History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

A NEW BATCH OF OFFICIALS. 481
ing day the legislative assembly signed a memorial
praying that the vacancies be filled as soon as possible
from residents of the territory. 45 Meanwhile, to prevent
further derangement, and for the safe-keeping of
the territorial records, Willard Richards was temporarily
appointed secretary.
The successors to the runaway officials were Lazarus
H. Reid of New York, who was appointed chief
justice; Leonidas Shaver, who succeeded Brocchus;
and as secretary, Benjamin G. Ferris. The new
officials enjoyed but a brief tenure of office. After
remaining in Utah for about a year, Reid returned
to New York, where he died in 1855. 46
Shaver retiring
to rest one night, soon after his arrival, was
found dead in his room next morning, thereby giving
rise to an unfounded rumor that he had been poisoned
on account of a supposed difficulty with the governor. 47
Secretary Ferris, after a six months' residence, pro-
toward the government than the people of Utah, that they revere the constitution,
seek to honor the laws, and complain only of their non-execution, and
the abuse of power at the hands of those intrusted with them. He states
that Brocchus had never even been in his district, and that, so far as the public
interests were concerned, it would have been quite as well if neither the
judges nor the secretary had troubled themselves to cross the plains. ' What
good and substantial reason can be given that the people of this territory
should be deprived, for probably near a year to come, of a supreme court, of
the official seal of a secretary of state, of the official publication of the laws,
and other matters pertaining to the office of secretary ? Is it true that officers
coming here by virtue of any appointment by the president have private instructions
that so far control their actions as to induce the belief that their
main object is not the strict and legal performance of their respective duties,
but rather to watch for iniquity, to catch at shadows, and make a man "an
offender for a word," to spy out our liberties, and by manifold misrepresentations
seek to prejudice the minds of the people against us ? If such is the
case, better, far better, would it be for us to live under the organization of
our provisional government, and entirely depending upon our own resources,
as we have hitherto done, until such time as we can be admitted as a state.
A copy of the report will be found in House Ex. Doc, 32d Cong. 1st Sess., v.
no. 25, pp. 28-32. It is also mentioned in Hist. B. Young, MS., 1851, p. 136.
** Utah, Jour. Legist. , 1851-2, p. 53; Hist. B. Young, MS., 1851, p. 109.
46 At his home in Bath, Steuben co., Waite's The Morm. Prophet, 25; in
his 40th year. Richards' Incidents in Utah Hist. , MS. , 5.
47 Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, 279. Brigham said of him: ' One
of our judges, Judge Shaver, has been here during the^ winter, and, as
far as he is known, he is a straightforward, judicious, upright man.' The
heads of the church took great pains to investigate the matter, and came to
the conclusion that ' he had died of some disease of the head.' See Richards'
Incidents in Utah Hist., MS., 78. Beadle, Life in Utah, 170, says that the
Mormons believed him to be an opium-eatei-, and that he died from being
suddenly deprived of that drug.
'