Gold Seekers

The old trail through Jimmy Camp awakened to new life with the increased traffic brought on by the great Pike Peak Gold Rush. With the greening of the grass in the spring of 1859 goldseekers by the tens of thousands rushed over the trails to the new goldfields. It has been estimated that perhaps as many as 100,000 Pikes Peakers began the trek to the diggings at the mouth of Cherry Creek; of these perhaps as many as 40,000 went by way of the Santa Fe-Cherokee Trails, and nearly every one of them passed hough Jimmy Camp.

In the vanguard of this vast throng approaching the camp by way of the trail up Fountain Creek was a group of gold seekers who had left Kansas City on 16 April 1859. One of their number went by the name of Samuel Raymond. It was he who recorded the drive into Jimmy Camp:

"Mon. May 30th (1859) Started from Camp early in the morning and made a good days drive of 21 mls. Over a rolling Country and quite Sandy - The day was warm. The afternoon windy. Drove all day - Stood guard at night. Saw six antelopes in the afternoon. -Encamped near the Woods & drank for the first time in a great while some good clear cold Spring-water. I found it was a delicious change - after drinking muddy River water for some weeks. To day we fell in with a train of 22 waggons. They are all encamped near us. Wood here is scarce. Grass quite good. -"(1)

Ten days later the party of Dr. George M. Willing and Thomas Alexander arrived at Jimmy Camp. Alexander had been sick for some time, but had borne it patiently. Dr. Willing, on the other hand, had grouched most of the way to Pikes Peak. The plains he had found "arid, cheerless, shadeless, everlasting and interminable;" the country along the Arkansas River had been "uncomfortably cold at night, most oppressively hot at mid-day;" Fountain City (now a part of Pueblo) had the appearance of a "miserable village of about thirty log huts," its populaion "all ugly alike, filthy alike, and lazy alike;" Fountain Creek on the Cherokee Trail had been "an inconsiderable stream."(2)

But, once the unpleasant task of burying the dead James Alexander had been performed, the good doctor found the time to look around at the campground and the surrounding hills. Jimmy Camp changed his attitude completly. A renewed hope began to glow through the lines of his diary:

Thursday June 9th, 1859 "At Jims Spring is a fine grove of pine timber, of sufficient size for all needed purposes. The spring itself furnishes sufficient water for irrigating about one hundred acres of land, and is the only water within a number of miles. Settlements will soon be made at all such points. The land is tillable and would be producive, the climate is delightful, timber is abundant, and grass of excellent quality grows even on the ridges. Such a country for game I have never seen. Antelope are almost constantly in sight. Mountain sheep abound among the hills, and herds of deer may also constantly be seen grazing or seeking refuge beneath the trees from the noontide heats."(3)

By the end of June 1859 the gold rush had peaked. Traffic through Jimmy Camp began a gradual deline. Arriving now were some of the slower wagon trains, those that had either started late or else run into problems enroute.

A family unit by the name of Hunt came with one of these later groups. There was husband Alexander Cameron (later territorial governor), wife Ellen, two little ones named Isa and Bertie, and Grandpa. The Hunts had started from the family home in Freeport, Illinois; at Kansas City they had joined a train headed for Pikes Peak. Wife Ellen, however, had become sick almost from the start. "Large purple blotches" formed on her body, blotches which Grandpa called "Erysipalis."(4) Whatever it was, the disease confined her inside the wagon most of the way. By the time the party turned onto the Cherokee Trail, Ellen was feeling better: up Fountain Creek her spirits began to soar; by the time the party reached Jimmy Camp, she was ready to homestead. The entry in her diary for 24 June 1859 reads:

"Had a splendid view of the mountains for several miles. Begin to see finer country. Passed one fine location for a farm, beautiful prairies on a soil much like Pigin Prairie, with grove of pine convnient. Camped near one and beside an elegant spring...."(5)

Only one day behind the Hunt family was Charles C. Post, a lawyer from Decatur, Illinois. From the time his party had turned north up the Cherokee Trail Post had experienced some difficulty in controlling his patiece. The pace had been slow. Several of the oxen had sickened and died. With the train encamped on Fountain Creek for an extended rest, Post could contain himsef no longer. He bade his travel companions goodbye, and with one friend set out or Jimmy Camp and the goldfields beyond. Late that same night the pair encamped at Point of Rocks in Black Forest; by the light of the campfire Charls Post reflectd on the day's events:

"Saturday, June 25th (1859) - This morning Dr. Rease's ox beng unable to move, the train concluded to encamp about eight miles up the creek for four or five days. So Cutter and mysef agree to go to Denver City, and having filled a sack with bread, crackers, some tea and dried fruit, we set out, struck divide road and at noon stopped at Jimmy's camp to bait our horses and selves. This is a splendid camp, a very large spring is here almost equal to Diamond Spring...."(6)

Charles Post was the final gold seeker of 1859 to leave a written record of his impressions of Jimmy Camp. Although traffic through the camp would continue throughout the summer and for many years afterward, never again would the number of visitors to Jimmy Camp be as large as it was during May and June of 1859. No doubt, the campground itself paid a heavy price for all this traffic. Most of the game must have been frightened away. The luxurious grass must have withered from overgrazing and the bite of ironclad wagon wheels. During the pead of the goldrush A.E. Raymnd did note a shortage of seasoned firewood. But never was it said - by any of the tens of thousands of gold seekes who passed through Jimmy Camp - that either they or their animals were able to drink the famous springs dry.

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FOOTNOTES -

(1) - Samuel D. Raymond. An unpublished manuscript in possession of the State Historical Society of Colorado. Diary entries of 30-31 May 1859.

(2) - George M. Willing, "Diary of a journey to the Pike's Peak gold mines of 1859," ed. Ralph P. Fisher (Cedar Rapids, Ia.: Torch Press, 1927), pp.370-72.

(3) - Ibid, p.372.

(4) - Eysipelas is defined as "an acute infectious disease of the skin or mucuous membranes caused by streptococcus and characterized by local inflammation and fever." Webster's New World Dictionary.

(5) - Ellen Hunt, "Diary of Mrs. A.C. Hunt, 1859," ed. LeRoy R. Hafen, The Colorado Magazine, Vol.XXI (September, 1944), pp.167-68.

(6) - Charles C. Post, "Diary of Charles C. Post," Overland Routes to the Gold Fields, 1859, ed. LeRoy R. Hafen (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1942), P.50.