Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 148

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 148

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Oliver V. McIntire was educated in the public schools of Oakland, graduated from high school in 1906, and for several years lived at Terre Haute with his parents. For two years he was employed in one of the leading industries at Terre Haute, the Columbia Enameling and Stamping Works.

Mr. McIntire arrived in Montana in 1908. During the next seven years he was serving a practical apprenticeship at merchandising as clerk in a store at Arlee. During those seven years he laid the foundation of his sound experience and judgment as a business man. After a brief time at Ronan he moved to Pablo and established the Pablo Mer- cantile Company, the largest firm of its kind in that section of Missoula County. The corporation owns a large modern store building and warehouses, and handles an immense trade, drawn to the store by the progressive methods of merchandising. Mr. McIntire is president of the company, with W. F. Stimpson, vice president and B. O. Shannum, secre- tary and treasurer.

Mr. McIntire is a republican, a member of the Presbyterian Church and is affiliated with Polson Lodge No. 78 of the Masons. At Arlee, Montana, in 1912, he married the daughter of one of the best known pioneer families of Montana, Miss Alice A. DeMers. She is a daughter of A. L. and Grace (Lambert) DeMers, the latter now deceased. A. L. DeMers, a resident of Arlee, was born near Mon- treal, Canada, and came to Montana in 1874. His enterprise has a conspicuous part in the history of the Flathead district in the old locality known as DeMersville, which antidated the modern city of Kalispell, which is supplanting it. Mr. A. L. DeMers was a pioneer merchant there, later was associated with his brother Jack DeMers as a mer- chant at Frenchtown, and he opened the first log store building at St. Ignatius, Montana. Since

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1904 he has been retired at Arlee. Mr. and Mrs. McIntire have three children: Virginia, born in 1913; Jean, born in 1915; and Edward Alexander, born in 1918.

BERT W. DIMMICK, chief merchant and present postmaster at Pablo, has spent all his life in the Northwest and has had a busy and eventful career. He has been a farmer, rancher, merchant, county official, and his name is known and respected in several communities in Minnesota and the Dakotas as well as in Montana.

Mr. Dimmick was born near St. Paul, Minne- sota, April 7, 1870. His people were pioneers in Minnesota territory. His grandfather, John Dim- mick, was born in New York State in 1797, and opened up a farm in Minnesota as early as 1857. He died at Princeton in that state in 1883. John Dimmick married Cynthia Payne, a native of New York State, who died in Minnesota. The Dimmicks are an English family and were colonial settlers in America. William Dimmick, father of Bert W. Dimmick, is also a resident of Pablo, Montana. He was born in New York State in 1845, was twelve years of age when his parents moved to Minnesota, grew up and married near St. Paul, and was a farmer, lumberman and engaged in other occupa- tions in Minnesota for many years. Since 1917 he has lived retired at Pablo. During the Civil war he was a soldier with a Minnesota regiment. Politi- cally he is a republican. William Dimmick mar- ried Anna Rines, who was born in the State of Maine in 1845 and died at Elk River, Minnesota, in 1914. Their children were three in number : Nina, wife of Fred Stimson, a carpenter and builder at Pablo, Montana; Bert W .; and Blanche, of Dick- enson, North Dakota, widow of George Frye, who was a cattleman and real estate broker there.

Bert W. Dimmick attended public schools, grad- uated from the high school at Princeton, Minne- sota, in 1888 and then spent three years learning business in a store in the Red River Valley of North Dakota. For three years he clerked and did other work at Anderson in Shasta County, California, and then returned to North Dakota and was in a grocery store at Grand Forks one year, following which for several years he was in the cattle raising industry in Mckenzie County, North Dakota. While in that county he was appointed county auditor in 1904, and was elected to that office in 1906, serving four years, from 1905 to 1909. He was appointed and served as clerk of the District Court of Mckenzie County nearly two years. In the meantime he filed on a homestead of 160 acres in that county, proved up his claim and lived on it for three years. From North Dakota Mr. Dimmick went back to his native state and bought a farm at Elk River, but sold it at the end of three years.

Mr. Dimmick came to Montana in 1917, and after a brief stay at Polson located at Pablo in May of that year. He built the first store building in the town, still owns that structure, and has made his one of the leading mercantile establishments in that section of Missoula County. He also owns a farm five miles east of Pablo. He was appointed to his present duties as postmaster on January 2, 1918.

Mr. Dimmick is independent in politics, and is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. In 1909, in Montana, Mr. Dimmick married Mrs. Marie (Lusier) Miller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lusier, retired farmers of Forest Lake, Min- nesota. By a former marriage Mr. Dimmick has one son, Thomas, who is a cowboy at Shafer.

RICHARD LOCKEY. A resident of Montana more than half a century, Richard Lockey has played many parts in his long life, soldier, pioneer, mining prospector, merchant, banker, public official, and for many years has been one of the largest real estate owners in Helena. Richard Lockey is pre- eminently constructive and he has doubtless derived his greatest satisfaction from doing big things in a big way, and with less consideration for his own ad- vantage than for seeing worthy undertakings prop- erly carried out. He is an inveterate worker, and while now approaching his seventy-fifth birthday his wonderful vitality enables him to keep a master hand on a large and complicated business.

Richard Lockey was born in Yorkshire, England, June II, 1845. His father, John Lockey, was born in the same district of England in 1816, and in his native country was a miner. He married in York- shire Mary Raw, who was born there in 1818. Three of their children were born in England. In 1846 John Lockey brought his family, Richard then a boy of one year, to America and settled at Dubuque, Iowa, where he spent the rest of his life and where he died in 1874. He owned a farm near Dubuque and was also interested in some of the lead mines in that section. After coming to America he was identified with the republican party and was a life- long supporter of the Methodist Church. His wife died at Helena, Montana, in 1898. The oldest of their children was Jane, who became the wife of Crawford Bowman of Dubuque, and died in the fall of 1919 in South Dakota. Crawford Bowman died in 1918. He was a Union soldier, a farmer, and for several years was a guard at the State Penitentiary at Animosa, Iowa. Barnard Lockey, the second of the family, was a farmer and died at Spencer, Iowa. Richard was the third in age. James T. is a resident of Helena and interested in mining. Elizabeth died in infancy. John W. now occupies the same office at Helena with his brother. Sarah E. was the wife of Emile Brulo, a carriage and automobile trimmer at Helena, who died at Helena, Montana, in 1915. George W. was a merchant and died at Bozeman. Joseph E. also died at Bozeman.

Richard Lockey, though he left school between the age of sixteen and seventeen, made good use of his opportunities in the public schools of Dubuque. He had begun regular work as a clerk in stores at the age of eleven years. Mr. Lockey was small for his age, and therefore found his patriotic enthusiasm frequently balked when he applied for enlistment in the Union army. However, he was accepted as a member of the Fremont Huzzars in Missouri, under Col. George E. Waring, and in 1862 was appointed a clerk in the quartermaster's department. His first service was in some of the campaigns through Mis- souri and Arkansas. The winter of 1862-63 he spent at Columbus, Kentucky, and in Tennessee, and in the spring of 1863 the quartermaster's department of which he was a member was attached to the Sixth Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps under Gen. A. J. Smith. In the fall of 1863 he went to Mem- phis, then to Columbus, Kentucky, and was in Ala- bama under Gen. William T. Sherman. Early in 1864 he returned to Vicksburg and soon afterward was sent up the Red River with Banks expedition. It was Gen. A. J. Smith who really saved that ex- pedition from disaster. Mr. Lockey was with the transports and gunboats and had charge of the quar- termaster and commissary departments of the Sixth Division, Sixteenth Army Corps during the cam- paign. The southern climate induced malaria, and he was invalided to Memphis and finally returned to Dubuque. While recuperating he attended a busi- ness college there. About the time the war was closed General Smith sent for him to go to St.

Richard Jockey.

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Louis to close up the accounts of the quartermaster and commissary departments, and he was diligently engaged in those duties from the fall of 1865 until February, 1866.

It was on March 7, 1866, that Mr. Lockey started with Capt. Charles Wunderlich in a party crossing the plains with mule teams, and arrived at Helena July 7, 1866. They made the quickest trip that year, four months. He became twenty-one years of age after arriving in Montana.

Mr. Lockey was therefore a witness of the Last Chance Gulch and Helena at the high tide of its fame as a mining center. In recent years he has frequently expressed his lively satisfaction at seeing Helena returned to its former importance as a min- ing center, since today there are more mines pro- ducing ore around Helena than at any time for a quarter of a century.

The first work he did in Montana was five months helping to build the Truitt and Plaisted ditch around Mount Helena for the purpose of bringing water to the placer mines. That ditch is now used as the Mount Helena Boulevard. After that until 1868 he was employed by the Cannon Brothers in their grocery store and bakery, occupying the present site of the Record-Herald office on Broadway. Then came a diversion when he made a horseback tour to Walla Walla, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, and it was probably during that time that Mr. Lockey looked upon the great falls at the present site of Spokane, and deliberated whether he should settle and secure for a practically nominal sum the land included in the site of that now rich and populous city. Returning to Helena the same winter Mr. Lockey took up the study of law, first in the office of the great Montana pioneer and vigilante Col. W. F. Sanders and then in the offices of Chaumasero and Chadwick. He continued reading law until 1871, but has used his legal knowledge chiefly in his private business. After that he was a merchant for a time and then became associated in the real estate and commission business with Seth Bullock, later of Deadwood, South Dakota, until 1872. Seth Bullock was one of the great characters of the Northwest, and became nationally known because of his long. intimacy with the late Colonel Roosevelt. Mr. Lockey in 1872 opened a store and bakery on Main Street, Helena, at. the point where Sixth ' Avenue now joins that thoroughfare. His old bakery oven is now buried about six feet under the street car tracks on East Sixth Avenue between Jackson and Main streets. Mr. Lockey did well in this business and in 1877 opened a branch store and bakery at Bozeman, one of the chief features of his manu- facture being hardtack for the army and Indian departments. In 188t he sold his Bozeman interests to his brothers John W. and and George W. and also disposed of his Helena store to William H. UIm.

Thus relieved of the cares and responsibilities of merchandising, Mr. Lockey opened in 1881 a real es- tate, insurance and abstract of title business, and still looks after that, the oldest business of its kind in Montana under individual ownership. His offices are in the Lockey Building at 112 East Sixth Avenue and his home is in the same building.

Through all the years Mr. Lockey has maintained an undeviating faith in the City of Helena, and has seldom neglected an opportunity to show his faith in a practical manner by investing a large bulk of his surplus capital in local real estate. At times he has been probably the largest real estate owner in Helena, and still owns many buildings in the city and much unimproved property. The ground for the State Capitol was donated from one of his additions, and he still owns much of the addition known as the Corbin. He also owns nearly all of the Lenox

addition adjoining the Corbin addition, and the larger portion of the Lockey addition at about the center of. the platted part of the city. There are parcels of property in nearly every section of Helena owned by Mr. Lockey, and some of the leading busi- ness blocks are included in his holdings.

Mr. Lockey was an organizer of the American National Bank of Helena and served as a director for twenty-one years. He organized and is president of the Helena Realty Board, and through that or- ganization has performed a splendid service to the entire city. He is also president of the State Invest- ment Company and was president of the Helena Rapid Transit Company. He was one of the leading contributors to the Montana Wesleyan College, serv- ing as a trustee and vice president of the board for many years. He donated to the city the Lockey Ave- nue Park, and no one has been more generous of his means and his time in beautifying and upbuilding the capital city.

His entire business career constitutes a real public service, though he has also held many official titles. He has always been a straight republican in politics. In earlier years he served as United States gauger, as justice of the peace, held a commission as notary public twenty-one years, for two terms was a school trustee and a member of the City Council two terms. Richard Lockey was one of the most influential members of the third State Legislature of 1893. Always interested in education, he did all he could to influence the Legislature to provide for one cen- tral university, embracing all the practical and pro- fessional schools, instead of having four or five branches in different sections of the state. The con- solidation and centralization of Montana's institu- tions of higher education has been one of the live questions in the state in recent years, and the argu- ments put forth in behalf of the plan seem a special tribute to the foresight of Mr. Lockey a quarter of a century ago.

Mr. Lockey has been identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church since thirteen years of age. He is . one of the widely known and prominent Masons of Montana. He served as master of Helena Lodge No. 3 in 1876, and is one of its oldest members, having joined it in 1867. He became affiliated with Helena Chapter No. 2, Royal Arch Masons, in 1868 and has served it as high priest. He was the first Knight Templar created in Helena Commandery of the Knights Templar in 1869. He is also a mem- ber of Helena Council No. I, Royal and Select Masons, and he took an active part in organiz- ing the Scottish Rite bodies in 1881, and has been Almoner since Helena Consistory No. 3 was reorganized in 1910. He is an honorary thirty-third degree Mason. Mr. Lockey joined Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine in 1889, and is a past potentate. He was imperial represen- tative at Omaha and Dallas and as such instituted under dispensation and charter, Elkorah Temple of Boise, Idaho. Another interesting fraternal distinc- tion is that he is the oldest living Odd Fellow in Montana. He joined Montana Lodge No. 1 in 1868. and is a past grand. He is a former member of Helena Lodge No. 193 of the Elks, and was promi- nent in the organization of the Good Templars in 1868, in which he was a member many years, and is also a son of St. George. Much of the good work accomplished by the Helena Commercial Club in up- building the city has been due to the active energies of Richard Lockey.

For all the heavy burden of practical affairs he has carried Richard Lockey has always been fond of good fellowship, and he has exemplified a real genius for friendship. A man of remarkable experience,

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with a rare charm of personality, he possesses the gift of humor and his quaint and unexpected wit has been associated with his name in Montana for many year The old timers of the state know him by the title of "Duke of Last Chance." He is and has been for about forty years the presiding officer of the "House of Lords," a burlesque legislative assembly first organized in Virginia City and moving to Helena when that city was established as the state capital. It was the unique combination of judicial gravity with sudden turns of wit and humor charac- terizing the orders and rulings of the presiding offi- cer that gave this assemblage its long continued fame.

June 5, 1870, at Helena, Mr. Lockey married Miss Emily E. Jeffrey, a native of Ohio. Mrs. Lockey died at Palo Alto, California, December 26, 1907. Five children were born to their marriage, but only two survive, Mary Ishbel and Richard, Jr. The daughter presents a rare combination of the success- ful educator and the successful business woman. In 1906 she organized and established the Castilleja School, a girls preparatory school at Palo Alto, Cali- fornia, now one of the leading institutions of its kind on the Pacific Coast. She is president of the cor- poration, and principal of the school, and the prop- erty includes fine grounds and six modern buildings on a campus a mile east of Stanford University There are now twenty-five teachers in the faculty and the enrollment is limited to forty-five boarding pupils and a hundred twenty-five day students.

The son, Richard, Jr., is a graduate of the law school of Stanford University, also attended Har- vard University, and for a number of years was a special agent and adjuster in Montana, Idaho, and Utah for a number of fire insurance companies, and for several years past has been actively associated with his father in business.

P. S. RENNICK, M. D. A physician and surgeon of the highest standing and attainments, Dr. Rennick has practiced in Montana over fifteen years and recently located at Stevensville, where in addition to a general practice he is owner of a well equipped general hospital, an institution that gives that town many advantages over its neighbors in that section of Montana.

Doctor Rennick grew up at Missoula but was born at Farmington, Missouri, May 6, 1880. His Eng- lish ancestors were colonial settlers in Virginia. His grandfather was born in Ohio in 1820 and was an early settler at Bismarck, Missouri, where he followed farming. He died at Bismarck in 1895. His wife was a Miss Barry.

J. W. Rennick, father of Doctor Rennick, was born in Missouri in 1845, and when little more than a boy joined a Kansas regiment and participated in several campaigns during the Civil war. He grew up and married in Missouri and graduated from the law department of Illinois College. For a number of years he practiced law at Farmington, and in 1882 moved to Ogden, Utah, where he continued practice, and in 1894 came to Missoula. In Mon- tana he spent his time as a farmer. He died at Missoula in 1917. J. W. Rennick was a republican, a Baptist and affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He married Nancy Shelley, who was born at Bonneterre in Missouri in 1849 and died at Missoula in 1904. Lenore, the oldest of their children, is a teacher in the Missoula public schools; Dr. P. S. Rennick is second; L. C. Ren- nick has spent many years in government service on the Crow Indian Reservation; and Paul, the youngest, is a stationary engineer with home at

San Francisco, and enlisted in 1917 in the army and was in service until mustered out in Igi9.

P. S. Rennick acquired his early education in the public schools at Missoula, attending high school and also the State University for six years. He graduated with the degree Bachelor of Philosophy from Montana University in 1900. He took his medical course at Louisville, Kentucky, in the Uni- versity of Louisville, receiving his M. D. degree in 1904. That year he began practice at Victor, Mon- tana, and in IgIo moved to Helmville, where he remained until 1917. On coming to Stevensville Doctor Rennick bought the hospital at Third and Church streets, and his personal management and widely known skill as a surgeon has made its facil- ities appreciated not only in the home community but over much of western Montana. Cases come to him from as far away as Great Falls. The hos- pital is a modern brick structure with accommo- dations for twenty patients.

In July, 1918, Doctor Rennick accepted a call to duty in the army as a member of the Medical Reserve Corps. He was first lieutenant and was on duty at Fort Riley, Kansas, until mustered out in December, 1918. He has done much post-grad- uate work, attending the Chicago Post-Graduate School of Medicine in 1008 and again in 1919, at- tended the Chicago Polyclinic in 1916, and in 1919 also pursued a course in the Charity Hospital at New Orleans. Doctor Rennick is the present city health officer at Stevensville. .

Politically he is an independent voter. He is affiliated with Stevensville Lodge No. 28, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Western Sun Chapter No. II, Royal Arch Masons, St. Omer Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar, Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena, Covenant Lodge No. 6, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Stevensville Camp, Modern Woodmen of America. Doctor Ren- nick is a, member of the Western Montana, State and American Medical associations. He owns a ranch of 160 acres near Stevensville.

In 1905, at Helena, he married Miss Odelia Daigle, daughter of D. and Philhimena (Cyr) Daigle, re- tired farmers of Missoula. Mrs. Rennick is a ·grad- uate of the Garden City Commercial College of Missoula.

GILBERT DRAKE MACLAREN is a native of Stevens- ville, the Montana town where his business efforts are in evidence today. His active expedience has taken him over several of the northwestern states. Mr. Maclaren was for a number of years engaged in the lumber industry, but is now manager at Stevensville for the May Mercantile Company.

He was born at Stevensville June 24, 1888. He is of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather, Thomas MacLaren, was born in Scotland in 1819 and set- tled at an early day in New Brunswick, Canada, where he followed farming and also owned a saw mill. He died at Titusville, New Brunswick, in 1894. Joseph R. Maclaren, father of Gilbert Drake, was born at St. John, New Brunswick, in 1848, and was reared and married there. He was trained as a lawyer and in 1883 he settled in Stevensville, Mon- tana, where for a time he was a carpenter and contractor. He had the contract for the erection of the graded schools which are still in use at Stevensville. Later he practiced his profession as a lawyer, and he died in northern Oregon in 1913. He was a republican, a Baptist and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Joseph R. Maclaren married Miss Lydia Wetmore, who was born at St. John, New Brunswick, November 30, 1842, and is still living at Stevensville, Montana.

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Gilbert is the youngest of four children. Fannie, the oldest, lives with her mother. Sarah is the wife of W. T. Harlan, manager of a flour mill at Wil- son, North Dakota, Ella also lives at home and is bookkeeper for the May Mercantile Company.

Gilbert Drake Maclaren attended public school at Hamilton, Montana, graduating from high school there in 1905. The following four years he spent as a regular student in the State University of Montana at Missoula. He received his degree Bach- elor of Science in 1909. While in university he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He re- mained at Missoula for six months employed in the office of the Missoula Mercantile Company. He spent three years at Astoria, Oregon, beginning as a laborer and was finally promoted to charge of the cargo shipping for the Hammond Lumber Com- pany. In 1912 he and his brother-in-law, W. C. Harlan, were associated in the management of the Hamilton Flour Mill Company. After a year Mr. Maclaren accepted a place in the lumber depart- ment of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. For a time he was the lumber representative of this corporation at Minneapolis, was transferred to the retail department, and conducted the retail lumber branch at Whitehall, Montana, until July, 1919. At that date he came to Stevensville to take the management of the May Mercantile Company. This is one of the leading department stores and mercantile organizations of Ravalli County. Mr. MacLaren supervises the large and completely stocked store and has twenty employes. under him.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 148

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