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To John, Annie & All,
We thought ourselves lucky to be
able to sleep in the car all night, the next morning we expected to be moved to the other
R.R. — but because of Christmas Day and Sunday we could not buy supplies — but
on Monday we loaded one car of groceries — one grain, 2 cars of horses, 1 car of new
wagons, one of Baled hay and the passenger coach — and our special train left Denver
on the afternoon of Monday — from Cheyenne to Denver was 137 miles south. On
Christmas Day I took Wille around Denver — the streets are narrower that S. L. City
streets — the buildings higher, the town or rather city built on sloping ground, and
nearly every street as much business as Salt Lake Main St. — in fact Denver needs
seeing to believe. I saw more real business and Railroads there than I have ever
seen since I left Liverpool. The Telegraph and Telephone poles are about 4 times the
size of those along the U.N.R.R. and the poles on Larimer St. and 110 wires on each pole,
and the wires going into and out of the main office were too many to count. I never
saw so much building going on in one place at once — mostly handsome business blocks
of Rock and Brick, the largest is the new Union Depot for the Rail Roads. It looks as if
they do not know how to get rid of their money, it was worth coming to Denver to see
— white cut stone rock, mountains of bricks, the lower side for the R. R. tracks
being raised by earth about 15 feet. Newton Public Square would not hold the
building and materials — one end of the building had the roof on and the other end
not one story high — all other R.R. buildings |
| are also of cut Rock and eaves of the roofs 6 feet over the
buildings, and goods on the platform covered with large ducking covers. Broad and narrow
guage R. R. on the same grade, first would come along a K. P. or U. P. train Broad guage
and right after it a D & R G narrow guage — there was also heavy high timber
trestle work upon which the Locomotive and coal cars ran and then dumped their coal cars
sideways into the coal bunks which are also above the level of the tenders to be loaded.
We walked around Saturday, Sunday and Monday 25, 26 and 27th until tired, seeing
pile driving for a new Bridge, and bought Wille a Book, some candy and peanuts. On
Sunday evening with P. E. and Alma Benson and Wille we went to the Catholic Church
watching the people as they came in bow to the altar, go into their railed-in pew and
kneel down to pray — and then sit very quiet — yes, very quiet and still —
and then some little boys dressed in red and white came in and lit some wax candles on the
Altar, but there was no need of any more light for there was plenty of gas light, and they
bowed to them before and after they lit them. Then all at once the boys and a man
with a very bass voice commenced to sing or chant — there were no female voices and
they sang in Latin — but their noise was not pleasant to hear. Says
Wille,
Father, is it to be all singing, I wish they would stop. And in 15 or 20 minutes
they did and then the boys lit some more candles, in all about 27 — sometimes while
they were singing we would stand up because the congregation did, then a stout bald headed
white and red dressed man came in and preached a sermon walking up and down before the
altar, leaning with his back to the altar and one elbow resting on it — sometimes
putting on and then again taking off a fur cap without any peak, and all at once he quit,
put on his cap and went out a back door and nobody said amen, then another came in went up
some steps of a ladder to the altar and took down a crucifix, and went through some
performances of changing and opening doors and locking, and because (I suppose) his back
was to the audience he had a fine gold embroidered apron hanging over his shoulders down
his back, presently he turned around and held out a very pretty piece of a brass ornament
first to one side and then to the other side of the church and all the congregation bowed
to it, and then they chanted while another man went through the congregation with a box,
and while they were still chanting (for I was disappointed in not hearing some good music
or singing) all the people got up and went out. Went back to our car at the depot
and went to bed. We bought in Denver some bread and cheese. We left Denver
about 3 1/2 Monday afternoon more crowded being in a small narrow guage car and our bed
clothes in another car on purpose for them. We travelled S. W. through some towns and
cities, more than I can remember because of their Spanish names, and just at dark
commenced to go up the mountains. We passed before dark many Spanish or Mexican
Ranches, flat roofed, slab log, willow or mud shanties or stables looking just like the
stables in |
| Newton. The roofs are made by placing a few poles on
top of the walls, putting on a little straw and dirt, and there are very few if any floors
in them and very small windows, sometimes a small corral made of dry cedar,
but it would be hard to tell how they are built for there was neither post
or poles, sometimes a little corn fodder upon the limbs of a tree, and
very little feed of any kind. A little distance from every hovel was
a conical shaped mud, or brick covered with mud, building about 3 feet
high, it might be their dog kennel no, it was their oven.
Sometimes there was a small town, houses pell mell, no sign of
streets, very close together and the men, women, and children were ragged,
patched, dirty and looked too lazy to comb their hair. I did not
want any closer acquaintance than looking out of the car window at them.
We commenced ascending towards the Vete Pass about sundown, going
straight up a canyon that did not even have a wagon road in it, as we went
up we saw what we supposed to be a camp fire away up on the other side of
the canyon. We had 2 Locomotives on our train of 7 cars. We
reached the head of the canyon but there was no way over so we turned
around onto the other side of the canyon and went down the canyon and up
the mountain to the fire we had seen and across the ridge into the next
canyon. By the fires of the Locomotives we could see away down the
canyon on the other side the track we had just come over and it was so
much up hill that it was very easy to see that the front end of the car
was higher than the other we kept winding round the head of Canyons
crossing ridges into other canyons, going down canyons and up mountains at
the same time for several hours and while on a mountain side our horse
car ran off the track but by the help of frogs (not toads but iron
frogs) we got it on again. Once a coupling broke and part of us went
down hill a little but the brakes stopped us. There was a man kept
in all the freezing cold and snow on top of the train on the look out.
We now noticed that one of our Locomotives was puffing and blowing
and smoking like a giant in distress and lit up the canyon with the sparks
it sent flying making as grand a sight as is seen the snorter got lots
of praise and the lazy one grunts. We were trying to reach the
summit in time, but through running off, and the Lazy Locomotive being out
of water, we had to back down to the last siding to let the passenger
train pass us and it really did come down upon us and then we had
to do our snorting (or rather the Locomotive did ) to get up again.
Although bitter cold and 10 o'clock at night, I was not sorry for
our accidents and delay for the grand sights well repaid me. We sat
in our seats wrapped in a blanket this night very little sleep
missed all the sights of going down the range of mountains, and in the
morning found ourselves in San Antonito. San Luis Valley 8 miles
N.W. from Manassa and Ephraim 1 1/2 miles from the Mexican town of Conejos
200 or 300 years old with a cathedral with 2 towers and the usual
poles laid on the walls and dirt on a flat roof, and the end of the poles
sticking unevenly out the |
| sides. This is the Terminus or end of
Passenger travel though freight goes to the next summit. San
Antonito is about 25 shanties, 5 or 6 frame buildings, 25 of them saloons,
a very pretty R. R. office, eaves over the building 6 feet, long sheds of
coal, mountains of Baled hay and sacked grain. Here we learned that
the trains are snowbound on the next divide, and 100 men to dig them out,
so we laid over all day going into our car to warm up when cold.
Here H and H bought 4 Barrels of crackers, 2 cheeses, some Boiled
Hams, 2 or 3 Bus. of Bread for men who were out of provisions and we all
went to the Hotel for Breakfast and dinner. I would have liked to
have gone to Manassa and Conejos but we did not know what hour the snow
blockade would be broken and we have to move out. This was now Dec
28th. The Valley was about 6 miles wide. About 10 miles to the
north end and the south was open country, the mountains low and covered
with Cedar and Pine, the weather cold and cloudy, some little snow on the
ground and to me it did not look a desirable country. This night
again we sat up in our seats in the car and kept the fire going all night
and got a little sleep. On the 29th it was a very cold day and we
laid around all day waiting for the blockade to be broken it was so
cold here that I got Wille a lined coat and vest. Our train also was
broken up and switched around and our Passenger car taken back to Alamosa
and glad we were to get it back again the same night that we might have
the privilege to again sit in the seats all night. They also got our
car with all our bed clothes in fixed up in a train to take it off and
when the conductor was spoken to told us it would be gone in 5 minutes,
but M. D. H. got it taken out or there would have been a row, for that was
how Call and Ferris men were served and they were 2 weeks without their
bedding on the summit and 5 died with cold, so after laying over in San
Antonito 2 1/2 days the snow blockade was broken and on Dec 30, we left at
3 P. M. to go over the Bear Creek Divide. We commenced to go up the
side of the mountain in this style. The three tracks not over half a
mile apart, some walked up and beat the train, tired of waiting. In
the cuts the hard frozen snow would rub against the sides of the cars
Wille had to keep his head in and they made snow fences 3 feet deep of
Pine trees, we did not go up this mountain in a canyon and it would be
hard to tell how we did get up, our Locomotive was out of sight around a
corner most of the time. At San Antonito another passenger car was
put on and a crowd of Irish and Mexicans to work on the R.R. and in our
car it was about 3 to a seat and take turns standing and while thus
mixed and crowded the Irish began to tell our Chinaman that they would
give him 12 hours to leave or hang him. Towards dark we reached the
summit but not to cross, only to follow along the mountain Ridge, and as
we rounded the head of the gulches, canyons and forks of canyons, we could
look down thousands of feet and down the canyons for miles sometimes a
tunnel cut from one canyon to another, sometimes the heads of canyons
bridged over. Once we |
| came out of a rock tunnel in the face of a deep
cliff of rock onto a 7 story bent bridge and one of the men on the
platform said he could not see the bottom. Just before dark our
passenger car ran off the track, and as we knew it was off and they did
not stop and we were very crowded I put Wille out of the window, but soon
by the help of frogs we were on the track again. We travelled along
the ridge of these mountains until we were tired of the sight of peaks,
bridges, cuts and fills and canyons, and Wille went to sleep laying on the
laps of a stranger and myself, the best place he could get, and we dozzed
and shivered and reached the summit sometime that night. And in the
morning 3 o'clock, dark, sleepy and cold, 9933 feet high and about 2 feet
or more of snow, we had to leave the car and sit or stand in the waiting
room among Irish and Mexicans until morning. We were now at the end
of passenger and freight travel there were piles of hay, grain,
merchandise, Beef, gunpowder, flour etc., in the snow for the summit has
no spare room being very limited in size. Our Chinaman had to be
taken to the baggage car and covered over for safety. About noon we
moved out on a train for the front, some of our cars having been left
behind, about 200 men on top of Box and iron cars, me and Wille on a flat
loaded with wagons, and we went downdowndownwith brakes on and no
steam. We had been in heavy timber since coming up the mountain, it
was 6 miles to camp but 10 by the R. R. a fine morning but cold.
We went down the canyon it would kink a snake's back to follow
the track so the boys said there are 2 miles of road on which are 23
curves, the fall in some parts here was 1 in 4. We reached the end
of navigation and were dumped in a hurry our teams had gone down in
the morning and were waiting there. I let Wille go with the first
teams to Call and Ferrins camp, 4 miles, and I waited and guarded until
the teams came back, and so on the eve of Dec 31, 10 days and 1100 miles
from home we arrived in camp on Wolf Creek, New Mexico shovelled away
18 inches of snow and camped in tents. The track layers should have
been farther ahead and H & H took the train so the R. R. furnished
tents, stoves, tools, and work until we do get on the construction train.
On Jan 1, 1881 opened store in the tent and sold $80.00 of goods.
Hammond & Hendricks took charge of the camp. C & F men
are all working for H & H. In one corner of our tent sleep Bro.
Hendricks and one of his sons, in another corner Bro. M. D. Hammond and in
another next the store our bed hay spread on the ground divided by
ties the goods near the door. I was very busy for several days,
Wille went to help in the kitchen. We had 2 cook tents 3 stoves, 4
or 5 cooks and 2 dining tents and about 12 sleeping tents the night
guard came along in the mornings at 5, calling, "Roll out boys."
I got up, lit the fire, thawed out Wille's boots and started him to
the Kitchen, and often Breakfast was eaten while it was freezing on the
table, and the cry came, from Bro. Orchard "All aboard" and men
started out to work before daylight in gum boots, over shoes, big coats, |
| gloves, etc. with all short handled shovels
with iron handles, shovelling snow off the grade. Bro. Orchard's
wife and 3 year old boy and J. W. Hendricks' wife are here and eat in
their tent with the Bosses. I also have charge of the kitchen
supplies. About the 10th or 15th we moved camp down here to Chama
for the train had passed us, and now we are camped on a small willow
bottom 1/2 mile from town. The wagon road 2 Rods on one side the R.
R., 10 rods on the other, but here the ground was not frozen under the
snow, H & H has a camp of 25 men and teams 20 miles down the road
hauling in 40,000 ties. And now that I have caught up with my books
in which I have 200 acts., I have a very easy time, and Wille works early
and late but not hard, and plays checkers with M. D. H. and tries to shoot
crows in the daytime, and is getting fat and greasy all over. He has
another pair of Boots so as to change and keep his feet warm, we undressed
a few nights after coming into camp for the first time, and we now
have all the blankets that we like to use under and over us. We have
also (which is very wonderful) had a wash and change of clothing. We
are camped here in two rows of tents ours at the end, 2 cook tents, 3
dining tents, 11 sleeping tents and one main street covered with saw dust,
with a man to pack water, one to cut wood, one to night guard, and 3 boys
to wait on table we have some sick I have also got a sure cure for
rheumatism. Bro. Hendricks went home some time ago I sometimes
take Wille to Chama with me. The R. R. there runs along a creek, on
a bench just wide enough for the R. R. buildings back of them rises a
bench about 15 feet high, on that and looking down on the R. R. is the
only one street and only one side of that, Chama about 1 mile long.
All this country is covered with fine tall straight pine timber 75
to 100 feet high, tapering but little, and trees and saw logs are in the
way in the street and in building the houses, and I saw 25 large logs
rolled in a hole and covered with dirt to make a crossing between 2 tracks
of the R. R. It was a fine sight and treat to me to see such timber
on the level and the whole country and mountains are covered with it.
Most of the freight wagons here have 2 tires on each hind wheel,
because they wear so much in the locking. There is also here a small
donkey or rather many of them, knee high to a grasshopper, called burros,
and some have with them a little mite of a colt-Jackass about as large as
a small sheep and about as woolly with eyes almost hidden with heavy wool
and as tame as a kitten, with a black stripe along the back, also a stripe
coming down on each shoulder and mouse colored, and the prospectors use
them for pack animals and sometimes to ride, if their (the miners) legs
are not too long, for if they are they would touch' the ground.
There is a steam saw mill in sight and running night and day.
Hay here is $100.00 a ton or 5’ lb. grain 5’ lb. Beef 8’ and I paid 6’
lb. for frozen potatoes to make yeast. Our Denver potatoes we cannot
eat they are so bad. Our men have been putting in the time now for a
month sometimes really digging |
| a hole and then filling it in, for the R. R.
Co. have to find us work and pay while our men were working around the
depot shovelling snow, making dug ways (carrying snow on shovels 2 or 3
rods) 125 of them, 100 men laying track, men building warehouses, coal
bunks, platforms tanks and 16 men digging a well for the tank,
freighters loading, and men building Chama on the hill, was as busy a
sight and as many working men on so small a piece of ground as ever I have
seen and nearly all of them working under disadvantage from frost and
snow, but it drives ahead, the R. R. pays for it all. Our warming
stoves are large sheet iron funnels 2 1/2 or 3 feet across the top turned
upside down on the ground, a door up in the side, and the point or nose of
the funnel stove pipe size, goes through the tent and they warm up
quickly, draw good and make a tent too warm. I expect that as high
up on the mountains in Cache Valley as we are here there is 10 feet of
snow and freezing all the time. We sent off from our camp about 100
letters every week, and the boys look for letters every day. Last
Monday I sent 85, and several days ago we got from the Juab Contract Co.
on the summit about 125 letters, everybody in camp seemed contented but
there was none for me. P. E. and Alma and Antoine, also H. Anderson
and Albert Steffenson are well. This makes 7 sheets of letter paper
full I have written of our journey, and I hope that besides reading them
as you get them, that when you get them all together you will read them
over again, also let Christene read them and also to her folks also
let Hannah read them and the Bishop and I would like you to take care of
them for me to read when I come home. I have sent 4 and shall send
one in each letter, and I hope the children will all enjoy the reading of
them. I may have told the same thing more than once in different
letters but I wanted this to be complete. It is now the 27 Jan. and
Alma got a letter today, dated 8th, one in for me from Christene he
got one yesterday dated 17th and 2 in for me, one from Susan, one from
Christene and I have had one from M. Jenkins and one from Soren Jensen.
We passed coming from Denver the following towns, Littleton, Acequia,
Castle Rock, Glade, Larkspur, Greenland Colorado Springs, Widefield,
Fountain, Little Buttes, Pinon, Pueblo, San Carols, Greenhorn, Granereos,
Huerfano, Eucharas, Walensburg (and the Veta Pass in the Sangre-de-Christo
Range) Fort Garland, Alamosa, and the Beau Creek divide is the Toltec
Gorge of the San Juan Mountains. Bro. Erastus Snow who is in this section
of country has found another Valley that he thinks well of S. E. of the
San Luis Valley. January
27th, afternoon, and Bro. Erastus Snow has come into camp but of his visit
in another letter. We are about 16 miles south and between 200 &
300 miles east of St. George look on our map for the boundary line
between Colorado and New Mexico and Chama is on the last branch of the Rio
San Juan and as we come west along |
| the Colorado and New Mexico line we cross all
the streams that you see emptying into the San Juan, they may not be named
on the map but their names are Navaho, Piedras, Los Pinos River and the
Florida River and the altitude of the lowest is 6030 feet, 2000 higher
than S. L. City. I have been writing this history all my spare time
for a week now I will answer the letters hoping that you are all
well and with love. J. H. Barker |
From pages listed as 102 - 109
in
Daughters of the Utah Pioneers publication
Letters of John Henry Barker
Copyright 1960
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