Statewide County NV Archives History - Books .....Chapter VI Carson County Organized 1881
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Book Title: History Of Nevada

CHAPTER VI.

CARSON COUNTY ORGANIZED.

1855.



Entries Closing Pioneer Record Book-Carson County Organized-First Officers of

Carson County-First County Court Records-Mrs. Sandy Bowers, the Washoe

Seeress-1856- Naming of Genoa-Division of the County into School Districts-Orson

Hyde's Curse.



  IN the little book of pioneer records appears the following entries of land

claims and other transactions, the last in the book, which was superseded by the

organization of Carson County.



LAND CLAIMS AND OTHER ENTRIES-CLOSING THE PIONEER RECORD BOOK IN 1855.



  January 3d-W. P. Cozard-should be Cosser.

  January 12th-A. L. Kenyon.

  January 20th -I. N. Hix.

  January 23d-Reese & Co., turn over to Thomas Knott a large amount of property

to pay him $4,000, for services in making for the firm a saw-mill, grist-mill,

threshing-machine, etc.

  January 23d-J. and E. Reese & Co., sold to William B. Thorrington $23,000

worth of property to pay him for that amount of money previously loaned to them.

The Eagle Ranch in Eagle Valley was included in this property sold to him.

  February 10th-J. and E. Reese convey balance of property to pay their creditors.

  March 12th-W. P. Allen and E. A. Parkerson.

  March 24th-Nicholas Ambrosia.

  August 30th-Julius Peltier, sells to E. D. Sides, J. M. Baldwin and L. B.

Abernathey.



[This is the last entry in the book].



CARSON COUNTY ORGANIZED.



  The territory embraced within Carson County according to the Act of January

17, 1854, included all of what is now Washoe, Douglas, Ormsby, Storey, and Lyon

Counties; over half of Esmeralda, three-fourths of Churchill and a little of

southwestern Humboldt. The Legislature, on the second day after creating the

county, divided Utah into three Judicial Districts, Carson being the third, and

Hon. George P. Styles, United States Judge for Utah Territory, was named to

preside over it. The new county was also declared to be entitled to a

representation in the Legislature, in consequence of which Weber County lost a

member in that body. *The Act creating the county having authorized the Governor

to appoint a Probate Judge, whose duty would be to organize it, Orson Hyde, a

Mormon Elder, was selected for that position, who left Salt Lake with such

design on the seventeenth of May, 1855. Judge Styles, Joseph L. Haywood, United

States Marshal for Utah Territory, and Enoch Reese, of the firm of J. and E.

Reese & Co., with an escort of thirty-five men, accompanied Orson Hyde. They

arrived at Mormon Station on the fifteenth of June, and were followed by other

Mormons who moved into Carson County during the summer.



*See compilation of Utah Statutes 1S55, pages 258 and 398.



  The first move by Judge Hyde towards an organization of the county was to call

an election for September 20, 1855, to fill the various county offices, that

resulted in the choice of the following parties:-



FIRST OFFICERS OF CARSON COUNTY.



   (1) James C. Fain, Sheriff.

   (2) Henry W. Niles, Surveyor.

   (3) Chas. D. Daggett, Prosecuting Attorney.

   (4) Chas. D. Daggett, Assessor and Collector. Eichard D. Sides, Treasurer.

   (5) Henry W. Mies was appointed Clerk, Oct. 2d.

   (6) H. M. Hodges, Constable.

   (7) James A. Williams, Constable. Bonds, $600.



   Nicholas Ambrosia, Justice of the Peace. Not being able to write, signed his

bonds with his mark.



   Henry Van Sickle, Justice of the Peace. Bonds, $1,000.

   James McMarlin, Justice of the Peace. Appointed December 3, 1855, for Gold
Canon.

   (8) Henry D. Sears, Wm. P. Allen, James McMarlin, Selectmen; $1,000 bonds

given by each.



   (1) May 12, 1856, Russell Kelley appointed in place of Fain, resigned.

   (2) May 12, 1856, Orson Hyde appointed in place of Niles, resigned.

   (3) November 24, 1855, filed his bonds for $1,000.

   (4) December 3, 1855, appointed.

   (5) March 3, 1856, S. A. Kinsey appointed, in place of Niles, resigned.

December 27, 1855, Judge Hyde having acted as his own clerk during the interval.

   (6) May 12, 1S56, Daniel Woodford appointed in his place.

   (7) - Woodford killed at Slippery Ford by Indians in the summer of 1857.

   (8) Selectmen duties were, to act as Associate with the Probate Judge, make

provision for the poor, orphans and insane.



FIRST COUNTY COURT RECORDS.



  The first entry upon any of the old Carson court books, was upon the County

Court Records, which bears date October 2, 1855, and states that Orson Hyde had

appointed H. W. Niles Clerk of the Probate Court and ex officio of the County

Court. This is followed by a note to the effect that J. C. Fain had purchased in

California the county books of record at a cost of thirty-five dollars, and was

allowed three per cent, a month for use of the money advanced for them. His bill

of ten dollars charged for packing them over the mountains was audited after

deducting four dollars for taxes. This is the only case on record of the receipt

of any county revenue in those days; but legend hath it, that some one paid a

bushel of potatoes into the treasury, and then repenting him for so doing

demanded their return. October 3d, is entered the proceedings in the first

lawsuit, in which James McIntyre sued Asa A. Knouse in an action "of debit and

damages" for $187.75, that resulted in a judgment against the plaintiff for

$38.50. On the twenty-seventh of the same month, at a special term of the court

held for that purpose at the house of John Reese, there was granted, "The sole

and exclusive right to take out any portion of the waters of Carson River which

they may desire, in a ditch or canal, for mining and other purposes, in the

vicinity of Gold Canon," to J. C. Fain, John Reese, Stephen A. Kinsey, John

McMarlin, James McMarlin, Christopher Merkley, Morris Fitzgibbon, and Orson Hyde.



  November 2d, occurred a criminal prosecution, more particularly noted in the

chapter on the Bar of Nevada, and on the same day was admitted to practice

before the courts of Utah as attorney and counselor at law, Dr. Charles D.

Daggett, and Sol. C. Perren. At that time the laws of Utah provided that the

only qualification necessary to enable persons to practice law, was the

possession of a "good moral character," but the client could not be forced to

pay for such services officially. The only transactions that followed within

1855 was the establishment of five dollars per day as the amount that the Judge

and each Selectman was to be entitled to for their services.



  With a glance at population and condition of the county at the close of 1855,

we will pass on to the more important events of the ensuing year. With Orson

Hyde had come Alexander Cowan, his wife, Mrs. Ellery, and a nephew named Robert

Henderson, a lad about eleven years of age. It is believed that Mrs. Hannah

Reese and the fourth wife of Judge Hyde, came to Carson Valley at the same time.

The advent of a female in 1855, was an event of importance, because of the few

of them that had settled in the country. There were but two at Mormon Station,

where a population of about 200 resided. There were but two at Gold Canon, where

about the same number of people were engaged in mining and trade, and probably

but fifteen females in all who lived in what is now Nevada in the fall of 1855,

and five of them are still residing in the county. The lives of some of those

women would make a thrilling page in history, which would prove that truth is

stranger than fiction, and we regret the necessity of passing them all with a

mere mention, except one at which only a glance is taken. The one at present is

known as the "Washoe Seeress;" a woman now fifty-two years of age, down whose

cheeks a tribute in sadness trickled as the writer's questions uncovered the

memorial ashes of past hopes dead, revealing the wreck of a long and eventful

life, verging upon its close. Her maiden name was Eilley Orrum; she was born in

the Scottish Highlands, and was married at fifteen to Stephen Hunter, who took

her to Salt Lake, Utah, in 1850, where he became a polygamist, and she left him.

Three years later she was married to Alexander Cowan, with whom she moved, as

before stated, in 1855, to Carson County. The first winter after her arrival was

spent by her in Gold Canon, keeping a boarding-house; the next summer in Washoe

Valley, where a ranch was taken up, and in 1857, when the Mormons were recalled,

she refused to return to Salt Luke and polygamy with her husband. She continued

to reside in summer at Washoe Valley, and kept boarders in winter at Gold Canon,

until in 1858, when she married Lemuel S. Bowers, better known as "Sandy

Bowers." At the time of her last marriage she was the owner of ten feet on the

Comstock lode, adjoining ten feet owned by Bowers, that later developed such

wealth, and was known as the "Sandy Bowers claim." This rich development was in

1860, and in the following season they visited Europe, remaining away for three

years, traveling through the Old World, from where they returned to live in the

Bowers mansion, in Washoe Valley, that had been nearly completed during their

absence, at a cost when furnished, of $407,000. In 1868 Mr. Bowers died, and his

estate was appraised at $638,000. The full charge of her mine and mill was left

to a superintendent after the death of Mr. Bowers, and in a short time that

property had run her $30,000 in debt, and the balance of her possessions soon

faded away before the onslaught of dishonesty, and now she is an old lady and

dependent upon her earnings as Seeress, for a living. This is a brief outline,

reader, let your imagination fill up the intervals.



  The following entries appear in Book A of Deeds, pages 7 and 96:-



  Squire Mott, son of Hiram Mott, was married at his father's house by Hon.

Orson Hyde, on Sunday, the twenty-eighth day of October, 1855, to Mrs. Mary W.

Wheeler, at 3 o'clock p. M., on that day.



  Henry Van Sickle, Esq., was married by Hon. Orson Hyde at the house of Niles

and Sears, on Tuesday evening, November 6, 1855, to Miss Mary Gibson.



  In Wassaw Valley (Washoe), on the second day of October, 1856, at the house of

Judge Orson Hyde, Stephen A. Kinsey to Miss Sarah Jane Thompson, by the Hon.

Orson Hyde.



1856.



  In the spring of 1856, Orson Hyde surveyed Mormon Station, making a town plat,

and named the place Genoa. The county having been organized, a general move was

inaugurated in 1856, with the design, evidently, to settle upon the agricultural

part of the county by Mormons. A company left Salt Lake for Carson County, May

7th, of that year, and others came from time to time, until they were in a

majority before election, that occurred on the fourth of August, resulting in a

choice of the following county officers: -



   Richard Bentley (a Mormon), Recorder.

   Russell Kelly (became a Mormon), Sheriff.

   (1) Chas. D. Daggett, Assessor, Collector, and Treasurer.

   (2) Richard Bentley (Mormon), Surveyor.

   (3) William Nixson and Permens Jackman (Mormons), Selectmen.

   (4) Chester Loveland (Mormon) Justice of the Peace.

   Nelson Merkley (Mormon), Constable.

   Seth Dustin (Mormon), Constable.



   (1) The position of Assessor and Collector was received by appointment,

December 1, 1S56, and on the third of the ensuing March, the rate of taxation

for 1857 was established at one-fourth of one per cent, for county purposes, and

one-half of one per cent, for Territorial purposes, the same as it had been in

1856. If any tax was collected the records do not show it; and the old settlers

say there was none.

   (2) Richard Bentley appointed Surveyor on the eighteenth of November, 1856,

to serve during the absence of Orson Hyde, who returned to Salt Lake.

  (3) H. D. Sears held over, and on the-eighteenth of November, 185C, A. B.

Cheeny was appointed to serve during the temporary absence of Sears.

  (4) Chester Loveland was appointed Probate Judge of Carson County, by the

Governor of Utah, on the first of September, 1S56; in anticipation of the

withdrawal of Orson Hyde from Western Utah. In signing his name, he indicated

his official title by adding the initials P. 6.



  With the Mormon train that left Salt Lake in 1856, Justice Drummond came as

United States Judge of the Third District of Utah, and held a court in Mr. Motts

barn, four miles up Carson Valley from Mormon Station. A Grand Jury was summoned

that received his charge instructing them to bring in bills of indictment for

misdemeanors, against all citizens of the county who had been guilty of

gambling, concubinage, or other minor frontier offenses. The jury, after being

left to themselves, took a good look at each other and becoming, satisfied that

to follow instructions would necessitate a wholesale commitment of those

present, forthwith notified Judge Drummond that they had adjourned without date.



  Practically nothing was accomplished at this first session of the United

States District Court in Carson County. A couple of men convicted of grand

larceny were sentenced to imprisonment, but both of them escaped, and the Judge,

disgusted, left the Territory, went to San Francisco, from where he returned to

Washington with a report in regard to western Utah that was more expressive than

complimentary.



  The Probate Court, on the first of February, tried one Charles Kensler for

stealing twelve dollars in gold dust from Mark Stebbins. The jury found him

guilty and pronounced the sentence to be "six months hard labor with ball and

chain." "The Court ordered the officer to procure a ball and chain and attach it

to the prisoner, and hire him out to hard labor to the best advantage to the

county for the term of six calendar months." It cost the county $116 to convict

this man for stealing twelve dollars, and as none of the old citizens remember

anything in regard to the matter, it is safe to presume that he also escaped.



  At this regular term of the County Court, held December 1st, at the residence

of P. A. Jackman, it was "Ordered that the county be divided into four school

districts as follows:-



  1st School District-To commence at the line of California and ending at the

Warm Springs below Van Sickles.



  2d District-Commencing at the Warm Springs and running below as far as Clear

Creek (present north line of Douglas County), including Jack's Valley.



  3d District-Embracing Eagle Valley (Ormsby County).



  4th District-Wassaw Valley (Washoe Valley)."



  On the third of the following March, Jack's Valley was named as District No.

Five. In 1857, a school house was erected at Franktown, in Wassaw Valley, that

was sold in the fall to "Lucky Bill," who moved it to Genoa (Mormon Station),

where it became a horse stable, and thus ended the first effort to organize a

school system in western Utah.



  On the fifth of July, 1856, appears another entry upon the record books of the

Probate Court, after which is an interval of three years and two months before

another session is held, which convened September 12, 1859, with J. S. Child for

Judge. That gentleman is still a resident of Carson Valley.



  On the sixth of November, 1856, Orson Hyde started on his return to Salt Lake.

He traveled by a more southern route than the Humboldt, and reached his

destination December 9th. His companions in the journey were Simon Baker, James

Kathall, John Vance, Wm. Price, Durffe, Carter, Harsee, Woodland, and Butcher,

the latter with a wife and two children. This pioneer organizer of Carson County

died at Spring City, San Pete County, Utah, November 28, 1878, leaving behind

him the following strange evidence of his peculiar character, feelings, beliefs,

and experience, while operating in what is now Nevada:-



ORSON HYDE'S CURSE.



                            G. S. L. CITY, JANUARY 27, 1862.



  To THE PEOPLE OF CARSON AND WASHOE VALLEYS- 



Ladies and Gentlemen: Not quite seven years ago I was sent to your district as

Probate Judge of Carson County, with powers and instructions from the executive

of this Territory to organize your district into a county under the laws of

Utah-those valleys being then the lawful and rightful field of Utah's

jurisdiction; but opposition on your part to the measure was unceasingly made in

almost every form, both trivial and important, open and secret. Your allies in

California were ever ready to second your opposition of whatever character or in

whatever shape.



  In the year following (1856, I think,) Mr. Price and myself built a valuable

saw-mill in Washoe Valley, made and purchased several land claims there for

ourselves and our friends-made considerable improvements thereon; but being

called away on short notice, this property, then worth $10,000, was rented to

Jacob Rose for a limited term, at a stipulated price. On this rent he advanced

one span of small, indifferent mules, an old worn-out harness, two yokes of

oxen, and an old wagon. This is all that we have ever received for the use of

our property in that valley, though we have sent bills for goods or merchandise;

but no response, except on paper, and even that not of the most encouraging kind.



  We have been patient, and have not murmured. We have made little or no effort

to sell our property there, because we considered that those who had it thought

they were doing God and themselves a service by wronging the Mormons; and for

me, I felt backward to do anything in the premises until the Lord should tell me

what to do (it being on his account, or on account of his religion, that we were

deprived of any benefit from it.) That time has now come, and the Lord has

signified to me, his unworthy servant, that as we have been under circumstances

that compelled us to submit to your terms, that He will place you under

circumstances that will compel you to submit to ours, or do worse.



  That mill and those land claims were worth $10,000 when we left them; the use

of that property, or its increased value since, is $10,000 more, making our

present demand $20,000.



  Now if the above sum be sent to me in Great Salt Lake City, in cash, you shall

have a clean receipt therefor, in the shape of honorable quit claim deeds to all

the property that Orson Hyde, William Price and Richard Bentley owned in Washoe

Valley. The mill, I understand, is now in the hands of E. D. Sides, and has been

for a long time. But if you shall think best to repudiate our demand or any part

of it, all right. We shall not make it up again in this world in any shape of

any of you; but the said R. D. Sides and Jacob Rose shall be living and dying

advertisements of God's displeasure, in their persons, in their families, and in

their substances; and this demand of ours, remaining uncanceled, shall be to the

people of Carson and Washoe Valleys as was the ark of God among the Philistines.

(See 1st Sam. fifth chapter.) You shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts with

thunder and with earthquakes and with floods, with pestilence and with famine

until your names are not known amongst men, for you have rejected the authority

of God, trampled upon his laws and his ordinances, and given yourselves up to

serve the god of this world; to rioting in debauchery, in abominations,

drunkenness and corruption. You have chuckled and gloried in taking the property

of the Mormons, and withholding from them the benefits thereof. You have

despised rule and authority, and put God and man at defiance. If perchance,

however, there should be an honest man amongst you, I would advise him to leave;

but let him not go to California for safety, for he will not find it there.



  On hearing the contents of this letter, you may send forth volleys of your

wrath with your taunts, jeers, and scurrilous indignation; but you will only

prove the more conspicuously that you are dealing with an Apostle of God, or

that an Apostle of God is dealing with you, whom you have rejected. The hand of

God is already beginning to be upon you for evil and not for good. The golden

treasures of the earth are there to call together the worshipers of the god of

this world, that you may there receive a common fate.



  I have no sordid desire for gold, and have manifested it by my long silence

and manifest indifference; and should not say anything now had not the visions

of the Almighty stirred up my mind.



  We warned and forewarned the people of Missouri, more than twenty years ago,

of what should befall them for treating the Mormons in the way they did; but did

they believe us then? Do they believe us now? No! Yet what is their present

condition? Blood and fire may tell. We likewise warned the people of the United

States from Maine to Mississippi, and from Boston to San Francisco, of the wars

and troubles that were coming upon them for allowing the Saints and Prophets to

be driven, scattered and slain, their property confiscated and destroyed, and

they never raise a hand to protect the Saints, to punish the crimes of our

persecutors, or to redress our wrongs in any way. We told the President and his

Cabinet, proclaimed it to the Congress of the United States, and told them that

desolating wars which should end in the death and misery of many souls should

begin in South Carolina. Did they believe us then? Do they believe us now? No !

Yet what is their present condition? They have eyes, but they see not-ears, but

they hear not, and hearts, but they understand not. Their blood flows like

water, and their rage like the ocean, yet they have not read the half of the

preface of their national troubles.



  We now tell the people of Carson and Washoe Valleys some things that will

befall them, and the reason why they will befall them. But will you believe us?

"Behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish! I will work a work in your day-a

work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you." (See

Isaiah, twenty-ninth chapter.)



  God is now beginning to deal with the inhabitants of the earth for the wrongs

which they have done unto his people, and for rejecting his authority and

counsel, given forth from Heaven through the Mormons. His dealings with them

will be neither light nor on a limited scale. But those who do repent, and make

right their wrongs, acknowledge the authority of God in the channel through

which he hath sent it, may find mercy and protection in that channel, and

nowhere else.



  I care not what our mill and land claims are, or were considered worth-whether

five hundred thousand dollars, or five cents-twenty thousand dollars is our

demand; and you can pay it to us, as I have said, and find mercy, if you will

thenceforth do right, or despise the demand and perish.



  As usual, I feel quite indifferent about it, and what I have written I have

written, and I excuse not myself.



  Without hypocrisy, deceit or falsehood, I remain as heretofore, a servant of God.


                                 ORSON HYDE.



  P. S.-This letter, though indited by me, was written and signed by the hand of

my clerk; yet I endorse it by my own hand, and request its contents to be made

as public as consistent.



  As above,                      ORSON HYDE.





                              SPRINGTOWN, San Pete County, U. T., )

                                        March 11, 1862.           )



  H. MOTT, ESQ.-Dear Sir: I have planted my suit to recover the value of our

property in Washoe Valley in the Chancery of Heaven. Your note of the sixteenth

ultimo brought me the satisfactory information that the papers were duly served;

and now, without further argument, I am willing to rest our cause, and submit it

to a final decision. But one thing I wish you, for your own sake, to remember,

and that is, the word of the Lord, and the words of his servants have almost

invariably been regarded by a wicked and unbelieving race as mere "moonshine,"

or as something of far less consequence. I have rested my cause, and shall say

no more for some time yet to come.

        Truly yours,             ORSON HYDE.



Additional Comments:
Extracted from:



History of Nevada with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its

Prominent Men and Pioneers



Oakland, Cal.: Thompson & West

1881



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