Edgar Tarbell Ensign

The law, banking, insurance and public service claimed the attention and energies of Edgar Tarbell Ensign through a long and useful career covering almost seventy-nine years, and his public service covered both military activity and the establishment and development of national forestry interests in the west. Mr. Ensign was born at Moriah, Essex county, New York, September 9, 1839, a son of Charles W. and Harriet (Tarbell) Ensign, the latter a sister of Jonathan Tarbell, who was a lieutenant-colonel of the Ninety-first New York Volunteer Infantry, and became a brigadier general of United States Volunteers in the Civil war.

Edgar T. Ensign, after attending the district school and the village academy of Moriah, New York, became a student in a private school for boys conducted by a Mr. Durkee and his son at Saratoga Springs, New York. In the year 1856 he went to Des Moines, Iowa, where he obtained employment in the banking house of A. J. Stearns & Company, and three years after his removal to the middle west he was there joined by his parents. He had resided in Iowa for only two years when in 1858 he was appointed deputy state treasurer. In May, 1861, however, all business and personal considerations were put aside that he might respond to the country's call for troops to aid in the preservation of the Union. He joined the Second Iowa Volunteer Infantry and was promoted through various grades to the rank of captain. The date of his enlistment was May 4, 1861. He was commissioned second lieutenant on the 1st of June following and first lieutenant on the 1st of December of the same year, while on the 22d of June, 1862, he received the captain's commission. On the 20th of October, 1863, he was commissioned major of the Ninth Regiment of Iowa Cavalry, Volunteers, and was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel of United States Volunteers, March 13, 1865. He resigned from the army on the 27th of October of the same year. His long term of active service was distinguished by the most splendid military qualities. Although wounded at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, he returned to his command and both before and afterward led his men in many a gallant charge.

In 1866 Colonel Ensign took up the study of law and won his LL. B. and A. B. degrees from the Iowa Law School, while subsequently he received the LL. B. degree from the law department of Columbian College, which was later merged into the George Washington University. With his admission to the bar in 1868, he entered upon active practice in Des Moines and the same year was made district attorney. He resided in Des Moines until 1874, when attracted by the opportunities of the west, he came to Colorado Springs and opened a law office. Soon afterward he was appointed commissioner of the United States circuit court and from 1883 until 1893 he was in public office, serving for six years as state forest commissioner and for two years as special agent of the United States general land office in the laying out of forest reserves, afterward known as national forests. His work in forestry was especially noteworthy and his public service in this connection gained for him warm commendation. In 1895 he was active in organizing the Assurance Savings & Loan Association, of which he was president and manager until September, 1917. In the meantime he had entered the field of banking, having become in 1902 one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Colorado City and also of the National Bank Building Company. Elected to the presidency of the First National, he continued to serve in that position for three years, largely shaping its policy and directing its activities during that early period.

It was while still a resident of Des Moines that Colonel Ensign was married on the 17th of October, 1872, to Miss Lilla Butin, a daughter of Dwight L. and Charlotte C. Butin, of Baldwinsville, New York. She survives her husband and remains a resident of Colorado Springs, the Ensign home having been at No. 1415 North Nevada avenue for more than thirty-five years. There were no spectacular phases in the life of Colonel Ensign. It was ever a hard fought battle for progress, for advancement and for right and he came off victor in the strife. Whatever he undertook, the integrity of his purpose was never questioned and the Memoriam of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, to which he belonged, said: "The life career of Colonel Ensign as a gentleman, a soldier and a friend is worthy of emulation by all." His demise occurred on the 15th of February, 1918.

SOURCE:  Wilbur Fiske Stone, Editor, History of Colorado, Volume 4, p. 523-4