History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado by J. Harrison Mills.  Chicago: O. L. Baskin & Co., 1881.

Submitted by Joy Fisher (Dec08) 

This gentleman is the present County Judge of Pueblo County. He was born in St. Louis, Mo., November 12, 1848. When three years of age his parents moved to Edwardsville, Ill., where he was raised. He was educated principally at Shurtleff College, Alton, Ill. When but fifteen years old, in 1863, he left school and came West. Arriving first at Trinidad, Colo., he went from there to Elizabethtown, New Mexico, where he followed gulch-mining about a year. Subsequently, for a number of years, he was connected with enterprises at various places. He was interested in a saw-mill near Trinidad about two years. He had mining interests at different points, and spent much of his time in traveling over the West. In 1868, he assisted in starting the Colorado Chieftain, now a flourishing newspaper at Pueblo, Colo. He was married at Trinidad, Colo., January 10, 1870, to Miss Fannie T. Doyle, a daughter of J. B. Doyle. In the spring of 1870, he and his brother-in-law, James Doyle, opened a wholesale grocery store and auction and commission house at Trinidad. In 1871, disposing of his business at Trinidad, Mr. Berry settled upon Doyle's ranch, in Pueblo County, where he lived about five years. During the time, he held the office of Justice of the Peace. In 1876, having met with financial reverses, Mr. Berry disposed of his remaining property and removed to Pueblo, where he has since resided. He has long figured in the local politics of Pueblo County, and has held the position of assistant in the different county offices at Pueblo. In the fall of 1877, he ran for County Judge on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated. He ran the second time in 1880, and was elected by a nice majority. The office he now fills with honor and ability, to the satisfaction of his constituency. The Judge is strong in his political convictions, and ever sanguine of the success of his party.  

We have rarely ever noted the career of a man so peculiarly his own, not only in originality of mind and general characteristics, but in point of history and varied experience as Judge A. A. Bradford. Being originally from Maine, he has lived respectively in four other States- Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado-in each of which he has held office and been more or less connected with public affairs. He was born in Friendship, Me., July 23, 1815, at which place he was reared, and received an academic education. In 1841, he emigrated to Missouri, locating at Atchison County, where he afterward studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1843. He was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court at Atchison, in 1845, which position he held five years. He was married at St. Joseph, Mo., November 1, 1849, to Miss Emiline Cowles. In 1851, he removed to Iowa, and the following year was appointed Judge of the Sixth Judicial District of that State. In 1855, resigning his Judgeship, he removed to the Territory of Nebraska. He was a member of the Legislative Council of Nebraska in 1856-57-58. Leaving that Territory in 1860, he settled in Colorado, locating at Central City. He removed from Central to Pueblo, in 1862, at which place he has since made his home. He was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Colorado Territory in 1862, which office he filled with ability and with honor until his election to the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States in 1864. He represented Colorado in Congress two terms, being elected the second time in 1868. In Congress he stood up well among his peers and feared not to assert the rights of his constituents. During his first term, and while at Washington, the assassination of President Lincoln occurring, he was placed upon the National Committee appointed to accompany the remains of Lincoln to Illinois. Upon returning from his last session in Congress, in 1871, Judge Bradford resumed his practice at Pueblo. Since then he has preferred the more private walks of life and has devoted his exclusive and untiring energies to the duties of his profession. He is the present County Attorney of the county of Pueblo. Many interesting incidents are related of Judge Bradford, especially when referring to his pioneer life, but space will not here admit them. His remarkably retentive memory has secured for him an almost inexhaustible store of reminiscences, historical data and general information, so that his mind is a perfect encyclopedia-a reference book, so to speak-for all those who know him. Few men are better posted in the law than he, and his opinions upon legal questions are very highly regarded. Although the silver tints of life's winter are plainly visible about the Judge's head, yet he is active and vigorous and seems to have lost none of his native vivacity. Long may he yet live. 

Mr. Ink was born in Luzerne County, Penn. His mother's death necessitated his being raised by her parents, and he was accordingly put under their care. By them he was sent to school winters till he was fifteen, and from fifteen till he was twenty, was kept at work on their farm. Mechanism came natural to him, and, without serving an apprenticeship, he took up carpentry and followed it successfully for five years. He went to Lawrence, Kan., when he was twenty-seven, and worked in a saw-mill, afterward buying a mill and sawing lumber in several counties in the State. In partnership with others, he has owned two sawmills on the divide, Colorado, and sawed many million feet of lumber there. One of those mills he moved to Bergan's Park, near Pike's Peak, and, in connection with it, opened a lumber-yard and set up a planing-mill in South Pueblo. He dissolved partnership with his partners in 1873, taking the lumber-yard and planing-mill as part of his interest in the property. He sold the lumber yard and planing-mill in 1878, and has been engaged exclusively in building and contracting from then to the present time. Mr. Ink is the owner of much town property, residences and lots, and is considered a wealthy man. He is Justice of the Peace and Police Magistrate, and has gained more popularity by his willingness to accommodate than he can ever gain through moneyed and official positions.

Mr. McMurtry is a well-known lawyer of South Pueblo. He was born in Hardin County, Ky., November 27, 1848. He attended school at Litchfield, Ky., and when sixteen years of age he quit school and began clerking in a store. He studied law at the same time, and when twenty-one years of age, in 1869, was admitted to the bar at Elizabethtown. At the age of twenty-three, he was elected Judge of the Police Court of Elizabethtown, which office he held two years. Mr. McMurtry's health began to fail during his term of office, and he continued to decline until 1875, when, in the fall of that year, hoping to be restored by the salubrious climate of Colorado, he came West. He spent several months in the mountains, and, in spring of 1876, located at South Pueblo, where, his health being much improved, he has since resided and practiced his profession. Besides doing a good law business, he is now dealing considerably in real estate.

The subject of this sketch is descended from one of the oldest families of Pennsylvania. His ancestors came from Ireland to America in 1732, and settled in Pennsylvania. Their descendants have become quite numerous, and are now among the prominent people of the State. David C. Montgomery was born in Northumberland County, Penn., March 20, 1833. He received his education in the high school at Wyoming, Penn. In 1855, he went to Minnesota, where he entered a body of land and engaged in farming. He was married, at St. Paul, Minn., in 1855. In 1864, he returned to his old home in Pennsylvania, where he lived for years and pursued farming, until coming West, in 1877. In November of that year, he located at Pueblo, Colo., where he has since resided. Mr. Montgomery has been liberal in investing his means. He now owns much valuable property at Pueblo, having himself erected a number of buildings.

GEN. R. M. STEVENSON. About twenty years previous to the outbreak of the war of independence, George Stevenson, Edward Shippen and John Armstrong were appointed His Most Gracious Majesty George the Second's Judges of the Courts of Quarter Sessions, and general jail delivery for the counties of York, Lancaster and Cumberland, in the province of Pennsylvania. George Stevenson, an Irish barrister, and an LL.D. of Dublin University, was the great-grandfather of the subject of the present sketch, and the first of the family who settled in America. When the colonies threw off their allegiance to the British Crown, Judge Stevenson, then a resident of Carlisle, Penn., became an ardent patriot, was Chairman of the Committee of Safety in his section, and was marked by the British Government as on arch rebel. His son, George Stevenson, Jr., became an officer in the Revolutionary army, and served during the entire war. During the whisky insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, about the close of the last century, George Stevenson left his home in Carlisle, in that State, as Major of a regiment of State troops sent there to restore order. He foresaw the coming greatness of Pittsburgh, and settled there; was President of a branch of the Bank of the United States located at that point for many years, and was also Chief Burgess and first Mayor of the city. His son, Thomas Collins Stevenson, M. D., returned to Carlisle, at which town Raymond M. Stevenson was born, March 4, 1840. At the age of sixteen, he commenced his career as a journalist, his first work in the profession being a report of a political meeting in the campaign of 1856. He was educated at Dickinson College, in his native town, and after trying several other professions, returned to his first love, and settled down to journalism. After serving in the quartermaster's department of the army during the early years of the war, he was obliged to return home with a constitution badly shattered by typhoid fever. In 1863, he was appointed by President Lincoln Vice Consul at Sheffield, England, where he remained until 1866. Resigning his position, he returned to the United States and to journalism. In the summer of 1868, the attractions of Colorado became too strong to be resisted, and the subject of our sketch joined the army of emigrants bound for the Rocky Mountain region. After remaining in Denver for a few months, he removed to Pueblo, and was connected with the Colorado Chieftain for nearly twelve years (with the exception of a few brief interruptions), the last six years as managing editor. In 1879, he was appointed by Gov. Pitkin one of the Commissioners of the State Insane Asylum at Pueblo, which position he resigned in April, 1880, to accept that of Private Secretary to the Governor. The latter position he resigned in the fall of the same year to take a situation on the Denver Tribune, which he was obliged to resign on account of illness. Upon the meeting of the General Assembly of the State in January, 1881, he was unanimously elected Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, and at the close of the session appointed Adjutant General of the State. Gen. Stevenson was married in Pueblo, in 1871, to Susan C., eldest daughter of Rev. Samuel Edwardes, then Rector of St. Peter's Church in that city.  

William W. Strait

He whose name forms the caption of this history was born April 3, 1839, in Sylvania Township, near Troy, in Bradford County, Penn., on his father's farm. When he was seven years old, his father moved to Centerville, Lake County, Ind.; two years after, to Pleasant Grove; and, in 1852, being elected Sheriff, he moved to Crown Point, the county seat, where he engaged in the mercantile business, and attended to the duties of his office. In 1855, he sold his business, and bought 1,000 head of stock cattle, and moved to Scott County, Minn. William W. was then sixteen; he had clerked a short time at Crown Point and at Shakopee. An opportunity to break prairie land at a price he could lay up considerable money occurring, he broke from 1855 till 1858. His school advantages were not the best, but he made the most of them, and observation and study after leaving school has made him a business scholar. He again began clerking, in 1859, for his father, and remained with him until 1862. At the residence of his bride's father, eight miles from Shakopee, with Miss Amanda Hawkins, he entered into a contract of marriage, June 18, 1861. He had saved, in 1862, enough capital to do business for himself. Jordan, in the same county, was selected by him as a place where merchandise could be turned fast and with profit. He opened a general merchandise store there, and sold it in 1864, to start a livery, which he continued in till 1867. In partnership with his brother, the Hon. H. B. Strait, who was sent to Congress from the Second Congressional District of Minnesota, in 1872, he recommenced merchandising at Jordan, and sold goods there till 1876, when he and his brother sold their store, and he came to South Pueblo. He was appointed Postmaster at Jordan, Sand Creek Post Office, in 1862. One of the most exciting times of his life took place that year, in August, when Yellow Medicine and Red Wood Agencies were massacred by Indians, and Fort Ridgely besieged. For safety, he sent his family to the county seat, then left his business in charge of a boy clerk, and joined a company of mounted Independents, made up mostly of business men, and went to the relief of the fort. They scouted from Henderson to St. Peter, in advance of the volunteers, made a short halt at the latter place waiting for ammunition, and in face of expected ambush, pushed on through the ravines to Fort Ridgely. All the settlers west of the fort were killed, and he witnessed a spectacle of the mutilation of the dead as is seen only where Indians have been on the war-path and held might in their grasp. The Indians were apprised of the coming of the company, and left the imprisoned defenders of the fort to peacefully and joyfully welcome the arrival of the would-be self-sacrificing company who had saved them from massacre. Hearing of the beneficial effect the climate of Colorado has on invalids, he accepted of the verdict of the many, and brought his invalid wife to the State, without even first making the journey to ascertain if the reports were corroborated by the cure of those who had preceded him. Like hundreds of others had done, she gained her health, and rather than risk a change, he bought the Grand Central Hotel, one of the largest in the city, intending to make Colorado the future home of himself and family. In the spring of 1878, he leased the hotel to a renter, and spent the summer visiting relatives and friends in Washington, D. C., returning to Colorado in the fall. He has built four cottages in "The Grove," and was one of the projectors of the mineral-water artesian well, and is now, by developing the mineral resources of the State, attesting his readiness to increase the wealth of the State as much as his has been increased by it.

George J. Stumpf, secretary and manager of the Dixon-Stumpf Bottling Company, conducting business in Pueblo, was born in Denver, Colorado, on the 29th of October, 1867, a son of Lorenz and Elizabeth (Schachtel) Stumpf, who were married in St. Joseph, Missouri, and who in 1867 removed to Denver, where the father established business as a brewer. He continued active along that line until his death, which occurred July 15, 1887. He is still survived by his widow. Their family numbered three children, including two daughters.

George J. Stumpf. the eldest of the family, was educated in the old Arapahoe street school of Denver and in the University of Denver, in which be completed a business course as a member of the class of 1885., He then took up the brewing business in Pueblo, the family having removed from Denver to Pueblo in the year 1881. He was active in that business until legislative enactment caused the state to go dry. In March, 1916, he assisted in organizing the Dixon-Stumpf Bottling Company, which was incorporated in December of the same year and established at its present place of business on the 1st of January, 1917. They employ six men in the manufacture of soft drinks, which are shipped to all points in the valley, and their business has grown rapidly in two years, increasing two hundred and fifty per cent, so that the company is now conducting a very profitable and growing enterprise.

On the 30th of April. 1891, Mr. Stumpf was married to Miss Mary J. Koch and to them have been born three children: Inez E., Mona I. and Frances J. In politics Mr. Stumpf is a republican and fraternally is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Woodmen of the World, the Improved Order of Red Men and the United Commercial Travelers. He is greatly interested in the state and its development. Born in Denver, he was never outside the boundaries of Colorado until he was forty years of age and his interest has always centered here and he has put forth active and effective work for the general good. He and his family reside at No. 713 West Abriendo avenue and are widely known in Pueblo, where Mr. Stumpf has made his home since 1881.  

Thomas J. Tarsney

Mr. Tarsney's history is interesting. He is the son of a blacksmith and was born in the small village of Medina, Lenawee Co., Mich., September 16, 1842. To do a larger business than he was doing in Medina, his father changed his residence to Ransom, Hillsdale Co., in 1854, removing his son from the place of his birth at an early age, and just as he was becoming of an age to appreciate a birthplace's happy and sacred associations. He lived at Ransom. working on a farm, excepting the first three winters, which were spent at school, till he was nineteen. At the first call of the United States in 1861, for volunteers, he enlisted for three months, in Company E, Fort Wayne Rifles, Indiana Volunteers, and was discharged at the close of his term of enlistment at Fort Wayne. That was a prelude to the life which was admirably adapted to his nature and which he was destined to follow six years, in a war which was second to few, if any, which have been waged on the globe. Two of his brothers were in Company E, Fourth Michigan Volunteers, and to be with them he went to Washington where their regiment was, and joined their company, enlisting for three years. Fighting was "the order of the day" with the Fourth and he began a soldier's life in earnest shortly after his enlistment. Gaines' Mill was the first battle in which he was engaged. In the Peninsular campaign he took part in the battles of Savage Station, White Oak Swamp and the big battle of Malvern Hill. He was at Bull Run, but not in the fight. In McClellan's command he marched against Lee in Maryland and was in the fight of Antietam, and at Mayre's Heights in the Fredericksburg campaign. Under Hooker, he fought at Chancellorville. Winter quarters were endured on the Rappahannock. In the spring of 1865, he joined the veteran organization, and received a thirty-day furlough, which he used by going to Michigan on a visit. When he returned from his visit, the command of the Army of the Potomac had been given to Gen. Meade and with his amassed forces he marched into Maryland and carried the colors of the company at Gettysburg and in the chase of the confederates into Virginia. After the re-organization of the army under Gen. Grant, he was wounded by a ball in the shoulder-blade at the battle of the Wilderness, on the 6th of May, and did not again join his company till fall, but in time to be in the fights of Yellow House Tavern and Gravely Run. Only two companies of the old Fourth veteranized; they served with the First Michigan, and at the close of the war were ordered to join their own regiment, Col. Jairus W. Hall commanding, which had been fighting in Tennessee and was on its way to Texas. He overtook his regiment at New Orleans, and with it went to San Antonio. There he resigned the office of Orderly Sergeant, to which he had been elected by his company in 1864, to accept of the appointment of Orderly on the Colonel's Staff. The mustering-out of the United States service, of this regiment and his return to Hudson, Mich., occurred in the summer of 1865. He and Miss Lucy A. Smith were married May 8, 1866. From that date he began railroading; first as fireman on the Wabash Railroad, being promoted to engineer in three years, and given an engine on the Michigan Central Railroad, which he ran two years. He then took an engine on the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad; then one on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, which he ran till 1878. Taking an active part in the great railroad strike of that year, he was imprisoned at Topeka until the trouble was over. Since his release, he has run an engine on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and one on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. At the present time, he is proprietor of the Clifton House, South Pueblo, Colo., and does a fair share of the general hotel business, besides receiving an extra share of the patronage of railroad men.

Dr. Pembroke R. Thombs

This gentleman is well-known in Southern Colorado and throughout the State as an eminent physician, and the present Superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane at Pueblo. He was born at Yarmouth, Me., in 1840, and received his education principally at Waterville College. In the spring of 1859, he went to Chicago, Ill., and there attended lectures at Rush Medical College, graduating in the spring of 1862. Soon after receiving his diploma, he entered the United States Army, becoming Assistant Surgeon of the Eighty-ninth Illinois Infantry. In the spring of 1864, he was promoted to Surgeon of the regiment, and continued as such to the close of the war. In June, 1865, his regiment being mustered out, Dr. Thombs returned to Chicago, and soon afterward he received from the Government a staff appointment as Surgeon of United States Volunteers; was assigned to Murfreesboro, Tenn., as Post Surgeon, and he remained there until June, 1866, when, again quitting the service, he returned on a visit to his old home in Maine. In July following, he came to Colorado, and about the middle of August located at Pueblo, where he has since resided, practicing his profession with eminent success. He was married at Pueblo September 30, 1871, to a Miss Shaw. On May 1, 1879, Dr. Thombs was appointed, by the Governor, Superintendent and Resident Physician of the Hospital for the Insane at Pueblo, which position he has since continued to fill to the entire satisfaction of the State. The institution is one of the most important in the State, and under the vigilant eye and careful management of Dr. Thombs, it is steadily improving. The last Legislature made an appropriation of $55,000 for new buildings, which are now being erected, and which, when completed, will prove a notable credit to the commonwealth.

Edgar A. Tibbetts

Edgar A. Tibbetts was born at Brookfield, Carroll County, New Hampshire, December 8, 1848; but Wisconsin, where he was moved at the age of six years, is entitled to the credit of being the State in which he did his studying. He early developed an insatiable love for the study of languages and mathematics, and in whatever situation, under favorable or unfavorable circumstances, he has been placed in life, he has not failed to add to his knowledge of his favorite studies. He began the study of German at fourteen years of age, without an instructor, and is now the master of seventeen different languages-among them Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit. He was a student of Ripon College, but left it before graduating. After beginning life for himself, he followed various occupations-teaching, clerking in a lumber-yard, farming, and finally commencing business at Ida Grove, by dealing in farming implements and grain, which he discontinued in 1880, to come to Colorado. He founded the Conejos County Times, disposing of which, he bought the South Pueblo Banner of A. J. Patrick, and is now the able editor of the latter-named paper. He is a close student, and familiar with the works of many of the great authors of the world.

Capt. Wood F. Townsend

It does not require many years for a man of enterprise and merit to become established in the "growing West." Although Capt. Townsend has lived in Colorado not quite three years, yet he is prominently known, and has become identified with many of the important interests of South Pueblo. He was born in New York City May 3, 1841. When five years of age, his parents moved to Pennsylvania, and settled at Minequa Springs, where he was raised and educated. He enlisted in the Federal army when nineteen years of age, and served through the late war. He was in many of the famous battles in Virginia, was wounded at Antietam, and afterward detailed upon Gen. Schenck's staff. He was also for a time Enrolling Clerk for Gen. Wallace. He was mustered out of the service in 1864, but entered the army again in a few months, having organized a company, of which he became
Captain in the One Hundred and Ninety-sixth Ohio. After the war, Capt. Townsend continued his law studies, in which he had already made some progress, and was admitted to the bar on his birthday in 1866. Soon afterward, he located at Danville, Ill., and then began the practice of law, living at that place continuously for about twelve years. In 1878, his health failing, Capt. Townsend decided to come West, and in November of that year he located at Pueblo. In May following, he began the practice of law, which he has since continued with eminent success. He assisted in organizing the South Pueblo Water Company, and is now the company's Superintendent. Was one of the incorporators of the Pueblo Street Railway, and is now a member of the Board of Directors and Attorney for the company. He is City Attorney for South Pueblo, and is also Local Attorney for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, Capt. Townsend has been twice married. He was unfortunate in losing his first wife and children by death in Illinois, and was married to his present wife in November, 1878.

Mr. Walley was born September 5, 1837, near the city of Albany, Albany Co., N. Y., and worked on a farm and at the butcher's trade until he was nineteen, except a part of four winters when he was sent to school. Successful farming and speculation in stock, cattle and sheep, at home, occupied his time from his nineteenth year up to his twenty-eighth. Discontinuing farming and dealing in stock, in 1860, he learned masonry in Chicago, and either with the trowel in hand, or contracting to furnish material for buildings or to build them, he has worked at his trade ever since, all but two years of speculation in horses in Topeka, Kansas, and Denver and South Pueblo, Colorado, to which places he shipped many carloads of horses and realized a "margin" on them. On the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad, he did masonry in 1868, 1869 and 1870. The breaking-up of his camp by Indians on the latter road, terminated his railroading, and the fall of 1872, after his stock speculating in Topeka and Denver, witnessed his arrival in South Pueblo with two car-loads of American horses, and the exchanging of them for town property. Two years of work at his trade in South Pueblo, during dull times, resulted in his looking elsewhere for work, and the taking of a contract to build the Malta Smelter, at Malta, Lake County, and the burning by him of the first brick burnt in California Gulch. Returning to South Pueblo in December, he worked a year, and again went to Malta, and burned 40,000 bushels of coal for the Malta Smelting Company. South Pueblo was to be his home, and 1878 found him within its limits completing the Walley Block, a building 50x125 feet, occupied on the ground floor by a wholesale and retail grocery, above by room renters and the Masonic lodge, and which brings him in a monthly rent of several hundred dollars. Contracting to furnish stone from a valuable stone quarry he owns, brick from a brick-yard in which he manufactures a million bricks every month, and to build buildings of any dimension is now done by him on a scale which astonishes. He has on hand and will complete them this month, July, 1881, contracts to build four wholesale houses for H. L. Holden, the large new round-house for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, the Alexander & Beacham Block, Holden Brothers Bank Block, Moore & Carlile Opera House (nearly finished), a store for L. McLaughlin, the Masonic Temple and the Baptist Church on the mesa; and residences each for Rev. Mr. Tompkins, Daniel Kellen and J. N. Kline. He was a member of the South Pueblo Council in 1878-79, elected Mayor of the city April, 1880, and re-elected in 1881.

Edward W. Wells

Edward W. Wells is superintendent of the Colorado Free Employment Agency at Pueblo, in which connection he is doing an important work in bringing together those who need assistants and those who need positions in the business world. Cities are fast coming to realize the importance of such work as a preventive of vagrancy and a factor in the promotion of that industry which makes for substantial and honorable citizenship and manhood.

Mr. Wells is a native of Pomeroy, Kansas. He was born April 5, 1873, a son of William and Alice (Cullison) Wells, and the family removed to Pueblo on the 22d of September, 1875. The father was employed as a sawyer in a sawmill here from that date until 1881. He continued to make his home in Pueblo until his death, which occurred in October. 1884, and his wife has also passed away.

Edward W. Wells pursued his education in the public schools and the Central high school of Pueblo and afterward took up the study of stenography, being employed in that way for a short time. He then turned to mechanical pursuits, becoming a machinist, after which he engaged in railroad work and later as fireman and engineer on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad for eight years. He afterward resumed work at the machinist's trade, then became a clerk in Fred Mullett's cigar store, and subsequently was called to public office, being made deputy county clerk, a position which he filled for five and a half years. He afterward spent two years in the city engineer's department. On the 20th of January, 1917, he was appointed to the position of superintendent of the Colorado Free Employment Agency for a two years' term and is making an excellent record in this position. He has closely studied conditions and his work is proving highly satisfactory. This is a state position, his appointment coming from Denver. On May 1, 1918, he was also made an examiner of the United States Free Employment service, which is run on a cooperative plan. The office is a tangible evidence of the fact that the state is closely studying sociological and economic conditions and putting forth every effort for individual and public benefit.

On the 10th of June, 1893, Mr. Wells was united in marriage to Miss May O. George, of Pueblo, and they have a son, Frederic C. The parents are members of the Congregational church and Mr. Wells is identified with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Junior Order of United American Workmen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen and the Order of Railway Engineers, and is a member of the Southern Colorado Pioneers Association. His political endorsement is given to the democratic party, which finds in him a stanch advocate. He stands for all the progressive forces of the community and is interested in everything that is a matter of civic virtue and civic pride.

Christopher Wilson

Mr. Wilson was of Irish parentage. He was born in Kanawha County, Va., in 1847. When ten years of age, his parents moved to Kansas and settled on a farm near Louisburg. He received a common school education and pursued farming until 1872. In that year he came to Colorado. For about two years he was engaged in the lumber business, in the employ of S. P. Gutshall, at and above Colorado Springs. In 1874, he came to Pueblo and took charge of a lumber-yard for Mr. Gutshall, in which capacity he continued about two years. From October, 1876, to January, 1880, he held the office of Police Justice in South Pueblo. He was also City Clerk and Treasurer of South Pueblo from April, 1877, to April, 1879. In January, 1880, he became Deputy County Treasurer under Mr. Carlile, which position he still holds. Mr. Wilson is now popularly known, and well established in the confidence of his fellow-citizens. He was married at Pueblo June 17, 1879, to Miss Emma R. Divelbliss.