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REMINISCENCES OF ALEXANDER TOPONCE,
PIONEER, 1839-1923
BY
ALEXANDER TOPONCE
PUBLISHERS PREFACE
This book was written by Mr. Toponce, typewritten under his direction, and thus finished on his 80 th birthday. For reasons beyond his control, the publication was delayed until his death occurred on May 13, 1923. During the interval between the completion of the manuscript and the time of his death, the matter of having his work published was constantly in his mind and the fulfillment of this dream seems to have been his dearest wish.
It is not at all strange that this dream of his would become an overpowering obsession, when he came to a realization that, through no fault of his own, he was becoming old, in reduced circumstances, but rich in friendships and satisfying memories. It is revealing as to his character that he cared so much to give the world his whole story.
This book is published by Mrs. Toponce, his widow, to fulfill his hopes, and to honor a worshipful memory. In this work of publication, she has had the aid and advice of a few of the members of Weber Lodge No. 6. F. & A.M. of Ogden, Utah, who knew Mr. Toponce, valued his friendship, admired his character, and cherish his memory with reverent regard, as do all who knew him.
In reading this Life of Alexander Toponce, one cannot but be impressed that it is more than an autobiography; more than an ordinary life record of dates and happenings. There is so much of thought, comment, and anecdote, so much touching on the historical, and revealing of the times, that it is really a reminiscence To preserve the manuscript entire as it was left by Mr. Toponce, it is printed in full, absolutely unchanged, including the title page, though the new title of Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce appears on the cover and a table of chapter headings is added.
The chapter headings do not adequately disclose the full scope of subjects that a reading will reveal. Glimpses of pioneer life and conditions abound. Many items regarding the early history of the coming of civilization to the west are recorded. The earlier phases of explorations and the first comings of the white men, were past, and when Alex began his career, the transition from desert and wilderness into a fully civilized country was in full swing.
Alexander Toponce was a man who evidently had a background of character founded on a race tradition of the finest sort; his inherited gifts must have sprung from a race of empire builders; torch-bearers of civilization. With an education he would likely have become a powerful factor in moulding the history of his time. As fate had it, his was a character standing out boldly from among the mass of humanity with whom his lot was cast. He was not a fighter or a gunman in any sense; his bearing demanded respect from all classes; all instinctively recognized and respected his integrity and natural powers to plan and command.
In the record he has left will be found none of fustian style, but terseness and concentration abound. Some may think he shot with a long bow, but those who knew the innate honesty of the man, will say he tells the truth as he saw and remembered it. There are too many living witnesses to the main facts he tells, to doubt his story. Any of those who knew him can, when reading his book, imagine they hear the voice of Alex telling his story; but they would probably say that he had assumed company manners for the occasion.
Many books have been written by pioneers, but most of such have been edited into bookish form. Not so with this; it will be found giving a faithful, virile picture of pioneer life, in the words of one who developed under it and lived as part of it. Such books of that period are only too rare; the men who could write them are about all gone. His friends, the scholar, the historian, the general reader, all will enjoy and prize it for being just what it is. It embalms in cold type records of things that are easily overlooked and lost in the rush of our civilization that is making history so fast.
FORWARD BY DON MAGUIRE, A CONTEMPORARY
It is a pleasure to me to endorse this book, the autobiography of Alex. Toponce. I knew him well for many years, and now that he has laid down to rest under the shadow of the Wasatch Peaks in beautiful Utah and that the deserts and fair valley and mountain ranges of the wide west that knew him so well, will know him no more, it is proper for me to bear testimony to the manly traits and fearless character of one with whom I associated in the heart of civilization and in the trackless wilderness. A man whose name was a household word from the banks of the Missouri to where the Columbia enters its waters into the Pacific and from where Canada joins the North Line of Montana to where the Colorado flows into the Gulf of California, when the land was yet in the primitive and nature offered to the pioneer a hitherto unclaimed wealth of mountain and valley, when at the same time the pioneer adventurer faced the dangers that tried mens souls.
I knew him in days when he was amongst the favorites of fortune, when success smiled upon him and no undertaking was too difficult for him to attempt, and who, if defeated in one great work never gave up but laid new plans and began again.
Alexander Toponce was by birth a Frenchman, a descendant of that old Gaulic stock that for 3,000 years had made history for the world. He was of the same race of men as those who reduced the American wilderness from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains. Such men as Samuel Champlain, Pere Marquette, Robert Chevilier de La Salle, Louis Count de Frontenac, Pere Charles Lalemant, Jacques Cartier, Paul de Maissonneuve. Pere De La Verendrye, and a host of others who inscribed the fame and glory of France in the New World. And the departed souls of the above Frenchmen would find no signs of the coward or craven in their fellow French-Americans of later times, Alexander Toponce.
