Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 174

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

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AMOS THEODORE PETERSON. In the fall of 1914 Amos Theodore Peterson took charge of the Jeffer- son County High School as principal, and that school has grown and developed under his direction and management for the past six years. This high school at Boulder undoubtedly represents one of the most advanced schools in the state in the matter of equip-

Earle Hangul

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

ment and departmental administration. It possesses an almost unique feature of county high schools, two dormitories, providing accommodations for pupils from a distance and converting the school prac- tically into a boarding school or college. Boulder was the second city in the state to make this pro- vision for the students of the county high school.

Mr. Peterson is a college and university graduate and holds a high rank among Montana educators. He was born at Edwall, Washington, January 13, 1889. His father, George A. Peterson, who was born at Christiania, Norway, in 1842, was twelve years of age when he came to America with his father. The family settled in Upper Michigan, where George A. Peterson was reared and educated. In 1872 he moved to the Northwest and settled on a farm at Spangle, Washington, moved to another farm near Edwall in 1887, and achieved a substantial success in agriculture, though he went through many of the hardships of the pioneer days. Since 1912 he has enjoyed a comfortable retirement at Spokane. He is a republican and a member of the Lutheran Church. His wife was Hannah Anderson, who was born in Litchfield, Minnesota, in 1860. They have a family of seven children : Hulda M., wife of A. P. Harold, a furnace manufacturer at Spokane ; Emily E., wife of B. O. Killin, a postal clerk at Hay- ford. Washington; J. E., who is a graduate of the University of Washington at Seattle in the law de- partment with the degree LL. B. and a successful attorney at Seattle; Amos Theodore; Wallace, who took his degree as Doctor of Dental Surgery from the North Pacific Dental College at Seattle and is now practicing at Sitka, Alaska; Florence C., wife of Robert Nelson, a veterinarian at Molson, Wash- ington, and Genevieve L., who is attending Whit- worth College at Spokane.

Amos Theodore Peterson acquired his early edu- cation in the rural schools of Spokane County and so far as possible pursued his consecutive work from the primary schools through the various grades until he had finished his university career at the age of twenty-five. He attended for two years the pre- paratory school of the State College of Washington at Pullman, and then took the regular academic course of the State College, graduating A. B. with the class of 1914. He has since taken post-graduate work in chemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Mr. Peterson is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

Mr. Peterson has been continuously identified with the schools at Boulder since the fall of 1913. The first year he was a commercial teacher, and was then promoted to principal of the Jefferson County High School. He has a staff of six teachers, and while he started with an enrollment of only twenty- eight pupils, the scholars now number ninety-six and the school is rapidly growing in every department. The spring of 1920 saw the completion of the. handsome new high school building with dormitories and gymnasium. Mr. Peterson has during his ad- ministration added four departments of instruction, domestic science, agriculture, manual training and teachers' training.

He has also been a leader in community affairs as well as a teacher. He is county director of the War Savings funds, and served all through the war in that capacity. He was also a four-minute man and took the lead in all the drives for the Young Men's Christian Association during the war. He is a director of the local Young Men's Christian Association, is chairman of the vocational education committee of the State of Montana, is a democrat, a member of the State Teachers' Association, and

is affiliated with Boulder Lodge No. 41, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

August 22, 1915, at Moscow, Idaho, he married Miss Daisy E. Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wilson, residents of Pullman, Washington. Her father is a traveling salesman. Mrs. Peterson is a skilled musician, especially as a pianist, and is a graduate of the music department of the State College of Washington. They have one daughter, Helen Daisy, born September 25, 1918.

ISAAC WATTS CHOATE, at present code commis- sioner for the State of Montana, was born at West Barnet, Vermont, September 12, 1882. His branch of the Choate family is English and settled in Ver- mont and Massachusetts in colonial times. David Worthen Choate, his grandfather, a third cousin of Rufus Choate, was born in Thetford, Vermont, February 12, 1808, and spent his life as a farmer and merchant in Peacham Vermont, where he died July 14, 1894.

Charles Augustus Choate, the father of I. W. Choate, was born in Peacham, Vermont, March 30, 1838. In his early manhood he left his native state and joined the argonauts of his day in the search for gold in California, making the voyage around the Horn. Three years were spent as a miner in California and Idaho, and then he returned to his home state, spending the remainder of his life as a farmer at West Barnet, Vermont, where he died April 7, 1902. He was a man of prominence in his community, representing the County of Caledonia at one term of the State Legislature. He was a re- publican in politics, a very consistent Christian and a member of the Congregational Church.

Charles Choate married Alice M. Watts, who was born in Peacham, Vermont, January 6, 1845, and died in West Barnet, Vermont, September 19, 1882. He later married Lucy Ella Watts, a sister of Alice M. Watts. The children of Charles Choate and Alice Watts were as follows: David Worthen Choate was born at West Barnet, Vermont, August 26, 1869. For eighteen years he was a locomotive engineer in the employ of the Soo Railway, with headquarters at Minneapolis, Minnesota. Returning to his old home at West Barnet, Vermont, he died September 8, 1909, survived by his wife, Harriett Choate, formerly Harriett Bailey, of Peacham, Ver- mont, and by a son, Worthen Choate.

Charles Augustus Choate, Jr., born October 2, 1871, is a farmer at West Barnet, Vermont, occupy- ing the lands first settled by his father and which have now been developed into a beautiful and pro- ductive country home. In 1903 he was married to Pearl Field, and they have two sons, Charles Augustus, Jr., and Paul Merrill Choate. A de- ceased daughter, Alice Choate, was taken from them at the age of three years.

Elsie A. Choate, born November 26, 1880, was educated at Peacham Academy, Bridgewater Normal School and Wellesley College. She has spent much of her life as a teacher and has made her home at Peacham, Vermont, where she now resides.

Isaac Watts Choate is the fourth in age of the children of Charles A. Choate, and there were also two other children, a daughter born March 25 and died October 4, 1877, and a son, Nelson Choate, born May 2, 1879, and died March 12, 1881.

Mr. Choate attended the public schools in Cale- donia County, Vermont, graduating from Caledonia County Grammar School, familiarly known as Peacham Academy, with the class of 1900, and en- tered the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. He received his A. B. degree in 1904 and at gradna-

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tion was elected a member of the honorary scholar- ship fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. He was also a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. The two years following his gradnation Mr. Choate spent in Chicago as an employe of Sears Roebuck & Com- pany. From there he went to Seattle in 1906, and for a short time was with the house furnishing con- cern of Frederick Nelson & Company, and after that until 1908 he was employed by the Independent Telephone Company. In the summer of 1908 Mr. Choate moved to Bridger, Montana, where he en- tered the law office of W. L. Hyde, and for two years pursued the study of law, resulting in his admission to the bar of Montana in 1910. He prac- ticed law at Manhattan, Montana, from the spring of 1911 until 1914, and then moved to Bozeman, Montana, where he established himself in practice, serving one term as deputy county attorney of Galla- tin County and a year as city attorney of Bozeman. In 1918 Mr. Choate became assistant attorney gen- eral under Attorney General S. C. Ford, and, mov- ing to Helena, performed the duties of that office until the following spring, when he was appointed by the Supreme Court to the office of code commis- sioner.

Mr. Choate is a republican. He is past exalted ruler of Bozeman Lodge No. 463, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and for the year 1919-20 served as president of the Montana State Associa- tion of Elks. He is a member of the Montana Bar Association and of the Presbyterian Church.

Isaac Watts Choate married, September 20, 1909, at Lynn, Massachusetts, Miss Roberta E. Gammon. She was born at West Barnet, Vermont, October 21, 1884, moving to Lynn, Massachusetts, in her early girlhood. She graduated from the high school of that city and resided there until her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Choate have four children, Margaret Ro- berta, born at Bridger, Montana, November 19, 1910; Lyman Watts, born at Manhattan, Montana, Decem- ber 3, 1912; Robert Ingraham, born at Bozeman, Montana, June 6, 1915, and David Powell, born at Bozeman, Montana, January 27, 1918.

CHARLES J. WESTON is a veteran building con- tractor, for many years identified with the industry in his native state of Minnesota, and for over a decade in Montana at Miles City and at Sidney. For five years he has lived at Sidney, going to that city when it was taking on urban proportions, and his work has characterized him as one of the chief builders of the county seat.

Mr. Weston was born at Lake City, Minnesota, May 3, 1864, son of Albert E. and Jennie (Jenks) Weston. His father was born in Essex County, New York, son of a farmer and charcoal burner of the Empire State. Albert Weston grew up in Essex County, became a mechanic and carpenter, and spent many years in contracting. In early life he lost several of his fingers in a planing mill and was therefore disabled for military service during the Civil war. He came to Minnesota by boat up the Mississippi River to Lake City, and lived and did his work there for many years. He died in 1907. He was a republican without participation in public office, and was a member of the Methodist Church. After coming to Lake City he married the daugh- ter of Thomas Jenks, who had come to Minnesota from Montpelier, Vermont, and was a very success- ful farmer. Mrs. Albert Weston died in 1906. She was the mother of four sons, Arthur T., of Minne- apolis; George W. of Chicago; Charles J .; and Allen C., of St. Louis.

Charles J. Weston made the very best of his rather limited opportunities to secure an education in Lake City, Minnesota, where he spent his boy-

hood. Later he supplemented this with a business course in Minneapolis. He learned the carpenter's trade, and at the age of seventeen became a journey- man worker in South Dakota. Before he was twen- ty-five he was taking contracts in building at Water- town, South Dakota, but subsequently moved to Minneapolis, and for twenty-one years was busily engaged in the building business. He was rather a pioneer in the plan of building homes and selling them on monthly payments to working people. He employed his capital and enterprise to encourage a great many residents of Minneapolis to become home owners. His construction work in that city is still in evidence, and perhaps the most conspicuous of his contracts are the Wooscocket Flats and the Nelson Apartments.

On leaving Minneapolis Mr. Weston moved to Miles City, Montana. During the six years he was there he built the first hospital, the Young Men's Christian Association Building, the Masonic Temple, the Smith Building and three annexes to the Olive Hotel, besides performing many minor contracts.

While the five years spent in Sidney constitutes an era of rather difficult conditions for the building contractor, Mr. Weston's work is in evidence by many notable structures, including the homes of the First National Bank and the Yellowstone Bank & Trust Company, the business house of the Yellow- stone Mercantile Company, the Sidney Deaconess Hospital and Clinic, the Valley Hotel, one of the best institutions of its kind in Eastern Montana, the Bendon concrete garage building, two additions to the Sidney High School, made to accommodate the growing school population, and another evidence of his ability to construct places of amusement as well as commercial establishments is the Princess The- ater.

Mr. Weston while at Watertown, South Dakota, voted for Benjamin Harrison for president in 1888, and has remained steadfast with that party though he has never offered himself for a public candi- dacy. His family are members of the Congrega- tional Church at Sidney. During the war he and Mrs. Weston helped carry on the local work of the Red Cross and were interested in the success of the Liberty Loan and other campaigns.

At Minneapolis Mr. Weston married Miss Lois Green, who was born in the State of Maine, a daugh- ter of Charles E. Green. Mr. and Mrs. Weston have one child, Helen, who is the wife of J. Clifford Moore, of Miles City, and has two sons, James and Robert Moore.

BEN C. BROOKE, M. D. At least four generations of the Brooke family, which was transplanted from Scotland to America more than a century ago, have furnished men of distinction to the profession of medicine and surgery. One of the first medical col- * lege graduates and thoroughly well qualified phy- sicians to come to Montana was the late Dr. Ben- jamin C. Brooke, whose character and abilities honored the profession of his choice and made his residence and citizenship in Montana productive of the finest service to his community and state. A son of this pioneer physician is and has been for a number of years regarded as one of the most skillful surgeons of Montana, Dr. Ben C. Brooke of Helena.

His father, the late Benjamin Coddington Brooke, was born at Morgantown, West Virginia, April 1, 1822. Other branches of the Morgantown Brooke family have achieved distinction in various lines. The parents of Benjamin Coddington Brooke were Dr. Thomas Frederick and Mary (Coddington) Brooke, the former a native of Prince George and

Gilman Bullard

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

the latter of Allegany County, Maryland. Dr. Company, served three terms as secretary of the Thomas Frederick Brooke's father was a native of . Montana State Medical Society, and is a member Scotland, was an early settler in Maryland, and like- wise practiced medicine. Dr. Thomas Frederick Brooke began his professional career in Maryland, but subsequently moved to West Virginia. His widow finally came to Montana with her son. of the American Medical Association. He is inde- pendent in politics, is affiliated with King Solomon Lodge No. 9, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons ; Helena Consistory No. 3 of the Scottish Rite; Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine and Helena Lodge No. 193, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Doctor Brooke is vice president of the Placer Hotel Company and owns one of the best city homes in Helena, at 12 South Benton Avenue.

Benjamin Coddington Brooke was liberally edu- cated in the schools of West Virginia, and had no other ambition than to qualify himself for the pro- fession and service which had been outlined for him. hy the dignified example of his father and grand- father. He studied in the Cincinnati Medical Col- lege, and graduated from the Jefferson Medical Col- lege of Philadelphia. Nearly all his professional service and experience were gained in the far West, much of the time close to the frontier. In 1854 he went to Western Missouri, began practice in the district that has since become Kansas City, and in 1858 he crossed the plains, joining in the rush to the new gold discoveries at Pike's Peak, Colorado. Thus he became one of the pioneer doctors at Den- ver. From there in the spring of 1863 he came to Montana, first identifying himself with the com- munity of Virginia City, but after 1866 lived at Helena. His skill and knowledge in medicine and his long continued devotion to the work set a high standard in his profession, and did much to elevate the vocation of medicine at the very beginning of Montana's territorial history. He was a man of fine character, excellent business ability, became inter- ested in mining, farming, stock ranching and other business affairs, and whether as a private citizen or as a physician his name and record properly belong in any account of the pioneer personalities of Mon- tana. He died at Helena May 9, 1891. He married Sarah Mackbee and they were the parents of six children. Of the two sons that reached mature years, Lee D. has earned a high place in the profes- sion of law. The two daughters are Mrs. Rudolph Horsky and Miss Lalla M. Brooke.

Dr. Ben C. Brooke was born at Helena May 9, 1872, and his nineteenth birthday was the date of his father's death. He received his early education in the schools of Helena, including high school, and later entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York City, graduating with high honors in 1896. Since that year his home and the scene of his professional work have been in Helena. For the past ten years he has confined his practice to surgery. In 1898 Doctor Brooke went east to the New York Post Graduate School, and thereafter for seven years devoted some weeks or months every year to study with this institution, specializing in surgery. He also did work in the New York Polyclinic. Doctor Brooke by his attainments and experience has worthily won a place as Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

At Helena he is affiliated with the firm, Brooke & Lanstrum, the junior associates being Arthur Jordan, B. E. Wiley, Rudolph Horsky and Don L. Treacy. This firm maintains one of the finest equipped private offices in the state, at 12 Edwards Street. They have two special operating rooms and other facilities for surgery, including an X-ray de- partment and a large medical library, and the firm does a large special practice in eye, ear, nose and throat.

Doctor Brooke served as county physician of Lewis and Clark County for 1897 to 1903, as city physician the same years, and for three terms covering about the same period was county coroner. For eight years he was a member of the City and County Board of Health. Doctor Brooke is the medical director of the Montana Life Insurance

At York, Nebraska, he married Miss Bertha Sands, who was born at Rushville, Illinois, and fin- ished her education in the Helena Business College. Doctor and Mrs. Brooke had five children: Vir- ginia, who died in the fall of 1919, at the age of ten years; Ben, Jr., who died in infancy; Bennie, born in 1911; Wallace, born in 1914, and Robert, born in 1917.

JOHN GILMAN BULLARD, the surveyor general of Montana, has been identified almost continuously since boyhood with interests closely allied with those with which he is now connected, and few men of his years can lay claim to wider experience along certain lines or better preparatory training for the exceedingly important office he now holds.

Mr. Bullard traces descent through a long and sub- stantial American ancestry to England and to the founder of the family in this country, Benjamin Bullard, who was among the very first settlers in Massachusetts, as he drew a grant of land in Water- town as early as 1637. Among his descendants was Doctor Bullard, born in Hollister, Massachusetts, December 8, 1768. He removed to Sutton, Massa- chusetts, in 1805, and his death occurred there on the 6th of May, 1842. He was the father of ten children, one of whom was Asa Bullard, the grand father of Montana's present surveyor general. Asa Bullard, who was born in Massachusetts, gained distinction as the founder of many Sunday schools of the Congregational Church in New England. He was a graduate of Amherst College, Massachusetts, and he died in the City of Cambridge, that state. Among other distinguished personages connected with this family may be mentioned Henry Ward Beecher and Clara Barton.

William Reed Bullard, a son of Asa, and the father of John Gilman Bullard, was born in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, in 1838, and he died at Helena, Montana, in 1890. He was reared in Cambridge, graduated from Harvard College, now Harvard. University, with the class of 1857 and the degree of M. D., and during a short time thereafter prac- ticed medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana. From there he came to Montana in 1866, choosing Helena as his future home, and here he enrolled his name among the pioneers and among Montana's most prominent and successful physicians and surgeons. He con- tinued in the practice of medicine in Helena until his death, and his success was due more perhaps to the fact that he was a stanch advocate of careful nursing, giving efficient care and watchfulness precedence over medicine or drugs. He was inde- pendent in political matters, always exercising his right of franchise as his conscience dictated. Al- though reared a Congregationalist. Doctor Bullard after locating in Indianapolis affiliated with the Unitarian Church. He belonged to Morning Star Lodge No. 5, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and was a member of the State Medical Society and the Lewis and Clark County Medical Society.

Doctor Bullard married Mary Nancy Gilman, a member of a Puritan New England family. Her father, John Coffin Gilman, was a trail blazer in the

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Northwest, and was the first county treasurer of Jef- ferson County, Montana. Mrs. Bullard was reared in Ohio and Wisconsin. She died May 8, 1920, in Helena, Montana. Doctor and Mrs. Bullard became the parents of two children, twins, and the daughter, Clara Gertrude, resides with her brother in Helena. She attended the Helena High School and the Helena Business College, and is now engaged in stenographic work in the surveyor general's office.

John Gilman Bullard still lives in the house at 309 East Broadway in which he was born December II, 1873. Just before completing the senior year in the Helena High School his father died, and he was obliged to leave school to assist in his own support. During the following three months he was employed by Wallace & Thornburg, real estate brokers, and then, in November, 1891, entered the office of the United States surveyor general as a draftsman in the mineral department. He remained there but one month, however, leaving the position to pursue a three months' course in shorthand and typewriting in Miss Jackman's shorthand school, where he at- tended during the year 1892, but he never found occasion to put into practice the knowledge he there gained.

From May, 1892, until July 30, 1892, Mr. Bullard was again in the office of the United States sur- veyor general, occupying the same position as be- fore. On the 30th of July, 1894, he was appointed to a permanent position in the same office in the agricultural department, starting in as a draftsman and continuing in that capacity until 1908, when he „was advanced to the office of examiner of plats. On the 14th of January, 1920, Mr. Bullard was ap- pointed surveyor general of Montana, and this is the first promotion that has ever been made from the civil service ranks to an administrative position either in the surveyor general's office or in the land department of the United States Government. Mr. Bullard has offices in the Federal Building. He gives his political allegiance to the democratic party, is a member of the Episcopal Church, and belongs to Helena Lodge No. 193, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks.

Mr. Bullard has gained more than a local reputa- tion as a skilled penman, and is often called upon to engross resolutions passed by the Legislature upon the death of prominent statesmen. Among many other works of that character he engrossed the reso- lutions passed by the Legislature at the death of President Mckinley and also at the death of Theo- dore Roosevelt. For the latter work he received a letter of thanks from Mrs. Roosevelt. Mr. Bul- lard has never married.

ARTHUR JORDAN, M. D. Doctor Jordan, now a member of the prominent firm of physicians and surgeons, Brooke, Lanstrum, Wiley & Jordan, at Helena, was formerly active in his profession and also in public affairs at Twin Bridges.

He was born at Atlantic, Iowa, September 17, 1869, son of James and Agnes (Dungan) Jordan. His father was a Union soldier, spent many years as a farmer in Iowa, and in 1907 removed to Oregon.

Doctor Jordan was reared at Atlantic, Iowa, at- tended high school, also took a normal course, and for four years was a student of medicine in Iowa State University, graduating in 1895. Soon afterward he came to Montana and for ten years practiced at Marysville and in 1905 moved to Twin Bridges.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 174

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