An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 23

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 23

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During the day, when we were struggling with the elements, Dr. Danforth arrived in camp. He was at once summoned to attend a poor fellow who had broken his leg below the knee. On examination the doctor reported that mortifica- tion had set in and the only means of saving his life was to amputate the leg. But how was this to be accomplished? He had no surgical instruments with him. The doctor was howev- er equal to the emergency. He went over to the butcher and requested him to whet up his best blade to as fine an edge as possible. Then he took down from the hook a bow-backed meat

the meetings of which she was active and efficient, giving the association papers on primary work. Her connection with this organization brought her into prominence with the educators of her State, who elected her vice-president of the association, this being her second term in that capacity.

In the fall of 1892, Miss Reifenrath was the choice of the Republican party for County Superintendent of Schools. The Populist party and the Democratic party also nominated ladies of fine ability for the same posi- tion. She was the youngest caudidate in the field and was elected by the very flattering majority of 910 votes out of a vote of 4,596, running far ahead of her ticket. Since entering upon the duties of her office her first work was that of visiting the schools of the county to study their needs. There are forty schools in the county, and the law only requires one visit to each, but such has been her desire to benefit them that nearly all have received a second visit.

Miss Reifenrath is a member of the W. C. T. U. of Montana, and is superintendent of the juvenile work of the society for this State. She is a member of the Epis- copal Church of Helena.

ADAM GERHAUSER, one of Helena's respected citizens, was born in Bavaria, October 6, 1828, the son of George Gerhanser, a butcher. He learned the business of beer- brewing in Bavaria, aud remained there until 1853. That year he emigrated to the United States, and for a time worked at his trade in New York. From there he re- moved to Belleville, Illinois, where he continued in the brewing business four years. In 1857 he went to Cali- fornia and turned his attention to mining, in which occu- pation he has been almost constantly engaged ever since. Ilis first experience in the mines was at Dutch Flat. From there he went to Grass valley and afterward to Au- burn, forty miles from Sacramento. During his early mining career he found one piece of gold that was valued at $108. Leaving California in 1860, he went to Nevada and at Carson City started up in the brewing business on

saw and had him sharpen that as well. John and myself were summoned to hold the patient. Before commencing operations, in the absence of anything better, the doctor administered a heavy dose of whisky. When the patient had drank it he jocosely remarked that he thought he could stand the operation without the whisky, or the whisky without the broken leg, but be damned if he could stand them both. The doc- tor went at the operation in a business-like manner. The incisions were accomplished all right, and the only trouble with the sawing was that the saw, being rather coarse for this pur-

his own account, continuing there until 1863, and that year going to Virginia City, Nevada, and conducting a brewing business until 1868. In 1868 he located at White Pine, where he built a larger plant than ever, at a cost of $20,000, and this he operated until 1870, when he sold out. The mining excitement at Cedar creek then took him to that place. Finding nothing there, however, to induce him to remain, he came to Helena and on the 8th of June, 1870, he started a brewery on South Main street. The following year he was burned out, and in 1874, in company with others, he started up in business again, and again his establishment met with the same fate, losing him nearly all his accumulations. Again he rebuilt, this time on Rodney street, but after two years more in the brewing business he retired from it and converted his property into business blocks, Nos. 202 and 204, corner of Fifth and Rodney streets. His interest in miues and mining did not abate during these years, and he is now the owner of two valuable gold mines. Out of one of them, after considerable expense, he has taken over $20,- 000. Both these mines he is still successfully operating.

Mr. Gerhauser was married in 1864, to Miss Tereca Schick, a native of Germany.

Politically, he is a Democrat. He has, however, given little attention to politics, as his extensive business opera- tions have demanded and received his closest attention. Ile has not only attained a fair degree of success, but has also secured what is far better -- the good will of all who know him.

MICHAEL A. MEYENDORFF, recently the melter at the United States Assay Office, Helena, and now City En- gineer of this city, came to Montana in 1871.

Ile was born in Poland, December 3, 1849, and is the son of Baron Meyendorff, a Polish nobleman. His early training was at the government school at Minsk, the capi- tal of the Russian State of that name. When Poland made her last attempt to gain her independence, the Meyendorff family were among those who took up arms against Russia, and with three elder brothers the subject

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pose, would occasionally catch in the bone, to twist and bend which made the operation a pain- ful one indeed. But the patient stood it like a little man. Later on I met this same man in the mines and his first salutation was 'Say, pard, old saw-bones was a brick: wasn't he?'

"The night before the next start we made, the clouds had broken away and the mercury dropped twenty degrees below zero. We knew that by starting the next morning as soon as it was light that we could pass over the frozen crust of snow. We reached the summit late in the afternoon, and by slow degrees made our way down into Dead-horse canon. By the time we reached this camping ground, where a month

of our sketch went forth in the war which ended so dis- astrously to the side they championed. With others he was arrested and imprisoned, and upon trial sentenced to banishment to Siberia. The time occupied by imprison- ment and in the journey to Siberia was sixteen months, and eighteen months were spent in exile. He was liber- ated during the close of the Lincoln administration, through the intercession of the United States Govern- ment, and came at once to America.

Six months after his arrival in this country he entered the Michigan University, and. in 1870 graduated in that institution as a civil engineer. In 1871 he came West, and during the summer of that and the following year he was in the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- pany as surveyor. In 1873 he was chief mineral clerk in the office of the Surveyor General of Montana, and the following year he opened an office and acted as mineral land surveyor and attorney. In 1875 he went to Wash- ington and was in the employ of the Interior Department. Through the influence of Hon. James G. Blaine he came to Helena as superintendent of construction of the United States Assay Office, and President Grant the next year appointed him melter, a position which he held, serving under both Republican and Democratic administrations, until September, 1893, when he was removed by Presi- dent Cleveland. The spring city election being carried by the Republican party, Mr. Meyendorff was appointed City Engineer, May 1, 1894, which office he now holds.

Mr Meyendorff has been prominent in political circles, having been secretary of the Montana State Central Com- mittee and president of the Young Men's Republican Club. In 1884 he stumped the State of New York for James G. Blaine for President. At college he was a mem- ber of the Chi Psi Society. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, Knights of Pythias and Ancient Order of United Workmen, and is a member of the Episcopal Church.

later Joaquin Miller had a desperate encounter with mountain wolves that he will remember a long time after other stirring events, in which he played a conspicuous part, have passed from his memory. However, by the time we reached this camping ground the sky was again overcast with dense clouds and the snow began to descend thick and fast. Everything wet, no fire, an im- provised cold meal, horses fed on flour worth a dollar a pound,-expresses the situation. An effort to get some sleep was the next question to be determined. Near by was the trunk of a great fallen tree, the top of which was some three feet above the surface of the snow. We brushed the snow from the top of the log, and

HON. ELBERT DURKEE WEED, a prominent member of the bar of Montana, dates his birth in Allegany county, New York, December 1, 1858. He is of English and Dutch descent. His great-great-grandfather, Reuben Weed, settled in Connecticut at an early period in the history of this country, and from Connecticut his pos- terity emigrated to Cayuga county, New York, where they were chiefly engaged in agricultural pursuits. His paternal and maternal great-grandfathers, Renben Weed and Jacob Schaffer, fought in the Revolutionary war, and Reuben Weed (Reuben being a popular name in the family for several generations), his grandfather, took part in the war of 1812. Seth H. Weed, the father of Elbert D., was born in Allegany county, New York, in- 1832, and he rendered his country efficient service during the Civil war, enlisting in July, 1861, in the First New York Dragoons, and serving with his regiment until the second day of the battle of the Wilderness. On that day he received a gun-shot wound in the thigh, which severed an artery and caused his death. He left a widow and two little sons, Elbert D. and Henry I.

In 1866, Mr. Weed's mother, whose maiden name was Nancy E. Foland, with her children, accompanied her father on his removal to Wisconsin, where they settled on a farm and where her sons were reared. She is still a resident of that State, now making her home at Oshkosh.

After preparing himself for college, Elbert D. entered the Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where he was graduated in 1880. He then took a course in law in the State University at Madison, Wisconsin, and began the practice of his profession at Oshkosh, where he remained two years. In 1883 he came to Helena and entered into a partnership with Mr. E. D. Edgerton, which association was severed two years later, and since that time Mr. Weed has conducted his law practice alone, having secured a good clientage and a reputation as a success-

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taking our blankets we made our bed thereon. It was not a soft log. John would drop into a doze, roll over to find a soft place and land in the snow below. My turn would soon come, and the only thing to do was to plumb the log again. This process was kept up until the dawn of day. The trail leading out of the canon was up a hill, not long but very steep. At the top of this hill one of our broncoes lay down and gave up the ghost. Before night came again we pitched our camp at Millersburg, named after Joaquin Miller in honor of his daring in the early discovery of these mines."-Pleas. John- son in San Francisco Midwinter Appeal.

Having plenty of ponies I took employment with Mossman to ride express. Later I became a partner, went to Elk City, far to the south of Oro Fino, and the third camp of any enduring richness yet found, and on returning to Lewis ton went at once to the new or farther camp, Salmon river, afterward called Id-da-ho,* and

ful practitioner. He is the attorney for Montana of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and also of the United States Mortgage Trust Company of New York.

Politically, Mr. Weed is a stanch Republican. In 1888 he was secretary of the Republican State central com- mittee. He was temporary chairman of the Republican State convention in 1892, and was prominently mentioned as a candidate for Governor. He has held the office of Deputy District Attorney and also Assistant United States District Attorney. In 1889 he received the appointment of United States District Attorney, was reappointed to the same office in 1890, and served until the expiration of his term in February, 1894. He was elected Mayor of Helena in April, 1894, by the largest plurality ever given a candidate for that office.

Mr. Weed is a bachelor, and a member of the follow- ing orders: Masons, Elks and Knights of Pythias.

*The name of the great northwestern gold-fields, com- prising Montana and Idaho, was originally spelled I dak- ho, with the accent thrown heavily on the second sylla- ble. The word is perhaps of Shoshonee derivation, but it is found in some similar form, and with the same sig- nificance, among all Indians west of the Rocky moun- tains. The Nez Perce Indians, in whose country the great black and white mountain lies which first induced

Florence, where my elder brother was already mining.

This newest and richest mining camp had suc- cessively various names. Millersburg, on Mil- ler's creek, was the name given to the first group or string of eabins built in what has ever been known since the first few months as the Flor- ence mines. This was not named after myself, though the fact that I opened the first express office there and that my brothers and cousins lived thereabout led me to believe and say so. It was called simply Miller's at first. I had my express office in Mr. Miller's cabin at the begin- ning and to the end of my business in Florence, and always stopped there as I went and came with the express, for his cabin and town were quite on the outer edge of the mines. There was no house after leaving Miller's in those early days till you crossed and descended the Salmon mountain to Salmon river. Here mountaineers, packers, prospectors, merchants, all sorts of men

the white man to the use of this name, are responsible for its application to the region of the far Northwest.

"The literal meaning is, 'sunrise mountains.' Indian children among all tribes west of the Rocky mountains, so far as I can learn, use the word to signify the place where the sun comes from. Where these tawny people live out of doors, go to bed at dusk, and rise with the first break of day, sunrise is much to them. The place where the sun comes from is a place of marvel to the children; and, indeed, it is a sort of dial-plate to every village or rancheria, and of consequence to all. The Shosho. nee Indians, the true Bedouins of the American desert, hold the mountains where the first burst of dawn is dis- covered in peculiar reverence.

" This roving and treacherous tribe of perfect savages, stretching from the Rocky mountains almost to the Sier- ras, having no real habitation, or any regard tor the habi lation of others, but often invading and overlapping the lands of fellow savages, had some gentle sentiments about sunrise. 'Idahho' with them was a sacred place ; and they clothed the Rocky mountains, where they rose to them, with a mystic or rather a mythological sanctity

" The Shasta Indians, with whom I spent the best years of my youth, and whose language and traditious I know entirely, as well as those of their neighbors to the north of them, the Modoes, always, whether in camp or in win- ter quarters, had an " Idahho," or place for the sun to rise. This was a sort of Mecca in the skies, to which

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with all sorts of purposes, had almost immedi- ately built up a little town, which was called Slate Creek. This Slate Creek was fed from the waters of the new mines, but, strangely enough, was not found rich enough to work; and, still more strangely, for half a year no one touched the bars of Salmon river. They yielded richly, however, when once opened. Never anywhere on the face of the earthi was gold found to be so plentiful and accessible. Dwarf pines of the Douglas class stood so thick on the hills all about that a horse could not pass through a grove of them; but in the shallow gulches only grass grew. This grass had thirsty, matted roots which ran down to a thin stratum of decomposed quartz. In this lay the grains of gold, as thick in places as wheat on a threshing floor; and indeed it was about the size and color of wheat. You might imagine much confusion, greed, grasping, even crime, under these circumstances. In truth, to takea like num-

every Indian lifted his face involuntarily on rising from his rest. I am not prepared to say that the act had any special religion in it. I only assert that it was always done, and done silently, and almost, if not entirely, rever- ently.

" Yet it must be remembered that this was a very prac- tical affair nearly always and with all Indians. The war- path, the hunt, the journey-all these pursuits entered almost daily into the Indian's life, and of course the first thing to be thought of in the morning was 'Idahho.' Was the day to open propitiously ? Was it to be fair or stormy weather for the work in hand ?

" But I despair of impressing the importance of sunrise on those who rarely witness it, although to the Indian it is everything. And that is why every tribe in the moun- tains, wherever it was, and whatever its object in hand, had a Mount " Idahho." This word, notwithstanding its beauty and pictorial significance, found no place in our books till some twenty-one years ago, and then only in an abbreviated and unmeaning form.

" Indeed, all Indian dialects, except the 'Chinook', a conglomerate published by the Hudson Bay Company for their own purposes, and adopted by the missionaries, seem to have always been entirely ignored and unknown throughout the North Pacific territory. This 'Chinook' answered all purposes. It was a sort of universal jargon. was the only dialect in which the Bible was printed, or that had a dictionary, and no one seemed to care to dig beyond it.

ber of men suddenly out of New York, or any other city, and set like temptations before them, crime would perhaps follow. But these men, like all old gold miners, were tried and true. They were ruggedly honest men, all of them, hungry men at times, no doubt, but they were honest, digni- fied, full of reassuring good will to one another, and it is doubtful if any other gathering of so many thousand men from anywhere could have got through the winter with less quarreling or barbarisins than these here where there was no law at all for the biggest half of the first year.

Although many editors were here in the heart of the richest spot that had been found on the globe, and the very richest with the one excep- tion of Alder creek, Montana, you search the world in vain for any literature concerning the event. My cousin, Henry Miller, of the Ore- gonian, wrote much; but his letters are mostly light character sketches and miscellanies, with

" And so it was that this worthless and unmeaning 'Chinook' jargon overlaid and buried our beautiful names and traditions. They were left to perish with the per- ishing people; so that now, instead of soft and alliterative names, with pretty meanings and traditions, we have for the most sublime mountains to be seen on earth (those of the Oregon Sierras, miscalled the Cascade Mountains) such outlandish and senseless and inappropriate appella- tions as Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Mount Washing- ton, and Mount Rainer. Changing the name of the Ore- gon river, however, to that of the Columbia, is an imper- tinence that can plead no excuse but the bad taste of those perpetrating the folly. The mighty Shoshonee river with its thousand miles of sand and lava beds, is being changed by these same map-makers to that of Lewis and Clarke river.

" When we consider the lawless character of the roving Bedouins who once peopled this region, how snake-like and treacherous they were as they stole over the grass and left no sign, surely we would allow this sinuous, impetu - ous, and savage river to bear the name which it would almost seem nature gave it, for Shoshonee is the Indian name for serpent. How appropriate for this river and its once dreaded people!

" The dominion of this tribe departed with the discov- ery of gold on a tributary of the Shoshonee river in 1860. The thousands who poured over this vast country on their way to the new gold-fields of the north swept them away almost entirely. Up to this time they had only the al-

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little or nothing about the Indians, or anything that would give light to-day on the serious events of the time. All my own letters to the press have perished save the one below, which was published at Albany in a paper founded by the late United States Senator Delazon Smith, and was dug up for me recently by United States Justice C. B. Bellinger, who was at one time the editor. You can see the battle of White Bird ereek and the war with Chief Joseph dimly fore- shadowed in this. But the letter is given rather as a curiosity than anything else, as the earliest literature of I-dah-ho.

WALLA WALLA, November 16, 1867. Editor Democrat :- Having just returned from Salmon river, to which place I have been extending our Mossman & Co.'s express line,

I beg leave through the columns of your wide- spread paper, to inform my many friends of the locality, character and richness of these newly discovered inines.

The Salmon river mines are at present prin- cipally confined to the headwaters of a small tributary, called Slate creek, which empties into Salmon river, and this into Snake river,-dis- tant from Walla Walla about two hundred miles. Heavy loaded wagons may be taken, without any inconvenience, to the head of White Bird Cañou, at the base of Mount I-duh-ho, which is within five miles of Sahnon river and forty five of the mines.

After the miner, on his journey to the mines, leaves White Bird creek-named after an In- dian chief who kept his clan on that stream,-

most helpless and wholly exhansted immigrant to en- counter, with now and then a brush with soldiers sent out to avenge some massacre. But this tribe perished, as I bave said, before the Californians, and to-day it is not; except as one of the broken and dispirited remnants fa- miliar to the wretched reservations scattered over the vast far West.

" Captain Pierce, the discoverer of gold in the North, located .Pierce City' on the site of his discovery, in the dense wood away np in the wild spurs of the Bitter Root mountains, about fifty miles from the Shoshonee river. Then 'Oro Fino City sprang up; then 'Elk City' was laid out. But the 'cities' did not flourish. Indeed, all these 'cities' were only laid out to be buried. The gold was scarce and hard to get at, and the mighty flood of miners that had overran everytging, to reach the new mines began to set back in a refluent tide.

" On the site of the earthworks thrown up by Lewis and Clarke, who wintered on the banks of the Shoshonee river in 1803-4, the adventurous miners had founded a fourth and more imposing city, as they passed on their way to the mines. This they called Lewiston. It was at the head of steamboat navigation on the Shoshonee, and promsed well. I remember it as an array of miles and miles of tents in the spring. In the fall, as the tide went out. there were left only a few strips of tattered canvas flapping in the wind. Here and there stood a few 'shake shanties,' against which little pebbles rattled in a perpet- ual fuslliade as they were driven by the winds that howled down the swift and barren Shoshonee.

"'It oughter be a gold-bearin' country,' said a ragged miner, as be stood with hands in pockets shivering on the banks of the desolate river, looking wistfully 8

away toward California; 'it oughter be a gold-bearin' county, 'cause it's fit for nothin' else : wouldn't even grow grasshoppers.'

" I had left California before this rush, settled down, and been admitted to the bar hy ex-Attorney-General George H. Williams, then Judge, of Oregon, and had now come, with one law-book and two six-shooters, to offer my services in the capacity of advocate to the min- ers. Law not being in demand, I threw away my book, bonght a horse, and rode express. But even this had to be abandoned, and I, too, was being borne out with the receding tide. Suddenly it began to be rumored that far- ther up the Shoshonee, and beyond a great black-white mountain, a party of miners who had attempted to cross this ugly range, and got lost, had found gold in deposits that even exceeded the palmy days of ''49.'

"Colonel Craig, an old pioneer, who had married an Indian woman and raised a family here, proposed to set ont for the new mine. The old man had long since, through his Indians, heard of gold in this black moun- tain, and he was ready to believe this rumor in all its ex- travagance. He was rich in horses, a good man, a great- brained man, in fact-who always had his pockets full of papers, reminding one of Kit Carson in this respect ; and, indeed, it was his constant thirst for news that drew him toward the 'expressman,' and made him his friend.

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 23

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