It is interesting who decides to write what about the Cotopaxi Colony. There is a new article out in Hebrew in a Jerusalem newspaper. Click here. You can do google translate and will find it's the pretty standard "story" of what happened based on Flora Satt's 1950 thesis and other popular writings.
I just wanted to remind everyone of a couple of other websites that you can use to ask pertinent questions when someone is telling the "story".
The Jewish Gen Kehilalinks Site has numerous pages of information. The Family Names Page shows us that Nettie Milstein, daughter of Saul Ber Milstein, arrived on the ship "the Polynesia" on July 16, 1882. She traveled here with her Uncle, Isaac Leib Shames. She was part of the second group to arrive in Cotopaxi.
Contrary to the "popular" version of the Colony story, she did not arrive in the US in 1880 at the age of 20. She came in July, 1882, at the age of 17.....AFTER the first colonists arrived in Cotopaxi in May.
I have written extensively about this in a past blog. I show the marriage certificate as well as the marriage license application forms which show she was only 17 years old in September 1882, and she needed the consent of her uncle, Isaac Shames, to be married as her parents did not arrive in this country until December, 1884.
Because of her age, because of the requirement to have a signed consent, and because I have thoroughly searched the records in Gilpin County, Colorado, I do not believe there was a marriage prior to the one in September in Cotopaxi.
And this alters the "common" story to some degree.
This link to the Kehilalinks site that shows the various ships manifests is quite valuable because the far right hand column also shows the inter-relationships of the various individuals. It can be used to prove ages, year of birth, date of arrival, people who traveled together and so on. It proves and disproves much of what Flora Satt wrote. It proves that Saul Baruch Milstein was never at Cotopaxi.
I'm pretty sure that the author of the recent article in the Jerusalem News did not know about my research, or about the Kehilalinks site or this blog. One more great source of information is the Cotopaxi Colony site by Nelson Moore. It should be studied in depth as it contains valuable resources and photos. It also covers the story about the restoration of the Jewish portion of the cemetery at Cotopaxi.
As a quick update - it may be 2-3 months before there are more posts to this blog. My research continues. I am currently working on the real estate aspects of the property owned by the Colonists. That's turning out to be an education in itself!
My sister and I are traveling to Israel for almost 6 weeks starting March 2. We will be giving a powerpoint slide presentation on the Cotopaxi Colony in Gush Etzion the evening of March 21 and possibly another presentation in Jerusalem that same week. If you are interested in attending either presentation, email me at jlowe54@gmail.com.
I will do one more post when the dates, times and locations are confirmed.
Nancy Oswald will also be presenting on this topic at the Senior Mini College in Canon City. You can follow this website to see when they post the date and time for her presentation.
If you have questions about the colony, feel free to send me a note or add a comment to a post.
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