Why Formerly Enslaved African American Clara Brown is an Example for Our Time

 

By Donna Wichelman

As an author of historical romance, occasionally I'm inspired by a real-life historical figure and create a character with similar traits. Formerly enslaved, African American Clara Brown's true life story compelled me to bring to life the fictional character, Cecelia Richards, in my Gilded Age romance coming out in December.

Clara Brown rode into Colorado in the mid-nineteenth century and stole the hearts of many who called her “Aunt Clara” for her generosity and philanthropy. Though technically not a Georgetown resident, Clara first settled in Denver, then moved to the mining town of Central City twenty miles northeast of Georgetown. In time, she invested in real estate and mining properties in Gilpin and Clear Creek counties.

C Stephen H. Hart Research Center at History Colorado, Scan #10027902lara Brown, (aka “Aunt Clara”) invested in mining property in Georgetown in the 1860s and 1870s.
Used by Permission of the Stephen H. Hart Research Center at History Colorado, Scan #10027902

Born into slavery in 1800, Clara spent her early years in Virginia and was sold several times to the highest bidder. A Virginian tobacco farmer, Ambrose Smith, bought her, and she continued to work for him after he moved to Kentucky. At age eighteen, she married Richard, and they had four children. But when Smith died, her husband and four children were tragically sold off to different people across the country. Devastated, Clara vowed she would find them someday despite the odds of getting her freedom.

Clara’s last owner, hat maker George Brown sympathized with Clara's plight. In 1856, after working for him as a domestic for twenty years, he died and stipulated in his will that she must be freed and given money to begin a new life. Touched by his generosity, Clara began a search for her family. However, three years later, heartbroken and running out of cash, she gave up.

Clara convinced a group of gold prospectors, going west on a wagon train, to take her along as their cook. After a long arduous journey, she came to Colorado in 1859 and lived in Denver, working as a baker. She also helped two Methodist missionaries set up a non-denominational Sunday School. With the goal of finding her family ever-present, she followed the stream of people, heading to the mountains to make their fortunes in gold and silver. She didn’t care about the money, only the ability to reunite with her family.

Tailings from a Silver Mine Near Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery 2019

She settled in Central City where she set up a laundry, offered her services as a cook and midwife, and began saving money. By the time the Civil War ended and other blacks had been given their freedom, her income had grown enough so that she could support herself, give to local charities, take in sick and injured miners, as well as invest in mining properties and real estate. She also set up a nondenominational Sunday School and gave money and time to four churches, including St. James Methodist Church, where Clara was known to hold services in her home before the church was built and host missionary circuit riders.

Central City, Colorado Street Scene: ID 253110770 © Littleny | Dreamstime.com

Governor Pitkin sent Clara to Kansas in 1879 as an official representative to invite black Exodusters (former enslaved homesteaders) to move to Colorado. With a mining strike at hand and jobs needing to be filled, they had plenty of work. Clara donated her own money to help relocate them.

Clara finally heard credible news in 1882 that her daughter Eliza lived in Council Bluffs, Iowa. By then, her funds had been spent down or extorted by unethical men in real estate, and friends had to help her get to Iowa. Once there, she discovered that Eliza had been living there for some time, and mother and daughter finally reunited after more than half a century. Newspapers all over the country carried the story.

Clara brought her daughter back to Colorado where they lived until Clara’s death in 1885. To honor this extraordinary woman, the Central City Opera House debuted an opera in 2003 called Gabrielle’s Daughter. Her story of courage and passion continues to be played out on the stage today.

Central City, Colorado Opera House: ID 56740743 © Marek Uliasz | Dreamstime.com

None of us would want to live Clara Brown’s real-life story. As a Caucasian woman, I can’t begin to understand the dynamics of all that she experienced. Yet, something about her story inspires us, moves us to admire her, and makes us hope. Christian author Jerry Sittser calls this the “redemptive spirit” of her story.

Many people extoll Clara for having been the first successful African American business woman in Colorado. Others pay tribute to her angel-like qualities—her good works, caring for the sick, the poor, and the underserved. Most praise her for coming out of slavery to establish a life full of “passion and purpose” (see Clara Brown: Angel of the Rockies, August 26, 2016, Colorado Virtual Library). All of this is true.

Yet Clara Brown’s story is much more than what people say of her. It calls us to view our lives in the light of hers and discover what enabled her to move from enslavement to being truly free—not only free from slavery but free from the bonds of the petty and the shallow.

Imbued with faith in God and strength of character, she didn’t allow her circumstances to diminish her. She could have become bitter, blaming the world—even God—for allowing her husband and children to be cruelly removed from her. Indeed, she had every reason to hate her enslavers. Instead, she gained wisdom and strength and overcame her circumstances, transforming her into a woman of grace, humility, and generosity—loving people, giving of her time, and persevering in the face of a hopeless cause to find her children.

Clara Brown transcended the ways of her day and made a difference in the communities where she lived. Perhaps we’d never want to live her life, but I believe most of us—maybe even secretly deep down—want to emulate her spirit in a way that brings profound meaning to our own lives. Her example provides a roadmap for us to follow in our current-day trifling and chaotic world.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, will be released by Scrivenings Press in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.

 

How Immigrants Birthed and Influenced Colorado's Mining Industry in the Gilded Age

By Donna Wichelman 

(Note: For those who have enjoyed the WWII series I began in November 2023, I will return to the series after my Gilded Age historical romance is released in December 2024 by Scrivenings Press. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the blog series on the Territory of Colorado.)

Looking back on the beginnings of the United States of America, one might say we've always been a nation of immigrants. Before the fifteenth – sixteenth centuries, when the Spanish and French arrived on North American soil and established settlements, indigenous populations roamed the land for millennia. But once word spread about the vast land of North America with its abundant resources, more and more English and Europeans arrived seeking personal prosperity, escaping oppressive governments, and desiring religious freedoms.

The same values that brought men and women to a new continent drove the Revolutionary War toward the end of the eighteenth century, because men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson perceived the loss of those principles at the hand of King George III of Great Britain, which had birthed the first thirteen United Colonies. Jefferson wrote a Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, collected fifty-six signatures, and proclaimed those values—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—to be self-evident, and a new nation was born.

Photo 73687017 | Declaration Independence © Izanbar | Dreamstime.com

Over the following century, immigrants filled with hopes and dreams of a new and better life streamed to the United States of America, where it was rumored the streets were paved with gold. Each new boat that arrived contained people in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

Castle Gardens, Battery Park, New York: First Official American Immigration Station Opened March 1855
19th Century Illustration1357311458.jpg Dreamstime.com

Castle Clinton Museum, aka Castle Gardens, New York

Dreamstime_l_198086920.jpg

But while the entire eastern seaboard belonged to the United States, territories across the continent, like Colorado and Louisiana, still belonged to the Spanish and French. It wasn’t until 1846, when the United States went to war with Mexico, that a treaty was finally reached in 1848, giving the Territory of Colorado to the United States.

Most Easterners still avoided the Rocky Mountains, deterred by the rough terrain. Trappers and others who were brave enough to move west took advantage of the system of trade set up by the Spanish with the Native American tribes of Utes, Arapahos, and Cheyenne and established trading posts, allowing for easier travel west.

But then a different report regarding gold arose, only this time it was of the shiny metal kind found along the rivers and streams on the plains and in the mountains.

In 1850, a party of Georgians, heading west during the California gold rush, found a meager supply of gold on Ralston Creek near present-day Golden, Colorado. But it wasn't until 1858, when William Green Russell organized an expedition and camped along the confluence of the Cherry Creek and South Platte Rivers (now the heart of downtown Denver), that they found profitable deposits. Russell's men established a small settlement named Auraria that later became Denver.

One troy ounce California placer gold nugget - Natural gold specimen

Photo 40791481 © Fireflyphoto | Dreamstime.com

                                   

George Jackson, a member of Russell's party, reasoned that gold on the plains flowed down from the mountains. He ventured into the Clear Creek gorge where the valley opened up at Floyd Hill. Following the path to present-day Idaho Springs, he discovered his first gold on January 7, 1859. Rumor spread, and prospectors flocked to the mountains, where they found significant amounts of placer gold along rivers and creeks. 

Gold discoveries also sparked fierce competition for claims and available resources, and prospectors moved west. 

Two brothers in Russell’s party, George and David Griffith, deterred by the competition, moved up the valley to the confluence of the Main and South Clear Creeks. Having learned by experience in California to look for hard rock veins called lodes on the sides of the valley, they were not disappointed. And though they also found a silver vein, they initially ignored it for the gold.

More prospectors descended on the area, establishing camps that evolved into settlements. The one near the West and Main Forks of Clear Creek became known as George’s Town.

The gold bubble burst in 1864, when the constant need for more investment capital never paid off. Investors, including George Griffith, pulled out.

But in the fall of 1864, three prospectors—Robert Steele, James Huff, and Robert Taylor—discovered an extremely rich silver lode eight miles south of Georgetown on Mount McClellan at 13,200 feet. They headed to Central City to assay their samples, discovering a value of two to five hundred dollars per ton. The silver boom was on.

Silver nuggets isolated on black background close-up

Photo 183584586 © HandmadePictures | Dreamstime.com

By the summer of 1865, Eastern prospectors flocked to the region, and by September 1866, Clear Creek County was declared “indisputably” rich in ores by Central City’s Weekly Miners’ Register. Georgetown flourished. The town built a post office, and William Barton—a Bostonian—started construction on a two-story hotel. New clapboard buildings housing banks and business enterprises sprung up in a growing business district.

Remains of an Old Mine Near Silver Plume, Colorado: Donna's Gallery 2019

The thriving community also needed the infrastructure required, and soon, eastern missionaries created churches, lawyers established law offices, and Georgetown’s first newspaper, the Colorado Miner, ran its first edition in May 1867. On January 28, 1868, the Territory of Colorado legislature declared Georgetown an official town.

Easterners weren’t the only ones investing in the mines. Attempting to raise capital to build smelting plants, mine owners pursued investment from abroad. Robert Orchard Old—a native Englishman who had moved to America—was one man who banked on the silver industry. In 1868, he formed a joint-stock company—the British and Colorado Mining Bureau—with its main offices in London and branches in Colorado. The company shipped ores to England for smelting with the plan to open smelting works in Colorado. His bureau remained prosperous until 1873.

According to historian Christine Bradley in The Rise of the Silver Queen, “The town’s early rustic appearance [in 1872] gave way to fine homes, level sidewalks, a few trees, and elegant fences … The streets of Georgetown were packed with new arrivals from every point of the globe …” including Cornish, Welsh, and German miners, Italian retailers, Irish workmen, and the Frenchman Louis DePuy, who turned a small bakery into the elegant and now historic Hotel de Paris. It was also a town where formerly enslaved people could earn a living and invest in mines. All these elements coincided to create international flare and intrigue as people descended upon Georgetown to make their mark in the mining community.”

Modern View of Hotel De Paris, Georgetown: Donna's Gallery, December 2019

In September's blog, we’ll look at how one immigrant group made its mark on the mining industry of Colorado.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys exploring people and cultures of the world and developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna received her master's degree in mass communication, journalism from San Jose State University and became a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, will be released by Scrivenings Press in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. The love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.