History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

NEW BOUNDARIES.
Wyoming was organized, 53 and included the portion
of Utah north of the 41st parallel and east of the
111th meridian, a surface of 8,000 square miles.
Idaho, admitted in 1863, also contained, on its southern
border, a narrow belt claimed by the Mormons,
though merely by right of possession. 64 In 1861,
on the organization of Colorado, the eastern boundary
of Utah was placed at the 109th meridian. 55 By
these partitions the area of the latter was reduced to
about 85,000 square miles, its limits being identical
with those which now exist. 56
The antagonism between General Connor and the
Mormon authorities 57 was for the moment relieved,
53 For organic act, see Laivs of Wyoming, 1869, 18-24.
54 In the organic act, the southern houndary of Idaho was fixed at the 42d
parallel. Idaho Laws, 1863-4, p. 28. In 1850, when Utah was defined, it was
bounded on the north by Oregon, of which the southern boundary was the
same parallel.
55 Colorado Laivs, 1861, p. 23.
66 In 1865 memorials of the Utah legislature were presented to congress for
the annexation of territory in Colorado and Arizona. Utah Acts, 1865, pp.
91-2; II. Misc. Doc, 53, 38th Cong. 2d Sess. For further proceedings in congress
relating to Utah, see H. Jour., 37th Cong. 3d Sess., 737; Id., 38th Cong.
2d Sess., 562; 39th Cong. 1st Sess., 1339, 13S3; Sen. Jour., 37th Cong. 3d
Sess., 61S; 3Sth Cong. 1st Sess., 1009, 1029, 1159; 38th Cong. 2d Sess., 503;
Cong. Globe, 1862-3, 26, 60, 166, 210, 228-9, 1121; Id., 1864-5, 117, 124, 157,
596, 942, 967, 996, 1028, 1172; 1865-6, 1494, 3509, 3522, 4190.
57 Hickman states that in the autumn of 1863 Brigham offered him a large
bribe to assassinate Connor. Destroying Angel, 167. The ill feeling had been
considerably intensified by the appearance in The Union Vedette, a newspaper
first published at Camp Douglas, Nov. 20, 1863, of a number of circulars signed
by Connor and relating to the mining interests of the territory. The general
states his belief that Utah abounds in rich veins of gold, silver, copper, and
other minerals, invites miners and prospectors to explore and develop them,
and threatens the Mormon leaders with martial law in case of interference.
In a letter to Col Drum, asst adjt-general at San Francisco, he writes: 'My
policy in this territory has been to invite hither a large gentile and loyal population,
sufficient by peaceful means and through the ballot-box to overwhelm
the Mormons by mere force of numbers, and thus wrest from the church— disloyal
and traitorous to the core—the absolute and tyrannical control of temporal
and civil affairs.' The Daily Telegraph, the first number of which
appeared July 4, 1864, with T. B. H. Stenhouse as editor and proprietor,
waged fierce war with the Vedette, which was issued at Camp Douglas in Jan.
1864, as a daily paper. Early in 1865 Gen. Connor stopped its publication.
Slenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, 612; Sloan's Utah Gazetteer, 1884, p. 29.
It was again published, however, in June of this year at S. L. City, and continued
till Nov. 27, 1867. The Telegraph was afterward moved to Ogden,
where the last number appeared in July 1869. Richards' Bibliog. of Utah,
MS., 15. In Aug. 1859 a newspaper named The Mountaineer was published
in S. L. City by Seth M. Blair, James Ferguson, and Hosea Stout, being in-
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