Tales of the Colorado Pioneers. Alice Polk Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ minister, who

      was kindly tendered

      a saloon to hold

      divine service in.

      The house was filled

      with the old and

      young, the giddy

      and sedate, the pious and the dissolute. The good man took his stand in front of the bar, and preached from the text, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

       Behind him were bottles and glasses in glittering array, and placards adorned the walls,reading, “no trust,” “pay as you go,” “25 cts. a drink.”

      LOYALTY. 65

       The minister gave a kind and loving lecture, presenting Christ as the cup and the loaf to refresh the Christian soldier and guide him to the new Jerusalem.

       Even those who were inclined to laugh at the incongru¬ ity of the scene, bowed in holy reverence to receive the benediction.

       Rev. J. H. Kehler arrived in Denver from Virginia on the 17th of January, 1860, and established St. John’s Church in the wilderness.

       One gloomy, stormy Sunday morning there were only two persons in the church, Mr. Amos Steck and Col. J. H. Dudley. They thought of course they would be dismissed without a sermon, but Father Kehler, equal to the situation, selected the text, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be, in the midst of them,” and thereupon preached an excellent sermon.

      CHAPTER XV.

      LOYAL TO THE GOVERNMENT.

       In the spring of 1861 the Territory of Colorado was organized. President Lincoln immediately appointed William Gilpin its first Governor, in recognition of his services as an explorer of the “great West.” The people of Denver set about to receive their distinguished executive with every manifestation of pleasure and respect in their power.

       To Judge H. P. Bennett was assigned the honor of mak¬ ing the reception speech. To give greater tone to the affair a platform was erected in front of the Tremont house, West Denver, where the reception was to be held,

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      66 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.

      and a large anvil, in lieu of a cannon, was loaded for a welcoming salute. In due time the Governor and his escort, in a spring wagon, which was newly painted and gaily decorated for the occasion, drew up in front of the orator. The Governor thrust his hand in the breast of his closely buttoned coat and assumed, from force of habit, a dignified and striking attitude.

       Bennett had prepared a real old-fashioned spread eagle speech, full of solid rhapsodies on our Italian climate and exhilerating atmosphere. But, just as he had launched out with “fellow citizens,” the cannon went off, whether by accident or in a spirit of mischief, was never known; but it certainly did “ spread itself ” in the effort to make its presence known, and gave the speaker a mightier “send-off” than was expected or desired. The enthusiastic crowd scattered in every direction, and the orator was so stunned that he forgot what came next, or what he was there for.

       This, mind you, occurred about the beginning of the war. A majority of the people of Colorado were loyal to the Government. A better illustration cannot be cited than that related by Judge Wilbur F. Stone: “Soon after the Territorial organization, two young men, who had been working for a miner at Gold Run, in Summit county, stole a large quantity of gold dust from their employer. They were pursued, captured, brought back to the gulch, tried by a ‘ miners’ court ’ and sentenced to be hanged. In the meantime A. C. Hunt, then United States Marshal for the district of Colorado, learned of the affair while passing through Park county in charge of some prisoners, and at once dispatched to me a warrant for the arrest of the culprits, sending me, at the same

      LOYALTY. 67

      time, a commission as deputy to execute the warrant. I was then at Buckskin Joe, in Park county, and mounting my horse rode with all speed over the range twenty miles to Gold Run, which I reached just as the crowd of nearly a thousand miners had gathered to see the execution.

       “Under a pine tree two graves had been dug, and beside them was placed a wagon upon which the two condemned criminals were standing with ropes noosed about their necks and fastened to a limb of the tree above, looking down upon their open graves, and waiting the signal when the wagon should be drawn from under them. A hollow square of men, with loaded rifles, inclosed the wagon.

       “ I jumped upon a pine log and harangued the crowd, urging them to allow the prisoners a trial in the Territorial courts. The people feared an -escape and were inflexible. The crisis had come. Suddenly breaking through the guard, and leaping upon the wagon, I claimed the criminals as my prisoners.

       “Instantly every rifle of the guard was leveled at me. Snatching the warrant from my pocket I held it up, showing the seal and the American eagle on the corner, and commenced in a loud voice to read the formal printed mandate of the warrant. ‘The President of the United States to the Marshal of Colorado, greeting: You are hereby commanded to take the bodies of—’ I got no farther with the reading than this, for those words were no sooner uttered than a voice in the crowd shouted: ‘ Boys, we can’t resist the President of the United States. Hurrah for Abe Lincoln! ’ The crowd echoed the cheer, ‘ Hurrah for Abe Lincoln ! ’ A serio-comic mixture of the sublime and the

      68 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.

      ludicrous. Immediately the guns of the guard were brought to a ‘present arms.’ With my camp knife I cut the ropes which bound the prisoners, pushed them before me through the crowd, remounted my horse, and, accompanied by a single assistant—a staunch fellow named Bill Burdett, who is now a faithful guard at the State penitentiary at Conon City—marched back across the mountains in the night, by a lonely trail, and sent the prisoners to Denver, where they were tried, convicted and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary at Alton, Illinois.

       “And so were the foundations of law and order laid by the pioneers. When they were without Territorial organization each separate community was an independent sovereignty, with a democracy as pure as was that of Greece, and a republic as potent as was that of Rome.”

       Soon after the Governor’s arrival in Colorado, he issued a call for a regiment of volunteer troops, with which to hold the Territory for the Union. In a few weeks one thousand men from the mountains and the glens rallied around him, in appearance a motley concourse, clad in all the odd fashions ever seen in a new and mountain district, and armed with such guns as the Governor had been able to purchase from individual owners—old rifles, shot-guns, old muskets, and anything, indeed, that resembled a firearm. But the loyalty and courage of these men saved the Union cause in Colorado and New Mexico, and well earned the uniforms and approved rifles with which they were afterwards supplied at Fort Union. Pressing southward, they met Sibley’s force and drove it back into Texas. This is claimed to be the first decisive victory won by the Government in the war for the Union.

      CHAPTER XVI.

      FIRE AND FLOOD.

       On the 19th СКАЧАТЬ