Cowboys, Indians and Newspapers

Using newspapers is such a valuable resource if you want to know about your family.  But don't just look at local newspapers.....sometimes the stories traveled far and wide.

I happened to be searching in the New York State historical newspapers archives and found this article in the

Note the date - June 9, 1882....just one month after the Jews arrived in Cotopaxi.

Here's the article:

Life in the Southwest.  Pueblo Col., June 8 -- Southern Colorado Utes are preparing for war.  They have been incensed by the killing of some of their members.  Large numbers of warriors are assembled on the Denver & Rio Grande road in war-paint.  They threaten to resist removal from their reservation as provided in the last treaty.

This proves that Indians were still in the area when the Colonists arrived.  Not just "in the area" but with war-paint on!

Cowboys?  I don't think we need proof that there were cattle ranchers in Colorado in 1882.  That's a given.

Here are a couple of links that might help you with your newspaper research....and they are free.

 Fulton History - has numerous New York State and New York City newspapers.

Colorado Historic Newspapers

Unfortunately, the Colorado site does not include any of the Fremont County newspapers.  They have not been digitized, but are available at the Fremont History Center in Canon City on microfilm.

Many events that happened in Fremont County were picked up by other newspapers, so it's still a great resource.

My suggestions on how you do a newspaper search:

1)  Use just the last name.  You will have to weed through a ton of newspapers, but it will help you find everything - those who use a first initial or abbreviate the first name.
2)  Use the surname and an occupation such as Nudelman carpenter
3)  Do both the full name and the abbreviation such as "HEAS" and then "Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society".
4)  Try every possibility.  Emigrant. Emmigrant.  Imigrant. Immigrant.  You might be surprised at what you will find.
5)  Think outside the box when it comes to dates.  Emanuel Saltiel died in 1900.  When I opened up my search dates to 1950 - I found a lawsuit by his children filed years after he died.

Newspapers not only prove oral histories - they often expand on them.  Now that I know the Indians were in Pueblo....I can go to other newspapers and look for more articles on this date and place and see where this takes us.  For now, it's enough to know that this really was the "wild west" when the Jews arrived in Cotopaxi.

***** c2016Cotopaxi-Colony.blogspot.com  All content is copyright protected and may not be copied, reproduced, reused or reposted in any manner without permission.

A letter from E. H. Saltiel

I have a copy of a letter he wrote dated October 27, 1882.  Saltiel wrote this letter in an attempt to rebut statements made by Morris Tuska.  What he probably didn't realize is the extent he provided us good facts about the Cotopaxi Colony.

A timeline he provides us in that letter:

I went to Colorado at my own expense and arranged for the building of a number of houses during the summer months, guarding as is usual, loss or delay to the Contractor from flood, fire or visitations of Providence.  On the eighth day of May this contract was verbally agreed to, between the Contractor and myself and a memoranda agreement in writing was drawn up, but not signed on that day, but a short time afterwards the signatures of both parties were attached, and the houses proceeded with.

So as of May 8, there had been no attempt to build houses.  This contract was made with Saltiel's cousin, E. S. Hart who owned the store in Cotopaxi.

Please note that Saltiel was not in Cotopaxi - he had to go there.

The Refugees arrived on May 9, 

The first statement that the land had not yet been surveyed:

on May 11th  I requested Mr. Schwartz to accompany a colored farmer, one Edward Jones, to Oak Grove Creek with a few of the colonists and stake out the bottom land under the farmer’s direction.  

On May 27th I went with Schwartz and another man into the Wet Mountain Valley, and selected a corner to start a survey line, and gave directions to run from that point as a centre and take up Two thousand acres of the best land.  I drove three stakes into the land and directed Schwartz to tell the colonists that ploughing must commence on the following day.

We have located 17 land declarations dated both June and November 1882.  I have not yet been able to locate any documentation on this 2000 acre survey.    Note - it was not done until AFTER the Colonists arrived!

After Tuska left on July 30, 1882, Saltiel writes:

After Mr. Tuska had left, ...  I talked with Mr. Hart and got him to turn over the building contract to me and such building material as he had on hand... and I personally assumed the responsibility of building the houses, and have since that time quietly proceeded with them with two carpenters. 

In Saltiel's own words.....

He did not start building the Colonists homes until May 8, 1882, one day before their arrival.
He did not start to survey the land for their farms until May 27, 1882.
Their homes were not finished by at least July 30, 1882.

We are successfully proving the oral histories of the Cotopaxi Colonists - one by one.

***** c2016Cotopaxi-Colony.blogspot.com  All content is copyright protected and may not be copied, reproduced, reused or reposted in any manner without permission.

Using maps to tell a story

I believe that genealogy, history and maps go hand in hand.  It's been a great "map week" for me with lots of interesting finds.....at BLM of all places.

This first one is an 1882 survey of Cotopaxi - the "original" survey which means there wasn't a government survey done prior to this date.  This is most of section 31.  Cotopaxi is in the north 1/2 of the north quarter (N1/2NW1/4) of section 31, Township 48 R 12E.  So the center of town (where the RR crosses the CR12)  today is just about the bottom of the number "6" in 34.64

I could probably do an entire class on reading township sections, quarters, sixteenths and so on.  Back east, townships have names and are well known.  Out west...no one ever uses a township, except when it comes to land descriptions.

(Copyright protected***)


A couple of important things to note.

1)  The road north of the tracks is on the west side of the creek.  Today, it is on the east side.
2)  The tracks seem to be too close to the river to have 2 houses between them.  Were the original tracks closer to the Arkansas than they are today?  Is the map to scale?  I have a document that says, "the old rr tracks" and shows that line south of where the tracks are today.
3)  The creek on the north side goes farther west than it is today.  This is verified by many mine claims that state it was 1/2 mile between Bernard Creek and Oak Grove Creek.
4)  Neither the road to the north or the road to the south meet at Cotopaxi - both curve to the west.  This would confirm the oral history that there was a ford in the river about 1/2 mile west of Cotopaxi.
5)  The red printed area says "Cotopaxi Placer No 286"

so the next thing I did was try to find No 286.  I thought I was looking for a plat like above.  Ends up it was a placer mining claim and in it, there was an 1884 plot of Cotopaxi.

(Copyright protected***)

So 2 years later, the road is now east of Bernard Creek and crosses the Arkansas.  BUT....note that the road is to the west of both stores and the house, just to the east of the water tower.  Still NOT where the road is today.  

This map gives me a bit more information:

1)  It labels Cotopaxi Gulch (known as Miner's gulch today)

2)  Identifies Saltiel's house as the "dwelling house" and I have documents that use this in the description

3)  Shows me 2 stores and a hotel.....about where I thought they were

4)  Gives us a freight house, depot and section house for the railroad - which is what I thought was there.

5)  Gives me a location for a ditch that is shown in several documents

6)  Shows a "new" wagon road north of the tracks, south of Saltiel's place, going west and then north...up to the Cotopaxi mine.

7.  Shows a space from Hart's store and hotel going east to the "houses".

This open space has been identified as the "lower orchard" on a number of documents.  Then we have the attached Shuteran/Nudelman house.  These were Colonists.  I wonder if Saltiel had the Jew's homes built to the east of town, away from the gentiles.  It would make sense.  Supposedly there were 6 houses in town by the fall of 1882 according to Schwartz.  Guess I need to go do some more research to see what I can find.

Shuteran and Nudelman sold their attached house to Annie Hart and she then sold it to Susan McCoy.  It became known in the documents as the "McCoy double house".  I was able to track it to the current location today.  We think the original "double house" was torn down and another structure was put on this land.  But we do know it was located at the east end of town and this map would confirm that.

Using maps, land declarations, property transactions and now mining claims....I'm gradually building a story of how Cotopaxi was built from nothing to what it was in 1882 - 1884 when the Jewish Colonists resided there.....and then to today's current homes.  

The "dwelling house" on this map later became the Hylton Hotel.  The store & P. O. and the hotel to the east of it belonged to E. S. Hart who was Saltiel's cousin.  Making progress - one map at a time!

***Why do I say "Copyright protected"?  Because you do not have the right to take the research that I've done and use it on your website/book/story etc without my written permission.   Feel free to schedule some time with me and I'll gladly show you how to do the research yourself!!!

***** c2016Cotopaxi-Colony.blogspot.com  All content is copyright protected and may not be copied, reproduced, reused or reposted in any manner without permission.

Were the Cotopaxi Jews tricked?

The family oral stories tell us that the Jews were brought to Cotopaxi with the promise of wonderful farms and they were tricked into going to work in Saltiel's mines because one could not farm in Cotopaxi.

Sometimes, it's as simple as finding a newspaper article.

Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette 29 Jan 1881 - a year and 4 months BEFORE the Colonists arrived at Cotopaxi:

"The Silver Cliff Prospect says, "Mr. Saltiel, of Cotopaxi, Fremont county, has inaugurated a novel scheme to secure laborers to work on the Silver Cliff extension of the Denver & Rio Grande railroad. He has opened recruiting offices for the enlisting of laborers at Chattanooga, Tennessee, New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.  He expects to bring into the state about six thousand men from these points during the winter and spring."

I know that it says this recruitment was for building a railroad extension.  BUT....6000 laborers?  The overflow would have been surplus employment for his mines.

Where did he propose that they reside?  Was part of the labor intended to build homes for them?

Obviously, this never came to fruition.   But it proves that he was seeking a labor market as early as a year and 4 months before the Colonists arrived.

When Saltiel realized his employment offices failed, he must have needed a new source of employees.  Perhaps this is when he turned to HEAS in NYC?

We may never know....but when you are working on your own family genealogy, don't forget to look to historical newspapers for information.

Using multiple census records to prove your family.

Yesterday, I blogged about the Prezant family and to make it easier, I put their information into a spreadsheet.

Spreadsheets make it so easy to compare dates, names and places.  When you look at them across the line, you can quickly point out any obvious errors, such as the fact that Sarah and Etta could not have been born 6 months apart - and that was corrected in the 1910 census.

And that Hirsch is not in the 1885, 1900 or 1910 census. He must have died before 1885.

Next, I went in search of a ship's arrival manifest.  There was a list made when they got on the ship in Europe, and one made when they arrived in New York City.  Found this:

which was transcribed as this:

Yet when magnified (and put into photoshop with even more filters)

I can see the first name as possibly a spelling of Zallel, i.e., Zallael and the last name looking more like Br....ant...Brnerantt or Breisantt.  (Can you see how this later turned int Prezant?)

Nel - could easily be Kel - look at how her first name transitioned in these few short years.

And they have "Mary" as a male age 8.  Yet I can clearly see Itzag.  Can you?

Horrih - easily Hirsch.

(I should point out that Charles was a common Americanization of the Jewish name Zallel.)

So let's add a new column to the spreadsheet to include the arrival manifest:

Pretty sure we have a match.  They arrived June 17, 1882, and Hirsch was 10/12 months old at that time.  They immediately left for Cotopaxi.  So what happened to Hirsch as he is not listed in the 1885 census.

Carol Friedman is a descendant of this line and she has done extensive research and has not found information on Hirsch.  I have not found any other descendants who have information on him.

Because of the huge range of possible spellings of the surname between 1882 and 1885, it would be nearly impossible to search the Denver cemetery lists.

So the questions will remain unanswered for future researchers.  Hirsch must have died sometime between June 1882 and June 1885.  Was he buried at Cotopaxi?   We do not know.

I found a Charles Prizent living at 369 Larimer St in the 1884 city directory.  Same name in the 1885 directory as a "ragman".  Did not locate him in the 1883 city directory.  So if Hirsch died while in Cotopaxi, it would have been within a year of arrival.

Just to share with you how much a Yiddish/Russian/German surname changed between 1882 and 1930 here's what we have for this family:

Breisand - ship's departure manifest

Bonerannt - ship's arrival manifest

Prizent - 1884/1885 Denver city directories

Trissoml - 1885 census

Prezant - 1900 census

Rrezant - 1910 census

Prezont - 1920 census

Poezant - 1930 census

Some of these are obvious typing errors, others can be shown as transcription errors.  It is so hard to read old handwriting.  But it is so worth it in the long run!!  At least I've clarified this much for future researchers.

Hirsch Prezant.  1881 to pre 1885.  Hopefully one day we will learn more about him.  Until then....may his memory be a blessing.

***** c2016Cotopaxi-Colony.blogspot.com  All content is copyright protected and may not be copied, reproduced, reused or reposted in any manner without permission.

The 1885 census - it's such a mess!

Here's what I will show you in this blog about searching census records:

1)  Some websites skip a column or page from a census when indexing it
2)  Some websites have much better scans of images than other websites
3)  People who read the handwriting and typed it in made a lot of mistakes - some rather significant
4)  Be sure to compare the sex of a person, the date of birth, and the order of the family
5)  Find a relative or neighbor of your family first, then use that to find your family living close by
6)  Remember that at the turn of the century, a lot of families moved/lived together in clusters.
7)  Take your time - what you are looking for is probably there!

First off....there is no 1885 census for Fremont County.  But there is!  The story goes that someone found an alphabetized list of the 1885 Census tucked up in the top of the rafters of a basement somewhere here in town.  And that list is at the local history center.  So if you want to see if a person lived here in 1885, you can do that.  But it doesn't show what family they were living with or who their neighbors were....it's just an alphabetical list.  It has never been transcribed so you won't find it anywhere except by visiting the local history center!

I have used it to prove that none of the Cotopaxi Colonists were here in 1885.  Neither was Saltiel, Hart, Tobias or Schwarz.

But the bigger mess is Denver and how ancestry.com and familysearch.org have failed us in the digitization and indexing of names.  While I am using the families who were at Cotopaxi in my example, you can use the process for any name, any year, any location.

I first found the Shames family living downtown Denver in the 1885 census at ancestry:

I took this image, put it into photoshop, converted it to a "stamp" and could finally see that it was:

Isaac Shames with his daughters Rachel Shames and Nettie Washington.  And I already knew from the Cotopaxi documents that Isaac had a daughter married to Joe Washington (later shortened to Washer).

Ancestry had transcribed this as:

This is on the bottom left of page 42, Arapahoe County, District 5 if you subscribe to ancestry and want to look it up.

I found his 2 brothers, S. Malsten and B. Muhlstein above him.

I felt that the Colonists probably lived close together in Denver, so I started looking at pages on this census before and after the Shames/Milstein family.  In the next column on this page, I found the Krupitsky, Prezant and Toplitsky families.

Krupitsky had been transcribed as Ruhhitsky.  (OK, trust me, this did not all happen on the same day!  I have been working on this for the last 10 years!!)

Prezant - transcribed as Trissoml 

Toplitsky - transcribed as Tehiock

It takes patience....and great skill to really understand the 1885 census!

I'm going to use Prezant as my example here.  After taking the image and working on it in Photoshop, I was pretty sure the surname was Priscrant.  And it is clear enough on the first names:

Chas, age 30

Carrie, age 28

Joseph, age 11

Sarah, age 7 7/12.

I had already found their ship's manifest:

Here they were transcribed as:

Zattel Breisand, age 28, born 1854
Kele Breisand, age 26, born 1856
Itzag Breisand, age 8, born 1874
Hirsch Breisand, age not given, presumed to be a newborn, so given a date of 1882.

And I had found them in the 1900 census in Denver as:

Charles Prezant, age 45
Clara Prezant, age 43
Sarah Prezant, age 15, born Nov 1885
Etta Prezant, age 14, born Mar 1886
Nettie Prezant, age 11, born Sep 1888
Belle Prezant, age 9, born Aug 1890
Rosa Prezant, age 8, born 1892
Jessie Prezant, age 2, born Sep 1897
Abrie Prezant, age 4, born Oct 1895
Eda Prezant, age 1, born Jul 1898

Clara stated that she had given birth to 14 children, 9 were still living.  Eight were still living at home.  Their oldest son, Joseph, was married and living next door to Michael Shames and his family in Weld County.  They were all farmers.  In the 1900 Census, Joseph is age 26, making him born about 1873.


That makes him age 11 in 1885.  That lines up with Joseph in the 1885 Census above, and Itzag, age 8, in 1882 on the ship's manifest.  But where is Hirsch?  And notice, Clara could not have had a child born in Nov 1885 and another born in Mar 1886!   Read the census!!!

All of these records came from ancestry.com.  Next, I wanted to see what was on familysearch.org.  So I took a look there and wow!  What a difference in the scans of the census!  Familysearch is so much better!!!



That's Isaac Shames, and his daughters Rachel and Nettie.  Transcribed as Shamus and Warsburger.

 I could not find the Presents by searching. I found them by simply looking at column 2 on this page:

Familysearch skipped the entire right hand column of this page when they transcribed the census!  Not a single family will show up when you do a search!  The only way to find these families is to "know" where to look - you find them in ancestry first, then go to familysearch to look at the better scan!  What a pain!!!

So how many people have missed finding their families because they do not go page by page looking for them?

How many people can't find a family because of the transcription of a surname?

I grew up in a fairly small farming community in Indiana and a long time ago, I went through the 1930 census and corrected the spelling of all the surnames for that township.  Because I knew how the names were spelled.  And for such a small community, I couldn't believe the number of surnames that had been incorrectly typed.  I could read them clearly, but someone who did not know what the names were....I could see how they could get it wrong just by looking at handwriting and not knowing what the name was.  It was a fascinating lesson in research for me!

So take Denver in the 1885 census and these are Yiddish speaking Russian Germans.  No wonder the names were handwritten the way they were....and then the person who indexed these had to simply guess at what the letters in the handwriting were - especially when you look at the poorly scanned image on ancestry.

And yes - ancestry and family search have different transcriptions of what the surname is.  The records were independently transcribed by each agency and they simply do not match up!

I have found things on ancestry that I cannot find on other websites.  And vice versa.  That's why I look at the census and read it line by line.  Yes - it takes an incredible amount of time.  But I have found things that no one else can find.  And now, you know why!!!

Next up - a closer look at the Prezant family.

***** c2016Cotopaxi-Colony.blogspot.com  All content is copyright protected and may not be copied, reproduced, reused or reposted in any manner without permission.

Myth-busting in genealogy - the Cotopaxi Colony list of members.

Family histories are great.  But do you take them at face value?  Do you ever try to prove them?

Flora Satt wrote her 1950 Master's thesis about the Cotopaxi Colony.  Consider what a master's thesis is and who it is written for.  While she did a great job, her professors are not going to know if it is accurate or not.  They cannot prove her right or wrong!  They were looking for her research capabilities and with the limitations given in 1950 - she did an outstanding job!  Yet with the research capabilities we have available today to genealogists, I can prove her wrong time and again.

It has been said that she was a descendant of one of the Colonists.  Her mother was Ethel Milstein.  Her grandfather was Menash Milstein.  And her great grandfather was Saul Ber Milstein.  Saul Ber Milstein and his children were not Colonists as their ship did not arrive in America until December 1884.....after the colony had disbanded.  But Flora was closely related to the Colonists.

First myth busted.  Flora's ancestors were never at Cotopaxi.

Flora gave us many great references.  But I found out that when you go to find the references, they are nonexistent.  Family Bibles cannot be traced.  Old newspaper articles have been lost, never digitized.  Family letters are not available.  I am the kind of researcher who wants to read the entire article, not just a sentence or two out of the article.  As for my research on Cotopaxi - when I am done, you will be able to read anything and everything as I will donate it all to the Family History Center here in Canon City. (oh! lucky them!!!)

Flora's proof - a lot simply doesn't exist.

In her footnotes, she gives us a breakdown of who was living in Cotopaxi in 1882 - 1884:

35. The list of the twenty-two 'heads of family' who were eligible to file on 160 acres each includes the following:
1. Benjamin Zalman Milstein, 40, with his wife Hannah, and younger son Henry. His eldest son Jacob was married and thus the head of his own family.
2. Jacob Millstein, 19, with his wife Nettie, 20. (The spelling of the name was changed on the marriage license issued at Blackhawk, 1882).
3. Jacob Milstein, 18, eldest son of Saul Baer Milstein. He represented his father, the original
leader of the group.
4. Isaac Leib 'Shames' (Milstein), widower, with two young daughters, Hannah, Rachel, (Nettie,
 see 6)
5. Michael 'Shames' (Milstein), 23, eldest son of Isaac Shames, with his wife Frieda Raisie, and two young daughters, Esther Mary and Sarah Bessie.
6. Joseph Washer, 22, son-in-law of Isaac Shames, with his wife Nettie.
7. Charles Prezant, 24, cousin-in-law, having married Keile Milstein in Europe. They had at this
 time one son, Isaac, 3 years old.
8. Max Shuteran, 19, having married Keile's sister Hannah Milstein, was also a cousin by
 marriage to the seven families listed above.
9. Solomon Shuteran, 21, brother of Max, with his wife Rachel and baby girl who died in
Cotopaxi and was buried there.
10. David Korpitsky, 37, widower with three daughters and one baby son which died in
 Cotopaxi and was buried there.
11. Samuel Schneider, 48, with his wife Alta.
12. Abrahan Newman, son-in-law of Schneider, with his wife Nechama.
13. Berel Morris, son-in-law of Schneider, with his wife Sarah and daughter Helen.
14. Samuel Shradsky, 65, widower.
15. Sholem Shradsky, eldest son of #14, with his wife Mindel, two young daughters, Asna and Sarah.
16. Hyram Shradsky, 19, eldest son of Sholem.
17. Max Shradsky, 18, son of Sholem.
18. Herschel Toplitsky, 23, son-in-law of Sholem (#15), having married Riva, his eldest daughter.
19. Charles Moscowitz, with his wife and four young daughters.
20. Morris 'Zedek' Needleman, with his wife Rivka, four daughters.
21. Max Tobias, with his wife Bessie.
22. Ed Grimes, 18.

Flora doesn't tell us specifically where this list came from, but she does use Dorothy Roberts "The Jewish Colony at Cotopaxi" 1941 as a reference.