The Presbyterian Pioneers
from "Glen Haven Story" by Joseph Knapp

     Life grew in intensity with the birth of Glen Haven and as cabins were built. In came the Thompsons, Scotts, Norrisses, Briggs, Baxters, Halls, Wylies, Taylors, Atkinsons, Babbs, Lunns, Suttons, Millers. Carters, Easterdays, Rudolphs, Pipers, Fred Tully and Abbie Roys, and a number of others. Not all of these people were Presbyterians, for the Association was glad to sell a membership to anyone who liked Glen Haven and had $50, but the church influence was significant. With thirty or forty families in for brief periods during the summer, they began to have church services, usually in quiet dells under the pines. Reverend Schureman had a portable organ and it was pleasant to hear the voices respond to "Oh Come, Come, Come to the Wildwood! Oh Come to the Church in the dell!" I can think of no lovelier church services than those held under the pines although, at the time, we small boys found them pretentious.

     One who can recall vividly the early days of Glen Haven is Waldo Norris, who as a boy of nine first visited the Glen in 1903, the year the Presbyterian Assembly Association was formed and Glen Haven took its name. (His father was Professor H. W. Norris, a well-known biologist was later head of the Department of Zoology at Grinnel College. In 1941, after 50 years of service, Grinnell conferred on him the honorary degree, Doctor of Science.)

     Professor and Mrs. Norris with their three children had come out to visit his parents at La Salle without the slightest idea of going to the far-away mountains. "But," as Waldo reports, "this Presbyterian Assembly thing was cooking and probably Reverend Taylor recruited the party for the great adventure."

     To continue with Waldo's reminisces:

   There were twelve of us, and my Dad and Grandfather set about to prepare for the journey. A heavy farm wagon and a spring wagon were outfitted with bows and canvas, and boxes of non-perishable food were stowed away under bed springs, which were surely the only luxury we took along. I suppose somebody had a vague idea of where we were going, but nobody had ever ventured beyond Loveland. There was said to be a road leading to Estes Park which ascended high above the Thompson river to avoid the impassable canyon, but there was said to be a new passage through the canyon itself. Nobody was very sure of anything, but we did find our way into the foothills the second day where we became lost. Reverend Taylor consulted his Bible and we turned left, but we found ourselves approaching Berthoud. So we wasted that afternoon before we finally discovered the mouth of the canyon. But what a road! The granite wall had been blasted and huge slabs of rock had fallen along the water's edge to form the base of what well might someday serve as a road. But there was not one pound of surfacine and our wagons crashed and bounced over the terrible chunks of stone. The horses were as terrified as I was, but they couldn't crawl under the blankets as I did. I can still see my Dad sitting up front with lines held tight, shouting at the poor struggling horses, but most terrifying part of all was the fords. I don't recall any bridges, and we had to cross the river a number of times. I shall never know how the wheels stood up under the terrific pounding as we crashed up and down over those huge boulders concealed under the water. At times I am sure we were on the verge of an upset.

   We camped somewhere in the canyon that second night out and reached the Forks (now Drake) the third day. For a couple of miles we rolled along so easily but soon we were confronted with another canyon and had to take off over the mountaintop. It was terribly steep and there was no place where Dad dared to give the horses a rest, so he just plied the whip until they were wet with sweat. Grandpa, in the spring wagon just behind, had it much easier because there was only half the weight. Once on top, the ordeal had to be gone through in reverse because the descent was just as steep and there were no four-wheeled brakes. I suppose we must have had some fun in those early days, but I wonder how Dad could have enjoyed it. We kids were carefree and happy but during those three weeks up there, Dad must have been thinking about that terrible return trip. But we made it somehow.

      On this first trip Professor Norris located the spot where he wanted to build his cabin – high up on a plateau between Fox Creek and the North Fork of the Thompson. This gave a magnificent view of North Fork, South Rock, and the Mummy Range to the west. I have always considered this location one of the best in the Glen Haven area. For $50 he was able to buy the lot he desired with a 100 foot frontage on the North Fork, which lay about one hundred and fifty feet below the site he selected for the cabin. Fortunately it was possible to construct a circuitous road up from the Fox Creek side to get there.

     In 1904 the Norrises returned and camped out on the cabin site. Then in 1905 Professor Norris returned with his father, sister and children to build the original two-room slab cabin. He got the lumber from the Knapp sawmill as it was poorly cured and badly mildewed.  It could be had for $5 per lb. and it served the purpose. The cabin cost $20 for lumber.

     The Norris's had the top of the plateau to themselves, and to ensure privacy Professor Norris also bought from the Association several adjoining lots without frontage on the North Fork for $50. This gave him quite a lot of acreage. For a brief time they had a neighbor. "A preacher named Harvey built a shack a couple of hundred yards to the south east on the very edge of the cliff. However, it blew away the following winter and lodged against a tree on the slope. Dad bought it for $10.00 and used the lumber to add a lean-to on the north side of our cabin."

     The big problem was water, for it had to be carried up from the North Fork of the Thompson about a hundred and thirty feet and then a hundred yards or so to the cabin. This job largely fell on Waldo, who recalls how he "hauled a thousand buckets up those giant steps made with logs and rock." In time his father rigged up a water lift. It was only a wire cable together with a rope, pulley and bucket, but it did away with the climb. Water was a luxury that couldn't be wasted for bathing. "Dad would march me down to the North Fork and give me a warm bath. But one day a human came along and we decided civilization was encroaching, so thereafter I bathed in Fox Creek. I liked it better as the water was less cold". For those who have never felt the water of these mountain streams, it should be explained that it comes from snow only a dozen miles up. Fox Creek was smaller and less rapid and so the water was a degree or so warmer.

   The only time I ever was actually confronted by a cougar was in the wild canyon below the Glen. I was only about 12, and didn't realize what the animal was. I apparently thought he would disturb the fish and I flicked at him with my rod. He vanished in one leap and I can only remember how long his tail was. When I later described the animal to my father he said it was undoubtedly a lynx, but I am sure he meant what we came to call a mountain lion.

      Waldo has distinct recollections of some of the adults. One unforgettable character to him was Jack (Jackman) Baxter who was about 50 at that time, but seemed much older for his "florid and weather-beaten face – grizzled, I guess you would call it." One day in 1908 when Waldo was fourteen, he and his father and Jack Baxter were fishing up the North Fork when they stopped for lunch.

   Jack was on one bank of the stream and we were on the other bank facing him. Suddenly I became aware of a man creeping up behind Jack, apparently unaware of us. Dad realized that the fellow was about to attack Baxter, and with a shout, leaped to his feet. The man turned and disappeared into the woods. Poor fellow, he was probably starved and the sight of food was too much for him. We decided he was probably one of the "trusties" who were building the Poudre Canyon road. Those convicts occasionally made a break for freedom.

   Waldo remembers Baxter as a "bloody Englishman" – a remittance man, so it was said. He had a farm down by Greeley but didn't farm it much. He was supposed, like Buffalo Bill, to have been a supplier of buffalo meat to the army. For years he played host to the softball fans of the Glen. Once a week everybody would gather at his place and we had great fun. The ladies sat on planks along the first base line.

     There was one big boulder on the playing field, but nobody was ever hurt. When the ball was knocked into the river we always salvaged it for there was no other. Baxter was the lion on these occasions and was very gallant with the ladies.

     Waldo recollects J. K. Thompson as one of the important leaders of the Association who built perhaps the first cabin in the Glen after the Presbyterians arrived in 1903.

   J.K. Thompson probably was not so ancient as he seemed to me to be. He wore a full beard but it was a black beard. He was highly respected and was a very serious-minded man, probably not given to levity and sports. I doubt if he would eat fish caught on Sunday. But in those days even Preacher Rudolph did not fish on Sunday, and that is proof of how strict we were in those early Glen Haven days, for Rudolph fished every other minute in the week. 

     Waldo remembers the church services held along the bank of the North Fork. He also recalls how the "Godly men did build a dark forbidding shack back under the immense spruces at the bend of the road above Baxters and called it 'church.' It was gloomy even for Presbyterians." I also remember this incongruous structure in "Shady Bend", one of the loveliest spots in the Glen. Waldo's father never got involved in the affairs of the Presbyterians for he was a Congregationalist. Gradually the Presbyterian influence softened as more non-Presbyterians moved in. Incidentally, Waldo informs me, the ancient organ used in the early church services never left the Glen and is still to be found in the old Miller-Carter cabin that was built around 1906 up Fox Creek.

     Perhaps the most picturesque cabin of the old days lies on the south side of the road just before one comes to the first bridge over Fox Creek. Waldo remembers how this cabin was constructed in either 1904 or 1905 by a Mr. Taylor. According to Waldo it was put up by an old-fashioned house raising. The logs had been cut in advance and, on a certain day, all of the able-bodied men in the Glen assembled to raise and nail the logs. Waldo cannot forget this episode because Mr. Taylor left the Glen the next year "never to return" and his Dad and all the other cooperators felt that they had been "took".

     Waldo also remembers when Fred Sprague operated a little resort about three miles up the North Fork which has long been known as the "Deserted Village." He first visited the spot on a fishing trip in 1907 or 1908 when it was the site of the old Simmons sawmill. When he came back in 1909 on a trip to Lost Lake there were about ten cabins, mostly occupied by Sprague's guests. Soon afterwards, according to Waldo, there was a plague of dysentery and the place was abandoned.

     More information on the "Deserted Village" is provided by Sadie Campbell in the History of the Big Thompson Canyon. When she came to live on her homestead above Drake in 1909, Fred Sprague and his wife were operating the resort. She writes, "They kept teams and light covered wagons at Loveland. Their guests arrived by train. They drove them to the lower ranch for lunch, changed teams and drove on up to the resort. They kept saddle horses and took guests to Lost Lake." Norman Fuller, who had a cabin in the Glen until about ten years ago, informs me that his father and a partner bought the Fred Sprague ranch in 1914, including the old resort. He spent the summer of 1914 at the resort, and they were the last people to live there. Now, there are few traces left. In the thirties and forties it really did warrant the name "Deserted Village", for then the old log cabins were falling apart and the only inhabitants were scores of marmots.

     To go back to the earlier days, Waldo distinctly remembers the big fire in 1905 that destroyed most of the timber on the mountain north of Glen Haven. He recalls the smoke and red sky at night. The year after the fire, he and his dad were up on the trail to the Buckhorn river when his dad decided to take a short cut to the North Fork. "It was a disastrous move. We found ourselves in a tangled mass of downed trees and we had a desperate time getting out. It was simply impenetrable. It was above Deserted Village where Dad and I got entangled."

     W. H. Kelso, Forest Supervisor of the Roosevelt National Forest, has kindly furnished me information on early fires in the Glen Haven area. He writes March 2, 1967: "The rather big fire you mention up Miller Creek burned in 1905, according to one report we have documented. This fire, evidently, was at the head of Miller Creek, and undoubtedly it slopped over into the Buckhorn drainage. No record of a forest fire in the center of the Glen Haven area can be found. This does not mean there was no fire there in the 1870's or 1880's, because in those days there were few people 'back in the hills' and people out 'on the flats' would see smoke in the hills and not pay attention to it."

     Jim (J. F.) and Miss Nancy Scott can also remember Glen Haven in the first decade of this century, and their remembrances supplement those of Waldo. In fact they were somewhat older than he when they first came to the Glen around 1900. Miss Nancy recalls how her uncle, J. K. Thompson, with his son Scott and her older brother Cory, "came up the Thompson on a camping trip around the turn of the century and camped down by the river not very far from the Knapp home. It was such a lovely spot and the fishing so good that he came back the next summer and purchased a building lot across the river from where he had camped." He built his cabin in 1903 and her father obtained the lot adjoining and built his cabin in 1905. She recalls how they got up to the Glen.

   At first we had to make the trip in a covered wagon and it took us two days to go from Greeley so we always had to camp out one night on the way. After we left the Forks (Drake now) there was one bad steep hill we had to go over which made a very hard pull for the horses. Later the road was changed to follow the river and circle the hill and it was longer but better. I made two trips in the covered wagon and one with Daddy when he took up a load of furniture for the new cabin. At first about the only people up there were Grandma and Grandpa Knapp, who I liked very much. Then there were the Schuremans and the minister from here, and another minister, a Mr. Taylor. Then Mrs. Lunn came with her two sons. Then there was Mr. Tully who lived in the flat down by the river. He would get drunk and scare the wits out of us kids. Soon others began to move in and there was a nice group of teenagers who had many good times together, riding horseback and going on picnics. One favorite ride was up on the hill behind the Knapp home and over the top to Piper's ranch where Grandma Piper always had cookies and cold milk ready for us. I also remember the nice church services that Mr. Schureman used to hold under the trees in the bend of the road. He would bring his little organ and Mrs. Lunn would sing so beautifully.

   I remember the deer that used to come down through our yard to drink in the river every morning but we had to arise early to see them. We counted 29 in the group once. I also had a pair of elk, fairly tame, that came down for a drink and then stayed to feed in the yard. They liked the fresh aspen leaves from the trees.

   Once there was a very bad forest fire over on Miller's Creek behind our place, and over the mountain from us. Mason Knapp, your father, came over and took your brother Jim and me to the top of the mountain behind Uncle's house where we could watch the fire. The wind changed though and started the fire up our mountain, so your father hurried us down home and had Uncle hitch up the horses and get ready to leave on a moment's notice. We sure were scared and the smoke became quite dense. Lucky for us the wind changed again and took the fire on down the canyon instead of up over the mountain to us.

   In those days Devil's Gulch was like a nightmare. The road went straight up and was made of logs – a corduroy road they called it. We never attempted to go over it except on horseback and then it was very treacherous when it rained or snowed. It was so slippery that it was very unsure footing for the horses and the rains softened the mud packing so the logs often slipped out of place. 

     Jim Scott, Miss Nancy's younger brother, first came into the Glen in 1902 when he was 11 years old with his uncle James K. Thompson. He can also remember when the Devil's Gulch road was straight up and when there was a tollgate on the road just below Bryants. Since coming to the Glen in 1902 he has visited it every year with one exception. His fondest memory of the early days was his "continual association" with Gene Knapp, Uncle Ira's son. There were of the same age and hunted, fished and just roamed around together. "Well do I remember," he writes me, "when there was a flock of Angora sheep up there, and each of us had a large ram which we rode on. The sheep milled around the sawmill country and we did not know who owned them. No one seemed to care if we played around with them."