Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, Number 2, 1992

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

MAXJ EVANS, Editor

STANFORD J LAYTON, Managing Editor

MIRIAM B MURPHY, Associate Editor

ADVISORYBOARD OF EDITORS

KENNETH L CANNON II, Salt Lake City, 1992

ARLENE H EAKLE, Woods Cross, 1993

AUDREY M GODFREY, Logan, 1994

JOEL C JANETSKI, Provo, 1994

ROBERT S MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1992

RICHARD W SADLER, Ogden, 1994

HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, 1993

GENE A SESSIONS, Ogden, 1992

GREGORY C. THOMPSON, Salt Lake City, 1993

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Phone (801) 533-6024 for membership and publications information. Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $15.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $10.00; contributing, $20.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by return postage and should be typed double-space, with footnotes at the end Authors are encouraged to submit material in a computer-readable form, on 5 1/4 inch MS-DOS or PCDOS diskettes, standard ASCII text file. Additional information on requirements is available from the managing editor Articles represent the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society

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Postmaster: Send form 3579 (change of address) to Utah Historical Quarterly, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101.

L KAY GILLESPIE The Unforgiven: Utah's Executed Men

KEN DRIGGS 187

THOMAS G ALEXANDER Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff a Mormon Prophet

RICHARD W. SADLER 188

JAMES H. BECKSTEAD. Cowboying: A Tough Job in a Hard Land

ROBERT S. MCPHERSON 189

CARLOS SCHWANTES In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho

SANDRA SCHACKEL 191

VOYLE L MUNSON AND LILLIAN MUNSON A Gift of Faith: Elias Hicks Blackburn, Pioneer, Patriarch, and Healer.

RONALD G. WATT 192

THOMAS EDWARD CHENEY. Voices from the Bottom of the Bowl: A Folk History of Teton Valley, Idaho, 1823-1952

DAVID L. CROWDER 193

In this issue

The "capacity for justice makes democracy possible," theologian Reinhold Niebuhr observed. Indeed, animated discussions of justice both as an abstract idea and as applied to endlessly varied situations define healthy democracies worldwide. The first article in this issue looks at an extraordinarily complicated turn-of-the-century murder case in Salt Lake City in which an innocent man, convicted and imprisoned for over three years, refused to participate in an escape while his guilty co-defendant saved a guard's life before bolting to temporary freedom. How justice eventually served both men makes an absorbing tale The next piece focuses on a forgotten 1867 murder trial in Iron County Here the defendant was a white man accused of murdering an Indian, a crime typically ignored by authorities in frontier times. Justice in this case decreed the sanctity of a Native American life.

The remaining articles examine the lives of three very different individuals who played a part on the stage of Utah history: photographer Charles R. Savage whose role in documenting the joining of the rails at Promontory has been largely overlooked; schoolteacher May Stapley whose brief diary provides delightful glimpses of rural social life in 1900; and the Rev. Msgr. Alfredo F. Giovannoni, a colorful and energetic priest whose long ministry helped to shape Utah's Catholic heritage. Recognizing this trio's contributions is a small but important part of achieving justice, or fair representation, in the historical record

BishopDuane G.Hunt, theRev.Msgr.AlfredoF.Giovannoni,and othersat 1939 cornerstonelayingforSt.Anthony's Church,Helper. Photograph byMsgr.feromeC. Stoffel.

/w £/w.s dramatic scene envisioned by an artistfor the September 12, 1900, Salt Lake Tribune, Colonel Prowse, seated, shoots one of the robbers. Prowse sustained a fatal wound in the exchange of gunfire.

The Peculiar Case of James Lynch and Robert King

BY DAVID L. BUHLER

A T TWO A.M. ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1900, three men, revolvers in hand and handkerchiefs pulled snugly over their faces, entered the Sheep Ranch,1 one of several gambling houses located on Salt Lake City's notorious Commercial Street. Two of the three masked men stayed near the entrance, their guns drawn The third approached Col George Prowse,2 the proprietor of the Sheep Ranch, who was seated at a table—the Ranch's "bank." As the man approached, Prowse pulled a gun from the table's drawer and rose to his feet. The robber and Prowse exchanged shots—witnesses were unsure who fired first. The robber, hit in the head, fell to the floor unconscious. The two remaining masked men fired five times, hitting Prowse at least once, and then bolted out the door and down the stairs to the alley below. Simultaneously, Prowse fired four more shots. In the exchange of gunfire a Sheep Ranch employee, Ernest Sidell, was also wounded as a bullet grazed his ear and shoulder

Salt Lake City Police Sgt John B Burbidge, who was nearby, heard the shots and arrived on the scene shortly after the two bandits had fled. When Burbidge entered the Sheep Ranch he saw Prowse "sitting in a chair, his head dropped forward." Sidell was "staggering around the room in a dazed manner, while the [third] robber lay on the floor in a pool of blood and to all appearances dead." Prowse was taken to St. Mark's Hospital for treatment, and Sidell was examined at a neighborhood drugstore. The wounded robber was taken to jail where his wound—which was not serious—was treated by a physician

Later that morning the prisoner identified himself asJames Lynch. He said he was twenty-six years old, from Albany, New York, and had worked in mines and smelters in the West and British Columbia before coming to Salt Lake three days earlier. Asked by a reporter if he had

'Accounts of the robbery were taken from DeseretNews, September 11 and 14, 1900; Salt Lake Herald, September 12 and 13, 1900; and Salt Lake Tribune, September 12 and 26, 1900.

Mr Buhler is executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce

2 Also known as Godfrey Prousse

done any of the shooting at the Sheep Ranch, Lynch replied, "Damn if I know."

Newspaper reporters,jailers, and policemen all endeavored to persuade Lynch to name his still at-large accomplices At one point Detective George Sheets even brought him a pint of whiskey, hoping this "friendly gesture"would prompt the prisoner to become more cooperative, but Lynch steadfastly refused to identify his partners, saying only that he did not know their names.

The police were not entirely without leads in their attempt to find the other two bandits, having located several witnesses who said they had seen Lynch's accomplices. One witness was Frank Lyon, an employee of the Sheep Ranch, who said he saw three men, including Lynch, at the establishment for several nights before the shooting Lyon finished his shift about an hour before the attempted robbery. Prior to leaving that night he saw the men unlock the back doors. One of the three was Lynch, Lyon said, and he was positive he could identify the other two if he saw them again.

A second witness was a seventeen-year-old messenger boy, William Wittenberg, who told police he saw two men run from the Sheep Ranch, down an alley, and into the nearby Headquarters Saloon. He followed them into the bar, talked with one of them, and got a good look at both. The Headquarters bartender told police that he had noticed the two men enter the bar, and he provided a similar description.

A clue left near the scene of the crime—a new-looking leather valise found at the foot of the Sheep Ranch stairway—also gave police hope of identifying and capturing the other two robbers.

From his hospital bed George Prowse discussed the attempted robbery with a Salt Lake Herald reporter, saying that as soon as he saw the robbers were armed he went for his gun. The man who approached him, Prowse said, "immediately started to shoot I was hit by the first ball I thought he had killed me."After Prowse was hit he returned fire: "If I had not been hit I would not have shot . . .Anyway, I only winged him. He didn't give me half a chance."

Prowse underwent surgery at 7:00 p.m as doctors attempted without success to locate and remove the bullet that had entered his thigh. Following surgery he "grew weaker and about 9 o'clock became unconscious" and died at 9:30 p.m. without regaining consciousness. The post-mortem examination determined the cause of death to be "acute peritonitis" resulting from perforation of the intestines as the bullet traveled through his abdomen before lodging in his hipbone

"It is doubtful if Salt Lake ever knew a sporting man more generally esteemed than was Colonel Prowse," eulogized the Salt Lake Tribune, noting that "He was a familiar figure on the streets during the afternoon. ... a very large man . . . with a flowing gray moustache. . . . During the summer his vest was invariably unbuttoned and a large fine diamond adorned the front of his colored shirt."

Although he may have been a "familiar figure" about town, not much was known about the murdered man. Prowse had bought the Sheep Ranch only the previous spring, but he had lived in Utah thirteen years—most of the time in Park City It was believed he had been a railroad man in Arizona and New Mexico and a rancher in Colorado and Montana He left only one survivor, a sickly twelve-year-old son who at the time of the shooting was en route to Florida to spend the winter in the care of a nurse. Friends told reporters his wife and another son had died in California years before.

Prowse's business establishment, the Sheep Ranch, was one of Salt Lake's gambling houses, located in the upstairs of 26 Commercial Street, a narrow thoroughfare one block long that ran between First and Second South streets and parallel with Main and State streets. Although near the heart of the downtown business district, and less than three blocks from the Mormon Temple, Commercial Street was lined with saloons, gambling dens, and "sporting" houses.3 Gambling, condemned by the Mormon church (as were other vices) and expressly prohibited by both state law and the state constitution, nevertheless created—along with drinking and "sporting"—a booming business day and night on Commercial Street. On even a relatively "slow night" such as Thursday as many as 400 men and boys crowded the gambling establishments to try their luck.4

The police soon concluded the search for Lynch's companions in crime. Two days after the shooting, Detective George Sheets arrested a man he was certain had assisted Lynch with the hold-up The man identified himself as Robert King.5 Sheets said he had had his "eye on King" ever since the robbery and had been following him in the hope that he would lead him to the other robber.6

3 Later renamed Regent Street Descriptions of Commercial Street are from the Deseret News, September 20, 1902, and the Salt Lake Tribune, May 3, 1903

4 Deseret News, September 20, 1902

5 King was also known as Robert Martell, E. T. King, E. L. King, L. E.

and Pedro Paguini. "Accounts of King's arrest are from the Deseret News, September 13, 1900; Salt Lake Herald, September 13, 1900; and the Salt Lake Tribune, September 13 and 15, 1900

King,

King was living at Walker House on West Temple Street, registered under the name of "Robert Martell." He was employed as a dealer at the Lone Star gambling house and said he had worked there from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. the afternoon prior to the Sheep Ranch hold-up, a fact corroborated by the proprietor He said he had gone to bed at the Walker House shortly before midnight the night of the shooting King insisted that he was not involved in the crime and would have no trouble proving his innocence.

Before arresting King, Sheets had spoken with a store clerk, William Meyers, who identified the valise found near the Sheep Ranch as the one he had sold, along with three handkerchiefs, to a man the afternoon before the holdup He had wrapped the merchandise in yellowish brown paper. After locking up King, Sheets searched his room at the Walker House where he found a piece of yellowish brown paper that fit the clerk's description. He also found burglary tools—steel drills, blasting powder, a powder blower, and a skeleton key. Sheets then took the wrapping paper to Meyers who readily identified it Later that evening Sheets escorted Meyers and the other eyewitness, the messenger boy Wittenberg, to thejail. Both identified King.

Despite the eyewitnesses found by Sheets and the incriminating wrapping paper, King continued to proclaim his innocence and sought to dispute the evidence against him: 'That man Meyers isoff base when he says I am the man who bought a valise from him He's got me mixed up with someone else," King told newspaper reporters the day after his arrest

The actual identity of the prisoner was unclear He was registered at Walker House as Bob Martell, and yet he told police his name was King. To prove it he produced a membership card to the Elks Lodge of Los Angeles made out to Robert L. King. A few days after his arrest, a resident of Los Angeles who claimed to be a friend of King, came to Salt Lake City to see him King had been missing for some time, he explained, and hearing of the arrest he wanted to find out for himself King's condition. Upon seeing the prisoner, however, he told police this was definitely not the King he knew. Detective Sheets continued to insist that the prisoner's true name was the one under which he was registered at the boarding house—Bob Martell.7 Regardless, the prisoner went to trial under the name of Robert King.8

1 Salt Lake Tribune, September 14, 1900; Deseret News, September 13, 1900

8 According to Police Chief Thomas Hilton, the police had been able to dispute the prisoner's claim that he was Robert King of Los Angeles Local members of the Elks Lodge quizzed him for "in-

After an inquest and preliminary hearing, King and Lynch were tried on October 30, 1900, for the murder of George Prowse in Third District Court, with Judge John Booth presiding The prosecution was handled by Salt Lake County Attorney Graham F. Putnam assisted by Ray Van Cott; the defendants were represented by attorney Will F. Wanless.9

After two days forjury selection the prosecution opened its case with several eyewitness accounts of the shooting; each identified Lynch as one of the three gunmen. Since Prowse's bullet had dropped Lynch to the floor to be found by police, mask on face, gun at hand, it was easy for the prosecutor to link him to the robbery and shooting. Linking King to the crime was more difficult. To establish that King was one of Lynch's masked accomplices, the prosecution relied mainly on the testimony of two eyewitnesses: Meyers and Wittenberg. The other potential witness, Frank Lyon, was not called to testify.10

When store clerk William Meyers took the stand he testified that on the afternoon prior to the shoot-

Drawings of Lynch and Martell, alias King, from the Salt Lake Tribune, September 12 and 15, 1900.

formation every Elk should have known" but which the prisoner was unable to provide In November it was reported that Chief Hilton had said the prisoner was from Seattle and was wanted for the murder of Robert L King Hilton said that in Seattle he had been known as Robert LaDue, Robert Duvalle, William Loto, R W LeBlanche, and R W Martello He said he was known as a "forger, a burglar, and all around crook." Deseret News, November 26, 1900

9 Deseret News, October 30, 1900.

10 Lyon had said he was positive that he could identify Lynch's two accomplices if he saw them again It is not known whether Lyon was ever asked if he recognized King It can be safely assumed, however, that if he had positively identified King he would have been called as another eyewitness for the prosecution

ing a man had entered Cressman's clothing store and purchased three handkerchiefs and a valise, which Meyers had wrapped for him. The prosecutor displayed the paper found in King's room, and Meyers identified it, pointing to some small tears he said had been made by the string used to secure the package. Meyers also identified three handkerchiefs, including the one Lynch was wearing when he was arrested and two that were found in the Headquarters Saloon, as the same handkerchiefs he had sold on September 10.11

Next, the prosecutor asked the clerk to identify who had bought the valise and handkerchiefs "That man," said Meyers, pointing in King's direction. Since there were several people seated near King, a juror asked that "the man who was in the store stand up." "King, heard the [juror's] suggestion," wrote a Herald reporter, "and immediately started to rise from his chair. When about half straightened up he sud-

11

Main Street between First and Second South, 1909. Note Vienna Cafe in center of block. One witness exitedfrom the rear of this cafe onto Commercial Street upon hearing gunfire. USHS collections.

Accounts of the trial are primarily from the Trial Abstract, pages 8-49, Third District Court, Criminal Case 620, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, supplemented with newspaper reports from the Deseret News, November 7 and 8, 1900, and the Salt Lake Herald, November 2 and 9, 1900

denly realized what his act implied and resumed his seat, looking very uncomfortable, while a hushed titter passed 'round the courtroom."

In his cross-examination defense attorney Wanless sought to discredit the store clerk's powers of observation Meyers had testified that King's hands were not the hardened hands of a laborer. When asked how he remembered such a minute detail, Meyers demonstrated how King "took a handful of change from his pocket with his left hand, holding it up with the thumb toward the clerk, so that he could see the hand quite distinctly." Wanless pressed him further: "Did you notice any other peculiarity about the hand except its smoothness and delicateness?" he asked. "No sir,"was the clerk's reply. "Mr. King," Wanless said, "step up here and hold your hands up." King walked to the front of the courtroom and, facing thejury, raised his hands above his head. His left thumb had been cut off, leaving only a long scar.

After this cross-examination ended the prosecutor called his second key witness, William Wittenberg, who told the court that he was in the nearby Vienna Cafe at the time of the shooting. He testified that he heard the shots, stepped into the alley at the rear of the cafe, and saw two masked men running from the direction of the Sheep Ranch As they ran, he said, they removed the masks from their faces and disappeared into the back entrance of the Headquarters Saloon. Wittenberg then ran to the saloon's front door, walked in, and approached the two men who were now at the bar. One asked him tojoin him for a drink, the other left the saloon Both seemed very nervous, he said He identified King as one of the men.

During cross-examination Wanless asked Wittenberg how he knew the men were nervous. Wittenberg replied that he had noticed that King's hands were shaking but admitted he too had failed to see that the left thumb was missing

When it was the defense's turn, Wanless sought to damage the credibility of Wittenberg and Meyers. He began by challenging the conclusiveness of the paper found in King's room as evidence linking him to the crime. He called three witnesses. First, the owner of a Main Street clothing store testified that he used the same width and type of paper in his store Second, a clerk from the same store testified that he had sold a shirt to King and wrapped it in paper like that found in King's room. Third, the manager of the Utah Paper Company, which sold wrapping paper to Salt Lake merchants, testified that it would be impossible to tell which store the paper came from since many stores used exactly the same kind.

To dispute Wittenberg's identification of King as the man he saw running through the alley and into the Headquarters Saloon, Wanless called on the proprietor and the desk clerk of the boarding house where King lived Both testified they had never seen King wearing clothes that matched Wittenberg's description and that a search of King's room had revealed no clothes of any kind. The only things they had ever seen King wear, they said, were the clothes he had on right then.

In his closing argument Wanless tried to shift responsibility for the crime to the local police and city government by blasting their toleration of gambling in Salt Lake City, noting that it was in direct violation of Utah law "The police and county attorney are sworn to uphold the laws," he declared; and "If they had done their duty there would have been no Prowse murder and no murder trial." Concluding, he told the jury that, at most, Lynch was guilty of manslaughter and King merited acquittal.

In considering the defense, it is striking that Wanless did not attempt to establish an alibi for King. Newspapers reported at the time of King's arrest that he claimed to have an alibi that would prove his innocence. King said he had been working at the Lone Star gambling house during the time Meyers claimed to have sold him the valise and handkerchiefs The proprietor of the Lone Star had corroborated this fact for the Salt Lake Herald, yet Wanless did not seek to establish it in court According to King, he had entered his room at the boarding house some two hours before the shooting and had passed the boarding house proprietor, Mr. Dudley, on the stairs. Someone would have noticed if he had left that night, King had argued. The defense also failed to present this evidence to the jury; nor was King put on the stand to testify in his own defense.12

On November 8, the eighth day of the trial,Judge Booth gave the jury formal instructions. It took only a few minutes for them to find Lynch guilty as charged. Initially, eleven jurors voted to convict King as charged, and one juror voted to convict him of second degree murder. The jury deliberated for two hours. A second ballot was taken, and this

12 Three years later, in a newspaper interview, King was very critical of the way the defense at his trial had been handled: "I was railroaded I do not blame the court or the jury They could say if I had witnesses to prove my innocence, why did I not put them on the stand? I wanted to have a separate trial; I wanted to put witnesses on the stand; witnesses who were well known and highly respected, who would have testified that I was with them on the night of the crime But my attorney said no 'We won't need them, you cannot be convicted,' he said The first thing I knew it I was 'guilty.'" Deseret News, October 23, 1903

time, all twelve agreed to find King as well as Lynch guilty of murder in the first degree. 1 3

When the verdict was read, King, according to press accounts, slumped in his chair and looked nervous and pale. Lynch sighed and "settled back into his usual indifferent attitude."

Leaving the courtroom, King and Lynch were asked by reporters for their reaction Lynch had no comment, but King lashed out in what one account called "a volley of blasphemous abuse" against the jurors: "God-damn them, every one of them," King "hissed" between clenched teeth "They're trying tojob us, but I'll show them The police, the sons of bitches,jobbed me, that's all."

Within a few days of the verdict Wanless filed a motion for a new trial with Judge Booth based on a number of supposed procedural errors On November 13 Booth denied the motion, saying he would make the same decisions again if a new trial were held.

Sentencing was held on November 15, scarcely two months after George Prowse had been killed Before rendering the sentence, Judge Booth asked each man in turn if he had anything to say. Lynch declined, but King responded by professing his innocence, claiming he was "bagged and brought in and placed in this position by Detective Sheets." Booth responded that "if it is a fact, Mr. King, that you are innocent, it is known only to you and to Lynch." Concluding, the judge said King and Lynch had "had a fair trial and were found guilty" and therefore "I have no discretion in the matter." Booth asked Lynch and King if they understood that the death penalty was the punishment affixed to this crime and then informed them that under Utah law they had "the privilege of choosing whether you care to be hung or shot." Both chose the firing squad over the gallows, and the judge set their execution date for January 11, 1901. Wanless told reporters he would appeal to the Utah State Supreme Court and hoped to place the matter before the court as soon as possible. King and Lynch were returned to jail where they were placed under the customary "death watch." While the pair waited for their case to be reviewed by the Utah Supreme Court, theirJanuary execution date came and went uneventfully A year later they were still waiting, but by then new developments in the case made it appear that at least Robert King might yet live to see many more Januarys

"Accounts of verdict and sentencing are from Deseret News, November 9, 13, and 15, 1900; Salt Lake Herald, November 9 and 16, 1900; and Salt Lake Tribune, November 9 and 16, 1900.

Sometime during 1901 King secured the help of the government of Italy He had written the Italian ambassador in Washington, telling him that his real name was "Pedro Paguini"—a member of a distinguished Italian family—and that he was being held in Utah under sentence of death for a crime he had not committed As an Italian subject he solicited the help of his government in correcting this injustice. In September the ambassador instructed the Italian consul in Denver, Joseph Cuneo, to investigate the case. That fall Cuneo traveled to Utah, met with King and attorney Wanless, and provided funds for a private investigator to help uncover evidence that might lead to King's release.14 This Italian connection solidified as King succeeded in enlisting the support of Charles Bonetti, a prominent Italian-American resident of Salt Lake Bonetti rallied the support of the city's Italian community, which, according to one account, "became vehement in its protestations of innocence of its countryman . . . [and] ready to offer any aid in its power."15

King also acquired the help of an unlikely ally—Salt Lake City Police Chief Thomas Hilton who had been persuaded of King's innocence by a telegram he received in the summer of 1901 from the deputy warden of the Colorado penitentiary in Canon City that contained the story ofJohn Mace, an inmate there. Mace claimed King was innocent, having been mistaken for another Colorado inmate, John Strange. He was coming forward to reveal publicly what he knew, Mace said, because he had learned that King was about to be executed for a crime John Strange had bragged about committing.16

During the next several months, Chief Hilton, Consul Cuneo, and defense attorney Wanless combined their efforts to verify the Colorado

'"DeseretNews, February 17, 1902

15 Salt Lake Herald, February 18, 1902

16Deseret News, February 17, 1902

Chief Thomas H. Hilton. USHS collections.

convict's story. On February 13John Mace signed an affidavit attesting to Strange's confession to him of King's innocence On February 17 the Mace affidavit was made public.

In the affidavit Mace asserted that he was in Ogden, Utah, the day after the Sheep Ranch hold-up That evening he took a train east to Rawlins, Wyoming. On board he encountered Ed Davenport, whom he had met a week earlier in Ogden, and his partner John Strange. They told Mace that they were the two men wanted for the Sheep Ranch hold-up in Salt Lake. Strange told him "that he was the man who 'pumped' it into Prowse when he saw one of the 'lads' [Lynch] on the floor who was shot." Later, when Mace and Strange were serving time in the Colorado penitentiary, Strange told him that King had been convicted, which was the first Mace had known about it. Strange "laughed about it and said: 'Well King is innocent but they can do nothing with me . . . now.' "Strange said, " T am the man; I bought the valise . . .handkerchiefs and so forth. . . . ' "17

This new evidence made a powerful impact. King took the news of Mace's affidavit as the vindication he had long sought. Interviewed by reporters, King said "it was the happiest news I ever received in my life. Had it come a little later, I would have been dead and in a dishonored grave. ... It is an awful thing to be condemned to die for a crime that you never committed."

Not everyone believed Mace's affidavit, however, or felt it proved King's innocence. District Attorney Dennis Eichnor said the affidavit "reads . . . like a dime novel story and a mighty poor one at that." George Sheets, the detective who arrested King, said King was tried with the evidence "placed before as fair ajury as could be gotten anywhere, and they found him guilty." Surely a jury's judgment should mean more than the statement of a convict Similarly, Assistant County Attorney Frederick Loofbourow called the affidavit a convict's "trick," saying crooks "will go to great lengths to help one another out of trouble."18

Although these officials scoffed at the Mace affidavit, others, including Utah's governor, Heber M. Wells, took it seriously. Elected as the state's first chief executive when Utah achieved statehood in 1896, Wells was now in his second term and had held various public offices for almost twenty years. Called "a staunch friend of law and order" in

I7 John Mace Affidavit, February 13, 1902, Third District Court, Criminal Case 620 18 Accounts of the reactions to the Mace Affidavit are from the Salt Lake Herald, February 18, 1902, the Salt Lake Tribune, February 18, 1902, and the Deseret News, February 21, 1902.

one contemporary biography,19 Wells, the son of Utah pioneer leader Daniel H. Wells, was also one of the state's most respected citizens.

The morning after the Mace affidavit became public Governor Wells met with other top government officials to evaluate the case and discuss what should be done. Meeting with the governor were Secretary of State James T Hammond, Attorney General M D Breeden, Salt Lake County Attorney Parley P. Christensen, District Attorney Eichnor, Police Chief Hilton, the deputy warden of the Colorado prison where Mace was held, and defense attorney Wanless After considerable deliberation, which included a fervent plea in King's behalf by the police chief, they concluded that further investigation was needed before Strange could or should be brought back to the state.20

The next day, February 19, 1902, attorney C M Garwood—hired by Consul Cuneo to assist in King's defense—arrived in Salt Lake City from Denver.21 That afternoon Garwood visited Lynch in prison, and Lynch agreed to sign an affidavit attesting to King's innocence.

"He [King] is absolutely innocent and had nothing to do with the affair at all," Lynch stated; and "He has suffered for a crime he knew nothing about." Lynch also said that he and King had gone to trial together for financial reasons and that he had "told King that I did not see how he could be convicted and if he was I would some day tell all that happened and that would prove his innocence." 2 2

Why Lynch waited eighteen months to tell the world of King's innocence remains an unanswered question Police Chief Hilton had met with Lynch a week earlier and tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to corroborate Mace's story.23 Although now willing to testify of King's innocence, Lynch continued to be either unwilling or unable to name his accomplices. In speaking of his affidavit, Lynch said he was not "positive of the complicity" of Strange and Davenport, noting that he did not remember his accomplices "as distinctly as I once did." Lynch said his sole purpose in making a statement was to save the life of King, an innocent man. As for himself, Lynch said, "I am condemned to die and wish the thing were over." He realized "only too well that it is a matter of a very short time 'till it is over with me "24

19 Drumm's Manual of Utah and Souvenir of theFirst State Legislature, 1896, Special Collections, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City

20 Salt Lake Tribune, February 19, 1902

21 Deseret News, February 19, 1902

22James Lynch Affidavit, February 19, 1902, Third District Court, Criminal Case 620.

23 Deseret News, February 17, 1902

24 Salt Lake Herald, February 20, 1902

The affidavits of Mace and Lynch attesting to King's innocence were published in the Salt Lake newspapers. This testimony, though from two convicts, cast doubt on King's guilt and caused one of the key prosecution witnesses, William Wittenberg, to recant his testimony. After seeing a photograph ofJohn Strange, Wittenberg stated in an affidavit, he was "firmly convinced beyond a doubt in my own mind that the man whose photograph is attached [Strange] .. . is the identical person whom I saw enter said saloon after shooting Colonel Prowse, and that the defendant Robert L. King is not the man."

Wittenberg explained why he was now positive that the man he had seen eighteen months earlier was Strange, after seeing only a photograph, when at the trial he had seemed equally certain of King's identity: "In my own conscience I then felt an uncertainty as to King being the man, but others said to me, 'We know he is the man and so do you.' " Furthermore, he said, "The influence being brought to bear on me was the principle [sic] reason I identified King. . . ,"25 Wittenberg told the Salt Lake Herald that "the more he thought of the part he took in the prosecution of King the more it has burned his conscience."26

Wittenberg had recently started working for Charles Bonetti—the same man who was president of Salt Lake's Italian colony and an ardent advocate of King's innocence. Although Wittenberg's troubled conscience may have been behind his decision to come forward to help clear King, Bonetti likely influenced him Bonetti's insistence that King was innocent and his civic activities to raise money to aid King's defense may well have affected Wittenberg, especially when the publicity surrounding the Mace affidavit called into question King's guilt It was Bonetti who informed Chief Hilton that Wittenberg wished to sign an affidavit changing his testimony, and it was Bonetti who notarized Wittenberg's affidavit.

With new evidence pointing to King's innocence, some suggested a pardon might be appropriate Attorney Wanless ruled it out He said King not only would not ask for a pardon but that he would not accept one if offered. "A pardon always carries the impression that a man is guilty but has been punished enough," Wanless stated; "King will not leave the penitentiary until he has been fully exonerated."27

To either verify or disprove the charges made in Mace's affidavit, County Attorney Christensen and Sheriff Naylor traveled to Colorado on

February 19.The pair hoped that questioning Mace, Strange, and others might provide the evidence necessary to extradite Strange to stand trial Wanless was disappointed that Chief Hilton—the only law enforcement official who had sided with King—did not accompany them.

The county officials returned to Salt Lake a week later and reported that they had been unable to locate the two men who were in a position to corroborate Mace's statement—Ed Davenport and Mace's partner, Matthews, who had heard or participated in most of the pertinent conversations Mace said he had had with Strange. Both Davenport and Matthews had recently been paroled and could not be found.28 Naylor and Christensen did interview Mace and Strange. Strange denied involvement in the Sheep Ranch hold-up; at first he also denied knowing Lynch until confronted with the fact that they had spent time together in Idaho's prison. Although Strange denied involvement, the officials concluded, as Christensen told a reporter, that Strange "had something to do with the holdup" and that "Mace's affidavit was true in the main." Christensen believed that even if Strange had participated in the Sheep Ranch case, that did not necessarily clear King. After all, there were three gunmen "King is probably one of them," he said Bolstering Wittenberg's claim that King and Strange shared a physical resemblance—contributing to confusion in identification—Sheriff Naylor said, "they look enough alike to be twin brothers." Three days after his return to Salt Lake, Naylor signed a complaint charging Strange with the murder of George Prowse.29 Though willing to file charges, the sheriff believed "it would be a hard matter to convict him."30 While Chief Hilton, representatives of the government of Italy, and others sought to prove King's innocence, the courtroom battle continued. On March 17, 1902, the Utah Supreme Court considered the defense's motion for a new trial The motion, first made in November 1900, was based on technical errors claimed by the defense.31 After the arguments before the court were concluded King fired attorney Will Wanless, saying he would now be represented solely by C M Garwood, the Denver attorney hired by the Italian government. He had decided to dismiss Wanless, he said, after Garwood showed him a letter from Consul Cuneo telling him that as an Italian subject he "must do the bidding of Garwood."32

Wanless, who had defended King along with Lynch for nearly two years pro-bono, was bitter about losing King as a client just as money had become available to assist with the defense.33 He vowed to continue to fight for Lynch's life. Making a veiled threat, he said he would now feel free to act in Lynch's behalf regardless of the effect his actions might have on King.34

On March 28, 1902, the Utah Supreme Court rejected the motion for a new trial and unanimously upheld the convictions of both King and Lynch, stating that "upon the whole record, no reversible error was found." In turning down the appeal the justices ordered the district court to "execute the sentence in accordance with law."35

Although the court's decision was unfavorable, Will Wanless was not disheartened. He believed that the new evidence in support of King could also be used to benefit Lynch. Confident that a new trial would be ordered, the attorney insisted, "You may rest assured, Lynch will not be shot." The next day he, District Attorney Eichnor, and County Attorney Christensen met with Lynch at the state prison.36 No one knows exactly what Lynch told these men, but the press reported that Lynch "punctured the affidavit ofJohn Mace" and convinced authorities that Strange had nothing to do with the Sheep Ranch hold-up.

Lynch's statements were made without any offer of immunity and in line with Wanless's new policy of "doing everything for his client regardless of the effect it may have on others," namely King.37 Lynch did not recant his previous affidavit swearing to King's innocence; however, neither did he reveal the actual identity of his accomplices.

After consideration of Lynch's statements during the March 29 meeting, Salt Lake County dropped its charges against John Strange,

ss In an attempt to receive at least some payment for his work in behalf of King, Wanless wrote letters to Colorado's two U.S. senators and Italy's ambassador in Washington, asking whether Cuneo and Garwood were acting in compliance with the ambassador's instructions in firing Wanless from the case. It is not known whether they responded or whether Wanless ever received any payment from the Italian government. DeseretNews, March 19, 1902.

34 Wanless reacted sharply to the news of his dismissal: "For a year and a half I have fought for King without any pay whatever Now that the case is practically won and there is a little money in sight, Garwood and Cuneo step in." Wanless said that Lynch was also "indignant" that King would remove Wanless from the case, and the attorney stated it was now "exceedingly doubtful" that Lynch would say anything more that might benefit King (Salt Lake Tribune, March 18, 1902) In a parting shot, Wanless remarked that he wondered what the Italian government would do "should they discover that he [King] is not an Italian, but an American-born Louisiana Creole" (Salt Lake Herald, March 18, 1902)

35 Reports of the Supreme Court decision are from the Deseret News, March 28, 1902, and the Salt Lake Herald, March 29, 1902

36 Lynch and King were admitted to the state prison on May 1, 1901 Prior to that time they were incarcerated in the Salt Lake Cityjail.

3''Salt Lake Tribune, March 30, 1902

"completely exonerating [him] from any part in the affair." The county authorities believed, lacking solid corroboration38 of Mace's accusations from Lynch or anyone else, they simply did not have sufficient evidence to convict Strange.39

Although officials felt the evidence was insufficient to warrant prosecution of Strange, the defense argued that the same evidence was sufficient justification for a new trial for both King and Lynch. On October 10 a hearing was held in Third District Court on the defense's second motion for a new trial. The motion was based on the Mace affidavit claiming Strange was guilty and King innocent, the Lynch affidavit that stated King was innocent, and the Wittenberg affidavit in which the key prosecution witness changed his eyewitness account to say that it was Strange and not King he had seen fleeing from the Sheep Ranch.

Then the second eyewitness changed his story. Another piece of new evidence offered at the hearing was an affidavit signed by the other key eyewitness for the prosecution, store clerk William Meyers. During the trial he had identified King as the man to whom he had sold the valise and handkerchiefs found at the crime scene. In his affidavit, signed June 30, Meyers said that after examining photographs of John Strange he was now "convinced in his own mind that it is probable that the person who really bought the goods from him" wasJohn Strange.40

After nearly two months, on December 23, 1902,Judge Booth denied the motion for a new trial. Ironically, thejudge denied the motion because he agreed with the defense that the new evidence damaged the state's case against the pair If the evidence were presented at a new trial, he reasoned, Lynch and King just might be acquitted. Judge Booth had presided at their trial and remained personally convinced of their guilt. Acquittal, he said, "would be a miscarriage of justice."41 Booth resentenced the men to be executed on February 20, 1903. This second execution date also passed with King and Lynch locked in their cells at the Utah State Prison. Their date with the firing squad had once again been postponed pending the outcome of their latest appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. But before that appeal could be heard, the fate of both men was profoundly affected by an incredible

38 They did have limited corroboration of Mace's affidavit in that the messenger boy William Wittenberg had identified Strange, from a picture, as the man he saw fleeing the shooting That Wittenberg had said the same thing about King as a key eyewitness in his prosecution likely undermined his credibility in coming forward now with the same story but a different identification

39 Salt Lake Tribune, April 13, 1902, and Deseret News, April 12, 1902

40William Meyers Affidavit, June 30, 1902, Third District Court, Criminal Case 620.

41 Deseret News, December 23, 1902

Utah State Prison in Sugar House, November 1903.

Shipler photographs, USHS collections.

drama of daring and violence within the walls of the Utah State Prison in Sugar House.

Convicts at the prison42 hadjust finished dinner, around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 9, when three prisoners, Harry Waddell, Abe Majors, and Frank Conners, launched a plan to escape. 43 Armed with two revolvers and three "slung shots," the three men hid in the prison library, adjacent to the dining room, until prison guard Zebulon Jacobs came by. After beating him into semi-consciousness, the convicts overpowered another guard, David Wilckin, and took the keys to the cells along "murderer's row." Waddell walked past the cell of "Dutch Char-

42 Originally constructed by the federal government in 1854, the territorial prison was expanded with new buildings constructed in 1888 and 1891 to house Mormon polygamists convicted of unlawful cohabitation under the Edmunds Act The facility served as the Utah State Prison from statehood (1896) until 1948. See Richard D. Poll, ed., Utah's History (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1989), pp 286-87 The former prison site is now occupied by Highland High School and Sugar House Park

43 Accounts of the prison escape are from the Salt Lake Tribune, October 10, 1903; the Salt Lake Herald, October 10 and 11, 1903; DeseretNews, October 15, 1903

lie" Botha, facing a death sentence44 for killing his wife and her "paramour," and approached the cell occupied byJames Lynch. "What the hell's up?" asked Lynch. "Get your clothes on," Waddell yelled. "There's a break, come along."

As Lynch walked out of his cell, Waddell handed him the keys and told him to let out another convicted murderer, Nick Haworth. Lynch opened Haworth's cell and then approached the cell of Robert King. Lynch told him "there was a break and he stood a good chance to escape." Remarkably, King refused, saying, "I do not care to go. ... I am innocent and will lose nothing by staying where I am." Another convicted murderer, Peter Mortensen, who was facing execution in less than six weeks for killing his wife, begged to be released but his fellow convicts refused.45

Lynch then joined Waddell, Majors, and Conners who had just finished dragging the guard Jacobs to the south cell house. "Well, what shall we do with him?" one of the prisoners asked. "Guess we had better finish him right here," the other replied Seeing the badly bleeding guard, Lynch intervened. "Here boys, this won't do; there is no need.. .. it will only aggravate this business." Waddell and Majors agreed to spare the old guard's life

Seven prisoners ran for the outer wall of the prison grounds One of them had secured a ladder. Lynch, first on the ladder, was shot in the arm by one of the prison guards as he reached the top of the wall. Though the impact almost knocked him over, he managed to slide down the outside of the wall and run to freedom. Haworth was right behind him. In a hail of gunfire the remaining five convicts took turns climbing the nineteen-foot wall Most made it but were unable to get past two guards who scurried to the outside and positioned themselves at the base of the wall directly below the ladder.

Only an hour after the prison break began the siege was over. Three guards and five prisoners were injured. One prisoner was dead. Only two had succeeded in escaping the immediate area of the prison—James Lynch and Nick Haworth.

Guard Zebulon Jacobs's wounds were serious though not life threatening. He had two scalp wounds—so deep that his skull was exposed—each several inches long Above one eye another cut had bled

44 Botha's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Board of Pardons on June 8, 1904.

45 Mortensen was executed, as scheduled, on November 20, 1903, a mere fourteen months after the murder

profusely, and on his right cheek was another cut that was not very deep He told reporters that Lynch had saved his life

Almost immediately after Lynch and Haworth had dashed to freedom that Friday evening, a posse of twenty men started hunting for them The next morning a fresh posse embarked, supplemented with bloodhounds. Many others volunteered to assist the manhunt. It did not take long. On Sunday, October 11, Haworth was captured in Holladay, a few miles south of the prison. On Wednesday, October 14, Lynch, haggard, weak, and going door to door begging for food, was identified and taken into custody in Woods Cross,46 a small community a few miles north of Salt Lake City

While Lynch was on the loose, his attorney, Will Wanless, went before the Utah Supreme Court as scheduled on Monday to argue for a new trial.47 Prior to the hearing, Wanlessjoked with King's attorneys about the prison break. "Lynch is out hunting new evidence to be used in his new trial which the supreme court is going to grant him," Wanless quipped, which wasmet by "ahearty laugh from allwho were near enough to hear."

While conceding that the new evidence presented to the Supreme Court dealt only with King's guilt and not Lynch's, Wanless argued that since both were originally tried together, if King were granted a new trial, so must Lynch.48 This logic failed to persuade the court On October 23 it granted King a new trial but upheld Lynch's conviction. The court expressed "doubt as to whether . . . King would ever have been convicted without the testimony of Meyers and Wittenberg."49 No evidence had been presented that disputed or questioned Lynch's involvement in the shooting Accordingly, Lynch's conviction stood King and Lynch were brought before Judge Booth in Third District Court once again on November 18. District Attorney Eichnor moved to dismiss the charges against King due to insufficient evidence. Judge Booth granted the motion and all charges against King were dropped Booth then sentenced Lynch to be executed on Friday,January 8, 1904.50 Robert King wasjubilant. Imprisoned for over three years, he repeated his claim of innocence and said that he "knew it was only a question of time" before he would be released. He said he was going back to

46 Deseret News, October 15, 1903

47 Deseret News, October 12, 1903

48 Deseret News, October 12, 1903

49 Deseret News, October 23, 1903

50 Accounts of the court's ruling and reaction to it are from the Salt Lake Telegram, November 18, 1903; Salt Lake Herald, November 19, 1903; and Salt Lake Tribune, November 19, 1903

Italy for a few months to see his friends and family and to "tell them of my life here, and how I was in prison and was to die for a crime that I did not do." And then what? "I will come back to America It is a good place and I want to live here."

Lynch, back in prison and facing execution for the third time, told reporters his attorney would ask the Board of Pardons to change his sentence to life imprisonment. If the board denied his request, Lynch said, "I suppose I will have to take my medicine like a man."

True to that pledge his application for commutation came before the State Board of Pardons 5 1 on Saturday, December 19, 1903. Even though no new evidence had emerged bearing on Lynch's involvement, his attorney was able to show that nearly every member of the jury that had convicted him now wanted him spared the sentence they had imposed. Wanless presented the board with letters supporting commutation signed by ten of the twelve jurors He also presented a petition signed by a number of the state's most prominent citizens, including the mayor of Salt Lake City, and other city and county officials.

It is both unusual and remarkable that prominent citizens would come to the defense of a drifter who was obviously guilty of participating in a hold-up and shooting that resulted in a man's death. Ironically, support for Lynch can be traced to events surrounding his escape from prison when he intervened to save the life of prison guard Zebulon Jacobs. In savingJacobs, Lynch had saved the life of a prominent and respected citizen. Zebulon Jacobs, at age sixty-one, was one of the last surviving of Utah's early pioneers Born in the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842,Jacobs came to Utah in 1848 with his mother, Zina Diantha Huntington Young, a plural wife of Brigham Young.52 Zina was, in her own right, one of Utah's most respected women Well known throughout the territory, having been "set apart" by church leaders as a midwife, she personally helped bring hundreds of babies into the world In 1880 she became president of the Deseret Hospital In 1892 she became the third woman to head the Relief Society—the women's auxiliary of the Mormon church—a position she held until her death in 1901.53 When Lynch savedJacobs's life, Zina D. H. Young, dead only two

52 Salt Lake Herald, September 23, 1914

53 Deseret Nezvs, August 28, 1901

51 Under Utah's constitution Governor Wells did not have the sole power to grant pardons or to commute sentences. This power was shared with the justices of the Supreme Court and the attorney general who, along with the governor, constituted the Board of Pardons

years, was still fresh in the memories of most Utahns.54 As a youth Zebulon Jacobs had lived in the Lion House, built by his stepfather, Brigham Young.55 He was a veteran of the Black Hawk Indian War, Mormon missionary to England, former railroad worker, and Utah pioneer.56 As the son of "Aunt Zina" Young, he had a special place in the hearts of many Utahns.

Jacobs himself now actively petitioned the Board of Pardons to prevent Lynch's execution.57 In addition, the acting warden of the prison told the board that both before and after the prison break Lynch had been a "model prisoner."58 Despite this and pleas from Salt Lake City Mayor Ezra Thompson, thejurors, and others, the board refused to commute Lynch's sentence. It now seemed certain that James Lynch would finally face a firing squad, since the board was not scheduled to meet again until after hisJanuary 8 execution date.

Undaunted by the board's decision, Wanless continued to press for a life sentence for Lynch. On December 3059 he presented Governor Wells with another petition, signed by fourteen distinguished citizens and prominent attorneys, including a future and a former United States senator: W. H. King and Arthur Brown.60 The petition focused on Lynch's role in preventing other prisoners from killing guard Jacobs

34 It is worth noting that among the speakers at Zina D H Young's funeral in 1901 was Emmeline B Wells, a plural wife of Daniel Wells, the father of Gov Heber M Wells Mrs Wells is quoted as saying, "I mourn for Sister Zina and I cannot help it No woman was ever greater loved than Sister Zina." DeseretNews, September 2, 1901

55Janet Peterson and LaRene Gaunt, ElectLadies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), p 52

56 Salt Lake Herald, September 23, 1914

57 Deseret News, December 21, 1903.

58 Salt Lake Tribune, December 20, 1903

59 Salt Lake Herald, December 31, 1903, and Deseret News, December 31, 1903.

60 The petition was signed by M P Henderson, A B Irvine, Ashby Snow, M M Kaighn, William A Lee, P C Evans, Fred T McGurrin, Arthur Brown, W H King, A R Barnes, L R Rogers, H.J Dinainy, M P Braffet, and A A Duncan

ZinaD. H. Young USHS collections.

during the prison break: "When offered an opportunity to escape, Lynch paused long enough in the flight to render material assistance in saving the life of one of the officers at the prison." Continuing, the petitioners reasoned:

Lynch must have known that delay endangered his chance of escape. We must regard this act, therefore, as both courageous and humane If the principle of 'a life for a life' be urged, we answer that justice may well be satisfied with a life spared for a life saved. As Lynch saved innocent life, we urge that his own life be spared

The petition worked. Soon after receiving it Governor Wells called a special meeting of the Board of Pardons for Saturday,January 2, 1904, to reconsider Lynch's application Wells also instructed Lynch himself to appear before the board—the first time in state history that a condemned man was given the opportunity of appearing personally before the board to plead for mercy This unusual circumstance, requiring the board members to actually face the person who would live or die by their decision, could only have placed added pressure on the members to grant his plea for mercy.

Meeting in the chapel of the state prison,61 the board listened to prisoners who told how Lynch had convinced them to spare guard Jacobs. One of the prisoners quoted Lynch as insisting that no blood be shed or "you boys can count me out."

Questioned about the escape, Lynch said he didn't know anything about it until his cell door opened. He took full advantage of it, however, because "he saw nothing but death staring him in the face" if he remained Lynch went on to point out that during his week of freedom he had not attacked or injured anyone.

At 1:15 p.m the board unanimously voted to commute Lynch's sentence to life imprisonment. In their written decision, signed by Governor Wells and Secretary of State M. A. Breeden, they said commutation was granted for the reason "That he saved the life of Guard Jacobs in the recent attempted jail delivery at the state Penitentiary, and the petitions numerously signed by citizens of Salt Lake City."62

YVben told of the board's decision, Lynch was "so overcome by his feelings that he could make no reply. . . .Then he sat down on his cot in the death cell and wept."63

When the Board of Pardons met that Saturday in January they weighed the life spared by Lynch—Zebulon Jacobs—against the life he had taken—George Prowse. Prowse was the owner of a gambling house who left no survivors or relatives in Utah. While a number of prominent men petitioned the board to spare Lynch's life because he had saved Zebulon Jacobs, not one friend, relative, or acquaintance of Prowse asked the board to impose the death penalty as retribution for the life he had taken. As the board members weighed mercy with justice, they concluded that extending mercy to Lynch was the right thing to do. Lynch had not won freedom as had King, but, thanks to his actions during the prison break, he escaped what had seemed to be the certain fate of death by firing squad.

For the next twelve years James Lynch remained incarcerated in the Utah State Prison His reputation as a "model prisoner"64 was enhanced. He won the confidence of prison officers and served for a number of years as a "trusty" in the prison office.65 On December 18, 1915, he applied to the Board of Pardons for parole.66 A month later, on January 22, 1916, the board considered Lynch's application along with six others. His was the only one of the seven granted.67

On the afternoon of Monday, January 24, 1916, less than sixteen years after the hold-up at the Sheep Ranch gambling house, Warden Arthur Pratt approached Lynch, who was standing in the prison yard, and told him he was free to leave the prison Lynch stood as if frozen for a moment, and "Then emotion took hold and he rejoiced like a child." After saying goodbye to former cellmates and guards, Lynch left prison and accepted a job in the copper mill at Garfield, west of Salt Lake City.68 Thus ended one of the most complicated and peculiar murder cases during the early years of Utah's history

64 Salt Lake Herald, March 19, 1911.

65 Salt Lake Telegram, January 23, 1916, and Salt Lake 7ribune, January 23, 1916.

66 Lynch initially applied for commutation of his sentence on February 18, 1911, and it was considered on March 18, 1911 For some unknown reason, after it was considered by the board in executive session, Lynch withdrew the application "without prejudice." (See Board of Pardons Minutes, Utah State Archives Series 332, Box 2, pp 143, 146.) Newspaper reports indicated that Lynch intended to ask for parole at a later time (Deseret News, March 20, 1911)

67 Board of Pardons Minutes, Series 332, Box 3, December 18, 1915, and January 22, 1916, pp 134, 143

Justice in the Black Hawk War: The Trial of Thomas Jose

BY ALBERT WINKLER

I N AUGUST 1867 THOMAS JOSE, A WHITE MAN, was tried and convicted of the murder of Simeon, an Indian. The case wasunusual because the settlers of Utah seldom faced legal action for misconduct victimizing Native Americans during the Black Hawk War.

The legal system in Utah was administered by the whites to deal with conduct among themselves and to protect their interests Indians were largely excluded from that system and were given inadequate protection especially in times of conflict such as the Black Hawk War of 1865-68 when even peaceful Native Americans were viewed with suspi-

Dr Winkler is an archivist in the Harold B Lee Library at Brigham Young University

cion The stress of war led some whites to excesses because they did not need to worry about legal restraints. Incidents of the mistreatment of women, children, and other hapless Indians during the hostilities were often inadequately investigated, lightly punished, or simply ignored

During the Black Hawk War a number of instances of the killing of Indians by whites occurred under questionable circumstances On July 18, 1865, a "dozen or more" Native Americans, including women and children, were killed near Burrville by a militia unit that fired blindly into a large cedar grove That same month several Indian women and children captives were killed when a woman struck one of the guards with a stick. The militiamen shot the woman and the rest of the prisoners. 1 Neither of these incidents was officially investigated

Individuals with legal authority could also be accused of excesses.

On March 14, 1866, the Ute chief Sanpitch and seven or eight other men were arrested near Nephi after they had been implicated by rumor. Sanpitch was ordered to dispatch men to bring in Black Hawk and his band or be shot. The chief had insufficient power to bring in the warring Utes, so he and his fellow prisoners broke jail rather than await execution. Each was hunted down and killed.2 The largest massacre of Indians occurred at Circleville in April 1866 when at least sixteen unarmed Paiute Indians, including women and children, were killed— m ost had their throats slit. Despite pleas for an investigation, federal and territorial officials took no legal action.3

Another incident demonstrates that even the most blatant murder could go unpunished. On June 10, 1866, Ute warriors attacked Round Valley (Scipio), taking stock and killing James R. Ivie and Henry Jennings Militia units pursued the raiders but failed to prevent their escape Unable to avenge the death of his father on the raiding party, James A. Ivie killed an "old Indian," Pannikay (Panacara or Parmikang). The victim belonged to the Round Valley "tribe or family" of Pahvant Indians who were considered peaceful, but the fact they were Native Americans was enough to raise suspicions. Shortly after the Ute attack, Pannikay had come to Benjamin Johnson of Round Valley where Thomas Callister was visiting. Johnson told

1 Peter Gottfredson, Indian Depredations in Utah (Salt Lake City, 1919), pp 159-61

2 Ibid., pp 187-89; Carlton Culmsee, Utah's Black Hawk War: Loreand Reminiscences of Participants (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1973), pp. 80-88.

3 Albert Winkler, "The Circleville Massacre: A Brutal Incident in Utah's Black Hawk War," Utah Historical Quarterly 55 (1987): 4-21 This article also presents a summary of some other unpunished misdeeds in the war.

Pannikay the whites were very angry and doubted his safety there, and Callister advised him to go to the camp of Kanosh, a Pahvant chief Pannikay, probably in fear of his life, ran away.Johnson intercepted him on horseback and took his gun. He was leading the unarmed Indian back when James A Ivie rode up and shot him Callister and others saw the Indian fall, and they approached to see the victim covered with blood. Ivie admitted killing the man, saying he was avenging his father's death. Callister told Ivie that the "poor Indian" had nothing to do with his father's demise and that "he had better go into the field where the hostile Indians were" if he wanted to kill the perpetrators of the act. Hoping to avert trouble, Callister told the leaders of the Pahvants what had happened Kanosh simply recommended that Ivie give Pannikay's son a horse and some money in compensation. 4 So, although Ivie murdered an unarmed man in front of witnesses and admitted the deed, apparently his only punishment for the crime was a verbal reproof from Callister and a suggestion of a payment by Kanosh.5

From the outset of hostilities in 1865 LDS church leaders had spoken against harming innocent Indians. Onjuly 19 of that yearJohn Taylor made the following statement at Mount Pleasant: "Some want to kill the Indians promiscuously, because some of them have killed some of our people This is not right Let the guilty be punished and innocent go free."6

Brigham Young was more detailed in his opinion as expressed at Springville on July 28, 1866. He stated that Indian hostilities were brought about by "our brethren" who had not treated the Native Americans as they should. He had "a harsh word" for anyone "who professes to be a Latter-day Saint who has been guilty of killing an innocent Indian." Such a person "isjust as much a murderer through killing that Indian, as he would have been had he shot down a white man." Young stated what should be done with anyone who murdered a Native American: "Take that man and try him by law and let him receive the penalty. The law will slay him."7 Despite such sentiment the legal system did little to punish crimes against Indians until Thomas Jose was accused of killing Simeon a year later.

4 Thomas Callister to George A Smith, June 17, 1866,Journal History of the LDS Church, LDS Church Library-Archives, Salt Lake City See also William Probert to Peter Gottfredson, July 1, 1915, cited in Gottfredson, Indian Depredations, pp. 228-29.

5 Whether Ivie actually gave the horse and money to the boy is not known

6Deseret News,July 19, 1865

7Brigham Young, "Remarks,"July 28, 1866,Journal History

On Saturday, July 6, 1867, Simeon, a Paiute Indian of a group residing near Beaver, was seen "on the range" where the cattle were kept near Paragonah (Red Creek) He was detained by the militiamen who guarded the stock, but he had a pass from Isaac Riddle of Beaver and was allowed to continue The local Paiutes were believed to be peaceful and to have little sympathy for the warring Utes because of animosities between the two groups. ButJoseph Fish of the militia protested to Silas S Smith, who was over the guards, "against allowing Indians to pass near our stock, as they might be acting as spies."8 A few days later Simeon was again in the area and got a ride in the wagon of George Condie. The man had some fish with him and said he had been to Fish Lake. He said he was on his way back to Beaver.9

Probably on July 8 Simeon camped about two miles north of Paragonah near "Little Creek." Onjuly 17 his body, with a bullet wound in the back of the head, was found by a sheepherder. This "created much excitement both among the friendly Indians and some of our brethren." 1 0

The discovery of Simeon's body was soon followed by an Indian raid. During the night ofJuly 21 raiders struck near Paragonah. Several times they attempted to seize cattle and escape up Cottonwood Canyon Each time they were thwarted by the whites, and sporadic fighting lasted until the afternoon ofJuly 22. The affair was a complete success for the militia which repulsed the Indians, regained the stolen cattle, and captured about fifty of the raiders' saddle horses without losing a man. 11

9

10 Fish Diaries,July 9, 1867

1 Tbid.,July21,22, 1867.

Silas S. Smith. USHS collections.

8Joseph Fish, Diaries,July 6, 1867, typescript, Special Collections, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah Thisjournal is in part at least retrospective because Fish entered under certain dates information that he could only have acquired later

George Condie as cited in Utah v Thomas Jose, Iron County Legal Records, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City

Soon after Simeon's body was found, William H Dame, president of the Parowan Stake of the LDS church and colonel of the militia, had received strong advice from Brigham Young and George A. Smith on what to do with murderers of Indians The telegram, dated July 20 at 3:30 p.m., clearly stated that anyone guilty of "the murder of a friendly Indian . . .should be taken by the civil authorities; and punished, as any other murderer: as an act of this kind exposes the lives of many innocent and defenceless persons."12

The fear of Young and Smith that the unpunished crime of murder might lead to further atrocities wasjustified Joseph Fish reported on August 4 that "the Indian excitement has not abated very much" and that "some of our boys took some of our friendly Indians and were going to hang them, claiming that they were connected with the hostilities during the last raid."13 These men were dissuaded from the attempt, but the fear of such rash reprisals remained. The murder of Simeon was examined perhaps as much to serve as a deterrent as for the cause ofjustice.

Samuel H Rogers and Silas S Smith conducted the investigation Rogers interviewed a number of people in Paragonah. Some settlers were reluctant to cooperate, and Rogers finally "threatened" Monroe Lowder to get information from him When a few people questioned whether Simeon had actually been murdered, since the body was buried without an inquest, Rogers exhumed the body onjuly 23.He cut the head off the corpse, found the entry wound of the bullet, and reburied it. On August 5 he returned to the grave with a physician, Calvin C. Pendleton. This time they "brought away" the head, "opened" the skull, and removed the bullet As a result of that investigation Rogers brought charges against Thomas Jose.14

A grand jury was impaneled on August 22 to decide if the evidence was sufficient to bringJose to trial.Joseph Fish, a member of the grand jury, recorded that "it was with difficulty that the indictment was found, as some thought it of little consequence in these times of Indian troubles to kill one [i.e., an Indian], whether friendly or not."15

Erastus Snow addressed such issues in a speech that day and in two

13

15 Fish Diaries, August 22, 1867

12 Brigham Young and George A Smith to William H Dame, July 20, 1867, Special Collections, Lee Library, BYU

Fish Diaries, August 4, 1867

14 Samuel Rogers outlined the investigation at the trial of ThomasJose; see Utah v Thomas Jose

sermons on the day following Traveling north from St. George, Snow apparently stopped at a number of towns to speak to the people.16 Fish summed up Snow's remarks: "His preaching was principally about relations with the Indians. He showed how we as a general thing condemn all the Indians for the hostile acts of a few. This was not right orjust. The Jose case called for some measure to be taken, or the Indians, whether friendly or not, would be shot down like wolves on the prairie."17

Jesse N. Smith, judge of the Iron County probate court, presided at Jose's trial. Smith was a prominent citizen but had little if any formal training in law.18 The jury for the case of "The People of the Territory of Utah versus Thomas Jose indicted for the murder of one Simeon a friendly Indian" consisted of men called from Cedar City, with John M. Higbee serving as foreman. Testimony in the trial was heard for two days starting on Monday, August 26.19

The trial began with Samuel H. Rogers, the prosecuting attorney, calling witnesses. William Lefevre testified that on July 8 he had met the defendant who was looking for mules Jose had been searching for two or three days and thought Indians had taken them. He said "he would be damned if he did not kill the first Indian he came across." That same dayJoseph Fish also heard the defendant say that if he learned Indians had taken the mules he would kill the first one he met if he "swung for

"Fish Diaries, August 23,

18

Erastus Snow. USHS collections.

16 Andrew Karl Larson, Erastus Snow: The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971), pp 406-7 Snow was a Mormon apostle and brigadier general in the militia, meaning he had substantial influence in the area He had been invited by Brigham Young to accompany him on a tour of the settlements in northern Utah

1867

Smith served as a territorial legislator from Iron County, mayor of Parowan, colonel in the militia, and a counselor in the Parowan Stake presidency SeeJesse Nathaniel Smith, "Brief Autobiography," in AndrewJenson, ed Latter-DaySaint BiographicalEncyclopedia, 4 vols (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901-36), 1:316-23

19 The main source on the trial is Utah v Thomas Jose These notes were probably taken by a court reporter Some information was recorded verbatim, while the rest was summarized

it the next minute." F Whitney reported that Jose had made a similar threat on or aboutJuly 12 when he had come to Whitney's store. When asked what he intended to do with the pistol he carried, Jose had said, "I am going to kill the first Indian I come across by h -1."

Alan Miller testified that he and Thomas Butler had talked with "an old Indian" near "Little Creek field" at sunset onjuly 8 Miller said they saw someone who looked like the defendant about one-half mile from the road. The man had no weapons that Miller could see. Later that evening Miller went to see Thomas Jose to go with him to play games with William Robb. Later, when Isaac Riddle came looking for Simeon, Miller asked the defendant if he had killed the Indian. Jose said he had not

Emily Lowder testified that she sawJose leave his house with a gun right after her children reported seeing an old Indian pass by. Her nephew, Monroe Lowder, came home about midnight that evening from playing at Robb's He said the defendant had told him he had followed the Indian to Little Creek and had observed him take a drink there and go into the brush to make camp. Monroe commented that he did not think the Indian would bother anyone again because he thought Jose had killed him. But when Emily pressed Monroe to say directly that the defendant had murdered the Indian, he replied no. Emily later approached Jose's mother, Ann, who said Thomas had left with a gun that evening. It was loaded when he left, but it had been fired when he returned. Emily also reported, "Mrs.Jose said to me if it was told what she told me her life would not be worth that" and snapped her fingers.

Monroe Lowder testified that Allan Miller and ThomasJose had arrived between 8 and 9 p.m to play games Rogers asked Lowder if he had questioned Jose about killing Simeon, but Lowder did not remember. When asked again if he had queried Jose about the death of the man, Lowder said yes But Lowder deflected this line of questioning by referring to the defendant's earlier statement that he would kill an Indian to pay for the theft of his mules.

John D. Pickering had found the dead Indian. He had made no detailed examination of the corpse but said the victim was in a sleeping position, lying on his right side with his left arm across his body and his right arm above his head The body was buried shortly after Pickering's discovery.

Most of the physical evidence in the case was presented by the physician, Calvin C Pendleton, who had participated in the coroner's

inquest and had examined Simeon's body Pendleton declared he was "satisfied" the victim's skull had been "perforated" by a ball that had entered the skulljust behind the left ear "and passing along in a glancing direction stopped just forward of the same ear." The bullet weighed a little less than a slug from a "navy revolver." In the doctor's opinion "it could not have been possible for the ball to have passed into the head the way it did without wasting some." Pendleton had taken Jose's gun, "unbreached" it, and found it loaded with a "small charge of powder." He believed that "a good fair charge of powder must have driven the ball quite through the head."20

Samuel H. Rogers stated that during his investigation he had experimented to see if he could account for the deformity of the bullet, because the projectile had "passed along inside the head in a glancing direction." He had loaded Jose's gun with a navy ball and a light charge of powder and then shot the round "square against" the shoulder blade of a horse. This did "not waste the ball much if at all." He then shot the bullet at a glancing angle into the bone, and it was "wasted very much."

Silas S Smith testified that he was familiar with the gun, having carried it toJose when it was sold to him. Smith saw "the boys" practicing with it and had heard the defendant say he always used a navy slug in it. Smith also claimed to know that Thomas Jose had borrowed Thomas Robb's navy-revolver moulds to make bullets

In an apparent attempt to demonstrate the hostility of some individuals to the idea of legally defending Indians, Rogers recalledJohn D Pickering as a witness and asked him: "Do you think the killing of that Indian was murder?"

"No. I never have nor do not now believe that Indian was shot."

Rogers also recalled Monroe Lowder to the stand to ask him: "Do you think a white man ought [to] suffer for killing an innocent Indian?"

"Don't know."

"That was your answer before the grand Jury to the same question. 'Don't know.' Should a man in your opinion suffer death for killing an innocent white man?" 'Yes."

20 Revolvers at that time commonly did not use metal cartridges Each chamber had to be loaded separately by placing a charge of powder in it and then ramming a bullet into the chamber The navy slug was probably a .38-caliber, 145-grain ball for the navy .36-caliber Colt or Remington revolver The lead balls were molded slightly larger than the chamber to assure a snug fit. A load of 17 grains of powder was commonly used during the Civil War. See Jack Coggins, Arms and Equipment of the Civil War (Garden City, N Y: Doubleday, 1962), pp 41-42

The counsel for the defense wasJames H Dalton.21 His first witness was Thomas Robb who testified that the defendant had visited his home for "a long time" on the evening of July 8 and never told him he had shot the Indian Rogers immediately tried to discredit the witness by asking him the same question as he had others: "Should a white man be punished for killing an Indian under such circumstances?" Robb gave the common answer: "Don't know." Apparently taking the bait to show his hostility, Robb added that Indians "are a good deal the friendliest when they are dead."

Dalton called a number of witnesses who had seen Simeon and Thomas Jose on July 7 and 8 Their testimony did little if anything to shield the defendant. It is not known if Dalton's strategy was to use this testimony to lead up to an important point for the defense because his next two witnesses were not allowed to testify

When Dalton attempted to call the defendant's father, William Jose, to testify Rogers objected on the grounds that the man would not tell the truth under oath Dalton demanded proof of that statement, so Rogers called Stephen Barton, justice of the peace at Paragonah. Barton thought he knew of instances when William Jose had "testified falsely" while under oath and added that William's wife, Ann Jose, had "no regard for truth whatever." Barton said he could not accept their testimony relating to their personal interests. As a result, neither Ann nor WilliamJose was allowed to testify in their son's behalf

The lastwitness for the defense was Charles Young When Rogers challenged his character, saying he was a deserter from the army, the defense asked that he be allowed to give evidence anyway. Since Young claimed to know nothing of the case besides hearsay, he was not allowed to testify

The defense rested without throwing substantial doubt on the prosecution's assertions Rather than trust his fate to the weak case presented by his attorney, Thomas Jose volunteered a statement He said that after his mules had turned up missing on July 6, he had searched for them armed on the 8th and looked for them unarmed on the 9th. On the evening of July 9 he had met with Monroe Lowder, Thomas Robb, and Henry McFate. Apparently, the main point ofJose's defense was that his meeting with friends on the 9th cast some doubt on his alleged actions of the day before

21 The court records refer to this man as Mr Dalton James H Dalton, farmer, was the only Dalton listed as a head of household in the area by the federal census. SeeJ. R. Kearl, Clayne L. Pope, and Larry T Wimmer, comps., Index to the 1850, 1860, and 1870 Censuses of Utah:Heads of Households (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), p. 90.

In his concluding statement defense attorney Dalton said the whites were at war with the "surrounding tribes of Indians," while the local Paiutes "nearer at hand to whom the murdered Indian belonged" had never been involved in "an open rupture." He repudiated the opinion expressed by some that killing a friendly Indian wasjustifiable but added, "it was difficult to tell who among them were friendly" or how they might be connected with hostile bands. He had talked with the defendant and his father separately, and they both had declared Thomas's innocence. There had been conflicting testimony, Dalton asserted, and if there were any "palliating circumstances" he asked Thomas Jose be given the benefit of them In his conclusion prosecutor Rogers simply referred toJose's threats to kill Indians

In his charge to the jury Jesse N Smith addressed perhaps the most important question in a trial in which the actual guilt or innocence of the defendant seemed of almost secondary concern The main issue was whether the law protected Indians:

It has not been customary in the United States, neither in the Territory of Utah to attempt to protect the Indian in his rights, it has not been supposed that his rights were worth looking after. The law which throws its mantle of protection over the Indians as well as over all others, has been in their particular a dead letter As unprejudiced men we should consider that they have the same right to live that other men have....Shall the letter of the Statute book remain dead in their regard? It rests with the gentlemen of this jury. We know full well that if something is not done to fill this infamous breech of the Peace that the avenger of blood will be on the back of the white man....Unless some attempt at atonement or palliation be made it will be the worse for this people.22

If the evidence was insufficient for a conviction, Smith said, then the matter was "in the Providence of Almighty God." But if there was sufficient cause to convict Jose then "our duty is plain, a duty that on our conscience we must not shrink from."

Smith then proceeded to destroy the meager case for the defense. In referring to the testimony given at the trial, Judge Smith stated his opinion that "a collusion has been entered into by some young men for the purpose of screening the prisoner." He cited some discrepancies in testimony as evidence of this deception: Emily Lowder had testified that Monroe Lowder told her before Simeon's body was found that he be-

22Jesse N Smith, "Charge to die Travers Jury," Iron County Legal Records A typescript of the 'Charge" is also found in the Journal History, August 27, 1867

lieved Jose had killed the man. Rogers had alleged that Lowder had also told him the same thing during the investigation, but in court Lowder denied those statements "in the most positive terms." Smith believed the hearsay evidence from Emily Lowder and Rogers and denounced Monroe's testimony as "leaving his Aunt and the Prosecutor in the lie." Smith rejected Lowder's statements in court and dismissed him as "an abandoned sinner."

The other testimony that Smith viewed as "throwing dust in the eyes of justice" were discrepancies in the dates when witnesses saw Jose near Simeon. Once againJudge Smith believed the statements of Rogers and Silas S. Smith about what they claimed the testifiers said during the investigation rather than what these individuals related at the trial.

The defense said Simeon could have been killed by "transient travelers." Smith observed that there was no evidence of such individuals passing the area on the evenings of July 8 or 9. After stating there was no reason to give credence to this suggestion, Smith made an ironic concession: "but I am willing to give the prisoner the benefit of a doubt." It is unclear what Smith was trying to demonstrate by these statements which seemingly both attacked and defended the assertions of the defense.

Smith told the men of thejury not to let the question of the actual date of the murder dissuade them from finding the appropriate verdict. That issue should not be used as a reason to "turn a murderer loose on the community" if there was sufficient evidence to convictJose He also reminded them that "the prisoner was the last mortal known to have been within sight of the Indian before his death." IfJose was culpable, Smith said, "it would seem that he is guilty of murder of the first degree." It was up to thejury to decide on the degree of murder and affix the penalty if the defendant was found guilty.

A conviction of first degree murder probably meant Jose would be executed or given a life sentence. The jury was unwilling to go that far

Jesse N. Smith. USHS collections.

and returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree. Jose was sentenced to ten years in the territorial penitentiary. The jury cited the "extreme youth[,] inexperience[,] and surrounding circumstances of the prisoner" as extenuating reasons for the light sentence. When the verdict was read the court "expressed the hope that he would return to society a wiser and a better man." The case had cost Iron County $455.85 in court costs to prosecute. A heavy expense for those times, it demonstrates the length the county was willing to go in this case.

Thomas Jose served one year of his sentence before he was pardoned by the territorial governor. 23 Nothing is known of his activities following his release. His name and that of his father do not appear on the Utah census rolls for 1870, probably meaning the family had left the territory.

Jesse N. Smith confided in his diary thatJose got "a fair and patient hearing, although the evidence was entirely circumstantial." If Smith had any lingering doubts about the trial and verdict the report of John Lowder no doubt reassured him. Lowder told Smith that after his release from prison Jose informed him that he had indeed killed the Indian.24

By late twentieth-century standards the case left much to be desired. Judge Smith accepted hearsay evidence, called witnesses dishonest when they disagreed with such testimony, did not allow key witnesses for the defense to testify, and gave such a biased charge to the jury that a verdict of guilty was the only logical outcome. The sermons of Erastus Snow alone were sufficient to have prejudiced the case, and the suspicion must remain that Jose was found guilty before he was tried. That such a case came to trial at that time was indeed remarkable. It required uncommon efforts to overcome the animosity then felt against Indians to allow the law to punish those who mistreated them. No matter how flawed, the justice system was made to work in the case of Simeon's murder.

It was perhaps Thomas Jose's misfortune to be accused of murdering an Indian at such an inopportune time. It seems likely that the crime would have been ignored earlier in the war. But by the end of the summer of 1867, with the surrender of Black Hawk shortly before the

23 Fish Diaries, August 24, 1867, and Jesse Nathaniel Smith, Journal ofJesse Nathaniel Smith: The Life Story of a Mormon Pioneer, 1834-1906 (Salt Lake City: Jesse N. Smith Family Association, 1953), p. 183. The outcome of the trial was related under the date August 22, 1867. Smith's journal is actually retrospective, and some events are mentioned under dates before their actual occurrence.

24 Smith, Journal, p 183 Even though the information from Lowder had to have been received in 1868 it is found under the entry dated August 22, 1867

trial,25 the conflict was drawing to a successful conclusion for the whites. Jose's trial near the end of the hostilities provided a statement that the settlers were repudiating the brutal measures often used during the conflict. If that is so, the verdict of guilty was almost as much an indictment against the conduct of the war as it was of Thomas Jose; however, the timing of the trial near the end of the fighting would also leave the final impression that the whites had been law-abiding all along.

As a result of the Black Hawk War the Indians had to give up their lands and, increasingly, were forced to live on reservations; but they suffered little from arbitrary acts of revenge. A major factor in this was the effort by Black Hawk and many white leaders to reach a reconciliation after the war. 26 Additionally, whites also realized they could no longer molest Indians with scant fear of punishment because the legal system had at last shown it was willing to prosecute such cases.

25 An account of an interview with Black Hawk appeared in the Deseret News on August 28, 1867 The chief obviously had surrendered some days if not weeks before 26 Black Hawk visited many communities seeking reconciliation following the war For an account of his speech at Fillmore see Josiah F. Gibbs, "Black Hawk's Last Raid—1866," Utah Historical Quarterly 4 (1931): 108 Gibbs was probably at the meeting

Charles R. Savage, the Other Promontory Photographer

BY BRADLEY W. RICHARDS

O N MAY 10, 1869, AT PROMONTORY, UTAH, the stage was set for taking what has become probably the most famous of western historical photographs (figure 1) Almost every history textbook in the United States contains a copy of this photograph of the joining of the rails of the transcontinental railroad, and it is a rare American indeed for whom this picture does not evoke at least some element of recognition. Yet, despite the familiarity of the image itself, the photographers who docu-

Figure1.CourtesyoftheOaklandMuseum, Oakland,California.

Dr Richards is a physician practicing in Ogden, Utah

mented this historic event are not often remembered. Although it is generally known among historians that there were three photographers present at the laying of the last rail, the work of one of these men, Charles R. Savage, has been sadly neglected. Tucked away in museum archives or private collections, his pictures of Promontory have rarely been published Many students of history are unaware that in addition to the image in figure 1, which was taken by Andrew Russell, two other photographs taken by Savage of the locomotives meeting at Promontory exist. His images and story are a valuable adjunct to understanding what happened that day on the sagebrush flats of northern Utah. With the invention of photography in 1839 a new awareness of historical events and persons took place in the mind of the public. Prior to this time the few illustrations in books were lithographs of hand-drawn scenes, and recognition of the features of famous people was limited to those few who had the opportunity to see either the actual person or a painting on exhibit. It is said that many people, upon viewing a daguerreotype portrait of themselves or a loved one for the first time, would cry or hide their eyes because of the visual impact of the incredibly detailed portrait.

Although the daguerreotype and its immediate successors, the ambrotype and tintype, were enthusiastically received by an admiring public eager for views of distant scenes and important persons, they were one-of-a-kind photographs copied only with great difficulty. Widespread viewing of the images was limited. By 1854 these processes had been supplanted by the collodion glass plate or "wet plate" negative and albumen paper print with the resultant ability to make many prints from a single negative This, along with the development of the stereoscope in 1851, led to the widespread availability of photographs among even the poorer classes. In the 1860s nearly every household had a parlor stereoscope, and many a leisurely evening was spent viewing scenes from around the world. Large companies sold great quantities of stereoscopic views and hired photographers to capture new scenes for sale.

By 1866 an American nation recovering from the Civil War was stretching westward. The Pacific Railroad was hailed as "the great work of the age," and its progress was eagerly followed both in the eastern newspapers and in the views provided for parlor stereoscopes A number of photographers traveled westward to document frontier towns, Indians, and wild country only recently made accessible by the railway. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) and Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), although ultimately financed by land grants and subsidies

from the federal government, needed to provide their own short-term financing to build the railroad. Since both railroads were to receive eventual compensation based on the number of miles of track laid, there was fierce competition to press forward with construction, using innovative (and sometimes questionable) methods of raising the necessary capital.

Even in the early stages of construction, the railroads used photographers to provide publicity and boost financial support for the venture In the fall of 1866 the Union Pacific sponsored a publicity event when their tracklayers crossed the 100th meridian, 247 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska Territory During this three-day trip, the UPRR entertained eastern businessmen, politicians, and journalists in royal fashion aboard plush railroad cars.John Carbutt, a Chicago photographer, provided photographic mementos of the trip for the participants and also photodocumented the event.1 These photos, later sold to the public, brought further publicity to the UPRR. Although a number of later photographers clearly were associated with the Union Pacific,2 Carbutt is the only one documented to have actually been on the payroll of the railroad.3

This expedition with the railroad was only a temporary position for Carbutt, who later gained prominence in Philadelphia as a developer and manufacturer of the new dry-plate process of photography. He was also an early advocate of photomechanical printing processes that revolutionized book illustration as well as a pioneer in medical x-ray photograph technology.4 Carbutt died in 1905 as a result of heavy exposure to x-rays during these experiments.

The financial and publicity success of the 100th meridian excursion probably played a significant role in the decision of the UPRR directors to continue photographic coverage of construction. The man who eventually photographed most of the Union Pacific construction was Capt. Andrew J. Russell, who began his career as a painter in Nunda, New York. He served as a captain in the Union Army in the

'William Brey, John Carbutt on the Frontiers of Photography (Cherry Hill, N J.: Willowdale Press, 1984), p 41

2 Although Capt Andrew Russell may have been working on salary from the Union Pacific and later called himself "photo, to the UPRR," no official letters or payroll records confirm his employment Other photographers such as J B Silvis and Charles R Savage actually used company private cars on photographic excursions, and many photographers were given free railroad passes in the hope of obtaining free publicity for the railroad

3 Grenville Dodge to Thomas Durant, telegram in Thomas Durant Letter Press Book, Special Collections, University of Iowa Library, Iowa City.

4 Brey, John Carbutt, p 157

Civil War5 where he was taught photography and was assigned as photographer to the U.S. Military Railroad Construction Corps under Gen. Herman Haupt. During the Civil War Russell documented railroad operations in Virginia that were of critical importance to military strategy. He was the only commissioned military photographer during the Civil War. Civilian cameramen provided the other principal photodocumentation of the war Many of these photographers operated under the direction of Mathew Brady, the New York photographer who eventually assumed credit for most of the photographs taken during the war. Most of Russell's Civil War photographs, including the famous picture of the Rebel dead behind the stone wall at Fredericksburg, were acquired by Brady after the war

In the spring of 1868, four years after initial work began in Omaha, Nebraska, Russell began to photodocument the construction activities of the UPRR. He accompanied Union Pacific work crews as far west as Echo Canyon, Utah, where work slowed for the winter. He then returned to New York and published his first series of stereo views under the UPRR label. He also obtained a new stereo camera (5"x8" format rather than the previous 4"x8"format) that he used along with the large format (10"xl3") view camera. 6 His success in producing photographs of brilliant clarity and sharpness was due not only to his great skill as a photographic technician but also to his use of large formats. The following spring, as the builders pressed westward again toward the Great Salt Lake, Russell returned to Utah to photograph thejoining of the rails

The Central Pacific also had an official photographer, Alfred A Hart, originally from Connecticut. Like Russell, Hart began his career in portrait painting and later moved into photography, probably out of financial necessity.7 In 1864 Hart began taking stereoscopic views of the CPRR construction route that were used in several newspaper articles as well as sold to the public Hart photographed almost entirely in the stereo format—as did many landscape photographers of the day, since most of their income came from the sale of cards for parlor stereoscopes. Since Hart was not exclusively employed by the Central Pacific, he sold negatives to the San Francisco firm of Lawrence and House-

5 Muster rolls of Company F, 141st Regiment, New York Infantry, War Department Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C No record exists of promotion beyond captain while in the service However, Russell was consistently referred to as "Major" by Savage See Charles R SavageJournals, May 7, May 18,June 1, and June 5, 1869, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

6 Original glass-plate negatives in collections of the Oakland Museum, Oakland, California

7 Glen G Willumsen, "Alfred Hart, Photographer of the Central Pacific Railroad," History of Photography 12 (January-March 1988): 63

worth which published them under their own label.8 He also sold stereo views under his own name.

In 1867, as construction neared Utah and competition between the railroads increased in intensity, both companies courted the assistance of the Mormon settlers in Utah in grading. Help from the Mormons was crucial to each side, since they were the only major source of manpower and wagon teams in the Intermountain Area and could easily boost the productivity of whichever railroad they assisted. As part of the efforts to win Brigham Young's support for their side, CPRR official Edwin Crocker sent a full set of stereo views to the Mormon prophet and reported that "he was highly pleased with them." Similar tactics were obviously used by the UPRR, as Crocker further stated that Brigham Young "had some from the Union Pacific, but they did not compare to ours." Despite the photographs, the Mormons under the direction of Brigham Young split their support between the railroads Bishop John Sharp, Joseph A. Young (Brigham's son), and Joseph F. Nouman took the large contracts for the UP. Similar contracts with the CPRR to build from Humbolt Wells, Nevada, to Ogden were taken by church leaders Ezra T. Benson, Lorin Farr, and Chauncey W. West.9

The third photographer to cover the ceremonies at Promontory was Charles Roscoe Savage (figure 2). Born in Southampton, England, on August 16, 1832, Savage was the son of an impoverished English gardener, John Savage, and Ann Rogers. The elder Savage spent most of his time trying to develop a blue dahlia, a flower for which a large reward had been offered, and consequently his children grew up in want for many of the necessities of life.10 Charles Savage received little formal education, but he was an eager

8Ibid., p 68

9 Quotations are from E B Crocker to Collis P Huntington, August 2, 1867, microfilm, Collis P Huntington Papers, 1856-1901, California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento Contract information is from Leonard J Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (1958; reprint ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), p 262-63

iFigure 2. Courtesy of Nelson Wadsworth, Logan, Utah.

10Luacine A Savage Clark, "Life Sketch of Charles Roscoe Savage" in C R Savage Book of Remembrance in possession of Sally Lloyd, Salt Lake City.

learner and later in life was in constant demand for lectures on many scientific subjects.11

At the age of fifteen Savage met a missionary from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints12 and was converted to Mormonism. In 1853 he began a church mission in Switzerland for two years, and then returned to England where he was assigned to accompany a group of Scottish and Italian Latter-day Saints to New York as an interpreter.13 He was met a few months later in New York by his English sweetheart, Annie Adkins,14 and they were married soon afterwards. While in New York in 1856 Savage learned the art of photography in company with his old friend T. B. H. Stenhouse who, it is said, brought from England the first stereo camera ever used in the United States.15

In 1860 the Savage family moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Savage did portrait photography out of a portable darkroom consisting of an old tea chest, a tent, and a gray blanket for a backdrop By this means he earned enough money to outfit a wagon, and in the summer of 1860 he fulfilled a twelve-year dream by crossing the plains tojoin his fellow Mormons in Utah.

Upon his arrival in Utah, Savage worked initially as a partner of Marsena Cannon, one of Salt Lake City's earliest daguerreotype photographers. The following year Savage joined George Ottinger, a painter, in partnership. Ottinger hand-colored Savage's photographs and sold painted miniatures, while Savage did all the photographic work In addition to portrait photography Savage showed a great interest and talent in landscape and city scene photography and soon developed a stable gallery business Despite the economic hardships in Utah in the 1860s the Mormon pioneers were very interested in art and culture. Savage and Ottinger were major supporters of the artistic movement in Utah, and for years their gallery sold artist's supplies, distributed theater tickets, and promoted public events in the area. 16 In addition, both Savage and Ottinger cultivated relationships with art dealers, photographic distributors, and book dealers in the eastern U.S.,17 who often

11 Charles R Savage Scrapbook, Lee Library, BYU

12 The missionary who taught and baptized Savage was T B H Stenhouse who became editor of the Salt Lake Telegraph and a noted author Stenhouse was later excommunicated from the LDS church for his particpation in the Godbeite movement and moved to California

13 Savage sailed on the John J. Boyd, which left England on December 10, 1855, and arrived in New York on February 15, 1856

14 Arrived in New YorkJune 21, 1856, on the ship Thornton from Liverpool

15 EmmaJane SavageJensen, "The Life Sketch of Charles Roscoe Savage," MS

16 Savage Scrapbook

17 Madeleine B Stern, "A Rocky Mountain Book Store, Savage and Ottinger of Utah," Brigham Young University Studies 9 (1968): 146

sold their work on commission.18 Savage also contributed photographs and articles to eastern magazines and newspapers, including Harper's Weekly.19 Because of this exposure the firm of Savage and Ottinger became one of the best known photographic studios west of the Mississippi River during the late 1860s.

Savage used a number of camera formats, including several large view formats. However, due to portability as well as financial concerns (stereo photos having a larger market) Savage usually took field photographs with either carte-de-visite (2 1/8" x 3 1/4") or stereo formats, leaving the larger cameras in his studio. The decision by Savage and Alfred Hart to use smaller formats limited the scope and clarity of their photos compared to those of A.J. Russell, although their talents in composition were certainly his equal. In addition, the only surviving examples of Hart and Savage photos are original albumen prints that have faded and yellowed over the years, while many of Russell's original negatives survive, and very sharp, clear prints can still be made from them. All three cameramen were veterans of field photography with the wet plate chemistry of the age

Unlike the easily handled photographic film introduced in the late 1880s, or even the dry plates of the 1870s, the collodion glass plate negative or "wet plate" involved an extremely cumbersome process requiring exact chemistry and meticulous technique. Collodion, a sticky liquid that hardens on exposure to air, was derived from soaking guncotton in ether, the principal general anesthetic of the era. Initially used by physicians to seal wounds, it was later found to be an excellent emulsion for holding the silver salts of photographic processes

To prepare a wet plate the cameraman would clean a glass plate and then, inside a dark room or tent, pour collodion onto the center of the plate and then tilt it to spread collodion evenly across the plate. The excess was poured off. Once the collodion dried to a tacky state, the plate would be sensitized in a silver bath and then placed in a light-tight holder Only then could the plate be brought into the sunlight where the exposure, lasting from five seconds to four minutes, could be made. The plate was then developed, fixed, washed, and dried. It was necessary to perform the entire process, from sensitizing the plate to development, before the plate dried and lost its sensitivity. The chemistry was fickle and subject to many variables, including temperature and water

18Ibid., p. 149

19 Harper's Weekly, August 18, 1866; Philadelphia Photographer, September 1867, pp 287-89, 313-16, and January 1867, p 32; and Illustrated Annuals of Phrenology and Physiognomy, 1865, pp 38-40

impurities. The fumes from the ether and other chemicals within the confines of a small tent or wagon could be tolerated for only a short while and added to the necessity for rapid work. The ether was also extremely flammable, and many a photographer's studio burned to the ground during the wet-plate era. The majority of wet-plate photographers preferred to remain in the studio where conditions were predictable, but a hardy few chose to brave the difficulties involved with field photography.

Because of the relative newness of photographic negatives able to produce multiple prints, the practice of copyright observance with photographs was erratic at best Cameramen of that era commonly sold, loaned, or copied negatives, and the resulting prints were often sold without crediting the original photographer. Although considered artists, frontier photographers of the nineteenth century were often at the financial mercy of large photographic distributors or other organizations, and many were required to relinquish control of their negatives in order to survive. Charles Savage was an exception to this rule. Because of his proximity to frontier scenes he was able to photograph landscapes on short trips with a minimum of expense. His studio also gave him a stable financial base from which to work as well as a ready market for his landscape pictures, allowing him to sell only prints and retain control of the negatives.

As the eastern and western railroad teams worked feverishly into the spring of 1869, preparations for the final ceremonies at Promontory Summit were made All participants knew that they were making history, and both companies planned on making the most of it. Cars of dignitaries and newspaper reporters came from both coasts, and the Utah towns of Ogden and Salt Lake City sent their own officials to attend. Alfred Hart and Andrew Russell arranged to be present to photograph the event Three weeks prior to the Last Spike ceremonies, Dan Casement and other UPRR officials visited the studio of Charles Savage in Salt Lake City.20 They must have been favorably impressed with the work of the Mormon artist, since a few days later Savage was officially invited by Col. Silas Seymour of the Union Pacific to photograph the proceedings at Promontory.21

The motivation of the Union Pacific in inviting Savage to be present at the ceremonies is uncertain, as Russell had certainly already

20 Savage Journals, April 20, 1869

21 Ibid., May 4, 1869

proven himself equal to thetask. Perhaps therailroad officials wished to win the support of Utahns by having a local photographer participate, or they may have known of Savage's national reputation and connections with the eastern papers andwished to capitalize on it. It may even have been a case of one-upmanship for the Union Pacific, wanting two photographers to the Central Pacific's one Regardless of the motive, the stage was setfor a controversy that would puzzle historians for many years: Who photographed what at Promontory Summit?

On May7 Savage arrived at the Casement camp near Promontory Summit22 where he was informed that the ceremonies scheduled for the next daywould be delayed until Monday, May 10. Spring rain had washed out a trestle, causing a two-day delay for the Union Pacific delegation while the trestle was repaired and tested. This forty-eight-hour delay was fortuitous from a historical perspective, since the rain would also have made photographing the event much less successful. Savage spent the time exploring the area and "took 3 or 4 negatives around Casement's camp."23 Figure 3 isa photograph bySavage entitled "Casement's mengoing towork."24 This image, which may be oneof theneg-

22Ibid.,May7, 1869.

23 Ibid

24 Original stereograph in the collection of Barry Swackhamer, San Jose, California

Figure 3. Courtesy of Barry Swackhamer, San Jose, California.

atives referred to by Savage, shows part ofJack Casement's team of Irish tracklayers on a flatcar next to Union Pacific Engine No 66 Precise dating of this stereograph is very difficult since it could also have been taken during the fall of 1868 when Savage was photographing further eastward along the UPRR line.25 In addition to meeting Russell and Hart on May 7, Savage sold a number of photographic prints to the railroad men and Central Pacific delegation and even complained of some views being "stolen by the democrats" (presumably the construction crews). He further recorded in hisjournal the rough life led by the railroad construction workers:

In sight of their camp were the beautiful city of deadfall and last chance. I was creditably informed that 24 men had been killed in the several camps in the last 25 days. Certainly a harder set of men were never before congregated together before. The company do the country a service in sending such men back to Omaha, for their presence

Figure4. CourtesyoftheOaklandMuseum, Oakland, California.

25 The engine in the photo, No 66, is listed in Gerald M Best, Iron Horses to Promontory (San Marino, Calif: Golden West Books, 1969), p 178, as having been built in August 1868, thus placing the photograph after that date. Savage'sjournal for 1868 is missing, but other existing images demonstrate that he was taking pictures of the UPRR construction in the fall of 1868

would be a scourge upon any community At Blue River the returning demons...were being piled upon the cars in every stage of drunkeness Every ranch or tent has whisky for sale. Verily the men earn their money like horses and spend it like asses. 26

On Sunday, May 9, Savage went to Promontory which, he said, "consists of 1/2 doz. tents and Rum holes - is 9 miles from water."27 The next day dawned clear and cool, beautiful weather for dignitaries and cameramen alike The Central Pacific delegation arrived first, pulled in by the locomotive Jupiter. One photograph documents the scene at this early stage (figure 4). This view clearly shows the final gap in the rails as well as part of Promontory's tent city. Although this image has been previously published and credited to Savage,28 an original negative in the Oakland Museum collection29 confirms that Russell actually took this picture. Figure 5 shows another photograph from a different perspective and with a much larger crowd. This print has the Savage credit printed in the lower right corner However, it is identical to a photograph printed and sold in Russell's series of UPRR views. This image, donated as a copy negative to the Utah State Historical Society by Sav-

USHScollections.

26 Savage Journals, May 7, 1869

27Ibid., May 9, 1869.

28J N Bowman, "Driving the Last Spike at Promontory, 1869," Utah Historical Quarterly 37 (1969): 97

29 A. J. Russell, Negative #S-541, "Scene Before Laying Last Rail," Oakland Museum.

Figure5.

age's son, Ray Savage, has been previously published and credited to both Savage30 and Russell. It is uncertain how both men came to have copies of this photograph, but it seems likely that the picture was given to Savage by Russell as either a copy negative or a print. In support of this theory is the much wider distribution of the image from Russell's negative than from Savage.31

Once the Union Pacific delegation arrived with their engine No. 119, the two locomotives moved forward until only one length of rail separated them. The last tie, a polished laurel tie presented by a California firm, was placed in position. Jack Casement's crack team of Irish tracklayers carried one rail forward for the Union Pacific, with the Central Pacific rail being placed by a team of Chinese As this rail was brought forward, someone in the crowd shouted to Savage: "Now's the time, Charlie, take a shot!" The Chinese laborers, unfamiliar with cameras and sure that their lives were in danger, dropped the rail and scattered wildly to the laughter of the crowd. Only after much coaxing were the Chinese convinced to return and lay the rail in the proper position.32

30 Bowman, "Driving the Last Spike," p 90

31 The original glass-plate negative of this photo is not in the Oakland Museum collection, but it was included as No. 542 in the Union Pacific R.R. Stereoscopic Views, Across the Continent Westfrom Omaha series of stereos This series was printed and sold from Russell's negatives by Russell, O C Smith, and S.J Sedgwick in succession By contrast, the only copy of this view known by the author to be credited to Savage is the copy negative in the Utah State Historical Society Library

32 Edwin L. Sabin, Building the Pacific Railway: The Construction Story ofAmerica'sEirst Iron Thoroughfare... (Philadelphia: J B Lippincott Co., 1919), p 218

Figure 6. USHS collections.

Speeches and prayers were next offered, and both Russell and Savage took a picture of the group surrounding the last tie. Figure 6 shows Savage's image, but careful comparison with the work of the other cameraman 3 3 shows that both photographs were taken simultaneously, as the subjects are in identical positions for the long exposure. The relative perspective of each photograph makes it clear that Russell stood in the center with Savage on his right. Russell's image shows a camera in the right foreground that is undoubtedly the camera that took Savage's photo. One other Savage picture taken at this stage (figure 7) shows the crowd surrounding the area of the last tie. This somewhat poorly composed image is quite similar to views taken by Hart34 and Russell.35

At this time the gold and silver spikes were dropped into predrilled holes in the laurel tie, and the last two iron spikes were driven by Leland Stanford for the CPRR and Thomas Durant for the UPRR An observer of the ceremonies stated that only one photograph of the actual driving of the last spike was taken, and the glass plate was dropped and broken in the confusion of the celebration following the ceremony. 36 Confusion there was, for immediately after the laurel tie was removed and replaced by a regular tie and iron spikes the crowd rushed forward with knives and completely destroyed the tie by cutting off pieces for souvenirs. Six ties were in turn planted before the crowd would leave

35

36

Figure 7. Courtesy of the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

33 A.J. Russell, Negative #225, "Laying Last Rail, Promontory," Oakland Museum. A nearly identical stereo view taken by Russell is entitled "No. 543, Group of Officials at Laying Last Rail." Copy in the collection of Barry Swackhamer.

34 A A Hart, Stereo #355, "The Last Rail—The Invocation Fixing the Wire, May 10, 1869." California State Railroad Museum

A J Russell, Stereo #540, "Laying Last Rail," copy in collection of Barry Swackhamer

Hezekiah Bissell, "Recollections," Wyoming State Archives and Historical Department, Cheyenne

one in place.37 This probably accounts, in part, for the multitude of iron spikes discovered in later years, each with a claim of being the last spike.

Figure 8. Courtesy of the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Figure 9. Courtesy ofBarry Swackhamer, SanJose, California.

'Sabin, Building the Pacific Railway, p. 226.

The two engines inched forward across the new rails until they touched, and at that point Russell took his classic picture of "East meets West at the laying of the last rail" (figure 1) This photo shows the two engines together with chief engineers Grenville Dodge of the Union Pacific and Samuel Montague of the Central Pacific shaking hands and the rest of the crowd stretched out in a beautifully composed V. Savage's two images of "Meeting of Locomotives at Promontory" (figures 8 and 9) are very similar to Russell's picture, although enough differences exist to make comparisons. Both Savage photographs use the compelling imagery of two engines meeting on the final track, each from the opposite side of the nation. Figure 9 is the Savage view most often reproduced in publications, and in the past errors have understandably been made in confusing this image with Russell's "East meets West" photo Even today the images are often confused when a careful examination is not made. The photographs show that the two cameramen were standing within a few feet of each other, with Savage to the right of Russell. At least one of Savage's photos of the two engines was taken with the stereo format, although he later printed both stereograph and carte-de-visite prints from the same negative.38 It is reasonable to assume that many, if not all, of his other Promontory pictures were also originally taken as stereo negatives. Savage himself described his day at Promontory in the following terms:

Today the ceremony of linking the ends of the tracks took place. I worked...all day and secured some nice views of the scenes connected with laying the last rail—Was informed by Bishop Sharp that my name had been included in Salt Lake delegation to the officer of the roads. Everything passed of[f] lively and the weather was delightful.

Saw but little of the actual driving of the gold spike and laying of the laural tie as I was very busy—Left the promontory . . . and reached Ogden at 10:00 Cracked champagne with BrotherJennings and others at West's Hotel, where I stayed for the night.39

A total of at least eight or nine photographs was taken by Savage in and around Promontory,40 but the five Savage pictures shown in this article are the only examples known to the author to exist today. It is very

38 Original stereo entitled "Meeting of Locomotives at Promontory" (fig. 8), courtesy of Barry Swackhamer. Carte-de-visite prints from the same negative can be found in the Lee Library at BYU and at the Utah State Historical Society.

39 Savage Journals, May 10, 1869

40 In addition to the four pictures definitely taken at Promontory by Savage (figs 6-9) shown in this article, Savage refers in his journal to a photo taken of Engine 119, as well as the "3 or 4 negatives" taken around the Casement camp, one of which may be fig 3

possible that other Savage images of Promontory may be hidden away in private collections or museum archives

Within a few days of the Last Spike celebration, Savage sent "copies of each kind"41 of Promontory view to Harper's Weekly, a paper with which he had already cultivated a loose working relationship Russell also sent several views east to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly. Harper's Weekly printed one of Savage's views (figure 8) of the two engines meeting on the tracks as a lithograph print (figure 10).42 Russell's nearly identical "East meets West" photo was used as a centerpiece in Leslie's, and two of his other images were reproduced on the front page. 43 In later years, as Russell's view became more widely published and Savage's image became quite scarce, credit for Russell's Promontory photograph was given to Savage, based on widespread recognition of the Harper's Weekly lithograph.

A number of authors have commented on the absence of champagne or beer bottles being held by the men on the engines in the Harper's Weekly lithograph. The assumption has often been made that

Figure

Courtesy o/Harper's Weekly

the bottles were tastefully "edited out" when the lithograph was made. Careful comparison of the existing images show that the lithograph was faithfully copied from the original of figure 8. The champagne bottles are missing in this view, apparently blurred beyond recognition by movement of the men perched on the engines during the long exposure

Although newspaper publication of the Promontory pictures increased the reputation of the cameramen it did not bring many financial rewards, as newspapers of the day generally did not pay well and often did not give adequate credit for photos. The sale of stereo cards and views to individuals provided the main source of income for most landscape photographers Immediately after the Promontory celebration Savage returned home to his studio in Salt Lake City to sell copies of the photographs. Hart also returned home to California and began printing and selling his views of the event After finishing his work at Promontory, Russell began working westward along the tracks as far as Sacramento in a limited photographic invasion of Central Pacific territory.

Although professional competitors, the photographers seem to have had at least a sense of camaraderie and possibly true friendship. It would not have been unlikely for these educated, intelligent men, upon finding fellow artists on the frontier, to establish working and social relationships. Some evidence suggests that Russell had known Savage as early as the fall of 1868 when he visited Utah prior to returning home to New York for the winter Russell probably spent some time with the Mormon photographer, and at least one of Russell's photographs of Salt Lake City was taken from the roof of the old Council House next door to Savage's studio.44 Savage also spent some time in Weber and Echo canyons photographing the grading and tunnel construction by Mormon teams in the fall of 1868. Many of Savage's images are nearly identical to those taken by Russell and were clearly taken within a few minutes of each other.45 Figure 11 is a section of a photograph taken by Russell46 in Echo, Utah, probably in the fall of 1868. It shows Russell's

44 A J Russell, Stereo #24, "Great Salt Lake City, Street View," copy in the UPRR Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

45 Examples include Savage's view "Near Tunnel No. 3, Weber" (compare with Russell No. 133 "On the Mountains of the Weber"); Savage's stereo "Devil's Gate" (compare Russell O.M. Neg. # S-424); Savage's stereo "East Tunnel, Weber Valley" (compare Russell stereo No 73, 'Tunnel No 3, Weber Canyon" and Russell O.M Neg 121); and Savage's stereo "Grader's Camp" (compare Russell O.M Neg S-286a) Comparisons courtesy of Susan Williams, Oakland, California, a biographer of Russell who was the first to suggest the friendship between Russell and Savage, which has been borne out by the existing journal and photographic records

46 A J Russell, Oakland Museum Negative # S-357, "Old Stage Station at Echo City," Oakland Museum, Oakland, California

photographic wagon, and the man in the center holding the glass plate is Savage. Several other photographs taken in Weber and Echo canyons by Savage show Russell's photographic wagon in the background and are nearly identical to known Russell photographs.47

One month after the laying of the last rail, Savage took another trip to Echo, Utah, where he againjoined Russell and spent several days photographing points of interest with him.48 Figure 12 is a photograph taken by Savage during the trip. This image, entitled "Engineer's Camp, Webers Canon," shows Russell's wagon on the right. The man leaning on the stereo camera and tripod is probably Russell himself. The many Savage and Russell images from the Utah area, taken from nearly identical positions and at almost the same time, again suggests that the relationship between the two frontier cameramen was more than just a passing acquaintance. In addition to photographing together, they ex-

47 Examples include Savage's stereograph "Conglomerate Rocks, Mouth of Echo" in my possession (compare to Russell stereo "No 120 - Stage Station, Hanging Rock, Echo Canyon," U.P.R.R Museum, Omaha, Nebraska) Russell's stereo again shows C R Savage, this time leaning against a horse

18 SavageJournals, June 1, 1869

Figure 11. Courtesy of the Oakland Museum, Oakland, California.

changed some negatives49 and photo equipment.50 Russell's photographic assistant during the summer of 1869, "Professor" Stephen J. Sedgwick, also apparently developed a friendship with Savage. Sedgwick, a traveling lecturer who went west in 1869 to obtain further material for his lecture series, continued to correspond with Savage until the death of the Utah artist. A letter from Sedgwick to Savage in later years suggests a close friendship between the two men. 51

After working in and around Echo, Savage left tojoin T.H. O'Sullivan in BigCottonwood Canyon. O'Sullivan wasanother Civil War photographer turned frontier cameraman, whoat that time was working as the principal photographer with Clarence King's geographical expedition Savage photographed with O'Sullivan for over a week and then returned to hisstudio in Salt Lake City.52 Later that same summer Russell joined O'Sullivan in the Uintas for several weeks where he produced some of his most dramatic landscape views.53

49Ibid.,Mayl8, 1869

50 Ibid., June 5, 1869

51 Sedgwick to Savage, Elmhurst, Queens, April 12, 1907, in C R Savage Scrapbook, Archives, Lee Library, BYU

52 Savage Journals, June 10, June 19, 1869.

53 Letter to Anthony's Photographic Bulletin for March 1870, New York, E and H T Anthony Co., pp 33-35

Figure 12. Courtesy of Barry Swackhamer, San Jose, California.

By the fall of 1869 the eastern stereoscopic distributors were busily selling extensive collections of railroad pictures by a number of photographers. The frontier camera artists were drawn to other, less photographed sites, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite. Alfred Hart prospered for awhile selling Promontory views but was soon replaced as official CPRR photographer by C. E. Watkins who achieved fame photodocumenting the Yosemite Valley. Hart continued in photography for a time but eventually returned to painting as a livelihood His negatives were used for many years by Watkins, who published them under his own name, and they were eventually destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.54 Like many frontier photographers, Hart appears to have spent his last years in poverty. When he died in 1908 his role in the Promontory ceremonies had been all but forgotten

Andrew J. Russell returned to the east to a permanent position with Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly. His railroad negatives were acquired by O C Smith, paymaster of the UPRR, and eventually wound up under the control of Sedgwick. Both men sold prints under their own labels, without giving Russell credit. Sedgwick, who used lantern slides made from Russell's negatives in his lectures, credited the photos to "the Photographic Corps of the U.P.R.R. of Which Prof. Sedgwick was a Member."55 There is no evidence that such a photographic corps ever existed56 or that Sedgwick took even a single photograph during the summer of 1869.

Through a series of events the glass-plate negatives, still in Russell's original wooden boxes, were given to the American Geographical Society in 194057 and were later acquired by the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California, where they now reside. In recent years the negatives have been recognized as Russell's by the handwritten titles scratched into the emulsion, and credit for the often reproduced "East meets West" photograph has been rightfully returned to the original photographer. Russell died in 1902 in New York.

Savage continued to make forays into the field to supplement his negative collection In 1883 a fire leveled his studio and destroyed his

S4

55 Title page for Sedgwick's sale catalog of photographs, entitled: Catalogue of Stereoscopic Views of Scenery in all parts of the Rocky mountains, betweenOmaha and Sacramento, taken by the Photographic Corps of U.P.R.R. of which Prof. Sedgwick was a Member,for Union Pacific Railroad, at a costof over $10,000.

56 Personal communication from Don Snoddy, UPRR Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, regarding existing UPRR payroll and other records.

"William D Pattison, 'The Pacific Railroad Rediscovered," Geographical Review (January 1962):

Willumsen, "Alfred Hart," p 71

entire stock of negatives, thereby accounting, in part, for the relative scarcity of his Promontory images in later years. He remained a faithful member of the LDS church until his death in 1909 and is often better remembered in recent years for his participation in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and his role in establishing Utah's "Old Folk's Day" than for his photographic contributions.

All three Promontory photographers were true artists, and their photographic records have added immensely to our understanding of life in nineteenth-century America. They should be gratefully remembered for having struggled with the cumbersome methods of the era to successfully document one of the most famous episodes in the history of the old West.

Diary of Mary Elizabeth (May) Stapley, a Schoolteacher in Virgin, Utah

EDITED BY KERRY WILLIAM BATE

EVERY HISTORIAN HAS A SUSPENSEFUL TALE of the unexpected discovered or recovered, so perhaps my experience is no different from many others. On May 26, 1988, I stopped in Mona, Utah, to visit my grandmother's cousin Josephine Kay Garfield, a pretty, regal, and dignified woman with white hair After introductions we had an agreeable conver-

Mr Bate is a housing specialist with the Utah Division of Community Development

Mary Elizabeth (May) Stapley. All photographs are courtesy of Josephine Kay Garfield.

sation and then I asked her about old letters, diaries, and family memorabilia.

"Well everybody has things in their attic, don't they?" she answered, her lively eyes sparkling. We went upstairs to find her attic was far from typical, including as it did pioneer-era clothing and a tiny bundle of letters in a trunk made by a member of the Mormon Battalion; she also had two photo albums bursting with nineteenth-century photographs But the most interesting record in the trunk was a red journal kept by her mother, Mary Elizabeth Stapley Kay. This journal was written when "Aunt May"was a twenty-two-year-old schoolteacher in Virgin, Utah. Mrs. Garfield kindly let me borrow the journal; it proved to be delightful reading. A serious historian would zero in on the reference to the courtship of William Reese Palmer, southern Utah's premier historian. But it is May's wonderfully uninhibited way of writing that is the real pleasure of this small record. She talks frankly about the "notty" fellows in her classroom; her too-shy boyfriend, Othello Roundy; and her flirtations, admitting once that "I know I fool with them too much and I feel as guilty as the dickens about it but I don't know what to do to get rid of them now " Needless to say,Aunt May didn't marry Othello— and he waited another decade to marry someone else.

Mary Elizabeth (May) Stapley was born March 14, 1878, in Kanarraville, Iron County, Utah, a daughter ofJames and Young Elizabeth Steele Stapley; her mother was an opinionated and demanding midwife extraordinarily proud of her claim to be the first white child born in Utah; May's Australian-born father was a good farmer and a careful gardener who was nevertheless generally obedient to his stern wife

May was a woman with such a good disposition that her husband teasingly called her "Easy." She attended school in Kanarraville, then the Branch Normal School in Cedar City, and finally the University of Utah, earning a lifetime teaching certificate. She took her career very seriously; after teaching in Virgin, she taught school in Kanarraville (1904-5) and then Beaver (1906-7) ("Peculiar, isn't it, how some old maid school marms will come back home for mother to look after and caress them? Well, such a one is May Stapley, though pleased to say, she has two lady friends from Beaver to keep a watch over her this time," reported the Iron County Record, December 25, 1906, when she came home for Christmas; the reporter may have been her brother William T. Stapley.) The summer of 1907 she went to Los Angeles to attend the National Education Association meeting and incidentally to see two aunts

she had never met Later she taught school in Nephi, and while attending summer school at the University of Utah May met Liza Williams from Mona, spent a weekend in Mona with her new friend, and made acquaintance with John "Jack" Kay, whom she married on December 5, 1910 May and Jack lived out their lives in Mona

May sometimes felt isolated in the little town, but she kept active by participating in Mormon activities like Relief Society and Mutual; she was an avid reader, and she occasionally did substitute teaching. Friendly and easygoing, she kept in touch with a wide network of friends until she died

Her husband was a farmer who raised grain, milked cows, and kept horses He died April 4, 1928, at the age of fifty-six, leaving May with a family of five children, the youngest only two years old. May lived on in Mona until October 11, 1955,when she died at age seventy-seven.

May Stapley

Virgin, Utah, Oct. 25, 1900

To-day Iwill begin myjournal and try to write a little of what comes and joes. I am boarding with Sister Alice Isom.1 The family consists of Kate,

ClassroomatBranchNormalSchoolinCedarCitywhenMayStapleywasastudent. Originalisinscribed: "Withkindestwishes,yourteacher,HowardR.Driggs. "

1 See William Reese Palmer, ed., "Memoirs of Alice Parker Isom," Utah Historical Quarterly 10 (1942): 55-83 Mrs Isom not only took in boarders but also kept the store in Virgin

George, Alice and her four children Will Palmer is down from Cedar to see his sweet-heart Rate.2 I feel quite lonelyjust now and wish I could be home a few minutes I have just looked at my photos but that is not like seeing the originals. I received a letter from Will3 yesterday. He said all were well. He sent me $15 to get a watch.

School teaching is hard on the nerves. I feel as tired as if I had been washing when I get home. There are some very notty little fellows there and it puts me at mywits end to know what to do with them I am not able to keep them very quiet and I often wonder if people think they are learning anything I would give anything if I could get them to be good and do as I ask them to do. It worries me nearly to death to have them act as they do.

Friday,Oct.26—Two weeks of my school is done. Time is beginning to fly and I am one day nearer home School seems better Received a letter from Kate4 to-day. All are well at home. Republican dance at Rockville to-day.

Oct.28—Yesterday I helped Kate5 dust and wash dishes. Last night I went to a mutual meeting To-day I went to Sunday School and meeting Nearly all of the young people went to Rockville to Mutual Conf[e]rence. I acted as secratery [sic] in Sunday School After meeting Miss Sanders, Miss Pratt and I took a walk down to the river. I have just written letters to Kate, Zina, and Rachel.6 I am going to bed now

Nov. 29.—A month has passed since I wrote last in this book. Since then I have had some pretty good times and some not so good. Have been to two dances since I came here and will be to another to-night if all is well Have been to several sociables. The people are great for forfeit games and lots of kisses Was out to a sociable last night given for Mr and Mrs Ashton7 as a wedding reception. Have gone out with George.8 Went one night with Evadna9 and Powell Stratton.10

2 William R Palmer married Kate Isom on May 7, 1901

3 Her brother, William Tarbet Stapley; see Kerry William Bate, ed., "William Tarbet Stapley Autobiography," typescript, 1987, copy in Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City

4 Her sister, Sarah Catherine Stapley Roundy; see Estella Roundy Russell, "Biography of Sarah Catherine Stapley Roundy," 3 pp., copy in Utah State Historical Society Library

That is, Kate Isom

6 These friends are May's sister, Kate Roundy; Zina Ett Parker, who was soon to marry William Wallace Pollock (see Sophia Parker Stapley, TogetherAgain: An Autobiographical History [Oakland, Calif.: Third Party Associates, 1976], pp 117-27); and Rachel Emily Griffin Roundy; the latter was a controversial woman who gave public readings, participated actively in town social life, married Alma Byron Roundy, and was brought up before the Kanarraville bishop's court for circulating a rumor that John William Platt got Harriet Louisa Berry Stapley pregnant while Harriet's husband, James Steele Stapley, was on a mission to Belfast James Steele Stapley was May Stapley's elder brother (see Kanarraville Ward Minutes, October 13, 1912, pp 182-83, and December 29, 1912, p 184)

7 Perhaps Franklin Thomas and Charlotte Matthews Ashton (see Janice Force DeMille, Portraits of theHurricane Pioneers [St George: Homestead Publishers, 1976], pp 19-20)

8 Apparently Alice Parker Isom's son, George Isom.

9 Evadna Isom, a daughter of Alice Parker Isom, married John D Hopkins of Glendale on December 28, 1908

10 Powell Johnson Stratton, married October 1, 1907, to Gretchen Stout

Get letters from O. R.11 about every two weeks but that seems along time Don't know whether he will come over for Christmas or not

Have written letters toJohn A S.12 and Eliza Ann to-day Ought to write to Rachel Griffin.

Would like to be home to eat Thanksgiving dinner to-day. They are having a good time there but here we are having nothing. Will go out this afternoon and playwith school children. A dance will be to-night.

Mr Ranee and Mr Kept are here They stop at this hotel.13

School has improved some. Would like it to be better. Three more weeks and I will be home for Christmas Some of the Wash Co Teachers are going to S.L.C. for Institute during Christmas holidays. Don't think I shall go.

Jan. 18, 1901. About two months has passed since I last picked up this book. Have had fine times since then Went home for holidays Grandpa14 came over for me and Will15 was to meet us at Toquer. Grandpa had old Charley16 and Betsy. She was very poor and gave out before we reached there. We met two boys outside of town. They loaned us a horse to go on with. Instead of meeting Will at Toquerville, we met him at the top of the Twist accompanied by MissAnnie Isom They were beaux once but I think it isa thing of the past now. Sister Isom think[s] he is too old.

Grandpa would not go with us so Will and Iwent on alone. We landed at home Dec 22 1900 at sunset We found Ma alone as Pa had gone to Cedar to attend Conference. Sunday morning I went to Sunday School. Met all of the girls and some of the boys Eliza Ann went home with me to dinner We did not go to meeting. After meeting we called on Sister Balser,17 Nora Berry, and Kate.18 Monday I cooked and prepared for Christmas Went to the dance

11 Othello Roundy, her beau, a thin-faced music lover He was a son of Byron Donalvin and Matilda Ann (Roundy) Roundy His family was given to peculiar names; he had a brother Napoleon Bonaparte Roundy—the reason several men in southern Utah were later known as "Pole" (Everett Ellsworth Roundy, The Roundy Family in America [Dedham, Mass.: Author, 1942], p 239)

12 Her brother, John Alma Stapley; for him see Oral History Interview, Leola Amelia Stapley Anderson, November 21, 1987, copy in Utah State Historical Society Library Mrs Anderson is John A Stapley's only surviving child

13That is, Mrs. Lsom's home.

14 "Grandpa" was a crusty old Ulsterman named John Steele; in his old age Steele was an herbal doctor, hypnotist, astrologer, and wizard Among his papers are magic spells to find stolen property, destroy witches, and make persons "Enemays and hate one another." These spells include such occult practices as sticking copper nails in live chickens, making wax images, and stirring up recipes that included dried frogs' heads Part of Steele's autobiography was printed byJ Cecil Alter as "Extracts from the Journal ofJohn Steele," in Utah Historical Quarterly 6 (1933): 3-28 In a private letter dated September 23, 1932, Alter promised that "The owners may be sure that the journalist and the Church will be shielded from every possible reflection, by the elision of undesirable matter ."Alter to Frank Beckwith, Sr., September 23, 1932, copy in my possession The original of this autobiography has since disappeared

13 Her brother, William Tarbet Stapley

16Toquerville historian Wesley P Larsen, in a brief sketch, wrote that Steele "always rode a fine white horse called 'Charlie' One of Toquer's most prominent citizens he looked like a dignified Southern Colonel...." See Wesley P. Larsen, A History of Toquerville (Cedar City, 1985), p. 123.

17 Harriet Jane Coon Balser, who lived in Kanarraville, was a petite woman from Salt Lake City married to LouisJohn Balser For the Balsers see Oral History Interview, Fredrick Wilford Balser, May 24, 1988, copy in Utah State Historical Society Library

18 May's sister

at night with Will. Christmas morning, about daylight, Othello landed in town. He came by mail. We did not know that he had arrived until about eleven o'clock, then the news spread like wildfire thru the hungry community. It is time to go down and wash for breakfast Will finish after Saturday, 19.—Christmas daywe had a family reunion of all that were in town. There were present Pa, Ma, Kate and family, Mahonri and family,19 Will, Zina Parker, Midclie Roundy,20 Wallie Pollock,21 Eliza Ann,22 Othello and myself. When Thell23 and I met the company were determined that we should kiss We did it to please them and the whole crowd blushed as bad as we did. We

19 Mahonri Moriancumer Stapley, May's brother (see Leila Stapley Maxfield, "History of Mahonri Moriancumer Stapley," filed as appendix B, pp 25-26, in Oral History Interview, Elton Williams Stapley, April 14, 1989, Utah State Historical Society Library)

20Middie May Roundy, born February 19, 1879, Upper Kanab, daughter of William Heber and Malinda (Parker) Roundy.

21 William Wallace Pollock, Zina Ett Parker's beau

22 Probably Eliza Ann Batty

23 That is, Othello Roundy.

Mary Elizabeth Stapley Kay, left, and her sister Sarah Catherine ("Kate") Stapley Roundy.

went to the dance and had a good time He stayed with us We generally lingered a while after the rest had retired. He seldom arose in time for breakfast One wash-day, he turned the washer all the time He turned it before when he was over. I tell you, he's all right for a washerman. We spent our time mostly in eating, dancing, and talking At first I thot he was bashful, but later desided that hejust was not much of a talker, tho after a while he could hold his own in the conversation. He is not one of these spoony, soft fellows and that is what I like about him. I can't help but respect a person that will behave themselves.

When Sunday came we went to Sunday School and ate dinner and spent the afternoon with Kate. Did not go to meeting again.

The last day of the year and century was a fright. Some one had tattled and talked and stirred up a big yarn about the Stapley Scab.24 J S Berry and wife,25 Middie, John Reeves, and Thell were brought to our house to straighten matters. We had a hot time but I felt bad and disgusted to think that he had to come all that way and then be compelled to listen to such a nasty, low down, disgraceful yarn. I don't know what he thought about it and I did not have the cheek to ask him, but if he believes it I can't help it

We spent the week peaceably and on Sunday morning Pa and I started for Virgin Iwasto begin mydaily task of minding and teaching children

I left Thell at home. He stayed there until Thursday evening then went with the mail to St. George where Donalvin26 was waiting for him. I have not heard anything of him since.

Pa and I stayed in Toquer Sunday night and came over the next morning in time for school. It rained on us all of the way. He took little Linda Stapley back to live with us If all iswell Iwill have a little sister when I go home.27 I have taught two weeks since holidays and have eight more to teach School is much better and the children are getting to be very good.

Last Sunday after meeting, we girls went down to the river We decided

241 have not found out exactly what this refers to The Stapleys did keep a kind of hotel in Kanarraville and occasionally travelers gifted them with some particularly lively bedbugs (see Oral History Interview, Reba Roundy LeFevre, April 29, 1988, p 16, Utah State Historical Society Library)

2sJoseph Smith Berry was Kanarraville's bishop

2hApparently Othello's brother, Byron Donalvin Roundy 27 Linda Stapley was born March 16, 1892, Toquerville, daughter ofJohn Edward and Elizabeth Zetta (Hubschmid) Stapley; she was May's first cousin once removed Linda's father's head was run over by a wagon when he was a boy and as a consequence he was deaf. Linda's mother was Swiss, an attractive woman who, nevertheless, was extremely unconventional For a time the family was partly supported by contributions from the Toquerville Relief Society (see Toquerville Relief Society Account Book, 1868-1903, at the LDS Church Library-Archives) These contributions became so regular that one time the clerk listed "Zetty .40"—not bothering to write a surname! The Toquerville General Minutes for March 20, 1898, record that "Several of the Brethren Spoke about Zettie Stapley keeping a disorderly house" (p 94), but she was better remembered in Toquerville for her colorful swearing Ninety-three-year-old Edwin Slack said her favorite curse was, "you dirty, lurdy, low-down dirty son-of-abitch!" (Oral History Interview, Edwin Kenneth Slack, October 16, 1987, p. 11; copy in Utah State Historical Society Library) Linda did stay with the Stapleys in Kanarraville for several years; on April 23, 1904, the Iron County Record noted that "Linda Stapley is making her home at the residence of James Stapley." May's mother was particularly anxious to have a girl to help with the housework now that May was gone and Kate was raising her own family; it is likely Linda was treated more as a servant than as a family member

to cross and gather squaw-bush gum. Joe Humphries 2 8 took us across horseback one at a time We gathered our gum and he brought us back in the same way He acted very sociable and at meeting that night he sat on one side of me and Powell on the other. I was on nettles and got no earthly good of the meeting. When meeting was out Joe went for his hat but Unice Sanders and I had gone.

Evadna and Iwere over to Sander's last night to a candy pulling.Joe was there but he took Selly [sic] Isom home

A week ago last night I was out to Literary Club The Sanders girls Evadna and Iwent together.Julia and I sat together. BroJepson29 sat down by me We laughed and talked and had a fine time After club Eunice and I started home together. Julia stopped to fool withJohn Haslem and Bro.Jepson stepped up and took her arm We had a good laugh Eunice and I The crowd said he was looking for me but found Julia. Iwas not at all sorry.

I must stop writing now and straighten my room and fix my dresses I am getting so big and fat that it takes me all of the time to repair clothing. I only weight 153 lbs and seem to be gaining all of the time

Sunday,Jan. 20—Yesterday I finished my plaid dress. Received a letter from Middie stating that Normal Students must be vaccinated or leave school. There is some talk of it being compelled all thru the State In the afternoon I attended Teachers Institute

I forgot to say anything about our Thanksgiving dance. It was fine, I danced till I was so tired I could hardly get home. On our way home George asked me for my company. Before I left home Ma told me not to engage my company to any one I thought of what she said so refused He has not offered to take me since but I feel alright without him John Campbell has come to work for George now. He seems to be a nice boy.

Wednesday,23—Sunday I went to S.S. and meeting, also meeting at night. After which the crowd went up to Ada Spendlove's home to spend the remaining part of the evening Songs and recitations were nicely rendered We also plaid the game, "Crossing the Plains." Monday night I went to Mutual. Sister Isom went to spend the evening with Sister Wright. After meeting Evadna and I called to take her home. Powell and Joe Humphries waited at the gate Vad hurried out to Powell but I stayed for Sister Isom We spent a very pleasant evening. Last night Vad and I spent the evening with Carrie Birk.

28Joseph William Humphries, wrangler and mail carrier, married Sarah Isom (see DeMille, Portraits of the Hurricane Pioneers, pp 129-30)

29 That is,James Jepson, Jr See his "Experiences and Memories" in the Utah State Historical Society Library Jepson's sister was married to May Stapley's uncle Mahonri Moriancumer Steele When Jepson was sentenced to twelve months in the Washington County jail for murder, May's grandfather John Steele was one of the leaders in petitioning the territorial governor to grant Jepson a pardon (see Utah State Archives #2130, TE-0 00.4 Box 13; John Steele to Honorable Arthur L Thomas, June 10, 1884) Jepson and Steele were the main promoters of the Hurricane Canal which resulted in establishing the town of Hurricane; Jepson spent his old age recounting the story to townspeople in various church and community meetings

I look for a letter to-day I do hope I get it Breakfast is now ready so will go down

Friday25—Have received no letter yet Last night we spent the evening with Ada Spendlove and had a very sociable time. Have had some rain this week. It is raining this morning Yesterday I was drawing on the board at recess; Powell, Edwin, and Ray came in to help or talk I don't know which. I feel rather lonesome, a little homesick or something. At any rate I feel as if I should like to hear from home or somewhere to know what the people are doing.

I don't know whether Thell is the boy for me or not yet, but I believe I think more of him than any other boy I know, but I do believe he is a perfect gentlemen [sic] or at least he seems such I shall go down now and look over my work for to-day.

Feb.5, Tuesday.—Ten years ago to-day our Meeting House was burned down.30 Since I wrote in this book last I have been to Toquerville and had a fine time. Seymore31 came came [sic] for me Friday evening. There was a dance that night. George I. Batty and I had a couple of waltzes and a good old time talk. I also danced and talked with other boys. The dance turned out to be a toe party and Frank Sylvester32 marked my toe. He did not take me home. I visited all of the folks and paid Aunt Susie for my hats and bought a book from her.33 Seymore, Edna, Emma, Veda, and Mrs. Roner brought me back Sunday after meeting

Monday night I went to Mutual Edwin Stratton brought me and Powell brought Evadna. She wanted to quit Powell so insisted that I should go to Choir Practice with her Wednesday night The same boys came home with us again. I guess she fired him that night for Saturday and Sunday nights we were out to meeting, Edwin came home with me but she stayed to rehe[a]rse for the Theatre and came home alone.

I got a letter from my beau over the mountain He said he heard I had a beau here. It quite surprised me for I don't know who would tell such news. I have none any way or at least I don't consider that I have. The boys here are altogether to[o] free and spoony for me. I like a good sensiable [sic] fellow that can keep his hands off the girls. I know I fool with them too much and I feel as guilty as the dickens about it but I don't know what to do to get rid of them now. Six weeks more then Iwill be home and have no more bother with them If Thell could see me sometimes he might fire me and I could not

30

That is, the meetinghouse in Kanarraville.

31 Seymour Stapley, a Toquerville cousin

32 Franklin James Sylvester, a schoolteacher, stock and mine promoter who eventually lost everything in a speculation near Delta (see Kerry William Bate, The Ebenezer Hanks Story [Provo: M. C. Printing, 1982], p 224)

33Susann Adams Steele Bringhust, May's aunt and wife of Toquerville bishop William Augustus Bringhurst "Susie" ran the Toquerville cooperative store and was also a midwife; Edwin Slack said of her: "I don't know whether she got a nickel for bringin me or not If she did, why, my folks lost money on it!" (Oral History Interview, Edwin Kenneth Slack, October 16, 1987, p 14)

May Stapley, upper right, and some of herfriends.

blame him much if he would I must write now to Sarah, Becca, Middie, and Eliza Ann I may get them all done and I may not Hop e I shall do better tomorrow.

We have had a real snow-storm here but it is clearing off now and has not stormed today.

March, 5—I do well if I write in this book once a month Will have to try and write what has happened in the last month. A few weeks ago I went to Rockville with Edwin. Alma Wright, Carrie Birk, Grace Gibson, and Fanny Stratton were in the company We stayed all night because the roads were bad and there was no moon We were afraid to come home in the dark The next Friday night was Washington's Birthday There was a theatre I went with George. There was a dance after the theatre. We had a good time but it was very dusty.

I went to Toquer last Friday with Hyrum Duffin Had a good time but did not see all of the folks Grandpa and Aunt Susie brought me back Sunday.

Only two more weeks of school then I will say farewell to Dixie I will be very busy the rest of the time preparing for the close. It is almost school time so will quit for a time again.

The Americanization of an Immigrant, the Rev. Msgr. Alfredo F. Giovannoni

BY BERNICE MAHER MOONEY

OCCASIONALLY IN AN ORGANIZATION there appears one man whose life seems to sum up an entire era of its history. Such a man was the Rev. Msgr Alfredo F Giovannoni (1881-1961), the first priest in the

The Rev. Alfredo F. Giovannoni, ca. 1911, the time of his immigration to America. Courtesy ofPaul E. and Ancilla G. Carrico. All photographs are in Archives of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Mrs Mooney is the archivist of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City

Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination.1 In the 1990s the diocese found in examining Monsignor Giovannoni's pastorate insight into the unfolding drama of the continuing development of the Catholic church in Utah.

His Italian heritage helped shape the role Giovannoni played in the civic and religious life of Utah from 1916 through 1961 He was born in Italy on April 13, 1881, the seventh of eight children of Agostino (d. 1896) and Ancilla (d. 1922) Giovannoni.2 His father was a land owner who operated a number of small farms and provided his children a stable, almost aristocratic upbringing.

San Ginese di Campito in the city of Lucca in northern Italy was the site of Alfredo's birth. The cathedral in which he was baptized three days later dates back to the sixth century. During the Middle Ages the small Tuscany city-state of Lucca stood second in power only to the great city of Florence, but in later periods it was forced to defend its borders against raiding armies of hostile neighbors. Throughout its history Lucca was also frequently scarred by internal violence.3 The city bred a spirit of fierce independence in its sons and daughters, some of whom, when later transposed to American shores, were derisively called "hot-headed Italians." Lucca demanded the unflinching loyalty of its citizens, and Alfredo Giovannoni often let it be known from what part of Italy he came.

He attended public schools before entering the Seminario di San Michele in Foro di Lucca in 1896 at age fifteen. His ordination by Bishop Giovanni Volpi took place October 23, 1904, at Chilsa della Rosa in Lucca, and he celebrated mass for the first time one week later at San Ginese di Campito. From 1904 to 1910 he taught postgraduate courses in theology and church history at two seminaries in the Archdiocese of Lucca.

Whether his temperament—enthusiastic, effusive, and jovial —was disposed to a lifelong career exclusively in the classroom was never proven because that phase of his life came abruptly to an end in 1911.

1 Msgr Michael F Sheehan (1871-1950), a contemporary of Giovannoni in the diocese, died sixteen days before the fifty-year anniversary of his ordination on June 24, 1900.

2 Their children included two who remained in Italy: Amabile (d 1936), who reared a family of six children, and Rizieri (Richard) Martin who with his two children cared for the Giovannoni estate in Lucca Five others besides Alfredo immigrated to the United States: Giovanni (John), a grocer in Chicago who was eighty-two in 1954, the year of Monsignor's fiftieth anniversary in the priesthood; Aurelio (d.1932), a restaurateur in Chicago; Gabriel, a realtor and father of three in Beloit, who died in a railroad crossing accident in 1957; Adolph (d 1943) who settled in Bismarck, North Dakota, and had ten children; and Ester Juliani (d 1952) who lived with her children in Kenosha, Wisconsin

3 Christine Meek, Politics and Society in an Early Renaissance City-State (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp 1-122

That year his sister Ester Juliani, who had immigrated to the United States without her children, asked her brother to escort them to Kenosha, Wisconsin, for her. Dutifully the young priest set out for America with his two nephews and two nieces, the oldest of whom was age eight. Soon after arriving at Kenosha onJune 16, 1911,4 Giovannoni contacted Archbishop Sebastian Gebhard Messmer of Milwaukee who, though he had a predominately German congregation, welcomed the Italian priest

Immigration of Italians into the United States reached its height during the years of 1880 to 1920.5 Motivated by overpopulation and agricultural depression in their homeland, some 2,104,309 Italians arrived on American shores between 1900 and 1910.6 Archbishop Messmer appointed his new recruit rector of the congregation of St Mary of Mount Carmel, a community of Italian families in Racine, on November 3, 1911.7 This first assignment in the United States formed Father Giovannoni's sensitivity to the insufferable conditions under which many Italian laborers lived. He saw them discriminated against in the workplace where they were hired in unfairly small numbers, in the courts where garnishee laws stripped unwary borrowers of their earnings, and by local governments that ignored deplorable street, lighting, and sanitary conditions in the Italian section of town

After two years Father Giovannoni left Racine on October 19, 1913,8 with a letter from Archbishop Messmer verifying that the young prelate had "most faithfully exercised the holy ministry in this Diocese for two years I regret very much to lose his service as he has proved himself a very good, zealous and sacrificing priest. . . ."9 Giovannoni then took up the cause of Italian Catholics in Beloit. The Beloit DailyNews of October 27, 1913, noted that

Italians of Beloit see visions of their own. Yesterday Father Giovannoni enthused them to such a degree that they appointed several of their fellow countrymen to help him in the matter [of constructing a church]. . . . The Catholic priest seems to be the only one who has

4 Alfredo F Giovannoni, Notes in Breviary, 1925, as translated by his niece Ancilla Giovannoni Carrico, May 26, 1989

3 Philip F Notarianni, "Italianita in Utah: The Immigrant Experience," in Helen Z Papanikolas, ed., The Peoples of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), p 303

6 Quoted in ibid., p 305

7 Messmer to Giovannoni, November 3, 1911, Archives, Diocese of Salt Lake City (hereinafter cited Catholic Archives) On January 15, 1912, Messmer referred to conditions at St Mary's as "provoking" and cautioned Giovannoni not to become discouraged

"Giovannoni, Breviary

9 Messmer to To Whom it May Concern, August 30, 1913, Catholic Archives

raised interest in the project. Two other me n lately talked here but they were not able to inspire the Italians as did Fr Giovannoni yesterday.10

Thus encouraged, Giovannoni conducted a census that counted 850 Italians in 120 families within the Beloit city limits. He taught classes in English and in American citizenship at the high school and helped the immigrants fill out their naturalization papers. 11 With his support a mutual benefit society was established on January 5, 1914, to assist Italian families in times of sickness, accident, or death.12

Archbishop Messmer approved construction of St Paul's Church on Pleasant Street in Beloit.13 Giovannoni himself conducted a choir of twenty-five voices at the church's dedication on October 25, 1914. At a banquet that evening Giovannoni was hailed as "the inspiration for the work and the hero of the day." In the accented English that would always characterize his speech, he reiterated pleas for "the Italians to adopt American ways and to love the American flag."14

Within two years, however, the congregation's enthusiasm had waned. Giovannoni reported his difficulties to Archbishop Messmer, noting that "the Italians here, very poor in the majority, do very little for the Church." Despite many meetings and discussions, Giovannoni saw no way "to keep . . . things going."15

In November 1916 Father Giovannoni announced his departure for Salt Lake City "where he will be a priest in the cathedral under Archbishop Glass."16 Bishop Joseph S Glass (1874-1926) was a Vincentian priest who had been consecrated second bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City in Los Angeles on August 24, 1915, and installed in St. Mary's Cathedral in the Utah capital two weeks later His arrival in Utah marked the end of the forty-two-year presence of Bishop Lawrence Scanlan, a missionary of heroic stature who had literally wrested the diocese and its cathedral church out of the wilderness.17

10 This reference and the following references to the Beloit Daily News were researched, at the request of the author, in April and May 1990 by Donald P Goiffon for Rev Albert B Schubiger, pastor, St Thomas the Apostle Church, Beloit, Wisconsin

11 Beloit Daily News, December 8, 1913 It is interesting to note that Giovannoni's own Certificate of Naturalization is dated June 10, 1919

12 Ibid., January 6, 1914.

13 Ibid., June 2, 1914. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee was established in 1843, but Beloit would come under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Madison when the latter was established in 1946 St Paul's Church was torn down in 1989

14Ibid., October 26, 1914.

15 Giovannoni to Messmer, August 20, 1916, Catholic Archives

lfi Beloit Daily News, December 6, 1916

17 Robert J Dwyer, The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Souvenir of the Consecration of the Cathedral, November 28, 1936 (Salt Lake City, 1936), p 44, Catholic Archives

Bishop Glass first set about the interior renovation of St. Mary's Cathedral (which he later renamed the Cathedral of the Madeleine) and confronted the problem of a shortage of priests. The diocese covered 153,768 square miles—82,190 in Utah and 71,578 in eastern Nevada.18 The number of priests serving the area grew from eighteen to twenty-six during the decade of Bishop Glass's tenure.19

One of his new recruits was Giovannoni, to whom he wrote on November 22, 1916, "I shall be very glad to have you come to help us in the work in this Diocese."20 References in the Beloit newspaper to Giovannoni's departure for Salt Lake City, "where he will be under the archbishop in the cathedral at the seat of the archbishopric,"21 might have reflected the young immigrant's own limited knowledge about the structure of the Catholic church in the Intermountain West and the subordination of Utah to the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

There could be no doubt of the need for an Italian priest in Utah, particularly in Carbon County. The county's development had begun with the discovery of coal in four main camps: Clear Creek and Winter Quarters in 1882, Castle Gate in 1888, and Sunnyside in 1900.22 Completion of the Denver &Rio Grande Western narrow-gauge railroad through Castle Gate in Price Canyon in 1883 further stimulated growth By the early 1900s the area was booming as "thirty mines worked three shifts and five hundred dome-shaped coking ovens burned continuously. . . ,"23

The influx of Italian laborers into Carbon County began in the late 1890s Greeks, South Slavs, and Italians made up the three largest nonMormon immigrant groups in Utah.24 Labor violence and strikes, antiforeign sentiment (nativism),25 and violations of prohibition laws created tensions in their lives. They also found it frustrating to try to preserve their ethnic customs, foods, language, and religious festivals while at the same time striving for Americanization The Italians' love of

18

l9Diocesan Directories, 1915 through 1926, Catholic Archives

20 Glass to Giovannoni, November 22, 1916, Catholic Archives

21 Beloit Daily News, November 27, 1916

22 Notarianni, "Italianita in Utah," p 307 The political entity of Carbon County was organized in

23 Helen Z Papanikolas, "Toil and Rage in a New Land," Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (1970): 116

24 Helen Z. Papanikolas, "Utah's Coal Lands: A Vital Example of How America Became a Great Nation," Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (1975): 121.

25 A description of nativism may be found in Philip F Notarianni, "The Italian Immigrant in Utah: Nativism (1900-1925)" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1972)

In creating the Diocese of Reno, an Apostolic Constitution dated March 27, 1931, removed seven counties in eastern Nevada from the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Salt Lake where they had been placed at the time of establishment of the Vicariate of Utah in 1886

music and musical instruments brought some relief, and an Italian brass band added spirit to celebrations in every community.

Catholic priests, as their numbers allowed, visited the immigrants in scattered mining camps and coal fields. Bishop Scanlan had built a frame church in Castle Gate in 1897, and mass was celebrated there once a month, usually by Father Peter Bulfamonte.26 When the church was destroyed by fire in 1907 services were moved to the nondenominational chapel constructed in Helper in 1899 by the D&RGW Railroad.

In 1913 Bishop Scanlan had appointed the Rev. Anthony Petillo pastor of the coal camps in Carbon County and moved his headquarters from Castle Gate to Helper some four miles away. The town of Helper, a railroad center in the midst of the county's coal deposits, had begun its development in the 1890s According to one historian, "Heterogeneity marked Helper, distinguishing it even from nearby Price, also a service center for Carbon County mines Fraternal groups, inter- and intragroup rivalries, and the ethnic landscape reflected the town's diversity. Labor activity was turbulent in the county, with immigrants branded as radical."27 Helper boasted thirty-two different nationalities,28 and was known in Mormon terminology as a gentile town.

Striving toward better wages and benefits, the miners called a major strike in Carbon County during 1903-4 that resulted in the eviction of some Italians from coal company houses and the arrest of others The strike affected the Catholic community in several ways: "Some of the dispersed miners returned to Italy, while others took up farming on the Price River or entered into business in the nearby town of Helper. This economic change was instrumental in establishing St. Anthony's Church in Helper, with a predominantly Italian congregation and an Italian pastor, as a new kind of parish for Intermountain mining communities, a stable one."29

Thus St. Anthony's, a rustic brick church of English Gothic architecture, rose up in 1914 as a budding center of Catholicism that would reach out not only to Catholics in Helper but also to those in Gold Mountain, Price, Scofield, and Sunnyside in Carbon County and Thistle

26 Bernice M. Mooney, Salt of the Earth: The History of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, 1776-1987, ed.Jerome C. Stoffel (Salt Lake City: Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, 1987), p. 154.

27 Philip F Notarianni, "Tale of Two Towns: The Social Dynamics of Eureka and Helper, Utah" (Ph.D diss., University of Utah, 1980), p v

28 Papanikolas, "Toil and Rage," p 180

29 Carol L.Jensen, "Deserts, Diversity, and Self-determination: A History of the Catholic Parish in the Intermountain West," in Jay P Dolan, ed., The American Catholic Parish, a Historyfrom 1850 to the Present (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), vol 2, sec 2, chap 1, p 166

and Provo in Utah County. In 1916 Rev.John Henry, CM., visiting the diocese, toured the Catholic missions in Carbon County and recorded this impression of Helper:

Nearly all at Helper are Catholic The Italians are most numerous There must be between 60 and 70 Catholic children there There are about 12 American Catholic families and good [active in church?] except two or three families. A good Catholic church at Helper. 3 0

Bishop Glass knew exactly where to assign the Italian priest Giovannoni, who arrived in Salt Lake City on the Union Pacific Railroad in December 1916. First, the newcomer relieved Father Michael J. O'Reardon, who was ill, at Sacred Heart Church in Ely,Nevada, over the Christmas holidays. Then on February 3, 1917, Giovannoni drove to Helper to assume the pastorate at St. Anthony's Church. His new parish turned out to extend far beyond the boundaries of Carbon County, reaching to Vernal on the east and the Arizona border on the south.31 In his Ford automobile of ancient and not always reliable vintage, he set out to serve a "territorial spread of 40,000 square miles"32 that included "everything east of Soldier Summit, all of Carbon, Emery, Grand, Wayne, SanJuan, Uintah and Duchesne [counties], as well as portions of Wasatch, Summit, Garfield and Kane Counties."33

A history of St. Anthony's describes the priest's rounds in the farflung parish:

Until 1925 Father Giovannoni said one Mass on Sundays in Helper, and one Mass in some of the other towns of the area Included in his Sunday Mass schedule were the towns of Kenilworth, Sunnyside, Hiawatha, Standardville, Storrs, Spring Canyon, Castle Gate and Price. In these mining towns Mass was offered in private homes with the exception of Price, where the basement of the present Price Hotel was used

Between Sundays, Father Giovannoni extended his activities still further with visits to the towns of Black Hawk, Winter Quarters, Scofield, Clear Creek, Thompson, Sego, Moab, Monticello, LaSal, Vernal and the Uintah Basin, Huntington, Colton, Soldier Summit, Mohrland, Wattis, Latuda and Green River.34

30 FatherJohn Henry, CM., to My Dear Lord Bishop (Joseph S Glass), January 18, 1916, p 1, Catholic Archives

31 Rev John A LaBranche, pastor of Notre Dame Parish, 1954-1970, undated report in files of Notre Dame Parish, Catholic Archives

32 Giovannoni to Glass, p 1, undated (circa 1922), Catholic Archives

33 Intermountain Catholic, October 22, 1954, p 3

34Stanley V Litizzette, "St Anthony's Catholic Church, Helper, Utah, 1945-1970," p 8, Catholic Archives

Giovannoni himself recorded the story of one such trip made in response to a call from the deathbed of Pat Meehan in LaSal:

I jumped in the car, still hot from another call in one of the mining camps. . . .On a road not worth mentioning, the engine started to knock like a boiler in distress I had to stop After a few minutes it came to my mind I had to finish my Office [daily prayer of canonical hours]—I started with an improved devotion 1 was through my Office when I saw a team coming and an old man in the wagon. . . .

.. . So I took my things and [moved] on with the Good Samaritan—sat in the bottom of the old wagon near the front. . . for the next three hours half frozen, stomach empty—[but] we came to LaSal [to] the Powers [family and] a cozy, clean home, altho [sic] of logs

.

.

.We all sat at the supper table. . . [and later] after a little chat and, feeling like a million dollars, I was escorted to my sleeping quarters I did not look for any second invitation Of course I said my evening prayers. . . . About 7:30 in the morning I was taken to the place of my destination—Lying on a cot, which I better not describe, was the sick [man]. . . I heard the old [man's] 25 years' confession, gave him Holy Communion, Extreme Unction and all the blessings of Holy Mother Church. I was with him over an hour. .. . I went back to the Powers, arranged my things, thanked them and back to the car. The young Powers had done a little work on it I left and do not know how I was able to reach Moab [47 miles]... .

Left Moab at 4 a.m. Between Price and Sunnyside [45 miles] was caught in a ground storm and there I was, in a wash out I had to sleep sitting up. . . there till morning came. Someone coming from the opposite direction pulled me out

With a new ray of joy continued for home Put something in my stomach at a lunch counter; went to my own bed and for 11 hours did dream of the happiness the sacraments and the holy religion had given to Pat Meehan of the sage brushes.35

Among the families in Helper whose lives Giovannoni touched during this era was that of Francis B. Pellegrino who would be ordained May 13, 1951, as the first native priest from St. Anthony's and the fourteenth native of Utah to be ordained in the diocese.

In 1918 Bishop Glass transferred the parish seat from Helper to Price where Father Giovannoni moved on May 6, 1918.36 There being no church or rectory, he had to find a place to stay. The James Flynn

35 Giovannoni, MS, Catholic Archives

36 Giovannoni, Breviary St Anthony's Church, Helper, remained a mission of Price until declared a parish by Bishop Duane G Hunt in 1944

family offered him the use of a cot at the rear of their mortuary When the flu epidemic of 1918 struck the priest's cot became surrounded by an ever-increasing number of corpses. Then a baker let him sleep in his storeroom

Donations toward construction of a church during the era of World War I came largely from French immigrants who chose the name Notre Dame de Lourdes for the parish. Giovannoni moved his living quarters to the basement of the new building as its construction slowly proceeded. The church was finally ready to be dedicated by Bishop Glass onJune 20, 1923.

The Italian priest came to embody the spirit of Catholicism and brought it to life throughout the community. He became active in the Italian lodge Stella D'America, founded in Castle Gate on January 15,

Believed to be the dedication of Notre Dame de Lourdes Church, Price, 1923. Identifiable are Monsignor, later Bishop Hunt, far left; Bishop Glass in ermine cape; and Monsignor Giovannoni, holding program.

1898, to help immigrants achieve accommodation with other Utahns; and he assisted in the organization of the Italian Americanization Club of Carbon County in 1920.37 Imagine his delight on October 12, 1919, as he watched Bishop Glass participate in the parade celebrating Columbus Day as a legal state holiday for the first time in the history of Utah.38 Active also in the civic life of Price, Giovannoni was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis Club, Red Cross Executive Committee, Country Club, and Elks Lodge No. 1550.

When Ku Klux Klan39 activities escalated in Carbon County, Giovannoni enlisted the aid of Victor E. Litizzette and William C. Reid to organize Carbon Council No. 2611 of the Knights of Columbus in Price on June 27, 1926.40 All nationalities united against the Klan and it was eventually forced underground. Years later Council 2611 of the Knights of Columbus moved its headquarters to Helper where it became known as St Anthony Council 2611 When "another unit was formed subsequently in Price .. . it honored Monsignor Giovannoni by taking his name."41 He served as state chaplain of the Knights of Columbus in 1927 and 1928

In 1923 Giovannoni purchased a five-room house south of the church for use as a rectory It was "considered one of the showplaces of the town of 3,500," and its cost of $7,000 was "quite a sum" at that time.42

In 1925 his niece Irene, one of the ten children of his brother Adolph in North Dakota, came to serve as his housekeeper. Within months she fell critically ill. Her uncle rushed her to a hospital in Salt Lake City, but she died there of appendicitis Following her funeral in Bismarck, Giovannoni brought back with him to Price two of her sisters, Josephine and Ancilla. While attending school the girls served as cook and housekeeper in the rectory Later, for a time, Josephine drove the school bus. They would remain with their uncle as part of his parish family until they married, Josephine in 1933 to A. James Caputo and Ancilla in 1953 to Paul E Carrico In the Caputo home Monsignor Giovannoni, in retirement, would spend his final days.

37 Philip F Notarianni, "Italian Fraternal Organizations in Utah, 1897-1934," Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (1975): 173,179

38Ibid., p 184

39 See Notarianni, "Italianita in Utah," pp 323-24; Larry R Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1982).

40 Litizzette, "St. Anthony Catholic Church, Helper," p. 8.

41 Frank J Becker, Knights in Utah, 1901-1986 (Provo: Utah State Council, Knights of Columbus, 1986), pp 67, 247.

42 Intermountain Catholic, October 22, 1954, p. 3.

In 1925, upon recommendation of Bishop Glass, Pope Pius XI named Giovannoni Cameriere Segreto with the title of very reverend monsignor. During his European tour the previous year Bishop Glass had visited Giovannoni's home town of Lucca, dispatching several postcards from the city to its native son in Utah On December 15, 1924, the Bishop wrote simply, "Salute di Lucca"; and on another, undated, T met your teacher Canon Andrewcetti who remembered you . . . ."43 A ceremony of investiture for the new monsignor was held December 30, 1925, at Notre Dame de Lourdes Church, followed by a banquet at the restaurant of Nicola Rinetti and Clemente Capitolo in Price.

The homage paid the priest was not without its detractors A common perception was that he had sided with management during the miners' strike of 1922, thus alienating some Italians, particularly those from southern Italy Such first-generation immigrants, unaccustomed to financially supporting church services they took for granted in their

Monsignor Giovannoni with his nieces Ancilla, left, andJosephine. Courtesy ofA. James Caputo.

43 Glass to Giovannoni, one of seven postcards, postmarked December 1924, Catholic Archives.

homeland, also resented his setting expectations for stipends at baptisms and funerals. There was occasional grumbling about his extravagant lifestyle and his association with men of influence and wealth Critics cited his preference for the best cars—a late model Studebaker or a Buick, his reputation as a fast driver, his wearing knickers, and even his habit of smoking—he always kept an Italian stogie nearby. Yet he was very much a part of the lives of his people. He stood by them during times of crisis, such as occurred on March 28, 1924, when an explosion in Castle Gate Mine Number 2 killed 171 men. And no one denied that in Carbon County Monsignor Giovannoni "overrode south Italian, north Italian, and Irish dissensions to form a cohesive church body."44

Throughout his career his skills as an educator were often called upon. In an account of Catholic education in Utah during the century 1875-1975, Archbishop Robert J. Dwyer wrote that "The building of Notre Dame School in Price was sparked by a dynamic pastor, Monsignor Alfredo Giovannoni, who prevailed on the Sisters . . . then in charge of the Cathedral School in Salt Lake City, to take over instruction in this new area in 1927."45 The idea of a parochial school in Carbon County had developed over the years, especially after these sisters, known as the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, D.C, came from Salt Lake City to conduct summer school for some 300 children in Price during 1924 and 1925. In these summer months the pastor moved out of his rectory to make it available to the sisters.46

Monsignor invited the sisters, through Sister Eugenia Fealy, visitatrix of Normandy, Missouri,47 to open elementary classes in eight grades. School commenced in the basement of the church in September 1927 with Sisters Vincent, Severina, Mildred, Gertrude, Alix, Theresa, Frederica, and Zoe as the staff On the first day a violent cloudburst poured water into the basement and school had to be dismissed.48 Classes opened in the new but unfinished school building on January 9, 1928, with 180 children in attendance. 4 9 Formal opening of the school took place on April 15, 1928. Despite a decline in numbers of students in 1929 and subsequent years, the school survived and continues to op375.

44Papanikolas, "Utah's Coal Lands," p 121

45 Robert J. Dwyer, "Catholic Education in Utah, 1875-1975," Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (1975):

46 Interview with Rev. HenryJ. Piacitelli, CM., Salt Lake City, September 27, 1989.

47 Monthly Donor's Club mailer, Notre Dame Regional School, July 1990, p 1

48 Piacitelli interview.

49News Advocate (Price), January 13, 1928, p 1

Top to bottom: Giovannoni, lookingjaunty in knickers, often drove the school bus, ca. 1928, courtesy A. James Caputo; Notre Dame School, Price, 1937, when it had 175 pupils in 9 grades; and Sisters Theodore, Virginia, Mildred, Severina, Lelia, and Louise, who opened the school in 1928, both photographs courtesy of Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

erate today as Notre Dame Regional, the only private Catholic school in all of southern Utah.

Giovannoni took a personal interest in the children's education and visited the classrooms regularly. He bought a bus to transport boys and girls throughout Carbon County to the school and for a time drove the bus himself over a thirty-mile circuit daily The bus became a colorful symbol of the school. "We all envied the people on the bus," recalled Father HenryJ. Piacitelli who grew up in Price.

Boys from the school acted as altar servers. Monsignor seemed to glory in having numerous servers in the altar area, particularly for special occasions like midnight mass on Christmas Eve, though he could sometimes be heard correcting them audibly. "We had a healthy respect for him," Father Piacitelli noted; "he had a volatile temper."

On a Sunday in January each year Giovannoni read the annual financial report of the parish from the pulpit. He often indicated the condition of a particular account with his familiar "in da red." To some, the school, in the heart of a mining district with its proverbial cycle of boom and bust, seemed a drain on tightening parish resources. The people's support of their pastor, further threatened by the effects of the 1929 depression, was partially augmented by the Catholic Church Extension Society which traditionally provided impoverished priests in pioneer localities with small monthly subsidies, generally $25 per month.

A major turning point in Giovannoni's life came in 1930 when BishopJohn J. Mitty transferred him from Price to Salt Lake City as pastor of St. Patrick's Parish. Located on the city's west side, the parish had been founded by Bishop Scanlan in 1892 and comprised parishioners of varied ethnic heritages. Though he would always remain what he had become in Helper and Price—the beloved advocate of the ethnic Catholic in Utah—this appointment extended Giovannoni's influence throughout diocesan life.

He would remain active during the tenures of five bishops, including the early years of Joseph Lennox Federal (who, prior to becoming sixth bishop of the diocese in 1960, had served as auxiliary to Bishop Hunt from 1951 to 1958 and coadjutor from 1958 to 1960). In 1923 Bishop Glass had named Giovannoni a diocesan consultor; and in 1926 Mitty, third bishop of the diocese, had appointed him rural dean for eastern Utah. BishopJames E. Kearney, successor to Mitty, took Giovannoni with him to meet Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) when the cardinal visited Salt Lake City briefly in 1936. Duane G. Hunt, fifth bishop of Salt Lake, reappointed Monsignor Giovannoni as dioce-

san consultor in 1937 and noted in 1939 that "for some years he [Giovannoni] has had charge of the monthly Day of Recollection for the Priests."50 At the 1939 dedication of Sacred Heart Chapel in Sunnyside by Bishop Hunt, Monsignor Giovannoni addressed his former parishioners, standing beside the altar they had built out of stone salvaged from abandoned coke ovens. 51

As Giovannoni settled in at Salt Lake City, his nieces Ancilla and Josephine moved to the rectory at St Patrick's with him At that time parishioners were struggling with the effects of the depression Monsignor "sent a lady to our home to see if we needed anything," one man reminisced. Mrs. Peter (Rose) Chiodo recalled how the priest clarified civic issues for his parishioners and, on election days, helped them understand the ballots and cast their votes. Frances Fuoco remembered cooking the annual spaghetti dinners initiated by Monsignor Giovannoni and held in the parish for many years.

During 1932 men of the parish repaired the walls and roof of the church. They had nearly completed the repainting of the interior when,

50 Hunt to Very Rev Msgr Egidio Vagnozzi, Apostolic Delegation, Washington, D.C, August 18, 1939, Catholic Archives

51 Frank Farlaino, "History of the Catholic Church in the East Carbon Area, Sunnyside, Columbia, Daggett, and Sunnydale," MS, 1986, p 4, Catholic Archives

At the 1939 dedication of Sacred Heart Chapel in Sunnyside. Monsignor Giovannoni is at center, and the other priest is Father Milton Kelly. Photograph by Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

on Christmas Eve, fire struck, gutting the inside of the church. By the following November repairs had been completed and the new St Patrick's was blessed by Bishop Kearney The fire had destroyed the Christmas crib, and Leo Italasano recalled that it was Monsignor Giovannoni who bought the creche that has been used by the parish ever since. Giovannoni also organized St. Anthony Lodge which raised $400 to purchase the statue of St. Patrick that has since watched over the parish from varied locations in the sanctuary, at the entrance, and in the cry room.

Invested with the honor of domestic prelate by Bishop Hunt on January 14, 1940, Monsignor received a special assignment three years later. In a letter to Amleto G. Cicognani, the apostolic delegate to the United States, on May 11, 1943, Bishop Hunt noted:

Some months ago when I learned that Italian prisoners of war were to be sent here, I asked Monsignor Giovannoni to step aside from parish work and take the Chaplaincy of our girls' College so that he would have more free time. The prisoners came [to the camp at Ogden] a week before Easter. During Holy Week the Monsignor visited the camp and heard Confessions He said Mass for them on Easter; and has said Mass for them every Sunday since then. . . .

We are collecting a few musical instruments for them, including a piano, which I gave. 52

Giovannoni served as an auxiliary chaplain at five Italian prisoner-ofwar camps in Utah until an armed forces chaplain could be sent by the Military Ordinariate in New York Bishop Hunt arranged for an official army car to call for Monsignor at St Mary of the Wasatch each Sunday morning to take him to and from the Ogden camp where 1,800 Italians were interned.53 On a visit to the camp in May 1943 Giovannoni delivered a $100 radio purchased by the apostolic delegate as a gift to the prisoners from Pope Pius XII, and Archbishop Cicognani expressed his personal thanks to Hunt for Giovannoni's work with the prisoners.54

Monsignor Giovannoni celebrated his first mass on Sunday in the college and then traveled to Fort Douglas for a 10 o'clock mass, before which he heard confessions and during which he delivered a sermon in Italian. After lunch at the college, he left for camps in Tooele, where he

52 Hunt to Cicognani, May 11, 1943, Catholic Archives

1,3 Camp Hill Field, Utah, was located five miles south of Ogden and east of Sunset and Clearfield The prison camp was referred to as OATSC, or the Ogden Air Technical Service Council, according to Ralph A Busco and Douglas D Alder in their article "German and Italian Prisoners of War in Utah and Idaho," Utah Historical Quarterly 39 (1971): 63

54 Cicognani to Hunt, May 15, 1943

celebrated mass in the afternoon, again with confessions and sermon On the first Sunday of each month his routine varied, with the first mass at Fort Douglas, the second in Deseret near St.John about twenty-five miles south of Tooele, and the third in the Tooele prison camp. When Bishop Hunt received word that a permanent army chaplain had been assigned by the Military Ordinariate in October 1943, Monsignor continued his teaching at St. Mary of the Wasatch.55 On June 24, 1947, Bishop Hunt wrote to the chancellor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee regarding Giovannoni who

has asked for and has been granted a leave of absence for one year. The reasons are that he has many relatives in the Middle West, some of whom need his attention and spiritual ministrations He wishes to spend some time in your Diocese, as in other nearby Dioceses 56

Monsignor, sixty-seven years old, spent this period visiting various family members, but Utah seemed home to him now and he returned to Salt Lake City in June 1948. He replaced Father Joseph G. Delaire at St. Anne's for several months; then Bishop Hunt named him pastor of St. Patrick's Parish in Eureka He used the vacant convent as his rectory and referred to the building with its twenty-nine rooms as his "castle."

Alexander Blight, superintendent of schools in Eureka for twentyfive years, remembered his friendship with "Father Joe." Blight had been stationed at Leghorn in Italy around 1945 and

we used to talk a great deal about that I had schools out on the desert He'd go out and visit the schools with me He was very much a part of our community affairs and was especially active in the Kiwanis Club.

He got tickets for a number of us to go to the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the club in Salt Lake City Monsignor drove in my car with my wife and me and George Forsey and his wife We were all amused at our ecumenical mix: I was a Mason and my wife an Eastern Star; Forsey was bishop of the LDS Ward at the time, and his wife was head of the Relief Society in Eureka. Monsignor would razz George Forsey about praying too long

The Kiwanis went to various homes and when he had us to his house Ancilla cooked us a real Italian dinner. Delicious breads. She kept saying go easy on that, don't eat so much; but it was so good Everyone was full of spaghetti and bread by the time Ancilla brought out the fried chicken

55 Hunt to Rev James H Griffiths, Chancery Officer, Brooklyn, New York, October 8, 1943

'

6 Quoted by Msgr Sylvester F Gass, Milwaukee, to Donald Goiffon, Beloit, June 22, 1990, p 1, Catholic Archives

Monsignor would drive fast. Even the kids would say, "Be careful" but we all knew that the angels would take care of "Father Joe." 5 7

During his years in Eureka, Giovannoni often enjoyed Sunday dinner at the family home of Walter Fitch, Sr., who had been named a Knight of the Order of Pope Pius IX in 1925 Anne Fitch Quigley recalled a lace tablecloth in her possession that Monsignor brought her mother from Italy after a trip to his homeland during this period.58

In 1958 Giovannoni parked his car on a hill in Eureka and was getting out when, unexpectedly, the brakes gave way.As the car rolled downward the door hit him in the chest. Father Rudolph A. Daz filled in for him at St Patrick's in the months that followed and would eventually replace him as pastor. In November 1958 Giovannoni wrote to Bishop Hunt:

Monsignor Giovannoni, ca. 1954, as he neared hisfiftieth anniversary as a priest

Since my doctors give me little hope that I will ever be so completely active as to accept either a parish or a chaplaincy, it is with great reluctance that I feel that I should present you my resignation.

After all, I am 77. .. . I have my small Social Security and my retirement from the Priests' Mutual Benefit Society.59

Giovannoni moved into the Caputo home, located on extensive acreage on the outskirts of Salt Lake City and alive with the activity of a growing family. A chapel was fitted for his celebration of mass each morning. As the day wore on he rested in the living room in a recliner that is still associated with his presence or outside in the gardens, seeking, in varied views of the mountains beyond, the pathways of his boyhood home in Lucca

Monsignor Giovannoni died on October 5, 1961, midway in his eightieth year. Ham Park, in his "Senator from Sandpit" column in the

'Interview with Alexander Blight, Eureka, Utah, February 16, 1990

'Interview with Anne Fitch Quigley, Salt Lake City, February 10, 1990., 'Giovannoni to Hunt, November 6, 1958, Catholic Archives

Salt Lake Tribune, expressed the feelings of many people when he wrote "No man of my acquaintance had a more sympathetic understanding of the frailties of human nature, and greater love for his fellowmen."60 Monsignor lies buried beside fellow priests in the circle surrounding the altar at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Salt Lake City. The story of his fifty years as a priest survives today to chart the course of events during a significant period of Catholic church history in Utah.

' Salt Lake Tribune, October 10, 1961.

Death-penalty historian Watt Espy has confirmed over 18,000 executions throughout the history of the United States and its territories. Virginia has executed over 2,000, New York over 1,300, Georgia over 1,100, and Pennsylvania and North Carolina both over 1,000.Myown state of Florida has executed 225 men in our electric chair since it was first used in 1924 Since 1847 Utah has executed only 47 men, yet this is still more than a dozen other states

This book is a very brief history of those "unforgiven," as the author aptly calls them, with a minimum of background on the subject. The author is chair of the Department of Sociology at Weber State University, but, more important for this work, he was appointed to the Utah State Board of Pardons in 1983 and subsequently worked for the Department of Corrections. Those roles gave him an intimate contact with the death penalty and those men condemned to die for their crimes in Utah. The most engrossing passages of the book draw from those experiences, and the reader will wish he had drawn from them more often. While he professes to be a supporter of the death penalty, he observes in his very tempting prologue that 'There isno humane way to execute, but we pretend there is."

The author never suggests his book will plumb the souls of these

men or his soul as he examines them It is morejournalism than scholarship or introspection. After some introductory history on the nineteenth-century Mormon belief in blood atonement he briefly discusses demographics, the fate of unexecuted accomplices, and the manner of execution (Utah is one of the few states requiring the condemned to elect his manner of execution from statutory choices, currently lethal injection and firing squad but in the past including hanging and the never-used beheading.) The author then moves through a two- or three-page discussion of each of the 47 who died—names, dates, brief descriptions of crimes, trials, and executions. Most have an accompanying photograph.

His discussion of more recent events includes the most thought-provoking portion of the book, the sentencing and 1988 execution of Gary Bishop. He was that rare death-row inmate, a repentent man who wished to die, a "volunteer" in the vernacular of the death-row defense lawyer. Bishop's Mormon beliefs played an important role in his case The book winds down with a discussion of Utah commutations and pardons, past and present The author also recounts his own experimental stay of a few hours in an unoccupied death-row cell surrounded by and talking with the condemned.

TheUnforgiven: Utah'sExecutedMen. By L KAY GILLESPIE (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991.viii + 199 pp. Paper, $18.95.)

Thi s boo k is interestin g an d quickly read The author makes a point not to promise a great deal, but when you finish you still wish you knew more about these "unforgiven," how it was they arrived at this state in

life, and Gillespie's thoughtful reaction to them

KEN DRIGGS Tallahassee, Florida

Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet.

By THOMAS G ALEXANDER (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991 xviii + 484 pp $28.95.)

For two decades Tom Alexander has been researching, reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing about Wilford Woodruff. Things in Heaven and Earth is the culmination of Alexander's efforts, and in a volume written with great care, concern, and scholarship, Woodruff appears for everyone to see in all his many facets. Alexander asserts that Woodruff saw more of nineteenth-century Mormonism than any other individual and that he is arguably the third most important figure in LDS church history. His fourteen detailed and documented chapters set out to prove these theses Woodruff was born in 1807 in the rustic Farmington River Valley of Connecticut. His childhood was laced with religious revivals, an uncommon opportunity for education, and manual labor, particularly mill work Against the patchwork of religious change and diversity of the early nineteenth century detailed by Alexander, Woodruff became a religious seeker imbued with "Christian primitivist convictions," and his lengthy seeking came to an end on the last day of 1833 when he accepted the gospel as it was preached by Mormon missionaries and was baptized From this point on and for the next half-century, Alexander notes, Woodruff planted one of his feet in the temporal area and the other firmly in the spiritual.

Woodruffs diaries (published in 1983 in nine volumes) have long been a major source of research information concerning nineteenth-century Mormonism. Alexander has mined these diaries in a thorough fashion to present both the spiritual and temporal sides of Woodruffs busy life In his involvement with Mormonism Woodruff was a missionary, a seventy, an apostle, and church president. He participated in the ordinance of foot washing in the Kirtland Temple and was shown the Urim and Thummim by Joseph Smith No doubt his most successful missionary effort (and perhaps the most successful of any Mormon missionary) was his British experience among the United Brethren in the Benbow Farm and Ledbury area Over time Woodruff served as president of both the British and Eastern States missions, member of the Quorum of the Anointed in Nauvoo, St. George Temple president, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, and assistant church historian He experienced dreams and visions, observed and recorded the Young-Pratt dispute in his diary, sealed living women to his son who had drowned, and initiated the baptism for the dead ordinance in the St. George Temple. All of these activities are detailed by Alexander with much attention being paid to Woodruffs Wilderness Revela-

tion and the details of his church presidency, including the Manifesto and politics surrounding Utah's statehood

Alexander does not neglect Woodruffs personal and temporal life. In fact, one of his major efforts is to weave together the spiritual and temporal pieces of Woodruffs career Woodruff was prone to accidents early in his life and experimented with cures for chills and fever, including the use of Joseph Smith's red handkerchief and a Thomsonian cure consisting of three emetics and a fifteenminute steaming. He enjoyed the cultural aspects of missionary work, including visiting museums and libraries; he wrote poetry; and he enjoyed fishing and hunting

Like many Mormons, he carried on a love-hate relationship with the United States. He was a colonizer, a retail merchant, a farmer, a rancher, and a gardener He was involved in promoting organizations to stimulate the economy of the territory, including the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. His abilities and resources were stretched as he made considerable efforts to support and sustain his wives and children

Woodruffs family life is described and documented well in Alexander's treatment, and the Woodruff family life is interwoven into his spiritual and temporal experiences This is a major contribution of Alexander's work With characteristic honesty he re-

counts Woodruffs nine marriages, noting that four ended in divorce. The relationship between Wilford and his first wife, Phebe, receives the most attention, including the note that Woodruff was unable to attend his long-time companion's funeral in November 1885 for fear of arrest. Underlining and strengthening relationships among the Mormon hierarchy, Woodruff married one of Brigham Young's daughters, and one of Woodruff s daughters married Lorenzo Snow. Alexander examines and rejects the claim that Woodruff was married late in life to Lydia Mary Olive Mamreoff von Finkelstein Mountford—Madame Mountford.

The last decade of Woodruffs life involved the Manifesto and Utah's successful bid for statehood In that decade, Alexander notes, Woodruff was "a man for his season...he shepherded Mormonism out of a morass of persecution and isolation." With his unique combination of temporal shrewdness and spiritual insight, plus the ability to compromise, Woodruff became the navigator to steer the church out of plural marriage and Utah into statehood. Alexander's Woodruff is a "man for many seasons," each of them well balanced and examined in precise fashion in this very important contribution to Utah and Mormon history.

RICHARD W SADLER Weber State University

Cowboying: A ToughJob in a Hard Land. By JAMES H. BECKSTEAD (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991. viii + 283 pp. Cloth, $45.00; paper, $19.95.)

The cowboy has long served as a symbol of the mythic West. Writers and actors have manicured his image to the point that individualism, toughness, and raw-boned courage are syn-

onymous with the cattleman and his trade In spite of Robert Dykstra's The Cattle Towns and Lewis Atherton's The Cattle Kings, the popular notion of the hard-riding, two-fisted, gunslinging,

hell-bent-for-leather cliche cowboy is alive and well, even in Utah

Beckstead takes the approach that the ranching experience here was little different from that in other states during the last half of the 1800s and first quarter of the 1900s He depicts various aspects of this life in chapters on cattle barons, corporate cattle companies, cow towns, outlaws, manhunters, and the end of the old West. By grouping elements topically the author lumps ranching in the Basin and Range region with that of the Colorado Plateau, showing the whole undertaking as one dramatic slice of history. He achieves mixed results.

On the positive side, Beckstead is the first to synthesize the experience across the state from nascence to present He illustrates this evolution in over 250 photographs, many in sepia and nicely arranged, that portray various aspects of the trade and the personalities who plied it. Indeed, the pictures are one of the strongest points in this work

A major problem in the text lies in its sources. The author depends too heavily on secondary works and other writers' interpretations In some instances, where cited works are based on sound scholarship, Beckstead is on safe ground, but even then he has often misquoted or misunderstood what was written For example, he tells how Al Scorup rode to Blanding in 1891 (founded 1905) when his source clearly states Bluff Perhaps this is a minor detail, but it illustrates how problems compound in other portions of the text when sources are inaccurate and the author uses only one or two for reference.

There is, however, no missing the author's theme. He is enamored with the wild West. Much of the material used in chapters such as "The Man

Hunters" and "Finis of the Old West" has little to do with cowboying as an occupation, but it is dramatic and underscores the image of lawlessness and individualism The author relentlessly points out, in text and caption, just how wild and violent the West really was The reader may tire of "fearless lawmen" and "tough sheriffs," armed with "trusty six-shooters" and "true grit," who cause "desperados" to "pack up and leave the country." One picture shows twenty-four men, only two of whom carried firearms, but the captions reads, "Most of the men...are carrying guns which attests to the wild nature of the town [Myton]" (p 116) A few pages later three men are posed for the camera, two of them grasping the same bottle, the third holding a couple of glasses. To the author they "depict the wild side of Milford, Utah." Even the Indians, mentioned sporadically throughout the book, give out "blood-thirsty howls" when they are shot (p 233) and are "savages" (p. 263) who do not want to receive any more of that "same bad medicine" (p 233)

No one doubts that these events occurred, but it is the glorification and rhetoric that is disturbing The author tells of interviewing a 106-yearold man who showed him a pistol that he kept hidden At that point Beckstead realized "how special" this conversation had been because "the sixshooter under his pillow was a testament that his frontier spirit was still alive" (p. 258). In the same manner, the author relates how, a few years ago, a criminal gunned down two Fish and Game officials in Idaho and "became somewhat of a local folk hero" (p. 259). This may have been true for some people but hopefully not the majority And so it goes throughout the text as Beckstead features the dra-

matic at the expense of a more balanced understanding.

The book contains some excellent information an d remarkabl e photographs, but the reader must peruse

it selectively to sift fact from fiction.

ROBERT S MCPHERSON College ofEastern Utah San Juan Campus

In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho. By CARLOS SCHWANTES (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. xiv + 292 pp. $24.95.)

Idaho is "more than Famous Potatoes" asserts Carlos Schwantes in his latest work, In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho. Nor does Idaho have anything to do with Iowa despite the fuzzy notion held by many that the two states are interchangeable In just over two hundred and fifty pages of text Schwantes provides a concise and informative view of Idaho history that successfully traces main themes without getting bogged down in dates, facts, and movements. As he reminds readers in his preface, history is about people; hence his work captures well the character of the state and its inhabitants. In fact, I would argue that Schwantes more than succeeds in that his evocative and delightful account causes the reader to want more Idaho history than is presented here Fortunately, he has anticipated this response and has provided suggestions for further reading to round out each chapter

In eighteen chapters Schwantes presents a brief history of the Gem State in the modern era, that is since the arrival of Euro-Americans, most specifically Lewis and Clark In his discussion of the expedition, one of the few places where the author attempts to discuss women's roles in Idaho history, Schwantes gives a brief and fair account of Sacagawea's importance to the expedition. Unfortunately, the passage is marred by quoting Lewis's condescending remark that he believed that food and trinkets would

suffice to keep the young woman explorer content From this marker event Schwantes moves on to show how fur trappers and traders, missionaries, and then emigrants came to settle the territory and eventual state

A continuous thread throughout the book, beautifully represented in the dust jacket photo (taken by the author), is Idahoans' love of the land. As some have suggested, perhaps our license plates should reflect this love for the wilderness rather than our propensity to grow potatoes Yet like other western states who have long depende d on extracting resources to provide economic stability, Idaho has found that such dependenc y has proved to be anything but stable Schwantes brings the debate into the present when he notes that Idahoans are facing har d questions in th e 1990s, questions that were not yet formed in the 1890s but set the scene for the gradual degradation of the state's environment. He is gentle in his proddin g that Idahoan s must come to terms with their seemingly schizophrenic attitudes toward the state's lush natural beauty and abundant resources Whether to continue to "mine" the riches or to pull back and leave the wilderness untouched is the greatest issue facing the state, Schwantes warns

In this well-written account the author tackles such delicate topics as the prejudice shown toward Mormons, Chinese, and Japanese-Americans in

the past; the political history that has created the state's conservative nature; and the divisions that have long characterized the state, given its peculiar geographical boundaries as well as its political and religious differences His last two chapters, on contemporary Idaho and personalities and controversies, effectively bring the state's history up to the present His graceful prose is accompanied by excellent maps and photos as well as interesting sidebars, such as the one that should

lay to rest the folklore that the state's nam e came from an Indian word meaning Gem of the Mountains when it really means nothing at all. This will be a wonderful book to use in the classroom, but in addition, it should also please any and all who wish to understand Idaho and its people who have long lived "in mountain shadows."

SANDRA SCHACKEL Boise State

This book is the history of the life of Elias Blackburn who joined the Mormon church in Illinois with his family and immigrated to Utah As a faithful Latter-day Saint he became bishop of Provo with great responsibility over the tithing of the area He later served a mission to Britain and then moved to Minersville After spending a few years there he took his family and moved to Rabbit Valley, being one of the first to settle the town of Loa Blackburn's life would have been the story of just another faithful Latter-day Saint, except that he had a gift of healing. He learned the art of being doctor late in his life, and he used his skill considerably in Loa, the surroundin g communities , an d throughout Utah He expanded his knowledge by reading about doctoring and making pills from various ingredients, and he eventually received a certificate from the territory stating he was a medical doctor He healed many people with his art.

Since Blackburn was a religious man he also believed in healing by the spirit In many instances he healed by the use of olive oil and prayer. His

journal lists many people coming to him to be healed of cancers, goiters, and other maladies. The authors, being concerned about his spiritual healings and wanting to prove their authenticity, discuss these healings in relation to modern medicine I wonder if this discussion is even necessary. Even modern medicine is based to some extent on the faith of the recipien t in both the docto r and the medicine applied, and Blackburn had a source that many other pioneer doctors did not have What mattered most was that the people of pioneer Utah believed in him and flocked to him

The authors have gone to great length s to find all the possible sources Their footnotes are excellent Their bibliography also reveals the great amount of research they have done The authors have a good knowledge of present historiography. For example, they use William Hartley's excellent article on tithing to show what Blackburn did in Provo. They also describe well the activities of a pioneer bishop and the settlement of the new community of Loa

A Gift of Faith is a biography of

University

A Gift ofFaith: Elias Hicks Blackburn, Pioneer, Patriarch, and Healer. By VOYLE L MUNSON and LILLIAN MUNSON (Eureka, Ut: Basin/Plateau Press, 1991 xiv + 354 pp Cloth, $27.95; paper, $17.95.)

Blackburn, but it is not a biography in which the authors have made extensive interpretations of the documents. The text does not flow as one would expect from a modern biography Instead, the authors quote extensively from Blackburn's journal, using the other sources to enlarge upon his life

The book is an excellent family history It is the story of a man who was

faithful to his church, his family, and his medical practice. The authors should be proud of what they have written, and the family should be proud to be associated with such a devoted person as Elias Blackburn

RONALD G WATT West Valley City

Voices from the Bottom of the Bowl: A Folk History of Teton Valley, Idaho, 1823-1952.

By THOMAS EDWARD CHENEY (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991 x + 136 pp. Paper, $16.95.)

Although the setting for Voices is the beautiful Teton Valley in the easternmost recesses of Idaho, the reminiscences of Thomas Edward Cheney will evoke memories in readers who lived in most small Idaho towns—or most small towns anywhere else for that matter—during the early to midtwentieth century.

Cheney is an excellent writer He fills this small book with a diversity of "voices," each adding to the development of his character as well as the character of the community. He recounts experiences of interacting with family and neighbors (everyone in the valley was a neighbor) during his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood . Th e voices h e recalls speak of events humorous, tragic, inspiring, pathetic, ironic, and sometimes illegal Voices speaks of huma n foibles, vices, and nobility

Cheney's voices recall the exigencies of homesteading and trying to make a living in a land of short growing seasons and long, cold months They tell of the specter of death from accident and disease; of scholarly pursuits in frontier schools; of coming to grips with religious dogma; of contradictions between what was apparent and actual (that sometimes the saint was a scoundrel and the scoundrel

was a saint); of community cohesion and fractionalization; of patriotic fervor mitigated by valley men dying in far-off France; of coming of age filled with curiosity and mischievousness

The most oft-heard voice in the book is that of Cheney's mother. She epitomized the pious, intelligent, sensitive, shrewd, tough, self-reliant, frontier woman She saw beyond the mundane—the drudgery of day-to-day living—to the beauty of the valley and life generally She instilled in her son a sense of place

Voices is a delight to read. Anyone interested in learning more about the folklife of Idaho's Teton Valley will enjoy reading this book, as will those who grew up in such an environment or are descendants of those who did

The cover graphics of this book are excellent and a credit to the University of Utah Press The book contains a table of contents, acknowledgments, introduction, fifteen short chapters, but, unfortunately, n o index Although the author acknowledges that he "changed some names in order to not let any skeletons out of closets" (p. ix), that is no excuse for not including an index.

DAVID L CROWDER Boise, Idaho

Book Notices

Historic Resource Study: Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. By STANLEY B KIMBALL (Denver: U.S Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1991. iv + 226 pp. Paper, free distribution.)

This report, prepared by Stanley B. Kimball of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, is the beginning step in development of the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail by the National Park Service. Although the trail was listed ten years ago as part of the National Historic Trails System, little has been done until now to ready it for the 1997 sesquicentennial Kimball recommend s 67 sites along the trail between Nauvoo and Salt Lake City to be marked and interpreted Seven sites are in Utah: Cache Cave, Summit County (meets standards for the National Register); Pioneer Defense Fortifications in Echo Canyon, Summit County (listed in the National Register); Hogsback Summit, Summit County (Kimball rates the ruts here as too poor to nominate to the National Register); Mormon Flat, Summit County (listed in the National Register); Big Mountain, Summit County; Little Mountain, Salt Lake County; This Is the Place Monument, Salt Lake County (listed in the National Register).

The Pacific Slope: A History of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah,

VM' :

and Nevada. By EARL POMEROY (New York: Knopf, 1965; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, 1991. xxii + 431 pp. Paper, $15.95.)

Stressing the interaction of the old and the new, the importance of social, political, and economi c ties, the power of cities, the limits of growth in western culture, and environmental change, this classic is a masterwork of good reading, analysis, and synthesis. Rich with insight and invitation to further work, it may well continue to merit Yale westernist Howard Lamar's 1977 characterization as "easily the most complex and sophisticated history of the American West."

Utah readers will find lasting value in its insights into the importance of tourism, the particular overlap of urban and rural patterns, and its understanding of the regional influences tha t have worke d o n ou r state Pomeroy and Bison Books are to be commended for making this superb book widely available again.

Colorado's War on Militant Unionism: James H. Peabody and the Western Federation of Miners. By GEORGE G. SUGGS, JR (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991 242 pp Paper, $14.95.)

In 1903 and 1904 civil war flared in the metal and coal mining camps of

Colorado. Miners' strikes were met with harsh and violent opposition by mining companies working closely with the state's conservative governor, James H. Peabody.

Professor Suggs's study of the militant Western Federation of Miners Union and the even more militant response to that union by conservative political and business leaders documents a time when Colorado stood on the brink of class warfare With the original 1972 edition of this book long out of print, this paperback reprint makes available one of the most important books on western and American labor history

The book has particular relevance to Utah. During the same time that Colorado miners were on strike, Utah coal miners undertook one of the largest strikes in the state to that time Much of the rhetoric and many of the same tactics that marked the Colorado strike were found here Utah politicians and businessmen followed the Colorado strike carefully and branded the Utah strike as a "sympathetic strike" caused by outside agitators from Colorado Labor organizers did enter Utah from Colorado and miners traveled between the two states. Although the Utah strike never became as brutal as in Colorado, violence did occur and the situation remained tense from October 1903 through the spring of 1904.

Readers will find Colorado's War on Militant Unionism a fascinating and sometimes disturbing portrait of men and women fighting for their dignity, basic constitutional rights, and a better way of life.

The Great Sioux War, 1876-77: The Best from Montana: The Magazine of Western History. Edited by PAUL L. HEDREN (Helena: Mon-

tana Historical Society Press, 1991 xiv + 293 pp Cloth $27.50; paper $11.95.)

Montana: The Magazine of Western History originally published all fifteen articles in this collection between 1952 and 1988. The editor admits that the events around Little Big Horn have become a large part of the story of the Sioux Wars. That influence is discussed in the articles, but much more is provided in this collection The anthology is divided into Sioux War Prelude, Fighting the Sioux War, Sidelights of Sioux War, and Sioux War Aftermath

Rober t Utley' s article , "War Houses in Sioux Country," details how important and how proud the military was of the Sioux Wars: "Sherman also took pride in the spread of settlement and the advance of railroads that such permanent military garrisons made possible. . . . Truly as Sherman prophesied in 1877, forts ensured that the Sioux would never regain the Yellowstone Basin." The Great Sioux War, 1876-77, offers a review beyond Custer.

History and Faith: Reflections of a Mormon Historian. By RICHARD D. POLL (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989 x + 134 pp Paper, $9.95.)

Today's burgeoning interest in the "new Mormon history" has created a growing audience of people who want to read history that is accurate, balanced, and intellectually satisfying The writers and readers of this genre may struggle as preconceived or mythologized notions are tested, strained, and occasionally uprooted

Poll's book is a compilation of essays, written over roughly a twentyyear period, in which he wrestles with some of these difficult topics. The reader shares with this "faithful historian" some tough questions that he and others have sparred with such as how the LDS church handles inquiry by its intellectuals, the role God plays in affecting history, how to confront some of the skeletons in the closet of "we-wish-it-never-happened" history, and the issue of infallible leadership.

The author's honest evaluation of sticky problems, his truthful questioning that is not always answered, and his ability to look at concerns without sinking into skepticism makes this a valuable work While there may not be any startling answers at its conclusion, the thoughts along the way are well worth consideration by a person of any religious persuasion Thus, this book is recommended for those interested in personal religious insight or a refreshing approach to the new Mormon history.

Initially as a literary society and later in the 1890s as a debating society, Delta Phi blossomed for a time but withered during the first two decades of the twentieth century only to sprout again in the 1920s as the Friars Club, under the nurturing of church official and educator John A Widtsoe

The Friars Club merged with the Delta Phi Society in 1931. During the next three decades Delta Phi met with great success, establishing chapters on other college and university campuses in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona, and providing social, cultural, religious, and fraternal association for returned LDS missionaries. According to Hartley, the fraternity sometimes went beyond the fraternal association by offering honest criticism and suggestions to church leaders about the missionary program Some of these suggestions were later implemented

HART-

Delta Phi Kappa Fraternity: A History, 1869-1978. By WILLIAM G

LEY (Salt Lake City: Delta Phi Kappa Holding Corporation, 1990. xiv + 294 pp Paper.)

The Delta Phi Kappa Holding Corporation commissioned William G Hartley, research assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History, to write a scholarly and usable history of Delta Phi Kappa, a male LDS church fraternity for returned missionaries Hartley began his task by researching the beginnings of Utah's first fraternity, Delta Phi, at the University of Deseret.

In 1961 Delta Phi changed its name to Delta Phi Kappa The history of Delta Phi Kappa reached its zenith with support and backing of the church in the 1960s. But as Hartley points out, the seeds for its demise were planted with increased enrollment of LDS students who were not returned missionaries In 1978 after much debate and discussion, Delta Phi Kappa was replaced by Sigma Gamma Chi. It, too, would be absorbed into yet a broader and more comprehensive organization on universities and college campuses, the Latter-day Saint Student Association Hartley and the publisher plow new ground, providing the reader for the first time an understanding of LDS student participation in the broader university life at various campuses in the West during much of the twentieth century.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Department of Community and Economic Development

Division of State History

BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

MARILYN CONOVER BARKER, Salt Lake City, 1993 Chair

PETER L Goss, Salt Lake City, 1995

Vice-Chair

MAXJ EVANS, Salt Lake City Secretary

DOUGLAS D ALDER, St George, 1993

DALE L BERGE, Provo, 1995

BOYD A BLACKNER, Salt Lake City, 1993

HUGH C. GARNER, Salt Lake City, 1993

DAVID D HANSEN, Sandy, 1993

DEAN L. MAY, Salt Lake City, 1995

AMY ALLEN PRICE, Salt Lake City, 1993

PENNY SAMPINOS, Price, 1995

JERRY WYLIE, Ogden, 1993

ADMINISTRATION

MAXJ. EVANS, Director

WILSON G MARTIN, Associate Director

PATRICIA SMITH-MANSFIELD, Assistant Director

STANFORD J LAYTON, Managing Editor

DAVID B MADSEN, State Archaeologist

The Utah State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, and publish Utah and related history Today, under state sponsorship, the Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials: collecting historic Utah artifacts; locating, documenting, and preserving historic and prehistoric buildings and sites; and maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs, museum, or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended

This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 The U.S Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap in its federally assisted programs If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C 20240