CREATIVE HISTORY : A CLOSER LOOK : THE PEOPLE : JACOB FAUS

JACOB FAUS

Jacob Faus and his family arrived in America from Württemberg, Germany when he was about nine years old. As with most people who migrated to Boulder, little is known about Jacob’s life prior to arrival. Trying to find his whereabouts in other states is necessary if details about Jacob’s immigration and naturalization are to be found. There are many questions that need to be answered before a significant search can begin about when and where he arrived in America. Knowing more details about where Jacob lived, his parents, and any siblings, will help in the process of learning about his immigration experience and his home in Germany. Along the way I will point out problems, date discrepancies, discoveries, and more questions for possible research leads.

Born March 31, 1860, Jacob Faus might have been a son to Johann Martin Fauss and Catharina Barbara Schittenhelm. It is possible he was born in the town of Nebringen, Schwarzwaldkreis County, in the province of Württemberg, Germany. Immigrating to America with his family around 1868, family lore suggests the Faus family lived in Michigan, Indiana, and possibly Ohio. It is not known when he became a naturalized citizen because Jacob, being under 21, automatically became naturalized his when his father did.

No records of Jacob outside the state of Colorado have been found. Due to the frustrating spelling variations of his name in the census (Faus, Fans, and Faur) it becomes difficult to find any mention of him in other states. The name of his parents and specific town of birth was retrieved from the Family History Library’s International Genealogical Index (IGI). The birth date and province of birth are the only known information from other sources that match the IGI. Additional information from the IGI is currently unsupported, and is only being used as a placeholder and inspiration for further research. Jacob Faus’s obituary is one of the only sources that suggest family residences in other states. Census records mentioning a child born in Ohio is another clue. At this point, however, these clues are only producing more questions rather than leading to answers. Additional information about other states and family members is essential if I wish to find any immigration or naturalization records for Jacob.

Dates vary as to when Jacob arrived in Boulder; some are as early as 1872 or as late as 1878. According to an undated interview with his son Ben, Jacob came to Boulder as a teenager and found work in 1877 as an apprentice blacksmith under Ben Williams. Jacob learned the trade from Williams and worked with him until the mid 1880s. It is possible Jacob boarded with the Williams family for several years as well. By late 1880 he would have moved out of the Williams’ home because of his marriage to Katherine Schelling on September 29.

Jacob’s funeral record states he lived in Boulder for sixty-five years, which would first place him in Boulder about 1876. I had little luck finding Jacob in the 1880 census until I did a search on just his first name “Jacob” and place of birth “Württemberg.” The resulting query surprised me. Living with Ben Williams was a 21 year-old, single man named Jacob who was a “helper” to Ben and was born in Württemberg Germany. But the surname that accompanied Jacob looks like “Weipsport,” certainly a far cry from any alternate spelling of Faus. What is odd is that all the other information about this Jacob fits so closely, except the last name. After investigating German words that might be close in spelling, and a variety of spellings of possible place names, I came to a dead end. There are no clues as to where the name comes from, what this name means, or why it could be associated with Jacob Faus. Perhaps a clue will surface at a later date.

Little is known of Katherine Schelling other than she was born in Switzerland in November 1859, she immigrated with her family around 1862, and she lived in Ohio and Michigan before moving to Boulder. The couple had six children: Lottie (Charlotte), Benjamin, Jack (Jacob Jr.), Frankie, Ernestine, and Robert. The 1910 census suggests that Katherine and Jacob had another child who died between 1900 and 1910, but nothing is known beyond this brief mention.

Lottie’s appearance on the 1885 Colorado census quickly raised some questions. This is the only official document she is mentioned in (other than a few obituaries) and in 1885 the census indicates her age as 10 and that she was born in Ohio. Jacob and Katherine were not married until 1880. Was this a mistake? Was Lottie Katherine’s child from a previous marriage? Family lore states that Katherine spent part of her early years in Ohio, but it is not known if Jacob did as well. Did a child out of wedlock motivate Jacob to migrate all the way to Colorado as a teenager, only to move his soon-to-be bride and child after getting established? This one brief bit of information stirs up a whole new set of questions that need to be answered. At least Ohio is one clue, albeit large, for future family research

The couple’s first home was part of a small frame house near Pearl and 9th Street. Katherine recalled the three rooms upstairs as being “where the wind whistles and whirls.” Beginning in 1883 Jacob and Katherine began buying sections of a lot along 12th Street (Broadway) to build a house in block 9 of Smith’s Addition. Over the next decade they built their home, bought additional lots to add to what they already had, and in 1893 while Katherine visited her mother in Ohio and toured the Chicago’s World’s Fair, Jacob built an addition on the house.

After apprenticing under Williams, Jacob worked with Dick Gilbert until 1888 when he decided to opened up a general blacksmith shop with Simpson (Sam) Wylam. The Faus and Wylam shop first shows up in the city directory in 1892 with a location on the corner of 12th and Walnut. A few years later they expanded by buying out Ed Perren’s shop next door in 1895. The shop stood at 1925 12th Street, on the corner of the alley between Pearl and Walnut Streets. Jacob and Sam specialized in horseshoes. Because of the importance of horses for transportation, the two not only made quality horseshoes but they were experts in horse’s hooves, injuries, and a variety of problematic foot diseases.

Deeds for the shop properties need to be investigated in detail. There might be interesting information about the purchase of Perren’s shop such as an inventory of work tools. As a more detailed biography develops for Jacob Faus, more information about what blacksmiths did, how they worked, and what kinds of tools they used would be a desired addition. Click here to read some excerpts from an interview with Ben Faus who began apprenticing in his father’s shop in 1893.

In the early morning of May 31 1894, the family woke up in darkness with water pounding at the house. They lived on 12th Street just south of the 11th Street railroad bridge. With all the boulders and debris gathering at the bridge, the clog forced the flow of the water changed southward. Katherine had only one way out of the house and was forced her to drop little daughter Ernestine to her son Jack. They left house in time, saving very little and watched the 12th Street bridge collapse behind them. Later the water removed the house from its foundation and it sailed across the street, past the Beasley Ditch headgate, and came to rest in a thicket of trees about 300 yards downstream. The family found safety at the home of Frank and Teresa Weisenhorn near the brewery at Lincoln and Arapahoe.

Every account written about Jacob Faus and the flood implies the house was on the east side of Broadway between Canyon and Arapahoe, in what is now considered Central Park. However, legal property descriptions of deeds, an 1887 map, photographs, and two first-hand accounts from the Faus family prove the house stood on the west side of Broadway in Smith’s Addition. Both Katherine and her son Jack gave interviews for newspapers and recalled the house crossing the street before coming to a rest. Jack made the statement that the “new city hall stands on almost the site of my birthplace,” making reference to Municipal building on the southwest corner of Broadway and Canyon. Katherine also made reference to the original location as “where the Grill Lumber Yard has been.” The Ernest Grill and Company was located just on the south bank of Boulder Creek at 1739 Broadway. Click here to see the Grill building around 1900. A photograph from about 1920 shows part of the distinctively shaped Grill Company building in relationship to the creek.

Within a few weeks after the flood the family bought a house at 1322 Hill (Mapleton) Street and lived there for nearly a decade. In 1905 they moved two blocks south to 1443 Spruce Street, and both Jacob and Katherine lived there until their deaths. Little is known about Jacob after the events surround the flood, only that he continued with blacksmithing for several more decades. His son Jack opened up a car dealership and in the 1930 census Jacob is shown as working at a blacksmith in a garage. Could he possibly have been working in his son’s shop? Jacob’s known social activities included membership in fraternal organizations. He was a charter member and past grand of the local International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) as well as an early member of Boulder’s Woodmen of the World.

Deed indexes assisted in the location of the Faus’s other homes, but the deeds should still be examined for additional information. Researching Jack Faus’s automobile dealership in more detail might bring more family connections forward. Locating records of Jacob’s activities in the fraternal societies might be of assistance as well. Lodge records might be difficult to locate, so contacting local lodges or the national organizations for assistance will be necessary

While crossing the street at 14th and Pearl on December 14, 1941 Jacob Faus was hit by a car. Struck in the left side and hitting the hood of the car, Jacob suffered a fractured skull and leg. Eighteen-year-old Howard Vickery, driving with two friends, did not see Faus crossing due to the bright headlights of an oncoming car. Transported to Community Hospital, Jacob lived for nine more days, succumbing from his injuries on December 23. The eighty-one-year-old man became the tenth automobile-related death in the county that year. The Howe mortuary handled the funeral services with Rev. John H. Sanders, pastor of the First Presbyterian church, and Odd Fellows handling the grave-side services at Green Mountain Cemetery.