Two years of hard work, however, had brought neither of them any great amount of gold, so Hinman and Wright began their return to Kansas. On the way they paused at Jimmy Camp and there decided to lay out a claim. As was the custom in those days, they arranged four logs in a square to hold their claim until they could officially file for it. But after remaining at the site only a day and a half they changed their minds. The two young men abandoned their claim to Jimmy Camp and turned their animals toward home.
The second claimant to Jimmy Camp was Marmaduke Green. In 1863 he filed claim to the land, and hired Amos Terrell to build for him a story-and-a-half log cabin. Amos later said he built the cabin fifty yards south of the springs, near the site of an old grave. Close by he also found a stack of cut logs, perhaps leftovers from the aborted claim of Hinman and Wright three years ealier. Amos remembered building in approximately the same area where there can still be seen the foundation stones of an old two-room cabin. Immediately in front of these flagstones is a series of old posts, now greatly weathered and worn, remnants perhaps of an old corral or garden fence.
When the original story-and-a-half cabin was completed back in 1863, Amos Terrell and his wife moved in. They boarded the owner - Marmaduke Green - during the time he was courting a young woman named Jenny. When married at last, Marmaduke and Jenny Green themselves took over the cabin.
Jenny Green would long remember her honeymoon years in the log cabin at Jimmy Camp. In later life she would often tell of the time she cooked breakfast for a pair of desperadoes. The story was repeated in her obituary notice:
""One day...Mrs. Green was preparing breakfast when two men came along and asked if they might stop and eat. She invited them to do so and cooked them an unusually good breakfast, as they appeared to be tired and hungry. They ate so hastily that they left half the food she had placed before them untouched and hurried on. Scarcely had they gone from the house than a posse rode up and inquired for them. She told the officers which way they had gone and they hurried on after them.
"The two men, who were wanted probably for horse stealing, were caught and promptly hanged on a nearby tree. The posse came riding back after the execution and again stopped at the house, asking for breakfast. Mrs. Green told them to be seated and the men sat down and ate the food that had been placed upon the table for the dead men, and which was still warm."(1)
It is not known how long the Greens stayed at Jimmy Camp. In September of 1864 - when a detachment of the First Colorado Cavalry passed through - the place looked deserted.
This may, however have indicated no more than a temporary absence of the owners, Marmaduke and Jenny having probably sought the safety of nearby Colorado City during a period of increased Indian troubles.
The story of the First Colorado's 1864 visit to Jimmy Camp was told to Professor Cragin by cavalry member Milo Slater. According to Slater, the men of the First were returning from Pueblo to departmental headquarters in Denver after a four-week chase of the Jim Reynold's gang. The lieutenant in command had chosen the Cherokee Trail in preference to the more-traveled route through Colorado City because he wanted to visit a lady friend who lived along the trail at the head of Cherry Creek.
On the trail north towards Jimmy Camp the men had noticed a band of Indians scouting the command. The Indians stayed from one to two miles distant; only occasionally could they be spotted among the hills. The threat of an attack lay heavy on the minds of the twenty-man troop as they came down off the high land and rode along the creek to Jimmy Springs. The upshot of this threat is perhaps best told in the words of Milo Slater:
"It was a beautiful day in the early Indian summer, and we reached Jimmy's camp about 2 o'clock in the afternoon and found the place wholly deserted, but also found the first grass we had seen in a month....
"After unsaddling the animals, the entire herd, consisisting of 20 cavalry horses and about the same number of mules, was turned loose on the grass and in 10 minutes were hidden from view with the herder. Preparations for dinner were at once made, and the men anticipating an attack at or about nightfall, at once proceeded to clean their arms and get ready. In these preparations nearly every gun and revolver in the entire party was soon taken to pieces and strewn on the blankets, while the men were busy scouring and oiling them, and the cooks were busy with dinner.
"'Grub Pile' had not yet been called when we heard a yell. We had scarcely more than time to raise our heads until the entire herd of horses and mules came rushing from the brush through the camp withuot the regular herder, but followed by eight or ten Indians, all mounted on ponies, and instead of arms, each one swung a blanket or buffalo robe over his head, making such yells as only an Indian can. Our debilitated horses and mules, an hour before sarcely able to carry a rider, came through the camp 'lickety split,' every blesed one of them with his tail in the air. Camp kettls and frying pans were upset, dinner was spoiled and scarcely a shot fired, and in three minutes our herd was literally out of sight, leaving only the solitary horse that the herder was riding."(2)
Their horses gone, the men borrowed from the absent Marmaduke Green, two ox yokes, some log chains, and several head of oxen. The oxen were yoked to one of the baggage wagons, which was in turn piled high with saddles and bedrolls. After finishing the remants of their dinner, the horseless cavalry made their way slowly over the hills to Colorado City. A few months later their stolen animals were recognized among the herd of Indian ponies captured during the Sand Creek Massacre. The infamous half-breed, Jack Smith, was hanged after the massacre. He is said to have confessed only an hour before his death to having led the little band of Indians on their horse-stealing expedition to Jimmy Camp a few months earlier.
©1999 2000 Richard Gehling
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FOOTNOTES
(1) - Colorado SpringsGazette Telegraph, 3 February 1929. Obituary of Mrs. Jenny Green.
(2) - Professor Cragin's notes of an interview with Milo Slater in Denver, 1903. Cragin Collection, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.