Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 6

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 6

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May 14, 1917, Governor Stewart appointed Mr. Hilger a member of the State Tax and License Commission for a term of two years. On April 21, 1916, he was elected a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in St. Louis. Of the four- teen candidates he received the largest number of votes.

Mr. Hilger was one of the Lewistown citizens who brought about the establishment of a county high school and served as chairman of the board of trustees while the high school building was under construction. He was also a member of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Library when it was built and for a number of years afterward. By appointment of Governor Norris he was a member of the Commission on the Conservation of Our Natural Resources and the drafting of the pres- ent laws governing the state lands of Montana.

Mr. Hilger is one of Montana's prominent mem- bers of the Order of Elks, his local affiliation being with Lewistown Lodge No. 456, of which he is a past exalted ruler. He was district deputy in 1906 and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge of Denver in 1905, Los Angeles in 1915, Baltimore in 1916, Boston in 1917 and Atlantic City in 1918.

October 20, 1884, Mr. Hilger married Miss Chris- tina H. Fergus, daughter of William Fergus and a niece of James Fergus. the distinguished pioneer for whom Fergus County was named. Mr. and Mrs. Hilger had five children, two daughters dy- ing in infancy. The oldest daughter. Maude H., is the wife of George H. Osborne, a rancher in Fergus County, and they have a daughter, Chris- tine. David J., the only son of Mr. Hilger, is as- sistant cashier of the Montana State Bank at Geral- dine and married Mary Dowd. The youngest. daughter. Christina L., is a student in the Fergus County High School.

WILLIAM L. LAWSON. Possessing undoubted ex- ecutive and business ability and judgment. William L. Lawson, who is prominently associated with the industrial affairs of Billings as assistant to the president of the Great Western Sugar Company, and as general manager of the concern, has been an important factor in advancing the growth and expansion of the company's interests in Montana, and very influential in furthering the success of the vast enterprise.

The Great Western Sugar Company, founded in 1902, was organized in the State of New Jersey, and is now capitalized at $30,000,000. Beginning on a rather modest scale, with its first factory at Loveland, Colorado, its business increased with sur- prising rapidity, and it now has ten factories in Colorado, three in Nebraska, two in Montana and one in Wyoming. The factory at Billings, situated about six miles south of the city limits, was built in 1905, the plant consisting of five individual brick structures, including the main building, the office building, the warehouse, the lime kiln, and the power house. The officers of the Billings plant are as follows: W. L. Lawson, assistant to the presi- dent, and general manager ; Joseph Mandru, general superintendent ; F. H. Ballou, assistant chief en- gineer ; C. F. Ridley, cashier ; C. S. Milhiser, agri- cultural superintendent ; and H. S. Barringer, factory superintendent. This plant has a capacity of 2,000 tons per day. The company's other Montana plant, located at Missoula, has a capacity of 1,000 tons a day. Its four officers are F. A. Wilson, local manager ; E. E. Durmin, factory superintendent; R. M. Barr, agricultural superintendent of that district ; and H. Towner, cashier, assistant to W. L. Law- son, who has general supervision over the Missoula territory.

A native of Canada, W. L. Lawson was born at Hamilton, Ontario, September 28, 1870, of Scotch parentage. His father, the late William Lawson, was born in 1830, in Fifeshire, Scotland, and was there reared and married. Brought up to seafaring pursuits, he was engaged in the merchant marine service during his earlier life. Emigrating to Amer- ica, he settled permanently in Canada, living first in Hamilton, but spending his later years in Toronto, where his death occurred in 1912. He married Jessie Kerr, who was born in Edinboro, Scotland, in 1838, and died in Toronto, Canada, in 1917, having survived him five years. Jessie Kerr Law- son became a well known writer of Scottish stories and verses.

Scholarly in his ambitions and attainments, W. L. Lawson was graduated from the University of Tor- onto in 1893, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts and Science, and for four years thereafter remained in that institution as assistant professor of chem- istry. Accepting a position then as chemist for the Alvarado Sugar Company, at Alvarado, Cali- fornia, he held it for four years, after which he was technical man for the Idaho-Utah Sugar Com- pany for a year. Becoming associated with the Great Western Sugar Company in 1905, Mr. Lawson was superintendent of the factory at Eaton, Colo- rado; for a year, and was then transferred to Sterling, Colorado, as manager of the plant there. Making good in that capacity, he was eventually given charge of two other Colorado factories, one at Brush and the other at Fort Morgan. In May, 1915, he was promoted to his present position of assistant to the president of the company, and gen- eral manager of the Montana division of the Great Western Sugar Company, an office of great respon- sibility which he is filling with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of the firm.

Politically Mr. Lawson is a republican, but takes no active part in the management of public affairs. He is a member of the Society of Chemical In- dustry, an international organization in which he takes much interest. Socially he belongs to both the Billings Club and the Billings Midland and Empire Club. Prominently identified with the Ma- sons, Mr. Lawson is a member of Eaton Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, of Eaton, Colorado; of Denver Chapter, Royal Arch

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Masons; of Denver Commandery, Knights Templar ; of Denver Consistory, being a thirty-second degree Mason; and of El Jebel Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Denver.

Mr. Lawson is a brother of A. C. Lawson, pro- fessor of geology in the University of California, and of A. A. Lawson, professor of botany in the University of Sidney, Australia. He is also a brother of James Kerr Lawson, the artist of London, Eng- land, who has been commissioned by the Canadian Government to paint some of the European battle- fields where the Canadian armies fought.

JAMES K. MURPHY, assistant superintendent of the Washoe Reduction Works of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, is one of the alert and energetic young men connected with this corpora- tion who are proving their worth as practical engi- neers and citizens. He was born at Butte, Montana, July 6, 1889, a son of James W. Murphy, and grand- son of Jeremiah J. Murphy, who was born in Ire- land in 1815, and died at Butte, Montana, in 1890. Coming to the United States in young manhood, he remained for a time in New Jersey, and then came as far west as Iowa, about the time of the war between the states, there being a pioneer farmer. In 1880 he extended his travels to Salt Lake City, Utah, and in 1885 reached Butte, Montana, where he lived in retirement until his death. His wife was a Miss Kane, born in Ireland, but brought to the United States in girlhood. Her father at one time owned a hunting lodge in Ireland that was patronized by the royalty of England. Mrs. Jere- miah J. Murphy died at Butte, Montana.

James W. Murphy was born in New Jersey in 1859, and was reared in that state and Iowa, and came to Butte, Montana, in 1884, being then unmar- ried. Interested in real estate transactions, he formed a partnership with a Mr. Cannon under the firm style of Murphy & Cannon, and it was the pioneer one of its kind at Butte. James W. Mur- phy played an important part in the early develop- ment of Butte, both as a realty dealer and citizen, but left that city for Portland, Oregon, in 1912, and has since then been living retired. He is a democrat. Born and reared in the Roman Catho- lic Church, he is a devout member of that faith. His wife was Miss Jessie Callahan before her mar- riage, and she was born at Norwood, Ontario, Can- ada in 1863, and died at Butte, Montana, in 1898. Their children were as follows: Rosalba, who mar- ried Frederick Laist, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work; James K., whose name heads this review; and Clinton, who died at Seattle. Washington, in 1918, when twenty-eight years of age.

James K. Murphy was graduated from the Butte High School in 1907, following which he entered the School of Mines of Butte, from which he was also graduated in 1911, with the degree of Engineer of Mines. In June, I911, he came to Anaconda to engage with the Anaconda Copper Mining Com- pany as assistant testing engineer, and was pro- moted to be one of the chemists in the laboratory, and then chief chemist. Still later he was made superintendent of the roasting plants, and subse- quently the supervision of the Cottrell treaters was accorded him. Finally he became assistant su- perintendent of the Washoe Reduction Works of the company, with offices in the Chemical Build- ing, two miles east of Anaconda. Like his father, he is a democrat and Catholic. He belongs to Ana- conda Council No. 882, Knights of Columbus, in which he is a Fourth Degree Knight, to the Anaconda Club and to the Anaconda Country Club.

He holds membership in the American Institute of Mining Engineers.

In 1910 Mr. Murphy was married to Miss Emma Reeves, a daughter of Mrs. Roy Alley Reeves of Spokane, Washington, but formerly a resident of Butte, Montana. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy have the following children : Marion, who was born February 17, 1912, and his twin sister, Frances. The family reside at the Montana Hotel. Both Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are very prominent socially, and are held in the highest esteem by their wide circle of friends.

HENNING RUSSELL BODEN. Success in life comes to the deserving. It is an axiom demonstrated by all human experience that a man gets out of life what he puts into it, plus a reasonable interest on the in- vestment. The individual who inherits a large estate and adds nothing to his fortune cannot be called a successful man. He who falls heir to a large fortune and increases its value is successful in proportion to the amount he adds to his possession. But the man who starts in the world unaided and by sheer force of will, controlled by correct principles, forges ahead and at length reaches a position of honor among his fellow citizens achieves success such as represen- tatives of the two former classes can neither under- stand nor appreciate. To a considerable extent, Henning R. Boden, chief clerk to the Superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, at Mis- soula, is a creditable representative of the class last named, a class which has furnished much of the bone and sinew of the country and added to the stability of our government and its institutions.

Henning Russell Boden was born at Lake City, Minnesota, on the 2nd day of August, 1883. His father, Anders Boden, was a native of the Scandi- navian Peninsula, where he was born in 1835, and his death occurred at St. Paul, Minnesota, in I9II. In 1882 he came to the United States, settling in Lake City, Minnesota, of which locality he was a pioneer. In 1887 he moved to St. Paul, where he lived until his death. His wife, whose maiden name was Sophia Saline, and who now resides at North St. Paul, was also born on the Scandinavian Penin- sula. To Mr. and Mrs. Boden were born eight children, two daughters and six sons.

Henning R. Boden, the seventh child and the fifth son, was educated in the public schools of St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1897, he entered the employ of a furniture factory at North St. Paul, and literally learned every detail of the mechanical end of its business. He began in the lumber yard, from whence he went into the the wood-working machine de- partment; thence to the finishing machine shop; thence to the cabinet-making department; thence to the paint shop and packing or shipping room. Mr. Boden next entered the employ of an organ and piano factory at North St. Paul, where he fired a battery of stationary boilers; worked in the machine shop and in the "action" making department. Leav- ing here, he next' entered the employ of a street railway as a laborer and then as a carpenter. He then fired a traction boiler in a threshing outfit operating near the Twin Cities, and also had some experience as a locomotive fireman on one of the railroads leading out of St. Paul. Later he was employed by a table company at North St. Paul as a cabinet maker. These incidents of his various employments covered the period from 1897 to 1902. During this period he, through persistent night study, completed a high school course, also a course in shorthand and bookkeeping at one of the leading business colleges in the Twin Cities. He then entered the service of one of the great rail systems operating between St. Paul and Chicago, and later

Atlyhaus

HISTORY OF MONTANA

on was connected with one of the transcontinental systems radiating from St. Paul. He was next em- ployed by a road making machine concern as a bookkeeper and stenographer. After recovering from a severe illness Mr. Boden entered the service of the Northern Pacific Railway Company's engi- neering department, and at the same time took up the study of civil engineering, in which he finished a regular course, including mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, topography, electricity, dynamo and motor work. Then, finding many knotty legal problems constantly arising in the rail- road work, he finished a law course, at the end of which, in June, 1916, he was admitted to the bar of Montana.

Mr. Boden has now served nearly twelve years as the head of the Superintendent's offices at Glendive and Missoula, and has, by his accuracy, expediency and thoroughness, made himself practically indis- pensable. He possesses a practical and original turn of mind.

Mr. Boden first came to Glendive as head of the Superintendent's office there in June, 1908, and in April, 1915, came to Missoula in the same position and has continued in that capacity since.

Politically Mr. Boden gives his support to the Republican Party, though not in any sense an as- pirant for public office.

On January 29, 1907, at Stillwater, Minnesota, Mr. Boden was married to Margaret Anderson, the daughter of Hector and Margaret (Whalen) Ander- son, and to them have been born two children, Robert Hector, born November 14, 1910, at Glendive, and Jane Margaret, born May 20, 1915, at Missoula. Hector Anderson was born in 1844 in Inverness, Scotland, where he was reared and educated. He came to the United States in young manhood and located at Stillwater, Minnesota, where he engaged in lumbering. At Stillwater he was married to Margaret Whalen, born in New Brunswick, Canada, coming to Minnesota at the age of five years. She now resides at St. Paul, Minnesota. They became the parents of eight children, of whom Margaret was the youngest.

JOHN O. HIGHAM. For many years it has been claimed by sailors and pleasure travelers that once a person became embued with the spirit of the Orient it was impossible for him to live elsewhere, and this statement appears to be equally true of the West. Time and again have those who traveled toward the setting sun in this great country, purposing to make their stay a temporary one, sought to resume their former life in communities further to the east, but in vain, and they were drawn back to the "land of opportunity," the "places of broad vision" and eventually they have become a part of the won- derful commonwealths which are going ahead by leaps and bounds. John O. Higham, banker and ranchman of Belfry, Montana, is one of these cases in question, and his present prosperity proves that the West has been a good foster mother, while what he has accomplished shows that he is a valnahle addition to the family.

John O. Higham was born at Lanesboro, Minne- sota, February 22, 1872. His father, Andrew Higham, having also been possessed with the pioneer spirit, which sought adventure and led him to leave his native land of Norway, where he was born in 1828, and come to the United States in 1854, and after a short stay at Rushford, Minnesota, home- stead at Lanesboro, Minnesota, where he was one of the first settlers. He resided on this homestead until 1909, when he sold it and retired, dying at Lanesboro in October, 1918. In politics he was a

republican. The Lutheran Church of Lanesboro held his membership and he was very active in church work. His wife, Ingeberth Sherdall, was born in Norway in 1827, but she was reared in Minnesota. Her death occurred at Lanesboro in January, 1919. She and her husband had the following children : Caroline, who married Ed Brekke, a farmer of Lanesboro, Minnesota; and John O., whose name heads this review.

John O. Higham attended the public schools of Lanesboro and the high school of Grand Forks, North Dakota, and until he was seventeen years old made himself useful on his father's farm. At that age he went to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and a year later, in 1890, came to Montana, where for two years he was employed in construction work on the Great Northern Railroad at Fort Assiniboine at the time this road was entering Montana. In 1892 Mr. Higham went to Sacramento, California, and for two years was there engaged in farming. Returning to Montana, for two years he was em- ployed as a cow boy and rode the range on the present site of Castle. Going back to his birthplace, for two years he was engaged as a clerk in one of its mercantile establishments, but the call of the West brought him back, and in 1900 he reached Absarokee, Montana, where for three years he was a member of the sales force of one of the general stores of that place, and at the same time he was gaining a practical knowledge of the needs of the people. Seeing the possibilities of sheep farming, he was engaged in that line for eighteen months near Joliet, in Carbon County, and then purchased a store at Joliet and for two years was engaged in a mer- cantile business. Selling it at a profit, he spent a year in California, and then, in 1906, he established himself at Belfry, Montana, and organized the Bank of Belfry in conjunction with W. F. Meyer, of Red Lodge, and John W. Chapman, also of Red Lodge. From the first Mr. Higham has been cashier, his fellow officials being John W. Chapman, president, and F. H. Alden, vice president, both of these gentle- men being prominent men of Red Lodge, Montana, so that the active management of the bank devolves on Mr. Higham. The capital of the bank is $20,000 and the surplus is $5,000. This stable in- stitution is located on Broadway. This bank is a vender of state-wide credit, and through alliance with great financial institutions of other communities its officials are able to provide customers with exact and confidential information essential to their ex- pansion and the carrying on of ordinary business affairs, while at the same time it transacts the usual functions of a banking house, the men connected with it being a guarantee of its reliability and con- servative policies.

Mr. Higham is also a director of the First National Bank of Bridger, a director and vice president of the Gibson Culver Company of Fromberg, Montana. He owns a ranch one-half mile south of Belfry, con- taining 160 acres of irrigated land, where he main- tains his residence, and he also owns 1,200 acres in the Pryor Agency, Big Horn County, Montana. Politically he is a republican. He affiliates with the Presbyterian Church. Very prominent in Masonic circles, he belongs to the Star in the West Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Red Lodge; Billings Chapter No. 6, Royal Arch Masons; Alde- mar Commandery No. 5, Knights Templar; Algeria Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Helena, Montana; and to Helena Con- sistory, in which the thirty-second degree has been conferred upon him. Mr. Higham is also a member of Bear Tooth Lodge, Benevolent and Protective

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Order of Elks, of Red Lodge; and Joliet Camp, Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1905 Mr. Higham was married at Billings, Montana, to Miss Jennie M. Wight, a daughter of James and Mary (Ettien) Wight, both of whom are now deceased. Mr. Wight was a rancher and stock- man in the Judith Basin of Montana, arriving there in 1884 and later became a pioneer of Joliet, Mon- tana. Mrs. Higham is a graduate of the State Agricultural College at Bozeman, Montana, and a cultivated lady of considerable attainments. Mr. and Mrs. Higham have four children, namely: Jack W., who was born December 14, 1907; Weldon O., who was born August 20, 1909; Robert X., who was born August 30, 1914; and Elizabeth U., who was born April 30, 1917. Mr. Higham's prosperity has come to him not by the royal road, but through the medium of hard work and intelligent foresight. He has known how to make good investments and his excellent judgment in this respect makes him an ideal banker, his customers feeling that one who had been able to multiply his own belongings so ad- vantageously could add to their material prosperity equally well. Although his various duties have not permitted his entering public life, he takes an in- telligent and effective interest in civic matters, and has the welfare of Belfry at heart.

HENRY H. WILSON, M. D. A boy soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, Doctor Wilson took up the study of medicine when he returned to civil life and has been actively engaged as a physi- cian and surgeon for over half a century. Doctor Wilson practiced many years in Missouri and for the past twenty years his home has been at Lewis- town, where he still looks after an extensive busi- ness in his profession.

Doctor Wilson was born at Langdon in Sulli- van County, New Hampshire, June 3, 1846, a son of Willard and Mary Ann (Hardy) Wilson, both natives of New York State. His father, who was born in 1812, was a California forty-niner, going to the Pacific Coast around the Horn and return- ing by way of the Isthmus of Panama. On reach- ing the Atlantic side of the Isthmus he took pas- sage on a Government warship commanded by Captain, afterward Admiral, Porter. This vessel before reaching the United States put into port at Havana, Cuba. For several years Willard Wilson continued farming in New Hampshire, and in 1856 left the bleak New England hills and moved to Illinois, locating at Astoria in Fulton County. Some years later, during the Civil war, he returned to New Hampshire, and died in that state in 1863. He was a whig in politics.

Doctor Wilson was the second of three children, two of whom are still living. He was only six- teen years old when on September 2, 1862, he vol- unteered in Company H of the Eighty-Fifth Illinois Infantry. He saw much arduous service with his command, and was in the war until mustered out at Camp Butler, Illinois, June 19, 1865. He began the study of medicine with Drs. W. T. and B. C. Toler, and finished his course in the medical de- partment of the University of Iowa at Keokuk, graduating in 1867. Doctor Wilson first practiced at Lindley in Grundy County, Missouri, and in 1886 moved to Humphreys in the same state, and shortly afterward to Trenton, where he was in practice until May, 1899. Since that date his home has been at Lewistown, and his offices as physician and sur- geon are in the First National Bank Building.

Doctor Wilson has devoted the best years of his life to the practice of his profession and has won

an enviable esteem in every community he has served. He is an independent in politics.

In April, 1868, he married Miss Esther Green. Five children were born to their marriage: Min- nie N., Emma, H. K., Lionel and Ernest. Ernest died at the age of four years. Emma is an accom- plished business woman and is at the head of one of the important departments of the Chicago de- partment store of Carson, Pirie & Company. The son, H. K., is a graduate of the Northwestern Uni- versity Medical Department of Chicago with the class of 1904, and is one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Lewistown. The son Lionel was a railway engineer with the Chicago, Rock Island road at Canton, Missouri, and died at the age of twenty-eight.

GEORGE J. KOBELIN, a prosperous rancher and busi- ness man of Pompey's Pillar, represents the third generation of the family that has played a useful part in American citizenship and industry. The residence of the family for many years has been in the Central West, in Illinois and Indiana.

Mr. George J. Kobelin was born in Kankakee County, Illinois, September 15, 1867. His grand- father, George Kobelin, was born in Germany in 1783, and came to the United States with his family when past middle age. He lived for many years at LaPorte, Indiana, where he died in 1881, when ninety-eight years of age. William Kobelin, father of the Montana rancher, was born in Germany in 1836, and was six years old when he came to the United States with his parents in 1842. The family settled at LaPorte, where he grew up and married. He spent all his life as a farmer, and after his marriage moved to Kankakee County, Illinois, and in 1873 returned to Indiana and settled in Lake County, where he lived until his death in January, 1915, in Lowell. He was prominent in public affairs in Lake County, serving as township trustee four years and county commissioner six years. He was a republican and Mason. William Kobelin, who was of German ancestors, married a French girl, Margaret Paquin, who was born in Paris in 1844. She died at Lowell, Indiana, in Sep- tember, 1908. They had a large family of children, nine in number, mentioned briefly as follows: Amelia, who is the wife of Frank Stark, a farmer at St. Johns, Indiana; Helen, wife of Albert Maack, a banker at Crown Point, Indiana; George J .; Laura, who married James Robinson, and resides at Hebron, Indiana; Minnie, wife of Arthur Pattee, an attorney-at-law at Denver, Colorado; William, connected with the Standard Oil Company at Crown Point, Indiana; Frank, who has no settled place of residence; John, of Everett, Washington; and Carrie, unmarried.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 6

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