Pioneer: 2010 Vol.57 No.2

Egan turned himself in. His case was dismissed
when on October 3 First District Court Justice
Brandenburg abandoned his post and fled back East.
Nonetheless, two weeks later Howard Egan turned
himself in again and was arraigned before Mormon
Justice Zerubbable Snow. Seth M. Blair was the prosecutor
and Mormon Apostle George A. Smith and
William W. Phelps served as the defense attorneys.
This was the first murder trial convened in Utah
Territory. The trial jury on October 18 returned a verdict
of “not guilty.” On March 6, 1852, using the Egan
case as a precedent, the Utah Territorial Legislature
passed the Justifiable Homicide Act. The Act provided
that it would be justifiable homicide for a relative to
kill the person who had defiled a wife.
On September 19, 1852, Captain Egan departed
Great Salt Lake City on mule-back to deliver Pacific
Express Company packages to Sacramento. It took 11
days to traverse the 500 miles. Colonel George W.
Chorpenning, Jr., and Absalom Woodward had established
an overland stagecoach line under an 1851 government
mail contract. The result was that Egan
scouted a Central Overland Route between Great Salt
Lake City and San Francisco. Egan’s route was in contrast
to that of the Oregon Trail to the north and the
Santa Fe Trail to the south.
When Captain James H. Simpson of the U.S. Corps
of Topographical Engineers in 1859 was
ordered to map a road from Camp Floyd to
Genoa at the California border,
he recommended the
route scouted by Captain
Egan. This became
the Overland Trail for the stagecoaches, the Pony
Express, and subsequently the telegraph, the railroad,
and the “Lincoln Highway.” However, Salt Lake City
wanted itself instead of Ely to be the hub where the
fork in the highway divided traffic going to Los
Angeles or to San Francisco. Therefore, Utah subsidized
Highway 40 to go right through the Salt Flats instead
of along the old Pony Express Trail.
In 1855, and for several years thereafter, Howard
Egan was employed by Livingston & Kincaid of Great
Salt Lake City to purchase cattle and drive them to
California. 9 Prior to losing his government mail contract
and before the Pony Express was organized,
Chorpenning hired Egan to superintend his overland
stage mail route between Great Salt Lake City and the
Humboldt River. Egan established his headquarters at
Deep Creek.
In the spring of 1858 General Albert Sidney
Johnston’s troops approached Utah with what at the
time constituted nearly a third of the entire U.S. Army.
Howard Egan was appointed as a major in the Nauvoo
Legion together with Lot Smith to guard the mountain
passes. He left his son, 16-year-old Richard Erastus
“Ras” Egan, in charge of the Egan Salt Lake home. His
instructions were to burn the house if the soldiers occupied
the City. Major Egan served as a bodyguard
for Colonel Thomas L. Kane, who journeyed to
The “Old Sow” cannon
is on display at the
LDS Museum
of Church
History
and Art.
e
2010 Vol. 57, No.2 PIONEER 17
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