William J. McConnell: Vigilante, U.S. Marshal, Merchant, and Governor [otd 09/18]

W. J. McConnell. McConnell,
Early History of Idaho.

On September 18, 1839, William J. McConnell, third governor of the state of Idaho, was born in Commerce, Michigan, about twenty-five miles northwest of Detroit. He moved to California in 1860 and engaged in mining and other work for a couple years. He spent the following year in Oregon, where he taught school and perhaps worked in a store.

McConnell followed the major gold rush into Idaho’s Boise Basin in 1863. Schooled by his experience in California, the young man recognized the opportunity offered by the excellent bottomland along the Payette River. Thus, he did not stay with the scramble of hopeful prospectors. Instead, McConnell and a few other settlers began raising vegetables, which they sold – at fabulous prices – to those same miners.

All was not profits and prosperity, however. The wild new Territory lacked any vestige of effective law enforcement. Shootings, knifings, and robberies were commonplace, and men with gold routinely disappeared on the tracks that linked the various camps.

Finally, when thieves made off with 8-10 horses and mules belonging to McConnell and his neighbors, he and two friends went after the robbers themselves. They returned with the animals a couple weeks later. No one inquired about the fate of the crooks.

William and the Payette Valley settlers then organized a regional Vigilance Committee, modeled on those established in California the decade before. When McConnell later prepared his History of Idaho, he made no apologies for their actions. He simply observed that they had no choice because “no effort was being made by those whose duties it was to enforce the law.”

Reports from the time indicate that the vigilantes did succeed in reining in the criminals, and the Committee disbanded. Popular opinion of their efforts was very positive: McConnell was appointed a Deputy U. S. Marshal, his term starting in 1865. After two years in that duty, he left the state for Oregon and California.

McConnell returned to Idaho in 1878, after the extensive farm lands of Latah County opened up . He established a general store there and became a major factor in the area’s growth.

McConnell General Store, Moscow.
Latah County Historical Society.

When leaders convened a Constitutional Convention to enhance the appeal for statehood, McConnell represented the county in that body. Among other issues he championed, McConnell was instrumental in writing Moscow into the constitution as the location for a state-supported university. (Although he later helped organize the institution, it’s not clear if he was ever formally a member of the Board of Regents.)

After statehood, he became one of Idaho’s first two U.S. Senators. He served the abbreviated term needed to get the new state into the normal election cycle.

He did not stand for a full senatorial term, but ran instead for Governor … was elected, and then re-elected. McConnell served at a critical time in Idaho history. Much of the new state’s administrative structure was in a state of flux, and the “Panic of '93” – a worldwide depression – blighted the economy. Still, his administration made several vital contributions, perhaps the most important being the vote for women’s suffrage in 1896 [blog, Nov 3].

McConnell remained in public service for the rest of his life. After his second term as governor, President William McKinlay appointed him to be a high-level Inspector for the Office of Indian Affairs. Then, in 1909, President Howard Taft made him a Special Agent for the General Land Office. McConnell held that position until he passed away in March 1925.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Richard J. Beck, Famous Idahoans, Williams Printing, (© Richard J. Beck, 1989).

W. J. McConnell, Early History of Idaho, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1913).

Robert C. Sims, Hope A. Benedict (eds.), Idaho’s governors: Historical Essays on Their Administrations, Boise State University (1992).

Walgamott Slays Liquored-Up Gunman at Rock Creek Store [otd 09/17]

On September 17, 1877, traveling bank examiner Nathaniel Langford recorded an incident that highlighted the rather casual violence of those frontier days. Oddly enough, the surviving participant in the action chose not to connect himself with the event in the reminiscences he published later in life.

N. P. Langford, ca 1870.
Minnesota Historical Society.

Charles Walgamott came west from Iowa in August 1875, when he was seventeen years old. He joined his sister and brother-in-law, Charles Trotter, at Rock Creek, Idaho – about 12 miles southeast of today’s Twin Falls. Trotter ran the stage station there.

Charlie stayed in the West because, he said, “I love the mountains, the mountain streams, the western atmosphere, and the hospitable people with their western ways, the smoky odor of Indian-tanned buckskin, so prevalent around the camp fires, mingled with the sage-sweetened air, and the ever-present element of risk even to the preservation of life; and even the frequent solitude has its fascination.”

Early in the winter before Walgamott arrived in Idaho, Trotter had a run-in with a horse thief named William Dowdell (sometimes spelled "Dowdle"). According to a later report in the Idaho Statesman (September 20, 1877), Dowdell had served a one-year prison term for stealing a U. S. Government horse.

Just out of prison for that offense, Dowdell rode into the Rock Creek area on another stolen horse. Trotter recognized the animal and had Dowdell detained. Convicted and sent back to prison, Dowdell vowed revenge.

He appeared at Rock Creek station on September 17, not long after he got out. Trotter was down with typhoid fever and hadn’t come in that morning. After some quick drinks at the bar, Dowdell wandered outside and began taking pot-shots at passers-by and other targets. He reportedly wounded the local blacksmith so badly people thought the man would die. 

Rock Creek Station, ca 1880.
Idaho State Historical Society,

At that time, Walgamott held a clerk’s position at the Rock Creek store. Charlie doesn’t say what he was doing when the shooting started, but he finally went to the front door to see what was going on. When a shot through the door casing just missed him, Walgamott grabbed a pistol kept near the counter and shot Dowdell dead. (Charlie would have been about nineteen at the time.)

Langford rode the stage into Rock Creek that same afternoon. In his diary, he described the drunken “funeral procession” the locals had arranged: “Frequent potations had exhilarated the entire company to such a degree that no attempt was made to preserve regularity of motion or direction.”
They did eventually bury the body. An inquest declared Charlie fully justified in the shooting. In fact, according to Langford, “The entire settlement manifested their approval of Wohlgamuth’s [sic] timely shot.”

Walgamott lived in the Mountain West well into the Twentieth Century and published his Reminiscences of Early Days in 1926. In that, and the very similar Six Decades Back, he described many wild events, including the death of Dowdell. However, for his own reasons, Charles identified the retaliatory shooter as simply “a young man who was in charge at the store.”
                                                                                                                                      

References: Jim Gentry, In the Middle and On the Edge, College of Southern Idaho (2003).

N. P. Langford, Vigilante Days and Ways, Montana State University (1957).

Charles S. Walgamott, Six Decades Back, The Caxton Press, Caldwell, Idaho, 1936. Re-released in 1990.

Edward Moffitt: Mining Manager and University Regent [otd 08/22]

Wallace businessman Edward H. Moffitt was born August 22, 1845 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh. Around 1858, the family moved to Illinois, where Edward grew to young manhood. In January 1864, he joined the Second Illinois Cavalry.

Union Cavalry Chasing Irregulars. Harper’s Weekly Illustration.

Far from the “glamor” of major battles, Edward’s regiment still saw almost continuous marching and much fighting, from northern Florida into western Texas. Long after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, they chased detached units of the Confederate Army and bands of irregulars. Edward mustered out at San Antonio in January, 1866, and returned home to Illinois.

Moffitt ran a grocery store for two years before heading west to try his hand in the gold fields. He prospected in the Dakotas and Utah, then spent over a decade in the Colorado mines. Then, in late 1879, Edward joined the rush into the lead-silver mines along the Wood River [blog, April 26].

In 1884, however, Moffitt decided the Coeur d’Alene mining districts had greater potential. He located first at Eagle City, on Prichard Creek, where he opened the camp’s first meat market and invested in various mining claims. However, within two years, he became associated with the new town of Murray, located about three miles to the southeast. (Eagle City soon became a ghost town.)

Then, in 1887, Edward recognized even greater potential in the mines around the new town of Wallace, and moved there. Moffitt remained heavily invested in mining properties, but it’s likely he also moved his meat market to Wallace.

At about this time, the consortium led by Amasa Campbell [blog April 6] began investing in Coeur d’Alene mines. Over the next few years, Edward joined several of their ventures. Thus, when the group acquired and re-organized the Coeur d’Alene Hardware Company, Moffitt became the firm’s Secretary-Treasurer. Campbell was Vice-President. An Illustrated History published in 1899 said, “They deal in mining and mill supplies and all kinds of general hardware and have one of the most extensive hardware stores in the west.”

Wallace, ca 1898. Illust-North.

As part of the Campbell consortium, Moffitt also owned shares in the Standard and Hecla mines. In 1899, he became General Manager for their properties throughout the Coeur d’Alene area. Two years later, his duties expanded in an unlikely way. After the timekeeper at the Standard Mine was shot and killed, Edward “gathered a posse and set put in pursuit, eventually capturing the fugitive.” (Convicted and sentenced to hang, the murderer got off with a life sentence upon appeal.)

For a time, Moffitt served as an officer of three or four mining companies, as well as a Director of the First National Bank of Wallace. In 1901, a report in the Idaho Statesman (July 20, 1901) identified him as a Delegate from Wallace to an International Mining Congress, held in Boise.

Moffit was an active member of the Masonic Lodge in Wallace, and served on the school board there for many years. In 1908, he was appointed as a Regent of the University of Idaho, becoming President of the Board in 1911. He retired from hands-on business and service activities a few years after that, and passed away in February 1920.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Hawley], [Illust-North] [Illust-State]

Gold Prospectors Found Elk City Deep in the Idaho Mountains [otd 08/06]

On August 6, 1861, a band of miners founded the mining town of Elk City, Idaho, about 35 miles east of the present town of Grangeville. Prospectors had first entered the area in the latter part of May. A large party left the Orofino area earlier in the month. Somewhat less than half penetrated the region, having ignored protests from a Nez Perce Indian chief because they had intruded onto reservation land.

Riffle Box for Placer Mining. Library of Congress.

They found gold near the confluence of the American and Red rivers.  Further prospecting discovered more and more “color.”  By mid-June they had slapped together a log cabin to serve as a recorder's office, in which “Captain” L. B. Monson recorded the first claim on June 14, 1861.

Some men returned to Orofino for supplies and the new rush began, somewhat dampened by worries about the Indians. However, as more and more prospectors struck pay dirt, the rush swelled. That finally led to the founding of Elk City.

By the following summer, the town had four to six stores of various kinds, five saloons, and two decent hotels. Because of its location deep in the mountains, heavy winter snow shut down work on almost every claim. By the fall of 1862, a quickly-established Express company had shipped out over $900 thousand in gold dust (over $50 million at today’s prices).

Gold discoveries in easier country in Montana drew many prospectors away from Elk City the next year. However, the Evening Bulletin in San Francisco reprinted (May 29, 1863) a letter that said, in part, “Six ditches have been dug during the last winter in the vicinity of Elk City, and are now furnishing water to the miners.” As could be expected, “The miners are doing much better than before the ditches were completed.”

Also, in 1864 and 1865, determined gold-seekers built mores ditches, and flumes, to begin large-scale hydraulic mining. Thus, the value of metal extracted from the region actually increased. A sawmill built to supply lumber for these flumes did a booming business.

Miners continued to obtain reasonable returns from claims in the region for more than a decade. Then, after 1880, many claims were leased to Chinese miners. Like most of the older mining towns, Elk City’s prosperity rose and fell with the output from the gold fields in the region.

The economy received a “bump” when prospectors discovered gold in the “Buffalo Hump,” region, about 20 miles to the southwest. By the summer of 1899, about five thousand prospectors had poured into that area. Although Grangeville became the major supply point for “the Hump,” Elk City also won a share of the stagecoach and freight traffic. However, significant work at Buffalo Hump ran its course by about 1910.

Elk City at sunset. Elk City tourism.

For a time in the twentieth century, Elk City operated as a center for logging activity. However, that faltered when the U.S. Forest Service imposed more restrictions on timber harvesting in the area.

Today, Elk City survives as a recreation and tourism center, a “gateway” to the Nez Perce National Forest. The Elk City web site offers hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, and ATV riding during the summer, with skiing and snowmobiling in the winter.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W], [Illust-North]

“Buffalo Hump Stage Lines,” Reference Series No. 794, Idaho State Historical Society (1985 ).

M. Alfreda Elsensohn, Eugene F. Hoy (ed.), Pioneer Days in Idaho County, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1951).

V. D. Hannah, Pioneer Grower of Fine Fruit, Vegetables, and Purebred Livestock [otd 06/15]

Agricultural pioneer Henry Van Dyke Hannah was born June 15, 1842 in Ohio County, Indiana, about 25 miles southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio. After completing a common school education, he spent several sessions at a prep school and then at an early agricultural institute or college.

Henry V. D. Hannah. [Hawley]

After that, he worked on his father’s farm until 1862, when he enlisted in the Second Indiana Light Artillery. Wounded at least once, Hannah carried a Minie ball in his abdomen for the rest of his life. At the end of the war, he returned to farming with his father. However, with the war over, the farm economy entered a severe depression and, for various reasons, southern Indiana was hit particularly hard. So young Hannah headed west.

In late 1872, he was in Idaho looking for acreage, after about three years in Oregon. He started in a valley area northeast of Weiser and would be associated with that town for many years. Even that early, “V. D.” – as he was now commonly known – sought the top of the line in his business. In May, 1873, the Idaho Statesman carried his advertisement to sell fertilized eggs from top-breed chickens he had just imported from the East. A couple months later, he gave the Statesman editor a basket containing the “fattest gooseberries we ever saw.”

That fall, Hannah set up a sales stand in downtown Boise with a wide variety of fruit from his farm: two kinds of apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes … and even some tomatoes. All were judged to be outstanding examples of their kind. Nor did he neglect the animal husbandry side. Besides his purebred chickens, he also advertised top-grade hogs “and a good Boar, for service.”

Over the following years, V. D. added high-grade turkeys and geese to his poultry line, as well as herds of purebred sheep and shorthorn cattle. He also continued to improve his fruit lines. In 1884, the Statesman reported that he had seven varieties of grapes under cultivation on two-year-old vines. When agricultural fairs appeared, Hannah was always among the prize winners, in many different categories.

When a commission was assembled to organize Idaho’s exhibits for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, V. D. handled the agriculture portion. Besides the expected products, he included two new items from his ranch: figs and cotton. The exhibit was a huge success and he was similarly asked for advice five years later for the World’s Fair held in Omaha.

When growers organized the Idaho State Horticultural Society in 1895, V. D. was named a trustee and served on the Legislative Committee. Two years later, the State Board of Agricultural Inspection was created. Although Hannah was not a member of the first Board, he later served as a member.

In 1905, V. D. took on a task similar to his World’s Fair duty – the Lewis and  Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. By this time, the Hannahs was living near Caldwell.

Idaho Building, Lewis & Clark Exposition. Library of Congress.

Nothing out of the ordinary came Hannah’s way until 1917, when he was 75 years old. He was appointed to appraise land being offered as collateral for loans from the state. He gave up that position in November, 1918. But even at his advanced age, he still grew crops and animals. His History of Idaho biography said, “It is like attending a fine stock fair to visit his farm and see the splendid animals and poultry that he has produced.”

He passed away in July 1923, shortly before the Annual Meeting of a regional cattle growers association. They observed a long moment of silence in his honor.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley]

“[Idaho Hannah News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise (December 1872 – July 1923)..

“[Other Hannah News],” Reveille, Vevay, Indiana; The Standard, Greenburg, Indiana; The Oregonian, Portland (October 1870 – September 1919).

Paul Salstrom, From Pioneering to Persevering: Family Farming in Indiana to 1880, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana (2007).

Judge, Boise Mayor, Developer and Attorney James H. Richards [otd 05/05]

Judge James Heber Richards was born May 5, 1852 in Mount Vernon, Ohio, about forty miles northeast of Columbus. One of eight siblings, James left home when he was fourteen years old to work on a dairy farm. Over the next few years, he pieced together more schooling and, around 1872, returned to Mount Vernon to teach. He continued there for most of the decade.

James H. Richards. [Illust-State]

Richards then moved to Colorado, where he read law, passed the bar, and ended up practicing in the mining town of Breckenridge. Then the boom there began to fade, so in the summer of 1890, James opened an office in Boise. He was there long enough to be on the city’s Board of Trade, but moved to Payette in late 1891. His first four years in Idaho were extremely busy. He invested in Boise Basin mining properties, helped found a bank in Payette, organized an irrigation project along the Payette River, and became president of a land development company.

Besides all that, when Canyon County was split off from Ada County in the fall of 1892, Richards was one of the commissioners who helped organize the new government.

However, in 1894, Richards was elected judge of the Third Judicial District. Finding the judicial docket hugely backlogged, he moved back to Boise to tackle the job. Handling well over four hundred cases, he managed to clear the calendar before the end of his two-year term.

Judge Richards was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage in Idaho. He and his wife Fannie organized and helped publicize the visit of a prominent women’s rights speaker in 1895. Those efforts succeeded the following year when voters overwhelmingly passed a women’s suffrage amendment [blog, November 3]. However, Richards’ practice had suffered during his time in office, so he refused to run for re-election. It took him three years of intense effort to put his private law affairs back in order.

Then backers persuaded him to run for Boise mayor in 1899, an office he won in a close election. Despite early budget problems, under Richards the city managed to get its facilities into tip-top shape, grade many streets that had been neglected before, and lay many blocks of new sidewalk. The mayor felt the volunteer fire brigade was doing a good job, but suggested that the city had grown enough to need a more professional approach. A paid part-time crew replaced the volunteers a year after he left office [blog, June 2].

Central Fire State, Boise, 1903. Boise Fire Department.

After his term as mayor ended in July 1901, Richards formed a law partnership with education advocate Oliver O. Haga [blog November 19]. James would remain active in that firm, as senior partner, for a quarter century. A couple months after that, the American Mining Congress was formed from parts of the International Mining Congress and Richards was selected as it first president. He held that office for seven or eight years, and then continued to give talks before that body for more than another decade.

Despite his many legal, business, and society activities (he was both a Mason and an Elk), Richards also served a 1905-1906 term in the state legislature. Again, he refused to run for re-election, as he would later turn down strong urgings to be a Republican candidate for governor.

Richards was active in his law firm until about 1926, when he was over seventy years old. He continued to be a popular speaker around the area for another five years or so. James passed away in early 1936 after a short illness.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

“Breckenridge,” Rocky Mountain News, Denver (July 13, 1890).

“[James H. Richards News Items],” Idaho Statesman, Boise (June 1890 – January 1936).

Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal, Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe, University of Washington Press, Seattle (2011).

Idaho Territory Fends Off One Last Partition Attempt [otd 02/29]

On February 29, 1888, Congressional Delegate Fred T. Dubois sent the following telegram to Milton Kelly: “House committee on territories to-day reported unanimously against any division of Idaho. This ends the fight.”

Judge Kelly. Illust-State photo.

Milton Kelly was the operator-editor of the Idaho Statesman, published in Boise. He was born near Syracuse, New York, in 1818. He became a lawyer in 1845 and practiced for many years in Wisconsin. Kelly moved to Placerville, Idaho in 1863. He then represented Boise County in the first Idaho Territorial legislature.

In April 1865, President Lincoln appointed him an Associate Justice for the Territorial Supreme Court. Six years later, he moved to Boise City and bought the Statesman.

Kelly actually showed remarkable restraint when he inserted the telegram text in the next day’s issue. His brief editorial about it did advise the partition supporters to “help build up Idaho instead of trying to tear it to pieces.”

As noted in several of my blog articles, many residents of North Idaho did not want to be part of Idaho Territory. That became especially true in Lewiston after the south “stole” the capital away to Boise City in 1864. The northerners hoped to become part of Washington, or perhaps a totally new territory.

The partition notion also had another root. The Republican-dominated U. S. Congress made Nevada a state in October 1864, even though its population fell well below the preferred minimum for statehood. (As a state, the region offered a Representative and two Senators who were “safely” Republican.)

To “bulk itself up,” in 1866 and 1868 the new state added major chunks of Utah and Arizona territories. Anti-Mormonism bolstered the Utah acquisition. And clearly the mining camps in the wedge that became southern Nevada benefited from being part of a state rather than a weak Arizona Territory.

Emboldened, starting around 1869 Nevada officials tried to carve a chunk out of southern Idaho. Thus, in January of 1870, Nevada Senator William Stewart introduce a bill to add all of Idaho south of the Snake River to his state. News moved slowly in those days. (Boise had to wait five years before it had a telegraph link to the outside.) Even so, nine days after the bill was introduced, protesters held a mass meeting in Idaho City to denounce it.

The bill hung around the halls of Congress for some time, but apparently died in committee, finally. Attempts to give the Panhandle to Washington, in 1874 and 1882, also failed. Backers of these ploys were simply no match for the political savvy of the Idaho leaders and their allies in Congress. Although the partitionists seemed to be close to their goal at times, the Territory remained intact.

Delegate Fred Dubois.
Library of Congress.

The Nevada annexation scheme surfaced yet again in 1886. By that time, miners had exhausted the best silver lodes in Nevada, and the state’s population was plummeting. (It lost almost a quarter of its people between 1880 and 1890). Adding the growing population of southern Idaho could offset the decline.

Led by Idaho’s shrewd and politically astute Delegate, Fred T. Dubois [blog, May 29], the Territory and its allies fought back in Washington, D. C. Internally, they made concessions to North Idaho – guaranteeing a university there [blog, Oct 3], and so on. This eroded northern support for partition. Shortly after Dubois sent his triumphant telegram, Idaho began to prepare for statehood.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W], [Illust-State]

“Constitutional Convention and Ratification,” Reference Series No. 476, Idaho State Historical Society.

“Good News from Washington,” Idaho Statesman, Boise (March 1, 1888).