Family History & Genealogy, by Beverly (Sproul) Kelly

Family History & Genealogy

I.W. and his bride Eliza joined a wagon train west to Colorado (suspected ‘gold fever’) in 1858. Remaining only a short time in the Denver area, they headed eastward to Kansas to settle on a squatter’s claim. Ella, the oldest daughter, was born there. With the border troubles and attendant violence, the family returned to Bath, Illinois in 1861, and I.W. enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers. He resigned his commission for medical reason in 1863—then moved back to Colorado. Oldest son Elmer was born in Florence June 8th that year.

Pioneering in farming and cattle ranching, in 1879 he bought into silver and lead mines, became a railroad contractor, and a partner in a grocery-mercantile in the Leadville area. Acquiring some 720 acres in the Bear Creek and the Platte River parcel out of Littleton—the site of the Chatfield Dam and Recreation—the family established homes in Aspen and Basalt. Involved in Colorado politics, he gained a State Senate seat, then was rejected when the family moved from the district.

The Chatfields moved as a clan, it seems. From 1639 in Connecticut, to Ohio, to Illinois, to Colorado, to Wyoming, to California. After Elmer and Della settled in Spring Creek, Wyoming, other followed. I.W. and Eliza established residence in Basin sometime after 1908. (Eliza died there in the summer of 1922.) Della’s two sisters and their husbands ranched in the Big Horns—George and Mable Sawyer on the Lower Nowood, Charles Elliott and Ora Shaw on Otter Creek. Elmer’s youngest sister Calla had married Burtis Joslin and they also lived in Basin. After Eliza’s death, the exodus to California began, I.W. to San Jose where he married again, the Sawyers to Hemet, the Shaws to Southern California, and the Joslins to Santa Monica. Elmer and Della stayed in Wyoming.

Ella Clara, the oldest of the I.W. Chatfield children, was born in Kansas before the family migrated to Colorado. She attended the Brinker Institute in Denver and became one of the most talented soprano soloists in the area, singing in all the churches as well as in Denver’s music circles. In the late 1800’s she toured Europe with a musical group. Not much is known of her life after she married Josiah Small in 1887. They had no children and in 1908 they were living in Rhyolite, Nevada. Not until 1939 when Elmer (with his son-in-law Fred Sproul and daughter Sevilla and their daughter Beverly, age 13) drove to Arizona to visit both Ella and Jacqueline—two old widows living near Jacqueline’s two daughters in Globe and Superior—did they re-unite. They had not seen one another in over 40 years and Ella had her eyes-lids taped open with adhesive tape just to see. (Grandpa had shrunk in stature of maybe 5′ 9″ or less; in greeting him, Aunt Ella was so tiny she laid her head on his chest and sighed, “Oh, El.”)

Elmer, the eldest son of the I.W. Chatfield’s who were early Colorado pioneers, had little formal schooling besides his attendance at the Brinker Institute in Denver, and it was more of a cultural teaching center. But he learned the ranching-farming operations from his father, also the mercantile business. He has a fascinating history of successes and failures. As a teen-ager, he clerked in Chatfield Bros. Wholesale/Mercantile in Leadville where he met prospectors and other pioneer families. There, he was exposed to the buying and selling of mining stocks. By 1886 he had acquired acreage at Emma and bought cattle from Texas to stock it.

Little is know of the years before his marriage, though he was able to finance the purchase of a ranch in the Big Horns on Spring Creek in 1893. In 1895, he, Della, and daughter Helen began the trek north by covered wagon. Life on that mountain before the turn of the century was a primitive existence—miles to the nearest neighbors, water was hauled from the creek for household use, cutting and chopping wood was hard labor, there were only wood burning ranges and pot-bellied stoves. Transportation was team and wagon or saddle horse. Twice a year Elmer made the trip to Casper with the supply wagons for food staples, clothing, leather goods, and tools.

But the family, by now five daughters, defied those hardships and remained on that ranch until 1914. Elmer sold out to Taylor Bros. (Dave and George) and bought acreage north of Worland to establish a farming/livestock operation.

This is the house he built there on the county line. It was furnished with genuine leather throughout.

Elmer never looked a day different at age 99—maybe the moustache got grayer. He sported a goatee in his earlier years. And he was balding early in his life span, but because he always wore a hat, most people didn’t notice. Shaving was a problem because of the deep scars on either side of his chin. He had been kicked by an unruly horse and both sides of his jaw were broken—his chin hung slack against his Adam’s apple. How it was remedied is not known—probably wired together same as today.

Around 1905 he suffered a bout of erysipelas in the scalp area so severe the vesicles had to be lanced. Those scars were forever visible. It could have contributed to his balding early. And those squinty eyes were caused by black powder burns. He and his playmates were experimenting with it when it exploded in his face. He was blind for a time; eventually he did recover his eyesight, but his eyelids forever drooped.

Clark Samuel Chatfield was born Jan 22, 1839 in Middlefield, Ohio, the second son of Levi Tomlinson and Lovina Mastick Chatfield. The family moved to Illinois in 1844 to farm, but ill health forced Levi to return to Ohio after only four years. He died in 1848 leaving his widow and four young children. She moved the family back to Illinois and taught school at Bath before entering the hotel business. Probably both Isaac and Clark worked on farms, for they always had farm acreage.

In 1858 he married Louisa Tankersly, a Nebraska girl, and together they had one daughter, Ida. But Louisa died while they were ranching with I.W. Chatfield in Fremont County, Colorado. (C.S. had been mustered out of the Illinois Volunteers in Aug 1864.) He arrived in Colorado in 1866, but upon Louisa’s death in 1868, he returned her body to Nebraska for burial. There, he met and married Mary Elizabeth Morrow Mar 10, 1869. Their first four children were born at Tecumseh. In 1879, the family moved back to Colorado, to Aspen to establish a mercantile business.

In 1884, he began ranching/farming at Emma, and several of the family members railroaded at Basalt. Clark’s daughter Ida had drowned in the summer of 1886, but the family continued to grow. In all they had nine children.

Upon the marriage of the 7th child Jacqueline to James Mallon in 1902, the clan began its exodus to California. Jim and Jacqueline settled in the town of Orland, where they ranched and farmed. Others settled elsewhere in the Sacramento Valley. The Mallons had three children, Marjorie, Devere, and Neva. Neva is the only survivor of that generation. She is a retiree of the UC Berkeley Music Department and still lives in Oakland.

Della Chatfield, oldest daughter of Clark Samuel and Mary Elizabeth (Morrow) Chatfield, was an enigma. As a contralto, she sang at the Chicago Expo in 1893, yet married a rancher and successfully made the transition to a pioneer lifestyle. She endured the hardships of the high country by remaining cook, housekeeper, and laundress. She never milked a cow, or harnessed a team of horses. And, she must have been camera shy, for this is the only picture, either photo or snapshot.

Source: “Family History and Genealogy” by Beverly (Sproul) Kelly, written mid 1990’s

Note: Beverly is a granddaughter of Elmer & Della Chatfield and great-granddaughter of Isaac Willard “I.W.” Chatfield & Eliza Ann Harrington)
Note: pictures inserted by Catherine Sevenau