THOMAS C. SELLMAN.
Mardos Collection
THOMAS C. SELLMAN.
PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 879
he and his brother, Frank, now own from seven hundred to one thousand head of cattle and two hundred head of horses. They buy and ship stock extensively and occupy a prominent position in business circles, being recognized as two of the most energetic and enterprising young men of the county. In political sentiment they are Republicans.
Jerome F. Loustalet was married November 23, 1892, to Miss Nettie Scobey, a native of Boulder County, Colo., and a daughter of B. M. Scobey, of Hardin, who is also a highly respected pioneer of this state. One child blesses this union, Grace.
HOMAS C. SELLMAN, who is engaged in general farm pursuits in Jefferson County, was born in the lower town of Ann Arbor, Mich., February 25, 1835, being a son of William and Sarah (Ingram) Sellman. He was one of five children, of whom the only survivors are himself and his brother, Ralph C., a school teacher in Grand Rapids, Mich. His father, a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1803, was taken, when an infant, into New York state, being carried on the back of a horse. He grew to manhood in Canandaigua, and at the age of sixteen secured employment as a teamster between Canaudaigua and Albany, that being before the canal was opened. About 1832 he removed to Michigan and settled in Washtenaw County, where he remained about five years. From there he removed to Livingston County, where he engaged in farming until his death, in 1847. His wife died some four years later.
The paternal grandfather of our subject, Thomas Sellman, was a native of Pennsylvania and removed from there to Canandaigna, N. Y., about 1804, later opening the Canandaigua House at the foot of the lake and remaining its proprietor for years. Finally he went to Michigan and settled in Kensington, Oakland County, where he continued to cultivate a farm up to the time of his death. Our subject's maternal grand. father, Thomas Ingrain, moved from New York state to Michigan in an early day. Our subject remembers having heard his mother tell that her grandmother's first husband was hanged on an apple tree by the Tories.
At the time of his father's death our subject was twelve years of age and four years later his mother died. From that time he worked on farms in Michigan. In 1864 he started with a train across the plains to Colorado, leaving Michigan in September and arriving in Denver in August of the following year. At that time the Indians were exceedingly troublesome and, to avoid them, the party were obliged to camp on the Missouri River near Payne's landing about seven months. The burning of Fort Julesburg and the massacre there and at Plum Creek happened during that time. While in camp Mr. Sellman acted as night herder of teams for a man who was bringing through to Colorado a quartz mill and a party of one hundred and ten persons. They reached Denver on the 17th of August, 1865. From that city Mr. Sellman proceeded to the vicinity of Arvada, where he began gardening on the old Rand farm. In 1873 he entered one hundred and sixty acres where he now lives, but on account of a contention he was unable to prove up until 1876. Since then he has resided here, and since 1893 has given his attention to farming, having given up gardening.
In 1869 Mr. Sellman was elected county assessor on the Democratic ticket and the following year he was re-elected. For three years he was justice of the peace and for about one year served as road overseer. In politics he now affiliates with the People's party., At one time he was actively identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, but has allowed his membership to lapse.
ILLIAM BRAMKAMP, who has resided in Arapahoe County since July 4, 1874, embarked in the dairy business in the year 1876 on Third Creek, near Barr, where he home-steaded one hundred and sixty acres. He devoted much of his time to the improvement of his property and to the stocking of the ranch with cattle, but in 1888 sold the place and bought a tract eighteen miles northeast of Byers. From the Deer Trail Creek he made a reservoir, and in other ways improved the property. On the land he raises corn, hay and alfalfa, but the larger portion is devoted to the pasturage of cattle and horses. His summers are spent on the ranch. During the winter he resides at his Denver home, No. 2441 Lafayette street.
The son of Frederick and Dorothy (Lukens)
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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. Bramkamp, our subject is the only survivor of seven children and is the only one who ever came to America. He was born in the Province of Hanover, Germany, and grew to manhood in the little village of Bramkamp, Aumpt Diepenau. In 1847 he left Bremen on an American sailing vessel, that anchored in New Orleans after a voyage of seven weeks and four days. He then went up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Hamilton County, Ohio, where he remained for four years, engaged in carpenter work. Afterwards he removed to Massac County, Ill., working at his trade and also buying and improving government land near Metropolis. That county was his home from 1851 to 1874, when he sold out and came to Colorado.
Politically Mr. Bramkamp is a silver Republican, but is not active in public affairs. He is identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church. While living in Illinois he married Catherine Speckman, daughter of Henry Speckman. Mrs. Bramkamp was born in Indiana and in 1855 accompanied her father to Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Bramkamp are the parents of eight children: John, who is a ranchman residing near Barr; Sophia, now Mrs. Thomas Quinn; Annie; Charles, who owns a ranch adjoining his father's; Henry; Emma; Barbara, now Mrs. G. W. Maloney; and Sarah.
UFUS RICE, one of the sturdy pioneers of Boulder County, has had a varied and interesting career and is numbered among the prominent citizens of this locality. He was born in Auburn, Worcester County, Mass., February 26, 1836. He was reared under the loving, judicious oversight of his parents, and formed habits of industry, perseverance and honesty of word and deed that have been paramount in his character to this day. His educational advantages were not such as are commonly afforded the children of this period, but he made the best of his limited opportunities, and by reading and study became well posted on general affairs.
Soon after attaining his majority Mr. Rice started for the west. Upon arriving in Illinois he obtained a position with a farmer in Bureau County, and, as the wages he could make there were double the amount received by men in a similar position in his former home, he was well pleased. Believing, after a time, that he could do better elsewhere, he went to Caldwell, Mo., where he spent two years, and in 1860 he set out for Colorado. He paid $25 to an emigrant who agreed to take him, his provisions and supplies, through to Colorado. They reached Boulder in June, and Mr. Rice, leaving his provisions and supplies with his companion, went into the Gold Hill district to prospect. Returning after a week, he found the emigrant had disappeared and had sold his stores, with the explanation that he had become homesick and had started east. Thus he was left in a new country, with little money and no provisions. He returned to Gold Hill and secured work as an experienced blaster. He finished the work and received the sum for which he had accepted the contract.
The same year Mr. Rice came to Boulder Valley and took up a claim at a point a mile and onehalf east of Burlington. He found that he could command a high price by cutting hay and marketing it in the mountains, and this he did, often obtaining $60 a ton. When the war broke out he enlisted in Company I, Second Colorado Cavalry, and continued in the Union army from the fall of 1862 to 1865, some three years. In the spring of 1863 he was sent from Denver to St. Louis and from there to the front. At Pilot Knob he and his companions built a fort, after which they were sent to the western part of Missouri, and met Price, who was on his raid through that section. After defeating him in the battle of Shiloh, where General Marmaduke was captured, they went to the Kansas frontier, where skirmishes with the enemy were a daily occurrence. Later they had several encounters with the Indians along the Arkansas River, and in the fall of 1865, after three years of active service, were mustered out at Leavenworth.
Returning to Colorado, Mr. Rice pre-empted a claim. After six years he homesteaded a quarter section of land adjoining his other property on the south. At that time ditches were made through the upland and by systems of irrigation, land was increased ten-fold in value. On account of the better location Mr. Rice removed his home to the piece of property last taken up by him and has since resided there. Politically he favors the People's party platform.
July 6, 1877, the marriage of Rufus Clark and Miss Kate Rowe was solemnized in Denver. Mrs. Rice is a native of Massachusetts and a daughter
PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 881
of Appleton and Rosella (Field) Rowe. Her paternal grandfather was a hotel keeper in Amherst, Mass., for many years. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Rice, Mamie B. and Maud A., were educated in the Longmont high school and academy, and are accomplished young ladies.
The parents of Mr. Rice were Comfort and Lucinda (Wood) Rice. All but one of their nine children survive, namely: Austin, Malinda, Samuel, Alden, Rufus, John, Sarah and Mary. The father, who was born in Vermont about 1795, was less than four years of age when his mother died. The family soon afterward removed to Worcester County, Mass., where he was reared to maturity and spent his life as a farmer. His death occurred in 1868.
LBERT H. MYERS. Everywhere in our land are found men who have worked their own way from humble beginnings to leadership in the commerce, the great productive industries, the management of financial affairs, and in controlling the veins and arteries of the traffic and exchanges of the country. It is one of the glories of our nation that it is so. Prominent among the self-made men of Weld County is the subject of this sketch, a man honored, respected and esteemed wherever known, and most of all where he is best known. He is now one of the leading business men of Eaton.
Mr. Myers is a native of Zurich, Switzerland, born June 21, 1860, and is a son of Frederick Myers, a wagon-maker, who was born in Switzerland and came to the United States about 1850. In religious belief he is a Lutheran. He married Miss Elizabeth Bear, also a native of Switzerland, and they have become the parents of five children, namely: Albert H., of this sketch; John D., who is engaged in the transfer business in Pasadena, Cal.; James, a blacksmith of Gilbertsville, Otsego County, N. Y.; Charles, a farmer residing in Eaton, Colo.; and Elizabeth, wife of George A. Cannon, of Sidney, N. Y.
Albert H. Myers is indebted to the district schools of New York state for his early education, which was supplemented by an academic course. On coming west he spent one year in Boulder County, Colo., but in 1882 arrived in Eaton which was then only a town by name, consisting only of a railroad switch and one building. Here he engaged in agricultural pursuits for ten years upon a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, raising potatoes, grain and stock, and meeting with excellent success. He then rented his farm and engaged in buying and shipping potatoes quite extensively. In the spring of 1898, in company with F. G. Reeman, he bought out the firm of Steele & Smillie, and has since engaged in the lumber, coal and farm implement business with success. They have sold as high as seventeen binders in one week. They are also extensive shippers of Colorado potatoes, and as Weld County is noted for the excellence of this product it makes it a most profitable business. They ship principally to Kansas and Texas, though their trade also extends to Missouri and Nebraska, and the shipment from Eaton in 1897 reached nearly one thousand eight hundred car loads. They are one of the most energetic, enterprising and reliable firms in the county, and the success that has crowned their efforts is certainly justly merited.
November 25, 1885, Mr. Myers was married to Miss Jennie Storms, daughter of James Storms, of New Windsor, Colo., and two daughters bless their union, Nellie and Ellen. Fraternally he is a member of Eaton Lodge No. 130, Woodmen of the World, and politically is rather independent in his views, but leans toward the Republican party. He takes a deep interest in local affairs and is now efficiently serving as alderman of Eaton. He holds membership in the Congregational Church, was a liberal contributor to the erection of the house of worship in Eaton, and has since been one of its supporters.
AJ. H. L. BOYD, one of the largest land owners of Larimer County, was born in Adams County, Pa., in 1838, a son of Hiram and Matilda (Harbaugh) Boyd, and a descendant through his father of Scotch ancestors. Hiram Boyd was a miller and spent much of his active life in Cumberland, Md., but in 1847 removed to Ohio, where he continued to follow his trade for four years. He died of cholera in 1851, during the epidemic of that plague in the United States.
When the family settled in Ohio, the subject of this sketch was seven years of age and he was eleven when his father died. He was educated
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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. in the public schools of Marion, Ohio, and in Oberlin College. He was still carrying on his studies in college when the war broke out, and at once in 1861, he enlisted as a private in the Fourth Ohio Infantry. For three years he held the rank of sergeant, to which he was promoted soon after enlistment. At the expiration of that time he opened a recruiting office in Marion, Ohio, and organized a body of men that reported for service. Of this company he was made first lieutenant, and continued to serve in that capacity until he was appointed quartermaster at Murfreesboro, Tenn. The principal battles in which he participated were those of Rich Mountain, Va., Malvern Hill, second battle of Bull Run, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Mine Run, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Franklin, Nashville and Kinston, N. C. Besides these important engagements he bore a part in many skirmishes, and, while he was often in the thickest of the fight, he escaped without a wound. During most of his service he was under General Grant.
Returning home at the close of the war, Major Boyd visited relatives during the winter. In the spring of 1866 he came to Colorado and began to cultivate land near Denver. From there, in 1874, he came to Larimer County and settled on Boyd Lake, near Loveland, taking up government land and beginning its improvement and cultivation. In 188' he bought his present homestead, where he gives his attention to farming and fruit-growing. At one time he was among the largest sheep growers in the county, and also raised cattle extensively, but of late years he has given less attention to stock and more to fruit. The land which he owns aggregates four hundred and eighty acres. His success is especially noteworthy, when it is considered that he started with nothing and was forced, amid discouragements and hardships, to work his own way to prosperity. During one winter he prospected and mined, but, not finding any gold, he determined to turn his attention wholly to an industry for which Colorado is especially adapted, that of stock-raising. In later years he transferred his attention to the fruit business and general farming; so, while he never dug any gold out of the earth, he has secured it through diligent effort in a profitable line of work. In 1874 he married Miss Marion Alford, daughter of William B. Alford, who lives near Denver. They are the parents of seven children, namely: Albert A.; Ethel W., wife of Charles Parker; Joseph, Marion, Eugenie, Susan and Martha.
OHN W. SAUER, E. M., manager of the Ingram mine, owned by the Ingram Mining and Milling Company, at Salina, Boulder County, was born in Evansville, Ill., the son of Nicholas and Elizabeth (Gerlach) Sauer, natives of Illinois and Wheeling, W. Va., respectively. His paternal grandfather, Philip Sauer, emigrated from Germany to Illinois and became a pioneer of Monroe County. The maternal grandfather, John Gerlach, also a native of Cassel, Germany, crossed the ocean and settled in West Virginia, but soon migrated to Illinois, of which he was a pioneer farmer.
For the past thirty years Nicholas Saner has been engaged in the milling business at Evansville, Ill., besides which he has other business interests in St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. He has four sons and one daughter living. A son, William E., is a post-graduate student at Heidelberg, Germany; Philip E. is in business with his father; George N. is a student at Shurtleff College; and Lena E. is at home.
Born March 11, 1868, our subject was reared in Evansville, Ill., and at the age of fifteen entered Washington University in St. Louis, where he took a four years' course of study. From there he went to Freiberg and Clausthal, Germany, where for three years he was a student in the Prussian Royal Academy of Mines. On the conclusion of the regular course he took the Prussian examination for mining engineer and was graduated in 1893, with the degree of E. M. Returning to St. Louis, he shortly afterward came to Colorado, to take charge of the Ingram mine, in the Gold Hill mining district. It is one of seven claims, operated by tunnel and shaft, and the work in which is carried on by the use of a shaft, six hundred and twenty-five feet deep. The depth has been doubled since he assumed the management of the mine.
Fraternally Mr. Sauer is identified with Boulder Lodge No. 5, A. F. & A. M., Boulder Chapter No. 7, R. A. M., and the Knights of Pythias, at Boulder. Everything pertaining to his chosen work in life receives thoughtful at-
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