05/30/2023
Of all the women who came to Colorado to start a new life in the 1860s and 1870s, was Ellen E. Jack (also known as "Captain Jack") could well have been the most unusual.
As a young woman, she was touched by tragedy with the deaths of her husband and two of her three children. Leaving the sadness, she said goodbye to her "civilized" life and moved to Colorado. She lived briefly in Pueblo and Denver and then moved to the new gold discoveries in the Gunnison Country. There, she ran several businesses, including a series of boarding houses that she ruled with an iron fist; and she became a partner in the successful Black Queen Mine, located between Crested Butte and Aspen. According to her writings, she took part in gunfights, fought off "amorous" Native Americans, and travelled through avalanche-prone mountains that kept everyone else off the trails. In her later years, she moved to Colorado Springs and filed several mining claims nearby, but she mainly catered to tourists - taking them on mine tours, hiring out her b***os for rides, telling tall tales, and selling her self-published autobiography, The Fate of a Fairy.
from an Article About Caption Jack:
Ellen Elliott Jack
(November 4, 1842 โ Unknown)
"I do not fear man or devil; it is not in my blood, and if they can shoot any straighter or quicker than I, let them try it, for a .44 equalizes frail women and brute men, and all women ought to be able to protect themselves against such ruffians."
- "Captain Jack", prospector
Ellen Elliott Jack was born in New Lenton, Nottingham, England, on November 4, 1842. As a young girl, Ellen encountered a gipsy queen who foretold a life of tragedy and treasures. Who would have believed these predictions would come true? Ellen met her future husband, Charles E. Jack, in 1860 while aboard the steamer, James Foster. Once married, Ellen settled with Charles in New York, but soon he left the city and became a Navy captain during the Civil War. While he was gone, Ellen gave birth to their first daughter and soon after the war gave birth to a son. Tragedy struck when both children were lost to scarlet fever. Later, Ellen had two more daughters, losing one to scarlet fever. It was not long after these deaths that Captain Jack died of an enlarged heart. Ellen decided she would head west and placed her surviving daughter in the care of her sister-in-law. She established a thriving boarding house in Gunnison, Colorado, and began her search for treasures in the mines of Colorado. During one of her trips into the mountains, Ellen discovered the very profitable, Black Queen silver mine. The mine provided Ellen with happiness as well as heartache. Several men proclaimed their love for her but Ellen did not return that love until she met a man named Walsh. It turned out that Walsh was a con man and he tried and failed, to steal all of Ellenโs wealth.
Accomplished at handling pistols and rifles, Ellen had to use these weapons more than once throughout her life. The boom towns she travelled through required that she be ready to defend herself and face arrest for doing so. Of the numerous times she was arrested, Ellen was always justified in shooting the man or men who tried to steal, cheat or kill her. Ellen spent the rest of her life prospecting in the Colorado area. It is said she always carried her pistol and pick-axe with her no matter where she travelled.
By happenstance, an encounter with her childrenโs former nanny, Jennie, changed Ellenโs life. Jenny, now a prosperous working woman encouraged Ellen to head west, to Gunnison Colorado. In Gunnison, she opened an eating house, โJackโs Cabin, which proved to be quite profitable. The Indians, at the time, did not take to being pushed off their ancestral land. Collarow(sic) a well-known renegade and several others, decided to storm the town of Gunnison. As the Indians were taking the town, Ellen stood her ground, firing her 45s, even though she was bleeding profusely from a hatchet wound to the forehead. It was Collarow himself, who rode into town, under a white flag to save the Pale Face, suffering from the poisoned hatchet. These fantastic stories must be true, after all, Ellen wrote them all down in her autobiography, The Fate of A Fairy or Twenty-Seven Years in the Far West. Unfortunately, none of Ellenโs adventures in Colorado are captured in the book. Ellen soon found herself in Colorado Springs. She located a much more prosperous commodity than gold. She mined for tourists.
In the early 1900s, High Drive was constructed as a scenic drive, intersecting Gold Camp Road and North Cheyenne Canyon, above Helen Hunt Falls. Hack drivers met the incoming trains, at the Denver and Rio Grande Depot, each competing for the business of this Eastern Tourist who wanted a Wild West experience. Ellen exploited the touristโs gullibility. Outfitted in a simple cotton blouse, wool skirt with lace-up boots, she accessorized with a mining pick, and a six-shooter, tucked into her belt.
Ellen posed for photo postcards she sold at Captain Jackโs Place. She rented cabins and cooked up a delicious fried chicken dinner for those who braved the narrow winding road up to High Drive. Quite the eccentric on her own, she lived with her pet b***o, cats, and parrots, often posing for photographs. Posing as a prospector could easily have been for publicity, however, one could only wonder. In a 1905 February 5, Gazette Telegraph article, she claimed to have discovered a cave to rival that of Cave of the Winds. Whether that was true or not we may never know.
In 1920 a flood washed out the road to High Drive. Luckily, Ellen was in town at the time. Although not in the best of health, Ellen yearned to return to her beloved High Drive. Due to finances, the city decided not to go to the expense of rebuilding the road. Ellenโs health deteriorated and she found herself confined to a hospital bed. She died on June 16, 1921. Leakage of the heart was listed as the cause of death, however, those who knew her best, believe she died of a broken heart, unable to return to her beloved home. Ellen Jack was buried by the Ladies of The Grand Army of the Republic. Her grave, in Evergreen Cemetery, faces High Drive.
(๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ ๐
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