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| What
was the Jewish Cotopaxi, Colorado settlement?
In 1882, a large colony of immigrant Russian Jews settled in Cotopaxi, Colorado. Living back east, they were misled that farming was good in the area. These individuals endured difficult hardships and the settlement lasted less than three years because it was too arid to farm. Many descendants moved onto live in other areas of Colorado, notably in Denver. Names Index Compiled For "The Cotopaxi Colony" A names index to the 80-page thesis about Colorado's 1882 Jewish Cotopaxi Colony has been created and is found below. Initiated by DPL Genealogy Librarian James Jeffrey, JGSCO member Ellen Shindelman Kowitt compiled a surname index to the 1950 thesis written by Flora Jane Satt at C.U. The original, unpublished manuscript is held at the Denver Public Library Genealogy Department. A copy of the thesis and this newly created names index are also available at the JGSCO library at Congregation Emanuel. Excerpt
From "The Cotopaxi Colony," by Flora Jane Satt
The
people who comprised the Cotopaxi Colony in the spring of 1882 were Russian
Jews from the provinces of Volhynia, Kiev and Ekaterinoslav. Sixty-three
persons in all, there were twenty-two "heads of family", each of whom were
eligible to file on 160 acres of government land.1 Actually, most of the
sixty-three were members of only three main family clans, consisting of
several generations and relatives by marriage. Among these three families,
too, there was much intermarriage and nearly every colonist at Cotopaxi
was related to the others by ties of blood or marriage, the only exception
being close friends who had attached themselves to one "patriarch" and
were considered as "adopted". This aggregation had been well solidified
in Europe, and the experiences of the pogroms, the emigration and the events
at Cotopaxi served to weld it even more firmly together.
A webpage created by Nelson Moore has the partial text of Flora Jane Satt's unpublished thesis "The Cotopaxi Colony" online. There are also a number of photographs and general information about the settlement. Click here to access. Related links from the Nelson Moore "Cotopaxi, Colorado: Russian Jewish Colony" website include:
Click here to access the International Association of the Shealtiel Family where an annotated version of Flora Jane Satt's thesis can be found. The secretary of this family association (and author of the annotation) is Miles Saltiel, a relative of Emanuel Saltiel, whose role in the Cotopaxi Colony history is being debated. A (2004) young adult book about Cotopaxi titled "Nothing Here But Stones" by Nancy Oswald. Click here. Names Index Compiled For "The Cotopaxi Colony" Following are the surnames of 123 unique individuals mentioned within the thesis: SURNAME - FIRST/OTHER NAME - PAGE LOCATION(s) Altman,
Moses 53
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