maps can tell the best story!

I'm publishing this "unfinished" map....as the beginning of what may be a never-ending story.  I found documents that show the Nudelmans and the Chuterans (Jewish colonists) sold their "attached" house to E. S. Hart who then sold it to Susan McCoy.  I'm so curious....where was this "attached" house?  Thus this "working" map with all my notes on it.

In later documents, I find the sale of the "McCoy double house".  Has to be the same place.  Most of the early documents show the property as being measured in feet, east of the center of the county line.  So this map is just that....showing the property possibilities in the last 134 years based on feet from the center line.  I'm inserting it as full size, so those who are interested can see the details.  Ignore the "state highway department" location.  The orange line going up and down the center is CR 12.  Plum street is CR 51, and off to the left is CR 52.

So, starting at the intersection of CR12 and CR51,   0' to 30' marked Hendricks is where we think the ES Hart store/PO were.  In 1882.   Go to the right to 601' to 651' and thats where I think the Nudelman/Chuteran house was.  But I still have more to research.

Much of this is after the Colonists left....but it's a good start for my research as it combines ownership from the 70s, today, and the 30s.  I get a broad spectrum of names to connect as I look for records on each piece of property.  Can you start to see why I created family trees for the Cotopaxi residents?

Saltiel lived on the west end of CR52 where it says "Bailey".  Baily died in 1936, so that gives us a starting point to date the printed portion of the original map.  His house was a boarding house and probably became the Cotopaxi Hotel.  It was later purchased by JDHylton.  The livery and saloons were not there in 1882.  But the McCoys were in the area in 1882.  Susan McCoy was the mother of the "McCoy" gang - known for cattle rustling and killing.

this map is subject to much change as I continue to find new documents - or pay closer attention to documents I've already found.  And this map is a bit off when you look at the Dyer/Gilbert properties...they were moved south, closer to the river, when CR 52 was "drawn" on the books.  That's why I have "now old Yarmark" and "now McNew" written in.

It's interesting to note the addition and separation of lots on Plum street over the past 134 years.  I've shown that with dashes....when it was combined and when it was separated will come later.  But of note, there were a few houses close to CR12, then an open space known as the McCoy lower orchard, then more houses.  And we know that Saltiel had an orchard on his place.  New trees?  or did they produce fruit?

We think the shul was right north of the Hendricks place (Zero to 30') but may never be able to prove that.

Mom lived in a little cottage that began at 397'.  Most of the documents for that house since the time it was built show it as being at 397'.  Perhaps one of the easiest houses I've researched thus far!  However, the back section of her property has changed much over the years.  Finding where that was, who owned it and how it got merged has been interesting to say the least!

If you read this and have any clues you can share, I'd love to hear them!  Maps can be so much fun!

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Make your own story

Sometimes, I think that’s just what other people have done.  Just write anything!  Fill in the blanks however you want….and someone, somewhere is going to believe you!

Not me!!!  I either want facts….or I will leave it blank and let you write your own story!

Family history books are just that…..books that someone writes about their family history.  It is their story.  And I use them as hints and leads….but not as facts.

Moshe Shaltiel-Gracian published such a book in 2005 about the Shaltiel/Saltiel family.  It’s not a bad book, in fact - quite interesting.  He wrote this about Emanuel Saltiel’s wife:

Soon after her arrival in Cotopaxi, Elizabeth, 36-years-old and the mother of three small children aged two, four, and six, fell in love with Frank W. Woods, an employee, in his early twenties, at the Cotopaxi Post Office, which Emanuel owned.

Let’s stop there for a moment.  Census records and other documents, including birth certificates show us that the children were:

John Tammany Saltiel, born 1871, age 9 in 1880 (I have his actual birth certificate)

Henry Clarence Saltiel, born 1873, age 7 in 1880

Adelaide Rachel (Lucy) Saltiel, born 1877, age 3 in 1880

Elizabeth Wolfe Saltiel, born 1845, age 35 in 1880

Continuing on with Moshe’s writing:

While Emanuel was crisscrossing the country, negotiating deals to build expensive furnaces and a new railroad depot, the two began an affair, and exchanged rather simple-minded letters……The lovers did not consider that, since Emanuel owned the post office, it was inevitable that one of these letters would find its way to him. 
Elizabeth was quickly shipped back east; the children remained with Emanuel…..on the same day that she wrote her aunt (5/1/1881), she was hand-delivered, at her residence at 40 East 126th Street in New York City, a summons to divorce court.  The divorce did not take effect, for legal reasons, for a year…..Elizabeth remained in New York and made her living teaching music.

Later on in the book, Moshe writes:

A year after his divorce, on Valentine’s Day, 1883, in Pueblo, Colorado, he married a second time, to Fannie Shelveson, who managed his real estate……unfortunately, seven years later, in December 1890, Fannie followed in Elizabeth’s footsteps, and began an affair with Jerry B. McLene, who lived in the Broadway, a Denver hotel owned by Emanuel.  Once more, Emanuel filed for divorce and, like Elizabeth, Fannie did not appear in court.  Unlike Elizabeth, however, Fannie married her lover on 14 July 1891, three weeks after the divorce was granted.

We find Emanuel and Fannie living on Watsoon St in Denver in the 1885 census.  No children in the household.

Let’s look at this marriage/divorce timeline in relationship to the children’s ages.  

	1880 moved to Cotopaxi	1882 parents divorce	1883 father remarries Fannie Shelveson	1885 father moves to Denver	1891 father divorces Fannie
John	9	11	12	14	20
Henry	7	9	10	12	18
Adelaide	3	5	6	8	14

So even if Elizabeth left the children with Emanuel in 1881 when she left, they were not living with him in Denver in 1885.  I have not been able to locate Elizabeth in the 1885 census in NYC.

There is an Elizabeth M.  Saltiel living at 343 E 117th St in the 1886 New York City directory - doing “washing”.  She was not in the 1885 directory.  Directories do not list children.

Elizabeth and her son, Henry, were in the 1895 New Jersey Census.  Newark NJ.  This makes sense as her daughter, Adelaide, married Francis Henry Lovekin in 1895 in Newark NJ.

Did the court give custody to Emanuel in the divorce?  I don’t know as I haven’t located the divorce records.  But it is obvious that 3 short years later, they are not living with him.

I cannot locate Fannie in any city directory in Pueblo.  What brought her there?  

So why not put this perspective into a timeline looking at Saltiel and the arrival of the Colonists at Cotopaxi…..makes it even more interesting!

• 1879 - the earliest I can find Saltiel in Fremont County
• 1880 - his family arrives, a house has already been built
• 1881 - his wife has an affair and he sends her off to NYC.  One writer says the children (I believe they were ages 4, 8, & 10) stay in Cotopaxi
• 1881 - I have a document that shows Saltiel sold his house to Hart.  Where did he (and the children - if they were there) reside?
• 1882 - February, Saltiel gets a divorce
• 1882 - May, the Jewish colonists arrive
• 1883 - February, Saltiel remarries (when did he have time to court this woman?)
• 1883 - some of the colonists relocate away from Cotopaxi
• 1883 - lawsuits against Saltiel for not paying miners who worked for him
• 1884 - May, the colony disbands 
• 1884 - 1887 Saltiel involved in multiple lawsuits against his mining claims.  He lost all of his property in Fremount county as a result of these lawsuits
• 1884 - May 31, Gold Tom shot and killed
• 1885 - June, Saltiel and wife are in Denver in the 1885 census, children are not with them

Questions - 

1. did Fannie ever live in Cotopaxi?  I can find no evidence of that.
2. when did Emanuel move to Denver?  If he sold his residence in 1881, where did he stay when he was in Cotopaxi?
3. where were the 3 children after their mother was sent to NYC?
4. if the children were in Cotopaxi, where did they live and who cared for them?

Saltiel was a very busy man!  One of these days I will create a month-by-month timeline of Saltiel’s activities…..but in the meantime, I can tell you, he was so tied up in Arapahoe County courts, in Denver, in NYC, and now we find out how busy he was with his own personal life….I do not see him as a custodial parent and it would explain his often lengthy absences from the Colonists at Cotopaxi.  

No wonder it has been written that the colonists said they got no answers or support from him and they turned to the Denver Jewish community.

I do understand why many writers “fill in the blanks” with what they think happened.  I think my “job” is to ask the questions about the blanks.  As more and more records become digitized and/or available for public research, hopefully we may find more answers.  

In the meantime, be careful what you read about Cotopaxi.  Is it just someone’s conjecture?  Is it even probable?  Is it just a “story” that someone made up?  Makes you wonder!!!

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Finding new evidence of hard times at Cotopaxi

A few years back, I found the miner's lien that proves the Colonists worked in the mines unpaid.

But someone alleged that they were paid in script and could use that at the Cotopaxi store.

I wonder.

In the past few weeks, I've unearthed some rather interesting documents that tell this story (note, much more research to do in order to validate this).


1.  Saltiel incorporated all of his property into a business called the Cotopaxi Placer Mining Company

2.  The Cotopaxi Placer Mining Company then sold part of this to E. S. Hart (a cousin of Saltiel)  for $5600.00 in Oct, 1881, and included in that property was a 10 roomed building known as the Cotopaxi Hotel.  I am not sure if the Cotopaxi store was included in this property description or not -  part of future research.)

I'm pretty sure that in 1881, $5600 was quite a lot of money!

3.  In November, 1882, the Cotopaxi Placer Mining Company filed a lawsuit against Hart and demanded that he vacate the property.

I will search the local court records for more on this suit.  But Hart must have won.  And to what expense?

4.  A few months after this, in May, 1883, Hart borrowed money from D. G. Peabody and placed a lien against the store, it's contents and the hotel.

5.  In Sept, 1884, Hart sold the hotel to L. J. Hylton.  He must have split the store off because it is not listed in this sale.

The miner's lien was for unpaid work performed between 2/1/1883 and 4/14/1883.  After the lawsuit against Hart.

We first read of Hart's financial problems in May 1883.....just after the miner's had worked for free and when Hart supposedly provided them with product for their script.  But nothing showing that Saltiel ever paid Hart.  That would be more than enough to bankrupt Hart!

This study has taught me that dates are extremely important.  Until now, we did not know that Saltiel had sued Hart (his own cousin!) via the Company that he (Saltiel) had incorporated  himself into.

We did not know that Hart had paid him $5600 for the property.

My personal opinion is that the Colonists who were part of the lien against the mine for unpaid wages would not have used script in the store....but that other miners surely did.  And this is what lead to Hart's financial difficulties.  The timing is perfect.

Can you imagine going as much as 62 days without pay?  One of the miner's did!!  Here's a list of the claims from that document.

Again  - there is absolutely no evidence that Saltiel ever reimbursed Hart, in fact, we now know that Hart had to borrow money in May 1883, he sold the store for only $150.00 in Sept, 1884.

These documents probably bring up more questions than they answer!  Proving oral histories may turn out to be a bigger puzzle than just finding names to put in a family tree!  Right now, I'm pretty much loving the "hardship" stories of the colony.  The known colonists on the list are Warsitzer, Lauterstein, Neuman, Schaums, Minkovsky, Dublitzky, and Charvsky.  But I do see a few more names that might well be Jewish!  At what point do I end the research and just start writing the story?

Good question!!!

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Never give up!

Yesterday was a great day for me!  As a genealogist, I can't say it enough - never give up!  Keep going back, doing the same research over and over.  Review what you think you know.  Check dates. And then start over again!

It is not easy. It is WORK!!!  And some days, I do feel like pulling my hair out!!!

In Flora Satt's thesis, she reverenced an article written by Dr. C. Spivak 

2. Denver Jewish News, April 6 - April 25, 1925.
Today this newspaper is known as the Intermountain Jewish News, but the issues cited were in a special Anniversary Edition and included a two-page spread on the Cotopaxi Colony. The April 25th issue contains a feature article on the Colony, newsworthy then as a result of a 'Reminiscence Dinner' given for the surviving members of the group. 

I didn't always keep great notes.   But I had a note from somewhere stating that the article was on Page 38 - 39.

I had another note where someone said the article had been torn out of the newspaper and was missing.

That made me give up.  I had been to the Denver Public Library, to Denver University's Beck Archives, and to the Colorado History center and looked at their digitized newspapers.  I found the Anniversary Edition....it only had 8 pages.   I read every single page.  Nothing about Cotopaxi.  It had to have been a special supplement for the anniversary edition that simply wasn't digitized, or was missing before that time.  So I stopped looking.

One day, not too long ago, I decided to spend time searching the online catalog from the Beck Archives at Denver University.  When you do a search like this, you need to take the time to open every file, and read the individual contents of the collection.  I spent an entire day and didn't begin to get through what they have.

I found this under the topic:  Jews   Publications   1897 - 1998

• Abstract

  
  

  Books - ''Made in Hungary''; Hebrew scriptures with wooden cover; ''Cookarama''; and Yehoash sheet music; Inter Mountain Jewish News 13th Anniversary Collection; Denver Jewish News 10th Jubilee Edition; the Jewish News and Hebrew Standard.

  And there was a call number.  I must give great credit to Thyria Wilson at the library who has helped me so much over the last few years!  I think she must get so exasperated with me as I just do not give up!!!  I had just been in to see her a couple of weeks ago and she had pulled box after box of files for me to sit and go through.  And here I am asking for more!!!

She had emailed me this note:     (department head's name removed) says she never found an article on Cotopaxi by Dr. Spivak. 

I was just so pleased that Thyria continued to help me out.  And together, we found the article!  In this box labeled Jews/Publications.   I didn't even have to fight traffic to get to their office - Thyria sent me these scans.  

The article by Dr. C. V. Spivak.  You should be able to click on the 2 pages and download them so you can read them better.  or email me (jlowe54@gmail.com) and I'll send them to you.

Dorothy Robert's article in 1941, p 124,  is a near duplicate, but this dates the information to 1925, which is great!!  And...there are a couple of new clues that I will begin searching - maybe the next time I need a reason to come to Denver!

Another good lesson learned this week.  Librarians are custodians.  The take great care of and preserve these documents and records for future generations.  It is not up to them to know the contents of what is in their libraries.  It is up to us to do the legwork, the research, and to be politely persistent in insisting on what we want to see.  As more and more archives become digitized, this will get even easier for future generations of researchers.

In the meantime.....never give up!!!

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One person's trash.....

I was at the History Center a few weeks ago and they shared with me a story that made my hair stand on end!!!  And of course, they wouldn't/couldn't give me any details, so I will repeat this as it was shared with me.

"Someone" filled a dumpster with old documents.

"Someone else" driving down an alley saw the dumpster with the old documents in it.  They took it upon themselves to pull everything out of the dumpster and take it to the local history center.

And the good folks there started filing it all away and organizing it.

They were kind enough to allow me to search through boxes of the records that should have been in the incinerator by now!

Low and behold....I found several pertaining to Cotopaxi, but this was the most helpful:

_________________________________________________________________________________
Bill of Sale
Joseph Nudelman to
E. S. Hart
17 Aug 1883

This indenture made on this the thirteenth day of April in the year eighteen hundred and eighty three.

Witnesseth that I the undersigned Joseph Nudelman of Cotopaxi, Fremont County State of Colorado, do for and in in consideration of One Dollar lawful money of the Untied States of America, and other valuable considerations, receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged sell, assign, transfer and set over to Eleazer S. Hart of Cotopaxi, Fremont County, State of Colorado a certain frame house or dwelling situated on ground leased for the purpose, near the track of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway on the Northerly side of said track and distant about five hundred feet Easterly from the present site of the Cotopaxi Hotel, and adjourning the house of Solomon Chuteran in Cotopaxi as herein before described, said dwelling being the same as heretofore occupied by myself and my family as a place of of residence and which was erected for my use and benefit and I hereby declare that I have full right, power and authority to sell and transfer the property herein described and I deliver the same I do herby further sell, transfer and assign to said Eleazer S. Hart the furniture in said dwelling ouse; consisting one kitchen stove with its op..., tenancies and utensils, two beds, one table, six chairs and other miscellaneous articles.

In witness whereof I hereby affix my hand and seal this the day and year first able written.

(signature)

Witness:
Joseph Bardini

State of Colorado
Fremont County
SS

Personally appeared before me the subscriber and acknowledge this as his free act and deed and wishes it seconded as such.  Witness my hand and seal this the 30th day of April AD 1883.

Att. Rumel
Justice of the Peace

This assignment has not been accepted and not conveyed

E. S. Hart
Witness H. S. Towling

For value received I hereby assign all my right and title to the property acquired by this instrument, except the goods as mentioned and conveyed to with the household goods, to Mrs. Susan R. McCoy

Witness my hand and seal this the sixteenth day of August AD 1883

E. S. Hart
witness Att Rummel

Personally appeared before me the subscriber and acknowledged this as his free act and deed and wishes it to be recorded as such.

Witness my and and seal this the sixteenth day of August AD 1883

M. Banta
Justice of the Peace
_______________________________________________________________________________

Several things of interest in this single document:

We know that Joseph Nudelman arrived in 1882.  In this short time, he had acquired a house, an oven, a table, 6 chairs, and 2 beds.

We now know that this house was next door to the Chuteran residence.

This house was sold to Susan McCoy....who just happened to be the mother of the McCoy Gang of the Cotopaxi area.

E. S. Hart was acting on behalf of Joseph Nudelman, so we can assume that Nudelman had already left the area (history tells us that he went to Painted Woods, North Dakota and I have him in documents there).  He most likely left in April, 1883, about 1 year after he arrived.

One of my goals is to establish exactly where the colonists lived.  So next, I will go back to the clerk and recorder's office and see what I can find on Susan McCoy transferring this house to the next person.  If I can find which house this was, can I find the Chuteran residence?

500 feet east of the Cotopaxi Hotel which I think was the house just east of the store which I think is now owned by Mullins.  So much to do!!!

Valuable information that was tossed into a dumpster.  How fortunate that "someone" just happened to be driving down an alley and found it.  How lucky am I that the staff at the history center let me look through all this!!!

One person's trash.....my treasure!

*****
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