LIBBEY, Charles, b 1849 1905 Bio, Mesa County, Colorado

http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/libbeyc.txt



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Donated September 27, 2001

Transcribed by Judy Crook <jlcrook@rof.net>  from the book:

Progressive Men of Western Colorado 

Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill.



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Charles Libbey

	Charles Libbey, one of the prosperous and progressive ranch and stock men of

Mesa county, whose attractive and well-improved ranch lies six miles southeast

of Collbran, was born at Quebec, Canada, on June 10, 1849, and is the son of

Raney and Kate (Younger) Libbey, both of whom were born on an island in the St.

Lawrence near Quebec, the father being of English-French and the mother of

straight French ancestry.  After their marriage they settled at St. Sylvester in

their native province, and engaged in farming.  The mother died there in 1861

and the father at Quebec in 1894.  He was a prominent stock dealer for many

years, handling large numbers of horses and cattle.  Orphaned by the death of

his mother when he was but twelve years old, and with very limited schooling,

their son Charles took up the burden of life for himself at the age of fourteen

and within the next few years extended his education in the rugged but thorough

school of experience.  By proving himself willing to work at whatever he could

find to do, and worthy and well qualified for any ordinary occupation,

especially in industry and application, he was never without employment, and

although for some years he could not make choice entirely to his taste, he made

steady progress toward independence.  When he started for himself he crossed the

line into Maine and passed about one year at Fox, Kennebec and Augusta, that

state, then came west to Alpena, Michigan, where for five years he worked as a

teamster, hauling supplies to lumber camps.  In 1869 he moved to Chippewa Falls,

Wisconsin, then a small place of about seven hundred inhabitants and not a

railroad within one hundred miles.  There he lived nearly six years, driving

stage between that town and Eau Claire.  In 1875 he went to California, and

after spending a short time at San Francisco, went to Forest City, in the

northern part of the state, where he worked three months in the mines.  The

desire for adventure still possessing him, he then made a prospecting tour into

the Stinking River country in British Columbia, going by water and overland with

dog teams four hundred miles, and finding the necessaries of life almost above

price, meat and flour being one dollar a pound and often hard to get at that. 

Returning to California, he lived awhile at Oakland, then drove a team at Red

Bluff.  In 1880 he came to Colorado and during the next three years was foreman

for the S.P. Brown & Company livery business at Leadville.  Fate was leading him

with firm but kindly hand to his desired haven and suited occupation, and in

1884 she brought him to his present location in the Plateau valley.  Here for

six years he worked for the late Fred S. Rockwell (see sketch elsewhere in this

work), but in the meantime he took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres

of land and later a desert claim of forty acres, all wild and unimproved.  He

built himself a log cabin and began to improve his property, conducting ditches

as he was able and in time erecting a comfortable dwelling and other needed

structures.  Here he has been well content to live and prosper, carrying on a

flourishing general ranching and cattle industry and with earnestness and

breadth of view helping to build up and develop the country around him.  In

politics he is a stanch Republican and in fraternal circles a member of the Odd

Fellows' lodge at Collbran.  On December 21, 1898, he was united in marriage

with Miss Mary Goyn, a native of Boulder county, Colorado, the daughter of

William E. and Savanna (Ferguson) Goyn.  The father died in 1904 and the mother

now lives in San Francisco, California.  



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