Mesa County CO Archives Biographies.....Virden, Thomas March 14, 1831 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 23, 2006, 7:26 pm

Author: 

Progressive Men of Western Colorado



     A native of Illinois, born on March 14, 1831, and reared on a farm in that

state, then going at the age of twenty-one to Iowa and for six years farming the

productive soil of that state and following this with four years of the same

occupation in Nebraska, when he came to Colorado in 1862, Thomas Virden, of Mesa

county, was well prepared for the business of farming and raising stock in which

he is now profitably engaged.  And he was also thoroughly imbued with the spirit

of the West and ready for any phase of life it might lay before him, having had

experience in a variety of pursuits particularly incident to the state of this

country at the time of and for years after his arrival here.  His parents were

William and Martha (Williamson) Virden, the former a native of Delaware and the

latter of New Jersey.  The father was by occupation a farmer, and followed that

line of useful industry in his native state, Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa.  In

the last named state he died in 1863, aged sixty-seven years.   His widow

survived him thirty-three years, dying in Iowa in 1886, at the age of

ninety-four.  Their offspring numbered nine, Thomas being the ninth.  He

remained in his native state and on the paternal homestead until he was

twenty-one years old, then went to Iowa, where he was engaged in farming six

years, and by industry and capacity he made his work profitable. At the end of

the period named he moved to Nebraska where he remained four years farming and

carrying the mails.  Deciding then that there was [sic] greater opportunities

for him in the farther West, he came to Colorado, and settling at Denver, then a

small but promising city, he conducted a flourishing freighting business between

that place and Omaha for five years.  He next located in Fremont county, this

state, and turned his attention to farming and raising stock, which he continued

for about fifteen years in that county, then moved to Ouray county, where he was

occupied in the same industry until 1888, at which time he moved to where he now

lives, and where he has developed and improved his property into a fine ranch

and his business into one of large proportions and profitable returns.  Wherever

he has lived Mr. Virden has taken an earnest interest in public affairs and

rendered good service to his district and county.  He was assessor of Fremont

county in 1872, and when the Indian outbreak occurred he volunteered as a member

of the Third Colorado Regiment and was for one hundred days in the war that was

waged against the savages, taking part in several contests, among them the

battle of Sand creek, in which the whites lost one hundred men and the Indians

five hundred.  Mr. Virden was married in 1867 to Miss Emma Strong, of

Shellsburg, Iowa, and they have had three children, Minnie and Walter, who are

living, and Frank, who died at the age of eighteen. 

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

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/virden371gbs.txt

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