The Tangled Web of Hollenbecks and Jacobses That Haunt the Annals of Colorado History
Lo and behold, dear citizens, we find ourselves knee-deep in a veritable alphabet soup of Hollenbecks! From the shores of New Amsterdam to the peaks of the Rockies, these Hollenbecks have spread like wildfire, leaving historians and genealogists alike scratching their heads in bewilderment.
Our tale begins with one Casper Jacobse Halenbeck, a Dutch carpenter who, in 1651, decided the Old World was far too cramped for his liking and set sail for the New World. Little did he know that his descendants would spawn more spelling variations than a drunken scribe with a quill pen!
Fast forward two centuries, and we find a Michael Hollenbeck purchasing Joel Estes’ claim in the soon-to-be-famous Estes Park. Was this Michael a scion of old Casper’s line? Alas, the mists of time (and a severe lack of proper record-keeping) obscure the truth from our prying eyes!
But wait! There’s more! For barely had Michael Hollenbeck’s posterior warmed the seat of his newly acquired property when he flipped it faster than a flapjack at a frontier breakfast, selling to a mysterious “man named Jacobs” for a princely sum of $250.
Now, dear skeptics, you may ask, “Is this Jacobs fellow related to the other Jacobses sprinkled liberally throughout Colorado’s history?” To which I must reply, with all the gravitas my position demands: “Who knows?” For in those wild and wooly days of the frontier, men named Jacobs were as common as prairie dogs on the plains!
Could this Jacobs be kin to Abraham Jacobs, businessman and spouse of Frances Wisebart Jacobs, Denver’s “Mother of Charities”? Or perhaps a long-lost cousin of the Jacobs clan that seems to pop up in every other Colorado story like prairie dogs in a game of whack-a-mole? The search results, much like a politician’s promise, offer us no concrete answers.
And so, dear citizens, we are left to ponder the great Hollenbeck-Jacobs mystery, a conundrum as vast and inscrutable as the Rocky Mountains themselves. Perhaps one day, when the mists of time clear and the archives yield their secrets, we shall know the truth. Until then, we can only marvel at the intricate tapestry of history, where every Hollenbeck and Jacobs is but a single thread in the grand design of Colorado’s past!
Sources
NPS History. “The Earl of Dunraven in Estes Park.” Accessed February 19, 2025. http://npshistory.com/series/berkeley/rensch3/rensch3f.htm
National Park Service. “Rocky Mountain National Park: A History (Chapter 2).” Accessed February 19, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/romo/buchholtz/chap2.htm
Wikipedia. “John Edward Hollenbeck.” Accessed February 19, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Hollenbeck
Geneanet. “Individual: HOLLENBECK – Search the Genealogy Library.” Accessed February 19, 2025. https://en.geneanet.org/fonds/bibliotheque/?go=1&nom=HOLLENBECK&page=4&size=40
