Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 139

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 139

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).

Garfield B. Perier .attended the public schools of Butte, finishing his sophomore year in the high school, and in 1900 graduated from the high school of Berkeley, California. He immediately returned to Butte, had a brief experience in newspaper work, and then for a time studied mining engineering. .Eventually he got into the telephone business, and from January, 1901, until the winter of 1904 was chief clerk and assistant manager of the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company. He was then made traveling auditor of the company, and covered the Montana, Idaho and Utah division until 1907. He resigned from the telephone company to become secretary and treasurer of the Montana Electric Company, now one of the leading houses of its kind in the Northwest. His offices are in the Montana Electric Company's Building at 50 East Broadway.

Mr. Perier is also vice president and director of the Montana Mattress and Furniture Company of Butte, is secretary, treasurer and director of the Union Electric Company of Dillon, and secretary, treasurer and director of the Washington Electric Supply Company of Spokane.

Mr. Perier is one of Montana's most prominent Masons. For the past thirteen years he has been secretary of Butte Consistory No. 2 of the Scottish Rite and on February 7, 1920, the thirty-third degree, Inspector General Honorary, in that rite was con- ferred upon him. He was secretary in 1904-05 of Silverbow Lodge No. 48, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, is a member of Deer Lodge Chapter No. 3, Royal Arch Masons, was recorder in 1904-05 of Montana Commandery No. 3, Knights Templars, and is a member of Bagdad Temple of the Mystic Shrine.

Mr. Perier and family reside in a modern home at 804 Diamond Street. He married at Helena, June 18, 1909, Mae Hildahl, who was born October 31, 1882, at Austin, Minnesota, the eldest daughter of George S. and Amelia Petters Hildahl.

MRS. NELLIE (BRIGHT) SMALL, county superin- tendent of schools at Butte, is a veteran educator and during the life of her husband came to Mon- tana and has been prominently identified with many educational, civic and other organizations, especially those in which the interest and advancement of women are concerned.

Mrs. Small was born in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, July 24, 1871, and the following year her parents moved to Marquette County, Michigan. She was educated in the public schools of Michigamme in that county, graduating from high school in 1887. The following two years she taught at Humboldt and Michigamme, and then entered the Big Rapids Training School, or, as it is better known, the Fer- ris Institute at Big Rapids, Michigan, then, as now, under the direction of W. N. Ferris, who is not only a prominent educator, but served two terms as governor of Michigan. Mrs. Small was gradu- . ated from the Ferris Institute in 1891, and the fol- lowing eight years continued her work as a teacher in Marquette County.

August 16, 1899, at Ishpeming, Michigan, she became

494

HISTORY OF MONTANA

the wife of Mr. P. F. Small. Mr. Small, a native of the Province of Quebec, Canada, spent his early life in Michigan, where he received his education, and for several years was city clerk and recorder of Ish- peming. In August, 1906, Mr. and Mrs. Small re- moved to Butte, where he was in the service of the Hennessy Mercantile Company as a stationary en- gineer. He died May 24, 1913. He was prominent in democratic politics, serving as a member of the County Central Committee of Marquette County, Michigan, fourteen years. He was a Catholic, and was affiliated with the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Locomotive Firemen's Order.

Mrs. Small has a family of four interesting chil- dren : Francis, the oldest, born May 22, 1900, is a senior in the Central High School; Catherine, born November 10, 1901, graduated from the Butte High School in 1919, and is now in her first year at the . Montana State University at Missoula ; Helen, born January 21, 1904, is a sophomore in the Butte High School, while Margaret, born July 8, 1910, is in the fifth grade of the Emerson School.

Mrs. Small, soon after the death of her husband in 1913, in order to provide for her children's con- tinued education, resumed teaching, and for several years was in the Emerson School at Butte. She was elected county superintendent of schools of Silver Bow County in November, 1918, on the democratic ticket, for a term of two years. Her responsibilities now include the supervision of twen- ty-two schools in the county and a staff of twenty- two teachers.

Mrs. Small is a member of St. John the Evan- gelist Church at Butte. Besides her official work, her numerous interests are indicated by her mem- bership in the Desierie Branch of the L. C. B. A., as financial secretary of the W. C. O. F., as member of the Marion White Arts and Crafts Club, the Emerson Parent-Teachers Circle, Friends of Irish Freedom, Woman's Relief Corps, Ladies of the Grand Army, Ladies Auxiliary A. O. H., the Na- tional Education Association, the National Admin- trative Council of Women, the Montana State Teachers Association, the Administrative Council of Women of Montana and is also treasurer of the Sil- ver Bow County Teachers Association. Mrs. Small owns a modern home at 1924 Garrison Avenue.

Her father was Matthew Bright and her grand- father also bore the name of Matthew. Her grand- father was born at Grampian Hills, England, and was directly related to the great statesman and economist John Bright. Matthew Bright, Sr., brought his family to America and became a pioneer in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, where he was a farmer and liveryman. He died at Shullsburg in 1848, the same year that Wisconsin was admitted to the Union. His wife was Catherine Richardson, a native of Scotland, who died at Shullsburg in 1883. Matthew Bright, Jr., who was born at Shullsburg in 1848, the same year his father died, grew up there on a farm and in 1872 moved to Michigamme, where he followed the trades of carpenter and builder until his death on March 21, 1881, when his daughter Mrs. Small was only ten years of age. In 1864, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the 46th Wis- consin Infantry, in Company G, and was a Union soldier until the close of the war.' Afterward he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and was affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Matthew Bright married Delia Morrissey, who was born in County Waterford, Ireland, in 1853, and died at Ishpeming, Michigan, January 24, 1901. Her parents were Michael and Mary Grace (Houlihan) Morrissey, the latter born in County Waterford in 1828 and died at Michigamme in 1898. Michael

Morrissey, who died at Michigamme March 1, 1891, came to the United States in 1856, and worked in the lead mines around Shullsburg, Wisconsin, for many years.

Mrs. Small is the oldest of four children. Her sister Katherine is the wife of Herbert Adams, chief auditor of the Cleveland Cliffs Mining Company at Ishpeming, Michigan. The next sister, Adelia, is the wife of E. Howard Dea, a construction engineer for the Shevlin Clark's interests and a resident of Minneapolis. Her only brother, Matthew, is an at- torney at law at Los Angeles, California.

JOHN E. HAMPLE. While gold and silver brought the first wave of settlement to Montana in the early sixties, from a much earlier time the mountains and valleys and the wilderness had been supplying some considerable quantity of commercial product in the form of furs and skins. The earliest emissaries of trade to visit Montana were representatives of the great fur companies doing business in the Rocky Mountain region. About the time the buffalo and other fur-bearing animals were beginning to disap- pear, the vacant ranges were being filled up with sheep, until in time Montana became the banner sheep and wool state of the Union.

These facts are briefly noted to indicate the in- teresting historical connection John E. Hample, of Butte, has with the commerce and industry of Mon- tana. In the early stages of wool production in Montana there was little commercial organization in collecting and marketing the clip. Mr. Hample was probably the first outright wool buyer represent- ing an eastern house to come personally to Mon- tana and deal directly with the producers and local wool merchants and market exchanges. In those years he bought hides and furs as well as wool, and for nearly forty years has been operating over this northwest country, and for the greater part of that time has been in active business in Montana.

Mr. Hample was born near Gothenburg, Sweden, October 13, 1854. His grandfather was a native of Germany, and was a soldier through the Napoleonic wars. Later he moved to Sweden, where he died. · The father, Carl August Hample, was born at Dres- den, Saxony, Germany, in 1829, and from the age of eighteen lived near Gothenburg, Sweden, where he became extensively interested in cattle and sheep raising. In 1882 he came to the United States and continued his business as a rancher and stock man in the locality where the town of Oaks, North Da- kota, has since grown up. He died at Oaks in 1909. He was then eighty years of age. After coming to America he voted as a republican, and was a mem- ber of the Lutheran Church. He married Chris- tina Jennings, who was born in Sweden and died in 1905, at the age of eighty. Of their children Louise lives at Stockholm, Sweden; John E. is the second; Gustavus is a farmer at Oaks, North Da- kota; and Hannah is unmarried, lives at Minne- apolis, and owns the old homestead in North Da- kota.

John E. Hample was reared in Sweden, attended a military school until his fifteenth year, and then in 1869 came to the United States. For several years his home was at Rockford, Illinois, where he acquired his English education, graduating from the high school of that city. While there he also gained his first knowledge of the hide and wool business, and in 1875 he entered the service of Oberne & Hosick, an extensive hide and wool house of Chi- cago, and remained in their service ten years, ac- quiring a thorough knowledge of the business and by 1879 was traveling on the road as their repre- sentative for the buying of hides, furs, robes and

HGShimmer

495

HISTORY OF MONTANA

similar goods. In this capacity he made his first visit to Montana in 1879, his headquarters being at Miles City. At that time there were still great quantities of buffalo hides on the market, and he bought these furs as well as wool. From Miles City he traveled all over the territory, and came in close touch with the sheep men, Indian traders and trappers of that time. In 1881 he opened a branch house for Oberne & Hosick at Fargo, North Da- kota, and a similar house at Winnipeg, Canada. Mr. Hample returned to Montana in 1884 and es- tablished his headquarters at Helena.

On leaving the house of Oberne & Hosick in 1886, Mr. Hample formed a partnership with A. J. Davidson, and for ten years they conducted an in- dependent business as buyers and dealers in hides and wool at Helena. On retiring from this firm in 1896 Mr. Hample came to Butte, and this city has since been his home and business headquarters. As an individual dealer he has the largest business of its kind in the State of Montana. His offices are at the Butte Hotel, 13 East Broadway, and he owns extensive warehouses in South Butte. A few years ago it was stated that Mr. Hample handled fully three-fourths of the hides and pelts sent out of Montana, and for a long period of years supplied the Jeremiah Williams Company of Boston with a large part of the wool they received from Mon- tana. A year's business frequently averaged fifty thousand hides and several million pounds of wool.

Mr. Hample bought and shipped wool out of Bill- ings by rail in 1882, and soon afterward sent a ship- ment from Big Timber. He was the first to market any quantity of wool and hides from those two cities. For a number of years he was also produc- ing sheep and wool on a large scale as owner and operator of a sheep ranch at Twin Bridges and Melrose. He is president of the Montana Butcher- ing Company, which has a plant three and a half miles south of Butte, and at one time was finan- cially interested in a large packing house at Spokane.

Mr. Hample is also a banker, having founded and since the opening of the bank on September 1, 1918, has been president of the South Side Bank. This bank is at Harrison Avenue and George Street, and has a capital of $50,000 and surplus and profits of $15,000. The other officers are Albert Rochester, vice president : Mr. Poindexter, cashier ; and his son, John M. Hample, assistant cashier.

Mr. Hample maintains a branch hide and wool house at Helena, with H. E. Bower as manager. He owns a modern home at 211 South Jackson Street in Butte, and for many years has been re- garded as one of the most substantial business men and civic leaders of this city. He is a democrat and a Presbyterian, and is affiliated with the Wood- men of the World.

July 4. 1890, at Portland, Oregon, he married Miss Minnie La Mott, a native of Iowa. Three children were born to their marriage, but the only daughter, Louise, died when about five years of age. Both sons were soldiers in the World war. Edwin Por- ter, born at Helena June 16, 1894, was educated in a Philadelphia preparatory school and finished his sophomore year in the University of New York, and in May, 1917, enlisted in the army. He was sent to Honolulu and served as a private until mus- tered out in September, 1919. John Milton, the younger son, born January 30, 1896, was educated in the Butte High School and enlisted in August, 1917, while attending the University of California at Berkeley. He was a private in an infantry regi- ment sent across the Pacific to Tientsin, China. He was mustered out in August, 1919, and is now at home and assistant cashier of the South Side Bank.

Vol. II-32

HARRY J. SKINNER, a well known Montana banker, has been a resident of the state over thirty years, and from the time he came here until re- cently had extensive banking interests at Great Falls.

Mr. Skinner was born at Grand Rapids, Michi- gan, April 4, 1866, second of the three children of Adolphus and Lucinda A. (Provin) Skinner, the former a native of New York State and the latter of Michigan. His father, who died in 1895, was in the real estate and loan business for many years at Grand Rapids. For several terms he was register of deeds of Kent County, Michigan, was a dem- ocrat in politics and a member of the Masonic fra- ternity.

Harry J. Skinner grew up and received his edu- cation at Grand Rapids, and was twenty-one years of age when he came to Great Falls in 1887. He went to work for the First National Bank, was with that institution many years, and has a broad and fundamental knowledge of financial affairs in the state. In 1907 he and his brother Mark organized the Commercial National Bank of Great Falls. Mr. Harry J. Skinner was president of this institution until 1916, when he and his brother sold their in- terests. Since then he has been primarily engaged . in the cattle, land and ranch business, with head- quarters at Great Falls. His offices are in the Ford Building. He is also president of the State Bank at Belt and of the State Bank at Stockitt, Montana. Mr. Skinner is a democrat in politics.

In 1891 he married Miss Estella E. Welch. Mrs. Skinner died November 10, 1918, the mother of four children : Mark G., Gertrude, Olive and Ruth.

RICHARD C. HOWELL, who is agent for the New York Realty Company and manager for the Phoenix Building at Butte, first came to this Montana city nearly thirty years ago, but his active career covers four decades, and has brought him much varied experience in the life and affairs of the west, as a railroad man, mining prospector and in other lines of business.

Mr. Howell was born at Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, October 15, 1858. His grandfather Howell was a native of Wales, moved with his family from that country to the north of Ireland, and about 1830 settled at Port Hope, Canada. Robert Howell, fa- ther of Richard C., was born in Wales in 1830, and from early manhood lived in Canada, marrying in Ontario. For over a quarter of a century he was a merchant at Port Hope, and for a number of years was a member of the City Council. He was also a pillar in the Methodist Episcopal Church, holding all the lay offices, and was chairman of the building committee when a new church edifice was erected. He was a liberal in politics. Robert Howell died at Port Hope in 1877. He married Mary Jane Cot- tingham, of English descent, who was born in 1832 and died at Port Hope in 1913. Richard was the oldest of their children. H. S. Howell is a busi- ness man at Berkeley, California : W. S., a resident of Chicago, was assistant general freight agent of the Milwaukee Railway until the roads were taken over by the government: H. W. Howell is a property owner at Omaha, Nebraska, and until the war was traveling freight and passenger agent for the Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, with head- quarters at Salt Lake City; Ida is married; Hattie is unmarried and lives at the old homestead at Port Hope.

Richard C. Howell finished the high school course at Port Hope, and attended Trinity College in that city through his sophomore year. He left school in 1876, at the age of eighteen, and when his father

496

HISTORY OF MONTANA

died the next year he took charge of the business and continued it until the fall of 1878. After he left home he spent six months clerking in a grocery store in Chicago, for a short time was a hotel clerk at Denver, and then joined a number of men pros- pecting for silver along the Blue River in Colo- rado. In 1881 he returned to Omaha, and was an employe of the Union Pacific Railway until 1888. He started in the car department and eventually was made chief billing clerk for west bound traffic. For about four years, until 1892, he was bill clerk with the Pacific Express Company, and in 1892 came to Butte and in August of that year was made cash- jer of the Pacific Express Company. He left the express business in 1894 and engaged in the bicycle business, the bicycle then being at the high tide of its popularity. Selling out in 1897, Mr. Howell was one of the enterprising men attracted to the cool regions of the Klondike. He led an expedition by way of Edmonton and the Athabasca River to the Grand Rapids of that watercourse. There winter overtook them, and for several months they en- dured many hardships, including an attack of scurvy. With the opening of navigation the next spring the party was compelled to return. Mr. Howell reached Butte in June, 1898, and for over ten years was employed in the auditing department of the Mon- tana Power Company. Since 1909 he has been agent for the New York Realty Company, handling its varied investments property in Montana and is also manager of the Phoenix Building, one of the largest office structures in the state, a six-story building with the ground floor occupied by the Symon's Dry Goods Company. Mr. Howell has his office and resides in the Phoenix Building.

He is a republican in politics. March 15, 1919, at Deer Lodge, he married Miss Florence Green- man, a native of Illinois.

FREDERICK H. SARLES has spent nearly all his active lifetime of forty years in the western states of Colorado, Utah and Montana. For the past fourteen years he has been a resident of Butte, and in this city has built up one of the leading real estate and insurance agencies.

Mr. Sarles represents an old English family which was established in New York City in 1715, more than two centuries ago. His grandfather, William Sarles, spent all his life at Mount Kisco in West- chester County, New York, being a farmer there, before his death dividing his estate among his chil- dren. His son Alexander Hamilton Sarles was born at Mount Kisco in 1826, and died there in 1869. In early life he was a school teacher and later a successful farmer and also had some business in New York City. He was a republican and was af- filiated with the Presbyterian Church. His wife was Esther Williams, who was born at New Pres- ton, Connecticut, in 1826 and died at Aspen, Colo- rado, in 1915, when nearly ninety years of age. She was the mother of six children. Stanley W., the oldest, who died at Mount Kisco at the age of twenty-two, had acquired a liberal education and just before his death was preparing to become the principal of a large public school in New York City. Joseph O. died in Oxford, Connecticut, at the age of thirty-six, and was the owner of a meat market. William A. was a farmer and died at Kent, Con- necticut, aged thirty-eight. Frederick H. is the fourth in the family. Eudora M. is the wife of William S. Platt, a merchant at Aspen, Colorado. Hamilton Victor is in the retail meat business at Bristol, Connecticut.

Frederick H. Sarles was born at Mount Kisco, Westchester County, New York, February 22, 1860,

and was nine years of age when his father died. He grew up in the home of his uncle, Stanley Williams, and was educated in the public schools of New Preston, Connecticut, attending the Upson Seminary there until graduating in 1880. He had taught a term of school at the age of sixteen, and during 1880-81 taught in New Preston. In the latter year he came west, spending two years in the sheep busi- ness in Colorado Springs, and then took up mining and prospecting at Aspen, Colorado. He operated a mining claim there for ten years. During 1892 for a few months he lived in Salt Lake City. When Davis H. Waite was elected governor of Colorado Mr. Sarles received appointment as a commissioner under his administration, an office he filled for two years. Mr. Sarles in 1894 took up a homestead at Rockwood, Colorado, a quarter section, and while proving up his homestead, which he later sold, he was appointed postmaster under President Cleve- land, an office he held for four years. Mr. Sarles moved to Salt Lake City in 1901, and remained there as clerk in a book store for five years. Re- turning to Butte in 1906, he was for four years connected with the John G. Evans' bookstore, and then engaged in the real estate business, represent- ing the Hubbard Investment Company of Salt Lake . City. He has been in the real estate business since that time, and today his organization handles not only real estate, but bonds, loans and insurance, and has one of the leading enterprises of its kind in Silverbow County. The offices are in the Phoenix Building.

For many years Mr. Sarles has been a prominent temperance worker as a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars. He is now grand chief templar of the state, being elected in August, 1919, at the Grand Lodge, and filled the same office in 1914-15. He served as health inspector at Butte in 1914, and is a prominent church worker, being mem- ber and elder of Emanuel Presbyterian Church of Butte and for eight years superintendent of the Sunday School. Politically he is an independent re- publican. Mr. Sarles was vice chancellor and at present is chancellor commander of Oswego Lodge No. 9, Knights of Pythias, at Butte.

Mr. Sarles is father of a very interesting family of children. At Aspen, Colorado, June 9, 1888, he married Miss Eva Smith, who was born in Missouri but reared and educated in New York state. She was descended from James Wilson, a Pennsylvanian whose name appears as a signer to the Declaration of Independence and who subsequently was an as- sociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mrs. Sarles died at Salt Lake City April 15, 1905. There were four children, Frederick Wil- liam, Endora M., Beatrice Esther and Henry Up- son. The daughter Eudora was born June 2, 1896, attended the high school at Aspen, Colorado, and is still living in that city. Beatrice Esther was born July 29, 1808, is a graduate of the Salt Lake City High School, and is the wife of James C. Johnson, living at 1012 West Quartz Street in Butte. Mr. Johnson is an employe of the Montana Power Com- pany. The son, Henry Upson, who was born August 2, 1900, at Rockwood, Colorado, was educated in the public schools of Salt Lake City, graduated from the Butte High School in 1918, and represented his class and was captain of the State Debating Team of the Butte High School in 1918. He is also senior editor of the Mountaineer, a monthly publi- cation by the Butte High School. His friends rec- ognize in him a young poet of exceptional ability. After leaving high school and while a student in the Montana State School of Mines he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps. He is now

497

HISTORY OF MONTANA

stenographer and bookkeeper for Sarles & Company. The oldest son, Frederick William, was born March 26, 1895, and is a graduate of the high school of Aspen, Colorado. September 13, 1917, he en- listed, receiving his first training at Camp Lewis, later at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico, with the Medical Corps, and finally at Washington directly under the Surgeon General. He was promoted from private to first class private, then sergeant, then to first class sergeant, and finally to hospital sergeant, first class, equivalent to the rank of regimental sergeant major. While at Washington he was assigned as advertising manager of the Walter E. Reid Base Hospital paper called "The Come Back." He was mustered out September 11, 1919, and has since located at New York City, where his talents are employed as assistant editor for the American Agency Bulletin. He married in August, 1919, Miss Marguerite Morris of Butte. Sergeant Sarles is a gifted writer, and it is not out of place to quote the stanzas of a solemn poem which he wrote while at Camp Cody. The two central stanzas are:

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 139

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