|
||
|
|
|
|
Silas Reed's annotations on the verso of /gallery/enlarge/47545a
Silas Reed
Silas Reed (1807-1886) was born in Ohio and received a diploma from the Medical College of Ohio, and thereafter lived in Cincinnati for several years. About 1838, Reed moved to Rock Island, Illinois, and in 1841 was appointed surveyor general of Illinois and Missouri by President William Henry Harrison. This appointment was not confirmed by the Senate, but after the presentation by Dr. Reed of letters and memorials to President John Tyler and the Senate, it was brought up again and approved.
Dr. Reed served as surveyor general from March 17, 1841, to May 12, 1845. After 1845, he seems to have done business as a Lang Agent. He is also credited as being the father of the copper mining industry in the St. Louis area in the early 1850s, operating a mining and smelting operation in Stanton County, Missouri. Siala Reed and Henry T. Blow are credited with develoing the method for manufacturing white lead. Kennedy's 1860 St. Louis City Directory shows Silas Reed doing business as Reed & Wetmore, Land Agents, 71 Chestnut Street (George P. Wetmore). One curious aspect of Reed's life is that he intervened on behalf of George Heart (father of William Randolph Hearst) in rehabilitating George Heart's reputation after the Civil War, helping get George clearance to feel comfortable returning to California from St. Louis in 1862, after George's "seditious" language in support of the Confederate States of America in 1861 had gotten him in considerable trouble.
Reed continued to make his headquarters in St. Louis until 1870, when he was appointed the first surveyor general of Wyoming Territory by President Ulysses S. Grant. Due in part to political intrigue, he resigned in 1875. The New-York Tribune reported that then Secretary of the Interior John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts. The obvious implication was that surveyors were bribing him in order to obtain the contracts. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slu."sh fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong
In his later yearsm he devoted his remaining years to his mining interests in Utah and the promotion of the Dallas and Wichita Railroad Company in Texas. In 1876, he appeared before the Congressional Committee on Expenditures in the Interior Department in its investigation of surveys in the Territory of Wyoming.
The Silas Reed Papers are held at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
