STEFANO MICHELETTI
The third land patent certificate issued in the Federal Heights area was awarded to Stefano Micheletti on October 27, 1871.
Micheletti was born in 1859 in Piateda, Italy, a province in northern Italy. In 1879, he made the 1,000+ mile trek from Italy across Switzerland, France and England to immigrate to America. He left England on November 26, 1879 on the mail steamer ship “City of Brussels” and arrived in New York on December 5. According to a passenger list of vessels arriving at the Port of New York, he was one of the 293 steerage passengers on the ship.
Ten years after arriving in the United States, on June 6, 1889, he declared his intention to become a citizen. The next day, on June 7, he settled on his property in current-day Federal Heights – Zuni Street on the west, Pecos Street on the east, 88th Avenue on the north, and 86th Avenue on the south.
On June 8, 1889, Micheletti filed for preemption for ownership of his 80 acres. Though the Homestead Act of 1862 would have required Micheletti to wait five years to complete his entry (application), Section 8 of the Act allowed him to “commute” his entry and file his application much sooner by paying the minimum price per acre. He owed $200 for the 80 acres, $2.50/acre, for property that was located within railroad limits. He was unable to pay the money until months later in January 1890. Stefano Micheletti’s land entry files to this date had his name transposed as Micheletti Stefano. On January 29, 1890 he swore in a statement that his given name was Stefano and that all the documentation stating that his first name was Micheletti was because of an error made by the Clerk of the Court. He swore that his real name was Stefano Micheletti.
As part of the preemption process, two credible witnesses attested that Micheletti had fulfilled the law’s requirements as to residence and cultivation.
Witness Antonio Fontana said he had known Micheletti for six years. The 26-year-old Fontana was a laborer who worked in the neighborhood and had been at Micheletti’s home many times.
The other witness, Joseph Esslinger, another Federal Heights homesteader, had previously lived on the claim adjoining Micheletti’s. He stated that he was well-acquainted with Micheletti and that Stefano had not abandoned the land since his original June 7, 1889 settlement.
In Micheletti’s claimant statement, he described his land as comprised of light, sandy soil, good for farming and grazing, though he owned no stock. He stated that the land had been previously owned and occupied by Leon Bonfani from whom he had bought his relinquishment. He described his home as a two-room, 10’ x 14’ frame house with a door, two windows and four lights. The house had a board and tar paper roof, and he had an 8’ x 9’ cellar. His 80 acres was fenced by three- and four- barbed wire fence with cedar posts, 36 feet apart. Of his 80 acres, five acres were harrowed and included a half-acre artificial lake. He stated that in the past he had grown beans and potatoes and garden truck (vegetables for sale).
He owned one harrow, one plow, one cultivator and garden implements. The house contained one bed with bedding, one cook stove and utensils, one chair, one table, one heating stove, one cupboard and two trunks. Micheletti had no family living with him.
Though both preemption witnesses, Fontana and Esslinger, testified that they believed that Micheletti did not intend to leave his land, when he received his homestead patent in 1894, it was delivered to Trinidad, Colorado. He was also naturalized there in 1896 and City directories from 1904 and 1905 place Micheletti in Trinidad working as a cook at the Trinidad Hotel.
According to Adams County public records, Micheletti sold half interest in his 80 acres to Elizabeth Franch in September of 1906 for $1,250.
In 1908, Stefano Micheletti went to Italy to visit his brother, Martino. He arrived back in the United States on June 13, 1908 on the ship La Savoie, and according to the passenger list, he had $27 in his pocket. On his return train trip to Trinidad, Colorado from New York on June 15, as the train entered the Wabash station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a crazed passenger began stabbing passengers. Micheletti, who was identified by papers in his possession, was killed almost instantly when he was stabbed in the heart. Two other Italian passengers were badly injured. Micheletti, whom no next of kin was known, was buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Fort Wayne. The murderer, a Spaniard, Mandela Mandida, was declared insane.
In 1947, the Franch family sold their half interest in the 80 acres homesteaded by Micheletti to Alice and Eugene Camenisch.
On April 5, 1949, the Camenisches filed a lis pendens to claim the other half interest in the property. After all legal attempts to reach defendants in the case were exhausted, Alice and Eugene Camenisch were awarded ownership of the property one year later on April 11, 1950.
