Clip from The Greenhorn Valley News
'Ol Zan's Restaurant honors an historical character with the reputation of a prankster. Little has been said about his wife, a strong woman who defended her land from a variety of threats.
Dona Estefana Bent was born in 1843 in the Mexican Territory. Her mother, Maria Ingnacia Jaramillo Bent, was a member of a wealthy, respected Spanish family. Her aunt, Josefa Jaramillo, was married to Kit Carson.
Her father, Charles Bent, was a business partner of St. Vrain & Bent Enterprises with his brother, William Bent, and Ceran St. Vrain. They owned Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River and trading facilities in Taos.
After the Mexican War of 1846, President Polk appointed Estefana's father to the post of First Territorial Governor of New Mexico under United States rule. His service to the United States was very short. In January of 1847, Charles Bent was murdered during the Taos Uprising.
After the massacre, Ceran St. Vrain took three-year-old Estefana to Santa Fe and placed her with the sisters of Loretto. She grew into a beautiful young woman. Several frontiersmen courted her at the fragile age of 13, as was the custom of the time.
She chose Alexander "Zan" Hicklin, a former teamster for Ceran St. Vrain. By the time she was sixteen she had given birth to their first son, Alexander Jr., and had moved to the Greenhorn Valley. The Hicklins settled on land given to them as Estefana's inheritance from her father.
In 1859, they built a house on a rise at the Greenhorn Crossing of the Taos Trail. The house was built of adobe, with four rooms side by side opening onto a veranda along the southern exposure. Each room had a fireplace for warmth.
Estefana missed Santa Fe and her friends. To one she wrote: "Oh, the terrible, unresponsive inertia of the first year in the wilderness. . . how hard it is to bear."
She worked hard and learned to manage the ranch day to day. Two more sons were born: Thomas and Alfred. Loneliness plagued Estefana. Often she was left alone at the ranch, sometimes for several days at a time.
During one of these periods a party of Cheyenne suddenly appeared. Seeing no one to protect the premises, they began to drive the live stock away.
Estefana came out of her home to protect her property. The braves laughed at her, ridiculing her gestures. The marauders' chief, apparently impressed with her determination and beauty, stopped the raid.
The Chief, who spoke a little Spanish, gave Estefana an exquisite, engraved silver bracelet. He told her to show the bracelet if any of his people ever attempted to rob her again. The ranch was never bothered by raiders again.
As the valley attracted more families the Hicklins prospered. 'Ol Zan became one of the most important farmers and stockgrowers of his time and Estefana entertained lavishly. During the 1860's the ranch became a swing station for the Denver-Trinidad mail stage.
In 1874, Zan Hicklin died suddenly. Ten days after his death Estefana was notified that the 5,000 acres from her father's portion of the Vigil & St. Vrain land grant had been honored by the United States. The title would not be confirmed for three more years.
In the meantime without Zan to defend the family's rights, squatters settled on their land. Water rights were contested and fence laws passed. She fought valiantly in the courts, but without a clear title, Estefana was helpless. Even after clear title was confirmed in 1877, legal battles continued.
Tragedy occurred in September, 1878. A squatter named Phillips shot and killed nineteen-year-old Alexander Jr., and injured his brother, Thomas, sixteen, in a dispute over a hayfield.
Thomas never fully recovered from his injuries. Estefana never fully recovered emotionally. The willingness to fight waned. By 1892, she had lost or sold the entire acreage. She never remarried and only Alfred lived to console her in her old age. She died penniless in September of 1927.