“For a short time thereafter General Denver practiced law, and edited "The Thomas Jefferson," (a Democratic newspaper), at Xenia, Ohio, and then returned to Missouri, first locating at Plattsburg, and later at Platte City, where he remained practicing his profession until the outbreak of the war with Mexico.  He recruited Company H, of the Twelfth United States Volunteer Infantry, and of which he was commissioned Captain, April 9, 1847; and served with distinction in General Scott's army and in all the battles in which it was engaged. 

    After the war he returned to Platte City, where he bought and published the "Platte Argus" newspaper. His stay there was brief, for he became one of the California Argonauts in the spring of 1849, crossing the plains and thence by way of Salt Lake.  Remaining in Sacramento until the spring of 1851, he then engaged in trading between Humboldt Bay and the mines. 

    In 1852 he was elected to the California State Senate, and while a member of that body was placed by Governor Bigler in command of an expedition for relief of a large party of emigrants snow-bound and destitute in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Edward Gilbert, editor of the "Alta California," editorially criticised the Governor's preliminary management of the expedition, and General Denver became involved in the controversy. Gilbert challenged Denver and in the encounter rifles were used — weapons with the use of which Gilbert ranked as an expert. After the first fire, Denver, who had discharged his rifle into the air and had been unharmed by his adversary, expressed a willingness to shake hands with Gilbert. But the latter was hot-headed, and apparently desired and intended to kill General Denver.  At the second fire Gilbert, who was an able and brilliant man, fell a victim to his wounded pride.

    Public opinion unanimously sustained Denver in the part he bore in the unhappy affair. The General successfully led the expedition to the relief of the emigrants, and in the spring of 1853 was elected Secretary of State, a position he filled until the autumn of 1S55. In the autumn of 1854 he had been elected by the Democratic party to the Thirty-fourth Congress, the first session of which began in December, 1855, and of which Denver became a prominent and useful member.  As Chairman of the Select Committee on Pacific Railroad he.reported a bill providing for the construction of three trans-continental lines; but a majority in Congress was against so wild a proposition as building even one at that time appeared to be.

    Denver did not seek a re-nomination for Congress.  At the close of his term he was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a position he was very capably filling when, in 1857, President Buchanan requested him to take charge of the strife-torn Territory of Kansas. Denver reluctantly entered upon his duties as Governor of Kansas Territory in December, 1857, and determined to hold aloof from all factions and do his duty as the law and his conscience directed him.  The stormy events in Kansas in the years 1857-58 are familiar parts of National and Kansas history and need not be recounted here.    

    Denver continued in his difficult and trying position until October 10, 1858, when he resigned; one of his closing official acts having been to commission the three "officers"

for Arapahoe county, as elsewhere related.  But in the meantime he had won the respect, esteem and confidence of all the factions, and had brought peace to the distracted Territory.

  General Denver returned to Washington and resumed his former position as Commissioner of Indian Affairs in which he served until March 11, 1859, when he resigned and returned to California.  There he became a candidate for United States Senator, but was defeated by two votes. Remaining in California until the outbreak of the civil war, he warmly espoused the Union cause.  Without solicitation, President Lincoln on August 14, 1861, appointed him a Brigadier General of Volunteers, and he was placed in command of all the troops in Kansas to preserve peace on the border. He was soon transferred to a more active field. Placed in command of the Third Brigade of Sherman's Division, Army of the Tennessee, he ably participated in all the operations of that historic organization until April, 1863, when he resigned in consequence of an emergency in his private business affairs that compelled his resignation.

Subsequently General Denver engaged in law practice in Washington, having  established his home at Wilmington, Ohio, where his boyhood years had been passed. In 1876 and again in 1884 his name was prominent among those of men mentioned as acceptable as the Democratic candidate for President.  Six feet, two inches in height, of

fine proportions, he was a man of commanding presence.  Genial, dignified and urbane, he possessed peculiarly winning ways and the faculty of making men his loyal and enduring friends.

    He died at Washington on August 9, 1892, and is buried at Wilmington.”

    “General James William Denver, descendant of an old family the history of which would take us back to times preceding those of William the Conqueror, was born at Winchester, Virginia, October 23, 1817; his father having been Patrick Denver, who served as a Captain in the American army in the war of 1812. In 1830 Captain Denver removed to Ohio and settled on a farm near Wilmington, Clinton Co., where the subject of this sketch lived the life of a country boy until he attained his majority. He then went to Missouri, and after a short stay there, to Kentucky, where he became a school-teacher and law student. Later he entered the Cincinnati Law School from which he was graduated in the spring of 1844.”

    “During his service as Governor of the Kansas Territory, the city of Denver, Colorado was named for him after he "provided the machinery for the civil organization of Arapahoe County, at the time when the town site was laid out"

The SNAC project

see How Denver Got Its Name - and why the St. Charles Broncos never happened.