Rider, Jacob W; 1905 Bio, Routt County, Colorado http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/routt/bios/riderjw.txt --------------------------------------- Donated April 2001 Transcribed by Judy Crook from the book: Progressive Men of Western Colorado Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill. --------------------------------------- Jacob W. Rider Jacob W. Rider, the first settler in the locality of his present residence, whose excellent farm of one hundred and sixty acres is wholly the result of his own continued industry and skill, was born in Seneca county, Ohio, on September 7, 1847, and is the son of Jacob and Cornelia (Vannatta) Rider, natives of New York, who moved early in their married life to the virgin prairie of Ohio, and there wrought out of the wilderness a good farm and a comfortable estate, remaining there until death ended their labors and rearing seven of their nine children to maturity. Of the nine, James and Marietta died, and Zilpaha, Electa, Joseph D., Jacob W., Eliza, Naomi and Euphemia are living. The father died in 1864 and the mother in 1883. Jacob was reared on the paternal homestead, educated at the public schools, and entered on the work of making his own living in his native county. But being of an adventurous disposition and filled with a desire to do wholly for himself and see some of the world in making the effort, he left home at the age of twenty-two and moved to Iowa, making his home in Tama county, with headquarters for business at Tama City in what is now Tama county, [sic] remaining there until 1871, when he moved to Kansas, where he lived ten years. In both these states he was busily engaged in farming and with varying success. While residing in Kansas he saw many Indians and buffalo, but by prudence he avoided the hostility of the former and escaped the violence of the latter. At one time, through fear of the Indians all the other settlers in his neighborhood left, he being the only white man to remain and dare the dangers of his situation. But he preserved peaceful relations with the savages and prospered in their midst by treating them fairly. In 1881 he disposed of his interests in Kansas and became a resident of Colorado. Locating near Evergreen, twenty-five miles west of Denver, he engaged in mining, prospecting and other occupations incident to the time and locality until 1887. In that year he pre-empted one hundred and sixty-nine acres of good land in Williams Park, one hundred and thirty acres of which he has reduced to abundant productiveness, raising large crops of hay and grain and comfortably providing for a valuable herd of cattle of increasing numbers. When he moved here his land was without the sign of human habitation or the ordinary conveniences of cultivated life, and there was not a neighbor within many miles. He planted his adventurous foot literally in the wilderness and began to make it blossom and bear fruit for the sustenance of man and thus opened a way for the coming of others who looked upon the land and found it good, so that now he sees all around him the firm establishment and the pleasing products of a civilization in this region of which he was the founder. Accepting the conditions which he found, he became a mighty hunter and fisherman, and as time passed his renown in these lines was spread and his skill increased. In ranching also he has a wide and well fixed reputation, many of the predominant qualities of the soil being discovered and noted by him in his experience for the benefit of others. As the patriarch of the community he has been influential in shaping its public life and working out its development. He is a zealous working Democrat in politics, and without seeking any of the honors or emoluments of party success for himself. On September 29, 1868, he was united in marriage with Miss Eliza Sheets, a native of Seneca county, Ohio. They have seven children, Weldon, Ephraim, Anna, Ada, William H., Nellie and Mabel. Thus a pioneer in three states, beginning in the first blush of his young manhood to mingle in the wild life of the plains, and continuing until now when he is approaching the shady side of human existence, he has become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the frontier, and in his vigorous, versatile and self-reliant maturity is essentially its product. And with an experience more varied and interesting than that of the dwellers in the East, who witness without notice unless the facts are called to their attention the expansion of old and long established cities, counties or states, he has seen the very wilderness rise from its sleep of centuries and come forth clad in homeliness and beauty at the command of the lord of the heritage, civilized man armed with the intelligence, the authority and the equipment of a master. In the transformation he has borne his full share, and is honored by his fellows in the advance as a leader and a man of many parts, always faithful to his duty and ready for whatever emergency might arise. =================================================== Contributed for use by the USGenWeb Archive Project (http://www.usgenweb.org) and by the COGenWeb Archive Project USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. 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