Routt County CO Archives Biographies.....Hahn, Joseph about 1824 - ?
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Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     This hardy pioneer and daring discoverer, whose monument is the noble
mountain in Routt county, this state, which bears his name and received it in
his honor, belongs in the front rank of the adventurous men who laid the
foundation of civilization in Colorado and opened it to settlement and made its
mineral treasures and other advantages known to the world.  But little is known
of his early life except that he was born in Germany, and was reared and well
educated in his native land.  In 1848, when he was twenty-four years old, he
fought in the Germany army under Sigel.  His party being unsuccessful in the
war, he fled to Switzerland to avoid being taken prisoner, and a few years later
he came to the United States, landing at New York in 1852.  After a short
residence in Michigan, where his success was not such as he expected and
desired, he came to Colorado, arriving in this state in 1860 with two
companions.  He always wrote his name Henn, but pronounced it Hahn.  He was a
powerful man physically, standing five feet ten inches in height and weighing
one hundred and seventy-five pounds.  In disposition he was mild and generous,
always kind to man and beast, and always optimistic, never looking on the dark
side of a condition.  Companionable and genial, he was a good comrade, and ever
enjoyed the highest esteem of his associates.  Mr. Hahn and William A. Doyle
met, early in 1863, and the former told the latter of the great find he had
previously made in the neighborhood of what is now Hahn’s Peak, and they agreed
to unite and organize a company and prospect the country thoroughly.  But in the
meantime Mr. Doyle joined the army in defense of the Union, and it was not until
1865, after the close of the Civil war, that they undertook the expedition. 
Then Hahn, Doyle and Capt. George Way, with others, moved forward into the
unknown region to make their investigations.  In a superficial prospecting of
the country they found gold enough to make them feel justified in making further
developments, but winter overtaking them, they deferred further efforts to a
more favorable season and separated for the winter, Mr. Hahn going to Atchison,
Kansas, and met again in the spring of 1866.  It was about the middle of August
before these men, with a company of about fifty others, could arrange the
preliminaries and begin their tedious journey, and even at that late season they
met with almost insurmountable difficulties.  The snow was deep and the cold
intense before they reached the region for which they started.  They outfitted
with a complete equipment for starting a new mining camp, and had about one
hundred miles to travel before them in a line almost due northwest between
Empire, where they started, and the place of their destination.  They passed
over the Berthould [sic] into Middle Park, camping at Hot Sulphur Springs, and
from there kept north of Lower Muddy Buttes, near the present town of Kremmling,
crossing the Muddy above Hilt creek.  Here Hahn took the party in charge,
leading them over the range by a pass east of Rabbit Ear peak which he
discovered in 1861, and which was known only to him.  On August 27, 1866, they
threw off their packs and made camp beneath the shadow of that noted mountain
that rises twelve thousand feet above the sea level into the clouds.  The only
sign of human life they found in the desolation was a lone Ute Indian who was
hungry.  Captain Way wished to kill him, but Mr. Hahn insisted on feeding him
and treating him with kindness, and as there were hundreds of Utes in the
district, that one act of humanity made them all the friends of the party and
saved it from extermination.  The men in this adventurous party went to work at
once, dividing their forces, some prospecting, some building, and others doing
other necessary work for the enterprise.  Leaving Hahn in camp, Mr. Doyle and
Captain Way after a hard climb reached the extreme top of the mountain.  In a
baking powder can that had a top screwed on and was water proof, Doyle placed a
paper relating some of the incidents of the journey, some data as to directions
of route followed, and lastly “This is named Hahn’s Peak by his friend and
comrade, William A. Doyle, on August 27, 1865,” the climbing of the mountain and
naming it occurring during the first visit of the pioneers, a year before the
incidents last related above.  In the fall of 1866 all left the region but Hahn
and Doyle.  During the winter they whipsawed lumber, first building a
substantial cabin for their shelter.  They suffered dreadful privations and
hardships, and Mr. Doyle is unable now to tell how they lived through the
winter.  On April 22, 1867, they packed up and began their long journey on the
backward trail to Empire.  On April 29, near the banks of the Muddy they sat
down on a snow bank to rest, and while gazing out over the desolate wastes of
snow, a flock of snow birds flew over them, one of which lighted on Mr. Hahn’s
head.  “That is a bad omen,” said Doyle, but Hahn made no reply.  They went
forward and apparently all was well.  That night they reached the Muddy and
rested until about nine o’clock.  When they attempted to go on Hahn’s strength
failed and he staggered like a drunken man.  They spread their blankets on the
snow and couched themselves as comfortably as possible.  After a night of
wakefulness and delirium, Hahn died next day, while Doyle was away looking for
help.  The latter left his dead comrade on the banks of the Muddy in his winding
sheet of snow, and made his way back to civilization through almost incredible
hardships, often being near perishing.  Joseph Hahn’s remains lay bleaching on
the banks of the Muddy from April 30, 1867, until the next November, when his
friend, Paul Lindstrom, of Empire, sent a man out to recover them and give them
proper burial.  His grave by the side of the stream where he died is unmarked
and the exact spot is now unknown.  But in the far distant ages of the past a
monument was erected by omnipotent power, which stands to his everlasting
memory, and which towers above the earth as his manhood and force of character
made him tower above common men, while the record of his deeds, now known and
commended by the beneficiaries of his great courage and foresight, is reserved
as a fitting theme for a lofty epic, when the time shall come in which our
mercenary and striving forgetfulness of heroism shall have yielded to a calmer
pulse, and the sons of men shall have brought forth a poet capable of embalming
in immortal verse the deeds of this and other men of the heroic pioneer mold.  

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

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