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| 4/17/2008 11:16:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Has skeleton been ID'd?
As your readers may recall, in July 2007 the skeletal remains of what appear to be a Civil War soldier were found on the bank of the Arkansas River about 20 miles south of Leadville. This was in an area that had recently opened to the public through the Hardeman Project.
One Union great coat and one Dragoon button, plus remnants of the wood coffin with its iron staples, were also found with remains. Forensics reports indicate the deceased was a Caucasian male, approximately 35 to 45 at the time of death. He has since been re-interred at the Colorado Veterans Cemetery in Grand Junction.
Fellow researchers and I have come up with a possible identification for this man. According to a December 1889 Leadville Carbonate Chronicle article, Mr. Franklin Howard, a Union Army war veteran from Illinois, was murdered at age 50 near the site of the remains; the article indicates that he was getting a military pension. He also was tie-chopping, purportedly for the railroad, and living in a company cabin at the time of his death.
The Carbonate Chronicle reports that Mr. Howard was well thought of; his murderer was apprehended and bound over for trial in March 1890. As of this date, we researchers have been unable to locate any reference to the disposition of Mr. Howard's remains in any cemetery of record; we also have been unable to ascertain that he would have been returned to his home state of Illinois.
As this Civil War vet was held in esteem, we believe it is entirely possible that the railroad, in conjunction with local townsfolk, afforded Mr.Howard a formal burial along the river where he died, possibly on the railroad right of way. There is no record of this man having a family apart from a brother in Aspen.
A further possible link to Franklin Howard is the Dragoon button found with the remains last July; the Dragoons were the forerunners of the U.S. Cavalry. With Mr. Howard having been born around 1839 (died age 50 in 1889), he would have been old enough to have served in the Dragoons before the Civil War, and thus could have had that button on his military uniform.
If any of you have relevant information, please feel free to contact us. We are hoping that his name, instead of "unknown soldier," can be engraved on his marker in the Colorado Veterans Cemetery.
Mary Bish
P.O. Box 584, Lakeside, AZ 85929
shortythered@frontiernet.net
Silvia Pettem
439 Ranch Road, Ward, CO 80481
pettem@earthlink.net
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