Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 22

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 22

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bert, on the home farm at Burlington; Marie, wife of Joseph Bazel, a butter maker at Burlington.

Ernest A. Boschert attended the rural schools of Racine, Wisconsin, and lived at home with his father until he was twenty-two. He then went to Chicago, and during 1904-05 was a student in Bryant & Stratton's Business College. He had some metro- politan training and experience in mercantile busi- ness in Chicago, being for six months an assistant bookkeeper in a wholesale dry goods house and for five months working in the neckwear department of the wholesale men's furnishing store of Wilson Brothers. For seven months he was bookkeeper and clerk in a hardware store in Evanston, a Chicago suburb, and with this experience and equipment came to Billings in April, 1907. After eight months with the Sande Hardware Company he bought a small stock of groceries at Ballantine, and when he took charge he was also invested with the duties and responsibilities of postmaster. He held the postoffice and continued his store for ten years. In the mean- time his little stock of groceries had expanded into a large general or department store, and in IgiI he closed out everything except hardware and is now proprietor of the leading establishment of that kind in his part of Yellowstone County. He owns the store building, and keeps everything needed on the farms and ranches in the way of hardware.

Mr. Boschert also owns a modern home on Beech and Third streets in Ballantine. He is a republican and Catholic, and is affiliated with Billings Council No. 1259, Knights of Columbus, the Royal High- landers, and the Billings Midland Empire Club. On August 6, 1913, at David City, Nebraska, he married Miss Edena Fenlon, daughter of P. F. and Fannie (Flynn) Fenlon. Her mother lives at Ballantine, while her father, now deceased, was a traveling salesman. Mr. and Mrs. Boschert have one daugh- ter, Margaret Lewine, born July 7, 1918.

WILLIAM J. BEALL. The history of the City of Bozeman would be far from complete without a sketch of William J. Beall, who was one of the founders of the little city that is the county seat of Gallatin County. Mr. Beall was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, May 19, 1834, was educated in the public schools of his native city and studied for his profession as an architect and builder in the office of his father, Benjamin Beall, who then stood high in his profession in Pennsylvania.

William J. Beall moved to Kansas in 1856, from there to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and in 1862 to Denver and in March, 1863, arrived in Montana. For a few months he engaged in mining at Vir- ginia City, but January, 1864, found him in the Gallatin Valley, where he located a mine, but sold his interest to his partner a few months later and in company with D. E. Rouse came to the present site of Bozeman, where they located adjoining farms in the month of July and built the first two houses.

The division line between the farms was where the old Laclede Hotel building stands on Main Street and Bozeman Avenue, Rouse's quarter section lying east and Beall's west of that line. The government survey afterwards threw Mr. Beall's line farther east, making what is now Rouse Street his east line, with Main Street his south line. Mr. Beall built his house on Bozeman Street, near Main, just back of the site of the Masonic Temple. Mr. Rouse built on the south side of Main Street, east of Bozeman Avenue. After a few years Mr. Beall was in partnership with W. H. Tracy, who took up a claim adjoining Mr. Beall's on the west, and part of these claims were platted into town lots.

In the winter of 1865-66 Mr. Beall did the car-

HISTORY OF MONTANA

penter work on the large story and a half log resi- dence erected on the Alderson ranch a mile south of Bozeman. While holding his claim and as his time and means would permit he followed his trade as carpenter and builder in Bozeman and in other towns in Montana. In 1868 he built a residence on Bozeman Avenue, four blocks from Main Street. This has long been recognized as one of the pic- turesque and attractive homes of the city. Here Mr. Beall died September 3, 1903. His wife, still living, has enjoyed the comforts of that home since November, 1868.

Many business blocks and residences in Bozeman are monuments to Mr. Beall's architectural skill. The old Sacred Heart Cathedral Building, built in 1874-75, and the Herald Building, erected in 1875 at Helena, are among the buildings still standing in other parts of the state. Mrs. Beall still cherishes among her records a testimonial from the building committee of the Cathedral in the handwriting of Robert C. Walker, consisting of an extract from the minutes of the building committee of the Roman Catholic Church, Helena, Montana Territory, Octo- ber 5, 1874, as follows:

"Whereas, it has been deemed necessary on ac- count of the lateness of the season and on account of disappointment in the delivery of the required" cut stone, to temporarily suspend work upon the church, and

"Whereas, W. J. Beall, the architect and superin- tendent of the building, has given the committee great satisfaction by his definite and artistic plans and specifications drawn according to designs origi- nating with himself,

"Therefore, resolved, that the Building Committee of the Roman Catholic Church tender to Mr. Beall their thanks and this expression of their approbation for his energy and skill displayed in behalf of the building and for the faithful performance of the duties reposed in him.

"L. F. LaCroix, chairman, "Robert C. Walker, secretary."

In the spring of 1875, as the records show, Mr. Beall was sent for by the building committee to superintend the completion of the structure, which he did to the utmost satisfaction of all concerned. The building after completion was called the "Sacred Heart Cathedral" and it was only a few years ago that a larger cathedral was erected. A prominent architect from the east while visiting in Helena a few years ago noticed this Sacred Heart Cathedral and said it was one of the finest speci- mens of architectural skill he had seen in the West.

Mr. Beall was a quiet and unobtrusive citizen, ever attentive to whatever business he had in hand. He was universally recognized as one of the most honorable and upright business men of the com- munity, a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was made a Mason in Gallatin Lodge No. 6 in 1866, and was interested in all the subsequent growth and advancement of the lodge. He was a charter member of the Pioneers Society of Gallatin County and also a member of the Society of Montana Pio- neers. He is survived by his wife, formerly Rosa V. Barker, whom he married in November, 1868.

MRS. W. J. BEALL, whose maiden name was Rosa V. Barker, enjoys the distinction of having been the first white woman to locate at Bozeman, coming here August 1, 1864. Bozeman has been her home ever since, though she has traveled east and west since she could travel by railroad. For more than half a century her home has been a comfortable residence on Bozeman Avenue, North, erected by her husband in 1868. Plans are now under way to

secure the block of ground on which the Beall resi- dence stands, originally a part of the Beall home- stead, for a recreation park as a memorial to the young men of this community who served in the World war.

Mrs. Beall's father was James Barker, an early pioneer of Montana. She was born in Lewis County, New York, and spent there the early years of her life. She graduated from Fairfield Seminary in New York, making a specialty of music and art, in both of which she was very proficient. She taught music in the seminary for one year and is still identified with the alumni society of the school.

She moved with her parents to Wisconsin and went through many trying experiences in the South during the Civil war, and in crossing the plains with her husband and two little girls in 1864 she had many narrow escapes from being killed by Indians. They had other trying experiences and in crossing the Big Horn River she and the children came near being drowned.

Mrs. Beall has taken an active part in the social and religious life of Bozeman, and is highly es- teemed by citizens of the community. Her children were a comfort to her in her pioneer days, and the loss of these little ones brought her much grief. When the first Sunday school was organized in 1866 by W. W. Alderson in Bozeman, under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, she was one of the most active members and was a worker in that pioneer church.

Mrs. Beall helped in establishing St. James Epis- copal Church in Bozeman and has been the most faithful communicant ever since, much of the time being a worker in the Sunday School and the Guild. She was a charter member and the first conductress in Lily of the Valley Chapter of the Order of Eastern Star, with which she is still identified. In the Pioneers Society of Gallatin County she served as historian for several years, and is now serving her second term as president of this organization. She is also a member of the Society of Montana Pioneers and is identified with the Sons and Daugh- ters of Pioneers of the County and State. For many years she was active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union of Bozeman.

Her husband's career as a Montanan has been sketched on preceding pages. During his lifetime Mrs. Beall assisted him in his business affairs and since his death in 1903 she has looked after her own business with remarkable accuracy. Though past the allotted three score and ten, she is remarkably well and active in body and mind.

Mrs. Beall has lived the life of an earnest Chris- tian, and her strong faith in God through her trials and tribulations has kept her above the sorrows that might have crushed to earth a woman of ordinary character. In the fifty-five years she has lived in Bozeman she has seen the city grow from two log cabins to one with hundreds of beautiful homes and a population of 8,000 people having the best religious and educational advantages possible.

ARAD H. FRANKLIN is an old timer in Montana and the Northwest, has been a miner, contractor and in other lines of business, and is at present repre- sentative in the Legislature from Mineral County, with home at Superior.

Mr. Franklin was born in Harrison County, Iowa, July 1, 1868. This branch of the Franklin family came originally from England and settled in Massa- chusetts in colonial times. His father, Jerome B. Franklin, was born in New York State in 1832, was reared and married there, and afterwards became a farmer in Harrison County, Iowa, and was a

HISTORY OF MONTANA

hotel proprietor at Dunlap in that state. He also did considerable business as a bridge builder. In 1887 he came to Helena, Montana, and was employed as a carpenter by the Montana Central Railway Company. In the fall of 1887 he located at Butte, where he continued business as as carpenter and builder until 1894. The last years of his life were spent on a ranch at Stevensville, Montana, where he died in 1915. He was a republican in politics, a member of the Presbyterian Church and affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His wife was Mariette Baskin who was born in New York State in 1828 and died at Stevensville, Mon- tana, in 1912. They had a family of seven children : Helen who married Steven Corley, a contractor and carpenter and both died at Stevensville, Mon- tana; Mary is the wife of J. J. Moorhead, a farmer and cattle buyer at Dunlap, Iowa; F. S. Franklin is a carpenter in the shipyards at Spanway, near Tacoma, Washington; Kate is the wife of George A. Smith, and they own the old Franklin ranch at Stevensville; Sarah, the fifth child, died in in- fancy, and the sixth in order of birth is Arad H .; John, the youngest, is an electrician at Seattle, Wash- ington.

Arad H. Franklin received his early education in the public schools of Dunlap, Iowa. He was about eighteen years of age when he came to Montana in 1886. His first experience was at Rosebud, where during the summer he rode the range as a cow- boy. In the spring of 1887 he was at Great Falls and shortly afterward at Helena, where he spent a year with Porter Brothers, a well known firm of railroad contractors. For four years he was with the Electric Light Company at Butte. He then formed a partnership with his brother F. S. Franklin, and for two years they did teaming contracting. They also owned mining property near Shoupe, Idaho, and they operated their mine in that locality from 1894 to 1897. From the latter year until 1900 Mr. Franklin engaged in prospecting in both Idaho and Montana. From 1900 to 1905 he con- ducted his father's ranch, and he and his brother then spent about a year filling a contract for the construction of a water ditch in Ravalli County. Mr. Franklin in 1907 moved to Spokane, where he spent the winter as a barber and from May to August, 1908, had a barber shop at Grand Forks, Idaho. Since 1908 he has conducted a high class barber establishment at Superior. He is also presi- dent of the Mask Iron Company, and owns a mod- ern home and other real estate at Superior.

Mr. Franklin has long been interested in politics in various communities, being affiliated with the democratic party. He served as a justice of the peace at Superior and also in Missoula County. He was elected to represent Mineral County in the Sixteenth Session of the Legislature in 1918. He was a member of the fish and game, railroad trans- portation, mines and mining, journal and other committees. Mr. Franklin is a Catholic, and is affiliated with Missoula Council No. 1021, Knights of Columbus, Missoula Camp No. 5329, Modern Woodmen of America, and Jocko Tribe No. 10, Independent Order of Red Men.

In 1905, at Missoula, he married Mrs. Agnes (Welch) Clark, daughter of Martin and Mary Welch, both deceased. Her father was a Wisconsin farmer and afterwards owned a timber claim at DeBorgia, Montana. Mr. Franklin has no children of his own, but has two step-children, Laura, wife of A. C. Bennett, a carpenter at Butte; and O. J. Pike, who conducts a pool hall at Superior.

J. B. SELTERS is a lawyer, and soon after gradu- ating from law school and his admission to the bar

of Illinois came to Montana and is now in his tenth year of his successful general practice at Big Tim- ber.

Mr. Selters represents a family that has been substantially identified with the agricultural and business and professional interests of Illinois for nearly seventy years. He was born at Topeka, Illi- nois, May 22, 1884, and is a son of Henry Selters, who was born in Germany in 1826 and came to the United States in 1847, when twenty-one years of age. He was a pioneer in the locality where the Town of Havana, Illinois, now is and developed a homestead and lived as a farmer the rest of his life. He died at Havana in 1905. He became a republican when that party was founded and was a member of the Evangelical Church. His brother, George Selters, was a Union soldier with an Illi- nois regiment and while a prisoner at Anderson- ville died May 24, 1864. The State of Illinois is now erecting a monument at Andersonville in honor of the sons of the Prairie state who lost their lives while prisoners of war in that notorious stockade.

Of the eight children of Henry Selters and wife, Barbara Shundlemeyer, who was born in Germany in 1840 and died at Havana, Illinois, in 1914, J. B. is the youngest and the only one to adopt the State of Montana as his home. Mary, the oldest, mar- ried a Mr. Deiss and she is a widow and lives at Monte Vista, Colorado; Enoch is a banker and livestock man at Clayton, Illinois; Chris owns a large ranch at Monte Vista, Colorado; Anna is un- married and lives on the home farm at Havana, Illinois; Henry is also a ranch owner at Monte Vista, Colorado, as is also Joseph, the seventh child; Kathryn, sixth in age, is a graduate nurse, lives at Peoria, Illinois; for several years had charge of the Peoria County Hospital, and is at this writ- ing engaged in special work in her profession in Chicago.

J. B. Selters attended rural schools in Mason County, Illinois, spent three years in the literary department of Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, and after a three years' course in the law department graduated with the LL. B. de- gree in 1910, and was admitted to the Illinois bar the same year. A few weeks later he arrived at Big Timber, Montana, and after a brief novitiate was accorded a living business as a lawyer and has handled some of the very important civil and criminal cases of the local courts. His offices are in the Lowry Building on McLeod Street. He served as city attorney from 1915 until he resigned in 1918, and during 1917-18 was county attorney. During the World war he was a member of the Legal Advisory Board and was the Government appeal agent for Sweetgrass County. He is also a member of the Eastern Montana Bar Association.

Mr. Selters is a republican, member of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, and he and his wife are well known in social circles of Big Timber. Re- cently he sold his modern home on Fourth Avenue and has now purchased a home on Sixth Avenue, East. Mr. Selters married at Billings in 1912 Miss Estelle Clark, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Clark. residents of Hobart, Oklahoma. Mrs. Sel- ters is a skilled vocalist and instrumental musi- cian, and completed her musical education in the American Conservatory of Music at Chicago. They have one son, J. B., Jr., born September 14, 1914.

HENRY CHEESMAN, who first came to Montana in pioneer times, over thirty-five years ago, was for ten years prominently identified with the ranching and farming interests of this state and is now living in comfortable retirement at Lewistown.

Mr. Cheesman was born in Racine County, Wis-

Henry Sherman

HISTORY OF MONTANA

consin. August 16, 1857, a member of a pioneer family of the Badger State. His parents, Edward and Eliza (Johnson) Cheesman, were both natives of England. Henry Cheesman was the third son and fifth child. Two of the daughters and one son were born in England. They came to America in 1844 by sailing vessel, being six weeks on the ocean. From New York City they traveled by boat to Al- bany. thence by canal to Buffalo and around by the lake by sailing ship to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Edward Cheesman reached Wisconsin with only $2.50 in money. He located a tract of Government land in Racine County and virtually hewed a home out of the wilderness. His first house was built of logs. He lived there many years and prospered, owning 200 acres of good farming land, devoted to general crops and sheep and cattle. He retired in 1886, and spent his last days in Milwaukee, where he died in 1903, at the age of eighty-nine years. His wife died at the age of sixty-five in 1882. They had six sons and three daughters, six of whom are still living. Edward Cheesman held various township offices and was a whig and republican in politics, and during the Civil war was a strong supporter of the Union.

Henry Cheesman acquired his education in the public schools of Racine County and attended the Rochester Academy in that state for 21/2 years. After his first marriage he engaged in the hotel business at Rochester, and then took up farming in Rock County. After selling his interests in Wiscon- sin he came to Montana in June, 1883, with a herd of sheep. His destination was Dillon, where he sold his flock to some sheep men. He spent several months in the state and then went back to Wis- consin. He afterward returned to Fergus County, Montana, and in 1908 engaged in farming on a large scale, operating about 4,500 acres and acting as superintendent for the Judith Basin Land Company, as stock buyer. Since June, 1918, he has lived re- tired. In 1915 Mr. Cheesman raised 26,000 bushels of wheat on 600 acres of land. He is affiliated with Judith Lodge No. 30, Knights of Pythias, and in politics is a republican.

Mr. Cheesman is an enthusiastic Montanan and shows his pride and confidence in his adopted state not alone by words but by deeds. No measure or project tending to the betterment of either local or state conditions has ever come up that failed to receive his hearty support, both in time and money. He has always worked to the end of a gen- eral improvement in all phases of both public and private progress, and has given substantial evidence of his beliefs. Never desiring political preferment, his judgment and opinions have nevertheless had much to do in shaping public matters for their betterment.

In 1880 he married for his first wife Emma A. Gipson. She was born in Racine County, Wisconsin, and died in 1884. In 1886 Mr. Cheesman married Anna B. Emery, who was born in Industry, Maine. They have two children, Wallace Henry, who lives at Clinton, Wisconsin, and married Edna Conley; and Harriet L., who is the wife of Frank J. Hughes, of Lewistown, and the mother of one daughter, Ellen.

CHARLES O. STOUT. For all the magnificence of its variegated sources, Montana is an agricultural state, and its prosperity will rest more securely every year upon its farms and ranches. One of the men who have achieved a practical success in the raising of crops and the operation of land in Yel- lowstone County is Charles O. Stout, of Ballantine. Mr. Stout, who has been a resident of Montana Vol. II-6

for twelve years, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, January 12, 1881. His grandfather, Michael Stout, was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, spent his life as a farmer and died in Cumberland County of that state before his grandson was born. John A. Stout, father of the Montana rancher, was born in Cumberland County in 1852, also spent his life in Pennsylvania as a farmer, and died at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, in October, 1907. He was a republi- can and a very active member of the Baptist Church. His wife was Emma Saltzgiver, who was born in Adams County, Pennsylvania, in 1846, and is now living at Newville, in Cumberland County, Penn- sylvania. She was the mother of three children, Alba S., wife of W. S. Meals, owner of a coal mine and farm near Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Charles O., and Mary R., wife of C. R. Killian, ticket agent in the Pennsylvania Depot at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Charles O. Stout attended public school in Cum- berland County, for two years was a student in the Blue Ridge College at New Windsor, Maryland, and in 1904 completed a course in the Philadelphia Busi- ness College. For a time he worked in a business office in Philadelphia and after taking a civil service examination was appointed to a position in the chief postoffice inspector's office at Washington. He broke away from the routine duties and the life of the East and came out to Billings in June, 1907. The first seven months he was in the state he was em- ployed by the Billings Sugar Company, and then moved to Ballantine, where for over ten years he has been busily engaged in ranching. Mr. Stout owns forty-seven acres of the highly valuable irri- gated land between Worden and Ballantine. He has everything in complete order and with facilities in the way of barns and other buildings that make efficient farming possible. He also has a modern home. During 1918, when patriotism demanded the utmost of the farmers, Mr. Stout operated 400 acres. He also has other interests, being vice president of the Ballantine State Bank and is director of the Ballantine Telephone Company.

Mr. Stout is one of the leading republicans of Yellowstone County. He was a candidate for the Legislature in 1912 and for six years was justice of the peace for his precinct. He is a member of the Baptist Church.

In January, 1911, he married Miss Re Bryson, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Asher) Bryson, at Ballantine. Her parents live at Ballantine, her father being a retired farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Stout have five children: Robert John, born October 12, 1912; Mary Elizabeth, born February 13, 1914; Will- iam Charles, born September 22, 1915; Edna Aileen, born June 4, 1916, and Ruth, born February 18, 1918.

WILLIAM DUANE TALLMAN. One of the distinc- tive incidental functions of this publication is to take recognition of those citizens of the great common- wealth of Montana who stand distinctively repre- sentative in their chosen spheres of endeavor, and in this connection there is eminent propriety in according consideration to Professor William Duane Tallman, one of the able and popular educators of the state, who holds a professorship in the mathe- matical department of the State College at Bozeman.

William D. Tallman was born at Sterling, Ar- kansas, on February 12, 1875, and is a son of Duane Dano and Jennie (Whittemore) Tallman. The father was born in 1851 at Reedsburg, Wisconsin, was reared and educated there, and in young man- hood went to Arkansas, where he went into the general mercantile business. He died at Lake Vil- lage, Arkansas, in October, 1874. He was a republican in politics and a member of the Masonic

HISTORY OF MONTANA

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 22

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