USA > Colorado > Arapahoe County > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 69
USA > Colorado > Denver County > Denver > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 69
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HENRY F MEINE.
Skilled workmen in all branches of industry will find both encouragement and remunerative wages in Denver. The prosperity that has been showered upon that city has led her generous citi- zens into a liberal patronage of everything tending to improve and refine the condition of society. Not the least worthy and competent of those whose skill and industry have been employed for several years in Denver is Henry F. Meine, to whom the following sketch is devoted. He was born in Germany in 1841, and after the usual elementary studies of boyhood was apprenticed, at the age of fifteen, to the trade of cabinet-making in his native town. Nearly twelve years were spent in acquiring a thorough knowledge of this industrial art, and at the expiration of that period he came to the United States to reap the reward of his years of toil and application. Settling in Chicago in 1867, he was employed as a billiard-table maker for five years, and after the great fire worked for a short time in the factory of Brunswick & Co. Portions of the years 1874 and 1875 were profitably spent in Illinois and Iowa, cutting down and reducing size of billiard tables to conform to the standard
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measurement. In July, 1875, he came to Denver, seeking relief from the asthma, and so beneficial did the visit prove that he brought his family there and has since become a permanent resident. He has carried on the business of cabinet-making in connection with the agency of the Brunswick & Balke and Collender tables, but will soon establish a factory in Denver, where home skill and prod- ucts will be advantageously employed. He has just patented and will soon introduce to the trade a combination table which may be used either for the standard game of billiards or other games which heretofore required separate tables. Mr. Meine was married in Chicago in 1868, and is the father of two children. By combining industrious habits with a thorough knowledge of his trade he has secured a competency for his family and it is surely to be hoped that in his future business operations he will be as successful as in the past.
CHARLES D. McPHEE.
Mr. McPhee was born on Prince Edward's Island November 4, 1846. He remained there until sixteen years of age, when he began a regular apprenticeship in the carpenter's trade, and served four years. In September, 1866, he removed to Boston, Mass., and followed his trade two years. In May, 1869, he removed to Denver and began contracting and building, in partner- ship with his brother, A. McPhee. In January, 1870, his brother died, after which he assumed the entire control of the business. He was mar- ried September 26, 1871. In 1872, he built a planing-mill, and engaged in the lumber business until January, 1874, when he formed a partner- ship with J. F. Keating, under the firm name of McPhee & Co. In February, 1876, he dissolved partnership with him, and continued the business until January, 1879, under his own management. He then formed a partnership with J. J. McGinnity, and has continued a successful busi- ness, adding such improvements to their mill as the rapid growth of the city and the extensive building interests demand.
JOHN MONCRIEFF.
Mr. Moncrieff is of Scottish descent. He was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, February 10, 1823. He remained at home until twenty years of age. During that time, he served an apprenticeship of four years at the carpenter's trade. He then went to Dundee, and followed his trade there and at Glasgow, four years, after which he went to Lon- don, and remained there six years engaged in the same pursuit. In 1853, he came to the United States, and spent the first summer in New York, after which he went to Lancaster, Ohio, and fol- lowed his trade one year. Leaving that city in the fall of 1854, he went to Madison County, Iowa, where he began his first business in con- tracting and building, remaining there eight years, during which time he was married to the daughter of Jacob Regel, of Madison County. In 1863, he started to Colorado, then known as the Pike's Peak country, where he arrived April 24. After spending the summer hcre, he returned East, and the next June arrived in Denver with his family. From February, 1865, to May, 1866, he was employed in the Quartermaster's Department, after which, he opened a carpenter-shop and began contracting and building at his present location --- 442 Holladay street-and has continued the same ever since. He has never aspired to any office, but has devoted his whole attention to contracting and building.
DR. JOHN H. MORRISON.
This volume would be incomplete without a sketch of the life of Dr. John H. Morrison. A prominent member of that band of daring spirits who crossed the Great Plains, to found the nucleus around which has grown the beautiful and attrac- tive city of Denver, he lived to witness her transition from a barren plain to a large and flour- ishing city; to see the development, step by step, of an almost unknown region into an empire whose magic growth in the past is but a faint shadow of her future greatness. He was born in the State of New York, but most of his life, up to 1859,
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was spent in Wisconsin, where he was a practicing physician, having graduated from the well-known Rush Medical College, of Chicago. Later in life, he abandoned his profession and engaged in trade, in which he was quite successful, accumulating, in the course of time, a handsome property. In 1859 he came to Colorado and engaged largely in ranching and milling, also holding at one time the office of Collector of Internal Revenue. His most active business career, however, was in the lumber trade with his two brothers, though failing health the last few years of his life, had driven him from its management. For some time after coming to Colorado, he lived on his ranche, on the Platte, a few miles below Denver, but afterward in the city and at his beautiful residence on the boulevard, where he died very suddenly on the 21st day of July, 1876. He was married in Wisconsin in 1846, to Miss Charlotte O. La Haie, only daughter of Joseph La Haie, to which union there were born three children, two of whom survive him. Dr. Morrison was a man whose merit commended him to all with whom he came in contact. An active and honorable business career, united with his unostentatious but earnest social qualities, had won for him universal respect and esteem; and when it was known that he had passed from earth, all felt that Denver had lost one of her foremost and valued citizens.
S. B. MORRISON.
Mr. Morrison was born in Oneida Castle, Oneida Co., N. Y., May 2, 1831. When he was ten years of age, his parents removed to Jefferson, Wis. He remained there three years, then went to Portage, in the northern part of the State, in the Wisconsin pineries, and engaged in the lum- ber and merchandise business with his brother, J. H. Morrison, until 1859. He then came to Den- ver, Colo., and bought a ranche, three miles north of Denver, on the Platte River, and engaged in in farming and the stock business. He also en- gaged in mining in Gilpin and Park Counties, and built quartz-mills in those counties in partnership
with C. M. Farrand. He remained in that business five years, then dissolved partnership and removed to Denver. In January, 1865, he embarked in the grocery business with J. W. Partridge, and remained in that business two years, then removed to Georgetown, Clear Creek Co., and engaged in mining, and operated a quartz-mill. In 1870, he dissolved partnership with J. W. Partridge, and associated himself with his brother, J. H. Mor- rison, in the lumber business in Denver, in which they still continue. He was married in Denver in 1876.
J. U. MARLOW.
J. U. Marlow was born on the 17th of May, 1831, in Fayette County, Penn. His father being engaged in keeping a hotel, he passed his early years in acquiring an intimate knowledge of every branch of that business, in which he has been mainly engaged during his subsequent life. He continued in the hotel business with his father until 1858, when he removed west to Winterset, Iowa, and kept a hotel there until 1860. The Pike's Peak excitement being then at its height, he joined the tide of emigration setting across the Plains, and started for the mountains. Stopping but one night in Denver, he made his way over the range to Breckenridge, where he followed min- ing with varied success for three years. Then coming down to Central, he followed mining and hotel-keeping for three years more, removing per- manently to Denver in 1866. The second day after his arrival he opened the Pacific House on the corner of Sixteenth and Larimer streets, since which time he has been constantly identified with the hotel interests of the city. In 1868, he took charge of the Planter's Hotel, and in 1869, of the American House, which he ran until 1871. Hc then opened Marlow's Restaurant, on Blake street, and the following year resumed charge of the Amer- ican House. In 1873, he took the Grand Central, which he kept until 1876, continuing the Ameri- can in connection for about six months. In 1876, he again assumed control of the American House, continuing to the present time. For the past year
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r
and a half, he has run the Inter-Ocean in connec- tion with the American. These two houses are among the best in the city, with accommodations for about three hundred guests. Mr. Marlow has been more or less interested in mining during his residence in Denver.
JACOB MENTCMIR.
Jacob Mentemir, one of the pioneers of Col- orado, was born in Germany November 7, 1841. He came to the United States with his parents when very young, and lived first in Jo Daviess County, Ill., but his parents soon removed to Galena, and engaged in farming and working in the lead mines. At the age of nineteen, Mr. Mentemir came to Colorado, and at once began farming. This he followed one year, and then engaged in freighting from Denver to Omaha one year, after which he bought a farm twelve miles below Denver, on the Platte, which he has since farmed, besides engaging in stock-raising. He has done some prospecting, but now gives his en- tire attention to his farm.
ALVIN MCCUNE.
Although the name of Alvin MeCune is known throughout the State of Colorado, there are per- haps a great many who are unacquainted with the strange and chequered career of this old " settler," miner and merchant. He was born in Schoharie County, N. Y., in 1827. After completing an academical course of studies at Jefferson Academy, he began at the age of nineteen to read law in Albany and New York City, and was deeply engaged in this study when the war between Mexico and the United States fired his young heart with patriotic sentiments, and decided him to abandon Blackstone for the nobler profession of arms. Enlisting in the First New York Volun- teers, Col. Burnet commanding, his regiment was forwarded without special loss of time to the theater of war, and, during the succeeding two years, fought its way gallantly under the leader- ship of Scott, winning fresh renown in the battle-
fields of Vera Cruz, Churubusco, Contreras, Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec. At the close of the war, Alvin MeCune was mustered out of the service in New Orleans in 1848. He went to New York State and engaged in mercantile pursuits in his native town, Blenheim, for a year or so, after which he worked as a painter in Philadelphia and Washington City; thence to Binghamton, Corn- ing, Deposit, in New York, and, afterward, to Scranton, Penn., where he resided about two years. In 1857, he went to Wisconsin and lived awhile, and then moved to Missouri, doing business in Hannibal, and, afterward, to Ohio, working in the little town of Hawleyville. From Hawleyville he went to Forest City, Mo., and thence to Denver in 1860. Plunging into the mines, he " pros- pected," and mined for gold in California Gulch, little dreaming that he should one day see the largest mining camp of the world located on the very site of his unsuccessful "diggings." Return- ing to Denver, he resumed his business as a sign painter, and, in a short time, owned the largest paint and oil store in the State. From 1865 to 1875, his business had made wonderful increase, and he found himself a comparatively wealthy man. But misfortunes overtook him and hovered over him so long that it seemed at one time as though they would engulf him in ruin. Opera- tions in real estate had proved very disastrous- his capital invested in business was swallowed up, und from a position of affluence, he found himself a poor man. His sacrifices and manly struggles to avert his misfortunes are known to all the old citizens of Denver. Mr. McCune is now busy again, building up anew the business of sign painting, and has a fair prospect of retrieving his losses within the next few years. At any rate, he is not disheartened, but wages battle with the world with all the confidence and energy of youth. Although not attached to any form of religion, his family are devoted followers of Christianity. In politics, he avows himself a Democrat. He is also a member of the Masonic Order. They are but few who do not sincerely wish that this old
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soldier and honorable merchant may soon meet with all the prosperity that his heroic conduct has deserved.
WILLIAM F. MCCLELLAND, M. D.
Dr. McClelland is a native of New Philadelphia, Harrison Co., Ohio. He was born May 29, 1821, and is of Scotch-Irish and German ancestry, his paternal ancestors coming from the north .of Ire- land and those of his mother from the north of Germany. He received his literary education in the Seminary of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and took his first course in medicine in the Medical Depart- ment of the University of New York, in 1847-48. His second course was pursued in Jefferson Medi- cal College, Philadelphia, from which institution he graduated and received the degree of M. D., on the 27th of March, 1849. He began practice in Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1851, and in 1856 removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he practiced medi- cine over five years, taking a higli position in the profession, especially in surgery, being frequently called upon by other physicians to perform difficult surgical operations. In June, 1862, he located in Denver, and has been constantly engaged in a large and lucrative practice ever since. He is a member of the American Medical Association, of the Colorado State Medical Society, of which he was President in 1873, and of the Denver Medical Society, of which he was President in 1876. He was elected, in 1876, Treasurer of the State Med- ical Association for two years, and re-elected, in 1878, for three years. He was Surgeon of the Denver Military Hospital for a short time in 1864; is the permanent medical examiner and medical referee of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of New York for this district, which embraces Colo- rado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Among the medical articles which he has written, we mention two, one on "The Climate of Colorado," and the other on " The Effects of the Colorado Climate on Asthma and Autumnal Fever." He has been President of the Millionaire Mining and Tunnel- ing Company since its incorporation in 1876; was
President of the Denver Mutual Building and Loan Association, and is now the Trustee of its property. Dr. McClelland has done as much as any other citizen of Denver for the up-building of the city, having built and now owning several dwellings and business houses. He has been twice married, first, on the 3d of June, 1850, to Miss Dorathy Leach, of Mount Vernon, Ohio. She died in 1854, leaving one child. He was married again, November 11, 1858, to Miss Harriet B. Honn, of Council Bluffs, Iowa and has four children living.
WILLIAM MYERS.
William Myers, one of the early pioneers of Colorado, and for many years a successful business man of Denver, was born in Berks County, Penn., March 18, 1834. When about eighteen years of age, he went to Fairfield County, Ohio, where he engaged in blacksmithing, having previously worked at the trade in Pennsylvania. He remained there about one year, and then removed to Shelby- ville, Ill., which he made his home until the spring of 1859. After traveling through the West about a year, he finally settled in Denver early in the spring of 1860. He immediately began blacksmithing and wagon-making, and was the first man to bring Eastern wagons into the Denver market. During the years 1864-65, he was engaged in freighting across the Plains, but abandoned this and again commenced blacksmith- ing. In the spring of 1876, he moved on to his ranche on the Platte, twelve miles from Denver, which he has cultivated and improved by building, until he has one of the finest farms in the county.
HON. CYRUS H. MCLAUGHLIN.
This gentleman was born in Mercer County, Penn., in 1827. In 1840, he entered upon an apprenticeship to learn the printer's trade, which he followed as a journeyman printer in fourteen different States and Territories. He went to Wis- consin in an early day, and to Kansas in 1857. The year 1859 fonrd him in Leavenworth, from which place he came across the Plains to Pike's
G. Gthprices
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Peak as a messenger for Jones & Cartwright's Ex- press, being sent by them to investigate the truth of the reports concerning the discovery of gold. From the "Cherry Creek settlement " he went on foot to Central. On his return, he took back to Leavenworth eleven full sacks of gold, besides smaller sacks, etc., amounting in all to nearly $40,000, and on the receipt of this in Leaven- worth the excitement was greatly stimulated. In the spring of 1860, with his family, he came again, and, after working a year on the Rocky Mountain News, engaged in farming on the Platte, but his agricultural venture not proving altogether successful, after following farming, dairying and cattle-raising until after the Cherry Creek flood, he abandoned farming to accept a position in the Quartermaster's Department, continuing in the service of the Government two years, going to Julesburg. as Master of Transportation, and wit- nessed many atrocities of the Indians during that troublous period.
In 1867, he was elected a member of the Ter- ritorial Legislature, then meeting at Golden, and re-elected in 1868. He was active in the nego- tiations which resulted in the removal of the capital to Denver. During his second term, he served as Speaker of the House. He made an excellent presiding officer, and now carries a fine chronometer, a present from the members of the Honse. On the election of Gen. Grant as Presi- dent, Mr. MeLaughlin was appointed Receiver of Public Moneys in the United States Land Office, in Denver, which position he held four years. A few years ago, the citizens organized what they called the "Third House," a mock legislative assembly, for the purpose of burlesquing the pro- ceedings of the regular Legislature, and Mr. McLaughlin was chosen Governor, for his known wit, genial good humor, fun-loving disposition and appreciation of a practical joke. He acquitted himself with honor, and was chosen for a second term. By his success and popularity in this position, he has become known as "Gov. MeLaughlin." He is accustomed to say that he
arrived in Colorado "almost without a rag on his back, but, by industry, economy and good man- agement, in less than two years, he was covered with them, and has held his own remarkably well." From 1875 to 1879, he was employed in the Denver Post Office. In October, 1879, he was elected Alderman from the Fourth Ward, and has also been the candidate of the Republican party for the office of Mayor of the city. For the past three years, he has been active in the temperance cause ; is a prominent Odd Fellow, and has held all the important offices in the Lodge. He has served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Colorado, Grand Patriarch of the Grand Encampment, and Representative to the Grand Lodge in 1875 and in 1876. "Gov." MeLaughlin's inexhaustible good nature renders him exceedingly popular with all classes; and, whether he perpetrates a practical joke, or is him- self the victim, contributes immensely to the enjoyment of any company of which he forms a part.
RT. REV. JOSEPH PROTECTUS MACHEBEUF.
Rt. Rev. J. P. Machebeuf, Vicar Apostolic of Colorado, was born in Rione, in the Department of Puy de Dome, France, June 11, 1812. He was educated in the College of the city, and in the Seminary of St. Sulpice, where he was ordained a priest of the Catholic Church December 24, 1836, and appointed in charge of a parish in the vicinity of Clermont, where he remained three years. In 1839, in company with Most Rev. John B. Lamy, now Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, he came to this country under the direction of Arch- bishop John B. Purcell, now Archbishop of Cincinnati. Remaining a short time in Cincinnati to acquire a knowledge of the language, he was, on the 1st of January, 1840, sent to Sandusky, Ohio, to organize a new congregation. At that time, there was not a Catholic church, congrega- gation nor chapel, from Cleveland to the Indiana line, throughout the entire northwestern part of Ohio, where, to-day, over forty flourishing parishes
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exist. During eleven years of missionary life in Ohio, he built the first church in Sandusky, Fre- mont, Maumee City and many settlements of Irish aud Canadian Catholics. In Sandusky, he built a fine stone church and secured a large stone house for an academy. When Father Lamy, then Pastor of Covington, Ky., was appointed Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico, having studied together in college and seminaries, Bishop Lamy pressed Father Machebeuf to accompany him to New Mexico as Vicar General. In January, 1851, he left Sandusky to join Bishop Lamy, who was waiting for him at New Orleans. They went via Galveston to San Antonio, where they met Gen. Harney, who kindly tendered the Bishop and his company the protection of the troops to cross the State of Texas, almost entirely a wilderness, a dis- tance of 800 miles. The troops being delayed on the frontier a couple of months while on the way, they improved the opportunity to visit the various military posts on the Rio Grande, and engage in missionary work at Fort Clark, Fort Duncan, Eagle Pass, Fort Hinge, and other settlements. They arrived at Franklin, on the Rio Grande, near El Paso, on the 24th of June. As soon as the news had spread that a Catholic Bishop had come from the States, the officers of the post and the few Americans in the vicinity met them with the greatest cordiality, knowing it would give life to the Mexican element and assist in developing the country. On the invitation of the Bishop of El Paso they crossed the Rio Grande to that city, in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, where they met with a most cordial reception, finding there some American and French merchants. After a brief rest, they continued their journey northward, vis- iting all the parislies along the Rio Grande, and passing through four or five Indian villages on the way, whose inhabitants had been converted to Catholicism by the early missionaries. They were everywhere received with every mark of re- spect, the Indians giving for their entertainment, a variety of war dances and sham fights between the inhabitants of the different villages. They
arrived, in the beginning of August, in Santa Fe, where a brilliant reception was given them by the civil and military authorities, and an immense crowd of people who had gone out in carriages and on horseback, several miles to meet them. In the fall of 1851, Bishop Lamy went to the State of Durango, Mexico, to pay a visit to the old Bishop, who then had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Territory of New Mexico. The following spring, finding but few native clergymen, and they being mostly old men, the Bishop went to France, returning ten months later with six or eight de- voted and zealous young French priests. Owing to these frequent absences, Father Machebeuf was left in charge of the ecclesiastical affairs of the Ter- ritory for two years, with his residence in Santa Fe. On the return of the Bishop, he was ap- pointed Pastor of Albuquerque, in the most wealthy and important county in New Mexico, where he resided six years, except on two occasions dur- ing Bishop Lamy's absence, when he had to go back and live in Santa Fe. During this time, be- sides his duties as Pastor, being the only English- speaking clergyman besides the Bishop, he visited regularly all the military posts on the frontier of New Mexico, a half-dozen in number, passing un- molested through the Indian country, surrounded night and day by Indians who, although not Chris- tianized, treated him with every mark of respect. In 1858, after the partial organization of the Ter- ritory of Arizona, made up of a portion of Sonora and Chihuahua on the southi, and fractions of Indian Territory and New Mexico on the east and north, Bishop Lamy was appointed by the court of Rome, Ecclesiastical Administrator of Arizona. Father Machebeuf, then Vicar General, was sent with full authority of Bishop Lamy, and the original docu- ments from Rome, to take possession of the few parishes and old missions which had been estab- lished by the early Jesuit and Franciscan mission- aries among the Pimas, the Papagos and other Indian tribes at Tucson, St. Xavier, Du Bac, Tubac, Tumocacori and other points. As these missions had been under the jurisdiction of the
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