Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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JUDGE JOHN CRADLEBAUGH

John was from Circleville, Ohio. He got loaded up with book learning and became a lawdog, and eventually a judge. In 1858 President Buchanan appointed him to the Federal Bench in the Territory of Utah. The Mormons were in an uproar over what they mistook as their sovereignty when federal troops were sent to Utah to enforce federal law. The Mormon War, as it came to be known, was finally settled diplomatically but no federal presence was allowed in Salt Lake City. The troops, when they arrived in the spring of 1858, were posted to Camp Floyd which was 40 miles southwest of town on the emigrant trail. When Cradlebaugh arrived he was assigned a bench in Provo. The only casualties of the Mormon War were a hapless train of emigrants bound for California. They needed supplies before crossing the desert, but the Mormons were not allowed to trade with them because those supplies might be needed in the war effort. The entire train, some 120 – odd men women and children was murdered and robbed by Mormons at a place called Mountain Meadows. When the massacre became known the Mormons tried to blame it on Indians. Cradlebaugh’s first priority was to investigate those murders. During the course of his investigation he issued indictments against 44 Mormons who were guilty as hell. The federal marshal was unable to make a single arrest because no posse could be raised. Cradlebaugh then tried to impose martial law and get the soldiers to make the arrests, but that was not allowed either under terms of the occupation agreement. All of the Mormons went free until 1877 when John D. Lee was made scapegoat and sentenced to death by firing squad. Cradlebaugh raised so much hell with Brigham Young over the whole mess that he lost his bench in Provo and was sent in 1859 to the furthest realm of the territory to finish his appointment. He ended up in a little place called Genoa near the California border and slap up against the Sierra Nevada Mountains below Lake Tahoe. Genoa did not even have a courthouse. What few court sessions came up were held in a barn. Issues regarding Nevada Statehood came up in that barn. As presiding judge in the only federal court in Nevada, Cradlebaugh ruled on the state boundary with Utah. In each session he continued to move it further and further to the east until it finally reached the edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats. He had taken a big juicy bite out of Brigham Young’s big pink Mormon butt. After statehood Cradlebaugh was elected to the first ever Nevada congressional seat serving in the house from 1861 to 1863. He then returned to Ohio to participate in the Civil War. He was appointed to the command of the 114^th Ohio Infantry Regiment but was almost immediately wounded in action at Vicksburg. After the war he returned to Nevada and took up again as a lawdog for mining interests in Eureka. He died there in 1877 and lies peacefully at rest back in the cemetery in Circleville. I hope to pay my respects at his grave someday, and perhaps knock back a little Old Crow with his ghost.

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Photos

GENOA COURTHOUSE
Couldn't find the barn where Cradlebaugh held court, but here is the courthouse that was finally built in Genoa. It went up in 1865. Federal cases were being heard in Carson City by then.