Saguache County CO Archives Biographies.....Laughlin, Matthew  January 8, 1846 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 8, 2006, 8:07 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     Of Irish ancestry on his father’s side, and inheriting the versatility,

resourcefulness and adaptability to circumstances that distinguish his race, and

moreover, possessing the health and vigor of body and the independence and

self-reliance of spirit which are bred on a farm, where the time is passed in

useful labor and each man has many times a week to decide questions of immediate

and pressing importance for himself, Matthew Laughlin was a valuable addition to

the slender population of Saguache county, Colorado, when he located there in

October, 1870.  At that time there were but twenty-five families in the county,

and while its vast domain still offered fruitful opportunities to hardy

adventurers who were willing to forego the blandishments of civilization and

often even the ordinary conveniences of life, every such addition was warmly

welcomed as an increase in the subduing and productive force at work in

redeeming the region from the waste, and at once found room for all his mental

and physical faculties, with promise of good returns for their use.  Mr.

Laughlin took his place in the working force and among the developers of the

county, and his worth was instantly recognized.  He sat on the first jury called

in the county, and which served in 1871, and from then until now he has been a

man of influence and inspiration in every line of the local public life.  He was

born at Lagro, Wabash county, Indiana, on January 8, 1846, and is the son of

Thomas and Jane Laughlin, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of Ohio.

 They were successful farmers in Indiana, Iowa and Kansas, and died in the state

last named, the mother in 1875 and the father in January, 1893, at the advanced

age of one hundred and ten years.  Five of their children are living, Thomas S.,

Matthew, Mrs. Henry Monroe, Mrs. Percy Clark, and Mrs. Amiel Jonach.  Matthew

received a common-school education and served his turn on the farm with industry

and zeal, remaining at home until he reached the age of eighteen.  In 1856 the

family moved to Iowa and located in Poweshiek county.  They remained two years,

then, in 1858, changed their residence to Pottawatomie county, Kansas, for two

years, at the end of which they settled in Brown county of that state, where the

parents passed the remainder of their lives.  In 1860 Matthew made a trip to

Colorado with a load of freight.  He was but fourteen years old at the time, and

this experience, which would have been one of magnitude and great interest to a

grown man, was to his youthful fancy one of the great events of history, filling

his imagination at the start with pictures of all daring adventures he had ever

read of and his daily life, in the course of the journey, with many of their

impressive counterparts.  Many roving bands of Indians and vast herds of

buffaloes were encountered, but neither man nor beast did the expedition harm. 

The young argonaut returned to his Kansas home in August of the same year, and

there he remained until 1866, when he determined to come again to Colorado and

become a permanent resident of the territory.  The route followed in his first

trip to this state was from Hiawatha, Kansas, to the Platte river and along the

course of that stream to Denver.  After his arrival the second time he located

at Granite, and for a time worked in the mines there for wages.  He was

industrial and frugal, earned good wages and saved them and in course of a few

years had accumulated enough to begin ranching and cattle-growing, which he did

in October, 1870, in Saguache county, taking up one hundred and sixty acres of

land as a homestead, and at once beginning to improve it and make it productive.

 This ranch has ever been his home and the seat of his industry.  Three-fourths

of the land are under cultivation, good crops are raised, large herds of good

cattle are maintained, and first-rate improvements have been made on it.  He has

prospered from the start, although his early years in this region required

heroic endurance and persistent effort; for the whole country was new and wild,

there were but twenty-five settlers within the present limits of the county, and

their homes were wide apart, and all the untamed brood of bird and beast and

savage man were still prevalent.  Each rancher was largely dependent on his own

resources for the conveniences and often for the necessaries of domestic life,

and the implements with which the hard and unremitting work had to be done had,

in most cases, to be fashioned by the toiler.  All honor to the heroic men who

thus opened the way for better times, improved conditions and the comforts of

modern life in this wilderness!  They blazed the path for the march of

civilization, and the present state of progress and development is the best

monument to their fidelity, endurance and determined industry.  Among these Mr.

Laughlin is one of the foremost in the time of his arrival and the value of his

service.  He is justly esteemed throughout the county as one of its founders and

builders, and is held in a public regard commensurate with his worth.  His ranch

is seven miles west of the town of Saguache.  On January 11, 1887, he was

married to Miss Amelia Eilinghoff, a native of Prussia, and a sister of Mrs.

John Rominger (see sketch of him on another page for family history).  Mr. and

Mrs. Laughlin have four children, Annie M., Herbert K., Harry C. and Teddy R. 

In politics the father is a Republican, but not an active partisan.  It is

worthy of mention that, at the age of sixteen years, Mr. Laughlin joined the

Kansas state militia and in 1864 Company E., to which he belonged was ordered to

Westport, Missouri, to assist in repelling the rebel General Price, who

threatened to invade Kansas City.  

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

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