Our LAND

 

Now situated on a rectangle of just over two acres, the land holding Hestia Field Farm has considerable history. This is, of course, not our land – but rather (write something related to idigenous land acknowledgement here)

 

The first documentation of this land…

While it’s likely that Birks never lived on the land itself, he was a successful grocery merchant in Denver from (dates, 1860-1890?) and published various catalogs and cookbooks.

After Birks sold his Lakewood acreage in the late 1860s, it changed hands frequently but maintained its size. In 1887, the land was sold to Scott J. Anthony who subdivided the property and renamed it Jefferson Heights.

is found in a War Bounty Land Warrant. In Vermont, a widow named Mary Seiver accepted a land warrant for 160 acres in Colorado on behalf of her late husband, Jonathan Seiver, who had served in the War of 1812. Those 160 acres included…(describe area). While it’s unclear when Mary Seiver received this land, a document dated 1868 shows her transferring the land to Birks Cornforth, a Denver pioneer. 

In 1897, Scott J. Anthony sold a 5-acre plot of land to a man named Charles Klenk. Charles and his wife, Hannah, were immigrants from Germany and had lived in the Barnum West neighborhood before losing their home in an accidental fire. We believe that it was Charles and Hannah who built our house. Between our own research and working with an archivist at _________, the house regularly shows as being built in 1898 across various resources – despite any lack of documentation to verify this. 

It’s our belief that Charles and Hannah attempted to farm this land. In Denver city directory listings both before and after Charles lived at this address (1898-1903), his occupation is identified as a cabinetmaker. In his time here, he is listed in the directories as a gardener. Charles and Hannah moved back to central Denver after only five years in Lakewood, and we have often wondered why one would build an entire home and then leave it so quickly. They never had children and while they populate multiple census records and a few newspaper citations, Charles and Hannah remain a mystery to us.

In 1905, the property was sold to Frank Peterson and his family. If you’re local, you may know that Frank Peterson’s turkey farm occupies.