Archives West Finding Aid

Alden Joseph Bennett was born on June 25, 1847 in Harpersfield, New York. While majoring in civil engineering, he graduated with honors from the Franklin Engineering and Literary Institute in 1866. During his early adult life, Bennett assisted his cousin in a law office, taught school, was employed in a nursery, worked on the Union Pacific Railroad, was engaged in agricultural pursuits, and was hired as a surveyor. His banking career, which lasted for forty three years, commenced in 1876. Within three years Bennett and his partner founded a bank in Virginia City, Montana. Evidence of community and business leaders' respect for his leadership qualities and business acumen was manifest in his selection as a member of the local school board, his election as Superintendant of Schools, and in his appointments to serve as an officer on several banking, mining, telegraph, telephone, electrical, and life insurance companies. Bennett was very involved in local, state, and national Republican party politics. Between 1878 and 1908, he chaired the Madison county Republican committee, was elected mayor of Virginia City, was a candidate for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket, was a member of the Montana legislature, and was chosen as a delegate to his party's national convention. He died on February 13, 1919 in Virginia City.

Joseph Hotchkiss Harper was born on July 5, 1845 in Delaware county, New York. Like Bennett, Harper graduated in civil engineering from the Franklin Engineering and Literary Institute in 1866. Unlike Bennett, he enlisted in the Union Army in 1864 and served in the infantry until the end of the Civil War. In the summer of 1868 Harper and Bennett decided to leave New York commencing a journey with no specific destination in mind. Some of the cities which the two engineers visited were New York City, New Haven, Providence, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo, and Chicago. Both obtained employment with the Union Pacific Railroad with Harper working as an engineer. At the beginning of 1869 the two friends continued their peregrinations and traveled to Denver, Laramie, and Salt Lake City. Enroute they witnessed the Promontory Summit, Utah merger of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads, thus creating America's first transcontinental means of transportation. Bennett and Harper shared similar impressions about the Latter Day Saint community in Utah. On the one hand, they perceived Latter Day Saints to be honest, industrious, highly religious, and meritorious in the way in which they had constructed Salt Lake City and transformed the surrounding area. On the other hand, Bennett and Harper found the Latter Day Saint society to be intolerant towards Gentiles, suspicious of strangers, provincial in their world outlook, and guilty of misrepresenting to European converts what awaited them upon their arrival in Zion. Subsequent to his departure from Utah Harper eventually settled in Montana where he was involved in farming for a few years. In the mid-1870s Harper began a long career in the mining industry during which he established a solid reputation as a leader in his field of expertise. By 1902 Harper had been elected as president of the Society of Montana Mining Engineers. Four years later he moved to California where he was an eyewitness to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Harper died in Denver on August 20, 1921.