History of Fountain's Fairview Cemetery

Hello Again,

Over the past 12 years I've become involved with the Fairview Cemetery in Fountain, with the earliest use dating to about 1862.  Much of the data that I have collected is linked to the memorial pages on Findagrave.com. But that format also limits me from adding information on the cemetery itself. So I hope this article will be used for that.  I'll try to organize it as I go through my notes.

Also, during the pandemic, I looked at the county death registers, burial records, etc. that had been filmed by the Library (Newsfinder on ppld.org) and added specifics for Fountain people to the Findagrave memorials. Then I got bored and did this for all of El Paso County entries. You're welcome.

The Friends of Fountain Fairview Cemetery Benevolent Society was created in 2012 in response to vandals damaging or destroying about a dozen of the oldest headstones. The group has led tours, service projects, wreath layings and performed stabilization work and cleaning. Our current fundraising efforts have been targeted toward purchasing stones for historic (>50 years old) unmarked graves, and stabilizing the entrance arch.  We can be reached at

https://www.facebook.com › FFFCemetery

 

 

In about 1862, a group of travelers were passing along the front range when a member of their group passed away. The local oral history is that this was a young woman or young girl.  She was buried on a hill overlooking Fountain Creek. Reportedly, wagon parts were used to build a "crib" enclosing the spot of her burial.

Elaine MacKay reported that members of the Niles Family maintained this crib for many decades, replacing wooden beams as needed. The crib was stripped and repainted by the Friends in about 2019.

An Internal Index to the Research Pages

To aid in your search this is a partial index of the Research Pages at right:

About Town

Joe Vasquez still raiding party

     1871 plat of town and businesses at the time, Society of Friends or Quaker church, Fire and Police Departments and the town jails, history of town founding, Lincoln Trading Post and Charter Oak Ranch, mountain water 1911-13, excerpts from the Fountain Herald 1921-24, photographs of businesses, and highlights from the Commercial Club annual of 1919, 1940 with Torbit history, 1948 and prohibition, Post Office history, John Metcalf, Walt Fortman

Bulkley Files
     Harkins grave, Dead Man's Canyon ghosts, maps of Fountain, Cherokee Trail, Post Office history, Spicer murder

Fountain telephone directories

PPLD's Special Collections has a few old Fountain phone books available on microfilm.  Here are the results for 1907, 1917 and 1937. 

1907 Telephone Directory: Fountain

Fountain phone exchange. Businesses:

AT&SF Railway Co. Depot                            

Colorado Telephone Co, Public Pay Station, Mrs. Lucy Eichel Exchange Manager

D&RG Railroad Co., Wigwam Station

First National Bank of Fountain, Main St.

Interview with Mr. Quick and Mr. Williams, Fountain Settlers, 1942

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.

Terrellville and the Lincoln Store - circa 1870

Ranch Life and Other Sketches by Michael Hendrick Fitch  1914

A. Jacobs owned a well equipped line of stages which ran from Denver to Pueblo, each stage drawn by four fine horses, with relay stations located every fourteen miles. A stage would start in the morning at a certain hour from each end of the line and make the distance, 120 miles, by a certain hour in the evening, the fare $20.00 each way. The route from Denver proceeded via Cherry Creek to Franktown (named after Frank M. Gardner, the owner), over the divide about four miles east of Palmer Lake and thence into old Colorado City, thence down the Fountain river to Pueblo.

The American's destination was the ranch on the little Fountain, known

Fountain Burns!

That and other assorted newspaper clippings gleaned from the Colorado Springs papers:

Colorado Springs Gazette November 10, 1878

Baled Hay. Upland Blue-Joint Hay

Constantly on Hand at OS Loomis’ Hay Yard, Fountain.

Colorado Springs April 5 1881

Trustee’s Sale

Whereas JS Sage of El Paso County by his certain deed of trust, dated Nov 28 1879 and recorded in book 29 page 122? of El Paso county records, to secure payment of his two promissory notes for $50 dollars, payable in 90 days, the other for $150, payment in one year from date to M. Wiley or order, did convey to Robert Douglass as trustee all those premises herein described. Whereas the notes are in default, sale to the highest bidder for cash will occur on May 3, 1881, to wit: Beginning at the section line between sections 5 and 6, T16S R65W, where the north side of Iowa Avenue crosses said section line running 18 6-10 rods, thence east 142 feet, thence south 18 6-10 rods, thence west 142 feet to place of beginning. Also a piece of land described as follows, to wit: Beginning at the NE corner of JS Sage’s House lot in Fountain, running west with is line 142 feet, thence north 306[?] feet, thence east 142 feet, thence south 306 feet to place of beginning.

The Denver & Rio Grande road grade

A Bridge to Fountain

Land Record Research - draft

I have been using Real Estate Transactions published in the old Gazette newspapers to try and identify who owned the Ark and nearby land in the 1870s.

One article from 1874 of interest was an advertisement for the

Fountain Hotel,

GA Wilcox, proprietor.

Entirely re-fitted and re-furnished.

Everything new.

Comfortable home for tourists and invalids.

No mention of where this was, and why in 1874, it would need to be remodeled!

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.  

$40,000 of Gold missing

In a dramatic story retold by Elsie Keeton, and later published in Larson's History of the Fountain Valley, and in a bicentennial newspaper in Fountain, a stage coach was robbed of $40,000 in gold payroll, which was never recovered.   Here is the story as it ran in the Fountain Valley Centennial Review Souvenir Edition, Advertiser and News, Sep 15, 1976.  

 

In the 1860s, the old stage road ran from Deming, NM, to Colorado City, then the state capital.  It crossed Little Fountain Creek just west of this old post [Lincoln Trading Post], and continued to the Charter Oaks Ranch, then a government feeding station and stage stop.  According to a story written by Elsie Keeton on Oct 13, 1941, the site for the ranch was selected because of its meadows.  There was a cook house, corral and shed, all surrounded by an 8-foot concrete wall.  It had a gate on the east side.  At the time, there were only 4 white families living on the east side of Fountain Creek between Pueblo and Colorado City.  The stage road ran along the west bank of the creek because the land to the east was considered neutral territory.  It was used as hunting grounds by the Utes and the Plains tribes.  The stage road came to a point east of the Charter Oaks station, and then proceeded down (Little) Fountain Creek to the trading post to deliver goods.  The stage then went back up the (Little) Fountain Creek to Charter Oaks, and on to Colorado City on the west bank of the creek. 

Somewhere southeast of Fountain near the site of a stagecoach robbery, $40,000 in gold is rumored to be buried under the hot sands and cholla. 


On top of the arid hills, east of the Mike Christian ranch on Rock Creek, are graves of Indians killed in a raging battle with angry white settlers.  Rumor has it that not all of the attackers were Indians, as the Utes didn’t care for gold, but were instead renegade whites and Mexicans dressed as Indians.  The rock-ringed graves remain as testimony.  Christian’s ranch was ½ mile from Little Fountain Creek and a few miles southeast of Fort Carson’s Golf Course. 

Pettengill's Epitaph

On a recent visit to Fairview Cemetery we tried to decipher the epitaph on the headstone of Anna Pettengill, her son James, and his wife Gertrude.  All that was visible was "Our Hero". 

A rubbing of the poem, made with plain typing paper and a graphite crayon, produced marginal results.  Much of the rubbing seen here has been enhanced with photoshop.

Once a few strings of words were deciphered, we would have been able to trace this poem to its origin, using the internet.  This is what I found.

The Terrells - Fountain Pioneers

This story is based on census data, newspaper articles from the Colorado Springs Gazette, and land records.

Amos Terrell was issued a homestead patent for land in T16SR65W sections 5 and 8, in September, 1869, making his one of the earliest grants in the Fountain Valley, and reflecting his settlement here before 1865.  His property in the W½SW¼ of section 5 represents the land along and east of Main St. in Fountain, and some of this was subdivided into town lots in 1871.  They sold lots 5 and 6 of Block 11 to OS Loomis for $50 in 1877.

This map is of the 1862 survey of T16SR65W, available online at www.glorecords.blm.gov.  It shows the trail or stage coach route leading along the east bank of the Fountain Creek, much as the road does today, with the solid line being the addition of the Denver & Rio Grande railroad line in 1872.  It is interesting to note that the Terrell house does not appear on the map.  The only inhabitants shown in this part of the Fountain Valley are farther south, such on Tom Owens.

The Earliest Burials in Fairview Cemetery, with a little genealogy thrown in

This article identifies some of the earliest burials at Fairview Cemetery, but it also shows how the census and other records can help you track families, one piece of evidence at a time.

Florence Faith was the daughter of Samuel John Liston and Hulda Mable Imes.  She was born in Colorado and died there are at the age of 9 months in 1875.  Her father Samuel appears on the 1870 census in Fountain as a farmer, with $2000 in land and $750 in personal property.  He was single and seems to be living south of the Lock family along Fountain Creek.  Samuel was born in Ohio in about 1833.  By 1880, he had married and then moved his family back onto the plains of Sedgwick County, Kansas.  

From the Mormon website, http://www.familysearch.org/ we learn that Samuel and Hulda married in Fountain in September 1871.  Hulda was the daughter of Moses Imes and Mary Davis, and was born in Iowa in 1852. Hulda's son Willie was born in Colorado in July 1872, and Pearl was born there in 1876.  Between these two children, they lost Florence.