Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 23

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 23

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fraternity. He married Jennie Whittemore, who was born in Iowa in 1854 and who died at Lake Village, Arkansas, on April 19, 1875. The subject of this sketch was their only child.

William D. Tallman received his elementary edu- cation in the public schools of Sparta, Wisconsin, graduating from the high school there in 1892. He then entered the University of Wisconsin at Madi- son, where he was graduated in 1896, with the degree of Bachelor of Science, in mathematics. He is a member of the honorary Greek Letter society Phi Beta Kappa. During 1896-7 he taught mathe- matics in the Madison (Wisconsin) High School, and during the following school year was a fellow in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. During the next year he taught mathematics in the Eau Claire (Wisconsin) High School, and then, from 1899 to January 1, 1901, he was instructor in mathematics and a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. On the date last mentioned Pro- fessor Tallman came to Bozeman and accepted the chair of mathematics in the Montana State College. He is still the incumbent of that position, and has for many years been one of the most popular and respected members of the faculty of this splendid institution.

Professor Tallman gives his support to the re- publican party and has taken an active interest in local public affairs, having served four years as a member of the City Council of Bozeman. He is also a member of the Presbyterian Church, while his fraternal relations are as follows: Gallatin Camp No. 5245, Modern Woodmen of America; Bridger Camp No. 62, Woodmen of the World; Eureka Homestead No. 415, Brotherhood of American Yeo- men, and Bozeman Lodge No. 463, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is also a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Educa- tion.

Professor Tallman has been twice married, first, on June 27, 1900, at Lake Bluff, Illinois, to Anna DeMuth, daughter of Mrs. Susanna DeMuth, of Peru, Indiana. Mrs. Tallman was a graduate of the Chicago Deaconess Training School. Her deatlı occurred on February 4, 1908, at Rochester, Minne- sota. The children born to this union are as fol- lows : Mildred, born May 2, 1903; Hazel, born November 10, 1904, and Duane, born December 17, 1907. On September 8, 1909, at Bozeman, Professor Tallman was married to Maude DeMuth, a sister of his former wife and they have one child, William D., born December 12, 1910. Mrs. Tallman is a graduate of the Montana State College.

Professor Tallman realized early in life that there is a purpose in life and that there is no honor not founded on worth and no respect not founded on accomplishment. His life and labors have been eminently worthy because they have contributed to a proper understanding of life and its problems.

CHARLES C. WILLIS. In that section of Montana known as Sanders County probably no citizen's personal recollections and experiences go back fur- ther and give him more of the authority of a spectator and historian than Charles C. Willis, a well known rancher and real estate dealer at Plains.

Mr. Willis, who has lived in Montana thirty-five years, was born at Columbia, Missouri, August 7, 1854. His paternal ancestors were Englishmen who settled in New Jersey in colonial times, and several of the family were revolutionary soldiers. Mr. Willis' grandfather, John Willis, was born in New Jersey in 1800. For many years he devoted himself to the cause of the Baptist ministry in Missouri.

He was a circuit rider and founded and built many churches of his denomination. Besides his eloquence as a preacher he was a skillful carpenter and me- chanic, and in building some of the early churches he used his individual skill in constructing the build- ings and in making the pews and other articles of furniture. He lived a long and active life and died near Columbia, Missouri, in 1886.

John E. Willis, father of Charles C. Willis, was born in Mississippi in 1828, but was reared and married near Columbia, Missouri, where he followed the business of stock raising. He was a man in advance of his time in that section of Missouri, and was one of the first to establish a herd of pure bred Shorthorn cattle. When the Civil war came on, as a Southerner, he joined the Confederate side, and while serving in the regimental commissary department in Price's army was killed near Spring- field, Missouri, in 1863. He was a democrat and a member of the Christian Church. His wife was Sallie A. Cromwell, a direct descendant of the Oliver Cromwell family of England. She was born near Columbia, Missouri, in 1829, and died at Cen- tralia in that state in 1880. Charles C. was the oldest of her children. Elizabeth died at the age of three months. John is in the life insurance business at Glasgow, Montana, while J. R. Willis, a farmer at Plains, was killed in a runaway accident at Plains February 26, 1920.

Charles C. Willis while a boy attended rural schools in Boone County, Missouri. He was only nine years of age when his father died. For two years, in 1872-73, he attended the Missouri State University at Columbia. After leaving college he became a farmer, at first in Boone County, and after 1878 in Audrain County, Missouri.

Mr. Willis arrived at Thompson Falls, Montana, January 18, 1885. He conducted a ranch near that town and was also the pioneer drayman. For eight- een months he had the contract for hauling water for the town. In 1886 he moved to Plains, and developed one of the first farms and ranches in this vicinity. Mr. Willis is now owner of about 1,300 acres of land. For a number of years he did much contracting for the Northern Pacific Railway, and for several years was interested in the lumbering industry. Since 1909 he has handled a large amount of the local real estate transactions and has bought and sold property for others as well as for himself. He still lives on his home ranch of 200 acres a half mile west of 'the depot. Part of this farm is in the corporation limits of Plains.

Mr. Willis has been a member of the State Board of Horticulture since it was created more than twenty years ago. He was also a justice of the peace in the early days, at a time when the present Sanders, Flathead, Ravalli and Lincoln counties were part of the larger Missoula County, comprising nearly all of Western Montana. Politically he is a democrat.

In 1875, near Columbia, Missouri, Mr. Willis married Miss Mary Shock, daughter of James H. and Susan (Keith) Shock, both deceased. Her father was a pioneer settler in Missouri. Mrs. Willis died at Plains in 1895. She was the mother of seven children: Clarence H., living on the home ranch; Mande, who died at the age of three months; Alvin K., a shipyards worker living at Oakland, California; Mary, died at the age of twenty-four years; John K., a farmer near Avondale in Valley County, Montana; Charles M., whose home is at Hot Springs in Sanders County and who operates a dray line between Hot Springs and Plains and Perma; and Willard P., the present postmaster of Plains.

Ngelys A. Hodges

HISTORY OF MONTANA

In 1898, at Plains, Mr. Willis married for his present wife Miss Sadie Cave, daughter of James and Celia (Woody) Cave. Her father was for many years a farmer at Ozark, Missouri. He died in the fall of 1917 at the advanced age of eighty- five, while her mother died in 1919, aged eighty- seven.

LORIN F. DOUTHETT. Of the forty odd years since he left college Lorin F. Douthett has spent nearly thirty in Montana and his name is asso- ciated actively with several of the important busi- ness institutions of Big Timber. He is regarded as one of the men who have had most to do with the upbuilding of that city.

Mr. Douthett was born in Bloomington, Illinois, June 12, 1854, and is of Scotch ancestry. His pa- ternal ancestors settled at an early date in Penn- sylvania. His father, Robert Douthett, was born in Pennsylvania in 1825, grew up there, moved to Illinois when a young man and after his mar- riage moved to Bloomington, where he followed the business of carpenter and builder a number of years. He was also an Illinois farmer. In 1886 he moved to the new agricultural district around Wessington, South Dakota, and finally went to the Pacific Coast and then to Tacoma and Seattle and was retired at San Francisco when he died in 1911. He was a republican and a member of the Methodist Church. His wife was Eliza Mont- gomery, who was born in Boone County, Iowa, in 1832, and died at Tacoma, Washington, in Septem- ber, 1916. Lorin F. was the second of their family of six children. Eugene, the oldest, is a farmer at Covington, Nebraska; Don Clarence, whose home is in Sioux City, Iowa, is connected with the Gov- ernment river improvement work on the Mississippi; Veleria is the wife of John M. Reynolds, a manu- facturer of hardwood floors, parquetry and other products at Mill Valley, California; Alma, whose home is at Tacoma, Washington, is the widow of her second cousin, Heber Douthett, who was a farmer ; Minnie Belle is the wife of W. U. White, a farmer at Hope, North Dakota.

Lorin F. Douthett attended public school at Bloomington, Illinois, spent three years in the State Normal University at Normal, and completed his sophomore year in the Illinois Wesleyan Univer- sity at Bloomington. After leaving college in 1876 he farmed for several years in Mclain County, Illinois, and was also in the grocery business at Bloomington. He moved out to Dakota Territory in 1884 locating in Wessington, South Dakota, and was a farmer there until he came to Big Timber in 1891. His first work here was at teaming, and he then established what is now the pioneer wood and coal business at the town. He added a lumber yard in 1911 and since 1914 has been a dealer in automobiles. His offices and yards are on First Avenue near McLeod Street. He leases an auto- mobile garage on First Avenue and handles Ford cars and accessories. He also owns the ice house at the foot of McLeod Street. Mr. Douthett is the president of the Big Timber Building & Loan As- sociation and is secretary and treasurer of the Montana Cold Storage and Fuel Company. His modern home is on Third Avenue.

Mr. Douthett is a democrat in politics. He served one term as alderman of Big Timber and is affili- ated with the Congregational Church.

In 1907, at Chicago, Illinois, he married Miss Margaret May Duggan, daughter of William and Isabelle Duggan. Her parents now reside at Min- neapolis. Her father is a machinist. Mr. and Mrs. Douthett had eight children: Edward B., born in

December, 1908; Doris Evelyn, born in 1909; Mary Audrey, born in 1911; Jane Thais, born in 1912; Carol, born in 1913; Lorin Frank, born in 1915; Lawrence O'Neil, born in 1916; and Alice Mar- guerite, born in 1918. Carol died March 24, 1914, Lawrence O'Neil died September 2, 1916; and Alice Marguerite died March 28, 1919. Mrs. Douthett died March 23, 1919.

WYLLYS A. HEDGES, a former receiver of the United States Land Office at Lewistown, where he still resides, has had a career that honorably supple- ments that of his distinguished father, the late Judge Cornelius Hedges, one of the greatest of Montana's pioneers.

Cornelius Hedges, whose story has probably been told in every published work on Montana and which should be set down here in brief as a matter of ap- propriate record, was born in Westfield, Massachu- setts, October 28, 1831, and died in 1909. He had an ancestor in the Revolutionary war, and his people for many generations were prominent in New Eng- land. His parents were Dennis and Alvina (Noble) Hedges. Cornelius Hedges was liberally educated, graduating from Yale College in 1853 and from the law department of Harvard College in 1856. He became a pioneer lawyer at Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa, and practiced there until 1864, part of the time also editing the Buchanan County Bulle- tin, the first paper in Independence, Buchanan County.

In April of 1864 he started across the plains by team to Virginia City, Montana. There he worked as a practical miner, and on January 15, 1865, arrived at Helena. He was one of the first members of the bar of the territory. In 1867 he brought his family to Montana, coming by steamboat up the Missouri River. He was appointed United States attorney for Montana by President Grant, and in 1872 was ap- pointed superintendent of public instruction of the territory. His service in that office for six years did much to formulate the early educational policy of Montana. He served as probate judge five years and in 1882 was reappointed superintendent of public instruction. He was a member of the State Con- stitutional Convention and elected a member of the first State Senate in 1889.

One of the publications of the Montana Historical Society's collections is the journal of Cornelius Hedges, recounting the trip headed by General Wash- burn, of which he was a member, in the explora- tion of the Upper Yellowstone and the Yellowstone National Park. Cornelius Hedges is said to be re- sponsible for the original suggestion that this be made a national preserve.

For many years he was called "the father of Masonry in Montana." He took his first degrees in that order in Iowa in 1859. He became a charter member of Helena Lodge No. 1 in 1865, and was its first master. He held all the offices in the York Rite and the Scottish Rite. He was also one of the founders of the City Library of Helena, and in the early days was a member of the Vigilante organiza- tion. In politics he was a stanch republican. For many years Judge Hedges was one of the prominent sheep men of Montana, running thousands of head on the range along the Mussel Shell River.

In 1856 Judge Hedges married Miss Edna L. Smith, who was born at Southington, Connecticut, in 1836. She died in 1912. Of their eight children, five are living: Wyllys A .; Dennis, who died in childhood; Henry H .; Edna L., wife of H. B. Palmer; Emma, wife of John Woodbridge; Lang- ford; Ellen, who died in childhood; and Corne- lius, Jr.

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Wyllys A. Hedges was born at Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa, July 3. 1857, and was not yet ten years of age when brought to the Territory of Montana. He was a student in some of the early schools of Helena, and in 1869, at the age of thir- teen, was appointed librarian of the Helena Public Library. After finishing high school he entered Yale University, and returned from the East to become the original settler on the townsite of Great Falls in 1878. He lived there until 1880, and then went to California and bought a flock of sheep which he drove overland to Bercail on Careless Creek in Meagher County. He reached his destination No- vember 6, 1881, and, associated with his father, con- tinned in the sheep and cattle business until 1906. He was largely responsible for the development of the sheep industry in the Mussel Shell Valley, and a town in that vicinity is still known as Hedges. In 1906 Mr. Hedges was appointed by the late Col- onel Roosevelt receiver of the United States Land Office at Lewistown, and held those responsibili- ties until October 2, 1913. Since then he has been engaged in the real estate business. As a republican he was elected a member of the Lower House of the State Legislature in the Fourth. Sixth, Seventh and Ninth assemblies, and during his last term was speaker of the house. Like his father, he is active in Masoury, being affiliated with Lewistown Lodge No. 37, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Hiram Chapter No. 15, Royal Arch Masons, and he and his wife are members of Marie Chapter No. 36 of the Eastern Star.

September 3, 1884, he married Miss Ida S. Beach. She was born in Southington, Connecticut, where Mr. Hedges' mother spent her girlhood. Mr. and Mrs. Hedges' four children are all deceased.

WILLARD HICKOX, of Billings, is probably the pre- mier authority in Montana on all subjects connected with bee culture and honey production. Like most men who have been successful in that industry he seems to have a natural genius for work, though of course experience and training count largely for his success. He is secretary, treasurer and manager of the Rocky Mountain Bee Company and is secre- tary and treasurer of the Montana Honey Producers' Association, Incorporated.

Mr. Hickox was born at Fowler, in Trumbull County, Ohio, November 12, 1857. The name Hickox is of English origin and was one of the first names transplanted to the soil of New England. His grand- father, Jesse Hickox, was born in Connecticut in 1782 and in 1818 took his family to the western wilderness and settled in the Ohio Western Reserve in Trumbull County. He had previously served as a soldier of the War of 1812. He died at Fowler in 1867. His wife was a Miss Janes.

Daniel B. Hickox, father of Willard, was born in Connecticut in 1814 and was four years old when his parents moved to Ohio. He spent the rest of his life there as a farmer and died in 1876. He was an old school republican and was active in the Methodist Church. His wife, Laura Tanner, was born in Fowler and died there November 15, 1857.

Willard Hickox, only child of his parents, grew up on his father's farm to the age of nineteen, at- tended school at Fowler and graduated from the Cleveland High School in 1877. He also took special courses in the Spencerian Business College at Cleve- land. For fifteen years , Mr. Hickox was employed as a bookkeeper and stenographer in Cleveland, and while working in that city and with his home nearby he acquired his first practical knowledge and expe- rience in bee keeping. In 1900 he moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma, and after one summer there went to Fort

Collins, Colorado, and organized the Rocky Moun- tain Bee Company. Besides his work in handling bees at Cleveland he also spent a year in Michigan in the same line of work. Mr. Hickox has been manager of the Rocky Mountain Bee Company since it was established. In 1911 he moved his headquar- ters to Rosebud, Montana, and during that year made his home in Cartersville. In 1912 he moved to Forsyth, Montana, and since 1916 has had his home in Billings, his residence being at 508 St. Johns Avenue.

The Rocky Mountain Bee Company in 1919 owned 2,000 stands of bees. These are moved about from point to point to secure the best results of honey productions, the principal location being near Rose- bud, Cartersville, Oronoco, Sanders, Myers, Hysham and Laurel. The company has produced and shipped as high as 150,000 pounds or fifty-five tons of honey in a single year, and this honey is distributed all over the United States. All the Montana business is handled through the offices at Montana Avenue and West Fifth Street in Billings. The company is in- corporated in Colorado with headquarters at Ber- thoud.

While he was a resident of Cleveland Mr. Hickox made his home at Rockport, a suburb of that city. He was postmaster of Rockport at one time, also mayor, and a member of the Christadelphian Church of Cleveland. He is a republican, a Mason, Elk and Woodman of the World.

Mr. Hickox married at Rockport, Ohio, in 1879, Miss Dora McBride, daughter of Samuel and Delilah (Holton) McBride. Her father was a farmer in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Okla- homa, keeping well out to the frontier. He is now deceased and her mother is living at Chattanooga, Oklahoma.

ROBERT SCHAEFER. Among the citizens and busi- ness men of Southern Montana who believe in fol- lowing twentieth-century methods is Robert Schaefer, the pioneer cheese manufacturer of Mon- tana and proprietor of three successful factories in this state. He comes of a splendid Swiss family, one that has always been strong for right living and industrious habits, for education and morality, and for all that contributes to the welfare of the commonwealth. Such people are welcomed in any community, for they are empire builders and as such have pushed the frontier of civilization ever westward and onward, leaving the green wide- reaching wilderness and the far-stretching plains populous with contented people and beautiful with green fields; they have constituted that sterling horde which caused the great Bishop Whipple to write the memorable line, "Westward the course of empire takes its way."

Robert Schaefer was born in Canton Berne, Switzerland, on February 8, 1878, and is the son of Peter and Margaret (Willener) Schaefer. Peter Schaefer was born in 1842, in Canton Berne, Swit- zerland, and his death occurred there in 1911. In many respects he was a most remarkable man. He received a good, practical education, as do all the children of Switzerland, and after taking up work on his own account showed himself to be the pos- sessor of more than ordinary mental capacity. He held practically all the state offices of his native country and at the early age of twenty years he became a supreme judge in Canton Berne, an office he held for a number of years. He was well known throughout his country and was held in the highest esteem. He was by trade a carver. He became the inventor of the art of wood carving as prac- tised by the Swiss, and traveled all over the world

HISTORY OF MONTANA

in that vocation. He was a soldier in the Swiss army, serving along the border in 1870-71, holding the rank of first sergeant. In 1876 he came to the United States, locating at Philadelphia, where he became a noted wood carver and was in the employ of the leading furniture factory there. He became a citizen of the United States, but returned to his native land in 1879. He was a member of the Evangelical Reformed Church and was very active and earnest in his religious life. He married Margaret Willener, who was born in 1853 in Canton Berne, Switzerland, and who now resides in Meirin- gen, that country. To them were born the following children: Edward, who has been a soldier of the United States Army since 1898, was a soldier in the Spanish-American war, and more recently in the World war, being at the present time in France with the Fifty-Third Division, holding the rank of supply sergeant; Robert, the subject of this sketch, is the next in order of birth; Peter is a laborer and resides in Cleveland, Ohio; Saloma is the wife of Fritz Boesch, who resides at St. Gallen, Switzer- land, and is a soldier in the Swiss national army; Werner is a wood carver at Meiringen, Switzerland ; Lena, who died at Meiringen, Switzerland, in 19II, at the age of twenty-three years; Katherine is a school teacher at St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Robert Schaefer received a good education in the public and high schools of Berne and then learned the trade of cheese making, a vocation in which the Swiss excell all other nationalities. He then went to Germany and for a short time was engaged in the cheese business there. In July, 1902, Mr. Schaefer came to the United States, landing at New York, where he remained for about three weeks. He then went to Canal Dover, Ohio, where he was engaged in general work until 1911, when he went to Arlington, Wisconsin, and established a cheese factory for Jacob Marty. April 1, 1915, he came to Salesville, Montana, and erected a cheese factory, the first one to be established in the State of Mon- tana. He has equipped his factory with every modern facility for the making of all kinds of cheese, and so successful has he been in his opera- tions that he has established two other similar fac- tories in this state, one at Belgrade and one at Central Park, both of which have proven very successful. The products of these factories have already earned a high reputation for their excellent quality and they are sold all over Montana and other neighboring states. Mr. Schaefer has $30,000 invested in the business, and he is reaping the fruits of his faith and his works.

Politically Mr. Schaefer is an ardent supporter of the republican party, while his fraternal relations are with Salesville Lodge No. 69, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Pythagoras Lodge No. 2, Knights of Pythias, at Bozeman; and the local lodge of the Daughters of Rebekah.

In 1902, at Nobitz, Saxony, Robert Schaefer was married to Anna Eliza Ruchti, a native of Canton Berne, Switzerland, and to them have been born three children, namely: John Godfrey Peter, who died at the age of six months; Alma Louise, born February 21, 1904, and John William Franklin, born September 11, 1905.

Although a quiet and unassuming man, with no ambition for public position or leadership, Mr. Schaefer has contributed to the material, civil and moral advancement of his community, while his admirable qualities of head and heart and the straightforward, upright course of his daily life has won for him the esteem and confidence of the people with whom he has been associated.

WILLIAM CASTLES has been in Montana fourteen years, and since he came to Superior his business as a merchant has rapidly increased until his firm is now one of the largest individual taxpayers in Mineral County.

Mr. Castles was born at the City of Liverpool, England, February 12, 1878. His father, Wesley Castles, was born at Drumlin, County Armagh, Ireland, in 1855, was reared and married there, and became a farmer and butcher. After his mar- riage he moved to Liverpool, where he owned a chain of meat markets. He prospered in his business affairs and subsequently retired to Belfast, Ireland, where he died in 1912. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Apprenticed Boys of Derry, was a Methodist and a conservative in politics. His wife was Mary Theressa Bland, who was born at Lancaster, England, in 1854, and died at Belfast in 1915. They had a family of ten chil- dren, including : Wesley, who became a miner, went to Australia, and died in that country at the age of forty; Lavinia Augusta, wife of George Ruddell, owner of a meat market at Lurgan, Ireland; Bertha Louise, wife of Robert J. Mulligan, a musketry instructor in the British army living at Belfast ; William; Garfield and Eleanor Gertrude, both of whom came from the old country and have lived at Superior, Montana, since December, 1919.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 23

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