History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889, Part 79

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: San Francisco : History Co.
Number of Pages: 880

USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 79
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 79
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 79

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In the mean time Miles had become alarmed at the unaccountable delay in the arrival of the train, and had come out with his whole regiment to do whatever fighting might be needful. Pursuing Sitting Bull, he came up with him on Cedar Creek and opened a parley; but as the Sioux autocrat would only have peace on his own terms, and showed a disposition to renew the fight, Miles engaged him, driving him more than forty miles, and capturing a large amount of provisions and other property, besides killing a few war- riors. This blow crushed the war spirit in two thousand Sioux, men, women, and children, who surrendered to Miles on the 27th. Sitting Bull himself escaped with a small following to the north side of the Missouri. But hostil- ities were by no means ended. Prospecting parties continued to be cut off, and travel to be unsafe. In December a portion of Miles' command, under Lieutenant Baldwin, found Sitting Bull, and pursued him across the Missouri. A fortnight later the same detachment again discovered him on the Red- water, a small creek on the south side of the Missouri, and destroyed his camp, the Indians fleeing south. Miles, meantime, was fighting the Sioux and Cheyennes under Crazyhorse, who had escaped from Crook, in the Tongue River Valley, having a number of engagements with them between the Ist and the 8th of January, 1877, in which he overcame them and sent them to their agencies. Finding that he could expect no succor from Crazy- horse, Sitting Bull returned northward, crossing the boundary into the British possessions.

About the Ist of March Gen. Brisbin was ordered to take the cavalry from Fort Shaw and Fort Ellis and join Miles. The combined command left the cantonment on the Ist of May, marched up Tongue River, and struck a vil- lage of fifty-seven lodges on the Rosebud, capturing it, with the herd of horses and all the Indian supplies. The Indians fled to the hills, were pursued, and after a hard fight, in which they lost heavily, surrendered. Toward the last of the month Crazyhorse made a formal surrender at the Red Cloud agency, Camp Robinson, Nebraska, and the Sioux war seemed about to be ended. But this mischievous chief, continuing to make trouble by drawing the Indians away from their reservations, was arrested for this offence and his followers disarmed. He escaped, was rearrested, and refusing to give up his arms, was wounded so severely in the struggle that he died September 6th.

While the Sioux war was in progress, the Montana tribes, awed by the display of the military power of the United States, and, so far as the Crows were concerned, afraid of being captured by their hereditary enemies, re- mained at peace, except the Flathead and other Indians west of the Rocky Mountains, who had for some time been uneasy to such an extent that a mil- itary post had at length been ordered to be established in the Bitterroot Valley, called Fort Missoula, which was garrisoned by a single company under Captain Rawn. And, as if Montana had not enough of hostile Indians within its borders, an irruption of warring Nez Percés was forced upon it from the neighboring territory of Idaho, in the month of July, at which time the regular troops were in the field endeavoring to overtake the Sioux still at large and committing depredations.

718

INDIAN WARS.

Becoming much alarmed by the advance of the Nez Percés along the Lolo trail toward the Bitterroot Valley, the inhabitants of that region petitioned Governor Potts for more troops; and not knowing what else to do in the ab- sence of an organized militia, the governor telegraphed the president for au- thority to raise 500 volunteers. The secretary of war, on being consulted, referred the matter to General Sheridan. General Sherman, however, who happened opportunely to be upon a visit to Montana, encouraged the governor to furnish volunteers, and it was determined to place 300 men in the field, and 240 were really raised. Missoula raised 64 men, Stevensville 38, West Side 32, Corvallis 35, Skalkaho 37, Frenchtown 24, in all 240; 160 guns were issued. Bozeman Avant-Courier, Aug. 9, 1877. The narrative of the Nez Percé war in Idaho and Montana has been given, and need not be repeated here. A large number of persons were murdered, a great amount of property destroyed, and several severe battles fought during this raid. In the battles with the Nez Percés, generals Gibbon and Miles won the commendations of Montanians and of their brother officers. The people of Idaho named, or re- named, the town of Dahlonega, on the north fork of Salmon River, Gibbon- ville. Miles' popularity was already attested by the founders of a town at the mouth of Tongue River, to which and to the organization of Custer county he had given encouragement, the new metropolis of an excellent grazing region heing named Miles City in his honor.

The pressure brought to bear upon the government hy the advocates of peace led to the appointment of another commission, whose duty it was to visit Sitting Bull in the British dominions, and prevail upon him to accept life annuities and the friendship of the United States, with a home at one of the agencies. The commissioners were Terry, Lawrence, Smith, and Corbin, who, late in September, left Fort Shaw on this errand. They were met with much ceremony at the boundary line, and escorted by McLeod, of the dominion police, to Fort Welch. On the day following their arrival an interview was had with Sitting Bull and his suite, in which the utmost unconcern was dis- played for the commissioners and their proposals. Nothing was left for them but to return and report their defeat.

Not long afterward depredations were resumed on the Bighorn and Yellow- stone and in the region of the Black Hills, causing Terry to order another winter campaign. But Sitting Bull cautiously remained in the British pos- sessions, and ahout the Ist of May, 1878, sent a courier to General Miles to learn on what terms the United States would make peace, intimating that he did not expect to be required to give up his horse and gun. These overtures were simply toying with a power he both dreaded and despised. In July Montana again became the prey of hostile bands, adventurers from the Sioux, Nez Percés, Blackfoot, and Gros Ventres, who, making sudden descents upon wood-cutters, cattle-herders, teamsters, or other isolated camps, murdered the men and drove off the stock. At the same time the Bannack war was in progress in Idaho, and not a few outrages were due to this outbreak, and to the return of White Bird's band of Nez Perces through the Missoula Valley to Idaho. These Indians were pursued by a detachment from Fort Missoula under Lieutenant Wallace, 3d infantry, who killed six and wounded three, capturing and killing a large number of horses; but the principal portion of the band escaped and joined the Snakes.

Scouting was continued all summer by Miles' command, which did not, however, prevent the setting on foot of the geological surveying party in the national park, and other enterprises. Much difficulty had been experienced ever since the discovery of the mineral region of Clarke fork, in pursuing mining in that locality, on account of Indian attacks on the workmen, and the Nez Percés had quite driven them away in 1877, causing a large loss of property. In 1878 the reduction-works were once more put in operation, when it became necessary to give them military protection from the Ban- nacks, thirteen of whom were killed and thirty-seven captured by a detach- ment under Miles, in which engagement Capt. Bennett was killed.

In September a party of six Sioux arrived at Fort Keough from Sitting Bull, who represented that the Indians who had taken refuge in the British

719

END OF HOSTILITIES.

dominions were desirous of returning to the United States, and asking upon what terms they would he received. General Sheridan, being telegraphed to on the subject, replied that he was not anxious to have the Sioux come back from Canada, but if they should, it would only be upon terins of unconditional surrender. The visit was looked upon as a spying expedition.

The winter of 1878-9 was noted for trouble with the Sioux and Cheyennes at their agencies, from which, time and again, they had escaped after surrender- ing, to return to war. Bad management by the interior department compli- cated these difficulties, which, however, affected Montana less at this time than the territories adjacent on the east and south. In the spring of 1879 a new post was established in the Milk River country, seventy miles from Ben- ton, called Fort Assinaboine, to which point the 18th infantry were ordered, with six companies of the 2d cavalry, this post being for the protection of the frontier against Sitting Bull. Congress also appropriated $35,000 for a mili- tary telegraph between the several posts now in Montana. All these evi- dences of his power flattered the vanity of the great Sioux leader, who, while he remained safely outside of United States territory, plotted and directed as before. The Canadian government, however, on being informed that the chief would be regarded, after submitting himself to British authority, as a Canadian Indian, and held responsible for his acts, notified him that he would be arrested should he commit hostilities over the border. At the same time British Indians crossed the boundary to hunt buffalo in the territory of the Gros Ventres, who fought them on that account; and seeing that the seven or eight thousand United States Indians at the Poplar Creek agency, for whom an insufficient appropriation had been made hy congress, needed the buffalo on their ranges, General Miles attacked the intruders, who were driving the agency Indians, and sent them back in haste to their own country.

The winter of 1879 was notable for a serious outbreak among the Utes, which called away a portion of the troops in Montana; but enough were left for the prevention of general wars, although attacks on life and property con- tinued to be made iu isolated localities, and were punished in detail. After six years of voluntary exile, during which his adherents grew poor and few, Sitting Bull returned to the United States and was domiciled at the Standing Rock agency in Dakota, since which time Indian wars in Montana have ceased. As a reward to the soldiers serving in the arduous and dangerous campaigns of the north-west, the secretary of war declared them entitled to wear distinctive stripes. He selected the campaigns of 1865-8 in Oregon, Idaho, California, and Nevada; of 1868-9 in Kansas, Colorado, and Indian Territory; of 1872-3 in the Modoc country; of 1873 in Arizona; of 1874-5 in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Indian Territory, and New Mexico; of 1876-7 in Montana and Wyoming; of 1877 and 1878 in Idaho and Montana; and of 1878-9 against the northern Cheyennes. Helena Independent, June 19, 1879. Gen. Gibhon recommended that the volunteers who fought with him in the battle of Bighole should be compensated, and pensions granted to the families of the slain. Helena Herald, Dec. 6, 1879.

The legislature of Montana asked congress to make Montana a separate military department, with General Miles in command; but it was made a separate district instead. Of the forts within this district, Fort Keough, established by General Miles in 1877, is the principal. It has barracks for a large garrison, sixteen houses for the families of officers, a chapel, school, hospital, and other buildings, with a handsome parade-ground, in the centre of which a fountain throws up water from the Yellowstone River. Fort Cus- ter, established by Col Brackett, 2d cav., in the same year, is on the Crow Indian reservation, where it preserves order. Fort Assinaboine, on the Black- foot reservation, protects and keeps in subjection the tribes on that large reserve; while forts Shaw and Ellis stand at the passes whereby hostile hands could most readily enter the settlements. The peace and security afforded by government protection has imparted new life, and inaugurated a thousand enterprises before impossible. The Indians became more settled, and began to advance, though somewhat slowly, in the industrial habits leading to their ultimate good.

CHAPTER VI.

MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING. 1864-1885.

INFLUX OF PROSPECTORS-CONTINUED MINERAL DISCOVERIES-ALDER AND LAST CHANCE GULCHES-MINING ADVENTURES-SOME NOTABLE DISCOV- ERIES-HYDRAULIC MACHINERY - QUARTZ-MINING-TRANSPORTATION- ROUTES AND FREIGHTS-THE BUSINESS OF CATTLE-GROWING-RANGES- BRANDS-ROUND-UP-PRODUCT AND PROFIT-FURTHER MINING DEVEL- OPMENTS-CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE.

THE two primary elements of Montana's grand de- velopment were gold and grasses. In a rough country of apparently few resources, the discovery of Alder gulch, resulting in $60,000,000 of precious metal, which that ten miles of auriferous ground produced in twenty years,1 was like the rubbing of an Aladdin lamp. It drew eager prospectors from Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, who overran the country on both sides of the upper Missouri, and east and west of the Rocky Mountains, many of whom realized, to a greater or less extent, their dreams of wealth.2 The most im-

1 Strahorn's Montana, 8; Barrows' Twelve Nights, 239.

" Among the discoveries of 1864 was the Silver Bow, or Summit Mountain district, on the head waters of Deer Lodge River. It was found in July by Bud. Barker, Frank Ruff, Joseph Ester, and Janes Ester. The name of Silver Bow was given by these discoverers, from the shining and beautiful appearance of the creek, which here sweeps in a crescent among the hills. The district was 12 miles in length, and besides the discovery claim or gulch, there were 21 discovered and worked in the following 5 years, and about as many more that were worked after the introduction of water ditches in 1869. The men who uncovered the riches of Silver Bow district were, after the original discoverers, W. R. Coggeswell, Peter Slater, Vernon & Co., C. Solo- mon, M. Johnson, Dennis Driscoll, J. Baker, Robert McMinn, Thomas Flood, W. R. Crawford, Sherman & Co., Henry Rust, M. Prettyman, Lester Popple, W. E. Harris, J. La Clair, L. Thayer, George Popple, A. M. Smith, C. S. Warren, James Beattie, George McCausland, Wolf & Cowan. From the gulches opencd by these men was taken, between 1864 and 1869, $1,894,300. ( 720 )

721

LAST CHANCE.

portant discovery after Alder gulch was made by John Cowan, a tall, dark-eyed, gray-haired man from Ackworth, Georgia, who had explored for a long time in vain, and staked his remaining hopes and efforts on a prospect about half-way between Mullan's pass of the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri River, in the valley of the Little Prickly Pear River, and called his stake the Last Chance gulch.3 From near the ground where Helena was located, in the autumn of 1864, John Cowan took the first few thousands of the $16,000,000 which it has yielded, and returned to his native state, where he built himself a saw-mill and was wisely content.4 Hundreds of miners swarmed to Last Chance, and by the first of October the town of Helena was founded and named, and a committee appointed by citizens to lay it off in lots and draw up a set of municipal regulations suited to the condi- tions of a mining community.5 From its favorable

Of the gulches, which lay too high to be worked before the completion of the Pioneer and Rocker ditch in 1870, the discoverers were: W. E. Vernon, John W. Baker, Nelson Everest, Charles S. Warren, Michael Moran, John Hanifin, Benjamin Vener, Eugene Boiteaux, William Barry, Thomas Smith, H. H. Alstreadt, Earl Gower, John Barrick, Levi Russell, John Sheppard, L. W. Burnett, John M. Killop, 'Arkansaw,' H. H. Porter, L. Griswold, Charles Rures, Sidney Dinnon, Vernon & Co., Thomas Burden, H. J. Matti- son, Charles Noyes, Gower & Co., Crane & Lynch. Total number of claims in the district in 1869 was 1,007. There were at this time 7 ditches in the district from 1 to 20 miles in length, aggregating 53 miles, with a total ca- pacity of 3,100 inches of water, constructed at a cost of $106,000. Deer Lodye New Northwest, Nov. 12, 1869.

$ R. Stanley of Attleborough, Nuneaton, England, was one of the dis- covery party. John Crab and D. J. Miller were also of the party. They had come from Alder gulch, where no claims were left for them. They encamped in a gulch where Helena was later placed, but not finding the prospect rich, set ont to go to Kootenai. On Hellgate River they met a party returning thence, who warned them not to waste their time. So they turned back, and prospected on Blackfoot River, and east of the mountains on the Dearborn and Maria rivers, until they found themselves once more in the gulch on the Prickly Pear, which they said was 'their last chance.' It proved on further trial to be all the chance they desired. Stanley, in Helena City Directory, ISS3-4, 47-8.

4John Sloss, killed by Indians in 1866, on the Dry fork of Cheyenne River, is also called one of the discoverers of Last Chance gulch.

5 George P. Wood, says the Helena Republican, Sept. 20, 1866, was the only one of the committee who ever attempted to discharge the duties of his office-an unpaid and thankless service. If Helena shows defects of grade and narrowness of streets in the original plan, it could not be otherwise in a town hastily settled, without surveys, and necessarily conforming to the character of the ground. And, as has frequently been the case, a spring of HIST. WASHI .- 46

722

MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING.

situation with regard to routes of travel, and other advantages, Helena became a rival of the metropolis of Alder gulch-Virginia City.

Following rapidly upon the discovery of Last Chance gulch were others of great richness, as the Ophir and McClellan,6 thirty miles from Helena,7 on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, the Confed- erate, east of the Missouri River and south-east of Helena, and others.8

water determined the question of the first settlement. After the Helena Water Company had constructed a system of water-pipes leading to the more level ground, which it did in 1865-6, the town rapidly followed in that direc- tion. A ditch leading from Ten Mile Creek to the mines below town caused a spreading-out in that direction. Hence the irregularities in the plan of Montana's capital.

6 Named after John L. McClellan, the discoverer. Blackfoot City was located on Ophir gulch, discovered by Bratton, Pemberton, and others, in May 1865. In 1872 it had been abandoned to the Chinese.

7 Helena was located on Dry gulch, which could not be worked until ditches were constructed. Oro Fino and Grizzly gulches were joined half a mile above the town, forming the celebrated Last Chance. Nelson's gulch headed in the mountains, and ran into Ten Mile Creek. South from these were a number of rich gulches ruuning into Prickly Pear River. Helena Republican, Sept. 15, 1866.

8 For 150 miles north and south of Helena, and 100 east and west of the same point, mines of exceeding richness were discovered in 1865 and 1866. First Chance gulch, a tributary of Bear gulch, in Deer Lodge county, yielded nearly $1,000 a day with one sluice and one sct of hands. New York gulch and Montana bar, in Meagher county, were fabulously productive. Old Helena residents still love to relate that on the morning of the 18th of Au- gust, 1866, two wagons loaded with a half-ton each of gold, and guarded by an escort of fifteen men, deposited their freight at Hershfeld & Co.'s bank, on Bridge street, this treasure having been taken from Montana bar and Confederate gulch in less than four months, by two men and their assistants. And Helena bankers are still pleased to mention that in the autumn of 1866 a four-mule team drew two and a half tons of gold from Helena to Benton, for transportation down the Missouri River, most of which came from these celebrated mines in one season, and the value of which freight was $1,500,000. The train was escorted by F. X. Beidler and aids. The treasure belonged to John Shineman, A. Campbell, C. J. Friedrichs, and T. Judson. Helena Republican, Sept. 1. 1866; W. A. Clarke, in Strahorn's Montana, 9.

As a memento of early days in Montana, I will cite here some of the nuggets which rewarded the miner's toil in the placer-mining period. In Brown gulch, 5 miles from Virginia City, the gold was coarse, and nuggets of 10 oz. or more were common. Virginia and Helena Post, Oct. 9, 1866. In 1867 a miner named Yager found in Fairweather gulch, on J. McEvily's claim, a piece of gold, oblong in shape, with a shoulder at one end, and worn smooth, weighing 15 1bs 2 oz. Virginia Montana Post, May 18, 1867. From McClellan's gulch, on the Blackfoot River, $30,000 was taken from one claim in 11 days, by 5 mcn. From a claim, No. 8, below Discovery claim, on the same gulch, $12,584 was taken out in 5 days. The dirt back of Blackfoot City paid from 20 c. to $140 to the pan. Ilelena Republican, Aug. 26, 1866. From Nelson's gulch, at Helena, were taken a nugget worth $2,093, found on Maxwell, Rollins, & Co.'s claim, and one worth $1,650 from J. H. Rogers' claim. From Deitrick & Brother's claim, on Rocker gulch, one worth

723

NUGGETS AND QUARTZ.

It will be seen that with so large a stream of gold pouring out of the country, with a diminishing popu-

$1,800; and on Tandy's claim three worth $375, $475, and $550, respectively. Almost every claim had its famous nugget. Mining ground was claimed as soon as discovered, and prospectors pushed out in every direction. New placers were found from the Bitterroot to the Bighorn River, but none to ex- cel or to equal those of 1863 and 1864.

The discovery of quartz-ledges was contemporaneous with the discovery of Bannack placers in 1862. A California miner remarked, in 1861, that he counted 7 quartz lodes in one mountain. S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 28, 1861. The first lode worked was the Dakota, which was a large, irregularly shaped vein carrying free gold, varying from three to eight feet in thickness, trending north-west and south-east, dipping to the north-east, and situated in a bald hill near Bannack. Its owners were Arnold & Allen, who proceeded to erect a mill out of such means as were at hand, the iron and much of the wood being furnished by the great number of wagons abandoned at this point by the Salmon River immigrants before spoken of. Out of wagon-tires, in a common blacksmith's forge, were fashioned six stamps, weighing 400 pounds each. The power used was water, and with this simple and economical con- trivance more gold was extracted than with some of ten times the cost in- troduced later.

The first steam quartz-mill was put up in Bannack in 1863, by Huukins. Walter C. Hopkins placed a steam-mill on No. 6 Dakota, in August 1866. The Bullion Mining Company of Montana owned a mill in 1866, with 3 Bul- lock crushers, and placed it on the New York ledge, Keyser manager. The East Bannack Gold and Silver Mining Company owned a mill in 1866, placed on the Shober ledge; managed by David Worden. The Butterfield mill, and Kirby & Clark mill, were also in operation near Bannack in 1866; and N. E. Wood had placed a Bullock patent crusher on Dakota No. 12, for the New Jersey Company.

Under the first quartz-mining law of Montana, 100 feet in length consti- tuted a claim. The second legislature changed this to 200 feet along the lode, with all the dips, spurs, and angles, and 50 feet on each side of the lode for working purposes; but 1,000 feet of ground might be taken in each di- rection along the Iode for the same uses. Montana Scraps, 39. The person discovering a lode was entitled to one claim for the discovery and one by preemption.

In September 1864 James W. Whitlatch, born in Pa, not much cultured in book-knowledge, but with great shrewdness and an indomitable will, who bad become acquainted with mining and milling ores in Nevada and Colorado, was looking for a quartz location, having prospected in several districts before he came to Prickly Pear, where he tried working some silver-bearing galena ores which proved intractable from the presence of copper and antimony. The expenditure, in a country of high prices, reduced his exchequer to naught, and he sought Last Chance gulch, there to encamp for the winter with eight companions. The placers were paying enormously, and believing that quartz is the mother of placer gold, he began searching for the veins. In this search he was assisted by his eight messmates, who, having less faith, and desiring to test their fortunes in tho placer diggings, bound him to an agreement to give up the pursuit if at the close of a certain day of the month he had not found his bonanza. The day was drawing to a close, and his companions had returned to camp, when Whitlatch caught sight of a fragment of quartz, which on being broken open by his pick showed free gold, It was with a quickened pulse that he struck it into the earth and uncovered the long- sought lode.

This was the famous Whitlatch mine. In order to work it, a company was formed of succeeding claimants, called the Whitlatch Union Mining Coul-

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History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889, Part 79

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: San Francisco : History Co. Number of Pages: 880

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: San Francisco : History Co.
Number of Pages: 880