SOME MEN OF VISIONS.
[Sidenote: 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:
"So fleet the works of man;
Back to the earth again
Ancient and holy things
Fade like a dream."
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._
[Sidenote: 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.
"Long ago at the end of the route,
The stage pulled up and the folks stepped out;
They have all passed under the tavern door.
The youth and his bride and the gray three-score;
Their eyes are weary with dust and gleam
For the day has passed like an empty dream.
Soft may they slumber and trouble no more
For the weary journey, its jolt and its roar
In the old stage over the mountains."
[Illustration: A stagecoach being pulled by six horses]
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._
"Build me straight, O worthy master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle."
[Sidenote: 1862]
Like the perfect ship was the perfect Quaker stock that came to our
shores and was absorbed into the body politic, to permeate the
arteries of business and statesmanship of our whole country for
generations. It was a stock built on simple lines; straight, strong,
clear and pure; founded on morality, sobriety, integrity and
frugality; and as simple in garb as it was simple and strong in faith.
Soon after the arrival of the Plymouth Fathers, there entered at our
eastern gateway, a Quaker who invented for us the screw auger; how
could our present high civilization have reached its enviable position
without that screw auger! Evans was the name of the man to whom we owe
this great debt of gratitude and he it was who was the progenitor of
Colorado's second Governor, a man of whose memory our State is justly
proud.
John Evans reached the zenith of his power and influence through the
slow stages of solid preparation and ever broadening experiences. He
was born in 1814 in Ohio, the State that is so prolific of good men.
He graduated from the Clermont Academy in Philadelphia in 1838, when
he was twenty-four years old, and immediately began the practice of
medicine. His success was so pronounced, and he attained such
standing, both as humanitarian and physician, that he was able at the
early age of twenty-seven to impress upon the Legislature of the State
of Illinois by his masterful arguments before them, the necessity for
the establishment by the State of an institution for the insane. Four
years later he was a conspicuous member of the faculty of the Rush
Medical College of Chicago, which he served with devotion for eleven
years. He founded the "Illinois General Hospital of the Lakes"; was
editor of the Northwestern Medical and Surgical Journal; first
projector of the Chicago and Fort Wayne Railroad and of its Chicago
Terminals; member of the Republican National Convention that nominated
Lincoln for the Presidency in 1860; was offered the Governorship of
Washington Territory by Lincoln, which he declined.
He was one of the prominent figures in the advancement of Methodism
and was always prominent in its councils, both national and local. The
writer, once in an eastern City where the general conference of the
Methodist Church was being held, attended a session of that
interesting assembly. One of the conspicuous members on the floor was
pointed out as Governor Evans, who led the delegation from Colorado.
At the time, this incident was related of him:
He had settled at Denver in 1862, and having faith in its future,
decided, after mature deliberation, the direction the City would take
in its growth. He then purchased one hundred and sixty acres at the
point where he thought the most benefit would accrue. A friend hearing
of his investment and its reason, sought him out, commented on his
mistaken rashness in coming to such an unwise decision, and advanced
many reasons why the City would grow in exactly the opposite
direction. The arguments were so strong that a purchase was made of
another one hundred and sixty acres on the side of Denver suggested by
his friend; the Governor, however, strong in his faith, clung to his
original purchase as well. Friends continued to advise him of his
mistakes in these two ventures and he continued to buy where they
suggested, until he owned outlying farms on every side of Denver, and
the City growing in all directions, his profits were fabulous.
He was conspicuous in establishing the Methodist Episcopal Book
Concern and the Northwestern Christian Advocate of Chicago; was one of
the original promoters of the Northwestern University at Evanston and
the first President of its Board of Trustees in which position he
continued for forty-two years. He founded the beautiful City of
Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, which was named for him, and he
suggested the setting apart of one-fourth of every block in that city
as a fund for the University, a movement that resulted in an enormous
endowment for that great school; he brought about the purchase of
ground in the center of Chicago that grew into millions in value and
greatly enriched the University. His contributions to the Church
throughout his long, successful and busy life, amounted to hundreds of
thousands of dollars in addition to the generous donations made by him
to the Denver University located at University Park.
A Territory is under the direct control of the Administration at
Washington and its officers may be selected from outside its
boundaries. President Lincoln in looking for a suitable successor to
Governor Gilpin in 1862, centered on John Evans of Chicago, who was
such a marked success as a business man. He received the appointment
of Governor and gave to Colorado a most excellent administration. He
was a leading factor in the building of the Denver-Pacific Railroad
from Denver to Cheyenne, our first railroad, and was its President for
years. One of his most gigantic undertakings was the building of the
railroad up the South Platte River by the way of South Park to
Leadville, in which he had the splendid help of Walter Cheesman,
General Bela Hughes, J. W. Smith, William Barth, Brown Brothers,
General D. C. Dodge and others. It was not easy to build railroads in
those days; money was scarce, there was not much business for a
railroad when constructed, and in this remote country whose future was
not established, bonds were hard to sell. Many a man would have been
discouraged by the efforts necessary for the financing of these
railroads. Governor Evans worked unceasingly and showed his faith by
putting in large sums of his own money, a fact that finally brought
these undertakings to a successful consummation. Always he talked and
worked for a line to the Gulf from Denver which would mean cheap
freight rates and growth for Colorado, and now it has come and more,
for we are to connect the Gulf with the far northwest, an ocean to
ocean link.
All his personal investments were so wisely made that his life's work
went on smoothly to its close in 1897. In Denver, where he made his
home to the end of his eighty-three years, his thoughts were always of
the City and State of his choice. His wise counsel and untiring
devotion has left its imprint upon many of the successful industries
of the State, as well as upon the social, moral and aesthetic life of
the community. By his untiring devotion and unflagging loyalty to the
Union, he placed himself in the class of War Governors in the great
struggle of '61 to '65. He was preeminently a business man and
possessed of exceptional ability. He was in the Methodist Church the
some powerful factor for good and moral uplift, that William E. Dodge
of New York was in the Presbyterian Church. In fact, in sterling
business integrity and high quality of christian manhood, the finest
thing perhaps that could be said of these two men, is that each was
the beautiful complement of the other.
_George Francis Train._
[Sidenote: 1863]
A child stared a tragedy in the face as he looked wide-eyed from the
window of the family home in New Orleans and saw the rude box
containing the body of his little sister pitched into the "dead wagon"
with like boxes. There were no undertakers: all were dead. No
tenderness or sympathy; only haste and roughness. No flowers; just
tears. An epidemic of Yellow Fever was raging and the "dead wagons"
were rattling through the streets and stopping at the desolate homes
everywhere. Each time the child saw one stop at his home, which would
have been eight times if he could have counted, there was one less in
the household. And at last a big box was carried out, in which they
had placed his mother, and little George Francis Train, a child of
four, was left alone. He was put on board a Mississippi River Steamer,
with his name and destination pinned to his coat, and was sent on his
long journey to relatives near Boston. That was eighty-two years ago.
That child, grown to manhood, became one of the picturesque figures in
American History. He absorbed an education while working sixteen hours
a day as a grocer's clerk. Then by sheer force of will and capability,
he took a man's place in his uncle's shipping house in Boston, when he
was but sixteen years of age, and in four years became a partner in
the firm and was making ten thousand dollars a year. He revolutionized
the shipping industry of the world by increasing the capacity of the
largest ship then known, of seven hundred tons, to what then seemed an
incredible size of two thousand tons. He had a fleet of forty vessels
under him, mostly built up by his own energy. Then he went to
Liverpool and at the age of twenty was the resident partner of the
firm at that point where he doubled the business in a year. He then
enlarged his horizon by going to Australia and establishing a similar
business from which his commissions were ninety-five thousand dollars
the first year.
He was a man with ideas. They used to cut postage stamps apart with
scissors; "perforate the paper," he said, and it was done. In London
when the Grande Dames stopped their carriages, a footman appeared with
a short step ladder to aid them in their descent; "attach a folding
step to the carriage" he advised, and it has been in use ever since.
He saw a man write something with a lead pencil, then reach into his
pocket for a rubber to make an erasure; "fasten the rubber to the
pencil," he told them, and the perfected idea is in the hands of
everyone to-day. A dozen men were shoveling coal into sacks and
carrying it from the wagon; "use an appliance to raise the front end
of the wagon and let the coal run out," he suggested, and the idea
carried into effect made a company of millionaires. A man spilled some
ink as he poured it from a large bottle into a small one; "give the
bottle a nose like a cream pitcher," he told them and the idea gave
the man who patented it more money than he could ever use. He saw the
Indians spearing salmon out of the Columbia River; "can them," he
said, and it started a great industry that is still under way. He
accompanied the officials of the Northern Pacific Railroad when they
were locating the terminus of that system; "end the line here," he
told them and Tacoma will stand on that spot forever. He prophesied,
that as much of the soil of the East rested upon a rocky base and was
intermixed with stone, it would become inert and of decreasing value;
while from the western plains so vast in extent, with their great
depths of rich soil, would come the supply for the nation, and an ever
increasing value to the farms. The prediction has come true. Today,
with one-tenth of the population, we are furnishing one-half the
supply of the food of the nation.
He was an observing man always and a student. Besides his own native
language, the English, he spoke fluently French, German, Italian,
Spanish and Portuguese. His newspaper articles from all over the world
were read everywhere. He was an editor, author, and lecturer, speaking
at times to houses that netted him in one instance five thousand
dollars. He knew many of the greatest men of his own country: Daniel
Webster, Henry Clay, Rufus Choate, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nathaniel P. Banks--they
were all his friends. He met Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington,
and many more of the great of the earth. Judges, Bishops and
Ambassadors were his intimates. He was offered the Presidency of the
Australian Government which he declined. He headed the French Commune
and when the government troops were ordered to fire on him, he wrapped
himself in the Stars and Stripes and dared them to kill an American
citizen protected by the American Flag--and they did not shoot. He led
a Third Party against two presidential aspirants for the Presidency,
Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley, in the campaign of 1872, and was
defeated. He was a great traveler and visited nearly every country on
the globe. He went around the world in eighty days, which gave rise to
the Romance by Jules Verne, that is read in every language. He kept
going around the world just to shorten the time. He had a villa at
Newport and his annual expenditure for entertainment there was one
hundred thousand dollars. Toward the close of his career he lived on
three dollars a week, because he had no more, and he claimed that it
was the happiest period of his life.
The first street car lines in England, Switzerland and Denmark were
built by him. He was the first to suggest similar enterprises for
Australia and India. Maria Christina was Queen of Spain, and
Salamanca, a banker, was the Rothschild of that country. They backed
him for two million dollars that started the building of the Atlantic
and Great Western Railway which was followed later by the construction
of a railroad to the Adirondacks. The banker Salamanca was descended
from the long line of that name for which the Spanish City Salamanca
was named that gave us Coronado. On the line of railroad which
Salamanca helped to finance, a City is located in New York State named
for him.
All these experiences brought Train gradually to the accomplishment of
his life's greatest achievement, the building of the Union Pacific
Railroad which he began on December 3, 1863, at Omaha, but which was
completed by others May 10, 1869, at Ogden. It was the missing link
needed in the welding of the West to the East, and in the development
of Colorado, a country rich in every natural resource. Later, when the
Kansas Pacific was threatening Denver, and planning to build their
road elsewhere if a large amount of money was not raised, the citizens
of Denver in their dilemma sent for Train. He came, and made one of
his characteristic addresses to a crowded house. "God helps them that
help themselves," Benjamin Franklin had poor Richard say; Train said,
"Build a line of railroad yourselves to connect with the Union Pacific
Railroad at Cheyenne or Julesburg," the road that he had projected.
And they did the very thing he told them to do. In the course of time,
the Kansas Pacific Railroad was also built to Denver.
Erratic, always. Egotistical, very, Crazy, many said he was. It may be
that all his life he saw the "dead wagon" at the door, and heard it
rattling through the street; early impressions have their effect upon
the character of the mind. He was imprisoned fifteen times and said
that he never committed a crime in his whole life. He was fearless as
a speaker and writer, and much of his trouble was political. A
peculiarity of this many-sided man was, that he would never shake
hands with any person--be he king or plain man of the people. In
retirement he frequented Madison Square in New York where the birds
all knew him and would light upon him and feed out of his hands; where
the children all loved him and flocked about him, sitting upon his
knee while they listened to his wonder tales of every people of every
clime; where memories of his brilliant career filled his thoughts as
he saw again his bright vision of a coast to coast line, now fully
realized--for the glistening sunlight was glinting the rails from the
foot of the Statue of Liberty to the sunny calm of the Golden Gate. He
was never without a flower in the lapel of his coat. The wearing of
the flower in this way by men everywhere originated with him; he
introduced the custom into London, Paris and New York, from which
cities it spread all over the world. The idea came to him while in
Java, that beautiful country of rare flowers and delicate odors.
On a cold stormy day of January, 1903, the end came to a stormy
career; the birds hungrily called to him, but he did not come; the
children waited for him, and could not understand; a flower that was
alive, was pinned to the shroud of its friend who was dead, and they
went away together forever and aye.