Fannie D. Walthall Hardin

Fannie attended the funeral of Buffalo Bill in 1917. She was there in an official capacity representing the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic.

It was she who placed the folded American flag upon him before the casket was closed.

As an officers wife, Fannie was stationed with her husband at various posts.

She was interviewed for a story that appeared in the Sunday, May 28, 1911 issue of the Rocky Mountain News. This is a "must read" for the family.

Heres the bulk of it:

To the present generation of Denverites, surrounded by the very best that a big city has to offer in the way of advanced civilization, the harrowing tales of Indian lore seem memories of a far away past. The nearness of frontier life, to the new Colorado dwellers who have come west in the past twenty years, is seldom realized. In the midst of up-to-date metropolitan Denver there sits a figure who could furnish sensational experiences enough to quiet the overworked imaginations of eastern writers of western tales, and give them facts instead.

This interesting woman is Mrs. Fannie D.W. Hardin, who crossed the plains in a prairie schooner drawn by two yoke of cows and a yoke of oxen, way back in 1861.

On June 1, Mrs. Hardin celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of her coming to Colorado. Looking back over her active, useful life, this woman, who today is one of the best known hotel proprietors in Denver , can see in the dim vistas of the past the #$@^*% faces of *&$#@ men, who kept her and her party captive on the spot which but a few weeks later was the scene of the terrible and bloody battle of Sand Creek.

Mrs. Hardin, who is the widow of Lieutenant George H. Hardin of Company G, Colorado Cavalry, is one of the most prominent workers in the Pioneer Ladies Aid Society . She has held high office in the Woman's Relief Corps, the Eastern Star; but it is as a Colorado pioneer that her experiences are interwoven with the making of history.

Historians of the country all know the name of Black Kettle, the Cheyenne chief who figured in the so-called massacre of Sand Creek. That momentous fight which resulted in the court martial of Colonel Chivington has long divided opinion as to its justice or injustice. The event marks, however, the great life of the new west and in that life Mrs. Hardin was a prominent figure.

"It was in July, 1864," said Mrs. Hardin, sitting in her comfortable parlor in the New Hardin Hotel, where she has been proprietor, on the same spot on Welton street, for eighteen years, "that my husband came into our home and proposed going on a sort of picnic hunting hay fields. We were living at Fort Lyon, where my husband was stationed and the haying trip was suggested by Dock Cauley, son of the Indian agent. Cauley and his wife were fresh from St. Louis and he had received large hay contracts from the government."

The Indians, who, of course, have been in the past troublesome, were quiet and when I asked my husband if he was not afraid of them he hooted at the idea. We hitched up the ambulance with four mules and with the driver and a man named French our party consisted of six people."

"We're going to the banks of Sand Creek said my husband."

"Sand Creek was twenty miles from the old fort, but although we started early in the morning, evening found us still on the road. The sun was setting with brilliant coloring. Blood red shading into delicate pink suffused the sky when we first caught sight of the banks of Sand Creek. All day we had suffered terribly from thirst as we had counted on reaching the creek much earlier not knowing we had missed the right road."

"With leaden bullets in our mouths to keep us from suffering from thirst we rode all day, and the sight of the banks were certainly a joyous one. The mules were fagged out; water seemed the dearest possession on earth, and a place to camp for the night looming up in the distance a mile away meant everything to us."

"Suddenly I noticed my husband and Doc Cauley looking with fixed and curious gaze at something. They looked and looked but said nothing. Finally my husband asked the driver to stop. By that time I was aroused into mild excitement."

"What's the matter," I demanded. My husband, his eye on the distant spot, sat tense and still. "By heavens its Indians," he said quietly, but his tone implied the tumult he felt. Our eyes were fastened upon that speck of dust against the blood red of the setting sun till it grew larger and larger, finally covering the flaming disk on the horizon from our gaze."

On October 2, 1919, the Chariton Iowa newspaper (The Charitan Patriot) published the following article:

DAUGHTER OF THE REVOLUTION HERE

"Mrs. Ethel Smith, of Des Moines, accompanied by her aunt, Mrs. Fannie Walthall Hardin, of Denver, Colorado were here the latter part of last week visiting the former's uncle, Jay J. Smyth, and attending to business matters. Mrs. Hardin was in route from Columbus, Ohio, where she attended the national W.R.C. (Women's Relief Corps) encampment. She was a resident of this place many years ago, and she was here for the purpose of removing the remains of her father and mother, Samuel and Rebecca Ann Walthall, and her aunt, Nancy B. Chapman, who was the wife of Joshua P. Chapman, from the Douglass cemetery to the W.H. Smyth lot in the Chariton cemetery. Mr. Walthall was one of the very early pioneers of Lucas County and was buried in 1858, while his sister was buried two years later (actually two years earlier). He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and a bronze grave marker will be erected above his grave by the Society of 1812. This will be the only marker of this kind in the Chariton cemetery. Mr. Walthall was county clerk and recorder of this county about 1854. When he came here he brought with him a land warrant as payment for his service in the war of 1812, and entered the farm adjoining Spring Lake on the south, where he resided for some time."

Fannie Hardin is on the left. Her sister Susan Peck is standing. Their sister Mary Hall is on the right.

This was taken in Chariton Iowa where Mary was then living.

Following the Sand Creek Massacre the Hardins and Pecks went back east for several years. Therefore I would estimate that this photo was made about 1866.

Mary left Iowa in 1892 and moved to Denver.

The Walthall sisters. L2R: Mattie Evans, Susan Peck, Fannie Hardin, Mary Hall.

All were members of the Colorado Daughters of 1812.

The back of the photo is inscribed: "To Baum, Lizzie and family. A Merry Christmas to you all". Daniel Baum Walthall's grandson, Jack Walthall, sent me this.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) died in 1907, so that tells us the photo is 1906 or earlier.

Their father, Samuel White Walthall, was with General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. At the time he was just 16 years old.

Fannie began operating a boarding house on this site about 1893 and apparently sold the property sometime around the turn of the century so this theater (Orpheum vaudeville) could be built. She apparently worked out an arrangement with the builders because she then occupied the 2 top floors in the frontage to operate a boarding house/hotel called the "New Hardine". The ground level entrance to the New Hardine is at the far end of the building (where the awning terminates). She has added a sign above the door and also has large sign painted high on the building at the near end. (Click on the photo. It looks much better enlarged.)

Fannie was present at the dedication ceremony for the civil war soldier statue in 1909. (as reported in the July 25, 1909 Denver Post)

This statue still stands proudly in front of the Colorado State Capitol.

During the dedication ceremony the man who designed and superintended construction of the statue introduced Fannie as "daughter of the regiment".

By my eye, the statue appears to be looking toward the southwest - precisely in the direction where Camp Weld once stood. Camp Weld was a fort built to house and train soldiers for the Civil War.

The statue's designer however, is quoted as saying his face is "set toward the south to meet the enemy".

Nothing remains of Camp Weld, but it was located along the east bank of the Platte River near the intersection of I-25 and 8th Avenue.

The place was huge. It was composed of wooden structures on the perimeter of a large parade ground. There were 47 stone fireplaces.

And...It was a special place to George and Fannie Hardin. They were married there on Christmas eve of 1861.

Baker and Hafen's History of Colorado contains the following account: "Christmas Eve saw Denver's first military wedding when Miss Fannie Walthall was married to Lieutenant George H. Hardin by Father Keeler, founder and first rector of St. Johns-in-the-Wilderness. War had been declared and Colorado had already begun her splendid response, so this ceremony took place at Camp Weld, far out beyond the city proper."

According to Hafen's Colorado and its People: "the wedding drew an enormous crowd".

The soldier statue located on the east side of the Colorado state capitol appears to be looking toward the location of old Camp Weld. On Christmas eve of 1861 George and Fannie were married at Camp Weld.

The page shown above is extracted from testimony submitted during the congressional inquiry into what came to be known as The Sand Creek Massacre.

George Hardin was stationed at Fort Lyon Colorado in the summer and fall of 1864.

He and Fannie were there on the evening of November 28, 1864, when Colonel Chivington and his command departed to launch their dawn attack on the Indians encamped at Sand Creek.

George was not present at the massacre. In fact, on that very evening of November 28 he produced discharge papers showing he was no longer on active service.

It appears to have been a desperate move by a sick man who wanted no part of what was obviously about to happen.

Besides not wanting to become involved, George probably dreaded the thought of a long ride on a cold night. He was not a healthy man, and this is noted in his biography (which is available right here on Find-A-Grave.)

The discharge papers he produced on the eve of the massacre were almost certainly the papers Wynkoop had issued and then obviously failed to retrieve.

To say that a lot was happening in and around Fort Lyon in the Fall and early winter of 1864 is an understatement.

Wynkoop, besides failing to retrieve the discharge papers, also failed to delete the notation of Hardin's discharge from the official transcript. I have visited the Colorado archives to verify that such is the case.

Consequently, when Fannie - years later - applied for her widows pension, she was met with a problem. Major Anthony came to her rescue by submitting a deposition confirming that George was on active duty when he (Anthony) relieved Major Wynkoop as commander of the post.

Following the massacre George and Fannie Hardin departed from Colorado immediately and remained back east until the repercussions of the Sand Creek Massacre had adequately subsided.

These pages are from an old book entitled "Colorado Pioneers in Picture and Story" by Alice Polk Hill. The book was published in 1915 (I think) and limited to 2000 copies. I have copy #613. - Gene

The date is November 18, 1897, and Fannie is in Washington, D.C.

If it were possible, Fannie would have used this occasion to meet with her cousin, Senator Edward Cary Walthall of Mississippi. He died on April 21 of the following year.

This obituary was printed in "The Trail", a magazine "for Colorado", published monthly by the Society of the Sons Of Colorado.