USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 17
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Made Good Indians
In April, 1899, Lieutenant D. McNoughton of Grand Rapids, Michigan, spent a few days in Den- ver, and in an interview with a reporter for the Den- ver Republican, related the following incident which occurred when his command of the Seventh Mich- igan succeeded the Eleventh Ohio troops at Camp Collins, early in 1865:
"In 1865 a band of Sioux captured two wagons loaded with government supplies, a few miles north- west of Camp Collins, on the Salt Lake coach road. The drivers escaped and reported the facts to the officers in command at the camp. In the pursuit of the Indians, two of Lieutenant McNoughton's command were killed, but several of the Indians were 'good' from thenceforth. At the time of the attack on the wagons, a soldier had been captured and his charred body was found bound with chains to the wreck of the wagon, where he had been burned alive by the redskins."
The fight with the Indians spoken of by Lieuten- ant McNoughton took place June, 1865, at Wil-
"While Chief Friday and his band of Arapahoes were camped on the Sherwood place, a band of rov- ing Cheyennes set up their tepees for a few days on the north side of the river, nearly opposite Chief Friday's camp. This bunch of Cheyennes were warriors who had participated in many of the fights against the whites on the Plains, while Chief Fri- day and his band were peaceable and friendly to- ward the white settlers, and the Cheyennes taunted them with being squaw men and afraid to fight. At last one of the latter asked Chief Friday if he had a fighting man in his band. This aroused the indignation of Friday's son, Bill, and he shot the Cheyenne dead with a revolver. For fear that his act would get his father into difficulty, the young Indian took his three squaw wives and fled north out of the country. Later, when he supposed the trouble had blown over, he attempted to return to his father's camp and was overtaken by a party of Pawnee warriors, who killed him, cut off his head and set it on a pole, and otherwise horribly mu- tilated his body. His three squaw wives were taken prisoners."
"Mr. Mason bought the Rist Canon road of Joe Rist in 1868 for $75. His brother, Joseph Ma- son at that time owned the bridge over the Poudre in Pleasant Valley. As it fell to the brothers to keep the road and bridges in repair, Joseph sug- gested that they make the county a present of both properties, which they did."
The first Catholic services conducted on the Poudre were held in the fall of 1866. Bishop Machebeuf, then a priest, celebrated mass on a Saturday in Mrs. Stratton's school house in which she was teaching a private school. The following day mass was celebrated again in Henry Forbes' house, which stood on the farm lately owned by William F. Watrous. In 1878, after the Reming- ton school building was about ready to occupy, the old public school building, the first one erected in Fort Collins, was purchased by the Catholics and
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fitted up for church purposes and was thus occupied until the beautiful new church on Mountain Ave- nue was dedicated in 1901."
"Judge A. F. Howes started the movement, in 1870, to build the first public school building erected in Fort Collins. It was a small frame building and stood on Riverside avenue near the corner of Peter- son street. It has since been converted into a dwell- ing house and is occupied as such. It cost about $1,100, and Augustine Mason's school tax that year was $165.25. The district was immediately after- wards divided and Mr. Mason was placed in Dis- trict No. 11. Although he had helped to build the new school house, he had to pay $3 a week for the privilege of sending his child to the Fort Collins public school. Mr. Mason brought the first shoe- maker to Fort Collins. His name was "Johnny" Theobald, whom Mr. Mason found in Denver on his uppers and in debt. A few months after locat- ing in Fort Collins, Theobald paid off all his debts and continued at work here for several years."
"The late Joseph Mason and the late F. W. Sher- wood were warm personal friends and each trusted the other to the fullest extent. In the early days they engaged in the stock business together, buying and selling horses and cattle. There were no ar- ticles of agreement in writing between them-only an understanding that each should share in the profits of their transactions, which they divided from time to time. Mr. Mason did most of the buying and selling and Mr. Sherwood kept the accounts as rendered by the former. This was continued for several years, and when they concluded to dissolve partnership, the books showed that Mr. Mason was indebted to Mr. Sherwood, as the latter's share of the profits, in the sum of $6,250.50. 'All right,' said Mason, 'Here is a check for $6,250, but I'll see you hanged before I'll ever pay the fifty cents.' It was thus that an account running for several years and involving the handling of tens of thou- sands of dollars, was settled by these two pioneers, whose faith in the honor and integrity of each other was unbounded. They had large contracts for sup- plying the Government with beef cattle and horses at Fort Laramie and other military posts, and every penny of the receipts was religiously accounted for in the settlement."
A Reminiscence
In 1868, Dr. W. R. Thomas, Professor of His- tory and Irrigation Law at the Colorado State Ag- gicultural College, traversed the Caché la Poudre valley on horseback in the interest of the Rocky Mountain News. Twenty-five years later he again visited the valley, this time traveling by rail, and in a letter published in the Rocky Mountain News of December 28, 1893, he indulged in the following reminiscence :
"Broad and beautiful is the valley of the Cache la Poudre." I recall the sentence written just twenty-five years ago for the News, and as I rode along the valley the other day in one of the elegant coaches of the Union Pacific train, I also recalled the first ride I ever made along the banks of the famous and historic stream. The Caché la Poudre then marked the line of Colorado's northern frontier settlement. The danger of Indian raids still threat- ened the valley. The old California trail, along which the Mormons had marched to Utah, over which the forty-niners had made their way to Cal- ifornia, which had been tramped by the columns of Albert Sidney Johnston in his expedition against Brigham Young, and which had been traveled by the fleet riders of the Pony express and the stage coaches of the Overland line, was still broad and well defined. There was but one family living be- tween old Latham station on the Platte and Ben Eaton's ranch on the Cache la Poudre. A few miles further up the stream was the ranch of Uncle Jesse Sherwood. Fort Collins had just been abandoned as a military post and consisted of half a dozen adobe and log buildings. Laporte, where Col. Bill Taylor kept the stage station, was the most important point in the valley, and was a primitive frontier trading point. Thus in the mellow sunshine of a late autumn day I saw the broad acres of the valley, sloping gradually to the beautiful stream, whose course from the mountains to the Platte was marked by groves of cottonwood. The hardy pioneer had just entered into possession of this valley, and before it was a future grand with industrial possibilities. That future has been realized. There is today no more prosperous, enterprising, energetic or intelli- gent community in all Colorado than that which claims the Cache la Poudre valley as its home."
General Grant's Dinner at Laporte
In July, 1868, General Grant, who had been nominated for the presidency, accompanied by Gen. W. T. Sherman and Fredrick T. Dent, visited Den-
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ver, coming West by stage via the Smoky Hill route. After visiting the mines at Central City and Georgetown, the party returned East via U. P. from Cheyenne, passing through this county on the stage and taking dinner at Laporte. The late Wil- liam S. Taylor kept the hotel at Laporte and had the honor of entertaining the distinguished visitors. He had been notified of their coming by telegraph and prepared them one of the famous dinners for which Mrs. Taylor was noted far and wide. Travelers by the Overland stage were always sure of a cordial greeting by Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and the best meal served by anyone on the entire line.
John G. Coy's Indian Scare
Mr. Coy came from the State of New York to the Cache la Poudre valley in the fall of 1862, and located on land he still owns and occupies adjoining the eastern limits of Fort Collins. When he settled here the houses and residences in the valley were few and far between. There was a house on what was later known as the Barry place, occupied by Capt. C. C. Hawley's family; a house on Judge Howes' place, and one just across the road, occupied by G. R. Strauss ; Tod Randall had a cabin on what is now the Slockett place. These were all on the north side of the river. On the south side of the river there was but one small, unoccupied cabin be- tween the Sherwood place, four miles down the stream, and the Joseph Mason place, about a mile up the stream from what is now Fort Collins. Though there were plenty of Indians here at that time, he never had any trouble with them, as they did not molest him nor his property.
He did get a bad scare one time from what he supposed were Indians, and came very near blowing the head from off a white man. And this is how it occurred: In the fall of 1870 he went to Chey- enne with a load of vegetables, loading back with merchandise for Stover & Matthews. A few days before this a soldier had been killed and scalped near what is now known as Indian Springs, on the Cheyenne road. The soldier and his comrade had been out on a scout and the two had camped for the night near the springs. During the night their horses had broken their lariats and strayed away and in the morning the two men started out to look for them, each in a different direction. It was not long until one of them heard a shot, and, supposing his comrade had found the horses, he turned about and went in the direction whence the sound of the explosion had come. In a short time he came upon
the dead, scalped and mutilated body of his com- rade. He had found the horses and was returning to the camp with them when killed; the Indians had stripped him of his clothing and gotten away with the horses.
Mr. Coy always carried a carbine with him, and thinking of the fate of the soldier, kept a sharp watch for Indian signs. On passing Indian Springs he saw the edge of a blanket waving in the wind next to the bank of a deep creek-wash. Looking closer, he saw what appeared to his excited imag- ination like three heads beneath the blanket. He knew there was no use in attempting to turn his team and fleeing, for he believed the parties under the blanket had been lying in wait for him, so under the strain of a good deal of excitement, he got out his gun, jumped down from his load, determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. In his excite- ment and while his heart was pounding like a trip- hammer, a shell he was trying to slip into the gun got lodged in the magazine and he thought his time had surely come. He continued working away to get his gun in condition for execution and at last succeeded in getting the shell into place. With that. he stepped from behind his wagon and drew a bead on the central head, giving at the same time a yell that might have been heard for a long distance. Immediately there came a responsive yell that cur- dled Mr. Coy's blood; the blanket flew back and exposed the head of a white man. The stranger was a German, on his way to Cheyenne, and the day being cold and blustery, he had gotten down against the bank and drawn the blanket over his head to shield himself from the wind. Hearing a team coming, he had raised the blanket on each side of his head with his hands, making it look as if there were three heads under it. Greatly relieved, Mr. Coy drove on, congratulating himself on his nar- row escape from killing the German. Just before reaching home he met Peter Anderson, to whom he related his adventure. Mr. Anderson replied, "That's the fellow who stole my blanket and re- volver." Mr. Anderson jumped onto a horse and took the trail in search of the man, whom he found in camp at Maynard Flats. After recovering his property and scaring the fellow almost out of his wits with threats of sending the sheriff after him, he returned to his home, having ridden all night.
Indian Burials
"S. H. Southard," said the Greeley Tribune, in May, 1900, "lived at Laporte for some time in the
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early sixties and had a very stirring experience. Musgrove, the all-round-bad-man and horse thief, who was finally hanged in Denver, had his head- quarters at Laporte. He and his gang had a way of stealing horses and mules and selling them, and then, later, acting as detectives and hunting up the animals for a consideration, thus making money both ways. At that time there were many Indians at Laporte. They had a curious way of disposing of their dead. Scaffolding was placed in the tops of large cottonwood trees and the dead placed one on each of them, and as buffaloes were plentiful in those days, the corpse was generally inclosed in a buffalo skin. Many of us old settlers who jour- neyed up the Poudre to the mountains in the early seventies saw some of the remains of these 'burials in tree tops.'"
In this connection, Attorney L. R. Rhodes of Fort Collins relates an incident regarding the Indian burial place near Laporte, with which he was per- sonally cognizant, as follows:
"In 1872 there was being run down the Caché la Poudre river a large drive of logs, which were sawed up into lumber at Greeley. I was working on this drive, and from the first day of July to the first of August, the logs were driven from the Pou- dre canon to a point about opposite the present town of Windsor.
"One night, about dark, a young man by the name of Carrington, and myself were passing through a grove of cottonwood just above Bingham hill. We noticed that in several large cottonwood trees some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, there had been poles laid from one limb to another, and there was something that looked like a sack or bag resting on these poles. We had no idea what this meant. Carrington climbed one of the trees and attempted to loosen the poles so as to let the bundle drop to the ground. He succeeded, and without much trouble the bundle came tumbling down and proved to be the body of a dead Indian, wrapped in a buf- falo robe and blankets. Inclosed within the buffalo robe were bows and arrows and various other Indian implements.
"We went on into camp and the next morning in some manner the squaw men living at Laporte learned of the Indian having been disturbed. There was great excitement and threats were made to deal summarily with young Carrington. Carrington left the drive that morning and I have never heard of him since."
Frontier Justice
On the 4th of July, 1879, the people of Fort Collins and vicinity held a celebration in a grove on the north side of the river. There was music, marching and speaking, the exercises of the day winding up with a fine display of fireworks, the first ever seen in Fort Collins.
Late in the afternoon three of Governor Eaton's ditch builders at work on the Larimer & Weld canal, then in course of construction, came into town and proceeded to fill themselves up with booze. Along in the early evening hours they began to be boisterous and disposed to make themselves de- cidedly disagreeable with their loud talk and swag- gering ways. At last one of them, a young fellow, stole one of the paper balloons and pulling it down over his head, strutted around with it on in the form of a petticoat. This, the crowd thought, was car- rying the joke a little too far, so Sheriff Sweeney and Billy Morgan, who was town marshal, took the three obnoxious fellows into custody.
There was no magistrate in town that day and no cooler and no county jail in which to confine the prisoners, and the officers were at a loss to know what to do with them. At last it occurred to Billy Morgan that Frank Stover was a town trustee, and if he didn't have authority to try, convict and sentence for infraction of the peace in emergency cases, he ought to have, therefore making a virtue of necessity, which knows no law, the culprits were taken before Mr. Stover to be disposed of as he saw fit. Not having room in his store, which then occupied a small room in the Yount bank building, he adjourned court to the street, using a barrel standing on end for a desk. Mr. Stover assumed a magisterial air and proceeded to arraign the accused on the charge brought against them. The young fellows, who were tenderfeet, by the way, and un- familiar with wild, western ways for dealing out justice, except from hearsay, began to sober off and to think their days were numbered. They could see no mercy in the face of the court and no pity in the surroundng crowd. Visions of their lifeless tender- feet swaying in the breeze from the limb of a cotton- wood tree swept over them and they wilted. They pleaded guilty and threw themselves upon the mercy of the court, beseeching him to spare their lives and promising to leave town immediately and give no further trouble if he did so. After a short lecture, in which the court admonished them to forsake their evil ways and the cup that inebriated, the court imposed upon them a fine of $5.00 and costs. They
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could only scare up $1.35 between them, which the court accepted, the tender-hearted sheriff and mar- shal agreeing to donate their fees. The prisoners were then discharged and only hit the high places in their hurry to get out of town. The interrupted celebration was soon after brought to a close in a blaze of glory.
A Peace Council With the Utes
In September, 1865, Territorial Governor, John Evans, held a peace council with the Southern Utes at Fort Garland in the San Luis valley, to settle the troubles between the Indians and the Mexican population, and a peace was then concluded by a mutual indemnity. A battalion of the 21st New York cavalry, then stationed at Camp Collins, ac- companied Governor Evans on this expedition as escort. Among the officers in command of the bat- talion were Capt. Farrar, Lieutenant Franklin, Lieutenant John H. Mandeville and Lieutenant George E. Buss. The trip he took on the occasion is one of Mr. Mandeville's most pleasant recollec- tions and he enjoys relating incidents connected therewith. Governor Evans took along thirteen wagons heavily laden with gifts for the Indians. One wagon was loaded exclusively with navy to- bacco, the plugs being a foot in length. There was also a great quantity of other articles intended to please the fancy and propitiate the fierce spirit of the redmen. Arriving at Fort Garland, the council was called and the Indians came in from all direc- tions with their squaws and papooses. Ouray was the head chief of the Utes. Colorow joined the ex- pedition at Denver and proceeded a part of the way with it. When the Indians got ready to talk they formed in circles, one within another, the head chief and his staff taking the outside circle and the others the inner, according to rank. In the center sat Governor Evans and his attendants. Major Head, who was the Indian agent, acted as interpreter. Lieutenant Mandeville had a seat near the gov- ernor and before the talk opened Mr. Mandeville, at the governor's request, procured a good sized piece of pine board. When everything was ready for the talk to proceed, the governor drew from his pocket a keen edged clasp knife and began to whittle long, clean shavings from the pine board. As he talked he whittled and before the council came to an end, he had whittled away several pieces of board. Chief Ouray's talk was mild and digni- fied. He had visited Washington and knew some- thing of the strength and power of the Government
and he favored peace and the signing of a treaty. Colorow, however, scored the whites unmercifully and bitterly complained of the treatment the Indians had received at their hands. As he warmed up to the subject, he moved round and round in his allot- ted circle, but the other speakers who were less ex- citable, stood like statutes when speaking.
The object of the council was accomplished and a treaty of peace between Ouray and Governor Evans was ratified. The Utes relinquished all their claims to the San Luis valley and mountains and that por- tion of the territory west of the Rocky mountains in which settlements had already been made. From this time there were no serious troubles between the Colorado Utes and the white population. Ouray always remained a friend of the whites and was made much of by Maj. Head. Governor Evans ap- pointed him interpreter at the Conejos agency at a salary of $500.00 a year. The old chief died in 1880.
At the close of the council, the gifts brought by Governor Evans were distributed. They were passed out to the respective chiefs who in turn divided them among their people. Later the Indians had a feast, adding many of the provisions presented to them by Evans to their own store and indulged in a regular gorge. In the evening they held a dance which was attended by officers of the batallion. At one point in the dance, as the officers stood in a group watching the performance, the dusky dancers, highly painted up and chanting one of their wierd songs, circled around the guests and finally en- tirely surrounded them. When the officers mani- fested no little surprise at this proceeding, the Indians broke out into a hearty laugh at the joke they had played on the white men.
A Soldier's Recollection of Fort Collins
An interesting letter received recently by John G. Coy, tells of the old days in Fort Collins when "Aunty" Stone sold milk at fifty cents a quart, butter at a dollar and a half a pound, and propor- tinate prices were paid for all the necessities of life. The writer is at present living in Oswego, New York, of which town he is a native, and the writing of the letter is the culmination of a series of most interesting circumstances which are set out in the document. The letter reads as follows :
"Mr. John Coy.
"Dear Sir: You will be surprised at receiving a letter from Oswego, from a man you don't know,
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so I will tell you how this came about. I am store- keeper for the Government in Oswego and the building is only a block from where your brother, Ben, lives. He comes down and visits me. We were talking one day about the western country. I told him how far west I had been and mentioned Fort Collins and then Camp Collins. 'Why', Ben says, 'I have been there twice or three times and I have a brother living there now who has been there since 1863, I think, and I get the Courier every week.' This took place about a year ago. Ben said he would go to the house and bring down one, so he did and has continued letting me have one when- ever there is anything in them he thinks would in- terest me; and would you believe it, I am as much interested in them as I am in our local paper So about a year ago I wrote the editor of the Courier, giving him a sketch of the days when I was in and about Fort Collins. I was a member of the 21st New York cavalry, stationed at Fort Collins from 1865 to 1866, and if you were there in 1863-64, why you know about the 21st cavalry.
"Well, Ben said you lived down the river from Collins. One day, three or four of us Oswego boys took a stroll down the river, oh, a mile and a half or so. We came to a frame house and if I remember rightly it hadn't been built very long. We saw some milk pans out drying, so some of us boys says, 'let's have some milk.' We went in. This was in the afternoon. There was a woman and a couple of girls in the house and we asked them to sell us some milk. They said they didn't like to disturb the milk after it was set, so we said we would buy the whole pan full and pay whatever they thought it was worth. At this stage of the game, the man came in and we got to talk- ing, and finally, he asked us what state we were from. We said Oswego, New York. 'Why', he said, is that so? I am from Oswego." He asked us if we knew Fitchne and Littlejohn and some other early settlers of Oswego. We had all the milk we wanted to drink and he wouldn't accept any pay for it and wanted us to come down often, as he liked to talk to us. There was another house across the river from Collins, built that spring or the year be- fore. Then I wondered what anyone wanted to come out in that God-forsaken country and build a house with the intention of staying there. I wouldn't have stayed there for all Fort Collins and all the buildings in sight.
"While out there we went as far as Fort Bridger. We left Fort Leavenworth July 22, 1865, struck the Platte river at Fort Kearney, then up the river to
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