Nov 17, 1882 letter from HEAS to Jewish Messenger on Schwartz report.

I thought I was posting in date order, but I found a couple more articles stashed in my files.  This one is from an unknown author, published in the Jewish Messenger, Nov 17, 1882.  From the content, though, it appears this was someone from the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society in NYC.

The Jewish Messenger1882 Nov 17p 2, c 3

The Russian Emigrants
There was quite a large attendance of Directors of the Aid Society, at the regular meeting held on Monday evening, and an amount of Important business was transacted.  Mr. Edward Lanterbach presented an interesting report of his action while in Europe, representing the Society, and at its conclusion, the following was adopted:

“Resolved, That the thanks of this Society are due and hereby tendered to our worthy colleague, Mr. Edward Lauterbach, for the kind and valuable services he has rendered us during his presence in Europe, not only by representing us at the different aid societies, and vindicating our past course, but also by advocating our cause at the Vienna Convention, and procuring for us Important financial aid, whereby this society has been enabled to carry on its labors.”

Various communications were received and acted upon, among others one from the officers of the United Hebrew Charities, expressing their willingness to cooperate with the society in the work of providing relief to the Russian refugees, in the city.  Mr. E. S. Hart of the Cotopaxi Colony, submitted a flattering and encouraging report of its conditions, stating that the males are earning from two to three dollars a day, and the entire number of colonists are happy and contented, and in good health.

We have not found this report from E. S. Hart.  It would have been written to HEAS prior to November 1882...so before the first crop failed.  If you recall, Hart, and Ashkenazi Jew as the colonists were, owned the store at Cotopaxi.  He was a 1st cousin, once removed to E. H. Saltiel, a Sephardic Jew who owned/controlled the mines at Cotopaxi.

The number of refugees on Ward’s Island are gradually being reduced in number, mainly by distribution among the various colonies, under the management of the society.  There are now between five and six hundred persons on the Island, and peace and harmony on the whole prevails.  All the children are to be sent to the school maintained by the City on the Island, and applications wil be made to the Board of Education, for additional teachers. 

Mr. Julius Schwarz has prepared a detailed and comprehensive report of the Cotopaxi Colony, in which he pays the following compliments to the good qualities of the refugees:
“Your folks are first-class workers,” that is what I was pleased to hear about the laboring capacities our our people.  There is no doubt that the refugees have shown that they are not the lazy mob for which they were taken.  Under favorable circumstances they have done more than could have been expected.  Only one who knows what it means to break up virgin ground with a common shovel, can appreciate the industrious efforts of the refugees.  They have broken up the ground with a shovel, they have done the hardest part of the work required to make a wagon bridge; they have filled the ditches with rocks, which they have been compelled to cut and hew from the mountains; they went up to their throats in the swift Arkansas River, to make a foot bridge, to enable them to reach their lands; they worked in dark, damp mines, as good and as perserveringly as trained miners; they worked on the railroad giving entire satisfaction to their employers; they carried lumber on their shoulders, to spread the erection of their houses; they walked often twenty miles a day to chop wood in the forests for the purpose of putting fence posts around their farms.

This report can be seen here , and then the following 2 posts as it is in 3 parts.

They left out several paragraphs of the original report, but continue here:

Where these are facts, no theories are needed.  The argument of facts conjuers all other arguments.   The facts are, that the Colony in Cotopaxi is a success, the facts are, that those who advocated the idea that a Hebrew cannot make a farmer, have been refuted   They brought forward opinions, weapons of eloquences and of phrases, which we encounter with the weapons of facts  Facts speak.  Sixty Russian refugees left New York as paupers, five months ago.  Today they are self-supporting citizens.  They had been colonized, thus they became self-supporting; that is the logic of facts.  Do not spend lavishly your money for the purpose of distributing it to a desperate mob—-the mob will ever remain a mob—even if you give each individual the amount he gets now.  The system of money distribution mitigates the pains of the wounds, but does not heal the wound.  Colonize them, give them land, settle them, give them a home, and the mob will become a class of peaceful citizens, who love the spot to which their faith has tied them.  There is a great and sublime principle in colonization.  The principle of the qualification of Judaism.  There never was a better opportunity to show the never dying perseverance of the Jewish race, never a better chance to prove to the world that agriculture is not adverse to the Jewish feelings and inclinations, whereby can be utilized the ? power of the soil.  Distribute money, spend thousands of dollars for supplying daily wants, and you will breed and raise paupers and beggars; colonize and you will make self-supporting men.

All of this is a copy of the Schwartz report.

No author listed

This would be our evidence that HEAS had a copy of the Schwartz report by at least November, 1882.  

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The Schwarz Report, part 2

This is the second section to the Schwarz Report.  Click HERE for the first section.

4.  Colorado farming and the peculiarities of Colorado soil. 

Farming in Colorado can by no means be compared to farming in other States or regions. While farmers in Hungary or Germany depend upon rain to water the thirsty fields, the farmer who undertakes the task to break up Colorado’s soil cannot put too much trust in the natural rainfalls, but is as a rule compelled to do without it. He catches the bubbling waters of the many springs that run through the virgin soil and uses it to water his land with. In other words, he irrigates, and irrigation is no easy task. While in some parts of the west, as Dr Julius Goldman correctly remarks, farming on virgin soil requires no previous knowledge or experience, being mainly a question of observation and imitation, accompanied by such advice as is easily obtained; farming in Colorado requires knowledge of irrigation, which, however, can easily be learned, but not so easily carried out, as irrigation requires great patience, tireless attention, and a great deal of hand work – qualities which I proud to say I have found in our colonists.

This clearly shows us that by October, Schwarz had learned about irrigation and the importance of it to a successful farm.  The officials at HEAS would not have understood it, thus he needs to take time to explain it in detail.

It is a general saying in Colorado, that the test of a good farmer is his way of irrigation, and our refugees have irrigated well. They irrigated with so much success, that they had the water readily at their disposal, not as it pleased the ditch but as it pleased the irrigator. In other words, our colonist created his rain but curbed it also. It rained when it pleased him. He opened and shut his ditches just as it suited him. He led the water from one end of his farm to any part of it; he caused it to branch out in many little streams, and to bring refreshment, new life and the conditions of thrift and growth to the sun-burnt and thirsty fields.

Schwarz explains this quite well.  But he has not mentioned at this point that there needs to be a source of water.  Springs in this part of Colorado are minimal and flow when there is runoff from the snow, but dry up quickly.  They can not be counted as a viable source of water.

  Colorado is a peculiar State, but the East has altogether an erroneous idea of its capabilities. There is hardly one person out of every five hundred in the East but who believes that Colorado is a barren plain, utterly unfit for agricultural purposes. It is the common belief that the State is good for nothing except mining and stock raising. It is my unshaken belief and conviction that Colorado can be made one of the greatest agricultural States in the Union, if the proper efforts are taken to make it so.

One great bugbear that has gained great circulation is, that it never rains in Colorado, and agriculture cannot be made a success in a desert. There never was a more egregious error than this. The present season has amply verified the fact that it does rain in Colorado, but even if it did not rain, farming could be prosecuted successfully and profitably. The system of irrigation mentioned above commends itself to the farmers as the means of promoting the growth of agriculture products, and there is no tiller of the soil but who will say that the prefers irrigation to natural rainfalls. The system of irrigation enables the farmer to get just as much water as he needs and no more, and to put it just where it will do the most good. Therefore, even the scarcity of natural rainfalls would not operate to the detriment of Colorado, and will not do so as long as the means for irrigation can be so easily taken advantage of.

He is buttering up HEAS as he is about to ask for money for irrigation?

The cost of irrigation cuts no figure in the case at all, the increased production from the land more than compensating for the cost of water. There are under cultivation in Fremont County, at the present time, about 15,000 acres of land, and 100,000 acres additional can be made productive with an effective system of irrigation, for which purpose there is an abundant supply of water in the Arkansas River.

15,000 acres in Canon City?  Close to the Arkansas River?  Where ditches had already been dug to carry water to farms?  He cannot be discussing the land where the Colonists lived as water from the Arkansas would need to be pumped uphill 2000'.

The principal crops are corn and vegetables. With good cultivation, fifty bushels of corn per acre is an average yield. In the production of vegetables the capacity of the soil seems boundless. One gardener raised 140,000 pounds of cabbages on nine acres the last year, all of which sold for two cents per pound. Another gardener reports 45 tons of carrot from a single acre. Orchards are growing on about 75 acres in Fremont County, the oldest being but ten years old, and that has produced its fourth crop. 

The only known orchards at this time were located in Canon City - a much lower altitude, a much longer growing season, with flat, tillable land.

A gentleman named Jesse Frazer has the largest orchard in the county.

Jesse Frazer lived in Florence, east of Canon City.  Perhaps an even more fertile location than Canon?
It is beyond me how Schwarz can compare farming in Florence to farming 8 miles south of Cotopaxi.

He was an Argonaut of 1859, one of the many who failed to find fortune in the golden sands of Cherry Creek, and in 1860, he wended his way south, halting at the spot where he has since lived. He manufactured a plow of cotton-wood, and with that crude implement broke the ground for his first crop. He now owns about 100 acres on the banks of the Arkansas River, eight miles from Canon City, two-fifths of which is in fruit – apples, pears, peaches, grapes, cherries, plums, strawberries, raspberries, black-berries, etc. Altogether, twenty acres of his trees are now producing, and from their spreading branches he can gather golden fruit, yielding him an income of $5,000 per year.  The apple crop finds also a ready market at Colorado at six cent per pound, in other words as much for ten or fifteen pounds as the New York fruit growers received for a barrel of that healthful fruit a year ago.

Of note - Frazer's farm was located right on the Arkansas river making irrigation quite easy.

Around our farms there are wild cherries and grapes growing in abundance, and in five years our refugees will be able to offer to the market the finest specimens of grapes and cherries.

This was most likely in Cotopaxi.  Probably not at the 8000' plots.

  The question is now: If water is the principal condition of harvesting a plentiful crop, is there always water on hand when needed? To which the answer is: water is on hand in any quantity, but for some farms it is more easily reached than for others. While, for instance, on three of our farms, on those that are situated on Oak Grove Creek, the water supply is constant and abundant;

only in a "wet" year.  Not in a "dry" year.  Oak Grove Creek will dry to a trickle.

in Wet Mountain Valley it must be led off from the mountains through a long ditch, the direction of which I have personally surveyed and pointed out.

This ditch survey was never filed in the clerk's office.

But the soil in Wet Mountain Valley is so moist even without irrigation a crop could be raised.  This year our farmers had to make shift with the natural rainfall, and it was found that the soil on the valley is so compressed that it keeps the precious rain drops for weeks, proving thereby that if it only rains a few times during the season a crop can be raised. The soil is black and feels like cool ointment. The main water supply of the country in which our farms are located is the Arkansas River. 

Again, 8 miles north of the Colonists farms.

 Of course, farms having a water front enjoy the benefit of an abundant, so to say, ready-made water supply.  Our farmers get their water partly from the creeks running through their lands, partly from the lake that flows on the boundaries of Fremont and Custer Counties. The irrigating canal of Canon City Hydraulic Company, receives also its supply from the Arkansas River at the mouth of the Royal Gorge,

remember, this is 35 miles east of Cotopaxi.  Really not relevant other than Schwarz is explaining irrigation?

and passes through the park north of that town, furnishing an abundance of water for irrigating all of the ground within the city limits and many thousand acres outside. From a point one and a half miles above the city to a point an equal distance below, the Arkansas River falls one hundred and seven and one half feet, and so great and constant is the volume of water, that the power yet to be utilized can scarcely be computed. Five turbine wheels having an aggregate of three hundred horse power are in use to furnish power for different purposes, and yet, competent judges estimate that not one-tenth of the power is utilized. It can be seen from this that water is always on hand, and that getting it is merely a question of more or less work. 

 Cotopaxi did not get electricity until the 1940s or 50s.

As to the qualities of the soil, nothing illustrates more its productiveness than the fact that, despite of unusually unfavorable circumstances whereby our farmers did not get all the agricultural implements that were needed, and were obliged to break the ground with common shovels, the seed soon yielded precious fruits. Fine cabbage, large potatoes, peas, beans, and squashes, rewarded the persevering labor of our farmers, proving the surprising growing powers of soil, and testifying to the willingness earnestness and industry of our Russian co-religionists, who, I believe, will do almost anything, if they are rightly treated and rightly understood. 

Schwarz left Cotopaxi sometime in September 1882.  He did not remain for the harvest.  With the late start the he mentioned above, these crops had to remain in the ground longer to come to their full growth.  Unfortunately, there was an early freeze and the crops were lost.

Because Schwarz did not remain a full year, he did not experience late and early freezes and did not mention them in this report.  Yet they are a very common factor at 8000'.  Consider that timberline in Colorado is at 11,000' and the "tree line" is about 10,000'.  These farms were at a considerable altitude and weather would have been a huge factor.

In connection with the foregoing, I shall now take up the next point of enquiry:  

5.  The condition of the crop of the refugees - what they raise, their houses, the climate. 

The season having been too far advanced to sow wheat or oats (we arrived on the 9th of May

reconfirmation of the May 9th arrival date

expecting to find land already located, but as this was not the case,

confirmation again that Saltiel had not surveyed the land before they arrived

we had to prospect for it, and it was not until the later part of May that we established the first settlement) the colonists planted mostly garden stuffs and vegetables. As the settlement was commenced too late, I limited myself to distributing the land amongst the settlers, giving each colonist 160 acres of land in one body, ordered, however, that a number of acres be cultivated in common, and the crop to be raised thereon apportioned according to the size of each family.

This would make sense.  If you look at the plot mat, most of them are in one location.  Schwarz is stating that he took the best farm land and made it a communal farm.  Most likely 5 acres per family.

Thus about forty acres have been cultivated and ploughed up with potatoes, cabbages, beets, beans, turnips, onions, cucumbers, melons, peas, corn and radish. We planted 14,000 pounds of potatoes. The potato crop is in quantity as well as quality an excellent one. It could have been larger had not such drawbacks interfered that would have discouraged every earnest and honest beginner. 

We had no wire fences, hence the thousands of cows grazing in Wet Mountain Valley ate up the plants;

this would be true since Colorado is "open range".

our houses were not furnished (of the twelve to be built, only eight are built as yet),

2 in Cotopaxi, 4 elsewhere  from his prior statement in this report.  Now 2 additional have been completed with 4 still to be built.  Did Schwarz write this report over a length of time or was his prior statement incorrect?

hence the colonists could not live on their lands, could not watch and protect them, but had to walk home ten to twelve miles, or lie on the open field night after night;

despicable conditions brought on by the fact that Saltiel did not accomplish what he had promised HEAS he would do.

and yet, and despite of all these drawbacks, to the indefatigable perseverance of the colonists, owing to the circumstances that the management of the colony never failed to remain in contact with the refugees

here Schwarz is telling us that he was always in contact with the Colonists.  This is opposite of what Saltiel claimed in his letter to the American Hebrew.

, never failed to show that it feels for them and with them, imbuing thereby in the desperate hearts of the lingering refugees the consoling consciousness that there is somebody that watches over them, knows them, and understands them. 

Owing to the really gentlemanly conduct of the majority of the colonists, we have accomplished something. Our principal crop is the potato crop. It will suffice for the purpose of seed for the next spring and deducting some percentage will leave about 45,000 pounds for sale. As the price of potatoes in unusually low at present, I gave orders that the potatoes when picked up should be stored in underground cellars and kept until the early part of the spring, when it is expected that the market price will be considerably higher. I am glad to say that my recent reports from Cotopaxi announce a slow but constant rise of the price. 

Schwarz, at this point, did not know of the early freeze and that there were few potatoes actually harvested.

Our cabbage crop has been greatly damaged by cattle. It will, however, suffice for household requirements, as well as all the rest of the garden stuff and vegetables. The quantity of the latter is not satisfactory for reasons already detailed: the quality, however, is astonishing. The Colorado cabbages are, in comparison to cabbages that I saw in the Hudson Valley, perfect giants. A potato that I brought to show the Committee in New York weighs not less than two and one half pounds, and a beet about nine pounds.

Not enough produce to sell to make a living.  Only enough to feed the households.   A 2 1/2 pound potato and a 9 pound beet - were these average or did he pick the largest to show?

The committee has ordered twelve houses to be built for the colonists. Eight of them are completed. The size of the house is 16 feet by 20. The houses are double boarded, with tar paper between them, and have a 1-3 pitch roof. They contain three rooms and a kitchen, with stove and cooking utensils. The height of the houses is 12 feet in the centre.

Eight houses complete.  Still only 4 stoves at this point?  2 boards with tar paper between them.  Not much to keep out the elements of the winter fast approaching.

Before the houses were finished the colonists lived, and some of them still live, in Cotopaxi in a reception house. This is a building about 50 feet long by 28 feet wide, and is divided into three large light rooms, one good sized back room and two smaller rooms. 

Most likely, this is the boarding house that was built by the railroad workers when the tracks were being laid in 1880.   Yet the men had to walk the 8 miles to get to their farms.

We had also two good sized warm log cabins at our disposal. The climate of Colorado, especially of that part where our colonists are located, is the healthiest in the Union. It is called, and with reason, the sanitarium of America. It is well known that as one ascends from the level of the sea, there is found a declension of temperature averaging one degree for every 300 feet of elevation, but this is true only when the ascent is made from the surface of the earth. At the base of the Rocky Mountains we have a more genial climate and higher winter temperature than will be found in the same latitude near the level of the sea. This statement is pre-eminently true of the County of Fremont. 

As a winter resort for persons out of health, Fremont County has no equal. The altitude, the dry air, the rapid evaporation, and the direction of the winds, are the most efficient causes of all the peculiar characteristics of Colorado climate. The pure air, the dewless nights, the gorgeous scenery, and the mental relaxation so readily secured, are the advantages of Colorado climate. In Colorado, in a tent, the tenderest babe and the most delicate invalid can live and sleep all the year around and derive benefit therefrom. 

Again, Schwarz had not lived a winter in this area.  I have.  In January, 1981, I was living just NE of where the Colonists lived and we had a cold snap where the highest temperature of the day was minus 30 degrees - for a week.  I do not think anyone could have survived that in a tent.

As a consequence of these facts our colonists enjoy the best of health. No serious case of sickness has occurred, the infant that died having been suffering with diabetes since its arrival at New York.

Here is our first evidence of a death among the Colony.

In speaking of the climate of Colorado, I can justly refer to a very excellent observer and popular medical writer, Dr. W. W. Hall, who once remarked in relation to the beneficial results of Colorado climate: “I have seen the hollow chest expand, the sluggish step quickened into activity, the sunken eye grow bright, the weakened or undeveloped muscles gain wonderfully in strength, all within a few months.” Good climate requires also good food, and our colonists never lacked good food. Their chief food was bread, butter, fish, rice, coffee, beans, prunes, dried apples and potatoes.  Since the beginning of August I furnished them also kosher meat from Denver, and since the 1st of October, they having their cows and calves, they have also milk. 

The first evidence of what they lived on.  They went from May to October with no cattle, no milk?  We know they went to Salida on the train to get flour.  Fish from the Arkansas river?

Tomorrow will be the final section of this report.

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The Schwarz report - part 1

Julius Schwarz was hired by HEAS to go to Cotopaxi with the Colonists.  We know that he was there from May 9 to at least the end of September as he signed the 3 wedding documents.  This report was written on Oct 23, 1882 and is quite lengthy, so I will post it in segments, linking each post to the other.

Remember that Julius is about 21 years old, he had been in this country less than 2 years, he is a lawyer, from Hungary.    These first 3 sections talk about the history of the Colony and the "statistics" of the Colony.

Report of Julius Schwarz to HEAS 
New York, October 23, 1882.  

H. S. Henry, Esq 
President of the H E A Society of United States: 

Sir: - My position as General Manager of the Cotopaxi Colony imposed upon me the pleasant duty of presenting for your information a true account of the standing of the Colony, and of directing your attention to such matters of interested and importance as are involved in its success. 

Above all, I congratulate you, Mr. President and the Executive Committee, as well as all those interested in the welfare of refugees, on the general prosperity of the Colony, and it is with much satisfaction and justifiable pride that I pronounce the agricultural colony in the Rocky Mountains a full and complete success, and the question whether Jews are fit to become farmers, solved and answered in the affirmative; solved not by arguments of eloquence, but solved by the greatest of existing arguments – the argument of facts. 

Things to remember:
1.  He is young and wants to impress his boss - good for his career.
2.  He was in Cotopaxi in the Spring/Summer and possibly early fall.  He had not wintered there.
3.  He is proclaiming the Colony a success the same month Saltiel claimed it a failure.

I would divide the duty of reporting, assigned to me into nine general heads: 
1. The history of the Cotopaxi Colony 
2. The situation of the County of Fremont, and the topographical description of the lands on which the refugees have settled. 
3. The statistics of the Colony; the number of families, of adults, and those of minor age, etc. 
4. Colorado farming, and the peculiarities of the soil. 
5. The condition of the crop of the refugees; what they raise; their houses; the climate; the food they get. 
6. The working capacity of the colonists. 
7. Education and religious life of the colonists. Their relations to their Christian neighbors. 
8. Expenditures made for establishing and supporting the Colony. The property of the Colony. 
9. General remarks and conclusions 

Above are the 9 categories of this report - the first 3 are in this blog.

1 The history of the Cotopaxi Colony
The tyrannical illiberality of the Russian Government, which permitted the cruel persecution of a people for the simple reason that they are of a peculiar race and a peculiar faith, overflowed the free shores of our country with suffering refugees. 

This is evidenced by the tens of thousands of immigrants who flooded NYC daily.  No jobs, no food, no housing.

The desire to colonize these refugees, to make them farmers, and to tie them thereby to the spot which they might choose to be their home, speedily became a sentiment among our thinking co-religionists.

NYC had no means to support this huge quantity of immigrants so HEAS set about to send groups of them to farms throughout the country - to lessen the burden on NYC.

Let us try to colonize them. Let us rescue them from the ever burdening chains of poverty and desolation, by opening for them the boundless fields of our country. Let us break the prejudice of the multitude against Jewish agriculturists. Jews as farmers are no novelty. There are Jewish farmers in Hungary, in Romania, in Russia and they all prosper and get along. The idea, the conception of colonization soon grew to a thought, and the thought was soon carried out and became a fact. 

It was decided that Government land be taken up in Colorado, and an experimental Colony be founded. The scheme matured, and the Committee generously aided all efforts tending to speed the execution of the plan. Proper persons, amongst them some trained farmers, were selected, and on the 3rd of May, 1882, the Colony, consisting of thirteen families, left for Cotopaxi, where they arrived after a five days journey. 

This would put them in Cotopaxi on May 8, but almost all other records confirm May 9.  Notice that there is no mention of Saltiel in the "scheme" that matured.  There were trained farmers in the group.

Although I was at first appointed Clerk to the Colony, its entire management was subsequently entrusted to me. 
The management of the Colony was entrusted to me, and Leon Tobias, of Odessa, was selected as assistant and field overseer.

We know this to be true from the Tuska Report.

2.  The situation of Fremont County, and the topographical description of the lands on which the refugees have been settled

The village of Cotopaxi lies in the County of Fremont, 35 miles west of Canon City, and 25 miles east of the City of Salida, almost in the centre of the great line – Denver – Leadville. 

Fremont County has an area of nearly 1,300 square miles, and is bisected by the Arkansas River, which flows from west to east near the centre of the county, for a distance approximating 50 miles. 

Canon City, the capital of the country, is situated two miles east of the Royal George of the Arkansas, midway between the north and south, and twenty miles west of the eastern boundary line, at an altitude of 5,000 feet above sea level.

The altitude of Canon City is 5331'.  Cotopaxi is at 6362'.  The Colonists farms were at about 8362'.

Thirty-five miles west from Canon City on the main line of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway lies the village of Cotopaxi, so named from the famous volcano in South America. Cotopaxi is the headquarters of a rich mining district; is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded by high mountains, most of which contain valuable minerals, especially silver and copper, galena and lead.

What Schwarz could not have known at this point is that these minerals were limited in quantity and within just a few years, there was no mining left in this area.

The Arkansas River runs at the foot of the valley. It is a pretty lively railroad station, and is by means of favorable site destined to become one of the best places in the Centennial State.

Again, Schwarz could not have know that this never came to fruition.

Opposite Cotopaxi, on the southern banks of the Arkansas River, there are about 500 acres of farming land, ascending in easy grades and surrounded on both sides by high mountains, whose interior resounds with the drilling and blasting of miners, and which are covered with oak trees that furnish an excellent material for fence posts and kindling wood. This land, covered with fresh green grass, which at points reaches the height of two feet, extends to the length of three and one half English miles, and forms the first link in the chain of farms that are under the cultivation of the expatriated Russian Jews.

This is grass as we know it, but rather grazing grass, good for cattle.  It is not planted - it comes up on its own in a good year when there is rain.  Green in June, dry and brown by August.

Here on Oak Grove Creek three of our farmers are located: Joseph Nudleman, himself a farmer:

His plot has a creek running through it.  This is a seasonal creek that dries up after spring run-off.  Nudelman is listed as a carpenter in the directories.

Loeb Zadek, a carpenter, but who is now one of the best farmers, a man who has the most carefully irrigated land, and who is the living proof that Russians are by no means that stiff-necked lazy people for which they were taken.

Zadek's plot is located where Tom Young lived.  Many of us know the location well.  It has the most water - but still on a seasonal creek that will dry up most of the year.  It was also where the stage coach road  had a junction going east to Texas Creek Road, west to Pleasant Valley and north to Cotopaxi.

 The third is Sholem Chorovsky, whose farm looks like a flower garden; a man who while staying in New York was known to the committee only as a boisterous rebel, as a dissatisfied, quarrelsome creature and who now, when colonized and placed in a home, has become a placid, peaceful man who likes his home, and in the closest meaning of the word caresses the spot on which he has based his future. 

I have not found this plot registered in the Clerk's office.  But based on the dimensions and location of the Nudelman and Zadek plots, I almost think it was south of the Zadek plot.  This, too would have been located on a seasonal creek with water part of the time to irrigate with.

A steep mountain range, strewn with gigantic rocks, separates these farms from the second division of the colony – from Wet Mountain Valley, so called on account of the frequent rain falls and the natural humidity of its soil. Here six of the farmers are located, occupying six full lots of 160 acres each, total, 960 acres. The names of the six farmers are: Marcus Chuturan, Sholem Chuturan, Michael Shamess, Baruch Milkstein, Morris Menkowsky and Isaac Shamess.

We have located these plots and they are mapped out.

Four other lots, I found, had been taken up and proved by Christian farmers. I have ordered these to be left, not only to avoid quarrelsome litigation, but because I found, three and a half miles further south, a body of better land, easier to be watered, and run through by creeks, allowing a plentiful irrigation. I, therefore, deserted those lots and located the landless farmers on a body of land comprising two lots. 

As for the 4 lots taken up by Christians - remember, Saltiel never filed any of this land in the land office, so it was "free" for anyone to homestead.

Here, on the third division of the farms, I located the other five farmers, namely: Abel B. Sneider, Samuel Newman, David Grupitzky,

Interesting that this land was originally plotted in Fremont County.  There was a problem and it was resurveyed and no belongs to Custer County.  I have been through all their records and there is nothing with these names on it, but we have these declarations in Fremont County.  On the plot map  you can see the dark lines around these plots which show the disputed areas between the 2 counties.

a man who during the week, shovels the ground and carries lumber, or goes to work, while on Sabbaths he performs the duties of a reader and rabbi,

as evidenced by the fact that he signed all 3 marriage certificates.

 Hirsch Dublitzky and Henry Lauterstein. The farmers Sigmund Vositzer, Zalel Prisrand and Jacob Milchstein, participate in cultivating the farms of B. Milchstein, Isaac Shamess and Michael Shamess. 

Here we see where multiple families lived on the same farms and most likely shared the same homes.

The acreage of the lands already settled amounts to 1,780 acres. Besides, we have at our disposal, surveyed and staked, on Wet Mountain Valley, nine more lots comprising 1,440 acres, which, however, can only be cultivated by means of a three miles long ditch to be dug, through which the water shall be carried from the mountains.

No evidence of this land ever being claimed.  No records in Fremont or Custer counties.  Nothing at the land offices in Pueblo which are now at the archives in Denver.

The amount of land belonging to the colony and being at the disposal of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society, is thirty-two hundred and twenty acres.  All these lands have been carefully surveyed, and possess a rich phosphate soil.  Nobody is allowed to occupy more than 160 acres of Government land, this being the legal claim allowed to each individual occupant. 

This is not correct.  There are 16 known plots at 160 acres each which would total only 2560 acres.  If you add in the Chorotsky plot which I have not located, then there are 2720 acres.

If you add in Saltiel's plot of 160 acres, of which he sold 155 acres to his mining company, you would still only be at 2880 acres.  I do not see how Schwarz arrived at 3220 acres.

The laws of Colorado have pretty strict provisions in this respect, they are, however, distinct and without ambiguity.

Numerous reports show that the homestead act was violated time and again in western fremont county.  This law was not enforced until about 1894 at the earliest.  Saltiel, by virtue of claiming 160 acres under the homestead act, then selling 155 acres to his mining company, violated this law.

They compel each colonist to cultivate at least five acres of his claim within six months from the day of his settling upon it, and to stake the balance of 155 acres, or less. After the occupation has been made, the occupant has to file a declaration for record in the office of the Register of his county.

And we have 16 declarations that were filed in June and November 1882.

After this, filing must be done at the land office, either by pre-emption or homestead, where upon the necessary papers constituting title and ownership of the occupant are issued. If filing is done by homestead, the occupant must reside on his land, that is, must have a dwelling thereon. 

This filing never happened.

Four of our farmers have their houses already, and two will have them built in Cotopaxi itself, the remaining six on their respective lands.  Those living in Cotopaxi have, in order to comply with the law to erect log cabins on their lands, which they have partly already done. 

There were 17 families so this does not add up.  We now know that the 2 in Cotopaxi were Nudelman and Shuteran.

Is Schwarz stating that as of October, these homes had not yet been built?

Who were the 4 that had houses built?  Who were the 6 who were going to have them built.  This still only totals 12 houses for 17 families.

Yet this is confirmation of 12 houses being built for 70 people.

Tomorrow I will post the next section of this report.

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