Sarah Ann Parcell Coberly Crull Start (1822-1898)
Sarah Coberly was born in 1822 and married James Coberly at seventeen. Sarah, James and their four children joined a wagon train in 1859, as some of the 59-ers headed for Colorado gold country, ultimately settling in Huntsville near present day Larkspur. Sarah was the first white woman in the Pikes Peak region. Known for her high intelligence and industriousness, Sarah was her own independent woman. She divorced two husbands in Colorado and made the way for herself and children, operating the Coberly Half-Way-House in Huntsville. She was close friends with DC and Olive Oakes as well as Silas Soule who testified against Col. John Chivington regarding the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. Sarah’s two sons operated the Coberly Cattle Company in Colorado. Sarah’s oldest daughter Hersa married Homer Lea and they had three children of their own. Sarah ultimately moved to California, marrying Clarkson Start and died in San Jose in 1998.
Pioneer Businesswoman of Douglas County, Colorado
Sarah Coberly was among the first women to settle the Pikes Peak region, arriving in Colorado Territory in 1859 with her husband and four children. Over the following decade, she built and operated one of the most important way stations on the road between Denver and Colorado City, raised a family through tragedy and upheaval, and established herself as a shrewd businesswoman who managed her own property and affairs at a time when few women did so.
Early Life and Journey West
Sarah was born around 1822–1824 in Indiana. As a teenager, she married James Coberly in Vermillion, Illinois, and the couple had four children: William (b. 1840), Joseph (b. 1842), Thersa “Hersa” (b. 1845), and Martha “Mattie” (b. 1847). The family moved to Mills County, Iowa, in 1857, where Sarah formed a lifelong friendship with D.C. and Olive Oakes — a friendship marked by an enduring, good-natured rivalry in wit and practical jokes.
In 1859, the Coberlys joined a wagon train bound for the Colorado goldfields, traveling as part of the “59ers.” Family accounts describe a journey livened by music and dancing around the campfire, with James playing fiddle and the two girls, Hersa and Mattie, riding horses and helping tend the stock. The family settled along West Plum Creek, just north of present-day Perry Park, and by January 1862 had sold their remaining Iowa property, committing fully to life in the territory.
Coberly’s Half-Way House
Sarah is credited, along with her friend D.C. Oakes, with founding the settlement of Huntsville, near present-day Larkspur. There, she established what became known as Coberly’s Half-Way House — a hotel, restaurant, livery, and stage stop roughly midway between Denver and Colorado City. Though James played fiddle for guests and daughters Hersa and Mattie helped charm travelers, contemporary accounts make clear that the operation was Sarah’s: locals referred to it simply as “Mrs. Coberly’s house,” and she is believed to have handled the cooking and management personally.
The way station’s importance was formally recognized in July 1862, when the Second Territorial Legislature stopped there en route between Colorado City and Denver. Shortly after, the legislature designated the road connecting Denver and Pueblo as a territorial road specifically via way of Mrs. Coberly’s Ranch and Colorado City — a rare instance of a legislative body naming a private ranch as a landmark of territorial infrastructure.
Divorce and Independence
In 1863, Sarah filed for divorce from James Coberly, stating he had “left the territory” and could not be served divorce papers. She retained all property in the settlement — an early sign of the financial independence she would maintain throughout her life. Family stories held that James was later killed by Indians near Franktown, a claim that inspired their son Joseph to enlist in the Colorado Volunteers in 1864. A soldier’s 1865 diary entry referring to Sarah as the “widow Cobelie” suggests many locals believed this account, though the actual circumstances of James’s fate remain uncertain.
Family, Loss, and the Sand Creek Aftermath
The mid-1860s brought both joy and heartbreak to the Coberly family. In 1865, daughter Hersa married Captain Silas Soule in Denver — fittingly, on April Fool’s Day, as both were known for their good humor. Soule had gained historical significance for testifying against Colonel John Chivington regarding the Sand Creek Massacre. Tragically, just three weeks after the wedding, Soule was murdered in Denver while investigating gunfire, widowing Hersa before her marriage had barely begun.
Weeks later, on May 7, 1865, Sarah married her second husband, William Crull, at her home in Huntsville. That same year, Sarah took in eleven-year-old Lizzie Field, whose father had died of dysentery while serving in the Colorado Volunteers and whose family had been left destitute. Family legend holds that Sarah traveled to Denver for supplies and returned with the girl instead. Formally indentured to Sarah in June 1865, Lizzie was raised as a Crull and later married John Kinner in 1871 at Sarah’s home; the couple went on to have ten children and ranch in West Plum Creek.
Hersa eventually remarried, to Alfred Lea, and had three children, including Homer Lea, who would later serve as a military adviser to Sun Yat-sen during the Chinese Revolution. Hersa died in 1879 at just 34 years old.
A Woman of Property
Sarah’s business acumen is well documented. The 1870 census recorded her household in Denver — she and William Crull had sold the Half-Way House the previous year and relocated to Glenarm Street — and notably showed Sarah possessing greater assets than her husband. Throughout her marriages, she kept real estate titled in her own name, and her sons William and Joseph went on to run the Coberly Cattle Company on land in the Huntsville area even after Sarah herself had moved to Denver.
Sarah’s friendship with the Oakes family remained a source of both loyalty and levity throughout her life. In one oft-told story, D.C. Oakes teased Sarah about hanging her laundry outside, joking that she must need the money and offering to send his wash over. She accepted — and returned his shirt and socks with a bill for five dollars, which he dutifully paid. When Sarah’s marriage to Crull ended in divorce in 1881, it was D.C. and Olive Oakes who testified on her behalf.
Final Years in California
Sometime after her divorce from Crull, Sarah married a third time, to Clarkson Start, and relocated to San Jose, California. Even in her later years, she remained a central figure to her old Colorado friends — Olive Oakes and her daughter Laura visited Sarah in California, and when Laura’s suitor followed the family west against Sarah’s wishes, the couple was ultimately married at Sarah’s own house.
Sarah Coberly died in San Jose on January 14, 1898, and is buried at Oak Hill Memorial Park in Santa Clara County, California. Her foster daughter, Lizzie Field Kinner, returned to live out her life in Colorado, dying in Larkspur in 1930 and being laid to rest in the Stone Canyon–Brunstone Cemetery in Douglas County — not far from the land where Sarah first built her half-way house more than sixty years before.