Larimer County, History of Colorado, BIOS: LIGHTER, Henry C. (published 1918)
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"History of Colorado", edited by Wilbur Fisk Stone, published by The S. J. 
Clarke Publishing Co. (1918)  Vol. II


p. 246-247


HENRY C. LIGHTER.

	Henry C. Lighter, justice of the peace and police magistrate at 
Fort Collins, was born in Morgan county, Illinois. July 12, 1844, a son 
of Andrew and Nancy J. (Pagett) Lighter, who were natives of Kentucky. 
The father was a farmer by occupation and in early life went to 
Illinois, where he followed agricultural pursuits until about 1846. He 
then removed to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he took up government land but 
only lived for a year and a half thereafter. His wife survived for some 
time, passing away in 1865.

	Henry C. Lighter was but a year and a half old when his father 
died, and when he was a little lad of seven years his uncle took him 
back to Illinois and educated him. He was studying medicine when the 
Civil war broke out and, putting aside his textbooks and other personal 
interests, he enlisted at the age of seventeen years, in 1862, as a 
member of Company E, One Hundred and First Illinois Infantry, with 
which he served for about two years, when he became ill and had to 
return home. While at the front he was taken prisoner. After the close 
of his military experience he returned to Iowa and took up the 
occupation of farming upon rented land, which he cultivated for a year. 
In 1870 he removed to Cass county, Iowa, where he purchased raw land 
which he developed and brought under a high state of cultivation. He 
operated that farm for five years, after which he sold the property and 
removed to Anita, Iowa. Where he engaged in the hotel and livery 
business, occupying one barn there for thirty-two years. At length he 
sold his business there and in 1904 removed to Colorado, establishing 
his home at Fort Collins. For a few years he did not engage in 
business, enjoying a well earned and well merited rest. In 1910, 
however, he again became active in connection with the public interests 
of the community, being elected justice of the peace, to which position 
he has been reelected at each biennial period since that time. During 
his incumbency in office he has tried almost two thousand cases, and 
out of three hundred and eighty-five criminal cases all but fifteen 
were bound over.

	Mr. Lighter was married on the 11th of March, 1869, to Miss 
Hattie J. Libby and to them were born three children: Effie May, Edwin 
C. and Henrietta. The wife and mother passed away March 30, 1914. after 
a short illness.

	Politically Mr. Lighter has always been a stalwart republican and 
his religious faith is that of the Methodist church. He belongs to the 
Grand Army of the Republic and thus maintains pleasant relations with 
his old military comrades, with whom he marched to the defense of the 
Union in the Civil war. He owns a pleasant home and a ten-acre tract of 
land at the edge of Fort Collins and is nicely situated in life, his 
official duties making sufficient demand upon his energies so that time 
does not hang heavy on his hands, nor is the burden he is bearing too 
strenuous for a man of his years, for Mr. Lighter has passed the 
seventy-fourth milestone on life's journey.