The Espinosa Brothers - Part III of IV

Two days after the militia was ordered up, two men named Fredrick Lehman and Sol Seyga were ambushed and killed three miles northeast of Fairplay on the west side of Red Hill. The two men were traveling together on the road to Denver when the attack occurred. One of the victims was killed by a single gunshot, while the other suffered a gunshot through a wrist before his head was bashed in with a rock.”

Lehman and Seyga were both miners from California Gulch, located on the west side of the Mosquito Range near Leadville. Both were well known to the miners working in the Leadville area. “Upon hearing about their murders, the residents of Leadville and surrounding mining camps held a town meeting and recruited 17 volunteers for a posse to hunt down the still unknown murderers.”

This posse, led by Captain John McCannon, almost immediately captured two men identified as Baxter and Snyder. They denied any connection to the murders, but were brutally interrogated by the posse. “After several attempts without attaining the hoped-for confessions, Snyder was released on the condition that he leave the area and never return. Baxter admitted to being a fugitive from the Park County Sheriff. He was taken to Fairplay and handed over to a troop of U.S. Calvary, which was also scouting the area in search of the murderers. As soon as the posse departed, some recruits of the 2nd Colorado Regiment hung Baxter.”

Meanwhile, “a man named Edward Metcalf was hauling a load of lumber from Alma down to Fairplay. When he was about three miles from Fairplay, Metcalf was suddenly struck in the chest by a powerful force that nearly knocked him off the seat of the wagon. By a stroke of luck, the bullet that hit him was deflected by a small book and a packet of papers that were stuffed inside the breast pocket of his heavy overcoat. Some reports say that the papers included a copy of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

The team of oxen bolted at the sound of the gun shot and took off down the road. Metcalf quickly regained the reins and was able to glimpse behind to see two men in Mexican attire with rifles in their hands. After regaining control of the oxen, Metcalf abandoned the wagon and ran on foot the rest of the way into Fairplay to report what had happened. Word of the incident and the identity of the villains as being Mexicans were immediately dispatched to McCannon at his Weston Ranch headquarters.”

Authorities now knew who their targets were, the same men who had escaped from San Rafael. The newspapers ran headlines calling them the ‘Bloody Espinosas’.

McCannon’s posse could not pick up the Espinosas’ trail, but almost a week later, in early morning light, they spotted two hobbled horses grazing in a small meadow on the fringe of a dense willow thicket near the mouth of Four Mile Creek near what is now Hartsel. As Jose Vivian Espinosa approached the horses, posse member Joseph M. Lamb fired, striking Vivian in the left side. He fell before raising himself on an elbow and firing back. Posse member Charles Carter fired, striking Jose Vivian between the eyes and killing him instantly.

Felipe Espinosa emerged from a ravine, but as the sharpshooters set their sights on him, Julius Sanger cried out, “For God’s sake don’t kill Billy Young”. The story told is that he was wearing an expensive suit stolen from one of his victims and therefore mistaken for a member of the posse. In the confusion, Felipe escaped into the brush.

On Jose Vivian’s body was found an ‘article of agreement’ indicating that the Espinosas intended to kill 600 whites to avenge the loss of their family property. Jose Vivian also carried a leather pouch with a note stating that his father had been a murderer and that Vivian was compelled to commit fifty additional murders to expiate his father’s restless soul. The posse promptly cut off Jose Vivian’s head and took it back to Fairplay as a trophy. For years, a wellknown doctor kept the bleached skull and Vivian’s rifle went to a private collector. (to be continued)