Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 13

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 13

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).

The editorial in the Journal of Education closes with the following sentences: "When the Agricul- tural College elected him to a position in the faculty in 1913 the school district voted to make his salary equal to any that the state would pay. The banquet to Mr. and Mrs. Holst with the gifts of a gold watch for him and of a silver service for Mrs. Holst was an event never to be forgotten in the Bitter Root country. More than four hundred were seated at the tables. Professor J. H. Holst not only made Victor famous for Victor, but famous for more first things in progressive education than any other city in the state."

While Professor Holst has been able to broaden the effectiveness of his influence and educational ideals through his present work at Montana State College, he doubtless regards his experience at Victor as one of the most stimulating and happy of his entire career. In 1918 the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him by Montana Uni- versity. Professor Holst owns a farm in the Bitter Root country in Ravalli County, and therefore has a direct personal interest in Montana agriculture.

He and his family reside at the Barracks. He is independent in politics, is a vestryman in the Epis- copal Church, served two years as master of his Masonic lodge at Victor and is a member of Boze- man Lodge No. 18, Ancient Free and Accepted Ma- sons, and is affiliated with the Lily of the Valley Chapter No. 6 of the Eastern Star. He is a member of the National Education Association.

In 1910, at Polson, Montana, he married Miss Laura C. Maynard. Her father, Judge A. D. May- nard, is a large property owner at Polson, where he resides, and is also engaged in the lumber busi- ness at Pablo in Flathead County. Mrs. Holst is a graduate of Montana State Normal College at Dillon and before her marriage was a teacher in the schools at Victor for three years. Mr. and Mrs. Holst have two children, Rachel Edith, born January 31, 1912; and Jane Maynard, born February 11, 1914.

C. C. MILLS is a lawyer by profession, but since coming to Montana has given his chief time and abilities to newspaper work. He is now manager and editor of the Sanders County Ledger at Thomp- son Falls.

Mr. Mills was born .at Redfield, Iowa, September 28, 1872. His paternal ancestors came from Eng- land, and the family lived for many years in the southern states. Grandfather Milton Mills was born in Tennessee in 1816. He became one of the pioneer farmers in the vicinity of Redfield, Iowa. Later he took up merchandising, and he died at Redfield in 1890. His wife was Matilda Locke, also a native of Tennessee. She died at Redfield, Iowa. John H. Mills, father of the Montana editor, was born in Indiana in 1846, and was a small child when his parents moved to the State of Iowa. He was reared and married near Red- field, and for many years was a farmer and later engaged in the newspaper business. He is still living at Redfield and is now connected with the oil inspection department of the state government. He is a veteran Union soldier, having enlisted in 1863, when only seventeen years of age. He was a private in Company H of the Thirty-ninth Iowa Infantry, and served until the close of the war. He participated in the march to the sea under Sherman. He has long been an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic and in 1918 was department commander of the Iowa State Grand Army of the Republic. He is a republican and is affiliated with the Masons and Knights of Pythias. John H. Mills married Sarah A. Duck, who was born in Indiana in 1846. They had four children: R. R., a farmer at Redfield, Iowa; C. C. Mills; Milton L., of Lowerville, Iowa; and R. C., a veter- inarian at Redfield.

C. C. Mills secured his early advantages in the rural schools of Dallas County, Iowa, graduated from the high school at Redfield in 1893, and in 1896 received his Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State College at Ames. He taught a number of terms to defray the expenses of his college education. Mr. Mills prepared for the legal pro- fession in the law school of the University of Wis- consin, where he graduated LL. B. in 1904. For one year he practiced at Westfield, Wisconsin, and for eight or nine years had a law office and pub- lished a newspaper at Scranton, North Dakota. From 1913 to the spring of 1919 Mr. Mills published the Montana Idea at Dodson. After some weeks of travel he located at Thompson Falls, where he is editor and manager of the Sanders County Ledger. The Ledger is one of the oldest papers in western Montana, having been established in 1884. It en- joys a substantial circulation and influence through-

Frederick F. atix, M. D. F.a.c.

HISTORY OF MONTANA

out Sanders and surrounding counties, and is re- publican in politics.

Mr. Mills is himself a republican voter. He is affiliated with Liberty Lodge No. 99, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Dodson, being past senior warden. He is also a member of Helena Con- sistory of the Scottish Rite. In 1896, at Redfield, Iowa, he married Miss Sabra Welker, daughter of A. J. and Anna B. (Park) Welker, now residents of Great Falls, Montana, where her father is a retired farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Mills have three children : Clarence L., born October 20, 1897; Don- ovan, born December 7, 1901; and Sabra Helen, born June 27, 1910. The son Clarence enlisted De- cember 7, 1917, and was sent overseas March 27, 1918. Eleven months of overseas service is credited to the young soldier. He participated in several of the chief offensives in which the American forces had a part, including the St. Mihiel, Argonne and Verdun. He was mustered out in March, 1919.

FREDERICK F. ATTIX, M. D., who is one of the two Fellows of the American College of Surgeons represented in Lewistown, came to this state as surgeon for a mining company, and for the past eighteen years has been busily engaged in the work of his profession at Lewistown, where he founded and has developed one of the finest private hospitals in the Northwest.

Doctor Attix was born at Buffalo Prairie, near De- troit, Minnesota, August 8, 1878, a son of Henry S. and Mary H. (Knowles) Attix. His father was born in Illinois in 1854 and his mother in Michigan in 1858. Doctor Attix is the oldest of six children, four sons and two daughters, all still living. His fa- ther was a farmer until 1890, when he removed to Colorado and engaged in gold and silver mining. He was appointed postmaster at Mentor, Minnesota, in 1886, and in politics has been a sturdy democrat for many years. Both the father and mother are now residents of Oakland, California.

Doctor Attix acquired his early high school educa- tion at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, attended St. John's College at Denver in 1891 and 1892, and took his medical work in the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. He finished his four years' course in 1900. Returning to Denver, he was employed for eight months as company surgeon for the Colorado Southern Railway. In January, 1901, he came by stage coach into the Judith Basin of Montana, and for about eight months served the Gilt Edge Mining Company as its surgeon. In August, 1901, he opened his offices at Lewistown, and has kept his work pretty exclusively confined to general surgery. Dur- ing 1916-17 he built what is known as the Attix Clinic Building, which is in every way representa- tive of the most advanced ideas in hospital con- struction. He has fitted it with every appliance for diagnostic clinical work. There is a large operating room, X-Ray apparatus, electric sterilizing outfit of his own design, and every other facility that can be found in modern hospitals. Doctor Attix is a member of the Fergus County Medical Society, the Silver Bow County Medical Society, the Montana State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He was elected a member of the American College of Surgeons in 1914, and has since been chosen to a Fellowship in that body. Politically he is a republican.

Doctor Attix married, March 24, 1903, Ruth Cre- sap. She was born near Kansas City, Missouri. Mrs. Attix is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They have two daughters, Zelda and Julia.

CLARK W. ALLEN. With no important interrup- tions Clark W. Allen has been engaged in the lumber or grain business ever since he arrived at years of discretion and manhood. His interests and home have been at Big Timber for a number of years, where he is manager of the Thompson Yards, In- corporated.

He was born at Aylmer in the Province of Ontario, Canada, June 21, 1882. His paternal ancestors originally came from Holland and were colonial settlers in New York. Mr. Allen's great- great-grandfather was probably what is described as a United Empire Loyalist, since he removed his family to Canada at the time of the Revolu- tionary war. The grandfather of Mr. Allen was Clark Allen, a native of New York State, but spent most of his life on a farm at Aylmer, Ontario, where he died in 1888. Robert Allen, father of Clark W., was born at Aylmer in 1850, was reared and married and followed farming there for several years, and in 1883 went as a pioneer to Watertown, South Dakota, where he homesteaded a 160 acres and also took a timber claim. He proved and operated his farm until 1903, at which date he retired to Minneapolis, where he died in 1917. He was a republican after coming to the United States, was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Work- men. His wife was Saralı E. Warnock, who was born at Aylmer, Canada, in 1854, and died at Min- neapolis, in 1917. Clark W., is the third of their four children. Ethel L., the oldest, is a teacher in the public schools of Minneapolis. Jessie I., is the wife of George E. Davis, secretary of a grain com- pany at Warren, Minnesota, while Jennie is the wife of John A. Shaw, engineer for a construction company at Fargo, North Dakota.

Clark W. Allen was graduated from the high school at Watertown, South Dakota, in 1900. He has no memories of his birthplace in Ontario, since the family left there when he was about a year old. All his life has been spent in the northwestern country. He had his first experience in the Inm- ber business at Watertown as bookkeeper with the S. H. Bowman Lumber Company, later in 1903, was promoted to mattager of the yard of the same com- pany at Revillo, South Dakota, and was there two years. The following year he interrupted his busi- ness career to improve his educational advantages, attending the University of Minnesota at Minnea- polis. When he resumed his business it was in the general office of the Imperial Elevator Company at Minneapolis for about a year. He then super- vised the establishment of a lumber yard at Plaza, North Dakota, for the Bovey Shute Lumber Com- pany and remained as its manager until 1910.

Mr. Allen on coming to Big Timber in 1910 be- came the manager for the H. M. Allen & Company. Eight years later the local business and other yards were purchased by the Thompson Yards, Inc., and Mr. Allen has continued as manager at the old stand.

He regards himself as a fixture in the citizenship of Big Timber and owns a modern home on Seventh Avenue. He served as city councilman four years and was president of the council throughout that term. He is a republican, a trustee of the Con- gregational Church, and is affiliated with Big Tim- ber Lodge No. 25, Knights of Pythias, Big Timber Camp, Modern Woodmen of America, and Livings- ton Camp, Woodmen of the World.

On October 25, 1910, at Plaza, North Dakota, he married Miss Stella Hagen. Her mother is de- ceased. Her father, S. H. Hagen, is a merchant at Plaza. Mrs. Allen is a graduate of the Northwood

HISTORY OF MONTANA

High School in North Dakota, and for two years was a student in the University of North Dakota. Mr. and Mrs. Allen have three children: Ethelynn, born December 31, 1911; Clark Warnock, born December 30, 1912; and Jerome, born June 5, 1914.

AXEL M. PETERSON, the manager of the Farmers Co-operative Elevator Company at Joliet, is a citi- zen and business man whose career deserves spe- cial consideration. He had many handicaps to over- come, acquired a thorough education though a poor boy, and has realized every successive advancement through the medium of hard work and sound ability.

He was born in Southern Sweden, November 2, 1873. His father was Peter Nelson, who spent all his life in Sweden, served in the Swedish army several years and was a shoemaker by trade. The mother was Ingred Johanson, who was born in Southern Sweden in 1842. About 1890, after the death of her husband, she came to the United States and located at Osage, Iowa, where she lived until her death in 1907. Her two children were Ingred and Axel. Ingred lives at Osage, Iowa, widow of Alfred Swanson, who was a blacksmith in that town.

Axel M. Peterson attended the Lutheran paro- chial schools in Sweden until he was confirmed at the age of thirteen. Then, in 1887, he accompanied his sister to the United States and for several win- ters attended school at Osage, Iowa. Every sum- mer he worked in the fields for neighboring farmers, and his ambition to secure a good education led him to deny himself many normal pleasures and he worked to the limit of his strength. He attended the Cedar Valley Seminary and finished his junior year, and his subsequent education has been well rounded out by reading and observation. As a young man he worked in a nursery at Osage, also clerked in a clothing store, and in 1902 came out to Mon- tana and took up a homestead of 160 acres at Ab- sarokee in Stillwater County. He commuted his homestead rights by the payment of a $1.25 an acre and lived there two years. He was then back in Iowa for two years working in a clothing store, and then resumed his place on his homestead in Absarokee for two years. Having sold his farm he rented a ranch on Red Lodge Creek in Carbon County for two years, and in the spring of 1913 moved to the Joilet community and bought a 160- acre ranch. To that property he gave five years of close and uninterrupted management, selling out in 1918, and in that year moving into the town of Joilet, where he became the well qualified manager of the Farmers' Cooperative Elevator Company. He is also secretary and treasurer and a director of this cor- poration.

Mr. Peterson is a republican, member and deacon of the Christian Church, is affiliated with Carbon Lodge No. 65, Ancient Free and Accepted Ma- sons, being worshipful master of the lodge, and has taken the degrees in the Billings Consistory of the Scottish Rite.

He married at Carpenter, Iowa, in 1901, Miss Ella Eddy, daughter of Thomas and Louise (Allanson) Eddy. Her father was a farmer in Iowa and in 1900 came to Carbon County, Montana. Both her parents are deceased. Mrs. Peterson is president of the Board of Education at Joliet. They have two young sons, Arnold K., born August 10, 1902, and Stanley H., born July 25, 1904.

EDWARD O'BRIEN. The life of a successful man is always an interesting study, and all the more so when results have been won by personal effort in the face of difficulties. Attention may thus be

called to Edward O'Brien, who is superintendent of the smelter department at Anaconda for the great A. C. M. Company, a position of vast responsibility only properly comprehended by those who under- stand the potent forces in constant operation in the mighty furnaces connected with this modern industry.

Edward O'Brien was born in County Limerick, Ireland, May 7, 1867, and is a son of Daniel and Ellen (Redfern) O'Brien, both of whom were born in County Limerick, the father in 1824 and the mother in 1839. Daniel O'Brien came with his fam- ily to the United States in 1865 and was one of the pioneer settlers in Walworth County, Wisconsin. He acquired and improved a farm there, and lived usefully and peacefully until his death, which oc- cured at Geneva Lake, in Walworth County, in 1884. He was married to Ellen Redfern in Ireland, and their three children were born there, namely: William, who died in the City of Chicago in 1917, was a foreman in railroad shops at Cleveland, Ohio, for many years; Thomas, who is a cement con- tractor at Anaconda, Montana; and Edward, who is one of Anaconda's prominent and substantial citizens aside from his connection with the A. C. M. Company. Both parents were faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Edward O'Brien attended the country schools near his father's farm in Walworth County as op- portunity offered, but in early youth found farm tasks somewhat distasteful and determined to event- ually seek employment for his energies in a direc- tion that was more congenial. Starting out for himself practically without capital, he went to Chi- cago, Illinois, easily made friends there and secured employment that occupied him for two years. In 1884, on his way westward, he reached Pueblo, Colorado, and spent one year working there. In 1885 he came to Anaconda, and was immediately given employment as furnaceman's helper with the A. C. M. Company, and has been identified with this great business enterprise ever since. It has been a characteristic of Mr. O'Brien that he has never stood still, and the humble helper soon became shift boss, then was promoted to be foreman, and sub- sequently was made superintendent of the entire smelter department. The offices where he transacts business are in the Smelter Building, at the Washoe Reduction Works, two miles east of Anaconda.

Not only in business life has Mr. O'Brien been successful because of fidelity and dependability, but his sterling character has been so universally recognized at Anaconda that his fellow citizens have twice elected him mayor of the city and have profited under his firm, judicious administration.

At Helena, Montana, in 1904, Mr. O'Brien was united in marriage to Miss Mary O'Neil, whose parents, John and Mary O'Neil, are deceased. John O'Neil came to Butte, Montana, in 1881 and worked in a smelter there, but later moved to Anaconda and operated a boarding house. Mrs. O'Brien was educated in a college in Canada. Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien are members of the Roman Catholic Church. He belongs to Anaconda Council No. 882, and is a third degree Knight of Columbus, is a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters, and belongs also to the Anaconda Club. Like his father before him, Mr. O'Brien has always been a strong supporter of the principles of the democratic party. He owns a valuable piece of real estate here, his hand- some, modern residence that stands on Maple Street, Anaconda.

GRIFFITH ALEXANDER WILLIAMS was busily en- gaged as a teacher and school superintendent for

Harry S. Wilson

HISTORY OF MONTANA

several years before coming to Montana, but left the teaching profession to engage in journalism. He is now publisher of two newspapers in Sanders County, and is one of the most widely known resi- dents of Plains.

Mr. Williams was born at Kirkland in Cumber- land County, England, May 22, 1882. His branch of the Williams family has lived in Wales for many generations, and through his mother is of old Eng- lish stock. Grandfather Griffith Williams was born in 1817 and died in 1910, having spent all his life as a farmer in Carnarvonshire, Wales. Hugh Wil- liams, father of the Montana newspaper man, was born in Carnarvonshire, Wales, May 28, 1849, and is still living at the age of seventy-one, a resident of Cleator Moor in Cumberland County, England. At the age of twenty-one he left his native district in Wales and moved to Kirkland, England, where he was married and where he worked in the iron ore mines. In 1891 he transferred his residence to Cleator Moor, where he was engaged in the in- surance business and mining until he retired. For many years he was a lay preacher of the Methodist Church. He is a Liberal in politics. His wife was Sarah Twiname, who was born in Cumberland County, England, in 1862. Griffith A. is the oldest of their children. Margaret Jane is the wife of Arthur Hunt, who for four years was a British sol- dier in the World war, and is now a warden in the Wormwood Scrubbs Prison at London, England. Gaunor is the wife of Richard Hughes, also a warden in the Wormwood Scrubbs Prison. Agnes Mary is the wife of H. S. Armitage, a rancher at Briston, Montana. Sarah Elizabeth, unmarried, lives at Lancashire, England, and took an active part in war work. Elsie May is married and lives at Lan- cashire, while the youngest children, still at home, are Winifred, Arthur, Arnold and Robert.

Griffith Alexander Williams was educated in the public schools of Cleator Moor, graduating from high school in 1900. He then served as an ap- prentice school teacher in Cumberland County and later as assistant principal in Derbyshire until 1905. Mr. Williams came to Butte, Montana, in October, 1905, and for a short time was a teacher in the high school department of the Butte Business Col- lege, for one year was principal of schools at Ennis and one year superintendent of schools at Wisdom, Montana. He first entered the newspaper business associated with John N. Armstrong, proprietor of the Big Hole Breezes. He bought out the paper after Mr. Armstrong's death and continued to edit it until 1915. He next became publisher and editor of the Dixon Herald in Sanders County, and still directs the policy and management of the Herald, which was established in IgII. It is inde- pendent in politics. In February, 1918, Mr. Wil- liams bought the Plainsman at Plains from Guy Stratton. This is one of the older newspapers in what is now Sanders County, having been estab- lished in 1899. The Plainsman is also conducted independently as to political affiliation, and is the official paper of Sanders County at the time this is written. The plant and offices are opposite the Northern Pacific Depot, and there is a modern equipment operated by electric power for handling all the work of a standard newspaper. Mr. Wil- liams' papers circulate and have a large influence over Sanders and surrounding counties.

Personally Mr. Williams is a republican and was chairman of the Republican County Central Commit- tee of Sanders County in 1916. He served as a member of the school board at Dixon and is affili- ated with Wisdom Lodge No. 61, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is a past grand of Golden Vol. II-4

Link Lodge No. 27, Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, also at Wisdom.

In 1913, at Wisdom, he married Charlotte A. Wold, daughter of P. M. and Marion Wold, resi- dents of Minneapolis. Her father is a retired mer- chant tailor. Mrs. Williams is a graduate of the Minneapolis High School and is a thoroughly well qualified musician, especially instrumental. She was a teacher of music at both Wisdom and Dixon, Mon- tana. Mr. and Mrs. Williams have three children : Marion Elizabeth, born October 19, 1914; Agnes Adelma, born June 20, 1916; and Griffith Hugh, born December 1, 1918.

HARRY L. WILSON, who came to Billings in 1901, is a prominent lawyer, member of the firm Nichols & Wilson, and is also widely known all over the State of Montana, having been the republican can- didate for governor in 1912.

His father, Frank J. Wilson, was a resident of Miles City, Montana, for a number of years. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1853, son of E. C. Wilson, also a native of Pennsylvania. E. C. Wilson spent his life in Pennsylvania but died in Nebraska in 1909. Frank J. Wilson when a young man moved to Lanark, Illinois, and married there Miss Cordelia Miller. She was born in Illinois in 1857 and died at Covina, California, January 18, 1917. Frank J. Wilson for a time was in the paint and oil business at Lanark, Illinois, was also a teacher, spent five years as a farmer in Tama County, Iowa, another five years as a farmer in Jewell County, Kansas, and in 1893 moved to Miles City, Montana, where he was a painting contractor. From 1901 he was engaged in the ice business. His death, which occurred October 27, 1903, was the result of an accident when his team ran away. He was a democrat, a member of the City Council, and for many years was affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He was favorably re- garded at Miles City, and among other tributes the Yellowstone Journal published an article, one para- graph of which deserves repetition: "Miles City has lost from its citizenship in its brief existence men who have, from one cause or another, been better or more widely known, but never one of greater intrinsic worth as a citizen and a man. He came to us years ago quietly and unostentatiously, and thus he grew into our life until something over three years ago the people of his ward chose him unanimously as their representative in the City Council, and after two years' service he was again unanimously chosen to succeed himself, and had he lived his term of service would only have been ended by his peremptory refusal to accept re- election. In his private business his affairs steadily grew better from the start of some ten years ago, and the full measure of his prosperity was enjoyed by his family, whose sustaining prop is now so rudely plucked away."

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.

Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 13

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