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The Man Who Built Monte Ne

William Hope (Coin) Harvey, king of the Free Silver movement, prophet of Monte Ne, did many things in his life time. He was a school teacher, attorney, mined for silver in Colorado, was a real-estate developer in Denver and Ogden, promoter of the Palace of Minerals, in Pueblo, author of the book Coin's Financial School, personal advisor to William Jennings Bryan on Gold vs. Silver and Presidential Candidate on the Liberty Party ticket, he was a dreamer, planner, and maybe just a bit of a con-man at times. One thing for sure he was a very smart man.

On August 16, 1851 when William Hope Harvey was born his parents, Col. Robert Trigg Harvey and Anna Marie DeLimbrorx Hope Harvey didn't think of this fifth child of theirs as becoming a financial wizard and presidential candidate.

He was born on a farm near Buffalo Virginia, he was named for his mothers,father, William Hope of Kentucky.

As a child he was called Billy, and went to a log school house during the Civil War. He was lucky for in many areas there were no schools held during the full time of the war.

When the war ended he left the county school and went to the Buffalo Academy for two years. This would have been like a high school and junior college of today. In 1867 at the age of sixteen he taught a three month term of grade school. Then he attended Marshall Collage at Guyandotter Va. for three months. At that time they taught chiefly secondary subjects. Then at seventeen he taught one more three month term of grade school and that ended his teaching, and formal schooling.

With this as a basic for his education he started reading law, as it was called then with his oldest brother Thomas who was an attorney. Thomas had been a young color bearer in Lee's Army and was wounded. Three years after the end of the war he graduated form [sic] Washington College, (now Washington and Lee University). He received his degree of Bachelor of Law from General Lee.

By the time William was nineteen he passed the tests and was admitted to the bar in West Va. Then he opened a law office in Barboursville a small West Va. town.

He had a good court appearance being slender, five foot ten, erect bearing and penetrating blue eyes. He keep [sic] these until very late in life.

One of his early cases was one that many older attorneys would not take. He was to defend a white man who married a colored girl, which was against the West Virginia Law. To close the defense he asked, "Can anyone in this courtroom prove that this man has not a drop of colored blood in his veins." The case was dismissed.

Soon he was practicing law in Illinois and Ohio, and was looked at as a up and coming attorney by the members of the bar. He was the one who would go along ways they were sure.

Three years after he opened his office in Barboursville, Harvey moved to Huntington and went into a partnership with his brother Thomas. In 1873 he moved to Galliplis Ohio a small river town forty miles above Huntington. It was here that he met Anna Halliday, daughter of John T. Halliday of Delaware, Ohio. She was four year younger then him.

On June 26, 1876 they were married. Later that year they moved to Cleveland. A city of just past 100,0000 people.

By 1879 when they moved to Chicago the family had grown with the coming of Mary Hope and Robert Halliday who was later called Hal. While living in Chicago Thomas William was born.

In 1881 the Harveys moved back to Gallipolis. Luck had been with them for by moving from there when they did they missed the yellow fever epidemic which had killed so many people there in 1878. By the time they came back the town was growing and had a railroad.

In 1883 the thirty-tow year old Harvey made a trip on business for a client, (which some writers say was a man from Chicago) to the silver fields of southwest of Colorado. Here he was taken up with the lure of mining. So it was that in 1884 he again moved his family. Anna was expecting her fourth baby. Mary Hope, Robert and Tommy ranging in age from near seven down to three would have been a hand full on that trip. Harvey also took along ten picked young laborers.

There about eight miles above Ouray William Harvey took over "The Silver Bell" mine a minor tunnel operation. There his laborers cut timber and built a engine-house, ore assorting shed, a bunk house, and mess hall. A little ways down the mountainside they built a cabin with several rooms for the Harvey family.

Daughter Anent was born shortly after they reached the mountains.

Like everything Harvey went into he put his full time into the mine. He was superintendent and more then likely bookkeeper and handled all of the money.

In the fall he too Anna and the children to the California coast to keep them out of the cold mountain weather. He would go out and visit them for Christmas.

When the family left Harvey would move into a room in the corner of the engine house close to the sound of the winches.

One of the engineers told little Mary Hope that," your Papa sleeps like a boy every night all winter as long as the buckets come up and down like clockwork. But let the teeniest stop come and he's out of his room and down that shaft to see what happened."

Harvey said in later years that if it was those trips down the shaft just partly-clad that brought on his rheumatism. During the three years he was to be uperintend [sic] of "The Silver Bell" the mine was reputed to be the second largest silver producer in the Ouray Area.

By 1887 the price of silver had fellen [sic] and the cost of mining raised. Harvey seen that he could not make an easy fortune in mineing [sic] so he left the Silver Bell.

He moved on to Denver where he combined Law with Real Estate development. There he developed a large sub-division. He also sold a tonic "Elixir of Life" which was to help the many ailments people had and make life better. I could not find out just how long or hard he worked at being a medicine man.

While living gin Denver Harvey claimed to be a citizen of Scotland. He was of Scotch- English ancestry and claimed to be descended from the famous British scientist William Harvey a Scotchman who discovered the circulation of blood.

His real estate office was at 1029 Seventeenth Street. At that time the heart of the down town business section. As well as running his own large business he was treasurer of the Mouat Lumber and Investment Company. They were large wholesale and retail lumber dealers whose wholesale trade covered Colorado and reached into Wyoming and New Mexico. They were also Real Estate and Investment Brokers. They could build anything from a dwelling house to a city business block. Like most of his life Harvey was in with the rich and big dealers in Colorado.

While working in Denver he sold land in Pueblo so was on hand when a group of prominent citizens formed a board of directors to open a Mineral Palace to show off Colorado's mining interest. Although Harvey was not on the board he worked very hard to help bring the idea into reality.

One of the outstanding items was a huge statue of "King Coal" said to have been carved out of a block of coal weighing one and one-half tons. An article taken from a Pueblo newspaper told of it, yet it didn't give William Hope Harvey credit with having had it made. In later years from his home in Monte Ne he took credit for designing it and having it carved.

But like all of the other projects that Harvey worked with during his life the "Mineral Palace" is gone. The building was demolished in the very early 1940s.

From Denver the Harveys moved on to Ogden, Utah. He opened a law and real estate office and bought a home at Twenty-seventh Street and Jefferson with a one acre lot. The family felt this was to become a permanent home as he did so much to improve the house. He made many business investments here among them was a project which fronted the Great Salt Lake for almost a mile. Soon he was asked to help put on a program to promote Ogden. In this he modeled a program after the New Orleans Mardi Gras. This was to be the biggest program and carnival the west had ever seen. He imported the King and Queen from the original Mardi Gras.

It is said that Harvey had personally guaranteed the outlay for the carnival which turned out to be one big loss all the way around. When it was over and paid for Harvey was almost broke again.

The price of silver had fallen badly that year and took down many a rich man in the silver mining area. A lot of them turned to gold, but Harvey didn't like the yellow stuff so he started looking for a new outlet and place to make back his lost money.

So in May of 1893 he moved his family back to Chicago. The city had grown to more than a million people by then. His new address was 134 Monroe Street. It was here that he started his "Coin Publishing Company". Within eighteen months this address was so well known in the Middle West and across the country. The publishing company was devoted to preaching the free coinage of silver at a ratio to gold of 16 to 1.

At that date he was not using the word Coin in his name. It was first used on a weekly magazine "Coin" which lasted only a few months. Then he started "Coin's Financial Series" It was a quarterly series of short paper back books printed on cheap paper so they could be sold for 25 cents each or $1.00 a year. Clothbound copies were $1.00 each.

The first was Bimetallism and Monometallism, a 78 page bimetallic argument by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, published in December of 1893. Then was the 46 page Number 2, Coin's Hand Book, a compilation of pro 16-to-1 figures selected and arranged by Harvey.