Back in 1859, Carson Valley was a pretty dysfuncational place. Judge Orson Hyde had departed in November, 1856. And after September 1857, with the exodus of over 200 early LDS settlers (who followed Brigham Young’s call to return to Salt Lake), the trappings of regular law and order had largely vanished.
So when John Wilson Knott sat down at his desk on June 22, 1859 and penned a letter to Secretary of War John B. Floyd in Washington describing the worrisome “facts and circumstances” in Carson Valley, he filled eight handwritten pages with details. Now, more than a century and a half later, a Knott family descendant has discovered that letter, tucked away in the National Archives. And what an amazing window it provides into what was going on back then!
John Knott was just 23 years old when he penned his letter to Floyd. And he wasn’t even a first-hand witness to much of what he conveyed, writing not from Carson Valley but rather from his home in Tipton, Iowa. But he recounted his family’s bitter experience. And the Knotts had a great deal of accusatory tea to spill.
Beginning in 1853, John’s father, Thomas Knott, had labored to build not one, not two, but four mills in or near Carson Valley. Two of those – a sawmill and grist mill – had been constructed in Genoa for John Reese. And as late as the time of John’s 1859 letter, Reese still owed the Knotts $2,000 for them.
Reese was, or at least had been, a Mormon. Though Brigham Young had recalled the faithful to Salt Lake, Carson Valley in 1859 still had roughly 200 residents left — a group that included families who’d deliberately abandoned the LDS faith years earlier, and a handful of former adherents who later would join the breakaway “Reorganized” LDS church.
In the authority vacuum that followed the 1857 exodus, “justice” soon began to look a whole lot like mob rule, as various factions fought for control. A local Vigilance Committee was formed, and in June, 1858, Lucky Bill Thorington met his less-than-lucky end at the hands of those self-appointed enforcers. That same December (1858), a “Committee of 10” paid an arm-twisting visit to recorder Stephen Kinsey, demanding he hand over all of the original land records. (Luckily for posterity, Kinsey spirited the precious Carson County Utah Territorial records away to the Utah territorial governor instead.)
For the Knott family in 1859, Reese’s unpaid debt was only the start of the family’s grievances. As John Knott summarized the backstory in his letter:
“In the Spring of 1852, my father, Mr. Thomas Knott, in company with my oldest brother, E[lzy] H. Knott, left their home in the State of Michigan for Cal[ifornia]. Having dealt in Placerville as hardware merchants for some months after their arrival, they were induced to remove to Carson Valley, U.T., about 90 miles distant where my father erected two sawmills and a flouring mill for a Mormon company commonly known by the name of [John and] E[noch] Reese & Co. After the erection of the mills, the company were either unable or unwilling to pay him for his work as well as for the capital he had lent them for the purchasing of material, in all amounting to something over $2,000.”
In 1854, when Knott’s payment came due, Reese had no money to pay; his partner had disappeared, after herding cattle to California to sell. Knott had little recourse. There was no functional local judicial system to turn to, and no practical way to collect the debt. It wasn’t even like Reese had valuable assets Knott could snag as payment; Lucky Bill Thorington had already swooped those up while Reese was away.
As a work-around, Knott agreed to take what was essentially a lien on the mills as security, with a promise from Reese that payment would be forthcoming soon. Having done all he could to resolve the matter, Knott left his son Elzy in charge and returned home to Iowa. But “[a]s soon as he had left, the Mormons commenced a ‘reign of terror,’” as Knott’s son John said in his letter.
Reese seems to have been operating the mills himself beginning in January 1855. And as if things weren’t already complicated enough, the following month, he transferred nominal ownership of all his assets to his brother Jonathan back in New York, on February 10, 1855. The following year, acting as his brother’s agent, John Reese leased the Genoa mills — ignoring the purported lien agreement with Knott — to newcomer Russel Kelley on April 14, 1856.
Kelley may have been a newcomer, but he was an up-and-comer in the small local community. On May 1st, Kelley was appointed to fill the vacant Sheriff’s position, filing his oath of office May 16th. Now Kelley not only had the lease but also the power of his office (untested though it was). And that’s when things really began going from bad to worse for the Knotts.
As John Knott put it in his letter, “Reese Co. with their posse ordered [Elzy] to abandon the mills immediately, or have them forcibly taken from him.”
Elzy, however, wasn’t about to give up possession of the mills so easily. He assembled a small posse of his own, joining forces with Richard Sides, Bowlin Abernathie, and J.M. Baldwin — not exactly the area’s most upstanding citizens. Together, they “at once armed themselves with revolvers, double-barrel shotguns etc., and notified E. Reese & Co. that the first man of them who should be seen about the mills would be shot without ceremony” the letter continued. An armed stand-off followed.
The next stage of the “terror,” a John Knott explained it, came in the form of litigation. In May, 1856, Jonathan Reese (the New York brother) filed suit against Elzy for possession of the Genoa mills. By now, Probate Judge Orson Hyde had arrived, so a functional court was briefly available to hear the case (though Hyde would soon depart again in November, 1856). But the outcome of Judge Hyde’s proceeding would not make the Knotts happy. At an initial hearing on May 23, 1856, Hyde documented his concern over the “threatening and hostile attitude” shown by Elzy and his fellow defendants. Hyde was so concerned he appointed a “posse” of local citizens to keep the peace until a trial could take place the following month. And after that trial, Hyde ruled in favor of Reese, granting him possession of the two Genoa mills.
But even that wasn’t the end. A protracted legal battle followed. The Knotts eventually prevailed in federal court, receiving an order from Judge W.W. Drummond granting them possession of the Genoa mills. But it had been an expensive victory; Elzy “spent over $1,000 with them at law,” brother John grumbled in his letter.
By December, 1858, father Thomas Knott decided he’d better get back to Carson Valley. After sailing to San Francisco (with son, Thomas Jr.), Thomas finally arrived again in Carson Valley in February 1859. But he wasn’t here long before a fresh disaster struck.
On March 8, 1859, Knott’s son Elzy was shot and killed. Here’s how his brother John describes the tragedy in his letter, less than four months after the shooting took place:
“[Elzy] and a man by the name of John Hern had had a little difficulty about a bridle. It seemed to be nothing aggravating, and my brother, it appears, apprehended no harm [when] he sent a boy in his employee after his cows. Hern saw the boy a little distance from town [Genoa], dragged him from the horse and took the bridle [from him], saying that “if he or anyone else came after the bridle he would shoot them.” On being told the circumstances. my brother started for Hern‘s house to recover the bridle. He had not been in the room scarcely a minute till Hern fired a double barrel shotgun from a back room through a middle door, carrying away a large portion of [Elzy’s] head and killing him instantly.”
What followed next, John asserted in his letter, was “an exhibition of law and Mormon injustice”:
“A trial was had, a mock trial, which lasted for a day or two and resulted in a verdict of ‘Not Guilty!!’ My father tried to have the prisoner kept until the sitting of the next Court, which is in the present month [June], but the proposal was hooted down and the murderer set at liberty.”
John attributed the verdict to Elzy’s open disapproval of the “barbarous” hanging of his friend, Lucky Bill. “[H]e has had enemies ever since in Carson Valley,” John asserted. The facts surrounding Elzy’s shooting and the verdict, however, were far more complicated. Witnesses claimed Elzy had previously made threats against Hern. And in seeking help defending the mills, Elzy had joined forces with a pretty rough crowd.
By the time of Elzy’s shooting, Judge Hyde had departed, and Nevada had not yet secured its own territorial government. The Utah territorial seat was in Salt Lake, over 500 miles away. And while Utah had officially “appointed” John Child to be the local probate judge, Child himself felt it would be inappropriate for him to function as such. Once again, Carson Valley was a legal vacuum.
And yet a killing had occurred. Hern had been detained. There was no jail in which to keep him. Local citizens expected some sort of trial.
By consensus, a sort of “people’s court” was convened on March 11, 1859, just three days after the shooting. Lawyers from Placerville were procured to serve as prosecutors, and one Genoa lawyer and another attorney from California represented Hern for his defense. A panel of three was nominated to serve as judges. Despite the Knotts’ claim of “Mormon injustice,” there were no Latter-day Saints involved in the process, since they’d all left the Valley in 1857. Those passing judgment were essentially Elzy’s peers.
As so frequently happens in criminal matters, eye-witness testimonies conflicted. But several witnesses testified that Elzy had barged his way into Hern’s home, vowing “I will have him or die.” Hern’s mother testified she’d tried to prevent Elzy from entering, but Elzy physically struck her several times, including once with his fist. Hern, a young man of 18 who stood 5 foot 5, had almost certainly been in fear of a serious beating over the bridle dispute.
The informal jury concluded the killing was excused. But public outcry over Hern’s acquittal led to him being arrested again. At a second trial in May 1859, Hern would be convicted of manslaughter – that court ignoring the outcome of the first trial as illegitimate. Hern was sent to the Utah territorial prison for a term of about two years.
After Elzy’s death, his father Thomas Knott tried his best to hang onto the Genoa mills. But the fight continued. An obviously rattled Thomas Knott would write to his son John on May 4, 1859:
“John Trumbo, Reese‘s son-in-law, . . . came last week and demanded the mills and said if I did not give them up he would take them. I was not on my guard, but I got him to go through the door, turned the key and got a revolver and went to the window. That weakened him and he left. I told him if he attempted to come in I would kill him. And so I would. I have some 5 or 6 double barrel shot guns in the mill, 1 six shooting rifle, 3 six shooting revolvers, all loaded, ready for all such customers. . . . I sit night after night with my gun and watch the mills.”
To the Knott family, Elzy’s death and the fight over the mill were all part of “Mormon despotism and misrule.” But were Knott’s opponents actually Mormons? Some may indeed have been former adherents. John Reese, for example, was an LDS member at one time, though a March, 1859 newspaper reported he had been “expelled from the Church.” But supporters like Trumbo, for example, weren’t LDS members at all; Trumbo had arrived in the Valley with William Ormsby in 1857. Thus despite the strong language in John’s letter, it seems “Mormon” was used simply as a disparaging term for anyone he perceived as being allied with Reese or against newcomers to the Valley.
John Knott’s long letter of complaint in June 1859 was duly read, processed, and filed away by the Secretary of War. But Washington D.C. was a long distance from Carson Valley. It’s unclear whether the Secretary even bothered to write him back.
Still, regular law and order would be restored in Carson Valley not long after John Knott’s lengthy letter. Judge John Cradlebaugh arrived in August, 1859 (sent by the Utah Territorial government), and attempted to establish a federal court for Carson County. But local settlers had already met in Genoa in July, 1859 for yet another “constitutional convention” to advocate for creation of their own territory (an even earlier one had taken place in 1857). And external events would tip the scales in their favor. The discovery of silver in the Comstock Lode brought fresh waves of settlers to the region. Finally, in March 1861, Nevada Territory was formed, with the new seat of government in Carson City — effectuated that July with the arrival of Gov. James Warren Nye and his foundational proclamation.
Elzy’s body was laid to rest in a small family graveyard in Genoa – today on private property, but Elzy’s headstone still stands.
Thomas Knott gave up the fight over the Genoa mills in October, 1859, and, after a few more adventures in the west (including building a three-room house on the Walker Indian reservation), returned home to Iowa in late 1860 or early 1861. He moved to Illinois at the very end of his life, passing away there in February 1877. He never would recover the $2,000 that John Reese owed him.
Elzy’s younger brother, letter writer John Wilson Knott, would marry in April 1861, roughly two years after mailing off his lengthy letter to the Secretary of War. In 1864, he entered a theological seminary to become a Presbyterian minister and was ordained in 1866. John W. Knott eventually pastored some 17 churches over his lengthy career. He would die in Oregon at the age of 90 in March, 1927. His remains were interred in the family plot at Tipton, Iowa.
John Reese made a series of bad decisions that propelled his fortunes from bad to worse – a tale involving hidden plural wives and cratering finances that probably deserves its own soap opera. He died April 20, 1888, and is buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in Salt Lake City.
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Knott family descendant and intrepid researcher Mike Saxton deserves full credit for the incredible find of the 1859 J.W. Knott letter among the National Archive’s digitized collections. Important credit is also due to Knott family descendant Clark Pillsbury for his meticulous transcription of the 1859 letter, and to historian Bob Ellison for generously sharing court documents and additional facts and deep background information. Any mistakes that remain are, of course, solely my own. I am so grateful to them for their encouragement and help in sharing this story!