Samuel Beach Axtell (October 14, 1819 – August 6, 1891) was an American jurist and politician. He is noted for serving as Chief Justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court, territorial Governor of Utah and New Mexico, and a two-term Congressman from California. Early life Axtell was born in Franklin County, Ohio, to a family of farmers. An ancestor was an officer in the American Revolutionary army and his grandfather was a Colonel of a New Jersey regiment during the War of 1812. He married Adaline S. Williams of Summit County, Ohio, September 20, 1840 and moved to Mt. Clemens, Michigan in 1843. Axtell was a graduate of the Western Reserve College at Oberlin, Ohio and was admitted to the bar in Ohio in the 1830s. Life in California In 1851, Axtell was caught up in the last days of the California Gold Rush. He moved to California and engaged in gold mining along the American River – in which he had little success. Upon the organization of California's counties he became interested in Politics and was elected district attorney of Amador County, holding this office for three terms. He moved to San Francisco in 1860, and was elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat, Representing California's First Congressional District in 1866 and re-elected 1868. He chose not to run for re-election and changed political parties to Republican. Governor Axtell President Ulysses Grant tapped Axtell to be the Governor of the Utah Territory in 1874. Axtell left office in June 1875 amid criticism from anti-Mormon elements in the Territory. Grant subsequently appointed him Governor of the New Mexico Territory, and he was inaugurated on July 30, 1875. Axtell's administration is best remembered for an inept response to two outbreaks of frontier violence: the Colfax County War and Lincoln County War. In Colfax County, a long-running land dispute between the Maxwell Land Grant Company and local settlers boiled over in late 1875 following the murder of small-holder spokesman Reverend F.J. Tolby. Up to 200 people died in subsequent violence pitting settler vigilantes against pro-Company gangs. Governor Axtell was closely associated with the pro-Company "Santa Fe Ring." In 1876, responding to pro-settler verdicts by local juries, he suspended Colfax County's judicial powers. Axtell also dispatched a company of U.S. Army soldiers to arrest settler leader Clay Allison and three of his allies. In Lincoln County, a business rivalry grew