Donated January 2002
Transcribed by Judy Crook from the book:
Progressive Men of Western Colorado
Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill.
John B. Mann
John B. Mann, of Grand Junction, the efficient and accommodating clerk of Mesa
county, came into being in the midst of our Civil war, having been born in 1863,
in Fremont county, Iowa, the son of Archibald and Drucilla Ann (Williamson)
Mann, natives of Virginia. The father while yet in his childhood moved with his
parents to Indiana where he was reared and educated, attending the public
schools and also the college at Greencastle. He remained at home, occupied in
the work on the paternal farm until 1859, when he located a place of his own in
Iowa, and there by industry and thrift he prospered and reared a family of
children numbering nine, seven of whom are living. He was endowed by nature with
force of character and self-reliance, and with a commendable independence of
thought and action; and these qualities have made him successful in life's
battle and give him prominence and influence among the people of his community
where he is generally respected after a long life of usefulness. He is still a
resident of Iowa and retired from active pursuits, having reached the age of
seventy-six. His wife is also living, at the age of seventy-two. Her birth-place
was the historic old town of Lynchburg, Virginia, where her family have been
people of consequence from colonial days. Her parents were Henry and Drucilla
(Best) Williamson, and they emigrated from their native state to Missouri and
later to Iowa where they died at venerable ages. John B. Mann is the fifth child
of his parents and passed his boyhood and youth and received his education in
Iowa, being graduated from the Indianola Commercial College in that state in
1886. In the spring of 1887 he came to Colorado, and after living a few months
at Salida, removed to Grand Junction and accepted employment as a clerk and
salesman in the grocery store of his brother, A.G. Mann. Being a young man of
energy and ambition, he found a fruitful field for his capacities in politics,
and became an ardent worker in the Republican ranks, in which his services have
been so effective and so highly appreciated that in 1902 he was nominated as the
candidate of his party for the office of county clerk, and he was elected by a
good majority at the ensuing election. Since taking charge of the office he has
been performing its important duties with assiduity and skill, giving its
patrons general satisfaction by his promptness, ability and courtesy, and
looking well to the interests of the county. He was not, however, without
experience in public office, having served as deputy assessor under G.W.
Caldwell in 1896 and 1897. In fraternal relations he is active in the Masonic
fraternity, in lodge and chapter, in the Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the
World. In 1898 he was married to Miss Sarah D. McCarry, a native of Virginia and
daughter of C.P. and Mary (Wiggan) McCarry, of Denver. Mr. Mann is a young
gentleman of unusual promise and ability, and with his enterprise and zeal and
the popular qualities which he possesses in large measure, he would seem to have
a future of prominence and influence in the rising section of the country in
which he has cast his lot. He enjoys the confidence and esteem of the people on
every hand, and is well worthy of their highest regard.
George W. Masters
A prominent and successful farmer in two of the great states of the West, and a
close observer of his vocation in each, George W. Masters, of Mesa county,
Colorado, with a fine ranch and a comfortable home near the village of Snipes,
is familiar with all phases of agricultural life and requirements in this part
of the country, and has been one of the substantial contributors to the
development and improvement of the industry where he has lived and been engaged
in it, as he has all of his mature life. He is the son of Isaac B. and Mary S.
(Deits) Masters, and although born in Illinois where they now reside, he passed
his boyhood, youth and early manhood in Kansas, and entered upon the business of
productive work for himself in that state. His parents were born and reared in
New Jersey where they married and lived and farmed until 1845. They then moved
to Illinois where their son George was born on April 26, 1855. The father died
in Kansas in February, 1904, where he was a pioneer of 1859, and was well known
and widely esteemed among its people, being comfortably located on an excellent
farm and taking a leading and serviceable part in all the public and social life
of the community in which he lived. The mother now lives with her son George in
Mesa county. George W. Masters was educated in the public schools of Kansas, and
when he was twenty-two years of age started out as an independent farmer for
himself in that state, applying to his work the lessons he had learned in a
valuable previous experience under the direction of a careful farmer. He
remained there two years, then came to this state and settled at Leadville,
where he remained two years engaged in teaming and prospecting. At the end of
that period he returned to Kansas and continued his farming operations there
until 1892, at which time he came again to Colorado and located on the land
which is now his home and the seat of his flourishing business as a farmer. In
1876 he was married to Miss Zula M. Wilson, of Osage county, Kansas, who has
borne him two children, their daughter Jennie and their son Ralph. Both parents
are highly esteemed in the community and render good service in every line of
usefulness among their fellow men.
Jeremiah Mulvihill
This active, industrious and progressive fruit man and good citizen of Mesa
county, whose untimely death on June 4, 1900, at the early age of thirty-seven
years, caused general regret throughout the community in which his usefulness
was just beginning to be felt with force and good effect, was born in county
Kerry, Ireland, on April 12, 1853, where his parents, Patrick and Catherine
(Murphy) Mulvihill, were also native, and where they passed their lives. Their
son Jeremiah remained in Ireland until he was twenty, and then, in the spring of
1873, came to the Untied States and located in Pennsylvania, where he was in
charge of a stone quarry for four years. In 1877 he came west to Colorado,
stopping at Denver. There he took a job in a flour-mill which he held for two
years, then became section boss for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. In the
employ of this company he first went to Leadville and laid the first tracks for
the road from South Park to that town. He remained there until October, 1895,
when he moved to Palisade and during the next five years he conducted the
Palisade hotel. In 1900 he bought the ranch on which his family now live, about
one mile and a half west of the town. It comprises twenty acres, about fifteen
acres of which are in fruit trees in good bearing order. Mr. Mulvihill sowed the
other five acres in alfalfa, and was about to build a dwelling on the place when
he died on June 4th of that year and left his plans to be carried out by his
widow and children. She received two thousand dollars insurance on his life and
with this she built a comfortable dwelling and otherwise improved the place, and
since then she has lived on it and managed its operations with the help of her
sons. She was Miss Mary Dore, and was born in county Limerick, Ireland, on July
24, 1853, the daughter of parents who were natives of the same county. Mrs.
Mulvihill is a good business woman and manages her affairs with judgment and
skill. In 1903 she sold some twelve hundred dollars worth of fruit with other
products, and her profits are steadily on the increase. She has five children,
Patrick F., John J., Jeremiah, Edward and Catharine. They are all living at home
and all aid in the work on the farm. Her husband was a member of the Catholic
church, as she is herself, and belonged to the Woodmen of the World. In
political faith he was a Democrat. In the fall of 1903 the widow sold ten acres
of her land for four thousand dollars, and what she kept is much more valuable.
She is held in high esteem throughout the neighborhood in which she lives and
deserves the position she occupies in the regard and good will of the people
around her.
John Naeve
The industry, thrift and persistent energy which characterize the German people
have been transplanted by the subject of this sketch from his nativity in the
fatherland to this country, where they have been employed to good purpose by him
in winning an estate of fair proportions and secure foundation from unpromising
conditions and the virgin wilderness of this western world. His life began in
Germany on December 11, 1861, and he is the son of William and Lizzie
(Schroeder) Naeve, also German by nativity and residents of their native land
throughout their lives. They had a family of three children, of whom their son
John is the only one living, the others having died in Germany as their parents
did. He remained at home until 1882, receiving his education in the common
schools and working on the paternal homestead in the interest of his parents. In
the year last named he hearkened to the voice of the United States calling for
volunteers in her great army of industrial progress and came to this country,
settling in Boone county, Iowa, where he worked two years on farms for wages. In
1884 he moved to Sherman county, Nebraska, and there he took up a homestead of
one hundred and twenty acres of land, which he improved and lived on until 1898.
He then sold it for seven hundred dollars. During the next two years he rented a
farm in that county, and in 1900 came to Colorado and bought the place on which
he now lives, or a part of it, locating six miles east of Grand Junction. Five
acres of the land were in fruit trees when he made the purchase and he has since
planted two additional acres in fruit. In the fall of 1903 he bought twenty
acres more, all wild land, which he intends to improve and make productive as
rapidly as he can. His fruit crop in 1903 netted him about seven hundred
dollars, and he kept the hay and other products of the land nearly all for his
own use. Seven acres of the land are in hay and yield about forty-two tons. On
March 5, 1883, Mr. Naeve was married to Miss Anna Kahlor, like himself a native
of Germany, and born in that country on September 24, 1866. They have seven
children, Willie C., Dora C., Louisa C., Anna F., John H., Alvin H. and May.
They were all born in Nebraska, but the oldest who was born in Iowa. Mr. Naeve
belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America and the Republican party. He and his
wife are members of the German Lutheran church.
Robert A. Orr
Residing in a fine home one mile south of Grand Junction, where he is actively
engaged in raising excellent fruit and superior grades of stock, and connected
with several of the leading commercial and mining industries of the country,
Robert A. Orr is one of the prominent and successful business men of Mesa county
and a representative citizen of high standing and general esteem in his
community. He was born on February 11, 1855, in the central part of Kentucky,
the son of Oscar F. and Elizabeth (Evans) Orr, natives of Kentucky and
descendants of some of the early pioneers of the state. The father was reared on
a farm in his native state and remained there until 1873. He then moved to
Missouri and settled in Cooper county, where he is still living at the age of
seventy-eight. The mother is also living and her age is seventy-six. They are
the parents of nine children, of whom Robert was the third. He passed his
boyhood on his father's farm in Kentucky, and received his education in the
district schools of the vicinity. At the age of eighteen he moved with his
parents to Missouri where he remained until 1880, when he came to Denver, this
state, arriving on the morning when the excavation work for the Union depot was
begun. After a residence of three years in Denver, during which he was employed
in the nursery of Hallock & Grimes and in planting trees for the city around the
court house and other public buildings, he came to Grand Valley in April, 1883,
at which time he purchased the Grand Junction interests of the Denver Nursery
Company, and here took charge of the same, rearing the first fruit trees grown
in this section. Three years later he moved to his present site on what was then
unimproved land through which the old Salt Lake road lay, cutting between his
house and where his packing house now stands, and which was then a dry, barren
sand hill. Here he has been successfully engaged in fruit culture, raising
apples, pears and peaches for an extensive and exacting market. He is an
experimenter as well as a grower, and has produced a choice variety of apple
known as "Orr's Long Keeper" which is in great demand. He was one of the
organizers of the Grand Junction Fruit Growers' Association in 1892 and has been
a director of the same since its formation and at present is serving as
vice-president. The association is one of the strongest and most prosperous in
the United States and did nearly three hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth
of business in 1903, earning profits to the stockholders of more than thirty per
cent. He is also interested in the stock industry with the ambition to produce
fine horses and other stock, and is present of the Mesa Lumber Company. He has
stock in valuable oil wells and coal mines, and is a director of the new Union
Bank and Trust Company at Grand Junction. To all the business interests which he
has in charge he gives care and intelligent attention, and he makes the most of
his opportunities in this way, being a man of excellent business capacity and
great energy. In 1886 he was married to Miss Minnie Kennedy, a native of
Knoxville, Tennessee, and they have two children, Pern and Kenneth. Their home
is one of the most attractive in this part of the county, and all its
appurtenances and features are in good taste and bespeak the culture and
refinement of its inmates. Mr. Orr is one of the highly respected and
representative men of the county, with an influence always used for the best
interests of his portion of the state and its people.
Ralph W. Ostrom
Ralph W. Ostrom, a respected citizen of Debeque, who has been active in the
industrial and commercial life of the community, was born on shipboard in the
waters of China in 1859. He is the son of Alvin and Susan (Boylan) Ostrom,
natives of New York. The mother died in 1865 and was buried in her native state.
The father was a missionary in China during the greater part of his life, and
later was occupied similarly in the Hawaiian islands, where he died and was
buried in 1895 at the age of seventy-two. Ralph was the youngest of their three
children. He was reared to the age of eighteen in California, and there received
his education in the public schools. At the age mentioned he started out in life
for himself, going to Arizona on a prospecting tour and remaining about one
year. In 1879 he came to Colorado, and locating at Pueblo, was employed in
painting houses and other buildings for two years. He then spent short periods
at Gunnison and Grand Junction, after which he took up his residence in the
vicinity of Debeque on Roan creek. A short time afterward he returned to Grand
Junction where he remained and followed house painting until 1887. At that time
he returned to Debeque, and selling his ranch devoted himself to mercantile
business for eight years, at the end of which he sold his store to H.A. Stroud,
and then lived a retired life in the village which he helped to build and which
bears the marks of his enterprise and progressiveness. In the fall of 1904 he
opened a meat market and grocery in the post office building and here commands a
large and increasing patronage. In 1888 he was married to Miss Pearl Neel, a
native of Kansas. They have two children, their daughters Helen and Hazel. In
all the relations of life Mr. Ostrom has been acceptable to the people of this
community, having been enterprising in business and in public affairs, upright
and genial in his private life, with breadth of view, an enlightened public
spirit in considering and promoting the best interests of his section, and a
lofty and inspiring patriotism in his devotion to the welfare of the whole
country. No man in the community is more widely esteemed.
James Page
Station agent for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad at Whitewater, Mesa county,
since June, 1886, secretary of school district No. 3 during the last fifteen
years, and for about twenty-one years postmaster here and elsewhere, James Page
has been of material service to the people and the public utilities of the
county and this portion of the state. He was born in Williams county, Ohio, in
1856, and is the son of John and Margaret (Murray) Page. The father is a native
of London, England, and came to the United States in 1840, settling in Williams
county, where since that time he has been profitably engaged in farming, and
where he still resides. His mother was a native of Ireland and came to this
country with her parents in childhood. They also settled in Williams county, and
there she was reared and educated and married. There also she died in 1864, at
the age of thirty years. They were the parents of four children, of whom their
son James was the second. He grew to manhood on the paternal homestead and was
educated at the neighboring district schools, remaining at home until he reached
the age of twenty. He then started the business of life for himself, farming for
a year, at the end of which he moved to Iowa, where he again engaged in farming
and studied telegraphy of evenings. After completing his course and acquiring
facility in the art, he went to work for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad and
remained in its employ five years in Iowa. In 1882 he came to Colorado and for
four years resided at Riverside, Chaffee county. In June, 1886, he settled at
Whitewater as station agent for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and has served
the great corporation in that capacity at this point ever since. In the public
life of this community he has been active, zealous and serviceable, applying to
its every interest all the force of a vigorous mind and the wisdom acquired in a
wide experience. He has been secretary of his school district for fifteen years
and postmaster of the village almost ever since his advent into it. In 1882,
before leaving Iowa, he was married to Miss Ella Park, of Fairfax, that state.
Their children are John, Janet, Arthur and Fred.
J.H. Parton
With his childhood and youth darkened by the awful shadow of our Civil war, and
a pressing necessity upon him from an early age to take care of himself and make
his own way in the world, J.H. Parton, of Palisades, one of the substantial and
progressive citizens of Mesa county, had a long and hard struggle to reach the
position of comfort and consequence that he now occupies. He was born at
Roseville, Arkansas, in 1859, and is the son of Willoughby and Miranda (Ground)
Parton, the former a native of France and the latter of Arkansas. The father
came to America when he was a small boy and grew to manhood in the middle West.
He was shot to death by bushwhackers in Arkansas in 1861, and was buried in that
state. The mother survived until 1886, then died, aged fifty-eight years. Their
son, J.H. Parton, was early thrown on his own resources, beginning life for
himself as a cattle herder in Wyoming when a mere boy. As he grew older he
sought more ambitious pursuits, first going to Leadville and freighting in and
out of that place during 1879 and 1880. >From there he moved to Gunnison, and
two months later to Denver. Soon after he began work with a bridge gang on the
Denver & South Park Railway from Gunnison to Grand Junction. In 1885 he located
on a ranch in Mesa county on Kannah creek, where he carried on stock raising
until 1892, when he sold his ranch interests and located at Grand Junction. In
1893 he located at Palisades, where he has since resided. He was employed by the
Mt. Lincoln Land and Water Company until 1899 and then engaged in carpenter work
until 1901, when he engaged in business at Palisades. He was married, in 1885,
to Miss Lottie Purdy, of Grand Junction. They are the parents of four children,
Effie, Millie, Irena and Louie. Mr. Parton is a good business man, with an
abundance of energy and push, and he has lost no ground in the battle of life
that he has once gained. His ventures have not all been as successful as he
could wish, but all have been measurably so, and the present one is yielding
very satisfactory returns.
John J. Plank
Having met every requirement of duty throughout a long and not uneventful life,
and labored industriously to provide himself and his family against adversity,
conducting his operations amid varying circumstances of fortune, John J. Plank,
a prosperous and successful fruit-grower of Mesa county, living about one mile
and a half west of Palisades, is now enjoying in the evening of life the
benefits of his labors in a snug competence and the lasting esteem and good will
of his fellow men. He was born in Wayne county, Ohio, on September 28, 1830, and
is the son of David and ________ (Kurtz) Plank, natives of Pennsylvania who died
in Ohio, whither they moved in their early married life. They had a family of
eight children, of whom but four are living. John received a common-school
education and assisted his parents on the paternal homestead until he reached
the age of eighteen. He was then apprenticed to a gunsmith to learn his trade at
Wooster in his native county, and worked at the trade until 1862. He then
enlisted in the Union army for the Civil war as a member of the One Hundred and
Twentieth Ohio Infantry and served to the close of the war. He was in the
Vicksburg and Arkansas Post campaigns, and with General Bauks on his Red River
expedition. On this expedition all but seventy men in his command of four
hundred were killed, the seventy saving themselves by climbing a ten-foot bank
by the aid of brush and vines. This was the last important engagement in which
he took part. He then became a member of the One Hundred and Fourteenth
Volunteer Infantry and served till the fall of 1865 and was then transferred to
the Forty-eighth Ohio Veteran Battalion. After being mustered out of the service
at Houston, Texas, he returned to Wooster, where he lived and worked at his
trade until the spring of 1876. He then moved to Winfield, Kansas, and continued
at his trade there until 1893. In the autumn of that year he came to this state
and located at Canon City. Nearly a year later, in August, 1894, he moved to
Grand Junction and soon afterward bought ten acres of land in the vicinity of
Palisades. The land was wholly wild and unimproved, and after preparing it for
the purpose he set out six and a half acres in fruit trees. Four years later he
set out an additional acre and a half in fruit, and he now has eight acres of
trees in a thrifty and productive condition, yielding large returns for his
labor and bringing him in a comfortable revenue. In 1903 he sold one thousand
five hundred dollars' worth of fruit off of this land, besides other farm
products of value. In November, 1866, he was married to Miss Laura L. Flohr, who
was born at Canton, Ohio, the daughter of Jacob and Matilda (Wagley) Flohr,
natives of Pennsylvania who settled in Ohio in early life. Mr. and Mrs. Plank
have had seven children, of whom three, Nellie A., Clara A. and Harry G. are
living; and Lewin H., Charles L., Josephine and an infant are dead. Mr. Plank is
a stanch Republican in politics and belongs to the Brethren's church in
religious affiliation. His wife died on April 10, 1900. He is energetic and
enterprising in his business and earnestly attentive to all the duties of
citizenship. Among the residents of his and other portions of Mesa county he is
highly esteemed for his sterling worth and manly qualities.
Samuel L. Purdy
Samuel L. Purdy, manager of the Mt. Lincoln water-power house near Palisades,
Mesa county, is a native of Pennsylvania and was born there in 1843. He is a son
of Eli and Marantha (Haveland) Purdy. His father was a native of New York and a
stone mason by trade. He invented the first screw propellor for boats, and
applied his device to a small boat on the canal, which was washed away at the
time of the great break. And he, being poor and not knowing the value of his
discovery, made no effort to recover the boat or equip another, and so the
credit for the invention went to another, although there was doubtless no
connection between the two, as Mr. Ericsson never heard of this case. The father
died in Pennsylvania and the mother, who was a native of Ohio, died in that
state in 1879, when she was seventy-five years old. Their son Samuel passed his
boyhood and youth in his native state, and about the beginning of the Civil war
he enlisted in the One Hundred and Tenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and was
later transferred to the Sixth United States Cavalry, regular army, and he saw
three years of the memorable contest, being in active service all of that time
and participating in several of the noted engagements between the opposing
armies. After the war he came west to Iowa and in 1878 removed to Kansas. From
there he came to Colorado and settled at Grand Junction. He is a carpenter and
mason by trade, and for a time wrought at these crafts in this section; but he
is now superintendent of the Mt. Lincoln water-power house, which controls the
flow of water into the irrigation canal of the High Line Mutual Irrigation
Company, that has done so much for the improvement of this section of Mesa
county. In 1865 Mr. Purdy was married to Miss Eliza Sheeder, a native of
Pennsylvania. They have had nine children, Mary, Elmer, Lottie, Carrie, Pearl,
Willie, Effie (deceased), May and Harry. Mr. Purdy has been active and
industrious through life, living acceptably among his fellow men and winning on
his merit their respect, which he enjoys in a marked degree.
Joseph J. Putney
The restless spirit of New England, which will never rest while there is
opportunity for work, and is always seeking new worlds to conquer, has not only
filled our land with industrial enterprise in multiform variety but has
overspread it with emigration and hardy pioneers, has been potential in settling
and civilizing the Mississippi valley, and has also aided in colonizing the
farther West and redeeming it from barbarism and making it fruitful with the
blessings of cultivation. It is from this people that Joseph J. Putney, of
Collbran, in the Plateau valley, Mesa, sprang, and he is a good type of the
section from which he hails. He was born in Merrimac county, New Hampshire, in
1837, and is the son of Benjamin and Lydia (Page) Putney, of that state, where
both were born and reared, where they were married and labored through life, and
where, when their labors were ended, they were laid to rest. The mother died in
1853, and the father ten years previous, in February, 1843. Their offspring
numbered nine, of whom Joseph was the seventh. At an early period of his life he
was obliged to provide for himself, and during a portion of his youth he lived
with a cousin. In March, 1855, he moved to northern Illinois, where for three
years he was occupied in farming. He then went into southern Wisconsin, and
there followed the same vocation until September, 1861. Then, in loyal devotion
to the Union, he enlisted in its defense in Company K, Eighth Wisconsin
Infantry, in which he served until November 8, 1863. At that time he was
detached for recruiting duty and helped to raise the Third United States Colored
Cavalry, and in that regiment was a second lieutenant until January 24, 1866.
After his discharge he settled at St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked at
various occupations for a year, after which he was on the city police force from
1868 to 1873. At the close of his term he moved to Hamilton, Minnesota, and a
year later to Spring Valley, in the same county. Here he was employed as a
carpenter until 1879, then came to Colorado, and worked at his trade at
Leadville for some time. From there he moved to Summit county, then to Gunnison
county, engaged in mining until 1883, and during the next three years worked at
day labor in Delta county. From Delta he went to the mining district of Aspen,
where he remained until he took up his residence at Collbran in Mesa county.
Here he was variously employed from the time of his arrival in 1887 until he was
appointed postmaster in 1889, and since then he has continuously occupied this
office. He was married in 1870 to Miss Adelaide Gehrs, a native of Illinois.
They have had two children, Charles H. and Frederick, both of whom died when
about five months old. Mrs. Putney died when she was twenty-two years of age,
and since then he has lived alone. Mr. Putney is respected by the entire
community for his upright life and sterling worth, and in official relations he
is giving satisfaction to the people without regard to party or class.
John H. Romer
Armed with the spirit of industry and thrift which characterizes his race, and
having learned the science of agriculture by practical experience in his native
land, John H. Romer, of Mesa county, living near Collbran, on a fine ranch which
he has redeemed from the waste and made fruitful, came to the United States at
the age of nineteen determined to get on in the world if his own efforts could
make him do so, and in this respect his hopes have been fully realized. He was
born in Germany in 1846, and is the son of Jacob and Mary (Hauger) Romer. They
were also German by nativity, and lived and died in their native land, as their
ancestors had done for many generations before them. The father was a well-to-do
farmer, and lived to the age of seventy-five, dying in 1873. The mother survived
him eighteen years, dying in 1891, at the age of eighty-seven. Their son John
was reared on the paternal homestead and educated at the state schools. He
remained at home until he was nineteen assisting on the farm. At that age he
determined to seek his fortune in the United States, and to this end landed in
New York in 1866. He remained there a short time and then, after passing a short
time in Pennsylvania, migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked on a dairy
farm and drove a team. From there he went to Cincinnati, and after a residence
of a year in that city, came west to Missouri. There he worked on a farm two
years, then bought one on which he lived about five years. From there he came to
Alma, this state, where he remained ten years. In 1886 he moved to Roan creek,
near Debeque, Mesa county, and took up one hundred and sixty acres of land, on
which he made his home for sixteen years. He then sold that place and bought his
present ranch near Collbran, on which he has since resided. In 1882 he was
married to Miss Lorena Colley, of Missouri. Three children have blessed their
union, Olivia, Bertha and Emma. Mr. Romer has prospered in life by his own
industry and is well fixed in the matter of property. He also stands well in the
regard of his fellow men.
Charles R. Sieber
Highly fortunate in his life, both in its productive usefulness and in the
esteem of his fellow men which it won him, and which was largely enhanced by the
"deep damnation of his taking off," the late Charles R. Sieber, of Mesa county,
who was brutally murdered by a former employee while at the height of his
usefulness and power for good to the people among whom he lived and labored, was
one of the best known and most serviceable citizens of the Western slope, and as
such was a shining mark for the shafts of malice, envy and ill-will. He was
native of Germany, born at Breslau on January 28, 1846, and the son of Paul and
Francisca Sieber, also natives of the fatherland, where they passed their lives
and where their forefathers had lived for many generations. There were ten
children in his father's family, of whom he was the last born. When he was
fourteen years old he came to America in company with a friend, Charles
Kretchmer, who is now an esteemed citizen of Pueblo, this state. After passing a
year in Canada they moved to the United States and settled in Illinois, where
they remained until in the 'sixties, when they came with the German colony
established in Wet Mountain valley, to Colorado. Mr. Kretchmer stopped at Pueblo
and Mr. Sieber accompanied the colony to the valley. Here he engaged in farming
and raising cattle, becoming a man of consequence and influence in the section,
so that when Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state in 1876 he was chosen
to represent his people in the first state legislature. At the session in which
he served, a portion of what had been Fremont county was cut off and erected
into a new county called Custer, the name it now bears. Mr. Sieber continued his
operations in the cattle and ranching industry there until 1885, when he moved
to Mesa county and, in partnership with Mr. Hudson, under the firm name of
Hudson & Sieber, he enlarged his stock business and also opened a large retail
market at Grand Junction. This was in the early 'nineties. In 1897 the Sieber
Cattle Company was formed with Mr. Sieber as president and manager and John and
Mahlon Thatcher as other members of the company. The company did a very
extensive business, at times having ten thousand cattle on hand. While at Summer
Camp, thirty-five miles southeast of Grand Junction, Mr. Sieber was shot and
killed in cold-blooded murder by one Harris, a former employee of the company,
who had a grudge against him. This shocking occurrence aroused the greatest
indignation throughout the western part of the state, where the victim of it was
widely known as a pioneer, upright and progressive man, and one of the leading
citizens of the section. It ended a life of value to the whole state with no
advantage to the murderer beyond the gratification of his passion and malice.
Mr. Sieber was married on December 25, 1869, to Miss Henrietta Palmer, a native
of Steuben county, New York, where her parents, Azor and Martha (Dickson)
Palmer, were also born. In 1864 the Palmer family crossed the plains with wagons
to Colorado and located at Russellville, thirty-five miles from Denver, on
Cherry creek, where Mr. Palmer kept a stage station several years, going to Wet
Mountain valley and engaging in the stock business in the spring of 1869. He
died there in 1886 and his wife in 1899. They had four children, all living.
Twelve were born in the Sieber household, eleven of whom are living, Louise,
Anna, Francisco, Henrietta, Martha, Frankie, Carl, John, Jessie, Paul and Fred.
Laura died some years ago.
Hervey D. Smith
Hervey D. Smith, of near Grand Junction, is one of the successful and
progressive fruit-growers of Mesa county, and came to the work in which he is
now engaged with due preparation made in varied and instructive experience in
many places and under a great variety of circumstances, all of which tended to
develop his native capacity and force of character. He was born at Adrian,
Michigan, on March 8, 1845, and is the son of Newton and Elvira (Ives) Smith,
natives of Chautauqua county, New York, born near the city of Jamestown, where
they were reared, educated and married. Soon after their marriage they moved to
Adrian, Michigan, which was at the time a small hamlet. The father was a
carpenter and joiner, and found his skill as a mechanic immediately in great
demand, as the village was ready for improvement and he was called on to build
many of its first houses of any importance. He died young in 1847, leaving his
widow and two children, a daughter and Hervey D., who was at that time about two
years old. The mother returned with her children to her native state, and there
sometime afterward she was married to John Pitcher. In 1853 they came west to
Bremer county, Iowa, where they were early pioneers. She died in Black Hawk
county, Iowa, in 1877, at the home of Mr. Smith. Of her second marriage there
were three children who grew to maturity, but all are now deceased. Hervey D.
Smith, the younger of the two children of the first marriage, remained with his
mother in New York until he was six years old, then spent three years with an
uncle, a Methodist minister, at Ashtabula, Ohio. At the end of that time he
joined his mother and step-father in Iowa, and he remained with them attending
school until the beginning of the Civil war. In August, 1861, he enlisted in
defense of the Union in Company B, Thirty-eighth Iowa Infantry, and was assigned
to the Department of the Gulf. After three years' service he was mustered out as
a member of Company I, Thirty-fourth Iowa, the two regiments having been
consolidated on account of the depletion of their ranks. He was in the
engagements at Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Fort Morgan, Spanish Fort and Fort
Blakeslee, but escaped without disaster of any kind. After the close of the war
he settled at Janeville, Bremer county, Iowa, and there he learned the miller's
trade. On completing his apprenticeship he moved to Manchester where he worked
at his trade, and did the same at Osage, LaPorte City and Waterloo in the same
state. At the last he was foreman of a large mill for nine years. In 1881 he
moved to Sioux Rapids, Iowa, and engaged in milling on his own account. Here he
bought a mill and operated it for a period of about twenty years. The mill was
of the old style, with three run of stone and a capacity of fifty barrels a day.
He improved it soon after he bought it, putting in the latest roller process and
increasing its capacity to one hundred and twenty-five barrels. In 1893-4 he
improved it, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars, and also put in an electric
light plant for the city. The hard times in 1896 were particularly damaging to
him, and in 1898 the property was destroyed by fire, leaving him almost
penniless. In the autumn of 1899 he came to Colorado and, locating in Grand
valley, bought forty acres of wild land four miles east of Grand Junction, on
which he built a house and made other improvements, and planted fifteen acres of
fruit trees. He then sold the property at a good profit in the spring of 1903.
After that he bought the ten acres on which he now lives, three miles east of
Grand Junction. This tract is all in fruit trees in good bearing order which
yield an abundant annual harvest and a handsome revenue. Mr. Smith was married
on May 16, 1869, to Miss Luranda Rinker, who was born in Ogle county, Illinois,
and is the daughter of Commodore Perry and Louisa (Turck) Rinker, the former a
native of Louisville, Kentucky, and the latter of Cayuga county, New York. Mr.
Rinker's father died when he was three years old, and he was taken by his mother
and step-father to Indiana in boyhood, and in 1836 to Ogle county, Illinois,
where the family were among the earliest settlers. The parents kept a half-way
house between Dixon and Rockford on the east side of Rock river, about two miles
and a half from what is now Oregon. Here Mr. Rinker grew to manhood and received
the greater part of his school education. In 1848, when he was twenty-two, he
left home and moved to Jasper county, Iowa, where he took up one hundred and
sixty acres of land seven miles from Newton, being a pioneer in the
neighborhood. What is now Newton was then almost nothing but a log tavern in the
wild country. Here he followed his chosen occupation of farming, varying its
strenuous labor with the pleasures of hunting. On one occasion, while hunting on
Skunk river, he pulled up a cottonwood sprout for a whip, and when he got home
stuck it in the ground in front of his house. It grew and flourished, and when
he visited the place fifty years later he measured its circumference, requiring
a string over fourteen feet long for the purpose. Having improved his farm, he
sold it in 1856 and moved to Janesville, Black Hawk county, where he opened the
first butcher shop in the town. He afterward kept a hotel there for a number of
years, then traded the hotel property for a farm near the town which he farmed
for a time. He then retired from active pursuits and located at Sioux Rapids.
Mrs. Rinker died on March 22, 1895, and in 1897 Mr. Rinker came to Mesa county,
this state, and made his home for a time with his grandson, Milton Smith. He now
lives with Milton's father, the subject of this sketch. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have
four children, one of whom is an adopted daughter. Their own offspring are
Milton P., of Mesa county; Edwin E., a physician at Sioux Rapids, Iowa; and Aura
L., a teacher in the Fruitvale school. Emma, the adopted daughter, now twelve
years old, is a daughter of Mr. Smith's half-sister. In political faith Mr.
Smith is a stanch Republican. While living at Sioux Rapids he served as a member
of the city council twelve years. He also served as a member of the school
board. In fraternal life he belongs to the Masonic order in lodge, chapter and
commandery, and he is active in the work of the several bodies.
Lemuel T. Stewart
Lemuel T. Stewart, of Mesa county, living in a good stone house which he built
on Roan creek and which was one of the first erected on that stream, he being
among the earliest settlers in this region, is a native of Ohio, born in 1850.
He is the son of James and Nancy (Turner) Stewart, both of the same nativity as
himself. His father was a shipbuilder in his younger days, and later became a
farmer in his native state. He died there in 1856, at the age of sixty-three;
and his wife died the same year, aged fifty-eight. They had seven children, of
whom the subject was the last born. Thus doubly orphaned at the early age of
six, he was thrown on his own resources while he was yet very young. His boyhood
was passed at Bellefontaine, in his native state, working on a farm and going to
school. At the age of twenty-one he migrated to Illinois, and some little time
later to Kansas. Here he taught school four years, then came to Colorado,
locating at Denver, where he remained about eight months. From there he moved to
Blackhawk, Colorado, and kept a hotel for some time, after which he was employed
for two years in mining at Caribou, Boulder county, and during the next four in
the same occupation at Leadville. In 1880 he made a trip through Arizona, New
Mexico and Utah prospecting, and in 1882 located on Roan creek near where he now
lives. He was, as has been noted, one of the first settlers in this section and
built one of the first dwellings on the creek for the residence of a white man.
The house is of stone and stands just west of the Continental divide. Mr.
Stewart has lived here continuously since his first occupation of the land, and
has been busily occupied in farming and raising stock. His ranch is historic
ground, lying along the trail taken by the Ute Indians after the Meeker
massacre. In 1890 Mr. Stewart was united in marriage with Miss Annie Meyer, and
their union has been blessed with one child, their daughter Lula. The father has
been very active in public affairs, particularly in school matters, having
served as president of the school board from its organization until the fall of
1902, when he declined to serve longer. He is one of the representative men of
this section.
H.A. Stroud
H. A. Stroud, for about fifteen years a merchant at Debeque, Mesa county, and
now a member of the mercantile firm of McKay & Stroud, dealers in general
merchandise of every kind, is a native of England, born in 1863, and the son of
John and Anna (Layton) Stroud, who were also natives of that country. In 1865
they brought their family to the United States and settled in Iowa, afterward
moving to California, where the father died in 1891, aged seventy-seven. The
mother died two years later, aged seventy. Their family comprised seven
children, of whom the son, H.A. Stroud, was the last born. He came with his
parents to the United States when he was two years old, and grew to the age of
nineteen on the Iowa homestead, assisting in its labor and attending the winter
schools. In 1882 he came to Colorado and located at Grand Junction. A year or
two later he began freighting between Grand Junction and Aspen, this state,
continuing the enterprise until 1888. At that time he established a feed and
sales stable and a hay, grain and coal emporium at Debeque, and a few years
later bought the interest in the stock of general merchandise belonging to Ralph
W. Ostrom, and since that time the firm has been known as McKay & Stroud. Under
their joint management the enterprise has been greatly enlarged and the trade
vastly increased until it is now one of the most extensive in this part of the
state, laying a large scope of country under tribute to its trade. Mr. Stroud
has been active for years in the public life of the community, serving two or
three times as mayor of the village. He belongs to the order of Odd Fellows,
with membership in Roan Creek Lodge, No. 125. In 1888 he was married to Miss
Emma Dixson, a native of Illinois, and they have two children, Herbert L. and
Nettie M.
Joseph P. Sweney
Justice of the Peace and Police Magistrate Joseph P. Sweney, of Grand Junction,
whose official record is clear and strong, and who has been an effective force
for good in the preservation of the peace and order of the community, and has
aided materially in sustaining the dignity and power of legal authority among
the people, is a native of Milton, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, where he
was born in 1846. His parents were Montgomery W. and Clarinda (Penney) Sweney,
also natives of Pennsylvania. The father was a merchant and carried on a
successful business in his native state for years and afterward in Illinois and
Nebraska at different times. The family moved to Illinois in 1853, and during
the Civil war the father was a captain on a Mississippi river steamboat. His
last days were passed in Nebraska, where he died in 1875, at the age of seventy.
The mother passed away three years earlier, aged sixty-five. They were the
parents of five children, of whom their son Joseph was the third in the order of
birth. He spent his boyhood and youth in Pennsylvania and Illinois, and after
leaving school filled the position of bookkeeper and paymaster in the coal
regions of the latter. In 1886 he came to Grand Junction and opened a hardware
store, which he conducted until the spring of 1889, having varying success. He
was always active in the affairs of the community and displayed executive and
administrative ability of such an order that in 1887 he was elected mayor of the
town, and in the discharge of his duties in that office he won commendation from
all classes of the citizens. In 1893 he was appointed United States
commissioner, and was elected a justice of the peace and has been continuously
re-elected ever since. He has also been police magistrate for the last eight
years. His judicial knowledge and temperament, his love of justice and his
clearness of vision in discerning the true inwardness of cases, and moreover,
his general devotion to the interests of the community, make him an
exceptionally fair and capable official, and all good citizens feel that the
welfare of the city is safe in his hands as far as he has control of it, while
the turbulent and lawless elements fear and respect him. He is in private life a
genial and companionable gentleman, adding to the social features of the town an
element of value through the courtesy of his manner, the variety and extent of
his information and the felicity of his expression on all topics of current
thought. In all the constituents of good citizenship he has a high rank in the
public estimation, and as a man he enjoys the respect and good will of all who
come in contact with him.
Cullen F. Walker
The scion of old New England families who have lived in that section of the
country from colonial times, Cullen F. Walker, of Mesa county, this state, is
far from the scenes and associations of his childhood, youth and early manhood
and amid surroundings far different from those which environed his family
rooftree. Yet with the adaptiveness and self-reliance of the New England
character, he is as well equipped for the conditions of his present lot and as
ready to meet its requirements as if he were to the manner born and had lived in
Colorado all his life. He was born at Bethel, Oxford county, Maine, on February
15, 1841, where his parents, James and Hannah J. (Barker) Walker, were reared
from childhood, the former having been born in Vermont and the latter in New
Hampshire. The father was a merchant and mill owner at Bethel and there he
carried on a successful and profitable business for many years. He was a member
of the state legislature and also served as a trial justice for a long time. He
died at Bethel in 1866 and his wife also ended her days there, passing away in
1875. Of their eight children six are living, Cullen being next to the youngest.
He grew to manhood in his native town and received a public-school and academic
education. After leaving school he worked in his father's mill until the death
of the parent, and then operated the same until 1870, when he sold out and moved
to Minnesota. Locating at Albert Lea, he engaged in the commission business
seven years. At the end of that period he moved to Fort Berthold Indian
reservation, where he was three years in the employ of the government. In 1880
he took up his residence in Grant county, South Dakota, where he homesteaded one
hundred and sixty acres of government land and remained ten years. Being driven
out by the drought, he sold his claim for almost nothing and moved to Brookings
county, the same state, where he remained three years. He then passed three
years in Lyon county, Iowa, and in January, 1901, came to this state and located
in Grand valley, buying ten acres of land three miles east of Grand Junction on
which he now lives. On August 23, 1863, before leaving his native state, he was
married to Miss Mary E. Twitchell, a native of Bethel, Maine, like himself. They
have had three children. Edith T. died at the age of twenty-two, James F. lives
in Mesa county, this state, and Ray F. in South Dakota. In politics Mr. Walker
is independent, and fraternally he belongs to the Masonic order. He and his wife
are members of the Congregational church.
James F. Walker
James F. Walker, eldest son of Cullen F. Walker, came to Colorado in the autumn
of 1900 and bought a fruit farm adjoining his father's which he operated
successfully until recently, when he sold it. He has been actively connected
with the management of county affairs and in political movements as a Socialist.
In the fall of 1902 he was the Socialist candidate for the state legislature,
and has otherwise been prominent in public local interests. He was married in
Chicago to Miss Rebecca Hedges, and they had three children, Fordyce H., Albert
C. and Hollis, the last named being deceased. Mrs. Walker died on February 15,
1903.
James Whitley
With a strong inclination to the business of prospecting and mining, in which he
has never won a very large success, yet to which he has adhered for years and
returned regularly after quitting the industry, James Whitley has not, however,
placed all his eggs in this one basket, but has followed other lines of industry
in which he has succeeded and prospered, and is therefore a man of substance in
worldly wealth as well as a progressive and enterprising business man in any
lines to which he turns his hand. He is a Canadian by nativity, born in the city
of Toronto in September, 1852, and the son of John and Ruth (Hewitt) Whitley,
natives of Ireland of Scotch ancestry. They came to America when young and were
reared and married at Toronto. The father was a cooper and worked at his trade
all of his mature life except during the Civil war in this country, when he
served in the Union army in a New York regiment. In 1858 the family moved to
Lockport, New York; and soon after the war the father died and was buried in the
Soldiers' Cemetery in that city. The mother died in Canada in 1853. Two of their
children, James and an older sister, are living, the sister being a resident of
Toronto. James lived with his maternal grandmother in Canada until he was
fourteen years old, and received a limited common-school education. Then he
began working on a farm in the neighborhood of her home at a compensation of one
dollar and seventy-five cents a month and his board and lodging. Some little
time afterward he joined his father at Lockport, and when he was seventeen moved
to upper Michigan, where he was employed for a number of years by the Marquette,
Houghton & Ontonagan Railroad, working for the company in various capacities but
in train service most of the time. For some time he had charge of the iron ore
dock at Marquette, overseeing one hundred men in loading vessels. Early in 1874
he moved to lower Michigan and later back into Canada. In the fall of 1878 he
came to Colorado among the pioneers of Leadville, and here he remained five
years. During the first year he worked in the smelter, then started a store six
miles east of the town at a village called Bird's Eye, where he was also
postmaster. He carried on this store three years successfully, then started a
store and boarding house at La Plata smelter which he conducted two years.
During the time of his residence at and around Leadville he sank about five
thousand dollars in prospecting and mining operations. But as his store and
boarding house netted him about three thousand five hundred dollars a year he
was able to stand the loss. In the spring of 1884 he filed on a land claim near
Salida, but the next spring he abandoned this and moved to Mesa county. Here he
located on a ranch twenty miles southeast of Grand Junction on Kannah creek and
engaged in the stock industry. Later he took up one hundred and sixty acres in
that vicinity and for years lived on the land and carried on a successful and
profitable stock business there. In the spring of 1897 he traded this for his
present ranch of forty acres, located five and one-half miles northeast of Grand
Junction, ten acres of which were in fruit at the time. He has since improved
the property and doubled his acreage in fruit, becoming one of the most
prosperous and progressive men in his business in the section. In 1903 he sold
from his orchards 2,000 boxes of apples, besides one thousand boxes of pears,
peaches and other fruit. In politics he is a steadfast Republican, and in the
public affairs of the county he has for years taken an active and helpful part,
serving as under sheriff two years during John D. Reeder's term as sheriff. Not
satisfied with his previous experience in mining ventures, he made two trips to
the Klondike for further efforts in this line, one in 1897 and the other in
1899, and in the two lost about two thousand dollars; and he still occasionally
tries his hand at prospecting. In the fall of 1903 he built a modern cottage
residence on his ranch, which is otherwise well improved, and he now has one of
the most attractive and complete homes in his part of the county. On December 2,
1873, he was married to Miss Margaret Arnett, who was born near Toronto, Canada,
of Scotch parents. They have one child, Agnes A., who for five years has been in
the employ of the Colorado Telephone Company, and is now chief operator of the
company at Grand Junction. Mr. Whitley is a member of the blue lodge in Masonry
at Grand Junction and also belongs to the Woodmen of the World, being active in
each of these societies.
Charles M. Whitsell
Charles M. Whitsell, of Mesa county, comfortably located on a fine fruit ranch
three miles east of Grand Junction, has been a resident of this state and of the
Grand Valley since 1898. He was born in Appanoose county, Iowa, on March 19,
1858, and is a son of Philip and Mary (Stewart) Whitsell, who were born, reared
and married in Pennsylvania. In 1855 they moved to Iowa and settled at
Centreville in Appanoose county, where the father worked at his trade as a
tailor until the beginning of the Civil war, when he enlisted in the Union army
as a member of Company G, Thirty-sixth Iowa Infantry. He served three years in
the war, one in active field service, then losing his health, he spent nearly a
year in a hospital at Keokuk, and after his recovery was assigned to hospital
duty at Davenport, in which he was occupied until the end of his term of
enlistment. He died at Centreville in 1865, and his widow now lives in Wayne
county, the same state. Of their three children two are living, Charles being
the younger of these. He was reared and received a limited common-school
education in his native county, and at the age of thirteen, owing to the death
of his father and the moderate circumstances of the family he was obliged to
begin making his own living, which he did by working on the farm of an uncle for
two years, after which he went to work in the coal mines in the part of Iowa
where he lived. In this line of usefulness he was employed, with a few
intermissions, until the spring of 1898. He then came to Colorado and, locating
in Grand Valley, found employment on the fruit farm of his cousin, James H.
Whitsell, whom he aided in planting twenty acres in fruit for an equal
partnership in the business. The orchard is now eight years old, and the crop of
1903 was two thousand four hundred boxes of apples, five hundred boxes of pears
and quantities of other fruit. The land belongs to James H. Whitsell and Charles
M. attends to the fruit business for his share in its products. He was married
on September 4, 1887, to Miss Blanche Harper, who was born and reared in
Appanoose county, Iowa. They have three children, Lloyd, Cora and Hallie. In
politics Mr. Whitsell is a Democrat and in fraternal life he belongs to the Odd
Fellows and the Modern Woodmen.
James H. Whitsell
James H. Whitsell was born in Pennsylvania on June 11, 1857. His father,
Lawrence Whitsell, was one of the pioneers of Appanoose county, Iowa, and took
up one of the first tracts of land homesteaded there. He passed the rest of his
days in the county, dying on his homestead in 1898. His son James came to this
state a number of years ago, and at once began to take an active part in its
industrial and commercial life. For twelve years he was employed by the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company, and for a long period of this time was one of the
company's superintendents. He located on his ranch in 1903. In politics he is an
active and zealous Democrat, and in the performance of all his duties as a
citizen he is faithful and enterprising. He is one of the esteemed ranchmen and
citizens of Mesa county, and is widely and favorably known in other lines of
industry.
Walter Winter
The life story of Walter Winter, of Mesa county, who is conducting a valuable
and profitable ranching and stock business on the George mesa, in Plateau
valley, is neither long nor eventful, but is a continuous narrative of devotion
to duty and good use of opportunities, elevated citizenship and faithful
performance of every useful task which it was properly his lot to do. He was
born on August 22, 1875, in the state of Kansas, and is the son of J.T. and Mary
(Clark) Winter, now living in the vicinity of Plateau valley, where they are
comfortably fixed on an excellent farm which yields abundant crops suitable to
the region and furnishes them sufficient occupation to employ their time and
faculties pleasantly and to advantage. The parents were born, reared, educated
and married in Indiana, and there they were profitably engaged in farming for a
period of twenty years. At the end of that time they moved to Kansas and later
to their present home in this state. Their son Walter grew to manhood in his
native state, remaining at home with his parents and assisting on the home farm
until he reached the age of twenty-three years, when he was married and set up
in life for himself. His marriage occurred in 1900 and was with Miss Amy
Cyphers, of Mesa county. They have two children, Ruth and Berdine, who help to
make their home bright and cheerful, and afford entertainment to their numerous
friends who find their hospitable roof an agreeable shelter from the cares and
toils of life from time to time. Mr. Winter is one of the younger farmers of his
section and is fully impressed with the responsibility resting upon him as a
representative of that class. He is doing what he can to meet his obligations in
this respect by conducting his own business along the lines of wholesome and
profitable development and aiding to guide the general affairs of the community
to their best and highest good for the welfare of the whole people. With youth,
health and energy on his side, and impelled by lofty ambition to continuous and
systematic usefulness, his career promises to be honorable and full of service
to the people among whom he has cast his lot.
R.C. Wise
The progressive and enterprising citizen of Mesa county, Colorado, to whom this
brief review is dedicated, and who lives on a good farm which he has brought to
a high state of cultivation and enriched with comfortable buildings, located
twelve miles east of Grand Junction, is a native of Ohio, born at Ashtabula in
1846, and the son of Cornelius and Betsy (Chatfield) Wise. The father was a
native of Pennsylvania and a carpenter by trade, and lived a life of useful
industry, portions of which were passed in his native state, Ohio, Illinois and
Missouri. He died in the last named state in 1872, at the age of sixty-four. The
mother, a native of Connecticut, died in 1868, at the age of forty-eight. Their
son, R.C. Wise, passed his boyhood in Ohio and Illinois to the age of thirteen.
In 1859 he accompanied his parents and the rest of the family to Missouri, where
he remained until 1862, when he enlisted in Company D, Twelfth Missouri
Infantry, in defense of the Union, and in that regiment he served to the close
of the war. He then went to California and for a number of years was employed in
driving stage in that state. Returning to Nebraska, he conducted a butchering
business and meat market for seven years, then moved to Leadville when the gold
excitement was at its height over that place. Some little time later he left
there and took up his residence in Grand valley on the ranch which has since
then been his home. During the Spanish-American war he enlisted for the
Philippines campaign in Company L, First Colorado Volunteers, for a term of two
years, and at the end of his term returned to his old Mesa county residence. He
was married in 1884 to Miss Lizzie Wallace, of Nebraska. She died in 1888,
leaving four children, Anna M., Laura B., James C. and Walter F., her age being
thirty-two years at the time of her death. Fraternally Mr. Wise is connected
with the Odd Fellows (Lodge No. 58, at Colorado Springs), the Red Men (Neago
Tribe, No. 38, at Lake City, Colorado), and the Knights of Pythias (Lodge No. 8,
at Salt Lake City, Utah).
John Wolf
John Wolf, of Mesa county, Colorado, a prosperous and successful farmer living
near the village of Snipes, who has been a resident of the state for thirty-one
years and of the county in which he now resides for ten years of that time, was
born in Fayette county, Ohio, in 1827, and is the son of Absalom and Rebecca
(Ireland) Wolf, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Maryland, where
her family had lived from colonial times. When their son John, who was the first
born of their six children, was about five years old, the family moved to
Indiana and engaged in farming, the occupation in which the father had been
engaged in his former home. He died in Indiana when he was about forty years of
age. The mother lived until about 1880, when she passed away at the age of
eighty years. John grew to manhood and was educated in Indiana, remaining with
his mother until he was twenty-one, then starting out in life for himself as a
farmer, the pursuit to which he had been bred, and following this until the
beginning of the Civil war. He then enlisted in the Union army as a member of
the Ninth Indiana Infantry, Company G, for a term of three years. He saw active
service during most of this term and at its end, having escaped unhurt amid the
deluge of death in which he was often placed, he obeyed the last call for
volunteers and again enlisted, this time in Company H, One Hundred and
Fifty-first Indiana Infantry, his term of service being for the war, as it was
manifest it could not last a great while longer. After the close of the awful
conflict, he took up his residence in Nebraska, and during the next seven years
was one of the progressive farmers of that state. He then came to Colorado, and
for fifteen years was engaged in the same pursuit in Larimer county, this state.
From Larimer he moved to Mesa county in 1894 and located where he now lives,
where he has since resided. He was married in 1854 to Miss Maria King, and they
have had eleven children, Hannah, Jackson, Marian, Lizzie, Myrtle, Sadie, Ida,
Henry (deceased at the age of two years), Ernest and Emory.
Henry G. Wurtz
Henry G. Wurtz, of Mesa county, who lives on a fertile and well improved farm
not far from the city of Grand Junction, is actively engaged in the cultivation
of fine fruit, an industry that is a leading one in its way in that section, and
has helped to make it well and widely known in all parts of a large scope of
territory. And while his efforts in this line are of comparatively recent
origin, they have been rewarded with a very gratifying success and prosperity.
He brought to the business an intelligence and technical knowledge gained in an
extensive and judicious observation, and has followed it with a vigor and
judgment bound to command success under almost any conditions at all favorable
to the work. Mr. Wurtz was born in 1845, at Louisville, Kentucky, the son of
Godfrey and Elizabeth (Basler) Wurtz, natives of Germany, who came to the United
States soon after their marriage and settled at Louisville, where they had a
family of four children, their son Henry being the first born. His mother died
when he was about six years old, and he was thus early left to himself for
training and proper preparation for the battle of life, in which he was also
obliged to engaged at an early age. He grew to manhood in his native city, and
after brief and irregular attendance at the public schools owing to the
circumstances of the family, was apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade,
which he mastered and then followed it in connection with contracting and
building at Louisville until 1880. He then moved to Kansas where he remained a
year working at his trade. At the end of that time he came to Colorado and went
into the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad, remaining in that service three months
until the line was completed to Pueblo. A few days later he joined the force
that was building the road to Bridgeport, and after that was finished came to
Grand Junction and went to work for the Mormons to aid in building a road for
them to State Line. This contract being completed, he settled down at Grand
Junction and began to work regularly at his business as a contractor and
builder, finding his services much in demand under the spirit of progress and
development then pushing forward the growth of the town. He also engaged in the
ice business and in bottling soda water, which he followed for eight years, at
the end of which he leased his plant and good will and retired from active
commercial life in all those lines and began to devote himself to the occupation
in which he is now pleasantly engaged, settling for the purpose on land located
on the bank of the Grand river, and there winning from the waste his present
attractive and fruitful home called Grove Park Orchard, on which he has
developed a fruit industry of good proportions and high grade. His place is well
improved, and all that it shows as the result of careful and skillful husbandry
is the work of his own enterprise. His products are peaches, apples, apricots,
pears and cherries, but he also produces in large quantities excellent varieties
of cantaloupes. Mr. Wurtz was married in 1892 to Miss Louisa La Gard, a native
of Louisiana. He has been active in advancing the interests of fruit culture in
every way, combining for mutual benefit the efforts of those engaged in it by
organizing the Fruit Grower's Association through which the literature of the
industry has been brought prominently to the attention of the members, and their
own experience and observations have been made serviceable in a forceful way.
Arlie B. Yeaton
Born and reared in Franklin county, Maine, farming and raising stock and also
merchandising for years in Nebraska, and now raising fruit extensively and
profitably in Colorado, Arlie B. Yeaton, of Mesa county, living three and
one-half miles east of Grand Junction, has had a wide and varied experience in
the longitudes, climates and farming conditions in this country, but his natural
adaptability and readiness of resourcefulness has made him equal to them all and
successful in all. His life began on August 14, 1862, in Franklin county, Maine,
and he is the son of Elias and Sarah (Stoddard) Yeaton, natives of the same
county, where the father was a farmer. In 1883 the family moved to Burt county,
Nebraska, but nine years afterward the parents returned to Maine where the
mother died within a short time after their arrival at their old home, and there
the father is still living. Their family comprises six sons and one daughter and
all the sons are living. Arlie was the second born of the family. He was reared
in his native state and there received a common-school education. He remained at
home until he was twenty-one years old, then accompanied his parents to
Nebraska, where a year later he rented land and carried on a general farming
industry in Burt county, continuing his expectations in this line eleven years
except one, during which he was in the stock business and one which he passed in
a store at Omaha. In the spring of 1894 he came to this state and located in
Mesa county, having purchased twenty acres of raw land the year previous in that
county with a view to converting it into a fruit farm. In the spring of 1895 he
built a dwelling on this land and planted the whole twenty acres in fruit trees.
He then had the usual experience of waiting for the trees to bear without income
except from hard work in other capacities. For seven years he worked at various
places and kinds of employment in the valley, but when the orchard began to bear
his labor and his long patience was amply rewarded. In 1902 he had one thousand
nine hundred boxes of apples, besides other fruit from his trees and realized
over one thousand one hundred dollars of net profit from the yield. In 1903 his
crop was three thousand one hundred and fifty boxes of apples, two thousand
eight hundred and forty boxes of which graded fancy, four tons of prunes and
three hundred boxes of pears, and his net profits for the year were two thousand
three hundred dollars from the crop. The prospects for a large increase in these
figures for coming years are very good. On December 5, 1888, Mr. Yeaton was
married to Miss Hattie R. Wright, a native of Lewis county, New York, and
daughter of John W. and Mariette (Loomis) Wright, both natives of New York, the
former of Lewis county and the latter of Jefferson county. The father was a
farmer and a railroad man, and for four years during the last administration of
President Grant he was doorkeeper of the United States house of representatives
at Washington. In 1881 he and his family moved to Burt county, Nebraska, where
he died on his farm on November 6, 1895. Since then Mrs. Wright has been making
her home with her daughter, Mrs. Yeaton. Mr. and Mrs. Yeaton have two children,
Gladys W. and Grace C., twelve and ten years old, respectively. Mr. Yeaton is a
Republican in politics, and a member of the United Workmen and the Modern
Woodmen in fraternal circles. He and his wife belong to the Methodist Episcopal
church at Grand Junction.
January 2002
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