GeoExpeditionMT #31: Founding Father of Boulder Traditional Geocache

Hello, I am Mary Vining Cook and am so glad I can be speaking to you. I was born in 1817 and married Capt. Hiram Cook in 1838 in Ohio. Hiram was a Captain in the Civil War. Between 1839 and 1860 Hiram and I had 11 children, 3 died in their childhood. In 1864 the Captain came to Montana, leaving me and the children in Missouri. But then on March 29th, 1868 we boarded a steamboat at S.Louis and went up the Missouri River to Ft. Benton, and from there to Helena by wagon. I kept a diary during this trip and it is in the possession of one of my ancestors. Seven of our children moved to Montana, our oldest son remaining in the East. All eight married and had children. About 1862 William Berkin had a freight line at Boulder village -West of town and W.T. Sweet had established stage station just south of Boulder, near where the Fair Grounds are today, and Ed Ryan with several other Irish families had settled in Boulder Valley (the area southwest of Boulder). The Original town site for Boulder was laid out in 1865. The Captain was the postmaster for the town for about 12 years. In 1876 he moved the post office and built the Boulder Hotel (which became the Windsor). During the years that we owned the Hotel we never sold liquor there, but after A.C. Quaintance bought it in 1883 he had the McGowan brothers from the Boulder Valley add a stone addition which became a saloon. Of course the building then burned in 1904 and Mr. Quaintance had to re-build. Serves him right! Our house was the first house built on Main Street and it still exists. This house is now owned by Linda Stevens. In this house we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in 1888. What a wonderful day and the picture of us with many of our children and grandchildren is so fun to look at! We really had to laugh when The Boulder Age in 1888 said that the first house built in the town was Judge Elder's and the 2nd house was built by Capt. Cook and is now the Windsor Hotel. And we were so proud of our son, Vining, when he set them straight in the next issue of the paper. Let me read it to you: "Mr. Vining A. Cook takes exception to the statement that Judge Elder built the first house in Boulder. He says 13 years ago this fall Judge Elder erected a log building that was not chinked, had neither door, window nor floor and the roof consisted only of loose poles, so that the concern could hardly be brought under the definition of a house and the following winter Mr. Cook built the house now occupied by Capt. Cook and moved into it in March and following year Capt. Cook built his hotel and opened it in June." Vining built a fine brick house near the courthouse which is still there and owned by the Bob Laumeyer family. One of our sons, Frank married Mary Emma Douglas in 1883 in Boulder. Her parents, George and Calista Douglas were such wonderful people owing "The Willows" ranch just south of town. They and some of their children are buried near us in the Boulder Cemetery. Captain Cook was a deputy US Marshall, the Census taker in 1870, a veteran of the Civil War, a Mason and a charter member of the Boulder Independent Order of Good Templars which we organized in 1869. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Judge Alexander Elder were also members of this organization. None of us believed in using spirits! Oh yes, I remember Judge Elder and Rilla Preston's wedding. What a beautiful bride she was! They were married in the Templar's Hall which had been built of wood and unfortunately that building burned in 1880 and another one built as soon as possible but using stone. The Captain died in July 1891 and I continued to live in Boulder until my death 3 years later. We rest together under a shared stone in the Boulder Cemetery, and I used to tell him that some day he would be know as the "Founding Father of Boulder." He was such a good man!