Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, Number 2, 1965

TORICAL UARTERLY SPRING, 1965

•

j . GRANT IVERSON, Salt Lake City, 1967 President

MRS. J U A N I T A B R O O K S , St. George, 1969

MRS. A. c. J E N S E N , Sandy, 1967

JACK GOODMAN, Salt Lake City, 1969 Vice-President EVERETT L. COOLEY, Salt Lake City Secretary

CLYDE L. MILLER, Secretary of State

Ex officio NICHOLAS G. MORGAN, Salt Lake City, 1969

MILTON c. ABRAMS, Smithfield, 1969 j . STERLING ANDERSON, Grantsville, 1967 DEAN R. BRIM H A L L , F r u i t a , 1969

HOWARD c. PRICE, J R . , Price, 1967

L. GLEN SNARR, Salt Lake City, 1967

EVERETT L. COOLEY, Director

T. H . JACOBSEN, State Archivist, Archives F. T. J O H N S O N , Records Manager, Archives MILLARD E. WILDE, Registrar, Military Records T h e U t a h State Historical Society is an organization devoted to the collection, preservation, a n d publication of U t a h a n d related history. I t was organized by publicspirited Utahns in 1897 for this purpose. I n fulfillment of its objectives, the Society publishes t h e Utah Historical Quarterly, which is distributed to its members with payment of a $5.00 annual membership fee. T h e Society also maintains a specialized research library of books, pamphlets, photographs, periodicals, microfilms, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts. Many of these items have come to the library as gifts. Donations are encouraged, for only through such means can the U t a h State Historical Society live u p to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

J O H N J A M E S . JR., Librarian MARGERY w . WARD, Associate Editor IRIS SCOTT, Business M a n a g e r T h e primary purpose of the Quarterly is t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of m a n u s c r i p t s , p h o t o graphs, and documents which relate or give a new interpretation to Utah's unique story.

Contributions of writers are solicited for the consideration of the editor. However, t h e editor assumes no responsibility for the return of manuscripts unaccompanied by return postage. Manuscripts and material for publications should be sent to the editor.

T h e U t a h State Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinions expressed by contributors.

T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class postage, paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h . Copyright 1965, U t a h State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84102.

SPRING, 1965

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V O L U M E 33

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NUMBER 2

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

e@mrib©[r^ SAMUEL PIERCE HOYT AND HIS H O M E ON THE WEBER

99

BY L Y M A N C. P E D E R S E N , J R .

FEDERAL PARK POLICY IN U T A H : T H E ESCALANTE NATIONAL M O N U M E N T CONTROVERSY OF 1935-1940

109

BY E L M O R. R I C H A R D S O N

WILL DEWEY IN UTAH EDITED BY C H A R L E S A. P O V L O V I C H , J R

134

UTAH'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE: T H E UTAH NATIONAL GUARD AND CAMP W. G. WILLIAMS, 1926-1965

BY T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R A N D LEONARD J. ARRINGTON

141

THE TURNER THESIS AND M O R M O N BEGINNINGS IN NEW YORK AND UTAH

BY A L E X A N D E R E V A N O F F

157

REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS

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174

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1

Dead Horse Point, now a Utah State Park, overlooking the Colorado River.

This area would have been included within the boundaries of the proposed Escalante National Monument.

UTAH TOURIST & PUBLICITY COUNCIL ( NORMAN VAN PELT)

EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ART EDITOR

L. COOLEY Margery W. Ward

EVERETT

_... Roy J. Olsen

C R A M P T O N , C. G R E G O R Y , Standing Up Country: The Canyon Lands of Utah and Arizona,

BY W . L. R U S H O

SACKS, B., Be It Enacted: Territory

of Arizona,

174

The Creation of the

BY G. H O M E R DURHAM

174

W A T S O N , M A R G A R E T G., Silver Theatre: Amusements of the Mining Frontier in Early Nevada,

1850-1864,

BY FLOYD MORGAN

176

T E R R E L L , J O H N U P T O N , Black Robe: The Life of Pierre-Jean De Smet, Missionary, Explorer

& Pioneer, BY ROBERT J . DWYER

177

K N E C H T , W I L L I A M L., a n d C R A W L E Y , P E T E R L., History of Brigham Young, 1847-

BOOKS REVIEWED

1867,

BY STANLEY S. IVINS

178

L E I G H , R U F U S W O O D , Nevada Place Names, Their Origin and Significance, BY EFFIE MONA MACK

179

K E N N E D Y , M I C H A E L S., ED., Cowboys and Cattlemen: A Roundup from Montana, The Magazine of Western History, BY HOWARD C PRICE, J R

179

C H I T T E N D E N , H I R A M M A R T I N , The Yellowstone National Park, BY MERRILL D. BEAL 180 BEEBEE, L U C I U S , The Central Pacific & The Southern Pacific Railroads, BY WALLACE D. FARNHAM

181

M U R B A R G E R , N E L L , Ghosts of the Adobe Walls: Human Interest and Historical Highlights from 400 Ghost Haunts of Old Arizona,

BY BERT M. FIREMAN

P O S N E R , E R N S T , American

182

State

Archives,

BY PHILIP P. MASON

183

C R A M P T O N , C. G R E G O R Y , The San Juan Canyon Historical Sites, BY O. DOCK MARSTON.... 184

Printed by ALPHABET PRINTING CO., Salt Lake City

SAMUEL PIERCE HOYT and his HOME on the WEBER

BY L Y M A N C. P E D E R S E N , J R .

Midway between Wanship and Coalville, in north central Utah, is the farming community of Hoytsville. A quarter of a mile south of the Hoytsville L.D.S. Chapel, between U.S. Highway 189 and the Weber River, stands the old Hoyt "mansion," which in its day was one of the most elegant homes in Utah. Its builder, Samuel Pierce Hoyt, was born November 21, 1807, in Chester, New Hampshire, the eldest of 11 children. In 1834 he married Emily Smith, sister of Judge Elias Smith and cousin to Joseph Smith. Through his wife, Hoyt was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Having passed through the Missouri persecutions, he moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, and then to Nashville, Iowa, where he earned a livelihood supplying wood for steamboats plying their trade on the Mississippi.

Mr. Pedersen, recent winner of the Freedoms Foundation George Washington Honor Medal, is presently a teaching assistant and completing studies toward a doctorate in American history at Brigham Young University. T h e author wishes to thank Mrs. E m m a Hoyt Stevens for the use of the photographs of Samuel Hoyt and his two wives which appear in this article.

Samuel Hoyt's three-story home on the Weber was begun in 1863 and was by a rock wall which enclosed about one and a half acres.

surrounded

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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Utah Historical Quarterly

According to Orson F. Whitney, when the Prophet Joseph Smith crossed the Mississippi River on June 22, 1844, hoping to flee to the West, Samuel Hoyt was among the number to greet him on the Iowa shore. At that time Hoyt supplied the prophet with money to complete his plans.1 This must be reconciled with the fact that the Times and Seasons for April 15, 1844, lists Samuel P. Hoyt, with Daniel Spencer, Joseph J. Woodbury, and others, as being called to serve a mission in Massachusetts.2 Little is known of Hoyt's activities until the year 1851. On March 1 of that year he joined a company under the leadership of Captain John Brown and departed for the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The company arrived in Utah on September 29, 1851. Within a very short time, Hoyt, among others, was called to join Anson Call's party then being formed to settle Fillmore. He joined the company and reached Fillmore in November 1851. For nine months the Hoyt family home had been a covered wagon.

Call's company settled on Chalk Creek, and within a short time not only cabins had been erected, but a gristmill and a sawmill as well. Hoyt became engaged in running a tannery and a dry goods store. His interest in civil affairs appears in the following letter to George A. Smith, dated November 25, 1851: W e have h a d o u r election in this city for county officers and who would have thought of my being elected Justice of the Peace for Millard County. I have circulated the petition for a post route through this place, a n d have got nearly one h u n d r e d signers to it. 3

A further duty requiring some time and patience was the job of feeding and then returning nine yoke of oxen Hoyt had borrowed in Great Salt Lake City to enable the Hoyt family to migrate to Fillmore.

On October 28, 1851, the legislature had named Fillmore as the site of the territorial capital, and in 1852 the erection of a rock and cement capitol was begun.4 Hoyt was placed in charge of the construction and dedicated his time and energy to the work. Crews were in charge of burning lime at night and quarrying rock during the day. Hoyt advanced money to bring glass, putty, and finishing nails from California. His letters and the reports of occasional visitors to Fillmore indicate Hoyt's activities in the building of the territorial capitol and also in other community mat1

Orson F . Whitney, History of Utah (4 vols., Salt Lake City, 1892-1904), IV, 303.

Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), April 15, 1844.

3 "Journal History" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), November 25, 1851.

4 Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1941), 250.

2

ters. George Woodward, in 1854, visited the settlement on Chalk Creek to assist in finishing the south wing of the capitol and wrote, "Brother S. P. Hoyt used his utmost exertion to have the necessary materials furnished." 5 T h e following year George A. Smith reported that Hoyt was prospering in "dry goods, groceries, and hardware." 6 During the famine of 1856, Hoyt drew from his supply of several thousand bushels of wheat and sustained a great many of the poor in Fillmore.

During the same year he married a second wife, Emma Burbidge, who mothered his 11 children. H e was also appointed Indian agent and Indian farmer for the Pahvant Tribe during this time. As agent, on one occasion, he saved the lives of two Indian children by purchasing them from their captors.

Hoyt's only living daughter, now in her late eighties, informed the writer that she recalled her father telling of the cuts on the neck of the Indian boy, Lucas, inflicted by his captors to force Hoyt into the sale. 7 A final note in the year 1856 reveals Hoyt's varied activities causing concern to at least one person. A certain "Brother Hoyet" wrote to President Brigham Young complaining of his partnership in the tannery business with Samuel P. Hoyt. T h e letter states:

Samuel Pierce Hoyt

Emily Smith Hoyt

I made the usual agreement between a capitalist on the one side and a mechanic on the other. He was to furnish the means to start the business and do a fair share of the work which in such cases is usually one half. I was afterward to pay him back from that half of the leather which belonged to me one half the capital he advanced. During two years he has not done to my knowledge one fortnight's work.8 B

"Journal History," December 25, 1854.

6

Ibid., December 24, 1855.

7 Interview with Mrs. Emma Hoyt Stevens, Samuel P. Hoyt's only surviving daughter, in Salt Lake City, February 17, 1963.

8 T h e writer of this letter cannot be identified. T h e letter is addressed to Brigham Young, and is dated January 1856 (L.D.S. Historian's Library).

Emma Burbidge Hoyt

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T h e activities and influence of Hoyt come again into focus from the journal of Anson Call concerning the tragic Gunnison massacre of 1853.

Call recorded: In July, 1853, I received a letter from T h o m a s King, one of my counselors, that he wished m e to return to Fillmore in consequence of the Indian W a r that h a d broken out in J u n e with Walker's b a n d in which some of the brethren h a d already been killed and much plundering done by the Indians in the Southern settlements. 9

Arriving in Fillmore, Call found the Pahvant Indians still friendly and assisting the settlers harvesting their grain. California immigrants, and particularly a company under a man named Hilliard, had done much to provoke Walker's band. In Fillmore, Hilliard told the settlers that he would kill any Indians coming into his camp, Pahvant or any other tribe.

T h e next morning Call was informed that three of the friendly Pahvants had been killed. Call, with Peter Robertson, Bishop Bartholomew, and Samuel P. Hoyt, trailed and overtook Hilliard's company, forcing them to return four rifles they h a d taken from the Pahvants. Pahvant warriors trailed and annoyed Hilliard's party for two or three weeks.10 O n October 16, John W. Gunnison, with his party of 60 men, including 30 soldiers, arrived in Fillmore. Gunnison needed $500 to continue his expedition. This was raised by Call through Samuel P. Hoyt. Gunnison then set out to survey Pahvant Lake, after which he planned to return to Great Salt Lake City for winter quarters. O n October 26 Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith returned to Fillmore with the news that Gunnison and seven others had been killed while camped on the Sevier. Call's party, including Hoyt, immediately rode to the scene of the massacre and buried six of the ill-fated travelers on the banks of the Sevier. According to Call's journal, the only remains to be found of Gunnison was his thigh bone.

I n 1860 several events took place that caused Sam Hoyt to make the decision to move to the Weber River. During the summer of that year, he expended a large sum of money and devoted much of his tireless energy in laying the foundation for a large flouring mill in Fillmore. In the course of time, he apparently became convinced that both the city council and certain members of the community were taking unfair advantage of him by placing obstacles in his path. O n December 1 of that year he wrote the following letter to President Brigham Young: D e a r Sir: I wish to lay before you the obstacles that have been thrown in the way since Bro. Kesler located my flouring mill site in Fillmore City.

0

"Journal History," October 26, 1853.

Anson Call, " T h e Life and Record of Anson Call" (typescript, U t a h State Historical Society), 4 7 - 4 9 .

10

Samuel Pierce Hoyt

103

Bro. Bartholomew has commenced erecting a flouring mill some six or eight rods below his old mill, laying the foundation across the creek leaving but a small arch for the water to pass through, with the calculation to t u r n the creek out of its chanel [sic] some considerable distance above my millsite or dam. H e also says that the d a m that I take the water out with to run any mill will have to be covered on account of the backwater that will prevent his mill from running, which will greatly damage me and will destroy all that I have done, leaving my mill race dry or nearly so. T h e City Council through their supervisor has instructed me to bridge an unreasonable amount of my mill race as I look at it, therefore I feel to ask your council in the matter, what to do and how to proceed. 1 1

Brigham Young's advice was forthcoming, "Go to Weber," he said, "they want and need a mill there." 12 Hoyt was convinced, and left Fillmore May 18, 1861, arriving on the Weber June 1. Hoyt's wagon load of heavy machinery broke down one of the first two bridges spanning the Weber River in Summit County. The Deseret News of May 29 commented on Hoyt's journey: Letter from Samuel P. Hoyt to Brigham Young, December 1, 1860 (L.D.S. Historian's Library).

Whitney, History of Utah, IV, 304.

L. C. PEDERSEN, JR.

The gristmill completed in 1862 in 1965 stands in ruins, but the grand home in the background is currently being "restored."

Utah Historical

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Quarterly

Within the past week, several gentlemen from Summit have called at our office and m a d e favorable reports of the progress of the settlements being m a d e on the Weber river, a n d its tributaries, in that newly organized county. T h e season there is not so far advanced as in this and adjoining valleys, but the settlers are confident of success in their efforts to turn those narrow vales into fruitful fields. T h e range for stock there is represented to be excellent, and the animals that were wintered in that region are said to be in fine condition. A good bridge has recently been built over the Weber some five or six miles below the m o u t h of Silver Creek, which although not so expensive and elegant as some which have been constructed in U t a h , Great Salt Lake and Weber counties, is pronounced a substantial structure by those who have crossed it. Another bridge is being built over the same stream a few miles above Silver Creek, which is shortly to be finished.

Several saw mills are either in progress of erection, or are to be commenced at an early day. Mr. S. P. Hoyt, of Fillmore, is now on his way thither with the machinery and necessary material for the building of a grist mill, which he designs to have in operation this season. Such improvements cannot fail to operate advantageously to the development of the resources of that part of the Territory, and the rapid growth and prosperity of the settlements that have been and will be formed in that county. 1 3

Although not the first settler in what came to be known as Hoytsville, 14 Samuel P. Hoyt without question did more than any other man to establish on a sound economic foundation the settlement which bears his name.

Hoyt's gristmill was comU T A H STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY pleted in 1862. In the spring of t h e following year, t h e ambitious pioneer made a trip to the Missouri with wool for the eastern markets, exchanging it for m a c h i n e r y , i n c l u d i n g an iron lathe which was reported to be the first one brought to Utah. 15 13

"Journal History," May 29, 1861.

See Jenson, Encyclopedic History, 345. The first settler in Hoytsville was Thomas Bradbury. He arrived there in 1859, the same year that Coalville was settled.

15 Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 2, 1914.

14

"A spiral staircase began a few feet from the east door and ascended through all three floors.

Original painting along this staircase may still

Rough-hewn timbers exposed during restoration reveal the careful craftsmanship with studding being morticed into top plate and knee brace being carefully notched into the studding.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

U p o n his r e t u r n , or shortly thereafter, work was commenced on the grand mansion which now stands northwest of the remains of the gristmill. T h e Deseret News of October 2, 1868, gives us more information on this r e m a r k a b l e structure and upon Hoyt's other activities:

O u r friend Samuel P. Hoyt, Esq., whose hospitalities we enjoyed a t Fillmore "on the move" in 1868, has m a d e his mark on the Weber at a point some three miles above Coalville. W h e n we saw him there in the Fall of 1860, [1861] himself and family were all t h a t constituted Hoytsville; tents and covered wagons were their comilies; [homilies?] their neighbors were the red m e n ; and primitive rudeness of the most crude description stalked abroad. A few years of well applied toil — the capital of the Mormon Pioneer — by a single individual have worked wonders in the appearance of things. T h e r e is a substantial stone flouring mill and alongside of it a machine house, also of stone; beside many smaller dwellings, on lines of fences inclosing.

"Meadows broad and pastures green, with gentle slopes and groves of willows between."

But the most attractive feature of the results of eight years labor in these forbidding wilds is the dwelling house, now u p above the first story.

This is being built of an elegantly white sand-stone, with a light bluish tinge; front 50 ft by 35, rear wing 30 by 28 — the front and ends of finely chiseled work. It will be two stories high, with an attic and observatory. T h e first floor of main building has 12 feet ceilings. W h e n completed, this will unquestionably be one of the handsomest and most durable private dwellings in U t a h — at a cost of some $35,000.

I n Rhoades Valley 16 he has also established a ranch, with corral 700 feet long by 140 wide, 20 foot shedding the entire circuit; cuts 200 tons hay; keeps 200 head of stock; has a hewed log dwelling house, 51 by 20 feet; two stories high; has paid u p all his workmen and has money to lend. I t may be 16 The present Kamas Valley was earlier known as Rhoades Valley, named for Thomas Rhoades who first settled there.

Utah Historical Quarterly

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seen by the above that some things can be done in U t a h as elsewhere, but with an almost incalculable degree of excessive labor. Bro. Hoyt's flouring mill has been stopped for some time, to the great inconvenience of the people, on account of some opposition by land owners against the cutting of a new mill-race. Penny wise and pound foolish is very much shortsighted in this fast age. 17

During the latter part of September 1869, a number of church leaders including Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, George Q. Cannon, and Franklin D. Richards, made a tour of Heber, Kamas, Peoa, Wanship, and Coalville, speaking to the Saints in each of these points. The tour ended at Coalville, and after the evening meal, the president's party began the trip homeward. The company reporter wrote: At Bishop Hardy's, Parley's Canyon, while waiting for the moon to rise, the party partook of supper, and driving on, reached the city at 11 p.m. . . . T h e region visited has not been seen for years by them. T h e most of the settlements, therefore, were entirely new, and those of them which were not new h a d changed so much since last seen as to be scarcely recognizable. . . . Wanship and Coalville both wear an air of thrift and prosperity and must eventually, we think, become important points. . . . It will be but a few years, if the people carry out their principles, and the instructions they receive, until log houses will almost be unknown, and in their stead, will be seen elegant residences of stone. T h e residence of S. P. Hoyt, Esq., of Hoytsville, between Coalville and Wanship, is already probably the finest and most expensive house between the Wasatch Mountains and the Missouri River. I t is built of cut white sandstone, and when completed, will be a credit to the country. 1 8 17

"Journal History," October 2, 1868.

Ibid., September 21, 1869.

ls

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Built of white sandstone blocks, the home contains fourteen rooms, nine fireplaces, and a full basement with its own fresh water spring.

Samuel Pierce Hoyt

107

Hoyt's home was never c o m p l e t e d , but his w o r k w a s e n d e d in t h e early 1870's. T h e imposing structure still stands near t h e banks of t h e W e b e r River, just below a small hill on the east. Of the 14 rooms, not including bathrooms, nine had fireplaces.

Three living rooms, two of the hallways, and a number of the floors were beautifully painted. Handsome murals painted by a Norwegian artist singularly UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY n a m e d Olsen, d e c o r a t e d Decorative art work adorns ceiling and walls on the the walls and ceilings of the main floor of the home. main floor. Some of these may still be viewed.

A spiral staircase began a few feet from the east door and ascended through all three floors. Original painting along this staircase may still be seen. A second, smaller, staircase ascended through the rear of the house.

A full basement extends under the entire area of the mansion. A well, still to be seen, was sunk in the west part of the basement giving a ready source of fresh water. A huge rock wall four-feet thick separates the kitchen in the basement from the other half. T h e well was sunk by the north wall of the kitchen. A dumb-waiter system enabled those in the basement kitchen to readily deliver hot food to the upper floors. T h e thickness of the stone walls, three feet at the foundation, made working in the kitchen bearable, even on hot summer days. A kitchen fireplace provided warmth for the winter.

Long rows of nails on the side beams in the east room of the basement bear evidence that it was used as a meat cutting and storing room. Hoyt's herd of cattle provided a constant store of fresh meat which hung in the basement for immediate use. A huge central beam cut from a single tree measures some 45 feet in length and 3 feet in thickness. It extends overhead the full length of the basement.

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A rock wall surrounds the mansion, enclosing about one and a half acres. It was built of rock left over from the construction of the home, except the top layer which was of hand-dressed stone. T h e wall was originally from five- to seven-feet high. T h e wall contained three small iron gates and a double gate at the entrance. These hand-tooled gates still remain.

A school was held in the old machine house south of the gristmill for the children of the community until the mansion was built, when the school was moved to two rooms on the third floor. Hoyt's first wife, Emily, was the teacher. Some rods north of the mansion and the gristmill, stood the old creamery. T h e machine house has disappeared, but the ruins of the mill and the creamery still bear mute evidence of former activity.

During the 1870's Hoyt spent his time farming, stockraising, and mining. As early as 1869, he was winning prizes in stock shows and fairs. In that year, in the "Ninth Annual Exhibition of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society," he won a prize for "the second best Durham Bull." In the same contest, other winners were Wilford Woodruff, for "the best Ayrshire Cow, the best brood mare, draft, the best three year old colt, draft, and the best two year old stallion, draft"; and Orrin P. Rockwell for the "best four year old filly, and year old mule colt." 19 Hoyt spent his closing years at his ranch near Kamas which had been built in the late 1860's. His second wife, Emma, maintained this home while his first wife Emily remained at the mansion where she was known to the community as " M a Hoyt." Death came for the old pioneer on August 12, 1889. H e was buried in the little Hoytsville cemetery by the chapel on the hill. His memory is preserved in the town that bears his name, the fine old mansion by the river, and by Hoyt's Peak east of present-day Kamas.

T h e crumbling rock wall, the iron gates tearing from their hinges, and the wind in the giant pines in front of the silent old mansion hold secrets of early days on the Weber.*

19

"Journal History," October 5, 1869. * E D . NOTE: T h e home is presently owned by Mr. and Mrs. G. C. Crittenden, who acquired the home in 1957. U p o n Mr. Crittenden's retirement in Ogden 1963, the family moved to the Hoyt mansion in May 1963, where extensive repair, restoration, and alteration have been carried on. T h e Crittendens are to be congratulated for their efforts to preserve this lovely old structure of pioneer days.

Federal Park

BY E L M O R. R I C H A R D S O N

Campers hiking along the streambed of the Escalante River area included in the proposed Escalante National Monument.

UTAH TOURIST & PUBLICITY COUNCIL (NELSON WADSWORTH)

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U t a h was faced with a particularly difficult task during the depression years of the 1930's. Small in population though vast in area, the state h a d neither sufficient manpower nor a self-sustaining economy upon which to base a recovery program. Almost entirely dependent upon direct use of lands and resources, its economic development was, to a great extent, determined by federally administered forests, grazing and reclaimed lands, and Indian reservations. As the crisis deepened, it became obvious to the leaders and citizens of U t a h that government at every level must encourage and maintain more intensive land and resource use. T h e conditions arising out of sparse population and an economy based upon access to the public domain would be primary considerations for both state and federal planners. Some of the specific programs that came out of the plethora of plans during these years were mutually satisfactory and beneficial to both state and federal interests. Other ideas, poorly conceived and illtimed, produced only personal antagonisms and mutual distrust. Among the latter was the proposed Escalante National Monument, a plan for the development of a scenic and recreational area in southeastern Utah.

During the decades preceding the Depression, the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior had secured from Congress the creation of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and, by Presidential proclamation, the establishment of six national monuments. With the exception of Zion, these withdrawals involved small amounts of land and preserved sites of striking geologic or archeologic value. During the Hoover administration, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur sought approval of further tracts in the southern part of the state. Although his policy was particularly solicitous of state jurisdiction over the public domain, he decided that the slightly used land in that arid region could best be developed as part of the national park system. In March 1931 Park Service Director Horace Albright designated almost 30,000 acres west of Zion for reclassification and then asked Governor George H. Dern of U t a h for his view of the suggestion making a nearby Kolob Canyon National Park. Because Dern could not examine the area in person, he consulted with citizens in the region and with the state's delegation in Congress. Learning that Senator William H. King opposed such a reservation and that the stockraisers who used part of the canyon for grazing especially needed the land, he declined to support Albright's plan. As a Democrat he might also have been unmoved because of his party's victory in NovemDr. Richardson is assistant professor of history at Washington State University, and for the current year is visiting professor of history at the University of Washington. H e is the author of The Politics of Conservation: Crusades and Controversies, 1897â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1913, and several articles on resource policies in the West.

Escalante National Monument

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ber 1932, and the matter was left hanging when he entered the cabinet of Franklin D. Roosevelt as secretary of war. 1 Dern's successor was Henry H . Blood, also a Democrat, a spokesman for the most influential elements in the state and for the agrarian conservatives in his party. Significantly, he enjoyed the confidence of the new President and obtained for Utah substantial federal assistance in the fields of employment relief, drought control, and water development.

When the Park Service reopened the question of Kolob Canyon in July 1935, however, they found him as reticent as Dern had been. In rejecting the national park idea, Blood followed the advice of J. M. McFarlane of the Utah State Board of Agriculture and Representative W. K. Granger, who felt that the land should continue under the jurisdiction of the Grazing Division of the Interior Department which administered the newly passed Taylor Grazing Act. 2 This matter was a foretaste of the conflict of aims between state and federal administrations.

At the same time emergency legislation tied these two more closely together than they had ever been before. New schemes like the Civilian Conservation Corps were especially effective in assisting the economy and citizens of the state, and earned the praise of Utahns ranging from the governor on down to the residents of the small towns in "Dixie," Moab, and Escalante. 3 In 1935 the Utah State Senate responded to federal suggestions for co-ordinating recovery plans by creating a State Planning Board. This bureau was partly supported by Congressional appropriation and was designed to work with many federal offices, including the Natural Resources Committee headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes.

In 1936 when Congress directed Ickes to make a study of park, parkway, and recreation areas throughout the nation, he was able to draw upon the results of studies made by the planning boards of the states. By that time 1 R. L. Wilbur to W. King, June 28, 1932; H. Albright to G. Dern, December 10, 28, 1932; Dern to G. O. Larson (copy), March 30, 1932; P. P. Patraw to H. Blood, February 2, 1933, State of Utah, Governors' Papers (George H . Dern [1925-1933] and Henry H. Blood [1933-1940]), Park Commission File and P. P. Patraw File. T h e manuscript material cited as Governors' Papers and the files of the Independent Commissions are located in the U t a h State Archives, Salt Lake City.

2 E. Watson to F. D. Roosevelt (memo.), January 16, 1941; H. Blood to Roosevelt (teleg r a m ) , November 17, 1933; Roosevelt to Blood, October 23, 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Henry Blood Folder 3806, Personal Political File (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York). Blood to W. K. Granger, May 22, 1935; L. M . Jones to J. M . McFarlane, July 30, 1935, Governors' Papers (Blood), Park Commission File. Kolob Canyon was designated Zion National Monument in 1937 and in 1956 was added to the Park itself. Tohn Ise, Our National Park Policy (Baltimore, 1961), 409.

3 H. Blood to W. King, et al. (telegram), March 5, 1934; "Statement of . . . Blood . . . on Benefits of C C C . . . ." [1934]; L. C Christiansen to Blood, October 9, 1936; Blood to W. Persons, August 17, 1937, Governors' Papers (Blood), Civilian Conservation Corps File; Moab TimesIndependent, February 6, 1936. During the 1930's there were between 10 and 30 annual camps in Utah, most of them working on projects under the supervision of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Grazing Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

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Utah's Planning Board h a d completed a survey of the natural and commercial resources of the state, including a suggestion for immediate development of the tourist attractions along the Colorado and Green rivers which flowed through brilliant canyon lands in the southeastern corner of the state. T h e possibilities of a national park of 570 square miles in the "Wayne Wonderland" seemed especially appealing. When Governor Blood asked for the views of the Congressional delegation, most of them endorsed it heartily. " I believe it would be a fine thing," Senator Elbert D. Thomas replied, "if we could have another national park in Utah based upon this inspiring region." Consequently, a report issued by the Utah Planning Board in April 1936, declared that "an extension of authority, especially of the National Park Service, would be beneficial to the people of U t a h . " Aware of the fact that the state's share of tourist business was far less than those of the surrounding states, the Planning Board shared the current interest in cultivating that new source of income. But significantly the report added that initiative for the designation of park areas should be left in the hands of the local people. 4 Under the bold and determined leadership of Secretary Ickes, the Interior Department contemplated an enlargement and intensification of the entire national park system. This plan called for the creation of such new parks as Grand Teton in Wyoming, Kings Canyon in California, and Olympic in Washington, and the enlargement of other reserves like Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado-Utah border. In 1935 acting director of the Park Service, Arno Cammerer, first announced the details of a portion of the overall plan which included possible new national monuments in southeastern Utah. But Ickes' scheme soon ran up against the political and economic realities in the Western States, as well as the conflicting intentions of the Army Corps of Engineers for example, and the Natural Resources Committee which were anxious to secure such areas for water and power development sites. When the Interior Department presented its recreation plan to Congress, other departments joined western representatives in blocking what seemed to be an alarming extension of Interior's jurisdiction. Partly because of the protests of Representative 4 "Radio Talk to be Delivered by I. W. Trimbel . . ."; "A State Plan for U t a h : Progress Report, April 15, 1935" (mimeograph copy), 159-74 and Fig. 32, Independent Commissions, U t a h State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 1 - 1 9 4 0 ) , Administration File. A. Cammerer to E. Gammeter, December 7, 1933 (memo., description of proposed Wayne County National Park) ; E. Thomas to H. Blood, February 3, 1934; A. Demaray to W. King, February 9, 1934, Governors' Papers (Blood), Park Commission File. Suggestions for a Four Corners and a Navajo National Monument were never acted upon. At this time (1935) there were already seven national monuments in southeastern U t a h . S. R. DeBoer, "A Preliminary State Plan for the Development of Scenic and Recreational Resources in U t a h " (mimeograph copy), April 15, 1936, State Planning Board, Administration File.

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J. W. Robinson of Utah, the final bill merely called for a survey of recreational resources. 5 T h e April report of the U t a h State Planning Board reflected an interest in supporting the federal plan, but the specific conception of its chairman, Ray B. West, did not receive the support of the Park Service.

Immediate development of southeastern U t a h might be begun, he suggested, by construction of a network of highways connecting Mesa Verde National Park in nearby Colorado with Zion and Bryce, Natural Bridges National Monument, and "Wayne Wonderland" in Utah. T h e time seemed to be especially good because Congress was then considering an appropriation for park roads. Cammerer, however, advised West that the network would have to wait upon the completion of a full investigation in the field.6 A short time later the Park Service informed the U t a h officials that it hoped to fulfill the long-standing state and federal desire for recreational development of the Colorado River Canyon by establishing a new national monument along its course.

Drawing upon the findings of field investigations begun in 1935 on the request of Utahns interested in the proposed Wayne County national park, the Park Service designated an area of 6,968 square miles as the object of preliminary investigation. Extending 200 miles from the Colorado border to the Arizona border, the tract encompassed about eight per cent of the total area of Utah. It contained what Cammerer later 5 Edgar B. Nixon, comp. and ed., Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation (Hyde Park, 1 9 5 7 ) , I , 386-87 and fn.

6 A. Cammerer to R. West, April 14, 1936; West to J. W. Robinson, April 9, 1936; West to H . Blood, May 1, 1936; West to A. Demaray, April 8, 1936, State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

U T A H STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

At this site on November 7, 1776, the Escalante party descended to the Colorado River cutting steps in the rocks. The party crossed the river and from this point returned in a southeasterly direction to Santa Fe, their point of origin.

'••:"'::•,;::•.

i-::v;:-.:„;.

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described as "an amazing wilderness labyrinth" of stark, multicolored canyon walls, some of them rising almost directly from the bank of the river, others stretching back to the horizon for several miles. Included in the area were over 30,000 acres of patented land, 24,000 acres of state school lands, 151 unsurveyed townships, and parts of three federal grazing districts. T h e arid conditions of the soil cover supported only 463 families, but these raised an estimated 144,000 sheep, 26,000 cattle, and 2,600 horses. 7 Because it lay across the route of the Spanish priest who first explored the Four Corners region, it was to be called Escalante National Monument.

In response to Cammerer's request for a statement of sentiment in U t a h toward the proposal, Governor Blood and the state's delegation in Congress asked the Park Service to permit the residents of the affected area to express their views in a public meeting. In May 1936 a public notice was sent out by both federal and state officials, and early the next month some 87 persons gathered at Price, the largest town adjacent to the area under study. More than half of them were from vast San Juan County which formed the southeast corner of the state. Most of the individuals present at the meeting were connected with cattle, sheep, a n d / o r horse raising interests; a few were representatives of southern U t a h civic clubs; and some were agents of the grazing districts administered under the Taylor Act. T h e Park Service sent Superintendents P. P. Patraw and Jesse Nusbaum from nearby Zion and Mesa Verde as well as David Madsen of the Wildlife Division. Chairman West of the Planning Board, who personally felt that local interests could be protected within the monument, planned to attend but fell critically ill just before the meeting convened. Another member of the Planning Board, George Staples, went in his place. 8 T h e session was opened by a statement from J. Q. Peterson, regional grazier of the Grazing Division, who argued for retention of Taylor Act status for the area, and who had the support of most of the audience.

Twenty-one thousand residents in the vicinity, he pointed out, would in some way be affected by closing of the range to grazing. Madsen of the 7 A. Cammerer to H. Blood, March 21, 1938, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. "Proposed Escalante National Monument, April 1936" (typescript), State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Proposed Escalante National Monument File.

8 H . Blood to W. King, July 18, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Call for a meeting in Price, Utah, by J. Q. Peterson, May 21, 1936; W. Wallace to Peterson, July 20, 1936; Peterson to State Planning Board, June 22, 1936; resolutions adopted at Price, June 9, 1936 (copy), C. P. Seeley to S. Margetts, December 15, 1937, and minutes of Price meeting, enclosure, State Planning Board (1935â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1941), Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

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Wildlife Division then tried to assure his fellow Utahns that the Interior Department had no wish to injure the economy of the region, but suggested that perhaps it had already reached a peak of development as grazing land. A recreational site would diversify that economy and still permit use according to capacity and need until ultimate non-use status could be brought about.

A prominent San J u a n cattleman rose to reply to Madsen. "Secretary Ickes and the Park Service knew what they were doing when they sent Dave Madsen down here," he observed somewhat bitterly. "They realize that it's a pretty up-hill battle to convince the citizens of U t a h and even the people of the United States of the scenic value of their properties."

H e acknowledged the possibility of tourist trade, and claimed to have supported the creation of Arches National Monument north of Moab, but he felt that tourism was overvalued and cited the fact that visitor spending at Zion had not substantially reduced the debt of Washington County. Moreover, he insisted that eastern tourists would find livestock as good an attraction as scenery. "I was sorry that Mr. Ickes made the inference that this area could be closed," he concluded. "This is still a democratic country and we proposed to discuss this matter and petition in the manner of democratic government and we don't believe the full story has been presented to Mr. I c k e s . . . . " Similar statements from others expressed local annoyance and disappointment with the administration.

One of them stated that federal regulation of the public domain was desirable, but the tourists did not want to see a bunch of bobcats and wildcats. Most of the residents were worried that the vast withdrawal of grazing lands would damage the market for cattle and sheep. "This is just a little harder rap than we can take without putting up a battle," a stockm a n concluded. "You can make it legal but you can never make it moral." 9 After the assembly voted unanimously to oppose the withdrawal of the entire 6,968 square-mile tract under study, Staples of the Planning Board asked them to consider some modifications of the matter. Further discussion noted that there was room enough in the tract for all uses of the land, and that an adjustment of boundaries which would recognize local interests might be satisfactory to both state and federal planners. A special committee, appointed to undertake that task, met in November of the same year. After the Utahns listened to further arguments by Patraw and Nusbaum of the Park Service, F. G. Martines, one of the original sponsors of a Wayne County national park, endorsed the idea of the monument.

9 Minutes of the Price meeting, enclosure in C P. Seeley to S. Margetts, December 15, 1937, State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

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However, he pointed out that its size should be restricted to the few points that were accessible by road. Sumner Margetts, whom the new chairman of the State Planning Board, William Wallace, had sent to represent the state administration, not only supported this idea but demanded that state jurisdiction over its own lands, as well as grazing rights, should be continued within the reserve. Greatly disappointed, Nusbaum replied that mineral exploration or other economic activities would defeat the whole purpose of a national monument. Trying to submit some kind of solution, the majority of the committee then suggested that boundary lines be drawn three miles from the center of the river on both sides, and that state, private, and interstate water-use agreements be retained within the monument â&#x20AC;&#x201D; thus preserving both scenic and economic values. This resolution was adopted without the support of Margetts. Although the Park Service and Grazing Division officials did not vote, Nusbaum told the group that the Park Service would not accept such limitations. 10 From this point in time two different views of the Escalante Monument issue emerged to become the source of a conflict of interests between state and federal officials. J. Q. Peterson, regional director of the Grazing Division, assured Governor Blood that the resolutions of the Price meeting were "safe and desirable." Chairman Wallace of the Planning Board apparently shared the doubts of his colleague, Margetts, but certainly saw that the sense of the later meeting in November emphasized the primacy of state interests in any boundary solution. Yet the Park Service chose to interpret these two meetings with undue optimism. Many months later in a report to Senator William King of Utah, Cammerer maintained that those assembled at Price had recognized the merits of a national monument even if they wanted to secure access rights and limit its boundaries to the margin of the canyon walls. Because of their protests at the time, the Park Service agreed to reduce the proposed tract to 2,450 square miles, forming a strip between three and 50 miles wide from the Arizona border to two points north of the junction of the Colorado and Green rivers.

Moreover, Cammerer informed the senator that Nusbaum and Patraw had called on Governor Blood and found him to be far from hostile to the proposal. Indeed, he had "stated frankly that scenery and recreation were the most important economic assets of the State." " 10 C P. Seeley to F. Carpenter, December 10, 1937, State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

11 J. Q. Peterson to H . Blood, ca. July 1936; A Cammerer to W. King (copy), February 11, 1938, State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File. I n 1937 Capitol Reef National Monument was created in the northwest corner of the larger proposed tract, doubtlessly pleasing Utahns who had long-supported a Wayne County national park.

U T A H TOURIST & PUBLICITY COUNCIL ( WARD ROYLANCE)

Angel Arch, in the Needles

area, is in the recently created Canyonlands

National

Park.

When the U t a h officials learned of the Park Service's interpretation of local sentiment, they were sufficiently alarmed to undertake measures in their own defense. Obtaining a verbatim transcript of the Price session, Margetts sent copies to every state and federal administrator concerned with the monument proposal. From King, Blood obtained a m a p of the new tract boundaries and gave it to Margetts with instructions to prepare a detailed version for use by the Planning Board. T h e governor also made it clear that he had never made a statement about scenery and recreation such as Cammerer claimed. As he assured citizens of Moab, his administration was seeking "the greatest good to the greatest number, for the longest time." 12 In April 1938 Margetts and E. H . Burdick, geologist for the Planning Board, presented the results of their study of the Escalante proposal to Wallace. There was no question, the report asserted, about state and private jurisdiction over the lands and waters included in the tract. Moreover, the Boulder D a m Act and the Natural Resources Committee assured 12 H . Blood to A. Cammerer (copy), January 13, 1938; W. King to Blood, February 17, 1938; S. Margetts to Blood, April 29, 1938; Blood to Margetts, February 17, April 29, 1938; Blood to M. Melich, February 28, 1938, State Planning Board ( 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 4 1 ) , Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

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future development of several power sites along the Colorado and Green, sites whose potential output would total over a million horsepower. Far from being at the peak of economic development as the Park Service officials claimed, the area warranted further exploration for oil and other minerals. T h e reduction in size of the proposed tract did not alter the initial objection by the Utahns: even at 2,450 square miles the Escalante Monument would be second only to Yellowstone National Park in area.

Such an enormous tract was not needed to preserve the canyon of the Colorado. Far from agreeing to this expanse, the report claimed the November committee had anticipated a reduction to one-half or one-third of that size. The withdrawal of this large portion of the state was "not a proper subject to be placed before any limited group for recommendations." Because U t a h had not requested the creation of Escalante Monument and because the Park Service had not adequately assessed the problems involved in their proposal, the report called for public opposition to the scheme. 13 Acting Director Arthur Demaray of the Park Service assured Congressman Robinson that no action would be taken on the proposal until the difficulties enumerated by Margetts could be ironed out to the satisfaction of all parties. T h a t assurance, however, did not stifle a statewide discussion of the issue during the summer of 1938. Utahns were naturally anxious to defend their economic interests, but there was a surprising amount of sentiment for compromise. When 200 members of the Southern U t a h Association of Civic Clubs met in Monticello in August, they went on record as favoring full development of the region, including the creation of a national monument. A federation of women's clubs in the same part of the state urged Governor Blood to support Escalante if the federal government granted access to properties therein. Claiming to speak for others, a professor at Brigham Young University insisted that the power interests were responsible for making a political issue of the matter; the federal government, he believed, must hold those potential sites inviolable.

Such sentiments seemed to T. H. Humpherys, state engineer and member of the Planning Board, to be part of a calculated effort to furnish the federal officials with an excuse to get the President to proclaim Escalante National Monument at once.14 13 "Proposal to Create the Escalante National Monument, April 29, 1938" (typescript with m a p ) , State Planning Board (1935-1941), Parks and Recreation, Reports, Escalante National Monument File.

14 J. W. Robinson to H. Blood, February 11, 1938; T. H . Humpherys to Blood (memo, and enclosure), August 22, 1938; E. Halls to Blood, September 15, 1938; M. Taylor to Blood, November 3, 1938; D. E. Beck to W. King (copy), December 12, 1938, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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In October the Utah officials received support for their views when the Colorado River Basin States met in convention at Salt Lake City. The delegates there declared that the creation of any monument without the safeguard of local interests would adversely affect the material development of the West. Encouraged by this, Blood inquired of the Interior Department whether Humpherys' fear of a sudden proclamation was warranted. In reply, Ickes' first assistant secretary, E. K. Burlew, repeated the earlier promise of no action until further investigation. His assurance that the same access rights would be granted in Escalante National Monument as had just been granted in an addition to Dinosaur National Monument did not mention the fact that these rights were subject to pending legal interpretations of the Colorado River Compact and the Boulder Dam Act. While in Reno, Nevada, where the National Reclamation Association was meeting, Governor Blood tried to call Marvin Mclntyre, Roosevelt's private secretary, but could not get him; he then called Burlew and found him to be "very cordial" and apparently anxious to secure the cooperation of the Utah officials. Later, in a letter accompanying a copy of the Escalante Monument proclamation, Burlew again assured him that neither present nor future economic interests would be retarded. The document provided for movement of livestock and protection of valid rights and claims. Moreover, if the Colorado Basin study showed the need for more reservoirs and power sites in the area, "such would not be prohibited."15 A reading of the proposed proclamation itself did not support Burlew's assurances. What it did state was merely that all existing laws as amended pertaining to ownership and use would have full force in Escalante National Monument. Yet a number of the more recent laws, especially those relating to power development, were obviously still subject to judicial interpretation. Moreover, the assistant secretary's certainty that the Colorado Basin study recommendations "would not be prohibited" did not appear in the document. Without waiting for Blood to reply, he sent it on to the President a few days later. In a covering letter Burlew vividly described the area and claimed that it was lacking in economic resources. This was the very thing which the Utahns insisted must be determined by further investigation â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a study which could not be made once the monument was established. Finally, when the federal official sent a copy of the proclamation to Senator King, he badly mistook intention for reality when he claimed that the governor supported it. Thus, 15 E. Burlew to H . Blood (telegram) and Blood to T. H . Humpherys, October 14, 1938; Burlew to Blood, October 17, 1938, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Ise, National Park Policy, 4 7 6 - 7 7 .

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Monument

the error of misrepresenting Blood's views as in February 1936 was repeated. 16 Henry Blood did not intend to have Utah's position on the issue distorted by the Interior Department. Asking Burlew for further time to study the proclamation, he had State Engineer Humpherys and the state attorney general prepare a full critique. A month later his letter to Secretary Ickes was directly based upon their arguments. Reiterating the facts of existing economic activities and the potential water and mineral development which other federal agencies acknowledged, he nevertheless recognized the Interior Department's overwhelming desire to have the national monument. T h e only alternative to further study, then, was the placing of specific safeguards into the proclamation itself. These, Blood insisted, should grant ingress and egress to range and water users and to 16 E. Burlew to H. Blood, received October 17, 1938, to F. D. Roosevelt, received October 19, 1938; W. King to Blood, October 22, 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, 6-P File.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Monument Valley one of the few significant scenic attractions which was not included in the Escalante National Monument.

of southeastern

Utah

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landowners whose property would be surrounded by the reserve. Future construction of roads, reservoirs, and erosion control projects by other federal agencies should also be permitted. To reinforce these demands Senator King went to the Interior Department and added the argument that the growth of civil unrest in Mexico made the rights of the Colorado River Basin States even more important. 17 Utah's opposition to the proclamation came to a head during a time that was particularly adverse for Ickes. T h e secretary's favorite scheme of reorganizing the jurisdiction of many bureaus under a Department of Conservation was for a second time frustrated in Congress, in part because many westerners did not want him to administer the Forest Service. In addition the grand plan for an enlarged national park system had aroused the loud protests of economic interests and political leaders in the West.

Perhaps because of the necessity of fighting these larger battles, the Interior Department did not want to alienate still another state. Consequently, Burlew and Cammerer informed Blood that they would not ask for the proclamation of Escalante National Monument until the Utah authorities could suggest a specific program for utilization of the resources in the area. In the meantime, however, they intended to continue field studies and public relations for the monument. As the influential Salt Lake Tribune noted, this decision was a victory for the governor and a testimonial to the effectiveness of the Utahns' protests. 18 As far as the public could observe, there were signs that the controversy was cooling down. T h e state and the Bureau of Reclamation contributed equally to finance a study of Colorado River water and power potential, an investigation which was to be finished by December of 1941.

Newly elected Democratic Congressman Abe Murdock gave his personal attention to this project and brought it to the notice of President Roosevelt.19 Behind the scenes, however, men of the Blood administration found further reason to disagree with the Park Service. In October 1939, T. H. Humpherys complained to Governor Blood that Superintendent Patraw 17 G. A. Giles to H . Blood, November 5, 1938; Blood to H. Ickes, November 15, 1938; Blood to Thomas, November 16, 1938; W. King to Blood, December 10, 23, 1938, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Salt Lake Tribune, November 23, 1938.

18 A. Demaray to H . Ickes (memo.), July 10, 1938, United States National Park Service, Social-Economic Branch, Escalante File (National Archives, Washington, D . C ) . A. Cammerer to W. King (copy), December 20, 1938; O . C h a p m a n to H. Blood, December 10, 1938, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Salt Lake Tribune, November 18, 30, 1938.

19 C. Eliot to R. Forester, July 12, 1939; A. Murdock to F. D. Roosevelt, June 27, 1939; Roosevelt to Murdock, July 13, 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, 482-A File. In 1941 the Bureau of Reclamation's study was used by the Park Service in its investigation of recreational possibilities of the Colorado River Basin as part of a comprehensive plan for the full utilization of water resources in the region. This plan was delayed by World War II and was not issued until 1946.

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of Zion National Park was stifling a project to measure stream flow. After first granting permission, Patraw demanded that the findings be presented to his office so that, Humpherys believed, the data would not be used by the state to plan reservoirs within Zion National Park. It is not likely that such construction would have been allowed, but the state engineer was thinking of the way in which three potential sites in Echo Park had been ignored when that area was added to Dinosaur. Unwilling to trust the Park Service, he regarded the current visit of Department of the Interior officials to the Escalante National Monument tract as boding no good for the development of water resources there. 20 During these same months, the views of Blood and his advisors were again confirmed by support from other western spokesmen. When the National Reclamation Association met in Denver in November, many delegates made common cause against the Interior Department's plans for greater jurisdiction in their states. T h e general resolution adopted at Reno the year before was now strengthened by the specification that no further parks or monuments in any of the 17 participating states should be created or enlarged without formal approval of the people and the governor of the state. When Colorado River Basin representatives met in the same city a few days later, Nusbaum of the Park Service sought to forestall another such declaration by defending the Interior Department's plans.

T h e recreational assets of the Escalante tract, he maintained, could become "a significant factor in the economic development of the Basin. It may be possible that the water control and recreational factors can be developed coincidentally . . . [but] the relative importance of each should be determined. The exploitation and impairment of great, publicly owned resources for the sole purpose of reducing the cost of a water control project is questionable public policy," he advised the western delegates. "If important recreational resources are involved . . . , the additional expenditures required for the protection and development of those resources should be considered as a legitimate expenditure." This argument did not alter the contention of Blood and his followers that the Escalante Monument would compound the difficulties involved in any use of the Colorado River. 21 The Utahns might well have been warned by Nusbaum's speech that the men of the Park Service had by no means abandoned their initial hope.

20 T. H. Humpherys to H. Blood (memo.), October 11, 1939, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

21 Resolutions adopted by the 8th Annual Meeting and Convention of the National Reclamation Association (Denver, 1939), 9. A. Cammerer to H. Blood, February 1, 1940; Blood to Cammerer, February 8, 1930, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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During that winter of 1939, they drafted a bill which would amend the Antiquities Act of 1906 whereby the President had been empowered to create national monuments by executive proclamation. This measure was a part of Secretary Ickes' program to enlarge the scope and use of federal reservations, and depended upon the West's long-standing desire to have Congress determine the establishment of such areas. The bill would exchange executive jurisdiction over national monuments for the power to create a new type of reserve, the national recreational area. While in Washington, D . C , in February 1940, Blood learned of the proposal and joined the state's Congressional delegation in a personal protest to Director Cammerer. T h e latter's explanation of the measure was apparently so tactful that the governor left the office confused on a very important point: he later reported that Burlew had promised that the recreation areas would "require legislative action by the Congress." Whether or not he h a d been misled by the assistant secretary is less important than the fact that he soon became convinced that the Interior Department was playing its own game. L. C. Montgomery, president of the Utah Cattle and Horse Growers Association, expressed what many other Utahns were concluding when he wrote that the recreation bill was nothing but "the same old ghost covered by a different sheet." 22 In view of the growing mistrust shared by Utahns at home, the Park Service's bill was ill-timed. It now appeared that Burlew had violated his promise that nothing would be done on the matter without prior approval of the state leaders. By way of confirmation, the district forest supervisor at Ogden â&#x20AC;&#x201D; reflecting in part his bureau's resentment toward the Department of the Interior's empire building â&#x20AC;&#x201D; confided to Humpherys that the administration of the recreation area at Boulder D a m had not been satisfactory to California and Nevada. As a member of the Planning Board and secretary to the Utah State Water Commission, Humpherys' impression of Park Service methods quickly reached the governor's office. Instead of the proposed bill, he suggested a substitute which would require local approval for all executive proclamations of national monuments.

Both the creation of Arches National Monument and the addition to Dinosaur National Monument, he claimed, had become effective without notice to state officials or residents. "I just cannot trust the Park officials," he told Blood. "We have too many examples in this state of double dealing by them." 2 3 22 H. Blood to L. C. Montgomery, February 24, 1940; Montgomery to Blood, February 21, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

23 L. Montgomery to H. Blood, February 21, 1940; T. H. Humpherys to W. Hinckley, August 8, 1940, and to Blood, May 24, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National M o n u m e n t File.

T h e response of U t a h ' s Congressional delegation completed the almost solid front of protest. In the Senate, King swore that "if it is the purpose of the Department of the Interior to go forward with the original plan, I shall promptly indicate my opposition and do what I can to prevent the plan from being adopted." Senator Elbert D. Thomas was no less opposed, but tried to mollify both sides by suggesting a bill which would give the Interior Department jurisdiction over specific sites in order to carry out conservation operations.

This h a r d l y pleased H u m pherys. For him, such an alternative was "about as vicious as the E s c a l a n t e R e c r e a t i o n a l Area" and, by introducing it, Thomas was acting as the errand boy of the Park Service.

In the House of Representatives, it was Robinson who effectively blocked consideration of the bill. By custom it was his right to introduce the bill affecting his district. Ickes, perhaps accepting Burlew's assumption that Utah officials approved the bill, asked Robinson to do so, but the congressman immediately declined. Instead, he announced that he would offer an amendment to the bill which would specifically grant access rights to lo-

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Columns of sandstone in Cedar Mesa are typical of the fantastic formations found in Canyonlands.

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cal users of the canyon lands, and confirm the applicability of water and power legislation to the river courses included in the monuments or recreation areas. After Ickes turned to Alvin DeRouen, chairman of the House Lands Committee to introduce the Park Service bill, Robinson correctly predicted that it would not come to the floor during that session.24 For a second time the federal officials arranged for a consultation with the Utahns, this time to secure their approval of the amendment to the Antiquities Act. In May 1940, the regional office of the Natural Resources Planning Board at Berkeley, California, was instructed to draw up materials for presentation to the Blood administration. T h e governor was unofficially informed that a meeting would soon be called and, so the planners claimed, he approved of the idea. In fact, he privately expressed his doubts about the purpose of the meeting and asked William R. Wallace, chairman of the U t a h State Water Commission, to call an emergency session of his group. O n May 21, these men drew up and unanimously passed a resolution repeating their belief that the Escalante area was rich in potential power development, condemning the Park Service for its duplicity, and recommending the defeat of its bill. Although Blood still hoped for an amended version of the legislation, he approved of the resolution and sent copies to Utah's senators and representatives. When the state executives met with representatives of the Natural Resources Planning Board in Salt Lake City on June 3, they did not mention the resolution nor allude to their action. Also present were Nusbaum of the Park Service; Peterson, Humpherys, and Margetts (who held the governor's proxy since he was out of the state); delegates from Idaho and Wyoming; and at least 50 Utah stockmen. Disgusted with what seemed a prearranged agenda, and perhaps feeling smug about the secret resolution, Humpherys listened to the federal officials' talks but had no comments to make in reply.

Ironically, they in turn assumed that his reticence and that of the other state officials present indicated general approval of the Park Service policy and that it marked the end to the Utahns' "aggressive campaign." 2 5 Such hope was immediately shattered. Two days after the meeting, T. H. Humpherys made a radio broadcast to the people of Utah in which he denounced the session as deceptive, detrimental, and futile. Wallace 24 W. King to H. Blood, June 6, 1940; T. H. Humpherys to Blood, June 24, 1940; J. W. Robinson to Blood, May 30, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Salt Lake Tribune, August 11, 1940.

25 T. H. Humpherys to H. Blood, May 24, 1940, and (memo.), July 11, 1940; B. Woods to J. Nusbaum (copy), July 11, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. E. Burlew to E. Watson, July 9, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, 6-P File.

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followed up this attack with a letter to Roosevelt himself. Why, he complained, could not this "running fight" between state and federal administrations be replaced by cooperation: "Surely state officials, good Americans, are just as anxious to put the natural resources of our country to the highest possible use as our federal officials. Why should federal officials seemingly ignore the necessities of the State of U t a h in their anxieties to create a monument or recreational area named 'Escalante' which would forever prevent this region from producing the greatest benefit to U t a h and the nation." Wallace urged the President to join Governor Blood in appointing a special committee representing all interests which could analyze the controversial issue and bring about a solution to the impasse. T h e letter may also have served to delay further action by the Park Service; a few days after it was sent, Blood wrote to all of the Utahns in Congress to find out if anything was being done surreptitiously. "Some morning we may wake up and find t h a t . . . the Escalante Monument has been created by Presidential proclamation, and then it will be too late to forestall what we in Utah think would be a calamity." Robinson hastened to assure him that, even if the President issued such an order, Congress could nullify it. Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, however, had "received much discouragement from high sources" for supporting Robinson's amendment to the recreation area bill. T o find out what was going on in the Interior Department, King and Murdock called on Burlew and Demaray and were assured that no withdrawal would be made at that time. T h e two federal officials again promised that the monument would not interfere with power, mining, or irrigation development or with the jurisdiction of the state. Surprisingly, they also claimed that Blood and two of Utah's congressmen supported the recreation area bill. These assurances convinced neither visitor, however, and they quickly wrote to the governor urging him to bring the matter directly to Ickes and Roosevelt. 26 Before Blood could write to either official, the White House replied.

Perhaps acting without his governor's knowledge, Senator Thomas had sent a copy of the May 21 resolution to the President in July in order to register his approval of that protest. When this letter and its enclosure was forwarded to the Interior Department, Burlew learned of the stiff opinions of the U t a h Water Commissioners for the first time. Branding the resolution as "confused and antagonistic," he drew up draft replies to both Wal28 E. Burlew to E. Thomas, July 13, 1940; Burlew to E. Watson, July 13, 1940; F. D. Roosevelt to Thomas, July 15, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, 6-P File. W. King to W. Wallace June 24, 1940; King to Blood, July 2, 1940; J. W. Robinson to Blood, July 5, 1940; T. H. H u m pherys to Blood (memo.), July 11, 1940; "Resume of correspondence . . . ," Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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Pictographs, petroglyphs, and Indian ruins are found the proposed Escalante National Monument.

in numerous

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lace and Thomas which he sent to the President's aide, Edwin Watson.

The state officials, he asserted, meant to have "their desires gratified above all else," even to the extent of denying that they had been consulted or had approved of the recreation area suggestion. Sent out over the President's signature, the letters firmly stated that the Interior Department was attempting to strike a true balance between state and federal planning for the utilization of the Colorado River Basin, while recognizing the existing rights and anticipated advantages of the people of Utah as well as the general public. Therefore, there was no need for a special committee as Wallace had suggested.27 Burlew sent copies of the entire correspondence between the Utahns and the federal executives to Thomas, who forwarded them to the gov27 E. Burlew to E. Watson, July 9, 1940; Roosevelt to W. Wallace, July 10, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, 6-P File. Roosevelt to E. Thomas (copy), July 15, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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ernor, but Blood was not awed by the copies of the letters from the White House. Calling upon Humpherys for assistance, he prepared a reply in the form of a letter to Senator King. In it, he turned the charge of falsehood back upon the Interior Department and the Park Service which had been "entirely incorrect" in their interpretation of opinion in Utah. Recapitulating the long history of misrepresentations and broken promises, he recalled that Cammerer had seemed to agree to their demands for access rights during the consultation in February. In view of the Park Service's reputation in U t a h and other states, however, the vagueness of the proposed proclamation and the new bill was hardly reassuring. Putting his finger directly on Utah's principal worry, he wrote: "Perhaps the most important concern in the present situation is connected with the power possibilities. . . . It is entirely probable that if the control of this area is turned over to the Park Service, the three year delay recently experienced

by Denver in connection with the Big Thompson project [adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park] would be repeated. . . . " Finally, Blood promised that Utahns would continue to take "active and vigorous opposition" to any proposal seeking to place the Colorado River tract under control of the Park Service unless the whole issue were thoroughly discussed by the state legislature and by Congress. 28 When Senator King sent a copy of the letter to Ickes, the secretary answered the threat with one of his own. In a reply to King, he pointed out that the Interior Department had tried several times to carry out the consultation desired by both the state and the federal government. For its trouble it had been met with reticence and discourtesy on the part of Commissioner Humpherys. In addition, Congressman Robinson had first promised to support the Antiquities Act amendment, had then made an about-face, and was now opposing its passage. " I am left," Ickes announced in his exasperation, "with the alternative of asking that a monument be set up in this area or of abandoning the area entirely. . . . " These words merely served to revive the ghost of an executive coup to create Escalante Monument. A few weeks later, in August, the Salt Lake Tribune published an account by its Washington, D . C , correspondent, Republican Harry J. Brown, that the secretary was holding a threat over the heads of the Utah delegation in order to secure their support for the House bill. T h e governor immediately telephoned Thomas, but the senator discounted the story and promised to talk to Ickes and Burlew again. Blood remarked that both Humpherys and the director of the Grazing Service 28 H. Blood to W. King, July 18, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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thought the controversy could be adjusted amicably, and Thomas agreed.

At the same time Robinson went over to the Interior Department and had "quite a warm session" with the secretary. Confident that Congress could block a coup proclamation and encouraged by Blood that "if we have to go to the President we will," the legislator found Ickes "not in the mood to make any definite promises." T h e latter felt that he had already yielded to the demands of the Utahns in every particular â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even agreeing to let Robinson attach his amendments to the bill. H e could only interpret the continuing hostility as evidence that the state leaders really opposed the Escalante Monument itself. Robinson reported to the governor that the secretary had again ominously warned that "it might be his duty to adopt any methods within his power to accomplish what he feels is his duty."

In the meantime, however, Demaray at the Park Service told the Utahn that no proclamation was being prepared and that no action would be taken for some months. 29 Blood recognized the fact that the issue was still in his own hands, and he meant to keep it there as long as the air was filled with speculation, distrust, and threats. After consulting with his advisors and with local federal officials, he wrote to the secretary of the interior to offer a means of straightening out the tangled knot of Escalante Monument. The state fully recognized the value of the national park system, he began, but because its own resources were limited, any future withdrawals perforce must permit utilization of the affected area and not restrict access to these resources. Because such arrangements were not usually permitted by existing regulations, the pending bill was not an acceptable guarantee. If Ickes would prepare a new one, he suggested, the U t a h delegation would discuss it and submit it to both houses of Congress. Anticipating acceptance of this idea, Blood then had his Water Commission draw up a list of objections to the pending measure which could be used in shaping a new one. The latter, he decided, should make it clear that recreational use was subordinate to economic use, should recognize the state's jurisdiction over water sources included in the area, and should limit Park Service activities to proper care and management only.30 It was not very likely that the Interior Department would have accepted such demanding modifications of Park Service policy anywhere, 29 H . Ickes to W. King (copy), July 24, 1940; H. Blood to A. Murdock, July 25, 1940; J. W. Robinson to H . Blood, August 14, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. Salt Lake Tribune, August 17, 1940.

30 H . Blood to H . Ickes, August 16, 1940; E. J. Skeen to Blood (memo.), September 16, 1940; Blood to J. W. Robinson (telegram), September 11, 1940; Robinson to Blood (telegram), September 12, 1940; Blood to W. Wirtz, September 13, 1940; and corrected printed copy of bill, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

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not to mention Utah, even if they had acted upon Blood's suggestion. Ickes continued to say that he would welcome an open hearing on the pending bill, but Robinson was opposed to its passage at all. In the aftermath of the elections that November, disappointed Republican journalist Brown again claimed that the secretary was preparing a proclamation, reasoning that the public would eventually come to realize what he was striving to do for them. Senator-elect Murdock was momentarily frightened by Brown's articles and wired the President to make a public statement that no such action would be taken without further conferences between state and federal officials. A week later Roosevelt's secretary pointedly replied that the White House had discontinued such personal messages because of the unusually heavy volume of business during the defense program. If Ickes had forced the issue there is little likelihood that he could have effectively overLake Powell, created by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado, offers recreation, but has covered many scenic, historic, and archeological sites which the Escalante National Monument was designed to protect.

UTAH TOURIST & PUBLICITY COUNCIL (HAL R U M E L )

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come the feelings that had built up during the preceding four years. Indeed, it was the secretary himself who was at the heart of the distrust many Utahns h a d for the Interior Department and the Park Service. As a businessman of M o a b wrote to Blood: "You are well acquainted with the type of individual Ickes is . . . once he makes u p his mind he will not stop at anything regardless of the effect his action will have upon others. I believe that [he] is the worst type of an individual to have in public office. . . . " T h e federal officials must have viewed the adamant opposition of the Utahns in the same spirit. 31 Governor Blood was not a candidate for re-election in 1940, but he greatly feared that the Escalante Monument controversy would aid the enemies of his party in that contest. As he told Thomas, he wanted to make somebody in the Roosevelt administration realize that a sudden proclamation might bring serious political repercussions. After a series of confidential conferences, perhaps between Thomas and Ickes, and several telephone calls from Robinson to the secretary, the Interior Department promised to do nothing until after the election. Then, if there were no further obstacles, Secretary Ickes would have a bill drafted which would include Robinson's mandatory access provisions. As it happened, the decisive obstacle to that solution was the outcome of the gubernatorial election in November. Succeeding Blood was Herbert B. Maw, Democrat, a man whose primary interest in resource policy was the development of mineral, power, and reservoir sites in the Colorado River Basin. Because the growing national defense program enhanced the need for such development, the matter of Escalante could no longer be considered. In 1942 even Secretary Ickes indicated his willingness to endorse the development of power sites at several points along the Green and Colorado rivers. 32 It was exactly 20 years after this that the Department of the Interior reopened the subject of a recreational area when it submitted a proposal for a Canyonlands National Park.* Consisting of a tract of 480 square miles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; less than a fourth the area of the proposed Escalante National Monument â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at the junction of the two rivers, it would be established on the basis of multipleuse, a concept that was still in the experimental stage in the 1930's. T h a t 31 A. Murdock to F. D . Roosevelt (telegram), November 25, 1940; S. Early to Murdock, December 3, 1940, Franklin D . Roosevelt Papers, 928 File. Salt Lake Tribune, November 26, 1940.

M. Melich to H . Blood, August 21, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File.

32 Memo, of telephone conversation, J. W. Robinson and H. Blood, 2 P.M., August 12, 1940; unidentified, undated manuscript notes, partially in shorthand, partially illegible, ca. September, 1940, Governors' Papers (Blood), Escalante National Monument File. H. Ickes to H. Maw, March 6, 1942, Governors' Papers (Herbert B. M a w [1941-1948]), Abe Murdock File. * ED. N O T E : Canyonlands National Park, comprising 515 square miles, was signed into law

by President L. B. Johnson on September 12, 1964.

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intention and the fact that two decades of water and power development have gone forward in the region could provide the basis for greater mutual satisfaction between state and federal interests.33 In proposing such an enormous tract for the Escalante Monument, the federal officials let their enthusiasm for the general national park program overreach considerations of real need. But aside from the question of practical planning, the controversy with Utah was unnecessary as well as unfortunate. The officers and many residents of the state were initially receptive to federal development of recreation in the area, but they were equally hopeful of further economic enterprise, especially mineral exploration and water power. While other bureaus of the federal government confirmed the potential of the Colorado River Basin, the National Park Service discounted it. In their consultations with Utahns and in their preparation of a proclamation, the Interior Department officials did not exercise the necessary political skill. Each group acted upon mistaken assumptions about the motives of the other; neither of them cleared up these misunderstandings; and personal antipathies transformed every move into seeming duplicity. Perhaps both sides were equally guilty of assuming that the virtue of their desire was self-evident.

33 Report of the Committee on a Proposed Canyon Lands National Park in San Juan, and Garfield Counties, Utah, March, 1962 ([Salt Lake City, 1962]).

Wayne

Will Dewey in

UTAH EDITED B Y C H A R L E S A. P O V L O V I C H , J R .

A little over a hundred years ago a young m a n named Will Dewey came to U t a h Territory after having worked his way west from Missouri in the summer of 1858. H e h a d left home under some sort of cloud; debts are mentioned in his letters and paternal wrath is hinted, but we cannot be sure now what it was that drove him to leave "with very little ceremony," as he expressed it.

Between the summer of 1858 and the summer of 1860, Will wrote five letters to his older brother, Dr. Samuel J. Dewey, who lived in Daviess County, Missouri. 1 Dr. Dewey kept the letters and since nothing further was heard from Will after the last one, they furnish the only information we have regarding his adventures in the West. 2 Family speculation is, of course, of no value, but Dr. Dewey and the rest of the family always assumed that Will was killed by Indians. It is equally likely that he was killed by a claim jumper, or that he became a drifter and was ashamed to write home.

His first letter to Dr. Dewey was by far the shortest of the five. It was simply a hurried note to explain his whereabouts and to request a clearing up of his debts. T h e reader will note that in his haste Will omitted a word or phrase after "Please."

June 5th 58 Cravensville D e a r . Brother T o d a y I have hired to go to U t a h at 25 Dollars per m o n t h a n d everything found m e Please the instrument as I have m a d e nothing since I was here take my pony a n d pay off W h a t I owe to H u m p h r e y $60 Dr. Povlovich is professor of history at California State College, Fullerton, California. T h e letters which have been edited are in the possession of Mrs. N. H . Westlake, the mother-in-law of the editor.

1 Dr. Dewey was born on July 24, 1831, while the younger brother was born January 16, 1841; thus they were 27 and 17 at the beginning of the correspondence. (This information has been obtained from records in the possession of descendants.)

2 When Dr. Samuel Dewey died, the letters passed to his daughter, Mary Ann (Mrs. George Richardson), who is mentioned in the fifth and last letter. At her death in 1947, they became the property of her daughter, Georgia (Mrs. N. H . Westlake), who still owns them.

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as I paid him 2 & I owe Griffin a small acct of about 400 if he calls for it before I come back pay it and Oblige T> t u v W J Dewey

A search for Cravensville has proved fruitless, but it must have been in Kansas Territory or western Missouri. Will Dewey's reference to the "instrument" is not at all clear. His imposition in asking his brother to discharge his debts seems rather light-hearted. This is particularly the case when we learn later that his departure was in the nature of running away from home.

The second letter was sent from "The Black Hills west of Fort Laramie," a range today called the Laramie Mountains, located in southeastern Wyoming.

This letter seems to have been received on October 12, 1858, judging from a faint, penciled notation on the cover, although it was dated six weeks earlier. The interval of six weeks suggests something about the state of the mails at that time. The letter may have been continued from time to time; the handwriting changes somewhat toward the end of the letter.

Furthermore, the writer tells in the early part of the letter that he is engaged as "Night Herder," while at the end he states that he has been promoted to "Sergeant of the Night Herd." His writing breathes the young man's joy at his adventuresome life, in which he encounters "thieving Pawnees" and fights a duel with a teamster who struck him. His sudden increase in pay from $25.00 to $40.00 per month is passed over casually, but it must have convinced him that he was entering a land of great opportunity, for he is sure that he will have "a few dimes" in his pocket when he returns, probably the following summer. His derision at the "hard life on the plains" is in keeping with the spirit of the whole letter.

T h e Black Hills west of Fort Laramie Aug 21st 58 Dear Brother I embrace the opportunity this evening afforded me of writing to you to let you know how I a m Progressing on my trip in the first place I a m well and in good spirits I have h a d some Adventures t h a t would please you to hear but they are mostly of not sufficient interest to write about we h a d an Indian alarm below Kearney but it turned out to be only 3 thieving Pawnees attempting to steal some of our Cattle I forgot to tell you that I engaged when I got to Leavenworth to go as Night H e r d e r I get 40 Dollars per m o n t h and every thing found me b u t my Clothes all the talk about hard life on the plains is all foo foo pish for I never h a d an easier time in my life I h a d one adventure on the R o a d of rather serious import one of the teamster struck me at Scotts Bluffs and as he h a d his revolver by his side and I was unarmed I h a d to take the blow without resenting but when

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I got to L a r a m i e I challenged h i m he chose Colts Revolvers 12 steps at the first fire I gave him a severe flesh wound in the shoulder and his ball cut the rim of my h a t about 2 inches from my head by this time friends interfered and I confess I was willing enough to stop My adversary has a pretty sore shoulder and cannot use his left a r m m u c h but is doing well his name is Estes he is from Ray, Co. M o , . I have nothing of importance to write about I do not expect to be back this winter and probably not for a year or two if there is a chance to get from U t a h to Arazona I shall go down and try my luck at digging if not I will either go through to San Francisco a n d around back by water or winter in Salt Lake and come back next summer Overland I dont think I shall come back without a few dimes in my pocket the Country I have passed through is mostly prairie and resembles the prairies of missouri b u t is generally more level and sandy we are now Climbing the Black Hills a n d I cannot say that it is too level for it is first up and then down like a see saw I have nothing more of importance to write about I should like to hear from you You can address me at fort Bridger or Salt Lake City I forgot to tell you that I have been promoted I a m now Sergeant of the Night H e r d my business is to see that the men are out at the right time &c I get the same pay and have a great deal easier task but now I must close So n o more but remain

,. ~ .

Your Brother W J Dewey

P.S. tell P a p a and all the Connexion friends a n d acquaintances a n d the rest not to forget me Tell all the folks to write excus bad writing for I a m in a hurry a n d in a bad place for writing and a poor writer at best

After traveling the usual route from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake City, Will Dewey arrived at the latter place in late October. Due to a misunderstanding, accidental or deliberate, he was not paid for having worked his way west; thereafter he found expenses high and jobs scarce.

H e went north to Bountiful, a few miles outside Salt Lake City, lured there by the promise of the town's name. Unsuccessful in finding sufficient for his needs there, he went on to nearby Centerville and at last to Farmington, where he worked in a blacksmith's shop until the end of the year. Will's rather strict Methodist upbringing led him to make profane comments about Mormonism even though he knew that his employer-landlord was "a good mormon." H e went on to say that the Mormons were a "pack of fools." His next line is eloquent: "Of Course I had to look for other lodgings."

H e went north to Ogden, but failing to find work there, he returned to Salt Lake City and proceeded south to Provo, where he was taken in by a family named Coray. (The name is slightly illegible in the letter.)

Apparently, he grew to know and understand the Mormons better here as the concluding lines of his letter contain high praise of the Mormons

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as a group and of several of their leaders mentioned by name. Nevertheless, he assured his older brother that he remained unconvinced of the truth of Mormon teachings. He indicates at last some qualms of conscience about having left Dr. Dewey "with the bag" and we notice his concern that he has not yet received any letters from home in reply to his first two.

Provo City U t a h Territory J a n u a r y 30th 1859 D e a r Brother I embrace the present opportunity of writing to let you know I a m still alive and Kicking I arrived in this Territory on the 27 th of October at C a m p Floyd from there we went to Clyve at Salt Lake City where all of our train were paid off except m e the Wagon Master pleaded that I was not hired at all b u t just came along for the fun of the thing he also plead that I shot one of his best Teamsters at Laramie and disabled h i m so that he was worth nothing the rest of the trip . . . and although I proved that I did as m u c h as any of the hands Coming out and that Estes was shot in fair fight for which he gave thr provocation Still the Court awarded me nothing so that I have h a d to the best I can for it is a very h a r d place to get employment there are so many Idle hands in the Territory after staying 5 weeks in Salt Lake City I found myself out of employment I h a d sold my blankets and Watch & Revolver but it cost considerable to conduct my suit and board was very high from 8 to 15 dollars per week and all the employment I could get was an occasional days work or so I was about strapped so I started north I first went to Bountiful thinking from the high sounding n a m e I should be certain of employment but I could not find a m a n who would keep me the winter for my board I then went to Centerville with the same success then on to Farmington where I got work in a Blacksmith Shop where I staid till the first of J a n u a r y but my employer was a good mormon and shocked by my gentility he was trying to convince me of the truth of mormonism and the heavenly calling of Joseph Smith & I told him that Joe Smith was a D - d Impostor & that Brigham Young was a Whoremonger and his followers were all a pack of fools of Course I h a d to look for other lodgings So I went north to Kaysville Weber O g d e n City and Ogden Hole but failing of getting employment I turned South from the City I went to Lehi American fork & Battle Creek without success I then came to this town where I got a berth with a family by the n a m e of Coray where I expect to stay till spring I would like to tell you something of the country over which I passed but I could not do it the least justice on paper but I would only say that it is worth any bodys while to come over it to see it I would only mention Chimney rock Scotts Bluffs Independence rock Devils gate F r e m o n t Peak Echo Kanyon Cash Cave T a r Springs where Volcanic Oil comes out by the ladle full & Boiling Springs where the water is hot enough to boil meat & Ice Springs where you can get Ice in the middle of the summer & Provo (Kanyon) properly C a n o n in which is a waterfall said to be one of the wildest & Grandest in the World certainly the finest sight I ever saw a column of about 40 feet

138 "1

Utah Historical Quarterly broad leaps down over the Mountain as if at a little distance right on the head of any body passing but it is nearly a quarter of a mile from the road to the river into which it falls we passed there just-at-Sunset and the View you may imagine b u t I cannot describe it I suppose you would like to hear something about the Great Salt Lake City and the Mormons about the first it is a great big M u d d y Smoky looking town the houses are nearly all m a d e of Dobies a kind of brick that is not burnt at all they look like a piece of Stone taken from an old Chimney more than any thing else I can liken them to about the Mormons all I have to say is they are very much Misrepresent in the States they are generally a very quiet industrious people very zealous in their Religion with very liberal ideas and generally tolerably well informed if anything more intelligent than the Majority of the Missourians I was at Meeting today George A Smith a Cousin to the prophet Joseph and one of the Twelve Apostles preached he was a fine Speaker b u t I was convinced from the first of the absurdity of his doctrine so that all his fine arguments had no affect on me on the 2d of J a n u a r y Orson P r a t t the M o r m o n Philosopher preached in the Tabernacle. I was not there b u t saw his sermon printed it was as brilliant a piece of Oratory as I ever saw\ I have been to Salt Lake & live on the shore of U t a h Lake I went across U t a h Lake on the ice last week for a load of Wood it is 12 miles across the Lake b u t we have to go about 5 or 6 miles further into the Mountains to get wood I have a gret deal more to tell you but I have not time nor space Wages will be very high in the Spring & I think I can get 40 or 50 dollars per month next summer the first money I get I will send you as I left you with the bag to hold last spring but I will not let you lose anything by it I have Received no news from home since I left but as I dont expect to stay here long it is no use to write I dont expect to write again until I get some money to send you Your Affectionate Brother W J Dewey

A year passed before there was another letter. The young man spent a great deal of time traveling, it would seem. When he reached Sacramento, he was "forced to travel," â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for what reason he does not state.

Perhaps nothing more serious than a lack of funds was intended here. He then went to Carson City (then in Utah Territory, but now in Nevada) where he began to mine quartz. His brief letter sounds fairly optimistic.

Carson City U t a h Territory Jan 21st 1860 D e a r Brother Tis with pleasure I again write to you I have been roving from place to place so m u c h that I did not know when to write as I was never Stationary Long enough to get an answer I thought when in Sacramento that I would at least stay long enough for that but like the wandering Jew I was forced to travel I thought I would try my luck in the Mines instead of working for wages & I a m not sorry for the move I have two Claims here in Q u a r t z Leads for one of which I have been offered 450 dollars for 50 feet which is J4 of my Claim as I have 2,00 feet but I dont

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want to sell yet. the Quartz assays 60 dollars per ton on top and I a m running a tunnel in I have to run about sixty ft when I will be about 40 or 50 ft deep on the Ledge when I expect to get good pay my other claim I think is a good thing also I expect to make something nice I a m Camping at the Devils Gate 14 miles from Carson City hoping this may find you in the enjoyment of health and all the blessings of life I must Close give my respects to all the family & tell them to write to me excuse Brevity you will hear from me again soon Your affectionate Brother W J Dewey

Six months later Will Dewey wrote his last known letter. He had received a letter from his brother in the interval. His estimate of his prospects from the quartz mining is very hopeful. While this could be discounted as mere boasting to justify his having left home, the rather detailed account of the mining in the fourth and fifth letters sounds quite truthful.

The real story in the fifth and final letter, though, is a tale of a campaign against the Paiute Indians, in which Dewey was engaged. After a circumstantial account of the action, including a reference to his receiving "an honorable wound being in front," he closes on a personal note in which he hopes the family (especially his father) will forgive his unceremonious departure from home.

Silver C i t y . U . T . 3 July 10th 1860 I received your letter of 22 M a r c h yesterday & was rejoiced to hear from you I t came at so late a date that instead of Writing to Kansas I will try you at home You want me to tell you my prospects my adventures when I am coming home & everything else, that would interest you what a Variety of Questions I have well to begin as to my prospects I own in Near fifty Quartz Leads some of which are K n o w n to be good the Majority are just unprospected I hope to come home this fall or next spring & will with ordinary luck have from 5 to 10,000 dollars to bring with me I have been offered 5000 for my entire interest one half down & onehalf in 3 months but I hope for something better this is a good Country we have the best Silver Mines in the World we have also Gold Lead Copper Arsenic Iron & Cinnabar in Quantities that will pay after a time at present we have no Mills for the Gold Q u a r t z some that is very good we work in an Arastra a kind of one horse Q u a r t z Mill in this way we make expenses as to my adventures I have been in a Campaign against the Pah U t a h indians was engaged in 2 Battles one at Pyramid Lake where about one3 Silver City was one of the small mining towns which sprang up on Sun Mountain (in the Washoe district), along with Virginia City, Gold Hill, Chinatown, American Flat, Devil's Gate â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all of which were little towns strung like beads along Gold Canyon.

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Utah Historical Quarterly half of my Comrades were massacred. 4 we went into action 103 strong 42 of our men were left dead on the field they beat us by force of Numbers and advantage of position we retreated and they pursued us for 18 or 20 miles pressing us very h a r d my horse gave out during the retreat & I fell behind in going into a ravine 15 or 20 indians came up & fired at me I was u n h u r t but my horse which although he could not run I still rode was struck by an arrow the indians were in twenty feet of me at this time I gave myself u p for lost but determined not to die without a struggle drawing my revolver I picked my indian luckily one on horse back he fell I m a d e a rush caught his horse & started at a gallop it appeared to rain arrows but only one struck m e it was in the a r m & one hit the pony in the neck my a r m gave me a great Deal of pain b u t the bone was N o t injured & I a m glad to say t h a t it is now well & that it was an honorable wound being in front After going for a short time at Double Quick the indians just at my heels I passed the rear of the retreat & leaving the trail travelled all night in the M o r n i n g I found myself on the 40 Mile desert & taking a southern direction reached Carson River about 10 in the morning seeing a house I m a d e for it & found myself at Ragtown a T r a d i n g post at the sink of Carson River here I h a d the arrow cut out of my arm in 4 days I was able to travel & taking the Emigrant road C a m e to Chinatown 55 miles the first day without seeing indians the Next day I came home every body in town thout I h a d been killed & had given u p all hopes of seeing me again I immediately Volunteered to go again & started in about a week with my a r m in a sling I was engaged in a Skirmish at Williams R a n c h & was wounded in the Breast with a spent ball a mere flesh wound I am now all right & have an honorable discharge which will bring m e a Land W a r r a n t after while. Give my respects to the Majors Family T o Walls & Family & tell them to write I say nothing about you P a p a Walker & Daniel of course you are all understood to have the first place in respect Tell Papa to write as I have not h a d a letter from him since I left home if he has ceased to regard m e as his son I want to know it but this is a tender subject I a m aware t h a t I treated you all with very little ceremony in leaving you without saying good bye but that ought to be forgiven if you are Christians & go by the Golden Rule tell Abby & Mary Ann that Uncle Will will be back by & By (Poco tiempo) I have nothing more of importance to tell you So 1,11 Close Your affectionate Brother W J Dewey Excuse my Chirography I have no time to Practice writing

After this letter, nothing further was ever heard from Will Dewey.

Each of us is free to guess at the conclusion.

4 For an account of this Indian trouble see George D . Lyman, The Saga of the Lode (New York, 1934), 106-16.

Comstock

Utah's First Line of Defense:

The UTAH NATIONAL GUARD and CAMP W. G. WILLIAMS 1926-1965 BY

T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R A N D L E O N A R D J . A R R I N G T O N

Since earliest times, America has traditionally kept a militia of citizen-soldiers ready for any emergency. John Adams considered the annual training days one of colonial New England's most important institutions; and from the founding of the Republic, the militia has been called upon to serve both at home and abroad. T h e nation's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, stipulated that "every State shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."

Although we now call it the National Guard, the duty of the state militia has changed little since the early days of the Republic. Today, we maintain a large standing army â&#x20AC;&#x201D; something our forefathers abhorred â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because we have found it necessary to our national security; but the militia forms an important reserve force of private citizens who are ready to serve their country.

U T A H ' S TERRITORIAL MILITIA, T H E NAUVOO LEGION

As with some of the older states, Utah has a long and honored tradition of militia service. One of Utah's first laws created a territorial militia with the name " T h e Nauvoo Legion," recalling a similar organization Thomas Alexander is assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University; Leonard Arrington is professor of economics at U t a h State University. This article was written under a grant from the U t a h State University Research Council. The writers are grateful for this assistance and for the suggestions and cooperation of Major General Maxwell E. Rich, former adjutant general of the U t a h National Guard, and Major General Maurice L. Watts, present adjutant general.

All photographs are courtesy the U t a h National Guard.

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which had been established by the Mormons in Illinois. 1 All male adults between the ages of 18 and 45 were liable for this service. As early as 1854 the Legion had 1,744 in the infantry and 1,004 in the cavalry, for a total of 2,748. 2 Led by some of the foremost citizens, the Legion met in annual musters from 1849, and performed service in Indian campaigns and guarding the mail routes. In the U t a h W a r of 1857-58, a force of about 3,000 men was equipped by requisition from U t a h towns and villages and mobilized to defend Zion against the government's U t a h Expedition. Under the command of Lieutenant General Daniel H . Wells, some of these troops harassed the Army's supply train and built defensive works in Echo Canyon, while others stood ready for possible engagement. 3 From 1865 to 1868, the militia engaged in combat against 300 Indians under Chief Black Hawk in central and southern Utah. During this war, pay for the troops alone amounted to $1.5 million, and there was considerable loss of life and property. 4 Throughout much of the territorial period, units of the gaily uniformed Legion h a d annual musters and encampments, and the Lehi units often bivouacked near Jordan Narrows â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a site which was to become the training headquarters of the Legion's successor, the Utah National Guard.

1 T h e best published history is Richard W. Young, " T h e Nauvoo Legion," which appeared serially in 12 numbers of The Contributor, I X (Salt Lake City, 1888).

2 Andrew Love Neff, History of Utah, 1847 to 1869, ed., Leland Hargrave Creer (Salt Lake City, 1940), 474 fn.

3 Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859 (New Haven, 1960).

4 Neff, History of Utah, 398-409.

Utah National

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T h e territorial legislature h a d provided that the governor of the territory be the commander-in-chief of the Legion; but in practice the comm a n d h a d been exercised by General Wells, who was also a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When Brigham Young was replaced as governor and a series of "carpetbag" appointees assumed the office, the militia became, from the latter's point of view, an independent military force —- a kind of private army with more m e n by far than the federal troops in the territory. I n 1870 Governor J. Wilson Shaffer, a Civil W a r veteran and "northern reconstructionist," forbade the militia to muster, and the organization remained relatively inactive until 1887 when Congress abolished the Legion by a specific provision in the Edmunds-Tucker Act. 5 At the time of its suspension, the Legion consisted of 13,000 efficiently armed and well-drilled men. I n a most unusual arrangement, they elected their own officers. I n addition to General Wells, who was active commander throughout the period of the Legion's existence, officers included Robert T. Burton and Luke Johnson, major generals; H . B. Clawson, adjutant general; a n d the following brigadier generals: Franklin D. Richards; W. H . Kimball; Chauncey W. West; William B. P a c e ; Albert K. T h u r b e r ; George A. Smith; Erastus Snow; Brigham Young, J r . ; Lot Smith; Warren Snow; and W. B. Preston.

There were also 25 colonels with their respective staffs.

U T A H ' S FIRST "NATIONAL GUARD"

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Meanwhile, upon the organization of the National Guard Association of the United States in 1878, the term "National G u a r d " had become a general designation for the organized militias of the various states and "Everett L. Cooley, "Carpetbag R u l e : Territorial Government in U t a h , " Utah Historical Quarterly, X X V I (April, 1958), 1 1 6 - 1 7 ; Hubert H . Bancroft, The History of Utah (San Francisco, 1891), 6 5 8 - 6 1 ; B. H .

Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (6 vols., Salt Lake City, 1930), V, 331-40. A Mendon pioneer diarist wrote that the Cache Valley Legion regarded it essent'al to continue the driPs "to show a front to the Indians," and, in disobedience to General Shaffer's order, did not disband until 1873. A. N. Sorensen, ed., " T h e History of Isaac Sorensen: Selections from a Personal Journal," U.H.Q., X X I V (January, 1956), 68.

Camp Williams, located at the Jordan Narrows between Utah and Salt Lake counties, was selected as a training camp for the Utah National Guard in 1914. This photograph of 1938 shows the temporary facilities then in use.

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territories.6 The conflict between the Mormons and the federal government having been largely resolved, the territorial legislature, in March 1894, authorized the governor, Caleb W. West, to establish "The National Guard of Utah." By the end of the year, 14 companies of infantry, 3 troops of cavalry, and 2 batteries of light artillery â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all told, about 400 men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were enlisted. They were equipped with uniforms, rifles, cannon, Gatling guns, and other materiel by means of $80,000 in Congressional appropriations which had accumulated to the credit of the territory during the period the Nauvoo Legion had been inactive.7 However, following the pioneer tradition, no money was available for provisions or other support at the annual encampment.

The first use of the Guard was in connection with one of the industrial "armies" of the period, which passed through Utah shortly after the enactment of the new militia law. As Whitney relates: Twelve hundred men, without money, supplies, or any means of subsistence, organized by "General" Kelley in California, had been loaded into freight cars of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and brought, at the rate of fifty cents each, as far as O g d e n ; thence to make their way, as best they could, to Washington, D. C , and join with similar bodies in demanding of Congress legislation for the relief of the working classes. Finding that no provision h a d been made for transporting the men eastward, and fearing they would remain and become a public charge, Governor West called out the militia a n d put the so-called army under guard. In taking this step he acted in harmony with the authorities of O g d e n City and Weber County.. . . Orders of court . . . forbade the strangers to remain in U t a h , or to leave the Ogden depot grounds until arrangements could be made for their transportation.

T h e result was that Kelley and his followers, fed and supplied with money by the warm-hearted people of the Junction City, were p u t upon Union Pacific cars at Uintah, and carried out of the Territory.

During May a like "army" of three or four h u n d r e d men, organized in U t a h by "General" Carter, took possession of a Union Pacific train at Lehi, ran it upon the Rio Grande Western (D. & R. G.) track as far as Provo, where it was derailed. T h e Industrials held the train, refusing to surrender it to the officers of the road, and this caused further intervention by the Governor and the militia. Carter and some of his men were arrested and imprisoned. T h e remainder, riding upon freight trains, finally reached Colorado, where they disbanded. 8 6 See "National G u a r d " in The Encyclopedia Americana (30 vols., New York, 1964), X I X , 735-36. T h e National Guards were specifically designated as the country's reserve force in 1903.

Though under state control, they were equipped by the federal government. In 1916 the National Defense Act placed the Guard subject to federal call and during World War I the National Guard furnished 17 of the 42 divisions organized.

7 Orson F. Whitney, Popular History of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1916), 518 fn. The total strength of the Guard in 1897 was 468 men. State of Utah, Adjutant General, Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Utah for the Years 1897-8 (Salt Lake City, 1899). The biennial reports of the adjutant general, which are in the U t a h State Archives, have been depended upon for much of the specific data used in the remainder of the article.

8 Whitney, Popular History of Utah, 518 fn.

Utah National Guard

145

No sooner had the skeleton of the Utah National Guard been enrolled and trained than the nation called for volunteers to participate in the Spanish-American War. Utah's first apportionment of 346 volunteers was raised quickly in May 1898, and another 102 men were added in June to make 448. Further additions brought the total of 663 for the war, many of whom were or had been members of the newly established Guard. These included two batteries of artillery, under the command of Major Richard W. Young, who battled in the Philippines at Manila and against insurgents ; a battery of artillery and a cavalry troop under Captain Frank W. Jennings and Captain Joseph E. Caine, which served in California; and one troop of cavalry garrisoned at Camp Cuba Libre near Jacksonville, Florida, as part of Colonel Jay L. Torrey's "Rocky Mountain Cavalry."

Following the war, Major Young was appointed chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court.9 On occasion, governors of the state have used the National Guard to regulate conditions during strikes in the coal mines of eastern Utah.

During the winter of 1903-04, when the United Mine Workers attempted to organize the miners in order to raise wages and improve conditions, Governor Heber M. Wells called out the National Guard, then under the direction of Brigadier General John Q. Cannon. Strikebreakers were then allowed to come in, and striking miners lost their jobs. In June of 1922, after a deputy sheriff had been killed in an outburst of violence, Governor Charles R. Mabey sent the Guard to Carbon County during a strike. Public opinion was apparently against the strikers, despite the fact that both they and the operators cooperated with the troops.10 In 1916, just prior to America's entry in World War I, President Woodrow Wilson called for Utah's 642-man National Guard to serve on the Mexican border under the general command of John J. "Jack" Pershing. The entire force, consisting of a regiment of cavalry under Major (later brigadier general) W. G. Williams, a battery of light artillery under Captain William C Webb, and a band and hospital unit served about six months near Nogales, Arizona. Shortly after their return from the Mexican border, these troops were formed into the 145th Field Artillery. During World War I this unit of approximately 1,500 men was mobilized at Fort Douglas and trained at Jordan Narrows; at Camp Kearny, California ; and at Bordeaux, France, but did not see action. A National Guard 9 Ibid., 5 1 7 - 2 3 ; Louis Paul Murray, " T h e Life of Brigadier General Richard W. Young" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1959). " T h o m a s G. Alexander, "From Dearth to Deluge: Utah's Coal Industry," U.H.Q., 31 (Summer, 1963), 240-42.

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ambulance corps unit under Captain H. B. Sprague and a field hospital unit under Captain George Roberts saw service in France both during and after the war. 11 T h e largest number of Utahns saw action during the war as members of the 91st Division, known as the "Wild West Division," which was composed of men from Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and northern California. This group distinguished themselves in Belgium. 12 T o provide "permanent maneuver grounds" for Utah's National Guard, President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914 and 1915, set aside 18,700 acres of the public domain near the Jordan Narrows â&#x20AC;&#x201D; about six miles northwest of Lehi. 13 This government reserve was rough and rugged, with no place for a cantonment area, so the state first rented and later bought land for the camp. O n June 26, 1927, the state purchased 153 acres of land for $1,461, and in 1931 obtained an additional 199 acres for $2,533. When added to the rough, government land, this m a d e an excellent site for the training camp.

T h e calling of troops into the first World W a r held up the construction of facilities at Jordan Narrows. After the war it was used only one year (1922) before 1926, when the U t a h National Guard units started using it as a permanent site for their annual encampments. In 1928 the c a m p was named for Brigadier General W. G. Williams, who as adjutant general was the prime mover in the purchase of the cantonment area and in establishing the camp as a permanent training site. O n J u n e 16, 1938, a plaque honoring General Williams was placed at the camp.

ACTIVITIES AT C A M P W I L L I A M S

Some of the accouterments which the U t a h National C a m p Williams in 1928 reflect the curious conglomeration and the archaic which was characteristic of the military Along with 174 horses and 28 wagons, the units brought 36

Guard took to of the modern in the 1920's. trucks, 30 ma-

11 Noble W a r r u m , ed., Utah Since Statehood: Historical and Biographical (4 vols., Chicago, 1919), I, 4 4 3 - 4 7 , 4 5 1 - 5 2 , 4 5 6 - 5 8 ; J. Cecil Alter, ed., Utah the Storied Domain: A Documentary History of Utah's Eventful Career . . . (3 vols., Chicago, 1932), I, 457.

12 Noble W a r r u m , Utah in the World War . . . (Salt Lake City, 1924), 4 7 - 5 1 . U t a h had five brigadier generals during World W a r I : General Richard W. Young, mentioned previously; General Edgar A. Wedgewood, who was not assigned to overseas duty because of physical disabilities; General Frank T . Hines, who directed the transportation of troops across the Atlantic; and Generals William E. Cole and Briant H. Wells, both West Point graduates.

13 In addition to the biennial reports of the adjutant general, information on C a m p Williams and the U t a h National Guard is to be found in the U t a h State Historical Society, which maintains a clipping file on C a m p Williams, and has typescripts of Hamilton Gardner's "Pioneer Military Leaders of U t a h " ( 1 9 5 2 ) , and "History of the 222d Field Artillery" ( 1 9 3 0 ) , both of which give excellent background material. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur H . Swan, public information officer at U t a h National G u a r d headquarters in Salt Lake City, has generously permitted the authors to examine some of his files, particularly those relating to C a m p Williams.

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chine guns, and 51 five-ton artillery tractors. By 1941, however, the unit was equipped with cargo trucks, prime movers, motorcycles, bulldozers, repair trucks, and machine shop trucks. The cavalry charge and the horsedrawn wagon were out!

At first Camp Williams consisted of two-men puptents for the soldiers, and corrals for the horses. As time went on, new, more permanent, and more modern facilities were constructed â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 16-foot pyramidal tents for the troops, and 9-by-9 wall tents for the officers, with wooden pallets for floors. In 1927 the state constructed (with federal assistance) 147 of these tent floors, together with 2 latrines and bathhouses, 10 mess halls, 10 hay-racks and mangers, and 19 watering troughs, at a cost of $56,420. In 1928 the camp received an administration building, recreation hall, and electric light system; and in 1929 another bathhouse, mess hall, telephone system, post exchange, infirmary, 11 shelters for animals, and a corral at the railroad station â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at a total cost of $21,225.

By 1934 total expenditures for construction were $246,124, of which $188,155 were provided by the federal government. A large part of the state expenditure ($54,829) built the recreation hall, the caretaker cottage, and the Hostess House. The latter was designed by Architect Edward O. Anderson for receptions and an officers' club.

Although the number and quality of facilities grew, Camp Williams remained a one-regiment camp capable of handling between 1,000 and 1,300 men. The new facilities, however, encouraged the growth of the Guard. Before 1926 when the Utah units traveled to Wyoming or California for summer camp, Guard strength ranged between 616 and 953 men. By 1928 when the camp received its name, 1,315 men belonged to Utah units, and by 1941 the number of Utah's citizen-soldiers totaled Mess call!!

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2,201. T h e cost of summer camp pay increased proportionately, from $90,944 in 1924 to $163,562 in 1928. This came exclusively from federal sources, which supplied all the clothing, pay, and equipment, and 75 per cent of the money for building training facilities.

WORLD W A R I I

Guardsmen who trained during the 1920's and 1930's were among the first Utahns inducted into military service prior to World W a r II. On October 8, 1940, 5 officers and 17 enlisted men from the Guard set up the U t a h State Selective Service System at 32 Exchange Place in Salt Lake City. Fully nine months before Pearl Harbor, on March 3, 1941, the government called all units of the U t a h National Guard to active duty. Those units inducted included elements of the 40th Division Staff, Headquarters of the 65th Field Artillery Brigade, the 145th Field Artillery Regiment, the 222nd Field Artillery Regiment, the 115th Combat Engineers, the 115th Medical Unit, and the 115th Ordnance Company. These units distinguished themselves in action both in the Pacific and European theatres. T h e 145th Field Artillery Regiment went island-hopping in the Pacific, and the 1st Battalion of the 222nd Field Artillery Regiment served at Cherbourg during the invasion of Europe.

While these and other Utah units served gallantly on the war front, the Army put C a m p Williams to other use. In return for the funds which the federal government had supplied to construct facilities and support the Guard, the state had agreed that it would make all National Guard facilities available in time of national emergency for training sites and for other purposes deemed essential to national security. C a m p Williams thus became a sub-post and training site for Fort Douglas during World War II. "Perspiring troops experienced the thrill of battle . . . [at the camp] when they crawled through blinding dust over troublesome obstacles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; while under actual gunfire... [on] the 'personal conditioning infiltration course,'" which the Army constructed at Williams. Owing to the frequent unpredictable dust storms, it was an excellent spot to simulate actual combat conditions. Through this course crawled such diverse personnel as troops in military police training and nine women nurses from Fort Douglas who formed the first female contingent in the Intermountain area to face simulated battle conditions. 14 As a one-regiment facility, C a m p Williams was too small for the 5,000 men the Army planned to station there; therefore, the cantonment area 14

Salt Lake Tribune,

September 18, October 11, November 6, December 19 1943.

Utah National

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Guard

was virtually doubled. By June 1943 Army engineers had constructed over 100 buildings, half permanent and half temporary. When the Army had completed its training program, C a m p Williams was declared surplus and returned to the State of Utah in November 1944.15 After the Army called the units of the National Guard to active duty, the state continued to recruit and organize other militia units (the U t a h State Guard) to replace them. T h e units never became as large as the prewar units (the strength of the 1st Infantry Regiment, as it was called, at no time exceeded 648 m e n ) , but they performed valuable service at home and stood ready in the event of a much-feared Japanese attack on the West Coast. These units held bivouacs at Snow Basin, east of Ogden, and at C a m p Williams when possible. They performed important services in maintaining order during public celebrations, guarding crashed airplanes, assisting in fire fighting, searching for lost persons, and acting as color guard for important state functions. T h e Cedar City units even helped Columbia and Republic picture companies in filming movies under the governor's state development program.

T H E I N T E R WAR PERIOD

After the war the old field artillery and engineer units returned to National Guard status and the state deactivated the U t a h State Guard infantry units. T h e state also obtained W a r Department permission to activate three Air National Guard units: the 191st Fighter Squadron, the 224th Air Service Group, and a section of the 191st Weather Station, all of which were stationed at the Salt Lake Airport.

A l t h o u g h the reorganized National Guard took pride in being able to conduct its own training, regular Army personnel were occasionally assigned to assist, and the Guard required armories with storage space to protect the Army's p r o p e r t y . Above all, t h e G u a r d needed "combat veterans familiar 15

Ibid., November 9, 1944.

Guardsmen getting practice at stringing communication lines at Summer Camp.

During maneuvers Guardsmen get practical ment under simulated battle conditions.

experience

in handling

all types of equip-

with the art of warfare." Utah National Guard officials found no difficulty in obtaining community support, and the active Army supported the Guard with 10 officers and 18 enlisted men as advisors to provide assistance with administrative and training matters. Nevertheless, veterans were reluctant to return to the Guard. Despite a full-day's pay for each of 48, two-hour drills, and full pay for the 15 days at Camp Williams, ex-soldiers were not enthusiastic about joining. Despite these and other obstacles, by 1948 the Utah National Guard had organized a corps artillery headquarters, two field artillery groups of two battalions each, a combat engineer group of three battalions, a field artillery observation battalion, an ordnance company, a headquarters detachment, and an Army band unit, in addition to an Air Force fighter squadron, a weather station, and an Air Service Group.

The first postwar meeting of the Utah National Guard was held in November 1947, at Camp Williams, and the first postwar training camp was held there the following June. Almost all annual Guard encampments have been held at Camp Williams since that date.16 In 1948 permanent 16 T h e 19th Special Force Group has conducted field training encampments in Utah forests and in regular Army training camps in California and North Carolina. Engineer units have trained on road building projects throughout U t a h every year but one since 1955.

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metal frames were installed in concrete tent floors; in 1949 and 1950, four new latrines, a security fence around the ammunition area, and an air strip which was to double as an emergency landing field for CAA planes, were all constructed. In addition, the state enlarged nine mess halls and moved in two buildings from Fort Douglas.

T h e National Guard Bureau authorized the State of U t a h to recruit 4,500 men for its Guard in 1946. By the outbreak of the Korean W a r in June 1950, the strength of the Guard was only 337 officers and 2,603 enlisted men. This number of Guardsmen was higher than ever before in Utah's history except during the U t a h W a r of 1857-58 and the Black Hawk W a r of 1865-68.

T h e federal government continued to support the Guard with equipment and pay and allowance for duty performed. Full-time employees, paid from Defense Department funds, were added to perform the many additional administrative and maintenance requirements imposed upon the National Guard. The state continued to pay the costs of personnel to operate the state headquarters, armory operation and maintenance, custodial service, and 25 per cent of the cost of construction of armory facilities.

The Army also continued to support service school training programs for the professional qualification of officers and enlisted men. In 1949 and 1950, for instance, 132 men went to schools run by the Armed Services to learn various specialties ranging from cooking to leadership. National Guard officials estimated in 1946 that the yearly federal support for drills and encampments would run over $1.5 million. T h e drill pay did not reach this amount, but the federal government paid $159,748 in 1948 and $258,048 in 1950 for the two 15-day annual encampments. During the two years the Defense Department expended a total of $922,174 and $1,870,910 on Utah's National Guard units.

In return for these expenditures by the federal government and approximately five per cent as much by the state, the units were required to be on call when they were needed. In the winter of 1948-49, during "Operation Snow-disaster," the U t a h National Guard removed the snow from 21,395 miles of road and helped in rescue operations.

T H E KOREAN W A R

At the outbreak of the Korean War, U t a h National Guardsmen were again prepared to serve their country, thanks to the weekly drills and the summer training they had received at C a m p Williams. Nevertheless, there was some dissatisfaction that the Army saw fit to mobilize 60 per cent of

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the U t a h units and called no units to active duty in some other states in the Sixth Army area.

Just as during World W a r I I , the state activated new units to replace those which h a d been called to duty. These were authorized to recruit up to 50 per cent officer and 25 per cent enlisted strength. T h e state did maintain a band, two field artillery groups, two combat engineer units, an ordnance company, and the headquarters of the X I Corps artillery.

These and the older units of the Guard continued to meet for their annual encampments at C a m p Williams, and the facilities of the camp were continually improved. Some 200 new tents were added, as well as a swimming pool and five baseball diamonds, a new road to the 20,000acre artillery range, and sidewalks in the cantonment area. By 1952 the C a m p had ample facilities for 3,000 men, including an outdoor amphitheatre with a capacity of 3,000 and a new water supply system.

Total Guard expenditures in 1952 were $1,492,721, of which the state spent $115,170 and the federal government $1,377,551. T h e cost of training the U t a h National Guard troops at C a m p Williams in that year totaled $233,000, all of which was paid by the federal government.

R E C E N T ACTIVITIES

After the Korean War, the Utah National Guard again faced the problem of reorganizing its units, integrating the wartime enlistees with those returning from active duty, and recruiting new Guardsmen. It had been traditional with the National Guard that members always saw service as units under their own officers. There was some deviation from this policy during the Korean campaign where, due to prevailing circumstances, the Army utilized some Utah National Guard personnel as individual fill-in replacements. T h e fact that some Guardsmen had been called to active duty twice within a period of 10 years, with the attending employment and family dislocations, discouraged many from voluntary enlistment in the National Guard. Despite these obstacles, by June 30, 1954, the U t a h National Guard was completely reorganized for another tour of peace-time duty.

One new policy permitted young men between the ages of 17 and 18*4 to discharge their military obligation by joining the Guard for eight years. Thus they were deferred from any active duty unless their units were recalled. T h e Reserve Forces Act of 1955 provided an alternative to fill the military obligation by training for six months with the regular Army, then attending weekly training sessions and annual encampments

Post-World War II expenditures by state and federal governments have brought tinued improvements and permanent installations to Camp Williams.

con-

for five and one-half years. Both of these opportunities served to increase enlistment in the Guard. The number of men in Utah's National Guard rose from 2,717 in June 1954 to more than 4,700 in June 1960.

In order to train these new men, the state and nation built new armories and improved the facilities at Camp Williams. The state appropriated $15,000 to winterize seven buildings at the camp, and federal funds constructed four barracks. The Guard also replaced tent frames with a semi-permanent siding extending about three feet from the ground and added aluminum roofs. Over $2 million was expended out of federal sources for construction of facilities in 1954-56 at Camp Williams and throughout the state. During fiscal 1956, the Defense Department spent an additional $360,305 for field training, and an undetermined sum for sending 50 or more Utah Guardsmen to service schools.

The Camp Williams area is now an advantageous center for the training of National Guard units. The Transverse Mountains form an ideal barrier between artillery units and the impact area north of Cedar Valley.

West of the cantonment area, which lies between Redwood Road and Jordan Narrows, the state has constructed a submachine gun range, rifle and carbine range, rifle grenade and rocket launcher range, bayonet course, infiltration course, two machine gun ranges, and a hand grenade course.

Under the leadership of Major General Maxwell E. Rich, the recently retired adjutant general, the Guard was developed into an important unit in America's first line of defense. General Rich enlisted as a

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private in the U t a h National Guard in 1932 and received an appointment as second lieutenant in 1934. In World W a r I I , he commanded a field artillery battalion in Europe and rose to lieutenant colonel. For his service in Europe he received, among other citations, the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre. When General Rich was appointed brigadier general in 1953, he was only 40 years old, the youngest brigadier in the history of the U t a h National Guard. In 1960-61 he served as president of the Adjutant General's Association of the National Guard of the United States. Upon General Rich's retirement in November 1964, Major General Maurice L. Watts, assistant adjutant general, was elevated to the top position.

Along with its growth and expansion, C a m p Williams has been put to many different uses. T h e Guard's officer candidate school has been held at Williams, and the U t a h State Prison located its honor camp at the base and maintained it there for several years. For many years, the American Legion held its annual Boys' State at Williams, and the Fish and Game Department often uses the facilities for training its staff and giving gunsafety instruction to boys. Since 1960 C a m p Williams has been a yearround home base for the civil defense instruction conducted by the Utah State Civil Defense Academy.

A notable program inaugurated in 1961 was the annual "Freedom Foundation Academy," in which the top two or three students of the various high schools in the state participate. T h e object of the Freedom Academy is to inform students of the history of America and its political and economic institutions, and to awaken their patriotism. T h e Guard also sponsors a series of seminars on "Americanism U p Front," in which invited speakers seek to build up respect for America and its heritage.

Citizen interest in the National Guard has been fostered through the appointment of a number of honorary colonels. These include prominent business, political, and religious leaders in the state. Finally, the Guard sponsors a "Bantam Basketball League," in association with local businesses, with games being played at National Guard armories.

T h e U t a h National Guard and U t a h Air National Guard now own about $5.6 million in property â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including C a m p Williams, facilities at the Salt Lake Airport, and 28 National Guard armories. A $1.5 million construction program has been recently completed in Salt Lake City which will house the supply and maintenance facilities for the state.

In spite of local autonomy, the federal government, by virtue of the large appropriations for the support of the Guard, has control over many

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of its activities. Guardsmen are trained according to federal specifications, with federal equipment, clothing, and manuals. Should the need arise, they can be placed into any position in the United States Army for which they have been trained. Federal authority was again exercised in October 1961, when a flare-up in the Berlin crisis prompted the mobilizing of several units of the Utah Guard, involving 1,500 men.

The state and federal governments now hire some 450 full-time civilian employees. Beyond this, most of the members of the Guard are young men between 17 and 35, and a large number are under 20 and unmarried. Many consider their Guard paycheck a bonus to be spent for things they would not ordinarily be able to buy; and while the Guard cannot be compared with an installation like the Defense Depot Ogden, which hires more than 3,000 workers full-time, these citizen-soldiers receive a full-day's pay for each of 48 drills per year, and 15-days' pay for summer camp. With almost 5,000 men in the Guard, the payroll is about as large as with 1,000 men working a five-day week.

In a reorganization ordered by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, on December 11, 1964, the 150,000 Army Reservists in the nation Following World War II, air units were added to the National being operated at the Salt Lake Municipal Airport.

Guard with

facilities

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on drill-pay status were directed to be shifted into the National Guard. The remaining 150,000 Reservists were dropped into a standby manpower pool to be tapped only in case of national emergency. A similar reorganization order is expected to move the Air Force Reserve into the Air National Guard. T h e purpose of this move was to eliminate duplicate headquarters and other administrative units, duplicate armories and training facilities, and in general to increase efficiency and reduce costs.17 At the time of the order there were some 5,000 Reservists in Utah, most of whom were members of the 96th Command Headquarters, Salt Lake City (which incorporates 59 Reserve units in Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon) ; and the 191st Brigade, with headquarters in Helena, Montana. U t a h Guard strength at the end of 1964 was 4,348, and the expected addition of Reserves to the Guard could push this number up to 7,000 or higher. The plan is expected to be executed soon after encampments in the summer of 1965. Those men who have completed six-month basic training, and are serving the remainder of their military obligations as Reservists, will now be sworn into the Guard or enlist in Reserve branches of other services. Others may be placed on the inactive list.

Thus, for statutory, historical, and political reasons, the backup for the regular Army will now be concentrated in an expanded and streamlined 550,000-man National Guard. Although the federal government pays 97 per cent of their costs, National Guard units normally remain under control of the governor of the state, and thus they represent a check against the usurpation of power by a strong, centralized federal government.

T h e 38 years of continuous use of C a m p Williams has contributed to the stability and security of both Utah and the nation, and the indicated growth in the Guard will insure the same for the future.

17 Deseret News (Salt Lake City), December 11, 14, 1964; Salt Lake Tribune, December 12, 15, 1964.

THE TURNER THESIS and MORMON BEGINNINGS in NEW YORK and UTAH

BY A L E X A N D E R E V A N O F F

INTRODUCTION

This paper will attempt to apply the Turner thesis to the following two problems, to determine: 1. Whether Mormon faith was of frontier origin, and whether or not it appealed mostly to non-frontier people. This is a twofold problem.

2. Whether the frontier in Utah produced democratic or authoritarian influences.

Because it has been assumed that Mormon faith had its gestation, birth, and flowering under varying degrees of frontier conditions, Mormon history and institutions would seem to provide a rather ready-made, if not obvious, test case for the validity of Frederick Jackson Turner's ideas. And yet, it was not until Thomas F. O'Dea's The Mormons in 1957 that anyone attempted, in anything more than a casual way, to relate Turner's theory to Mormon history. However, as a sociologist, one who is unwilling to accept the divine origin of Mormon doctrine, O'Dea is more concerned with showing the cultural and social borrowings which he finds in Mormon life than actually attempting to determine whether or not Mormon democracy or Mormon individualism is a result of frontier conditions.

Turner himself refers to the Mormons by name only once, and that in passing, and in connection with the Dunkard, the Icarians, the Fourierists, and similar idealists who sought out the western wilds in search of freedom.1 Mr. Evanoff is professor of English at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and is completing doctoral work at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of articles on Flawthorne, William Dean, Howells, Chaucer, economics, and history.

1 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920), 263.

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T H E TURNER THESIS

Before Mormon beginnings and institutions can be evaluated there must be some attempt at a definition of Turner's thesis. This is a rather difficult task, partly because the theory itself can be all encompassing and is not readily susceptible to satisfactory capsulization, and partly because the critics of Turner have so radically misrepresented the theory and abused it, that any presentation of Turner's ideas would be well-advised to take into some account what Turner's critics allege the theory to involve, as a kind of apologia for using or applying the theory at all.

Turner is accused of being an environmentalist and a mono-causationist. But the real animus against Turner by those who made such charges, particularly during the 1930's and into the 1940's, probably had little to do with whether he was an environmentalist or a mono-causationist; after all, many of Turner's critics who felt themselves "liberally" oriented and "progressively" minded were not particularly hostile to Darwin's conception of the influences of the environment. It is probably fair to say that the animus against Turner had nothing to do with whether or not Turner was a good Darwinian.

W h a t apparently alienated Turner most of all in the minds of many of his critics, and caused them to suspect everything he had written as being profane in origin, was the friendly tone Turner adopted towards individualism and his assertion that American democracy was "born of no theorist's dream." In 1958 Ray Allen Billington, who has provided the most succinct, as well as complete, exposition of the Turner controversy, acknowledged that "No single statement in all of Turner's writings has been more vigorously disputed than his declaration that 'American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Sarah Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.' " 2 Perhaps one can understand how the mind and temperament which thinks of itself as "liberal" may bristle at Turner's apparent dismissal of "theorist's" dreams. Turner had not displayed the proper reverence for "theorist's" dreams which some "liberals" may have hoped to find in right thinking scholars. Mr. Billington, himself, finds the statement lacking in "sobriety" ;3 and although Mr. Billington is seemingly inclined to test truth by its admixture of levity or sobriety, he does not assert that 2 3

Ray Allen Billington, The American Frontier (Washington, D . C , 1958), 14.

Ibid., 15.

H E N R Y E. H U N T I N G T O N LIBRARY & ART G A L L E R Y

Turner's statement is in error because he recognizes t h a t T u r n e r readily acknowledges that nothing comes from nothing.

Turner does affirm that at the A m e r i c a n frontier the bonds of custom are broken; but There is not a tabula rasa. T h e stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of custom each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and the freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons. 4

In the first c h a p t e r of his The Frontier in American History, and as early as the second paragraph, Turner asserts clearly enough that "All peoples show development; the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently emphasized." A little later, the third page of the same work, as a matter of fact, he again asserts clearly enough that " O u r early history is the study of European germs developing in an American environment." H e has said, "Old organs will be utilized to express new forces, and so gradual and subtle will be the change that it may hardly be recognized." 5

4

Turner, Frontier in American

5

Ibid., 244.

History,

38.

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1932)

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Mr. Billington, who has accused Turner of being somewhat deficient in sobriety, is also good enough to come to Turner's defense in regard to this same charge. H e says of Turner that Certainly in his soberer moments he adopted a more realistic view, [when, for example, he asserted that] "the history of our institutions, our democracy, is not a history of imitation, or simple borrowing; it is the history of the evolution and adaptation of organs in response to changed environment, a history of the origin of a new political species." 6

It is not mandatory that Turner be defended by matching a sober assertion against one which is not, as does Mr. Ray Allen Billington. T h e "theorist's dream" passage, by itself, taken completely out of context, need not lead inevitably to an environmentalist interpretation. Taken out of context and in isolation, Turner's much attacked statement may be interpreted to aver nothing more than that American democracy is the result and the end product of the activities and aspirations of the American people rather than the product or formulations of one m a n carried somehow on the Sarah Constant or the Mayflower. T h e statement seems to affirm nothing more frightening than that American democracy differs from European democracy and that it would be rather difficult for Europe to export what it does not itself possess. But when the statement is taken in context, preceded, as it is, by a number of affirmations of the "germ" theory, and followed, as it is, by a number of affirmations of the "germ" theory, its misinterpretation would seem unjust.

Turner never denies the validity of origins and traditions, but he has set for himself the task of discovering what may have been the effect of the frontier upon American character and institutions. T h e critic of Turner's hypothesis is on much better ground if he points to a possible over-emphasis on environment. But, because a great deal of tracing to European sources had been done, Turner confined himself to an area of investigation which had been neglected. However, even when Turner is charged with over-emphasis he is sometimes unjustly treated and his point of view rather unfairly characterized and misrepresented. George Wilson Pierson feels that in Turner's theory "too small a role is allowed to man's own character and ambitions, to his capacity for change, and to the traditions and momentum of the society which came to use this free land. Thus the continent masters, destroys, commands, and creates â&#x20AC;&#x201D; while man is surprisingly passive." 7 Turner never really says that it is the continent that 6

Billington, American Frontier, 15.

George Wilson Pierson, " T h e Frontier and American Institutions: A Criticism of the T u r n e r Theory," New England Quarterly, X V (June, 1942), 254.

7

Turner Thesis

161

masters, destroys, commands, and creates. Turner put the burden of mastery, destruction, command, and creativity upon man. M a n is never passive. Mr. Billington, a relatively nonpartisan historian, accepts the basic Turner ideas and makes the following assessment: Most modern scholars . . . would agree with T u r n e r that the frontiersmen did develop certain unique traits, and that these have been perpetuated to form the principal distinguishing characteristics of the American people today. Americans display a restless energy, a versatility, a practical ingenuity, an earthy practicality to a degree unknown among Englishmen or other Europeans. They do squander their natural resources with an abandon unknown elsewhere; they have developed a mobility both socially and physically that marks them as a people apart. In few other lands is democracy worshiped so intensely . . . seldom in comparable cultural areas do they cling so tenaciously to the shibboleth of rugged individualism. Nor do residents of non-frontier lands experience to the same degree the heady optimism, the blind faith in the future, the belief in the inevitability of progress, that is a part of the American creed. These were pioneer traits, and they have become a part of our national heritage. 8

It should be unnecessary here to delve into the history of the controversy that the Turner hypothesis created, but it is necessary to give some substantiation to the validity of the Turner thesis as a hypothesis, because American scholars who know the Turner thesis do sometimes assume that the thesis is thoroughly discredited. So rather than accepting the thesis either as proved or disproved, let us assume the validity of the hypothesis and see whether or not it may be made to apply to Mormon experience.

W E S T E R N N E W YORK AND M O R M O N POPULARITY

From the birth of the Mormon faith in western New York to the removal of the church to the West, the mainstream of Mormon life may be said to have been conducted under frontier conditions. Mormon removal from western New York; to Kirtland, Ohio; to Far West, Missouri; to Nauvoo, Illinois; and finally to the Great Salt Lake Basin involved movement into frontier regions of increasing isolation. And according to the democratizing aspects of Turner's theory, such removal perhaps ought to have resulted in increasing freedom, individualism, and resentment of restraint among the Mormon faithful. T h e Mormon people might have been expected to become increasingly democratic with each move westward. But instead we find that the Mormons brought a theocratic government into operation from their very first entry into the bastions of the Intermountain West. From the moment they entered the most isolated 8

Billington, American Frontier, 22.

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and abandoned country they had ever settled, the Mormons instituted the most centrally directed and autocratic government they had known â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the period of the Theocracy from 1847 to 1849.

If the Mormon people brought a theocratic government into the vast Great Salt Lake Basin, such a government and such an organization must have h a d its origins elsewhere. It is with the first beginnings of Mormonism in western New York, as well as the kind of people to whom Mormonism appealed, that this section of this report shall deal.

Since Mormonism is of native growth and native origin, the theocratic origins of Mormon life may be said to have come into existence under the purportedly democratic influences of frontier life. But Whitney R. Cross has seriously challenged the standard interpretation of Mormonism as a frontier religion. His challenge and supporting evidence was published in 1950 and formed a chapter in a significant book entitled The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850. Mr. Cross characterizes western New York and the Palmyra region as a non-frontier region and Mormonism as a faith unappealing to frontiersmen. Mr. Cross's evaluation has remained unchallenged in the 5 years since the publication of his book. Thomas O'Dea, perhaps the best and closest Gentile observer of Mormon affairs, accepts Cross's evaluation in his 1957 study The Mormons. T h e importance of knowing whether western New York was a frontier region is this: If we can determine that a non-frontier community produced the Mormon faith with its autocratic or centralist tendencies, then the thesis of the democratic influences of the frontier can remain relatively intact, or little damaged. But, on the other hand, if we can determine that Mormonism originated on the frontier, it may be possible to say that the frontier was capable of producing autocratic and centralist tendencies as well as democratic tendencies, and thus perhaps weaken the applicability of the Turner hypothesis.

According to Mr. Cross the Palmyra region was not a frontier or a cultural backwash. H e shows that the Palmyra and Manchester regions of western New York possessed between 20 and 60 persons per square mile during the 1820's.9 Palmyra during Joseph Smith's stay there had become a local market. Manchester, six miles to the south, possessed a library of 600 books. It had a school, "produced wool, flour, and paper in local mills, and operated a blast furnace." 10 Twelve miles to the south of Palmyra 9 Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual thusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, 1950), 57.

10 Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago, 1957), 7fn.

History of En-

Turner Thesis

163

was Canandaigua, which was one of the two oldest towns in western New York with schools, libraries, and churches. Less than 30 miles from the origin of Mormonism was Rochester, which had grown 512 per cent in population during the 1820's.11 Both Thomas O'Dea and Whitney Cross find that the Mormon faith originated in a region of western New York which they could not characterize as a frontier.

It may well be that the most urban and sophisticated region in the early history of the Mormon Church was the western New York area where there were no squatters' privileges. And yet in this area there were rather formidable frontier conditions; and though Mr. Cross believes that land valuation was excessively high, Joseph Smith's father was able to buy 100 acres of unimproved land just two miles south of Palmyra from the efforts of about a year's city labor. O n this same land in another year's time, he built a log house and began clearing the forest. It took three men and a yoke of oxen five weeks to clear and sow a 10-acre field. And when the wheat was ripe, the farmers threshed it with the bare hoofs of cattle or with a flail. But even in this "cultured and settled" region, the wheat could not be sold and had a barter value of only 25 cents a bushel. Wheat was seldom a cash crop and had to be transported overland 200 miles east to Albany at prohibitive cost.12 Mr. Cross's characterization of western New York as a non-frontier region does not concern itself with how Frederick Jackson Turner might have designated the area. If Turner's definition of frontier had been definite and unmistakable, there would have been little need for this discussion of western New York. O n occasion Turner accepted the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of frontier as that area in which the population ranged from two to six persons to the square mile. But Turner did not want to give the term "frontier" a fixed meaning. Ray Billington characterizes Turner's shifting definitions of frontier in this fashion: At one time the frontier to T u r n e r was "the meeting ground between savagery and civilization," at another it might become "the temporary boundary of an expanding society at the edge of substantially free lands," or a "migrating region," a "form of society," a "stage of society rather than a place," a "process," or "the region whose social conditions result from the application of older institutions and ideas to the transforming influences of free land." 13

It would appear that Turner's broad and shifting definitions of "frontier" would be inclusive enough to include western New York. Thus Mor11

Ibid., 7.

FawnM. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, 1946), 10-11.

13 Billington, American Frontier, 9.

12

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monism may be considered a frontier religion on the basis of its geographic origin. Mr. Billington has succinctly interpreted Turner's fluctuating definitions as follows: the "frontier" was not a narrow line but a migrating zone of varying width, peopled by a variety of frontier types ranging from fur-trappers on the west to town-builders on the east . . . (and furthermore) the social devolution and evolution occurring within this zone varied with time and place depending on the n a t u r e of both the individuals a n d institutions entering the region and the environment awaiting them there. 1 4

And yet, the question of whether or not western New York was a frontier region is perhaps less significant than the fact that the center of Mormon interest and authority was never really in New York; as soon as Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and gathered about 100 adherents, the Mormon Church moved west, and the center of its power and interest was located in such places as Kirtland, Ohio; Far West, Missouri; Nauvoo, Illinois; and the Intermountain West. The Mormon Church cannot be said to have grown or developed in New York State; about all that can be said is that it had its beginnings there. The church had really moved out of New York about as soon as it was formed. Additionally, because this is so, it seems rather rash for Mr. Cross to characterize Mormonism as a non-frontier religion solely on the basis of the social characteristics in western New York. He buttresses his evaluation of Mormonism as a non-frontier religion with the additional argument that Mormonism did not appeal to frontiersmen. He sees Mormonism as neither originating on the frontier nor appealing to frontiersmen. It would appear that the virile, independent frontiersmen could not submit himself to the autocracy and direction of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cross puts his case in this fashion: T h e far greater gathering of converts from this area [western New York] came during the region's riper maturity, after Zion had removed to the West. And the recruits enlisted here and elsewhere far outnumbered those gained in areas of the Middle West where M o r m o n headquarters chanced from time to time to be located. 1 5

That the number of recruits from the East exceeded those from the Middle West is rather difficult, if not impossible, to prove; and, Mr. Cross does not really establish his case convincingly. Whitney Cross acknowledges that he has used the federal census of 1860 in his endeavor to establish the predominantly eastern origin and makeup of Mormonism, but that 14 15

ibid.

Cross, Burned-over

District, 146.

Turner

165

Thesis

census does not really substantiate his case. T h e 1860 census shows that of the 27,490 native-born residents in Utah, 1,744 came from New York, while a somewhat larger number (1,796) came from Illinois. There were 1,551 who came from Iowa, 884 who came from Ohio, 862 who came from Pennsylvania. T h e states of New York, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio contributed 6,837, or better than half of the aggregate originating in the states of the Union. 16 Thirty-eight per cent of the aggregate population was born in the territories, namely, 15,968.17 Approximately 40 per cent of the population was under 13 years of age and therefore largely born in Utah or the territories. 18 T h e nature of such statistics has not prevented Cross's affirming that "Mormonism should not be called a frontier religion in terms of the persons it appealed to any more than it should in terms of its origin." 19 NATIVE-BORN U T A H N S I N

(Source: U.S. Population Population," 578.)

Alabama Arkansas California Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

1860

Census for 1860, from "Table No. 5, Nativities of Free 96 9 236 232 47 5 46 1,796 322 1,551 7 260 30 222 42 523 42 113

Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Carolina

726 175 210 1,744 118 884 1

Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia Wisconsin District of Columbia Territories At Sea Not stated

862 26 37 398 67 326 158 37 2 15,968 8 44

Aggregate Native

27,490

16 Andrew Love Neff, History of Utah, 1847 to 1869, ed., Leland Hargrave Creer (Salt Lake City, 1940), 206.

17 Ibid., 205.

18 Ibid., 206.

19 Cross, Burned-over District, 150.

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My examination of the 1860 census would seem to indicate that well over half of the Mormon membership came from non-eastern states or territories. A glance at the table should confirm my estimate. Most nativeborn Mormons seem to have come from the Middle West. A significant factor which Mr. Cross does not take into consideration has to do with estimating the percentage of conversion as against density of population in each state. It would be of little avail to show that roughly the same number of converts came from Illinois as from New York if New York had twice the population of Illinois.

William Alexander Linn in The Story of the Mormons suggests that Joseph Smith left western New York because he could not get enough conversions there. Mr. Linn suggests that Joseph Smith's proselytizing efforts in western New York were not as productive as he had hoped. Before Joseph Smith had been able to convert more than 100 people, four of his Mormon missionaries had converted 127 persons within a brief two- or three-week period, and the number of converts had reached 1,000 within a short time. Mr. Linn believes that it was the proselytizing results in the West on the part of his missionaries that encouraged Joseph Smith to move west.20 Here is Mr. Linn's assessment: "A sufficient reason for the removal was the failure to secure converts where Smith was known, and the ready acceptance of the new belief among Rigdon's Ohio people." 21 It would probably be the better part of discretion to be skeptical of Mr. Cross's evaluation of the appeal of Mormon doctrine until his case has been established; and, the subject would perhaps warrant a closer examination than anyone has given it. Mr. Andrew Love Neff, the author of the useful and valuable History of Utah: 1847 to 1869 believes that "Whether foreign or domestic, all the regions from whence . . . [the Mormons] came represented advanced economic and culture areas." 22 Precisely what Mr. Neff really meant by advanced economic and culture areas is not clear. The proportion and number of converts that came from such frontier areas as Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, even California seems to have been rather significant in relation to the number of people living there. And, much of that area during the Mormon sojourn in the Middle West was in large part frontier country falling within Turner's fluctuating and imprecise evaluation of "frontier."

20 William Alexander Linn, The Story of the Mormons: the Year 1901 (New York, 1902), 131.

21

Ibid., 106.

22

Neff, History of Utah, 206.

From the Date of Their Origin to

Turner Thesis

167

In a certain sense major groups of the Mormon Church seldom lived in a "frontier" environment. Shortly after Joseph Smith's westward movement, the missionary efforts had become so successful that wherever the Mormons moved they came as a clear majority or soon became a majority, and perhaps no region into which they moved with their many numbers would have constituted a "frontier" region to Mr. Cross. But, this assumption may be incorrect because he acknowledges that "the church existed generally on the frontier and kept moving westward with the tide of settlement." 23 In Jackson County, Missouri, the Far West and Independence establishments of the Mormons must have numbered close to 13,000 around June 1838, just eight years after the founding of the Mormon Church with its 100 members and 1,200 miles from the place of Mormon origin. Mormon troops in Far West, Missouri, numbered 1,200 to 1,500.

We know that after the exodus from Far West the Mormons moved into Illinois and established Nauvoo, and within a few years the estimated population of Nauvoo and its environs was 15,000 with a militia of 2,000.24 Within a short time of the Mormon establishment of Nauvoo, what had been a relatively empty region became the most populous region in Illinois.

Within a very few years of the incorporation of the Mormon Church in western New York, no matter what the region into which the Mormon people moved, it became an area of relatively dense population from the sheer strength in numbers of the Mormon people.

The belief that Mormonism did not appeal to frontiersmen may be due to a hasty appraisal of the deterrent effect on missionary activity which the fear, envy, and hostility the Mormons aroused in many people, who were their immediate neighbors, may have had. But hostility from some neighbors does not preclude the existence of friendly Gentile neighbors among whom recruitment may have been successful. Local hostility might be likely to bring sympathy for the Mormons in areas where they had not settled and perhaps a readiness to listen sympathetically to Mormon doctrine. We know that the people of eastern Illinois welcomed the Mormons with sympathy after troubles and harassment in Missouri had forced the Mormon removal.

Mr. Cross's hypothesis, which he asserts as fact, fails to consider the important matter of duration of recruitment activity in any given area.

Evidence based on missionary activity during the 17-year period in the United States from 1830 to 1847 shows that missionary activity did not extend into two-thirds of Illinois until 11 to 17 years after missionaries had 23 24

Cross, Burned-over District, 150.

O'Dea, The Mormons, 51.

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Quarterly

been active in most of New York. Almost no missionary work was done in Iowa prior to 1847, and none at all in Minnesota prior to 1847. Missionary activity in Wisconsin did not begin until 11 to 17 years later than in New York. 25 There seems to be no evidence compelling enough to support Mr. Cross's hypothesis without some serious misgivings.

But, what does lend credence to Mr. Cross's belief is the large group of immigrants the Mormon missionaries were able to attract from England and the Scandinavian countries. T h e census of 1860 shows 12,754 foreign-born residents in Utah, whereas native-born numbered 27,490 or 68 per cent of the population. In June 1837 the Mormon Church established a mission in England and brought the whole European continent within reach of Mormon doctrine. Missions to Scandinavia were added in 1849.26 Thus the Mormons began their missionary endeavors in England and the European continent and achieved 12,754 converts from that richly populated area by the year 1860 after 23 years of effort; whereas at Nauvoo alone, before European immigration of Mormon converts had any importance, there were 15,000 with about 27,000 scattered within the boundaries of the United States in 1845, after 15 years of effort.

It is regrettable that Mr. Cross speaks with more assurance than the facts would warrant when he says, "Obviously, then, Mormonism should not be called a frontier religion in terms of the persons it appealed to, any more than it should in terms of its origin." Mr. Cross has not troubled to be concerned with percentage of population drawn from any region, or the duration of recruitment efforts in any area, and he has not attempted to define which areas of Mormon proselytizing constituted frontier areas in his opinion and which did not.

1847-1849 T h e Mormons in U t a h may be said to have had four successive governments : 1. Theocracy 1847-1849.

2. Provisional government of the State of Deseret 1849-1851.

3. Territorial government 1851-1896.

4. U t a h State government 1896THEOCRACY

An inquiry into the degree of democracy and the reasons for the absence of civil government during the theocracy of 1847 to 1849 shall concern us here. During this period nearly 10,000 Mormons lived closely together 25 William Edwin Berrett, The Restored Church: A Brief History of the Growth and Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1956), demographic map, 109.

26 O'Dea, The Mormons, 9 0 - 9 1 .

Turner Thesis

169

and "managed the entirety of . . . [their] economic and social affairs without the semblance of political government." 2 7 T h e theocratic government did not spring full-blown in the desert. Its origins and the sources of its development, organization, and implementation are to be found in the revelations of Joseph Smith, in the h a r d and tortuous wanderings of the Mormon people, and in their relationship to their environment and its frequently hostile people. T h e history of such development during 17 years of wandering in the Middle West is too complicated to be treated here.

But certainly, the relationship between church and people, and church and civil government, was subject to change both prior to the settlement of the U t a h country, and after its settlement as well. It would be impossible to deal at all adequately with anything more than some aspects of the first two years of Mormon settlement in the Great Basin. T h e two-year period (1847-49) is selected for examination not because it is less complicated or involved than any other two-year period in Mormon history, but because it seems to offer a more serious stumbling block to the Turner thesis than any other period, before or since.

O n the Mormons' arrival in the Great Salt Lake Basin late in July 1847, there were no constituted civil authorities to greet them. It was a rather forbidding, arid region about 1,000 miles from anywhere. Brigham Young and his people were aware that there was more attractive land west of the Sierras as well as in the Pacific Northwest. But, the forbidding, unpromising nature of much of the Intermountain region seemed to promise an isolation for individual development that more attractive regions could not have afforded. I n the new environment, already established church agencies met all governmental requirements. T h e High Council made the laws. Instead of civil courts the bishop, High Council, and the First Presidency acted in such capacity. For the execution and enforcement of the law there was the Nauvoo Legion. Church tithes and offerings provided revenue. 28 T h e Mormons had finally found an extensive physical domain in which they hoped to grow and expand unmolested by Gentiles. Their numbers h a d grown to such an extent by 1847 that there was probably no other region where they could grow and develop as they wished to. In October of 1845 at a meeting in the almost completed temple at Nauvoo from which the Mormons were about to flee, Parley Pratt, one of the early scholars and philosophers of the Mormon movement, put the Mormon purposes and condition in these words: 27 28

Neff, History of Utah, 107.

Ibid., 110.

170

Utah Historical

Quarterly

O n e small nursery may produce many thousands of fruit trees, while they are small. But as they expand toward maturity they must needs be transplanted, in order to have room to grow and produce natural fruits. It is so with us. We want a country where we have room to expand, and to put into requisition all our energies and the enterprise and talents of a numerous, and intelligent, and increasing people. 2 9

T h e philosophy and ideas seem to be very much like Turner's thesis, particularly with the emphasis upon transplantation, freedom to develop energies and talents, and room.

T h e whole Mormon undertaking in the West assumed the existence of enough land and resources for all. And, Mormons found them in the U t a h region along with the requisite isolation and freedom to develop as they chose. An unnamed speaker at the same meeting with Parley Pratt added: We calculate to go the same people we are n o w ; preserving the same principles which have caused us to grow a n d expand as we have done . . . and however much the people may seem disposed not to go, the sails are set, the wind is fair, and we are bound to weather the point, whether we will or not; for we are not at the h e l m . . . . 30

T h e Mormon faith, like the Puritan, had developed its principles and grown in a land which could no longer hold them. Both were built on the assumption that the church was divine and eternal, that they were under divine auspices; both needed isolation to develop; and both established theocratic government in a wilderness. But the differences (if not great, still differences) in the two theocracies would seem to uphold Turner's thesis of increasing democratization. According to Turner's theory the Puritans representing European "germs" evolving under frontier conditions would have to be less democratic and more class conscious than the Mormons, an offshoot of essentially Puritan origin benefitting during a long period from the democratizing influence of the frontier.

Class distinctions among the Mormons were relatively non-existent.

T h e duties of church officials did not exempt them from labor on farms, or in business and industry. Church officers, during the early period, were expected to support themselves. The hierarchy of class distinctions that existed in Puritan theocracy was significantly less pronounced in Mormon society.

T h e church authority that was exercised in the settlement and organization of Utah was really quite permissive and partook more of the 29 B. H . Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Salt Lake City, 1902-1932), V I I , 464.

30 Ibid., 468.

Saints . . . (7 vols

Turner Thesis

171

quality of voluntarism on the part of the people than ecclesiastical fiat on the part of the church. There was no civil or legal authority that could force a Saint to accept a 10- or 15-acre plot of land in the south of U t a h if he chose to live in northern Utah. There was a good deal of land available everywhere, though limited by access to sources of irrigation. When the church found more people in any settled community than available land and irrigation possibilities of the moment would comfortably permit, it would ask for volunteers to settle vacant regions, previously explored, which could accommodate additional settlers. And, if a settlement at Moroni needed a blacksmith and the village of Manti had one blacksmith, as well as three other blacksmiths occupied as farmers, church authorities would present the needs of the new settlement at Moroni and ask for volunteers from Manti to meet such needs. T h e church was primarily dependent upon the willingness and free-will determination of the people to assist one another rather than upon arbitrary fiat.

Nevertheless, Andrew Love Neff, Mormon historian, finds it possible to observe that certain phases of the Puritan concept and viewpoint, which were losing their grip on the inhabitants of New England, were reborn and reinvigorated in the U t a h desert. 31 " I n some respects," he has said, "it seemed that Brigham Young had picked up the thread of life where Jonathan Edwards and Cotton Mather had laid it down." 3 2 Ecclesiastical officials in the Mormon Church are appointed or nominated by the presiding officers of the church, but their selection does not become effective until voted upon favorably by the Saints. 33 But such approval was a routine matter, and the authority of the prophet-president and his nominee was not much endangered by this practice. Yet, both Mormon and nonMormon commentators agree that frontier conditions were such as to leave individual initiative and decision not much impaired. Thomas O'Dea finds that " T h e initiative of the rank and file was hardly impaired, and the new country with its challenge to individual hardihood and ingenuity offered an outlet to talents that counterbalanced the restriction often associated with . . . authoritarian rule." 3 4 Although much of the Mormon colonization was directed by church authority, the first villages settled in the Salt Lake Valley grew up undirected, and unplanned, as individual initiative dictated, as was usually the case with other American 31 32

Neff, History of Utah, 109.

Ibid.

33

Milton R. Hunter, Brigham

34

O'Dea, The Mormons,

84.

Young, the Colonizer

(Salt Lake City, 1940), 116.

U2

Utah Historical

Quarterly

settlement. Furthermore, the early period of settlement could not be minutely directed by one man. 35 H a d Mormon inclination been more strongly oriented toward authoritarianism, separatism, and ecclesiastical primacy than it was, we might have expected the establishment of a church-state in the West, free from civil authority. It would seem that 1,000 miles from anywhere in the Great Basin area, the Mormons could have instituted whatever social or national organization they pleased. They were nominally squatters on Mexican territory. T h e United States had no legal jurisdiction over them.

T h e Mormon Church seems to have had a very excellent opportunity of proclaiming its independence of the United States, of Mexico, or of any other temporal power. Population statistics indicate that there were about 30,000 Mormons in the United States â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 11,000 of them were in Utah by 1850.36 In the vastness of the West they might possibly have formed an actual church-state, recognizing no authority but itself, had the will to do so been there. Texans h a d proclaimed their freedom without the impetus of Zionism which motivated the Mormons. And yet, the Mormons retained their loyalty to the United States and to the principle of the division of church and state, and in 1849 organized a state government and a state constitution which they hoped would bring it admittance into the United States as an equal member with the other states.

Richard T. Ely, in his Harper's Monthly article, "Economic Aspects of Mormonism," has made perhaps the most amusing observation on Mormon authoritarianism and centralism: "So far as I can judge from what I have seen, the organization of the Mormons is the most nearly perfect piece of social mechanism with which I have ever, in any way, come in contact, excepting alone the German army." 3 7 Mr. Ely further finds that unrestrained individualism could not have succeeded in Utah because of the necessity for irrigation. T h e pre-existent qualities and institutions of the Mormons seemed to be ideally suited to successful endeavors in Utah.

H e avers t h a t : " T h e agriculture pursued was irrigated agriculture, which for its success is dependent upon a compact society, well knit together.

Individualism was out of the question under these conditions, and in Mormonism we find precisely the cohesive strength of religion needed at that juncture to secure economic success." ! Mr. Ely's statement, of course, does nothing more than affirm Turner's earlier comments on what the con35

Ibid.

Berrett, The Restored Church, 493.

37 Richard T. Ely, "Economic Aspects of Mormonism," Harper's (April, 1903), 668.

38 Ibid., 669.

36

Monthly

Magazine,

C

Turner Thesis

173

ditions of the arid West exacted in the way of social organization. Here is Turner speaking three months earlier than Ely in the Atlantic Monthly: . . . But when the arid lands and the mineral resources of the F a r West were reached, no conquest was possible by the old individual pioneer methods.

H e r e expensive irrigations works must be constructed, cooperative activity was demanded in utilization of the water supply, capital beyond the reach of the small farmer was required. In a word, the physiographic province itself decreed that the destiny of this new frontier should be social rather t h a n individual. 3 9

T o sum up what has gone before. In a significant sense it can be said that at no point in Mormon history did the frontier produce autocratic institutions into church practices without accompanying free and democratic civil institutions, except for the period from 1847 to 1849, when it might be said that forbidding frontier conditions demanded the utilization of a pre-existent church organization which was augmented by the democratically oriented civil constitution of 1849.

CONCLUSION

This paper has attempted to discover whether western New York was a frontier region. Whitney Cross's description of western New York emphasizes non-frontier aspects; however, Turner's definition of frontier would seem to be broad enough to encompass the western New York area in question. As for the appeal of Mormonism, it seems to have appealed about as well to frontiersmen as to Englishmen. Mr. Cross does not seem to be on unequivocal ground when he says that Mormonism did not appeal to frontiersmen and that it was not of frontier origin.

T h e U t a h beginnings show a necessary use of church authority in the beginning, though still with a good deal of individual initiative. Mormon experience shows an early reinstatement of civil authority and a recognition of the necessary and desirable division of church and state. Mormon response to environment would seem to be in accord with Turner's expectations.

39 Turner, Frontier in American History, 258, quoting from the Atlantic Monthly ary 1903.

of Janu-

REVIEWS and PUBLICATIONS Standing Lands

Up Country: The of Utah and Arizona.

GREGORY

CRAMPTON.

Canyon

By C.

(New York:

Alfred A. Knopf a n d University of U t a h Press, 1964. x x + 1 9 1 + v p p . $15.00) Are the canyon lands of U t a h and Arizona too vast to know, as some say, or too sublime to comprehend? If so, then Dr. C r a m p t o n has practically accomplished the impossible. From man's nebulous a n d s c a t t e r e d k n o w l e d g e of t h i s rock country and from his recorded moments of inspiration, C r a m p t o n has given us the essence of its history. T h r o u g h these pages come the valiant, struggling men of canyon land past â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the paradoxical Spaniard, converting souls on one h a n d while capturing slaves with t h e other; the government explorers, some timid, other courageous; t h e residents, Mormon, Navajo, a n d U t e ; the exploiters, w h o generally failed; a n d finally t h e poets and romanticists.

T h r o u g h these stories out of the past, C r a m p t o n gives us a characterization of the land itself. H e r e is a land where nature's weapons, water and wind, have slashed a maze of ribbon-like canyons through t h e brightly colored rock. A "rock jungle," rancher Al Scorup once termed it.

Standing Up Country is the most significant book ever published on the subject of U t a h ' s southeast quadrant. Although t h e subtitle mentions canyon lands, the new national park with this n a m e is only a small part of this book.

Dazzling photographs complement the text throughout. Beautifully reproduced

are 16 photos in full color and 110 in gravure. A couple of t h u m b trips through the book are usually necessary before one begins to notice the text. Crampton has chosen photographs that depict the sweep of country, photos that seem to say, as geologist Clarence Dutton did in 1889, that this is a "superlative desert."

Standing Up Country can be enjoyed on many levels. T h e photographs alone tell a good story. T h e t e x t d e e p e n s understanding and appreciation; it widens horizons, as well as entertains. Then, if one desires to go into the footnotes and the Bibliography, he will find a treasure of detailed references.

Crampton's book is largely an outgrowth of his seven-year survey of Glen Canyon history. But this is not a book solely for historians. Dr. Crampton has written Standing Up Country for all of us w h o love the mysterious canyon country. I n effect, h e has written a testimonial of his own love affair with the W. L. R U S H O

U.S. Bureau of

Reclamation

Be It Enacted: The Creation of the Territory of Arizona.

By B . S A C K S .

(Phoenix: Arizona Historical Foundation, 1964. x v i 4 - 2 0 0 p p . $7.50) Whatever other contribution made to his native state, t h e 1964 Republican n o m i n e e for t h e P r e s i d e n c y of t h e U n i t e d States, Barry M. Goldwater, p r e s i d e n t of t h e A r i z o n a H i s t o r i c a l Foundation, did a notable day's work in encouraging the study of Arizona history

by B. Sacks, M . D . As explained in an

Reviews and Publications introduction by Professor John A. Carroll of the University of Arizona, the present volume also owes much to the University of Arizona and the Arizona Pioneer Historical Society. Be It Enacted is based on a lecture delivered by Dr. Sacks in Tucson, M a r c h 16, 1963 (subsequently published in Arizona and the West, Spring and Summer numbers, 1963). T h e first 109 pages reproduce the material thus originally published, with 325 notes. Several notes are gemlike essays on personalities and events.

Appended are 80 pages of documents and facsimiles. H e r e are many bases for additional refinements, explorations, and new departures in historical study. More than 60 valuable photographs and documents are also included as illustrations.

An inside back-cover flap contains, suitable for framing, two maps and a facsimile of the statute approved by Abrah a m Lincoln, February 24, 1863, creating Arizona Territory.

Any library or person investing in this volume receives a treasure trove. A steady flow of rich dividends in additional scholarly studies can be expected from this work. T h e Arizona Historical Foundation, its president, and its executive vice president (Bert Fireman) deserve e n t h u s i a s t i c t h a n k s for m a k i n g these materials available to a wider public in such handsome form. Among other values, the book itself is a beautiful example of the publisher's art.

Dr. Sacks' writing is painstakingly methodical. T h e play-by-play, blow-byblow accounts of Congressional procedure in dealing with the various Arizona bills reflect many hours spent with letters, journals, and volumes of the Congressional Globe. At some stages, this reviewer caught the feeling that the movements a n d forces of politics were occasionally lost in procedural detail. T h e n reference to the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company or some other interests is inserted in the text; or, an illustration of the silver inkstand make by Tiffany

175 as a gift for Lincoln from Charles D .

Poston; or Lincoln's Haycraft letter reproduced. T h u s the procedures again acquire humanness and meaning. Pathology again becomes related to politics.

T h e volume sheds new light on the role of Samuel P. Heintzelman. A section entitled "Another Father of Arizona?" can have the question m a r k removed so far as this reviewer is concerned. We may, however, await with interest the publication of Heintzelman's journal with Dr. Sacks' annotations, also further examination of the facts behind the newspaper clippings reporting Charles Poston's versions as to why and how Arizona became a territory. A Poston account was reported in the Tucson Citizen in April 1884, after Heintzelman's death in 1880. T h a t report now appears to have suggested some responsibilities which were clearly the work of the latter.

O n e of the many virtues of a germinal study and collection of documents is to inspect and launch scholarship on new paths. T h e jacket, in addition to Heintzelman's journal, announces preparation

by Sacks of monographs on H e r m a n Ehrenberg, Sylvester Mowry, the Sonora Exploration and Mining Company, Samuel Colt and Arizona, and the founding of Yuma. These monographs will be most welcome. This volume will also stimulate many, many studies by others, and theses galore.

I n a work that leaves many impressions and opens new curiosities, Be It Enacted left me with a strong feeling that the settlement of Mesilla deserves further study in connection with the founding of Arizona. This New Mexico town appears, from B. Sacks' account, to have been "Arizona," or m u c h of it, in the early beginnings. T h e role of the men and economic interests of Mesilla, of the corporation as an entity, of those who sought U.S. mail contracts as well as rail routes through the Gadsden Purchase, Sylvester Mowry's ambitions, and other h u m a n behavior â&#x20AC;&#x201D; here are areas

176

Utah Historical Quarterly

where future students of western social, economic, and cultural history, will revel.

B. Sacks has produced a volume in the tradition of the logical positivists -— collecting the facts and letting the facts speak for themselves. But events grow out of the dreams and imaginings which propelled men and women into the desert Southwest. Some will seek further answers as to why the blessings of civil government were sought for Arizona. It is good that they will have the prodigious study of B. Sacks available.

G. H O M E R D U R H A M

Arizona State Silver Theatre: ing Frontier 1864.

By

University

Amusements of the Minin Early Nevada, 1850— MARGARET

G.

WATSON.

(Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1964. 387 pp. $9.50) This book, based upon careful research is an ably written and fascinating account of the amusements of Nevada's silver mining country from 1850 through 1864. But it is more than the story of Washoe entertainment. I t includes much that is relevant to the social, political, and economic history of early Nevada.

Washoites found delight in eating, drinking, story telling, dancing, gambling, shootings, hangings, dueling, sports, pranks, lotteries, balls, parades, c e l e b r a t i o n s , a n d circuses. T h e a t r e s , melodeons, and saloons presented yarn spinners (Artemus W a r d was a favorite), singers, Hurdy-Gurdy Girls, minstrels, operas, popular comedies, farces, melodramas, and many of Shakespeare's plays.

T h e book is filled with anecdotes about thespians, entertainers, and managers of Washoe — M a r t Taylor; James and Sarah Stark; M c K e a n B u c h a n a n ; Virginia H o w a r d ; the Westwoods, who came from U t a h and built Washoe's first theatre; Charles Pope; Mrs. Leight o n ; Sam Wells; Walter L e m a n ; the C h a p m a n s ; Julia H a y n e ; Frank M a y o ;

Junius Brutus Booth, J r . ; Ada Isaacs M e n k e n ; Lotta Crab tree; the Irwins ("Brigham's Pets") ; J o h n Burns; Henry Sutliff; Mr. Topliffe; and T h o m a s M a guire, who brought many famous players to his Virginia City opera house. Samples of song lyrics, recitations, and folk verse admired in silverland are found throughout the book.

Excerpts from press items and stories suggest that Washoites found entertainment as well as news in their newspapers.

Sam Clemens reported that "on Tuesday evening that sickest of all sentimental dramas, East Lynn, will be turned loose upon us at the Opera House . . .

If the tears flow as freely as I count upon, water privileges will be cheap in Virginia next week . . ." D a n De Quille (William Wright) wrote humorous stories and sketches for the papers. H e was also Nevada's first historian and playwright. Washoites were convulsed by his "local" comedies, The Sage Struck Yankee and The Wheelers in Washoe.

Anecdotes about benefits for theatre folk, firemen, military units, and for sick and wounded soldiers attest to the generosity of Washoites. Sometimes benefits were impromptu. A Virginia City audience "tossed to Lotta's feet 'frequent showers of silver approbation in the shape of four-bit pieces, more than a hundred dollars worth.' " O n another n i g h t a " s i l v e r b a r of c o n s i d e r a b l e weight" was tossed. A Bulletin reporter expressed concern. " H a d the bar fell on Miss Lotta's toes it would have knocked all the nimbleness out of them." In Austin $5,000 were raised for the Sanitary F u n d (the Civil W a r Red Cross) by Gridley's Flour Sack Procession.

T h e footnotes provide some pleasurable reading about many things which were part of Washoe life: the Civil War, Union-Secession fights, "metallic versus green-back money," army recruiting, Indians, Pony Express, politics, civic improvement, newspaper rivalries, theatre, a $3,000 telegram, a n d m a n y other things. T h e unique illustrations include

177

Reviews and Publications maps and views of Washoe towns; pictures of theatre personalities and writers; playbills; songs; a hand-written invitation to a ball; Hurdy-Gurdy Girls; the Flour Sack Procession; and the curtain bell of Maguire's O p e r a House. An appendix lists in chronological order titles of many of the plays, curtain raisers, afterpieces, and burlesques presented in Washoe amusement places.

Margaret G. Watson's chronicle of the amusements of the hardy Washoites is enjoyable reading.

FLOYD MORGAN

Utah State

University

Black Robe: The Life of Pierre-Jean De Smet,Missionary,Explorer & Pioneer.

By J O H N U P T O N T E R R E L L .

(Garden

City: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated, 1964. 381 pp. $4.95) This most recent biography of Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, S.J., has the merit of being based on the famous missionary priest's own writings. I t is, indeed, a very faithful and admirable summary of them, designed, as the author candidly states in his Foreword, to restore his subject to his rightful place in the gallery of the great figures of western history. And since Father de Smet was so accomplished a journalist himself, with such a flare for the vivid and the picturesque, Mr. Terrell's book makes fascinating reading and may be recommended as a splendid example of w h a t the French term haute vulgarisation, the legitimate popularization of history.

I t must not be taken, however, as a critical biography. I t adds nothing to our knowledge of Father de Smet, and there is even insufficient evidence to show that the writer has used the available p u b l i s h e d sources w i t h d i s c e r n ment. T h e r e is no question that the Jesuit missionary and path-marker was an extraordinary figure, a magnetic personality, an influential mediator between the Indians and their White oppressors,

but it has long been recognized that a definitive biography would be extremely difficult to write. I t is a great pity that the m a n best prepared for this task, Father Gilbert J. Garraghan, S.J., died before he could address himself to it.

For Father de Smet, with all his greatness, was very much of a "character."

H e was in and out of the Society of Jesus during his formative years, and it may be suspected that his restlessness under the discipline of the order h a d a great deal to do with the burgeoning of his missionary zeal. This is not to deny that he succeeded magnificiently in this role; but even here it must be remarked that de Smet never remained for any length of time on the missionary frontier, either among his beloved Flatheads or out on the Great Plains with the Blackfeet, the Crow, and the Sioux. Like his contemporary, John Charles Fremont, he may more aptly be called a missionary pathmarker rather than a pioneer. T h e same restlessness explains in large measure de Smet's extraordinary record as an ocean voyager. H e may have complained to his readers that he was shunted from the missions to the role of traveling salesman for the impoverished Province of St. Louis, but it was fairly evident to his superiors and his companions that he thoroughly enjoyed his assignments, just so long as they kept him on the move.

H o w reliable was de Smet as historian of the missions? It must be remembered that practically his entire literary output was designed to encourage the faithful of Europe, Belgium notably, and France, to contribute funds to the subvention of the enterprise. H e wrote to edify and to inspire. H e was not above drawing a long bow in his descriptions of western wonders (for which there was ample p r e c e d e n t ) , a n d his c h r o n o l o g i e s a r e often hopelessly confused. Nevertheless, he was there, and he had the artist's eye to make the record come alive. There is far more wheat than chaff in his harvest.

De Smet, of course, never penetrated the Great Basin. T h e monument erected

Utah Historical Quarterly

178 in h i s m e m o r y m a n y y e a r s a g o a n d placed in the grounds of the then Sacred H e a r t Academy, Ogden, is a tribute to a m a n who never saw U t a h . Certainly he knew something of t h e nature of the land, a n d was able to discuss it intelligently with Brigham Young when he paused a t Winter Quarters in the late a u t u m n of 1846, en route from the mountains to St. Louis. A decade later he accompanied General Harney for a portion of the way when that officer was assigned to t h e command of the troops designated to quell the U t a h Rebellion.

But in the largest sense, de Smet belongs to the entire West, a n d eminently deserves the full-scale biography which will place h i m in accurate focus as pathmarker and priest.

T h e r e are a few obvious errors in the book under review, as, for example, Archbishop Samel of Baltimore for Archbishop Samuel Eccleston, a n d a reference to Pope Gregory X V I as living in 1865, when he was almost 20 years dead.

T h e r e is, as t h e conscientious reviewer must add, no index.

B I S H O P R O B E R T J. D W Y E R

Diocese of Reno History

of Brigham

Published

Young,

by W I L L I A M

a n d P E T E R L. C R A W L E Y .

MassCal Associates, pp. $25.00)

1847-1867.

L.

KNECHT (Berkeley:

1964. ix + 407

When H u b e r t Howe Bancroft was preparing to write his History of Utah, he asked the M o r m o n Church leaders to supply him with information for the book. They decided to do so, a n d assigned Franklin D. Richards the task of gathering a n d delivering t h e information. T h e result was that Mr. Bancroft received hundreds of manuscripts from U t a h . They have been preserved a n d are in the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Among these manuscripts were three, evidently

written in the L.D.S. Church Historian's Office, which covered the "Early Records" a n d "Incidents" in U t a h history, from July 1847 through 1867. They were copied by Mr. K n e c h t and Mr. Crawley and printed as a book.

T h e title of this book is misleading, as it is not a history of Brigham Young. I t is n o t a real history of anything. T h e manuscripts were apparently written for the purpose of furnishing Mr. Bancroft with such information as the church leaders hoped he would include in his book. But matters about which they did not want him to say much were mentioned only briefly or not at all.

More than 50 pages of the book are devoted to the M o r m o n side of the story of the U t a h War, b u t only a little more than one page to t h e Mountain Meadows massacre. T h e book tells of the arrival of the Martin and Willie handcart companies, but does not mention the fact that many of the emigrants in these two companies had died. And it tells of the flight of Governor Dawson from Utah, less than a month after taking office, but says nothing about his being beaten and robbed by the ruffians h e had hired to guard him while h e was leaving.

Polygamy, one of the greatest problems in early U t a h , is almost completely ignored. T h e same is true of the Civil War. Practically nothing was said about the war, a n d there is n o explanation of why t h e people of U t a h refused to take sides in it. A n d one of the very important events in early U t a h , the "Reformation" of 1856 is not mentioned.

M a n y other important matters are ignored or mentioned only briefly.

So this book is far from being a history of U t a h during the period which it covers. But it does contain much information, and those interested in early U t a h history should read it, keeping in mind that it is only one side of the story.

STANLEY S. IVINS

Salt Lake City

179

Reviews and Publications Nevada Place Names, Their Origin and Significance.

By R U F U S W O O D L E I G H .

(Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1964. x i + 1 4 9 p p . $2.50) It is, indeed, a formidable research task to compile a list of Nevada place names. T h e writer of this book, Rufus Wood Leigh, has made a good start. Although there are included herein some 300 or more names of physical features and cultural entities in Nevada, the number is less than one-third of those that could have been included. I n the book written by the late Don Ashbaugh, Neveda's Turbulent Yesterday (1963), he lists more than 1,300 Nevada places — living, dying, a n d dead towns; and in A Century of Nevada Postoffices, by Walter N . Frickstad a n d Edward W. Thrall (1958) almost 1,000 are given.

Since there are several different ways to approach this subject, M r . Leigh chose to give Nevada place names by counties. Because there have been shifts in population as well as great economic changes, places having importance in Nevada history at one time d o not have it at another time, particularly in the case of countyseats. Seven counties in Nevada have had two countyseats, three of them have h a d three countyseats, while the area that is now Clark County has been under four countyseats—Crystal Springs, Hiko, Pioche, and Las Vegas.

T o keep the record from being confused, all of them should have been given. Another way to keep the record straight is in listing the different names by which a place has been called. For example, Yerington has been known as Greenfield and Pizen Switch; Dayton has been called Chinatown and Nevada City; Unionville (not listed) was first named Dixie; a n d Genoa was referred to as Mormon Station a n d / o r R e e s e ' s S t a t i o n b e t w e e n 1851-55. T o n o p a h is another example of the evolution of naming a place. T h e settlement which grew u p around the silver strike was first called Butler City (the first post office cancellation was

" B u t l e r " ) , n a m e d for the discoverer, Jim Butler. But Jim did not want the city to be named for himself, so it was changed to T o n a p a h , meaning "Brush Water."

W. W . Booth, editor of the Tonopah Times changed the spelling to T o n o p a h .

Mr. Leigh has pointed out the changes made in many Indian place names.

I n the area of geographic names in Nevada, the author has m a d e errors: Quinn, Quin, or Queen River lies entirely in the Great Basin — it does n o t flow into the Snake River; the FortyMile Desert is between the H u m b o l d t Sink a n d the Carson River, n o t the Truckee River; a n d Highway 50 passes to the east of this desert, while Highway 40 extends along the west side of it. Another error is in naming the Comstock Lode — Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock was nicknamed " O l d P a n c a k e " ; James Finney h a d the pseudonym of "Old Virginy."

Although there are eight good Nevada scenes shown (Plate 8 is in California), there is no m a p of the state. A glossary of terms, a Bibliography, a n d an Index are evidences of good scholarship.

EFFIE MONA MACK

Reno,

Nevada

Cowboys and Cattlemen: A Roundup from Montana, The Magazine of Western History. Selected and Edited

by M I C H A E L S . K E N N E D Y . ( N e w Y o r k :

Hastings House, Publishers, 1964. xii + 364 pp. $10.00) T o set the records straight in the opening section, " F r o m Beaver T o Beef," Lewis Atherton makes some candid observations on cowboys in an article titled "Cattlemen and Cowboy: Fact and Fancy." Ironically, the cattleman rather than the cowboy was the central character on the ranching frontier. Without him, there would have been no cowboys.

T h e cowman is too often depicted as a colorless shrew while the cowboy's fame grows ever greater in the pulps a n d on

Utah Historical Quarterly

180 television as his environmental surroundings recede into history. I n reality, the cowboy's life involved so m u c h drudgery and loneliness a n d so little in the way of satisfaction that he drank a n d caroused to excess on his infrequent visits to the shoddy little cowtowns that dotted the West. H e was a drifter whose work and economic status m a d e it difficult for him to marry a n d rear a family so he sought female companionship among prostitutes.

Having thus set the records straight for the cattleman, Robert Fletcher writes the next historical account of M o n t a n a ' s early cattle industry, " T h e D a y of the Cattleman Dawned Early in M o n t a n a . " It appears t h a t M o n t a n a ' s cattle history is closely related to U t a h ' s and, to a large extent, got its start when early traders acquired breeding stock on the Mormon Trail between Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. I n the 1850's M o n t a n a ' s pioneer cattlemen went to Salt Lake to barter for what was to be their first, a n d a prosperous, period in the cattle business of future M o n t a n a .

T h e s e c o n d section of t h e b o o k , "Rangeland Royalty," presents a colorful collection of profiles on Montana's early cattle kings: Conrad Kohr, Pierre Wilbaux, Moeton Frewen, a n d the Newm a n Brothers. These are names that are often seen by anyone interested in early cattle history, b u t seldom given such comprehensive coverage.

T h e T e x a n s take over M o n t a n a ' s early cattle history in the third section, "Trail Drivin' a n d Texans." Here Editor Michael Kennedy includes one of his own stories about Nelson Story in "First T r a i l Drive to M o n t a n a Territory."

James A. Russell records big Bob Fudge's recollections in "Long Trail from Texas," a n d author Joe B. Frantz gives an interesting account of "Texas's Largest R a n c h - I n M o n t a n a " â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the story of the giant X I T .

T h e r e are five other sections to this handsome volume, covering everything from " T h e Story behind Charlie Russell's Masterpiece," by Wallis Huide-

koper, to "Latter-Day Longhorns" by T . J. Kerttula, u p to the " E n d of the O p e n Range."

M r . Kennedy spurs the reader's interest by warning him that if he expects the synthetic glamour and fabricated floss of all too much fiction, cinema, and television, he will be sadly disappointed.

But if he wants the unvarnished fact which did include some raw romance, gunsmoke, a n d lots of rough adventure and hard, dangerous work, then he is on the right range. T h e r e are also dozens of historic photographs a n d paintings and drawings by Charles M . Russell, and Ed Borein which illustrate the book.

Cowboys and Cattle should prove an interesting example for other state historical societies that, no doubt, have e q u a l l y i n t e r e s t i n g m a t e r i a l in t h e i r manuscript files. M o n t a n a fell more than a little shy of enough cattle material to fill the large volume, b u t there is certainly enough interesting related material, a n d such masterpieces as J. Frank Dobie's "Snowdrift, Lonest of All Lone Wolves," add a delectable bit of spice to the potpourri. ÂŤ _, TT T 1

4

H O W A R D C. PRICE, J R .

Nutter The

Yellowstone

National

Ranch

Park.

HIRAM MARTIN CHITTENDEN.

By

Edited

a n d I n t r o d u c t i o n by R I C H A R D A.

BARTLETT. ( N o r m a n : University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. xxi-f-208 pp. $1.95) This reviewer acquired a n d read a copy of H i r a m M a r t i n Chittenden's The Yellowstone National Park in 1928. Mr. Chittenden's forthright and charming style, together with his mastery of all facets of Park background and history, engaged my personal interest a n d appreciation that still abides. I hold all of Chittenden's works in high esteem.

I n his I n t r o d u c t i o n , D r . B a r t l e t t stressed the significance of 1872, when Yellowstone National Park was created

by Congress. This action was placed in

181

Reviews and Publications context with contemporary events a n d in contrast with laissez faire, rugged, individualistic, economic philosophy of the period. F r o m t h e vantage point of perspective t h e editor therein pinpointed the genius of the concept formulated by several members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870, a n d subsequently enacted by Congress.

Dr. Bartlett pays tribute to H . M .

Chittenden's proficiency as a n engineer a n d author. His Yellowstone National Park, Historical and Descriptive, was first published in 1895. Since then five editions have been printed, in which several editors have contributed material.

T h e additional data added, together with differences in style, diminished the seamless character of the original monograph. I t was mostly for this reason t h a t the present publishers a n d owners decided to base t h e current printing upon the 1895 edition.

Richard A. Bartlett, associate professor of history, University of Florida, was authorized to delete t h e entire descriptive section, which amounted to 100 pages. This was done to very good effect, since the material in this division was out of date.

Dr. Bartlett employed annotation slenderly. However, his notes are instructive a n d appropriate. H e did w h a t was needed for this particular book. Very few errors escaped his attention. As a result of t h e effort of all concerned in this revision, the public may now acquire H i r a m M. Chittenden's elegant, original Yellowstone National Park history at a nominal price. ,, ~ â&#x20AC;&#x17E; M E R R I L L D . BEAL

Idaho State The

Central

Pacific

Pacific Railroads.

Photographs

by

& The

University Southern

By L U C I U S B E E B E E .

RICHARD

STEIN-

HEIMER. (Berkeley: H o w e l l - N o r t h Books, 1963. 631 p p . $15.00) Lucius Beebee's The Central Pacific & The Southern Pacific Railroads is a

formidable pictorial m o n u m e n t to a century of activity in one of the West's principal business empires. I t is not, says the author, a n "inspired court portrait," a n d he clearly hopes also that it differs from the work of professional historians, w h o for h i m are "experts at defamation" a n d "doleful a n d lean lived archivists." I n form it is a portrait in six parts, each with brief text a n d many pictures, d e voted in turn to parts of t h e West in which t h e Big F o u r successively interested themselves: Sierras, U t a h - N e v a d a , southern a n d central California, t h e "Sunset" route, a n d t h e Oregon link.

T h e author hopes in each section t o cover the whole range of railroading activity, past a n d present.

Not surprisingly, M r . Beebee is more interested in pictures than in words. H i s text, which covers 59 pages o u t of 600, will detain many readers only briefly. I t is notable neither for accuracy nor originality, a n d while it is certainly not "doleful," it has a gaudy vulgarity that seems to this reader tedious a n d repulsive. Essentially, t h e text is an impressionistic backdrop for a conception of railroading that t h e pictures describe m u c h more appealingly. T h e conception is fascinating, though it is hardly as comprehensive in time or theme as the author wishes it to be. W h e t h e r in past or present, railroading for M r . Beebee seems t o consist largely of locomotives, passenger trains, and uproar. T h e really massive quantities of pictures, many of them photographs by the author's collaborator Richard Steinheimer, represent these subjects in great variety a n d vividness, a n d with some very helpful captions they give a striking impression of m u c h of the world of t h e Southern Pacific. T h e y are sure to appeal to hosts of railroad buffs. T h e display is more massive than orderly, however, while readers, w h o are less fascinated by sin a n d steam than M r . Beebee is, may grow weary of repetition and frustrated by t h e unbalanced view of railroading. T h e less frequent pictures of other subjects, such as one of work-

Utah Historical

182 men's feet on a pot-bellied stove, help to widen the impression and almost make it convincing. They never balance it. But balance is in any case out of reach for Mr. Beebee, for while he may not be a "court historian," his enthusiasms leave no room for a proportioned view, let alone any sort of detachment. Mr. Beebee's Southern Pacific is no octopus, nor is it much afflicted by freight, unions, or finance. Still, those who like the romantic vision should find his lavish monument a dazzling and beguiling work.

WALLACE D.

University

of

FARNHAM

Wyoming

Ghosts of the Adobe Walls: Human Interest and Historical Highlights from 400 Ghost Haunts of Old Arizona.

By

NELL

MURBARGER.

(LOS

Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1964. 398

pp. $7.50) T h e r e is a vague, indefinite, and sometimes meandering, line between history and a handbook for Sunday treasure hunters. Nell Murbarger manfully attempted to straddle the two with her Ghosts of the Adobe Walls, but her amazing energy and perseverence have, ladylike, produced only a sidesaddle canter along that ridge of uncertainty.

For those who seek treasure, souvenirs, or pretty rocks among deserted buildings and mining camps, whose abandonment w a s o r d a i n e d by f a i l u r e to p r o d u c e profit, this book should be welcomed.

T h e author has burrowed deeply if not quite selectively among early newspaper files for items of interest about hundreds of early settlements and mining camps of which some trace, usually mounds of adobe or piles of tin cans, still remains.

Everywhere, it seems, she found ghosts and romance.

As a "Roving Reporter of the Desert," Nell Murbarger has interviewed countless desert rats, obviously both the twoand four-legged varieties, in the preparation of her book. With strong depend-

Quarterly

ence upon such sources of information, it is n o wonder that nearly every old mine was a "bonanza," that every desert hamlet abounded in romance and usually numbered more saloons than homes of solid citizens, that every old adobe structure had a "history," and that her title as well as the content of the book will appeal more to the hobbyist than to the historian.

As each person who lives and dies on this earth has a personal history, even so did each adobe wall have its creation in hope and its dissolution in despair. But the mere accumulation of lackluster biographies, whether of men or of hamlets, does not necessarily make history.

Nor does Nell Murbarger actually make such a contention. She has brought together many historical and sightseeing sketches, some of them previously published in Desert and other popular serials, as " H u m a n Interest and Historical Highlights." She admittedly is a romantic w h o finds every sunset glorious, the call of every coyote a pioneer experience, and the discovery of each pile of suntinted, shattered glass exciting evidence of pioneer habitation. As a handbook for Sunday wanderers, it is a splendid work. T h e author has compiled a useful list of old towns, forts, ranches, mines, state stations, etc., with directions for reaching them.

T h a t t h i s will be u s e d by persons whose own romantic notions lead to hastened destruction of existing buildings and half-destroyed ruins is a moralistic question that should concern the conservationist and the historian. I t is obvious that the readers to whom this book will have the strongest appeal are not academicians, who sadly are outnumbered in efforts to conserve historic sites for posterity. Armed with metal locators, mounted on four-wheel drive vehicles, and guided by books such as this, hordes of weekend fun seekers unw i t t i n g l y c o m m i t v a n d a l i s m in t h e i r search for romance and mementoes of the Old West.

183

Reviews and Publications Nell Murbarger's research into the history is sometimes careless. An example : She relocates the famous Bisbee Deportation of 1917 at Jerome, a town which like this author has capitalized on the ghost image to retell a history that was exciting enough without emphasizing the nether world.

T h e illustrations generally are good although the photo-reproduction of pictures and text is off the usual high standard of Westernlore Press. M u c h of the type is broken, as if desert rats h a d been gnawing at its underpinnings.

BERT M .

Arizona Historical

FIREMAN

Foundation

American State Archives. By E R N S T POSNER. (Chicago: T h e University of Chicago Press, 1964. xiv + 397 p p . $7.50) At the turn of the present century, the American Historical Association, spurred on by the deep concern of historians for the proper care and preservation of the nation's precious historical records, conducted a survey of the archival programs of many of the states. As a result of its findings, many states took immediate action to establish archival programs, and, in the intervening years, practically every other state has followed suit.

American State Archives is the product of another survey conducted by Ernst Posner, former dean of the graduate school at American University and one of the world's recognized authorities on archives. His exhaustive study, which involved a firsthand examination of the recordskeeping practices of 49 states and the Territory of Puerto Rico, was m a d e possible by a grant to the Society of American Archivists by the Council on Library Resources, Incorporated. T h e book provides much more, however, than the typical survey. It is a carefully researched account of the development of archives in the United States and the status of state archives in the 1960's.

I n the introductory section, Dr. Posner traces the origins and evolution of archives in America. H e covers such topics as Colonial recordskeeping practices, the impact of the scientific school of history upon archives, and the important contributions of the Public Archives Commission of the American Historical Association. T h e work of the Historical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration and the founding of a national association of archivists are also treated. Indeed, this section is, in itself, a major contribution to the literature of the archival field in the United States.

T h e major section of the volume is devoted to a survey of archival programs in the 50 states and the Territory of Puerto Rico. Each state is considered separately by the author, who gives a brief historical sketch of its recordskeeping practices and a critical evaluation of its current program. Many of Dr. Posner's candid observations are adverse and severe, but they are always constructive. In each case he has made positive recommendations as to ways for remedying any deficiencies.

U t a h readers will be particularly interested in the analysis of the archival and records management activities of their state. T h e author traces the development of the program from the turn of the century when the U t a h State Historical Society became concerned about the state's records and appraises the current program. H e concludes that " T h e potentially notable archives program of the U t a h State Historical Society cannot unfold unless the Society receives adequate funds for an archives building, for which plans are now being drawn."

T h e section, "Standards for State Archives Agencies," is one of the most important parts of the volume. Approved by the Committee on Professional Standards of the Society of American Archivists, it serves as a yardstick for all state archival agencies. It outlines the relationship of archives and records management, the functions of a state archives,

Utah Historical Quarterly

184 and the organizational features of a progressive state archival program. T h e author touches also upon the difficulties of obtaining professionally trained candidates for archival positions, the need for an academic curriculum in archives administration, and the qualifications a n d requirements for state archives staffs.

This monumental study is bound to have a great impact upon the archival profession in the United States. Dr. Posner has performed a distinct service to historians, archivists, and others interested in the preservation of records.

P H I L I P P. M A S O N

Wayne State The San Juan Canyon

University

Historical

By C . G R E G O R Y C R A M P T O N . Glen

Sites.

Can-

yon Series N u m b e r 22. Anthropological Papers N u m b e r 70. (Salt Lake City: University of U t a h Press, 1964.

80 p p . $1.75) T h e salvage of history by The San Juan Canyon Historical Sites in the Anthropological Papers of the University of U t a h presents another of the Glen Canyon Series printed files which will be of long use to any student of the area. T h e constant refrain of "probably," "may," "possibly," "may have been," and "is reported" establishes the compilation as a superficial reconnaissance. Its value is as an outline of research projects for future polishing should any of the details develop any stature of importance.

T h e "Early History" section presents a sketch of events along the lower p a r t of the river which fills a void of long standing. T h e Bibliography, atlas, and illustrations are fine contributions. A modic u m of able editing might have reduced or eliminated the errors in this section.

Legend is not separated from fact and the careful student will quote the m a terial only with due references and use caution in attempting to locate the geographic features in the field.

A recognition of the Baker-Strole-

White legend routes this ill-fated party to the mouth of the San J u a n although Lingenfelter, who is quoted, has admitted this phase of his story was not possible. T h e important references to this myth are omitted.

A lack of evaluation of the entertaining romancing of the dude wrangler on l a n d a n d w a t e r l e a d s t o q u o t i n g of Wetherill, Johnson, Nevills, and their followers with academic seriousness. A case in point is the n a m i n g of Government Rapid which commemorates the wrecking of one of the two U S G S skiffs in 1921 between Miles 82 and 83. T h e boat was repaired after beaching. Nevills moved the locale a few miles down river to a more impressive bit of water action.

T h e yarn-spinning blanketing this episode built u p to two surveyors losing their lives there.

Nevills legendry flowers anew at Redbud Canyon, a name which he applied to two places according to the camp chosen for the dudes. His designation recognized some mysterious connection with Redbud Pass on the trail into Rainbow Bridge on the south side of Navajo Mountain. H a d he been allowed to extend his imaginings, he would probably have explained that its connection was one of the deep mysteries hidden in Mystery Canyon.

T h e Z a h n and Spencer mining activities receive extensive treatment from the promoters viewpoint b u t evaluation is missing.

T h e sketch of early history and the detailing of some of the recent efforts at mineral extraction make this pamphlet a worthwhile addition for the files of any student of southeastern U t a h . Some of these activities may well prove to be important background for more extensive studies. I t is fortunate that public monies could serve in the assembly of these details of the history of the relatively neglected lower San J u a n River.

O. D O C K M A R S T O N

Berkeley,

California

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Membership in the Utah State Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions who are interested in Utah history. We invite everyone to join this one official agency of state government charged by law with the collection, preservation, and publication of materials on Utah and related history.

Through the pages of the Utah Historical Quarterlyy the Society is able to fulfill part of its legal responsibility. Your membership dues provide the means for publication of the Quarterly. So, we earnestly encourage present members to interest their friends in joining them in furthering the cause of Utah history. Membership brings with it the Utah Historical Quarterly, the bimonthly Newsletter, and special prices on publications of the Society.

The different classes of membership are: Student

$

3.00

Annual

$

5.00

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$100.00

For those individuals and business firms who wish to support special projects of the Society, they may do so through making tax-exempt donations on the following membership basis: Sustaining

$ 250.00

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$ 500.00

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$1,000.00

Your interest and support are most welcome.