BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 27

JANUARY 1897

CHAPMAN

Sam Lowe's son's telegram, a single word as instructed—"Time"—signaled Wiggins. He went to the Governor, fairly sure what his instructions would be but checking first.

As a teller at Chapman's bank, Richard Lowe was privy to its daily accounts, of which McConnell, through Wiggins, needed only one bit of information: how much cash was on hand and how much of the United's scrip resided at the bank, draining resources. Periodically, Wiggins and McConnell wrestled with the subject, usually when one of them overheard someone on the Boise streets marveling about the communal effort of the Mormon ditch over in Blackfoot. "Magic," McConnell would say, near a state of infuriation. "Don't these people know that it's just fiction?"

United scrip, redeemable for water shares once the ditch was done—if indeed it ever was—was being traded in the general economy between anyone trusting in its worth. Some of the land filers worked the canal until they had enough scrip to cover their water needs for their acreage, then went about maintaining their own properties. Those of a more speculative bent or having less on the homestead to do continued working and collecting payment, amassing scrip they used for purchases at the local mercantiles that accepted it, the primary one being Chapman's Store which offered anything from undertaking to bridles to Fresnos. Chapman offered eighty cents on the dollar, sometimes less if word reached that the legal battle with the Skeens was doing badly—it had fallen to fifty cents when the Skeens got the initial segregation, raised back to ninety weeks later when that decision was rescinded after a United appeal but fell back to fifty just a few days after, when the rescinding was rescinded. The courts had admitted the Skeens needed their chance for a say in the matter. Scrip had crept back up to ninety as word of a compromise spread through the government channels and the local gossip pools, then dropped again in May last year when Cluff didn't show up for a meeting with McConnell, one that was supposed to solidify an agreement between the State and the two canals that would allow all to move forward.

The value moved upward at Chapman's, both at the store and at the bank, moved back and forth at the smaller mercantiles, after the Department of Interior heard the case in October. No word of decision came, but Chapman took it as a sign and started readily accepting scrip for cash at the bank, and for a while he was flooded with paper, driving its value down. Now, Lowe's son's one word message said the bank's cash holdings had dwindled to fifteen thousand dollars because so much scrip had been redeemed. He didn't know the consequences of his information, just thought it as more of the spying that went on between the Mormons and Gentiles. It was a process everyone was accustomed to, some reveling in it more than others and the repulsed just shying away.

The nature of the scrip galled McConnell and Wiggins, it being to them just a physical replica of Mormon duplicity. The gist of the idea was the government could be bypassed, that just by getting along with one another, renewing the old barter system, settlers and merchants could circumvent the government and eliminate the profiteers in the financial world. It was a resurrection of Brigham Young's United Order, a failed effort of communism, though no one on the ditch or in the Church would admit it. Hell, their name itself was derived from the idea, and still they denied it.

All a settler thought when he traded scrip for flour and sugar at the store, when he purchased a halter or a wagon wheel at Chapman's, was he was getting one over on the enemy. A settler wasn't thinking that the store owners were holding paper deemed valueless by their suppliers. The mercantilists couldn't get Fresnos from Chicago by using scrip, couldn't get sugar for scrip, couldn't get shoes and clothing for scrip. It was a one way deal, a speculation on the storekeep's part, which Chapman's bank had stepped in to mitigate.

As of yet, no one had yet come to the bank to purchase scrip, the United's fate still in limbo, the courts' ruling vague in giving the United twenty thousand acres and the Skeens the rest. But that twenty was in question, still, the Skeens claiming ten of that was outside the United's reach. So the paper piled up.

Chapman's Bank held State money, a considerable amount. The area counties had their money there, too, using Chapman's to deposit their tax receipts. Bingham alone held fifty thousand dollars in their account, Bannock ten, Lemhi ten and Fremont another ten. McConnell felt Chapman's actions could be construed as the equivalent of funding the United Canal since the State's and Counties' cash was buying scrip that was possibly worthless. That issued scrip was not to legally exceed $150,000, the amount the corporation stated as their stock. Two-thirds of it was in Chapman's hands.

The United was still playing hardball, Chapman and the Church backing the settlers' pugnacity, keeping investors for the Skeens' ditch leery. "Time" meant it was time for McConnell to exert leverage to end the dispute for good, and told Wiggins, "Go. Get it done now."

Wiggins would travel with official clout to withdraw $22,000 from Chapman's. When the bank couldn't provide it, Wiggins would close its doors, two deputies and the bank examiner accompanying him to make sure there was no pushback. When the United's hidden backing, Chapman's bank, no longer kept work afloat, the United would have to negotiate—unless the Church stepped in to take up the slack.

Wiggins and the agents didn't take the regular stage, instead took the Governor's coach in order to get to Blackfoot without stops. It would take the rest of the day and all night to reach that city, and in the morning they would be at the bank's doors as it opened for business.

© 2025 Ralph Thurston