USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 76
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years of excellent service in that position. Dur- ·ing his encumbency of the County Clerk's office he and his family resided in Fort Collins, returning to his stock ranch in 1903. He was a member of the city council of Fort Collins for one term and also served as Secretary of the Board of Education. In the fall of 1882, Mr. Tedmon was elected state Senator to represent the counties of Grand, Larimer
HON. AND MRS. HERBERT E. TEDMON AND SON EARL L.
and Routt in the Fourth and Fifth General assemblies of Colorado. On December 12th, 1876, Mr. Tedmon married Jennie L. Smith in Boone- ville, New York. They have an only child, a son, Earl L. Tedmon, who was educated in the public schools and at the Colorado Argicultural college and who is also engaged in the stock business at St. Cloud.
W. S. VESCELIUS .- One of the early settlers of Fort Collins, was born in 1821, in Seneca county, New York; died in Denver, September 3rd, 1886, and was buried in Fort Collins cemetery. He emigrated from his native state to Fort Collins in 1871, where he resided until 1880, when he went
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HISTORY OF
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to Denver to engage in business. His aged widow lives on West Olive street, Fort Collins. His only daughter, the late Mrs. Joseph Shipler, died in 1883. Mr. Vescelius was well known and greatly respected by all the old-timers.
NOAH BRISTOL was born in November, 1836, at Panton, Addison county, Vermont; died December 21st, 1907 at St. Cloud, Colorado. He was edu- cated at Vergennes in his native state, and in 1860 went to Wisconsin. Here he engaged in teaching school and in farming until 1865 when he returned to Vergennes. He remained there ten years, two
of the first board of directors. Since his wife's death several years ago, Mr. Bristol had been a member of his son's family. He left one son, W. P. Bristol of Fort Collins and two daughters, Mrs. Edgar Kern of Windsor and Mrs. Elsie Price of Greeley.
JUDSON H. BRISTOL was born February 12, 1853, at Panton, Vermont, where he was educated and reared to man's estate; died October 7th, 1907, in Fort Collins, Colorado, aged 54 years. Mr. Bristol came to Colorado in 1875 and engaged in farming and stock growing. He returned to his
THE BRISTOL BROTHERS READING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: NOAH, JUDSON H., DR. GEORGE E. AND ALBERT W.
of which were spent in the employ of the Rutland & Burlington railway company. Later he engaged in the produce forwarding and commission busi- ness. He was also proprietor of the Stevens House at Vergennes for a few years. In 1874, Mr. Bristol came to Larimer county and buying the Whitcomb stock ranch on the Boxelder, eighteen miles north of Fort Collins, engaged extensively in sheep husbandry and wool growing. He also fol- lowed farming and dairying. He sold his Box- elder holdings in 1905 to the Buckeye Ranch com- pany and he and his son, W. P. Bristol, purchased a stock ranch at St. Cloud, where they lived and where the elder Bristol died. Mr. Bristol was, in 1875, elected a member of the board of county commissioners and served a full term of three years, being chairman of the board the last year of his term. He was again chosen county commissioner at the election in November, 1881, and served from January, 1882 to January, 1885. He was an ex- cellent business man and made one of the best com- missioners the county ever had. He was also post- master at Bristol for several years and was filling the same position at St. Cloud when he died. When the Larimer County bank (now the First National bank) was established in 1881, he was a member
native state in 1880, and was there joined in mar- riage with Miss Alice Foote, who, with four child- ren, Mrs. Addie F. Brown, Warren J., Ralph F. and Mildred survive. In 1890, Mr. Bristol dis- posed of his stock and ranch holdings and moved his family to Fort Collins, which is still the family home. Since then he had filled several places of public trust and responsibility with exceptional fi- delity and efficiency, among them being deputy sher- iff, deputy internal revenue collector, deputy county assessor and was serving his second term as justice of the peace in and for Fort Collins when he died. He was a man of courage, genial disposition, gener- ous to a fault, charitable to a degree and was well liked by all who knew him. As a public official, he was true and faithful to his trust, always kind and obliging.
IDA MARIA WARREN, widow of the late Captain Charles Warren, was born May 23rd, 1851, in Dalton, among the famous Berkshire hills of Mass- achusetts, in the valley of the Housatonic. She was descended of sturdy revolutionary stock, her pa- ternal and maternal grandfathers having been soldiers in the war for American independence, and she was a cousin of United States Senator
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MRS. CHARLES WARREN
CHARLES WARREN
HISTORY OF LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
Frances E. Warren of Wyoming. She graduated from the High school of Dalton at the age of four- teen years. For several years thereafter she was a teacher in the public schools of her native town and in the schools of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Her maiden name was Ida M. Warren. She was united in marriage with Capt. Charles Warren in 1872 and in June, 1873, they came from the East and located in Fort Collins which was thereafter the family home. She died in that city on November 4th, 1908. Mrs. Warren found plenty of work for her hands, head and heart to do on coming to her western home. She closely identified herself with every movement which had for its object the in- tellectual and moral uplift of the community and she was a tower of strength in church and club work. She was also especially interested in the public library, and was one of the originators and active promoters of the movement to establish a public library in Fort Collins and had been a lead- ing and influential member of the board of directors of that institution from the very first. She had also been a member of the Woman's Club, the Kane- tenah club and the Woman's Pioneer association and had just established her right to membership with the Daughters of the American Revolution when death called her hence. All classes felt deeply the loss, the city, the church, society and the cause of humanity had sustained in her death for she was a leader in all good works.
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CAPTAIN CHARLES WARREN .- A gallant soldier of the Civil war, whose term of active service ex- ceded four years, during which he participated in many of the hard fought and bloody battles of that internecine conflict; who rose from the ranks to a first lieutenancy and was breveted captain at the close of the strife for distinguished services on the field of battle; an active man of affairs who did much in his life-time to develop the agricultural resources of Larimer county and to promote its growth and business interests, was Captain Charles Warren, who died in Fort Collins on May 8th, 1898, from a stroke of apoplexy. Captain Warren was born May 30th, 1840, at Aurora, New York, and educated in the public and High schools of Lee, Massachusetts. When the Civil war broke out in April, 1861, he enlisted under the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 ninety-day volunteers, in Dur- yea's famous Zouaves. At the expiration of his term of service as a ninety-day volunteer, he re- enlisted in his brother's artillery company, the 5th New Jersey, and participated in all the battles in
which the company was engaged, and was subse- quently commissioned a second lieutenant in the 45th New York Volunteer Infantry. He was dis- charged in Texas at the close of the war with the brevet rank of captain, conferred for distinguished service in the field. After the surrender of Lee at Appomattox in April, 1865, his regiment was sent to Brownsville, Texas, to protect the border dur- ing the Maximillian troubles in Mexico, and there is where he was mustered out. Soon after being discharged from the military service, Captain Warren engaged in the mercantile business in New York City, and later became a cotton factor at Atlanta, Georgia. He returned to New York in 1870 to accept a position in the custom house under Hon. Chester A. Arthur, who was elected vice- president in 1880, on the ticket with James A. Garfield and succeeded to the presidency on the death of Garfield in 1881. In 1872, Captain War- ren and Ida M. Warren were united in marriage at Dalton, Massachusetts, coming in 1873 to Fort Collins, which has since been the family home. Three sons, C. Brook, Nathan C., and Thomas J. Warren, were born of the union, and all three are residents of and engaged in business in Fort Collins. The eldest son, C. Brook Warren is a prosperous grocer; Nathan C. a member of the Warren Com- mercial Company, and Thos. J. a member of the firm of Espelin & Warren, florists. For three or four years after locating in Fort Collins, Captain Warren was engaged in the lumber trade, subse- quently moving on to a tract of raw land near Warren lake, which he improved and lived upon until 1890, when he was chosen manager of the Harmony mills and moved his family to Fort Col- lins. That city was his home thenceforward until he died on May 8th, 1898. On retiring from the milling business in 1906, he organized the Warren Commercial company and remained at the head of its affairs up to the time of his last illness.
E. A. NYE was born at Amherst, Loraine county, Ohio, in the 50's, and was educated at Elyria, Ohio. In 1877, he came to Larimer county with a wagon train, being followed by Indians day after day watching for a chance to steal horses for Sitting Bull's band of hostiles. He married Eva Herring- ton, September 28th, 1880, at Highland Park. Five children, Mrs. Mamie Lindenmeyer, R. W., Frank, Mildred and Harlan Nye, all living, were born to them. The present home of the family is at 116 North Grant street, Fort Collins. Mr. Nye cut the logs for the lumber used in the Remington
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school building also for the native lumber used in the first Agricultural college building.
PRESTON A. TAFT. Persistence, when com- bined with good judgment, almost invariably opens the trail to success. Mr. Taft has never had occasion to regret that his foresight and ambition led him to brave the lurking dangers of the long, soul
PRESTON A. TAFT
and body wearying journey across the Great Ameri- can desert in the early days and persist in seeing for himself what .there was in Colorado. His elder brothers had preceded to the new Eldorado and their letters home, teeming with glowing descrip- tions of the country, the climate and opportunities for young men, filled his heart with ambition; hence we see him leaving the old home in the old Granite state and striking out for the West. This was in 1865, when the Plains were cris-crossed with the trails of blood-thirsty savages who were waging a relentless war against the whites, raiding and burn- ing settlements and slaying inhabitants, regardless of age or sex; swooping down upon wagon trains, killing the drivers, driving off the stock and either burning or stealing the contents of the wagons as their necessities demanded. But the dangers of the
Plains had no terrors for him. He was young, resolute and ambitious, afraid of nothing, deter- mined and full of the spirit of adventure. He luckily fell in with a drover who was trailing a herd of cattle to the Cache la Poudre valley and came through in safety. The cavalcade arrived at its destination in the fall and our subject spent the following winter helping to herd the cattle in the Boxelder valley. In the spring of 1866, he and his brother-in-law, H. W. Chamberlin and Captain Glenn, went to Fort Sanders, and established a ranch on the Laramie river at the Union Pacific crossing, the present site of the City of Laramie, Wyoming. Here the three men put in a stock of general merchandise valued at $12,000. The ranch was raided by the Indians in October, 1866, and John Sherry and a Mexican employe were killed. Mr. Taft had started for Camp Collins the day be- fore the raid occurred, consequently was not pres- ent. The company sold what goods the Indians were unable to carry away, for $1,400, and aban- doned the ranch. In December of that year, after closing out the remainder of the stock of goods, Mr. Taft went to Denver to spend the winter and in the spring of 1867, joined his brothers, Walter and Louis Taft at Georgetown, Colorado, where he spent a year at mining, returning in 1868 to his old home in Vermont. Mr. Taft was born May 25th, 1844, in Swansea, New Hampshire, and edu- cated in Vermont, to which state his father moved when he was a child. In December, 1869, the year following his return from Colorado, he mar- ried Ida M. Howe, who died in 1871. In 1873 he turned his face westward again, arriving in the spring of that year at Laporte, which has since been his home. In August, 1878, he married for his second wife, Mrs. Olive Wallace, widow of Lieut. Fred Wallace who was stationed at Camp Collins in 1865-6 with the 21st New York cavalry, and who died in 1878. Of this union one daughter, Pauline, survives. Mr. Taft is a market gardener and fruit grower by occupation.
DENNIS F. O'LOUGHLIN .- A stockholder of the Consolidated Plaster company, which owns and operates extensive plaster mills at Red Buttes, Wyo- ming, and Buckhorn, Larimer county, was born March 17th, 1856, in Lambertville, New Jersey, and educated in the public schools of Willimantic, Connecticut. He was the eldest son of Michael and Margaret (Mathews) O'Loughlin, who were natives of Ireland. The father emigrated to the United States when he was eighteen years old and
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the mother at the age of ten years. After leaving school our subject learned the plasterer's trade which was his occupation until about four years ago, when he retired with a competence. During the last three years that he worked at his trade he plastered 550 Fort Collins houses. In 1878, our subject married Annabell Roach at Willimantic, Conn., and there are five children living: Dennis, Robert, Leo, Annabell and Frank. Mr. O'Lough- lin came from Connecticut to Fort Collins with his family, arriving on May 2nd, 1880, and was one of the first guests at the Tedmon house, which had just been completed and thrown open to the public. The town was then beginning to take on a rapid growth and Mr. O'Loughlin found plenty to do at his trade and when he retired after twenty-seven years of active work there were but few dwellings, residences and business houses that he had not finished their interior walls. In politics, Mr. O'Loughlin is a republican, but not a bitter parti- zan, often crossing his ticket where, in his opinion, the interests of the county or state will be best subserved by the election of candidates on the oppo- sition ticket. He is first of all a loyal, liberal and public spirited citizen of Fort Collins, towards whose up-building he has contributed so much of his brain power and energy during the past thirty years. Few men in Fort Collins enjoy the confi- dence and esteem of his fellow citizens to a greater extent than Dennis F. O'Loughlin. He is the soul of honor and his integrity is unquestioned.
W. T. PARKE was born in 1857, in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he was educated. He came to Colo- rado in 1880 and in 1888 settled in Estes Park, where he has since been successfully engaged in the mercantile business. Our subject is a bachelor and has neither chick nor child to take his attention from business.
BENJAMIN F. BURNETT was born the son of William N. and Margaret (Reeves) Burnett, on April 9th, 1838, in Tazewell county, Illinois. He was united in marriage with Clara C. McGrew, January 31st, 1865, in Peoria county, Illinois, from which union were born Lulu, Frank J., Pearl, Arthur, Maud and Zoa. Mr. Burnett enlisted on May 1st, 1864, to serve 100 days as Second Lieu- tenant of Company C 139th, Illinois Volunteer Infantry and was honorably discharged October 28th, 1864, by reason of expiration of service. He reinlisted at Pekin, Illinois, February 10th, 1865, to serve one year or during the war, and was mus- tered in as captain of Company C 148th, Illinois
Volunteer Infantry. The regiment was mustered out September 5th, 1865, at Nashville, Tenn- essee. During his second enlistment Captain Bur- nett served as Provost Marshal at Tullahoma, and Decherd, Tennessee. His militiary record is an honorable one and without a blemish. At the close of his first term of service, he received a per- sonal letter of thanks, signed by President Lin-
BENJAMIN F. BURNETT
coln and Secretary of War Stanton. Mr. Burnett came with his family from Peoria, Illinois, to Fort Collins in the fall of 1879, and they were cherished and highly respected residents of the city for many years. At first he engaged in the mercantile business and then followed mining and prospecting at Lulu, Teller, Manhattan and other camps in the state, moving a few years ago to Den- ver, where he and his unmarried children reside. He is still interested in mining and has large in- terests at Manhattan near which place he and his family annually spend their summers in their tree embowered cottage "Laughalot" on the banks of the swift flowing Cache la Poudre river. Mr. Burnett is one of the most active, energetic and enterprising of the early settlers of Fort Collins
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and, as a result, he is now financially able to live at ease the rest of his life. His eldest son, Frank J. Burnett, served Larimer country as County Clerk and Recorder for four years, and is still a prominent business man of Fort Collins.
WILLIAM H. AVERY, born October 5th, 1854, at Ledyard, Cayuga county, New York; died on Monday, June 2nd, 1890, in Fort Collins, Colo-
WILLIAM H. AVERY
rado. Mr. Avery was educated at Cazenovia sem- inary, Cazenovia, New York. He came with his family to Fort Collins in June, 1881, and at once engaged in active business pursuits, dealing exten- sively in real estate. He was interested with his brother, Franklin C. Avery, in the purchase of a large body of railroad land in Larimer and Weld counties, which, through the construction of the Larimer County Canal, by means of which the lands could be watered, became very valuable as farming lands. Our subject had general charge of the busi- ness in which he and his brother were associated in connection with those lands. He was distinct- ively a business man, imbued with the spirit of activity, vigilance and enterprise. All enterprises
of a public nature, designed to promote the general welfare of Larimer county and increase its pro- ductive possibilities, received his earnest support and effective cooperation. At the time of his death he was a director of the First National bank of which his brother, F. C. Avery was. President, and was also President of the Larimer County Canal Company an irrigation project that he took a deep interest in and to the construction of which he contributed liberally of his means. Fort Collins lost an excellent citizen when William H. Avery died.
HANNAH H. KING .- Our subject came with her husband, the late J. M. McCain, from Iowa to Greeley in September, 1873, and in March, 1874, they located on a dairy ranch in Virginia Dale. In 1877, when the C. C. railroad was being built, Mr. McCain took charge of the Fossil creek section house, returning in 1880 to their ranch at Vir- ginia Dale. Here, on July 4th, 1885, Mr. McCain died, leaving his wife with five small children to raise, care for and educate. The following year she moved to Fort Collins, bought a house and put her children in school. In 1889 she married George W. King and the family moved back to Virginia Dale. They soon returned to Fort Collins and built the house on East Oak now owned and occupied by Frank Mathews. In 1903, Mrs. King and her two daughters went to California, and from there in 1909, to Portland, Oregon, where they now re- side. Mrs. King is a fine type of pioneer women- resolute, fearless and firm of purpose, she battled bravely against unfavorable circumstances and overcame them and has lived to educate her child- ren and see them occupying high positions, loved, honored and respected.
CHARLES H. SHELDON, cashier of the Poudre Valley bank and its successor, the Poudre Valley National bank, for a period of nearly 33 years, and one of the best known business men of Larimer county, was born August 11th, 1852, at Moscow, Livingston county, New York. He received his education in the public schools of his native county and at the New York Normal school of Geneseo. He was the son of John and Emeline (Higgins) Sheldon, and was brought up on a farm. Like other boys of the period, he played hookey at school, hunted bird's nests, patronized the old swimming hole at every suitable opportunity, raided orchards and watermelon patches and took his threshings like a stoic, without a whimper. Believing that the West offered better opportunities for young men than the
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HON. JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM
HISTORY OF LARIMER COUNTY,
COLORADO
thickly settled portions of his native state, he pack- ed his trunk and came to Colorado, arriving in Fort Collins in June, 1874. On May 1st, 1875, he became employed as bookkeeper in the A. K. & E. B. Yount bank and was made cashier of the bank in the fall of 1876. He continued in that position until the fall of 1878, and on November 11th, of that year, started the Poudre Valley bank in company with W. C. Stover. On June 3rd, 1879, Mr. Sheldon married Martha A. Trimble, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Trimble. They have an only daughter, Miss Olive L. Sheldon, who is a member of the home circle. He and his family have a beautiful home at the corner of Howes and Oak streets.
HON. JOHN M. CUNNINGHAM .- The sons and daughters of Ohio, the Buckeye State, have done their share in building up the Union during the past half century. They are a progressive and forceful people, no matter whether they are from Lake Erie's shore, Ohio river's bank, the Western Reserve or the Southern tier. And in the settlement of the great west the "Buckeyes" have forged well to the front and made their mark in city, in town, in mining camp, or on the fruitful soil of the prairie. John M. Cunningham and his estimable wife are from Ohio, and during their residence of 32 years in Loveland, they have ably aided in making it a city of prosperity and of happy homes. Mr. Cun- ningham was born on a farm in Guernsey county, Ohio, January 4, 1853. He received a good edu- cation after which he taught school for four years. In 1875 he moved to Morning Sun, Iowa, where he remained three years, but returned to his old home in 1877 and married Margaret H. Hutche- son. In 1878 Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham came to Colorado, arriving in Loveland on May 1. The now prosperous and growing little city was then a struggling hamlet, but ambitious to discard its swaddling clothes, and the building of homes and business houses was in a flourishing condition. Mr. Cunningham had a good knowledge of the builder's trade, and for ten years he worked at it. Many of Loveland's early pretentious structures were the work of his brain and hand, the Bartholff opera house being the most conspicuous. Mr. Cunning- ham then engaged in the lumber business with J. R. Anderson in 1899, and for nine years he and his partner handled all the lumber, etc., that was sold in that town. Prior to his withdrawal from the lumber trade, Mr. Cunningham had assisted in the organization of the Larimer County bank,
and in August, 1898, he became associated with that monetary institution as assistant cashier, a position which he held for about two and a half years, then became cashier on January 1, 1901, the office he still retains. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, John H. and J. George. The young men are engaged in business with their father, under the corporate name of Cun- ningham Lumber & Supply company, with Cun- ningham senior as its President. Mr. Cunningham never had any itching for political office or power, but during his residence in Loveland he has been on the town and school boards. He prefers a business career, and would not change his home life for any office in the gift of the people. He has always had an abiding faith in Loveland's progress and to him the pretty little city is the most sacred spot on earth. During his 32 years residence in that city he has secured a fair share of this world's goods. Such men and women as Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham are a credit to any community and the appreciation in which they are held by friends and neighbors is evidence of their worth. In November, 1910, Mr. Cunningham was elected as a Republican, over N. C. Farnworth, Democrat, to represent Larimer county in the Eighteenth General assembly of Colo- rado, an office which he is filling with credit to himself and to the honor of the county.
A. J. WILLIAMS, a successful and prosperous stockman of Livermore, Colorado, was born July 17th, 1868, in Nova Scotia, where he received his education. He came to Colorado in 1892, and set- tled on the Lone Pine, Larimer county and engaged in the stock business which he still follows. In March, 1910, he moved to his present location, where he owns and has improved what is now known as the Cedar Valley ranch. On July 19th, 1910, our subject was united in marriage with Frances B. Funk, after having lived a bachelor for more than a score of years.
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