so elected met at Genoa on the 18th day of the same month, and in a ten days' session adopted a declaration of rights and a constitution. This constitution was submitted to the people September 1, 1859. The constitution was adopted, and Isaac Roop elected Governor, with a Legislature and other state officers. Roop was the only officer who attempted to qualify. The Legislature met at Genoa on the 15th day of December, 1859, and adjourned to meet in July, 1860. They never met again. John Cradlebaugh, one of the United States District Judges for Utah Territory, arrived at Genoa in the summer of 1859, and impaneled the first grand jury that ever met in what is now the State of Nevada. TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT The Territory of Nevada was organized by an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to organize the Territory of Nevada," approved March 2, 1861.1 In pursuance of this Act, James W. Nye of New York was appointed and commissioned Governor of Nevada Territory by President Lincoln March 22, 1861. Governor Nye arrived in Carson July 8, 1861, and on the 11th day of that month issued a proclamation declaring the Territorial Government organized. The population, as shown by a census taken by Henry DeGroot, July, 1861, was 16,347. The following officers constituted the Territorial Government: J. W. Nye, Governor; Orion Clemens, Territorial Secretary; Benj. B. Bunker, Attorney-General; John T. Lockhart, Indian Agent; Perry G. Childs, Territorial Auditor; J. H. Kinkead, Treasurer; John W. North, Surveyor-General; Butler Ives, Deputy Surveyor-General; John F. Kidder and Julius E. Garret, Surveyor-General's Clerks; S. C. Gallagher, Governor's Private Secretary; John Cradlebaugh, Delegate in Congress; George Turner, Chief Justice Supreme Court; Horatio N. Jones, Associate Justice; Gordon N. Mott, Associate Justice, and J. McC. Reardon, Clerk. The District Courts were organized as follows: First District: Gordon N. Mott, Judge; David M. Hanson, Clerk; Dighton Carson, District Attorney. Second District: George Turner, Judge, Alfred Helm, Clerk; Marcus D. Larrowe, District Attorney. Third District: Horatio N. Jones, Judge; Alfred James, Clerk; E. B. Zabriskie, District Attorney. The following were appointed Probate Judges: Chauncey Noteware, Douglas County; A. W. Oliver, Humboldt County; William Haydon, Lyon County; E. C. Dixon, Ormsby County; L. W. Ferris, Storey County. Members of the First Territorial Council were: J. W. Pugle, Ira M. Luther, W. M. Stewart, John W. Grier, Thomas Hannah, A. W. Pray, J. L. Van Bokkelen, Solomon Geller, Isaac Roop. The officers of the Council were: J. C. Van Bokkelen, President; Henry O. Smeathmen, Secretary, and W. H. Barstow, Assistant Secretary; Noah T. Carpenter, Sergeant-at-Arms; P. H. Shannon, Messenger, and Henry Lewis, Page. Members of the Assembly were: William Teall, Samuel Youngs, James McLean, William P. Harrington, Jr., John D. Winters, Wm. L. Card, R. M. Ford, John H. Mills, Mark H. Bryan, Ephraim Durham, Miles N. Mitchell, Edward C. Ing, James H. Sturtevant, William J. Osborn, John C. Wright. The officers of the Assembly were: Miles N. Mitchell, Speaker; William Martin Gillespie, Clerk; Samuel E. Wetherell, Assistant Clerk; J. B. McCormack, Sergeant-at-Arms; Charles C. Conger, Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms; C. S. Piersen, Messenger; Robert T. Haslan, Page. The Territorial Legislature of 1862 passed an Act entitled "An Act to frame a Constitution and State Government for the State of Washoe, 2" which was approved December 20, 1862, providing for an election on the first Wednesday in September, 1863, at which election the question of State Government or no State Government was submitted at the same time delegates were voted 1 Secs. 192-208. 2 Stats. 1862, p. 128. for as members of the convention. At this election the vote showed a popular demand for statehood, and elected the following citizens as members of a convention: On the 2d day of November, 1863, the members elected to form a convention were called to order by Orion Clemens, Territorial Secretary, and the ody was organized by the election of John W. North as President, and Wm. M. Gillespie as Secretary. This convention was in session thirty-two days, and adjourned on the 11th day of December, 1863. On the 19th day of anuary, 1864, the Constitution framed by this convention was submitted to a vote and at the same time the following ticket was voted for state officers: For Representative in Congress-John B. Winters of Lyon County. For Governor-Miles N. Mitchell of Storey County. For Lieutenant-Governor-M. S. Thompson of Humboldt County. For Attorney-General-H. C. Worthington of Lander County. For Justices Supreme Court-J. B. Harmon of Storey County; M. D. Larrowe of Lander unty; R. S. Mesick of Esmeralda County. For Clerk Supreme Court-Alfred Helm of Ormsby County. For State Treasurer-W. B. Hickok of Lyon County. For State Controller-Edwin A. Sherman of Esmeralda County. For Superintendent of Public Instruction-A. F. White of Ormsby County. The Constitution was overwhelmingly defeated, while the officers were elected, but found their honors empty because there were no offices to fill. The question of statehood was still agitated. A session of the Territorial Legislature was held in January and February, 1864, but no provision was made for another convention. On the 21st of March, 1864, the Congress of the United States passed an Act, the title of which reads: "An Act to enable the people of the Territory of Nevada to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States." 1 Under the Congressional Act delegates to a convention were elected, and on the 4th of July, 1864, met at Carson City, Nevada. The Constitution of 1863 was taken as a basis, and, after a session of twenty-three days, the present Constitution was formulated, differing in but few material features from that of 1863. The personnel of this convention was as follows: The Constitution framed by this convention was submitted to the people on the fourth Wednesday in September, 1864, and was approved by a considerable majority of the electors voting. On the 31st day of October following the State was by proclamation1 declared to be one of the States of the Union. At the general election, held a few days after, the following-named citizens were elected national and state officers: For Presidential Elector.......... For Presidential Elector.. For Lieutenant-Governor.. For Clerk of Supreme Court.. For Secretary of State..... For Treasurer... For Controller... For Surveyor-General.. For Superintendent of Public Instruction.. For Adjutant-General...... ...S. T. Gage of Storey County H. G. Blasdel .H. O. Beatty ..J. F. Lewis ..C. N. Noteware A. W. Nightingill A. F. White John Church was chosen State Printer, and Thomas Wells the Governor's Private Secretary. An Act of the Legislature of 18612 provided for a territorial seal, designed as follows: Mountains with a stream of water coursing down their sides and falling on the overshot wheel of a quartz mill at the base. A miner leaning on his pick and upholding a United States flag with a motto expressing the two ideas of oyalty to the Union and the wealth to sustain it. Volens et Potens. Several designs were made and submitted for a state seal, none of which proved acceptable. The Legislature in 1866 passed an Act3 providing for "a Seal of State for the State of Nevada." It is described in the Act as follows: "The Great Seal of the State of Nevada," the design of which shall be as follows, to wit: In the foreground two large mountains, at the base of which, on the right, there shall be located a quartz mill, and on the left a tunnel penetrating the silver leads of the mountain, with a miner running out a carload of ore and a team loaded with ore for the mill. Immediately in the foreAround there shall be emblems indicative of the agricultural resources of the State: a plow, a sheaf and a sickle; in the middle ground a train of railroad cars passing a mountain gorge; also a telegraph line extending along the line Sec. 430, post. -Stats. 1861. p. 295. Stats. 1866, p. 94. of the railroad. In the extreme background a range of snow-clad mountains, with the rising sun in the east; thirty-six stars to encircle the whole group in an outer circle, the words "The Great Seal of the State of Nevada," to be engraven with these words for the motto of the State: "All for Our Country." Extract from "A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT" [Commencement address delivered at the University of Nevada May 17, 1911, upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the State University at Reno.] 429. The struggle with the elements for a home and fortune makes strong characters, and they were strong characters who made a State from the Territory of Nevada. There is nothing else so alluring to men of energy, daring and perseverance as the quest of the precious metals. It was the gold in the gulches and ravines of California which in '49 and the '50's caused stalwart Americans all over the land to leave their offices, their workshops, their farms, their colleges, and turn their faces westward and pursue the long, tiresome and perilous journey across the plains or by the way of the Isthmus or around The Horn to the Golden Gate. It was the silver in the veins and ledges of Nevada, a decade later, that turned the tide of these modern Argonauts back across the Sierras, to a part of what was then known as the Great American Desert. The rush of population to Western Utah, caused by the discovery of the Comstock Lode and other great mines with the accompanying production of precious metals, then doubly valuable to the Nation, made a new territorial government a necessity and the Territory of Nevada was created. President Lincoln appointed James W. Nye Territorial Governor and Orion Clemens, brother of Mark Twain, Territorial Secretary. The appointment of Governor Nye was an exhibition of the wisdom and foresight of Mr. Lincoln. We of this day, I fear, do not fully appreciate the commanding figure of Governor Nye in the history of this State. Nye was one of the most gifted and persuasive orators in the United States of his time. He was a man of varied experience, a lawyer by profession from the State of New York, who had served upon the Bench of his native State and also as the first president of the Metropolitan Board of Police of New York City. With William H. Seward, he had traveled on a stumping tour of the Western States in the first Lincoln campaign. He was destined to play no small part in the affairs of the Pacific Coast. With Thomas Starr King, the orator-clergyman of San Francisco, he is mentioned as doing valiant service in keeping the Pacific Coast States and Territories steadfast for the Union cause during the Great Rebellion. The political necessities growing out of the Civil War caused President Lincoln to deem the admission of the Territory of Nevada into the Union as a State a matter of the very greatest importance. His administration had determined that the Constitution should be amended so that slavery should be abolished. "This," says Mr. Charles A. Dana, in his book-Recollections of the Civil War was not only a change in our national policy; it was also a most important military measure. It was intended, not merely as a means of abolishing slavery forever, but as a means of affecting the judgment and the feelings of those in rebellion. It was believed that such an amendment to the Constitution would be equivalent to new armies in the field; that it would be worth at least a million men; that it would be an intellectual army |