USA > Colorado > History of Colorado; Volume IV > Part 31
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In 1891, in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Gordon was married to Miss Barbara Jankovich, a native of Austria, who has indeed been a helpmate to her husband. She did the farm work while he was employed by others and thus materially assisted her husband in gaining a start. During the early years of his residence in Colorado Mr. Gordon had a very exciting experience. He decided to buy some land but he did not have the money nor even railroad fare with which to get to the land office in Denver. However, he received assistance from some one in Limon, who advanced him ten dollars. He then went to Denver and when making his way to the land office he met two well dressed young men who spoke to him and asked him if he knew anything about land. He replied that he knew something about it in the section where he lived. One of the youths said his father wanted to buy some land and wished Mr. Gordon would go and speak to him, saying that he was to be found in a certain building. After a little persuasion Mr. Gordon went with the young men and on entering the room discovered that it was a gambling joint. The men invited him to take a hand at cards but he refused, saying that he had business to transact and could not waste the time, hut they prevailed upon him to stay and play. He also explained that he did not under- stand the game and one of the young men agreed to stand behind him and tell him what cards to play. Soon he learned that it was necessary to put the money on the tahle. He realized then that if something wasn't done quickly he would lose the little money that he had. As one of the men was moving toward him Mr. Gordon jumped out of his chair and over another and bolted out of the door running down twenty steps and into the street, with the gang following him, but they did not get him, as he gained the sidewalk before they could reach him. Not being used to the country, he did not care to call the police. He certainly had a narrow escape with his money. Not having the necessary funds, he started out to try to borrow money and after some difficulty in this connection he came across W. S. Pershing, of Limon, who used his influence and enabled Mr. Gordon to gain a start. He secured four hundred dollars, purchased his land and returned home. Since that time he has prospered and has in- creased his stock to a great extent. He has made wonderful improvements upon his farm, where are to be seen some of the most beautiful trees of this section. Today he has an attractive home and surroundings of which any man might be proud. Upon his place are large barns and outbuildings for the shelter of grain and stock and he
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utilizes the latest improved machinery to facilitate the work of the fields. His family have aided him in carrying out his plans and he has been very successful. To Mr. and Mrs. Gordon were born ten children, of whom eight are yet living, Mett, Zephia, Frank, Loie, Mary, Josie, Barbara and Bernard, and they have an adopted daughter, Annie, who is now one of the family. The children are of the Catholic faith.
In politics Mr. Gordon has always been a republican since becoming a naturalized American citizen, giving stalwart allegiance to the party. He is a self-educated as well as a self-made man. He speaks the English language fluently and has become a representative resident of the community in which he makes his home. He is interested in community welfare, especially in the improvement of the roads, and he stands for progress and advancement along all practical lines. His business career has been productive of good results. He has worked earnestly and indefatigably to attain success and is now numbered among the representative farmers and cattle raisers of Elbert county.
FRANK LESLIE BARTLETT.
Dr. Frank Leslie Bartlett, now acting president of the Merchants Bank of Denver, twice president of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and for over a decade the leader in Colorado of the good roads movement, is a native of Maine, having been born at Hanover, Oxford county, March 2, 1852. He is a son of Cyrus Bartlett, also a native of the Pine Tree state, and a lineal descendant of Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Frank L. Bartlett when eighteen years of age entered the University of Michigan, where he specialized in chemistry and mineralogy. During his last year in college he held the position of tutor. For sixteen years after completing his education he was assayer of the state of Maine, accepting that position when only twenty-one years of age. During the period which he served in that capacity he also pursued a medical course at Dartmouth College for the general scientific value of the study but not with a view to practice. Later he was appointed professor of natural science at Westbrook College, near Portland, and in 1878, during the mining excitement in eastern Maine, he began devoting his attention to the treatment of ores. Later, at the urgent request of the governor, he went abroad to study methods of ore treatment and upon his return erected the Portland Smelting & Reduction Works for the treatment of ores from eastern Maine and the provinces.
It was Dr. Bartlett who first called attention in New England to the manufacture of sulphuric acid from iron pyrites. From the Milan mine in New Hampshire which he purchased he laid the foundation for an extensive business in the furnishing of pyrites to the acid manufactories. In 1880 he began his important work in the solving of problems of treating zinciferous ores. For ten years he conducted his experiments at the Portland works with results that were exceedingly satisfactory. He sought for a larger field, coming to Colorado and establishing the American Zinc-Lead Smelter in Cañon City, where he began operations in 1891. His patents are among the most im- portant in the smelting industry, one of the most notable being secured on the famous Bartlett concentrator. It is but just to say that no other man has given such careful attention to the study of zinc ore and few have accomplished as much as he.
On the 17th of December, 1879, Dr. Bartlett was married to Miss Hattie W. Baldwin, of Bangor, Maine.
In 1902 Dr. Bartlett sold his interests in the American Zinc-Lead Smelter and removed to Denver, where he engaged in the manufacture of his concentrators. Having some spare time and being greatly interested in road improvement, he with others organized the Colorado Motor Club and he remained its president for five years. In 1906 this club, together with the Chamber of Commerce, began a series of road conven- tions which resulted in the introduction of various road bills in the legislature and the formation of the Colorado Good Roads Association, of which Dr. Bartlett was president for two years. He was also the representative of the roads department of the United States government for several years. He visited all parts of Colorado in the interests of better highways and was largely instrumental in securing the present laws relating to the public roads, in fact, his work in this connection cannot be over- estimated. He has done much to shape public thought and action and in arousing public sentiment concerning the improvement of the highways and his labors have indeed been far-reaching and effective. In the meantime he was president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1910 and 1911 and while acting in that office raised the money
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and built the fine building of the Chamber in Champa street. This is now owned and occupied by the Civic and Commercial Association and other allied commercial asso- ciations. During his connection with the Chamber of Commerce Dr. Bartlett inaugu- rated the movement for and secured the consolidation of the city and county of Denver and was instrumental in bringing about other reforms and improvements in connec- tion with the civic welfare.
Dr. Bartlett has never taken an active part in politics but has ever been deeply interested in public improvements and always ready to lend his aid and cooperation to any undertaking for the commercial advantage of the city or the upbuilding of those interests which are a matter of civic virtue and civic pride. He remains one of the active business men of Denver as president of the Merchants Bank, of which he was one of the founders, and as an official of several other enterprises and his faith in Denver and the state is indicated by his extensive investments in Colorado property.
ROBERT W. CAMPBELL.
Robert W. Campbell passed away at Longbeach, California, on the 18th of January, 1919. He had many substantial traits of character which endeared him to friends and neighbors and, moreover. he was numbered among the pioneer settlers of Brighton and of that section of the state. In his later years he lived practically retired in Brighton but was still the owner of valuable farm property from which he derived a substantial annual income. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on the 25th of March, 1860, and was of Scotch descent. His parents, John B. and Maria (Allen) Campbell, were both natives of the land of hills and heather, in which they were reared and married. In the early '50s they determined to try their fortune in the new world and crossed the Atlantic to the United States. They established their home at Nashville, Tennessee, but after living there for several years removed to Indiana, where they took up their abode on a farm about 1866. Their remaining days were passed in that state and they were among the highly respected residents of the community in which they made their home. They had a family of seven children, four of whom are yet living.
Robert W. Campbell was but three years of age when he went with his parents to Indiana, where he was reared and educated, mastering the branches of learning taught in the public schools. In 1884 he came to Colorado, settling at Brighton, and for eleven years was employed in the Brighton creamery, first as a helper, later as engineer and then general manager in full charge of the business, his fidelity as well as his keen executive ability having been quickly recognized by those with whom he had business relations. He was then appointed postmaster and occupied that position for three terms under republican administrations. As time passed he made investments in property and became the owner of five hundred acres of fine farm land. In 1918 he raised six thousand bushels of wheat and six hundred bushels of beans. He gave gen- eral supervision to his farming and ranching interests, but the actual work of the place was done by those whom he employed. His sound judgment and keen discrimination, however, were important elements in the successful conduct of his place.
In April, 1884, the year in which he came to Colorado, Mr. Campbell was married to Miss Ella Whitehead, a native of Indiana, and they became parents of two daughters, but the first born, Carrie, is deceased. The other daughter, Bessie, has become the wife of Harry Bates and is now living in Denver. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell owned and occupied a fine residence in the village of Brighton and enjoyed all of the comforts and many of the luxuries of life.
In his political affiliations, Mr. Campbell was a stalwart republican, and he always endorsed and ardently supported the principles of the party. He served as road over- seer for eight years, when John Twombly was county commissioner from the Brighton district and when Adams and Denver counties were a part of old Arapahoe county, and to his initiative and personal efforts may be attributed, in large measure, the excellent roads of the district. When Adams county was formed he took an especially active part in the contest for the location of the county seat, and the leading members of both political parties willingly gave him much credit for his work in winning the contest for Brighton. He also participated in the early politics of Denver and was recognized as one of those men who fought the battles fairly and aboveboard. He would never countenance, nor desire, a questionable victory, nor would he deign to employ those petty tricks so often the subterfuge of the professional politician. He could accept an honorable defeat, if the voters of his district so willed, rather than be returned
ROBERT W. CAMPBELL
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the victor in a contest won through dishonest methods. After discontinuing his work as road overseer, he purchased the farm where he resided four years, after which he was appointed postmaster for Brighton, and served in that capacity for twelve consecutive years.
There were no spectacular phases in the life of Mr. Campbell. He pursued the even tenor of his way in the conduct of his business, and his diligence and determina- tion were the salient points in winning him the success that numbered him with the substantial residents of Adams county. Moreover, the methods which he employed won for him an honored name and he was among the valued and respected citizens of Brighton. Some time prior to his death Mr. Campbell suffered from an automobile accident, from which he never fully recovered. Thinking that he might be benefitted by a western trip, he went to Longbeach, California. The trip, however, was too much for him and there he passed away. When the news of his death was received in Brighton it caused deep sorrow throughout the town, tor his many substantial traits of character had endeared him to those with whom he was associated and everywhere he was spoken of in terms of high regard. He possessed the qualities of good citizen- ship, of fidelity in friendship, and one who knew him well said he was "always identified with all public movements, liberal to a fault, a typical big-hearted westerner."
WILLIAM C. BRADBURY.
William C. Bradbury is numbered among the builders of the great western empire. His life work literally and figuratively has been along construction lines, leading to the utilization of the natural resources and to the development of Colorado in many ways. An eminent American statesman has said that eastern training and learning grafted upon western opportunity produces the strongest in American citizenship. William C. Bradbury constitutes an example of this. He was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, Febru- ary 1, 1849, a son of Cotton C. and Rebecca Bradbury. His father was born in York, Maine, in August, 1822, and the mother, who bore the maiden name of Rebecca Brewer, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1819, a representative of one of the old Quaker families. Soon after the birth of William C. Bradbury. the father went to California, attracted by the mining excitement on the Pacific coast. The trip was made in 1849 by way of the overland route and after two years spent on the western coast he returned by way of the Isthmus of Panama. During the early youth of his son William, he and his family resided in Boston or near that city. There were five sons but only two are now living, the surviving brother of our subject being .George E. Bradbury, of Colorado.
William C. Bradbury acquired a common school education in Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, but when fourteen years of age ran away from home to enlist for service in the Civil war. He was accepted and spent two weeks as a drummer boy, after which his father found him and took him home. For a year or two afterward, however, he was so persistent in his desire to enter the army that his father finally gave consent but by that time the eighteen-year-old law was rigidly enforced and Mr. Brad- bury, being young in appearance and slight in build, was not accepted at the recruiting offices of either the army or the navy in Boston, to both of which he applied. Between 1868 and 1871 he held several salaried positions in Boston and for a year owned and operated a job printing office in that city. In 1871 he came to the west to make a pay- ment on properties at Evans, Colorado, for his father, who was interested with a num- ber of St. Louis parties in colonizing the town of Evans. Mr. Bradbury arrived in Denver in June, 1871, and concluded to remain in this state. As a boy he had always been intensely interested in hunting, trapping and fishing and he spent the winter of 1871-2 in the cattle camp of Lyman Cole at Fremont Orchard, on the Platte river in Colorado, in hunting buffaloes, antelope and wolves and in trapping otter, beaver and other fur- bearing animals, as well as in making a trip to the mountains up the Cache la Poudre river after elk and deer.
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In the spring of 1872, Mr. Bradbury was united in marriage to Miss Hattie A. Howe, who came from Boston, Massachusetts, to Colorado with her parents in 1871. Mr. and Mrs. Bradbury began their domestic life in Denver, which at that time was a city of five thousand population. They became the parents of seven children: Buckley C., Miriam, William C., Harriet, Isabelle B., Luther F. and George Edward; but only four of the number are now living, these being: Harriet, the wife of G. H. Locke, of Milford, Massachusetts; Isabelle B., now Mrs. I. B. Gelder, of Denver; Luther F., of Boston, Massachusetts; and George E., who is now a member of the United States aviation service.
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WILLIAM C. BRADBURY
Vol. IV-17
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After establishing his home in Denver, Mr. Bradbury entered the employ of Lewis & Bancroft, architects, as a draftsman and in the latter part of the year 1872 removed to Colorado Springs, where he entered mercantile circles, establishing a prosperous business as a dealer in paints, oils, glass, artists' materials and wall paper, and employ- ing a force of men for painting and paper hanging. He continued the business until 1878, when his health failed and, physicians insisting that he must live out-of-doors, he sold the business and began freighting with a mule outfit from Colorado Springs to Leadville. His patronage in this direction increased until he was utilizing five eight- mule teams, the route being up Ute Pass via South Park and Buena Vista. At the same time he also established a six-horse stage line and mail route from Colorado Springs to Leadville, via Ute Pass and Western Pass, and operated these until the South Park Railroad was completed into South Park and the Rio Grande Railroad was approaching Leadville, making it impossible to further compete with the railroads. His entire outfit was then taken to Tres Piedras, New Mexico, where under R. E. Sloan, who was then in charge of the southern division of the tie and timber department of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad construction, he was put in charge of two sawmills and the tie camps at Tres Piedras and of the transportation of the lumber and ties from these camps used in the construction of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad between Antonita and the New Mexico state line. From there he moved the mules and mill out- fits and performed similar services in the construction of portions of the line of the same railroad hetween Chama and Durango. This being completed, his outfits were then moved on to be used in connection with grading work on the Burlington Railroad, then building into Denver. He completed his first contract of six miles of railroad grad- ing near the present town of Akron, Colorado, and from that time until 1909 was actively engaged in railroad construction, doing work in various departments, including tunnel- ling, grading, masonry, bridge work and track laying, in many of the western states and old Mexico. He also constructed numerous irrigation systems of canals and reservoirs in Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho and Wyoming. Associated with partners he had the contract for forty miles of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad in Montana. He also had the contract for thirty miles of the Burlington & Missouri Railroad in Colo- rado and Nebraska, fifty miles of the Oregon Short Line Railroad in Idaho, thirty- five miles of the Colorado Midland Railroad in Colorado, one hundred and twenty miles of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific between the Missouri river and Colorado Springs, Colorado. He also constructed ninety-seven miles of the Pecos Valley Railroad in Texas and New Mexico, including grading, bridging and track laying, had the contract for large portions of the Chihuahua & Pacific Railroad in old Mexico, fifty miles of the Denver, Texas & Fort Worth Railroad in Colorado, forty miles of the Chicago, Burling- ton & Northern in Illinois and Wisconsin, also portions of the Laramie, Hahns Peak & Pacific Railroad in Wyoming, three hundred miles of the Union Pacific Railroad, includ- ing new and second track, in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado and sundry short lines for the Denver & Rio Grande and for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in Colorado. He has constructed numerous irrigation systems, including canals and storage reservoirs, in the states of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, of which the following are some of the larger and more important: the systems of the Idaho Mining & Irrigation Company of Idaho; the Wyoming Development Company in Wyom- ing, of which the town of Wheatland is now the business center; the Pecos Valley irri- gation system, New Mexico, of which Carlsbad and Roswell are the principal centers; and the Colorado canal in Colorado.
Mr. Bradbury has also been engaged in sundry development projects of the state, the most conspicuous being perhaps the lands under the Colorado canal mentioned above which takes its water from the north side of the Arkansas river, about twenty miles east of Pueblo, and covers the lands surrounding the present towns of Ordway, Sugar City, Olney Springs and Crowley. He constructed this canal in 1890 under contract and afterward acquired ownership of the same, as well as thirty-five thousand acres of land underlying it, which he purchased from the state of Colorado. At the time of construc- tion there was not a habitation under the line of the canal, the land being open prairie cattle range, though the Missouri Pacific Railroad had been completed through it. Shortly after the construction of the canal he sold large interests in the property but has been continually interested and engaged in its colonization and development up to the present. At one time, while still owning ten thousand acres of the lands and water rights, he operated sixteen different farms of large acreage under irrigation and at times was interested in the cattle and sheep business, one year feeding and fattening seven thousand head of lambs, which he sold in eastern markets; and the following year he fattened, and marketed in the east seventeen thousand head of lambs. While develop-
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ing the properties he also planted, on the same, over seven hundred acres in apple and other fruit orchards.
Mr. Bradbury has always been an enthusiastic sportsman and angler since earliest childhood, having hunted all smaller game and fish as a boy in New England, while after coming to Colorado he annually hunted buffalo until 1876, when they became scarce. He has devoted all his spare time and found his recreation in the hunting of game on the plains and mountains of the west, including elk, deer, sheep, antelope, bear, etc., down to the smaller game animals and game birds. He has enjoyed fishing in most of the western states and also fished in the ocean for salmon, tuna, sword fish and all other large game fish of the Pacific, together with tarpon and other game fish of the Gulf, as well as all the large game fish of Florida and the Atlantic waters. He is and has been a member of numerous hunting and fishing clubs of Colorado, Utah, California and Texas, including the Tuna Club of California, and he likewise has membership in the Denver and other clubs of the capital. For years he has been an enthusiastic oological student and collector and has donated to the Colorado Museum of Natural History probably the most extensive collection of birds' eggs on public exhibition in the United States, comprising over four thousand five hundred sets of eggs with nests and representing nearly nine hundred different species of North American birds. His life has been one of intense activity and broad usefulness. His labors have always been of a character that have contributed to upbuilding and progress and he has been a most dominant factor in shaping the development of the west, opportunity ever being to him a call to action to which he has made ready response.
SAMUEL BERESFORD CHILDS, M. D.
Dr. Samuel Beresford Childs of Denver, widely known physician and roentgenol- ogist, is a man of broad scientific knowledge and training. He is one of the early workers in the field of roentgenology.
Dr. Childs comes from Connecticut, having been born in East Hartford, November 5, 1861, a son of Dr. Seth Lee and Juliet (Wood) Childs. The elder Dr. Childs was a prominent physician of Connecticut, where he practiced his profession for over forty years, leaving the impress of his individuality upon public thought and opinion, having served as a member of the Connecticut state senate. His wife was a daughter of the Rev. Luke Wood, a talented Congregational minister.
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