In 1847 he was employed at Simeon Turley's Mill and Distillery about 12 miles (19 km) north of Taos at Arroyo Hondo. He was one of eight to ten mountain men who defended the mill in a siege by approximately 500 Mexicans and Indians during the Taos Revolt. Seeing the approaching mob, Charles Autobees rode to Santa Fe to get help. The remaining mountain men held off the attack into the night, when Albert and Autobees' half brother Thomas Tate Tobin escaped separately on foot in the confusion of the fighting. Albert and Tobin were the only two men to escape Turley's Mill alive. In three days, Albert walked 140 miles (230 km) to the trading post at Pueblo, through winter conditions with no coat, having escaped only with his weapons and shooting bag. Tobin walked to Santa Fe.
John David Albert later settled in the Taos Valley, marrying Juliana León, the daughter of Miguel Antonio León.
He carried mail out of the Spanish Peaks post office at Cuchara station, trapped on the Purgatory and Cucharas rivers, and is credited with building the fort at La Plaza de la Leones.
Albert survived three wives, all of whom were partially or fully Mexican and all of whom died while married to him, and fathered 21 children before his death in Montana. He is buried in the old Catholic Cemetery at Walsenburg, Colorado.
References
^St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church, Baptismal Record
Baker, Leighton (1986). Jim Baker - The Red Headed Shoshone. Salt Warrior Press. p. 164. ISBN0-9611028-3-7.
Dawson, Thomas. Dawson Scrap Books. Special Collections: Colorado Historical Society. volume 1 pages 369 and 427, Volume 75 pages 277–79. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2006-09-17.
Hafen, LeRoy (1965). Mountain Men and Fur Trade of the Far West Vol. II. The Arthur H. Clark Co. pp. 21–26. ASIN B000HKMU3I.
Hafen, LeRoy; Carter (1983). Trappers of the Far West: Sixteen Biographical Sketches. Bison Books/Univ. of Nebraska Press. p. 257. ISBN0-8032-7218-9.
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Hall, Frank (1891). History of the State of Colorado Vol III. Rocky Mountain Historical Company. pp. 496–7. ASIN B000I4RCPE.