Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 166

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

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land, his . homestead containing his present ranch improvements. His capital of $1,000 enabled him to buy seventy-five head of Montana range cattle. He has always used the brand "UZ with a half circle," and his stock are now bred up to high grades of Hereford and Shorthorns. For a num- ber of years he has been an individual shipper by car lots to the Chicago markets.

Mr. Boden's first home on his ranch was a log building comprising three rooms, and with subsequent additions and improvements it is still sheltering his family. His stock shelters are sheds and stables, and he kept his herd on the increase both in number and quality until 1913, since which date his operations have been curtailed largely through shortage of range. His ranch enclosure embraces about 5,100 acres. Five hundred acres are devoted to farming, his crops being the various grains and roughage for stock feeds. As a man of substantial character and resources, Mr. Boden is also president and a director of the Farmers and Stock Growers Bank of Ismay.

He settled on Cottonwood Creek before a school was organized, and employed his influence in that direction and helped build the pioneer schoolhouse, which is still being used. He is a member of the school board. Like many other good men Mr. Boden refuses to be bound by partisan ties in politics, and has voted for presidential candidates in both the old parties.

At Terry, Montana, October 15, 1899, he married Miss Julia Babcock. Her father, Clint Babcock, is a retired farmer of Montana, and a former resident of Minnesota. He served as a Union soldier during the Civil war. His wife was a Miss Mon- tague, and they had four sons and five daughters. Mrs. Boden was born in Minnesota in October, 1881. She is the mother of three children: Floyd, George and Robert. Floyd is a student in the Ismay High School.

CHARLES JAMES MCKAY. Both before and since he came to Montana Charles James McKay had experiences out of the ordinary. In early life he was an iron worker and sailor, and traveled and saw much of the world and men and affairs. Since he located at Ismay in Custer County in 1892 his work has been ranching, but even in that he has had to exercise constant vigilance in order not to be swept away by the vicissitudes that have over- whelmed so many ranchers in Eastern Montana.

He was born near Pembroke, Maine, April 27, 1856. His father, John P. McKay, was born on the Island of Rathlin, Scotland, and after his mar- riage came to the United States and settled in Maine, to take possession of some property owned by his father. He had been reared in luxury, was liberally educated, but was never able to apply him- self to practical business. When thrown upon his own resources he became associated with a com- pany for the manufacture of plaster. That enter- prise, like all others which he touched, proved a failure. He spent his last years at Pembroke and died when about seventy. His wife was Margaret McCurdy, who survived him several years. Of their children, John died of wounds incurred while a soldier in the Civil war. Daniel was in the navy during the Civil war aboard the frigate Niagara, and died unmarried at St. Louis. Ann became the wife of Isaac Goff and died at Pembroke. Neill was in the Sixth Maine Infantry the last two years of the Civil war. James was drowned when a boy, and the next in age is Charles J. of Montana. Mary Ellen, widow of Alexander Hay, is a teacher by profession, lives at Great Falls, and for a time was identified with the city schools there.

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Charles J. Mckay acquired all his education be- fore he was fourteen. When he ran away from home he took a boat to Boston and went to work in some iron mills, for which a brief previous ex- perience fitted him. He had grown up near the ocean, and was quite able to take the place of an able seaman. Besides working in mills he made several trips on coasting vessels, one of them being a smuggler. He had learned the puddling trade at Pembroke, and later with a firm from Troy, New York, went to Londonderry, Nova Scotia, and worked as a puddler, was similarly employed in several mills in New York, Vermont and Pennsyl- vania, and while at Chester, Pennsylvania, he and his fellow workmen went on a strike and he ac- cepted the opportunity to seek employment in an- other locality. He went to Birmingham, Alabama, when the first rolling mill was built and when Bir- mingham was a village. He was employed there as a puddler and from Alabama went to Panama. He was at Aspinwall, Panama, in 1882, during the revolution, when that city was burned by the rebels. While on the Isthmus he was employed as fire- man on a dredge when the DeLesseps Company were endeavoring to cut out the canal. He remained there about eighteen months and was dredge captain when he left.

It was from the Isthmus of Panama that Mr. McKay came to Montana in the early '8os. For a few years he worked at Alder Gulch and Virginia City, also prospected around Pony, but had little to show for his efforts at mining. He also worked for wages on hay ranches in the Deer Lodge Valley and eventually came to Miles City and bought an interest in a band of sheep with Alex Cree. The band was moved from Little Porcupine over to Sunday Creek, a year later to Fallon Creek, and during the summer the grazing ground was in the region of Ismay. The next move was to Whit- ney Creek, where Mr. Mckay had the business partly wound up when the blizzard of April, 1892, struck him. Sixteen hundred head perished in that storm, and only 600 were left. Mr. Mckay then used all his credit to buy sheep, but it was a most inauspicious time to promote the sheep industry. Wool was going down and conditions were rapidly approaching the panic year of 1893. His last ship- ment of wool was sold for 7c a pound, and he was glad to find a buyer who would take his sheep at goc a head.

Despite such discouraging circumstances Mr. Mckay was not ready to quit and evidently liked Montana and was satisfied to cast in his lot per- manently with the state. He then turned his re- sources more and more to cattle, ranging them on Whitney Creek, where he fenced in a large tract of the public lands. Eventually his cattle had a pasture with a twenty-mile fence around it, and besides 500 head of cattle he had about 300 horses. His original brand was the "8-5," which he soon changed to the present brand, the Lazy-3-X, de- scribed as lazy three x. Mr. Mckay entered a desert claim on Whitney Creek, and placed the pioneer improvements, beginning with a one-room log shelter, which was gradually enlarged to eight rooms and a bunk-house with two rooms. He

also had ample shelter for 700 head of stock, and outside there was a good protection afforded by the breaks. The next misfortunte was a fire which destroyed sheds, corrals, implements and much of his hay. After this Mr. Mckay changed his loca- tion to Fallon Creek, near Ismay, going there just as the railroad was building through. Here he owned a section astride the creek, on which are located his improvements, also a section and a half

cornering with the first section and another half section still further out. As a cattleman 'Mr. Mckay exercises good judgment in crossing the Hereford, Polled Angus and Short Horns, and gets what he considers not only better beef animals, but one with a maximum of ranging ability and storm resistence. The present Mckay ranch has been developed by Mr. Mckay and includes ample buildings, a number of acres seeded to alfalfa, and much of the rough- age required by his stock is produced on the place. Fallon Creek at this point abounds in cottonwood timber, furnishing stock shade and fuel and also quantities of lumber.

Besides the ranch Mr. Mckay is a director of the Farmers and Stock Growers State Bank of Ismay, and was also a stockholder and helped es- tablish the Ismay Fair Grounds. He is a stock- holder in the Masonic Temple at Miles City, the Masonic Lodge being his only fraternal connection. He cast his first vote in the South as a democrat, but eventually allied himself with the republican party and for a number of years has regarded that as his permanent affiliation.

Mr. Mckay married at Birmingham, Alabama, Josephine Witsendingler, who died there. In New York City he married Rene Parks. Mr. Mckay has no children.

HAL S. WITHINGTON is an old timer of Montana, though by no means an old man. For upwards of thirty years he has been identified with the com- munity of Forsyth, chiefly as a merchant and busi- ness man. His father was one of the prominent pioneers of Montana Territory.

His father is the venerable Peter S. Withington, now living retired in California. He was born at Ashland, Ohio, January 12, 1837, and eight years later, in 1845, accompanied his parents to Rock County, Wisconsin. Though he grew up on a farm he came of a family of watchmakers and gun- smiths. His grand ancestor was a mechanic who made clocks out of wood and later of brass, also hammered out spoons from silver coins, some of this plate being in the family today. A brother of Peter S. Withington was Charles B. Withington, who in- vented the first self-binder and secured a patent, but when about to lose it through infringement sold his right to the McCormicks, who adapted his in- vention, and for many years he remained in the company's service as foreman and mechanical ad- viser.

Peter S. Withington during his active life had many experiences in the Far West. As early as 1861 he freighted across the plains to Colorado. He then returned to Wisconsin, and about 1862 en- listed in the Thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry. He was with his regiment in the South, though it was his fortune to participate in none of the greater battles. He was discharged at the close of the war, having been injured when run over by a cannon, and for many years he was a pensioner.

After the war, like many thousands of old Union soldiers, he went to Kansas and settled in Franklin County, maintaining his family there near Williams- burg until 1878. However, in the meantime as an itinerant jewelry merchant and watch repairer he visited many parts of the great West. As early as 1867 he came to Montana, visiting the mining camps, selling jewelry and repairing watches. He came to know some of the pioneer personalities and the life of old Alder Gulch, and during two years saw many other historic points in the old territory. On leaving 'Montana he went down the Missouri River from Fort Benton in an open boat to Sioux City, Iowa.

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In 1879 he acquired a more permanent interest in Montana and in 1880 brought his family to the Northwest, spending the first year in Pease Bottom. It is believed that Peter Withington shipped the . first self binder into Montana, bringing it by boat up the Yellowstone to Junction and using it to har- vest his own grain and that of some of his neighbors. After locating at old Junction he practically gave up his trade and business as a jeweler and watch repairer and practiced agriculture. In 1886 he re- moved to Wyoming, settling on Pass Creek, near Sheridan, where he continued operations as a farmer and stock man. But since 1900 he has lived at Santa Cruz, California. Peter Withington has been a republican from the time of Lincoln. In Wiscon- sin he married Miss Jane Griffin, who was born at Scranton, Pennsylvania, a daughter of James Grif- fin. To their marriage were born four children: Loran, a resident of British Columbia ; Hal S .; Effie, who died at the age of six years; and Leroy, who died while a soldier in the Spanish-American war at Jacksonville, Florida.

Hal S. Withington was born on his father's farm in Franklin County, Kansas, in 1871, and was about nine years of age when he came to Montana. He grew up at the old town of Junction, and alto- gether had limited opportunities to attend school. When he was about seven years of age his father had taken the family back to Wisconsin, and for two years he attended a country school in that state. For two months he was a pupil on the overland stage school in Pease Bottom, Montana, and fin- ished his education in a private school and finally a district school at Junction. In the spring of 1889 Mr. Withington went to work for the Northern Pacific Railway as freight clerk at Custer.

In 1892 he first came to Forsyth, clerking for Thomas Alexander two years, spent the following summer as a cow puncher on the roundup for the 7 U K outfit, for a year worked with Donovan & Spear at Billings, and for two or three years fol- lowing was again at his old home town at Junc- tion, employed by Charles Spear & Company. Lured by the gold discoveries, he went to Alaska in 1898 and spent some time around Dawson City, prospect- ing unsuccessfully. He started back toward the States on a little steamboat, and at times helped pull with rope up the swift current of the Yukon. He reached home after an absence of thirteen months in the Far North. He then continued em- ployment with the successors of the old Spear Com- pany until 1900, when he went to the Crow Agency and managed the store of C. T. Babcock, the Indian trader, and his successor, A. L. Babcock, until 1903.

Mr. Withington has made his permanent home at Forsyth since 1903, when in association with others he formed the Richardson Mercantile Company, taking charge of its grocery department. In 1916 he acquired this department as his independent enter- prise, and has since carried on a succesful business.

Mr. Withington has always been a citizen ready to respond to various community projects and his coun- try's need, and during a portion of the World war was food administrator of Rosebud County and a leader in the Liberty Bond sales. He cast his first presidential vote for Benjamin Harrison in 1892 at Forsyth. In that town he took his first degrees of Masonry and is a member of the Elks at Miles City.

At the Crow Agency February 23, 1901, Mr. Withington married Miss Bertha C. Conn, who was born at Peru, Indiana, and came to Montana a year before her marriage. She is a daughter of V. C. and Anna Conn, and the oldest of three children.

Her brother Ed is associated with Mr. Withing- ton in the grocery business at Forsyth. Her sister is Mrs. Guy Newsbaum, of Peru, Indiana.

EMMETT F. MEYERHOFF. While he came to Mon- tana eighteen years ago as a railway agent, Mr. Meyerhoff is best known in Rosebud County as president of the First National Bank of Forsyth and as one of the men of capital and enterprise who have done most to develop the wonderful agricultural resources of this part of the Yellow- stone Valley through irrigation and practical farm- ing.

Mr. Meyerhoff was born near Villisca in Adams County, Iowa, September 22, 1867. His grand- father came from Hanover, Germany, about 1830, living for a few years in Ohio, subsequently in Seymour, Indiana, and eventually moved out to Iowa and died near Villisca about 1870. At Sey- mour, Indiana, was born John H. Meyerhoff, who removed to Iowa in 1856, and spent his early youth on a farm in Adams County. The year of the Civil war he enlisted a private in Company F of the Twenty-third Iowa Infantry, was with Grant's army during the siege of Vicksburg, later took part in the Red River campaign under Banks, and was in the siege of Mobile, including the reduction of Forts Spanish and Blakeley. Soon afterward the war ended and he was discharged at Davenport in the summer of 1865. His brother Fred died during the Red River expedition.

The war over, he resumed his industrious work as a farmer and that was the effective part he played in life. He died in 1890, at the age of fifty. As a republican he filled some minor offices, and was a member of the Masonic Order and the Pres- byterian Church. He married 'Mary J. White, who died in 1906. She was born near Zanesville, Ohio, July 22, 1846. Her grandfather had been a captain in the British army during the Revolutionary war, remained in this country when independence was achieved, and became a sterling American citizen and was a pioneer of Ohio. . Dennis White, father of Mrs. Mary Meyerhoff, was an Ohio man. The children of John H. Meyerhoff and wife were: Emmett F .; Dennis H., of Corning, Iowa; Mrs. Florence Wooddell, of Villisca; Miss Lillian C., of Washington, D. C .; Miss Grace, of Villisca; and Lieut. Charles L., of Villisca, who went over- seas with the Rainbow Division and later served with the Seventy-seventh Division in France and Belgium.

Emmett F. Meyerhoff lived on his father's farm in Iowa until he was seventeen years of age. He attended the public schools of Villisca, and besides learning something of the practical side of farming he acquired a knowledge of telegraphy. Suffering impaired health from the climate of Iowa, he started West in search of more vigorous atmosphere, and for a time lived in the State of Nebraska. With the Burlington Railway he served as an opera- tor at Louisville, and altogether spent a dozen years railroading. The Burlington Company sent him to Montana in 1898 as agent at Crow Agency. Leav- ing railroad work in 1902, he came to Forsyth as one of the organizers of the First National Bank, to succeed the Forsyth State Bank. This is one of the stable and conservatively managed institutions in that part of the state, has a capital of $75,000 and surplus of $25,000. Senator John E. Edwards was the first president, the first cashier was J. P. Auld, while 'Mr. Meyerhoff became assistant cashier, subsequently being promoted to cashier and has been president since 1913. Other officers and directors are: J. P. McCuiston, vice president ; P.

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J. Bunker, cashier ; H. D. O'Brien, assistant cashier, and Charles A. Westphal, director.

Farming and farm development have been an im- portant feature of Mr. Meyerhoff's business activi- ties ever since coming to Forsyth. In the Yellow- stone Valley he has acquired otherwise unproductive land, made profitable farms and invested a large amount of capital in substantial and permanent im- provements. For the benefit of his own land and those of his associates and the valley in general he has been a leader in irrigation and was one of the first to suggest the organization of the Yellowstone Irrigation District, a project completed in 1910. This district now affords water for 12,000 acres of land, and these lands, comprising an important rural community on the south side of the river, are a tremendous asset to Forsyth's agricultural produc- tion. The original cost of the system was a quarter of a million dollars, and the annual outlay for main- tenance and other purposes involve the sum of $40,000.

Busied with affairs that of themselves constitute a public service, Mr. Meyerhoff has never entered practical politics, contenting himself with voting largely for the man, though his normal preferences are for the republican candidate. He is a Mason, being eminent commander of Allenby Commandery No. 20 of the Knights Templar, and is a member of Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena. During the war he was chairman of the Bureau of Civilian Relief, and is still chairman of the Home Service section of the bureau.

Miss Anna E. Dunning was born and reared on a farm in Iowa adjoining the Meyerhoff family, and was a playmate and schoolmate of Emmett 'Meyer- hoff. They were married April 26, 1893. She had completed her education in the Presbyterian Acad- emy at Corning, Iowa, and had been a teacher. Her parents were Almon and Eliza (Amspoker) Dunning, who reared a large family of children. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Meyerhoff is Miriam, a young woman of liberal education who has discovered for herself an interesting program of activities. She spent two years in the Western Woman's College at Oxford, Ohio, a year in North- western University at Evanston, Illinois, and took a special course in occupational work at Reed Col- lege, Portland, Oregon. She was in the hospital service at Camp Lewis until that service was dis- continued, and during the war was also assistant superintendent of Red Cross at Forsyth and gave much of her time to that work. She is the only woman in Rosebud County honored with member- ship in the American Legion.

FRANK K. HOLLENBECK has been an interested participant in the life and affairs of Rosebud County for twelve years, and had achieved a sub- stantial success as a rancher and stock man before he was called to his public duties as postmaster at Forsyth, an office he has filled with every degree of credit and efficiency for four years past.

Mr. Hollenbeck was born at Fremont, Dodge County, Nebraska, June 18, 1878, and represents a distinguished name of that state. His father, the late Judge Conrad Hollenbeck, was a native of Pennsylvania. From his native state he went into the Civil war as a private in the Two Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, and was with the Army of the Potomac from the Battle of the Wil- derness until the close of hostilities.

After the war he studied law and soon became identified with the life and affairs of the western state of Nebraska. For many years he enjoyed a large practice at Fremont, which was his home when

he died, though his last years were spent as a mem- ber of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, and he was its chief justice at the time of his death. He was ·an influential democrat and was a delegate to the famous Chicago convention of 1896 when William J. Bryan won his first nomination. While Judge Hollenbeck agreed with Mr. Bryan on the silver issue he frequently disagreed with him on other questions. Judge Hollenbeck represented an old and distinguished family lineage in Pennsylvania. The Hollenbecks originally came from Holland and were identified with some of the early colonial settlements in this country. Judge Conrad Hollenbeck married Jeanette Knox, also a native of the Keystone State and representative of one of the old Pennsylvania families. She is still living at Fremont, and of her two sons Frank is the only survivor.

Frank K. Hollenbeck acquired his early educa- tion in the city schools of Fremont, and was grad- uated in 1900 from the law department of the State University at Lincoln. Though educated as a lawyer he has found his chief occupation in other lines. For a time he was connected with banking at Fremont and later was cashier of the Banner County Bank at Harrisburg, Nebraska.

On leaving Nebraska Mr. Hollenbeck came to Montana in 1908 and entered and proved up a home- stead on Smith Creek south of Forsyth. He made entry during the very early settlement of that lo- cality and continued a growing and prosperous busi- ness as a stockman and farmer until 1916, when he sold his interests and moved to Forsyth.

Mr. Hollenbeck was appointed postmaster in 1916 as successor of L. W. Katzenstein. He has ad- ministered the office to the satisfaction of all con- cerned and at the same time has taken a public spirited part in the community and was an interested worker in behalf of all war movements. He cast his first presidential vote in Dodge County, Ne- braska, and has always been a democrat.

At Forsyth, November 15, 1905, he married Miss May Alexander, daughter of Thomas Alexander. Her father was one of the early settlers of what is now Rosebud County, and Mrs. Hollenbeck is a native of Forsyth. To their marriage have been born five children, named Thomas, Janet, Gretchen, Prudence and John.

THOMAS ALEXANDER. In 1919 death claimed a real pioneer and a very prominent and useful citi- zen of Rosebud County and Forsyth. Thomas Alex- ander came to the Territory of Montana in the cen- tennial year of 1876, and was practically the first to settle and initiate business enterprise in what is now the flourishing little city of Forsyth, whose best interests were always close to his heart.

He was born at Farmiston, Carleton County, New Brunswick, July 9, 1856. His father, David Alex- ander, came from Scotland in 1830, and lived a long and successful career as a farmer in New Bruns- wick. The mother of Thomas Alexander was Eliza- beth Stickney, who was born in New York State, but whose parents were natives of England and when she was a child moved to New Brunswick, where she met and married David Alexander and survived him five years. She was the mother of six sons and a daughter, George, Richard, James, John, Thomas, William and Amelia, who married Solomon Ketchin. The first of this family to come to the United States was George, who located in Idaho and was soon afterward followed by Thomas. William also came to this country. The other chil- dren remained in Canada.

Thomas Alexander grew up in New Brunswick, attended district schools and graduated from the

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

high school at Woodstock in 1872. The following year, at the age of seventeen, he came to the United States and at Boise, Idaho, followed prospecting and mining until his advent to Montana Territory in 1876. At old Fort Keogh, near Miles City, he worked as a clerk, and was also a cowboy in the employ of Mr. 'McVey. With the outbreak of the Nez Perce Indian war in 1877 he joined General Howard's command, and was in the campaign until Chief Joseph and his band were subdued.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 166

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