Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 193

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 193

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).

1338

HISTORY OF MONTANA

of Camp Colt Tank Corps and after training service in France was expecting active fighting when the armistice was signed. He was detailed for further service in France after his company sailed for home and visited many French points before he himself returned. He returned to the United States May I, 1919, and was given his honorable discharge at Camp Meade, Maryland, and reached Baker May 27th.

Mr. and Mrs. Price have a daughter, Jeanette, who is attending the State University at Missoula, Montana, and a son, Lewellyn, Jr., who is a pupil in the primary grades. Mr. Price is a Master Mason and has passed the chairs in Blue Lodge No. 84, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Baker.

AL HANSEN, one of the substantial business men of Baker, owns and conducts the only title and abstract office in Fallon County. He was born at Racine, Wisconsin, on April 29, 1886, a son of Christ Hansen, a native of Denmark. Christ Hansen came to the United States in the '70s, and was engaged in work as a common laborer, losing his life in a rail- road wreck which occurred in North Dakota. He married Sophie Petersen, who survives him and lives at Baker. They had six children, as follows: Soren, who is living in Colorado; Louie, who is living in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Al, whose name heads this review; Rosa, who is the wife of Jacob Petersen, of North Dakota; Edward, who is in the employ of the L. Price Company of Baker; and Lillie, who also resides at Baker. Edward Hansen served dur- ing the World war as a member of the Twenty- third Engineers, and was overseas for fifteen months, participating in the great campaigns on the front which resulted in the defeat of the enemy and the signing of the armistice.

While the public schools contributed somewhat to Mr. Hansen's knowledge, he is practically self-edu- cated. Until he was nineteen vears old he lived under the parental roof, but at that time left home and began traveling through Western Canada and the northwestern part of his own country, earning his way by working at different jobs as he found them, and gaining a very valuable experience which he has since turned to good account.

Mr. Hansen arrived at Baker on February 24, 1915, and began working for George W. Farr of Miles City, owner of the Security Abstract and Title Company, with whom he remained for two years. As he had already had some experience in abstract- ing, Mr. Hansen was able to carry on his duties verv successfully and lay aside some money, and in 1917 bought the Baker branch of the business, organizing the Equity Abstract and Title Company, a corporation capitalized at $10,000, with F. R. Kisow of Ekalaka. Thomas M. Murn of Terry, and Al Hansen of Baker, as the stockholders. In August, 1918, Mr. Hansen purchased the records and business of the Fallon County Abstract Company and gained control of the abstract business of the county. About this time he purchased the Carter County Abstract and Title Company and conducted an abstract business at Ekalaka until November I. 1919, when he disposed of that business to the Nel- steads. The records of Fallon County are all com- plete on the books of the Equity Abstract and Title Company. and practically all of this work has been done under the supervision of Mr. Hansen. In addition to his abstract business Mr. Hansen con- ducts a general law business at Baker. For some vears he had heen studying law, pursuing his studies by himself, and in March, 1020, applied for admission to the bar of Montana and was admitted.

On June 6, 1918, Mr. Hansen was married at Miles City, Montana, to Miss Louisa Tetzman, a daughter of William F. Tetzman. She was born at Dubuqt Iowa, on December 9, 1891, and was reared at Minneapolis, Minnesota, to which city her parents moved when she was a child, and where they now reside. The Tetzmans originated in Germany, but the family was established in the United States several generations ago. Mr. and Mrs. Hansen have no children. Mr. Hansen has always been a re- publican, casting his first presidential vote for Wil- liam Howard Taft in 1908. He has served Baker as police magistrate, and displayed an intimate knowledge of the law in his decisions, the majority of which have been sustained by the higher courts. Very ambitious, he has steadily advanced not only in a material sense, but also intellectually. A close student, he is never contented until he has investi- gated a subject and learned all that he could about it, so that today he is one of the best posted men of his city, and an authority upon many subjects.

CHARLES JACOB RUSSELL, county clerk of Fallon County, identified himself first with this locality and Montana in January, 1910. He is a contribution as a settler from Iowa and was born in Marshall County, that state, October 13, 1889. His father, Harry Russell, was a native of East Hampton, Mas- sachusetts, and was reared at Waterloo, Iowa, where he engaged in the mill and elevator business with his father, Wellington Russell. He went next to Northwestern Iowa, where he engaged in the lumber and grain business at Sibley, and at present is a retired business man of that place. He had acquired a liberal education in his youth and is a republican in politics. He was married at Marshalltown, Iowa, to Sarah Williams, a daughter of Jacob Williams, an Illinois settler to Iowa and a farmer, but not a soldier of the Civil war, as was Wellington Russell. To Mr. and Mrs. Russell there were born the fol- lowing children: Mrs. B. M. Strother, of Hubbard, Iowa; Harry M., of Bruce, South Dakota; Charles Jacob; and Robert W., also of Baker.

Charles Jacob Russell grew up in Nobles County, Minnesota, where he received his public school edu- cation, and after his graduation from the Sibley High School at the age of seventeen years he learned the watchmaker's trade at Stone's School of Watch- making, St. Paul, Minnesota. When his trade was completed he moved to Marmath, North Dakota, and took a position in the watch inspection office of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, where he spent a year, and then came to Baker and opened a jewelry and watch repairing establishment. In 1915 he purchased a half interest in the Baker Drug Company, and continued to be identified with the drug and jewelry lines until 1917, when he changed business and took up real estate and insurance, which he continued until appointed county clerk in March, I919.

Mr. Russell was present at Baker during the county division fight, in which he took a most active part. When it was seen that not sufficient signers to the county petition for county division asking for the creation of Fallon County had been obtained he rode on horseback through deep snow and during a temperature of twenty below zero into communities which had not been fully represented and secured the number of names needed to go before the com- missioners of Custer County. An election was ac- cordingly called as a result, and the election showed that Fallon County was entitled to become a munic- ipality. It required six days for Mr. Russell to make this trip, and the exposure which he endured

1339

HISTORY OF MONTANA

marks him as a real factor in the birth of Fallon County.

Charles J. Russell grew up under republican teach- ings and cast his first presidential ballot in support of the Grand Old Party candidate. President Taft heired this ballot and each successive party candidate has fared likewise. Mr. Russell was appointed county clerk by the commissioners of Fallon County. He had been city clerk of Baker formerly, and is an alderman at this time.

Mr. Russell was married at Miles City, Montana, January 20, 1915, to Miss Cleopatra Walls, daughter of a North Dakota farmer. Mrs. Russell was born at Wheaton, Minnesota, where her father had home- steaded, October 6, 1893, and is the youngest of six children. She and her husband are the parents of two children: Charlotte A. and Bryant W. Mr. Russell is a Mason and an Odd Fellow, a member of the Blue Lodge and Chapter of the former order and of the Subordinate and Encampment of the lat- ter, in which he is also Past Grand. His home is his contribution to Baker's growth.

ALBERT EDWARD WILLIAMSON came to Montana in the spring of 1906 as a member of a surveying party for the Milwaukee Railway while that system was being planned through the Northwest. He subse- quently homesteaded in Prairie County, and was the first and has been the only county clerk of that county.

Mr. Williamson, who is a resident of Terry, was born at Oxford Junction, Iowa, February 24, 1887. His grandfather was an Englishman, and after com- ing to America served as a master mechanic with the Milwaukee Railroad in the early history of that line. He was the father of three children: Edward D .; James, who died leaving a family at Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Anna, widow of Charles E. Gault, living at Dubuque, Iowa.

Edward D. Williamson, father of County Clerk Williamson, was of the second generation of the family to serve the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, and has been an employe of that company since he was thirteen years of age. He was born in New York state in October, 1854, and was a boy in school when his father died. At the age of thirteen he began learning the trade of machinist in the Milwaukee shops at Oxford Junction, Iowa, and as a veteran in the service of that company is now a resident of Milwaukee. He married Julia S. Hatch, who was born at Dyersville, Iowa, a daughter of George R. Hatch. They have two chil- dren: Fred T., of Newark, New Jersey, and Albert E.

Albert E. Williamson grew up in Milwaukee, was educated in the public schools, completed the course in the West Division High School of that city, and subsequently attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He left the university in his freshman year and was first employed as a clerk in the office of the general storekeeper of the Milwaukee Rail- way. He left that position to join a surveying party as office man, and reached Montana in June, 1906. He was with the railroad men in Custer County, but soon afterward joined the Government survey as head chainman with the party surveying and sectionizing what is now Fallon County.

After two summers in that work he entered a homestead in what is now Prairie County, his claim being six miles north of Mildred. His frame cabin that he built was his first home in Montana. He was able to buy a team, and while occupying his claim in the winter worked for several years on stock ranches in the summer seasons. He "bached" on his claim and after 1910 began experimenting in

agriculture, planting grain for the most part, and has a record of some harvest every successive year. He made his farm his home for three years, proved up, and still owns it. He now combines live stock with agriculture.

Mr. Williamson was actively identified with the movement for the creation of Prairie County and was the choice of the people for the first county clerk, being elected without opposition. He opened his office in the Terry Club Rooms, and his entire equipment consisted of a fountain pen, and his first official act was the filing of a deed to himself. He was chosen to succeed himself in the next election without opposition, and in 1918 was also a unanimous choice, and he is now completing three terms of unqualified good service to the people of the county.

Mr. Williamson is a republican and is an active member of the Masonic fraternity, being an officer of Terry Lodge, a member of the Royal Arch Chap- ter at Terry, the Council and Knight Templar Com- mandery at Glendive, and Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena.

November 11, 1911, at Spokane, Washington, Mr. Williamson married Miss Meta S. Krueger. She was born at Freeport, Illinois, July 1, 1888, daughter of Frank B. and Lena (Kunz) Krueger. Her father was a native of Germany and spent his active life as a cigar salesman and is now living retired at Spokane. He was the father of two children, the only son being Dan B., of Spokane. Mrs. William- son after leaving high school attended a business college at Freeport, Illinois, and was a stenographer in that city when she met Mr. Williamson. To their marriage has been born one daughter, Hope Almeta.

HENRY J. KRAMER came to Montana as a cowboy, and all his subsequent interests were identified with stock raising and ranching until a few years ago he retired to a comfortable home and to comparative leisure in the Town of Terry.

Mr. Kramer, who is one of the best known among the old time Montana stockmen, was born in the City of Chicago, March 19, 1864. His father, Frank Kramer, was born at Bodenheim, Germany, came to America at the age of seventeen, and as a cooper followed his trade at Elgin, Illinois, several years. Later he established a German newspaper, The Deutsche Zeitung, and was its editor and proprietor when he died in 1905, at the age of sixty-five. He became a man of influence in Elgin, served one term as alderman and was a democrat in politics. His wife was Carrie Markel, a native of Illinois, and daughter of an Illinois farmer. She survived her husband some years. Their family consisted of the following children: John, of Elgin; Henry J .; R. B. H. and William, of Elgin; Katie E., employed by the Milwaukee Railway and a resident of Elgin; Martha, Mrs. Ed Dolph, of Elgin; Carrie, wife of William Kerr, of Elgin; and Elsie, Mrs. Newton Taylor of Elgin.

Henry J. Kramer was three years of age when his parents moved to Elgin and he obtained his education in the common schools of the butter town. As a boy he drove a dray for his father. He left Elgin and home surroundings about the time he reached his majority, and had just enough capital to get him to Texas, where he joined the Mabry Cattle Company. He possessed the physical devel- opment and will to easily adapt himself to the rugged and arduous life of a plainsman and cow- boy, and was soon given more than ordinary re- sponsibilities by his employers. In August, 1885, he left the Goodnight Ranch in Texas and started north, driving a herd of cattle for the Mabry

1340

HISTORY OF MONTANA

Cattle Company to their Montana ranch on the north side of Yellowstone River, where the village of Circle is today. The cattle trail which he followed crossed the southwest corner of Kansas, followed north along the line of Kansas and Colorado into Western Nebraska, thence into Wyoming, and through "Puptown," Montana, now Ekalaka. Mr. Kramer remained a year in the employ of the Mabry outht, after coming to Montana and then went with the Mendenhall Cattle Company, owned by C. B. Mendenhall. The Mendenhalls also operated on the "north side," and he was with them five years.

After six years in Montana Mr. Kramer found himself possessed of a bunch of horses, which he had accumulated preparatory to an independent busi- ness. Going to a location a mile southeast of Fallon, he entered a homestead, and was soon running his stock over the public domain. As a bachelor he lived in a two room log house, and soon afterward married and took his bride to that home, and she relieved him of domestic administration. On that ranch Mr. and Mrs.' Kramer lived until they re- tired to their modern bungalow home in Terry in 1916.

At Fallon Mr. Kramer developed an important horse and cattle ranch. Besides shipping his own stock he was appointed to the responsibiliteit head shipper for the XIT Cattle Company for several years. This company was the largest cattle com- pany in Montana, and thousands of their cattle went to the Chicago market every year. Fallon was noted then for being the largest stock shipping point in the world, 50,000 cattle and 500,000 sheep annually being the record of that place.

When Mr. Kramer located at Fallon his nearest neighbor outside the village was ten to fifteen miles away. It could hardly be said he had any occupation outside of working his stock on the range. With a few spare hours he attempted gardening and farm- ing on a small scale, but without irrigation had lit- tle success. Even grass failed to grow in quantities for cutting hay. Mr. Kramer's stock brand was the "S half diamond," and he carried it through his en- tire ranching experience. A few stock still run on his ranch, though he has reduced his stock interests to a minimum since 1912, and that winter took his first real rest in Southern California after more than a quarter of a century of continuous activity in Montana.

When he located in that region Fallon contained the stockyards and the section house, and he recalls that the next institution was a saloon, followed by a store, and gradually a community of 150 people established themselves there. Since then two grain elevators have come in and several stores have been added, the elevators handling the grain grown back from the railroad in the more fertile and reliable spots of the region. Mr. Kramer has been a stock- holder in the Montana State Bank of Fallon since it was established in 1011, and helped to get the first school for the locality, serving as a member of its board. While practically retired from business, he has call for much of his time in his duties as a county commissioner. He was chosen a member of the first board of commissioners of Prairie County, and in 1918 was elected for a six-year term. He is a colleague on the board of commissioners of Fluss and Hamlin.

When Mr. Kramer sought a companion for his ranch home in Montana he went back to his home town of Elgin and married Miss Jennie Shields, daughter of Peter and Catherine (Toner) Shields. Her parents were married in Dublin, Ireland, and coming to the United States established their home

in DuPage County, Illinois, in 1849. In that region, now directly tributary to the City of Chicago, they obtained land at $3 an acre, and spent the rest of their lives as farmers near Bartlett. Her father died there at the age of sixty-five, and her mother, who was born October 30, 1823, is still living at the vener- able age of ninety-six. In the Shields family were the following children: James, of Elgin; Peter and Arthur, both of whom died when young men; Alfred and Albert, twin brothers, the former at Bartlett, Illinois, and the latter in Chicago; Daniel who died unmarried; and Mrs. Kramer, the youngest, who was born April 12, 1868. Mr. and Mrs. Kramer have no children. She was a director of the knitting depart- ment of the Red Cross at Terry during the World war and Mr. Kramer supplied some of the patriotic energy to the sale of Liberty Bonds, and was re- warded by the Government with a roll of honor cer- tificate for his work. The Kramers built their modern home as a part of the town's development.

GEORGE J. BUERGI. As a general thing a man who displays decided talent and achieves success in one or other of the learned professions, especially that of the ministry, does not turn with profitable results to a business career, and yet after all there is no legitimate reason why he should not do so. The same characteristics which enabled him to establish and build up churches, placing them on sound founda- tions and making them self-supporting, would make him a success in ventures of a more material kind. At any rate George J. Buergi has accomplished this very thing, and after some years of manifoldly active service in the Congregational ministry, has developed into a prosperous merchant and man of affairs at Plevna.

George J. Buergi was born at Rheinfelden, Canton of Aargau, Switzerland, on September 26, 1880, a son of Henry Gustav and Ursula (Bruehlman) Buergi, the former of whom, a hotelkeeper, dying when thirty-one years old, and the latter living and making her home at Rheinfelden. Their children were as follows: Henry Gustav, who died in Switzerland; George J., whose name heads this re- view; and Mina, who is the wife of Ernest Gutman, of Rheinfelden, Switzerland.

George J. Buergi attended the public schools for six years and then for three years was a student of a high school. He then left home and went to work in a hotel at Montreux on Lake Geneva, a regular· resort. From then on until he engaged in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association he was with hotels at Geneva, Basle, Zurich and Heidelberg, and then returned to Montreux. When he was seventeen years old he went to England to learn.the English language and improve his health, having al- ready learned French in Switzerland. In order to accomplish this he took service in a private family, but later resumed hotel work again with a hotel at Eastbourne, England, and was subsequently employed in a hotel at Cromer, England.

Returning to Switzerland, he served for fourteen weeks in the army, as required by law, and then took a leave of absence rather than accept the draft for the officers school, and went back to England. Fol- lowing this he became secretary of the German branch of the Young Men's Christian Association in the West End of London, and held that position for three years, and during that period resolved to pre- pare himself for the ministry.

Coming to the United States, Mr. Buergi took the regular theological course at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and was graduated therefrom in 1908 with the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, and was ordained at Emington, Illinois. From there he subsequently

1341

HISTORY OF MONTANA

came to Montana. Mr. Buergi's work in the semi- nary was unusually efficient and commendable. All his life he has been noted for accomplishing what he set out to do, and he determined to take the regular course, and was accepted. By dint of hard work and exhaustive study he not only qualified, but took high honors and was awarded a scholarship in his class, to the great surprise and delight of his pre- ceptors. Among the men composing the faculty was Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, the eminent Chicago preacher and lecturer, who kept his eye upon the young Swiss student, to whom he offered great en- couragement, and no one was more elated over Mr. Bnergi's conquest of his difficulties.

Mr. Buergi came to Montana on May 23, 1909, as a Congregational minister, and founded congrega- tions at Baker, Ismahy and Westmore, continuing his ministerial work even after his health had broken down completely and he was forced to live in the open. He had homesteaded and when obliged to give up the work for which he had so carefully fitted himself, he settled on his farm and was en- gaged in conducting it until March, 1914, when he moved to Plevna, which then contained about forty inhabitants, erected a building, and started its first newspaper, naming it the Plevna Herald, and making it an independent organ, devoted to local interests. Mr. Buergi did not meet with much encouragement from his fellow citizens when he opened this venture, for they did not believe it would be a successful one, but time has proven that he was right, and after conducting this paper for about three years he leased the plant and turned his attention to handling real estate and selling insurance and conducting his farm. He has also been a justice of the peace and has meted out justice fairly and impartially for several years.

Always interested in his farm, he has added to his original homestead until he now has five quarter sections of deeded land and leases another section. On two quarter sections he has suitable buildings, and 400 acres are under cultivation. His farm is stocked with a good grade of cattle, horses and hogs, and with the exception of the drought year of 1919 has not failed to produce sufficient produce to carry his stock. Mr. Buergi was the prime mover in the organization of the first farm loan association in Eastern Montana, the Plevna National Farm Loan Association, of which he is the secretary and treas- urer and which has become very popular, and has come to the relief of the farmers with cheap money to the extent of $200,000, placed in this immediate vicinity.

On September 1, 1919, Mr. Buergi embarked in a grocery business, with the idea of helping out during the short crop and light business condition of the country, and his store is one of the busiest places in Plevna.

When Mr. Buergi came to Montana he did so on borrowed capital, having obtained a loan of $100. He was without resources with the exception of a frail pair of hands and his fertile brain. Broken in health, empty of purse, exhausted by over study and work, he came into the state as a last chance. to build up his strength. Of its bountifulness Mon- tana has given in no small measure to Mr. Buergi, but had he not known how to put these gifts to good use it is doubtful if they would have done him any good. Many others are offered all that he has gained, and were not able, or willing, to take ad- vantages of the opportunities. His church work at Baker and other points gave him a meager living for a short time, but he soon saw that if he hoped for any betterment in his health he must make a total change, and so he and his family bravely put

up with many hardships and endured untold priva- tions until the homestead began to show the results of hard work and excellent care.

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 193

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