Well may these pioneers of Colorado be held as belonging to that order of humanity which the poet calls "The Beginners." Some of them were unlettered and untaught save in the great school of life itself; some of them were rich in learning and culture; but they all shared in common a devotion to progress differing only in degree or conception: they shared common sacrifices; they gave their best energies to the development of a great and beautiful state whose increasing rate of progress is to them an immortal monument. These leaders of humanity whom the poet so finely characterizes as "The Beginners" are an order of people always appearing on earth. They are of those who hear the Song in the air and behold the Star in the sky. They are the persons who discern—and follow—The Gleam. Their lives are rich in service and sacrifice. Their kingdom is not of this world. Their lives are not unfrequently cheerless and cold, but on their altar fires glows the living coal sent down from heaven. They fast that others may feast. They accept privations that others may revel in possessions. They pay the inexorable price for the same great purchase. They are those who are sent on earth peculiarly set apart to co-operate with God in the larger fulfilment of the divine laws. They pay the inexorable price of toil and labor and sorrow and sacrifice. They rise into the everlasting triumph and the beauty and the joy of spirituality of life. They give all for this; they find all in it. But let no one resign his hopes or his dreams. Let no one doubt, for an instant, that all of goodness and beauty and sweetness and joy that he longs for is on its way toward him. It is only a question of time. Let him be patient, which is not a mere passive and negative condition, but one full of intense activities and serene poise; let him be patient and believing, and make room in his life for that immortal joy which no man taketh from him.
The town of Greeley, with its felicitous location midway between the two state capitals, Denver and Cheyenne, fifty miles from each, and which is already the principal town of Northern Colorado as Pueblo is of the southern part of the state, has a romantic and thrilling story connected with its founding. In the history of Colorado, among the many men whose lives stand out in noble pre-eminence, was that of the founder of Greeley, Hon. Nathan Cook Meeker, whose personal life is inseparably associated with the interesting town which owes to him its origin.
The Meekers trace their ancestry to men who went to England from Antwerp about 1500. In 1639 Robert and William Meeker came to this country and settled in New Haven. Thirty years later William Meeker removed to New Jersey, and the town of Elizabeth was founded by him and named for his wife. He was a leader in the affairs of the day, held prominent office, and in 1690 he died, leaving the old Meeker homestead in Newark, New Jersey, which is still in the possession of his descendants. One of his sons was Joseph Meeker, also prominent in promoting the conditions of progress, and he was the grandfather of Nathan Cook Meeker, the founder of Greeley, who inherited the qualities that have made the family a marked one in America. When he was but seventeen he carried on an extensive correspondence with Henry Clay, John Tyler, George D. Prentice, and other noted men of the day, discussing with them subjects of importance, and he was a contributor even in these early years to the "Louisville Journal," then edited by George D. Prentice, and now the "Courier-Journal," edited by the brilliant Colonel Henry Watterson; to the New Orleans "Picayune," and other leading papers. Even in his early youth Mr. Meeker seems to have been a man of perpetual aspiration and honorable ambition carried out to achievement, and by means of his own energy and persistence he graduated in 1840 from Oberlin College, became a teacher, and later (for literary work was his dominant gift) became a regular contributor to the "New York Mirror," edited by N. P. Willis, the poet, and the most brilliant man of letters of his day. Mr. Meeker wrote both prose and poetry,—essays, romance, and verse alike flowing from his facile pen. He is the author of three books, one of which he dedicated to President Pierce, and which is in the Boston Public Library among the choice and rare works not allowed for general circulation but kept intact for the special use of scholars and researchers. He became one of the leading writers of the day on sociology, advancing many ideas which are to-day maintained by thoughtful students of the questions involved in this subject.
Founding towns seemed to "run in the family," and even as his great-grandfather founded the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, so Nathan Cook Meeker felt the impulse to stamp his own strong and progressive individuality on new communities. He became the secretary and librarian (in 1844) of the Ohio Trumbull Phalanx, a colony founded to realize in practical form the theories of Fourier, and somewhat similar to the famous Brook Farm experiment. Mr. Meeker also co-operated in founding the Western Reserve Institute, of which, many years afterward, Hon. James A. Garfield became president.
About this time he married Arvilla Delight, a daughter of Levi Smith of Connecticut and a descendant of Elder Brewster; a woman whose singular force, exaltation, and beauty of character may be traced through a notable New England ancestry. The family soon removed to the Western Reserve in Ohio. Mrs. Meeker had been known in her sweet girlhood as the beauty of the town. She was a woman of exceptional refinement and culture; for many years a teacher, and, more than all, of a spirituality of character that added to her life its dignity and grace.
The spell of destiny, the burden always laid upon "The Beginners," seemed to be on Nathan Cook and Arvilla Delight Meeker; for no history of the work of the husband could be written that did not include that of the wife. Like Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, their lives were conjoined in that perfect mutual response of spiritual sympathy which alone makes the mystic marriage a divine sacrament.
Horace Greeley became interested in Mr. Meeker's work and invited him to a place on the editorial staff of "The Tribune," a position which he filled with conspicuous ability for several years; but in common with all idealists, Mr. Meeker was haunted and beset by his visions of a more Utopian future for humanity. A Colorado journal, recently giving some reminiscences of the life of its great citizen, said:
"In the fall of 1869 Mr. Meeker made a trip to the West for the 'Tribune,' writing interesting letters by the way. On his return to New York he was full of the idea of establishing a colony in Colorado. He mentioned his ambition to John Russell Young, who talked it over with Mr. Greeley, and that great man, at the first opportunity, said to the returned correspondent: 'I understand you wish to lead a colony to Colorado.' When Mr. Meeker answered 'Yes,' Greeley added, 'I think it would be a great success. Go ahead; "The Tribune" will stand by you.'
"With such encouragement Mr. Meeker spent the following day in writing the article announcing his purpose and outlining the plan which was afterwards adopted as the constitution of the colony. Mr. Greeley suggested a few minor changes, after which the article was printed and kept in type for a week, in order, as its author said, 'that there might be due reflection and no haste.' It was published in the 'Tribune' of December 14, 1869, with an editorial indorsement of the plan and its originator. Nine days later the colony was organized, and yet in that short time more than a thousand letters had been received in answer to the article. On the 15th of the next April the certificate of organization of 'The Union Colony of Greeley' was filed for record."
In less extended detail some outline of the life of the founder of Greeley, the "Garden City" of Colorado, has already been narrated by the writer in a previous book;[1] but no adequate reference can be made to the state in which Mr. Meeker's life and work remains as so remarkable a contribution and so fundamental a factor, which does not present in full the story of his relation to its development; and the matter is thus presented even at the risk of some minor repetitions.
In the spring of 1870 Mr. Meeker led his colony to Colorado. The colonists wished to give the town the name of its founder, but he himself insisted that it should bear the name of Greeley, after the great editor of the "Tribune," of whose staff he was still a member. Into all the sacrifice and the hardships of this pioneer life Mrs. Meeker, a woman gently born and bred, entered with the utmost heroism. From the very inception the undertaking was a signal success. But Mr. Meeker conceived of still another extension of his activities in the problem then so prominently before the country,—the civilization of the Indians. He was appointed agent of the northern Utes, in possession of the great park region of the Rocky Mountains, on White River. To it he went in the same spirit in which General Armstrong entered on his work at Hampton. He had matured certain theories regarding the proper treatment of the Indians, in bringing them within the pale of the civilized arts,—theories so wise, so just, so humane, that they might be studied with advantage. These theories he put to the test. His youngest daughter, a beautiful and gifted girl, opened a free school for teaching the Indians. His wife united with him in every kindly and gracious act by which he strove to win the confidence of the race. This kindness and gentleness was unmeasured. The family lived a life of constant sacrifice and effort for the education and training of the Utes. But the Indian nature is one that wreaks its revenge,—not necessarily on the aggressor, but on the first comer. Other agents had been lax, and a number of causes of discontent to which allusion cannot here be made fanned the smouldering fire. Their chief complaints were that they were required to work, and to abandon a bit of pasturage, only a few acres, for the new agency grounds and gardens. Events drew on like the fates in a Greek tragedy, and on the morning of September 29, 1879, Mr. Meeker was cruelly massacred.