Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 124

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

USA > Montana > Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III > Part 124

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He was born at Boston, Massachusetts, April 5, 1846, and when twelve years of age moved with his parents to Wakefield, Massachusetts. He had completed one year in high school, and was fifteen years of age when the Civil war broke out. His eagerness to get into the fighting overcame the han- dicaps of age, and not long afterward he enlisted and was assigned to Company I of the Twentieth Massachusetts Infantry. He was with that com- mand in Virginia, his first battle being that of An- tietam in the fall of 1862. After that he was taken ill, and was sent to a convalescent camp at Alexan- dria, Virginia, and discharged. On November 22, 1863, he re-enlisted in Company B of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, under Colonel Arnold A. Rand. With the Second Battalion of this regiment he was sent to Florida and did patrol duty at Jack- sonville, was in the battle of Gainesville August 17, 1864, at Black Creek September 3rd, in the engage- ment at Baldwin the next month and remained in Florida until the close of the war. The battalion then joined its regiment at Richmond, where it per- formed provost duty, and also at Standardsville and Charlottesville. In October, 1865, the regiment was returned to Boston, where Mr. Clark received his discharge as a bugler November 27, 1865. Aside from illness he went through the war without wounds. On April 19, 1870, he was issued a testi- . permitted him to rejoin Sturges. The Nez Perce monial signed by Governor Claflin of Massachusetts war ended with the capture of the tribe by General Miles on the Musselshell River. Sergeant Clark then resumed duty with his company at Fort Ellis. In the spring of 1879 Companies H and L were sent as to his service, accompanied by the thanks of the governor for the duty he had rendered his state and nation so faithfully.

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to Fort Assinniboine, with Colonel Black of the Eighteenth Infantry in command. Sergeant Clark did his last army duty there on detail as head car- penter over the enlisted men, and remained until the fort was practically completed in 1881. He received an honorable discharge in August of that year.

Thus for five years he was on almost constant duty at the outpost of civilization in Montana and gained an intimate knowledge of this pioneer region which many years later he saw again, when it was beginning to bear the mature fruits of civilization. After leaving the army he returned to Massachu- setts, and for many years followed his trade. In 1913 he came out to Montana to visit his daughter at Sidney, and soon afterward entered a home- stead at Three Buttes in Richland County. As an old soldier he was able to prove up in a year, when he deeded the place to his daughter and it is in her name. Since then he has made his home during the summers with his daughter, Mrs. Jennie E. Young, in the Mount Pleasant community, ten miles soutlı- west of Sidney, and spends his winters in the East. Through all his mature years, more than half a century, Mr. Clark has given his political support chiefly to the democratic ticket and was a supporter of the Wilson administration.

At Randolph, Dodge County, Wisconsin, Decem- ber 24, 1868, Mr. Clark married Elizabeth Ann Pen- dell. She was born in the Catskill Mountains of New York, daughter of William Pendell, who later became an early settler in Wisconsin. Mr. Clark has two living children, Mrs. Jennie E. Young and Louie P., the latter of Rawson, North Dakota.

Mrs. Jennie Young was born in Randolph, Wis- consin, August 22, 1870. She acquired a grammar school education in Dunn County, Wisconsin. She became the wife of Frank L. Young on February 22, 1888. Since the summer of 1906 she has been a factor in the affairs of the Mount Pleasant com- munity of Richland County, where her husband en- tered a homestead, and with the assistance of their children they have improved a farm and developed a good home. Their living children are: Leslie A .; Mabel E., wife of Adelbert E. Webster, of Three Buttes; Lois A., wife of James E. Boles, of Fair- view, Montana; Mary E., wife of Walter E. Mc- Chesney, of Mount Pleasant; Silver, wife of G. Ross Mellinger, of Mount Pleasant; and Manley A., who with Leslie assists their father in carry- ing on the home farm.

Mr. Clark is in his seventy-fifth year, but enjoys fairly good health and bids fair to live to a ripe old age. He has twelve grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren, all living.

MRS. VEVA SMITH. The women of Montana are awakening to their responsibilities and beginning to take the places in their communities to which their talents entitle them. One of the most progressive women of Broadwater County, and one who has done much for her section of the state is Mrs. Veva Smith, wife of Dr. Charles W. Smith of Townsend.

Charles W. Smith was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 19, 1876, and was educated in the University of Ohio, and received his degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Ohio Medical College. For eighteen months subsequent to his graduation he was interne in the Cincinnati Hospital, and theti established himself in a general practice at Kendall, Montana, where he remained until 1905. While liv- ing there he conducted the Kendall Hospital, being in charge of it for three years. In 1908 Doctor Smith came to Townsend and has firmly established himself in the confidence of the people as a special-

ist in surgery. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. A republican of considerable influence, he was sent as a representative from Fergus County to the State Legislature as the suc- cessful candidate on the ticket of his party. For the past ten years he has been a trustee of the city schools. The Methodist Episcopal Church holds his membership and enjoys the effects of his generosity and efforts in its behalf. Doctor Smith belongs to Valley Lodge No. 21, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a past master, and the thirty- second degree of Scottish Rite; also to North Star Lodge No. 19, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is a past grand.

Doctor Smith was married to Veva Marks, and the children of their marriage are: Vera Alice, who was born March 16, 1903, now a junior in the Broad- water County High School; Mary, always called Bill, was born October 9, 1906, and is attending the public schools; and Alvena Lois, born May 27, 1909, attending the public schools.

Mrs. Veva Smith was born near Townsend, Mon- tana, January 26, 1878, and is a daughter of that Montana pioneer and trail blazer, Rufus Marks, whose sketch follows this. Mrs. Veva Smith is eligible to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution through ancestors who en- gaged in that great struggle for freedom. Her own range of interests and activities has been remarkable. She early exhibited intellectual facul- ties of an unusual order. She first attended the schools of what is now Broadwater County in the days when the Indians were still very plentiful in this region, and later was a pupil in the Butte High School at Butte. Her parents, appreciating her abili- ties, sent her to a young ladies' seminary at Oak- land, California, where she completed her training, and almost immediately after leaving this school in 1902 was married to Doctor Smith.

Having special faculty for organization work, Mrs. Smith formed congenial connections with the Clionian Club, which is federated with the Woman's Club organizations of the country. She also belongs to the Sons and Daughters of the Pioneers of Mon- tana, the Rebekahs, of which she is a past grand, and the Esther Chapter of the Eastern Star, of which she has served as secretary for the past seven years. Mrs. Smith has become very prominent because of her work among the young people in her neighbor- hood, and is now the leader of the boys' and girls' clubs of Broadwater County under the supervision of the Agricultural College of Bozeman. She pos- sesses the faculty of arousing the interests of her young associates and is accomplishing much in teach- ing them how to raise stock, grain, hay and other products.

Women like Mrs. Smith are proving that they are capable of rendering an efficient service to their communities and countries, and there is no doubt but that if all of the members of her sex were as capable and had made as good use of their talents, natural and cultivated, as she there would have been but slight delay in granting suffrage to women. She is a republican by inheritance and conviction and naturally is a leader in her party as her father hefore her, among the women voters, to whom she is an inspiration and educator. In her work among the clubs of the young folks of the county she is simply expanding the boundaries of her home circle, and including with her own little ones their com- panions. The effect of her sympathetic, many-sided genius, her deep understanding of human nature is so widespread that it cannot be overestimated, and it may be truly said that many of the present gen-

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eration in years to come will feel that through her influence they were able to lay the foundations of every virtue which multiplies the utility and economy of life. She has the determination, vision and really marvelous ability to overcome obstacles which mark the great leaders, and in every way possible she is contributing generously of her personality and time to the civic undertakings of her community and county.

RUFUS MARKS. One of the chief objects of this publication is to preserve the life records so far as possible of Montana's real pioneers, and among them one of the worthiest and most deserving of such record was the late Rufus Marks, for many years an honored citizen of Townsend, Montana, where he died in 1906. The family is still represented in Mon- tana, his daughter being Mrs. Veva Smith of Town- send.

Rufus Marks was born at Elgin, Illinois, in 1845, and died when a little past sixty years of age. His father, James Marks, was a merchant and farmer of Huntley, Illinois, where he died. James Marks married Harriet Hill.

Rufus Marks was reared in his native city, and fresh from the country schools at Elgin at the age of eighteen, in 1864 he enlisted in Company K of the Ninety-fifth Illinois Infantry as quartermaster's clerk. He joined the regiment at Springfield, thence went to Memphis and to Nashville, then to New Orleans, and finally to Chicago, where he was hon- orably discharged in October, 1865. Having thus performed his duty as a soldier of the Union, he returned to Elgin, spent the winter attending col- lege, and in April, 1866, outfitted for a commercial venture in Montana, carrying merchandise that would have a ready sale among the miners.

He came by the Bozeman route, and at Fort Lara- mie the United States troops stopped them until a train could be formed sufficiently large to battle hostile Indians in case of trouble. The Indians in fact soon afterward went on the warpath, but the large party of which Mr. Marks was a member had no trouble on this score, but great losses were sus- tained as a result of swollen rivers, including sev- eral lives and also the entire stock of merchandise being transported by Mr. Marks. Destitute of the resources with which he expected to establish him- self in business in the territory, he arrived at Boze- man July 1, 1866. Soon afterwards, at New York Gulch, on the advice of a California expert miner, he traded his horses and gave his note of $1,000 for a placer claim. A week later he discovered that this claim had been "salted," and this was the second adversity he encountered. Then followed several months of unproductive work at mining, but with his return to Diamond City he opened a bakery, and from that time forward luck seemed to favor him. He was an expert in baking as in several other lines of work, and it was claimed that he was able to make a pie in two minutes if necessity required. A great demand was placed upon his products and he did a flourishing business. He also secured an in- terest in a claim in Confederate Gulch and realized several thousand dollars from that source, and an even larger amount from another claim on Montana Bar. Still another mining enterprise absorbed all his capital, and he had to go back to his bakery and to the surer means of contracting for others.

In 1870 he bought the Lenhardy ranch in the Mis- souri Valley, and also engaged to a considerable ex- tent in freighting. In 1871 he had six ten-mule teams running from Batten and Corinne to Helena. In 1874 he bought a stage line and took the mail con-

tract, running each way daily between Helena and White Sulphur Springs, a distance of seventy-four miles. The operation of this route required seventy horses. His freighting business he continued until railway competition made it.unprofitable. He oper- ated a mail contract between Townsend and White Sulphur Springs until 1899. With the first start of Townsend in 1883, he became a member of the local mercantile firm of Tierney & Company, a firm that also conducted sawmills and erected the Townsend Hotel. Later this firm was succeeded by the Town- send Mercantile Company. By the extending diver- sity of his enterprises he achieved financial inde- pendence, though never became extremely wealthy. At the time of his death he owned eight ranches and had large mining interests. One of his ranches was a 2,000-acre property 712 miles east of Town- send, a tract which he acquired when he first came into the Missouri Valley and a ranch that is still owned by his daughter, Mrs. Smith, and her brother, James Parberry Marks.

Rufus Marks was a stanch republican, for four- teen years was a member of the City Council of Townsend, and was frequently a delegate to state and national conventions. He gave the best of his abilities to the development of Townsend and Broad- water County, and it is because there were such men as Rufus Marks among the pioneers of the state that Montana has emerged so rapidly from a territorial position into one of the highly pro- ductive regions of the West. Such men as he had the courage, broad vision and initiative to make big plans and exert every effort to carry them out, and those who have come after have been forced to measure up to these standards if they wanted to make similar progress. Mr. Marks was long a prom- inent member of North Star Lodge No. 19, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and also affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic.

He married Mrs. Mary (Maples) Frost. By her first union she had two children, Mark L., a general workman at Townsend; and Vernie A., who lives at Helena. Rufus marks by his marriage had the fol- lowing children: Vera, who died at the age of four years; James P., who is manager of his father's estate and lives at Townsend; Mrs. Veva Smith, of whom more is said in the preceding article ; Harold, who died at the age of seven years; and Hattie, who died in infancy. Mrs. Marks, the mother of these children, was born in the State of New York in 1841 and died at the Helena Hospital in 1914. Her parents went to Wisconsin from New York in 1845, and thence to Montana, in 1869, so that she shared many of the experiences of pioneering as well as her husband.

J. M. METTLER. One of the most conspicuous figures in the history of the western part of Mon- tana is J. M. Mettler, the well known retired drug- gist now residing in Kalispell, too well known to the people of his section of the state to need any formal introduction here, a man who for many years was actively identified with the business in- terests of this section. Strong mental powers, in- vincible courage and a determined purpose that hesitated at no opposition so entered into his com- position as to render him a leader in important enterprises. In a straightforward, conservative manner, he has sought to perform the duties of a progressive citizen while advancing his own inter- ests, and his support has always been depended upon in the furtherance of any laudable movement having for its object the welfare of the general public.

J. M. Mettler was born at Rollo, Missouri, and is

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the son of P. T. and Alice (Farnsworth) Mettler. His mother was the daughter of a noted lawyer of South Bend, Indiana, and was a schoolmate of the Studebakers of that city, who have in recent years become so famous in the manufacturing world. It is related of the subject's parents that during the troublous days of the Civil war they lived in a section of Missouri where feeling ran high and an- tagonisms were shown in public encounters. One night soldiers and citizens engaged in a street fight and Mrs. Mettler, fearing that their own home would be attacked, threw her clothing out of the upper window, then ran down into the street with but her night clothes on and with her baby (the subject of this sketch) in her arms. When she reached the street she found that someone had stolen her clothes. She ran away from the building, which they occupied as a hotel, and the latter was soon blow up. When the subject was about five years old the family moved to Minnesota, where he was reared and educated. When twenty years old Mr. Mettler went to California, where he remained for a time, and then moved to Dakota, where he was married. Soon afterward he and his wife went to the State of Washington, locating at Oakesdale, where he engaged in the drug business. In May, 1888, he went to Seattle, establishing a drug store there. Right after the big fire there he moved to Anacortes, Hidalgo Island, where he established a drug store. He became the first health officer of that community, being elected by a vote of 305 votes out of a total of 310. After a time Mr. Met- tler moved to Kalispell, Montana, where he built a hotel and rooming house, known as the "Key- stone," that being in the early days of that town, before the advent of railroads. Soon afterward he was appointed manager of the old Cummings drug store, and later was manager of Bronson & Light- hall's drug store ..

Mr. Mettler was a strong lover of sports and was active in the early days in the promotion of amuse- ments in Kalispell. He opened an amusement hall, containing a bowling alley, billiard and pool room, and it is worthy of note that a pleasant feature of the opening was a reception given by Mrs. C. Conrad of Kalispell. Mr. Mettler was one of the first coro- ners of Flathead County, and at various times was appointed special sheriff of the county. He was president of the Rifle Club and secretary and treas- urer of the Gun Club. He leased the West Hotel, which he conducted for a time, but sold that and bought the Marlow store. After a time he sold that place and entered into a partnership with W. C. Whipps, with whom he opened a wholesale cigar and liquor business. One year later Mr. Mettler bought and operated the bar of the West Hotel for four years, but at the end of that time he sold out and moved to Spokane, Washington, where for three years he was city salesman for the Spokane Drug Company. During the opening of the Flathead Res- ervation in Montana Mr. Mettler resigned his posi- tion and returned to Kalispell. He entered the employ of the Jones Drug Company, but at the end of a year he bought an interest in the Hodge Navi- gation Company, which operated the steamer "Klon- dike" on Flathead Lake, and of this company Mr. Mettler became secretary, treasurer and general manager. After conducting the business for four years, in June, 1914, Captain Hodge and Mr. Mettler sold their controlling interest and Mr. Mettler then became branch manager and salesman for the Flat- head District for the Montana Oil Company. Three years later he resigned that position to engage in the manufacture of "Super Auto and Furniture Polish,"

said to be one of the finest polishes in the United States, and to this he is now nominally devoting his time and attention, though he is practically retired from active business affairs.

Mr. Mettler is able to relate some very interesting experiences of the early days in this section of Mon- tana, one of which at least had a few thrills attached. At the time of the celebrated "Two Medicine" hold- up he was deputized along with other Kalispell citizens, including Judge O'Donnell, Harry Chambers and others, to go with Sheriff Gangner in pursuit of the bandits, who had fled to the mountains. The outlaws were Sam Sherman, "Red" Jones and Jack Chapman, the latter being a son of Lord Chapman of Nova Scotia. They had robbed a Northern Pa- cific train and were at this time planning to hold up another train. The sheriff's posse went up into the mountains after them, through snow two feet deep, and engaged in a running fight with the outlaws, more than 100 shots being exchanged. Chapman was killed and Sherman badly wounded, but Jones es- caped capture, having hid in a pile of ties, as was afterwards learned. The next day Mr. Mettler passed the place and it occurred to him that the pile of ties would be a good place in which a man might hide. Approaching the pile, he heard the click of a gun and, not seeing the outlaw but knowing that the latter had a "bead" on him, he slowly turned and walked away. After Jones was captured he told Mettler that his turning away was the only thing that saved his life.

While living in Dakota Mr. Mettler was married to Belle Miller, who was born in Fulton, Illinois, the daughter of David and Nancy Elizabeth (Lamb) Miller. To this union has been born one son, Wil- liam Maurice. The latter received his elemental education in the public schools of Kalispell, grad- uating from the high school in 1910, at which time he was president of his class. Then for a year he was a student in the University of Montana at Mis- soula, leaving there to enter Yale College, where he was graduated in 1915, having majored in chem- istry. He then went to Rochester, New York, where he took a course in salesmanship and became a traveling representative for the Rand Visible Index Card Company. Later he became connected with the Goodyear Rubber Company at Akron, Ohio, with which he is still employed, being one of their chief compounders or chemists. He is also treasurer of the Goodyear Relief Fund. He married Harriet Vernon Hotchkiss, and they are the parents of three children, Nancy, William and Jack.

Mr. and Mrs. Mettler have adopted a niece, Sylvia Woods. She too has received a good educa- tion, having graduated from the Kalispell High School with the class of 1911, following which she took a course in the Kalispell Business College. She then took a position in the law offices of David Ross, which she resigned some time later to accept a similar position in the law office of Mark Conroy. After a few months she again resigned and became an employe of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, where she remained for three years. Resigning that position, she then went. to the New Haven Normal Gymnasium, where she took a course in physical culture, followed by a course in domestic science at Milwaukee. She then returned to Kalispell and accepted a position in the law offices of Foote & McDonald, but a year later left there and entered the Conrad National Bank, where she remained until January, 1917. She then went to Detroit, Michigan, where she entered the Thomas Training School and took a course in dietetics, graduating with honors. Miss Woods then went to Nitro, West Virginia, and

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served as dietician in the Government Base Hospi- tal, established there in connection with the great explosives plant. During the big epidemic of the "flu" she acted as dietician and nurse, and was later promoted to the position of head dietician. On No- vember 9, 1918, she was married to Edward William Findley, who was head accountant for the Govern- ment in the plant at Nitro, where they now reside.

Politically Mr. Mettler is an enthusiastic sup- porter of the republican party, in the success of which he is keenly interested. Religiously Mr. and Mrs. Mettler are members of the Episcopal Church at Kalispell, of which Mr. Mettler is one of the vestrymen. Fraternally he joined the Knights of Pythias at Oakesdale, Washington, in 1888, the An- cient Free and Accepted Masons at Kalispell in 1895, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in 1902, and the Woodmen of the World, at Great Falls, in 1896. He is also a member of the Kalispell Club and the Leiderkranz. Mr. Mettler has been successful in business, respected in social life and as a neighbor he has discharged his duties in a manner becoming a liberal minded, intelligent citi- zen of a state where the essential qualities of man- hood have ever been duly recognized and prized at their true value.

NELS K. MARKUSON, of Medicine Lake, and the manager of the Markuson-Epler Garage and Ford Agency, has been identified with the business life of Medicine Lake since May 1, 1919. He was born in Goodhue County, Minnesota, December 14, 1869, a son of a farmer, Knute Markuson. The senior Mr. Markuson came out of Norway to Wisconsin in 1854, and a year or so later moved on to Minnesota, locating in Goodhue County, later moving to Polk County of that state, and he spent the last years of his life on a farm there. He was a man of in- dustry, conducted his business affairs successfully and made his life's efforts count for good. As a voter he espoused the principles of the republican party, and as a churchman was a Lutheran. He married, in Norway, Martha Reppen. His death occurred in the year 1899, when he had attained the age of sixty-seven years, and he is still survived by his widow, whose home is in Minneapolis. Their family comprised fifteen children, eight sons and seven daughters, nine of whom survive, and of this number Nels K. was the eleventh born.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 124

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