More About Mr. Morgan
Firstly, we recall Harpending’s description of his chance meeting with Mr. Morgan at Cheyenne. Mr. Morgan who, after requesting to accompany Harpending on his trip to the Virginia Mining District properties, became so thoroughly impressed by them that he proposed the formation of a company, and that shares in it be floated on the London Stock Exchange. Mr. Morgan who shortly thereafter would travel to London to draw up the prospectus for the Pyramid Range Silver Mountain Company, and who would later be blamed by Harpending for a lack of caution in regard to the worth of the properties, and whose hyperbole was – again according to Harpending – responsible for the failure of the company. We also recall our comments on how deceitful it was of Harpending to have written these things in his memoirs.
Secondly, we examine a series of letters written between the end of September and mid-October of 1870, and published in the Daily Alta California.⁷¹ All of the letters are described as being written by “an occasional correspondent” to the newspaper, who is never identified.
The first of these letters appeared under the heading “En Route to the Burro Mines”, it was written at Salt Lake City on September 24. The author writes that:
Having determined to visit the ‘Burro Mines’, New Mexico, I made up my mind to go by way of Cheyenne, Denver, Santa Fe and Mesilla, on the Rio Grande, and thence west 125 miles to the town of Ralston, adjacent to the great silver lodes of the Virginia District.
The author had left San Francisco on September 20th, arriving in Salt Lake City on the 22nd. He makes reference to having visited the “Emma” mine.⁷²
The next letter in the series is dated September 27th, and was also written at Salt Lake City. It contains little of any relevance other than the comment that “We continue our journey to the “Burro Mines” today …” Unfortunately, the author fails to inform us of the names of his traveling companions.⁷³
We next hear from our occasional correspondent on October 11th, when his letter dated Denver, Colorado Territory, October 2, 1870, was published. Again he implies that he is travelling with at least one companion, writing that “We arrived here … on the evening of Wednesday last …”⁷⁴ There is no correspondence from Cheyenne itself.
The last of the letters is written at Ralston and is dated October 18, 1870. The author begins by informing us that “we arrived here near midnight on Wednesday, the 13th instant”, and that the stage ride between Denver and Ralston, a distance of about 900 miles, had been unbroken except for part of one night when they were allowed to rest at Santa Fe.
Of Ralston’s mines, he writes that since his arrival he has been “very industrious investigating the elements of the mineral wealth of this noted locality.” He continues with a description of the vastness of the ledges, their “colossal” extent, the richness of the ore, and states that:
The lodes of the New Mexico Mining Company are nothing short of mountains of silver ore, which, in the face of ordinary human calculation, appear absolutely exhaustless.
In the next paragraph he writes that “last Saturday morning, in company with eighteen well armed men, we started on an excursion to the Gila River.” He continues with a description of the road to the Gila, the river itself, the ease with which they were able to fish the river, and the abundance of game in the area, some of which they hunted.⁷⁵
Compare the wording and descriptions in this letter to those which would appear in the Weekly New Mexican on November 22, 1870. The descriptions of the trip to the Gila River and the hunting and fishing which took place there are very similar, as are the references to the group of 18 armed men who made up the party. It is in the Weekly New Mexican letter that reference is made to “our London friend Mr. Morgan.”
Now we return to those various witness statements from the Rubery vs. Grant and Sampson trial referred to in the previous Chapter.
Amongst those who provided sworn depositions in this case were Charles Godlove Meyer,⁷⁶ who is mentioned on more than one occasion in M. L. Power’s correspondences to Harpending and Roberts. Meyer states, under oath, that Harpending arrived at Ralston in the fall of 1870, and that he was accompanied by Dr. Charles Cleveland, Philip Arnold and Mr. Morgan. He says that James Slack was already at Ralston by the time he himself arrived there in the spring of that year, and that Slack was “in charge of the town lots.” Certainly Slack was present at Ralston before Power arrived there in July of 1870 (see M. L. Power to Roberts and Harpending, July 24, 1870) and he is to be found on the 1870 Federal Census, enumerated at Ralston at the end of August, as James B. Slack, age 50, carpenter, born in Kentucky.
Meyer testified that Harpending remained at Ralston for “about eight or nine days” after which period of time he left, accompanied by Cleveland and Morgan. This would have been around October 22nd or 23rd. James B. Cooper, Philip Arnold and Slack, he says, “remained at the mines two or three weeks after Harpending left. They then left by way of Tucson for California.”
It would have been during this two or three weeks that Arnold and Cooper visited Silver City, as mentioned in the November 30th letter from Ralston, published in the Daily Alta California on December 28, 1870. To further recap, it was during this visit that, we believe, Arnold and Cooper acquired the fine silver ore specimens which they then took with them to California (see preceding installment).
This letter also states that “Messrs. Harpending, Cooper and Arnold, have made us a visit, with Mr. Morgan, an Englishman of capital” and that after having made “a hasty but extensive survey and examination of the mines and country”, Harpending and Morgan left Ralston together “for the East.” We know from Roberts’ correspondence that Harpending was in Santa Fe by, at the latest, the first week in November.⁷⁷
Meyer’s testimony also casts serious doubt on Harpending’s claim the he was not on overly intimate terms with either Slack or Arnold. Meyer swore that “during the time that Harpending was at the mines I saw him, Arnold and Slack together every day”, and that in the spring of 1871, while in San Francisco for about three weeks, he again saw the three of them together on at least two occasions; the three of them entering Harpending’s office together. Charles D. Cleveland’s testimony presented at the same trial would include the statement that Harpending and Arnold had told him that they were “in partnership in some things, and that Harpending usually called Arnold ‘Phil’.”
Cleveland also confirmed Meyer’s statements regarding Slack being already present at Ralston and in charge of the town lots, and that Harpending, Morgan, Cooper and Arnold all arrived at Ralston together.
So what is the significance of all of this, and how does it relate to The Great Diamond Hoax?
Firstly, we can infer that it was Mr. Morgan who was the author of that series of letters written at Salt Lake City, Denver and Ralston. From these letters we know that he had determined to visit the Virginia Mining District before he got to Cheyenne where, according to Harpending, their chance meeting occurred. Indeed, the whole purpose of Morgan’s trip was to visit the Virginia Mining District. In the first two letters, both written at Salt Lake City, there are three points of particular note:
- The first letter is written using the first person singular; that is he refers only to “I.” After this first letter, all references are to “we”, suggesting that Morgan has acquired at least one travelling companion, who remains with him until he arrives at his destination.
- In the same letter Morgan says that he has visited the “Emma” mine. He made this visit sometime between his arrival in Salt Lake City on September 22ndand his departure from there on the 26th or 27th of September.
- In his autobiography Harpending says that he visited the “Emma” mine “late in the fall of 1870”, and that after he had done so he then went to Salt Lake City.⁷⁸It was while he was at Salt Lake City that, he says, he received a telegram from W. C. Ralston requesting that he travel to Cheyenne to meet with the President of the Bank of England. He instead met Mr. Morgan, at first mistaking him for the Bank President.
It seems far more probable that Harpending and Morgan first met not at Cheyenne, but in Utah in the fall of 1870. Wherever they met it is safe to say that it was no chance encounter. Morgan’s expressed intent in his first letter of September 24, had been to ultimately arrive at the “Burro Mines”, it would have been a coincidence of no small significance that he should, purely by chance, through a case of mistaken identity, happen upon the man who was the leading representative of those mines. From both Cleveland and Meyer’s testimonies we know that Harpending and Morgan, along with Cleveland, Philip Arnold, and perhaps James B. Cooper, arrived at Ralston City together, the likelihood being that Harpending and Morgan had traveled there together from their place of meeting.
Morgan was in fact operating in collusion with, or at least at the behest of, Harpending. Harpending was fully cognizant of what Morgan would do when he reached London.
The author of the letter written from Ralston on October 18th had stated that since his arrival he had been hard at work examining the mineral deposits at that locality, and he was effusive in both his opinions and his descriptions of them. That author, of course, we believe to be Morgan. It was for this purpose that he came to Ralston, and so began his involvement in the Pyramid Range Prospectus and stock float.
At the gathering together of Harpending, Arnold, Cooper and Morgan at Ralston in October of 1870, the plans were drawn up and finalized for what had to be done before Harpending and Morgan left for England. Arnold and Cooper were to leave for San Francisco, taking their promotional tools and demonstration samples of bullion and ore with them, and Morgan was to return to England to begin preparations for the stock float.
On November 9, 1870, a Mr. H. Morgan sailed from New York aboard the steamship Scotia bound for Liverpool⁷⁹; on November 28th, Cooper and Arnold arrived back at San Francisco.⁸⁰ Harpending’s journey to London was delayed somewhat, he had to wait in New York until papers were forwarded to him to enable him to proceed with the sale of the Virginia Mining District properties, and until he had met Roberts’ wife who was returning from England.
At least some of these arrangements can safely be said to be amendments to the original plan which was simply to sell stock in the Virginia Mining District properties on the New York Stock Exchange. This can be deduced from various correspondences between George D. Roberts and Asbury Harpending, most notably two letters written by the former to Harpending in September and October of 1870, and a telegram, again sent by Roberts, and delivered to Harpending at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City. In the next installment we show how these amendments and, more crucially, an addition to the original plan set in motion the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872.
©2007-2024 Jim & Erica Parson
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT
⁷¹There were six letters in total, published in the Daily Alta California on September 28, October 1, 11, 13 and 31, and November 6, of 1870. They appeared under a variety of headings, but each carries the sub-heading “From An Occasional Correspondent Of The Alta”. Reading them in sequence, it is plain to see that they were all written by the same person.
⁷²Daily Alta California. September 28, 1870.
⁷³Daily Alta California. October 1, 1870.
⁷⁴Daily Alta California. October 11, 1870.
⁷⁵Daily Alta California. November 6, 1870.
⁷⁶London Times. December 24, 1874.
⁷⁷Harpending Papers. George D. Roberts to Asbury Harpending, November 6, 1870.
⁷⁸Wilkins (1958). Page 118.
⁷⁹New York Times. November 10, 1870.
⁸⁰Daily Alta California. November 28, 1870.
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