By Buck Conner
Mike (meauxtown) Thompson and myself were talking about Marino Medina's
rifle. Mike got a chance to handle the rifle a while back.
I have handled it several when Medina's rifle was still in Loveland at
the Library. I lived 4 miles from Medina's Crossing (his toll bridge
location) west of Loveland CO, his daughter Lena was buried on our
property and Louis Papa (Medina's step son would come to our place to
visit his step sister). I found a pair of leather breeches left on our
property for years (Mrs. E. Gates who wrote about Medina and Charley
Hanson [Museum of the Fur Trade] knew who they belonged to when seen).
Both had pictures of Medina wearing them at a ball in Denver (Marino was
a fancy-dan and liked to show off at up-scaled affairs. Papa use to
wear his step-fathers clothes at parades in Loveland and Ft. Collins
around the turn of the century. Mrs. Gates found an old newspaper
article that Louis had gotten hurt up the Buckhorn Canyon in the early
1900's. Figured they removed the breeches when taking him to Loveland.
Read on:
We had a famous mountain man living in our area, just a few miles down
the road. He was known to have traveled on this land in his adventures.
A Famous Mountain Man
According to local historians, mountain man Mariano Medina, for whom the
Mariana Butte area is named, arrived with his wife in 1858 and built a
cabin near the Big Thompson River two years later, becoming the first
permanent settler of the area.
Sometime before 1864, Medina reportedly buried a friend at the site and
soon after buried two of his children there. He built a low stone wall
around the cemetery and kept it neatly whitewashed. By the time he died
in 1878, the cemetery was full, and he had to be buried outside the
walls, according to published reports.
"The cemetery was viewed with curiosity mixed with respect by
settlers and travelers, who expressed surprise at finding it so well
kept in such an uncivilized land."
"Mariano Medina Colorado Mountain Man" by Zethyl Gates).
First created as the Medina family cemetery, friends and acquaintances
were also buried in the cemetery outside the sandstone walls surrounding
the Medina plot. The earliest grave at this site was of a family friend
buried prior to 1864. This was followed by two of Mariano Medina's
children in 1864. The cemetery was surrounded by stone walls that were
neatly whitewashed. The entrance was topped with a Blue Cross, a symbol
of Medina's Catholic faith.
I'll continue this story and how we have connections with this man on
the family property. We will share what was found while cleaning up a
century of junk left by the forefathers of this ground, Medina's family
included.
Breeches in the Fur Trade
by Buck Conner
After reading an article entitled "The Well-Dressed Explorer" by Jeff
Gottfred of the NWBC located in Calgary, Canada, he mentions David
Thompson's leather trousers and long wool socks, along with Samuel
Johnson's dictionary's remarks of trousers used in outposts and common
wear on the frontier.
I have always felt that one of the problems in living history has been
the dating of men's clothing, especially civilian clothing, seems to be
volumes on the subject - except women's clothing. After years of
research on what is correct and what is questionable, military clothing
is extremely helpful in dating civilian wares. For an example, the
British Army went from the fly front to the fall front knee breeches in
the “Clothing Warrant of 1768“. The military usually changes fashion
late, the front fly was probably going out of civilian styles in the
early 1790's. If portraying a fashionable gentlemen from Philadelphia,
Annapolis or St. Louis, you would be wearing fall front breeches or
trousers. But if you were a farmer in the same period you would likely
have fly front's. Fly front breeches were developed around 1650 and in a
hundred and fifty years, change was the tightness and size of the
waistband going from 4 - 6 inches in 1730 - 1750, to 2 - 2-1/2 inch
range found on late 1830 - 1850 fall fronts.
This article reminded me of an item I found back in the early 1970’s when living in northern Colorado, northwest of the town of Loveland in a small valley called the Buckhorn Canyon (named by Mariano Medina, the Colorado Mountainman). Medina was reported to have shot and killed several young Utes that had stolen horses from his place of business west of Loveland and had rode them a few miles up this canyon when Medina caught up with them. This same canyon was where it was reported that his daughter was buried.
Part 1
My ex-wife’s family had several hundred acres homesteaded in the late
1800’s of which only half was farmable, the rest was used for pasture
and a small sandstone quarry, it was narrow in width and followed the
Buckhorn Canyon ridge down into the valley. Only a few miles from the
Big Thompson River that Mariano Medina had his toll bridge on for years,
charging according to the numbers wanting to cross the river. Namaqua:
Mariano's (or Marianne's) Crossing later became known as Namaqua.
According to the local newspapers, these charges helped newcomers make
up their mind up about settling on one side or the other of the
Thompson. Small settlements started springing up in the area like
Berthoud, Campeon and Medina Flat's rather than pay Mariano‘s fees. "His
post was a known location for the "pony trade", "Whites", "Mexicans"
and "Indians" traded on a regular schedule here in the Big Thompson
Valley..." reported the Denver Rocky Mountain News. This horse trade
attracted many groups of Indians, they counted theirs and Mariano's
wealth by the number of ponies one owned at "Marianne's Crossing".
My ex father-in-law told me as a young boy growing up in the valley he
could remember when the Utes would come to town and everyone would
gather their tools and vegetables and store them inside until they
passed, he said they were looked upon as gypsies and known to steal
loose items laying around and sell those items in town for whiskey. This
seemed to be the only problem as he recalls was ever present with these
people that lived at the northern end of the canyon.
Around 1935 the local college - CSU in Fort Collins was called to look
at a grave site that was uncovered in the sandstone quarry on this
property. It was decided to be possibly Native American, a women buried
sitting up. The college would return in a week to remove the body and
look for additional clues at the site. In that time period the local
farmers feared that removing the remains could bring a curse on the
valley and decided to cover the grave not giving permission to anyone to
touch the site. My father-in-law had the pre-mix concrete company pour
an 8" slab on top of the grave and then pushed 3 to 4 feet of dirt and
riff-raff (broken rock from the quarry) on the slab. When the college
showed up a few days later, seeing what had been done demanded the
county court to issue an order to remove the body (believed to be
Medina's daughter, Lena). After several meetings with the valley farmers
and county commissioners, the subject was dropped.
Mariano Medina: His first name was Mariano, his surname has seen
different spellings; Medina, Modena and Medena are the more common
found. Mariano Medina is what Mrs. Zethel Gates has found on court
records, titles and legal documents. Mariano Medina established the
first permanent settlement on the right (south) bank of the Big Thompson
River in 1858. Mariano’s homestead consisted of a traditional
Spanish-style plaza surrounded on three sides by his neatly whitewashed
log home, trading store, saloon, corrals and a post office. The
settlement was originally called Miraville, then Mariano’s Crossing, Big
Thompson Crossing, and by today’s name Namaqua as I‘m sure you are
aware of. Mariano is credited with establishing the firsts business,
first school, first church, and first cemetery in the valley. Known an
excellent horseman and horse trader swapping for worn out stock for his
healthy animals he had fattened on river bottom grass. Overland Mail in
1862 selected Medina‘s settlement as a home station. The significance of
this first community of “Indians and Mexicans” was discounted by later
white settlers.
Part 2
Now that you have a little history of this area we'll get back to the
trousers, forty years later I’m building a new fence on this property
and find a small pocket, not really a cave per say. A friend claims we
were looking for rattlesnakes, not building fence, can't remember, spent
a lot of time on this location year around working, hunting and just
looking around. The area was a large rolling hill side that runs for 6-7
miles; not bad walking, lots of game - rabbits, turkey, mule and
whitetail deer, along with a local herd of elk. Anyway whatever we were
doing we could see something in this loaf shaped hole and after several
hours of probing with long sticks we were able removed some of the
larger rocks to a point where we could see there were no snakes in the
pocket opening. Still not really comfortable I crawled inside with a
flashlight and a small shovel and started scraping the ground looking
for anything that could have been drug into this natural living quarters
that appeared to have housed some local coyotes. Most of the items were
clean bones, a few pieces of skulls of small animals, three old beads.
There was also found a hard ball of leather that looked like an old
shirt, torn but it looked like it was all there. We figured the beads
came from the activities of a local mountain man club that ran monthly
shoots on the property.
I soaked the hard ball of leather for several days in a 5 gallon bucket
of water, once soft the ball was stretched on a plywood surface and
tacked down, the leather shirt turns out to be leather breeches that
were manufactured by the appearance. Some of the construction was of the
early style of machine stitching, commercial type brass buttons with
the name “Hammond & Co - Oxford St“, small drop front design with
the adjustable waist band tie in the back. The waist band is whip
stitched, about 15-16 stitches to the inch with a canvas type material
sandwiched between the leather for extra support. The brass buttons are
of the dished style with raised lettering of the manufacturer, now white
with mineral deposits, pearl buttons on legs suggest they were
replacements. The legs are slightly tapered to the knee with the usual
buttoned cuff below the knee and the bulky butt area like the military
breeches of the early 1800's.
After showing the breeches to the local museum in Loveland, I was sent
to the library in search of a Mrs. Zethyl Gates - librarian and local
historian. At the time she was still working on a book about local
mountain man Marino Medina (she had written several museum papers and
articles in local newspapers about this man). She has spent most of her
working life researching Medina and others of the late fur trade in
Colorado and Wyoming, even traveled to Spain to research Medina's family
history.
When walking into the library I was sent to her office at once with my
old beat-up leather trousers (breeches) and found a very excited Mrs.
Gates, she had been called by the museum about these pants. She showed
me a late picture of Marino wearing breeches in Denver like the ones I
have found and another picture of Louie Papa (Medina's step-son) wearing
the same breeches, taken in a parade in Loveland after the turn of the
century - 1900. Interesting, but questionable as to whether they were
his or someone else's and how did the trousers get on this hill?
A few years later I was visiting an old friend in Chadron, NE; Charles
E. Hanson, Jr., you may have heard of him, showed him the old breeches
and told him the story and Mrs. Gates interest. He said, " let's go to
the study”, Charlie owned “The Museum of the Fur Trade“. Charlie points
out a leather coat (short jacket) with the same brass buttons and of
similar construction, it had been purchased from a family in northern
Colorado at a gun show. Traded around for a period before finding its
new home at the museum. The next thing out of Charlie’s mouth was "how
much"? According to Mr. Hanson this type of coat and pants (trousers)
were made commercially in Europe and shipped to New York or California
dealers during the late fur trade all the way up to and after the Indian
Wars. This style of garment sold in the gentlemen shops throughout the
Rockies during the mid to late 1800‘s. Interesting how the article of
David Thompson's leather breeches has brought about more research and
this story.
Born in Taos, New Mexico in 1812, Mariano Medina was a personal friend
of Kit Carson, Louis Vasquez, the Bent brothers along other legendary
mountain men like Jim Bridger and Tom Toblin.
With his early experiences as a trapper, trader, hide trader, bounty
hunter (capturing two Utes for a reward), known for his knowledge of the
wilderness. He was a half-breed Frenchman, Jicarilla Apache, and
Spanish mix according to those that knew him. His ability was apparent
as an aide to John C. Fremont in that exploration of the west in
providing his mountain skills and knowledge. He also was employed as a
guide for Captain Randolph B. Marcy's exciting trek across the Rockies
in the winter during the Mormon War.
It is found in reports of events and journals of several fur trade
companies that one Mariano Medina was in their employ from time to time.
With the days of the fur trade coming to an end and growing older for
acting a guide for these explorations, Mariano settled down proclaiming
he was the first settler on the Big Thompson Creek (River) in 1858) near
present day Loveland, Colorado. The years spent on the Sweetwater and
Green River had taught him about water, crossing it and building
structures that would withstand its force. His first venture was with a
raft ferrying teams across, charging as much fifty dollars in gold for
the service. After a season a toll bridge was built high enough to avoid
the high spring run-off, eventually building a fort and trading post
"Marianne's Crossing". Soon it became the favorite stopping place for
the growing numbers of travelers involved in the western movement and of
course his now famous mountainmen friends made frequent stops. Many
references in journals, newspapers of the time, mention famous mountain
men: "Kit Carson spent the past week with old friend Jesus Garcia
Mariano Medina at his post in the Big Thompson canyon". Loveland News
June 1858 or "Mr. Ceran St.Vrain has been seen in the company of Mariano
Medina near Estes Park, a family outing with several other famous
people - William Gilpin (future governor of Colorado), Jos'e de Mirabal
and William Bent (trader)". Rocky Mountain News 5th of Sept. 1858.
Part 3
In March 1861 Tim Goodale and his wife, Jennie, joined old friend
Mariano, on the Thompson. Noted this in their journal that “a group of
Indians where living about a mile or so below on the south side of the
river from Mariano's place, the leader was Nawat (Niwot, or Left Hand)
[Arapahoe]. North were Cheyenne’s with their leader Big Mouth, they
spent most of their time watching a thousand ponies pastured on the
Cache la Poudre River near Fort Collins, Colorado‘. Also noted was the
viewing of “a hunting party of Sioux working their way up the Thompson
canyon” near present day Estes Park. Mariano had lots of activity around
his location, he was pleased, business and the times where good at this
location according to friends and family.
"His post was a known location for the "pony trade", "Whites",
"Mexicans" and "Indians" traded on a regular schedule here in the Big
Thompson Valley..." reported the Denver Rocky Mountain News. This horse
trade attracted many groups of Indians, they counted their’s and
Mariano's wealth by the number of ponies one owned, this turned out to
be trouble for "Marianne's Crossing".
On the morning of 17 April 1861 Mariano Medina experienced a raid at his
post, stealing of his ponies, that throws him into a rage. In the days
to follow Medina, Goodale, and Mirabal tracked down the stolen ponies
along with the band of Indians that had taken them. "On the morning of
21 April 1861 they discovered the remains of a camp fire on the banks of
a small creek (Buckhorn Creek), at which time they discharged their
rifles and charged forward, the Ute Indians fled in all directions with
Mariano, Tim and Jos'e in hot pursuit". according to W. J. Menton,
reporter for the Rocky Mountain News. "Cowards!" yelled Mariano, "Come
back and fight for horses!". “Suddenly the Indians charged Mariano,
taking his hat off and waving as though signaling for help, where upon
the Indians scattered, thinking they were out numbered. Mariano shot
several of the Indians, leaving the battleground bestrewn with blood,
their weapons left in all directions, they escaped with only five
ponies." the report reads. Three days later Mariano and his group return
with fifty head of stolen horses, the Indians had shot five and had
gotten away with five. This event happened three miles north of the Big
Thompson in a narrow valley referred to as “The Buckhorn Canyon”. Twenty
one shots were fired, in less than three minutes according to reports,
with the highest number given to Medina, Sueze Luis, Merival and 'Uncle'
Tim Goodale for their skills in handling firearms. After this attack
Mariano had his Mexican labors start building his fort to protect the
people living at his settlement.
It has been noted that in the 1871 Medina loaned the new found First
National Bank of Fort. Collins, Colorado a sum of money to start
business, money gotten from the toll bridge operation and trading post
enterprise - $61,000.00. A large sum like this shows how successful his
business had become. It's said that some would pay as little as 25 cents
to make the crossing on a busy day and as much as $100.00 on a slow
day, freighters loaded with gold would usually pay the most and Mexicans
crossed free. With such extreme changes in "crossing" costs, some
researchers claim Mariano was responsible for many of the small
communities around the Loveland area. Settlers waiting for a busy
business day to make their crossing in moving westward would decide that
the area and available homestead ground was more attractive than first
thought.
Talk about an uneducated man that knew how to play the game of making money - WOW.
Part 4
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