.jpg)
Life has been good for General James Denver
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
By the time they named the town after him, General James W. Denver was no longer Governor of Kansas Territory. Though he had not yet traveled to his namesake city, he had led a productive life already. Besides his early military career, and the Governor gig, he had been a wagon train master, an accomplished California politician, killed a newspaper editor in a duel, and was recently named Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President James Buchanan.
"The first real settlement came with placer gold. Auraria , named by prospectors from Auraria , Ga., was formed on the west side of Cherry Creek. Another party, headed Gen. William Larimer of Leavenworth, Kan., settled the opposite side of the stream and formed the Denver City Co. Their settlement waa named for James W. Denver, Governor of Kansas Territory. Rivalry between the two towns continued until April, 1860, when they consolidated into one municipality, Denver," says Colorado Place Names, by Geo. R. Eichler.
Very early photograph showing Denver City. Circa 1860. (Rufus E. Cable/Denver Public Library/Western History Collection
"It wasn't long before tents, tepees, wagons, lean-tos, and crudely
constructed log cabins lined the banks of the South Platte River as
prospectors and fortune-seekers poured into the area. They came from all
over the country, traveling on foot, in covered wagons, by horseback,
and even pushing their belongings in wheelbarrows. Pikes Peak, a
14,000-foot mountain to the south of the mining camp served as both a
landmark and a rallying cry for weary travelers. The "Pikes Peak or
Bust!" gold rush was in full force," says Visit Denver.
"However, gold wasn't the only way to strike it rich in the boomtown that was springing up on the banks of the South Platte. Those who arrived early enough could simply stake out a claim of land, lay out city streets, and then sell the lots to those arriving after them. General William H. Larimer didn't arrive early but followed the plan perfectly. He claim-jumped the land on the eastern side of Cherry Creek, laid out a city and, in hopes of gaining political favor, named the city after Kansas Territorial governor James Denver. What he didn't know was that Denver had already resigned."
A great fire burned much of Denver's business district to the ground in 1863. The following year, a flash flood swept down Cherry Creek, killing 20 people and causing a million dollars in damage. And shortly after that, an Indian war broke out, cutting stage stations and supply lines and leaving Denver with just six weeks of food.
"The early hardships only solidified the resolve of Denver's citizens
and made them more determined to not just survive but to thrive. When
the Union Pacific Railroad bypassed Colorado on its transcontinental
route, Denverites raised $300,000 and built their own railroad to meet
the Union Pacific in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon after, the Kansas Pacific
Railroad crossed the plains to Denver and, when a major silver strike
was hit in Leadville, Denver was a boomtown once again," according to Visit Denver.
In a blog for the Denver Public Library by Brian K. Trembath on March 12, 2019, the short-lived reasoning for naming the town Denver, makes it a bit of a novelty of obscurity.
"If you’re like most residents of the Mile-High City, you’ve probably
never heard of its namesake, General James W. Denver. Denver, the man,
was an accomplished soldier, politician and lawyer who led a wagon
train, killed a man in a California duel and had a less-than-hospitable
relationship with Denver, the city. Among his other notable
accomplishments was serving in the Mexican-American and Civil Wars (he
was on the Union side in case you’re wondering) and advocating for
American Indian rights. "
But how did a guy from Virginia, who grew up in Ohio, wind up getting his name surgically seared to a city that he only visited twice?
Denver Becomes Denver
"Pegging down exactly who decided to name Denver "Denver" is difficult, but the most commonly agreed on story is this one:
"In 1858, a party of men set out from Lawrence, Kansas (then Kansas Territory), towards what would become Denver, which was in Arapahoe County. (At the time, Arapahoe County covered a huge swath of land in what would become Colorado and Kansas). This party included some names that should be familiar to any Denverite including General William H. Larimer, Samuel S. Curtis, Edward Wynkoop and Charles Blake."
"This ambitious party was looking to develop a new town at the foot of
the Pikes Peak Gold Region. They were also hoping to get their site
named as Arapahoe County's county seat, a designation that would greatly
increase their chances of successful town-building. But this was no
pipe dream; the men had commissions designating them as Arapahoe County
commissioners which were signed by the Territorial Governor of Kansas,
James W. Denver."
"So it was then that the Denver City Town Company was born on November 22, 1858. "
"After staking out their claim, the party returned to winter in Kansas where they assumed they would curry favor with Governor Denver and get their coveted county seat. The only problem with this plan was that Denver had resigned his governorship and taken a position as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs about a month before Denver City was founded."
Denver in DenverAccording to Brian K. Trembath, in another blog posting:
"If you're a fan of historical trivia, please note that General James W. Denver is believed to be the only living person to visit a U.S. state capitol that carried their name. If you're a fan of Denver, you might cringe a bit when you find out that Denver the man was not particularly impressed with Denver the city. Well, it wasn't the city itself; it was the welcome he received when he visited."
"For starters, Denver was awarded several plots of land in his namesake city when it was formally founded in 1859. Denver, however, didn't make his first visit to Denver until 1882. By that point, the land had been sold and re-sold many times over. Not one to jump another person's claim (unlike General Larimer), Denver gave up his claim on the plots and moved on. But that was hardly the only time Denver would insult General Denver," says Trembath.
In 1923, historians at the Colorado Historical Society unearthed a letter from Denver to his friend Frank Hall (author of the seminal 1890 Colorado history book, History of the State of Colorado), dated March 4, 1892, in which the normally staid Denver unloaded a laundry list of petty grievances against the people of Denver and the way they treated him when he visited.
All starts out well enough as Denver describes receiving an invitation to visit Denver saying,
"In 1875 I received a strong and pressing invitation from an old friend to visit him in Denver. I accepted."
But things go downhill quickly as poor General Denver is all but ghosted by his friend.
"My friend did not even visit me at the American Hotel when I got to Denver. I only saw him when I went to his office. Naturally, I felt that was an unusual reception."
OK, that's pretty rude, Trembath says. But maybe things went better when he visited again in 1883? No such luck.
"In 1883 I received a strong and pressing invitation from the city council to visit the mineral exposition. The council extended me the 'freedom of the city.' I felt highly complimented."
Alas, the people of Denver once again ignored the man whose name they likely uttered nearly every day.
"But my reception was very cool. There was nobody to receive us or give us information...I naturally received the impression there were not many people in Denver City who cared much about me."
"Though General James W. Denver led a very active life that was marked by the kind of professional and personal success that most people would be happy to experience, he's also a figure who has been all but lost to history. Perhaps he lived in an age that was simply too crowded with accomplished men to make his own, quite formidable, accomplishments stand out."
Adding to the issue is the fact that there simply hasn't been much scholarship on his life (Edward Magruder Cook's work Justified by Honor: Highlights in the Life of General James William Denver being a notable exception).
There is, however, one episode from Denver's life that is mentioned in virtually every book and article about the General. That incident is a duel he fought with a man named Edward Gilbert in California in the summer of 1852.
Denver made his way to California via a wagon train he personally led in 1851.
By 1852, he was not only serving in the California Senate, but he was also earmarked by the Governor of California to lead a relief expedition to rescue travelers who were stuck in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. While the effort was praised in some quarters, it wasn't universally popular. In particular, an influential newspaper publisher named Edward Gilbert derided the rescue as a cheap political stunt.
This did not sit well with Denver, who derided Gilbert's comments as the work of someone with an, "envious and malicious heart."
Gilbert backed up his comments by suggesting that, "If any gentleman attached to the train, or any other friend of the governor desires to make issue upon the matter, they know where to find us."
The dispute spiraled rapidly out of control until Gilbert formally challenged Denver to a duel with rifles at 40 paces (roughly 100 feet).
Duels of this sort were relatively common in the mid-19th century and were governed by some very strict rules. In fact, Gilbert and Denver both used a century-old dueling code, the Irish code duello, in an intense effort to forestall the duel by means of an apology, but couldn't determine which man would be responsible for the apology.
So it was that Gilbert and Denver met in Oak Grove, California, approximately 100 miles east of San Francisco on the morning of August 2, 1852.
After the two men paced off, Gilbert fired a quick round, missing Denver entirely. Denver responded by graciously firing his rifle into the air. This was a relatively common practice that allowed both men to walk off the field with their honor, and bodies, in tact. But Denver's gesture was not appreciated by Gilbert, who often railed against such "bloodless duels" in his newspaper - and Gilbert demanded a re-do.
This lit a spark in Denver that Gilbert would not live to regret igniting.
Witnesses of the event said that Denver's whole attitude changed as soon as Gilbert refused to leave the field. Denver cast off his coat, took up his position and commented that he wasn't going to be, "standing here all day to be shot at."
When the signal was made, Denver instantly and fatally shot Gilbert - who expired within minutes right there in the grove.
'A Fairer Duel Was Never Fought'
Denver most certainly didn't want to kill Gilbert but he felt that if he didn't dispatch the man, he would be dispatched himself. And he was right.
In a letter written a quarter century after the duel, Denver reflected on Gilbert's efforts to take, "...every precaution he could to kill, and to give his adversary as little chance as possible." Among those precautions were the fact that Gilbert had a green suit specially tailored for the day so that he could better blend into the foliage, making him harder to spot. Gilbert also delayed the challenge until the last possible moment, denying Denver a proper opportunity to prepare. (Though none of these shenanigans helped Gilbert one bit.)
But what really troubled Denver about the duel was why Gilbert wanted so badly to fight him in the first place. After all, the men were not well-acquainted and, so far as the historical record indicates, they only came into one another's orbits when the spat over the relief expedition accelerated. Writing later, he reflected:
Mr. Gilbert had been the aggressor throughout. He invented a newspaper controversy and, as soon as he got me involved in it, he challenged me. I was a stranger to him personally...and we had never before had any misunderstanding or controversy of any kind on any subject.
What the motives were, I know not. Perhaps it was, as you say, from a morbid feeling that he had compromised himself in another affair, and a determination to obliterate the supposed disgrace in the blood of the first men could pick a quarrel with. This I have heard before...
The Gilbert duel cast a long shadow over Denver's legacy and is mentioned in nearly every biographical book or article on his life. What gets lost in the discussion, however, are Denver's genuine political and social successes. Even if he hadn't killed Gilbert, or had someone name a city after him, Denver was still a very accomplished man who served in Congress, was very active in state politics wherever he lived and advocated for American Indian Rights.
On that subject, he urged better education for American Indians, the reduction of government annuities (in an effort to thwart whiskey sales and other non-subsistance items) and helped secure multi-million payment to the Choctaw tribe in a case in which they had "sold" their land to the government, but never received payment. Shortly before his death, he became involved in a similar case involving the Shawnee.
"Of course Denver's ideas of what constituted fair treatment of Native
Americans were very different from contemporary views on the same
subject. Some scholars have also questioned how pure his motives were in
this matter, given the amount of land speculating he did, including
speculation on American Indian lands," says Brian K. Trembath
In his 1979 book, THE COMMISSIONERS of Indian Affairs, 1824-1977, author Donald Chaput acknowledges Denver's positives but observes that he was still, very much, a man of his time saying, "He undoubtedly tried in most instances to be fair to the Indians, but as a man of the frontier he clearly favored the whites.
"Denver's legacy lies, mainly, in something he had no control over: the naming of a future state capitol. But he was very much a self-made man who tried to live as best a life as he could," writes Brian K. Trembath.
As an American politician, soldier and lawyer. He served in the California state government, as an officer in the United States Army in two wars, and as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from California. He served as secretary and Governor of the Kansas Territory during the struggle over whether or not Kansas would be open to slavery. The city of Denver, Colorado, is named after him.
James W. Denver was born near Winchester, Virginia. His father was born in Ireland, while his mother was of English descent. He attended public schools and moved to Ohio with his parents in 1830, settling near Wilmington. In 1841 he taught school in Missouri, and in 1844 he graduated from the Cincinnati Law School. He was admitted to the bar and practiced law near Xenia, Ohio. He moved to Platte City, Missouri, in 1845, where he continued his law practice and acting career.
In 1847, during the Mexican–American War, he recruited a company for the 12th U.S. Volunteer Infantry and was commissioned a captain, serving under General Winfield Scott. After the war in 1850, Denver traveled to California, where he became a trader. Denver killed newspaper editor Edward Gilbert in a duel on August 2, 1852. Later that same year, he was elected to the California State Senate. He was later appointed as Secretary of State of California. In 1854 he was elected to the United States Congress as a representative from California, serving from March 4, 1855 – March 3, 1857. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1856. On April 17, 1857, President James Buchanan appointed him as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
On June 17, 1857, Denver was appointed by Buchanan as Secretary of the Kansas Territory. In December 1857 he was appointed as Territorial Governor. On the day that Denver assumed the territorial governorship, citizens in the territory voted on the Lecompton Constitution, which opened the territory to slavery. The vote offered a choice only between full slavery and limited slavery in the territory and was thus largely boycotted by Free-Staters who were in favor of abolishing slavery. The pro-slavery constitution passed by an overwhelming margin. Later it was discovered that several thousand votes were cast fraudulently by "Border Ruffians" who had crossed into the territory from Missouri in order to cast pro-slavery ballots; this scandal became known as Bleeding Kansas. (The vote was overturned by a subsequent election in August 1858, and Kansas was later admitted to the Union, in 1861, as a free state.)
In November 1858, while Denver was still serving as territorial governor, William Larimer, Jr., a land speculator from Leavenworth, planted the townsite of "Denver City" along the South Platte River in Arapaho County in western Kansas Territory (the present-day state of Colorado). Larimer chose the name "Denver" to honor the current territorial governor with the intention that the city would be chosen as the county seat of Arapaho County.
Denver retired as territorial governor in November 1858, was
reappointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and served until his
resignation on March 31, 1859. He later practiced law in Washington, D.C.
Posts
