USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 21
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Cimarron, the old county seat, is better known as the headquarters of the Maxwell grant, in the days of Maxwell himself, and was for many years a United States army post, as well as one of the principal stations
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on the Santa Fé trail. During the exciting period between the early days of American occupation and the advent of railroads, Cimarron and the notorious "Clifton House," south of Raton, were the headquarters of some of the most notorious bands of criminals which ever afflicted the western frontier. Murders were of almost daily occurrence, and it is believed that many Mexican inhabitants who mysteriously disappeared in those days met death at the hands of their implacable enemies, the soldiers of the United States army. Among the noted characters who have visited Cimar- ron, in years past, was Paul du Chaillu, the African traveler, who visited the town for six months, in 1880, while collecting notes for a "write-up on the Maxwell land grant," his companion being Frank R. Sherman.
Elizabethtown, the first county seat, lies in the midst of a gold region in the western part of the county, and years ago was the center of a great mining boom. The Aztec mine, which first attracted population to this locality, was in its time famous throughout the west. The neighboring streams abound in placer gold, and the entire region is still productive.
Maxwell City is on the railroad midway between Raton and Springer. It was projected by the Maxwell Grant Company as the headquarters of its operations and the location of the central offices. Blossburg, to which there is a railroad spur from the main line of the A., T. & S. F., is a large shipping point for coal, while Gardner and Van Houten are mining towns.
Antime Joseph Meloche, a ranchman residing eighteen miles east of Raton in Colfax county. is a pioneer of the Territory of 1869 and his memory bears the impress of its early historic annals as well as of its later progress and development. He has been identified with many interests which constitute an epochal chapter in the history of the west and the southwest. He was born at Lachine on the St. Lawrence river near Mon- treal, Canada, September 21. 1837, and left home when little more than eight years of age, since which time he has been dependent entirely upon his own resources, so that whatever success he has achieved has resulted from his earnest labors. He has faced difficulties and obstacles, adversity and danger and altogether his life has been one of untiring industry and enterprise. On leaving home he went to Hamilton, Canada, on a boat whose captain was a neighbor of the Meloche family in Canada. From Hamilton he proceeded to Chicago and thence continued on to St. Louis, Missouri, it requiring three days to make the trip between the two cities, which at that time, however, were small and inconsequential places. He worked for three years in St. Louis and in St. Clair county, Illinois. He was still but a boy at the time and had practically no money. For three years he was employed in a store on Bloody Island in the Mississippi river and afterward went to Kansas, where he spent a year. In the next spring, 1857, he started to drive a six mule team for the United States government to the scene of the Cheyenne war, the headquarters of the troops being at Leavenworth.
In December. 1857, while returning to Fort Leavenworth from the Cheyenne war, he met, at the Big Blue in Kansas, General Cook with the Second United States Dragoons on his way to the Mormon war. Mr. Meloche and his companions joined the troops, and after a wintry march, through snow in which the horses and many of the men were exhausted, reached Fort Bridger on Christmas day. Here some ten thousand troops were gathered. The Second Dragoons lost 500 horses on the trip. Through
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the winter the troops were on short rations. Peace was made between the soldiers and Mormons in April, 1858, and in the fall Camp Floyd was built by the troops.
In the middle of the summer Mr. Meloche started as a teamster from Salt Lake to California, driving for General Albert Sidney Johnston, and subsequently he worked for General W. S. Hancock, then quartermaster general for southern California. He continued in the Golden state until the fall of 1858. when he went through Arizona to the Pinos Altos mines in New Mexico. When within fifteen miles of Tucson, at early daylight, he saw thirty or forty Indians on the war path, who occasioned him con- siderable annoyance but at length allowed him to depart in peace. He remained for four or five days at Tucson and there met Judge McKown, the noted San Francisco editor, who a short time before had killed another editor in San Francisco. In company with Judge Mckown, Mr. Meloche continued the journey from Tucson to Pinos Altos. He was driven from here by Indians and after some adventures about Fort Stanton, on the 23d of August, 1859, he reached Santa Fe, hunting work, on the way to the Missouri river. Three or four days later he started overland for Fort Union and obtained employment there at driving a six-mule team, continu- ing at that place until the close of the war.
In 1861 Mr. Meloche became assistant wagon master for the gov- ernment and for four years was full wagon master, traveling sometimes to Albuquerque. again to Fort Craig, Fort Fillmore, Fort Stanton, Fort Win- gate and other points. In 1865 he wintered six hundred and fifty cavalry horses for the government at Maxwell, New Mexico, and in the spring of 1866 he began operating a Maxwell farm on the shares and also raising cattle. This was his first real independent business venture. In 1867 he located a pre-emption homestead and timber claim, which is his present place of residence. Now, in connection with a partner, A. D. Thompson, of Duluth, Minnesota, he has twenty-two hundred and fifty acres of land, constituting a valuable ranch, and his son, A. J. Meloche, Jr., twenty- eight years of age, acts as his manager. Since coming into possession of his ranch Mr. Meloche has continuously carried on general farming and stock raising, developing a business of considerable importance and becom- ing one of the well known ranch men of the Territory. In early days he had considerable trouble with the white cattle thieves, who threatened him and ordered him out of the country, but he was not afraid of them, although he was always alert and watchful. He says "they were good at a bluff" but he never shot at them. He relates an incident of a call from some desperadoes who wanted him and came to him on horseback, but his dauntless spirit showed them that they had better not interfere with him. He received many letters to "bundle up and leave or we will kill you," but he sent back word, "Come on. I will be ready for you." Some of the same band of men afterward robbed a United States coach of the Butterfield line at Apache Pass and seven of the number were hanged for the crime. In 1891-2, Mr. Meloche lost over twenty thousand dollars' worth of cattle because of the severe winter. He has had at times as high as one thousand head of cattle and at one time owned between four and five hundred head of horses. He now has an extensive ranch well stocked, and the business under the active management of his son and the careful direction of Mr. Meloche is proving profitable. In the fall of 1904 he erected his present
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handsome residence, which is one of the beautiful homes in his part of the Territory.
In 1870, in Daviess county, Missouri, Mr. Meloche was married to Miss Mary Ann Isbell and they became the parents of five children, of whom a daughter and son are now deceased. The others are: Minnie, the wife of Charles B. Pim, of Raton; Mrs. Pearl Skiles, of Raton; and Antime Joseph, Jr.
Mr. Meloche in 1869 joined Kit Carson Lodge, A. F. & A. M., at Elizabethtown and is now a member of Raton lodge. He was also formerly identified with the Odd Fellows lodge at Raton. In politics he has always been a stanch Democrat and he served as postmaster at Vermejo, New Mexico, for three years, being commissioned by General Grant. His life history, if written in detail, would furnish a chapter more thrilling and interesting than any tale of fiction. As it is, he is a typical frontiersman who has aided in blazing the way of civilization and has remained to carry on the work of the earliest settlers in the development of the natural re- sources of the Territory and the establishment of business enterprises which work for activity and prosperity in the southwest.
John Jelfs, vice-president of the First National Bank of Raton, and one of the founders of the town, was born near London, England, August 8, 1836. Emigrating to the United States in 1872, he was employed by the Iowa Central Railroad Company until 1880, at which time he removed to New Mexico. Later he came to Raton, then a small railroad camp, and here he became foreman of the shops then being constructed by the Santa Fé Railroad Company. When he reached Raton he found but three other people at this place, all of whom were employes of the railroad company, and no houses had been constructed at that time. Mr. Jelfs was one of the first citizens of the new town to take up his abode in a box car belong- ing to the railroad company, and by the spring of 1881 sixty-three box cars were occupied in this manner as homes.
From 1881 until 1898 he retained his position as foreman of the rail- road shops, and then resigned his position to identify himself with the First National Bank, in which he was, in that year, elected a director. Soon afterward he was chosen vice-president of the institution, which position he has continued to fill to the present time.
Upon the organization of the town of Raton, in the spring of 1891, Mr. Jelfs was elected a member of the Board of Trustees, serving two terms in that office. He was also a member of the first school board of the new town, and one of the organizers of the Raton Building & Loan Asso- ciation, having served as its president since its organization, in 1889.
On the 4th of September, 1858, Mr. Jelfs was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Bunyan, a native of England, and they have become the par- ents of the following named: Annie, the wife of Frank Henning, of Raton; Harry, a resident of Tucson, Arizona; Alfred, who is living in Raton; and Alice, who is with her parents. Mr. Jelfs, in his business career, has made consecutive advancement, until he today occupies a posi- tion of affluence in the community where he has made his home since the inception of the town.
Edmund N. Burch, county commissioner of Colfax county, was born in Keokuk, Iowa, December 12, 1849, son of Eli and Apphiah (Tolman) Burch, and was reared on his father's farm and educated in the common
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schools of his native state. He continued to reside in Iowa until the spring of 1883, when he landed in New Mexico, the date of his arrival being March I. His first work here was as a car repairer, in the employ of the Santa Fé Railroad Company. Afterward he clerked for seven years in the grocery of George J. Pace. Then for four years he ran a dairy on the Sugarite, five miles from Raton. In the spring of 1898 he filed a home- stead claim to one hundred and sixty acres of land on Johnson's mesa, since then he bought one hundred and sixty acres adjoining him on the south, and now he has three hundred and twenty acres, devoted chiefly to dairy purposes. On this farm is a fine well of pure water, which comes from a depth of ten feet through a crevice of the rock and affords a con- stant and abundant supply of water.
Politically Mr. Burch is a Republican. In the fall of 1900 he was elected county commissioner of Colfax county, for a term of four years, in 1904 was re-elected for two years, and is the incumbent of the office at this writing. His service as commissioner has been characterized by that enterprise and thoroughness which have brought success to him in his own private affairs. Among other county matters he has been especially interested in the betterment of roads, with the result that many new roads have been made and old ones improved. In educational affairs also has Mr. Burch been prominent and active. He was a member of the school board two years, 1899-1900. It was largely through his efforts that school district No. 5 was organized in 1900 and the schoolhouse built in the spring of the following year, this being the third school on the mesa. Another movement in which Mr. Burch was an important factor was that of secur- ing a telephone system for his locality, in the summer of 1904, he having helped to organize and incorporate a company under the name of the John- son Mesa Telephone Company. And he has contributed some valuable articles to the Raton Ranger.
December 8, 1875, Mr. Burch married Ada Clark, a native of Iowa. Their fourth born, a daughter, Blanche, died at the age of three years. Of their other children, we record that Maud A. is the wife of Henry Floyd, of Johnson's mesa; Nellie M. is the wife of James Floyd, also of Johnson's mesa; Eli U. and Verne E., at home. Mr. Burch holds to the Baptist creed and has membership in the church at Raton.
Eugene G. Twitty, deputy county clerk of Colfax county, making his home in Raton, was for a number of years connected with the cattle industry of this section of the country, and is a worthy representative of a high type of citizenship in the southwest. He was born in Chicago, Illi- nois, November 15, 1861, and is a son of Edward and Elizabeth (Jones) Twitty. He spent his boyhood and youth in Chicago, pursuing his educa- tion in the public schools there, and on the 6th of June, 1881, arrived in New Mexico, in company with his father. He located at Vermejo Park, ' where he engaged in the cattle business, residing there until 1889, and from 1882 was associated in business with his brother. They were squatters on a grant, which in 1889 they sold to the Maxwell Land Grant Company, at which time Mr. Twitty of this review entered the employ of that company as bookkeeper in charge of their accounts connected with their farming and cattle-raising interests. He was thus employed from September, 1889, until March, 1901, at Cimarron, and in February, 1892, became a resident of Raton.
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After leaving the Maxwell Land Grant Company he gave his atten- tion to the cattle business on Point creek, where he still owns a ranch, devoted exclusively to his cattle interests, which return him a good in- come annually. Since the Ist of January, 1905, he has held the position of deputy county clerk of Colfax county, and is proving a most capable official, being systematic, prompt and reliable in the performance of the duties which devolve upon him. In his political views he is a Republican, and fraternally is connected with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is popular in his community and has a wide and favorable ac- quaintance.
Mathias Heck, a pioneer of New Mexico, who is now living retired near Cimarron, came to New Mexico in 1863 from California, making his way to Santa Fe. He was born in Cologne, Germany, June 19, 1829, and came to the United States in 1844, when a youth of fifteen years. He landed at New York and afterward made his way westward. He engaged in peddling jewelry in the southern states until 1849, when, attracted by the discovery of gold in California, he went by way of the Panama route to the Pacific coast. He was very successful in his operations there and was identified with mining and other interests until 1862, when he en- listed at San Francisco for service in the Civil war, becoming a member of Company K, of the First California Cavalry. It was with this com- mand that he came to New Mexico in 1863, going to Santa Fé and after- ward to Fort Yuma, Arizona. He participated in the battle of Adobe Walls, or Panhandle, in the fall of 1864, in which engagement General Kit Carson took part. About three hundred and forty Indians were killed, while among the whites there were only two killed and twenty-two wounded. Mr. Heck was also a participant in the fight with the Indians in 1865 at Julesburg, Colorado, where the federal troops succeeded in quelling the red men. He did much frontier service while connected with the army and made a circuit of all the old forts in New Mexico, being discharged at Santa Fé on the 4th of July, 1866.
In the following year. 1867, Mr. Heck was married to Miss Margaret Plum, who came to this Territory from St. Louis, July 2, 1864, arriving at Las Vegas. She started on the first of June of that year in a coach which had a military escort. It was at that time that the Kansas Southern rail- road, now the Santa Fe, was being built and the Indians were very trouble- some.
Mrs. Heck located at Las Vegas, New Mexico, where she remained as a servant for fifteen months, being in the employ of Mrs. Andreas Doll. She afterward spent fifteen months with Frederick Meyer at Mora and it was there, on the 6th of November, 1867, that the wedding occurred. The children are: Theodore, who died September 8. 1892; J. Matt; Paulina, the widow of Isaac Benton ; and Katherina, the wife of Juston Green, of Raton.
In 1869 Mr. Heck located eighteen miles south of Cimarron, where he kept a government station, furnishing supplies to the soldiers and also feed for horses. He conducted a store there for nine years and the Indians were all around him. He often fed the Indian thieves in order to keep them on good terms. They would sit on the floor in a circle while he gave them coffee, bread and molasses. He also had a government con- tract to furnish the Indians at his present place with meat. On one side
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of him were the Apaches and on the other side of Cimarron creek were the Utes. They all drew rations at Cimarron, receiving nine or ten thou- sand pounds of beef every ten days. Mr. Heck is now owner of a large ranch, which is managed by his son Matt, who is engaged in the cattle business. He also has an orchard of two acres and his son has an orchard of five acres. For many years Mr. Heck was very active in the develop- ment of farming and cattle raising interests here, but is now practically living retired. He was one of the first to discover gold at Elizabethtown, and he has mining claims there and also at Springer. He has always been a Democrat and was active in organizing the county. His wife was a resident of Las Vegas when there were only six other white women in the town, and Mr. Heck visited Santa Fe before there was a single shingled roof in that city. He is familiar with all of the experiences, hardships and trials of pioneer life in an Indian country and has watched with inter- est the progress that has been made as this region has been reclaimed for the uses of the white race and the seeds of civilization have been planted and have borne rich fruit.
Obadiah J. Niles, deceased, was one of the pioneers of Elizabethtown, New Mexico. He came to this Territory from his native state, Illinois, in 1868 or 1869, and settled at Elizabethtown, where he opened a shop and worked at his trade, that of wagonmaker. Also he was interested in the cattle business and had a dairy. He continued an active life here until well advanced in years, when he moved to Springer and retired. There he died at the ripe age of eighty-three years. He was a Democrat, promi- nent and active in public affairs. For twelve years he served as a justice of the peace at Elizabethtown, this being during the most unsettled and disorderly times in the history of the town, and he did much toward bring- ing about a change for the better in conditions here. He was a charter member of the Masonic lodge at Elizabethtown. Mr. Niles' widow died in Springer, in 1903. They had an only son. George Johnson Niles.
George Johnson Niles was born in Iowa. About 1871 he went to Ecuador, South America, in the employ of the Arroyo Railroad Company, where he remained a few years, and from whence, about 1875 or 1876, he went to California. After spending a year or more in the Golden state he came, in 1877, to New Mexico, joining his parents in Elizabethtown. Here he mined for a time in the employ of Matthew Lynch. Afterward he turned his attention to the cattle business and to dairving on Moreno creek, where he remained until his death. His wife. nce Mary O'Connell, died in Ecuador.
O. Jay Niles, only son of George Johnson and Mary (O'Connell) Niles, was born in Wyandotte, Kansas, September 20, 1869; accompanied his parents to South America and after his mother's death went with his father to California and thence came to New Mexico in 1877, as stated. He attended for a short time an industrial school in San Francisco and afterward went to public school in Elizabethtown. He was on the ranch with his father until his father's death, and has since been more or less interested in the cattle business. For several years he has been engaged in surveying, doing government work on the subdivisions of Colfax and Mora counties. He sold his ranch, eighteen miles west of Springer, in the fall of 1904, and has since lived in Elizabethtown. He is proprietor of the Maxwell House, so named because title to the property came from
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L. B. Maxwell in 1869. Like his grandfather and father before him, O. Jay Niles is a Democrat. In local politics, however, he gives his sup- port to the man rather than the party. From 1892 to 1898 lie served as deputy sheriff of Colfax county. He is a member of the Fraternal Broth- erhood at Springer.
Mr. Niles has a wife and three children: Edith Adeline, George Maurice and Stanley J. Mrs. Niles, formerly Miss Mary E. Gallagher, is a daughter of Maurice Gallagher, a miner and early settler of Eliza- bethtown.
George E. Beebe, until recently postmaster of Elizabethtown, Colfax county, was born in Liverpool, Medina county, Ohio, November 27, 1845, son of Warner and Jane (Gilchrist ) Beebe. His father was a farmer. George E. Beebe's boyhood days were passed like those of other farmer boys in the middle west. December 16, 1863, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted for service in the Civil war, and went to the front as a member of the Ohio Sharpshooters that acted as guard for General George H. Thomas, their service being chiefly in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. At the close of the war, with a record for bravery and without a demerit mark, young Beebe was mustered out of the ranks at Nashville, Tennessee, in July, 1865, and returned north to Michigan, where he remained for some time. Exposure and hardship incident to army life left him in ill health, and seeking a milder climate than was found in the lake states, he came in 1869 to New Mexico. His first stop here was in Lincoln county, where he remained two years. Then he traveled through the southwest, hunting buffalo, and on his return from the buffalo hunt located permanently in Elizabethtown, where he engaged in placer mining. Later he clerked for John Rearson, Sr., after which he engaged in business for himself, and from April, 1903, until his death was postmaster of the town. While not active in politics, Mr. Beebe always voted the Republican ticket. Mr. Beebe's wife, formerly Miss Romana Sanchez, is a daughter of Narciso Sanchez, and a native of San Miguel county, New Mexico.
James Scully, a rancher living at Elizabethtown, was born in Ireland in 1840, and when but nine years of age was brought to the United States by an aunt. He was reared by a French family in Louisiana, and in 1861, responding to the call of the Confederacy, joined a military company known as the Louisiana Rifle Tigers. In an engagement he was captured and afterward sent to Chicago, where for some time he was held as a prisoner of war.
Following the close of hostilities Mr. Scully made his way westward, and was engaged at teaming at Fort Riley and at Fort Lyon. In 1868 he came to Elizabethtown, where he took up mining claims and worked placer mining profitably for six or seven years, but believed that the cattle industry would prove a more profitable source of income, and in 1874 he purchased a ranch of Major Alford and began the conduct of this place and the herding and sale of stock. He now has between seven and eight thousand acres of land and a lease on thirty thousand acres of grazing land. He runs large numbers of cattle and horses, and is one of the well known and prominent stock men and ranchers of the southwest. He likewise has five hundred acres of his land under cultivation and produces thereon abundant crops. In his farming operations he follows the most modern, practical and progressive methods and thereby secures good results. Both
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his farming and cattle business are proving profitable, and in addition to his property in Texas he owns real estate in Springer and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in Louisiana.
Jason F. Carrington, a retired citizen of Elizabethtown, was born at Fairfax Court House, Virginia, October 10, 1837, where the family home was maintained until he was eight years old. Then they moved to Detroit, Michigan. He was reared in Michigan, and educated in Ann Arbor University. When Civil war was inaugurated he was among the first to enlist his services for the suppression of the rebellion, and went to the front as a member of the Second Michigan Cavalry. At the expiration of his term of enlistment, in 1863, he was at Baltimore, Maryland, where he immediately re-enlisted, this time as a member of the Bradford Dragoons, which became the Third Maryland Cavalry, and he remained in the army until the close of the war, when he was mustered out at Vicks- burg, September 14, 1865. Although he participated in many engagements and was often in the thickest of the fight, he never received but one wound, that being while on the Red river expedition.
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