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




A Settlement of Gold Seekers

Then we broke camp once more, traveling in the direction of Pikes Peak until we reached a small settlement of both Americans and Mexicans. Hardly more than fifteen people had settled at this place, the greater number planning to use the village simply as headquarters, whence they could in search of gold, leaving behind them a roof to cover their heads when they returned for an interval of rest.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

Here also were small buildings made of sun dried bricks. Two or three were of logs, the roofs formed by covering poles with sods, and an odd sight it was to see grass growing thickly around a chimney base, or waving over what , in a regularly built house, would have been the eaves.

We had now penetrated into a section of the country which looked to me more promising, and Mr. Middleton was of much the same mind, for after we had been at this place for two or three days, and some of our company had already left for the diggings, he informed me that we were to set off at once toward the Ute Pass, where he and the others who were bent on farming had decided to make their first attempt at a settlement.