ABSTRACT

“A DELIBERATE AND ODDLY PLANNED MASTERPIECE OF ROGUERY”: PUBLIC OPINION AND THE GREAT HOAX OF 1872

In August 1872, a mining company in , started a that lasted for four months until the scheme was exposed as an elaborate hoax. The story of The of 1872 is regularly retold as a legend of the frontier, but it also sheds light on the broader social context of the postbellum West. The diamond hoax forced westerners to consider where they placed their trust at a time when war-weary Americans familiar with eastern humbug were migrating into the region in search of a fresh start. This duality, a jaded skepticism existing at the same moment as a hope for prosperity, played itself out in the public’s reception of the diamond hoax. Both the press and the scientific community functioned as interpreters of the diamond news for the western population. The press explained the hoax through local priorities and reflected the widespread skepticism of the era. The scientific community, on the other hand, and their silent partner the federal government, were increasingly trusted as legitimate protectors of the public good. This was reinforced when a prominent federal geologist revealed the diamond hoax to the public. The newspaper coverage of this brief diamond rush reveals the irregular trajectory of information exchange in the postbellum American West and highlights the role of scientific experts and the western press as cultural intermediaries between rural settlements and urban hegemony.

Katy Lee Hogue May 2017

“A DELIBERATE AND ODDLY PLANNED MASTERPIECE OF ROGUERY”: PUBLIC OPINION AND THE GREAT DIAMOND HOAX OF 1872

by Katy Lee Hogue

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History in the College of Social Sciences California State University, Fresno May 2017 APPROVED For the Department of History:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Katy Lee Hogue Thesis Author

Blain Roberts (Chair) History

Ethan Kytle History

Daniel Cady History

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project could not have been accomplished without the support of the women in my family. Thank you, Mom and Sara. I can’t express how much you mean to me. None of this would be possible without your patience, encouragement, and the occasional kick in the rear. My master’s degree will always remind me of your continual support.

I would also like to thank the fantastic faculty in the Fresno State History Department. Thank you to Blain Roberts, Ethan Kytle and Dan Cady for guiding me through this process. I also want to acknowledge the support provided by Brad Jones, Frederick Vermote, Maria-Apericeda Lopes, and Lori Clune in my academic career. The warm community they have created encouraged me in my undergraduate career, motivated me to pursue a graduate degree, and continues to inspire in my professional life.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Historiography ...... 6 CHAPTER 2: HUMBUG CULTURE AND SKEPTICISM IN THE RURAL PRESS ...... 17 CHAPTER 3: MINING EXPERTS AND SCIENTIFIC LEGITIMACY IN THE POSTBELLUM WEST ...... 36

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION ...... 55

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 58

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Every few days news would come of the discovery of a bran-new mining region; immediately the papers would teem with accounts of its richness, and away the surplus population would scamper to take possession.

Mark Twain, Roughing It1

In the summer of 1872, the San Francisco & New York Mining and Commercial Company announced an exciting American diamond discovery with a stunning display at the Bank of California. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 4 that hundreds of people went to see the exhibition. The proved to be so popular that they had to be removed within a few days because “the rush of people greatly hindered the transaction of business in the office.”2 Diamond fever quickly took over the city and spread throughout the West. Over the next four months, speculation about the exact location of the new mine fed the craze until the fantastic discovery was exposed as an elaborate hoax. In November 1872, Clarence King created headlines from San Francisco to London when he discovered that the supposed mine had been extensively “salted.”3 American mining veterans had been expecting a diamond discovery ever since the gems had been found in South Africa five years before. After Golconda, India and Minas Gerais, Brazil, Cape Colony soon became the third major diamond producing region in the world, which dramatically increased the number

1 Mark Twain, Roughing It (Hartford, CN: American Publishing Company, 1872), Chapter 26, Kindle. 2 “The Diamond Mines,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 1872, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 3 “Salted! The Diamond Bubble Bursts,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 25, 1872, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 2 2 of diamonds on the world market.4 Due to this influx, diamonds became newly affordable for the middle class, rather than the exclusive province of the extremely wealthy. Eager to take advantage of the newfound demand, knowledgeable miners noted that regions in the American West closely resembled those of South Africa. In the months leading up to the announcement of the diamond discovery, western newspapers were full of stories of diamond hunters both at home and abroad.5 In his memoir, The Great Diamond Hoax: And Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of , one of the original stockholders in the San Francisco & New York Mining and Commercial Company described the series of events that led up to the Bank of California exhibit.6 , a veteran miner from the California and silver mines, planned to take advantage of the heightened interest in diamonds with an elaborate confidence game.7 In the fall of 1870, he began his scheme by taking diamonds he had purchased to San Francisco and approaching a mining investor he knew from prior association. Arnold claimed the gems were from a new American diamond mine, but refused to share its location. Even though he was sworn to secrecy, the

4 “The History of Diamonds: The History of Diamond Mining and Diamonds in South Africa,” Cape Town Diamond Museum, accessed October 13, 2016, http://www.capetowndiamondmuseum.org/ about-diamonds/south-african-diamond-history. 5 “The African Diamond Fields. A Diamond Digger's Story of the Mining Operations of South Africa,” San Francisco Bulletin, July 16, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015, http://www.genealogybank .com. “The Glittering Glamour,” Puget Sound Weekly Argus (Port Townsend, WA), August 1, 1872, accessed May 17, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 6 Asbury Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax: And Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Asbury Harpending (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958). 7 Arnold’s cousin, John Slack, and their friend James Cooper have also been associated with originating the diamond hoax. Slack took two payments of $50,000 and left the diamond venture for obscurity before the public knew about the discovery. Cooper has only been mentioned as a friend who worked at a drill works and provided drill-bit diamonds at the beginning of the hoax. For the sake of clarity, I am leaving them out of my narrative, since Arnold was recognized at the time as the originator of the fraud. 3 3 speculator was so excited by the possibility of a diamond discovery that he took the news to the president of the Bank of California, and they contacted their mutual friend and fellow mining speculator, Asbury Harpending.8 These three businessmen quickly offered to buy Arnold out, but he held out for a larger payday. The investors agreed to fund another trip to the new mine so they could confirm the wealth of the discovery.9 To fool the investors, Arnold went to London to purchase rough South African and Brazilian diamonds in bulk.10 In the summer of 1871, Arnold returned to San Francisco and Harpending remembered, “A sheet was spread on my billiard table; I cut the elaborate fastenings of the sack and, taking hold of the lower corners, dumped the contents. It seemed like a dazzling, many-colored cataract of light.”11 Satisfied with the mine’s production, the growing syndicate of San Francisco investors decided to take ten percent of the diamonds to New York for authentication. At a publicity event created by their New York attorney, a well- known jeweler examined the stones in the presence of local dignitaries. The stockholders formed the Golconda Mining Company when the stones were valued at $150,000. The financiers attempted to keep the exciting news to themselves while they arranged to have the mine tested in by highly-respected mining engineer, Henry Janin. At that point, Arnold returned to London to purchase more uncut diamonds. In the fall of 1871, he had to find a remote area to “salt” with gems to complete the ruse.12

8 Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax, 146-148. 9 Bruce A. Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt (Boulder, CO: Pruett Press, 1967), 20-25. 10 “Salted! The Diamond Bubble Bursts,” San Francisco Chronicle. 11 Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax, 149. 12 Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt, 26-31. 4 4

The purported diamond field was snowbound in winter so the verification party, including Arnold, Harpending, and Janin, set out in the spring of 1872. Leaving the railroad in , Arnold led the scouting party on a trek through the wilderness, purposely getting lost multiple times. After a week of travel, the team reached a remote plateau in northwestern , which he had salted over the winter with diamonds and rubies. Arnold carefully showed Janin the correct locations and the party soon dug up a significant number of gems. However, Harpending and Arnold rushed Janin away before he could complete his survey, citing poor weather, and Janin wrote as much to the company’s attorney in New York.13 His report stated, “While I did not have time enough to make the investigations which would have answered very important questions.... I consider any investment...a safe and attractive one.”14 Janin’s incomplete report was enough to discourage investment from New York businessmen familiar with the boom and bust nature of the mining industry. Undeterred, the president of the Bank of California invited the Golconda Mining Company back to San Francisco to incorporate as the San Francisco & New York Mining and Commercial Company (SF & NY Company). Up until this point, the discovery had been a poorly kept secret among the principals of the company and their network of investors. Once the value of the mine was confirmed, the company put the gems on display at the Bank of California and the San Francisco press gleefully shared the news. Janin’s mainly favorable report caught the attention of the public and was reprinted in several western newspapers, as he had a reputation for cautious mine assessments.

13 Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt, 32-40. 14 “The Arizona Diamonds – Janin’s Report,” San Francisco Bulletin, August 7, 1872, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 5 5

To protect their discovery, the SF & NY Company “declined to give the slightest indication of the locality of the fields or left the impression that they were distant a thousand miles, or thereabouts, from the actual spot.” In the first few weeks of the diamond excitement, several diamond mining companies were formed in San Francisco, Virginia City, , and Denver around the belief that the stones could be found in Arizona.15 Although conflicting reports from the new companies identified the mining region in several different areas in eastern and southern Arizona, their interest increased the allure of the diamond discovery and added legitimacy to the SF & NY Company’s claims. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 8 that “the office of the Secretary [of the Original Diamond Mining Company] is crowded with applicants who are eager to join the expedition which is to start for the diamond-fields in a few days.”16 In the American West, newspapers from the Prescott Arizona Miner to the Portland Oregonian reported the fervor surrounding the diamond craze as Arizona became the center of a mining rush.17 Most states and territories took advantage of the excitement to promote local interests. Remarkably, despite the many economic reasons to support the claims, the Arizona press remained unimpressed about the diamond excitement. Familiarity with wildcat stock promotion schemes and tension between urban and rural communities made the Arizona editors highly suspicious.

15 “The Denver Diamond Company,” New Mexican (Santa Fe) November 20, 1872, accessed October 15, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax, 146. 16 “The Jewel Fever,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 1872, accessed March 30, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 17 “The Diamond Mines,” San Francisco Chronicle. “The Diamond Fever,” The San Francisco Bulletin, August 2, 1872, accessed March 30, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “The Diamond Business,” Arizona Miner (Prescott) August 17, 1872, accessed March 26, 2015, http://www.genealogy bank.com. “California: From San Francisco,” The Oregonian (Portland), August 2, 1872, accessed June 28, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 6 6

After months of conjecture flavored with increasing skepticism, the news broke that the purported diamond field was a fraud in late November 1872. The San Francisco press swiftly turned to heaping praise on geologist Clarence King, “who put his theories to the test, pricked the diamond bubble, covered himself with glory and brought Arnold’s scheme to a sudden end.”18 King was well-known in California for his participation in the California Geological Survey of the 1860s, and as lead geologist of the U.S. Fortieth Parallel Survey. Due to his celebrity and scientific expertise, he could claim unprecedented authority when he proved that the diamond mine had been “salted.” Western journalists expressed shocked sympathy for the investors and labeled them the victims of the most bizarre stock scheme since the Mississippi and South Seas speculation bubbles.19 The western press relished reporting that con man Philip Arnold spent the last two years luring the cities’ most prominent businessmen into believing that they were on the frontlines of the greatest American mining discovery.

Historiography The story of the diamond hoax is regularly retold in popular magazines, conference presentations, and fictionalized western mysteries.20 These versions of

18 Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt, 99. 19 “A Hoax,” Owyhee Avalanche (Silver City, ID), December 7, 1872, accessed October 15, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. The of Great Britain was granted a monopoly to trade with South America in 1711. At the time, Spain and Britain were at war, which prevented trade from commencing. Yet, trade in shares grew until the speculation bubble burst in 1720 amid the passage of new laws requiring joint-stock companies to have a royal charter. The speculation frenzy took place in Paris from 1718-1720 under the inflated encouragement of John Law’s Banque Royale. The Company had a monopoly on all the resources and mineral assets in Louisiana and actively encouraged migration to the area. The Company collapsed when the bank admitted to issuing more notes than it could support. 20 Henry Faul, “Century-Old Diamond Hoax Reexamined,” Geotimes 17, no. 10 (October 1972): 23-25. Margaret S. Richerson and Mary Jo Jones, Diamonds, Rubies and Sand - The story of Philip Arnold 7 7 the story seek to satisfy a general readership with a sensational tale of the Old West. The hoax literature fails to provide any analysis, as the authors have been more interested in assigning blame or admiring the brilliant execution of the long con. These versions of the story, though entertaining, do not offer any significant contribution to our historical understanding of the diamond swindle. It might be tempting to regard this hoax as a precursor to the aggressive capitalism of the Gilded Age, yet it is important not to read this series of events too far forward. Despite the rapid changes in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the westerners who guided the interpretation of the diamond hoax were products of their past and could not foresee the future. The diamond hoax forced westerners to consider where they placed their trust at a time when war-weary Americans familiar with eastern humbug were migrating into the region in search of a fresh start. This duality, a jaded skepticism existing at the same moment as a hope for prosperity, played itself out in the western public’s reception of the diamond hoax. Although they were familiar with humbug in entertainment and business, the public remained shocked by the elaborate hoax. The diamond hoax merits reexamination, not as a frontier legend, but as a representative of the cultural of the postbellum West. Analysis of the diamond hoax reveals the irregular trajectory of information exchange in the postbellum period. Both the press and the scientific community

of the Great Diamond Fraud and his Connection with Elizabethtown, Kentucky (Elizabethtown, KY: Harden County Historical Society, 1999). Sam North, Diamonds: The Rush of ’72 (New York: Domhan Books, 2001). Kevin Krajick, Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic (New York: W. H. Freeman, 2001). Robert Wilson, “The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872,” Smithsonian Magazine Online, June 2004, accessed February 4, 2015, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the- great-diamond-hoax-of-1872-2630188/?no-ist. Jeremy Mouat, “The New Mexico Origins of the Diamond Hoax,” Paper presented at the Silver City Museum, Silver City, New Mexico, June 9, 2010, shared by author. Ron Elliot, American El Dorado: The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 (Morley, MO: Acclaim Press, 2012). 8 8 functioned as interpreters of the diamond news for the western population. The press explained the hoax through local priorities and reflected the widespread skepticism of the era. The scientific community, on the other hand, and their silent partner the federal government, were increasingly trusted as legitimate protectors of the public good. This was reinforced when a prominent federal geologist revealed the diamond hoax to the public. The newspaper coverage of this brief diamond rush highlights the role of scientific experts and the western press as cultural intermediaries between rural settlements and urban hegemony. This study explains the cultural influences on the public reception of the diamond news by exploring the press reports throughout the region.21 In August 1872, the newspapers that both reflected and dictated the mores of their communities colored the rural western response to the diamond rush. This study uses a new approach to the study of the western press by tracing the reception of a singular news story throughout the region. This approach exposes the path of information exchange and highlights the fact that the content of rural western newspapers is an understudied cultural resource. In the years after the Civil War, hoaxes and the deceptive culture they represented were a familiar facet of nineteenth-century life. A series of researchers have explored the trope of the confidence man and speculation culture that grew out of the rapid industrialization of the 1830s and 1840s. Historians have shown that the accelerating economy fostered fears of the unknown in the middle class and created unique opportunities for those willing to gamble on rapid

21 I included in my research states and territories with established communities prior to 1872 on the west coast and in the intermountain West; Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, , , Washington, and Wyoming. 9 9 industrialization.22 In addition, scholars have recognized the character of the confidence man in nineteenth-century American literature.23 By examining Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, old southwestern humor, and select works of Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville, they have highlighted an adaptation of the traditional trickster character to a frontier anti-hero who used colloquial humor to make fun of the social establishment. This relaxation of social restrictions against deception can be seen in the immense popularity of humbug entertainment in the 1840s and 1850s. By the 1870s, the speculative environment nurtured a unique tolerance for deception in pursuit of the American Dream. This study will build upon these foundations to argue that the editors of the western press were intimately familiar with these strains of influence through satirical western print culture. Authors such as Bret Hart, Dan De Quille, Mark Twain, and Fred H. Hart helped to make the telling of tall tales fundamental to western writing. They abetted the creation of the myth of the West in the late

22 Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830–1870 (New Haven: Press, 1982). Fred Fedler, Media Hoaxes (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989). Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (New York: Plume, 1999). T. J. Jackson Lears, Something for Nothing: Luck in America (New York: Viking, 2003). Edward Balleisen, Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Scott A. Sandage, Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005). Stephen Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007). Eric Lott, Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. 20th ed. (Cary, UK: , 2013), accessed September 14, 2016. ProQuest ebrary. 23 Gary Lindberg, The Confidence Man in American Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). William E. Lenz, Fast Talk and Flush Times: The Confidence Man as a Literary Convention (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985). M. Thomas Inge and Edward Piacentino, eds. Southern Frontier Humor: An Anthology (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010). James Justus, Fetching the Old Southwest: Humorous Writing from Longstreet to Twain (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), accessed October 25, 2016. ProQuest ebrary. John Mayfield, Counterfeit Gentlemen: Manhood and Humor in the Old South (Gainesville: The University Press of Florida, 2009). 10 10 nineteenth century by using exaggeration to tease greenhorns.24 Newspapermen in the postbellum West received and interpreted the diamond news through a cynical filter that expected the jewel fever to be a joke or a stock promotion scheme in the service of ambition. The individual printer-editors who helped to civilize the frontier with a portable Washington printing press have been analyzed by a variety of popular and academic historians.25 These scholars have done excellent work in tracking down the significant number of frontier newspapers that encouraged settlement and railroad construction, celebrated mining finds, and were active in regional politics.26 Newspapers were vital to western development as they fostered municipal loyalty. The frontier press also played an important role in western cultural integration by linking the most remote parts of the American frontier to the wider world.27 The press filtered the diamond news through a local lens, which played an important role in coloring the public’s reaction.

24 Paulette D. Kilmer, ““Madstones,” Clever Toads, and Killer Tarantulas: Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 78, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 816- 835. 25 John Myers Myers, Print in a Wild Land (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1967). Oliver Knight, “The ‘Owyhee Avalanche’: The Frontier Newspaper as a Catalyst in Social Change,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 58, no. 2 (April 1967): 74-81. David Fridtjof Halaas, Boomtown Newspapers: Journalism on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, 1859-1881 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981). Barbara Cloud, “Establishing the Frontier Newspaper: A Study of Eight Western Territories.” Journalism Quarterly 61, no. 4 (December 1984): 805-811. Barbara Cloud, The Business of Newspapers on the Western Frontier (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1992). William H. Lyon, Those Old Yellow Dog Days: Frontier Journalism in Arizona 1859-1912 (Tucson: The Arizona Historical Society, 1994). David Dary, Red Blood and Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1998). William E. Huntzicker, The Popular Press, 1833-1865 (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1999). Richard W. Clement, Books on the Frontier: Print Culture in the American West (Washington, D. C.: The Library of Congress, 2003). Barbara Cloud, The Coming of the Frontier Press: How the West Was Really Won (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2008). 26 Cloud, The Coming of the Frontier Press, 43-126. 27 Knight, “The Frontier Newspaper as a Catalyst in Social Change,” 74-81. 11 11

While useful in trying to understand how the western press conveyed the diamond news, scholars of the frontier press have focused on the lives of the pioneer printer-editors, rather than the content of their articles. These works have emphasized anecdotal stories of untamed frontier newspapermen forced to defend their editorials with a gun. In addition, historians of the frontier press have used a broad timeframe that encompasses much of the nineteenth century, drawing on events from the 1840s and the 1880s to make the same point, while ignoring changes over time. Further, these scholars often conflate rural and urban western newspapers although major demographic differences affected the way news was received and reported. Seeking to address these oversights, this study will cover a brief five-month period, August to December 1872, and focus on specific moments within that timeframe; the beginning of the diamond rush in August and the revelation of the hoax in late November. This narrow approach adds to the scholarship of the frontier press by informing our understanding of the reception of a media- generated craze. We can more easily identify the cultural influences on the creation and reception of the diamond news by tracking the way it was generated in San Francisco and subsequently received and interpreted by the rural western press. Investigation into the public reception of the diamond hoax demonstrates the variety of routes that news could travel in the postbellum West. Historians that study late nineteenth-century western history must confront and overcome the ingrained conceptual framework created by the popular emphasis on Wild West stereotypes.28 In the last forty years, historians of the New West have argued against Frederick Jackson Turner’s triumphal frontier, insisting

28 Sarah J. Blackstone, Buckskins, Bullets and Business: A History of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986). 12 12 that imperial conquest and exploitation are the true legacy of the settlement of the American West.29 Richard White’s middle ground thesis has had the most impact on studies of frontiers and borderlands.30 His concept of a negotiated space of uneven cultural dominance has been used to argue for a greyscale version of westward expansion. A variety of historians have discovered porous cultural borderlands where unique norms developed. These studies have been woven together to make a patchwork regional history of the American West.31 This study offers a nuanced perspective on western culture, challenging the portrayal of the American frontier characterized by a hard line between wilderness and civilization. White’s thesis is extended to show that the frontier newspapermen were not passive receivers of the diamond news; instead, the rural western press became an intellectual middle ground where the metropolitan agenda was negotiated through regional priorities. While most mining districts used the diamond news to encourage migration, Arizona, the center of the diamond rush, chose to discredit the craze because it would have contradicted local experts and given settlers the wrong impression. Tracing the spread of the diamond excitement exposes the core and periphery relationship of information exchange through the western press. The information core was the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the West, San Francisco. From this center of information, news and ideas were disseminated first

29 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, Kindle edition. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921). Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: Norton, 1987). Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon, 1985). Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 30 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 31 Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). Walter Nugent, Into the West: The Story of Its People (New York: Vintage Books, 1999). 13 13 via the telegraph and the railroad before extending to those areas beyond their reach through personal and professional correspondence. On the information periphery, as rural communities received the diamond news, they each chose to highlight different aspects due to local importance and perception of the metropolitan agenda. This system of news dissemination was essential to those on the information periphery and integrated the rural western public into the growing national culture. This emphasis on the spread of knowledge works to contradict the impression that the West was peopled by “physically strong but intellectually colorless individualists, lacking capacity for deep and sustained thought.”32 By fully understanding how rural newspapermen interpreted the diamond hoax, we can better understand how the national culture was received in the hinterland in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The focus shifts to the revelation of the hoax in late November 1872 in the next chapter. Complimenting the analysis of the western press, this study traces the deepening relationship between the federal government and scientists in the West through the careers of two men. Clarence King became the hero who saved the public from fraud, while Henry Janin, the expert who initially verified the discovery, was labeled a dupe. These men represent both the public and private sector aspects of scientific expertise in the postbellum West. King biographies retell the story of the diamond hoax as a turning point in his life.33 These scholars note the positive role King’s actions had in proving the

32 Eugene H. Berwanger, The West and Reconstruction (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1981), 7. 33 Thurman Wilkins and Caroline Lawson Hinkley, Clarence King: A Biography, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988). Robert Wilson, “The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872,” accessed February 4, 2015. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great- diamond-hoax-of-1872-2630188/?no-ist. James Gregory Moore. King of the 40th Parallel: Discovery in the American West (Stanford, CA: Stanford General Books, 2006). Robert Wilson, The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West (New York: Scribner, 14 14 value of scientific exploration to the federal government at a time when shifting political alliances were threatening to undermine their new association. King became the personification of federal benevolence to the western public, while the scientific community celebrated his accomplishment to Congress to lobby for increased funding. Histories of the mining industry have also retold the tale to illustrate the growing role of mining engineers in western development.34 However, King biographies and mining histories merely retell the story as an illustrative anecdote in the lives of these two prominent mining engineers. Geologists, metallurgists, and mining engineers formed a new scientific community that facilitated western assimilation into the nation. The diamond hoax serves as a useful vehicle to explore how these economic intermediaries were perceived. King and Janin clearly demonstrated the value of federally-supported scientific inquiry to the public. This study shows how the reputations of these men as technical specialists affected the reception of the diamond hoax in the popular press and helped to establish scientific and federal legitimacy in the postbellum West. It is important to remember that the diamond hoax occurred amidst changes in politics, economics, and demographics in the decade after the Civil War.

2006). Patricia O’Toole, The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of and His Friends, 1880- 1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006). Martha Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (New York: Penguin Press, 2009). 34 Clark C. Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West: The Lace-Boot Brigade, 1849- 1933 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970). Clark C. Spence, “I Was a Stranger and Ye Took Me In.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 44, no. 1 (1994): 42-53. Clark C. Spence, “The Janin Brothers: Mining Engineers.” Mining History Journal 3 (1996): 76-82. Dan Plazak, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top: Fraud and Deceit in the Golden Age of American Mining (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006). Sarah E. M. Grossman, “Capital Mediators: American Mining Engineers in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, 1850—1914” (PhD diss., University of New Mexico, 2012). Sarah E. M. Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud in the U. S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1860-1910,” Technology and Culture 55, no. 4 (October 2014): 821-849. 15 15

Historians of the West in the Reconstruction era argue that the region was prominent in shaping late nineteenth-century American popular and political culture, and that the postbellum period was vital to the structure of western development.35 These scholars illustrate the political integration of the West with the rest of the nation in the liberal Republican era of late 1860s over concerns about reform and the rights of the freedmen. However, they argue that by the early 1870s westerners returned to their politically conservative roots as the policies of Reconstruction failed to produce a satisfactory solution.36 The increasingly conservative political trends added a layer of misgiving to the western reception of the diamond hoax. These scholars highlight the unique relationship between the national government and the West characterized by the expansion of federal powers in the years after the war. The new efforts of the national government can be seen through their suppression of Native Americans, support of transportation and communication infrastructure, increasingly bureaucratic administration, and control over territorial admission into the union.37 This study offers new insight into this relationship by showing that the revelation of the hoax by a federal geologist helped to bring the western public and the national government together in appreciation for scientific expertise. The diamond hoax can be used to trace a wide variety of historical processes in the postbellum West. This study integrates previously discrete

35 Berwanger, The West and Reconstruction, 3-9. Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). Richard White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 36 Berwanger, The West and Reconstruction, 262-264. 37 White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, 58. 16 16 historiographies on satirical print culture, the frontier press, the role of professional scientists in western development, and the federal government in the postbellum West to explain the creation and reception of this cultural product. This approach will fill a gap in the scholarship about the early 1870s West by examining the economic and cultural factors that affected the public reception of the diamond hoax. Although many scholars read into the postbellum period the seeds of the Gilded Age, the people who experienced the diamond hoax were products of the antebellum cultural environment, which is too often divorced from the years after the war. This analysis informs our understanding of how the western public modified and adapted antebellum cultural norms to fit the evolving postbellum context. The press and the scientific community worked as economic and cultural intermediaries between the urban and rural West. In this role, they influenced the reception of the diamond hoax as both receivers and interpreters of the news from San Francisco in the diverse regions of the American West. By imposing their own agenda on the diamond news, these middle-class cultural mediators helped to form a distinct western culture in the last quarter of the nineteenth century based on regionalism and a special relationship with a strong federal government.

CHAPTER 2: HUMBUG CULTURE AND SKEPTICISM IN THE RURAL ARIZONA PRESS

The excitement over the diamond discovery became intense, and diamonds and rubies formed the theme of many excited conversations and discussions, alike on the street-corners, behind the counters and in offices...On California Street scarcely anything else was talked of. The great diamond discovery was in every mouth, and parties were rushing excitedly hither and thither in search of the stock.

San Francisco Chronicle, November 25, 187238

The media frenzy surrounding the new discovery reached its peak in August 1872, as miners from all over the West converged on Arizona in search of the mythical diamond field. The western newspaper editors received and interpreted the diamond craze for their readers. In this role, they mediated between their rural audience and the source of the news in San Francisco. Western communities reacted differently depending on their location. The mining regions sought to benefit from the diamond craze, while those without a mining economy had little interest in the mineral rush. Curiously, even though they were at the center of the uproar, Arizona press chose to question the diamond rush with discouraging editorials. As the arbiters of truth for their communities, Arizona newspapermen felt free to take the diamond news with a grain of salt. Thus, the western press mitigated the influence of the metropolitan culture on the frontier. Western newspapers in settlements on the mining frontier took advantage of the diamond rush to highlight the best features of their territories. In Boise, the Idaho Statesman reported on August 10 the plans of local expeditions to set out for the diamond fields. The Statesman also reminded its readers of the rich local mining resources and speculated encouragingly on the likelihood of diamonds

38 “Salted! The Diamond Bubble Bursts,” San Francisco Chronicle. 18 18 being found nearby.39 In Denver, the Rocky Mountain News noted that the diamond parties had passed through town, and therefore argued that the diamond field must be in Colorado.40 Indeed, Denver became an outfitting destination for diamond hunters of all kinds once Philip Arnold gave an exclusive report to the Laramie Daily Sentinel identifying that city as the best route to the mine.41 The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on August 15 that “the diamond excitement seems to be on the increase, and every coach brings more or less parties from the east in search of their fortunes in the shape of diamonds.”42 The New Mexican and The Borderer of Las Cruces, New Mexico, also highlighted the many proven mines of semi-precious stones in the region to encourage miners into their territory.43 The San Diego Union even used the diamond rush for local promotion by arguing that the city was the best place to supply a trip to the Arizona diamond fields.44 Hubert H. Bancroft noted in his 1889 History of Arizona and New Mexico, “The papers were full of the [diamond] matter, though there was less excitement in

39 “The Arizona Diamond Mines,” Idaho Statesman (Boise), August 10, 1872, accessed May 17, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. 40 “Denver and the New Diamond Fields,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver), August 10, 1872, accessed May 17, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. 41 “The Original Discoverer,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 20, 1872, accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.genealogybank.com. 42 “The Diamond Excitement,” New Mexican (Santa Fe), August 15, 1872, accessed May 17, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “The Diamond Excitement is Increasing.” New Mexican (Santa Fe), August 22, 1872. Accessed January 12, 2016. http://www.genealogybank.com. 43“For the Diamond Fields.” The Borderer (Las Cruces, NM), September, 14, 1872. Accessed January 12, 2016. http://www.genealogybank.com. “The Diamond Excitement Has Cooled a Little.” New Mexican (Santa Fe), September 19, 1872. Accessed January 12, 2016. http://www.genealogybank.com. 44“The Arizona Diamond Mines - How to Reach Them,” San Diego Union, August 15, 1872, accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. “Arizona Diamonds,” San Diego Union, August 15, 1872, accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. Although these were the urban centers of their regions, these cities were in their infancy in the early 1870s. They fall firmly within the rural press category as each had a population under 5,000 in the 1870 U. S. Census. 19 19

Arizona than elsewhere.”45 Why did the Arizona press refuse to court the attention of the diamond hunters? Although the roughly ten thousand residents of the territory would have undoubtedly benefited from the mining rush, regional prioritization kept the Arizona newspapermen from buying into a story that contradicted their own experience of the territory.46 Economic necessity required that they remain loyal to local experts. Although they could have used the diamond rush to encourage mass migration to the region, the Arizonans only wanted dedicated settlers rather than transient miners. Further, the Arizonans’ skepticism showed that they were aware of trends in American culture that permitted deception in business, as well as popular entertainment and literature that emphasized humorous trickery. In the West, these attitudes appear in dishonest mine promotion schemes and satirical western print culture. Despite the lure of quick riches, these established cultural influences were compounded by the postwar emotional letdown and increasing loss of faith in the radical reform policies of Reconstruction. These cultural trends created the perfect environment of pervasive cynicism, which flavored the reception of the new mining boom. Finally, the Arizona newspapermen questioned every assertion from California because they were frustrated by the external source of the mining craze.

45 Hubert H. Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XVII - History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1889), accessed January 31, 2017, https://books.google.com/books?id=Y9gYAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR3&dq=The+Works+of+Hubert+Howe+Ban croft,+Vol.+XVII+-+History+of+Arizona+and+New+Mexico,+1530-1888&hl=en&sa=X&ved= 0ahUKEwi4_JGL7vfSAhUOzmMKHcIVCmQQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Works%20of%20Hu bert%20Howe%20Bancroft%2C%20Vol.%20XVII%20-%20History%20of%20Arizona %20and%20New%20Mexico%2C%201530-1888&f=false. 46 The population of Arizona Territory was 9,658 in 1870, which grew to 40,440 by 1880, not including Native Americans. “Resident Population and Apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives – Arizona,” United States Census Bureau, accessed May 15, 2015, http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/resapport/states/arizona.pdf. 20 20

Resenting the urban monopoly on information, newspaper editors in Tucson, Phoenix, and Prescott freely voiced their opinion that the diamond rush was a scam. On the periphery of the information exchange system, the Arizona press distanced themselves from the diamond claims from far-off San Francisco. Instead, the Arizona press used the increased attention to broadcast the fine features of their territory. The nation was primed for another mining rush and the Arizona editors could have easily hidden their skepticism to bring the benefits of the diamond craze to the territory. In the nineteenth century, mineral rushes provided the impetus for migration to western territories beginning with the discovery of gold in the Georgia hills in 1828 and followed two decades later by the . During the 1850s and 1860s, Colorado Territory had the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 1859, followed by the Telluride silver rush a decade later. Nevada enjoyed the Comstock Lode silver rush beginning in 1859, succeeded by silver discoveries in New Mexico and Utah. Even enjoyed significant migration following the gold rush in the early 1860s. These gold and silver rushes had proven to enhance the populations and improve the economies of western mining regions.47 Boomtowns were primarily composed of men wanting provisions, tools, and entertainment. Their needs fostered the development of the supply, transportation, and communication networks. In addition, national attention to the discoveries fed financial speculation in mining resources, railroads, and real estate in the region. The Arizona editors could have chosen to support the diamond rush for any one of these reasons. Notwithstanding, “a credulous public’s willing suspension of

47 Halaas, Boomtown Newspapers, 1-4. 21 21 disbelief with respect to the wealth of North American mineral resources,” the rural Arizona press treated the news of the diamond discovery like so much metropolitan financial propaganda.48 The failure of the Arizona editors to support the diamond rush is also notable considering that rural newspapers were recognized for fostering western development almost as much as “the six gun, the windmill, and barbed wire.”49 By connecting the frontier settlement to the city via the telegraph wire or newspaper exchange, and fulfilling the role of economic and settlement promoter, an individual with a portable printing press could cultivate a sense of community. The arrival and maintenance of a local journal became important to the residents of rural towns. Even when an itinerant tramp printer moved on to greener pastures, the community newspaper could be brought to life by another. The frontier newspaper was desired as a means of entertainment and information, as well as a way of connecting the disparate individuals in the town itself to local issues. Small rural printer-editors facilitated “the transformation of a community from frontier individualism to urban unity.”50 Although the Arizona press wanted to promote their territory to potential settlers, they had to avoid sensationalist exaggeration about an important mining discovery because they could lose the support of the community. Rural newspapermen lived much closer to their audiences than large urban newspapers and had to protect their livelihood. At the very least, frontier printer-editors

48 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 829. 49 Knight, “The Frontier Newspaper as a Catalyst in Social Change,” 74. Cloud, The Business of Newspapers on the Western Frontier, 7. The rural western press grew from 285 newspapers in 1870 to 684 newspapers in 1880. States and territories included in the survey were Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. 50 Knight, “The Frontier Newspaper as a Catalyst in Social Change,” 74. 22 22 depended on the patronage of local businessmen and politicians to sell advertising space. It has been argued that the community boosting activities of these newspaper editors were a side effect of making a living as “the sale of news alone failed to sustain many frontier newspapers. Editors often looked to job printing, real-estate speculation, town boosting, and political parties for support.”51 The Arizona editors remained skeptical about the diamond rush because it would have contradicted local experts. To survive economically, they needed to prioritize local interests and sources of information. In a letter to the editor from Phoenix printed in the Prescott Arizona Miner on August 24, the author stated, “The ‘Arizona Diamond Excitement’ does not take here worth a cent. The old miners and explorers of this Territory, who have been here for years...faith in diamonds being found here is very small.”52 Careful not to put too much confidence in reports that could not be corroborated locally, Arizona editors walked a fine line between questioning the diamond rush and local endorsement. The Arizona newspapermen discredited the diamond rush because it would have brought miners to the territory for the wrong reasons. While openly doubting the existence of diamond mines, they were not above taking advantage of the attention to promote the region to potential settlers. An editorial in the Prescott Arizona Miner from August 24, 1872 titled, “Our ‘Poorer’ Mineral Resources” reminds its readers that “should they fail to find” diamonds, they will still want to stay to ranch or to mine Arizona’s many established mineral deposits. The author also assures his readers that the “old citizens of the Territory will welcome you

51 Huntzicker, The Popular Press, 100. 52 “From Maricopa County. Phoenix, Maricopa County, A. T., August 23d, A.D. 1872,” Letter to the editor, Arizona Miner (Prescott), August 31, 1872, accessed April 13, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 23 23 here, and do their best to make you at home.”53 A report from the Tucson Arizona Citizen argued, “A great influx of poor men to Arizona now, or rich ones only to be deceived, could but injure the Territory.”54 In between articles that discussed the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad and the Army’s inadequate suppression of the Apache, the Arizona press found a way to promote migration for the right reasons. The Arizona editors had ample reasons for skepticism in addition to local disbelief. It might be tempting to dismiss the rural Arizona editors as frontiersmen who could not have known about the deceptive humbug practices. Yet their analysis of the diamond rush shows a familiarity with cultural trends far beyond their small corner of the world. The highly literate western people were voracious consumers of economic and scientific journals, religious tracts, and popular literature of all kinds.55 Analysis of the diamond news shows that the western press connected frontier settlements to the urban eastern culture, which allowed their readers to approach the new mining rush with a sophisticated cynicism. The Arizona press was predisposed to be distrustful due to increased concerns over confidence men, financial speculation, and counterfeiting in American culture. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the accelerated economic environment fostered new literary and popular performance trends the offered sly admiration for the humorous trickster.56 The American sense of humor

53 “Our "Poorer" Mineral Resources,” Arizona Miner (Prescott), August 24, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. 54 “The Diamond Business,” Arizona Citizen (Tucson), September 14, 1872, accessed April 14, 2015, Library of Congress, http://www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. 55 Cloud, The Coming of the Frontier Press, 8-11. Tom Snyder, ed. 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait. National Center for Education Statistics, 1993, accessed January 31, 2017, https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp. 56 Lenz, Fast Talk and Flush Times, 3. 24 24 developed an acceptance of falseness, or humbug, in the telling of a clever story or fascinating trick. The similarity between the clever criminal and the entertaining showman reflected a shift in the tolerance for social deception. In his autobiography, P. T. Barnum, the father of American humbug noted, “The public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived.”57 There is satisfaction in immersing oneself in a story that ends with a clever twist, “it is a sensation that is composed of equal parts admiration for the cleverness of the ploy and gratification at a neat resolution.”58 Barnum’s exhibits at the American Museum in New York were not popular because of the public’s dim- witted susceptibility to suggestion, but due to their rational skepticism and interest in figuring out the trick.59 In the booming postwar economy, there was a shift from the criminal confidence man to the confidence man as a model of success.60 By 1870, the charming and manipulative characteristics of a confidence man were newly tolerated as tools to get ahead in business. The con man’s personal magnetism, persuasiveness, and avarice were newly valued over the sober sincerity of the character ethic. Narrowing opportunities for social mobility, a general loss of faith in spiritual rewards for a life well-lived, and the evolving nature of business contributed to the decline of antebellum solemnity and supported new paths to

57 Phineas Taylor Barnum, The Life of P. T. Barnum, written by Himself (New York: Redfield, 1855), 171, accessed January 31, 2017, https://books.google.com/books?id=wisLAAAAIAAJ &printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Life+of+P.+T.+Barnum,+written+by+Himself&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahU KEwjTurSqp9rSAhVjjFQKHeKNBpkQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Life%20of%20P.%20T.%20 Barnum%2C%20written%20by%20Himself&f=false 58 Amy Reading, The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con (New York: Alfred A Knopf. 2012), 65. 59 Reading, The Mark Inside, 70. 60 Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, xiii-xviii. 25 25 success in the late-nineteenth century.61 According to William Mathews’ 1873 advice manual, Getting On in the World; or, Hints at Success in Life, “a tinge of charlatanism seems, indeed, almost necessary to a career.”62 On the fringes of polite society, westerners were conscious of the relaxation of antebellum social mores. In 1878, Nevada newspaper editor Fred H. Hart introduced his collection of western satire, The Sazerac Lying Club, with a soliloquy on the modern art of lying. He attributes a permissive attitude toward daily deception to the accelerated pace of life, which included “the steam-engine, the electric telegraph, daily newspapers, stocks and stock-brokers, and other modern improvements.”63 By connecting lying to modernity, Hart makes a clear link between the progressive mood of the postbellum period and the need for social subterfuge. Westerners realized the inevitability of deceit in a modern society amidst “the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.”64 Hart continued with the assertion, “To-day, to lie, and lie well, is meritorious, and besides there’s money in it, which of itself is sufficient to make it commendable.”65 Hart’s book was so popular that Sazerac

61 Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, 206-207. 62 William Mathews, Getting On in the World; or, Hints at Success in Life (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co., 1873), quoted in Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, 205. 63 Fred H. Hart, The Sazerac Lying Club: A Nevada Book (San Francisco: Henry Keller & Co, 1878. Reprinted by London, UK: Forgotten Books, 2015), 7. 64 Mark Twain, Speech at Baseball Dinner, Delmonico’s, New York, April 8, 1889. Paul Fatout ed. Mark Twain Speaking (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1976), 72, accessed March 27, 2017, https://books.google.com/books?id=mkFgXWvUkVoC&pg=PA244&dq=the+drive+and+push+and+rush+ and+struggle+of+the+raging,+tearing,+booming+nineteenth+century&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKvu Pk8PfSAhWrwFQKHXmyAAcQ6AEINzAE#v=onepage&q=the%20drive%20and%20push%20and%20ru sh%20and%20struggle%20of%20the%20raging%2C%20tearing%2C%20booming%20nineteenth%20cent ury&f=false. 65 Hart, The Sazerac Lying Club, 7. 26 26

Lying Clubs were formed in other states within a few years of its publication.66 In the context of a dishonest society where lying was expected in the service of ambition, it was completely natural for the Arizona press to assume the diamond company was lying about their claims. In the West, this tolerance for deception occurred most obviously in a series of mining swindles. Mining ventures were a gamble, and many westerners made an unpredictable living betting on the quality and quantity of mineral deposits. Illegitimate wildcat mining practices were more the rule than the exception at the height of the western mining era. Ambitious speculators learned to take advantage of the frenzied nature of mining booms to successfully promote false mines. During a mining boom, investors did not care if they are acquiring worthless shares, as they were sure that they will be able to find a “greater fool” to buy them at a markup.67 Although mining engineers were hired to verify claims by the reputable mining companies, they could also exaggerate the value of a mine to increase the value of their stock options.68 Cynical commonsense had trained the western press to distrust new spectacular mining claims. Wildcat mining promotion was so common that Mark Twain was popularly credited with calling a mine “a hole in the ground with a fool at the bottom and a liar at the top.”69 In the months leading up to the diamond rush, newspapers were full of Utah’s Emma silver mine scandal as the legal system

66 The Concentrated Lye, June 22, 1878, Journal of the Fresno Sazerac Lying Club. Fresno Historical Society Archives. 67 Plazak, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top, 8. 68 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 845. 69 Plazak, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top, 1-9. Plazak notes that there is no proof to link Twain to the phrase. 27 27 struggled to solve title disputes.70 They would discover that two stock promoters had sold the depleted mine to British investors and succeeded in damaging the international reputation of all American mining ventures.71 The savvy Arizona editors did not want to risk believing in any mining craze generated by mining speculators. The press noted that Tom Miner of the Original Diamond Mining Company of San Francisco was a well-known “Bilk” within the territory.72 Further, the Tucson Arizona Citizen argued on September 14, “From the moment the San Francisco speculators flashed abroad the news of their exhibition of $100,000 worth of diamonds at the Bank of California, we were inclined to pronounce the object a sparkling but base fraud.” The article continued with dispatches from London stating that Americans had been seen buying uncut diamonds in bulk, noting that “it is estimated that these stones were used by the alleged discoverers of the diamond mines of Arizona to sustain their assertions.”73 Yet prioritizing local interests and questioning unethical mining practices were par for the course for all rural newspapers. The press coverage surrounding the diamond hoax also reveals the relationship between the different constituencies in the western press. Although traditionally discussed in terms of East vs. West or frontier vs. civilization, reflected in the diamond rush is tension between rural and urban communities. At a population of nearly one hundred fifty thousand, San

70 “The Emma Mine and T. W. Park,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 12, 1872, accessed March 19, 2017. http://www.genealogybank.com. E. B. Ewer ed., “The Emma Mining Suit,” Mining and Scientific Press (August 3, 1872): 72, accessed April 5, 2016, https://archive.org. 71 Plazak, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top, 59-77. Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax, 119-142. 72“More About the Diamond Business,” Arizona Miner (Prescott), August 24, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 73 “The Diamond Business,” Arizona Citizen (Tucson), September 14, 1872, accessed April 14, 2015. Library of Congress, http://www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. 28 28

Francisco was the largest and most cosmopolitan city west of St. Louis in 1870, while Arizona enjoyed a scattered population of just under ten thousand, excluding Native American and Mexican American residents.74 The contentious nature of the diamond rush in Arizona highlights the role of the press as cultural intermediaries. Friction between rural and urban western communities in the late nineteenth- century was not uncommon. While the rural communities wanted the benefits of the railroad and statehood, they resented metropolitan interference. Aware of their disadvantage when it came to the creation of the cultural agenda, the rural press took advantage of opportunities to mock and ridicule indolent urban greenhorns. In the West, satirical print culture took the form of tall tales and news briefs through which westerners pulled the leg of urban tenderfeet and each other.75 Whether introduced as stories so good they were believed to be real, or as part of an entertainment culture that emphasized falseness, hoaxes made regular appearances in a variety of newspapers in the middle of the nineteenth century.76 Western journalists like John H. Marion, editor of the Prescott Arizona Miner, were influenced by the fanciful reporting of Mark Twain and Fred H. Hart. Their work as rural western writers brought the antebellum humbug culture pioneered by Barnum and Poe to the American West. When responding to foolish statements

74 San Francisco was the tenth largest city in the United States in 1870 with a population of 149,473, which would grow to 233, 959 by 1880 putting it in ninth place ahead of New Orleans. The population of Arizona Territory was 9,658 in 1870, which grew to 40,440 by 1880, not excluding Native Americans and Mexican Americans. “1870 Fast Facts,” United States Census Bureau, last modified December 7, 2016, accessed May 15, 2015, http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/ fast_facts/1870_fast_facts.html. “1880 Fast Facts,” United States Census Bureau, last modified December 7, 2016, accessed May 15, 2015. https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/ fast_facts/1880_fast_facts.html. “Resident Population and Apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives – Arizona,” United States Census Bureau.. 75 Fedler, Media Hoaxes, 34-50. Kilmer, “Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers,” 829. 76 “Mr. Monck Mason’s Flying Machine!!!,” New York Sun Extra Edition, April 13, 1844, accessed September 30, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com 29 29 made by the urban press, “who believed people in the West were nothing more than a collection of misfits or refugees from justice,” western newspapermen most often chose humor over hostility.77 To fill space and allow their readers to escape the harsh realities of frontier life, editors of the western press added humorous exaggeration to a news story, borrowed entertaining stories from other western papers, or printed satirical hoaxes.78 According to Fred H. Hart, the stories in The Sazerac Lying Club were collected in 1873 during his time as editor of the Reese River Reveille in Austin, Nevada. Locals were supposed to know the story was fictitious, yet at times the best of these stories would get reprinted in distant locations where they would be taken as fact.79 Curiously, the rural western press embraced satirical media hoaxes when they should have been objectionable as representative of the deceptive and morally reprehensible culture of the city. This was characteristic of frontier humor that celebrated the colloquial language of marginalized plain folk.80 Paulette Kilmer argues that humorous “fairy-tale briefs” were used by the western press to laugh behind their hand at the foibles and scandals of the big cities, and congratulate themselves on their superior lifestyle far from the social restrictions and moral deterioration of urban life.81 She notes that “the Arizonian recycled the fable of the ant and the grasshopper in “A Man Without Money”” to imply that “the rugged frontier—where people toil from dawn to dusk to earn their keep—is more wholesome than the civilized East...where indolence turns people

77 Dary, Red Blood and Black Ink, 227. 78 Kilmer, “Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers,” 829. Twain, Roughing It, Chapter 43. 79 Fedler, Media Hoaxes, 41-46. 80 Inge and Piacentino, eds., Southern Frontier Humor, 2. 81 Kilmer, “Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers,” 816. 30 30 into leeches.”82 The choice of humorous fiction in frontier newspapers played a reciprocal role in both the urban and rural communities. The exaggerated accounts in “fairy-tale briefs” allowed westerners to emphasize their moral superiority, while they cemented the exotic myth of the American frontier in the minds of easterners. Humorous human interest pieces developed as a way for the rural communities to frame themselves against the cultural hegemony of the metropolis. These cultural and literary trends had a significant influence on the reception of the diamond rush in Arizona. The search for diamonds in the West had been a common topic of humorous human interest briefs long before the alleged discovery of the stones in Arizona. For years, frontiersmen Jim Bridger and Kit Carson had told tall tales of picking diamonds and other precious gems right off the ground in Arizona and New Mexico. After 1867, factual accounts from South Africa were supplemented with other stories that served to keep diamonds in the public eye.83 On January 14, 1872, the San Francisco Chronicle gave one and a half columns on the front page to the report of a newly arrived Russian count who was accused of stealing his sweetheart’s diamond ring right off her finger.84 Although he was later exonerated, this story functioned like a diamond fairy tale, reminding readers of the exclusivity of diamonds by associating them with wealth and nobility. Other brief stories of diamonds found

82 Kilmer, “Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers,” 817; “A Man Without Money,” (Tucson) Arizonian, October 20, 1859. 83 “Personal ad [for a wife to take to the South African diamond fields],” San Francisco Chronicle, February 8, 1872, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “The African Diamond Fields. A Diamond Digger's Story of the Mining Operations of South Africa,” San Francisco Bulletin, July 16, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. “The Glittering Glamour,” Puget Sound Weekly Argus (Port Townsend, WA), August 1, 1872, accessed May 17, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “Rumored Arizona Diamond Field,” San Francisco Bulletin, January 3, 1872, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 84 “The Russian Count: A Strange and Eventful History,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 14, 1872, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 31 31 but given away by gentlemen who did not realize their value tantalized diamond- hungry audiences. Miners brought in huge stones they believed to be diamonds only to be told they were worthless quartz by San Francisco lapidaries.85 Another issue that affected the reception of the diamond excitement in Arizona was the source and timeliness of the information. It is evident from the earliest reports of the craze that the Arizona newspapermen resented the external source of the diamond news. Much closer to the supposed location of the mine, the rural Arizona press questioned the reliability of news from distant San Francisco. The metropolitan city by the bay had been a financial center of the western mining community for over a decade. Miners from western territories who wanted to verify a discovery, recruit investors, or incorporate a company did so in the city.86 There were practical reasons for miners to exercise caution about sharing significant finds in isolated mining camps, and to have a discovery verified by experts before staking a claim. Yet this could leave the locals out of the loop and in the position of being the last to know of a significant discovery in their own territory. Historians of news dissemination have noted that in the early nineteenth century significant news stories were most often generated in urban centers, then radiated “to the periphery in the form of newspaper articles copied from one journal to another.”87 Although the exchange of information was seemingly free,

85 “New Year’s Calls: Strange Meetings and Reconciliations; A Wonderful Diamond,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 1872, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “Land of Diamonds,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 1872, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. “A True Account of the First Discovery of Diamonds in the Navajo Country,” The Borderer (Las Cruces, NM), October 5, 1872, accessed October 15, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com 86 Cloud, The Coming of the Frontier Press, 73. 87 Menahem Blondheim, News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 3. 32 32 the timeliness and therefore the power of having the news first remained in those urban centers. The advent of the telegraph in 1844 made the spread of knowledge faster, but also narrowed the avenues through which information could travel, thus providing an opportunity for newspaper conglomerates to control the news.88 Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his 1840 analysis of American democracy, “Only a newspaper can...succeed at putting the same thought into a thousand ears at the same time.”89 In the case of the diamond rush, de Tocqueville’s quote applies in theory, but not in practice. The news of the diamond discovery radiated out from San Francisco over the first few weeks of August 1872. The rural western press received the news irregularly based on proximity to the telegraph and the railroad. In areas without this infrastructure, news traveled through the mail in personal and professional newspaper exchanges. Western residents subscribed to their hometown paper, or sent their local paper back East to let their families know how they fared. In addition, rural and urban newspapers regularly exchanged subscriptions to keep up on national news and generate content in the age before copyright concerns. While waiting for their news to arrive, rural community newspapers often acquired information days or weeks after significant events occurred in the cities. The diamond excitement was first shared in Arizona a full two weeks after it was reported in San Francisco. The western press was aware of its dependence on metropolitan centers for their best regional and national news, in addition to its supplies of paper and ink. The Arizonans’ antipathy toward San Francisco was an example of a rural constituency begrudging the knowledge-power dynamic.

88Blondheim, News over the Wires, 4-7. 89 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Vol 2, ed. Eduardo Nolla, trans. James T. Schleifer (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2012), 905, accessed May 15, 2015, ProQuest Ebrary. 33 33

Articles that asserted “most of what we know about diamonds is told elsewhere” indicate that the printer-editors of the Arizona frontier press were aware of their position on the fringe of the western communication networks. When they first received news of the diamond craze from California newspapers, the editors of the Arizona press reported it as hearsay.90 Implying that the diamond excitement was a conspiracy by San Francisco capitalists to sell stock in a fake mine, an editorial illustrates the attitude shared by the Arizona press, “San Francisco is the hot-bed of excitement and sensationalism. A legitimate proposition has always stood a poor chance of finding favor in the eyes of feverish San Franciscans, who have always preferred bronco wild-cat to tame rabbit.”91 The article continued with the assertion that

We have prospected a great portion of Arizona, and have never yet struck upon a diamond ranche [sic]; yet, diamonds may exist here, and we do not wish to discourage any one from coming to look for them. But, should they not succeed in finding them, they will please remember that it was Californians, not Arizonans, who lured them to pursue such dazzling objects.92

This sardonic regional response shows the characteristic resistance of the rural intermountain West to reports from distant California. Related to this tension between the rural and urban western populations is their wartime political affiliation. Arizona had been the westernmost Confederate territory during the Civil War and residents retained a dislike of the federal government. John H. Marion, eccentric owner-editor of the Prescott Arizona

90 “Our "Poorer" Mineral Resources,” Arizona Miner. 91 “Great Diamond Sensation,” Arizona Miner (Prescott), August 17, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015. http://www.genealogybank.com. 92 “Great Diamond Sensation,” Arizona Miner. 34 34

Miner from 1867 to 1877, designated his paper as an “Organ of the White People of Arizona.”93 He stated in his first issue that he would “advocate the ancient and time-honored principles of the grand, liberty-defending Democratic party.”94 Although he promised in the same introduction to “make the Miner more useful than it has ever before been, in making known the resources, mineral, agricultural and pastoral, of the whole Territory,” it could be argued that his editorials were colored with disdain for the diamond news from Unionist California.95 We can trace the cultural influences that informed the decisions of the western newspapermen through the language and tone of the diamond coverage. Although their Territory was targeted by the diamond promoters, the newspaper editors in rural Arizona withheld their support from a profitable mining rush to prioritize regional interests and favor territorial reports over externally-generated news. Through articles suggesting that the diamond excitement was just another fraudulent attempt to boost the stock prices of the mining company, the Arizona press demonstrated an awareness of the deceptive culture of the era and worked to distinguish themselves from urban propaganda. In highlighting resident opinions, the Arizona press demonstrated a rural distrust of news coming from the urban metropolis of San Francisco. Investigation into the popular reception of the diamond rush in Arizona reveals the trajectory of information exchange in the postbellum West. The rural communities felt free to accept or reject the urban agenda based on local support. The Arizona newspapermen influenced the territory’s relationship with the

93 Lyon, Those Old Yellow Dog Days, 11, 140.

94 Salutatory, Arizona Miner (Prescott), September 21, 1867, accessed February 12, 2017. http://www.genealogybank.com.

95 Salutatory, Arizona Miner. Original emphasis. 35 35 dominant metropolitan culture through their interpretation of the diamond news. Through centrifugal networks, frontier editors were not merely receivers of metropolitan news and values, but agents of their community’s cultural integration into the nation.

CHAPTER 3: MINING EXPERTS AND SCIENTIFIC LEGITIMACY IN THE POSTBELLUM WEST

The exposé has caused a profound sensation of mingled doubt, disgust and indignation in the community. General Colton states that they made ninety- three examinations of the ground at and around the holes where Arnold found diamonds for Janin last spring, and that in no instance was a single gem found by them. He asserts that nature could no more have put diamonds on the bare rocks where he found them than he could toss a marble from this city to the top of Bunker Hill monument.

Sacramento Daily Union, November 27, 187296

After months of speculation about the elusive location of the diamonds, investigative reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle broke the news in late November 1872 that the diamond mine was a massive hoax. The American public had been “hornswoggled by a very adroitly and expensively devised and executed salting process, whereby the very epidermis and bowels of the earth were made to bear false witness in favor of a deliberate and oddly planned masterpiece of roguery.”97 The press ridiculed Henry Janin, the professional mining engineer who initially verified the diamond mine, as a fool that did not use his best judgement.98 In contrast, unqualified praise filled the newspapers for United States geologist Clarence King who took it upon himself to investigate and exposed the deception. Analysis of the diamond hoax allows for a brief glimpse of a cross-section of postbellum cultural relationships. Like the press, the discussion surrounding these two men exposes the intermediary role of scientists in West. Following the

96 “The Diamond Fever,” Sacramento Daily Union, November 27, 1872, accessed April 12, 2015, California Digital Newspaper Collection, http://cdnc.ucr.edu. 97 “Precious Rascals and their Precious Stones,” New Daily Appeal (Carson City, NV), November 28, 1872, accessed October 15, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 98 “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin, November 26, 1872, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 37 37

Comstock strike, westerners learned to trust the opinions of scientific experts. Mining silver was significantly more complicated than picking gold out of streams and sophisticated processes were developed to separate ore from slag. Making regular trips between western cities and remote mining regions, these scientists physically brought urban culture to the hinterland. An important part of communication networks on the frontier, the press and scientists were increasingly able to use their transitional position to influence the flow of public opinion. Scientists became economic mediators that connected the growing national culture and the landscape. When the diamond hoax was revealed, far from reflecting the widespread skepticism of the day, the popular perception of King was remarkable for its positive tone. Even Janin was curiously able to retain his honorable reputation and avoid taking the fall for the entire swindle by owning up to his mistakes.99 This rapid shift in public opinion can be explained by the fact that these men had established reputations for scientific expertise. As a mining expert and a scientific explorer, these men were part of a new generation of university-educated scientists in the Civil War era and the public had learned to place their faith in their specialized knowledge. Another factor that helped generate positive press for King and Janin was their honorable behavior, which demonstrated an antebellum character ethic that was foreign to the increasingly dishonest mining industry. Their social standing as explorers of the romantic West, whose published travel journals interpreted the harshest and most beautiful western landscapes for the public, cemented their status as gentlemen. The changing relationship between science and the federal government was the final issue that affected the public

99 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 836-839. 38 38 perception of King and Janin. By funding scientific exploration into the most remote regions of the West, the government expanded its knowledge and control of western territories in the postbellum period.100 King’s honorable actions as a federal employee helped to elevate both science and the federal government in the eyes of the western public. After the diamond discovery was made public in August, the SF & NY Company and a cohort of other diamond companies in the major cities of the West settled in to sell shares. In the meantime, Philip Arnold, the recognized originator of the discovery, stirred the pot with tantalizing stories to the press in Laramie and Denver.101 In the months before the hoax was revealed, major western newspapers paid reporters to follow Arnold in the hopes that he would return to the mysterious mine.102 Yet, when the hoax was discovered, he was nowhere to be found. He had long since returned to his native Kentucky with his profits in his wife’s name, well beyond the reach of California authorities. He used his ill-gotten gains to set himself up in a grand house and buy a bank. Even though Arnold was taken to civil court by a principal investor in the company and forced to pay $150,000 in reparations, it is estimated that he retained around $300,000.103 The Louisville Courier-Journal reported in December 1872 that Arnold’s neighbors applauded his skill at “out-Heroding Herod, and out-Yankeeing the Yankees.”104

100 White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, 58.

101 “The Original Discoverer,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 20, 1872, accessed October 16, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com.

102 Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt, 84-96.

103 Lent v. Arnold, Hardin County, Kentucky, 1874, cited in Woodard, 187.

104 Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), December 16, 1872 quoted in Woodard, 121. 39 39

In the fall of 1872, King and his team were wrapping up the field work of the Fortieth Parallel Survey. Also called the King Survey, it was a five-year endeavor which explored the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the around the new transcontinental railroad.105 King was aware of the diamond excitement but considered it of little importance until he heard rumors that the diamonds might be within the range of the survey. King may have been inspired to investigate because the diamond reports cast doubt on “the value of government-sponsored science and King’s own expertise,” however our focus is on how his actions were perceived by the public, not on his motives.106 King and his crew inferred the location of the diamond field from their extensive knowledge of the area after overhearing a conversation between Henry Janin and a few investors on a train returning to San Francisco. In early November 1872, King and select team members, including diarist Samuel F. Emmons, investigated the site and quickly concluded that the remote sandstone mesa in northwestern Colorado had been thoroughly and expensively salted.107 King returned to San Francisco with the news and, as a professional courtesy, shared it first with Henry Janin, since much of the diamond excitement rested on his positive report that stated “I consider this to be a wonderfully rich discovery...that will prove extremely profitable.”108 Trained in Europe, Henry Janin and his brothers, Louis and Alexis, had built solid reputations in the western

105 The Fortieth Parallel Survey (1867-1872) analyzed the land approximately eight hundred miles long by one hundred miles wide in the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada around the new transcontinental railroad.

106 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 839.

107 , “The Diamond Discovery of 1872,” cited in Wilkins and Hinkley. 171-185.

108 “The Arizona Diamonds – Janin’s Report,” San Francisco Bulletin. 40 40 mining community in the 1860s. Henry’s brothers worked in a series of mills on the Comstock Lode and developed new techniques for mining silver, while Henry built a transient career evaluating prospective mines and speculating on mining stock.109 By 1872, Henry Janin had spent a decade building a sterling reputation for his conservative mine assessments. Janin’s name was essential to the perpetrators of the hoax, for without his authority the scheme would not have been so successful.110 The next morning, King and Janin took the story to the appalled board of directors of the SF & NY Company. They quickly asked the scientists to return to Colorado with a team to confirm the fraud. While they were in the field, the San Francisco Chronicle noted, “Clarence King’s report is anxiously looked for. His high reputation as a geologist will give great weight to the verdict.”111 On November 26 under the headline, “Unmasked! The Great Diamond Fiasco,” the San Francisco Chronicle printed King’s report to the company in which he explained that the Colorado diamond field had been extensively salted with “four distinct types of diamonds, oriental rubies, garnets, spinels, sapphires, emeralds, and amethysts.”112 King could prove that the combination of minerals did not occur naturally, and that they were primarily found in disturbed ground and pushed into ant hills in regular proportions.113

109 Henry Janin to Juliet Covington Janin, Denver, July, 1875, quoted in Clark C. Spence, “The Janin Brothers: Mining Engineers,” 79. 110 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 836-839. 111 “Salted or Not? Latest Phase of the Diamond Flurry,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 1872, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 112 “Unmasked! The Great Diamond Fiasco,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 1872, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.genealogybank.com. 113 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. 41 41

The San Francisco Bulletin praised King’s efforts: “Fortunately for the good name of San Francisco and the State...there was one cool-headed man of scientific education who esteemed it a duty to investigate the matter in the only right way, and who proceeded about his task with a degree of spirit and strong common sense as striking as his success.”114 Others were involved in debunking the hoax, yet “Honest Clarence King,” the “celebrated geologist,” received the lion’s share of the positive attention from the press.115 As the news of the hoax spread in December 1872, Clarence King became a household name through reports across the country from the New-York Daily Tribune to The True Northerner of Paw Paw, Michigan.116 As the man who exposed the hoax, King’s behavior and interpretation of events had the most effect on the public reception of the events that followed. The San Francisco press was already familiar with the geologist when King made headlines by exposing the diamond hoax. He and the Fortieth Parallel team had wintered in the city since 1869 as they compiled their field work for the survey. In addition, King had participated in the California Geological Survey with in the early 1860s. An editorial in the San Francisco Bulletin remembered that King’s expertise had saved the state from an equally unsubstantiated petroleum speculation frenzy at that time.117 A popular anecdote even credited him with naming after his mentor.

114 “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 115 “Precious Rascals and their Precious Stones,” New Daily Appeal. “The Great Imposition,” Elevator (San Francisco), November 30, 1872, 2, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 116 “The Diamond Swindle Exposed,” New-York Daily Tribune, November 27, 1872, accessed February 14, 2015. Library of Congress, http://www.chroniclingamerica.loc. “The Diamond Fraud,” The True Northerner (Paw Paw, MI), December 20, 1872, accessed February 14, 2015. Library of Congress, http://www.chroniclingamerica.loc. 117 “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 42 42

After he left the California Survey in 1867, King’s experience, engaging manner, and connections at his alma mater earned him a position with the federal government.118 At the age of twenty-five, King successfully lobbied Congress for the creation of the United States Army’s Fortieth Parallel Survey under his leadership.119 A collection of essays about King’s time in California, which first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, were published in late 1871 as Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.120 In addition to his personal accomplishments, King and teammate James D. Hague had recently published Mining Industry, the first of a series monographs to come out of the field work of the survey, to positive reviews from the eastern scientific community.121 At the end of the year, King’s authority as an eminent United States geologist was such that public school teachers in Oakland, California were citing him when their students doubted the existence of giant Sequoia trees.122 King and Janin were part of the growing community of scientific experts on the mining frontier in the Civil War era.123 Where just a decade earlier a skilled mine assayer would have been able to build a career out of a lifetime of experience, these men were part of the first generation with the university education that was to become a necessary part of a mining engineer’s authority.124 It has been argued that antebellum Americans grew to appreciate scientific

118 William H. Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West (New York, NY: History Book Club, 1993), 433. 119 Woodard, Diamonds in the Salt, 99-113. 120 Clarence King, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1871). 121 Wilkins and Hinkley. Clarence King, 168-170. 122 “Our Public Schools,” Oakland Daily Transcript, November 27, 1872. 123 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 355. 124 Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 63-78. 43 43 expertise for practical economic ingenuity and because it coincided with commonsense truths found in religion and nature.125 This new emphasis on education was a shift from a few decades earlier when the practices of self- educated phrenologists, naturalists, and natural philosophers were broadly considered scientific.126 Henry Janin and his brothers trained at the Freiberg Mining Academy in Saxony and the École des Mines in Paris, while King graduated from the new Sheffield Scientific School at Yale.127 The educational backgrounds of King and Janin were representative of the efforts of the scientific community to standardize their methodology by promoting peer review and disciplinary specialization. King’s survey of the fortieth parallel, nominally under the direction of the Army and General A. A. Humphreys, was one of the first to be staffed with university- educated civilians. Rather than the naturalists used in Army surveys of the antebellum era, King chose his peers from the halls of science to join his expedition.128 To reinforce the legitimacy of their empirical methods and findings, the educated scientific community worked toward a position of political and social power. Founded on a British model in 1847, the American Association for the Advancement of Science developed as an organization that endeavored to maintain its exclusivity.129 Following the innovations that grew out of the war

125 Daniel Patrick Thurs, Science Talk: Changing Notions of Science in American Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 24-27, accessed October 21, 2016. ProQuest ebrary. 126 Thurs, Science Talk, 24. 127 Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 14, 31. 128 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 433. 129 Thurs, Science Talk 28. 44 44 machine, the scientific community was in a favorable position to form a lasting partnership with the federal government in the postbellum period. This move toward exclusivity included drawing stronger distinctions between working and academic scientists. Although the term professional scientist would not have been used in nineteenth-century America, working or lucrative scientists were those that made a living from their scientific proficiency, such as doctors and mining engineers.130 These technocrats were fully immersed in the booming commercial economy. Men of science, on the other hand, worked to stay above the hawkishness of nation states and distained the taint of corruption associated with private enterprise. As part of an international scientific community, these men were dedicated to scientific discovery as a free and public good. The man of science was an elite masculine archetype whose disinterestedness made him the ideal guardian of scientific truth.131 With regards to the diamond hoax, the professional scientist and the man of science were personified by Henry Janin and Clarence King, respectively. An important distinction between the man of science and the professional scientist was the former’s separation from the filthy lucre of the speculation economy. Mining speculation was a profitable commercial venture in the nineteenth-century American West. As such, there was a high level of risk involved for potential investors, so mining companies employed reputable mining engineers to examine claims and certify the value of discoveries before offering shares to the public. However, those mining engineers were often paid in company

130 Paul Lucier, “The Professional and the Scientist in Nineteenth-Century America.” Isis 100, no. 4 (2009): 699-732. 131 James Mussell, “Private Practices and Public Knowledge: Science, Professionalization and Gender in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 5, no. 2 (2009): 1-36. 45 45 stock, which left them with a major incentive to exaggerate the extent of the discovery.132 Men like the Janin brothers were increasingly in demand to run mills, assay new discoveries, and act as expert witnesses in mining disputes.133 When placer, or alluvial stream, mining was no longer profitable, expertise and capital were needed to mill valuable copper and silver ore. In the risky mining industry, mining engineers had a close relationship with the industrial capitalists due to their specialized knowledge which could make or break a prospective mine. Their investments were reported in the new mining journals such as The Engineering and Mining Journal, Scientific American, and the San Francisco-based Mining and Scientific Press. Mining engineers played an important role in drawing investment capital into the most isolated regions of the West.134 Like newspaper exchanges, mining engineers helped to connect “various local and metropolitan constituencies and the landscape.”135 Professional mining engineers formed a new western middle-class that facilitated rural economic integration with the nation. This distinctive relationship affected how Janin was perceived following the revelation of the diamond hoax. Although he believed that “the chances are always against a mine,” Janin was known for investing his own funds in defunct mines he thought could be revived with new methods.136 Clarence King, on the other hand, embodied the man of science in his ability to acquire a government position through his connections to the scientific

132 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 821-845, 845. 133 Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West, 55-62. 134 Grossman, “Capital Mediators”, 4. 135 Grossman, “Mining Engineers and Fraud,” 824. 136 Spence, “The Janin Brothers,” 79. 46 46 community at Yale.137 In addition to his scientific connections, King was also known for being part of the political and literary elite as a close friend of and Henry James and their accomplished spouses, known collectively as the “five of hearts.”138 Rather than depend on capitalists for his pay, King obtained federal employment leading the exploration of the romantic West. Although King was a working scientist, in the field for much of the year, his status as a leading scientific explorer identified him as a man of science despite the mud on his boots. The federal government was predisposed to put its faith in men of science rather than working professionals due to their social and political influence. The National Academy of Sciences was formed by President Lincoln in 1863. Under the direction of Alexander Dallas Bache, the organization worked to limit its membership to those with a scientific education.139 The leading scientists from the new scientific schools at Harvard and Yale were closely connected to the political elite in Washington. In the years after the Civil War, they worked diligently to standardize their disciplines and prove the value of government departments dedicated to practical scientific inquiry.140 Another factor that contributed to the celebration of Clarence King in the San Francisco press was his strong character ethic. Although it has been argued that an honorable character was already on its way out of fashion in favor of morally-questionable charisma, King worked diligently to protect the public from fraud once he realized the mine was salted.141 Samuel Emmons noted that King

137 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 433. 138 Patricia O’Toole, The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, 1880-1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006).

139 Thurs, Science Talk, 27-31 140 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 433. 141 Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, xiii-xviii, 205. 47 47 and his team had been followed to the diamond mesa by mining investors J. F. Berry and George Hearst when they first discovered the fraud. When he heard confirmation that the mine was salted, Berry famously exclaimed “What a chance to sell short!” At this, King realized that he had to get the information to San Francisco as soon as possible to prevent stock fraud. Once in San Francisco, the board of directors of the SF & NY Company wanted him to wait a few days to spread the news in order sell off their own investments, but King refused and threatened to go to the newspapers. King only agreed to join the team sent to confirm the fraud if the company arranged that his report would be made public, no matter the result.142 The San Francisco Bulletin noted that King refused to take any money for his services, “Mr. King, while acting strictly as a government officer, and upon the suggestion of his own sense of duty, has done the public a memorable service, the mere statement of which carries with it all the praise a man like him can desire, as it is the only reward he will receive.”143 The western public was very aware of how easy it would have been for King to take the bribe offered by the company to keep quiet.144 By behaving ethically, King was worthy of unqualified praise. In the postwar West, where ambition and greed were the watch words, King’s integrity endeared him to the western public. Even though he fit more clearly in the mold of the professional scientist, Janin also demonstrated an honorable character at odds with deceptive practices common to mining industry. Janin rebuilt his professional reputation within a few years by quickly admitting to his error and making reparations. The investigating

142 Emmons, “The Diamond Discovery of 1872,” cited in Wilkins and Hinkley, 171-185. 143 “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 144 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 48 48 reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, “Up to within the last month I would have staked my life that the diamond stories were reliable—you couldn’t make me believe that Janin could be fooled or induced to misrepresent anything of that kind.”145 Once he realized his mistake in early November 1872, Janin quickly placed his faith in King’s findings, “Janin acknowledges that he was sold.”146 The engineer joined King in a second expedition to verify the fraud, and they published a joint report on their return in which Janin took complete responsibility for his blunder, “His eyes had been opened on his second trip, and he had evidently concluded to go back on himself as quietly as possible.”147 Janin’s upstanding behavior as he bought back the stock he had sold in the company, and a reminder that his initial report had been qualified and rushed, enabled him to personally defend his error to the key parties in San Francisco. His quick response was a very effective public relations strategy, since the press did not have time to speculate on his motives for supporting the diamond claims. Instead, they noted dispiritedly, “Mr. Janin, the engineer, who owns that he was befooled.”148 Nevertheless, six weeks later, when Janin realized that the eastern press was painting him in an unflattering light, he self-published a pamphlet titled “A Brief Explanation of My Part in the Unfortunate Diamond Affair,” for private distribution outside of San Francisco.149 Despite his efforts on his own behalf, it was Janin’s united front with King that proved the most effective in preserving his professional standing. In his initial

145 “Salted or Not? Latest Phase of the Diamond Flurry,” San Francisco Chronicle. 146 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. 147 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. 148“Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 149 Henry Janin, “A Brief Explanation of My Part in the Unfortunate Diamond Affair,” January 5, 1873. Janin Family Collection, Box 20, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 49 49 report, King named Janin a victim of the diamond swindle as much as any of the investors, which made Janin an object of sympathy instead of derision. He wrote, “Yourselves and your engineer, Henry Janin, [are] the victims of an unparalleled fraud.”150 King defended his colleague, while also drawing distinctions between the two men. He asserted that the ‘salting’ was extensive and that only an expert could have discovered the deception, implying that he and Janin were from different strata on the scientific hierarchy.151 While the presence of the gems on the Colorado mesa might fool a mining engineer, an expert geologist revealed the deception. King’s social prestige and press power effectively shielded Janin from the full consequences of his mistake. Janin’s support of the diamond mine had damaged his professional reputation, yet he would recover fairly quickly. In 1876, his verification of the Homestake gold mine in South Dakota’s Black Hills would redeem his integrity.152 By 1879, the Tucson Arizona Weekly Star noted that Henry Janin was back to being “one of the leading mining operators of San Francisco, and wherever he plants his interest then lively times may be expected...his venture is one of the best and safest in the territory.”153 King’s elevated social status as a scientific explorer, both with the public and within the scientific community, also helps to explain the effusive praise he received when he revealed the diamond hoax. The survey of the fortieth parallel was one of a series of explorations that the federal government launched into the

150 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. 151 “Unmasked!” San Francisco Chronicle. 152 Spence, “The Janin Brothers,” 79. 153 “Local Laconics,” Arizona Weekly Star (Tucson), July 24, 1879, accessed September 9, 2016, http://www.genealogybank.com. 50 50 most inaccessible regions of the American West following the Civil War. In 1867, Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden was appointed director of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, which was eventually tasked with a survey of all territories adjacent to the Rocky Mountains. He is particularly known for his influential survey of the Yellowstone River region in 1871, which led to the creation of the first national park by President Grant on March 1, 1872. In 1869, Major led the first expedition by white men down the Green and Colorado Rivers through the Grand Canyon. Following preliminary surveys between 1869 and 1871, First Lieutenant George Montague Wheeler was tasked with the survey of lands west of the 100th Meridian in 1872. Lasting from 1867 to 1872, the Fortieth Parallel Survey, or King Survey, was the last of the four great surveys of the postbellum period. Combined, these surveys became the foundation for the United States Geological Survey formed under the direction of Clarence King in 1879. King’s reputation was augmented by the idealized romantic position scientific explorers held in society. Romanticism was widespread in transatlantic antebellum culture and the lure of the western frontier and transcendental beliefs that emphasized the glorification of nature were distinct characteristics of American romanticism. Scientific explorers earned increasing recognition and federal support for chronicling the most elusive landscapes in the service of expanding the horizons of the nation in league with Manifest Destiny.154 Americans recognized scientific explorers as heroic conquerors for their endurance of the harshest terrain in the worst conditions. This admiration was particularly widespread in the West where the scientific explorer replaced the

154 Ethan J. Kytle, Romantic Reformers and the Antislavery Struggle in the Civil War Era (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 8-17. 51 51 earlier figure of the pioneering mountain man epitomized by Daniel Boone and Jim Bridger. King’s practical accomplishments as an adventuring naturalist shrouded him in traces of romanticism, especially when he chose to fight deception on behalf of the people. These ideological trends were fundamental to King’s social status in San Francisco at the end of 1872. King and his colleagues embodied American romanticism as reverent naturalists who interpreted the most wildly beautiful western landscapes for an eastern audience through their published expedition journals. John Aton argues that the “dilemma of science versus art” effected the writing style of “literary scientists like Powell, [and] King.”155 Scientific explorers found sticking to the facts difficult and, moved to excess by the grandeur of the landscapes they traversed, “helped to create and perpetuate certain...myths about the American West.”156 King’s memoir, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, was a popular success because it was an adventurous travel narrative that exaggerated the splendor of nature while poking fun at the people living in the wilderness.157 The tone of his autobiographical sketches suited his eastern audience and fell within the genre of western humor. When he revealed the diamond hoax, these details helped to establish King’s legitimacy as a scientific expert and reputable source of information. The final factor that affected King’s reputation was the deepening connection between science and the federal government in the postbellum period.158 The war had forged an appreciation of scientific education and expertise,

155 James M. Aton, John Wesley Powell: His Life and Legacy (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009), 27. ProQuest ebrary. 156 Aton, John Wesley Powell, 27. 157 Clarence King, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, 32-45. 158 White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, 58. 52 52 which gave rise to a new federal science policy in the decade after the war. The Army had conducted a few antebellum surveys in the West; however, they were focused on conquest, rather than scientific data, and employed all-purpose naturalists to gather scientific information. The postbellum surveys show a shift toward scientific mapping by specialists in or metallurgy.159 Scientific explorers were not just adventurers; they were also the best lobbyists for federal exploration and exploitation of the West. In addition to scientific specialization, the national government was increasingly prepared to allocate funds for exploration to strengthen their claims to western lands and resources. While Powell’s survey was privately funded with supplies promised at Army bases, the Hayden, King, and Wheeler surveys were supported by Congressional appropriations.160 Richard White argues, “While the federal government shaped the West, however, the West itself served as the kindergarten of the American state. In governing and developing the American West, the state itself grew in power and influence.”161 Western communities demanded military aid for protection and to subsidize nascent rural economies, which drove the federal government to take a stronger role in the West.162 In the postbellum period, the government used the widespread support by predominantly Republican communities to expand federal powers at the expense of the state and territorial governments.163 Despite the tensions between the culture of the frontier and civilization, demand for the

159 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 355. 160 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 373. 161 White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, 58. 162 Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, 391. 163 Berwanger, West and Reconstruction, 7-19. Richardson, West from Appomattox, 4-24. 53 53 benefits of statehood and infrastructure outweighed concerns over loss of local individualism. The diamond hoax shows that the federal government, in partnership with scientists like King and Janin, formed another cultural and political connection between the urban and rural communities. As the role of the government evolved in the years after the Civil War, King’s celebrated position at the vanguard of the scientific conquest of the West helped to elevate the federal government in the eyes of the public. An editorial about the diamond hoax in the November 26, 1872 San Francisco Bulletin maintained the “facts sharply emphasize the practical value, in the ordinary business of society, of scientific education and research....These public surveys ‘pay’ in more senses than one, and even those who care nothing for the wider and fuller knowledge for its own sake, must hereafter admit the Government expends no money more wisely and usefully.”164 Mining engineers and scientific explorers embodied the evolving relationship between science and both the federal government and the public in the postbellum period. In a region experiencing dramatic demographic and economic growth, industrialists were being increasingly vilified for corruption and fraud, while the federal government claimed greater control over the lives of westerners. The diamond hoax served as a rare opportunity for westerners to voice popular frustration with the practices of capitalists that exploited people, as well as resources. While forming a new alliance with the federal government, King and Janin represent the changing perception of the acceptable role of science in the West. In this environment, Janin represented marketable science in the service of speculators and exploitive greed, while King characterized a new union between

164 “Potted Diamonds,” San Francisco Bulletin. 54 54 the federal government and science for more imperialistic ends. “For many people, he now represented the power of science and knowledge to stand up against the unbridled greed of the age,” Robert Wilson concludes.165 King and Janin’s differing career paths as man of science and professional scientist affected how they were perceived by the western public. Yet these men were not working in opposition to each other, but rather form parallel trajectories within the new educated scientific community. Each in their own way helped to usher in the relationship between science and power that would characterize the economic culture of the Gilded Age. By performing an honorable public service, King helped to justify the cost of federally-funded scientific exploration and raised the government’s status in the eyes of westerners. Endeared to the western people, he was celebrated for his upstanding character, as well as for his position as a scientific federal employee who went out of his way to protect the American people from fraud. The fame King gained from revealing the diamond hoax stayed with him the rest of his life. In his autobiography, Henry Adams called King the "best and brightest man of his generation."166 King was celebrated in a way that was at odds with the natural cynicism of the period as he became a shining example of the character ethic triumphing over the new toleration for deception. The media interpretation of Clarence King and Henry Janin’s roles in the diamond hoax illuminates the changing nature of scientific legitimacy in the postbellum West.

165 Wilson, Explorer King, 252. 166 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House; 1931), 416.

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION

The Lie, as a Virtue, A Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man’s best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth.

Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying167

The American public came to grips with the decline of the character ethic and a growing tolerance for social deception in the years after the Civil War. In addition to cultural trends, shifts in politics and the economy created a psychology of cynicism in the war-weary population. Familiar with snake oil salesmen, humbug entertainment, and increasingly common criminal hoaxes, Americans became shrewd judges of human nature. This was particularly true in the West where freedom from social restrictions allowed the new charming and manipulative characteristics to flourish. Yet the public retained at least partial faith in the American dream earned through hard work as the last quarter of the nineteenth century saw thousands of people move into the western territories in search of a better life, or quick riches from a mining rush. This duality, a weary skepticism existing at the same moment in time as a grasping hope for prosperity, played itself out in America’s reception of the diamond hoax. The West was not the new Eden migrants imagined, but instead burdened by its own regional political and economic pressures. Outside of Arizona, western newspaper editors did what they could to lure settlers to their territory in search of diamonds. They wanted the economic boost and political attention that a mining rush would bring. Only through migration could they hope to move from territorial

167 Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying (Auckland, NZ: The Floating Press, 1885), 3. ProQuest ebrary. 56 56 settlement toward statehood and integration into the nation. The Arizona editors likely wanted this as much as Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico, but they were unwilling to encourage a mining rush they knew to be false. Careful to distinguish themselves from wildcat Californians, Arizonans interpreted the diamond rush through regional priorities and successfully defended their cultural independence until 1912 when the territory became the last contiguous state to join the union. The revelation of the diamond hoax provided the federal government with an opportunity to justify its expanded presence in the West. Through funding of exploration and conquest, the state utilized specialized scientific expertise to consolidate its hold and ties to the western territories. Geologist Clarence King personified this change to the western public and made federal dominance palatable and even desirable, as the government was suddenly seen as having a duty to protect the public from fraud. Skeptical westerners were grateful to find their faith in humanity bolstered by King’s honorable intervention. The history of politics, science, literature, and the press are too often discussed separately. This study offers a unifying narrative that brings together disparate historiographies to illuminate the nineteenth-century American environment. The benefit of a cultural approach is that it highlights the hidden links between assorted social trends. As the role of science expanded in both the private and public sectors and economic deception became more common, the press in the West drew on various cultural influences to interpret the diamond hoax for their readers. The public reception of this hoax and its context can be best understood through the western newspapers as they were both receivers and, more importantly, interpreters of the diamond news. Rather than living on the edge of civilization, westerners were integrated into a regional and national community through their rural newspapers. The reaction of the western press to the diamond 57 57 rush reveals tension and adjustment to rapid development as they wanted the benefits of technology and modernization, but on their own terms. The interpretation of urban news by the western press dictated the regional relationship with the city and the nation. It is evident that both the western press and the scientific community of mining experts were significant to western development. They acted as economic and cultural intermediaries that connected the settlements on the fringes of society to the unifying national culture that solidified after the Civil War. This study brings to light their interaction with each other and their influence on public opinion through the diamond news. The press interpreted the hoax in a way that reflected the widespread skepticism of the era and prioritized local opinions. While the scientific community, and their partner the federal government, were increasingly trusted as legitimate protectors of the public good. Interpreting the diamond hoax for the public, scientists and the press were an important part of the information exchange system between rural and urban populations in the postbellum West. The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 and other anecdotes of the old West deserve reconsideration, as they can be used to gain a deeper understanding of their historical moment. This event is best understood as evidence of the western population struggling to adjust to cultural and economic changes following the Civil War. Microhistories like this help to flesh out the sweeping narrative of the American frontier and offer a fresh look at academic assumptions. The press coverage of these episodes allows historians to glimpse western reactions to the various demographic, economic, and psychological changes of the late nineteenth century. By contextualizing this fascinating crime, it is possible to let go of myth and build an accurate history of the cultural development of the region.

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