The Pueblo





This adobe quadrangle was built in the summer of 1842 by George Simpson, Matthew Kinkaid, and several other independent traders. It was located just 200 yards from the principal Arkansas River ford, half a mile west of the mouth of Fountain Creek. The Pueblo was occupied by various individuals until its final abandonment in 1854, after the Christmas Day Massacre.



The Pueblo - Sketched by Cherokee Gold Seeker, William M. Quesenbury, 12 June 1850



James P. Beckwourth, October 1842.

Despite his later claims, Beckwourth seems to have had no hand in the construction of the Pueblo. When he arrived in October of 1842, the Pueblo had already been in existence several months. Beckwourth went to California in 1843, leaving behind his wife Louise Sandeville, who in his absence married one of the true builders, John Brown.

“In the fall I returned to the Indian country, taking my wife with me. We reached the Arkansas about the first of October, 1842, where I erected a trading-post, and opened a successful business. In a very short time I was joined by from fifteen to twenty free trappers, with their families. We all united our labors, and constructed an adobe fort sixty yards square. By the following spring we had grown into quite a little settlement, and we gave it the name of Pueblo. Many of the company devoted themselves to agriculture, and raised very good crops the first season, such as wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, and abundance of almost all kinds of vegetables.”

Source: The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, as told to Thomas D. Bonner. Edited by Delmont R. Oswald. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972).



Rufus B. Sage, September 1842.

Sage visited the newly-erected Pueblo while traveling the old trail to Taos.

“At the delta, formed by the junction of Fontaine qui Bouit with the Arkansas, a trading fort, called the Pueblo, was built during the summer of 1842. This post is owned by a company of independent traders, on the common property system; and, from its situation, can command a profitable trade with both Mexicans and Indians. Its occupants number ten or twelve Americans, most of them married to Mexican women, while everything about the establishment wears the aspect of neatness and comfort.”

Source: Rocky Mountain Life, by Rufus B. Sage. (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1982).



John C. Fremont, 14 July 1843.

Fremont had followed the divide trail south to the Pueblo, seeking provisions and mules for his expedition to Oregon and northern California. He found no provisions, but was able to engage the services of Kit Carson and Charles Town.

“...we encamped at noon on the 14th at its mouth on the Arkansas river. A short distance above our encampment, on the left bank of the Arkansas, is a pueblo (as the Mexicans call their civilized Indian villages,) where a number of mountaineers, who had married Spanish women in the valley of Taos, had collected together and occupied themselves in farming, carrying on at the same time a desultory Indian trade. They were principally Americans, and treated us with all the rude hospitality their situation admitted; but as all commercial intercourse with New Mexico was now interrupted, in consequence of Mexican decrees to that effect, there was nothing to be had in the way of provisions. They had, however, a fine stock of cattle, and furnished us an abundance of excellent milk ....

“I had here the satisfaction to meet our good buffalo hunter of 1842, Christopher Carson, whose services I considered myself fortunate to secure again; and as a reinforcement of mules was absolutely necessary, I dispatched him immediately, with an account of our necessities, to Mr. Charles Bent, whose principal post is on the Arkansas river, about 75 miles below Fontaine-qui-bouit. He was directed to proceed from the post by the nearest route across the country, and meet me with what animals he sould be able to obtain at St. Vrain's fort. I also admitted into the party Charles Towns -a native of St. Louis, a serviceable man, with many of the qualities of a good voyageur. According to our observations, the latitude at the mouth of the river is 38 degrees 15' 23"; its longitude 104 degrees 58' 30"; and its elevation above the sea 4,880 feet.”

Source: The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont, ed. by Donald Jackson and Mary Le Spence. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970).



Francis Parkman, 20 August 1846.

At the Pueblo Parkman found an earlier acquaintance, John Richard. The two had met in mid-June at Fort Platte situated on the North Platte River seven miles below Fort Laramie. Parkman had described the trader as a “swarthy black-eyed Freanchman,” whose “black curling hair was parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his shoulders.”

“After an hour's ride we reached the edge of a hill, from which a welcome sight greeted us. The Arkansas ran along the valley below, among woods and groves, and closely nestled in the midst of wide cornfields and green meadows where cattle were grazing rose the low mud walls of the Pueblo.

“We approached the gate of the Pueblo. It was a wretched species of fort of most primitive construction, being nothing more than a large square enclosure, surrounded by a wall of mud, miserably cracked and dilapidated. The slender pickets that surrounded it were half broken down, and the gate dangled on its wooden hinges so loosely, that to open or shut it seemed likely robring it down altogether. Two or three squalid Mexicans, with their broad hats, and their vile faces overgrown with hair, were lounging about the bank of the river in front of it. They disappeared as they saw us approach; and as we rode up to the gate a light active little figure came out to meet us. It was our old friend Richard. He had come from Fort Laramie on a trading expedition to Taos, but finding, when he reached the Pueblo, that the war would prevent his going further, he was quietly waiting till the conquest of the country should allow him to proceed. He seemed to consider himself bound to do the honors of the place. Shaking us warmly by the hands, he led the way into the area.

“Here we saw his large Santa Fe wagons standing together. A few squaws and Spanish women, and a few Mexicans, as mean and miserable as the place itself, were lazily sauntering about. Richard conducted us to the state apartment of the Pueblo, a small mud room, very neatly finished, considering the material, and garnished with a crucifix, a looking-glass, a picture of the Virgin, and a rusty horse pistol. There were no chairs, but instead of them a number of chests and boxes, ranged about the room. There was another room beyond, less sumptuously decorated, and here three or four Spanish girls, one of them very pretty, were baking cakes at a mud fireplace in the corner. They brought out a poncho, which they spread upon the floor by way of table-cloth. A supper, which seemed to us luxurious, was soon laid out upon it, and folded buffalo robes were placed around it to receive the guests. Two or three Americans, besides ourselves, were present. We sat down Trukish fashion, and began to inquire the news ....

“When we took leave of Richard, it was near sunset. Passing out the gate, we could look down the little valley of the Arkansas; a beautiful scene, and doubly so to our eyes, so long accustomed to deserts and mountains. Tall woods lined the river, with green meadows on either hand; and high bluffs quietly basking in the sunlight, flanked the narrow valley. A Mexican on horseback was driving a herd of cattle toward the gate, and our little white tent, which the men had pitched under a large tree in the meadow, made a very pleasing feature in the scene. When we reached it, we found that Richard had sent a Mexican to bring us an abundant supply of green corn and vegetables, and invite us to help ourselves to whatever we wished from the fields around the Pueblo.

“The inhabitants were in daily apprehensions of an inroad from more formidable consumers than ourselves. Every year at the time when the corn begins to ripen, the Arapahoes, to the number of several thousands, come and encamp around the Pueblo. The handfull of white men, who are entirely at the mercy of this swarm of barbarians, make a merit of necessity; they come forward very cordially, shake them by the hand, and intimate that the harvest is entirely at their disposal. The Arapahoes take them at their word, help themselves most liberally, and usually turn their horses into the cornfields afterward. They have the foresight, however, to leave enough of the crops untouched to serve as an inducement for planting the fields again for their benefit in the next spring.”

Source: The Oregon Trail, by Francis Parkman. (New York: Airmont Publishing Co.).



George Ruxton, winter 1847.

Ruxton had come up the Trappers Trail from New Mexico. At the Pueblo he became acquainted with a tubucular resident named Morgan, and left with him on a buffalo hunt to South Park.

“...we struck the Arkansa at the little Indian trading-fort of the 'Pueblo,' which is situated on the left bank, a few hundred yards above the mouth of the Fontaine-qui-buille, or Boiling Spring River, so called from two springs of mineral water near its headwaters under Pike's Peak, about sixty miles from its mouth. Here I was hospitably entertained in the lodge of one John Hawkens, an ex-tapper and well-known mountaineer. I turned my animals loose and allowed them to seek for themselves the best pastures, as in the vicinity of the fort the prairies were perfectly bare of grass, and it was only near the mountain that any of a good quality was to be found.

“The Arkansa is here a clear, rapid river about a hundred yards in width. The bottom, which is enclosed on each side by high bluffs, is about a quarter of a mile across, and timbered with a heavy growth of cottonwood, some of the trees being of great size. On each side vast rolling prairies stretch away for hundreds of miles ....

“The Pueblo is a small square fort of adobe with circular bastions at the corners, no part of the walls being more than eight feet high, and round the inside of the yard or corral are built some half-dozen little rooms inhabited by as many Indian traders, coureurs des bois, and mountain-men. They live entirely upon game, and the greater part of the year without even bread, since but little maize is cultivated. As soon as their supply of meat is exhausted they start to the mountains with two or three pack-animals, and bring them back in two or three days loaded with buffalo or venison. In the immediate vicinity of the fort game is very scarce, and the buffalo have within a few years deserted the neighboring prairies, but they are always found in the mountain-valleys, particularly in one called Bayou Salado, which abounds in every species of game, including elk, bears, deer, bighorn or Rocky-Mountain sheep, buffalo, antelope, etc...

“Shortly after my arrival on Arkansa, and during a spell of fine sunny weather, I started with a Pueblo hunter for a load or two of buffalo-meat, intending to hunt on the waters of the Platte and the Bayou, where bulls remain in good condition during the winter months, feeding on the rich grass of the mountain-valleys.”

Source: Wild Life in the Rocky Mountains, by George Frederick Ruxton. Edited by Horace Kephart. (New York: The MacMillan Companty, 1924).



Richard Kern, 21 November 1848.

Richard was one of three Kern brothers who had signed up for Fremont’s disastrous Fourth Expedition. The thirty-man force had marched up the Santa Fe Trail in hopes of crossing the Rockies in winter, thereby proving the feasility of a central railroad route through the mountains. At the Pueblo Fremont purchased some provisions and fresh horses, and there engaged the services of guide Bill Williams.

“Made about 15 miles and camped near Mormontown, Pueblo on the other side. Plenty of large cotton wood - There is a fort built of Adobes - a miserable looking place, the inside resembling a menagerie - a compound of Spaniards, Horses, mules dogs chickens and bad stench.”

Source: "Diary of Richard Kern," Fremont's Fourth Expedition, ed. by LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann Hafen. (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1960).



Richens Lacy Wootton, December 1854.

“Uncle Dick” Wootton had lived at the Pueblo off and on for several years. In the late summer of 1853 he joined several others in building the Huerfano Village, situated a mile west of the mouth of the Huerfano River. There he was living at the time of the Pueblo Maasacre.

Richens Lacy Wootton


“About the middle of the afternoon [of December 24] I happened to be on the lookout and saw a man on horseback [Jose Barela], riding as fast as his horse could carry him, from the direction of the Pueblo ....

“The Pueblo, he said, had been captured by the Indians and every man, woman and child in it had probably been killed. He had been riding towards the place when he saw the Indians enter the fort. He rode up on one of the high hills overlooking the old rendezvous of the trappers, and witnessed the beginning of the conflict between the Utes and Mexicans. He had not waited to see the finish ....

“As soon as it was safe for us to do so, we went to the Pueblo to learn, if possible, whether any of the people there had had the good fortune to escape with their lives, or if we could do nothing else to give the victims decent burial. We found but one person alive in the fort; that was an old Mexican [Rumaldo Cordova] who had been badly wounded, and who died a few days later.

“We learned from him about all that was ever known about the fight. This was that the Indians came to the fort on Christmas morning, professed friendship, and asked to be allowed to come inside for the purpose of holding a peace conference. All those who had taken refuge in the old fort, or pueblo, were Mexicans ....

“...the Mexicans, thinking perhaps they might be able to do some trading with the Utes, allowed the whole band to come inside and the result was that a wholesale massacre followed. Of the seventeen persons whom the Indians found in the fort all were killed, with the exception of the wounded man whom we found there, and a woman [Chepita Miera] and two children [Felix and Juan Sandoval] who were carried away as captives. The woman, a good-looking young Mexican girl, was killed before the Indians left the valley. We could never learn what became of the children, but they probably met the same fate .... [In reality, Felix was rescued some eight months later, Juan five years after his brother].”

Source: Uncle Dick Wootton, related by Howard L. Conrad. (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1957).



David Kellogg, October 1858.

Kellogg’s party of fifty-eight gold seekers had left Kansas City the middle of September to travel the Santa Fe Trail west towards the diggings on Cherry Creek. Just before reaching the mouth of Fountain Creek they came upon Charley Autobees and his wife, who were returning to their farm on the Huerfano River. It was at this meeting that Kellogg first heard the story of the Christmas Day Massacre.

“...Reached the mouth of Fontaine Que Bouille, or Boiling Fountain Creek, a stream coming from the north and entering the Arkansas here. Concealed among a lot of rocks on the point over which our trail passes was an Arapahoe, watching the country around for the signs of Utes. From daylight to dark an Indian lookout is always stationed here by whatever tribes happens to have possession. We find a number of adobe houses and a few log huts, all empty save one. This place was once a Mexican pueblo and the ruins of their adobe fort still stands on the west side of the creek. The Utes took the fort, massacured its occupants and wiped out the settlement ....

“Ottoby [Autobees] told this story of the capture of the fort and the massacre of the garrison. On the day of the massacre, with his wife, a Blackfoot squaw, he had just left the fort and was returning to his home when the Indians appeared riding after them. He waived them back and held up one finger as a sign for one of them to come forward and talk, but his actions were disregarded, so he opened fire, which the Indians returned. One of their shots broke his arm and then his squaw loaded his rifle and stood in front of him while he fired over her shoulder. He wounded one Indian and the others finally rode away. When Ottoby had left the fort it was full of Indians who each carried a weapon concealed beneath his robe. At a given signal the work of killing was carried on until the garrison and the whole settlement were wiped out, the ruins of the fort, the ditches, a few adobe houses and a huge cross marking a grave are all that remain of a once thriving settlement.”

Source: "Across the Plains in 1858," The Trail, Vol.V, No.8 (January, 1930).



Richens Lacy Wootton, Fall 1858.

“Uncle Dick" freighted some goods to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1858. That fall he returned to the Front Range accompanied by a Mexican boy and four Americans, including a rather timid fellow named Barney Betts.

massacre which had occurred in 1854 had operated to keep people away from there [the Pueblo], not only because they feared another outbreak but because they had a sort of superstitious dread of being near the old fort. The walls of the old adobe building had been stained with the blood of the victims of the slaughter and there were stories about its being haunted, which made even some of the mountain men timid about stopping over night in it when they passed that way.

“I remember an amusing thing that happened there when I was returning from my last trip to Salt Lake which illustrates how one man, at least, was affected by the stories of the haunted fort. We had with us an old fellow named Betts, Barney Betts, I think it was, but anyhow the last name is right. He had heard of the ghosts that made their appearance from time to time about the fort and protested mildly against camping near it, but the other members of the party laughed at his fears and our camp fire was kindled under some cottonwood trees not very far distant from the haunted ruins of the trappers' old headquarters.

“We sat around the fire untii nine or ten o'clock telling stories, and the character of the stories we told was not such as to allay nervousness on the part of a man who believed in ghosts and was afraid of them, because we wanted to have a bit of fun at the expense of our timid traveling companion.

“At a reasonable hour we retired for the night. That is to say, we wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and stretched ourselves out on the ground near enough to the fire to be warmed without being burned by it. Betts lay down close to me and I noticed that he was not in a comfortable frame of mind for a good night's rest, but as I was not disturbed by the same, or similar fears, in ten minutes after I lay down I was sound asleep. I had slept perhaps an hour or two when I felt something plucking at my blanket and in an instant I was wide awake. I raised up a little so that I could look around, and discovered Betts sitting up beside me. It was a moonlight night and I could see that his face was as pale as bleached cotton, while his teeth were chattering as I had seen men's teeth chatter when they had the old-fashioned ague down in Mississsippi.

"What on earth's the matter, man!" I said to him in a whisper.

"Hear 'em?" said he.

"Hear what?"

"I've seen 'em," he whispered, crawling up so close to me that I could hear his heart beat as though it was trying to knock out some of his ribs.

"You've seen what? you old idiot," I exclaimed, thinking of Indians and beginning to get slightly alarmed myself.

"The Ghost."

"Where?" I inquired, beginning to understand what the trouble was.

"At the fort," said he; "don't you hear 'em?"

“I listened, and heard what had not attracted my attention before, the plaintive notes of two whippoorwills, which were evidently perched on the adobe wall or somewhere about the old fort. Then I burst out laughing, and this awakened my companions. We thought the joke had gone far enough, and explained to him that what he heard was not the wailing of a perturbed spirit, but the night song of a very harmless little bird.

“Poor old Barney was not entirely satisfied with our explanation. The noise might be accounted for but he still insisted that that he had seen rebozo-wrapped, but headless, Mexican women wandering about the fort, and I think he really believed he had seen the ghosts of some of the senoras who had perished in the Massacre.”

Source: Uncle Dick Wootton, related by Howard Louis Conrad. (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1957).



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