USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume II > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
233
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
their sojourn in this desert. The prices of staples were enormous. Lumber was worth one hundred dollars a thousand feet in 1859, and extremely scarce at that; shingle nails cost a dollar a pound ; flour ranged from twenty to forty dollars per hundred, while sugar, coffee, tobacco and whisky were at times worth their weight in gold.
The first hotel was erected in February, 1859, on the corner of Tenth and Larimer streets (West side), by Murat and Smoke and called the Eldorado. The first blacksmith was Thomas Pollock from New Mexico ; the first carpenters, Kasserman & Willoughby. The first bakery was established by Henry Reitze, early in January, 1859, whose sign read as follows: "Gold dust, flour, dried apples, etc., taken in exchange for bread and pies."
The first frame house erected in Auraria was built by Dick Wootten at a point near Sigi's brewery, in June, 1859. Shortly after, the first sawmill arrived and was established in the pineries near the head of Cherry Creek. The first child was born on the 3d of March, 1859, -the half-breed son of Wm. McGaa, alias "Jack Jones," and the parents christened him "Denver." The first white child, a girl, was born to the wife of Henry Humbell, in the autumn of 1859, in a dwelling at the corner of Tenth and Larimer streets. The mother was presented with several corner lots for her enterprise in advancing the population of Auraria, but she considered them worthless, and in 1863 forsook Col- orado for Oregon. The first death that occurred was the son of Joseph Merrival in March, 1859. The city postmasters from the beginning to 1876, were as follows, in the order named : Henry Allen, Mr. - Field, Amos Steck, W. P. McClure, Samuel S. Curtis (D. H. Moffat, Jr. assistant), William N. Byers, Andrew Sagendorf, Hiram P. Bennett, David A. Cheever, Edward C. Sumner.
Uncle Dick Wootten .- One of the very earliest of our pioneers, contemporary with the Bents, St. Vrain, Kit Carson and the original guild of hunters and trappers, and one of the most magnificent figures that ever trailed an Indian, or trapped a beaver, was born May 16th, 1816, in Boydton, Mecklinsburg County, Virginia. His parents subsequently
234
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
moved to Kentucky. The subject of this sketch left Kentucky in 1832, and wandered about through the Southern States until 1835, when he set- tled on the western border of Missouri. Possessed of an ardent desire to cross the great mysterious plains, then designated the " American Des- ert," in April, 1836, an opportunity was afforded him to join a train belonging to Bent & St. Vrain, bound for Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas River. After various adventures he arrived at the post, where he found active employment under its proprietors. Inclined to wander and explore, notwithstanding the perils which threatened from strolling bands of Indians, his first expedition brought him to the South Platte River and on to St. Vrain's Fort, near the foot of Long's Peak, whence he traveled to the spot where Cheyenne now stands, and then returned to the starting point,-Bent's Fort, where he soon afterward joined a trapping party then outfitting for the South Park. In this expedition he gathered about 1,000 pounds of beaver skins, which were sold to the traders in furs at seven dollars a pound. Thus supplied with funds, he purchased a stock of goods, and traded with the Indians during the season of 1837-38. In the fall of the year last named, he organized a party of seven trappers and started out to trap on the principal water courses of the mountains. They crossed the range, passing down into the beautiful and picturesque classic ground of all hunters and trappers, the San Luis Park, then a primeval solitude, and followed the Rio Grande River to its sources in the mountains, where they found great numbers of beaver. Thence they moved to the head waters of the San Juan River, and on to the Wahsatch Range, in Utah ; thence back by way of the North Platte River to the South Fork; thence through what is now Northern Colorado, across the divide, and back to Bent's Fort, after having traversed over two thousand miles of mountainous country during the twelve months of their absence. In the winter of 1839-40 he, with others at the post, witnessed a furious battle between the Pawnees (a tribe once the most powerful of all the plains Indians, but now well nigh extinct), who roamed over the entire country from the Missouri River westward, fighting their enemies at
235
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
every opportunity,-and a large band of Arapahoes on the Dry Cimarron, a tributary of the Arkansas. Says Wootten, "The hideous war paint and trappings of the savages, their horrid yells and war- whoops, the insulting contortions of face and form when about to engage an enemy, made the appearance of the combatants both frightful and intensely disgusting. They fought ferociously and des- perately, and as it was a hand to hand engagement in the main, the weapons used being lances, tomahawks and knives, the scene was bloody and exciting, as were most of the battles between those tribes." The Arapahoes were victorious.
The winter following being mild and pleasant, Wootten passed the time in hunting and trading. In one of his expeditions he passed into New Mexico, where he purchased a large flock of sheep, which were driven to Westport, Missouri, and there sold, and the proceeds invested in cattle, with which he returned to the Valley of the Arkansas. The next winter he established a camp in a favorable location at a point six miles above Pueblo, and there cared for his stock. In the spring of 1840 he undertook the experiment,-which subsequently attained some importance in Texas,-of amalgamating the native buffalo with his American cows. To procure the buffalo he went down to the plains where the town of Kit Carson was built in 1870, and there captured about twenty buffalo calves, with which he returned to his camp, and, in due time, succeeded in domesticating them. In 1841 a like number of the same young natives were added to his herd, but the plan failed of execution for the reason that the buffaloes were sold at a good round price to an agent representing the Central Park of New York, to which place they were transplanted, and became objects of great curiosity and delight to the dwellers in Gotham, and their country visitors.
In the spring of 1841 Wootten joined an expedition for New and Old Mexico. The intervening regions swarmed with hostile Indians, with whom they had many sharp conflicts. He returned in due course to the Arkansas River and became a dealer in live stock. The first settlement and cultivation of the soil by civilized beings took place in
236
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
the spring of 1842, at a point within the present limits of the city of Pueblo, though prior to this, in 1838, a small patch of corn had been planted further down the valley, but it was destroyed by Indians. The first actual settlers who cultivated the soil within the present limits of Colorado were a party of men named Fisher, Sloan, Spaulding, Kin- kaid, Beckwith, Slate and Simpson, first names wholly forgotten. They raised excellent crops of corn, for which, as may well be imagined, there was a brisk demand.
During the winter of 1842-43 Wootten acted as dispatch bearer for Bent & St. Vrain to their numerous outlying posts. In March, 1843, another agricultural venture occurred in the valley of the Hardscrabble about thirty miles from Pueblo. Mr. George S. Simpson, years after- ward a resident of Trinidad, who passed away in 1888, led this enter- prise. A considerable tract of good land was put under cultivation, resulting in bountiful harvests. About the same time a mountaineer named John Brown located on the Greenhorn, and there erected the first grist mill, a building of logs, the machinery rude, the burr stones hewn out of granite. But it answered its purpose. The settlements on the Arkansas and its affluents, were the resorts of the mountaineers and trappers, to which they repaired for a season of rest and solid enjoyment after their long and trying excursions after furs and game. Though the cabins were rude, built of logs or adobe, and in some cases, formed by driving pointed stakes into the ground like the ordinary stockade, with dirt floors and mud roofs, all had generous fireplaces, which, filled with wood and set aflame, formed scenes of comfort which those rude men, accustomed to hardship, found a very paradise of luxury, as they gathered in them when the rough blasts of winter drove them out of the wildernesses and deprived them of their occupations. "Here," says Wootten, "I have passed some of the happiest days of my life, telling and listening to tales of wild and desperate adventures that thrilled my blood; tales of hand to hand encounters with savages when the odds were ten to one against the white man; of ambuscades and tragic deaths ; of wrestling with black and grizzly bears; of wild racing after
237
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
buffaloes, with a thousand incidents of their lives in hunting and trapping on the plains and in the mountains, that if put into the hands of an experienced romancer and published, would have been eagerly read by thousands."
In the spring of 1844, Wootten with four comrades penetrated the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas, and trapped along the various tributaries of this river, and on across the great range to the Grand in Middle Park; to the Laramie plains, to Green River and the head waters of the Bear; westward to the Big Snake, and to the sources of Wind River. In this expedition they and all their guild were frequently harassed by Indians. At length, wearied of dodging and fleeing from their savage enemies, they banded together to the number of fifty, and under a skillful leader, attacked the main body of their enemy, killed great numbers and destroyed their movable property. The winter of 1844-45 was spent in trading among the people of New Mexico. In the summer of 1845 he abandoned trapping for a time and built a cabin on the banks of the San Carlos (St. Charles) twelve miles south of Pueblo, and engaged in cultivating the soil. A few families had settled in the near neighborhood. The following winter he resumed his old pursuit of fur bearing animals, and in the spring located at Pueblo, where twenty-eight Mormon families, with several rather attractive young women, who had crossed the plains from Missouri, had established their camp for a time. Here the mountaineers found inexpressible enjoy- ment in " flirting with the Mormon girls," the first females of their race many of them had beheld since they left civilization for the remote frontier. Wootten relates that he was present in Pueblo, when John Albert, the only white survivor of the terrible massacre in Taos, when Governor Charles Bent was assassinated (Albert is now a resident of Walsenburg, in Huerfano County), arrived there and recited the fearful experiences of his comrades in that terrible tragedy, and was one of the volunteers that took part in quelling the rebellion, under command of Col. Sterling Price.
In 1847 he traded with the Utes along the Raton Range, taking
238
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
tobacco, guns, beads, hunting knives and other goods coveted by the Indians, receiving in exchange horses and mules,-undoubtedly stolen from the Mexicans,-buffalo robes, furs and Navajo blankets. Soon after leaving Pueblo, he and his one companion wandered into a camp of hostile Apaches supposing them to be Utes, with whom they were on friendly terms. Fortunately most of the warriors were out hunting, and only old men and women were in the camp. Realizing their peril, they retired hastily, seeking as quickly as possible a place that could be defended by a small force, which they proceeded to fortify against an attack from the Apache warriors, who were certain to pursue them. They had an abundance of ammunition and arms, but no provisions. Here they watched all night, listening intently to every sound, but the Apaches did not come until daylight, when they swooped down with blood-curdling yells and war whoops. Wootten and his comrade were prepared for them and gave them a warm reception. Several Indians were killed. The savages charged upon them again and again, but could not dislodge them, and at length retreated, carrying away their dead and wounded, when the beleaguered trappers made a precipitate rush out of their temporary fortress, and in a short time found rest, refreshment and protection in the Ute encampment they were in search of.
In March, 1848, Wootten took unto himself a wife and settled in Taos, New Mexico. Soon afterward Col. Fremont arrived there with the broken remnant of his ill-starred expedition across the Sangre de Cristo, and of which Uncle Dick speaks in terms of profound disgust. He avers that while Bill Williams was chosen as chief guide to the expedition, Fremont soon became displeased with him, and thereafter consulted others whose advice he followed when not in conflict with his own perverse ideas. After leaving the Arkansas Valley they marched up Hardscrabble Creek to the Wet Mountain Valley, thence across the divide which forms the eastern rim of the San Luis Park, and through the park up the Valley of the Rio Grande to a point not far from the foot of the Main Range, or Uncompahgre Mountains. Here they
239
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
halted and Williams was asked if he could guide the party across the mountains direct from this point. Williams said he could not with safety and believed that any attempt to cross would be very disastrous. Fremont, however, had made up his mind to risk it in spite of the warning given by Williams, and proceeded to lead the party over, after consulting one of the subordinate guides who thought it could be done. Williams strongly protested against the movement, knowing the result, telling Fremont that he could pilot them through Cochetopa Pass, or, still better, through a pass from the head waters of the San Juan, and thence by the Southern trail to California, but Fremont remained obdurate and resolved to pursue the course he had laid out under the direction of another guide named Alexander Gordon. Again Williams remonstrated in the strongest terms, but was ordered back to the rear of the column in disgrace. The result has been related in the first volume.
The survivors, Williams among them, after having recuperated their energies at a Mexican settlement, started back to the mountains with a party organized at Taos, to recover if possible, the instruments and other valuable property scattered along the horrible trail. When approaching the base of the range, they encountered what they supposed to be a village of friendly Utes, and rode into it. But the Indians had been made very angry by a severe chastisement given them by a com- pany of United States troops a short time before, and when Williams and his comrades entered their camp they rose up and killed them to the last man.
Wootten says Williams was sixty years of age when murdered, and had been on the plains since 1831. He was a skillful, brave and experi- enced mountaineer, but in some respects a very singular man. He was born in Kentucky, and in early life had been a Methodist circuit rider ; had a common school education, but possessed wonderful power and eloquence in public oratory. Why he left the church and wandered out among the Indians was never explained.
In 1852 Wootten took a large number of sheep to California via
240
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
Middle Park and Grand River; had many encounters with Indians en route, but arrived there in safety. A year later he located on the Huerfano River near its mouth, built a cabin, laid in a stock of Indian goods and began trading. This year the immigration from the Southern States was quite large. In 1854 the plaza at Pueblo was inhabited by Mexicans exclusively, some of whom engaged in farming, but only in a small way. Up to that time it had been occupied and abandoned several times by Americans, none of whom remained any great length of time, owing to the hostility of the Indians. It was in that year the massacre occurred, when all the inhabitants of the fort were slain by the Utes. The same band afterward went down to attack Wootten's ranch, but finding him prepared for them, they postponed their intention, contenting themselves with the capture of a part of his live stock.
The greater part of 1856 was passed at Pueblo. In the spring of 1857 he moved to a point about seven miles south of Fort Union, New Mexico, and engaged in freighting supplies from the States to the different military posts in that Territory, and afterward to General Johnston's army at Salt Lake. While en route home from the latter expedition, he sold his train to J. B. Doyle and abandoned the business forever. On the way to New Mexico in October, 1858, he followed the South Platte River, coming at length to Cherry Creek, where he found a little excited settlement of gold hunters, and believing that by the reports sent abroad from there it would grow into a town of considerable prominence, he pushed on to his ranch, gathered a stock of goods and returned to Cherry Creek where, as already related, he built the finest house in Auraria, on the upper floor of which was published the first edition of the Rocky Mountain "News." With this movement ended Uncle Dick Wootten's career as a hunter, trapper, guide and fron- tiersman, for the frontier had been practically obliterated by the great immigration which began in force in 1859 and has continued to the present time, until the American Desert has been peopled and bent to the ways of modern civilization. In 1861 he left Denver and began
X
241
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
farming on the Fountain-qui-Bouille, a short distance above Pueblo, where he remained about four years. A vast change had come upon the horizon of his long and active career with the transformation of the country from a trackless waste to the seat of a new empire. In the wilderness he had been a stalwart leader, of wide renown among his fellows, a king of beasts and of men, dreaded by his foes, admired and followed by the bravest of his guild. Now he felt himself an alien and a stranger among the jostling thousands who came for gold alone.
In 1865 Wootten procured a charter from the legislature of Col- orado, which authorized him to construct a toll road from Trinidad through the Raton Pass to a point beyond the summit of the range, and later, a like concession from the government of New Mexico which enabled him to complete it to certain towns in that Territory. From this enterprise he drew, and still obtains considerable revenue. He owns a fine ranch with deposits of excellent coal, near the summit of the Raton Mountains, where he years ago fixed his abiding place. He has a fine large house, and entertains all who come that way, with gen- erous hospitality. He has been married four times, and up to 1875 had eight children living.
At last accounts Uncle Dick was in Chicago, arranging for the publication of his memoirs, that tell all the material details of the years he has passed on the border, with innumerable romantic incidents, and which, it is hoped, will soon be given to the public.
General William Larimer, one of the founders of the city of Denver, and for whom one of its principal streets was named, was a native of Pennsylvania, a politician of note in that State in early life, one of the original Abolitionists, and actively supported James Birney for the presidency in 1840 ; was at one time a candidate for Governor and nar- rowly escaped an election. Before his emigration to the West he was engaged in banking, but became seriously involved in railroad building, which cost him his fortune. In 1855 he settled in Nebraska just above the junction of the Platte River with the Missouri, where he laid out a town and called it "Larimer City." It proved a failure. He then 16 II.
242
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
removed to Leavenworth, Kansas (1857). In 1858 he united with the original Kansas party for the Pike's Peak gold region, arriving on Cherry Creek in October, encamping on the then wholly vacant site of East Denver, the spot being under a cottonwood tree that stood on what is now Blake street, near the old Palace theater. As already stated, he was one of the originators and most active members of the Denver Town Company. At the outbreak of the Rebellion he ren- dered valuable assistance in recruiting troops, and was made Colonel of the Third Colorado Regiment, which, not being filled, was consolidated with the Second Regiment. He left Denver in 1864, returning to Kan- sas, where he raised and commanded a regiment of Kansas Volunteers. He was a kind and generous man, well beloved by all who knew him. When the Territory of Colorado was organized in 1861, General Lari- mer's name was presented to President Lincoln for the office of Gov- ernor, but by the stronger influence brought to bear in favor of Col. William Gilpin, the latter was chosen.
Gen. Larimer died at his residence in Delaware Township, Kansas, May 16th, 1875, in his 68th year.
Lucien B. Maxwell, known all over the frontier as the owner of the celebrated "Maxwell grant," was one of the more prominent of American settlers in Colorado and New Mexico, and notably identified with the later years of their progress. Maxwell was a pioneer guide, and for many years a hunter and trapper, contemporary with the Bents, Sub- lette, Fitzpatrick, Williams, Uncle Dick Wootten and others who won renown in the years ante-dating the appearance of the present gener- ation on the field. He was a quiet, thoughtful, reticent man, inflexibly honest, unassuming, but brave and royally generous, a friend whom none relied upon in vain. Maxwell acquired great wealth by the acquisition of the immense tract of valuable land which bore his name, and which he covered with flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. Born at Kaskaskia near the Missouri River, he made his first pilgrimage to New Mexico in 1841, and took up his residence in Taos. In 1844 he married a daughter of Charles Baubien; was with one of Fremont's
243
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
expeditions, and subsequently took up hunting and trapping as a means of subsistence. He purchased the Miranda and Baubien grants in 1847; built the town of Rayado, that assumed the dignity of a military post from 1847 to 1850. In 1857-58 he laid out the town of Cimarron ; sold the Maxwell grant to J. B. Chaffee and Wilson Waddingham in 1869 and then purchased the site and improvements at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Maxwell died at his home near Las Vegas about the Ist of August, 1875.
An Idyl of Blue Lizard Gulch .- Not vouched for, but probably true, at all events interesting, rescued from an old file of the Rocky Mountain "News."
Jim Barker, a well-known character who lived at the head of Blue Lizard Gulch, had been elected a justice of the peace for that section of El Paso County. Mike Irving was the constable of the court. One day Jim convened his tribunal of justice to hear the complaint of one Elder Slater, a peripatetic missionary, who had caused the arrest of one Zimri Bowles, a resident of the foothills, upon a charge of stealing the Elder's one-eyed mule. Zimri had been taken by the constable while in the act of easing the descent of the mule down Mad Gun Mountain by fastening a lariat to her tail, so the proof against him was conclusive. After hearing the evidence, Old Jim's mind was sorely perplexed as to the manner in which the judgment of the court should be pronounced, but finally sentenced the offender to a term of one year in the peni- tentiary at Cañon City, with the following pathetic conclusion : "An' now Zim, seein's as how I'm about out of things to eat, an' as you will have the costs of this here suit to pay, I reckon you'd better take a turn amongst the foothills with your rifle an' see if you can't pick up some meat before night, as you can't start for the Big Cañon before mornin'."
Zim, awe struck by the majesty of the law, obediently went out as commanded, and in due course captured and brought in one black-tail fawn and a jack rabbit, with which commissary stores he reported to the court the same evening.
Next morning the constable, mounted on his broncho, and the
244
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
prisoner astride of Elder Slater's mule, which had been kindly loaned him for the occasion, started across the mountains for Canon City, where they arrived the second day out, their animals loaded with deer, antelope and a small cinnamon bear, shot en route, and which they sold to the warden. After dividing the money, the officer proceeded to hand Zimri over to the prison authority on the following rather original mittimus :
"To the head man of the Colorado prison, down at the foot of the Big Canyon on the Arkansaw.
"Take notis : Zimri Bouls who comes with this ye're, Stole Elder Slater's one- eyed mule, an' it was all the mule the Elder had, an' I sentenced Zim officially to one year in the Colorado prison, an' hated to do it seein' as Zim once stood by me like a man when the Injuns had me in a tite place, an' arter I sentenced Zim to one year for stealin' the Elder's mule, my wife Lizzy, who is a kind o' tender hearted critter, cum an' leaned her arm on my shoulder, an' says she, -- ' Father, don't forgit the time when Zim with his rifle covered our cabin from Granite Mountain, an' saved us from the Ara- pahoes; an' father, I've heerd ye tell that after ye was wounded at Sand Creek, an' helpless, it was Zimri's rifle that halted the Injun that was creepin' in the grass to scalp ye ;' an' there was a tear splash fell on the sentence, an' I changed my mind sudently as follows: 'Seein's as the mule had but one eye, and want more'n half a mule at that, you can let Zim go at about six months, an' sooner if the Injuns should git ugly, an' furthermore, if the Elder should quiet down an' give in any time, I will pardon Zim out instanter.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.