Everything about William Gilpin Governor totally explained
William Gilpin (
October 4,
1813–
January 20,
1894) was a
19th century U.S. explorer, politician, land speculator, and
futurist writer about the
American West. He served as military officer in the
United States Army during several wars, accompanied
John C. Frémont on his second expedition through the West, and was instrumental in the formation of the government of the
Oregon Territory. As a politician and writer, he was an inveterate believer in
Manifest Destiny and was a visionary booster of new settlement to the West, helping lay the groundwork in his writings for a modern theory of the succession of
civilizations. He served as the first governor of the
Colorado Territory, where his administration was consumed largely with the defense of the new territory in the early days of the
American Civil War and was brought down after only one year by scandalous financial dealings. After the demise of his political career, he made a large fortune as a land speculator in
New Mexico, although his dealings were questionable and possibly illegal.
Gilpin County, Colorado is named for him.
Early life
Gilpin was born near
Wilmington, Delaware to a wealthy family of
Quakers. He was educated by private tutors and studied abroad in
England before attending the
University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in
1833. He later attended
West Point but dropped out after eight months. Despite this, he received a commission as second lieutenant in the United States Army and served in the
Seminole Wars. He also served as a recruiter in
Missouri. While in Missouri, he became attracted to opportunities on the
frontier and to the idea of westward expansion of the nation. After leaving the Army in
1838, he moved to
St. Louis where he became a
newspaper editor and opened a
law practice. After three years in St. Louis, he moved across the state to
Independence, where he interacted with emigrants about to embark on the
Oregon Trail.
Pacific Northwest
In
1843 he encountered John C. Frémont along the Santa Fe Trail and embarked westward with Frémont on his expedition to find a route over the
continental divide. While passing through the region of present-day
Colorado, he encountered evidence of
placer gold in the region, but the information would go unused for at least another decade. When the party reached
Walla Walla in the
Oregon County, Gilpin continue westward on his own while Frémont continued on to
California. At the time, the Oregon Country was under joint administration by the United States and the
United Kingdom, but in practical terms it was controlled by the
Hudson's Bay Company at
Fort Vancouver. Gilpin settled among the growing community of U.S. settlers in the
Willamette Valley and became active in the organization a provisional government. At the landmark convention at
Champoeg, he helped draft a petition requesting support for the provisional government from the
United States Congress Gilpin himself was charged with carrying the Willamette petition back east. On his way back through Missouri, he helped publicize the
Pacific Northwest and stir up "Oregon fever". He delivered the petition to Congress in
1845, then wrote memoirs of his travels in the Pacific Northwest to emphasize its potential for trade and settlement.
The Central Gold Region
During the
Mexican-American War, he received a commission as Major and marched to
Chihuahua City in the successful bloodless campaign to capture
New Mexico. He was considered to have served with distinction in the campaign and was later given command of a volunteer force to protect the
Santa Fe Trail against attacks by
Native Americans.
After the end of the war in
1848, he returned to Missouri and resumed his law practice. He made an unsuccessful attempt at a political career while in Missouri as well. In
1859, Gilpin's early intuition about gold in Colorado proved correct, and the region suddenly became the target for thousands of eager and hopeful prospectors in the ensuing
Colorado Gold Rush. That year, Gilpin published a futurist history of the region, called
The Central Gold Region, in which he wrote, "the destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent". In the book he predicted that the
Mississippi River valley would become the center of western civilization with the new settlement of
Denver as its capital, based partly on its location near the
40th parallel north. In the book, Gilpin envisioned that all the great cities of the world along that
latitude would eventually be linked by
railroad lines, and proposed a rail line over the
Bering Strait connecting
North America and
Asia. Throughout his career in politics, Gilpin was a strong believer that the American West wouldn't only be settled, but that it would eventually hold an enormous population. He was a particularly strong advocate of the now-debunked
climatological theory of "
Rain follows the plow", which held that settlement in the arid lands of the West would actually increase rainfall in the region, making it as fertile and green as the Eastern United States.
Governor of Colorado
In the early
1860s the
crisis in Kansas prompted Gilpin to join the
Republican Party, putting him at odds with many citizens of Missouri. His political alignment with the new administration of
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was rewarded in
1861 when Lincoln appointed him governor of the newly-formed
Territory of Colorado. His selection over the local favorite
William Larimer came as a surprise to many, and was motivated in part by the fact the Gilpin was backed the Governor of
Missouri, a
slave state that Lincoln was eager to keep in the
Union.
American Civil War
Gilpin left Missouri and arrived in Colorado in May 1861 to cheering crowds. Despite his warm reception, his administration and governor was plagued with difficulties from the outset. The territory had been organized at the start of the Civil War and faced a complex set of possible threats, including
Confederate sympathizers within the territory, the possibility of a Confederate invasion from outside the territory, and the looming tensions with
Native Americans (in particular the
Arapaho and
Cheyenne) in the wake of the withdraw of U.S. Army troops in the region for other duties.
The imminent threats facing the territory prompted Gilpin to act quickly without receiving authorization from the
federal government. He appointmented a territorial military staff and, despite having no funds for military purposes, he began to solicit volunteers for a military
regiment. Without funds, he took the daring step of issuing
$375,000 in drafts on the
federal treasury, with the expectation that the federal government would honor them later. He later claimed that he'd received verbal authorization from Lincoln before leaving for Colorado.
At first, most of the merchants and citizens of the territory were willing to follow Gilpin's campaign, but doubt began to spread through the territory after rumors from
Washington, DC confirmed that the federal government didn't intend to validate the drafts. By the summer of 1861, many of the citizens of the territory were in uproar, a
petitions were circulated calling for Gilpin's removal from office. The campaign against him was fostered by the anger of
William N. Byers, the powerful editor of the
Rocky Mountain News, whose newspaper had been bypassed in favor of rival in the awarding of the territorial printing contract. Under attack in his own state, Gilpin went to Washington to plead his case for the validation of the drafts. Despite the controversial, the funds already raised from the drafts allowed the creation of the
1st Colorado Volunteers, which were widely derided as "Gilpin's Pet Lambs". The regiment trained in the summer and fall of 1861 at
Camp Weld near Denver.
The mustering and training of the regiment proved to be highly useful when the Confederates launched an invasion northward through the
New Mexico Territory in the spring of
1862. The invasion (now called the
New Mexico Campaign to reflect its abortive nature) had as its aim the seizure of the mineral-rich Colorado Territory and eventually California. The volunteer regiment raised by Gilpin's efforts played a critical role in the campaign, routing the
Texans at the
Battle of Glorieta Pass, which became known as the "
Gettysburg of the West".
Despite the enormous success of the regiment, the territory was mired in financial problems caused by the fact that Gilpin's drafts had tied up most of the circulating currency without any resolution regarding their validation. Eventually the federal treasury settled the drafts after being presented with itemized statements by the holders of the drafts. The resolution came too late for Gilpin, however, who was removed from the governorship of the territory by Lincoln in April 1862 and replaced by
John Evans.
The Sangre de Cristo Land Grant
In 1863, Gilpin and a syndicate of foreign investors bought the 1,038,196-acre
Charles Beaubien land grant (often referred to as the
Sangre de Cristo Land Grant on the on the east slopes of the mountains) in southeast Colorado for about 4 cents an acre ($41,000). Gilpin and his investors then tried to evict residents on the property. Litigation over the property continues to this day.
He died in
1894 in
Denver, Colorado following being run over by a horse and buggy.
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