Portrait & Biographical Record

Mardos Collection

HON. FRANCIS W. HAMMITT.

PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
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suddenly a large number of Indians sprang up and approached them. They jumped from their horses, seized their guns and had them leveled at the Indians, when Mr. Babcock called out for them not to shoot, as the Indians were friendly Utes, who wished to help them by trailing the other Indians. They accepted their help and found the savages had left their camping place near Plum Creek. Three Indians attacked Mr. Miller, who shot one of them. The others cut the lariat that held Mr. Miller's horse and took the horse. They then circled around, picked up the wounded Indian and fled, not having injured Mr. Miller in the least, although they had fired at him. The whites pursued the red men and found where they had rested on the banks of Kiowa Rivet, then trailed them to Reed's Springs, where there was a stage station. They were told hundreds of Indians had passed there, but only a few were left in the county, so the white men turned back to their homes.

ON. FRANCIS W. HAMMITT, a retired farmer of Platteville, Weld County, has been quite prominent in public affairs in his section of Colorado. Formerly a Republican, he has affiliated with the People's party of late years. When the Platte River Claims Club was organized in 1861, prior to the territorial government, he was honored by being elected president of the club, and acted in that capacity until the organization of the territory of Colorado. Then he was appointed first probate judge of Weld County, and at the close of his first term was reappointed, but declined the office. In 1874 he was elected county commissioner, and was chairman of the board for two years of his term. In 1886 he was elected by a large majority to the state legislature, and during his term succeeded in getting a number of important bills through the house, only to have them defeated in the senate. Since Platteville was incorporated he has been its mayor four terms and has done much for the city in different ways.

      April 18, 1833, was the date of Mr. Hammitt's birth, which took place in Stark County, Ohio. His parents were George and Ellen (Reeves) Hammitt, natives of New Jersey and Ohio respectively. The father went to Stark County in early life and after his marriage removed to Washington County, Ohio. Later he became a resident of Wapello County, Iowa, and in 1860 came to Colorado. For a few years he operated a ranch near Fremont, and died in that vicinity in 1876. Of his children, Edward is living in Pike County, Ill.; Joshua R. has his home near Lone Pine, Cal.; Sarah is the wife of Oliver Kirkpatrick, of Coquille, Ore.; Samuel is a farmer of Coos County, Ore.; and Catherine is the wife of John J. Chandler, of Wagon Mound, N. Mex.

     F. W. Hammitt received an academic education, and was twenty years old when he taught his first term of school. He followed this vocation continuously for seven years in Iowa and Missouri, and since coming to this state has not only been connected with the school board of district No. 5, which he assisted in organizing, but also taught the second year after its formation. March 29, 1860, in Savannah, Davis County, Iowa, he married Miss Sarah Duckworth, daughter of Thomas C. and Rachel (Stone) Duckworth. They were natives of Kentucky, while she was of Indiana birth. Soon after their marriage the young couple set out on their wedding journey, which was a trip across the plains. Two months later they arrived at their destination, after the long and dangerous journey. That summer Mr. Hammitt homesteaded a quarter-section of bottom land on section 36, township 3, range 67, Weld County, his present ranch. For ten years he managed this place successfully without irrigation, and for some years was extensively engaged in stock-raising. He also manufactured cheese quite largely, being among the earliest promoters of this branch of business in the state. To his original farm he subsequently added another eighty acres. In 1878 he moved his cheese factory to Platteville, and after running it for a year or more, sold out the business. Since 1887 he has rented the farm, and has been practically retired, though he does a little market-gardening. The Platteville Building and Loan Association, which he helped to organize, is now in a most flourishing condition, and he serves as its secretary.

     An active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Mr. Hammitt was one of the prime movers in the organization of the Platteville congregation and for over thirty years has been a member of the official board of the same. For years he was superintendent of the Sunday-school, and

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he has also been prominent in temperance work. Rev. Alva D. Hammitt, his eldest son, is zealous in the work of the Congregational Church, and is a minister at present located in Pacific Grove. Cal. Nellie, the eldest daughter, is the wife of Arthur R. Ross, of Platteville. George Warren and Carleton W. are operating the homestead. Frank N. is associated with the Cody Land Company of Cody, Wyo. Elma is the wife of Clarence Armstrong, a farmer near Platteville. Pearl is Mrs. Fred Brisco, of La Belle, Idaho. The mother of these children died September 29, 1878. June 15, 1881, Mr. Hammitt married Mrs. Louie Shea, widow of Henry Shea, and daughter of Jeremiah and Emeline (Lowrey) Lycam. She is a native of Wisconsin. The two children of our subject and wife are: Grace A. and Guy L.

SAAC WILLIS BENNETT, who came to Colorado in 1872, has the distinction of being the originator of the sheep feeding industry in Larimer County, an industry that has assumed large proportions and has become one of the most important in the county. He and his brother, Egbert Jay, had engaged in the sheep-feeding business in Nebraska, subsequently purchasing twenty-four hundred lambs, which they intended to ship to Nebraska, but they were caught at Walsenburg in a severe blizzard, and of necessity remained in this state. They shipped the sheep to Fort Collins, hoping to save them by feeding them on alfalfa, and the results were far superior to what they were realizing in Nebraska. They were so pleased that they decided to continue the business here. Thus, by accident, was discovered an industry that has grown to such proportions that in 1897-98 there were over three hundred thousand sheep fed in this locality.

     The subject of this sketch was born in Oregon, Wis., November 14, 1855. His father is of English descent, a member on the maternal side of the Mygatt family, who settled at Coxsackie on the Hudson, while his mother was of Holland-Dutch and French descent, being a member of the Keistead family, of central New York. His father, Hon. Isaac Bennett, was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., and grew to manhood in Schoharie County, whence he removed to Wisconsin, becoming one of the earliest settlers in the village of Oregon. Later he was a merchant and banker at Evansville. About 1869 he served as a member of the Wisconsin legislature. Since retiring from business he has made his home in Chicago. His wife, Elizabeth, who was born in New York state, was a daughter of Abraham Keistead, an early settler of Oregon, Wis. She died in Wisconsin. Of her five children all but one attained maturity and two are now living. Duane, who was graduated from the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College, settled in Colorado in 1871 and died at Fort Collins in the fall of 1878, when thirty years of age. Edwin died in Wisconsin. The surviving sons are E. J. and our subject.

     When a boy, I. W. Bennett attended the public schools of Evansville, Wis. At the age of sixteen he came to Colorado with his brother E. J. and joined their brother Dr. Duane Bennett, and embarked in raising horses and sheep near Livermore. In 1879, when the severe and protracted drought forced him to remove his stock, he drove them to North Park, where he had a ranch on the North Fork of the Platte. In the fall of 1881 he sold out. He has since made a specialty of the sheep industry. He and his brother, who are partners, own Bonner Spring ranch, Steve George ranch, at Livermore, and several other places, which are improved. They have a section of land, ten miles east of Fort Collins known as Black Hollow ranch, nearly all of which is seeded to alfalfa, where lambs are fed for the Chicago market.

      At Fort Collins, October 14, 1885, Mr. Bennett married Miss Laura Budrow, who was born in Moscow, Livingston County, N. Y., a daughter of James and Jane (Thompson) Budrow, natives of Livingston County. Her grandfather, James, a native of Geneva, N. Y., was a farmer in Livingston County. He was a son of James de Budreaux (here we preserve the French spelling), who came to this country from France, shortly after the close of the French and Indian war, and bought at Geneva, on Seneca Lake, a tract twenty-seven miles long and a league wide, where he afterward resided. While crossing the ocean on a visit back to his native land he was shipwrecked and lost. James Budrow engaged in the manufacture of fanning mills in western New York, where he died in 1879, at the age of fifty-three years. His wife, who has resided in Fort Collins since 1880, was a daughter of Theodore Thompson, who was born at Beekman-on-Hudson in 1800 and engaged in the mercantile busi-

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ness at Moscow, N. Y., where he died. For twenty years he served as sheriff of Livingston County. His father, Theodore Thompson, Sr., was pressed by the English into service upon a British warship and nothing further was ever heard of him. Mrs. Bennett was the fourth among six children, the others of whom are: Jennie, who married J. Monroe Whiteman, and died in Fort Collins; Theodore, who is engaged in the abstract business in Fort Collins; Gideon, a merchant in Cheyenne, Wyo.; Frank, who is in Denver; and James, superintendent of a ditch at Fort Collins. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett have three children now living, Anna L., Charles Edwin and Ruth B.; Arthur Thompson being deceased.

     Aside from his other interests, Mr. Bennett owns stock in the First National Bank of Fort Collins, in which he is a director. He is identified with the Larimer County Sheep Feeders' Association. Politically he and his family are Republicans. He is a member of the vestry of the Episcopal Church, to which denomination his family also belong. Fraternally he was made a Mason in Evansville, and is now connected with Collins Lodge No. 19, A. F. & A. M., and Cache la Poudre Chapter No. 11, R. A. M. He was one of the promoters and the president of the Larimer County Ditch Company, later a promoter of the Sky Line ditch, and member of the Water Supply and Storage Company. The Sky Line ditch, which is five and one-quarter miles in length, cost about $100,000 and taps the headwaters of Larimer River. For many years he was president of the company, and is still a director.

AMES D. PERRY owns Mount Hope farm, one and one-half miles north of Sedalia, on the east bank of Plum Creek, Douglas County, and here he has two hundred and thirty acres, devoted to gardening, dairying and general farm pursuits. He was born near Taunton, Somersetshire, England, November 27, 1831, a son of James and Ann (Dowden) Perry. His father, who was a nurseryman by occupation, brought his family (consisting of three children, of whom James, about seventeen, was the oldest) to the United States, crossing the ocean in a sailing vessel that encountered severe storms and came nearly being wrecked. The mate, who had followed the sea for thirty years, said it was the worst storm he had ever seen, and our subject distinctly remembers the earnest prayers of the hitherto rough, Godless seaman. After eleven weeks the ship came to anchor in New York.

     For two years the family lived upon a rented farm in Delaware, after which they spent one year in New Jersey, and in 1851 removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where they engaged in gardening. Six years later they went to Davenport, Iowa, where they had a large garden, eight acres being planted to onions, which they shipped to St. Louis. In 1860 our subject crossed the plains, leaving home in April, and arriving in Denver May 26. The journey was made by means of an ox-team, the usual mode of travel in those days. He went to Tarryall, where he bought his brother's interest in a mine. Selling it soon, he went to California Gulch (now Leadville), where he prospected and mined. After a year he located near the present site of Sedalia, where he began gardening, and this occupation he has followed during most of the time since. He entered land, which in 1867 he sold to its present owner, Mr. Bryant, and then homesteaded eighty acres five and one-half miles south of Denver. Two years later he secured a deed to the property, which he then sold. Previous to this, in 1864, he drove through to Montana with five yoke of oxen and was snowed in for some time on Snake River. He sold his outfit and returned to Colorado.

     From 1869 to 1871 Mr. Perry lived near Denver, and in the latter year he bought where he now resides. April 23, 1871, he married Miss Sarah M. Jerome, whose home was in Kansas and with whom he had become acquainted in Colorado. She was born near Girard, Pa., a daughter of Homer and Cordelia (Russell) Jerome. They are the parents of eight children, viz.: William, who married Veronicia C. Brown, and lives in Douglas County; Homer Bert, who assists his father on the home farm; Daisy Cordelia, Mrs. Louis Overstreet, of Douglas County; Clara, Ella K, Dora Isabelle, Sarah Grace and Albert Jerome.

     In religion Mr. Perry inclines toward the Episcopal faith, in which. belief he was reared. He was a contributor to the building of St. Philip's Church in Bear Canon and has since aided in its maintenance. Politically he usually votes the Republican ticket, but he is not a partisan in his

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opinions. He has been identified with the history of Colorado since pioneer days, has endured all the hardships of frontier life and experienced the hardships incident to the settling of a new country. His trip across the plains, with all its hardships, was but the forerunner of trials that were to follow. His father, who started across the country to Colorado in 1861, died on the Little Blue River in Nebraska, and was buried there, the family continuing their way alone. But, while Mr. Perry has experienced the hardships of pioneer life, he has lived to enjoy its results, and now has a fine home and every comfort, all the result of the sacrifices he made in former years; and certainly no one is more deserving of success and prosperity than he.

RANK H. KIRK, superintendent of the Greenland farm at Greenland, Douglas County, was born in Atchison, Kan., November 23, 1865, and is a son of James E. and Mary E. (Hull) Kirk. His father was born on a farm near Springfield, Va., and at twelve years of age was apprenticed to learn the machinist's trade, which he followed for years. While engaged at his trade in Berrien County, Mich., he made the first model for the Gage roller drill, which was extensively manufactured in Michigan. Later he drifted into the manufacture and sale of lumber, on the Missouri River, near Atchison, Kan. During his residence in Michigan he had married, and shortly afterward brought his wife to Atchison. Early in the war he enlisted in Company H, Thirteenth Kansas Infantry, in which he served for three years, participating in the battles of Perry Grove and Pea Ridge, Ark., and a number of other engagements. For some time he was confined in the hospital at Fort Leavenworth, and on recovering sufficiently he was discharged and sent home. After he was taken ill and sent to the hospital his family left Atchison and joined him in Leavenworth, in order to be near him.

      After the war Mr. Kirk made considerable money in the lumber business, but he loaned it to a man who bankrupted, and thus the entire amount was lost, and on his removal to Colorado in 1872, he was a poor man. Here he took charge of the cutting and sale of timber on the divide, on what is now known as the K. K. ranch. At this writing he is in the employ of Charles B. Kountze, as land agent for the Colorado National Bank. Of his children all (seven) are living, our subject's twin brother, Charles M., being superintendent of the K. K. ranch at Eastonville.

     When our subject was seven years of age he was brought to Colorado. In the schools of El Paso County he obtained a fair education. At seventeen years of age he took charge of the farm owned by W. E. Meek, in El Paso County, and for two years he had charge of the place, Mr. Meek being absent the greater part of the time. At nineteen he and his twin brother were given their time, and they rented from their father a ranch in El Paso County, where they remained for a year. Afterward, in partnership with Kountze Brothers, he embarked in the cattle business, and during the seven years in which he was so engaged he prospered. April 29, 1892, he married Miss Nellie M. Toelle, of El Paso County, Colo., who was born in Wyandotte, Kan., and came to Colorado with her mother in 1872.

     Shortly after his marriage Mr. Kirk took charge of the farm where he now resides. Some knowledge of the extent of the business may be gathered from the fact that there are twenty thousand acres of land in one body, of which one thousand are under cultivation. On the place there are twenty-five hundred head of live stock, the buildings have been enlarged and doubled in number, and the monthly pay roll aggregates from $600 to $1,200, between ten and forty-five men being employed.

     Fraternally Mr. Kirk is connected with Castle Rock Lodge of Ancient Order of United Workmen, he was reared a Republican, but in 1896, favoring silver, he voted for Bryan. He has served his party as delegate to conventions. He and his wife are the parents of two children, Hazel Charles, a daughter, and Wallace B., a son, both of whom were born on the Greenland farm.

LEWELLYN P. DAVIES, of Central City, was born in North Wales in 1851, a son of O. L. Davies, a merchant of Anglesea, and a grandson of David Lewis Davies, a boat builder of the same place. The marriage of O. L. Davies to Ann Hughes resulted in the birth of ten children, three of whom are in Colorado, namely: O. L., who lives in Denver L. P., who was next to the