Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson
county; 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,” 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 government for “Washoe” was instituted by the
citizens. Governor Roop was the first and only chief magistrate
of it. In due course of time Congress passed a bill to organize
“Nevada Territory,” and President Lincoln sent out Governor Nye
to supplant Roop.
At this time the population of the Territory was about twelve
or fifteen thousand, 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 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
office-seekers and such. Everybody knew that Congress had
appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year in greenbacks
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. 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. 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 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, and it was gladly
accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town to the
capitol, 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. 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
salary—and it was!
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.
It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was
entirely impossible to do more than one of them. When greenbacks
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. 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 high
prices of things in the Territory, and called attention to a
printed market report 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—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). 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, envelopes, 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, as
usual.
White men charged three or four dollars a “load” for sawing up
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. 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. 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.
The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private tollroad
franchises 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.
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.
