By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
Today, June 11, 2026, marks the 162nd anniversary of the Hungate murders that took place near Denver in 1864. A father, aged 29, a mother, aged 26, and two little girls, aged six months and 2 ½ years old, were slaughtered by Indians five months before Sand Creek.
According to multiple soldiers and Colorado Territory Governor John Evans, it was a catalyst to Sand Creek.
From our book:
One of the events Howbert describes is the murder of the Hungate family on June 11, 1864. ‘The father and mother had been shot down and mutilated with horrible brutality, and the children who had tried to escape had been pursued and killed, so that not one of the family was left alive. This news made the people of Colorado City, and the settlers along the Fountain and on the Divide, very uneasy, and of course, after that, they were constantly on the lookout, not knowing where the savages might next appear.’ (We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site—the full citation is in the book).
‘Officials in Washington, D.C., seemed unresponsive to territorial Governor John Evans’s appeals for help, while attacks and feeling of siege continued. On 11 June, the ‘Hungate massacre’ near Denver brought terror to the white population. The ranch where the Hungate family lived was found in ruins: the house burned, the family—husband, wife, and two little children—killed, scalped, and mutilated. Their bodies were brought to Denver and publicly exhibited side by side in a box. Everybody saw the four, and anger and revenge mounted all day long as the people filed past or remained to talk over Indian outrages and means of protection and reprisal. During the rest of the summer, attacks and hysteria continued; finally in August Governor Evans created a hundred-day volunteer regiment.’ (We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site—the full citation is in the book).
The Hungate headstone at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver:
Nathan W. Hungate born Jan. 18, 1835
Ellen His Wife born Aug. 31, 1838
and their children
Laura V. born Nov. 3, 1861
Florence V. born Jan. 18, 1864
killed by Indians June 11, 1864
The Hungate murders is one of the many events that led to the forming of the Third Colorado Cavalry and soldiers being ordered to Sand Creek. Colonel Chivington received orders from Major General Curtis on how he wanted to deal with the Indians. George Bent, who was half-Cheyenne, and lived as a Cheyenne Dog Soldier (warrior), wrote letters to historians about 40 years after Sand Creek—he wrote about his time at Sand Creek in Black Kettle’s village. He told historians that in the summer of 1864, months before Sand Creek, the Dog Soldiers were constantly on the warpath attacking white settlers—read more about this and the orders Curtis gave Chivington in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
The following is a news story about the event, printed just four days after the murders.
June 15th, 1864
The Commonwealth
A Horrible Sight!—The bodies of those four people that were massacred by the Cheyennes on Van Wormer’s ranch, thirty miles down the Cut-off, were brought to town this morning, and a coroner’s inquest held over them. It was a most solemn sight indeed, to see the mutilated corpses, stretched in the stiffness of death, upon that wagon bed, first the father, Nathan Hungate, about 30 years of age, with his head scalped and his either cheeks and eyes chopped in as with an axe or tomahawk. Next lay his wife, Ellen, with her head also scalped through from ear to ear. Along side of her lie two small children, one at her right arm and one at her left, with their throats severed completely, so that their handsome little heads and pale, innocent countenances had to be stuck on, as it were, to preserve the humanity of form. Those that perpetrate such unnatural, brutal butchery as this ought to be hunted to the farthest bounds of these broad plains and burned to the stake alive, was the general remark of the hundreds of spectators this forenoon. Mr. Hungate’s body was found about a mile and a half from Van Wormer’s ranch, where he was residing as herder, and his family were found close to the house, which was burned. The deepest feeling pervaded the people of town to-day as they returned from viewing the mangled bodies of this cruelly murdered family. Let us take warning and keep prepared for the future, both in town and in the ranches through the territory, where Indians are wont to visit or pass by.
Since writing the above we have had a conversation with Mr. Follett, who has just arrived from Running Creek. Mr. F. is one of the party that went after the bodies. He says that the woman was found about four hundred yards from the house, with the children both in her arms—one a babe three or four months old, and one, a little girl about two years old. The bowls of the younger one were ripped open, and its entrails scattered by the sides of the mother and children. The body of the man was found about two miles from the house, but his whip was found at the ruins, and some other marks seemed to indicate that he had first been attacked there, and finding himself overpowered, had made an effort to escape. The residents of all that part of the country are leaving their homes in the greatest alarm, and coming toward Denver, bringing along their stock and moveable property, but leaving their farms and crops unprotected. Some of them will probably reach here this evening, and every possible aid should be rendered to make them comfortable. The men are all ready to join in the pursuit of the atrocious murderers of their neighbors, and will render valuable service in this time of need.
Click on the Buy the Book tab in the top right corner of the page.
Follow us on Facebook: BowenHistory
