An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 49

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 49

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Taking a single glance over the life career of the sub- ject of the foregoing sketch, it is remarkable to observe how he has arisen from a state of poverty, walking in the wilds of the West and carrying his own blankets and sleeping out of doors, to his present position of wealth and influence,-all by his own unaided efforts. Ile is a member of the Silver Bow Club, in politics a Democrat, has been a member of the City Council, and is considered one of the best citizens of Butte City.

THE SANFORD BROTHERS, prominent ranchers of the little Prickly Pear valley, are natives of England. Will- iam, the youngest brother, came from his native land in 1849, at the age of sixteen years, to make a fortune, but with no intention of becoming an American citizen. Af- ter arriving in this country he was first employed as a clerk in a store in Chicago until the spring of 1852, and

The next morning they were on hand to help make mining laws and measure off claims. Captain James Stuart, the intrepid explorer, fonnder of eities, organizer and chosen leader of the expedition which resulted in this great discovery, was not "in at the death," as an Englishman would say. His story of this date is only a fair illustration of what may be called " the irony of miners' Inek." He did not re- turn to Bannack and thus learn the good news till late in June. And even then not all of his followers came back with him; nor did all of them ever come back any more. Three of them fell at the hands of the Crow Indians, and all were terribly worn and discouraged when they then went to St. Paul, Minnesota. Ile remained in that State until 1864, and during that time took part in an Indian war. Mr. Sanford drove the medicine wagon to Fort Ridgely and Birch Cooley, and also took part in a number of battles. In 1864 he crossed the plains to Mon- tana, and September 17, of the same year, located near where he now resides, where he engaged in mining operations, but met with only moderate success. He next began the purchase of land, and he and his brother now own 360 acres, where they are engaged in the rais- ing of Herford and Durham cattle, and English shire and Hambletonian horses. They also have 160 acres on the Missouri river, from which they cut large quantities of hay for their stock. The farm contains valuable gold diggings, and during a portion of the year the brothers are engaged in mining.

Thomas Sanford came to America from his native country in 1869, spending the first year in Michigan, and then came to Montana. He was married March 7, of that year, to Miss Ann Cox, a native also of England, and a daughter of Charles Cox, also born in that country, but now a resident of Michigan, having reached the good old age of eighty-five years. Mr. and Mrs. Sanford have had eight children, namely: John, born in 1859; Mary Tressa Agnes, born in 1861, is now the wife of II. J. Iler- ring, and resides near her parents; William James, born 1863, died during the following year; Julia M., who was drowned in the river in her sixth year, soon after the family's arrival in Montana: Frances Mary, born in 1866; Lucy Mary Cicely, in 1869; and Clara Rose and Rose Clara, twins, the former now Mrs. John Painton, and the latter deceased when two weeks old. The Sanford broth- ors are life-long Republicans, are men of a high order of intelligence and integrity, have been prominently identi- tied with the country of their adoption, and have been very successful in their business dealings.

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got back. They had made a journey of nearly 2,000 miles through a trackless land of savages, finding nothing for which they sought. It is some pleasure to know that the early miners of Bannack were vastly profited, on the whole, even though Stuart, the first man in that camp as well as at Gold Creek, was not.

I must not omit to mention here that many good men claim that the first inining done in Montana was at the place, Bannack, under the leadership of John White. He seems not to have realized greatly, like many another leader, and, taking to ranching, was murdered for the sake of money realized from his dairy.

An inspection of Montana's map will show that the famous mines are grouped singularly near together. Put your finger on Alder Creek to begin with and you can read in the radius of a few inches nearly all the famous mining camps that gave the yellow flame which fired the commercial heart of the world, built rail- roads, reared palatial homes and illuminated the way to Statehood. Kootenai is a long dis-

WASHINGTON NYHART, a successful farmer and stock- raiser, residing at Point of Rocks in Beaver Head valley, Montana, was born in Pennsylvania, August 13, 1835, and is a descendant of German ancestors,

Great-grandfather Nyhart was born in Germany. He emigrated to America and settled in Pennsylvania, and there our subject's grandfather and father were born, the latter, Adam Nyhart, in 1806. Adam Nyhart married Susan Rumbeck, also a native of the Keystone State, and they became the parents of seven sons and three daugh- ters, Washington being the third born. The mother died in her forty-first year. In 1858 the father removed to lowa, where he now resides, having attained his eighty- seventh year. IIe has been an honest, industrious farmer, and a God-fearing man.

Washington Nyhart was reared to farm life in his na- tive State, his education being obtained in the district school. HIe continned to work on his father's farm until he was twenty-five years of age. September 24, 1861, he was married to Miss Mary Linder, a native of Greenfield, Greene county, Illinois, and they continued to live in Iowa until 1864, where two children, George W. and Jordan L., were born to them.

In 1864 Mr. Nyhart crossed the plains to Montana, bringing with him his wife and children. Mrs. Nyhart's

tance from this center, and Bannack is not in this narrow radius, nor is Gold Creek; but these must be set down nearly as right on the way to the glittering city of gold. And while glancing at this map of the gold and silver centers, read the names of the towns, creeks, peaks and so on. For, as we can generally tell by a map of the Atlantic States what national- ity first set ploughshare here or there along the seaboard, so we can read in the names on the Montana map the place from which the first miners in this camp or that set out to seek their fortunes, and to which their hearts turned most fondly when they thought of home. Here, too, you can read natural history, in such names as Rattlesnake creek, Elk creek, Black-tail Deer creek, Grasshopper creek.

Something of the magnitude-if the term may be applied to the length of a stream-may be comprehended in the fact that Alder creek alone, with its tributary gulches, was soon divided into six separate mining districts. The mining laws of each were, in a general way, the

brother, W. J. Linder, and her father and family were also members of the emigrant party. Their trip across the plains and their trouble with the Indians are referred to elsewhere in this work, in the sketch of W. J. Linder. After their safe arrival in Virginia City, Mr. Nyhart built a log cabin and soon afterward had a siege of mountain fever. When he recovered he worked for wages at min- ing, receiving from five to eight dollars per day. Thus he was employed two winters and a summer, and one summer he teamed. He came to his present location in 1868. lIere he squatted on land. After it was surveyed he secured 160 acres, to which he has since added until he now owns 320 acres. The little log cabin which serv- ed for his home until 1878 was then replaced by a com- fortable residence, and here he and his good wife have worked hard and raised their large family of children.

The children born to them in Montana are as follows: Columbus Albert, John Adam, Mary Delila (now Mrs. William Stewart), Susan E. (who died in infancy), Charles Edward, Earnest Gilbert, William Sylvester, Thomas Leander and Eliza,

Politically, Mr. Nyhart has always been a Democrat, but at present is displeased with the action of his party on the silver question.

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same, aud were born of the experience of many years. Like the school laws of Montana, they were taken almost bodily, in the first instance, from that State. They were brief,-would that the same might be said of all our laws-terse, to the point, equitable, capable of no interpre- tations, and, as a rule, without appeal. These simple laws governed cities of more than 10,- 000 souls and governed so justly that one can- not help saying with Buckle as he contemplates how little time and money was wasted in settling disputes which might have been inter- minable if we had had laws and lawyers: "The

JAMES P. MURRAY, a prominent stockman and ex- Sheriff of Beaver Head county, Montana, was born in Ashland county, Ohio, August 8, 1849. His grandfather, Patrick Murray, was of Irish birth and emigrated from the Emerald Isle to America with his family in the year 1800, becoming one of the pioneer settlers of Ashland county, Ohio. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and lived to be ninety-nine years of age. Hugh Murray, our subject's father, was the youngest of Patrick Murray's family of eight children, aud was born in Ashland county in 1816. He married Miss Elizabeth Nazor, a native of Pennsylvania and a descendant of German ancestry. They had five children. He died in 1850, in the thirty- fourth year of his age, leaving his widow to care for her little children, James P. at that time being only nine months old. Although they experienced some pretty hard times, the mother reared and provided for her fam- ily, and lived to the advanced age of seventy-one years. Her death occurred in June, 1892. They were most worthy people, the Murrays being Methodists and the mother a Lutheran.

Early in life James P. Murray attended the district school near his home, and when he was only eleven years old began to do farm work, for which he received $6 per month. When he was seventeen he began learning the carpenter's trade; and followed that business for eight years. In 1875 he came to Montana and settled at Ban- nack. There he formed a partnership with Isaac Portras, with whom he was engaged in the wagon-making busi- ness and also in blacksmithing for four years. Iu 1879 Mr. Murray was elected, on the Democratic ticket, Sheriff of Beaver Head county. The county seat was then at Banuack. During his term of office Mr. Murray had many hard characters to arrest and handle. One of them was sentenced to be hung, but secured a new trial and got a life term, Mr. Murray thus escaping the painful duty that would have devolved upon him. In 1881 he purchased a ranch in Beaver Head valley, near Dillon, the tract comprising 800 acres, and on it he engaged in raising horses. Now, however, he gives his chief atten-

strewn with the remains of dead " cities " all along the Sierras, and so were not swift to build beyond immediate needs. But despite all their caution and experience, cities more than a mile long, though usually not more than one street wide, grew up like Jonah's gourd.

The best mines naturally fell to old miners, men with a dash of gray about the temples, men true and tried, sober, steady, energetic best law that man could enact would be a law repealing all former laws."

Life went on with a rush and a roar from the first. The Californians had come from a land

tion to the sheep industry, his flock numbering 5,000 head. Ile also raises hay and grain, to some extent. On his farm is a most valuable spring which affords from 700 to 800 inches of water, rendering his place one of the most desirable in the whole valley. In the summer his sheep have a large free range and in the winter they are kept on the ranch.

In his political views Mr. Murray is a Democrat first, last, and always. He is yet unmarried.

In 1877, during the Nez Perce raid, the people of Ban- nack city, Montana, became very much alarmed as to their safety, as reports were flying thick and fast that the battle at Gibbonsville, General Gibbon in command, had been fought and that the Indians had come out victorious and were now on their way up the Big IIole basin and were killing settlers all along the liue. A meeting was held at Bannack for the purpose of getting volunteers to go out on picket duty to locate the reds. Mr. Murray, Thomas Hamilton and William Shineberger volunteered to undertake this dangerous task. They saddled their horses, took along a little flour and bacon and started for the Big IIole basin, sixty miles away: rode all day and part of the night and went into camp near the summit, between the Grasshopper and Big Hole valleys.

The next morning they resumed their journey, and about noon they spied something far in the distance that appeared like the "red devils," which appearance proved true by the aid of tield glasses; sure enough the advance guard was Indians. The white party put spurs to their horses and struck out for the hills, and procured a good hiding place in a ravine, where they could see the Indians' movements. They came along up the valley and in the rear could be seen what was supposed to be Chief Joseph's army; but it proved to be General How- ard and command, and his Indian scouts. Mr. Murray and his colleagues felt better after they saw that they were United States soldiers, and went down and met them, to learn that the Indians they were looking for had passed along during the night within a short distance of where the whites were sleeping.

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and industrious ; these laid the corner-stones of Montana, laid them in solid gold, if you please.

The men were called " tenderfeet," possibly because they had come far and felt tender- footed, possibly because they never felt quite sure of their footing in a mining center; these took naturally to a higher line of work,-the bnilder, the butcher, the baker, the boarding- honse keeper,-and here, as Lincoln would say, I am reminded of a little story:

Mrs. Mc -- had come all the way from Chicago with lots of pluck and no money, to

Mr. Murray and party then returned to Bannack with General Howard and command, to learn that the reds had killed five ranchmen on Horse prairie, and were headed toward the National Park. On their return to Bannack they were met by the citizens who warmly thanked them for their efforts to locate the reds and to learn that all danger was past.

CHARLES HENRY BENTON, Judge of the Eighth Judi- cial District of Montana, and a resident of Great Falls, is a native of the State of New York, born in Saratoga county, May 30, 1844.

Judge Benton is of Norman and old English descent, and traces his ancestry back to the twelfth century. His remote ancestors were Knights of St. John, of Jerusalem, afterward called Knights of Malta, and went on a crusade to Jerusalem to rescue that city from the Saracens. The progenitor of the family in America, Andrew Benton, came from England to this country in 1637, and joined the " Hartford Colony," Hartford, Connecticut. IIis son, Samuel Benton, was one of the founders of the town of Tolland, his name appearing in the deed of the committee to the first proprietors of the town. Ilis son, Samuel Benton, was Judge Benton's great-grandfather. Ile served in the Second Company, Fifth Connecticut Reg- iment, was in the battle of Bunker Hill, and, later on, the expedition to Quebec. After his discharge he was in the employ of the Government, carrying munitions of war from Boston to western New York. His son, George Benton, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and removed from there to Saratoga, New York, where his son, Henry, the Judge's father, was born, in 1814. IIenry Benton married Mary Ann Marks, a native of Saratoga county, and a descendant, on the maternal side, of the Reynolds family, one of the prominent early families of the Em- pire State. They had two sons, Andrew and Charles Henry, the former being still a resident of Saratoga county. Their mother passed away in 1883, at an ad- vanced age, and their venenerable father is yet living, having reached his eightieth milestone. He is a member of the Baptist Church, as also was his companion.

start a boarding-house. There was plenty of competition, for other pretty widows had come from other places of enterprise also, and she went up Alder creek one day where the miners were doing their own cooking, mainly to solicit other boarders. After a little talk with a con- firmed " bach," finding that she was making no headway, she said, half pettishly, " Well, they do say that you fellows never wash your hands when you make bread, at all." The big miner stopped blazing away with his pick at the bed- rock and looked up angrily at the pretty woman on the running-plank above him. " It's a lie!

Judge Benton was reared on his father's farm and was educated in the public schools and the academy at Still- water, New York. When he started out in life for him- self it was as a elerk in a dry-goods store at La Fayette, New Jersey, where he remained three years. He then went to Northville, New York, and read law for some time under the instruction of John Patterson, but before completing his law course he removed to Minnesota. There he continued his studies in the office of Gordon E. Cole, of that State, and at Hastings, Minnesota, was ad- mitted to the bar, in 1872, before Judge Crosby. He en- tered upon his professional career at Austin, in partnership with Judge D. B. Johnson, and from there removed to Dodge county, same State, where he continued practice and where he was for a number of years Judge of the Probate Court of that county.

In 1887 Judge Benton came to Great Falls, being one of the first lawyers to settle in the town. Here he prac- ticed law until Montana became a State. He was then elected on the Republican ticket to the office of Judge of the Eighth Judicial District. At the close of his term he was re-elected for a second term of four years and is now the incumbent of that office. His ability, both as a law- yer and as a Judge, is of high order and he is held in high esteem by the members of the bar in Cascade' county.

Since coming to Great Falls, Judge Benton has invested in real estate to some extent. He has a rauch within two miles of the city, and he built the comfortable res- idence he and his family occupy here. He was married in 1876 to Miss Augusta E. Slocum, who was born in Pennsylvania and reared in Minnesota, and who is the daughter of Judge George W. Slocum, of Minnesota. The Judge and Mrs. Benton have two children,-Mary Louise and Sara M. Mrs. Benton is a member of the Episcopal Church. Fraternally, he is an A. O. U. W. and an I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the Sons of the Revolution of Montana, and of the Sons of the American Revolution of the State of Minnesota.

John C. C. Manhãs

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a blamed big lie ! we allers wash our hands. How could we get the dough off if we did n't." Having proved the truth of his assertion the big man beut sulkily to his work again, and the pretty widow passed on.

The amalgamation of " tenderfeet " and " forty-niners " was of slow growth. One trouble was, the stranger from the States, with his natty dress and neat, rounded sentences, thought himself a little above the bearded miner ; that is, he thought so for a time ; and another trouble was, the old miner thought himself a little above the light, grammatical and most proper young man fresh from the East.

There was constant and great demand for day-laborers, wages ranging from half an ounce

COLONEL JOHN C. CALHOUN THORNTON, one of the pioneers of Montana, and a prominent lawyer of Deer Lodge and of Butte City, was born in Clay eounty, Mis- souri, October 20, 1834. Ile was then the only son of the Iate Colonel John Thornton, a pioneer of northwestern Missouri, who was born in Laneaster county, Pennsylva- nia, December 24, 1786, and who went to Missouri in 1817, and located in old Franklin, Howard county, then the most flourishing town west of St. Louis.

In February, 1820, Colonel John Thornton married Miss Elizabeth Trigge, a daughter of General Stephen Trigge of Virginia, who figured in the war of 1812, and grand- daughter of Major John Trigge, who was an officer of artillery at Yorktown, and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis. He represented the State of Virginia in Congress from 1797 to 1809. His father, Abraham Trigge, emigrated from England to America in 1710, and settled in Virginia. In April, 1820, Colonel John Thornton re- moved to what is now Clay county, Missouri. December 8, 1820, he was appointed, by Governor McNair, Judge of the County Court of Ray county, Missouri, which had been organized from a portion of Howard county. Jan- uary 4, 1822, he was appointed, by Governor Mc Nair, Judge of the county court of Clay county, Missouri, which had been organized from a portion of Ray county. August 24, he was commissioned as Colonel of the militia by Gov- ernor McNair, after being duly elected by the Twenty- eighth Regiment of the Missouri militia. From 1823, when the trouble with the Indians began, until 1829, Col onel John Thornton was actively engaged with his troops in repelling their attaeks. He served as a member of the Missouri Legislature from Clay county from 1824 to 1832. He was Speaker of the House in 1828 and 1830. June 7, 1834, he was commissioned Aide-de-camp to the

to an ounce a day ; but the stranger from the States could hardly get work at all. The old Californian on the bank above the " gang" down in the mine who had made him " boss," or, maybe, alternated with him one week after another as they did at cooking, always asked the man seeking work where he came from. Usually the stranger from the States was too quick with his tongne, and gladly gave his name, age, State, county, town and a lot more of information, only to be told in answer : "No, I don't want anybody : better try company above."

Of course the cleverest strangers " got onto this." A young man who brought to Montana with him the name of Washington Harrison Peterson, applied to old Boss Day, as he

Commander-in-chief of the Missouri militia by Govenor Daniel Dunklin. He was a Democrat and very popular with his party until the proelamation of President Jack- son was issued against South Carolina nullification. His openly declared opposition to Jackson caused his defeat for the Legislature in 1834, but in 1836 he was elected by a large majority. He died on his farm in Clay county, Missouri, October 24, 1847, seven danghters and one son surviving him.

Colonel John C. Calhoun Thornton, the subject of this sketch, being an only son, the hopes of his parents were eentered in him. At the early age of thirteen he sus- tained an irreparable loss in the death of his father, and to that misfortune must be attributed much of the forti- tude and self-reliance that were characteristic of his sub- sequent eareer. When the time came for college life he was placed under the care and guidance of Alexander ('ampbell, president of Bethany College, Virginia, where he at onee took first rank in his class. The genius he dis- played in argumentative oratory, caused him soon to be known as the "stump" speaker and leader of the Demo- eratic party of his college. At the close of his collegiate career, hecommenced the study of law under his brother- in-law, General A. W. Doniphan, of Missouri. After being admitted to the bar, he removed to Leavenworth, Kansas, and subsequently to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he formed a law partnership with the late General J. M. Bassett.

Ilis forensic efforts were, however, soon cut short by the sound of the call to arms, and he abandoned home, fortune and a life of ease to cast his lot with that side of the contest which his judgment deemed in the right. True to his principles, he was found with the Missouri State Guard, under General Sterling Price, in the battle

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chewed tobacco on the bank above and watched his gang.

" Wher 're ye frum ?"

" California, sir. I-I-"

" Wal, now, yer hold on ! Yer can't even pernounee Californy ! better try company above."

The young man looked up the gulch and down the guleh. The clang of picks and creak of derrieks: dozens and dozens of great groan- ing and creaking derrieks, and each in ropes

enough to rig a ship, as he thought of Shib- boletlı.

Frankly and truly, the handling of dirt is a high art down there in a hole with a dozen others. It was not only right, in one sense, to send each tenderfoot to "try the company above," but a real merey ; for if he, in his awkwardness, had not killed some one of the gang with his double-pointed piek he would probably, like Absalom, have been caught up in the derrick ropes.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE EYES OF THE WORLD LIFTED TO THE "SHINING MOUNTAINS"-THE PLEIADES-WIDENING OF THE GOLD BELTS -AN INCREASING AND TUMULTUOUS POPULATION-VIGILANTES-GENERAL SHERMAN'S ESTIMATE OF THEM.

B OOMING! By day and by night men now poured in from the four points of the compass. Old miners of old camps, ever on the alert and ready to move at a mo- ment's notice, came in such crowds as to almost depopulate what is now Idaho. They knew that other mines than those of Alder Creek could not be far from this center. They came, saw and conquered. Soon there were many other and singularly rich eamps: Harris Gulch, California Guleh, Wisconsin Guleh, Bivens' Camp, Silver Bow Butte.

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 49

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