A neighbor to the Arbuthnot family along 63rd Road was the DeWalt Family. Mr. DeWalt was a master of Altona Grange. This was his home. I wonder how many babies were born in this small cottage. I know of one, Velma.
Filed under: Altona Grange, Boulder County, CO, Posted by Donlyn, Women - HERstory on January 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
According to the book titled, “History of Clear Creek and Boulder Valleys of Colorado. O.L. Baskin & Co., Historical Publishers: Chicago. 1880, p. 401. The first “whiped-sawed” floor was in Bill Barney’s hall. It was “duly dedicated by a dance, the first dance in Boulder, on Christmas Eve [1859]. There were 200 men in attendance, and all the ladies of the city, seventeen in number.”
I wonder if any of the Arbuthnot’s were there. William had left by then to go back to Iowa, but Carson, James, and Samuel stayed, Charles was also a possibility.
Filed under: Boulder 150 Celebration, Boulder County, CO, Christmas, Posted by Donlyn, Women - HERstory on December 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
The 1930 Census has been released for the public. Each Census is closed for 72 years before it is available to the public. The following information is from this census and gives much insight as to what life was like in 1930.
The average asking price for a home in Washington, D.C. in 1930 was $7,146–a relatively small sum by today’s standards, but it was a substantial amount in 1930. Nationwide, 47.8% of U.S. residents owned their own homes in 1930; today that figure is more than 66%.
People living in the United States in 1930 could expect to live an average of 59.7 years. Today, life expectancy has risen to over 77 years.
In 1860 less than 20% of the total U.S. population lived in cities; by 1930 the urban population had swelled to more than 56%. Today, more than 75% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas.
In 1930 only 40% of households in the United States had a telephone.
Long-distance telephone service was very expensive in 1930. A 3-minute call from New York to San Francisco cost about $9.00.
Although radio was still relatively new technology in 1930, 618 broadcasting stations had been founded in the previous decade, and radio was rapidly changing everyday life in the United States. According to the 1930 census, 59% of U.S. households had radios.
1930 was the last year that the U.S. Census asked U.S. residents if they could read or write; results of the census showed that 4% could not.
In 1930 only 48,118 people lived in the desert community of Phoenix. The 2000 census showed that 1,321,045 residents lived in Phoenix, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
California had a population of 5,677,000 in 1930, and was the sixth most populous state, behind New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Texas. By 2000, California’s population had grown nearly six times larger to become the most populated state in the country, with 33,871,648 residents.
In 1930 nearly 1.8 million residents of the United States had been born in Italy, the leading country of birth among those born outside the U.S. In 2000 the leading country of birth among the foreign-born was Mexico, the native country of 7.8 million U.S. residents.
In 1930 24% of all women in the U.S. were in the workforce; by 2000 that figure had risen to 61%.
Filed under: Other History, Posted by Donlyn on December 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »
On May 16th, 1960, that was the title of an article that appeard in the Boulder Camera, Boulder, Colorado. It was written by a neighbor of ours, Mr. Forest Corssen. My grandfather, Guy M. Hill - an orphan, was raised on a farm near the Viele farm. He knew them well and one of the Viele sisters was his teacher at the grade school. Here is the article about what Mr. Viele remembered of early Boulder…
A parade of memories rich with the tenderness, hardship and excitment of the frontier crowd in upon Albert Viele, 1116 Mapleton Ave., as he looks back over the 95 years since he first came into Boulder Valley. He is our oldest living settler, 100 years of age May 18.
“We camped the last night of our trip across the plains in 1865 at the Hank Green place, which is part of Martin Acres today.” began this studry still active pioneer. “I remember there was a wonderful spring there, with the finest water you ever drank. That was the night of July 31st.
“The next morning we hitched up and came across where the University is now. We crossed Boulder Creek a little above where the Broadway bridge is now.”
Some Differences. To the wide-eyed, five-year-old boy it was a wonderland. the great foothills, still carrying much of thier heavy virgin pines and spruces, had seemed far higher than they do today. The new land had spread away to the far eastern horizon, unspoiled, uncrowded, rich with fragrant native grasses and wild flowers, upon which fed the antelope, deer and buffalo. the waters of the creek had been crystal clear and higher than they stand today and in their depths had played native trout. The air had been heady and over the new town had hung an aura of pride and zest for living peculiar to the frontier.
Around him had been his father and mother, his brother and sisters, each as happy as he. The home circle - soon to be tragically broken - was then complete.
Boulder was huddled between 11th and 14th streets, the buildings and houses mostly on Pearl. Al’s father, James B. Viele, bought two lots where the Colorado Restraurant and the Jones Drug Co. are today and built a two-story frame house.
Many Activities. The boy soon found playmates. They ranged up and down the street, dusty or muddy as weather made it. They peered into the dusky interior of Merrill Russell’s blacksmith shop, saw the brawny smith, silhouetted by the forge fire, hammering white-hot iron to shope on the anvil. th rhythum of his blows almost set them dancing. They had watched J. I. Johnson repairing shoes and boots in his little shop adjoined to the Colorado House. They had caught excitting forbidden glimpses of Jim Parker’s saloon as men came and went through the swinging green doors. there had been the rich smells of new things in /Tourtellot & Squires general store, up east of the Boulder ouse (11th and Pearl). Now and then they had entered the Colorado House, then owned by Ephriam Pound.
One the street and in the business places they had seen men about whom people spoke of as “the first men in the valley,” who had settled here in teh fall of 1858. They were A.A. Brookfield, tall, spare and powerful; Capt. Thomas Aikens with his piercing eyes, and sturdy kindly John /rothrock, who lived over on the St. Vrain River. 1858 had been only seven years before but it seemed to belong to a magical age with Indians, and deer and antelope nearly always within site.
They were all pioneers in 1865. Most of the men had served in the Indian troubles of 1864 that ended in the Sand Creek fight or massacre, depending upon which side one was on. Men like Jonas Anderson,m Richard Blore, Capt. David H. Nichols and Capt. C. M. Tyler.
Wellman Brothers, Too. Now and Then he would see the Wellman brothers, Sylvanus, Henry and Luther, who lived a couple of miles east of town. They ere the first white farmers in the country (immediate vicinity). They had broken sod south of Boulder creek and planted about an acre to turnips, lettuce, onions and cucumbers.
Boulder Creek was a fascinating place. He and his little friends would go down to the ford, a little west of the present Broadway bridge. They walked over a section of corduroy road made of logs laid down, then slabs from a sawmill on top. At each side was a swamp with tall cattails. In the summer evenings one could hear the green frogs croaking here.
“Jennie Arnett and Stella Smith were pretty young girls then.” said Al, a twinkle in his eye. “They went down to that swamp and killed green frogs along the corduroy road. They sold frog legs to George Squires at 50 cents a dozen. They made enough to buy themselves a $25 sidesaddle and bridle apiece.”
Boulder’s first brewery was located on the north bank of Boulder Creek, west of the ford. It too was interesting, more so, of course, to men, who could be sure of a big free schooner of beer.
Wateched Brewer. “I used to go up to Billy Cook’s little brewery. It was a frame building that stood west of the present city hall, at about 11th street. I’d watch Billy grind the malt in a big coffee grinder wiht two big wheels. He had big vats bubbling away with beer.
“Billy put up all his beer in kegs. I don’t ever remember him bottling any. He brought barley from the farmers out east for his brewing. He made good beer.
“Later on, after my mother died in 1867, Father sold our home to Billy Cook.”
Hanging Man. Al went on to tell about his father taking him down one June morning (3rd) in 1867 to see a man hanging in a tree on the south bank of Boulder creek, just west of the present bridge.
“This young man, William Tull, about 20 years old, was working for a prominent man out in what is North Boulder on a farm. The boy had been raised by the Arapaho Indians, and he had an Indian girl for a wife. One day he decided to go up to visit her and her people on the Cache-le-Poudre river, near Fort Collins.
“He bargained for a pair of horses from this man he was working for and struck out. At Old Burlington, down on the St. Vrain (River) south of what’s now Longmont, he bought provisions and packed them on one horse. The he went north.
“He didn’t come back the day he said he would, so his employer in Boulder put out the story he had stolen the horses. A posse went after him. They caught him and brought him back and turned him over to the deputy sheriff, Merrill Russell.”
Taken from Confinement. “There wasn’t any jail then, so Russell locked him in an upstairs room over his blacksmith shop on 12th Street (Broadway) just south off of Pearl Street. A mob broke into the room, took the boy out and hanged him to a willow tree down on the creek
“The limb they hanged him to dropped down until it touched the ground. It died and finally the tree died too, the bark peeling off, looking white and ghostly. For some reason nobody would cut it down.”
“That dead limb must have been a stark finger of guilt pointing toward the rancher. Old timers still say that he owned the boy money. They also say that the boy was not a horse theif.”
Filed under: Boulder County, CO, Genealogy, Posted by Donlyn, Women - HERstory on December 20th, 2008 | No Comments »
The following is the Boulder Camera newspaper article that was published on May 14, 1960 about Boulder’s oldest pioneer resident at that time - it was Albert Viele’s 100th Birthday. He was a friend of my grandfather, Guy M. Hill. His sister had been his school teacher. Here is the article…<br>
“Boulder was quite a little town.” by Frank Strovas.
“It was quite a little town, even then,” says Albert Viele, who came to Boulder in 1865 at the age of 5. He will celebrate his 100th birthday on Wednesday.
Viele was born May 18, 1860, near Freeport, Ill. He was five years old when his parents brought him to Boulder. “It was quite a little town even then,” Viele says. “There were about 250 inhabitants and two hotels.”
Viele homesteaded the Meadowbrook Farm, south of Boulder, and operated a dairy there for 30 years. He sold butter to Boulder residents. “I handelded as much as 250 pounds of butter a week,” he says. Viele retired from active ranching in 1942; his old lace is now the property of the Van Vleet ranches.
Viele’s father bought land in Boulder in 1864 and returned to Illinois for his family. The family started west from Freeport on May 7, 1865, and arrived in Boulder on Aug. 1. Viele was the youngest of five children.
Indians halt wagons. The family was forced to stop at Kearney, Neb., because of the Indian menace. “Officials at Ft. Kearney wouldn’t let us go until there were 100 men in the wagon train, each with 100 rounds of ammunition.”
The Viele wagons joined other settlers and a train of freight wagons hauling goods to Denver. The train was threatened by Indians only once. “We could see a large number of braves riding around on a hill top,” Viele said. “We got our wagons into a circle and our stock inside. Then we waited.”
The Indians by-passed the Viele train to attack a weaker one ahead of them. “Two days after we saw the braves, we found the burned remins of another train. We stoped to bury the dead,” Viele says.
Automatic Churn. The Vieles brought two cows on their trip west., “We put milk into a churn on one of the bouncing wagons, and by evening we had butter.”
Viele’s father also brought the first treshing machine to Colorado. The 10-horse Massillon, Ohio, thresh was truly a 10-horse machine. It took 10 horses walking in a circle to furnish enough power to oerate it.
Viele recalls the time Indians threatened to burn Boulder as a result of a case of “vigilant justice.” A man was hanged for horse stealing, although many believed him innocent. “They took the man away from a deputy sheriff and hanged him near Boulder Creek,” says Viele.
The man had no relatives to clear his name though lawful means, but rmembers of his Indian wife’s tribe threatened to take the law into their own hands.
“The Indians never tried to carry out their threat,” says Viele. But, “there were some mighty scared men around Boulder for a time.”
Marries Boulder Girl. Viele married a Boulder girl, Miss Abbie Spicer, in 1861. She died in 1942. In 1944 he married Mrs. Erna Arnold of Springfield, Mo. The couple live at 1116 Mapleton, in the home Viele built in 1905.
Last year for the Centennial celebration Viele built a model of the Boulder business district he knew as a boy. He also has coverted a boyhood toy into a replica of the covered wagon he rode into Boulder. The toy was given to him when he was three years old. It made the trip west with him.
Monday night the Boulder lodge of the IOOF will honor Viele at a birthday party. His wife and her daughter, Mrs. China Jones, are planning a party for him Wednesday.
In addiiton to the IOOF, Viele belongs to the Territory Pioneers Association and the Congregational Church.
The story here about the man who was hung was also remembered and recounted by our grandfather, Fred W. Arbuthnot.
Filed under: Boulder County, CO, Genealogy, Native Americans, Posted by Donlyn on December 19th, 2008 | No Comments »
I am so excited! I now have an exact date when the Arbuthnot’s came to Boulder. In a newspaper article that was seeking for more information on the Boulder pioneer families, Sam Arbuthnot was listed with the date of his arrival. Here’s the article…
List to be compiled of Pioneers of Boulder area, their descendants. Boulder Camera, Thursday, Feb 26, 1959. Page 28.
A start was made late in 1958 to secure the names of descendants of pioneers with a good response. In March the effort will be renewed. It is planned that those who came in Boulder county prior to the admission of Colorado as a state on August 1, 1876, will be classed as pioneers as was done by the once active Territorial Pioneers Assn.
At the time of the semi-centennial in November 1909 of Boulder the constitution and by-laws of the Pioneer Society, adopted June 20, 1884, was refered to. It listed the following as members:
1858
A. A. Brookfield, Oct 6, Boulder
W.R. Blore, Nov 2, Lyons
L.M. McCaslin, Dec 2, St. Vrain
G. R. Williamson, Nov 30, Salina
1859
Jonas Anderson, Sr., Sept., Boulder
E.J. Anderson, Sept., Boulder
A. Arnett, June 7, Boulder
Sam Arbuthnot, June 20, Left Hand
S. M. Breath, August, Boulder
Hiram Buck, Aug 10, Boulder
T. C. Brainard, July, Boulder
A. G. Burke, Feb 2, South Boulder
John Brierley, July 15, Boulder
Wm. M. Barney, July 22, Longmont
Geroge F. Chase, July 22, Boulder
W. A. Corson, July 20, Boulder
J.B. Carson, Boulder
Chas. Dabney, May 27, Boulder
Guy Fairhurst, June 10, Magnolia
Charles Frey, May 1, Boulder
Wm. C. Hake, July 7, Coal Creek
J. L. Haff, June 10, Boulder
W. W. Secor, Sept 10, Longmont
A. G. Soule, Arpil, Boulder
C. L. Smead, June 10, St. Vrain Creek
Wm. Simpson, May 20, Marshall
D. C. Taylor, June 13, Longmont
Joseph Wolff, Boulder
Perry White, May 22, Boulder
T. F. Wagner, May 8, Boulder
Geo. W. Webster, May 18, St. Vrain
The article said the following are some of the oldest lady members who came to Boulder prior to Jan 1, 1861.
Masdames A. A. Brookfield
J. H. Decker
H. Goodwin
M.L. McCaslin
R. Niver
in 1859, and…
Mesdames Wm. Breach,
F. A. Spuires
M. Tourtellot
T. J. Jones
P. A. Leymer
L. McIntosh
John Brierly
Samuel Copeland, and
D. C. Taylor, 1860.
If any Camera reader has a copy of the constitution, The Camera would like to borrow it. It is possible that not all names were listed in the newspaper article. It also is possible that all were listed but that the society did not include all eligible for membership.
Names not previously given The Camera should be forwarded to it with data, until headquarters for the Centennial of the “Rush to the Rockies” is opened early in March.
Filed under: Arbuthnot (CO), Boulder 150 Celebration, Boulder County, CO, Genealogy, Posted by Donlyn on December 18th, 2008 | No Comments »
A friend sent me a photo today that was in his father’s collection. His father, Bill Anderson of Niwot, Colorado wrote a comment on the back of the photo…
“Wild hunters of 1935 - Virginia and Florence”
This was taken when a group of 10 went hunting in the Rocky Mountains west of Boulder, Colorado. They fished, killed rabbits, elk, deer, and had a grand time! This is how teenagers spent their time in the fall of 1935. Wasn’t Bill a dashing young man?
Filed under: Boulder County, CO, Hill (CO/IL/OK/CO), Niwot, Posted by Donlyn on April 29th, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Thursday I had lunch with my big brother, Darold. He is a wealth of great stories about Boulder when it was a sleeply little college cowboy town. He shared with me his memories of his first train ride in 1946. You could tell that it was a big deal for him. He left the platform from 14th and Canyon in Boulder where the train station was located. Boarded the train with mom and his big sister - the train was pulled by an old steam engine. They rode all the way to Niwot, Colorado (nine miles away - I think?). There his cousins met them at the train stop at the end of Second Ave.
They played all afternoon - where they ran up the tube fire escape that was attached to the side of the school. Then they could slide down the tube - he said it made the best slide. Darold had a huge smile remembering this fun that he shared with our Knaus cousins in Niwot.
Thanks for a great lunch big brother! Love ya - your little “sissy”.
Filed under: Arbuthnot (CO), Boulder County, CO, Niwot on April 27th, 2008 | No Comments »
