Pleasure Trip to Colorado
In the summer of 1872 I joined a party of friends for the purpose of visiting Colorado. The party consisted of Judge Byron Rice, Doctor Ward, Alexander Talbott, Mr. Weaver, a druggist, and Monroe, a clothing merchant, and myself. We went by rail to Denver. We took with us a tent cloth, some blankets, buffalo robes, and bedding. At Denver we purchased a three-seated spring wagon and a pair of good mules. We also hired a teamster with another pair of mules and wagon, and bought a camping outfit, cooking utensils, and provisions. From Denver we went south to Colorado Springs. Our first camp south of Denver was at a place called Haystack Ranch, so called because there had never been a haystack on the ranch, but three immense boulders bore a striking resemblance to three haystacks, in the vicinity of which a settler had erected his buildings. A small mountain stream supplied him with the facilities of irrigating his land. He had built a fine large milk house, paved with flagstones and so arranged that he could turn the mountain stream of ice cold water on the floor of the building and thus regulate its temperature. He also had built an overshot water wheel with a small trough or flume and through this trough he turned the water onto his wheel from time to time as he wished it, and utilized its power to churn his butter. He milked about thirty cows, which he told us were fed entirely upon the buffalo grass in the valley near by among the foothills, and that he sent his butter twice a week to the city of Denver. The man was evidently living an easy, pleasant life, and getting rich without any severe toil or drudgery. The town of Colorado Springs was then a single street with a few straggling houses. Within a few miles of it we found the newly laid out city of Manitou. The surveyors were still at work surveying the streets. One large hotel was in course of erection and the valley up Cheyenne canyon contained about two hundred tents filled with invalids and health seekers. In this canyon could be found mineral waters of any temperature and almost any ingredients; principally iron, sulphur, lime, and soda. On a beautiful plateau of ground near where the hotel was being erected we pitched our tent and made our camp for several days. We finally concluded to make the ascent of Pike's Peak. Besides the two mules that we had bought, we hired some ponies accustomed to the trail, except that Mr. Monroe, one of our party, declared that he was able to walk, and refused to be provided with other transportation. We proposed to go up the mountain to the timber line the first day, and stay all night, and the next morning attempt to reach the summit by sunrise, for the purpose of enjoying what we were assured would be a most magnificent view of the country. Judge Rice and myself were a little late in procuring our ponies, and the other four of the party started in advance of us, Monroe on foot. "Halfway," as it was called, up the mountain, we stopped for rest and refreshment at a little log shanty erected by two enterprising young men, who there supplied luncheon and sleeping accommodations to the traveling public. The trail at that time was barely visible to the naked eye, and the climbing was difficult and somewhat dangerous even with our trained animals. Several hundred yards before we reached the timber line, so-called, we found Monroe lying in the path and apparently almost lifeless. The rare mountain air had scarcely left him oxygen enough to preserve life, and he had succumbed to the inevitable. We found near the timber line a shelving rock or rather a large cavity in the rock, where we took up our quarters for the night. Carrying Monroe to this place and wrapping him in blankets, we infused life into him by administering several doses of brandy, of which Judge Rice fortunately had a small flask. A large pine tree had fallen across the outer edge of this rock against which we could place our feet to prevent slipping over its edge, and here we all tried to sleep. A fearful thunder storm came up in the night, but fortunately the storm was below us. It was indeed a grand sight to see the forked lightnings darting through the clouds below us, without any apprehension of their finding our retreat. Our sleep, however, was very indifferent. We had been in the territory only about ten days and our breathing apparatus had not adjusted itself to the necessities of a life in these altitudes. We fairly gasped for breath. In the morning when we awoke we found that we could take our ponies no farther on the trail, for there was none visible to the eye. The remainder of the journey to the top of the peak was necessarily a climbing over huge rocks scattered here and there without reference to the convenience of adventurers. We could walk or rather climb about one hundred feet between rests and then fall down under the shadow of a great rock to recuperate enough strength for a venture of perhaps a hundred feet more. After climbing about four or five hundred feet or more in this manner we each began to feel a roaring in the ears and a nausea of the stomach, and at last had the discretion to call council in which we unanimously concluded with old Falstaff, one of Shakespeare's heroes, that the better part of valor was discretion, and we concluded to return to the valley below and forego the magnificence of a sunrise view from the top of Pike's Peak. When we got back upon our way as far as the timber line where we had hitched our ponies, I found my pony had taken "French leave" and gone down on the trail without waiting for my valuable company. I was doubtful at first whether I should be able to walk to camp, which was then over eight miles from the place of our night's adventure, but I had not proceeded down the mountain a mile before my strength returned to me and my lungs filled with sufficient oxygen to restore my vigor. We all got back to camp safely, even including the dilapidated Monroe, and the consensus of opinion was that we were glad we went up Pike's Peak, but were more satisfied with the reflection that we did not have to go again. After another day's rest we took to the road with our mule teams and wagons, passing over a beautiful mountain road up Cheyenne canyon. Every few hundred yards we passed some beautiful cascade or water fall, formed by the dashing waters of some mountain stream supplied from the eternal snows that crowned the mountain peaks around us. Our road lay through the so-called South Park. On the high table lands before we reached this park we passed through a forest of petrified wood. At one cabin, occupied by a gentleman who kept a small hotel, we found the foundation of his house made of this petrified timber, and his chimney and fireplace of the same material. We gathered a few specimens that we afterwards brought home with us. In South Park we passed what was called the salt works. Here some English capitalist had built an immense plant for manufacturing salt. A natural spring that threw a constant stream of salt water, probably ten or twelve inches in diameter, supplied the water from which the salt was to be made. Large and commodious buildings with evaporating apparatus had been erected. An expenditure of probably fifty or one hundred thousand dollars had been made. There was only one difficulty about this Utopian enterprise and that was that the salt had to be manufactured so far from civilization that it cost more to transport it than it would be worth when it reached the market, hence the enterprise had been an ignominious failure and had been abandoned.
Leaving this point we passed through the South Pass of the Rockies and on to the headwaters of the Arkansas river. We went up this river to the town of Granite, that had been a thriving mining village when placer mining in these parts was profitable; thence we went to Twin Lakes, two small beautiful lakes of water among the mountains, where we camped and supplied ourselves with mountain trout. On the way we frequently shot mountain grouse. With our breakfast bacon and most excellent flour and potatoes, and our own improvised cooking and our excellent appetites, we all fared sumptuously every day. We returned via another route, passing through Fairplay. Returning to Denver we sold our team and wagon for just its original cost, and paid our teamster with his outfit four dollars a day. We had kept an accurate account of our expenditures and found that $1.50 a day for each of us had paid all of our expenses, including our transportation, for our three weeks' trip. We made a trip then by rail and stage line, going first over to Idaho Springs, visiting that beautiful little valley, and some of our party going as far as Georgetown. Returning to Denver, we all came home by rail well satisfied with our trip, but when we struck the blue grass regions of Iowa and its fields of ripening corn, with the memories of the homes that we were nearing our hearts were made glad that we lived in a land of civilization and plenty.
CHAPTER VIII
Centennial Address
In the year 1876 the patriotic citizens of the state of Pennsylvania, and especially of the old city of Philadelphia, had conceived the idea of a world's fair to commemorate the great event of the world; to-wit, the declaration of the independence of the American colonies from the mother country. In planning this great exhibition the managers had invited the governors of the several states of the Union to appoint, each, one of their citizens to deliver an address in behalf of their state, giving something of its history and settlement, its resources and possibilities. In pursuance of this plan Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood of Iowa did me the honor to appoint me to make the address in behalf of Iowa. I prepared such an address with considerable care, and delivered the same upon the exposition grounds on the 7th day of September, 1876. My cousin, Henry Clay Cameron, who was then professor of Greek at Princeton University, did me the honor to visit me at Philadelphia at this time and took luncheon with my wife and myself upon the exposition grounds; also Samuel F. Miller, justice of the supreme court of the United States came from Washington and was present on that occasion, and many other distinguished men. Among other gentlemen present were official representatives of a number of the governments and nations of Europe. The legislature of Iowa printed at the state expense some twenty thousand copies of this address, that were thereafter distributed among the people of the state. I have sent at their request to a number of the libraries in the different states printed copies of this address, and now the supply has been about exhausted and the document is about out of print, and I think I should give here a short synopsis of it.
Charles Clinton Nourse
From Photograph by W. Kurtz,
Madison Square, New York, 1876
The following is the introductory matter, stating something of the discovery of the territory that now constitutes our state: