The Springfield herald., 1907-06-07
HAND OF DEATH
1T FALLS UPON PIONEER AND EN-
PIRE BUILDER.
WALTER SCOTT CHEESMAN
Company Passes Away After But
Ten Days Of Illness.

pioneer, is dead.
At 3:35 o'clock on the morning of
May 3lst he succumbed to a complica-
ton of maladies caused by severe
case of la grippe, which he contracted
last December. Neuralgia, asthma and
other complications caused death.
Mr. Cheesman was president of the
Denver Union Water Company, vice
president of the First National bank, Il
director of the international Trust
ident of the State Bank of Aspen, was
connected with many other corpora
tions, and for fifteen years had been
president of the Humane Society.
Although a comparatively poor man
when he came to Colorado forty-seven
years ago, he died possessed of an es-
tate variously estimated TO be worth
from Sl5 900 to $25,O0O, 900. Men
close to him make the estimate of his
wealth as being about s20,OOO,OOO.
Mr.. Cheeseman's realty holdings in
Denver have an assessed valuation of
nearly $2,O00,O00, and an actual value
OF nearly twice that much. His inter
est in the Denver Union Water Com
pany is valued at millions of dollars.
he and David II. Moffat owning far
more than control. His mining prop
critics in various parts of the state are
estimated to be worth millions of dol
lars.
OF all the men who by their thrift,
industry and faith in the future and
sterling courage in trying times,
builded the state of Colorado from a
wilderness where the red men held
sway to one of the greatest common
wealths of the Union, the name of Wal
ter S. Chcesman must stand forth pre-
cminently. With the glare of the lime
light upon him he never was known to
finch, and his life and his connection
with the semi-public enterprises was
as an open book.
Men of public affairs expect to be
criticised. They look for the scathing
darts of public censure, out, although
Mr.. Cheeseman's corporations were at
tackled mercilessly at times, his own
character escaped, and even his enc
mics recognized in him a man of lofty
purpose, a man above the little things
OF life, a man to whom success would
count as nothing If in its achievement
enc bit of his character had to be sac
riiiced.
With all of the weighty affairs of
finance. state building and corporation
government on his broad shoulders,
Walter Cheesman found time TO listen
to the cries of the oppressed. The
plaintive plea of the little uncGred-for
child, or the mute appeal of the animal
never reached him in vain. For twenty
years Mr. Cheesman had been identI-
bn hp, Mt in M.
orado. When the old Humane Society
was in existence he was actively inter
ested in the work and was one of the
rlen who stood by it, in the strenuous
days when financial depression threat
ened the disruption of the society. Fiji
teen years ago he became president of
the Humane Society, and when that de-
yelopod into the State Bureau of Child
and Animal Protection, he continued
AT the helm, giving freely of mis- own
bank account that the bureau might be
come firmly established
Mr.. Cheeseman's interest in the HUI
name Society work was so great that
he bore the expense of a second field
agent in the Humane Society all dur
ing 1906. He had become convinced
that one agent could not cover the
Denver field and thereupon authorized
the appointment of an assistant at a
personal expense of about $1,000 He
kept this charity from the public the
same as he did his many other philan-
thropic donations.
In the death of Walter Cheesman the
dumb animal and the mistreated child
have lost the best friend they ever had
in Colorado. The good he did along
these lines was by stealth. and he
l,l to fin
knew him well never guessed that a
good part of his life work was the re-
lief of the unfortunate. Last winter,
when the General Assembly consid
cred the abolition of the bureau he
used his influence to save it, and to the
personal friendship which many of the
Legislators entertained for him is due
the utter failure of the campaign.
Like David H. Moffat, Mr.. Chees-
man came to Colorado when life here
was not all sunshine; when the men
who had blaZed the trail from the East
thrsted for gold and hungered for
bread. He did not wait until the posi-
bilities of the new country were mani
fest.
Mr.. Cheesman was born at Hamp-
stead Harbor, Long Island New York,
June 27, 1898.
Historians OF the state say tnat Den
vers salvation from being a mere vii
lage is due to Walter Cheesman and a
group of sanguine young men who pre-
pared the way for the city to become
the metropolis of the Rocky Mountain
region. His history is a good part of
the history of Denver. and his active
Identification with gigantic enterprises,
such as the construction of the Den
yer Pacific. the Denver & Boulder Val
ley. the South Park, the Denver & New
Orleans, the Denver, Texas & Fort
Worth railways, is matter of record
in financial annals. He labored with
Mr. Moffat to bring the Union Pacific
road into Denver. He was also con
nected with the Denver Union Depot
and Railway Company.
In late years he has withdrawn from
the directorates of many large enter
prises with which he was once con
nected, but retained his hold on the
presidency of the Denver Union Water
Company, the vice presidency of the
First National Bank. directorship in
the international Trust Company, the
presidency of the State Bank of Aspen.
the management of several mining
companies, and the presidency OF the
South Platte Canal and Reservoir
Company.