A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 37

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

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their number, while the travelers escaped without a fatality, although several were severely wounded. This was not an unusual experience for the travelers across the plains in those days, for the many unmarked graves attest the fierceness of the wily foe and the casual- ties resulting to the emigrants. The party arrived unbroken at Virginia City in October 1865.

Mining was the principal occupation, and the one busi- ness in which any new arrival could engage in, and which attracted the hundreds of men who sought for- tune in the mines. While many succeeded, there were also a great many that were less fortunate. Mr. Conrad did some mining and also considerable prospecting. It was while engaged in the latter that Mr. Conrad met with a dangerous and most painful experience. He was caught in a blizzard and suffered dreadfully from the cold, freezing his feet badly, and for a considerable time was totally incapacitated. Resuming the search for hidden treasure, as soon as his physical condition would per- mit, he followed that business for a number of years, in various parts of the territory, but was never lucky enough to strike a rich pay shoot. At length, realizing the hazard of the mining business and believing that he might be more successful in other pursuits, he deter- mined to engage in merchandising. In 1879, he estab- lished a general store in the flourishing camp of Marys- ville. This proved a profitable undertaking from the very beginning, and was successfully conducted by Mr. Conrad, until he disposed of his mercantile interests at that place in 1900. Mr. Conrad's reputation as a busi- ness man had become thoroughly established, and he was held in the highest esteem for his honorable and upright business methods. He was appointed post- master at Marysville by President Harrison, and served in all five years, four of which were under the admin- istration of Grover Cleveland.

Since 1905 Mr. Conrad has been prominently identi- fied with the Daily Record Publishing Company, and there has found a scope for his business and executive ability that is somewhat commensurate with his capacity.

The Record is published at Helena, and occupies a foremost position among the leading dailies of the state. It is the successor to the Helena Herald, which was established in 1868, and was organized in 1905, when Mr. Conrad was made cashier of the company. In Jan- uary, 1912, he was elected president; Dr. O. M. Lan- strum, vice-president; and T. A. Marlow, treasurer.

The office of president of the Record Company is anything but a sinecure, as it entails the duties of busi- ness manager, which Mr. Conrad conducts with signal ability.

On October 4th, 1873, Mr. Conrad married Miss Katharine Miller, a native of Iowa but at that time a resident of Canyon Ferry. They became the parents of three children: George Edward, of Helena, con- nected with the Union Market; Ralf J., of Helena; and Lillian, now the wife of Dr. O. M. Lanstrum, of Helena, and who has three sons: Claud. Fredrick and Philip.

Politically Mr. Conrad is a Republican, having de- parted from the faith of his father in politics, but still adheres to the church of that parent. Fraternally Mr. Conrad is a Pythian Knight of high degree, having passed through all the chairs.

He began life a poor boy, but it proved no handicap to him, rather an incentive, to do and achieve success on his own account. He has had a wide, varied and interesting experience in Montana's history and now after nearly a half-century, he can look back and survey the field with satisfaction, for he has made good and acquired a competence, as well as occupying a position of dignity and responsibility in a profession which is among the strongest influences of modern civilization- the press.

He is fully entitled to the high position he holds among the business men of Montana, and his. friends are limited only by his acquaintance.

John I Work

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JOHN F. WORK. If the biographer should attempt to select a life record to present to the readers of the younger generation as an illustration of the vicissitudes of pioneer life, probably no better exemplification could be found than the career of John F. Work, one of the most highly esteemed residents of Bozeman, the story of whose life during frontier days reads like the pages from some wild romance. The son of a "forty-niner," he joined in the rush for gold in the newly discovered camps, hunted buffaloes and tracked (and was tracked by) Indians, narrowly escaping death on several occa- sions, and eventually settled down to sheep raising in the Yellowstone valley, where he is now regarded as one of his section's most substantial and representative citizens. Mr. Work was born on a farm in Adams county, Pennsylvania, near the field where the great battle of Gettysburg was to be contested in later years, his natal day being June 30, 1835, and he is a son of James and Marie (Black) Work.

James Work was born in Allegheny county, Pennsyl= vania, in 1810, and as a youth learned the trade of a wagoner or freighter. During the early 'forties he started for the West, going by water to Jackson- ville, Illinois, and there engaging in the broom manu- facturing business. About a year later he moved to Scot- land county, Missouri, where he followed farming until 1847, when he moved to Memphis, Missouri, there en- gaging in the packing business in which he continued until 1849.

In 1849, when the nation was electrified by the dis- covery of gold in California, Mr. Work started across the plains by bull team, then a popular mode of travel, arriving three or four months later in Sacramento, his sole earthly possessions being represented by a cow. He was engaged in seeking the precious metal up to 1853, with a fair measure of success, and in that year returned overland, via Panama, to Memphis, in Scotland county, Missouri, where he engaged in pork packing until 1862, then going to California once more, where he engaged in prospecting, mining and farming up to the fall of 1863. He then spent a year in Idaho, but returned to Missouri via Salt Lake, and the remainder of his life was spent in agricultural pursuits, his death occurring in 1869. Mr. Work married Miss Marie Black, who was born in 1812, on a farm in Adams county, Pennsylvania, eight miles from the Gettysburg battlefield, and she died in 1893, having been the mother of seven children, of whom three are living : John F., of this review; Mary, the widow of Eugene Williams, residing in Livingston, Montana ; and Zachary Taylor, who married Mary Cox and lives in Park county, Montana.

John F. Work was still a small child when he ac- companied his parents to Scotland county, Missouri, and there he secured such education as the district schools afforded, although the greater part of his time was spent in the school of hard work on his father's farm. In 1857 he began to drive cattle from different points in Missouri to St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and after making a number of such trips, in 1859 he went overland to Pike's Peak, Colorado, with a party during the gold excitement. Returning to Jefferson City, Mis- souri, he acted as yard boss in the state prison until 1861, when he returned to Memphis, Missouri, to visit his parents. On March 16, 1862, Mr. Work and his father became members of a party that had started over- land to California, with an outfit of mules and horses, but when they had reached Stillwater, Wyoming, re- ceived news of the discovery of gold on Salmon river. At South Pass he met a party going to Salmon river, and made arrangements to join them. With only $2.50 in his pockets, he started off with the party, to make the journey. This was an extremely perilous undertaking, as the Indians were on the war-path. On arriving at their destination, they were not favorably impressed by conditions as they found them to exist, and started for Elk City, about three hundred miles distant. Shortly

after leaving, their pack mules ran away, and they were forced to subsist mainly on grouse during a tramp of three hundred miles to Elk City, in which place they remained three or four days, and then pushed on another 125 miles to Lewiston, Idaho, which place they left on foot for Walla Walla, in company with an Irishman familiarly known as old Jim, but before they reached their destination the party broke up and Mr. Work trav- eled alone without food for a day and night. Eventu- ally he secured employment on a ranch near Walla Walla at wages of $2.50 per day, and in the spring of 1863 left for Placerville, Idaho, which he reached after a perilous ·journey through the deep snow of the Blue Mountains. He prospected and worked for wages in Idaho until the fall of that year, when he returned to Walla Walla and secured employment at a teamster for the United States government, a position which he held until the spring of 1864, when he returned to Idaho. There, with three other young men, he purchased a small piece of mining property in Moore's Creek, and after working all summer at placer mining, spent the winter in the valley with an old friend of his father. Dur- ing that time they ran out of flour once, and for six weeks the only obtainable food was black tail deer. In the spring of 1865 he went to Idaho City, and shortly thereafter commenced working for wages on Moore's Creek, but in August, 1865, left with a freighting outfit for Salt Lake .. He took his father with him, who had arrived in very poor health, and spent the remainder of his small stock of money in paying the elder man's fare back to Missouri with a freighting outfit. He then engaged in working for Bishop Layton, of the Mormon church, but in the fall of 1865 went overland to Virginia City, Montana, and later to Silver Bow. In December, 1865, he arrived in the city of Helena. While there he helped Johnnie Healy to select forty head of oxen and started to take them through to Sun river, but heavy snows stopped them. They were compelled to stop at Malcolm Clark's ranch, and eventually lost all but fourteen head of their oxen. Mr. Work returned to Helena in the spring of 1866, from there went to Deer Lodge and in the same fall to Argenta, where he secured a posi- tion in the smelters. In the spring of 1867 he re- turned to Salmon river, Idaho. In the fall of the same year he came over the mountains with Hugh Kirkendall's outfit to Bozeman where for some time he was employed by the government in delivering supplies to the Crow Indians. During the fall and winter of 1867 he was employed by Mr. Kirkendall, who had the contract to furnish wood for Fort Ellis, and in the spring of 1868 went to Emigrant Gulch, where he spent some time in mining. Subsequently he followed hunting on the Yellowstone river, but in 1871 began lumbering and continued to be so engaged until 1872, when he took up what is at this time known as the Ben Strickland ranch on the upper Yel- lowstone river, in Park county. Losing a number of oxen there, he engaged in the pack train business, taking invalids to the Mammoth Hot Springs, and car- ried the first white woman who was ever taken to the National Park. He continued in this business until 1874, and in 1875 again engaged in mining in Emi- grant Gulch. The summer of 1876 he spent in the Black Hills with a party of sixty-five prospectors, and returned via Fort Laramie, wintering on Pass creek, near Fort Hallock, in 1877. He then came through the Wind river country and Green river section to Montana, and took Nelson Story, Sr., Byron Story and Charles Rich, through the National Park, return- ing to Bozeman. In a return trip to Cinnabar, tlie party consisted of three men and one boy, and when they were attacked by Nez Perces Indians they were forced to abandon their camp and supplies in order to save their lives by crossing the river. Later Mr. Work obtained some small measure of revenge for

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

the destruction of the camp by aiding in the packing for the United States in its raid on this tribe of sav- ages. He then accepted the position of superintend- ent of the firm of McAdow & Vilas, who carried on cattle business on Work creek, in Sweet Grass county, and named in honor of Mr. Work, but subsequently took charge of the government herd for the United States at Crow Indian Agency. He then engaged in freighting from Bozeman to the Crow agency. The year 1880 saw Mr. Work established in the freight- ing business, under the firm name of Work & Lock, and in that year he helped Captain Belknap of Boston to select a ranch location at Stinking Water, Wyom -. ing in the Wind river country. It 1881 he purchased for Colonel Belknap over fifteen hundred head of cattle and took them to the Stinking Water country. In 1883 he accepted and fulfilled a sub-contract with the Bozeman Tunnel Company to remove dirt from the tunnel and hauling wood and coal. Since 1880 he has been engaged in the sheep business, and now has quite extensive interests in the Yellowstone valley near Livingston. His son, Lester P. Work, has since 1910 practically had charge of the business, although Mr. Work advanced in years as he is and after a rugged and strenuous life in the West, is still fully capable of handling his properties and handling them to the best advantage, should circumstances necessi- tate his taking charge. In March, 1892, he removed to Bozeman and has since made his home there. He has at various times identified himself with enter- prises which have had for their object the betterment of the community, and the large business ventures with which he has been connected have made his name familiar throughout this section of the country. His record is that of a good citizen and a business man of strict integrity, and his friends are legion. With a wealth of anecdote and a keen memory of the time when this section was the home of wild animals and still wilder men, he is a pleasing and interesting con- versationalist. Politically, Mr. Work is a Republican, and socially he is a valued member of the Montana and Gallatin Pioneer societies.

On January 10, 1884, Mr. Work was married to Mary Evelyn Stone, who was born in Worth county, Missouri, daughter of Jeremiah R. and Mary (White) Stone, the former born in Virginia on May 2, 1834, and still surviving, and the latter born in Indiana, September II, 1837, and died in 1906. Mrs. Work's parents had a family of four sons and six daughters, of whom the following are still living: Joseph R., Elmer, Mary Evelyn, Alpha and Ila. Jeremiah R. Stone was a mere boy when he accompanied his parents from Virginia to Missouri, and there learned the harness trade, an occupation which he followed until 1883. He then came to Montana and engaged in ranching near Bozeman until 1902, since which year he has lived a retired life in this city.

Mr. and Mrs. Work have two children: Vida Marie and Lester Park. The former was married in Aug- ust, 1912, to Ray Holloway, and the latter married Ina Tucker, the daughter of John Tucker of Helena, in November, 1912. She died three months after their marriage.

PATRICK A. LARGEY. In the list of men who became identified with the history of Montana in the pioneer days, it is doubtful whether there could be revealed a more distinctly unique and individual character than Patrick Largey. His life was marked by unceasing toil and endeavor, by modesty and honesty of purpose, and was crowned with success that was worthily achieved. In the life story of this versatile and well beloved citizen the element of tragedy bore a potential part. His early struggle for a foothold in the world of effort was discouraged and made more difficult while he was yet a very young man by the loss of his father through a disastrous accident, and also through losses

caused by the business reverses of others. Yet these trials and discouragements so stimulated his own activities that they led to final and commanding tri- umphs, only to end at the very 'acme of his usefulness and power by violent death at the hands of a cowardly assassin who had frequently fed on his bounty.

Mr. Largey was born on April 1, Palm Sunday, in 1836, and was reared on a farm near New Lexington in Perry county, Ohio, far from the din and turmoil of the busy marts of trade. Nothing in his childhood and youth was to reveal to him the great world in whose activities he was to participate so vigorously and successfully. Yet it may be that with the imagina- tion which was a part of his inheritance from a long line of Celtic ancestors, the lad had visions of future conquests in that great outside world of commerce and finance. The section in which he was reared offered meager opportunities for education, but he made the most of the material at hand, utilizing it to such advantage that while many of his associates were toiling through the grades he had qualified as a teacher, and was soon saving what he could from his small earnings, to assist in paying his way through St. Joseph's College, at Somerset, Ohio. During vacation periods he was employed on the farm and his pay from this labor also went to provide the tuition and books.

After leaving college, he taught school for a time, then went to Cincinnati and became bookkeeper for a commercial house. A year later, he was employed by John McCune, who owned steamboats on the Ohio river. Through this employment and what it led to, he ultimately reached Keokuk, Iowa, where he worked in a dry-goods store two years, when the firm failed and he returned to his home town, in Ohio. Here he again took up the profession of teaching, and during the vacations, between terms, worked as a farm hand. He worked at anything he could get, pro- vided it were honorable, and even though wages were low, he was a young man of regular habits, not given to indulgences of any kind, and was able through strict economy to lay aside a little money.

With the small capital thus acquired, he again went west, locating in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1861. Here he was able to purchase a small stock of merchandise and to open a store. The experience and acquaintance with conditions and with people that came to him after a year's time spent here, gave him an insight into a field that, as thought, offered greater oppor- tunities. He therefore disposed of his business in Des Moines, and went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he became purchasing agent for Edward Creighton, a renowned freighter, buying horses, mules, and oxen to be used by him in freighting across the plains. In 1865, he was made captain of one of Mr. Creighton's trains of sixty wagons, which he safely conducted to Virginia City, Montana, in the fall of that year, losing only one man, who was killed from ambush by Indians. Mr. Largey's keen appreciation of values and oppor- tunities enabled him to take in at a glance the possi- bilities of this part of the country, and he decided to remain. The following year he opened a grocery store at Helena, but the business not being to his liking he sold it in the fall. He again entered the freighting business, buying mules and wagons of Majors & Rus- sell, and within a year carried $60,000 worth of gold to Salt Lake City. He also dealt in cattle in Jefferson county, in the state of his adoption. Presently he was once more engaged in merchandise, having chosen Virginia City as the base of his operations, but he did not continue this enterprise long. After selling the business he next worked as salesman for Creigh- ton & Ohle, remaining with them for four years. He next became a hardware merchant, continuing in the trade eight years, then selling out the business in 1880, to Elling, Knight & Company, and looking around for some other pursuit and location.

Through all these chances and changes Fate was

P.a. Largey,

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

leading him, with a firm but kind and persuasive hand, to the place and opportunities for which she seems to have designed him, and at last her goal was reached. When he sold his hardware business in Virginia City, he came to Butte and organized the Butte Hardware Company, and in 1883 he established a branch house for it in Anaconda. The trade in both cities was large and active, and its requirements kept him busy, but this was always in accordance with his desires.

Some years prior to coming to Butte, however, Mr. Largey engaged in other lines of enterprise which are too important to be overlooked. In 1867, he built a telegraph line for the Western Union Company from Virginia City to Helena, and in 1868 one from Helena to Fort Benton, following it the next year by one from Helena to Bozeman. Then in 1879, he built the line between Deer Lodge and Butte, being the prime factor in the company owning it, which later became the Montana Central Telegraph Company. When the Northern Pacific Railroad was building through this . territory, he sold part of the line to the United States government. Mr. Largey was also instrumental in building up large banking institutions in Virginia City and Helena, in which he was the dominant figure. Through them he acquired an extensive and accurate knowledge of the banking business, and was well pre- pared to start the State Savings Bank of Butte when the time came. He founded this bank on the 29th of January, 1891, beginning business with a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars, in an excellent field for extensive operations. He was elected its president and controlled its policy, augmented its usefulness, popularized its coffers and directed the investment of its revenues, his management of affairs proving to be full of wisdom and of great advantage to the insti- tution.

In the meantime, with a quick eye to perceive and a hand ever ready to supply public needs, he secured the aid of others and with them purchased the feeble and struggling electric light plant in Butte. He formed the company for the sole purpose of purchasing and developing the plant and when this was accomplished he sold it. Mr. Largey also founded the Butte Inter- Mountain, a daily newspaper, and was the first presi- dent of the company which conducted it. Like every- thing else he put his hand to, this enterprise flourished from the beginning, and has grown in circulation and influence until it is one of the most prosperous and effective expressions of public opinion in the North- west.

Mr. Largey was the son of Patrick and Jane (Cassilly) Largey, natives of Armagh in the county of the same name in Ireland, where they were married in 1809 and whence they emigrated to the United States in 1814. On their arrival they located on a farm in Perry county, Ohio, near the town of Somerset. There they passed the remainder of their useful and upright lives and reared their family of eleven children; and there also, they died, the mother in 1857, at the age of sixty years, and the father in 1859, at the age of seventy-two, from injuries received by falling into a well.

Patrick A. Largey was the last born of their eleven children. He was married in Chicago on the 30th of April, 1877, to Miss Lulu Sellers, a native of Cincinnati, daughter of Morris Sellers and his first wife, Amanda (Patterson) Sellers. Mr. Sellers is president of the Sellers Manufacturing Company of Chicago, and pre- vious to this connection was for years a successful me- chanical engineer in railway construction. He was a native of Pennsylvania and is descended from one of the colonists who came over with William Penn. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Largey, four of whom are living: Morris Sellers, who having re- ceived his education at the University of Michigan, is now vice president of the State Savings Bank and is prominently identified with the business life of the city of Butte, where he makes his home; Lulu, who is now

the wife of Frank C. McGinn, of Omaha, Nebraska; Edward Creighton, who is mentioned elsewhere in this work, and Mary Montana, who was born the year of Montana's admission to the dignity of statehood, August 24, 1889, now Mrs. R. G. MacDonald of Butte. The two children who have passed away were Grace Helen, who died in 1879, and Blanche, whose death occurred in childhood. About 1879 Mr. Largey built what was the second brick residence in Butte, on the northwest corner of Broadway and Washington streets, and was where his home was always made. In 1893 he remodeled the house, adding a second story. It was in this original house, the first telegraph office in Butte was located.

The sensational and tragic event which ended Mr. Largey's life occurred on the IIth of January, 1898. On that day he was deliberately shot in his bank by an irresponsible miner, named Riley, who cherished an imaginary grievance until it became a mania with him. Three years before he had been injured in an explosion in an enterprise in which Mr. Largey was a stockholder. For several days prior to his desperate deed he haunted the bank and was always received and treated with kindness by Mr. Largey, who frequently gave him liberal financial assistance.

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A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 37

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