A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 73

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

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D. D. Walker

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

Junior, being the third oldest. She and her husband left Bloomington after four decades of active life in that place and made their home in Chicago. Here Mr. Dalton passed away in 1908, at the age of seventy- nine. Two years afterward in the month of May, Mrs. Dalton died, in the same city. Both were mem- bers of the Baptist church.

Charles Edward, of this sketch, graduated from the high school in Bloomington at the age of eighteen, and at once went to work in his father's store, in a clerical capacity. He was associated with his father for the next three years, and when he left home in search of wider opportunities he came directly to Meagher county, Montana. For the first year of his stay he was employed on the ranch of David Hoover, but in 1880 he secured land of his own and began operations as an independent stock raiser. For the following six years he followed ranching, specializing in the raising of horses. His place was located near Townsend. When he disposed of his ranch Mr. Dalton moved to Helena and for four years his business was that of importing blooded stock from Illinois. This was the second enterprise of the kind to be instituted in the state, and as it offered a fine field the venture was highly satisfactory from a financial point of view.

It was during this time that Mr. Dalton located the mining properties which he spent the subsequent ten years in developing and operating. They were situated in the Blackfoot district and in Powell county, and they proved to be claims which paid richly. His experi- ence in the mines was all that could be desired, and he realized a handsome sum from his investments in this industry. His next venture was in the retail furniture trade in Helena, to which he devoted himself until 1906, when he again took up mining. He continued to work in the ground until February, 1911, when he became associated with John A. Simon, in company with whom he purchased the long established business of Babcock & Company, which has been for a considerable period one of the substantial and prosperous concerns of Helena. The store is located at 56 North Main street, and is one of the high class mercantile establishments of the city. Mr. Dalton still retains his mining interests, al- though he has delegated their management to others. There are few men in this part of the state who have done more to promote mining projects, and he has been instrumental in bringing about many large invest- ments for the development of mining properties and has thus been an important factor in the history of this industry in Montana. As he has been not only a pro- moter but also an operator, he has shared in the risks and reaped the rewards of this uncertain and fascinat- ing occupation.

Mr. Dalton's business has not permitted him to be an office holder, nor even to play the game of politics for the pleasure of organization. He is, however, a progressive Republican, and a man who takes a keen interest in civic and national questions. He is a mem- ber of the Retail Merchants' Association, as well as of the Commercial Club. In the secret orders he belongs to the Odd Fellows, and is also one of the company who make up the Lambs' Club.

On May 2, 1893, at Bloomington, Illinois, was cele- brated the marriage of Charles Dalton and Flora, daughter of Charles Kadel, of that city. A son, C. Kadel Dalton, was born to the couple on August 21, 1902. The Daltons are Protestants, as were their an- cestors, who were of English stock. Mr. Dalton is another of that large class of ambitious boys who have made good by doing good work in a good field.

' DAVID D. WALKER. The late David Davis Walker, a prominent citizen of Deer Lodge county, and one of the best known stock-men in Montana, was prominently identified with the interests of Anaconda during the whole period of its existence and was numbered among its leading and most highly esteemed citizens.

Mr. Walker was of Scotch-Irish extraction, his grand- father having been a native of Scotland and his grand- mother of Ireland. Their respective families settled in Virginia during colonial times and when Kentucky was opened by Daniel Boone, the grandfather, with his family, moved to that frontier. There David Walker (who lived to become the father of David D. Walker) was reared and there he married. At about the time of his marriage, Illinois was being opened up and set- tled, and, true to the pioneer instincts of his race, he moved westward and settled in Sangamon county of the latter state. From 1827, the year of his Illinois migra- tion, until 1836, he engaged in agricultural pursuits on the soil of his chosen locality. Again seized with the spirit of migration, he packed his effects and removed with his family to a place near West Point, in Lee county, Iowa. From that time, years before there was any sign of a town in that region, David Walker lived until his death at the age of seventy-four, many years after the passing of his wife, Nancy Davis Walker. Of the twelve children-seven sons and five daughters- who had been born to them, eight had lived to reach maturity. Of these David D. Walker was the youngest, and was but eighteen months old when his mother died. Lee county, Iowa, was the place of his nativity and De- cember 15, 1843, the date of his birth.

Amid pioneer scenes David D. Walker grew to man- hood. Scarcely had he reached the age of responsible maturity when the prevailing characteristic of his fam- ily-that so conspicuously demonstrated in the move- ments of his ancestors-caused him to seek a home and field of endeavor in the new west. He accordingly arranged for a journey to the mining regions of Mon- tana. As at that time (1865) there were no railroads west of Des Moines, an overland trip on the proposed route meant something very different from what it does at the present day.

After five months spent by David D. Walker, with his party of friends, in crossing the plains with teanis from Iowa into Montana, he first located on Cotton- wood creek, near Dear Lodge, where he success- fully engaged in farming and stock-raising. This work he interrupted after a time in order to return to Iowa and to remain with his father during his last illness.

Mr. Walker returned to Montana after his parent's death. On this journey he was accompanied by his wife, whom he had married at West Point, Iowa, No- vember 14, 1867. Mr. Walker remained in Iowa until spring of 1870, when he and his wife started for Mon- tana, going by rail to Corinne, Utah, then the end of railroad traffic, and the railroad freight for Montana all came there. Mr. Walker remained at Corinne, in the livery business, about two years, when his father's physical condition caused him to return to Iowa, where he remained until his father's death, and in 1879 he re- turned to Montana, where his home was made there- after. He resumed his activities in stock-raising with continued success and with a keen interest in the development of new opportunities in his environ- ment. In June, 1883, Anaconda was laid out and busi- ness was begun in tents. Mr. Walker was one of the first to purchase a town lot and in the fall of that year, associated with two other citizens of the new municipality, he opened a place of business. His asso- ciates were N. J. Bielenburg and J. K. Mallory, and their enterprise was a butcher shop and meat market at 19 Main street. The firm did a thriving business from the start and its patronage and profits increased at a gratifying rate. Mr. Mallory presently withdrew from the partnership and the firm became known as Bielenburg & Walker. This firm, whose stock was at Big Hole ranch, was the first to begin the practice of feeding in the winter the beef intended for the spring market. This plan has since proved popular and ex- ceedingly profitable among the stock raisers of the Big Hole valley.

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

In the meantime Mr. Walker had in other than com- mercial lines become one ot Anaconda's most important residents. He was inconspicuously interested in poli- tics, being a member of the Democratic party, and while he never sought office, office sought and found him. He was a member of the board of county com- missioners of Deer Lodge county, having been elected in 1886, and was made chairman of the board. His executive ability brought him to the front and in 1890 he was elected mayor of Anaconda. He served one term with credit to himself and to the entire satisfac- tion of his fellow-citizens. He was actively concerned in the moral welfare of the community, and in his Presbyterian church affiliation his sincerity and earnest- ness in matters of the highest good were made unas- sumingly manifest. That religious organization is also the church home of Mrs. Walker, who survives her husband.

Mrs. Walker was formerly Miss Mary E. Hall, a de- scendant of early New England colonists and a daugh- ter of Ira B. and Mary E. (Thurston) Hall, of Taze- well county, Illinois. That locality was the birthplace of Mary Hall, who became the wife of David D. Walker. Their son, Ira B. Walker, married Miss Hattie B. May in 1898; she is a native of Kentucky, and by her marriage has become the mother of Richard D. Walker, born November 6, 1899. The ranching and stock-raising which his father found so interesting and so profitable now comprises the vocational activities of Mr. Ira Walker, whose location is the Big Hole Valley.

When David D. Walker's busy and well-spent life was so suddenly cut short on June 16, 1906, the general and deep appreciation of the community for his char- acter found full voice in many ways and in many quar- ters. An editorial published at this time in the And- conda Standard, may be fittingly quoted in closing this brief biographical record: "Back in 1883, David D. Walker came to the little collection of tents which was then all there was of the city and cast his fortunes with Anaconda. He was then just forty years old, in the very prime of manhood, always vigorous, wholesome, sane and honest. Anaconda has been his home ever since; and to his sturdy personality, his clear head, his wise counsels, his model citizenship, the city owes much. Mr. Walker was indeed a type of the good citizen. He took an interest in public affairs. He was familiar with the machinery of government. He knew every part of the country for miles round about, and by all he was esteemed, honored and beloved.

"A Democrat in politics, he could submerge his parti- sanship when the public good seemed to require. There was nothing bigoted about D. D. Walker; breadth of view, tolerance of other men's opinions, even when they clashed with his own, a quiet and lovable patience- these were among his most notable and splendid char- acteristics. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gave him to see the right, Mr. Walker lived a life full of dignity, recti- tude, usefulness and noble influence." He was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Anaconda. In 1883 he built his home at what is 305 East Third street, Ana- conda, where he lived thereafter, and where his widow still resides.

FRED H. FOSTER was born in Minnesota, February 2. 1856, and is a son of Robert and Lucinda (McMillan) Foster, natives of Ohio. On the paternal side his grandfather was Alexander Foster, a native of Ire- land, while Reuben McMillan, his maternal grand- father, was born in New York state. The latter was a son of James McMillan, who belonged to an old Highland Scotch family, members of which came to the United States prior to the Revolutionary war, in which struggle they participated. Robert Foster was for many years engaged in mercantile pursuits, but re- tired therefrom in 1890, and from that time on made

his home with his children, his death occurring at the residence of Fred H. Foster in 1909, when he was eighty-six years of age. His wife passed away in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the age of fifty-six years, having been the mother of four children. One of these is Henry W. Foster, M. D., of Bozeman, Mon- tana; another is a retired lieutenant of the United States Navy and resides in New Orleans, while the only daughter, Mrs. Clara L. King, lives at Van- couver, British Columbia.

In the excellent public schools of his native state Fred H. Foster secured his educational training, which was subsequently supplemental by a partial course of the State University. He first came to Montana with the engineering corps of the Northern Pacific Rail- road, then operating in the Yellowstone valley, Au- gust 8, 1879, but in December, 1881, gave up this work to form a partnership with P. W. McAdow in the general marchandise business at Coulson. This as- sociation continued until 1883, in April of which year he platted a quarter-section of land, now a part of the city of Billings, and known as Foster's Addition, and engaged in the real estate business, which soon grew to. such proportions that it demanded his entire attention. He became a member of the first board of commissioners of Yellowstone county and was a member of the school board, and in 1889 was elected to the office of mayor. He was subsequently re-elected in 1893, 1903, 1905 and 1907, and during his five terms gave the city a business administration that will serve as an example to those who fill the chief executive's chair in years to come. From 1889 until 1893 he acted in the capacity of county clerk, and in 1904 was elected clerk of the district court. In 1895 he was secretary of the state senate, the fourth legislative assembly. In 1892 Mr. Foster went to Washington, D. C., where he was instrumental in securing the passage of a bill au- thorizing the appointment of a commission to treat with the Crow Indians for the opening of the western portion of the Crow Indian Reservation, and subse- quently served efficiently as a member of that body. Since the expiration of his last term as mayor of Bil- lings he has given his whole attention to the insur- ance business. He has been prominent in fraternal bodies for a number of years, and at present is a member of Billings Lodge, No. 394, B. P. O. E., past exalted ruler of his lodge and steward of the Elks Hall, one of the finest buildings of its kind in the United States. He is also connected with Billings Aerie, F. O. E .; past council commander of the W. O. W .; and a member of the Degree of Honor and I. O. R. M. since 1896. His stanch support has been given to the Democratic party, its principles and its candidates, and he has been recognized as a man whose influence in the ranks of the organization is to be reckoned with.

On April 19, 1882, Mr. Foster was married to Miss Georgia Mclaughlin, a native of Minnesota and daughter of Horace and Margaret McLaughlin, both of whom came from the state of Massachusetts. Hor- ace Mclaughlin was descended from an old Highland Scotch family which made its advent in the United States about 1650, while his wife's ancestors were na- tives of England. Mr. and Mrs. Foster are the par- ents of five living children, namely : Herbert H., Clara, Robert, Annabel and Henry W.

Mr. Foster's career has been a busv and a useful one, but he has never been so occupied with his pri- vate interests that he has neglected to discharge the duties of citizenship, and he has not only assisted in developing the resources of his community in con- nection with his business, but in his various official capacities has plainly demonstrated that he has had the welfare of his adopted city at heart. No man stands higher in public esteem, nor has any citizen been more successful in making and retaining friends.

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WILLIAM LEE MAINS. The city of Billings is in- debted for its present prosperity and commercial ac- tivity to many men whose capital and intellect have been instrumental in promoting its growth, and among these one who has attained a place of prominence in the financial world is William Lee Mains, president of the Farmers and Traders State Bank. Like many others of Montana's most successful men, Mr. Mains has been the architect of his fortunes, for he started his career at the bottom rung of the ladder of finance, and has achieved his present standing only through persistent effort and the exercise of unusual business ability. He is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and was born September 20, 1873, a son of Maxwell G. and Kate E. (Lee) Mains.

Maxwell G. Mains was born at Greenfield, Ohio, in 1844, and received his primary educational training in the public schools of that place. Subsequently he attended Cincinnati College, and after leaving the in- stitution he enlisted in the Eleventh Indiana Volun- tcers, under Colonel Lew Wallace, in Sheridan's Brigade, and served four years as chief musician, par- ticipating in all the activities of his regiment and ac- · companying General Sherman on his famous march to the sea. On completing his service he located in Flora, Illinois, where he engaged in the jewelry busi- ness for some years, and then went to Louisville, Ken- tucky, where he continued to follow the same line of business. Subsequently he removed to Jefferson county, Indiana, and in 1879 came to Miles City, Mon- tana, where he remained until 1882. In that year Mr. Mains located in Billings, where he became the pioneer jeweler of the city and continued in business here until 1891, then going to Spokane, Washington. At the present time he is engaged in business at North Yakima, Washington. He is a member of Mckinley Post, Grand Army of the Republic. and is a stanch supporter of the principles of the Republican party. In 1872 Mr. Mains was married at Louisville, Kentucky, to Miss Kate E. Lee, who was born in that city in 1852, and she died in 1904, having been the mother of six children, of whom four survive: William Lee, Ida L., Charles W. and Mary Florence.

The education of William Lee Mains was secured in the public schools of Louisville, but he was not ten years of age when he came to Billings, June 10, 1883, and secured employment as office boy and messenger with the First National Bank. Faithful and steady in his work, he soon attracted the attention of his em- ployers, and he was promoted to bookkeeper, then to teller, subsequently to assistant cashier, and eventually to the position of cashier and director. He held the latter positions until 1906, when he purchased the Col- umbus State Bank of Columbus, Montana, and was president thereof until the spring of 1909, at which time he sold out to buy the Citizens National Bank of Laurel, Montana, and of which he is president. At this time he was the main factor in organizing the Farmers and Traders State Bank of Billings, of which he has since been the president. Among business men Mr. Mains is looked to as a clear-headed man whose ad- vice is always sound. Imbucd with the highest in- tegrity in all business matters, his ability has been shown in the growth of the great institution of which he is at the head. Fraternally he is connected with Ashlar Lodge, No. 29, F. & A. M .; Billings Chapter, No. 6. R. A. M .; and Aldemar Commandery, No. 5. K. T .; and is a past exalted ruler of Billings Lodge, No. 394, B. P. O. E. Politically he is a Republican, but he has never chosen to enter the field of politics. He is an ex-president of the Billings Club, and is a member of the executive committee of the local Young Men's Christian Association.

On June 22, 1904, Mr. Mains was united in mar- riage with Miss Alice Brown, daughter of Judge Michael Brown, and three children have been born Vol. II-16

to this union, namely: William Lee, Jr., Lillian and Harriman Brown.

JABEZ W. VAUGHAN. In the thirty years or more of Jabez W. Vaughan's residence in Montana he has seen many changes take place in the state, which until recent years was regarded as partaking of all the qualities of the "wild west." In his time he has seen the primi- tive modes of life in a new country give way to a com- paratively metropolitan existence, and he has been as- sociated with many an enterprise that has contributed to the advancement and settling of the state.

Jabez W. Vaughan was born in Clarkesville, Pike county, Missouri, April 7, 1859, and is the son of Almond T. and Margaret L. (Swain) Vaughan. The father was a native of Virginia, being born in Nelson county of that state on August 10, 1827, and dying February 5, 1907, almost reaching the allotted three score years and ten. Mrs. Vaughan was born in Wake- field, Massachusetts, August 12, 1830, and she died February 8, 1902. They were married on December 6, 1849, in Clarkesville, Missouri, and were the parents of thirteen children. Four of that number died in in- fancy, and one, Annie M., was taken from them after she had reached young womanhood, being nineteen years of age at the time of her death. Mattie, the eldest of the family, married Henry B. Miller. She was born September 30, 1850, and died in 1903. The others are Thomas A .; Jabez W. of whom we write, he being the fourth in order of birth; Ella Malvina, the wife of J. W. Wamsley; Harriet E., the wife of N. N. Hinsdale; Elizabeth B., the wife of C. P. Paxton; Carrie, the wife of John Luke, and George.

When three years of age Almond T. Vaughan came to Lincoln county, Missouri, with his parents. While yet a mere child he had the great misfortune to lose both his parents, after which he was given a home in the family of his uncle, John N. Luke, in Pike county, Missouri. As a youth he worked on the steamboats plying up and down the Missisippi river for a number of years, and when a young man located on a farm near Clarkesville, where he gave his time to the farming industry until a few years prior to his death, with the exception of two or three instances when he went on extended trips to the west. In 1879 he left Clarkesville and came to Montana, where he was in the employ of the United States escort of the inspector general, visit- ing all the U. S. army posts in the west. In the fall of 1881 he returned to Missouri, where he remained until the year 1906, and in July of that year he returned to Montana and was so fortunate as to draw a claim in the distribution of the Crow reservation lands by the U. S. government. His life after that was short, how- ever, and in February, 1907, he passed away at the home of his son Jabez, with whom he had resided while in Montana.

Aside from his quiet farm life, Mr. Vaughan had been active in various movements, both in Montana and Missouri. While a resident of Pike county, Missouri, he was assessor of that county for three years. In 1850 he became deeply enthusiastic over the discovery of gold in California, and he made the trip overland from Clarkesville with six yokes of oxen to central California. He spent about two years prospecting and mining and in 1853 returned to his home in Clarkesville. He made the return trip via Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, and his trip .from start to finish was replete with thrilling adventures, although it did not add ma- terially to his stock of worldly goods. In the fall of 1879, when on his first trip to Montana, he with his son Jabez established the first mail route to be operated between Old Coulson and Martinsdale on the Mussell- shell. Mr. Vaughan was for fifty years a member of the blue lodge of the Masonic fraternity, and a Demo- crat all the years of his life.

The early years of Jahez W. Vaughan's life were

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

spent in the home at Clarkesville, Missouri, where he helped with the farm work in summer and attended the village schools in winter. When he was twenty years old, accompanied by his father, they made a trip to Montana. They went to Bismarck, North Dakota, by rail, and by steamer thence to Fort Benton, Mon- tana, and overland to Old Coulson, then a thriving vil- lage, but now a deserted spot. They spent the winter of '79-'80 in Fort Benton and Jabez W. worked dur- ing the summer of 1880 in a blacksmith shop. In the . fall of 1880 he took the last steamer down the river to St. Louis, and went back to the old homestead in Clarkesville. In the spring of 1883 Jabez Vaughan married and returned with his bride to Montana, lo- cating at Billings and securing a position as clerk in a grocery store. Later he was deputy sheriff from 1885 to 1887, and on the expiration of his term of service in that capacity he took a position as clerk in a hard- ware store. Very shortly, however, he abandoned that and engaged in the bakery and restaurant business, in which he continued for a period of eight years. From that he went into the grocery business, under the firm name of Tool & Vaughan, but after two years he sold his interest in the firm and went into the wholesale fruit and produce business, the name of the firm being Thompson, Kain & Vaughan. In the spring of 1903 they sold out the business, and he again engaged in the wholesale fruit and produce business, with the firm name of Lindsay & Company, in which he continued until 1911, and in July of that year he became as- sociated with Vriden & Luke, with which firm he re- mained until January I, 1912, since which time he has been manager of both the Northwestern Oil Refining Company and the Montana & Wyoming Oil Company, being a stockholder in both concerns.

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A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 73

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