Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 112

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 1144

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THREE FORKS MILL AND ELEVATOR COMPANY. At Three Forks, in the beautiful Valleys of the Gal- latin, Madison and Jefferson Rivers that form the headwaters of the Missouri River, is located the Three Forks Flour Mill. This mill was completed in the year 1916 and was furnished throughout by the well known flour mill builders, The Wolf Com- pany of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The milling plant is located on the Milwaukee Railroad and has in connection two large storage elevators for grain.

The Three Forks Valleys are surrounded at a distance by beautiful snow-capped mountains, while lying close in is the wonderful bench land wheat country, where the highest qualities of Marquis Spring and Hard Winter Turkey Wheat are grown. There are thousands of acres of this wheat land, and all within an easy hauling distance of Three Forks, and accessible by good improved highways.

The Three Forks Mill and Elevator Company is owned and operated by the Veach brothers-F. I. Veach and W. B. Veach-who came to Three Forks from Pennsylvania in 1918 to take charge of the milling plant. They have been in the milling busi- ness for a number of years, and their father and grandfather before them were also experts in the same line.

JUDGE J. K. MILLER was an early traveler, a par- ticipant in pioneer activities and a pioneer lawyer in both California and Montana. For nearly thirty years his home has been in the Flathead Valley, and in recent years he has lived quietly at his home in Columbia Falls.

He was born near the historic Town of Vincennes on the Wabash River in Indiana, a son of John and Mary (Kennedy) Miller. His early opportunities in school were limited, and the sound scholarship of his mature career has been due to a lifelong habit of study, reasoning and observation. When he was four years of age he -lost his mother and was reared by an older sister to the age of thirteen. He then left home and wandered far before he came to the beautiful Flathead country. He worked on farms in Michigan, in Michigan lumber woods, rafted tim- ber down the Mississippi, and was a member of the Yellowstone Expedition under General Custer three years before the Custer massacre. In 1874 he was admitted to the bar at Glencoe, Minnesota, practiced law six years in that state, for two years was a lawyer in California, making a specialty of mining law, and next came to Montana and for seven years engaged in mining and law practice at Helena.

Judge Miller came to the Flathead country in 1891 and continued his professional work and other in- terests until about ten years ago, when he estab- lished his family home in beautiful Glacier Park, filing on a homestead and proving up. He and his wife spend the summer months in that beautiful location.

He married Miss Emma C. Wood, who was born at St. Charles, in Winona County, Minnesota, a daughter of J. G. and Millie (Brainerd) Wood. She was educated in the public schools of Minnesota and in the high school at Rockford, Illinois. The only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Miller was Mary Amelia, who was liberally educated in school and at home, was a teacher for two years at Kalispell, and when life was most promising for her soon after her marriage she died.

Judge Miller was once a candidate on the popu- list ticket for judge in Flathead County. Beyond that he has seldom considered politics as a serious field of his activities. He has been a favorite speaker on many occasions, and has also reduced many of his thoughtful studies to writing. A synopsis and abstract of some of his writings has been published in a small booklet entitled "After the War," and some of his discussions betray a very keen analysis of fundamentals that vitally affect the structure of civilization in America as elsewhere. The wedded life of Judge Miller has been ideal, and to an un- usual degree they have been. bound together by common sympathies and aims.

MAJOR FELLOWS D. PEASE. Eighty-six years of age, and all but the first 'twenty spent in the far west, Major Fellows D. Pease of Lodgegrass was at the time of his death probably the only man in Montana who could tell from personal experience and witness the main outline of events connected with the earliest white occupation of the territory. His life since before the Civil war was spent within the confines of Montana. He was on the ground long before either the territories of Idaho or Mon-

& APense

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

tana were a matter for serious consideration. In- dian fighter, Indian agent, friend and adviser,of the red men, steadily through all the years he has en- deavored to do justice to the original.occupants of the land and promote the welfare of the two races in their relations.

Major Pease was born in Tioga County, Pennsyl- vania, March 16, 1834. His father, Oliver Pease, was descended from an Englishman who with two broth- ers were followers of Oliver Cromwell, and at the downfall of their leader two were imprisoned. They were released by their sailor brother and brought to America, landing on the Island of Martha's Vine- yard. The sailor brother married with the daughter of a chief of a tribe of Indians on the Atlantic coast, and from this union descended Oliver Pease, accord- ing to family tradition. Oliver Pease was a farmer, a fanatic Methodist, and widely known as the "praying evangelist farmer." It is not certain where he was born, but he moved from New York State into Pennsylvania when a young man and married Hulda Bowen, daughter of Emma Bowen, a promi- nent farmer of Tioga County and one of its earliest settlers. The Peases and Bowens were old line . whigs in politics. Oliver Pease and wife had seven sons and eight daughters, Major Pease being the eighth child. Three of the sons, Emmer, Ashbel and Laetus, were killed while Union soldiers in the Civil war. Another son, Walter, was also a Union soldier and is now living in Tioga County, Pennsyl- vania. Benjamin followed his brother Fellows into the West, and in the early '6os piloted a party of hunters and trappers from Minnesota into the Cana- dian northwest, and finally settled in Eastern Wash- ington, rearing his family and passing away near Ellensburg.

Major Pease grew up in Steuben County, New York, had a rural school education, and at the age of nineteen turned his face toward the West. Reach- ing Chicago, he went down the old canal to Joliet, thence by train to Rock Island. This was in 1853. Reaching the Mississippi River, he fell in with a party of New Englanders going to the Wisconsin pineries, and he joined them and spent a year or so in the forests of Wisconsin. He helped correct the boundary line between Minnesota and Iowa, and with an outfit of ox teams engaged in hauling and freighting and trafficking with the Sioux Indians. When the Abercrombie party was sent out to meet General Harney he sold his teams to the Government and joined the outfit at Fort Ridgeley. This party intercepted General Harney's command at. Fort Pierre after its battle with the Sioux at Ash Hollow. The General had started his expedition from Fort Leavenworth, marching through Nebraska and north to the Canadian line, and had inflicted the first punishment given the Sioux nation by Uncle Sam, starting a war which continued through a period of almost thirty years, ending with the subjugation of the nation and its confinement to various reserva- tions in the Northwest.

Major Pease left the war party while en route and joined the "Scotch Half Breeds" bound for old Fort Union, arriving at the mouth of the Yellow- stone at that old fort in September, 1856, fully seven years before the time usually accepted by historians as marking the opening of Montana his- tory. Major Pease soon turned to merchandising on the Missouri River as a member of the "Little Opposition" firm, comprised of eastern men of New York, Chicago and Minnesota besides himself. This firm did business all along the river from Fort Benton to Fort Sully. After a year it joined the Northwest Fur Company, trading with the Indians for robes and pelts and disposing of the goods to

steamers coming up with supplies in the spring. The first intimation of Montana region being a gold bearing country came to Major Pease from a party of twenty persons, including one woman, who jour- neyed down the Yellowstone River in flatboats, carrying some gold dust they had gathered upstream. At a point near old Fort Berthold the boat was grounded and the party were massacred by a band of hostile Sioux, the gold being taken away and a por- tion of it sold to the American Fur Company. About two years later the fur company was purchased by the Little Opposition Company, and two years later the latter company sold its interests to Peck & Durfee.

During these years the overland expedition for the gold fields of Montana, headed by Bridger, Bozeman and by Captain Fisk later on, began the real search for precious metal. Davidson also brought a party into the region later, and these were the pioneers in uncovering the rich gold finds of Montana.

With the transfer of the Northwest Fur Company to Peck & Durfee, Major Pease gave up trading with the Indians and associated himself with a com- pany supplying the Government with horses for the different expeditions against the Indians. These horses were gathered up in Utah and Colorado. In 1870 Major Pease was appointed agent for the Crow Indians, being the first civil agent for that tribe. It was in that year that the Indian department was transferred from the War Department to the Depart- ment of the Interior. Major Pease's agency was established at the mouth of Mission Creek, almost opposite Livingston, on the south side of the Yellow- stone River. The Crows owned all that region then, the land having since been taken from them by treaty. He remained in charge of the agency until 1874, when he was superseded. Major Pease ac- quired the Sioux tongue in the early days of his residence in the Northwest, also gained a fair knowl- edge of the Crow language, and his acquaintance among Indians generally made him an invaluable representative of the Government.

In the 'zos the various military posts which had been established in Wyoming and Utah for the protection of white settlers passing to the Northwest were removed, leaving the country unprotected from the Sioux, who began a reign of terror not only among the emigrant trains but among the Crows who were less numerous than the Sioux. The Crows were driven back into the mountainous region of Park County and the Gallatin Valley, and their presence there saved the whites from extermination, since the Crows acted as a sort of buffer. In the spring of 1875 Major Pease, Paul McCormick of Billings and Z. H. Daniels laid plans to form a colony and establish it on Pease's Bottom on the Yellowstone. With about fifty men they established the colony, the mainstay of which while it lasted was Mr. McCormick and Mr. Daniels. In the mean- time Major Pease went East to secure supplies, being absent all winter. The Custer massacre of 1876 had occurred before he returned, and also several attacks of Indians had been made on the colony. A few were killed and the remainder aban- doned Fort Pease, The objects of the colony were first to establish a buffer with the Crows between the white settlers farther west, a trading post with the Indians when Major Pease should return with his boat load of supplies, and ultimately using the post as a base for operating the gold fields of Wolf Mountain then known to exist, but which even yet have not been worked.

When General Miles came into Montana after the Custer massacre he established Fort Keogh, and

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Major Pease, with the arrival of his supplies, moved them to the new post, selling goods as the fort merchant until a regular sutler was provided. At that time Major Pease left the fort and began min- ing, trading with the Indians and looking after other interests. He was also a miner in Park County.

When Major Pease was made agent of the Crows and established his office at Fort Parker he found no Indians there. The military had occupied the place for a time, and their presence was displeasing to the Crows, who had their main camp up the Big Horn in Wyoming. Major Pease sent word to their leaders to come to the agency to discuss matters of importance with them. They arrived Indian militarv style, and it was soon evident that many were dis- pleased with the presence of the soldiers, and the Major realized that a more satisfactory conference could be had and with greater promise of results if the soldiers were withdrawn. His appeal to the proper authorities gained this point.

Some of the younger Crow warriors had been persuaded that the only ultimate safety for the Indians of the country depended upon an alliance between the Crows and the Sioux to fight the Gov- ernment. This belief had been zealously fostered by the leading Sioux chief. However, Blackfoot, the big chief of the Crows; and his wife, a daughter of old Crazy Horse, a Sioux chief, appealed to the patriotism of the young fellows, and they were finally prevailed upon to cast their lot unrestrainedly with the white man. It was this conference that led to the failure of the Sioux to establish the de- sired alliance, and the peaceable stand taken by the Crows prevented much loss of life and property by a prolonged struggle. The chief instrument in this arrangement was Major Pease, and that act stands out conspicuously as the most important of many services rendered by him to this region and to the Crow Indians. It is not difficult therefore to under- stand the peculiar affection felt for Major Pease by members of the Crow tribe, and they signalized this long standing affection in a manner constituting the highest possible award of honor when they adopted him a member of the tribe in May, 1920.

As a tribe the Crows have never been hostile toward the whites, have shown fairness in their dealings with white men and the Government, and have observed every provision of their treaties. As a reward for their loyalty the Government in 1868 set aside a reservation of seven million acres to be theirs forever, and in addition appropriated several million dollars to be used in their behalf. It is confidently believed by well informed authorities that not one-fourth of this sum ever reached its real object, because of the conduct of the Indian Department at Washington. The original reserva- tion has been reduced by subsequent purchases from the Crows to about two million acres. Long ago it was discovered that this too would be taken from them unless vigorous measures were taken by the Government to prevent it. A score of years ago Major Pease and his son George, a member of the tribe, undertook to aronse sentiment favoring a division of the remaining tribal lands in severalty, and at this time Congress is considering the final provision of the bill which Senator Myers and Con- gressman Riddick have been pushing to final passage. This will insure the Crows a measure of tardy justice and to some extent will right the wrongs done all the tribes of Indians in the United States. Major Pease from his long and intimate observation of Indian affairs regarded the Government indian Department as nothing less than a curse in the administration of Indian affairs. Having known

each of the men who have held the office of com- missioner of Indian affairs, from Charles Mix, the first, to the present incumbent, he looked upon the entire record as one tinged with incompetence and ignorance, if not actual malfeasance.

Major Pease was always loyal to the political traditions of his ancestors. In 1860 he traveled from the Missouri River back to Pennsylvania in order to cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln for president. He never deviated from this partisan regularity until the national campaign of 1916. Major Pease was made a Mason by special dispensation at Knox- ville, Pennsylvania, in 1868, taking the Blue Lodge degrees there. He was affiliated with Livingston Lodge No. 32, with the Scottish Rite bodies and Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena. While living within the limits of Dakota Major Pease was elected a member of the First Territorial Legislature, and attended the sessions of that party at Yankton. He was chosen to prepare the first Constitution of Montana as a delegate from Galla- tin County, but that document was not approved.

In 1859, near Berthold, North Dakota, Major Pease married Margaret Wallace, a half breed Crow. Her father, John Wallace, was a noted warrior among the Crows of that day. Of her four children three grew to mature years. Laetus died at Seattle, Washington, leaving no children. Lavantia, married John L. Pearson, now a resident near Absorakee, Montana, and their children are Virgie, Helen, Ethel and Leah. George H., the youngest child, came to manhood on the Crow Reservation, spent his life here, and died at the Pease residence in Lodge Grass, as the result of an automobile accident in 1916. He was educated in the common schools, was a farmer and stockman, and also carried on exten- sive trading relations with his tribesmen. He mar- ried Sarah Walker, who is now living at Lodge- grass. They had a family of nine sons and one daughter. Of the sons four were soldiers, two in the army and two in the navy, one a master black- smith, during the World war. Six of the sons are farmers near Lodgegrass. The daughter Helen .is the youngest of the family.

Of the noted Indian chieftains of the Northwest during the past half century Major Pease by per- sonal acquaintance was able to relate something dis- tinctive and characteristic of nearly every one. He knew intimately the great warrior and statesman of the Sioux, Sitting Bull, and others of that tribe known to him were Red Cloud, Gall, Rain-in-the- Face, Strikes the Ree, Smoky Bear, Medicine Cow and Grass. Among the Crows his personal knowl- edge extended to Horse Guard, Blackfoot, Two Belly, Iron Bull and Show his Face, while among the Assiniboines he knew old White Hair, Magtram, Jackson and the Fool. His acquaintance among the Grosventres included Crows Breath, Poor Wolf, Bloody Knife or Blue Cloud. He knew many of the Blackfeet, being their special agent for a time, and he knew Medicine Crow, the Santee and leader of the New Ulm massacre in Minnesota in 1862. The death of Major Pease occurred October 20, 1920.

HENRY E. BORRESON. Through his busy career as a contractor and builder Henry E. Borreson has been one of the real constructive factors in the im- provement and development of Homestead and the surrounding locality. His name and work are asso- ciated in a most substantial manner with that sec- tion, not only in commercial lines but also as a farmer.

Mr. Borreson was horn in Filmore County, Minne- sota, December 14, 1879. His father, Ole Borreson,

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

a farmer's son, was born at Toten, Norway, August 20, 1845, and came to the United States in 1868. For a short time he worked as a lumberjack and river man at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where he was married, and then removed to Filmore County, Min- nesota, buying land and becoming a farmer. Four years later, selling his property, he went on to North Dakota, homesteading in Barnes County. He spent the rest of his life on that place and had made a farm and improved it substantially before his death in 1915. He went through the process of naturaliza- tion soon after coming to this country and was always affiliated with the republican party, and was a Lutheran in religion, the faith also of his widow and his children. July 4, 1872, Ole Borreson mar- ried Miss Agnethe Jenson, who was born at Vardahl, Norway, December 12, 1851, daughter of Hjerrone- mus and Siri (Nelson) Jenson. She left Christiania, Norway, and from Liverpool was carried on a ship of the National Line to New York, being about two weeks on the way. She reached this country in May, 1869, and went on to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where three years later she was married. The chil- dren of Ole Borrenson and wife were: Bertha, wife of Thill Hendrickson, of Nome, North Dakota; Sarah, wife of Henry A. Wilberg, of Nome; Henry, of Homestead, Montana; Selma, wife of Ben John- son, of Valley City, North Dakota.

Henry E. Borreson acquired a common school education, and later finished most of the studies in the building and contracting course of the Interna- tional Correspondence School of Scranton. He learned the carpenter's trade in Barnes County, North Dakota, and did his first contracting in that locality. For eight or ten years he operated with a large crew of men, building town homes, and barns and residences in the country.

His first stop in Montana was at Medicine Lake, where for a week or so he served as yardman for E. W. Palutzky, lumber dealer. Mr. Palutzky then sent him to Homestead as manager of the yard in that community, and after a few months he and others organized the Homestead Lumber Company. Mr. Borreson remained as manager of the yard until he resumed contracting and building. The yard subsequently changed hands and is now the Olness Lumber Company.

The first contract he had at Homestead was for the erection of a town hall. Since then he has put up the buildings of the Olness Lumber Company, farm residences of R. G. Tyler, S. K. Bolstad, C. C. Gronlie and E. Strandlund, and Frank French's resi- dence in town, besides other minor buildings; the Nels Sunvold home in Froid, the Noland home, the schoolhouse and J. C. Wigmore residence at Medi- cine Lake, and the home of John Grayson at Ante- lope

Mr. Borreson is also one of the extensive growers of grain and flax, cultivating his own land. The heavy work of farming he accomplishes with a tractor, which he has found both efficient and eco- nomical over the old horse power method and ex- pense. He has had three harvests from three plant- ings, and ten bushels of wheat per acre in the most protracted and disastrous drouth the state ever knew in 1919 is a record that encourages him to believe in the substantial agricultural future of this section of Montana. Practically all his farming has been done in relatively poor seasons, so that hardly any- thing could dispel his faith in the resources of the soil. Mr. Borreson was one of the original stock- holders of the Homestead State Bank, now the Farmers State Bank, and is still one of the bank directors.

At Nome, North Dakota, August 18, 1910, he mar-

ried Miss Gertrude C. Lockrem, daughter of Ed- ward and Anne (Thompson) Lockrem, the former a native of Goodhue County, Minnesota, and the latter of Skude, Norway. Her mother came to the United States at the age of sixteen and was reared and mar- ried in South Dakota, and she and her husband sub- sequently became homesteaders and farmers there and later lived at Nome, North Dakota, and she died in Day County, South Dakota. Edward Lock- rem is now living in Toronto, Canada. Besides Mrs. Borreson there are two other children, Thomas, of Barnes County, North Dakota, who served overseas in the World war, and lost his left hand in one battle; and Sophie, wife of Harold Ellington, of Minneapolis.

Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Borreson : Alvan Everard, Howard Gordon, Con- stance Margaret and Eunice Agnethe.

THOMAS KELLEY. Plentywood as the county seat of Sheridan County is at the center of a rapidly developing agricultural section of Montana, and the entire region is one of the most attractive to the home seekers and home builders of the present gen- eration. It is less than a scant score of years that the big transformations have been effected in this country, and in the growth and development, of Plentywood probably no one citizen has contributed more liberally of his personal resources than Thomas Kelley.

Mr. Kelley, who knows this region from the stand- point of a quarter of a century's experience, was born at Flint, Michigan, October 16, 1870. His father, Patrick Kelley, was born in County Clare, Ireland, and married there Martha Carey. Prior to the Civil war Patrick Kelley brought his family to the United States, and spent his active life as a brick and cement contractor at Flint, Michigan, moving to that city from New York State. He died at Flint in 1899, when past sixty years of age. His widow is still living, a resident of Chicago. Patrick Kelley was a democrat in politics. His children were: Sarah, who became -the wife of Tom Margi- son and died at Elkhart, Indiana; Martha, who be- came the wife of Eugene Henderson, of Tuscola County, Michigan; Thomas; Selma, wife of James Hugan, of Chicago; and Lizzie, Mrs. Jack Cargill.

Thomas Kelley lived at Flint to the age of twenty, attending the city schools and learning the cigar- maker's trade. Leaving Michigan in 1890, he went to Chicago, worked at his trade several months, and successively made cigars at St. Louis, at Piqua, Ohio, at Boston, Massachusetts, Nashua, New Hampshire, and thence north through' Montreal and Toronto. Returning to Michigan, he worked at Tecumseh, and his last occupation at rolling cigars was in Min- neapolis.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 112

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society Number of Pages: 1144

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 1144