Interviews with Mr Quick and Mr Williams, early Fountain settlers, were conducted by the historian from the Pioneer Museum in 1942. Through research by Angela Hahn and Patrice Grimmnitz, a copy of the report was obtained from the Museum.
Early Days in Fountain, Colorado
The story of Fountain, as well as that of many other frontier settlements, can well be told in the biography of a few of its outstanding pioneers, especially when their lives involved the interests and activities of their neighbors.
In the 1850s many Quakers in America had forebodings of approaching war and traveled westward to the frontier to establish homes in a region so sparsely settled that they might escape the conflict. Amos Hubbard Terrell was one of these Quakers. In the summer of 1857, he, with his wife, Mary Tapscott Hutchin, came to “Jimmy Camp”, some twelve miles [east] of the present Colorado Springs, that historical and rather enigmatic spot where a make-shift cabin and their own wagons and tents provided a sort of shelter for travelers bound westward during their brief pauses in the journey. After leaving Jimmy Camp, the Terrells proceeded on their way, turning south to follow the beautiful piedmont valley of the Fountain, which is held to be the original of Longfellow’s Fontaine qui Bouille. Arrived at the site of the present town of Fountain, Amos Terrell took up the land for a homestead, but later sold it for town lots. He was “Uncle Amos” to everyone in the early times and his wife was “Aunt Mary”. Their house, the first in Fountain, was built on the bank of Sand Creek in the spring of 1858; Anthony Bott built his house, the first in Colorado City, in the fall of the same year. On the strength of these facts, Fountain may justly lay claim to the first permanent home built in El Paso County. This earliest building was a large one, run by the Terrells as a stage station and eating house. The original building was of the type known as “grout”. It was wrecked thirty years later -- in 1888 -- by an explosion on the Santa Fe railroad. It was then rebuilt as a smaller grout structure and used for only a home. It was still standing in 1910 or even later; now the basement walls only are left, at the southeast corner of town. They overlook a swamp more recently formed by the diversion of water in irrigation projects. The swamp lies along Sand Creek, and is the rendezvous of many red-winged blackbirds. But here the Terrells had flower gardens and an orchard of berries and fruits. These were started with plants they had brought across the plains in the 1850s, carefully nursing them during the difficult journey. This place in Fountain seems to have been the home of the Terrells in general for years. Their daughter, Anne Caroline Terrell, married JO Quick and made her home one block north of her parents. Her son, J. Alfred Quick, Amos Terrell’s grandson, was born there in 1874. The Quick home was well built of logs. At the time of the explosion, however, they were living over by the Fountain on a ranch. J. Alfred has been sent in to town that day by his father to have some farm implement sharpened. He can remember hearing the detonations of the explosion that wrecked or burned so much of the town, but he was too far away to have any idea of the nature of the accident. The log home of the Quick’s in town escaped injury, being substantially built and not taking fire, but it has since been replaced by a frame house.
