In Plymouth, England, in 1872 John Williamson, who had developed tuberculosis, was told by his doctor that if he remained in England's damp climate, he would not live over three months. However, the doctor added, if John were to come to the new world to a place called Colorado, he might live a year.
John, who had moved to Plymoth from his birthplace in Bothwell, Scotland, consequently gave up his haberdashery and resigned his post as Plymoth's Welfare Director of indigent people. He and his wife, Annie - daughter of Lord Granville of Plymouth - with their 12-year-old-son, John, and Annie's niece, Esther Munday, 15, boarded a ship for America. After disembarking in New York, the family traveled westward to Colorado by train, arriving in Denver in April.
Not knowing exactly where he wanted to spend his remaining days, John started walking each day from where they were staying in Denver. One day he walked up Deer Creek, beyond the first ridge of mountains called the hogbacks, to a valley encompassing magnificent red rock formations and cliffs.
A place on the south side of Deer Creek, where another stream came down from the ridge of mountains to the west, appealed to John as the ideal spot for the family's new home. A half-breed Indian, living in a dugout on the place, had squatter's rights to the land. John paid him $500 for the rights and put up a little shanty of rough-sawed lumber for the family to live in until their house could be built that summer.
The six-room house was built for just over $500, including materials and labor. It was of grout construction, whereby forms were made and grout was poured to the top of the 12-inch-high form. When the concrete had set up, the forms were moved up another 12 inches and more grout poured. The grout was made with lime morter obtained from the lime kiln at Morrison. The walls between the rooms contained no studs or lathes, but were built of stone and masonry.
Like houses in England, the gabled ends were shingled and a "hangover" built at the bottom of the shingles to prevent rain water from dripping down the wall. The Williamsons named their place Glen Plym Ranch - Glen meaning valley in Scottish and Plym for Plymouth, England. The mountain just to the west of them was named Plymouth Mountain and the stream running through their place became Plym Creek.
Plym Creek usually supplied water all summer to irrigate the crops, which consisted of 50 acres of wheat and 25 to 30 acres of corn. Each year, 350 tons of hay were raised as well as a large vegetable garden. John did not die in a year's time as his doctor had predicted. Instead, he eventually regained his health and lived until 1911.
Nevertheless, tragedy did strike the family in 1875. Son John had been staying with friends in Denver in order to attend school, when he contracted typhoid fever. He died on his sixteenth birthday. On May 30, 1876, another son was born to the Williamsons. He was named John William.
In 1876 Colorado became a state, entitling the Williamsons to take out homestead rights. They also acquired some extra land on timber and mineral claims. Niece Esther procured 160 adjoining acres as a homestead claim, which her uncle purchased from her.
Esther continued to live with the Williamsons until her marriage to Sam Couch, whose ranch was located outside the canyon. This ranch in more recent years was referred to as the Curtis place and is located north of the Johns-Manville Research Center.
Like other pioneers in the area, the Williamsons lubricated their wagon wheels and the moving parts of their farm machinery with oil which they obtained in the Willow Springs area. Pools were made to trap water coming from natural springs, which had a high oil content. The oil was then skimmed off the tops of the pools of water. A few oil wells were later drilled in the area, but the oil deposits were to deep to be very profitable.
A little further to the north, located just east of the hogbacks, were some small lakes containing deposits of soda. These deposits were picked up from the soil by the water, forming a powder around the edges of the lakes. This powdered soda was scraped up by the Williamsons and other residents and used for cooking.
In 1882 the Williamsons built an addition to their house, including a large kitchen and dining area. They decided to help other tubercular persons, and tent houses were constructed in the orchard south of the house. The patients, most of whom came from eastern states, ate their meals in the ranch house.
Besides the meals they prepared for the tubercular patients, the Williamsons also served between 100 and 150 dinners on Sunday to people who came up from Denver to partake of the good food and clear mountain air. Some came by stagecoach or bicycle. Many hiked from Chatfield Ranch, five miles east of Glen Plym, after disembarking there from the narrow gauge train which chugged up the South Platte Canyon. After eating their dinners and spending the afternoon, they walked down in time to catch the train back to Denver.
The ranch had one of the first telephones out of Denver. This helped them in knowing how many Sunday dinners to prepare because their customers could call and make reservations. The Williamsons, who generally had a maid or housekeeper, added several more employees to help in the kitchen.
One Swedish housekeeper named Lena charged out of her bedroom "snortin' mad" one day. When asked what was wrong, Lena, who wasn't fond of cats, replied that the family cat had chosen her favorite Sunday hat in which to give birth to a litter of kittens.
Another housekeeper was a lassie from Scotland named Agnes Campbell, who later married Bill Couch, the son of Esther Munday and Sam Couch. In the early 1920s Bill and Agnes bought the former Hooper place on what is now called Deer Creek Mesa southwest of Glen Plym. Williamsons were the first to own land in the Deer Creek Mesa area; Hoopers the second.
The Williamsons continued their service to tubercular persons and the Sunday dinners for approximately 25 years. John was a justice of the peace for many years and was referred to as Squire Williamson by his neighbors.
In their first years on the ranch the family was frequently visited by Indians, some of whom lived in caves in the rock formations nearby. Ute Chief Colorow and members of his tribe used to march right into the kitchen and beg Annie for biscuits.
One autumn an Indian talked Annie out of a big pumpkin from the garden. Leaving the pumpkin where it was, he took off on his pony and returned later with his squaw walking behind. He pointed the pumpkin out to the squaw, who picked it up and started walking down the road, with the brave following his pony.
Annie, who was watching from the house, became so infuriated that she grabbed the buggy whip, dashed from the house and gave the Indian a couple of good lashes. She then ordered him to get off the horse and put his squaw on. That is the way Annie saw them leave the ranch, but she felt certain that as soon as they got out of her sight, the squaw probably had to walk again.
According to Johnny Williamson of Littleton, grandson of John and Annie, Arapahoes were also in the area. They were nomads who traveled a great deal. As a boy Johnny found arrowheads on the ranch. These were made of a type of flint not available west of the Missouri. The Indians had evidently traveled clear across the plains with it.
When Johnny's father, John William, was 6 years old, he was in a pasture south of the house when he looked up to see four Indian braves on horseback galloping toward him. John took off for the house on a dead run. In the kitchen there was a round table with a cloth which hung to the floor. The boy dived under the table to hide.
The Indians rode up to the door, piled off their horses and strode right in, laughing uproariously. One said to Annie, "White papoose, him heap scared." Undoubtedly, John William failed to see any humor in the situation.
In 1898 the Williamsons received other visitors, albeit considerably more polite. They were negro troops stationed at Fort Logan, who were in training for the Spanish American War. Their rifle range was located on the Sam Couch place and they had pitched their tents close to a little lake. Lime Ridge, the first ridge east of the hogback, was used as a backdrop for their target practice. After their daytime maneuvers, some of the soldiers hiked up the canyon to visit the Williamsons. After they finished their training, those soldiers were sent to the Philippines.
John William attended first grade at a school located south of Deer Creek on the South Platte on property bordering a farm which later became the headquarters of the Great Western Sugar Company Farms. (That same farm at one time was owned by George McManus, the creator of the comic strip, Maggie and Jiggs.)
The following year in 1883 John William attended the new Deer Creek School, which had been constructed two miles east of the canyon and east of the Hildebrand place on an acre of land donated by the Paine family. The school operated until Jefferson County consolidated all schools in the 1950s.
In accordance with the deed, the school reverted back to the owners of the Paine property, which at that time was a family named Green. With construction of Chatfield Dam in the 1960s, the Corps of Engineers bought the Green ranch and donated the school building to the Denver Botanical Gardens. The school's big bell resides in the Littleton Historical Museum.
During the time John William went to Deer Creek School, a family further up the canyon sent their children to school there, too. This family lived one whole winter one-half mile east of Phillipsburg under Camprock. They hung a big canvas from the rock and set up housekeeping behind the canvas. Those children walked a distance of six miles to school.
A colorful neighbor of the Williamsons was a woman named Bessie, described as a Calamity Jane type character. She lived in a cabin to the southwest of the Glen Plym on what later became the Sobey place. A man by the name of Horsethief Thompson lived with her for a time. He was reputed as having been with the Jesse James gang and was also a member of the Brown's Hole-in-the-Wall gang. Thompson claimed that the loot from a train robbery was cached in the vicinity of Bessie's place. To avoid the law he would stay away from the east side of the hogback by bringing in stolen horses and cattle from a "halfway" station in Douglas County. Bessie would then feed him and his friends, and they would stay for two or three days.
According to Bill Couch, Thompson was a great self-taught veterinarian and could doctor anything. Bob Sobey remembers piles of bones and horns where he had dehorned cattle... "You could fill a large room with them."
Bessie bought groceries from Shellabargers in Littleton, but never paid her bill. It got so high she had to move out and Shellabargers forclosed on her place.
The man who gained a reputation as Colorado's infamous cannibal was also a neighbor shortly after he got out of prison. Alferd Packer lived for a time in a dugout in a bank under one of the big rocks north of Glen Plym, now part of the Johns-Manville property. He enjoyed having dinner with the Williamsons, who found him to be a very mild, easy-going person, who loved children.
After John William completed his education at Deer Creek School, he went to Chilcothe Normal School in Missouri, returning to the ranch to help his folks. In 1911 John and Annie died. The following year John William married Olive Mabel Rabb, a school teacher, whom he had met when she taught at the Deer Creek School. The couple continued to live on Glen Plym Ranch, operating it as a cattle ranch.
In 1913 a son, Johnny, was born to them. He was raised on the ranch and rode his horse to Deer Creek School. John William had lost his eyesight before his son was born. Johnny recalls, "I had to be his eyes and help him run the ranch".
In 1919, 27-1/2 acres of the Glen Plym were sold to Denver Mountain Parks, who obtained another 27-1/2 acres from the adjoining Ken-Caryl property to form Deer Creek Park. In 1920 or '21 Clyde Heald leased some land from Williamsons next to the park and built a store and dance hall, which he operated for several years. Denver Mountain Parks bought the dance hall and moved it into the park for a time. The building was finally moved to the top of Biggar Hill and used as a house.
Heald had purchased a 1923 Ford truck, which he used for Taxi service. He placed seats on each side of the truck bed, put a roof overhead, and hauled people from Littleton to the dances. He sold the truck to the Williamsons, who took the seats out and used it for many years on the ranch to haul logs and Christmas trees.
In 1924 Clayton Ryan Construction Company built a new road up Deer Creek. The outfit camped in the park and Johnny remembers going over to play with the workers' children. He especially recalls the times he failed to go home in time to get the milk cows and his mother came after him with a chokecherry switch.
In the late 1920s a vehicle, the likes of which the Williamsons had never seen, pulled into the park. It was a house built on a truck bed, called a Larabee Coach. The folks who owned it stayed about a month in the park and bought milk and eggs from the Williamsons. They were the Johnny Gruelle family. He was the original author of Raggedy Ann and Andy.
After graduation from Littleton High School, Johnny did maintenance work for Deer Creek School until it closed. He also worked for Denver Mountain Parks for 6-1/2 years, doing log cutting for the shelter house at Evergreen Lake, repair work on Echo Lake Lodge and Concrete work on Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 1939.
During the depression and drought in the '30s, Johnny and his folks had to buy feed for their 80 head of cattle and have it trucked from Nebraska and eastern Colorado. Johnny said, "after two years time, we sold the cattle and after paying all the expenses at the stockyard, we averaged $8.75 a head. We were stuck with a mortgage of over $10,000, but we managed to keep it going. We got ahead finally, with a lot of hard work."
During World War II Johnny was a civilian technical instructor for the Air Force. Then he was drafted, but continued his instructing, specializing in B-29s. He was sent to Guam, where he was in charge of production control at the air depot.
Christmas Eve of 1942, Johnny married Octava Fisher. After the war they made their home in Littleton until Octava died in 1963. Johnny's father had passed away in 1939 and his mother in 1956. The Glen Plym ranch house and 372-1/2 acres were sold to Mannon Associates in 1959. The Frank Murcrays purchased the ranch house and ten acres. The rest has been subdivided and several homes built on acreages.
In 1964 Johnny married Millie Waddell. They live on South Lakeview in Littleton, next door to daughter Glenadelle (Mrs. Fred Downer) and granddaughter, Paris Ann. Johnny has retired after 24 years in the Littleton post office. He has been very active in Weston Masonic Lodge No. 22 since 1942 and is a member of El Jebel Shrine. He has held high offices in both organizations.
The original deed to the Glen Plym Ranch was signed by Grover Cleveland and is in the Littleton Historical Museum. Johnny possesses one of the oldest recorded brands in the state, the GP brand. Like many of our pioneers, Johnny is justifiably proud of his heritage.
The fire occurred sometime between 1966 and 1968. I don't recall exactly - I was between six and eight years old at the time. My father forgot to turn the stove off one night, the wiring overheated, and set the kitchen on fire. But because of the high ceilings and stone walls, it never got past the kitchen sink. My dad had it pretty well extinguished by the time the fire department arrived.
Well, that's pretty much it. Some of this is a little boring, I know, but overall I think you'll agree the place has a pretty rich history. It also has the potential for several hundred years to add to that history.