An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 73

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 73

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Mr. Winslett was married in 1861 to Mrs. Louisa Cun- ningham, a daughter of Mr. Fogle. As they never had any children of their own, they adopted a little girl, whom they named Mary E. Winslett. She was boru in Califor- nia, aud was two years old at the time they adopted her. After a few years Mrs. Winslett died. Mr. Winslett and his daughter have since resided together, the latter being one of Stevensville's stylish dressmakers and the owner of considerable real estate. She also has a number of horses on the ranch.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

" Hastings was so charmed with Soda Springs, and so delighted with the waters, that he built a small fort or barracks on the north side of the little valley opposite the springs, and Mountain Joe said, applied for a giant, which was to include Mount Shasta, then known as Charte Butte. I have heard this old barracks spoken of as Fremont's Fort. Fremont was not here at all in the early days. He lost nearly half his force in a night battle with the Klamath and Modoc Indians east of here, on the other side of Mount Shasta, in 1846, and but for Kit Carson would have been annihilated.

" In his reports to the government, published in the first volume of his memoirs, which he sent me shortly before his death, there is no mention of this place, and all know that he was very elaborate and exact. The scene of his oper- ations lay entirely to the cast and southeast

side of the great snow pyramid, and was full of battles. He concludes his report to congress of the fatal night attack in these words: '1 have since fought these Indian nations from one end of their possessions to the other.'

" He complains bitterly of the British traders for furnishing the Klamath Indians with steel points for arrows, saying, 'Kit Carson pro- nounces them the most beautifully warlike arrows ever made.'

"True, Fremont and Kit Carson did their hard fighting not far away from what is now Castle Crag Tavern, and you could reach their battle-grounds easily any day now; but you mnst bear in mind that in those days there were no roads, and men had to keep compactly together and out of dangerous passes or perish. Besides, I have heard Mountain Joe, who served under Fremont through the Mexican war, and

In his early life Mr. Winslett was a Whig, but later be- came identified with the Democratic party. While in California he served as Deputy Sheriff four years under John P. Jones, now Senator from Nevada, and also for some time was a Justice of the Peace. He was made a Mason in Missoula, Montana, in 1867, and for the past eighteen years has been a member of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, South.

L G. SMITH, of the Smith Drug Company, Anaconda Montana, is one of the representative business men of his town,

Mr. Smith was born in Monmonth, Illinois, September 21, 1852, son of William F. and Margaret (Bell) Smith, both natives of the State of Virginia. Grandfather Bar- nett Smith removed from Virginia to Barren county, Kentucky, at an early day, and was well known there as a wealthy planter and slave-owner. Our subject's father was one of the cleiks of the court of Louisville. In 1835 he removed to Monmouth, Illinois, where he was in the drug business for many years, and where he died in 1894, at the age of seventy eight years. His widow is still liv. ing. They had nine children, of whom six are living, L. G. being their fifth child.

L. G. Smith received his early education in the public schools of Monmouth, and it may be said was reared in the drug business, as he was in his father's store during the most of his boyhood days. In 1876 he went to the coal mines, at Carbon, Wyoming, and from head clerk worked his way up to superintendent, in which position he continued until 1890, when he came to Montana and purchased his present drug business and organized the Smith Drug Company, of which he is the head. His wife and Mr. R. T. Williams are stockholders in the company. The store, N . 118 Main street, is one of the best locations in the city, and from the commencement of his business in Anaconda Mr. Smith has met with marked success, now being ranked with the leading druggists of the place. During his residence in Anaconda, Mr. Smith has

shown himself to be a most liberal and enterprising business man, and has made a wide and favorable ac- quaintance throughout the county. He has invested in property here, and is deeply interested in the develop- ment of the place.

Mr. Smith is a chapter Mason and a Knight of Pythias, and in politics is a Republican.

He was married June 10, 1875, to Miss Ltzzie Williams, a native of Ohio and a daughter of Dr. Isaac C. Williams, of that State. They have a delightful home in Anaconda, and are highly esteemed by all who know them.

W. A. CLARK, Butte City, Montana .- Western pluck, enterprise and intelligence are rightly accounted for on the theory that it was the strongest of mind and heart, as well as body, that pushed out from the older communities to the western frontier, especially into the wilds of the Rocky Mountain region in the early '603, some 2,000 miles beyond the border line of civilization. The weak, the timid, the vacillating were not apt to undertake the role of pathfinders, under the circumstances and condi- tions which brought the pioneers to Bannack, Virginia City and Last Chance Gulch. It was another race of men that came at that period to lay the foundation of this young commonwealth, fitting exactly the poet's ideal of those who "constitute a State," and who have given to Montana a pioneer history and achievements in com- merce and enterprise and government, alike honorable and glorious. Among the pioneers of this stamp, none have achieved greater success or distinction than the Hon. W. A. Clark, of Butte City, Montana. The material benefits which the State has derived from his energy, enterprise and ability, cannot be better presented or illus- trated than by the recital of the story of his busy and eventful career.

W. A. Clark was born ou the 8th day of January, 1839, near Connellsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania. He is the son of John and Mary (Andrews) Clark, both natives of that county. The father of John Clark, whose name

Millions: Clark

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

was also much with him on the plains, say that it was Hastings, not Fremont, who built the old pine-log barracks in the little valley across from Soda Springs, at the base of the hill.

"Whether it was the winter snows, the soli- tude or the savages that drove out the first pro- prietor of Soda Springs, no one can say; but it was doubtless the latter. Down on the south side of Castle Creek stands, or stood a few years ago, a white-oak tree with this bit of history cut in shapely letters on its widening bark, ' Killed with Hastings, 1844.' A mile or so further down the old pick-trail is, or was, au- other oak, telling, with its lone cross, where a whole party with its laden pack-train perished at the hands of the red men.

" It is equitable to set Mountain Joe down as the first earnest and permanent proprietor of all this region round about here, for he tilled the

was also John, was a native of county Tyrone, Ireland, who emigrated to this country and settled in Pennsylvania soon after the Revolutionary war. The grandfather of the subject of our sketch was married to Miss Reed, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, whose parents also were from the north of Ireland. On the maternal side, Will- iam and Sarah Andrews, the grandparents of our subject, were also from county Tyrone, Ireland, and settled iu western Pennsylvania about the beginning of this cen- tury. Sarah Andrews' maiden name was Kitheart. She was a descendant of the Cathcart family who were origin- ally Huguenots, and the name became changed to Kith- cart by an error made by a registrar in the transfer of a tract of land. The Cathcart family emigrated from France to Scotland at an early period, and later moved to the north of Ireland. Subsequently they emigrated to the United States, and different branches of the family settled in New York and Pennsylvania.

The parents of our subject were married in Pennsyl- vania, where they resided until 1856. They then moved to Van Buren county, lowa, where John Clark died in 1873, aged seventy-six years. In religious belief he was a Presbyterian, and an Elder in that church for forty years before his death. Mrs. Clark now lives at Los Angeles, California, and is nearly eighty-one years of age.

Mr. Clark's father was a farmer, and his boyhood days were spent on the homestead, where he enjoyed the ad- vantages of three months' winter school, and nine months of such farm work as the boy could turn his hand to. At the age of fourteen he entered Laurel Hill Academy, and acquired a good English education. In 1856 his father moved to Iowa, and there William assisted the first year in improving and tilling the new prairie farm, teaching a term of school the succeeding winter. He then attended an academy at Birmingham one term, and afterward entered the university at Mount Pleasant, becoming a disciple of Blackstone. Here he prosecuted his legal

soil, built some house's, and kept a sort of hotel, and guided people to the top of Mount Shasta, to say nothing of his ugly battles with the In- dians for his home.

"I first saw this strange mnon at his own campfire when a school-lad at home in Oregon, where he had camped near our place with his pack-train. He told us he was in the habit of go- ing to Mexico for half-wild horses, driving them up to Oregon, and then packing them back to Cal- ifornia, by which time they were tamned and ready for sale. He told my brother and me most wondrous tales about his Soda Spring, Mount Shasta, the Lost Cabin, and a secret inine of gold. He talked to us of Fremont till the night was far spent, and father, the schoolteacher, had to come out after us. But what won my heart entirely was the ease with which he reached his left hand, and taking . De

studies for two years, but did not afterward engage in the profession, so that the broad and masterful career of a man of affairs in the Western world was not cut short by his installment in a lawyer's office. Young Clark now started toward the setting sun. In 1859-60 he was teach- ing school in Missouri. In 1862 he crossed the great plains, driving a team to the South Park, Colorado, and that winter worked in the quartz mines in Central City, gaining knowledge and experience that afterward served him a good purpose, and perhaps in no small degree helped to shape his destiny as the future quartz king of Montana.

In 1863 the news of the gold discoveries at Bannack reached Colorado, and Mr. Clark was among the first to start for this new El Dorado. After sixty-five days' travel with an ox team, he arrived at Bannack, just in time to join a stampede to Horse Prairie. IFere he secured a claim which he worked during this and the following season, cleaning up a net $1,500 the first summer, which formed the basis of his future operations in Montana and the beginning of the immense fortune he has since accu- mulated. In the ensuing five years we may pass rapidly over Mr. Clark's career, although it was one of push and enterprise, characteristic of the man. Instead of work- ing in the placers, he took advantage of the opportunities offered for trade and business, and in less than half a dec- ade was at the head of one of the largest wholesale mercantile establishments in the Territory, built up from the smallest of beginnings. Ilis first venture was to bring in a load of provisions from Salt Lake City, in the winter of 1863-4, which he at once sold at amazing prices. The next winter this experiment was repeated on a larger scale, and Virginia City was his market. In the spring of 1865 he opened a general merchandise store at Blackfoot City, then a new and hustling mining camp. In the fall of the same year he sold his store, and noticing that tobacco was a scarce article in the mining camps, went on horseback to Boise City, Idaho, where he

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

Bello Gallico' from my father, divided . Ganl in three parts' in the ashes of the campfire as he read and translated the mighty Roman by the roaring Oregon. He was a learned foreigner, of noble birth, it was said,-certainly of noble nature. I could not forget Mountain Joe and his red men, and his Mexicans and mules and horses; and so, in the fall of 1854, I ran away from school and joined him. *

" I cannot say certainly as to his hidden treasures. though he always seemed to have pots of gold to draw on in those days; but I can frankly confess that I have drawn on him and his marvelons stories, making them my own, of course, for all these years,-a veritable mine, indeed, to me.

" I found him fortressed in the old Hastings barracks, before mentioned, though the place had been nearly destroyed by fire in his absence. We guided a few parties here and there, taking

purchased several thousand pounds of "the weed," aud at a cost of $1.50 a pound. Securing a team he drove to HIelena with his precious cargo, closing it out at five and six dollars a pound to ready purchasers. In February, 1866, Mr. Clark joined a stampede to Elk Creek, where he established another store, and sold goods to the miners during the season. IIe sold out in the fall, and took a trip to the Pacific coast, going as far as San Francisco, and making a goodly portion of the journey on horse- back. He then returned to Montana with a stock of goods, which he had selected to meet the wants of the miners, and which he readily disposed of at large profits.

In October of 1866 Mr. Clark went East by way of Fort Benton and the "Mackinaw Route," being thirty-five days making the voyage from Fort Benton to Sioux City. After visiting the principal cities of the Union, including a sojourn in the South, he returned to Montana the fol- lowing year. We next hear of him as a mail contractor on the star route between Missoula and Walla Walla, a distance of 400 miles, where his energy and rustling qualities had ample scope to display themselves, but he made a success of mail carrying and staging, as he did of every other undertaking. His next move was in the direction of a wider sphere of business action.

In the autumn of 1868 he made a trip to New York city, and there formed a co-partnership with Mr. R. W. Donnell for the purpose of engaging in the wholesale mercantile and banking business in this Territory, a con- nection that resulted in one of the strongest business firms in that period in Montana. They shipped in a large stock of general merchandise via the Missouri river, in the spring of 1869, and established an extensive whole- sale business at Helena. In 1870 the business was traus- ferred to Deer Lodge, and consolidated with that of Mr. Donnell in the west side city. At this time Mr. S. E. Larabie was admitted into the business, and the firm of

the first party to the top of the mountain that ever reached that point with ladies, I believe, and then returned to Yreka for the winter, go- ing back to Lower Soda over the spring snow- banks with a tremendous rush of miners that Mountain Joe had worked up by his stories of the Lost Cabin and mysterious gold mines.

"Thousands on thousands of men! The little valley of Soda creek back of Castle Crag Tavern was a white sea of tents. Every bar on the Sacramento was the scene of excitement. The world was literally turned upside down. The rivers ran dark and sullen with sand and slime. The fishes turned on their sides and died. But the enraged miners found nothing. Mountain Joe disappeared. Men talked of hanging ' Mountain Joe's boy.' The game disappeared before the avalanche of angry and hungry men. The Indians had vanished at their first approach, and were starving in the mountains.

Donnell, Clark & Larabie entered upon a successful career. They soon closed out their mercantile business and gave exclusive attention to banking, first at Deer Lodge, and at a later date at both that place and at Butte City. In May, 1884, Messrs. Clark and Larabie purchased the interests of Mr. Dounell in their Montana business, and subsequently Mr. Clark and his brother, James Ross Clark, came into full ownership of the Butte Bank, dis- posiug of his Deer Lodge interests. The bauking house of W. A. Clark & Brother, of Butte City, Montana, has since that time grown into one of the strougest banking institutions of the West.

But it is in his mining investments and in the operation of vast mills and smelters for the treatment of base ores that Mr. Clark has made the great success of his life, and contributed so largely to the development and pros- perity of the Treasure State. No other individual has played so conspicuous a part in this direction. In 1872 Mr. Clark first begau to give attention to the quartz pros- pects of Butte, purchasing in this year, in whole or in part, the Original, Colusa, Mountain Chief, Gambetta, and others, nearly all of which proved afterward to be fabu- lously rich. In order to fit himself for a successful mining career, Mr. Clark spent the winter in 1872-3 at the School of Mines, Columbia College, taking a course in practical assaying and analysis, with a general outline of mineralogy, gaining a knowledge that afterward served him an excellent part in his extensive miuing, milling and smelting operations. The first stamp mill of Butte, the "Old Dexter," was finished in 1876, by the financial help of Mr. Clark. The first smelter of conse- quence in Butte was erected by a company organized by him. This was the Colorado and Montana Company, which still continues as one of the leading enterprises of the Copper City. Mr. Clark is one of the principal stock- holders and is vice-president of the company. In 1880 he organized the Moulton Company, which at once pro-

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HISTORY OF MONTANA.

"The tide went out as it came in-suddenly, savagely. Deeds of cruelty to Mexicans and half-tamed Indians who tried to be friendly and take fish in the muddied waters were not rare, and the disgusted miners retired from the country, either up or down the river, leaving trails of dead animals, camp debris and cast-iron oatlis behind. As they went Joe came, and the Indians came, furious! We treated then well, tried to make friends of them once more, but they would have none of it.

" By the end of June, 1855, the last miner had left our section; and soon the last Indian left us to go on the warpath. Mountain Joe and I were now utterly alone, with not even a Mexican to take care of the pack-train and do the cooking. But we kept on. We had quite a garden, but it was needing water; so Joe and I took our guns each day, leaving the store or

ceeded to the erection of the Moulton mill and the de- velopment of the mine. The company built a complete dry-ernshing and chloridizing forty-stamp mill, sank a three-compartment shaft 800 feet, pnt in a modern pump- ing and hoisting works, and thoroughly explored the property, at a cost of about $500,000. This mine has been in successful operation since. Even through the period of financial depression, when nearly every other silver mine in the West closed down, the stamps of the Moulton never ceased to drop. W. A. Clark is president of the Moulton, and his brother, Joseph K. Clark, manager. Mr. Clark and his brother, James R., own the Butte Re- dnetion Works and the Colnsa Parrot, and several other copper and silver mines in connection therewith. Be- sides his interests in these companies, he has large indi- vidual holdings in the mines of Butte, many of which are in successful operation, affording employment to large numbers of men. He also owns valuable mining proper- ties in Idaho and Arizona. The United Verde Copper Company's property in Arizona, owned by him, is just now the first wonder of the mining world. It is probably the richest and most extensive copper mine in the world, not excepting the Anaconda, Mountain View, or any of the big properties of Butte. Mr. Clark has just com- pleted and equipped a railroad to this mine, connecting with the Santa Fe system, which is a marvel of engineer- ing, and for its length (twenty-six miles) one of the most expensive in the West. He has built immense modern smelting and refining plants at this mine, and in the future his output of copper will only be limited by the demands of the world's markets.

Mr. Clark established the first water system in Butte, also the first electric-light plant. Ile is the owner of the Butte Miner, one of the leading daily papers of the State. He also is principal owner and president of the Cable and Electric Railways of Butte, and largely interested in many other industrial enterprises besides the mining and smelting of ores.

trading-post to take care of itself, and went up the creek to work on a ditch.

" Meantime, ngly stories were afloat; and ugly, sullen Indians came by now and then- Modocs on their way across to the Trinity In- dians, by the pass np Little Castle creek. They would not sit down, nor eat, nor talk. They shook their heads when we talked, and assumed to not know either the Shasta or Chinook dia- lect. The Trinity Indians were in open revolt beyond Castle Crags, and Captain Crook, from Fort Jones, near Yreka, the famous General Crook, was in the field there. He drove them up Trinity river to Castle Crags, but had no de- cisive battle.

"One hot morning, while we were at work on the ditch, Joe suddenly dropped his pick and caught up his gan. A horse went plung- ing up the valley past us with an arrow quiver-

No man gives closer personal attention to his extensive business affairs than does Mr. Clark, and consequently he is one of the busiest men imaginable; still he has always found time to respond to any call of public duty, either from his State or his party, and the services rendered have invariably been of the highest order. Whatever he does he does well. Taking a deep interest in public and political affairs, he has prepared himself by study and observation to fulfil the highest functions of citizenship. Governor Potts appointed him State Orator, to represent Montana at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and his oration on that occasion was a brilliant effort and did a good part in making known the wonderful resources of this Territory. In 1877 he was elected Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Montana, and in 1878, during the Nez Perce invasion, received the commission of Major and led the Butte Battalion to the front against Chief Joseph. He was elected a delegate from Silver Bow county to the first constitutional convention in 1884, being chosen president of that body, in which position he won new laurels as a presiding officer and master of parlia- mentary law and tactics. In 1884 he was commissioned by President Arthur as one of the commissioners to the World's Industrial and Cotton Exhibition at New Orleans, where he spent several months in the interests of Montana.

In 1888 Mr. Clark received the Democratic nomination for delegate to Congress, and made a brilliant canvass of the Territory, but was defeated by reason of treachery within the party camp. When Montana was admitted to the Union, in 1889, and a second constitutional convention was necessary, he was again elected a member of that body, and as before was chosen its presiding officer, ren- dering splendid service in that capacity. Upon the first Legislative Assembly, which convened in Helena in Jan- uary, 1890, devolved the duty of electing two United States Senators. The political muddle growing out of the Pre- cinct No. 34 troubles, fully discussed elsewhere, resulted in the organization of two Houses of Representatives and

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ing in his shoulder; and smoke began to curl above the pines from the burning trading-post. We hastened down, but did not see a single Indian, nor did we see another horse or mule. All had silently disappeared in the half hour we had held our faces to the earth in the ditch. " Blotches of flour from torn sacks here and there made a white trail up over the red foot- hills on the brown, sweet-smelling pine-quills, and, withont a word, Joe led cautionsly on, I at his heels. The savages divided soon, the party with the horses going to the right, toward the Modoc country, the party with the stores leav- ing a trail of flour, to the left, toward Castle Crags. This latter Joe followed, crossing the river at a ford, and going up the lett bank of little Castle creek. The canyon shuts in very

the election of two sets of United States Senators. The Democrats elected W. A. Clark and Martin Maginnis, and the Republicans W. F. Sanders and T. C. Power, Mr. Clark receiving the unanimous vote of his party in cau- cus and in joint session. Each presented their claims to the United States Senate, and as the Republicans were in a majority in that body, the issue did not remain long in doubt. Messrs. Sanders and Power were declared elected, whether rightly or not is hardly a subject for discussion at this time. But Mr. Clark received from his party in the State the highest honor in its gift, and is as proud of it as if he enjoyed the full fruition of what he regards a just and legal election.

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An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 73

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