An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 4

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

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In a book published in London, in 1755, and called "The Northwest Passage, dedicated to Lord Hillsborough, one of His Majesty's Secre- taries of State," I find this final conclusion, that there is no open way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, set frankly down:

"The opinion of there being a northwest passage between the Atlantic and the Sonthern oceans hath continued for more than two centuries; and though the attempts made to discover this passage have not been attended with desired success, yet in consequence of such attempts great advantages have been received, not by merchants ouly, but by men of seience."

It would seem that the Americans, the na- tives of the soil, were the first real explorers by land on the globe. The argonauts of old, all men of all ages up and down the old world,

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

elung to ships; and even with us it took gener- ations to rear a race of men who felt at home far away from the seas: the Canadians of the St. Lawrence river and then the citizens of the United States.

And here, let it be repeated, you come npon a mountain of books. Once well away from the sea and in the vast, silent plain, the heart hun- gers for companionship; none is at hand: even books are not; and so the silent trapper sits amid his silent Indians and writes down his day's adventures.

You find books in excellent Latin, written by pions men of the cross, like La Salle; books by bold and gold-loving Spaniards, like unto those who left the silver stirrup with its silver engraving and Castilian motto in the sands of Omaha, to be seen to this day in the Smith sonian Institute at Washington; but even a list of these books would weary, to say nothing of selections from their pages, how- ever tempting.

The period which followed the search for gold, the northwest passage and the quest for furs, is one worthy of respect, -that of the pi- ous founders of missions for the conversion of savages to Christianity. And yet brief must be the chronicle. The efforts were laudable, brave, most unselfish, but, frankly, the results were meager, almost fruitless. The Indian re- mained a warrior and a hunter, his wife a slave and a tiller of corn, "a hewer of wood and a drawer of water," till missionary and monk, warrior and wife, passed on in silence together beyond the River of Rest. Still will the name of Father De Smet long survive whatever may be said of results from his brave and laborious life among the first human inhabitants of Mon- tana. Nor will the murdered Whitman, whose roving bands of Walla Walla Indians some-

times pitched tent even on the Missouri side of the Rocky mountains, ever be despised; nor yet the venerable Spaulding, who published the gospels and sang hymns in the Indian tongue as his Nez Perces pursued the buffalo each summer in Montana. But all the time we certainly are confronted with the question, To what good?

The search for the northwest passage, as the sage British author says, brought good in the end, not only to the merchant but to the man of science. But what good ever came of our con- quest, education and christianization of the In- dian? No man can say. No man will dispute the fact that we made the war with Chief Jo- seph possible; and there are many grave and good men of the army as well as out of it who will say that we, by our education of the Indian in the use of arins and other (christian) prac- tices, made the massacre of Custer and his men a fact.

Enough to say here that the first explorers found the Indians in the mountains, although wild and at war with themselves as well as those who planted corn in the valleys, well dis- posed toward strangers. But the white men and the red men who met as friends parted company forever on the field of battle,-we to return home and till the soil in peace, they to pass on to the " happy hunting ground." Yet of these wars inore at another time.

It is enough to say here that since these primitive people had neither literature nor tra- dition we can only read their story in stone and flint as found on their old battle-fields, camps or burial grounds, by miners washing gold in gulches of the mountains or on bars of rivers. When they came or whence, these first people of Montana, no man can say; but it is clear, from various shapely implements of stone, that

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

here was once an earlier and a more intelligent race than the first explorers found, a race that dwelt here before the great volcanic period when portions of Montana, like the California Sierra, were inundated with lava. For here, as under the lava strata of California, these im- plements of a higher order of workmanship

than were in use in this later age were brought to light. But we grope blindly here. The Toltecs left some tablets for their Aztec con- querers to read; but here we have only these few stone implements of war and the camp, abont which the speculation of one man is worth as much as that of another.

CHAPTER II.

THE OREGON RIVER-THE SHIP COLUMBIA-AND MORE OF THE GREAT EASTERN RIVER-THE BRITISH NAVY IN AMERICAN WATERS.

T HE biographer of a great and good man first introduces yon to his ancestry, the very fountain head of his blood and race, and so on down to the first mention of his family in history. Have patience then; for so it is with the history of a great country.

There is to be seen in the British Museum, London, a parchment patent of all the land from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to California. As California was supposed to reach pretty far sonth in those days, it is probable that this in- cluded Montana; and so the first flag must have been English. But this is too vague to dwell upon. Any way, the French came soon after, then the Spanish, then again the French, then the new man, the American. All these changes, so far as the remote Western border was con- cerned, took place without friction; but the final adjustment of the line between England and America- Montana and Canada-was a serious matter, indeed. The story of it involves the story of Oregon,-Oregon, the grandparent, on one line, of Montana.

You find the name "Oregon" far back in British archives. It is as old, almost, as the

name "Canada." It is far more obsenre and doubtful of origin. I could find no trace of its origin or significance in the British Museum; nor yet in the archives of Madrid, though of the Spanish name of the sister State to the south-California-both origin and significance are clearly defined there. It must be inferred from this fact that the adjoining Latin power, the Portuguese, were the first to sail up the river Oregon and give it name.

I venture to humbly insist, and entirely without proof or anything at all to bear out the assertion, further than a sort of instinct or keen discernment in word analogies that has never quite misled me, that this river, rising in Mon- tana and wearing such a crown of gold on its majestic head as no other river of earth ever bore, was discovered by some one of the Latin powers; and further, I venture to assert that the early name of this mighty mountain-born river of gold, Oregon, signifies, Hear the waters!

If you will write this sentence down in either Latin, Spanish or Portuguese and then pro- nounce it, rounding it down, as time rounds down and abstracts all words not fixed fast by

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

literature, you will have not only the sound of this word, substantially, but also the spelling of it as well; and then if there remains any lin- gering doubt about the origin of the name, Oregon, sail up the Columbia, or go anywhere up into the mountains and "hear the falling waters!" Then truly you must be convinced that this roaring, mountain-born river, like Montana's self, bears what once was a Latin name.

In 1791 the little American ship, Columbia, from Boston, and commanded by one Captain Gray, discovered the Columbia river. And here, again, we see the finger of fate and good fortune, for, scarce forty-eight hours later, Cap- tain Vancouver, of the British navy, appeared in these same.waters. This Captain Gray, as if to be certain before the world of American pos- session, here built a small vessel the first of any account ever fashioned on these shores.

The tide was rising, surging! It must touch the base of the rock-reared and gold and silver ribbed citadel soon now; for many American ships came in the northern seas, and it seemed foolish and a waste of time to the quick Ameri- can mind to spend a year or so in rounding the IIoru and reaching there. A new way must be made, even though it be hewn through the snow-topped battlements of the Rocky mountains.

Only one year later, in 1792, Jefferson nn- dertook to send a competent person from Vir- ginia to Oregon by land, avowedly to make re- searches in the interests of botany and so on. The enterprise was set on foot by private sub- scription, and the expedition actually proceeded as far as Kentucky, when the French botanist in the employ of his government was recalled.

It is claimed by some that Jefferson learned his enterprising idea from an American of Bos-

ton, Captain Jonathan Carver; but there are also those who hold that the Declaration of Independence was borrowed by Jefferson from a Mecklenburg declaration .* It is most probable that Jefferson knew nothing of Captain Carver or his laudable designs; but it is, at the same time, but equitable to set down what it is claimed that Carver said a full quarter of a century before Jefferson sent his first expedition, which, as said before, only reached Kentucky, and here it is:

"The cupidity of trade had already plunged men deep into the wilderness; and when this passion became joined with a spirit of hardi- hood and adventure, wide enterprises took hold on the imagination. Among men of this spirit Jonathan Carver was conspicuous. * * * Jonathan Carver, distinguished as we have be- fore remarked, by hardihood and the spirit of adventure, was the first to conceive the project of crossing the breadth of the North American Continent from the extreme white settlements to the shores of the Pacific, and to follow it up by efforts for its accomplishment. Carver's father was an English officer in the time of William and Mary, who came over to the then colony of Connecticut, where, in 1732, his son was born. The son, in early manhood, follow- ing his own inclinations, obtained an ensign's commission in a provincial regiment during the war between France and England, in which the colonies bore an honorable part, and which was terminated by the peace of 1763, and the ces- sion of the French province of Canada to Great Britain. Carver narrowly escaped massacre at Fort William Ileury; and the peace found him captain of a company. The close of the war having laid open to the enterprising spirit of the colonists the regions of the northwest, *Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature.

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Carver determined to visit the country where are the sources of the Mississipi. In the year 1776 he left Boston and by way of Albany and Michilimackinac proceeded as far as the river St. Francis, He returned to Boston in 1768, after an absence of two years and seven months. His intercourse with the Indians during his residence among them was not devoted merely to the objects and purposes of trade, but he ap- plied himself to the study of their languages and habits, and to collecting whatever knowl- edge he could of the regions beyond them. His object, he says, was to prevail on the gov- ernment to establish a post near the Straits of Anian, after a journey had been effected to the shores of the Pacific. As to the information he acquired, Carver tells us, 'From the intelli- gence I gained from the Nandowessie Indians, whose language I perfectly obtained during a residence of five months; and also from the ac- counts I afterwards obtained from the Assini- poils, who speak the Chippeway language and inhabit the heads of the river Bourbon,-I say from these nations, together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the continent of North America, namely, the St. Lawrence, the Mis- sissippi, the river Bourbon and the Oregon, or the River of the West, have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each

JOSEPH KEMP TOOLE, the first Governor of the State of Montana, is a native of Missouri, born at Savannab, May 12, 1851.

His ancestors were early settlers in America, and his grandfather, Benjamin Porter, his mother's father, served in the Continental army during the Revolution. Mr. Toole's father, Edwin Toole, was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, February 22, 1808. He married Miss Lu- cinda S. Porter, a native of his own county, born in 1812. They had a family of ten children, of whom five are liv. ing. The mother died in 1881, and the venerable father, now in his eighty sixth year, resides with his son in llel- ena, still being well preserved both physically and men- tally.

other; the latter, however, is rather farther west.' "The want of means prevented any imme- diate farther prosecution of his design; but in the year 1774, Richard Whitworth, member of the British Parliament for the town of Stafford, who seems to have something of the spirit of a projector, united with him in it. 'He (Mr. Whitworth),' Carver says, 'designed to have pursued nearly the same route that I did; and after having built a fort at Lake Pepin, to have proceeded up a branch of the river Messorie, till, having discovered the source of the Ore- gon, or River of the West, on the other side of the lands that divide the waters which run into the Gulf of Mexico, from those that fall into the Pacific ocean, he would have sailed down that river to the place where it is said to empty itself, near the Straits of Anian. That * the completion of this scheme,' says Carver, 'which I have had the honor of first planning and attempting, will some time or other be effected, I make no doubt. Those who are so fortunate in it will reap (exclusive of the na- tional advantages that must ensue) emoluments beyond their most sanguine expectations. And while their spirits are elated by their success, perhaps they may bestow some commendations and blessings on the person that first pointed ont to them the way. These, though but a shad- owy recompense for all my toil, I shall receive with pleasure.'" #

Governor Toole was reared in Missouri and was edu- cated in the public schools there and in the Western Military Institute in Kentucky. He read law in Ken- tucky and in Helena, Montana, and was admitted to the bar in 1810, after which he was in partnership with his brother, E. W. Toole, for a number of years, and acquired a successful law practice.

Politically, Governor Toole has always been identified with the Democratic party, of the principles of which be is a talented exponent. la 1872 he was elected by his party to the position of District Attorney of the third ju-

*Lewis and Clarke's Expedition to the Rocky Mount- ains, Me Vicker's edition, p. 53.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

CHAPTER III.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE-THE FIRST VOYAGE BY WAY OF THE LONG-SOUGHT NORTHWEST PASSAGE-SPANISH INTERFERENCE.

" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?"

T THOMAS JEFFERSON, President of the United States, purchased Montana of Na- poleon the Great. "I wish to open up overland commercial relations with China and India."

These are, in substance, the words of Jeffer- son to Congress, when he urged an appropria- tion for the first trans-continental expedition made by the United States; and we find that expedition halting for the winter not far from St. Louis, at what was then the utmost reach of American civilization, because the "com- mandante of a Spanish garrison in the line of advance forbade its progress.

We come now, in the order and march of time, to behold the presence of the first respon- sible white Americans on Montana soil. This is the little band of explorers under the com- mand of Captains Lewis and Clarke. We have seen that they were halted by the Spanish com- mandante west of the Mississippi for the win-

dicial district, and after serving a term of two years he was re-elected to the same office, and without any opposi- tion whatever. In 1881 he was elected to the Twelfth Legislative Assembly of Montana, as a member to the Council from Lewis and Clarke county, and had the honor of being elected President of that body. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention which met in Helena in January, 1884, at which a constitution was adopted and the preliminary measures were taken for the admission of the Territory to Statehood. He was elected to the forty ninth and also to the fiftieth Congress of the United States, and then declined a renomination for a third term. While in t'ongress he took a deep and active interest in the welfare of the country and was

ter; for the gaudy flag of Spain still floated over the vast cession to France, although Jeffer- son had already purchased the whole region, explored and unexplored, as before explained, from Napoleon. But these transactions were not only before the telegraph but also before the post had come to be of general usc, and all such matters moved with slow and courtly ceremony.

The Spanish commander, having been at last officially informed that Spain no longer pos- sessed the largest and richest half of North America, the embargo, if the figure may be allowed, was lifted and the explorers slowly ascended the mighty Missouri river. (This "Missouri" is an Indian name, meaning " muddy.")

Having exhausted the summer as well as their strength in their ardnous work, we find them a few days below the junction of the Yel- lowstone and Missouri, not far from what is

prompt and efficient in securing the passage of the bill for the admission of Montana. In his speech in Congress on that question he made a most able and exhanstive showing of the resources of the Territory and of the right of her citizens to self government. His effort was a most talented and felicitious one and was very favorably re- ceived and commented upon. In 1889 he was elected a member of the convention that formulated the present Constitution of Montana. In the fall of that year his party gave him the nomination for Governor of the new State, and he was elected, notwithstanding That he was the only one elected on the Democratic State ticket. It was a fitting recognition by the people of his State for the efforts he had made in her behalf, which was very grate-

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

now Montana soil; and as they carefully noted the characteristics of the soil, climate, Indians, animals,-all things, indeed, that go to make up the story and the future glory of a great com- monwealth, we cannot do better by the reader than give these dauntless and determined men full place in this history by quoting liberally from their journal.

At that time the only settlement to the west of them, if we except the Jesuit Fathers hover- ing about the bays of San Francisco and San Diego, was that of the Russian trading post at Sitka; though we have seen that the Americans from Boston had stopped at a point near the mouth of the Oregon (which they rechristened the Columbia,-named after their ship and not the great discoverer, as is so often stated) long enough to build and launch a small schooner.

True, there were already some sort of British

fully received, and thus he became the first Governor of the great State of Montana. Few men have a stronger hold on the hearts of the people of Montana than Governor Toole, not alone because of his distinguished efforts in their behalf, but because of his uniform generosity and kindness of disposition. On retiring from the guberna- torial chair, Governor Toole resumed the practice of his profession, and is now a member of the firm of Cullen & Toole, one of the most successful and prominent law firms in the State.

Governor Toole was married May 6, 1890, to Miss Lilly Rosecrans, the daughter of General W. S. Rose- crans. A little son has come to bless their home, whom they have named Rosecrans in honor of his grandfather. Their home is one of the most delightful ones in Helena. While Governor Toole's time is engrossed with his large law practice, he still finds some time for social matters. He is a Scotish-rite Mason.

Still in the prime of life, Governor Toole has the brightest of prospects for a prosperous and brilliant fu- ture. In order to give some glimpse of his genius, we copy the following extract from his speech in Congress, already referred to, on the admission of Montana and other territories:

" Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I want to go on record as a warm advocate of the section of this bill which pro. vides for the admission of other Territories whenever they shall have reached a population sufficient to entitle them to a representative in Congress according to the present ratio of representation. New States add to the glory and dignity of the Republic. Their admission 2

and French settlements far to the north, but not old enough or of force or culture or ad. vancement enough to have taught the Indians along here what they knew of agriculture.

We note from the journal the following, as showing not only the generosity of the soil and climate but also the semi-civilization of the aborigines:

"Their lodges are cireular; * they cultivate corn, beans, pumpkins, watermelons, squashes, and a species of tuber peculiar to themselves."

Having occasion to chastise a soldier with corporal punishment, the journal says: "This operation affected the Indian chief very sensi- bly, for he cried aloud during the punishment. We explained the offense and the example of it. He acknowledged that examples were neces- sary, and that he himself had given them by

ought to be provided for here and now. Nothing ought longer to be left to implication ; no condition of things ought to be permitted whereby this inestimable right shall be made to yield to policy or expediency in the future; the rights involved are too sacred to be made subservient to the will and pleasure of the petulant and prurient partisan. I have no fear of the character of their citizenship; they are faithful and prompt in the discharge of every duty. No jurisdiction covering the same extent of country and embracing the same number of people can boast of less crime and vice among the citizens. I speak with some means of information and with some feeling on this question. More than half of my life has been spent among the kind of men who people these Territories. 1 know their stern integrity and rugged honesty, their ca- pacity for local self-government, and their deep devo- tion to the principles of our institutions. * * * Upon this important question I beg you to make no mistake. Do not dam up the river of progress. Do not obstruct the march of American manhood toward the destiny con- templated by the Constitution. Popular development and popular government have made us powerful and great among the nations of the earth, but we have not yet reached the zenith of our power and greatness. Let us remember that delays are dangerous; that now is the time and here the place to provide the way by which eight new stars may be added to the flag, and two mill- ious of our countrymen in the Territories shall be enfran- chised; and then rest assured that the wisdom and pat- riotism of our course will be vindicated by the deliberate judgment of mankind."

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

punishing with death; but his nation never whipped even children from their birth."

This, too, from the journal of November 29, 1803, may be of lasting interest, as seasons do not change:

"The iee continues to float in the river; the wind high from the northwest; weather cold. Our hunters arrive and bring a fine supply of thirty-two deer, eleven elk, and five buffalo, all of which we hung in the smoke-house. * * * We this day moved into our huts, now com- pleted. This place, which we call Fort Man- dan, is situated on a point of low ground on the north side of the Missouri, covered with tall and heavy cottonwoods. The works con- sist of four rows of huts, each row containing four rooms fourteen feet square. The latitude is 47' 21' 47", and the distance from mouth of the Missouri 1,600 miles.

" Dec. 1 .- The wind is high, from north- west; the whole party engaged in picketing the fort. In the evening we were visited by Mr. Henderson, who came from the Hudson's Bay Company. He had been eight days on his route, in a direction nearly sonth."

April 7th they broke camp and set forth to cross the Rocky mountains through the heart of Montana. As this was the very first party of white Americans that ever set foot on Mon- tana soil, it is but right and well for all con- cerned to follow them closely in their arduous advance. The journal says:

" April 6. Another fine day, with a gentle breeze from the south. The Mandans con- tinued to come from the fort, and in the course of the day informed us of the arrival of a party of Ricaras on the other side of the river. We sent our interpreter to inquire into their reason for coming; and in the morning, April 7, he returned with a Ricara chief and three of his

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 4

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