Contents 
Front Matter How I Came to Write my Story Who I am My Great Loss My Worldly Wealth Plans for the Future The Gold Fever My Great Disappointment Cured of the Gold Fever My Opportunity How I Might Work My Way Keeping My Bargain At Pueblo A Welcome Time of Rest Outbreak of Gold Fever Opportunity for Money Middleton Agrees With Me Middleton's Proposition Gold Seekers Land Claims Our Ranch Building a Dwelling Corn and Gold Dreams of a Harvest Disappointed Prospectors Returning Evil for Good Striving to Save Our Corn Defending Our Own A Council of War Interview With The Enemy Missouri Miners Make Sport How to Collect The Debt Possession of Cattle Night Before the Battle A War of Words The Prospectors Try to Kill Us A Real Battle A Truce Terms of Peace The Enemy Surrenders The Prospectors Depart The Growth of Our City Farming Or Mining My Share of the Harvest Middleton Goes on a Journey Auraria and Denver Middleton Turns Trader Middleton's Plan A Weighty Problem Middleton's Partner A Change of Homes Arrival At Auraria The Town of Denver We Hire a Shop I Regret Turning Merchant How We Transported Goods Middleton's Advice The Tide of Emigration Finding Goods By the Roadside Gold in Colorado How the Cities Grew A Post Office in Auraria Letters From Home Our Business Flourishes Denver Outstripping Auraria Claim Jumping The Claim Club The Turkey War The Need of Government Union of Denver and Auraria What Others Thought of Us Territory of Colorado Good Citizenship Civil War Breaks Out Need of a Jail Denver in Flames Our Loss By Fire Mrs. Middleton Consoles Us Good Resulting From Evil Middleton's Honesty Rebuilding Denver The Flood Destruction of the Town In Great Peril The City Destroyed Our Lives Are Spared Fears Regarding the Future Uprising of the Indians Begging for Help A Famine Threatens Horrors of an Indian War My Duty at Home Beginning Over Again My Story is Done

Seth of Colorado - James Otis




Mr. Middleton's Advice

"Take things calmly, Seth, my boy. Weeks, perhaps months, will go by before this vast army of gold seekers will be able to return to their homes. The time is not yet ripe for us to sell our building material, because thousands upon thousands of people now at the mines must come to the realization that gold is not to be had simply by reaching out one's hand, before they will be ready to turn their attention to making homes and settling down to sober employment. When they have once decided to remain here to help build up this land, we shall find our customers. So sit you quiet, Seth, and while we are waiting we must fill in our time with building a home for the family, because we shall not be satisfied to live in a wagon all our days."

Our shop was on that side of the creek which had been named Auraria, and it seemed natural that we should build a home near by; but failing to find any place which could be purchased at a reasonable price, Mr. Middleton crossed the creek into the younger settlement of Denver. There, from a friend, he bought sufficient land for a home, a lot nearly two hundred feet square, and although situated in another town, it was not so far from our place of business that we would need spend much time walking to and fro.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

Twenty miles away was a sawmill that had been set up by a Mr. Oakes, on the bank of Plum Creek, and there it was possible for us to procure lumber, if we could find means of hauling it.

This was well within our power, for Mr. Middleton still owned the four yoke of cattle which had drawn our wagons from Fountain City, therefore I set about working as teamster, while he played carpenter to the best of his ability, hiring now and then to help him a man who, returning penniless from the gold fields, had been forced to turn his hand to whatever he might, in order to provide food for himself.

I shall not undertake to set down here how we built this home, the second one set up by us since we left Kansas, for it happened that I knew very little about it.