Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/26

 from rock found in the vicinity, and with the aid of the Indians erected in twenty-seven days a stone warehouse seventy-five feet long and thirty feet wide, with walls twelve feet thick. Adjoining the warehouse was an office eighteen by thirty-four feet divided into two apartments.^^ Supplies were purchased from William H. Hardy, of Hardyville, and sent up the river on flatboats.^* Hardy visited the warehouse in January and selected two lots, intimating that he would "commence business in the mercantile line" at once. Shortly before the end of February the warehouse was completed.

In the meantime Samuel Adams again asserted himself in behalf of the Utah trade, and in December 1864 he induced Captain Trueworthy to attempt a trip to the Callville landing, then in the course of construction. On January 5 an Alta California correspondent stated that the Esmeralda was nearing La Paz on her way to Callville, "with freight for the Mormon settlements at Santa Clara." Nothing more was heard of her until Adams and Trueworthy arrived in Salt Lake City in March 1865. In April the California papers carried a complete account of the event.

"The complete success of Captain Thomas E. Trueworthy in ascending the Colorado River to within four hundred miles of Great Salt Lake City, in the steamer Esmeralda, towing a barge and transporting one hundred tons of freight, may be considered an era in the trade of Utah and Arizona Territories. . . . Captain Trueworthy was induced by M. Samuel Adams to test the character of the river's channel, by running a steamer and towing a barge loaded up as far as possible. Arriving at Hardyville, they were assured that the river could be navigable only thirteen miles further. . . . The steamer ascended ... to within twenty-five miles of Callville, and could have reached that latter place without difficulty, and only stopped short of it because the warehouse had not been completed and the parties who were to have built it had been induced to leave through misrepresentation by interested persons.^^"

According to Adams, they were met at Roaring Rapids by messengers from Callville, who informed them that the freighters from Utah who were expecting the supplies had received letters, from someone opposing the enterprise, stating that the steamer had broken down and the expedition had been abandoned. Trueworthy then returned to El Dorado Canyon, where he left his boat and cargo, and with Adams traveled overland to Salt Lake to inform the merchants of their arrival.^^ Adams then went to San Francisco, where he again took up his campaign. In a warm speech before a group of merchants there, he recited the numerous attempts of the Johnson Company to hinder their ascent of the river. Among these were charges that Johnson had induced the insurance companies of San Francisco to refuse to insure the Esmeralda, that attempts had been made to "gum" the boat's machinery, that someone had tried to fire the cabin, that timbers had been floated down the river in an effort to wreck her, and that finally the boat had been cut loose from her moorings.^^ Several similar accounts attempt to link Hardy with designs to prevent river traffic from passing above his establishment, which he desired to maintain as the center of trade