USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 38
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 38
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 38
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40 It is mentioned by several writers that Horace Greeley visited the mines this year; and it is related that he attempted to swim his mule across Clear creek, and would have been drowned but for assistance rendered him.
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GOLD DISCOVERIES.
shingle-mill in the pineries furnished material for building, which went on rapidly, the town having seven or eight hundred inhabitants before winter.41
Golden Gate, two miles north of Golden, where the Denver and Gregory road entered the mountains, was a flourishing settlement. At the mouth of Left Hand creek was a town, later abandoned, called Davenport in 1859. Mountain City at Gregory point was laid out early in May, the first house being started on the 22d by Richard Sopris, who, with J. H. Gest, was one of the Mammoth quartz mining company, which owned thirty claims on that lode. A near neighbor to Mountain City on the south was a miner's camp called Black Hawk, and adjoining it on the north, in Kendall gulch,42 was Central City, so named by W.
N. Byers, its first inhabitant' 43 after its founders, Harrison Gray Otis, Nathaniel Albertson, and John Armor .* Central finally absorbed the other two
41 Helm's Gate of the Mountains, MS., 1; Early Records, MS., 4. The Rocky Mountain Gold Reporter and Mountain City Herald, of Aug. 6, 1859, says that Golden at that date, when it had been surveyed but one month, had 50 houses, 1,930 men, and 70 women. Most of these must have been transient, if indeed that might not be said of all. Helm says the first garden he knew of in Colorado was at Golden. This of course applies to the mining popu- lation.
42 Named after Kendall in Gregory's company. In seems the honors were divided by naming the gulch after Kendall and the hill or point after Gregory. 43 Sopris' Settlement of Denver, MS., 7; Bradford's Hist. Colo, MS., 4.
44 Thomas Gibson of the Rocky Mountain News had a newspaper office at Central city in July 1859, and published the Rocky Mountain Gold Reporter on the press purchased of Jack Merrick, a cap size lever machine. It had a brief existence of five months, when it was discontinued, and the press sold to the Boston company of Golden, whose managers established the Western Mountaineer, which a few months later was enlarged and printed on a new press. Among its editors in the winter of 1859-60 where A. D. Richardson and Thomas W. Knox, both of whom afterward achieved national reputations as newspaper correspondents. While the press was in Central City it occu- pied part of a double log house owned by George Aux, author of Mining in Colorado and Montana, MS., in my collection. Aux was born in Marryat, Pa, in 1837. At the age of 14 years he removed to Cleveland, Ohio. Five years afterward he went to Kansas, and May 1850 to Pike's peak. He went to Gregory point, or Mountain city, where he remained until he enlisted in Gilpin's reg. of volunteers raised to keep the territory in the union. In 1864 he went to Montana, with his wife and infant, in an ox wagon, but soon returned and engaged in farming and stock raising in Douglas county. His manuscript is an account of early settlements and military matters chiefly. Benjamin P. Haman erected and kept the first hotel in Central City. Haman was born in Vt and immigrated from Iowa. He married Rachel Berry in 1847. Hugh A. Campbell opened the first stock of goods in Mountain City
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TARRYALL AND FAIR PLAY.
places. On the headwaters of Clear creek George F. Criffith laid out a town and called it after himself, Georgetown. It did not grow much that season, nor for several seasons thereafter, but its importance was demonstrated after the discovery of silver mines a few years later.
A part of the population spread across the range, and located Breckenridge on a tributary of Blue river, in what is now Summit county, where several hundred miners were soon congregated. Others pene- trated the South park, and a miner named W. J. Holman discovered on a branch of the Platte the Pound diggings," which had a great reputation, the name signifying, as some thought, that a pound of gold a day was theiraverage-production-an opulence which nature does not often bestow upon diggings anywhere. So magnanimous were the first locators in the prospect of sudden riches that they gave the place and the creek on which the placers were situ- ated the inviting name of Tarryall. So many tarried, and such was the squabbling over claims that a por- tion of the population determined to seek for mines elsewhere, and to their delight soon discovered them. But the first party of eight men which left Tarryall was killed by the Indians, except one, while passing through a ravine, which took from this circumstance the name of Dead Men's gulch.46
It was decided that there should be no cause for dissension in the new district, but that even-handed
in a brush tent, and was the first to place a sign above his place of business with the new name of Central City upon it, and to have his letters addressed to Central City, by which means the P. O. department was brought at last to recognize the change. He built the Atchison house in Denver in the winter of 1859. He discovered the Cincinnati lode on Casto hill, and became the owner of 40 acres of Placer mines on Quartz hill, besides other mining property. He was born in Adams county, Pa, and married Mattie W. Whitsitt, of Centreville, Ohio.
45 Named after Daniel Pound. The amount actually taken out by the Mountain Union company in one week, with 4 men, was $420. Holman, with 5 men, took out $686 in the same time. Bowers & Co. took out in one week $969, with 3 men-57 ounces worth $17.
46 \V. N. Byers, in Out West, Oct. 1873; Dead Men's Gulch and Other Sketches, MS., 1.
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GOLD DISCOVERIES.
justice should rule the camp, and to emphasize this determination it was named Fair Play." Eight miles north-west of Fair Play a discovery was made by a mountaineer, whose characteristic dress of tanned skins gave him the descriptive appellation of Buck- skin Joe, and the Buckskin Joe mines next attracted the unsatisfied. This camp became the town of Alma. Hamilton and Jefferson followed in South park the same season, the latter becoming a town of several thousand inhabitants in the first few years. 48
47 Sopris Settlement of Denver, MS., 8. There are several stories to account for this name, all of them far fetched and inaccurate.
48 Before proceeding further with the history of settlement, I will record the names of some of the pioneers of this part of Colorado in 1859. Joseph M. Brown, born in Maryland in 1832, was with General Walker in Nicaragua in 1855. He returned, drifted west, and became a farmer and stock-raiser. Samuel W. Brown, born near Baltimore Dec. 23, 1829, removed to New York in 1844, became a cabinet-maker, served in the Mexican war, going from these battle-fields to Cal., and afterward to Chicago. He followed Walker to Nicaragua, and furnished supplies to the army for one year. In 1857 he married a daughter of John Perry, at Olathe, Iowa. On coming to Colorado he secured 500 acres and went to farming. Thomas Donelson, a native of Ohio, was born June 20, 1824, and bred a farmer. After several removes westward he came to Colorado, where, after one season of mining, he brought out his family and settled on the Platte, 17 miles below Denver. Henry Crow, born in Wis., bred a merchant, came to Colorado in 1859, and after mining for a season returned to Iowa for his family, and located at Central City. He served in the Indian war of 1864, after which he removed to Georgetown. Selling his mines at that place he settled in Denver and organized the City national bank in 1870; but in 1876 withdrew from the presidency of that institution and returned to Georgetown to engage in min- ing. Charles G. Chever was born at Salem, Mass., Sept. 13, 1827, went to Cal. in 1849, where he resided 10 years in the mines, and then removed to Colorado. In 1861 he was elected clerk and recorder of Arapahoe county. He has ever since been in the real estate business. S. B. Morrison, born in Oneida Castle, N. Y., May 2, 1831, removed to Jefferson, Wis., at the age of 10 years, and in 1859 came to Colorado, where he turned his attention to farming and stock-raising, 3 miles north of Denver. He also erected some quartz-mills in Gilpin and Park counties. John H. Morrison graduated from Rush Medical college, Chicago, and after coming to Colorado he resided first on a farm and then in Denver, where he died July 21, 1876. Jasper P. Sears was born in Ohio, in 1838, and educated at Delaware, after which he removed to St Paul, Minnesota, where he traded with the Sioux. In Sept. 1858, he started for Pike's peak with a stock of merchandise, but did not arrive for a year afterward, owing to sickness and Indian hostilities. In company with C. A. Cook he opened a store at the corner of 15th and Larimer streets, Den- ver. After 4 years of prosperous trade they opened a banking-house. In 1869 Sears became a government contractor, and dealer in real estate, and made a fortune. Thomas Skerritt, born in Ireland, in 1828, immigrated in 1848 to the U. S. and Canada. In 1855 he married Mary K. Skerritt, who was one of the first women to go to Central City, and accompanied her hus- band across the mountains to Breckenridge. In the autumn of 1859 he took a land claim on the Platte river, but all his improvements were swept away by the flood of 1864. What remained of the land itself was purchased by
385
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Peter Magnus for the site of the Harvest Queen Mill, and Skerritt settled upon another claim 6 miles from Denver, where he cultivated 200 acres.
Edward C. Sumner, a native of La Fayette, Ind., joined the rush to Pike's peak, and found permanent employment in the Denver post-office. Alfred H. Miles, born in Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 4, 1820, set out with his family for Cal. in 1859, but stopped in Colo and selected a farm on Clear creek, 9 miles from Denver. He remained there for 7 years, when he moved to Cherry creek and finally to Denver. He has been one of the most successful farm- ers of Colorado. Isaac E. McBroom a native of Ind., born April 22, 1830, removed to St Joseph, Missouri, at an early age, and in 1850 to Iowa. He came to Colo with the first mining immigration, and settled on a farm near Denver. John Milheim, baker and steel polisher, a native of Switzerland, born in 1835, came to the U. S. in 1849, to Neb. in 1856, and from there to Pike's peak. Just before leaving Omaha, he was married to Miss Reithmann, whose brothers also became citizens of Denver, and with whom he opened the first bakery there, which laid the foundation of his fortune. James W. Richards, a native of Ohio, worked on a farm in Ill., and thence went to the Colo mines. In 1865 he established a fast freight line between Denver and Central City, remaining in the business 7 years, when he went into a flour and grain trade He shipped the first car-load of grain over the Kansas Pacific railroad to Denver, and established the first line of transfer wagons in the city, upon which he, with W. J. Kinsey, had a patent. Peter Magnus, born in Sweden, in 1824, bred a farmer, came to the U. S. in 1852, and in 1859 to Colo, and selecting a farming claim brought out his family. The flood of 1864 took his improvements, and grasshoppers in 1873-4-5, nearly destroyed his crops, yet he prospered. He received all the medals at the agricultural exhibition of Colorado in 1870. He was county commissioner for Arapahoe in 1867-9. Mason M. Seavy, born in Maine in 1839, removed to Ill., and thence started with other gold-seekers for Pike's peak in 1859, but turned back at Fort Kearny, and did not reach the mountains until the following year, when he settled in Golden and went into the grocery trade, doing well until he lost a large and valuable train by the Arapahoes, which compelled him to suspend business. He began a second time in Central City, but failed again, owing to commercial complications. In 1872 he settled in Denver, and again prosecuted the grocery business, this time with better success. Daniel J. Fulton, a native of Va, removed to Ohio in 1836, and a few years later to Iowa. In 1849 crossed the plains to Cal. where he mined for 3 years, returned to the states, and in 1859 came to Colo. After mining for a year, and trying his fortunes in Idaho, he settled upon a farm on the Platte, 16 miles below Denver. George W. Hazzard was born at Elk Grove, Wis., Dec. 7, 1837, came to Denver in 1859, and went to the mines of Gregory point and Missouri flats, where, with his brother, he took out gold enough to start in farming 16 miles from Denver. John W. Iliff, a native of Ohio, born in 1831, bred a farmer, and educated at Delaware college, came to Col- orado in 1859 with a small train of provisions, purchased with a few hun- dred dollars which his father gave him, and selling out invested in a small herd of cattle. He followed up the cattle business for 18 years, mastering all its details, and making a large fortune. He owned 200,000 acres of pas- ture lands, took government contracts, and shipped cattle to eastern mar- kets at the rate of 13,000 a year. He died February 9, 1878. Libeus Bar- ney, a native of Vt, crossed the plains in the first coach of the Denver and Pike's peak passenger line. After mining, with a brother, he tried house- building, and erected the hall in which the first provisional legislature met. Farming was next attempted, but a grocery store in Denver was the final resort after these ventures, and in that he did well.
Caleb S. Burdsal, from Ohio, mined near Golden in 1859, and in 1864 was appointed surgeon of the 3d Colo reg. Since then he has practised medicine in Denver. He discovered and named Soda lakes, near Morri- son. Joseph W. Bowles, born in Rockford, N. C., came to Denver in 1858. He located a mine on Quartz hill, in the Nevada district, on Clear creek,
HIST. NEV 25
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GOLD DISCOVERIES.
where he worked for three years on an extension of the Burroughs' lode. He was twice elected sheriff for the district under the miners' organization. In 1862 he purchased a rancho on the Platte, 10 miles above Denver, near the present village of Littleton. George W. Drake, born in Ohio, came to Colo in 1859, and opened a hotel on the old Gregory road 7 miles from Black Hawk, at Cold Spring rancho, in partnership with Homer Medbury, of Ohio. In 1863, he became agent for Gibson's pony express between Den- ver and the mountain towns. In 1864 he set up a store in Black Hawk, and in 1870 joined the colony at Greeley, which he helped to build up. Three years later he settled in Denver, where he purchased a marble-yard in 1874. Charles Eyser, a native of Holstein, Germany, born in 1822, came to Colo in 1859, opened a provision store in the mines, but returned to Den- ver in 1863, where he kept a boarding-house, which in 1869 was washed away by a flood. After that he settled at farming. E. W. Cobb, born in Boston, was sent to Cal. as the first agent of Adams' Express co. After two years he went to Australia, returning to Boston in 1857, then to Denver, where he sold groceries for two years, then carried on the Elephant corral a year or so, and after that mined for a few years, until in 1869 he was appointed chief of the mineral dept of the sur .- gen. office. John W. Cline, a native of Canada, mined during the summer of 1859 in Russell gulch and at Breckenridge, but in the autumn took a piece of land 7 miles north of Denver, where he made himself a home. Samuel Brautner, born in Md, came to Cal. in 1852, and finally to Colo, where he engaged in mining and farming. His oldest child is said to be the first white girl born in Colo, but I have shown that white children were born here before the gold discoveries. George L. Henderson, born in 1836, in 1859 came to Central City, and in 1860 to California gulch. He was the first postmaster at Leadville, which camp was thus named at his suggestion.
CHAPTER IV.
PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT.
1859-1860.
THE ARKANSAS VALLEY-ROAD INTO SOUTH PARK-EL PASO CLAIM CLUB -COLORADO CITY COMPANY-IRRIGATION-THE FIGHTING FARMERS OF FONTAINE CITY-CANON CITY-CLEAR CREEK-PUEBLO-CALIFORNIA GULCH-PIONEERS IN THE SEVERAL LOCALITIES -- ORO CITY-LEADVILLE -FRYING PAN GULCH-ROAD-MAKING-MINING DEVELOPMENTS- FREIGHTING-MAIL FACILITIES -- PONY EXPRESS-STAGE COMPANIES.
WHILE the valleys and head waters of the Platte and its tributaries were being actively explored by one part of the immigration, another part began to occupy the Arkansas valley. A portion of the Law- rence party of 1858 had wintered five miles above Denver, where afterward was Younker's rancho. They contemplated making a town there, and erected a few houses; but before spring they became restless, and some returned to the Arkansas valley, with the design of going back to Kansas. This party of about a dozen persons, among whom were Charles Gilmore, Julian Smith, George A. Bute, and Anthony Bott, crossed the ridge between the Platte and Arkansas rivers when the snow on the summit was three feet deep; but on coming to the spot overlooking the southern slope, and seeing a sunny valley below, they changed their purpose, and selected a site for a town in the delightful region of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille, which they called El Dorado.
On hearing what had been done, others of the original company who had located land claims on the Fontaine-qui-Bouille the previous autumn, some of which covered the new town site, came over from the
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PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT
Platte to dispute for possession of the ground. The quarrel ran high, but a compromise was effected by admitting the land claimants into the town company, all joining in the erection of a large log house as the nucleus of their future city.1
This being done, Bute, with two others of the El Dorado company, and Tucker, a squatter on Fontaine- qui-Bouille, with two associates, making a party of six, set out to search for a route into the South park, where they believed gold existed. Following the Indian trail westward to Soda springs, where the Lawrence company had located the town of El Paso2 the previous autumn, the explorers encamped for two days to admire and enjoy the natural charms of the place, after which they proceeded as far on their way as the Petrified stumps ; but falling short of provis- ions, returned and loaded a wagon with supplies. This wagon they took into the park, its wheels being the first to print the sod in this beautiful mountain basin. Gold, as I have shown, was discovered in the park during the summer,3 the mines drawing away
1 El Paso Co., etc., MS., 6.
2 There was at this time a log cabin at these springs, which had been erected by Richard Wooten, as evidence that he claimed the site before the El Paso town was projected. Sometime in 1859 Wooten sold his claim to R. E. Whitsitt & Co., for $500. A year or two later, Whitsitt's partner sold his interest to the Tappan Brothers from Boston. They bought about the same time 480 acres on the west side of Monument creek, which was known as the Boston tract, and was only put into market as an addition to Colorado springs in 1874. Whitsitt and Tappan lost their right to the springs by abandon- ment, and they were jumped by one Slaughter, son of a methodist minister from Illinois, who erected a frame house on the claim. He in turn aban- doned it, and it was again taken by Thompson Girter, who secured the sul- phur springs in South park. He made some improvements and sold to Col Chivington for $1,500, and he to his son-in-law, Pollock, who made a trans- fer of the property to some other person as security for a debt, this person selling the springs for $1,500. "George Crater of Denver subsequently organized a company which purchased the property, paying $10,000 for it, and afterward sold the 80 acres on which are the soda springs for $26,000 to the company which finally founded the present town of Colorado Springs, of which further mention will be made in the proper place. El Paso County, etc., MS., 9-11. It has been stated that H. A. W. Tabor built the first house at Colorado Springs in the winter of 1859; that he came back to Denver in the following year, and endeavored to organize a company to go down and lay off a town, but failed. The statement is erroneous, but .hat Tabor was at some time about this date interested in the place is perhaps true.
3 A writer in the Colorado Springs Gazette of May 23, 1874, ascribes the discovery of gold at Fair Play to this party. The discovery was made in
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EL PASO CLAIM CLUB.
all the settlers at El Dorado City, which was aban- doned. The richness of the South park diggings, however, caused the revival of the town in the autumn under a new name. It had been observed by certain enterprising persons that the pass of the Fontaine-qui- Bouille seemed to offer the most practical wagon route for the immigration to these mines, thousands of per- sons travelling through it during the summer, a succes- sion of delightful park-like valleys furnishing a natural and easy road into the main park. A company was formed at Denver and Auraria consisting of L. J. Winchester, Lewis N. Tappan, Anthony Bott, George A. Bute, Melancthon S. Beech, Julian Smith, H. M. Fosdick, D. A. Cheever, R. E. Whitsitt, S. W. Wagoner, W. P. McClure, P. McCarty, A. D. Richardson, T. H. Warren, C. W. Persall, A. B. Wade, George W. Putnam, John S. Price, John T. Parkinson, G. N. Woodward, Charles F. Blake, E. P. Stout, Clark and Willis, Mr Cable, and Higgins and Cobb, with two or three others, with the object of founding a city on the deserted site of El Dorado. The president of the company was Winchester, and the secretary Tappan.
One of the peculiar phases of squatter sovereignty in Colorado in 1859 was an organization known as El Paso Claim club,4 shadowing forth the provisional government. A meeting having been called in the Arkansas valley to deliberate upon the best method to be pursued in holding land in the absence of law and land-offices, El Paso Claim club was the result. The limits over which the club had jurisdiction, and the powers and duties of its officers, were defined; a president and secretary were chosen, and provision made for the selection of jurors to decide upon cases under arbitration. A book of records was kept, and
Aug. by miners from Tarryall; but there were other parties in the park at the time, who joined in working the ground if not in the discovery.
4 Fowler, Around Colorado, MS., 3, 6; Helm, Gate of the Mountains, MS., 4.
5 The names of A. D. Richardson, D. A. and C. B. Chever, Samuel Tap- pan, William Larimer, S. W. Wagoner, and other prominent men may be
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PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT.
on its pages was recorded the declaration of the Colo- rado City company's claim of 1,280 acres, signed by the secretary of the club, H. J. Burghardt, and dated December 20, 1859. The following summer there were three hundred houses in the town, and lots were selling at four hundred dollars.6 It was a short-lived prosperity. The breaking out of the civil war, and other causes, forced travel away from the Arkansas valley to the Platte route, and built up Denver at the expense of Colorado City, which lost its hold upon the car of progress, and was left behind in the race.1
It will be remembered that Robert Middleton and family, and a few others of the Lawrence company of 1858, wintered at or near Pueblo, where they were joined by others in 1859, who had arrived early in that year. A number of these persons, rightfully judging that when corn was worth from five to fifteen cents a pound, farming was as profitable as mining, and much less laborious, determined to put in crops in the rich Arkansas bottoms. Accordingly they constructed a ditch which conducted the water of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille over their fields, and planted corn.8 When the corn had reached a good height, and waved temptingly in the wind and sun, a com- pany of disgusted prospectors, returning to Missouri, encamped near the settlement, which was called Fon- taine City, and foraged their lean and hungry cattle on the glistening green blades and juicy stalks. The
seen. Houses were erected on the Fontaine-qui-Bouille by R. B. Willis, H. S. Clark, John Bley, Hubbard Talcott, William Campbell, the last three of whom opened farms in 1860. Arkansas Val. Hist., 420.
6 The first store in Colorado City was owned by Gerrish and Cobb, in charge of William Garvin, the original claimant of the Garden of the Gods. John George, who still resides in the old town, opened the first saloon. Tap- pan & Co. put up the first frame house in 1860, which was still standing in 1874. It was occupied as the county court-house before the removal of the county seat to Colorado springs. El Paso County, etc., MS., 19.
Tabor's Cabin Life in Colo, MS., 1-2; Howbert's Indian Troubles, MS., 2.
8 The first farmers in this region, other than the fur-traders, were Robert Middleton, George Peck, Charles D. Peck, Josiah F. Smith. Otto Winneka, Frank Doris, George Lebaum, William H. Green, and William Kroenig. Arkansas Val. Hist., 766,
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