CHAPTER 25
Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson CountyⒶemendation; and a pretty large county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced no end of hay, and this attracted small colonies of Mormon stock-raisers and farmers to them. A few orthodox Americans straggled in from California, but no love was lost between the two classes of colonists. There was little or no friendly intercourse; each party staid to itself. The Mormons were largely in the majority, and had the additional advantage of being peculiarly under the protection of the Mormon government of the Territory. Therefore they could afford to be distant, and even peremptory toward their neighbors. One of the traditions of Carson Valley illustrates the condition of things that prevailed at the time I speak of. The hired girl of one of the American families was Irish, and a Catholic; yet it was noted with surprise that she was the only person outside of the Mormon ring who could get favors from the Mormons. She asked kindnesses of them often, and always got them. It was a mystery to everybody. But one day as she was passing out at the door, a large bowie knife dropped from under her apron, and when her mistress asked for an explanation she observed that she was going out to “borry a wash-tub from the Mormons!”
In 1858 silver lodes were discovered in “Carson County,”Ⓔexplanatory note and then the aspect of things changed. Californians began to flock in, and the American element was soon in the majority. Allegiance to Brigham Young and Utah was renounced, and a temporary TerritorialⒶemendation government for “Washoe” was instituted by the citizens. Gov.Ⓐemendation RoopⒺexplanatory note was the first and only chief magistrate of it. In due course of time Congress passed a bill to organize “Nevada Territory,”Ⓔexplanatory note and President Lincoln sent out Gov.Ⓐemendation Nye to supplant Roop.
[begin page 167] At this time the population of the Territory was about twelve or fifteen thousandⒺexplanatory note, and rapidly increasing. Silver mines were being vigorously developed and silver mills erected. Business of all kinds was active and prosperous and growing more so day by day.
The people were glad to have a legitimately constituted government, but did not particularly enjoy having strangers from distant States put in authority over them—a sentiment that was natural enough. They thought the officials should have been chosen from among themselves—from among prominent citizens who had earned a right to such promotion, and who would be in sympathy with the populace and likewise thoroughly acquainted with the needs of the Territory. They were right in viewing [begin page 168] the matter thus, without doubt. The new officers were “emigrants,” and that was no title to anybody’s affection or admiration either.
The new government was received with considerable coolness. It was not only a foreign intruder, but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking—except by the smallest of small-fryⒶemendation office-seekers and such. Everybody knew that Congress had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a yearⒺexplanatory note in greenbacksⒶemendation for its support—about money enough to run a quartz mill a month. And everybody knew, also, that the first year’s money was still in Washington, and that the getting hold of it would be a tedious and difficult process. Carson City was too wary and too wise to open up a credit account with the imported bantling with anything like indecent haste.
There is something solemnly funny about the struggles of a new-born Territorial government to get a start in this world. Ours had a trying time of itⒺexplanatory note. The Organic Act and the “instructions” from the State Department commanded that a legislature should be elected at such-and-such a time, and its sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a dateⒺexplanatory note. It was easy to get legislators, even at three dollars a day, although board was four dollars and fifty cents, for distinction has its charm in Nevada as well as elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic souls out of employment; but to get a legislative hall for them to meet in was another matter altogether. Carson blandly declined to give a room rent-free, or let one to the government on credit.
But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came forward, solitary and alone, and shouldered the Ship of State over the bar and got her [begin page 169] afloat again. I refer to “Curry—Old Curry—Old Abe Curry.” But for him the legislature would have been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his large stone building just outside the capital limits, rent-freeⒺexplanatory note, and it was gladly accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town to the CapitolⒺexplanatory note Ⓐemendation, and carried the legislators gratis. He also furnished pine benches and chairs for the legislature, and covered the floors with clean saw-dust by way of carpet and spittoon combinedⒺexplanatory note. But for Curry the government would have died in its tender infancy. A canvas partition to separate the Senate from the House of Representatives was put up by the Secretary, at a cost of three dollars and forty cents, but the United States declined to pay for it. Upon being reminded that the “instructions” permitted the payment of a liberal rent for a legislative hall, and that that money was saved to the country by Mr. Curry’s generosity, the United States said that did not alter the matter, and the three dollars and forty cents would be subtracted from the Secretary’s eighteen-hundred-dollarⒶemendation salary—and it was Ⓔexplanatory note!
The matter of printing was from the beginning an interesting feature of the new government’s difficulties. The Secretary was sworn to obey his volume of written “instructions,” and these commanded him to do two certain things without fail, viz.:
1. Get the House and Senate journals printed; and,
2. For this work, pay one dollar and fifty cents per “thousand” for composition, and one dollar and fifty cents per “token” for press-work, in greenbacksⒺexplanatory note.
It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was entirely impossible to do more than one of them. When greenbacksⒶemendation had gone down to forty cents on the dollar, the prices regularly charged everybody by printing establishments were one dollar and fifty cents per “thousand” and one dollar and fifty cents per “token,” in gold. The “instructions” commanded that the Secretary regard a paper dollar issued by the government as equal to any other dollar issued by the government. Hence the printing of the journals was discontinuedⒺexplanatory note. Then the United States sternly rebuked the Secretary for disregarding the “instructions,” and warned him to correct his ways. Wherefore he got some printing done, forwarded the bill to Washington with full exhibits of the [begin page 170] high prices of things in the Territory, and called attention to a printed market reportⒺexplanatory note wherein it would be observed that even hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton. The United States responded by subtracting the printing-bill from the Secretary’s suffering salaryⒺexplanatory note—and moreover remarked with dense gravity that he would find nothing in his “instructions” requiring him to purchase hay!
Nothing in this world is palled in such impenetrable obscurity as a U. S. Treasury Comptroller’s understanding. The very fires of the hereafter could get up nothing more than a fitful glimmer in it. In the days I speak of he never could be made to comprehend why it was that twenty thousand dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where all commodities ranged at an enormous figure, as it would in the other Territories, where exceeding cheapness was the rule. He was an officer who looked out for the little expenses all the time. The Secretary of the Territory kept his office in his bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the United States no rent, although his “instructions” provided for that item and he could have justly taken advantage of it (a thing which I would have done with more than lightning promptness if I had been Secretary myselfⒺexplanatory note). But the United States never applauded this devotion. Indeed, I think my country was ashamed to have so improvident a person in its employ.
Those “instructions” (we used to read a chapter from them every morning, as intellectual gymnastics, and a couple of chapters in Sunday school every Sabbath, for they treated of all subjects under the sun and had much valuable religious matter in them along with the other statistics) those “instructions” commanded that pen-knives, envelopsⒶemendation, pens and writing-paper be furnished the members of the legislature. So the Secretary made the purchase and the distribution. The knives cost three dollars apiece. There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it to the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The United States said the Clerk of the House was not a “member” of the legislature, and took that three dollars out of the Secretary’s salaryⒺexplanatory note, as usual.
White men charged three or four dollars a “load” for sawing up [begin page 171] stove-wood. The Secretary was sagacious enough to know that the United States would never pay any such price as that; so he got an Indian to saw up a load of office wood at one dollar and a half. He made out the usual voucher, but signed no name to it—simply appended a note explaining that an Indian had done the work, and had done it in a very capable and satisfactory way, but could not sign the voucher owing to lack of ability in the necessary direction. The Secretary had to pay that dollar and a half. He thought the United States would admire both his economy and his honesty in getting the work done at half price and not putting a pretended Indian’s signature to the voucher, but the United States did not see it in that light. The United States was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-half thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his explanation of the voucher as having any foundation in fact.
But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught him to make a cross at the bottom of the voucher—it looked like a cross that had been drunk a year—and then I “witnessed” it and it went through all rightⒺexplanatory note. The United States never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the voucher for a thousand loads of wood instead of one. The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada legislature. They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars and ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million. [begin page 172] Yet they had their little periodical explosions of economy like all other bodies of the kind. A member proposed to save three dollars a day to the nation by dispensing with the Chaplain. And yet that short-sighted man needed the Chaplain more than any other member, perhaps, for he generally sat with his feet on his desk, eating raw turnips, during the morning prayerⒺexplanatory note.
The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private toll-roadⒶemendation franchisesⒺexplanatory note all the time. when they adjourned it was estimated that every citizen owned about three franchises, and it was believed that unless Congress gave the Territory another degree of longitude there would not be room enough to accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them were hanging over the boundary line everywhere like a fringe.
[begin page 173]
The fact is, the freighting business had grown to such important proportions that there was nearly as much excitement over suddenly acquired toll-road fortunes as over the wonderful silver mines.
Congress had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year] Orion Clemens reported to the Territorial Council (or Senate, as Mark Twain calls it in this chapter) on 11 November 1861:
The expense of the present session of the Legislature will probably amount to $35,000, being $15,000 more than the appropriation made by Congress. The current expenses of the two Houses have amounted already to $13,000, and will probably reach $15,000 before the end of the session; and the printing is estimated at $20,000. (Marsh, 245)
He later informed William H. Jones, acting first comptroller of the Treasury Department after the death of Elisha Whittlesey (see the next note), “When I first arrived here people were surprised and incredulous when I talked of making the appropriation answer the purposes it was intended for in this Territory—they said it ought to be three times as much” (OC to William H. Jones, 29 Apr 63, “Territorial Letters Received”).
[begin page 619] Ours had a trying time of it] The claims that Mark Twain makes about the difficulties of the new territorial government are true in a general sense—as evidenced by the voluminous correspondence between Orion and the Treasury Department in Washington—although not every example in this chapter has been independently documented. Mark Twain’s intention to be factual is clear, however, from the letter he sent Orion from Elmira, shortly before writing this chapter in April 1871:
In moving from Buffalo here I have lost certain notes & documents—among them what you wrote for me about the difficulties of opening up the Territorial government in Nevada & getting the machinery to running. And now, just at the moment that I want it, it is gone. I don’t even know what it was you wrote, for I did not intend to read it until I was ready to use it. Have you time to scribble something again, to aid my memory. Little characteristic items like Whittle-sey’s refusing to allow for the knife, &c are the most illuminating things—the difficulty of getting credit for the Gov’t—& all that sort of thing. Incidents are better, any time, than dry history. Don’t tax yourself—I can make a little go a great way. (SLC to OC, 4 Apr 71, CU-MARK, in MTLP , 62)
Elisha Whittlesey (1783–1863) was first comptroller of the Treasury Department from 1849 to 1857 and again from 1861 until his death.
a horse-railroad from town to the Capitol] Andrew J. Marsh described this railroad for the Sacramento Union:
It runs—or rather trots—from Carson City across the Eagle Valley. . . . The rolling stock consists of a platform car, which carries freight from Curry’s stone quarry to Carson, and a windowless passenger car of primitive construction. Two mules . . . act in the capacity of locomotives. Into this car the assembled wisdom climb in the morning to be carted over the rough scantling track to the Capitol, and at night to be carted home again. The car has no springs, and the members think their daily rides afford excellent exercise for the dyspeptic. (Marsh, 47)
canvas partition . . . three dollars and forty cents would be subtracted . . . and it was] According to the Carson City Silver Age:
This large Hall is to be divided into four apartments, by partitions. The eastern end of the building is to be assigned to the Council, and the western end to the House of Representatives, while the central part is to contain two middling sized rooms for the use of the Committees and the Sergeant-at-Arms, of each House. (“Items from Washoe,” San Francisco Alta California, 11 Sept 61, 4, reprinting the Carson City Silver Age of 6 September)
In a letter of 13 March 1862, the Treasury Department comptroller questioned Orion about a voucher he had submitted for cotton fabric and thread, totaling $103.07. Orion explained:
This was for the walls and ceiling of the Legislative Halls, partition and Committee rooms, in lieu of plastering. In this part of the country, few houses are plastered. The custom is to take cotton cloth, stitch it together, cover the walls and ceiling with it, and cover the cloth on the walls with wall paper. (OC to Elisha Whittlesey, 2 May 62, “Official Correspondence”)
Orion’s explanation was apparently accepted, and the $103.07 was not “subtracted” from his salary.
one dollar and fifty cents . . . for press-work, in greenbacks] That is, $1.50 for setting 1,000 ems of type, and $1.50 for printing 250 sheets (Ringwalt, 156, 464–65). The comptroller’s office set the prices to be allowed for territorial printing after submitting a detailed questionnaire to local printers to determine current market rates. Mark [begin page 621] Twain takes some liberty with historical chronology here, since the prices he quotes were established in March 1863 for the printing of the laws and journals of the second Territorial Legislature, which had met in late 1862 (William H. Jones to OC, 5 Mar 63, “Territorial Letters Sent”). Moreover, the problems associated with the deflated value of greenbacks (legal tender notes unsecured by gold, made necessary by the tremendous cost of the Civil War) had not yet arisen in the fall of 1861, since the first greenbacks were not issued until April 1862. Although Congress stipulated that these notes be accepted “in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States,” businessmen on the Pacific Coast continued to deal in specie and were unwilling to accept payment in greenbacks except “at their gold, not at their nominal, value,” which fluctuated widely in response to military and political developments (Mitchell, 142–44, 185, 210–38; DAH , 3:261; Barrett, 30–31). This custom prevailed in Nevada, as Orion patiently explained to the comptroller in 1863:
Legal tender notes . . . are here merchandise (we have no bank notes in circulation) and gold and silver coin is the currency, while in the States the reverse is the case. . . . Any man in this Territory having a legal tender note must sell it for its market price in coin, or submit to an equivalent advance in price, before he can buy . . . any article of food or clothing or merchandise, or pay for freight or printing material or hire of hands. (OC to William H. Jones, 29 Apr 63, “Territorial Letters Received”)
When greenbacks had gone down to forty cents on the dollar . . . the printing of the journals was discontinued] Although Orion did have difficulty arranging for the printing of the laws and journals of the first (1861) legislative session, his problems did not become insurmountable until 1863, when he attempted to contract for the printing of the laws and journals of the second (1862) session. By that time, the gold value of greenbacks had fallen precipitously for ten months, dropping from $.98 to $.57 between April 1862 and February 1863 (it did not reach $.40 until June 1864) ( L1 , 223–24 n. 2; Mitchell, 211, 425–27). When Joseph T. Goodman of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise responded in February 1863 to the government questionnaire about prevailing rates for printing, he indicated his willingness to take on the job of publishing the laws and journals in book form for $.75 “per 1,000 ems” and the same “per token.” Although these rates were only one-half the government allowance in greenbacks, Goodman still insisted on payment in gold. But the comptroller informed Orion on 5 March that greenbacks were the “only basis upon which you can contract for the execution of the Territorial printing” (Goodman to OC, 28 Jan and 16 Feb 63, enclosed with OC to Elisha Whittlesey, 5 Feb and 23 Feb 63, “Territorial Letters Received”; William H. Jones to OC, 5 Mar 63, “Territorial Letters Sent”). In July, Orion wrote to Robert W. Taylor, who had succeeded Whittlesey as first comptroller of the Treasury Department, giving a full account of his “trouble” over the public printing and [begin page 622] explaining the reluctance of territorial printers to accept payment in greenbacks:
Finally, about a month ago, I prevailed on the Territorial Enterprise (after they had held the copy several months) to undertake the printing of the laws, by promising to advance on delivery the whole amount allowed by the Government, on bills made out by them in such amounts as they might think they ought to have, giving them a chance to get more if they could. I expect the laws to be delivered to me soon. Shall I make the same offer to induce them to undertake the printing of the Journals? . . . Nobody seems to care much about the printing of the Journals, and it is so late now that I think it is hardly worth while to have them printed. (OC to Robert W. Taylor, 9 July 63, “Territorial Letters Received”)
The journals for the second legislative session were never printed; the manuscript copy for them is preserved in the Archives Division of the Office of the Secretary of State in Carson City (Marsh, ix, 662; RI 1972 , 576, mistakenly states that the 1862 journals were printed “without interruption”).
with full exhibits of the high prices . . . a printed market report] In his explanatory letter of 29 April 1863, Orion wrote:
The printers express the opinion that they will do “pretty well” if they realize expenses from what the Department allows them. To show more clearly the difficulty the printer has to contend with in this respect, I enclose some advertisements clipped from a daily (loyal) paper published in the town of Virginia in this Territory. I do not see that there is any practicable remedy, but it will serve to throw further light on the probable cause of the high prices asked by the printers. (OC to William H. Jones, 29 Apr 63, “Territorial Letters Received”)
The enclosed “advertisements”—Mark Twain’s “full exhibits” and “printed market report”—do not survive.
The knives cost three dollars apiece . . . out of the Secretary’s salary] Orion’s purchase of pocket knives for the second Territorial Legislature was challenged in Washington, prompting him to submit the following explanation:
The 16 pocket knives were disposed of as follows: I and my clerk had one each. There were six extra clerks employed by the Legislature, and I gave knives to five of them. The Legislature employed two pages. I gave one to each. Some of the members lost their knives and I replaced them; and several members who were not present when the session opened came afterwards, and I gave them knives.
On the verso of Orion’s letter an unidentified auditor noted:
Allow the expense for knives, except to extra clerks as a specialty, & instruct the Sec. not to furnish duplicates to those who may lose them. . . . The Legislature had no right to employ those 4 extra clerks—the Sec. could not pay them & should not have furnished them either with knives or Blank books. (OC to William H. Jones, 29 Apr 63, with notes on the verso in an unidentified hand, “Territorial Letters Received”)
member proposed to save three dollars a day . . . during the morning prayer] Mark Twain’s description of this legislator appears to conflate facts about two different Nevada characters, Jacob L. Van Bokkelen and Colonel Jonathan Williams. Van Bokkelen (d. 1873) had been a member of the 1851 San Francisco Vigilance Committee; in Nevada he served in both the first and second territorial legislatures and during the Civil War was Lincoln’s appointee as provost marshal for the territory [begin page 624] (Marsh, 666 n. 11). On 17 October 1861, while president of the Council in the first Territorial Legislature, Van Bokkelen objected to the appointment of a chaplain, remarking that “he did not think it was necessary to go to an expense of a dollar and a half a day for a short and concise prayer in the morning. . . . He had sat under prayers costing ten thousand dollars a year and did not know that they did him much good” (Marsh, 90). The member who “sat with his feet on his desk, eating raw turnips,” however, was clearly Colonel Williams, whose unusual habit Mark Twain first mentioned in a dispatch from Carson City to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise:
Col. Williams, of the House, who says I mutilate his eloquence, addressed a note to me this morning, to the effect that I had given his constituents wrong impressions concerning him, and nothing but blood would satisfy him. I sent him that turnip on a hand-barrow, requesting him to extract from it a sufficient quantity of blood to restore his equilibrium—(which I regarded as a very excellent joke.) Col. Williams ate it (raw) during the usual prayer by the chaplain. . . . Col. Williams had his feet on his desk at the time. (SLC 1862h)
In 1866 Mark Twain again mentioned that Williams “used to always” engage in this irreverent activity “during prayer by the Chaplain” (SLC 1866w). Clemens had a more personal reason for lampooning Williams: in July 1863 Orion, in his capacity as acting governor, discharged him as a notary public for Lander County for being “a loud mouthed Copperhead”; Williams responded by calling Orion a specimen of “political vermin” (“Caustic Letter,” Placerville [Calif.] Mountain Democrat, 8 Aug 63, 3). Williams was a proprietor of the Enterprise from 1859 until early 1862; Rollin Daggett described him as “an erratic old gentleman who wrote strong, but in villainous English, and was given a great deal to his cups” (Daggett, 15). Williams later “drifted about Nevada for many years, ultimately committing suicide at Pioche in January of 1876” (Lingenfelter and Gash, 253–54).