Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Military Service in the Fountain Valley

Other information and photographs of local men and women who served in the Armed Services are welcome.  This page is arranged chronologically.

Civil War Veterans Buried in Fairview Cemetery

James T. Bell Private Co. E 114th Illinois Infantry 
James Bell was born in Virginia in about 1824, and is buried at Fairview Cemetery.  His date of death is not known.  The 1880 census shows him as a single man living near Fountain in Township 16 South Range 67 West, with his father Zebulon Bell, and the Keetons.  Samuel Keeton homesteaded near Rock Creek and Highway 115.  Although their relationship to Sam Keeton was given as brother and father, it is more likely that they were his wife Mary Keeton’s relatives.  Both men were wagon makers.  In 1870, James Bell lived with the Priest family, who homesteaded in Dead Man’s Canyon along Hwy 115, and the father Zebulon lived with his son Lance Bell in Fountain.  The Bells appear to have moved to Colorado by about 1866.  In 1860, the family lived in Springfield, Illinois.

William Christian Private Co. G&H 16th Regt TN Infantry 
William Briton Christian was born in Tennessee on May 18, 1839.  He enlisted at Harris, Franklin County, TN.  He married Lovica Bess in 1870 and they had five children.  William's mother, Margaret Pace, was 1/8 Cherokee and when he heard that Native Americans could obtain free land there, he moved to Missouri.  He did not qualify, and they stayed in Missouri for 2 years before coming to Colorado.  
Marcus B. Corbin Corporal Co. F 2nd NE Cavalry 
Marcus Corbin was born Nov 2, 1829 in Massachusetts.  He came to Colorado before 1870, and was a stock grower in Pueblo on that census.  The family lived in Fountain in 1880.   He died on May 19, 1896  and is buried at Fairview Cemetery.

The 1878 County Tax Assessment for Corbin, which was found among records in the PPLD Special Collections, shows that he owned 1800 acres of land, about 40 head of cattle, 2 horses and a wagon, some furniture and $2200 in cash.  His land was southeast of the cemetery along Fountain Creek.



William M. Foster Private Co. F 1st Minn Cavalry 
William Foster was born in Pennsylvania on Feb 23, 1848.  He owned a restaurant in Hamburg, Iowa in 1910, came to Colorado in about 1913 and the family lived on Missouri Avenue.  There are two headstones marking his grave, including a cement stone with very worn paint that reads Grandpa Foster.




William L. Imes Private Co. D 1st Iowa Cavalry  
William Imes was born in Ohio in March 1845.  In 1880, they lived in Union Township, Iowa.  On Ancestry.com, he appears as a pensioner and an invalid in April 1886.  His widowed wife Mary received his pension in 1923.  On the 1900 census, they lived on a farm near Fountain, and had been married for about 24 years.  They moved to Colorado Springs by 1910, and had three children living.  The GLO Land records show that William patented homestead land in El Paso County in 1898, in T16SR65W sec 7.  Thus he would have settled on the land on or before 1893.  Isaac and Moses Imes also patented homestead land in this section, but that was in 1875.  Isaac was a teamster in Chaffee County in 1880.


John P. Kleckner Captain Co. D 83rd PA Regt Infantry
John Kleckner was born in May, 1839 in Pennsylvania and died January 20, 1908.  On the 1880 census, Kleckner and his family lived in Brownville, Nebraska. He was the sheriff’s jailer.  They had moved there from Pennsylvania by 1870.  They were not found on the 1900 census.  He and his wife Sarah later moved to Colorado.

His obituary, which appeared in the McDonald, PA Record on Jan 24, 1908, contradicts the census somewhat.  It said:
Captain J. P. KLECKNER, until two years ago a resident of  McDonald, died at Fountain, Colorado, Monday, January 20, aged 67. The deceased was born in Venango. On August 19, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Co. F, 83d Penn'a Volunteers. After serving four years all but a month, he was mustered out as captain of Co. D. He was wounded in the leg from which he suffered until death. Captain KLECKNER was a charter member of Leiut. S. M. ADAMS Post, G. A. R., of McDonald, and was its first commander.  His wife survives him. Mrs. Wm. FORINGER of Third street is a daughter.

James O. Quick Private  Co. H 1st Colorado Infantry 
James Quick was born in New York in June 1843.  He joined the 1st Colorado Cavalry, which mustered in 1862.  He was a silver miner on Eagle River in 1880, and worked as a teamster, living on Race Street in Fountain in 1910.   He died in 1933.

J.O. Quick Celebrates 90th Birthday
By Nellie Pyles, 2-page story copied from the files of the Pioneer Museum.

Mr. J.O. Quick, one of El Paso county’s best known and most highly esteemed citizens is celebrating with his 40 children and grand-children his 90th birthday, with an all day picnic at Rock Creek park in the shadow of Cheyenne mountain. Although next Tuesday is really his birthday, his family has gathered today to do him honor and in the little home where he has lived many years he has greeted Mr. and Mrs. J.A. (Fred) Quick of Crested Butte; Mr. and Mrs. M.A. Quick and family of Eagle; Mr. and Mrs. Rolfe Quick and family of Fountain; Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Reed and family of Ordway; Mr. and Mrs. Will Tulley of Pinon and Mr. and Mrs. Morris Askey and family of Fountain.

In the spring of 1861, a 17-year old boy trudged beside an ox team along the sandy trail toward these same mountains.  Born in the state of New York, living a few years in Wisconsin and later in Iowa, the high dry land of the plains drew him here.  When the call came for volunteers to save the Union, Joe Quick enlisted in the First Regiment, Colorado Cavalry, and served during the Civil War.  He married Annie Terrell, daughter of another newcomer in 1869. 

Mr. Quick has been for over 21 years the mail carrier for the Fountain Post Office and few are the days during these years when he has not made several trips to both the Rio Grande depot at the north end of town and the Santa Fe depot on the west side with the incoming and outgoing mail.  Every railway mail clerk in the division knows and greets him and the patrons of the office depend upon and love him.

May he live many more years, celebrate many more picnics and, in the words of the old toast, “Live long and die young.”


Edward Redmond Private 1st Missouri Cavalry 
Edward Redmond was born in Ireland in 1826 and emigrated after 1840.  He and his wife lived in Fountain in 1900, and he died in January 1913.




Milton H. Rounsavell Sergeant Co. B 113th Illinois Infantry

Milton Rounsavell was born in March 1838 in Illinois.  He lived in Walsenburg in 1910.  He died on March 30, 1917, and was survived by his widow Eva.







Benjamin Smith Private 6th US Infantry Indiana 
Benjamin Smith was born in Indiana between 1838 and 1848, with the census giving varying ages.  The Smiths lived in Colorado Springs in 1910 and on Main Street in Fountain in 1920.  He died on January 1, 1929.  Family history [NT] is that the military marker was a more recent addition to his grave. 
William Van Endert Private Co. M 3rd Colorado Cavalry
William Van Endert was born in Germany in about 1835.  He was killed in a quarrel on the mesa west of Fountain on October 14, 1874.  More on his apparent murder and his grave can be found on the Gossip page at right.  The Third Colorado Cavalry was commanded by Col. Chivington at the Battle of Sand Creek, though it is not known if William was involved.





Marshall D. Warren Musician Co. G 13th Wisconsin Infantry 
Marshall Warren was born in New York in 1839.  He appears on the 1870 census in Wisconsin, and moved to Colorado after that time, dying on September 17, 1876.  His headstone has been nearly destroyed by erosion.




These are obituaries of some of the 12 Civil War Veterans who are buried at Fairview Cemetery in Fountain.


William Foster died 1921





William Christian died 1919











Marcus Corbin's wife 1903







Edward Redmond died 1913


Benjamin Smith died 1929








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These men who lived in Fountain also served in the Civil War.

Charles Wesley Keys was a Private in Co. I 142nd Ohio Infantry.  He was born in December 1844 in Ohio and died October 30, 1917.  He lived in Fountain in 1910 and was a Doctor.  His office in the late 1890s was in the City Drug Store on the northwest corner of Ohio and Main.  He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.    

Ellis P. Fugit appears on the 1910 census in Fountain as a widowed house builder.  This census, which notes prior military service, lists Fugit as UA - Union Army.  He served from May to Oct 1864 as a Private in the 137th IN Inf.  He was born in Indiana in about December 1846.  His five youngest children were born in Kansas, he remarried to Jennie, and the family moved to Colorado in about 1886.  Jennie died from cancer, two weeks after giving birth to her 7th child, Carl.  She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.  Bulkley's map shows that Fugit lived on Main Street opposite the Ark.  He ran for Jusitce of the Peace in 1912, and was serving as town marshal in 1920, when he was 74 years old.  He suffered a stroke in an auto accident and was sent to live in the National Home for Soldiers in Los Angeles, where he died on Feb 3, 1924; he is buried at the National Cemetery in Los Angeles.  Several of his children had moved to California.  

John Harelson appears on the 1910 census in Fountain as a veteran - UA, Union Army.  He was born in Illinois in 1838, married in 1872 and lived in Fountain by 1900.  John was a farm laborer.   He was not found in Fairview or Evergreen Cemeteries.  

The last Fountain man identified on the 1910 census as a veteran was Robert M. Butler, who served in the Union Army.  He was born in Virginia in 1845 and married Albertina in about 1866.  They lived in Chicago in 1900, where he repaired bicycles.  His wife died in 1918 and is buried at Fairview Cemetery. The Butler twins buried there may be their children as well.  




Elipio Duran receives the Purple Heart



















Amadea Duran

Anthon Duran




Charles Torbit 1917

Unidentified local man
John Metcalf




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