A history of Montana, Volume III, Part 107

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 970

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MAUDE GRIFFIN. As superintendent of the schools of Musselshell county, Miss Maude Griffin is filling one of the most responsible positions in the gift of the people, and in the year which has elapsed since her election to the office she has conclusively demonstrated her fitness for the duties devolving upon her, and is a happy ex- ample of the fact, not everywhere admitted, that women are as capable of holding public office as are men.

Miss Griffin was born in Almy, Wyoming, and is the daughter of George N. and Katherine (Proud) Griffin. The father was born in England and came to America as a young man. He has been identified with the coal business all his life, and is now superintendent of the Republic Coal Company at Roundup. He is prominent in Roundup in many ways-politically, socially, fra- ternally and in church matters. He is a devout Chris- tian gentleman and is an earnest member of the Metho- dist church, at present holding the office of superintend- ent of the Sunday-school. He takes an active and in- telligent interest in political matters. He is a Mason of high degree and was a member of the first state assem- bly in Wyoming, holding many important official posi- tions while there. His wife was also born in England, coming to the United States in her girlhood. They were married in Illinois, and became the parents of eleven children, Miss Griffin of this review being the fourth in order of birth. With the exception of one daughter who is a resident of Chicago, the entire family is living in Montana.

The early education of Miss Griffin was received in the public schools of Wyoming, where she was born, and later, when the family removed to Montana, she attended the schools of Bozeman, which was followed by a course at the State Normal College at Dillon, Mon- tana. Miss Griffin was graduated from the institution in 1908, and after leaving college she taught in various Montana cities for three years. In 1908 she came to Roundup, her home having previously been at Boze- man, where the family had been located since coming from Wyoming in 1901, and when the new county of Musselshell was formed, Miss Griffin was appointed county superintendent of schools, taking charge of the office on March 1, 1911.

She is an adherent of the Methodist church, of which her parents are members, and she champions the cause of the Republican party at all times, having an active and intelligent interest in political matters of national import. She is an ardent tennis player and a most en- thusiastic baseball "fan," while camp life and all out-

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door exercise appeals to her to an unusual degree. She is a student of the best in music and literature and is the owner of a choice private library. She has great praise for the public school system of Montana, which she claims is second to no other state in the union, and it is safe to say that the system in her county will never deteriorate while she is in charge.

WILLIAM M. ENRIGHT. If history teaches by ex- ample, the lessons inculcated by biography must be still more impressive. We see exhibited in the varieties of human character, under different circumstances, some- thing to instruct us in our duty and to encourage our efforts under every emergency. And, perhaps, there is no concurrence of events which produce this effect more certainly than the steps by which distinction has been acquired through the unaided efforts of youthful en- terprise, as illustrated in the life of William M. Enright, present receiver of public moneys from the United States land department located at Billings, Montana. Mr. Enright is a native of Perth, Ontario, where he was born April 22, 1870, and is a son of Timothy and Cath- erine (Gill) Enright, natives of Limerick, Ireland, and Perth, Ontario, Canada, respectively.

Timothy Enright learned the trade of tailor in his native Erin, and as a young man made his way to the New World, settling first in Canada, where he was mar- ried. Shortly thereafter he moved to Rochester, in . which city he followed the vocation of a merchant tailor until his death. He and his wife had six children, of whom two are living: Catherine and William M. The latter remained with his parents in Rochester until he was eleven years of age, at which time he journeyed to St. Paul, Minnesota, and there resided with his married sister, Mrs. D. M. Collins, pursuing his studies in the public schools. When he was about sixteen years of age he went to Chicago to live with his brother, Maurice J. Enright, and soon found employment in the knit goods department of the wholesale firm of John V. Farwell Company. After spending about one year with this well-known concern, Mr. Enright began his railroad career with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company, having charge of all incoming freight in car-load lots, and held this position from 1888 to 1892. In the latter year he removed to Sioux City, Iowa, where he became city passenger agent for the Union Pacific Railroad and in 1894 left that com- pany to become chief clerk of the freight department of the Great Northern Railroad, at Sioux City. In 1896 Mr. Enright was made city passenger and ticket agent for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad joint office, but in 1901 removed to Superior, Wisconsin, and was city ticket agent for the Chicago & . Northwestern System. Subsequently he was made traveling passenger and freight agent for the same road at Helena, Montana, and held the office until 1905, when he became traveling passenger and freight agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, with headquarters at Butte, Montana. Previous to the building of this road in Montana, Mr. Enright had been engaged to travel through the state looking over the country and gathering data as to the best part of the state through which to run their lines. As a railroad man, he became well known throughout the middle and northwest, and was recognized as a railroad operator of superior capacity and ability. Having begun his career in a humble position, he has thoroughly famil- iarized himself with all the details of railroad business and management, and has earned promotion by hard work and thorough honesty, intelligent effort and effi- cient services. He has made a close study of what may be termed the science of railroading, has a broad knowl- edge of the principles governing railroading and all the rules and regulations pertaining to railroad traffic, and is a man, also, of extensive general information. The duties and responsibilities of the positions he has held

have demanded his entire attention, but he has also found time to give to public-spirited movements in whatever community he has found himself. A stanch Republican in political matters, and a member of the state central committee of his party, Mr. Enright's ser- vices were recognized February 15, 1909, when he was appointed by President Roosevelt to the position of receiver of public moneys from the United States land department located at Billings. Fraternally he is con- nected with the Knights of Columbus, of which he is state deputy, and with Billings Lodge, No. 394, B. P. O. E. He is a member of the committee on railroad traffic, which is controlled by the Commercial Club of Billings, Montana.

He was nominated for state treasurer by the Repub- lican party in Great Falls, Montana, on September 5, 1912, but met defeat in the great Democratic landslide when Woodrow Wilson carried nearly every state in the Union.

On November 8, 1899, Mr. Enright was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth McNamara, who was born at Sioux City, Iowa, daughter of William C. and Cath- erine (Brady) McNamara, natives of New York state, who are now living at Long Pine, Nebraska. Mr. Mc- Namara, who was for many years a well-known rail- road contractor, is now the owner of a large ranch in Nebraska, and is a leading Democrat of his locality. Mrs, Enright is the only child of her parents. She and her husband have had four children; Catherine, Flor- ence, William J., Jr., and Maurice.

LAUCHLAN A. MCDONALD, who has for the past five years been actively engaged in the nursery business in the near vicinity of Billings, Montana, is a man of varied experience, unusual education, has traveled ex- tensively, and is in every respect calculated to occupy a prominent place in whatever community his lot may be cast.

He was born in Delaware county. New York, Febru- ary 15, 1841, and is the son of Neil and Mary Ann (McQuarrie) McDonald. Neil McDonald was born in New York state and died in Toronto, Canada, at the age of fifty-four years. His widow survived him until the year 1871. Both Mr. and Mrs. McDonald were of Scottish extraction. They were the parents of seven children, five sons and two daughters, all of them but one son, of whom we write, having passed away in young manhood and womanhood. The father, Neil McDonald, was a grain merchant, and was also con- nected with the milling industry. In the year 1847, when his son Lauchlan was but six years of age the family removed to Toronto, where the elder McDonald built a number of flour mills and grain elevators, and there he carried on an extensive grain and flour milling business, in which he was always particularly successful.

Lauchlan McDonald received a liberal education, every reasonable advantage being his, and in 1859, when he was eighteen years of age, he had the further privilege of accompanying his uncle, Arthur McQuarrie, then a diplomat representing the Canadian government, on a trip covering a period of three years. They went direct from Toronto to New York City, thence to South America, via the Isthmus of Panama, Nicaragua route, visiting en route at Paraguay, Uraguay, Ecuador, La Poz, Brazil, Argentine, Venezuela, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Punta Arenas, West Indies, Havana de Cuba, Key West (Fla.) and many other points. They returned to Toronto after an absence of three years, and the younger McDonald was much benefited by his extensive travels and broadened by his early contact with the world.

The constant traveling during those years made the quiet home life irksome to the young man, and after spending a few months at home with his parents he set out on a trip to Old Mexico. He spent some little time in that country, going on from there to Los An-

Dr. John HHunt

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

geles, California, and thence to Denver, Colorado. This trip consumed two years' time, following which he returned once more to his home in Toronto, and there he remained for six years, caring for his widowed mother, his father having died in the meantime. On his next pilgrimage he went directly to Chicago from Toronto, thence to New York City, and passed from there on throughout the southern states, after which he returned home. In 1871 his mother died, and after closing up the affairs of the family in Toronto he left for the States once more, by which he had been so visibly attracted for many years, and he spent nearly three years in prospecting and mining in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and Idaho. In 1875 with a party of eight he set out for the Dakotas, via Omaha, Nebraska. Methods of traveling were primitive, even in '75, and they made the trip in one of the time honored "prairie schooners." Their outfit included several yokes of oxen and a number of cows, horses and mules. Their trip across the prairies from Omaha to the Black Hills was attended by many thrilling adventures, they being beset on various occasions by Indians, who made things lively for them in every encounter. Unaccompanied and unhampered as they were by women and children, the trip was more of an exciting adventure than a hard- ship, and when they finally reached their destination after thirty-five days of continuous traveling, their original party was undiminished by their numerous encounters with the Redmen.

Reaching the Black Hills, Mr. McDonald promptly began mining and prospecting on his own account, and he spent seven trying years in that work, with only indifferent success. He finally decided that the life of a prospector in a new country was too uncertain of success, and he gave up the game and bought a ranch in one of the valleys of the Black Hills. He spent two years in ranching, then sold out his interests and eventually went into the saw-mill business, locating in Spearfish, South Dakota, and building a saw mill, planing mill and sash and door factory, which industry he conducted in connection with a contracting and building business. But a comparatively short time elapsed when he decided to go out of the manufactur- ing business. He again disposed of his interests, and immediately turned his efforts to the nursery business. which had held his attention for some time. He suc- cessfully operated a nursery plant for about seven years, when he began to cast about for a better location. He went to Montana to look over the country, and he was so well pleased that he located in Missoula county near the city of Missoula, and there he entered a part- nership with D. J. Tighe, the firm being known as McDonald & Tighe, and for five years they managed a very successful nursery business in that location.

In 1906 they sold their interests and located two miles northeast of Billings, Montana, in Yellowstone county, they having bought a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of finely irrigated land, and organized what is known as the Montana Nursery Company, Incor- porated, Lauchlan McDonald being president and man- ager of the concern. They have seventy-five acres planted to apples, cherries, peaches, plums and small fruits, and the business is in an especially thriving con- dition. Their concern is well and favorably known in the agricultural world and among exclusive fruit grow- ers, and the project bids fair to make a phenomenal growth in the coming years.

Mr. McDonald has by his own efforts and by his own intrinsic worth as a man made for himself a name in a new country, and he ranks high in that com- munity which he has helped to improve by virtue of the activities of the project of which he is the head. In politics he upholds the principles of Democracy, and he is somewhat of a fraternity man, being a member of Spearfish Lodge No. 18, A. F. & A. M .; Spearfish

Chapter, R. A. M., at Spearfish, South Dakota, and of the Modern Woodmen of America, also at Spearfish.

JOHN H. HUNT, M. D. In the galaxy of eminent professional men in Montana may be found the names of many who have won a high reputation in the pro- lific fields of medicine and surgery, and among these Dr. John H. Hunt, of Glendive, holds a prominent place. During the twenty or more years that he has been engaged in active practice in this city his skill has won him the full confidence of the people of Glen- dive, who have recognized and appreciated the services he has given to his community. Dr. Hunt is a native of Grant, Smith county, Tennessee, and was born January 31, 1862, a son of Thomas S. and Susan (Barbee) Hunt.

Thomas S. Hunt was born in the state of Kentucky, and was there given the advantages of a common school education. After graduating in medicine he removed to Tennessee and located at Grant, there marrying and carrying on a general practice until 1875. During that year ill health caused his removal to the state of Kansas where, near Burton, in Harvey county, he was engaged in the healthy, out-door life of the farm, and became widely known as an agriculturist and stock- man. In politics a Whig and later a Republican, while in Tennessee he served one term as a member of the state legislature, and in fraternal matters was connected with the Masons. His death occurred in 1900, when he reached the age of seventy years, while his widow still survives him and makes her home in Harvey county, Kansas. Of their family of five children, three are liv- ing : John H., Berry W. and Milford E.

John H. Hunt received his preliminary education in the public schools of Tennessee and Kansas, later at- tended Kansas University, and subsequently went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attended the State Univer- sity there. He was graduated in medicine in the class of 1900, and first located at Brainerd, Minnesota, where he spent one year in the Northern Pacific Hospital as an interne. At that time he came to Glendive and en- gaged in general practice, in which he has continued to the present time, building up a large and representative clientele. He has well-appointed offices in the Merchants National Bank building, and is a member of the Tri- County Medical Society, the Montana Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He fraternizes with the Masons, the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. and in political matters is a Republican, although he has never cared for public office. being en- tirely devoted to his profession. He has been the Northı- ern Pacific surgeon for the past fifteen years.

On October 21, 1896, Dr. Hunt was married to Miss Alice M. McLain, who was born in King City, Mis- souri, a daughter of Andrew and Anna Catherine (Chandler) McLain, natives of Richmond, Indiana, both of whom are deceased. Mr. McLain came to Montana in 1883, and during the remainder of his life was engaged in ranching in Dawson county. He and his wife had a family of six children, Mrs. Hunt be- ing the fifth in order of birth. To the Doctor and his wife two children have been born; Helen Gertrude and John McLain.

FRANCIS J. EARLY. In the quaint town of Roscom- mon, Ireland, on the ninth day of August, 1878, Fran- cis J. Early was born. He was the youngest of a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters. All of the brothers and sisters, excepting two of the younger girls, grew to manhood and womanhood and most of them still remain in the land of their birth.

The father, Patrick Early, was a small Irish land holder. He passed away when his last born son was only five years of age, leaving his family comfortably situated for that time and country, and little dreaming of the prosperity that his boys were to attain in a strange land beyond the seas. His wife, Ann Early,

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bore, before her marriage, the same family name as her husband, belonging herself to the Early clan. She lived until the third of March, 1905. Although she never left her native land, she lived to see her eight children- two of the daughters had died in infancy-well on the road to success.

Francis finished the work of the highest grade in the public schools of Roscommon when twelve years of age and was given the unusual opportunity of three addi- tional years of study before starting his apprenticeship in the shoe and boot making trade. After finishing this trade he worked for two years and a half for John O'Keefe in a men's furnishing establishment. Being a good manager by nature and having a few expenses, he was able to lay aside in a few years what looked to his fellow townsmen like a small fortune. With this money in his possession, he started out, alone, in July of 1900, to visit his older brother, James Early, who had left their Irish home some years before for the richer coun- try of America. It was Francis Early's intention to spend the summer visiting with the brother and in the autumn return to his work in his own land. So at- tractive did our eastern states appear to him, however, that he almost immediately abandoned all thought of returning to Ireland. Almost his first move was the wise one of entering a business college at Worcester, Massachusetts, where he could readily learn not only the American accent but the methods of the American business man.

When his year of study was finished Mr. Early started for Butte, Montana and with the little capital remaining to him opened a men's furnishing house at No. 825 E. Front street. Here he did a flourishing business from the beginning until, in 1906, he was able to purchase the property located at Nos. 717-719 E. Front street, this being in an excellent business locality on one of the main streets of the city, and directly opposite the Union station. Here Mr. Early now con- ducts one of the largest mercantile concerns of Butte, having cleared over one hundred thousand dollars in the six years since his change of location.

As soon as his business success warranted such a step in the year 1904, Francis Early was joined in marriage to Miss Annie McNarny, the daughter of Hugh Mc- Narny of County Cavan, Ireland. In August, 1906, there was born to them, in the city of Butte, a son whom they called Francis Joseph and two years later, his brother, James Albert, came to keep him company. This younger son arrived on the day after Christmas, in 1908. The children are being reared in the church of their fathers, the Early family having always been Roman Catholics, as have been the McNarny's likewise. Mr. Early's religious teaching prevents his belonging to any of the popular secret orders. He is, however, one of the active members of the Business Men's Associa- tion of Butte. He feels that he owes a great debt of gratitude to the brother who was the family pioneer in the land of plenty, and almost as great a one to the friend who first told him of the wonders in the golden west.

ROBERT C. Ross. The rapid increase in the popula- tion of the entire west and accompanying phenomenal development of cities and rural communities commer- cially and industrially has made the whole section an alluring field for the operations of real estate men with talents for that line of business endeavor. Butte is no exception to this rule, and numbered among this progressive city's leading factors in this department of activity we find Mr. Robert C. Ross. While Mr. Ross does an extensive real estate business, in that department being associated with E. F. Kilmer, his operations are by no means confined to the city, or even the state limits, for he also negotiates many large deals in outside properties and has a considerable clientele in Salt Lake City.

Mr. Ross' active connection with the real estate busi- ness in Butte dates from August 1905 and from the comparatively small beginning made at that date he has built up his present large operations in this line and developed the various ramifications of his business in a manner highly creditable to one of his high order of executive abilities. Previous to engaging in realty dealing Mr. Ross was for several years an influential factor in the commercial life of the city through his ownership and conduct of four of the principal barber shops in Butte. Three of these tonsorial parlors were located on Arizona street and one on south Main, while all were well equipped and in the hands of the best work- men in this line that could be secured. During the four years that he was engaged in this business he developed an exceedingly profitable custom and when the interests were finally disposed of by him they brought him a hand- some profit.

Mr. Rose has spent his entire lifetime in the western part of this country and Canada and knew from early boyhood the hardships of pioneering. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 17, 1880, the youngest of a family of eight children, and was but four years old when his father, who was a physician, moved the family out on the frontier of Western Canada, settling at Calgary in 1884. Dr. Ross had been there but a year when death overtook him and he left a widow and a family of fatherless children in straightened circum- stances. Mr. Ross' father was a native of Maine, but on his mother's side he has native Scotch blood. Mrs. Ross was before her marriage Jessie McIntosh, and she came with her parents from Scotland to Ontario, Canada, when a child. Her death occurred in 1903.

At the time that Mr. Ross was taken as a small child to Calgary the country was wild and unsettled and he was the first white child and the only one for many miles around. He attended the schools of northwest Canada until his sixteenth year and at that age started out with a capital of thirty cents to make his way in the world. He was a youth full of pluck and energy, however, and nothing daunted, determined to make a success of his career. He first apprenticed himself to learn the printer's trade, Thomas Braden, proprietor of the Cal- gary Tribune being the man who gave him the op- portunity to do this. So competent and valuable an assistant did he prove himself to be that Mr. Braden retained him in his employ after he had thoroughly mastered the printer's art in all its departments for nine years.

In 1897 Mr. Ross decided to abandon printing for other pursuits, however, and in that year he went to Boston and secured employment as a barber, and having learned that trade he came to Butte in 1901. After working five months as an employe he established his various shops here, as previously stated, and subse- quently sold them to engage in his present real estate business, and in which he has achieved much success.

On January 23, 1912, he became secretary and treasurer of the Montana Orchard Land Company, and in Feb- ruary, 1912, he became associated with Nicholas H. Gramling in the organization of the Montana-Wyoming Land Company, of which he is half owner. This con- cern, while but recently organized, has had a remarkably successful career.

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A history of Montana, Volume III, Part 107

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883- Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 970

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 970