Portrait and biographical record of the state of Colorado, containing portraits and biographies of many well known citizens of the past and present, Part 181

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1530

USA > Colorado > Portrait and biographical record of the state of Colorado, containing portraits and biographies of many well known citizens of the past and present > Part 181

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The marriage of Mr. Farr, in 1892, united him with Elizabeth Middlemist, who was born in York state and in 1880 accompanied the members of her family to Colorado. Two children have been born of the union, Charles William and Margaret. While not actively interested in polit- ical affairs, Mr. Farr maintains a deep interest in everything calculated to promote the welfare of the country, and is a loyal, law-abiding citizen. At elections he votes the Republican ticket, be- lieving the principles of this party to be such as will best conduce to the prosperity of the people.

HOMAS STARK, who has been in the west since 1870, and came to Colorado in 1873, went into the Cripple Creek district in Janu- ary, 1892. In company with E. M. De La Vergne, he discovered the Raven mine, located on Raven Hill, and subsequently bought the land. The company now owns about forty-eight acres. He is secretary of the Raven Gold Min- ing Company, and is interested in the Lofty mine and other claims. Since selling out his cattle business and disposing of his ranch in Lin- coln County, Colo., in 1898, he has given his en- tire attention to mining, in which he has been in- terested more or less since 1880. Among the first claims in which he was interested were those in St. Elmo, Chaffee County, where he still owns a silver mine. The home of the family, since 1893, has been in Colorado Springs.

The Stark family descends from General Stark, of Revolutionary fame. Our subject's great- grandfather, Thomas Stark, spent his entire life in Virginia. The grandfather, Thomas, removed from the Old Dominion to Bourbon County, Ky., where he owned a plantation. He served in the war of 1812 and died from the effects of a wound received in battle. The father of our subject, Thomas (3d), was born in Bourbon County, Ky. When nine years of age he accompanied his mother to Missouri, where she took up land in Pike County. After he attained his majority he became the owner of a farm near Frankford, and in time had other lands and large herds of stock. He died March 22, 1897, when eighty-one years of age. Fraternally he was a Mason. His wife was Elizabeth Goldsberry, a native of Tennessee, whence she accompanied her father, John Golds- berry, to Pike County, Mo., settling upon a farm. In religion she was identified with the Disciples. She died in December, 1897, when seventy-one years of age. In her family there were nine chil- dren, all but one of whom lived to manhood or womanhood. They are as follows: James G., a farmer in Pike County; John B., who is in Crip- ple Creek; Thomas, who was born near Frank- ford, Mo., July 10, 1848; Susan, wife of W. H. Waddle, of Pike County; William H., a farmer in Pike County; Mrs. Lois Reading, of Missouri; Mrs. Lillie Lee Shy, also of Missouri; ard Mrs. Minnie M. King, who lives in the same state.

Early set to work our subject had few advan- tages, and his education was, therefore, limited. He attended school for two or three months in the winter until the outbreak of the war, when schools were suspended. In 1870 he went to Cheyenne, Wyo., where he was employed on a government survey as a member of an engineer- ing corps for two years, meantime assisting in running the first line of survey in Wyoming. After two years he returned home, but was not satisfied there, and as soon as possible was on his way west again. Coming to Colorado Springs in 1873, he became interested in a ranch. The fol- lowing year he returned to Missouri, where he bought cattle, shipped them to Kansas City, and then drove them overland, via the Santa Fe trail, to his ranch on a branch of the East Bijou. He and his partners, Edward R. and E. B. Stark, pre-empted four hundred and eighty acres. In 1882 E. R. Stark was bought out, and the other two continued together until 1886, when the cat- tle industry declined to such an extent as to pre-

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cipitate their failure. However, two years later Pa .; John W., of Newcastle, Pa .; James L .; they formed another partnership and bought back Sarah E., wife of John W. Allen, a grocer of Butler, Pa .; Robert E., a carpenter and builder residing in Fort Morgan, Colo .; and William V., formerly a prominent educational worker, man- ager of Clark's Business College in Warren, Pa., and an instructor in a business college at Butler, Pa., but now a partner of his brother-in-law, Mr. Allen, in the Butler Produce Exchange. their old ranch, where they engaged in raising cattle. They bought in Texas, Utah and New Mexico, and made shipments east, selling at handsome profits. Their specialties were full blood and graded Shorthorns, which they ranged upon their ranch of one thousand acres, and then shipped in train loads to the Missouri River. This business was sold in 1898.

In Buena Vista, Chaffee County, Colo., in Oc- tober, 1883, Mr. Stark married Miss Ella Whit- ney, who was born in Fort Fairfield, Me., a de- scendant of the Whitneys, a Puritan family, that came over in the "Mayflower," or very shortly afterward. Her father, E. P., who was a son of William Whitney, was born in Corinth, Me., where his father was a farmer. He, too, for some time engaged in farming, but ill health forced him to change his occupation. In 1868 he went to Atchison, Kan., where he engaged in the hotel business. In 1874 he came to Colorado, and spent some time successively in Boulder, Denver and St. Elmo. He died in St. Elmo when sixty- six years of age. While in Maine he raised a company of volunteers, but poor health obliged him to retire from the company. Fraternally he was a Mason. His wife, Harriet L., was born near Corinth, Me., and died in Elbert County, Colo., in 1892. She was a daughter of Joseph Ketchum, a farmer of Maine, and a member of an old family of New England. Mrs. Stark was six years of age when her parents removed to Kan- sas, and in 1874 she accompanied them to Colo- rado. She has only one sister, Mrs. Mary E. Lowe, who is living in Paonia, this state. In re- ligion she is a member of the Christian Church, to which Mr. Stark contributes. They are the parents of three children, Thomas Roy, Elizabeth W. and Louis E. In political views Mr. Stark is a decided Democrat and always votes that ticket. During the years of his activity in the stock busi- ness he was identified with the Colorado Cattle Growers' Association.

AMES L. PARKER, who has made his home on a ranch fifteen miles southeast of Akron, in Washington County, since the spring of 1887, was born in Delaware County, Pa., Sep- tember 4, 1855, a son of John and Nancy (Potts) Parker. He was one of a family of eight chil- dren, six of whom are living, viz. : Margaret A., wife of W. E. Lockhart, of Lawrence County,

John Parker was born in County Cavan, Ire- land, March 18, 1828. He received a splendid education and was long known as one of the best grammarians in his section of Pennsylvania. In his early manhood, in Ireland he was employed at bookkeeping and civil engineering. Emi- grating to America in 1846, he settled in Phila- delphia, where he applied himself to the work of ingrain-carpet weaving and became a finished workman in that specialty. At other times he was employed in various woolen mills. After some fourteen years he removed to western Penn- sylvania, and resided in Butler, Pittsburg and Newcastle during the remainder of his life. His death occurred September 19, 1897. He was for many years bailiff and court crier and filled many minor offices in his district.

The education of our subject was acquired in district schools. At twenty years of age, when living in a small town in Lawrence County, Pa., he left home and went to Lee County, Iowa, where he was employed at farm work for a short time. Later he apprenticed himself to the car- penter's trade. After nine months at that occu- pation he returned to Pennsylvania, and for a year worked in the oil regions. June 18, 1877, he married Miss Sadie A. McKee, who was born in Lawrence County, Pa., her father, David Mc- Kee, being a farmer there. Shortly after his marriage he accepted a position with the Croton Limestone Company, and continued with that firm in a responsible and lucrative position for three years.

In 1883 Mr. Parker came to the west and set- tled in Hall County, Neb., where he was engaged in farming for four years. In the spring of 1887 he came to Colorado, and during April of that year homesteaded a quarter-section in Washing- ton County. After making his improvements he returned to Nebraska and harvested his crop there. The spring of 1888 found him perma- nently located in Washington County. He moved his family to the new home and began in the cat- tle business and in farming. He has since met

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with success and is now one of the well-to-do. rauchmen of northeastern Colorado. Since com- ing here he has served as a member of the school board and for two years he acted as road over- seer. Fraternally he is a member of Akron Lodge No. 31, Star of Jupiter. He and his wife are the parents of twelve children, viz. : Elsie G., L. McKee, J. Charles, Leon D., David L., Maud L., Ernest V., Bessie M., Clarence V., Edwin, J. Louis and Lloyd F.

EMBROKE R. THOMBS, M. D., Superin- tendent of the state asylum for the insane, ex-president of the Colorado State Medical Society, and, in point of years of practice, the oldest physician in southern Colorado, is a rec- ognized authority in the treatment of nervous diseases and a man of wonderful gifts in his chosen profession. When, in April, 1879, Gov- ernor Pitkin appointed him to take charge of the insane asylum, he found a few old, dilapidated buildings, set in the midst of forty acres of a rolling alkali waste. In this discouraging field his energy found a fruitful opportunity for its expenditure. He succeeded in securing irriga- tion for the land, and is thus enabled, in his twelve acres of garden, to raise all the vege- tables needed for use in the asylum. The entire tract was placed under cultivation and has been doubled in acreage and improved with large and substantial brick buildings. While he has dis- played remarkable business ability, he has been no less successful in his work among the pa- tients, and a number of notable cures have been effected. Through successive appointments by different governors, he has continued to hold the position to the present time.

The life which this narrative records began in Yarmouth, Me., December 1, 1840. The Thombs family was of English origin and was represented among the early settlers of Virginia. Captain Thombs, who was a seafaring man and was lost, with his vessel, off the coast of Maine, had a son Joseph, a native of Virginia, who after the close of the Revolutionary war, removed to New Eng- land and there married a Miss Watson, of a pio- neer New England family. Afterward he en- gaged in manufacturing near Portland. His son, John Robinson Thombs, who was born in Yarmouth, married Miss Prudence Thoits, whose relatives were very prominent in the coasting trade and in the United States navy. Their son, the subject of this review, received

his literary education in Waterville College. In the spring of 1859 he entered Rush Medical Col- lege, Chicago, from which he graduated in the spring of 1862 with the degree of M. D. Soon afterward, entering the army, he received ap- pointment, April 17, as acting assistant surgeon of United States Volunteers, and was ordered to Keokuk, Iowa, where he was assigned to duty with the wounded from the battle of Shiloh, Tenn., at Hospital No. I. February 12, 1863, he was transferred to the department of the Cum- berland, and assigned to Hospital No. 19, at Nashville, where he remained until May. On the 27th of that month he was appointed and commissioned first assistant surgeon of the Eighty-ninth Illinois Infantry ("Railroad " Regiment), which he joined at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and was mustered in as first assistant surgeon June 19, 1863, attached to the First Brigade, Second Division, Twentieth Army Corps, army of the Cumberland, until October, 1863. From that time until June, 1865, he was with the First Brigade, Third Division, Fourth Army Corps, and participated, among other en- gagements, in the battles of Lawrenceburg and Tullahoma, Tenn., June 24, 1863 ; Liberty Gap, June 25-27, where he took the wounded from the field; occupation of Tullahoma, July 1; Chattanooga campaign, August to September ; Chickamauga, Ga., September 20, on which day he was taken prisoner while attending to the wounded on the field. He remained on duty in the prison hospital at Atlanta, Ga., until Jan- uary, 1864, when he was sent to Libby prison, at Richmond, and from there was exchanged February 24, 1864. He rejoined his regiment in the field in April of that year and participated in the Atlanta campaign from May to September, taking part in the march on Dalton May 5-9 ; Tunnel Hill May 7 ; Rock-Faced Ridge May 8- 11 : Resaca May 13-15 ; Adairsville May 17-18 ; Cassville May 19-22; advance on Dallas May 23-25 ; battle of Dallas and vicinity ; Pumpkin Vine Creek ; Alatoona Hills May 25-June 4 ; Pickett's Mills May 27 (where the Eighty-ninth Regiment sustained a loss of twenty-four killed, one hundred and two wounded and twenty-eight missing, a total loss of one hundred and fifty- four) ; Kenesaw June 9-July 2; Pine Mountain June 14; Lost Mountain June 15-17; Pine Knob June 18; Culp's Farm June 22; assault on Ken- esaw June 27; Marietta July 4; Chattahootchie River July 6-17; Vining Station; Peach Tree

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July 19-20; Atlanta July 22; siege of Atlanta July 22-September 2; Utoy Creek August 5-7; flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30; battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1; Lovejoy Station September 2; pursuit of Hood to Atlanta October 3-26; Nashville campaign from November to December; Columbia, Duck River November 24-28; Spring Hill November 29; Franklin November 30; Nashville December 15-16; pursuit of Hood to the Tennessee River December 17-18; on duty at Huntsville, Ala., until March, 1865; expedition to Bull's Gap and operations in East Tennessee from March 15 to April 22; on duty at Nashville until June 10, 1865, when he was mustered out of the service in that city, and was honorably discharged at Chica- go, Ill., June 24. During the Atlanta campaign, from May 5, 1864, to September 8, 1864, the Fourth Corps was under fire almost constantly for more than one hundred days. At Stone River Dr. Thombs and his hospital were taken by the Confederates, but were retaken by the Federal soldiers on the same day. For twenty-two days and nights after the battle of Chickamauga he remained on the battlefield, caring for the wound- ed soldiers.

Lieut .- Col. William D. Williams, of the Eighty- ninth Illinois Infantry, in command of the regi- ment, in his report of the operations of his regi- ment in the official records of the Civil war, Series " 1, volume 38, page 405, says: "I cannot let the occasion pass without bearing testimony to the zeal and efficiency of Surgeon H. B. Tuttle and Assistant Surgeon P. R. Thombs, both of whom freely exposed their lives to assist the wounded and assauge the pains of the dying. Surgeon Tuttle succumbed to the arduous toil and inces- sant devotion opposite Atlanta and is still sick in the hospital. Surgeon Thombs continued to the final end and has won a name, with the Eighty- ninth, for skill and humanity second to none in the army of the Cumberland."

The duties of his position obliged Dr. Thombs to give his time, day and night to the care of the sick and wounded. All of the surgeons in the brigade were ill except himself and the sur- geon of the Eighth Kansas Infantry, and it de- volved upon these two to attend the sick and in- jured. The strain of this work and the respon- sibility told fearfully upon him, but he never gave up for a moment, continuing at his post of duty until the war came to an end. When the cam- paign closed he weighed only one hundred and

twenty pounds, and for long afterward he felt the results of his hardships and overwork in the army. Soon after the end of the war he received from the government a staff appointment as surgeon of the United States Volunteers and was assigned to Murfreesboro, Tenn., as post surgeon, remain- ing there until June, 1866, when he retired front the service and returned to his old home in Maine.

In August, 1866, Dr. Thombs came to Colo- rado and shortly afterward opened an office in Pueblo, where he soon acquired a large practice in medicine and surgery. In May, 1879, the legislature having provided for a state asylum for the insane, he was appointed resident physi- cian and superintendent, and has since given his attention exclusively to the supervision of the asylum. Through all these years he has con- tinued a painstaking student of his profession, which has in him an honored and honorable rep- resentative. Wishing to become proficient in French, in order that he might be able to read the medical books and journals of that language, he studied and mastered it, so that he can now read it fluently. His contributions to medical literature have been along the line of nervous diseases and are valuable additions to that depart- ment of therapeutics. In everything pertaining to the medical profession he takes a deep interest. He is a member of the American Medical Asso- ciation, American Medico-Physiological Associa- tion, State Medical Association (of which he was president in 1883), and the Pueblo County Medi- cal Association, of which he was one of the or- ganizers and served as president during the first two years of its existence.

In political views Dr. Thombs is a Republican. Fraternally he is a life member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks; is connected with the Colorado Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; is associated with the Eighty-ninth Illinois Veterans' Associa- tion; and Upton Post No. 8, G. A. R., and served as colonel on the national commander's staff in 1897. He was made a Mason in Casco Lodge No. 36, Yarmouth, Me., and became a charter member of Pueblo Lodge No. 17, A. F. & A. M., of whose original seven members three are living, Dr. Thombs, J. D. Miller and C. J. Hart. This lodge was organized, under difficulties, when Pueblo was a mere hamlet, and to Dr. Thombs is due not a little of its succees, for he has assist- ed in its growth to the leading lodge in the city.

Dr. Thombs was married in Pueblo to Miss

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Louise Shaw, who was born in Elmira, N. Y., and is an accomplished lady, popular in social circles. They have an only danghter, Jennie.

ENRY N. ROUSE, who was one of the prominent early settlers of Morgan County, and is now numbered among its leading ranchmen, was born in Litchfield County, Conn., November 7, 1844, a son of Albion C. and Mar- tha W. (Whittlesey) Rouse. Of three children he and his sister Martha, the widow of Milton Duffield, of Chicago, are the survivors. His father, a native of Litchfield County, Conn., was born November 10, 1798, and grew to manhood in his native locality, where he married and re- sided nntil 1849. He then disposed of his farm and removed to Illinois, settling in Woodford County, ten miles northeast of Peoria. For many years he continued on the same farm, which, un- der his management, was brought under a fine state of cultivation. January 21, 1882, his house was destroyed by fire. He then bonght property in the town of Metamora, but was not permitted to enjoy his new home, as his death occurred in March following. He was not a public man in any sense of the word. His tastes were domestic, his inclinations toward private life. However, he was a progressive, patriotic citizen, and always held an interest in local affairs of a beneficial nature. For some years in Illinois he served as justice of the peace. He was a contributor toward the building of the railroad through the section of Illinois in which he lived, was interested in the construction of the Housatonic Valley Railway in Connecticut, and other enterprises received his encouragement and financial support. His death occurred, as above stated, in March, 1882.

Our subject's mother was born in Washing- ton, Litchfield County, Conn., October 6, 1812, and was a descendant of Eliphalet Whittlesey, who was born in England May 10, 1714, and came to America in an early day, settling in Washington, Conn. Our subject was educated in common schools and the Michigan State Agri- cultural College in Lansing, Mich. For four years he worked on the home farm, but repeated attacks of asthma threatened to make this disease chronic, and to escape from it he changed the entire course of his life. It was the plan that the home place should descend to him, and that he would care for his parents until they died, but his

ill health forced him to leave for a more conge- nial climate. He arrived in Denver October 4, 1870. For a few days he worked in the employ of a carpenter there. Afterward he was em- ployed on construction work on the Boulder Val- ley Railroad, being engaged in teaming. When his employer disposed of his teams he began to freight to Canon City and Pueblo, hauling coal from Marshall to Denver, and later freighting to Denver. In April, 1871, he became foreman on a ranch eight miles east of Longmont on the St. Vrain, where he continued for three seasons. In the fall of 1873 he hauled hay, with a six-horse team, to Denver, where he disposed of it. In the summer he rode on the range with cattle owned by George Cole. At the time he entered the lat- ter's employ an agreement was made permitting him to be allowed to turn in one hundred head of yearling cattle of his own, but he turned in only sixty five head. While he was working for a salary he was also laying the foundation for a cattle business of his own. In the spring of 1876 he rented a hay ranch near Brighton from Mr. Cole, and this he managed, besides looking after the cattle. In June of 1877 he returned to Illinois on a visit, coming back to Colorado the latter part of the same month. During the re- mainder of the summer he rode on the range with his cattle.

On Christmas evening of 1877 Mr. Rouse mar- ried Miss Caroline Gooding, a native of New Jer- sey, and daughter of Peter Gooding, who had been for many years a prominent farmer of Illi- nois. Prior to his marriage Mr. Rouse bought some improvements at Lost Springs near Rog- gen, and there he settled with his wife, at the same time filing a pre-emption on a tract of one hundred and sixty acres. While improving his land and looking after his cattle, he also rode on the range for other parties. In 1883 he sold some of his herd and removed to a ranch five and one- half miles east of Fort Morgan, where he has since resided. He has been prospered, becom- ing one of the substantial men of his county. His farming land numbers four hundred and eighty acres, improved and valnable. A pioneer in the cattle business, he has done much toward the de- velopment of this industry, and has had varied experience on the plains during the long years of his life in Colorado. He and his wife became the . parents of four children, of whom two are living: Eva L., born October 24, 1878; and Ruby N., June 1, 1887.

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ILLIAM O. REDDING, who is engaged in the real-estate, loan and insurance busi- ness at Montrose, was born in Westerville, Ohio, July 15, 1860, a son of Charles A. and Mary (Clark) Redding. His father, who was a native of New York state, removed to Ohio and became a prominent merchant of Westerville, of which place he was for forty years a business man. During the Civil war he served as a mem- ber of the band of the Forty-sixth Ohio Regi- ment. Now seventy-three years of age, he makes his home in Montrose. Of his four children, John C., the oldest son, is connected with the second son, our subject, in the abstract business at Mont- rose; Hattie, the wife of C. F. Dreher, resides in Montrose; and Frank makes his home in Fre- mont, Ohio.

The first twenty-eight years of our subject's life were passed in Ohio, where he received a lib- eral education. At fifteen years of age he began to earn his own livelihood, and the schooling he afterward secured was obtained through his own efforts. For two years he was a student in Ot- terbein University. From seventeen until twen- ty-one he was employed as clerk iu a general store, after which he opened a men's furnishing store at Westerville, Ohio, continuing there until he came to Montrose, Colo., in 1888. For one year he was employed as manager of the dry- goods department of the Montrose Mercantile Company, after which he became bookkeeper for the Montrose Investment Company, and two years later established his present business. In his charge he has some twenty thousand acres of land. He acts as general agent for the Equita- ble Securities Company of New York City in Colorado, and represents fifteen of the leading insurance companies of America and Europe. In the placing of loans on farm lands for eastern capitalists he has done a large business, and in negotiating loans has been unusually successful. He is also an expert accountant. He owns one- half interest in the only set of abstract books in the county, which company does all the business in this line, and is known as the Montrose Ab- stract Company. In 1898 he originated the pres- ent telephone system, which he now owns and manages, having about one hundred instruments in use, and connecting most of the business houses and a large number of residences.

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Portrait and biographical record of the state of Colorado, containing portraits and biographies of many well known citizens of the past and present, Part 181

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1530

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1530