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Subject: Daniel Hurd - Denver Pioneer
Date: 5 Jan 2006 18:07:33 -0700
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Surnames: Hurd, Ross
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/VY.2ADE/1015
Message Board Post:
Daniel Hurd was born at Zanesville, Ohio, October 31, 1815, two years after the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union, while it was little else than an unbroken wilderness, with a population of one to two hundred thousand. Mr. Hurd was brought up on a farm, receiving such limited education as the then imperfect schools and small libraries afforded. At such intervals as he could spare from his laborious duties on the farm, he fitted himself for surveying and civil engineering and in the winter of 1836, along with John Sherman, entered the service of the State as a civil engineer. For two years, he was engaged upon the public works of the State, mainly upon the slack - water navigation of the Muskingum River. In 1838, he was elected County Surveyor of his native county. He was married in Zanesville, June 22, 1841, to the daughter (Ruth) of Elijah Ross, a pioneer of the State of Ohio. He cast his first vote in November, 1836, for Gen. W. H. Harrison, for President and took !
an active part in the memorable political campaign of 1840. From the year 1839 to 1855, he was engaged in mercantile pursuits, milling, steamboating and the forwarding and commission business. In 1848, he was one of a party of engineers who made the first survey on the Central Ohio Railroad from Zanesville to Newark. In the fall of 1855, he removed to Cairo, Ill. And engaged in the wholesale grocery and produce business and banking in connection with the transfer business for the Illinois Central Railroad, which branches of business he successfully prosecuted until the breaking-out of the war in 1861, after which he confined himself to the wholesale grocery and produce and ship chandlery business. In 1866, he was elected a Director of the Cairo & Vincennes Railroad and took an active part in inaugurating the means which resulted in the completion of the road. In 1868, he was chosen a Director of the Cairo & St. Louis Narrow Gauge Railroad and aided in securing the means whi!
ch resulted in the completion of the work. He was also Secretary of th
e Company. In 1867, he was appointed by the Governor one of a Board of Commissioners to locate and construct the Southern Illinois Normal University, which is now in successful operation at Carbondale, Ill. During the last ten years of his residence at Cairo, he filled the position of President of the Board of Education, during which time the schools of that city attained a degree of excellence second to none in the State. He was also chosen a member of the City Council several times and for several years was President of the Southwestern Insurance Company. During the war, he took and active part in the establishment of an Orphan Asylum and organizing societies for the relief of refugees and freedmen from the South. In the establishment of this institution his wife heartily participated, not only aiding in this special work for the relief of the unfortunates, but was interested in and earnestly engaged in all charitable work. In the summer of 1873, he removed to Denver with !
his family - three sons and three daughters, two of the latter and one of the former married - numbering in all eighteen persons, bringing all their goods and means. He then engaged in the wholesale grocery business extensively at 417 Blake street, under the firm name of D. Hurd & Son. In 1875, he erected a new store at 371 Holladay street, to which he removed in August of that year. In the spring of 1874, Mr. Hurd was elected a member of the Convention which framed our State
SOURCE: History of the City of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado by O. L. Bakin & Nelson Millett, Chicago, 1880
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