USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 16
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In March 1860, Dr. Stone of Central City challenged Lew Bliss, who, in 1878-9, was an assist- ant under T. J. Montgomery in the Colorado Cen- tral railroad depot in Fort Collins. Bliss being the challenged party, had choice of weapons, and he selected shot guns loaded with slugs, just fitting the barrel. Stone was known to be a dead shot with the pistols and Bliss was equally expert with the shot-gun. Bliss was unhurt, but Stone received a terrible wound in the thigh and groin, from which he died after lingering several months and wasting to a mere skeleton.
Thought Country Almost Worthless
Learning through Judge Neil F. Graham of Fort Collins, that Hon. Eugene F. Ware, former Pension Commissioner under President Harrison, but now a prominent attorney of Kansas City, Kansas, had
scouted through this section of the State while a member of the 7th Iowa Cavalry, I wrote to him for such facts as he could recall touching conditions in the Cache la Poudre valley when he was here. I will note in this connection that Mr. Ware and Mr. Graham are warm personal friends and Mr. Graham had often heard Mr. Ware relate his ex- perience on the Plains in 1864-5.
Mr. Ware's reply to my letter soliciting historical information follows, and while it does not throw much light on the subject in hand, it does give his impressions of this country as it appeared to him at that time. He says:
Kansas City, Kansas, April 5, 1910.
"Your kind favor is at hand. I was glad to hear from Mr. Graham. He deserves well wherever he goes.
"The date which you set is an error. I was out in that country scouting for Indians in 1864 with the 7th Iowa cavalry. We were up at Fort Laramie and north of it, and south of it. At Fort Laramie was Lieut. Col. Collins. He had a son, Casper Collins, who was killed by the Indians. Fort Collins was named after the Colonel and Fort Cas- per was named after the son. The town of Casper further north, is the survival of the name. We scouted down in the country, of which you speak, and west from Julesburg up the Lodge Pole to where Cheyenne now is. The country was bleak and arid and I would not have given ten cents a square mile for it. There was, of course then no city of Cheyenne or even a beginning of it. The country was wholly desolate and forlorn, it seems to me, although in the spring it looked a little better. A great change has come over the country as it does over every country where a white man goes and settles."
Yours truly, E. F. WARE.
Profits of Early Day Gardening
That those who tilled the soil in the early days of the Cache la Poudre valley reaped rich rewards for their labors is illustrated by the following account of G. R. Strauss' experience as gardener, as told the writer by himself:
In 1864, Mr. Strauss tilled nine acres of land facing on the Howes lane-then the route of the Overland stage company from the Sherwood place to Laporte-nearly opposite Judge A. F. Howes' house. That spring he invested his last dollar at
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Laporte for a sack of flour (flour was then only $12 per sack) purchased seed on credit and planted a market garden. His success that year may be under- stood when it is stated that the profits from the nine acres, after the cost of seed, implements and other contingent expenses had been paid, were $2,500. The ruling price for potatoes was 25 cents per pound, and for cabbage 30 cents.
The stage, which made its nearest division station at Laporte, passed his door and the driver would generally be entrusted with baskets and sacks to be filled with vegetables and other products of Mr. Strauss' garden. As the stage frequently passed in the night, the produce, when in readiness, was placed upon a flat stone at the gate and the driver would stop, pick it up and carry the sacks to their destination. Upon the return trip, the buyer, who- ever he chanced to be, deposited the amount due to pay for his purchases with the stage driver, who in turn, upon arriving at Strauss' gate, raised the flat stone and laid the money thereunder. So prevalent had this method of transacting business become, that frequently weeks at a time passed that Mr. Strauss and the stage driver did not see each other, but the money was always in its place and the gar- den truck in readiness. In relating this incident Mr. Strauss said that he had frequently lifted the flat rock to find $150 under it. No road agents lurked about in those days to surprise the unsuspect- ing stage driver, and no greedy spy ever discovered the novel cash drawer and robbed it to gratify his cupidity.
The spring of 1864 witnessed an unusual amount of water in the river and the flooding of the Howes meadows. Mr. Strauss was awakened one night to find water nearly two feet deep over his floor. He was obliged to wade out and seek higher ground, taking with him what he could conveniently carry and placing the remainder out of danger until the flood subsided. Exactly forty years later, almost to a day, poor Mr. Strauss, then old and feeble, met death in a similar flood. In trying to escape from his home, through which the water was pouring in torrents to go to the home of a neighbor, he was swept by the current against a fence and held there all night long until chilled to the marrow. He died shortly after being discovered by his neighbor, James Strang, and rescued from his perilous posi- tion.
"Ranger" Jones and the Indians
"Ranger" Jones was one of the pioneers of the Caché la Poudre valley and one of the best known
characters of the early days. He was a stockman and owned a ranch on the north side of the river a short distance west of the present town of Tim- nath. The farm is now owned by Herman Strauss. He used to declare in emphatic terms that he, the late William C. Stover and the late John B. Provost built the range of mountains to the west of Fort Collins. He was the father of Mrs. Thomas Earn- est and along in the 70's returned to his former home in Missouri, after amassing a fortune in the stock business, where he died several years ago. Many interesting stories are told of his eccentricities by the surviving old timers. Here is one of them:
"Sometime during the Indian troubles on the Plains, Ranger Jones, an old-time stockman, well known all along the Platte and in Wyoming, was driving the mess wagon for his own round-up outfit, near Cedar Buttes, in Logan county, when sud- denly Indians appeared and fired on the outfit. 'G'lang Pete'. Git, Sue!' shouted Ranger, laying the bud lustily on his team, already frightened into a run by the yells of the Indians. Full three miles away, one cowboy overtook the old man still laying on the whip, and rolling lively wheels for the River- side ranch, twenty-five miles distant. 'Hold up, Mr. Jones' shouted the cowboy, the Indians have got all the horses and gone. Danger is all over. Hold up, you're spilling all the cooking fixings. Hold up, you've spilled the frying pan and pots. Whoa!"
"No more use have I for frying pans in this world, my son", replied Ranger, laying on more bud. Seeing that talk was useless the cowboy grabbed the team by the head, swung them around and stopped them.
Prisoner Escaped on Court's Horse
In 1864, while the county seat was located at Laporte, the county commissioners appropriated $150 to be used in building a log jail. The contract was let to Uncle Ben Whedbee, who died in November, 1910 at the advanced age of 97 years, and Mr.Blevins, father of Montie Blevins of North Park, who completed the building in due time and according to plans and specifications. Charles W. Ramer, now a retired merchant and hotel keeper, hauled the logs for the building from the mountains with an ox team. The late John C. Matthews, who was later county clerk and still later a promi- nent merchant, was the only justice of the peace at Laporte, and it is still told of him that he dealt out justice in his court with an impartial hand.
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Shortly after the completion of the jail, two horse thieves who had been bound over by Justice Matthews for trial in the district court, were con- fined in it in default of bail. It fell to their lot to be the first prisoners to be confined in the new jail. One night not long after their incarceration they cut their way out of jail and decamped, taking Squire Matthews' only horse and saddle with them. It is needless to say the Squire, never afterwards saw hide nor hair of his horse, saddle and prisoners. In 1868, when the county seat was moved to Fort Collins, the jail building was taken down and moved to the new county seat where it was rebuilt and for several years served the purpose for which it was originally erected. In 1880 after the Ted- mon house was built the old jail was converted into a laundry for the hotel and used as such until the Union Pacific railroad had it torn down and re- moved to make room for its tracks through the city. Squire Matthews never, so long as he lived, heard the last of the scurvy trick the horse thieves played on the court.
Mariana and His Rifle
Many stories were told in the early days about the ways and manners of Mariana Modena, the Big Thompson pioneer who kept the Overland stage station at his place for several years. The following appeared in the Denver Field & Farm in March 1890 :
"Nearly thirty years ago, while traveling in the Taos valley in New Mexico, we chanced to camp for the night at the same watering place with a dude-looking Spaniard or Mexican named Mariana Modena. He had a squaw wife who wore a blanket and moccasins. Mariana wore a blanket coat gaily ornamented with silk. When upon the road he rode in a dilapidated carriage with a pair of Hawkins rifles within easy reach. His team of four horses was guided by an Indian who rode the right wheeler and directed the leaders with a jerk line. Mariana was a pompous little fellow who had not only lived with Indians but had killed many, and was as watchful as a hawk lest some buck came upon him unaware and claimed revenge. When at home he lived in Colorado on the Big Thompson and was well fixed with cattle, sheep and ponies. But when Jack-the renegade Indian Chief-was out Mariana kept in. On this occasion Mariana was down in New Mexico to let Jack have Northern Colorado to himself. As he expressed it to us, 'he didn't want to kill an Indian, but should have to if he got his
eye on Jack', said he', I am carrying six bullets in my body that Jack and five others have fired at me at different times, and when I meet one of them I am in duty bound to kill him. Jack is the only one left-I'll get him by and by."
MARIANA MODENO, FIRST SETTLER IN THE BIG THOMPSON VALLEY; NOTED SCOUT, TRAP- PER AND INDIAN FIGHTER
In after years we became well acquainted with the Spaniard or Mexican when at his home on the Big Thompson. He was a kind hearted fellow, who as the saying went, 'was no coward', but always kept company with his Hawkins rifle. You could never hail him at his door but he came out smiling with "Old Lady Hawkins", as he called his gun, in his hand. Well, after a time-in June 1878-from the effects of the numerous bullets he had in his body, poor Mariana laid down and died. But before crossing the range he sent for his good friend, Gen. A. H. Jones of Denver, and presented him his much
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beloved Hawkins rifle. It is stated as a fact that that gun had killed more Indians than any other gun in history.
A Soldier's Epitaph
In 1864-5 and 6, when the United States soldiers occupied Camp Collins, the high ground at the southwest corner of College avenue and Oak street, which the Government recently purchased as a site for the new federal building for which money has already been appropriated, was consecrated as a burial place for those who died here while in the service of their country. A number of soldiers were buried here and in 1874 their graves were opened and the bodies of the dead transferred to Mountain Home cemetery, situated in the southeastern part of the city limits, and reinterred. Six of these graves were found, but the names of only one of the occupants has been preserved. In opening the grave a bottle containing a paper bearing the following was found by J. E. Shipler, at the head of it:
Post Hospital, Camp Collins,
Colorado Territory, Nov. 8, 1865.
"To Whom It May Concern :
"I am really sorry to be pained with the duty of announcing the death of hospital steward, W. W. Westfall, of Company 'F' 13th Missouri Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, which sad event transpired on the 8th day of November, 1865, at the hour of 6:20 p. m. at this place.
"Poor Westfall took ill on the morning of the 3rd of November, '65 and after having suffered the most excruciating agony from typho-gastro-interic disease, died on the evening of the 8th of November, 1865.
"Brave, though mild, and clever too, Was W. W. Westfall : We buried him in U. S. blue When the Lord did on him call.
"His sister, R. T. Westfall, resides in Taylor- ville, Illinois."
It is a pity that the name of Westfall's compan- ions who died in the wilderness during their trying early years, have not been preserved in local annals. The new postoffice which the Government will in due time erect on the ground occupied by the first made graves of those valiant soldiers and patriots, will be a monument to the memory of their heroic deeds by which it was made possible to rear a city in what was a trackless wilderness when they gave up their lives.
Stories About Old Times
In 1865, Graham flour was almost unknown in Larimer county. One time when white flour was not to be had for love nor money, the late Charles W. Howell, who then lived in Pleasant Valley, went to the Laporte store where he bought fifty pounds of the coarse flour. It seems that he and his good wife, who still survives him at an advanced age, were sublimely innocent regarding the excellent qualities of that kind of flour, and the next day, Charlie took the flour back to the store and told the storekeeper that his wife had tried her level best to make bread, biscuits and cake out of that flour and couldn't do it to save her. Continuing, he said "if old man Graham couldn't make any better flour than that, he'd better go out of the business." Charley never heard the last of his experience with Graham flour as long as he lived.
All old timers remember Judge Howard who lived at Laporte. The judge was a well-educated, clever old man, but too fond of his toddy. One time when he was pretty full, he was taken before a justice of the peace and accused of stealing whiskey. Several well-known residents of the vicinity at that time acted as attorneys and witnesses. The judge was found guilty and sentenced to be tied to the spokes of a wagon wheel and given nothing but whiskey until he starved to death. Accordingly, the judge, who was pretty well scared out of his intoxication, was tied to a wagon wheel and the wheel set in motion so that part of the time his head and then his feet were in the air. He was finally left in that position nearly half the night, howling, praying and threatening dire vengence upon his tormentors. It was a long time after that before the judge allowed the cup that cheers to get the better of him.
The judge had a habit, after leaving the store, of putting his ear to the keyhole to listen to what was being said about him by those on the inside. A stage driver found it out and put up a job on the old man. One night after Judge Howard had pur- chased a large paper sack full of eggs he left the store, but stopped to listen at the keyhole. The stage driver began at once to tell in a loud voice how the judge had once stolen an old blind mule and eloped with the owner's wife. In a moment the door was flung open and the judge, livid with rage, bounded in and exclaimed : Gentlemen, you are a set of liars and robbers! Forgetting his eggs, the old man
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slammed the sack down on the counter and smashed every one of them.
While A. H. Patterson had charge of Stover's store at Laporte in 1870, he fixed up a game for loafers. It consisted of a needle with a spring at- tachment at one end of the counter and a string leading to the opposite end, which, when pulled gave
LULU FALLS, ESTES PARK PHOTO BY F. P. CLATWORTHY
a vigorous thrust to the needle up through a hole in the counter. One day Bill Taylor sauntered in and settled himself on the counter right over the needle. Someone slipped around and gave the string a vigorous yank. Bill hunched up one shoulder and shut one eye, at the same time moving rather livelier than usual in getting off the counter. He caught on but was mighty quiet about it. The next victim to learn the secret was Norm Meldrum, who after- wards, became State Senator, Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor and the Surveyor General of Colorado. When the needle sprung, Denny, as he was called, shot off the counter and let out a war-
whoop that would have done justice to a Sioux Indian. It wasn't long until Johnny Theobald, the shoemaker, came in and squatted down right over that mischevious needle. Bill Taylor, thirsting for revenge, slipped around and pulled the string. Peck, peck went the needle and still Johnny sat looking as innocent and unsuspecting as a spring chicken. After Bill had began to sweat around the collar from pulling the string, Johnny moved leisurely off the counter and reaching into the bay window of his trousers, drew out a piece of heavy sole leather. Somebody had put him wise to Billy Patterson's trick and he came prepared to turn the laugh on the other fellow.
Indians Steal Rock Bush's Horses
In 1865, a band of thieving, blood-thirsty Sioux Indians swooped down upon the Cache la Poudre valley and drove off a large number of horses. Among the sufferers from the raid was Rock Bush, who lost several head of animals. He put in his claim for damages to the Government soon after, and in November 1886, twenty-one years afterward -he got word from Washington that he had been allowed $700-the amount of his actual loss with- out interest. His claim, with thousands of others of a similar nature, had laid in some pigeon hole at Washington all that time awaiting the slow-going movements of the powers that be. Mr. Bush, who is still living and one of the surviving venerated pioneers of the Caché la Poudre valley, was thank- ful that his life was spared to see the end of the matter and to enjoy the use of the money so long past due.
Indian Raids and Scares
The pioneers of Larimer county had many things to contend with, some of them of a nature to severely test their courage and fortitude. All of the country northwest, north and northeast was swarm- ing with thieving, blood-thirsty savages, until after the Union Pacific railroad was built to Cheyenne. The settlers were always in constant fear of a raid by these marauders. Their fears were often aug- mented by a number of French settlers who rode up and down the river, spreading alarms, for some of which there was sufficient cause, but in many in- stances they were entirely baseless. When danger was apprehended the settlers left their homes and hid themselves away as best they could. On one of these occasions Andrew Ames of the Poudre Val- ley picketed his seventeen horses and lay in the
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field for several days watching them day and night. At last, worn out by his vigils, he fell asleep and the next morning every animal was gone. Borrow- ing a mule from Jesse Sherwood, he started on the trail of the supposed Indians, and at Denver dis- covered that the thieves were a band of Mexicans. He recovered nearly all of his horses and returned home.
The settlers were often more apprehensive of the degraded whites connected with the Indians than of the Indians themselves. Many an outrage charged to the Indians in those days was committed by white outlaws or Mexicans. In times of danger, after the soldiers came to Camp Collins, in 1864, the men hurried their families to the post while they re- mained at home watching their property from hiding places near at hand.
The state of feeling that existed in Indian times is illustrated by the following incident: A man named Charles Facet kept three or four large ox teams at Spring Canon. One day he come rushing to Judge Howes' place on the Poudre, on a panting pony, with another man on behind, and said the Indians were after him and had stolen his cattle and driven them into the hills. The settlers rallied, the soldiers turned out and a big crowd went back with Facet, where they found the cattle grazing quietly. A few half-breeds from Laporte gathering berries had thrown the man into a panic. The nerves of the inhabitants were nearly all of the time strung to the highest tension by fear of Indian raids.
The Overland stage employes were also a source of annoyance. They were, as a rule, a drunken, carousing set of men, and Slade, who had charge of this division, was a desperado of the first water. Andrew Ames furnished the Laporte station and the next station west with hay. In his commonest bus- iness transactions with Slade the latter always kept his hand on his gun. It was one of Slade's pastimes at Laporte to hold a cocked revolver in a stranger's face and march him into the saloon to drink with him. One day Slade and most of his men got on a tear at Laporte and dumped the storekeepers' gro- ceries into the middle of the floor, poured molasses and flour all over them and then called the propri- etor in, the men then putting him in the stage, hauled him to the Laramie Plains, where they dumped him out. This little bit of fun cost Slade and his gang $800, which he promptly paid after sobering up.
First Wedding in Fort Collins
On December 30, 1866, occurred the first wed- ding solemnized in Fort Collins, the contracting parties being the Hon. Harris Stratton, a former member of the Kansas Territorial Legislature, and Mrs. Elizabeth L. Keays, a niece of "Auntie" Stone, Fort Collins' first permanent white woman settler. The ceremony was performed by County Judge Jesse M. Sherwood, a pioneer of the Caché la Poudre valley, in a small log house built for Col- onel Collins' headquarters, which stood just back of where the Tedmon house now stands. The wed- ding guests were C. Boulware, H. C. Peterson, A. H. Patterson, Norman H. Meldrum, "Auntie" Stone, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Forbes, Dr. and Mrs. T. M. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Cooper and their three daughters. In 1867 Mr. Stratton rep- resented Larimer county in the Colorado Territor- ial Legislature. One of the guests, Hon. Norman H. Meldrum, was a member of the Territorial Council in 1875, and was the first State Senator elected from the county after Colorado became a state, serving in the first General assembly. In the fall of 1878 he was elected secretary of state and re-elected in 1880, serving two full terms, and was appointed surveyor general of Colorado by Presi- dent Arthur in 1883, and in the fall of 1886 was elected Lieutenant Governor of Colorado. He is now a resident of Buffalo, Wyoming. He and the bride and Mrs. A. J. Ames of Denver, who was one of the Cooper girls, are believed to be the only survivors of that happy wedding party. Mrs. Strat- ton is still a greatly beloved resident of Fort Col- lins and, though having passed four score years, she enjoys good health and takes a great deal of interest in public affairs. Three lovely daughters were born of this union, Lerah, Marguerite and Sophia, the first named being Mrs. P. J. McHugh of Fort Collins, and the last named Mrs. A. Anderson, late of Columbus, Nebraska, but now of Imperial Val- ley, California. Marguerite died a few years ago while serving as librarian of the State Agricultural College.
"Billie" Hayes' Dog Feast
In 1865, when the soldiers were stationed at Camp Collins, Joseph Mason kept a sutlers' store in the Grout building, which stood on the corner, where Frank Stover's drug store now stands, and W. D. Hayes, known as "Billie" Hayes, was one of his clerks. Chief Friday and his band of Ar- apahoes were camped on Mr. Coy's place. The
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squaws and their papooses used to hang around the low Springs, the next stage station west of Virginia store a good deal, the little Indians shooting at a Dale. mark with their bows and arrows. They would hit Pioneer Incidents a penny fastened in a split stick stuck in the ground almost every time. One day, thinking to have some In 1883, the late Augustine Mason related the following incidents which came under his notice in the early days of the settlement, with some of which he was personally connected : sport with "Billie," they got him out to shoot with them. "Billie" was a good shot with the bow, but his dusky friends didn't know it. He took the bow and made all sorts of awkward moves and wild shots, which greatly pleased the Indian boys and their mothers. Finally one of the squaws pointed to an Indian dog in the street as if to say "shoot him." "Billie" drew his bow and sent an arrow clean through the dog, killing him instantly. The squaws immediately set up a wail of lamentation over the death of the dog. At last one of them gathered the dog in her arms and started for home. The next day "Billie" was invited to the Indian camp to take dinner. He went, but when his dusky hosts served up the feast he coucluded his stomach was a little too sensitive to hold dog-meat and he declined the prof- fered dish. The squaws, thinking they had called the turn on him, had a good laugh over his squeam- ishness. The soldiers at the post took it up and "Billie" wasn't allowed to forget his dog feast while he remained here. Mr. Hays is now a prosperous banker at Hastings, Michigan, but no doubt often recalls his experiences in Fort Collins, forty-five years ago.
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