Gordon Mott's resignation from the Supreme Court of Nevada Territory was a certainty, Judge Horatio M. Jones recommended North for the vacancy. On August 20, 1863, Lincoln granted North a temporary appointment to Nevada's highest court, the predecessor of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. Initially, North won praise both for his decisions and for removing the backlog of cases on his docket. He was also elected president of the 1863 constitutional convention (in Carson City) assigned to draft a proposed state constitution for Nevada. In both positions he clashed with William M. Stewart, a prominent lawyer with political ambitions and large mining companies as clients. North's rulings supported the "many-ledge" interpretation of mining law on the Comstock Lode, which favored the smaller mining companies over the larger companies that were Stewart's clients. Stewart accused North of accepting bribes from litigants. North denied the charge, and Stewart was forced to publicly recant, but Stewart continued to attack North's honesty, and orchestrated a campaign against North in the Nevada newspapers allied with Stewart. Other newspapers supported North. North resigned because of ill health after less than a year on the bench, but sued Stewart for slander. North agreed to submit his suit to arbitration, and after hearing both sides, the court declared that Stewart had indeed slandered North, and that there was no evidence that North had engaged in corruption. Nevertheless, North left the Territory for California, and Stewart remained and became the U.S. Senator from the new state of Nevada. Career in Tennessee During Reconstruction in 1866, North left Nevada for Knoxville, Tennessee. North invested in a foundry, but his goal was to organize a mixed-race colony. These intentions, as well as North's interference in an attempted lynching, led to boycotts of his business interests, and North left Knoxville. Career in California Founding Riverside, California In 1870, North founded the southern California town of Riverside along with associates—some from Minnesota—who joined him there. In 1879, he and his family moved north to San Francisco and joined a law firm. That year, North was nominated, but did not win, the Republican nomination to the California Supreme Court. In 1880, he became the general agent for the Washington Irrigated Colony, near Fresno, California. He opened a law office in Fresno, built a house and started a farm in nearby small community of Oleander. His wife did not join