Posted on: USGenWeb Delta County Biographies Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/Co/DeltaBios/10009 Surname: BURRITT, REED, SMITH, BROWER, KIMBALL, BURKHOLDER, MCPHERSON, MILLER, NICHOLS, BRYAN ------------------------- BURRITT FAMILY My mother was Margaret Lucile Burritt, daughter of Frank Reed and Echo Margaret Smith Burritt. Frank Reed Burritt was the son of Fred Ray and Isabelle Louisa Brower Burritt. Fred Ray Burritt arrived to the Surface Creek Valley in Delta County about 1886 at about age 24 as a cowhand for his 38 year old brother Reed Burritt who had started the Doughspoon ranch about 1885. Doughspoon ranch was near the ranch of John Allen Brower who had settled in the valley in 1883. John Allen had a daughter Belle who was about 15 when Fred Ray Burritt was dragged into the Brower's kitchen, half drowned from falling into the Gunnison River while attempting to run Reed Burritt's cows across the river to his new ranch. Fred Ray was stripped of his wet clothes and placed by the stove to warm up and dry off. In walked Belle, who legend says, took one look at the naked cowboy, and decided then and there that was the man she was going to marry. On 12/5/1888 she snagged her cowboy and they started a ranch up the Valley, which in time would become known as "Keystone farm." Doughspoon ranch was quickly abandoned for lack of water and the site is now a wasteland half buried by the dobies. Reed Burritt and his wife Anna Kimball, and their children removed to Glenwood Springs, and then Denver, and eventually California. Reed went on to have many adventures throughout his life and his letters to a friend in Delta were printed in the Delta County Independent and convey many of these adventures, There is also on file a pamphlet written by Harold Burritt, Reed and Anna's son or grandson, telling of Reed's adventures in Lake City in Gunnison County in the late 1870s to early 1880s, and the history of Doughspoon ranch. It is a wonderful document and is on file in the Delta County Historical Society. Reed was a consummate adventurer. He had come to Colorado, from Chicago, in search of silver, but soon learned he could do better as a butcher supplying miners with beef than as a prospector. He had learned the butchering trade from his father Hiram, who was a butcher among his other many hats from dairy farmer, to lawyer, to local politician. Reed, however, never lost his fever for gold or silver. He traveled extensively throughout South America in search of wealth and went to Alaska during the 1898 gold rush. I believe he died in California in 1934. Fred Ray and Belle Brower Burritt had ten children, but only seven survived to adulthood: Julia b. 1889 died a few days after birth; Hiram Ray b. 1891 married 1st Edith Burkholder 2nd Myrtle Smith, died 1953 in Delta; Frank Reed b. 1893, m. Echo Margaret Smith 1923, d. 1982 in Cortez; John Leslie b. 1896, m. Margaret Iona McPherson 1923, d. 1992 in Hotchkiss and whose three sons, one daughter, and two grandsons live on Red Mesa above Eckert; Flora Isabelle b. 1898, m. Ray Miller 1919, d. about 1950; Harold Brower b. 1901 d. 1912? when accidentally run over by a hay wagon; Alfred Artemus b. 1903 d. 1920 in the flu epidemic shortly after his mother and grandmother; Charles Reed b. 1905, m. Nellie Brook Nichols 1947, d. 1999 in Klamath Falls, Oregon and who was a career Army officer stationed in Alaska during W.W. 2 when he met Nellie and fell in love and after the war retired from the service, and then traveled and partied extensively with his vivacious wife throughout the world and both of whom sadly burned out and spent their last years in utter senility, but who for some 30 plus years brought a great light of laughter and joy to whomever they met; Rosalie Marie b. 1909 m. Vern Henry d. about 1960 ? in Spokane, WA; Lucile Irene b. 1914 m. Kenneth Euston, and presently living in Enumclaw,Washington Frank Reed and Echo Margaret Smith Burritt had but one child Margaret Lucile b. 1927 m. Ralph Orville Bryan 1948, d. 1998 in Cortez. Margaret Lucile Burritt and Ralph Orville Bryan had four children: Larry Gene b. 1948; Sharon Louise b. 1949; Frank Nickolas b. 1951; and Leslie Earl b. 1952