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Nathan Ward Hungate

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Nathan Ward Hungate

Birth
McDonough County, Illinois, USA
Death
11 Jun 1864 (aged 29)
Arapahoe County, Colorado, USA
Burial
Denver, City and County of Denver, Colorado, USA
Plot
Block 6, Military Section
Memorial ID
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Victim of indian attack. Hungate and his wife, Ellen, and two daughters, Laura and Florence, came west in 1860 and lived on a ranch about 35 miles southeast of Denver. Indian skirmishes were ongoing and then the raids culminated with the murder of the Hungate family on June 11, 1864, thirty miles south of Denver by four Arapaho indians. When the scalped and horribly mutilated bodies were found on June 14 and brought to Denver and displayed before the public, mass hysteria gripped the town and the entire territory. As a result, Indian warfare on Colorado's eastern plains intensified and territory citizens demanded protection and revenge. Two weeks after the Hungate murders, Governor Evans directed "all friendly Indians of the Plains" to separate themselves from hostile Indians and to rendezvous at assigned places of safety. It was precisely such a friendly village at Sand Creek in eastern Colorado, camped in accordance with Evans' directive, that Colonel Chivington attacked and the bloodshed there is now known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

The Hungate Family marker, which says "Killed by Indians," was first erected in Mount Calvary Cemetery near Denver's Cheesman Park and then moved to Fairmount Cemetery in 1892 when Mount Calvary cemetery was abandoned.
Victim of indian attack. Hungate and his wife, Ellen, and two daughters, Laura and Florence, came west in 1860 and lived on a ranch about 35 miles southeast of Denver. Indian skirmishes were ongoing and then the raids culminated with the murder of the Hungate family on June 11, 1864, thirty miles south of Denver by four Arapaho indians. When the scalped and horribly mutilated bodies were found on June 14 and brought to Denver and displayed before the public, mass hysteria gripped the town and the entire territory. As a result, Indian warfare on Colorado's eastern plains intensified and territory citizens demanded protection and revenge. Two weeks after the Hungate murders, Governor Evans directed "all friendly Indians of the Plains" to separate themselves from hostile Indians and to rendezvous at assigned places of safety. It was precisely such a friendly village at Sand Creek in eastern Colorado, camped in accordance with Evans' directive, that Colonel Chivington attacked and the bloodshed there is now known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

The Hungate Family marker, which says "Killed by Indians," was first erected in Mount Calvary Cemetery near Denver's Cheesman Park and then moved to Fairmount Cemetery in 1892 when Mount Calvary cemetery was abandoned.

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