CHAPTER XII.

THE LUSTRE OF GOLD.

1858 In the incident of nearly sixty centuries ago, when Joseph's brothers came down two hundred miles from Canaan to Egypt with their sacks to be filled with corn, and of the money being put back with the grain, we have the first record in the civilized world of the ownership of gold. "How then should we steal out of thy Lord's house silver and gold." So its value was then known, though no doubt for decorative purposes only, from which it in time grew into use as money. Cortez found the Aztecs using domestic utensils made of copper, silver and gold.

What made Gold? What deposited it in some parts of the earth's surface and not in others? Why is there not more of it? We do not know. We know it was one of the primitive elements; that it is held in solution in the waters of the ocean; that men have tried to make it and have always failed. It derives its name from its lustre. Though gold and yellow are in a measure synonymous, their difference is best seen in the glory of the sunset which is always golden, never yellow. It is the lustre that makes the lure of gold. Its value arises from the permanency of its lustre; from its imperishable properties; from the fact that so much can be done with it; because it is so limited in quantity; and because it requires so much time and money to find and refine it. If it would corrode it would be valueless for many of the uses to which it is put. Its soft beauty never tires the eye, nor becomes monotonous. It is the only metal that can be welded cold, as we can all testify from our experiences in painless dentistry. It can be spun out like a spider's web, or beaten so that a single grain of it can be spread over a space of seventy-five square inches. If it were as plentiful as earth or sand, it would still have great value because it is so permanent and malleable. The sawing and chiselling of the great blocks of marble and granite that are lifted by derricks into our public buildings, cost much more in their preparation than would the shaping of gold into similar blocks. If it were plentiful, our houses would all be built of gold; they would never burn; never rust; never decay; never need paint; they would endure forever; for even earthquakes that would destroy every other material, would not affect them; the mass of gold would not be destroyed and could be re-shaped and refitted together. However, if it were so plentiful that we could all live in it, it would be so common that its beautiful lustre would probably be debased by ordinary paint.

Mining comes down to us through the centuries. The Romans were operating mines in England before the organization of that country into the British Empire. Africa produces the most gold of any country, and the United States next. Colorado produces the most gold of any state in the union. There is but little gold found in the eastern part of the United States and that mostly in Tennessee and North Carolina. It exists in paying quantities in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the Rocky Mountains, and in California. Gold is found under two conditions: in veins and in placer formations. As the veins in our bodies are almost endless in their ramifications, so imbedded in the rocky fastnesses deep down in the earth, are the veins of gold which are mined and hoisted to the surface through shafts, or brought out through tunnels; the process of smelting sends the gold to the Mint for its refinement. Deep mining is expensive and requires costly machinery. Shafts are sunk down thousands of feet, sometimes through solid rock, and powerful pumping plants are often necessary. Sometimes hundreds of men are at work in one mine.

Miners Making a "Clean-up" from Their "Jig-box."

Then there is placer mining, so-called because it is a place on the bank of a river where the gold is found. "Placer" is Spanish and means "pleasure." A prospector's outfit for finding gold by the latter process is very crude. He goes into the mountains with two pack ponies. These pack animals learn to climb over the rocks and along the precipitous mountain sides like Rocky Mountain sheep. On their backs are strapped his tent and simple belongings, among which is a wash basin. The prospector seldom uses it for the purpose for which it was made. He bathes in nature's basin—golden basin; that which a King might envy him—the stream, the rushing, tumbling stream, clear, cold and pure; fortunate man! he bathes in liquid gold. The pan he fills two-thirds full of dirt, then with water, rocks it gently with his hands, letting the water run over the sides, carrying the dirt away and leaving the particles of gold, which are heavy, at the bottom of the pan. When the miner finds it there, he does not call it gold, he calls it "color." This rude device that is simply motion, water, and a receptacle for the particles of gold, is the same process elaborated upon by expensive machinery, that tears up and runs through the mill thousands of tons of material found along streams, and in gulches, where streams ran ages ago, and which, changing their channels, have left their deposits of gold containing the wash from the lump or quartz gold, found in the veins of ore.

A sluice is where water is made to run through a ditch into a trough that has cleats nailed across the bottom to check the water and form ripples. Into this the pay-dirt is shoveled, and the water flowing through it leaves the gold at the bottom and carries the dirt away. Gold dust is not fine like flour. A piece weighing less than a fourth of an ounce is called "dust." Above that it becomes a "nugget." Small counter-scales were kept in the early days by all business men, who weighed the money in, and weighed the flour and bacon out. An ounce of gold was taken over the counter from the miners at sixteen dollars, but when it left the Mint refined, which meant the elimination of all impurities, it brought twenty dollars. It is never entirely pure until refined.

The nearest approach we now have to the hunter, trapper and scout, is the prospector hunting for gold. We find him wandering alone through the mountains, a silent figure, the pack pony, his only companion, sometimes driven ahead, sometimes following on behind. This quiet spoken, unobtrusive, hermit-like man is usually tall, gaunt, bearded, hopeful, always believing in the lucky find that is sure to be his—soon. Mining laws vary with different states and mining communities. But ordinarily they are the same in effect, that a miner must show good faith, do the work required to establish his claim, and must post a notice on the ground claimed by him; the spelling in the notice does not seem to matter. We do not hear that the following were rejected on account of errors or threats:

Singular it is that the laws governing mining claims originated with the miners themselves, and found their way through the Courts and Congress for ratification, which was done with hardly any changes, while the laws covering all other forms of ownership of Government lands originated in Congress. The author of much of our early land legislation, to whom our country can never be grateful enough, was that eminent statesman Alexander Hamilton.

Gold started Colorado's growth; gold kept it growing; but gold is only one of many factors that will forever keep it growing. What busy scenes were enacted here in those memorable years when the attention of the entire country was centered on this region! Pike's Peak was the objective point of the gold seekers—not Denver which was then unknown. When James Purseley, Colorado's earliest white inhabitant, first found gold in 1805, at the foot of Lincoln Mountain, it did not assume the importance of a discovery. He had no use for the gold nuggets he picked up; the Indians did not know or appreciate the value of gold, and there was no one with whom he could utilize it, as he could in the exchange of ponies and furs. It is said that he finally threw the nuggets away because of the uncomfortable weight in his pockets. No doubt he thought he would live his life among the Indians, the wild, free life that was so fascinating, and would never return to the East, and perhaps never see a white man again. He was content with his lot, had no use for gold and why should he hoard it, when the Indian blanket he was now wearing had no convenient place in which to carry it.

Green Russell is said to have found gold on Cherry Creek in August or September, 1858, just ten years after its discovery in California. It was also found by a party of six men on January 15, 1859, on a branch of Boulder Creek, which occasioned the location of the present City of Boulder. George Jackson went into the mountains on January 7, 1859, and discovered gold at the mouth of a branch of Clear Creek, and on April 17th organized at that point the first mining district; later, on May 1st, he found gold at Idaho Springs. But it remained for John H. Gregory to fan into a never dying glow the flame that had been gathering volume by these desultory discoveries. He found gold on Clear Creek, near the sites of Black Hawk and Central City, in February, 1859. Lacking provisions, he went to Golden for supplies, returned May 6th, and started a sluice on May 16th, from which he took as much as nine hundred dollars a day. He sold his discovery for twenty-one thousand dollars and set the country afire with excitement. From nearly every eastern community, the people came, and from many parts of the world. It is estimated that fifty thousand people poured into this mountain region the first year after the discovery of gold. Many of those who remained, and many who came later, made fortunes, some to keep them, some to lose them. Those who hurried out of the country did not witness the growth of Cripple Creek, of Leadville, of Camp Bird or of the San Juan and Clear Creek Districts.

There are two smelters in Denver and one each in Golden, Leadville, Canon City, Pueblo and Salida. None but zinc ores are sent out of this State. The annual output of gold in Colorado is about twenty-two million dollars, or about six million dollars a year greater than California. There are three operated Mints in the United States: Denver, Philadelphia and San Francisco. At Denver there are six hundred million dollars of gold deposited in the vaults beneath the foundations of the Mint, and upon this reserve the paper currency of the Government has been issued. No such amount of gold is stored in any other building in the world. The Denver Mint will always remain the storage depository for the gold reserve of the nation, because of its inland location, where it is remote from attack by sea. Colorado has already produced in gold four hundred and eighty-eight million five hundred thousand dollars, and there is no indication of a diminution in the supply. Of the seven billions of the world's gold, nearly one-fourth, or approximately one billion six hundred million is held by the United States.

When Columbus first started on his voyage of discovery there was less than two hundred million dollars of gold in the world; now, more than double that amount is produced in a single year. In 1500 the annual gold production was four million dollars, and it took two hundred years before the yearly output was doubled. Now, nearly five hundred million dollars in gold is taken out of the earth each year. Only in the past few years has the production of gold assumed such gigantic proportions as to be alarming. In 1800 it was but twelve million dollars annually. In 1900 it was two hundred and sixty-two million dollars yearly, and in the past ten years it reached the enormous output of more than four hundred and fifty-seven million dollars every year. The Transvaal country alone turns out over one hundred and fifty million yearly. This great increase is due to improved methods of mining. Machinery unknown ten years ago, has done away with the primitive methods that kept the production of gold constant and within bounds. In the Transvaal, the hills and valleys are being ground up by powerful machines that separate the gold from the earth and rock. Then, too, a giant stream of water is now turned against the base of a mountain that melts away like mist before the sun, and sends a stream of gold to the mint.

Gold has always been the standard of values among all civilized nations. But its quantity is increasing so fast that its purchasing power is diminishing, and prices of all commodities are increasing correspondingly. When we will be producing one billion dollars of gold annually, which will be in about ten years at the present rate of increase, there must be a new standard of values agreed upon among the nations of the earth to fit the purchasing power of gold, or there will be an upheaval in the financial affairs of the world that will shake it to the very foundations, and affect the lives of every one of its inhabitants.

The over-production of gold is relieved in a measure by the utter disappearance of a part of it. What becomes of all the gold? Nearly one million five hundred thousand dollars a day is taken from the mines of the world. Only a portion of this output is consumed by the arts and in jewelry, and in the natural legal reserve of Governments. From the best information obtainable, much of the surplus goes into the hoarding places of all classes. The people in poor and medium circumstances hide it away, and it is treasured in the vaults of the rich princes of India, and the dynasties of China and Egypt, who for centuries have been building vast burglar proof receptacles underground, where it is stored, and its hiding places are never allowed to become known. It is wrested from out of its hidden recesses in mountain fastnesses, by pick, drill, dynamite and arduous toil, flows through the arteries of trade, and again goes into its burial places to remain hidden for ages.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOME MEN OF VISIONS.

1859 In this story of Colorado it has been the aim of the writer to leave the present, crowded with the interesting events that are passing before us in kaleidoscopic changings, to the enviable writers of a future period; and to keep well within the boundaries of the remote past, touching but briefly, if at all, upon those subjects so ably covered by the historians of the State. They have fully recorded the growth of the country, the towns and cities; the beginning of the railroads and telegraph lines that were such important factors in the development of the state; and the part that men of prominence, living and dead, took in the upbuilding of our commonwealth. It is all found in detail in the following histories:

Frank Fossett's "Colorado," published in 1876; "History of Denver," compiled by W. B. Vickers in 1880; Frank Hall's Four Volumes which began to appear in 1890; Hubert Howe Bancroft's "History of Colorado," published in 1891; William N. Byers "Encyclopedia Biography of Colorado," in 1901; Jerome C. Smiley's elaborate "History of Denver," in 1901; Eugene Parsons "The Making of Colorado," in 1908.

A few names have been selected for mention in these pages which appear in the above publications. Sketches of the lives of these men are here presented in order that the older civilization may be merged into the new, and to bring to the present generation a realization of the charm of the interesting personalities with which the history of our early days are replete. So the sketches in this Chapter will be like unto "Twice Told Tales."

William N. Byers.

Eighty years! Then, the frontier of this country had moved only a little beyond Ohio, the State that in 1831 was the birth place of William N. Byers. As we stand to-day in the midst of all that makes life comfortable and inspiring, and look back to the crude civilization and primitive methods of those early days in our country's history, it is difficult to believe that even in such a progressive age there could have been such developments in the lifetime of some now living. Then, the little hand printing press had only eight years before emerged into its perfected form after four centuries of struggle. Then, the first railroad in the United States had only been built for two years—built of wooden rails to connect Albany and Schenectady, seventeen miles apart. Then, telegraphing was unknown; it was not until 1837 that Morse perfected the first telegraphic instrument, and later listened to the little girl, his child friend, as she reverently touched the key and spelled out the message that went reverberating around the world: "What hath God wrought?"

A United States surveying party enroute to Oregon took with it William N. Byers, a youth of twenty. They were five months crossing the plains. The next year, 1853, saw him starting West from Oregon homeward bound, instead of East. Down the Columbia River by boat, out on the Pacific Ocean and South to Cape Horn he sailed, up through the Atlantic waters North to New York, West by railroad, canal boat, stage coach and horseback, and he was at home in central Iowa on the very edge of western settlements.

But much to the surprise of every one there was still to be a newer West. Out beyond the Missouri River had come a knocking which became so loud and persistent that finally they heard it at Washington, and Nebraska was admitted as a Territory in 1854. It is a short move now from Iowa to Nebraska, but Omaha then seemed far away to the young man who reached there when it comprised "one lone cabin surrounded by savage people." The savages grew less and the town grew more, and Byers, who was a surveyor, was soon at work platting it into a town site. When the gold excitement broke out in California in 1848, and Omaha became the outfitting point for the immense trading business that grew constantly, it kept him busy laying out additions to the town. Thus he experienced the rough side of life in a frontier village. He saw, too, how the Pacific Slope mines made great fortunes and built cities, so when the Colorado mining excitement started, he concluded to be a part of the new country's development and growth. In the early Spring of 1859, he started to Denver, after the fashion of that day, with an ox team and covered wagon.

One of the most pleasing fables in Mythology, is that of Pandora and the box into which every god had put some blessing for her, and which she opened incautiously to see the blessings all escape—save hope. In this covered wagon, drawn by the slow-moving oxen, was a Pandora box containing two blessings, a little printing press which could not fly away—and hope. All the long weeks of journeying across the plains, this far-sighted man was thinking. He thought of the little six hundred pound press that he had with him, which with close work could print twenty-five hundred copies of a small newspaper in a day. He thought of the type that would be used over and over until it was so worn that it would blur the pages. He thought of his paper going to a few scattered strangers in a strange land. He looked ahead out over the plains and saw that strange atmospherical condition that produces the mirage, and which is so clear in its outlines and so misleading in its impressions, that the man on the desert dying of thirst sees a lake of pure water so near him that he seems to hear its waves dashing on the shores. Byers gazed with delight and awe as the mirage seemed to take form and resolve itself into a city; we can imagine that he saw a gilded dome on a towering building of symmetrical form and solidity that was set on an elevation of commanding beauty; that he saw streets and trees and parks; life, movement, bustle, prosperity; thousands of people each with a newspaper. And in imagination he stood beside the giant printing presses of that magic city, presses that were so capable and powerful as to seem endowed with life; so large and heavy that a freight car could not haul one, and which needed a double story beneath all other stories to house it. He sees himself standing beside this mammoth mass of mechanism at its home, while it is resting, at the time of polishing, oiling and testing, like the grooming of the horse at the meet, ere it starts on its record-breaking race. He listens to the telegraphic instruments clicking the news from every portion of the known world. He goes to the composing rooms where the copy grows into the newspaper pages of type, under the skillful fingers of the capable men playing over the keys of the intricate linotype. He follows the locked forms of type to the stereotyping department, where a matrix made of the most perfect and delicate paper that India can produce, is laid over the page of type and pressure sends its minutest imprint transversely into the paper which thus becomes an exact copy of the page of newspaper that is soon to appear. He sees this impress copy bent half way around a cylinder mold, with its duplicate on the other half of its cylinder into which the hot metal flows; pressure transfers from the India paper sheet every detail of the type, and the metal hardens into the exact shape to fit a roller of the great press to which it is to be transferred. He sees the type that was made an hour ago and used, now cast into the glowing furnace, and a minute later becomes a melted mass of metal. And we can imagine his soliloquy.

"Oh! type! I see you boiling, and seething, and dissolving as if in expiation of your sins, for you are cruel and relentless. To-day you tell of men's sins that wreck their lives and they end their struggles in self-destruction. You tell of sickness and death, of poverty and defeat, of misery and crime; but in your purification by fire may all be forgotten, for tomorrow you tell of births and flowers, of love and marriage, of victory and success, and you crown your efforts by the advocacy of wise laws, of good government, of equal justice to all; for right will prevail while the liberty of the press can be maintained."

We imagine that he looks again and sees the electric button pressed; the cogs of the great press begin to turn, the wheels to move, the different colored inks high up in the metal troughs to flow over the rollers that bathe the type, the immense roll of paper begins to unreel into the machine and over the cylinders which are each covered with their mold of type. Faster, faster, as the race horse speeds to victory. Faster, faster, as the colossal machine bends to its work. The folding attachment inside is busy doubling the paper into its proper shape as each printed page flies past. The knife descends like a flash, quicker than thought, and separates the page from the one following. Faster, faster, the completed folded papers drop from the machine into the endless chain elevator that sends them to the distributing room overhead at the rate of forty thousand an hour, where the restless newsboys are crowding, where the express deliveries are waiting, where the warning signals of the locomotives at the depot are heard, ready to hurry away with the papers over the mountains, across the plains, into the valleys—the news for each and all, news of the communities, news of the states, news of the world—this, this is the present-day experiences of the present century's civilization, the finest the world has ever seen, and which William Byers may have seen in the mirage, but which he did not live to see in its perfected form.

He came at a time known as the "days of the reformation," when a handful of peace-loving citizens of Denver were trying to bring order out of that chaotic condition that seems to belong to a settlement on the frontier made up of people from all over the world attracted by the lure of gold. He was the pioneer editor of Colorado, and became spokesman through his paper for those associated with him in the preservation of property rights and in the protection of life. He was fearless as a writer and unsparing in his criticism of the lawless in the community. His editorial in the first issue of his paper shows the character of the man:

"We make our debut in the far West, where the sunny mountains look down upon us in the hottest summer's day as well as in the winter's cold. Here, where a few months ago the wild beasts and wilder Indians held undisputed possession, where now surges the advancing wave of Anglo-Saxon enterprise and civilization, where soon we fondly hope will be erected a great and powerful state, another empire in the sisterhood of empires. Our course is marked out, we will adhere to it, with steadfast and fixed determination, to speak, write, and publish the truth, and nothing but the truth, let it work us weal or woe."

Horace W. Tabor.

From Vermont, that land of stone and marble, it was fitting that Tabor should come to our mountains where similar conditions prevail. He came by the way of Kansas where he farmed with indifferent success from 1855 to 1859. His entrance there into the political arena had a disastrous ending. There used to be the Free Soilers, a party whose battle cry was "free soil, free speech, free labor and free men." No state had more troubles in the way of political happenings than Kansas. One consisted in having this Free Soil party, to which Tabor belonged and which made him a member of the Legislature of that State in 1857, just after its admission into the Union. As Cromwell prorogued the Parliament, so did the Federal Troops under orders of the Secretary of War send every member of that Free Soil Legislature to their homes, robbed of their law-making prerogatives and relegated to common citizenship.

Tabor came to Denver in 1859 and from this point his career reads like a story from the Arabian Nights. In the Spring of 1860 he started to California Gulch, which name gave way later to Leadville; he drove an ox team to a covered wagon that was six weeks in the going. With the close of the first season he had five thousand dollars of gold dust in his pocket. That amount of money suggested merchandising, which he followed in the winters, alternating to the mines every summer. At the end of the second year he had wrested fifteen thousand dollars more in gold from the mines. He was a likeable man, generous, and known to be such, always doing his fellowman a good turn. Two prospectors down on their luck, proposed that he should help them by "grub-staking," as it was called in those days. He was to give them what they would eat and wear, furnish them with tools for digging and powder for blasting. In return they would share with him if they won, while if they lost, it would be his sole loss. It turned out to be a most fortunate alliance for them all. They had no more than started to digging, having reached a depth of only twenty-six feet, when they struck a rich vein of ore, and every inch they went down after that, the rich deposit grew in extent, both in quantity and quality. "Little Pittsburg," they called it, and it began turning out eight thousand dollars a week to the three fortunate owners. In a little while Hook sold his share to his partners for ninety thousand dollars, that being all the money he said he needed. Soon Rische reached the limit of his money-making ambitions which was two hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars, and that sum was paid him by David H. Moffat and J. B. Chaffee. The three new partners, which included Tabor, purchased other mines in the vicinity and consolidated them, taking out over four million dollars in the two years from 1878 to 1880. The other two partners now bought out Tabor for one million dollars, that being as much he thought as he could ever spend. It seemed that these original partners only had to figure out how much they would need to be comfortable on the remainder of their lives, which fixed the price of their investment.

Tabor, however, found that he could not quit this fascinating life, so he bought the Matchless Mine at Leadville for one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, and in a year he had added nearly seven hundred thousand dollars to his wealth. Field, Leiter & Company of Chicago joined him in a number of mining ventures, all of which were immensely profitable.

In 1879 he began to make purchases in Denver that had much to do with the rapid growth of this city. He paid thirty thousand dollars for the lots at the corner of 16th and Larimer Streets, upon which he erected what was the finest building of that time, known now as the Nassau Block. He sent all the way to Ohio for the sandstone that went into the building, the quarries of beautiful marble and stone in our mountains not then having been opened, or he would have used it, for he always wanted the best. He paid forty thousand dollars for the residence and block of ground, on a portion of which the Broadway Theater now stands; the ground alone so purchased is now worth one million dollars; its value in another thirty years—but that is another story, and it will be told when the hand that moves this pen lies silent. He purchased the location at 16th and Curtis Streets for a Theater Building, and sent Chicago Architects abroad to study the plans of the theaters of the Old World and their furnishings, with the result that a building was erected and equipped that was the talk of the entire country.

The opening of the theater was one of the greatest occasions held in the West up to that time. Emma Abbott came all the way across the Continent with her Opera Company for the event. The newspapers everywhere devoted space to it and Eugene Field celebrated it in verse. The picture of Horace Tabor was placed just over the inner entrance, where it hangs to this day and where it should remain while the building stands. At the time of its erection it was considered to be the most perfect and convenient in arrangement of any theater in the United States. The boxes and proscenium were all finished in solid polished cherry wood. The drop curtain was painted by an eminent artist who came to Denver for that purpose; it was adorned with a picture of moldering ruins of Ancient Temples with a motto underneath containing a sermon in the following impressive quotation from Kingsley:

All these improvements inaugurated and completed by him alone, attracted almost world-wide attention and advanced Denver to an important place in her business standing throughout the entire East. He became Lieutenant Governor in 1878, and U.S. Senator in 1882, to which position he was appointed to fill out the term of Henry M. Teller, who was invited by President Arthur to enter his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. Tabor only lacked one vote of being elected to succeed himself, Judge Bowen winning the prize.

Tabor's financial rise was meteoric; his decline was equally rapid when it started. Unfortunate investments, mostly in distant locations, swept his entire fortune away. Though poor indeed, in material things towards the close of his life, it is given to few men to be so rich in experiences. His accomplishments in behalf of Denver will always be held by her citizens in grateful remembrance, and when he died in 1899 there was wide-spread sorrow.

William Gilpin.

1861 One thousand years of traceable ancestry! They spelled it "Guylphyn" in those far-away days of the Roman Empire, and in two hundred years it was softened to "Gilpin." One of this illustrious line was a great General and won a noted battle for Oliver Cromwell. One was Minister Plenipotentiary to The Hague, appointed by Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary ordered one beheaded because of his religious teachings, but she died herself, after which he was pardoned and went on with his preaching. The ancestors of our own Washington were proud to form a union with the Gilpins by marriage. A meeting-house was erected by one of them and given to William Penn who used to preach in it. The home of one of them was turned over to LaFayette for his headquarters during the Battle of Brandywine. And there was that one who owned the mill that ground the grain for Washington and his army at Valley Forge.

Colorado is to be congratulated that she had for her first Governor one who came bearing such an illustrious name. But no one thought of family, least of all Abraham Lincoln, when he signed the Commission that made William Gilpin Governor of the Territory of Colorado. His selection was under advisement at the first Cabinet meeting and he was chosen in recognition of his signal ability.

As a youth he was tutored by his father who possessed more than ordinary culture. He pursued special studies under the author, Hawthorne; he learned under Lawrence Washington, when the latter was a resident of Mt. Vernon; then he was sent abroad for instructions at Yorkshire; he had the pick of masters at Liverpool; was graduated later at the University of Pennsylvania, and then won high honors in his later graduation from West Point. Such a course of study had made of him an intellectual athlete.

Then he traveled abroad, hurrying home to fight the Spanish in the Everglades of Florida. This chivalrous disciplinarian was Major in the Army of twelve hundred that defeated the Mexican Army of over five thousand at Sacramento City, California, on February 28, 1847. He was an officer in the army, under General S. W. Kearny, that marched into Santa Fe on the 14th of August, 1846, and ran up the Flag of the United States for the first time. Soon after, Charles Bent, who was first Governor of New Mexico, was killed at Santa Fe in an up-rising of the natives. He had built Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River where he had his residence for years. It was at Santa Fe that Gen. Lew Wallace, while Governor of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881, wrote the concluding chapters of his great book Ben Hur.

Gilpin's home was at Independence, Mo., where he practiced law. That place being near the end of the Santa Fe Trail, he often met Kit Carson. Gilpin possessed so much bravery that he started across the plains in 1843, a solitary horseman. Happening in with Fremont, he accompanied him to the Pacific Coast, it being Fremont's second expedition. The next year Gilpin returned by the way of Bent's Fort, thence down the Santa Fe Trail to his home. He was bearing a memorial, from the Oregon people, which he had helped to formulate, and which he was to present to the Administration at Washington. It set forth in detail the resources of the Great Northwest, the desire of the handful of people located there to be taken under the shelter of the Government and to be embraced within the limits of the Territory of the United States. He proceeded to Washington and presented this petition in person to President Polk, and urged in glowing terms, with all the eloquence he possessed, the future value and prospects of that unknown region. He had the freedom of both Houses of Congress and took a prominent part in turning the tide in favor of the Oregon movement.

When President Lincoln started from Springfield to Washington to assume the reins of Government in February, 1861, Gilpin was one of thirteen who made the entire journey in the President's private car. He was a brilliant man and Lincoln recognized his mental gifts and learned minutely from him of his varied experiences, especially of his knowledge of the far West. So it was natural that his name should come before the very first meeting of the cabinet for appointment to the high place of Governor of the territory of Colorado. The next month he was hurrying westward with his commission in his pocket and with his appointment as well of Brigadier-General of the Army.

So entered William Gilpin into the little City of Denver. It was the days of the stage coach, and the Denver end of the line was kept at the highest point of efficiency. Six horses were used, as fine as money could buy, high stepping and so well groomed that they shone resplendent under their costly harness glittering in the sun. The starting of the stage on its journey East and its return into Denver, was always an interesting event. It came dashing into town with the horses galloping, the whip cracking, the dogs barking and the people shouting. And they cheered when their new Governor stepped out. They cheered again when he stood before them tall and erect, with eyes flashing and head thrown back, and spoke in that matchless flow of language that was the gift of this eloquent and picturesque man. The character of his thought and its style of presentation is best seen in the following, taken from one of his many interesting speeches:

"* * * These events arrive. We are in the midst of them. They surround us as we march. They are the present secretions of the aggregate activities and energies of the people. You, the pioneers of Colorado, have arched with this glorious state the summit ridge and barrier between two hemispheres. You bring to a close the numbered ages of their isolation and their hostility. You have opened and possess the highway, which alone connects, fuses, and harmonizes them together. Of this state, you are the first owners and occupants. You have displayed to the vision, and illustrated to mankind, the splendid concave structure of our continent, and the infinite powers of its august dimensions, its fertility, its salubrious atmosphere and ever resplendent beauty. You have discovered the profound want and necessity of human society, and your labor provides for its relief; gold, I mean; the indefinite supply of sound money for the people by their own individual and voluntary labor. You occupy the front of the pioneer army of the people, absolutely the leaders of mankind, heading the column to the Oriental shores. * * *

"Hail to America, land of our birth; hail to her magnificent, her continental domain; hail to her generous people; hail to her victorious soldiers; hail to her matrons and her maidens; hail to the sacred union of her states; all hail to her as she is! Hail to the sublime mission which bears her on through peace and war, to make the continent her own and to endure forever."

What did he do for Colorado? Much. He confronted unusual conditions; he was the Chief Executive of the Territory at the very beginning of its history when there was not one single beaten path for him to follow, and when there was no money and no credit. There was danger of the territory slipping away from the union through an armed incursion from the South. There were no weapons for either a defensive or an aggressive warfare. He posted notices along the trails, calling for the purchase of fire arms of any kind no matter what the age or condition, if there was accompanying ammunition. There were no soldiers not even a home guard. So as quickly as possible he began to muster in the soldiers, putting into their hands the weapons he had gotten together, bad though they were. The drilling of the men was carried on just outside of Denver; soon he had one Company of Infantry and ten Companies of Cavalry.

The troops that had been in Utah during the Mormon war were returning East, and at Gov. Gilpin's request turned over to him at Laramie eighteen wagons containing eighteen hundred new rifles and a large supply of ammunition. Thus equipped, he marched down on Gen. Sibley and his army who had come up from the South and had captured Santa Fe. The battle of Glorietta was fought, resulting in Sibley's entire wagon train of ammunition and supplies being captured and his army destroyed or scattered.

The expense of the year's military activities was paid by the Governor drawing drafts direct upon the Government at Washington, amounting to two hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars, all of which drafts were returned unpaid, which occasioned a great deal of trouble, confusion and criticism. They were, however, paid in course of time. Governor Gilpin always claimed that he had verbal instructions from Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War in the beginning of Lincoln's Administration, to handle the payments in this way. No doubt the Governor made the mistake of not having vouchers regularly drawn, itemized, certified and forwarded in the regular course of business, leaving the creditors to await their acceptance, approval, and the remittance of the funds. In extenuation it might be said that we were remote from the center of supplies and money, communication was slow, time was pressing, and he did the best he could. It may be that any other course at that time would have resulted disastrously, not only to this Territory, but the Government as well. Even at this late date, the Legislatures of some states handle in a most informal manner the finances of the State Government, which requires years for adjustment. Because of these financial complications, Gilpin was relieved from his position as Governor in 1862, but he remained true to his State all his life, had no higher ambition than to see it grow, sounded its praises wherever he went, and said on all occasions: "It is the backbone of the Continent, protect and encourage it."

He was one of the first to open up beautiful Capitol Hill, and used to say "I will give you two lots if you will build on one of them." He never valued money, but lived far above the ordinary affairs that surround us. There were times when he did not have the money to pay for a meal, but his interest in his fellowmen, in his State, and in the enjoyment of his mental gifts continued unabated to the end of his life.

Governor Gilpin gave us the beautiful name of Colorado. He was in Washington in the Spring of 1861 when the Bill was before Congress for fixing the boundaries of this new Territory. The name of Jefferson had been proposed, also Idaho and other names. He preferred Colorado and gave that name to Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, on whose motion it was adopted. The name was taken, not from the river of that name in Texas, whose length is nine hundred miles, but from the great river to the west of us that is longer than the distance between Omaha and Ogden and is the King of the Rivers of the West.

John Evans.