An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 65

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 65

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CHAPTER XXI.

THE FIRST PATRIOT AS GOVERNOR OF MONTANA-ILLEGAL LEGISLATURES-CONTENTIOUS CONVENTIONS- COLONIAL WARS WITHIN AND AT THE GATES OF MONTANA -A USEFUL CONVENTION -PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS.

1866 To 1868.

丁 HIE impetuous Meagher, true to his race and record, set Montana on fire in less time than it takes to write his strange life and long deeds of endeavor and achievement. He had not been a year at the head of affairs as executive till you might have thought all Ireland had been plucked up out of the sea and dropped down against the British line on the top of the Rocky mountains. He had received his commission

from a party and a period having nothing at all in common with the old wine in the new bottle: no comprehension at all of the Montanese. When Meagher saw the nobleness and lofty nature of the men he had been sent to govern without their will or choice, he tried to cut loose in some sort from his party and make friends with his peers, the pioneers whom he had believed to be only a little above the savage

His ancestors emigrated from England to this country with the Massachusetts Colony in 1634, and his great- great-grandfather Noyes participated in the French and Indian war. Grandfather Noyes, while serving his coun- try in the war of 1812, was captured and was held in the military prison at Halifax uutil the close of the war. Ilis wife was a Kelly, of Irish descent. He died in the eighty-fifth year of his age, leaving a family of eleven children, of whom one, George R., was the father of our subject. George R. Noyes was born in Machias, Wash- ington county, Maine, in 1830, and married Miss Amy Standfield, a native of the same town, her birth having occurred in 1836. They were married in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1834. Iu 1861 he crossed the plains to Idaho, where he was engaged in mining and blacksmith- ing until 1864, when he came to Montana. In 1865 he was in Argenta and Bannack, and in the fall of 1866 his wife and children joined him at the latter place, they having made the journey across the plains with ox teams in a train commanded by Captain James Fisk, their trip being a pleasant one and covering a period of four

months. They resided at Bannack until 1868, when they removed to Silver Star, Jefferson valley. There, in March, 1869, the good wife and mother died. After this sad event the children were taken by their maternal grand- mother back to Minneapolis, where they remained five years. In 1874 they returned to Silver Bow county. The father was for several years engaged in buying and sell- ing cattle, and both made and lost large sums of money. In 1876 they removed to Butte City, where the family re- sided until the father's death, which occurred August 22, 1886. He had married a second wife and by her had two sons and a daughter- - William, Earnest and Annie. The daughter who crossed the plains became the wife of William Armetage, and resides in Big Hole basin. The parents had early in life united with the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and to the religious faith of that denomi- nation they continued to adhere.

Alva J. Noyes was ten years old when he came with his mother to Montana. After his mother's death, as above stated, he spent five years in Minneapolis, where he received his education. After his return to Montana,

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before he came among them. This was bitterly resented by his own party. Meetings were called, conventions held, and resolutions of con- demnation passed, -- such resolutions as shall not find place in these pages, because of the coarse and bitter abuse of a man who had at one time at least deserved well of the country. Of course Meagher was about the last man in the land to be at the liead of offices in Montana; he was utterly unsuited for such an office. His ap- pointment is only another witness to the fact that Congress and the administration had neither sympathy with or knowledge of Montana. Meagher seemed only fitted to fight, and as if

he, in 1882, took up a ranch and became the owner of 765 acres of land in the Big Hole basin. He erected build- ings and otherwise improved his land, and soon found himself successfully engaged in stock-raising. In 1893 he sold this property. While residing on the farm he held acceptably the office of Justice of the Peace and Notary Public, and in 1892 was elected Assessor of Beaver Head county, in which official capacity he is now serving. At this writing the assessment of the county is $3,700,000. The rate is thirteen mills on the dollar, and the highest tax paid in the county is $750.

Mr. Noyes was married April 6, 1882, to Miss Hattie M. Buck, daughter of C. M. Bnek, of Butte City. They have two sons and two daughters, three of them born in Butte City and the other in Dillon, their names being as follows: Edna, Raymond, Royden and Edith.

Mr. Noyes is a member of the A. O. C. W. In politics he has always been a Republican, and is an intelligent and energetic citizen and a capable and reliable public officer.

HON. JOSEPH II. RINEHART, of Billings, Yellowstone county, was born in Cincinnati, in 1849, a son of William M. and Roxcinda (LaRue) Rinehart. His father graduated at Heidelberg College, Germany, and at the University of Virginia, and afterward became a merchant and capitalist in Cincinnati. His ancestors are traceable through fonr generations in Virginia.

Joseph H., onr subject, graduated at St. Xavier College, in Cincinnati, in 1868. In 1864 he enlisted as a drummer in the Second Battalion, Thirteenth United States In- fantry, in which he served until 1867, and during that time did much clerical work. He was also connected with the medical department, and after returning to Cincinnati graduated in medicine in 1873. During that year Dr. Rine- hart began practice in the United States Army in Dakota and Montana, but in 1884 resigned his position and located in Billings, where he applied himself to general practice, and has wonderful success. In 1890 he was appointed

there was not already fighting enough within and without Montana, with savages journeying in at her four doors and butchering the farmers, herders, prospectors and immigrants; he made political pandemonium in every mining camp that had men enough in it to make two sides. It seemed clear that there could be no legal legislation without a re-enabling act. Yet he held elections and went right along .*

The second legislature, which the writers of that time called the " Meagher mob," met at Virginia city, March 5, 1865. But you search the records in vain for any sort of misrule or madness. Attention is called to one important

County Coroner, served one term as Superintendent of Schools, was appointed on the first Medical Ex- amining Board of the State by Governor Leslie, has served as County Physician for the past four years; was Surgeon for the Northern Pacific Railroad many years, also City Physician, and was Physician for the County Board of Health. Dr. Rinehart was appointed Mayor of Billings in 1890, but resigned that and other positions to move to the growing city of Seattle, Washington, where he was elected Mayor of Ballard, a suburhan town. He practiced his profession in the former city two and a half years, and his ability, congenial manner and personal magnetism soon brought him to the front. The citizens of King county elected Mr. Rinehart to represent them in the lower house of their State Legislature in 1892, and he still holds that position. His business interests demand- ing his return to Billings, he proposed resigning the office, but was requested not to do so as the hody might be called together before he lost his his right in that ea- pacity.

In 1870 our subject was united in marriage with Mary Waugh, a native of Ireland. They had four children,- Charles L., William, Mary Frances and George Albert. The wife and mother died in February, 1889. In 1890 Dr. Rinehart married Jennie F. Mackeller, a daughter of Alexander and Margaret Mackeller. The father was a capitalist, and her brother, John Mackeller, has served in the Canadian Parliament and as Mayor of Tiverton, On- tario. Dr. and Mrs. Rinehart have had three children, viz .: Joseph II., Jennie Frances and Jessie R .: the latter died in infancy. The Doctor is Past Grand in the I. O. O. F., is Past Master Workman in the A. O. U. W., and is also a member of the Grand Lodge of that Order. In political matters, he is a stanch Republican, and is ag- gressive as a debater.

* Illegal: see ex-Chief Justice Wade, second chapter, the Bench and Bar.

---

Napena Tillares.

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act, at least. A State convention was provided for, to be held at Helena. This convention met, as enacted, early in April, and did, perhaps, the best and wisest thing that had yet been at- tempted for the young Territory. A memorial was addressed to Congress calling attention to the fact that Montana was a pastoral and agri- cultural country.

Fortunes had been already made by sheep- growers and " cattle kings." Travelers from abroad were amazed at the remarkable grasses and the richness of Montana meats. Members of geological surveys, as well as our West Point officers, had reported marvelous things about wheat, potatoes, in fact cereals, fruits and roots

of all sorts. Evidence was accumulating which finally culminated in the declaration by the head of the Geological Survey (Hayden, p. 269). that " without doubt Montana is the best grazing country in all the great Rocky mountain region."

Nothing in all the fine eloquence of Thomas Francis Meagher, nothing in all the grave and learned charges of Judge Hosmer, nothing that had yet been said or done by the bright news- papers of Montana, was nearly so fruitful of good or gave such satisfaction to those in the East wanting new homes.

The next important thing for the good of Montana transpired, when the legislature, De- cember, 1867, adopted to some extent the C'ali-

MASSENA BULLARD, one of Montana's representative lawyers and pioneers, is a native of the State of Missouri, born in La Fayette county, October 7, 1850.

William L. Bullard, his father was born in the State of Virginia, July 26, 1812, and in the Old Dominion he was reared and married, the lady of his choice being Miss Annie F. Burruss, whose birth occurred there March 26, 1815. Mr. Bullard emigrated with his family to Missouri in 1838, and in La Fayette county he engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements. To him belongs the distinction of having established the first foundry in Kansas City. He continued to reside in Kansas City, until 1860, when he removed to Buchanan county, same State. From 1861 to 1863, inclusive, he was engaged in freighting between St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Black Hills. In 1864, he removed with a part of his family to Montana, his family at that time consisting of his wife and four sons, Oscar M., Walter S., William F. and Mas- sena, Oscar, his oldest son, was then in the Black Hills. This journey was made in one of their freight trains, the wagons being loaded with merchandise and drawn by oxen. They reached Virginia City in September, and remained there until Christmas, he in the meantime con- tinuing his freighting between that point and Salt Lake City. The family spent some time in the Gallatin and Prickly Pear valleys, camping in the latter valley in April, 1865. During the winter of 1864-5, Mr. Bullard had the misfortune to lose all of his freight oxen, except one, they having been snowed in on the Snake river, and died there. Ile then settled down on a farm, and while he continued freighting his good wife did what she could on the farm. Produce of every kind was high She purchased $69 worth of potatoes, at thirty-three and a third cents per pound; cut the eyes from them for seed, and then sold the hearts for seventy five cents per pound. and made a profit of $40, on the transaction ; she phinted the seed and raised a crop that brought her $1,500 One

particularly fine potatoe sold for $1. Every bill of this potatoe crop was like so much pure gold to them. Mr. Bullard continued freighting up to the time of his death, which occurred December 24, 1868. His wife still sur. vives him, being now in ber eightieth year. She is a faithful member of the Christian Church, as also was ber worthy husband, be having had the honor of freighting into the county, free of charge, the first Protestant church bell. Of their family of seven children, only three are now living. Oscar, the oldest, is now a resident of Mis- souri. William F. is a stock dealer in Montana. And to the history of the other son, Massena, we now turn.

Massena Bullard was in his fourteenth year when his parents removed to Montana, and when he was only 1welve he drove one of the ox teams in his father's freight train across the plains. lle was educated in Ilelena, and studied law here under the instructions of Woolfolk & Toole, being admitted to the bar in Ilelena. August 16, 1871. Immediately he entered upon the practice of his profession in this city. llis abilities were soon recogniz- ed, and he grew into prominence, and to-day he is ranked with the leading lawyers of the State. Ile has been con- nected with many important cases, is attorney for many of the large mining corporations, has held in trust much valuable real estate of the city, and he enjoys the highest confidence of all for whom he has done business. For years be held himself independent in politics, but being a strong temperance man, he has recently identified bim. selt with the Prohibition party. For twenty years he was Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Good Templars, and is recognized as one of the most prominent leaders in temperance cause in this State. He has also the honor of being Past Grand Master of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the State of Montana. He is a charter member of the Christian Church, at Helena, in which he is serving as Elder. He was one of the first persons ever immersed in Montana For ten years he was secretary

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fornia code of civil law. Trne this code of practice had come all the way from New York to begin with; but during its long halt in Cali- fornia it had been enlarged by " an act to amend an act," and all that sort of verbal circumlocution, till it embraced many sorts of mining laws, water rights, and so on.

With the adoption of the California code, men began to feel secure in their mining property and water rights. Capital had more confidence now, and everything went on widening and brightening and growing better all the time.

There now began to surge a steady and strong tidal wave of prosperity, especially in a pastoral and agricultural way.

of the Montana Christian Association, and at this writing is President of the Montana Bible Society. Mr. Bullard has served as City Attorney of Helena, for several years, under both Republican and Democratic rule, and in con- nection with his lodge work, it should be further stated, that this year, 1894, he is a representative to the Sover eign Grand Lodge of I. O. O. F., which meets at Chat- tanooga.

June 3, 1876, he married Miss Laura E. Bywaters, a native of Missouri, and they have three children, Clara, Oscar and Percy. They reside in one of the attractive homes of Helena.

W. M. SMITH, a prominent stock farmer of the Beaver Head valley, dates his arrival in Montana in 1866. Of his life we make mention as follows :

W. M. Smith was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, June 24, 1832, a descendant of an old American family. His father, John Smith, was born in the State of Pennsylvania in 1797. He married Elizabeth Edwards, who was also a descendant of one of the old Colonial families. They had a family of nine children, of whom three sons and two daughters are still living. Removing to Ohio, they settled ou a farm, and there the parents spent the rest of their lives and died, the father in 1878, in the eighty-first year of his age; the mother in her seventieth year. They had been consistent members of the Methodist Church for many years, and their pure Christian lives won for them the respect and esteem of all who knew them.

W. M. Smith was the sixth born in this family. He was reared on his father's farm in Ohio, early in lite being inured to hard work as were most farmer hoys, and each winter he had the privilege of attending school about six weeks in the little log schoolhouse bard by. When he reached his majority he began life on his own account. ITis first employment was in a steam sawmill. Later he purchased a half interest in this mill. The enterprise, however, proved a failure, and he lost his money. Then

Says Col. A. K. McClure, Tribune, in 1866: " After climbing another long and most tedious divide, made up of miles of successive prairie- hills, I at last reached an abrupt descent into the celebrated Gallatin valley, and the river was visible for twenty miles down the valley by the luxuriant growth of timber that lines its banks. Where I entered it, its breadth is about twenty miles; it continues down for thirty miles, ranging from three to twenty miles in breadth, and extends southeast or up the river, probably ten miles; but there are few settlers along the Bozeman route. It is the most mag- nificent valley I have seen in the Rocky monn- tains. It is one vast meadow, almost level,

he borrowed $200 with which to make the journey to Cal- ifornia. He had been married on the 11th of September, 1857, to Miss Hannah Rourk, a native of Ohio and a daughter of Edward Rourk, of that State. They had two children, Mary Elizabeth and Delana. With his wife and these children he, in 1860, made the voyage to Cali- fornia, settled at Yreka, and there for six years he was engaged in ranching, meeting with a fair degree of suc- cess.

In 1866, he started overland with his family for Mon- tana, coming in company with Messrs. Poindexter and Orr, and bringing a drove of cattle with him. They were three months on the way, and upon their arrival here set- tled first at Argenta, in Beaver Head county, where he engaged in teaming and also in dairying. Prosperity at- tended his efforts, and he remained there until 1879, at which time he traded bis property for the 160 acres of land where he now resides. He still continues the stock business, making a specialty of Shorthorn cattle and Clydesdale horses, and is rated as one of the best farmers in the county. From time to time he has purchased other lands, and is now the owner of 720 acres. He also owns a residence in Dillon. In 1891 he built the beauti- ful home on his farm, where he and his family are now surrounded with all the comforts of life.

During their sojourn in California, two children-Ed- ward C. and John B .- were born to them, and after they came to Montana they had two more children, Emma and William Elsie. Their eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth, married Mr. Philip Johnson. She died, leaving six chil- dren, three of whom are being reared by Grandpa and Grandma Smith, their names being: Burt, Grace E. and Delana B. The second daughter, Delana, married Thomas Porch, and they have a family of six children. Mr. Porch occupies a farm near Mr. Smith. Edward is married and lives on a farm adjoining that of his father.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith are useful and influential members

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dotted with green lines along its numerons tributaries to the river, and its soil is as produc tive as any in the world. I crossed almost its entire breadth to Bozeman city, and saw its most bountiful crops of wheat, oats, barley and buckwheat, and its tempting vegetables. The spring wheat is just in blossom, and the winter wheat is about ready for the reaper. Until two years ago the settlers sowed spring wheat entirely; but a trial of winter wheat gave such satisfactory results that last fall all that was in the valley sold for $25 per bushel in gold, for seed. This season abont one-tenth the harvest is winter wheat, and the whole crop will be sold at $5 per bushel for seed again. I cannot ques-

tion the evidence that establishes the raising of eighty bushels of winter wheat on an acre of ground in the valley. Even spring wheat usually yields forty bushels to the acre. I saw winter wheat on Saturday that is expected to yield seventy bushels to the acre; and I do not think the calculation an unreasonable one. This valley is so well watered, so easily irrigated, and so universally productive that it is being rapidly settled by men who mean to follow farming as their calling." * *

"As we gradually ascended the prairie to the summit, we were soon beyond the irrigating streams, and for ten miles we had to traverse an elevated table or meadow, with a bountiful

of the Methodist Church. Indeed, it may he said of them that they are among the pillars of the church at Dillon. He is one of its Trustees, and for the past ten years has been a Class-leader. Fraternally, he is a Master Mason ; politically, a Republican.

WILLIAM WARREN, who is ranked with the well-to-do farmers in the Prickly Pear valley, near Helena, has been identified with this locality for two decades.

Mr. Warren is a native of England. He was born May 12, 1844, and when a lad of sixteen years came to Amer . ica to make his own way in the world. His first work iu this country was in a coal mine in Rhode Island. From there he went to the Lake Superior mines, where he worked about six years. In 1867 he landed in Colorado, and in that State mined three years, first contracting, and later having the position of foreman on several rich leads. While there, November 19, 1869, he married Miss Lu- cinda Hardesty, a native of Boone county, Kentucky, born July 22, 1834. She had gone to Colorado in the spring of 1863 with her mother aud brother, and in the fall of the following year, with her mother, niece and nephew, she returned to Kentucky. In Kentucky, August 10, 1865, her mother died, and they buried her at Big Bone church, which was on the corner of her father's farm Their farm had previously been occupied by Grandfather Patrick Wallace, an Irish gentleman who was one of the pioneers of Boone county, Kentucky. Jacob Hardesty, Mrs. Warren's father, spent his whole life on that farm, and died there in 1863, in the seventy-first year of his age. In 1867 Mrs. Warren again made the journey to Colorado, and two years later, as above stated, was married there.

It was in 1871 that Mr. and Mrs. Warren came to Mon- tana, and to their present home near the city of lIelena. Here they have developed a fine farm. Mr. Warren built the commodious residence they occupy, and the trees, whose friendly branches lurnish ample shade, were planted by them soon after their arrival here. Recently 21

they sold 140 acres of their land, at $120 per acre, this land having cost them $4 an acre in 1871. They reserved the building and the rest of the farm, the land they have now being devoted to small fruits.

Mr. and Mrs. Warren have four children, two sons and two daughters. Their daughter, Fannie Lu, is the wife of William Shean, and the other children, Charles Ed- ward, John Wallace and Rosa Belle, are at home.

Mr. Warren is a member of the I. O. O. F., has passed all the chairs in both its branches, and is also a member of the A. O. U. W. In politics he is a Democrat, and has served as Trustee of his school district. He and his good wife and children are highly respected in the community in which they have so long resided.

C'APT. JOHN II. DAVIS, the oldest and most prominent hotel man of Virginia City, came to Montana in 1866, just after having served his country faithfully and well in the great Civil war.

Captain Davis is a native of Kentucky, born near Ster- ling, August 28, 1829. His father, Job Davis, was born in Ireland, and when a boy came to America and settled in Kentucky, where he was married to Miss Eliza Rama, a native of Virginia, and a member of one of the old fam- ilies of that State. They became the parents of eleven children, all of whom are still living. He was a Ken- tucky farmer and Methodist preacher, spent the whole of his life in that State, and died in 1886, in the eighty- third year of his age.

Captain Davis is the oldest of the family. He was reared and educated in his native State, aud remained there until he was twenty-three years of age, when he emigrated to Illinois, then a new country, and with a war- rant given him by his father, took claim to a tract of land near Taylorville, which he improved, and on which he resided until the spring of 1858. In 1858 he sold out, and with a mule team crossed the plains to Colorado. Denver was then in its infancy, and this whole western

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crop of loose bonlders to impede our progress. The grass there, as elsewhere ou the undulating lands, was parched almost white, but innnmer- able herds of the finest stock grazed upon it, and were fat and sleek as our Eastern stall-fed bullocks. An Eastern stock- grower, nsed only to the green fields of Pennsylvania, would at first sight pronounce these prairies unfit for pasturage; but in no place in the world will stock thrive better than on this same seemingly burnt-np grass. Although the stock and blades are dead, they are still nutritious; but the chief sustenance of horses and cattle is in the " bunch grass," to be found on all elevated lands in the mountains, which never looses its freshness at

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 65

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