The John Breuss Story

When I started getting interested in our family history, the logical first stop was talking to my mother Marian, the only person who knew most of the story. During those talks, she would occasionally mention that one of our relatives on my father’s side of the family had been killed by “chicken thieves” in a town called Silt in Colorado. As the years went by and I started to write about our history, I kept wondering about this story. Was one of our family really killed by chicken thieves? Spoiler alert – YES (although it’s not clear they were after chickens).

My curiosity finally took over, and I stated a more detailed research effort focused on the family of my fraternal grandmother Kreszentia Bruess Lang. The breakthrough came via “Find A Gravestone” on Ancestry where I found the gravestone of my grandmother’s brother, Johann Bruess, in Rosebud Cemetery in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. With no further clues on Ancestry as to what happened to him, I decided to actually go to Glenwood Springs and Silt to see if there were records.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a spa town featuring mineral hot springs, is the seat of Garfield County with a population of about 10,500 people. Staying there, Leslie and I found Rosebud Cemetery and the gravestone of my relative John Bruess. Venturing 15 miles further west on Interstate 70, we visited the small town of Silt. It seemed to be mostly farms and ranches but there was a small building with some old artifacts to see. We also found a small library, which unfortunately was closed.

Back in Glenwood Springs, I found the library phone number and called the next day. Asking about old newspaper articles that would mention thieves and a murder, the librarian told me to call the Glenwood library because all Garfield County libraries are tied into the same set of archives, and they might have someone who could help with my request. The woman who answered my call was amazed at my story and said she would do some research. She was more amazed, and I was thrilled when she called back, having found numerous newspaper articles that provided the full story of John’s demise. Here it is along with some background.

Johann Bruess Jr., known as John here in America, came to the United States in the 1890s with his father Johann and his sisters Rosa and Kreszentia. At their first real stop, Philadelphia, Rosa met John Waldis, married him and went to live with him in Roanoke, Virginia. Her father, Johann, accompanied them and lived out his life there. Kreszentia, not wanting to be a third or fourth wheel in Roanoke, moved to Chicago to join her cousins. Johann Jr. headed west to seek his fortune.

We have no information on why he chose Colorado or why he wanted to own a ranch, but the county title abstracts show that he purchased the ranch in 1910 for a very modest price. From the ongoing land records, we can also tell he was pretty shrew businessperson. In fact, he was later described in a newspaper account as a wealthy ranch owner in the small farming town of Silt in Garfield County. We also know that, unfortunately, John went missing in the middle of November 1918.

As shown in the newspaper article below, Sherrif C. W. Fravert suspected foul play and offered a $500 reward for the recovery of John’s body and information leading to the arrest and conviction of the persons who murdered him.

The case stalled until the 10^th of February 1919 when a man named Joe Sessions who had been working in the vicinity of Silt, walked into the jewelry store in Glenwood Springs seeking repairs on 21-jewel gold watch he had just acquired. After asking how the man came by the watch, Tom Dever, the jeweler, recognized it as one he had repaired five years earlier. Looking up his records, Mr. Dever found that the watch had belonged to John Breuss. The two men, aware of the John Breuss case, gave the information to Sherrif Fravert who promptly arrested the perpetrators. From one of those arrested, the sheriff learned that the others had killed John with a club and buried him under a pile of manure near his barn. The coroner recovered the remains which are now buried in Rosebud Cemetery at Glenwood Springs.

THE REST OF THE STORY

In the months following the discovery and internment of John’s remains, county authorities set about dealing with the disposition of his estate. In June of 1919, my grandfather John Nicholas Lang and my Aunt Minn traveled to Silt presumably to participate in that process.

Land records show that the ranch was sold in 1920 for $3500 which netted the relatives $1000 after payment of $2500 of debts. We presume that sum was split between Kreszentia and her sister Rosa. My grandmother used her $500 to pay off the mortgage on her house at 3031 Hamilton Ave, in Chicago.

That was 1919. Fast forward 100 years to 2019 and we find a summary of this incident on a website that covers stories from the American west. An accounting of a tragic event during rough and tumble times and verification of a piece of family lore.