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November
28, 1999 Article about the History of the Belgin Cemetery - Rocky Mountain
News
From the Rocky Mountain Memories Column of the
Denver Rocky Mountain News, Written by Frances Melrose, Nov. 28, 1999
Copy Courtesy of the Arvada Historical
Society
Some weeks ago we ran a letter from Amy
Wagner of Arvada who inquired about a cemetery "west of Simms Street and 75th,
along the canal.'' Karen Moser of Arvada has come to the rescue with a letter
explaining the cemetery. She writes:
'The cemetery is the Belgin family
cemetery. Solomon and Mary Ann Belgin came from England to Arvada in 1870.
Mary Ann's brother, John Clark, already was settled in Arvada. Since Solomon
was a farmer, he homesteaded 160 acres south of 80th and west of Simms. It
wasn't the choicest farming land, but there wasn't much farm land left in
1870.
The Belgins had seven children born in England, and five more born in
Arvada. Their first house was on the southwest corner of the quarter section,
a 30-foot frame of two rooms. Two granaries were built about 70 feet away,
where the boys slept as they got older. It burned in 1937.
The
property later was split up with three drainage ditches. The railroad also cut
through it. The ditches were vital to farming, and also, water was hauled from
them to run steam tractors and threshers. The first grave in the cemetery was
their two-year-old son, Frank Belgin, who drowned in the drainage ditch in
1871. Another child, Francis Belgin, about a year old, died in 1875. Another
son, Frederick, 19, died in 1876. That same year, Mary Ann Belgin, age 47,
died giving birth to twin girls, Clara and Sarah. All three are buried there.
On January 29, 1882, James Belgin, 16, was rabbit hunting on Table
Mountain in Golden and shot himself accidentally. He had a double-barreled
shotgun and was making steps in the snow with the butt of the gun when it went
off and killed him.
The last grave in the cemetery is that of Solomon
Belgin, 57, who died in 1893.
By 1900, you could no longer bury family
on your property, but had to use the city cemetery.
There is one
marble headstone, and the rest are granite. There is one large four-sided
headstone, and footstones all marked with "B." Evidently other early neighbors
were buried there. It was well laid out, and a large grove of trees surrounds
in. A three-acre parcel of the land was given to Jefferson County in August
1904, for a school called Denver View School, located west of 80th and
Simms.... Many children rode their horses to school back then."
Moser
adds that additional information on the Belgin family may be obtained in the
Arvada Historical Library Collection. She adds that Dale Belgin in Greeley
also has information and in addition, holds the keys to the cemetery and has
artifacts of the family.
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