Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 148

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

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Justus L. Ueland was born in Webster County, Iowa, February 6, 1878, and when he was a lad of ten or twelve years his parents moved to North Dakota, and in Lamore County, that state, he passed from his boyhood into his youth. He finished the common school work and then attended the school of agriculture of the University of Minnesota, from which he was graduated in March, 1900. Beginning life seriously, he then spent a few years near Minot, North Dakota, and there earned the first dollars of his capital, being associated in his undertakings with his brother, and this partnership continued for some time after he located in Montana.

To his intensive industry Mr. Ueland added un- erring judgment, so that it is not surprising that his enterprises prospered. He took pride in his stock, grading up his horses and cattle to better strains of Percheron and Belgian horses and White Face cattle, developing finally into a shipper of cattle, and he continued as such until disease struck down one of the most progressive men of his district. Mr. Ueland was a man of vigorous and robust physique, and his interest in his work spurred him on .to undertake tasks so heavy that eventually his vitality was worn away. He took a deep pride in his com- munity, was greatly interested in the schools, good roads, and in fact in everything which promised to contribute toward securing a well-developed system of civic government. At each election he did his duty as a citizen, and as he was a man of strong convictions he usually cast his vote according to them and his wide information, rather than accord- ing to party dictates. A man of the highest personal

honor, he was a stickler for fairness and honesty in all things and would not tolerate loose living or unsound principles. He was a man of religious tendencies, and was brought up in the Lutheran faith. A lover of home, he found his pleasure in his family circle, to which he was always glad to welcome his friends, of which he had a host.

Justus L. Ueland was a son of L. A. Ueland, who is mentioned more fully elsewhere in this work. The Ueland family is of Scandinavian origin and be- longed to the thrifty rural class in the old country, as they have since been in the new. In 1914 Justus L. Ueland was married in Lamore County, North Dakota, to Julia Dunsdon, a daughter of David F. and Lucinda (Overlees) Dunsdon. Mrs. Ueland was born in Christian County, Illinois, and is the eldest of five children. Mr. Dunsdon was born in Illinois, but his wife was a native of Indiana. The Dunsdons are farming people, and their family home is at Edgeley, North Dakota.

During the great war Mr. Ueland did a good citi- zen's part in assisting the administration to carry out its policies, and was a very liberal subscriber to all of the drives. His death occurred March 18, 1919. He was a stockholder of the Citizens State Bank of Dooley and of the State Bank of Outlook. Mr. Ueland was a man of stability and power of concentration, and possessing as he did will and resourcefulness he was able to build up a large and profitable business. He had the open mind and heart and quick understanding which made for him many warm, personal friends. Always keeping the good of his community close at heart, his life will continue to be an inspiration to those he left behind him.

TOM KELLEY, of Dodson, is known throughout this community as one of the early cowboy set- tlers of Montana, and as such he has been a factor in many localities of the state. In 1878 he came into what was then the Territory of Montana, driv- ing in a herd of cattle for a cattle pool. He started from the Panhandle country of Texas, traversed the regular trail through Eastern Colorado, crossed through Wyoming and into Montana, headed the Little Missouri River, came down the Little Powder River to the big stream, down that stream almost to the mouth of the Mizpah, and then into Miles City, the destination of the outfit.

This constituted the first trip Mr. Kelley made into this far northern region, and he remained here from the end of September until the first of No- vember following, when he returned over the trail to Cheyenne, and there took the train back to Texas and resuming his work on the range for the "LX" outfit in the Panhandle, whose headquarters were about eighty-five miles northwest of Fort Elliott, and the several subsequent trips he made over the trail northward were started from that region. The exact locality of this ranch was some eighteen miles north of Amarillo, Texas, on the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad.

Mr. Kelley became a man of the range of that northwest region of Texas in 1873, engaging in rescuing stolen horses from the Indians and ap- propriating them to his own use and ultimately joining a cattle outfit there as a range man. The year 1876 marks the introduction of range cattle into that region by Charley Goodnight, and from that time until 1892 Mr. Kelley was identified with that region. Mr. Goodnight was an old partner of John Chisholm, the maker of the historic Chisholm trail from Texas to Kansas, and who passed away in old age in Kansas City. Mr. Kelley made nine trips over the lonely region between Texas and Montana,

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the last one having been made in 1892, when the herd was stopped six miles east of Ekalaka. Mr. Kelley remained in that country until 1897, and in that time became acquainted with all the historic old ranchers who inaugurated the cattle industry in Southeastern Montana.

On leaving the Ekalaka locality in 1897 Mr. Kel- ley also left the state and turned toward the far North. At Seattle he boarded a boat for Juneau, Alaska, and during his residence in that far north- ern country from November until April of the fol- lowing year he prospected for minerals, which he failed to find. He then drifted back alone, as he went out, and again in Montana he established his headquarters on Milk River at Chinook. By this time he was rather near the bottom financially, and securing work with a sheep outfit he continued in that locality until the spring of 1899, when he came East to Malta, and thence out to the Little Rockies and secured work on a sheep ranch there. During that summer he entered the service of the "Cir- cle Diamond" people, the Bloom Cattle Company, but after a few months returned to the ranchman George Jones, a sheep man, with whom he re- mained until the 16th of July, 1903, when he and Bud Jacobs came to the Dodson locality and pur- chased the quarter section upon which the Town of Dodson now stands.

On beginning his connection with this locality Mr. Kelley secured some goods and embarked upon a mercantile career in connection with Mr. Jacobs, and in March, 1904, he purchased his partner's in- terest in the business, but in the following June sold a half interest in the enterprise to A. J. Barret, who is still associated with him in business. In 1906 they platted the townsite of Dodson, and in the same fall sold three-fourths of the townsite to B. D. Phillips, Major Logan and Charley Whit- comb, who incorporated the Dodson Townsite Com- pany.

The firm of Kelley and Barret have erected sev- eral buildings in Dodson, and are at present engaged here in the garage business. Mr. Kelley also has ranching interests on First Creek, one of the tribu- taries of Beaver River, where during the past few years he has carried on alfalfa farming chiefly. He entered his homestead there in 1917, and it now forms a part of his ranch.

Mr. Kelley is a native son of the Lone Star State, born in the City of Galveston August 5, 1853, and was reared in Savalla County. The principal town of that entire region was then Uvalde, and he was a youth of eighteen before he left that locality. All the school training he received he obtained there in about thirty days, and when he left that country to go into the Panhandle he was the owner of two or three horses.

William Kelley, his father, was also born in Texas, a son of John Kelley, who was one of the first set- tlers of that commonwealth, going into that coun- try about 1819, when it was yet a part of Mexico. He fought in the Texas revolution, and thus con- tributed to the independence of the old Republic of Texas. He ultimately removed to Savalla County, and is buried in the Uvalde Cemetery. This old Texas patriot and Irishman was born in France, and came to New Orleans when a boy of nine years. He married Emma Salisbury, and their children were Edmund, John and William.

William Kelley passed his life as a stockman, and his last years were spent in Savalla County, and he was killed while in the Town of Uvalde. Dur- ing the Civil war he served with the . Confederate army, a member of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, under General Hood, Army of Northern Virginia. Among

many other engagements he participated in the Bat- tle of Gettysburg, and he served through the entire struggle without wounds or capture, resuming his stock business when his army life ended. William Kelley married Martha M. Lakey, from Louisiana, who survives her husband and is the mother of three sons, William, Tom and Dr. John Kelley.

In Havre, Montana, June 15, 1908, Tom Kel- ley was married to Miss Catherine Cotter, whose father was James Cotter, an Irishman of Belfast, where Mrs. Kelley was also born. Her mother was Anna Coleman. Mrs. Kelley is the youngest of her parents' ten children, and she has two brothers in the United States, James, who spent many years of his life in Montana but is now a resident of the State of New York, and Michael, who is a ranchman on Beaver Creek in Phillips County, where his brother James formerly ranched. Mrs. Kelley came to the United States with one of her brothers in 1906, and she and Mr. Kelley became acquainted in Dodson. Their union has been without issue.

Mr. Kelley is active in politics only as a voter, supporting democratic principles. During the World war Mrs. Kelley was an active worker in the in- terests of the Red Cross, performing an excellent part in the war work done by the branch chapter at Dodson.

PETER E. JOHNSON was one of the first settlers of Medicine Lake, having located in this locality before the birth of the new town. It was in March of 1910 that he established his home at old Medicine Lake, where he was engaged in general merchandis- ing as a member of the firm of P. E. Johnson and Company, the firm comprising himself and his brother Oscar. The brothers came from North Dakota to Montana as settlers, Peter coming from Sherwood and Oscar from Mohall, that state, the former hav- ing been engaged in the lumber business and the latter as a merchant's clerk, and combining their capital and experience at Medicine Lake they es- tablished their first independent business for both.

The Johnson brothers - were natives of Minnesota, Peter born in Hennepin County April 21, 1872, and Oscar in Douglas County January 2, 1884, but both were reared in Alexandria and were educated in the public schools. They were sons of Eric John- son, who filed on and proved up a homestead near Hinsdale in Valley County, Montana, and continued as a resident of this state for six years, leaving it in July, 1919, and returning to Alexandria, Minne- sota, where he had first settled in 1878. Eric John- son was a native of Sweden, born in the northern part of that country at Jemtland, where the sun shines at midnight, and he was a farmer there. His people were of the poor class, and he was addi- tionally handicapped in his childhood by the death of his father and the family's maintenance being shifted to his young shoulders. His educational training was therefore limited, and he came to the United States at the age of twenty-one knowing prac- tically nothing but work. He met his future wife aboard ship, and they were married in Alexandria, Minnesota. She was Miss Ingeborg .Johnson, and passed away in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the mother of one child, Peter E. Eric Johnson afterward mar- ried her sister, Emma Johnson, who bore him the following children: Anna, who died as Mrs. Emil Umbright at Fargo, North Dakota; John A., whose home is in Minnesota; Oscar L., a former husiness partner of his brother Peter; Emma C., the wife of Ole Johnson, of Hinsdale, Montana; Edward L., of Medicine Lake; Ellen, of Alexandria, Minne- sota ; William A., mentioned in the following para- graph; and Arthur, also of Medicine Lake.

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William A. Johnson volunteered for service in the World war and was assigned to one of the oldest and most historic regiments in the United States, the Fighting Fourteenth, but his services were given in the United States. He trained at Fort Wright, Vancouver, and also saw service at Portland, Camp Lewis near Tacoma, Washington, Camp Dodge, Iowa, Camp Grant and at Camp Rus- sell, where he was discharged after the signing of the armistice. He was a corporal in the infantry and won conspicuous attention as a sharpshooter and received a medal for his work. His business career has been spent as a clerk in Medicine Lake.

During his early life Peter E. Johnson learned the lumber business from his father, who was en- gaged in the retail lumber trade during more than forty years. After leaving home the son was chiefly employed in lumber yards as a salesman in Alex- andria, Minnesota, and in North Dakota, and during his residence at Mohall he filed on a claim there and proved it up, and the proceeds from its sale gave him the needed capital with which he started in business for himself at Medicine Lake.

P. E. Johnson and Company opened their store at old Medicine Lake in a building 24 by 30 feet, and this was the third store opened in the village. It continued in business there prosperously until the new Town of Medicine Lake came into existence, and the Johnsons then moved their building to the new site, and it was one of the first business houses to open its doors to the public in this new town. The firm continued in their pioneer building until their new store was built in the same year, and since 1910 they have carried on their operations in a building 28 by 60 feet, and their stock has con- tinued along the same lines as at first with the ex- ception that they have added the buying of cream, of which they are the pioneer dealers here. The Johnson brothers, Peter E. and Oscar L., remained together in the business until the death of Oscar November 14, 1918, dying from influenza. Peter E. Johnson has since carried on the business, in which he is ably assisted by his two younger brothers, Edwin and Arthur.

Peter E. Johnson became the proprietor of the Lake Hotel and Cafe June 25, 1919, the successor of Charley Sager. The east half of this building was the original and only hotel in old Medicine Lake, and it came to the new town on wheels about the time the general exodus was made. In addition to his mercantile and hotel interests Mr. Johnson has also been actively identified with the municipal affairs of the town, and -is now serving his second term as the mayor of Medicine Lake. He was actively interested in the county division movement which resulted in the creation of Sheridan County out of Valley County, and was even more actively associated with the battle over the county seat estab- lishment which was carried on through the two sections, continuing over a period of four years and finally settled in the courts by the dismissal of the suit in the fall of 1919, Plentywood winning the decision.

Mr. Johnson was reared under democratic in- fluences. His first presidential vote was given to Mr. Bryan in 1896, and he supported the Nebraska statesman in all his subsequent campaigns and the ticket of his party in all national elections since that time.

At Minot, North Dakota, December 22, 1904, Mr. Johnson was married to Miss Carrie Stromstad, who was born in Norway in November, 1885, the third of the six children of her father, G. Strom- stad, who came to the United States from Norway.

A daughter, Bernice, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in March, 1912,

Mr. Johnson is a past grand of the Medicine Lake Lodge of Odd Fellows, has served as a delegate to the Grand Lodge, and has taken the Encampment and Canton work of that order. He has also served as a district deputy grand master here, and was the first noble grand of Medicine Lake Lodge.

ALBERT L. TENNIS, the manager of the Farmers Elevator and Milling Company of Medicine Lake, has been a factor in the business life of this region of Eastern Montana since 1911. He was born in Renville County, Minnesota, near Bird Island, No- vember 21, 1876, and his environment when he was a boy was the country. His father and mother had gone into that region of Minnesota when it was a new country, took land of the public domain and developed a farm, and there the husband and father passed away in 1883, when but thirty-six years of age.

Lafe Tennis was a native of Wisconsin, born near Oshkosh, and he grew to mature years there as a farmer's son. His father was also Lafe Ten- nis, who had immigrated from Norway to Wiscon- sin many years before the Civil war, and spent the remainder of his life in that state. His widow came out to Minnesota during the later years of her life and died in Renville County in 1903, at the age of seventy-two years. They were the parents of the following children: Lafe, Jr., Louis, Ole, Swen and Ann. The daughter married Holver Hogstell.

Lafe Tennis, Jr., the father of Albert L., was a child in the home of parents in rather straightened circumstances, and he was early inured to work. When the Civil war came on he joined the Union army at the age of sixteen, was assigned to an infantry regiment, and was with General Sherman in his Atlanta campaign. He received a wound which sent him to the hospital, and the war was over before he was able to return to his command. Afterward he took up farming, and soon went out to Minnesota. At his early death he left a widow and six children, and she cared for and educated them. She bore the maiden name of Margaret Hogstell and was a daughter of Holver Hogstell, a native son of Norway. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Tennis were: Henry, of Minneapolis; Lillian, the wife of Henry Sommermeyer, of Minneapolis ; Hattie, who became the wife of Knute Knudtson, and died in Renville County, Minnesota; Albert Lawrence, of Medicine Lake; Emma, who married Charles Eck, of Minneapolis; and George, a banker at Lake Norden, South Dakota.

Albert L. Tennis received some seven months of graded school work after his country school training. He worked on the farm with his mother until he was twenty-one, and then began his own business career with a hammer and saw, working at the carpenter's trade for three years during the summer months in the vicinity of Bird Island. He then entered the grain business as a helper in the Crown Elevator Company at Bird Island. His first managerial position was at Norton, North Dakota, and he also served the Crown Company in his home town, bought grain for the Hawkeye people at Aber- deen, South Dakota, was with the Farmers Grain Company on the Farmers Line out of Devils Lake, and from that point went to Edmore, North Dakota, where he spent four years buying and shipping grain for the Anchor Grain Company.

Mr. Tennis' next location was at Plentywood, where during less than a year he was engaged in the confectionery business, disposing of the business at

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the end of that time and settling a few miles south of Froid, where he resumed his old occupation of buying grain. He was connected with the Farmers Elevator Company, but after a year there he re- turned to North Dakota and spent the next two years at Willow City, buying and shipping grain for the St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Company.

But having once had a taste of Montana life he was not content to remain elsewhere, and on his return he located at Medicine Lake and entered the service of the Farmers Elevator Company. On November 28, 1919, upon the consolidation of that enterprise with the Farmers Elevator & Milling Com- pany, he was made manager of the latter. He is now one of the stockholders of the enterprise. He was also for two years a member of a company engaged in farming on the reservation adjacent to Medicine Lake.

Mr. Lafe Tennis, the father of Albert L., was a republican politically, and his church was the Lutheran. His three sons also became republicans when they became of age, and Albert L. cast his first presidential vote for Major Mckinley in 1896. He supported Colonel Roosevelt in 1904, Taft in 1908, and in 1912 he cast his ballot for Mr. Wilson, but in 1916 resumed his place in the republican ranks and voted for Mr. Hughes. His official service is as a member of the council of Medicine Lake, in which he is now serving his first term. While on the Farmers Line out of Devils Lake he was postmaster of the Town of Ellsbury for two years. He was made a Mason at Willow City, North Dakota, and completed his Blue Lodge work at Plentyville and is still a member of that lodge. During the period of the World war Mr. Tennis gave freely of his time to the sale of war stamps and bonds, and also took an active part in the work of the Red Cross. Mrs. Tennis was an officer in the local Red Cross Chapter, and she is also a member of the Eastern Star, and filled a chair in the Chapter at York, North Dakota.

Mr. Tennis was first married at Bird Island, Min- nesota, in February, 1904, to Miss Oline Landswerk, a daughter of Peter Landswerk, who moved to Minnesota from Chickasaw County, Iowa, but was a native of Norway. Mrs. Tennis was born in Iowa, and after completing her country school training she took up millinery work and was thus employed at the time of her marriage. Her death occurred in April, 1910, the mother of two children, Lowell and Mavis, who are growing up in the home of their grandparents Landswerk in Iowa. At Plentywood, Montana, "in June, 1913, Mr. Tennis was married to Mrs. Mame Mowers, who was born at Clarion, Iowa, the oldest of the three daughters of E. F. White.

GEORGE S. BOGGS. Descended from honored an- cestry and himself numbered among the leading citizens of Carter County, Montana, the subject of this sketch is entitled to specific recognition in a work of this character. A residence in this county of many years has but strengthened his hold on the hearts of the people with whom he has been asso- ciated and today no one here enjoys a larger circle of warm friends and acquaintances, who esteem him because of his sterling qualities of character and his business ability.

George S. Boggs was born in Clark County, Iowa, where his birth occurred on October 5, 1874, the son of George M. and Angeline (Fenton) Boggs. The father was born and reared within fifteen miles from the birthplace of his son George, and his wife was born and reared in Chillicothe, Missouri. To these parents were born the following children: Mrs. Nina Crawford; Mrs. Ruie Stelling, of Omaha, Nebraska; Clark C., of Carter County, Montana ; Vol. III-34

Etha, wife of Charles Knight, of Seattle, Washing- ton; and George S., the immediate subject of this review. George S. Boggs was reared under the parental roof and secured his education in the rural schools of the neighborhood. At the age of eighteen years he came to Montana with the Standard Cattle Company, the "101" outfit, as a cowboy, and on Little Beaver and Sandstone creeks, he worked for that outfit and the "Half Circle L" for four years. He then gave up range work and came to Ekalaka, where he was variously employed about town for about two years before engaging in ranch work on his own account. He began his ranch work near Ekalaka, but finally located on the head of Little Beaver, where he has since been located. He homesteaded there and now owns a section and a half of good land in a body. Here the "Bo-" brand has been main- tained for more than twenty years, and the ranch is one of the best known in that neighborhood. Prior to coming to Montana Mr. Boggs had gained valu- able experience as a range rider for the Morecroft Ranch Company near Morecroft, Wyoming, where he had gone as a youth of fifteen years.

Mr. Boggs was appointed deputy sheriff of Custer County following the election of Sheriff W. E. Savage, under whom he served six years, followed by two years under Sheriff Hugh Wells, thus re- ceiving exceptional training as a peace officer and intimate acquaintance with the details of the office of sheriff. After this official experience he gave his sole attention to his ranch until Carter County was created by the Legislature, when he was named in the bill as the first sheriff. At the first county election he was elected to succeed himself, having previously won the republican nomination against two competitors. He has given conscientious and faithful attention to the discharge of his official duties and has thereby won the respect and admiration of all who know him.

In November, 1896, Mr. Boggs was married to Mrs. Barbara Hedges, a native of Scotland, and who by a former marriage has two sons, Harry H. and Oliver G.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 148

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