A Loose Leaf: The Unusual Life and Times of Journalist/Celebrity Photographer/Sailor/Spy Earl Leaf

To say that Earl H. Leaf lived a remarkable life is an understatement. While best known as a magazine photographer who, in the 1960s and 70s, photographed hundreds of celebrities—particularly young starlets like Marilyn Monroe, movie stars including Gregory Peck and Clint Eastwood, and musicians such as the Beach Boys, Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen— he also worked as a cowboy, a sailor, a logger, a prospector, a bookkeeper and even possibly a spy.

In the mid-1930s, Leaf was employed by United Press in China and was one of the first western journalists to interview and photograph Mao Tse-Tung. Later that decade he became a consultant for the propaganda arm of the Nationalist Government of China in New York City. With the start of World War II, he was a war correspondent/propagandist for the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime intelligence service that was the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.

In the early 1930s, however, Leaf had a different role: sometime reporter and daily columnist for the Nevada State Journal.

Details of Leaf’s early life are sketchy. It’s known that he was born in Seattle on August 25, 1904 and grew up in San Francisco. He apparently worked for several years as a logger and as a sailor before landing in Nevada in 1931, when the United Press opened an office in Reno and he was hired to serve as Nevada state manager (from about 1928 to 1930, he was a special correspondent for the United Press covering the states of Washington and California). On February 17, 1932, the Nevada State Journal reported, “Earl H. Leif, formerly Nevada manager for the United Press Association and until recently connected with that organization in Los Angeles, today becomes a regular member of the news staff of The Journal. Leif arrived last night from Los Angeles and will take over his new duties with this newspaper this morning. He is widely known throughout Reno and Nevada having been actively engaged in handling United Press work since that service first established a bureau in Reno.”

Leaf’s byline was spelled out, “Earl H. Leif,” in his early United Press and NSJ columns, but after April 5, 1932—perhaps to reflect the name of his popular newspaper column, “Loose Leaf from the Journal,” his last name was spelled “Leaf” and he maintained that spelling for the rest of his life. Interestingly, the last column with the “Leif” name began: “What’s in a name? Practically nothing.” It was devoted to ironic last names of various Reno residents (“None of the fishers sell fish. Not one of the Potters are potters or the Porters porters. Most all of the Walkers have autos.”).

One of the few glimpses into Leaf’s past appeared in a March 21, 1932 column when he revealed: “In the good old days when I was on the wander road carrying a “balloon” [backpack] on my back from here to yonder, we used to work in logging, construction or mining camps for a season or until we had saved a grubstake for the winter and then loaf until the following spring.”

Additionally, in a March 13, 1933 column, in which Leaf announced he was taking a leave from the paper for “a few months” (he never returned, although he sent periodic dispatches from China throughout 1935), he revealed a bit more of himself: “There are only two things I know newspaper work and seamanship. I’ve newspapered for six years and previously went to sea for seven years aboard lumber, oil and navy ships. I still hold a mate’s ticket for a seagoing ship. So in the Orient I may find myself a war correspondent reporter on a Chinese newspaper or mate on some tramp ship. It makes not the slightest difference to me which or why.”

Leaf’s first bylined column appeared in the front page of the NSJ on February 28, 1932. The column began with a plea for Reno to nurture a world -class artistic community: “Reno needs its Parnassus. Paris has its Montmarte, San Francisco has Telegraph Hill, New York has Greenwich Village, every distinctive city has an artists’ colony. There are no doubt many embryo Tricotrins, Lord Byrons, Whistlers, Michelangelos, Gershwins, Rachmaninoffs, Swipeburns, Hugos and O Henrys in Reno, but there seems to be no one particular rendezvous where they foregather to discuss plans for the future when they are famous. Reno does boast one artist of nation-wide note, Robert Caples, whose pencil portraits are as well known in New York circles as they are here.”

The rest of the column was a hodgepodge of local news and gossip, including a short item about how “someone wants to know who is the best looking policeman on the Reno force.” While Leaf provides no answer, he does nominate five “Lotharios” for the honor.

With a witty, informal tone that often utilized the direct address along with short sentences divided into easy-to-digest anecdotes, each separated by a small black line, Leaf’s column, which appeared almost daily during 1932 and early 1933, was clearly influenced by the popular gossip/news columns of the day, particularly the three-dot writing style of famed 1930s columnist Walter Winchell. However, what made Leaf’s column particularly readable was the clear voice he managed to craft with his words. Readers felt they knew the person behind the byline.

In his March 3, 1932 column, Leaf offered a brief description of his column, which had appeared with no explanation a few days earlier, by noting, the “Loose Leaf column isn’t supposed to be primarily funny. It will be serious, informative, instructive, and, we hope, amusing with a light vein of buffoonery here and there.”

A number of Leaf’s early columns reflected his debut column’s call for Reno to adopt a more literary or artistic identity. For example, in his March 26, 1932 column, Leaf urged his readers to “Try you luck and win a buck. Write about the summer breezes, even tho your poem wheezes.” A few days later, he printed several poems submitted for the contest including a short, humorous entry from Bert Cunningham of 44 University Avenue:

“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep,

They went to The Journal to take a peep.

To see about this fellow Leif;

But, sure enough, they came to grief

He invited them in—one and two—

The very next day he ate lamb stew.”

 

By mid-April, Leaf was occasionally venturing outside of Reno for column fodder. On April 21, 1932, in a column with a Fallon dateline, he wrote: “The weather was too nice to remain indoors and punch a typewriter in the office today (heh’ heh’), so we jumps in the trusty (Editor’s note: Should it be rusty?) Chevy and drives down to this town which grew up around John Fallon’s ranch house years ago.” He also wrote columns after visits to Gerlach, Susanville, Winnemucca, Lovelock and Yerington.

Most columns, however, were a collection of humorous stories, interesting observations about Reno, upcoming special events and the occasional poem. Often, Leaf would spotlight a little anecdote about a prominent local, state or national figure. For example, in a handful of columns in late June and early July 1932, he hyped an upcoming heavyweight fight between Max Baer and King Levinsky, scheduled to meet in Reno on July 4. On June 20, 1932, Leaf noted, “Maxy ‘Beautiful’ Baer was sunning his godlike physique in the sun at Lawtons Springs Saturday morning with a group of awestruck girls gazing at him with bated breath while one tickled his nose with a blade of grass and another patted his forehead admiringly. Into this scene of pastoral beauty strode a dark-eyed vision. Maxy ‘Apollo’ Baer jumped up in sudden surprise and the girlies wondered who in the devil was this woman who interrupted the sylvan peace of their pastime. It was none other than Mrs. Dorothy Dunbar Wells De Garcon Baer, wife of the pugilistic Adonis, who then and there donned bathing garb and sun-bathed with her gorgeous husband.”

While most of Leaf’s output appeared in his daily column, he wrote a handful of stories that appeared in the news columns of the paper. For example, on November 30, 1932, he wrote not only his regular column but a hard-hitting front-page story headlined, “‘I Buy a Gun’ Earl Leaf Finds Sudden Death is Cheap, Available to All.” In the article, he wrote about the ease with which he was able to purchase a .32 caliber Harrington and Richardson revolver with “enough soft-nosed bullets to kill or maim seven persons” for a little over $3 in a second-hand store on Lake Street in Reno. “Life is cheap. Let’s figure it up. Seven bullets for 25 cents. Less than four cents per human life,’ he added. “My $3 gun is good for many many lives at the rate of less than four cents per death.”

With dialogue right out of a gangster movie, Leaf continued:

 “The second hand store proprietor who sold me this engine of death could give no description of me. My cap was pulled down far over my eyes. ‘Sure we got guns,’ he said. ‘How much do you want to pay?’

 “‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m a stranger in town I can’t give no references for the gat.’

“We talked in whispers.

“‘You don’t need none here. In California . . .’

“‘I know the California laws on totin’ a gat,’ I said. ‘But don’t I have to tell my name or business?’

“‘No, it ain’t required here,’ he said.

“‘Don’t you have to take the number of the gun in case the dicks want to trace it?’ I asked.

“‘Don’t need that information.’

“‘Listen,’ I whispered. ‘Will the dicks pick up a guy for carrying a gun here?’

“‘Naw, just keep it out of sight,’ he replied.”

Another noteworthy story written by Leaf was a Consumer Reports-style investigative piece about the quality of Reno’s illegal corn whiskey, which appeared in the NSJ on January 8, 1933, some 11 months before the repeal of prohibition. In the feature, entitled, “What Kind of ‘Corn’ Does Reno Drink?—Leaf Learns Facts,” the columnist posed a series of questions: “What kind of liquor are you getting when you step up to a bar in a local speakie? Is it good, wholesome product, or is it poison? Is there any difference between the whiskey sold by the ‘twenty-five-cent’ or the ‘fifty-cent’ joints in town?”

Armed with a $4 expense account, Leaf wandered into four local speakeasies where he purchased a half-pint of whiskey from each. He took the liquor to the state food and drug laboratory where it was analyzed for harmful ingredients. The results showed varying percentages of alcohol and natural coloring but “nothing particularly harmful or injurious to the organs was found,” according to Leaf. However, his investigation did indicate one surprise. “One fact stands out like a fly in a wedding cake,” he wrote. “There is very little difference between the whiskey sold by the most exclusive speakie in town at four-bits a throw than in the lowliest dive on Peavine street at two-bits a shot with the house treating drink for drink.”

But perhaps Leaf’s most memorable reporting for the Journal was a series of dispatches he wrote about posing as a hobo and riding the rails through Nevada and Utah, which appeared in late October and early November 1932. In his October 11 column, Leaf explained he would be missing from the pages of the Journals for a while while he undertook an undercover assignment.

“With only the clothes on my back and a few odds and ends in my pockets I shall walk down to the Park street bridge, hop over the fence and approach the fire under the bridge and then for one week or one month I shall live the life of the homeless wanderer, the jobless itinerant, the migratory worker, and be a member of that great shifting army of unemployed,” he wrote. “I shall live their life, eat their food, sleep where they sleep, talk their language . . . my assignment is to bum my way from Reno to Salt Lake City, returning by a different route, starting with the sum total of 50 cents in my pockets, no more, no less.”

He returned to Reno on October 20, a fact reported by the Journal in a front-page story titled, “Leaf to Tell Adventures Of His Trip.” In the short article that carried no byline, the Journal noted that after a 12-day, 1,500-mile “hobo trip” that completed a triangular journey from Reno to Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and back to Reno, “Earl H. ‘Loose’ Leaf,” had completed his assignment “with an exciting and intensely interesting story of life among the homeless wanderers who roam the land, tattered and hungry.” The paper said the first installment of his series about his experiences would begin the next day.

Leaf’s first report about the hobo life appeared on the front page of the October 22, 1932 edition of the Journal. In the story, headlined, “Leaf, As Jobless Wanderer, Tries to Find Shelter in Winnemucca Jail,” Leaf wrote of befriending a handful of tramps under the Park Street Bridge in Reno, who nicknamed his “Slim” because of his very tall and thin appearance, before hitchhiking to Winnemucca. Once there, he panhandled two nickels on a street corner, which he used to buy a loaf of bread. That evening, he had a bread and coffee dinner and then joined another fellow traveler in trying to find shelter for the night at the local jail.

“A light was burning dimly in the jail but there was no answer to our knocks. We huddled up on the doorsteps of the mail and waited for what seemed hours, as the temperature slowly but surely dropped,” he wrote.

“‘Let’s see if there ain’t an open window to the office,’ he said.

“We tested them all, but they were locked. My comrade found a small stick in the grass.

“‘I’ll jimmy that window open,’ he said. ‘ Damned if I’m going to lay out in the cold all night. My lungs went back on me last winter and this front won’t do them no good.’

“With the stick as a jimmy, he pried at the window of the jail office.”

And with that, Leaf ended his column with the words, “—More Tomorrow—“. It was an effective cliffhanger that was sure to make the reader return the next day.

The next day, Leaf revealed that the two were unable to pry open the jail window and spent the night huddled around a campfire to stay warm. The following day, Leaf split from his partner and spent some of his money for a room in a local flophouse, where he was able to finally get some sleep. The next day, while wandering Winnemucca, hoping to trade work for some food, he encountered a familiar face, R.C. Stitser, publisher of the Winnemucca newspaper, who pretended to not know him and helped him get a few hours of work in a hotel kitchen in return for a large breakfast. From there, he hopped onto a freight train and continued east.

The next day, Leaf found himself riding in a freight car with 18 other people (17 men and a woman). He said the group included several young boys and a particular dirty hobo who at one point in the evening took off his shoes. “A terrible odor began to pervade the car,” Leaf wrote. “The whole car reeked. Several moved away from him. I opened the door of the box car wide and hung my face outside in the clean but mighty cold air.”

The man with the smelly feet became angry because the open door was letting in cold from outside. He threatened Leaf, who said he would shut the door as soon as the man put his shoes back on his feet. The man bellowed curses and rushed at Leaf, who slammed a fist into the man’s nose. At this point the story ended and readers were told more tomorrow.

The next part of Leaf’s journey picked up with the reporter and the man with the stinky feet rolling around on the box-car floor. At one point, a Good Samaritan hobo jumps on top of the two in order to remove Leaf’s glasses. The scuffle soon spreads and eventually nearly everyone in the car is trading blows and tussling. The fighting finally stops when the train begins to slow, indicating it had reached Carlin. The combatants quickly quieted down, fearful someone from the railroad might discover their presence and throw them all out of the car. After about half the car disembarked at Carlin and Leaf continued on to Elko.

For the next week, Leaf related the often-sad stories of the various folks he met on the road. He wrote of the challenges posed by “riding the rods,” including being harassed by brakemen and railroad “bulls,” which were thugs hired to remove anyone found riding in a freight car. Many such toughs resorted to beating the hoboes, sometimes with blackjacks, and tossing them from moving trains. As one fellow traveler told Leaf: “If a bull tells me to get off a train, I’ll do it. But if he started slugging and sapping me with no good reason, I’d kill him and it wouldn’t worry my head. What the hell.”

The series ended with a bang: while hitchhiking from Las Vegas back to Reno, the car in which Leaf was riding suffered a tire blowout and the vehicle flipped over. Fortunately neither the driver nor Leaf was injured and the pair was able to right the car and, with help from a passing motorist, fix the tire and any other damage in order to continue north. “We rolled into Reno about 5:30 that night and I was a mighty happy man to be home again after nearly two weeks on the road as a bum and tramp,” he wrote.

“The new hobo as he might well be called wants to work and live as normal men do. He does not want to be a bum, to live hand-to-mouth, starving and undernourished, cold and in rags. He is used to better times but has no other alternative. He cannot sit at home, jobless and idle, waiting for world conditions to improve,” he concluded. “And thus my narrative ends, with the admonition—be charitable to those less fortunate than you.”

In the March 12 issue of the Journal, Leaf revealed that “Washoe Pete” would take over his column in two days but revealed little more—beyond making jokes at “Pete’s” expense, such as claiming he suffered from “slight incapacitation” that day because he’d been tossed out of 38 Reno speakeasies the night before. However, Leaf continued, Pete was in favor of reducing the number of speakeasies in town so there won’t be so many of them to be thrown out of in the future.

The following day, Leaf bid his readers goodbye and explained why it time to depart the Biggest Little City: “For nearly three years (with the exception of three months in San Francisco and Los Angeles) I have lived in Nevada enjoying a fair-sized and assured income, knowing always where my next meal was coming from and where I would sleep each night (with the exception of a two weeks’ bumming trip to Salt Lake and Las Vegas).

And I feel as though I am growing soft like a woman. A life of ease, the hearthside, an assured income, a lack of danger—these things have never appealed to me.

And so every once in a while I have to go off and chase rainbows. That’s all this trip really amounts to.”

With the exception of about a half-dozen dispatches from China written for the Journal over the next four years, Leaf disappeared for good from Reno’s journalism scene. He went on to write and provide photos for a 1948 book, “Isles of Rhythm,” which was devoted to describing the native folk dances of various Caribbean islands including Haitian voodoo, Cuban rumba, and Jamaican obeah as well as to write and/or provide photos for articles in several national magazines including Colliers, Popular Photography and Eye.

By the early 1950s, however, Leaf had reinvented himself as a colorful Los Angeles-based photographer with a goatee/Abe Lincoln-style beard, and hip, casual garb (often wearing a safari jacket and an ascot) who was often described as the Beatnik Photographer. He joined the staff of Teen Magazine, writing a monthly gossip column called “My Fair and Frantic Hollywood,” and was a regular photo contributor to Hot Rod, Movie Play, Movie Time and several others. Additionally, he became a much in demand photographer for various up-and-coming movie stars and musicians. He has been described as Marilyn Monroe’s favorite photographer, who he first met and photographed in 1950. In the 60s, he befriended the Beach Boys, shooting a few cover shots for the band’s albums and even becoming the subject of one of their songs, “Bull Session with the ‘Big Daddy.’”

Leaf also was in-demand as a pin-up photographer. During the 50s and 60s, he photographed dozens of nude, semi-nude and provocatively posed models and actresses. In a later interview, recounted by author Robert Graysmith in his book, “The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shower,” Leaf said that his interest in shooting pin-up poses began when he was living in New York in the 1940s and he spotted a sign offering nude model classes for amateur photographers. “Then and there I decided to become a photographer,” Leaf said. “I began to hire my own models to come to my house at night. Pretty soon, I was selling some of the figure studies. Then I went as far as to put a few clothes on the girls started with cheesecake. After a while I was earning as much money with my girl pictures as I was at my regular newspaper job.”

Earl Leaf died in Los Angeles on February 5, 1980 at the age of 75.

Major William Ormsby's Thirst for Fortune and Fame

For more than a century, every child growing up in Carson City became familiar with the name, Ormsby. From 1861 to 1969, Nevada’s capital city was the seat of Ormsby County and from 1860 to the early 1930s, one of the city’s most prominent hotels was called the Ormsby House. Later, the Ormsby name would grace a street, an apartment complex, a rehab center and even a hotel-casino built a few blocks south of the site of the old hotel. If that child paid much attention in Nevada history class, he or she might even know those things were named after Major William Ormsby, who fought and died in the Pyramid Lake Indian War of 1860.

So, who was this Major William Ormsby?

*     *     *

Born in Greenville, Pennsylvania in 1814, William Matthew Ormsby was one of 11 children (two of whom died as children) born to Matthew and Jane Ormsby. His father was Scotch-Irish, born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, while his mother hailed from Centre County, Pennsylvania, located about 90 miles to the north. After marrying in 1805, the two lived in Pittsburgh for several years, where Matthew Ormsby worked as a cabinet-maker. In 1811, the family settled on a farm in Mercer County, Pennsylvania near Greenville, where most of their children were to be born. A year later, Matthew joined the Pennsylvania militia and was dispatched to Erie to repel the threatened British invasion during the War of 1812.

While not much is known about William Ormsby’s early years, it’s apparent that sometime during his first three-and-half decades Ormsby got the itch to leave behind the farm fields of western Pennsylvania for something greater. The mid-19^th century was a time when belief in Manifest Destiny, the idea among many Americans that they had a divine obligation to expand the boundaries of the country, was a prevailing philosophy. For Ormsby, Manifest Destiny appeared to be much more than a concept—it was a guiding principle. This drive to be perceived as someone important could even be said to extend to the fact that after Ormsby had earned the rank of major in the Pennsylvania militia, he proudly continued using his military title for the rest of his life.

In April 1849, Ormsby joined two of his brothers, John (a doctor) and Lemuel, as well as his brother-in-law, John K. Trumbo, to journey overland to California’s gold rush territory to make their fortunes. He left behind his young wife, Margaret and daughter, Lizzy Jane, who moved in with her parents in Kentucky. Ormsby partnered with his brother, John, and the two, soon joined by their youngest brother, Matthew, established an assay office and the first private mint for gold coinage in Sacramento.

According to Edgar Holmes Adams, who wrote “Private Gold Coinage of California, 1849-55, Its History and Its Issues” in 1913, the firm was called J.S. Ormsby & Co. and had an office on K Street near Front Street, beneath the Golden Eagle Saloon. The company hand-struck five and ten dollar coins made from the gold nuggets that seemingly tumbled out of the nearby American River.

In addition to the mint, Ormsby also partnered with James Horace Culver, who published the first book ever printed about Sacramento (“Sacramento City Directory for the Year 1851”) to speculate in real estate. His name was also associated with other ventures at the time including a livery stable and hauling business, and The Horse Market, a horse auctioning business started by Trumbo. In 1850, he began a mail and passenger stage line between Sacramento and Hangtown (Placerville) and Coloma.

Sacramento during the Gold Rush period was a place of great excitement, opportunity, and political intrigue. No doubt Ormsby saw firsthand the machinations of the various factions jostling for power as that city began to take shape. In his book, “Gold Rush Capitalists,” historian Mark A. Eifler noted that in the spring of 1849, when Sacramento’s first municipal government was formed, it was led by the city’s five largest merchants, who, quite naturally, appointed themselves to serve as a provisional government. No doubt Ormsby also took note of that fact.

In about 1852, the two older Ormsby brothers were doing well enough to travel east to retrieve their spouses as well as a sister, Annabelle. Trumbo also returned to Kentucky for his wife but she had no interest in moving to California and they divorced. Later, he would marry Mary Reese, sister of John Reese, one of the founders of Genoa, and the two would have eight children.

In 1853, Ormsby established a stage line between Sacramento and Marysville (for which Matthew, was a driver). Still eager to strike it rich, and apparently not achieving that goal with his previous endeavors, he moved on to prospecting in the promising gold fields of the Grass Valley-Nevada City area, even acquiring shares in a promising gold mine.

Two years later, however, Ormsby found a cause that seemed to hold even more promise in bringing him the fame and riches he coveted. While in Sacramento, he befriended a Tennessean with grand ideas named William Walker. Born in Nashville, Walker, who was ten years younger than Ormsby, was a true prodigy, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Nashville at the age of 14 and earning a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania at 19. With a few years, Walker had also become a practicing lawyer in Philadelphia before co-owning and operating a newspaper in New Orleans. And he accomplished this all by the time he was 25 years old.

The wiry Walker, who has been described as being of below average height and weighing about 100 pounds with blonde hair and almost white eyebrows, however, had boundless energy, a hunger to achieve something great and a big plan—traits that would surely endear him to Ormsby. Walker wanted to gather an army of expansion-minded Americans to help him conquer countries throughout Latin America. After installing himself as the leader of these countries, he planned to convert them into pro-slavery states that would be annexed to the slave-holding southern states in the United States. In the mid-19^th century, this practice of unauthorized foreign adventurers attempting to stir up insurrections in other regions or countries in the hope of bringing them into the American fold became known as filibustering or freebooting.

While Walker wasn’t the only American to engage in filibustering, he certainly was one of the most persistent. In November 1853, Walker and a small army of about 50 armed followers, mostly from Tennessee and Kentucky, invaded Sonora, Mexico and Baja, California and declared an independent country, which he named “The Republic of Lower California.” Walker’s quick conquest of Northern Mexico was short-lived. By May 1854, with his troops in disarray due to food shortages, constant attacks by bandits, and low morale, Walker surrendered to U.S. authorities at the border.

Amazingly, Walker was acquitted by a San Francisco jury and by 1855 was making plans for a new invasion, this time of Nicaragua. Sometime in 1856, Ormsby decided to join Walker on his Nicaragua campaign.

Again, much isn’t known about Ormsby’s time with Walker but in her book, “Devils Will Reign: How Nevada Began,” historian Sally Zanjani described the major’s relationship to Walker like this: “In 1856 he [Ormsby] reportedly joined the Walker expedition to Nicaragua. The vainglorious William Walker, mad with ambition and attracting like-minded men, intended to make himself an emperor, seize lands in Nicaragua, sell them to his followers, and ultimately admit several South American countries to the Union as slave states.”

While the Nicaragua excursion ultimately failed—Walker was executed in Honduras in September 1860 after a second failed attempt to conquer Nicaragua—the fires of Ormsby’s personal ambition continued to burn brightly. He returned to Northern California and in 1857 became a partner in the Pioneer Stage Company, which operated a stage line between Genoa and Placerville. In April of that year, he, his wife and daughter, and his brother-in-law, J.K. Trumbo, relocated to the newly-established settlement of Genoa in the far western Utah Territory. No doubt it was a perfect place for a man with his aspirational goals.

According to author Michael J. Makley, who wrote about early Genoa is his book, “The Hanging of Lucky Bill,” Ormsby initially operated a trading post in space rented from a successful local businessman, William “Lucky Bill” Thorington. A short time later, he and Trumbo purchased property in Genoa and operated a store.

Shortly after arriving in Genoa, Ormsby and his wife agreed to take two Paiute girls into their home. The two were the daughters of Chief Winnemucca, the leader of the northern Nevada Paiute people, with whom the Ormsbys apparently had become friendly. For several months, Margaret Ormsby taught the girls English in exchange for their help with household chores. One of the girls, Sarah Winnemucca, would later become an important bridge between the Paiutes and the white community, and a strong advocate for Native American rights. In 1882, she published “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims,” which was the first book ever published in English by a Native American woman.

The self-assured Ormsby quickly became active in local politics. A friend, James M. Crane, arrived in Genoa three months later and the two would soon take prominent roles in fomenting for the creation of a separate territory from the Utah Territory. Crane, who was born in Richmond, Virginia, was a former newspaper publisher who supported himself as a lecturer and occasional correspondent for other papers.

Ormsby’s reason for supporting such a plan reflected his belief that Salt Lake City, the seat of the territory, was too far away to effectively govern the growing and increasingly more lawless western Utah area. Additionally, Ormsby, like many disgruntled new residents of the region, was not a member of the Mormon religion and resented the church’s power and influence, which, they believed unfairly favored members of the faith. Perhaps more importantly, however, was the fact the creation of a new territory offered opportunity for someone with Ormsby’s healthy ambitions to become a leader in establishing a new American state.

In August 1857, Ormsby and Crane became the de facto leaders of a committee that had formed in Genoa to petition the U.S. Congress for the creation of a new territory (Genoa founder John Reese was elected president of the group but Ormsby soon assumed the role of chair of the meetings). The committee agreed to send Crane to Washington to advocate for territorial status. Meanwhile Ormsby, according to Zanjani, “remained on the eastern slope, immersing himself in local politics and accumulating landholdings in Gold Canyon, where he anticipated more mining; Eagle Valley, a likely spot for a future state capital; and other sites.”

Along the way, Ormsby also apparently became a rival and enemy of “Lucky Bill” Thorington, who had acquired considerable landholdings in Genoa and the Carson Valley, and was the head of a faction of more established, pioneer settlers who had learned to co-exist with the Mormons and resented Ormsby’s growing ambitions. Ormsby and another man, Richard Sides, headed up a group known as the vigilance committee, which sought to not only pull away from Utah but also dispense justice similar to San Francisco’s Committee of Vigilance, a citizen vigilante group that had formed in the 1850s in response to rampant crime and corruption in that city.

Thorington is considered a controversial figure because he was not only a good businessman but he was also a professional gambler—hence his nickname—and reportedly had two wives, although he was not a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. According to Makley, Thorington’s first wife and son, Maria and Jerome, lived in a home he built for them in Genoa while his second wife (or mistress, according to some sources), Martha Lamb, lived on his ranch in Fredericksburg (south of Genoa) and later on one of his ranches in Eagle Valley.

Thorington also had a reputation for helping people in need—there are numerous stories about him helping out his neighbors as well as destitute travelers trying to get to California. He was not, however, always the best judge of character and sometimes associated with less savory individuals, such as William Coombs Edwards, who had murdered a man in California and escaped to the eastern Sierra to avoid answering for his crime. Thorington accepted Edwards claim that he had killed the man in self-defense and agreed to safeguard a sack of money for Edwards.

In April 1858, Edwards, now living at Honey Lake under an alias, and an associate, killed a local rancher, Henry Gordier, and took his cattle herd. Their deed was uncovered a month later and Edwards headed back to the Carson Valley to hide out and seek Thorington’s help. The latter apparently believed Edwards when he swore he was not involved in Gordier’s murder.

Meanwhile, a posse from Honey Lake received word that Edwards was with Thorington in Carson Valley and rode there to capture Edwards. The group, joined by Ormsby and some of the members of his vigilance committee, confronted Thorington and took him into custody. They pressured Thorington into having his 17-year-old son bring Edwards to them and, following a quick (and some would later say, too quick) trial, sentenced him to die by hanging.

Following Thorington’s hanging, Ormsby’s efforts to pull away from the Utah Territory accelerated. In December 1857, Ormsby’s vigilance committee issued several statements denouncing Utah’s authority over the region and stating its intentions not to acknowledge the authority of any officials, including judges, appointed by Salt Lake City. Compounding the situation was the sudden departure of most of the Mormons residents of western Utah Territory in 1857. Tensions between the U.S. government and church officials sparked fears of a conflict—the so-called “Mormon War”—and Brigham Young, leader of the church, recalled his followers to Salt Lake City to defend the church’s seat of authority. The resulting power vacuum increased local anxieties as well as incidents of lawlessness. Uneasy relations between the settlers—many of whom felt even more strongly in favor of the need for independence from remote government officials in Utah—and the territorial government continued until 1859, when the discovery of fabulously rich silver reserves in Virginia City changed the equation for both sides.

In the intervening year-and-a-half, Ormsby—no doubt recalling lessons learned in the founding of Sacramento—developed his real estate holdings, particularly in Carson City, where he wholeheartedly embraced city founder Abraham Curry’s vision of the community as the seat of a new state capital. In 1858, he opened a general store in Carson City—said to be the first commercial business in the city—and a year later constructed a two-story adobe hotel at the corner of Second and Carson Streets. Called the Ormsby House, it was the city’s first substantial lodging house and not coincidentally was located across the street from Curry’s plaza, which the latter hoped would one day become the site of a state capitol building.

The only known image of Ormsby from this period depicts a dark-haired man with a long nose, youthful face and serious eyes. He has a neatly-trimmed beard and mustache, with longish, wavy hair that covers the top of his ears, which lay tight against his head. It is the face of a confident man.

But, according to Zanjani, Ormsby did not become a major player in the fabulous mining boom underway in nearby Virginia City, although he bought several mining claims. Seeing millionaires cropping up seemingly overnight in his own backyard must have alarmed Ormsby, who perhaps feared these nouveau riche mining barons would surpass him in terms of political influence.

In the spring of 1860, however, tragic circumstances presented Ormsby with a chance to climb back into the spotlight just as the movement to create a new territory was gaining momentum in Washington. In early May, two young Paiute girls (said to have been 9 and 12) were discovered imprisoned at a trading post along the Carson River that was called Williams Station. Once word spread, a group of Paiute warriors attacked the station to free the girls. The group killed Oscar and Edwin Williams, who owned the post with their brother, James, as well as three guests, and burned the station. James Williams managed to escape and quickly alerted others of the attack. Soon, white settlers throughout the eastern slope were in a panic about impending Indian attacks. Local militias quickly formed in Genoa, the Virginia City area and Carson City to protect residents and, on May 7, the groups agreed to join together to take the fight to the Native Americans clustered at Pyramid Lake.

An expeditionary force of 105 men set out from Virginia City to seek revenge against the so-called “red devils.” In his book, “History of the Comstock Lode,” published in 1883, mining historian Elliott Lord described the citizen militia as a “motley company mustered from the mining towns and settlements in the valley, poorly mounted and armed as a rule with wretched muskets and shot-guns . . . it was a heterogeneous mixture of independent elements, poorly armed, without discipline, and they did not believe that the Indians would fight.”

The army included the Carson City Rangers, a group of about two-dozen volunteers and local soldiers from the future Capital City area led by none other than Major William Ormsby. Joining him were the Genoa Rangers, under the command of Thomas F. Condon, Jr., with seven men, and the Silver City Guards, led by Captain R.G. Watkins, who, like Ormsby, was a veteran of the Walker filibustering expedition to Nicaragua. Watkins, in fact, had lost a leg during those battles and had to be strapped to his saddle and placed atop his horse to make the journey. The group was rounded out by a large contingency of men from Virginia City, headed by Archie McDonald.

While Ormsby attempted to organize the group by having the men designate a leader, his attempts were rebuffed—no doubt because most believed any skirmish would certainly be short, with the Native Americans surrendering or scattering into the desert. Elliott said many started the expedition “with the watchword of ‘An Indian for breakfast and a pony to ride,’ meaning they would kill a few of the warriors and return with the spoils of war such as horses.

On May 9, 1860, the company set off for Williams Station, arriving a day later. Upon arriving at the scene of the burned structures, they stopped to bury the dead. According to Myron Angel, writing in Thompson and West’s “History of Nevada,” published in 1881, the militia then voted unanimously to continue on to Pyramid Lake to avenge the attack. They spent the next night near the present-day community of Wadsworth before heading north along the Truckee River to the lake. About three-and-a-half miles south of the lake, the trail dropped down a steep incline into a broad meadow, bordered by a mountain to the west and a higher plateau to the east, with clusters of cottonwoods growing along the river.

Shortly after riding into the meadow, the militia encountered a group of Native American warriors standing “on an elevated point to their right front, just out of gunshot range.” Ormsby is said to have given the order for the company to dismount and tighten their saddle straps in preparation for an assault. One of the party, A.K. Elliott, who had a long-range rifle, fired off a couple of shots at the Indians but they remained too far away.

The militia members climbed back onto their horses and the order was given to charge at the distant warriors. A group of some 30 rode up onto the plateau but discovered the Indians seemed to have disappeared into the landscape. However, another group of Indians appeared on a rise that was again just out of range. As the confused riders began to ride out to confront them once again, Paiute warriors armed with rifles and bows suddenly cropped up from behind the sagebrush in front and to the flanks of the militia members and started firing at the citizen soldiers.

“The battle was lost to the whites in the next five minutes by a failure to promptly continue the aggressive, and thus give hope of success with which to occupy the mind, instead of a gradually growing fear and horror of falling wounded or otherwise into the hands of the Indians,” Angel wrote.

As the militia members attempted to retreat, they encountered additional warriors, who continued the attack. One of the leaders of the Paiute forces, Numaga, who had originally opposed confronting the whites, attempted to restrain his forces in order to conduct a parlay with Ormsby and the other militia leaders, but he was ignored.

As the battle turned into a rout, Ormsby, who, according to Angel, had been wounded in both arms and in his mouth, tried to rally the surviving members of his group to retreat via the steep trail that had led them into the meadow. However, they were quickly surrounded by the Native American fighters who maintained their furious assault. Riding on a mule that had been shot through its flank, Ormsby tried to ride out of the meadow but his saddle turned and he was thrown to the ground.

“The Major got up and walked to the top of the steep grade; when looking back he recognized one of the Indians nearest to him in the pursuit, and instantly turned and started to meet him,” Angel wrote. “He evidently supposed there was hope of his being spared, because of the friendly relations that heretofore had existed between him and Pah-Ute that now confronted him.”

According to Angel, Ormsby waved to the oncoming warrior, called out to him by name, and reminded him that he was his friend. He promised to speak to the white leaders to make peace. The unnamed Paiute reportedly replied that it was too late for talk. He notched an arrow that he sent flying into Ormsby’s stomach, followed by a second one to the major’s face. Ormsby fell to the ground and rolled down the ridge into a gully where he died. He was 45 years old.

In the end, some 76 members of the militia died in the battle (and, according to reports, only three Paiutes perished). The survivors straggled into Dayton and other settlements to spread the word of the disastrous encounter. Within days, news of the massacre had spread throughout northern Nevada and California. In Virginia City, women and children were herded into a stone building for safety and sentinels were posted around the community. In late May, a more well-armed, experienced and supervised force of more than 200 U.S. Army troops and about 550 volunteers from Northern California and Northern Nevada came together to march on Pyramid Lake for a second battle. This time, the result was a draw with the Native American forces, said to number about 300, ultimately retreating and dispersing following a fierce three-hour battle.

Following the June 2 battle, Ormsby’s body, which had been temporarily buried on the battlefield, was taken to Carson City, where he was interred in the Pioneer section of what is now the Lone Mountain Cemetery. However, according to Chris W. Bayer, author of “Profits, Plots, and Lynching: The Creation of the Nevada Territory,” Ormsby’s daughter had his remains removed from Carson City in the 1880s and reburied in Northern California (some sources claim Oakland, California). Bayer said Ormsby’s body was cremated in 1908 and reburied at an unknown location, although some say his ashes were taken to New York.

Margaret Ormsby, who built an elegant home at 302 South Minnesota Street in Carson City two years after her husband’s death, remained active for a time in the Carson City community and managed the family assets, which included considerable real estate and some mining claims. She remarried in 1863, to a doctor, John H. Wayman (the marriage ceremony was performed by Acting Territorial Governor Orion Clemens, brother of writer Mark Twain). The couple relocated to California and she died three years later in San Francisco at the age of 48.

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On March 2, 1861, the Nevada Territory was created by an act of Congress. As part of the act, the territory contained nine counties, including Ormsby County, named to honor the brave, fallen Major William Ormsby. Carson City was designated seat of the new county.

In 1969, however, the Ormsby name was discarded when a combined city-county government, simply named Carson City, was created. The original Ormsby House, owned by Margaret Ormsby for several years after her husband’s death, remained a popular lodging house into the late 1800s. But by the early 20^th century, the property, now called the Park Hotel, was in decline. When it was purchased in 1932 by the Laxalt family, the old Ormsby was, according to at least one historian, little more than flophouse, and was torn down. A newer, grander Ormsby House Hotel and Casino, built at Fifth and Carson streets by the Laxalt family in 1972, thrived for several decades before it closed in 2000. In spite of a decade-and-a-half-long renovation project initiated by later owners, the property remains closed and is for sale.

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Had Major William Ormsby not been killed on the muddy, bloody and chaotic battlefield near Pyramid Lake, he probably would have returned to Carson City a hero for simply surviving the skirmish. His fine hotel would have made him the toast of the future capital city. No doubt, he would have continued to expand his financial holdings to become an extremely important and prominent member of the community and the state. He might even have been elected to public office—perhaps serving as governor or U.S. Senator.

No doubt.