Sarah Nixon - Pioneer Women

This cache is located at the grave site of Sarah Nixon. According to the headstone, she was born in 1806, died in 1881, and was the mother of Mrs. Jackson Soward.

To get to the cache, park on the dirt road near the picnic table. Walk across the field to the fence. DO NOT CROSS THE FENCE into the land with all the junk on it. As you walk along the fence to the west you will see Forest Boundary signs to prove that you are on public lands (I have attached a picture of the Forest Boundary signs). The fence will intersect another fence that runs NW up the valley. At this intersection is a gate (I have attached a pictures of this gate). This gate was open when the cache was placed, however it can be closed. You can cross the other fence here. Everything behind this NW fence is public national forest. The grave site is located a short walk up the hill behind this fence. The cache is about twenty feet from the grave.

Once you find the cache, you will wonder how the heck did anyone know about this grave. Here is how I came to know about it.

My family has a cabin in the park that is across Highway 149 from Seepage Road (that's the road that you parked your car on) and my dad got to know the owner of the land with all the junk on it. His name was Sonny, and he would get bored and drive through the area with the cabin, and my dad would offer him homemade ice cream. So Sonny gave my father permission to come onto his land and dig through the junk and take anything he wanted, and he also gave him a lot of history about the area. One of the things he told him about was the grave site located behind his property, however, he didn't know anything about the woman. So my dad came to know where it was. That was about 10 or so years ago. He showed me where it was this year in order to pass it on. Sonny died a few years ago, and we think his kids own the land but they are never there, however, they are having it cleaned up. So the junk you see today is about half of what was there a few years ago.

The area you are standing in was once called Antelope Springs and was a stagecoach stop. I am not sure if the red barn is originally from the 1800's but inside is where a hot spring used to be where guests could bathe. To the NW up the stream is tree with a round water trough. If you walk over to it, you will find a small active spring. It used to feed the trough, but the pipe is broke. I keep planning to try and fix it one day. And finally, Sonny told my dad that you can find Indian arrow heads around the area, however, we have never found any so I cannot vouch for this.

As to who Sarah Nixon was; after much internet research, I managed to actually find some stuff about her and her family. I even managed to get hold of a volunteer in Nottingham, England that did some research for me. Here it all is:

1. Sarah Nixon was born Sarah Robinson in 1806 (the date is from the grave stone, the maiden name is from the marriage record in Nottingham). She married James Nixon on Dec. 26, 1824 and they had three children Emma Maria -10/17/1830, James Thomas - 3/17/1833, and John Henry - 7/5/1835. John Henry died at 18 months. (This info all came from baptism and death records from Nottingham).

2. The family immigrated to the US in 1843 and appear in the 1860 census in Jamestown, Wisconsin. Sarah died in 1881 and somehow ended up buried in the middle of the Rio Grande National Forest. (The family appears in the 1841 census of England, but not 1851. The 1843 date was obtained from genealogical records I came across online.)

3. Mrs. Jackson Soward was Emma Nixon. She is buried in the Creede Sunnyside cemetery. According to RootsWeb, Jackson is also buried there, but the Colorado USGenWeb Archives does not list him. Their three sons, James H., Daniel W., and Frank E. are also buried in the cemetery. Their daughter, Julia is buried in Del Norte.

3. Emma's son Daniel homesteaded and founded the Soward Ranch, which is pretty big in the area, in 1886. Currently the ranch is a 1200 acre resort and cattle ranch. It is run by Daniel Soward's granddaughter, Margaret Lamb. It has had guest cabins since 1932. They have 3 private trout ponds.

4. According to a Level 4 Potential Conservation Area Report from 7/23/2010 (what ever that is), the Soward Ranch ponds "are important habitat for the mossy valvata snail, a species that is rare in Colorado."

5. In 2007, the ranch was in a legal battle defending against the Antelope Park Ranch owner who said the fence between their properties, which had been there since the beginning over 100 years ago, was on his land. He has only owned that land for 25 years.

6. I can only assume that the family of such a wealthy ranch has kept track of the location of the grave of Sarah Nixon, and this would explain why there is such a nice marble grave stone in the middle of nowhere. The grave site does appear on Colorado topographical maps. One could easily imagine that this might have been a favorite place for Sarah to sit and enjoy life.

The volunteer in Nottingam is part of a genealogical group and writes articles for a local magazine. He sent me an article that he wrote in January 2011 regarding the story of Sarah Nixon. I will include a couple of copies of the story in the cache for anyone who might be interested.