A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 21

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1002

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

man named Higgins and one or two others followed them up. The snow was so deep they could not get away and Lear and Higgins with their companions arrested Moore, Reeves and Plummer and brought them back. A miners' meeting was called and a trial held and they were acquited. After the acquittal they spotted every man who had had anything to do with their arrest. There seemed to be a general under- standing in the country at that time when two people had had trouble, and they parted, the next time they met one or the other had to die, so Plummer and Crawford got to carrying guns for each other. Craw- ford happened to get the first chance and shot Plummer in the arm. After Plummer got well Crawford kept himself concealed until he could get out of the country, and never came back.

"There was no law in the country. If a man owed you money and did not want to pay, you might have to collect it at the muzzle of a gun, and it was often done. In part, it was the only way to make a col- lection. Highwaymen were numerous, even operating by day, and warned their victims that if they 'peached' they would meet death at the hands of some of the band. Towards spring seven men started out to pros- pect, Bill Fairweather, Barney Hughes, Tom Coover, Edgar, Harry Rodgers, Bill Sweeney and George Orr, George Orr was taken sick and stopped at Deer Lodge with some half breed. The others went out to the Yellowstone country. The Indians took nearly every- thing they had and drove them out of the country. On their way back they discovered Alder Gulch, said to be the richest gulch of placer mining that ever was discovered in the world. They prospected the gulch and each man located a discovery claim of one hun- dred feet up and down the creek both sides, and one hundred feet of a preemption claim, thus giving each man two hundred feet. These men came back to Bannack and told what they had found and on the seventh of June, 1863, they went in with a stampede about seventy-five men, I among them. We all rushed up the creek to see who would get the next claim. As soon as a claim was located the next thing was to get sluice boxes to wash the gold. Lumber had to be sawed by hand, and cost fifty cents a running foot.

"During the summer people came in from all di- rections, attracted by the reports of the rich pros- pects, and by fall there were at least five thousand people living here.

"There was a band of road-agents organized in 1863 in Bannack. A man by the name of Dillington joined them for the purpose of betraying them. He learned they were about to rob a man by the name of Todd, and informed the latter. Mr. Tood, who knew some of the men belonging to this band foolishly asked them if they had intended to rob him. The men, of course, denied it, and asked him where he got his information, and he said Dillingham was the source of it. Dilling- ham was in Alder Gulch at the time. The men left Bannack and came to Alder after him and found him sitting in a circle of men. I was in that circle. They called him out, saying they wanted to see him. He had hardly gone twenty feet, when they shot him. Buck Stimpson, Charlie Forbes, and Hayes Lyons were the men who called Dillingham out and shot him, Charlie Forbes being the man who fired the fatal shot. The sheriff and the deputies were themselves all highway- men. The killers of Dillingham were arrested, and a miners' meeting called. An attorney by the name of A. P. H. Smith defended and he got the miners to try Forbes by himself. Forbes claiming to a Southern man from New Orleans asserted that Dillingham had charged the former with being a highwayman which was more than this Southern gentleman would stand. The camps being stocked with a good many Seces- sionists who had left Missouri and other states, the sentiment was in favor of Forbes, and they cleared

him. Then they tried the other two men and con- victed them, built the scaffold and dug the grave. At that point the attorney got the miners to take another vote. This you remember was right in sight of the gallows and graves. In the first point it was claimed a mistake had been made. When about two-thirds of the vote had been counted on the second ballot there was a cry raised that the prisoners were cleared, and in the excitement the outlaws were put on horses and rode out of the country.

"I left Alder Gulch in the fall and came to Bannack, and just after I reached there the miners hung a little Irishman for killing a man named Keeley. The Irish- man had committed the murder for money. In Alder. Gulch a man named George Ives killed a young fellow for his money, and the miners' meeting convened and hung Ives and on the strength of this affair a vigilance committee was formed that winter and twenty-five or thirty of these highwaymen were hung. Among them was the sheriff, Henry Plummer, Deputy Sheriff Jack Gallagher, Skinner, Buck Stimpson, Hayes Lawrence, Ned Ray, Boone Hellem, Bill Hunter. A Mexican was shot to death by the vigilantes for killing one of their number. After shooting the Mexican they pulled down his cabin and put his body on the pile, set fire to them all, and burned the whole thing. Slade was also hung, but he was not a highwayman, but a dangerous man in the community."

In the meantime having accumulated a considerable fortune in nuggets and free gold, Mr. Ireland in the fall of 1863 returned to Omaha, he and his partners driving a wagon overland to Salt Lake City, and thence east to Omaha, where the proceeds of their ventures were carefully deposited. In the spring of 1864 Mr. Ireland once more went into the western country and located at Fort Hall, which was the first military post in Idaho territory, having been established in 1869. Here once more we take up the personal narrative and description of his own adventures and conditions in Idaho territory for the next year or so.

"The first government stage was put on in the sum- mer of 1864 to carry the mail from Salt Lake to Mon- tana, and from Fort Hall to Boise. It was called the main line to Montana, and to Boise was a branch line. There had been a private mail line from Montana to Salt Lake owned by Oliver and Conover, but when the government line was put on they took their stages off and ran them to different camps in Montana. The government contract was let to Ben Holliday. The first stage robbery was near Pocatello in 1863. The

station was on Pocatello Creek and about two miles south of the creek in a little hollow the robbery oc- curred. The robbers were led by a man named Brocky Jack. They got about six or seven thousand dollars from the passengers. A man named Jack Hughes from Denver had most of the money. Hughes com- plained to Brocky Jack that not enough had been left him to pay for his meals back to Denver, so Brocky Jack very liberally returned him twenty dollars in order to get home.

"The first winter after the establishment of the government stage line there was a great deal of trouble in getting the mail through. The contract for building the station on the Boise branch and putting up the hay for the winter was left to James Lockett for so many dollars per ton, and so many dollars for the building of each station. Lockett was a hard-working industrious man. When the paymaster from the East came along he paid Lockett in greenback dollars, which at that time were worth but forty-five cents on the dollar in New York, and in this country they were used only as curiosities, men lighting their cigars with them, and pasting them up over the bars and similar facetious uses of them were made. Getting paid in greenbacks cut down Lockett's price more than half. The result of that settlement was that Lockett and his friends burned up the hay at the stations, so that there

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

was nothing for the stock to eat, and the carrying of the mail to Boise failed on that account. Most of the men remained on the road and took care of the stock as best they could, but there was no provisions for them and they had to live on the barley which had been brought in for the mules. There were some game that could have been gotten if the men had been prepared to hunt, but most of them only had six- shooters. On the mainline to Montana they got through a stage occasionally. The Indians were not on the war path, but they stole a good many mules to kill and eat. The snow was not so deep but that a mule or horse could pick his living, but the range was so poor that the mules would not be strong enough to pull a stage. There were two Indians who pretended to be friendly, and said they would tell the whites when the Indians were coming to steal, but in reality they were spies. These Indians hung around King Hill Station on Snake River, where Tom Oakley stayed most of the winter. The Redmen were about the sta- tion a good deal, and finally one day while he still had some beans left, Tom was boiling some for dinner, and when they were about half done they scorched. He was about to throw them out when an Indian came and he gave them to the latter. The Indian gorged himself, and in about two hours died of indigestion.

"In the spring Pete McManis, the division agent, came through from Boise, trying to get the mail through. When he reached King Hill, he told the assistant division agent Oakley to go along with him. A man called Yank and myself were at King Hill that winter, and we were to follow them, but first Oakley told Yank to take the oxen and haul out a wagon that had mired down near the camp the fall before. Yank took the oxen and in trying to get out the wagon they mired down. Oakley saw from the road what had happened and came back to the station. In the meantime the other Indian, of the two spies, had come in with a prairie hen that he wanted to trade for something. I told him to see Oakley, I was not the station agent. Oakley came up just then vexed at having to come back and told the Indian to get out of the door. The latter did not move, and Oakley took him by the lapel of the coat and jerked him out. The men in the stage called to him to shoot the Indian, and Oakley pulled out his gun and was going to do so, but I said 'don't kill him,' and he put up his gun and told the Indian to get off the place. The Indian went very sulkily, and the witnesses once more called out, 'Why don't you kill him?' and then Oakley pulled out his gun and shot the Indian dead. Just at that moment the oxen came up with the log chain dragging behind them, having extricated themselves out of the mudhole. Oakley said, 'Here Yank put the log chain around the Indian's neck, and drag him away from the station.' Yank obeyed orders, and hitched on the oxen and dragged the body off. It was all done as if it was a matter of business. Oakley was not a bad man, but he hated a thief, and ke knew these Indians were stealing the mules or helping other Indians to steal them.

"In 1865 the stage line was changed from over Bannack Mountain to Portneuf Canyon, and in the fall a stage robbery occurred in Portneuf Canyon, at which sixty- thousand dollars was obtained by the robbers and four men were killed and one wounded. Lockett de- termined to get even with Holliday on account of being paid in greenbacks instead of gold for building the stage stations, and providing the hay for the stage lines. Holliday had a partner named William L. Halsey, a banker of Salt Lake. Halsey was expected to go through on the stage from Helena to Salt Lake, taking with him one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money. Lockett resolved to rob the stage the day Halsey was on. The driver stood in with Lockett and was to give the information as to when Halsey would be through. Halsey feared he would be robbed and hurried through the stages he was on until he got

twelve hours ahead of schedule. The robbers not look- ing for him so early, he and his treasure escaped with- out danger. Lockett being disappointed in this venture, determined then to rob the stage when there was an- other lot of money on board. There was a St. Louis firm that had a branch business in Helena. One of the partners had been killed by another man named McCausland, and the other St. Louis partner, David Dinan came out to settle up matters and bring back the money. It was known that a large sum was handled, and the stage driver notified Lockett of the coming. When the stage reached a narrow place in the canyon about twelve or fifteen miles south of Pocatello, the robbers who were hidden in the willows held up the stage. The passengers were all sitting with their guns pointing out of the stage, and as soon as they saw the robbers they shot over them, and then the highwaymen began firing and killed McCausland, Dinan and Law- rence Merse. The fourth man I do not recall by name. The driver, of course, was uninjured and none of the robbers were hurt. There were five in the gang. Frank Williams was the driver, and one of the passen- gers named Carpenter escaped without injury."

When Mr. Ireland returned to Idaho in the spring of 1864, he became one of the contractors for Ben Holliday, and helped to build the first stage station along the Holliday line. The most noted of these was Fort Hall, two miles from which site had previously stood the old Hudson's Bay Company's post. He was engaged more or less in this building and contracting from 1864 to 1870, and then got into the cattle business, and he was one of the first cattlemen in this section of Idaho. The first cattle that he used in stocking the range were driven up from Texas, and were the typical Texas longhorn. Mr. Ireland became successful as a cattle raiser, and afterwards sold hundreds of head to Mr. Swift of the Swift Packing Company.

Probably no other living resident of Idaho has a longer and broader view of the basic industrial activity which have made the wealth of the Gem State than Mr. Ireland. Fortunate in his early mining adventures, and meeting with similar success in ranching he con- tinued to give his personal superintendence to his large interests in stock and lands until 1905, when failing eyesight caused him to retire. For thirty years the home and business headquarters of Mr. Ireland were at Malad City, where all his children were born. He sold his ranch there more than twenty years ago, and about fifteen years ago bought stock in the First Na- tional Bank of Pocatello. In 1905 he moved to the latter city, and took the place of vice president in the list of officers of the bank. Soon after moving to Pocatello he was elected as vice president of the bank, became a director in the Standrod and Company State Bank of Blackfoot, a director in the J. N. Ireland & Company State Bank in Malad, is a director in the Commercial National Bank at Ogden, Utah, and has stock in other banks. Mr. Ireland's first marriage was celebrated in 1877 at Baltimore when Miss Virginia Yateman became his wife. She died at Malad, Idaho, in 1888, leaving two daughters, Mrs. John P. Congdon of Boise, who was born in Malad in 1878 and has two children, John Ireland Congdon and Nathaniel Ward Congdon; and Ethelinda, now Mrs. Dr. Frank Sprague, born at Malad in 1888, and a resident of Bellingham, Washington. Mr. Ireland was married the second time at Baltimore in October, 1905, to Miss Phillipina Stans- bury. His church is the Methodist. He has always been a Republican in politics, and during the territorial period served as a member of the Idaho legislature.

ELA COLLINS WATERS. The lives of few Montana citizens contain so much of dramatic interest as that of Ela Collins Waters, who for more than thirty years has played the part of a man of big affairs in this state. His record is a true human document, and illustrates much that has been characteristic of the period of en-

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terprise and action which filled in the half century from the Civil war to modern times.

Ela Collins Waters was born May 5, 1849, at Martins- burg, Lewis county, New York. His father, Homer Collins Waters, was a farmer and stock raiser in early life and later on in the lumber business at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. His mother's maiden name was Ade- line Rockwell, who was born in Connecticut. She was a descendant of Jonathan Trumbull. The family moved out to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1849, where the mother married a second time several years after the death of Mr. Waters, becoming the wife of William M. Alsever. There were five Waters children and two Alsevers, the family being named: Kelsey Theodore, Ela Collins, Josephine Arvilla, Emma Augusta and Homer Merton. The two Alsever children were Mon- roe and Adeline.

The education of Mr. Waters was obtained in the public schools at Fond du Lac until 1864. After his return from the war he attended Ripon College and a select school where he studied the primary grammar . and college courses, such as Latin, history, algebra, etc., but left school before graduating. By his elders young Waters was called a wild, headstrong boy, who would rather play than study. His mind was more on marbles, kite flying, swimming, and raising chickens than on books, though he could learn easily enough when he applied his mind to the task. He was very much afraid that something might happen which he would not see. As a boy he was somewhat pugnacious. He was expelled from school many times for these traits. He could never keep still in school, and it is still one of his physical characteristics.

He was turned out of school during the winter of 1863-64 and enlisted in the army, but was declined, since he was a very slim lad. In the spring of 1864 he went in as a drummer boy and was accepted, being mustered in on April 15, 1864, and serving until the end of the war. The colonel of the regiment offered him for his meritorious conduct a lieutenancy, which he refused be- fore he was sixteen years of age. In an account writ- ten and published in a Wisconsin paper, Colonel Pier after assigning credit to various other men in his regi- ment concluded with the assertion "a braver lad than Ela Waters never lived." The lieutenant of his com- pany (A. A. Dye) in a letter which is somewhat con- densed in form for publication here wrote: "Captain E. C. Waters of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, served in my company, 'A' Thirty-eighth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, during the War of the Rebellion and he was an unusually brave and faithful soldier. Although a musician and not required to bear arms, he went into every fight and carried a musket in every engagement in which the regiment participated.

"I well remember that on March 25, 1865, when General Lee endeavored to break through our lines in front of Petersburg and opened a terrific engagement by the capture of Fort Stedman, that young Waters got permission of our captain to go to that part of our line, some four miles to our right, and that he carried a gun and fought on the firing line until the' fort was recaptured. Though only fourteen years of age he did the service of a grown soldier and was always faithful and brave. No one can doubt that he deserves well at the hands of a government he so faithfully served at that trying period."

His career during the succeeding years will be told largely in the words in which Mr. Waters described it to the interviewer, since his own language is more in- esting than any paraphrase could be: "After leaving Ripon College I was in the sewing machine business for a year. Made $2,400 and spent $3,200 and was in debt $800 at the end of the year. I also bought cattle and sheep, froze them up and shipped them to northern Michigan and made money. Then I went to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1868. From a bed of sick- ness (mountain fever) I loaned my supposed friend

from my home $250, all the money I had. He imme- diately took the train for Frisco and left me there penniless, and I was glad to pawn what I had in order to live until I recovered my health and strength, which I did, and worked for the Union Pacific Railroad Com- pany building snow sheds. I made some money, paid up my debts, and in the spring of 1869 with one hun- dred and twenty-five other men started for the Big Horn mountains to gather gold by the cartload at or near the Last Cabin Claim if we could find it. The Indians were bad that year, and they corralled the outfit in the Wind River valley, where they held our outfit for some time until the United States government sent troops who helped drive the Indians off. I was shot in the leg and taken back to Cheyenne, where I re- mained in the hospital for ,some time. Finally the bul- let was extracted and I returned to Fond du Lac, a poorer but somewhat wiser man.

"Then I was clerk in a hotel at Beloit, Wisconsin, the Goodwin House, for the very enticing salary of $16.00 per month, and came on duty at 9:30 A. M. and went off duty at 3.00 A. M., getting about five or five and a half hours' sleep daily. This was while my foot and leg was getting well and strong from the effects of the revolver bullet. Then I secured a position on the Chicago Board of Trade, which I held for a time, when a letter from my dear mother informed me of the ill- ness of my stepfather with fever and urged me to come home and assist in caring for him, which I did, car- ing for him seven weeks, most of the time night and day, as well as for the other members of the family, who were down with the same fever. My stepfather died January 1, 1870, and gave into my care his only living child, Adeline Alsever, who was then about three and a half years old, and he asked me to care for and educate her, which I did.

"I then went traveling on the road for the Menasha Woodenware Company, selling woodenware. They failed after I had been with them about a year and three months. I then went with a New York tea house, and finally became interested in the company. For the last few years there I made from $7,000 to $9,000 per year. In 1882 I went to Glendive, Montana, and with Mr. Antone Klaus (one of God's noblemen) built the Morrell House, a hotel that cost nearly $50,000. I bought out Mr. Klaus in 1884 or 1885. In the mean- time I was also in the cattle business in the eastern part of Dawson county, and my cattle and Roosevelt's cattle were running some of them on the same range. In the spring of 1885 I opened the Headquarters Hotel at Billings, Montana, and ran the two hotels until the fall of 1885, when my hotel at Glendive burned, I los- ing $27,500. In the fall of 1886 I was elected to rep- resent Yellowstone and Dawson counties in the upper house of the Montana legislature, and during that win- ter of 1886-87 we had the hard winter, and I lost a large number of cattle, which meant the loss of a large amount of money. During that same winter I was elected as department commander of the Grand Arrry of the Republic of Montana."

In 1887 began the phase of Mr. Waters' career which proved the climax of his business experience and brings his life down to the present time. In 1887 he was made general manager of the Yellowstone Park Associa- tion, which association controlled the hotel and trans- portation business in the Yellowstone National Park, this company conducting eight hotels in the park. As gen- eral manager of this association and eventually part owner in the transportation company, which he helped organize, Mr. Waters was closely identified with the entire business and also put the first steamboat on the Yellowstone Lake. After several years he gave up the position of general manager and became president of the Yellowstone Lake Boat Company, and directed the fortunes of that company until the fall of 1908. He also owned one-third of the Wyler Company and as- sisted in organizing said company.

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In 1907 he was offered $300,000 for the property and franchise of the boat company. The privilege of carrying on the business was of course derived from the federal government, whose consent had to be se- cured for a continuance of the franchise under a new lease at the expiration of the old lease. Mr. Waters wrote the interior department and to President Roose- velt requesting permission to sell the boat company property, but never received any reply to his com- munication. The refusal of Mr. Roosevelt and the secretary of the interior to give any recognition to the request of Mr. Waters for the transfer of the franchise to the proposed purchasers caused the sale to fall through. There was a clause in the boat com- pany's lease about as follows: "At the end of ten years, if so authorized by law, the secretary of the interior, acting for the United States government, may purchase the property of the Yellowstone Lake Boat Company, price to be fixed by three appraisers, one chosen by the government, one by the boat company, and the third selected by the two so chosen. If they do not purchase the property of the Yellowstone Lake Boat Company, they will extend this lease for a period not exceeding ten years with all the privileges in the new lease contained in the old contract." The facts in the case showed that the administration refused either to renew the lease or fulfill the terms of the contract thus stated, and ordered the company to remove its prop- erty from the park. The entire equipment of boats, docks, etc., at once became so much dead capital. It is the opinion of Mr. Waters, based upon a large amount of detailed evidence that cannot be reported here, that the party seeking to get control of the whole of the transportation business in the park and standing in the favor of officials of the federal government, used their influence to discontinue the boat company's franchise, and thus force a sale of the property at a figure far below its cost value. Mr. Waters carried on a futile fight for his property and former franchise rights with the officials of two administrations, but in the end was forced to accept $50,000 for the property, whose original cost had been about $250,000, and for which he had once been offered $300,000.

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A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 21

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883- Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1002

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1002