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Show 129 when Danforth was released at his own request and replaced by one of the most remarkable white men in the history of the Utes, Nathan Meeker. Meeker had enjoyed a long and very public career before he came to the White River Agency; he had been a poet, newspaper reporter, general store operator, and after meeting Horace Greeley, he wrote a column in the New York Tribune on agriculture. With the help of Horace Greeley, he helped to found a socialistic agricultural colony at Greeley, Colorado, named after his mentor and friend. The lack of lasting success which had followed Meeker continued, and upon the death of Greeley those who were administering his estate demanded the return of money which Meeker had borrowed from Greeley. The hard-pressed Meeker used all the influence he could muster to secure a job from the Federal government. It was his misfortune to get Danforth's job which paid a good salary for the time, $1500 per annum. It must be said in behalf of the V highly idealistic Meeker that the salary was not his only concern as David Boyd says in his work "he had for a long time cherished the belief that the Indian could be led to pursue an industrial life, and that this would be the salvation of the race." •3 David Boyd, History of Greeley and the Union Colony of Colorado, (Greeley, 1890), p. 319, quoted from Covington, op_. cit., p. 228. |