Tales of the Colorado Pioneers

By Alice Polk Hill

"Tales of the Colorado Pioneers, by Alice Polk Hill, contains many interesting stories of early struggles of the men who settled and developed the Centennial State." -San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 9, 1884

"Alice Polk Hill...has collected all the stories, witty pathetic, and exciting, of the early da

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookcrop
• Release date: Jan 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869138415

Book preview

PREFACE.

Sept. 13, 1883, Colorado completed the first quarter century of its wonderful history—the Nation's youngest child; and very large and frisky for her age.

The barnacles held a reunion on that, occasion, and it occurred to me while at the banquet, and listening to the toasts, that incidents in the lives of the brave people who First spied the country out, and pioneered the way, might make an interesting book, and now was the time to do the work, when the stories could be gathered from the lips of those who had taken part in the First Act, over which the curtain had just dropped.

Scholarly iconoclasts have annihilated William Tell and his apple by showing that no mention of them was made in Switzerland 'till about two centuries after Tell's supposed time. The story of Romulus, Remus and the wolf, that so charmed us in our impressible and sympathetic years, is now a fable.

I solemnly avow that the tales herein related are— told as they were told to me!

If I have succeeded in reviving some pleasant recollection for the old timer, beguiling the weary traveler or interesting the general reader, my aspirations have, in a measure, been reached. If I have betrayed confidence or told anything that I ought not to have told—I will graciously accept all apologies.

THE AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I. GOLD.

A large proportion of the explorers, adventurers, pilgrims, prospectors and colonial tramps that, since the days of Noah, have marched away to establish settlements elsewhere, have been driven to it by some unpleasantness at home.

Colorado was to some extent an outgrowth of the great financial crash of 1857. Time-honored houses had reeled, tottered and gone down in the overwhelming business convulsion of that period, and men were ready for any venture which gave even faint promise of rebuilding their ruined fortunes, when Green Russell, a Georgian, returned from Pike's Peak, bearing tidings of great joy. He had found gold.

The Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, makes frequent mention of gold and silver. Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. Solomon, the great king of the Hebrews, had portions of his temple overlaid with gold. The followers of Moses made a golden calf and worshipped it. Even before the recital of the creation of woman, the existence of gold is mentioned. Genesis 2:12 reads: And the gold of that land was good; but we are not told who discovered it. However, all peoples in all ages have found it to be a good thing to have in the house. It's the fulcrum that moves the world; it buys everything, even a husband or wife.

When Green Russell exhibited his buckskin bag of shining dust to the men who had lost their all, it caused a wild, indiscriminate rush to the new Eldorado, embracing good, bad and indifferent; tha educated and illiterate; the merchant, the speculator, the mechanic, the farmer, the gambler, some of every kind—a sort of human mosaic, marshalled under a banner which bore the forceful if inelegant legend, Pike's Peak or Bust.

A journey from the Missouri river in those days occupied from six to seven weeks. Wagons christened prairie schooners, drawn by the contemplative ox and the patient mule, supplemented by the foot and walker line, were the only means of transportation. Pullman sleepers were unknown. There were no settlements on the way, no opportunity to procure supplies for man or beast, save at the occasional stations of Ben Holladay's overland stage line to California. It was genuine courage that prompted the pioneers to such a journey in the face of approaching winter, for the plains, covered with snow and infested with hostile Indians and wild beasts, like the Clashing Islands that closed after the Argo and her crew of heroes, would cut them off from any communication with home or friends for months—years, perhaps; they knew not how long. It was by the help of Medea, who was found at the end of the road, that Jason captured the golden fleece. A few of the Argonauts of '59, thinking a bird in the hand worth two in the bush, took their helpmeets with them. They were not painted society belles or light-brained coquettes, but women of good practical sense and moral and physical strength. They had no time or worsted to waste in making deformed cats and dogs; but their husbands' garments were models of crazy patchwork, and they practiced wood carving twice a day, at the morning and evening camp-fires.

There were no Mother Hubbard gowns in those days.

Picture, said Judge Stone, in his address to the Barnacles, a pioneer woman in a 'Mother Hubbard' gown, sailing around a windy camp-fire, or climbing in and out of the hind end of a prairie schooner! No; our pioneer women had no such 'loose habits.'

Unfeigned joy filled the hearts of the weary and travelworn pilgrims when, with eager, wistful gaze they descried in the distance the everlasting watch-towers of the continent, that marked the gold fields they were seeking.

They pitched their tents under the cottonwood trees on the west side of Cherry creek, near its junction with the Platte, about twelve miles from the base of the Rocky mountains, and called the settlement Auraria—after an unimportant mining town in Georgia—with the belief, that in the mountains they would soon make their pile and return to their homes to live forever afterwards in affluence. For not one of the many thousands who came cherished a thought of building a permanent home here.

Apropos is the story of the Dutchman who was hanged for stealing. (Hanging was the punishment for all deviltry in those days.) Before adjusting the noose he was asked what he had to say for himself. With a quavering voice he said, I come out mit de spring to stay mit de summer and go back mit de fall, but now I tink I vill stay all de vile. He was duly planted, and warranted to remain as a permanent settler.

The same winter the town of St. Charles was located on the east bank of Cherry creek. It was afterwards called Denver, in honor of Governor Denver, of Kansas, this part of the Territory being at that time within the boundaries of Kansas.

Those cottonwood trees became a focus for the converging rays of immigration, and the foundation for the Queen City of the Plains was laid without knowing it. Therefore it may be said, Denver was not premeditated— it just happened. And now that it is nourishing like a green bay tree, the pioneers love to sit under its widespreading branches and tell how it was planted and grew —talk over the days that tried men's souls, and laugh over the customs that were new.

Many of the tales told are more like the Arabian Nights stories than matter-of-fact history, as will appear in the course of our narratives.

CHAPTER II. A RETROSPECT.

Colorado had no distinctive position on the maps at that time, although the country had been explored as early as 1540 by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico to glean information respecting the northern possessions claimed by that sovereign. Tradition tells us that he went in search of the seven cities of Cibolla, that were supposed to be situated in a peaceful, luxurious sort of Happy Valley of Rassalas, enclosed by huge mountains of solid gold. History, however, gives no record of his having discovered the key to the suspected treasure vaults.

The name Colorado has been by some mistakenly supposed to be a corruption of Coronado; but, on the contrary, it is a common Spanish word, from the verb colorar, to color, usually to color red, and means colored red, ruddy. It is a name frequently applied to rivers, mountains and localities in Spanish America, where the prevalence of red rocks and soil constitutes a characteristic physical feature of many portions of the country.

This portion of our continent was a sealed book for nearly three centuries after Coronado; and was generally designated the Great American Desert. In 1803 the United States purchased from France the immense territory known as Louisiana, the price being fifteen millions of dollars—one of the largest real estate transactions on record.

In 1806, Captain Zebulon Pike was sent with a party of Government explorers to ascertain the resources of this new acquisition. They camped where Pueblo now stands. On the day of their arrival the Captain and a few of his company started out with the idea of scaling the Big Mountain, as they called it, and returning the same evening. When night closed around them they found themselves at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, and the next day toiled to the top of it. On reaching the summit, the Big Mountain appeared to be as far away as when they first began. The enterprise resulted in ignominious defeat. They returned to their camp almost famished, and with their feet frozen; thereby, possibly, adding to the vernacular of the West the term tenderfoot.

Their mistake in the distance, caused by the rarified atmosphere, probably originated the story of the two men who started to walk to the mountains from Denver before breakfast. After tramping what seemed to them an unconscionable distance, one suggested to the other to proceed slowly, while he returned to Denver for a carriage. When overtaken by the friend, in the carriage, the pedestrian was sitting on the bank of a clear running brook, scarcely more than a step in breadth, deliberately taking off his clothes. On being asked why he did not step across, he replied: I've got the dead-wood on this thing now; you don't catch me making a fool of myself by trying to straddle this stream. It looks but a step, but it may be a mile for all I know; so I shall just take off my clothes and prepare for swimming.

Everyone who has ever heard of Colorado or set foot in it tells that story.

But to return to Pike. He did not take to himself the credit of being the first explorer of Western Louisiana, but accords the honor to one James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky. Pursley, with amazing generosity, credits it to Pike. The politeness of these gentlemen is without a parallel in history. Had they known the importance the country was destined to assume, half a century later, it would, no doubt, have taken coffee and pistols to decide the question of precedence.

Pike subsequently indulged quite heavily in a kind of appropriation peculiar to the West, called ''land-grabbing." He crossed the Sangre de Cristo Range into the San Luis Valley, and built a fort on the Rio Grande del Norte, claiming the land in the name of the United States, for which he was taken prisoner by the Spanish soldiers,

but afterwards released. It is said he was the first to fight the Indians with howitzers strapped on the backs of donkeys. When the fire was touched to them and the powder began to fizz, the donkeys whirled 'round and 'round like a mammoth Japanese pin wheel, while the men hugged ; mother earth so closely as to leave a deep imprint of their forms, which can be seen to this day, by the aid of a double, back-action microscope of extraordinary power. This is supposed to be true, because you can generally tell where one has been lying.

And then the ebbing wave of time threw a mist over the country for fourteen years more. In 1820, Col. Long was sent out to explore. He discovered Long's Peak, which was named for him. At least this is the historical supposition, but a Colorado barnacle tells me that this peak is so called "because it takes long to climb it."

The curtain went down, and was rung up again in 1843, when General John C. Fremont passed through on his way to the Pacific. Soon after the great migration to California commenced, and Colorado became the gateway to the land of gold, her own treasure still sleeping, to startle the continent when its morning should come.

In 1858, gold was discovered near the present site of Denver, and with the discovery began the first chapter in the history of Colorado.

CHAPTER III. DENVER IN '59.

From records and statistics of the past twenty-five years, and conversations with the pioneers, I gathered the following stories:

In 1859, immigration rolled into the country with almost unexampled rapidity. Stretching far out over the plains, was an apparently interminable procession of whitetopped wagons, moving, it seemed, at a snail's pace, many bearing the inscription, Lightning Express, Pike's Peak or Bust, Root Hog or Die, From Pike County to Pike's Peak, etc. Strange vehicles of all sorts crawled on the trail to the golden shrine. One pushed a wheelbarrow laden with supplies, and, it is said, took a boarder to help defray expenses. Another packed an ox with tools and provisions, and when weary and foot-sore from walking, swung himself to the creature's tail as an aid to locomotion. Many made the journey in pairs, with handcarts, alternately pushing and riding.

Denver seemed a second Babel. The arrival of teams, the loud cracking of whips, shouting of voices, and the sound of the builder's hammer, made confusion worse confounded of tongues and matter. Dwellings and business blocks—shanties—rose with marvelous rapidity. The prevailing style has been graphically pictured by the pioneer poet, Greenleaf:

"Inspect we this, built 'fifty-eight,' by one of bluest blood;

The logs are all square-hewn, and chinked and plastered o'er with mud;

The roof of poles, o'erspread with brush and what you'd call dirt shingles;

Its chimney square—stones, sticks and mud artistically mingles.

The earth had been well hardened down to constitute a floor;

They hadn't got to windows yet—'twas lighted from the door.

'Twas furnished in Auraria style, and that the very best,

Comprising four three-legged stools, a table and a chest;

The dishes—the prevailing style—-were tin; when meals were o'er

What cared he for hot water? 'twas a step beside the door,

To scoop of dirt a handful, and to pluck a wisp of grass,

Some skillful passes, lo! each plate would shame a looking-glass!

That's how he washed the dishes; next he seized each knife and fork,

And found the ground a substitute for rotten-stone and cork.

When, late at night, he stretched himself on skins of buffaloes,

No couch of down held tenant yet who suffered such repose!"

Entertainments of various kinds were given, and, though in primitive style, were thoroughly enjoyed. Mr. Fred. Salomon's dinners, as related, took the shine off of everything. He was considered the most punctiliously polite man in the settlement, a reputation fairly won and well preserved, as the following story will attest. His was a bachelor's home, with a bona fide ground floor, and furnished with pine table and three-legged stools. On one occasion he gave a dinner to his lady friends, and it was a meal that would have delighted the most fastidious epicure.

After the repast, the ladies, thinking it time to take their leave, requested Mr. Salomon to bring their wraps. Instead of protesting against the brevity of their stay, he instantly complied with their request, saying, Certainly, ladies, certainly; I will with the greatest of pleasure. When the force of his speech dawned upon him he hastened to apologize, at the same time nervously searching for his handkerchief to mop his perspiring brow. It was long before he heard the last of his after-dinner politeness. I remember hearing him say that the bachelors of '59 used newspapers for window shades, and as soon as one became a Benedict, the papers were replaced by curtains. If that is the rule to-day, Mr. Salomon still has newspaper window shades.

"There are stranger things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,"

and Fred, may yet retire behind the curtains before his hair is entirely gray—before he comes to dye.

Clothes will wear out, and the pantaloons that were made to do in a pinch were marvels to those who had not become accustomed to the ways and means of the far West.

"Oft were their breeches with old flour sacks mended,

In which more truth than poetry was blended."

Buckskin was the fashionable material for all new suits. They were whanged together with leather strings by the miners themselves. Mrs. Crull, then a tailoress, had followed the tide of emigration, with the hope of earning her bread at the trade, found her occupation gone, and turned her shingle to read:

DAY BOARD.

MEALS AT ALL HOURS.

CHAPTER IV. STAMPEDERS.

Many of the new arrivals were mere surface deposits, having come with Utopian ideas in regard to the wealth of the country, expecting to find great nuggets of yellow metal lying around loose, and streams burdened with liquid silver. These romantic fortune-seekers soon returned East, anathematizing the country and declaring Pike's Peak to be an unmitigated swindle, and under the inscription, Pike's Peak or Bust, was written, in larger, blacker letters, Busted, by Thunder. The plains for six hundred miles were the theatre of a restless, surging wave of humanity. D. C. Oakes had published a pamphlet, describing and lauding the country. It was the means of inducing many to emigrate. He had returned to the States, and was on his way back with a saw-mill, when he met the stampeders. They said he had sworn deceitfully—in other words, had told outrageous falsehoods, which they spelled with three letters, and they threatened to hang him and burn his mill. He met them bravely, by stating the fact of his having invested every dollar he was worth in that mill, which ought to be proof conclusive of his faith in the country. They gave him his life, but had the satisfaction of pelting him with execrating epithets. A little farther on he came to a newmade grave, and on the headstone, which was the storm polished shoulderblade of a buffalo, was written the following epitaph:

"Here lies the body of D. C. Oakes,

Killed for aiding the Pike's Peak hoax."

Mr. Oakes has not yet crossed the range, but still lives to tell of being buried in effigy, and says he felt rather shaky, for let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly; and they are certainly convinced by this time that they were, to put it mildly, egregiously mistaken.

One of these returning pilgrims, a wag in his way, informed his friends at home that nothing but unpardonable ignorance stood in the way of his making a fortune in those days. If he had only given the subject a thought , he would have known, of course, that domestic animals are always scarce in new countries; but he did not think, and it was another and a wiser man who was foresighted enough to bring hither a cat which he had taught to follow him. The cat easily sold for five dollars, and then it followed its master and was sold again and again, as the story goes. The returned pilgrim always insisted that if he had brought out a load of cats in his emigrant wagon, he would have made his fortune. He also told a story of one of their party who turned back. He was a man of family, and what is commonly termed a great homebody, but he had a thirst for wealth, and he, too, started , for the new Eldorado. It was not long before he became very homesick, and one day when they arrived in their wagon at a town on the outskirts of civilization, where it was hoped letters from home would be found awaiting them, finding none, the poor man withdrew to a secluded spot and lifted up his voice and wept, so loudly that his companions at a distance heard, and hearing, were filled with great alarm. It sounded to them like the voice of some terrible monster of the plains. One of the party, gifted with more bravery than the rest, suggested that it might be a buffalo calf; whereupon they traced the noise to its source, to the relief of all concerned, except the mourner himself. By common consent, the afflicted man was granted permission to leave the organization. He stood not upon the order of going, but went at once, and remains at home to the present day, a very contented being, with no desire ever again to roam to the far ends of the earth.

The army of go-backs grew greater than the advancing host, and they did many a tale unfold, declaring there was not a thimbleful of gold in the country; it was all a delusion and a snare. They warned the brave and bold who pushed forward to beware of the man who had buckskin patches on his pants; he was a thief, a liar and a villain; he was here, there and everywhere, like the Scriptural adversary, seeking whom he might devour. Forewarned is forearmed, and the pilgrims harassed their minds devising how they would avoid this scoundrel of the Rockies. Lo and behold, said my informer, upon our arrival every man in the mountains wore the confounded rogues' patches.

CHAPTER V. SALTING A MINE FOR HORACE GREELEY.

In May, 1859, a lone prospector pushed his way into the mountains and made a trail to the now famous Central City region, which until then had slumbered like a sleeping child.

"And gold he found in ample store,

But not the solid form it wore;

'Twas in the rock, where sweat and toil

Must delve it from its mother soil."

Gregory Gulch was the name given to the new find. It continues to be a great treasure-house of precious metals. This discovery gave the country another boom.

Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune, had been making a trip through California and Nevada, and was on his return to the States when he heard of the gold strike in Colorado. He determined to feast his eyes on some of the paltry stuff that was creating such a furor throughout the land.

When he arrived in Denver he was received with all the honor that the infant city could command. He said he didn't intent to be deceived in this matter, that seeing was believing, and he wanted to wash out some of the dirt himself. So the men put their heads together to see how they could come it over the old gentleman. They themselves were satisfied as to the richness of Gregory Gulch, it was no intention to deceive, but Solomon says there is a time for all things, and they wanted a good one on Horace Greeley. So they sent a message to the camp that Horace was coming, and to salt a mine.

The boys took down an old shotgun and fired gold dust into a hole for all it was worth.

Bright and early the next morning a spanking team was rigged up, and the distinguished gentleman started for the gulch, accompanied by some of the most plausible, entertaining and versatile talkers of the country. They escorted him over the diggings, related all the interesting events in the history of its discovery, showed him specimens of the dirt and the pure gold that had been washed out. Mr. Greeley's soul was in arms, and, eager for the task, he called for a shovel and pan, rolled up his sleeves, and went down into the pit. They gave him all the necessary instructions as to the process of panning, and looked on with palpitating anxiety.

Mr. Greeley was an apt scholar, and put his dirt through like an adept in the art. It panned out big. All the bottom of the pan was covered with bright gold particles. They slapped him on the shoulders in regular Western style, and told him to try it again—which he did—with the same success. Then he gathered up his gold dust in a bag, and said:

Gentlemen, I have worked with my own hands and seen with my own eyes, and the news of your rich discovery shall go all over the world, as far as my paper can waft it.

Mr. Greeley left, believing he had made a thorough test. As soon as he reached New York he devoted a whole side of the Tribune to an ecstatic description of the camp, headed with large, glaring type, such as bill-stickers use. The report was read all over the country, and caused a great rush to the land of promise. Those who had the fever took a relapse, and they had it bad. It was a raging epidemic, and spread faster than the cholera in Egypt.

He shouted into the ears of the over-crowded East until the welkin rang, Young man, go West! It was his glowing articles and earnest advice about going West that caused the first great boom in Colorado. The honest old man went down to his grave ignorant of the joke that was played upon him.

Count Murat, a barber, who, in honor of his royal blood, was dubbed knight of the strop and razor, also figured conspicuously in the editorial correspondence of the Tribune. While in Denver Mr. Greeley sat under the graceful manipulations of this tonsorial artist. The Count, feeling he would be distinguished by a notice from the great journalist, and also wishing to