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Photo postcard of Boston Carriage Works, corner of 3rd & Pine, Leadville, ca. 1908.

Perhaps the name “Boston Carriage Works” reflects owner John H. Kelley’s birth and upbringing in Massachusetts. Born in 1868, possibly in Falmouth, to Irish immigrants, Kelley, a carriage maker and blacksmith, married Mary Frances Healey of Ireland on July 2, 1889, in a ceremony held in Waltham, Massachusetts. By 1897, John and Mary had moved to Leadville. In that same year Mary gave birth to their fifth child, and a sixth would follow two years later. Census information indicates the Kelley family lived at the same location as the business. Perhaps they resided on the second floor of the larger building in the foreground. As you can see by the signage, Kelley’s business included carriage making, carriage and sign painting, and wagon sales. Evidence of the latter is the “The Bain Wagon” sign mounted on the peak of the rear building. The Bain Wagon Works was founded in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1852, and by 1900 had one of the largest wagon-making plants in the country.

If size, inventory and longevity are any indicators, Kelley’s business was successful. As you can see, the site was quite large, with many carriages and carriage parts visible (including those stored in the area behind the rear building) and, as of 1930, the Kelleys were still in business at the same location. By then, of course, John was servicing automobiles. In 1940, John and Mary, both 71 years old, continued to reside at the same address. John was retired and Mary kept house. John’s retirement may not have been by choice, for that year’s census reported he was unable to work. John died in September of the next year in Colorado Springs and is buried there. I could find no further information about Mary.

I like to look through area newspaper articles dating back to the era in which a photo was taken. I found three stories which respectively show that humans could love their pets then as much as they do now, that mining and people can be dangerous, and how fast things can go wrong.

The Telluride Daily Journal of February 12, 1898, tells of William Giles’ pet dog falling down the shaft of the Ready Cash mine. Giles tied a rope around himself and went down after his dog, but the rope broke. Giles’ dead body was brought to the surface the next morning along with his dog, who was alive and uninjured.

On February 18, 1891, the Castle Rock Journal reported that “Charles Mallon and P.U. Lyons, two miners in the Blind Tom at Leadville, had a narrow escape from death Sunday. The men were down in the bottom of the shaft when some one buried rocks and timber down on them from the surface, a distance of 420 feet. The miscreants are unknown.” (The Blind Tom was a manganese mine named for the blind mule that worked there.)

The third story is by the New York Times and involves an Ohio couple, physician Samuel Porter and his wife, Nellie, who were vacationing in Colorado in the summer of 1902 . The story begins with their trip to Twin Lakes, about 18 miles from Leadville, to do some fishing. After fishing, and before heading back home to Ohio, they decided to visit an old miner who had repeatedly urged the doctor to come and look over his gold claim. To do so would require hiring a horse and buggy to traverse a winding, narrow mountain road bordering a canyon with a 200-foot drop-off. Some spots in the road were so narrow as to allow only one vehicle to pass. They inquired at the only livery stable in the town of Twin Lakes (referred to then as a “camp”) and told the man there that, given the terrain they would be covering, they would need a sure-footed horse. The man assured them he had such a horse and arranged for the horse, with buggy, to be brought to the couple’s hotel at Twin Lakes the next morning. The couple understood from the man that the only thing troubling the “lean…and wiry-looking” horse was that he was short-winded.

Soon after they started their trip up the canyon, the Porters realized the horse was wheezing and panting, so they decided to proceed more slowly, stopping now and then to rest him. And so they ascended, taking in the rugged scenery and good mountain air, when the horse suddenly started shaking violently, staggered and fell unconscious over the edge, taking the Porters with them. They were thrown out of the carriage and, by some piece of good fortune, landed on a rock ledge about 35 feet below the road. They were injured, but fortunately had no broken bones. The poor horse was not so lucky – he and the buggy lay upside down below them, the horse apparently dead, in the branches of an immense pine tree growing out of the side of the cliff.

The Porters were injured seriously enough that they began calling out for help, and eventually a man came to their assistance. They were helped back up to the road and out of the canyon and were taken to a miner’s cabin. Nellie said the only treatment available from the miner was whiskey, that there was “no such thing as arnica or a lotion of any kind,” but they received proper care after a period of several days.

When local miners learned that the liveryman had given the couple that particular horse, “they were ready to lynch him,” for it seems they all knew that the animal had what was called the ‘loco,’ a disease brought on by eating locoweed, which can produce shortness of breath, wheezing, staggering and seizures ending in death. The Porters, likely awash in gratitude for their miraculous escape, did not press the issue and began their trip back to Ohio.

REFERENCES:

  • Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs Sacramental Records at www.ancestry.com

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