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I first saw this epitaph on a tombstone high up in the Rocky Mountains above what has now become Lake Eldora Ski
Area. ( about 22 miles west of Boulder ) The Epitaph was on the grave of a young woman named Mary Webster who
had died in 1879 at the tender age of thirty-nine. It struck me as very odd to find this particular message on a woman’s
grave, and especially one so very young, since women did not have much of a voice in that era. We also noticed an
unusually large number of babies and children buried here. The cemetery was located in a grove of pine trees on a hillside
right up above the old ghost town of Caribou, Co. Only a few run-down shacks remained when we visited it for the first
time in the summer of 1963.
I was into writing songs at the time and this Epitaph was so profound it just “screamed” to be written into a song. I pretty
much had the tune and format for the song written by the time we got back from our weekend excursion but as I started
editing what I had written over the next few days something about this woman’s death began haunting me . Was this
woman trying to communicate with me from the other side? Here I was writing a song about a bawdy saloon girl who
hung around mining towns and suffered a premature death. It was as though she were screaming, No! No! No! my life
wasn’t that way at all. This prompted me to visit the library for some research.
After my research I felt compelled to re-write the song about the hardships of a miner’s life. I found that a lot of the
miners in Caribou were Cornish people of the Methodist faith from Cornwall, England which had also been a mining
community and so a good many of these people were already experienced miners. I also discovered that the people of
Caribou were more intent on building a good family community with a church and school than most of the mining towns in
the area.
Although they had a small “red light” district and a few saloons there was very little rowdiness and swearing in public was
even forbidden. The town fathers eventually booted out all of the “shady ladies” also known as “frail sisters” to the town
of Cardinal just down the hill. The people of Caribou took great pride in schooling their children. There was even a
private school along with the public school for a time. They even had a brass band and were generally more cultured than
any of the other mining camps.
I found that although both gold and silver were mined, Caribou became the largest most productive Silver Mine in
Colorado during its prime from 1871 – 79. .The town of Caribou was located at 9,800 ft. just below timber- line and
was known as “the place where the winds were born”. The town was buried under five feet of snow for most of the
winter. Food storage was no problem because they didn’t need a refrigerator and one man was heard to remark that
Caribou had 9 months of winter and 3 months of late fall although in the Springtime the sun was warm enough to produce
some wild flowers and a few vegetables were grown in July and August. There were two devastating fires that each
burned half the town and a Diphtheria epidemic wiped out quite a few people in 1879, the year that Mary Webster died.
Today, Caribou is a Ghost Town Site that hosts one of the few active hard-rock mines in Boulder County. When I first
visited Caribou the only remains of the town were one cabin, the stone foundations of the Sherman House (finest Hotel)
and assay office, and the graveyard up above the town in a grove of pine trees.
The only current resident is a young man named Craig who care-take's the mine owned by Tom Hendricks. The only
remains of the town today are one cabin the stone foundations of a few buildings that were built about 1915 by a mining
company that was up there after the town burned down Craig lives in the cabin with his (3) dogs and his hobby is making
rustic hewn-log furniture. If you go for a visit to Caribou please take along some small token for Craig and his pets and tell
him Eddie K sent you.
Note: In my song I wrote that miners dug with pick and spoon. I didn’t do this just to force a rhyme. Yes, they actually
used a tool they called a spoon which was a long thin-handled copper spoon used to retrieve the shavings of ore from the
holes drilled in the floor of a mine to plant explosives. (holes drilled in the ceiling for explosives were self-evacuated
automatically by gravity) These spoons were made of copper instead of steel so that they could not cause a spark that
may set off any of the explosives by accident.
The actual wording of the epitaph on Mary Webster’s tombstone was as follows:
Remember friend as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so you must be
Prepare for death to follow me
Underneath a similar epitaph in a cemetery in England someone replied by writing on the tombstone: To follow you I’ll
not Consent, Until I know which way you Went
Here are a few of the more humorous epitaphs that you are apt to find in the cemetaries of these old ghost towns:
“ I told you I was sick”
“Here lies an atheist”
All dressed up
And no place to go
“Here lies the body of Johnathan Blake”
Stepped on the gas instead of the brake
“Returned to Sender”
“Gone to see for myself”
Hurrah!! My boys, at the Parson’s Fall
For if he’d lived, he’d a buried us all
“Soaring with the Eagles”
CARIBOU:
NAME: Caribou COUNTY: Boulder ROADS: 2WD GRID: 2 CLIMATE: Much snow in winter, windy always, cool
summer BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summer, mild springs or falls COMMENTS: Drive 0.4 miles north of Nederland
on Colo 72, turn west on County Rd 128, go 5 miles. No current residents. Old Cross mine (silver) currently being mined
by Tom Hendricks for gold. REMAINS: one cabin and a few stone foundations. The gravestones were all stolen by
vandals in the early 1970's.