USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume III > Part 20
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Edward W. Rollins was born in Concord, New Hampshire, No- vember 25th, 1850; is the son of the late E. H. Rollins who served three terms,-1860 to 1866,-in Congress, and was then elected treasurer of the Union Pacific Railway Company ; was elected to the United States Senate in 1876, serving six years. He departed this life July 31st, 1889, leaving a large fortune to his family. Edward attended the public schools, and in the fall of 1867 entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, graduating as a mining engineer in the class of 1871 ; came with his class to Colorado immediately after- ward, and with it made a pedestrian tour of the Territory. His first professional engagement after graduation, was with a corps of engineers to locate a branch of the Colorado Central Railway from Golden to Pine Bluff, Wyoming, on the completion of which, he returned to Boston and spent the winter as an assistant instructor in the Institute of Technology. His next appearance in Colorado was in the spring of 1872, as a civil engineer on the Colorado Central; was soon after appointed division engineer, and in 1873 became resident engineer, retaining the same until 1876. In the meantime the line from Golden to Longmont was constructed, and. that from Longmont to Julesburg
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partly graded. During the last two years he held also the positions of cashier and treasurer of the construction company. When the road passed into the hands of W. A. H. Loveland under the sensational pro- ceedings related in Volume II., pages 408, 409, Mr. Rollins left its employ and went East, returning to Denver in the fall of 1876, and then opened an office for purposes heretofore recited. From this time until 1881, he negotiated the greater part of all county, city, town and school district securities in Colorado. In March, 1881, Mr. F. C. Young became a partner. Rollins & Young conducted the partnership until January Ist, 1888, when the Rollins Investment Company succeeded.
In 1880 Mr. Rollins was one of the chief projectors of the Colorado Electric Company, the first to introduce arc lights in the city of Denver. The business expanded so rapidly in 1887, another and stronger organization, known as the Denver Light, Heat & Power Company was perfected for the addition of incandescent lights and for other purposes. In 1889 both these companies were merged into the Denver Consolidated Electric Company with a capital of $1,000,- 000. Its plant is said to be the largest in the United States, most of the money for its construction being furnished by Mr. Rollins. He was also one of the charter members of the "Denver Club," was prominent in its original organization and a member of the committee charged with the construction of its really magnificent building at the corner of Seventeenth and Glenarm streets. In. 1888 he was made president of the Denver Athletic Club, an extremely useful institution, and in 1889 suggested the idea of purchasing ground and erecting a building that would accommodate its rapidly increasing membership. His plans were approved and steps were taken to raise the large sum required to erect the present splendid club on Glenarm street, an edifice equaled by but few of its class in the American Union. Thus at the age of forty he is well entered upon a career that places him in the front rank of the successful business men of the city and State, having founded one of the largest and strongest institutions of its kind in the
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West, aided the construction of some of its more important railways and been instrumental in building the two great club houses of Denver. While in later years he has been materially aided by foreign, that is to say, the capital of strong Eastern connections, the beginning was with his own, the conception his own, and the management that caused his enterprise to assume the standing it has always enjoyed, must also be placed to his credit.
Frank C. Young, born in the city of New York, January 28th, 1844. The basis of his education, laid in the public schools, was rounded out and completed in the office of John F. Trow, printer for the Appletons, the Putnams, Scribners, indeed all the great publishing houses of that epoch, issuing only the higher classes of American and English literature, and in a style that has never been excelled in this country. In this school Mr. Young acquired, while at the case, a thorough knowledge of "the art preservative of all arts," graduating at the end of the five years for which he had been regularly indentured, a master of his trade, and I may add from personal experience with him and his work, the most accurate and intelligent compositor it has ever been my fortune to write copy for. It was a joy to read his proofs, for they were almost entirely without errors, perfectly punctuated, correctly capitalized, and in all respects, models. In the years of his well earned affluence, he has collected a modest library, superbly cased, of rare and beautifully printed books, that it is a pleasure to read because of their typographical perfection, paper, press work and elegance of style. Shortly after his apprenticeship, during which he found leisure for care- ful and extended study of mathematics and bookkeeping, commercial accounts and banking, he accepted the tender of a clerkship in the main office of Adams' Express Company where he remained until 1865, when his health failing, he was induced by relatives located in the mountains of Colorado to join them. Therefore, with six companions, all young enthusiasts, in February of that year he left New York en route to new homes in a strange land. Arriving at Atchison, the general shipping point, they joined a wagon train and with it marched over the long
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desert, consuming six weeks on the journey. The routine of camp life, the steady tramp over ten to twenty miles each day, in the pure trans- parent atmosphere, under radiant sunshine, brought sunburn, healing and strength, rounded out and reinvigorated their physical powers, and made hardy men of them.
If the hundreds of invalids who now come in palace cars, whirling over the sharp incline of six hundred miles at the rate of thirty to forty miles an hour, landing at an altitude of 5,000 feet in a single day, enervating and enfeebling instead of recuperating their wasted energies by the too rapid transit, would adopt this course, the effect would in very many cases be prolongation of their years with recovered health for enjoyment and for work, instead of early death and reshipment back to their homes by the undertakers.
After a brief rest at Denver, Mr. Young passed into the mountains via the Clear Creek Valley, and arriving at Mill City,-now Dumont- took employment with the Downieville Mining Company, in turning a windlass, the primitive appliance for hoisting rock, dirt and ore from a "prospect." On the 27th of May following, Schuyler Colfax, then speaker of the National House of Representatives, arrived in Colorado with a party of distinguished men, and shortly afterward delivered Presi- dent Lincoln's last message to the miners of the West at Central City. This address was reported for the Black Hawk " Mining Journal" by Ovando J. Hollister, its editor. At this meeting he met a relative of Mr. Young, and being in need of a compositor on the paper, it trans- pired during the conversation that Mr. Frank C. Young was probably the very man to fill the place. He was accordingly sent for, and on or about the first of June, was assigned to cases on the "Journal." His first "take" of copy was a column editorial by Hollister. When the proof came to him for reading, it contained but one error, a "turned t." I shall never forget his transports of joy over the excellence of the work when he handed it to me, as the first experiment of our "tramp printer." Here was such perfection of typography as no man in that gulch had ever been accustomed to. With the single exception noted, it was with-
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out blemish, and without any attempt to improve (?) the editor's thoughts, by additions or eliminations. It was a revelation, a delight, cause for devout thanksgiving and praise, and it was fervently rendered. Like results marked all his work. During an experience of more than twenty-five years in and about printing establishments, I have never known his equal. To-day he is among our ablest financiers, and most estimable citizens, an admirable writer and editor, though his facility in these lines is known to but few.
In the autumn of 1865, the writer dissolved his partnership with Hollister, and purchased an interest in the "Miner's Register," at Central City, to which office Mr. Young was transferred in the following winter and placed in charge of book work (the journals and session laws of Colorado Territory). In June, 1866, he severed his connection with the printing business and entered the bank of Warren Hussey & Co., at that place, as bookkeeper and general accountant. When the bank of Thatcher, Standley & Co., succeeded Hussey & Co. he became chief bookkeeper and acting cashier for that firm, and when it was merged into the First National he was elected cashier, retaining the position until May, 1880, when he resigned, came to Denver and became a partner with Mr. E. W. Rollins, taking personal charge of the statis- tical department, correspondence, bookkeeping and the general details. He still retains his interest in the bank at Central, as also his partner- ship in the large and profitable quartz mill managed by Job V. Kimber, at Black Hawk ; is treasurer of the Consolidated Electric Company, and for many years was bookkeeper and accountant for the great Gunnell Gold Mining Company of Gilpin County. He has made several trips to Europe, and traveled quite extensively over the Continent.
The Denver Savings Bank. Toward the close of 1871 a man known as B. Erlanger, real name Abel Endelman, a native of Poland, who first opened a pawnbroker's office and then a savings bank, with a branch at Black Hawk, began to advertise extensively for the deposit of savings, and received a large number for that period. He kept his private account, which included a considerable share of his deposits, with
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the City National. He was smooth, affable and polite, and evidently prosperous. On Saturday night, November 2d, 1872, he took all his movable property, including the funds of both savings banks and disap- peared. The sum of which he robbed the people who intrusted their hard earned savings to him, was variously estimated at from $40,000 to $50,000. What became of him is a mystery never solved.
Another savings bank established on Fifteenth street, by Judge Blackburn and others some years later, proved a disastrous failure. It will be discovered that until recent years these institutions have been almost uniformly unfortunate to the projectors, stockholders and depositors.
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CHAPTER X.
LEAVES FROM THE CRIMINAL CALENDAR-HORRIBLE REVELATIONS OF BLOOD AND MASSACRE-FIENDISH ATROCITIES BY A BAND OF ITALIAN CUT-THROATS THE STORY OF ALFRED PACKER, THE MAN EATER-BILLY THE KID AND HIS BLOODY ADVENTURES-EDWARD KELLY AND HIS ROMANTIC ESCAPE FROM THE GALLOWS.
The recital that follows is one of the most revolting and dreadful in the history of mankind. It is doubted if among any people, however uncivilized and barbarous in any land under the sun, it has been exceeded in ferocity, cruelty and incarnate fiendishness. But for the fact that the ghastly particulars are spread upon the records of our courts, upon the pages of our newspapers ; that it was perpetrated but a few years ago and some of the witnesses are still living, it would appear incredible that any human beings could have possessed natures so savage, bloodthirsty and venomous ; that they could have executed their designs unmoved by the least feeling of pity, or been impelled to wholesale massacre of their own brethren with whom they were in daily association, fraternizing in amity and concord, bound together by ties of race and kindred sympa- thies, for no other object than to rob them of their money. The nearest approach to it in modern annals is the Bender horror committed near Cherryvale, Kansas, many years ago, but even this is overshadowed and rendered almost insignificant by comparison. Our history is crimson with slaughters committed by Indians; that of Utah by a long list of murders and assassinations under the iron rule of Brigham Young and his destroying angels, but in the most devilish that have been told, the slayers were less demoniacal than those who were guilty of the inexpiable deeds about to be narrated, and that fill the soul with unutterable dismay.
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Only the outlines will be given, for my pen is not equal to all the fright- ful details.
The killing occurred on Friday, October 15th, 1875, beginning just after one o'clock, P. M. Premeditated murder is usually done under cover of darkness, but these butchers chose by pre-arrangenient, the glaring light of midday, yet strange to relate, no trace of their ghastly work was discovered until the 21st, six days afterward, and in the interval the monsters had ample time in which to effect their escape. For some days prior to the actual discovery, residents in the neighborhood of No. 634 Lawrence street (under the old method of numbering houses), be- tween Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth streets, then near the limits of settlement in that direction, had been conscious of rank and extremely offensive odors that filled the air. As time passed and the effluvia be- came almost stifling, Mr. W. M. Failing, who resided opposite the house from whence it proceeded, determined to make an investigation of the cause. Calling a policeman, the premises in question were examined from the outside. Though known to have been recently occupied by a band of Italian musicians, no person had been seen for several days; the window shades were lowered, and the front door was locked. Re- solved upon exploring the interior, an entrance was effected from the rear, when they immediately discovered abundant evidence of a mon- strous crime. Pools of blood were upon the floor, crimson splashes and prints of blood-stained hands upon the walls. The building contained but three small rooms, and all bore the ensanguined marks of having been converted into shambles. All along the hallway leading to the back room used as a kitchen, the same horrible traces appeared, showing beyond peradventure that murder had been done in all the rooms, and that some of the helpless victims had been dragged from one to another. On every side were sickening evidences of diabolical atrocity.
In the course of their search the investigators were led to a small trap door, which on being raised, disclosed a sort of pit beneath that may have been used as a cellar by some of the former occupants. It was a foul, black, weird and uncanny place, and the stench arising there-
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from appalling. Procuring lighted candles they descended into the depths, only to find piled in a heap beneath the rickety stairway, the bodies of four men in the last stages of decomposition; cut, hacked, stabbed and mangled, covered with filthy blankets and filthier mattresses. Near by were three large harps, two violins, a scissors grinding machine, a hatchet, hammer and several dirk knives, all smeared and splashed with gore. Words cannot portray the awfulness of the scene. The throats of all had been cut from ear to ear, and knife wounds were visible upon other parts of the bodies.
Mr. Failing and the officer quickly informed the county coroner, Dr. Charles Denison, who hastened to the spot. The report soon spread over the city and some hundreds of people collected there. The remains were hurried into express wagons, conveyed to "potters' field" and buried out of sight. The next step was to discover the assassins and bring them to justice. To Gen. D. J. Cook, then sheriff of the county, fell the arduous task of tracing out the slight clues presented, and afterward of apprehending the miscreants. An inquest was held, but only the faintest light was obtained from the testimony elicited. However, the sheriff engaged his most experienced detectives in hunting obscure trails, and at last, after diligent search, persons were found to identify the remains, and who informed the officers that certain Italians named Filomeno Gallotti, Michiele Ballotti, one Arratta and others had been the associates of these victims, and that they had fled the city. One of the corpses was that of an aged man, known as "Old Joe," a scissors grinder, the other three those of boys, supposed to be his chil- dren or nephews, and were strolling musicians, who played about the streets and in drinking saloons, for such largess as might be thrown to them.
Filomeno Gallotti, subsequently proved to be the leader of the killing, who plotted and directed it, and was himself the principal actor with his accomplices in the crime had occupied a shanty on lower Fif- teenth street, where he conducted a small tin shop. Omitting the details of the pursuit, it is sufficient to relate that Cook's deputies. R. Y. Force
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and W. Frank Smith, were put upon the trails of the fugitives as soon as discovered, and in due time captured three of them in an Italian drinking saloon at the town of Trinidad, in Southern Colorado. Anxious to discover the whereabouts of the others, they lodged their prisoners in jail and frightened them into confessing the particulars of the assassination, implicating their confederates, and disclosing the direction they had taken. From this source it was ascertained that the band intended to continue their flight into old Mexico, where they had planned to engage in farming as a cloak for the further contemplated scheme of extensive plunder and brigandage.
These prisoners were conveyed to Denver and locked up. Mean- while two other suspects named "Old Joe" and Deodatta, had been arrested by Sheriff Cook, near Sloan's Lake, beyond North Denver, from whom it was discovered where a part of the money taken from the murdered men was secreted. The chief villain and two of his red-handed comrades were still at large, having thus far eluded the officers. It was finally ascertained by extensive telegraphing, that they were in the San Luis Valley rapidly making their way southward. Force and Smith pursued, and after a long and arduous chase succeeded in capturing them at Taos, New Mexico, whence they also were brought back and placed behind the bars in Denver.
Cook and his aids won universal commendation for the extremely clever detective work exhibited in this remarkable case, the chief bearing the greater part of the expense from his private purse. With only the faintest traces for a beginning, the whole plot was unraveled with con- summate skill as he proceeded, which led to the apprehension of the entire band. The chase was long, trying and costly, but it was never for an instant abandoned, nor did these brave men at any time despair of finally caging the fugitives. They did hope, however, to see them punished by the extreme penalty of the law, but in this, as we shall see, not only they but everybody was sorely disappointed.
For many years, dating about the close of our civil war, Cook had been an important, and at times a dominating figure in the police gov-
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ernment of the city and county. He was the controlling spirit of all city and county elections, and frequently in those of the Territory as well. A native of Laporte, Indiana, born in 1840, he came to Colorado in 1859, engaged in the desultory prospecting and mining of that early period for a season, then returned to the "States," and in 1861 engaged in government transportation service, on the Western frontier. In 1863 he wandered back to the Rocky Mountains and enlisted in the First Colorado Cavalry, whose term of service .was by that. time well nigh ended. In 1864 he became a detective in the employ of the Quartermaster at Denver, serving till 1866. From 1866 to 1869 he was marshal of the city of Denver, and in the year last named was elected sheriff of Ara- pahoe County, being re-elected at the close of his term. Thenceforward to 1875 he devoted his attention to detective work, as the organizer and chief of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association, formed many years before, and which still exists. In 1875 he was again elected sheriff, serving out his term, that expired in 1880. In 1873, Governor Elbert appointed him Major General of Militia (whence his military title), an office to which he was re-appointed by Governor Routt, and again by Governor Pitkin. Under the two latter administrations he was repeat- edly engaged in organizing, arming and protecting the border settlers from threatened incursions by hostile Indians. In June, 1880, Governor Pitkin ordered him to Leadville to aid in suppressing the riot of striking miners there, which at one time endangered the peace and safety of that city. In October of the same year, the police of Denver, being without a leader, he was made chief for the emergency in the midst of the Chi- nese riots that occurred on the eve of the presidential election, an account of which is given elsewhere. A short time afterward he was made chief of police for the ensuing regular term, since which time he has pursued his favorite calling noted above.
Several attempts to lynch the Italian murderers were made by the excited populace while they were being conveyed from the Rio Grande trains to the county jail, but they were adroitly prevented. The reporters for the press, eager to secure the awful details from living witnesses, and
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believing they could extort them from the younger members of the band, entered their cells and began their reportorial inquisition. As they were eminently successful, and as the reports then rendered con- tain all the facts brought out on the subsequent trials, we shall make use of them in following this frightful narrative to its conclusion.
One of the boys named Leonardo Allessandri, on being questioned readily yielded, and recited the story from beginning to end, and his tes- timony in court was substantially the same.
It appeared that the man called "Old Joe Pecorra," was a padrone in Italy, and had stolen the boys who played harps and violins, com- pelling them to earn money by any means, no matter how, so they obtained it, and deliver everything to him. They were cruelly treated and forced to work day and night to satisfy his greed. As it cost them but little to live, and as they were quite successful, the gains were con- siderable. It was reported by some of the frightened prisoners that Filomeno Gallotti, chief of the cut-throats, while in Italy had been a member of a band of brigands which robbed and murdered travelers on lonely roads, or held them for ransom, as best suited their purposes. In due time he became chief of the band, but finally was compelled to flee the country. He came to America, drifted to New Orleans, and at last to Denver.
Having skillfully laid his plans to secure "Old Joe's" money and for the general massacre, by collecting his confederates and their intended victims at the house on Lawrence street, the plot was ripe for execution. Allessandri played his harp, the old man and his boys with one or two others were playing cards in the front room. Gallotti stood like a death watch behind Joe, apparently interested in the game, but actually awaiting an opportunity to strike. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, he drew from his coat a long, keen-edged butcher knife, and seizing the old man by the hair, drew back his head and with one stroke nearly severed it from the body. This was the signal for the rest to begin. The blood spurted upon the table, and into the faces of the players. Not content with this, as the quivering form fell
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to the floor, Gallotti jumped upon it and with fiendish glee plunged his knife into it as if it were a most delightful pastime to hack and mutilate. One of the others simultaneously seized the larger of the boys and endeavored to kill him in like manner, but he fought desper- ately for his life. At last Gallotti having satiated his appetite upon his first victim, arose and seeing the blundering work of his assistants, grabbed the boy and instantly slew him. Said Allessandri, in his con- fession, "I kept on playing my harp, for I dared not stop, but I was so frightened I trembled all over. Once I did stop playing, but Gallotti shook me, and drawing his knife across my throat said he would cut my d-d head off if I did not play on, so I started up again. They let the bodies lay where they had fallen, and some one threw blankets over them."
Two other boys who had been out in the city, and for whom the murderous wretches now lay in wait, soon came into the yard bearing their harps. "Gallotti watched the front door, and Ballotti stood guard at the rear. The smaller one came in first, carrying a violin under his arm. Gallotti seized him, and drawing a knife plunged it to the hilt just under the boy's right ear, cutting his throat. The little boy who played the harp came to the back door, but catching a glimpse of the blood took alarm and tried to retreat, but Ballotti caught and dragged him into the house. As he did not succeed in cutting his throat, Aratta went to his aid, but the boy escaped them and ran crying and bleeding into the front room where Gallotti, the hell-born, caught him around the neck with one hand and with the boy's head under his arm slashed his throat from ear to ear. I was still playing my harp, but the sight of the dead bodies and the blood running on the floor made me sick. Filomeno made me lick his knife and ordered me to drink some of the blood. He scooped up a handful of blood running from the big boys' throat and drank it, the others doing likewise as a pledge of fidelity. They then threw the bodies into the cellar."
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