Berthoud Weekly Surveyor January 30, 2014 Page 5

THE DOWNTON ABBEY COLLECTION

Photo by Becky Justice-HemmannDennis Bevins, national sales manager for Andover Fabrics, visited the Laughing Ladies Quilt Shop on Saturday and did a presentation on Andover’s Downton Abbey Collection, a collection of fabric from the popular TV show, “Downton Ab-bey.” Bevins showed videos from Downton Abbey and also a video featuring the current owner of Highclere Castle the Countess of Carnarvon. Quilts and clothing using fabrics from the collection were on display. Call 532-2130 to be added to the email list for future events.

Captain J.W. McIntyre came to the Little Thompson Valley when the Berthoud settlement was located

at its original site on the river bottom. In 1877 he took over a quarter-section

of land at the southwest corner of present-day Weld County Road 3 and Weld County Road 46 that had been relinquished by another home-steader.

In 1880 McIntyre re-ceived the deed to his farm even though he had lived there three years instead of the five re-quired by the

Homestead Act. McIntyre, a Civil War veteran and traveling salesman, later sold

the farm that had only cost him the $10 filing fee and moved his family to Fort Collins.

Josiah Wheeler McIntyre was born in New York state in 1839. He spent his boyhood on a farm in Pennsylvania and completed a course in business training at Pittsburgh Commercial College as a young man. At the time of his passing in 1892 his obituary noted: “Josiah W. McIntyre enlisted as a private volun-teer in the Union Army Aug. 30, 1862 and was attached to Co. N of the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry. While going to the front, the regiment was attached to fight-ing Joe Hooker’s command, doing valiant service throughout the war. Soon after en-tering the field Mr. McIntyre was promot-ed and made color-bearer of the regiment. At the battle of Shepardstown, Va., during the hottest of the fight, he was seen to fall from his horse. Shot in the face near his left eye, in the left wrist and left hip, flesh mangled and torn, he was left on the field for dead by his fast-fleeing comrades. The pursuing Confederates found him still

alive and hastily picking him up, sent him to the rear with hundreds of other prison-ers captured that day. The next day they were all sent south, our brave color-bear-er, more dead than alive, with the rest. He was given such care and attention as the Confederates were able to bestow upon our wounded heroes. Fortunately, an exchange of prisoners took place shortly afterwards and Mr. McIntyre was sent north where, with a change of scene and better treatment supplemented by a vig-orous constitution, he rapidly recovered. He again went to the front, serving all through the war with honor and distinc-tion, coming home at the close of the conflict with a captain’s commission in his pocket. He carried to the day of his death two rebel bullets in his body and could show scars of seventeen other wounds made by relentless minnies and remorse-less sabers.

After his discharge from the Union Army in 1866 McIntyre moved to Missouri where he pursued a business career and studied law. In 1870 he was elected judge of Caldwell County, an of-fice he held until the fall of 1877 when he brought his family to a homestead northeast of Berthoud that had been relinquished by Sam Gulick. Several months later April 1878 McIntyre moved his family from his Berthoud farm to the town of Fort Collins where he resumed a

career as a traveling dry goods salesman. In 1881 the Fort Collins Courier reported, “Capt. McIntyre left Wednesday for the San Juan country in the interest of the wholesale clothing house of Chas. P. Kellogg & Company. The Captain will make the whole trip with a team.”

McIntyre main-tained possession of his Berthoud farm until at least 1884 when the Fort Collins Courier reported in its “Berthoud Farm and Stock Notes” that he was “fattening one-hundred hogs on chopped wheat and alfalfa.”

By 1885 the severe wounds McIntyre suf-fered in the Civil War led to the loss of his eyesight. With the assistance of his daughter, who served as his reader and amanuen-sis, McIntyre then moved to Ann Arbor where he attended the University of Michigan and earned a law degree. In 1890 he opened a law practice in Cedar Rapids,

Iowa, that he conducted until his sudden death two years later at the age of 53.

The legacy of Capt. J.W. McIntyre; who was a soldier, dry goods sales-man, homesteader, judge and lawyer, endures today in the form of the McIntyre Lateral ditch that has delivered water to his farm from the Handy Ditch since 1881. What role McIntyre played in the construc-tion of the ditch is not known, but his efforts must have been no-table since the ditch was named for him.

While McIntyre moved to the Midwest to be educated as a lawyer, after his death in 1892 his body was returned to Colorado where he was buried at Grandview Cemetery at Fort Collins. His wife Lucy, who sur-vived him by 48 years, is buried by his side.

SurveyorColumnist

MarkFrench

A LOOK AT BERTHOUD

Civil War veteran is namesake of McIntyre Lateral ditch

Photo by Mark FrenchWeld County Rd. 3 that bor-ders the west side of Capt. J.W. McIntyre’s homestead is now notable for the line of towering power poles that runs along its course. When McIntyre homesteaded the land in1877 it was necessary to haul water two miles from Little Thompson creek for the family’s domestic use.

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By Surveyor Staff

Berthoud Elementary School fifth grader Adrian Reghitto, 10, endured 14

rounds and outlasted 26 other students at the fourth annual Thompson School District Elementary School Spelling Bee on Saturday, Jan. 25.

“I was surprised that they had to move back the start of the middle school spelling bee,” Reghitto said, because the elementary students competed for nearly two hours. In the end, Reghitto spelled his way to first place.

As well, Turner Middle School stu-dent Elizabeth Netschke came in second place at the 17th annual Thompson School District Middle School Spelling Bee held the same day. Both events were held at Walt Clark Middle School in Loveland. Students from Ivy Stockwell, Berthoud Elementary and Turner Middle School participated, along with students from 19 other Thompson elementary schools and five additional middle schools.

The elementary bee was held the morning of Jan. 25 and the middle school students competed in the after-noon. The elementary students took a 50-word written test with the top quali-fiers proceeding to the oral round.

Trophies were awarded for first, sec-ond and third places. The middle school spellers took a 75-word written test and then competed in the oral round. The top six spellers in the middle school division qualify to compete at the state spelling bee which will be held in Denver on March 8.

Berthoud El student is district spelling bee champion

Photo by John GardnerBerthoud Elementary School fifth grader Adrian Reghitto, 10, was all smiles at school on Monday, Jan. 27, after taking first place at the fourth annual Thompson School District El-ementary School Spelling Bee on Jan. 25.