Chapter 14: Colorado

Feb 21, 1859

[Author’s note: I use the term “Colorado” when referring to the area that eventually became the state of Colorado. In February 1859, it was still part of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories. Shortly before it officially became the state of Colorado, the residents named it the Jefferson Territory.]

Summoned to the Sioux lodge where the chiefs met periodically, I was surprised to learn that a group of Sioux hunters had returned with nearly three hundred Cheyenne, Ute, and Arapaho warriors. Those warriors were accompanying four Ute chiefs, Four Arapaho chiefs, and three Cheyenne chiefs, including Tall-On-Horse. The Cheyenne, Ute, and Arapaho were concerned about the continuing influx of miners and white settlers into their lands, and the increasing violence. They had consulted with the Sioux chiefs to see if they would allow me to help them the same way I had the Sioux, and to ask if the Sioux chiefs thought I would be willing to help.

I warned, “We have enough of the White Man’s money to buy several large tracts of land. We will need to survey the areas you want us to buy, and make sure they will let us buy them. We haven’t dealt with the Kansas territorial government before.”

“There are many places with gold on our lands that the white miners haven’t found yet. We are concerned about the number of new miners who will arrive when the gold is found, and how much of our lands they will take over when they find the gold. There will be much bloodshed,” one of the Arapaho chiefs explained somberly.

Mr. Wilkes was appointed to take over here in my stead, supervising the gold deliveries to Philadelphia, and paying for the two steamboats in Louisville. Both of our boats returned before I left, and both captains assured me that they had a man qualified to captain our two new (to us) boats. One left immediately for St. Louis. The other went with Mr. Wilkes, headed for the Eagleston Boatyard.

We arranged for newspaper ads in every major eastern city, calling for men and women to work on the telegraph, the railroad, and on macadamizing roads. In an effort to dissuade applicants who couldn’t ... or wouldn’t, we specified that they had to work harmoniously alongside Negroes every day.

Once again, I found myself amongst a very long caravan of surveyors, miners, and carpenters. We had everything we needed to pan streams and to start a mine. We were taking sixty wagons filled with tools and supplies. We took so many wagons and used so many mules as pack mules for the survey teams, that we had to use horses to pull some of the wagons or there wouldn’t be enough mules left in town to plow the fields.

Nails, cement, tools for cutting down trees and making lumber from them, and a complete water-powered lumber mill were included. Some of the men going with us would do the surveys for our mining claims, others would be panning, and a few would be looking for the source of any placer gold we found in the streams. A final group would be building our familiar warehouse-like dormitories for the men to use to overwinter.

One survey team each would go with the Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne to document the lands they wanted us to buy. This time, we wouldn’t have the luxury of making future trips by steamboat, a luxury that left us only a one-week overland trip, and scheduled times for the steamboat to pick up gold and drop off supplies. We would have to make lengthy overland trips to bring back any gold we found.

At the last minute, we added a steam-powered lumber mill to enable us to saw lumber during the winter when the rivers froze over. The Arapaho assured us that they knew the locations of seams of the black rocks we burned, so we could burn coal, instead of wood. With the possibility of finding coal, we added everything we needed to smelt and refine the gold, and molds to make ingots.

Proudly carrying new rifles that the Sioux hunters had taught them to use properly, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute warriors led us to Colorado, not that the route was difficult to find if you could follow a well-traversed wagon road.

Of course, the first two-hundred-eighty miles were extremely simple to follow as we used the Pioneer Road. The bridges over The Elkhorn River, the Loup River, the Wood River, and the North Platte River were all complete, as was the bridge over the Platte River to Fort Kearney. Nearly half of the road was now macadamized, and the first two-hundred-eighty miles went by quickly.

Mar 6

Ten days after leaving Libertyville, we were across the North Platte River and beyond the boundaries of our property. Half of our wagons had frames and hooks on the back for hanging game. The normally stoic warriors who only recently earned Enfields by displaying their accuracy with the repeating rifles were excited about the range, accuracy, and stopping power of the Enfields. They kept us well supplied with game, and the four wagons set up with braziers had buffalo and/or venison stew cooking every day. Flower and a dozen single Sioux women came with us to cook.

A week after crossing the Platte, one survey team turned south to begin their survey of the eastern slopes of the mountains that the Ute and Arapaho hoped we could purchase. When they finished, they would report to Mr. Franklin, letting him plan the purchase based on what we had in reserve, and what it would cost us to purchase the mining sites. Despite the massive amount we paid out each month in wages, our reserves continued to grow, and not just from the Paha Sapa gold.

Mar 27

Two weeks after the first survey team headed south, we reached the mining town of Auraria, located on the south bank of Cherry Creek. That was one of the locations where prospectors had found gold. The city of Denver was platted just across the creek but hadn’t been populated yet except for several tents.

There, the second survey team broke off. They headed south to Cheyenne territory, while most of us continued west. The residents of Auraria were relieved when our group left town. Tensions were high enough among miners and Indians to make the miners skittish.

While in Auraria, I asked about areas in all four directions of town that might be good for farming and ranching. Based on their recommendations, I made noises sounding like we would head west to find land for farming and grazing. There was supposedly flat land and fertile soil in that direction.

Backtracking a few miles along the South Fork of the Platte, we reached Clear Creek that ran west from the south fork of the Platte River. The Arapaho led us along the creek for the better part of the day before I noticed a glint of yellow in the freezing water. Thank god, we brought along plenty of the rubberized Aigle boots and extra socks to keep our feet and legs warm in the frigid water of the creek.

While there was gold, I was disappointed by the quantity. I would learn later that my expectations had been spoiled by the quantities we found in the streambeds of Paha Sapa. We passed between the two mesas where Clear Creek ran. The two mesas looked to be five hundred to a thousand feet tall and five to ten miles around the base of each one. They almost looked like pedestals for the Titan Crius of Greek lore to stand atop, straddling Clear Creek, guarding the mountainous stronghold behind him. We set up camp for the night and ate dinner. After dinner we made work assignments for tomorrow.

Mar 28

Some men began working the stream, panning and sluicing for gold, and giving their new Aigle boots a workout. Jeb and Cal led others as they continued the search upstream and into the surrounding foothills and mountains looking for the source of the gold. A small group of men began evaluating the flat land found abundantly to the south. I spent half the day looking for a way to reach the top of the two mesas, hoping they afforded a good view of the surrounding countryside. I finally gave up after deciding it would take too long today just to reach the top of the steeply inclined mesa.

Mar 30

Having thoroughly surveyed the base of both mesas yesterday, I headed for the southern side of the south mesa well before dawn. By the time the pre-dawn light gave way to the brilliant hues of the true dawn, I was a third of the way up. The mule I was riding might not have been as smooth a ride as my horse, but it was far more adept at picking its way up the side of the mesa. I was following the side of a long gulley with a stream running through it. And yes, I checked the stream for gold yesterday, and found nothing.

When I finally reached the top, the morning sun appeared to be level with me. The view was awe-inspiring. To the south, as far as I could see, was mostly flat land. Far in the distance, I could barely see the outline of the mountains defining the south end of the valley.

To the east were the hills beyond the Platte River. The miners along Cherry Creek were barely visible with my telescope. Many were still wandering around camp or eating. About half were already in the stream, panning.

To the north, the valley continued until it, too, came up against the mountains.

To the west was the roughly one-mile-wide valley I rode through this morning. It ended abruptly at the foothills, which extended north and south as far as I could see. It seemed as if the foothills were a demarcation of some sort. Farther west, the foothills led to an intermediate range of mountains shorter than those far beyond them. Still, they were capped with snow. I wondered if the snow atop those closer mountains ever melted completely. I doubted that the snow on the peaks of the far range ever melted completely. The first range seemed to be warning us not to go beyond it or we would face the wrath of the farther range.

I would have loved to stay here and just observe every day. I was also sure the exposed top of the plateau was not a pleasant place at night, especially if it rained or snowed. Fortunately, the only clouds I could see were the small, fluffy ones looking like someone pulled cotton from the boll and threw it up into the sky.

I also noted a multitude of animal tracks across the mesa. Mountain lion tracks I recognized, along with deer tracks. Monstrous deer tracks caught my eye. The size and depth of the impression they left made me think the deer weighed more than twice the ones I usually hunted. I also saw what appeared to be sheep tracks. Again, these tracks were more than twice as big as those of the sheep some of our neighbors had raised in Virginia.

As my mule and I began edging our way back down the ravine, I saw movement ahead of me and stopped. What I saw explained the giant deer tracks, the elk I had heard lived in the mountains here. I saw a herd of seven, although there were probably more still hidden in the thick underbrush. Two males were among the seven. One male was easily eight feet at the withers, bigger than the one Broken Hand had killed. The younger male was several yards away from the rest of the herd, but still stood seven feet tall.

Slowly, I drew the Enfield from my saddle scabbard. Thank God, the mules were used to rifles. Mine stood stock still while I lined up the shot. When I fired, my quarry took several stumbling steps and fell as the rest of the herd scattered. When they bolted, I saw the youngsters in the herd that had been hiding. I wasn’t able to count them, though.

It took nearly ten minutes to work my way down to my prey. By the time I got there, he was definitely dead. Using one of the mules to hoist him off the ground, I quickly had him field dressed. He was heavy enough that I had to put him on a hastily assembled travois to go down the hill. All the way down the slope, as I wended my way between rocks, trees, bushes, and the edge of the gulley, always alert for a mountain lion attracted by the smell of blood, I cussed at myself for shooting the stupid thing so close to the top of the mesa.

It was nearly dark when I got back to camp. The smell of freshly baked bread assailed my nostrils, reminding me I had only eaten trail rations all day. Obviously, the bread oven we brought had been unloaded from the wagon and was operational.

When I went to eat a late dinner, Jeb and Cal found me to report their findings. The placer deposits of gold were much heavier a few miles upstream, so I arranged to go with them in the morning.

Mar 31

Shortly after breakfast, Jeb and Cal led the way upstream. Often, the streambed was wide enough to ride along the bank, or at worst, in the shallow water along the edge of the stream. Several times, though, the water was deep enough or the streambed rocky enough in narrow spots that we had to ride up the side of the hill. Several times, I saw flashes of yellow in the streambed.

Logically I knew we hadn’t gone far from where our camp was. I was sure that, given a high enough vantage, I’d be able to see the mesa I’d visited yesterday. Still, the stream we followed wound around and doubled back so many times it reminded me of a piece of string that was all knotted up. I was almost surprised that we hadn’t come to a spot where the river crossed over itself.

Finally, my guides stopped, grinning, in a narrow, three- or four-hundred-yard-wide valley. I panned for several minutes and found twice as much gold as downstream.

“Is that smoke?” I asked when I saw something just up the hill to the south.

“It’s a hot spring,” Jeb answered excitedly. I made a mental note to check it once we checked the gold in this valley.

A hundred feet upstream, another stream flowed north into Clear Creek. When I panned it, it held some gold, but much less than downstream. The same was true in Clear Creek beyond that stream, some gold, but not enough to explain the amounts below where the two streams joined.

I looked carefully and found no evidence of dry streambeds. Jeb and Cal were grinning at me as if they knew a secret. “Can’t figure it out?” Jeb asked.

“There isn’t enough gold farther up Clear Creek or in the other creek to account for all of this,” I answered as I motioned towards the creek bed where the heavier accumulation of placer gold was.

“Come on up here and have a seat,” Cal suggested, “then look around. The spot where he was sitting was two hundred feet downstream from where the two creeks joined.

I climbed about a hundred feet up the hill from the creek, pausing several times to look around on both sides of Clear Creek for another possible source of water to wash more gold into the creek. I remembered that Jeb commented about a hot spring and wondered if that had something to do with it.

When I reached the rock outcropping Cal was sitting on, I looked for a good spot to sit. Only then did I realize what I was looking at. The outcropping was quartz with gold embedded liberally throughout everything that was visible. “It came from here,” I concluded excitedly as I looked down at the stream.

“Wait,” I cried out, cutting off Jeb who was preparing to say something.

“This gold would wash into the creek right below us,” I commented, noting that the contour of the hill we were on would prevent any gold from entering Clear Creek closer to where the other stream joined it. “Since the gold is still heavy farther upstream, there has to be another source,” I concluded as I started working my way across the face of the hill, looking for another outcropping. I even found a high spot and scanned the face and crest of the hill carefully with the telescope. There was bare rock in several places, but when I checked it closely, none of the rock contained visible gold.

Jeb finally took pity on me and pointed across the creek to an outcropping upstream from us. “Two mines?” I gasped.

“Actually, we found three outcroppings on the north side of the creek. We don’t know if this is all part of one big vein, or several smaller veins. If they are smaller veins, we may need to clear all the dirt from both hills at some point to see what’s underneath,” Cal said.

We set up camp for the night and then panned the stream until it was nearly dark. After supper, I crawled into my bedroll and was asleep quickly despite the day’s excitement.

Apr 1

After a quick breakfast, we headed north in a ravine that went uphill for more than two miles. After finding mountain lion tracks on the mesa the other day, I was keeping a wary eye on my surroundings. I knew the mules would warn us if something were upwind of us, but no self-respecting mountain lion would stalk its quarry from upwind.

Two hours after entering the ravine, we came out on a reasonably flat area. Almost immediately, I saw a dozen of our men on horseback slowly riding across the area with a hundred feet between each man. I also noted several saplings that had been cut down and stuck in the ground like a flagpole, each with a piece of cloth flying from the top.

“Wow,” Jeb exclaimed. “They followed the north branch of Clear Creek and said they found gold. I see seven spots where they spotted lode ore,” he said, pointing to the flags. One of the men on horseback doing the search pulled up and let loose with a shrill whistle. Quickly, another man galloped over and took his place, and the search continued. Tethering his horse, the man chopped down a nearby sapling and dug a hole near where his horse was tethered. Once he tied a rag atop the sapling, he stuck the end in the hole and backfilled it.

Despite the seemingly random pattern of the discoveries, when compared with the four locations along Clear Creek, these were all to the northeast. We ate lunch with the men before they directed us to another group a couple of miles farther east.

That group only found one lode location. ”Only one?” I laughed to myself since each location indicated a site for a potential gold mine. So far, that I knew of, we had four by Clear Creek, eight at the upper end of the ravine, and one here. That was thirteen mines.

Apr 2

After a quick breakfast this morning, we headed back to our base camp. I knew we were going to need hundreds, if not thousands of men to operate and protect these mines. The location of our first camp would be our main base here, providing food. I decided to name the town I planned to build here Fort Crius.

April 14

The last several days were spent deciding what to do when and where. We started plowing fields for our crops. We planned on wheat for flour and for the straw it provided; corn for eating, as well as corn meal and feed; oats, mostly for feed; and alfalfa for our livestock and the additional livestock we would be bringing on the next trip. Like Libertyville, a large garden would provide fresh produce in season, and root crops, pumpkins, and squash for the root cellars.

Since the Auraria miners would probably be interested in buying from us, that garden needed to be big enough to supply them, too. We would plant one-acre orchards of peach, pear, apple, apricot, and plum to see if they would grow and produce here. If so, we would probably increase the size of the orchards later. Raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries would share an acre to see if they would produce and survive here. We even planned potatoes to see if they would grow.

A coal seam was located nearby. After determining how much land we needed to designate for the coal mine, we laid out the streets for the town and started building. As in Libertyville, the first housing would be dormitories to accommodate the most men the fastest. For now, we eschewed building a smelter, concentrating on the infrastructure needed to provide meals and shelter. We selected a spot for the steam-powered lumber mill and started building it near the creek. We planned for the water-powered lumber mill to be next to it, so we only had to take felled trees to one location.

Each morning I took four pack mules with me and hunted in the mountains. Game was plentiful, and I always returned home with fresh meat. Twice, the mules provided me warning of predators. The first time was a mountain lion that wanted my kill. The second time it was the biggest freaking bear I’d ever seen. My first shot only riled him up. When he stood on his hind legs and roared, he was two feet taller than I was. It took four more shots to the head to bring him down. Once he was down, I fired an insurance shot into his head with my Enfield to guarantee that he was completely dead before I approached.

After killing the elk on the mesa, I began taking a block and tackle and lots of rope with me. Hanging the bear from a very stout limb was a chore, even with the block and tackle and using the mules. Once it bled out, I skinned, and field dressed the bear. Then I split it between the four mules. Just the fur was heavy enough that I made a travois for it and had my horse pull it.

Remembering the salt lick in Virginia, I had begun salting places where I could tell game congregated to drink. On good days, I could bring back four or more deer, often using my bow so I didn’t scare off other nearby game. After running into the bear, I started taking six mules with me, as well as two block and tackle sets.

The four beaver ponds I found scattered in the hills became some of my favorite hunting places. I was glad I had increased the number of mules I took when I shot a monstrous elk wading and feeding in one of the beaver ponds. I was also glad for the Aigle rubber boots, as I had to wade out into the frigid water to get a rope around it. The mules dragged it to a tree that was big enough that the beavers had left it standing.

I was up in the tree and had just finished attaching the block and tackle when the mules started acting up. When I spotted the wolf causing them to act up, I realized that I was in the tree, and my rifle was on the ground. Thankfully, I still had my pistols. Using a tree branch, I lined up a shot and fired. The wolf yelped and limped away. After watching for several minutes to make sure there were no more, I climbed down and continued butchering the elk.

By the time I finished, I was hungry and ate some of my trail rations as I headed back. I detoured slightly, following the trail of blood left by the wounded wolf. He made it just over a mile before collapsing and dying from blood loss. I skinned the wolf and headed home. While I hunted each day, Flower cared for the pelts, and quickly had quite a collection of them. Flower said that she would share them with Dawn when we got back. She and Dawn loved to turn the skins and pelts into clothing, and Dawn was instructing Flower in the elaborate beadwork.

April 15

Fortunately, I returned from hunting today just before noon. It was fortunate because I noticed a man riding into town at the same time with an Indian woman riding a horse he was leading. When I saw that her hands were tied together and then tied to the saddle, I wondered how he got this far alive.

“What’s with the woman?” I asked him when I rode up.

“I just bought her from a miner in Auraria,” he replied nonchalantly.

Looking at her told me this wasn’t a case like Dawn’s had been. Dawn was sold to Mr. Wilkes because she wasn’t able to conceive. This young woman was terrified. Her clothing marked her as Arapaho.