Word of Abraham Lincoln's election as president was published in the Deseret News on Nov. 14, 1860.
It was a remarkably swift report for its time, printed only eight days after the voting that occurred a couple of thousand miles away across a landscape of forests, deserts, prairie and rivers.
"Latest by Pony Express," read the headline. "Lincoln Elected President.
"An express from Fort Kearney [arrived] announcing that New York had given Lincoln fifty thousand majority, and that his election was conceded."
Lincoln is the focus of new attention, as the bicentennial of his birth approaches this week. From the time of his first election, Lincoln's thoughts, actions and acquaintances would be important to Utah, as a look through the paper's photographic archives shows.
He was a favorite subject of renowned Salt Lake City sculptor Avard T. Fairbanks. The Great Emancipator named Fort Douglas, a military base above Salt Lake City. Lincoln's friend, Charles Zane, became the state's first Supreme Court chief justice in 1896.
Photographs printed in this article and placed online show some of the Lincoln connections in Utah. They were selected from the Deseret News archives by Ronald Fox, North Salt Lake, a collector of political and Utah history items. Not long after the Pony Express rider pounded into Great Salt Lake City with the news of Lincoln's victory, horseback notices became obsolete. Early in the new Lincoln administration, the Pony Express gave way to the telegraph, the first means of instantaneous communications over long stretches.
The Overland Telegraph was completed in Salt Lake City in October 1861. A message of reassurance from Brigham Young flew along the wires from Utah to the East. Addressed to J.H. Wade, president of the Pacific Telegraph Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, this first telegram from Utah addressed the secession of states and the warfare that were tearing America apart.
"Sir: Permit me to congratulate you upon the completion of the Overland Telegraph Line west to this city," wrote the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and the laws of our once happy country, and is warmly interested in such useful enterprises as the one so far completed."
Soon afterward, Acting Utah Territorial Governor Frank Fuller sent a message to Lincoln: "Utah, whose citizens strenuously resist all imputations of disloyalty, congratulates the President upon completion of an enterprise which spans a continent," Fuller wrote.
Lincoln responded, "Sir; The completion of the Telegraph to Great Salt Lake City, is auspicious of the stability and union of the Republic. The Government reciprocates your congratulations. (Signed) Abraham Lincoln."
What was then called "Camp Douglas" was established in 1862 to protect the overland mail route and telegraph line. Lincoln named it after Stephen A. Douglas, an old political foe who had defeated him in the 1858 Illinois Senate campaign and whom Lincoln defeated in the race for president two years later.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Douglas rallied Americans to the Northern cause. At his death in June that year, Lincoln named the fort after him. In 1862, Lincoln ordered troops stationed there to protect lines of communication in the wild regions around the territorial capital.Depradations by Indians or by others who were bent on disrupting national communications were of concern.
Charles S. Zane, who served as chief justice in the Supreme Courts of both the territory and state of Utah, had known Lincoln since 1850.
"I was in his company while the balloting at the Chicago (national Republican) convention was in progress and when he received the news of his nomination," wrote Zane. The justice, who was extremely tough on convicted Utah polygamists, died in Salt Lake City in 1915.
When Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, the columns of the Deseret News were lined with black. News of the tragedy had flashed to Utah by telegraph.
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