Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 151

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

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PETER THOMPSON. One of the most interesting characters in Carter County is found in the person of Peter Thompson, who for forty years and more has been prominently identified with the interests of Montana. Although he has not been a continu- ous resident of the commonwealth since his first advent to it he has been a conspicuous citizen of it since 1890. He came into what was then the Territory of Montana in 1876 as a soldier. The year previously, on the 21st of September, he had joined the Regulars at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The command under General Custer started from Fort A. Lincoln, three miles above Bismarck, to return Sitting Bull and his followers to the reser- vation which they had left. The Indians claimed all of Eastern Montana, but the Sioux tribe en- croached upon all this country, confining by force the Crows upon a small strip of country bounded practically by the limits of their present reserva- tion. The Black Foot, the Arapajo and other bands of Indians joined Sitting Bull in his war on the settlers, few as they were, and the Seventh Cavalry under the command of Custer met them first fifteen miles above the mouth of the Little Big Horn River

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June 25, 1876, and three hours after the fight began the five companies of General Custer were an- nihilated.

Mr. Thompson was a member of Company C of that little army, and survived the terrible massacre owing to the fact that he had been unable to keep up with the command, being on foot and in .com- pany with James Watson. Their horses had given out, and the two soldiers followed the army as fast as they could, but were outdistanced and suddenly found themselves in the Indian village. They were driven from there and joined General Reno's com- mand nearby. General Reno marched within three miles of the battlefield where Custer was surrounded, but taking in the situation he ordered a retreat after fifteen minutes' stand. For participation in this bat- tle of the Little Big Horn Congress ordered a medal struck for the surviving men of the Custer command, and the one in Mr. Thompson's posses- sion reads: "The Congress to private Peter Thomp- son, Co. C, Seventh Cav., Little Big Horn, June 25 and 26, 1876." On the back of his discharge papers is this endorsement: "This soldier participated in the battle of the Little Big Horn June 25 and 26 and was given a medal of honor for conspicuous bravery in said battle."

Mr. Thompson was discharged from the army at Fort Meade in 1890, after five years of active service, and he entered civil life as a quartz mill employe in the Home Stake Mills of Lead, South Dakota. He remained there for eighteen years, be- ing the amalgamator of the mill, and then came into old Custer County and engaged in ranching on the Little Missouri. He entered land from the public domain and was enrolled among the first settlers of the region. He brought with him to the state two car loads of stock horses and engaged in horse raising, continuing this as a business until 1917, when he sold his band of horses and turned his attention to the sheep industry, which still claims his time in a small way. He has in the meantime suffered the adversities of the sheep industry as well as having enjoyed some of the prosperity of recent years. Mr. Thompson patented a homestead and tree claim and purchased some of the Northern Pacific Railroad lands, and these tracts, supplemented by entries made by Mrs. Thompson and purchases made of lands already proved, make the boundaries of the Thompson ranch to contain some 1,400 acres. His improvements include his home and his con- spicuous barn, and his ranch is all fenced and cross fenced. His success at farming has been marked by failures as well as good crops, but more of the former perhaps than of the latter.

Peter Thompson had lived in three different coun- ties, Custer, Fallon and Carter, without moving his residence. His interest in community matters has been that of a private citizen, he having rendered public service only when a member of the Nine Mile School Board. He was greatly interested in the erection of a good building for school purposes, but refused to permit his name to be applied to it, insisting that it be called after Nine Mile Creek running close by.

Mr. Thompson is a native son of Fifeshire, Scot- land, born at the ancestral town of Markinch, De- cember 28, 1853, a son of John F. and Agnes (Craig) Thompson, Peter being their second child. The other surviving members of the family are Arthur and Thomas, of Southern California, and .Agnes Thompson, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Peter Thompson spent his boyhood and young manhood on the home farm, and remained in school until six- teen years of age .. In 1865 the family left Scotland for the United States, sailing from Greenwich, Eng-

land, for New York aboard the ship Columbus, and the first settlement was made at Temperance, Pennsylvania, in the vicinity of which the family lived on a farm until the son Peter reached man- hood's estate. Soon after attaining his majority he enlisted in the army.

In Belle Fourche, South Dakota, September 21, 1904, Mr. Thompson married Ruth Bouicourt, who was born in Warren County, Missouri, April 14, 1874, a daughter of James and Eliza (Spear) Boui- court, and is of French extraction on the paternal side. Of her parents' thirteen children ten are still living. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, Susie, Celeste and Peter, Jr.

In his political affiliations Peter Thompson has always upheld republican principles where national issues are involved. He has been a Mason during a period of almost forty years.

NEWELL G. PHILBRICK is extensively engaged in ranching on the Rosebud, in the vicinity of Forsyth, but his industrial interests in Montana extend be- yond his ranch to include banking, manufacturing and other lines. He came into Montana in 1891 and began his career in what was then Custer Coun- ty, locating on the Rosebud in the community where he has ever since remained. He had at that time just passed his majority and had been engaged in farming in his far eastern home in Maine. He brought with him into the Northwest a cash capital to the amount of about $7,000 with which to engage in the sheep business, but during the few years which followed his first venture into the sheep industry he lost his entire capital owing to the tariff policy of the national administration at that time, for the price of wool went too low for a profit and sheep were almost worthless. .

Thus reduced in capital Mr. Philbrick became a wage earner, but soon afterward, with the aid of financial backing, purchased 500 lambs and 2,100 yearling ewes and again entered the sheep industry. At this time the tariff had been restored on wool, owing to a new administration having come into power, and instead of the former 8 and 10 cents a pound the price of wool rose to 18 and 20 cents. With this advance in price Mr. Philbrick built up rapidly and came to own and run 10,000 head of sheep. He took in as a partner Ernest Thomas, and they remained together in the business during a period of five years and followed their ranching on the Rosebud. With the separation of this partner- ship Mr. Philbrick continued the business alone, and at the present time is running both sheep and cattle. As a cattle man he has added to his ranch industry very materially during the past five years, and now runs some 200 head of cattle under the brand "NP."

Mr. Philbrick entered his homestead on the Rose- bud and occupied it until he proved up and made the necessary improvements to shelter himself and his sheep. His pioneer home and bachelor's head- quarters was a mere dugout, a one-room affair with a cellar behind it in which to store his vegetables, the connection between the cellar and room having been a small hole through which he had to crawl. Leaving there he came to his present home, which he had purchased when he first came to the state, and here he has spent twenty of the best and most profitable years of his life. In the meantime he has added many thousand acres to the original tract, and now has. two miles of the Rosebud within his domain. His ranch is practically all fenced, all his own building, and as a farmer he raises principally alfalfa hay, while some years have also given him good grain crops. His present home was erected

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in 1902, a two-story residence of ten rooms, equipped with both water and lighting systems.

While ranching has proved perhaps Mr. Phil- brick's chief business in Montana other large in- dustrial interests have also claimed a part of his time and attention. He is a director of the Rose- bud State Bank and has also served that institu- tion as its vice president, and he is a stockholder in the Billings Packing Plant, the Montana Life Insurance Company and the Security Bridge Com- pany, all Montana industries. His connection with the political life of his county and state extends only to his voting privilege, which he began back in his native state of Maine as a republican, and the principles of that party have always received his support. He joined the Odd Fellows fraternity many years ago in Maine, but he is not now con- nected with any fraternal organization.

It was in Somerset County, Maine, that Newell G. Philbrick had his nativity, born June 10, 1869, and he remained with his mother until he left the state, gaining in the meantime a country school edn- cation in Aroostook County. He is a son of Free- man and Frances (Merrill) Philbrick, and a brother of Freeman Philbrick, who was the pioneer of the family in Montana.

Newell Philbrick has lived in Rosebud County since its organization, and here on the 21st of April, 1902, he was married to Miss Myrtle Thomas, a sister of his former business partner, Ernest Thomas. Mrs. Philbrick was born in Iowa in 1881. Two children have been born to bless their union, Verdie and Daisy.

ARTHUR CUNNINGHAM, of Miles City, has spent many years of his life in Montana and the Yellow- stone Valley, but he is a native son of Ireland, of County Downe, and was born on a little farm at Kilkeel in the Parish of Morne March 18, 1854. Although during his lifetime he has gained a splen- did education, this training was not received in a school room, but instead in the school of experi- ence, which has been his constant teacher. As he was reared on a farm he became an expert in flail threshing grain, and he labored in the fields from his early boyhood days.

George Cunningham, his father, spent his life as a small farmer, he was born and died on a farm. He was an industrious man, satisfied merely to rear and provide for his family. He was perhaps of the fifth generation to occupy the place where he spent his life's activities. He married Ellen Rogers, a daughter of Thomas Rogers, likewise of an old family of that county, and of their eight children Arthur was the first born and.one of the three to seek a home in America. His brother James resides in Bellingham, Washington, and his sister is Mrs. Ellen O'Connell, of Seattle, Wash- ington.

It was in 1872 that Arthur Cunningham came to the United States, making the journey on the Batavia of the Cunard line. Making his way at once to Detroit, Michigan, he secured work at load- ing a vessel with lumber, and later went into the Lake Superior region of Marquette County and was employed in a saw mill there and in Clarks- hurg. In the winter months he secured work in the blast furnace for the Michigan Iron Company, and after that firm ceased their operations he worked for two other similar concerns until they too ceased operations. It was then that he started for the far West, reaching the Carson Valley of Nevada in 1875. He located in Douglas County, a valley of ranches, on one of which he secured work during the first summer. Going on then to Virginia City,

he found work in a pan mill and spent three years at that occupation, in the meantime having accumu- lated some capital by saving his wages, and when he left that state he went on to California. At San Francisco Mr. Cunningham engaged in steamboat- ing as a hand and truck man on board a boat ply- ing the San Joaquin River to Stockton. This vessel was the Old City of Stockton, and when he finally gave up boating he went into Placer County and resumed his trade of a pig iron maker in blast fur- naces. He worked in the pioneer blast furnace for the making of pig iron in California, and he also began mining for himself, but in this venture he lost money. Mr. Cunningham was next a hay baler in Napa County during the harvesting season, and then leaving the Golden State he went to Puget Sound, Washington, to resume blast furnace work, and was sent by his company up to the mines at Georgian Bay to take charge of their mining propo- sition there, continuing with this blast furnace as long as it continned in operation and was then a longshoreman at San Francisco.

At the close of this period Mr. Cunningham had been away from his native Ireland eleven years, and returning home for a visit, he was married there and in the spring of 1886 came again to the United States with his wife and located in California. His first employment after his return was in the hay fields and threshing grain, and in the autumn he went into Washington and settled on a ranch in Klickitat County, there buying a few old ewes and engaging in the sheep business. Since the time of his settlement in Custer County in the fall of 1899 he has made the handling of sheep his chief busi- ness interest. He identified himself with the local- ity of Baker, where he purchased land, developed a ranch and improved railroad land, and also made some successful efforts toward grain raising. He has been in and out of the sheep business at various times, and finally disposed of his flocks in April, 1919. During the past ten years he has made his home in Miles City, and has contributed a good modern home to the residential section of North Custer Avenue.

In February, 1884, Mr. Cunningham was married to Mary Ann Rogers, a daughter of Arthur and Mary Rogers. Mrs. Cunningham died during their residence in Washington, and lies buried at Golden- dale in Klickatat County. She became the mother of four children, namely: Mary Ellen, a sister in the convent; George P., engaged in the sheep busi- ness in Argentina, South America; Catherine R., wife of William Koth and the mother of two chil- dren; Miss Margaret, of Seattle, Washington. In Chicago, Illinois, July 27, 1897, Mr. Cunningham married Mary Ann O'Farrell, a daughter of Mich- ael and Mary (Landers) O'Farrell. The father was born near Quebec, Canada, and was of Irish parentage. His mother before marriage was Cath- erine Murphy. Mrs. Cunningham was born in the Parish of St. Catherine, Port Neuf, Canada, Decem- ber 5, 1863, the fourth in a family of twelve chil- dren and of whom the following survive: Patrick, of Brighton, Illinois; Mrs. Catherine McGoran, re- siding in a suburb of Chicago; Johanna, wife of Albert Davidson, also of Chicago; Michael, another Chicago resident; and Joseph and Margaret Anna, who also make their home in Chicago.

Four children were born to the union of Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, but only three are living, Arthur, Jr., Thomas Michael and Charles Alphonse.

FRANCIS MARION LACY is one of the most exten- sive ranchmen of Rosebud County, and he has been a factor in the affairs of this region since 1893. He

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traces his descent to an old Virginia family, and his paternal grandfather moved from that com- monwealth to Kentucky and established the family name there. They are of old colonial stock of Revo- lutionary history, and the great-grandfather of Francis M. Lacy was a soldier in General Marion's band of horsemen in the war for independence. The grandfather married a Miss Myers, and their children were Milton and Frank, twins, Jacob, George, John, Ewing, Matthew, Mrs. Minerva Brown, Mrs. Jane Duncan and Mrs. Marcel Whitman. Mil- ton and Frank were both Mexican war soldiers under Colonel Doniphan. They marched across the Southwest with General Taylor's army, and were stationed at Taos, New Mexico. The son Ewing served in Morgan's cavalry in the Confederate serv- ice during the war between the North and South, and another son was a member of General Price's army in that conflict.

Milton Lacy, the father of Francis M., is believed to have been born in Missouri, and was there reared. In 1853 he crossed the plains country to Oregon. His emigrant train went up the Platte River and thence up the Sweetwater on its journey over the regular Oregon Trail, and in Portland Milton Lacy fol- lowed blacksmithing for a time. Later he became a Yamhill County farmer. During his stay in Port- land he married Martha Edwards, whose parents went to Oregon from Kentucky. Mrs. Lacy . was born near Boonsboro, Kentucky, in 1833 and she is one of the numerous heirs to the Edwards estate in New York City which has been in litigation for generations. In 1871 Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lacy moved from Oregon to Texas but in 1884 returned north as far as Nebraska where Mr. Lacy home- steaded on Platte River in Scotts Bluff County. There he developed his home and farm and spent the remainder of his active life. He is still sur- vived by his widow who continues to reside at the home in Nebraska.

The Lacy home was blessed by the birth of twelve children and all of this large family grew to years of maturity namely: John, whose home is at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska; George, who died in 1919, at Scotts Bluff ; Mary, the wife of Fred Wrige, also a resident of that Nebraska town; Sterling, of Scotts Bluff; Thomas, who is a farmer near Tor- rington, Wyoming; Francis M., of Birney, Mon- tana; Benjamin, of Scotts Bluff, Nebraska; Charles, a resident of Torrington, Wyoming; Dora, the wife of Billy Reeves, of Scotts Bluff; Dollie, who mar- ried James Ricely, of Fort Morgan, Colorado; Des- sie, who is now Mrs. Reuben Bates and a resident of Scotts Bluff; Wilamette is the wife of Orville Dugger, of Bridgeport, Nebraska.

Francis M. Lacy was born in Zamhill County, Oregon, June 12, 1867, and was but four years old when taken by his parents to the Lone Star State and was a lad of seventeen when the family home was established in Nebraska. He was reared in both Burnett and Williamson counties, Texas, acquiring in the meantime a country school educa- tion, for his father was a farmer and he was reared as a farmer boy. When seventeen he began work- ing on the range, and after going to Nebraska was employed by the Ogalla Cattle Company along the Platte River to the Wyoming line. After leaving the employ of that company he went further up the river to old Fort Laramie and secured employment with the Pratt and Ferris Company and later was with the Converse Cattle Company, both well known outfits of that region.

After coming to Montana in 1893 Mr. Lacy began work with the "UX" Company, belonging to the Pratt and Ferris Company, and was also in the

employ of John Kendrick, now a United States senator from Wyoming. A period of fourteen years was spent with Mr. Kendrick, and during that time Mr. Lacy began collecting a bunch of cattle for himself, adding to the herd as rapidly as he could acquire the capital to do so. When he had accumu- lated twenty-five head he engaged in ranching for himself, securing what is now his homestead in 1894. He entered the tract as soon as it was opened for settlement, spending the winters at the ranch and during the summer months was employed by others in order to sustain himself while reaching a condition of independence. His last work for wages was as a cowboy for Capt. Joseph Brown, of the Three Circle ranch, in 1902.

The pioneer home of Mr. Lacy was a log cabin, where he lived a bachelor's life and which continued as his abiding place until the erection of his pres- ent modern five-room ranch house. The pioneer log cabin, however, is still doing duty and is now used as a chicken house.

Mr. Lacy began his cattle industry with the "X-A" brand, but changed later to the "H-2," and he con- tinued to operate under the latter brand until 1919, when he sold it and also all of the cattle thus branded. Since then his brand has been the "campstool" on the left ribs. With the passing years he has added several tracts to his original holding, and is now the owner of more than a section of land lying along the Hangingwoman in Rosebud County. He has developed an alfalfa farm as well as a stock ranch, and his efforts at farming have followed along irrigation lines, he having recently built a system of ditches which irrigate nearly all his val- ley lands.

Mr. Lacy's interest in political matters has ex- tended only to his voting privilege. He gives his support to the democratic party where national is- sues are concerned, but locally casts an independent ballot. During almost a quarter of a century he has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, affiliating with the lodge at Sheridan, and he is also a member of the Elks fraternity at that place.

CAPT. JOSEPH TALIAFERRO BROWN. The late Capt. Joseph Taliaferro Brown, a ranchman and widely known settler on the Tongue River in the community of Birney, came to Montana in the fall of 1886. He selected as his location the grassy and uneven coun- try along the Tongue River, and this was the des- tination for his herd of cattle of 1,000 head which he had driven from the Indian Territory. He had started with them early in the year, having grazed them across Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming, and he alone of the men making up the party remained as a fixture in Nebraska.

Captain Brown's homestead had been selected the summer before he came by his brother, and a pio- neer home was built in which the family spent sixteen years. The homestead which he proved up is a part of the family estate and for twenty-two years Captain Brown was an active beef producer along the Tongue River. He came to believe im- plicitly in his new home state, and was one of the very ardent and enthusiastic friends of the common- wealth. He developed one of the two most valuable ranches here, extending for twenty miles along the river, and the stock shipped from it annually to the markets of Chicago and Omaha formed a con- siderable part of that sent out of this region. His recorded brand was, and is still, the "Three Cir- cles," one on the right hip and two on the right side, and his ranch is everywhere known as the Three Circle ranch.

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Captain Brown as a farmer in Montana was not known. He believed little in the success of dry farming, it being too unreliable for assured profit, but, with irrigation, farming he felt could be made a success. He raised much alfalfa, which crop he demonstrated a success, and the dry farming feeds he planted were such as he needed for his ranch only.

As a citizen Captain Brown showed his interest in politics and was chosen a member of the Legis- lature from Custer County and served a term in the Lower House. He was a democrat in politics, but being rather quiet in manner was not amiably dis- posed toward public speaking. He was captain of a cowboy company of Rough Riders, which com- pany formed a part of Colonel Grigsby's regiment during the Spanish-American war. Chickamauga Park, Georgia, was the rendezvous of the regiment, and there it was located when the war closed and his command returned home.

Captain Brown was formerly a Texas man and resided there for many years, having gone there as a young man of twenty-two. He became claim agent for the Texas and Pacific Railway Company and was stationed at Marshall, and following his plans to engage in the cattle business when he should become able he eventually found a friend of means who joined him in the enterprise and they asso- ciated themselves together as partners. The Three Circle cattle which this partner, John Wyeth, owned in the Indian Territory were gathered and driven by Captain Brown into Montana in 1886, as above noted, and that ranch established here.

Captain Brown was a native of Copiah County, Mississippi, born January 26, 1849. A college man, he graduated from the University of Virginia, and also from the Kentucky Military School, and at almost the close of the war between the states he entered the Confederate service as a member of Gen- eral Forrest's command. He was a son of Hezekiah George David Brown, a sailor of Hazelhurst, Mis- sissippi, whose ancestors first settled in Virginia and finally drifted south to Mississippi. Captain Brown's mother was Mary Peachey Taliaferro, and among her children were two sons, her surviving son being Edwin Rice Brown, of Deer Park, Dallas, Texas. Captain Brown was a member of the Ma- sonic fraternity and of the Knights Templar, and held his membership at Miles City. In church mat- ters he was a Methodist.

Captain Brown was married at Marshall, Texas, December 13, 1883, to Mary G. Humphreys, a daugh- ter of Daniel and Catherine (Jefferies) Humphreys. She is a great-granddaughter of Ralph Humphreys, who went to Mississippi from Virginia and was an officer in the Colonial army during the war of the Revolution. His son George was Mrs. Brown's grandfather, and his life was passed at Port Gibson, Mississippi, as a planter. George Humphreys mar- ried Mary Cobourn and their son Daniel was Mrs. Brown's father. The Jefferies family were also Rev- olutionary patriots, Mrs. Brown's maternal grand- mother's uncles, Isaac and Evan Shelby, being soldiers of the Revolution and later one was a gov- ernor of Tennessee and the other a governor of Kentucky. Mrs. Brown is the eldest of the four children of her parents, the others being: Nathaniel J., of Port Gibson, Mississippi, who spent the active years of his life on Tongue River in Montana; Dan- jel P., who spent his life at Eagle Ford, Texas; and George Wilson, of Leesdale, Mississippi, whither he retired after giving his active years to ranch- ing on the Tongue River.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 151

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