Divorce by Jury: Governor Gilpin's Matrimonial Ordeal - January 2008 - Historical Perspectives

• Publication year: 2008
• Pages: 51

37 Colo.Law. 51 Colorado Lawyer 2008.

2008, January, Pg. 51. Divorce by Jury: Governor Gilpin's Matrimonial Ordeal - January 2008 - Historical Perspectives

The Colorado Lawyer
January 2008
Vol. 37, No. 1 [Page 51]

Departments
Historical Perspectives
Divorce by Jury: Governor Gilpin's Matrimonial Ordeal
by Frank Gibbard

About the Author:

Frank Gibbard is a staff attorney with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and Secretary of the Tenth Circuit Historical Society - (303) 844-5306, frank_gibbard@ca10.uscourts.gov. The views expressed are those of the author and not of the Tenth Circuit or its judges. The author is grateful for the research assistance of Dan Cordova and Lynn Christian of the Colorado Supreme Court Law Library.

In his 1889 biography of William Gilpin, Hubert Howe Bancroft imagined Denver as a "new Athens," and the erstwhile Colorado governor as "her Plato, the first of philosophers and the first of men."(fn1) Bancroft's hyperbole was not entirely disinterested: Gilpin paid him $10,000 to pen the biography.(fn2)

Even so, in many respects, Gilpin did fit the mold of a platonic philosopher-king. By all accounts, he was an educated and well-read man, highly successful in his military and political endeavors. His matrimonial experiences also may have made him philosophical, at least if he followed Socrates' famous advice to a friend: "[G]et married. If you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not you'll become a philosopher."(fn3)

Origins of a Marriage

If there ever was a man who needed a philosophic frame of mind to cope with a difficult marriage, it was William Gilpin. By the time he married Julia Pratte Dickerson in 1874, Gilpin was accustomed to hardship. But none of his prior experiences could have prepared him for his marriage to Julia.

Before serving as Governor of Colorado in 1861-62, Gilpin attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (1834-35); served as a Lieutenant in the Second Seminole War in Florida, also known as the Florida War (1837-38);(fn4) traveled as a pioneer in Oregon and throughout the Western wilderness (1843-45); volunteered to fight as a U.S. soldier in the Mexican-American War (1846-47);(fn5) and was hired on as an Indian fighter (1847-50).(fn6)

Julia Pratte was the daughter of Bernard Pratte, Jr., an army general and the former mayor of St. Louis, Missouri. Gilpin proposed to Julia for the first time in 1856, but she refused him, choosing instead to marry an army captain named John H. Dickerson. She had four children with Dickerson before he died in a mental hospital. Julia's enemies later would speculate that she drove Captain Dickerson insane.(fn7)

After Captain Dickerson died, Gilpin resumed his courtship of Julia in St. Louis, attending many parties with her during the winter of 1873-74. Both Julia and her father consented to Gilpin's renewed proposal of marriage in early 1874.

At the time of their nuptials in 1874, Gilpin was 59 and Julia was 37. Problems surfaced in the marriage as early as their honeymoon trip to California, when Julia accused him of leaving her alone with a sick child.(fn8) The couple smoothed things over and within three years, Julia gave birth to three more children - a...