An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 132

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 132

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The subject of our sketch left the farm and began business for himself when he was quite young, his first venture being in the manufacture of picture frames in the city of Brooklyn, New York. He there met with misfortune in the way of fire, and lost everything he had.

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

R. L. Word, Ella L. Knowles, W. A. Burleigh, John Tinkler, Thomas E. Brady, Leslie & Baum, Thomas J. Porter, C. R. Middleton, Edwin J. Rowe, John A. Hoffman, James Don- ovan, George Haldorn, Frank E. Corbett, M. Kirkpatrick, George B. Foote, Charles O'Don- nell, F. T. MeBride, W. S. Shaw, Henry C. Smith, John R. Barrows, Thomas Joyes, Jolin McDonald, John H. Duffy, Henry C. Stiff, W. II. Tripett, William M. Blackford, Stephen Carpenter, S. G. Murray, George W. Reeves, O. B. O'Bannon, R. G. Davies, E. P. Cadwell, Edward Scharnikow, HI. J. Burleigh, F. A. Merrill, Evan S. McCord, George W. Taylor, E. L. Bishop, E. W. Morrison, W. A. Barr, I. W. Adams, Thomas J. Walsh, F. Adkinsou, John S. Miller, D. E. Waldron, Theo. Mutfly, F. P. Sterling, John W. Stanton, W. L. Lip- pineott, Kenneth M. Nicholes, Edward C. Day, John A. Savage, Oliver T. Crane, J. S. Shrop- shire, O. W. McConnell, Thomas C. Holines. James A. Walsh, C. C. Newman, T. E. Crutcher, A. J. Campbell, W. A. Clark, John T. Baldwin, James P. Lewis, George B. Winston, J. A. Car- ter, Carl Rasch, John E. Light, F. A. Merrill,

After that event he returned to the farm and was en- gaged in farm work until 1886, when he resolved to try his fortune in the great West. He accordingly came to Montana. For a few months he worked on a ranch near Deer Lodge, from whence he went to Butte, where he engaged with the Centennial Brewing Company, and re- mained with that firm until October, 1888. His next move was to Livingston. Here he established a bottling enterprise, which his able management has succeeded in increasing to a large capacity. Hle bottles all the drinks, with the exception of beer, that are bottled in Living- ston.

Upon taking up his residence in Livingston, Mr. Beley soon grew into popular favor, and his popularity was shown by his being elected to represent the first ward as Alderman, in which position he served two years. And in the spring of 1893 he was elected Mayor of the city of Livingston. Mr. Beley is a member of Yellowstone Lodge, No. 10, K. of P., and also of the A. O. U. W., Liv- ingston. Politically, he is a Democrat.

In 1882 Mr. Beley was married to Miss Amelia George, daughter of Methurian and Antoinelle (Sayer) George, of

Howard E. Thompson, Ransom Cooper, Will- iam T. Pigott, Lewis L. Calloway, Eugene C. Boom, W. D. Gardner, Donglas Martin, W. G. Downing, John B. Welcome, F. C. Webster, Rufus C. Garland, J. R. Boarman, John W. Cotter, Henry D. Moore, George E. Duis, Marcus L. Cronch, Charles H. Musgrove, Aus- tin C. Gormley, A. J. Shores, Henry A. Day, Thomas W. Murphey, E. H. Goodman, J. E. Kanouse, C. II. Baldwin, F. C. Park, C. M. Crutchfield, Charles W. Wiley and Walter S. Hartman.

In the new counties created by the legislative assembly of 1893, there are lawyers of promi- bence and among them, in Flathead county, Sidney M. Logan, prosecuting attorney, Wilbur N. Noffsinger, Henry W. Heideman, Frank H. Nash, William J. Brennan, Frank L. Gray, E. J. Crull, Charles H. Foote, Edward C. O'Don- nell, Byron J. MeIntire, Robert L. Clinton, John F. Duffy, Scott N. Santord, George H. Grubb, D. F. Smith, John Bloor, A. Y. Lind- say, J. K. Miller, J. M. Sullivan, J. G. Lang- ford, J. D. Posten; in Teton county, James Sul- grove, proseenting attorney, E. L. Bishop, J. G.

New York State. Mr. George was a harness manufact- urer, and a man highly respected by all who knew him. Mr. and Mrs. Beley have two children,-Ernest and Fred.

DAVID P. RANKEN .- Few men have been more active and successful in developing the mining and stock inter- ests of Montana than has David P. Ranken. Briefly, a sketch of his life is here presented.

Mr. Ranken is descended from sturdy Scotch ancestry, although born in the north of Ireland, October 11, 1884, son of John and Mary A. (Laughlin) Ranken. IIe is one of a family of seven sons and one daughter. The daugh- ter married, and several years afterward died, leaving a family of six children. Two of the sons died when young, and of the other five we record that David P. is in Mon- tana: John D. is at the head of the foundry and machine firm of Ranken & Fitch, St. Louis, Misssouri; H. L. is a capitalist of St. Louis; and the other two died after reach- ing manhood.

David P. Ranken began frontier life at an early age. When he was nineteen he went to Texas and from there explored and prospected among the Rocky ranges to their northern bounds. He first engaged in mining in Meagher

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Bair and J. E. Erickson; in Granite county, Wingfield Brown, prosecuting attorney, D. M. Durphey, W. H. Rogers and W. E. Moore; in Ravalli county, L. J. Knapp, prosecuting attor- torney, H. L. Myers, J. R. McLaren, S. A. Am- mon, R. A. O'Hara, George Baggs and C. B. Calkins; in Valley county, J. J. Kerr and I. HI. Lewis.

On January 1, 1893, William Y. Pemberton, he who wrote down the testimony at the cele- brated Ives trial, in December, 1863, and who for more than a quarter of a century had prac- ticed his profession in Montana, after serving a term as district judge of the Second Judicial district, succeeded Blake as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The first of his opinions will appear in volume 13 of the reports. Genial, able and experienced, with a keen sense of right and justice, and having for his co- workers on the bench Associate Justices Har- wood and De Witt, who received their baptism of practice in the courts of Montana, and who, though younger than their chief, are of high character, learned and capable, the promise is that the succeeding reports will maintain the

county, Montana, near its county seat, Diamond City, and was the first who invested largely in placer mining. In this enterprise he invested $20,000 for pipe alone, the freight on his iron piping from St. Louis being eighteen cents a pound. He built a water ditch that was seven miles long, and when his works were completed he had a water capacity of 2,000 miners' inches, the whole plant costing him no less than $100,000. The profits were at times large. Frequently he realized $2,000 from the ex- penditure of $100. He owns a valuable quartz lead in the same mining belt, which assays $600 per ton. This he is now developing and will operate it on a much larger scale as soon as railroad transportation is afforded, and it is now expected that a road will be built to these mines in the near future. Mr. Ranken also owns valuable copper de- posits in the same region, near Copperopolis, and has sixty acres of valuable placer field. He sold his first pla- cer mine some years since. In 1876 he located valuable grass lands on the Yellowstone fifteen miles south of Liv- ingston, and now owns a section and a half on the east and one section on the west side of the river. On the east side, where he resides, is a valuable spring of water clea

same high position and influence as those that have gone before.

And so Montana jurisprudence enters upon its enduring life. Judges and lawyers disap- pear, but others take their places; generations march across the narrow stage in endless pro- cession; parties are forgotten; the throbbing, pulsing life of the court-room, with its hopes and fears, subsides; time sends to oblivion the actors iu the scene; lawyer and client, friend and foe, the trembling criminal and the judge who pronounces sentence-all vanish into shadows, but the decisions and opinions become precedents, and, if they speak the language of justice, live forever. And thus Montana juris- prudence is linked to all the past and will live in all the future. It has become a part of that marvelous system of national and State juris- prudence, each supreme within the sphere of its own jurisdiction, the admiration of the world, which extends to and covers every foot of territory and protects the rights and liberties and prescribes the duties of every per- son within the limits of the United States. The life-giving spirit of that system is the common

as crystal, and from this spring the water meanders through his ranch to the river, and never freezes, thus making a great resort for water fowls in winter. The pe- culiar situation of his land and its water resources enable him to produce vast quantities of hay without irrigation. He has long been extensively interested in stock and is classed with the successful stock men of the State.

Personally, Mr. Ranken is a man of excellent judg- ment, broad and progressive views, and is given to hospi- tality. None are ever refused shelter and food at his home. While he has entertained hundreds since he took up his abode in Montana, he bas never accepted one cent from any of those who have lodged with him. He is an interesting converser and never fails to make his guests feel comfortable and at home. Fraternally, he is a mem- ber of George Washington Lodge, No. 9, A. F. & A. M., and Chapter No. 8, both of St. Louis. Politically, he is a Republican.

JAMES R. BOYCE, JR., a highly respected citizen of Butte City, has been identified with Montana since 1865. He was born in Missouri April 20, 1844, and comes of an old Virginia family, his father being Hon. James R

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

law, which ever his been the guardian of the achievement, the progress, and the eivilization of the English-speaking race.

Constitutions and statutes are but the out- lines -- Magna Charta itself was but a frame- work-while that which gives life and strength to the system, that which makes it the guardian of liberty and property, that which takes hold of and unravels every complieation of human affairs, that which adapts itself to every novel and strange condition of country or people, are those eternal principles of right and justice which the common-law judges have announced and applied in their opinions in the decisions of eases.

The common is ease-made law, and is now contained in about 8,000 volumes of reports in which are more than 1,000,000 opinions and decisions, extending over a period of a thousand years.

In our country these volumes of reports are increasing and accumulating at a rate never known before. As to the United States courts we have one Supreme court, nine circnit courts of appeals, nine circuit courts, and about sixty district courts; and as to State and Territorial

courts we have forty-nine supreme courts, or eourts of last resort, besides the inferior State courts, whose decisions are reported and pub- lished, and each year these courts, taken together, prodnee 200 volumes or more of reports!

From this great reservoir of the common law will continually flow commentaries, text books, digests, law dictionaries and eyclopædias, and it is safe to predict that by the year 1950 a complete law library in the United States will contain at least 30,000 ponderons volumes.

In 1886 Judge John F. Dillon said ( Report of the American Bar Association, vol. IX): "The Roman law, by means of commentaries on the text of the XII Tables, by imperial constitu- tions, decrees, edicts and rescripts, had, before Justinian, attained to such proportions that it was said to be the load of many camels. The Roman situation was tolerable compared with onrs. Our judiciary law, which embraces that of England and America, now runs back through several centuries to the reign of Ed- ward II, without revision or authentic restate- ment. It is scattered through volumes so numerous that the memory is taxed to its ut- most to remember even their names, that only

Boyce, Sr., further mention of whom is found elsewhere in this work.

The subject of this sketch was reared and educated in his native State, and in 1865 came up the Missouri river with his mother and the rest of the family to join the father in Montana, the father having come to Virginia City the year before. He met them with teams at Fort Benton and brought them across the mountains to Vir- ginia City, where he was engaged iu the mercantile busi- ness. James R., Jr., had just arrived at maturity and he was given employment as a collector by the firm of which his father was a member,-Tootle, Leech & Company. When the firm moved their business to Helena he went with them and continued in their employ until 1875. He then succeeded his father and the firm name was changed to Sands & Boyce. In 1879 they removed the business to Butte City and Mr. Boyce continued in charge of it. In 1887 another change was made, Mr. Boyce and Mr. A. J. Davis becoming equal partners in the business, which was done under the firm name of J. R. Boyce, Jr., & Com-

pany until after the death of Mr. Davis. In 1891 the First National Bank of Butte City, through a misunder- stauding, and, as Mr. Boyce believes, in an unavoidable way, attached Mr. Davis' interest, and in that way the business was wrecked. The matter has since been in the courts, Mr. Boyce suing for damages, and it is firmly be- lieved that he will get his rights.

Since 1891 Mr. Boyce has been retired from mercantile business. He resides with his family in their commodi- ous residence, No. 523 West Galena street, and gives his attention to looking after his real-estate interests, he hav- ing invested in both city and country property. He owns a large and beautiful ranch at the mouth of Black Tail canon, nine miles south of Butte City, which for beauty of scenery is unsurpassed. It is well improved with good buildings, etc., is supplied with an abundance of pure spring water, and its chief products are vegetables, he having soll no less than $3,000 worth of vegetables from it last year (1893). He keeps a tenant on this place,

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the rich can buy them, and that the practical industry and strength of no human being can examine, much less study and digest them."

Every year adds to this great, unwieldy mass, and when we look into these volumes to ascer- tain what the law really is, we find decisions contradictory and irreconcilable; decisions over- ruling, modifying, limiting or enlarging the scope and meaning of other decisions; right de- cisions supported by wrong reasons, and wrong decisions supported by good reasons, by techni- calities or by no reason at all; verbose and in- volved decisions, obscured by obiter dicta and speculative theories; broad and learned decis- ions, and narrow and ignorant ones; and decis- ions that decide the same thing and repeat the same principle over and over again. Hence it is that this multiplication of reports contributes more or less to the uncertainty of the law.

Notwithstanding the number and cost of these volumes, their inaccessibility and their contradictory decisions, in our country, all per- sons of full age and of sound mind and men- ory, except judges and lawyers, who make the law their life study, are conclusively presumed to know the law. As to judges and lawyers

Mr. Boyce was married, April 26, 1870, to Miss Bettie Fant, a native of Missouri, who died at the age of thirty- three, after nine years of happy married life, leaving four children,-Lyman F., Wilber, Thomas and Bettie. Her's was a beautiful Christian character. She was greatly beloved by her husband and little family and her untime- ly death was a source of great bereavement to all who knew her. March 6, 1881, MIr. Boyce married Miss Lynnie Fant, a sister of his first wife, and they have two sons, Owen and Alvin.

Politically, Mr. Boyce is a Democrat; fraternally, a Knight Templar Mason. He is a man of broad informa- tion, is modest, unassuming and genial in manner, and in a business way is all that is honorable and upright.

ALBERT J. CAMPBELL, attorney-at-law, Livingston, Mon- tana, is ranked with the promising young men of the Northwest.

IIe is a son of Milo R. and Ruth A. (Perkins) Camp- bell, and was born at Pontiac, Michigan, in the year 1857. His ancestors originated in Scotland, but for several gen-

this presumption holds good concerning their own rights and liabilities, but when they come to determine and to adjudicate upon the rights and liabilities of other persons, the presumption vanishes, and they are compelled to study and learn the law before they know it, and even then their conclusions are often contradictory and uncertain. There is no person in our country, however learned he may be, who knows all the law, but there is no person, how . ever ignorant he may be, even though he never saw a law-book and cannot read or write, who is not presumed to know all the law and to regulate his conduct accordingly. He is charged with knowledge he does not possess and cannot acquire; he must observe rules that he cannot see and obey commands that he cannot hear. Without an opportunity to study or examine these massive volumes, and not having the nec- essary training to understand if they should read them, our people are presumed to know all the law they contain, though hidden away and covered up by the accumulated rubbish of cen- turies! The theory that the people are pre- sumed to know the law is undoubtedly correct, for it would not do to determine the rights of

erations have been residents of America, his great-grand- father having served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Albert J. was educated in the Agricultural College of Michigan, and studied law under the instructions of Colvin & Harrington and Robins & Colvin, at Pontiac, where he was admitted to the bar in 1881. That same year he hegan practicing law at Oxford, Michigan, and the following year he removed to Chase, Lake county, that State, where he conducted a successful practice un- til 1889.

In 1889 Mr. Campbell came to Livingston, Montana, and purchased the law library of Judge Frank Henry, whom he succeeded in business, Henry, a popular at- torney, having just been elected to the position of District Judge. Mr. Campbell's abilities at once secured him the recognition he deserved and he became widely and fa- vorably known as a successful lawyer, which reputation he has since sustained. For three years he served as Prosecuting Attorney of Lake county, Michigan, resign- ing that position when he came to Montana. He was

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one by the ignorance of another, but the wrong about it is in permitting the law to remain in such a condition that neither lawyers nor lay- men can determine just what the law really is or exactly where it may be found. The law must not be lost in an ever-increasing multitude of reports. The common law, the law of the land, of which every man is charged with knowledge at his peril, must not be hidden ont of sight by being scattered through so many books that it cannot be found.

In his day Blackstone thought to resene the common law from the oblivion of the reports, and produced his wonderful commentaries, which for more than one hundred years, in all common-law countries, have been sacred books. He was followed, in our country, by Kent, Story, Greenleaf, Parsons, Cooley, Wharton, Bishop and others, all of whom have produced great works in attempts to reduce the princi- ples of the common law, as found in the re- ports, to system and form. But now the re- ports of decisions have so increased in number and are being added to so rapidly, from year to year, that the material for making law-books is never wanting, and they seem to be produced as

City Clerk and Attorney for Livingston in 1891-2, re- ceiving the office by appointment. Quick to see a point, persevering and active in all his undertakings, Mr. Campbell is destined to fill a prominent niche in his chosen profession, as well as in the political arena of Montana. Ile affiliates with the Democratic party. He is a member of all the Masonic bodies, from the blue lodge to the Mystic Shrine, and is also a member of the B. P. O. E., having filled all the chairs in the last named order.

Mr. Campbell was married in 1879 to Miss Ella J. Mann, of Lapeer county, Michigan. They have two chil- dren, Roy and Grace.

HON. JAMES R. BOYCE, a venerable pioneer of Montana, was born in Logan county, Kentucky, October 11, 1817.

He is descended from early settlers of the Old Domin- ion, three generations of his ancestors having been born in Virginia. His grandfather Boyce fought in the Revo- lution for American independence. Richard Boyce, the father of our subject, was born in Virginia in 1780, and was married there to Miss Mary Smith, also a native of

if manufactured by machinery, and instead of tending to make the law more certain they but repeat its uncertainties, and bury it still deeper in the ocean of books.

Common-law judges and lawyers spend their lives searching the reports for decisions that will determine the question in hand, but as precedents may generally be found on both sides of the question, the law, even to the most learned, is rendered doubtful and uncertain; and as to the common people, who by intuition are presumed to know it in all its length and breadth, with its thousand variations, limita- tions and exceptions, it is a dark and insoluble mystery. It would be better to break down the authority of precedents altogether and to burn up the reports than to have the obsenrity and uncertainty of the law increased by their con- tinued, unlimited publication.

Montana, in the morning of its jurispru- dence, young, vigorous and strong, is in condi- tion to aid in any needed law reform, whereby certainty as to what the law is, and facility in ascertaining where it may be found, is secured.

All these principles of the common law which the decisions of the courts have settled

that State, hier birth having occurred in 1786. They re- moved to Logan county, Kentucky, where they spent the residue of their lives, there rearing a family of five chil- dren. three of whom are still living. Ile was a man of considerable prominence in the frontier settlement where he lived. He owned a large plantation, served as County Court Judge, and was also Sheriff of Logan county. Both he and his wife were members of the Baptist Church. She died at the age of forty-two years and he lived to be sixty-seven.

James R. was the first-born in his father's family. He was reared and educated in Kentucky, and was married there, in 1837, to Miss Maria L. Wright, daughter of Will- iam Wright, of Russellville, Kentucky. The Wrights were also an old Virginia family. In 1842 Mr. Boyce and his family moved to Columbia, Missouri, where he was engaged in merchandising outil 1863. During the early part of the Civil war he was in the Quartermaster's De- partment of the Confederate service, and by the ravages of war he lost his property. In 1863 Mr. Boyce crossed

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and about which there is no dispute, might, if sufficient labor were applied to the task, be sift- ed from the mass of the reports and written down in the form of statutes. These principles would not lose any of their grandeur, strength or beauty or any of their vigor in regulating the affairs of men by being so reduced to the form of statutes.

All those principles which have been made doubtful and uncertain by contradictory decis- ions might be rendered certain by the same means. If all this could be done, even though it required the best learning of the country and the labor of many years to accomplish it; and then, if the reports should be made to contain no repetitions, no reciting of well established principles, no decision which turns upon the facts, no dissenting opinions, and only new principles or the novel application of old ones; and if the opinions of the courts and the briefs and arguments of the lawyers were made shorter, more compact and consequently more able, then the two or three hundred volumes of reports which are now produced each year would be reduced to a small compass and would be within the reach of all who wished to read

the plains to Denver, Colorado, where he was engaged in merchandising for a year. Hearing of the gold excite- ment in Montana, he set out for this place, making the journey hither with a pair of mules and a wagon loaded with provisions, and after seventy-two days of travel, landing at Alder Gulch, June 14, 1864. Soon after his arrival here he became a member of the firm of Tulle Leach & Co., and opened a store. They hauled goods in wagons from St. Joseph and Denver and did a prosper- ous business, getting fabulous prices in gold dust for their goods, aud continuing there for a period of three years. The business was then removed to Helena and he continued in that place until 1880, when he sold out and went to Omaha. He conducted business in Omaha four years. At the end of that time he returned to Helena aud iuvested some in city property, which he still retains, and has since been retired from active business.

In 1875 Mr. Boyce had the misfortune to lose by death the companion of his life, she being fifty-five at the time of death. Of their children, be it recorded that they are

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 132

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