Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 180

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

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York City, went South to New Orleans, and enlisted in the United States army, serving with an infantry regiment during the Mexican war. Later he was a member of the cavalry and fought in an Indian campaign. Coming up the Mississippi, he located in Iowa, and then went to Minnesota Territory, being one of the first to settle in Olmsted County. He took up a homestead five miles from where the City of Rochester now stands, and by hard labor converted his environment into a good farm home. The first house was built of logs but was later replaced by a frame dwelling. At the time of his death he owned a half section of good land in Minnesota. He died at the age of sixty-five. His wife, Mary McFalls, was born in Indiana and died at the age of fifty-five. They were the parents of thirteen children, John B. being the second in age. Three sons and six daugh- ters are still living.

John B. Clark grew up on his father's Minnesota farm, and attended school only during the winter sessions. Leaving home at the age of twenty-one he went to the Black Hills of South Dakota, travel- ing by ox teams from Fort Perry. He prospected and mined in that region and also worked on a ranch for about two years. He then bought a saddle horse and a pack horse and came through to Miles City, Montana, in the fall of 1877. There he bought teams and worked on the grading of the Northern Pacific Railway during the fall and spring of 1878. From there he went on to Helena and took a con- tract for getting out logs to build a railroad tunnel. This was his employment during the winter of 1878 and the summer of 1879. Selling out his outfit he went on to the Gardner branch of the railroad and worked through the remainder of the summer of 1879 in building that road. From there with his teams and equipment he moved to Fort Benton and engaged in the freighting business between Fort Ben- ton and Lewistown for two years. In 1881, selling his outfit, he located on the stage station on Arrow Creek and spent the winter of 1881-82 working for John LaMott in road grading and hunting and trapping beavers and deer. In 1883 he went to the White Sulphur Springs and worked in the timber and sawmill and in the summer of 1884 returned to the Judith Basin and spent two years with J. C. Walker in a sawmill. During that time he located a tract of unsurveyed land. After leaving Walker he continued in the sawmill business with Charles Long on Beaver Creek for about three years. Selling his interests to Mr. Long, he returned to his ranch, which had been surveyed in 1885. From that time forward Mr. Clark was busy in building up and acquiring ex- tensive farm and ranch interests, raising cattle and horses, and at one time had about 3,500 acres of land. He still owns 2,000 acres, constituting a splendid ranch situated nine miles southeast of Moore, and he makes his home on the ranch. He has never sought public office, and is a democratic voter.

April 5, 1897, Mr. Clark married Mary Dundum, a native of Montana. They had two daughters, Helen and Theresa. The latter died at the age of two years. Helen is the wife of August Ide, and her two sons are John L. and William Clark.

GEORGE F. WRIGHT, a present county commissioner of Fergus County, left the farm of his father in Iowa at the age of sixteen, and has spent his subse- quent years in Montana as a cowboy, rancher and stockman, and is now enjoying a well earned retire- ment at Lewistown.

He was horn in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, April 18, 1865, a son of Jackson and Nancy (Thomp- son) Wright. His parents were also born in Alle- gheny County. His father was a farmer there, and

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in 1874 moved to Madison County, Iowa, where he bought land and became one of the leading farmers and stock raisers of that section. At the time of his death, which occurred in 1890, at the age of sixty-six, he owned a finely improved place of 320 acres. He held the office of township assessor and in politics was a republican. His wife died at the age of forty years. They were the parents of nine chil- dren, George F. being the fourth in age. Eight are still living.

George F. Wright was nine years old when his parents moved to Iowa, and he finished his educa- tion in the public schools there and at the age of sixteen came to the Judith Basin in Montana. His first employment was with the T Ranch outfit and afterward he was with several sheep and cattle com- panies until 1899. In that year he bought the old Willow Dale Ranch of 340 acres and put in a num- ber of years raising sheep and cattle on a large scale. He sold most of his stock and practically retired from business in 1910. Mr. Wright was elected a county commissioner in November, 1918, on the re- publican ticket. .

He married in May, 1893, Ruth Fisher, a native of Missouri. They 'have two daughters, Gladys and Lois.

JAMES FERGUS was elected the first president of the Montana Pioneers Society, an honor fitly be- stowed, when most of the prominent builders and and makers of Montana were still alive and there were many other pioneers eligible to the same posi- tion. A brief sketch of his career is therefore a distinct contribution to the history of Montana.

He was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, October 8, 1813, and died at the age of eighty-four in 1897. He grew up in a Scotch home, where the religious spirit was that influenced by a rigid Presbyterian father and mother of liberal views. He had a common school education, and at the age of nineteen crossed the ocean to Canada. He spent three years in a Quaker settlement and learned the trade of mill- wright. The first summer he spent in the United States he was employed as a millwright at Green Bay, Wisconsin. At that time, over eighty years ago, he also visited Milwaukee and Chicago, and in the late '3os moved to Eastern Iowa, in what was then the Blackhawk Purchase. He built and super- intended powder mills at Savannah, Illinois, and at Moline in that state engaged in the foundry and machine business. He was also a member of the firm Wheelock & Fergus, paper manufacturers, at Moline. But for ill health he might have become one of the great industrial figures in the Middlewest.

In 1854 he moved to Minnesota and in company with two other men laid out the town of Little Falls, owning five-twelfths of the townsite. He built with his partners a dam and bridge across the Mississippi River. Later he became identified with Fergus Falls, Minnesota, owning half the townsite.

From Minnesota he started west again, and while in Colorado in the winter of 1861-62 received reports from the new gold mines of the Idaho country. He joined Captain Fisk's expedition of 1862. His ac- count of the experiences of this pioneer expedition is preserved in the files of the Montana Historical So- ciety and has been published in several works. He drove his own ox team from Little Falls, Minnesota, to Bannack, the first mining camp of Montana. Such were the qualities of his character and the vigor of his leadership that he was from the first looked upon as a man of prominence in the territory, and was called upon for many official responsibilities, in- cluding election as the first recorder of Alder Gulch, Virginia City, and as the first county commissioner

appointed in the territory for Madison County. He afterward moved to Lewis and Clark County, near Helena, and was elected to serve two terms as com- missioner of that county and as a member of the Legislature. He also did some placer mining at Alder Gulch and Virginia City, owning the mine known as No. 13 Last Chance Mine and No. 2 Ana- conda Mine near Butte. But his chief interest throughout his career was stock raising. In 1865 he located his ranch on Prickly Pear Creek and was in the cattle and sheep business there for sixteen or seventeen years. Seeking a wider range, he located about 1880 in the Judith Basin, where he founded what is known as Armells Ranch and grazed his herds over many hills.

His reputation as a public man followed him to the Judith Basin and he was soon prominent in public life. He represented Meagher County in the first Constitutional convention and afterward in the State Senate. He was instrumental in getting a new coun- ty set off from Meagher. The bill which he intro- duced gave the name Judith to that county, but on the motion of two of his political opponents the bill was amended so as to make the county Fergus County. He was himself a republican in politics.

A few years before his death an appreciation written of him may be quoted as a permanent judg- ment upon his life and character. "His main char- acteristics are a natural aptitude for mechanical enterprises, a sturdy independence of thought, a strict integrity of purpose and a love for study and good books. He has beyond question the best and most select library of any ranch or stock man in Montana. He takes and reads on an average twenty- five of the best publications in the country and some from Europe, reading by his own estimate not less than three hours a day upon an average for the past sixty years. It may well be inferred that he keeps fully abreast of the times. Although eighty years of age and an invalid for some time, Mr. Fergus is still active and energetic, giving a portion of his time to the management of his affairs."

At Moline, Illinois, March 16, 1845, he married Pamelia Dillin, who was born in Jefferson County, New York. She died October 6, 1887, the mother of four children, Andrew, Mrs. R. S. Hamilton, Mrs. S. C. Gilpatrick and Mrs. Frank H. Maury. That Mrs. James Fergus was a notable figure among the pioneer women of Montana may be inferred from a tribute paid her by the late Col. W. F. Sanders, as follows: "The dead wife, mother and friend who lies here belonged to no religious sect, believed in no religious dogma and desired no religious services over her remains. The wishes of the living will be kept as sacred contract with the dead. While she could not understand how she could live after death or locate a heaven or a hell, she clearly compre- hended the duties appertaining to her station in life, and in their performance was an obedient child, a faithful wife, a loving mother, a true friend and an honest woman, performing her full duty in all sta- tions of life, beloved by all, leaving not an enemy behind."

ANDREW FERGUS is the only son of the distinguished Montana pioneer James Fergus, for whom Fergus County was named, and whose life and experiences are briefly sketched on other pages. Andrew Fergus is still a rancher, a life to which he was rearcd, and is now proprietor of the old ranch of his father, known as Armells Ranch, twenty-two miles from Lewistown. James Fergus secured the establish- ment of a postoffice on the ranch known as Armells, and the office of postmaster once held by James Fergus is now in the keeping of Andrew Fergus.

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He was born at Moline, Illinois, July 3, 1850, and came to Montana with his parents when about thir- teen years of age. He attended the schools of Helena, a private school at Alder Gulch and still later attended a school in Minnesota, where most of the students were half-breeds. Almost as long as he can remember he was with his father on the ranch in the cattle and sheep business, and gradually assumed increasing responsibilities. He has been a rancher for forty-three years, and at times has grazed as high as 40,000 head of cattle, sheep and horses. He is still a big stock man, though his at- tention is now, concentrated upon the handling of about 4,000 head of sheep.

Mr. Fergus impresses men as not altogether typical of the characteristic western rancher. Though he has lived the greater part of his life out on the range, he has the dress and manners of the alert and well bred city business man. Mr. Fergus has never sought any political honor and votes independently. He married in 1908 Miss Hazel Akely, and they have three children, two daughters and one son.

WILEY KING is one of the historic characters of the Yellowstone region, an early settler of Pease Bot- toms, and is one of the living witnesses to connect the present with an era in which all Montana and the Northwest was a contested dominion between the encroaching white men and the hostile Indians.

He was born about three miles from Rockport in Atchison County, Missouri, December 15, 1858, the short month of the year, which accounts, as he says, for his body being so short. His father, Samuel King, was a native of Kentucky, but went to Missouri and married a native of that state, Louisa Stone, daughter of a Missouri farmer. Samuel King was a "Pikes Peaker," going out to the gold find of that region and crossing the plains in 1859. About the beginning of the Civil war he returned for his family, and he lived at Pikes Peak for several years as a merchant and miner. He followed various stampedes to new gold strikes. In 1864 he loaded his family on a wagon, and with two five-yoke teams of cattle came overland to Montana, reaching Alder Gulch, then a new gold field. In 1866 he drove on to Diamond City, Confederate Gulch, where Wiley King attended his second school, taught by Mrs. Doctor Hunter, whose husband is honored by the name given to Hunter's Hot Springs. Mrs. Hunter still survives, one of the aged and venerable women of pioneer times.

At Confederate Gulch Samuel King continued min- ing with little success, really losing his capital day by day. He gave up mining altogether in 1867 and took a ranch close to Bozeman, land that is now the property of his son Granville R. King. After living there a few years he went West to California, while his wife remained on the ranch, and he died soon after reaching the Golden State. His widow re- mained in Bozeman, where she died in 1915, when almost seventy-five years of age. She was the mother of the following children: Thomas; Wiley; Samuel Richard; Granville A .; Robert F .; Mrs. Lellan N. Milliron, all of Bozeman; Noah Ray, a commercial traveller; and Mrs. Cora May King, of Billings.

Thomas Wiley King came to man's estate with a common school education. He was working out at the age of fifteen, and his excursions carried him far and near, but he always knew that home welcomed him with his mother when he wanted it. He was a cowboy, a farm hand, and for a time carried the mail through the Indian country between Bozeman and Emigrant Gulch under George Arnhold. The In- dians were hostile and had killed some settlers, and

his mother forbade him to continue the hazardous occupation. He also drove stage between old Junc- tion and Wear Brothers ranch for Gilmer and Salis- bury five months, and again from Junction to old Fort Custer. The Sioux Indians were on the war path during this time also. His partner was killed by a rifle and butcher knife, and Mr. King stumbled over his dead body as he entered their shack. He was a farm hand for J. C. Guy, father of Bob Guy. He then bought an outfit and began stage driving, and later acquired a bull outfit and carried freight between Itchetah and Fort Custer, continuing this occupation for four years, until 1883. Selling his outfit, he began trading and trafficking in horses. For a time he occupied a place on Pease Bottoms, but never proved it up. His home has really been in the Bottoms since 1878. His ranch is four miles below the upper end of the valley and only a mile from the site of old Fort Peace. Mr. King has a modest little establishment, and runs his stock on the range. His brand is "W" on the left jaw.

Mr. King never married. He loves freedom and liberty and he could never make that love consistent with the companionship of some good woman. He has lived a bachelor, but not altogether in loneliness, since he has always kept hired help. A democrat in politics, he voted for Mr. Cleveland for President in 1892, though in local politics he has cast his vote for the man rather than for the party. He was reared in the Methodist Episcopal Curch, South, and has never joined a fraternity. Mr. King has been con- cerned with only few matters outside his personal in- terest and experience, but is a stockholder in the Billings Packing Plant. He has always been ready to support with his means the community and na- tional welfare, and was a bond buyer for the govern- ment during the World war.

ARTHUR CHARLESWORTH. Out of the personal en- terprise of Arthur Charlesworth, who has been iden- tified with the Medicine Lake locality of Sheridan County for twenty years, have come some of the fruits of prosperity that distinguish Eastern Mon- tana, including a well ordered ranch and farm, build- ing and other permanent improvements, fields of grain and pastures dotted with horses and cattle.

Mr. Charlesworth, who was one of the pioneers around . Medicine Lake, was born in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1872. His par- ents, John and Lucy (Brunt) Charlesworth, were born in Staffordshire, England, and came to the United States soon after their marriage. His father spent his life as a masón or stone cutter, and died at Scranton, Pennsylvania, in June, 1892, surviving his wife five years. He was also a musician, and was a leader of a band at Scranton.

Arthur Charlesworth, oldest of his parents' chil- dren, acquired a common school education, and was hardly more than fourteen years of age when it devolved upon him to become in a degree self-sup- porting. Though he lived in a great coal mining center, he found his early work on a farm, and con- tinued as a wage earner for several years.

Ahout 1896 Mr. Charlesworth came to Montana and for five years lived, around Shawmut in the Musselshell County. His first employers were Jenizen Brothers, ranchmen of that locality, who commanded his services for about five years. He was well equipped by nature and previous experience for making a skillful hand on a stock ranch, and he also exerted himself to secure some capital looking toward an independent enterprise.

When he came into what is now Sheridan County in 1901 he brought with him a small bunch of horses, and turned them loose on the grassy plains of old

William Skelton MRS. WILLIAM SKELTON

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Valley County. The lands he squatted on joined the townsite of Medicine Lake, and that tract he subse- quently entered as a homestead. For a single man he built a rather pretentious pioneer home, a frame building 18 by 24 feet divided into three rooms. Besides horses he subsequently added cattle, and in the early days the surrounding range was dotted with the brand "DF" on his horses and "BB" on the Charlesworth cattle. He was one of the prominent shippers out of this region to the Chicago markets, and while he sold his cattle at prices ranging from 8 to 16 cents a pound; he always managed to realize a profit from his industry. Mr. Charlesworth has also been well satisfied with his participation in the horse industry, and is making that as prominent a feature of his enterprise today as at any time before.

Mr. Charlesworth located his desert claim on the Big Muddy, four miles north of Medicine Lake, and "scripped" forty acres adjoining. His home was established there in 1912, his residence consisting of a five-room cottage. Other permanent improvements showing what good use he had made of his time and opportunity here consists of a barn 76 by 56, with mow room for eighty tons, a granary of 12,000 bush- els capacity, stock shed 24 by 70 feet, a bunkhouse and his pioneer log stable.

Mr. Charlesworth was one of the local ranchers who first turned their efforts toward the cultivation of the soil, and this branch of his business has been continued until he is regarded as one of the leading farmers of the valley. His chief crops have been grain, and his success has been satisfactory, though his methods have hardly been different from those of other farmers in the same region. His best yield of wheat was thirty-three and one-third bushels on ten acres of land, and one season his oats threshed sixty bushels to the acre. He made a rather unsuccessful experience with alfalfa, and it is his opinion that the crop was killed by an overflow of the waters of the Muddy rather than by drought.

September 22, 1917, Mr. Charlesworth married Mrs. Ethel DeSilba. She had a claim adjoining that - of Mr. Charlesworth and had come into this district somewhat later than he. She was born at Owatonna, Minnesota, her maiden name being Armstrong, and had come to Montana from Lansford, North Dakota. She has one sister, Mrs. Tom Kelley, of Plenty- wood. By her first marriage, to Amos DeSilba, she is the mother of two sons. Dwight L., the older, was for two and a half years in the United States navy during the World war, on the battleship Pennsyl- vania, in the convoy and patrol service in English waters, and he crossed the Atlantic twenty-two times during the war. He was trained in the navy training camp at Bremmerton, Washington, and was discharged there in October, 1919. The other son is Harry DeSilba, who is studying music and training as a cornetist at Chicago.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlesworth did their part at home during the war, contributed to every drive or call for funds, were members of the Red Cross, and Mrs. Charlesworth did her share of knitting for the boys at the front. Mr. Charlesworth joined the Odd Fel- lows Lodge at Medicine Lake some years ago, and has filled some of the chairs.

WILLIAM SKELTON. Among those who came to Montana when the territory was mainly in its prim- itive wildness, infested by wild animals, numerous and ferocious, and the scarcely less wild but more savage red men, was the gentleman whose name forms the introduction to this paragraph, he having been here for a period of over a half century. He performed well his part in the work of develop- ing the country from a wilderness to one of the

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foremost sections of the great Northwest, and he is, together with the other early actors in the great drama which witnessed the passing of the old and the introduction of the new conditions, deserv- ing of specific mention here and every considera- tion at the hands of the later generation. We of today cannot pay such sterling characters too great a meed of praise in view of the sacrifices they made in order that their descendants and others of a later day should enjoy the blessings of life.

William Skelton was born in Cumberland, Eng- land, October 22, 1850, and is the tenth child in order of birth of the eleven children who blessed the union of Henry and Martha (Chambers) Skel- ton, both of whom also were natives of Cumber- land. They are both deceased, the father dying in 1878, at the age of seventy-six years, and the mother in 1876, at the age of seventy-five years. Eight of the children are still living. Henry Skelton was a farmer by vocation. In 1865 he came to the United States, locating in New York State, but two years later he returned to his native country and there spent the remainder of his days. He was a member of the Episcopal Church.

William Skelton was reared and educated in Eng- land and was fifteen years of age when, in 1865, his parents immigrated to the United States. Though they located in New York State, he went to Can- ada, where he was employed at farm work, for which he received $6 per month. A year later he returned to New York State and, learning that his parents had left there, he decided to come West, having heard much of the golden opportunities pre- sented here to the man of energy and ambition. He first located in Sioux City, Iowa, in the spring of 1867, but soon afterward came up the Missouri River to Buford, Montana, working on a steam- boat. He later returned to Sioux City, but again came to Montana, locating at Fort Benton, whence he came to Helena. From there he went to Prickley Pear Valley, where he was engaged in road con- struction, after which he returned to Fort Benton. From there he went to Fort Peck, where for a time he was engaged as a guard.

From there the Old Fur Company was starting a new trading post at Pushett for the Indians. The company had built a flat boat and loaded it with supplies. Thirteen men took the boat up to Pushett to start work on the new post. Two scouted and two steered, while the rest cordelled the boat. After the post was built Mr. Skelton engaged in poisoning wolves and hunting other animals, as there were an unlimited number of buffalo, wolves, elk and deer. He then went up to the mouth of the Mussel- shell, to what was known as the Clendenning Post, and continued to hunt and kill wolves, going from there to Rock Springs, now known as Valentine Springs. Valentine was a partner of Mr. Skelton at that time, and he died later at Little Rockies. Mr. Skelton then returned to Clendenning Post and disposed of his furs, from which place he went to Carell, just being built, where he also hunted buf- falo, elk and other game. In company with Thomas Dwyer, John Lee and Sam Elwell he moved to Snowey Mountains, where they hunted on the site where Lewistown, Montana, now stands, and in the spring they loaded their hides on the Diamond R bull teams and returned to Carell. Later he went into the woodyard business at Cow Island, also oper- ating other woodyards in connection. When the great gold excitement was at its height in the Black Hills of Dakota he joined the rush to that locality and spent some time there in prospecting and min- ing. Leaving there, he went to Bismarck, North Dakota, from which place he walked to Fort Benton

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 180

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