Delta County CO Archives Biographies.....Jay, Samuel August 29, 1835 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 9, 2006, 10:54 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

    Samuel Jay, of Delta county, living one mile and a half west of Cory, one of

the prosperous and enterprising fruit-growers of the county, is a native of

Indiana, born on August 29, 1835.  His father, Isaac Jay, was a native of South

Carolina and his mother, whose maiden name was Ruth Jay, of Ohio.  Her father

was a distant relative of her husband, and the various and distant places of

birth of the son and his parents furnish a forcible illustration of the harmony

of the American people and the facility with which the different sections mingle

and enter into a community of effort in the industries of the country.  Mr.

Jay’s parents were farmers who settled in Henry county, Iowa, in 1840, at a time

when there were but few families in that now populous and progressive county. 

Mount Pleasant, now a thriving little city of some five thousand inhabitants,

was then a straggling village and the largest town in the county.  Indians were

still numerous in the region, but they were peaceable and the new settlers had

no trouble with them.  The parents passed the remainder of their lives there,

the father’s ending in 1857.  There were five children in the family.  The only

son besides Samuel died about the same time as his father, and the management of

the farm fell to the lot of Samuel.  He remained with his mother until April,

1863, then near the end of that month started with an ox team for Denver, this

state, where he arrived on June 20th following.  The tedious and trying trip

across the plains was devoid of incident worthy of special mention.  There were

large numbers of Indians and buffalo on the plains, but the train was not

disturbed by either.  On his arrival at Denver Mr. Jay bought some town lots and

built a boarding house on them which he conducted until the next spring, when he

moved to the Arkansas river below Pueblo.  Here he rented a ranch and farmed it

until Christmas day 1864, when the family started with a four-horse team for

Denver.  They left this city on January 1, 1865, on their way to Iowa, and

reached Nebraska City, Nebraska, on the last day of the month.  Indians attacked

parties before and behind them, and they also lost five men of their party

through savage fury.  Mr. Jay went from Nebraska City to Kansas, sold his stock

and team, and then proceeded to his old home in Iowa, where he remained until

1870.  In that year he returned to Kansas, taking a saw-mill with him, and in

that state he located a pre-emption claim on which he farmed and ran his

saw-mill until 1875.  He then came again to Colorado, and during the next seven

years he mined and prospected at and near Leadville.  In 1882 he moved to

Sargents, near Marshall pass, and in 1885 to Dallas.  There he conducted a hotel

until the building was destroyed by fire in 1890, after which he passed five

years on a ranch in the neighborhood.  In 1895 he moved to his present ranch,

then wholly wild and unimproved.  It comprises ten acres, all of which he

planted in fruit trees the second year after his arrival, and he now has an

excellent orchard just in the first vigor of its first maturity and

productiveness.  On April 10, 1859, Mr. Jay was married to Miss Eliza Ann

Harper, the daughter of Elisha and Ann (Davis) Harper, all born in Pennsylvania.

 Her parents moved to Ohio in 1843, and ten years later to Iowa, where the

father died on November 18, 1854, and the mother on February 7, 1890.  Five of

their six children are living.  Mr. and Mrs. Jay have had nine children, Elisha

H., Annie C., Etta C., Sidney S., Ruth A., William D., Ethan A., Minnie and Lida

E.  Three of the daughters and all of the sons are living.  All are residents of

Colorado and have their homes near that of their parents.  In political

conviction Mr. Jay is a Socialist, but he is not an active partisan although

taking a leading part in many local interests and the advancement and

improvement of his community.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/delta/bios/jay245gbs.txt

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