Yesterday's history article, written by Paul Haseman, told the story of Judge Stone's kidnapping in 1876.
The details of that kidnapping and the names of the responsible parties remained a secret for many years. The full story was finally published in the June 27, 1935 Colorado Transcript.
Fifty-nine years after the kidnapping, at a meeting of the Colorado Pioneer Society, kidnapper Carlos Lake proudly confessed his part in the affair. His audience included the Governor of Colorado, the Mayor of Denver, at least one judge, and about 250 elderly Colorado pioneers.
Many Prominent Early Golden Residents Implicated According to Confession; Will Not Be Prosecuted
The perpetrators included a who's-who of early Golden movers and shakers. "Although Lake admitted he and Mott Johnson, who was later sheriff of Jefferson County, actually led the kidnapping party, he says, the plan was conceived by Judge A. H. DeFrance and Judge W. H. Gorsline."
Lake explained that they had stopped the train by piling railroad ties on the track. He boarded the train and seized the judge. The train was moving again by that time, so Lake and the judge had to jump. The masked men then placed the judge on a horse and made their way into Coal Creek Canyon. There, they made camp and waited until the court session expired at noon the next day.
Late the next afternoon, while returning to Golden with their prisoner, they met Charley Shockley, who had ridden out to inform the party what was happening. After a hurried consultation among themselves, it was decided. The judge should be taken back into Golden by young Shockley. Those who made up the party were to split up, each man for himself and get back into town, the best way he could.
The kidnappers had remained masked, so Judge Stone was only able to report that "the Golden crowd were a bunch of wild men, big as giants, but pretty good fellows after all."
Unable to identify the kidnappers, the U.S. Marshall came to Golden to arrest the boy who had returned the judge. The youngster slipped away "and was not again heard of for several weeks." Lake confided that he had provided the boy with $40 and a pinto pony to make himself scarce.
Now, after all these years, Carlos Lake has for the first time told this story and cleared up what otherwise might have always remained a mystery--the kidnapping of a federal judge in Jefferson County.
