USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 8
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Larimer county was named in honor of General William Larimer, one of the early settlers of Den- ver, whose name and memory are intimately asso- ciated with the early history of Colorado. General Larimer was born in Westmoreland county, Penn- sylvania, October 9th, 1809. On reaching man- hood he became prominently identified with business affairs in and near Pittsburg, engaged in banking,
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HISTORY OF
LARIMER . COUNTY, COLORADO
and was the projector and President of the Pitts- burg & Connellsville railroad, now a part of the Baltimore & Ohio system. After the panic of 1857 he located in Nebraska, and later at Leaven- worth, Kansas. He came to Colorado in Novem- ber, 1858, as one of the famous "Leavenworth Men," who founded Denver City on the eastward side of Cherry creek, as a rival to "Auraria" on the westward side. He was Treasurer of the town company, and a leader among Denver's pioneers. There was a strong sentiment in the Territory in favor of having him appointed the first Governor of Colorado, which was reinforced by several men prominent in Washington, but it was unable to overcome the influence that favored the appoint-
INDIAN BABY CARRIAGE
ment of Gilpin. General Larimer bore an active part in securing men for the Colorado Union regi- ments at the outbreak of the Civil War, and was appointed Colonel of the Third Colorado, but as that embryo organization was merged into the Second Colorado, his commission did not take him into active service. General Larimer went back to Eastern Kansas in 1864, located on a farm near Leavenworth, where he died, May 16, 1875. Dur- ing his residence in Colorado he was one of the most popular men of pioneer time. In addition to hav- ing one of the counties of the Territory named for him, one of the principal business streets of Denver was also given his name. A portrait of General Larimer appears in this volume.
Under Three Flags
Larimer county was a part of Louisiana province, which the United States purchased of France in 1803 for $15,000,000. Among the first visitors to Louisiana were the Spanish men-at-arms of DeSoto's expedition, under Muscogo, who, after
the death of their chief, in 1542, descended the Mis- sissippi river in rude ships and went out to sea. In 1682 the brave Sieur de La Salle floated down the great river from the Illinois river to the Gulf, and took possession of the country in the name of France, erecting pillars on the banks of the Missis- sippi to show that it was French territory. In 1699 another expedition was sent from France to Louisiana under Iberville. The first settlement in Louisiana was made by Iberville, seventy miles up the Mississippi, in 1700, as a military colony, to prevent the English from ascending the river. Louisana was given to Antoine Crozat in 1712, with exclusive control from Canada to the Gulf. Six years later, Crozat relinquished this vast but unprofitable empire, and it passed into the posses- sion of the Western Company, organized by John Law. In 1764 the Louisianans were notified that their country had been ceded to Spain and the next year Antonio de Ulloa arrived to become Governor. The people were opposed to Spanish rule, and finally taking possession of New Orleans, they sent Ulloa away on an outbound ship, and established a government of their own, sending delegates to France to ask the King to again occupy Louisiana. Their requests being refused, the insurgents con- templated the establishment of a republic; but in 1769 Don Alexander O'Reiley arrived as the Span- ish Governor, with 2,600 troops and fifty guns. The rebellion was suppressed, and its leaders were shot on the Plaza de Armas at New Orleans. At that time the province was defined as extending northwest to the source of the Mississippi, and west- ward to the Pacific ocean. In 1801 the great province was ceded back to France, but the treaty was kept secret. Napoleon intended to send to Louisiana General Victor and 25,000 choice French troops, to firmly establish a New France on the American continent. But the supremacy of Great Britain on the sea rendered this move impossible, and left the country without defense. Unable to garrison the new domain, and fearing that England would sieze it, Napoleon made haste to sell the province to the United States, for $15,000,000.
From the foregoing it will be seen that Larimer county was under the Spanish standard from 1542 to 1682, a period of 140 years. It then passed under French control and was French territory until 1764, when Spain again came into possession of the province and held dominion over it until it was ceded back to France, in 1801. Two years later the country came under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, where, let us hope, it will remain while
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HISTORY OF
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the world stands. It has been twice under the Spanish flag, twice under the French tri-colors, and now adds brilliancy to the fortieth star in the firmament that graces the American flag.
First Settlement
Larimer county was created and established by an act of the first Territorial Legislature of Colo- rado, which met in Denver, Sept. 9th, 1861, but it was not organized for judicial purposes until three years later. The first white settlement in the county was made at Laporte, some say about eighty years ago. It is certain that there were white men, Canadian trappers, with Indian wives, living at La- porte in 1828. The late Philip Covington, father of H. C. Covington of Laporte, and M. M. Cov- ington of Seattle, Washington, passed through this country that year with a caravan loaded with sup- plies for the American Fur Company, then operat- ing on Green river, and remembers seeing French trappers at Laporte. These people were, however, migratory, here today and there tomorrow, their homes being established, temporarily, where there was the best trapping, and no permanent settlement was made until several years afterwards. Antoine Janis, a native of Missouri, born of French parents, is believed to have been the first permanent white settler in all that part of Colorado north of the Arkansas river. He staked out a squatter's claim on the river bottom a short distance west of La- porte in 1844, and resided upon it until 1878, when he moved to Pine Ridge Agency to join the tribe of Indians to which his wife belonged, where he died a few years ago. Years before this time the Cache la Poudre valley had been traversed by caravans transporting goods and supplies for the fur trading posts on Green river, and Mr. Janis' father had often made the trip from St. Louis to Green river as captain of a caravan. On one occasion, in 1836, Antoine, then a boy twelve years of age, ac- companied his father, the route followed taking them through this valley, going and coming. It was on this trip that the river was named "Cache la Poudre" from a circumstance, an account of which is related elsewhere in this volume. In February, 1883, the editor of the Fort Collins Courier addressed a letter to Mr. Janis at Pine Ridge Agency, requesting him to furnish the writer for publication such facts and dates relating to the early settlement of the Cache la Poudre valley as he possessed. To this request Mr. Janis replied as follows :
"Pine Ridge Agency, March 17, 1883.
"My Dear Mr. Watrous: In regard to the early history of the Poudre valley, I will say that as one of the party I have in my possession all the facts relating to its first settlement, including names of persons, day and dates. On the first of June, 1844, I stuck my stake on a claim in the valley, intending the location selected for my home should the coun- try ever be settled. At that time the streams were all very high and the valley black with buffalo. As far as the eye could reach, nothing scarcely could be seen but buffalo. I was just returning from Mexico, and I thought the Poudre valley was the loveliest spot on earth, and think so yet.
"The gold fever broke out in 1858. Soon after locating my claim I moved over from Fort Laramie and settled on it. The place is just above Laporte, and is owned by Tobe Miller (Joseph Hammerly is now the owner of the place). One hundred and fifty lodges of Arapahoes moved there with me at the same time. They asked me if I wanted to settle there. I told them I did. Bold Wolf, the chief, then called a council of braves, who finally gave us permission to locate, and donated to us all the land from the foot of the mountains to the mouth of Boxelder creek. The donees were E. Gerry, Nicho- las Janis, and myself. In the winter of 1858-9 settlers commenced flocking in.
"A company was formed composed of Nicholas Janis, E. Gerry, Todd Randall, Raymond B. Good- win, John B. Provost, Oliver Morisette, A. LeBon, Ravofiere and others, which located a town site and called it Colona. We had the site surveyed and mapped out; and built fifty houses.
"I was born in St. Charles, Missouri, March 26, 1824. First came to Colorado in 1844. You ask me all the particulars. It would consume a great deal of time to give to you in full detail, and my health has been such this winter that I dare not un- dertake the task. Have been away, or I should have answered your kind letter before.
"ANTOINE JANIS."
At one time Mr. Janis and his brother Nicholas were employed as scouts and guides in Colorado and Wyoming, and they frequently visited Fort Laramie for supplies and mail. Their names appear often in Coutant's history of Wyoming. Antoine was still a resident of Laporte when I came to Fort Collins in 1877, and he was highly regarded as a man, neighbor and citizen by all the early settlers of the valley.
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HISTORY OF LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
Fremont had but barely begun his venturesome explorations of passageways through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast ; St. Louis was but a small trading post on the Mississippi; Chicago still in its infancy; only a small portion of the vast region between the Missouri river and the Pacific had been explored and it was practically destitute of the habitations of white men, when Janis located in the Cache la Poudre valley. Lewis and Clark had made their famous journey to the headwaters of the Missouri river, and thence across the mount- ains to Oregon and return. Lieut. Zebulon Pike
A PIONEER'S HOME
had discovered Pike's Peak, and explored a small portion of Colorado, and Maj. Long had crossed the Plains a little more than a score of years before and erected a lasting monument to his memory in the discovery of Long's Peak. The American Fur Company had established trading posts in Western Wyoming and Eastern Idaho, but outside the trails made by these explorers and fortune hunters, little was known of what is now Colorado when Antoine Janis ventured into the Cache la Poudre valley in 1844.
In 1858, fourteen years later, John B. Provost, Francis and Nicholas Janis, Antoine Le Beau, Todd Randall, E. W. Raymond, B. Goodman, Oliver Morrisette and others came down from Fort Lar- amie with their families, looking for the most prom- ising site for a town. After skirting the hills as far south as Denver, the party returned north to the "river of the hidden powder" and located on its
banks a town to be known as Colona. This marks the first community settlement made in Larimer county, and from this nucleus the region has de- veloped into the present populous and prosperous county, dotted with farms, towns and cities. The projectors of the town of Colona recognized that in the Cache la Poudre valley would some day be built up a large and prosperous community.
With the Great Plains extending eastward for hundreds of miles, the mountains to the west cover- ed with valuable timbers, overrun with game and seamed, as they believed, with vast mineral de- posits; the snow-fed streams and a climate unequal- ed in the north temperate zone, these hardy men de- cided to build themselves homes and await the rolling in of a tide of immigrants that would result in the upbuilding of a country that would "blossom as the rose" and grow rich and powerful. They believed that a great city would some day grow up at the northern gateway to the mountains, located as Colona was on the great Overland route from Santa Fe to Salt Lake and the regions north and west of that city. But the great mineral discoveries south and west of Denver turned emigration in those directions, giving rise to cities like Denver, Pueblo, Leadville, Colorado Springs and others of less note; though in 1858, with the unexplored and undeveloped resources of the county and only a guess at the command of the locators, the situation at Colona seemed full of promise of a great future. The present day visitor at Laporte, to which name Colona was changed in 1862, can see remains of a town that once declined to trade lot for lot with Denver and even aspired to be the seat of the Ter- ritorial government. But a very few years ago there resided a man in Fort Collins who, having acquired a few lots in Denver in a horse trade, allowed them to be sold for taxes rather than throw away any more money on them. The town of Colona was located a short distance west of the present town of Laporte, but the ford of the Cache la Poudre being lower down the stream and prac- tically at the point where the bridge crosses at Laporte, the site of the town was later abandoned and a new town site called Laporte was located at the ford. In 1859 Mr. Provost erected a log house on the south side of the river in which he kept a grocery and a saloon. This house is still standing and is occupied by Rowland Herring and family. That year Mr. Provost also built and operated a ferry across the river during flood times for the ac- commodation of emigrants, but the early June flood of that year carried his boat down stream, so that
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HISTORY OF
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when Horace Greeley and party passed that way on June 21st, he had to ford the stream at considerable risk. Mr. Provost also operated a ferry at that point during the big flood of June, 1864, and, as the travel westward was heavy that season, he coined money, charging $10.00 for taking a double team across and $5.00 for a man on horseback. The same year that the Provost colony located at Colona, Mariana Modeno, a Mexican, located a squatter's claim in the valley of the Big Thompson, about three miles west of the present city of Loveland. He claimed to be and probably was the first permanent settler in that valley. Thus, practically simultane- ously, began the history of the settlements on the two principal streams of the county. Colona, how- ever, was the most important and most ambitious of the two, the Big Thompson pioneer wishing merely to establish a home where he could raise cattle and horses and live out his days in peace. Mariana's place afterward became known as Namaqua, and was made an Overland stage station in 1862. Mariana died in 1878. The family of George Hat- field, composed of himself, wife and one child, was the first family to make a permanent location on the Big Thompson. Other settlers, including Wm. A. Bean, John J. Ryan, John Hahn, J. N. Hollowell, Judge W. B. Osborn, Thos. H. Johnson and W. C. Stover, came in 1860.
In 1859 Rock Bush came from Green river, Wyoming, where he had been employed for two years on a ferry, and took up a claim on the north bank of the Cache la Poudre river, about three miles southeast of Laporte, where he still lives. At this time there was but one other settler on the stream between his place and the mouth of the river, and that was Robert Boyd, who also had a claim a little way west of the present city of Greeley. Mr. Bush was born in Canada in 1832, came west to Fort Bridger in 1857, where he remained two years and then moved to the Cache la Poudre valley. He married Johanna Forbes after he came here, by whom he has had five children, Rock Jr., Guy, George, Amelia and Gussie Bush. Mr. Bush is still living in the enjoyment of fairly good health and a serene old age. He is the only man left of that valiant and hardy company that located in this valley in 1858-9. In 1860, quite a number of set- tlers located in the valley, including J. M. Sher- wood, F. W. Sherwood, A. F. Howes, Joseph Knight, Alphonse LaRoque, Joseph Mason, James B. Arthur, John Arthur, Thos. Cline, E. B. Davis, Daniel Davis, John Davis, G. R. Strauss, Joseph
Prendergast, Dwight Scoutton, Thomas Earnest, Ranger Jones, and Fletcher Earnest. .
Many of these first settlers came across the Plains in the Pike's Peak rush of 1858-1859 and 1860, and being disappointed in their quest for gold, sought homes in the fertile valleys of the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson rivers, and the population of the county in the fall of 1860 was about one hundred. Early recognizing the necessity for some form of government and rules and regulations governing the location of claims and the restraining of lawless- ness by which life and rights of property might be protected, the settlers in the fall of that year organ- ized a Claim Club association. Robert Hereford was chosen president ; John J. Ryan, secretary, and J. M. Sherwood, judge, and a short but very strin- gent code of laws was adopted. As the Cache la Poudre and the Big Thompson valleys formed the district over which the association claimed jurisdic- tion, the code of laws and the association constituted the first form of government set up for Larimer county, and those who lived under it in the early days declare that more equal and exact justice was never meted out than while the association existed. Negroes were excluded from membership, owing to race prejudice. Each member of the association was allowed to locate upon and occupy 160 acres of land and was protected in all rights acquired by such oc- cupancy. The uncertainty as to which government the region owed allegience, whether that of Kansas or Nebraska, made an organization of that character vitally necessary, for, while in the main the orig- inal settlers were peaceable, law-abiding citizens, with a just conception of the rights of property and what constituted law and order, there were a few among them whose conduct at times laid them open to suspicion of being outlaws and desperadoes, who needed to be placed under wholesome restraint. An association of the character named, bound together for mutual protection, whose members were so will- ing to live up to its salutary rules and regulations, soon gained respect and confidence, and few there were, indeed, who had the hardihood to lay them- selves liable to fall under contempt of the association, for its judgments were severe and its penalities were executed with promptness and dispatch. All dis- putes were referred to the association judge. Dis- satisfied parties could appeal to the president, whose decision was final.
When the Territory of Colorado was organized in 1861, Governor Gilpin appointed F. W. Sher- wood, John J. Ryan and A. F. Howes as a board of commissioners for Larimer county. At the first
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HISTORY OF
LARIMER COUNTY,
COLORADO
meeting of this board an informal discussion de- veloped that Mr. Howes favored the location of the County Seat at Laporte and the immediate erection of a stone court house. Mr. Sherwood took positive grounds against the proposition, while Mr. Ryan remained neutral. The result was that the board could not agree and failed to complete an organiza- tion, despite frequent and earnest appeals from the Governor. Early in 1862 Governor Gilpin ap- pointed a new board composed of Joseph Mason, W. B. Osborn and James B. Arthur. This board promptly organized by electing Mr. Osborn chair- man. The proceedings of that meeting show that among the first acts preformed was the laying out and establishing of three commissioner districts for the county, the boundaries of which remaining to this day, practically as they were then fixed. The records do not show that this board ever held another meeting or did anything else of a public nature, and their offices appear to have been declared vacant, for, in 1864, Governor John Evans, who succeeded Governor Gilpin, appointed Abner Loomis, John Heath, and William A. Bean, commissioners for Larimer county. They immediately qualified and at the first meeting elected Mr. Loomis chairman. This meeting was held at Laporte, beginning October 8th, and the principal business before the board at that time ap- pears to have been the inspection and approval of the bonds of the new county officers. These were H. B. Chubbuck, county superintendent of schools ; Henry Arrison, sheriff; H. W. Chamberlin, clerk and recorder ; B. T. Whedbee, treasurer ; James M. Smith, assessor; John E. Washburn, county judge.
In July, 1862, there occurred an Indian scare on the Poudre that set the settlers wild with fright and a rush of men, women and children for a place of safety followed. A few days before a band of Utes slipped down out of the hills and ran off some horses belonging to J. M. and F. W. Sherwood. The settlers were afraid to pursue the redskins into the hills for they did not know how many Utes were in the band, but they kept a sharp lookout for fear the Indians would return and raid other ranches. On the day the second board of commissioners appointed by Governor Gilpin organized, a man named Bassett saw the Indian wives of several La- porte settlers picking berries and, mistaking them for Utes, gave the alarm. With a speed that seems incredible, the news spread up and down the river and nearly everybody rushed for Laporte. James B. Arthur and John Thatcher happened to be at Laporte when the alarm was given, and they started
in hot haste for the Arthur ranch down the river, where there was a strong log house having loop holes for use in defending Chief Friday's band of- Arapahoes, then located on the north side of the river opposite the Sherwood ranch, and when Friday heard of the supposed raid, he ordered his fighting men to mount their horses and go to Spring canon in pursuit of their enemies, the Utes. Several set- tlers mistook Friday's men for Utes, although J. M. Sherwood was with the pursuing party, and dropped everything in their hurry to get under cover. When
PIONEER TRANSPORTATION TRAIN
Paul Tharp reached Laporte, he was in light travel- ing trim, having left coat, hat, gun along the trail, and he found the settlers prepared for defending themselves. Settlers in the lower Poudre gathered at Arthur's. The following morning the truth be- came known all along the river, and the scare was over.
The last Indian scare on the Big Thompson oc- curred in 1864, when six Utes stampeded Mariana's horse herd and run several of the animals into the mountains. So badly frightened were the settlers that they left everything and fled for safety. On the raid the Indians killed a Mexican in Mariana's employe, horribly mutilating his body. Word was sent to Laporte and a detachment of soldiers from the 11th Ohio cavalry pursued the Utes and re- covered the horses. One of the two Indians that were guarding the horses was killed, but the other, badly wounded, escaped only to die in a lonely cabin, where his body was found later.
In 1862, A. F. Howes, as county clerk, recorded a number of squatters filings on lands, powers of at- torney and real estate and chattel mortgages. W. B. Osborn had been appointed probate judge by Gov- ernor Gilpin but the records do not show that he
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HISTORY OF
LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
transacted any business, although he held court at Laporte on the days set apart by law. Henry Arrison was the first sheriff of the county. The records kept by A. F. Howes, as clerk and recorder, were some of them in his own handwriting, but the most of them seemed to have been recorded by Hal Sayre and J. C. Peabody. The record opens January 31, 1862, with a land filing in which Hal Sayre sets forth that he claims a certain tract of land described as follows: "Beginning at the southeast corner of E. O. Fritt's house, running thence north 76 degrees 6 minutes east to the top of a small knoll, whence the following houses will be at the following bear- ings: E. W. Raymond south 62 degrees 39 minutes west; R. G. Strauss south 11 degrees 15 minutes west, from this point north 46 degrees 30 minutes east 19 chains to a post which marks the southwest corner of this claim; thence north 20 degrees 60 chains; thence south 70 degrees east 26.65 chains; thence south 20 degrees west 60 chains; thence north 70 degrees west 26.65 chains to place of be- ginning."
This description, though it may seem a little in- definite in this day and age, was probably as good as could have been given at the time, for the country had not then been surveyed into sections and town- ships.
On the 17th of March, 1862, the Laporte Town- site company filed a squatter's claim to 1280 acres of land, which was laid off into lots and blocks, in the expectation, no doubt, that here would be the future metropolis of the Rocky Mountain region. A. F. Howes was president of the company and Hal Sayre, secretary. On some date between March 24th and August 6, 1862, the day not being named, the con- stitution was spread on the records bearing the sig- natures of Benj. Sylvester, John F. VanDeventer, C. Randall, Thos. Pryce, N. Janis, F. R. and Antoine Janis, John L. Buell, by A. F. Howes, E. W. Ray- mond, Henry A. Swift, by A. F. Howes, his attor- ney, and A. F. Howes. The next mention of the company on the record the name of Abner Loomis appears as president and J. C. Peabody secretary. The capital stock of the company was fixed at $120,- 000. In September of that year the Townsite com- pany sold to Benjamin Holladay block 238 and leased to him block 237 for corrals and stables for the Overland Stage company, reserving one lot 25 feet wide on Pawnee street, on which was located the stage station. The lease on block 237 was to run as long as the Stage Company should continue to carry the United States mail on the route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Salt Lake City, Utah. A post-
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