The Methodists are the strongest Protestant body.
History. The territory included within the present State was a part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 with the exception of the southwest corner, which was a part of the Mexican cession of 1848. The Territory of Wyoming was directly created by Congress, July 25, 1868, from Dakota, Utah, and Idaho. The stories of Spanish exploration have no foundation. The first white explorers were Sieur de la Verendrye and his sons, who passed through while looking out for situations for trading posts in 1743-44. White hunters visited the Yellowstone in 1804, and in 1807 fur-trading posts were established in Montana and the trappers began to range the country. The first permanent fort was built on the Laramie Fork of the Platte in 1834. It was sold to the American Fur Company in 1835, rebuilt by that corporation in 1836, and sold to the United States in 1849. Frémont visited the country in 1842 and in the same year Fort Bridger was built on the Black Fork of the Green River, but was abandoned in 1853 on account of Mormon opposition. The streams of immigration both to California and Oregon passed through the Territory, but few or none of the immigrants settled permanently. A chain of forts was built by the Federal Government to protect the travelers, however, from the Sioux and other Indians, who declared war against the military and the trappers in 1854. In 1867 the discovery of gold led to the founding of South Pass City, and the same year Cheyenne was laid out by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The surrounding country, which was without government of any sort, was formed into Laramie County, Dak., and a vigilance committee kept order. The Territorial Government was organized in 1869, and the same year woman's suffrage was adopted and has been maintained to the present time. The Indians viewed with suspicion the coming of the whites, and in 1866 refused to grant a right of way through their lands, and until after they had been punished for the massacre of General George A. Custer (q.v.) in Dakota in 1876, they were constantly making trouble. With the cessation of the Indian outbreaks growth in population was rapid, and the State was admitted to the Union July 10, 1890, as the Constitution adopted in November, 1889, had been approved by Congress. In national politics the State voted first in 1892 for the Republican candidates. The free-silver agitation in 1896 carried it into the Democratic column, but in 1900 the Republican electors were again chosen.
| Governors of Wyoming | ||
| TERRITORIAL | ||
| John A. Campbell | 1869-75 | |
| John M. Thayer | 1875-78 | |
| John W. Hoyt | 1878-82 | |
| William Hale | 1882-85 | |
| Francis E. Warren | 1885-86 | |
| George W. Baxter | 1886 | |
| Thomas Moonlight | 1886-89 | |
| Francis E. Warren | 1889-90 | |
| STATE | ||
| Francis E. Warren | Republican | 1890 |
| Amos W. Barber (acting) | 1890-92 | |
| John E. Osborne | Dem. Populist | 1892-95 |
| William A. Richards | Republican | 1895-99 |
| De Forest Richards | “ | 1899- |
Bibliography. Wyoming Territory Department of State, Resources of Wyoming (Cheyenne, 1889); Bancroft, History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming (San Francisco, 1890); Nelson, The Red Desert of Wyoming and Its Forage Resources (Washington, 1898); United States Geological and Geographical Survey Reports (Washington, 1877 et seq.).
WYOMING, University of. A coeducational State institution at Laramie, Wyo., founded in 1887 on the Federal land grants. Its departments include colleges of liberal arts, agriculture, and mechanical engineering, a school of commerce, a school of mines, and normal, graduate, and preparatory departments. It confers the bachelor's degree in arts, sciences, and pedagogy, and gives the master's degree for advanced work. The university receives $15,000 from the Federal Government for researches in agriculture, $25,000 for instruction in the schools of agriculture and mechanic arts, and a State tax of one-quarter mill, producing about $9000, besides occasional appropriations for buildings. In 1903 it had 19 instructors, 200 students, about evenly divided between the academic and preparatory departments, and a library of 16,000 volumes. In that year its income was $70,000; the college property was valued at $250,000 and the buildings and grounds at about $200,000.
WYOMING VALLEY. A beautiful and fertile valley in Luzerne County, Pa., along the north branch of the Susquehanna. It is about 21 miles long by 3 wide, and is supposed to have derived its name from the Indian word Maughwauwama—‘large plains.’ Though early claimed by both Connecticut and Pennsylvania, in virtue of their charters of 1662 and 1681 respectively, it remained unsettled by the whites until 1763, when the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut, which had been formed in 1753, and had purchased the land from the Indians in 1754, sent out a number of settlers, who, however, were either massacred or driven away by the Indians in the same year (October 14, 1763). In 1768 Pennsylvania also bought the tract from the Indians, and dividing it into the ‘Manor of Stoke’ and the ‘Manor of Sunbury,’ established a settlement (1700) through two lessees, Ogden and Stewart. Almost simultaneously another party from Connecticut arrived and for two years there was an almost continual conflict, each party being several times ejected by the other, until in 1771, Connecticut's claim having been confirmed by the King, the Susquehanna Company was left in control. In 1773 the valley was erected by Connecticut into a chartered town under the name Westmoreland. In 1775 the militia of Northumberland County, Pa., made an abortive attack on a small settlement along the west branch of the Susquehanna, and in the same year, the Revolutionary War having broken out, the settlers expelled a few of their number, who were Tories, and voted in town meeting “that we will unanimously join our brethren of Connecticut in the common cause of defending our country.” The expelled Tories, assisted by an additional white force and 700 Indians—the total force numbering about 1100—marched against the isolated settlements in the summer of 1778. The settlers, warned of their approach, took refuge in ‘Forty Fort,’ near the present Wilkes-Barre, but on July 3d 400 of them—nearly all the males—attacked the invaders and were completely defeated, two-thirds of their number being
