yo UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



torial government ;' and both documents were submitted to a vote on 

 September 5, 1859, when the memorial was chosen instead of the con- 

 stitution.^ Upon October 3 another election was held, pursuant to the 

 memorial, and a delegate to Congress was chosen in the person of Beverly 

 D. Williams, who was local agent of a new Leavenworth and Pike's Peak 

 Express Company which had run its first coach into Denver in May,^ 

 and whose zeal for mail contracts may have inspired some of his earnest- 

 ness for congressional countenance. 



The adoption of the territorial memorial failed to meet the need for 

 immediate government or to prevent the advocates of such government 

 from working out a provisional arrangement pending the action of 

 Congress. These advocates held a mass-meeting in Denver on Septem- 

 ber 24,'* while on the day that Williams was elected to Congress, October 

 3, they also elected delegates for a preliminary territorial constitutional 

 convention, and upon October 10 this convention met. "Here we go," 

 commented Byers, "a regular triple-headed government machine; south 

 of 40 deg., we hang on to the skirts of Kansas; north of 40 deg., to those 

 of Nebraska; straddling the line, we have just elected a Delegate to the 

 United States Congress from the 'Territory of Jeflferson,' and ere long, 

 we will have in full blast a provisional government of Rocky Mountain 

 growth and manufacture. "s In this convention of October 10, 1859, 

 the name of Jefferson was retained for the new territory, the boundaries 

 of April 15 were retained, and a government similar to the highest type 

 of territorial establishment was provided for.^ If the convention had met 

 pursuant to an enabling act, its career could not have been more dignified. 

 It adopted a constitution with little trouble, and then dissolved after 

 calling an election for territorial oflScers for October 24, 1859. The 

 election of this day seems to have been orderly and generally participated 



» The Rocky Mountain News printed on August 6 the journal of the convention; on August 13 the 

 constitution; and on August 20 the memorial. 



'Smiley, 311; Rocky Mountain News, September 17, reports the vote. 



•J Sjuley, 251; Alice Polk Hill, Tales of the Colorado Pioneers (Denver, 1884), 41; Alexander 

 Majors, Seventy Years on the Frontier (Chicago and New York, 1893), 165, 228; Majors was a member 

 of the great freighting firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, which was intimately wrecked when the 

 "Pony Express," which had been started in April, i860, collapsed. 



* Rocky Mountain News, September 29; Smiley, 312. 



5 Rocky Mountain News, October 6. 



« HoLLiSTEE, 92; Smiley, 314; Bancroft, 406; text in Rocky Mountain News, October 20. 



