I've been talking about Colorado becoming a state. In this post, I'll be looking back to before Colorado was even conceived.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike: Born in January of 1779 in Lamington, New Jersey. His father, Zebulon Pike Sr., was an Army officer who began his career in 1775 during the Revolutionary War. Pike Senior achieved the rank of Major and moved from New Jersey to Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other western areas. He died in Indiana in 1834 at the age of 82.
Pike Jr. enlisted at the age of 15. In 1805, he was sent out on an expedition to find the source of the Mississippi River. He erroneously said the river began at Leech Lake. The actual source was Lake Itasca, twenty-five miles further.
Of course, 1806 was his journey into the 'Southwest' and the failed attempt to climb the mountain that now bears his name. He was arrested in 1807 by the Spanish for entering their territory, in what is now Southern Colorado, and taken to Santa Fe.
He continued his military service through the southern portion of the United States, and when the War of 1812 started, then-Brigadier General Pike led a successful attack on York (Toronto) but was killed in 1813 in the same area when a powder magazine exploded.
He also eloped with his cousin Clarissa Brown in 1801. Of their five children, only one child, a daughter, lived to adulthood.
When he was captured by the Spanish in 1807, they confiscated his journals and other papers. They were returned by the Mexican government in 1907.
I had the privilege of viewing and photographing Pike's saber and journal. Enjoy.
As Colorado made its journey to statehood, the women's suffrage movement took note. They noted that they might get suffrage into the constitution of a new state.
Dr. Alida Avery
The Colorado Woman Suffrage Association was formed in early 1876. One of the early presidents of the association was Dr. Alida C. Avery, who moved to Denver in 1874, leaving her nine-year teaching job at Vassar. The goal of the association prior to 1876 was to have universal voting rights included in the state constitution.
Dr. Avery was the second woman medical school graduate to practice medicine in Colorado. The first was Dr. Eliza Gillette by a few months.
Dr. Avery spearheaded the collection of petitions for the Constitutional Convention to ensure women wouldn't be excluded.
Eliza P. Routt
Eliza Pickerell Routt was the wife of John Routt, Colorado Territory's last governor and the state of Colorado's first governor.
The Routts had moved to Colorado Territory in March of 1875 after John's appointment as governor by President Grant.
Eliza, like John, was a proponent of women's suffrage and involved in the above-mentioned Association.
Although women did not get universal voting rights in the 1876 constitution, they were granted the right to vote in school board elections. In 1877, the fight continued, and in 1893 Colorado became the first state to guarantee women the right to vote in its constitution.
With July 4th fast approaching and the 250th anniversary of
the United States, and with August 1st following shortly thereafter, we have
the 150th anniversary of the State of Colorado. With these two dates in mind, and the
journey I've been taking on Colorado becoming the 38th state, I thought I would
see if there were any correlations between Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, and
the men who brought about Colorado's admittance to the Union.
John Evans
These are personal observations. So, let's start with
Benjamin Franklin. In looking at the life of Benjamin Franklin, his
accomplishments, and his history with the declaration and what came before.
Franklin was an inventor, scientist, printer, and businessman. Perhaps the
closest person to Franklin would be John
Evans, the second territorial governor. Appointed by Abraham Lincoln, Evans is
considered to have spearheaded the statehood movement. He was also involved in
promoting the transcontinental railroad and the founding of the University of
Denver.
Jerome Chaffee
Perhaps the closest to John Adams would be Jerome Chaffee. Before
coming to Colorado in 1860, Chaffee had been a schoolteacher, was involved in
banking and real estate, was one of the founders of Denver, and, perhaps most
importantly, was the delegate from the Colorado Territory who ushered the bill
creating the state of Colorado through the legislature. Once Colorado became a
state, Chafee served in the U.S. Senate.
Thomas Patterson
Thomas Jefferson is a bit difficult, but perhaps the closest
resemblance is Thomas Patterson. He was an immigrant who arrived in the United
States, served in the Civil War, and became an attorney; in fact, he was the
city attorney of Denver in 1873- 74. He served as a delegate in the House of
Representatives until August 1st, 1876, when Colorado became a State. He later purchased
the Rocky Mountain News and then the Denver Times.
These are really simple comparisons, but they gave me
something to think about as we prepare for the sesquisemiquincentennial. I will
continue posting about Colorado's journey to statehood and the events that
delayed its admittance to the Union.
I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about those early 'politicians' who were involved in the 1861 Territorial Legislative Session.
Let me start with the provision from the February 28, 1861, document creating the Colorado Territory:
"The legislative power and authority of the Territory shall be vested in the governor and a legislative assembly.
The legislative assembly shall consist of a council and house of representatives.The council shall cosist of nine members, which may increased to thirteen, having the qualifications of votors as hereinafter prescribed, whose term of servic shall continue two years. The house of represntatives shall consist of thirteen members, which may be increased to twenty-six, possessing the same qualifications as prescribed for members of the council and whose term of service shall continue one year."
Below is a brief look at some of those men.
Dr. E.A. Arnold, elected president of the council, was a miner who, at the time of the legislative session's convening, was living in California Gulch (later known as Leadville). It was said he had mined in most of the territory. The stories say Dr. Arnold was on his way to Carson Valley, Nevada, when he was set upon, killed, and scalped.
Colonel John M. Francisco - Born in Bath, Virginia, in 1820, he moved around before finally settling in Colorado. He was a government sutler at Fort Garland until 1862. He is credited with building the town plaza, which became LaVeta.
Judge Charles F. Holly - Born in Connecticut in 1819, he was a graduate of Kenyon College in Ohio. He studied law privately with two different attorneys, then practiced law in Missouri. He moved to Colorado in 1860. He served on the Union side in the Civil War as part of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment. He died in Buelah, Colorado, in 1901.
Victor Garcia - Born in 1832 in what is now New Mexico. He settled in Colorado in 1855 and had been active in politics in New Mexico. He was very active in Colorado politics most of his life.
Jesus Barela - Little is known about Barela. He was probably born between 1815 and 1820 in what is now New Mexico. Census has him in the Trinidad, Las Animas area.
For additional reading about this era in Colorado History, I've included a link to E.A. Bowen's diary entries. E.A. Bowen
As with all history, effort has been made to be as accurate as possible.
If you are interested in being interviewed for this blog, contact me privately with Interview in the subject line.
One thing that fascinates me is how people react to setbacks
and frustrations. That can apply to Colorado’s path to statehood.
Now you may wonder how such an idea would even have gotten
started. Well, according to an article from June of 2024, a group of Men in April of 1859 met in a saloon and gambling house owned by “Uncle” Dick Wooten. They
were trying to gather support for creating a territory known as Jefferson.
There had been some talk of actually making it the State of Jefferson, but
had that been the case, they would have had to fund their own government.
In October of 1859, the Territory of Jefferson was created. It operated from October 1859 to February 1861 and included most of what is Colorado, as well as parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. It was created out of frustration with the federal government's failure to oversee the gold rush.
The governor of the territory was a man by the name of
Robert W Steele. The capital of this territory was Golden City. It took its
name from one of the early prospectors by the name of Thomas L. Golden. Founded
in 1859, it not only served as the capital of the Jefferson Territory but was also the official capital of the Colorado Territory for a time.
The name was shortened to Golden when the town was incorporated in 1871.
Congress didn’t agree to the name Jefferson, but in 1861, the
Colorado Territory, using most of the verbiage from the laws passed when it was
Jefferson Territory. It was formed from part of the Kansas Territory.
For more complete information on Jefferson Territory, you can follow this link: Jefferson Territory
This year is Colorado's 150th Anniversary of statehood. This is a first in the yearlong series of the journey.
It begins in 1858. In November of 1858, A.J. Smith was elected as the delegate to the Kansas Territorial Legislature to be the advocate for the region that would later become Colorado. From there, the following things happened.
A group gathered together to create the 'government' of the county of Arapahoe, which had been formed by the Kansas Territory in 1855. You may recognize the names of the people involved in this early endeavor.
As I plan 2026, my thought is to deep-dive into the people who were involved in the effort to secure Colorado's statehood in 1869, the results, and the process that led to Colorado becoming the Centennial State. For those who have the time to read these blogs, as well as the others who post here, we hope our offerings are of some use and enjoyment.
We all encounter the unexpected. Usually fun, sometimes irritating, and occasionally an interesting blessing. This post is about the third, and, I think, interesting blessing.
Doctor Josephine Dunlop was born on December 3, 1875, in Colorado. Died September 15, 1970, at the age of 94 in Austin, Texas. She was the widow of William Dunlop and practiced medicine in Pueblo, Colorado. One source has her as a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School in 1898 and receiving her Colorado license that same year. This same source lists her as president of the Pueblo County Medical Society in 1918 and as having retired from the practice of medicine in 1946. From 1919 to 1920, she served as the second vice president of the Colorado State Medical Society.
Dr. Dunlop was one of the consulting pathologists for the Colorado State Hospital and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, both in Pueblo, Colorado.
The accomplishments of Dr. Dunlop fascinated me. It was as I researched her background that I found myself on a path I did not expect. Enter- the Unexpected. There I found her father, Charles H. Nachtrieb, an early settler in Colorado. Born in Germany on April 20, 1833, Charles came to the United States with his siblings. After settling in Colorado, Mr. Nachtrieb was a candidate from Lake County at the 1866 convention to establish a constitution to admit Colorado to the Union. (Colorado was not admitted until 1876). He was to have built the first grist mill west of the Mississippi and was one of the leaders in the Lake County War. (Which, according to records, was a particularly bloody conflict.) In 1879, he, along with Otto Mears and Issac Gothelf, filed an article of incorporation for the Poncho, Marshall, and Gunnison toll road, the object of which was to build a twenty-five-thousand-dollar toll road from Poncho Creek in Chaffee County to the Gunnison River.
An old school in Nathrop.
Charles Nachtrieb was also a rancher, having a large ranch in Gunnison County, Colorado. He and his family lived in Nathrop, Colorado (named for him), where he had a shop and was the postmaster. It was in Nathrop that, according to the newspaper report from the time, a man by the name of Burt (Bert) Remington shot and killed Charles on October 3, 1881. He was forty-nine. After searching, I have found no record of the trial or whether Remington was caught. But I have much more research to do. I did find a proclamation printed in the Daily Register-Call ( a Central City newspaper) on Thursday, October 6, 1881, which read.
The Governor’s Proclamation: Governor Pitkin, yesterday morning, made the following proclamation, offering a reward:
Wheras, On or about the third (3d) day of October, A.D. 1881, one Charles Nachtrieb was murdered in the county of Chaffee, and state of Colorado, and Wheras, Burt Remington has been charged with said murder, and, Wheras, said Remington has not been arrested, the proper officers have been unable up to the present time to find said Remington, Now, therefore, In pursuance of the statute in such cases made and provided, I do hereby offer the sum of three hundred dollars ($300) as a reward for the arrest and delivery to the sheriff of Chaffee, county, Colorado, of the aforesaid Burt Remington, so charged with the said murder. FREDERICK W. PITKIN, Governor.”
There is so much more to find out and research about this family, especially Dr. Dunlop’s father. I know I will be writing a great deal about her in the future. Her father’s story is a beautiful one of hard work and success, but ultimately a very sad one as well. In addition to Josephine, there were the wife, Margaret, and the children, Jake, Charles II, and Chris.
So you see, I was off down the ‘rabbit hole’ when I ran across Josephine Dunlop’s family tree. There is much more for me to find, and, as always, I love the unexpected pieces of history my doctor research is uncovering.
"‘Rocky Mountain Jim,’ the frontiersman made famous by Isabella Bird in her 1879 travel classic A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, remains one of Colorado’s most mysterious historical figures. Often remembered as a tragic figure, his true identity and life story have puzzled historians and readers alike for over a century. This article attempts to explore the facts that have been shared about Rocky Mountain Jim since the book’s publication.
Ancestry records indicate that James Author Nugent was born on July 4, 1836, in Pakenham, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. An 1861 Canadian census lists a James Nugent in the same county of his birth, working as a laborer and identifying as a Roman Catholic. Additional records show James Nugent, son of Arthur Nugent and Ann McDermet Nugent, was baptized on January 6, 1837, in Perth, Ontario, Canada.
Image (C) Doris McCraw
So far, the date of his arrival in the United States is tenuous. It may have been the late 1860s, as some records show he'd built a cabin near Estes Park around 1868.
It was here that Isabella Bird met Jim. He'd been guiding people through the Estes Park and what is now known as the Rocky Mountain National Park area. He also guided climbers to the summit of Long's Peak, of which Miss Bird was one.
It is through Isabella's writings that we have an idea of what Jim looked like. He was " a broad, thickset man, about the middle height, with an old cap on his head, and wearing a grey hunting-suit much the worse for weare...a revolver sticking our of the breaest-pocket fo his coat...Tawny hair in thin, uncared-for curls. fell from under his hunter's cap and over his collar. One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face repulsive, while the other might have been modeled in marble,..Of his genius and chivalry to women, there does not appear to be any doubt; but he is a desperate character, and subject to 'ugly fits', when people think it best to avoid him."
The scarred face was the result of a grizzly attack that may have occurred sometime between 1869 and 1871.
He died on September 7, 1874, after being shot in the head with a shotgun. He survived long enough to name Griffith Evans, an old rival, as his attacker. He was taken to Fort Collins, where he died and is supposed to be buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery there. Of Griff Evans, without a living witness, he was acquitted of murder. (Griff Evans is a story for another post.)
The Old West is full of stories and mysteries like "Rocky Mountain Jim's", and the joy of digging for the facts vs fiction is a major part of the reason I love history.
Below is a haiku I wrote when thinking of Jim:
Rain falls in the night
Wind, clouds vie for dominance's
A lone star shines bright
And yes, I have a book coming out in October where the characters of Isabella Bird and Mountain Jim play a part.
For this month's post, I'm sharing a portion of my reading list for the research deep dives I've undertaken this year.
In 2024, the year was spent in Evergreen Cemetery documenting Civil War soldiers buried there, along with their wives when available. This was an eye-opening look into the past as I searched the cemetery, genealogy, and newspaper records. Each name revealed the story of people, their trials and triumphs, along with a sense of the sacrifice, heartache, and loss the conflict had on their lives. Some of these Civil War discoveries were shared on this blog.
One headstone mentioned that the person buried there had served in the 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion with John Singleton Mosby. This led me to the book, "The Unvanquished", by Patrick K. O'Donnell. The book was fascinating and devastating. It told the story of the 'shadow war' of units such as Mosby's Rangers, Jesse Scouts, and others, whose sole purpose was to infiltrate and disrupt the 'enemy'. Although I never read the name of the man who started me on the journey, the book deepened my understanding of the conflict in a way no other, including Ken Burns' brilliant documentary, "The Civil War," had.
The short "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" was read, and while the beginning of his story was enlightening, I found myself glad to finish the second half.
For those who know me, many are aware of the years of research and performing I have done on Helen (Hunt) Jackson. It will not surprise anyone to know that upon finding the biography of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, it would be next on my list. The name was familiar as the mentor of Helen and Emily Dickinson.
Although "A Man on Fire: The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson" is a look at a man who was so much more than what many may believe. A student at Harvard at thirteen, an author, abolitionist, Unitarian Minister, strong advocate of Women's Suffrage, and commanded the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. This unit was composed of Black soldiers freed from slavery.
What seems to make Higginson's story so fascinating is his drive and intelligence. He seemed to push himself harder than anyone else.
For those who would like to learn or read more, here are links to additional reading:
We think of the West, the wagons rolling westward, the cowboys on trail drives, and the outlaws and lawmen. But there was another side to this West we know and love.
The vast vistas called to people like Charles Russell, Frederic Remington, and Albert Bierstadt, who drew and painted what they saw. Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and later Enos Mills were proponents of conservation.
Valley of the Yosemite, 1863 Albert Bierstadt
Anyone who has studied a Russell or Remington work can almost feel and smell the dust, sweat, and tears of their subject. Bierstadt, with his almost mystical representation of the West, helped contribute to the myth.
Devils Slide, 1871, Montana William Henry Jackson
The photographers, such as William Henry Jackson, documented on film what the artists did with paint.
At the same time, Roosevelt, Muir, and Mills, as time passed, helped to preserve what those early settlers and adventurers to the West saw.
The trappers, pathfinders, gold seekers, and dreamers all helped to create what we know as the West, and the artists and photographers documented that era. The conservationists made sure we could, in some small way, experience what our predecessors did.
So, when we think of the West, let us also think of the others who documented the area and helped preserve it for future generations.
Of course, there were women who contributed, but that is for another post.
