Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 191

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

USA > Montana > Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III > Part 191

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Mr. Tanner was born at Spencer, Ohio, on Octo- ber 5. 1887, and there went to school and later to the Northern Ohio University at Ada, was gradu- ated from its legal department in 1912, and imme- diately thereafter was admitted to the bar. Until the fall of that year he assisted his brother in some engineering work connected with the construction of pavement, and then left his old home for Montana.

He came into the Treasure State without any ac- quaintance with its people, so that all that he has since accomplished has been of his own initiative.

HISTORY OF MONTANA

1331

When he reached Billings he looked about and found the outlook at Hardin a promising one, and so came here and has seen no reason to regret his decision in its favor. He opened his office at Hardin about three months before the organization of Big Horn County, and his first case was tried in the old county. His first case in the new county was in defense of a man charged with a cattle theft, and his client was convicted and later paroled. While his practice is a general one, he has defended a number charged with an infraction of the law. Prior to his election to the office of county attorney, Mr. Tanner was city attorney of Hardin for four years, and has been one of the most energetic prosecutors this region has known, and it may be that his repu- tation for relentless justice to all evil-doers may have something to do with the fact that the annals of the new county have not been stained with a capital offense. He was elected county attorney in November, 1918, although he had already filled out the unexpired term of Julian Terrett, who resigned in September, 1917, to enter the army. Working in harmony with the sheriff, Mr. Tanner has been and is one of the most effective officials in the cam- paign against the lawless elements, and he and the sheriff have captured and secured the conviction of noted bootleggers transporting liquor into Mon- tana from Wyoming, and have been the means of breaking up the wholesale traffic in illicit liquors through Big Horn. County.

The magnitude of the Blankenship and Mckinley cattle case attracted state-wide attention, the personal popularity of the criminals giving it added interest. The thieves received payment for 81 head of 158 head shipped, and the chief conspirator, Blanken- ship, was discovered at the stockyards in St. Joseph, Missouri, after a search had been made for him during more than a month. He was captured at Warwick, New York, by Gene Van Wert, and his case and that of his partner are pending in the court.

The Tanner family is an old one in the United States, and originated in England, from whence the American founder came to the colony of Massa- chusetts, and from that rock-bound New England Coast its members have spread out westward over the country.

The father of Franklin D. Tanner is William R. Tanner, a native of Medina County, Ohio, and a son of James Tanner. James Tanner was born in New York state, where he was reared and educated. During the pioneer period of Medina County he drove to it from New York with an ox team, bought land and there lived out his days. James Tanner married Emily Bleakman, and they had two daugh- ters and four sons, among them being Prof. Henry T. Tanner, who after completing his service in the Union army became the owner of the Forest City Business College in Ohio.

William R. Tanner grew up in the wooded coun- try of Medina County, although that region had taken on much of civilization and improvement by the time he came on the scene of action. The youngest in the family, he was allowed to spend more time in the country schools than the other members of the family, and taught school for a number of years, becoming an instructor in the high school at Chatham, Ohio, but during his later years he has been occupied with agricultural pursuits.

The maiden name of the wife of William R. Tanner was Meta Howe, and she is a daughter of Orsemus Howe, a native of New York state who moved to Medina County, Ohio, and became one of its farmers. During the war between the sec- tions he served in the Union army for three years.

William R. and Meta Tanner became the parents of the following children: Arthur, who is in the city mail service at Medina, Ohio; Fremont, who is a civil engineer at Warren, Ohio; Raymond, who is engaged in farming in the vicinity of Medina; Bonna, who is Mrs. Allen Shoup, of Cleveland, Ohio; Clarence, who died while in training at Camp Tay- lor, Kentucky; Bertha, who is the wife of Fred Nixon, of Sharon, Ohio; and Franklin D., whose name heads this review.

Franklin D. Tanner was married at Medina, Ohio, on March 31, 1913, by Reverend Fritch, a Congre- gational minister formerly stationed at Billings, Montana, to Ruth Kennedy, a daughter of Charles and Myra (Wheeler) Kennedy, and she was born at Medina, Ohio, as was her father before her. The Kennedy family belong to the agricultural class. Mrs. Tanner was one in a family of five sons and two daughters, the survivors being: Willard, who is a farmer of the vicinity of Medina, Ohio; Leah, who is a teacher of Cleveland, Ohio; Lois, who is the wife of Walter Clark, a farmer in the vicinity of Medina; Rufus, who is a veterinary surgeon of Bucyrus, Ohio, and Mrs. Tanner. Laylin, who was the youngest, died when he was fourteen years old. Mr. and Mrs. Tanner have a daughter, Laverna Ruth.

Mr. Tanner belongs to St. John Lodge No. 92, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Hardin; to Hardin Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a member of both the Woodmen of the World and the Modern Woodmen of America. Dur- ing the World war he was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of Big Horn County, was one of the registrars of the county for the selective draft, and belonged to the "Four Minute" Men.

CLARENCE F. GILLETTE. The legal profession at Hardin has as its pioneer Clarence F. Gillette, one of the leading exponents and supporters of the dig- nity of the law in this part of the state. When he added his presence to what was then, on October 17, 19II, the village of Hardin there were not to exceed 300 people on the townsite. He could not then secure an office, and so commenced his prac- tice in his bedroom, which was in a building on the present site of the M. & M. Building on Main Street. His first client was the firm of Ralph McComb & Brother, and his first case was a Justice Court, one in which suit was brought to recover wages of $1.50. Mr. Gillette practiced alone until November 12, 1912, when Franklin D. Tanner joined the scattered and limited population, and they were then the only representatives of their calling until the creation of Hardin as the county seat of the new county brought others here. With the organization of Big Horn County Mr. Gillette was elected the first county attorney, and took office in January, 1913, The first case filed in the county was that of the State of Montana versus John Mac- Donald, a grand larceny case, and, prosecuting it, the new county attorney secured a verdict of guilty. After the termination of his two-year term Mr. Gillette left the office with the record of having filed fourteen informations, dismissed one case, and se- cured thirteen convictions, none of which were capital offenses, and it is a matter of. congratulation that no such offense has yet been committed in Big Horn County.

In March, 1916, Mr. Gillette formed his first and only partnership, when he associated himself with T. H. Burke, under the name of Gillette & Burke. This was a strong combination and the firm made a reputation as trial lawyers in the county, but it was dissolved in October, 1919, since which time

1332

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Mr. Gillette has continued alone. He took active steps toward the organization of the Big Horn County Bar Association, of which he is president. He was in the City Council of Hardin for two years, and was then made city attorney for the second time, having previously held the office, and is now its incumbent.

Mr. Gillette came in the second draft during the World war, had filled out his questionnaire, and was ready to mail it when the signing of the arm- istice put an end to hostilities. During the period this country was in the war Mr. Gillette was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of Big Horn County, one of the "Four Minute" speakers, and a committeman on all of the Liberty Loan drives, while Mrs. Gillette was equally active as a Red Cross worker, and headed the committee composed of both men and women which held a Red Cross Carnival in May, 1918, which netted more than $3,000.

A strong republican, Mr. Gillette cast his first presidential vote at St. Joseph, Missouri, for a candidate of that party. He was reared in the vicinity of St. Joseph, receiving his literary training in the schools of that city. He read law in the offices of Wm. Dobbins and Judge Reaus, two of the leading attorneys of St. Joseph, and he spent two years in the former's office, acquiring a prac- tical knowledge of law and included a test upon the constitution of Montana and the code of civil procedure of the state.

Mr. Gillette is a son of Harvey J. Gillette, an ex-Union soldier now living at Leavenworth, Kan- sas, but he was an early settler of Grand Island, Nebraska, and built the first brick hotel of the place, for many years making his business that of conducting hotels, completing his operations as such at St. Joseph, Missouri. He was born in Illi- nois in 1838, and a brother of his became one of the extensive operators at the Chicago Stock Yards as a packer. Leaving home as a child, Harvey J. Gillette drifted about the country, learning both the coopering and wheelwright trades, and he also served as a locomotive engineer, but finally expanded into the hotel business at Grand Island and in it found his life work. During the war between the states he enlisted in an Illinois regiment and served for three years, when he was shot in the foot while on a scouting expedition, and still carries that ball today.

Harvey J. Gillette was married to Lorinda Cramer, a native of Noble County, Indiana, and a member of an old New England family. The children born of this marriage were as follows: Charles A., who is president of the Gillette Custom Canning Factory at Auburn, Indiana; Norman Edgar, who is in charge of the construction work of Park College at Parkville, Missouri; Edna, who is Mrs. Brown, of Denver, Colorado; Frank H., who is a traveling salesman of California; Clarence F., whose name heads this review; and Addie, who is Mrs. Percy Walton, of Denver, Colorado.

Clarence F. Gillette was married at St. Joseph, Missouri, on December 31, 1908, to Miss Myrtle A. DeMar, born in Buchanan County, Missouri, and reared at Amazonia, that county. Mrs. Gillette is the youngest of four daughters and two sons born to her father, John DeMar, an ex-Union soldier. Mr. and Mrs. Gillette have two daughters, Ruth I .. and Thelma M.

Mr. Gillette has proved that he had faith in the future of Hardin by erecting an eight-apartment house, and another one of four apartments, both of brick and thoroughly modern, and his five-room

frame residence. He organized and is the father of the Hardin Building & Loan Association, and as secretary conducted its affairs for a time. He is one of the charter members of the Hardin Chamber of Commerce. When the Chambers of Commerce of Sheridan, Billings and Hardin appointed a reser- vation committee, composed of three men from each commercial body, to bring about an opening of the Crow Reservation Mr. Gillette was named as one of the committee from Hardin, and belonged to the party which escorted Senator Meyers and Congress- men Stout and Evans over the Reserve at different times, and he compiled the data at the Crow Agency for the speech made by Senator Walsh in an appeal to Congress for the opening of the Reservation to settlers. He redrafted for the Indians several of the proposed bills to remove objectionable features in them, and the "opening bill" has recently passed both Houses of Congress, and is in conference.

In the work for creation of Big Horn County Mr. Gillette was the prime mover and was made chair- man of the committee organized to secure favorable action, but resigned it and took up the onerous duties of secretary, and carried on the clerical and legal work, looking toward its accomplishment, as well as the legal work for the commissioners of Rosebud County in connection therewith. Big Horn County was the first to be created under the general law of the state with reference to new counties, and the petition asking for its creation was prepared by Mr. Gillette.

DANIEL KNAPP. It is always interesting to come into contact with one of the first settlers of any locality, and particularly so in the case of one who has played such a conspicuous part in the upbuild- ing of the community or region as Daniel Knapp, one of the prominent characters of the Missouri Valley at Oswego.

Mr. Knapp, who has been identified with Mon- tana since the decade of the 'zos, has been in the great western country since early manhood. He was born in the City of Muelbach, Rheinfalz, Ger- many, May 15, 1849, fifth of the six children of Philip and Philipine (Drumm) Knapp. He was educated in the popular schools of Germany, and on April 6, 1869, without friends or relative, he sailed from Bremen to New York. He had no friends in Cincinnati, his first destination, and for several months he remained there, working on farms and in other occupations. Soon afterward he went out to Sioux City, Iowa, and found work with a cousin in the meat business, gaining a practical knowledge of the butcher's trade.

Leaving Sioux City early in 1871, Mr. Knapp came into the real West, stopping at the Cheyenne Indian Agency below Bismarck, and was employed as cook and butcher for the agency until 1872. The next several years he spent at Bismarck and vicinity as a wage earner, and in 1876 first entered the ter- ritory of Montana, making the trip on horseback from Fort Buford to Poplar. The post traders Leighton and Jordan had employed him as a buffalo hunter, and he remained at Poplar during the win- ter. His outfit used in his hunting expeditions followed him from the Black Hills country, and when he finished his contract with Leighton and Jordan he returned to Bismarck, North Dakota. sending his furs and hides east to market. The fall of 1877 found him again in Poplar, though he was not engaged in any permanent business for several years. During the winter of 1880 he con- ducted a restaurant, and in the years 1881-82-83 hunted buffalo south of the Missouri River in what

David Knapp

1333

HISTORY OF MONTANA

fast disappearing he killed great numbers of them, and his hides were marketed with a buyer who estab- lished a temporary base on the Missouri. Some of the meat he dried and disposed of to the post trader.

Mr. Knapp then returned to Fort Buford and in the employ of the regular contractor helped supply beef for the soldiers there. In 1886 he returned to Poplar and again followed the business of supply- ing the soldiers at the post with beef until 1893. For several years following he ranched ten miles east of Wolf Point, and in 1896 identified himself with the Oswego community as Indian trader and merchant. He opened a little stock of goods in a log building, and for a quarter of a century has been in business as the leading merchant of this section of Valley County.

When he first came here Oswego was part of a region attached to Chouteau County for judicial purposes. When the new county was created it was called Dawson, and still later Valley County was clipped from Dawson. Prior to his location at Oswego Mr. Knapp had learned the Sioux language, and uses it as fluently as the natives of the tribe. As a boy he of course acquired the German tongue, but has long been out of practice in that language.

His store was the first opened in Oswego and inaugurated the commercial enterprise of the town. He was in business alone there for twenty years, and besides his store he afforded a depository for funds for his customers, and has been postmaster of the village since 1900. As a stockholder he helped establish the Farmers and Merchants Bank, since changed to the First National Bank, of which he is still a director.

Mr. Knapp acquired American citizenship at Fort Benton, Montana, and gave his first presidential vote to Mr. Cleveland in 1892. He has taken con- siderable interest in politics, has supported the demo- cratic ticket in national elections, but has never thought of an office for himself. He was reared in the Lutheran Church.

Mr. Knapp has been twice married, and his wives were Indian women. His two living children are by his first wife. Minnie is the wife of Q. P. Mc- Clemmy, of Oswego, and their children are Pearl, Abbie, Montana, Bennie, Lucy and Stella. The other daughter, Philipine, is the wife of William McClemmy, of Poplar, and they have five children, Katie, Daniel, Tollie, Willis and John. Thus Mr. Knapp has eleven grandchildren. For his present wife he married at Oswego, March 20, 1900, Mrs. Josephine Premore. She was born at Wolf Point in 1864, and is a daughter of Broken Arm, a full- blood Sioux.

ROBERT P. Ross, assistant cashier of the Stock- men's National Bank of Hardin, is one of the well- known and highly respected men of Big Horn County, whose advent into this locality dates back to 1912, when he came to this point to assume the duties of assistant agent at Hardin for the Chi- cago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, with which corporation he had been connected for a number of years, and his assignment to Hardin was his second one in Montana. Mr. Ross remained with the railroad for two years, and then resigned on his election to the office of clerk and recorder of Big Horn County. He entered upon the responsibilities of that office on January 1, 1914, succeeding Fred E. Miller. So capable a man did he prove him- self that he was twice re-elected, and finally re- signed in order to accept his present position, which he entered on May 1, 1919. He was elected on the democratic ticket and has given that party his sup-

port since casting his first presidential ballot for William Jennings Bryan in 1896 at Crow Agency, Montana.

Mr. Ross has also identified himself with the Hardin Abstract Company, the Hardin Townsite Company, the Pine Ridge Oil Company, of which he is a director and treasurer, and until quite re- cently he was one of the directors of the Hardin State Bank, and is still director of the Saint Xavier State Bank and the Stockmen's National Bank of Hardin.

The birth of Mr. Ross occurred in Des Moines County, Iowa, July 7, 1877, and he lived there for twenty years, during that time receiving a public school education, and was graduated from the Me- diapolis High School. Following that, in order to gain a working knowledge of business, he became a clerk in a mercantile establishment at Media- polis. Mr. Ross then came further West and spent a year in the Indian service at the Crow Agency, Montana, as clerk of the superintendent of schools. While he was there he began working for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, learned telegraphy at the station, and was appointed the agent of the road at that point. After two years at Crow Agency he was transferred to Basin, Wyo- ming, where he spent six years, and was then returned to Montana and was placed in the station at Hardin. At that time there were only about 700 people in the village, and the business section was represented by a short and narrow lane of wooden buildings up Main Street.

The father of Robert P. Ross was Hector Ross, and he married Mary C. Davey, of Ohio. Both the Ross and Davey families are of English origin and long established in America, the latter dating back to the Colonial epoch. Hector Ross was born in Ontario, Canada, and came to the United States when he was nineteen years old, learning the mill- ing trade. With the outbreak of the war between the North and the South Hector Ross enlisted in the Union army, and served in an Illinois infantry regiment, re-enlisted when his first term expired and remained in the army until the close of hos- tilities, rising to be a company officer, and passing through without wounds or capture. He became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic at Kossuth, Iowa, to which locality he went from Chi- cago after the war, and was engaged in milling there until 1897, when he was appointed miller at the Crow Agency for the Government, and died while a resident there, in 1904, when sixty-three years old, but his widow survives him and makes her home at Hardin. Their children were as fol- lows: Annabel, who has been chief clerk for the Brown-Abbott & Somson law firm of Winona, Min- nesota, for many years; Ida May, who is the wife of Frank C. Davey, of New London, Iowa; Marie, who married Clyde E. Lewis, of Crow Agency, Mon- tana; Robert P., whose name heads this review; Jesse D., who is a member of a surveying outfit employed at the Crow Agency; and Clifford A., who died in the service during the late war while at Camp Dodge, Iowa.

Robert P. Ross was married at Crow Agency, Montana, on November 12, 1903, to Miss Marie L. Server, born in Yellowstone County, Montana, on February 1, 1887, a daughter of Frederick E. and Anna Gretchell Server, the former of whom was a hotel proprietor at Custer, Montana, and later at Crow Agency, and died in the latter place. For many years he was a soldier in the regular army. Mrs. Server survives him and makes her home at Forsyth, Montana. Mrs. Ross has a brother, Philip

1334

HISTORY OF MONTANA

E. Server, who lives at Miles City, Montana. Mr. and Mrs. Ross have three children : Robert S., Orville F., and Cecil H.

During this country's participation in the late war Mr. Ross was secretary of the local Exemption Board, being appointed as such by Governor Stewart, and among his other duties reported the examina- tion of 1,600 young men who came under the selective draft. He continued to discharge the duties of his office until all of the work was cleared up and he was able to submit his final report to Provost Marshal General Crowder.

HORATIO S. JOSSELYN, who has been identified with the town of Baker throughout the period of his residence in Montana, was born at Bridgewater, Ver- mont, May 13, 1863, a son of Calvin T. and Ellen A. (Walker) Josselyn, the father born at Bridge- water, March 16, 1836, and the mother at Aetna, New Hampshire, September 9, 1839.

Calvin T. Josselyn was reared as a farmer but was given a liberal educational training and became a teacher. He followed that profession more or less throughout his life, became prominent in the local politics of Windsor County, and twice repre- sented his district in the Legislature as a democrat. He also served as a selectman of his town and as supervisor of highways. Before the inauguration of the Civil war he served as captain of a company of Home Guards, and he made three attempts to enter the army, but each time the attempt was frus- trated by his father and his release secured. Josiah Josselyn, his father, was from the South, had ac- quired his wealth there and was a southern sym- pathizer, and the sentiments expressed by this south- ern patriot finally became so seditious that he was visited by two loyal northern men, who gave him just twenty-four hours to paint the stars and stripes over his carriage house door, with the word "Union" above them, or be hanged to the pine tree in the corner of the yard. After deliberating over the matter he decided to do the painting, and this incident became widely known over that section of the country.

This Josiah Josselyn was born in Bridgewater, Vermont, August 3, 1799, and was reared there, but early in his life he went South and engaged in merchandising. On returning to the North he lo- cated at Boston, Massachusetts, where he continued merchandising until he retired from business and returned to Bridgewater to spend the remainder of his life as a farmer and fur dealer. He owned the first coonskin coat and the first coonskin laprobe ever made. The death of Josiah Josselyn occurred at Bridgewater when he had attained the age of ninety-four years. He married in his early life Ann Topliff, whose father was the first man to clear land on the south side of the Ottaqueschee River. He was a farmer on a large scale, and at.one time was the owner of more than 10,000 acres. He lived to the unusual age of 110 years. Josiah and Ann Josselyn became the parents of but two sons, the older being Andrew J., who spent his life on the old Josselyn farm at Bridgewater.

Calvin T. Josselyn, the younger son, was married at Bridgewater, Vermont, October 6, 1859. He passed away on his sixty-fourth birthday, but is still sur- vived by his widow, whose life's span has covered four score years and whose home is still at Bridgewater. Their children numbered the following: Iney May, wife of Abner H. Morse, of Bozeman, Montana; Horatio S., of Baker; Chandos F., of Bridgewater, Vermont ; Ann A., who married Charles B. Wedden, also of Bridgewater; Charles J., who is carrying

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 191

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