immigrants from European countries with little understanding of American democracy, and, second, the Mormon leaders engaged in constant denunciation of the United States government. Further, he doubted that the introduction of American institutions and contacts with the rest of the world via the new Pacific railroad would destroy polygamy. Stronger measures, such as those in the Cullom bill, were necessary. Beadle testified that the Mormon people were openly defying the law of 1862. He expected that with passage of the Cullom bill dedicated polygamists would move to either Arizona or Sonora in northern Mexico. As for any threatened military action on the part of the Mormons, "Give me two regiments, the Fourteenth and Thirty-first Indiana," he declared, "and I will take the contract to whip all the men Brigham Young can

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bring into the field." ° The Reporter reflected Corinne's pride in Beadle's activities in support of the pending legislation and thought that its final passage would be due in great part to his appearance in Washington.

When the House passed the Cullom bill, as predicted by Beadle, the citizens of Corinne held a mass meeting that adopted resolutions cheering the Gentile success and denouncing polygamy as a barbarous crime against law and morality.7 The New York Tribune's correspondent in Salt Lake City reported, "The Gentiles of Corinne, who fight the Mormons at arm's length, held a public meeting there, denounced their moderate brethren in this city and thanked the House in strong terms for the bill . . . ; undoubtedly thus expressing the feelings of nine-tenths of the Gentiles of Utah." s The excitement in Utah engendered by the congressional debate over the proposed anti-Mormon legislation aroused fear in the people of Corinne that their Mormon neighbors would take forceful action against the Burg on the Bear. In January 1870, therefore, a committee was assigned to meet with the acting governor and ask for arms to protect the town from the Brigham City Saints. If the chief executive could not help them, the committee members intended to apply to the commander of Camp Douglas in Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, the citizens at home were threatening to blow up the bridges across Bear River if refused weapons with which to defend themselves. When Governor Shaffer visited Corinne in April, Mayor W. H. Munro complained to him of the lack of arms and ammunition but had already taken action to call out the minutemen of the town for military drills.

The Reporter emphasized the possibility of a Mormon attack by announcing on April 21 that the Saints of Cache and Bear River valleys were buying all the guns and ammunition they could get from merchants in Corinne, including 16,000 cartridges in one week. "What does this mean?" inquired the editor and then announced that the Corinne regiment could stand off all the Mormons of northern Utah if the town could only be supplied with the proper arms.9 The Mormon press and most eastern journals discounted the Corinne fears as only wild talk, although the New York Tribune admitted that the Mormons looked upon the Gentile town of Corinne as the "very stench from the bottomless pit." 10 The occasional Mormon magazine of humor, the Keepapitchinin, devoted to "Cents,

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Scents, Sense and Nonsense," ridiculed the warlike preparations at Corinne and the government's supposed threat to send "40,000 trupes what goin tu Utah tu keep people from marying their grandmother. . . ." It asked why the nation's leaders did not send this small army to "Washington, New York, Shekargo, Bosting and Sensenatty" to "stop prostertution." " Mormon citizens vigorously protested the Cullom bill by holding mass meetings in the various settlements and, particularly, by calling "female indignation meetings" during which Mormon women were asked by their own leaders to sign petitions remonstrating against the proposed federal legislation. The Corinne newspaper was especially wrathy with these quaint affairs and noted that "those selected to indignate were mostly of the ancient order, who had little or nothing to do and nothing to live for." The editor was sure that polygamy had very little to offer a girl of seventeen whose secret desire was for a Gentile lover to rescue her from a living death. 12 Brigham Young, on the other hand, was especially pleased that "our sisters are in high dudgeon" over the bill and thought that possibly there might be a test case to rid the territory of some of the obnoxious federal officials if the government would only give anti-Mormon Robert N. Baskin "some lick-spittle office here." The prophet was of the opinion that then "our sisters would be very apt to shew him his walking-papers in the shape of a forest of broom-sticks." 13 By late spring, as the Senate plodded through a discussion of the merits of the Cullom bill, Corinne's apprehensions concerning an armed conflict seemed to dissipate as lobbyist Beadle kept sending back encouraging reports about anticipated approval by the upper house.

The Reporter frankly admitted that Mormonism did not concern the Gentiles as a religion but as the dominant political and governing power in Utah. 11 However, most eastern newspapers opposed the punitive spirit of the legislation and argued that a free ballot, the disruptions of dissident Mormons, and the transcontinental railroad would solve the Mormon problem.1"' This point of view finally won out in the Senate which refused to endorse House passage of the bill.

The reference to schisms, above, concerned the Godbeite movement that had been disturbing the Mormon leadership for well over a year.

The polygamous but anti-Brigham Young Godbeites had split with out-and-out Gentiles in Salt Lake City over the strong measures against polygamy written into the anti-Mormon legislation.16 96

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The Godbeite Schism The Godbeites, so named after their titular leader, William S. Godbe, were British converts to the Mormon church who had been won over by a religion of great spiritual strength. But, at the same time, they had experienced difficulty in accepting corporate Mormonism and the prophet's attempts to direct their secular lives. In addition to Godbe, the membership of the New Movement, as it was also called, included the intellectually talented E. L. T. Harrison, Eli B. Kelsey, William H. Shearman, and Edward W. Tullidge. In the October 1869 issue of their publication, the Utah Magazine, Harrison contended that Utah could not compete with more favored areas in agriculture, stock raising, or manufacturing and that only mining could give the territory a specialty that could create a cash market instead of the primitive trade arrangement then in command. The exploitation of minerals would, of course, introduce outside capital and prying Gentiles into the closed society of Mormondom and would endanger the control of merchandising that the prophet's cooperative system sought to establish. Brigham Young had already expressed his sentiments rather bluntly to Samuel Woolley about trafficking with former Mormon church members like the Walker brothers, owners of a Salt Lake merchant house: "He did not approve of it but said, God, Jesus Christ, Holy Angels, all good men & the Devils in hell all hated Panoramic view of the new town of Corinne. Andrew ]. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

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apostates & that their place would be a lower apartment in hell etc & that all saints should sustain the Kingdom of God on Earth & not trade with apostates & wicked men." This warning and others like it were clear, but the Godbeite leaders persisted until they were called to account in October 1869 before the appropriate high council. An additional charge against the errant Mormons was their overt espousal of spiritualism and belief in spiritual mediums. The final verdict of the church council was excommunication, whereupon the apostates organized their own Church of Zion and set about winning converts from the parent group. 17 Faithful Mormon William Clayton, who was also secretary of Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, reported to friends privately the disastrous turn of events as the schism developed. He thought that T. B. H. Stenhouse, a particularly articulate editor, was "all but gone," being led by a wife bitter towards polygamy.18 William Jennings, a merchant, would fall any minute because, according to Clayton, he considered greenbacks more valuable than any interest in the kingdom of God. And he reported that in two Salt Lake wards alone, the thirteenth and fourteenth, there were two hundred fifty apostates. Clayton was happy to have Brigham Young home from a trip to the south and expected that the prophet would "stir up the apostates with a sharp stick" and so bring the disease to the surface. Clayton thought the Lord was applying a "sifting machine" to prepare the pure in heart for Zion's redemption."

The non-Mormon press rejoiced over Brigham's troubles with the outspoken Godbeites and their freewheeling Utah Magazine and advised the prophet to move to Turkey where he could live in "peace and plenty (of wives), untrammelled by the barbarous usages of schism or Congress." However, the Corinnethians and other Gentiles in Utah were troubled by the refusal of some of the Godbeite leaders to give up their polygamous wives and to denounce, once and for all, the abhorrent practice.2" The Utah Reporter was dismayed to find that the Church of Zion was just another Mormon church except for the autocratic control of the prophet and concluded that the Godbeite movement was no more than "Brigham Mormonism with spiritualism added to it." 21 The Keepapitchinin provided mild amusement by suggesting that it would devote a regular column to articles written by Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and other famous spirits who might help

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support the spiritualism of the new church. 22 But to the people of Corinne who had expected great help from the Godbeites, their continued acceptance of polygamy threatened the new anti-Mormon political alliance that hoped to aid in the destruction of the Utah theocracy.

Woman Suffrage in Utah Prior to the coming of the railroad and the influx of a larger Gentile population, the Saints had seen no need for political parties, depending upon the church structure to provide the means for nominating candidates for political office. As early as April 1869 J. H. Beadle had attacked the Mormon system of control over elections, pointing out that the local bishops supervised and controlled how and for whom the people voted. He suggested that one man in each settlement could just as well do all the voting.23 Later, the Reporter continued the polemic by denouncing how these little despots named their candidates, which was equivalent to election, and hoping that such farcical affairs by "this fanatic hoard [sic] of barbarians" would soon be ended.24 Wholly as bad in Gentile eyes was the territorial law, enacted in January 1853, directing that a voter's name and the number of his vote be entered in the election record, a practice Beadle said allowed the agents of Brigham Young to ascertain how any man had voted for fifteen years past.21 William H. Shearman, dissident Mormon, was more specific: "Precautions are taken so it is known how every man votes, & if any vote for other candidates they are spotted as 'on the road to apostasy.' They must change their course or a series of petty persecutions ensue which ultimately drive them from the church "2" Abolishment of this provision and the adoption of a secret ballot came to be a prime objective of the non-Mormon political leaders of Utah.

The founders of Corinne were determined to contest for political control with their Mormon neighbors in Box Elder County as a means of getting a foothold for a more general assault upon the entire Mormon hierarchy. In August 1869, therefore, they nominated Dennis J. Toohy for representative and J. H. Beadle for a seat on the council of the territorial assembly. The county clerk announced election totals of 546 votes for Toohy and 622 for Beadle. These results were imme-

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diately challenged by the Reporter which said of Toohy's contest that despite a vote of nearly 800, the Mormons had contrived to elect his opponent by allowing unnaturalized foreigners and even boys to cast ballots. The editor asked the governor to investigate the fraud, but he was, nevertheless, pleased that the two Gentile candidates had received approximately 40 percent of the votes cast for the two positions in Box Elder County.27 On October 11, 1869, the Corinnethians took the next step in entering territorial politics by nominating Dr. Oscar D. Cass for delegate to Congress from Utah. Judge C. M. Hawley, one of the territorial justices, showed his friendliness to the Gentile cause of Corinne by appearing at the mass meeting and giving the principal address.

A correspondent from Salt Lake City wrote of his pleasure at the "honest audacity of Corinne" in starting such a significant movement approved by all law-abiding citizens threatened by the maelstrom of Mormon insubordination. Further, the writer invited candidate Cass to visit the capital city and expressed hope that the recently excommunicated Godbeites would join politically with the Gentiles of Salt Lake City and Corinne to help "roll away the stone of a monstrous barbarism." 2S With a political movement underway, Utah Gentiles were shocked by the action of the Mormon-dominated territorial legislature in passing a woman suffrage bill in February 1870, thereby doubling the number of voters who could support the Mormon church position.29 Brigham Young and his associates were confident that the sisters would accept the traditional male leadership and follow their husband's dictation in voting for church candidates. 30 In addition to providing a political force in reserve, the new legislation might also discourage further antipolygamy legislation in Congress because the nation's political representatives would be shorn of their notions about the reported slavery of Utah women. 31 Under the act even the wives and daughters of recently naturalized citizens could vote, although their husbands and fathers might not be able to meet the suffrage requirements. As one critic of LUah's procedure wrote, ". . . girls under age, and alien women with the odor of the emigrant ship still upon their clothes . . . cast their votes as they are instructed to, in some tongue unknown to ordinary Americans, and go away dazed."

Although naturalized male citizens must have lived five years in the

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country, the wives, daughters, or widows of naturalized citizens had to have resided in Utah for only six months prior to an election.32 The indignation meetings mentioned earlier were sufficient evidence to most observers that Mormon women would sustain polygamy.

That assumption led to predictable and vitriolic attacks by the Utah Reporter against the law and especially against S. A. Mann, acting governor of the territory. The editor accused the chief executive of placing "upon the same plane of equality the noble Christian women of our Territory, and the degraded creatures whose lives are willingly devoted to the most hideous immorality." After apologizing for having to make this odious comparison, the newspaperman then felt sorry for Utah women "who are here the serfs of a lecherous hierarchy." But gathering courage to face this assault upon the sacred preserve of male dominance of the ballot box, by May 1870 he was able to discourse with greater equanimity on the subject, "End of Female Suffrage."

He proved to his own satisfaction that the early advocates of the privilege, who "were few and ugly," had failed in their national objective to win the right to vote.33 The first opportunity Utah women had to exercise the voting privilege came in the Salt Lake City municipal election of February 14, 1870.

The Gentiles of the city combined with the Godbeites to organize a political party, the Independent ticket, that forced their Mormon opponents to establish the People's party. Many in the nation were delighted that, for the first time in Utah, there would be a real political contest. The Sacramento Union remarked that the change would be as refreshing as the experience of the Kentuckian who, after emerging from a free fight, noted that he had lost only an eye, the tip of his nose, an ear, and part of his scalp.34 The new Independent party made the mistake of advertising their organizational meeting, to be held in the Walker brothers' old store, with the words, "Come One, Come All." This proved at once an open invitation to Mormon leaders to pack the hall, take over the meeting, and ratify their own slate of People's party candidates. The disgruntled Independent party adherents were forced to hold another meeting, and the Utah Reporter attacked the Brighamites for their usurpation and their election success in polling 2,000 votes to only 300 for the Independents. A few women did cast ballots, the first one to do so being Miss Seraph Young, a granddaughter of Brigham. 35 The Keepapitchinin was so

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amused by the whole spectacle that it published a four-stanza take-off on the "Charge of the Light Brigade." The first verse read: Half a block, half a block, Half a block crowded, All in an awful sweat Onward they blunder'd.

Earnest to vote all tried, "Early and often," cried; Into the polls they dived, Noble three hundred. 38

Founding the Liberal Party The political action now shifted to Corinne where Dennis Toohy took the lead on May 31, 1870, by issuing an invitation for all Gentiles to meet in convention on July 4 for the purpose of nominating a candidate to run for the office of territorial delegate. Toohy declared that Corinne was the appropriate setting for such a meeting of loyal citizens. He outlined the program of events for the day which would be topped off by a fat man's race. To complete the Corinne arrangements, the editor, on June 17, announced J. H. Beadle as the Gentile nominee for delegate to Congress.37 Despite enthusiastic efforts to drum up support from Salt Lake City and elsewhere, the July 4 meeting turned out to be a Corinne affair. The theme was predominantly anti-Mormon and especially opposed to any compromise on the question of polygamy. Estimating that there were approximately 3,500 Gentiles in Utah, with 1,000 at Corinne, 600 scattered along the Pacific railroad at smaller stations, and 500 in Salt Lake City, Toohy editorialized that there were probably only 1,500 legal voters on the Mormon side. He based his estimate on the 15,068 votes cast for William H. Hooper in the previous delegate contest and listed as illegal Mormon voters those under age, proxy voters, illegally naturalized Mormons, those disqualified by the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, all double voters, and those casting false ballots. He reasoned that the Gentiles, with the help of the Godbeites, might have a chance to overturn Mormon control if all illegal voters were barred from the polls.3S Although hoping for Godbeite support because the apostates were willing to allow others an honest difference of opinion and because

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they did not aim at despotism as did the Brighamites,39 the Corinnethians destroyed a possible opportunity for a united front by attacking Godbe and Harrison as former Saints who insisted on retaining the practice of polygamy. Toohy declared that all polygamists were traitors to the nation, a condemnation that certainly included those Godbeite leaders still practicing the doctrine of the plurality of wives. The July 4 convention at Corinne was contemptuously dismissed by the Salt Lake Herald which wrote that the proceedings "broke up in a general row."

The Reporter later substantiated the report of the Herald by bitterly attacking the Salt Lake City delegation to the July 4 meeting for trying to take over the meeting that then ended in a "drama of disintegration." "° The Salt Lake City Gentiles, on June 24, 1870, had already called for a second convention to be held on July 16 at Corinne, a move Toohy and other Corinnethians denounced as unauthorized because the two leaders of the capital city faction, J. M. Orr and S. Kahn, had no political authority in Utah. Toohy also disputed the allocation of delegates from the various counties.41 It seems clear that because of the growing split in Gentile ranks, the Salt Lake sponsors decided to hold the second convention at Corinne in an attempt to heal the breach between the two groups. Later, the people of Corinne were further mollified by being granted fifteen votes instead of the ten allotted them in the original call.42 It is possible that the adoption of the name, the Liberal party, was also a move to placate the northern Gentiles. Beadle had referred to a possible "liberal party here" as early as April 1869 while Toohy nearly always spoke of the Gentile political movement as a "liberality" or a "Liberal" convention.43 The platform adopted by the meeting included a strong denunciation of polygamy as well as the expected condemnation of a theocratic union of church and state, a statement of reverence for the Constitution, and an appeal for the development of the mineral resources of the territory. Gen. Patrick E. Connor, elected temporary chairman, nominated Gen. George R. Maxwell, register of the Utah land office, as the nominee for delegate to Congress.44 The convention failed to bring together the northern and southern wings of the new Liberal party because the antipolygamy plank drove the Godbeites away, and the selection of Maxwell displeased the Corinnethians. The following day the Reporter solidified the split by

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announcing that two conventions had been held: the radical Gentile convention, devoted to the abolition of polygamy, no compromise with either Mormonism or its apostates, and support of Beadle for delegate; and the liberal or compromise convention that had chosen Maxwell.

The Reporter was careful to praise the general as the " 'bravest of the brave,' as his shattered person bears ample proof" and reserved its censure for the Salt Lake rivals who were contesting control of the party. Beadle was out of the territory and unable to react to the embarrassing situation of being one of two candidates for delegate nominated by the same party. In addition to the rivalry between Corinne and Salt Lake City and the division over the polygamy issue, there was also the difficulty of fusing long-time Democrats and Republicans into a workable team under the aegis of an entirely new political organization. E. L. T. Harrison used the new Salt Lake Tribune to explain why the Godbeites were opposed to the platform adopted when he wrote that "rushing to Congress to tear down a falling house" was the wrong tactic. He thought the Mormon theocracy would eventually disintegrate as a result of its own weaknesses.45 The Godbeite polygamists were caught between loyalty to their families and the desire to break Brigham Young's economic and political hold over their lives.

During the month of July the leaders of Corinne busily engaged in politicking. First, a Liberal county convention was called for July 20 at which the general platform of the Liberal party was reaffirmed and a slate of candidates chosen to run for county and territorial offices, including Toohy for representative. The Reporter was pleased with the work of the meeting, calling it one of the most distinguished conventions ever held in Utah. Second, as the result of calls that Beadle withdraw in favor of Maxwell as the nominee for delegate and because Beadle had insisted that he would be the candidate of a united party only, he withdrew from the race on July 29. Finally, to whip up enthusiasm and to get out the vote, Corinne held a mass meeting on July 30 to listen to O. J. Hollister, General Maxwell, and four other speakers hold forth for three hours, at the end of which there were shouts for even more speechifying. While Hollister emphasized that the Pacific railroad and the surge of Gentile newcomers had subjected Utah to an "electric shock," Maxwell acknowledged that he was leading a hopeless cause against an entrenched church "or, as

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many claim, [against] God Himself." 4G And Brigham Young agreed with his opponent, writing to his brother Joseph that Mormonism's enemies were losing strength from their foolishness and evil designs.47 The first contested election in Utah Territory created much excitement in both camps. The Deseret News contrasted the quiet and dignified approach of the People's party in choosing candidates with the "bummers, speculators and political adventurers" who sought office under the banner of the Liberal party. The Saints' party made strenuous efforts to ensure that their women voters turned out at the polls by providing carriages to the polling places and separate entrances to the booths. The results were gratifying to the Mormon leaders, as about one-third of the votes cast in Salt Lake City for Delegate William Hooper came from the newly commissioned voters.

On the other hand, at Corinne, the Reporter rejoiced that no ladies approached the local polls in recognition that the law establishing woman suffrage for Utah was faulty.48 The returns indicated an overwhelming victory for the People's candidates. In Salt Lake County less than 4 percent of the ballots were cast for Liberal nominees because the Mormon probate judges refused to locate polling places at convenient spots for the Gentile miners, many being as far as fifty miles away; 49 non-Mormon merchants were warned by the Salt Lake Herald that supporting the Liberal ticket would not make them any friends; and a number of young Mormons were afraid to vote Liberal because the marked ballots would reveal their identities and subject them to harsh discipline or excommunication by their church. The Deseret News crowed that "after all their fuss, feathers and braying the poor creatures' efforts ended in a miserable fizzle." 50 Corinne's showing was much better for the Liberal party with 860 votes for Maxwell and not a single vote for William Hooper, the Mormon candidate. The Reporter expressed satisfaction that it had refused to solicit any Mormon apostate votes, an effort that would not have been effective anyway.51 But Brigham Young had even greater reason to be pleased as Mormon women went to the polls in great numbers to exercise their "first opportunity . . . of proving their faith by their works in political matters. . . . But now â&#x20AC;˘ . . the ladies have come forth in force and voted for the only man [Hooper] who raised his voice in the Halls of Congress in defense of a plurality of wives. . . ." 52

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In the aftermath of the election, a newspaper controversy developed over the large number of votes cast in Corinne, the Salt Lake Herald being especially indignant: Corinne, as told, has a population of less than a thousand. . . . Men who deal in taxes say it has about two hundred and twenty-five tax-payers. . . . What we want to know is, How this population and these tax-payers polled 837 votes? And why Wasatch with about a hundred of a population could only poll 180 votes? There must have been something radically wrong about Wasatch! They may have voted early, but they evidently didn't vote much oftener than twice each. . . . Everybody . . . looked for some pretty tall ballot-box stuffing, but these figures indicate a plethoric result, which must astonish even the ones engaged in it. . . . Mighty poor pay !53 The following day the Herald noted, "It's so handy to have a railroad running between precincts during election times; say between Ogden and Corinne!" The newspaper informed its readers that some of the residents of Corinne were frankly admitting that frauds were perpetrated there on election day,54 and a citizen wrote the Deseret News confirming the charges. The correspondent said that a former editor of the paper published on the banks of the Bear had related how railroad hands from along the track, men getting out timber from the mountains, teamsters from Idaho and Montana, miners from Snake River, and all the passengers on the trains who could be so induced, voted the Gentile ticket. The writer concluded that the fraudulent voters expected absolution for their wickedness, having contributed some $8,000 to the various non-Mormon churches in Corinne. A final charge came late in December from an eastern journal that inquired how 866 votes could be cast for the delegate to Congress when there were only 700 inhabitants in the whole town. The Reporter answered that Corinnethians knew how to mind their own business while, apparently, the easterners did not. The editor ended by informing the impudent eastern journalist that if he really wanted to know the voting practices used in Corinne "a limited consideration in coin or 'tankable dust' may induce us to divulge the secret of the system." 55 Despite these minor recriminations and the Mormon electoral victory, the 1870 election year had been an exciting one for Corinne and had thrust it into a leadership position by helping to organize the Liberal party and by rallying Utah Gentiles to challenge the prophet at the polls.

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View of Corinne, ca. 1870, showing line-up of wagons and the storefronts of such important merchants as the Auerbach brothers.

Utah State Historical Society collections.

Liberal vs. People's Party The developing conflict between the Godbeite wing of the Liberal party, supported by the Salt Lake Tribune, and the Corinne faction, vociferously championed by Dennis Toohy of the Corinne Reporter, represented two widely divergent views about what strategy would best succeed in winning political control of the territory. The Tribune announced its stand to sustain the traditional governmental institutions of the United States, to oppose any religious interference in legislative and civil matters, and to work for a secret ballot by abolishing numbered tickets. A very careful silence was maintained about the practice of polygamy.50 The Gentiles of Corinne, on the other hand, rejected the support of apostate Mormons, appealed to all dissatisfied Saints to help in the reformation of Utah, and vehemently attacked the doctrine of polygamy.57 Which was the more realistic approach to a solution of the so-called Mormon problem in 1871 is subject to conjecture, although history certainly records that Utah did not attain statehood nor begin to join the mainstream of American life until a

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series of punitive legislative measures by the federal government forced a renunciation of polygamy and with that the disappearance of overt Mormon control over the civil and political affairs of Utah.

The party war of 1871 started with the announcement of a meeting of the territorial central committee of the Liberal party to be held in Salt Lake City on May 20. Corinne was represented by E. P. Johnson and Col. W. M. Johns with the latter being chosen as chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of Utah. After this obvious move to win the support of the Corinne adherents, the meeting recommended that all former political affiliations in the Democratic and Republican parties be forgotten as one and all joined in the fight against the Utah oligarchy.5'" The central committee outlined a platform concerned with economic conditions, rights of the individual, the abolition of church control, and opposition to the priesthood espionage system of voter control. Any mention of polygamy was carefully eliminated, a very different approach from the platform of the previous year. Both the Tribune and the newly launched Corinne Journal exuded optimism over the conciliatory tone of the meeting, the Journal noting, "Liberalism is catching." 59 But the recalcitrant Reporter would have none of this flirting with the devil incarnate, polygamy, nor any Godbeites who paid homage at the satanic throne. The Tribune did its best to placate the incorrigible Toohy by writing of his Fourth of July speech in the capital city, "Our friend Judge Toohy . . . was as brilliant as a comet in his address . . ." However, the Corinne editor destroyed any attempt to resolve Liberal party differences with a stinging editorial published July 7. Judge Toohy would brook no compromise, saying of the party that it could not keep silent while a single member upheld the barbarous practice of polygamy. To those who believed in the "practice of systematized harlotry" and who pled "delicacy of domestic relations in order to avoid an honest repudiation of wrong," he advised an immediate cessation of the practice of plurality of wives if such men (Godbeites) wished to remain in the Liberal party. He thought that the party should take heed that there was not a beam in its own eye.

Only by a straightforward, out-and-out rejection of polygamy would the party succeed.00 The disagreement came to a head at a ratification meeting held in Salt Lake City on July 22 to approve the Liberal platform and

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ticket. Party supporters, some liberal Mormons, and prominent federal officials of the territory, including Gov. George L. Woods, crowded into the Liberal Institute to hear speeches of optimism and unity. 01 Unity? After a nice little nonpartisan speech by the governor, Gen. George R. Maxwell, in a few moments of rhetoric, undid several months of careful work by the moderates of the party. Maxwell proceeded with a recital of the platform of 1870, adding that not only should the Liberal party oppose polygamy but that the leaders of the church that practiced the doctrine should be brought to punishment before the federal authorities interfered with "their dupes." °2 Maxwell wholeheartedly believed that a non-Mormon political party had no chance of success until the government intervened by adopting severe measures to destroy polygamy and, in the process, to demolish the theocracy headed by Brigham Young. With important federal officials a captive audience on the stand with him, it was an opportunity he could not forgo.

With a launching platform readied by Maxwell, Judge Toohy, as the next speaker, soared off in a flight of such extravagant multiloquence that even he was astounded at his own verbosity, although in reporting his own speech later he modestly noted only that he had made a few remarks at the request of some friends. The few remarks included such barbed expressions as sensuality, crime, immorality, licentious horde, and trickery â&#x20AC;&#x201D; any one of which would have alienated the Godbeite liberals. Tullidge later thought that although the Maxwell "thunderbolt" would have caused some problems, it was the Toohy speech that "splintered the brittle Liberal coalition." 0i The reaction from all sides was immediate. The Salt Lake Herald felt sorry for Governor Woods who was forced to sit through the harangue, perceptibly ill at ease as he listened to the "odorous specimen from up country" and his "vile and insulting language." The Herald also disapproved of that part of Toohy's speech praising the Catholic church, and the editor commended Edward Tullidge who later arose to say he could not see any difference between the pope and Brigham Young. Finally, the Herald dismissed Toohy as the "howling Corinthian" whose talk was "all bosh and buncomb." ';l Dennis J. Toohy, as editor of the Reporter, was staunch in his defense of Toohy, the orator, and denounced the treachery of the Godbeite leaders.

Although apologizing for the rough way Toohy had manhandled his

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opponents, the Corinne Journal supported the attack on polygamy and the Godbeites. The Journal chided the Salt Lake Tribune for finally showing its true colors in refusing to accept an antipolygamy stance for the party and in defending Godbe and the other much-married leaders of the moderate group: "It is a bad egg and won't hatch our style of chicken." 05 The Tribune fought back with an editorial titled, "Our Style of Chicken," asking if the Journal wished to see "family relations . . broken up" and attacking the brainless demagogues whose only object was to obtain positions of power and financial advantage for themselves. It is interesting, in light of the history of slavery in the United States, that the Tribune argued that the Godbeites were opposed only to the spread of polygamy and not to those who already practiced it. The Tribune also opined that the Journal was merely trying to advertise its position so as to gain a readership when it completed its move to Salt Lake City after only a few months' residence at Corinne. 00 To make more emphatic their stand against polygamy and the Godbeites, the Gentiles of Corinne at their Box Elder County Convention of August 1, 1871, resolved that recent experience had only strengthened their determination to oppose the practice of plural marriage. They labeled the devotees of the New Movement as "moral lepers" who would be forever exiled from the Liberal and all other legitimate parties. And when the Tribune began to ridicule its former ally, the Reporter, by poking fun at Toohy's penchant for mixed metaphors, the Corinnethian responded that the Mormon church papers no longer held a "monopoly of hate for the Gentiles of Utah."GT As for Godbe, he was compared to the horse thief who, after stealing all the stock he wanted, began to preach honesty to his neighbors without, of course, surrendering any of his purloined property.GS The August territorial election returns did show a Liberal party gain of about 2 percent over the figures for 1870, although the 22,459 People's party votes as against 1,750 ballots for the Liberal ticket did not reveal any significant change in political control. Corinne cast votes only for county officers, with 80 ballots being counted, a number that caused the Salt Lake Herald to wonder what had happened to "Falstaff's ragged regiment" of train passengers and others who had contributed 800 votes the year before. The Herald was impressed with the potential for the development of Corinne if it continued to grow

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at the rate indicated by its balloting.09 The Reporter merely editorialized with an "I told you so" comment that if the Liberal party should ever again ally itself with the Godbeite reformation, the Gentile party would lose once more.70 Eastern newspapers tended to support the stand taken by the Corinnethians and to oppose the Godbeite espousal of polygamy within the tenets of the Liberal party. The New York Tribune correspondent wrote that the New Movement leaders had betrayed the anti-Mormon cause and had gone over to the enemy. And when one Godbeite, Henry W. Lawrence, was arrested in October 1871 for lascivious cohabitation, the eastern Tribune applauded the action. 71 A New York Herald reporter who had the good fortune to interview W. S. Godbe while the latter was in New York City on a business trip came away feeling that if Congress would leave the question of polygamy alone, the practice would eventually die out because the younger Mormons would not have anything to do with it. But the New York newspaper would not give up the titillation of speculating about what would become of the exwives of Utah polygamists after the courts freed them, a possibility that seemed imminent. In one editorial the newspaper suggested that the miner in Utah had better beware lest "some desperate Mormon widow with six children" should capture him. Not only would the prospectors need protection but also the freed Mormon elders who might have to undergo a "refinement of cruelty" in having to pay alimony to sixteen wives. The editor's solution to all of these highly controversial and ludicrous possibilities was to let the women of Utah vote on the subject.72 The question of woman suffrage was a recurrent theme in the Gentile papers of Utah during 1871, with condemnations of the practice by the Corinne Reporter but praise by the same paper for the discourse Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave to the interested citizens of Corinne in July. The Corinne Journal seized on the occasion to challenge the opinion of Mrs. Stanton and other suffrage leaders at the meeting that the granting of the ballot to Utah women was "the first gun on Sumter" to polygamy. Instead of introducing a moral element into politics, the Journal noted, all that equal voting rights had done for Utah was to allow Mormon women to uphold polygamy, the most cruel form of female slavery. And when hundreds of Saintesses dispatched a fifty-foot long remonstrance to President Grant in October

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seeking to stop any interference with the institution of plural marriage, Judge Toohy could only agree with his contemporary that Gentile men were completely frustrated in dealing with the question of votes for women in Mormon Utah. 72 The Reporter continued its attacks on female suffrage and ridiculed another feminist who held a meeting in Corinne in January 1872: Miss Emma Garrison, a strong-minded female of the Woodhull-Claflin stripe, with a peaked nose, blue stockings, and on the shady side of forty, lectured last evening in the Josephite Hall.

Subject, Woman — her work and mission — does it interfere with that of man's? The audience rather thought it did. A collection, after the lecture, netted thirty-five cents in mutilated currency.74 Two months later, editor Toohy was objecting to the proposed state constitution and its provision for female suffrage when even the men of the area were not intelligent enough to exercise the privilege.75 As the municipal election approached, Toohy spoke directly to the women voters of his town: Female Suffrage. — This modern political heresy is said to have many adherents in Corinne, who would under the influence of an unnatural excitement attempt to exercise the privilege in the election of next Thursday. We trust the good and lovely women of our city will never be inconsiderate enough to forget that for them the arena of politics, instead of adding charms, can only result in a coarseness (if nothing worse) of their sex.

Ladies, keep away from the polls, for neither your husbands, brothers or other friends believe it to be right or proper that you should unsex yourselves like the female slaves of Mormonism, for whom the illegal and indecent practice was established. Remain at home, queens regnant of your own peaceful dominion, and the ballot box will take care of itself without the sacrifice of woman's dignity — the grandeur and the glory of Christian society.70 As in many other ways, the Salt Lake Tribune differed with its northern contemporary and, in the next territorial election, advised Gentile women to vote and to line up with the men at polling places, noting that the Mormon custom of arranging separate entrances for the ladies was illegal.7.

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Republicans and Democrats in Utah To counter the growing threat of political competition by nonMormons in Utah, the Saints now proposed to divide and conquer the Gentile partisans by introducing the national parties into the territory.

The reasons were obvious: to win support in the nation's capital for statehood and to widen even further the developing split between the radicals of Corinne and the moderates of Salt Lake City. Leading Mormons at Salt Lake, therefore, issued calls on March 15, 1872, for a convention to organize a Republican party and on April 3, 1872, to organize a Democratic party for Utah. 78 The Reporter reacted immediately, accusing the organizers of a "hereditary weakness â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a total want of intellect in the heads" and calling upon all nonMormons to join in the one Liberal party struggle against the backwardness of the Utah Saints.79 The Salt Lakers went ahead with what the Reporter called the Mormon Republican Convention held on April 5, 1872, in the Salt Lake City Hall and chose two delegates to the National Republican Convention to be convened at Philadelphia.""

Meanwhile, the Utah Gentiles planned to wreck the Mormon strategy by holding a Territorial National Union Republican Convention at Corinne on May 16, 1872, to choose a rival delegation for the Philadelphia meeting, believing that the national party would not seat the "tabernacle selections" but would accept the Gentile delegates. The Salt Lake Herald was indignant at carpetbaggers such as George L. Woods, governor of Utah and an appointee of President Grant, and Dennis J. Toohy, interested mostly in retaining the government advertising, participating at Corinne." 1 The meeting was called to order by General Maxwell who paid deference to his hosts by suggesting that Maj. William Hyndman of Box Elder County be the presiding officer. The eighty-four members named O. J. Hollister of Box Elder County and A. S. Gould of Salt Lake County as their choice to travel to Philadelphia, with Dennis J. Toohy and A. G. Sawyer as alternates. The delegates were instructed to vote "first, last and all the time" for Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax for president and vicepresident. They were also charged to remind the national convention that the Republican party of 1860 had denounced polygamy as the twin relic of barbarism and to ask that the party go on record as determined to extirpate this "social and political evil of the age." In

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the evening a ratification celebration was held at the Corinne Opera House, replete with patriotic music, bonfires along the streets, and speeches by Gould, Toohy, and Maxwell, the latter giving the principal oration of the occasion. The general attacked the "Jack Mormons," those Gentiles who hoped for financial reward in return for their support of Mormon policy, and praised President Grant who was insisting that he did not want mere figureheads for federal officials in Utah but wanted the law enforced.82 When the rival delegates reached Philadelphia the national convention was forced to choose between them and to recognize that the twin relic still existed as an irritant to the body politic of America. The Salt Lake Herald put the matter bluntly â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if the Mormon delegation was seated, all the Saints and Utah Territory would be won over to the Republican party. If not, the Mormons would return to a support of their own People's party. 83 The Salt Lake delegates argued that they should be recognized because their convention had been called first, but the Corinne representatives were able to present a circular signed by the federal officials of Utah attesting to their legal qualifications, certified copies of the call for the meeting at Corinne, and copies of the Corinne Reporter recording the election of delegates to the May 16 convention. Also, Hollister and Gould presented their claim in writing, concluding that they did not see how the national party could recognize polygamy by seating the two Mormon delegates without, at the same time, approving the disloyalty and near rebellion of the Saints and offending the sense of decency of the entire nation.

Hollister and Gould were seated by a vote of 43 to 2. The Reporter exulted on how the "Utah Church Delegates were throttled." Si A series of meetings to organize a Democratic party for Utah were held on April 8 and May 21 in Salt Lake City, with the Territorial Democratic Convention finally scheduled for June 15, 1872.

Two delegations from Corinne attended, eleven men with credentials certified by telegraph and five others having regular letters of credentials. All sixteen were eventually allowed to participate. Mormon leader George Q. Cannon was selected as the delegate to represent Utah Democrats at the national convention to be held at Baltimore on July 9, 1872. 8 ' There is no indication of how the Corinne delegates felt about the election of Cannon. One can only surmise that they were probably somewhat dismayed.

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Most Corinnethians were committed to support of the Grant ticket, anyway, and expected that the reelection of the hero of Appomattox would constitute their best hope of destroying Mormon theocracy. As for the Mormons, not many rallied to the cause of trying to establish the Republican and Democratic parties in Utah. They were much too accustomed to a system directed by church leaders. George Q. Cannon later referred to his initial plunge into politics as his "first political mission," indicating that he looked upon officeholding as a religious call.80 The Democratic convention was apparently perceived as a de facto territorial convention for the People's party because Cannon became the Mormon candidate for delegate. Brigham Young merely sent a letter to all the bishops and stake presidents in the church directing that Cannon be elected and that the Mormon people use every effort to obtain a unanimous vote with not a single ballot cast for non-Mormon candidates. 8 '

Decline of Corinne's Liberal Party Despite participation in the Republican and Democratic conventions, Utah Gentiles still considered the Liberal party to be their main vehicle for gaining political advantage in Utah. The Corinnethians met on July 20 to select delegates to the Territorial Liberal Convention scheduled to be held at Corinne on July 25, 1872, and the Reporter called for a decisive campaign to overthrow the "tabernacle" ring. The Salt Lake Herald called the Salt Lake representatives "Mormon-eaters." ss Of the seventy-seven delegates authorized to attend the territorial meeting, only nineteen showed up, most of them from Salt Lake County. When the platform committee proposed changing the name of the party to the Union party, all was serene until a Salt Lake man objected and wanted the word Liberal retained in the title. Thereupon, many of the Box Elder delegation arose and threatened to leave the meeting. The motion was reconsidered, and the Union party designation was retained, "whereat the remaining delegates joined hands across the bloody chasm and all went merry as a marriage bell from that point." George R. Maxwell was again chosen as the delegate nominee and the antipolygamy plank of 1870 was readopted. 89 Maxwell was evidently the only individual around whom the divergent

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Gentile elements could rally. As the Utah Mining Journal said, "In these times when honest politicians are scarce as angel visits," the Mormon opponents were called upon to unite and try to elect him to the position of delegate.90 The campaign was limited to the race for delegate with the expected slurs on Cannon as a "pagan priest" and similar diatribes directed against the Liberals as "a drunken, rowdy, fighting, womanelbowing crowd." 91 Cannon received 20,970 votes and Maxwell 1,942 or 8.5 percent of the total. Box Elder County cast 100 ballots for Maxwell out of a total of 1,461, the very small number rather indicative of the sliding interest of Liberals throughout Utah in any real possibility of gaining control of territorial politics. Maxwell announced his determination to contest the seating of Cannon, and the Reporter attacked the governor for having certified the election to the Mormon elder.92 In a final and impromptu meeting of about one thousand Liberals in front of the Walker House in Salt Lake City during October, several speakers lauded President Grant while Toohy was praised for one of his vehement speeches, "perforating the Mormon priesthood with hundreds of logical bullets, and leaving the vast humbug as riddled as an old tin sieve." 93 The judge and his rhetoric were about the only political assets left to the Corinnethians after nearly four years of battle in the Liberal trenches. In July 1873 Corinne lost Dennis J. Toohy, who sold out his interest in the Reporter and moved to Salt Lake City where he finally accepted the position of U.S. commissioner for Utah and dreamed of starting another newspaper, the Salt Lake Times.0* The Liberals were so badly disorganized and disconsolate by 1873 that no Gentile opposition appeared at all during the year. The Salt Lake Tribune complained of being caught in a crossfire between the church journals and the radical press, the latter being mainly represented by the Corinne Reporter. The Tribune considered the radical wing of the Liberal party to consist of "carpet-baggers in search of government pap" and army followers waiting for the spoils.95 During 1874 the Independent-Liberal party of Box Elder County met and elected delegates to the territorial convention to be held in the Salt Lake City Liberal Institute on July 20. Robert N. Baskin, candidate for delegate, received 4,518 votes, or 16.3 percent of the ballots

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cast, a surprising showing. Of that number, only 287 votes came from Box Elder County. A Salt Lake Herald correspondent from Corinne complained of the refusal of Box Elder authorities to establish election precincts at Terrace and other Gentile towns, forcing Liberal voters to travel long distances to the polls.90 A more serious case concerned the Mormon bishop at Franklin, Idaho, who in October 1874 stated in one of the church meetings that he would cut off all members who joined the Liberal party. The Corinne Mail recited the story of Alex Stalker who joined the Liberal party and was called to account by the bishop for trading with outsiders, boarding outsiders at his hotel, and joining the Liberals. In his defense, Stalker said that as the keeper of a public lodging house he was obliged to deal with non-Mormons and, as for his membership in the Liberal party, he looked upon any interference with his right of political preference as being contrary to the principles of American democracy. When the bishop's court asked him to confess his wrongs, he replied, "You can cut me off and be damned." The bishop gave him until the next Sunday to confess, whereupon he asked that he be excommunicated at once because "I will go to hell before I will go back on my friends." At the expiration of the allotted time, the bishop informed Stalker that the church authorities, under the direction of Brigham Young, Jr., had decided to drop the matter. The Daily Mail thought it possible that other Mormons might be excommunicated for supporting the Liberal party but, at the same time, wondered how the church could take such action after backing down in the Stalker case.97 The incident served only to fortify the resolve of the Liberal party leaders of Salt Lake City. Corinne by this time had lost its former position in the party and served only as backwater support. In fact, in the 1875 election Box Elder County was not even listed as having cast any ballots for the Liberal candidates. 98 A resurgence of activity came with 1876 when a district meeting was held at Corinne which cast 239 of the 263 Box Elder County votes for the Liberal candidate, R. N. Baskin. The total did not live up to the boast of the Salt Lake Tribune that it would "nearly equal" the Mormon vote in the county. Corinnethians could have agreed with Shakespeare that "the evil that men do lives after them" because the Salt Lake Herald hearkened back to the early fraudulent vote of Corinne in 1870 by noting, "Knowing ones estimate Corinne's vote

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next Tuesday at double the number of inhabitants of the town including Chinese wash houses, telegraph poles and beef cattle." 99 In 1878 the Liberal vote in Box Elder County slipped to 121 ballots cast at Corinne, Terrace, and Kelton.100 Corinne by then was very rapidly shifting to a population more friendly to the People's party and less inimical to Mormon control.

The efforts of Corinne in lobbying for the Cullom bill and in laboring for a Liberal party to challenge Mormon control in Utah had won national attention and had wrung recognition from Brigham Young and his colleagues that a real threat to church dominance of Utah existed in the Gentile town on Bear River. The coalition of the Corinnethians and the Godbeite adherents of Salt Lake City represented the first real challenge to the prophet's power over territorial politics and, combined with the influence of President Grant and his federal appointees, began to worry and harass the Saints in Utah.

Despite overwhelming victories at the polls, the Mormon leaders were never sure that unexpected federal legislation might not tip the balance by declaring thousands of immigrant Mormons to be ineligible to vote.

Passage of the act granting the suffrage to Mormon women was a hedge against just such an occurrence and understandably aroused the ire of the citizens of Corinne. The temporary salvation of the political dilemma facing the Mormon hierarchy came when the adamant position of Corinne in opposition to polygamy and Corinne's rivalry with Salt Lake City and the Godbeites split the Liberal party into two camps and resulted in an unquiet and uncertain combination of antiMormon protest. Corinne tended more and more to look hopefully to Washington for help in the destruction of the twin relic and the theocracy of the Great Basin Saints.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 4 i Andrew Love Neff, History of Utah, 1847 to 1869 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1940), p. 866; Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 356.

2 U.S., Congress, House, Execution of the Laws in Utah, p. 11, House Report no. 21, parts 1-3, Serial no. 1436, 41st Cong., 2d sess., 1870.

3 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 357; Idaho Statesman, 27 January 1870. * Utah Reporter, 11 January 1870.

5 Utah Reporter, 22, 24 February 1870.

G Execution of the Laws in Utah, pp. 7-15. " Utah Reporter, 24 February, 2 April 1870. s New York Tribune, 23 April 1870.

9 Utah Reporter, 27 January, 8 February, 21 April 1870; Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 20, 21 April 1870, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

10 New York Tribune, 24 March 1870.

11 Keepapitchinin, 15 March 1870.

12 Deseret News, 13 April 1870; Utah Reporter, 27 January, 1 February 1870.

13 Brigham Young to W. H. Hooper, 11 January 1870, Brigham Young Letter Books, microfilm, reel 17, 951, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. " Utah Reporter, 28 April; 2, 7 J u n e ; 8 July 1870. â&#x201E;˘New York Tribune, 24 March 1870; New York Herald, 24 March 1870; Sacramento Union, 5 February 1870; Springfield Republican as quoted in Utah Reporter, 5 February 1870.

1G Deseret News, 6 April 1870.

17 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 245â&#x20AC;&#x201D;46; Leonard J. Arrington. From Quaker to Latter-day Saint: Bishop Edwin D. Woolley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), pp. 426-44; see especially Ronald W. Walker, "The Godbeite Protest in the Making of Modern U t a h " (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1977). is New York Herald, 30 October 1869.

19 William Clayton to Brother Jesse, 28 November 1869; to Brother Marion, 12 December 1869; to Brother Jesse, 27 October 1869; to W. W. duff, 11 September 1869; to Brother Jesse, 6 November 1869; to W. W. Cluff, 11 September 1869, William Clayton Letter Books, vol. 4, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

20 New York Herald, 10 December 1869; 11, 14 January; 7 February 1870.

21 Utah Reporter, 1 February 1870.

22 Keepapitchinin, 15 June 1870.

23 Cincinnati Commercial, 29 April 1869.

24 Utah Reporter, 19 February 1870.

25 Cincinnati Commercial, 29 April 1869.

20 William H. Shearman, "Tendencies of Our System to Despotism," Utah Magazine, 18 December 1869, pp. 523-24, as quoted in Helen M. Cortez, "The Rise of the Liberal Party in U t a h " (A.B., University of California, 1921), p. 28.

27 Utah Reporter, 16 October 1869; Ronald C. Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics: 1847-1876" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), p. 116.

28 Utah Reporter, 16, 27 October 1869.

20 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 125, 131.

30 But the Ogden Junction, 9 February 1870, pointed out, " . . man must be at the head; he must lead, govern and execute, or the same confusion . . . will vex the whole community as creates distress and misery in families which are bound by the hoops of petticoat government."

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31

Ogden Junction, 2 February 1870.

Alan P. Grimes, The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage (New York: Oxford, 1967), p. 24, as quoted in Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 131.

33 Sacramento Union, 8 February 1870; Utah Reporter, 17 February, 3 March, 28 May 1870.

34 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 137-39; Sacramento Union, 16 February 1870. ™ Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 139-42; Utah Reporter, 15, 17 February 1870; Deseret News, 15 February 1870.

30 Keepapitchinin, 1 March 1870.

37 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 149; Utah Reporter, 31 May; 3, 17 June 1870.

38 Utah Reporter, 1 February 1870; Jack, " U t a h Territorial Politics," pp.

150-52.

39 Utah Reporter, 26 April 1870. Editor Toohy in the issue of 1 February 1870 hoped the Godbeites might destroy the Mormon theocracy and told of "an old Texan who had been in every Indian and Mexican war . . . . scalped and left for dead; . . . shot three times; . . . kicked almost to death by a mule; . . . fought a number of duels, . . . freckled with small shot and pock-marked with bullet holes. And when long past middle age . . . a little red ant run up his breeches leg and stung him in a tender gland which mortified him and caused his death! Thus (somewhat) with Brigham. Thus (perhaps) with Godbe."

40 Utah Reporter, 1 February, 29 June 1870; Salt Lake Herald, 7 July 1870; Utah Reporter, 16 July 1870.

41 Utah Reporter, 26 June, 19 July 1870; Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 157.

42 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 158-59.

43 Cincinnati Commercial, 29 April 1869; Utah Reporter, 26 June 1870.

44 Edward W. Tullidge, Tullidge's Histories . . . , 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1889), 2:311.

45 Utah Reporter, 17 July 1870; Corinne Journal, 16 June 1871; Tullidge, Tullidge's Histories, 2:313-14.

40 Utah Reporter, 21, 22, 27, 29 July; 1 August; 5 September 1870.

47 Brigham Young to Joseph Young, Sen., 30 July 1870, BY Letter Books, reel 18,263. ^Deseret News, 21 July 1870; Salt Lake Herald, 31 July, 2 August 1870; Utah Reporter, 2 August 1870.

49 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 189-90; Robert Joseph Dwyer, The Gentile Comes to Utah: A Study in Religious and Social Conflict, 1862-1890 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1941), p. 63. In Bingham Canyon the miners set up their own polling place only to discover that half their votes were ruled out anyway. See Utah Reporter, 11 August 1870. ™ Salt Lake Herald, 29 July 1870; Robert N. Baskin, Reminiscences of Early Utah (Salt Lake City: Author, 1914), p. 7 3 ; Deseret News, 2 August 1870. si Utah Reporter, 2, 10 August 1870.

•>- Brigham Young to Horace S. Eldredge, 4 August 1870, BY Letter Books, reel 18,275.

•'3 Salt Lake Herald, 3 August 1870.

54 Salt Lake Herald, 4, 5 August 1870.

•>•> Ogden Junction, 6 August 1870; Utah Reporter, 13 December 1870. r -o Salt Lake Tribune, 15, 30 April 1871. r7 ' Corinne Reporter, 23 January, 2 May 1871.

•™ Corinne Reporter, 22, 27 May 1871; Corinne Journal, 23 May 1871; Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 205-6.

•"'"Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 207-10; Corinne Reporter, 17 June 1871; Corinne Journal, 16 June 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 13 June 1871.

32

120

Corinne

00

Corinne Reporter, 7 July 1871. oi Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 216-20.

62 Salt Lake Herald, 23 July 1871; Edward W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City and Its Founders (Salt Lake City, 1886), pp. 506-7. is Corinne Reporter, 29 July 1871; Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City, p. 507. °4 Salt Lake Herald, 25 July 1871.

05 Corinne Reporter, 29 July 1871; Corinne Journal, 28, 31 July 1871. oo Salt Lake Tribune, 29 July, 2 August 1871.

87 Corinne Reporter, 2 August 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 3 August 1871.

68 Corinne Reporter, 5 August 1871.

09 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 242; Salt Lake Herald, 6, 8, 9, 11 August 1871.

70 Corinne Reporter, 9 August 1871.

71 New York Tribune, 19 September, 9 October 1871.

72 New York Herald, 6 October 1871.

73 Corinne Reporter, 7 July, 12 August, 27 October 1871; Corinne Journal, 8 July 1871.

74 Corinne Reporter, 27 January, 4 March 1871.

75 Corinne Reporter, 4 March 1871.

76 Corinne Reporter, 5 March 1871.

77 Salt Lake Tribune, 1 August 1871.

78 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 274-75.

79 Corinne Reporter, 11 March 1872.

80 Corinne Reporter, 6 April 1872; Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp.

282-88.

81 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 289-90; Corinne Reporter, 25 April 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 7 May 1872.

82 Corinne Reporter, 16, 17 May 1872.

S3 Salt Lake Herald, 30 May 1872. s-tSalt Lake Tribune, 14 June 1872; Corinne Reporter, 7, 16 June 1872; Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 295-301. s ° Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 302-18.

86 Salt Lake Tribune, 17 January 1897.

S7 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 323-24.

88 Ibid., pp. 324-28; Corinne Reporter, 22 July 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 20 July 1872. *••> Corinne Reporter, 26 July 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 25, 26 July 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 26 July 1872; Jack, " U t a h Territorial Politics," pp. 327-31. "°Salt Lake Tribune, 26 July 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 26 July 1872.

91 Corinne Reporter, 30 July 1872; Deseret News, 2 August 1872.

92 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 3 3 6 - 4 5 ; Corinne Reporter, 19 September 1872.

93 Utah Mining Journal, 14 October 1872.

94 J. Cecil Alter, Early Utah Journalism: A Half Century of Forensic Warfare, Waged by the West's Most Militant Press (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1938), p. 5 5 ; Utah Mining Gazette, 18 July 1874.

95 Salt Lake Tribune, 13 February 1873.

90 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 409-30; Salt Lake Tribune, 29 July 1874.

07 Corinne Mail, 2 October 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 3 October 1874.

98 Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics," p. 441. " J a c k , "Utah Territorial Politics," pp. 508, 516; Salt Lake Herald, 5, 9, 10 November 1876; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 November 1876.

100 Salt Lake Herald, 14 August 1878.

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Bearding the Prophet

Grant Appointees in Utah The influx of visitors to Utah during the first six months after the completion of the transcontinental railroad brought a great number from the nation's capital, many of whom visited at Corinne as well as traveling to Salt Lake City to get a glimpse of Brigham Young and his many wives. Among these distinguished individuals was the entire Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives who just wanted to "drop in" upon Brigham Young and to inquire about the most expedient way of getting rid of polygamy. Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois stopped by and had a noted interview with the Mormon prophet during which, according to the senator, Young had said he would not obey any law forbidding polygamy.' Of even greater significance was the second visit of Vice-president Schuyler Colfax in October 1869. During his first journey to Utah in 1865 when he was Speaker of the House, Colfax had suggested that the prophet have a revelation prohibiting polygamy. The vice-president was somewhat chagrined that his proposal had not been acted upon. The influence of Colfax was paramount in determining President Grant's anti-Mormon program during the 1870s and in the appointment of federal officials for Utah Territory who would see to it that all government laws were enforced.2

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Another view of the laying of the last rail at Promontory, Utah.

The completion of the transcontinental railroad encouraged many to visit Utah.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

The Mormon people reacted strongly to the new regime of officials sent to the territory. The eastern press reported that Brigham Young intended to eject from Utah all vexatious federal officials and that Joseph A. Young, a son "of his Holiness the polygamic Pope of Utah," had said the Mormon people were hostile to all Gentiles, "interloping scalawags," Congress, and the president of the United States.3 William Clayton, in a letter to another Mormon, said of some of the new federal officials, "they are a hell of a lot." 4 Even the bitterly anti-Mormon J. H. Beadle noted that the territory began to be regarded as the "Botany Bay" of worn-out politicians, a place to be sent as a reward for political service for the incompetent and mediocre.

His paper, the Corinne Reporter, advised the Gentiles of the area to take care of themselves because they could not depend upon the federal officials who were the chief instigators of trouble between the nonMormons and the Saints. And when the commissioner of internal revenue, after a year's audit of Brigham Young's finances, found in favor of the Utah leader, the Reporter ranted against the "itching

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palms" of those government agents who resided on the banks of the Potomac.5 It was with some relief, therefore, that Utah Gentiles received announcement of the appointment of J. Wilson Shaffer, a veteran of the Civil War and a friend of Gen. John A. Rawlins, Grant's secretary of war, as the new governor of the territory, especially when he reportedly said upon receiving his appointment, "Never after me, by G d! shall it be said that Brigham Young is governor of Utah." c A month after his arrival in Utah, Governor Shaffer made a deliberate and highly publicized visit to the Gentile town of Corinne where the delighted citizens had prepared a grand welcome replete with bonfires and other embellishments. The chief executive was accompanied by Territorial Justices C. M. Hawley and O. F. Strickland, Gen. George Maxwell, and other staunch Grant supporters. The expectant throng gathered before the Uintah House. Not satisfied with the brief remarks of the governor and his companions, the townspeople finally called upon their favorite orator, Judge Dennis J. Toohy, who "delighted the crowd by a rare Hibernean and really eloquent mingling of wit, pathos, drollery and rich descriptions of our Mormon neighbors." 7 The Corinnethians, thereafter, expected great things from their Gentile governor and were not disappointed. William Clayton despondently noted in his private correspondence that the new governor was a demon of the first order who intended to cause trouble. Clayton thanked God for the governor's consumption and prayed that it would "rapidly prosper." A few months later Clayton wrote that Shaffer was back "full of hell" and was threatening to fire every territorial official chosen by the Mormon legislature.s William Clayton's prayer was answered when Shaffer died on October 31, 1870, and was succeeded by V. H. Vaughan. The Utah Reporter and eastern journals expressed regret at the passing of a governor who was so vigorous in enforcing the laws against the Mormons. The New York Tribune reported that large crowds of the Saints marched to the home of his successor, Vaughan, and indulged in "triumphant shouts" while Shaffer's body lay next door awaiting burial." The Reporter voiced fears that the endorsement of Vaughan by the Mormon newspapers was a bad omen for his administration.

The journal, nevertheless, officially welcomed the new chief executive on a short visit to Corinne but editorialized, "We want no more

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Quaker Governors . . . [who] cannot curb nor direct the evil genius that is swelling the monarch of Utah like a full blown toad." 10 During his brief term in office, J. Wilson Shaffer lived up to his irreverent boast about truly being governor of Utah by first arranging the dismissal of Justice Charles C. Wilson for too great leniency in awarding citizenship to immigrant Mormons. The Reporter explained that these "irrigators" avoided the courtrooms of Judges Strickland and Hawley to jam the chambers of Wilson to get their voting papers.

President Grant fired Wilson to ensure a loyal corps of support for Shaffer.11 While he was governor the nation witnessed a rather famous debate between the Reverend Dr. J. P. Newman of the Metropolitan Methodist Church of Washington, D.C., of which President Grant was a trustee, and Mormon Elder Orson Pratt. Utah Delegate William Hooper, in a speech in the House, had defended plural marriage as having biblical support, and Dr. Newman felt called upon to answer this defense of polygamy. His sermon and an answer prepared by the leading Mormon intellectual, Orson Pratt, appeared in the New York Herald and paved the way for a three-day debate that was finally arranged between Newman and Pratt and held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on June 12, 13, and 14, 1870. The excitement attracted national attention and a concourse of eleven thousand people on the last day of the exchange. Depending upon which newspaper one consults, a victory could be assigned to either Pratt or Newman. The Utah Reporter understandably found the "sophistry of Pratt completely dissipated," while its reporter heard "sobs and cries among the women and curses among the men," as loyal Mormons had their faith shaken.1"

Mormon and Gentile Militia The verbal skirmish over Old Testament recognition of polygamy had barely left the columns of the press before a newer and perhaps more sanguinary conflict appeared on the front pages â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a supposed threat of the Mormon militia preparing for war. Earlier in the year the eastern press had published alarming reports of the Saints' preparations for war and of the infamous Danites serving as peace officers, all because "the Mormons think their wives worth fighting for." 13 The Deseret News responded to an article in the Washington Evening Star

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reporting that the Mormons were meeting by moonlight to conduct military drills by calling the story "mere moonshine." 14 Such speculations laid the groundwork for a confrontation between Governor Shaffer and Lt. Gen. Daniel H. Wells of Utah's militia, or the Nauvoo Legion as it was called. When Wells issued his usual order for a three-day muster of the troops for drill and inspection in accordance with the Utah legislative act of March 6, 1852, the governor appointed Patrick E. Connor major general and William Johns colonel and adjutant general of the Utah militia and forbade the annual gathering of the legion, scheduled for September 1870.

Both men had been prominently connected with Corinne affairs and represented the Gentile element in the territory. In an exchange of correspondence, the two antagonists, Shaffer and Wells, cited the law, customs, and various other arguments to support their stands, but the governor had his way. The Nauvoo Legion did not meet. Nothing was said of the fact that Corinne had established and maintained its own militia complement without benefit of legislative approval. The Corinne battalion was under the sole control of the city authorities and did not even answer to the governor who apparently was not concerned with this other militia body. The Utah Reporter could blithely applaud the action of the governor as a "mighty stride ahead for Utah." 15 Sensitive to newspaper concern that he might not have the strength of experience to handle the Mormon problem, the new and rather young successor to Shaffer, Vernon H. Vaughan, became involved in the so-called Wooden Gun Rebellion, really an extension of the action taken by Shaffer against the Nauvoo Legion. The third regiment band of the legion, to show off some new instruments just received, invited the regiment to meet at the Twentieth Ward schoolhouse in Salt Lake City to drill to the strains of martial music. Their officers had not called a muster, but some of lesser rank took command and ordered the movements of the group of men armed with carbines and old muskets and a number of boys carrying wooden guns. Having violated Governor Shaffer's proclamation, eight of the principal officers were arrested; bonds were fixed at from $2,000 to $5,000; and the men were bound over to await the action of a grand jury. Refusing to post bonds, the eight officers were incarcerated at Camp Douglas where they were given the freedom of the grounds for eleven days

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before deciding to post bonds. In the court action that followed, Judge Hawley found that Governor Shaffer had acted without warrant of law and therefore his proclamation did not have to be obeyed. When the grand jury finally met it dismissed the charge of a rebellion, and the men were released from their bonds.10 Both the Mormon and the Gentile press ridiculed the threat of what the Salt Lake Herald called "these little chaps with wooden guns" who had endangered the peace of the United States and what the Utah Reporter referred to as a military outfit that could " 'stand at ease' or 'rest muskets' with any troops in America." 17 Nevertheless, while continuing to poke fun at the "rag-tag and bob-tail, ring-boned, spavined and hip-shot, knock-kneed, hook-nosed and hump-shouldered" Nauvoo legionnaires whose muster was "an outrage alike on the dictionary and common sense," the Utah Reporter insisted that the militia unit fostered a spirit of rebellion and was used to annoy individuals in the outer settlements of Utah. The editor praised the actions of Governors Shaffer and Vaughan for vindicating national supremacy over the Mormon-run territory of Utah. 18 The Salt Lake Herald, on the other hand, began a running attack on the Corinne battalion, pointing out the inconsistency of federal officials in disbanding the Nauvoo Legion while ignoring an unauthorized military force in the town on Bear River. During the trial of the legion officers, evidence had been produced that the Corinne battalion had publicly announced that it would hold a drill on November 18 and that if presiding Judge Hawley tried to arrest the offenders or visited the town with an intent to stop the drill, the citizens would "put a head on him." The Herald upheld the right of both the Nauvoo Legion and the Corinnethians to drill whenever they chose, and the Reporter joined with its Salt Lake rival in mocking the federal judiciary by announcing that five hundred of Corinne's stalwart soldiers met twice a week to practice their skill with weapons.19 The Herald kept asking, in daily blurbs, where the Corinne soldier-officers were being kept in jail because, surely, the United States marshal and Judge Hawley had done their duty and had arrested the Corinne revolutionaries. Finally ending the sarcasm, the Herald announced that the rumor of more arrests at Corinne was entirely without foundation and that the deputy marshal who had been sent to the town had been "pitched into the Bear river and nearly eaten up by a flock of wild

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geese." 20 The Wooden Gun Rebellion and its Corinne sequel merely emphasized once more the determination of federal officials to take punitive action against Mormon leaders while ignoring any supposed infraction of the law by Gentiles.

Chief Justice James B. McKean The principal reason for maintaining a militia unit in Corinne was the fear that Mormon control of the territorial court system and officials might lead to harassment or injury of individual rights and business interests of the Gentile residents. Corinnethians were, therefore, pleased with the Grant appointment of James B. McKean as chief justice of the Third Judicial District, which included Salt Lake City, because, immediately upon his arrival on August 30, 1870, the new judge began to take forceful action to emasculate the Mormoncontrolled court system.21 Governor Shaffer had paved the way by refusing to recognize the authority of the attorney general and territorial marshal, positions under the control of the Mormon legislature, and had approved the work of only the U.S. attorney and the U.S. marshal, who held federal commissions. Similarly, Shaffer had refused to acknowledge the extended jurisdiction of the territory's Mormoncontrolled probate courts, believing they encroached on the rights of the federal bench as represented by the United States district courts.

The probate courts were to confine their jurisdiction to matters of probate and administration, leaving the important civil and criminal cases to the purview of the Utah district courts which were declared United States courts. McKean went beyond Shaffer's actions by making the U.S. marshal responsible, under the United States courts, for summoning grand juries and selecting the jurors. Under McKean, that meant excluding all Saints and choosing non-Mormons for the positions. Judge McKean further challenged Brigham Young's control over voting by insisting on the right to determine whether or not an alien seeking naturalization was a person of good moral character.

Naturally, any polygamists or those who accepted belief in the doctrine were not really moral and, therefore, not eligible to cast ballots.22 All of these actions endeared Justice McKean to the people of Corinne who were particularly pleased with his decision of September 1870 abolishing the county court system under which Corinnethians had squirmed. The Box Elder County Court, controlled by Mormon

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officials, had dispensed tax money and largesse to the various precincts of Box Elder with what the citizens of Corinne considered rather arbitrary judgment. They were happy that the county courts no longer could select juries and rejoiced "at this summary extinguishment of those county inquisitions, which at best were only side shows of the Mormon Church, and whose acts tended wholly to the benefit of that iniquitous priesthood which controlled them." The New York Tribune reported that when McKean's next court met, on January 24, 1871, Brigham Young had announced that he would not obey any summons of the court. He would "resist the Courts, and 'if the damned Judges interfered with him he would blow them across lots â&#x20AC;&#x201D; by the great gods he would!' " The Mormon people doubted that their prophet had said that but would have agreed with the New York paper that federal officials would like to precipitate such a conflict.23 By the beginning of 1872 the anti-Mormon campaign was fully underway with the Grant appointees directing the strategy and determined to destroy both polygamy and theocracy in Utah. Corinne remained a bastion of Gentile strength, but except for occasional visits by federal officials and intermittent blasts at particular Mormon practices, the citizens of the Burg on the Bear watched the main action swing to Salt Lake City where soon the prophet himself became the object of attack. During the annual Pioneer Day celebration on March 25, 1872, Acting Gov. George A. Black and Justices C. M. Hawley and O. F. Strickland quite ostentatiously visited Corinne while Chief Justice McKean sent a letter of regret and sympathy. Corinnethians were also heartened when the Treasury Department moved the office of the collector of internal revenue for the district of Utah from Salt Lake City to Corinne. 24 Surely, it paid to be on the side of the United States government.

As the conflict between federal officials and the Mormon church deepened, the eastern press, particularly the New York Herald, began trumpeting war and rumors of war which brought some anxiety to the isolated Gentile citizens of Corinne. In weekly articles and editorials, the New York paper warned that Brigham Young, the "Old Man of the Mountains," intended to fight the United States and that the Mormon people were buying three-dollar Springfield muskets and making inflammatory statements. 25 The Utah Reporter responded with an editorial, "On to Richmond," in which Judge Toohy poked

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fun at the armies of the "Endowment," "Blood Atonement," "Emasculation," and the "New Movement Hessians." Three days later, however, he became much more serious and advised his compatriots to prepare for battle. He thought that every citizen should put his gun and revolver "in trim," practice every day, and prepare to "meet the Devil with fire." 20 The reason for the sudden shift to a serious vein was Judge McKean's order for the house arrest of Brigham Young on charges of lewd and lascivious cohabitation with sixteen wives.27 The Utah Reporter was ecstatic over the arrest of "the old hoary felon" in his "seraglio." But Toohy again warned the people of Corinne to arm themselves, because the little band of soldiers at Camp Douglas was "not adequate to smother the pent-up wrath of a horde of ignorant fanatics." When rumors came that the wives and families of Salt Lake Gentiles were fleeing the city, Toohy suggested that such a course might have to be followed in Corinne. 2S The New York Tribune and other eastern papers, as well as the Mormon press, pooh-poohed the idea of a conflict; Brigham Young responded in a calm and judicious manner; McKean finally adjourned the grand jury until November 1872;20 and the war talk ended. Brigham Young set out for his winter home in St. George and advised his counselor, Daniel H. Wells, to tell the brethren being hunted by federal officials to move south to improve that country until the war scare was over. Even the Utah Reporter rather shamefacedly acknowledged Young's generosity and good citizenship when the Mormon prophet contributed one thousand dollars to the relief of Chicago after the great fire destroyed that city.30 While the drama starring the federal officials of Utah and the Mormon prophet continued its theatrical run during the 1870s, until the death of Brigham Young in 1877, the people of Corinne appeared in only bit parts now and then. When word came in February 1872 that their hero, Chief Justice McKean was in danger of being removed from office, 277 Corinnethians affixed their signatures to a petition asking President Grant to retain the judge. Continuing its policy of "when in want of a topic, pitch into the Mormons," the Corinne Reporter, nevertheless, in February 1873, came out in favor of the appointment of a national commission to investigate conditions in Utah so that Congress would have the proper information before undertaking any more legislation concerning the territory. 31 And when

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a more moderate editor, Horace W. Myers, took over the Reporter in late 1873, he adopted a strange course for Corinne by attacking the "ring" of federal officials in the territory and thereby winning accolades from the Salt Lake Herald. Further evidence that Corinne was beginning to lose its preeminence as the Gentile capital of the territory came when O. J. Hollister, the U.S. collector of internal revenue, "turned his back on Corinne" and in June 1873 moved his office to Salt Lake City.32 Similarly, the Utah weather station established by the government at Corinne on February 2, 1871, was moved to Salt Lake City on March 19, 1874, another indication of declining support by federal officials.33 A more serious blow had occurred when the United States Supreme Court in April 1872 overturned the course pursued by Justice McKean and found that the territorial courts were United States courts after all and had the jurisdiction given them by the territorial legislature. One barely literate Mormon, Andrew Jackson Allen, thereupon triumphantly wrote in his diary, "McKean are played out and our brethren are liberated. The people rejoysing etc." 34 President Grant finally removed McKean from office in March 1875, which act, the Idaho Statesman thought, left the Gentiles in a precarious situation.31 A more moderate governor, Samuel B. Axtell, was appointed by Grant in late 1874. Although attacked by most Utah Gentiles for his objective behavior toward the Mormons, he made a very courteous two-day visit to Corinne for which the Ogden Junction praised him as the only Utah chief executive in the town's history who had not traveled there for the purpose of using the people for some ulterior objective. The Corinne Mail refused to be taken in by such flattery from as long-time and distrusted a competitor as the Ogden paper and editorialized that it could not believe Axtell's friendliness with Mormon officials came as a result of his being venal and corrupt.

Rather, the governor was weak-minded and "should be kept at home under the influence of friends who can protect . . . [him] from imposition. . . . " ;" Judge Dennis Toohy no doubt recognized a worthy successor in the newspaper field and approved the course and the articulate expression of the new editor who was running the latest Corinne sheet, the Daily Mail.

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The Saints of Box Elder County Of even more importance to the people of Corinne than supporting the anti-Mormon efforts of federal territorial officials was the continuing struggle to try to wrest control of Corinne's destiny from the hands of the Mormon Box Elder County authorities. The Utah Reporter put the matter rather bluntly, calling Box Elder a place "where 'church and state,' united in debauchery, govern the submissive but too credulous masses," and where, more specifically, the saintly county tax assessor and collector was ever present to demand payment from unwilling Corinnethians.37 From late 1869, when the inhabitants paid an assessment of $59, until Corinne became a Mormon village a decade later,3S an annual complaint of residents was the taxation without representation to which they contended they were subject. The Reporter demanded to know why the Gentiles were required to support Brigham's church with a yearly tithe, when the money was being expended in part by Brigham Young, Jr., to pay his New York gambling debts. The editor estimated that of the Box Elder County tax of $5,000 collected for 1870, the people of Corinne had paid one-half. And with the tax assessed against the Central Pacific Railroad the county was paying a total of $20,000 in assessments. Toohy often asserted that this Gentile revenue was being given out to the Mormons for religious purposes.

By late 1871 the fiery editor was almost apoplectic as he reviewed the collection of thousands of dollars yearly without an accounting to Corinnethians. "What roads and bridges have been built or repaired out of these enormous levies?" he fumed, ". . . Talk about Tammany corruption . . . we have the Boss Tweed of Mormonism, grinning at the idiots who pay. . . . If any man or any railroad doing business in Corinne think their money is safe in the Utah Treasury, then are both man and corporation simply asses. . . ." 39 By 1872 Toohy and other town leaders had become more aggressive and began advising their compatriots to refuse to pay any taxes whatsoever to "the pampered banditti of Boxelder County." O. J. Hollister, as given to polemics as Toohy, remarked that at first the priesthood of Zion ignored the barbarians of Corinne, but later, "impelled by a cupidity superior to revealed nightmares . . . came hither with the tax-gatherer to acknowledge that we were not totally de-

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praved." The Corinne Board of Trade in March 1872 established a committee charged with the task of getting a transcript of the financial affairs of the county, an objective that was not successful.40 The elected Mormon officials at Brigham City mostly ignored these verbal attacks and threats and insisted that one-fourth of the tax money collected went to the territory while the balance was expended for roads, bridges, and general improvements in the county. 41 Acknowledging that by 1874 at least some tax receipts were being used for county benefit, the editor of the Corinne Mail pointed out that the money must be going to Mormon areas of Box Elder because Corinne was certainly not getting any help. He wrote that the bridge across Bear River was about to fall down and the roads were bad. He also attacked "the wholesale robbery" that had been systematically pursued in Utah for many years. He called for a mass meeting of protest, a written account of expenditures of tax money in the county, and a refusal on the part of the people to pay any further taxes to Box Elder County until a satisfactory report had been made. A grand jury appointed a committee to examine the tax records, but nothing was accomplished. Some violence occurred as the tax collector began to seize property in lieu of taxes. In one incident, the collector seized a looking glass hanging on the wall of a Corinne barber shop but was dissuaded "when he suddenly discovered he was walking off with another man's property," as the Mail so quaintly put it.42 Throughout the next year, 1875, the newspaper continued a series of editorials censuring those Corinnethians who paid their taxes to "this avaricious priesthood." The editor summed up the grievance: The taxes were low but were unjust, Corinne received no benefit from the tax dollars, and the Mormon leaders refused to explain how the money was spent. When the collector received a payment of $11,000 from the Central Pacific Railroad for its 1874 county taxes, the editor of the Mail became more specific â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the entire amount should be used to build a bridge across Bear River and a decent road connecting Corinne with Brigham City, two projects for which the citizens of Corinne had been pleading for six years.13 As early as June 1869 the county court had appointed a committee to locate a road from Brigham City to Corinne. But a year later the residents of Corinne found it necessary to petition the county for an unimproved thoroughfare. In response, and after another year's

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wait, the court appropriated $1,000 to repair the road which must have deteriorated rapidly as another petition was circulated in late 1874 appealing for a road from Corinne to the county seat.44 The Corinne Mail was pessimistic about any action on the part of the county's Mormon officials because an improved road would encourage trade between the Gentile town and Brigham City, a commerce forbidden by the church. To the editor's surprise, after six years the county authorities began to consider building a highway to Corinne, but he was skeptical enough to demand that it be completed without a sudden stoppage due to lack of funds. He could, nevertheless, not refrain from a jibe at his saintly neighbors as he commented on the lively business being enjoyed by Corinne: The only healthy counter irritant we have at all is take time, once in awhile to stir up our Mormon Brethren on the county road question. In fact, we have so little to complain of here that we depend on the Mormons to furnish us a safety valve to vent our ill nature on, and they can manage to keep us pretty busy if we deemed it worth while to attend to it.45 Throughout 1875 county officials planned and met and talked, but still there was no road. The people of Corinne wanted a new route laid out because the old thoroughfare went through the Bear River bottoms and was covered with water for about two months each spring. Then, to worsen matters, during 1875 a farmer decided to mark off his property by building a fence across the right of way.40 It was June 1876 before the county court finally appropriated $3,300 to construct a new road on high ground between Corinne and Brigham City with some hope that by 1877 it would be in use.47 After an eightyear delay, perhaps the Corinnethians deserved at least this small return on their tax dollars.

The people of Corinne were even more concerned that a sturdy bridge be built across Bear River to provide access to Brigham City and Salt Lake City. Without a substantial structure across the stream, nearby farmers traveling to the Gentile market, merchants, and ordinary tourists were forced to pay a toll across Fitch's bridge located just north of the town. The city council prevailed on the county court to appropriate $500 toward construction of a new free bridge to be located at the foot of Montana Street, the main thoroughfare of the town. The council agreed to use the municipal property tax to add

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to the $500 voted by the court.48 The two governmental units finally decided to take the less expensive course and purchase Fitch's bridge, which was declared free to all, an action the Reporter called the most important event in Corinne's history. The county court voted another $250 in 1871 to make needed repairs on the newly purchased structure. The newspaper thought the bridge was "a splendid piece of architecture; solid . . . as any arch that spans the Thames or Rhine."

Discounting the natural pride of the editor, the praise did reveal the importance of having an adequate bridge across a river that constituted a real obstacle in the days of wagon travel. The editor cautioned that no one should cross the structure at a pace faster than a walk, "except perhaps, in cases of young people who run off in a hurry to get married." Also, a fine of $50 was to be assessed against anyone who drove more than fifteen head of horses or cattle across at one time.49 The purchase of Fitch's bridge turned out to be only a stopgap measure. During high water the approaches to the crossing were flooded, and by 1873 the structure was dangerous and almost impassable. A year later Judge Toohy was hoping that "some saintly huckster would . . . drop through it into the river with his wagon, perhaps the necessary repairs would then be made." After some heckling and the passage of another year the county court agreed to award the taxes to be paid by Corinne for the next two years, about $2,000, for the building of a new bridge to be located at the foot of Montana Street.50 Another $250 was allocated to repair the old bridge while the new construction was in progress. The citizens of the town donated another $1,000 for the combined projects.51 As usually happens, the costs were higher than anticipated and five of the city councilors agreed to loan the city $100 each, to be reimbursed out of future taxes. After a year's work the new bridge was finally completed by June 1876 and Corinne was understandably jubilant. 52 Within a year the magnificent new structure was in need of $1,200 worth of repairs, which the county court again funded out of future Corinne taxes.53 The city's bridges apparently did not measure up to the expectations of the citizens.

Besides the frustration Corinnethians suffered over poor roads and bridges and their distrust of the use of their tax money, they were also vexed by minor irritants with the officials of Box Elder County.

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View of Corinne from the southwest. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

The Mormon-oriented public servants could see nothing wrong with using the upper floor of the county jail as a cooperative shoe shop, although the building had been erected out of tax revenues. The citizens of Corinne also felt put upon because the county poundmaster seemingly took delight in corralling Gentile stock in order to blackmail the owners. The editor of the Mail was particularly exasperated because the Mormon hierarchy at Brigham City was endeavoring to find the culprit who was furnishing information for the Corinne newspaper attacks on the Saints at the county seat. A reporter, "Rip-Saw," wrote the editor that not many Mormons in Brigham City read the Mail, "for woe be unto any of the brethren who are caught with it, for they are straightway summoned before 'council'. . . ." 54 A final aggravation was the practice by county law officers of freeing or allowing to escape some of the prisoners the city of Corinne sent to the

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county seat for safekeeping. As the news of this moratorium on crime spread among the roughs of the area, the Corinne city fathers were forced to circulate word that these offenders had better leave town, and most apparently heeded the warning. 55 Smothered as it was by the blanket of Mormon priesthood authority at Brigham City, Corinne sought the fresh air of independence by attempting to create a new county west of Bear River with itself as the seat of government. As early as February 1871 Judge Toohy was writing Gov. George A. Black to inquire about an act of the Utah legislature a few years before that had contemplated the organization of a county west of the river.56 A year later, January 17, 1872, the Corinnethians were able to get a bill introduced into the legislature seeking a Gentile county for the settlements along the Central Pacific Railroad west of the Bear River. The Salt Lake Tribune ridiculed "O'Toohy" for seeking support from among some of the Mormon legislators. The judge called the Tribune writer a blackguard and a liar and replied that Corinne would obtain a new county despite the opposition of the Godbeite owners of the Salt Lake newspaper whose Church of Zion was "the instinctive rottenness of that carrion of Mormonism." 57 When the legislature refused to grant a separate county organization, Toohy proposed that the citizens of Corinne establish a provisional county under their own laws and then declare war on the rest of Utah. 5S Unwilling to follow their sanguinary leader into battle, the people of Corinne abandoned the project for awhile. But three years later the Helena Herald reported that the Gentiles of Corinne were attempting to form a new territory called Cariboo, to be made out of portions of Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. The Montana editor had no objection but thought that the Utah non-Saints would have to wait at least a year before they could hope to reach this lofty height.59

The Cattle-stealing Case Unsuccessful in obtaining a separate county existence, the Gentiles of Corinne were forced to put up with what they considered unjust and irresponsible treatment from county authorities, an impression that was reinforced in January 1873 when some of their leading citizens were charged with stealing cattle. The ensuing "cattle-stealing

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case" engaged the Corinnethians and the Mormons of Brigham City and Salt Lake City in a legal battle that even jolted the Deseret News into the fray against the despised town on Bear River. A butcher of Corinne, Richard Martin, made affidavits that for two or more years he had been involved in stealing cattle from people in the vicinity of the town, then slaughtering the stock and splitting the proceeds with five other men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Alex Toponce, E. P. Johnson, O. S. Wright, and William Schoonover of Corinne and Thomas Heller of Ogden. His conscience and the great demands made on him by the other men had been too much to bear, and so he had signed a confession attested to by his wife. Toponce and Johnson were prominent residents of Corinne and had held public office there.

Justice of the Peace O. H. Elliott arrested the five men and sent them for trial to the probate court at Brigham City, Judge Samuel Smith presiding. The grand jury then issued indictments. Four defense attorneys from Corinne, including Dennis J. Toohy, applied for release from these proceedings for Wright and Schoonover to Judge Cyrus M. Hawley of the supreme court of the territory. The other men had posted bail and were not confined in jail. The son of the Box Elder County sheriff delivered the two prisoners before Hawley in Salt Lake City who decided that the county probate court did not have jurisdiction over criminal cases of this nature. His decision was contrary to the findings of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Engelbrecht case of the year before which had held that probate courts did have such jurisdiction. But Judge Hawley was determined to discredit the probate court system and to establish the primacy of the United States courts in Utah. Hawley bound the two prisoners to appear before him in Corinne rather than in Salt Lake City, and on January 28, 1873, when no new indictments were presented, as Hawley had ordered, the judge dismissed the prisoners.00 Throughout the proceedings, recriminations, charges, and countercharges were exchanged by the Corinne Reporter and the Utah Mining Journal for the Gentiles and the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Herald representing the Mormon side. As the combatants locked horns over whether or not a theft of cattle had actually taken place, the News reported that extensive stealing of cattle had been going on since the founding of Corinne, that about three thousand head had been thus purloined, and that about one hundred fifty residents of the

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town had threatened to take illegal action to free the prisoners. The Reporter, on the other hand, accused the high council of the Mormon church in Brigham City of having invented the plot to tarnish the reputation of Corinne and of having no proof whatsoever of any guilt on the part of their leading citizens. The Reporter dubbed it "a conspiracy hatched and feathered among the priesthood at the foothills." 01 The Mormon press charged that no new indictments were presented before Judge Hawley in Corinne because the prosecution saw the futility of arguing the case before an anti-Mormon justice who had already made the decision to free his fellow Gentiles. One Gentile newspaper countered with the accusation: "Corinne is turning Mormon. Its principal citizens have got so far along as to be unable to see any difference between their own and their neighbor's cattle. They are nearer baptism than perhaps they are aware." °2 After a hundred years it is difficult to assess guilt or innocence in the case, but the evidence seems to point to at least some culpability on the part of the Corinnethians involved. Alexander Toponce does not mention the case in his celebrated Reminiscences, so there is no way of knowing his stand in the matter. It is entirely possible that he and Johnson were caught up in a swindle in which neither was an active participant but merely a recipient of some choice cuts of meat occasionally, as the prosecution charged. There seems to have been enough smoke to suspect some fire around the other three men, however. Finally, the obvious bias of Judge Hawley lends credence to the opinion held by the Mormon press that justice could not be served in his court when Saints confronted Gentiles. Also, after the "tenderloin comedy" case was dismissed, the Salt Lake Herald published some very damaging correspondence between the three conspirators that strongly suggested their guilt.03 The whole affair highlighted the internecine struggle going on in Utah and the very strong support federal officials gave to the Gentile citizens of Corinne.

Brigham's Curse As the cattle-stealing case illustrated, the Mormon newspapers could give as well as take, and the decade of the 1870s led to an increase in vituperation directed against the "dirty little 'burgh on the

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banks of Bear.'' Nearly all Gentiles were condemned "as Satan's co-workers," as "rotten, miserable, stinking wretches," "thick as grasshoppers," and deserving of all the land they want â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "five and a half feet by two and a half feet." But for Corinne, "the very stench from the bottomless pit," the Saints reserved their choicest epithets. As an object of defamation, the Salt Lake Telegraph thought the town contained "more rottenness, multiplied ten times, than all the rest of Utah." When news came that three churches were to be built at Corinne, the Salt Lake Herald wrote, "If there is any small sized burg between the oceans that needs all the 'means of grace' invented it is Corinne. Let us have a few more by all means." 64 And editor Dennis J. Toohy of the Corinne Reporter finally received a full volley of grapeshot from the Salt Lake Herald: The fact is this poor creature's talk is all bosh and buncomb.

He cares not for facts; he fulminates slang and knows no other vernacular; he insults the people who endure his presence; he assumes to be "liberal," while utterly intolerant of the rights and opinions of others; he cares for nothing but himself and breeds only disturbance, and continues to make himself thoroughly disgusting wherever he goes.65 National observers as well as Corinnethians firmly believed that behind this assault of castigation and contumely stood the shadowy, Machiavellian figure of the Mormon prophet, directing his devils to harass and to attempt to destroy the Gentile town against which he had cast his imprecations. The myth that Brigham Young had placed a curse on Corinne probably had its origin with J. H. Beadle who, in July 1869, wrote that the Mormon leader said of the new town, "leave the Gentiles alone to their own deviltry, and I prophesy, in the name of Israel's God, that the ungodly will get to fighting among themselves and kill each other off, and save us all trouble." 0G Within a short time, most Gentiles accepted the story as true, so that early residents like Alexander Toponce could write matter-of-factly about "Brigham's Curse on Corinne" which expanded to include the prediction that grass would grow in the streets. As a matter of course, the Gentile press commiserated with the Corinnethians who lived under the prophet's curse and who were thus doomed to perdition.67 The fable reached its climax in 1875, during a supposed threat of Indian attack

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on the town, when the editor explained the Mormon opposition to Corinne: To counteract the influence the town was having on the church, Brigham Young with a lot of his dupes, came to the opposite side of Bear River, raised his hands, and in the name of God pronounced a curse on the town and said it should pass away. Not having any confidence in the Lord to do his bidding, the leaders of the people set their wits to work to make the word of their prophet true. 68 It is doubtful that Brigham Young ever visited the town except for passing through as a passenger on a Central Pacific train, but historical fantasy can be a powerful force when carefully nurtured and believed.69

The Corinne Free Market The chief means of destruction the Mormons proposed for Corinne and its Gentile establishments was the cooperative movement already described. The Mormon prophet very likely had Corinne in mind when he said in a sermon at nearby Malad City that "it was the duty of the Saints to cease building up the enemies of the church" and "never to labor more to build up a Gentile city, but to build up Zion." 70 Young's constant theme was for his people to patronize Mormon businesses so as to keep any accumulated capital at home. 71 One example of how literally his followers took his advice occurred in February 1869 when a Gentile merchant in Salt Lake City, J. K. Trumbo, had the temerity to place a cooperative sign, or the all-seeing eye, on the front of his store, hoping thereby to attract customers from among the Saints. Within a few hours a crowd gathered, and some young Mormons secured a ladder and tore the offending advertisement off the wall. Trumbo was forced to move to Corinne where he triumphantly placed over his store the sign that had been torn down in the capital city. Later, Trumbo, who must have had a sense of humor as well as some intestinal fortitude, opened a branch store in Salt Lake City "where he will again strike terror, as of old, into the gizzards of Zion's co-operative humbug." 72 As destined by fate or the luck of the draw, Corinne was positioned just six miles from the model town of Mormon Utah, Brigham City, the first and probably the most aggressive community in the

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J "I

J.K.TRUM B O .

AUCTIOISL^ORAGE &

COMWSION.

H V h K 111..

/. K. Trumbo, one of the merchants who opposed the Mormon cooperative movement. Photograph courtesy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

organization and practice of the Saints' cooperative system. As indicated earlier, the presiding authority there and later president of the Mormon church, Lorenzo Snow, started a cooperative general store in 1864 to make his people independent of Gentile stores.73 As more shareholders joined, the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Company was organized in 1870. Eventually, almost forty industrial departments were active in producing everything from straw hats to molasses, and by 1874 almost the entire economic life of the town and its four hundred families was owned and supervised by the cooperative association. The company ran the only store in town, gave no dividends in cash or imported merchandise, and so was able to gather the capital necessary to launch the various enterprises. A public works department built roads and bridges, which explains some of the difficulty Corinne experienced in getting help for public improvements the town needed.74 The town also boasted a "tramp department" that put to work any idlers. A correspondent described one aspect of this activity: "A worthy old gentleman is assigned here to once every day register the name of every loafer hanging around the store and other places, and at the end of two or three months, three of the loafers

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found to have the highest number of loafing days are to be mentioned in public by name." Because almost the entire town worked in the various cooperative industries, the day's activities started and ended at the ringing of a triangle. Other features of the system included the payment of wages in merchandise â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one-sixth in imported goods and the balance in home products â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the use of two kinds of scrip for wages to differentiate between the two types of merchandise. 75 The cooperative arrangement soon spread to Cache Valley where the businessmen met in 1872 to eliminate the middlemen of the railroad towns. Eggs and butter from Cache County were especially welcome at Gentile markets. By December of that year the town of Mendon was able to announce that their new cooperative store was dedicated by prayer by local Bishop H. Hughes. 70 Despite Mormon efforts at Brigham City and in Cache Valley to combat the Gentile merchants of Corinne, one feature of the cooperative system played into the hands of the Corinnethians. The admirable and almost self-sufficient association of Mormon workers and entrepreneurs of northern Utah faced the constant embarrassment of not having sufficient cash to purchase certain imported articles necessary for the conduct of business. Lorenzo Snow estimated that at least $30,000 was required each year.77 In addition, the Saints tired of homemade articles and were attracted to scarce items and those of finer workmanship from eastern manufacturers. Cash, therefore, was expended for "coffee, tea, tobacco, cotton goods, ribbons, leather bindings, tools, machinery" and many thousands of dollars worth of boots and shoes alone.7S The largest sources of this liquid capital were tithing and taxes, the latter especially from the Central Pacific Railroad, but they were insufficient for the needs. Snow warned his Saints that he would not support any man for election who did not sustain home industry and thus conserve the small amount of cash available. One correspondent wrote that "a mechanic, told me yesterday he had seen but one $5 for a year. All business is done by trading and swapping around." 7il To satisfy their longing for more exotic and fancier goods, the more timorous of the Mormons at Brigham City and in Cache Valley, therefore, bought from the many peddlers who haunted their streets and farms. The less orthodox and more adventurous just loaded their wagons and headed for the Burg on the Bear where non-Saintly sights,

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sounds, and substances could be seen, heard, and traded for, with cash for whatever was not expended on the wanted luxuries. Ironically, much of the cash to keep the Brigham City Cooperative afloat came from Gentile money drawers in Corinne, and the decline of the latter town as a thriving business community was one of the causes of the failure of the Mormon enterprise. s0 Constant harangues and threats poured forth from the Mormon leadership in an attempt to stop both surreptitious and open trading visits to the Gentile town. The Corinne Reporter was smugly confident that the ability of Corinne's merchants to sell goods far below the prices in Zion would nullify these efforts, despite editorials from the Deseret News and sermons in the Tabernacle. The News argued that the railroad town was being maintained by the patronage of the farmers of Cache and Box Elder counties and advised its readers to stop dealing through the middle men of Corinne. 81 The semiannual conference of the Mormon church in May 1872 was evidently devoted to the mission of converting the wayward Saints from their bad habit of peregrinating to Corinne every Saturday. Many of the speakers, including the prophet, warned their followers to stop buying goods from Gentiles and to refuse to employ any in Mormon industry, on threat of being cut off from the church and condemned to eternal damnation.

The Brigham City authorities were more explicit. Excommunication would be visited upon "the first brother caught hauling his grain, fruit, or produce of any kind to Corinne and then disposing of it to 'our enemies.' ' The Corinne Mail answered that it was to the credit of the most intelligent of the Saints that they paid little heed to this injunction, knowing that unless they sold their produce to the Gentiles "it will eventually be 'gobbled up' by the Church for tithing. Greenbacks, you know, can be hid in a smaller and safer place than grain." S2 But perhaps the story of Christen Christensen of Cache Valley best illustrates the inability of church authorities to control their members. When Christensen was reprimanded by Bishop John H. Maughan in open meeting for having purchased at Corinne a kitchen stove, he replied, "I can't say I feel sorry, because I feel pretty good, my wife doesn't have to set on her knees and cook; so she can stand straight up so I feel pretty good." The bishop very wisely let the matter drop.

Later, when the bishop himself went to Corinne and bought a farm

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. utr"* Mormons were attracted to Corinne by the availability of merchandise and the chance to sell farm produce for cash.

Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

wagon, his congregation demanded that now it was his turn to ask forgiveness. After listening awhile, the ecclesiastical leader ended the reprimand by remarking, "You just go ahead and see how far you get." This was in Weston, but members in other Cache towns were not so fortunate. Two Larsen brothers, Paul in Clarkston and Magnus in Weston, were excommunicated for trading with Corinne merchants.

They later joined the Presbyterian church. 83 In trying to explain the cold war between the Corinnethians and their neighbors in Brigham City and Cache Valley, the Utah Reporter compared the two contending groups to the religious sects of New England who were Puritans on Sunday with all of their religious differences but Yankee traders on Monday with a view for the best bargain to be had. 81 The merchants of Corinne were as avid for the farmer trade of the Mormons as the latter were for the cash and goods available at the Gentile town. Despite the newspaper polemics of distrust and ridicule exercised against each other, when it came to a profit in the market place, mutual recriminations ceased. The road between Zion and Babylon was short and full of promise.

At first, would-be Mormon patrons for Corinne's wares were kept away by the threatening sermons they heard nearly every Sunday. But

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gradually, one by one, they began to investigate the strange and exotic attractions of the Gentile town and "to enjoy a change from their monotonous Mormon homes," as the Reporter put it. They came with their lumber, hay, grain, wood, coal, calves, pigs, chickens, and other items to trade for goods from the eastern markets. The Reporter described the change: "The simple fact that not one Mormon has suffered even a scratch in Corinne in all the eighteen months of its existence, has at last been too powerful a sermon even for the priesthood to overcome." They came from as far north as Franklin, Idaho, and from as far south as Bountiful just outside Salt Lake City, whose storekeepers could not compete with the free-enterprise merchants of the freighting town on the Central Pacific Railroad. A powerful advantage enjoyed by the businessmen of Corinne was the absence of licenses and the very low taxes that permitted traders to buy at such low margins that they could then transport their goods to Salt Lake City and peddle them on the streets below the store prices.85 Although the low prices at Corinne were certainly attractive to the farmers of northern Utah, it was the available cash that caused them to crowd the streets every day. The Mormon traders would not spend any dollars in Corinne but would sell almost anything for cash.80 The Corinne Mail phrased it a little more bluntly: "It does the irrigators a vast amount of good to gaze upon a real two-bit shinplaster" instead of the "Enoch certificates" they were used to. With cash in hand, Mormon purchasers soon spent it for the very attractive manufactured articles from the East, tired of "the musty old stuff put off on the country people by the bull's eyed co-op financiers." At least, so thought Corinne's friend, the Utah Mining Journal.*' The forwarding merchants of the railroad town purchased large amounts of such perishables as fruit, butter, and eggs which were shipped at a good profit to the camps of Montana where high prices were paid for these luxuries by the miners. By 1874 the Corinne mills were being supplied with wheat and other grains by the Mormon farmers of Cache, Malad, and lower Bear River valleys.88 No wonder the Mormon leaders of Brigham City opposed building a good road between their town and Bear River that would encourage trade between the communities.80 But muddy roads, rickety bridges, and fulminating preachers could not stop the eager buyers who thronged the streets of Corinne.

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The town's newspaper made constant reference to the Mormon farm wagons loaded with produce. 90 One description out of many gives a picture of a typical market day in Corinne: Saturday is generally the day for our country neighbors to gather into Corinne . . . . To-day the rush has been greater than usual, and the surrounding peasantry crowd the market with fruit, vegetables, grain, calves, butter, poultry and other rural commodities, which they exchange for money, dry goods, boots, hats, hardware, whiskey and many other Gentile inventions.

These farmers come in . . . Schuttler wagons, drawn by highmettled horses, . . . with mule teams, and many bringing loads behind fat oxen. Then a few carry their little stock of eggs, onions and peaches, in bags, baskets, bedticks and other contrivances.

One jolly old gardener, came into town with his burden packed in an old set of Endowment garments, in the legs and arms of which were stuffed ripe fruit, cucumbers, squashes and carrots, while the intermediate portion of the sacred raiment, held two mammoth watermelons.91 The above mockery, which did not seem to dismay Mormon traders and patrons, did upset such Central Pacific Railroad officials as Clark Crocker who praised the Ogden Freeman for leaving the people's faith alone and boosting trade. Crocker offered to give the Corinne Mail a bonus if it would cease sticking pins into the Mormons. In reaction, the Corinne editor advised "Sister Freeman" that the Gentile paper would close publication before it would stop condemning a church that preached murder, robbery, and polygamy.92 The exchange was just another manifestation of the ongoing rivalry between the two communities in the controversy over where the junction between the Central Pacific and Union Pacific should be placed.

Junction Placed at Ogden By 1870, although the de facto junction had been tacitly located at Ogden, speculation continued about where the final site would be.

To the surprise and disappointment of both Ogdenites and Corinnethians, the Congress enacted legislation in May 1870 placing the junction at Harrisville, a point about five and one-half miles northwest of Ogden."" Brigham Young prophetically declared that the companies

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did not seem very anxious to move from Ogden and predicted that after the excitement had ended the firms would remain at Ogden, "although it is a 'Mormon' town and they cannot have things entirely their own way." 9l The Gentile and Mormon newspapers continued to offer arguments supporting the claims of Corinne and Ogden, with the Utah Reporter probably presenting the most cogent logic. Correspondent "Douglas" favored the Gentile town because Ogden, lying thirty miles farther south, meant a longer journey for Montana-bound freighters; it was "too 'saintly' for the boys in the mountains"; and there was no stock range in the vicinity where teamsters could graze their animals."5 Most Utahns agreed with the Ogden Junction that the site for the new Junction City was poorly chosen. There was no water and not enough available land. Most thought that eventually the two railroad companies would give up their silly notion and keep the connection at Ogden.90 But by August 1871 the Union Pacific revealed plans to build a magnificent $150,000 hotel at Harrisville on part of the 120 acres assigned to the company and indicated that a newly purchased spring would furnish sufficient water. The Central Pacific had been awarded 128 acres and would no longer suffer the embarrassment of having to use the five and one-half miles of track owned by the Union Pacific between the new junction and Ogden as had been the situation for the two years past."7 Corinne and Ogden really felt bereft as the wondrous plans for Harrisville were publicized.

Commitments elsewhere and the Panic of 1873, however, destroyed any prospects of a large financial investment on the barren plains of Harrisville, and the two roads finally agreed upon Ogden as the permanent location for the junction in June 1874. As the Corinnethians mourned, the people of Ogden rejoiced that the uncertainty of five years would be replaced with the security of being the center for four railroads, especially the important Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines.98 The other two railroads included in the reference were the Utah Central, connecting Salt Lake City with Ogden, and the Utah Northern, a narrow-gauge line from the latter town into Cache Valley.

The development of Corinne was so dependent upon rail transportation that the town could not retain its position as the forwarding point for freight and passengers to Idaho and Montana unless a rail

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line was constructed to the north to replace the Montana trail and its caravans of freight wagons and lines of Concord coaches. Mormon ingenuity and hard work had already built a railroad to Salt Lake City that was cutting off commercial traffic to Corinne from the mines south of Great Salt Lake, and the new Utah Northern being vigorously pushed to the north threatened to circumvent Corinne as a freighttransfer station for Montana customers. Corinnethians met the first challenge by attempting to construct a fleet of ships on Great Salt Lake to carry the ores of the new southern mines to the Central Pacific and tried to eliminate the second threat by building a rail line north from the town into western Montana. They failed but went down to defeat only after struggling mightily to best the "Mormon menace" and to achieve what would have been an unbelievable triumph for the small and insecure Burg on the Bear.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 5 iNew York Herald, 21 June, 15 July 1869; Sacramento Union, 13 July 1869; New York Tribune, 23 July 1869.

2 B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (1930; reprint ed., Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1965), 5:173-79, 282-87.

3 New York Herald, 15 July 1869; 2, 3 December 1870. * William Clayton to Brother Jesse, 12 March 1870, William Clayton Letter Books, vol. 4, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

5 Utah Reporter, 18 January, 5 April, 3 December 1870.

G Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5:318, 327. â&#x20AC;˘ Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 12, 20 April 1870, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; Utah Reporter, 21 April 1870.

8 William Clayton to F. M. Lyman, 16 April 1870; to W. W. Cluff, 6 July 1870, WC Letter Books.

"Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5 : 3 4 9 ; New York Tribune, 12 November 1870; New York Herald, 2 November 1870.

10 Utah Reporter, 4, 16 November; 12 December 1870.

11 Utah Reporter, 12 May 1870; Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5:320-22.

12 Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5 : 2 8 7 - 9 4 ; John Hanson Beadle, Polygamy; or, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (Philadelphia, 1904), pp. 2 3 9 40; New York Herald, 20 April; 25, 30 May; 29 July; 18 August 1870; Deseret News, 4 August 1870; Ogden Junction, 17 August 1870; New York Tribune, 22 August 1870; Utah Reporter, 12, 16 August 1870.

13 New York Herald, 2 May 1870.

14 Deseret News, 18 May 1870.

15 Utah Territory, Territorial Papers, nos. 3424, 3425, U t a h State Archives; Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5 : 3 3 1 - 4 0 ; Utah Reporter, 8 February, 26 March 1870; Idaho Statesman, 22 September 1870.

10 Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5 : 3 5 3 - 5 7 ; Salt Lake Herald, 23 24, 25 November 1870; George M. Ottinger Journal, 1853-99, p. 192, Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. ^ Salt Lake Herald, 23 November 1870; Utah Reporter, 23 November 1870.

18 Utah Reporter, 26 November 1870; New York Herald, 12 December 1870.

19 Salt Lake Herald, 26 November 1870; Keepapitchinin, 1 December 1870; Utah Reporter, 5 December 1870.

20 Salt Lake Herald, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11 December 1870.

21 Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5:382.

22 Utah Reporter, 14 May 1870; New York Tribune, 22 September, 25 November 1870; New York Herald, 18 October 1870.

23 Utah Reporter, 27 September 1870; New York Tribune, 12 December 1870.

24 Utah Reporter, 17, 25, 27 March; 29 April 1871.

25 New York Herald, 5, 23, 29 September; 30 October 1871.

2C Utah Reporter, 29 September, 2 October 1871.

27 Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5 :389-408, relates the story in some detail; New York Herald, 3 October 1871.

28 Utah Reporter, 3, 4, 6 October 1871.

29 New York Tribune, 5 October 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 7, 10 October 1871; Deseret News, 11 October 1871; New York Herald, 29 September, 3 October 1871.

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30 Brigham Young to D. H. Wells, 26 October 1871, Brigham Young Letter Books, microfilm, reel 38, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

31 Corinne Reporter, 3 February 1872; New York Tribune, 8 February 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 27 February 1873.

32 Salt Lake Herald, 20 June, 9 November 1873; Wain Sutton, Utah: A Centennial History, 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1949), 1:62.

33 U.S., National Weather Service, Annual Meteorological Summary, 1873 to 1903, Weather Station, Salt Lake City International Airport; Salt Lake Tribune, 4 April 1977; Utah Reporter, 1 February 1871.

34 New York Tribune, 17, 18 April 1872; Kate B. Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958-77), 15:30.

35 Idaho Statesman, 25 March 1875.

3u Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah (San Francisco, 1890), p. 667; Ogden Junction, 27 February 1875; Corinne Mail, 18 June 1875.

37 Utah Reporter, 19 January 1871.

38 Box Elder County Court Records, 6 December 1869, 217, Utah State Archives.

3U Utah Reporter, 14, 28 December 1869; 14 July, 9 October, 15 November 1871.

40 Utah Reporter, 17 February; 5, 26 March 1872.

41 Thomas C. Romney, The Life of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1955), p. 323.

42 Corinne Mail, 14, 19 October; 12, 19, 21 November 1874.

43 Corinne Mail, 22, 27 January; 25 March; 29 June 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 18 July 1875.

44 Box Elder County Court Records, 7 June 1869, 212; 20 July 1870, 22; 12 July 1871, 240; 7 December 1874, 279. ^•Corinne Mail, 18 November 1874; 26 February; 18, 27, 30 March 1875.

4G Corinne Mail, 27 April, 16 June, 27 July, 4 August 1875.

47 Box Elder County Court Records, 5 June 1876, 296.

48 Utah Reporter, 24 May, 26 July 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 1 August 1870,5 September 1870.

4U Utah Reporter, 10 September 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 25 September 1871, 6 November 1871; Box Elder County Court Records, 11 November 1871, 242; Corinne Reporter, 18 November 1871. ""Corinne Reporter, 7 May 1873; 23 October 1874; 9 June, 28 Sepetmber 1875; Corinne City Minute Book, 14 June 1875; Box Elder County Court Records, 30 October 1875,287.

S1 Corinne City Minute Book, 12 October 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 25 November 1875.

2 = Corinne City Minute Book, 28 March 1876, 4 April 1876; Salt Lake Tribune, 18 June 1876. " Corinne City Minute Book, 7 May 1877, 28 May 1877; Box Elder County Court Records, 19 June 1877, 306; 21 July 1877,308.

•4 Corinne Mail, 30 October, 9 December 1874; 16 July, 31 August 1875.

53 Salt Lake Tribune, 5, 10 November; 14 December 1876.

50 D. J. Toohy to Acting Gov. George A. Black, 7 February 1871, in Utah Territorial Papers, no. 3486.

07 Corinne Reporter, 18, 27 January; 2 February 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 27 January 1872. s •"' Salt Lake Tribune, 10 February 1872. '" Helena Herald, 4 March 1875. «u Deseret News, 8, 15, 22 January; 5 February 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 9, 14, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31 January; 6, 14 February 1873; Utah Mining Journal, 28, 31 Jan-

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uary; 1, 5 February 1873; Corinne Reporter, 2, 3, 4, 7, 27, 29 January; 3 February 1873.

01 Deseret News, 8 January 1873; Corinne Reporter, 29 January 1873.

02 Deseret News, 5 February 1873; Corinne Reporter, 27 January 1873.

03 Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971) ; Utah Mining Journal, 31 January 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 6 February 1873.

04 Ogden Junction, 18 March 1871; S. H. Goodwin, Freemasonry in Utah (Salt Lake City: Committee on Masonic Education and Instruction, 1926), p. 6; Sermon of John Taylor, 22 October 1871, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool, 1854-86), 14:253; WC Letter Books, vol. 4, p. 7'15; Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 1874; New York Tribune, 24 March 1870; Henry T. Williams, The Pacific Tourist . . .

(New York, 1876), p. 162; Corinne Reporter, 26 April 1870: Salt Lake Herald, 10 August 1870.

«•"• Salt Lake Herald, 25 July 1871.

06 Cincinnati Commercial, 9 August 1869.

07 Toponce, Reminiscences, pp. 198-200; Salt Lake Tribune, 18 June, 22 September 1876.

08 Corinne Mail, 10 August 1875.

09 Salt Lake Herald, 9 November 1872.

70 Ogden Junction, 11 June 1870.

71 U.S., Congress, House, Execution of the Laws in Utah, p. 3, House Report no. 21, part 3, 41st Cong., 2d sess., 1870.

72 Utah Reporter, 22 July, 2 August 1870; 6 January 1871.

73 Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret BookCo., 1976),p. 111.

74 Ibid., pp. 111-17; Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow . . . (Salt Lake City, 1884), pp. 290-97; Charles M. Chesnutwood, "A Historical Approach to the Urban Geography of Brigham City, U t a h " (M.S. thesis, University of Utah, 1950), pp. 61-75.

75 Arrington et al., Building the City of God, pp. 117, 120; Salt Lake Herald, 17 December 1874.

70 Deseret News, 10 April 1872; 1 January 1873.

77 Smith, Lorenzo Snow, p. 296.

78 Arrington et al., Building the City of God, p. 126.

79 Jesse H. Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1951), p. 213; Minutes of Meetings of Directors of Brigham City Cooperative, 18 August 1873, MS 417, microfilm, reel 44, LDS Archives; Salt Lake Herald, 23 October 1874.

80 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 214-15.

81 Corinne Reporter, 14 April 1871; Deseret News, 31 January 1872.

S2 Salt Lake Tribune, 13, 14 May 1874; Corinne Mail, 30 October 1874.

83 A. J. Simmonds, The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley: A Study of the Establishment of Non-Mormon Churches in Cache Valley, 1873-1913 (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1976), pp. 14-17; Joel E. Ricks and Everett L. Cooley, The History of a Valley: Cache Valley, Utah-Idaho (Logan: Cache Valley Centennial Commission, 1956), p. 65.

84 Utah Reporter, 10 July 1870.

S5 Utah Reporter, 19 J u n e ; 15, 27, 30 July; 12 August; 23 November 1870; 6 February 1871.

80 David J. Bailey, "Diary and Reminiscences; His Journey from Indiana to Montana, 1865," pp. 106—7, Montana State University Library, Bozeman. sr Corinne Mail, 23 October, 15 December 1874; Ogden Freeman, 9 December 1876; Utah Mining Journal, 29 October 1872.

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8S Salt Lake Tribune, 22 November 1876; Deseret News, 9 June 1875; Charles Gilbert Wood, "Trenton," Utah State University Library, Logan; Corinne Mail, 4 December 1874, 22 March 1875.

S9 Corinne Mail, 22 January; 13 May; 9, 29 June 1875. 'â&#x20AC;˘>° Corinne Reporter, 12 April 1873. See also Corinne Reporter, 5, 19 Aueust 1871; 30 November 1872; 14 May 1873; Corinne Mail, 2 June, 26 September, 7 October 1875; Corinne Journal, 24 June 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 23 April 1875, 14 December 1876; John Henry Barker Papers, 1842-1910, 4 July 1875, 3 April 1877, MS 25, Utah State University Library.

91 Corinne Reporter, 16 September 1871.

02 Corinne Mail. 29 July 1875.

03 Utah Reporter, 22 March, 7 April 1870; Ogden Junction, 21 May 1870; Deseret News, 11 May 1870.

94

BY Letter Books, reel 18, 100.

95 Utah Reporter, 3 June 1870; Salt Lake Herald, 5 August 1870; Ogden Junction, 19 October 1870.

90 Ogden Junction, 17 August, 20 September 1870; Salt Lake Tribune, 16 August 1871.

97 Corinne Reporter, 12 August 1871.

08 Ogden Junction, 26 May, 6 June 1874; Salt Lake Herald, 4 June 1874.

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*By Land and by Sea Paddlewheel Steamboat The completion of the Utah Central Railroad from Ogden to Salt Lake City on January 10, 1870, gave the Mormon people control of the commerce from the new mines south of Great Salt Lake. To the citizens of Corinne this was an intolerable situation that would add to the prosperity of Ogden and confine the Gentile town to trade with Idaho and Montana. As the Corinnethians gazed at the great salt sea just south of the town, they could visualize a way of outsmarting their Mormon rivals and of capturing the mineral traffic of the Stockton and Tintic regions by utilizing a line of steamers from Lake Point, on the south shore, to their safe harbor at the mouth of Bear River.

Gen. Patrick E. Connor and other mine operators had already demonstrated the feasibility of transporting cargo across the lake by carrying ties, telegraph poles, and other goods to the builders of the Central Pacific Railroad. Connor had constructed the schooners Pioneer and Kate Connor in 1868, the latter a vessel of ninety tons.

Two other schooners operating on the lake by 1870 were the Pluribustah or Fillerbuster, or just Buster for short, and the Stockton boat, the Viola. The Kate Connor made its first appearance at Corinne on November 4, 1869, coming from the Black Rock mill laden with lumber, grain, and railroad ties. A week later the Buster anchored near the town and unloaded a cargo of silver ore from the Stockton

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Ferry across the Bear River near Corinne. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Musuem.

mines and lath from the Black Rock mill. In describing these landings the Utah Reporter expatiated on the navigability of Bear River, declaring that soundings during the period of lowest water had shown depths of fifteen feet or more and within ten feet of the shore near the town. Furthermore, the editor explained, the mines of Stockton and Rush Valley and the lumber and grazing regions south and west of the lake were all available to the merchants and industrialists of Corinne.

However, he thought that during the summer of 1870 the principal boating activity would be excursion parties to sightsee around the lake among its islands and at "Zion," all part of "the wonder of the Dead Sea of America." '

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In addition to the Kate Connor and her sister craft, at least one yacht was added to the Gentile fleet on Great Salt Lake when Samuel Coleman of Corinne launched the Queen of Corinne by May 1870.

The boat had a seventeen-foot keel and seven-foot beam, seats and oars for eight oarsmen, and a full set of sails. The Reporter announced that two or three crews would begin training at once to prepare for a match race as soon as another yacht could be completed.Marine transportation seemed to be engaging the interest of many Corinnethians.

While the Buster, Viola, and Pioneer were used during the summer of 1870 to transport ores to Corinne and to carry other cargo wherever a dollar could be made, the Kate Connor was converted from a schooner to a steamer at Corinne and by June 17 was ready for regular freighting and passenger trips between Corinne and Lake Point, the round trip for travelers being five dollars.3 The editor of the Reporter made an inspection of the craft as it lay at anchor at the Arizona Street wharf and declared it to be in fine order. During a first run everything went well, although later the Reporter found it necessary to reassure patrons about the safety of the craft because of a small mishap on her maiden voyage.4 Newspaper advertisements announced that the boat could be chartered by the day, week, or month for excursions on "the Dead Sea of the West" and that moonlight trips were being planned. 5 Early boosters of Corinne had written of taking light draft ships within a mile of the Salt Lake Temple or even, with a little dredging, by way of the Jordan River and Utah Lake to as far south as Provo.11 In August 1870 the owners of the Kate Connor decided to investigate the possibility of navigating the Jordan River as far as the Jordan Bridge, but the boat ran into fences hidden under the high water and finally went aground. The captain came away convinced that it would not be possible to carry excursionists to "the immaculate city of the Saints." " The summer's nautical activity did, however, encourage plans already being formulated at Corinne to enter the shipping business on Great Salt Lake.

Throughout 1870 the Utah Reporter mounted a barrage of statistics and enthusiastic reports of the tremendous commercial possibilities for Corinne if only a large steamboat could be built to ferry passengers around the lake and to return cargoes of ore from Lake

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Point. The editor explained that minerals from the south could be transported by lake 50 percent cheaper than by the Utah Central Railroad and that within three months a substantial ship of 150 tons could be built for $20,000. The craft would be able to make a round trip to Lake Point in thirty hours and would surely pay for itself in one year. Although the mines at Stockton and Ophir were only twenty miles from the landing at Lake Point, another thirty miles of wagon travel was necessary to get the loads to Salt Lake City and connection with the Utah Central. Also, the editor noted that the Omaha Republican was receiving constant inquiries from all over the nation about excursion parties on the Pacific railroad. A tour of the great inland salt sea would add spice to such overland journeys and bring cash into the pockets of those Corinnethians who were willing to buy stock in a steam navigation company that would run tours over the briny deep.8 To investigate the practicality of a steamship line to Lake Point, the leading citizens of Corinne chose a committee composed of E. P. Johnson, Sam L. Tibbals, and Samuel Howe to gather the factual information necessary for a decision. The three men traveled by way of Salt Lake City, approved a landing at Jeter Clinton's ranch near Lake Point, and secured options on the property. They judged that transportation of ore by wagon to Salt Lake City was impracticable and estimated that a ship placed on the lake by the next spring should be able to make the seventy-mile trip to Corinne in eight hours. The fact-finding team visited Stockton, Ophir, and Tooele and thought the Tintic District also could be included as a source of ore shipments.

They concluded that a steamboat of sufficient size and power should be constructed at once. Such an investment would pay off, they believed, and Corinne would then become "at once the grand Center and Metropolious [sic] of the Rocky Mountain Territories." 9 Leading citizen Wells Spicer must be given credit for bringing to fruition the plans for constructing a steamboat. Through a series of letters he alterted the people of the town to the type of craft that should be built, the probable cost of $14,000, and the estimated monthly profit of $3,300 to be realized once the ship was in the water.

An initial meeting of prospective stockholders for the new venture was held on December 12, 1870, and by January 14, 1871, the Corinne Steam Navigation Company had been organized with the following residents of Corinne as officers and directors: E. Conway, president;

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J. W. Graham, vice-president; Nat Stein, treasurer; and board members N. S. Ransohoff, E. P. Johnson, W. N. Ellis, Dennis J. Toohy, Sam Howe, and R. Martin. The firm arranged with Fox Diefendorf, an Evanston coal operator, to build a ship to "inaugurate the commerce of the magnificent inland waters of Utah." 10 The agreement with Diefendorf called for construction to be completed by the end of March 1871 for a price of $40,000 plus a bonus of $6,000 for the builders, a total much in excess of the figure estimated by Spicer.11 Work was soon underway on the City of Corinne, as the craft was to be christened, and twelve additional ships carpenters were hired.

When the ten carloads of machinery worth $36,000 arrived from Saint Louis, the boilers, wheel shafts, and other marine devices were The Bear River at Corinne, looking south. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

^"-# r #Ci ^

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put on public exhibition for the wondering gaze of the people of the town. The editor of the Reporter made a personal inspection of the craft being built and found the "great leviathan" and "chief triumph of the mountains" to be "a marvel of naval architecture." 12 David Auerbach, a former resident of Corinne, came from his home at Ophir City to buy supplies from the wholesale houses in the railroad town and expressed hope that the three dollars a ton in freight charges he had to pay for transportation from Salt Lake City could be lowered by the more direct and cheaper route across the lake. The Journal called for the construction of a commodious hotel to care for the increased tourist excursions that would result from the lake travel, and the Salt Lake Tribune rejoiced that the steamship line would offer rtiff competition to the Utah Central inasmuch as rumor had it that the venture was being backed, although indirectly, by the Central Pacific Railroad. 13 To prepare the necessary landing facilities at Lake Point, Diefendorf and Jeter Clinton located the site for a wharf to be built on the Clinton farm, and "Admiral" Diefendorf then dispatched a crew of seven men with barges and scows to take the construction materials across the lake. The Reporter was pleased with this first exhibition of successful navigation by freighting vessels which, incidentally, saved Diefendorf a thousand dollars in shipping charges. The Salt Lake Herald later told the story of this unlucky expedition that drifted around on the salty water without provisions for five days before being rescued.14 When the new steamship was ready for launching in May 1871 the Salt Lake Herald described for its readers the marvelous vessel.

The City of Corinne is a staunch built craft, well adapted for freighting across the lake and for excursions. . . . She is 138 feet from stern to stern, and 28 feet beam; with two high pressure engines of 125 horsepower, the engines and boilers being of the best quality and . . . kind . . . in regular use on the Mississippi River. She is strongly built of Oregon fir; her timbers eight inches apart, planked with three inch Oregon fir . . . from 40 to 60 feet in length. . . . The cabins on the quarter deck are handsomely furnished, and capable of seating, for dinner between sixty and seventy persons. Eight comfortable state rooms flank the cabins . . There are ample arrangements for cooking a superb dinner. . . . A well supplied bar is on board; and there is room . ..

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for cotillion or quadrills . . . the City of Corinne is excellently adapted for enjoyment by parties of pleasure seekers.15 All-out preparations were made to celebrate the launching of the pride of Corinne. The $6,000 bonus to the builders was collected from citizens who had promised various amounts in return for a pledge that the owners would "snub her at no landing on the northern shore of the lake but that of Corinne." A grand ball was scheduled for the opera house, a supper was arranged for invited guests, and a special train was scheduled to take sightseers from Salt Lake City to Bear River for the sum of three dollars round trip. In addition, there were to be horse races, a baseball game, speeches, and other kinds of pleasant entertainment. To help celebrate, the ladies of Corinne presented Admiral Diefendorf with a set of colors for the steamer. Everything was in readiness for the launch, "if the City of Corinne does not stick," a prophetic allusion to the ceremony by the Salt Lake Tribune.16 On May 23 a crowd of almost three thousand gathered on the banks of Bear River, half having come from Salt Lake City on the special train of twelve cars. The momentous event was covered by all the chief newspapers of northern Utah, but the splendiferous prose of the Corinne Reporter probably best expressed the exultation and pride of Corinne: At two o'clock the command was given to let the "City of Corinne" go into the element which is henceforth her home . . . the fastenings were hewn away and the graceful ship glided down the ways . . . after moving about twenty feet the vessel stopped still. This was owing to the sinking of the ways near the water's edge . . . .17 The disappointed crowd went to look at the city and watch the baseball game. After the Salt Lakers had left for home the perspiring workmen finally freed the craft, and the Reporter continued its account: At ten minutes after six the bell of the Presbyterian Church rang out in wild, mad glee, for someone "told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell," to tell the people that the "city of Corinne" was in the river, the strongest and the handsomest craft that ever sailed on sea or lake. is The Journal concluded a narration of the events by saying the day was crowned as no other day in the history of Utah except that

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of May 10, 1869. As an aftermath, two days later the Corinne Reporter received an ode of 216 lines to the steamboat from an excited and enthusiastic reader. The editor wondered how the "bale of syllables ever got through the door of the Post Office" and consigned it to his woodshed.10 With the celebration completed, Capt. Sam Howe took a short journey down the river with fifty guests aboard and then prepared for the trial run to Lake Point.2" The City of Corinne left on June 12, 1871, loaded with lumber, some merchandise, and wire for the Western Union telegraph line to Ophir. The Salt Lake Herald described the trip: Left Corinne, June 12, at 6 A.M.; Captain Sam Howe Commander. Weather fair. Boat drawing four feet three inches by The steamer Kate Connor on the Bear River. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

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the head; four feet seven and a half inches by the stern. At 8/2 A.M. landed to remove obstruction from the pump which had prevented a sufficient supply of water to the boilers. Lost two hours time. At 12 M. were at the mouth of Blue Creek; 12:45 open bay. Five feet and a half water over the bar, the depth increasing gradually to nine feet until well to the sound of Promontory Point, when it had increased to "Mark Twain." At 3:15 P.M. standing in to pass to west of Church Island. Took sounding again and failed to get bottom with four fathoms line.

Doubled our line and found bottom at sixty feet. At 4:35 P.M. pass head of Church Island and stood in for south shore. Made the wharf at 7:15 P.M., in eleven hours and a quarter running

Many of the townsmen arose to bid their fair boat Godspeed for the initial voyage, Toohy being among the earlybirds. He returned to his office to write fulsomely of the splendid craft and the flag at its mast that let the world of Mormondom know that Corinne was its home port. The Reporter also published a new map of the town showing the City of Corinne berthed in the river at the foot of Arizona Street.22 The return trip was made in eleven hours running time with a cargo of 1,150 sacks of ore weighing forty-five tons and fifteen passengers. One note of disappointment marred the eventful voyage when Diefendorf noted that the distance by river from Corinne to the lake was thirty-five miles when it was supposed to have been no more than fifteen. A schedule was posted for regular triweekly trips, leaving Corinne on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Passenger fares were listed as $5.50 to Salt Lake City via steamer and stagecoach or $10.00 round trip. Diefendorf applied for and was granted the mail contract between Corinne and Lake Point, and Corinne exempted the steamship line from taxation for the first year.23 Everything exuded prosperity as the City of Corinne began its regular trips.

As part of the grand design to win the trade of the southern mines away from the Utah Central Railroad, Diefendorf and his fellow promoters had also made arrangements to bring in from Sacramento a steam wagon invented by Oliver Hyde to transport the ores of Stockton and Ophir from the pits to the landing at Lake Point. This novel engine weighed eleven tons, was moved by a twenty horsepower engine, traveled on wheels "shod with India rubber," and was capable of pulling forty tons of material. 24 Hyde first demonstrated his ma-

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chine in Salt Lake City to the "retrogressive inhabitants of that place," as recorded by the Corinne Reporter,"7' and then allowed all the citizens of Corinne who wished to have a free ride. Editor Toohy was amazed at the facility with which the engineer could turn the monster.

The vehicle was transported by the City of Corinne to Lake Point where it soon demonstrated the ability to draw twenty or more tons of ore from Stockton to the landing on each trip.2" During June and July the steamer kept to its triweekly schedule, carrying lumber and other bulk goods as well as liquor and general merchandise for the merchants of Stockton and Ophir. But business soon dwindled to a single trip weekly by late July, and by mid-August the regularly scheduled trips ended, leaving the City of Corinne swaying at anchor while she waited for any kind of cargo. The Kate Connor had offered competition for the lake trade of which, evidently, there was insufficient for even one boat. 2 ' Toohy manfully addressed himself to the task of trying to sustain interest in the economic possibilities of the pride of Corinne, issuing a stream of editorials that proved, at least to Toohy, that although it cost almost $10.00 a ton to haul ore by wagon from Lake Point to Salt Lake City and another charge via the Utah Central to Ogden and the Pacific railroad, the fee from Lake Point by way of the steamer to Corinne was only $5.00, or possibly as low as $2.50 per ton.28 Such articles aroused the Salt Lake Herald to defend Salt Lake City interests and attack the contemptible style of its rival news sheet in trying to increase the importance of Corinne at the expense of the Mormon metropolis. The Herald insisted that more freight was being received each week by way of the Utah Central than was received in an entire shipping season five years before.2'1 In fact, during 1872 the branch railroad had gross earnings of $420,000 with a net profit of $210,000.

The train carried coal to Salt Lake City and ore to Ogden, the latter averaging 100 tons a day for months at a time. Toohy seemed to be blowing into the wind as he attempted to emphasize the bright prospects of the City of Corinne. According to the Denver News, in twenty-seven different issues of the Corinne newspaper, 467 items had appeared concerning the new steamboat on Great Salt Lake.3" The owners tried to boost passenger ticket sales by announcing reduced fares for grand excursions. The Reporter urged Corinnethians to travel via steamer on their visits to Salt Lake City for the Fourth

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of July celebration and excoriated those inconsiderate enough to travel via the Utah Central when they could enjoy a fun-filled frolic of three days instead of a "dusty trip in the church cars." Toohy rejoiced when the Central Pacific Railroad issued tickets with coupons attached that allowed through passengers on the transcontinental line to take a salubrious ride on the great inland sea.31 As the gloomy days of late July brought fewer and fewer trips, the desperate investors in the City of Corinne took the unprecedented and humiliating step of inviting the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, to take a complimentary pleasure cruise on the Great Salt Lake.

Within a few days Fox Diefendorf received a very formal reply from the prophet: At present my engagements are such that I cannot accept your kind offer before I return from my present trip and, when I get home my business is so pressing that I doubt whether I could avail myself of your liberality; indeed I do not know when I shall be able to take an outing upon our own little Steamboat. 32 From that patronizing refusal until the end of the season, the company began taking excursions of school children for short trips and accepting any kind of passenger outing. Excursions were advertised for "a whole day on the southern shore, to visit the caves and grottoes near Lake Point, enjoy surf bathing, and hunting. . ." 3 3 The New York Tribune correspondent summed up the reasons why the steamer was lying at anchor in Bear River: Another boat was needed so that one could depart from each end of the lake every day, and a railroad would have to be constructed to connect Lake Point with Salt Lake City.34

The Smelting Works The deteriorating prospects of salt water transportation also tended to depress a companion industry that had hoped to profit from refining the ores brought across the lake and from the Montana mines. Early in March 1871 Dennis Toohy had editorialized at length on the prospects of constructing a smelter at Corinne, pointing out by a circuitous and obfuscated line of reasoning that a $75,000 fifty-ton capacity smelter could produce twenty-five tons of bullion a day for a profit of $6,850, or $205,500 for every thirty-day run. He admitted his calculations appeared rather extravagant but argued that the

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Swansea, Wales, reduction works returned to its owners a profit of $15,000 a day on a hundred tons of ore shipped across the continent and the Atlantic Ocean from the Emma Mine in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City. Fuel for the furnace might be a problem, but Toohy was convinced that the canyons of the Wasatch could produce enough charcoal to do the job. The announcement, therefore, that George W. Goff and Gen. Joseph J. Heffernan of Chicago were inspecting possible smelter sites led to great speculation and anticipation on the part of Corinnethians that their town might be chosen. When the two entrepreneurs announced Corinne to be their selection, Toohy joyfully republished two lines from Nat Stein's poem about Corinne: "Smoke of Smelting Works and foundries on the air arising, thick, And in mills and manufactries whiz of wheels and hammers' click." 30 The George W. Goff Company laid the foundation for its smelter, the Alger Reduction Works, at Arizona and Second Street in April 1871. The furnace did not start in operation until September 13, 1871, although countless false starts were publicized by newspapers as far away as Deer Lodge, Montana. Toohy was almost overcome by emotion as he wrote, "Sublime is the fiery spire of the Alger furnace in the night time, and many look in wonder at the spectacle." 3G Charcoal brought in by wagon from Cache and Malad valleys proved to be insufficient, and coke was imported from outside the area. Although ore was processed all through the winter of 1871â&#x20AC;&#x201D;72, George Goff was apparently not satisfied with the results and sold the works to Henry Sanger who planned to move the refinery to Sandy, Utah.

Instead, Sanger soon sold out to Belshaw and Company who remodeled the smelter which by December 1872 was yielding four and a half tons of bullion every twenty-four hours. The company operated the furnace from this time until later in 1873 when it was apparently shut down for good.37 The editor of the Daily Mail occasionally expressed hope that the owners of the now defunct works would reopen the smelter, but nothing came of the appeal. The Belshaw Works were placed on the delinquent tax list in October 1874, and the only other reference to the empty quarters came in 1875 when the Salt Lake Tribune commiserated with one H. Glassner in the loss of two of his horses who had died as a result of being stabled over the poisonous wastes.38

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The failure of the smelter and the disappearance, at least from the news, of Hyde's land steamer emphasized the declining fortunes of the City of Corinne. After the disappointing first year, Fox Diefendorf sold the vessel in April 1872 to H. S. Jacobs of Salt Lake City who planned to use it to service Jacob's smelter and, when possible, to take excursion parties around the inland sea.30 The latter came to be the main source of revenue, and a port at Lake Side near Kaysville, Utah, was developed as a departure point. During the summer of 1872 a number of sightseeing trips were chartered. Most of the newspapers, including the Deseret News, wrote glowing accounts of these salt-air refreshers now that the steamer was no longer a property of the citizens of Corinne. The Utah Central carried tourists to Kaysville where they boarded farm wagons pulled by horses, which were "principally mules." From the water's edge the party was then conveyed by raft to the boat.40 The Salt Lake Herald described one of these excursions of about one hundred people who spent a day sailing on the lake, dancing to the music of the Tenth Ward brass and string band, and partaking of a sumptuous meal after which the guests gave the captain three hearty cheers. Occasionally, outings from Corinne were organized, one particularly noteworthy voyage being a trip sponsored by the Corinne Reporter for one hundred newspaper editors from Iowa, but mostly the steamer had become the possession of the people of Salt Lake City.41 Through 1872 the Reporter attempted to revive interest in the commercial possibilities of the City of Corinne, writing that the ship would yet be a royal investment. Responding to editorials urging them to bestir themselves, a dozen Corinne merchants visited the mining camps south of the lake to advertise their stores and merchandise and to point out the faster service their steamboat could deliver. The Utah Mining Journal answered these optimistic attempts with one word, perhaps." There were a few merchandising trips between Corinne and Lake Point in 1872, but the returns were disheartening. The excursions were not successful either, and the Mining Journal blasted the Mormons, by whom the cruises were "illy patronized," for "their unmitigated selfishness." 42 The Corinne newspapers kept up a brave front during the years 1873 to 1875, trying to reclaim the City of Corinne as their own and encouraging prospective customers to patronize the vessel. In April

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1875 the ship was purchased by John W. Young, son of the prophet.

By June 1875 the Daily Mail was wistfully writing that a gentleman recently arrived from Salt Lake City had informed the editor that the steamer would arrive in Corinne sometime during the next week, a forlorn hope. The final blow came when Gen. James A. Garfield was taken for a ride on the vessel and on the return trip a lady passenger proposed that the steamer be rechristened the General Garfield in honor of their distinguished guest. The deed was soon done, and henceforth there was not even the name to remind Utahns that the The General Garfield docked at the south end of the Great Salt Lake.

Utah State Historical Society collections.

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ship was once the pride and joy of Corinne. 43 The Salt Lake Tribune expressed the poignancy of Corinnethians: "There is also the steamboat, which silently rocks in the storm, on the other side of Great Salt Lake, never once points its bow towards the city, whose name it used to bear, and whose money it represents." The General Garfield continued to be used as a pleasure craft, gave its name to a beach and a town at the south end of Great Salt Lake, and eventually burned while anchored there.44

The Utah Northern Railroad The frustrating end to Corinne's high hopes of becoming a seaport was paralleled by the town's long struggle to maintain its position as a freight transfer point for the Montana trade in the face of competition from a narrow-gauge railroad Mormon promoters envisioned to run from Ogden to Soda Springs, Idaho, and possibly on to Montana. As early as December 1869 Grenville M. Dodge, chief engineer of the Union Pacific, was reporting to Congress the results of a preliminary survey for a branch railroad to run by way of Blacksmith Fork Pass from Bear River to Cache Valley.45 Over a year later, Mormon correspondent A. Milton Musser was reporting that a party of engineers was at Evanston, Wyoming, preparing to survey a route from that place through Bear Lake Valley to Soda Springs and thence to Montana. The Ogden Junction explained that a wagon road would also be opened to follow the same route which would make Evanston and not Corinne the point of departure for goods and passengers to the north. The editor prophesied that the change would mark the end of the Burg on the Bear whose loss of the Montana trade would forever shatter its "dry goods boxes" existence. In support of this contention, Brigham Young wrote D. P. Kimball advising him to give whatever help he could to Charles M. Elleard of Far West Freighting Company who was planning to move his business from Corinne to Evanston to save one hundred miles of railroading, the distance between the two towns. The rumors of a Mormon-built railroad from Evanston into Idaho elicited a sarcastic editorial from the Corinne Reporter about the healing powers of the waters of Soda Springs, an argument being used to advance the fortunes of the proposed line: "As to the chances of Soda Springs ever becoming another Saratoga, there is far less probability in the case than of seeing the Bear Lake Monster succeed to the presidency of the church." 40

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To the Mormon leaders who had already built the Utah Central from Ogden to Salt Lake City, these Evanston reports gave encouragement to plans already being proposed by such Cache Valley businessmen as Bishop William B. Preston of Logan to extend the churchowned line from Ogden north through the Cache settlements to Soda Springs. Union Pacific aspirations to capture the Montana trade away from the Central Pacific via Corinne coincided with Mormon desires.

Brigham Young encouraged the efforts of Preston and others, partly because he and some other church officials had recently purchased real estate in the famous Beer Springs area and looked forward to expanding Mormon occupation there as a prelude to the development of a health resort. Under his father's direction, John W. Young, flush with success and almost fifty thousand dollars' profit from the building of the Utah Central, now concluded an agreement with Joseph Richardson of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to furnish rails and rolling stock for the proposed Utah Northern Railroad. The Mormon farmers of Cache Valley agreed to build the roadbed and lay the rails. Brigham Young wrote the Mormon bishops in Cache Valley on August 8, 1871, informing them that John W. Young would shortly be visiting them to obtain support for the UNRR. Brigham Young added that as their president and prophet he very much favored the project.47 Bishop Preston's concern about foreign capitalists controlling the road was met with Brigham's reassurance that Joseph Richardson and his colleagues did not seek exclusive control of the proposed road but were as one with the Mormon leaders in wanting it built as rapidly as possible to give service to the northern settlements and to reach Soda Springs. Seventeen of the Cache Valley leaders agreed to direct work on the road, and the Utah Northern Railroad Company was organized on August 23, 1871, to run to Soda Springs, 125 miles away.48 Brigham Young was no idle bystander, as witness his note to D. McKenzie of August 28, 1871, advising McKenzie that he would be hired as engineer on the second locomotive of the U N R R as soon as he furnished the proper credentials.49 Although the line was to start at Ogden, the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, construction was to start at Brigham City to give Cache Valley residents rail service as soon as possible.

The Central Pacific would serve as a carrier to Brigham City until the Ogden section of the road could be built. John W. Young met with

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the people of Ogden in early September to get their agreement to construct the road between their city and Willard. The Ogden Junction reported that attendance at the meeting was rather small, an early indication that the residents of Weber County, already on a transcontinental line and having just completed building the Utah Central, were not that concerned with their neighbors in Cache County. The Deseret News, nevertheless, reported a unanimous resolve to construct their section of the three-foot, narrow-gauge road which John W. Young assured them would save over 40 percent in costs and operating expenses as compared to a standard, broad-gauge line.50 On August 26, 1871, a ground-breaking ceremony was held at Brigham City with John W. Young digging the first shovelful of earth and Lorenzo Snow offering the dedicatory prayer. The hostile Salt Lake Tribune deprecated the prayer: "This may sanctify the job, but we are ready to bet that it will require no less cash and no fewer blows to complete it. We will take ours plain, having had some experience in the praying business." 51 But the Deseret News reported hundreds of men and teams awaiting the signal to start the work, and Brigham Young wrote a friend that the people were enthusiastic in their determination to build the line.52 The first reaction of the Corinne Reporter was quite favorable, the editor extending a welcome to the Utah Northern. But two weeks later Toohy changed his tune, perhaps realizing that his energetic Mormon neighbors might not stop at Soda Springs but push their little railroad on to Montana, thus putting the Corinne Reporter and the whole town of Corinne out of business because the transfer of freight from railroad cars to wagons would no longer be necessary for the transport of goods to Montana. Toohy, therefore, started what soon became a running attack of seven years by Corinne newspaper editors who ridiculed and reviled the builders and operators of the Utah Northern.

When the Utah Northern Railroad shall have been completed, we hear that all the freights and passengers to Montana, Northern Oregon, British America and Alaska, are to be switched off at Ogden, and taken on the narrow-gauge, via Soda Springs, to any given point on the globe, and no questions asked. . . .

There will be no more use of the Central Pacific, and the towns along that line, being deprived of their business and resources, will have to retire, perhaps. . . . and there is some talk of the lake overflowing this valley to an indefinite depth. 53

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The apprehension and uncertainties presented by the Utah Northern, from this time on, came to haunt the citizens of Corinne and to inhibit the development of the town.

By November 1871 several miles of road had been completed north of Brigham City. The optimistic promoters expected that Cache Valley would be in sight by the first of the next year, and non-Mormon newsmen began to take notice of the new mountain railroad. The Idaho Statesman was certain that the Utah Northern was in reality a branch road of the Union Pacific to the north designed to capture the Central Pacific business from Corinne to Montana. 54 The New York Tribune warned the nation that Brigham Young's power was being strengthened as a result of the money he was making out of building his branch railroads. The Montanian rejoiced at the prospect of an early railroad connection with the "outer world." The Ogden Junction was also convinced that the narrow-gauge line would be a very profitable road, although it would incidentally destroy one or two little railway towns that could "easily be spared." 55 One of these railway towns girded up its loins, summoned its will, and agreed with a Nebraska newspaper that the road would not affect Corinne. The Mormon farmers of Cache, meanwhile, paying little attention to outside comment, hitched their teams to plows and scrapers and worked out their portion of the construction.5" Despite optimistic hopes that the new rail line would reach Logan

by July 1872, planting and harvest time kept the farmers busy at home much of the year. The road was completed to Hampton's Bear River crossing by June 13. A regular schedule was announced for the twenty-five mile stretch between there and Willard, and one passenger wrote, "The little iron pony fairly threw gravel as it whizzed up the road toward the terminus. . . ." 57 Brigham Young thought the railroad a success, although he wrote privately to Joseph Richardson of New York City of his reservations that the contract between the eastern financier and John W. Young discriminated against the latter and that the senior Young would have opposed the agreement had he known its provisions.58 The hard-working crews were still trying to complete the roadbed across the divide to Cache Valley when the year ended. The company's surveyor, James H. Martineau, had recommended a route through the Bear River Narrows as more protected and easier of construction; but the impatient promoters wanted a con-

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nection with Logan, the county seat.59 Later, as the storms of winter kept piling snow on the exposed tracks on the divide, many residents of Cache Valley regretted the decision.

The people of Corinne watched with some apprehension as the tracks of the Utah Northern advanced northward along the foot of the Wasatch range, and editor Toohy expressed the hostility many felt toward this threat to their very existence as a freight transfer point.

Toohy thought the plan to build the road was all "bosh." The Utah Northern was a "gymnasium for grasshoppers," an "iron plaything," a "farcical burlesque" composed of "toy vehicles, half velocipede and half wheelbarrow" and designed "to monopolize the trade in skunk hides and carrots from the vast region of Cache Valley and Soda Springs." When the schedule was announced to Hampton's, the editor wrote: The traveler who takes a train on the Utah Northern narrow gauge at Brigham Station, may reach Hampton's in an hour or two, but arriving at the point of the mountain he'll find no coach or wagon awaiting to bear him onward, for long before that place is reached, the stage has passed on its more direct line several miles westward. . . . We would like to see the officers of the Utah Northern throw out a hint to the green tourist that there is no stage line in any way connected with the road, . . . only from the Central Pacific Railroad at Corinne do the stages and freighting for Montana depart every day.60 As the year progressed, Toohy added to his derisive comments: The Utah Northern was a "horse railway . . . [of] teapot power"; its boilers were "heated by wrapping mustard plasters around them"; and two new handcarts were added as rolling stock for "that feeble concern."

Finally, in November 1872, Toohy revealed his real concern by writing that the Young family was determined to cut off Corinne's freight and passenger trade to Montana.'' 1 The Mormon newspapers gave as good as they received. The Salt Lake Herald wrote, "Some small-souled, carping, jealous beings have been venting their spleen against the Utah Northern, . . . but while they snarl and spit out filthy venom, the line is being built. . . ."° 2 The Deseret News came closer to the point by announcing that when the rails reached Franklin the Montana trade would go by the railroad instead of through Corinne. In reply to editorials from the Reporter that all work on the railway had ceased, the News said, "These reports

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indicate a spasmodic effort on the part of the Corinnites to retain a little longer the trade of Montana at their town." The church-owned newspaper also reported that the citizens of Weber County had finally chosen Lorin Farr to supervise the construction of the section of track between Ogden and Willard, a portion that had been held up while scarce rails had been delivered to the more important Cache Valley line.63 With construction well underway between Ogden and Franklin the Mormon promoters of the Utah Northern looked for financial assistance from the people of western Montana to help push the road to Helena and a connection with the Northern Pacific Railroad. The story of Montana efforts to get a north-south railroad is interesting and significant but has relevance here only as it conditioned the plans and efforts of Corinne to head off the threat of a Mormon-dominated by-pass railroad through Soda Springs. The Helena Herald, discouraged with the slow progress of the Northern Pacific, probably took the lead in trying to stir up enthusiasm among Montanans to vote a subsidy to help in the construction of the Utah Northern. These efforts were unsuccessful, but the maneuvering and politicking of the various groups in Montana aroused a lot of speculation by Corinne residents about the possibility of building their own broad-gauge road from the Central Pacific along the Montana trail to the mining towns of the north. 64

The Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad The people of Montana petitioned the Congress in February 1871 for aid in the construction of a railroad from Ogden to the northern territory, a project that naturally aroused the interest of Corinnethians who wished to make their town the terminus. 05 R. Hering of the famous Ferdinand V. Hayden exploring expedition described the route the proposed railroad could take over Raynold's Pass and into Madison Valley.66 As early as November 1871 the businessmen of Corinne had become apprehensive enough about the Utah Northern and Brigham Young's intention of cutting off their trade and, supposedly, revenging himself against them to consider the construction of a broadgauge road that would make the town the most important station between Omaha and Sacramento. The Corinne Reporter attacked the

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concept of a narrow-gauge line whose merits were "purely imaginative" and insisted that a broad-gauge road should be built at once with Corinne as the terminus.67 This request indicated that by March 1872 there was a movement underway to project a branch road from the Gentile town to Montana.

In a series of urgent meetings held between March 28 and April 13 1872, the citizens of Corinne successfully pledged the money necessary to organize the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad Company to build a broad-gauge road to Montana. In the initial meeting a $17,000 subscription was raised in ten minutes. The Reporter began to call on all residents to "subscribe for a spike in the new road, if you can do no more"; and by April 12, N. S. Ransohoff and Alex Toponce had purchased the last two shares of stock. In an enthusiastic meeting 323 people cast ballots to elect a board of directors of nine members who in turn elected Patrick E. Connor and O. J. Hollister as president and secretary of the new company. Editor Toohy, a director, prophesied that the new railroad would become an important link in the network of lines connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but had to confess that the Board of Trade had driven the railroad company out of the board's meeting hall.68 O. J. Hollister left at once for Washington, D.C., to lobby for legislation giving a right-of-way for Corinne's thoroughfare to the north.00 Because of the Credit Mobilier scandal and public opposition there was little expectation of a grant of lands, but there seemed to be no problem in getting the right-of-way. Bills were introduced into the House and Senate on April 24, and six days later the legislation was approved. Hollister received much credit for the unprecedented speed with which the Congress had moved, but the fact that the UI&M was a Gentile road helped considerably also. The people of Corinne were certain that with such auspicious beginnings the work of building the line would be started immediately.7" Daily editorials or news briefs from the Reporter proved Toohy's determination to remind the promoters every few days of their pledge to complete the 450-mile road to Helena.71 The Helena Herald was ecstatic. The news of the passage of the right-of-way act had created a sensation throughout Montana.

Preparations were made for a survey of the first section of road with the expectation that the initial fifty miles would be completed by October. The Reporter capped its accounts with a long column

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describing the ground-breaking ceremony during which Connor, spade in hand, announced, "I now pronounce the construction of this road a success," certainly a premature conclusion. Toohy expressed the sentiments of the populace, "Our city is clothed in garments of joy. . . ."

His newspaper was filled with reports of building lots rising in value from $1,500 to $4,000 in one week and of store rents going up 100 percent as a result of the tremendous news.72 Indications of the approach of actual construction activity began to appear in outside newspapers. The Helena Herald, for example, reported two thousand Chinese at work on the UI&M. Editor Toohy had the pleasure of seeing the books and office stationery of the firm; mules, wagons, and harness for the survey party were purchased; and, finally, a carload of tents for the engineers arrived at Corinne.73 The Utah Mining Journal watched these comings and goings and remarked of the new railroad that it might be built some day. The two survey crews advancing from each end of the line completed their work on August 30, 1872, followed by rumors that contracts would be let very soon for the construction of the roadbed. By this time two miles of grading had actually been accomplished.74 Parallel developments, however, were not so optimistic. O. J. Hollister and another member of the board of directors, Fox Diefendorf, traveled to San Francisco to try to raise capital for construction of the road, and a party of financiers from the Bay Area made an observation trip from Corinne to Helena to examine the potential of the line. As Toohy put it, "They are said to represent the material which is so potent in great enterprises â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cash. . . " ''"' Of even more significance, a petition was circulated among the town's citizens asking for an election to decide whether the city should subscribe for 1,000 shares of $100 each in the UI&M company, the 8 percent, thirty-year bonds to be delivered to the railroad when the first twenty miles of road north of Corinne had been completed. The special election, to be called at the request of the UI&M, was apparently never held.76 The flurry of excitement about the UI&M and the continued work on the Utah Northern led to much agitation from the people of western Montana for a rail connection from the south. The Montanans were determined to have some control over the line. They did not want to be committed to Corinne as a point of departure, nor did they wish "to see the great Montana tail irrevocably tied to so small a

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kite or made dependent upon the destinies of Corinne." 77 The Montana Gazette was also somewhat envious that the Bear River town had been able to procure a charter that the whole territory of Montana had been unable to obtain. Corinne's hope of financial help from Montana met with defeat as factions east and west of the Continental Divide in the northern territory failed to agree on subsidies for either the Corinne railroad or the Mormon Utah Northern. 78 The Helena Herald probably echoed the sentiments of most Montanans in late 1872 by declaring little hope for the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad if the line had to be built by money from that northern territory. The editor resigned himself to expectations that the Utah Northern would be the one to penetrate into his territory, but he wished it were under the control of non-Mormons. The Utah Saints were also optimistic about their railroad because there was a vast hinterland of support in Cache Valley and up to Soda Springs while the Corinne line would have to depend upon through traffic for its support over the wastelands of eastern Idaho.711 As Dennis Toohy continued his sarcastic jibes at the "sorghum line over the way," John W. Young was quoted as grumbling because, although he doubted that the Corinne road would ever be built, "it is raising h 1 with the bonds of the Utah Northern in the New York market. . . ." Toohy kept up his hopes with the firm belief that the Central Pacific would not allow the Union Pacific and Utah Northern "Mormon pole to knock the persimmons off" the lucrative trade to Montana. 80 As the New Year's bells rang in 1873, the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad seemed as cold and dead as the windswept ice on Bear River. Toohy produced labored editorials beseeching the people of Montana for financial help to revive the expiring railroad and condemning its flourishing narrow-gauge rival as worthless compared to a broad-gauge road. Storekeeper L. Hoffman of Corinne stopped advertising his "narrow gauge ready made clothing for 70 cents on the dollar" and changed his advertisement to read, "Having now enough carrots and first class pumpkins to do me and my family this winter, I shall endeavor to quit selling narrow-gauge clothing and furnish you a good article of tip-top broad gauge at greatly reduced prices." S1 But to Corinnethians and Montanans alike that was a bad joke.

Samuel T. Hauser traveled from Montana to San Francisco in June 1873, desperately seeking financial help to build a railroad con-

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necting with the Central Pacific and Union Pacific roads. His friend, A. B. Knight, met him at Corinne on his return from the coast and wrote that Hauser was rather gloomy about the prospects of any aid from California.82 At the same time, Dennis Toohy reflected this discouragement as he heard what he thought was a "cry of despair" coming from the chilly north as Montanans bemoaned their isolated situation . He seemed to be speaking as much for himself. The Salt Lake Tribune was quite pointed as the Utah Northern reached Logan: "Corinne, if she would be anything in the future, must . . . either emigrate to Logan or build a railroad to Montana." S3 With the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad a failure, the people of Corinne adopted the next best plan and sought a connection with the Utah Northern.

Corinne Branch of UNRR Before the excitement of the projected railroad to Montana had obliterated from their minds any thought of a union with the narrowgauge line, Corinne's leaders had contemplated such a move as early as January 1872. The Board of Trade appropriated money for a preliminary survey of a branch line to run the three and a half miles to North String, located just north of Brigham City. A committee was also appointed to meet with John W. Young concerning a branch from Corinne, but the assignment was soon forgotten in the rush to promote the broad-gauge line to Montana. Not until November 1872 did a dejected Corinnethian delegation, having eaten sufficiently of humble pie, travel to Logan to seek a meeting with Moses Thatcher, secretary of the Utah Northern. 8 ' Receiving some encouragement from this visit, the Corinne deputation called a mass meeting of interested residents of the town to determine whether there was sufficient support for a branch road.

Dennis Toohy had a very difficult time trying to swallow his bitterness against the Mormons while advising his readers to consider the branch line. He described the two points of view he observed among his townsmen: The opponents of priestly interference in the temporal concerns of Utah wish for no connection, either by rail or revelation, with the spawn of Lucifer; but the passive in feeling, who are certainly

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Utah and Northern Railroad trestle at Eagle Rock with roundhouse and shops in view. Utah State Historical Society collections.

more numerous, see a brighter light in the sheen of the almighty dollar than can be dimmed by any religious scum, and these of course, according to their natural rights, think differently.

He ended his tortured editorial by advising that all shades of opinion should be represented at the meeting.85 When a large crowd gathered at the opera house on December 2 to discuss a proposed connection with the Utah Northern, the local glee club rendered "We Are Riding on a Rail" and "Carmichael on the Dump," after which a night of confusion ensued. Committees were appointed and disbanded, chairmen were deposed and new ones appointed, an adjournment was voted and then disregarded, and finally the meeting ended in frustration.86 The townspeople seemed as perplexed as Toohy about which course to pursue. The Mining Journal attacked the Jack Mormons of Corinne and their "flunkeyism" and concluded that although the "little Gentile queen up at the north" refused to do obeisance to the Mormon promoters of the narrow gauge, the town did hint that the Utah Northern officials could visit Corinne to discuss matters of mutual interest.87 But it was a committee of Corinnethians who traveled to Logan and escorted John W. Young, Moses Thatcher, Judge Samuel Smith of Brigham City, M. W. Merrill, and several other dignitaries of the narrow-gauge line into the

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Gentile stronghold on December 14 for the first delicate face-to-face meeting of two parties bound by a possibility of mutual financial advantage and little else.88 After a day of sightseeing, dinner at the Metropolitan Hotel, and alternate speeches, the ice seemed about to melt as good feelings replaced the animosity of the previous years. A second meeting resulted in definite proposals that were presented to and approved by the people of Corinne in a public meeting. A joint high commission was to report final arrangements, and the Salt Lake Herald applauded, "Let us have peace and railroads." On December 19 John W. Young and his colleagues again met in Corinne to conclude the "Treaty of Corinne," while editor Toohy announced, "We welcome the Utah Northern to our city and wish its firm rails a heavy train of successes." ^ The terms exacted by the railroad officials were humiliatingly to the point: Corinne would have to pay a subsidy of $5,000, grant a right-of-way, contribute grounds for a depot, and agree to no taxes for at least two years. In return, the Utah Northern officials made promises that almost guaranteed the end of Corinne as a shipping depot for Montana: To run their regular passenger and freight trains . . . to and from Corinne until their road shall have been completed to Ogden, if ever, and as much longer thereafter as it shall pay them to do s o . . . .

Not to move their present junction with the Central Pacific until they do move it to Ogden, if ever.90 In addition to the financial help from Corinne, the Utah Northern also received $4,500 in an appropriation from the Box Elder County Court to aid in the construction of the branch line.111 This amount came from tax funds Corinnethians had also helped to pay. Surely John W., at least in this instance, was proving to be as adept at finances as was his prophet father.

Surveys for the branch line were soon underway. The grading for the five-mile stretch was finished in April, but the necessity of constructing a bridge at Bear River delayed until June 10, 1873, the completion of the work. The chief stockholder in the Utah Northern, Joseph Richardson, visited Corinne in April to give his approval for the extension and predicted that within a few years the town would reach a population of a hundred thousand. As the citizens of Corinne

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prepared for the celebration of their miniscule joining of the rails, they, nevertheless, responded affirmatively to the great prophecy of the imaginative financier from the east. At exactly 4:00 P.M. on June 10 the last spike was driven, an engine and several cars crossed the river and ran up to the depot, the local militia saluted the event with "an hour's cannonading," appropriate remarks were made by several civic figures, and "all then directed their attention and energies towards a half dozen kegs of beer which were thoughtfully prepared for the occasion." "2 The only harsh note was the news that the largest freighting company at Corinne, the Diamond R, would soon be moving its headquarters to Logan which the Utah Northern had reached earlier in the year. But Corinnethians were pleased that from this time on passengers and freight bound for the Utah Northern line would come via the Central Pacific from Ogden to Corinne instead of to the old junction near Brigham City.93 The new rail connection between Gentile Corinne and Mormon Logan inaugurated a feeling of detente wholly unexpected just a few months before. On June 20, without any warning, about four hundred school children arrived in Corinne from Logan to visit the strange and exotic town beyond the Bear. Cool beverages were offered them, the mayor made a hasty speech of welcome, and the Reporter applauded this first excursion ever from the Mormon settlements to Corinne. A week later a party of Corinnethians reciprocated the visit by traveling to Logan where "they were very agreeably surprised, and almost overwhelmed with the extreme kindness and attention shown them by the honorable people of that place." The reception included conveyances to take them from the depot to the city hall, ice cold lemonade, the inevitable speeches, and an invitation to attend the Mormon conference then in session. Not to be outdone, the citizens of Corinne invited the Loganites to join them in their celebration of the Fourth of July at the Gentile headquarters and made grand preparations to receive the Mormon brethren and sisters in hospitable style.94 The drama of the lamb and the lion was being played out with at least temporary success on the grassy banks of the Bear.

When the Utah Northern reached Logan in early February 1873 the railroad's backers looked forward to uninterrupted service to Cache Valley and immediate profits but reckoned without considering what winter storms could do to the tracks.95 Surveyor Martineau's predic-

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tions of disaster on the Mendon Divide were borne out in the winters of 1873 and 1874 when trains were stopped for weeks at a time. There was plenty of good sleighing from Cache Valley to the Central Pacific as passengers and mail were transported over the snowdrifts around the blockade. In March 1873 over three hundred men were employed shoveling snow off the tracks from the Logan end while a similar force started from Brigham City.96 A year later another contingent of two hundred workers broke through the snow blockade after seven days of exertion. Despite the idyllic treaty of peace resulting from the completion of the Corinne branch of the Utah Northern, editor Toohy of the Reporter could not refrain from caustic asides concerning the failure of the narrow-gauge "waffle irons" to plow through the snowbanks.97 The train on the Utah Northern railroad due at Logan on the 13th was snowed in, and abandoned near Mendon in the afternoon. The smoke stack was covered in fifteen minutes after the storm began, but several women went out with brooms to clear the track, and it was thought when our informant left Logan that the train would be dug out by the first of March. By order of the Board of Directors, the engineers will hold an open umbrella over the engine, when snow or heavy dew falls on the line.9a The snow blockades continued to offer amusement and ridicule to the Corinne newspapers until the railroad finally, in 1878, rerouted the track through the more sheltered Bear River narrows.

Although the Weber County Mormons had begun work on their connecting line to Brigham City in November 1872, priority had been given to the extension of the Utah Northern to Logan and beyond to Franklin, Idaho. Mormon leaders, including Brigham Young, then revived interest in completing the Ogden line on which construction was renewed in September 1873 under the direction of Bishop Lorin Farr. 09 The Ogden Junction suggested to the people of the community that here was a way of paying off their debt to the emigration fund of the church or of catching up on their back tithing. The editor entreated, "All hands to the road, and 'pop her quickly through.' " in0 The Box Elder County Court appropriated $6,500 to help complete the road from Ogden to Brigham City and as far as Worm Creek, five miles north of Franklin, Idaho. 1 " 1 At 4:40 P.M. on February 5, 1874, about five hundred people assembled opposite the schoolhouse in Willard to listen to a brass band,

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cheers, and train whistles and to watch Mormon dignitaries drive a silver spike manufactured in the Brigham City Cooperative Blacksmith Shop.102 Within a few days regular trains were running directly from Ogden into Cache Valley without the necessity of taking the Central Pacific on to Corinne and then back, a detour of about ten miles.103 The Ogden Junction listed all the postal towns from Ogden to Franklin, significantly omitting any reference to Corinne. For the next year and a half trains continued to run on the narrow-gauge track between Corinne and the main line near Brigham City, but on January 1, 1876, the Utah Northern officials exercised their option under the agreement with Corinne to discontinue service to the town. Montanans did not appreciate this change which forced passengers going east to travel through Ogden without stopping at Corinne and travelers from San Francisco also to go by way of Ogden. What was worse, from the point of view of Corinnethians, they also had to go to Ogden in order to entrain for the north. 104 The precarious treaty of amity and friendship between Gentile and Mormon engendered by the Corinne branch road faltered to a complete stop. A new newspaper, the Corinne Daily Mail, picked up the hatchet thrown down by the defunct Corinne Reporter and began to cut away at the Mormons and their narrow-gauge railroad. In derisive comment, the new editor wrote: It is not true that engineers on the Utah Northern Railroad use a lighted candle to heat the water in their locomotive boilers, nor is there any foundation for the story that a Corinne man got up and whipped a U.N.R. engineer for running a whole train of cars over him while he was quietly snoozing on the track.105 The industry of the Weber County Saints in completing their segment of the Utah Northern was matched by their fellow members in Cache Valley who were spurred on by a sermon of Brigham Young to continue the line to Idaho by completing the grading: "I thought I would ask the brethren, inasmuch as they wish to travel north, occasionally, to do themselves and the rest of us the kindness to get a ride upon a pretty good track." 10° Sandwiching grading and track-laying in between farm chores, the Mormons of Cache County pushed the road to Smithfield by November 17, 1873, and to Franklin by the spring of 1874. Passenger and freight services from Ogden along the eighty-five mile stretch to Franklin began May 4.107

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The steady advance of the narrow-gauge rails to the north understandably excited the people of Montana and discouraged the residents of Corinne. In January 1873 a loyal Corinnethian wrote the Helena Herald that Montanans should not be confused by Corinne's action in cooperating with Utah Northern officials in building their branch line. That did not mean the abandonment of the project to build a broad-gauge road to Montana. In response to such assertions, the Herald opined that Corinne was truly disturbed about a possible loss of its forwarding business to Idaho and Montana. 108 The editor was correct, because from this time on businessmen and newspaper writers alike argued, presented statistics, and strove valiantly to stop the shift of trade from their wagon metropolis to the Utah Northern at Franklin. The Corinne Reporter insisted by devious reasoning that a wagon depot at Franklin shortened the distance to Montana by only twenty-five miles, when the actual difference was fifty miles; that the road from Franklin through Marsh Valley was soggy and poor, which was true; and that freighters and stagecoaches would prefer to end their long journey from Montana in the hospitable and freer climate of an "American" Gentile city like Corinne, which was also probably true. A friendly correspondent pointed out to the Helena Herald another disadvantage of shipping by Utah Northern cars â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it would require a second transfer of goods from broad-gauge, ten-ton cars to narrow-gauge, four-ton cars in addition to the customary reloading from the large cars to wagons.1011 Supporters of the narrow-gauge were certain that because of the saving of fifty miles of travel, the avoidance of having to cross the Malad Divide, and the reduction in freight costs by a quarter of a cent a pound, freight for Montana would travel by the new route through Franklin. The Ogden Junction crowed, "The beginning of the end of 'the burg on the Bear' is inaugurated." l l n The Deseret News reported almost incessantly the plans of Joseph Richardson and the Mormon promoters to have the Utah Northern built twenty-five miles beyond Franklin to Carpenter's Station on the Montana trail by the spring of 1875, a project that would surely eliminate Corinne as a rival. By this time it was common knowledge that the Gentile portion of the Utah Northern management had abandoned plans to build by way of Soda Springs and intended to take the more direct route via the already well-traveled Montana trail.111 Judge Cornelius Hedges of

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Helena, traveling through Corinne in April 1874, wrote that he found the people there "in a state of settled despair over the future of their city." 112 By the summer of 1874 business conditions in Corinne were being observed through the dark curtain of dust on the wagon road north. Bad roads in Marsh Valley, the Saintly control of social life in Franklin, and, above all, the financial panic of 1873 postponed for four years the demise of Corinne as a freight transfer point on the Central Pacific.

Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake Railroad The nationwide depression of the 1870s also killed the prospects for another railroad that might have helped Corinne overcome the threat of the Utah Northern. The Union Pacific in 1867 had partially surveyed a route through the Snake River Valley and along the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast, but it remained for Col. H. I. Chapman of Portland, Oregon, to organize the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake Railroad in 1872 and then to attempt to get territorial and federal aid for his projected road. Corinne had only peripheral interest in these plans until January 1874 when the moribund state of the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad and the surging life of the Utah Northern suddenly sharpened the interest of Corinnethians in Chapman's plans. The colonel also recognized the possibility of joint enterprise with Corinne, and for a share in the almost defunct Utah, Idaho, and Montana line and the support of the town's leaders he promised to make Corinne the terminus for his railroad which would follow the Montana trail north to Fort Hall before turning west along the Snake River to Oregon.113 When further efforts failed to obtain financial aid from the federal government and eastern centers, Colonel Chapman reorganized his firm in 1876; renamed it the Portland, Salt Lake, and South Pass Railroad; and planned to sell stock in the company at $100 a share.

To arouse dormant interest in would-be investors, Chapman began construction from Corinne in September 1876 and simultaneously started a publicity campaign to raise money. The flagging interests of the people of Corinne were once more aroused to the possibility of having their own broad-gauge railroad to the north. 114 When an engineering party started out to survey a line from the town to Malad City, along the route already surveyed once before for the Utah, Idaho, and

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Montana Railroad, a correspondent relayed the exhilarating news to Salt Lake. The writer enlarged upon the prospects for the broadgauge line that would diverge at Fort Hall with the Chapman road to the west and Corinne's Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad to the north. He concluded, "The people have discovered that the Mormon narrow gauge is hardly as good as a respectable bull train, and the Government has discovered that the Enoch road cannot be relied on to transport the mails." "â&#x20AC;˘"' Press reports from Colonel Chapman's headquarters in Corinne provided the news that the community was becoming the liveliest town in Utah and that its future and almost certain control of all freight destined for Montana and the Pacific Northwest would signal an end to Fort Benton, Kelton, and Winnemucca as outlets for the northwest trade. 116 For once the efforts of the indefatigable Colonel Chapman seemed justified. The survey was completed to Snake River, four miles of grading were finished by November 1876, and Hiram House had provided 200,000 feet of lumber for ties. That was the extent of progress of the new railroad as bad weather and the lack of funds stopped the work within sight of Corinne. Two years later the promoters of the road were still trying to get congressional approval of a bill granting aid to the road. The effort came too late, because by 1878 the Union Pacific was vigorously extending the Utah Northern into the Snake River Valley. With financial resources available to continue construction into Montana, Jay Gould's railroad was now helping to make the grass grow in the streets of Corinne while the Portland, Salt Lake, and South Pass Railroad joined the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad in the graveyard of other visionary railways that had haunted the feverish imaginations of frontier Americans from sea to shining sea.117 With high hopes, much grit, and the expenditure of considerable sweat and tears the Gentile citizens of Corinne had labored to expand the transportation system that gave life to the town. The exciting and imaginative attempt to build a fleet of steamboats on Great Salt Lake had failed as more efficient rail lines captured the ore trade from the mining districts south of the lake. Following immediately behind this disappointment came the threat of the Mormon-built Utah Northern Railroad to steal away the vital trade from Montana that sustained Corinne. When it proved impossible to meet the challenge of the

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narrow-gauge road by constructing the Corinne-dominated Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad, the citizens of the town had only one precarious recourse â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to obtain a branch line as part of the Utah Northern. This Mormon connection proved to be only a temporary solution that dissolved as soon as the Ogden-Brigham City link was completed by the Mormon farmers of the area. For the remaining years of the 1870s Corinnethians clung to the faint hope that an Oregon railroad might make the town its terminus, a chimera that vanished as the Utah Northern continued to crawl towards Montana.

But the people of the Gentile town on Bear River were ever ebullient despite these economic disappointments and fashioned for themselves a very satisfying social life that provided cultural attainments as well as recreational and dramatic activities. Not everything was geared to business and mundane pursuits. The heart as well as the head required nurture and care.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 6 1 Jesse H. Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1951), pp. 161-66; Utah Reporter, 4, 13 November; 17 May 1870.

2 Utah Reporter, 29 March, 10 May 1870.

3 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 166-68. * Utah Reporter, 17, 19 J u n e ; 26 July 1870.

5 Salt Lake Herald, 29 June 1870; Utah Reporter, 17 July 1870.

"Montana Post, 19 March 1869; Salt Lake Telegraph, 21 April 1869.

T Utah Reporter, 8 August 1870.

8 Utah Reporter, 21, 23 April; 2 December 1870.

9 Report of Committee Investigating Feasibility of Navigating Great Salt Lake, 1870, photocopy of MS, in author's possession. io Utah Reporter, 18, 19, 23, 29 November 1870; 14 January 1871.

11 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 173-74. i 2 Ibid., p. 174; New York World, 30 April 1871; Utah Reporter, 13 March 1871.

13 Corinne Reporter, 14 April 1871; Corinne Journal, 7 May 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 12 May 1871. ^ Salt Lake Herald, 16 March 1871; Corinne Reporter, 16 May 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 26 May 1871; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 175-76.

15 Salt Lake Herald, 19 May 1871. io Ibid.; Salt Lake Tribune, 19, 22 May 1871; Corinne Journal, 18, 19, 23 May 1871; Corinne Reporter, 22 May 1871.

17 Salt Lake Tribune, 24 May 1871; Corinne Journal, 23 May 1871; Ogden Junction, 24 May 1871; Deseret News, 31 May 1871; Corinne Reporter, 24 May 1871. ls Corinne Reporter, 24 May 1871.

19 Corinne Journal, 24 May 1871; Corinne Reporter, 26 May 1871.

-° Corinne Reporter, 5 June 1871.

-1 Salt Lake Herald, 14 June 1871; Corinne Reporter, 17 June 1871.

'-- Corinne Reporter, 27 May 1871. =:« Deseret News, 20 June 1871; Corinne Journal, 13, 15, 21, 24 June 1871; Corinne Reporter, 24 June 1871; Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 20 June 1871, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

21 Corinne Reporter, 31 May 1871.

-•" Ibid., Salt Lake Tribune, 1 June 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 17 June 1871.

-° Corinne Journal, 20 June 1871; Corinne Reporter, 24 June, 5 August 1871.

-7 Corinne Reporter, 24 June 1871; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 179-80.

28 Corinne Reporter, 28 May, 18 July 1871.

-'•> Salt Lake Herald, 15 June 1871.

30 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 275; Corinne Reporter, 1 July 1871.

31 Corinne Reporter, 27, 30 J u n e ; 1 July 1871.

•''- B. S. Fitch to Brigham Young, 10 July 1871; Brigham Young to B. S. Fitch, 23 July 1871, Brigham Young Letter Books, microfilm, reel 38, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

33 Corinne Reporter, 4, 12 August 1871. :!1 New York Tribune, 19 September 1871.

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35 Corinne Reporter, 14 March; 6, 22, 24 April; 28 May 1871; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 156-58.

36 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 158; Corinne Journal, 4 June 1871; Corinne Reporter, 19 September 1871.

3 " Corinne Reporter, 29 May 1871; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 158-60; Corinne Reporter, 29 March; 6, 11 December 1872.

38 Corinne Mail, 11, 23 December 1874; 1 April 1875; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 160-61.

39 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 181; Corinne Reporter, 16 February, 15 April 1872. *o Deseret News, 22 May 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 26 June, 15 Tuly 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 13, 14, 20 May 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 19 May 1872. â&#x20AC;˘"â&#x20AC;˘Salt Lake Herald, 22 May 1872; Corinne Reporter, 29 May, 18 June 1872. " Corinne Reporter, 29 March; 16 April; 22, 24 August 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 15 July, 23 August 1872.

43 Corinne Reporter, 23 January, 15 April, 30 June, 8 July 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 22 June 1873; Corinne Mail, 23 December 1874; 8, 16, 27, 30 March; 1, 24, 26, 28 April; 2 June 1875 ; Salt Lake Herald, 5 June 1875. " Deseret News, 19 May 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 29 May 1875, 21 July 1878; Salt Lake Tribune, 11 May 1876, 16 July 1878; Bernice Gibbs Anderson, "The City of Corinne," in Box Elder Lore of the Nineteenth Century (Brigham City: Box Elder Chapter, Sons of Utah Pioneers, 1951), p. 118.

45 U.S., Congress, House, Report, Chief Engineer of Union Pacific Railroad, HouseEx.Doc.no. 132, 41st Cong., 2d sess., 1870.

40 Salt Lake Herald, 1 February 1871; Ogden Junction, 28 January 1871; Brigham Young to D. P. Kimball, 26 July 1871, BY Letter Book's, reel 18; Corinne Reporter, 14 August 1871.

47 Merrill D. Beal, Intermountain Railroads: Standard and Narrow Gauge (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1962), pp. 3 - 7 ; Robert G. Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country: The Utah and Northern," Montana Western History 18 (October 1968): 3-23; Brigham Young to Bishops in Cache County, 8 August 1871, BY Letter Books, reel 19.

48 Beal, Intermountain Railroads, p. 7; Clarence A. Reeder, Jr., "The History of Utah's Railroads, 1869-1883" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), pp. 215-19.

49 Brigham Young to D. McKenzie, 28 August 1871, BY Letter Books, reel 19.

50 Ogden Junction, 20 September 1871; Deseret News, 2 September 1871.

51 Beal, Intermountain Railroads, p. 13; Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroads," p. 221; Salt Lake Tribune, 28 August 1871.

52 Deseret News, 6 September 1871; Brigham Young to Orson Hyde, 30 August 1871, BY Letter Books, reel 19.

53 Corinne Reporter, 25 August, 6 September 1871. ^Deseret News, 27 September, 8 November 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 17 September 1871; Idaho Statesman, 23 September 1871.

55 New York Tribune, 19 September 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 29 September 1871; Ogden Junction, 9 September 1871. so Corinne Reporter, 15 November 1871; Beal, Intermountain Railroads, p. 15. " Salt Lake Herald, 30 March 1872; Deseret News, 10 January, 29 May, 26 June, 24 July, 7 August 1872; Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroads," pp.

227-28.

58 Brigham Young to Edward Young, 24 April 1872; to Joseph Richardson, 2 August 1872; to George P. Nebeker, 15 August 1872, BY Letter Books, reels 19, 20.

59 Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroads," p. 228; Beal, Intermountain Railroads, p. 13.

Ii0 Corinne Reporter, 21 March, 31 May, 13 June, 8 July 1872.

01 Corinne Reporter, 19, 20 August; 12 September; 11 November 1872.

02 Salt Lake Herald, 2 June 1872.

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e3

Deseret News, 20, 30 October; 6 November 1872.

Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," pp. 2-23, contains an excellent discussion of Montana efforts to promote a north-south railway; Helena Herald, 11 April, 24 October 1872; Deseret News, 13 November 1872; Corinne Reporter, 27 March 1872.

05 U.S., Congress, House, Memorial of the Executive Board of Trustees of the Montana Central Railroad Company, pp. 1-2, House Misc. Doc. no. 73, Serial no.

1463, 41st Cong., 3d sess., 1871.

00 U.S., Congress, House, United States Geological Survey of the Territories, Embracing Portions of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah . . 1872, p. 92, House Misc.Doc.no. 112, Serial no. 1573, 42d Cong., 3d sess., 1873.

Corinne Reporter, 15 November 1871; 21 January, 8 February, 27 March 1872. os Corinne Reporter, 28, 29 March; 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 April; 1 June 1872.

69 Salt Lake Herald, 16 April 1872.

70 Corinne Reporter, 1, 10, 29, 30 May; 1, 3 June 1872.

71 Corinne Reporter, 29 May; 4, 16 June 1872.

72 Helena Herald, 6 June 1872; Corinne Reporter, 3, 31 May; 4, 14, 17 June 1872.

73 Helena Herald, 20 June 1872; Corinne Reporter, 29, 30 July 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 15 August 1872.

74 Utah Mining Journal, 1 August 1872; Corinne Reporter, 7, 19, 31 August 1872; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 190.

75 Utah Mining Journal, 31 July 1872; Corinne Reporter, 8 July 1872.

7 ÂŤ Corinne City Minute Book, 30 July 1872.

77 Corinne Reporter, 13, 23 May; 10 June, 21 October 1872.

78 Corinne Reporter, 10 June 1872; Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," pp. 2-24.

79 Helena Herald, 12 September 1872; Salt Lake City, 28 November 1872. so Corinne Reporter, 8 August, 11 November 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 26 August 1872. sl Utah Mining Journal, 2, 23 January; 18 June 1873.

82 Helena Herald, 5 June 1873; A. B. Knight to Old Boy, 3 July 1873, Charles Bovey Collection, Virginia City, Montana.

53 Corinne Reporter, 18 June 1873; Salt Lake Tribune, 10 May 1873.

54 Corinne Reporter, 31 January; 6 February; 5, 27 March 1872; Orson Hyde Elliott, "Reminiscences," pp. 524-25, LDS Archives; Idaho Statesman, 6 February 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 30 November 1872.

85 Corinne Reporter, 2 December 1872. so Corinne Reporter, 3 December 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 December 1872.

S7 Utah Mining Journal, 4 December 1872. ss Corinne Reporter, 10, 14 December 1872. *o Corinne Reporter, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20 December 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 17 December 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 18 December 1872; Salt Lake Tribune, 21 December 1872.

90 Ogden Junction, 25 January 1873; Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroad," p. 231; Corinne City Minute Book, 17, 23, 24 December 1870.

01 Box Elder County Records, 11 February 1873, 261; 2 June 1873, 253 Utah State Archives.

92 Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroads," pp. 231-32; Corinne Reporter, 16 April, 11 June 1873.

93 Deseret News, 11 June, 1 October 1873.

94 Corinne Reporter, 20, 28, 30 June 1873.

95 Deseret News, 5 February 1873.

64

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o« Deseret News, 12, 19 February; 5 March 1872; 19 March 1873; Utah Mining Journal, 18 February 1873; Corinne Reporter, 13 March 1873.

97 Deseret News, 17, 24 December 1873; 1 April 1874; Salt Lake Herald, 14 December 1873; Ogden Junction, 13 December 1873; 27 February, 12 March 1874; Corinne Reporter, 17 February 1874.

98 Corinne Reporter, 14 February 1874. " R e e d e r , "The History of Utah's Railroads," pp. 232-33; Deseret News, 22 October 1873; Brigham Young to F. A. Mitchell, 29 October 1873, BY Letter Books, reel 20.

IOO Ogden Junction, 29 October 1873; Deseret News, 22 October 1873. i°iBox Elder County Court Records, 2 September 1873, 256; 29 December 1873,263.

102 Ogden Junction, 6 February 1874. i" 3 Deseret News, 6 May 1874. i° 4 Ogden Junction, 11 February 1874; Deseret News, 5 Tanuary 1876; Helena Herald, 20 January 1876. i»s Corinne Mail, 23, 30 October 1874.

100 Sermon of Brigham Young, 28 June 1873, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols.

(Liverpool, 1854-86), 16:63-64.

107 Reeder, "The History of Utah's Railroads," pp. 233-34. i° 8 Helena Herald, 2, 23 January 1873.

109 Corinne Reporter, 31 January, 23 June 1873; Helena Herald, 20 February 1873.

110 Helena Herald, 10 July 1873; Ogden Junction, 31 May 1873. m Deseret News, 22, 29 April 1874.

112 Helena Herald, 14 May 1874. n3 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 191-92.

114 Ibid., p. 192.

115 Salt Lake Tribune, 6 September, 5 November 1876; Salt Lake Herald, 17 September 1876.

140 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 193.

117 Ibid., pp. 193-95.

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SB VIA THE SALT LAKE STEAMER

CITY I CORINNE From CORHTNE.TJtah,

I

/%r\ii

SALT LAKE CITT. H B. Crocker it Vit., Steam Book and Job Printers. 42 and 44 J Street. Sacramento.

Advertising poster, 1871. Courtesy of Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

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Corinne the Fair

Utah and Corinne Reporter The most active and enthusiastic promoter of a satisfying cultural life for the people of Corinne was the local newspaper, although at times a reader might conclude that the sole objective of the news sheet was to attack and ridicule Mormon neighbors. A later journal, the Corinne Mail, claimed that the Utah Reporter under the editorial direction of J. H. Beadle was the first important newspaper to oppose Mormon theocracy in Utah and that to it belonged the honor of establishing whatever freedom of expression there was in the territory. 1 A visitor to Utah in 1870, remarking on the "unrelenting warfare against the Saints" waged by Beadle, felt that such verbal bludgeoning would not have been possible in Salt Lake City and that Beadle's editorials likening Mormon leaders to men "who would rob their grandmothers of their spectacles and sell their frames for silver . . . . crafty swindlers and licentious monsters" meant that the editor risked his life when he left the safety of Corinne to travel to Mormon settlements."

The Mail may very well have been correct in its evaluation of the Utah Reporter leadership in outspoken and unflagging criticism of Mormon wiles and ways. The Salt Lake Tribune, which became the leading Gentile critic of Mormon political and economic control in Utah after July 1873, had followed an ambiguous course from its

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founding in April 1871 because the Godbeite owners were caught in the thicket of polygamy, which they continued to nurture. The antiMormon editor of the Tribune, Oscar G. Sawyer, finally resigned as a result of the dispute. When new owners took over the paper on July 24, 1873, they announced an all-out campaign against Mormondom and for the next ten years decreed that "objectivity was a vice not to be tolerated in news columns, editorials, or correspondence from readers." ^ But from April 1869 to 1873 it was the Reporter of Corinne that inaugurated and led the Utah anti-Mormon journalistic forces in denouncing the prophet and the priesthood.

The Corinne newspapers tended to follow a similar kind of format. The front page carried reading matter reflecting national and international news. The second page consisted of brief one- or two-line local news items, some longer articles, and the daily editorials.

About half the second page and nearly all of the third and fourth pages were composed of display advertising, most of it of the trade variety paid for by the goods or services advertised and not by cash.

Editor Toohy included for a time this daily disclaimer: "No barter advertising for pianos, watches, or sewing machines taken! Cash only, and no notice taken of anything else." The American Newspaper Directory reported an 1870 circulation of 500 for the daily and 800 for the weekly Utah Reporter. For 1871 the circulation reached 1,000 daily and 2,000 weekly which, for a town with a population of 783, was excellent. The directory listed a circulation of 1,130 for the daily Corinne Reporter in 1872. Prices for the four-page 22-by-32inch paper varied from $10 to $12 a year.4 The local news was "warm and gossipy" and often descended to the level of describing dog fights and other incidents of life in a frontier town. 5 The Utah Reporter, after the beating of J. H. Beadle as described in the first chapter of this work, continued its strong support of Corinne and its unceasing attacks on Mormon Utah. Apparently O. D. Huyck took over the editorial duties of the paper, and Huyck and Wilson were listed as the publishers in May 1870. J. H. Beadle returned as publisher on August 2, 1870, and continued in that position for the rest of the year.'' In his first edition he listed five objectives for the paper: to furnish information about the natural and cultural resources of the town and its area, to serve as a Gentile voice for the territory, to encourage the exploitation of the mineral resources of

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Utah, to support federal officials when they acted wisely and competently, and to help develop the commercial possibilities of Corinne as a railroad town. By year's end O. D. Huyck had assumed sole control of the newspaper and was forced to reduce it by one-half its former size because of the lack of patronage. Beadle put on a brave front by answering that he had transformed the newspaper from a "total wreck" to a substantial and successful news sheet.7 The Utah Reporter was certainly successful in attacking the Mormons and their press. According to Huyck, the Ogden Junction was an "organ of incest, polygamy and fraud" that preached abstinence from strong drink but advertised the best wines and liquors for sale at the Pioneer Drug Store. In reply to an Omaha Herald reference to the Salt Lake Telegraph as a Gentile paper, Huyck responded that the "Telegraph of Salt Lake City . . . is no more a Gentile paper than a skunk is a rabbit; and its cant about civilization and Christian arguments has no more sincerity in it that [sic] the last speech of the impenitent thief." As for the new Salt Lake Herald, it was a "filthy sheet run on the plan of other flash journals." s Mormonism and its leaders shared equal billing with the Utah newspapers, as the editor of the Reporter attacked a Mormon "heinous monster" who "had kicked his aged mother out of his house," citing the incident as "Mormonism reduced to practice." 9 While the Ogden Junction carefully explained that the Mormon people were deliberately exclusive and did not mix well with outsiders because the creed of the Saints was entirely different from that of the Gentiles,10 the Reporter explained that the definition of the word Gentile meant the upper crust. When Brigham Young preached at nearby Brigham City the Corinne editor reviewed the sermon of "the hoary leader of bygone years" in which every word betrayed "the expressive groan of departed power. . . . Poor Brigham; we could almost pity him but we do not." " When Beadle took over the editorial pen in August 1870 the friendly Idaho Statesman applauded his return but warned him against another possible Mormon beating. The Boise paper advised him to obtain a short hickory stick and "when a man comes in the door and don't state his business at once, belt him and make him speak." 12 Beadle wrote well and at length, and his Mormon adversaries at least had the consolation of being berated and ridiculed in the best of the king's English. The editor described a meeting in the Salt

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Lake Thirteenth Ward meetinghouse and the speeches there by two of the leading Mormons, John Taylor and George A. Smith.

John Taylor made his usual speech on the divine authenticity of Brighamism, and having heard it five times already, we did not attend. We used to like that speech, but it does not keep as well as George A. Smith's favorite â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on the "persecutions" of the church; we have heard that eleven times since we came to Utah, and would go to hear it again almost any Sunday. There is a jocular freshness and geniality in lying about George A., which Taylor lacks. . . ." " In an editorial on October 12 Beadle continued the barrage, declaring that "the Devil is an important personage in Utah" and that Mormon preachers assigned everything they did not like or understand to the machinations of the devil. "If an Apostate thrives, it is 'the Devil taking care of his own'; if he fails, it is the judgment of God. We cannot sufficiently admire this logic it is 'heads I win, tails you lose.' " Sometimes Beadle descended to such questionable witticisms as "the chief doctrine of Mormonism was originally called Pull-legamy, and hence derived its foothold as a system of thighology." Or, he might get away from his diatribes against Mormonism long enough to observe, "Rain is again respectfully invited to fall in this latitude."

His business colleagues in Corinne enjoyed him as the editor of their local paper and supported the Utah Reporter.1* John Hanson Beadle surrendered his editorial post on January 19, 1871, to Judge Dennis J. Toohy whose anti-Mormonism and command of the written word were as strong and flamboyant as those of Beadle. Toohy had started life as a cabinetmaker in Hartford, Connecticut. He had then moved to Cincinnati where he took up the practice of law, later serving in various posts in Washington, D.C., before following the Union Pacific rails to Corinne in 1869. He soon became perhaps the most prominent citizen of the town, appearing in some capacity on nearly every important committee or board concerned with the improvement of Corinne. His florid and spread-eagle style of writing and speaking made him the favorite author and orator of his townsmen, and he loved to give way to his Hibernian instincts to assault and ridicule his Mormon neighbors. Just a few weeks after the change in editors O. D. Huyck sold his interest in the Utah Reporter to Adam Aulbach, and on April 8 Toohy announced an en-

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larged paper with a new name, the Corinne Reporter, dedicated to the welfare of his community and to the suppression of the crime of polygamy.115 A principal reason for expanding the paper and attempting to give it a lift with a new designation was the appearance of some competition in the publication of the Corinne Journal by two Montana newspapermen, Frank Kenyon and Al Merrick. They promised to deal impartially and justly with all people in the territory and to make the paper a Republican journal. The Salt Lake Tribune extended a welcome to the Journal but advised that there was no room for a Republican party in Utah, only church and antichurch parties. The Salt Lake Herald thought the new paper showed taste and intelligence in its editorial staff.1" Judge Toohy also welcomed his competitor and changed his own masthead advertisement from the "only Gentile paper" in the territory to the "pioneer Gentile paper" of the territory. But he refused to acknowledge that either the Journal or the Salt Lake Tribune was a genuine, true-blue Gentile newspaper.

The Corinne Journal had a brief career of only three months before Kenyon announced its valedictory and a move to Salt Lake City. During that short period, Corinne could boast two daily and two weekly newspapers, but their prosperity was short-lived.17 A reorganization of the Reporter office occurred when Dennis Toohy resigned as editor on June 12, 1871, only to be reinstated as both editor and owner-publisher on June 27, 1871, with the departure of Adam Aulbach for greener pastures in Salt Lake City. Toohy assured the readers of the Reporter that the change meant no departure from the established philosophy of the sheet and asked for support because of his very limited experience as a journalist. 18 That there was no departure soon became evident as Toohy lashed out at his Mormon and other opponents. He condemned the Carson Register in Nevada for its suggestion that the Reporter's "bitterness often leads to exaggerations"; called the editor of the Ogden Junction a whining creature who defended a "trio of Blood Atonement butchers";" blasted the editor of the Montanian under the caption "Blockheads and Blockades"; 20 and directed a fusillade against all his readers whose "tender susceptibilities" were occasionally wounded by the Reporter: We do not belong to our patrons; Our paper is wholly our own;

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Those who like it may take it, Those who don't, may leave it alone.

But his bitterest vituperation was reserved for Mormondom which he usually referred to as the "Alkali Kingdom," "modern Babylon," "Mormonopolis," or the "land of lechery." He nearly always reported the semiannual conference of the Mormon church with such sarcasms as "They will undoubtedly put a new coat of paint on the pillar of polygamy, and repeat the old story of the retreat from Nauvoo. . . ."

He attacked national authorities for allowing Willard Young, a son of Brigham, to enter West Point which would permit a "Bastard in the Army." A fight at Brigham City between the county clerk and the president of the Mormon stake was described as ending thus: "Prone on the earth, like some putrifying carcass, lay the bruised elder, while his cadaverous victor walked off in triumph exclaiming 'I'll show the old son of a who did the most for the church!' " Occasionally, Toohy would try a low Beadle joke: "A Mormon priest bought a copy of Burns a few days ago, because he had heard some one say the poet had written 'Caught her Saturday night!' " In one issue he asked to be pardoned for omitting to say anything about the Mormons the day before. He also delighted in giving good coverage to such events as the antipolygamy lectures of Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse.21 Evidence that these barbs stung came from Mormon and Gentile alike. When tourist Baron de Hiibner protested about the pure invention by the Reporter of his supposedly anti-Mormon speeches in Salt Lake City, Toohy assured him he had nothing to fear from the prophet in Corinne. The Salt Lake Herald ridiculed "Dennisbe Jabers Toohigh's" Irish background while Delegate William Hooper made a more dignified and very serious attack in a congressional speech on the Gentile papers of Utah: "The Salt Lake Tribune, Mining Journal, and Corinne Reporter, are constant evidences of the unbridled liberty of the press." 22 With national recognition and the enthusiastic backing of most Corinnethians, Toohy's announcement on March 28, 1872, that he was abandoning the Reporter because the income was not sufficient to balance the expenditures came as an unwelcome surprise. On the next Sunday morning as he began to box up his material in the newspaper office preparatory to moving to Salt Lake City, a delegation of

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Corinne

A passenger train at Corinne. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

businessmen visited him and offered a subsidy of $5,000 if he would continue publication of the newspaper. This pecuniary encouragement tempted him enough that he immediately gave up all plans to start a new paper, the Gentile Sun, in Salt Lake City and unpacked his boxes.

The Helena Herald, the Helena Gazette, and other nearby nonMormon journals applauded the inspired Corinnethians for having enough common sense to recognize who was the chief support of their community. Judge Toohy added to this pleasant surprise by marrying Flora Majors, daughter of Alexander Majors of Salt Lake City, on October 17, 1872, the wedding nuptials being lamented in a twelveverse poem, "To Our Departed Brother" by the "Surviving Bachelors of Corinne." 23 The financial injection by Corinne's business community proved to be only a reprieve until May 22, 1873, when Dennis Toohy announced he had purchased the Utah Mining Journal of Salt Lake City.24 It was the beginning of the end of "The great anti-Mormon

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newspaper; the largest and cheapest paper on the Overland Railroad," for on July 25, 1873, Toohy announced the Reporter's demise and his intention of moving to Salt Lake City to start the Salt Lake Times after retiring from control of the Utah Mining Journal.2* Two weeks later the Salt Lake Journal (so renamed by Toohy) reported the dejected feelings of the people of Corinne as they contemplated the long days without a newspaper, their abuse of Dennis Toohy for deserting them, and the recognition that their town was deteriorating. Then, optimism returned. Horace W. Myers invested $4,000 to purchase the assets of the Corinne Reporter and announced his intention of pursuing a different course, leading the Deseret News to editorialize that he had apparently learned that scurrilous abuse did not pay. Furthermore, the twenty-four-year-old Myers lived up to this expectation by a strong onslaught against the ring of federal officials, the "widemouthed brawlers" who had "inveigled" the citizens of Corinne for years "to subserve their selfish ends." His charges against Chief Justice McKean, George Maxwell, and others brought applause from the Salt Lake Herald editor who thought Myers would now be ostracized and called a Jack Mormon. 26 Certainly, there was a different point of view emanating from the banks of Bear River. But the change came to an inglorious and abrupt end with the announcement on November 29, 1873, that Horace W. Myers, editor of the Corinne Reporter, had committed suicide by taking laudanum. The cause was apparently financial problems with the paper. 27 The death of Myers, in a way, emphasized the declining fortunes of the town, and for the next ten months Corinne had no newspaper at all.

Daily Mail and Corinne Record The temporary aberration of a Corinne newspaper siding with the Mormon press was corrected by an even more violent anti-Mormon newspaper, the Corinne Daily Mail, whose first number appeared September 2, 1874. The publishers were S. S. Johnson, H. H. Watts, W. S. Cooke, and J. W. Pike. Johnson, the business manager and also part-time editor, was praised by the Salt Lake Tribune: "Johnson writes up Mormonism with a pick handle dipped in asafetida. . . ." 2S The reference was apt. While Beadle had employed a rapier and Toohy a broadsword, the new editor's pick handle reflected a lack of

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finesse and subtlety in the blunt way he attempted to cudgel Mormondom into submission. The news service was meager, advertising took up about 80 percent of the space, and the editorials were unrelentingly directed against "H. R. H. Brigham Young" and his followers. Even the friendly Salt Lake Tribune thought the editor of the Mail was overstepping the bounds of decency by writing that he "would take delight in writing Bro. Brigham's obituary," to which the Corinne newspaperman replied, "it is the community's good we have at heart, and that is the only reason we want to write his obituary." 29 Whereas the earlier Corinne papers had concentrated their attacks on the Mormons in selected editorials and reports, the Mail ran almost daily one-liners and short paragraphs of ridicule and contumely especially directed at the Mormon press. For Charles W. Penrose, the editor of the Ogden Junction, the Mail expressed particular contempt: "The lunacy of the editor of the Junction is becoming more apparent daily, and it is now generally conceded that Charles will soon have to swap his endowment clout for a straight jacket." When Penrose charged that certain individuals were using the columns of the Mail to abuse the Mormons, the Corinne editor replied, "Were it not that modesty forbids, we would tell what use the public makes of the Ogden Junction. Anyhow, it isn't used for the same purpose the Mail is." A new Ogden journal, the Freeman, was called "another Mountain Meadows paper" and its editor condemned as a "most worthy disciple of Judas." In one article the Mail dispensed with its antagonists by addressing them as "the serfs of the Herald, Junction and News." 30 The Mail kept a correspondent in Salt Lake City who signed himself "Broadaxe" and who helped keep the newspaper informed daily about the supposed misdeeds and misbehavior of the Mormons.

There were constant stories about immigrant girls escaping from polygamous marriages, Brigham City farmers thrashing their wives, and even editorials condemning Salt Lake City Gentiles for not resisting the contaminating influences of their Mormon neighbors. There was, of course, a surfeit of ridicule, including smug reminders that there were no Mormons living in Corinne: "Amongst all the linen that flutters in the backyards of Corinne we fail to notice the emblem of Mormonry, the dagger and crossbones that adorn the 'garment.' . . .

Verily, then the faith doth languish among us." Brigham Young was

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the special target of bitterness, the editor, for example, having named his dog "Brigham." Other leaders of the Saints did not escape, Daniel H. Wells being a particular object of scorn: "Brother Dan makes an A No. 1 devil, and he don't have to disguise himself much, either."

The semiannual conference of the church was nearly always referred to as the "Menagerie." 31 The Saints of Utah easily outlasted the diatribes of the Corinne Mail. In March 1875 the editor proclaimed the precarious financial condition of his paper by reporting that he would attempt to support it through one more volume but would then retire if it did not pay.

The promise was kept by the assertion on November 3, 1875, that there was insufficient profit. But the erstwhile editors insisted that they had, nevertheless, published "a strictly Gentile paper." 32 The decease of the Mail brought expressions of regret from other Gentile papers in Utah, Idaho, and Montana. The Salt Lake Herald spoke for the Mormon press in advising any new Corinne publisher to "purchase new material, for that with which the Mail was published has killed three or four papers." 33 It would be sixteen months before another daring adventurer would attempt to pick up the journalistic sword and shield to challenge the Saints of Utah.

John W. Pike, one of the promoters of the Mail, and his brother Edward met with the businessmen of Corinne in January 1877 and received assurances of a subsidy of $600 and a promise of $10 a month in advertising from thirty of the town's merchants to start the Corinne Gazette. The amount was significantly less than the $5,000 given Dennis J. Toohy to get him to continue publication of the Corinne Reporter in 1872. John Pike agreed to start printing the Corinne Record (nee Gazette) and was "as serenely content as a Mormon Bishop with half a dozen wives," according to the Salt Lake Tribune?4 while the Salt Lake Herald doubted that the town was prosperous enough to support a journal. 35 When the first edition appeared February 16, 1877, the Deseret News was delighted to report that the new publisher did not intend to revile and blackguard his opponents. In fact, matters became so harmonious with the Latter-day Saint community that soon a Mormon became the editor. That brought forth grumbles from the Salt Lake Tribune that "Grandmother [Deseret News] takes great delight in copying the silly vaporings of its young Mormon editor of the Corinne Record" 3G and that "We do not believe

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the people of Corinne approve the WEEK-KNEED course of their local paper." The Salt Lake Herald also took umbrage with the youthful editor for stealing the Herald's bedbug editorial and publishing it as a bit of original thinking. 37 Within only five months the Corinne Record changed from a daily to a semiweekly. The Deseret News thought that "probably the Salt Lake monster swallowed most of the subscribers and advertisers of the Record." The Corinne Record suspended publication on October 10, 1877. Not even a pro-Mormon stance could sustain a newspaper in the rapidly shrinking town on the Bear where the subscribers list had decreased to about three hundred paying customers.38

Episcopal and Methodist Churches The bitter antagonism of Corinne's newspapermen towards the Mormons met with a corresponding sympathy from the religious leaders of the town. Despite the New Testament exhortation to seek out the lost sheep, most citizens of Corinne seemed to agree with Saint Paul's admonition to an earlier set of Corinthians: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. . . Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate. . . ." Eastern newspapers like the New York Tribune, on the other hand, encouraged Christian churches to proselyte among the Mormons to bring the unbelieving Saints to Christ and asked why Utah was being neglected when it afforded such a rich field for converts and possible martyrdom for missionaries.30 Certainly the early Protestant congregations of Corinne used that argument to raise contributions in the East for construction of new chapels in the town.

The Episcopal church was the first to raise the banner of Christ in the Gentile town on Bear River. The Corinne Mail later described the first meeting conducted by an Episcopal priest: The rector of St. Mark's Church, Salt Lake City, paid us a visit and held service in the City Hall, early in June, 1869, the congregation consisting of six devout citizens, and during service a crowd of two hundred gathered in front of the building and organized a foot race, which so disgusted the reverend gentleman that it was months before he could be induced to return to Corinne. 40

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In July 1869 the Reverend George W. Foote, under the direction of Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle of Salt Lake City, undertook the construction of a small adobe chapel on a corner lot at Colorado and Seventh Street. He raised about $1,000 from among the early residents and with a gift of $1,500 from an eastern lady, Mrs. Minturn, was able to complete the Church of the Good Samaritan. 41 Foote himself described the structure as without doors and windows and with a dry goods box for a desk and seats fashioned out of boards salvaged from the streets.42 The Utah Reporter described the church as presenting " 'a beggarly array of empty benches' or here and there a worshiper."

Two months later the same editor described it as being a neat and adequate house of worship.43 Dissatisfied with the primitive building, Foote traveled to the East to raise money for a new structure. In South Norwalk, Connecticut, and at other places he described to amazed listeners how his little flock had suffered Mormon persecution but had been able to construct a Christian chapel with the aid of the pious people of Corinne. He continued his appeal, rejoicing that soon the Mormon theocracy would be torn asunder, resulting in a rich harvest of souls. The dramatic portrayal apparently had some success among the Christian people of Connecticut because Foote was able to return to Corinne and renovate and enlarge the original structure. Local contributions and some public entertainments, including dances and an old folks concert, helped the cause so that by October 1870 the church was even able to acquire a melodion, a three-reed organ of five octaves and eight stops.44 The Episcopal church was the least successful of the three Christian denominations active in Corinne and had only occasional visits from Father Foote and Bishop Tuttle until a resident minister, the Reverend Ballard S. Dunn, was assigned there by February 1871."

But Dunn lasted only a few months because of certain nonreligious activities that stamped him as a secular individual rather than a man of the cloth. It seems that the new rector, as an unreconstructed rebel, had fled Texas after the Civil War, had been involved in an unsuccessful emigration of Southerners to Brazil, and had been ejected from a pastorate in Oakland, California. The Episcopalians of Corinne promised him a salary of $1,500 a year but did not support him by attending his services in great numbers. On one occasion only Nat

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Stein, the local poet, showed up for church, so the Reverend Dunn and Stein retired to the parsonage to pound quartz in a mortar and to test it for gold. Dunn soon became involved in establishing some mining claims on Antelope Island and along the south shore of Great Salt Lake which seemed to occupy much of his time. He also was accused by some of his congregation of resorting to the bottle before delivering his sermons. Bishop Tuttle accepted his resignation on September 5, 1871, so Dunn could turn his full attention to recovering precious metals instead of lost souls.4" For the next six years the Episcopalians of Corinne did not have a resident priest but had to rely on the monthly or semimonthly visits of Bishop Tuttle and occasional meetings with other ministers during the summer months when the bishop was traveling in Idaho and Montana. The Reverend T. W. Haskins came occasionally from Camp Douglas in Salt Lake City to minister to the needs of the small congregation at Corinne with the Utah Reporter entreating him to return often. Bishop Tuttle labored diligently to keep a full complement of vestrymen active to support the church in Corinne, and, for a time, Mayor W. H. Munro was one of this body. But it was the bishop who kept things alive with his winter visits to the town until February 1877 when he appointed H. H. Prout to serve at Corinne. 47 The Corinne Record reported that Prout was contemplating buying a small farm near the town and hoped he would do so and thus ensure another resident minister for Corinne.

Prout continued his devotions to the cause of Corinne until 1880, although two years earlier the annual report of the Episcopal church had noted that Prout had done his best in a town whose population was rapidly decreasing.4" In 1878 the statistical report of the church listed 12 communicants, 1 marriage, 70 public services, $5 in alms, $45 current expenses, total offerings of $113, and a church property value of $ 1,000 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a rather dismal record that reflected the decliningfortunes of Corinne. 40 The second major Protestant religion to become established in Corinne was the Methodist-Episcopal church. During the summer of 1869 Rev. Lewis Hartsough, a Methodist preacher from Ithaca, New York, sought an assignment in the West because of his failing health and was commissioned the missionary superintendent of Wyoming, Utah, and southern Idaho. Later in the year he made what he called

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Methodist-Episcopal church at Corinne, ca. 1911. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Utah State Historical Society collections.

a prospecting tour to Utah and preached sermons at Ogden, Corinne, and Salt Lake City.'" Aided by C. G. Nichols, Reverend Hartsough visited Corinne again on March 3, 1870, to make preparations for a missionary effort there.

Four months later Chaplain C. C. McCabe, assistant secretary of the Church Extension Society, Bishop E. R. Ames of Baltimore, and Rev. Gustavus M. Pierce of Salt Lake City arrived in Corinne to explore the possibility of building a free church. They were soon convinced that the times warranted the erection of a building. Chaplain McCabe agreed to provide $1,000 by September 1 if the citizens would respond with pledges for the remaining $2,000 necessary for the construction. Within a short time $1,500 was raised and plans were announced to build a brick church that would seat three hundred people. Pierce was especially pleased because he had found only five

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Methodists in all of Salt Lake City when he arrived there on May 6, 1870.51 With remarkable dispatch the debt-free building was soon completed and was dedicated on September 20, 1870. The attendance was small, mostly because people were afraid of catching colds from the damp, recently plastered walls. Chaplain McCabe gave the dedicatory address, and within another five days Rev. W. D. Damon, a young and vigorous minister from California, arrived to take over the responsibilities of leading the Methodists of Corinne in their religious exercises. The Utah Reporter was enthusiastic about Damon because he was "a thoroughly Western man" who had given up an excellent assignment in the Golden State to do missionary work among the wilds of Mormondom. The citizens of Corinne, Methodist and non-Methodist alike, were also pleased when, two months later, a 402-pound bell arrived to grace the belfry of the new church. Enthusiastic citizens soon donated $120 of the $200 cost, led by Gen. J. A. Williamson who gave ten dollars for his daughter after whom the town had been named.52 This chapel, recently restored by members of the church, is still standing at the corner of Colorado and Sixth Street, a monument as one of the first non-Mormon church buildings in the territory.53 Reverend Damon soon established himself as one of the religious and cultural leaders of the community, founded a school, and brought in visitors like Philip Phillips who entertained Corinnethians with an evening of song to raise money for the church. 54 Damon added such improvements as twenty-four benches with patented, reversible backs to replace chairs that were "dreadfully uncomfortable." His Sabbath School conducted regular monthly concerts that entertained while raising money for the Methodist church. It was with much regret, therefore, that Corinnethians received the unwelcome news on April 27, 1872, that Pastor Damon was being reassigned to California. The Reporter devoted two full columns to a review of his valedictory sermon and then regretted that the paper could print only a brief synopsis of the distinguished discourse. His sermon highlighted the accomplishments of his tenure which included building the congregation from one lone member to twenty-six, the organization of the Sabbath School, the raising and expenditure of $2,000 to furnish and beautify the church, and the establishment of a seminary for the instruction of the children in science and history. He had "come from

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the garden of California, to the sagebrush of Utah" and hoped he was now leaving a flourishing church and congregation in Corinne. 55 Rev. J. M. Jameson was appointed as Damon's successor and also as the presiding authority over the southern Idaho, Evanston, Wyoming, and Cache Valley districts. He served until January 1875 when the scholarly Rev. A. B. Glockner arrived in Corinne and in his first sermon made a quite favorable impression on his listeners. Glockner stayed about two years before leaving the failing metropolis. The Methodist-Episcopal church during its heyday in the Gentile town often combined with the Presbyterian church in encouraging private schools and libraries, in sponsoring picnics and excursions on Great Salt Lake, and in holding its own special spring strawberry festival every May.50

Presbyterian and Catholic Worship The Presbyterians began their missionary work in Mormon Utah when Sheldon Jackson, superintendent of missions for the Intermountain Area, arrived in Corinne in early June 1869 and was soon joined there by Rev. Melancthon Hughes. The two evangelists began a search for some Presbyterians among the Christians of Corinne, eventually found two, and held a first service on June 13. The historian of these early Presbyterian beginnings wrote at length about the hostility of the Mormons and their prophet toward the intrepid Dr. Jackson: "It will be readily understood that these first years of home missions at Corinne, though a non-Mormon town, were full of trial.

The work was carried on in the face of serious apprehension and great difficulties. . . ." "7 Dr. Jackson persevered by appointing a building committee of E. P. Johnson, Dr. J. W. Graham, and J. A. Gaston in mid-August. However, two weeks later Jackson lost his companion Hughes who had returned to Iowa to get his wife and decided to abandon the challenging field in Mormondom for a safer and more hospitable meeting place in Atlantic, Iowa.5S After a melancholy winter of no missionary activity in Corinne, Jackson was able to secure the services of Rev. Edward E. Bayliss who arrived in the town on April 13, 1870. The two men organized the First Presbyterian Church of Corinne on July 14, 1870, after the

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thawing-out process the church had undergone for one year.59 The Utah Reporter, which had editorialized on the dereliction of the town in not establishing permanent churches, was quite pleased with Bayliss who intended to move his family to Corinne and to take the lead in building a chapel, as "the first missionary of his church to Mormondom." The townsmen enjoyed the touching eloquence of the Bayliss weekly sermons and his energetic efforts to organize the Union Sabbath School with an initial enrollment of forty-one scholars and three teachers."" The Reporter enthusiastically invited all Corinnethians to come and hear Bayliss on such subjects as "Is the punishment of the wicked everlasting?" and pointed out that the seats were free.

Children were also invited to attend. 61 The town almost lost Reverend Bayliss when he discovered that his $1,000 yearly salary would not meet his living expenses, but Dr. Graham and others canvassed the citizens for money to enlarge his income and to build a parsonage."2 As he set out to raise funds sufficient for the construction of a chapel, Bayliss at once discovered that as latecomers the Presbyterians had to contend with a populace that had already contributed funds for the erection of an Episcopal church they had mistakenly supposed would be open to all sects. In addition, "they felt that they had been cheated . . . by a Catholic who collected over one thousand dollars and carried it away with him . . . ," or so claimed the Presbyterian historian."' Bayliss was not discouraged and finally achieved a church structure whose cost of a little over $7,000 was met by $1,543 in contributions from Corinne residents; $4,537 from Presbyterian faithful scattered from Syracuse, New York, to Blairsville, Pennsylvania; and a $1,000 debt still owed when the building was dedicated. The structure, thirty-six by sixty feet and with a seventy-five-foot spire, was "presented to the Lord" on November 20, 1870, with Dr. Jackson preaching the dedicatory sermon. A large crowd was in attendance, the Reporter assuring the people that there was no health risk because the damp plaster had been cured by fires kept up for six nights.04 The abundant energies of Reverend Bayliss were first directed toward completing and furnishing his new building. He was gratified when Mary Bronson, "a Christian lady of Connecticut," donated a 730-pound bell that soon gladdened the hearts of Corinnethians with its ringing tones. He sponsored a Fourth of July festival to raise funds to finish the plastering in the vestibule and, in the same month, con-

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ducted an anniversary exercise for his congregation that included a poem by Nat Stein and an address by the ubiquitous Dennis Toohy.6!

Bayliss was also determined to improve the educational facilities in Corinne by founding a college. He organized a board of trustees including Sheldon Jackson and other dignitaries from as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland. The trustees authorized a capitalization of $25,000. Bayliss prepared a lecture on Mormonism to deliver on a nationwide tour to raise money for the school, but the Board of Home Missions decreed that he stick to his churchly duties in Corinne and abandon the project for a university. Accepting the reprimand, he organized the Rocky Mountain Female Academy that opened its doors on September 4, 1871, with himself as superintendent and Mary E. Heffleman as the faculty. The board supported this move and sent $210.60 to help fund the institution.00 At the end of this year of service all but three members of the congregation asked the board to continue his services for another year; but Bayliss left Corinne in October 1871, probably as the result of receiving a call from another congregation. The citizens raised a subscription of $1,200 to try to induce him to stay, but he departed for greener pastures anyway.67 The Presbyterian church lacked a pastor until May 10, 1872, when Rev. Lyman Crittenden took over the pioneer post only to leave after just four months of service. Another fifteen months elapsed before the church found a permanent minister, Rev. S. S. Gillespie, who found the area so much to his liking that he stayed in Corinne from August 1874 until 1878 when he moved to Brigham City, continuing to minister to the Corinne congregation for another seventeen years. Gillespie had just returned from a mission stint to Africa, was a decorated veteran officer of the Union Army, and, as his Presbyterian and anti-Mormon biographer noted, "He was made of the stuff to take the work at Corinne, never having turned his back upon any foe."

The Corinnethians enjoyed his sermons depicting mission life among the heathen of Africa and his loyal devotion to their Presbyterian church.

When Dr. Gillespie moved to Brigham City he was subjected to some harassment by the Mormon residents. Stones were thrown through his windows, and his fences were torn down. The two Mormon teamsters who moved him to Brigham City were subjected to church discipline, while a sympathetic Mormon woman agreed to do

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the washing for an ill Mrs. Gillespie if it were delivered to her under cover of darkness. His first congregation consisted of Mrs. Gillespie and three disgruntled Mormons. When the deputy sheriff in the town of the Saints asked him under whose authority he dared to preach in Brigham City, Reverend Gillespie replied in bold Christian tones, "By the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and exercising the rights of an American citizen." His Presbyterian chronicler added further that when the local Mormon bishop pronounced a curse on the Gillespie garden, it "proved to be a great fertilizer, as the yield of vegetables was unusually large." "s A postscript should be added to this faith-promoting incident by pointing out that Gillespie came to like his sojourn in Brigham City, and later he was named the postmaster of the town.60 With three established churches in Corinne, the inhabitants looked forward to a fourth chapel when Catholic officials began to discuss the possibility of building on their property at the corner of Sixth Street and Colorado. Father Edward Kelly wrote Dennis Toohy from California in August 1870 that he intended to visit Corinne to prepare for assignment as a priest for the town. Instead, a month later, the Reverend J. V. Foley came from Denver, held services, and announced plans for the construction of a building. But nothing else was done until June 19, 1871, when the Catholic residents of the town met with Father Patrick Walsh of Salt Lake City who was representing the archbishop of San Francisco â&#x20AC;&#x201D; under whose jurisdiction the area lay â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to plan for a free school building that could also be used as a chapel. A committee of nine members was chosen and within four days, the sum of $2,475 was subscribed for the construction.70 That seemed to end the activity, and for the rest of the decade only occasional visits were made to Corinne by Father Walsh, the Reverend P. J. Dowling, and, perhaps, others from Salt Lake City to hold services in the opera house or some other convenient building. 71 Apparently, there were not enough communicants to justify an outlay of several thousand dollars for a chapel.

Sunday Laws Despite protestations from the local newspapers about the number of religiously inclined permanent citizens of Corinne, the presence of the many transient freighters, teamsters, and stockmen on the streets

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every day has left the impression of a rather freewheeling, irreverent frontier trail town. When John Codman visited the place, he wrote, It was a sultry Sunday morning. . . . A great many teams happened to be in town, and the drivers and traders made the holiday uproarious. The order of exercises alternated with swearing and drinking all day long, and the evening must have been something fearful, for then the dance houses would be in active operation.

He found that the Episcopalians claimed one member, the Methodists two, and the Presbyterians eleven.72 The Reporter editor was so sensitive to taunts that the three church buildings would never be filled, and might possibly be used as warehouses, paint shops, or poor houses, that he stoutly maintained that over four hundred persons had attended divine service one Sunday in September 1870. But on one November day in 1872 he had to concede that there would be no services in any of the Corinne churches on the next Sabbath because there was no minister in town. Two years later the editor of the Mail felt chagrined that "barely enough attend to break the hollowness of an empty house" and urged members of the three congregations to consider their religious duties. The same refrain was voiced often during the 1870s.73 Church-oriented residents of Corinne attempted from time to time to get a Sunday-closing law passed to ensure a tranquil Sabbath.

In October 1873 the city council reacted favorably to a petition from sixty-four citizens asking that all businesses be closed on Sunday except for livery stables, drug stores, hotels, and restaurants. 74 The Corinne Reporter approved: "The Sunday law fills the Corinne churches." 71 The following spring another petition asked the council to amend the Sunday ordinance so that no fines could be assessed for selling on the Sabbath but compelling business houses to keep their doors closed and drapes down on their windows. The proposal was defeated, but that did not end the controversy. Within one week in March 1874 the council received two petitions, one asking for the repeal of the ordinance and one requesting that it not be repealed. After due consideration and faced with the opening of the freighting season, the council, with only one negative vote, rescinded the ordinance. Two years later double petitions were again presented, forty-two citizens asking for a closing law and ninety-one opposing such an order.7" The council voted with the majority. The atmosphere towards Sabbath observance

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was much different in Mormon Salt Lake City where fifteen boys were arrested and fined $2.50 each for playing baseball on Sunday.77 As Corinne continued to decline in population and businesses to relocate in Ogden or elsewhere, a few families of Saints began moving in, taking advantage of the depressed economic condition and looking for business and farming opportunities. By August 1877 there were approximately ten families "or about 50 souls" belonging to the Mormon church who resided in the Gentile town. In that month the Utah church established a ward with Henry Jacob Faust as bishop. The organization was not successful and was terminated in November 1877 with the resignation of Faust. The few members were placed under the jurisdiction of the Bear River City Ward, four miles away.78 Faust continued to live in Corinne where he had to endure Gentile jibes. On one occasion when he sold chances on a Thanksgiving pigeon and rifle match, he was reportedly "mad about it afterwards" because he received only five percent of the proceeds when "the usual whack of a Saintly Bishop is a tithe." 7 " Gentile derision seemed to remain rampant in Corinne, which did not stop Faust from active participation in events such as a temperance rally where his sermon was so effective that many took the pledge.80

A Free Public School With three active churches in Corinne, some residents expressed concern that a surfeit had been reached in religious structures while there was yet no school building. In June 1871 Dennis Toohy wrote, "There are churches enough in Corinne, if we are to judge of the attendance, to suffice for several years to come. Let us have as many school houses. . . . " A day school branch of the Salt Lake Grammar School had been conducted during the winter of 1869-70 by Nellie Wells in one of the churches. The Reporter noted that a ladies' sociable held on January 13, 1870, to raise funds for seats and other conveniences for the church and schoolhouse had netted $126.25. This, the "first entirely Gentile school in Utah," enrolled thirty students and was followed on April 18, 1870, by a district school of twenty-two students taught by a Miss Huntoon who had just arrived from the East.

But three days later the newspaper announced that Miss M. Q. Barnes planned to open a select school on May 2 and subsequently reported

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an enrollment of tw,enty-two scholars, a nucleus for a possible high school. The two schools may have been the same, only with Miss Barnes taking over from Miss Huntoon. Toohy visited the schoolroom and warned the parents of students not to expect too much in the way of maps, charts, globes, and blackboards. He invited the citizens to provide these necessities before the start of another term. 81 In June a separation of church and state occurred when a Mr. Fitch began construction of a new brick schoolhouse under the aegis of private enterprise.82 From this time on and for some months, Fitch's schoolhouse was used by various small private schools as well as for entertainments and as a public meeting place.

The completion of the Methodist church offered the energetic pastor, W. D. Damon, the opportunity to open the Corinne Seminary in October 1870. The new school supplanted the small institutions of the previous year and offered instruction under primary, intermediate, and grammar departments at very low tuition. It promised that "no church catechism, or anything of a sectarian character will ever be tolerated in this school," although daily classes would be started each morning by prayer and reading from the Bible. The school was coeducational and attracted students from Montana and from various small towns along the Pacific railroad. Toohy called it a success, and Damon reopened it the following November with a more restricted time offeringâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; 1 to 4 P.M. each weekday. At about the same time he announced the start of an evening school to instruct the higher branches of knowledge for a very minimal fee of fifty cents a week. Roll was called at 7 P.M., followed by three hours of instruction.'83 A few ephemeral schools received fleeting notices in the newspaper : A school conducted by a Mrs. Wilhelm was well attended during early 1871 and later in the year moved to Montana and Seventh Street. A Miss Closser enrolled twenty-six female students in her small select school which offered an exhibition at the close of the 1871 spring term. Editor Toohy complimented the teacher for her services and later noted at the end of the year that there were five day schools and one night school in the town.81 The rapid comings and goings of the various little educational units aroused the town fathers to the need for a more comprehensive public system. The Box Elder County Court had formed the Corinne School District, a rectangular area of twelve square miles with the

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town as the nucleus, in July 1870, but it was left to the citizens to complete the organization.85 A meeting was called for December 13, 1870, to discuss the establishment of the school district, but no action resulted until the next February when Toohy published the procedures for setting up a district and called for interested patrons to start the work.

When another meeting was called for a week later, again nothing was accomplished. The founding of a free school continued to "linger, half done," much to the discredit of the town, until the following year.80 Apparently, the action of the Utah legislature in amending the Corinne City Charter to allow the town to levy taxes for the support of a public school stirred the lethargic citizens sufficiently so that the matter became an issue in the municipal election of March 1872. One correspondent to the paper thought that no man should be elected to public office who was not in favor of constructing a schoolhouse. After an exciting election day, Toohy wrote that "free drinks took the place of free schools for the night. . . ." s7 But the stimulation of the political campaign did result in the appointment of a new standing committee on schools by the city council and the assignment of an individual to take a census of the children of school age in the town.

Furthermore, the city attorney reported that the territorial laws permitted the levy of a direct tax on land or a per capita tax, or both, to defray the expenses of a public school. The council then placed a tax of 1 percent on property and a direct tax of $5.00 per capita for school purposes and directed that plans be drawn for the construction of a two-story structure, twenty-six by sixty feet, at a cost not to exceed $4,000.ss The Central Pacific Railroad deeded an entire block to the city as a site for the new building, and all unclaimed lots were assigned by the council for the support of the new institution.80 Responding to the citizen desires and the applause of the Corinne Reporter for the legislation establishing plans for the school, the city council awarded a bid for the stone foundation and was preparing to accept bids for the rest of the structure when, in a surprise move, the Opera House Association offered its building to the community for school purposes.00 The council accepted at once, agreeing to pay $1,730 down and the balance of $1,000 in six months. Editor Toohy spoke for his fellow townsmen in praising the council for buying the large structure, which had probably cost $5,000 originally and would seat five hundred students. Later, the exuberant newspaperman scaled

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the seating figure down to a three hundred capacity. He invited the scholars of Corinne "to come and enjoy the feast of education" under the tutelage of Principal H. H. Heckman and his assistant, Miss Ettie Closser.91 The first year of Corinne's free public school was a decided success despite such minor problems as the need for another stove to heat the classroom and the effort to provide additional financing by such means as selling the old city hall.92 The basement was used for the primary grades. Final enrollment figures showed that 129 pupils had recited 2,678 lessons with 2,373 being perfect, 293 imperfect, and 12 failures. After a month's vacation in March the students returned to classes until commencement exercises on June 27, 1873. An important highlight of the year was a Valentine's Day masquerade ball held for the benefit of the public school at which two hundred couples danced until four o'clock the next morning. 03 Financing the school was a recurrent problem that the city tried to solve in one grand gesture by promoting "The Utah Educational Gift Enterprise" in the summer of 1873. The plans centered on a magnificent concert to be held in the opera house on December 31, 1873, during which a drawing was to take place for 9,388 cash prizes ranging from a grand prize of $75,000 down to 100 prizes of $2,500 each for a total of $226,500 to be given away. The tickets were only $1.00 apiece, and the optimistic entrepreneurs expected to sell many along the Pacific railroad. By October the grand prize had dwindled to $50,000, but the total sum was still $226,500. The drawing was postponed until March 31, 1874, although ads for the event continued to appear in the Salt Lake Tribune until April 4, 1874.94 Then, the enterprise faded from the news, and it is possible that the territorial government stepped in to stop what was probably an impossible venture in the first place. The people of Corinne were very quiet about the whole thing.

The failure of the gift concert raffle placed the problem of financing the school squarely on the taxpayers who seemed reluctant to assume the burden. One public-spirited citizen, Sam Tibbals, owner of a saloon, built a coal house and filled it with coal to prepare the school for the winter of 1874-75. The Corinne Mail published constant reminders to the people to pay their delinquent taxes to support the school.

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Barely squeezing through until the fall of 1875, the school authorities finally published the following on September 6: In answer to the question in the Mail as to when school will commence, we would state that it will be as soon as the people pay their taxes and enable us to repair the schoolhouse and employ teachers. Respectfully, Trustees.

The residents of the town must have responded to this ultimatum because the Mail later listed monthly reports showing an attendance of about ninety students. The school opened in the fall of 1876 with one hundred pupils in attendance. 95 One of the factors impelling Corinnethians to organize and support a free public school was opposition from the Mormon leadership to the whole concept. As Stanley S. Ivins so forcefully shows, while Brigham Young and his associates spoke out strongly against public education, many of the rank-and-file Mormons were trying desperately to establish a system of tax-supported schools for the territory.00 This agitation finally came up against a stone wall when the prophet hurled anathema at the idea in the semiannual conference of the church in October 1873. Young said, I am utterly opposed to free schools. There are but few families on the earth who are unable to earn their own food and clothing and school their children. Free schools have been introduced into the states in consequence of the tyranny of the rich over the poor.

He later said, "I will not give one dollar to educate another man's child." 'r' Other leaders like George Q. Cannon also discoursed against this species of pauperism and advocated that the Saints learn to be self-sufficient and refuse to depend on others.08 For men of means like Young, Heber C. Kimball, and others, it was not too difficult to establish private schools for their many children. But the poorer Saints agreed with good Mormon John Chislett in his letter to Brigham Young: . . Now about the Free School. Of course I did not expect a man like you who cannot write a correct sentence in his mother tongue, and hardly spell half-a-dozen consecutive words correctly, to approve the proposition. . . . In conclusion, allow me to inform you that the day is past when you can get on the rostrum and abuse vour betters. I for one will not stand for it. . . .

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But Brother Chislett did stand for it because legislation looking toward a public school system was defeated in the Utah legislature by the wishes of the prophet. 00 A decade later the Deseret News gave the real reason for church opposition to free schools, "because institutions supported by general taxes cannot be conducted on a religious basis." 10° The Corinne people gloried in their position as leaders in the fight for public education in opposition to the "herd of priests . . . battling against the cause of free education." 101 As a part of Corinne's fourth pioneer day celebration, the pyrotechnic display included a scroll bearing the words, "Free Schools' in letters of golden light."

The citizens supported the July 1874 Liberal party plank in favor of free public schools, twitted the Mormon leaders because a few of the Saints were sneaking their offspring into the town school thus educating their children at the expense of the Gentiles, and generally crowed at every opportunity about their educational institution as the only free school in the territory.102 The Mail attacked the territorial superintendent of schools for deliberately ignoring the Corinne school and condemned the Mormon hierarchy for failing to send the sum of $70 to the town as its share of a small appropriation made by the legislature for education during the 1874 session. The editor assumed the money had been placed in the temple fund. The citizens of Corinne felt comfortable and pure as they contemplated their mission to evangelize and civilize their portion of Mormon Utah by means of the pioneer free school.103 By their evident interest in establishing schools and churches and in supporting their newspaper, the people of the fair city of Corinne demonstrated a concern beyond the mundane but necessary commercial business of the town. Although the various newspapers spent much time in anti-Mormon propagandizing, they also promoted the prospects of Corinne and encouraged pursuits that would feed the intellectual and spiritual nature of its citizens. Despite strenuous efforts to construct chapels and to provide a Christian atmosphere, a strong impression, nevertheless, remains that trade and commerce were predominant and that churchgoers were outnumbered and outvoted two to one, as seen in the abortive attempt to close the shops on the Sabbath. Corinnethians did receive some support from eastern Christians in the noble effort to raise the standard of the Savior in polyg-

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amous Mormondom. Similarly, the struggle to organize and maintain a public school had as a motive not only the essential education of the children of the town but also the erection of a banner for free instruction in a land where parochial and exclusive priestly schools held sway.

In this instance the people of Corinne were upholding a strong American tradition and received proper accolades for their effort, even from Mormon church members themselves. Although schools, churches, and a free press were objects of serious concern and deserved requisite support, life also had its lighter moments. The residents of Corinne quickly gained the reputation of being a fun-loving and carefree people, living in the midst of many Saints who sometimes contrasted with some envy, their the-next-world-is-better orientation with the now-and-present vivacity of the Corinnethians on Bear River.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 7 1

Corinne Mail, 23 December 1874, William Fraser Rae, Westward by Rail: The New Route to the East (London, 1871),p. 182.

3 O. N. Malmquist, The First 100 Years: A History of the Salt Lake Tribune, 1871-1971 (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1971), pp. 9-39.

4 J. Cecil Alter, Early Utah Journalism: A Half Century of Forensic Warfare, Waged by the West's Most Militant Press (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1938), pp. 50-55.

5 Jesse H. Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1951), pp. 260-71.

G Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 51.

7 Utah Reporter, 2 August, 5 December 1870.

8 Utah Reporter, 3 February, 31 March, 11 June, 31 July 1870.

9 Utah Reporter, 9 April 1870.

10 Ogden Junction, 4 May 1870.

11 Utah Reporter, 5 May, 7 June 1870.

12 Idaho Statesman, 9 August 1870.

13 Utah Reporter, 27 September 1870.

14 Utah Reporter, 14 January; 10, 12 October 1870; Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 54.

15 Utah Reporter, 3 February 1870; 13 February, 8 April 1871.

10 Corinne Reporter, 17 April 1871; Corinne Journal, 2 May 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 3 May 1871; Salt Lake Herald, 5 May 1871.

17 Corinne Reporter, 3 May, 15 July 1871; Corinne Journal, 20 July 1871.

18 Corinne Reporter, 13, 27 June 1871.

10 Corinne Reporter, 14 February, 20 December 1871.

20 Montanian, 14 March 1871.

21 Corinne Reporter, 20 January; 9 February; 6, 9, 10 April; 8 June; 18 July; 5, 19 August; 22 November 1871; 3 October 1872.

22 M. LeBaron de Hiibner, A Ramble Round the World, 1871 (New York, 1875), p. 172; Salt Lake Herald, 14 February, 1 3 f t p r i l l 8 7 3 .

23 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, pp. 54-55 ; Corinne Reporter, 28 March 1873; 2, 5, 12 April; 17 October 1872.

24 Corinne Reporter, 22 May 1873.

25 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 5 5 ; Corinne Reporter, 23 May, 16 June 1873.

20 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 56; Salt Lake Herald, 20 September; 5, 9 November 1873.

27 Utah Mining Gazette, 29 November 1873.

28 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, pp. 59-60; Salt Lake Herald, 25 August, 4 September 1874.

29 Corinne Mail, 7, 24 September 1874.

30 Corinne Mail, 22 October, 6 November 1874; 27 January, 16 August, 4 September 1875.

31 Corinne Mail, 10, 12, 15, 19 September 1874; 6 January, 10 April, 4 August, 5 October 1875.

32 Corinne Mail, 19 March 1875 ; Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 60.

33 Helena Herald, 3 November 1875; Idaho Statesman, 11 November 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 5 November 1875.

31 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 6 1 ; Salt Lake Tribune, 27 January, 25 February 1877.

2

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Corinne

35 Salt Lake Herald, 3 February 1877.

36 Alter, Early Utah Journalism, pp. 61, 62.

37 Salt Lake Tribune, 22 April 1877; Salt Lake Herald, 26 April 1877.

38 Deseret News, 25 July 1877; Alter, Early Utah Journalism, p. 62.

39 New York Tribune, 8 June 1871. io Corinne Mail, 22 December 1874.

11 Daniel S. Tuttle, Reminiscences of a Missionary Bishop (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1906), p. 243.

42 Andrew Jenson, Corinne Ward Manuscript History to 1930, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

43 Utah Reporter, 21 April, 17 June 1870.

44 Jenson, Corinne Ward; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 248; Utah Reporter, 22 October 1870.

45 Daniel S. Tuttle, Episcopal Register, Protestant Episcopal Church, 18661886, pp. 36-38, Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

46 Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), pp. 181-82; Orson Hyde Elliott, "Reminiscences," pp. 528-44, LDS Archives; Tuttle, Episcopal Register, p. 42.

47 Tuttle, Episcopal Register, pp. 36-114; Utah Reporter, 20 February 1871. iS Salt Lake Herald, 20 March 1877; The Spirit of Missions (Protestant Episcopal Church), 43:45 7.

49 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convocation of the Clergy and Laity of . . .

Montana, Idaho, and Utah . . . Salt Lake City . 1878 (Salt Lake City, 1878), pp. 15-16.

00 T. Edgar Lyon, "Evangelical Protestant Missionary Activities in Mormon Dominated Areas: 1865-1900" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1962), pp. 148-49.

51 Utah Reporter, 27 January; 15 February; 19, 20 July; 12 August 1870.

52 Utah Reporter, 21, 26 September; 4 November 1870.

53 Lyon, "Evangelical. . . Activities," p. 149.

54 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 246; Corinne Journal, 3 June 1871.

•" Corinne Reporter, 10 June, 12 August 1871; 27, 29 April 1872. ™Salt Lake Herald, 13 August 1872, 29 March 1873; Corinne Mail, 15 February 1875; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 247.

57 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," pp. 2 4 0 - 4 1 ; Lyon, "Evangelical .

Activities," pp. 78-79; George K. Davies, "A History of the Presbyterian Church in Utah" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1942), p. 2 1 ; Samuel E. Wishard, The Mormons (New York: Presbyterian Home Missions, 1904), pp. 12, 13.

58 Davies, "A History of the Presbyterian Church," p. 22. ~>'J Ibid.; Wishard, The Mormons, pp. 12-13.

60 Utah Reporter, 7, 12, 14, 19 April; 3 May; 12 August; 4 November 1870.

01 Davies, "A History of the Presbyterian Church," pp. 21-23. u2 Ibid., p. 24.

B3 Ibid., p. 23. ni Utah Reporter, 4, 19, 25 November 1870.

05 Corinne Journal, 14 May, 10 June, 18 July 1871; Corinne Reporter, 11 May, 15 July 1871.

CG Davies, "A History of the Presbyterian Church," p. 26; Lyon, "Evangelical . . Activities," p. 80; J. Duncan Brite, Miscellaneous Notes — Utah and Logan Presbyterian Churches, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan.

07 Davies, "A History of the Presbyterian Church," p. 26-27; Corinne Reporter, 3 October 1871.

08 Corinne Reporter, 27 April, 10 May, 14 September 1872; Wishard, The Mormons, pp. 14, 49; Lyon, "Evangelical . . . Activities," p. 119.

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09

Lyon, "Evangelical . . . Activities," p. 120.

Utah Reporter, 14, 21 May; 16 August; 23 September 1870; 24 June 1871; Corinne Journal, 24 June 1871.

•"•Corinne Reporter, 1, 3, 22 July; 12, 14, 19 August; 11 September 1871; 27 April 1872.

72 Deseret News, 20 May 1874.

73 Utah Reporter, 28 September 1870, 30 November 1872; Salt Lake Herald, 2 December 1872; Corinne Mail, 16 November 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 6 October 1876.

74 Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 23 September, 14 October 1873, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

75 Corinne Reporter, 15 October, 15 November 1873.

70 Corinne City Minute Book, 26 January; 2 February; 16, 23 March 1874; 4 April 1876.

77 Utah Mining Gazette, 30 May 1874.

78 Lydia Walker Forsgren, History of Box Elder County (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1937), p. 302; Box Elder Stake Manuscript History, years 1877, 1878, LDS Archives.

79 Salt Lake Tribune, 2 December 1877.

80 Salt Lake Herald, 16 December 1877.

81 Utah Reporter, 3, 12 February; 16, 21 April; 10, 12 May 1870; 29 June 1871. s2 Utah Reporter, 11, 19 June 1870.

83 Utah Reporter, 1, 19, 24 October; 22 November 1870; 31 October; 4, 24 November 1871.

64 Utah Reporter, 9 April, 26 June, 13 July, 13 September, 18 December 1871. s '"' Box Elder County Court Records, 20 July 1870, 228.

Sli Utah Reporter, 13 December 1870; 1, 9 February 1871.

S7 Utah Reporter, 23, 27 February; 8 March 1872.

88 Corinne City Minute Book, 18 March; 1 April; 7, 20 May; 17 June; 8 July 70

S!

> Corinne Reporter, 21 May, 27 June 1872.

00 Corinne Reporter, 11 J u n e , 1 J u l y , 12 A u g u s t 1 8 7 2 ; C o r i n n e C i t y M i n u t e Book, 3 , 10 J u n e ; 5, 19 A u g u s t 1872.

01

Corinne Reporter, 12, 20, 21 August; 4, 21 October 1872.

'•'-Corinne Reporter, 14 November 1872; Corinne City Minute Book, 18 November 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 31 October 1872.

93 Corinne Reporter, 19, 21 November; 13 December 1872; 15, 22 February; 22 March, 30 May, 28 June 1873.

94 Corinne Reporter, 11 July, 8 October 1873; Salt Lake Tribune, 7, 9 January; 4 April 1874; Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 256.

93 Corinne Mail, 2, 23 October 1874; 24 February, 6 September, 4 October 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 22 November 1876.

IJG Stanley S. Ivins, "Free Schools Come to Utah," pp. 3-4, 20-26, Ivins Collection, box 10, file 9, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

97 Salt Lake Tribune, 11, 14 October 1873; 13 April 1875. °s Millennial Star 37 (1875) :290.

90 Ivins, "Free Schools," pp. 4, 20-26.

100 Deseret News, 26 November 1884.

101 Salt Lake Tribune, 18 June 1876.

192 Corinne R-eporter, 26 March 1876; Ronald C. Jack, "Utah Territorial Politics: 1847-1876" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), pp. 419-20; Corinne Mail, 14 September, 22 December 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 22 November 1876.

103 Corinne Mail, 3 February, 8 July 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 6 October 1876.

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4Hfe*I!f

Culture onthe~Bear Holiday Extravaganzas The most extravagant social events held in Corinne were the celebrations commemorating the founding of the town and the nation.

The first pioneer day, held March 25, 1870, the anniversary of the sale of city lots, was an all-out affair starting with a sunrise cannonade, followed by a thirteen-gun salute at ten o'clock in the morning, the exact hour when the first lot was sold to Harry Creighton. Col. A. W. Taylor of the Oriental Powder Company had thoughtfully given several kegs of powder to the Pioneers' Association to ensure adequate explosive demonstrations. At noon a mass meeting of citizens at the baseball grounds included on the program an address by the historian of the pioneers, followed by another salvo of artillery. A baseball game next ensued, punctuated by guns fired at intervals and another bombardment at the end of the game. The evening's agenda featured a banquet and an all-night dance. Prominent federal officials from Salt Lake City were invited to attend the festivities, and the Reporter thought the day was a proud one for Corinnethians. 1 As the second anniversary neared, editor Dennis Toohy waxed lyrical in reviewing the great accomplishments of Corinne's pioneer founders after two years: "Out of the struggles and difficulties of the desert they have built a city greater than was ever seen by Romulus. . . . " A few days later he became more pragmatic as he warned

223

his readers against escorting "outcast females" from adjacent cities to the grand ball. Apparently, such wayward damsels had been introduced into the previous Christmas dance much to the dismay of the ladies of Corinne. 2 This second pioneer day celebration was more elaborate than the first in keeping with the increased prosperity and self-importance of the town. Although Toohy thought that to depict adequately the day's events was a task beyond his capacity as a writer, he nevertheless proceeded to devote six full columns to his blighted effort. After the predictable baseball game in the afternoon and several more hours of "promiscuous hilarity," at seven o'clock everyone jammed into the opera house to hear the program of the day. E. P. Johnson delivered the principal oration, duly reported in two columns. Next came the recitation of a poem by Nat Stein, cashier of the Warren Hussey Bank and poet laureate and minstrel singer of Corinne. The poem was also two-columns long and included such sentiments as Then arose a magic city where a wilderness had been, Named in lovely maiden's honor, 'tis our own beloved Corinne.

May its glory, never waning, gain increase with added years, And perpetuate the praises of its early Pioneers.3 This poem, and others in later years from the pen of Nat Stein, described in Homeric stanzas the development and industry of the town. The day ended with a banquet, laced with song, poetry, eloquence, and wit.

The anniversary festivities for the next two years followed the pattern set in 1871. The 1872 celebration ended at night with a program and a grand ball in the opera house, music for the latter being furnished by Croxall and Olsen's band of Salt Lake City. The Utah Central Railroad sold special round-trip tickets from Salt Lake City for five dollars apiece. The achievements of Corinne were told in a "volume of labor's greatest victories." A year later, pioneer day began and ended with salutes of one hundred guns; included the traditional oration, this time by the ever ebullient Judge Toohy; a twocolumn commemorative poem by Nat Stein; and a banquet and grand ball at which one hundred and fifty couples cavorted around the floor until the early morning hours.'

After a somewhat similar celebration in 1874, the residents of the town remembered their sixth birthday in 1875 with only a grand

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anniversary dance, accompanied by light refreshments, at a dollar fifty per ticket. Apparently, many of the founders of Corinne had departed for brighter prospects elsewhere, leaving latecomers with only dim memories of the earlier hopes of the metropolis of the hills. Despite slipping fortunes, the town and its few remaining first settlers kept up the tradition of a pioneer day by holding a masquerade ball in March 1878.'' But gone were the cannonades, the epic poems, and the flourishing orations.

Of even more importance to Corinnethians than their founder's day was a celebration of Independence Day as a symbol of patriotism in the land of the suspect Mormon people. The first Fourth of July, in 1869, had gone by without any recognition because of uncertainty about the longevity of the new town. But by the following year Corinne could present a prosperous appearance, and ambitious plans were laid for a magnificent holiday. A general committee of thirtyone was named and included representatives from Salt Lake City, Ogden, Stockton, Cottonwood, Wahsatch, and Kelton as well as Malad City and Fort Hall, Idaho, a recognition that this was to be Gentile day in Utah. 0 The city council appropriated the significant sum of one hundred dollars for the occasion,7 A. M. Fitch threw open his newly completed bridge across Bear River free to all until after July 5, and three refreshment bowers were completed to care for the nourishment needs of the visitors. Dr. O. D. Cass made a special trip to Salt Lake City to secure the support of Gen. C. C. Augur, commanding the Department of the Platte which included Camp Douglas, and returned to Corinne triumphantly with a big gun, a "splendid brass piece," for an appropriate noisemaker.8 The glorious holiday opened with a one-hundred-gun salute at sunrise and a procession of military companies, the local fire department, the Civic Association, two baseball clubs, and most of the remaining citizens. The new opera house was dedicated at 10:00 A.M., the program including a reading of the Declaration of Independence and an oration by Gen. George R. Maxwell. Then came aquatic sports, baseball exercises, dinner, a "great fat man's race, when several leviathans of the mountains will contest for the supremacy of weight and speed," a lean man's race, horse racing, the championship baseball game, a trial of Babcock fire extinguishers, a display of fireworks, and, finally, at 9:00 P.M., a "great terpsichoreal dedication" of the opera house to close the day's events."

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Stung by the patriotic leadership of Corinne in remembering Independence Day, the Gentiles of Salt Lake City announced plans to emulate their brethren on the Bear by celebrating the 1871 day in style and power. The New York Herald hailed the public procession being organized as a way of making plain to Brigham that no longer could he control affairs in Utah. The Salt Lake committee was very careful to include four representatives from Corinne in its twenty-five-man committee, Dennis Toohy leading the list, and to invite Corinnethians to join with them in celebrating the Fourth of July. The Salt Lake Tribune tactfully noted, "The bright enterprising loyal patriotic and wide awake city of Corinne is always true. It utters no doubtful sound." 10 Toohy applauded the patriotism of his fellow Gentiles in Salt Lake City, blasted the Mormons for having dishonored flag and country, and urged his fellow townsmen to accept the generous invitation of the Salt Lakers. Besides, by then Toohy had been asked to give one of the ten-minute orations on the program and poet Nat Stein had been flattered with a request to produce one of his epics for the occasion.11 Arrangements were made for an excursion via the Utah Central Railroad and a special tour to the capital city on board the City of Corinne. Toohy urged the visitors from Corinne to take passage on the steamboat and thus escape the annoyance of a ride in the church cars.12 The Keepapitchinin ridiculed the Gentile efforts by noting that the procession would be led by "the piper that played before Moses" and would also include "Tom Paine on a bust . . . [and] the Methodist minister with a large bottle of Paine-killer." 13 Undaunted, the people of Corinne traveled to Salt Lake City on the appointed day and enjoyed the hospitality of their fellow Gentiles as they listened to their favorite orator and poet compete for favor with the best of the capital city. Toohy devoted a page and a half of his Corinne Reporter to describe how the voice of freedom had been heard in the center of Mormondom. Of the five thousand estimated participants, Corinne supplied two hundred, with delegations representing the Salt Lake Navigation Company, the Corinne baseball club, and a city contingent with a banner bearing the lines: We come a loyal brotherhood, From off the banks of Bear; To this great Freedom Jubilee, and rallying-time to share.

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Nat Stein's two-column poem was enthusiastically received by the crowd, especially the lines, "Land where neither mad ambition nor its liegeman bigot hate, Can intrench their loathsome forces by uniting church and state." 14 The Deseret News derided the Gentile procession which reminded the editor, George Q. Cannon, of a funeral. Dennis Toohy replied to " 'holy ghost' Cannon" that for once he agreed with his Mormon antagonist. It was, in fact, a funeral, "and along the streets of Zion it bore the putrified nastiness of Latter Day fraud. But oh! it was a merry burial party. . . ." 15 In 1872 Corinne returned to its own Independence Day celebration, claiming recognition as the only Utah city to honor the birth of the nation. The usual format was followed with a three-column poem

by Stein in which he reviewed the history of the nation from Columbus to Washington, a baseball game, a dance, and a program in the opera house during which the orator of the day occupied "more time than the laws of patience justified, and, . . . retired with the unanimous consent of the house." But, then, Toohy was not the speaker on that day. Among the many outside visitors was the Honorable W. H. Clagett, delegate from Montana Territory, recently returned from his triumphant debate in Congress with Delegate William Hooper of Utah.10 When A. B. Knight, visiting Corinne from Montana, sat down to write a friend on July 3, 1873, his reference to the next day's observance of Independence Day struck a new note: "Are going to have a big day here tomorrow . . . make speech — fly Eagle — get drunk — heap Mormons — Girls — crackers — free lunch. . . ." 1T Yes, there were Mormons in the Gentile town on the Fourth — three hundred from Logan and many more from Brigham City, Willard, and other settlements. The reason, of course, was the completion on June 12 of the branch line of the Utah Northern Railroad to Corinne. The ensuing period of peace brought the curious Saints to the annual celebration to partake of fifty mammoth hams and the ton of ice, furnished

by H. House, and to enjoy the program that featured an opening prayer by Rev. J. M. Jameson of the Methodist church and a benediction by Moses Thatcher, Mormon leader and official of the Utah Northern. Nat Stein's ode of the day very carefully omitted any reference to Mormon disloyalty and emphasized friendship, sober sense, and reason. The day's oration by Dennis J. Toohy, who reported his

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own speech, "was well received, as indeed, we are inclined to think it merited." 1S In the crowded streets the lamb and the lion celebrated together as restrictions and animosity were briefly lifted while Saint and Gentile examined each other and enjoyed the festivities.

The 1873 Fourth of July celebration marked the end of the grand extravaganzas. Thereafter, as Corinnethians became more concerned with the survival of their town, the demonstrations were very local in nature and often quite unplanned, although the loyal citizens made every effort to keep Gentile patriotism alive. The 1875 anniversary was marked by "just enough liquids absorbed to raise the patriotic sentiments of the people" which, in turn, led to the "firing of pistols and some emphatic talk near the alley north of Montana Street. . . ."

The following year, arrangements were made for a roaring time on the Fourth but no specific program was planned. Holidays, along with the town, were growing smaller.10

Baseball Champions The efforts to outdo the Mormons and to display Gentile loyalty by celebrations of Independence Day were matched in Corinne by a determination to defeat every Saints' team in the territory in the national pastime of baseball. In March 1870 the Corinne baseball club was organized with J. Q. Harnish as captain. An exhibition game was played on Corinne's pioneer day between the town's first nine and the second team, called the Pioneer Club for that day. The Reporter remarked on the magnificent appearance of the players which won admiring glances from the ladies present, or so thought the manly editor. The score was 79 to 20 for the Corinne Club, the two teams having elected to use a live rather than a dead ball. A number of practice games were then played. The newspaper followed these sporting events rather closely, commenting on such incidents as D. R. Short, captain of the second nine, being hit on the proboscis by a fly ball and the appearance of a Mr. Taylor of Chicago who acted as catcher and gave the boys some "valuable hints as to how things ought to be done" before knocking over several spectators while trying to catch a foul.20 As the players began to feel their oats, challenges were directed to the Eureka Club of Salt Lake City; to the Carlin, Nevada, team with whom the Corinne Club was willing to compete for the cham-

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pionship of the Pacific slope; and, particularly, to the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, whose president replied that he was pleased to learn that the national sport had reached Utah and the West and indicated that his team would play Corinne if the Red Stockings should again travel past the railroad town. An impromptu game was played at Corinne with the Box Elder Club, the latter losing by a score of 90 to 50 because, as the Reporter explained, "they have had but little experience in this game. . . . " A return match was scheduled, as part of Corinne's Fourth of July celebration, for the territorial championship. Corinne apparently won this contest also. In another practice game a team from the U.S. Thirteenth Infantry, in town after a four-hundred-mile march, met the Corinne nine during a terrific dust storm and lost by a score of 62 to 41. In a more important match with a team from arch rival Ogden, Corinne bested the Junctionites 46 to 44 in an extra inning. 21 But these games were only preliminary to the real contest between Mormon Salt Lake City and Gentile Corinne. On June 21 the following challenge was printed in the Deseret News: "We, the Ennea Base Ball players of this city, considering ourselves champions of the Territory, are willing to meet any other club within the limits of the Territory who wish to dispute the claim and contest for the same." 22 Corinne, the obvious target of this invitation, immediately accepted, and the first of three games was played at Corinne on so-called Gentile Day, July 4, with Corinne the victor by 42 to 31. 2 3 The Reporter editor was highly pleased with the outcome and feared the local boys would be "rather indifferent as to their further efficiency." Nevertheless, he felt confident that the men were "as hot as ever" as they awaited the second game to be played at Salt Lake City on July 24.24 The editor was wrong. Disaster struck the Corinne team at the territorial capital when the Enneas won an easy victory by a score of 74 to 23. The Salt Lake Herald chortled that "the continued 'muffing' and wild play of their opponents [Corinne] caused more than one long face among their adherents." 2r' The Corinne editor reflected the humiliation of his fellow townsmen first by remarking that he no longer thought much of baseball because a man could lose money on it and then by exploring at great length why the team lost. Evidently, Taylor, the catcher and "by common consent the best baseball player west of Cincinnati," had gone into the game with a sore felon on the

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middle finger of his right hand that disabled him and forced him to retire from active play, after which the Corinne players lost interest in the game and displayed anything but good sportsmanship. 20 A few days later a Montana visitor reported that the deep embarrassment of Corinnethians was further exhibited by a tombstone erected in the center of the town and draped with a flag of mourning. The following epitaph was touchingly inscribed: "Base Ball Club No. 24 of Corinne, U.T., died July 24, 1870, at Great Salt Lake City, for the want of breath. The members of this deceased club are requested to wear a badge of mourning for thirty days." 27 With some determination Corinne played several practice games in anticipation of the third and decisive contest to be played on a neutral field at Ogden on October 1. At the end of the game a correspondent telegraphed the Utah Reporter, "Kill the fatted calf. Corinne walks away with the championship. Corinne 12. Enneas 8." Now it was the Salt Lakers turn to display poor sportsmanship, for although the Corinne players looked forward to the traditional congratulations from their vanquished foe, they waited in vain. The Enneas also declined to partake of a supper graciously offered by their conquerors.

Corinne was ecstatic. The Reporter devoted two and a half columns to an account of the game, detailed inning by inning, and to a report of the enthusiastic reception by the entire town and a banquet for the modest heroes at the Uintah House. Some Corinnethians left the game with "snug little sums" as a result of their faith in the prowess of their champions, who shortly threw down the gage of battle to Nevada, California, and Oregon to decide the championship of the Pacific slope.28 There is no record that the challenge was accepted.

The following spring the confident champions of Utah Territory made further efforts to arrange a match with California. They received a formal challenge from the baseball club of Savannah, Georgia, for a trial of skill and heard that Ophir and Stockton had played a game to decide which players should represent the two camps that were "screwing up their courage to challenge the Corinne cusses to a strife for the belt." Corinne issued a formal challenge to the Silver Stars of Carson, Nevada, for a game at Elko to decide the championship of the Great Basin, after which Corinne expected to try for the championship of the Pacific Coast.20 But victorious Corinne had to settle for a less ambitious schedule of games with their Mormon neighbors.

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The season started auspiciously with the Corinne Club hosting a grand ball in the opera house for the citizens of the town. In two columns editor Toohy did his best to describe the magnificent affair which was capped by the presentation of a splendid flag made by the ladies of the town for the Corinne Club. 30 With this grand trophy to encourage them and with new uniforms lately arrived from Philadelphia, the players were ready to take on all comers.31 In two warm-up games with the neighboring village of Willard, the Corinne athletes were satisfyingly successful, the second meeting resulting in a victory by a score of 21 to 9. The second game at Willard was a rather informal affair — played on grounds only recently cleared of sagebrush — with players stopping for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time to partake of refreshments and lady visitors wandering off to prospect for silver-bearing ore or laughing "heartily at the tumbling feats of the fielders as they rolled over the sage brush."

Competition finally became so scarce that the Corinne townsmen organized another team, the Alkali Blinders — composed of out-ofshape town fathers — to play the Corinne Club for what was billed locally as the national championship. Everyone had fun as the umpire, Dennis J. Toohy, awarded the first prize of a "pig-torial copy" of the town's hog ordinance to the "Alks." Entertainment consisted of a ballad about the national sport sung to the tune of "The Old Oaken Bucket." 32 The event displayed the smug satisfaction of the Corinnethians with their successful club.

Except for a friendly contest on July 4 at Salt Lake City where Corinne defeated a pick-me-up team of Salt Lakers by a score of 28 to 21, the really serious contest of the year was with Ogden. The territorial championship was at stake, and in the first of three games Corinne defeated the Echoes at Ogden 81 to 9. As the Reporter accurately noted, "At the bat they were tremendous." The second game, played at Corinne, was called at the end of the first half of the eighth inning so the Ogdenites could catch the train home. Corinne had fielded a team of only six players, three being unaccounted for, and had lost the game 54 to 38. The townspeople were highly indignant at this " 'foul' blot" on the record of their invincible players and demanded hard practice sessions before the final game to be played at Ogden. Responding to the criticism, the team came through with a win of 65 to 31 over the Echoes.33 For a second year, Corinne

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had displayed its skill and precision in defeating Mormon teams and in retaining the championship for the Gentile town.

After the surfeit of victories in 1870 and 1871, Corinne all at once seemed to lose interest in the national pastime so that editor Toohy exclaimed in June 1873 that baseball had disappeared as a town sport.34 Not until the spring of 1875 did another newspaperman, the editor of the Mail, observe that some of the boys were organizing a baseball club for the amusement of the people and remind citizens that in former days the town had been the home of the recognized champions of the Pacific Coast. The new team finally arranged to play a group of soldiers stationed at Corinne and lost the game by a count of 888 to 1, according to the editor, who concluded, "All the spectators present except those religiously inclined, were of the opinion that the newly organized club, instead of playing baseball, had played h 1 with their reputation." 35 Two years later a notice appeared in a Salt Lake journal that Corinne had a baseball club that was ready to accept a challenge from "any nine that can be scared up in Utah." 30 Apparently, the town on the Bear was not the only place that had foresworn undying enthusiasm for baseball, a game that had once given the Gentiles of Corinne dominance over the Utah Mormons in at least this one area of human endeavor.

The Opera House Concern with Mormondom did not occupy all the time and thoughts of Corinnethians, and even baseball had engendered considerable enjoyment apart from the strong desire to defeat their Mormon neighbors. Corinne was a happy town. With the cessation of the freighting business by December of every year the citizens were faced with a winter season devoid of much commercial activity and with time to pursue things social and cultural. The stagnant winter of 1869-70 had demonstrated the need of a public hall large enough to seat four or five hundred people for lectures, concerts, and meetings and for the traveling artists and exhibitors who stopped off at this midway station on the Central Pacific Railroad. 37 The Reporter was active in encouraging leading citizens to plan such a building and was delighted to report in May 1870 that an organization had been formed to construct a cultural hall in the

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Corinne Opera House, built in 1870 and dedicated on July 4 of that year, later served as an LDS meetinghouse. It was razed in 1951.

Utah State Historical Society collections.

town.3s Twelve prominent residents had incorporated the Corinne Opera House Association on February 18 with merchant E. Conway as president and Dennis J. Toohy as vice-president and a capitalization of $3,000 in 10 shares of $300 each. Of that amount, $2,875 had been paid in by the time the corporation papers were filed on July 11.

The association was not to incur an indebtedness in excess of $1,000.

The directors planned to have the opera house completed in time for a dedication on July 4, 1870.39 One of the directors, C. B. Greene, donated a lot on the southeast corner of Montana and Seventh Street for the opera house.40 The rectangular structure was designed by architect Henry Monheim and built in thirty-five days, which attested to the simplicity of architecture. 41 On June 30 a flagstaff one hundred feet in height was erected near the opera house, and barring some necessary plastering â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not completed until October 1870 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the building was ready for the grand dedication. Later, the owners found it necessary to add a supporting archway in the center of the hall to correct the bad list that had developed from the force of the prevailing winds, and a new stage was added in the spring of 1871. 42 A proscenium arch with doors on each side leading backstage, some drapery, and a drop curtain added the finishing touches to the structure. Painted flats that could be moved on and off stage by sliding them in grooves allowed changes in scenery. The stage was lighted

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by coal-oil lamps backed by tin reflectors for footlights and by other lamps hung overhead. When the painted drop curtain was displayed, Dennis Toohy reported the reactions of first-nighters to the scenes represented as "the groans of the damned," "the Devil's gate with the hinges broke off," "just before the battle, mother," "a draft of Brigham Young's death warrant," "the Endowment House capsized," or the "interior of a female suffrage ballot-box." 4:!

The typical opera house audience was rather well behaved, although sometimes a few roughs might upset the decorum of the various productions. Members of the audience were cautioned against whistles and catcalls, men from the freight lines and horse corrals were asked to walk more quietly in their heavy boots during the musical numbers, and others were requested to leave their dogs at home. This last appeal was not always followed. The Reporter occasionally noted dog fights in the opera house aisles. Other rules of the house established a floor committee that supervised dances and remonstrated against the use of tobacco during performances. Male patrons were instructed that "those who expected to rate with gentlemen, will please not expectorate on the floor of the Opera House." Within a month of the grand dedication the local newspaper reported the structure was occupied two or three times a week with lectures, concerts, and other performances.44 The social activity most often held in the opera house, and at times in other buildings in Corinne, seemed to be dances and formal balls. When the editor of the Daily Mail asked in October 1874 that dancing parties be held at least every two weeks, he probably spoke for most of the able-bodied residents of the town. 41 During the early years a rather settled pattern developed for the important dance festivities: an opening ball in the early autumn, a Christmas dance, a New Year's Eve and sometimes a Valentine's Day masquerade ball, an evening in commemoration of the founding of the town, and a Fourth of July hop. 40 There were also special ball occasions such as the dedication of the opera house and the launching of the City of Corinne. And finally, there were just dances announced for no reason other than the desire to dance, although someone might dream up an anniversary ball, commemorative of the Battle of New Orleans, with music by Olsen's celebrated band from Salt Lake City, and at the modest ticket price of $3.00.47

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The dances usually started at 10:00 P.M., recessed for a midnight supper, and then continued until 4:00 A.M. or daybreak. At the opera house, Winschells building, the Uintah House, the Central Hotel, the Metropolitan Hotel, or at the Corinne mills â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the place did not seem to matter â&#x20AC;&#x201D; couples numbering from forty to two hundred crowded on the floor. The local newspaper editors often could not contain their romantic memories of the previous evening as they broke forth into extravagant praise and poetry in describing the night's events. The dance was "an uncontrolled rollicking, rolling rout . . . simply a wild romp by all, unfettered by ceremony or tone," from which the participants could not depart without a sigh.48 The poetry included such selections as: Of all the joys vouchsafed to man in life's tempestuous whirl, There's naught approaches heaven so near as dancing with a girl â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A reader one hundred years removed from those congenial scenes is left with the strong impression that Corinne was a joyful town, a fun place to spend an evening. No wonder errant Mormons from nearby hamlets often drove their buggies to the Gentile town for a night of terpsichorean bliss.40 That the invitation to dance was not always reciprocated by the Saints was confirmed by at least two sleighloads of Corinnethians who traveled to North String one evening to join a ball in progress at the local Mormon schoolhouse. As the Gentile group entered the hall the Mormon leader announced, "I would inform the parties from Corinne . . . that the house is rather crowded, and their room is more desirable than their company . . . they will therefore waltz out, and that very lively, too." Adding to this paraphrase of the ejection notice, the editor of the Mail composed a full column illustrated poem beginning with: My song is but a mournful ditty, For its how the Mormons treat the whites, So please give me an ear of pity, For the poor, ill-treated Corrineites.

A sequel to the story occurred in a few days when a Mormon visiting in Corinne asked one of the would-be dancers where he could find a

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certain individual, to which the Corinnethian replied, "You go to h " 50 Interspersed between the many dances were private parties and community sociables that permitted the young people of the town to get together and the older people to observe their courting and coquetry. One affair of Mrs. Howes was so splendid that the editor of the Reporter was hardly able to describe the sparkling scene, while at another given by Mrs. Alex Toponce in honor of her own birthday the town elite enjoyed themselves as they watched two sedate businessmen, E. P. Johnson and N. S. Ransohoff, dance an Irish jig.''1 One sociable held at the opera house engaged the attention of two hundred guests, Patrick E. Connor bought the cake being raffled off, and all joined in such games as blindman's buff and drop the handkerchief.

One Salt Laker who attended a party in Corinne in 1876 wrote that when he wanted "a good time hereafter," he would journey to Corinne which was "composed exclusively of Gentiles." 52 More serious cultural pursuits in the form of dramatic presentations also attracted good crowds in Corinne. On July 16, 1870, some of the local talent formed a dramatic association to produce amateur plays. However, the organization was not successful partly because not one lady joined the troupe. As the Reporter explained, the women seemed to require more coaxing than did the young men. 53 Professional acting companies found it convenient to stop off in Corinne as part of their transcontinental tours, thus affording Corinnethians some legitimate and delightful productions. Thomas A. Lyne of Salt Lake City performed in Hamlet. C. W. Couldock and his daughter Eliza appeared in the town and later joined the Jack Langrishe Company, which performed Richelieu and The Stranger so artistically that the delighted patrons offered a special testimonial to Langrishe/' 4 Carter's Dramatic Combination next demonstrated their histrionic talents so well in The Lady of Lyons, East Lynne, and other plays that later the townspeople offered a complimentary benefit to Miss Carrie Carter. Lesser artists like LePetite Marion, "the star of the continent," acted in an elegant comedy on the stage of the opera house.""' Local groups such as the Ogden Dramatic Company offered creditable performances in Rip Van Winkle and other plays, although this particular offering unfortunately was produced without any scenery. By 1874, however, the better road companies were by-passing

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faltering Corinne, and the Mail hopefully reported talk of a theatrical troupe coming to the town to provide entertainment long missed.

Further evidence of this lack came with the facetious announcement, "Another disappointment. Edwin Booth will not fill his engagement at the Corinne Opera House this season." 5<i One of the reasons for the dramatic and rather sudden decline in performances in the town was due to the numerous one-horse shows that had perpetrated inept performances before the unsuspecting townsmen. In one full column of fulminations and tirade, editor Toohy discoursed on one J. B. Robinson, "a peripatetic bilk," who left town without paying any of his bills and on the five amateurs from Ogden who supported him. Toohy described each one of the five in intimate detail, one had a head like a beehive with "a bushy crop of hair resembling a faded beet patch"; another was on the "buttermilk order"; a third had "jaws like a Berkshire hog" and carried "a traveling lunch, consisting mainly of carrots and smoked frog"; and all spoke "no language corresponding with any living dialect, and are currently suspected of belonging to a race of creatures peculiar to Weber Valley." Of course, much of this derision can be explained by the fact that the five amateur actors were from Mormon Ogden. Toohy later apologized for advertising such imposters in his newspaper.57 One later example of these wandering cheats, a Dr. St. Clair, was met by a small but appreciative audience that punctuated his performance with large Chinese bombs and caused him and his troupe to take the next freight train to Elko.5s Literary entertainments and variety shows also helped to amuse citizens during the dreary evenings of winter.50 Corinnethians were entertained by traveling circuses, a "Museum of Living Wonders" featuring a French giant and a lilliputian, an armless man, a memorial service to Samuel F. B. Morse complete with a "panegyrical poem" byNat Stein, a $25,000 painted panorama of the great Northwest, the Royal Yeddo Troupe â&#x20AC;&#x201D; jugglery and magic, the Living Head (an illusion), and other parlor entertainments. 00 All this attested to the geographical fact that Corinne was a convenient stopping place on the Central Pacific Railroad.

But more than drama and traveling exhibits, Corinnethians seemed to love things musical. In June 1870 Miss Kline, just in from Sacramento, started a singing class, and before long there was a

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Corinne Serenading Club that apparently went around in the evening extracting favors from local businessmen as they sang by the light of the silvery moon. Musical artists who visited the town included a Tyrolean Troupe that featured a zither and a peculiar wood and straw instrument,01 the Great Western Minstrel Troupe, the Swiss Bell Ringers, the Rocky Mountain Vocalists of Montana, and Madame Anna Bishop who was billed as a distinguished vocalist.02 Sometimes a visiting artist would join forces with local musicians for a concert. A Professor Farini, pianist and baritone singer, came in from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1871 to conduct a series of concerts that elicited ecstatic reviews from the local editor. The professor's rendition of "Yankee Doodle" as a piano composition was "beyond our reach, for we have never heard so exquisite a performance on the piano before." At his last concert Farini indicated that he had decided to move to Corinne and give voice and piano lessons.

But his fame was short-lived as reports began to come in from Salt Lake City, Denver, and other points that the professor had failed to pay certain obligations. For once, Toohy found he did not have time to write an opinion in the case of "The People vs. Farini, alias Bilk, Alias Vagabond, alias Loafer, the latter being his most correct mark of identity." °3 Corinnethians preferred their own musical productions anyway, and the opera house was usually filled to hear friends and relatives perform. At one event the local newsmen, one who scarcely knew a "discord from a bed cord," advised the participants to sing the well known and popular songs rather than those of higher artistic merit.

Judging from the programs most artists followed that advice.64 Perhaps a quotation from one of the numerous reviews of these popular entertainments will give a sense of the kind of musical numbers offered: This was followed by the beautiful solo "Put me in my little bed" sang by Minnie Montgomery. A pretty song by Lillie Greenwald was received with great applause. Mrs. Glascott, who is ever a favorite with the lovers of music, appeared in those delightful songs "Sweet spirit hear my prayer" and "Her bright smile haunts me still," which were rendered in glorious style. "Driven from home," by Miss E. Closser, with her incomparable voice and cultivation, was worthy of that accomplished lady's effort, while raptures of applause followed the excellent singing of "Mignionette" by Miss Jennie Black. Mr. Pratt gathered new laurels

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in his rendition of that splendid solo "The little church round the corner.

Usually, these entertainments also included tableaux representing such typical scenes as the Empress Josephine signing the divorce, Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith, and "The good time coming . . . another funny sight, in which the lords of creation were washing, cooking and nursing, while the wives were off in Congress or at the Ku-Klux." "" A fixture of the small towns of America in the late 1800s was the brass band. Corinne nurtured its first one in the spring of 1870 when Homer Hewins, a violinist, organized the Brass and String Band of Corinne. Apparently, there were few instruments, because the following year, in order to get ready for the dedication of the opera house, the loyal citizens subscribed $328.50 to purchase a full complement from San Francisco. To keep in practice and just for fun the musicians often serenaded prominent citizens late at night, J. H. Beadle reporting one such incident involving himself.07 But the Corinne organization was never very successful and was reorganized almost every year. In May 1873 another more forceful attempt was made to secure a permanent contingent of musicians, and officers were actually elected to support and encourage a band. It played at civic functions and even offered the musical accompaniment to Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse's lecture on polygamy. By November, however, the Mail reported that the Corinne brass band had given up the ghost. A band of sorts, assembled in a hurry, did furnish all-day music for the municipal election in March 1875. The Mail thought this was a precedent other towns should follow.os The opera house also played host to a number of lectures, the subject of polygamy seeming to arouse the most interest. In addition to Mrs. Stenhouse, Ann Eliza Young appeared as did a Professor Holmes whose lecture was titled "What I know about polygamy, its creeds and crimes." A Mr. Jones treated the Corinne folks with his discourse on "natural fools," and Mrs. Belle Chamberlain held forth on "Spiritualism." A Professor Reynolds discussed "crayography," and James W. Marshall appeared with a lecture illustrated by such relics as his pick and a piece of the Donner cabin.00 Other cultural pursuits involved the organization of an ephemera] lvceum and an even shorter-lived literary club. There were occasional

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debating clubs that were allowed to use a room in the city hall one night a week. Abortive efforts were also made to start a public library, the editor of the Utah Reporter donating Beyond the Mississippi by A. D. Richardson and Rev. Edward E. Bayliss giving Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. This was in June 1870, but a year later no library had been established even though one of the business firms of the city had donated a complete set of Bancroft's historical works.70

Sports and Fraternal Orders Minor diversions for both young and old in Corinne included iceskating on adjacent Bear River and roller-skating in the opera house at twenty-five cents per ticket, a sport that seemed especially popular judging from the many comments about it in the columns of the Reporter. Occasionally, traveling billiard players would stop off to give an exhibition of skill. Spelling bees also captured the attention of Corinnethians during the long winter months. For the betting fraternity there were cockfights at Burnetts.71 The outdoorsmen enjoyed the wonderful hunting grounds of the Bear River marshes, an area still so teeming with waterfowl that the federal government has set it aside as a migratory bird refuge. To the westerner of the 1870s hunting game was such a natural part of everyday living that it is singular that any mention should be made of the practice, and yet much space was devoted to accounts of hunting parties. Toohy wrote of the geese, ducks, grouse, chickens, brant, snipe, plover, curlew, partridge, pelican, crane, gull, kingfisher, and many other varieties of fowl. He concluded one account with "a blind man can shoot a cart load of birds in one hour. . . ." Corinne nimrods brought in wagonloads of ducks. In one instance three citizens from Salt Lake City shot 176 ducks in a single day and reported it was impossible to miss. Two other men from Corinne killed 135 whistlers in one day's shooting. Such accounts were minor matters to the newspaper which often chronicled hunters returning with several hundred ducks. Boosters for Corinne were careful to explain the attractions in the vicinity for sportsmen.72 Fishing in Bear River was so common that only occasionally did the newspaper mention in rather matter-offact fashion that two thousand pounds of fish had been caught in Bear River in just a few days.

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One sport, horse racing, was a natural for a frontier trail town whose streets swarmed with teamsters, stagecoach drivers, and wranglers. At first the eager horsemen just laid out a straight course west of the town, set up some rickety bleachers with local bartender Cad Pace in a booth under the stand to dispense liquid refreshments and cigars, and awaited the challenges. There were always wagers, and newspaper comments usually included reports on the brisk side betting or large sums of money that had changed hands. Races accompanied the annual celebrations of Corinne's pioneer day and Independence Day and special occasions like the launching of the steamer â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whenever a crowd was at hand. The newspaper tried to cover the races, but there were so many that the editor once complained to the owners of the animals to furnish him the proper information for his news items.':f In 1871 the townspeople completed a circular track east of the river, christened it the Lake View Track, and invited Salt Lakers and people from the other Mormon towns to participate in the racing events. As many as two thousand showed up to witness the more exciting match races. Finally, in July 1873 twelve prominent citizens of Corinne filed articles of incorporation establishing the Corinne Agricultural and Parks Association with a capital stock of 500 shares at $10.00 each and with the twin objects of building a fairground for exhibiting stock and vegetables and of "making a race track within the enclosure for the purpose of trying the speed of horses to be put on exhibition." The latter seemed to be the real purpose. Thereafter, races were run over the Agricultural Park Track. 7 ' During 1872 and 1873 Corinnethians became quite excited over a trotting horse, Mountain Sheep, owned by a town resident. In several match races Sheep rather handily beat Omaha and Dolly Varden, the latter from Salt Lake City. Toohy bragged, for the benefit of his Salt Lake rivals, that it was useless for them to bring in any more nags to race the matchless Sheep. However, two months later Sheep proved unmanageable and lost a race to Honest Charley which caused great disappointment among the Corinne fans. The Mining Journal thought that CCorinnethians were "getting horse racing on the brain." By the late 1870s, after many other amusements and cultural attractions had disappeared from the repertoire of the people of Corinne, horse racing remained as popular as ever.'

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Apart from the racetrack, the more refined aspects of culture received the support of the more-or-less professional people of the town, of which there seemed to be a sufficiency of medical doctors.

A list of practicing physicians for the years of 1870 to 1878 included three for Corinne: F. J. Bradford, J. W. Graham, and A. M. McKinney. None was listed for the much larger Brigham City, a fact Corinnethians attributed to the Saints' reliance on the prayers of their elders rather than on nostrums prescribed by doctors. Dentists seemed to come and go; Dr. H. Hadley was a permanent resident, being joined later by a Dr. Stover. All advertised in the local paper, Dr. Graham's notice conveying only the significant information, "Examiner of Pensions for Utah." Dr. Hadley's advertisement was more verbose: "Surgeon Dentist. All operations warranted to give satisfaction. Thirty Years Successful Practice." But the public notices of the Corinne medical men were models of good taste and propriety compared to Dr. C. W. Higgins of Salt Lake City whose advertisement in the Corinne Mail occupied an entire column and carried the following claims: "Fits Cured. Also Cancer, Deafness, Sore Eyes, Tape Worms." The editor of the Mail editorialized in favor of the fabulous cures of Dr. Higgins, late of Boston.70 Attorneys-at-law also advertised, Dennis J. Toohy giving himself free notices in his own newspaper. In addition to many cases involving stolen stock and land ownership, the lawyers also gained some notoriety in the divorce business. But these Gentile attorneys had good competition from their Mormon brethren in Brigham City. The Reporter noted in December 1871 that the probate court of Box Elder County was granting divorces that were as "valueless as the wrappers on chewing tobacco." 7T A year later the Utah Mining Journal commented that five dollars would buy a divorce in the Mormon court but doubted that the freedom papers were any more valid than polygamous marriages. In 1874 Corinne had its own problems with divorce attorneys as the editor of the Mail asked, "A lawyer of Corinne advertizes in the San Francisco papers to procure divorces for ill-mated couples without publicity, and assures those desiring to be free that their presence here will not be required. Who is he?" The news was apparently never revealed. Four attorneys were advertising in the newspaper at the time: William Hyndman, E. P. Johnson, John H. McCutcheon, and W. H. Clipperton. 7s Advertisements for the easy

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decrees also appeared in the local press: "Divorces Secured â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Presence Not Necessary Fee $2.50." Although it is difficult to substantiate the story, some old-time residents later explained how an unhappy spouse could visit a special machine located conveniently in Corinne, insert a $2.50 gold piece, turn the crank, and receive a divorce decree signed by one of the Box Elder County judges. The person then filled in the correct names, and the divorce was legally granted. There was a blank space to be filled out for those concerned with alimony. This divorce slot machine was apparently popular for a time, although its use may have resulted in charges of bigamy for those who remarried. 70 For the practitioners of medicine and law, for the businessmen, and for the hoi polloi of Corinne there were three fraternal orders ready to take up any spare time left after filing divorce suits or selling harnesses and groceries. The Corinne Odd Fellows Association was organized May 29, 1870, with Judge S. G. Sewell as president and David Auerbach as secretary. Lodge No. 4 had among the members Brothers J. M. Langsdorf, Strauss, Church, Watrous, Davidson, Greenwald, Reggel, and E. P. Johnson. A later newspaper explained that Hebrew Gentiles tended to join the Odd Fellows more than they did the Masons. Annual Odd Fellows dances were held to raise money for the benevolent fund, and the society was still flourishing as late as 1877.*" A less active order involving both men and women members was the Good Templars which held a number of socials in town and was particularly concerned with the reformation of alcoholics and the local temperance movement. 81 The third, and probably the most important, fraternity established at Corinne was the Masonic order. The history of Masonry in Utah is unique because, contrary to a fundamental principle of Universal Freemasonry which guaranteed privacy concerning personal religion, Masons of the Mormon faith, of which there were some, were denied admission to the order and were not even allowed visiting privileges. As the editor of the Mail noted, the Masons of Utah suffered persecution at the hands of the Mormons and battled back as best they could. The Salt Lake Tribune further explained that none of the Saints were Masons, the endowment ceremonies of the Mormon temple having replaced the Masonic ritual."2 It is not surprising that a number of the founders and later town fathers of Corinne were Masons who, as early as November 1869 were

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attempting to get a lodge. Corinne Lodge No. 5 was authorized to meet by an order of October 15, 1872, with twenty-nine Masons listed on the special dispensation. The ubiquitous E. P. Johnson, an attorney and also an Odd Fellow, was chosen as the leader and became the father of Corinne Lodge. A charter was issued November 25, 1873, and forty-five names were listed on the document, most of the prominent citizens of Corinne. Thomas J. Black was elected to head the new lodge.83 Very active at first, Lodge No. 5 began to reflect the business decline of Corinne by 1874, and when the Utah grand master visited the Masonic building in September 1877 he reported, The Tyler's room had the appearance of an old store room, in which was deposited all the traps collected by them ever since the whistle of the locomotive was heard in the valley of Wasatch, while the Lodge room seemed to be the repository of the surplus alkali dust of that beautiful city.

The grand master was mortified and raised enough dust that the Corinne Masons could only answer, in an attempt at weak humor, that no lodge in Utah had a membership composed of men "more competent to kick up a dust than our Corinne Brethren." Matters had so deteriorated by the 1880s that the Corinne charter disappeared and could not be found. But for three or four years the Masons of the town had sponsored a number of dances for Saint John's Day and other occasions and had worked together informally to further their own business interests and to strike impromptu blows at Mormondom. 84

Chinatown A look at culture in the town on Bear River would not be complete without also examining cultures, specifically the life-styles and history of the black and Chinese communities of cosmopolitan, yet frontier, Corinne. The black portion of the population was very small, 18 according to the 1870 official census and 26 by the Damon count of 1872. Nevertheless, that was a particularly high percentage for Corinne because the total number in all of Utah Territory for 1870 was only 118. Scattered references by the newspaper editors reveal that there were no black children enrolled in the Damon seminary of

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1870, although a number of citizens of African descent lived in the town. Dennis J. Toohy reported on December 30, 1871, that the black citizens of the town were planning to celebrate the eighth anniversary of their emancipation from slavery, and the following year he wrote "The colored troops have tendered their services in the parade of the Pioneers. . . . " With these exceptions, and one that mentioned that black citizens had not voted, little notice was taken of any organized activities by the black community. 85 Most worked as employees of the various hotels and saloons in the town.

Many of the Chinese residents of Corinne had been workers on the construction gangs building the Central Pacific and quite naturally settled down in the new metropolis, seeing opportunities to make a livelihood. The 1870 census listed 89 Chinese while the Damon survey Chinese railroad workers at the laying of the last rail.

Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

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two years later showed 67 in the town.80 The Utah Reporter comment of April 1870 that there were two or three hundred Chinese in the town could have been fairly accurate. The population was in a constant state of flux because many used Corinne as a staging area to get to the gold fields of Idaho and Montana. A month earlier the editor had reported the arrival of about fifty Chinese from California headed for Montana and expected another five hundred or so to appear very soon. In April the newspapermen wrote, "about a thousand Chinamen, more or less, left the city during the week for the Montana gold fields." "7 A few American entrepreneurs entered into the business of shipping Chinese workers to the northern mines, but eventually promoters from among the Chinese themselves settled in Corinne to care for the needs of their countrymen, at a good profit, as these neophyte miners prepared to travel from the railhead to the north. Ong Wah sent off two wagonloads of workers in July 1871.""

Not all traveled in such comfort. One observer saw on the road north of Corinne a number of Chinamen on foot, each with a pole over his shoulder, balanced by a bag of rice at one end and a bundle of blankets on the other.

They jogged along, in a sort of dog trot, on their way to the mines in Montana, where some of their countrymen have bought out valuable claims.so An analysis of the Helena Herald daily listings of stagecoach passengers from Corinne for the late season of September 1 through December 31, 1870, shows 198 travelers who booked passage to the north, of which 40 were Chinese, 21 percent of the total.9" In a tragic incident during March 1870 seven of ten Chinese passengers on one stage froze to death on the Snake River plains when their sleigh upset at Dry Creek.

The spot was known thereafter as China Point.01 As the rich diggings played out at the various mining camps Chinese moved in until about half the number of miners in many of the camps were Chinese who could make as much as $4.00 a day working the old claims abandoned by the whites. Furthermore, not only did the Chinese merchants of Corinne profit from the transport of workers, but shippers like Ah Tim, Yee Wah, Young Hing, and Qui Tong Kee & Company kept busy supplying their countrymen in the north with cargoes of rice and other essential foodstuffs and equipment. The flow of Chinese into Corinne did not slow appreciably

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either, the Corinne Mail reporting in April 1875 that the Chinese quarter of the city was rapidly filling with newcomers.92 At first there were two Chinatowns in Corinne â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one on Montana Street and one along the railroad tracks. The Montana section, a flimsy collection of frame and canvas structures, was destroyed by a fire on September 24, 1871, that almost wiped out the whole town.

One Chinese woman perished in the blaze, and arson was suspected.

Several hundred citizens immediately petitioned the city council for an ordinance making it unlawful for the Chinese residents to erect unsafe structures in the Montana Street area. This confined the new Chinatown to what became known as the steamboat landing on Bear River. The area was governed by a tyee chosen by the residents.93 The Chinese of Corinne, as elsewhere in America, tended to maintain their old culture and so provided exotic copy for the local newspaper. Forced into residential segregation and limited in their social relationships to strictly business dealings with non-Orientals, the Chinese community kept very close contact with China and Kwangtung Province by the transcontinental railroad to the coast and the direct and frequent ship sailings to and from Hong Kong. Nearly every ship brought new emigrants, many of whom boarded eastbound trains for the Intermountain mines. And, editor Toohy once noted receipt of a subscription for the Corinne Reporter from far-off Ningpo, China. The Chinese of the town on Bear River imported much of their food and many personal articles from China as had their fellow Orientals of the Central Pacific construction gangs. Robert Spiers has listed common articles brought from the old country: Dried oysters, dried cuttle-fish, dried fish, sweet rice crackers, dried bamboo sprouts, salted cabbage, Chinese sugar . . . four kinds of dried fruits, five kinds of dessicated vegetables, vermicelli, dried sea-weed, pea-nut oil, dried mushrooms, tea, and rice . . also pipes, bowls, chop-sticks, large shallow cast-iron bowls for cooking rice, lamps, joss paper, Chinese writing paper, pencils and India ink, Chinese shoes, and clothing imported ready-made from China. 94 The Chinese did not drink as much hard liquor as did their white neighbors, and most accounts agreed that the Chinese maintained high standards of personal cleanliness at home and in camp. Two early settlers of nearby Bear River City have left us their impression of the

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Chinese of Corinne who "were most interesting, with their huge peaked hats, black gowns, and the braid of their queue hanging down their backs, as they shuffled along in their sandals. . . ." The two observers also noted the laundryman "who filled his mouth with water, then sprayed it over the clean linen to dampen it before ironing." 9:' With these exotic people as residents of frontier Corinne, it is perhaps not surprising that the editor could announce with pride that Dr. Graham had performed the first amputation on a Chinese in America.90 The Corinne newspapers delighted in examining for their curious readers the strange customs of the people from the flowery kingdom.

The Reporter described the first Mongolian wedding in Utah between Mr. John Tip and Miss Ma Choy, who invited a number of prominent Caucasian guests to attend the reception ceremony."7 In another story the editor explained how the Chinese maintained a cemetery just northwest of town and each spring placed near the gravesites, for the benefit of their dead, dishes of roast pig, fowl, rice, whiskey, and other delicacies that certain Corinnethians had annually appropriated as a free lunch. That is, until 1877 when in retaliation for forced labor on the streets in lieu of paying a poll tax the Chinese inhabitants removed "the annual cold lunches from the cemetery before their persecutors had an opportunity to make a square meal upon it." 98 Another custom Caucasians found unusual was that of shipping back to China the bodies of departed relatives and friends for proper interment. The unfriendly Corinne Mail reported that "a car load of bones passed through west last night, the remains of Celestials returning to the flowery kingdom." Toohy was much more understanding, reporting shipments of as many as twenty-two bodies at one time from Montana to the native land of China for burial. Often members of the local Chinese community at Corinne would place lighted candles around the wagons where the coffins reposed and conduct the timehonored ceremonies.00 One Chinese businessman of Helena, Tong Hing, less reverent than some of his brethren, decided to evade the high cost of freighting some bodies to the old country in $1,000 zinc coffins and, instead, placed the corpses in barrels marked "pickles." An agent at Corinne discovered the ruse, and the Helena Herald thought that Tong Hing might cogitate on the possibility of cremation. 100 The outstanding event celebrated by the Chinese of Corinne was the annual New Year's celebration in February. In long accounts the

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newspapers described, with tongue-in-cheek accuracy, the events of the several days, including the fireworks, foods, and fun of the holiday.

The Utah Reporter recorded that the 1870 performance was in memory of the reign of the Emperor Ah-che-wan and then listed some of the foods consumed: "pickled birds' nests, preserved hummingbirds' tongues, dried snakes," and other unusual and fanciful dishes.

Toohy later reported a historical oration by one of the leading Chinese citizens and, in typical Toohy Irish flourishes and with some antiMormon jibes, explained how the ancient Chinese manufactured sunbeams "until Robinson Crusoe, one of the Kings of Ireland, started a candle factory at New Orleans about three hundred years after the abolition of slavery by Joseph Smith." Leading citizens from among Corinne's population were usually invited to the New Year's celebrations and were pleasantly surprised to find so little difference between Chinese and Caucasian perceptions of enjoyment.101 In addition to the profits to be gained from outfitting and supplying their countrymen going to the mines, local Chinese engaged in varied occupations, mostly service-oriented. Gambling and prostitution caught the wrath of town fathers but did not seem to diminish much over the years. The Utah Reporter tried to describe one early gambling establishment but finally gave up and merely recorded, "themoreyoulaydownthelessyoutakeup." The Reporter editorialized in vain against the spectacle of Chinese prostitutes openly vying for customers in the center of town before the eyes of children. In a later blast Toohy asked that the "filthy section" be removed from the main thoroughfare of the town, but it took the conflagration of September 1871 to achieve that objective. After the fire had destroyed the Chinatown on Montana Street, the city council decreed that no Chinese brothels or gambling houses would be allowed in the new quarter along the banks of Bear River. The houses did not disappear but became more discreet in their operations, although there were frequent newspaper references to appearances before the local court of men and women who were fined for maintaining gambling and bawdy houses.102 A common Chinese occupation was that of washing the clothes of the white residents of the town. Margaret Ferris, a newcomer to Corinne, was quite pleased that her Chinese laundryman did such an excellent job: "My underclothing is beautifully ironed and fluted and

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no fuss made about trimmings." Other customers seemed equally satisfied, so much so that the Reporter found it necessary to excoriate the Chinese laundrymen who were depriving the white washerwomen of Corinne of a livelihood. The exhausting work paid the women only $2.00 a day, but they were being deprived of even this pittance by their uncomplaining Chinese competition. Although happy to have the menial washing service provided by the Orientals, the citizens of Corinne offered only contempt in return. The Mail recorded one incident in which a Chinese offered his wash bill to a man on the street and was "immediately knocked down for his impudence. Have Americans no rights which Chinamen are bound to respect?" There were also complaints about the laundries dumping their dirty water into the street gutters and an occasional request to the city council to abate the nuisance.103 Other and varied employment for Chinese included housecleaning, baby-sitting by Chinese youngsters brought over especially for that purpose, cooking and dishwashing for the hotels and saloons, working as section hands on the railroad, and laboring in the local stone quarry.

One Chinese firm, Tung Yuen & Co., opened a cigar factory and employed fellow countrymen. Another firm, Lin Sow and Ah Po, also in the tobacco business, had one cargo of 13,200 cigars confiscated by O. J. Hollister, U.S. collector for Utah, for not having their tobacco properly labeled and branded as required by the law.104 The newspapers of Corinne adopted very different points of view toward the Chinese residents of the town. The Utah Reporter responded to articles in the western press about the question of Chinese labor by saying, "We'll sell 'em ours cheap." The editor also confirmed that unscrupulous whites often attempted to throw the blame for robberies and other infractions of the law on the local Chinese community. But Toohy, despite his rather intolerant anti-Mormonism, was uniquely different from most westerners with respect to Orientals.

In at least two instances he defended Chinese residents of the town.

The first incident concerned a white boss who cursed and beat some Chinese workmen engaged in unloading beams from railroad cars for the construction of the local steamboat. Toohy hoped the "unmanly exhibition" would not be repeated in his town. On the other occasion a white man and a Chinese were cosigners of a promissory note that was overdue. The Chinese man was arrested and jailed for a week

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while the white was not touched. Toohy was able to have the Chinese freed. In July 1871 he editorialized at length against the anti-Chinese agitation underway in California, suggesting that Californians could learn something about morals, ethics, and democracy by observing their Chinese neighbors. The Mail edtior, on the other hand, was vituperative against all Chinese and once recommended their extirpation by every possible means. 105 Most law-and-order problems with the Chinese of Corinne were connected with "nest-hiding," as the newspaper liked to describe the fights over the wives and women of various Chinese men. The Mail observed that such practices were not confined to the white race, while the Utah Reporter described one typical case in which Ring Chang shot a brother "celestial" in the leg for getting too familiar with Chang's wife. The affair ended in a lot of yelling and calls for the constable and a doctor.100 Occasionally, there were difficulties between white residents and the Chinese, especially if strong drink was involved with either or both parties. Visiting freighters also showed their disdain for the Chinese, sometimes provoking the latter to respond. Toohy reported a battle between a party of teamsters and the Fifth Street Chinese: "As it was, one of the Orientals had his pigtail curtailed, and a mule skinner will hereafter have only one ear to hear through. No arrests made." 107 This was unusual, the Chinese nearly always having to suffer whatever indignities were imposed upon them.

When really serious troubles with their white neighbors occurred the Chinese were at a distinct disadvantage. This was dramatically underscored in April 1874 when an esteemed local businessman, Julius Bornstein, was discovered bludgeoned to death with a blood-stained axe. After an excited chase two Chinese were arrested for the crime, and one, who had been discharged from his employment by the victim, confessed to the murder. The local press reported what happened next: At two o'clock this afternoon, while the officers were endeavoring to take the prisoner to Brigham City for safe keeping, the citizens en masse took him from them, marched him down to the railroad bridge, one mile east of town, and hung him from the trestle work . . . . Public wrath is appeased, quietness prevails again, and the people are happv to feel they have rid the city of a mur10S derer Culture on the Bear

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Two months later the Corinne city authorities attempted to get the Box Elder County court to pay a bill of $69 for guarding the Chinese prisoner who had been hanged. The bill was ignored.100 The Chinese community at Bear River continued until the extension of the Utah Northern Railroad in 1878 began to sap the business life of the town. A few of the Chinese businesses, like the John Yeh Wah wash house, then followed the general exodus to the construction camp of the railroad in Idaho. 110 Some moved to nearby towns like Ogden or Salt Lake City, but a small Chinese section remained in Corinne until 1886. In that year, as a result of the general antiOriental sentiment rampant throughout the West, a vigilante committee entrained a number of the Chinese of the town on some Central Pacific cars and ordered them "not to return on pain of death." An artist for the Police News in far-off Boston depicted this scene at Corinne for his magazine. 111 The Chinese had constituted a picturesque and important part of the life of the town throughout its short history but finally succumbed to intolerance.

The cultures and culture of the freight town on Bear River were unique and different from those of the Mormon towns of Utah Territory. Competing with their neighbors in annual commemorative ceremonies for their own pioneer day, the Corinnethians, nevertheless, spent much time and effort in displaying their patriotism and loyalty to the nation on Independence Day in a determined bid to let other Americans know of the alleged disregard of the Utah Saints for that national holiday. Those festive occasions were, of course, excuses for much fun and recreation as well which the people of Corinne seemed particularly eager to enjoy. Similarly, while appreciating the competition of baseball as a sport, there remained a strong element of rivalry, of wanting to best the Mormon teams of Salt Lake City and Ogden.

In other cultural activities and amusements, Corinnethians had few peers in Utah as they danced, sang, lectured, and skated, or watched others do so. Their opera house was their great pride and afforded a convenient building for the many cultural and social events that crowded the winter calendar. Amusements, outdoor exhibitions, and fraternal orders offered further opportunities for fun and frolic.

As a frontier town with a cosmopolitan flair, Corinne also boasted a Chinese community that provided needed services and an oppor-

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tunity to observe an exotically different life-style. Oriental residents added spice to the life of the town. The only blotch on the whole fagade of merriment was the nagging fear that the fortunes of Corinne might be upset by the successful extension of the Mormon narrowgauge railroad, an apprehension that in 1874 seemed destined to be realized.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 8 1

Utah Reporter, 22, 24 March 1870.

Utah Reporter, 11, 14 March 1871.

3 Utah Reporter, 27 March 1871. * Corinne Reporter, 13, 25 March 1872; 19, 26 March 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 23 March 1872.

5 Corinne Mail, 22 March 1875; Jesse H. Jameson, "Corinne: A Study of a Freight Transfer Point in the Montana Trade, 1869 to 1878" ( M A . thesis, University of Utah, 1951), p. 226. " Utah Reporter, 5, 7, 30 Tune 1870.

7 Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 20 June 1870, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.

3 Utah Reporter, 29 J u n e ; 1, 2 July 1870.

0 Utah Reporter, 17 J u n e ; 2, 4 July 1870. iÂť New York Herald, 26 June 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 10, 21 June 1871. " Corinne Reporter, 22 June 1871; Salt Lake Tribune, 28 June, 4 July 1871.

12 Corinne Reporter, 1 July 1871.

13 Keepapitchinin, 4 July 1871.

11 Salt Lake Tribune, 4 July 1871; Corinne Reporter, 5, 8 July 1871.

15 Corinne Reporter, 7 July 1871.

10 Corinne Reporter, 29 June, 5 July 1871; Utah Mining Journal, 6 July 1871.

17 A. B. Knight to Old Boy, 3 July 1873, Charles Bovey Collection, Virginia City, Montana. is Corinne Reporter, 30 J u n e ; 1, 2, 3, 5 July 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 6 July 1873. w Corinne Mail, 6 July 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 18, 30 June 1876.

20 Utah Reporter, 15, 24, 26 March; 28 April; 10, 24 May 1870.

2 i Utah Reporter, 5, 12 April; 21, 31 May; 5, 17 J u n e ; 14 July 1870.

22 Deseret News, 29 June 1870.

23 Salt Lake Herald, 6 July 1870.

-* Utah Reporter, 8 July 1870.

-r' Salt Lake Herald, 27 July 1870.

-o Utah Reporter, 27, 28 July 1870.

27 Helena Herald, 2 August 1870.

23 Salt Lake Herald, 30 September 1870; Utah Reporter, 1, 4, 10 October 1870.

29 Utah Reporter, 17 March 1871; Corinne Reporter, 24 May; 24 J u n e ; 13, 15, 22, 25 July 1871.

30 Corinne Reporter, 13, 25 March 1871.

31 Corinne Reporter, 29 March 1871.

32 Corinne Reporter, 2, 7, 8 May; 26 J u n e ; 1 July 1871.

33 Corinne Reporter, 28 May; 5 July; 12, 19, 26 August 1871.

31 Corinne Reporter, 4 June 1873. :l "' Corinne Mail, 16 April, 6 September 1875. :l ÂŤ Salt Lake Herald, 24 March 1877.

37 Rue C. Johnson, "Frontier Theatre: The Corinne Opera House," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (1974) : 286. Johnson paints a delightful picture of the opera house and its use. See also Utah Reporter, 16 October 1869.

2

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Corinne

38 Utah Reporter, 5 May 1870.

Box Elder County Association, 18 February 1870, microfilm, Utah State Archives. iÂť Utah Reporter, 21 May 1870.

41 Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," p. 287. " Ibid., pp. 292-93.

43 Ibid.; Corinne Reporter, 29 November 1871.

44 Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," p. 293; Utah Reporter, 22 July, 11 October 1870.

4 = Corinne Mail, 17 October 1874. *0Utah Reporter, 30 November; 25, 28 December 1869; 19, 24 March; 24 December 1870; Corinne Reporter, 17 September, 26 December 1872; 17 February 1873; Corinne Mail, 17 October 1874; 2 January, 22 March 1875. At one masquerade a dancer appeared attired as a "Mormon-Native."

47 Utah Reporter, 9 July, 4 August 1870; Corinne Reporter, 23 May 1871; 17 June, 4 January 1872; Corinne Mail, 26 September 1874; 17 February, 16 June 1875.

48 Utah Reporter, 23 December 1869, 9 July 1870; Corinne Mail, 2 January, 16 June 1875.

49 Utah Reporter, 25 December 1869, 9 July 1870. so Corinne Mail, 28, 29 January; 2 February 1875.

51 Utah Reporter, 12 February 1870; Corinne Reporter, 21 November 1871.

52 Utah Reporter, 17 July 1870; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 November 1876.

53 Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," p. 288; Utah Reporter, 23 June, 6 December 1870; 26 January 1871.

54 Utah Reporter, 6 January 1871; Corinne City Minute Book, 2 January 1871; Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," pp. 289-300.

55 Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," p. 290; Corinne Reporter, 12 December 1871, 19 May 1873.

50 Ogden Junction, 20 February 1874; Corinne Mail, 6 October, 12 November 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 November 1876.

57 Corinne Reporter, 3 April; 22, 24 June 1871.

58 Corinne Mail, 7 September 1874. r9 - Corinne Mail, 18 September 1874.

00 Utah Reporter, 11 June, 6 August 1870; Corinne Reporter, 11 April, 5 June 1872; Johnson, "Frontier Theatre," p. 291.

01 Utah Reporter, 5 June 1870; Corinne Reporter, 10 May 1871; Utah Reporter, 24 December 1870.

02 Corinne Reporter, 16, 20, 24, 27 J u n e ; 29 November 1871; 7 July 1873.

03 Corinne Reporter, 1, 26 March; 1 J u n e ; 1 July 1871.

04 Utah Reporter, 19 November 1870.

60 Corinne Reporter, 21 April 1871.

00 Corinne Reporter, 21 April 1871, 29 February 1872.

07 Utah Reporter, 31 March; 19, 23 J u n e ; 3 September 1870.

GS Corinne Reporter, 31 July 1872, 30 May 1873; Corinne City Minute Book, 25 October 1873; Salt Lake Tribune, 1 August 1874; Corinne Mail, 20 October, 11 November 1874; 5 March 1875.

09 Utah Mining Journal, 19 September 1872; Corinne Mail, 24 October, 11 December 1874; Corinne Reporter, 11 September 1871, 30 November 1872.

79 Corinne Reporter, 16 May; 24, 28 J u n e ; 13 October 1871; Corinne City Minute Book, 22 January 1872; Utah Reporter, 5 June 1870.

71 Utah Reporter, 2, 14, 21 December 1869; Corinne Reporter, 12 April; 19, 26 August; 6 September; 13 October 1871; 6 January 1872; Corinne Journal, 9 May 1871; Corinne Mail, 16 April 1875.

39

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255

72 Corinne Reporter, 15 July, 19 August 1871; Corinne Mail, 21, 25 September; 28 October 1874; 16, 25 March 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 9 January, 17 March, 27 May 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 22 November 1876.

73 Corinne Reporter, 8, 9, 24 May 1871; 30 June 1873; Utah Reporter, 26 March; 5, 10, 17 June 1870; Corinne Mail, 6 July 1875.

74 Utah Reporter, 10 May 1870; Corinne Reporter, 8, 18 November 1872; Utah Mining Journal, 11 November 1872; Box Elder County Association, 31 July 1873; Corinne Mail, 6 July 1875.

75 Corinne Reporter, 18 November 1872; 21 April, 20 June 1873; Utah Mining Journal, 19, 22 November 1872.

70 Christine C. Waters, "Pioneering Physicians in Utah, 1847-1900" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1976), pp. 9 7 - 9 9 ; Corinne Reporter, 12 May 1871; Corinne Mail, 7, 17 September; 20 October 1874.

77 Corinne Reporter, 2 June, 13 December 1871.

78 Utah Mining Journal, 8 October 1872; Corinne Mail, 17 September 1874.

70 "Divorce by Slot Machine," 21 November 1941, Utah Writers' Project, WPA Collection, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

80 Utah Reporter, 31 May; 17 J u n e ; 19, 21 September 1870; Corinne Mail, 27 November, 6 February 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 13 July 1875, 18 January 1877.

81 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 233; Corinne Reporter, 10 November 1871.

S2 "Some Basic Facts Pertaining to Mormonism and Utah Freemasonry," 17 August 1976, Mervin B. Hogan Collection, Salt Lake City; Corinne Mail, 20 January 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 13 July 1875.

83 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 232; S. H. Goodwin, Freemasonry in Utah (Salt Lake City: Committee on Masonic Education and Instruction, 1926), pp.

17-19.

84 Goodwin, Freemasonry, pp. 19-26, 27; Corinne Reporter, 16 October 1872; Corinne Mail, 15, 23 December 1874; Salt Lake Herald, 26 November 1873; Salt Lake Tribune, 13 July 1875; 18, 30 June 1876.

85 U.S., Ninth Census of United States, 1870: Aggregate Population (Washington, D.C., 1872), pp. 8-18; Utah Reporter, 21, 23 April; 19 October 1870; Corinne Reporter, 30 December 1871; 18, 28 March 1872. so Ninth Census, pp. 1-18; Corinne Reporter, 28 March 1872.

87 Utah Reporter, 29 March; 16, 23 April 1870.

88 Corinne Reporter, 25 May, 14 July 1871.

89 Ogden Junction, 15 June 1870.

90 Helena Herald, 1 September to 31 December 1870.

91 Utah Reporter, 15 March 1870.

92 Helena Herald, 6 June 1872; Corinne Reporter, 22 July 1871; Corinne Mail, 27 April, 26 May 1875.

93 Jameson, "Corinne: A Study," p. 251; Corinne Reporter, 25, 26 September; 18 October 1871; Corinne City Minute Book, 25 September 1871.

04 Robert F. G. Spier, "Food Habits of Nineteenth-century California Chinese," California Historical Society Quarterly 37 (1958) : 130-33; Corinne Reporter, 17 September 1872.

95 Lucinda P. Jensen, History of Bear River City (Brigham City: Box Elder News Journal, 1947), p. 51.

90 Utah Reporter, 6 January 1870.

••>'• Utah Reporter, 26 April 1870.

98 Salt Lake Herald, 7 April 1877.

19 Corinne Mail, 6 October 1874, 4 June 1875; Corinne Reporter, 14 August 1871 199 Helena Herald, 21 January 1875.

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Corinne

101

Utah Reporter, 1 February 1870, 20 February 1871; Corinne Reporter, 8 February 1872 ; Corinne Mail, 6 February 1875.

102 Utah Reporter, 18 January, 14 November 1870; Corinne Reporter, 26 April, 8 May 1871 ; Corinne City Minute Book, 25 September 1871; Corinne Journal, 9 May 1871.

193 Margaret Eastman Ferris Letters (1874-84), 20 February 1874, MS file 403, Montana State University Library, Bozeman; Utah Reporter, 11, 12 August; 3 September 1870; Corinne Mail, 13 October 1874; Corinne City Minute Book, 19 February 1872.

104 Ferris Letters, 20 February 1874; Corinne Reporter, 8 July, 16 August 1871; 15 October 1873; Salt Lake Herald, 31 March 1877; Utah Reporter, 9 April 1870; Salt Lake Tribune, 6 September 1875, 22 November 1876; Corinne Mail, 12 July 1875. i°r> Utah Reporter, 27 November 1869; 29 July 1870; Corinne Reporter, 1, 29 March; 22 July 1871; Corinne Mail, 13 July 1875.

106 Corinne Reporter, 30 November 1869, 26 May 1871; Corinne Mail, 5, 6 January 1875; Salt Lake City, 14 December 1876.

107 Corinne Reporter, 26 May 1871, 2 September 1872. ios Salt Lake Herald, 7, 14, 15 April 1874; Utah Mining Gazette, 11, 18 April 1874.

109 Box Elder County Court Records, 8 June 1874, 270, Utah State Archives; Mary Nelson Johnson Felshaw, "Pioneer Personal History," p. 2, Utah State Historical Society.

119 Deseret News, 15 May 1878.

111 Lucius M. Beebe, The Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads (Berkeley: Howell-North, 1963), pp. 148-53.

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»'• t Ml

¥•

/In optimistic view of Corinne, 1875, from an eight-page promotional circular. Courtesy of Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

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•' V t f f t ' f '

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Extension of the Utah Northern After six years of growth and challenge, Corinne and its Gentile residents looked forward to 1875 and further progress but kept an attentive ear tuned to the rumors floating around on the Mormon side of Bear River about optimistic plans to extend the Utah Northern Railroad into Idaho. When the first trains pulled into Franklin, Idaho, on May 4, 1874, many observers could see the end of Corinne as a freight transfer point for goods to Montana, and the news from then on was anything but encouraging for Corinnethians. John W. Young was still president of the narrow-gauge line, but eastern financier Joseph Richardson, the principal owner of the railway, was determined to push the road to Watson's station in Marsh Valley and, by intersecting the wagon road from Corinne, capture the Montana trade.

The Deseret News in February 1875 reported thirty-five miles of iron rails awaiting the completed roadbed, five locomotives, sufficient cars, and a survey crew laying out the line to Marsh Creek. The Mormon editor also expatiated at every opportunity on the advantages of a narrow-gauge line over a broad-gauge track, not the least being the two-fifths savings in construction costs.1 A wire from Richardson in August brought the assuring news that a thousand tons of iron rails were on the way to Franklin. Furthermore, Sidney Dillon of the Union Pacific had evinced an interest to Richardson and Young in

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aiding the construction of the line. By September negotiations between the two companies were underway, and the Union Pacific had agreed to send its own surveying party to determine the most practicable route between Franklin and Helena, Montana.Throughout 1875 Utahns kept urging the people of Montana to give the financial aid needed to take the rails of the Utah Northern across the Snake River plains from Fort Hall into the Beaverhead country.' The Ogden Junction thought that if the railroad were not built, Montanans could blame only themselves. Many optimists believed that if the road were extended just twenty-five miles north of Franklin, all of the northern trade would be captured for the Mormon railway.4 Montana citizens desperately wanted the connection with Utah, having given up on the Northern Pacific Railroad to build westward across the territory. As the Helena Herald put it, "While the eyes of our people are turned wistfully toward the East, their expectations of speedier railroad connection are turned toward the South." 5 But the residents of the northern area were too independent to tie themselves to either road and debated and held meetings about how to obtain a railroad without bankrupting their new territory.0 While Montanans debated among themselves a possible subsidy to the Utah Northern Railroad, Corinnethians argued with their Mormon opponents about which route to the north would finally be taken by the narrow-gauge line. In a closely reasoned editorial, the Mail proved to its own satisfaction that even when the road reached Soda Springs, Idaho, that destination would still be fifty miles further from Montana than Corinne. Citizens of the town were heartened by reports from correspondents in Franklin that the route would be to Soda Springs. Even the engineers on the line espoused that point of view, although some saw it as propaganda put out to conceal the intended location.

On the other hand, newspapers like the Idaho Statesman were sure the line would run to Marsh Valley.7 When George S. Kennedy reported a conversation with Richardson that indicated Marsh Valley as the destination, the Mail said of Kennedy: "We suggest that a little truth sandwiched among his statements might give them some weight."

When the Ogden Freeman asserted that Fort Hall would become the terminus of the railroad, thus leaving Corinne as only a way station on the Central Pacific, the editor of the Mail blew up in wrath:

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Here is another Mountain Meadows paper coming to the front. . . . Confine your remarks to the doctrines for which you have bartered yourself, you most worthy disciple of Judas. . . . befoul Corinne's name no more by mentioning it in that misnomer â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Freeman. 8 These constant reassurances to his readers leads one to suspect that the Mail editor secretly feared his Mormon rivals were correct about the Marsh Valley route.

The Mail also sought to bolster the sagging fortunes of Corinne with a constant stream of ridicule against what the editor called the one-horse railroad. The narrow-gauge line did very well when the track was clear, but, according to the Mail, when jackrabbits got on the rails Indians had to be employed to scare them away. In announcing a new time schedule the editor wrote, "A hand car will accommodate the extensive travel in the afternoon, and in winter snow shoes will be nailed to the lightning express and no delay need be expected." 9 Despite the optimistic prediction of eastern promoter and Mormon enthusiast alike, actual construction beyond Franklin did not get underway until July 1, 1875. A more-or-less impartial Gentile observer wrote in September that he saw only thirteen teams at work on the roadbed, all within twelve miles of the town, and that stakes had not even been set for a needed tunnel before Bear River could be reached.

He concluded, "we may be allowed to predict that the road will be built as far as the northern limits of Mormonism in time to carry the lame and halt Lamanites to Zion during the Millennium." 10 Two weeks later a Mormon source reported seventy-five teams and a hundred fifty men at work on the road, with the bridge over Cub River near Franklin expected to be completed within one week.11 The truth probably lay somewhere between these two reports.

The rumors current in Corinne that twenty-five miles of road had been completed beyond Franklin were treated by the Mail like the full moon that appeared once a month with little notice paid to the event.

As for the crew at work on the roadbed of the railroad, the newspaper asserted that it was composed of only six men and two boys, with the hopeful prospect that two more men and a wheelbarrow would shortly be added. 12 " X " Beidler, a messenger for the Wells Fargo Company between Helena and Ogden, reported "that two boys rationed on

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carrots and vegetable diet of that sort, a man with sore eyes wearing a pair of green goggles, and a spavined mule superannuated in years . . . composed the whole working force." Beidler also commented on the occasional races between mule teams and the Utah Northern trains along a parallel stretch of track and road north and east of Corinne, admitting that the steam cars usually won.13 For the year 1875 the Mail might have spared its invective and derision, because not much of an extension was built by the Utah Northern Company beyond Franklin. The depressed financial conditions engendered by the panic of 1873 were still being felt, and, more importantly, many observers were doubtful that the Mormon farmers of Cache Valley would be willing to sacrifice any further to build the road into a wilderness where there were few if any Saints. By December 1875 construction work had almost ceased because the men failed to get their pay. One correspondent wrote that Richardson had wanted the road built to Marsh Valley by November but apparently was unwilling to expend enough of "Uncle Sam's pictures" to accomplish that end. 1 ' The Utah Northern was paying a poor return on its investment partly because, as one railroader put it, "It has always been one of the axioms of Wells, Fargo & Co's agents that 'One Gentile makes as much business as a hundred Mormons' " and that the self-sufficient Mormon communities did not offer a railroad much business.15 Indeed, there was not sufficient carrying trade. For a local corporation operating a long line of road, the expenses were greater than the receipts. The revenue from the Montana trade did not pay the cost of shipping it, and about the only significant income came from the sale of ties and lumber. The financial difficulties of the Utah Northern, and the determination of the Mormon promoters to build to Soda Springs when Joseph Richardson wanted to push on to intersect the Montana trail, led to the resignation of John W. Young in October 1875 as president of the firm and the election of Royal M. Bassett of Connecticut to the position.10 These factors of dried-up money sources, lack of enthusiasm on the part of Mormon farmer construction workers, and continued competition from Corinne's wagon-freighters appeared as favorable indicators that the town might survive the threat of the Mormon railroad after all. But during late 1874 and through all of 1875 the continuance of Corinne as a freight transfer station for

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Montana was not all that certain as forwarders and freighters began to look to the terminus of the railroad line at Franklin, Idaho, as a departure point.

Menace of Franklin In 1873 E. G. Maclay and Co., agents for the Diamond R Company, moved from Corinne to Logan and sold its warehouse to the Utah Northern Railroad for use as a depot. The change in headquarters for the largest forwarding house was followed in March 1874 by that of J. A. Creighton which chose Franklin as the location for its commission office, hoping to save forty-five miles of travel and five to six days of time on the road. The people at Franklin and in Oneida County, Idaho, were jubilant, while a visitor to the town on Bear River found the Corinnethians in a state of "settled despair." " The Franklin correspondent for the Deseret News exulted, "Corinne is preparing for cremation. It is said a lean horse would soon fatten on the grass growing in front of their chief hotel. Many of her citizens and buildings are moving here." And the Montana papers began to report the arrival of more and more freighters from Franklin instead of Corinne, including a train of eight wagons to Helena from the Creighton firm in Franklin. 1S These announcements of the death of Corinne and the birth of Franklin as forwarding points for trade to Montana were, to say the least, premature. The location of the freight depot at Franklin was poorly chosen, "fit for little but a brick yard," and teamsters had difficulty moving around in the muddy area. Ajax Noyes recorded that it took his outfit nine and a half days to move their loaded wagons one-half mile from the depot to higher ground. There were also complaints against George Kennedy of Creighton for refusing to load any freighters until they agreed to buy a $300 wagon from him and for general inefficiency in operating his forwarding company. In addition, the rates were so low that teamsters were fortunate to make expenses.

These serious drawbacks finally prompted most wagonmasters to take their trains to Corinne. One correspondent wrote the Salt Lake Tribune that freighters reached Franklin to find they could not load and so turned again to Corinne. Mormon freighters from as far south as Springville, Utah, turned away from Mormon Franklin to Gentile Corinne to obtain cargoes for their trips to Montana. 19

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The newly founded Corinne Mail crowed lustily about Corinne's remarkable step back from the grave, and its editorials for late 1874 were well punctuated with encomiums for the prosperity and optimistic hopes of the town: "For a ruined town, it strikes us forcibly that Corinne is mighty lively just now." 20 The Mail attacked George Kennedy for his sneering remark that Fred J. Kiesel was building his coffin by establishing a forwarding house in Corinne to fill the vacuum left by the departure of the Diamond R and Creighton companies. In a comparison of packages of goods shipped by an Omaha firm to Kiesel and Kennedy during late 1874, the former received 2,441 packages while Kennedy was sent only 517 from the Omaha house. The Mail finally announced that Kennedy had caved in and noted that freighters were deserting him.

The newspaper advised, "Go to Corinne, boys, where they will do the square by you." 21 The Salt Lake Tribune correspondent estimated that for the entire year of 1874 nine-tenths of the freight had gone through Corinne. 22 The Mail thought Kennedy had been "nearly woodbined. He didn't draw worth a cent." As for the Utah Northern Railroad, all the freight it had carried through the year could have been moved by four Irishmen with wheelbarrows. However, the editor did admit that Corinne business had been slightly injured during the early part of the year but that the interruption was of slight duration.

The Montana merchants who had attempted to use the Franklin route had lost some money and, by the end of the year, were favoring the Corinne route again. The Wells Fargo agent in Helena reported, "The Franklin route is scarcely thought of...." 23 The two rival towns squared off again in the spring of 1875, each optimistic that the new year would favor it as the Montana shipping point. Franklin especially waxed enthusiastic about the future, improving the road through the marshy areas north of Bear River so the teamsters would not "have to talk profanely," moving the depot from the frog pond where it had been located, and listening to the energetic plans for the extension of the Utah Northern Railroad.

In June the telegraph line was changed to run from Marsh Valley to Franklin instead of to Corinne, which heartened residents of the Mormon town. But the most significant development was the removal of Gilmer and Salisbury's stagecoach terminal from Corinne to Franklin by June 3, 1875. 2 ' "Vile" rumors had surfaced several months

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before that the move was imminent, but the actual change came as a real shock to Corinnethians both in loss of revenue and in deterioration of status. Observers along the new Franklin road at Oxford, Idaho, and elsewhere were also heartened by the new businesslike appearance of these formerly isolated little farming communities.25 The only liability seemed to be the influx of outsiders into Mormon Franklin. To avoid "daily contact with persons and things unpleasant, extortionate, and oppressive, many" depressed Idaho Saints "pulled up stakes and retreated within the lines of Utah, lying about two miles to the southward." 20 So at least one gentlemen from Cache Valley reported to the Deseret News.

Despite these alarming rumors and changes in favor of Franklin, the people of Corinne were heartened by the increase of trade in their town. Some twenty new places of business had been opened since the previous fall, including the McCormick & Hardenbrook forwarding house, three new saloons, and a ten-pin alley. The Mail continued to reassure its worried readers and by May could report increased business in both freight shipments and sales of wagons.27 A late August estimate revealed 20 tons of goods awaiting shipment from Franklin and a grand total of only 150 tons sent from that place for the first seven months of the year. The Kiesel company alone reported the shipment of 185 tons in one week from Corinne. Also, during a twoweek period, the Kiesel and McCormick & Hardenbrook firms received 2,183 packages of goods from their Omaha supplier while Kennedy was getting only 49. Furthermore, freighters like Dan Hill and Alex Harris gave very discouraging reports about spending up to four weeks in Franklin waiting for loads and then having to move to Corinne where they were supplied in one day.28 Although Franklin was obviously closer to Montana than Corinne, the reasons for the latter's continued control of the northern trade in 1875 were evident to many observers of the time. First, the swampy roads leading to Red Rock Pass at the head of Marsh Valley discouraged teamsters from using the route. Second, the cost in time and money to transfer goods from broad-gauge railroad cars to the smaller, narrow-gauge cars proved inhibiting. Third, Fred J. Kiesel, though a newcomer to the forwarding business, learned very rapidly and soon ran an efficient operation for a satisfied clientele. Fourth, the Mormon cooperative store at Franklin handled nearly all the mercantile busi-

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ness, forcing out such firms as H. A. VanPraag and forming a monopoly that discouraged Gentile merchants from favoring Franklin.

And fifth, as the Mail so coyly put it, "travelers know the genial qualities of the people here as compared to those of our neighboring Mormon burg, and as a natural thing, if there's any way in the world to do so, pay us a visit." 20 No doubt the hospitable emporiums of Corinne called more attractively than Franklin to the hard-working and harddrinking freighters as they sat around their campfires along the dusty trail through Idaho and dreamed of the exciting blandishments awaiting them in the end-of-the-trail burg on Bear River. The paucity of saloons in Franklin and the lack of other inducements in the Mormon town just did not beckon to most teamsters on the Montana trail.

To understand the importance of the freighting trade to Corinne, one need only look at the newspaper. Even a casual leafing through the four-page editions of the Mail shows daily listings of freight trains departing or arriving; advertisements for wagons, blacksmiths, and draft animals; and many other indicators of the one-business nature of the town. Perhaps one incident can reveal the great interest of the residents of Corinne in the operations and details of frontier freighting.

Thomas J. Ferrell of the Madison Valley in Montana raised horses for freighting, and during 1874 he hired George Lyons to run wagons from the railroad to Virginia City, using his wild mustangs as the motive power. Lyons bought enough wagons and horses at Corinne for one fourteen-horse team, one thirteen-horse team and four tenhorse teams, fitting up one wagon as a blacksmith shop and pulling it with two mules. He hired some good jerk-line drivers and loaded his wagons, a thousand pounds to the horse. The whole town turned out to see the train load up and leave: The first day [Louis] Laseur [the wagon boss] and his crew of teamsters harnessed unbroken horses by putting them in a onehorse chute . . . checked the horse's head up as tight as they could to the harness and turned the animal into the corral.

They started hitching up their teams the next morning with the [curious crowd still hanging around]. . . . The wagons were already loaded and . . . pulled to a level place . . . of open country.

When the first team was ready to start, two outriders were put on top saddle horses alongside the team to keep the horses in a straight line. Louis Laseur took his place on the wheeler,

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and called sharply: "Mike, haw!" . . . The team started on a run, the frantic, unbroken horses in the swing teams bucking and kicking. But the leaders kept out of the way and the team was finally circled and brought into the road again with nothing broken.

Occasionally a horse would throw himself, but it made no difference in the progress of the outfit for the rest would keep on going and a little dragging cured the most recalcitrant of the unbroken horses.

This process of hitching up and starting was gone through until all of the teams were strung out on the road and camp was made that night three miles from Corinne with nothing broken but one wagon tongue. 30 Laseur won a fifty-dollar bet from a Corinnethian who had wagered the wagon train would not get out of town before sundown. The trip to Virginia City took twenty-one days, only a little longer than required for a journey with well-broken horses.

Such occurrences were commonplace but of enough interest to command space in the local press, which also really outdid itself in describing the great future for Corinne. The editor liked to mention the campfires of the teamsters twinkling in the depot yard and the tremendous amount of freight being shipped to Montana and Idaho. 31 But, at the same time, the Mail asked the town fathers to tear down the old buildings in the business area because these eyesores were proving detrimental to the exciting prospects of the premier town of the West. Also, the editor ran advertisements for the sale of the Wells Fargo express office, listed two horses to "be sold at hard time prices," and then announced his own departure from business and closed up shop on November 3, 1875.32 A writer from Corinne informed the Salt Lake Herald on November 11, "the business of the place has fallen off terribly in the past two years. . . . " A number of business houses were untenanted and the remaining ones were only making expenses.33 Clearly, if the town were to be saved, some other type of industry would have to be introduced to form the basis for a new prosperity.

Malad Irrigation Company Looking to that end, the town boosters returned to the strategy of attempting to get congressional approval to establish a comprehensive irrigation system for lower Bear River Valley. A new bill was

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introduced into the United States Senate on March 26, 1872, asking for a grant of six sections of land per mile along the proposed canal from Bear River Canyon. 34 A year later, with no legislation enacted, the newspaper could only quote the Camp Douglas Vedette, "We trust the enterprising citizens of the plucky little city, with the beautiful name, Corinne, will continue to agitate the question of a land grant. . . ." After another two years had passed the town newspaper bitterly attacked Congress for its failure to pass the irrigation bill, claiming the inaction was because the congressmen could "see 'nothing in it' for themselves." 3n If the lands around Corinne were to receive life-giving waters, evidently private enterprise would have to build the necessary dams and canals.

Recognizing their financial inability to construct the large project from Bear River envisioned by the promoters of the Senate bill, six leading citizens of the town decided to incorporate to bring water a shorter distance from the smaller Malad River. On December 17, 1872, John W. Graham, Alex Toponce, George Butterbaugh, and Sam House, as the principal investors, formed the Corinne and Malad Irrigating and Manufacturing Canal Company with a capital stock of $4,000 or 80 shares at $50 each. Plans called for a dam to be built one mile below the point at which the canal for Bear River City already took water from the river, and the new firm laid claim to all the water in the stream not taken by the Bear River City project.

Work commenced in the fall of 1872, and by May of the following year the dam and most of the eleven and a half miles of canal were completed.30 Dennis Toohy was invited to inspect the finished works and described the "immense structure" of the dam and the associated canal system. The earthen dam was 200 feet long, 90 feet thick at the base and 20 feet at its top, and 31 feet high. The wooden waste gate was 18 feet wide. The builders estimated that the reservoir would fill in thirty hours and back up the river a distance of two miles, an indication of how really small Toohy's "immense" structure was. The main canal was 15 feet wide at the top, 12 feet wide at the bottom, and 6 feet deep. The promoters hoped to provide enough water to irrigate 6,000 acres of land as well as to water the gardens and orchards of Corinne. The entire project cost $20,000 to build and, despite Toohy's exaggeration in describing the irrigation system, for

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that day it nevertheless was an undertaking of some magnitude for the people of the small town.37 The most obvious advantage of the project to Corinnethians was the introduction of irrigation water to the town gardens, orchards, and shade trees. The city council agreed to pay the canal company $1,500 to aid in constructing ten miles of small ditches designed to carry a stream of water eight inches deep and two to four feet in width to the residences of the town. On July 7, 1873, Toohy recorded the appearance of the first water which "rippled down by the Reporter office" at 9:00 P.M. A few days later he complained that the ditches were an inconvenience to pedestrians and urged property owners to build bridges or footplanks across the "numerous little fertilizers." 3S A depressing note about the new irrigating ditch soon came from the editor of the nearby Ogden Junction who thought the project was a Corinnethian folly. The newsman pointed out that before Corinne was founded the residents of Bear River City had used water from the alkaline stream whose very name "signifies sickness," and the water had poisoned the land. 30 In fact, one agricultural expert later claimed that the Bear River City people had watched their crops die and then, in desperation, had turned their plows into the adjacent sagebrush lands, planted wheat, harvested a crop, and thus inaugurated the practice of dry-farming in that area.40 The reaction of a resident of Corinne was immediate, forceful, and understandable. He attacked the Junction for "malignity and a total disregard of trust worthy of a follower of Enoch" and described at great length the flourishing gardens, orchards, and fields of Corinne. He capped the rebuttal by quoting the Mormon leader of Bear River City, William Neely, who said he and his followers had used water from the Malad River for several years and had grown first-rate crops. Neely expressed regret that the people of Bear River City had not shown as much energy as the Corinnethians in building an irrigation system the size of that just finished. Corinne, of course, blamed the "Profit" who had warned his people that crops could not be grown with water from the Malad River. In this instance, Brigham Young and the editor of the Junction were right, because after a few years the water brought mineral salts and alkali to the surface of the ground and destroyed nearly all the vegetation. Only later, when a proper drainage system was constructed and water from Bear River introduced to the land, did the

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people of the area have success in profitable farming. 41 But for a few years the people of Corinne did enjoy bounteous crops, beautiful shade trees, and fruitful gardens from the sickly waters of the Malad.

The initial success and promise of the Malad Canal Company brought encouragement to Corinne to construct a similar project to bring the water of Bear River some twenty-five miles from Bear River Canyon to irrigate the entire lower river basin. The Reporter thought that for an expenditure of $250,000, it would be possible to irrigate 400,000 acres in support of a population for the town of 10,000 people and for the entire valley of 120,000 people.42 In response to such urgings and buoyed by the early response to their Malad ditch, John W. Graham, Alex Toponce, and the other promoters incorporated in November 1873 the Corinne, Malad, and Bear River Irrigating and Manufacturing Canal Company with a capital stock of $20,000 (400 shares at $50 each) to bring water from the river at a point six miles above Hampton's Station through a canal on the west side of the valley.43 Optimistic supporters forecast that most of these valuable lands would be taken up during 1874-75, but by early 1875 the people of the valley were still waiting for the first spadeful of earth to be turned. In May came word that John W. Kerr was the principal mover for a Bear River canal, the original incorporators having apparently succumbed to a scarcity of funds. Two years later, in 1877, nothing had been accomplished, and the Corinne Record felt called upon to assault the Denver Tribune's characterization of northern Utah as a barren region by insisting that all that was necessary to make the country blossom as the proverbial rose was a successful irrigation system.44

Colonization Plans In a move parallel with efforts to get Bear River water on their parched lands, the people of Corinne organized the Corinne and Bear River Valley Immigration Society in February 1875 to publicize the potential assets of the region and to encourage settlers to take up lands in the valley. A colonization committee of twenty-one prominent citizens investigated the terms upon which railroad lands could be settled and prepared an eight-page circular with accompanying map to describe the prospects and advantages of living in Corinne in beautiful

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Bear River Valley. Everyone seemed enthusiastic and sanguine over the possibility of enticing newcomers to settle in and near Gentile Corinne.45 The brochure describing Corinne and the Bear River Valley was a gorgeous affair. The writers first listed nineteen reasons for settling in the valley. Prominently mentioned was the healthful climate, which cured asthma and consumption, while the water of nearby Soda Springs cured rheumatism and dyspepsia. The soil was fertile and the grazing lands superb; great amounts of rich ores, coal fields, and timber areas were also waiting to be exploited. A plentiful supply of pure mountain water ensured success for agriculture and industry; according to the brochure. Additionally, the mountains and Great Salt Lake offered unexcelled views, and the convenient location on the transcontinental railroad provided essential and cheap transportation.

The circular also emphasized the cultural attractions of Corinne with its three churches, two Sunday schools, and a free public school. The grand map located twenty-four prominent industries and business buildings, including the City of Corinne shown on the broad expanse of Bear River, and advertised 30,000 acres under the Malad Irrigation Canal with 500 square miles of fertile territory awaiting development.40 The colonization committee had ordered 5,000 circulars printed but encountered difficulty in getting apathetic townsmen to distribute them nationwide so as to capture some of the westward immigration.

As the editor of the Mail so rightly claimed, Corinne's future depended upon the agricultural development of Bear River Valley. By July 1875 there were still 4,000 undistributed brochures and, furthermore, the citizens who had agreed to help pay for the printing had not donated the fifty dollars still owing the publisher.47 Very likely, the neighboring Mormons were reclining in the satisfaction of witnessing another Corinne debacle.

To many Corinnethians the reason for the failure of the colonization committee and its wondrous circular was both obvious and threatening â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the "close proximity to the odoriferous Mormon priesthood." In a number of editorials the Mail expressed the theme of the humanizing effect on Mormon Utah of introducing thousands of Gentiles into Bear River Valley to counteract the "lascivious" church and the unpunished murders perpetrated by its members. "Our

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proximity to that delectable people, has been, and is, a great drawback to our prosperity," the Mail proclaimed. People would not come to Utah as long as Gov. Samuel B. Axtell and federal officials supported the Mormon leaders, for an immigrant "dislikes to rear his family in the vicinity of such a state or morals as are fostered and taught by our saintly neighbors." The newspaper further reasoned that any encouragement that would bring settlers to Bear River Valley would destroy forever the misguided plans of the Mormons. 48 In April 1877, to the Mormon-leaning editor of the Corinne Record who "wears his drawers tied around his neck, he never having been excommunicated," the Salt Lake Tribune denied that its anti-Mormon editorials were affecting negatively the sale of lands near Corinne. The Tribune was convinced that Corinnethians favored the expose of Mormon sins and crimes to help redeem Utah from its inglorious past.49 From the time of the organization of the colonization committee and the publication of the advertising pamphlet, the town newspaper and various correspondents had trumpeted the thousands of immigrants who might settle in the vicinity of Corinne. By January .1876 one writer was sure that Corinne would come out all right,50 while two less-than-impartial observers warned that would-be settlers should hurry inasmuch as thousands of acres had already been purchased by newcomers and that all available land was being "gobbled up very rapidly." The most significant comment on the colonization scheme appeared in the Salt Lake Herald in April 1877. The report noted that immigrants from the south were passing through Salt Lake City to settle in lower Bear River Valley and that most of them were Mormons. 51 It appeared that the Saints were about to humanize the Gentiles.

Northwestern Shoshoni The attempts by the people of Corinne to overcome the competition of Franklin, Idaho, and at the same time to open up their barren acres to cultivation by like-minded non-Mormon farmers met with frustration, complicated by another factor of long-standing annoyance â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mormon support of the many Shoshoni Indians who made the vicinity of Corinne their winter home. Before white settlers occupied ihe lower Bear River Valley, some two thousand Northwestern Sho-

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Whites trading at an Indian camp. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum.

shoni had located seven permanent winter camps along the river, four of these placed at the confluence of the stream with the Great Salt Lake, the exact spot where Gen. J. A. Williamson and his colleagues had decided to build a town. The same year Corinne was settled, the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho was established as a permanent home for the Bannock and Northern Shoshoni Indians.

Government officials tried to induce the Northwestern Shoshoni bands to move to Fort Hall, but they persisted in returning from summer and fall hunts to their traditional winter homes along lower Bear River where waterfowl, fish, and some game could be taken; where good pasturage awaited their ponies; and where they could find protection from the wintry storms. By 1869 white settlement had driven most of the game away, and the Shoshoni were left with whatever annuity goods the government might distribute to them each fall and to handouts from the inhabitants of Corinne, Brigham City, and other nearby towns.

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In January 1863 Gen. Patrick E. Connor's forces had killed almost four hundred of the Northwestern Shoshoni at the massacre called the Battle of Bear River in Cache County and had then signed the Treaty of Box Elder on July 30, 1863, with ten of the leading chiefs. The agreement bound the government to distribute $5,000 in clothing, food, and other items to the bands each fall at an annual meeting near Corinne. The Indian agents of both Fort Hall and Utah were usually involved in the yearly process of giving what turned out to be only a small percentage of the amount promised under the treaty. Then, the five to six hundred Indians who wintered near Corinne were left to the tender mercies of the Gentile residents of that town and to the Mormon people of Brigham City.52 Unlike most westerners of the time, the Saints believed that it was less expensive to feed the Indians than to fight them. This dictum of Brigham Young stemmed from the prophecies in the Book of Mormon that the Lamanites, or Indians, would eventually accept the teachings of Christ and be reunited with their brethren in the Mormon church. While this doctrine was accepted, those members of the faith who lived near large groups of Indians found the drain on their food supplies to be unceasing and sometimes more than they could bear. Witness a letter from Mormon leader Daniel H. Wells to Bishop Alvin Nichols of Brigham City on April 8, 1870: Information has reached me that the Indian Chief, Captain Tom & his band, at present located just northwest of Corinne, complain bitterly against you for withholding their rations of flour etc. . . It is patent to us from past experience that kindness to the Indians is not entirely thrown away. . . It is proper, therefore, that we should not lose sight of the pacific policy, but conform, so far as possible, to our usual policy of kindness and forbearance. . . . I felt it to be my duty to call attention to the report, to check ill feelings on the part of the Indians & avert trouble which might in the end prove serious." 5i Bishop Nichols no doubt made further demands on his congregation for enough flour to satisfy Indian hunger and to curtail further instructions from Salt Lake City.

To the frontiersmen of Corinne the Mormon concern with the welfare of the "naked savages . . . in the suburbs" of the town was not only incomprehensible but indicative of the possible arming by the

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Saints of the two hundred warriors among the natives, a threat that caused some nervousness in Corinnethians who thought they smelled the "scent of blood in the air." 54 From April 1870 on the town newspapers kept hinting at the possible union of Mormons and Indians in a cabal that would wreak death and destruction on the defenseless Gentiles of Corinne.

While the Mormon people suffered the drain on their food supplies without murmur, the Corinnethians were clamorously indignant about the "filthy vagrants" who begged at doorsteps or searched through garbage for scraps of food. The city council was asked in August 1870 to request the Central Pacific Railroad to prohibit Indians from coming into the town on trains for fear of spreading contagious diseases: "The idea of pestilent odors being swept from their filthy bodies through the crowded cars is not a pleasant reflection for travelers." The citizens also demanded, to no avail, that the council keep the Indians outside the city limits.55 At the annual distribution of presents to about three hundred Shoshoni in the fall of 1870, Agent William H. Danilson of Fort Hall joined with Col. J. E. Tourtellotte, superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, in dispensing $10,000 worth of goods, according to the exaggerated report of the Utah Reporter. The editor described the various items given to Chief Pocatello, nine other chiefs, and their followers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; red shirts, blankets, fishhooks, pans, pots, traps, hatchets, butcher knives, and combs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and concluded that the noble red men would "swap off much of the Great Father's gifts for valley tan [whiskey] as they pass up the gorges of Box Elder." The Indian agents, after each year's apportionment of goods to the Shoshoni, nearly always asked the merchants at Corinne not to cheat the Indians out of their presents, a request routinely ignored."1' During the next four years, until 1875, the local editors kept their columns filled with one-liners about the annoyance of having Indians loitering about the streets, sometimes drunk on white man's whiskey and occasionally accused of petty thefts. One of the worst aspects of having numerous Indians near Corinne was the unscrupulous practice by some residents of selling liquor to the natives which did not improve the social atmosphere of the town.57 The Shoshoni seemed to be everywhere: attending baseball games, visiting the local bank to get change for large bills, searching in the alleys for "thawed swill

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and other luxuries," stealing puddings and pies from a boarding house, traveling around in "majestic tatters," holding funerals for departed loved ones, "sawing wood for palefaces," selling and swapping horses, stealing furs, burning fences and claiming the land as theirs, patronizing local fruit stands, playing cards on the sidewalks, and being too numerous "in town these days for the general good."

Sometimes the incidents involving the Indians were more serious.

In one case several broke into a house, stole all the food, and burned Pocatello's band. Photograph courtesy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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the furniture in a campfire. A local judge interrupted one robbery by hitting the intruder in the head with a shovel. ,0 And Chief Pocatello lived up to his reputation of being a terror to the settlers by forcibly taking a horse from a white farmer.00 In one of his pioneer day epics, Nat Stein expressed local sentiments toward the neighboring Shoshoni: But the Indians, shorn of glory which in former time was theirs, Only come our crumbs to gather or to borrow paltry wares.

Then we feed them on our bounty and to bid them to be good, Let them make their presence useful doing chores and chopping wood.

Thus we solve the Indian problem, by a method mild and clear, Though for dealing with a savage you shall find no Quakers here !01 Baron de Hiibner during a visit to Corinne in 1873 attended one of the powwows near the town and expressed his sympathy for the Indian spokesmen whom "disease, brandy, and misery have degraded and debased." Nevertheless, the baron could detect here and there movements of dignity and manly pride, mingled, however, with an expression of deep and indefinable melancholy. It was only a momentary flash, like the lightning which suddenly reveals to you the ruins of a virgin forest which a tempest has destroyed.02 But to most Corinnethians, the Indians and their Mormon friends were alike in their treachery and their polygamous depravity.

The annual encampments near Corinne seemed to arouse more and more apprehension among the residents of the town, a fear heightened by the pronouncements of the Reverend Dr. George W. Dodge, appointed special Indian agent late in 1871 to care for the needs of the Northwestern Shoshoni.03 Strongly anti-Mormon in his views, he dispatched a twenty-four-page letter to the commissioner of Indian Affairs on July 24, 1872, describing a mysterious movement among several thousand western Indians, including those in Utah, which was the work of a Paiute prophet from Nevada whose machinations were being helped by Brigham Young and the Mormons.

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According to Dodge, the Saints were teaching that a white prophet would soon appear to teach the Indians that they were descendants of the Hebrew tribe of Manasseh, and the Mormons also were urging the natives to commit depredations on the whites.04 Judge Toohy had already informed his newspaper readers that the neighboring Shoshoni were conspiring with the Mormon Danites of Utah. Toohy was further upset when the Indians held a war dance near the town during April 1873 in honor of the Modoc Indian defeat of a United States Army detachment in California. "They ought to be skinned alive for their insolence," he declared.05 And Toohy's successor in the news business at Corinne, the editor of the Mail, erupted in anger at the yearly gathering of Indians in late 1874, explaining that the Mormons would certainly unite with the natives in any hostile action against Gentiles, that a Mormon bishop was directing affairs, and that the government should protect the citizens of Corinne against the "Latter day pets" who refused to move to the Fort Hall Reservation.00 Unknowingly, the official church newspaper of the Mormons, the Deseret News, fed Corinne fears by running editorials in late 1874 about a great religious movement among Utah and neighboring Indian tribes caused by the appearance of heavenly personages who had told the natives to request Mormon baptism and then to renounce their nomadic ways and settle down to the peaceful pursuits of farming. Over fourteen hundred Indians had been baptized in the last seven months and more were coming in. The News was sure this dramatic turn-around was the result of the fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Mormon. Observers from the Franklin, Idaho, area confirmed these exciting changes, although one warned the Salt Lake Tribune that the Indians were being called by the Mormons the battle-axes of the Lord, an expression he thought portended a savagery to come.07 Reports of Indian interest in joining the Mormon church continued into 1875, with the Deseret News assuring its readers that missionaries were being very careful to instruct the natives in doctrine and to insist that they give up their old slothful ways and learn habits of industry and honesty. The editor was pleased to report that fifty recent converts had attended a meeting at the Sixteenth Ward meetinghouse and had appeared "with clean faces, having washed the paint from

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them." In May three Shoshoni and Bannock chiefs showed up at Salt Lake City to inquire about baptism and other gospel ordinances. A California paper noted that the Loanville, Nevada, Indians had all gone to Utah to join the Mormon faith.08 In June fifty-two members of Joe's band at Mount Pleasant, Utah, were immersed in a stream they had helped dam to provide a baptismal font. And, closer to Corinne, one resident of the town who visited Brigham City to participate in the Saints' July 24 celebration found so many new Indian converts that he could not get into the bowery where the exercises were being held. A week later, a Deseret News reporter described another meeting at Brigham City where three hundred Lamanite brothers and sisters on horseback joined in giving three mighty shouts of "Hosanna!

Hosanna! Hosanna to God and the Lamb." oil While the Saints of Utah were inviting Indians into the Mormon church and promising to help them get started farming for a livelihood, government agents at nearby reservations were experiencing great difficulty in feeding their charges and obtaining enough funds to teach them farming. This was especially true at the Fort Hall Reservation where many of the Northwestern Shoshoni had been forced to move. From the founding of the reservation in 1869 to the spring of 1875 the various agents had constantly reported the lack of sufficient food supplies for the Indians. Agent James Wright was no exception. In early 1875 he wrote the commissioner of Indian Affairs: We have flour enough on hand to issue to them until April 1st. . . . We have beef for one more issue. Now what will be done with these people. . . They cannot get out to hunt, there are no roots to be had, fishing time will not have come.70 Furthermore, Wright thought the future of farming operations looked "dark."

James Wright finally resigned in May and left the melancholy task of trying to feed the Indians at Fort Hall to William H. Danilson who soon discovered that the funds allocated could furnish each Indian only one meal a day for two days each week. Facing the inevitable, he decided to send all the able-bodied Indians out to hunt for game in the areas where they had traditionally foraged before, knowing they might run into white hostility and possible violence.

The risk was real. An editorial by the Boise Idaho Statesman would

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certainly have gained the support of most citizens of Corinne. The editor proposed calling the hostile bands of Idaho Territory in for a grand treaty fete. The Indians would be given plenty of blankets and nice little trinkets distributed among them; plenty of grub on hand; have a real jolly time with them; then just before the big feast put strychnine in their meat and poison to death the last mother's son of them. 71 It was this kind of reception the Shoshoni faced when they left Fort Hall in July 1875 and decided, rather, to travel to lower Bear River where the Mormons promised them the food and the farming effort they were being denied at their reservation.

The general Indian movement and interest in the Mormon faith prompted Brigham Young in April 1874 to call George W. Hill, a night watchman for the Union Pacific Railroad at Ogden and parttime proselytizer of Indians, to be a full-time missionary among the Lamanites of northern Utah. On May 1 Hill held a meeting with the Northwestern Shoshoni band camped near Corinne and baptized 101 into the church. Moving next to Franklin, he spent several months organizing the Indian Saints there and starting a farm he and his neophytes were forced to abandon in the fall of the year because of poor location. Given specific instructions to set up a mission among the Indians encamped near Corinne, he established a farm in an area between the lower Malad and Bear rivers in April 1875 and with his new members planted 104 acres of wheat, corn, and potatoes, "the Indians taking hold of their work well." The bad water of the Malad River forced him to move again to a spot near the Bear River about five miles north of Bear River City where he made arrangements with the Mormon farmers of that town for some land and irrigation water for the season.72 Here, the group put in 100 acres of wheat, 25 acres of corn, over 5 acres of potatoes, and about 4 acres of various vegetables.

The Deseret News described with some enthusiasm how the new Latter-day Saints were constructing a canal, planning to build houses, meeting for morning and evening prayers, and saying grace before meals. Some plowed and planted in the Box Elder cooperative field to earn money to fund their farming projects. As the news spread among Idaho and Wyoming Shoshoni of the possibilities of the Mormon farm, several hundred Indians gathered there from as far away

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as the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and the Lemhi Reserve at Salmon River, Idaho. Hill took advantage of this influx by holding a series of evangelical meetings during which he baptized 574 more converts. The Salt Lake Herald wrote that the Indians were claiming the land for a reservation.73 Agents Wright and Danilson at Fort Hall expressed concern to the Indian commissioner about the Shoshoni leaving the reservation to join the Mormons at lower Bear River. Wright visited the site and confirmed the presence of several hundred Indians from Wind River and reported that many of the combined group were being "taken through the 'Endowment House' (whatever that is or means) and then called 'The Lords Battle Axes.' " He said the Indians at Fort Hall left the reservation at night and became angry when questioned about their nocturnal visits. He did not like to allow the Indians to leave the reservation because they immediately went to Utah "to get washed and greased," thus "enrolling themselves in the cause of the Mormons." Wright also accused Hill and the other missionaries of teaching the Indians that they were a chosen people who would help establish the kingdom of God on earth and that they should hate the federal government. 7 ' Danilson agreed that Hill was assuring the Indians that he would give the valley to them and that their baptism into Mormonism would ensure that "their old men would be young again, their young men would not get old, they would not be sick, and so on." 75 Other reports had the Mormons teaching the Indians that when they were clothed in their "garments Gentile bullets would not penetrate them," that the "big wash" would also make them proof against bullets, and that they would become "a white and delightsome people." 70

Indian Scare Understandably, the news from the Indian camp led to sarcastic and bitter comments from the editor of the Corinne Mail who no doubt accurately reflected the feelings of town residents. More and more Indians thronged the streets during the summer of 1875, glorying, said the editor, in the "unuterable [sic] blessings promised them in the future by the Profit, as a reward for their proficiency in sending to hell across lots." By July he was writing that the valley was swarm-

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ing with Indians, kept there by the Mormons who were giving them presents and urging them to stay. He complained of the three hundred Mormon Indians camped just outside of town, begging, stealing, and trying to catch rides on the trains.77 Throughout the spring and summer of 1875 Utah Territory and the nation became engrossed in a case that helped arouse Corinnethian apprehension about the numerous Indians gathered at Hill's farm.

This was the trial of John D. Lee at Beaver, Utah, for his alleged part in the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857 in which a united force of Mormons and Indians had killed members of a party of Missouri emigrants bound for California. The newspapers of Utah, especially the Gentile Salt Lake Tribune and the Corinne Mail, carried almost daily accounts of the progress of the trial. On August 7 the jury was discharged when the members could not agree on a verdict. The count was nine for acquittal and three for conviction. The Gentile papers bitterly denounced this as a miscarriage of justice and prophesied further murders by the Mormon-Indian combine. The Idaho Statesman thought the Saints and their leaders had decided to revenge themselves on the Gentiles for the Lee trial. 78 Two days after the Lee verdict was announced, the editor of the Mail devoted an entire column to a denunciation of Mormon attempts to destroy Corinne. He recited the supposed curse placed by Brigham Young on the Gentile settlement and then listed the means by which the Mormon prophet had sought to obliterate it from the face of the earth: The Saints were forbidden to trade in the town, leading citizens were attacked in the infamous cattle-stealing case, and the Utah Northern Railroad was built to deprive Corinne of its freighting business. With the failure of these nefarious projects, said the editor, Brigham had now decided to arm his battle-axes, had warned the three or four Mormon families living in Corinne to leave at once, and had indicated that his Indians "might burn the town and butcher some of the inhabitants." If this should happen, the Mormons would only prepare the way for their own funeral, according to the thoroughly aroused journalist.7" Frightened by the newspaper articles and such scare headlines as "Mormons Meddling with Indians! Mountain Meadows to be Repeated!" and rumors about suspicious movements among the almost two thousand Indians north of town, the residents on August 10,

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finally succumbed to a "Night of Terror!" 80 Women and children were either placed for safety in the Central Hotel or sent to Ogden out of harm's way while the men armed themselves by breaking into a shipment of United States arms held at the depot. Pickets were stationed at the Malad bridge three miles north of town. During the night the skittish men thought they discerned savage forms creeping upon them, started firing wild alarms, and retreated to Corinne. The military officer who later investigated the whole affair reported that the town minutemen later doubted whether they had really seen any Indians.81 The return of the frightened guards led Mayor E. P. Johnson to wire Gov. George W. Emery for troops to protect the citizens.

The governor responded with a request to the commander of Camp Douglas who immediately dispatched Capt. James Kennington and a company of fifty men to the scene.

The captain, Mayor Johnson, and interpreter Louis DeMars, went to the Indian camp in the late afternoon of August 11 to consult with George Hill and the Indian chiefs. The captain learned that no Indians had fired on the guard at the Malad bridge, that they were all engaged in peaceful farming, and that there was "no more danger than there is of an attack on the people of New York." Kennington then informed Hill that all the reservation Indians would have to leave

by August 13 at 1:00 P.M. or he would be compelled to use force to remove them. The captain was not concerned with the Indians who normally resided in the area. Hill protested vigorously but to no avail.

The following day two more companies of troops were sent from Camp Douglas to ensure sufficient force to back up the Kennington ultimatum. Capt. G. S. Carpenter in command of these soldiers repeated the performance of Kennington by also visiting the camp and reinforcing the order to leave. In his detailed report Carpenter could ascertain only two reasons for the scare: An Indian woman had been pushed off a freight train by the brakeman, and the Malad ditch had been "tampered with," although to the latter charge the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune later admitted the Indians had merely placed a temporary dam in the canal in order to catch some fish. Captain Carpenter was quite sympathetic to the fears of the citizens, thought they had acted wisely in the matter, and blamed the Mormons for the entire incident. Within an hour of Carpenter's meeting with Hill, all the Indian tipis were dismantled as the frightened Indians left

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their fields ripe for the harvest and vacated the entire camp. Governor Emery arrived to make a personal inspection and Brigham Young also traveled to Brigham City to investigate. With the departure of the Indians, the three companies of troops were recalled to Camp Douglas on August 14.R2 The territorial newspapers were predictably split in their evaluation of the "Corinne Scare." The Corinne Mail stoutly, although somewhat defensively and shamefacedly, defended the actions of the Corinnethians because the Mormons were attempting to drive out all Gentile settlers from the valley so as to take over the land. The Salt Lake Tribune came to the aid of its fellow Gentile paper by attacking Brigham Young for trying to give the lands of Bear River to the Indians and by concluding, "We want no more Mountain Meadows butcheries in Utah." S3 These typical statements filled the columns of the two journals for the next month.

The three Mormon newspapers retaliated with ridicule tempered by sarcasm. The Salt Lake Herald, among many other comments, wrote, "We would as soon expect to hear that the ants had carried off Bunker hill monument, as to learn that the redskins had attempted to slaughter the people of Corinne." S4 The Ogden Junction was more caustic: The frightened portion of the Corinneites began to smile again and recover from their cowardice and terror, and the schemers who plotted the scare counted up the results of their nefarious proceedings, swearing over the meagre gains to their bursted burg, and dimly discerning the future fatal effects of their illplanned attempts to revive their dying city.85 The Deseret News was at first derisive: "All the world is laughing till its sides ache over poor scared Corinne's last convulsive kick. . . ."

But then the newspaper became more serious as it contemplated the tragedy of the break-up of the Indian encampment: All summer long these Indians have been ploughing, sowing, putting in crops, etc., preparing to live like white men. Now, just when the crops are whitening and these peaceable and industrious Indians are expecting to gather their harvest and reap the reward of their commendable labors, they are suddenly driven away from their camp and their hardly earned crops at the point of the

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bayonet, in deference to the demogogish and partisan misrepresentations of a few unprincipled white men.

The editor thought the natives should be reimbursed by the people of Corinne.80 The effect of the scare on the Shoshoni was devastating and longlasting. At the time of their dispersal they were finishing a second day of harvest, having cut twenty-five acres of wheat and two acres of peas. Everything else was lost of a year's effort. Chief Sagwitch, a survivor of the massacre at Bear River, said to George Hill, "Don't talk to me you have lied to me and my heart is sick. . . ." 8T And turning to the army officers he asked, in some anguish, "What have I stolen? Who have I killed? What meanness have I done? . . ." 8" When about one hundred twenty of the Indians returned to Fort Hall, Agent Danilson noted that some of them were completely disillusioned with the Mormons and thought that George Hill and his Saints had deceived and betrayed them. 89 The citizens of Corinne were no doubt pleased to know they had been successful in turning the Shoshoni against the Mormons.

Brigham Young, former Indian superintendent, argued from long and practical experience that the Indians could not have planned an attack on Corinne because they were totally unprepared. He listed the reasons: They were engaged in farming, certainly a peaceful occupation; their ponies were grazing all over the prairie; they were hampered by their women and children; there were no war-dances or war paint in evidence; and, finally, they would not have attacked Malad bridge in the middle of the night when dawn was the accustomed time. He thought the "wide-awake" men of Corinne had seen in an Indian war "a way to importance and a road to wealth" for their town which was "fast sinking into insignificance." Young also speculated how different the reaction of the nation would have been if any denomination other than the Mormon church had been involved in teaching the Indians the habits of civilization.00 As for the forgotten man in all the hullabaloo, the one who had been doing the teaching, George Hill, was warned by a few of the "braves" of Corinne that they would hang him on sight if he dared venture back to the area.01 The national press followed the events at Corinne very closely, with only the Omaha Herald expressing any sympathy for the Mor-

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Shoshoni Indians. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of hte Oakland Museum.

mons in the entire affair. The Sacramento Union, San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Herald were representative of the newspapers who saw malevolence in the actions of George Hill and the leaders of the Saints. The Sacramento paper was typical in its promise

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to furnish twenty thousand armed men and its warning: "If Corinne is attacked by the Indians, let Brigham Young see to it that Salt Lake does not smoke for the outrage." 92 When once the fire of fear had been kindled in the breasts of Corinne residents, it was difficult to quench. The citizens reported hearing rumors on August 17 that fifteen hundred Indians with Chief Pocatello in command had not returned to their reservations as ordered by the military but were congregated near Logan in Cache Valley and intended another attack on the Gentiles at Bear River.

The distraught Corinnethians hastily formed a city guard, led by the town marshal, and stationed pickets to patrol the street at night so that their families would not be forced to leave the beleaguered town.03 It became so difficult and nerve-wracking that four days later Mayor Johnson importuned Governor Emery to request that Gen. Philip H. Sheridan place a company of troops permanently at Corinne to guard the town against the threatening Indians. 04 General Sheridan made a brief visit to Corinne and Salt Lake City and finally determined to accede to the wishes of the people, although he may have agreed with the Salt Lake Herald that "the real object of the soldiers in going there is to 'sit up with' the town which is not expected to live." °5 Company C of the Fourteenth Infantry arrived in Corinne on August 24 and remained until September 23. The Deseret News, along with other Mormon newspapers, believed the only motive for having the soldiers located in the town was to provide some government cash for the failing merchants. 00 The military, however, insisted that the Mormons had a subtle plan to maintain the Indians in the neighborhood long enough so that their minor depredations and annoyances would finally force the non-Mormons to leave the country.9' Ironically, the Gentiles of Corinne became caught in their own trap when Montana shippers decided the Indian menace was real and began to halt freight shipments. The Mail was obliged to give reassurances that the presence of soldiers would offer safety for goods destined for Montana. 08 When the troops finally departed, the scare was already becoming history. The disappearance of the warlike Corinne Mail in November further guaranteed peace at last. Corinne then returned to its precarious balancing act on the edge of disaster.

In assigning responsibility for the Corinne Indian scare, recognition must be given to the nearby camp of about two thousand Indians,

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many of whom had just become members of the Mormon church and who were clearing public lands on which to grow crops. It should be remembered, also, that the supposed threat of violence toward the Gentiles of Corinne came just three days after a jury had freed the alleged ringleader of the Mormon-Indian conspiracy that had murdered Missouri emigrants at Mountain Meadow. The people of the town had come to believe that Brigham Young had pronounced a prophetic curse of destruction against Corinne and that the Indians would provide the means of ensuring the success of that diabolical promise. The six years of maledictions and accusations directed against the Saints by the local newspapers and town leaders had resulted in an almost self-fulfilling prophecy that the town would be destroyed by the Danite Mormons.

On the other hand, the yellow journalism practiced by the Corinne news sheets led the townspeople down a thorny path tipped with anti-Mormon barbs to a firm belief in the utter malevolence of a Utah population dedicated to the eradication of all Gentile resistance from the territory. The business leaders of the town approved and applauded this course as they witnessed all of their bright hopes of financial success being demolished by Mormon railroads and cooperatives and especially by the political control exercised by the Saints.

There was probably some fire hidden in the smoke of Mormon claims that at least some Corinnethians had deliberately instigated the Indian scare in order to win national sympathy and support.

During 1875 the people of the Burg on the Bear had successfully withstood the threat of an extension of the Utah Northern Railroad far enough north to cut off their freighting road and had also weathered competition for the Montana trade from new and archrival Franklin, although losing the stagecoach terminal to the Idaho town. Realizing the inevitability of rail capture of the freighting business to the north, Corinne turned to the construction of a small irrigation system using Malad River water, alkaline and sickly though it was, and then made further attempts to bring a larger volume of water from the Bear River, without success. Undaunted, the enterprising citizens then decided to help force the issue of an irrigation project for the valley by the formation of a colonization society to publicize the potential of neighboring lands and bring in Gentile immigrants to help counterbalance the predominant Mormon power

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and to form the basis for a strong agricultural system. Due to the apathy of its own citizens and the threatening proximity of Mormon hegemony, the colonization scheme was a disappointing failure.

The six years of frustration in trying to establish a productive and enduring economy culminated in 1875 with an attempt to place the blame at the doorstep of the Mormons and at the same time to win national sympathy for a little Gentile town caught between the upper and nether millstones of Lamanite and Saint. The Corinnethians may have won the heart of the nation, but they did not succeed in getting to its pocketbook. The Congress failed to grant lands for irrigation purposes and also declined to furnish enough money to care for the Indians on their reservations, which placed the natives as beggars still at the doors of Gentile and Mormon alike. Corinnethians were left with only the melancholy certainty of more frustrating and anxious years ahead as their energetic Mormon neighbors continued to press for an extension of the Utah Northern into Montana.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 9 i Robert G. Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country: T h e U t a h and Northern," Montana, the Magazine of Western History 18 (October 1968) : 8 - 9 ; Deseret News, 5 February, 5 May 1875.

2 Salt Lake Herald, 10 August 1875; Deseret News, 8 September 1875.

3 Athearn, "Railroad lo a Far-off Country," pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; Ogden Junction, 9, 27 February; 26 March 1875; Deseret News, 17 March; 28 April; 5 May; 15, 28 July; 4 August 1875. + Ogden Junction, 9 February 1875 ; Salt Lake Herald, 1 April 1875. s Helena Herald, 29 April 1875.

0 Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; Deseret News, 5 May 1875. ~ Corinne Mail, 16, 27 April 1875; Idaho Statesman, 7 August 1875.

8 Corinne Mail, 15 July, 4 September 1875.

9 Corinne Mail, 7, 20 January; 24 April 1875.

10 Montanian, 1 July 1875; Corinne Mail, 1 September 1875.

11 Deseret News, 4 August, 15 September 1875. i 2 Corinne Mail, 2 April, 28 July 1875.

13 Helena Herald, 16 September 1875.

14 Helena Herald, 9 September 1875; Ogden Junction, 1 December 1875. ir ' Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 11.

16 Salt Lake Herald, 1 April 187.1; Montanian, 3 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 15 July 1875; Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 11. " Helena Herald, 19 March, 14 May, 5 June 1874; Idaho Statesman, 21, 24 May 1874.

I s Deseret News, 10 June, 8 July 1874; Helena Herald, 20 August 1874.

10 Salt Lake Tribune, 19, 28 July; 12 September 1874; Alva J. Noyes, The Story of Ajax: Life in the Bighole Basin (Helena: State Publishing Co., 1914), pp. 18-19; Corinne Mail, 23 September 1874.

29 Corinne Mail, 12 September 1874.

21 Salt Lake Herald, 23 October 1874; Corinne Mail, 17 September; 6, 24 October; 15, 18 November 1874.

22 Salt Lake Tribune, 3 October 1874.

23 Corinne Mail, 20, 21 October; 10 November; 21, 23 December 1874.

24 Salt Lake Tribune, 18 March 1875; Corinne Mail, 27 April 1875; Montanian, 10 June 1875; Helena Herald, 29 April; 13, 27 May; 3 June 1875.

-'Corinne Mail, 12 September 1874, 13 March 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 22 October 1875.

20 Corinne Mail, 12 January 1875; Deseret News, 14 June 1875.

-7 Corinne Mail, 7 January, 14 May 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 26 May 1875.

25 Corinne Mail, 28, 29 July; 25 August; 2, 3, 7, 23 September 1875.

29 Corinne Mail, 12 June, 14 July 1875; New Northwest, 19 February 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 1, 16 October 1875.

30 Merrill D. Beal and Merle W. Wells, History of Idaho, 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1959), 1:403; interviews of Leonidas A. Mecham and Art T. Owens by John F. Ryan, 1936, Idaho Historical Records Survey, Idaho State University, Pocatello; Thomas J. Ferrell, Freighting, 1937, clipping file, Montana State Historical Society, Helena.

31 Corinne Mail, 22 January, 12 February, 27 March, 9 April, 1 May, 19 June, 22 September 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 22 April 1875.

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32 Corinne Mail, 26 January, 21 April, 22 May 1875; Helena Herald, 3 November 1875.

33 Salt Lake Herald, 11 November 1875.

34 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Globe, part 3, pp. 1964-65, 42d Cong., 2d sess., 1872; Corinne Reporter, 4 April 1872.

35 Corinne Reporter, 1 June 1872, 17 April 1873; Corinne Mail, 4 February 1875.

30 Corinne Reporter, 17 September; 11, 18 December 1872; Box Elder County Associations, 17 December 1872, microfilm, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City. â&#x20AC;˘ ' ' " - w-Corinne Reporter, 28 April, 23 June, 8 July 1873. ^ C o u n c i l Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 26, 27 May; 2 June 1873, Utah State Archives; Corinne Reporter, 6 J u n e ; 8, 12 July 1873.

39 Ogden Junction, 15 October 1873.

40 John A. Widtsoe, Dry-Farming: A System of Agriculture for Countries under Low Rainfall (New York: Macmillan Co., 1912), p. 355. " M t Lake Tribune, 16 July 1874; Kate B. Carter, comp., Heart Throbs of the West, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939-51), 8:140.

42 Corinne Reporter, 17 April, 23 June 1873; Corinne Mail, 13 May 1875.

43 Box Elder County Associations, 6 November 1873; George A. Crofutt, International Tourist Guide . . . (New York, 1874), p. 89.

44 Corinne Mail, 4 December 1874; 4 February, 13 May 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 9 January 1875, 21 March 1877.

45 Corinne Mail, 9, 10, 12 February; 5 March 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 13 February 1875.

46 E. S. Glover, Corinne and the Bear River Valley, Utah Territory (Cincinnati, 1875), pp. 1-8.

"Corinne Mail, 17 February; 19, 26 March; 19, 22 May; 2, 18 June; 10, 19 July 1875.

48 Corinne Mail, 9 February, 18 May, 18 June, 12 July, 14 August 1875.

49 Salt Lake Tribune, 22 April 1875.

09 Corinne Mail, 12 April 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 6, 8 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 12 July 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 30 January 1876.

51 Salt Lake Herald, 24, 31 March; 19 April 1877.

52 Brigham D. Madsen, "The Northwestern Shoshoni in Cache Valley," Cache Valley: Essays on Her Past and People, ed. Douglas D. Alder (Logan: Utah State University, 1976), pp. 28-38.

53 Daniel H. Wells to Bishop Nichols, 8 April 1870, in Brigham Young Letter Books, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.

54 Utah Reporter, 21 April 1870.

55 Utah Reporter, 30, 31 July; 17 November 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 2 August 1870.

50 Utah Reporter, 17 November 1870; Salt Lake Herald, 9 November 1873.

5T Corinne Reporter, 21 February 1872; Corinne Mail, 17 November 1874.

08 Corinne Reporter, 6 January; 8 February; 22, 27 March; 6 April; 10 June; 1, 26, 29, 30 July; 5 August 1871; 14 April 1873; Corinne Mail, 10, 15 December 1874.

59 Corinne Reporter, 14, 15 February 1871.

00 M. P. Berry to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 10 July 1871, U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, Letters Received, 182481, M234, Idaho Superintendency, 1863-80, microfilm roll 339, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 01 Utah Reporter, 27 March 1871.

02 M. le Baron de Hiibner, A Ramble Round the World, 1871 (New York, 1875), p. 175.

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93 Salt Lake Herald, 30 May 1871; Corinne Reporter, 16 June ' 8 7 1 , 8 October 1873; Secretary of Interior to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 7 October IB n, U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, Letters Received, 1824-81, M234, Utah Superintendency, 1849-80, microfilm roll Wi, National Archives.

04 G. W. Dodge to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 24 July 1872, Utah Superintendency, microfilm roll 903. as Corinne Reporter, 2 October 1871; Idaho Statesman, 30 April 1873.

99 Corinne Mail, 7, 10, 14, 15, 21 December 1874.

97 Deseret News, 30 September, 4 November 1874; Ogden Junction, 18 November 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 1874. os Deseret News, 28 April; 5, 26 May; 14 July 1875.

99 Salt Lake Herald, 12 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 26 July 1875; Deseret News, 4 August 1875.

70 James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 6 February 1875, Letters Sent, 1869-75, Fort Hall Letter Book, 235, Fort Hall, Idaho.

71 W. H. Danilson to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 31 July 1875, Fort Hall Letter Book, 2 9 0 - 9 1 ; Idaho Statesman, 6 October 1867.

72 Charles E. Dibble, "The Mormon Mission to the Shoshoni Indians," Western Humanities Review 1 (1947) : 2 8 4 - 8 5 ; Laurence G. Coates, "A History of Indian Education by the Mormons, 1830-1900" (Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1969), pp. 304-6; Ralph O. Brown, "The Life and Missionary Labors of George Washington Hill" (M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1956), pp. 59-65.

73 Deseret News, 28 July 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 21 July 1875.

74 James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 10 June 1875, Idaho Superintendency, microfilm roll 343; James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 30 June 1875, 31 July 1875, Fort Hall Letter Book, 289-91.

75 W. H. Danilson to Gen. Cuvier Grover, 20 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte, 1875, Old Military Records, National Archives.

79 Corinne Mail, 20 August 1875; Deseret News, 6 October 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 21 August 1875.

77 Corinne Mail, 24 February, 23 April, 2 June, 3 August 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 11 July 1875.

78 Salt Lake Herald, 29 July, 8 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 August 1875; Idaho Statesman, 17 August 1875.

79 Corinne Mail, 10 August 1875.

80 Corinne Mail, 9, 11 August 1875.

81 Capt. G. S. Carpenter to Maj. George D. Ruggles, 16 August 1875, 14 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte. s -' Newspaper coverage of the Corinne "scare" was quite voluminous, taking up several columns for many days in the following papers: Corinne Mail, Ogden Junction, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, and Salt Lake Herald, and many national news sheets.

83 Corinne Mail, 12 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 11 August 1875. s ' Salt Lake Herald, 11 August 1875. s "' Ogden Junction, 14 August 1875.

89 Deseret News, 18, 25 August 1875. ^7 Carpenter to Ruggles, 16 August 1875.

88 Brigham Young to W. C. Staines, 27 August 1875, BY Letter Books, microfilm reel 21.

89 Danilson to Grover, 20 August 1875.

90 Young to Staines, 27 August 1875.

91 Ogden Junction, 21 August 1875. 'â&#x20AC;˘>- Deseret News, 18, 25 August; 8 September; 13 October 1875; New York Herald, 13 August 1875.

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03 Salt Lake Herald, 17 August 1875; Deseret News, 18 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 20 August 1875.

94 George W. Emery to Gen. P. Sheridan, 21 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte. os Salt Lake Herald, 26 August 1875. " R e t u r n s from U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916, M617, microfilm roll 325, Old Military Records, National Archives.

97 C. Grover to Asst. Adj. General, 5 September 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte.

98 Corinne Mail, 26 August 1875.

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N^HrIrTWÂŁlr^

The Gentiles Flee

A Profitable Centennial Year The new year, 1876, did not start out auspiciously for the Mormon narrow-gauge railroad. An unusually heavy snowfall blocked the track almost continuously from early January until the end of March.

Passengers from Montana were either compelled to stay in Franklin "until the Bishop gets a revelation when the road shall be open" or had to pay exorbitant prices to hire any kind of conveyance available to take them to Corinne. A force of two hundred men was employed to clear the line over the Mendon Divide but could barely shovel down to the tracks before another storm would hit. Most observers agreed with the Deseret News that the route across the hills to Logan would ultimately have to be abandoned in favor of a shortcut through the more protected Bear River gorge.1 Joseph Richardson and the Mormon promoters of the Utah Northern seemed determined to build the road from Franklin to Soda Springs, Idaho. One Gentile observer was certain the plan came from Utah Delegate William Hooper and some of his friends who had invested heavily in property at the Idaho village in expectation of making large profits when the rail line reached there. The writer concluded that the railroad and its managers were both frauds. The New Northwest of Deer Lodge, Montana, on the other hand, described the route as going directly north to Eagle Rock bridge at Snake River

295

Looking toward Brigham City from Corinne. Andrew J. Russell photograph, Utah State Historical Society collections.

which would leave Soda Springs eighteen miles to the east and save twenty-five miles of travel by the Corinne stage route. Montana residents, desperate for a rail connection to the States, enacted legislation in February 1876 to subsidize the Northern Pacific Railroad for $3,000,000 and the Utah Northern for $1,500,000. The two proposals were to be voted on by the citizens of the territory on April 3, but the people in the Missoula region were opposed. The whole question became academic, anyway, when the Utah Northern officials declined to consider the subsidy because the company would be required to build two hundred miles of road north of Franklin before one dollar of the proposed aid would be granted to the firm.

Royal M. Bassett, president of the narrow-gauge line, was confident that the next year would bring a more reasonable subsidy from the Montana legislature and would not include any money at all for the Northern Pacific.3 The Mormon press was discouraged but recognized that the difficulty lay in the financial uncertainty that had gripped the country for three years. One Ogden resident met a man who had just arrived from Helena after spending three days and two nights in a stagecoach. The traveler expressed his "pleasure at being enabled at Franklin, Idaho, to exchange his mode of conveyance at that place, from the cooped up, dusty, suffocating stage to the neat little coach on the Utah Northern." He was certain that the people of Montana, who were practically isolated from the rest of the world, were ripe for a proposal to help finance the narrow-gauge line.4

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Despite optimistic reports from Mormon newspapers about construction progress during the year, by late December no rails had been laid beyond Franklin, although twenty-five miles of roadbed had been completed as far as Cottonwood. The engineers expected that $30,000 would complete this extension of the line. It soon became generally known that the reason for the work stoppage during the summer was a default on the interest payments by the Mormon stockholders on the mortgage held by Richardson on the completed portion of the railroad.5 An unfriendly observer was more specific â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the poorly rewarded construction workers who only received $1.75 per day for a man and team had not even been paid this amount by "that bilking institution of a railroad." ° The bright hopes of Utah Northern officials for Franklin as a point of departure for northern freight also seemed lost. George S. Kennedy, who made a trip to Montana in May 1876 to drum up some business for the town, confided to any willing listener that on his way up he had passed fifteen winterbound trains from Corinne bogged down at Portneuf River, whereas he had just dispatched some wagons the past week. To Montana residents his declaration sounded as brass, the Helena Herald holding to the position that eighty miles of completed Utah Northern track had lessened the distance to the transcontinental railroad by only thirty miles, while the transfer of goods from broad-gauge to narrow-gauge cars was an expensive and timeconsuming nuisance. 7 A Salt Lake Herald correspondent found Franklin to be "a deserted-looking, forsaken, dull village, which has seen better times," but he hoped that an extension of the railroad would revive the fortunes of the town. s There was even talk of moving the mails back to Corinne because of a thirty-six-hour delay by way of the Utah Northern and sometimes no mail at all when snow blocked the tracks. The Ogden Junction responded to suggestions from the citizens of Corinne that they were going "to make the fur fly" unless the mails were transferred to Corinne by expressing pseudo condolences to the "expiring 'burg.' ' A Corinne resident spoke for his town by calling the Utah Northern "hardly as good as a respectable bull train . . . the Enoch road cannot be relied on to transport the mails." !l To some, neither Franklin nor Corinne seemed to exude an air of confidence or progress. When the Utah Northern took up the tracks of the branch line to Corinne in

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early 1876, many Saints thought the move would destroy the hated Gentile town. One Salt Lake Herald correspondent wrote of visiting the dead city, while another maintained that the freighting business of Corinne did not amount to one-quarter of what it had been a few years before. This became the typical point of view of the Mormon newspapers in 1876, and when rumor came that prominent Corinne citizen J. W. Guthrie was planning to move his business to Ogden, many Saints could see the fulfillment of Brigham's prophecy.10 But as one advocate wrote, "The dusty Burg on the Bear, like the god-like Daniel, still lives." Interested citizens of the town kept the Salt Lake Tribune informed of prospects for a lively freighting season in 1876, and by May one was able to report favorable and prosperous conditions. Despite living under the prophet's curse, Corinne had corralled nearly all of the northern freight by June and left the Utah Northern the task of "transporting carrots for the faithful." The businessmen of the town were jubilant over the increased business as the threat of Franklin receded.11 Army officers at Fort Hall, Idaho, very carefully listed the advantages of Corinne over the Mormon town and concluded there was nothing to be gained by shifting the transportation of supplies away from Corinne. The difference in freight rates was only five cents a pound in favor of Franklin. The difference in distance was forty-five miles, but the hostility of the wagon freighters to the UNRR and to the Bear River toll bridges led them to carry goods from Corinne to Helena for the same price as from Franklin.12

By September the forwarding houses at Corinne had almost 2,000,000 pounds of goods on hand. The warehouses were full with the overflow occupying the sidewalks in front, and another 100,000 pounds were arriving each day with not enough teams to pick up the goods. One of the principal reasons for the glut of merchandise was the low water in the Missouri River that prevented the normal shipment of goods by that route. Corinnethians were exuberant as they contemplated the new Studebaker freight wagons ordered by such firms as Berryman and Rodgers. The giant vehicles had a carrying capacity of 14,000 pounds and were drawn by twelve mules. The Helena newspapers were just as pleased as they noted such typical arrivals as those of C. Y. Reeder's train of twelve wagons and forty mules and Berryman and Rodgers's mule train with 80,000 pounds of machinery for a concentrating works.13 By year's end almost 7,000

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tons of goods had been transported from Corinne to western Montana and Idaho, the largest freighting business the town had ever enjoyed in one year. A rumor circulated that the stagecoaches were to be moved back to Corinne from Franklin. There seemed to be almost as much business activity in Corinne in December as there had been at the height of the season in August, and one evidence of the briskness of trade was the unusual number of gamblers in town.14 As long as the Utah Northern Railroad lay supine at the. north end of Cache Valley, Corinne apparently woujd continue to control the trade with Montana.

Utah and Northern Railroad Although the snow blockades were not as frequent or as massive on the Mendon divide during the winter of 1877, Corinne observers and the Salt Lake Tribune started the new year with typical jibes at the Utah Northern Railroad: The company was forced to employ thirty-six yoke of oxen to pull its trains over the hill to Logan, the "Mormon Tramway" stopped frequently to allow passengers to warm themselves at nearby farmhouses, or one jackrabbit on the tracks was sufficient to stop a train. 15 The scoffing was perhaps understandable in light of a quite serious observation made late in the year by the Ogden Freeman whose editor wrote of a little girl who injured her foot while playing with some other youngsters on their pet line: The narrow gauge cars are particularly attractive to children, who push them up grade, crowd upon them, let fly the brakes, and away they all go on a free ride. There should be some way to fasten the cars so that children could not endanger their lives and limbs as they do. 16 The narrow-gauge trains were obviously toylike in appearance to more than opponents of the railway.

Those Montanans who had looked with favor on an extension of the Utah Northern to their territory during 1876 were discouraged and despondent about the wheelbarrow line and its backers as the new year dawned. Granville Stuart charged that the eastern financiers involved with the road "don't care a d n for Montana" and concluded that he was "pretty much disgusted with them as the Dutchman said to his wife when she played triplets on him, T got nuff mits

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Utah and Northern Railroad train in front of the station at Logan, ca. 1885.

Utah State Historical Society collections.

such foolishness.' " Another Montanan said he would favor the railroad if the promoters would accept "jawbone" as a subsidy.17 Then came the amazing news that Jay Gould and Sidney Dillon were interested in investing in the narrow-gauge line and pushing it into Montana. Gould proposed to bond the territory of Montana for $1,500,000, which one Corinnethian said would allow the New York financier to gain control of affairs in Montana just as Brigham Young presided over Utah Territory. In response to the Gould suggestion the legislature at Helena passed an act granting a subsidy of $1,700,000, or $5,000 a mile, if the road could be constructed to Montana within three years. The New Northwest objected that the amount was too great; it should have been no more than $4,000 a mile. is The controversy soon ended when Gould refused the proposition because of a clause that asked for a monthly royalty from the revenues of the entire road. Montana backers and Mormon stockholders were again disappointed. When a rumor spread through Ogden that the council of that city was considering a pledge of $10,000 to invest in Utah Northern Railroad stock to encourage the eastern syndicate to proceed with its extension plans, the Ogden Freeman pointed out that the

300

Corinne

stock was worth about only twenty cents on the dollar, much of it being sold on the streets for as little as ten cents and taken out in store pay.19 Despite the failure of the Montana subsidy proposal, Jay Gould and his associates in the Union Pacific Railroad were quite aware of the profits to be made by a feeder road from the northern territory and were also sensitive to Central Pacific Railroad efforts to make Corinne the terminus for a road to Montana. When the Utah Northern had built to Ogden instead of using the Corinne connection, the Central Pacific had retaliated by cutting its rates from Ogden to Corinne by half. Gould and a party from the East visited the Utah Northern once during the summer of 1877 and observed the improvements being made on the tracks and roadbed by the new superintendent of the line, George W. Thatcher, and began negotiations looking toward a takeover of the small railroad. 20 In a second excursion to Utah in October, Gould and Dillon completed a reorganization of the line and made arrangements to have the mortgage foreclosed and the property sold at auction, with the understanding that Joseph Richardson would relinquish the $365,000 in interest accrued on his bonds and that the construction company that had done the grading and furnished the ties would receive stock worth $6,000 for each mile from Ogden to Franklin. The name of the company was to be the Utah and Northern Railroad.

The new owners traveled from Ogden to Franklin to inspect the line, enjoying the trip "as the vigorous little engine, like a bantam rooster crowed merrily to the morn, and ran along the three-foot track."

Their only disapproval was directed to the Mendon Divide route that they intended to change to one through Bear River Canyon. 21 Speculation continued during the year concerning which direction the road would take to Montana. When a rumor came in June that Gould intended to send out two surveying parties to investigate routes from Evanston and Corinne, the editor of the Corinne Record contended that the one from his town was the most practicable, while Royal M. Bassett of the Utah Northern was still talking about an extension by way of SodaSprings. Engineers from the new Utah and Northern finally inspected the Soda Springs and Marsh Valley routes in October and decided to build the road through Marsh Valley because of the level grade, the lower costs, and the shorter distance to an interception with the wagon road to Montana. 22

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By November Mormon farmers from Cache Valley were at work on a six-mile contract for grading on the new route with the expectation that another section would be let to them before winter closed the construction. About two hundred teams and three hundred men were employed in the grading at a cost of about eleven cents a yard for the work. The old roadbed toward Soda Springs was abandoned. 23 The effect on Franklin, as the base of operations for the railroad extension, was nothing short of miraculous. Whereas in March an observer had noted that "those engaged in selling bad whiskey and the proprietors of gambling saloons have had to leave for want of customers," by December the town had changed from a quiet Mormon village to a very lively place. By then the construction crews were laying a mile of track a day, had completed the eleven-mile section to Bear River, and expected to be at Watson's Station in Marsh Valley, forty-five miles away, by the first of May 1878.24 The year-long activities concerned with a possible injection of Union Pacific money and energy into the moribund Utah Northern Railroad had certainly not gone unnoticed at Corinne, whose citizens became more and more apprehensive about the future of the town.

Corinnethians and their supporters no doubt cringed when they read Richard Reinhardt's description of Corinne published in 1877 by Leslie's Magazine: There is not much to see: the long, low station buildings; the shabby shops; the staring, square, white saloons, from whose windows blaze the brightest lights in the whole town; the dreary absence of a single cozy cottage, green tree or garden patch, or anything that savors even slightly of home.2n To offset this gloomy view, the Chicago Journal of Commerce printed a letter describing the trading activities and the fruits and vegetables grown in Corinne. The Deseret News quoted the blurb and then poked fun at the Chicago newspaper's attempt to praise the dusty hamlet. The editor did agree with one statement of the Chicago news sheet that Corinne did not display any architectural beauty. The Salt Lake Herald by this time had adopted the practice of quoting from the Corinne Record and then making snide comments about each item. To the observation that the leading sensation for one day was a dog fight, the editor responded that such mundane incidents provided about the only exciting news; and to a remark that the streets

302

Corinne

of Corinne looked like a second New York, the editor manifested utter boredom.20 Corinne, nevertheless, had one of the most active freighting years in its history during 1877. The forwarding houses, merchants, and suppliers anticipated a successful trading season and agreed with one correspondent that "the Freighters [are] Ready with Vim and Zip, to Crack the Long-tailed Buckskin Whip." 27 Montana looked forward to an estimated delivery of 25,000 tons of goods to the territory at a freighting cost of $ 1,500,000, and Corinne expected a good share of both the tonnage and the profit. By April a hundred fifty wagons of the smaller freighters were parked north across the tracks, while the large trains were expected in soon from the upper country. The city council appointed one of its members to investigate the possibility of getting the Gilmer & Salisbury stage line moved back to Corinne, and such military posts as Fort Hall signed contracts with Corinne firms for the annual supplies needed.28 A comment from the Salt Lake Tribune in September confirmed the success of the year, the most prosperous since the late "Profit" cursed the town, according to the editor. And an observation from the Salt Lake Herald in November claimed that the freight from Corinne to Montana was double that of 1876. The article continued that the U N R R had captured very little of the business because teamsters were reluctant to tackle the bad roads from Franklin. Discounting this slight exaggeration, the Bear River town shipped 5,700 tons of goods to Idaho and Montana and returned 1,128 tons of ore. The sun had smiled on the dusty trail town for one more year.2" But the organization of the new Utah and Northern Railroad and the evident construction progress towards the Montana trail station at Watson brought the sharp realization of doomsday to the Burg on the Bear. The saving of from twelve to fourteen days of wagon travel from Corinne to Watson and return meant the inevitable end of the town as a freight transfer station. The Salt Lake Herald expressed what was soon reported up and down the Montana road â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "This is a death blow to the fortunes of Corinne." â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘"' Said the New Northwest, "Corinne is one of the things of the past." An old friend, the Salt Lake Tribune, printed an obituary, "The Shipping season in this town is closed, and perhaps forever." :n Kiesel and Company, McCormick & Hardenbrook, and the lesser forwarding firms prepared to move to Ogden or to the railroad terminus.

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As if to punctuate Mormon success in finally eradicating Corinne as a Gentile blot on the Utah landscape, the Corinnethians also endured another, delayed-reaction Indian scare in 1877. The year before, correspondents had noted that George W. Hill was still proselytizing among the remnants of the large encampment of Indians north of Bear River City, and one writer insisted the Corinnethians were ready for another fray. An army map accurately located "Indian town" at a spot eleven miles north of Corinne between the Malad and Bear rivers. In April 1877 the city council became concerned enough to appoint a committee to visit the Indian farm to scout means of removing the Indians and to discover whether or not the natives had actually complied with the homestead laws and secured patents for their land. The committee reported finding only five unoccupied shanties. The mayor met with the governor to expostulate against the presence of the Indians, 32 while the Corinne Record began beating the war drums to get troops stationed in the town to protect the citizens: The treacherous Indians now camped in close proximity to this city could easily put to death the Gentile residents here. . . . If troops are needed anywhere in Utah, it is here, surrounded by Indians and Mormons, both of whom hate us as the devil. The result of priestly teachings â&#x20AC;&#x201D; our position is to say the least, a most unenviable one. . . .

The Deseret News poked fun at these fears, concluding that the citizens of Corinne could not have enjoyed any sound sleep for two years and deserved some troops because if they were denied sleep any longer they might become raving maniacs.311 Gov. George W. Emery finally listened to his Gentile constituents and made a personal visit to Corinne, holding a public meeting where reassuring speeches were made to the fearful citizens. The chief result of this investigation was the calling of a grand jury. It soon reported that about a hundred Indians under the control of George Hill were being used as stooges by certain unprincipled white men to obtain patents on homestead land, after which the whites would take possession. Furthermore, the Indians kept stampeding stock and were a general nuisance to the settlers of the area. The reaction of the Mormon press was predictable. While the Salt Lake Herald dismissed the findings of the grand jury as a silly paper, 34 the

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Corinne

Deseret News was more caustic: "The untruths it utters, the insinuations it contains and the hearsay statements and opinions it repeats, mark it as the offspring of spiteful bigotry and malignant falsehood."

A correspondent to the latter paper said that his investigation showed a hard-working settlement of Indians who were learning to farm and who wished to change their Indian costumes for civilized attire. ; ' To a white man of the 1870s this last was proof indeed of upright, moral, and ethical conduct on the part of a formerly primitive people.

In defense of the frightened Corinnethians, it should be remembered that just the year before George Custer and his troops had been wiped out, while the summer of 1877 witnessed the Nez Perce war fought in a running engagement north of Corinne. Perhaps recognizing the influence of these events on the Gentile mind still alive to the supposed machinations of the Mountain Meadow church, the governor authorized a stand of a hundred arms to be delivered to the citizens of Corinne after the city council posted a $2,500 security bond. Although no Indians appeared, the townspeople evidently enjoyed some target shooting and prepared to challenge the Salt Lake City riflemen to a peaceful shootout. The Salt Lake Herald dismissed the whole episode as a "repetition of the Corinne fizzle." 3C

The Freighting Ends Of much more consequence than a possible Indian raid on Corinne was the continuing threat of the Utah and Northern Railroad's all-out offensive to capture the Montana trade and reduce Corinne to a cabbage patch. To complete the takeover of the Mormon narrow-gauge line, S. H. H. Clark, acting for Jay Gould, bought the old Utah Northern at auction in April 1878 for $100,000. Clark was the only bidder. Gould had purchased the holdings of Richardson for $400,000 at about forty cents on the dollar and had paid the chiefly Mormon stockholders $80,000 for the common stock, or ten cents on the dollar. The new concern, the Utah and Northern Railroad Company, began operations on May 1, 1878. By this time Corinne's old rival, Ogden, was adding insult to injury by referring to the line as either the Ogden & Montana Railroad or the Ogden & Northwestern Railroad. 37 When winter storms stopped construction the tracks were nearly to a crossing of Bear River, and vigorous efforts were made by the

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Union Pacific to have sufficient supplies on hand to push the road forward rapidly with the coming of spring. Sidney Dillon informed the Montana merchants that the next summer's business would be conducted from the various termini as the rails moved northward.

An intersection with the wagon road from Corinne was only thirtysix miles away, which would direct all traffic away from that town on the Central Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific expected to build a broader grade, to use longer ties and heavier rails, and generally to improve the line so that trains could travel at a speed of forty miles an hour. By May 10, 1878, track was being laid at the rate of a half-mile a day, and the terminus was moved to a temporary station at Dunnville in Round Valley about twenty miles north of Franklin. 38 The application of Union Pacific money and know-how to the Utah and Northern transformed the attitude of Montanans and other former detractors of the line. The people of the northern territory had considered the UNRR's primitive locomotives and cars a laughing stock: Its trains rarely exceeded an average of seven miles an hour; bull trains traveling parallel with the road to Corinne competed successfully in both price and time. And, more humiliating, its passengers often disembarked to help push the train up the light grades between Ogden and Franklin. In contrast to this 1877 report, the editor of the Helena Herald took a ride on the railroad in February 1878 and confessed that he had sided earlier with many from Montana who had sneeringly referred to the road as the wheelbarrow line. Now he thought the railroad was safe, comfortable, and capable of taking care of Montana's shipping problems for many years.3" Montanans were pleased to see the new railroad free of Mormon control, an indication that Corinnethians were not the only Gentiles upset with the Saints of Utah. One correspondent, writing from Franklin about the extension of the rail line, took a sly dig at church leader John Taylor who had asked him if Montana would be a good place for Mormon missionaries. Supposedly, the Gentile had replied that "there was plenty of material up there to make saints of." I0 And Margaret Ferris, just moved from Corinne to Franklin, in November 1878 wrote her sister, I am getting pretty tired of staying here . . . I want to see somebody I can talk with. These people are so ignorant and so Mormony. It sticks out all the time. There cannot be anything

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but antagonism between them and the Gentiles. I realize it more than ever before. . . .41 The Mormon farmers near Franklin and from Cache Valley generally were too busy making money as graders on the new railroad to be concerned over the few Gentiles at Franklin who would soon be following the tracks north anyway. The Utah and Northern also began making a good profit, as a thousand tons of goods were transported over the line by May 10. The transfer people at Ogden were forced to increase their crew from four men to a dozen to get goods changed from the broad-gauge to the narrow-gauge cars. To attract more business the Union Pacific agent at Omaha announced that for each mile of track completed beyond the crossing at Bear River rates would be reduced correspondingly and that his company expected to control most of the season's business.l2 The flurry of activity at Franklin and north to Dunnville left Corinne to contemplate the stagnation beginning to affect its business houses. In a new year's evaluation of the prospects of the town, its long-time supporter, the Salt Lake Tribune, recognized that many observers expected Corinne to lose most of its people or, worse yet, to "pass into Mormon hands." Many of the older residents were already moving to Ogden and other nearby towns, while the Fred J. Kiesel and McCormick & Hardenbrook firms were planning to continue their forwarding businesses at the terminus of the Utah and Northern. J. W. Guthrie and a few others were still hopeful that Corinne would continue as a trading center for the Mormon towns in the area. Most residents expected that the first loads of the season would leave from Corinne, with the second and remaining loads destined to be picked up at the railroad terminus. 43 Firms like the Walker Brothers decided to ship their heavy mining machinery by way of the Utah and Northern, depending upon wagon transport only as far as necessary. By the middle of May, Dunnville was a busy tent town with many of the former businessmen of Corinne operating ramshackle stores at the terminus. Fred J. Kiesel not only established a canvas and frame forwarding house at the terminus but also hired a company to move his permanent warehouse buildings from Corinne to Ogden." As one writer observed, "the town of Corinne commenced to emigrate. . ." ''

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Although the Deseret News led the Mormon press in chortling over the demise of the "sick" town taken with "galoping consumption" and although the city council reported that retail liquor licenses for the town's saloons had declined to an alarming low of only nine establishments, a lot of freight had already been placed under contract so that the spring and early summer were still busy seasons for the Corinne merchants. The forwarding companies at Dunnville helped out by making freight rates so low that teamsters refused to load the goods piling up both at the terminus and at Ogden. Some freight was, therefore, diverted to Corinne until the teamsters were granted a better profit.40 Margaret Ferris watched her husband's forwarding business at Corinne begin to dwindle, yet the couple hoped to stay the whole year in the town before having to move to the terminus. She wrote in April that there was still much activity in the town, but she expected a lonesome time during the summer as several families had gone or were leaving. By July, packed and ready to leave, too, she witnessed a fire that almost got out of control and could have destroyed the town.47 The distress and rapid descent of the "City of the Gentiles" received some attention from the eastern press. While the Springfield Republican mentioned that Corinne was in its third decline,48 the New York Tribune editorialized at length on Mormon oppression of the town: Mormonism hardly appears in darker colors in the history of the Danites than in this persecution of the men who dared to found a Gentile city in the heart of Utah. . . . It is probably the only town in America . . . that has in recent years been the object of religious persecution, and the material interests of which have been made to suffer through religious intolerance.40 The New York newspaper, as quoted by the Salt Lake Tribune, described Brigham's curse of Corinne as he stood on the railroad bridge at the edge of the town, raised his arms to heaven, and invoked the vengeance of the Lord upon the Gentile enterprise. The prophet then abjured his followers to have no dealings with the citizens of "Hell." But, said the editorial writer, Corinne grew despite these prophetic anathemas, although now it was suffering tribulation. There was still hope for this "pluckiest town of the West" if only irrigation

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Corinne

water could be carried to its determined, never-say-die residents.50 Corinne had friends, but they were far away.

The blade of the guillotine finally fell in late June when the Utah and Northern tracks reached Watson's Station, renamed Oneida, on the trail to Montana, effectively cutting off wagon traffic from Corinne. The descriptions of the new town read very much like those of the Burg on the Bear when it was in its infancy with a number of hotels, a plethora of saloons, wagon dealers, stores, and tons of freight awaiting teamsters to load up for the north. 51 The Union Pacific intended only to pause at Oneida and expected to be beyond the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and located at Blackfoot before winter ended construction. By December 10, except for some local freighting activities, the business of moving goods by wagon from the Central Pacific cars to Idaho and Montana had ended. As the Salt Lake Independent had written at the beginning of the year, Corinne belonged to the past.

Margaret Ferris had planned to move back to Corinne to spend the winter while her husband closed out his forwarding business but decided against it when news came that an epidemic of diphtheria was ravaging the town.52 Portions, at least, of Corinne were still actively engaged in the freighting business. A Salt Lake Tribune correspondent at Oneida noted sign boards from Corinne and other bits and pieces of the town at the new terminus. Furthermore, Pat O'Neill was operating the best hotel at Oneida, the Corinne House, and many expected that the "Corinne of the North" would soon be built at Snake River.53 As the Gentiles fled Corinne they could at least carry some old memories, along with the old lumber, to help start a new town, this time apart from the LItah Mormons.

A Curse Consummated Corinne's descent into anonymity was rapid. For a year or two the town kept up a semblance of being a forwarding station by the operation of a local stage line to Oneida on the Utah and Northern.

The fare was six dollars and the advertisement in the Salt Lake newspapers announced, "The Best Outfitting Point for the Salmon and Snake River Mines." 54 City government deteriorated with the 1880 municipal election attracting only twenty-nine voters. Marshal Dan Ryan's salary was reduced to a dollar a month in April 1880, raised to

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ten a month in August, and boosted to twenty a month in October.

He was instructed to enforce the Hog Law and to abate the nuisance of open cellars in the town, apparently the only weighty matters under his jurisdiction.55 When Gov. E. H. Murray demanded the return of the remaining guns furnished Corinne during the second Indian scare, Mayor Guthrie replied that Mormon Indians were still camped near the town and might at any moment execute their hatred against the defenseless inhabitants. When the mayor's request to keep the guns permanently was denied, Marshal Ryan was instructed to correspond with former citizens to try to retrieve the weapons.50 The 1880 census revealed just how precipitously Corinne's population had declined. There were only 277 inhabitants compared to 2,184 in Brigham City and 340 in Bear River City. The Utah directory for 1879-80 listed forty-three establishments, including three churches, one hotel, one saloon, one bank, one firm of attorneys, and the opera house. The major business was the H. C. Merritt slaughterhouse which dressed and shipped 750 head of stock per month. 57 Alex Toponce remembered the scene: Corinne decayed. The buildings went without paint, stores and dwellings stood vacant. Many of them were torn down or moved out on farms. People lived in houses rent free, Corinne men were found all over the west. The few who remained lived on the hope of what would happen when the irrigation water was brought out on the broad valley. But for awhile it looked as if Brigham had made a good guess.5S The Pacific Tourist of 1881 called Corinne the largest Gentile town in Utah Territory, a place hated by many Mormons and studiously avoided by residents of the nearby settlements. The editor maintained that the town was "an object of defamation" by the Saints.5" But the Gentile predominance was changing rapidly, as witnessed by Warren B. Johnson who stopped for the night at Corinne while on his walking tour across the continent in 1882. Granted sleeping accommodations at a local farm and given breakfast by the farmer's wife the next morning, he inquired of her, "Are there many Mormons in Corinne?"

She replied, "We are all Mormons, here." G0 That was not yet quite accurate but was fast becoming so.

An 1885 article in the Utah Journal described the dilapidated and deserted buildings and the general decay of Corinne, but it also

310

Corinne

Corinne in the early 1900s. Utah State Historical Society collections.

struck an optimistic note in that at least a few of the residences were neat and even elegant in appearance, while there was an air of business about the stores. The editor attributed this step back from the grave to the energy and determination of Mayor J. W. Guthrie, a banker who had purchased many of the abandoned lots and buildings and was maintaining a mercantile establishment and the only hotel as well as his bank. The gazetteer of 1888, however, listed only twentyone business establishments, of which several were stock raisers. Four years later, the gazetteer noted thirty-one establishments, among them a new and most important enterprise, the Bear River Canal Company, incorporated with a capital of $2,100,000. 01 Phil Robinson, an Englishman who spent three months in Utah in 1891, could still write about "Corinne, ghastly Corinne, a Gentile failure on the very skirts of Mormon success. . . . as discreditable a settlement. without plan, treeless and roadless . . a scattered hamlet of crazy looking shanties." '''- The census of 1900 revealed a slight increase of population to 323 inhabitants and a listing of thirty-four businesses, although Corinnethians seemed to be up to their old trick of boosterism.03

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Several of the establishments were listed twice, under the owner's name and then again under the name of the firm.

Throughout the agonizing period of decay after 1878, Corinne was still a way station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and its residents could daily watch the transcontinental freight and passenger trains ascend and descend the road to Promontory Summit, one of the steepest grades on the whole line. The railroad decided to end the laborious and time-consuming climb by building a new road west across Great Salt Lake. On November 26, 1903, the Lucin Cutoff was completed after three years of effort and a cost in excess of $8 million. The new route reduced by 43.77 miles and seven hours the travel from Ogden to California and eliminated the Promontory Summit grade which was ninety feet to the mile.04 From then on Corinne saw only occasional local trains on the track through the town. It was no longer even a way station on a main railroad line.

By 1912-13 the town was described as a village with a long-distance telephone and seventeen business firms.05 Mormon families gradually took over the town, sustaining the long-held belief of many Gentiles in the legendary prophecy of Brigham Young. On July 10, 1910, a branch of the LDS faith was organized for Corinne, and the opera house, profaned by many a Gentile two-step, was purchased and dedicated on November 22, 1914, as a chapel for the Saints of the area. 00 About thirty years later, in June 1943, a new brick chapel was erected on the site of the old twenty-room Central Hotel for approximately five hundred Mormons who lived in "sprawling Corinne." The opera house then reverted to its original use as a recreation hall. According to the Deseret News account of the dedication exercises, "The non-Mormons who are left are very friendly to the church, and have been enthusiastic cooperators in the new building project. . . ," some serving actively on the building committee.07 Another event was chronicled on July 29, 1942, by the Cincinnati Times-Star, completing a full circle of about seventy years from the time when J. H. Beadle was reporting Corinne events to his paper, the Cincinnati Commercial. Starting the article with the fact that the people of Cincinnati probably had never heard of Corinne, Utah, the editorial writer explained the series of calamities that had left the place "a sleepy, semi-ghost town of a few weather-beaten buildings

312

Corinne

and a bare 400 inhabitants" and then announced that a week earlier the town had suffered its final humiliation. The Utah Public Utilities Commission had ordered the rails of the Corinne-Promontory branch taken up to provide steel for America's effort in World War II. The writer felt that Corinne would have only a few memories left but that "in the longer view, the nation will have lost something, too." °8 The freighters, teamsters, and stagecoach drivers who once thronged the streets of the frontier town in the 1870s might have been slightly amused at that sentimentality. To them Gentile Corinne was the endof-the-trail where the ubiquitous saloons, hotels, and shops could provide them with inner sustenance and outer regalia before they would again have to point their wagons toward the north where lay Montana.

Conclusion The entry of the Pacific railroad into Mormon Utah broke the isolation of the Saints and focused national attention once again on their peculiar doctrine of polygamy, the remaining relic of barbarism once slavery had been eradicated. Corinne, the newly founded Gentile town on the Central Pacific Railroad, began to probe the weaknesses of Mormondom and undertook the task of attacking and publicizing the priestly control of Utah and the supposedly un-American and disloyal practices of Brigham Young and his followers. The Corinne newspapers led the Gentile opposition and, until the Salt Lake Tribune became firmly established as an anti-Mormon journal, the Utah The main street of Corinne in 1940. Utah State Historical Society collections.

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Reporter and the Corinne Reporter helped attract the attention of the nation to the widely believed sins of Mormonism.

The businessmen of Corinne, who wished to protect their financial investment in the town, used the anti-Mormon propaganda as a means of diminishing the success of the Mormon cooperatives and weakening Brigham Young's political control of the territory. These goals coincided with national desires under the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant who appointed federal officials bent on destroying the theocracy of the Saints. Corinne, therefore, became a symbol of resistance to Mormon control and an object of sympathy because of the economic and social persecution its Gentile people were believed to be suffering. Eastern capital, interested in opening up the unexploited mineral districts of Utah, worked hand-in-glove with Corinnethians in the assault on Mormon control. It is significant that Patrick E. Connor who first undertook the exploration and discovery of mines in the territory was one of the prominent leaders of early Corinne.

The contrast between the well-ordered and tightly controlled Mormon towns and the very democratic and rather untidy political and social atmosphere of a rough-and-ready frontier freighting town led Corinne's neighbors to call the new settlement the Burg on the Bear. Smarting from the sobriquet, the editor of the Reporter replied in kind and undertook a campaign of ridicule and hostility towards the Saints and their press. The uncertainty of existence as a freight transfer station to provide wagon transportation of goods to Montana made Corinnethian editorials, speeches, and denunciations even more strident and feverish than they might otherwise have been.

The Gentiles of Corinne sought to break up the solid Mormon control of Utah by seizing upon every opportunity that offered some chance of success. They attempted to get one of their citizens appointed territorial governor, endeavored to have Corinne named the capital of Utah, tried to divide the territory by annexing the northern area to Idaho, and opposed statehood which would have placed Utah completely in Mormon hands. To achieve all these objectives, the town supported a lobby in Washington, D.C. Corinnethians were in the forefront in organizing the first effective non-Mormon political party in the territory, the Liberal party, and continued to work with the Liberals after leadership shifted to Salt Lake Citv. The anti-

314

Corinne

Mormon activities of federal officials in the territory were uniformly praised and actively supported. And finally, Corinne worked assiduously to gain control of Box Elder County affairs and particularly rejoiced in the success of its free market in attracting Mormon farmers to its shops and mercantile establishments.

In addition to their political and economic assaults on the Mormon stronghold, Corinnethians played up their Americanism and, by contrast, the alleged lack of patriotism of the Saints by staging extravagant Fourth of July celebrations and by expressing in every way possible the "disloyal" proclivities of the residents of Utah. The three Protestant churches established in the town beat the drums nationally for contributions to help stop the heathenish practices of the Mormons, and the citizens flaunted their public school as the only "free" school in the territory. Even baseball and horse-racing became tinged with the emotionalism of beating the predominant Mormons.

Realizing their tenuous position as a forwarding point for goods to the north, Corinne sought to capture the transport of ores from central Utah by building a steamboat line across Great Salt Lake and to ensure the control of freighting to Montana by promoting the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad. The paddle-wheel steamer, City of Corinne, did not succeed in taking the ore business away from the Mormon-controlled Utah Central Railroad; and the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad was an abject failure. Instead, the Utah Northern Railroad, built by Mormons to Franklin, Idaho, soon posed a real threat to the very existence of Corinne. The people of the town swallowed hard and for about two years enjoyed a branch line of the Utah Northern between Corinne and Brigham City until an Ogden connection led the Mormon operators to discontinue the road to the Gentile town on Bear River.

Stymied in their attempts to build a permanent transportation system with Corinne as the terminus, the citizens next turned to a grand colonization scheme to attract a large Gentile population to lower Bear River Valley by constructing an irrigation project using a large canal from the river. When this plan failed the town newspaper, no doubt with much support from frustrated and angry businessmen, whipped up an Indian scare against a large group of Shoshoni Indians engaged in a farming venture under Mormon tutelage a few miles north of the town. Coinciding as it did with the failure of a jury to

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convict John D. Lee, the alleged perpetrator of the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre, the "scare" frightened many citizens of Corinne who gained some feeling of security again only when a company of troops was stationed in the town. The Indians were dispersed, and the Mormon press reacted bitterly to the combination of military force and Gentile duplicity in creating this anti-Mormon demonstration.

The final dismemberment of Corinne came in 1877 and 1878 when the Union Pacific Railroad assumed control of the Utah Northern narrow-gauge line and pushed it into Marsh Valley where it intersected the Montana trail and effectively cut off wagon traffic from Corinne. By late 1878 the population of the town had declined to about three hundred from a high of almost fifteen hundred during the prosperous trading years of the early 1870s. Mormon farmers began to move in to purchase town lots and adjoining agricultural land, as Gentile merchants and tradesmen left for Ogden and other towns that offered better economic possibilities. Corinne soon became what it remains today, a Mormon farming village of some four hundred inhabitants.

Nevertheless, during the decade of the 1870s Corinne occupied a unique position in Utah as the first large settlement of Gentiles to challenge Mormon control in the territory and to help focus the interest of the American people on the so-called Mormon problem. The citizens of the town failed in every attempt to secure a more permanent basis for industrial and commercial growth and to dissolve the churchstate power of Brigham Young and his followers, but they struggled mightily in the endeavor. To the Mormons, Corinne was a Gentile blot on the saintly landscape; to the Corinnethians, Mormonism, with its abhorrent doctrine of polygamy, was a stench in the nostrils of the nation. The ten-year contest of Corinne to establish itself as the metropolis of the hills and to make itself the "Gentile Capital of Utah" failed, but in the process the Burg on the Bear helped sharpen national consciousness to the different kind of life-style practiced by the Saints of Utah and to the need for congressional legislation to force a change in Mormondom.

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N O T E S F O R C H A P T E R 10 1 Salt Lake Tribune, 2 February 1876; Salt Lake Herald, 4 February, 24 March 1876; Deseret News, 9 February, 21 June 1876; Ogden Junction, 15 February 1876.

2 Salt Lake Tribune, 2 February 1876; Deseret News, 10 May 1876.

3 Salt Lake Herald, 22 February 1876; Deseret News, 23 February, 2° March.

12 April 1876.

4 Ogden Junction, 26 August 1876.

5 Salt Lake Herald, 27 April, 27 December 1876; Deseret News, 10 May 1876.

9 Salt Lake Tribune, 2 February 1876.

7 Deseret News, 17 May 1876; Helena Herald, 3 February 1876; Salt Lake Tribune, 30 January 1876. s Salt Lake Herald, 13 August 1876.

9 Salt Lake Tribune, 2, 19 February; 6 September 1876; Ogden Junction, 1 February 1876.

19 Salt Lake Tribune, 18 June 1876; Deseret News, 5 January 1876; Salt Lake Herald, 12 March, 13 August, 12 September 1876.

11 Salt Lake Tribune, 9 February; 15 April; 6 May; 18, 30 J u n e ; 22 July; 6 September 1876.

12 Lt. Joseph Hall to Depot Quartermaster, 22 July 1876, 25 August 1876, Fort Hall, Letters Sent, Post Quartermaster, 1875-79, Old Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 13 Salt Lake Tribune, 6, 22 September 1876; Ogden Freeman, 12 September 1876; Helena Herald, 7 September; 2, 9 November 1876.

14 Ogden Freeman, 28 November, 9 December 1876; Salt Lake Tribune, 6 October, 5 November 1876.

15 Deseret News, 14 February 1877; Salt Lake Tribune, 18, 27, 31 Tanuaryy 1877.

19 Ogden Freeman, 19 October 1877.

17 Robert G. Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country: The Utah and Northern," Montana, the Magazine of Western History 18 (October 1968) : 14; Salt Lake Tribune, 31 January 1877.

18 Salt Lake Tribune, 27 January 1877; Deseret News, 14, 28 February; 7 March 1877; Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," pp. 13-14.

19 Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 14; Ogden Freeman, 27 February 1877.

20 Deseret News, 4 April 1877; Robert G. Athearn, Union Pacific Country (San Francisco: Rand McNally, 1971), p. 249; Salt Lake Herald, 17 November 1877.

21 Salt Lake Tribune, 26 October 1877; Deseret News, 10 October 1877.

22 Helena Herald, 14 June 1877; Deseret News, 25 July; 21, 24 October 1877; Salt Lake Herald, 14 November 1877.

23 Deseret News, 7, 14, 28 November 1877.

21 Deseret News, 21 March 1877; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 December 1877.

25 Richard Reinhardt, Out West on the Overland Train: Across-the-Continent Excursion with Leslie's Magazine in 1877 and the Overland Trip in 1967 (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West Publishing Co., 1 9 6 7 ) , p . 111.

29 Deseret News, 15 August 1877; Salt Lake Herald, 21, 24 March 1877.

27 Ogden Freeman, 25 February 1877.

2S Helena Herald, 28 June 1877; Salt Lake Tribune, 13 April 1877; Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 28 May 1877, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; Fort Hall, Letters Sent, Post Quartermaster, 1875-79, 52.

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29 Salt Lake Tribune, 28 September 1877; Salt Lake Herald, 17 November 1877, 1 January 1878.

39 Salt Lake Herald, 5 October, 17 November 1877.

31 New Northwest (Montana), 28 December 1877; Salt Lake Tribune, 2 December 1877.

32 Salt Lake Tribune, 30 June, 23 July 1876; U.S., Army Corps of Engineers, Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, 1877, map compiled and drawn

by Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey party, microfilm 347, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City; Corinne City Minute Book, 9, 11 April 1877; 23 May 1877; Salt Lake Herald, 23 May 1877.

33 Deseret News, 30 May 1877.

34 Salt Lake Herald, 22 August; 28, 29 Setpember 1877.

39 Deseret News, 3, 10 October 1877. â&#x201E;˘ Salt Lake Herald, 24 October, 16 December 1877; 28 March 1878; Corinne City Minute Book, 3 December 1877.

37 Salt Lake Tribune, 5 April 1878; Ogden Freeman, 1 January, 5 April, 7 May 1878; Deseret News, 10 April 1878; Athearn "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 15.

35 Deseret News, 23 January, 10 April 1878; Helena Herald, 7 February 1878; Idaho Statesman, 17 January 1878; Salt Lake Herald, 27 March 1878; Ogden Freeman, 10 May 1878.

39 Holiday supplement to Dillon Tribune, pp. 2-4 (bound with West Shore, 1883-84), Montana State Historical Society, Helena; Athearn, "Railroad to a Faroff Country," p. 16; Helena Herald, 21 February 1878.

49 Helena Herald, 4 April 1878; New Northwest, 11 January 1878.

41 Margaret Eastman Ferris Letters (1874-84), 11 November 1878, manuscript file 403, Montana State University Library, Bozeman.

42 Ogden Freeman, 10 May 1878; Deseret News, 8 May 1878; New Northwest, 29 March 1878.

43 Salt Lake Tribune, 1 January, 3 April 1878.

44 New Northwest, 5 April 1878; Deseret News, 15 May 1878; Ogden Freeman, 30 July 1878.

45 Holiday supplement to Dillon Tribune, p. 1.

40 Deseret News, 1 May 1878; Salt Lake Herald, 29 March, 23 May 1878; Corinne City Minute Book, 1 April 1878; New Northwest, 17, 24 May; 21 June 1878; Salt Lake Tribune, 25 April 1878.

47 Ferris Letters, 22 February, 15 April, 21 July 1878.

48 Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 1878.

49 Salt Lake Tribune, 20 July 1878.

59 Ibid.

51 Salt Lake Herald, 26, 27 June 1878; New Northwest, 28 June 1878; Helena Herald, 27 June 1878; Ogden Freeman, 28 June 1878; Salt Lake Tribune, 21 August 1878.

52 Salt Lake Tribune, 8 August, 10 December 1878; Salt Lake Herald, 20 June 1878; Deseret News, 12 June 1878; Helena Herald, 22 August 1878; Salt Lake Independent, 6 January 1878; Ferris Letters, 10, 24 November 1878.

S3 Salt Lake Tribune, 3 April, 1 September 1878; Ogden Freeman, 30 August 1878; Idaho Statesman, 9 April .1878.

54 Salt Lake Tribune, 16 April 1879 .

55 Corinne City Minute Book, 4 August, 5 April, 16 August, 7 October, 8 November 1880.

09 Mayor J. W. Guthrie to Gov. E. H. Murray, 12 March 1880, no. 6942, and 22 March 1880, no. 6953, in Utah Territorial Papers, Utah State Archives; Corinne City Minute Book, 6 July 1880.

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57 U.S., Tenth Census of United States, 1880: Compendium (Washington, D.C., 1883), p. 309; H. L. A. Culmer, comp. and ed., Utah Directory and Gazetteer for 1879-80 (Salt Lake City, 1879), pp. 333-36.

93 Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), pp. 199-200.

59 Frederick E. Shearer, ed., The Pacific Tourist .

(New York, 1882-83), p. 180.

00 Warren B. Johnson, From the Pacific to the Atlantic, Being an Account of a Journey Overland . . . (Webster, Mass., 1887), 23 September 1882.

61 Andrew Jenson, Corinne Ward Manuscript History to 1930, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City; Lorenzo Stenhouse, Utah Gazetteer and Directory, 1888), pp. 5 0 - 5 1 ; Stenhouse & Co., Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93 (Salt Lake City, 1892), pp. 56-57.

92 Philip S. Robinson, Sinners and Saints . . Three Months among the Mormons (Boston, 1883), pp. 269-70.

93 U.S., Twelfth Census of United States, 1900: Report (Washington, D.C., 1901), 1:477.

64 D a l e L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (Indianapolis and New York: BobbsMerrill Co., 1947), p. 26; Wain Sutton, Utah: A Centennial History, 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1949), 2 : 8 3 1 ; David E. Miller, Great Salt Lake, Past and Present (Salt Lake City, 1949), pp. 38-41.

95 R. L. Polk & Co., Utah State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1912-13 (Salt Lake City, 1912), p. 74.

99 Lydia Walker Forsgren, History of Box Elder County (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1937), pp. 302-3.

97 Deseret News, 21 June 1943; Kate B. Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939-51), 8:141.

98 Cincinnati Times-Star, 29 July 1942. The 1970 Census showed Corinne with a population of 471.

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Index

Agricultural Park Track, 241 Ah Po, tobacconist, 250 Ah Tim, shipper, 246 Alger Reduction Works, 166 Alkali Blinders, baseball team, 231 Allen, Andrew Jackson, 132 Anti-Bigamy Act, 93, 102 Ashley, James M., Ohio congressman, 73,76 Auerbach, David, merchant, 51, 160, 243 Auerbach, F., and Brother, merchants, 49 Augur, C. C , general, 225 Aulbach, Adam, publisher, 14, 85, 88, 196, 197 Axtell, Samuel B., governor, 132, 272 Banking, firms engaged in, 53 Bank of Corinne, 53 Bank Saloon, 53 Bannock Indians, 273, 278 Barnes, Miss M. Q., teacher, 213, 214 Barrett, John, 14 Baseball, C. interest in, 228-32 Base Ball Club No. 24 of Corinne, 230 Baskin, Robert N., political activities of, 75,84,96, 116-17 Bassett, Royal M., U N R R president, 262, 296, 301 Battle of Bear River, 274, 285 Bayliss, Edward E., Presbyterian minister, 208-10, 240 Beadle, John Hanson: and B.Y.'s curse, 141; C. described by, 7, 8-9, 10, 11, 12; as editor/writer, 4, 5, 13, 14-18, 193, 194-96; and federal officials, 124; lawsuit and injuries of, 17-18; as lobbyist, 85, 86-87, 9 4 - 9 6 ; and politics, 99-100, 102-4; serenaded, 239;andZCMI,49 Bear River: and Indians, 280; and irrigation, 269, 288; sightseers to, 161; and transportation, 155, 156, 162, 169, 180 Bear River Canal Company, 311 Bear River City, 2, 5, 268

Bear River Hotel, 70 Bear River House, 52 Beer Springs, Idaho, LDS interest in, 170 Beidler, "X", Wells Fargo messenger, 261-62 Belshaw & Company, 166 Bernard, C , justice of the peace, 33 Berryman and Rodgers, freighters, 298 Bishop, Anna, singer, 238 Black, George A., acting governor, 78, 130, 138 Black, Jennie, 238 Black, Thomas J., justice of the peace and Mason, 33, 38, 42, 244 Blacks, population of in C , 71, 244-45 Blue Creek, 5 Bonneville, 6, 8 Bonneville, Benjamin L. E., fur trader, 6 Booths Ferry, 7 Bornstein, Julius, murder of, 251 Boukofsky, N., and founding of C , 7 Bowers, M. C , deputy marshal, 11 Box Elder Club, baseball team, 229 Box Elder County: C. opposed taxation by, 133-34; and LDS church, 133, 137; Mormon control of, 73; population of, 72; probate court of, 33 ; roads and bridges for, 134â&#x20AC;&#x201D;36 Box Elder County Court, Mormon control of, 129-30 Bradford, F. J., physician, 242 Brass and String Band of Corinne, 239 Brigham City: and C , 6-7, 11, 12-13; cooperatives at, 3, 142-45; effects of railroad on, 2; population of, 71-72; and UNRR, 170, 171, 178, 182 Brigham City Cooperative Black Smith Shop, 183 Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Company, 143 Bronson, Mary, Presbyterian benefactor, 209 Brownsville Advertiser (Nebraska), C. described in, 72 Burgess, M. T., and founding of C , 7

321

Burnetts, cockfights at, 240 Burton, Richard F., visit of, to Utah, 80 Burton, Robert T., replacement of, as tax collector, 73 Butterbaugh, George, canal investor, 268 Cache Valley: charcoal from, 166; Mormon farmers of, 172, 262; and railroad, 169, 170, 172, 173, 181-82, 183 California and Montana Transportation Company, 50 Cannon, George Q.: and cooperative movement, 4 ; and Democratic party, 114, 115, 116; as Deseret News editor, 227; opposition of, to public schools, 217 Captain Tom, Indian chief, 274 Carpenter, G. S., captain, 283-84 Carpenter's Station, 184 Carson Register (Nevada), 197 Carter, Carrie, actress, 236 Carter's Dramatic Combination, 236 Cass, Oscar D . : bank of, 5 3 ; and July 4 celebration, 225; political activities of, 35,79,85,100 Catholic church, activities of, in C , 211 Central Hotel, 52, 69, 70, 283 Central Pacific Railroad, 2, 19, 160, 177, 180, 182, 275; and C , 3 2 , 4 4 , 8 8 , 260-61, 301, 306, 313; Chinese workers on, 245; earnings of, 6 5 ; effects of building of, 1, 3 - 4 ; and junction city, 18-22, 149, 170; lands and taxes of, 37, 55-56, 133, 134, 144, 215; and Montana trade, 23, 24, 25; and steamboats, 155, 165 Chamber of Commerce Association, 56-57 Chamberlain, Belle, lecture of, 239 Chapman, H. I., railroad promoter, 185, 186 Chicago Post, 78 Chicago Tribune, 86 Chinese: and C. Chinatown, 247-48, 249; culture and customs of, 247-48; and laundry work, 249-50; as merchants, 246; as miners, 246; number of, 71, 245-46; prejudice against, 250-52; and prostitutes, 249; as railroad workers, 245, 245 Chislett, John, opposed B.Y.'s ban on free public schools, 217-18 Christensen, Christen, reprimanded for buying from Gentiles, 145 Church, , Odd Fellow, 243

322

Corinne

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: public schools opposed by, 217-18; trading with Gentiles forbidden by, 145-47. See also Mormons, Brigham Young Church of Zion (Godbeite), 98 Cincinnati Commercial, 4, 13 Cincinnati Red Stockings, 229 Cincinnati Times-Star, 312-13 City of Corinne: building of, 159, 160, 161, 234; as freighter, 162, 163, 164, 315; owners of, 165, 167-68; rechristened General Garfield, 168, 168; tours on, 226 Civic Association, 225 Clagett, W. H., Montana territorial delegate, 227 Clark, S. H. H , agent for Jay Gould, 305 Clawson, C. C , 70 Clayton, William: and C , 13, 78; and Godbeites, 98; opinion of, on federal officials, 124, 125; as Z C M I official, 4 Clinton, Jeter, and wharf site, 158, 160 Clipperton, W. H , attorney, 242 Closser, Ettie, teacher and singer, 214, 216,238 Closser's House, hotel, 53 Codman, John, C. described by, 68, 70, 71,212 Cole, S. N., banker, 53 Coleman, Samuel, steamship launched by, 157 Colfax, Schuyler, vice-president, 94, 113, 123 Connor City, proposed name of C , 7 Connor, Patrick E.: at C. party, 236; and military, 127, 274; and mining, 314; and politics, 73, 103; and transportation, 85, 155, 175, 176 Conway, E. P., merchant, 158, 233 Cooke, Jay, C. visitor, 42 Cooke, W. S., publisher, 200 Cordelia, V., 39 Corinne, 8, 10, 77, 97, 107, 137, 146, 156, 199, 296, 311,313; arms and militia for, 95, 127-29; blacks in, 244-45; bridges and roads for, 13436; canal proposed for, 8 5 - 8 8 ; cemetery in, 59â&#x20AC;&#x201D;60; city government of, 31, 32-40, 215; Chinese in, 244-52; churches in, 2 0 3 - 1 1 ; civic improvements in, 5 7 - 6 0 ; descriptions of, 65-70; divorce machine at, 242-43; demise of, 169, 185, 263, 3 0 8 - 1 3 ; and freighting, 23-26, 181, 259, 26267, 298-99, 303, 3 0 5 - 9 ; and junction

city, 19-22, 148-49; and law enforcement, 36, 37, 40-43 ; and Liberal party, 102-6; market at, 142-48; naming of, 8 - 9 ; new county sought for, 138; newspapers of, 193-203; population of, 71-72, 310, 3 1 1 ; and property, 55-56, 66; as proposed U. T. capital, 77-80; and railroads, 149-50, 169, 171-77, 180, 184, 185, 186-87, 2 6 0 - 6 1 ; schools in, 213-19; site of, 16, 2 2 - 2 3 ; social, athletic, and cultural activities at, 223-41, 243 ; and steamship, 158, 161, 167 Corinne Agricultural and Parks Association, 241 Corinne and Bear River Valley Immigration Society, 270-71 Corinne & Malad Irrigation & Manufacturing Canal Co., 268, 270 Corinne, Bear River, and Salt Lake Canal Company, 86 Corinne Board of Trade, 134 Corinne Club, baseball team, 228, 231 Corinne Daily Mail: and agriculture, 271; and Box Elder County taxes, 134; and C , 54, 135, 166, 168, 264, 265, 267, 287; and Chinese, 247, 248, 250, 251; and churches, 203, 212; and doctors, 242; and Governor Axtell, 132; history of, 200-202; and Indians, 278, 281, 284; and Lee trial, 282; and Liberal party, 117; and Mormons, 137,145,147,148,235,243,266; and Reporter, 193; and schools, 2 1 6 17, 218; and social, athletic, and cultural activities, 232, 234, 237, 239; and UNRR, 183, 260-61, 262 Corinne House, hotel, 53 Corinne Journal: founding of, 197; and Liberal party, 108, 110; and tourists, 160; and steamship, 160-61; and woman suffrage, 111 Corinne Mining District, 55 Corinne Opera House, 232-40, 233 Corinne Opera House Association, 233 Corinne Record (Gazette) : and C , 3 0 2 - 3 ; history of, 2 0 2 - 3 ; and Indians, 304; and railroad, 301 Corinne Reporter: and C , 55, 57-59, 6 5 - 6 7 , 7 2 , 7 9 , 136; and Chinese, 247; and churches, 212; and federal government, 124-25, 131; and freighting, 46, 184; history of, 47, 141, 183, 197-200; and irrigation, 270; and July 4, 226; and law, 4 1 , 139-40; and merchandising, 52, 5 5 ; and Mormons, 145, 272, 314; and politics, 37-39, 83, 107-8, 110-12, 113-14, 115, 116; and railroads, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176,

184; and schools, 215; and Soda Springs, 169; and steamers, 161, 164â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 65, 167 Corinne School District, 214-15 Corinne Seminary, Methodist school, 214 Corinne Serenading Club, 238 Corinne Steam Navigation Company, 158-59 Couldock, C. W., actor, 236 Couldock, Eliza, actress, 236 Crabb, Joseph, city councilor, 12 Cragin bill, 93 Credit Mobilier scandal, 175 Creighton, , freighter, 49-50, 51 Creighton and Munro, freighters, 46, 49-50 Creighton, Harry, purchase of first C. lot by, 223 Creighton, J. A., commission office of, 263 Crittenden, Lyman, Presbyterian minister, 210 Crocker, Charles, C. property of, 56 Crofutt, George A., C. described by, 67-68 Croxall and Olsen's band, 224 Cullom bill, 93-96 Cullom, Shelby M., Illinois congressman, 93 Custer, George, death of, 305 Damon, W. D., Methodist minister, 72, 207,214 Davidson, , Odd Fellow, 243 Danilson, William H., Indian agent, 275.

279-80, 281, 285 de Hiibner, Baron, traveler in C , 68, 69, 70-71, 198,277 DeMars, Louis, interpreter, 283 Democratic party, organization of, 113, 114-15 Denver News, 164, 171, 173 Denver Tribune, 270 Deseret News: and Beadle, 1 8 ; a n d C 12, 1 3 - 1 4 , 2 1 , 2 4 , 2 5 , 5 9 , 2 6 3 , 3 0 2 , 308, 312; and Indians, 278, 279, 284-85, 304-5 ; legal and political matters in, 76,84, 105, 106, 139; and Mormons, 126-27, 145, 265, 280, 312 ; and newspapers, 200, 202, 203 ; and railroads, 1, 2-3, 20, 21, 184, 259, 295 ; and recreation, 227, 229; and schools, 218; and steamship, 167 Diamond Q, billiard hall, 41

Index

323

Diamond R Company, freighters, 41, 46, 50, 181,263 Diamond R Overland Express, merger involving, 46 Diefendorf, Fox, steamship and railroad promoter, 159, 160, 163, 165, 167, 176 Dillon, Sidney, and Montana railroad, 259-60,300,301,306 Dodge, George W., Indian agent, 277 Dodge, Grenville, and UNRR, 169 Dowling, P. J., Catholic priest, 211 Drake, Thomas L., U. T. justice, 15 Dunn, Ballard S., Episcopal priest, 204-5 Dunraven, Earl of, in C , 70 Durrani, Thomas C , U P official, 19 Echo, railroad town, 2, 5 Echoes, Ogden baseball team, 231 Eddy, J. M., U P agent, 6 Eldredge and Clawson, merchants, 4 Elleard, Charles M., and freighting, 169 Elliott, Orson Hyde: and C. politics, 32, 38; suit of, against Beadle, 17; and theft case, 139 Ellis, W. N., and steamships, 159 Emery, George W., governor, and Indian scare, 283, 284, 287, 304 Ennea baseball team, 229, 230 Episcopal church, activities of, in C , 203-5 Eureka Club, baseball team, 228 Farini, , musician, 238 Farmer, J. D., merchant, 51 Farr, Lorin, and UNRR, 174, 182 Far West Freighting Company, 50, 169 Faust, Henry Jacob, LDS bishop in C , 213 Ferrell, Thomas J., horse breeder, 266 Ferris, Margaret, descriptions of C. and Mormons by, 249-50, 306-7, 308, 309 Field, W. T., bank cashier, 53 Fitch, , school built by, 214 Fitch, A. M., Bear River bridge of, 225 Fitzgerald, A. J., C. councilor, 33 Foley, J. V., Catholic priest, 211 Foote, George W., Episcopal priest, 204 Fort Benton, 186 Fort Hall: establishment of, 273; and Indians, 279, 285; and railroad, 185, 186, 260 Franklin, Idaho: and Montana trade, 259, 260, 263-67, 272; and railroad, 174, 182-84, 296-99, 301-3, 306-7

324

Corinne

Freighting, 44, 44-49, 58 Froiseth, B. A. M., mapmaker, 67 Frost and Cole, saloon, 7 Garfield, James A., and C. steamship, 168 Garrison & Wyatt, freighters, 46 Garrison, Emma, feminist, 112 Gaston, J. A., Presbyterian worker, 208 General Garfield, steamship, 168, 168 Gentile Sun, proposed Toohy newspaper, 199 Gerrish, John H., C. councilor, 33 Gilbert & Sons, merchants, 50 Gillespie, Mrs. S.S., 211 Gillespie, S. S., Presbyterian minister, 210-11 Gilmer & Salisbury, stage line, 43, 49, 303 Gilmer, J. T., stage business of, 48 Gilmore, , Brigham City businessman, 7 Glascott, Mrs. , singer, 238 Glassner, H , loss of horses by, 166 Glockner, A. B., Methodist minister, 208 Godbeites: and Liberal party, 101, 102-4, 107-11, 118; as Mormon schism, 9 7 - 9 9 ; polygamy of, 96, 108, 111; and Salt Lake Tribune, 194 Godbe, William S., schismatic Mormon leader, 97-98, 103, 110 Goff, George W., and C. smelter, 166 Goldberg, Gumpert, merchant, 51 Good Templars, 243 Gould, A. S., and Republican party, 113-14 Gould, Jay, railroad entrepreneur, 186, 300-301, 305 Graham, John W.: as C. official, 33, 38, 56; as physician, 41, 242, 248; and Presbyterian worker, 208, 209; as promoter, 159, 268 Graham, Maurice and Co., freighters, 24 Grant, Ulysses S.: and Cullom bill, 94; federal appointees of, 126, 132,314; as Methodist trustee, 126; nomination of, 113; policy of, toward Mormons, 123; and Utah politics, 73, 82 Great Salt Lake, steamships on, 155, 157,768 Great Western Minstrel Troupe, 238 Greeley, Horace, C. visitor, 42 Green and Alexander, saloon, 7 Greene, C. B., and opera house, 233

Greenwald, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;, Odd Fellow, 243 Greenwald, Lillie, singer, 238 Guthrie, J. W.: business interests of, 51, 53, 54, 298, 307, 3 1 1 ; as C. official, 83, 310; property of, 56 Guthrie, J. W., and Company, bank, 53, 54 Hadley, H , dentist, 242 Hardenbrook, Allen, justice of the peace and businessman, 38, 51 Harnish, J. Q., marshal and baseball captain, 36, 228 Harris, Alex, freighter, 265 Harrison, E. L. T., Godbeite leader, 97, 103, 104 Harrisville, as junction city, 148-49 Hartsough, Lewis, Methodist minister, 205, 206 Haskins, T. W., Episcopal priest, 205 Hauser, Samuel T., and railroad, 177-78 Hawley, Cyrus M., U. T. justice, 100, 125, 128, 130,239-40 Hayden, Ferdinand V., expedition of, 174 Heckman, H. H , principal, 216 Hedges, Cornelius, judge, 185 Heffernan, Joseph J., general, 166 Heffleman, Mary E., Presbyterian teacher, 210 Helena Gazette, 199 Helena Herald: and C , 25, 238, 199; and Chinese, 176, 248; and railroads, 174, 175, 177, 184, 260, 297, 306; and travel to Montana, 49, 246 Heller, Thomas, and cattle stealing, 139 Hering, R., and railroad, 174 Hewins, Homer, violinist, 239 Higgins, C. W., physician, 242 Hill, Dan, freighter, 265 Hill, George W., LDS missionary to Indians, 280, 283, 285, 304 Hoffman, L., shopkeeper, 177 Holladay, Ben, stage operations of, 48 Hollister, O. J.: and Box Elder County taxes, 133-34; as lobbyist, 82, 8 5 ; political offices of, 13, 73, 132, 250; and political parties, 104, 113-14; and railroad, 175 Holmes, , polygamy lecture of, 239 Hooper, William H : and C. canal, 88; debate of, 2 2 7; and polygamy, 126; and press, 198; and U N R R , 295 ; votes for, 101, 105

House, Hiram, C. councilor and businessman, 33, 54-55, 56, 59, 186, 227 House, J. E., C. plat recorded by, 32 House, Sam, canal investor, 268 Howe, J. E., U P chief engineer, 11 Howe, Samuel, C. councilor and steamship commander, 33, 58, 158, 159, 162-63 Howes, Mrs. , dance hosted by, 236 Hughes, H , LDS bishop, 144 Hughes, Melancthon, Presbyterian minister, 208 Huntoon, Miss , teacher, 213, 214 Hurlbut Brothers, merchants, 49 Hurlbut, F., C. councilor, 33 Hurlbut, H. E., mayor, 43 Hussey, Dohler, and Company, bankers, 53 Hussey, Warren, banker, 53 Huyck, O. D., editor and publisher, 194-95, 196 Hyde, Oliver, steam wagon of, 163-64 Hyndman, William, attorney, 113, 242 Idaho, proposed annexation of U. T. to, 73-76 Idaho Statesman: and Beadle, 195; and C , 15, 22, 26; and Indians, 280; and legal affairs in Utah, 94, 132, 282 ; and railroads, 171, 260; and U.T. annexation plan, 75-76 Independence Day, celebrations of, at C , 225-28 Independent party, founding of, 101 Indians, fear of, in C , 304-5 Industries, types of, in C , 54â&#x20AC;&#x201D;55 International, hotel, 52 Ivins, Stanley S., and LDS views of education, 217 Jackson, Sheldon, Presbyterian minister, 208,209,210 Jacobs, H. S., City of Corinne purchased by, 167 Jameson, J. M., Methodist minister, 208, 227 Jennings, William, merchant, 4, 98 Joe, Indian chief, 279 Johns, William, and U. T. militia, 127 Johns, W. M., Liberal leader, 108 Johnson, E. P.: as attorney, 242; and cattle stealing, 139; church and fraternal activities of, 208, 243, 244;

Index

325

Irish jig of, 236; and Liberal party, 108; as mayor, 283, 287; oration of, 224; and steamship, 158, 159 Johnson, S. S., publisher, 200 Johnson, Warren B., walking tour of, 310 Johnston, John M., gas works of, 40 Jones, , lecture of, 239 Journal of Commerce (Chicago), 302 Kahn, Morris, prisoner, 13 Kahn, S., Liberal leader, 103 Kanady, N., deputy marshal, 36 Kate Connor, steamship, 126, 155, 157, 164 Keepapitchinin: and arms for C , 95-96; and C. celebrations, 226; and elections, 101-2; and Godbeites, 98 Kelly, Edward, Catholic priest, 211 Kelsey, Eli B., Godbeite leader, 97 Kelton, effect of railroad on, 186 Kennady Fast Freight and Express Company, 51 Kennedy, George S., freighter, 260, 263, 264, 297 Kenney, William, marshal, 11 Kennington, James, army captain, 283 Kenyon, Frank, newspaperman, 197 Kiesel, Fred J., businesses of, 50-51, 265, 307 Kiesel, Fred J., Company, 51, 303 Kimball and Lawrence, freighting wagons of, 44 Kimball, D. P., and freighting, 169 Kimball, Heber C , children and school of, 17, 217 Kinney, Edward, robbery victim, 13 Kirkendall, Hugh, wagonmaster, 46 Kline, Miss , singing class of, 237 Knight, A. B.: and C. celebration, 227; and railroad, 178 Kuhn, A., and Brothers, merchants, 51, 52 Kupfer, John, C. councilor, 33, 35 Lake Point, and steamships, 157â&#x20AC;&#x201D;58, 163, 165 Lake View Cemetery, 40 Lake View Track, 241 Langrishe, Jack, acting company of, 236 Langsdorf, J. M., marshal and Odd Fellow, 36, 243 Larsen, Magnus, LDS dissident, 146

326

Corinne

Larsen, Paul, LDS dissident, 146 Laseur, Louis, and freighting, 266-67 Lawrence, Henry W., Godbeite, opposed statehood, 84, 111 Lee, John D., trial of, 282, 316 Lees, S. J., tent of, 35 Leslie's Magazine, 302 Liberal party: decline of, 116-18; factions within, 107-11; founding of, 102-6, 314; platform of, 108; and national parties, 113, 115; statehood opposed by, 83, 84; and woman suffrage, 112 Lin Sow, tobacconist, 250 Logan, railroads and freighting in, 172, 173, 181, 182 Loveland, Chester, C. census by, 72 Lucin Cutoff, completion of, 312 Lyons, George, and freighting, 266 Lyne, Thomas A., actor, 236 Ma Choy, wedding of, 248 McCabe, C. C , Methodist chaplain, 206, 207 McCabe, J. A., councilor, 12 McCormick & Hardenbrook, freighters, 51,265,303,307 McCormick, John, freighter, 51 McCutcheon, John H , attorney, 242 McKean, James B., chief justice of U. T., 129-30, 131, 132,200 McKenzie, D., railroad engineer, 170 McKinney, A. M., physician, 242 McLaughlin, John, C. councilor, 12 Maclay, E. G., freighter, 50 Maclay, E. G , Freighting Company (Diamond R ) , 50 McNutt, J. W., C. councilor and merchant, 33, 49 Majors, Alexander, father-in-law of Toohy, 199 Majors, Flora, wife of Toohy, 199 Malad Irrigation Company, 267-70 Malsh, Julius, C. councilor, 33, 43 Mann, S. A., and woman suffrage, 101 Marion, LePetite, actress, 236 Marley, James, prisoner, 13 Marshall, John W., lecture of, 239 Martin, R., and steamship, 159 Martin, Richard, cattle stolen by, 139 Martineau, James H., surveyor, 172, 181-82 Masonic House, hotel, 53 Masons, 243-44

Maughan, John H , LDS bishop, 145-46 Maxwell, George R.: criticism of, 200; as general, 125 ; and Liberal patry, 103-5,109, 115-16; oration of, 225; and Republican party, 113-14 Meacham, F., and founding of C , 7 Merchandising, 49-52 Merrick, Al, newspaperman, 197 Merrill, M. W., and railroad, 179-80 Merritt, H. C , slaughterhouse of, 310 Methodist church (MethodistEpiscopal), activities of, in C , 205-8, 206,214 Metropolitan hotel, 52, 66, 70 Millennial Star, 2 Mining, 81,97, 155 Minturn, Mrs. , Episcopal donor, 204 Missoula Pioneer, 76-77 Monheim, Henry, architect, 233 Monroe, Thomas M., wagonmaster, 46 Montana: freighting to, 22-26, 259, 262; and railroad, 184, 185, 296, 299, 300-301,306 Montana Fast Freight and Express Line, 46 Montana Gazette, 177 Montana Street, 34 Montanian, 171, 197 Montgomery House, hotel, 53 Montgomery, Minnie, singer, 238 Moore, Eugene, marshal, 42-43 Mormons: at C , 213, 310, 312; and commerce, 142-48, 155, 265; and federal officials, 124; and Godbeites, 98; and Indians, 275, 277, 278, 2 8 0 81, 282, 283, 288; political control of, 99-102, 105, 108, 129-30, 133, 136, 314; and polygamy, 93-96; and railroad, 169-74, 178, 182, 183, 260; reaction of, to proposed U. T. changes, 76, 78; theocracy of, 81, 83, 84, 213 Mountain Meadow Massacre, 282, 284 Munro, W. H.: as Episcopal vestryman, 205; and freighting, 4 9 - 5 0 ; as mayor, 33, 95 Murray, E. H , and return of guns from C , 310 Musser, A. Milton, LDS correspondent, 169 Myers, Horace W., editor, 132, 200 National party, short-lived Liberal group, 83, 84

Nauvoo Legion, and Wooden Gun Rebellion, 127-28 Neely, William, LDS official, 269 Nevada, proposed U. T. border changes

and,75 New Movement. See Godbeites New Northwest (Deer Lodge, Montana) : and C , 303; and railroads, 295-96, 300 New York Herald: and C , 9, 12, 22; and Liberal party, 111; and Utah affairs, 4, 5, 82, 130, 226, 286 New York Post, 17 New York Tribune: and C , 67, 69-70, 71, 78, 308; and Liberal party, 111; and transportation, 165, 171; and Utah affairs, 4, 15, 82-83, 84, 95, 125, 130, 131,203 New York World, 77-78 News (Danbury, Connecticut), 71 Newman, J. P., Methodist minister, 126 Nichols, Alvin, LDS bishop, 274 Nichols, C. C , Methodist chaplain, 206 Northern Pacific Railroad, 174, 260, 296 Noyes, Ajax, and freighting, 263 Odd Fellows, 243 Ogden: description of, 66; as junction city, 18-22, 148-49, 170; and railroads, 2, 5, 155, 169 Ogden & Montana Railroad. See Utah and Northern Railroad Ogden & Northwestern Railroad.

See Utah and Northern Railroad Ogden Dramatic Company, 236 Ogden Freeman: criticism of, 201; and 'trade, 148; and U N R R , 299, 300-301 Ogden Junction: and C , 68, 169, 184, 269, 284; criticism of, 193, 197; editor of, 201; and Governor Axtell, 132 ; and junction city, 149; and UNRR, 171, 182, 260, 297; and U . T . changes, 76, 79 Olsen's band, 234 Omaha Herald, 195, 285-86 Omaha Republican, 158 O'Neil, John, C. councilor, 7, 9, 12 O'Neill, Pat, hotelkeeper, 309 Ong Wah, labor agent, 246 Opera House Association, 215 Oriental Powder Company, 223 Orr, J. M., Liberal party leader, 103 Osceola Saloon, 41 Pacific Railroad Act, 7, 20-21

Index

327

Pacific Tourist, 70, 71,310 Packer, Jonathan T., jail guard, 13 Paiute Indians, 277 Panic of 1873, 149, 185 Paschal, , fight involving, 41, 43 Patterson, , constable, 31 Penrose, Charles W., editor, 201 People's party, 101, 105, 114, 115 Pierce, Gustavus M., Methodist minister, 206 Pike, Edward, and C. newspapers, 202 Pike, John W., publisher, 200, 202 Pioneer, schooner, 155, 157 Pioneer Club, baseball team, 228 Pioneer Hook and Ladder Company of Corinne, 59 Pioneer's Association of Corinne, 223 Plassman, Martha, C. described by, 70 Pluribustah, schooner, 155, 157 Pocatello, Indian chief, 277, 287; tribe of, 276 Police News (Boston), 252 Polygamy: arrest for, 131; C. ordinance against, 35; debate on, 126; effects of, on Liberals, 103-4, 107-11; federal officials against, 123, 130; national reaction to, 80, 81, 82; proposed legislation against, 93-96 Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake Railroad, 185, 186 Portland, Salt Lake, and South Pass Railroad, 185-87 Pratt, Orson, LDS leader, 32, 126 Presbyterian church, activities of, in C , 208-11 Preston, William B., LDS bishop, 170 Printers' Publishing Company, 14 Promontory, 2, 5, 124 Prout, H. H , Episcopal priest, 205 Pyper, A. C , merchant, 4 Queen of Corinne, yacht, 157 Qui Tong Kee & Company, shippers, 246 Ransohoff and Company, merchants, 51 Ransohoff, N. S., merchant, 4, 7, 159, 175,236 Rawlins, John A., secretary of war, 125 Reeder, C. Y., freighter, 298 Regel, Louis, merchant, 51 Reggel, , Odd Fellow, 243 Reinhardt, Richard, C. described by, 302 Republican party, organizing of, in U. T., 113-14, 115

328

Corinne

, lecture of, 239 Reynolds, Reynolds, C. A., and founding of C , 7 Richardson, A. D., book donor, 240 Richardson, Joseph, railroad entrepreneur, 170, 172, 180-81, 184, 259, 260, 262, 295, 297, 301, 305 Ring Chang, shooting by, 251 Robinson, J. B., actor, 237 Robinson, Phil, English traveler, 311 Rocky Mountain Female Academy, 210 Rocky Mountain Vocalists of Montana, 238 Royal Yeddo Troupe, 237 Ryan, Daniel D., marshal, 40-43, 309-10 Sacramento Union: comments of, on Utah, 5, 101; and Indian scare, 286-87 Sagwitch, Shoshoni chief, 285 St. Clair, Dr., actor, 237 Salisbury, Munroe, stage business of, 48 Salt Lake Grammar School, branch of at C , 213 Salt Lake Herald: and baseball, 229; and cattle stealing, 139-40; and C , 14, 66, 68, 78-79, 267, 298, 3 0 2 - 3 ; a n d C . newspapers, 132, 164, 197, 198, 200, 202, 203; and freighting, 46; and Huyck, 195 ; and Indians, 281, 284, 287, 304, 305; and Liberal party, 103, 105, 106, 110, 117; and national political parties, 113-14, 115; and railroads, 180, 297, 303 ; and steamer, 160, 162-63, 167; and Toohy, 141; and Wooden Gun Rebellion, 128 Salt Lake Independent, 309 Salt Lake Journal, 200 Salt Lake Navigation Company, 226 Salt Lake Regional Land Office, 56 Salt Lake Reporter, 14 Salt Lake Telegraph: and Beadle, 18; and C., 6, 9, 10-11, 13, 14,21,85, 141; editorial bias of, 195 ; and U. T. borders, 73 Salt Lake Times, 116,200 Salt Lake Tribune: anti-Mormonism of, 193-94, 197, 198, 272, 278, 284, 313; and C , 67, 138, 226, 307, 308; and C. newspapers, 200, 202; and freighting, 263, 298, 303; and Godbeites, 104, 107-8 ; and Indian scare, 283; and Lee trial, 282; and Liberal party, 110, 116, 117; and Masons, 243 ; and transportation, 160, 171, 299; and woman suffrage, 112 Sanderson, Silas W., C. property of, 56

San Francisco Chronicle, 286 Sanger, Henry, smelter owner, 166 Saul, S. S., newspaper owner, 14 Sawyer, A. G , and Republican party, 113 Sawyer, Oscar G., editor, 194 Schodde, Henry, wagonmaster, 46 Schoonover, William, and cattle stealing, 139 Schultz, , and C. jail, 36 Sewell, S. G., justice of the peace and Odd Fellow, 31,243 Shaffer, J. Wilson: appointment of, as U. T. governor, 125; and C , 39, 95 : and Cullom bill, 94; death of, 125 ; and judicial affairs, 126, 129; Mormon militia activity forbidden by, 127-28 Shearman, William H , Godbeite leader, 97,99 Shepherd, J. C , C. councilor, 12 Sheridan, Philip H , visit of, to Utah, 287 Shipley, Taylor, marshal, 41-42 Short, David R., constable and baseball captain, 13,228 Shoshoni Indians, 286; and C , 275-76, 277; locations of, 272-73, 279; massacre of, 274; and Mormons, 279, 280-81, 285; treaty affecting, 274 Silver Star hotel, 52 Sisson and Wallace, merchants, 51 Smith, George A., LDS leader, 32, 196 Smith, Hyrum, assault of, on Beadle.

17-18 Smith, Samuel, Brigham City judge, 17, 179-80 Smith, William ("English Bill"), prisoner, 13 Snow, Lorenzo, and LDS co-ops, 3, 143, 144 Soda Springs, Idaho, and U N R R , 169, 173,184,260 Southern Pacific Railroad, 312 Spicer, Wells, attorney, 11, 158, 159 Spiers, Robert, and Chinese, 247 Springfield Republican, 308 Stagecoaching, 48, 48 Stalker, Alex, Liberal Mormon, 117 Stanford, Leland, and junction city, 21 Stansbury, Howard, survey of, 22 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, suffrage lecture of, 111 Stateler, L. B., Methodist minister, 68-69, 70

Stein, Nat: and Episcopal church, 204-5; poems of, 224, 226-27, 277; and steamers, 159 Stenhouse, Mrs. T. B. H , antipolygamy lectures of, 198,239 Stenhouse, T. B. H . : characterized by Beadle, 17; and Godbeites, 98; and Ogden Telegraph, 24 Stewart, William M., Nevada senator, 75 Stover, , dentist, 242 Strauss, , Odd Fellow, 243 Strickland, O. F., territorial justice, 125, 130 Stuart, Granville, and U N R R , 299 Stubblefield, A., saloonkeeper, 7 Swiss Bell Ringers, 238 -, catcher, 228, 229-30 Taylor, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Taylor, A. W., powdermaker, 223 Taylor, Bayard, C. described by, 69-70, 71 Taylor, John, LDS leader, 196, 306 Thatcher, George W., U N R R superintendent, 301 Thatcher, Moses, LDS church and business leader, 178, 179,227 Thomas, Cyrus, and Hayden expedition.

88 Tibbals, Sam L., C. councilor and saloon owner, 33, 158,216 Tip, John, wedding of, 248 Tolan & Campbell, business license of, 37 Tong Hing, businessman, 248 Toohy, Dennis J.: as attorney, 34-35, 242; biographical data on, 196, 199; boosterism of, 223-24; and Box Elder County taxes, 133; and C. affairs, 38-39, 74, 78, 79-80, 136, 138; castigation of, 141; and cattle stealing, 139; and cultural and recreational activities, 226, 227-28, 233, 234, 237, 238, 240, 2 4 1 ; as editor and publisher, 47, 116, 196-200; and Governor Axtell, 132; and Indians, 278; and irrigation, 268; and minorities, 245, 247, 249, 2 5 0 - 5 1 ; and politics, 9 9 100, 102-4, 107-10, 112, 113-14; and railroads, 171-73, 175-79, 182; and schools, 213, 214-16; and smelter, 165-66; speeches of, 125, 210; and statehood, 8 3 - 8 4 ; and steamers, 159, 164-65; and Utah war rumors, 130-31 Toponce, Alexander, businessman and C. supervisor, 37, 38, 139, 140, 175, 268,310 Toponce, Mrs. Alexander, party of, 236

Index

329

Tourtellotte, J. E., superintendent of Indian Affairs, 275 Treaty of Box Elder, 274 Trumbo, J. K., businessman, 142, 143 Trumbull, Lyman, Illinois senator, 86, 123 Tullidge, Edward W., Godbeite leader, 97 Tung Yuen & Co., cigar factory, 250 Tuttle, Daniel S., Episcopal bishop, 70, 204, 205 Twain, Mark, visit of, to Utah, 80 Tyrolean Troupe, musical group, 238 Uintah, railroad town, 2 Uintah House, hotel, 52, 66 Union Colony Committee of New York, 85 Union Pacific Railroad, 2,19; and Bonneville, 6; and C. canal, 88; effects of building of, 1-2, 3 - 4 ; and junction city, 18-22, 149, 170; and Montana trade, 23; and rail routes to north, 185, 186, 260, 301, 302, 306, 307, 309, 316; and site of C , 7-11 Union party, reorganized Liberal group, 115 Union Sabbath School, 209 Utah and Northern Railroad, 179, 300; construction of, 302, 305-6; effects of, on C , 47, 48, 51, 72; and Montana trade, 305â&#x20AC;&#x201D;7, 309; organization of, 301,303 Utah Central Railroad: building of, 20, 155; excursions on, 167,224,226; Mormon control of, 315 ; and steamers, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165 Utah, Idaho, and Montana Railroad, 174-75, 176, 178, 185-86, 315 Utah Journal, 310-11 Utah Magazine, Godbeite publication, 97,98 Utah Mining Journal: and co-ops, 147; and horse racing, 241; and Jack Mormons, 179; and politics and legal matters, 116, 139, 198, 242; purchase of, by Toohy, 199-200; and transportation, 167, 176 Utah Northern Railroad: beginnings of, 169-71; and C , 172, 183, 282; construction of, 172, 181, 184, 227, 264, 288, 297, 315; depot for, 263 ; finances of, 180, 262; and freighting, 171, 173, 298, 303; and Montana, 176-77, 296, 299-300; problems of, 295, 299, 306; sale of, 305 Utah Public Utilities Commission, 313

330

Corinne

Utah Reporter, 16; anti-Mormonism of, 15-18, 313-14; and Beadle, 14; boosterism of, 15,26; and charity, 131; and Chinese, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251; and churches and schools, 204, 205, 207, 209, 212, 213; and C. politics, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36; and cultural and recreational activities, 223, 228-31, 232, 234, 236, 240; and divorces, 242; history of, 193-96; and immigration and canal project, 85-86, 87, 8 8 ; and junction city, 21-22, 149; and militia, 95, I 27, 128; and polygamy, 94, 95, 126, 131 ; and taxes, 133 ; and territorial politics, 73-76, 78-79, 82, 99-101, 103-6, 125-26; and trade, 24, 146-47; and transportation, 156, 157, 160; and Utah war rumors, 130â&#x20AC;&#x201D;31 Utah Territory: courts of, 129-30, 132; proposed border and capital changes for, 73-76, 77-80; public school bill defeated by legislature of, 218 VanPraag, H. A., merchant, 266 Vaughan, Vernon H., eovernor, 125, 127,128 Viola, schooner, 155, 157 Wahsatch, railroad town, 2, 5 Walker brothers, merchants, 4, 49, 97, 307 Walker, J. Robinson, statehood opposed by, 84 Walker, M. H., and C. founding, 7 Walker, S. S., and C. founding, 7 Walsh, Patrick, Catholic priest, 211 Washington Evening Star, 126-27 Watrous, , Odd Fellow, 243 Watts, H. H , publisher, 200 Wells, Daniel H., LDS leader and militia officer, 16, 127, 131, 202, 274 Wells Fargo Company, 48, 261-62 Wells, Nellie, teacher, 213 Western Hotel, 53 Wilhelm, Mrs. , school of, 214 Willard: baseball team of, 2 3 1 ; school at, 182 ; and transportation, 171, 172, 174 Williamson, J. A.: as C. mayor, 11, 12; and founding of C , 7-8, 273; and Methodist church, 207; political activities of, 73, 85, 86 Wilson, , publisher, 194 Wilson and Morton, bankers, 53 Wilson, Charles C , territorial justice, 126

Winschell, F. P., businessman, 36, 37 Woman suffrage, 100-101, 105, 111-12 Wooden Gun Rebellion, 127-29 Woods, George L., governor, and political parties, 109, 113 Woods, N. P., deputy U.S. marshal, 16 Woodson, A. E., and C. founding, 7 Woolley, Samuel, rebuke of, for trading with non-Mormons, 97-98 Worley, J. M., and C. founding, 7 Wright, , fight involving, 31 Wright, James, Indian agent, 279, 281 Wright, O. S., and cattle stealing, 139 Yee Wah, shipper, 246 Yeh Wah, John, laundry of, 252 Young, Ann Eliza, polygamy lecture of, 239 Young, Brigham: business tactics of, 50-51; and C , 13, 140-42, 165, 282, 288, 308; and charity, 131; and

co-ops, 3-5, 97-98, 142; death of, 131; finances of, 124; and freighting, 169; and Indians, 274, 280, 284, 285 ; and legal and political matters, 82, 96, 100, 105, 124, 130, 131; and newspapers, 15, 24, 201-2; political control of, 115, 129, 314; and railroads, 1, 19-20, 148-49, 170, 171, 172, 174, 182, 183; school financing opposed by, 217; visitors of, 123 Young, Brigham, Jr., 117, 133 Young Hing, shipper, 246 Young, John A., and non-Mormons, 124 Young, John W., transportation activities of, 20, 168, 170-71, 172, 173, 179, 180,259,262 Young, Seraph, first woman voter in Utah, 101 Young, Willard, West Point cadet, 198 Zabriskie, E. B., and C. founding, 7, 8 Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, 3-5, 49

Index

331

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