William Francis Callaway, born 1844 in Sussex County, Delaware

WILLIAM FRANCIS CALLAWAY

William F. Callaway, of the firm Callaway Bros., was born in Sussex County, Del., September 11, 1844. He received an academic education, and followed teaching for a couple of years. Like so many young men before and since, he turned his face westward and resolved to win a name and place for himself amid new scenes, and in a younger land. In the fall of 1865, he was employed for a short time in a railroad office in Kansas City, Mo., and subsequently entered a law and abstract office, remaining there until November, 1866. At this date he came to Denver, making the journey across the Plains by wagon teams. On his arrival in Denver, Mr. Callaway obtained a position in a crockery store, and continued clerking in that establishment about six years. He engaged in the book and stationery business for about two years longer, in company with D. W. Richards. In the spring of 1878, he formed a co-partnership with his brother, Mr. George F. Callaway, the new firm being engaged in the queensware and crockery trade. Mr. Callaway has been engaged in this business ever since, and from a comparatively small beginning has built up a large wholesale and retail trade. He is emphatically a self-made man, having an abundant supply of that energy, enterprise and business sagacity necessary to success in this new and wide-awake Western country.

The above biography is from History of the City of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado, O. L. Baskin & Co., Chicago, pg. 389, 1880.
See additional information on these four brothers, William, George, John and Robert, in the May 2004 CFA Newsletter, and in an article about the Delaware Hotel on the CFA Web Site. Who are their ancestors?

The following article and the 1880 census show that William Francis Callaway was married for a short period of 2 years (1876-1878) and had one child. His wife Alice Reinhart Callaway died of the heat. It is not known what happened to the child, but no child is listed living with William on the 1880 census.

Death From Heat
Mrs. Alice Callaway, wife of W. F. Callaway, died very suddenly on Sunday afternoon, Jul 21, 1878, at her residence No. 460 Champa Street. The extreme rarity of death from heat or sunstroke in this climate is a well conceded fact, but the death of this estimable lady is ascribed by her phyusician to excessive heat.
Mrs. Callaway had prepared dinner in a necessarily hot kitchen. It was a light dinner, her husband says. The meal being placed on the table, the meat course had been eaten when Mrs. Callaway, without saying anything, passed out of the dining room into the kitchen. Nothing was thought of this. A pot boiling over, burning meat, or some such trivial errand, her husband thought had called her. The wife not returning in five or ten minutes, probably ten, Mr. Callaway got up from the table and went into the kitchen. Looking through an open door into a back kitchen, he saw his wife lying on her back, and he says he supposes she was dead then. Dr. Whitehead was sent for, and his office being near by, was soon at her side, and the lady was pronounced dead. She was not subject to heart disease. She never had any symptoms of organic heart disease, or any of apoplexy. She was not a strong woman, and it is believed a thermometer in the room would have indicated at least 110 degrees. These facts, together with the fact that she had on other occasions felt the heat so as to be nauseated, leave no doubt in the mind of her physician that she died from the heat, the first case it is remembered to have been reported in Denver.
Mrs. Callaway was about 25 years of age, and had been married only two years. She was an esteemed member of society, both after her marriage and when she was Miss Alice Reinhart. Her father, Dr. Reinhart, who was known in Denver, died some two years ago. She leaves a little babe.

~ from the Denver Daily Tribune, Denver, Colorado, July 23, 1878.