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Show Indian Scare Extension of the Utah Northern After six years of growth and challenge, Corinne and its Gentile residents looked forward to 1875 and further progress but kept an attentive ear tuned to the rumors floating around on the Mormon side of Bear River about optimistic plans to extend the Utah Northern Railroad into Idaho. When the first trains pulled into Franklin, Idaho, on May 4, 1874, many observers could see the end of Corinne as a freight transfer point for goods to Montana, and the news from then on was anything but encouraging for Corinnethians. John W. Young was still president of the narrow-gauge line, but eastern financier Joseph Richardson, the principal owner of the railway, was determined to push the road to Watson's station in Marsh Valley and, by intersecting the wagon road from Corinne, capture the Montana trade. The Deseret News in February 1875 reported thirty-five miles of iron rails awaiting the completed roadbed, five locomotives, sufficient cars, and a survey crew laying out the line to Marsh Creek. The Mormon editor also expatiated at every opportunity on the advantages of a narrow-gauge line over a broad-gauge track, not the least being the two-fifths savings in construction costs.1 A wire from Richardson in August brought the assuring news that a thousand tons of iron rails were on the way to Franklin. Furthermore, Sidney Dillon of the Union Pacific had evinced an interest to Richardson and Young in 259 aiding the construction of the line. By September negotiations between the two companies were underway, and the Union Pacific had agreed to send its own surveying party to determine the most practicable route between Franklin and Helena, Montana.- Throughout 1875 Utahns kept urging the people of Montana to give the financial aid needed to take the rails of the Utah Northern across the Snake River plains from Fort Hall into the Beaverhead country.' The Ogden Junction thought that if the railroad were not built, Montanans could blame only themselves. Many optimists believed that if the road were extended just twenty-five miles north of Franklin, all of the northern trade would be captured for the Mormon railway.4 Montana citizens desperately wanted the connection with Utah, having given up on the Northern Pacific Railroad to build westward across the territory. As the Helena Herald put it, "While the eyes of our people are turned wistfully toward the East, their expectations of speedier railroad connection are turned toward the South." 5 But the residents of the northern area were too independent to tie themselves to either road and debated and held meetings about how to obtain a railroad without bankrupting their new territory.0 While Montanans debated among themselves a possible subsidy to the Utah Northern Railroad, Corinnethians argued with their Mormon opponents about which route to the north would finally be taken by the narrow-gauge line. In a closely reasoned editorial, the Mail proved to its own satisfaction that even when the road reached Soda Springs, Idaho, that destination would still be fifty miles further from Montana than Corinne. Citizens of the town were heartened by reports from correspondents in Franklin that the route would be to Soda Springs. Even the engineers on the line espoused that point of view, although some saw it as propaganda put out to conceal the intended location. On the other hand, newspapers like the Idaho Statesman were sure the line would run to Marsh Valley.7 When George S. Kennedy reported a conversation with Richardson that indicated Marsh Valley as the destination, the Mail said of Kennedy: "We suggest that a little truth sandwiched among his statements might give them some weight." When the Ogden Freeman asserted that Fort Hall would become the terminus of the railroad, thus leaving Corinne as only a way station on the Central Pacific, the editor of the Mail blew up in wrath: 260 Corinne Here is another Mountain Meadows paper coming to the front. . . . Confine your remarks to the doctrines for which you have bartered yourself, you most worthy disciple of Judas. . . . befoul Corinne's name no more by mentioning it in that misnomer - the Freeman.8 These constant reassurances to his readers leads one to suspect that the Mail editor secretly feared his Mormon rivals were correct about the Marsh Valley route. The Mail also sought to bolster the sagging fortunes of Corinne with a constant stream of ridicule against what the editor called the one-horse railroad. The narrow-gauge line did very well when the track was clear, but, according to the Mail, when jackrabbits got on the rails Indians had to be employed to scare them away. In announcing a new time schedule the editor wrote, "A hand car will accommodate the extensive travel in the afternoon, and in winter snow shoes will be nailed to the lightning express and no delay need be expected." 9 Despite the optimistic prediction of eastern promoter and Mormon enthusiast alike, actual construction beyond Franklin did not get underway until July 1, 1875. A more-or-less impartial Gentile observer wrote in September that he saw only thirteen teams at work on the roadbed, all within twelve miles of the town, and that stakes had not even been set for a needed tunnel before Bear River could be reached. He concluded, "we may be allowed to predict that the road will be built as far as the northern limits of Mormonism in time to carry the lame and halt Lamanites to Zion during the Millennium." 10 Two weeks later a Mormon source reported seventy-five teams and a hundred fifty men at work on the road, with the bridge over Cub River near Franklin expected to be completed within one week.11 The truth probably lay somewhere between these two reports. The rumors current in Corinne that twenty-five miles of road had been completed beyond Franklin were treated by the Mail like the full moon that appeared once a month with little notice paid to the event. As for the crew at work on the roadbed of the railroad, the newspaper asserted that it was composed of only six men and two boys, with the hopeful prospect that two more men and a wheelbarrow would shortly be added.12 "X" Beidler, a messenger for the Wells Fargo Company between Helena and Ogden, reported "that two boys rationed on Indian Scare 261 carrots and vegetable diet of that sort, a man with sore eyes wearing a pair of green goggles, and a spavined mule superannuated in years . . . composed the whole working force." Beidler also commented on the occasional races between mule teams and the Utah Northern trains along a parallel stretch of track and road north and east of Corinne, admitting that the steam cars usually won.13 For the year 1875 the Mail might have spared its invective and derision, because not much of an extension was built by the Utah Northern Company beyond Franklin. The depressed financial conditions engendered by the panic of 1873 were still being felt, and, more importantly, many observers were doubtful that the Mormon farmers of Cache Valley would be willing to sacrifice any further to build the road into a wilderness where there were few if any Saints. By December 1875 construction work had almost ceased because the men failed to get their pay. One correspondent wrote that Richardson had wanted the road built to Marsh Valley by November but apparently was unwilling to expend enough of "Uncle Sam's pictures" to accomplish that end.14 The Utah Northern was paying a poor return on its investment partly because, as one railroader put it, "It has always been one of the axioms of Wells, Fargo & Co's agents that 'One Gentile makes as much business as a hundred Mormons' " and that the self-sufficient Mormon communities did not offer a railroad much business.15 Indeed, there was not sufficient carrying trade. For a local corporation operating a long line of road, the expenses were greater than the receipts. The revenue from the Montana trade did not pay the cost of shipping it, and about the only significant income came from the sale of ties and lumber. The financial difficulties of the Utah Northern, and the determination of the Mormon promoters to build to Soda Springs when Joseph Richardson wanted to push on to intersect the Montana trail, led to the resignation of John W. Young in October 1875 as president of the firm and the election of Royal M. Bassett of Connecticut to the position.10 These factors of dried-up money sources, lack of enthusiasm on the part of Mormon farmer construction workers, and continued competition from Corinne's wagon-freighters appeared as favorable indicators that the town might survive the threat of the Mormon railroad after all. But during late 1874 and through all of 1875 the continuance of Corinne as a freight transfer station for 262 Corinne Montana was not all that certain as forwarders and freighters began to look to the terminus of the railroad line at Franklin, Idaho, as a departure point. Menace of Franklin In 1873 E. G. Maclay and Co., agents for the Diamond R Company, moved from Corinne to Logan and sold its warehouse to the Utah Northern Railroad for use as a depot. The change in headquarters for the largest forwarding house was followed in March 1874 by that of J. A. Creighton which chose Franklin as the location for its commission office, hoping to save forty-five miles of travel and five to six days of time on the road. The people at Franklin and in Oneida County, Idaho, were jubilant, while a visitor to the town on Bear River found the Corinnethians in a state of "settled despair." 17 The Franklin correspondent for the Deseret News exulted, "Corinne is preparing for cremation. It is said a lean horse would soon fatten on the grass growing in front of their chief hotel. Many of her citizens and buildings are moving here." And the Montana papers began to report the arrival of more and more freighters from Franklin instead of Corinne, including a train of eight wagons to Helena from the Creighton firm in Franklin.18 These announcements of the death of Corinne and the birth of Franklin as forwarding points for trade to Montana were, to say the least, premature. The location of the freight depot at Franklin was poorly chosen, "fit for little but a brick yard," and teamsters had difficulty moving around in the muddy area. Ajax Noyes recorded that it took his outfit nine and a half days to move their loaded wagons one-half mile from the depot to higher ground. There were also complaints against George Kennedy of Creighton for refusing to load any freighters until they agreed to buy a $300 wagon from him and for general inefficiency in operating his forwarding company. In addition, the rates were so low that teamsters were fortunate to make expenses. These serious drawbacks finally prompted most wagonmasters to take their trains to Corinne. One correspondent wrote the Salt Lake Tribune that freighters reached Franklin to find they could not load and so turned again to Corinne. Mormon freighters from as far south as Springville, Utah, turned away from Mormon Franklin to Gentile Corinne to obtain cargoes for their trips to Montana.19 Indian Scare 263 The newly founded Corinne Mail crowed lustily about Corinne's remarkable step back from the grave, and its editorials for late 1874 were well punctuated with encomiums for the prosperity and optimistic hopes of the town: "For a ruined town, it strikes us forcibly that Corinne is mighty lively just now." 20 The Mail attacked George Kennedy for his sneering remark that Fred J. Kiesel was building his coffin by establishing a forwarding house in Corinne to fill the vacuum left by the departure of the Diamond R and Creighton companies. In a comparison of packages of goods shipped by an Omaha firm to Kiesel and Kennedy during late 1874, the former received 2,441 packages while Kennedy was sent only 517 from the Omaha house. The Mail finally announced that Kennedy had caved in and noted that freighters were deserting him. The newspaper advised, "Go to Corinne, boys, where they will do the square by you." 21 The Salt Lake Tribune correspondent estimated that for the entire year of 1874 nine-tenths of the freight had gone through Corinne.22 The Mail thought Kennedy had been "nearly woodbined. He didn't draw worth a cent." As for the Utah Northern Railroad, all the freight it had carried through the year could have been moved by four Irishmen with wheelbarrows. However, the editor did admit that Corinne business had been slightly injured during the early part of the year but that the interruption was of slight duration. The Montana merchants who had attempted to use the Franklin route had lost some money and, by the end of the year, were favoring the Corinne route again. The Wells Fargo agent in Helena reported, "The Franklin route is scarcely thought of...." 23 The two rival towns squared off again in the spring of 1875, each optimistic that the new year would favor it as the Montana shipping point. Franklin especially waxed enthusiastic about the future, improving the road through the marshy areas north of Bear River so the teamsters would not "have to talk profanely," moving the depot from the frog pond where it had been located, and listening to the energetic plans for the extension of the Utah Northern Railroad. In June the telegraph line was changed to run from Marsh Valley to Franklin instead of to Corinne, which heartened residents of the Mormon town. But the most significant development was the removal of Gilmer and Salisbury's stagecoach terminal from Corinne to Franklin by June 3, 1875.24 "Vile" rumors had surfaced several months 264 Corinne before that the move was imminent, but the actual change came as a real shock to Corinnethians both in loss of revenue and in deterioration of status. Observers along the new Franklin road at Oxford, Idaho, and elsewhere were also heartened by the new businesslike appearance of these formerly isolated little farming communities.25 The only liability seemed to be the influx of outsiders into Mormon Franklin. To avoid "daily contact with persons and things unpleasant, extortionate, and oppressive, many" depressed Idaho Saints "pulled up stakes and retreated within the lines of Utah, lying about two miles to the southward." 20 So at least one gentlemen from Cache Valley reported to the Deseret News. Despite these alarming rumors and changes in favor of Franklin, the people of Corinne were heartened by the increase of trade in their town. Some twenty new places of business had been opened since the previous fall, including the McCormick & Hardenbrook forwarding house, three new saloons, and a ten-pin alley. The Mail continued to reassure its worried readers and by May could report increased business in both freight shipments and sales of wagons.27 A late August estimate revealed 20 tons of goods awaiting shipment from Franklin and a grand total of only 150 tons sent from that place for the first seven months of the year. The Kiesel company alone reported the shipment of 185 tons in one week from Corinne. Also, during a two-week period, the Kiesel and McCormick & Hardenbrook firms received 2,183 packages of goods from their Omaha supplier while Kennedy was getting only 49. Furthermore, freighters like Dan Hill and Alex Harris gave very discouraging reports about spending up to four weeks in Franklin waiting for loads and then having to move to Corinne where they were supplied in one day.28 Although Franklin was obviously closer to Montana than Corinne, the reasons for the latter's continued control of the northern trade in 1875 were evident to many observers of the time. First, the swampy roads leading to Red Rock Pass at the head of Marsh Valley discouraged teamsters from using the route. Second, the cost in time and money to transfer goods from broad-gauge railroad cars to the smaller, narrow-gauge cars proved inhibiting. Third, Fred J. Kiesel, though a newcomer to the forwarding business, learned very rapidly and soon ran an efficient operation for a satisfied clientele. Fourth, the Mormon cooperative store at Franklin handled nearly all the mercantile busi- Indian Scare 265 ness, forcing out such firms as H. A. VanPraag and forming a monopoly that discouraged Gentile merchants from favoring Franklin. And fifth, as the Mail so coyly put it, "travelers know the genial qualities of the people here as compared to those of our neighboring Mormon burg, and as a natural thing, if there's any way in the world to do so, pay us a visit." 20 No doubt the hospitable emporiums of Corinne called more attractively than Franklin to the hard-working and hard-drinking freighters as they sat around their campfires along the dusty trail through Idaho and dreamed of the exciting blandishments awaiting them in the end-of-the-trail burg on Bear River. The paucity of saloons in Franklin and the lack of other inducements in the Mormon town just did not beckon to most teamsters on the Montana trail. To understand the importance of the freighting trade to Corinne, one need only look at the newspaper. Even a casual leafing through the four-page editions of the Mail shows daily listings of freight trains departing or arriving; advertisements for wagons, blacksmiths, and draft animals; and many other indicators of the one-business nature of the town. Perhaps one incident can reveal the great interest of the residents of Corinne in the operations and details of frontier freighting. Thomas J. Ferrell of the Madison Valley in Montana raised horses for freighting, and during 1874 he hired George Lyons to run wagons from the railroad to Virginia City, using his wild mustangs as the motive power. Lyons bought enough wagons and horses at Corinne for one fourteen-horse team, one thirteen-horse team and four ten-horse teams, fitting up one wagon as a blacksmith shop and pulling it with two mules. He hired some good jerk-line drivers and loaded his wagons, a thousand pounds to the horse. The whole town turned out to see the train load up and leave: The first day [Louis] Laseur [the wagon boss] and his crew of teamsters harnessed unbroken horses by putting them in a one-horse chute . . . checked the horse's head up as tight as they could to the harness and turned the animal into the corral. They started hitching up their teams the next morning with the [curious crowd still hanging around]. . . . The wagons were already loaded and . . . pulled to a level place . . . of open country. When the first team was ready to start, two outriders were put on top saddle horses alongside the team to keep the horses in a straight line. Louis Laseur took his place on the wheeler, 266 Corinne and called sharply: "Mike, haw!" . . . The team started on a run, the frantic, unbroken horses in the swing teams bucking and kicking. But the leaders kept out of the way and the team was finally circled and brought into the road again with nothing broken. Occasionally a horse would throw himself, but it made no difference in the progress of the outfit for the rest would keep on going and a little dragging cured the most recalcitrant of the unbroken horses. This process of hitching up and starting was gone through until all of the teams were strung out on the road and camp was made that night three miles from Corinne with nothing broken but one wagon tongue.30 Laseur won a fifty-dollar bet from a Corinnethian who had wagered the wagon train would not get out of town before sundown. The trip to Virginia City took twenty-one days, only a little longer than required for a journey with well-broken horses. Such occurrences were commonplace but of enough interest to command space in the local press, which also really outdid itself in describing the great future for Corinne. The editor liked to mention the campfires of the teamsters twinkling in the depot yard and the tremendous amount of freight being shipped to Montana and Idaho.31 But, at the same time, the Mail asked the town fathers to tear down the old buildings in the business area because these eyesores were proving detrimental to the exciting prospects of the premier town of the West. Also, the editor ran advertisements for the sale of the Wells Fargo express office, listed two horses to "be sold at hard time prices," and then announced his own departure from business and closed up shop on November 3, 1875.32 A writer from Corinne informed the Salt Lake Herald on November 11, "the business of the place has fallen off terribly in the past two years. . . . " A number of business houses were untenanted and the remaining ones were only making expenses.33 Clearly, if the town were to be saved, some other type of industry would have to be introduced to form the basis for a new prosperity. Malad Irrigation Company Looking to that end, the town boosters returned to the strategy of attempting to get congressional approval to establish a comprehensive irrigation system for lower Bear River Valley. A new bill was Indian Scare 267 introduced into the United States Senate on March 26, 1872, asking for a grant of six sections of land per mile along the proposed canal from Bear River Canyon.34 A year later, with no legislation enacted, the newspaper could only quote the Camp Douglas Vedette, "We trust the enterprising citizens of the plucky little city, with the beautiful name, Corinne, will continue to agitate the question of a land grant. . . ." After another two years had passed the town newspaper bitterly attacked Congress for its failure to pass the irrigation bill, claiming the inaction was because the congressmen could "see 'nothing in it' for themselves." 3n If the lands around Corinne were to receive life-giving waters, evidently private enterprise would have to build the necessary dams and canals. Recognizing their financial inability to construct the large project from Bear River envisioned by the promoters of the Senate bill, six leading citizens of the town decided to incorporate to bring water a shorter distance from the smaller Malad River. On December 17, 1872, John W. Graham, Alex Toponce, George Butterbaugh, and Sam House, as the principal investors, formed the Corinne and Malad Irrigating and Manufacturing Canal Company with a capital stock of $4,000 or 80 shares at $50 each. Plans called for a dam to be built one mile below the point at which the canal for Bear River City already took water from the river, and the new firm laid claim to all the water in the stream not taken by the Bear River City project. Work commenced in the fall of 1872, and by May of the following year the dam and most of the eleven and a half miles of canal were completed.30 Dennis Toohy was invited to inspect the finished works and described the "immense structure" of the dam and the associated canal system. The earthen dam was 200 feet long, 90 feet thick at the base and 20 feet at its top, and 31 feet high. The wooden waste gate was 18 feet wide. The builders estimated that the reservoir would fill in thirty hours and back up the river a distance of two miles, an indication of how really small Toohy's "immense" structure was. The main canal was 15 feet wide at the top, 12 feet wide at the bottom, and 6 feet deep. The promoters hoped to provide enough water to irrigate 6,000 acres of land as well as to water the gardens and orchards of Corinne. The entire project cost $20,000 to build and, despite Toohy's exaggeration in describing the irrigation system, for 268 Corinne that day it nevertheless was an undertaking of some magnitude for the people of the small town.37 The most obvious advantage of the project to Corinnethians was the introduction of irrigation water to the town gardens, orchards, and shade trees. The city council agreed to pay the canal company $1,500 to aid in constructing ten miles of small ditches designed to carry a stream of water eight inches deep and two to four feet in width to the residences of the town. On July 7, 1873, Toohy recorded the appearance of the first water which "rippled down by the Reporter office" at 9:00 P.M. A few days later he complained that the ditches were an inconvenience to pedestrians and urged property owners to build bridges or footplanks across the "numerous little fertilizers." 3S A depressing note about the new irrigating ditch soon came from the editor of the nearby Ogden Junction who thought the project was a Corinnethian folly. The newsman pointed out that before Corinne was founded the residents of Bear River City had used water from the alkaline stream whose very name "signifies sickness," and the water had poisoned the land.30 In fact, one agricultural expert later claimed that the Bear River City people had watched their crops die and then, in desperation, had turned their plows into the adjacent sagebrush lands, planted wheat, harvested a crop, and thus inaugurated the practice of dry-farming in that area.40 The reaction of a resident of Corinne was immediate, forceful, and understandable. He attacked the Junction for "malignity and a total disregard of trust worthy of a follower of Enoch" and described at great length the flourishing gardens, orchards, and fields of Corinne. He capped the rebuttal by quoting the Mormon leader of Bear River City, William Neely, who said he and his followers had used water from the Malad River for several years and had grown first-rate crops. Neely expressed regret that the people of Bear River City had not shown as much energy as the Corinnethians in building an irrigation system the size of that just finished. Corinne, of course, blamed the "Profit" who had warned his people that crops could not be grown with water from the Malad River. In this instance, Brigham Young and the editor of the Junction were right, because after a few years the water brought mineral salts and alkali to the surface of the ground and destroyed nearly all the vegetation. Only later, when a proper drainage system was constructed and water from Bear River introduced to the land, did the Indian Scare 269 people of the area have success in profitable farming.41 But for a few years the people of Corinne did enjoy bounteous crops, beautiful shade trees, and fruitful gardens from the sickly waters of the Malad. The initial success and promise of the Malad Canal Company brought encouragement to Corinne to construct a similar project to bring the water of Bear River some twenty-five miles from Bear River Canyon to irrigate the entire lower river basin. The Reporter thought that for an expenditure of $250,000, it would be possible to irrigate 400,000 acres in support of a population for the town of 10,000 people and for the entire valley of 120,000 people.42 In response to such urgings and buoyed by the early response to their Malad ditch, John W. Graham, Alex Toponce, and the other promoters incorporated in November 1873 the Corinne, Malad, and Bear River Irrigating and Manufacturing Canal Company with a capital stock of $20,000 (400 shares at $50 each) to bring water from the river at a point six miles above Hampton's Station through a canal on the west side of the valley.43 Optimistic supporters forecast that most of these valuable lands would be taken up during 1874-75, but by early 1875 the people of the valley were still waiting for the first spadeful of earth to be turned. In May came word that John W. Kerr was the principal mover for a Bear River canal, the original incorporators having apparently succumbed to a scarcity of funds. Two years later, in 1877, nothing had been accomplished, and the Corinne Record felt called upon to assault the Denver Tribune's characterization of northern Utah as a barren region by insisting that all that was necessary to make the country blossom as the proverbial rose was a successful irrigation system.44 Colonization Plans In a move parallel with efforts to get Bear River water on their parched lands, the people of Corinne organized the Corinne and Bear River Valley Immigration Society in February 1875 to publicize the potential assets of the region and to encourage settlers to take up lands in the valley. A colonization committee of twenty-one prominent citizens investigated the terms upon which railroad lands could be settled and prepared an eight-page circular with accompanying map to describe the prospects and advantages of living in Corinne in beautiful 270 Corinne Bear River Valley. Everyone seemed enthusiastic and sanguine over the possibility of enticing newcomers to settle in and near Gentile Corinne.45 The brochure describing Corinne and the Bear River Valley was a gorgeous affair. The writers first listed nineteen reasons for settling in the valley. Prominently mentioned was the healthful climate, which cured asthma and consumption, while the water of nearby Soda Springs cured rheumatism and dyspepsia. The soil was fertile and the grazing lands superb; great amounts of rich ores, coal fields, and timber areas were also waiting to be exploited. A plentiful supply of pure mountain water ensured success for agriculture and industry; according to the brochure. Additionally, the mountains and Great Salt Lake offered unexcelled views, and the convenient location on the transcontinental railroad provided essential and cheap transportation. The circular also emphasized the cultural attractions of Corinne with its three churches, two Sunday schools, and a free public school. The grand map located twenty-four prominent industries and business buildings, including the City of Corinne shown on the broad expanse of Bear River, and advertised 30,000 acres under the Malad Irrigation Canal with 500 square miles of fertile territory awaiting development.40 The colonization committee had ordered 5,000 circulars printed but encountered difficulty in getting apathetic townsmen to distribute them nationwide so as to capture some of the westward immigration. As the editor of the Mail so rightly claimed, Corinne's future depended upon the agricultural development of Bear River Valley. By July 1875 there were still 4,000 undistributed brochures and, furthermore, the citizens who had agreed to help pay for the printing had not donated the fifty dollars still owing the publisher.47 Very likely, the neighboring Mormons were reclining in the satisfaction of witnessing another Corinne debacle. To many Corinnethians the reason for the failure of the colonization committee and its wondrous circular was both obvious and threatening - the "close proximity to the odoriferous Mormon priesthood." In a number of editorials the Mail expressed the theme of the humanizing effect on Mormon Utah of introducing thousands of Gentiles into Bear River Valley to counteract the "lascivious" church and the unpunished murders perpetrated by its members. "Our Indian Scare 271 proximity to that delectable people, has been, and is, a great drawback to our prosperity," the Mail proclaimed. People would not come to Utah as long as Gov. Samuel B. Axtell and federal officials supported the Mormon leaders, for an immigrant "dislikes to rear his family in the vicinity of such a state or morals as are fostered and taught by our saintly neighbors." The newspaper further reasoned that any encouragement that would bring settlers to Bear River Valley would destroy forever the misguided plans of the Mormons.48 In April 1877, to the Mormon-leaning editor of the Corinne Record who "wears his drawers tied around his neck, he never having been excommunicated," the Salt Lake Tribune denied that its anti-Mormon editorials were affecting negatively the sale of lands near Corinne. The Tribune was convinced that Corinnethians favored the expose of Mormon sins and crimes to help redeem Utah from its inglorious past.49 From the time of the organization of the colonization committee and the publication of the advertising pamphlet, the town newspaper and various correspondents had trumpeted the thousands of immigrants who might settle in the vicinity of Corinne. By January 4876 one writer was sure that Corinne would come out all right,50 while two less-than-impartial observers warned that would-be settlers should hurry inasmuch as thousands of acres had already been purchased by newcomers and that all available land was being "gobbled up very rapidly." The most significant comment on the colonization scheme appeared in the Salt Lake Herald in April 1877. The report noted that immigrants from the south were passing through Salt Lake City to settle in lower Bear River Valley and that most of them were Mormons.51 It appeared that the Saints were about to humanize the Gentiles. Northwestern Shoshoni The attempts by the people of Corinne to overcome the competition of Franklin, Idaho, and at the same time to open up their barren acres to cultivation by like-minded non-Mormon farmers met with frustration, complicated by another factor of long-standing annoyance - Mormon support of the many Shoshoni Indians who made the vicinity of Corinne their winter home. Before white settlers occupied ihe lower Bear River Valley, some two thousand Northwestern Sho- 272 Corinne Whites trading at an Indian camp. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of the Oakland Museum. shoni had located seven permanent winter camps along the river, four of these placed at the confluence of the stream with the Great Salt Lake, the exact spot where Gen. J. A. Williamson and his colleagues had decided to build a town. The same year Corinne was settled, the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho was established as a permanent home for the Bannock and Northern Shoshoni Indians. Government officials tried to induce the Northwestern Shoshoni bands to move to Fort Hall, but they persisted in returning from summer and fall hunts to their traditional winter homes along lower Bear River where waterfowl, fish, and some game could be taken; where good pasturage awaited their ponies; and where they could find protection from the wintry storms. By 1869 white settlement had driven most of the game away, and the Shoshoni were left with whatever annuity goods the government might distribute to them each fall and to handouts from the inhabitants of Corinne, Brigham City, and other nearby towns. Indian Scare 273 In January 1863 Gen. Patrick E. Connor's forces had killed almost four hundred of the Northwestern Shoshoni at the massacre called the Battle of Bear River in Cache County and had then signed the Treaty of Box Elder on July 30, 1863, with ten of the leading chiefs. The agreement bound the government to distribute $5,000 in clothing, food, and other items to the bands each fall at an annual meeting near Corinne. The Indian agents of both Fort Hall and Utah were usually involved in the yearly process of giving what turned out to be only a small percentage of the amount promised under the treaty. Then, the five to six hundred Indians who wintered near Corinne were left to the tender mercies of the Gentile residents of that town and to the Mormon people of Brigham City.52 Unlike most westerners of the time, the Saints believed that it was less expensive to feed the Indians than to fight them. This dictum of Brigham Young stemmed from the prophecies in the Book of Mormon that the Lamanites, or Indians, would eventually accept the teachings of Christ and be reunited with their brethren in the Mormon church. While this doctrine was accepted, those members of the faith who lived near large groups of Indians found the drain on their food supplies to be unceasing and sometimes more than they could bear. Witness a letter from Mormon leader Daniel H. Wells to Bishop Alvin Nichols of Brigham City on April 8, 1870: Information has reached me that the Indian Chief, Captain Tom & his band, at present located just northwest of Corinne, complain bitterly against you for withholding their rations of flour etc. . . It is patent to us from past experience that kindness to the Indians is not entirely thrown away. . . It is proper, therefore, that we should not lose sight of the pacific policy, but conform, so far as possible, to our usual policy of kindness and forbearance. . . . I felt it to be my duty to call attention to the report, to check ill feelings on the part of the Indians & avert trouble which might in the end prove serious." 5i Bishop Nichols no doubt made further demands on his congregation for enough flour to satisfy Indian hunger and to curtail further instructions from Salt Lake City. To the frontiersmen of Corinne the Mormon concern with the welfare of the "naked savages . . . in the suburbs" of the town was not only incomprehensible but indicative of the possible arming by the 274 Corinne Saints of the two hundred warriors among the natives, a threat that caused some nervousness in Corinnethians who thought they smelled the "scent of blood in the air." 54 From April 1870 on the town newspapers kept hinting at the possible union of Mormons and Indians in a cabal that would wreak death and destruction on the defenseless Gentiles of Corinne. While the Mormon people suffered the drain on their food supplies without murmur, the Corinnethians were clamorously indignant about the "filthy vagrants" who begged at doorsteps or searched through garbage for scraps of food. The city council was asked in August 1870 to request the Central Pacific Railroad to prohibit Indians from coming into the town on trains for fear of spreading contagious diseases: "The idea of pestilent odors being swept from their filthy bodies through the crowded cars is not a pleasant reflection for travelers." The citizens also demanded, to no avail, that the council keep the Indians outside the city limits.55 At the annual distribution of presents to about three hundred Shoshoni in the fall of 1870, Agent William H. Danilson of Fort Hall joined with Col. J. E. Tourtellotte, superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, in dispensing $10,000 worth of goods, according to the exaggerated report of the Utah Reporter. The editor described the various items given to Chief Pocatello, nine other chiefs, and their followers - red shirts, blankets, fishhooks, pans, pots, traps, hatchets, butcher knives, and combs - and concluded that the noble red men would "swap off much of the Great Father's gifts for valley tan [whiskey] as they pass up the gorges of Box Elder." The Indian agents, after each year's apportionment of goods to the Shoshoni, nearly always asked the merchants at Corinne not to cheat the Indians out of their presents, a request routinely ignored."1' During the next four years, until 1875, the local editors kept their columns filled with one-liners about the annoyance of having Indians loitering about the streets, sometimes drunk on white man's whiskey and occasionally accused of petty thefts. One of the worst aspects of having numerous Indians near Corinne was the unscrupulous practice by some residents of selling liquor to the natives which did not improve the social atmosphere of the town.57 The Shoshoni seemed to be everywhere: attending baseball games, visiting the local bank to get change for large bills, searching in the alleys for "thawed swill Indian Scare 275 and other luxuries," stealing puddings and pies from a boarding house, traveling around in "majestic tatters," holding funerals for departed loved ones, "sawing wood for palefaces," selling and swapping horses, stealing furs, burning fences and claiming the land as theirs, patronizing local fruit stands, playing cards on the sidewalks, and being too numerous "in town these days for the general good." Sometimes the incidents involving the Indians were more serious. In one case several broke into a house, stole all the food, and burned Pocatello's band. Photograph courtesy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 276 Corinne the furniture in a campfire. A local judge interrupted one robbery by hitting the intruder in the head with a shovel.,0 And Chief Pocatello lived up to his reputation of being a terror to the settlers by forcibly taking a horse from a white farmer.00 In one of his pioneer day epics, Nat Stein expressed local sentiments toward the neighboring Shoshoni: But the Indians, shorn of glory which in former time was theirs, Only come our crumbs to gather or to borrow paltry wares. Then we feed them on our bounty and to bid them to be good, Let them make their presence useful doing chores and chopping wood. Thus we solve the Indian problem, by a method mild and clear, Though for dealing with a savage you shall find no Quakers here !01 Baron de Hiibner during a visit to Corinne in 1873 attended one of the powwows near the town and expressed his sympathy for the Indian spokesmen whom "disease, brandy, and misery have degraded and debased." Nevertheless, the baron could detect here and there movements of dignity and manly pride, mingled, however, with an expression of deep and indefinable melancholy. It was only a momentary flash, like the lightning which suddenly reveals to you the ruins of a virgin forest which a tempest has destroyed.02 But to most Corinnethians, the Indians and their Mormon friends were alike in their treachery and their polygamous depravity. The annual encampments near Corinne seemed to arouse more and more apprehension among the residents of the town, a fear heightened by the pronouncements of the Reverend Dr. George W. Dodge, appointed special Indian agent late in 1871 to care for the needs of the Northwestern Shoshoni.03 Strongly anti-Mormon in his views, he dispatched a twenty-four-page letter to the commissioner of Indian Affairs on July 24, 1872, describing a mysterious movement among several thousand western Indians, including those in Utah, which was the work of a Paiute prophet from Nevada whose machinations were being helped by Brigham Young and the Mormons. Indian Scare 277 According to Dodge, the Saints were teaching that a white prophet would soon appear to teach the Indians that they were descendants of the Hebrew tribe of Manasseh, and the Mormons also were urging the natives to commit depredations on the whites.04 Judge Toohy had already informed his newspaper readers that the neighboring Shoshoni were conspiring with the Mormon Danites of Utah. Toohy was further upset when the Indians held a war dance near the town during April 1873 in honor of the Modoc Indian defeat of a United States Army detachment in California. "They ought to be skinned alive for their insolence," he declared.05 And Toohy's successor in the news business at Corinne, the editor of the Mail, erupted in anger at the yearly gathering of Indians in late 1874, explaining that the Mormons would certainly unite with the natives in any hostile action against Gentiles, that a Mormon bishop was directing affairs, and that the government should protect the citizens of Corinne against the "Latter day pets" who refused to move to the Fort Hall Reservation.00 Unknowingly, the official church newspaper of the Mormons, the Deseret News, fed Corinne fears by running editorials in late 1874 about a great religious movement among Utah and neighboring Indian tribes caused by the appearance of heavenly personages who had told the natives to request Mormon baptism and then to renounce their nomadic ways and settle down to the peaceful pursuits of farming. Over fourteen hundred Indians had been baptized in the last seven months and more were coming in. The News was sure this dramatic turn-around was the result of the fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Mormon. Observers from the Franklin, Idaho, area confirmed these exciting changes, although one warned the Salt Lake Tribune that the Indians were being called by the Mormons the battle-axes of the Lord, an expression he thought portended a savagery to come.07 Reports of Indian interest in joining the Mormon church continued into 1875, with the Deseret News assuring its readers that missionaries were being very careful to instruct the natives in doctrine and to insist that they give up their old slothful ways and learn habits of industry and honesty. The editor was pleased to report that fifty recent converts had attended a meeting at the Sixteenth Ward meetinghouse and had appeared "with clean faces, having washed the paint from 278 Corinne them." In May three Shoshoni and Bannock chiefs showed up at Salt Lake City to inquire about baptism and other gospel ordinances. A California paper noted that the Loanville, Nevada, Indians had all gone to Utah to join the Mormon faith.08 In June fifty-two members of Joe's band at Mount Pleasant, Utah, were immersed in a stream they had helped dam to provide a baptismal font. And, closer to Corinne, one resident of the town who visited Brigham City to participate in the Saints' July 24 celebration found so many new Indian converts that he could not get into the bowery where the exercises were being held. A week later, a Deseret News reporter described another meeting at Brigham City where three hundred Lamanite brothers and sisters on horseback joined in giving three mighty shouts of "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna to God and the Lamb." oil While the Saints of Utah were inviting Indians into the Mormon church and promising to help them get started farming for a livelihood, government agents at nearby reservations were experiencing great difficulty in feeding their charges and obtaining enough funds to teach them farming. This was especially true at the Fort Hall Reservation where many of the Northwestern Shoshoni had been forced to move. From the founding of the reservation in 1869 to the spring of 1875 the various agents had constantly reported the lack of sufficient food supplies for the Indians. Agent James Wright was no exception. In early 1875 he wrote the commissioner of Indian Affairs: We have flour enough on hand to issue to them until April 1st. . . . We have beef for one more issue. Now what will be done with these people. . . They cannot get out to hunt, there are no roots to be had, fishing time will not have come.70 Furthermore, Wright thought the future of farming operations looked "dark." James Wright finally resigned in May and left the melancholy task of trying to feed the Indians at Fort Hall to William H. Danilson who soon discovered that the funds allocated could furnish each Indian only one meal a day for two days each week. Facing the inevitable, he decided to send all the able-bodied Indians out to hunt for game in the areas where they had traditionally foraged before, knowing they might run into white hostility and possible violence. The risk was real. An editorial by the Boise Idaho Statesman would Indian Scare 279 certainly have gained the support of most citizens of Corinne. The editor proposed calling the hostile bands of Idaho Territory in for a grand treaty fete. The Indians would be given plenty of blankets and nice little trinkets distributed among them; plenty of grub on hand; have a real jolly time with them; then just before the big feast put strychnine in their meat and poison to death the last mother's son of them.71 It was this kind of reception the Shoshoni faced when they left Fort Hall in July 1875 and decided, rather, to travel to lower Bear River where the Mormons promised them the food and the farming effort they were being denied at their reservation. The general Indian movement and interest in the Mormon faith prompted Brigham Young in April 1874 to call George W. Hill, a night watchman for the Union Pacific Railroad at Ogden and part-time proselytizer of Indians, to be a full-time missionary among the Lamanites of northern Utah. On May 1 Hill held a meeting with the Northwestern Shoshoni band camped near Corinne and baptized 101 into the church. Moving next to Franklin, he spent several months organizing the Indian Saints there and starting a farm he and his neophytes were forced to abandon in the fall of the year because of poor location. Given specific instructions to set up a mission among the Indians encamped near Corinne, he established a farm in an area between the lower Malad and Bear rivers in April 1875 and with his new members planted 104 acres of wheat, corn, and potatoes, "the Indians taking hold of their work well." The bad water of the Malad River forced him to move again to a spot near the Bear River about five miles north of Bear River City where he made arrangements with the Mormon farmers of that town for some land and irrigation water for the season.72 Here, the group put in 100 acres of wheat, 25 acres of corn, over 5 acres of potatoes, and about 4 acres of various vegetables. The Deseret News described with some enthusiasm how the new Latter-day Saints were constructing a canal, planning to build houses, meeting for morning and evening prayers, and saying grace before meals. Some plowed and planted in the Box Elder cooperative field to earn money to fund their farming projects. As the news spread among Idaho and Wyoming Shoshoni of the possibilities of the Mormon farm, several hundred Indians gathered there from as far away 280 Corinne as the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and the Lemhi Reserve at Salmon River, Idaho. Hill took advantage of this influx by holding a series of evangelical meetings during which he baptized 574 more converts. The Salt Lake Herald wrote that the Indians were claiming the land for a reservation.73 Agents Wright and Danilson at Fort Hall expressed concern to the Indian commissioner about the Shoshoni leaving the reservation to join the Mormons at lower Bear River. Wright visited the site and confirmed the presence of several hundred Indians from Wind River and reported that many of the combined group were being "taken through the 'Endowment House' (whatever that is or means) and then called 'The Lords Battle Axes.' " He said the Indians at Fort Hall left the reservation at night and became angry when questioned about their nocturnal visits. He did not like to allow the Indians to leave the reservation because they immediately went to Utah "to get washed and greased," thus "enrolling themselves in the cause of the Mormons." Wright also accused Hill and the other missionaries of teaching the Indians that they were a chosen people who would help establish the kingdom of God on earth and that they should hate the federal government.7' Danilson agreed that Hill was assuring the Indians that he would give the valley to them and that their baptism into Mormonism would ensure that "their old men would be young again, their young men would not get old, they would not be sick, and so on." 75 Other reports had the Mormons teaching the Indians that when they were clothed in their "garments Gentile bullets would not penetrate them," that the "big wash" would also make them proof against bullets, and that they would become "a white and delightsome people." 70 Indian Scare Understandably, the news from the Indian camp led to sarcastic and bitter comments from the editor of the Corinne Mail who no doubt accurately reflected the feelings of town residents. More and more Indians thronged the streets during the summer of 1875, glorying, said the editor, in the "unuterable [sic] blessings promised them in the future by the Profit, as a reward for their proficiency in sending to hell across lots." By July he was writing that the valley was swarm- Indian Scare 281 ing with Indians, kept there by the Mormons who were giving them presents and urging them to stay. He complained of the three hundred Mormon Indians camped just outside of town, begging, stealing, and trying to catch rides on the trains.77 Throughout the spring and summer of 1875 Utah Territory and the nation became engrossed in a case that helped arouse Corinnethian apprehension about the numerous Indians gathered at Hill's farm. This was the trial of John D. Lee at Beaver, Utah, for his alleged part in the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857 in which a united force of Mormons and Indians had killed members of a party of Missouri emigrants bound for California. The newspapers of Utah, especially the Gentile Salt Lake Tribune and the Corinne Mail, carried almost daily accounts of the progress of the trial. On August 7 the jury was discharged when the members could not agree on a verdict. The count was nine for acquittal and three for conviction. The Gentile papers bitterly denounced this as a miscarriage of justice and prophesied further murders by the Mormon-Indian combine. The Idaho Statesman thought the Saints and their leaders had decided to revenge themselves on the Gentiles for the Lee trial.78 Two days after the Lee verdict was announced, the editor of the Mail devoted an entire column to a denunciation of Mormon attempts to destroy Corinne. He recited the supposed curse placed by Brigham Young on the Gentile settlement and then listed the means by which the Mormon prophet had sought to obliterate it from the face of the earth: The Saints were forbidden to trade in the town, leading citizens were attacked in the infamous cattle-stealing case, and the Utah Northern Railroad was built to deprive Corinne of its freighting business. With the failure of these nefarious projects, said the editor, Brigham had now decided to arm his battle-axes, had warned the three or four Mormon families living in Corinne to leave at once, and had indicated that his Indians "might burn the town and butcher some of the inhabitants." If this should happen, the Mormons would only prepare the way for their own funeral, according to the thoroughly aroused journalist.7" Frightened by the newspaper articles and such scare headlines as "Mormons Meddling with Indians! Mountain Meadows to be Repeated!" and rumors about suspicious movements among the almost two thousand Indians north of town, the residents on August 10, 282 Corinne finally succumbed to a "Night of Terror!" 80 Women and children were either placed for safety in the Central Hotel or sent to Ogden out of harm's way while the men armed themselves by breaking into a shipment of United States arms held at the depot. Pickets were stationed at the Malad bridge three miles north of town. During the night the skittish men thought they discerned savage forms creeping upon them, started firing wild alarms, and retreated to Corinne. The military officer who later investigated the whole affair reported that the town minutemen later doubted whether they had really seen any Indians.81 The return of the frightened guards led Mayor E. P. Johnson to wire Gov. George W. Emery for troops to protect the citizens. The governor responded with a request to the commander of Camp Douglas who immediately dispatched Capt. James Kennington and a company of fifty men to the scene. The captain, Mayor Johnson, and interpreter Louis DeMars, went to the Indian camp in the late afternoon of August 11 to consult with George Hill and the Indian chiefs. The captain learned that no Indians had fired on the guard at the Malad bridge, that they were all engaged in peaceful farming, and that there was "no more danger than there is of an attack on the people of New York." Kennington then informed Hill that all the reservation Indians would have to leave by August 13 at 1:00 P.M. or he would be compelled to use force to remove them. The captain was not concerned with the Indians who normally resided in the area. Hill protested vigorously but to no avail. The following day two more companies of troops were sent from Camp Douglas to ensure sufficient force to back up the Kennington ultimatum. Capt. G. S. Carpenter in command of these soldiers repeated the performance of Kennington by also visiting the camp and reinforcing the order to leave. In his detailed report Carpenter could ascertain only two reasons for the scare: An Indian woman had been pushed off a freight train by the brakeman, and the Malad ditch had been "tampered with," although to the latter charge the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune later admitted the Indians had merely placed a temporary dam in the canal in order to catch some fish. Captain Carpenter was quite sympathetic to the fears of the citizens, thought they had acted wisely in the matter, and blamed the Mormons for the entire incident. Within an hour of Carpenter's meeting with Hill, all the Indian tipis were dismantled as the frightened Indians left Indian Scare 283 their fields ripe for the harvest and vacated the entire camp. Governor Emery arrived to make a personal inspection and Brigham Young also traveled to Brigham City to investigate. With the departure of the Indians, the three companies of troops were recalled to Camp Douglas on August 14.R2 The territorial newspapers were predictably split in their evaluation of the "Corinne Scare." The Corinne Mail stoutly, although somewhat defensively and shamefacedly, defended the actions of the Corinnethians because the Mormons were attempting to drive out all Gentile settlers from the valley so as to take over the land. The Salt Lake Tribune came to the aid of its fellow Gentile paper by attacking Brigham Young for trying to give the lands of Bear River to the Indians and by concluding, "We want no more Mountain Meadows butcheries in Utah." S3 These typical statements filled the columns of the two journals for the next month. The three Mormon newspapers retaliated with ridicule tempered by sarcasm. The Salt Lake Herald, among many other comments, wrote, "We would as soon expect to hear that the ants had carried off Bunker hill monument, as to learn that the redskins had attempted to slaughter the people of Corinne." S4 The Ogden Junction was more caustic: The frightened portion of the Corinneites began to smile again and recover from their cowardice and terror, and the schemers who plotted the scare counted up the results of their nefarious proceedings, swearing over the meagre gains to their bursted burg, and dimly discerning the future fatal effects of their ill-planned attempts to revive their dying city.85 The Deseret News was at first derisive: "All the world is laughing till its sides ache over poor scared Corinne's last convulsive kick. . . ." But then the newspaper became more serious as it contemplated the tragedy of the break-up of the Indian encampment: All summer long these Indians have been ploughing, sowing, putting in crops, etc., preparing to live like white men. Now, just when the crops are whitening and these peaceable and industrious Indians are expecting to gather their harvest and reap the reward of their commendable labors, they are suddenly driven away from their camp and their hardly earned crops at the point of the 284 Corinne bayonet, in deference to the demogogish and partisan misrepresentations of a few unprincipled white men. The editor thought the natives should be reimbursed by the people of Corinne.80 The effect of the scare on the Shoshoni was devastating and long-lasting. At the time of their dispersal they were finishing a second day of harvest, having cut twenty-five acres of wheat and two acres of peas. Everything else was lost of a year's effort. Chief Sagwitch, a survivor of the massacre at Bear River, said to George Hill, "Don't talk to me you have lied to me and my heart is sick. . . ." ST And turning to the army officers he asked, in some anguish, "What have I stolen? Who have I killed? What meanness have I done? . . ." 8" When about one hundred twenty of the Indians returned to Fort Hall, Agent Danilson noted that some of them were completely disillusioned with the Mormons and thought that George Hill and his Saints had deceived and betrayed them.89 The citizens of Corinne were no doubt pleased to know they had been successful in turning the Shoshoni against the Mormons. Brigham Young, former Indian superintendent, argued from long and practical experience that the Indians could not have planned an attack on Corinne because they were totally unprepared. He listed the reasons: They were engaged in farming, certainly a peaceful occupation; their ponies were grazing all over the prairie; they were hampered by their women and children; there were no war-dances or war paint in evidence; and, finally, they would not have attacked Malad bridge in the middle of the night when dawn was the accustomed time. He thought the "wide-awake" men of Corinne had seen in an Indian war "a way to importance and a road to wealth" for their town which was "fast sinking into insignificance." Young also speculated how different the reaction of the nation would have been if any denomination other than the Mormon church had been involved in teaching the Indians the habits of civilization.00 As for the forgotten man in all the hullabaloo, the one who had been doing the teaching, George Hill, was warned by a few of the "braves" of Corinne that they would hang him on sight if he dared venture back to the area.01 The national press followed the events at Corinne very closely, with only the Omaha Herald expressing any sympathy for the Mor- Indian Scare 285 Shoshoni Indians. Andrew J. Russell photograph, courtesy of hte Oakland Museum. mons in the entire affair. The Sacramento Union, San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Herald were representative of the newspapers who saw malevolence in the actions of George Hill and the leaders of the Saints. The Sacramento paper was typical in its promise 286 Corinne to furnish twenty thousand armed men and its warning: "If Corinne is attacked by the Indians, let Brigham Young see to it that Salt Lake does not smoke for the outrage." 92 When once the fire of fear had been kindled in the breasts of Corinne residents, it was difficult to quench. The citizens reported hearing rumors on August 17 that fifteen hundred Indians with Chief Pocatello in command had not returned to their reservations as ordered by the military but were congregated near Logan in Cache Valley and intended another attack on the Gentiles at Bear River. The distraught Corinnethians hastily formed a city guard, led by the town marshal, and stationed pickets to patrol the street at night so that their families would not be forced to leave the beleaguered town.03 It became so difficult and nerve-wracking that four days later Mayor Johnson importuned Governor Emery to request that Gen. Philip H. Sheridan place a company of troops permanently at Corinne to guard the town against the threatening Indians.04 General Sheridan made a brief visit to Corinne and Salt Lake City and finally determined to accede to the wishes of the people, although he may have agreed with the Salt Lake Herald that "the real object of the soldiers in going there is to 'sit up with' the town which is not expected to live." °5 Company C of the Fourteenth Infantry arrived in Corinne on August 24 and remained until September 23. The Deseret News, along with other Mormon newspapers, believed the only motive for having the soldiers located in the town was to provide some government cash for the failing merchants.00 The military, however, insisted that the Mormons had a subtle plan to maintain the Indians in the neighborhood long enough so that their minor depredations and annoyances would finally force the non-Mormons to leave the country.0' Ironically, the Gentiles of Corinne became caught in their own trap when Montana shippers decided the Indian menace was real and began to halt freight shipments. The Mail was obliged to give reassurances that the presence of soldiers would offer safety for goods destined for Montana.08 When the troops finally departed, the scare was already becoming history. The disappearance of the warlike Corinne Mail in November further guaranteed peace at last. Corinne then returned to its precarious balancing act on the edge of disaster. In assigning responsibility for the Corinne Indian scare, recognition must be given to the nearby camp of about two thousand Indians, Indian Scare 287 many of whom had just become members of the Mormon church and who were clearing public lands on which to grow crops. It should be remembered, also, that the supposed threat of violence toward the Gentiles of Corinne came just three days after a jury had freed the alleged ringleader of the Mormon-Indian conspiracy that had murdered Missouri emigrants at Mountain Meadow. The people of the town had come to believe that Brigham Young had pronounced a prophetic curse of destruction against Corinne and that the Indians would provide the means of ensuring the success of that diabolical promise. The six years of maledictions and accusations directed against the Saints by the local newspapers and town leaders had resulted in an almost self-fulfilling prophecy that the town would be destroyed by the Danite Mormons. On the other hand, the yellow journalism practiced by the Corinne news sheets led the townspeople down a thorny path tipped with anti-Mormon barbs to a firm belief in the utter malevolence of a Utah population dedicated to the eradication of all Gentile resistance from the territory. The business leaders of the town approved and applauded this course as they witnessed all of their bright hopes of financial success being demolished by Mormon railroads and cooperatives and especially by the political control exercised by the Saints. There was probably some fire hidden in the smoke of Mormon claims that at least some Corinnethians had deliberately instigated the Indian scare in order to win national sympathy and support. During 1875 the people of the Burg on the Bear had successfully withstood the threat of an extension of the Utah Northern Railroad far enough north to cut off their freighting road and had also weathered competition for the Montana trade from new and archrival Franklin, although losing the stagecoach terminal to the Idaho town. Realizing the inevitability of rail capture of the freighting business to the north, Corinne turned to the construction of a small irrigation system using Malad River water, alkaline and sickly though it was, and then made further attempts to bring a larger volume of water from the Bear River, without success. Undaunted, the enterprising citizens then decided to help force the issue of an irrigation project for the valley by the formation of a colonization society to publicize the potential of neighboring lands and bring in Gentile immigrants to help counterbalance the predominant Mormon power 288 Corinne and to form the basis for a strong agricultural system. Due to the apathy of its own citizens and the threatening proximity of Mormon hegemony, the colonization scheme was a disappointing failure. The six years of frustration in trying to establish a productive and enduring economy culminated in 1875 with an attempt to place the blame at the doorstep of the Mormons and at the same time to win national sympathy for a little Gentile town caught between the upper and nether millstones of Lamanite and Saint. The Corinnethians may have won the heart of the nation, but they did not succeed in getting to its pocketbook. The Congress failed to grant lands for irrigation purposes and also declined to furnish enough money to care for the Indians on their reservations, which placed the natives as beggars still at the doors of Gentile and Mormon alike. Corinnethians were left with only the melancholy certainty of more frustrating and anxious years ahead as their energetic Mormon neighbors continued to press for an extension of the Utah Northern into Montana. Indian Scare 289 NOTES FOR CHAPTER 9 i Robert G. Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country: The Utah and Northern," Montana, the Magazine of Western History 18 (October 1968) : 8 - 9 ; Deseret News, 5 February, 5 May 1875. 2 Salt Lake Herald, 10 August 1875; Deseret News, 8 September 1875. 3 Athearn, "Railroad lo a Far-off Country," pp. 10-11; Ogden Junction, 9, 27 February; 26 March 1875; Deseret News, 17 March; 28 April; 5 May; 15, 28 July; 4 August 1875. + Ogden Junction, 9 February 1875 ; Salt Lake Herald, 1 April 1875. s Helena Herald, 29 April 1875. 0 Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," pp. 10-11; Deseret News, 5 May 1875. 7 Corinne Mail, 16, 27 April 1875; Idaho Statesman, 7 August 1875. 8 Corinne Mail, 15 July, 4 September 1875. 9 Corinne Mail, 7, 20 January; 24 April 1875. 10 Montanian, 1 July 1875; Corinne Mail, 1 September 1875. 11 Deseret News, 4 August, 15 September 1875. i 2 Corinne Mail, 2 April, 28 July 1875. 13 Helena Herald, 16 September 1875. 14 Helena Herald, 9 September 1875; Ogden Junction, 1 December 1875. i r ' Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 11. 16 Salt Lake Herald, 1 April 187.1; Montanian, 3 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 15 July 1875; Athearn, "Railroad to a Far-off Country," p. 11. 17 Helena Herald, 19 March, 14 May, 5 June 1874; Idaho Statesman, 21, 24 May 1874. Is Deseret News, 10 June, 8 July 1874; Helena Herald, 20 August 1874. 10 Salt Lake Tribune, 19, 28 July; 12 September 1874; Alva J. Noyes, The Story of Ajax: Life in the Bighole Basin (Helena: State Publishing Co., 1914), pp. 18-19; Corinne Mail, 23 September 1874. 20 Corinne Mail, 12 September 1874. 21 Salt Lake Herald, 23 October 1874; Corinne Mail, 17 September; 6, 24 October; 15, 18 November 1874. 22 Salt Lake Tribune, 3 October 1874. 23 Corinne Mail, 20, 21 October; 10 November; 21, 23 December 1874. 24 Salt Lake Tribune, 18 March 1875; Corinne Mail, 27 April 1875; Montanian, 10 June 1875; Helena Herald, 29 April; 13, 27 May; 3 June 1875. -'Corinne Mail, 12 September 1874, 13 March 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 22 October 1875. 20 Corinne Mail, 12 January 1875; Deseret News, 14 June 1875. 27 Corinne Mail, 7 January, 14 May 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 26 May 1875. 25 Corinne Mail, 28, 29 July; 25 August; 2, 3, 7, 23 September 1875. 29 Corinne Mail, 12 June, 14 July 1875; New Northwest, 19 February 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 1, 16 October 1875. 30 Merrill D. Beal and Merle W. Wells, History of Idaho, 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1959), 1:403; interviews of Leonidas A. Mecham and Art T. Owens by John F. Ryan, 1936, Idaho Historical Records Survey, Idaho State University, Pocatello; Thomas J. Ferrell, Freighting, 1937, clipping file, Montana State Historical Society, Helena. 31 Corinne Mail, 22 January, 12 February, 27 March, 9 April, 1 May, 19 June, 22 September 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 22 April 1875. 290 Corinne 32 Corinne Mail, 26 January, 21 April, 22 May 1875; Helena Herald, 3 November 1875. 33 Salt Lake Herald, 11 November 1875. 34 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Globe, part 3, pp. 1964-65, 42d Cong., 2d sess., 1872; Corinne Reporter, 4 April 1872. 35 Corinne Reporter, 1 June 1872, 17 April 1873; Corinne Mail, 4 February 1875. 30 Corinne Reporter, 17 September; 11, 18 December 1872; Box Elder County Associations, 17 December 1872, microfilm, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City. • ' ' " - ^-Corinne Reporter, 28 April, 23 June, 8 July 1873. s* Council Chamber Corinne City Minute Book, 26, 27 May; 2 June 1873, Utah State Archives; Corinne Reporter, 6 June; 8, 12 July 1873. 39 Ogden Junction, 15 October 1873. 40 John A. Widtsoe, Dry-Farming: A System of Agriculture for Countries under Low Rainfall (New York: Macmillan Co., 1912), p. 355. " M t Lake Tribune, 16 July 1874; Kate B. Carter, comp., Heart Throbs of the West, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939-51), 8:140. 42 Corinne Reporter, 17 April, 23 June 1873; Corinne Mail, 13 May 1875. 43 Box Elder County Associations, 6 November 1873; George A. Crofutt, International Tourist Guide . . . (New York, 1874), p. 89. 44 Corinne Mail, 4 December 1874; 4 February, 13 May 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 9 January 1875, 21 March 1877. 45 Corinne Mail, 9, 10, 12 February; 5 March 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 13 February 1875. 46 E. S. Glover, Corinne and the Bear River Valley, Utah Territory (Cincinnati, 1875), pp. 1-8. 47 Corinne Mail, 17 February; 19, 26 March; 19, 22 May; 2, 18 June; 10, 19 July 1875. 48 Corinne Mail, 9 February, 18 May, 18 June, 12 July, 14 August 1875. 49 Salt Lake Tribune, 22 April 1875. 00 Corinne Mail, 12 April 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 6, 8 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 12 July 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 30 January 1876. 51 Salt Lake Herald, 24, 31 March; 19 April 1877. 52 Brigham D. Madsen, "The Northwestern Shoshoni in Cache Valley," Cache Valley: Essays on Her Past and People, ed. Douglas D. Alder (Logan: Utah State University, 1976), pp. 28-38. 53 Daniel H. Wells to Bishop Nichols, 8 April 1870, in Brigham Young Letter Books, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 54 Utah Reporter, 21 April 1870. 55 Utah Reporter, 30, 31 July; 17 November 1870; Corinne City Minute Book, 2 August 1870. 50 Utah Reporter, 17 November 1870; Salt Lake Herald, 9 November 1873. 57 Corinne Reporter, 21 February 1872; Corinne Mail, 17 November 1874. 08 Corinne Reporter, 6 January; 8 February; 22, 27 March; 6 April; 10 June; 1, 26, 29, 30 July; 5 August 1871; 14 April 1873; Corinne Mail, 10, 15 December 1874. 99 Corinne Reporter, 14, 15 February 1871. 00 M. P. Berry to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 10 July 1871, U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, Letters Received, 1824- 81, M234, Idaho Superintendency, 1863-80, microfilm roll 339, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 01 Utah Reporter, 27 March 1871. 02 M. le Baron de Hiibner, A Ramble Round the World, 1871 (New York, 1875), p. 175. Indian Scare 291 03 Salt Lake Herald, 30 May 1871; Corinne Reporter, 16 June '871, 8 October 1873; Secretary of Interior to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 7 October IB / I , U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, betters Received, 1824-81, M234, Utah Superintendency, 1849-80, microfilm roll Wi, INa-tional Archives. 04 G. W. Dodge to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 24 July 1872, Utah Superintendency, microfilm roll 903. «= Corinne Reporter, 2 October 1871; Idaho Statesman, 30 April 1873. 99 Corinne Mail, 7, 10, 14, 15, 21 December 1874. <" Deseret News, 30 September, 4 November 1874; Ogden Junction, 18 November 1874; Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 1874. os Deseret News, 28 April; 5, 26 May; 14 July 1875. 99 Salt Lake Herald, 12 June 1875; Corinne Mail, 26 July 1875; Deseret News, 4 August 1875. 70 James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 6 February 1875, Letters Sent, 1869-75, Fort Hall Letter Book, 235, Fort Hall, Idaho. 71 W. H. Danilson to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 31 July 1875, Fort Hall Letter Book, 290-91; Idaho Statesman, 6 October 1867. 73 Charles E. Dibble, "The Mormon Mission to the Shoshoni Indians," Western Humanities Review 1 (1947) :284-85; Laurence G. Coates, "A History of Indian Education by the Mormons, 1830-1900" (Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1969), pp. 304-6; Ralph O. Brown, "The Life and Missionary Labors of George Washington Hill" (M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1956), pp. 59-65. 73 Deseret News, 28 July 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 21 July 1875. 74 James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 10 June 1875, Idaho Superintendency, microfilm roll 343; James Wright to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 30 June 1875, 31 July 1875, Fort Hall Letter Book, 289-91. 75 W. H. Danilson to Gen. Cuvier Grover, 20 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte, 1875, Old Military Records, National Archives. 70 Corinne Mail, 20 August 1875; Deseret News, 6 October 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 21 August 1875. 77 Corinne Mail, 24 February, 23 April, 2 June, 3 August 1875; Salt Lake Herald, 11 July 1875. 7SSalt Lake Herald, 29 July, 8 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 5 August 1875; Idaho Statesman, 17 August 1875. 79 Corinne Mail, 10 August 1875. 80 Corinne Mail, 9, 11 August 1875. 81 Capt. G. S. Carpenter to Maj. George D. Ruggles, 16 August 1875, 14 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte. s-' Newspaper coverage of the Corinne "scare" was quite voluminous, taking up several columns for many days in the following papers: Corinne Mail, Ogden Junction, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, and Salt Lake Herald, and many national news sheets. 83 Corinne Mail, 12 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 11 August 1875. s ' Salt Lake Herald, 11 August 1875. s"' Ogden Junction, 14 August 1875. 89 Deseret News, 18, 25 August 1875. ^7 Carpenter to Ruggles, 16 August 1875. 88 Brigham Young to W. C. Staines, 27 August 1875, BY Letter Books, microfilm reel 21. 89 Danilson to Grover, 20 August 1875. 90 Young to Staines, 27 August 1875. 91 Ogden Junction, 21 August 1875. '•>•- Deseret News, 18, 25 August; 8 September; 13 October 1875; New York Herald, 13 August 1875. 292 Corinne 03 Salt Lake Herald, 17 August 1875; Deseret News, 18 August 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, 20 August 1875. 94 George W. Emery to Gen. P. Sheridan, 21 August 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte. os Salt Lake Herald, 26 August 1875. "Returns from U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916, M617, microfilm roll 325, Old Military Records, National Archives. 97 C. Grover to Asst. Adj. General, 5 September 1875, Letters Received, Department of the Platte. 98 Corinne Mail, 26 August 1875. Indian Scare 293 |
