Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 172

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

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Shaw, who settled in Dakota; and two other daugh- ters, names not remembered. The remote ancestor of Freeman Philbrick was James Philbrick, his great- grandfather, who lived at Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire, and ranked high as an educator of his time and state. He brought the family from England, his native country, and established it on American soil.

Freeman Philbrick of this review was married February 16, 1888, to Mary Howard, a daughter of A. McLarry Howard, who settled on the Rosebud a year before Mr. Philbrick and is still a resident there at the remarkable age of ninety-three years. His first wife, and the mother of Mrs. Philbrick, was a Miss Rollins, who bore him three children: Isabel, who became the wife of Captain Neat and resides at Portland, Oregon; Mary, who is Mrs. Philbrick; and her twin sister, Alice, who died at the age of seventeen years. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Philbrick are: Mary Frances, the wife of Harry Cornwell, of Forsyth, Montana, who has two chil- dren, Howard Freeman and John; Eugenia Gladys, who married Charles Dowlin, a ranchman on Armel Creek and a county commisisoner. of Rosebud County; and Malcolm K., unmarried, who is in business with his grandfather, A. McC. Howard, as manager of the latter's stock enterprise.

Mr. Philbrick was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Forsyth; of which he sub- sequently became president, a position in which he served seven years. During the latter part of 1918 he was elected president of the Rosebud State Bank, and he is also vice president of the Yellowstone Packing Company of Billings, and a member of the Montana Stock Growers Association and the Na- tional Wool Growers Association.

HENRY O. BOYES. A prominent ranchman of Powder River, adjacent to the postoffice at Powder- ville, Henry O. Boyes has been identified with the region about here ever since coming to Montana, March 10, 1886, when he left the train at Miles City and established himself among the people of Custer County. Mr. Boyes came out of old England, having been born in Northamptonshire, near Wed- don, December 23, 1864. His father was Richard Robbins Boyes, who was reared and passed his life in Northamptonshire save for the ten years he spent in Australia as a miner, where he became a civil engineer in railroad work, subsequently freighted with a "bull train," hauling . logs and freight, and still later engaged in lime burning at Geelong, Vic- toria. After a decade away he went back to Eng- land with ample capital to engage in farming and stock raising, and followed those vocations during the rest of his life. His forefathers for genera- tions were Northamptonshire people, and all were tillers of the soil and rural people. Richard Rob- bins Boyes married Elizabeth Stanton, and both passed away after rearing their family. Their issue comprised : Lottie, Stanton, Henry O., Bert, Arthur, Edith and Emma. Only Henry O. and Bert came to the United States, and the latter returned to England, where he passed away.

Henry O. Boyes was reared on a farm and se- cured as much education as English boys of the farm could acquire. He was twenty years old when he arranged with Captain Elmhurst to come to the United States and take a place upon his ranch, and sailed from Liverpool aboard the Queen, landing at New York City as a cabin passenger. After spending two days in New York City and another two days at Chicago he came on to his destination at Miles City, went to work as a hand on the old Elmhurst ranch, better known as the Dowson ranch,

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and for twelve years was a prominent factor on the property. His acquaintance with stock and the han- dling of horses made him useful for the breaking of wild horses, and this work was his chief duty while on the Dowson ranch. His wage at first was $40 monthly, which was increased to $45 and finally to $50 a month, but his profligacy 'rendered him help- less as to capital when he closed his work with the ranch. Leaving the Elmhurst, he worked two years for J. M. Holt, also widely known as an extensive pioneer ranchman, and when he left him began ranching for himself with horses. He broke horses at $5 a head as a business, and there was enough to do to supply him with cash if he had saved it. He established himself on Ash Creek, where he "squatted," and there "batched" and ranged his horses about over the hills and in the valley. There was profit in raising horses then. Many of his, sold at Miles City, went to South Africa for service in the British armies, at prices which stimulated the in- dustry. Leaving Ash Creek he came over to the Powderville community and established himself on his homestead at the month of Little Hawkey Creek. He entered a half section here and added cattle to his enterprise and has been running both since. He adopted as his universal brand the "7-U," and in the zenith of his success ran 200 horses on the range. His scheme for cattle is to breed for quantity, and he handles "she stuff," disposing of his steer calves and holding his heifers. He has shipped stock both for himself and his employer, once to England and again to New York.

Mr. Boyes came to this state when the country was stocked with wild horses, and the catching and breaking of these was a part of his work. The wild horse bordered on the thoroughbred, of the Oregon stock, and when captured and broken was marketable, some of them going to England and bringing $300 and $400 a head. It was common to find them in bands four and five years old that had never been inside of a corral, and the breaking of that kind of a horse made exciting work for the rider and fur- nished fun for those who looked on. In all his ex- perience as a rider Mr. Boyes escaped serious injury, although he was pitched from the "hurricane deck" of many a horse and lodged upon the earth with con- siderable force.

Mr. Boyes was married at Miles City, July 3, 1904, to Miss Annie Davidson, a native of Malton, York- shire, England, and a daughter of William Davidson, a farmer of that shire. Mr. Davidson married Han- nah Tindall, and they became the parents of these children : Mrs. Boyes, born February 11, 1882; Thomas, a ranchman of Crow Creek, Powder River County; Mary, of Northumberland, England, the present Davidson family home; and George, also of that shire. Mrs. Boyes was educated beyond the common schools of her native land and taught school in Northumberland two years. She came to the United States under the anspices of the Girls' Friendly So- ciety to Miles City, and lived in the home of L. W. Stacey for more than three years, when she and Mr. Boyes were married. She then came to the ranch her husband was establishing, and the two have been promoting the stock industry . together ever since. She took up a desert claim, a part of the Boyes ranch, the extent of which ranch is almost 2,500 acres. Their farming has been confined to feed rais- ing in the main, and their pioneer home was a small log house of one room, 14 by 16 feet, which burned with their later home in August, 1918, together with their home equipment. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Boyes are: Edith Mary, Kathleen Hannah and Dor- othy Louise.

Mr. Boyes became naturalized several years after

coming to the United States, and when he lined up politically he did so as a republican. The women were given the elective franchise in 1916, and Mrs. Boyes cast her maiden vote in 1918.

NEIL BOYLE has been an interested participant in the life and affairs of Custer County over thirty years, and came to Montana when a boy of six years. Since early manhood his interests have been chiefly identified with ranching, and there is probably none better known for constructive and successful effort, business integrity and all around good citizenship.

He was born in Monroe County, Michigan, Jan- uary 7, 1877. His father, the late Patrick Boyle, was born in County Donegal, Ireland, and as a boy went to sea and about thirty-seven years of his life were spent in seafaring. Most of this service was on boats engaged in the Atlantic trade. When he left the sea he went far inland and settled in southeastern Michigan, where he lived eleven years as a farmer. During that period his son Neil was born. In 1883 Patrick Boyle brought his family out to Montana and settled where the Big Porcupine empties into the Yellowstone. He came by rail over the Northern Pacific. For three years the Boyle home was near Forsyth. Patrick Boyle then went out to Western Montana and finally entered the Soldiers Home, where he died in 1915, at the age of eighty-eight. He married in County Donegal, Ireland, Mary Ward, a native of that county. She is still living in Custer County. The Boyle family came to America about 1872. The children of Patrick Boyle and wife were: Kate, now Mrs. W. P. O'Brien, of Hamilton, Mon- tana; Miss Elizabeth, who lives near Miles City; Mary and Patrick, who died unmarried in Custer County ; Neil and John, the only one of the children born in Montana, a rancher along the Powder River near his brother Neil.

. Neil Boyle spent his early childhood on a Michi- gan farm and attended country schools there and also attended school in Montana. Almost as soon as he was able to ride he began assisting in the work of the ranch and range. He was a cowboy employed by several cattle outfits, and rode the range for others for ten years. During that time he acquired a few cattle of his own, and on taking up the cattle in- dustry independently he located where he lives today, twenty-six miles east of 'Miles City. He entered a portion of the public domain, beginning with a quar- ter section, and that was the nucleus of his present six-section ranch. His first home was a bachelor's shack of logs containing a single room, with dirt roof and dirt floor. That building still has a dis- tinctive place among the numerous ranch buildings, serving as a chicken house. Mr. Boyle started ranch- ing with about ten head of cattle, his brand being "N-bar-3." At the height of his operations he had about 500 head on the range tributary to his home. He has been a large shipper out of the county to the Chicago markets. Owing to the break up of the old range to permanent settlement he has practically left the cattle business and for a number of years has been breeding horses. He has handled draft horses, and the business has been profitable because of the demand for these animals made by various govern- ments for war purposes.

When Mr. Boyle first became acquainted with the region where he lives today it was purely a range country. He can name only two other settlers who were then his neighbors, Fred Smith and P. E. Sheeter. Smith is now deceased and Sheeter has moved further west. Much of the range was then occupied by the Concord Cattle Company and the Illinois and Wisconsin Live Stock Company. They were finally compelled to abandon the field by the

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encroachment of actual settlers, and their domain is now occupied by scores of farmers and small ranchers. Mr. Boyle states that his locality has al- ways been a healthy one for stock, no disease ever becoming epidemic among cattle. The community has been equally free from the operations of bad men and thieves.

Mr. Boyle is a republican and formerly was active as a delegate in conventions. In Chester County, De- cember 26, 1914, he married Miss Velma M. Mor- gan. Her father, William Seth Morgan, was born at Bloomington, Indiana, eighty-two years ago, and has lived in various middle western states and is now a resident of Thurston County, Nebraska. He married Anna E. Bryan, who is living with her chil- dren in Custer County. The Morgan children are: Mrs. Matilda Mozetter of Denver, Colorado; James H., of Winnebago, Nebraska; Seth Harrison, of Smith Center, Kansas; Mrs. Alma Grieve, of Raw- lins, Wyoming; Sylvester E., of Winnebago, Nebras- ka; Ulysses S., of Smith Center, Kansas; Clarence C., of Miles City; Mrs. Boyle, who was born at Sloan, Iowa, March 5, 1883; John E., of Winnebago, Nebraska ; and Bessie A., wife of William McIntosh, of Rawlins, Wyoming. Mr. and Mrs. Boyle have two children, Neillaine and Velma Madaline.

Mr. Boyle is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World and the Elks at Miles City. He has well merited the high reputation he has as a neighbor in his community, and his career merits the confi- dence he enjoys with the busines public generally. He has been a hard worker, and his home life and domestic affairs for many years has been presided over by a wife whose personal traits are as whole- some as his own.

WALTER FORDE. One of the most enterprising ranchmen in Carter County, who has believed from the outset of his career that the "wisdom of yesterday is sometimes the folly of today," and that the methods of our grandfathers in farming and stock raising were all right in their day, yet in the twen- tieth century we are compelled to adopt new methods and, to some degree, work along new lines, is the well-known man whose name forms the caption to this review. He has been a close observer of mod- ern methods and is a student at all times of what- ever pertains to his line of work; therefore he has met with encouraging success all along the line and, judging from his past record, he will maintain his position among the leading and representative farm- ers and business men of his community.

Walter Forde was born at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on May 5, 1882, and is the son of John J. and Nellie Forde, who became the parents of three children, namely: Howard A., of Carter County, Montana; Frank, a ranchman of that same locality ; and Walter, of this sketch. John J. Forde was born in New York State, of Irish parents, and he was partly reared in Ireland, whither his parents returned while he was a youth. Upon attaining maturity he returned to the United States, was mar- ried in Pennsylvania, and became an early settler of South Dakota, going to Sioux Falls in an early day and entering land from the Government. After spending some years as a farmer there he came farther west and for a time was employed by the "VVV" outfit in Wyoming. In the fall of 1901 he was accidentally killed while on his way to the ranch. His widow is now successfuly conducting a ranch on the little Missouri River in Montana.

Walter Forde was reared in Sioux Falls until the age of seventeen years, and received his educa- tion in the public schools of that city. His first employment away from home was on the cattle

ranges at Smithville, South Dakota, where he spent three years in the employ of the "V-Cross" out- fit. He then came to Belle Fourche as his head- quarters, but entered a claim nearby in Wyoming. This he later abandoned, however, and went to the Black Hills, where for a time he was employed in the gold mills. He spent three winters in this work, but spent summers in "punching cows" for the "VVV" outfit. His next venture was as a ranch- man on the Little Missouri River in Montana, where he formed a partnership. The firm bought a bunch of cattle on credit and began grazing them below Albion. The venture was a financial success, and after he had the cattle paid for Mr. Forde sold his interest to his partner and engaged in the horse business in the same locality. He bred and raised range and saddle horses for three years, at the end of which time he sold his stock and took up the sheep business. Buying 700 head of sheep on credit, he took up a homestead and a desert claim on the Little Missouri River, proved them up and they formed the nucleus of his present fine ranch of 1,800 acres. This additional land has been paid for entirely out of the profits from the sheep busi- nes, as has the expense of erecting houses, farm buildings, reservoirs, fences and many other improve- ments which make the ranch one of the best in that section of the state, every possible accommodation being provided for the stock and modern ideas be- ing put into effect wherever possible in the design and construction of the buildings, as well as in the methods of handling the stock. Mr. Forde tried out the tilling of the soil, but was not satisfied that farming could be successfully prosecuted here, and has therefore not given serious attention to it. He started in the sheep business with a cross of the Rambouillet and Cotswold breeds, which he handled for a number of years, but during recent years has changed to the Romney Marsh, with which he is better satisfied, his sole aim being for wool and mutton. In August, 1919, Mr. Forde embarked in a side line by entering the bakery and restaurant business in Belle Fourche, South Dakota but later disposed of the enterprise.

On December 31, 1907, Mr. Forde was married to Lou Erse King, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Irving G. King, early settlers of Alzada. They were the parents of two children, Mrs. Forde and a brother, Earl Clause King, a sheep ranchman in Crook County, Wyoming. Mrs. Forde was born at Alzada, Montana, on October 5, 1884, and was reared and educated there. To Mr. and Mrs. Forde has been born a daughter, Louie Marie.

Politically Mr. Forde gives his support to the demo- cratic party. He is a man of kindly and generous impulses, who gives his support to every movement for the betterment or advancement of the commun- ity. Because of his busines ability, his success and his fine personal character, he enjoys the unstinted respect and esteem of the entire community in which he is interested.

HENRY T. SMITH, one of the oldest residents of West Point, is a veteran educator, and all who know of him and his work have only words of praise for the good he has accomplished.

Mr. Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England. August 18, 1851. In 1852 his parents, Thomas and Mary (Thacker) Smith, immigrated to the United States, and after spending a year in New York moved on to Wisconsin, where the parents spent the rest of their lives on a farm in Adams County. Thomas Smith early acquired American citizenship. When the Civil war broke out he entered the volun- teer army as a member of the Sixteenth Wisconsin

Henry J. Sunth

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Infantry, was subsequently assigned to duty as a teamster in the Commissary Department, and was at first in General Grant's army and then under Gen- eral Sherman. At the battle of Pittsburg Landing he was captured, paroled and sent home. On rejoin- ing the army he went with Sherman's command, and followed that great leader from Atlanta to the sea and up through the Carolinas, concluding with the Grand Review at Washington. He was never wounded. After the war he resumed his place on the farm and as head of his family, and died in 1868, at the age of sixty-five. His widow survived him nearly half a century, until December, 1917. She was ninety-five years of age at the time of her death, and her mother had lived to the age of ninety-six. The children of Thomas Smith and wife were: Henry T., the Wolf Point teacher; George, a fruit farmer near Spokane, Washington; John W., at the old Smith home in Wisconsin; Harriet, wife of Henry Bonner, of Stewartville, Minnesota; and Emma, wife of Walter Gray, of Adams County, Wisconsin.

Henry T. Smith acquired his education in a high school at Mantorville, Minnesota, in teachers insti- tutes and has always been a student. As a youth he was offered the teaching of a school near his old home in Wisconsin. He found the work attractive, and this first experience led him into a field of great usefulness and proved to be his life work. It has been almost fifty years since he taught his first school, and his aggregate of work in the schoolroom would be more than 400 months of his life. In 1873, as a young man of twenty-two, he removed to Stewartville, Minnesota, and was both a rural teacher and farmer in that community. Then, in 1884, he became connected with the Goodwell Mission School at Sisseton as an industrial teacher, and served for 91/2 years. Following that for eight years he was a farmer at Corona, South Dakota, and came from there to Montana in 1903 to take charge of the Indian Training School at Wolf Point as industrial teacher.

He took up his local work under the Presbyterian Woman's Board of Home Missions, and has the general management of all the outside work of the school. He came here under the supervision of Mrs. C. D. King, and has co-operated with her in this work of education since. Mrs. King came in 1893 and is one of the early white settlers here and one of the oldest superintendents engaged in home mis- sion school work in the United States.

To his pupils in the Wolf Point School Mr. Smith Is a grandfather in educational matters. His own home has 'been childless, and he has directed the paternal impulse toward those committed to his care and training and is now welcoming the third gen- eration of Sioux boys into the camp of American in- dustrial and civic life.

Besides his school work he has taken an active part in the Presbyterian Church, was one of the or- ganizers of the Wolf Point Congregation, is an elder of the church and superintendent of its Sunday school. He was also one of the organizers of the First State Bank of Wolf Point and is vice presi- dent and director of that institution. Mr. Smith is a republican voter, and is a charter member of Loy- alty Lodge No. 121, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

At Stewartville, Minnesota, April 7, 1879, he mar- ried Miss Ella M. Bonner. She was born at Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, February 14, 1854, daughter of David L. Bonner, who went from Pennsylvania to Minnesota and became a farmer. Mrs. Smith, like her husband, has given her life to school work, and has been matron of the Wolf Point Indian Training School since she came here.

ULYSSES C. PATTON, who has long been identi- fied with the agricultural interests of Carter County, has been a resident of Montana since 1903. He was born at Goodland, Newton County, Indiana, on Jan- uary 25, 1864, a son of Thomas R. and Ellen (Petro) Patton. Thomas R. Patton was born in White County, Indiana, and after his service in the Union army continued to reside in Indiana until 1876, when he took his family to Kansas and lived in Labette County for a few years. He then located in Bates County, Missouri, where he died. He and his wife had three sons and four daughters, of whom Ulys- ses C. Patton was the fifth in order of birth.

Ulysses C. Patton attended the country schools of the several communities in which he lived, and re- mained at home until he was nineteen years of age, at which time he became self-supporting, first work- ing in Cass County, Missouri, as a farm hand. As soon as he had accumulated a little money he rented a farm, buying his team and farm equipment on time. His widowed mother was his housekeeper, and he succeeded to such an extent that he was able to discharge his obligations within a short period and go into partnership with a brother in the purchase of a farm, upon which he lived for nine years. Realizing that he was not making enough progress, he decided to try and secure a portion of the open range so as to be able to raise stock in Montana, and in the spring of 1903 he made the trip by rail to Miles City, a distance of 1,230 miles from his home, and from there came to the vicinity of Ekalaka by stage. Having found the location for which he was looking in the vicinity of Ekalaka, Mr. Patton bought a team and moved his family and effects to the open range, four miles east of the old Milliron headquarters on Spring Creek. He came into this new country with but little capital, and engaged in the stock industry with fifty head of a good quality of range stock of the Hereford and Shorthorn strains, and ran them for six years at a profit. Then he found that his range was being eaten out so closely by sheep that he sold his cattle and substituted sheep instead, and ran them for some time with equal profit, notwith- standing the fact that he passed through some bad winters, which annually clipped several hundred head from his flocks. The settlement of the country and its division among new comers caused him to abandon the sheep industry, and he resumed his ca- reer as a cattleman, and since then he has been rais- ing beef cattle, wintering his animals well and fat- tening on grass. He then ships them ready for the block to market. His brand, adopted when he en- tered the cattle business, is the "lazy SP" on the left hip. His more recent brand is the "4H" on the right rib.

'Mr. Patton entered his homestead where he is now located, his "claim shack" becoming his first per- manent Montana home. This country residence is a log one of seven rooms, and in it his children have been reared, and one of them was born in it. He has added to his homestead other lands until he now owns 2,000 acres of deeded land, and this together with the land he leases brings ten sections under his control.

In order to provide proper educational advan- tages for his children Mr. Patton joined with the manager of the 'Milliron ranch in the matter of build- ing a schoolhouse between his ranch and that of the Milliron property. These gentlemen hired their own teacher, and the children went through the eighth grade work in it. The school district was then about thirty miles square and three directors controlled all of that territory. Since then other districts have been carved out of it, and other schoolhouses built,

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 172

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