USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 30
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build a city on the banks of the Caché la Poudre at the entrance to the mountain region. This com- pany was officered the first year by Enoch W. Ray- mond, president, and Arch P. Williams, secretary. The writer has in his possession stock certificate No. 3, issued by that company, which reads as follows :
"Whole No. of Share, 50 Share No. 7 Certificate "No. 3-COLONA TOWN COMPANY
"This is to certify that Chas. H. Blake is the owner of one-tenth of one original share in the Town of Colona, which entitles him to. . lots, described as follows. Subject to the by-laws and assessments of the company.
"No transfer recognized unless. endorsed and recorded in the books of the Company by the Secretary.
"Colona, Feb. 10, 1860.
"ENOCH W. RAYMOND, President. "ARCH P. WILLIAMS, Secretary."
The town grew rapidly, between fifty and sixty log dwellings being erected during that year, and it was the most important point for business north of Denver. The first cabin built in the new town was erected by the late John B. Provost. In 1862 Laporte was made headquarters of the Mountain division of the Overland Stage company, and for a time it flourished like a green bay tree. In 1861 it was named the county seat of Larimer county in the act passed by the first Territorial Legislature, setting off and creating the counties of the terri- tory, and it aspired to be the capitol of the terri- tory, but that honor went to Colorado City for the time being. Gardening and making hay, prospect- ing for silver and gold, and hunting were the prin- cipal occupations of the inhabitants. General farm- ing had not then been entered upon. Game was plentiful and easily obtained and, though flour some- times commanded $100 a sack, the settlers seldom suffered for food.
The first bridge over the Caché la Poudre river was a toll bridge built by private parties. It stood near where the present iron bridge now stands, and during the rush to California and Oregon as many as 2,000 wagons crossed on it in a single day. The toll charged ranged from $3 to $8. This bridge was carried away by the flood of 1864, and John B. Provost rigged up a ferry, which was used during high water for several years and until the county built a new bridge. In the early days the town was
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a bustling business and supply recruiting point for emigrants. There were four saloons, a brewery, a butcher shop, a shoe shop, two blacksmith shops, a store and hotel. The first store was opened and conducted by Jerry Kershaw, who afterwards sold it to Chamberlin & Glenn. Preston Taft, still a resident of Laporte, and the late A. H. Patterson clerked in the store. The sales during the busy sea- son often amounted to $1,000 per day. Everything kept in a store sold for what we would now call a big price. Sugar, 50 cents pound ; oysters and sardines, from $1 to $1.50 per can ; corn, 18 cents and 20 cents per pound by the sack; butter, from $1 to $1.50 per pound, and everything else in pro- portion. During the winter of 1864-65 hay brought $65 per ton. The brewery was owned by a Ger- man named Melanger. The build- ing was afterwards moved to Pleasant valley and was occupied for years by James Shipp and fam- ily as a residence. The Western Union Telegraph opened an office in 1866, and the operator was a Mr. Mountuma.
The late William S. Taylor kept a stage station at Laporte for several years and had the pleasure of entertaining at his board several distinguished men, including Gen- eral Grant, Vice-President Schuyler Colfax and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield, Massa- chusetts, Republican. Horace Greeley stopped in Laporte over night in June, 1859. The house occupied by Mr. Taylor was moved to his farm, a short distance east of Laporte, and is now owned by Mr. M. L. Landes. The stage fare from Laporte to Denver was $20.
In 1864 the county bought a small log building of Henry Arrison at a cost of $150, which was used as a court house and county offices. That build- ing now forms a part of the Preston Taft resi- dence. W. D. W. and Louis Taft and H. W. Chamberlin conducted a dairy in what is now Pres- ton Taft's barn. Judge James B. Belford, who was afterwards twice a member of congress from Colorado, held court in Laporte in 1866-7. Ed. A. Smith, now of Loveland, then a young man, was the Overland Stage company's blacksmith, stationed at Laporte. He shod the horses and repaired the coaches for the company until 1868, when the stage
line was discontinued. Dr. T. M. Smith was the first physician to locate here, moving to Camp Col- lins in 1864 to serve as assistant surgeon for the soldiers. He went to Virginia in the early 80's and died there a few years ago at an advanced age. The first school house was built on the bluff south of the river, but was afterwards moved to near where Preston Taft now lives.
In 1863 a company of the 13th Kansas regiment volunteer infantry was stationed at Laporte for a
OLD LAPORTE BREWERY. BUILT IN 1862
short time, acting as escort for the Overland stage. This detachment of troops was succeeded by Com- pany B of the First Colorado, and this in turn by a battalion of the 11th Ohio volunteer cavalry, com- manded by Captain Evans. The troops were camped on what is now known as the Jos. Hammerly place, just west of Laporte. During the flood of 1864 the camp ground was covered with water and the soldiers had to suddenly flee to higher ground for safety. Many of their tents and much other gov- ernment property were swept away by the angry waters and only a small portion of it was ever re- covered. In August, 1864, Col. W. O. Collins, commanding the 11th Ohio cavalry, came down from Fort Laramie on an inspection trip, and while here decided to move the camp to the site of the present City of Fort Collins, as is elsewhere noted. In October of that year the camp was moved to the new site and given the name of Camp Collins, in honor of Colonel Collins.
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Preston A. Taft came to Laporte in 1865 and still resides there, being the only one remaining of the early settlers, all the others having moved away or died. Of those who settled in Laporte in 1858 it is not believed there is a single one living.
Laporte Presbyterian Church
This church was organized in 1901 and was served for several years by Rev. H. S. Mccutcheon. A church building was erected that year at a cost
from the San Luis valley with his Indian wife, Marie, whom he called "John," five children, ser- vants, cattle and horses, and settled in the Big Thompson valley about three miles west of the present thriving City of Loveland. Modena was contemporary with Kit Carson, Jim Baker and other noted frontier scouts, hunters and trappers, and had scouted, hunted and trapped with them all over this western country. On one of his scouting trips up into what is now Wyoming and Montana in the early 50's, Modena camped one night in the
the how built in the Big
Viviapon
OLD STAGE STATION AT NAMAQUA. BUILT IN 1858 BY MARIANA MODENO
of $3,600 and the organization has since received a large accession of members. Rev. J. N. Young is the present pastor. All the departments of the church are well organized and doing efficient work.
Namaqua
In the spring or early summer of 1858, more than sixty-two years ago, Mariana Modena, a man about fifty years of age, of Spanish-Indian descent, came
Big Thompson valley and was so charmed with the valley and its surroundings that he resolved to some- time make it his home. He wanted to get off by himself, so that he could raise cattle and horses and not be disturbed by neighbors. At the time he arrived at the site of his new home, his family con- sisted of a wife, one step-son and four children of his own. His wife was a Flathead squaw, whom he purchased in the San Luis valley in 1848 of a French trapper named Papa, paying for her in
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horses, taking a bill of sale as evidence of the trans- action. Modena and the squaw were subsequently married by a Catholic priest. A child by Papa, born shortly after the marriage of Modena to Marie, was named Louis Papa, who now lives in Big Thompson canon, some fifteen miles west of Love- land. Four children were born to Modena and Marie, two of them dying in their infancy, the other two, Antonio and Lena, reaching maturity. Mo- dena was devoted to his children and to his step- son, although Antonio, by his wild, wayward life, caused him a great deal of trouble. He gave his children as good an education as could be obtained in the Catholic schools in Denver. Antonio grew to be handsome, but a wild, and reckless man. At last his conduct became so bad that he was compelled to leave home, and it is reported that he was killed in a drunken row in New Mexico in 1888. Lena grew to a maiden of symmetrical figure, handsome, regular features, large, lustrous eyes and the Spanish type of litheness. She was the apple of her father's eye and he almost worshipped her. He provided her with the finest saddle horses he could find, fancy saddles and bridles and a riding blanket fringed with tiny silver bells, the handiwork of the Navajos of New Mexico, and she could ride with all the ease and grace of a princess. She died in 1872 and was buried near her father's cabin beside the two chil- dren who died in their infancy, in a graveyard in- closed by an adobe wall, with a Catholic emblem surmounting the gateway. The wife, Marie, died in 1874 and Modena followed her in June, 1878. Both were buried in the little graveyard beside their children.
Modena was the first white man to permanently locate in the Big Thompson valley. When he first came he built a log cabin for his family to live in and afterwards erected a larger stone building which he called his fort. An engraving of the group of buildings erected by him appears elsewhere in this volume. Modena named his home Namaqua. The writer has searched high and low for the origin and signification of the word "Namaqua" without success. The word is evidently a Pawnee proper noun, as Pawnee proper nouns generally end in "qua," but what it means translated into English no one of whom we have inquired seems to know. Namaqua was on the emigrant trail from the Arkan- sas to California and Oregon, and in 1862 it became a station on the Overland stage line. A postoffice, one of the first established in the county, was opened here with Hiram Tadder as postmaster. Modena or Mariana, as he was best known, kept a store which
contained supplies for emigrants, including frontier whiskey. Salt meats and flour were very dear, flour often selling as high as $30 per hundred pounds. They were freighted from the Missouri with ox teams, and sometimes the supply got very low before a loaded freight train arrived from the East. Dur- ing these times flour often soared to $100 per hun- dred pounds.
Indians were troublesome in the early days, mak- ing frequent attacks upon the emigrants, and as affording a measure of protection from raids by the savages, several trains traveled together. Mariana built a bridge over the Big Thompson with a toll gate at each end and before a wagon was allowed to cross in either direction the driver must pay a dollar. There was a good ford just below the bridge, but there were times when the river was not fordable on account of high water, and it was dur- ing these times that Mariana reaped a rich harvest in tolls.
Game was plentiful when Mariana first settled at Namaqua-deer, grouse and bear in the mountains, antelope on the plains and fish in the streams. Buf- faloes were in great number on the Plains in the eastern part of Colorado, but hunting them was dangerous on account of marauding bands of In- dians, who stampeded the hunters' horses and often killed and scalped the hunters themselves. But little is known of the early history of Mariana and that little indefinite and unreliable, but there is no doubt but that he lead an adventurous and exciting life before he came to the Big Thompson. Namaqua postoffice was discontinued several years ago.
Big Thompson Valley
Rising mid the snow-capped peaks of the Conti- nental Divide, flowing down through beautiful Estes Park and through deep, dark gorges and canons, past butting crags and meadows bespangled with wild flowers in their season, until it leaps onto the Plains, we find the Big Thompson, one of the pret- tiest streams in Colorado. Its valley, though not as wide as that of the Cache la Poudre, is of re- markable fertility and is wholly divided into farms, whose productiveness is the wonder of the Conti- nent, and which bear unmistakable evidence of industry and prosperity, with their substantial and attractive farm homes, outbuildings, sleek live stock and the latest improved farm machinery.
From the canon to the Weld county line, a dis- tance of about thirteen miles, there is hardly a quar-
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ter section of waste land, all, or nearly all of it be- ing under a high state of cultivation and yearly pro- ducing enormous crops of hay, grain, fruit, sugar beets, potatoes and other vegetables.
But it was not always thus. Fifty years ago this beautiful valley, which now charms the vision of the traveler, was an uninhabited wilderness, save as it became the temporary camping ground of mi- gratory savages, or the home of the buffalo, the stately elk, the timid deer and the fleet-footed ante- lope. Though thousands of armed soldiers-Span- ish and American troops-explorers, trappers and emigrants had crossed the valley, slaked their thirst and laved their weary limbs in the waters of the limpid Big Thompson in their movements from south to north and north to south, not a white man had then attempted to build himself a permanent home within the boundaries of this beautiful, sun- kissed valley, save one. A lonely grave on the banks of the stream, three miles west of Loveland, bears witness that one adventurous young man had found a final resting place. A headstone at this grave still bears the inscription :
"To the Memory of H. L. W. PETERSON Aged 24 Years Was Killed by Lightning June 13, 1854."
Nothing is known of his history or of the com- panions who accompanied him on his fatal trip, further than that gained from the inscription. He was probably an emigrant who left his eastern home, lured by the greed for gold to carve out a fortune among the golden sands of California. The first permanent human habitation erected in the Valley of the Big Thompson was built in 1858 by Mariana Modena, a three-quarter Castilian, whose boast it was in after years that he was the first "white man" to settle on the Big Thompson. He took up a squatter's claim to a tract of land situated three miles up the stream from the present City of Love- land. Here he built his cabin, which four years later became a stage station on the Overland route from the Missouri river to California, and here, twenty years later, he was gathered to his Fathers. Modena was merchant, saloon keeper and host, and his place became noted throughout the West for hospitality and good cheer. Modena was a squaw man, that is, his wife was an Indian whom Modena bought of a Frenchman. She had a son, Louis Papa, who is still living in a small park situated
several miles up the canon above his step-father's old home. The log house and outbuildings erected by Modena are still standing as a monument to the memory of one of the most noted frontier characters of his day.
In 1859 William McGaa, better known in the pioneer days as "Jack Jones," who was also a squaw man, built a cabin on the land later owned by Ab- raham Rist, and became Modena's neighbor. He was the first real white man to settle in the Big Thompson valley, and his son, William, now of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, was the first child born in Denver.
In 1860 the settlement in the valley was greatly augmented by the arrival of a number of other set- tlers who filed on claims and built homes for them- selves and families. Among these were John Hahn, Thomas H. Johnson, Ashford, Ed.
Comb, Sherry, J. N. Hollowell, W B. Osborn, James Boutwell, W. A. Bean, Jed Done- fetter, Henry Dose, Samuel Haffner, Joseph Mark- ley, Frank Prager, Foster brothers, John Miller, H. B. Chubbuck, W. C. Stover, J. J. Ryan, Adam Dick, Doc Allen and Ed Clark, and from that time on the population of the valley steadily in- creased until now it is one of the most densely pop- ulated valleys in Colorado.
There were many among the pioneer settlers in the Big Thompson, as there were also in the Cache la Poudre valley, who had much to do with shap- ing the policies and directing the destiny of Larimer county, including John Hahn, Thos. H. Johnson, William B. Osborn, W. A. Bean, H. B. Chub- buck and Lucas Brandt, of the Big Thompson; J. M. Sherwood, F. W. Sherwood, A. F. Howes, Abner Loomis, James B. Arthur, John G. Coy, Peter Anderson, Joseph Mason, N. C. Alford, Rev- ilo Loveland, W. C. Stover and Harris Stratton, of the Cache la Poudre valley. These were all strong men, intellectually and physically, men of unblem- ished character, strict integrity and the courage of their convictions. They possessed the confidence and good will of their neighbors and all of them have since served the county in positions of honor and trust with fidelity and faithfulness. They were never found wanting in any crisis or time of stress. They were a noble band of men, made up of the best blood and brawn of the nation-clear- brained, firm-willed and strong of heart. No marble shaft is needed to commemorate their virtues, for they are enshrined in the hearts of all who helped to subdue the wilderness and transform it into law- abiding and God-fearing communities. Some of
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these have helped to make the laws and frame the institutions of Colorado; others of those mentioned have been intrusted with authority to administer and execute the laws of the state. All were com- monwealth builders. No public scandals arising from malfeasance in office or failure to perfom a duty has ever attached to any of them. They were not grafters; they were patriots.
. The first ditch built to carry water to bluff lands was taken out of the Big Thompson in 1867 and was
place, which was called Namaqua, where the Over- land stage changed horses and where there was a store, postoffice, blacksmith shop and other public conveniences. Later a trading point and business center grew up at Old St. Louis, one mile east of the present City of Loveland, where a flour mill was built in 1867.
In 1864 the Overland stage station was changed from Mariana's place, or Namaqua, to John E. Washburn's home, three miles lower down the
RAPIDS, BIG THOMPSON CANON
PHOTO BY F. P. CLATWORTHY
known as the "Chubbuck" ditch. The scheme at the time was called a foolhardy one and the pro- prietors found few to encourage them in their enter- prise, but they persisted and proved the faith that was in them. The ditch demonstrated that the bluff lands were the very best for grain growing and general agriculture and the result was that other and larger ditches were soon after constructed to carry water to all the lands on both sides of the stream for many miles in each direction.
For several years the business center of the Big Thompson valley in the early days was at Mariana's
creek, where a postoffice was established called Big Thompson, with Mr. Washburn as postmaster.
In the fall of 1877 the Colorado Central Rail- road company completed its line of road from Gol- den to Cheyenne. The road crosses the Big Thomp- son about a mile west of Old St. Louis, and a sta- tion was established on the bluff lands north of the stream. Here, in September of that year, a townsite was laid out and platted in a wheat field on a farm owned by the late David Barnes. It was given the name of Loveland, in honor of Hon. W. A. H. Loveland, president of the railroad company,
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which name the town, now a city of between 4,000 and 5,000 people, still bears. The town is beauti- fully located and occupies a position that commands a fine view of the valley up and down the stream and the mountains to the west. Many of the build- ings erected at Old St. Louis were moved to the new town, and before winter set in Loveland occu- pied a commanding position on the map, with its business houses, offices, shops and other public con- veniences needed for a thrifty and growing com- munity. The name of the postoffice was changed from Big Thompson to Loveland, trees were planted along both sides of the streets, streets graded and the whole town began to take on a healthy, pros- perous growth. At this time it numbers among its more important manufacturing enterprises a 1,200 ton beet sugar factory, built in 1901, which turns out an average of 40,000,000 pounds of gran- ulated sugar annually; fruit and vegetable canning factories, flouring mill and grain elevator. It is also the junction point of the Colorado & Southern (formerly the Colorado Central) and the Great Western railroads, and is one of the most important shipping points in the state.
The principal irrigating systems of the Big Thompson valley are the Handy, the Home Supply, the Louden and the Greeley and Loveland canals, and these furnish water for domestic uses and manu- facturing purposes in addition to a supply for irri- gating all the land lying between the Little Thomp- son creek on the south and the divide between the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson on the north, embracing an area of about 150 square miles. In 1880 Loveland had a population of 600 souls.
After diligent search through all the authorities at command and consulting many of the pioneers, we have been unable to trace the origin of the names given the Big and Little Thompson streams. The books contain no mention of the origin and no one seems to know how, why, nor when the name was bestowed upon these streams. It is probable, how- ever, that they were named by David Thompson, an English engineer and astronomer in the employ of the Northwest Fur company, who, in 1810, traversed and explored the country from the head- waters of the Missouri river to the headwaters of the Arkansas in search of trapping grounds in the interest of the company he represented. In 1811 he continued his explorations, and on July 15th arrived at Astoria, Oregon, and was the first white man to explore the Columbia river above the point where it was reached by Lewis and Clark in 1806. Thompson's name appears in the "History of the
Fur Trade of the Far West," by Chittenden, and he is the only Thompson mentioned in the work as an explorer. The streams were known as the Thompson creeks before Fremont crossed the Plains in 1843 on his second expedition, as he mentions them in his report to the War department. It is, therefore, fair and reasonable to assume that they were named in honor of the English scientist, David Thompson.
Trappers' camps were established by the North- west Fur company, later known as the Hudson Bay company, on all the streams of Northern Colorado during the second decade of the nineteenth century, and it is quite possible that the camps on these two streams were known and designated as the Big and Little Thompson camps.
If we except the coming to the Cache la Poudre valley in 1858 of John B. Provost and his party of French Canadian trappers and mountaineers, and the location on the Big Thompson the same year of Mariana Modena and his Mexican helpers, the settlement of these valleys in 1860 by Anglo Saxons was contemporaneous. The Sherwoods, the Ar- thurs, the Davises, G. R. Strauss, Alfred F. Howes and others located in the Cache la Poudre Valley, and W. B. Osborn, Thos. H. Johnson, John Hahn, J. N. Hollowell, Samuel Haffner and Joseph Mark- ley and others settled in the Big Thompson valley, so that the beginning of civilization in Larimer county practically dates back to 1860. Some of these had crossed the Plains in the great gold rush of 1858-9 and '60, and being disappointed in their search for the precious metal, turned their attention to the production of hay, vegetables and beef to supply Denver and the mining camps in the moun- tains. They came north from Denver and found locations suitable for their purposes in the valleys named and made settlements. Most of them were single men, young in years, strong of heart, sturdy of frame and ambitious. Nearly all of the few who had families had left them in their eastern homes to fol- low on later when the husbands and fathers had built and established homes for them. A few, very few, brought their wives and children to share the dan- gers, hardships and privations on the frontier with them.
That year nearly all of the land along the margin of the streams, from the mouth of Buckhorn creek on the Big Thompson to what is now the Weld county line, and from Laporte on the Caché la Poudre to the same line, was taken up for hay farms. The luxuriant grasses that were found growing on the bottom lands made excellent hay,
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