An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 9

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 9

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"In 1842, F. A. Chardon, who was in charge of Ft. Brule, massacred about thirty Blackfeet Indians. The Indians had stolen a few horses and some little things out of the fort from time to time, and Chardon concluded to punish them for it. He waited until a trading party came in, and when they were assembled in front of the gate, he opened the gate and fired upon them with a smail cannon loaded with trade balls. After firing the cannon, the men went out and killed all the wounded with knives. The Blackfeet stopped trading, and moved into the British Possessions, and made war on the post, and were so troublesome that Chardon abandoned Brule in the spring, went to the mouth of the Judith, and built Ft. F. A. Chardon on the north bank of the Missouri river, a short distance above the mouth of Judith river, which was burnt up when Culbertson built Ft. Lewis and made peace with the Blackfeet.

" In 1832, Mckenzie sent Tullock, with forty men, to build a fort at the mouth of the Big Horn river. Tullock built the fort named Van Buren, on the south side of .the Yellowstone, about three miles below the mouth of the Big Horn river. It was one hundred and fifty feet square, picket stockade, with two bastions on diagonal corners. In 1863, I saw the location. The pickets showed plainly ; they had been burned to the ground, and several of the chimneys were not entirely fallen down. The fort was built to trade with the Mountain Crows, an insolent, treach- erous tribe of Indians. They wanted the location of their trading-post changed nearly every year, consequently they had four trading-posts built from 1832 to 1850, viz; Ft. Cass, built by Tullock, on the Yellowstone, below Van Buren, in 1836; Ft. Alexander, built by Lawender, still lower down on the Yellowstone river, in 1848; and Ft. Sarpey, built by Alexander Culbertson, in 1850, at the

*James Kipp (J. H. B.).

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

" As they broke into the herd the hunters sep- arated. For some instants I saw them as they showed through the clouds of dust, but I scarcely noticed them. I was finding out what it was to be a prairie hunter. We were only some few iniles from the river, hardly clear of the breaks of the hills, and in places the ground still rough. But the only things visible to me in our flying course were the buffalo and the dust, and there was tumult in my breast as well as around me. I made repeated ineffectual attempts to steady myself for a shot at a cow after a hard struggle to get up with her, and each time barely es- caped a fall. In such work a man must be able to forget his horse, but my horsemanship was not yet equal to such a proof. At the outset, when the hunters had searched over the herd and singled out each his fattest cow, and made his dash upon her, the herd broke into bands which spread over the plain. I clung to that where I found myself, unwilling to give up. un- til I found that neither horse nor man could bear the strain longer. Our furious speed had carried us far out over the prairies. Only some straggling groups were in sight, loping slowly off, seemingly conscious that the chase was over." -" Memoirs of my life," by John Charles Fremont: page 45.

True, this expedition was not directly under the command of Fremont, but he seems to have been the soul of it. Nor can it be asserted that

mouth of the Rose Bud. Ft. Sarpey was abandoned in 1853, and there have not been any trading forts built on the Yellowstone since, up to the present time (1875). Ken- neth Mckenzie, after Lewis and Clarke, was the pioneer of the upper Missouri. He was a native of the highlands of Scotland. When young, he came in service of the Hudson Bay Company to Hudson's Bay. In 1820 he quit the Hudson Bay Company and started to explore the country from Hudson's Bay to Red river and Lake Win- nipeg ; thence to the Lake Superior country ; finally con- cluded to locate on the upper Mississippi. In 1823, he

he literally set foot on what is now Montana soil in this or any subsequent expedition. But it was Montana atmosphere he breathed, so to speak, and this was Montana work he was upon.

The only histories that we read are the his- tories that are readable, but exactness must take precedence of interest. To utter history not ab- solutely exact is as base as to utter debased coin ; and yet to halt at a State line and leave out the great men who have not been bodily with us would make dull work. We must have reasons as well as results. Benton, of Missouri, as be- fore stated, and Honston, of Texas, had served together in our last great battles with England, and were alert to her designs. But there were men of older States in the Senate who neither dreaded nor suspected England's persistent am- bition to clutch and hold fast all beyond the Rocky mountains down to the lines of Spain, but, on the contrary, stood up in the Senate ready to concede anything, anxious to conciliate, fearing only to offend England.

And so we find Fremont, with all his courage and audacity of enterprise, leaning heavily on Benton for support, and Benton, leaning on Houston and all such as he could rally around him in the Senate in support of those vast in- terests which Jefferson had bequeathed to his country when Harrison fell from the front and Tyler stood timidly at the nation's head of af- fairs.

went to New York, and got an outfit of Indian trade goods on credit, and established a trading-post on the upper Mississippi, and remained in that part of the coun- try until 1829, when he came to the Missouri and estab- lished Ft. Union. He was in charge of all the Northwest- ern fur trade till 1839, when he resigned-Alexander Cul- bertson taking his place-and went to St. Louis, where he went into the wholesale liquor trade, and lived there un- til he died, in 1856 or 1857. He was a man of great cour- age, energy, good judgment, and great executive abil_ ity."-DR. JAMES STUART, in Vol I., Historical Society of Montana.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

Let us turn and bide a brief moment with one who may truly be called the father of Mon- tana and all of her sisters of the vast Northwest.

Consider Thomas Jefferson, on an Indian pony, making his way across Montana from the head-waters of the Oregon, to those of the Mis- sonri, for this the author of the Declaration of Independence not only long contemplated but actually undertook, at least by proxy, and proceeded on his way around the world as far as Siberia, when his further progress was arrested by Russia.

This is what Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont says on this subject, than whom no one was ever better informed in State secrets; for she

THOMAS GALE MERRILL, one of Montana's pioneers of 1863, and one of her prominent citizens and miners, was born in Michigan, at Comstock, near Kalamazoo, June 9, 1839. He comes of English ancestry, his forefathers having settled in New England early in the Colonial period.

His father, Thomas W. Merrill, was born in Sedgewick, Maine, in 1803, removed to Michigan when a young man, and there, at St. Clair, in 1833, was married to Miss Sarah A. Oakes, a native of Vermont and a daughter of Judge David Oakes, of Bennington, Vermont. Thomas W. Mer- rill was a prominent Baptist minister and was actively identified with the early educational affairs of Michigan. To him belongs the distinction of having started the first school of languages at Ann Arbor, out of which has since grown the State University of Michigan. Later in life he removed to Kalamazoo county, was one of the found- ers of the Baptist College at Kalamazoo, was the first teacher in this institution, previous to its incorporation, and continued as one of its trustees up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1876. During his long and use- ful career he organized numerous Baptist churches in various parts of Michigan. All through the troublesome days of the great Civil war he took a deep interest in the oppressed and on the side of the Union, and did effective work in moulding public sentiment in the North. His wife died November 8, 1845. They had a family of six children, four sons and two daughters, of whom three are now living, the subject of this sketch being the youngest of the six.

Thomas G. Merrill was educated in the college at Kala- mazoo, where he completed a classical course in 1860. He had just finished his education, and, when the war came on, in response to the President's first call for troops, he entered the army and served in the Third Minnesota Volunteers, in Tennessee.

stood very close to her eminent father, who was the bosom friend of the great statesman, and knew all the lofty aspirations for the glory of the Republic of the one and of the other. Says Mrs. Fremont, in her Biographical Sketch of Senator Benton, page 15:

" Mr. Jefferson's intention to secure for his country the Asiatic trade by an overland route across our continent so directly governed the three lives written of in this book that I give here to this point some detail, though nothing befitting his foresight and perseverance.

"Before the American captain, Captain Gray, of Boston, had actually found the mouth of the Columbia, in 1790, Jefferson, then our Minister

After coming out of the army Mr. Merrill taught school in Minnesota, and subsequently had charge of the semi- nary at Taylor's Falls, Minnesota. From there he came to Montana and located the first ranch in the Prickly Pear valley. This was a part of what is now the Child's ranch in East Helena. He obtained the charter for Montana City in 1864, and before Helena was started this was a thriving and prosperous town. For some time Mr. Mer- rill was engaged in placer mining on the Prickly Pear, and took out considerable gold. To him belongs the credit of having organized the Monarch Gold & Silver Mining Company, one of the first quartz mining com- panies that were organized in the Territory. They built the mill on Clark creek, six miles southeast of Helena. Out of that company grew the Heckla Consolidated Mining Company, of Glendale.

Mr. Merrill returned East in 1869. For some time he was engaged in mercantile pursuits at St. Paul, Minne- sota, and from there went to Lansing, Michigan, and established the Lansing Chair Factory, which he with others operated about one year, during this time also being largely engaged in real-estate transactions, and continuing the latter occupation until 1880. That year he went to St. Paul, and in 1882 organized the Merrill Discovery Company, its object being to locate mines in Montana, and at once returned to Montana. The com- pany soon obtained fifty-four mining properties and made a dividend of them among its stockholders. In 1887 Mr. Merrill learned that the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- pany had selected and certified for patents to 2,000,000 acies of the best mineral land in Montana. He at once set himself to work to frustrate their designs and organ- ized a movement to prevent their securing these valuable tracts. For five years he strongly opposed the railroad company, and their case was decided in 1894 in the Su. preme Court of the United States iu favor of the people.

Thomas M. Merrill

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

to France, met in Paris the English traveler, Ledyard, who was about to explore the Nile. Mr. Jefferson turned him from this to what both felt to be a fresher and more useful field of dis- covery. I have listened to such talks; and can fancy the fascination to the born explorer in listening to Jefferson's theory that the snow- clad Rocky mountains which shed their waters to the east in such a mighty stream as the Mis- sonri, must have a corresponding water-shed and great river to the west. No explorer had trod its banks, no navigator found its month; but where Jefferson thought such a river should be, is the Columbia.

Primarily, Montana owes its first debt of gratitude to the Hon. Thomas G. Merrill, who by agitating the ques- tion, in and out of season, finally aroused public senti- ment to a point of organizing an association for mutual defence in the grave dangers that threatened.

Besides his connection with the mining companies above mentioned, Mr. Merrill is also interested in various other valuable mining properties. He and a partner own the Liverpool silver mine, located a mile and a half from Clancey. This mine is now yielding them over $12,000 per month.

Mr. Merrill has all his life affiliated with the Republi- can party; but owing to the great questions which now affect the interest of the West, he is independent in his views, and hopes to participate at an early day in the or- ganization of a party that will revolutionize the politics of the country in the interest of the people, unless one of the old parties shall declare, unequivocally, in favor of an enlarged volume of good money aud the full restora- tion of silver to a place as money as it was at the be- ginning of 1873.

Governor Sidney Edgerton, Montana's first Governor, appointed Mr. Merrill the first County Clerk and Re- corder for Jefferson county, which then embraced the territory from the summit of the main range of mount- ains to the eastern boundary line,-an area larger than all of Great Britain. When the Midwinter Fair, held in San Francisco, California, in 1894, beame an assured fact, Governor Rickards cast about for the man who was best able to fittingly represent Montana on that auspicious occasion, and his choice finally fell upon Mr. Merrill, who was appointed on January 4, 1894; and so happy was this selection that through Mr. Merrill's efforts the young State covered herself with glory, and Montana day at this great fair was an event long to be remembered. On this day Mr. Merrill caused to be distributed as souvenirs more than twenty-eight pounds of Montana

"Jefferson obtained for Ledyard the passport which carried him to Saint Petersburg, where he received the permission of the Empress Cath- erine to traverse her dominions in a high north- ern latitude to their eastern extremity; then he would cross the sea from Khamschatka, or at Behring's Straits; and, descending the north- west coast of America, come down to the river which they were certain must have its head op- posite that of the Missouri; ascend it to its source in the Rocky mountains, and then follow the Missouri to the French settlements of the upper Mississippi, thence home.

"By what petty intrigue, or whose small mind overthrew such a grand plan, we cannot know.

sapphires, making many thousands of valuable presents of precious stones. Everything which Montana had promised was fulfilled, and admiring words for Montana were heard on all sides; and the newspapers particularly were profuse in their praise.

In his extemporaneous speech in reply to Director General M. H. de Young, Mr. Merrill spoke in part as follows: "Montana is the most useful of the treasure States of the West. Its product of silver has exceeded that of all other States. Last year the gold and silver taken from the mines amounted to $32,000,000. Colo- rado, which came next, yielded 827,000,000 last year. Ten years ago attention was turned to Montana's copper, and in the production of that metal it leads all the rest of the United States. This exposition represents the grand- est effort made for the advancement of the West, and it has been crowned with glorious success."

The great success of the commissioner's efforts can scarcely be properly appreciated, and to his untiring energy is due the fact that through the Midwinter Fair much more is now known of the State of Montana than people ever knew before. Great surprise was exhibited at the figures of Montana's resources, and mining men and experts, thousands of whom visited the fair, were attracted by Montana's exhibit, and seemed unwill- ing to leave it, as it was the largest and most complete mineral exhibit made by the State, containing over 30,- 000 pounds of specimens.

Mr. Merrill was married in 1870, in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Miss Annie E. Torbet, a native of Ohio and a daughter of Rev. A. M. Torbet, a Baptist minister. They are the parents of five children: Charles O., Frank T., George A., Sarah M. and Annie Grace. They reside at Ilelena, where Mr. Merrill holds prominent rank with the lead- ing citizens of the State. IIe is a member of the Mon- tana Club, of Helena.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

very small causes aid to determine the fate of great events-but all the large thought of Jef- ferson, the enterprise of Ledyard, and the in- telligent co-operation of the Empress Catherine were defeated when Ledyard, who had already reached Siberia, was overtaken by an order re- voking his permission, and conducted back 'as a spy' out of Russia."

Turning from the noble aspiration of Jeffer- son, we come back to Fremont in his camp un- der command of Nicollet. His picture of the Indians at home as they appeared fifty years ago, and their perfect hospitality, is pleasant to look upon.

"This was to be our starting-point for an ex- pedition northward over the great prairies, to the British line. Some weeks were spent in making the remaining preparations, in establish-

HON. LEVI J. HAMILTON, ex-Mayor of Butte City, is a native of Ohio, born in Attica, Seneca county, December 15, 1853. On the paternal side he is of Scotch-Irish de- scent, and on the maternal side English. The combina- tion of such strains generally result in the highest devel- opment of manhood. Mr. Hamilton's ancestors settled in America about the time of the Revolution, and also be- came early settlers in Hardin county, Ohio, where his father, Davidson Filson, was born, in 1825. He married Miss Margaret Carson, the daughter of Col. Samuel Car- son, who served as a Colonel in the war of 1812. Of their ten children six are still living. The father died in 1892, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and the mother still survives, now in her sixty-ninth year, residing in Seneca county, Ohio. She is a member of the Methodist Church, as was also her husband, and he was a farmer by occupation. In the earlier history of the family they were Presbyterians.

Levi, their son, was brought up on his father's farm in Seneca county, attending the public school, also the Re- public Normal School and the normal school at Valpa- raiso, Indiana. He taught a graded school for two years, then read law in the office of William M. Kilpatrick, who was then the prosecuting attorney for Shiawassee county, Michigan. After this he studied law at the Michigan State University at Ann Arbor, and began to practice. After serving one term as Circuit Court Commissioner, his attention was turned to the settlement of the Terri- tory of Dakota. He removed to Pierre and practiced there three years, up to 1884, at which time he came to Butte and established himself in the practice of his pro- fession, which he has continued to the present time.

Betimes he began to take an active part in the politics

ing the position and writing up journals, and in negotiations with the Indians. After the usual courtesies had been exchanged our first visit to their village was arranged. On our way we were met by thirty of the principal chiefs mounted and advancing in line,-a noble-look- ing set of men showing to the best advantage, their fine shoulders and breasts being partly un- covered. We were conducted by them to the village, where we were received with great cer emony by other chiefs, and all their people gath- ered to meet us. We were taken into a large and handsome lodge and given something to eat, au observance withont which no Indian welcome is complete. The village covered some acres of ground, and the lodges were pitched in regular lines. These were large, of about twenty skins

of the country, as a Republican, which he had always been, and in 1885 he received the appointment of City Attorney, to complete a vacant term. After this he was elected Police Magistrate, and after serving a term in that capacity, was nominated and elected Mayor of the city. This was for the first term after the re-incorporation of the city. He filled one term in this capacity, with satis- faction to the public, and was then nominated by his party as a candidate for the office of District Judge, to run for election against Judge McHatton. The result of the election was contested, and to avoid the injury to the public involved in the long delays necessary to a judicial adjustment, both the candidates resigned, and Governor Toole, being a Democrat, appointed Judge McHatton to the position of District Judge. In the State campaign of 1892, when Governor Rickards canvassed the State, Mr. Hamilton canvassed a large portion of the State with him, doing effective work for his party.

He has since devoted his time to the practice of his profession. He is also interested in considerable city property, and was one of the platters of the Vanderbilt addition to the city of Butte; and he and others donated to, and aided in, the establishment of the School of Mines on this property.

August 26, 1879, Mr. Hamilton married Miss Eliza S. Lahring, a native of Brooklyn, New York, who at the age of five years removed to Byron, Michigan. She is the daughter of John F. Lahring. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton have one daughter, named May, aud born in 1883.

Mr. Hamilton has never joined any of the societies here, devoting his whole attention to his practice. He is a gentleman of pleasant manner, thoroughly reliable, and is well spoken of everywhere he is known.

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

or more. The girls were noticeably well clothed, wearing finely dressed skins nearly white, much embroidered with beads and porcupine quills dyed many colors; and stuffs from the trading- post completed their dress. These were the best formed and best-looking Indians of the plains, having the free bearing belonging with

their unrestrained life in sunshine and open air. Their mode of life had given them the uniform and smooth development of breast and limb which indicates power, without knots of exag- gerated muscle, and the copper-bronze of their skins, burnt in by many suns, increased the statue-like effect."

CHAPTER VII.

BENTON IN THE SENATE-FREMONT IN THE FIELD OF EXPLORATION-THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE TO

INDIA-STILL HALTING THE BRITISH LION.

T HERE is the East. There is the road to India."

Senator Benton seems to have constantly fretted under the taunts and claims of England with reference to the great Northwest. "Our fur traders and trappers are being driven ont: some have been killed!" he cried.

True, when he stood up in his place in the Senate so often, pointing with his long, strong arm away beyond the mountains of Montana, and cried with firm-set lips, " There is the East. There is the road to India," he meant all he said and well deserved to have his utterance on his statue as it is. But he meant more than that: he meant to drive back the British from the north, as his old comrade in arms, Andrew Jackson, had driven them back from the South at the battle of New Orleans.

He could not and he did not rest until he had an expedition on its way to take absolute pos- session of Jefferson's purchase in its entirety.

The indifference to our Northwest possessions in and beyond the Rocky mountains at that time reads strangely now. One senator honestly

voiced the sentiment of the Eastern States in a prolonged protest against sending out to take possession of the land when he exclaimed, " I wish to God we did not own it!"

The renewal of the joint-occupation of the Columbia had effectually discouraged American enterprise, and infused new life into the English occupation ; their encroachments were continued in various forms, now open, now covert; they even built upon the Columbia River a cordon of forts ostensibly for " defense " against Indians, who were in reality allies of the Hudson's Bay Company, and made fur-trading and trapping impossible to Americans.

Every measure proposed by their Western friends for protection was met by opposition, curious to read to-day. Even so late as '43 the ignorance, the indifference, the blindness to the value of our Pacific territory-the heedless inat- tention to the evidence of living history as to England's pertinacions designs on that coast, is shown in the debates on every bill. On one giving lands to settlers, while a Senator from Ohio (then a very western State), Mr. Tappan,

HISTORY OF MONTANA.

supported the measure and said 50,000 settlers with their 50,000 rifles should be given lands to colonize the banks of the Oregon, there was open expression that this would give offence to England.

Mrs. Fremont says in this connection: "My father admitted England might take offense. She probably had already made up her mind to take offense, whatever we might do; but that was not the question: had England a right to take offense? That was the only question. Of course no more fit man than Fremont conld have been found to lead this expedition with its double purpose. He had earned the right to be at the head of it; besides, there were good rea- sons for having a discreet and wise man there."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

An illustrated history of the state of Montana, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 9

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