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| 1969 news clipping from Lillian Knaus scrapbook |
On the 13th of December, 1871, the Rocky Mountain News carried a short paragraph on its front page in a small section titled "Territorial News":
Mrs. Fredricka Baun of Left Hand, died suddenly on Tuesday last, under suspicious circumstances. Coroner Allen made an investigation on Wednesday. The post mortem examination showed that her death had been caused by an abortion, and the testimony given by a man named Clemens Knaus, of Left Hand, corroborated this fact. Mrs. Baun was a married woman who had separated from her husband. The testimony of Knaus, was, in fact, a confession for he admitted criminal intimacy with Mrs. Baun, and testified that he secured the services of Mrs. Dr. Solander, of Boulder, to procure the abortion. Knaus and Mrs. Solander were arrested, and held for examination before Justice Allen, of Valmont.
Other news articles continued to cover the saga. A first trial of Dr. Solander ended in a hung jury with only one juror holding out for conviction; a retrial found her guilty, and she was sentenced to 3 years in the new prison in the Colorado territory, in Canon City. The Rocky Mountain News, January 30, 1873:
Last Monday Judge Wells sentenced Mrs. Mary Solander, the Boulder abortionist, to three years confinement in the penitentiary.
An appeal to the Colorado supreme court alleging a biased judge and jurors failed, and Dr. Solander began her sentence at the prison, the first female inmate of that institution. The March 12, 1873 Rocky Mountain News noted:
The supreme court yesterday rendered an opinion in the case of Mary Solander vs. The People, affirming the judgment of the district court. This woman had been sentenced to three years imprisonment for manslaughter in having produced an abortion.
Upon popular request, the full decision of the court was published in the same newspaper the following day. A number of Boulder County residents signed a petition asking for her release, as noted in the Denver Daily Times, July 26, 1873:
A petition signed by eight hundred citizens of Boulder county, and praying for the pardon of Mrs. Solander, who was convicted of manslaughter, by having procured an abortion for another woman; was presented to the Governor and is now under consideration.
Governor Elbert granted the pardon a couple weeks later. The Denver Daily Times mentioned the pardon in the August 9, 1873 edition:
The Governor has granted a pardon to Mrs. Mary Solander, convicted of manslaughter, in Boulder county. The petition for executive clemency was signed by over eight hundred persons, in which number were the names of the majority of the best citizens of the county mentioned.
The Colorado Miner reported on August 14, 1873 under "Local Matters":
The Governor has pardoned Mrs. Solander from the penitentiary, where she was serving out a sentence for the crime of having produced an abortion. We know that the woman’s husband had a large petition from Boulder county people asking for her pardon. Mr. S. was left with several young children in his care, and had a hard time of it. The woman has received a lesson that she perhaps will never forget, and her release now is an act of clemency that, under the circumstances, will not be condemned by any.
And so the governor pardoned Dr. Solander, thanks to the support of the Boulder County citizenry. I tracked down Mary Solander in a couple public family trees posted by descendants of hers: aged 39 in the 1870 census, apparently living in Boulder with her carpenter husband and four sons ages seven to 16. According to the tree sources, she was born Mary Jane McIver in 1831 in Pennsylvania; married Daniel Solander in Putnam, Illinois in 1849; had one daughter who only lived a few months, and then had 4 sons, all in Illinois; was living in Boulder in 1870; in 1880 was living as a boarder in Salem, Oregon, occupation physician; moved to California by 1910 where she was living with her divorced son, granddaughter, and former husband in Inyo; and died in 1921 in Los Angeles. These trees have no mention of her Colorado past, but they do include a very nice photo of Mary in her later years:
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| Mary Solander circa 1890? |
I haven't found anything on Fredricka Baun, except a FindAGrave.com entry showing her death on 5 December 1871, and burial in plot A62 NW in Boulder's Columbia Cemetery, owned by the city of Boulder, and which has a first burial on 16 May 1870, the year previous to Fredricka's death.
My great-grandfather Clemens Knaus had been initially arrested and charged, but never tried, perhaps because he was a key witness for the prosecution. At that time he was an immigrant who had arrived in America just six years prior, and who had settled in the Colorado Territory a year or two before this tragedy: the 1870 census shows him employed on the farm of Nicolas and Eliza Bader. Nicholas Bader would die of appendicitis in December of 1873 and his widow Eliza would remarry in November 1874, to our Clemens Knaus. I assume she knew of Clemens' involvement in this high-profile case of the "Boulder abortionist."
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| Clemens Knaus as a young man |
Nearly a century later, a 3-page feature article concerning the Solander case appeared in the Sunday Focus section of the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper on August 10, 1969: "Lady Doctor Now History." The focus was on Mary Solander: "Whatever injustice she met with in the manslaughter case, Mrs. Solander's stay at Canon City was the very first imprisonment of a woman there." The article was published four years after my mom's mother had passed away, and as my mother later wrote in a chapter of "Knaus Family Stories,"
If Mother had still been alive when this skeleton slipped out of the closet of the past, I'm positive the news article would never have been preserved. After Dad's death, however, it was discovered tucked away in the old family safe. From there it found its way into Mother's scrapbook. Perhaps Dad hadn't the heart to blot out history even though it portrayed his own father in a very painful light. The incident had occurred three years prior to the marriage of Clemens and Eliza.
What we want to remember our old pioneer ancestors for is their awesome courage, strength and imagination for facing the unknown dangers and trials when they left their European homes, all the while knowing that they would never be able to return or see the family members they left behind. Also, as human beings, they undoubtedly had a darker side, as we all have.
I think this is well put. And so my mom saved this history for future generations in her book of family stories.
Sources
Kenyon, Shirley Knaus. n.d. “Clemens Knaus.” In Knaus Family Stories: A Compilation of Stories Told by the Offspring of Dan and Lillian Knaus, 166.
Gater, Pete. "Lady Doctor Now History." The Boulder Daily Camera, FOCUS section, Sunday, August 10, 1969. Private holdings, Lillian Knaus scrapbook.
Ancestry Family Trees (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.), Ancestry.com, Ancestry Family Tree.
All the following from the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection:
"Territorial News," The Rocky Mountain News, Volume 12, Dec 13, 1871, page 1. "Mrs. Fredricka Baun of Left Hand, died suddenly on Tuesday...".
"Territorial Gossip." The Rocky Mountain News, Volume 14, January 30, 1873. "Last Monday Judge Wells sentenced..."
"Local Briefs." The Rocky Mountain News, Volume 14 March 12, 1873. "The supreme court yesterday rendered..."
"Pardon Solicited." Denver Daily Times, July 26, 1873: "A petition signed by eight hundred citizens..."
"Pardoned." Denver Daily Times, August 9, 1873. "The governor has granted a pardon..."
"Local Matters." The Colorado Miner (Weekly), Volume VII, Number 14, August 14, 1873. " The Governor has pardoned Mrs. Solander..."
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