Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 122

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 122

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After the war Colonel Malone engaged in railroad contracting in Illinois, also became interested in lead mining in Kansas and near. Joplin, Missouri, and in 1878-79 was in the gold and silver fields of Leadville, Colorado. From there he returned to Indiana and engaged in the livestock commission business at Indianapolis, subsequently taking up his

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duties with the railroad as above noted. For a num- ber of years he was extensively engaged in the sheep business in Montana.

Colonel Malone has always distinguished himself by real patriotism, and as an old soldier of the Civil war he volunteered his services to the Government at the beginning of the Spanish-American war. He has been an active figure in the republican party for over half a century. While living in Illinois he was a state commissioner during the erection of the State Insane Asylum at Anna, Illinois, and the State Normal School at Carbondale. He was a presi- dential elector from Montana in 1892 and was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1908. He is a member of the military order of the Loyal Legion, and is a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Mason, a member of the Mystic Shrine at Helena, and Miles City Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

March 8, 1860, Colonel Malone married Miss Eliz- abeth Casey. She was born in Shelby County, Illinois, a daughter of Levi and Sarah Casey. Her father was the first white child born in Bond County, Illinois, and spent the greater part of his life as an Illinois farmer. Mrs. Malone was with her hus- band during the greater part of the war and spent her time nursing sick and wounded soldiers. March 8, 1910, Colonel and Mrs. Malone celebrated their golden wedding with a public reception at Miles City.

THORKEL A. VEBLEN is a Big Timber .business man, member of the incorporated firm of Veblen Brothers, hardware merchants, and has also be- come extensively interested in the ranching industry in southern Montana.

Mr. Veblen, who was born in Iowa City, Iowa, December 9, 1889, is a member of a prominent scholarly family, his father and one of his brothers being distinguished American educators.

His father, Andrew Anderson Veblen, was born in Ozankee County, Wisconsin, September 24, 1848, and is now living retired at East San Diego, Cali- fornia. His parents were Thomas Anderson and Kari (Bunde) Veblen. They were born in Valdris, Norway. Thomas was a pioneer farmer in Wis- consin and Minnesota. He died at Nerstrand in the latter state. Andrew Anderson Veblen was gradnated A. B. from Carleton College in North- field, Minnesota, in 1877, received the Master of Arts degree from the same institution in 1880, and was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Univer- sity at Baltimore in 1881-83. He was professor of English and other branches at Luther College, De- corah, Iowa, from 1877 to 1881, was instructor and assistant professor of mathematics from 1883 to 1886, and assistant professor and professor of physics from 1886 to 1905 in the State University of Iowa at Iowa City. On retiring from educational work in 1905 he moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, where he lived on a farm and also edited Samband, a magazine devoted to the Valdris people in the United States. In 1912 he moved to Minneapolis and in 1917 moved to California. He was the chief organizer in 1901 and has since been president of the Valdris Samband, a society composed of natives of Valdris, Norway, and their descendants. July 11, 1877. he mar- ried Kirsti Hongen, of Goodhue County, Minnesota, who was born in Hallingdal, Norway, and died at Stillwater, Minnesota, in September, 1908. In 1912 Professor Veblen married Mrs. Elizabeth A. Ring- stad. He is father of eight children. Oswald, the oldest, born in 1880, has scholastic degrees from the University of Iowa. Harvard University and the University of Chicago, was teacher of mathe-

matics in the University of Chicago, and since 1910 has been professor of mathematics in Princeton University. He served in the ordnance department of the United States Army during the war, and was discharged with the rank of major in 1919. Agnes, the second child, has helped her brothers in the hardware business at Big Timber. Gertrude is librarian of the Engineering Library of the Uni- versity of Minnesota. Signy is the wife of Henry G. Walker, an attorney at Iowa City. Harold is the other partner in Veblen Brothers at Big Tim- ber. Thorkel is the sixth in age. Hilda is the wife of Ralph Sims, a resident of Chicago, who served in the camouflage department with the United States Army. Elling, the youngest, is manager of the Stillwater Hardware Company at Reed Point, Montana. He enlisted in 1917, and served in the Aviation Corps with the rank of second lieutenant.

Thorkel A. Veblen, who was born December 9, 1889, graduated from the Stillwater High School in 1909, and at once engaged in the hardware busi- ness. He spent five years with the Hackett, Gates, Hurty Company at St. Paul, after which he was in the retail hardware business at Valley City, North Dakota, until he came to Big Timber in 1917. He and his brother, equal partners, bought from H. J. Koozer the pioneer hardware store of Big Tim- ber originally established by Harvey Bliss. Mr. Veblen also owns about twenty-five hundred acres of ranch lands in Musselshell and Yellowstone connties. He has a modern home at Big Timber, is a democrat, a member of the Lutheran Church, and is affiliated with Big Timber Lodge of Masons, and Valley City Lodge, Knights of Pythias, in North Dakota. He enlisted in 1918, and served in the United States Marine Corps.

In 1910, at Stillwater, Minnesota, he married Miss Anna Malloy, daughter of Robert and Nellie Malloy. Her father was a lumberman and is now deceased. Her mother resides in Stillwater. Mr. and Mrs. Veblen have two children: Robert, born August 19, 1912; and Andrew, born May 27, 1914.

'B. A. LEONARD. Throughout the country pro- gressive educationalists are demanding of our pub- lic schools a wider and deeper service. Intelligent public opinion is dissatisfied with anything but the best methods of popular education, and many grave phenomena of our political, economic and social life have to be considered in the schoolroom. We are realizing more intelligently and keenly that not only is education the foundation of our national hope and the life blood of our progress, but also that the purely literary education of the American tra- ditional method is too narrow to meet the needs of this generation. Vocational education and citi- zenship training must be developed in the public schools. Besides these broad considerations are new problems of health regulations and the care of backward children, the problem of vacation and continuation schools, the development of schools as civic and social centers, physical and pedagogical and social problems of the most practical kind. With such a sitnation before the people of America the responsibility of selecting the proper educators be- comes heavier with each year, and to the credit of those entrusted with the matter be it said that never before in the history of the public schools have there been so many men and women of rare character and scholarly attainments in the profes- sion, whose broad-minded and alert actions and quickness of appreciation of the needs of their pupils mark them as forceful factors in their field.

One of these educators who belong to the above mentioned class is B. A. Leonard, principal of the

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Granite County High School, who is an educator in the highest sense, a teacher of principles, a leader of the spirit as well as of the mind-creating an atmosphere of high ideals and self-respect among all classes, so that his occupancy of his position is a matter for civic pride and recognition. Mr. Leonard was born at Wallingford, Vermont, April 22, 1888, a son of Byron H. Leonard, and grandson of Nathan Leonard, born in Vermont in 1832, and who died in that same state in 1912, having been engaged in farming during all of his active years. He married Emily Johnson, who died at Hartford, New York. The Leonards came to the American colonies from England in 1638, locating in Massachusetts, and one of that name was the first foundryman in the New World.

Byron H. Leonard was born in Vermont in 1859, and after his marriage at Danby, Vermont, he moved to Wallingford, Vermont, where he still resides, being a carpenter by trade, and a contractor and builder by occupation. Since casting his first vote he has been a republican. The Congregational Church holds his membership. Byron H. Leonard married Elizabeth Quintal, born in Massachusetts in 1870, who died at Wallingford, Vermont, in 1915, and their only child was Professor Leonard.

After being graduated from the Wallingford .High School, B. A. Leonard became a student of the Vermont Academy at Saxon's River, from which he was graduated in 1909. He then entered Middle- burg College at Middleburg, Vermont, and after taking the regular course was graduated therefrom in 1913, with the degree of Bachelor of Science, and as a member of the Greek letter college fra- ternity Kappa Delta Rho.

Following his graduation in 1913 Professor Leonard came west to Chehalis, Washington, and was instructor in science and athletics in the Che- halis High School for two years, and then for three years taught the same branches in the Aber- deen, Washington, High School. For the subse- quent year he was principal of the Sand Point, Idaho, High School, and then in June, 1919, came to Philipsburg to assume the duties pertaining to the principalship of the Granite County High School. He has eight teachers and 106 pupils under his super- vision. Politically he is a republican. The Bap- tist Church furnishes him a medium for the ex- pression of his religious beliefs.

In 1913 Professor Leonard was married at Wallingford, Vermont, to Miss Elizabeth Smith, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Smith, of Clinton, Massachusetts, the former of whom is now de- ceased. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard have two children, namely: Gladys Delta, who was born October 8, 1914; and Elizabeth Vera, who was born April 22, 1917.

There is no more urgent problem before the country today than that of educational develop- ment, and no man of his profession is more keenly aware of this than Professor Leonard. He brings to his work not only a trained intellect and broad experience, but a love of his calling, an apprecia- tion of the rights of his pupils and a winning per- sonality which enables him to gain the confidence and affection of his pupils and stimulate them to put forth their best efforts.

MICHAEL J. O'CONNELL is proprietor and presi- dent of the Gallatin Laundry Company at Bozeman. He first saw the district comprising Bozeman when a boy of four years, and has had experience as a cowbov and in other lines, but for over twenty years has been a laundryman. He has been the means of making the Gallatin Laundry Company the

largest enterprise of its kind in volume of business and excellence in mechanical equipment and service in Southern Montana.

Mr. O'Connell was born at Boston, Massachusetts, November 23, 1874. His father, John O'Connell, was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1842, and in 1870 came to America and settled at Boston, where he married and where for several years he worked as a teamster. In 1878 he arrived in Yellowstone County on the site of the present City of Billings, homesteading a claim, and when he reached there only six other white families were in the valley. In the spring of 1870 he moved to Bozeman and continued as a farmer, rancher and stock man until his death in 1884. He was a democrat and a Catholic. John O'Connell married Catherine Lyon, who was born in County Cork in 1850 and is still living at Bozeman. She is the mother of four children : James, a farmer and manager of the Washoe Shoe Store at Belt, Montana; Michael J .; John, a railroad man who died at Dillon, Montana, in May, 1911; and Minnie, wife of H. J. Nelson, of Bozeman, Mr. Nelson being a railroad man of long experience, but is at present auditor for the Copeland Lumber Company.

Michael J. O'Connell received his early education in the public schools of Bozeman, leaving school at the age of fifteen. Later he took a business course through the International Correspondence School at Scranton, Pennsylvania. For six years he was in the employ of various cattle outfits as a cowboy and range rider. For 21/2 years he was a messenger with the Northern Pacific Express Company, and then for three years engaged in the wood, coal and drayage business at Bozeman.

The Bozeman Steam Laundry was established in 1898. Mr. O'Connell drove one of its first wagons for the collection and delivery of laundry and was a wagon driver two years. He then acquired an eighth interest in the plant but a year later made it a quarter interest. In 1905 he and John Hagen bought out the business and in 1908 Mr. O'Connell sold his interest to his partner and gave his un- divided time to his candidacy for the office of sheriff. He was not successful in the election and in the spring of 1909 he again acquired the laundry plant, his financial backer and partner being T. B. Story, whose interests he has since acquired. The Gallatin Laundry Company was incorporated in 1911, and Mr. O'Connell is president and proprietor. his wife, Mrs. O'Connell, being vice president, and Justin Smith, secretary and treasurer. The laundry plant was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1918 and it has been replaced by a modern building and plant with every mechanical appliance and facility for prompt and high class work. The plant is at the corner of Babcock Street and Bozeman Avenne, on a site formerly occupied by the old Ed Fridley stage barn, one of the interesting historic landmarks of Gallatin County. The Gallatin Laundry's services are by no means confined to Bozeman. It supplies a territory to Whitehall on the west, to White Sul- phur Springs on the north and Columbus on the east, the business service, therefore, covering Gallatin, Sweetgrass, Park, Broadwater, Madison, Jefferson and Meagher counties.

Mr. O'Connell takes an active part in public affairs at Bozeman. For the past four years he has been a member of the City Council, and is presi- dent of the council. He has charge of the Bozeman City Waterworks and in 1908 was chief of the fire department. He is a democrat in politics, a member of the Catholic Church, is a third degree Knight ot Columbus, being affiliated with Council No. 1413, and is a member of Bozeman Lodge No. 463, Benev-

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olent and Protective Order of Elks. He is active in the Chamber of Commerce and is president of its Employers Association.

Mr. O'Connell and family reside at 22 West Story Street, where he owns a modern home. He married at Bozeman in November, 1898, Miss Ada Hagan, daughter of Joseph and Mary F. (Kopp) Hagan. Her father was a brewer and died at Astoria, Oregon, while her mother died at Missoula, Montana, in May, 1918. Mr. and Mrs. O'Connell have four children : Clarence, born September 6, 1902, a grad- uate of the Gallatin County High School, and a student for two years in the high school at Seattle, Washington, now employed in his father's laundry; Kathryn born August 13, 1904, a sophomore in the Gallatin County High School; Martin, born August 21, 1907, and Emmett, born March 4, 1910, both students in the public schools at Bozeman.

EDWARD A. CRALLE. An enumeration of the offi- cials of Deer Lodge County shows that some of the most substantial men of the state have been clected to office in this region, and their records are of such a character as to merit preservation in a work of this high class. One of the men representative of the best class of residents of Ana- conda is Edward A. Cralle, county surveyor, who aside from his work in the office has been largely instrumental in developing this section, and is de- serving of all the confidence reposed in him by his fellow citizens. He was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia, now included in West Virginia, June 4, 1854, a son of Richard K. Cralle, and a member of one of the old American faimlies, representatives of the Cralles having come to this country during its colonial epoch from France and located in Vir- ginia. On his mother's side of the house Edward A. Cralle comes of English stock, and this family also dates back to pre-Revolutionary times. One of Mr. Cralle's ancestors, Robert Morris, was a ' signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Richard K. Cralle was born in Lunenburg County, Virginia, in 1799, and died at East Virginia in 1865, having been reared in Lunenburg County. During the time that John C. Calhoun was in Washington, Mr. Cralle was his secretary, and continued his life- long friend. It was his pleasure to write the biography of Mr. Calhoun, and its many volumes have come down to posterity as an evidence of one man's appreciation of another, and as a document of literary style. Mr. Cralle owned property in Green- brier County, and lived there from the early '40s until the outbreak of the Civil war. He also owned property at Lynchburg, Virginia, including what was called Cralle's Castle, which still stands and is used for college purposes. Politically he was a whig, and his fraternal connections were with the Masonic order. Richard K. Cralle was married to Judith Cabell, born at Lynchburg, Virginia, and they had two children, namely: Mary, who died in 1894; and Kenna, who was employed in the customs de- partment at Washington, District of Columbia. After the death of his first wife Richard K. Cralle was married to Elizabeth Morris, born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1817, who died in Boulder, Jef- ferson County, Montana, in 1896. Their children were as follows : Alice, who married Rev. Thomas Ward, a Presbyterian clergyman, is deceased, as is her husband; Richard M., who was a surveyor, came to Montana in 1881 as a civil engineer in the employe of the Northern Pacific Railroad, died at Boulder, Montana, in September, 1918; Floride, who married John McKay, a contractor and general busi- ness man, now deceased, resides at Minneapolis, Min- nesota ; Louise, who married Frank Showers, former

district judge of Jefferson County, is now engaged in mining in Madison County, Montana ; Betty Eliza- beth, who married William G. Williamson, a civil engineer, now deceased, lives at Richmond, Vir- ginia ; Edward A., whose name heads this review; and Charles K., who is an attorney living in Omaha, Nebraska.

Edward A. Cralle was educated in the private school conducted in Hanover County, Virginia, by his uncle, Charles Morris, remaining there until seventeen years of age, when he entered the em- ploy of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, which runs through West Virginia, and was later employed in laying out the city of Huntington, West Vir- ginia, during 1871 and 1872, doing the surveying for that work. Following the completion of that con- tract Mr. Cralle went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was there engaged in the governmental survey of the Tennessee River until 1880, for four years of that period being engaged on the Mussell Shoals Canal. In 1880 he came west to Omaha, Nebraska, and for a brief period was occupied in survey work for the Short Line Railroad in Idaho, but in the winter of 1881 returned to Omaha. After being in the office of the Missouri Pacific Railroad for a time he was engaged in making surveys to Lincoln and other points in Nebraska and in Government work on the Missouri River. In the fall of 1882 Mr. Cralle went with the Northern Pacific Railroad to Montana, and made surveys for it as far as Billings, continuing with the road until 1885, when he went into the United States survey office at Helena, Mon- tana, for a few months. Once more he engaged with the Northern Pacific Railroad, and was connected with it until 1888. In the meanwhile his work had brought him in 1887 to Philipsburg, Montana, where he resided from 1888 to 1907, and was engaged in a general mining and civil engineering business. In the latter year he came to Anaconda, continuing here in the same line of business. He is a demo- crat, and was elected county surveyor of Granite County, Montana, several times, and was elected county surveyor of Deer Lodge County in 1910, and has since held that position. During 1907 and 1908 he was city engineer of Anaconda. For many years he has been a member of the Episcopal Church. He resides at No. 319 East Front Street, Anaconda. Mr. Cralle is not married. A man experienced in his profession, Mr. Cralle naturally commands con- fidence, and his business has assumed large pro- portions, and extends over a wide area.

JAMES R. Goss is one of the oldest members of the village bar, a Montana lawyer whose participa- tion in his profession and in civic affairs covers a period of nearly forty years.

He was born near New York City April 17, 1848, but grew up in Lorain County, Ohio, where he was primarily educated. He attended Oberlin College and began the study of law in 1873. He graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan in 1876, and for five years practiced in Jackson County, Michigan. In 1881 he removed to Bismarck in Dakota Territory, and in 1882 came to Montana Territory, locating at Billings. As a lawyer he has been faithful to the most exalted ideals of the profession, and his name and reputation are matters of wide appreciation over the entire state. He is a former county attorney and probate judge of Yellowstone County, and was the first president of the Yellowstone Bar Association. In 1911 he served as president of the Eastern Montana Pioneer Association. Membership in that association was restricted to residents of Montana prior to 1884.

Judge Goss has been the man looked to for leader-

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ship in many important movements at Billings. He was a leader in the establishment and upbuilding of the Billings Polytechnic Institute, and has been a member of the board of directors of that institution from the beginning. He also served as president of the school board and a member of the building committee, and was one of the first trustees of the Parmly Billings Memorial Library, which was erected in 1901. Judge Goss has taken an active and influential part in many republican campaigns in his home county and state. He is a veteran of the Masonic fraternity. Judge Goss married in Michi- gan Miss Florence E. Lord, a native of that state. They have one child, Marion, who is a graduate of Oberlin College.

JOHN F. PRESTON was born at Higginsville, Mis- souri, on February 26, 1883, and is the son of William Wallace and Virginia (Fulkerson) Preston. The Prestons were established in this country in an early day, the family having been identified with the history of the Virginia colony during the days prior to American independence. The subject's grand- father, John Preston, was a native of Kentucky, where he was reared. Later he moved to Missouri, and at Dover, that state, he became a farmer, being numbered among the pioneers of that locality. His death occurred there sometime prior to the birth of John F. Preston. William Wallace Preston was born in 1836 at Booneville, Missouri, and died at Higginsville, Missouri, in 1892. He was reared at Dover, that state, and spent practically his entire life in that vicinity, his last years being spent at Higginsville. He was for many years a dealer in hardware, and stood high in the esteem of his fellow citizens. He was a democrat in his political views, was a member of the Baptist Church and of the Masonic fraternity. During the Civil war he was a soldier on the side of the Confederacy and was present at the surrender of Vicksburg.

William W. Preston was married to Virginia Ful- kerson, who was born in 1854 in Virginia, now West Virginia, and to them have been born the following children: Lourana, who is the wife of C. R. Benton, of Kansas City, Missouri, where he is passenger agent for the Chicago & Alton Rail- road; William F. is in the insurance, loan and real estate business at Great Falls, Montana; John F. . is the immediate subject of this review; Philip is a farmer near Glasgow, Montana; Kittie died at the age of two years.

John F. Preston was educated in the public schools of Higginsville, Missouri, where he was graduated . from the high school in 1901. His first employment was on farms in that vicinity, and for about a year he was employed in the postoffice at Higginsville. He then entered the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he studied for five years. He first pursued a general college course, and then two years in forestry, which science he had decided to make his life work. He was graduated in 1907, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1915 he received from his alma mater the degree of Master of Science in Forestry. While in college he became a member of the honorary scientific research Greek letter society Sigma Psi. In 1907, immediately after the completion of his studies, Mr. Preston en- tered the Forestry Service of the United States Gov- ernment, in the capacity of forest assistant. He was first sent to the Pacific Coast, where, in the Cascade Mountains in the state of Washington, he spent two months in the study of red cedars. From there he was sent to Neihart, Montana, where as administrator of timber sales he remained until the spring of 1908, being sent from there to Newport,

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 122

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