Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 7

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 7

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George J. Kobelin grew up and received his edu- cation in Indiana, living on his father's farm until he was twenty-two years of age. He had to start life without special advantages or capital and was a farm hand in Lake County, Indiana, for a number of years. Seeing the opportunities of the far West he came to Billings in 1903, spending one year with Yegen Brothers, following which he engaged in the stock and merchandise business. In 1915 Mr. Kobelin turned all his resources to ranching, and has been an active factor in Pompey's Pillar. He owns eighty acres of valuable irrigated land, be- sides 640 acres of dry farm and grazing land, and does an extensive business in raising stock. He is also vice president of the First National Bank of Pompey's Pillar.

Mr. Kobelin is a republican and a member of the Masonic fraternity. On December 2, 1889, at Crown

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Point, Indiana, he married Martha L. Smith, a daughter of Levi and Lydia (Hayden) Smith. Her father died in Lake County, Indiana, in 1876. He was a farmer. Her mother is now living at Hunt- ley, Montana. Mrs. Kobelin, who died February 13, 1919, was the mother of seven children. Their names in order of birth are Murray William, Guy, Eileen, Ruby, Jules, Elliott and Alberta. They are still with their father. Ruby and Jules are high school students, while Elliott and Alberta are still in grammar school. Murray is engaged in ranch- ing, and Guy, upon his return from the service, entered the employ of a Billings bank as teller.

CHARLES I. EMERSON, cashier for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, and one of the solid, re- liable men of this great corporation, was born at St. Paul, Minnesota, July 27, 1871. He is a son of Horace E. Emerson, and grandson of Horace Emory Emerson, a native of Maine, where he spent his entire life, and where for many years he was engaged in work as a millwright. The Emerson family came from England in the days prior to the American Revolution and became sub- stantial citizens of Maine. On his mother's side Charles I. Emerson comes of Irish stock.

Horace E. Emerson was born at Bangor, Maine, in 1839, and died at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1913. During his boyhood and youth he lived at Bangor, but soon after reaching his majority went to Port- age, Wisconsin, and from there enlisted to serve in the Union Army during the war between the states in 1861, as a member of the Second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and among other engagements was at the battle of Antietam. After the close of the war he returned to Portage, Wisconsin, and was engaged in railroading, first with the Chicago, Mil- wankee & St. Paul Railroad, and later with the Great Northern Railroad, making St. Paul his head- quarters. In all of his railroad work he was a locomotive engineer. Always a strong republican, he gave his party his vigorous support. He was a Mason and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Horace E. Emerson was married to Emma C. Kittredge, born at Detroit, Michigan, in 1848. She survives him and makes her home at St. Paul, Minnesota. Their children were as fol- lows: Horace E., Jr., who is a grain buyer for the Thompson Elevator Company of Duluth, Minne- sota; George H., who went to Siberia as colonel of 300 railroad men to take charge of the Siberian Railroad during the great war, is a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota ; and Charles I., whose name heads this review.

Charles I. Emerson attended the schools of St. Paul, until he was fourteen years old, when he left school and began learning the stereotyper's trade, and followed it for four years and then for four years was with Fairbanks & Morse, scale manu- facturers. In 1896 Mr. Emerson came to Anaconda to engage with the Anaconda, Butte & Pacific Rail- road as wiper, being soon promoted to master me- chanic's clerk, then timekeeper, and finally cashier, with offices in the general office building of the Washoe Reduction Works, two miles east of Ana- conda. Like his father, Mr. Emerson is stanch in his support of the republican party, and has been elected to two terms in the City Council of Anaconda. He is a member of the Anaconda Lodge No. 239, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and of the Anaconda Country Club. The modern residence at 105 Pine Street occupied by the Emersons is owned by them.

In. 1897 Mr. Emerson was married at Anaconda to Miss Alice B. Penniman, a daughter of Mr. and

Mrs. E. P. Penniman of St. Paul, Minnesota, he being foreman in the jobbing department of the Staats Zeitung newspaper. Mr. and Mrs. Emerson became the parents of the following children : Georgia Lucille married C. O. Prest, who lives at Venice, California, and is an aviator, and she is a graduate of the Anaconda High School; Edna Vir- ginia, who is in the training school for nurses connected with the Murray Hospital at Butte, Mon- tana; Emily, who is attending the Anaconda High School, lives at home; and Alice Amelia, who is also attending the same high school as her sister. These daughters are all very intelligent and the younger ones give promise of attaining to the schol- arship of their elders. During his association with his present company Mr. Emerson has exhibited such sterling characteristics that those in authority have had no hesitancy in advancing him and will doubtless put additional responsibilities upon him in asking him to assume still higher positions, for he is worthy of their confidence and they appreciate his work. In his civic life Mr. Emerson has proven himself a good citizen, and his work in the council gives him a record as a public official of which he has every reason to be proud. He and his family are very popular socially, and their pleasant home is the scene of many gatherings, their friends en- joying the gracious and hearty hospitality there dispensed.

FRED C. STODDARD, whose name is numbered among the pioneer citizens of Missoula, was born in Jack- son County, Michigan, August 18, 1857. His Stod- dard ancestors were English and Colonial settlers in Massachusetts. His father, Dr. Samson Stoddard, was born in Vienna, Oneida County, New York, February 6, 1806, was reared there, and when a young man moved to Jackson, Michigan. He was a pioneer physician and surgeon in Jackson County, and one of the first members of his profession in southern Michigan. He returned to Oneida County for his bride in 1831, returning to Jackson, practic- ing his profession for some years, and later moved to a farm twelve miles west of Jackson City in Concord Township, developing property of 640 acres. This farm he afterward divided among his children, and in 1875 retired to Albion, Michigan, where he died August 26, 1876. He was one of the original republicans in Michigan, in which state the republican party was first organized. He held several township offices. Doctor Stoddard was twice married. His second wife was Mrs. Emily (Thayer) Lathrop, a native of the State of New York, who died at Stevensville, Montana. Fred C. Stoddard is the older of her two children. Mary L. is the wife of William Baggs, connected with a mer- cantile establishment at Stevensville, Montana.

Fred C. Stoddard attended public schools at Albion, Michigan, graduating from high school in 1875. Soon afterward he became assistant book- keeper and cashier with the J. K. Armsby Company of Chicago. He came to Montana in 1880. The first two years he was a rancher in the Bitter Root Valley on Skalkaho Creek. Mr. Stoddard has been a resi- dent of Missoula since the fall of 1881. Here for five years he resumed his vocation as bookkeeper for the pioneer establishment of Worden and Hig- gins, and for five years was bookkeeper and assistant cashier in the Missoula National Bank, now the First National Bank of Missoula, the oldest National Bank in Montana. In 1890, he engaged in the real estate and insurance business, dealing principally in Missoula city property, and built up a business that covered all of Western Montana. In 1911 he sold his insurance business, continuing the real estate line

HISTORY OF MONTANA

and later adding the insurance business, with offices in the Higgins Block.

Mr. Stoddard married Miss Minnie A. Freeman, April 16, 1884, daughter of Avery and Amanda Free- man of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and they have four children : Bessie Louise at home; F. Thayer, whose career is sketched in later paragraphs; Helen Friend, who is a student and employed in the registrar's offices of the State University at Missoula; and Ida Freeman, also a student in the State University. The home is at 336 South Fifth Street.

Mr. Stoddard served one term in the City Coun- cil of Missoula. He is a member of the Episcopal Church and is a charter member of the Laurel Lodge No. II of the Knights of Pythias and of Hell Gate Lodge No. 383 of the Elks.

Mr. Stoddard during his long residence at Mis- soula, has had an active part in forwarding every interest of the State University. He was a member of the local building commission that had charge of the construction of the three original buildings on the university campus, and also the laying out of the grounds, and was later a member of the commission which put up the fourth building. These buildings are the University Hall, Science Hall, Gymnasium and Ladies' Dormitory, and all of them are still used for their original purpose.

F. Thayer Stoddard, present county surveyor of Missoula County, is a highly trained engineer. He was born at Missoula January 28, 1888, was educated in the local public schools, graduating from high school in 1906, and is a graduate of the State Uni- versity with the class of 1910, with the degree Bachelor of Science in Mineralogy and Geology. In university he was a member of the Sigma Chi and Theta Nu Epsilon fraternities, and is now a stock- holder in the Sigma Chi Alumni Building Associa- tion. After graduating until the spring of 1911 he was on the engineering staff of the Chicago, Milwau- kee and St. Paul Railway. Following that he was assistant to Robert Sibley, a well known Missoula engineer. In 1912, and for two years afterward he was with C. W. Swearinger, a municipal and civil engineer in Western Montana. Mr. Stoddard was elected county surveyor in 1914, and is now in his third consecutive term. He is a member of Laurel Lodge No. II, Knights of Pythias, a member of the Grand Lodge of that order, and of Hell Gate Lodge No. 383, of the Elks, and Harmony Lodge No. 49 of the Masons. He also belongs to the Rotary Club, is a member of the American Legion and of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce, is a republican and a member of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Episco- pal. Mr. Stoddard is unmarried. He owns a mod- ern home at 336 South Fifth Street, East.

JOHN M. HOWLAND is president of the How- land & Maser Security Company at Lewistown. This is one of the leading firms of investment agents in the state, and recently they negotiated with eastern capital for the largest loan on record in Montana, involving about $150,000 made on the noted Dengle brothers ranch properties near Grass Range, the securities being in the form of a bond issue. This is only one of many successful trans- actions carried out by Mr. Howland, who is an unusually keen financier and during a comparatively brief residence in Montana achieved the striking success which earlier experiences in North Dakota and Minnesota seemed to assure for him.

Mr. Howland has come to success after a long road through a youth of poverty and struggle, has educated himself and has made himself what he is. He was born on a farm near Kilkenny, Le- Sueur County, Minnesota, September 9, 1874, son

of Edwin and Mary (Fitzgerald) Howland. His father was a native Irishman, while his mother was a granddaughter of the last Lord Edward Fitzgerald, representing one of the most power- ful families of Ireland but originally of Norman stock that settled in England about the time of the Conquest. John M. Howland was twelve years old when his father died. His widowed mother had four small children and struggled along with adverse circumstances several years until her death. The children managed the farm as best they could, and John M. Howland during that period of his life had no advantages beyond a few terms in com- mon school, sufficient to give him a knowledge of reading and writing only.

At the age of sixteen he was requested by a local school board to take the place of his sister, ill with typhoid fever, and do what he could to keep her school running. So satisfactorily did he discharge his duties as an impromptu teacher that he finished out the term for four months, and then received a teacher's certificate. The following winter he taught a five months' term of school in LeSueur County, and for several years taught school in the winter and helped run the farm in the summer. The next important incident of his early life came at the age of twenty, when, after turning over his interest in the homestead to the other children, he opened a store at Mulford Station with another man as partner. The partnership continued about a year. They were doing a fair business, largely on the exchange plan, selling dry goods and gro- ceries and accepting butter, eggs and cordwood in payment. They also bought grain for the James Quirk Milling Company. When the partnership was dissolved the arrangement was that the partner should collect all the bills due and pay all the debts. Meanwhile Mr. Howland was teaching school at Porter in Lincoln County, Minnesota. While there he was notified that the accounts of the firm had been collected but no debts paid. Here was a crisis, which Mr. Howland converted into an opportunity. The measures he took then has been significant and typical of all his subsequent business career. He paid all the accounts he could with funds at hand amounting to about $1,500, and gave his notes to his largest creditors, a grocery house at. St. Paul, and at the end of several years had every obligation discharged.

In the meantime he was getting a better educa- tion for himself, attending the Winona High School one year, followed by one term of teaching at Red- wood Falls, and then two years as student in the Mankato State Normal. He paid his way through the Normal by driving a delivery wagon in the summer and in school months worked in a lawyer's office. All the heavy work he carried in and out of school did not prevent him from making a rec- ord for himself as a football player and debater. While he was at Mankato Normal the Spanish- American war broke out and he enlisted in Com- pany M of the Fifiteenth Minnesota Volunteers, serving as corporal until the regiment was mus- tered out a year later, in the spring of 1899. He contributed a number of articles on army life to newspapers.

After the war he clerked in a large department store at Minneapolis and for the Northwestern Telephone Company and then settled at Kenmare, North Dakota. His first work there was teaching the town school. In August, 1901, he engaged in the land business, and in a few years was at the head of a complete organization handling real estate and farm loans. Mr. Howland also had some. time for politics while in North Dakota. He served as

HISTORY OF MONTANA

deputy sheriff of Ward County, and police magis- trate and city justice in Kenmare and clerk of the lccal school board.

In 1914 Mr. Howland transferred his home and business interests to Montana, locating at Great Falls, where he assisted in organizing the First Mortgage Loan Company of Montana. This com- pany issued $500,000 worth of stock, and Mr. How- land personally sold $200,000 of that stock, most of it in Western Montana. No purchaser ever had rea- son to regret buying the stock, since it has paid not less than seven per cent dividends. In June, 1915, Mr. Howland came to Lewistown, and opened an office in the Imislund Block. Associated with Al- fred Blaisdell, former secretary of the State of North Dakota, he formed the Blaisdell-Howland Agency, acting as investment agents of the North- western Trust Company of St. Paul. This is the largest trust company west of Chicago. On May 5, 1917, Mr. Blaisdell entered the Officers Training camp at Calexico, California, and on being rejected for a place in the Regular Army joined the Intelli- gence department. During his absence Mr. How- land had full charge of the business.

Mr. Howland is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Foresters. Besides handling large sums of money for other individuals and corporations he individually owns much real estate and farm and ranch property in a number of north- western states.

January 15, 1902, he married Miss Anna R. Wil- son, of Kilkenny, Minnesota, his own native town. They are the parents of five children, John Wilson, James Martin, Anna Ruth, Vivian Margaret and Evelyn Agnes.

THE PARISH OF LEWISTOWN. In the fall of 1875 during a visit among the halfbreed Cree, Chippewa and Assiniboine Indians in the Milk River country, Rev. Father Lestan from St. Boniface, Winnipeg, made arrangements for the building of a log church so that religious instruction could be given and the Mass celebrated for the rather large settlement of these halfbreeds. The following winter Rev. Father J. B. Gene came from Canada and the half- breeds built a log church 20 by 40, at a point five miles below Fort Belknap. A short time later the halfbreeds were induced to send a delegation to the Spring Creek country.

In the spring of 1879 a French Canadian by the name of Janeaux visited this country and find- ing good land and game in abundance took up a homestead. In August of that year, old man Onel- lette, another halfbreed, came with his family to this country as a government scout, and about the same time another half breed by the name of Isaie Berger took up a homestead at the fork of the road leading to Grass Range and Gilt Edge, about five miles east of Lewistown. In the fall of the same year Father Damiani visited this part of the country from St. Peter's Mission to administer the last sacraments to a dying halfbreed, who was camped at the foot of the Judith Mountains, and found about twenty-eight Catholic families living in that immediate vicinity. All these people had originally come from St. Joseph and Walla Halla, North Dakota, and had drifted west and north to the Missouri River hunting the buffalo. For several years thereafter Father Damiani and Father Schuler visited these halfbreeds, spending several weeks with them at the time, and when the present Lewistown began to grow said Mass occasionally in the house of F. A. Janeaux, at the northwest corner of Main and High Streets. On several

other occasions Mass was also celebrated in the school building which was at that time located on the south side of Main Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

On Sunday, October 10, 1886, a meeting of the Catholic citizens of Lewistown and vicinity was held at the schoolhouse to take steps toward raising money to erect a church. Mr. Brereton called the meeting to order. Mr. H. P. Brooks was elected chairman and Doctor Lapalme, secretary. Mr. D. Brereton was elected treasurer. On mo- tion of D. M. Crowley a committee of five, con- sisting of the following named persons, was ap- pointed to collect subscriptions : L. Belanger, C. J. McNamara, Michael Brass, D. M. Crowley and H. P. Brooks. Thomas Morgan and Michael Gur- nett were appointed as solicitors. F. A. Janeaux, D. M. Crowley, and Oliver Pichette were elected directors by acclamation. It was resolved that in soliciting subscriptions cash or notes at ten per cent interest be accepted.

A whole city block known as Block No. 2 of Janeaux Addition No. I was donated by Mr. Jane- aux, and in 1887 a frame church, 24 by 60, was erected and blessed by Bishop Brondel on Sep- tember 23, 1888. Lewistown being then the prin- cipal center of the county became the seat of the new county called Fergus in 1885. At that time the nearest priest was living at St. Peter's Mission, a distance of more than 140 miles. At intervals the priest stationed at Fort Benton would visit the place and later also the priest stationed at Great Falls. The first record to be found in the archives of the church is signed by the Rev. J. van den Heuvel recording the baptism on July 10, 1893, of George Ouellette, who was born on January 14 of the same year. In September of the same year Father Dols, stationed at Great Falls, visited this place for several days. Father van den Heuvel remained in Lewistown as resident pastor until some time in October, 1895, and during liis pastorate the records of the church show that 124 people were baptized, three buried and twelve couples married. In April, 1895, lot 3 block 3, Janeaux Addition No. 1, on which a little house was standing, was secured as a residence for the priest. From that time up to March, 1896, the place was attended by Rev. C. G. Follett, then stationed at Fort Benton, and some time in March, 1896, Rev. Father E. Demanez was appointed as second resident pastor of St. Leo's Church, and continued in that capacity until he was killed in a railroad wreck between Great Falls and Fort Benton in De- cember, 1898. From November, 1895, to December 9, 1898, a few days before Father Demanez' death, 160 baptisms are recorded, twelve funerals and fifteen marriages. In the month of August, 1897, Rev. Father H. Schuler, S. J., visited the halfbreeds living around Fort Maginnis, a military post located about twenty miles from Lewistown. In January, 1899, Rev. Jo- seph C. Pudenz, assistant to Rev. Father Dols, of Great Falls, paid Lewistown a short visit. On March 22, 1899, about two acres of land were do- nated by the scout Ouellette to be used as a Cath- olic cemetery, together with a sixty-foot roadway leading to it from the city limits.

In June, 1899, the parish was again placed in charge of a resident priest by the name of Father J. Ver- maat. Another priest, however, had been appointed to the place, but died on his way to Lewistown. His name was Rev. Father Werner. By this time Lewis- town had grown to such an extent that an addition had to be erected to increase the seating capacity of the church, thereby making room for about 200 people. From January 19, 1899, until October 28,

HISTORY OF MONTANA

1904, 246 baptisms are on record, 16 funerals and 38 marriages.

In the fall of 1904 Rev. Father Vermaat was transferred to Red Lodge, and in December, 1904, Rev. Father Van Clarenbeek succeeded him, and in February, 1906, was given an assistant in the person of Rev. J. J. O'Carroll, an evidence of the growth of the church'in this part of the state. In Novem- ber, 1906, Father Van Clarenbeek left for Oregon and was succeeded by Rev. Father V. J. van den Broeck. During Father Van Clarenbeek's adminis- tration 117 baptisms are recorded, 33 funerals and 15 marriages. Besides the Rev. J. J. O'Carroll at different periods Rev. Fathers Rocque, Leahy, Moly- neux and Mueller acted as assistants in St. Leo's Church.

With the coming of the new transcontinental line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul in the year 1907 remarkable developments took place in Fergus County and new towns were springing up in all directions along its lines, as also along the new line of the Burlington, which made its appearance shortly afterward. In accordance with this wide develop- ment of territory a number of parcels of property were secured by Rev. Father van den Broeck, includ- ing lots at Moore, Roundup, Philbrook, now known as Hobson, Hilger, Winifred, Brooks, Stanford, Grass Range, Danvers and Kolin.

April 3, 1913, approximately nine lots were se- cured in Lewistown between Broadway and Wash- ington streets on Second Avenue, right in the heart of the city, with a large frontage on Washington Street, and other frontage on Second Avenue and Broadway. On this location building operations were started in the last week of July, 1915, and the building completed by the Ist of October, 1916, at a total cost of about $50,000. The first services were held on October 15th, and the church dedi- cated by the Rt. Rev. M. C. Lenihan on Sunday, November 12th. A five class room school was estab- lished in the large basement, with an average at- tendance of 140 pupils under the able direction of the Daughters of Jesus. These sisters, who are French exiles, arrived in Lewistown on August 27, 1903, and shortly after their arrival opened a school located on lot 2, block 3, Janeaux Addition No. I, next door to the priest's residence, where they con- tinned to teach until moving to the new location. For about four years they also conducted a small hospital at the corner of Miller and Watson streets, and in 1907 they erected what was eventually des- tined to be the best and largest hospital in Central Montana. In the summer of 1907 Father van den Broeck, having secured some property in Moore, erected thereon a church at a cost of $2,500, which by the 2nd of February, 1908, was ready for public worship and the first Mass was said by Rev. A. Mueller. The church was dedicated on October 27th by the Rt. Rev. M. C. Lenihan, of Great Falls. In 1914 a church was built at Hobson at a cost of about $3,000, and one at Stanford at the same cost. In 1916 one was built in Danvers and in 1917 one was built in Hilger at a cost of $5,000.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume II, Part 7

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