A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 99

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

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It is the public interests with which Mr. Whipps has identified himself that made him so necessary to the peo- ple of Kalispell and gained for him their high regard. Being exceedingly public spirited and progressive, every subject of civic welfare is of deep interest to him and he has ever been tireless in furthering the growth and in promoting the beauty of the city in which he lives. It therefore was a logical sequence that he should have received honors at their hands. He was chosen in 1893 as the city's first elective mayor. He then served for three consecutive terms and having consummated during these three terms all of the civic betterments he then had in hand he refused to accept the nomination for a fourth term. During this time Mr. Whipps caused to be put in a complete system of sewerage and paved the principal streets and initiated the parking of streets and the planting of trees etc., etc. Many times thereafter he was solicited to accept the mayoralty again but re- fused until the spring of 1910 when the demand for him was so pressing and so universal that he felt it his duty to accept which he did and was elected without opposi- tion to the fourth term. Among the more notable

achievements accomplished by Mr. Whipps during his fourth term was the reclaiming of a tract of forty-three acres of brushy, marshy land, which most people thought to be a worthless, disease-breeding, mosquito hole and transforming it into one of the most beautiful municipal parks to be found in even cities of five or six times the size of Kalispell. Nothing else in Montana compares with it. The marshes now are beautiful, shaded lagoons, extending for a half mile or more which can be used in the summer for boating and swimming and in the winter for skating. Walks, drives, a children's play-ground equipped with the latest devices, summer-houses, beauti- ful wooded islands and many artistically constructed rustic bridges may now be found there. This park was named Woodland Park and any city might well be proud of it. Court House Park was another to be reclaimed by Mr. Whipps. Here a system of drives were artis- tically laid out and paved, cement sidewalks constructed and hundreds of trees and shrubs planted and the whole converted into a beautiful lawn. Miles of street park- ing, cement sidewalks and street grading were accom- plished ; a uniform system of cluster lights was installed on the business streets ; experts were employed to audit the city accounts and an up-to-date system of municipal account books installed ; the city ordinances, found in a chaotic condition were segregated, codified and printed in book form; he obtained a reduction in water rates for the consumer of forty per cent. and had the minimum rate for electric lights reduced from $2.50 to $1.00. A pretty busy man was Mayor Whipps during this two year term, especially as most of what was accomplished by him had to be fought through against strong oppo- sition. Another notable act of Mr. Whipps during this administration was to take the police force out of politics and appoint the members thereof to serve indefinitely or during good behavior. Completing this term Mr. Whipps was strongly urged to accept another but feeling that his private affairs needed his attention worse than did the city he declined.

Mr. Whipps was instrumental and one of the prime movers in the building of the Masonic Temple, one of the finest in the state. He is a Mason, a Knight Tem- plar, a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Elks. His religious affiliations are with the Episcopal church.

In Helena on October 20, 1886, William C. Whipps was married to Miss Annie E. Osterhout, a daughter of Edgar Osterhout and a native of Pennsylvania. Their children are two in number. A son, William O., born in Helena on January 25, 1888, a graduate of Columbia University and now associated with his father in busi- ness, and a daughter, Caroline Louise Whipps, born in Kalispell September 30, 1895.

Mr. Whipps is a Republican, a contemporary and warm personal friend of the late Senator Thomas H. Carter. Mr. Whipps has the distinction of having been the leader in many political fights and of having never been de- feated. To him is due much of the growth and prosper- ity of Kalispell. Much credit therefore accrues to him both in his public capacity and also in his personal en- counter with fate, which through years he has con- ductea so successfully and honorably.

MRS. NELLIE R. BROWN. Prominent among Montana's women of intelligence and culture is Mrs. Nellie R. Brown, the present superintendent of public instruction in Teton county, who has filled that responsible posi- tion one term previous to this and has been numbered among Montana's educators since 1881. Strongly quali- fied in character and personality as well as in educa- tional attainments, her labors in the educational field have been of a high order and her intellectual force and executive power have made her official service

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marked for efficiency. She is one of the strong women of Montana and as such merits a place on these pages.

Mrs. Brown, who was Miss Nellie R. RoBard prior to her marriage, was born in Audrain county, Missouri, on the 17th of January, 1860. She is a daughter of John M. and Anna (Phillips) RoBard, the former of whom was a Kentuckian by birth but became a pioneer settler in Missouri along in the '40s. During the gold excitement of 1849 he removed to California but re- mained only a short time, returning from thence to Missouri where he took up business activity as a mer- chant. He was educated for the law but owing to ill health could not pursue the profession. He was a Democrat in politics and took a very active and promi- nent part in the public and political affairs of Audrain county, Missouri, and its county seat of Mexico, having served for a time as mayor and as postmaster of Mexico, and he was also a prominent member of the Masonic circles of Missouri. W. A. RoBard, a brother of John M., was one of Missouri's eminent men, having served many years as attorney general there, and at Jefferson City, Missouri, the state has erected a monument to his memory. Anna Phillips, who was born in Virginia, came to Missouri in girlhood and at Mexico, Missouri, was married to John M. RoBard. To their union were born nine children, of whom Mrs. Brown is fifth in or- der of birth. Both parents are deceased, the father hav- ing passed away in 1880 at the age of fifty-five and the mother's death having occurred in 1900 when seventy- five years old. Both are interred at Mexico, Missouri. The Phillips family is Scotch, while the RoBards are of Scotch-Irish descent.

Mrs. Brown was educated in the public schools of Mexico, Missouri, and in Hardin College, of that city, which institution conferred on her the degree of Bach- elor of Arts in 1887. Upon the conclusion of her col- legiate studies she taught school one year in Centralia, Missouri. On October 6, 1880, at Centralia, she was united in marriage to Solan H. Brown, and in 1881 accompanied her husband to Montana, locating first at Helena. During their residence there Mrs. Brown taught six years in the schools at Helena and of Lewis and Clark county. About 1892 they removed to what is now known as Teton county but then was a portion of Chouteau county, and located at Dupuyer, where Mrs. Brown spent three years more in teaching. From there they removed to Choteau, where Mr. Brown died on June 25, 1901. Mrs. Brown has taught six years since becoming a resident of Choteau and is now filling her third term as superintendent of public instruction in Teton county, her first term having included 1907 and 1908, her second term having begun in 1911, and she has just been re-elected for the third time as county super- intendent of schools. Cultivated in mind and with her years of practical experience as a teacher, she has most efficiently and acceptably filled the position of executive head of the Teton county schools.

To Mr. and Mrs. Brown were born four children: RoBard Brown, deceased; Nellie, now Mrs. P. H. Crossen, of Choteau; Grace, who is the wife of Wilson Nored and resides at Oakdale, North Dakota; and Hazel Brown, now a high-school student.

HENRY LOUVILLE KNIGHT. The year 1881 marked the advent of Henry Louville Knight into the west, and the passing years have since found him for the most part engrossed in newspaper enterprises of varied nature. He has been identified with journalistic work in many capacities and for years has been a potent force in the field of publicity in this section of the state. Since June, 1909, he has been a member of the firm of Knight & Cade, proprietors of the Kalispell Times, a paper founded in the interests of the Repub- licans of the city and of the district.

An easterner by birth, Henry Louville Knight was

born in Bridgeton, New Jersey, on April 20. 1863, and is the son of Rev. Franklin LaFayette Knight and Lavina Howard Dorsey.

Rev. Franklin LaFayette Knight was born in 1826 in Maine and was educated in the east. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College, in Maine, and his voca- tion that of a minister of the Episcopalian church. He died in Washington, D. C., while the assistant rec- tor of St. John's church. Rev. Knight was a scholar of brilliant attainments, his knowledge of the dead languages being most unusual and far reaching. In 1867 he was professor of Latin and Greek in the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee, but in 1869 returned to Washington, D. C., with his fam- ily, where he remained until his death, which took place in 1876. The wife and mother was a member of a well known Maryland family,-the Howard-Dor- seys by name, and she died in the month of October, in 1912, in the eighty-fourth year of her life, her death taking place in the home of her son, M. D. Knight, of Rockville, Maryland. Seven children were born to Rev. and Mrs. Knight. The family is one of the old established ones in America, the first of the name to locate in America having been George S. Knight, who came from England in 1700 and settled in Maine. The family has ever displayed a strong tendency to- wards things of an ecclesiastic nature, and many of the name have given their lives to the work of the church.

Henry Louville Knight received a somewhat super- ficial education, the height of his scholastic training being represented by a year in the preparatory depart- ment of Columbian College, in Washington, D. C., in 1877. In June, 1881, he turned his face in a westerly direction, and reached Miles City, Montana, on the old steamer Helena full six months ahead of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In that year he busied himself in keeping books for the county sheriff, and in the next winter he inaugurated his newspaper career with work on the Yellowstone Journal at Miles City. In 1884 he was editor of the Daily Press in Miles City and he left that place in 1885, making his way to Big Horn, Wyoming, where in company with E. H. Becker, he founded the Big Horn Sentinel. He later moved the plant to Buffalo, Wyoming, but in 1886 sold out and returned to Miles City. He worked on the Journal there until 1888, when he bought the Courier at Rathdrum, Idaho. This venture was not a success, and Mr. Knight lost his investment as a result of the enterprise. He then returned to Billings in eastern Montana and secured employment in the office of the Gazette, where he remained for some years. In 1893, once more emboldened to start out on his own responsibility, Mr. Knight started the Yellowstone Valley Recorder. In 1896 he moved the plant to Missoula and there started the Missoula Daily Messenger. This enterprise was also doomed to failure, and he weathered the storms of financial adversity for two years, when he gave up the struggle in Missoula. The spring and summer of the year 1899 Mr. Knight spent in a printing office in Spokane, Washington, the winter following finding him once more at the helm in his old position on the Journal in Miles City. In the fall of 1900 Mr. Knight edited a campaign daily for W. A. Clark and in the winter of 1900-01 went to Billings to take over the management of the Billings Times. In March, 1901, he went to Kalispell. Montana, to accept a responsible position on the Daily Bee, and in 1903 he became a stock- holder of the Bee Publishing Company, continuing as secretary and manager until 1909, when the Kalispell Times was founded in the interests of the Republi- cans of Kalispell. As mentioned in a previous para- graph, Mr. Knight is one of the firm of Knight & Cade, managers and proprietors of that paper, and

Joseph Chauvin

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the Times has under their management and direction prospered most undeniably as a "stand pat" organ of the Republican party.

Mr. Knight is a member of the Knights of Pythias since the year 1891, when he joined the order in Billings. He is past chancellor of the lodge, and a member of the uniform rank. He has been a delegate to many of the grand lodge conventions of the order and has taken a prominent place in the society in the . years of his affiliation with it. Mr. Knight is not a member of any church. He is a nature lover and a naturalist of no small learning. He is a pedestrian, and is especially fond of fresh air and out-of-door exercises. He is unmarried as yet, and is quoted as having said that in that regard his "prospects are poor."

FRANK G. COLE. The life of Frank G. Cole stands forth as an example of the way in which a man may rise in his trade or profession from a humble position to membership in a prominent and successful firm. Frank G. Cole began life as a machinist, and as a mere boy he determined that he would do his work so thor- oughly that he would always be the one thought of when a vacancy occurred above him. Therefore by de- votion to his work, by acquiring a knowledge of every branch of it, and by always showing that he was not in a business for what he could get out of it but for what he could give to it, he rose from one level to the next higher until he is now the manager of one of the most important industrial plants in Kalispell, Montana.

Frank G. Cole is a western man by birth, having been born in Pioche, Nevada, on the 20th of January, 1875. His father was William G. Cole, who was born in foggy old London, across the water in Merry England. The date of his birth was the year 1844 and he came to America at the age of nineteen in 1863. He first settled in California, and followed mining as his profession. He later moved to Nevada, and finally in 1868 came to Montana and took up placer mining near Unionville, Montana. Here he lived for many years, and was accounted one of the successful mining men of the com- munity. He was a man of great reserve, quiet and al- though interested in the affairs of the community in general, not caring to take a prominent part in them or to hold public office. It was in 1881 that he came to Butte, Montana, and became associated with the Amal- gamated Company. with whom he remained for about seven years. He then spent several years in connection with the Parrott Company and during the last three years of his life, he turned to ranching, owning and operating a ranch in the Bitter Root country. His death occurred in Butte in 1901, and he is survived by his wife and five children. He was married in California to Anna Hodson, who like her husband was born in England, Preston being her native town. She lives at present in Butte. Of the five living children, William H. Cole, the eldest, is a resident of Salt Lake City and is in charge of the Highland Boy mine; Louise Cole married Charles Bole and now lives in Coeur de Ellis, Montana; Walter Cole is in the automobile business in San Diego, California; Frank is the next, and Harry, the youngest, is living in Montana, and like his brother, Frank, is a machinist.

Frank Cole was educated in Butte, and is a grad- uate of the Butte high school, being a member of the class of 1891. On completing his high school work he entered Butte Business College and after a year spent in this institution, decided that he preferred some work where he might use his hands. He was therefore ap- prenticed to a machinist in the Western Iron Works. and here learned his trade. He followed the trade of machinist, as a journeyman, for about six years, and then after leaving Butte, became master mechanic for the Bridger Coal Company at Bridger, Montana. He

remained with them for several years and then became connected with the Heinze Smelting Company, with whom he remained for some time. His next move was to Australia where he became associated with the North Lyle Smelting Company, his work being the erection of engines. In each of these moves Mr. Cole took an upward step, though it may have been a tiny one, upon the ladder of success, and his worth was so well realized by the North Lyle Smelting Company that during the last eighteen months of his connection with them he was superintendent of the plant.

On his return to this country he went to work for the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, where he remained for a year. He next went to Vancouver Island, in Brit- ish Columbia to take charge of the Northwestern Smelt- ing and Refinery Company, at Crofton, British Colum- bia. After two years spent here, he went to Salt Lake City to install some machinery for a mining company at that place. It took him six months to complete this task and at the end of this time he took charge of the Western Iron Works. He was foreman of this big plant for six years and the company felt his loss greatly when he determined to resign his position to accept the management of the Kalispell Iron Works. He is not only the very efficient manager but also a member of the firm, and the years and years of practical experience which he has had are now proving extremely valuable. The company was incorporated in 1906 and has had a very prosperous career, especially since Mr. Cole has had its affairs in charge.

Like his father, Mr. Cole does not care to interest himself in active politics, but he is well known in fra- ternal circles, being a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Modern Woodmen of America. In his re- ligious beliefs he is a firm adherent and faithful com- municant of the ancient Protestant Episcopal church.

Mr. Cole was married on the 25th of December, 1894, to Miss Katherine Foley, a daughter of Edward Foley, who is now deceased. Mrs. Cole is a native of the state of Michigan. Mr. and Mrs. Cole are the parents of three children. Frank W., the eldest, was born in Butte, August 29, 1896. Tasmania, who was born in far-off Australia, in Crothy, Tasmania, on the 29th of April, 1902. Raymond Andrew Cole was born in Butte, Mon- tana, on the 15th day of May, 1908.

Through the years in which Mr. Cole has been in close touch with men of many different nationalities and modes of thinking, he has not devoted himself alone to learning the technical side of his business, but to study- ing the various types of humanity with whom he has been associated. This is one of the reasons for his suc- cess in an executive position, for he is seldom mistaken in a man, and being a firm believer in the spark of good- ness underlying the bad in all of us, he has often been successful in bringing this to the surface in men whom other employers have given up as no good. He is un- doubtedly a man whose life has been of use to his fellows, and were he not a successful man, this would be sufficient to make him a man to be remembered.

JOSEPH CHAUVIN. There are perhaps other men in Montana who are wealthier and hold more conspicuous places in the eye of the nation than Joseph Chauvin of Butte, but none of them is bigger. None has more public spirit, nor a greater love and loyalty for the state. He has been a resident of Butte from the days when it was a straggling mining camp, when pay day meant wild carousals and six-shooters, and the cow- boy who today inhabits the vaudeville stage was then a real object. With the foresight of a born business man, Mr. Chauvin felt that this rough collection of shacks and tents held in its unkempt bosom the germ of something better, and his confidence was not mis- placed. In the development of Butte, Mr. Chauvin

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took an active and prominent part. When men wanted advice as to where they should place their money, when they considered some move which would improve the appearance of the city, when political questions arose, Mr. Chauvin was the man to whom they instinc- tively turned. He was not only ready and willing to give both of his time and services, but he had many more years of experience than had most of the citizens of Butte, along the lines in which they sought help. He had grown up with the country, had learned to know not only the country but the men. There was not a man of importance in the state that he did not know, and he likewise knew the miners and the cowboys, knew how they thought and felt and reasoned. He was invaluable to his political party because of this ability to judge men, and while never caring to hold office himself he has always been one of the prominent men of his party in the state. No man in Montana possesses a larger number of personal friends than Mr. Chauvin, and this popularity seems only too small a reward for one who has given of himself so generously to the service of his city and state.

The ancestry of Joseph Chauvin is by no means the most uninteresting thing concerning him. On his paternal side his ancestry makes him a descendant of one of the oldest families of the French nobility, whose founder was Marquis De Leveille. He also numbers among his ancestors, a man who was brought to the notice of the public at the ter-centenary of the coming of the great explorer. This man was Henri Chauvin, who was first lieutenant under Champlain and was captain of a three hundred foot barque, the Don d'Dieu. An ancestress of his, Mlle. Chauvin, was the first prioress in the first convent in Quebec. His family have thus always been pioneers, and have found their places in life on the edges of civilization. It is therefore not strange that Joseph Chauvin should have sought the wilds of Montana so far in advance of many of his present fellow citizens.

Mr. Chauvin comes from a family noted on both sides for their longevity. His father and mother are both living, after sixty-four years of wedded life. His father, Leander J. Chauvin, was born in Vir- rennes, near Montreal, Canada, in 1827. He emigrated to Vermont in 1842, and five years later, in 1847, married Harriet Pepin. Harriet Pepin was born in Vercher, Canada, and was a daughter of Joseph Pepin and his wife. Joseph Pepin was one of a family of twenty-six children, and the mother of this large family lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and four. One of his brothers was a trapper and hunter in the thirties, and in the early forties camped on the headwaters of the Missouri river. He there- fore might have been on the very spot where his grand- nephew now lives. Joseph Pcpin died at the age of seventy-two and his wife died at the age of ninety- four. Mr. Chauvin's maternal grandmother lived to be ninety years of age, and so it can well be imagined that Mr. Chauvin at the age of sixty-four tells the truth when he says he feels like a young man. He surely looks like one, and since a man is as young as he feels he has many more years of usefulness yet remaining to him. Leander and Harriet Chauvin became the parents of sixteen children, eight sons and eight daughters, of whom six sons and four daughters are yet alive. The father and mother are now living at the old homestead in Shelburn, Ver- mont, where Mrs. Chauvin has lived since her parents brought her here as a child. The old home is not far from the celebrated Webb farm, and is situated in one of the most picturesque portions of the old state. ·

Joseph Chauvin was born in Shelburn, Vermont, on the 27th of November. 1848. His parents were poor, for life was hard and Vermont farms have never had a reputation for great fertility. The lad was brought

up on a farm, and attended the common schools. He was eager for an education, and since his father was unable to give him one, he sawed wood, lighted the fires at the schoolhouse, and rang the bells, thus paying his way through the high school, or more prop- erly the academy, for it was a private institution. It was conducted by that learned man, H. H. Fisk, who is now a prominent professor in Northwestern Uni- versity, at Evanston. Illinois. Under the tutelage of this able man Mr. Chauvin received a thorough edu- cation, but at the age of fifteen he deserted his books and attempted to enlist in a Vermont regiment that was then being formed. This was in 1863, during the days when it was evident that the North would conquer, but when men were being rushed to the front to fill the gaps caused by the carnage at Gettysburg and Vicks- burg, Joseph Chauvin was not permitted to enlist on account of his youth and was forced to watch the regiment march away without him and later to see it return, covered with glory.

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A history of Montana, Volume II, Part 99

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