CHAPTER I. My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing... more...

CHAPTER XI. And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again. News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in the last chapter—"The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and... more...

Letter I Lake Tahoe—Morning in San Francisco—Dust—A Pacific mail-train—Digger Indians—Cape Horn—A mountain hotel—A pioneer—A Truckee livery stable—A mountain stream—Finding a bear—Tahoe. LAKE TAHOE, September 2. I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh. Not lovable, like the Sandwich Islands, but beautiful in its own way! A strictly North... more...

The Court convened agreeable to orders on the 17th of May 1804 Sgt. John Ordway P. members Joseph Whitehouse Rueben Fields Potts Richard Windsor after being duly Sworn the Court proceded to the trial of William Warner & Hugh Hall on the following Charges Viz: for being absent without leave last night contrary to orders, to this Charge the Prisoners plead Guilty. The Court one of oppinion that the... more...

I. WILD WOOL Moral improvers have calls to preach. I have a friend who has a call to plough, and woe to the daisy sod or azalea thicket that falls under the savage redemption of his keen steel shares. Not content with the so-called subjugation of every terrestrial bog, rock, and moorland, he would fain discover some method of reclamation applicable to the ocean and the sky, that in due calendar time... more...

LIFE OF CAPTAIN LEWIS. Monticello, August 18, 1813. SIR, In compliance with the request conveyed in your letter of May 25, I have endeavoured to obtain, from the relations and friends of the late governor Lewis, information of such incidents of his life as might be not unacceptable to those who may read the narrative of his western discoveries. The ordinary occurrences of a private life, and those also... more...

CHAPTER I Early in 1859 gold was discovered in Colorado, and Horace Greeley, the well known writer and a power throughout the country both before and during the Civil War, made, in the interest of the New York Tribune, of which he was editor, an overland trip to Denver by the first stage line run in that day. He started from Leavenworth, Kansas, and with the exception of Mr. Richardson, of the Boston... more...

Chapter I — A Great Transaction in Land The people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract of land known as the country of Louisiana. The details of this purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of the United States) by Robert R. Livingston and James... more...

Introductory Notice WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of adventurous... more...

ARMY LETTERS FROM AN OFFICER'S WIFE KIT CARSON, COLORADO TERRITORY, October, 1871. IT is late, so this can be only a note—to tell you that we arrived here safely, and will take the stage for Fort Lyon to-morrow morning at six o'clock. I am thankful enough that our stay is short at this terrible place, where one feels there is danger of being murdered any minute. Not one woman have I seen... more...