History of Colorado; Volume II, Part 26

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 944

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Jacob Calvin Jones was one of a family of ten children, but only two are now living, his brother being W. W. Jones, of Littleton. It was in the year 1859 that Jacob C. Jones left home with two of his brothers, with whom he traveled as far as Quincy, Illinois, from which point he made his way alone to Colorado in the year 1860. The journey westward was made with an ox train. He had three yoke of oxen and a wagon, which he purchased in St. Joseph, Missouri, and with this equipment he accompanied a train of twenty-one wagons. He had thoughtfully considered Horace Greeley's advice: "Go west, young man, go west," and it was his purpose to establish his home and build up his fortunes in this part of the country. He already had two brothers here, William and Cyrus, who were engaged in hauling lumber over Bradford hill. For three months Jacob C. Jones remained in his brothers' employ, driving seven yoke of oxen. He then staked a claim on the Platte river, after which he made his way to Georgia gulch, where he remained during the summer of 1861 and until the following January. Later he and his brother William improved a farm of three hundred and twenty acres on the Platte river and owned and further developed the property until they sold out. They then took another tract of land on the east side of the river, improved it and remained thereon for two years. They next removed to a place where the powder works are now located and there resided until 1871, when the partnership between the two brothers was dis-

JACOB C. JONES

MRS. MARY ANN JONES

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solved, William Jones going to Colorado Springs, while Jacob C. remained upon the farm until twelve years ago. He also had a property of eighty acres on South Broadway in Englewood which was well improved, but he disposed of this in 1883 and took up his abode at his present place of residence.

On the 11th of August, 1872, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Jones and Miss Mary Ann Marshall, of Marathon county, Wisconsin, and to them have been born a daughter and two sons: Eleanor Valencia, the wife of E. O. Raup, living upon the old Jones home- stead farm; Clifford Maxey, who is a wireless telegrapher in the government service at Norfolk, Virginia, and is thirty-three years of age; and Woodie Fisher, who is com- pleting a radio-wireless course at Cambridge, Massachusetts, preparing to enter the United States service. He is thirty-one years of age.

Mr. Jones is a progressive republican and has long been prominent in shaping public thought and action in the community in which he lives. He was once appointed sheriff of Jefferson county but would not accept the position. He was, however, the first sheriff of Douglas county and assisted in organizing that county. For three terms he filled the office of mayor of Englewood and gave to the city a businesslike and progressive admin- istration. In fact, his course was of the greatest benefit to the community, for he was directly responsible for driving the lawless and immoral element from the town. His first election to the office was a contest between the gamblers and notorious resort keepers on the one hand and the better citizens on the other, Mr. Jones being made the standard bearer of the latter element. All subterfuges were tried by the sporting crowd to defeat him, including bribery, ballot box stuffing, threatening gun play and persua- sion, but all in vain. He was elected to the office and his work as chief executive of Englewood did much to restore law and order. Moreover, he introduced many progres- sive elements into the city life and did much for public benefit along various lines. Mr. Jones is a Mason of high rank. He has become a Knight Templar, has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite consistory and he has also crossed the sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of El Jebel Temple. His life has been an exemplification of the beneficent spirit upon which the order is founded. There is no resident of Englewood who more surely deserves prominent mention in a history of Colorado than Jacob Calvin Jones, who for fifty-eight years has been a resident of this state and has therefore been a witness of practically the entire growth, development and improvement of this section of the country. His memory forms a connecting link between the primitive past and the progressive present. Here he has been a witness of the coming of modern-day civilization and at the same time has borne his full part in all movements and projects which have made for constant development-movements which have not only recognized immediate needs but have looked to future expansion.

HON. WILBUR FISK STONE.

[Taken from The History of Denver, by the Times-Sun Publishing Company, 1901. (Copyrighted.) Written by J. C. Smiley, curator of the State Historical and Natural History Society.]

The life history of Judge Wilbur Fisk Stone is one of more than usual interest. A descendant of an old English family, representatives of which were members of the Guilford (Conn.) colony, he was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1833. In 1839 his father removed to the west and after brief successive residences in western New York, Michigan and Indiana, located in 1844, upon a large tract of farming land near Oskaloosa, in the then territory of Iowa.

Our subject lived and worked with his father on the Iowa farm until he was eighteen years old, when he went to Indiana to build upon the educational foundation that had been laid in country schools previously accessible to him. After two years in the Rushville (Ind.) Academy, in which during part of that time he was an assistant teacher, he entered Asbury University at Greencastle, Indiana, where he remained until the close of his junior year, having earned his tuition by writing prize essays, and having provided for his personal needs by teaching country school during vaca- tions. Concluding another round as a country school teacher, he joined the senior class of the Indiana State University, at Bloomington, and after having been graduated with it, hegan the study of law while serving as a tutor in the classical department of the University; a position to which he had been appointed soon after his graduation. He subsequently entered the law department of the University and was graduated therein in 1858.

Upon completion of his course in the law department of the Indiana State Uni-

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versity, Mr. Stone located at Evansville, in that state, to engage in practice, but was soon called to the editorial chair of the Evansville Daily Enquirer, which he occupied upward of a year, though in the meantime devoting part of his energies to legal work. In the autumn of 1859, he went to Omaha, Nebraska, on legal business and was detained by it through the following winter. Partly to relieve the tedium and partly to provide means of support, he became assistant editor of the Omaha Nebraskan, of which the present World-Herald is the successor.

Having acquired the art of shorthand writing, then a rare accomplishment Mr. Stone reported verbatim the proceedings of the Nebraska territorial legislature in session at Omaha, during that winter. Mr. Stone remained at Omaha until the spring of 1860, when he crossed the plains to Denver. In the summer of that year he joined the mining community at Tarryall, in the South Park, where he became a prospector, miner, and a practicing lawyer; and with that general section of the territory he was identified during the ensuing five years. Soon after Cañon City was founded he went there as a settler, and with the late George A. Hinsdale, formulated a code of laws for the first people's court of that district. Upon the organization of Colorado territory he was elected a representative from Park county in the first territorial legislature, and in 1864, was reelected, and in 1862-65, served as assistant United States district attorney under General Samuel E. Browne.

After his marriage at Bloomington, Indiana, in the winter of 1865-66, to Miss Sarah Sadler, of that city, Mr. Stone located in Pueblo and resumed the practice of law. In 1868 he was appointed district attorney of the third judicial district and was subsequently elected to that position for a full term. In 1868, also, when the Pueblo Chieftain began publication, Mr. Stone became its editor, and so continued until 1873. He was instrumental in organizing the first Board of Trade in Pueblo, and became its treasurer and corresponding secretary. One of the active promoters of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, and a member of the company, he served as its general attor- ney until his election to the supreme bench of the state in 1877. In 1874, at Boston, he arranged with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Company details of plans and agreements for extensions of its lines through southern Colorado. A member from Pueblo county, of the convention that framed the constitution of the state, in 1876, he served as chairman of the committee on judiciary, as a member of several other important committees and had been the choice of his party for president of the con- vention. The constitution having been ratified, Mr. Stone was unanimously nom- inated by the democratic party as its candidate for associate justice of the new state's supreme court, but, in common with the rest of the ticket, failed of election by a narrow margin.

In 1877, Judge E. T. Wells, who had been elected a supreme judge for the long term of nine years, at that first state election, resigned. To nominate a candidate to succeed him, a convention of the lawyers of the state, representing both political parties, was held at Colorado Springs, and by which Mr. Stone was unanimously chosen for the high position. His election followed in the autumn of that year without opposition. Such recognition of popularity and professional ability was unprecedented, and of these proceedings that placed Judge Stone upon the supreme bench of the state, there has been no repetition.

Judge Stone's term expired in 1886, and in 1887 he was appointed by Governor Adams, judge of the Arapahoe county criminal court, in which position he served until the spring of 1889, when the court was abolished by legislative enactment. He then engaged in the practice of law in Denver, which he continued until the summer of 1891. Congress, by an act, approved March 3rd of that year, established the Court of Private Land Claims, for the purpose of adjudicating Spanish and Mexican land grant titles in accordance with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, its jurisdiction extending over Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico; the court to consist of five judges appointed from different states by the president. On June 10, 1891, President Harrison in response to requests from Colorado men of both political parties, and in recognition of his ability and fitness, appointed Judge Stone one of the judges of that court. His intimate knowledge of the western and southwestern country, of the Spanish language, and of the Mexican people, made him one of its most efficient members. He was selected by the court to visit Spain to investigate the archives at Madrid for information bearing on old Spanish grants in what is now Colorado and New Mexican territory; and on this duty, upon one of his several visits to Europe, he spent the winter of 1894-95 in the Spanish capital and at Seville.

Scholarly, versed in French and German, as well as in Spanish and his mother tongue, Judge Stone is, aside from his learning and ability as a lawyer and a jurist, a man of high attainments, and a writer who clothes his subjects with many charms

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of expression. In the earlier days he was a frequent and always welcome contributor to Colorado newspapers. He has written freely upon the history of southern Colorado and New Mexico, and the historical review of Pueblo for the National Centennial Records of the United States government was prepared by him. His description of Mount Lincoln and its surrounding scenic magnificence, written and published in 1864, still stands without equal as a word-picture of the majestic grandeur and beauty of nature's work in the Colorado mountains.

BOOTH M. MALONE.

Malone, Booth M., lawyer; jurist; city attorney, Beloit, Wisconsin, 1885-1890; president of school board, 1882-1885; superintendent of schools, 1882-1885; and, mayor of Beloit, 1883-1885; district attorney, Rock county, Wisconsin, 1885-1892; assistant district attorney (Denver), second judicial district of Colorado, 1892-1897; district attorney of the same district, 1897-1901; judge of the second judicial district (Denver) of Colorado, 1901-1907; was president of the Colorado Republican State League for the years 1894 and 1895; born in Benton county, Mississippi, and is the son of Richard H. and Mary (Cossitt) Malone.

The town of La Grange, Illinois, and that of the same name in Tennessee, were founded by his mother's brother, F. D. Cossitt. In the list of well known philanthro- pists is her cousin, F. H. Cossitt, of New York city, liberal in his donations to public institutions, and the founder of several libraries. Mary Cossitt was born in Granby, Connecticut.

He has one sister, Mrs. Frank W. Crocker, and three brothers, William H. and Richard H. Malone and Robert E. MacCracken, all living in Denver, Colorado.

Richard H. Malone, the father of the subject of this biography, was born in Alabama and was a southern planter, but was educated for the ministry. He died at the outbreak of the Civil war, and when Booth M. was still a small child his mother removed with him and three other children to Chicago. In the latter city our subject spent his boyhood and early youth, and was there educated in the public schools and received his preparatory training. He matriculated in 1873, at Beloit College, from which he was graduated in 1877, with the degree of A. B. After one year as a law student in the office of Thomas S. McCelland of Chicago, Mr. Malone entered the Albany Law School, New York, graduating from that institution in 1880, with the degree of LL. B. He was then admitted to the bar in New York state.

Forming a partnership with Samuel J. Todd, Mr. Malone entered upon the practice of his profession at Beloit, Wisconsin. In three years he succeeded to the large practice they had already established. In addition to his legal business, Mr. Malone soon became known as a political leader and man of affairs, and especially active in the municipal government. During his term of six years, from 1885 until 1890, as city attorney of Beloit, the city charter and ordinances were revised under his administra- tion, and two hundred thousand dollars in bonds negotiated in funding the city debt. He was elected mayor of Beloit in 1883 and reelected to that office in 1885, and during his official life in that position was known as one of the most public-spirited and pro- gressive chief executives of that city. He helped to procure railroad sidetracks for factories, secured streetcars and water works and was the efficient means of bringing several large factories to the city, the Berlin Machine Works, Beloit Iron Works and Fairbanks, Morse & Company being among the number. The experience obtained in his official career in Beloit, as well as his thorough study of such questions, has made Mr. Malone an active leader, in later years, in the municipal reform movements in the city and county of Denver. While a resident of Beloit, he also held the position for several years as superintendent of public schools, also serving as president of the school board.

In the meantime his brother, W. H. Malone, had become a resident of Denver and was established in the practice of the law with Robert W. Steele, the late lamented chief justice of the Colorado supreme court. Through the flattering inducements then offered, Mr. Malone came to Denver in 1892 and became assistant district attorney to Robert W. Steele, who was elected to that office in 1892. In November, 1897, Mr. Malone was elected district attorney for Arapahoe (Denver) county, Colorado, for both the short and long terms. As assistant, and as district attorney, he won for himself the reputation of being one of the most brilliant prosecutors in the history of the state. As a jury lawyer, and in the cross examination of witnesses in criminal prosecutions, he had no superior in the state. Out of forty-seven murder cases, some of them, causes celebres in the west, Mr. Malone obtained convictions in thirty-nine.

BOOTH M. MALONE

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He attained a front rank as a public speaker and orator. Although engaged in an extensive criminal practice, yet Mr. Malone also became a prominent attorney in civil suits, including railway, mining, and other litigation. He loves justice as a man, demands it as a lawyer and administered it as a judge.

In 1900, Mr. Malone was elected judge of the district court (Denver) of Colorado, displaying the same ability on the bench that had characterized his career in public life and the practice of law. In the many criminal cases over which Judge Malone presided not one was ever reversed on appeal. He was noted as a strong, fair-minded, fearless and just judge.

Since his retirement from the bench, Judge Malone has been engaged in the general , practice of the law. In 1907 he was employed to go to Goldfield, Nevada, and take charge of the prosecution of the celebrated case of the people vs. Smith and Preston, members of the I. W. W. charged with murder, and at a time of the intensest excite- ment in that state he secured the conviction of both men and followed the case successfully through the Nevada supreme court. He is a member of the bar of the supreme court of the United States. His latest noted case was, associated with Thomas S. Ward, Jr., in defense of Mrs. Stella Moore Smith, charged with killing her husband. The case attracted nation-wide attention and lasted several weeks. The jury acquitted Mrs. Smith within eleven minutes from the time the case was submitted to them. Mr. Malone's closing speech in that case was said to be "one of the greatest forensic efforts ever delivered in a courtroom in Colorado."

Judge Malone is a Knight Templar, a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, and of the' Ancient Order of United Workmen. He attends the Plymouth Congregational church and assists in its support. He is a republican but stands for the best men and the best things regardless of party.

He married, July 1, 1878, Miss Alma M. Bennett, of Beloit, Wisconsin, daughter of Almon and Calista (Peck) Bennett, her father being a merchant and lumber dealer of that city. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and of the Plymouth Congregational church. Mrs. Malone died May 1, 1918. She was a woman of strong character and beautiful life. Her sweet personality was an inspiration to all who knew her. She was a filial daughter and a model wife, mother and friend. Who could be more? Mr. Malone ascribes most of whatever of success, or good he achieved in his life, to his wife's good judgment, wise counsel and sweet companionship.

To Judge and Mrs. Malone were born the following children, all natives of Beloit, Wisconsin: Mary Louise, Helen Cossitt, William Bennett and Alma E. Malone. The three daughters are all married, Mary Louise, who was queen of the Colorado Festival of Mountain and Plain in the year 1901, to the distinguished young civil and hydraulic engineer, Elbert E. Lochridge, who built the present water works of Springfield, Massachusetts, where they are at present residing. Helen Cossitt, who attended Brad- ford College, married Emerson G. Gaylord, a banker, of an old and influential family of Chicopee, Massachusetts; and Alma E., who attended Smith College, is married to Paul Robertson Jones, of New York city, general auditor of the Doherty Gas Syndicate. William Bennett graduated from Yale College in 1909 and has since been the general manager of the credit department of the Knight Campbell Music Company but is now associated with the Doherty Gas & Electric Company as new business manager and is also president of the Chamber of Commerce of Sedalia, Missouri. William B. Malone married Miss Ada Goldsmith, of Wheaton, Illinois.

JOHN P. S. VOGHT.

John P. S. Voght, secretary of the United States mint at Denver, was born in Law- rence, Kansas, May 14, 1860. His father, John Voght, was a native of France and for many years was engaged in river transportation on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. He was also one of the frontiersmen of Kansas and contributed in marked measure to the development and progress of those sections of the west with which he was identified. He married Josephine Vinot, a native of France, and both have now passed away. In their family were two children, the daughter being Mrs. Augustine V. Walter, who lives in Denver.

John P. S. Voght acquired his early education in the public schools of Denver. to which city his parents removed on the 9th of October, 1860. He passed through con- secutive grades to the high school, which he left in 1877. He afterward attended the Northwestern University in Chicago and was there graduated with the LL. B. degree as a member of the class of 1881. He ther returned to Denver and afterward engaged

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in mining at various points in the west, including Leadville, being proprietor of several mining properties. He later entered the government service, with which he has been identified for five years as secretary of the United States mint in Denver.

In 1884 Mr. Voght was united in marriage to Miss Christine Bowman, of Newport, Rhode Island, a daughter of John Bowman. They have one child, Josephine, the wife of Lincoln R. Meeker, of Denver. Mr. Voght is deeply interested in the study of geology, of mining conditions and opportunities, and few men are better informed concerning these subjects in Colorado than he. His experiences have brought him wide knowledge and his reading has been comprehensive and thorough. His political allegiance is given to the democratic party, and he has been a lifelong follower of Henry George and a believer in the single tax. He is highly esteemed as a man of genuine worth and he is . proving a most capable official in the position which he now occupies.

HENRY MEAD.

Henry Mead, residing at No. 1863 Tenth avenue in Greeley, was born in Genoa, New York, March 20. 1861, his parents being Stephen and Anna Mead. The father was a school teacher and farmer. He followed the profession of teaching in New York city and afterward gave his attention to agricultural pursuits in central New York. He was a son of Henry Mead, a soldier of the Revolutionary war. In religious faith Stephen Mead was a Presbyterian and his life accorded with his profession as a member of the church.

Henry Mead, whose name introduces this review, completed a high school education at Moravia, New York, in March, 1881, when he was a young man of twenty years. Anxious to try his fortune in the west, he removed to Colorado in 1886 and for two decades was actively and successfully engaged in farming northwest of Greeley, where he owned and cultivated one hundred and sixty acres of land, which he highly developed and improved. In addition to carrying ou his farm work in the cultivation of the cereals best adapted to soil and climate he became identified with banking and for twelve years was a director of- the Farmers National Bank at Ault, which is a very profitable and prosperous financial institution of Weld county.

In Eaton, Colorado, in 1897, Mr. Mead was united in marriage to Miss Alberta Newell, a daughter of Oliver Newell, of Burlington, Iowa. Mrs. Mead passed away in 1904. On the 2d of February, 1908, Mr. Mead was again married, his second union being with Grace A. Bates, a daughter of Albert Bates, whose father was a Canadian shipbuilder. Albert Bates was a miner at Helena, Montana, connected with the development of the gold mines of that state between the years 1864 and 1870, during which he won a sub- stantial measure of success. He afterward engaged in the bakery business in Solomon City, Kansas, for seven years and in 1877 he came to Colorado, where he followed the milling business, making his home in Fort Collins. He afterward removed to Aspen, Colorado, where he conducted a dairy business but because of ill health he went to Seattle, Washington, hoping that a change of climate might prove beneficial, and there he passed away in 1909. He was one of a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters. Mrs. Mead's mother was born in Exeter, England. Her grandmother was descended from Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, England. Sir Thomas was twelve years of age when he was compelled to leave the kingdom on account of his religious views. He settled with the family at Geneva, Switzerland, and there con- tinued until the death of Queen Mary, during which time he studied under various renowned professors of that period. Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne of England he returned with his father to that country and entered Magdalen College at Oxford in 1563. There he won the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The year following he was admitted a fellow to Merton College and in 1565 he read a Greek lecture in the hall of that college, which won him the Master of Arts degree. During the subsequent year he taught natural philosophy in the public schools. In 1569 he was one of the proctors of the university and for some time afterward officiated as public orator. Quitting Oxford in 1576, he made a tour of Europe and returned to his college after an absence of four years. He became a gentleman usher to Queen Elizabeth and in 1585 he married Anne Ball, a widow of considerable fortune. Soon afterward he was sent as ambassador to the kingdom of Denmark and also to several German principalities. He was next dispatched on a secret mission to France. On his return to England in 1597, finding his preferment obstructed by the interests of the lords of Burley and Essex, he retired from court and could not be persuaded to accept any public employment. He then began

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History of Colorado; Volume II, Part 26

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Number of Pages: 944

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 944