The Hammond Family Trek to the Frontier
Denver (Cherry Creek) 1859
In an obituary for my great-grandfather Nahum W. Hammond (1847-1925), there is a mention of the overland journey he made with his family (Noah Hammond and Rosetta Taylor Hammond and kids) from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the rugged landscape of Colorado in 1860.
Nahum’s father, Noah Hammond, was born in Middleborough, Massachusetts on March 29, 1815. Like his father before him, Noah’s occupation was “moulder” — a foundry worker who made molds for casting iron. Noah met his future wife, Rosetta Taylor, and they married on February 10, 1842. Noah was 26 and Rosetta was 17, and their first child, Joanna, was born the following year in 1843. Two more children followed - Nahum in 1847 and Mary Emma in 1850.
In 1849 Noah joined thousands of adventurers from around the world and came to California in search of gold. This voyage around Cape Horn took six arduous months. but, despite the likely hardships and privations, the prospect of enormous wealth kept Noah and the other the would-be miners coming.
The 1850 census finds Noah in gold-rich Township 1 (Sonora) of Tuolumne County. He lived with 6 other adventurers, including two from Massachusetts. Also, in 1850, Noah was listed in the household of his wife Rosetta back in Sandwich, Massachusetts.
Noah returned home to Rosetta and their children in 1853, and met their daughter Mary Emma for the first time - just before her 4th birthday. Another child, Eliza Luella, was born in 1854 in Massachusetts, but soon Noah resumed his westward trajectory. He organized a party of twenty men with teams and embarked on a second sojourn to the Pacific Coast, traversing the untamed expanses through Utah and western Colorado, fueled by wanderlust and the lure of possibility.
He returned to Massachusetts and and he and Rosetta began making plans to move West. In 1858 they sold 30 acres of land in Sandwich, MA, and in 1859 they recorded a quitclaim deed for an additional 40 acres near Rochester, MA. Soon the whole family including, Joanna (age 15), Nahum (12), Mary Emma (9), Eliza Luella (4), departed for the West - this was in 1859. Along the way, baby Jesse was born in Illinois. When they reached Council Bluffs, Iowa, they joined with other families for the four-week journey by wagon train to the newly founded settlement of Denver, arriving in 1860.
Echoes of the family’s travels are preserved in the recollections of Mary Emma Hammond Gibson as told to her granddaughter:
Grandma [Mary Emma] Gibson, as we all knew her, was born 22 April 1850 at Pocasset Harbor on Massachusetts Bay. The Wings Neck Lighthouse still stands at this harbor. She spent many of her childhood hours playing on the beach and bathing in the ocean when the tide was low. Her brother (Nahum) who shared her childhood saved her life three times by getting her out of the water. They also gathered clams and other shellfish as well as shells. She was one of a family of eight children, consisting of five girls and three boys. There was a pair of twins and one of the twins [Etta Hammond Sommers] and Grandma are all that are left. She recently heard from this sister who is in Chicago. In the year 1849 the father [Noah] went by boat to California during the gold rush and never saw Grandma until she was almost four years old. It took him six months to make the trip out there. When she was ten years old the family moved to Denver for the mother’s health. From Morrison, Illinois, to Denver they took 75 cows and a lot of them were giving milk. They had oxen hitched to their wagons and the wagons were made with overjets over the wheels so they could make their beds crosswise and under these overjets were shelves where the milk was strained and placed overnight. The next morning they would skim the milk, put the cream in a four gallon churn and by evening they had butter. The milk they sold along the road. In this way they made their traveling expenses. The cows were to be sold at journey’s end. Grandma walked half of the distance half a day at a time, she was very tired at times. They were crossing through Iowa on her tenth birthday. They crossed the river at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, on a ferry boat. The cattle were very uneasy crossing, going from one side of the boat to the other. They encountered a herd of buffalo on the trip and some of the men of the company killed one. [The letter continues with stories of her married life in Iowa and Nebraska. ]
At the end of their journey to Colorado, the family settled with other pioneers along the banks of Cherry Creek, an area that would become part of the city of Denver. As the settlement grew, Noah found opportunity as a blacksmith while also establishing a store supplying provisions to the gold seekers. The pioneers’ existence in Denver, characterized by rugged resilience, unfolded amidst the humble abodes of one-story cabins and makeshift furnishings. Sustenance was gleaned from meager fare, such as bread, beans, and bacon with the occasional luxury of canned fruit or fresh bounty from the wilderness of bison and antelope.
Then in 1864 disaster struck as Cherry Creek flooded and the Hammond’s house was washed away along with many others:
The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), Volume 55, Number 139, May 19, 1914
The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), Volume 39, Number 260, September 17, 1898
A few months after the 1864 flood, my great-grandfather Nahum had reached the age of 17 and enlisted in the 3rd Regiment of Colorado Cavalry during the Civil War and participated in the “Battle of Sand Creek” which is now known as the Sand Creek Massacre. From the website of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site:
On that cold November morning, Colonel Chivington and elements of the 1st Colorado Infantry Regiment of Volunteers (US) and 3rd Regiment of Colorado Cavalry Volunteers (US), arrived just southwest of the Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment. Colonel Chivington was never given orders to leave Denver, and at around 6:30, the soldiers would open fire amongst the lodges of the innocent and unaware Arapaho and Cheyenne civilians. Over the course of eight hours the American troops killed around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people composed mostly of women, children, and the elderly. During the afternoon and following day, the soldiers wandered over the field committing atrocities on the dead before departing the scene on December 1st.
Since the barbarism of November 29, the Sand Creek Massacre maintains its status as one of the most emotionally charged and controversial events in American history, a tragedy reflective of its time and place. The Sand Creek Massacre lay in a whirlwind of events and issues exacerbated by the ongoing Civil War. Critically, the Sand Creek Massacre stands as a testament to a brutality that should be learned from and never repeated, a lesson of what the rejection of conscience in the face of fear and hysteria can lead to, and the suffering that this betrayal has imparted on generations of Arapaho and Cheyenne people.
Within weeks stories surfaced about the massacre and within a year the federal government had conducted investigations: Excerpt from the report of the US Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1865, via Wikipedia:
As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man.
Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deed he and the men under his command had performed.
In conclusion, your committee are of the opinion that for the purpose of vindicating the cause of justice and upholding the honor of the nation, prompt and energetic measures should be at once taken to remove from office those who have thus disgraced the government by whom they are employed, and to punish, as their crimes deserve, those who have been guilty of these brutal and cowardly acts.
Nahum died in 1925 at the age of 77. According to his obituary “he was a strong defender of Colonel Chivington and the Sand Creek Battle.” This makes me sad.
By 1870 the family had expanded with the births of Etta and Effie (twins-1862) and Robert (1865) and they were living in Golden, about 20 miles from Cherry Creek. Noah and son Nahum were teamsters - meaning they drove teams of horses pulling a wagon. The Hammonds stayed in the area until 1876 when they traveled by wagon train to the Pine River Valley of Colorado where they were pioneers and settlers. (a future episode).
The Hammonds lived in the Denver area until 1876 when they again heard the call of the frontier beckoning them to new horizons. Embarking on a journey by wagon train to the untamed wilderness of the Pine River Valley of Colorado, once again they cast their lot as pioneers and settlers. To be continued in a future episode…
Please feel free to leave comments, corrections, and additions,
Meredith
Sources consulted:
Personal correspondence with Carolyn Ower (2016)
The Hammond-Bates Caravan and the Incident at Wolf Creek Pass, by Robert H. Sievers “with a lot of help from my wife, Maureen Sievers,” (2008?).
Gibsons and Orrs: Pioneer Families by Laura Wayland-Smith Hatch (2016)
A History and Genealogy of the Descendants of William Hammond of London, England, …, by Roland Hammond (1894) - available at www.archive.org
Obituary of Effie Hammond Salabar in Ignacio Chieftain, June 17, 1938.
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
“Eye of the Beholder: Chaos or Order in Early Denver?” by Kathleen A. Brosnan and Stephanie Fuglaar, Journal of the West, Spring 2010.
