The family’s Colorado account is unusually generous with small details. George Farrell Fonda arrived in Denver with a little money, then continued toward Boulder. When he walked from the depot, he carried his belongings in a square wooden tobacco box. His destination was not an unknown mining claim but the store of his brother Giles, whom he had not seen in eight years.
The brothers recognized one another immediately, the account says. Giles had a drug and stationery business, and George went to work for ten dollars a month and board. At first the young newcomer slept on the floor with the dog for company. This is the kind of humble, concrete detail that rarely survives in a census entry and makes the difference between a business chronology and a life story.
George gradually learned the business as the brothers’ interests shifted between Boulder and Leadville. The archive says he remained connected with the Pearl Street premises for decades. The arriving boy with the tobacco box thus became part of the city’s commercial history. It was not a story of overnight fortune, but of a family connection turned into a livelihood through daily work.
Source: “Westward Ho!” in the original Fonda family archive, quoting Biographies of Denver and Vicinity. The passage is a later reminiscence, not a verbatim 1874 diary.
From The Fonda Family in America: An Illustrated Family History, Draft Edition, October 2026. The book contains the chapter’s fuller context and source notes.
Sources and references
- The Fonda Family in America: An Illustrated Family History: Chapter 7 — Farms, Railroads and Cities; October 2026 Draft Edition. See chapter source notes.