ALEXANDER MAJORS' FIRST BEAR HUNT.
As my knowledge of the bear was obtained by being brought up and living in the portion of the State of Missouri they inhabited, it was natural when I grew up that I became a bear-hunter. I have killed them at all times of the year; when in their caves, shortly after they have come out in the spring, and while in their beds, before going to their caves. I have traced them by their tracks in the snow from their temporary beds to their winter caves. On account of my own experience, and my association with the best and oldest bear-hunters, I have had good opportunities to learn the nature and habits of black bear. Although I have seen a great many bears of the Rocky Mountains, and have had some little experience with the cinnamon, the brown, and the silver-gray bear, I am not as familiar with their modes of life as I am with those of the black bear that were found in such numbers in the Mississippi Valley when the white people first emigrated to that country. Bears of the Rocky Mountains, and especially grizzly bears, are very much larger than black bears, and, as far as I have been able to learn from those who have hunted them, their meat, as food, does not compare with that of the black bear.
One of my personal experiences in bear hunting occurred about the 15th of December, 1839, in Taney County, Missouri, where I then lived. After a deep snow had fallen, I had provided myself with some bread, a piece of fat bear meat, and a little salt, and some corn for my horse, and unaccompanied, except by my horse and four dogs, Istarted out to try and kill a bear. On reaching that part of the mountains where I expected to find them, I came across a number of trails, and soon found one which I knew must have been by a very fat bear. Hunters know by the trail whether the bear is fat, for if fat he makes two rows of tracks about a foot apart, while a lean bear makes only one row of tracks, similar to that of a dog. I spent part of one day in tracking this animal, which I was sure would be well worth my pains. While on this trail I was led to the deserted bed of one of the largest bears I ever saw, for I afterward had ample opportunity of judging of its size and weight. He had lain in his temporary bed during the falling of the snow, after which he had gone in a bee-line to the cave for his intended hibernation. Feeling sure he was such a large animal, I followed the trail four or five miles, going as straight as if I had followed the bearings of a compass. On a very high peak at the mouth of one of those caves, of which there are so many in that country, his trail disappeared. The openings of many of these caves are so small that it is often with great difficulty a large bear effects an entrance. However, though the openings are so small, the caves are broad and spacious. In these caves bears hibernate. This particular cave had a very small and irregular opening, so that I could not enter it with my gun; but, as is the custom with bear-hunters, I cut a pole ten or twelve feet long, sharpened one end, and to this tied a piece of fat bear meat, set fire to it, and made another attempt to enter the cave. Finding I could not do this, on account of the opening being so irregular, I abandoned the idea of shooting him in his cave, and proceeded to kindle a fire at the mouth, and putting a pole across the opening, hung my saddle-blanket and a green buckskin that I procured the day before, when getting meat for my dogs, upon it. This covering drovethe smoke from the fire into the cave, which soon disturbed the animal, so that he came and put the fire out by striking it with his paws. Instead of coming out of the cave as I supposed he would, after putting out the fire, he went back to his bed. He had gotten such draughts of the suffocating smoke that he made no other attempts to get to the mouth of the cave, where my four dogs were standing, ready, nervous, and trembling, watching for him, and I was standing on one side of the mouth of the cave, prepared to put a whole charge into him if he made his appearance. I waited a few moments after I heard him box the fire for him to return, but as he did not, I took the covering from the mouth of the cave and found the fire was entirely out. I then rekindled it and replaced the coverings, and it was not long after until I heard him groaning, like some strong-chested old man in pain. I listened eagerly for his moanings to cease, knowing that he must die of suffocation. It was not, however, very long until all was still. I then uncovered the mouth of the cave to let the smoke out. It was some time before I could venture in; before I did so I relit my light, and going in I found my victim not twenty feet from the mouth of the cave, lying on his back, dead; and, as before stated, he was the largest animal of the kind I ever saw or killed. It took me seven or eight hours to slaughter him and carry the meat out of the cave, as I could not carry more than fifty pounds at a time and crawl out and in.
When I opened the chest of this big bear, I found two bullets. These were entirely disconnected with any solid matter. They had been shot into him by some hunter who knew precisely the location of a bear's heart, which is different from what it is in other animals. His heart lies much farther back in his body, being precisely in the center of the same, while the heart of all other quadrupeds, andI think I have known all those of North America, lies just back of their shoulders; in other words, in the front part of the chest.
These bullets, from the necessity of the case, must have been shot into the animal when he was the very fattest, and when he was ready for hibernation, because they were not lodged in the flesh, but entirely loose in the chest, each one covered with a white film, and tied with a little ligament, about the size of a rye straw, to the sack that contained the heart. When the bear lay down, these bullets could not have been more than half or three-quarters of an inch from each other, for each one was covered separately, and had a separate ligament attaching it to the sack above alluded to; and the two ligaments, where they had grown to the sack, were not more than a quarter of an inch apart. I cut out the piece containing both the bullets, and taking it in my fingers reminded me of two large cherries with the stems almost touching at the point where they were broken from the limb. What I have just described would indeed have been an interesting study to the medical fraternity, as perhaps there has never been anything like it. It could not have occurred in this particular way, except where the bear had gone through the preparation peculiar to him before hibernating, and after leaving his temporary bed he could lie dormant and give nature ample opportunity to restore the injury to the system which the bullet had caused. The above facts proved that it was just at the season of the year when the bear was ready to hibernate.
In this article at the outset, I mentioned the fact that the bear is a peculiar animal. Indeed he is the most peculiar of any quadruped with which I am familiar. He has many marked characteristics. He assumes in twelve months three different modes of life, each one thoroughly distinct from the other. He hibernates, during which timehe abstains entirely from food and water. On coming out of this dormant condition he commences to eat food of every kind, peculiar to that season of the year. After living for months on anything and everything he can get, he ceases to eat any of these various things, and begins a totally different kind of diet, eating only mast—acorns and nuts of every kind. Another of their peculiarities is the cubs are not permitted to see the light for sixty days after being born, as they are in the dark solitude of a cave in the ground. Still another characteristic is the mother bear takes care of her young until they are fourteen months old, they hibernating with her the second winter of their lives.
The bear differs from other quadrupeds in being able to stand or walk on his two hind feet as well as on all-fours, and in this position he can make telling efforts at protecting himself. He climbs trees, and thus gets the mast by breaking the branches and picking off the acorns. He is also so constituted that he can fall great distances, even from the top of a tree, without injuring himself in the least. The mother bear has, as far as I know, generally two, never more than three, cubs at a time; when young these cubs can be easily tamed, and become in time very devoted to their owner. They are very intelligent, so that with proper training they will learn the tricks any animal has been known to learn. When small they are great playmates for boys, and will wrestle with them and enter into sports with great intelligence. They are never dangerous until grown, and not then unless crossed or abused. Wild bears are not considered dangerous unless they are attacked and are unable to make their escape. Under no circumstances, as already stated, does the mother bear forsake her young when they are in danger. In teaching bears tricks, one lesson is sufficient, as they seem never to forget. A friendof mine owned a pet bear which became so familiar about the place and so attached to all, that he could be turned loose with a chain several feet long dragging after him. He conceived the idea of scratching a hole beside the wall, where he could go and hide himself to take his naps. One day his owner wanted to show him to some one while he was asleep in his hole, and took hold of the chain, which was lying extended for some distance, and pulled the little bear out. This gentleman stated to me that this never occurred but once. After this, whenever the bear went to take his nap, the first thing he did after getting into the hole was to pull the chain in after him. His owner had a post set in the yard fifteen or twenty feet high, with a broad board nailed on the top. The bear would climb this post and lie down on the board. The first thing he did after lying down was to pull that chain up and put it in a coil at his side. His owner told me that one lesson sufficed to teach him anything. I have repeated many of these facts in order to bring them more clearly and forcibly to the mind of the reader.
In the settlement of the Western States and Territories one of the sources of income, and the only industry which commanded cash for the efforts involved, was that of beaver trapping, the skin of the beaver selling as high as fifteen or twenty dollars. The weight of the beaver is from thirty to sixty pounds, and it is an animal possessed of great intelligence, as the amount and kind of work accomplished by it shows. It is a natural-born engineer, as connected with water; it can build dams across small streams that defy the freshets, and that hold the water equal, if not superior, to the very best dams that can be constructed by skilled engineers.
In making their dams the sticks and poles which they use in the construction of the same are cut with their teeth, of which they have four, two in the upper part of the mouth and two in the lower.
These poles they place across each other in all directions. They build their dams during the fall usually, and should they need repair, the work is done before the very cold weather commences, working only at night if danger is near.
In the month of October they generally collect their food, which consists largely of the cottonwood; this is cut in lengths of from two to six feet, the diameter being sometimes six inches, and carry it into their ponds made by the dams, and sunk in the deepest portion of the same. I should have stated that the higher up the stream they go, theirdams are built correspondingly higher; hence a dam built at an altitude of 1,000 feet would not be built as high as one built at an altitude of 3,000 feet, in order to overcome the deeper freezing at that point, for in constructing these dams they must be of sufficient height to give plenty of room to get at their food in the water under the ice. The beaver does not eat a particle of meat of any kind. The popular idea is that as they are animals that live in and about the water, that they live upon fish, but this is not so; for, as above stated, their principal food is the bark and the tender-wood of the cottonwood, and they also eat of other barks.
They are one of the most cleanly animals that lives. They live in the purest water that can be found, generally selecting streams that take their rise in the mountains, and where they can have an abundance of water the year round to live in. They dam up the streams in order to make ponds of sufficient depth to swim in under the ice to obtain their food, for the bottom of this pond is their store-room during the winter months.
Beavers are exceedingly wild, seldom showing themselves, and from the bottom of their pond they make a tunnel leading to the house where they sleep, so that they can pass to the same unobserved by man or beast. When they make their ponds where the banks are low, they make their house upon the top of the ground, sometimes a rod or more from the edge of the pond, cutting timber of the size of a finger to two or three inches in diameter, placing the sticks in very much the same way as they do in building their dams, crossing and recrossing them so that it is quite a job to tear one of their houses to pieces; in fact no one but a man would undertake the task, and one that has never had any experience would find it very difficult to accomplish. If one does it in the hope of catching theanimal, he toils in vain, for he is soon scented, and the beaver takes refuge in the pond, passing through the underground tunnel. Where they find high banks, they start a tunnel several feet below the surface of the water and run it ascending, so as to reach a point in the bank six or eight or may be ten feet above the surface of the water underground, stopping before reaching the top of the ground, and at which point they take out dirt until they have a place sufficiently large for their bed. This kind of a house they much prefer to one made with sticks on the surface of the ground, as they are completely hidden from observation or the possibility of interruption from any one.
The beaver's feet are webbed for the purpose of swimming, and there are nails on his feet, so that he can scratch the earth almost equal to a badger. He has a paddle-formed tail, which on a large full-grown beaver is from ten to twelve inches long and from six to seven inches broad, and without any hair on it. These are tough and sinewy, and when cooked they make a very fine food, the flavor reminding one of pig's feet or calf's head. They make considerable use of their tail in performing their work as well as in swimming.
The beaver reproduces itself each year. The offspring are generally two in number, and these can be easily tamed.
The trappers in trapping for the beaver have to use great precaution in approaching the place where they intend to set the traps, often getting into the stream above or below and wading for some distance. If they walked upon the bank the beaver would scent them from the footprints. Beavers, like all other wild animals, dread the sight or scent of man more than anything else. In setting the traps the trappers invariably choose as deep water as they can find, so that when a beaver is caught he will drown himself inhis struggles to get free from the trap; for if this does not occur, he has often been known to cut off, with the sharp chisel used in cutting timber, the foot that is caught in the trap, so that it is not infrequent when the trapper comes in the morning to find a foot of the beaver instead of the beaver himself, and often he catches a beaver with only three feet.
The beaver, considered as an engineer, is a remarkable animal. He can run a tunnel as direct as the best engineer could do with his instruments to guide him. I have seen where they have built a dam across a stream, and not having a sufficient head of water to keep their pond full, they would cross to a stream higher up the side of the mountain, and cut a ditch from the upper stream and connect it with the pond of the lower, and do it as neatly as an engineer with his tools could possibly do it. I have often said that the buck beaver in the Rocky Mountains had more engineering skill than the entire corps of engineers who were connected with General Grant's army when he besieged Vicksburg on the banks of the Mississippi. The beaver would never have attempted to turn the Mississippi into a canal to change its channel without first making a dam across the channel below the point of starting the canal. The beaver, as I have said, rivals and sometimes even excels the ingenuity of man.
Another of the peculiarities of the beaver is the great sharpness of its teeth, remaining for many years as sharp as the best edged tool. The mechanic with the finest steel can not make a tool that will not in a short time become so blunt and so dulled as to require renewed sharpening, and this, with the beaver, would have to be repeated hundreds of times in order to do service with it during the whole of its lifetime, which is from ten to fifteen years if it is permitted to live the allotted years of a beaver.
In one of my trips on a steamer of the Upper Missouri, one day while the boat's crew were getting their supply of wood, I took my gun and started along the river-bank in the hope of seeing an elk or deer that I might shoot. I came to a place on the river where the banks were very high, and I observed that a lot of cottonwood saplings from six to eight inches in diameter had been felled and cut into sections. I saw that it had been recently done, and I at first supposed that it had been done by some one with an ax, but when I reached the spot, I saw that it was the work of the beavers and that some of the wood had been dragged away. I followed the trail for a few steps, when I came to the mouth of a tunnel, and discovered that the timber had been dragged through it. The tunnel had an incline of about thirty-five degrees, and was as straight as if it had been made with an auger. This was in the month of October, at the time when it was their custom to stow away their food for the winter. They had no dam at this point, as the water was deep, and they were drawing the timbers down through the tunnel and sinking them in the deep water, so that they could have access to it during the period when the river would be frozen over. The reason for the tunnel, of which I have spoken, was that the river-bank for some distance was high and almost perpendicular, and the beaver, being a very clumsy animal with short legs, his only alternative was to make a tunnel in order to get his winter food. They have a way of sinking the cottonwood and keeping it down in their pond or simply in the deep water when they do not make dams. This family of beavers evidently had their house far under the surface of the ground, for the place was admirably adapted for them to make such a home, the banks being so high above the water. One could see no trace whatever of the beaver, or have a knowledge of where he was, more than the opening of the tunnel and where thetimber had been cut; indeed, one might pass hundreds of times and not be conscious that beavers were living right under one's feet. I picked up one of the chips which the beaver had cut, measuring about seven inches in length, and carried it home with me as a curiosity.
Remembering my own love of adventure as a boy, I can not refrain from giving here a chapter contributed by my son, Green Majors, which will be found both instructive and interesting. He says: "At the inexperienced age of twelve years I was seized with a strong desire to go overland to Montana. For a number of years I had lived at Nebraska City, on the Missouri River, a starting point in those days for west-bound freight and emigrant wagon trains; and having so long seen the stage-coaches go bounding over the hills and rolling prairies, headed for the golden West, it was with a feeling of great satisfaction that on the morning of April 26, 1866, I was seated on top of one of those same coaches, as a fellow passenger with my father, Alexander Majors, bound for the Rocky Mountains, and Helena, Mont., in particular. To my boyish fancy the never-ceasing rocking to and fro of the overland coach of early days was a constant delight. Denver we reached in six days and nights of incessant travel. Rain nor shine, floods nor deserts, stopped us. If a passenger became too sleepy or exhausted to hold on and sleep at the same time on the outside, he could get inside by submitting to the 'sardining' process. But inside, the clouds of dust and the cramped position necessary to assume made one at times feel like the coach were spinning round like a top in the dark. At Denver we laid in a big supply of luncheon material, for the next continuous ride, without a town, was for 600 miles, to Salt Lake City. However, before we reachedZion, our troubles were many, one of which was being caught in a violent snow-storm one dark night while bowling along over Laramie Plains. Our driver and his mules both lost the road. He so notified us, and we got out to wade through the innumerable drifts to see if we could feel the hard-beaten trail with our feet. But it was of no use. So for fear we might wander away from the emigrant road too far, or that he might drive over some precipice or into some hole or other in the blinding storm, we unhitched his four mules and tied each one with its head to a wheel, so there could be no runaway, and then all hands got back into the coach, tucked our wraps about us as best we could, and there we sat, like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, with the wind whistling in all its many sad cadences through the flapping wings of that desolate coach, until the longest night I ever saw went by. Next morning we found two and a half feet of 'the beautiful' on the level, and the struggle to gain another station began. We tramped snow and broke trails for that coach to get through the drifts for about ten or fifteen miles, before we got to a lower altitude, out of the path of the storm, for all of which distance we of course paid the stage company 25 cents a mile fare, with no baggage allowance to speak of.
"Not a great ways farther on, we struck the famous Bitter Creek country, a section that was the terror of travelers, because of poor grass, water that was foul and bitter, and alkali plains that were terrific on man and beast. At one place along Bitter Creek its water was as red as blood, at another as yellow as an orange; but generally its color was a dark muddy drab, and highly impregnated with vegetable and earthy matter. I suppose Bitter Creek is the only place on earth where highwaymen had the cold-blooded nerve to charge travelers $1.50 for nothing but fat bacon, poorly cooked, and an inferior quality of mustard, as a meal's victuals,but the stage station-keepers had it there. By the time we finished our Bitter Creek experience we were proof against peril, so that subsequent floods in the cañons from melting snows in the mountains, sitting bolt upright with three on a seat to sleep over the rough mountain roads at night, and passing over long stretches of country with no water fit to drink, were trivial circumstances.
"After a thirty-day siege of this sort of experience, we alighted on the gravelly streets of Helena, Mont., then a town of canvas houses and tents, and log huts. Helena at that time was the liveliest town I have ever seen in my life, either in America or Europe, over the whole of both of which I have since traveled. At that time her business houses were largely propped up on stilts, while underneath the red-shirted placer miner was washing the blue gravel soil for gold-dust. Her streets, in many places, were bridged over, to allow of the same thing. Sunday was the liveliest day in the week for business. The plainest meal at a restaurant cost $1.50, and bakery pies, with brown paper used for a crust, cost 75 cents each. Everybody had money, and nobody appeared to want to keep what he had. Gold-dust was the money of the country, no greenbacks nor coin being used. A pennyweight of the yellow dust passed for a dollar, but expert cashiers, at the gaming places and stores, were said to know how to weigh the article so deftly that $100 of it in value would only go $50 in distance. However, wages were very high, and so was everything else, so that if a man were robbed pretty badly, he could soon recuperate his lost fortunes. There were no churches in Helena then, if, indeed, there were any in the Territory. The first Sunday after arriving there, I remember attending divine service in a muslin building, but the blacksmith's hammer next door and the lusty auctioneer's voice in the street made so much noise the congregation could not understand the divine's injunctions, so thatchurch-going there, at that time, was attended with considerable annoyance. Everything was crude and primitive, everybody was cordial, generous, and open-hearted, and anything or anybody justly appealing to those roughly appareled yeomanry for aid or sympathy invariably opened the floodgates of their plenty and fired the great, deep, warm heart-throbs of their noble natures.
"But they were as prompt in meting out retributive justice to the wrong-doer as in loosing their purse-strings to a worthy applicant, and many were the wayward souls jerked into eternity through the deadly and inexorable noose of the ubiquitous vigilante, whose will was law, and the objects of whose adverse edicts were soon plainly told to recite their last prayers in the body.
"Cattle-raising on the rich, nutritious bunch-grass of the broad valleys of the Territory also soon grew to be a very lucrative business, to supply the numerous placer-mining towns of Montana, a number of which were quite important and thrifty camps at that time. Farming was also followed to a limited extent. Inasmuch as potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables were largely imported from Salt Lake, about five hundred miles, all sorts of soil products yielded handsome returns.
"Montana has had her periods of depression as well as of prosperity. For after her then-discovered and easily accessible placer ground became washed out, which took several years, times there grew very dull, but not until something like $200,000,000 worth of gold had been washed from her auriferous gulches and hillsides. Quartz mining was rare in those days, because freight and everything else was so high that few had the means to engage in that kind of mining. From a State of such prosperous activity in the sixties, with a large and well-to-do population, in 1874-75 it grew so dull and so many had left the Territory thatthose remaining wished they could get away too. In the Centennial year of 1876, however, Montana's true era of prosperity dawned, when rich silver quartz was discovered at the now famous city of Butte, styled 'the greatest mining camp on earth.' The Territory's business in every avenue soon rose from its low ebb to an affluent flood, all kinds and lines almost immediately feeling its vitalizing, stimulating influence. From an isolated mountain fastness it forthwith again became the theater of activity and thrift, and the stream of precious metals that it again poured into the world's commercial channels not long after required the capacity of a line of railroad to handle its vast volume. Chicago, New York, Boston, and other Eastern centers recognized Montana merchants as among their heaviest and best-paying customers, again demonstrating that mining for the precious metals is the great vanguard of a rapid and substantial civilization. The Utah & Northern was the pioneer railroad into her confines, but its business soon grew to such enormous proportions that the Northern Pacific followed in three or four years, and then Jim Hill swooped in with his Great Northern Road. So that that apparently isolated section has three transcontinentals now running east and west through her entire length, with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy on her eastern border, impatient to share her immense traffic, and the Butte, Boise & San Francisco soon to give her a direct outlet to San Francisco Bay.
SUNRISE IN CAMP.
"But to return to the early days of Montana, certainly one of the grandest and richest sections of the Union. It is in this State that the muddy Missouri River has its source, although in the mountainous part of its course its water is as clear as crystal. Here, also, the broad and majestic Columbia has its inception, the heads of these two noblestreams bubbling up out of her lofty mountains quite close together. And it is a striking coincidence that the same section that sends these two noble streams down through fertile fields to the sea, bearing on their mighty bosoms the wealth and water supply of empires, should also possess the largest and richest deposits of the precious metals that the world has ever known. But such is the case. Speaking of precious metals recalls some of the 'stampedes' to newly discovered mining camps in early days. A 'stampede' is a panic reversed, usually instigated by the wild and rainbow-colored statements of over-enthusiastic persons, and often those statements had utterly no foundation in fact. Men would rise from their beds in the middle of the night, if thought necessary, and with insufficient food, clothing, or implements, afoot or horseback, climb dark mountains or cañons, swim floods, tramp over alkali plains, or submit to any and all kinds of hardships, all for the sake of being among the first on the ground of newly discovered 'diggins.' 'First come, first served,' was the rule, and each man was determined, as nearly as possible, to be first served. In the famous Sun River stampede, in the winter of 1866-67, with the mercury coquetting with the 30-degree-below-zero point, it was said men actually started out in their shirt sleeves to make a hundred-mile journey through the deep snow to the reputed new camp without food supplies to carry them through. And as it often proved in other cases, there wasn't a particle of truth in the reputed rich fields. Dame Rumor, that ever versatile and fertile-brained jade, had had an inning, and she batted hard, firing her hot balls of deception to all quarters of the field. In those days buffalo were plentiful on the plains of Eastern Montana. I think I have seen from twenty to fifty thousand in a single herd there. They blackened the hills and plains with their shaggy coats, they swarmed the rivers in their peregrinations, andraised clouds of dust like a simoon in their journeys across the country. I have seen hundreds of them in a group mired down in the quicksands along the Upper Missouri River. Hunters walked on their backs and shot the fattest of them as trophies of the chase, and the ever ubiquitous, keen-scented wolves came and gnawed their vitals while they were yet alive, but helpless, in their inextricable positions. At that time bands of stately elk also abounded there. Deer were plentiful, and the fleet-footed antelope bounded over every plain. Mountain sheep, whose tender meat was fat and juicy, climbed the terraced rocky cliffs in great numbers, while ducks, geese, pheasants, fool hens, and many other table fowl were to be had for a little effort on the part of the hunter. A fool hen is a species of bird weighing about two pounds, that is so foolish as to allow the gunner to lay aside his fire-arms and kill the whole flock with sticks and stones, so closely can it be approached without taking flight. Its meat is delicious.
"Many volumes could be written on Montana's early reminiscences, her vast resources, her brilliant past, and her glorious prospective future. But the brief space allotted me precludes the possibility of detailed mention of people, places, or things, and I reluctantly stop sharpening my pencil. Montana has been great in the past, but her future will be much grander and greater still."
Henry Allen was the first postmaster of Denver, so called, and charged 50 cents for bringing a letter from Fort Laramie. The first Leavenworth and Pike's express coach arrived there on May 17, 1859, having made the trip in nineteen days. This company reduced the postage rates on letters to 25 cents. The first postmaster of this concern was Mr. Fields, who was succeeded by Judge Amos Steck in the fall of 1859.
On June 6, 1866, Horace Greeley, of the New YorkTribune, arrived in Denver by express coach en route to California, and addressed the citizens that same Monday evening. The next day he straddled a mule for the Gregory mines in company with A. D. Richardson, then a Western correspondent of theTribune. On the 11th, they returned from Gilpin County mines, and published under Greeley's signature in aNewsextra his views concerning the extent and richness of the gold diggings which he had just witnessed with his own eyes. The circulation of this extra along the routes to the States soon caused another immense immigration to return there that fall.
On October 3d the first election for county officers was held under provisional government. B. D. Williams was then elected to represent the new Territory of Jefferson in Congress.
The first marriage took place in Aurora (West Denver) October 16, 1859, Miss Lydia R. Allen to Mr. John B. Atkins, Rev. G. W. Fisher officiating. The first schoolever started in Denver was by O. J. Goldrick, October 3, 1859, in a little cabin with a mud roof, minus windows and doors; and the first Sunday-school was organized October 6, 1859, by Messrs. Tappen, Collier, Adrian, Fisher, and Goldrick, in the preacher's cabin on the west bank of Cherry Creek.
The first theater, called Apollo, was opened in Denver October 3, 1859, by D. R. Thorn's troupe from Leavenworth, with Sam D. Hunter for leading man and Miss Rose Wakely for leading lady. Old-timers will remember her well. She was considered the most beautiful lady that had graced Denver City in the first years of its existence.
The first election for territorial officers and legislative assembly occurred October 24, 1859, when R. W. Steele, a miner, was made first governor. Over 2,000 votes were cast in the twenty-seven precincts of the Territory at that election.
The first legislature assembled in Denver November 7, 1859, comprising eight councilmen and nineteen representatives. On New Year's, 1860, Denver had about 200 houses and Aurora (now West Denver) nearly 400, with a total combined city census of over 1,000 people, representing all classes, creeds, and nationalities; hence its cosmopolitan style from that day to this. Many brick and frame buildings, stores, hotels, shops, and dwellings were put up in both towns during 1860. One was the banking house of Streeter & Hobbs, corner of Eleventh and Laramie streets. The rate of interest charged by them at that time was from 10 to 25 per cent per month, according to the collateral security, and from 10 to 25 cents per hundred pounds was the rate from the Missouri River for freight by ox or mule train.
On the 8th of December, the day of the adjournment of the first legislature, an election was held by those in favor of remaining under the Kansas regime, and Capt. Richard Sopris was sent as representative in the Kansas legislature.
John C. Moore was elected the first mayor of Denver, December 19, 1859, under a city charter granted by the first provisional legislature. In the fall of '59 there were no particular politics there. The great question of the day was: "Are you a Denver man or an Aurorian?" Rivalry ran high between the two towns until the consolidation of Denver, Aurora, and Highlands, April 3, 1860. The first officers of the Aurora town company were W. A. McFadding, president, and Dr. L. J. Russell, secretary. Those of the Denver town company were E. P. Stout, president, and H. P. A. Smith, secretary. Strange to say, not a single one of these property holders is now living there, or is now the owner of a single lot in this large city.
I must not forget an event that happened in Denver then. A family arrived there from the East, consisting of father, mother, two daughters, and a son. One of the young Denverites took a fancy to one of the young ladies, but parents and son were opposed to the young man; yet he was not to be got rid of. One evening he took advantage of the absence of the parents and married the girl, and on the return of the parents in the evening the mother and son started to look for them, and threatened to kill the young man if they could find him. They found them at the Platte House, on Blake Street. The mother of the girl went to break in the door, but finally concluded not to do so, and left for her home. The parties are still living in Denver, and are well off and greatly respected.
On November 10, 1859, a lager-beer brewery was established by Solomon, Tascher & Co. It was said that the beer was drinkable. It was as innocent of malt and hops as our early whisky was of wheat or rye.
Thirty-three years ago next July the patriotic pioneers celebrated the Fourth of July in this city. It took place in a grove near the mouth of Cherry Creek. One Doctor Foxread the Declaration, and James K. Shaffer delivered an oration. There was music by the Council Bluffs band.
July 12, 1860, a series of murders and violence began there by desperadoes who had infested Denver during the summer. They tried to muzzle the mouth of the press, which bravely condemned their dastardly outrages, and as a consequence they raided theRocky Mountain Newsand tried to kill its proprietor.
The first regular United States mail arrived there on August 10, 1860; P. W. McClure, postmaster. The first Odd Fellows lodge was instituted there on Christmas Eve, 1860.
The close of the year 1860 saw 60,000 people in the Territory, 4,000 of whom were in and around Denver.
At this juncture of time Denver was tolerably well favored with the three great engines of civilization, to wit, schools, churches, and newspapers. There were three day schools, two or three newspapers, and the following church denominations, each with a place for holding services: Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Protestant Episcopal. The latter denomination was well and truly cared for by the Rev. J. H. Kehler, who established St. John's Church in the wilderness, as he then called it. Therefore, to the praise of our pioneers let it be recorded that though then remiss in many of the modern enterprises, their liberality encouraged religion, morality, and popular education. They claimed that Whittier's apostrophe to Massachusetts might and should apply equally to Colorado in these regards:
The riches of our commonwealthAre free, strong minds and hearts of health;And more to her than gold or grainThe cunning hand and cultured brain.Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands,While near the school the church-spire stands;Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule,While near the church-spire stands the school.
The Denver of to-day, the capital of Colorado, has a population of 160,000, and it stands at an elevation of 5,196 feet.
In 1858 the Pike's Peak gold excitement caused a rush from the East to Colorado, and a camp was pitched at the junction of Cherry Creek and the Platte. From this small beginning sprang Denver, the "Queen City of the Plains." Beautiful in situation, with the great range of the Rocky Mountains towering in the west, and the illimitable plains stretching 600 miles to the Missouri River on the east, Denver is worthy of the attention and admiration of all who behold it. It is one of the greatest railroad points in the West, twelve railroads centering here and radiating to all parts of the United States, thus giving Denver almost unsurpassed facilities for transcontinental traffic. The foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains are only fourteen miles distant, and Long's Peak, James' Peak, Gray's Peak, and Pike's Peak are in plain view, connected by the gleaming serrated line of the Snowy Range. Parks, boulevards, opera houses, and costly and elegant public buildings and private residences are a few of the most obvious signs of wealth, cultivation, and luxury which are to be found in Colorado's capital. Among the principal places of interest may be mentioned the Tabor Grand Opera House, erected at a cost of $850,000, and which is the finest building of its kind in America, having but one rival in the world, the Grand Opera House in Paris; the United StatesMint; the County Court House, a most elegant and costly structure occupying an entire block with the buildings and grounds; the City Hall, University of Denver, St. Mary's Academy, Wolfe Hall, Trinity M. E. Church, St. John's Cathedral, College of the Sacred Heart, Jarvis Hall, Baptist Female College, Brown's Palace Hotel, and hotels and business blocks, any of which would do credit to any of the metropolitan cities of the East. The city has extensive systems of street cars, motor lines and cables, is lighted by gas and electricity, has excellent waterworks, a well-disciplined and effective paid fire department, good police force, and telephone communication in the city and with suburban towns to the distance of 120 miles. The discovery that artesian wells can be sunk successfully has added much to the attractiveness of the city. The water is almost chemically pure, and is forced to a great height by hydrostatic pressure. Denver is the objective point for a large tourist travel, and it is estimated that the arrivals during the year will average 1,000 daily. The climate is healthful and invigorating, and invalids find this an excellent place to regain their health. There is always some pleasing attraction to divert the mind. The theaters are open the year round, and the best companies and stars from the East appear upon their boards. The churches are presided over by clergymen of talent and culture. The newspapers are metropolitan in size and management. In a word, Denver is one of the most pleasant residence cities in the world. Rapid as has been the growth of this wonderful city, it is evident that it is but on the threshold of its prosperity, and that the future holds for it much more and greater success than has been vouchsafed it in the past.
Thirty-three miles south of Denver, on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, is Castle Rock. It is a picturesque little village, and derives its name from a bold and remarkablepromontory which springs directly from the plain and under whose shadow the village stands. This promontory always attracts the attention of tourists, and is therefore worthy of special mention.
Perry Park is situated within half an hour's drive of Larkspur Station, and in natural attractions has few if any superiors in the State. Bountifully supplied with pure and sparkling water, and protected on the west by the Front Range of mountains, it forms a quiet and romantic resting-place for those who wish a pleasant summer's outing free from the annoyances of business. The park is filled with many remarkable rock formations equal in unique grandeur to those of the better known but not more attractive Garden of the Gods.
Palmer Lake is situated on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, about midway between Denver and Pueblo, the two principal towns of Colorado. It was formerly called "Divide," a very significant and appropriate title, as on the crest of this summit the waters divide, flowing northward into the Platte, which empties into the Missouri, and southward into the Arkansas as it wends its way to the Mississippi.
The traveler will enjoy a most delightful variety of scenery. On either side are rolling plains dotted with numerous herds of sheep and cattle, agricultural settlements with cultivated ranches, giving evidence of enterprise and thrift. Now and then we catch a glimpse of the river threading its way amid valleys and glens, while stretching away in the distance the cliffs and towering peaks of the Snowy Range, in their dazzling whiteness, appear like fleecy clouds upon the horizon, and form a striking contrast with the blue-tinted foot-hills, which, as we near them, appear covered with oak shrubbery, bright flowers, castled rocks, scattered pines, and quaking aspen glimmering in thesunshine. Gradually ascending the mountain pathway we reach the summit (2,000 feet higher than either Denver or Pueblo), and entering a gap in the mountains, before us lies Palmer Lake. Nestled here in this mountain scenery, sparkling like a diamond in its emerald setting, this lake is a delightful surprise to the tourist—a rare and unlooked-for feature in the landscape.
Glen Park, the Colorado Chautauqua, is within half a mile of Palmer Lake, in a charming park-like expanse between two mountain streamlets, and at the mouth of a beautiful cañon, fifty-three miles from Denver. One hundred and fifty acres are comprised in the town site. The park is at the foot of the Rocky Mountain range, and is sheltered at the rear by a towering cliff, 2,000 feet high, and on two sides by small spurs of the range. A noble growth of large pines is scattered over the park. A skillful landscape engineer has taken advantage of every natural beauty, and studied the best topographical effect in laying out the streets, parks, reservoirs, drives, walks, trails, and lookout points. It is a spot that must be seen to be appreciated, and every visitor whose opinion has been learned has come away captivated. There are building sites for all tastes. Some have a grand outlook, taking in a sweep of the valley for a distance of fifty miles.
Colorado Springs is the county seat of El Paso County, has a population of 12,000, and stands at an elevation of 5,982 feet. This delightful little city is essentially one of homes, where the families of many of the most influential business men of the State reside. It is a temperance town, with charming society, and an elegant opera house, built as a place of enjoyment rather than as an investment, by some of the most successful citizens. There are many points of scenic interest within an hour's ride of the city. Among them may be mentioned Cheyenne Cañons, Austin's Glen,Blair Athol, Queen's Cañon, and Glen Eyrie. No more delightful places can be found in which to enjoy the beautiful in nature and to breathe the health-giving and exhilarating air than these mountains and Pike's Peak. There are a number of smaller hotels and a good supply of comfortable and home-like boarding houses, in different parts of the town; also fine livery stables, where riding and driving horses and carriages of the best are furnished at reasonable rates.
Colorado City, the first Territorial capital of Colorado, and at present a thriving railroad town, is situated on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, midway between Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, seventy-eight miles from Denver.
Manitou Springs. Of all nature's lovely spots few equal, and none surpass, in beauty of location, grandeur of surroundings, and sublimity of scenery this veritable "Gem of the Rockies." As a pleasure resort it presents to the tourist more objects of scenic interest than any resort of a like character in the Old or New World; while its wonderful effervescent and mineral springs, soda and iron, make it the favorite resting-place for invalids. The great superiority of Manitou's climate is found in its dryness and the even temperature the year round. In summer the cool breezes from the mountains temper the heat, the nights always being cool enough to allow that refreshing sleep so grateful to all and most needed by the invalid.
There are more points of interest near Manitou than any other watering place in the world. The following is a partial list, with the distances in miles from town attached: