1ursday, April I0, 199"/Pahrump Valley Gazette
Nevada
- then and now
Daniel Bonelli: Colorado River Pioneer
by Phillip 1. Earl
Nevada Historical Society
orn Johan Daniel Bonelli in Switzerland on February 25, 1836, Daniel Bonelli
was a Colorado River pioneer. An early convert to Mormonism, he left his
native land for his missionary work in 1857 and spent the next two years in
London. In 1859, as he sailed for America, he met
and fell in love with Ann Hight aboard ship. They were married
in New York City shortly after landing. A few weeks later, they
embarked for St. Louis where they joined a wagon train bound
for Salt Lake City.
In Salt Lake City, he worked as a weaver and a tailor and took
part in church activities before accepting a missionary assign-
ment in the southern section of the Utah Territory, leading a
group of Swiss converts. Arriving in Santa Clara on November ::
28, 1861, Bonelli and the colonists set out the first grape arbors
in that section of the territory, having brought cuttings from
France and Spain.
While Bonelli and his wife were living at Santa Clara, he
happened to meet an Indian who was exhibiting specimens of
silver and lead ore from which he had molded bullets. When word
of this reached church authorities in Salt Lake City, Bonelli and
two other Mormons were ordered to investigate. In 1863, they
made the first mineral locations in what was later to become the
Meadow Valley Mining District and later the Pioche District in
Southeastern Nevada. They knew nothing of mining law, how-
ever, and the claims were taken over by General Patrick Connor
and some of his soldiers out of Ft. Douglas, Utah Territory.
Bonelli and his growing family--a son and a daughter--
moved from Santa Clara after a flood, settling in Beaver Valley
in 1867, only to be flooded out again on December 24, 1868.
Determined to find a home, the family moved to St. Thomas on
the Muddy River a few weeks later. They were once again
frustrated, however, when an 1870 survey determined that the
communities of the Muddy were within the boundaries of the
State of Nevada and had been for four years. Nevada officials were soon on the scene to
collect back taxes and the first of the Mormon families began returning to Utah in February
1871. All but the Bonelli family. "I've twice been washed out by floods and to pick up now
and leave everything after getting a home started again is too much," he told George Perkins,
a writer. Other Mormons considered him an apostate for remaining, but he always
maintained that he was a believer in the original tenets of Mormonism and that the church
had left him, not the other way around.
He retained his farm at St. Thomas, but began to look at the prospects of establishing
a river ferry at the junction of the Colorado and the Virgin rivers to serve the mines of
Mineral Park, Arizona Territory, and those of Pioche, Nevada. He started the ferry
business in 1872 and moved his family there. Bonelli's
Landing, as it was known, became the community of Rioville
when a post office opened on November 2, 1881.
BoneUi also cleared a hundred acres on the west bank of
the Virgin to raise hay, started a cattle herd to raise beef for
the mining camps, put in a large vegetable gardeh and
• opened a trading post. In 1882, he discovered a large salt
" deposit near St. Thomas and began freighting the mineral to
mining camps where it was used in the smelting processes.
He also developed a market for salt in the Eldorado District,
downstream on the Colorado, ferrying it down by barge. He
was never able to patent the claims because salt deposits
were considered public domain under U.S. mining law until
1902, however. Thereafter, he was engaged in litigation with
others seeking to exploit his claims. For example, he had
mica claims fifteen miles up the Colorado and was involved
in suits over his patents. He also took part in water suits vcith
his neighbors to the north in St. Thomas.
As the first citizen of his remote section of the state,
Daniel Bonelli took a hand in local educational affairs,
served on the Nevada State Board of Agriculture and put
together agricultural and mineral exhibits for the World's
Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and San
Francisco's Mid Winter Fair in 1894. Among the exhibits
were blocks of his famous translucent salt, sheets of mica
and figs, peaches, grapes and almonds he grew himself.
In November 1903, he traveled to Pioche in connection
with a salt suit in district court. He returned to St.Thomas on
November 16, remaining a day with his son, Frank. He
continued on to Reoville the next day, but apparently suffered a stroke on the way. He
was suffering from dementia when he arrived home and never recovered his sensibili-
ties. He died at his home on December 20 and was buried behind his house.
Some thirty years later, Rioville was due to be covered by the waters of Lake Mead
backing up behind Boulder Dam, so a son, George, had his father's body disinterred
and moved to a cemetery in Kingman, Arizona where he was reburied on December
21, 1934.
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