Arapahoe-Pueblo-Denver County CO Archives Biographies.....Helwig, Clarence Franklin ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 21, 2008, 11:08 pm Author: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918) CLARENCE FRANKLIN HELWIG. Clarence Franklin Helwig. who is spoken of by those able to judge as a man one hundred per cent expert in high accounting, now occupies the responsible position of general auditor with the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. He was born in Uhrichsville, Tuscarawas county, Ohio, a son of Christian David and Priscilla Louisa (Demuth) Helwig, both of whom were born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio. The former was named in honor of the Moravian soldier, carpenter and evangelist, Christian David, who was born in Moravia in 1690 and who with Nicholas Louis. Count von Zinzendorf of Dresden, reformed the then almost extinct Evangelical church. Both Mr. and Mrs. Christian David Helwig were stanch Moravians, being brought up in that faith. The Moravian sect originally was not German at all, for the Moravians arose in Bohemia and the neighboring province of Moravia and are closely identified with the Reformation which was inspired by John Huss. The mother of Christian David Helwig was a member of the Blickensdorfer family, noted for its civil engineers. She was a stanch admirer of Benjamin Franklin and a very earnest Christian woman, and it was through her influence that her grandson, Clarence Franklin Helwig of this review, assumed his middle name. She encouraged him greatly in the matter of taking up the printer's trade during his boyhood days and exerted a very strong influence upon bis earlier life. It was Jacob Blickensdorfer who built the Moravian church at Sharon, Tuscarawas county, Ohio, in 1815, and not far from its quiet country churchyard one may find the ancient site of Moravian missionary labor called "Schoenbrunn" or "Beautiful Spring." From the writings of Loskill this region has become in a manner classic ground. It was the spot selected by David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, for a station as early as 1772. About ten miles away a second station was formed and named by the sadly suggestive name of Gnadenhutten. There is located the early Christian Moravian Indian burial ground where among the graves of the red and also the white Moravians will be found the graves of many of the Helwigs and Demuths. The Demuth family, of which Clarence F. Helwig is a descendant in the maternal line, came from Georgia, to which place Gotthard Demuth is recorded to have emigrated on the 7th of April, 1735. Christian David Helwig, as well as his father before him, saw military service with the American army. The former was in the Signal Corps during the Civil war and marched with General Sherman's forces "from Atlanta to the sea." In the acquirement of his education Clarence Franklin Helwig attended the Wyandotte Academy of Kansas City, Kansas, and was afterward graduated from the high school there on the 1st of May, 1890. He received his degree of Certified Public Accountant from the Colorado state board of accountancy on the 26th of February, 1914, and in thus qualifying for his life work followed a natural bent. In his boyhood days, however, he learned the printer's trade in Kansas City, Kansas, picking up a knowledge of the business at odd hours while still attending school. Following his graduation from the high school, however, he entered the employ of the Kansas City Elevated Railway, which was then operating a steam suburban line between Kansas City, Missouri, and the various suburban towns across the river in Kansas. He remained with that company until the fall of 1893, holding several positions such as cashier, storekeeper and finally that of purchasing agent. On the 1st of October, 1893, Mr. Helwig resigned his position as purchasing agent of the elevated railway company and moved to Denver, where he accepted a position with the Denver Lithographing Company, first as solicitor and afterward as foreman of the job printing department. After resigning that position he entered the employ of Frank Trumbull, receiver of the Union Pacific & Gulf Railway Company, under A. D. Parker, auditor for the receiver, with whom he remained until after the reorganization of the Colorado & Southern Railway Company, when he was transferred to its New York headquarters. In 1906 he resigned and was sent by the bond house of E. D. Shepard & Company to look after some of their interests in the state of New Mexico. In the latter part of the same year, however, he withdrew from that connection and accepted a position with the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company at Denver. One who has known him for about a quarter of a century says: "As a business man he is keen and alert, with an analytical mind, honest, loyal to the interests he represents, hard-working, painstaking and a good organizer of departmental work in his line . . . Perseverance, industry and a determination to succeed in whatever he undertakes have been the salient features in his advancement in the business world. He is recognized as an authority in his line and has written articles for different magazines and lectured on the subject of auditing." Aside from being general auditor of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company he is a director and the secretary of the Rocky Mountain Stores Company and auditor of various other subsidiary corporations. Mr. Helwig has been married twice. On the 16th of October, 1895, in Pueblo, Colorado, he wedded Mary Prentiss Simpson, a daughter of William A. and Louisa (Prentiss) Simpson. Both the Simpson and Prentiss families are of old New England stock dating back to Revolutionary times. Of this marriage there were born two sons, Herschel Sylvester and Frederic William, both artillerymen in the United States Army, the latter having been on active duty in France since 1917. The prolonged illness of Mrs. Mary Prentiss (Simpson) Helwig, which finally terminated in her death in 1905, the impaired health of the elder son, Herschel Sylvester, and finally the almost fatal sickness of Mr. Helwig himself, due to tubercular peritonitis, caused him to turn his attention to country life as a possible restorative. Mr Helwig began to live in the out-of-doors about seven years ago. His home at present is at Littleton, a suburban town near Denver. Here he regained his health, as he had hoped, engaging in intensified farming on about ten acres, aided by the enthusiastic help of his family, trying out in his spare moments in a practical manner what may be accomplished in the way of intensive farming, not only as to the cultivation of the soil but also as to diversified stock raising. It is his hope that these practical experiments will be fruitful as to suggestions regarding the popular "back to the land" idea and a further aid toward the solution of some of the living problems of the masses. It also is his earnest hope that these experiments, practically presented, may prove of interest to our returning soldiers when they again take up the problems of livelihood incident to civil life. On the 4th of September, 1906, in Trinidad, Colorado, Mr. Helwig was married to Maud Terhune, a daughter of William Henry and Martha (Jefferson) Terhune. The Terhunes and Jeffersons are old Kentucky and Virginia families respectively. The Jeffersons, many of whom served in the War of 1S12, are descendants of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. To the second marriage of Mr. Helwig have been born two sons and a daughter: David Terhune, Paul Demuth and Martha Louisa. Mr. Helwig has been a republican for many years but nevertheless voted for President Wilson. His military record is limited to National Guard work in the early '90s. Fraternally he is a prominent Mason, belonging to Oriental Lodge, No. 87, Ancient Free and Accented Masons; Denver Chanter, No. 2, Royal Arch Masons: Denver Council, No. 1, Royal and Select Masons; Colorado Commandery, No. 1, Knights' Templar; El Jebel Temple. Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles, Mystic Shrine; and Manzonita Chapter, No. 85, Order of Eastern Star, of Littleton, being worthy patron of the last named in 191S. The breadth and nature of his interests is indicated moreover in the fact that he has membership in the Denver Athletic Club, in the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants, in the Kansas Club, the Denver Motor Club, the Denver Civic and Commercial Association, the American Institute of Accountants at Washington, D. C, in the Luther Burbank Society, the National Geographic Society, the National Playground Association, the National Efficiency Society, in the Young Men's Christian Association, and in the Presbyterian church of Littleton, of which he is an elder, while in the Sunday school mission work at Louviers, Colorado, he is also actively interested. For a number of years he has been lecturer on the subject of mining accounts in the School of Commerce and Finance of the Denver University. He was chairman of the Young Men's Christian Association war campaign as well as chairman of the Playground Association campaign and vice chairman of the American and Syrian relief campaign, conducted at Littleton in 1917, and of the United War Workers campaign for Arapahoe county, Colorado, in 1918. He has for a number of years been most active in church work and at the present time is most heartily, earnestly and effectively cooperating in movements to uphold the hands of the president in this critical hour of national history and to extend relief to those people who have so terribly felt the oppressions and burdens of war. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF COLORADO ILLUSTRATED VOLUME III CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1918 Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/arapahoe/photos/bios/helwig87nbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/arapahoe/bios/helwig87nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cofiles/ File size: 10.2 Kb