The office of Governor
of the Territory was offered by the President to various persons, and
finally accepted, July 11th, by Alfred Cumming, a brother of the Cumming
of Georgia who fought multitudinous duels with McDuffie of South
Carolina, all of which both parties survived. Mr. Cumming had been a
sutler during the Mexican War, and more recently a Superintendent of
Indian Affairs on the Upper Missouri. He was reputed to be a gentleman
of education, ambition, and executive ability. The office of Chief
Justice was conferred on Judge D.R. Eckels, of Indiana, a person well
fitted for the position by the circumstances of his early life, of the
utmost determination, and whose judicial integrity was above suspicion.
The news of the stoppage of the mail reached Salt Lake Valley July 24th,
an eventful anniversary in the history of Mormonism. It was on the 24th
of July, 1847, that Brigham Young entered the Valley from the East, and
the day had always afterwards been kept as a holiday of the Church. On
this occasion, the celebration was held in Cottonwood Canon, one of the
wildest and grandest gorges among the Wahsatch Mountains, opening at
the foot of the Twin Peaks, about twenty miles southeast from Salt Lake
City.
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