Time is laying a heavy hand on the Argonauts of the West.

Almost each passing day chronicles the demise of some pioneer of this Pacific Empire. It’s the passing away of a peculiar type of American manhood such as the West Hemisphere will never know again.

Moved by these impulses characteristic of the American, the pioneer of the Pacific, undaunted by the dangers and hardships that beset their pathway, inured to privation and only measuring the vicissitudes of their venture by their own ability to overcome obstacles; they bid adieu to the quiet surroundings of an Eastern home to identify themselves with the unfolding of the unknown possibilities of the land toward the setting of the sun.

Columbus Sewell, though a descendant of Ham, through his affiliation with his lighter skinned brother became imbued with the progressive ideas that moved the white man, and through his whole career in life never deviated from these principles inculcated in his boyish mind.

He served during the Black Hawk War under General Scott, and when the discovery of gold in California was heralded to the world, he came westward and since the early fifties has more or less been identified with the mining industry.

In 1862 or ‘63 Mr. Sewell came to Canyon City and in connection with others operated a claim a few miles above the town of Canyon City. Mr. Sewell’s career as a resident in this community is above reproach. Every act of his life was based upon the moral law and in no instance was he ever accused of unfairness (or) unjust dealings. Not a stigma rests upon his good name and he has passed to his eternal home honored by all who knew him. Born in 1820 he passed through the stirring scenes that tried the great Western Republic and just as the dial of time approached the coming of another century, the good old man passed to infinitude.