An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 124

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1216

USA > Montana > An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 124

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

" In the spring there is a general round-up, ordered by the stock association, during which time the cow stock of all kinds is supposed to have been handled, calves are branded and di- vided up and the cattle are again turned loose, and, with the exception of the steer cattle, which are gathered in the fall, may not be again seen by their owner until the round-up next year.

"Cattle taken from our ranges in the fall are as fat as stall-fed, and usually command top prices. Average steers weigh 1,300 pounds on the hoof. The fall shipment is nowadays ac- complished without any great stir; but, when an outfit used to ship ten train loads of fat steers to market and had a half hundred men looking after the job, there was a great hurrah and jollification among the cowboys.

"Every cow 'critter' or horse must be branded in Montana, or you may not be posi- tive as to its ownership, once out of your pos- session. The stock association makes rules for the government of the growers, inspectors look after brands that are astray and watch the cat- tle offered for sale at the principal markets, Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City. taking note of the number and brands, so that no stolen cattle may be there disposed of.

In 1861 he did not have money to pay taxes, and he de- cided to start for the gold regions in Colorado. Crossing the plains to Denver, he met his old friend Judge Clan- cy, who said, "I have another fortune for you; I will give you a block in Aurora, and you can get work there; and you had not better go to the mines." Aurora was on the opposite side of the river from Denver; and the Judge said it would become an important city,-as hig as Omaha before twenty years; but Mr. Hamilton again refused to take his advice, aud Aurora and Denver consolidated and became all that the Judge had claimed!

Mr. Hamilton went to the mines and was employed by the firm of Lyons & Pullman, afterward celebrated; and he worked in the California Gulch, now Leadville, and also was employed in all the gulches reported rich along the Salmon river. He left Denver in July, 1862, with eight wagons and twenty-three men, reached Fort Hal-

"Although there is a gradual increase in the number of cattle in the State, it is due prob- ably to the fact of so many small farmers locat- ing, running a small band of cattle and sheep, and keeping their stock close-herded. Stock farms in the vicinity of the Yellowstone valley, where improvement of the breed is extensively practiced, are numerous, and there are some fine dairy farms. For cows, horses, sheep and hogs there is no better feed than alfalfa, whichi is a principal crop in this valley.

Keeping Montana horses for home market was first induced by the demand for Western half-breeds by the big cow outfits which used them in hundreds on their ranges. When they were bred and raised for this purpose, as wild as antelope ou the range, the cow pony, when once roped, choked down, blinded and saddled and hazed around the corral by a dare-devil ' broncho buster,' was declared ready for use and in early days sold for from $40 to $60. This class of horses soon fell out of demand, however, with the decadence of the range cattle business, and owners of horse ranches began to turn their attention more closely to the market demand. A better class of horses have since then been raised and improved upon from year to year, until now there are bands of as fine

leck, and the commander there ordered them to stop there, saying that the Indians were very hostile and they would certainly he killed. They asked him to show his authority for stopping them, and he said he had none, but if they went on they would certainly be murdered. But they hired a good half-breed Indian for a guide, and decided to proceed. Part of the time, when there seemed to be special danger, they traveled in the night and lay concealed in the daytime.

At length they reached Salt Lake City, where they had several bitter arguments with the Mormons on the sub- ject of the war, the latter arguing that the South would win. They called on Governor Harding and told him of their arguments with the Mormons. He put his hands to his mouth and said, "Hush! You will be fortunate if you get away with your lives!" They also had the honor of meeting his highness Brigham Young; and he asked

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American horses, broken or unbroken, as one would expect to see in the ' blue-grass ' region of Kentucky. The breed is being improved still by better sires, better blood being infused until Montana horses are world famous. *

"The number of range horses in Montana last year was 200,000, and of these 180,000 were in the cow counties. In rustling qualities range horses cannot be bettered. No care whatever need be extended a bunch of young horses, if to the manner born, because they can live and thrive just the same as a bunch of deer or antelope; and when the owners desire to drive them up and inspect them it is a job that arouses the country side and probably re- sults in a broken limb for some of the wranglers and several mutilated horses. Not only horses bred on these ranges grow wild when left to run the range, but well broken States horses will in a few seasons forget their early training and flee from man like a wild thing. Given the same care and attention in Montana as in the older countries horses are as tractable and urbane as anywhere else; but in Montana the raiser seems not to have the time; and when a sale is made, a horse picked from the bunch, halter-broken and hobbled, his training is so far

them where they were going, and they replied, "North, in search of gold." He responded like a gentleman.

When the party arrived at Ogden they found forty large wagons there getting ready to go to the new dig- gings; the wagons were owned by Woodmansee & Com- pany, Mormons. (While the party were at Ogden, Gen- eral Patrick Connor's command passed them, on the way from California to Salt Lake City.) Finally, with forty- eight wagons they started north. Among the men in the train was Colonel McClain (who afterward was the first delegate from Montana Territory), Judge Bissell, Dr. Six, Dr. Woodruff and L. M. Lott. Every day something got wrong with the wagons, and they got on slowly. After traveling in that way for a week, twenty-three men and eight wagons pulled out and went on ahead, making a track for the rest. Sometimes they traveled in the day- time and sometimes in the night; and sometimes they did not make a fire, and ate their provisions raw. There were no bridges, and they crossed the rivers in any way that

complete that the new owner pays a percentage additional for a broken horse. Outside of the towns no provision need be made for feeding horses except in winter; eight months ont of the year a saddle horse may be ridden all day and at night. When work is over the saddle is pulled and the horse trots off to drink and munch bunch grass, and is full of life and ' pitch ' in the morning. Everybody may not treat horses so, but many do, and the horses do not seem to be suffering any if the pasture is big enough."-Billings Gazette, July, 1894.

Far back in the infancy of these sober pur- suits, 1866-7, I set down a table of products of the soil, so far as possible, up to that date. It is time to "round-up " again and see what has been done up to this time, 1894-5, and what is being done at railroad speed. As for the moral and intellectual growth in this center of Montana, the statistics from this publication, the mammoth publication itself, may be taken as sufficient evidence on which to rest the case.

It surely would seem, from the graves of murdered men and the many battle-grounds, that Montana had had quite enough to contend with at home. But far away at the national capital the war- whoop was heard year after year,

they could, sometimes turning their wagon-boxes into boats by calking them. They were satisfied if they could keep their sugar dry.

When camping within twenty miles of Bannack their sentinels came running in and shouting, "Indians!" They hurriedly prepared themselves as well as they could, bnt conld not make a good corral with only eight wagons. They put out their fires, and James Kennedy went out after the Indians, and the rest followed to save him. They corraled four Indians and their horses and brought them in, intending to shoot them if the other In- dians attacked them; but no attack was made, and they held a meeting in the morning to consult what they wonld do with the prisoners, and it was found that twelve were in favor of letting them go, and eleven for hanging them. So they gave them their breakfast and let them go, with their horses and rifles, and the company moved on.

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and continually the savages sang their cruel songs and kept up the ghost dance, with faces toward Montana, till the miner was scalped and his silver mine closed. They descended upon the sheep, and wool shot up, and then shot down -- down to 12 from 26! Yet not a moan came from Montana.

A writer in the Billings Gazette says:

" Previous to 1883 the wool grown in the then Territory of Montana was shipped by boat from Fort Benton and Judith Landing, on the Missouri river, to Bismarck, Dakota; thence to be shipped by rail to the wool manufacturing districts of the East. In July, 1883, the first wool to be received in Billings for transporta- tion by rail arrived by two large ox-team out- fits, consisting of twelve oxen to each team and carrying 25,000 pounds of the white and light material which we all wear.

"In 1880 the wool industry in Montana was, comparatively, in its infancy, there being but 300,000 pounds of wool shipped from the Ter- ritory in that year, but it was a beginning, and as years passed our people gained confidence in the business, until, in 1885, we shipped 2,500,- 000 pounds of wool,-a gradual increase up till

On arriving within four miles of Bannack City they went into camp. One man having a considerable amount of whisky along, they tapped a barrel of it, drew some iuto a wooden pail and drank from it with their tin cups, resulting in a great jollification. They thought them- selves all right when they reached Bannack; but they found the people there as much afraid of the Indians as themselves, not knowing what moment their camp might be surrounded and wiped out; and it was the toughest mining camp ever known.

In the spring of 1863 a Californian named Cleveland came to the camp, and next day the captain of the road agents, Henry Plummer, killed him, and nothing was done or said about it! The Indians camped about five miles below them. One day the chief of the Bannacks (a good Indian who had saved many a white man's life), with two of his men, came to the camp. The gamblers and road agents began to fire at them and kill them, and one man in the affray was shot by accident! The lawless characters ruled the town all winter; and here is a sam-

the winter of 1886-7, when nearly one-half of the sheep died from the intense cold and hunger. Up to this time the industry had been carried on upon the open range, the year round, a sheep shed was considered the height of folly, and few of those engaged in the business thought it necessary to provide hay for winter. At that time the new industry received a black eye from which it did not recover for several years, but when people began to look into the matter in earnest, and size it up alongside of other live-stock industries, it was again believed that sheep, if properly handled, were the most profitable stock which could be raised on the range in eastern Montana. The sheep that survived the hard winter were well taken care of; a dear experience had shown the necessity of providing feed for winter, and meadows were improved and hay put up. sheds were built for the protection of the flocks during severe weather, and for use during the lambing season, and from 1888 until 1892 the business enjoyed its most prosperous period. Nearly 3,000,000 pounds of wool went through the Billings ware- houses in 1892, and almost as much the suc- ceeding year. This city is the natural depot

ple of the language in which they used to run the gam- bling business: "Come up, you lazy, lousy Pike's Peaker, and bet your money; you have as good a chance to win as if you were an intelligent Californian."

At length the miners decided that they could not stand it any longer, and rose in their might as one man, saying, "We will run this camp from this on;" then Plummer, Jake Moore and others left in great haste; but the miners organized a company, under Hugh O'Neal, and sent out squads in all directions in search of gamblers, and brought them back, gave them a trial, and by their great efforts they cleaned out the worst element.

Mr. Hamilton followed mining there and obtained con- siderable gold. Alder Gulch was discovered May 23, 1863, by Barney Hughes, Henry Roys, Bill Sweeny (Irish- men), Tom Coover (Pennsylvania German), and Henry Edgar and Bill Fairweather (Scotch Canadians). Then there was at once a rush for Alder Gulch, and four days later Mr. Hamilton went there. When he arrived at a point within four miles of the gulch, the discoverers went

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and shipping point for a vast tributary sheep country, and will be greater yet with the com- pletion of the Burlington & Missouri Railroad to Southern markets. Wool grown in Montana is classed as fine to fine medium, and being of lighter shrinkage than that of our Western neighbors commands the highest price in East- ern markets.

"The shearing season commences in early June and continnes through that month and well into July. Sheep shearers operate in crews of from six to a dozen, and during the season make the wool fly. An average day's work for an expert shearer is 100 sheep, the rate per head being from 8 to 10 cents. Double this number of sheep in a day have been handled by experts, but they are not plentiful. A good average crew can clip the fleeces from a band of from 8,000 to 10,000 sheep in a week, and in another week the wool can be rushed to the Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago market. Most of the wool from this section goes to Boston, and from there is divided np amongst the wool manufacturers of the New England States and comes back to us in the form of blankets, car- pets and clothing. The highest price ever paid for a Montana clip was 26 cents.

out there and guided them in. Mr. Hamilton obtained a claim in nearly all the districts in the gulch, but while working his claims he was taken sick with malarial fever, and when he recovered, all his claims had been jumped. He had to get work at stripping ground for wages, re- ceiving $120 a week, and continued in this employ during all the summer of 1864.

In December he went to Last Chance, and there again met his old friend Judge Clancey, who gave him his cer- tificate of a claim there; but Mr. Hamilton, bent on stam- pedes in every direction all the summer of 1865, pros- pecting for gold, landed in the fall at Confederate Gulch and obtained one of the richest finds ever known in Mon- tana, at Diamond City, and he and his partners averaged there $500 a day for six weeks! and worked it out. Then they purchased adjoining claims, but did not find a quar- ter of a dollar's worth in them! Such was the miner's luck. A man there named Jack Thompson hauled the dirt with oxen down to the water and took out $1,200 to

"Usually the sheep are driven slowly over good feeding grounds to a location convenient to the shipping point, where pens for the shearing have been built, and here they are quickly divested of their fleeces by expert shearing crews. The wool is then sacked and hauled by wagon to the railroad. Sacks carry from two to three hundred pounds according to the quality of the wool. The bulk is reduced at the shipping points by means of pressure, three sacks being reduced to the compass of one.

" With the commencement of the wool season representatives of Eastern commission houses locate temporarily in Billings and watch the process of getting the wool into marketable shape, valuing the product according to the pointers gained from an intimate knowledge of the material and individual clip. Besides the Eastern men there are always a dozen wool commission houses represented by local agents, who usually get the bulk of the business. Few clips are bought outright, it being the usual plan to estimate the value and then advance the grower a certain percentage on the clip, the bal- ance being forthcoming after the clip has been sold through the Eastern commission house.

$1,500 a day! hut he afterward died poor, at Phillipsburg. Again Mr. Hamilton started out prospecting, from one part of the Territory to another, until he finally bought an interest in a claim 2,000 feet wide on Silver creek, in Lewis and Clarke county, and worked it seven years, taking out a considerable quantity of gold, averaging $10 a day. In 1872 he sold his diggings and for a time carried on farming on land that he owned on the creek.

In 1873 he made a trip to Ireland, and engaged in busi- ness there, taking beef cattle from Ireland to England, in which he "broke." In 1875 he returned to Butte. Here he built the first log house on Broadway west of Main street, purchased several lots and hecame one of the active builders of the town. When he came here it was almost impossible for one to obtain work at any wages; the times were fearfully hard until Marcus Daly came from Utah and started Rainbow or Alice lode. Mr. Ham- ilton followed mining in Park cañon, Horse cañon and west of the town, and he also engaged in digging wells

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" A sheep shearing scene is a novel affair to one used to the way of doing that act in the East, where farmers have a few hundred to han- dle, while our extensive growers have thousands.

" The three months of June, July and Angust are lively ones for the merchants of Billings. Thousands of wool sacks are sold to the growers of wool, supplies for the shcaring crews are sent out by the carload, and the other classes of business begin to be strengthened by the loos- ening up of money, which is spent freely by the shearers and sheep men during this time. Fully 1,000 men are employed during these months in the handling of the wool clip, directly and indirectly."

I gave an estimate of the water ditches in Montana in 1866-7, and now, a quarter of a century later, set down a new table. But, be it observed, the former table was made out be- fore one of the ditches mentioned in this chap- ter was even as much as contemplated. The world moves. These new ditches are for an entirely new purpose. The one was for extract- ing the golden dust from the gulch of the mountains; the other is for extracting the golden grain from the dust of the valleys. The

following table and compressed data about water ditches is found in the same mammoth publica- tion, and by I. D. O'Donnell, president of the Montana Irrigation Society :

"The area of Yellowstone county is 3,988,- 800 acres, having been increased in the fall 1892 by the cession to the government by the Crow Indians of 1,800,000 acres of ther reser- vation. About 460,200 acres are under irriga- tion ditches, and nearly 600,000 acres more are susceptible of irrigation at moderate expense. This includes the Lake Basin country, which contains about 345,600 acres capable of being irrigated by a canal from the Yellowstone, starting from near Springdale, the feasibility of which has been demonstrated by actual survey. The area of irrigable lands could be largely in- creased by storage reservoirs, artesian wells, the use of pulsometers, hydraulic rams, etc. The remainder of the land in the county consists of hills and broken land, useful for pasturage for range stock, which thrive and fatten on the nu- tritious native grasses.

" The great source of water supply for that portion of the county lying on the north side of the Yellowstone river is that magnificent

and cellars and turned his hand to whatever he could get to do. Ile built the fine house on Broadway, and had five houses where his magnificent brick block, the Hamilton now stauds. This structure, which is 52 x 100 feet in dimensions, he built in 1892; it is a substantial and valua- ble building, three stories high, spacious, elegantly fur- nished, and is used for stores and offices. Mr. Hamilton now has considerable property, and at the same time he has been liberal in giving ground to the city for streets alleys, etc.

In his political principles Mr. Hamilton is independent, as he is indeed in all things, and has never had a "bite from the public crib," and would not take one had he the opportunity. Ile is a pleasant, kind-hearted gentleman. a member of the church, and a good representative of the pioneer of 1862.

JACOB P. MCCLAIN, a prominent pioneer farmer of the Bitter Root valley, was born near Mount Pleasant, Henry county, Iowa, April 1, 1845. He is a descendant of an old Virginia family, of both Scotch and German ancestry.

His father, Jacob B. McClain, was born in Virginia in 1810, was there married, January 10, 1836, to Miss Olive Wilson, who was born in that State in 1817. They lived in Virginia until three of their children were born, then moved to Henry county, Iowa, and seven years afterward, in 1850, located in Polk county, that State. Mr. McClain died there in 1889, his wife having departed this life No- vember 30, 1860. They raised twelve children, eight of whom still survive.

Jacob P., their seventh child, received his education in the public schools of Polk county. When sixteen years of age the great Civil war broke forth upon the country, and, after reaching an age sufficient to be accepted, he enlisted in a Nebraska regiment, to serve nine months or until the close of the struggle. He was stationed in the Indian country, and participated iu several engage- ments. After receiving his honorable discharge, he re- turned home. February 18, 1865, Mr. McClain was united in marriage with Miss Emily E. Coon, who was born in Indiana, November 17, 1844, a daughter of George Coon,

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stream, which, having a fall ranging from ten to fifteen feet to the mile, carries an immense volume of water. Other streams of importance are the following:

"Emptying into the Yellowstone from the south: Blue, Duck, Davis, Cottonwood, Five Mile, Blue Water, Sand, Elbow, Bear Gulch, Willow and Red Lodge creeks, Clarke's Fork, Stillwater, East and West Rosebud rivers, Fiddler, Fishtail, Grove, Cow, Jack Stone, Spring, Roek, Bear, Bridger, Work, and East and West Deer creeks and West fork of Still- water and East Boulder river.

Emptying into the Yellowstone from the north: Hibbard, Cow Gulch, Pompey's Pillar, Razor, Crooked, Twelve Mile, Five Mile, Alkali, Canon, Valley, Hensley, Keyser and Berry creeks.

" Those tributary to the Musselsbell river: Big Conlee, Painted Robe, Dean, Goulding, Half Breed, Barott, Fattic, Hauk and Carpenter çreeks.

" In the Lake Basin there are several streams with no apparent ontlet, viz .: Whitney, Cedar, Gurney, Adobe, Greenwood and Comanche creeks.

a native of Belmont county, Ohio. He now resides in Indiana, aged seventy-four years. His wife departed this life in 1891, in her sixty-ninth year.

After marriage Mr. McClain farmed on his father's place, and afterward purchased a small farm. In 1868 he came up the Missouri river, on the steamer Deer Lodge, to German Gulch, in Deer Lodge county, Mon- tana, where he followed mining a year and a half, and took out large quantities of gold during that time. He then returned to his home, but in the following spring came again to Montana, accompanied by his wife and child. The latter, Carrie Virginia, was then two years of age. She is now the wife of David Maclay, and resides near her parents. After spending one year in German Gulch, they removed to Deer Lodge valley, where Mr. McClain was engaged in raising cattle and hay for four years. Three children were born to them at that place, namely: George D., Olive and William Henry. In 1874 the family came to their present home in the Bitter Root valley, fifteen miles south of Missoula. Ile first pur-

" The silt carried down by these streams and deposited on the land by irrigation ditches contains fertilizing material of great value, so that the land becomes richer year by year as it is irrigated and cropped, even without the ad- dition of artificial fertilizers. Indeed it has been the exception and not the rule to manure land, and those farms which have been cropped the most frequently are to-day the most productive. "The largest ditch in the county is that owned by the Minnesota & Montana Land and Improvement Company, a company of New York capitalists, which acquired from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company all of its land grant in the valley extending from Young's Point to below Billings, including the townsite of that thriving city. This ditch is forty miles long, twenty-five feet wide at the bottom and carries about 10,000 inches of water. It sup- plies water to abont 20,000 acres of land.

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 124

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co. Number of Pages: 1216

Author: Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913. cn
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1216