All these improvements inaugurated and completed by him alone, attracted almost world-wide attention and advanced Denver to an important place in her business standing throughout the entire East. He became Lieutenant Governor in 1878, and U.S. Senator in 1882, to which position he was appointed to fill out the term of Henry M. Teller, who was invited by President Arthur to enter his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. Tabor only lacked one vote of being elected to succeed himself, Judge Bowen winning the prize. Tabor's financial rise was meteoric; his decline was equally rapid when it started. Unfortunate investments, mostly in distant locations, swept his entire fortune away. Though poor indeed, in material things towards the close of his life, it is given to few men to be so rich in experiences. His accomplishments in behalf of Denver will always be held by her citizens in grateful remembrance, and when he died in 1899 there was wide-spread sorrow. _William Gilpin._ [Sidenote: 1861] One thousand years of traceable ancestry! They spelled it "Guylphyn" in those far-away days of the Roman Empire, and in two hundred years it was softened to "Gilpin." One of this illustrious line was a great General and won a noted battle for Oliver Cromwell. One was Minister Plenipotentiary to The Hague, appointed by Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary ordered one beheaded because of his religious teachings, but she died herself, after which he was pardoned and went on with his preaching. The ancestors of our own Washington were proud to form a union with the Gilpins by marriage. A meeting-house was erected by one of them and given to William Penn who used to preach in it. The home of one of them was turned over to LaFayette for his headquarters during the Battle of Brandywine. And there was that one who owned the mill that ground the grain for Washington and his army at Valley Forge. Colorado is to be congratulated that she had for her first Governor one who came bearing such an illustrious name. But no one thought of family, least of all Abraham Lincoln, when he signed the Commission that made William Gilpin Governor of the Territory of Colorado. His selection was under advisement at the first Cabinet meeting and he was chosen in recognition of his signal ability. As a youth he was tutored by his father who possessed more than ordinary culture. He pursued special studies under the author, Hawthorne; he learned under Lawrence Washington, when the latter was a resident of Mt. Vernon; then he was sent abroad for instructions at Yorkshire; he had the pick of masters at Liverpool; was graduated later at the University of Pennsylvania, and then won high honors in his later graduation from West Point. Such a course of study had made of him an intellectual athlete.