New source on Mormon Station's past

When digging up the past, sometimes you overturn a stone with a prize hidden below. And so it was for State Archives Manager Jeff Kintop.

Associated Press writer Martin Griffith asked Kintop to research the historic location of Old Mormon Station. There have been three over the years: 1850, 1851 and 1947.

There's been a bit of contention over the 1850s "true" site. Is it where the state's Mormon Station State Park sits, or is it 1.1 miles north as a marker placed last year indicates?

According to Kintop, the controversy began in 1861 when a cabin 1.1 miles north of Genoa was placed on a federal surveyor's map as Old Mormon Station.

The map is wrong, said Kintop, who has spent nearly six months researching the issue.

What Kintop found, and what he said we would have found a mile north of Genoa in 1852, is a cabin built by Joseph B. "Poker" Brown.

More important, though, Kintop found an often-overlooked source. He located testimony from several pioneers who settled in the Carson Valley in the early 1850s. The settlers swore under oath what they had been doing for the past decades in the valley, when and what they planted, when and what they built. They were called to testify before the court in Genoa in 1878.

The appeal of their case was filed with the Nevada Supreme Court in 1881 and thus the transcript can be found at the Nevada State Library and Archives, where Kintop came across it researching another matter.

"You have to know the players," he explained.

The players in this case were Joseph Jones and John Q. Adams who were fighting over water rights in Sierra Creek.

Poker Brown, who built his log cabin next to the road in 1852, was partners in a ranch with Rufus Adams. They became partners with John Quincy Adams (not the president).

Brown says he built the log house in 1852 and lived there with Rufus and John Q. until Brown and the Adamses split the ranch in 1857 and the Adamses built their ranch farther north on the west side of the road.

In an emigrant diary, the pioneers described a cabin by the road in 1852 where they "nooned" by an Old Mormon Station and proceeded south about a mile to a blacksmith's shop ... a newer Mormon Station, Kintop said.

The confusion about the Old Mormon Station being north of Genoa that began with the surveyor in 1861 was likely similar to the confusion the emigrants faced in 1852. It all depended on who you asked.

The diary is "one piece of evidence that Brown's ranch was a mile north. He was there until 1861 when he sold it to Henry Lufkin. By the time the surveyors came through, Lufkin had moved on and the cabin was abandoned," he said.

"We're still down to guessing," Kintop said. "We still don't know who told them it was Old Mormon Station."

Looking for another source, Kintop tracked down the Nevada Supreme Court case: Jones versus Adams. It was a water rights case over allocations in Sierra Creek.

"Here you are trying to prove you used the water earlier than anyone else," Kintop said. "You bring in all these guys who came in 1851 and 1852 and they are talking about what they built when, and who and when they dug their ditches. One of the people who came out to be interviewed was Brown. He said he came to the valley in May 1851 and built a cabin a mile north of two roofless log buildings."

John Reese arrived in the valley in June 1851 and built the second trading post known as Mormon Station in June and July.

Kintop said Reese built his two-story station with a roof right next to the Old Mormon Station and used that as a corral. The original station was built on an acre and included the two-room roofless station, a corral, blacksmith's shop and two separate stores.

By 1851, with the publication of the Mormon Way Bills, Reese's station was on the map.

"E.L. Barnard in 1852 partnered with Reese. He ended up thieving Reese's cattle and heading to California.

"Then Hampton Beatie claimed the same property. He was the nephew of John Reese, and also the person who was there in 1850 and built Old Mormon Station. His property starts at the old coral at the corner of Old Mormon Station.

"So, I started looking in newspapers with references to Old Mormon Station. In an 1860 copy of the Territorial Enterprise, I found an ad to sell Old Mormon Station by John Trumbell, who was John Reese's son-in-law. The property is right above where the park is right now. It was bought by James B. Blake."

The fort standing today in Genoa is a replica of the old station. It was built in 1947 by the state.

To learn about how he went about researching the location or to challenge Kintop's findings in person, make plans to attend his lecture 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Nevada State Museum.

Kelli Du Fresne is features editor of the Nevada Appeal. Reach her at kdufresne@nevadaappeal .com or 881-1261..