As related yesterday, Reuben Hayward, who owned a ranch west of Golden, disappeared on September 10, 1879. Two men had asked him to drive them to the Rooney Ranch. Sometime on that drive, Mr. Hayward disappeared. His body was found a month later, stuffed into a culvert.
A manhunt ensued, and the two men who had hired him to drive on that fateful night were found and brought to the Jefferson County Courthouse.
The December 10, 1879 Colorado Transcript reported that the two accused murderers were in iron shackles in separate cells. There they were to remain until a grand jury met in April. The paper reported that there was “much desultory talk of lynching them,” but they remained unmolested in the jail for two weeks.
On Saturday night, December 27th, the moon was full as a group of about 35 men on horseback and about as many on foot, plus a wagon containing sledgehammers, chisels, and crowbars gathered at the jail. The men on foot stood guard in the surrounding streets and alleys. Some of the horsemen held the guard, jailer, and janitor at bay with guns while others employed the tools to break the locks on the doors, the cells, and the shackles.
The two men were led “down the bluff to a bridge of the Golden and South Platte railroad, some 300 yards to the southeast, but in full view of the courthouse.” The newspaper story goes into some detail, but in short, they were hanged from the bridge. The executioners stayed on site for half an hour to ensure the men were dead, then they rode to the Hayward family residence on Ford Street, fired their revolvers in the air, and cried with one voice “Hayward is avenged.” They then galloped away.
An inquest was held on the 28th of December and the coroner and his jury concluded that the men were “Illegally Hanged.” None of the lynch mob was ever identified and there seemed to be little interest in tracking them down. The paper, by that time, had dropped the word “accused” and referred to the two hanged men as “The Hayward Murderers.”
Local historian Richard Gardner identified this little house–at 2318 Ford Street (map)–as the Hayward family home. It was demolished in 2018 to make way for a Jefferson County Housing Authority project.
The Golden History Museum currently has an exhibit about the Hayward murder. Look for it in their Epic Events gallery!
