George P. Stiles (1814 – September 1, 1885) was a justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory from 1854 to 1857.
In the 1840s, Stiles had been a prominent Mormon, and had been among the advisers who encouraged Joseph Smith to destroy the press of the anti-polygamy newspaper, the Espositor, in 1844.[1] [2] This act led to Smith's arrest, and his murder while in custody.[1] [2] Stiles later became an apostate from that group, and was excommunicated by them, setting up a significant conflict when Stiles was later appointed by President Franklin Pierce to the territorial supreme court in Utah.[1] [2] [3]
Stiles began his travel to Carson Valley in the Spring of 1854, in the company of Orson Hyde and United States Marshal Heywood, the three arriving there in June.[4] Upon arriving in Utah, Stiles succeeded Associate Justice Zerubbabel Snow, whose term of office expired in 1854. Stiles, Hyde, and Heywood "were empowered by the Utah Legislature to meet with a similar commission from California, and establish in the Carson Valley region the boundary line between that State and this Territory".[4] Once this was done, the three organized Carson County.[4]
Stiles clashed with the Mormon population,[3] seeking to dismantle legal structures that they had erected to avoid scrutiny from the federal government.[2] On December 29, 1856, amidst a conflict with Mormon lawyers, Stiles "had his office raided and certain of his personal papers burned".[5] [2] In 1857, Stiles returned to Washington, D.C., and informed the government their that the Mormon population of Utah was effectively in a state of rebellion.[5]
A genealogist of the Stiles family suggests that he "was probably the Geo. P. Stiles who bore a good record as First Lieutenant of the Thirty-first Ohio Volunteer Regiment, from August, 1861, to Dec. 15, 1864", during the American Civil War.[6] After the war, Stiles "held an office in one of the Governmental Departments, at Washington, D. C.", before eventually moving to Belton, Texas, where he died.[6]
Stiles married J. K. Hollister of New York, with whom he had four children.[6]