His life is the subject of Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe and the 1932 Hollywood biographical movie Silver Dollar.

Also, Graham Masterton's 1987 novel Silver has a protagonist named Henry T. Roberts, whose life includes incidents from Tabor's.

[12] At the age of 17 Horace served for two years as an apprentice granite cutter[13] with his brother John in either Quincy[11] or Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1853, he was hired by a stone contractor, William Pierce, from Augusta, Maine, to supervise stone-cutters in the construction of an insane asylum there.

At the same time, the California Gold Rush resulted in a lot of people moving west and the railroads helped get them there.

The Kansas–Nebraska Act, which created the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, passed quickly by House of Representatives and the Senate and was swiftly enacted by President Franklin Pierce.

Tabor would travel ahead to westward, get established, save some money, and return to Maine to marry Augusta.

[19] A member of the Free Soil Party,[20] Tabor was elected to the Topeka Legislature, but that body was soon dispersed by President Pierce at the point of a bayonet.

[21][22] After their marriage at her family's home in Maine, the couple farmed for two years along Deep Creek in Zeandale, Kansas (known today as Tabor Valley).

[4] In 1859, the Tabors moved west during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush with other "Fifty-Niners" to Denver (in Kansas Territory at the time).

[26][28] Augusta, one of the few women in the state at the time, made most of the money for the family by operating the store, boarding people, cooking and managing the mail.

[30] She felt that the area was safe and invited her unmarried sister Lillian Pierce to join them in Buckskin Joe.

[27] They left the area in 1868,[26][28] upon hearing that there was a massive silver lode at the Printer Boy Mine in Oro City,[23] which became part of Leadville in 1877.

[33] Tabor hired lawman Mart Duggan, who is credited with finally bringing Leadville's violent crime rate under control.

[34] When George T. Hook and August Rische were unable to pay for their supplies at the general store, Tabor accepted payment in the form of a grubstake agreement for one third of their profit on the Little Pittsburg mine.

[4][35] Tabor entered into a number of grubstake agreements with the prospectors, knowing he would receive no monies if they did not strike silver in the mine.

Senator from January 27, 1883, until March 3, 1883,[41] following the resignation of Henry M. Teller to become United States Secretary of the Interior in the administration of U.S. President Chester Arthur.

[22][45] On March 1, 1883, Tabor finally married Elizabeth "Baby Doe" McCourt in Washington, D.C., leaving him a social outcast.

During the initial years of their marriage, the Tabors lived a life of luxury, including extensive travel.

[39] When he became terminally ill with appendicitis in 1899, Tabor's final request of Baby Doe was that she maintain the Matchless claim.

[3] Following his death, flags were flown at half staff and the Aspen Tribune reported that ten thousand people attended his funeral.

[47] Baby Doe moved to Leadville and lived an impoverished life in the tool shed of the Matchless Mine.

[citation needed] After working as a newspaper reporter in Denver, Silver Dollar moved to Chicago and, living cheaply there, wrote a novel.

Going by the name of Ruth Norman, among many other aliases, after the men who supported her, she died at the age of thirty-five in 1925 by spilling a large kettle of boiling water on herself while she was extremely intoxicated.