The Killing of Kendrick Washburn, 1878

Bird's Eye View of Trinidad, Colorado, late 19th

century.  Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western

History Collection.

The 1878 death of Kendrick Washburn of Middleborough in Trinidad, Colorado, was clearly a case of being in “the wrong place at the wrong time.” However what most Middleborough residents of the day found shocking about the occurrence was not the circumstances of Washburn’s death, but what passed for justice in its wake.

Trinidad, Colorado, situated in the southeastern portion of the state midway between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Denver, Colorado, was a community which was described in 1868 as having “the most frontier style of living in the whole of Colorado Territory”. During the 1870s, it experienced rapid growth, in part spurred by the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in 1878, and its population quadrupled in size during the decade. Despite - or perhaps because of - the town’s growth, the town remained one of the “roughest in the Old West”, and it was not until the tenure of Bat Masterson as sheriff in 1882-83 that the community was finally made safe for all.

Trinidad, Colo.  1882.  County Seat of Las Animas County. 

panoramic map (Madison, WI: J. J. Stoner, 1882).

The West retained its rough and tumble image among Easterners who were typically unaccustomed to frontier living. Among them was Kendrick Harlow Washburn who was born in Middleborough April 20, 1860, and who had learned the rudiments of both farming and stock rearing on the farm of his father, Sumner Washburn, a master farmer. By 1877, 17-year-old Kendrick had relocated West to Colorado where undoubtedly the lure of opportunity attracted him as it did many other young educated Easterners. Washburn, if reports in the Middleboro Gazette of the period are accurate, first located about August, 1877, to Mexico (although the newspaper may have meant New Mexico) to try sheep-raising with Willie Leonard of Middleborough. (Leonard is probably the same William H. Leonard who in later years served as postmaster of the gold boomtown Rawhide, Nevada).

Sometime following 1877, Washburn seems to have been employed on one of the large ranches in the section where he was engaged as foreman until his untimely death on December 9, 1878.

Kendrick Washburn, the second son of the late Sumner Washburn, of this place, was shot in the Theatre at Trinidad, Col., a short time since. He went some fifteen months ago, and has been employed as foreman on a large cattle ranch. It seems he had gone some sixty miles in search of a stray horse, and went to the theatre at the town where he stopped for the night. A drunken fellow came into the place saying that he was going to shoot, and shoot he did into the crowd, the ball hitting Washburn, who died about two days after. His body was embalmed and sent home for interment. The murderer was fined thirty-five dollars and costs, for carrying concealed weapons, and then went on his way unmolested. [Old Colony Memorial, December 26, 1878:4, “Middleboro’”]

The record of Washburn’s death at Middleborough lists the cause simply as “Accident.”

Mercifully, Washburn’s father had died that February (1878), though his mother lived until 1905. It’s not clear what impact Washburn’s death, its manner, or its unjust outcome may have had upon the family, though his younger brother Nathan became an attorney and later noted judge at Middleborough. Nathan Washburn’s son, born in 1893, was named in honor of his murdered uncle and himself later became a prominent judge in Middleborough, as well.

Westward Ho!

This post marks my first in a number of weeks, and I apologize for the length of time between posts. What I intended as a brief hiatus ended up being longer than expected with part of the time being spent in Arizona, an appealing distraction.

The West has always held an allure for Middleborough folk for different reasons. Following the Revolutionary War, numerous Middleborough residents headed "west" to Vermont because of economic hardship at home and the promise of greater financial security. The early and mid-1800s saw Middleborough residents emigrate further afield to places such as Minnesota and Missouri, then considered the western frontier. Among them were members of the Barrows family.

The discovery of gold in 1848 in California unleashed an unprecedented flood of westward emigration, and Middleborough residents for years to come would be attracted not only by the prospect of riches, but by the continuing allure of productive land which was inexpensive (if not free) and an invigorating and healthy climate. Dura T. Weston of Thomastown emigrated temporarily to California during the period of the Gold Rush, though he later returned, none the richer to Middleborough. In 1856, S. W. Marston gave up his private boarding school on East Grove Street (later better known as the Eaton Family School) in order to pursue his future "out west". Accompanying him were Middleborough furniture dealer Solomon Snow (who was succeeded by George Soule) and clothing retailer George Wilbur, also of Middleborough. Another prominent Middleborough resident who moved west during the mid-19th century was George Leonard. Born at Middleborough in 1816, Leonard was a prominent shoe and boot manufacturer at Middleborough until 1868 when he relocated to Rochester, Minnesota, for the health of his wife and son. At Rochester, Leonard continued in the shoe business and also engaged as a gentleman farmer, owning two farms, 30 cows and over 80 other head of livestock. He was recognized as "an upright, honorable and much beloved citizen" and was described as one of Rochester's "oldest and most respected citizens" upon his death in 1893.

The Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s similarly caught the attention of Middleborough residents. A number of Middleborough residents proposed making the journey to western Canada, including Charles P. Drake of North Middleborough in 1897, and it was reported that Middleborough men's clothiers Sparrow Brothers had outfitted at least one Middleborough resident with heavy weight apparel suitable for the Yukon.

Nonetheless, some of these western dreams proved illusory, including that of Charles W. Wadhams (1850-85). Wadhams married Phebe Ann Gerrish of North Rochester, Massachusetts, in 1879, and though troubled by heart problems, he failed to reveal the condition to his wife, no doubt for fear of alarming her unnecessarily. The condition, however, was severe enough to prompt Wadhams to emigrate to Redlands, California, where he proposed making a home for himself and his wife who he left behind in Massachusetts. At the time, Redlands was gaining notice for its healthful dry climate which would soon make it a citrus-growing center in southern California, and it is likely this factor which encouraged Wadhams' emigration. However, he was not to realize his dream. He died at the age of 35 a short time after coming to Redlands. "It seems that Mr. Wadhams had been informed some time since that he had heart trouble and might die at any time and might possibly live two years. He was frequently troubled with irregular circulation and palpitation, but had carefully kept all these troubles from the knowledge of his wife and mother at home. He was laboring to make a home for his wife, and his forgetfulness of self, as it appears in a detailed account of his life, shows the true and noble spirit with which he was possessed." Wadhams' remains were brought back to Middleborough and interred in Hope's Rest Cemetery at Rock.

Illustration:

"American Progress", oil on canvas, John Gast, 1872

Gast's 1872 painting has since become an iconic image of American Manifest Destiny, depicting various aspects of the nation's westward expansion.