The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-07-14
N. C. CREEDE'S ROMANCE.
Woman Who Caused His Death was
Another's Wife When He
Took Her

Denver July 14.-The marriage which
caused the death of n. c. Creede, the
millionaire miner who committed sui
eide a t Los Angeles last week, grew out
of a late-in-1ife love affair, and what
the Creede pioneers regarded as an
elOpement. 1t Smacked of rough min
ing camp romance in its every detail.
Ten or twelve years ago, when N. G.
Creede roamed the mountains a poor
and lonely prospector, he made the ac-
Quafntance of his present wife She ran
a travellers boarding house in Del
Norte, and was married
In winter. when the deep SHOWS
among the mountains made prospecting
nigh impossible, Captain Creede
drifted into Del Norte. He usually
made his headquarters in the house of
the woman from whom he subsequently
bought his liberty at a cost of $40, 900
cash. Once he returned with difficulty
in the midst of a snowstorm. which had
almost bound him in the wilderness of
ridges and canOnS. The experience
brought on pneumonia, and, neglecting
her own business, the 1andlady of his
boarding house spent day and night by
the bedside of the stricken prospector
until she nursed him into health.
She was not any too prepOssessing
then, being large, angular and over ad-
dicted to manufacturing her own facial
compilations But she was kind to old
Creede, as the boys called him; and
when his ship, with its cargo of silver,
came in the prOSpector rewarded her.
In the fall of 1891 n. C. Creede discov-
cred the Amethyst vein in what was
| then known as Sunnyside section, now
Creede, giving him rich ore before his
| first years assessment work was done
| When the output reached 81, 900 a month
| a notion that he could afford to keep
a home and wanted one took hold of
| him. While it was on he built him a
| cabin at the had of West Willow guIch
| in Upper Creede.
Having furnished the cabin in rudelv
comfortable fashion and swept the
| hearth clean. the discoverer of the new
| bonanza made quiet trip to Del Norte
nd oil ff7n I'D To-,
| prospecting days. What promises he
| might have made her is their own Sc
| cret, but when n. c. Creede returned to
| his new made log abode in West Willow
| gulch the Del Norte boarding house la
! dy accompanied him. Those who knew
her then cannot now remember what
her true name was, but they distinctly
recollect that she had a husband. Him
she left behind with. the abandoned
| boarders and the lares ct penates of
| the boarding house.
In West Willow gulch the Del Norte
/ lady esta blished herself as NC. Creede's
| housekeeper. There and thus she re-
| mained until Creede'S savings amount
| ed to $4,000. On the strength of this in
| Surance on the future, she went to Del
| Norte and, with all the dispatch possi-
| BILE, she secured divorce from the al
| ready discarded husband in that town.
| Having got rid of him, which she
| succeeded in doing by the early fall of
| 1892. she replaced him with N. C. Creede
| To New Mexico the couple went for the
| marriage, certain that they were on the
| lead to a rich vein of welded bliss and
in the Hot Springs hotel Las Vegas,
| justice of the peace made them man
| and wife.
| While yet in the honeymoon time Mr..
| and Mrs. Creede went to Pueblo and
| bought cottage close to the state lun-
| attic asylum There they remained un-
| til the bridegroom's bank account
| showed seven figures in a row, and
| then they moved to the more fashiona-
BILE Los Angeles. The separated hus-
| band and wife at the time of his death
were each nearing the age of three
| score years.