Weekly journal-miner., 1915-12-29
A Story of a Good Man, a Wicked Mining Camp And What Befell Him There On a Certain Christmas.
By WILLIAM P. De WOLF.

in letters of gold on the pages of Gods judgment book, and the good man himself mas followed the trail over tic Great Divide and passed from the sight of men. Suffice it to state that he was afectionately called The Parson," and that he was q familiar figure in the mining camps and cities of Colorado from the eos to the middle '90s.
 He was genial and generous man, rcd-blooded and magnetic, who mum, bered his friends by the thousands, attracting them to himself impartially from every walk of life. Few men oi the cloth have had so extensive, so motley and so loyal all acquaintance ship. It is possible that some of the readers of this brief sketch will rec ognize him by my portrayal. If so they will take as great pleasure in reading this tribute to his memory as I do ill writing it.
 i For many years The Parson had charge of a huge barracks of a building in the heart of Denvcr's slums. His congregation was drawn from the unfortunate of every class and cline, many of them being for more or less indefinite periods his lodgers as well as his parishioners; for The Parson furnished free oi charge a bed and bowl of soup to all applicants. To obtain the requisite funds for his mission, other than con tributed by Denver's charitably in lined, he made occasional trips to Leadville, Ouray, Telluride and other hourishing mining camps of that peri cd, invariably returning from his pill , grimagc heavy of pocket and light oi heart
 The scope of his charity was as broad as it was warm. The immedl- ate need of the applicant for aims was his first concern. Later he would proffcr a word of kindly advice - a word of spiritual consolation, if he deemed advisablc-would thwack his unknown guest on the back, grip his hand in a man-to-man shake and send him on his way with a hearty God bless you, pardncr," that warmed the recipients heart and made everyone who heard him. glow with kindlincss. Many poor fellow who considered himself down and out, came up snlil- ing for another round with adverse fate under The Parsons slillful hand ling, and, squaring his shoulders, stepped forth with renewed confidence to battle afrcsh with the world.
 Jack Rabbit Day" was marked in rcd letters on The Parsons calender. It antedatcd Thanksgiving by a few days and was participated in by hun drcds of sportsmen from all sections of Colorado. Lamar, then a sparsely populated village struggling for an existence on the sandy reaches of the Arkansas river near the Kansas line, (now, thanks to irrigation, prosper GUS community in the center of re- claimed agricultural section,) was the scene of its staging.
 Foregathering ill Denver and mar shalcd by The Parson, the nimrods would take train for Lamar, where they would be met by practically the entire male population, armed and primcd for the fray.
 Repairing 10 the Hardscrabblc ranch, the focusing point for the sport at hand, the hunters would spread over the plain in q circle several miles in circumference, and convcrging to- ward its center, trap within its con fines thousands of jack rabbits which they shot at will It was indeed a fortunate jack that ran the gauntlet Ol llldt HCll ing dllu SSNdpNu lh oa4N ty to the open.
 For many years the kill averaged better than fifteen hundred jacks, ane not infrequently totaled as high asI twenty-five hundred. The game was loaded into baggage cars attached to the excursion train and transported 10 Denver by the railroad company, free of charge, where it was distributed among the needy of that and other not too distant cities under the dircc- ton of The Parson.
 One cold clear day in mid-Novem- ter 1891, Cap'n Nicholas C. Crcede, founder of the mining camp which bears his name, left that scene ot turbulence and wcnded his way to Denver. where he joined the nimrods bound for Lamar on the annual jack rabbit hunt When he returned to