Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 116

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 1126

USA > Montana > Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II > Part 116

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On New Year's eve, 1885, E. T. Gruwell was mar- ried at West Branch, Iowa, to Anna B. Jackson, and to them were born three sons, Albert R., deceased, Hugh C., whose name forms the caption to this sketch, and Elmer T., Jr.

As an evidence of the enviable standing of Mr. Gruwell in the Shields River Valley section of Mon- tana, the following excerpt is taken from a tribute to him published in the Livingston Enterprise in 1917: "One of the most effective and consistent boosters for Montana, in general, and the Shields River Valley, in particular, is Mr. E. T. Gruwell, banker and enterprising citizen of Wilsall. By his works he has proved his faith in the Treasure State ; and by the same tokens will its future greatness be demonstrated. Men of his caliber upbuild cities and develop states. They never sit idly by, guessing, doubting and wondering; they prove their enterprise and show their faith by rolling up their sleeves and doing things worth while for the community in which they live."

Hugh C. Gruwell attended the public schools of Hampton, Iowa, and attended the high school there through the junior year. He then took the senior year work at Cornel College Academy, Mount Ver- non, Iowa. He then took one year of preparatory work at Cornell and 21/2 years of the regular college course, leaving there in 1912. In 1914 he entered Harvard University, where he was graduated in 1916, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. His gradu- ating thesis was on "Montana Banking." He is a member of the Greek letter fraternity. Sigma Alpha

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Epsilon. During the period from 1912 to 1914 Mr. Gruwell had served as assistant cashier of the Farm- ers State Bank at Wilsall, and on his graduation from Harvard he was elected cashier of that insti- tution, succeeding his father, who had been elected its president. At that time he was the youngest bank cashier in Montana. That his selection was a wise one is today voiced by all who are conversant with the record of this well-known bank. The bank is capitalized at $50,000, with surplus and profits of $22,000. The present officers of the bank are: S. S. Working, president; S. O'N. C. Brady, vice presi- dent : Hugh C. Gruwell, cashier ; R. A. Cook, assist- ant cashier.

In 1917, at Long Beach, California, Mr. Gruwell was married to Gertrude Kint, the daughter of J. W. and Emma S. (Kaufman) Kint, who now reside at Los Angeles, California, where Mr. Kint is con- nected with the Home Savings Bank. Mrs. Gruwell is a lady of unusal accomplishments, being a gradu- ate of the Leland Powers School of Expression at Boston, Massachusetts, and an entertainer of rare ability and charm.

Politically Mr. Gruwell is a republican and fra- ternally he is a member of Wilsall Lodge No. 103, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is also affiliated with the Montana State Bankers' Associa- tion and the American Bankers' Association. He is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and is chairman of the board of stewards of his church at Wilsall. A man of generous impulses and genial disposition, he has won and retains a host of warm and loyal friends and is numbered among the representative men of his community.

ROY OSBURN, whose active experience since he left his Indiana home at the age of sixteen has carried him over nearly all the states and territories south and west, has been a Montanan since 1903, and is a prominent rancher in the Big Timber section, where he is secretary of the Veasey Land Company of Big Timber.

His grandfather was an Englishman by birth and an early settler in Indiana. Roy Osburn was born in Terre Haute in that state August 6, 1876. His father, I. W. Osburn, is still living in Terre Haute. He was born in Indiana in 1855, and has spent his life there as a carpenter and builder. He is a re- publican and a Methodist. His first wife was Mary Harrington, who was born in Indiana and died near Terre Haute in 1880, when her son Roy was four years old. Roy was the second of four children. The oldest, Preston, is a carpenter and builder at Terre Haute, Fred is a resident of Dillon, Mon- tana, while George was a carpenter and was taken ill while working in Pueblo, Colorado, and went home to Terre Haute, where he died in 1904. I. W. Os- burn by a second marriage has several sons and daughters. The son Millard was with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

Roy Osburn also has a military record. He was a member of the Regular Army during the Spanish- American war period. He had received his early education in the rural schools of Vigo County, In- diana, also in high school, and left school at the age of sixteen and the following year left home and began seeing the world, traveling south and west un- til he had seen a great deal of every state except California and Oregon. In 1898 he joined the Heavy Artillery Regiment from Indiana, was sent to Fort Barrancas, Florida, and while there he enlisted in the Regular Army and served three years, being on duty chiefly at Fort Barrancas.

The winter of 1901 he spent at New Orleans, and then went to the oil fields of Texas around Beau-

mont. When he came to Montana in 1903 he located for a brief time at Livingston, then went to Belgrade as an employe of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the same year reached the Melville community of Sweetgrass County, where he was in business four years and also became interested in ranching. He established a livery business at Big Timber in 1910 and personally managed it for two years, since which time he has leased it. The Veasey Land Company, of which he is secretary, has a 7,000 acre grain and cattle ranch located twenty-six miles north of Big Timber. Mr. Osburn lives at Big Timber, his home being at the corner of McLeod Street and Sixth Avenue.

He is a republican in politics and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias at Big Timber. . He mar- ried at Livingston, Montana, in April, 1908, Mar- garet Veasey, a daughter of Edward and Bridget Veasey, both deceased. Her father was one of the early settlers of Sweetgrass County and acquired extensive interests as a rancher and stockman.

Mr. and Mrs. Osburn have five children: Gene- vieve, born in 1910; Edward, born in 1912; Marion, born in 1913; Marguerite, born in 1915, and Evelyn, born in 1918.

A. P. JOHNSTON, In the development of the mineral resources of which the county of Mineral is an index, in the development of the roads and other transportation facilities, and all the more im- portant measures for the prosperity and well being of the country and its people, A. P. Johnston is easily the foremost figure at Superior and in Min- eral County. He has been in Montana forty years and his life record justifies the placing of his name among the state builders.

He was born on the river St. Claire at Courtright, Lampton County, Ontario, Canada, January 4. 1851. His father, George B. Johnston, was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1819, and came to America and settled at Courtright, Ontario, as early as 1832. For a time he was in the drug business and in 1837 took up an agricultural homestead on the river St. Claire. He died at Courtright in 1892. Through- out a long life he was one of the leading men in his section of Ontario. He was a reformer in politics, served as county assessor of Lampton County, was reeve of Moore Township in this county, and for the last twenty-five years of his life held the office of justice of the peace. He was a close friend of Alexander McKinzie, the Canadian Premier, and for years the citizens of his community reposed in him their confidence and esteem in connection with all civic and political affairs. He was a very active supporter of the Episcopal Church and was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He served as a member of the Home Guard during the Canadian Rebellion of 1837. George B. Johnston married Emily S. Don- nelly, who was born at St. Anne in the Province of Quebec in 1818 and died at Sarnia, Ontario, in 1894. Her father was Doctor Donnelly, an eminent surgeon of the English navy. George B. Johnston and wife had seven children.

The oldest, George B. Johnston, Jr., was for years a prominent figure in the mining districts of the West and in Montana. He was a miner and prospector in California and Nevada and came to Montana in 1866. He early became associated with the late Marcus Daly. At that time Daly was shift boss at Washoe, Nevada, in the Comstock Mine. George B. Johnston was a miner under him, and was an influential member of the first miners union. There arose a conflict between the union and the owners and operators of the mine,

ans

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and it was largely through the influence of George B. Johnston that the trouble was compromised. This brought him the close friendship of Marcus Daly. From 1875 George B. Johnston was engaged in prospecting in the Cedar Creek Placer district in Western Montana. While he was developing some of his mines he also served as principal of the high school at Helena. In 1878 he located at Butte, where he bought a half interest in the Butte Miner. It was his able editorials and influence that made this paper a power in western jour- nalism. On account of ill health caused by over- work he sold his interest in the paper and died at Butte July 2, 1881.

Brief reference to the younger children is as follows : Edmund T., a miner and rancher living at Canal Flat in British Columbia; Maria C., widow of Thomas E. Banker, a lumberman and mechanic, living at Detroit, Michigan, and her daughter, Grace Emily Banker, is a prominent artist; the fourth of the family is A. P. Johnston; Emily Bella is the widow of Hon. Frank Smith, a wealthy oil man and owner of municipal street car lines and at one time a representative in the Canadian Par- liament, who died at Sarnia, Ontario, and his widow now has three residences, one at Sarnia, one in Toronto, and at the old Johnston homestead at Cortright, Ontario, a place which her means and taste have greatly beautified; Froome T., a hotel proprietor at Wabogan, Ontario; and Grace M., wife of Louis Allison, an accountant living at Van- couver, British Columbia.

A. P. Johnston received his early education in the public schools of Courtright and Sarnia and finished with a high school course. He lived on his father's farm until 1873 and then for the benefit of his health spent two seasons as a steward on lake boats. He also for three years worked for the Grand Trunk Railway Company at Port Ed- ward, Ontario. In 1879 he returned home for a visit and on the 5th of July, 1880, started for the West, the country which has ever since claimed his residence and highest enthusiasm. He came to Montana by way of Port Arthur and Duluth and Fort Benton, and from that post drove a team to Helena, thence by stage to Butte, and on August 20, 1880, left the stage at Missoula. He came to what is now Superior, Montana, in a wagon driven by C. W. Berry, the only resident of the Superior locality. Berry at that time was proprietor of the Cedar Creek Ferry and postoffice. Mr. Johnston at once acquired an interest in some of the Trout Creek placer fields, then owned by the late Marcus Daly and his two brothers and associates. He spent all the succeeding winter with his brother George engaged in placer mining. Through the death of George Johnston in the following year all his property reverted to A. P. Johnston through the assignments of Marcus Daly and associates. Mr. Johnston continued working these properties for five years. Eventually his operations brought him financial embarrassment, but he was enabled to continue through credit extended him, enabling him to purchase the Bill Berry ranch, then known as the Cedar Creek Ferry and Superior Postoffice. a mile east of the present site of Superior. At that time Mr. Johnston became a popular figure and trader with the travelers over the old Mullan Road and the miners of the vicinity.

Travel and business through Superior were greatly increased as a result of the initial development in the Coeur d'Alene field in 1883. In 1887 occurred the discovery of metal in the Iron Mountain district, and that was another cause contributing to the traffic and industry and the consequent increase in the prosperity of Mr. Johnston's mercantile busi-

ness. In 1888, when the Iron Mountain mines were discovered at the head of Platte Creek, Mr. John- ston made requisition to the Government to remove the postoffice a mile west of its former site. He then appropriated the ground on which the townsite is today, and subsequently sold about half of the ground to the Milwaukee Railway. He still owns half the townsite, and as a town builder takes great pleasure in the fact that Superior is now the county seat of the rich and prosperous Mineral County. Mr. Johnston spent $28,000 on the Trout Creek placer, beginning a bed rock tunnel which was never completed. Within the last three years he has installed a Keystone drilling machine for modern gold prospecting, so that the ground can be worked as it should be. In 1918 his prospects drew the attention of New York cap- italists as a result of a very rich drill test .. These capitalists secured an option from Mr. Johnston al- lowing further drill tests on the property. July I, 1919, a new test was started and on the first of August the syndicate was completely satisfied with the richness of the ground and exercised their rights under the option, and also bought valuable adjacent territory. This syndicate is now negotiating for the installation of a large dredge and modern machinery to mine the gold. Mr. Johnston in addi- tion to cash considerations still retains a working interest in the property. This ground is located south of Superior and immediately east of the noted Cedar Creek, which cuts the same mineral belt as Trout Creek and several other tributaries in the vicinity. Several hundred acres at the heads of these creeks have been mined. Further down these creeks the gravel is deeper and the old miners with their methods were never able to reach bed rock. As a result of improved processes thousands of acres will be made available and experts predict that they will become the richest mining fields of Montana.

For years Mr. Johnston has been the most en- thusiastic leader for good roads, especially for the Yellowstone Trail, following the old Mullan road between Missoula and Spokane. The improvement of this famous trail was one of the causes that led to the organization of Mineral County in 1914. Two- thirds of the entire distance of the trail, 212 miles, between Missoula and Spokane, lies in Mineral County. By 1920, on the basis of work already done, all the hills will have been eliminated. During 1919 Government gravel trucks were moving gravel to the highway daily.

Mr. Johnston is an orator, able to express him- self clearly and convincingly on subjects with which he is familiar, and in recent years he has been called upon for speeches in fourteen towns between Mis- soula and the Bitter Root range. As a result of meetings which he has addressed he has brought citizens into organization as the Yellowstone Trail Club for the purpose of paying assessments into the Yellowstone Trail Fund and also securing funds to purchase advertising literature, including folder maps, showing the trail, its camping places and ac- commodations between Missoula and Spokane.

Mr. Johnston's home is on his ranch a mile east of Superior along the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. In 1886 he set out an orchard of seventy-five trees on his land. Six of these trees were sent to him wrapped in tin foil and moss by his mother from Courtright, Canada. They are apple trees, and by subsequent grafting they have produced many crops of fine apples. Mr. Johnston also specializes in the ever bearing strawberry and has raised great quantities of this fruit.

He is a republican in politics, a member of the Episcopal Church, and was the first noble grand

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when Welcome Lodge No. 107 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was installed on March 1, 1915. This Lodge now has seventy-two members. Mr. Johnston is a director of the Superior State Bank, and he donated one of the four best corner lots in the city for its building. He has also given other lots for newspaper buildings, for the Red Men's Hall, and the Municipal Cemetery, and for every other public purpose. He has unselfishly de- voted himself to every movement that would up- build and improve the city.

September 30, 1900, at Missoula, Mr. Johnston married Mrs. Mary L. (Cockrell) McCartney, daughter of Thomas and Keziah (Church) Cockrell. Her father was a native of Washington, Indiana, and a brother of the late Francis Cockrell, long a prom- inent United States senator from Missouri. Thomas Cockrell was a Union soldier during the Civil war and for many years a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was a farmer and stockraiser and died at Neal, Kansas, in 1916. Mrs. Johnston's mother is also deceased. Mr. Johnston has one daughter, Grace A., born June 1, 1905. He also has two step-children, Leta, wife of Roy Bascum, a Northern Pacific engineer living at Missoula, and Bernard, who is in the employ of the Forest Re- servation near Superior and lives at home.

WILLIAM FREEMAN SCHOPPE. In one of the most exacting of all callings the subject of this sketch has attained distinction, being recognized as an able and successful member of the faculty of the Mon- tana State College at Bozeman. He is a well edu- cated, symmetrically developed man, his work in his particular field of education having brought him prominently to the notice of the public, the result of which has been a demand for his services where a high standard of professional is required. He is a gentleman of scholarly tastes and studious habits, keeping abreast the times in advanced methods and his general knowledge is broad and comprehensive.

William Freeman Schoppe was born in Coorse County, New Hampshire, on September 14, 1883, and is the son of H. S. and Mary E. (Cushman) Schoppe, who now reside in West Auburn, Maine. H. S. Schoppe was born in 1849 at Beddington, Maine, where he was reared and educated. Shortly after his marriage, which also occurred there he removed to New Hampshire, where he was identified with the lumbering industry until 1886, when he removed to West Auburn, Maine, at about which time he was also in Nicaragua, Central America, handling ma- hogany timber. He has also followed the lumber business in Honduras and Cuba and other places, aside from the states, but is now retired from active work and is living quietly in a comfortable home at West Auburn. He is a republican in his political views, and is a member of the Congregational Church and of the Masonic fraternity. Mr. Schoppe was married to Mary E. Cushman, who was born in 1854 in Maine, and their only child is the subject of this sketch.

William F. Schoppe received his elementary edu- cation in the public schools of West Auburn, Maine, and then attended Hebron Academy, at Hebron, that state, where he was graduated in 1903. He then entered the University of Maine, at Orono, where he was graduated in 1907, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. While in the university he was a mem- ber of the Greek letter fraternities Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Alpha Zeta. Immediately following his graduation Mr. Schoppe was called to the State Ag- ricultural College at Kingston, Rhode Island, as assistant in research work in poultry husbandry, where he was engaged from August, 1907, to June,

1908, when he came to Bozeman, Montana, as fore- man of the poultry department of the Montana State College. He remained here until the fall of 1911, when he returned to his alma mater, the University of Maine, an associate professor of animal hus- bandry, poultry division. During the period while Professor Schoppe occupied this chair he was also doing post-graduate work and for this work received the degree of Master of Science in Biology. In June, 1913, Professor Schoppe returned to the Montana State College as assistant professor in poultry hus- bandry, being so occupied until 1916, when he was advanced to the professorship of poultry husbandry and is still head of this department. He has been remarkably successful, not only in his technical abil- ity as an instructor, but what is of equal importance, in his ability to arouse a general interest in the importance and value of scientific care of poultry.

Politically Professor Schoppe gives his support to the republican party and is a member of the Pres- byterian Church, while his fraternal affiliations are with Bozeman Lodge No. 18, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons. He is a member of the American Poultry Association, the American Association of Investigators and Instructors in Poultry Husbandry, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Breeders' Association.

In 1909, at Belfast, Maine, William F. Schoppe was married to Margaret Dorothy Pilsbury, the daughter of Charles and Blanche A. (Sutherland) Pilsbury. The father, who was formerly a news- paper man at Belfast, Maine, is deceased, and his widow now makes her home with Mr. and Mrs. Schoppe. Mrs. Schoppe is a lady of splendid cul- ture, being a graduate of the University of Maine. To Professor and Mrs. Schoppe have been born two children, namely: William F., Jr., born July 7, 19II, and Robert Pilsbury, born July 27, 1916.

CLYDE ME. LYON. Throughout an active and inter- esting career duty has ever been the motive of ac- tion with Clyde M. Lyon, one of the well-known agriculturists and ranchmen of Southern Montana, and usefulness to his fellow men has by no means been a secondary consideration with him. Thus strong and forceful in his relations with his fel- lows, he has gained the good will and commenda- tion of his associates and the general public, retain- ing his reputation among men of integrity and high character, and never losing the dignity which is the birthright of the true gentleman.

Clyde M. Lyon was born at Williamsburg, Iowa, on October 25, 1882, and is the son of N. W. and Rosa Jeanette (Lewis) Lyon. The father was born in Ohio in 1839, and died at North English, Iowa, in 1910. He was reared and married in his native state, and removed to Williamsburg, Iowa, where he owned and managed a hotel. Subsequently he moved to Sheldon, Iowa, but in 1904 he retired and returned to North English, where he spent his remaining days. He was a republican in politics, an earnest member of the Presbyterian Church, was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows. He was a veteran of the Civil war, having served for three years as quartermaster in the Eight- eenth Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Mrs. Rosa Lyon was born in 1857, in Ohio, and her death occurred at North English, Iowa, in 1911. To these worthy parents were born the following children: Ida May, deceased; Clyde M., whose name heads this sketch; and Vivian Virginia, who resides with her brother, Clyde, and is a graduate of the Billings Commercial School.

Clyde M. Lyon received a good public school edu- cation at Williamsburg, graduating from the high

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school there in 1899. He was then a student in the Iowa Business College at Des Moines, where he graduated in 1901. For a while he was employed in the office of the Des Moines News, and then re- turned to Williamsburg and for 472 years ran the Hotel Victoria, of which his father had formerly been proprietor. At the end of that period Mr. Lyon went to South Dakota and proved up on a homestead of 160 acres in Lyman County, which he 'still owns. Later he located in North English, Iowa, and engaged in the mercantile business there for five years. During the following year he roamed around the great West, getting acquainted with the country and searching for a satisfactory place at which to locate. In 1911 Mr. Lyon came to Wilsall and began ranching. In 1919 he sold his home ranch of 320 acres and in that year also sold three other ranches. He is still the owner of 1,600 acres of land in Park County, and 8,500 acres in Meagher County. He owns a comfortable and modern resi- dence and a store building in Wilsall and is num- bered among the prosperous and well-to-do citizens of this community. He engages extensively in the real estate business, having handled many thousands of acres of the best land in this section of the state and been the means of locating some of our best citizens here. He is also interested in the raising of thoroughbred Hereford cattle, in which he has been eminently successful. Mr. Lyon has abounding faith in the Shields River Valley, a country which is said to enjoy the distinction of winning more prizes for its grains and grasses than any other locality in the West.

Politically Mr. Lyon is independent and his reli- gious affiliation is with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is an earnest supporter. Fra- ternally he belongs to North English (lowa) Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; to Cedar Rap- ids Consistory of the Scotish Rite (thirty-second de- gree), and to Wilsall Lodge No. 103, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 116

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society Number of Pages: 1126

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 1126