Western Justice: The Court at For Bridger, Utah Territory

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 23, 1955, Nos. 1-4

WESTERN JUSTICE: THE COURT ATFORT BRIDGER, UTAH TERRITORY

BY W. N. DAVIS, JR.

EVERYBODY KNOWS that the tales of the more sensational occurrences of frontier justice have indulged in a good deal of license regarding the facts. Less appreciated perhaps, the popular portrait of western law and justice that has come down in a haze of gunpowder and tobacco from frontier days—it is but a shade removed from a regular stereotype now—has suffered just as grievously on other accounts. Almost wholly ignored, for example, has been that great body of men on the pioneer bench who, quite unconcerned with the chances for notoriety or show, actually did honor their sworn obligation to uphold the law. It may be that, here and there, the vicissitudes of frontier justice occasionally did require the eccentricities of "hanging" judges, or of courts colorfully convened amidst the confusion of some crowded saloon. But notwithstanding the extravagant publicity this kind received, they were clearly and always the exception to the rule. The demeanor of the western court generally, whether unlettered or cultivated, as indeed everywhere else, was one of simple dignity and relative restraint. For every swashbuckler on the western bench, countless even-mannered justices served.

This, of course, is not to imply that the color, range, and vitality of western justice were in effect confined to any particular type of court. For the truth is, the whole panorama of social frailties and errors was known to all of them. Dramatic cases along with the commonplace, actions involving large issues and small, were regularly entered on every docket. Professor Harvey Wish has stated, in his study of American society and thought, "While there must have been innumerable honest and hardworking local judges, their achievements were apparently too dull to attract the chroniclers of the West; hence the illiterate, un- scrupulous 'J-P-V have monopolized the writers' attention." Representative of a type found widely scattered over the West, the court of Fort Bridger is, as the evidence that follows is believed to show, a fair specimen to examine in the hope of adding a little balance to the other side of the subject.

For fourteen years William A. Carter, the sutler, was the principal administrator of civil justice in Bridger Valley, beginning with the establishment of the permanent military post there in 1858. Some rather violent forces agitated that crossroads frontier on occasion in those days. Yet Judge Carter's court remained steady and responsible through it all. The devotion to justice and order thus so consistently displayed did much to promote the rise of local order, upholding all those who supported such cause, and so contributed not a little to the march of civilization in that section.

Carter, like many another Westerner, became an officer of the law through what to him must have been a rather unexpected turn of events. His position of sutler, of course, is the main explanation for the appointment. By the time the Army of Utah was finally ready to march from Bridger Valley for Salt Lake, in June, 1858, after its forced winter encampment on Black's Fork, the command had pretty well formulated its plans for the development of a rear base at Fort Bridger. Carter, until then the principal local agent of Livingston, Kinkead & Co., the sutlers for the Second Dragoons, had elected to remain behind as the sutler of the new post. The governor of the territory thus found a way out of the problem of the recently vacated local civil bench by commissioning him justice of the peace as well. The latter appointment followed a pattern already well established on the frontier, for at many a western outpost, as was to prove the case at Fort Bridger, the sutler was easily the best-known civilian around. The association of Judge Carter with Fort Bridger almost at once became widely familiar. Indeed, for a quarter of a century thereafter, such was the publicity given the relationship, the mention of either name, invariably brought thought of the other.

Civil jurisprudence had come to Bridger Valley with the Mormons some four years before the arrival of the Army of Utah, and the pioneer judges of the region were of that faith. With the establishment of the little Mormon agricultural settlement at Fort Supply in 1853, a dozen miles south of Fort Bridger, the territorial legislature created Green River County for the northeastern outposts, and elected W. I. Appleby, late of the Salt Lake Valley judiciary, as its probate judge. In December, 1854, the able Isaac Bullock of Fort Supply, captain of the larger of the two groups of 1853 colonists, was named to succeed Appleby to the office, and the valley knew still a third local judicial officer when John Pulsipher was chosen justice of the peace in the general election on August 6, 1855. The district's first courthouse, a two-story building serving the traditional many other purposes as well, was erected at Fort Supply. At the approach of the army in the fall of 1857, however, the buildings at Fort Supply, City Supply, and Fort Bridger were all destroyed and the valley abandoned. Moreover, in December the legislature disorganized Green River County and attached the district to Salt Lake County to complete the retrenchment program.

Even before the Army of Utah reached Fort Bridger, while its headquarters still remained rather uncertainly at Ham's Fork off to the north, the new territorial chief justice, D. R. Eckels, struck the opening blow in what was to become a bitterly waged, highly personal court battle against the Mormons. Sitting with all the judicial dignity that his frail little tent permitted, Judge Eckels, on November 3, 1857, listened intently to the parade of testimony against Major Joseph Taylor, chief of the hard-hitting Mormon raiders, who, for a month now, had been held captive as a prisoner of war. The issue under review was about as clear and damnable as it could possibly be, the partisan court concluded. Taylor would be tried at the next term of the district court for Green River County on one of the most serious of all charges, treason against the United States.

Judge Eckels opened his district court at Camp Scott, near Fort Bridger, on December 7th, at which time a grand jury heard young J. M. Hockaday, the new U. S. attorney for the territory, present the list of charges against the Mormon prisoners. The grand jury gratified the court immensely by finding indictments wholesale. Not only were Taylor and William Stowell, a second prisoner, ordered to stand trial, but Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, Daniel H. Wells, Lot Smith, Lewis Robinson, and many others as well. The complete destruction of the three wagon trains belonging to Majors & Russell, the army's contract freighters, held to be a million dollar loss, was of course recounted in the indictment and the accused were each charged with "wickedly, maliciously and traitorously levying war" against the United States. It was apparent that the Black's Fork jury aspired to a full share in stamping out the "rebellion." Indeed, before the winter was out, the list of those indicted was to contain no fewer than sixty-seven names. There was some little irony in the situation, however, for Stowell, alone, was the solitary indicted Mormon that the court could lay hands on. Taylor had made his escape. Stowell, for his part, pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned on January 4th, and on motion of counsel his case was postponed until the next term.

When it came to carrying through effective action against the Mormon leaders, Chief Justice Eckels found his situation unsatisfactory to the extreme. On the one hand, the two other recently appointed justices of the supreme court had not yet reached the territory, which meant that the Mormons were entirely out of reach, even theoretically, on that high court level. It was true that the federal judges were authorized to hold district courts separately, and since Eckels had been assigned to district one, the area north of Salt Lake, he was certainly within the law in convening court in Bridger Valley. But completely cut off from the territorial treasury as he was, every expense of the court had to be met, if met at all, entirely out of his own pocket. Circumstances as embarrassing as these made any protracted court action almost impossible. A. G. Browne, Jr., the clerk of the court, was soon on his way east to beseech the administration itself to assume the costs of the court for the time being. The judge also requested the immediate dispatch of a second federal judge, and at least something in the direction of an adequate law library. Meanwhile, the court was determined to carry on as best it could. In May, Marshal Dotson, in pursuit of its instructions, petitioned Governor Cumming for a posse so that writs could be served on the indicted Mormons. When the governor asked Brig. Gen. A. S. Johnston, the commander of the Army of Utah, if he could furnish such a posse to the civil authorities, the colonel replied rather formally that if such a request were actually to be made, he was afraid that at the moment he would not be able to comply. With civil and military requirements thus apparently at odds, the unhappy Eckels found himself powerless beyond the narrow bounds of the army's camp. For the most part, in fact, this was to be the experience of the federal suit initiated by Eckels until the very end.

Though federal judges like Eckels played an exceedingly important part in the administration of law and justice in the pioneer West, by far the greater volume of such work went on at a lower, more comprehensive, less selective level. The key figures in this lower judicial structure were the sheriff, the county judge, the justice of the peace, and in Utah in the period being dealt with here, above all others the probate judge. Each complemented the other, and to whatever extent order was maintained, each in his own way was essential. As has been noted, the Mormon evacuation of Bridger Valley had left Green River County entirely without civil officers. Since the services of at least a justice of the peace were required there during the period of the army's winter camp. Governor Cumming, on February 2, 1858, appointed David A. Burr to the office, and a court was soon opened in the civilian quarters at Eckelsville just west of Camp Scott. The large number of civilian employees in the area produced a good deal of judicial action, most of which had to do with the common everyday incidents of assault and battery and theft. For instance, a man named Lucas was brought in on the charge of stealing a bag of buckshot from one of the sutler's wagons. He was duly acquitted, but nevertheless the quartermaster dismissed him from his job. Cut off from his subsistence, Lucas announced that he was going to return to the States. Not long after, however, he was reported seen on the road to Salt Lake City. "Thus this scoundrel has been in camp all winter as a spy," Capt. Jesse Gove of the Fort Bridger detachment wrote, in his enthusiasm for jumping at any anti- Mormon conclusion, "and paid by the government for his villainy."

When Burr vacated his office in May, 1858, the governor, as mentioned above, named William A. Carter as his successor. Carter was then working long hours putting the finishing touches on Livingston, Kinkead, & Co.'s new Fort Bridger store, but he readily accepted the added responsibility. A willingness to serve the public was always characteristic of him, but doubtless he would have been frank to admit that the value of the office to his business operations also counted in his decision. Judge Carter's initial cases dealt mainly with petty theft and with the run-ins between the small parties of Mormons now coming back into the Green River country and the still highly suspicious local troops. On June 8th, for instance, eight or ten Mormons came by Fort Bridger on their way to pick up the dozen wagons they had left at Platte bridge at the time of the previous season's trouble. Suddenly a soldier cried out, "That looks like the who stole Grover's pistol after they burned the trains last fall." Another soldier, in old campaigner fashion, proceeded to state the registry number of that particular pistol from memory. The Mormon, one Mathew Thompson, was surrounded, and sure enough the pistol he carried was stamped with that number. The group then laid the facts before Judge Carter, who after hearing the complaint ordered Thompson held in the guardhouse for trial. At the next day's trial the defendant cited the general pardon extended by President Buchanan, arguing that he was no longer answerable to the charge, and the court, accepting the argument as establishing an element of doubt, quickly released him. The intent of the pardon was not fully known at this time, yet the judge's decision was quite evidently in harmony with the President's policy. For if any one thing was certain, the administration wanted the speediest possible end to the Utah problem rather than any new or continuing grounds for keeping it alive.

But Thompson's case in Bridger Valley was not yet closed. The persevering Green River County grand jury now preferred a charge of treason against him and forthwith recommitted him to the guard. The papers of the case, including Thompson's certificate of willingness to accept the Presidential pardon, were sent on to Salt Lake City where the acting territorial attorney general, W. J. McCormick, ruled that Eckels, in his capacity as judge of the first district, should order the prisoner released from custody. When Eckels' order was brought up to Fort Bridger on July 19th, Judge Carter called Thompson before him and delivered a little address, carefully drafted beforehand, which reviewed in a rather fatherly way the facts and issues of the case. The gravity of the charge of treason against the government was dwelt on. "The court would however," the judge continued, "remind you of the great clemency extended towards you by the Chief Executive . . . ." Cautioned against further misdeeds, Thompson was allowed his freedom. Carter's beginning efforts as justice of the peace were favorably received locally, and in the general election on August 2, 1858, the voters retained him in office.

For a number of years the most important judicial post in Utah Territory was the office of probate judge. It was not the "highest" court, of course, but notwithstanding the obvious intentions of Congress, it was still the most important. A product of the West and of conditions peculiar to the territory, the Utah probate court, though matched in some ways by probate courts in other territories, was the all-important element in a system of law and justice in some ways unique in American judicial practice. The Utah way of doing things again was different. The bottom factor in the situation was the wide and vexatious gulf between the expected conditions for which the Organic Act had been drawn and the conditions that actually developed in the field. The Congressional act of 1850, creating the territory, vested the territorial judical power in a supreme court, district courts, probate courts, and in justices of the peace. The supreme and district courts, endued with chancery as well as common law jurisdiction, were placed in the hands of federal appointees, many of whom turned out to be not only non-Mormon but even vehemently anti- Mormon in their feelings and conduct. In addition to this not inconsequential point of friction, the federal judges all too frequently were absent from the territory, which circumstance deprived the citizens of the full and regular use of the higher courts. Therefore, if courts of broad jurisdiction were to function amicably and with continuity, some other system was evidently necessary. The justices of the peace could not assume the vacated responsibility, for the act of 1850 had specifically limited their jurisdiction to cases involving amounts of one hundred dollars or less. It was to the probate court that the territorial legislature turned as the way out of the problem. Hence the territorial act of February 4, 1852, which provided that, "The several Probate courts in their respective counties, have power to exercise original jurisdiction both civil and criminal, and as well in Chancery as at Common law, when not prohibited by legislative enactment." The probate judges' guide would be no less than the rules governing the practice of the federal district courts. This meant that the Utah probate court was scarcely to be identified with the ordinary probate court, whose principal work was that of probating wills, naming administrators of the estates of the deceased, and appointing guardians to minors. Instead, its jurisdiction would be of a totally different order.

Needless to say, the territorial federal judges with few exceptions did everything they could to block the Utah plan. But though they argued loudly and persistently that the enlarged jurisdiction exceeded all constitutional bounds, their repeated absences from the territory saw the probate courts continue to exercise their independent power. On occasions in 1861 and 1863, to cite something of the latitude of this power, the probate court at Salt Lake ventured to pronounce the death sentence, and the sentence was carried out. In the latter year, federal judge Charles B. Waite, of the second district, exasperated almost to the limit of endurance, sent off a proposed bill to Congress which would force the probate court back into its traditional place. So great was the Mormon protest to this move, however, that the bill died without debate or vote. Indeed, not until enactment of the Poland Bill on June 23, 1874, and the ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court in the case of Ferris v. Higley in October that year, was the Utah probate court stripped of its general authority and most of the controversy on the point ended.

The legislative assembly at Salt Lake City, consisting of the house and council in joint session, elected the probate judges for the territory annually. Carter, who had been appointed probate judge of Green River County by Cumming on July 23, 1858, was selected for the first time by the legislature on January 13, 1859. Re-election followed re-election and Carter's judgeship continued without break until the Fort Bridger section of Green River County was organized, in 1869, as a part of the new Wyoming Territory.

For the most part, the work of Judge Carter's probate court at Fort Bridger mirrored the general run of western judicial proceedings at the local level. In Utah the law required that the probate court always be open, but that regular, or law, sessions should commence on the second Monday of March, June, September, and December. A person seeking judicial redress in a civil matter initiated the action by coming into court and submitting a complaint in writing under oath. Similarly, a sworn complaint that an offense had been committed set a criminal action under way. The court then summoned or ordered the arrest of the person or persons named in the charge and set a date for the hearing. At the hearing, the judge determined whether the accused parties should be tried or excused and if the former, entered the cause in the trial docket. In the trial of a civil case the defendant filed his answer to the charge, following which the plaintiff and defendant alternately introduced their evidence and made such remarks as they considered appropriate. The court then rendered judgment "as soon as practicable." In criminal trials the county prosecuting attorney, appointed by the probate judge, presented the case against the accused. After the judge read the charge, the accused made his pleading. If guilt was admitted, the court satisfied itself as to the degree and then rendered a decision. If the accused pleaded not guilty, the case was decided according to statutory requirements, with or without a jury, but in either instance only after the evidence had been reviewed, witnesses heard, and both parties had had an opportunity to argue their case, which they often did without any reliance whatever on counsel. The court instructed the jury on the relevant law and equity, relying for this chiefly on its own reading of the territorial statutes, and presented any other necessary instructions. At the jury's verdict of guilty, the judge pronounced the sentence. Theoretically at least, appeals could be carried to the district court. Such were the probate court's general rules of procedure.

Infractions of the law often throw considerable light on the social and economic conditions of a particular place and time. Thus the prominence of the horse in western life was reflected in the work of the pioneer bench. Certainly the most common category of actions in Judge Carter's court was that in which horse stealings or mix-up over the possession of livestock were involved. Misconduct of this kind, commonplace as it was, was not viewed as warranting any very extreme punishment. Many of these cases amounted simply to someone filing a complaint in court, and little more, for the accused parties were no longer in the district. Occasionally the theft of government stock brought court action in Bridger Valley. For instance, on January 7, 1860, George McCarty entered a complaint charging that three men, whom he named, had stolen a steer from the government herd on Smith's Fork. The court subpoenaed the three men to come in and tell their side of the story, and the hearings establishing cause for a trial, a jury was summoned. In such criminal cases involving a jury, the territorial law required the court to select twelve "judicious men," or, if the opposing parties so agreed a number less than that. In civil cases where the sum in question exceeded twenty dollars, either party had the option of having a jury of from three to twelve members summoned. A territorial law of 1859 declared, moreover, that no person could serve as a juror "unless he is a free, white male citizen of the United States, is over twenty one years of age, is of reputed sound mind and discretion, is not so disabled in body as to be unable to serve, has not been convicted of any capital or infamous crime, owns taxable property and pays taxes in this Territory, and has been a constant resident therein during the year last preceding his being selected to serve as a juror." These qualifications were doubtless well suited to thickly settled valleys, but they were not very appropriate to such a slenderly populated place as Fort Bridger. Indeed Judge Carter found the impanelling of a jury an extremely difficult matter at times. It was necessary in the Mc- Carty case, in mustering a six-man jury, to call in some of his farm hands at Fort Supply a dozen miles to the south. Despite these problems, the case of People of Utah v. John K. Stone, A.B. Baker, and Martin Collins was begun within two days of the filing of McCarty's complaint. The defendants were tried separately, Stone appearing first. McCarty told what he knew about the theft. The jury promptly found Stone not guilty. The next day Baker was tried, but when McCarty commenced the same ineffective recital of the day before, the court-appointed prosecuting attorney sensed the hopelessness of the situation and declined to press the matter further. No course was now open to the judge but to release the defendants. Once again a frontier jury had disposed of a federal suit with decision and dispatch.

On October 6, 1863, George K. Otis, the Fort Bridger agent of Ben Holladay's Overland Stage Line, filed a complaint in court charging Rodney Babbitt and Thomas Watson with the theft of two valuable mules from the mail stable at the fort. A jury convicting them the next day, Judge Carter sentenced both men to two years' imprisonment in the territorial penitentiary, the minimum punishment under the law. In the language of the court, Jason Sherman was instructed to deliver "the bodies of Rodney Babbitt and Thomas Watson" to the warden at Salt Lake City. On the trip down, Babbitt managed the feat of breaking his foot chains and was shot to death as he tried to escape. The deputy Sherman obeyed his instructions faithfully and delivered the corpse, as well as Watson, to the warden.

That the territorial attorney general kept a rather close watch on the proceedings of the probate courts at certain times is indicated by the reprimand the judge at Fort Bridger once received. Without the due process of an indictment by a grand jury or of a jury trial, Carter, on August 11, 1867, sentenced two soldiers to six months in the penitentiary on a conviction of larceny. The deputy attorney general's routine examination of the prison lists, a particularly necessary duty in those days, revealed the procedural discrepancy, and he immediately obtained a pardon for the soldiers. Carter was shortly notified that convictions obtained without observance of all legal forms were entirely void. "You are liable to these men for civil suit for damages for false imprisonment," the Salt Lake official wrote, "and liable to be indicted for malfeasance in office." The deputy then changed the tone of his letter completely to say that he had had to tell the same thing to many other probate judges and that Carter could rest assured that nothing more would be done in the premises. The incident pointed up the recurring necessity for judicial adjustments in the strivings to square social conditions with the law. A practice very common throughout the pioneer West was

that of running out on one's monetary obligations. Many a man who had allowed his local accounts to fall burdensomely behind elected to slip quietly away for a fresh start elsewhere. From the courts, in consequence, there came a steady stream of garnishments and writs of attachment. The Fort Bridger court issued what probably amounted to a full share of these. For instance, only a few days after John K. Stone had been released from the charge of stock stealing in January, 1860, E. B. Fraser made an affidavit in court that Stone was planning to leave the country with a view to defrauding his creditors. Probably the most interested party in the matter was the judge himself, for Stone's account was in arrears just then to the amount of $156.37 at his store. The court responded by issuing a writ of attachment against Stone's property near Millersville, and when Deputy Sheriff Richard H. Hamilton reported that Stone could not be found, the said property was summarily attached. In the ensuing case of W. A. Carter v. John K. Stone, a jury of six found for the plaintiff to the full amount claimed. The sheriff then auctioned part of Stone's possessions, a mule for $73.00, two sets of harness for $29.00, a house for $55.00, and the account was closed.

When Charles Miller fled Bridger Valley in 1860, owing Miller, Russell, & Co.'s Fort Bridger store $190.00, R. T. Ackley, the company's local agent, promptly made complaint in court, and the judge issued a writ of attachment against any property he might have left behind. One of Miller's horses was found and auctioned off, the proceeds from which were applied to the debt, which the court allowed in full. Still another twist to the actions brought against individuals, believed about to depart the country to the loss of their creditors, was illustrated by a case before the court, now in Wyoming Territory, on November 16, 1871. Edward Alton made complaint that day that John Henry, an employee of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, had run up a bill of $39.75 for board and merchandise and that he was about to leave the district without any intention to settle the account. Alton wanted satisfaction from the money and credits of Henry still held by the railroad. Judge Carter complied by issuing a garnishment requiring the company to act in a custodial capacity in regard to Henry's funds, for the benefit of the plaintiff. In these and other ways the court strengthened confidence in personal contracts and helped to stabilize business relations generally, at a time when such agreements and associations were hazardous at best. Doubtless this particular function, though carried on with little drama or color, was among the most important performed by the western bench.

The territorial statutes on crime and punishment contained detailed statements on forgery and counterfeiting, for in that day of numerous-issuing agencies spurious coin and currency were widespread. The Fort Bridger court, for one, heard an involved case of counterfeiting in the fall of 1870. It began with A. R. Ellison, a Union Pacific conductor, swearing that he had "good reason to believe that John Abell is a counterfeiter and is engaged in passing counterfeit money," followed by I. A. Fillmore making a similar charge against John B. Hixon. A telegram from the court to Sheriff Harvey Booth at Evansville brought Hixon down to Fort Bridger for trial the next day. Pleading innocent, Hixon frankly admitted that he had given the conductor a twentydollar bill which proved to be counterfeit, but was equally insistent that he had not known at the time that it was bad. He told how he had received the bill from H. W. Brizzee of Asping Station in part payment for a consignment of merchandise. He therefore respectfully requested that Brizzee be subpoenaed to testify. Brizzee was on the stand two days later to state that one of his associates had innocently exchanged fifty dollars of good money for bad at the request of John Abell, and Brizzee, in paying Hixon, had unknowingly given him one of the counterfeit bills. With that testimony, the case came to an abrupt stop, for a principal bane of western justice had already come into play. Abell, the key figure in the whole affair, had precipitately disappeared from the region. "No case being made out against the prisoner," Carter was once again obliged to write, "he was discharged."

Offenses against the lives and persons of individuals gave the western court its most exciting cases. An action of this kind was before the Fort Bridger court in April, 1860. Archibald Williams, Benjamin Armstrong, and Robert Caldwell had brought a wagon load of potatoes up from Provo, some two hundred miles to the south, and made a quick sale of that non-desiccated food to the Fort Bridger garrison. Starting home, the three men had reached the cedars some two and a half miles from the fort, when they were challenged by two or perhaps three bandits. From the cedars, according to Caldwell's statement in court, one of the assailants cried out, " 'Stop you D-nd Son of a bitch,' at the same time firing at us." Williams, who was sitting alongside Caldwell on the front seat of the wagon, jumped to the ground and ran desperately for cover but was seriously wounded in the shoulder and back. Caldwell, with better presence of mind, made a flip backward into the bed of the wagon where Armstrong was riding, and the latter, after what seemed minutes of frantic fumbling, finally got his pistol out and pointed in the direction of the assailants only to find that they had disappeared. Within a matter of minutes the dragoons of the fort were at the spot and the men were brought back to safety. Judge Carter's court compiled a detailed statement on the episode, but that was as far as it could ever go, for no one could identify the assailants. Whether in terms of geographical reach or of workable communications between one judicial district and another, cases like this showed the exceedingly narrow bounds of the effective authority of many frontier courts.

The roughness of frontier conditions and of certain classes of people circulating in western society was much in evidence in the case of People of Utah v. Joseph Pendergast, et. ah, which commenced to unfold in Judge Carter's court on May 31, 1860. One Elizabeth Harris charged four soldiers that day with the cold-blooded murder of her husband, George W. Harris. A preliminary examination was held on June 2, at which time the named parties all pleaded not guilty to the charge. Mrs. Harris then retold her story in court. On the night of May 15, she and her husband, together with a Mrs. Jones and Doby Mary, had left Camp Floyd below Salt Lake City as passengers in the wagon of W. T. Carroll. With the exception of Doby Mary, who was headed for the lately much-publicized camps of the Pike's Peak miners, the group planned to cross the plains to Leavenworth City. The trip commenced rather auspiciously, it seemed, for the party traveled under the protective wing of a large detachment of dragoons and infantry bound for New Mexico. As Carroll was making the last crossing of the Weber River, however, Samuel Bennett and party came along and after a consultation between the two leaders it was decided that it would be best to leave the troops behind and go on to Fort Bridger as rapidly as possible. That night two dragoons, Joseph Pendergast and E. Mcintosh, dropped in on the civilian camp. They talked earnestly with Carroll for a long time. They wanted him to remain with the military column. Carroll declined. The troopers then asked him to leave behind a wagon for their women who were in the civilian party. Carroll protested that he was unable to do this, but in a spirit of accommodation offered to return the two women's fares. Pendergast and Mcintosh did not like the idea and at last departed, warning Carroll that there might be trouble if he attempted to pull out ahead.

The next day Carroll did all he could to put as much distance between himself and his hecklers as possible. His evening camp was a good ten miles beyond the stopping point of the troops, but it availed him little. Pendergast and Mcintosh came riding in. After spending the night with their women, the soldiers returned to their companies, but not before emphatically renewing their threats against Carroll. All the following day the wagon drivers kept their whips hard against the animals, and when camp for night was made at Needle Rocks on the Bear River, the distance between soldiers and civilians was great. Midnight passed: then 1:00 A.M.; all was well. But the dogged troopers! There was a murmur of activity out on the road at 2:00 A.M., and then a moment later everyone was awake as the dragoons came in. Told again in no uncertain terms that a wagon must be left behind, the weary Carroll now said that such an arrangement could probably be worked out if the Bennetts and the Harrises would agree to ride in the same wagon. Elizabeth Harris, however, for reasons of her own, positively refused any such accommodation with Mrs. Bennett. While the argument was going on in the Harris tent, Harvey Riley, one of four dragoons in the party, entered to ask a question of Harris, who, as far as the soldiers' designs on Mrs. Harris were concerned, was very much in the way. He wanted to know why Harris had said that he was as quick witb a six-shooter as Riley was. The defenseless Harris could only lamely deny ever having made such a remark. "Never say such a thing again," the querulous Riley growled. Thomas Maloney, the fourth dragoon in the tent, Pendergast and Mcintosh also being there now excitedly cried, "Shoot the son of a bitch." As if prompted by his own words, Maloney drew his revolver and shot the reclining Harris in the left eye. The stricken man died almost instantly.

The hearing of testimony'—"a tedious investigation," the judge called it—continued for two more days. Carroll presented his version of the sequence of events from beginning to end. To a question as to the character of the two women who had been the cause of the trouble, Carroll begged off by replying, "They may have been prostitutes, but I knew nothing of it. Martha and Mary were kept by Mcintosh and Pendergast while on the road." Lt. Ebenezer Gay, Second Dragoons, took the stand. The judge asked, "Would you believe Mrs. Harris on oath?" The lieutenant replied, "I would not ... as I have known her character well." The spotlight of testimony now moved still further over Mrs. Harris' past. Another witness stated that once at Camp Floyd he had heard Mrs. Harris threaten to kill her husband, and had heard her call him "an Irish loafing son of a bitch." Michael Mahon recalled that Elizabeth Harris had once begged him to take her away from the camp. On another occasion in her own home, while sitting on Mahon's knee, she remarked to him that she had had to give her husband twenty dollars to get him out of the place as she "expected her husky Pat Higgins that night."

After listening patiently to a full description of the conduct of these camp followers, the issues at law being perfectly clear. Judge Carter was impelled to begin his pronouncement with the remark, "Dastardly indeed would be that justice or judge who would shrink from his sworn duties." The four soldiers were committed to the Fort Bridger guardhouse, to answer the charge of murder at the next term of the federal district court for the northem district. Carter actually could do little more than act as an examining court in the matter, for the federal courts in Utah had only recently ruled that the probate courts lacked jurisdiction to decide criminal cases. And added to that, he was again squarely up against other long-standing judicial problems of the territory. The judge explained the situation regarding the prisoners in a letter to the post commander. No federal judges were present in the territory at the time, and consequently no court in the territory possessed definitive criminal jurisdiction. Moreover, the county was wthout a jail. He therefore was requesting that the prisoners be held in the post guardhouse until the newly appointed federal judges reached the territory. The post commander, Capt. Alfred Cumming, a nephew of the governor, understood the situation fully and approved the plan. But when the request for the use of the guardhouse was forwarded to Camp Floyd for departmental consent, the dispatch was returned with an endorsement ordering the prisoners to be released from military custody and returned to Judge Carter forthwith. There was already a torrent of protest in the territory over alleged military intrusion upon civil affairs. The departmental commander would accept no new grounds for complaint. Thus on June 17, the four soldiers were handed back to the judge. Having no place to keep them, he was obliged to allow them "to go at liberty." That night, in the company of two deserting local soldiers and some stolen livestock, they fled from the valley.

The Fort Bridger judge was greatly concerned over this breakdown of justice. The recent attack on the criminal jurisdiction of the probate courts, coupled with the outcome of the Harris case, seemed to assure that legal technicalities, now more than ever, would redound to the advantage of the lawless. "I am at a loss to know how to proceed," Carter confided to the governor in his report on the case. "If a great community of men has not a right to make laws for its own preservation, brute force and crime must reign supreme. I shall endeavor to keep up, at least, a show of authority until some salutary measures have been adopted." The statement evinced the sense of responsibility of a western judge whose instinct for decency and fair play had been very much aroused.

The Harris case emphasized still another major shortcoming in the administration of law and justice in many western communities. Necessary jails were often non-existent. Where jails were not available the costs of guards could be excessive. Inadequately housed prisoners escaped wholesale. Sentences too often were influenced by the lack of facilities for the confinement of prisoners. A few of the first sentences handed down in Utah, for example, were of necessity calculated in terms of the whipping post. The extreme penalty was arrived at the easier in other western areas because of the same deficiency.

Occasionally Judge Carter's own employees were involved in escapades that brought them into court. There was such an occurrence in the employees' mess house on the night of September 26, 1866. That evening after supper the quiet talk of the men lounging about the quarters was suddenly interrupted by a commotion at the card table. John Robinson and Ed Costeller had thrown in some seventy-five cents worth of chips when Robinson suddenly raised the bet by boldly pushing forward three dollars in silver. This was more money than Costeller had in his pocket, but sensing that his opponent was playing "a blind," he sent George Ford to get fifty dollars from Scott, declaring that he was going to raise Robinson out of it altogether. But Scott could not be found and Ford returned without the money. Robinson then reclaimed his three dollars. Costeller reached for the chips. At this Robinson jumped onto the table and shouted at Costeller to leave the stakes alone. The latter acting as if to give in, Robinson returned to his seat. But when Costeller made another move for the chips, the infuriated Robinson leaped again to the tabletop and kicked viciously at his opponent's face. Falling backward to escape the blow, Costeller scrambled for cover behind the nearby stove. At the same time, Robinson, a spirit level grabbed up in his hand, jumped from the table onto the stove and followed through with a wicked swing at Costeller's head. Costeller caught the blow with upraised wrist and then closed in to grab the less powerful man by the arms and hold him helpless. Several bystanders interceded to separate the scuffling pair.

The aroused Costeller now went outside and walked around to the window of the back office of the sutler's store, asking for one of his friends, but not finding him, returned to the mess house to learn that Robinson had just buckled on his revolver. Costeller gave him a stern warning against drawing the weapon and then falling to his knees in a melodramatic gesture of oath-taking, spoke out in a loud voice that it was not his intention to hurt Robinson, but so help him, the dispute over the stakes would have to be settled before morning. The challenge thus thrown down, Costeller demanded that Robinson pay him the seventy-five cents for the chips and the latter, somewhat shaken by the ultimatum, reluctantly complied. One more condition and all would be forgiven; Robinson must confess to having been wrong in the whole matter. Robinson said he would be damned if he would. The tension instantly returning, Costeller seized his adversary by the arms and pushing him up against the wall shook him hard. Then, wondering for a moment whether to hit him or let him go, he released his hold. Quickly Robinson's right arm came up and plunged a blade into Costeller's abdomen. Costeller went reeling for the door, falling against the cartwheel outside, all the while screaming that he had been "cut in the guts." The tormented Robinson, following a step behind, began to slash at the fallen man's left shoulder blade but was speedily pulled away by the gathering crowd. Fortunately Costeller's injuries proved to be only superficial and were soon patched up by Surgeon W. E. Waters at the post hospital. When the judge's court opened on October 22, Costeller was present to swear a complaint that Robinson "feloniously and of malice aforethought, did make an assault, with a knife" upon his person. And so began the case of People of Utah v. John Robinson.

Among the less exciting though nevertheless important functions of the probate court at Fort Bridger was the work of registering or recording such papers as anyone wanted to make a matter of permanent record. In Green River County the entire responsibility for this work devolved upon the probate court, for no county clerk's office was as yet operative in those days. Claims of all kinds, pre-emption declarations, mortgages, indentures, deeds, articles of incorporation or partnership, bills of sale, and other business records were from time to time presented for copying into the court records. This not inconsequential labor fell upon the clerk of the court, an appointee of the judge who was holding down a job at the store or working at some other of Carter's enterprises at the same time. When, for example, Clerk Samuel Dean recorded the chattel mortgage of the Central Overland California and the Pikes Peak Express Company to Benjamin Holladay and Partners, dated at Atchison, Kentucky Territory, November 22, 1861, it required the better part of nine pages of writing in the Fort Bridger record book. An indenture of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, filed in the court in January, 1869, full of twists and turns of geographic detail, ran from page 99 to page 117 of the same. But it was when a land claim was filed jointly that the clerk knew that he was in for more than a little extra work. On August 3, 1864, for instance, Clerk John Sharp recorded the claim of eight local men to 160 acres of land some five miles south of Quaking Ash Station. That eight Westerners would remain very long together in such a speculation was not to be expected, and at each change of a claimant's status the clerk was obliged to copy the corrected document anew. On one occasion a partner sold one quarter of his oneeighth interest; and the ink in the record book scarcely dry, he bought it back again.

"In the name of God, Amen," read the beginning passage of the last will and testament of John Sharp, as it was entered in the records of the Fort Bridger court on April 6, 1866. Though the court kept a file of such documents "duly sealed up and endorsed," the record shows that very few persons in the area bothered to take advantage of it. An unrecorded will was brought into court at the death of the testator and given a public reading, Where no executors to administer the estates of deceased persons had been named by will, the court proceeded to designate them, Here the law required the appointment of the wife of the deceased, or the next of kin, or the deceased's creditors, but if none of these was available, as was so often the case on the frontier, the court selected some person of known integrity to be the executor.

One of the biggest and most complicated estate cases ever handled by Judge Carter was that involving the accounts of Michael Martin, a Green River country trader who was killed in December, 1860, by an Indian he had been mistreating. The judge's first act in the matter was to safeguard the large amount of property left by the deceased in order that all just claims might be properly settled and the balance, if any, sent the heirs. In this particular case it was almost certain that Martin had received his trade goods from the St. Louis wholesalers. Carter therefore wrote to Robert Campbell & Co., the St. Louis concern with whom he himself had strong business and personal ties, to report Martin's death and to offer to collect on any of his notes it or its associates might have. Meanwhile Charles E. Fortier was appointed special administrator of the estate, with instructions to make "a true and perfect inventory" of the goods, chattels, rights, and credits of the deceased, and this done, to have the same appraised, reporting back the findings to the court. The appraisers, R. H. Hamilton, William Ashton, and Lafayette Granger, after examining the five pages of listings thus submitted, placed a value of $8,357.87 on the estate, which consisted mostly of general merchandise and some $2,500.00 worth of accounts due Martin. From St. Louis shortly came letters with two claims, the only ones ever presented. The Marine Insurance Company sent Martin's note of $1,547.91 in favor of Thomas and Passin of St. Louis, asking the judge to collect if he could. Robert Campbell & Co. sent papers for a $130.00 claim. Carter notified them that the estate was more than adequate to meet their demands. But as the winter lull was on, with too few persons at hand to support much of an auction, he postponed the sale until spring, when returns somewhat nearer the value received could be realized. The goods were finally auctioned off at Millersville, twelve miles east of the fort, on May 17, 1861. John Robertson was the new administrator of the estate and, with Clerk Dean keeping a record for the court, cash sales of $3,587.13 were made that day. Now the problem of securing exchange for the redemption of the Thomas and Passin note, a transaction made difficult by the unsettled conditions of the times, had to be met. Near the end of the year the judge inquired of the Marine Insurance Company if it would accept drafts on the Central Overland California. The St. Louis house wrote back saying that it was unable to obtain any satisfactory information on the strength of the stage company's finances and so preferred some other species of exchange. The account therefore remained unsettled until March 25, 1862, when H. and R. B. Whittemore of St. Louis, another supplier of Judge Carter's store, paid off the note on the judge's instructions. Campbell & Co. had received their $130.00 through ordinary business channels long before.

The court's final act respecting Martin's estate was recorded on August 15, 1864. Administrator Robertson then presented a statement showing that the balance on hand, including the accounts due the estate, totaled $4,425.03, of which $1,394.82 were cash. The judge had to improvise a bit in awarding the money, for the territorial law did not extend beyond the deceased's wife, children, father, and mother. Martin had outlived his parents and left neither wife nor child. Surviving him were one full sister a;~d several half-brothers and sisters, however. The judge ruled that since the mother had remarried after Martin's father's death, the children of the second marriage were not entitled to any part of the estate. Robertson was ordered to pay over the whole sum to Annie Rascoe of St. Louis, "the full and only full sister." Thus, after almost four years of intermittent court action, Martin's estate was at last disposed of.

Another bit of miscellaneous court work is indicated in the statement sworn before Judge Carter on November 12, 1860. It began, "I, John Schlecht, declare on oath that I intend to become a citizen of the United States." The court was acting here in lieu of the inoperative federal district court, in whose charge naturalization proceedings normally belonged in the territory. The conditions of society being what they were, the judge only rarely officiated at a marriage ceremony. One of those memorable moments came on August 6, 1866, when, in the presence of L. B. Scott, R. H. Hamilton, and the local Indian agent, Luther Mann, Oscar Jewett of the post and Fanny Tomlinson, formerly of Perth Amboy, New Jersery, were married by the judge. Miss Fanny was the teacher Judge Carter had brought out in 1864 to instruct his children on the family's new piano. On this, her wedding day, her account in the Carter home was paid in full and the books on it formally closed.

The Fort Bridger court, under the authority vested in it by the territorial statutes, granted at least one divorce. In this instance, Nicholas and A. W. Walke, after little more than a year of marriage, came before Carter on November 14, 1866, to affirm the unhappy state of their relationship. Of the seven different grounds for divorce recognized by territorial law, the petitioners were suing on the condition, "when it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction and conviction of the court, that the parties cannot live in peace and union together, and that their welfare requires a separation." The judge was quite evidently familiar with the facts of the case for he did not delay in declaring that the divorce petition was a just one and so "doth this day dissolve the matrimonial bonds." Mrs. Walke was granted permission to resume her former name of Whittall.

In this way the administration of justice in Bridger Valley went forward, and in this way a significant phase of the building of the West. And of the local judge near the center of it all, the annals of the region might well remember that William A. Carter, like many another of his kind, kept faith with high principle to place the priceless stamp of integrity on the law and justice of his locale. It scarcely needs saying that physical security for the individual, for one's family, and for the community in the pioneer West did not spring up all in a moment or come about simply as a matter of course. Rather, it had to be built consciously and deliberately, through years of unfailing devotion to the public interest, by men like the judge at Fort Bridger. The Utah territorial statutes respecting the judiciary included the statement, "The Judges of the District and Probate Courts shall be conservators of the peace in their respective districts and counties throughout the Territory, and it is their duty to use all diligence and influence in their power to prevent litigation." The Fort Bridger court was faithful to that requirement.

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