by Nancy Christofferson
HUERFANO — At this time 140 years ago, in 1881, the people of southeastern Colorado were, as usual, facing good news and bad news.
Much of the bad news revolved around a long drought that caused crop failures and the death of scores of cattle, sheep and horses, along with a great deal of wildlife. Along Santa Clara Creek and environs alone, by the first of the year some 300 head of cattle had starved to death. The county jail burned down in January. A great deal of sickness was spreading and the death toll was climbing.
Good news concerned mining. The big coal mine at Walsen was attracting the most attention, though numerous smaller properties around the county were producing and shipping while exploration continued for new veins. Gold, silver and iron mines were operating on nearly every mountain from Custer County south into New Mexico. The area around Ojo at the foot of La Veta Pass was particularly promising, and a mining district was formed.
Even though there were complaints at the time, as recorded in the two-month old Huerfano Herald, a wet snow came in with the new year. Why isn’t this good news during a drought?
By February 24, the paper noted, “The snow has disappeared. How’s this for delightful Colorado weather?” In retrospect, delightful weather wasn’t what the area needed most, which was more snow to alleviate the drought conditions.
The Herald ran several opinion pieces about the outlook for the year. In general, the opiners were sanguine, predicting better crops, more mining and if not prosperity, at least improved financial situations for farmers and merchants.
Come one, come all
Then, in the April 21 edition came the announcement reading, “A mass meeting will be held May 7 for the purpose of taking steps to protect the homes of settlers within the St. Vrain and Vigil Land Grants.”
What? Twice before the Vigil-St. Vrain grant had come before Congress for approval, in 1860 and 1869-70. Twice it had been confirmed. Alas, 22 square leagues, or 96,000 acres, had been in the confirmation, not the four million acres claimed by the grant’s owner, Ceran St. Vrain.
Now the exact dimensions, and ownerships, were back in question. St. Vrain had died a decade before 1881, and with every passing year more claims were made for the land he’d left. Among the 39 legitimate claimants for owning parcels of the grant were two men holding large acreages and who, as former agents for St. Vrain, were demanding action on their claims. They had been involved in lawsuits for years. Their names were William Craig and Eugene Leitensdorfer.
Now, too, wannabe settlers desiring their rights for land under the Homestead Act were agitating against some of the older property owners on the grant. One of their main targets was the widow Hicklin, Estefana Bent by birth, who had lived on a ranch beside Greenhorn Creek for nearly three decades. Her husband, originally her legal guardian, had died in 1874, so the entire 10,000 acre Hicklin place was considered under-appreciated and under-utilized by those coveting some of those fertile meadows.
On April 21, the Herald carried an open letter from old settler Samuel Patterson who was addressing “prominent settlers to encourage them to attend the mass meeting in Walsenburg”, concluding “United we stand, divided we fall”.
Whether this meeting was before or after, the residents of the Purgatory and Apishapa valleys also had gathered into a coalition to fight not city hall, but the U.S. Congress and Land Commission over their legal ownership of their farms. Some of these claims went back as far as 1853, when the lower Huerfano, near its mouth at the Arkansas River, was first settled.
St. Vrain himself had urged one Charles Autobees to take some volunteers, settle, build homes and farms, and plant crops just south of the Arkansas. Autobees and friends did just that. More settlements popped up around them. William Craig was soon among them, holding a huge tract on the Huerfano along what is now the county line between Huerfano and Pueblo.
Although the paper does not mention numbers, the mass meeting drew plenty of residents of Huerfano and the Greenhorn. While Fred Walsen, sitting state treasurer, officiated, the Huerfanos elected Benton Canon, longtime resident of the Santa Clara country, as president pro tem of the proceedings. C.W. Goss of the Greenhorn was present as that area’s representative. The group decided one person from each precinct of the land involved would be responsible for obtaining signatures to be added to a “Memorial to Congress” they would write for presentation. Also on the slate that day was the organization of a Settlers Union, which as a body would write to their congressmen.
So, who owns what?
The crux of their correspondence was to point out that the latest surveys of 1869 and their approval had led to the confirmation of those 22 leagues of land as the property of the St. Vrain grant. Since then, more people had settled in the approved sections through purchase. They also included the comments about the Land Commissioner contention about the “pretended Land Grant”, as well as the “suit pending in the Courts between Thomas Leitensdorfer and William Craig”.
Also mentioned was the information that the largest portion of the land was recognized legally as that of Craig, along the Huerfano, and that Lietensdorfer had lost his claim in proceedings in February 1874. Since then, Leitensdorfer had started legal proceedings.
Thomas Leitensdorfer was the brother of Eugene who had supposedly obtained one-sixth of the grant directly from St. Vrain in 1858. Eugene later conveyed interest in the land to an attorney and the twosome conveyed one-sixth of their one-sixth to Thomas in 1862. As if the whole thing wasn’t confused enough!
The Leitensdorfer claim included the city of Trinidad (which he was NOT claiming) and the areas to its northeast and southeast (which he was). These men were at the center of the Purgatory settlers union’s interest.
Those living in the La Veta area, on land they had purchased from John Francisco and Henry Daigre, who’d settled on it in the early 1860s, then bought it from St. Vrain, for cash. If the ownership of the land was contested, where did that leave the newer purchasers?
Fred Walsen telegraphed his compatriots of the union that Senator Teller was on the side of the settlers, which was good news. That same issue of May 19 carried the information that one grant claimant had sold his share to Lt. Governor H.A.W. Tabor. The union set its next meeting for June 4 in the La Veta Baptist Church.
The chips fall
The paper carried no report on that meeting and in fact, all attention turned to preparations for the Fourth of July celebration, followed by the attempted assassination of President James Garfield.
Time passed. In one week in August, both General Pope and Governor Pitkin visited La Veta. More hard rock mines were opened and the paper carried lots of assay reports. Land was changing hands. Garfield died. In the November election, Denver was voted favorite for the state capitol over Colorado Springs and Pueblo.
1882 arrived and still the lawsuits were pending. Finally, in August 1882, we read of a gathering at Greenhorn to CELEBRATE the settlement on the grant.
More than 41,000 acres in Huerfano County were reverted to public land and “thrown open” to settlement. Just 1,720 acres were awarded to claimants Francisco and Daigre, who’d purchased thousands from St. Vrain and sold most of it. Many farmers and ranchers, some of them land buyers a decade or more earlier, were stripped not only of their real estate but also their homes and improvements. One man who’d built a rather elaborate stone house lost it and his outbuildings, along with the whole farm, so returned to Georgia, broke.
Around 1990 a woman visiting Francisco Fort Museum quite baldly exclaimed that Colonel Francisco had killed her grandfather. Grandpa had learned his land was no longer considered private property but public, and had mounted his horse to rush to Pueblo’s land office to file his own homestead claim on it. He caught pneumonia along the way and died.
Somewhat belatedly, Huerfano County Clerk Charles O. Unfug announced late in August “Attention Settlers! Come and File on Your Ranches at Once!” He said parties they could file locally rather than in Pueblo.
Too late for Grandpa.
