CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY arV17540 Colonial days Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 227 139 olin.anx The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031227139 COLONIAL DAYS By J. MAX CLARK DENVER THE SMITH-BROOKS COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1902 By JAMES MAXWELL CLARK TO The Hon. JOSEPH C. SHATTUCK Whom I met as a stranger Colonist, on the steamer, in the "Big Muddy", river, in the spring of 1870, coming to the promised land ; whom I have ever since known as a friend, and who, although he knows me from A to Z, and probably better than does any man now living, still contrives to esteem me, this little volume is affec- tionately dedicated. CONTENTS PAGE. PREFACE 7 CHAPTER 1 9 JOINING THE COLONY. CHAPTER II 18 THE JOURNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. CHAPTER III 28 THE ARRIVAL, AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. CHAPTER IV 32 AN EPISODE WE CELEBRATE. CHAPTER V 39 PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING IN HOTEL DE COMFORT. CHAPTER VI 48 OUR ONLY SALOON WE HAVE A TILT WITH WHISKEY. CHAPTER VII 58 THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. CHAPTER VIII 67 AN EXPERIMENTAL PERIOD AND HARD TIMES./ CHAPTER IX 75 SUCCESS AND FAILURE. CHAPTER X 84 THE HARD WINTER A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. "VI CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER XI 90 SOME DEAD-HORSE REFLECTIONS. CHAPTER XII 95 THE FUEL QUESTION HAULING COAL UNDER DIFFICULTIES. CHAPTER XIII 101 A LITTLE GROUP OF MINOR MEMORIES. CHAPTER XIV 107 THE OLD-TIMER AND THE TENDERFOOT. CHAPTER XV 118 OUR CLIMATE. CHAPTER XVI 123 THE LATE N. C. MEEKER. CHAPTER XVII 136 PROPHECY AND FULFILLMENT 1870 AND 1900. CHAPTER XVIII 141 BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. PREFACE It is now nearly a third of a century since the Union Colony was organized and the set- tlement of Greeley and its immediate vicinity began. Those who actively participated in the stirring scenes of that unique and interesting movement are rapidly passing away. To young or middle-aged people, those who were born here within the first few years, or came here as children, there are still indistinct memories of those early days. But to a large majority now living here, and to all who came at a comparatively recent date, the struggle for an existence under the adverse conditions of the time, and all the joys and sorrows, the hardships, the successes and failures con- nected with that experiment in the desert, are traditions merely, and all knowledge of them but that preserved in the printed page will soon be lost. Scattered through the files of the Greeley Tribune and embodied in articles from my pen, contributed to its columns at various times as the years flew by, there was much material, which, if gathered together and pub- lished in book form, would perhaps illustrate Viil PREFACE. the life of that experimental period in our his- tory, not better than some other might have illustrated it, but better than any other is hereafter likely to do it. These papers I saved at the time, and, hav- ing now revised, rewritten and rearranged them and added some new material as well, I have had the presumption to believe they may, in the form here submitted, gratify sentiment among surviving Colonists and curiosity among the newer population of Greeley; not because I wrote of the scenes here faithfully described, but because others lived them in the long, long ago. Very respectfully, : §jj(^H Greeley, Colorado, February 25, 1902. OHAPTEK I. JOINING THE COLONY. Mr. Meeker's famous call for the formation of Union Colony found me living in a little hollow among the hills and mountains of East Tennessee, whither I had migrated shortly after the close of the Civil War. I have often since then wondered why I ever went down there. I have never questioned the motives and the good judgment which induced me to come away. For one inducement to go there, however, I remember that a number of my relatives having died with consumption up in the rigorous climate of Wisconsin, where I was born, I had thought to find a warmer cli- mate. I found it more than warm. It was red hot; and all social affairs, politics, polite intercourse among neighbors, and religion, as well, seemed to take their cue from the fiery climate also, making the temperature too high, in fact, for the naturally cool blood of North- ern men. Three winters' and two summers' residence in this warm atmosphere had not tended to increase my love for the adopted land. The roads, to any Northern man, were simply 10 COLONIAL DAT8. abominable. It rained all winter and all the spring, and the small respite from a well-nigh ever-present flood occurred at a singularly in- appropriate time, in the growing summer months, when the vegetation was in need of moisture; and then by a seemingly singular error in supernatural economy the country was perennially visited by a burning drouth. There were no bridges over the small but terrible streams of the country, and the Obid river, in particular, over which the Northern mail had to pass, bringing in news from the outside world, .was swollen with floods the greater share of the time, and not infrequently the carrier and his "nag" were detained on the wrong side of its swift-running waters for a month at a stretch. The river in question was not as wide as the Poudre, nor as deep as the ocean, but, although the country had been set- tled more than one hundred years the South- ern mind had been unequal to its compass with any bridge that would stay. Not a newspaper was at that time pub- lished in all that section of the country. I was then an ardent Eepublican and a sub- scriber, of course, to the New York Tribune, just as my father had been before I grew to man's estate; ever since, in fact, I could re- member anything whatever of newspapers or books. There were two other subscribers for JOINING THE COLONY. 11 the paper in that county — "Bloody Fentress" county it was called — and one of these was a gentleman from a foreign country at that. But the other was native born and lived away over in the "piney woods," at the farther end of the mountain plateau. I often thought I would sometime make a special trip over there in order to make his acquaintance and ascertain just what sort of a crank Southerner he must be, who, being born and raised in that illiterate country, could still take kindly to the old New York Tribune of that day and gen- eration. Force of circumstances, however, prevented the visit and I have even forgotten his name. There were no public or private schools at the time I was there. The period of "recon- struction" had, it is true, left the state of Ten- nessee With a fair school law, based upon that in force in a majority of the Northern states; but the amnesty act gave the old conserva- tive party of the South control of the legisla- tures once more, and in just indignation for the many sins and extravagances of "Carpet- bag rule," the legislature of Tennessee re- pealed the one redeeming measure the exploit- ing adventurers had instituted during their temporary sojourn. I said there were no schools, but there had been, for only a short distance from my door there still stood the 12 COLONIAL DATS. massive frame of hewed logs, once in the hoary past occupied as a seat of learning. Its title, "The Mount Cumberland Academy," had evidently been conferred upon it by some one totally oblivious of humor, or a sense of the ridiculous. But both the building and the in- stitution it sheltered had long since gone to decay. The floor had vanished; not even the remnants of sash remained in the openings where the windows had once been; even a door was lacking to keep out the little flocks of stray sheep, which in the summer retired within its walls to chew the cud and escape the heat of the noonday sun. There ha'd been a door once, so Black Lize, my wife's colored servant, informed me, when I was making in- quiries concerning its history, "But one day indurin' of the wah," so she said, "the white folks had a meeting of some kind, one evenin', and befo' long dey got to quahellin', and atter- while one getlemen jobbed another with a knife and killed him. Den dey didn't have airy a sled or keart to curry him home on and dey jist 'bleged to take de doah down and-curry him home on dat,.and dey ain't no one ever done fotch it back." I trust the reader will now see that I was ready for a change of residence. Two of my three children, now grown and with families of their own to care for and educate, were al- JOINING THE COLONY. 13 ready born to us at the time, and the prospect of rearing them without the advantages of good society and good schools was beginning to give me uneasiness as to the future. In particular, I remember, that the boy's lin- guistic attainments were already a matter of astonishment and dismay to his parents. Two tow-headed little white playmates, living a mile away, and one wooly-headed little negro, only at rare intervals visiting our side of the creek, were more than a match for our in- fluence and tongues, and we found ourselves likely to occupy the unenviable position of the proverbial old hen watching her progeny of ducks sporting in an element altogether foreign to her powers of locomotion. Things were thus, when one dark, rainy night in the spring of 1870, as I sat reading my solace of isolated existence, the Tribune, I came across the well-remembered notice to those wishing to unite with N. C. Meeker in forming the Colony. Taking in its import at a hurried glance and seizing on the outlook at once as the one avenue of feasible escape from the environments of a disagreeable situation, I arose from my chair with a sudden jump and surprised my wife nearly out of her wits with the emphatic declaration that I had "struck it." She wished to know if I had gone crazy; and when I proceeded to read her the 14 COLONIAL DATS. proposition, pronounced it perfectly wild and visionary. Women are constitutionally op- posed to change, and especially the change involved in moving from one place of resi- dence to another. My wife had seriously op- posed the idea of moving South, and I must acknowledge now in looking backward that this was one of the very serious blunders which at one time or another occur in most men's lives. But although my wife had much more reason to dislike the surroundings in our new home than had I, yet she now bitterly opposed the contemplated move to Colorado. However, having once made up my mind as to what I conceived to be best for both of us, I was not deterred by so small a matter as a divided opinion in the family, on the ad- visability of a change of base, and immedi- ately sending the secretary of the proposed colony the necessary sum of money for mem- bership in its ranks, I shortly afterwards sold my "little upright farm" of sassafras and broom sedge, upon which I had bestowed nearly three years of the hardest labor I ever performed in my life, in reclearing, refencing and reclaiming it from the ravages of war, and then packing up my household goods and bundling my wife and babies into my big cov- ered wagon, prepared to depart. JOINING THE COLONY. 15 Then an idea struck me; it might perhaps be denominated a humorous idea, similar, in fact, to the one which Mr. Barry informs us dawned upon the mind of "Tammas Haggart" when looking at the epitaph on his own tomb- stone. Humor, we know, of a grim sort, is often born of stress of circumstances, of grief or sorrow, even of disappointment, or rage, or chagrin. I had, at some time previous in my short sojourn there, been involved in a little misunderstanding with some of the good peo- ple of the neighborhood in which I lived, and during its progress had been kindly informed by others of the less responsible voters of my precinct that if I did not leave the country "soon" they would fill my hide so full of bullet holes that it wouldn't hold "shucks;" and I had expressed my determination, in reply, of re- maining with them until I became gray with age, if I chanced to survive that long. The "un- fortunate difficulty" had, however, been satis- factorily settled, after a time, and I did not come away in the night, and neither brought away with me, nor, in so far as I know, left behind me any ill-will. But the "Carpet-bag- gers" from the North had incurred the just dis- pleasure and hate of the Southern people, among whom these aliens, many of them ver- itable "birds of prey," had, while the pickings lasted, gone to reside. I had not belonged to 16 COLONIAL DATS. that class. I went down there with honest in- tent to make a home and permanent residence for myself and family, and I had neither asked for federal appointment before going there nor elective office while remaining there. Nevertheless I knew that in passing up through Kentucky I should be taken for one who had made himself unusually obnoxious, and had consequently been persuaded to leave the country. In a way I felt that I deserved to share, on account of kinship, the reproach justly due our people. The paint pot and brush with which I had marked my boxes, sat upon the threshold very soon to be trod by other feet. I seized them and inscribed in good, plain characters across the snow white side of my wagon cover these words: Baker and Clark, Late ' ' Carpet-baggers ' ' "Good-Bye, Sunny Southern Clime'! Then over the clay hills and through the narrow valleys of Northern Tennessee and the knob lands of Kentucky, through Columbia and Standford and Lebanon, we trudged afoot, my brother-in-law and I, beside our team, with its load of precious freight, entirely oblivious JOINING THE COLONY. 17 of the half-amused, half-sympathetic smiles of the people we passed, wholly intent on other scenes, under other skies, in a different world beyond. 18 COLONIAL DATS. OHAPTEK II. THE JOURNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. Various incentives prompted people to join the new movement. Some did it for the pur- pose of embarking in business. Others be- longed to the professional classes at home and intended, if opportunity permitted, to engage in professional callings here. Many more were actuated by the desire to own homes and farms in the new land. Some had no definite end in view. I had. Having always been a farmer I expected to remain one. And so it happened I was one of the very few colonists who arrived on the scene of action with a good farm team. However, several reasons induced me to bring a team with me instead of buying one after I got here. I had it and could not dispose of it at a fair price there, and knew that I would have to pay a high price for as good a team here. Then, too, I lived a hundred miles from the nearest railroad, and I had, in some way, to get there. Further, I had once driven across the plains and back, before the completion of the railroad, and was proposing after reaching Omaha to do it again. Hence the covered THE" JWHNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. 19 wagon and household goods and family, as re- corded in the previous chapter. At Louisville, Ky., I sent my wife back to Wisconsin to stay among relatives and friends until Baker and myself had prepared a home in the promised land. Then we embarked, out- fit and all, on a steamer, and came down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and the Missouri river to Omaha city, from which point, as above stated, we intended to come overland across the plains. At some place on the river, in Missouri, I do not remember where, as Baker and myself were sleeping in our wagon, on deck, I was awakened from my slumbers in ^the middle of the night, by hearing some one read aloud the inscription on the side of our wagon. There were two or three in the p^rty and there followed a laugh, and I heard the remark, "I'll bet that is a queer old fellow, whoever he may be." It was the Hon. Joseph Shattuck, just then embarking on our boat, bound for the same place, and for the same pur- pose as ourselves, and reading our destination beneath the other inscription, for I had painted that also, he came around very early next morning to begin an acquaintance, which we are now mutually agreed, after a lapse of thirty-one years, has been profitable and satis- factory, and hope with confidence that it will continue so to the end of our lives. 20 COLONIAL DATS. The Indians haying just about the-time of our arrival in Omaha shown a disposition to make trouble on the plains, the military au- thorities would not allow a less number than thirty persons traveling together to start across with teams/ and not wishing to be de- tained while so large a party could be secured for the trip, our intention of coming overland had to be abandoned. That being decided upon Mr. Shattuck and his party left us at Omaha and came on in advance to spy out the prom- ised land, while Baker and myself, having char- tered a car in which we placed our team and wagon in one end, and my own and Mr. Shat- tuck's household goods in the other, came on with a mixed train a day or two later. We were two whole days in making the trip from Omaha to Cheyenne. Having arrived at the latter place the agent of the then uncom- pleted Denver Pacific road proposed to charge us fifty dollars for conveying our car to Gree- ley, or more than half the amount for the fifty odd miles distance between that point and this, that the Union Pacific road had charged us from Omaha to Cheyenne, a distance of more than 650 miles. But the weather was pleasant, the roads fine, the country, in its general features familiar to me on account of my former trip out west, and finding on inquiry that the Indians were entirely peaceable, we THE JOURNET TO THE PROMISED LAND. 21 promptly rose to the occasion, unloaded our traps from the car, set up our wagon, and hitching on our horses set out. We started about three o'clock in the afternoon and had hardly got well put of the city limits and into the great plain that spread itself before us, than Baker had an opportunity of witnessing his first mirage. Away ahead of us, at seem- ingly an enormous distance on the plains, there lay before our eyes a diminutive lake; and in the center of the lake we saw what we took to be a round, high post, sticking bolt upright in the water. Baker speculated a good deal as to the purpose a post could serve stuck up in a pond in such an out of the way place, with neither building nor fences in sight; thought it might possibly be a section corner, or other landmark on some big stockman's range. As for myself, having formerly at one time wit- nessed many of these deceptions of the plains, and as a consequence become accustomed to see "tall oaks into little acorns grow," I had my suspicions that the high post, so palpably real, and so perfectly distinct to our vision, away ahead of us there in the shallow pond of water in the plain, might, on nearer approach, turn out to be a hawk, or an owl, or a prairie dog. It did; and we soon witnessed that pe- culiar half-somersault, afterwards to become so familiar to us all, when one of the latter 22 COLONIAL DATS. animals displayed his twinkling heels as he changed ends, and dropped like lightning into his hole. It being quite late in the day when we started from Cheyenne, night overtook us long before we had accomplished half the distance between that place and Greeley, and not know- ing the country through which we were pass- ing, we traveled until long after dark, vainly hoping to find water and a place to camp. For- tunately for us, in passing Crow creek, a few miles this side of Cheyenne, we had, for the purpose of keeping a small bucket from drying out and falling down, filled it with water and set it in the feed box at the back end of the wagon, and there was now about a gallon re- maining that had not slopped out on the way. It must have been at least ten o'clock at night when, despairing of reaching any better place to stop, and with only this scant supply of water, barely enough to moisten the oats for our horses and leave a drink for ourselves, we finally unhitched and went into camp. The road being the- only place comparatively free from cactus, we stopped the wagon right in the track, and, after feeding our team, made our bed under it, between the wheels. The night was mild and clear, and almost in a moment we were fast asleep. The enjoy- ment of food and rest depends with us all so THE JOUBNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. 23 little on outward circumstances of life, and so much on inward condition of mind and mood, that not the most favorable conditions of exist- ence can of themselves lend us either appetite for the daintiest fare by day, nor refreshing- sleep by night. Of the food of a lifetime, I can recall but three meals which gave me the satisfaction that clings to memory. In 1860, while crossing the plains from Omaha to Den- ver, I one day dined principally on dried buf- falo meat, purchased from some Indians we met on the way. It was cut in thin strips, had but the least imaginable salt in it, for that was a scarce luxury with the Indians those days, and instead of being smoked, was simply cured by hanging on a line in the sun and wind. I thought as I ate it that I had never tasted sweeter meat, and nearly half a century after- wards I think so yet. On a raid in the army in Arkansas, in 1862, this same brother-in-law and myself, called at a log cabin in a swamp, just at daylight in the morning after an all- night ride, only to, find the cabin empty and "the cupboard all bare." Not so much as a crust of corn bread did the house afford; but on looking about us we at last discovered a string of jerked venison suspended from a stick across the wide mouth of the great fire place in one end of the single room in the abandoned home. We took it down and seat- 24 COLONIAL DAYS. ing ourselves at the rude pine table that sat in the middle of the floor, we breakfasted sumptuously on dry venison and water. We had been riding all night, were nearly famished for food, and I thought as I chewed that dry meat and sipped water from my canteen that I had never eaten a better meal in my life, and I think so still. During the long, cold and dreary winter of 1863-4, while General Sherman's army lay in and about the city of Chattanooga, Tenn., sub- sisting on half rations for a regular issue, and occasionally on less, until the bridges and railroads could be repaired and communication thereby established with the army's base of supplies, myself and a comrade one day pene- trated the outside guard and getting out among the farms began a search for something to eat. The country, however, had been overrun by each army in turn until not a chicken, not a ham, not even a sweet potato remained. At last, finding a small bin of wheat, we filled our haversacks with that and returned to camp. Arrived there tired and hungry from our long tramp, we ground a little of that wheat in a common coffee mill, and, mixing the coarse, unsifted meal with water and salt, cooked pancakes for supper. Some little knowledge of the art of cookery, gained through years of experience in army life, and THE JOURNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. 25 roughing it on the plains and in the mines, enables me with reasonable probability of .truthful estimate to assume that this meal of cakes must have been an abominable mess. But I remember it, nevertheless, as one of the three incomparably delicious and delightful re- pasts of a lifetime. So, too, the pleasantest dreams and the most refreshing sleep in the lives of us all have not been found in luxurious beds of ease. I remember with peculiar pleasure the sweet rest, and the deep sleep I enjoyed on beds of broom sedge, in Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, dur- ing the war, and on beds of pine boughs in the mountains, and beneath the clear skies and twinkling stars on the grassy plains; and particularly this night of which I am speak- ing, on the road from Cheyenne down to Gree- ley, in 1870, will count with me as one of the pleasantest night's repose in all life's flight of years. Sleeping with my face to the east, as the first flush of morning light became visible in the horizon, its softly-moving, life-stirring waves fell upon my eyelids and at once awak- ened me from the deep and uninterrupted slumber into which I had fallen on lying down the night before. Giving Baker a sudden shake to awaken him also, I hastily arose, and, 26 COLONIAL DATS. feeding the horses a little grain, began to har- ness them for the start on our journey. In a few moments more, as we had neither fuel to cook our breakfast, nor water -to make our coffee, even had we possessed the fuel, we were on the road toward our destination. Not long after sunrise we emerged from the draw in the neighborhood where B. S. La Grange and M. J. Hogarty afterwards opened up farms and established their homes, and soon after that brought up* at an old adobe house near the river bottom on the farm afterwards known for years as the Fletcher and Abbott ranch. There we unhitched, and there being, for some reason or another, no one at home, we imme- diately took possesssion, built a fire in the kitchen stove, helped ourselves from a pan of milk that happened to sit conveniently near us on a shelf, had a good breakfast, and about the middle of the forenoon arrived on the oppo- site side of the river in the immediate vicinity of Greeley. There were at the time no bridges on the Poudre between the foothills and the railroad bridge which still stands just opposite the town. The river was very high, for- this was the 26th day of June, and it being impossible to ford it with the wagon, we swam the horses over the stream, and dragged the wagon across the bridge, between the rails, by hand. Then, THE JOURNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND. 27 attaching the horses, we arrived in the new city at a little past twelve o'clock, as emi- grants, in a wagon, after the primitive manner of our forefathers, and in so far as I know, were the only original Colonists, who reached the goal of hope in that way. 28 COLONIAL DATS. CHAPTER III. THE ARRIVAL, AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Only remaining in town long enough to ascertain where we might temporarily pasture our horses and go into camp, and being directed to Island Grove Park, we proceeded there with- out delay. We stopped under the branches of the first large cottonwood, still standing, I believe, on the right side of the road, after crossing the bridge over the old mill-power canal, as you go in. There we pitched our tent, for we had a good large one with us, and picketed our horses, and, after getting our din- ner, came back to town again to make a more critical examination of the oppportunities the enterprise afforded than we had been able to get when passing through the town in the morning. As we mingled among the commu- nity of new faces which everywhere met us while we looked about, it now occurred to me for the first time as being a little strange that, of the dozens of schoolmates and scores of old acquaintances, and hundreds of army com- rades I knew, scattered here and there over the Northern states, many of whom I had THE ARRIVAL, AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 29 naturally expected, from the great publicity given to the formation of the Colony, would, like myself, be interested in the movement, and more than likely arrive here before I did; but, on the contrary, not one of these had joined the organization or put a dollar into the enterprise. When I reflected further that not one member then on the ground, save Mr. Meeker alone, had I ever known by name or reputation, then my heart sank within me, and I said to myself: "Who are all these people, gathered together under the leadership of one visionary old man, in the vain hope of build- ing up a paradise in the sands of the desert? Evidently all of them cranks and fools, and myself pre-eminently the foolest fool in the lot." As we walked about here and there, we saw men running hither and thither, up and down the ridiculous little furrows that at the time marked off the magnificent imaginary streets, all seemingly laboring under great excitement, and all of them engaged in looking up desir- able lots for location. Baker and myself smiled loftily at these poor infatuated mor- tals running crazy over imaginary homes to be built up in the sand ; and, returning to camp that night, tired out with our tramp, disgusted with the enterprise into which we had been foolishly duped, and displeased and mortified 30 COLONIAL DATS. at the part we had played in it, we sat there in the deepening shadows of approaching night, too ashamed of ourselves to strike a light and see how mean we looked. Baker sat on a small box, whittling the edge, and I sat on the bed, both of us silent as the grave, and for a long time absorbed in gloomy reflections. At last Baker broke the seance and struck the key note of the situation with the remark that he'd seen enough to satisfy him and should "light out;" if not next day, at least very soon. I expressed the same conclusion, but interposed a slight objection to immediate action by ask- ing where? Then we discussed where we would go, and what we would do, for two or three hours, and, not being able to agree on any definite course of action that night, finally went to sleep. The next morning, after taking care of our horses and getting breakfast, not having any- thing else to do, we paid another visit to the new town. And now, as we entered the long straight furrows again, it seemed to me that for some reason or another they did not look quite so ridiculous as they did the day before. As we passed along and saw the people still engaged in looking up lots, with a view to resi- dences and business houses, they did not seem to me quite so unwarrantably insane as they did the day before. There had been a little THE ABBIVAL, AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 31 shower during the night, the air was fresher, and it occurred to me that the soil did not look quite so sandy as it did the day before. Finally, meeting and receiving a pleasant greeting from two or three men whom we had met the day before, our spirits began to rise with the occa- sion, and we were not conscious of being quite the extraordinary fools we thought ourselves the day before; and then the first thing we knew, we were running frantically about look- ing for lots for ourselves, and quite disgusted, too, to think we had wasted so much time. We got some and that settled the business ; we set- tled. 32 COLONIAL DAYS." CHAPTER IV. AN EPISODE — WE CELEBRATE. Very naturally one of the first social duties of the newly-arrived members was to call upon the president of the Colony. We did so, both as a matter of etiquette and business as well, very soon after reaching Greeley, and were immediately introduced to Mr. Meeker. Then I remember that I at once got into a dispute with him concerning the fertility of the up- lands. It was not so much that I wanted to argue the pros and cons with him, as that I wanted to know the truth in the matter. Com- ing but recently from a country where there were thousands of acres of sandy, gravely soil, that was absolutely worthless for agri- cultural purposes, I naturally had my doubts as to the fertility of this, and I expressed them. This seemed to displease Mr. Meeker very much, and he replied to my observations quite sharply. However, although curt and short in speech, I came away from that interview impressed with the fact that he was an hon- est man, who had the success of the enterprise in which he was engaged nearer to his heart than any other object in the world. AN EPISODE — WE CELEBRATE. 33 Coming out of theCoIony office after this in- terview with the president, I saw a man stand- ing on a box addressing a crowd of the colonists who were gathered in a knot to hear him. There seemed to be dissatisfaction, or misunderstand- ing and the man was trying to explain matters so as to molify his audience. He was pleasant, plausible, good natured and persuasive, and he soon succeeded in getting his hearers into as good natured a frame of mind as his own. It was General Cameron, the vice-president and superintendent of the Colony at the time, one for whose ways of managing men and things, then and later, many of the Colonists, including myself, conceived a very decided mistrust, which I am more than willing to ad- mit now was entirely the result of miscon- ception, and had no foundation, in fact, from any wrong he then did or any ulterior motive that he ever had. Mr. Shattuck had arrived in Greeley two or three days in advance of Baker and myself, and, sharing in the general disappointment at first felt by nearly every one on their arrival here, had, although he still retained his cer- tificate of membership in the Colony, gone up the river a little below Fort Collins and bought, or located, a piece of land in company with a young Englishman of his acquaintance, 34 COLONIAL DATS. a Mr. Forward^ and they had not, therefore, met us since our arrival. Preparations had been made for a grand celebration on the Fourth of July, in which it was proposed to give the new town a sort of christening, and the evening before that event Shattuck and his friend came down in order to participate in the festivities of the occasion, and staid over night with us in our tent in the park. I remember that we met like old friends that had been long parted, whereas we were ac- quaintances of less than a week, all tpld; but we had a jolly time, nevertheless, in recount- ing the adventures we had met with since our arrival in the new land. Baker and myself had constructed a rude sort of bunk, on which to make our beds, but as we had not expected to entertain company, Shattuck and his friend, when at last it be- came necessary to go to bed, spread their blankets on the floor of the tent and slept upon the ground. Some time in the night we were awakened from the sweetest of slumbers by Mr. Shattuck, who sprang from his bed on the ground up on our bunk and, grabbing me by the arm in mortal terror, as it seemed to me, awakened as I was so suddenly and rudely from my dreams, began whispering hoarsely some sort of alarming message in my ear. Not getting any clear idea of what he said and AN EPISODE — WE CELEBBATE. 35 having in my mind but two sources of appre- hended danger at the time, Indians and thieves, I at once grabbed the Winchester which lay by my side and, drawing back the lever so as to throw a cartridge into the cham- ber, instantly prepared to repel the invader of our possessions, whoever he might be. About this time, however, Mr. Forward arrived also on top of our bunk with a bound and Baker and myself being now thoroughly awake, we discovered that the terror-inspir- ing cause of our midnight disturbance was merely a hungry skunk, which, roaming about in the night in search of something to eat, had crawled in between the folds of our tent in front, and was now at his leisure investi- gating the contents of our larder. It took no lengthy council of war to determine our course of action as to that skunk; we did not hurry him in the least; we knew he would leave when he got good and ready, and we patiently awaited his pleasure in the matter. We couldn't even strike a light, for we were un- able to reach the matches, and we accordingly sat there for an hour or more, Mr. Shattuck and his friend not being able to secure their pantaloons during all the time that skunk saw fit to keep possession of our premises. At last, after crawling all around the tent and even un- der our bunk, licking the meat gravy from the 36 COLONIAL DAYS. frying pan and sniffing his nose at everything else, to see if he needed it in his business, he took his departure in the composed, unruffled, deliberate manner peculiar to this unwelcome creature, when not unwisely pushed to the wall, and then closing the tent after him tightly, so as to prevent a repetition of the invasion, we once more composed ourselves to sleep and dreams of home and friends. I remember very little of the exercises of the next day, further than that they were va- ried from the usual course of natioiial cele- brations, as we had been accustomed to par- ticipate in them, by some cowboys, who had been engaged, or had perhaps volunteered, to amuse the newcomers by riding horses after the Indian fashion and throwing the lariat. The governor of the then young territory had been induced to come down to the new city and welcome its people with a speech, the oration of the day; and I remember as little of what he said as I do of the many other Fourth of July orations I have heard in my time. But there was one remark he feelingly made which attracted my attention, because it related to bonded indebtedness, and I have al- ways had a horror of bonds, county, municipal or state. The Denver Pacific railway had but just been completed to Denver, and I think it AN EPISODE — WE CELEBRATE. 37 probable that in the effort to get railroad bonds voted in Arapahoe county the governor must have opposed the movement; at all events, in speaking of the newly-constructed roads he said we were urged as a reason for granting aid in their construction that they helped settle up and improve the country through which they passed. "That is very true," said the doughty governor and ex-gen- eral, "but I tell them I should like to see a country settled up in such a manner that a man might afford to live in it after settle- ment." One other incident I remember in connec- tion with that early day celebration. The Hon. J. L. Brush, at that time living over on the Big Thompson, came over in a wagon with his family to see the new city and take part in the ceremonies of the day. He staid all night to attend a dance, which was given out of doors, if I remember rightly, and on a tem- porary floor, laid especially for the occasion; and the next day, as they ascended the crest of the divide, between the Poudre and the Big Thompson and loked down into the valley to catch a glimpse of the home they had left the day before, beheld only a heap of ashes, and a thin, curling cloud of smoke arising like the incense from the altars of the ancient gods; 38 COLONIAL DATS. for, the lightning striking it in their absence, it had burned to the ground, and with it con- sumed all their household goods but the clothes they had on their persons. PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 39 CHAPTER V. PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING IN HOTEL DE COMFOKT. Shortly after the events described in the last chapter, Mr. Shattuck, having abandoned the idea of settling on the river near Fort Col- lins, selected a lot near the one I had mean- time chosen, and Mr. Forward and himself joining us in household expenses, we moved into town and set up our tent on a vacant lot now occupied by Senator Clayton's lumber yard. Then we purchased material and im- mediately began the erection of our houses, preparatory to sending for our families. One day, not long after that, as we were eating our dinner, a sudden gust of wind, such as all of us have since become accustomed to see and feel, struck our tent, and, tearing it in two in the middle, upset all our dishes except those we held in our hands, and left us to finish our meal as best we could, exposed to the fury of the storm. That ended life in a tent for us, and the next day we moved into the old "Hotel, de Comfort," one of the most noted of the earlier structures in Greeley, where we remained un- 40 COLONIAL DATS. til our homes were sufficiently inclosed to af- ford us a shelter while completing them, This building, as all the earlier colonists well remember, had been moved down from Cheyenne, and had been fitted up for the use of arriving colonists until they were able to erect houses for themselves. It was divided into two compartments — one for families, and one for young unmarried men, and those whose families had been temporarily left behind. Into this building our party had moved, bag and baggage, and for a short time thereafter lived in the most unique society in which it was ever my lot to be thrown. During the day, if the weather was pleas- ant, the larger share of us were at work on our own houses and in our gardens, for pride in the garden was one of the first evidences of at- tachment to the new country and the new home; but at night we were all gathered to- gether in the old building, and for hours and hours, away into the night, we sang songs, told stories, recited poetry, made speeches, dis- cussed philosophy, political economy, religion and the Civil War. We criticised the general government, and all government, and especi- ally the management of Colonial affairs. Some wanted to talk all night and lay abed all the forenoon; and others wanted to go to bed at dark, and get up at daylight in the morning. PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 41 To this latter class belonged myself, for, if we concede the proposition that man's optics are adapted to sunlight and not to darkness; that he requires an average of eight hours' sleep in every twenty-four, I never could see why any sane man, unless the nature of his vocation absolutely prevented it, should not sleep in the night and labor in the day. Why should any human being, for instance, sit up until eleven or twelve o'clock at night, using artificial light to guide his eye or hand, and then close the blinds to keep out the Almighty's free sun- light in the morning, in order to steal back the sleep due in the night time to all animated nature, save only bats, owls and beasts of prey. We were all in one room together, and there was not the opportunity, as in private life, for each individual to indulge in his whims, at the expense only of his own household. The night birds chattered nearly all night, greatly to the disturbance of the day birds, who wished to rest; then at daybreak the day birds began to chatter, and woke up the night birds, who had but just gone to sleep. One night, in particu- lar, I remember to have been kept awake until quite a late hour by a general discussion of various subjects, and just as the last drowsy voice had died away in exhausted repose, right opposite my head as I lay there in the top row 42 COLONIAL DATS. of bunks, the head of a family in the other compartment began to snore. Snoring was the one supreme annoyance of my existence dur- ing the Civil War. Half rations, and these composed exclusively of the, to me, two most detested articles of military diet — bacon and beans — never caused me half the anguish of spirit that T have suffered in the still watches of the night, when, on the tented field, I have been compelled to lie awake and listen to the snores of armed hosts, reverberating from the bottoms of undrawn boots. As the deep, low-toned base snore, ema- nating from the head of the family in the op- posite compartment, on this particular occa- sion, gradually ascended the register into more distinct articulation, all the more painful to my unwilling ear because of the lull in the con- versation which had now taken place, I felt at last that desperate measures were justifi- able; and, as repeated rappings on the wall back of my head had not been attended with the proper response from the sleeper, I now carefully drew the rod from my gun near by, and, poking it through a knot-hole in the par- tition, gave my neighbor a poke on the top of his bald head. Then, when I had sufficiently aroused him to a sense of alarm at the sudden attack on his head piece, I informed him that I had feared he was strangling, and asked, PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 43 with feigned solicitude, if he felt in his usual health. It happened, however, that the good man's better half had by that time become even more clearly aroused than was her liege lord, and, perfectly comprehending the situa- tion, and being quite angry, as well, at my in- terference in matters, she now arose on her el- bow, arid replied for her husband in a loud, shrill voice, that could be heard distinctly all over the building: "Mr. Clark, my husband can just snore, and snore as long as he wants to, and, if you don't like it, you can just lump it. So there, now!" A responsive titter, run- ning with a rippling sound along the tiers of bunks in our compartment, gave me the sense of the meeting without putting the question, and I subsided at once into silence, if not into sleep. One morning, before I had arisen from my bed — and I was generally about the first to be up — I heard below me there, in one of the bunks, the voice of a man or youth, in silvery tones, softly soothing to the ear, indulging in quiet, satirical, critical discourse with some op- ponent near by; then I began a mental specu- lation, as I finished dressing myself for the la- bors of the day, as to what sort of earthly tab- ernacle must necessarily be associated with a voice so finely modulated, and a tone so smoothly effeminate as that; and I pictured to 44 COLONIAL DAYS. myself, as the ideally essential accompaniment of such a voice, the dapper little form of a highly-educated dude, who must have been lost in the shuffle back East and been wafted West. Then I cast my eye down among the lower tier of bunks to corroborate my theory, and I beheld the burly form of my friend, John Leavy, whose polite, but stingingly sarcastic speech, has often since that day excited the ad- miring wonder of other minds beside my own. Not long after this a party of the younger and less responsible members of the Colony procured some whiskey, and, getting unduly exhilarated from its effects, sallied out in the darkness of the night for a lark of loud and striking proportions, and, entering the door of the Hotel de Comfort, which in the heat of summer had been left ajar, they proceeded to throw great chunks of coal and to hurl rocks up and down the floor. The occupants of the building, knowing nothing of the real animus of the attack, at once ascribed it to the people of Evans, with whom, even at that early day, the quarrel over the ultimate possession of the county seat had already been engendered. So, after the sec- ond assault had been made upon us, we there- fore arose to a man, and, emerging into the street, gave chase to our assailants. I had but recently emigrated from a state where night PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 45 interruptions were not uncommon, but were never engaged in from a spirit of levity or hilarious mirth, and where to fool around the premises of another, after dark, invariably meant very serious business for one party to the interview, and not infrequently to both. It was the social law, I may say, in "Bloody Fentress County," where I hailed from, for one who wished to make a friendly call upon another, "of a cloudy evening," to ride up within hailing distance of the door, and there dismounting, to shout: "Hello, the house!" And the occupant would reply, meantime peeking through the cracks in the door, without unbarring it: "Who is it, and what's wanting?" If the visitor could then give a sat- isfactory account of himself, being a stranger,, or cause recognition, if an acquaintance, "Bloody Fentress" was one of the most hos- pitable places in the world. But, if the visitor could do neither, there was generally a funeral or two next day. When, therefore, the attack on our domicile took place in the manner I have described, when all were in bed, and the greater number of us asleep, I very naturally thought of my gun, and, seizing it as I got down from my bunk, made a rush for the door. Now, it happened that John Leavy, for some reason of his own, viewed the situation just as I did — with gun in hand. And we two 46 COLONIAL DATS. reached the front door of the building to- gether, at the head of a hurried procession, which suddenly emerged into the street. As we started in pursuit of the marauders, who took to their heels in the darkness to make their escape, some one of our crowd in the rear called out to John and myself: "Boys, don't shoot." I never turned my head to see who made the remark, but I heard John assure the speaker, in that mild, persuasive tone of his: "Tush, man; it isn't loaded!" Just at that mo- ment we heard a woman scream in a tent near by, most probably from mere hysterical fright, but, taking it for granted that the marauders had now added injury to offense, I at once threw my gun to my shoulder, and, calling on the rearmost man, whom I could indistinctly see running ahead of me in the darkness, to halt, when he did not do so, I fired, and the man immediately fell to the ground. At the same moment that I discharged my gun I no- ticed the singular fact that Leavy's, also, which but a moment previous had no load in it, went off simultaneously with my own. I was now seized with great alarm for fear we had killed the man, but, on going up to him, we found he was only very badly scared; and, on learning this, Leavy promptly arose to the occasion, and, catching hold of the man's leg, gave it a terrible yank, and wanted to know PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 47 what he meant by falling down that way and scaring people nearly to death. To this rather unreasonable inquiry the man merely replied: "Good God, gentlemen; if the bullets had whistled about your head as they did about mine, you would have taken a tumble, too." Having caught our man, and also another of the party engaged in the riot, and having by this time discovered that the occurrence was purely the result of a drunken spree, we re- leased our prisoners, and nothing more was ever said about it. One of the persons engaged in this escapade, now a sedate, sober-minded, responsible citizen, was well known long after- wards for his convivial freaks, but the other, the man we shot at, I did not know, and who he was I have never ascertained to this day. 48 COLONIAL DATS. OHAPTEE VI. OUE ONLY SALOON — WE HAVE A TILT WITH WHISKEY. Just as soon as I could get the frame of my house erected and sufficiently enclosed to protect us from wind and rain, Baker and my- self moved over into the new home. We put our bed up stairs on some loose boards, for the floor was not yet laid, set up our stove in the back yard and went to keeping house by ourselves. Mr. Shattuck, who was also en- gaged in constructing his house, did the same. One Sunday about this time, as I sat writing letters to distant friends in the old home, I became conscious of a strange, peculiar din outside, growing louder and louder each min- ute, and while speculating in an absent-minded way, as to what it all meant, Mr. Shattuck came suddenly to the door and said there seemed to be a riot or trouble of some kind going on below us at the abode house on the bottom, where it was reported that a saloon- keeper from Evans had moved in with a stock in trade and opended up business by selling whiskey and beer. Smoke as well as noise OUR ONLY SALOON. 49 seemed to emanate from the building, around which, by that time, a great crowd had con- gregated, and seeing this we at once started for the place. Arrived there we found the building completely enveloped in flames, while the small stock of whiskey and beer had been moved to a safe distance outside. Inquiring as to the cause of the disturbance, and the at- tendant fire, one young man considerately in- formed me that a delegation had come down from town to remonstrate with the saloon- keeper as to his course, and that while they were holding their powwow with him, "the house just took fire of itself." Of course we took no stock in the theory of that sort as to the origin of the fire, but noticing the stock of liquors safely stowed away , just out of reach of the flames, it occurred to me as being a strange and senseless proceeding to tear down and burn the building in which the of- fending beverage was sold, and preserve the villainous poison itself. I said so; and Ralph Meeker, it seems, entertaining views similar to mine, about that time seized a cask of whis- key and was going to throw it into the flames when General Cameron grabbed his arm and thus prevented the destruction of the precious fluid. Some words ensued between the two, and, if I remember correctly, Ralph struck at the general during the altercation. I can now 50 COLONIAL DATS. see that it would hardly have answered the re- quirements of the occasion if the recognized leaders of the community had appeared to wink at a riotous proceeding like that; some- thing, of course, was due from the officials as discouraging lawlessness in the people; but at the time, and for a long while afterwards, it seemed to us that the general was very much overzealous in the matter. He was accused, in fact, of trying to find favor in the eyes of the old settlers in the county, and it was thought that he endeavored to appease the wrath of outsiders, on this and other occasions, in the early days of the Colony, from motives which reached out a great deal farther than mere solicitude for our own welfare. I presume that in this, as in many other cases of the kind, we misjudged the general, and that what he did was for the best; although there can be no doubt that these suspicions as to the motives of his conduct, at that and other times, de- tracted greatly from the influence which his line abilities, his genial disposition, and his real services to the people deserved. I feel bound to admit, however, even at this late day, that on this particular occasion, I regretted exceedingly that Ralph had not the strength and inclination to give the general a good threshing. OUR ONLY SALOON. 51 The remark I made in reference to destroy- ing the building and saving the whiskey, con- stituted my sole part in the proceedings of the day; but I take no pride or credit to myself on that account; had I known of the gathering at the time it first took place, I have little doubt I should have been at the front with the rest in all that followed. The next morning after the destruction of the property, Mr. Niemeyer swore out warrants for the arrest of several parties whom he recog- nized as being participants in the riot of the day before, and I was among the number. At the trial which followed, the evidence seemed to point especially towards Ralph Meeker and Mr. Norcross; not that they were either leaders or principal offenders in the matter, but that Niemeyer had his attention particu- larly- directed to them, and he swore to their having taken part in the destruction of his property. In particular he swore positively that he saw Mr. Norcross place burning paper and rags upon the window sill of the burning <■ building, presumably, to facilitate the spread of the flames ; and it was solely on his evidence that both Meeker and Norcross were bound over for trial in the district court. But it happened that the man who really placed the paper and the rags on the window sill, was not on trial for the offense at all, but escaped 52 COLONIAL DATS. arrest, and enjoyed Niemeyer's honest mistake in identifying the wrong man, as a huge joke, for many a day after the incident had closed. Now it happened that on the day of the preliminary hearing I was expecting my wife to arrive in Greeley; and after a separation of several months, almost any one, I infer, pos- sessing a fair sense of the ridiculous, will be able to appreciate my predicament. Wife com- ing to meet her husband in the new home after months of separation; pleasing anticipations of reunion with the object of her affection, and meanwhile, the dear man, instead of being at the depot to meet her, as young husbands in- variably do, even after the most temporary of separations, is obliged to send a friend to break gently to the better half that owing to an "un- fortunate little occurrence," husband couldn't be there. Nothing serious, you know, but a little awkward, and it is possible, too, that on account of the unfortunate little occurrence, husband may not be able to get home to-night; because — because, — to tell the truth, "my dear . Madam, your husband is on trial for riot and arson, all because he chose to indulge in a lit- tle expensive amusement in the way of burning down a gentleman's .store; and it is possible he may go to prison for years." It doesn't take a very lively imagination, I presume, to perceive the distressing predica- OtTB ONLY SA100N. 53 ment I was in. The trial progressed slowly, as all trials seemingly do, and it must have been three o'clock in the afternoon — the train was to arrive at four — before the evidence was all in, and great beads of cold sweat were begin- ning to stand out all over my face and body in anticipation of the final result. Nothing had appeared against me save the single re- mark I had made about the folly of burning the house and saving the whiskey; but the trial was not yet over, the pleas had not been made, and at the least, there seemed no pros- pect that I should be discharged before the final conclusion of the trial, and that I should, consequently, still be under arrest when my wife arrived. As I sat there," every moment getting more and more crest-fallen, and dis- mayed with the prospect, I suddenly noticed Justice Pinkerton looking at me from his seat on the judicial bench; then presently, he had turned to consult with Justice Mallory, and as they both looked my way while conferring to- gether I judged they had my case under ad- visement. Now this Mr. Mallory, by the way, was a justice of the peace summoned from the extreme south end of the county, on account of the great gravity of the case, to sit with his brother Pinkerton, as as- sociate on the bench. Justice Mallory was particularly severe in his condemnation of 54 COLONIAL DATS. the act for which we were on trial, and in his remarks he dwelt on the necessity of maintaining law and order; and the virtuous indignation he expressed was no doubt quite edifying to those who did not know him. I did, however; it happened that I had the ad- vantage of a previous acquaintance with Mr. Mallory, and that, too, at quite an early day in the settlement of the territory. Indeed, at one time it had been my fortune to be his next- door neighbor for quite a season; and singu- larly enough, about the last thing I had known concerning the now dignified justice, who was so emphatically, but hypocritically expressing his horror of the act for which we were on trial, was in connection with a little incident of a precisely similar character, without half the excuse for its perpetration. It happened in this way : To protect the interests of the early settlers along the Platte river, below Denver, at the time, we had perfected an organization styled and known as a "Claim League." An outsider had jumped a claim belonging to one of our members, and, with the redoubtable Mr. Mallory in command of our forces as "mar- shal," we proceeded in total disregard of the laws in such cases made and provided, to eject the intruder from the disputed premises. We did more; we piled the gentleman's wardrobe and bed clothes just outside his door, and, set- OUR ONLY SALOON. 55 ting fire to his domicile, gave him timely warn- ing that if he again visited the place, or so much as set his foot over the line of the land, we would hang him to the nearest Cottonwood on the river. The man's spirit proved fully equal to the occasion, and he informed us with a sardonic grin that he would, in this particu- lar instance, take the will for the deed ; said he . considered the very broad hint he had received just as effective as a kick, and, bidding us a courteous "good night," left us in possession of the premises. ' With such reminiscences of Mr. Mallory's early history running in my mind as I listened to his utterances from the bench, concerning the conduct of the enraged Greeleyites of the day before, it will scarcely seem strange that they made no very profound impression on my mind, nor for that matter, increased my re- spect for either office or man. After consulting together for a moment, which, under the circumstances, seemed to me a long time indeed, Justice Pinkerton turned towards me and said: "Mr. Clark, as nothing of a very serious nature has appeared in evi- dence against you, you are discharged." Then I flew down the steps of the old Exchange ho- tel, where the trial was held, with the fleet- ness of the wind; and it was not until some time afterwards that the partner of my joys 56 COLONIAL DATS. and sorrows discovered how near she came to catching her husband in limbo on her arrival at her new home. That first experiment in starting a saloon in Greeley, coupled with the very unsatisfac- tory results attending it, proved a sufficient protection against its repetition for several years. We were greatly censured at the time by many of the outside citizens of the county, and such, in fact, was the sympathy with some, for the innocent proprietor who had thus un- dertaken to impose on the community a nui- sance its people were determined not to toler- ate, and whose sacred right to do so had, in that rude and forcible manner been violated, that a few of the least respectable and least responsible of the old settlers along the rivers openly threatened to band together, reinstate the injured saloonkeeper in the possession of his premises, and guard him with their rifles, if necessary, while he enjoyed his God-given rights to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of his happiness and profit, in making other peo- ple miserable. It must be conceded, too, that at the time many of our own people greatly re- gretted the "unfortunate occurrence," but the movement to interfere with us from outside had little encouragement from the influential, responsible element among the old settlers, and as to actual results, it can not be denied that OUB ONLY SALOON. 57 we gained in respect and influence by the means; and that that summary proceeding, backed by a somewhat similar process on one or two other occasions in aftertimes, although absolutely indefensible in a legal point of view, did more to keep the open saloon out of Greeley and away from its immediate vicinity, through all the intervening years, than the influence of all our laws and ordinances and Colonial restrictions has been able to accomplish. Greeley is still a temperance town, after the lapse of nearly a third of a century of time. It has remained so, not because the saloon interests were afraid of our laws, but because they were afraid of the people; and if ever the character of pur population shall change, so that a majority of the inhabitants would tol- erate the open saloon, we may be sure the law will soon be safely ignored, and the saloon make its appearance as a fixture among us. 58 COLONIAL DATS. CHAPTER VII. THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. To a majority of men, among Americans, at least, a change of location, of residence, of trade or profession, or even of moneyed con- dition, is a matter of usual and expected oc- currence, and we hail a majority of possible changes as so many harbingers of probable good; while we contemplate possible loss with philosophical unconcern, or submit to it when we meet it, with stoical endurance. So we have a place to lay our heads when night comes, and temporary protection from the storm; if not a house, at least the prospect of one in the near future, then hope supplies the rest. Mean- time, whether in the city or in the country, or on the mountain in a cabin, or in a dug-out on the plains, or in the sand hills by a water hole, and in a tent, we struggle on, and call it home. But with the women it is different. To a majority of women a little sea of fair weather is better than the opportunities of the great ocean with its possible storms. In every change she naturally fears the -worst rather than hopes for the best; and so they be THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. 59 not absolutely insupportable, she prefers, by all odds, the "ills" she has than to "fly to oth- ers" she "knows not of." Her world is home. She may want the home enlarged and im- proved; she may want an addition on the house, and if she does she will want it higher, and broader, and longer than the old one. And she may possibly come to want the old one dug under, blown up, torn down, or moved away; but if she does, you may rest assured that she will want the new one built exactly on the old spot. And so when you take a woman out among the sand hills with you, and set her down by the newly constructed pine shanty, near the water hole under the sage brush, among the prairie dogs, the gnats, the flies, the snakes, the skunks, the wolves, the owls and the horned toads, and tell her, your heart meantime palpitating with joy at the great and glorious prospect around you, "Here, darling, is our new home," she will not be able to see it anywhere, not a vestige of it, and she will generally say so at once, and sit down for the time being and cry. For these reasons the disappointments at- tending the early settlement of Greeley fell largely among the women. Many men were disgusted with the situation at first, and not a few, in fact, sold their stock in the enter- prise at a discount and started back, but among 60 COLONIAL DATS. those who stayed, all the bitter anguish of the outlook was suffered by the women. In going to a new country to look for a home, if a man takes his wife with him, it is bad for the wife. If he leaves her behind in the old home, while he looks for the new, it is generally bad for the husband. If a man is domestic in his habits and tastes, and is attached to his wife and family, then when he is absent from them he is very likely to be dissatisfied with himself, and disgusted with everything about him; so much sq in fact that nothing will look normal, and in its real light, and he will often be in- capable of forming any just estimate of the advantages of the situation in the new coun- try, no matter how great they may be. On the other hand, the wife, being present, the man is at his home and at his ease, wherever he may be, and although he may never consult her about anything in the world, nor pay the least attention to her advice when she offers it, and although she may chafe at the inconveniences of the new home, and declare she will never come to like it, nor be contented in it, yet the man, satisfied, on the whole, that the loca- tion selected is the best for himself, and his family too, will generally be able to disregard all her little complaints, do what he can to make her comfortable under the altered circum- stances of their lives, and stay right with the THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. 61 situation until prosperity and contentment dawn upon the family group. Having made one blunder in moving South after the close of the Civil War, I had, for myself, determined, before starting, not to bring my family West until entirely satisfied with the place as a permanent home. It had been my purpose, also, not to send for my wife and family until I had completed my house from cellar to garret, and had everything cleaned up, and absolutely ready for occupa- tion. This was a very wise theory of action, if I had only been able to carry it out, but I could not. I had scarcely got the frame up and partially inclosed when an opportunity presented itself by which my wife could come in company with some one who could help her take care of the children on the journey. Mr. Meeker was, at the time, about to begin the publication of the Tribune and had offered L. C. Baker, now residing at Fort Morgan, a position on it if accepted at once. He was a younger brother, and the advantage of his aid and assistance on the long ride by rail was not to be overlooked. She came, and, of course, the time for other reasons selected as best for her to come, was absolutely the worst for her to arrive. If I had brought her out to the proposed site for the building and set her down on one of the trunks while I dug the 62 COLONIAL DATS. cellar, it could not have been so bad; she might in that event at least have advised as to the location of the cellar and perhaps be- come interested in the work. As it was, her arrival found me with the windows tacked in position, and the outside door hung on its hinges, but that was about all; the partitions were not yet in, and mud and mortar bestrewed the floor. Lime plaster, during that first sum- mer, having developed a decided tendency to tumble from ceilings overhead, a belief had begun to prevail that lime and sand would not work the usual combination in Colorado ; many were, therefore, using adobe plaster instead. Adobe bricks were common, and a few con- structed their dwellings of that material. A commoner practice was to fill in the studding on the inside with these bricks and plaster di- rectly on that with plain mud. After long con- sultation with various parties who had already experimented in the matter, I finally decided on the latter method, and had been engaged in putting on this coat of adobe plaster over the bricks. It was my first and last attempt in fresco work or plain plastering. I had been in hopes of, at least, getting that job accom- plished, and the wood work cleaned before the arrival of my wife; in fact, I lacked but a sin- gle day's labor of attaining that end when I was interrupted by the arrest and trial as pre- THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. 63 viously described. When she finally arrived, therefore, although the greater share of the plastering had been completed, and the lower part of the wall presented a tolerably smooth, but very dark apppearance, there was still a rough, unfinished portion, and the floors and the casings of the windows and doors, as well, presented a horrible black and dirty look to any woman of neat housekeeping proclivities. I remember .to this day the feeling of intense apprehension with which I was absorbed on the way from the depot, as to the possible effect these unfinished, unpropitious interior accommodations might have on her mind when we arrived at the house; and I remember, in particular, the striking resemblance I myself suddenly discovered between the inside of my abode and that of a cave in a mountain side, as I opened the door to admit her into the sin- gle, large, unfinished room of a building, as yet without partitions or stairs; and I noticed with dismay the silent, but clearly perceptible chill which the unattractive surroundings gave her. I might appear ever so cheerful, the en- vironment was certainly not calculated to in- spire cheerfulness in her. However, soon re- moving her wraps, she prepared to set things to rights as best she could. Such a dirty stove and dishes and dishpans and dishrags and 64 COLONIAL DATS. pots and kettles, she thought she had never seen, and doubtless never had. The fire I had started for the purpose of preparing the even- ing meal did not burn with the alacrity she had been accustomed to see as a result of her labors with wood, and she undertook to accelerate matters with the poker. Of course, the more she poked it, the less it burned ; in fact, it went out. To cap an inevitable climax, she had handled the coal with her fingers, just as she had been accustomed to handle kindlings and wood, back in the timbered country from which we came, and now, having extinguished the fire and blackened her fingers as well, while 1 had been busy about something else, the re- sult was too much for her already overbur- dened feelings, and turning on me a look of re- proach for her trouble and misery, she said : "Oh, why did you bring me to this wretched country?" and burst into tears. We ate our first meal together in our new home that night, with very little of the feeling which prompted the old saying that "A dinner with herbs, and contentment, is better than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." We didn't have the stalled ox, but I have always sus- pected my wife swallowed much hatred of the country with every "morsel of the food she ate that night. THE WOMEN IN THE NEW HOME. 65 In a day or two after that I took her out to view our new farm over the river, and to try if I could not interest her in the future growth of the new country; for you see, as yet, I had not plowed a furrow, or set out a tree. But already, in my mind's eye, I could con- template the beautiful fields of waving grain, the blossoming clover, and the stately row of trees around its border, just as they could actually be seen in after years. It was indeed a beautiful tract of land, but there was the^n nothing more that could be said for it, and of course my wife could not see that, any more than she could see the fields of grain, the clover blossoms, and the rows of trees. In point of fact, you could have seen a wild goose or a jack rabbit anywhere on it, or within a mile of it, for there wasn't so much as a decent- sized sage bush on the whole flat, where either animal or bird might hide. And so she refused to yield up any more admiration for the pros- pective magnificent farm than she had pro- fessed for the new home in town. It was not until years after that, when actual fields of yellow, waving grain, and blossoming clover, and green lawns, and leafy trees were as pal- pable to her eyes, as the mere vision of them had been to mine, that she could be induced to express the least satisfaction with existence 66 COLONIAL DATS. here; and even at this late day, I sometimes half suspect she still believes the clover blos- soms sweeter, the flowers brighter, the grass greener and everything better and finer on that little old stumpy farm we left behind, than anything to be seen in the adopted land. AN EXPERIMENTAL PERIOD AND HARD TIMES. 67 CHAPTER VIII. AN EXPERIMENTAL PERIOD AND HARD TIMES. Everything went forward with booming strides that first summer, and in an almost incredible space of time four hundred houses had been erected. We talked, then, of a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and although some of us thought this estimate a little wild, I believe a majority of us expected to see a city of five thousand inside of two years. Lots went up with a jump, and business corners, that had cost fifty dollars, ran up to five hun- dred, and even a thousand, in choice locations. But alas for human hopes, the expecta- tions of that first year were too premature for fully ripened fruit; when the greater number of original Colonists had arrived, and in a measure provided themselves with houses and homes, building stopped, and prices took the inevitable tumble predicted by Mr. Greeley, when he made us his one visit, and it was not until years later, when the country had made the necessary advance to support the abnormal growth of the town, that property in lots and buildings again reached, on a substantial basis, 68 COLONIAL DATS. the purely speculative values of that first sea- son. And we had no sooner began the improve- ment of our outside lands, than several of us became profoundly impressed with the truth of that old maxim, that "God made the coun- try, and man made the town." We had worked the wonders of magic in building the town, but when we began to meddle with the sup- posed defects in nature's handiwork in the country, we were very soon impressed with a profound respect for the designs of the Al- mighty. Our canals, intended to supply a de- ficiency in the rainfall of the state, were found on trial to be altogether inadequate even for the small acreage in cultivation under canal No. 2 the second year. Not many of us were overburdened with money when we be- gan the struggle with the desert, and those of us who had any when we began, soon lost it, or expended it in improvements, which, for many years, brought back no profitable return. The first attempt at general farm cultivation re- sulted in blank failure to a large majority of those immediately interested in production, and as a consequence, the prices of land, in the country, dropped to a ridiculously low fig- ure, when compared with the values of after- years. Good eighty-acre tracts were a drug in the market for a long time after that first AN EXPEBIMENTAL period and haed times. 69 trial, and it was not until years afterwards that even the best eighties, and in the choicest locations, could be sold for a thousand dollars each. The history of a single tract will well illustrate waning confidence and its revival in more propitious times. In the Colony drawing of lands and lots, Mr. William F. Thompson, for a long time a resident of Greeley, secured the eighty-acre tract next to mine, under canal No. 2. In the fall after that first failure he offered me this choice piece of land with the water right for $650. But I had made a complete failure that year, owing to a lack of water and a lack of experience combined, and although I had plenty of pluck and lots of faith in the ulti- mate success of the undertaking, I had neither money nor credit that would enable me to pur- chase what I even then knew to be worth many times that sum. But profiting by our experi- ence out in the bluffs tinkering with a small ditch and a scant water supply, we petitioned the Colony board that fall to levy a tax and enlarge the canal; with the result that nearly every one who persisted in making a second trial succeeded in growing excellent crops. Then prices began to stiffen a little, and my friend Thompson raised the price of his land to a thousand" dollars. I made a good crop the second year of my farming operations, but 70 COLONIAL DATS. was by that time badly in debt on account of the previous failure, and I dared not take the risk of borrowing the money to make the pur- chase; thus I let the second opportunity slip away. In 1875 Mr. Thompson offered me the place a third time for f 1,200; but now the grasshoppers were upon us, and I did not feel justified in taking the risk and therefore did not buy. In 1878 I went to him to pay him his price for it, which had now grown to $1,800, but while I had been waiting to get returns from my crops before making the venture, Mr. Driver, one of the original Colonists, stepped in and took it. In the spring of 1879, Driver becoming a little discouraged at the unusually dry weather, offered to take a hundred dollars for his bargain; but I had meanwhile invested what money I had to spare, and again I lost the opportunity. Soon after that Messrs. Mason and Bradfleld put their savings together and bought the place of Mr. Driver for $2,000, I believe, and after farming it in partnership for two or three years, one of them sold his half interest to the other for $2,400. I need hardly say to any one now familiar with the ruling prices for land in that vicinity that it could not probably be purchased from Mr. Mason, who still owns it, and made a fortune farming it, for $10,000. AN EXPERIMENTAL PERIOD AND HARD TIMES. 71 During the long, dull, stagnant period in the growth of Greeley which followed the set- tlement of the first summer, perhaps a quarter of the cheap one-story houses originally built in town, were carted out into the country for use upon the farms, and from that time clear down to as late a date as 1875, or even later, rents were ridiculously low, and many of the houses, especially in the summer season, remained un- occupied. People who have become residents of the place since that chrysalis period of our growth, could hardly be made to realize the contrast between the Greeley of to-day, with its dozens of really fine houses, its hundreds of neat homes with their closely shaven lawns, trim gardens filled with shrubbery and flowers, and the straggling, poverty-stricken hamlet of from 1872 to 1875. For several years after settlement there existed less than half a dozen grass plots in the place, and it was not until as late as 1874, that I remember to have seen a lawn mower in Greeley. I myself sent for the first blue grass seed sown in town. ' I ordered it from Lexington, Ky., and distributed it among the members, during the sessions of the old Greeley Far- mers' Club, at one time one of the important, so-thought, institutions of the place. 72 COLONIAi DAYS. During those dubious years of uncertainty the very few among our residents who pos- sessed the means to erect good houses hesi- tated to do so, from being yet undetermined whether to make permanent residence here or to emigrate to more congenial and propitious climes; and those of our number who pos- sessed the requisite faith in the country and really did all the hard, faithful labor, and made all the practical experiments leading to the ultimate success of the enterprise, were with- out the means to build as they might hare wished. For a long time thereafter the residences of Mr. Meeker, of Mr. Holmes, now owned by Mr. Ewing; of Mr. Nettleton, now owned by Mrs. Mead, and of Mr. Wherrin, now owned by Mr. Tuckerman, and perhaps two or three others, which I may not at this moment be able to recall, constituted all the dwellings in Greeley which made any pretentions to .ex- cellence of construction or tasteful architec- tural design. During the winter months of several of those earlier years the farmers and a large share of the townspeople, as well, subsisted almost entirely on wild game for the meat they consumed, instead of patronizing the butcher's stalls. Ex-Governor Eaton, who, in company with John Abbott, now living at Fort AN EXPERIMENTAL PERIOD AND HARD TIMES. 73 Collins, kept the only market in Greeley at the time, could recount, if they saw fit, to all who might wish to hear, how a single beef frequently sufficed for the demands of the mar- ket for a week at a stretch, while buffalo hams and shoulders were brought into the place by the four-horse loads and retailed at from 2 to 4 cents per pound. Antelope, ducks and geese and jack rabbits served for variety, and if everybody was poor, there was at least enough of good, wholesome, cheap meat. Almost every man had a gun and knew how to use it, too, and there are very few of the original Colonists now living in the town or its vicinity who at one time or another during those pio- neer years, did not contrive to bag a buffalo or two, as among his trophies of the chase. I have myself a very lively recollection of a two weeks' jaunt by a party of six, which, going down the Platte and up Cedar creek in December, 1871, met with no end of fun and adventure, as well as considerable hardship, and returned with the hams and hides of forty-six. Another party, as late as 1874, had some very fine sport in the vicinity of Pawnee Buttes, and as one of the incidents of the expedition cornered a herd of buffalo on top of one of the plateaus in that vicinity, and, ex- pecting to bag the whole, bunch, chased them 74 COLONIAL DATS. off a perpendicular cliff of rock, afterwards found to be twenty-seven feet high, and were surprised and chagrined to find but a single crippled animal at the bottom, when the rest had scrambled to their feet and ran away. It must have been some time during the winter of deep snow, 1872 and 1873, I believe, that the antelope congregated inside the Col- ony fence, at that time surrounding our pos- sessions, and coming up nearly to the borders of the town on the east, almost the entire mare population turned out with guns, on horse- back, and even in wagons, and, driving the herd through the deep crusted snow, killed and captured more than one hundred in one after- noon. We hung the carcasses on the north sides of our houses to freeze and ate them during the long winter months that followed, and I may add that a number of us old settlers acquired that season such a distaste for antelope that we have never really hankered after any since. SUCCESS AND PAHUEB. 75 CHAPTER IX. SUCCESS AND FAILURE. There are a number of the original Colo- nists left who will never forget the trials and tribulations of that first summer of agricul- tural experiment under canal No. 2. I can myself recall, and with lively sensations, too, the experiences of my first effort at farming by means of irrigation. I remember that we could not procure any good seed wheat on the Poudre and that, in consequence, myself and my brother Arthur sent a team over on the Thompson for the sake-of getting wheat that was clear of cockle and sunflower seeds. We paid three cents a pound for it and got stuck in the mud on the way home at the foot of the bluff this side of Hillsboro and had to go back for half of it, which we were compelled to leave by the way; and that at last when we had got the whole precious lot together, and were pro- ceeding out toward our future estates, over the river there, one of the sacks in the rear of the load, by some inscrutable and diabolical means, came untied on the way and scattered a little line of golden grains almost the whole 16 COLONIAL DAYS. distance from the river out to our farms. We paid a very high price for that wheat, went a long way after it, had no end of trouble in get- ting it on account of rain and mud, and hadn't an ounce more than we needed, at best, and it will probably not be difficult to understand our feelings when, arriving at our destination, we discovered the loss of that sack of three-cent wheat. Every one has heard the story of that New Englander whose apples rolled one by one out of the rear end of his cart as he was going up a hill, until when near the top he looked back and found not a single apple left in the box. It has been a tradition ever since, handed down through generations of New Englanders, that our language, rich as it is in wrathful expletives, is, in some emergen- cies, an utter failure. Ours was in this. And I know that I am well under the truth when 1 say that if that sack had been filled full of the almighty silver dollars which Colorado people are peculiarly prone to worship, and they had slipped one by one through our fin- gers, and fallen into an ocean, we couldn't have felt more disgusted with the result. There are times when one annoying, ex^ asperating circumstance after another pursues a man, until it would seem that the evil Genii of old-time belief holds possession of his fate and works all things together for the bad. SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 77 The loss of that sack of wheat was but the forerunner of worse disaster and merely typ- ical of ill-success to come. We had been de- layed in getting the wheat and had been com- pelled to make two trips for one, when we were pressed sorely for time in getting in our crop; we got stuck in the river on the way out from town, for there was at the time no bridge across the Poudre, and we were compelled to carry the sacks, one by one, out to the farther shore on our backs ; and when we had sowed it and killed our best horse in digging the lateral down to its margin through the desert, with anxious expectation we watched its feeble growth day by day, after it had pushed its way through the ground, and nursed its sickly vitality with, the attenuated little stream of water that came creeping down through the mirage that hovered incessantly about the canal above us, until at last it withered, like a false hope, and died; then there came a hail storm that would have knocked seven- teen vigorous lives out of that crop of wheat, if there had been any life there to destroy, and there wasn't a ghost of a chance for it if the hail storm had passed by on the other side ; and, finally, barring the rich and useful ex- perience gained that season, and employed to advantage in after years, that entire load of wheat might better have been sown in the 78 COLONIAL DATS. road rather than with such profitless labor scattered upon ourjarms. It must have been some time in June of that year of experiment over the river that an effort was made to establish a woolen factory in Greeley. Previous to embarking in the Co- lonial enterprise quite a large proportion of our members had been engaged in manufac- turing pursuits. Many of these, by reason of previous training and experience, were both disinclined and incapacitated for the business of opening up new farms in a new country with unknown and untried conditions of cultiva- tion. And many of them had joined the or- ganization with the hope and expectation that in the new home all the arts and all the manu- facturing industries would flourish at once, and in just the same balanced proportions they had been accustomed to see in the other land from which they came. They were not averse to owning a lot or two, for the purpose of speculation, or a small tract of land which would increase in value as the country grew older, but they had not expected to follow ag- riculture as a means of gaining a livelihood, and it was, therefore, very natural that they should become dissatisfied when they saw the canals and the agricultural interests of the place receiving so much fostering care, and so much moneyed assistance at the hands of SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 79 the Colony board. Both ditches were in a crude, unfinished state, it is true, and had proved entirely inadequate to the demands made upon them with the little cultivation under them, even at that early day. But these unwise brethren, aided by a few of the busi- ness men of the place, who thought the im- provement of the town entitled to more con- sideration than had been bestowed, and who had not then come to fully understand how entirely their own prosperity depended on the success of the agricultural experiment, now insisted that the canals had already absorbed more than their fair share of the Colony funds and asked that several thousand dollars be given in aid of the new enterprise. A meeting had been called to consider the proposition, and, if possible, secure the con- sent of the stockholders for the desired ap- propriation. Father Meeker, if I remember correctly, stood mildly neutral in the premises, willing that whatever was considered best, after full discussion, should be done. General Cameron warmly espoused the new undertak- ing, and one or two of the members of the board were opposed. Matters stood thus when one evening, as I came down town after a hard day's work, wrestling with the adverse conditions of the desert, I met an angry dele- gation of farmers on the street, all of whom, 80 COLONIAL DATS. like myself, were sufferers from the incapacity of the canals. They were discussing the pro- posed appropriation for a woolen factory, and, as a matter of course, were opposed to the scheme. One of the number had a bunch of wheat in his hand which had all headed out. It was in the same starved-to-death condition for want of water with which all of us have since that day become so familiar, and stalk and head together, being pulled up by the roots, did not exceed a foot in length. I had, at that moment, forty acres of just such look- ing wheat on my own farm, and, of course, I appreciated the bearing of that bunch of wheat on the prospects of the future. The meeting inside the building near by, called for the purpose of securing the appropriation for the factory, was just coming to order, and, seizing the bunch of stunted wheat and hiding it under my coat, I, in company with the rest, went in to oppose the measure. I do not now' remember who was the chairman of the meet- ing, but I do remember that for a time every- thing seemed to augur success for the new enterprise. The general made one of his elo- quent, persuasive speeches, such as he was always capable of making when he desired to carry a point, told his hearers the old story of overproduction in gross products, how all purely agricultural countries became poorer SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 81 year by year, unless their industry was supple- mented by home markets, which could only be secured by a manufacturing population, etc., and so on; all of it excellent as mere theory, but quite lacking in the essential particulars, facts and time. For even at this late day, more than thirty .years after the events here re- corded, and after a number of unsuccessful ventures, there is still not a woolen mill in operation in the state. When the general closed his argument some of the opponents of the measure gained the floor, and among the rest, myself. I told the assembly that there was a number of us farmers out in the bluffs just then who felt very little concern as to what we would do with the gross product; that, on the other hand, we entertained serious fears that for some time to come the gross product might not make the bread to keep us alive. Then I pulled that bunch of wheat from under my coat tail and, holding it up in full view of the audience, I asked if that looked like glutting the markets of the world. I couldn't talk much, but I had no need to talk; that bunch of drouth-withered wheat did the business; it was more eloquent than a host of tongues, and before the meeting closed it was a conceded point that the factory would have to wait. 82 COLONIAL DATS. It did wait, and, as I have just shown, is wait- ing yet. The little circumstance, so minutely related at this time, had an important, if not, in fact, a determining influence on the after-destinies of the Colonial movement. We had arrived at a crisis, and collapse and ultimate failure might possibly have followed but for the favorable turn in events as resulting from that meeting. A majority of the board was convinced that the thing of first importance for the success of all concerned, was the enlargement and bet- ter management of the canals. There was suf- ficient money yet in the Colony treasury to make the necessary improvement, whereas, through failure the pockets of the farmers were depleted. The board, therefore, made a $50 assessment on each water right in No. 2 and temporarily advanced the cash, mean- time making the assessment a lien against each owner who could not at the time make payment. Those who had teams, many of them worked out the assessment, going into camp from one of the long canals to the other while the work was in progress. Other mem- bers of the Colony, who were out of work at the time, though not directly interested in the canal, obtained employment at remunerative wages until the enlargement was completed. The sum advanced by the Colony board was SUCCESS AND FAILTJBE. 83 all, I believe, ultimately returned to the treas- ury. The crisis in our affairs was thus success- fully tided over, and the confidence of . the farmers restored and their waning courage re- newed. As a direct result of the canal en- largement excellent crops were grown the next year, and from that time on, through all the varying vicissitudes through which we passed, faith never wavered and ultimate suc- cess became assured. 84 COLONIAL DATS. CHAPTER X. THE HARD WINTER — A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. The success attending our second season's operations under canal No. 2 was fully as flat- tering as the first had been discouraging. The canal having been more than doubled in ca- pacity and the distribution of water having been accomplished with some order and regu- larity, almost everyone who had any previous knowledge of farming raised good crops. My- self and brother, still farming together, pro- duced that year 1,500 sacks of potatoes, 1,300 bushels of wheat and about 1,000 bushels of oats. That was before the era of harvesters and binders; the self -rake reaper and the "dropper" still reigned supreme. Mr. Harris, one of our neighbors, bought one of these lat- ter machines and Mr. Olin, Mr. Dresser, my- self and brother made an arrangement with him that he should cut all our grain and that we should jointly bind and shock his. Thus we were able to harvest the four crops with- out the outlay of a dollar for extra help. That will appear very primitive to the farmers of this day and generation, but in such small be- THE HARD WINTER — A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. 85 ginnings some of the greatest ultimate achievements of men have originated. Those were the days of sword grass and slough hay, from the river bottom, for which all the farmers under our newly-constructed ditches were obliged to travel up and down the river from five to twenty-five miles and pay from |8 to $25 per ton. In the spring, fol- lowing the very hard winter I am about to describe, it brought $25 and $30. It was very poor feed for heavy work, when grain was still scarce and dear with us, and one of the first subjects of interest to us, after a sufficient water supply had been secured, was the matter of forage. I wasted $30 in timothy and red clo- ver seed, which I sowed in the spring of 1872 and which came up finely, but the clover all "heaved out" in the following hard winter, and during the next summer the grasshoppers, which for several years thereafter were to. work such havoc to the crops of the Colony, cleaned up the timothy. I must not forget to mention that having always lived in a tim- bered country, one of the first things we did was to set out trees. In the intervals of time between putting in crops and beginning the process of irrigating them I w en t down on the river bottom in the spring of 1872 and pulled up young cottonwood seedlings from a quar- ter to a half inch in diameter and planted Sb COLONIAL DATS. , them on the lines of my farm by the roadside. They made a magnificent growth that sum- mer of from four to six feet, but in the hard winter following the cattle ate them v all off to the surface of the snow, which, however, did not seriously injure them, and they came on again with renewed vigor the next year. And that reminds me of an incident or two that I may as well recount here as elsewhere. When the Colonists first settled in Greeley this was the center of a great cattle range, and the cattle men of the time very naturally, and very foolishly, as well, looked with dis- favor upon our operations here. Not all were influenced by motives such as these, but many were, and much ill feeling was for a time en- gendered, which, as a lingering result, is occa- sionally seen cropping out even to this day. The Colonists were too poor to put up indi- vidual fences, and accordingly the idea of one large fence to enclose all our possessions, was soon put into practice. The fence was at first without the warrant of the law permitting such fence districts, which we afterwards secured to protect us in maintaining it, and many of the cattlemen, therefore, paid little attention to our rights. I remember one day when I was irrigating my wheat the second time, and had about ten acres of it all under water, a little party of cattlemen, en route to some round-up, THE HARD WINTER — A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. 87 or traveling about the range for some other purpose connected with their business, delib- erately rode diagonally across my grain, then all headed out, and made a trail of crushed wheat about a rod wide from one corner to the other. I was naturally indignant, and, going around to the upper end of the field to meet them as they emerged on the other side, I remarked that it seemed to me this was a very large country, and that with hundreds of thousands of square miles of bare prairie all around me in every direction, they ought to have been able to find room for themselves without traveling directly through my grain. But they looked at me with undisguised scorn, and only took the trouble to inform me in inso- lent tones that they were here first and that this was no farming country anyway. In the winter of 1872 and 1873 occurred the great snow fall that has never been equaled or approached since that day. For a period of more than three months it lay upon the ground to a depth of more than two feet. A crust soon formed over the top, as it settled under repeated layers of three or four inches, which fell as often as the weather moderated sufficiently to thaw a little, until a man could travel for miles in any direction on the range without breaking through. I remember that I took the rammer from an old-fashioned shot- 88 COLONIAL DATS. gun one day when I was out there hunting jack- rabbits, and, probing it down to the ground in dozens of places all over the surface of my farm, found that it averaged twenty-eight inches deep. Then it was that our fence counted for nothing, and thousands of head of starving cattle roamed at will over our farms, invaded our stacks of unthreshed grain, and ate the little hay we had on hand for our own stock. Corrals were broken into and even granaries proved no sort of barrier to the starv- ing brutes who bellowed by day and by night for food. There was an old bull roaming about the country at the time which became famous for a long time afterwards for his depredations and escapes. Nothing could stand in his way, intact, from a granary to a dug-out, and no one was seemingly able to kill him. His hide became very soon charged with buckshot, and it was not an uncommon sight to see him mean- dering about the country with one or more lost pitchforks dangling from his sides, and which did not seem to annoy him in the least. I need hardly say that this bull contrived to keep fat and sleek in that season of unparalleled disas- ter to his kind. My brother had a little tilt with this bull, and, as usual, his bullship came off with flying colors. Coming down to the young city one night with his family to attend a meeting of the famous literary society, which THE HASD WINTER — A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. 89 at the time afforded so much instruction and entertainment for the Colonists, when they re- turned to their humble dwelling at a late hour in the night, they found this bull in their kitchen. Uncontrollable wrath prompted my brother to fire a charge of shot into his retreat- ing flanks, but, although at very short range, it had neither the effect to accelerate nor to retard his flight in the slightest degree, and for months after that he was still the terror of every neighborhood under the canal. Such were some of the excitements and drawbacks of a pioneer people in their efforts to subdue the desert in that early day. 90 COLONIAL DATS. CHAPTER XI. SOME DEAD-HORSE REFLECTIONS. Oh! what farmer of Colonial or other days but has at some time or another sighed, groaned even, in anguish of spirit, over a dead horse, "and mourned because it was not." I have previously noted that I brought a fine span with me from the South when I came to Greeley. But I very quickly lost one. Hav- ing selected the lot on which I still live, and decided to erect a house and make Greeley my home, the first necessary operation towards construction, was to dig a cellar. So I bor- rowed a plow and a scraper, and Baker and myself proceeded to make the excavation our- selves. By the end of the second day we had nearly completed the job; on the morning of the third Baker went down on the bottom, where we had our team picketed, to get it, and attend to feeding and harnessing it, while I busied myself in getting our breakfast. Pres- ently Baker poked his head inside the folds of the tent in front and informed me in dubious tones that one of the horses was dead. "Ah!" said I, always, from constitutional habit, look- SOME DEAD-HORSE REFLECTIONS. 91 ing for the worst, while striving for the best, "the best horse, of course." "Certainly," said he. Then we ate breakfast in silence and fin- ished digging the cellar with pick and shovel. I turned the remaining animal out to grass and did not procure a mate for it until the fol- lowing spring, when, previous to embarking on the unfortunate experiment in farming un- der canal No. 2, already described, myself and brother went over on the Big Thompson, where the old settlers had plenty of horses, and were always willing to take us tenderfeet in, and bought a fine half-blood broncho with black rings around its legs and a stripe down its back, for $175. It was, of course, well broken ; that is to say, I suppose it must have had a rope around its neck at some time or another, and by means of a "snub hitch" about its lower jaw, been yanked a few times around the farmer's big corral. At all events, the next morning, when we proceeded to harness the scrub, it threw itself, in true broncho style, four times in less than five minutes, and we had to break it in, regularly, thereafter every morn- ing before proceeding to work, all that season. Nevertheless we contrived to get in our spring crop without serious mishap, until we had to plow out the laterals in our grain; then the ground being dry and hard, we overstrained the remaining animal of the original team, and 92 COLONIAL DATS. when we went out the next morning to harness and feed, that, too, was dead. I now looked about and bought a very good horse of old Dr. Scott. It was not a large horse, but was well formed, and well broken, and I felt confident it would answer our pur- pose. But alas for human horse hopes, it had the epizootic, although supposed to be recovering nicely from the disease when I made the purchase. Neither the doctor nor myself had the remotest suspicion that the case was a serious one; all the horses in the country were suffering from the disease at the time, and nearly all recovered; this one never did. The ailment degenerated into chronic catarrh, and, after using him a couple of years, I was obliged to shoot him. When I got that horse finally paid for he had been dead more than a year, and must have cost me, in prin- cipal and interest, fully $250. When I first settled in Greeley there was an Englishman, Pearson, by name, who selected the lot and built the house on the other corner of the block, where Mrs. Senier now lives. Pearson was not a practical man, and, like many another original Colonist, had the crudest notions of business, in general, and es- pecially of agriculture. Pearson had with him that first year, two Cockney friends, dependent in true baronial style on himself, who, I should SOME DEAD-HORSE REFLECTIONS. 93 judge, must at the time have been possessed of three or four thousand dollars, accumulated, as we understood, in some sort of manufactur- ing enterprise in England. He soon got away with it, in a country he did not know, and a business he did not understand; but, while it lasted, he made things quite lively in his new environment. He took up a homestead, not far from mine over the river there, and, prepara- tory to making the necessary improvements on that, bought a yoke of oxen of some old set- tler, paying, of course, a hitherto unheard of price for them, and then sent his two depend- ents up into the foothills for lumber with which to construct his claim shanty. They were gone nearly two weeks, and when they did return — but I will let Mr. Pearson tell his own story, as he did to me at the time — "One evening," said he, "as I sat smoking on the back porch, what should I see but these two bloomin' chumps coming down the road afoot, and one of 'em 'avin' a bridle a 'angin' hover his harm. ' 'Ello, boys,' says Hi, ' 'Ow's this; w'ere's the oxens?' 'Traded 'em for a 'orse,' says 'e. 'Wat's come of the 'orse?' said Hi. 'Oh,' says 'e, ' 'e doid hup at Luveland's, hon the way 'ome.' " Pearson didn't laugh, but I did, although even then I was suffering from a dead-horse experience. It makes a great deal of difference how many horses, and how much money one has 94 COLONIAL DATS. as to the way he will look down on a dead, horse, or up at a live one. In 1895, now, for instance, I sold my farm out beyond the river there, that I had cultivated for nearly a quarter of a century, to Charles Mason. Horses were by that time distressingly cheap, and I had too many. There were still left on my hands at the time I sold the place, seven or eight, including three or four one and two- year-olds. I proposed to turn them in to Charles with the place, and he did not want them. But I told him he had to have them; he might kill or give away what he had no use for, if he could, in time, find any one who would take them, but take them he must or there would be no trade. In the early days I have been describing, however, things were vastly different, and my experiences in dead horses were so painful and left such lasting effects on my exchequer, that for many a long year thereafter when success- fully managing my farming affairs, I ap- proached the stable each morning with appre- hension and dread, always expecting, as I cau- tiously opened the door and peeked in, that only one horse would greet me with a whinney, and the other would exhibit to my accustomed vision a set of dead horse heels turned up in the morning air. THE FUEL QUESTION. 95 CHAPTER XII. THE FUEL QUESTION — HAULING COAL UNDEE DIFFICULTIES. During those first trying years in the set- tlement of Greeley the question of fuel was by no means the least important. We then, and for years afterwards, had but one line of rail- road to the mines, and the cost of coal was enormously high. From six to seven dollars per ton was the usual price, and for several winters the former figure was the minimum. Clothes we brought with us, and they lasted until we were able to buy new ones. Wild game, as already noted, was abundant, and an- telope and buffalo meat a regular article of diet, and very cheap, even when not killed by the head of the family. Other food we soon con- trived to grow in abundance. But coal was cash, and cash was very scarce for several years. Trips to Crow creek for cottonwood, by the farmers over the river, was a regular business, and it was even brought into the town and sold on the streets. Wood from the mountains, for summer use, was not uncom- mon. And a company was formed for the pur- 96 COLONIAL DATS. pose of getting out ties and wood and floating them dbwn the river from the foothills. But the regular source of supply, to many of us who had teams and nothing else to do in the winter, was the old McKissick coal mine over beyond the St. Vrain. Many of us retain memo- ries of cross-lot trips over the hills to that place for coal that will still be distinct and vivid when all other earthly scenes are receding from view. I have myself some lively recollections of frozen toes and ears and frozen bread and butter, suffered and consumed on these ever- recurring journeys, and they have a habit of turning up periodically in my dreams. One jaunt in particular stands out in bold relief. The sick horse mentioned in another place had gone into a regular decline, and it was evident that his days were numbered. The winter of 1873-74 was at hand; the coal bin was depleted, and I made up my mind there was just about enough vitality left in that horse to make one more trip to the mines; then I would turn him out into the stubble fields, where he would soon turn up his toes after the custom of the dead horse kind. It was a shorter trip to Platteville, although the coal was of an inferior grade. But my team could probably stand the shorter trip and might fail me on the longer one; so to Platteville I went. A new shaft had recently been opened over in the val- THE FUEL QUESTION. 97 ley to the left. I had heard of it as being su- perior to the other mine in the immediate vi- cinity of Platteville, and I made for it. The day was a stormy one, and disagreeable in the extreme. A raw east wind blew in my left ear all the way over, and unpleasant reflections goaded my mind. The grasshoppers had eaten up my corn. I was badly in debt. My dead- horse account already footed up two fine ani- mals, since -coming to Colorado, and the list was to be increased by a third in the near fu- ture. I observed, in fact, as he swung along the road with his ambling gait, that his vitality was even lower than I had supposed before setting out. I had been in the habit of working him one day, perhaps, and then letting him rest the next, to recuperate. Now he looked as though he might not recuperate. I had a doc- tor's bill that was not yet paid. In fact, I owed one doctor for this very horse. "Paying for a dead horse" has, ever since the first experiences of civilized man, been regarded as one of the most irksome of all liquidations. Other annoy- ances obtruded themselves on my attention in an inopportune manner, and by the time I ar- rived at my destination I never felt worse, or of less consequence, or was more depressed in spirits in my life. And now the dump and the windlass and the miner's shanty loomed in view. Cheerful 98 COLONIAL DATS. sight, with the dismal sand hills in the distance for a background. Drawing nigh, and natur- ally looking for mine boss, or weigh man, or cook, not a Hying soul could I find about the premises. I had made a mistake, probably, and most likely would have to go over to Platte- ville, after all, or return empty; and in the former alternative, should be on the road un- til long after dark; pleasing reflection to an already overburdened mind. Then I went up and, peeking down the dismal shaft, thought, after a time, that I detected a faint clicking sound, as of some one, possibly at work. Some one was, and, throwing down a chunk of slag into the hole, I was, after a time, able to give notice of the arrival of a customer. There were two proprietors, and not wealthy. They did their own cooking, mining, hoisting, and sell- ing; and it being near noon, they came up out of the shaft and prepared for the midday meal. On their invitation, I repaired with them to their shanty. It was not a gorgeous affair; upright boards nailed on studding after the ap- proved shanty style of architecture; lined, of course, with tarred paper. Stove in one cor- ner, set up on bricks and tin cans. The ashes had overflown hearth environment and de- scended in a huge pile upon the dirt floor. A pile of straw in another corner, with a couple of blankets dumped upon it, indicated the local- THE FUEL QUESTION. 99 ity of night's repose. A rough, pine-board, cross-legged table, strewed with bones and bits of yeast-powder bread, suggested sumptuous repast. A molasses can, labeled "Golden t)rip," very dirty on the outside, and a pan of dried apples, very black, made a feeble second to the motion. There was a coffee pot upon the stove two-thirds full of accumulated grounds, which the proprietors had evidently been reboiling for weeks. They invited me to dine with them, and I suggested that they dump the coffee grounds and make tea, which I offered to pro : vide. My offer was accepted readily, and the meal was soon prepared. As I enjoyed the hos- pitality of these gentlemen, my own condition changed for the better. They ate of my bread and meat, and I ate of their dried apples. We supped sumptuously of our joint production, tea. They said they intended to buy a bedstead or put up a bunk just as soon as they got ahead a little on coal sales, but they were in debt on their lease, didn't like to incur needless ex : pense, and were, therefore, roughing it, tem- porarily, until they got a start. I looked around me a little as I ate and began to grow cheerful. We only know our own condition, relatively, and by comparison, and I now began to com- pare. A man is rich or poor according to the company he keeps. I was now in poor com- pany, and, accordingly, began to esteem my- 100 COLONIAL DAYS. self very wealthy. I thought I had known pov- erty and misery, but I never had. Dinner over I prepared to return to Gree- ley. It was now snowing, but my mental hori- zon was clearing rapidly. I mounted my load of coal and whistled in glee as I proceeded on my way. The skies got darker step by step, but my sky grew brighter. My horse began to fag, but I got down and walked. Later he gave out entirely, but the other was a strong animal -and, chaining the doubletree back to the axle on that side, I managed to keep mov- ing on. At the hill this side of Evans I thought we should never get up, but we did. I arrived at home late in the night, wet, cold and hungry, but absolutely cheerful in spirits. I slept well and, rising early next day, led that horse out into the bluffs and shot him, still esteeming myself a wealthy man. A LITTLE GROUP OF MINOB MEMORIES. 101 CHAPTER XIII. A LITTLE GKOUP OF MINOB MEMORIES. Who of the number of original Colonists still living does not vividly remember the sea of troubles connected with irrigation in those earlier years. The days when the old settler, that oracle of an early day, told us that no irri- gation was needed until July, and we found, on the contrary, that every green thing was dried to a tan brown before the middle of June; the days when we were patronizingly informed that only little furrows were needed every thirty or forty rods, through our fields of grain, and that the water would, obligingly, soak from bank to bank between them, thus doing away with any necessity of flooding, whereas we found that on the upland a young fresh water lake was required, and that every square inch of the surface must be covered. The days, in short, of small experience, great expectations, diminutive ditches, big dykes and general disaster. Oh, yes, all of us who are yet alive can remember the troubles of that perilous time. I can distinctly remember my first introduction, by inference merely, to the 102 COLONIAL DAYS. host of troubles that were destined to follow for myself and all other experimentalists in after days. I had gone up the Poudre, some time during that first summer, just from cu- riosity, in order to see for myself where the water in No. 3 came from, and the manner of diyersion from the river. And I remember that while there I read a most suggestive card pinned to the head gate of the flume. It was explicit, laconic, direct and rude to a western degree, but conclusive and convincing. It merely said: "Take notice; whoever is found meddling with this headgate will catch hell and a great deal of it." I often reflected, in after days, that this notice was portentious of the many troubles which followed in the manipulation of water by novices in the art, just as certainly and as legitimately, as the punishment so positively promised the trans- gressor who should meddle with that gate. In- deed, we all of us "caught" it, "and a great deal of it." When Mr. Meeker was writing for the New York Tribune and told his eastern readers how the waters of irrigation wobbled down the furrows after a man like a little dog at his heels, how that pleasing description must have interested the- citizen of that densely popu- lated city, who, of course, knew absolutely nothing about the matter except what he read A LITTLE GEOUP OF MINOR MEMORIES. 103 in that letter. But meanwhile Father Meeker and all the rest of us were nearly sweating blood in our efforts to make that little water dog trot faster down the furrow ; for the main furrows were very long and very narrow, and who that was then with us and not gone from us can not remember the world of trouble and tribulation we had before we got them wid- ened sufficiently. What wonder, then, that many of our ex- periences with ditches and water and the water supply, have taken a deep hold on us, have sunken deeply in our hearts and have at last resulted in a set of convictions which, like our instincts, rise above reason and are neither subject to review nor revision. There is still abiding with us a suspicion of the man above us, on lateral or ditch or river; that sus- picion has become second nature. I presume it is probably the same in all the irrigated countries of the world. I suppose that under every irrigation system, no matter where, the man above another on the source of supply is, for the purposes of irrigation and water distribution, regarded as a thief and a robber ; and if his character for honesty and fair deal- ing is absolutely above reproach, then, at least, that he constantly uses more water than is needed, is gradually making a swamp of his premises and is certain to ruin his crops. 104 COLONIAl DAYS. And the mutual repose of confidence between farmers under the same ditch or canal is even yet touching to behold. As the season for general irrigation approaches, two farmers, conferring together regarding the matter, in- variably agree that there is plenty of time, and each unhesitatingly avers to the other that he has no thought of beginning before the "middle of next week." Then each shoul- ders his shovel in the shadows of the evening and starts for the flume; each as certain as the spectre, or Brutus, before Philippi, to meet the other there. Did I speak just now of the old settler? Ah, I must not yet leave him. For we all re- member him well; how, having been here long before us he had taken possession of the rich river bottom lands, just as we would have done had we been here before him; how he was sure he owned the earth, or had at least all that was worth standing upon, right under his feet; was sure the bluff lands were worthless and so stood back smiling the smile of superior wis- dom, while we fooled away our time in digging long canals that ran from somewhere clear down into nowhere and wound in and out and above and around gullies and ravines and draws, onto adobe flats and ridges of sand that wouldn't grow gourds or sprout black-eyed peas. We would hardly suspect it now, but A LITTLE GROUP OF MINOR MEMORIES. 105 even so shrewd a man as Governor Eaton, at that time one of the best friends the Colonists had among the old settlers, confessed to me once, and freely, that he laid awake nights for at least two years after we began operations out under canal No. 2, thinking of the awful consequences likely to ensue, if for any unfore- seen reason the river farmers failed to grow enough food to keep us poor Colonists from starving, and that for a year or two after we succeeded he still laid awake nights expecting us to ruin the country by overproduction. And our first blizzard; we can remember that, too; the one that happened in the fall of 1871 and sent all of us into our houses bare- headed, if we were out of doors and lucky enough to get in again that night, and nearly froze to death those who could not; and our first hailstorm, that visited us in July, 1871; how it hashed up our strawberry beds and our melons and green peas and mashed out our windows and then sailed out into the bluffs, hilariously chanking its teeth and licking its jaws and looking for further worlds to con- quer among the scattering fields of grain under our canals. And^our first grasshoppers, that took all our first fruits, and stripped off all the leaves from our trees and left them to die, and ate up our young lawns and our onions and turnips, 106 COLONIAL DATS. and left the weeds to stand, and gathered in the growing crops of wheat and corn, and flew into our eyes, and down our backs, and up our trousers, and into our beds, and into the very dishes of food as they cooked upon our fires, and then laid a million eggs apiece, and con- tentedly died, relying on billions yet unborn to carry on the good work of destruction next season. Oh, yes, all these are memories that will cling to us to our dying days. But we lived; and did a good work; and it will last. The city we founded and the country we reclaimed will be our monuments when we have passed away. The trees we planted will live when we are gone. Their perennial shade will discredit the legend of the desert we found here when we came. And the magnificent canals we con- structed at such cost of sore trial, and hard toil, and deprivation, will still convey life-giving streams to thirsty fields when the very records of their origin are lost to mankind. THE OLD-TIMEE AND THE TENDERFOOT. 107 CHAPTER XIV. THE OLD-TIMEE AND THE TENDERFOOT. For many years after the first settlement of Greeley the original Colonist was by the old-timer dubbed a "tenderfoot." The term had been in vogue a long time before our arrival among those of a still earlier date. I need not explain it; it fitted us, and we bore it patiently until, in turn, we could apply it justly, and effectively, to those who came after us in a still later day. By the year 1885 the dawn of prosperity had attracted quite an addition to the population of the town and was beginning to fill up the vacant places under our canals. In 1886 some of the newer set of business men in Greeley got up what they were pleased to style a "tenderfoot" supper. After supper there were speeches, toasts and re- sponses, and to one of these, "The Old-Timers," I was asked to respond, and did so, as follows : "Sisters of the Sensitive Sole and Brothers of the Susceptible Hoof — You have met to- night, I presume, to felicitate one another on your happy arrival and prosperous settlement in the new country, and your fortunate escape 108 COLONIAL DAYS. from the old. You came a little late, to be sure, but considering the cornbread of your native hills, and the bacon and molasses of the miasmatic valleys you left behind, you are justified, I think, in believing yourselves 'bet- ter late than never.' If I understand my sur- roundings and the object of- the meeting, this is a tenderfoot gathering — so-called — in con- tradistinction from animals and men who took residence earlier; as, for instance, the wolf and the bison, and the 'old settler,' who, by natural inference, from much valuable experi- ence and some travel, have come to s possess wiry consciences, and unyielding soles. It is well, we can not be too careful in such mat- ters; we ought to draw the line somewhere, and if we put it between '75 and '76, I think it will sufficiently separate all the beautiful white sheep from the entirely unlovely goats. I am not without a sense of poetic justice in the matter, ladies and gentle- men, for I remember a painful distinction of a similar nature, by which, at one time, an arbitrarily line being drawn between '59 and '60, an impassable gulf was opened up between the early settlers of the territory of Colorado; and very much to my chagrin, too, for coming in the latter year, I can never for- get the unutterable scorn and profound con- tempt with which the heroes of '58 and '59 re- THE OLD-TIMER AND THE TENDERFOOT. 109 garded all population of a later date. It was not until after the lapse of twenty years or more that the Society of Colorado Pioneers finally resolved to admit to membership the settlers of '60 and '61; and such is the lasting and debasing effect of long-continued servi- tude and ostracism on character that I have never had the courage to join. As for my part and place in the deliberations of the evening, fellow citizens, I have little doubt that deli- cate considerations alone have prompted the invitation. Old settlers are proverbially hun- gry, and tender memories and tough yarns are known to course through their brains and rip- ple off their tongues as naturally as the Platte gathers the spring flood from the melting snows on the mountain side and rushes down to the thirsty land below. Expanded vision, expanded ideas and distended veracity seem to be well-nigh inseparable advantages and drawbacks resulting from early settlement in any new country. We mean well, ladies and gentlemen, and the flesh is willing, but the spirit, contrary to Scripture, is very weak. You all of you doubtless remember how Caleb and Josh, on the return from the promised land, were careful to take along with them the ripe fruits of the new country suspended between them from a pole. To me, ladies and gentle- men, that has always remained a significant 110 COLONIAL DATS. fact. Caleb and Josh had that matter down pat; they knew that a man, disliking a coun- try, would always, misrepresent it and be be- lieved, and that a man, loving his adopted land, would always lie for it and have his evi- dence discounted. Wise travelers as they were, they knew better than to trust to their memories, or the incredulous kindness they left behind them, and so they carried the proofs back with them. I can't even guess how well I may be able to satisfy you with what I shall have to say, but if you merely desired the presence of a genuine old settler and an early pioneer among you, then I ought to be able to fill the bill to perfection; for I am a natural-born pioneer, and the son, as well, of a long line of pioneers before me. I never saw a railway, nor even a steamboat, until I was nineteen years old, and with the very first toot of the iron horse in the old neighborhood, I hopped promptly down from the home perch, and made a fresh break for the West. We have been here, my fellow pioneers, for the longest period we have re- sided in any one place for nearly ten genera- tions in the past, and perhaps by the time the epidermis of your nether extremities has suf- ficiently hardened to repel reproach, and your consciences become sufficiently calous for tough yarns yourselves, we shall have hied to newer THE OLD-TIMEB AND THE TENDERFOOT. Ill lands. Meanwhile I have a little germ of truth, which has been expanding in my mind like the proverbial mustard seed, and growing like a green bay tree for nearly a quarter of a century of time. I could entertain you, or at least my- self, for hours together, but for the fatal fact that you want to talk some yourselves, and two parties to a conversation constitute the one insurmountable obstacle to an old settler's tongue. "Under the circumstances, therefore, I shall not recount to you all the old, old stories of mountain and plain and the Indians, and ever- lasting snow, but shall confine my efforts to times of recent date, in which you naturally feel more interest, as being more nearly con- nected with yourselves. Of the time when the little settlement of Colonists, under Father Meeker and General Cameron and mysterious Providence, struggled for an existence without shade from the sun or protection from the winds, on a barren soil, in an arid atmosphere and under a blazing sky. Well, my friends, if in getting here a little late in the day you for- feited a little of the hearty zest that comes only with actual adventure, you at least avoided much that you need neither miss nor mourn. When you got here, for instance, and found all the choice corner lots in the hands of those who came before you, and an unrea- 112 COLONIAL DAYS. sonable inclination on the part of owners to hold on to them at that, I have no doubt that, considering the size of our mountains, corner lots seemed unreasonably high; but bless you, my friends, you had no idea what they cost us. You didn't know, to begin at the first, that we bought a good share of the town site three times and paid for it every time in advance; and you have no very distinct recollection of the joys of that first winter after settlement, when a large portion of the most intelligent community west of the Mississippi subsisted principally on baked squash and salt; but al- low me to assure you, on the honor of an orig- inal Colonist, that we did, and that many of us can taste it yet; or that in the terrible win- ter of '72 and '73, when the snow laid on the ground 120 days, three feet deep on the level, the entire community, regardless of caste or social standing, or previous condition of af- fluence, was confined to a diet of dried ante- lope — dried on the hoof and before death — and stale buffalo meat, and considered it good. But such, indeed, are the facts; facts, too, which need excite no wonder, when you come to consider that states of the mind and condi- tions of the stomach enter largely into the process of digestion, and that in the absence of bread even boiled crow is often thought bet- ter than no meat. THEOLD-TIMEB AND THE TENDERFOOT. 113 "Those were the days, my friends, of com- paratively pure democracy, in occupation, in social intercourse, in habits of thought and feeling in Greeley. When Johnson had no mill, no city residence, no colossal hotel and had only recently abandoned the road and the bull train, with its weekly trip to the moun- tain towns, laden with flour, grain and hay. You would hardly suspect our dignified fellow citizen, Mr. Johnson, of ever having peddled hay in the streets of Central City, at 3 cents a pound, but all the very old settlers say he did. Then there was 'Our Judd,' at that time an honest granger from up the creek, who chewed plug tobacco and wore no collar and wasn't sure which way the wind was going to blow, but was watching the main chance, and generally struck it at that; and Sam Wright, who lived in a shanty and dug cellars and wells for his neighbors and did chores and ran errands; and Doctor Law, as well, who manufactured 'doby bricks' for the trade and patiently waited for paying patients ; and Pro- fessor Boyd, who wore long hair and wrote poetry and discussed woman's rights and at- tended the Farmer's club along with all the other notable men of the place. Then there was Honest Ben Eaton, too, who wore overalls and a woolen shirt open at the neck and ran a meat market and made ditches for the Greeley- 114 COLONIAL DATS. ites and farmed and sided with the Colonists in all their quarrels with the outside precincts, and was, no doubt, even then laying his pipes for the office of governor; and, lastly, myself, who rode in a lumber wagon, on a flat board, without springs, and had a perpetually peeled nose, attended conventions and quarrelled with them all, wrote articles on agriculture and irrigation and worked fourteen hours a day on the farm. "Those were the days, my friends, when, household help being scarce and money to em- ploy it scarcer still, a majority of the male members of this community helped the women wash and iron regularly every Monday morn- ing and Tuesday afternoon. Allow me to state to you as a solemn fact, ladies and gen- tlemen, that even as late as '74 and '75, when Governor Eaton lived opposite to me on the back side of my block here in Greeley, punc- tually at a quarter past eight every pleasant Monday morning in the summer season, I used to exchange salutations with him across lots from my back porch, as we both bobbed up and down on the boards, with our hands in the suds. Even Colonel White and George West regularly engaged in the felicities of the tub and the wringer and the clothes line in those early days. The colonel's wife often had to scold him, to be sure, because he would insist THE OM)-TIMEE AND THE TENDERFOOT. 115 on stopping to swap stories with the boys as they passed down the sidewalk, where he was at work in the shade of the lilacs, but he con- formed to the custom cheerfully for all that, and even Judge Hawks, who had no family of his own at the time, invariably helped his landlady get through with her heavy washing and hung out the clothes on the line. "Such, my, friends, were the simple habits and tastes of the early pioneers in the city of Greeley, now famous all over the world for its pleasant homes. You can scarcely con- ceive of the changes wrought since that early day, when, at the call of its founders, a rude collection of huts and dugouts suddenly occu- pied the gravelly, sandy plain, which never be- fore had mound or bush or tree upon its sur- face. The blasting winds, with nothing but our frail tenements in their path to break their force, shook us, in seeming wrath, at our pre- sumption. They howled by day, and the wolves coming down from the hills in the darkness and settling themselves on their haunches in the streets in front of our very doors, howled all night. The perpetual sunshine of a rain- less sky beat down upon us from above and reflected from a treeless, leafless plain be- neath us, blistered our tender feet and scorched our lips and hands. The robbins and the meadow larks had not yet come to live among 116 COLONIAL DATS. us; only the silent watchers of the desert, the owl and the hawk, sat in the sandy plain, blinking their horrid eyes and waiting for prey, while the wild dove, with her mournful note, chanted a dispiriting lullaby in a sad and lonely land. Every scanty flower of the plain had a double row of briars up and down its short stem; every shrub had thorns on its rigid branches to preserve it sacred from touch; every bush had a snake coiled up under it, and every snake was 'pizen' and ready to bite. "These, dear friends of a later day, are a few of the disadvantages of environment which you missed in coming in '75 and '76 instead of in '70 and '71. Now note the happy change. The dreaded grasshopper is gone, let us hope, forever; lofty trees, with waving branches, now break the force of the terrible winds which used to sweep unhindered over the town. The snakes and the wolves have retired to the waste places among the hills. The glittering plain, with its deceptive mirage, has given place to real lakes and pools and fields of wav- ing grain. Song birds twitter in every bough, lovely flowers nod softly in the tempered breeze and velvety lawns of unsurpassed ver- dure glisten with dew in the morning sun. The old landmarks of Colonial days are disappear- ing from view, and, fresh from the ashes of their decay, are springing tasteful cottages, THE OLD-TIMER AND THE TENDERFOOT. 117 stately mansions and lofty spires, in token of faith in the new home. Fellow pioneers, as I speak to you myriads of memories of that early day come teeming up from the treasures of the brain and demand expression from my tongue. Time and the necessities of the occa- sion have permitted me but the merest hasty glance at the past; but some time in the fu- ture I'll write a book or hire a hall, and, get- ting the old settler and the tenderfeet together inside, I'll lock the door and talk you all to death." 118 _ COLONIAL DATS. OHAPTEE XV. OUB CLIMATE. Colorado is a wonderful country; we like it, dote on it, and would not exchange it for any other. It is certainly the best all-around climate in the world and undoubtedly we could give points and win in a comparison of ad- vantages with any land on earth. Just think of some of the small evils, which, counted sin- gly, do not amount to much, but which, grouped together as against any state or lo- cality, are well-nigh too annoying for human endurance. No fleas here, no mosquitoes to speak of, no chiggers, no ticks, now and then a bug — so ladies tell us — no severe weather in the winter five seasons out of six, the most de- lightful autumn weather always, that exists on the globe, no cyclones, no earthquakes, no chills and fever, no snow in the winter, no mud in the summer, no sunstroke, no mad-dogs, plenty of coal, no timber to clear, no brush to burn, no wood to chop, no land to grub. And, finally, to offset all these well-nigh unparalleled OUB CLIMATE. 119 advantages, but a single real inconvenience, periodic, persistent and permanent in its at- tacks, it is true, but not absolutely unbear- able — just an insinuating, all-pervasive west wind, which, after a hot day in summer or a fair day in spring or an unusually pleasant day in winter, blows sand in one's eyes and through one's hair and down his back and up his trous- ers and into his shoes and inside his watch; only this slight annoyance and nothing more. Oh, yes, on second thought, there is one thing more that is not pleasant, because, to tell the truth, aside from the winds, we generally have a diabolical spring, which, considering that spring is variable and unreliable almost anywhere, doesn't make ours the more endur- able; a sort of elastic, convertible, interchange- able, late winter, early summer, misguided spring, that often runs the thermometer up to 80 the last of February and down to zero in March and above fever heat in April and through the freezing point, with now and then a snow storm in May and occasionally fur- nishes all these variations, from grave to gay, inside of twenty-four hours. Nothing, of course, so severe as the genuine Texan norther, in the way of wind, and nothing so variable in the way of climate as Texas, where the unfor- 120 COLONIAL DATS. tunate Missourian, so j burning in August under a blazing sky, had one of his oxen drop dead with the heat, and, stopping to skin it, was overtaken with a norther which froze the other to death; nothing, of course, so bad as that, but bad and disagreeable enough. We came to this country when young and are grizzly-headed now, and we ought to be able to give points, if anybody can, on Colorado wind and weather, and we have an idea we can. Sometimes we think too much has been said about our state and climate as a resort for in- valids; there has been exaggeration, and per-^ haps an exaggeration of our climatic disadvan- tages for hollow-chested invalids without heart, lungs or blood might in the long run save life, just as Josh Billings informs us that thousands of lives have been saved by not swallowing pins. We may remark, then, that the first thing a confirmed invalid needs, an invalid, say, who has one leg already in the grave and scarcely any blood, circulation in the other, is plenty of winter, spring and summer clothing. Three complete suits of varying weight for winter, three for spring and three for sum- mer — only nine in all. Change your clothing according to actual need, three times every day. In normal weather in Colorado it is cold OUB CLIMATE. 121 in the morning at all seasons of the year. When you get up in the morning and feel a soft, se- ductive, balmy atmosphere all about you, that is neither cold nor hot, but simply delicious to bodily sensation, do not get far from the gar- den gate that day, for nature is hatching a convulsion and this is an abnormal symptom. Do not sit down in the shade without a coat; take a heavy overcoat with you when you ride, whether in winter or summer. Do not go in swimming and play tag without your clothes, no matter how pleasant the weather may be. Go in when it rains and stay there until it clears off; there is plenty of time in Colorado when the sun is shining, without paddling around in the wet on our very few rainy days. Do not worry too much about fresh air. Colo- rado air is apt to be pretty fresh anyway, and will contrive to reach you some way. You do not need to sleep with your window open dur- ing a blizzard in order to get air. By following these few simple directions the confirmed invalid, who is going to die pretty soon in any case, as sure as shooting, may live comfortably here, perhaps, longer than in any other climate; but the man with one lung should not go on a round-up, nor ride broncho horses, nor run foot races, nor climb high moun- 122 COLONIAL DATS. tains, nor play base balL. He ought to take moderate exercise in pleasant weather, and take it easy, and stay in the house when the wind blows or "when it occasionally snows or rains. He should take the advice named on the California saloonkeeper's sign; it read as follows : "Make yourself comfortable and enjoy yourself while you are alive; for you'll be a long time dead." THE LATE N. 0. MEEKER. 123 CHAPTER XVI. THE LATE N. 0. MEEKER. The realization of our fondest dreams per- mits us but the merest sip of the cup of antici- pated bliss. Our mightiest efforts are wasted to ourselves. The discoverer of a new world, now peo- pled by millions of the human race from every civilized land of the old and destined to de velop all that is possible in the growth of man, died in disgrace, discredited by court and coun- tryman at home, and the new land which his genius had divined and his restless energy and undying zeal had revealed to his fellows, bears for all time the name of another. The composer of the one universally be- loved of the domestic songs of men died at last in a foreign land. And he has recorded of .his wanderings on other shores that, walking alone and discouraged in the streets of the gayest capitals of Europe by night, he had listened to the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," floated to him from the open windows of grand mansions and gilded saloons and uttered from joyous throats, in every continental tongue, while 124 COLONIAL DATS. himself had neither fortune nor home of his own. Moses, the leader of his people through the wilderness, perished on the borders of the promised land and never entered in. Virtue is its own reward and the records tell no other. These are the inevitable conclusions of ob- serving, thinking minds, and to all who are accustomed to read, to reason and reflect it need not, therefore, appear as a singular se- quel of the Colonial movement which centered in Greeley, that not one of the leading spirits of the organization reaped pecuniary profits from the enterprise. Such, indeed, were the results, and even of those who became promi- nent through after-management of affairs, few added materially to their worldly possessions through connection with the Colony. Mr. Pabor, our first Colonial secretary, was said to have come here comparatively well-to- do in the world, but he severed his connection with us a poor man, and whatever he may pos- sess at this time is due entirely to after-effort elsewhere. General Cameron only possessed, it was understood, a moderate amount of this world's goods when he arrived, and it is well known that he took away with him, when he finally left us, less than he brought. THE LATE N. C. MEEKER. 125 Mr. West had a snug little fortune when he came here and for a time he seemed to in- crease it, but a too sanguine faith in the new country led him to invest liberally and the de- pression of values soon following swept his accumulations away. Mr. Meeker had from years of patient toil in his profession saved, as near as I have been able to ascertain, about |15,000. But the re- sult is, to our own people at least, well known. His means were very soon swallowed in the inevitable expenses incidental to moving and settling in a new country and in establishing the Greeley Tribune, which for several years after did not pay expenses. As a result, he soon became seriously involved, and the fatal appointment to the agency of the Ute Indians at White, river, brought about through the so- licitations of influential friends, was only sought and accepted by Mr. Meeker, as he him- self told me shortly before the massacre, be- cause the general depression in the business of his profession, about that time, had tem- porarily thrown him out of regular employ- ment, and it had seemed to him that there was really nothing else he could do to save his home and the little property he had left. Mr. Meeker made a number of serious mis- takes in pecuniary matters, which he told me afterward, he could then clearly see, but which 126 COLONIAL DATS. he said were perfectly consistent with certain principles he had imbibed in his earlier years and entirely in accordance with what he thought was right and proper in his position as president of the Colony. He remarked that he built a house, which at the time was a sort of an experiment and which cost him enor- mously in proportion to its real worth, because labor was then so high and building material so dear. But he said that at the time he did so it seemed absolutely essential that some one of the leaders of the enterprise should build something in the way of a home dwell- ing which would show faith in the country and an intention to make the place the home they were recommending to others. Then, too, he said he committed another serious error in neglecting to get hold of a good-sized tract of farming land. This, he said, was attributable, in a great measure, to a theory he had long held, that no man should own land which he did not intend to use. "I was," said he, "consistently opposed to ownership of large bodies of land for specu- lative purposes, and as I had no intention of engaging in general agriculture, as a means of supporting myself and family, I contented myself with the small tract of land where I now reside." Then he went on to say that this was a mistake and an error in judgment, THE LATE N. 0. MEEKEB. 127 and that there was really no good reason why he should not have profited with the rest of us in the rise of prices in land, to which we had all in common contributed by our labors. Mr. Meeker had for so many years previous to his participation in the Colonial movement been engaged in the newspaper business that it was perfectly natural he should look to the founding of a paper here, as his legitimate part in the labors of the community. But he underestimated the difficulties of establishing a local journal in a small place, where the com- petition is almost always out of all proportion to the patronage, and it is not at all strange that the paper was a bill of constant expense for many years. It is well known to all who are familiar with early Colonial affairs that Mr. Meeker was ambitious of political honors. In particu- lar he aspired to represent the community he had been so largely instrumental in bringing together, in our general assembly. To aid him in this pardonable and laudable ambition he possessed at all times the persistent and de- voted support of those who knew him best. But Mr. Meeker was perhaps of all men the far-' thest from the possession of the arts of the mere politician, and he always failed. Long familiarity with books and a confirmed habit of mental preoccupation acquired for him an 128 COLONIAL DATS. air of reserve and an impatience of all idle and trifling conversation, so conducive to famil- iarity with the crowd, on which the profes- sional politician depends for his support, that shut him off from contact with a majority of his fellows. Too proud to plead his own claims to public honor and distinction, too busy to daw- dle, too serious to jest, too conscientious to flat- ter, too honest to deceive, he had, too, a blunt, direct way of approaching a subject or a man, which tended, sadly enough, to repel strangers, to embitter foes and too often to provoke the best of friends. But underneath the apparently cold exterior, only occasionally lighted by a sly twinkle in his gray eye, or slightly modified by the habitual, half pitiful, half cynical smile on his grave countenance, there beat a warm heart, always in accord with the best interests of the people and capable without effort of sacrificing personal ends for the public good. Had we possessed the sound, discriminating common sense to have humored -his reasonable hopes, he might possibly sometimes have erred in judgment, but we would have known him to have been absolutely devoid of selfish motive, and we' may feel sure that in honoring him we should, even in a greater degree, have done honor to ourselves. By many of Mr. Meeker's acquaintances and friends he was considered in a measure im- THE LATE N. C. MEEKER. 129 practicable and visionary in his views of men and things in every-day life, but this was largely owing to the fact that his vision was adapted to a long range in its scope and made him sometimes oblivious of smaller objects at his feet. In all the larger and more important transactions of life he possessed unusual sa- gacity and foresight. He repeatedly prophe- sied a railroad up the Platte and Poudre rivers within ten years of the settlement of Greeley, and I remember that the prediction at the time seemed to me, and many others, extremely im- probable of fulfillment; if ever, certainly not in our time. But it has been years and years since the predicted roads were constructed and in steady operation. At a time when the prospects in and around Greeley were none of the brightest^ a friend in New York, entrusted him with a few hun- dred dollars to invest for him, and Mr. Meeker promptly bought the side hill above No. 3, just south of town. To a large share of those having knowledge of the transaction at the time it seemed an act of stupendous folly. Making some little pretentions to practical knowledge of land values myself, I went to Mr. Meeker, with whom I was from the first on unusual terms of intimacy, if, as a matter of fact, anyone can be said to have ever been intimate with him, and I asked what in the 130 COLONIAL DAYS. name of common sense induced him to throw away. good money for himself or for anyone else on such a worthless piece of property; but instead of being angry with me he merely replied, with cheerful confidence, that the land would be all under ditches in a few years at most, and then its close proximity to Greeley would render it very valuable. I remember quite distinctly that I thought a fool back in New York had very appropriately parted with his money, and I had the opportunity a few years later to tell the party of my first impres- sions, when he came out to look at his land, just then brought under the Greeley and Love- land canal, and now become worth probably twenty times its original cost. When Mr. Greeley issued his famous call for the organization of the Colony, it must have been read by at least half a million people, who were able, if willing, to embark in the en- terprise. But to 499,000 of these it undoubtedly appeared a visionary, foolhardy undertaking, in which all who invested would suffer great pri- vations and lose their money. Some six hun- dred restless, enthusiastic cranks judged the scheme feasible and practicable, put their money in it and succeeded, and now people who in 1870 would have refused the town site at $1,000 have confidence enough in the struc- ture our faith has reared to put up $20,000 THE LATE N. C. MEEKEE. 131 blocks on fifty-foot lots. Such is the innate, far-reaching shrewdness of men in their esti- mate of the future and is probabilities. Mr. Meeker's right to the credit of being the founder and originator of the Colony has some- times been called in question, and particularly since he is dead and unable to speak for him- self. - It has been said that Mr. Greeley thought himself entitled to the credit, and also that John Eussell Young thought it properly belonged to him. There is, however, very little reason to believe that either of these persons ever made direct claim to the credit, and it is of the least consequence in the world if they did. The plain and obvious facts in the case are neither more nor less than these: Mr. Gree- ley, it is true, was widely known to the indus- trial classes in all the states and had taught the theory of co-operation in labor in his writ- ings for more than a quarter of a century in the columns of his journal; in particular, he urged young men to come West and leave the competition of the crowded cities. But there was not for months and years previous to Mr. Meeker's call any hint that he had a 'definite, a special or any immediate project in view looking to Colonial settlement. Mr. Meeker was widely known as a corre- spondent of rural affairs, and it is not prob- able that there was at that time a man in all 132 COLONIAL DAYS. tbe ranks of journalism whose opinion as to the merits or demerits of any section of the country, in any state in the union, would have possessed the weight of that of N. C. Meeker. John Kussell Young was at that time about as well known to the after-members of the Colony as was the czar of Eussia. Those of us who knew him at all knew him as a mere literary man, whose opinion of the practica- bility of the Colonial scheme, had we known that he had anything to do with originating the idea, would have possessed about as much weight, with most of us, as would the views of a chairman of a precinct or ward committee in any densely-populated city. As a matter of fact, it was not known to one in a hundred of us that he had anything to do with the or- ganization of the Colony whatever. The ma- jority of us knew — and if there was m©re than this to know, events proved -the knowledge unnecessary to the success of the enterprise, and it is certainly irrelevant now — that Mr. Meeker issued the call, signed his name to it, said, "I wish to unite with others," etc., in- stead of saying "we" and that there were no other names associated with him in the call, or subscribed beneath it. It is an old and long-recognized theory of operations in peace and war that the credit belongs where responsibility rests. Mr. THE LATE N. C. MEEKEE. 133 Meeker issued that call, signed it and was solely responsible for it, and it is useless and futile to go behind these facts. We might just as well question Sherman's credit for the fam- ous march to the seas, or Grant's for the battle of Appomattox, as to call in question Mr. Meeker's title to the credit for the Colonial scheme. Of course, it was a great aid in se- curing confidence, that Mr. Greeley indorsed the organization; of course there were others who helped. But what Mr. Greeley or Mr. Young might have thought, said or advised in the matter, in talks with Mr. Meeker, either before or after the fact, cuts the smallest pos- sible figure now, when we are discussing the chief credit; so let us have no more nonsense about that. Honor to all to whom honor is due and to N. C. MEEKER, THE FOUNDER OF UNION COLONY. A few weeks previous to the fatal event which terminated the lives of Mr. Meeker and his associates at the agency, he paid a hurried visit to Greeley on business connected with his office and the Indians, and while here, al- though he had little time to spare, he expressed a wish to go out into the country under canal No. 2 and take a look at the farms and the improvements which had been going on in his absence. We procured a team and went out together. The renewed and steady growth of 134 COLONIAL DAYS. the community which has been marked and rapid ever since that time, had already set in, and changes for the better were visible every- where. The hardships of the first years of settlement had been endured and survived, the dreaded grasshopper, whose devastating visits from '72 to '76 had discouraged the stoutest hearts among us, no longer ravaged our fields. The trees had seemingly — to Mr. Meeker — more than doubled in size, in the short period he had been gone. Little streams of water glistening in the sunshine fell with pleasant murmuring sound from dams and flumes, and rippled under bridges as we passed them on the way. Broad fields of waving graia lined the roadside and plots of alfalfa, even then becoming common, dotted the landscape with spots of charming emerald green. Country and town were al- ready beginning to assume the air of perma- nent and increasing prosperity. Mr. Meeker was delighted. During the morning he had been recounting to me the financial difficulties under which he had been laboring; the diffi- culties to which allusion has already been made, and which had enveloped him previous to his appointment to the agency at White river, and the increasing troubles he was meet- ing in the management of the Indians, and the dark shadow of impending disaster to him- self and family had been hanging gloomily THE LATE N. O. MEEKEE. 135 over his brooding spirits. Now, however, his eye brightened with the unfolding of the mag- nificent view before us, and he expressed sur- prise and pleasure at everything he saw. As we neared the bluff overlooking the town, and the housetops and spires again burst upon our view above the dense foliage of the trees, he said : "After all, Max, although the enterprise yielded me nothing in return, in a worldly sense, yet I am proud to have been the leader in such a movement; it will be counted an honor to every man who took part in the set- tlement of Greeley. I am more than compen- sated in the grand success of the undertaking itself and I have nothing to regret." 136 COLONIAL DAYS. CHAPTER XVII. PROPHECY AND FULFILLMENT — 1870 AND 1900 "Individuals may rise and fall — may live or die — property may be lost .or gained ; but the colony as a whole will prosper, and the spot on which we labor shall, so long as the world stands, be the center of intelligence and activity. Great social reforms leading to the elevation of mankind move as if di- rected by destiny. It is the vast future more than the brief present, that is to be benefited; hence- sym- pathies and feelings are of little moment, and the cause moves on as if animated by a cold life of its own." — First issue Greeley .Tribune, November 16, 1870. Prophetic vision. It was Mr. Meeker who made it. The Colony had been the dream of years and he had staked everything on the dream. "May live or die;" he died. "Property may be lost or gained;" he lost. "But the Col- ony, as a whole, will prosper;" it did. The movement was indeed of larger import than any man's life; of greater consequence than any man's fortune; and thus, "the cause moved on." When the locating committee selected the present cite of Greeley for the center of the Colonial enterprise in the spring of 1870, Weld HBOPHECY AND FULFILLMENT — 1870 AND 1900. 137 county had an area of 10,000 square miles and a population of 1,316, according to the census report. It has since that day been divided and subdivided, until out of its original territory there have been carved five additional coun- ties, each of which contained in 1890 a greater population than Weld county had in 1870. Meantime we had increased our own popula- tion to 12,000 in 1890 and, according to the cen- sus of 1900, have now a population of 16,808. Space will not permit a review in detail of each step in the wonderful progress made since that early day; of the long struggle we had over the water supply, after we had learned how to use the water ; of the little then known concerning the rights of prior appropriation, until our experience and our demands formu- lated the theory into Colorado law, which now, through multitudinous court decisions, gov- erns the water distribution; how little was known of scientific irrigation, until we had at- tained it and became a model for other sec- tions; how little was known of capacity, meas- urement or the duty of water, until we made the tests and others accepted our conclusions. All these things long since came to pass and have made us famous everywhere. Hundreds of miles of laterals now link together the bar- ren ridges and valleys of 1870, in one continu- ous cultivated garden. In their season fields 138 COLONIAL DATS. of emerald green of almost unlimited extent gladden the eye from every elevation. Great squares of wheat and oats and alfalfa delight the passerby on every thoroughfare, and fields of potatoes of astonishing size, with rows which fade from the vision in the distance, are seen on every hand. The horned toad, the prairie dog and the owl have retired to the sand hill and the plain beyond. The wolf only yelps at lis from a distance as we pass him by, and the robin and the dove build nests in our groves. Yes, Mr. Meeker's dream has been realized, although he did not live to see it; "And the cause" still "moves on." We found this place a desert and we have made it a de- lightful land. Whoever permanently resides here, if temperate and industrious, may bask in fortune's smile. Whoever leaves the place, for whatever reason, of choice or necessity, sighs to return. Whoever participated in that movement, resulting in this achievement, may forever feel proud of his part. Thirty years — just think of it! How short the interval seems since we gathered here, from almost everywhere, to try the experiment and help Father Meeker to realize his dream. We can span the gap between 1870 and now with a single quickened thought, and it "seems to us but yesterday" since we arrived on the bar- ren plain where Greeley now stands. And yet, PROPHECY AND FULFILLMENT-t-1870 AND 1900. 139 if we indulge in prolonged retrospect it seems an age; and, in fact, by the simplest of calcula- tions we find that we have been here nearly an average lifetime. We came here, a majority of us, young men and women, just entering upon the great sea of life, and children were born to us and have been reared to maturity and are married and have children of their own. The boy born in 1870 and later, has gone from under the parental roof and is at the head of a new and "native" colony. The sire of Colonial days has become the grandsire and the infant daugh- ter, whose mother rocked the cradle and sang her to sleep and dreams, now in turn rocks the cradle and sings for the grandchild. Oh, how we toiled in those early days. How we delved and dug and struggled and wrestled with the adverse circumstances which for years environed the little settlement here. How we skurried along the ditches and hurried back and forth at our labors, trying to wring subsistence from a long-dormant and reluctant soil. And we thought by day and dreamed by night o,nlyof the future. The past was precious, but we had left it behind. The present was as nothing, for we discounted it for a better day beyond. Ah, how temporary we all regarded the arrange- ments we were making in those early days ; for very few of us imagined we should make this a permanent home. By and by, when we had 140 COLONIAL DAYS. accumulated a fortune and had the leisure to sit down and enjoy life, we would go back to the dear old land and take our places there, just as though we had never left it. But, bless our innocent souls, we builded better than we knew, and here we are to-day, after a little in- terval of pretty nearly a third of a century, at last regarding the country we improved and the city we builded as our permanent abiding place'. Yes, here we are and here let us, those who are left, remain in the peaceable possession and enjoyment of the fruits of our labors; pleasant homes, rich farms, good so- ciety and good schools, until the vicissitudes of earthly existence or the infirmities of age shall call each of us in turn to join Meeker and Cam- eron and Flower in another land beyond. "Just a little sunshine; just a little rain; Just a little happiness; just a little pain; Just a little poverty; just a little gold; And the great eventful tale of life is told." BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. 141 CHAPTER XVIII. BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. Once in every faithful Mussulman's life- time, it is said, he must make a pilgrimage to Mecca; across the river, the bay, the seas, the ocean, the mountain, the valley, the plain, to worship at the tomb of the departed saint. Once, too, before he departs this earth, will every pilgrim who has wandered across the deserts to these western lands, turn his face eastward, and, if possible, visit the home of his youth and the familiar scenes of his childhood; the Mecca never to be forgotten in the rest- less nights and the toilsome days since he left it; some sentimental shrine, in niche or nook, on hillside or by brookside, or in wooded dell, kept green in the memory through long and event- ful years. Such a Mecca had I in the old homestead at Baraboo, Wisconsin, down near the "lit- tle red school house," in the old Kimball- Clark-Jeffry-Crawford neighborhood of long ago; and such a shrine I knew, up among the bluffs of the little brook, along whose banks and amid its tangled tag alders, wil- lows and poplars, which lined its sides, the 142 COLONIAL DAYS. boys of that early time wandered bare-footed and hunted squirrels, pheasants and rabbits. There were at first Marion Crawford and my- self and Newton Clark below for comrades, but only Marion and myself, being near neighbors, for bosom companions. There was Zoath Bai- ley of the "bluff," also, and other boys up there among the neighbors of that region, at, seem- ingly, an immense distance through the tim- ber; the Protheros, the Brewsters, shadowy be- ings to our youthful imaginations, who at in- tervals of time decended into the valley with oxen and wagons, going to the "county seat." Afterward came the Bakers, the Glovers, the Paines and the Kimballs, but I am dwelling with the earlier settlers now, from '52 to '55, the period of the old log school house, before the "little red school house" came into being. And so I had gone back after an absence of thirty years, to visit my Mecca and to pay my devotion at my shrine in the hills. I thought to go back during the Centennial at Philadel- phia, but a hail storm took forty acres of wheat for me and hope was deferred. I made sure, long in advance, that I would go back during the Columbian exposition at Chicago, but, lo, the panic of '93 set in, the banks closed their door3 and ruin stared me in the face, along with hundreds of thousands of others; and with an empty purse and a sick heart I gave up the BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. 143 visit once more. But at last the suspense was overj sacrifices made, results summed up, sit- uation discussed between myself and wife and the pilgrimage begun. We had visited the old homesteads together, but I had reserved the shrine for a lonely walk by myself on another occasion. Then I bor- rowed a horse and buggy from my cousin Emma and drove slowly up the creek beyond the old Asa Wood place; the little farm that I had purchased of my uncle after the close of the war, and where my wife and I went to housekeeping in the spring of 1866. Hills all there, looking very natural, although the heavy timber that once covered their sides is now largely gone. Brook shrunken to insignifi- cance, that in all the time we lived there we had no suspicion could ever for a day go dry. Then I reached the lime kiln, told Mr. Glover that I used to live in that neighborhood a small matter of thirty years before, and that I had a little pilgrimage to make, before I died, up among the hills there, and how far could I go up with a horse and buggy? Not far, he said, on account of the fences crossing the narrow valley, but he kindly offered to show me the way. No, I thanked him, there was a spot up there that I wanted to see, a break-way in the hills and bluffs bordering the creek bed, but I thought I could find it without difficulty alone. 144 COLONIAL DAYS. He understood me; he said that he, too, had made a pilgrimage, a few years since, "back to the old place," and I passed on. Presently I tied my horse and, proceeding on foot, soon reached the spot. An overhanging bank had at one time caved down into the brook bed be- low and the surplus dirt being washed away, left what us boys called a "dug way," on the steep sides of which, with its loose shale and sliding sand and soil nothing had ever after- ward grown. Hunting up in the hills there, along in 1855, Marion and myself had carved, or pecked, our initials in two smooth-faced rocks, and setting them against an oak tree just at the top of this break in the bluff or bank by the brookside, we left them there. Returning to the spot in 1860, after my first trip to the Rocky mountains, they were still in position. Marion was with me; we were yet boys, with the glamour of youth and senti- ment hovering over every thought and action of our lives. It was to be our shrine hence- forth; sacred to each in memory of the other, while life might last. For we, who had been inseparable in childhood, were going forth to . war. I revisited the scene again when I returned in 1865. The stones had fallen, but I replaced them. Time had already dimmed the initials; but I recut them. Marion was dead, and I was BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. 145 alone! The shrine was now in my keeping and doubly precious in memories of the past. I moved away from Bacaboo in the fall of '67, but before leaving for nearly a lifetime the hills and hollows of my childhood days, I vis- ited once more in silence my shrine in the woods and placed in position for the last time the two little tablets. And now, after an absence of thirty years, I was standing again upon the brink of the cleft. The tablets were gone. They might have slidden to the cliff base and become buried in the loose soil and gravel there. I dug amongst it, but found them not. They might have dis- solved in the flight of years, in the drying winds and the beating rains. They might have long since been burned in the lime kilns and mingled in the plaster of a dozen different homes : "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away." Ho, ye restless mortals, who in after-years may invade this sequestered nook; tread lightly here upon a sacred soil. Here youth and friend- ship plighted troth and this is hallowed ground ! Duty to memory and sentiment had been discharged; the hope of years had been accom- plished; I had worshipped in silence at the 10 146 COLONIAL DATS. shrine of an early devotion and now I would depart in peace. I descended to the bed of the little stream below, whose busy murmur had once perpetually fallen upon delighted ears ; but only limpid pools dripped noiselessly from one to the other, through the stones in the bottom of its channel. The birds that once sang in every bush and bramble, as I wandered through its glades, Were absent, or silent. The pheasant, whose muffled wing note then boomed from among the fallen timber, was neither heard nor seen. But the sound of the wind, sighing in tag alders and the poplars, fell upon a familiar ear and unseen spirits whispered of other days. I thought of my par- ents, who used to live down the valley there, near by, my father then dead, my mother still living, but since passed away; of Uncle Robert and Aunt Annis, the father and mother of Marion, gone to join the son who preceded them. Of old Uncle Dickey Clark, so long since passed from among the living that few indeed of the people now there will remember him. Of Tom Clark, Newton's father, and Aunt Delilah, his mother. Of the brisk and ener- getic Ben Jeffries of that olden time, now also gone, and his good wife, Aunt Martha, still alive. Of good, old Mother Bailey of the bluffs, tv ho knew every child, as if her own, within BACK TO THE OLD PLACE. 147 miles and miles of her door on the top of the hill. Of the elder Kimballs, both gone to their final rest; and of Deacon and Mother Baker and their son Abner, my comrade in war and my companion Colonist in 1870, all lying now, eide'by side, in the cemetery at Fort Morgan, their western home of later years. Then bands of spectral boys and troops of phantom girls, who once made those sylvan abodes ring with "song and roar with laughter, passed in weird procession before my retrospective vision: Abner and Edwin, Lyman and Frank, Guss and Channcy, Wilburn and Kalph, Lewis and Al- bert and Zoath, Arthur and Edgar and Horace and Charlie, Demarius and Belle, Kitty and Libbie, Millie and Hatty, Alice and Celestia — spectral youths and phantoms, all, because long since to men and women grown or gone beyond the silent river. "All are scattered now, and fled; Some are married, some are dead. And when I ask with throbs of pain, When shall they all meet again? The horologue of eternity Sayeth this, incessantly, Forever! Never! Never! Forever!" Then, getting over the fence and crawling up into my buggy, I turned once more to the hills, the hollows and ravines of my youth, with 148 COLONIAL DAYS. their countless associations of other days, and, wafted to the breeze, gently floating down to me from the valley above, a silent adieu : Farewell, thou peaceful scene! Farewell, enchanting vale. Farewell! Farewell!! Along And last farewell! ! ! THE END. (Cornell ?Um»erHits 9nstotite Italeg IjaU ffiibtarg Strata, New $orfe THE GIFT OF