Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 194

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 194

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The pioneer home of the Buergi family was a frame one 14 by 26 feet, and was built of lumber Mr. Buergi bought on the installment plan, and he acquired an almost wornout team on the same terms. His harness and wagon and simple implements were also bought on time. The land was broken by him with a walking plow. When he first tried to use it he could not make it go into the ground, and after a day and a half of hard work sought advice from one of his more experienced neighbors, only to dis- cover that it needed sharpening. When he had taken it to the local blacksmith and had it properly sharp- ened he found he had an excellent implement, and one with which he was able to make good progress.

Having been reared to a city life, the simplest farm operation was unknown to him, so that in the begin- ning he was very much hampered by his natural ignorance of agricultural work. However, the same persistence which enabled him to overcome an in- tellectual handicap brought him through the difficul- ties of farming, and now it would be difficult to find anyone in Fallon County, or out of it for that mat- ter, who is better informed on these questions than Mr. Buergi. In time, in order to make a little extra money, he took that plow of his and turned the sod of his neighbors' farms. Realizing the necessity for better machinery, he invested in a binder the second year, and helped to earn the money for it by using it in his neighbors' grain fields. During the first winter he bought sixty head of sheep, but the coyotes and hard winter left him only ten by spring. His first milch cow, bought on time, died in a few months. He then bought another, and she proved a good in- vestment and more than paid for herself. There is a wonderful contrast between those pioneer condi- tions and the ones now prevailing at the comfortable modern nine-room residence of the family at Plevna, which is furnished with all modern conveniences, including a furnace in the full basement, and running water. It is one of the best residences at Plevna.

Mr. Buergi was married at Benson, Minnesota, the same spring in which he was graduated from the seminary and ordained to the ministry, to Miss Laura Theodorson, born at Benson, a daughter of Gilbert and Anna (Larson) Theodorson, natives of Norway and farming people of Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Buergi have one son, Henry George.

Mr. Buergi became a citizen of the United States through the process of naturalization and received his papers at Miles City, Montana, in 1913, and since then he has been an adherent of the democratic party. He belongs to the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, and is district manager for Carter, Fallon, Wibaux, Dawson and Prairie counties, and secretary and organizer of the Plevna lodge.

Although he no longer officiates as a clergyman, Mr. Buergi has not lost his sense of personal respon- sibility for the moral welfare of others, and at all times exerts an uplifting influence in his community. Having experienced so many hardships himself, he is very sympathetic to others similarly situated, and without doubt does much more for the unfortunate than will ever be made public, for he prefers not to let one hand know the good deeds of the other.

RAY L. KAMPF has done a worthy part in the de- velopment of the region of Prairie County through a period of nearly a quarter of a century. For a number of years he has been in the lumber business at Terry, being manager of the local business of the Dunham Lumber Company.

Mr. Kampf was born in Tazewell County, Illinois.

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April 21, 1876. His father, William H. Kampf, now a retired farmer at Armington, Illinois, was born in Tazewell County in 1846, and was a youthful soldier during the closing months of the Civil war. As a member of the Seventh Illinois Infantry he was appointed one of General Logan's body guards. He went through his army service unscathed, but his brother Marion was killed at the battle of Altoona.

William H. Kampf was a merchant for a short time after the war, but otherwise has been a farmer. His life as a citizen has been given to private deeds, he is a republican voter, and a member of the Christian Church. He married Elizabeth Gwinn, who was born in Ohio, and as a child was brought to Illinois by her widowed mother. She died in 1887, the mother of two children: Ray and Lulu J., the latter the wife of Dick Haullstein of Armington, Illinois.

When Ray L. Kampf was six years of age his parents moved to Spink County, South Dakota, and he lived on a farm in that section of the northwestern frontier to the age of eleven. He attended his first school there in a country district. After the death of his mother the father returned with his family to Illinois, and in Logan County of that state Ray L. Kampf grew up, attended the graded schools at Minier, but going to work as a wage earner at thir- teen. All his experience before coming to Montana was as a farm hand.

At the age of eighteen, in Logan County, Illinois, on December 10, 1894, Mr. Kampf married Miss Estella J. Miller, who was born in that county De- cember 19, 1875. She was educated in the country schools of Illinois. Her father, A. A. Miller, also a native of Illinois, died there at the age of fifty, was a radical republican in politics, and served Logan County as county commissioner. He was a member of the Christian Church. Mr. Miller married Rhoda Graves, whose father was a Federal soldier and was killed in battle. A. A. Miller and wife had eight children, five reaching mature years, and Mrs. Kampf and all the others live at Atlanta, Illinois, Mrs. Wil- liam Gresham, Fred, Harry, a carpenter, and Fren, who is Mrs. Harry Baker.

Mr. and Mrs. Kampf on coming to Montana made their first home at Terry. He was soon working as a hand on the ranch of Mr. Burt, an early settler and extensive sheep man of the locality. He worked in the camp, was a tender and at times had charge of a band of sheep. After five or six years of connec- tion with the sheep industry he engaged in the car- penter business. He knew something about tools and as a mechanic he helped to build up Terry both as a journeyman and as a contractor. Among the build- ings he helped to construct were the old State Bank Building, the Stith residence, the first church of the town, the Central Hotel and perhaps two dozen resi- dences. After about eight years at his trade Mr. Kampf joined a local company and established the Star Lumber Company at Terry, the yard being opened in 1909 with Mr. Kampf as manager and as secretary and treasurer of the company. Three years later the yard was sold to the Dunham Lumber Com- pany, who retained Mr. Kampf as manager at Terry, and his personal ability has done much to popularize that business throughout Prairie County.

Mr. Kampf saw the opportunity in that region for settlers, took a hopeful view of the situation, and entered into the spirit of development as his con- nection with Terry building indicates. When the first bank was proposed he became one of the stock- holders of the State Bank of Terry, and was con- nected with the institution until he sold his interests in 1918. He is now one of the directors of the Se- curity State Bank of Terry, and has been one of its

stockholders since it was organized in 1914. Mr. Kampf also served six years as city treasurer of Terry. He was one of the men who went out and worked for the creation of Prairie County. Mr. Kampf is a republican, and is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. and Mrs. Kampf built their own home in Terry and that home was one of the many patriotic spots in Montana during the World war. They were stamp sellers in their place of business and contributed regularly to the various auxiliary war causes.

Mr. and Mrs. Kampf have three children. Eva is the wife of Ralph Ross, of Terry, and has a family of boys and girls named Laura, Milton R., Wayne W., Jack, Russell and Elizabeth. Adella L., the second of the family, was married to Emil H. Ebers- viller, of Columbus, Montana, and has a son, Emil, Jr. Lenore, the youngest of the three daughters, is attending the Terry grade schools.

CLAUD E. DAVISON, postmaster of Roundup, and one of the best known men in this part of the state, is also a leader in his party in the county. He was born in Martin County, Minnesota, on his father's farm, March 5, 1881, a son of Bradley A. and Clara J. (Chaffee) Davison. Bradley A. Davison was born in Green County, Wisconsin, in 1854, and his wife was a native of Michigan. They became the par- ents of four children, of whom Claud E. Davison is the eldest. Growing up in Green County, Bradley A. Davison learned the elements of farming, and put them to practical use later on in life when he entered the agricultural field for himself in Martin County, Minnesota, where he remained until I911. In that year he went to Chautauqua County, New York, and is now conducting a dairy business in the vicinity of Sherman, that state.

Like his father, Claud E. Davison was reared to agricultural pursuits, and he was sent to the rural schools of Martin County until he was eighteen years old, at which time he went into the office of H. W. Sinclair, who was conducting an abstract and loan business at Fairmont, Minnesota, and remained with him five years. In 1904 he left Mr. Sinclair and then entered the land department of the Northern Pacific Railroad at St. Paul, Minnesota, and held that posi- tion for about eighteen months. Going then to Bow- man, North Dakota, he engaged in the abstract busi- ness, leaving there in 1911 for Roundup, Montana, and here he established the abstract business he is still conducting. While living at Bowman he served as a justice of the peace, being appointed to that office by Governor John Burke, and he was also appointed deputy county auditor, deputy clerk of the District Court, and deputy county treasurer, dis- charging all of these duties with characteristic fidelity. On March 1, 1917, Mr. Davison was ap- pointed postmaster at Roundup by President Wilson, and is one of the best men in this office the city has ever had. Mr. Davison was made a Mason by Chain Lake Lodge No. 64, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, but demitted and became a member of Unity Lodge No. 76, Roundup, Montana, and he also belongs to Roundup Chapter No. 30, Royal Arch Masons.

On July 2, 1902, Mr. Davison was married to Mamie E. Frazier, born at Fairmont, Martin Coun- ty, Minnesota, a daughter of Jerome B. and Mary A. (Loomer) Frazier, both of whom are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Frazier had three children, two daugh- ters and one son, Mrs. Davison being the second child.

Mr. Davison is a man who is noted for his effi- ciency and initiative and who when confronted by the everyday problems of his office knows just how

Frank 9. 1 ebay

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

to solve them in a manner which will give the public good service and yet will conform to governmental regulations. It is his theory that all public offices should be conducted upon the same fundamental principles that pertain to business transactions, and he applies them in a definite and practical manner, thus often times clearing away a lot of red tape which would ordinarily obstruct the rapid conduct of the routine of his office. Both as a citizen and official he stands very high in his community, as he has wherever he has lived.

HON. FRANK T. KELSEY, representative from Cus- ter County in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Legisla- tures, and a ranchman of Powder River County, the new county which he was the factor in creating from Custer County, and the fifteenth of Montana, is all but a native of this section of the state, hav- ing been a lad of but thirteen years when he came here, and he grew to manhood about and in the vi- cinity of Stacey. He was born in Franklin County, Kansas, November 11, 1874, a son of Theodore B. Kelsey, and a brother of Arthur R. Kelsey, a ranch- man of Powder River County and of S. W. Kel-, sey, of Red Lodge, Montana, and is the youngest of a family of eight children.

The life of Mr. Kelsey up to the time of the attainment of his majority was largely a rural one. His education in his youth was a most lim- ited one, and from eighteen to twenty-one years he did not attend school at all, but later was a stu- dent at the Stanbury (Missouri) Normal School and subsequently pursued a course of two years at the Northern Indiana Normal University, and after completing the teachers' course remained an additional year. Returning home, he embarked in teaching in what is now Rosebud County, but after one year left the school room to devote himself particularly to ranching, having learned this branch of industry under his father. Establishing himself permanently and finally at Moorhead, he started a new ranch property by entering a desert claim and purchasing title in other lands lying on both sides of Powder River, comprising a ranch of about 5,000 acres. He built the proverbial log house as his pioneer home, a two-room affair, floored and prop- erly equipped for comfortable living purposes, and this building is still occupied, although not by Mr. Kelsey, who, after a few years, changed his loca- tion to his present home, four miles away, where the chief scenes of his ranch history have been en- acted. His strain of cattle, while largely Hereford, contains some of the Angus as well as-the Durham, and his marketable stock is shipped to Omaha, al- though he has also occasionally been on the Chicago market with his product. His brand is the "O + O" on the left ribs, but the "Lazy Y" and the "Lazy O" brands have been used by him as well.

Mr. Kelsey for twelve years carried on civil engi- neering work and surveying, running land lines and ditch surveying, and was a United States com- missioner for the same period, in which land filing constituted his chief work, and he was the first and only United States commissioner south of Miles City. He grew up under republican influence as a boy, cast his maiden presidential vote for Major McKinley, and has supported his party ticket since. His only- convention experience was as a delegate to the Custer County Convention of his party. Mr. Kelsey was chosen a member of the Legislature without a campaign either in the primary or the general election, and was chosen first in 1916 and again two years later, the last time with a majority of about 350 votes. He entered the Lower House of the Fifteenth Legislature and was assigned to

the committees of agriculture, state lands and edu- cation, the important ones of that body, and in the Sixteenth Legislature was on the committees on education, sanitary affairs, new counties and divi- sions, live stock, and public ranges, irrigation and water rights. In this House his principal achieve- ments were in the creation of Powder River County, in the support of live stock and in farming meas- ures, and 100 per cent of his bills became laws. He supported enthusiastically the new law on beef and hide inspection, the control of bulls on public ranges, the dissolution of irrigation districts, and the revision of the general laws of the state upon the subject of education, and led the fight to preserve the appropriation for live stock preservation.

Mr. Kelsey has served School District No. 7, his home neighborhood, for many years as a director and was instrumental in having the district laid off and organized. By virtue of his office he is a mem- ber of the Republican State Central Committee. He was chairman of the Council of Defense of Custer County, took an active part in the Liberty Loan drives, and helped Moorhead win the honor flag in the Third Liberty Loan for the highest per capita subscription for the Ninth Federal Reserve District, $194 plus for every man, woman and child in the district. As chairman of the Council of Defense he led off in the prosecution of all flagrant forms of sedition and saw some traitorous acts punished with prison sentences. Mr. Kelsey is a member of Miles City Lodge No. 538, Benevolent and Protec- tive Order of Elks. He is a stockholder and direc- tor of the Montana Petroleum Company, and presi- dent and a stockholder of the Powder River State Bank at Broadus, and belongs to the Montana Stock Growers' Association.

At Miles City, Montana, August 9, 1900, Mr. Kel- sey married Lula B. Miller, a sister of Mrs. Arthur Kelsey. Mrs. Frank T. Kelsey was born near Shenandoah, Iowa, in February, 1881, finished the teachers' course at Shenandoah and taught school in both Nebraska and Montana. Mr. and Mrs. Kelsey are the parents of six children : Vesper, Inez, Willis, Theodore, Rosabell and Frances.

THOMAS M. MURN. A native son of Montana, son of a pioneer railroader in this state. Thomas M. Murn, is known throughout the length and breadth of Prairie County and in other sections of the state as a leading lawyer, engaged in practice at Terry since 1915.

His grandparents were Thomas and Catherine (Goldrick) Murn, who came from County Clare, Ireland, living for a time in Quebec, Canada, and soon after the close of the American Civil war moved to the United States and settled on a farm at St. Cloud, Minnesota, where Thomas Murn spent the rest of his life and where he is buried. Of their six children all were born in Ireland except William P. Murn, who was born at Quebec in August, 1864. William P. Murn grew up at St. Cloud, Minnesota, and largely picked up his education. However, he has shown himself a man of intelligence and re- sourcefulness, and for many years has been in a position of trust with the Northern Pacific Railway Company. He began his railroading career as a sec- tion laborer at St. Cloud, and in 1882 came to Mon- tana and located at Glendive. For a number of years past he has had the responsibilities of the office of roadmaster for the Northern Pacific at Glendive. He has given his life to his duties as a railroad man and to his home. In politics his only experience is as a voter, though he was one of the most enthusiastic admirers and partisans of the late Colonel Roosevelt.

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At Dickinson, North Dakota, William P. Murn married Miss Anna Reuther. She was born in Ba- varia in Southern Germany. Her father was killed while a soldier of his country in the Franco-Prussian war. The widowed mother, Mrs. Margaret Reuther, subsequently brought her family to the United States, the daughter Anna being then about six years of age. Mrs. Anna Murn has one sister, Mrs. A. F. Rilev, of Gladstone, North Dakota.

Thomas M. Murn is the only child of his parents and was born at Glendive, December 7, 1891. He grew up in his native town, finished his high school education there, and his father then sent him East to prepare for the legal profession as a student in Georgetown University at Washington, District of Columbia. He received the degrees LL. B. and LL. M. from that institution, gaining his first diploma in 1913 and his second in the following year. With these qualifications derived from one of the noted law schools of the country and supplemented by a residence in the national capital for several years, Mr. Murn returned to his native state and early in 1915 began practice at Terry, where he tried his first District Court case. His practice has been general, and he has served Terry as its city attorney since he came here. He has been connected on one side or the other with every case tried before the District Court. He is also associated with Al Hansen of Baker in the Equity Abstract and Title Company, who have compiled the abstract records for Fallon and Carter counties.

During the World war Mr. Murn served as a member of the Legal Advisory Board of Prairie County, and enlisted in the Tank Corps and was in special training for that service at Camp Polk at Raleigh, North Carolina. He was there when the armistice was signed, and was discharged from Camp Dodge, Iowa, January 1, 1919. He is the present post adjutant of Prairie Post of the American Legion at Terry. Mr. Murn is affiliated with the Elks and Knights of Columbus, and is a republican, having cast his first presidential vote for Mr. Hughes in 1916.

At Billings, Montana, October 17, 1916, he mar- ried Miss Tessie Spurling. She is also a native of Montana, born at Butte in March, 1893, daughter of James E. and Tessie (Mulholand) Spurling. Her father is a prominent railroad man, being general agent of the Northern Pacific at Billings. He was born in Iowa of Irish ancestry. The Spurling chil- dren are Ed C., Mrs. J. L. Markham of Billings, Mrs. Murn and Miss Margaret Spurling.

DAN H. BOWMAN, who is extensively engaged in the stock industry in Custer County, was born in Andrew County, Missouri, March 4, 1863, and his educational training was obtained in the country schools. His father, Benjamin Franklin Bowman, was taken into Northwestern Missouri as a child about 1840, the family moving there from Kentucky in that year, although Casper Bowman, the grand- father of Dan H., had gone into Andrew County as early as 1836. Casper Bowman was born in Bracken County, Kentucky, in 1802, and the histories of repre- sentatives of this family are woven into the warp and woof of the establishment of civilization in that sec .. tion of the country.

After removing to Missouri, Casper Bowman se- cured land in Andrew County. He lived to the good old age of eighty-eight years. He married Mary Ann Hutchison, who was also born in Bracken County, Kentucky, in 1809. She survived her hus- band ten years. They became the parents of four sons and five daughters.

Benjamin Franklin Bowman, one of the sons of this hardy pioneer, spent his life as a farmer in Andrew County, Missouri, and vicinity. He was a Union soldier during the Civil war, serving in the infantry in Southern Missouri. He married in his early life Barbara Frances Wood, she with her people coming from Virginia about 1846 and locating in Northwestern Missouri. She was a daughter of William Follis and Barbara (Brumback) Wood, the father a slave owner and planter in Virginia on the Potomac River in his early life. Mrs. Bowman died in Andrew County, after becoming the mother of the following children: Barbara, who became the wife of William Gillam and lives in Colorado; Ben- jamin, who spent his life in Arkansas and died in that state leaving a family; Mrs. George W. Myers, of Miles City, Montana; William C., a grain farmer near Spokane, Washington; and Dan Hutchison.

From his native state of Missouri, Dan H. Bowman arrived at Miles City, Montana, on the 18th of June, 1882, the Northern Pacific Railway having been com- pleted to that point about that time, and he was then a youth of nineteen and had come to the Northwest to join his sister, Mrs. George W. Myers. The only capital he brought with him was the experi- ence and knowledge he had gained as a farmer in Missouri. His first employment after his arrival was on the Myers Brothers sheep ranch at the mouth of Sheep Creek, and in the following year he was made the ranch foreman. Subsequently associating himself with George W. Myers in the sheep industry, he ranged along Sheep Creek and the Powder River to its mouth, abandoning that region only when the range became overstocked. The partnership with Mr. Myers continued until the disastrous winter of 1886-7, and in the spring of the latter year Mr. Bowman disposed of the few stock left after the terrible losses of the winter, withdrew from the partnership and began work on the cattle range.

As a cowboy he secured employment with the "LO" ranch on the Mizpah, where he spent two years with the noted John M. Holt, the king of the cattle indus- try of this region at that time and Mr. Bowman from there went to the "4-4" ranch, which had its headquarters on Powder River below the mouth of the Mizpah, and spent a two-year period there. For a year or two following he sheared sheep, and about this time entered a homestead at the mouth of Sheep Creek and established his headquarters there. And about this time also he became the manager of the Merrill and Davidson ranch on the "Divide," about five miles east of Knowlton, where he spent a period of about two.years. But in the meantime Mr. Bow- man had continued his ranching enterprise on his claim, returning there periodically and building up his own interests.

His next connection was with an entirely new in- dustry, that of manufacturing lumber in this locality. Purchasing a traction engine and a small sawmill, he located them in the canyon along the old trail. about a mile and a half west of Knowlton, where he was engaged in the manufacture of lumber for three years, but during the last year of that period he came down on Sheep Creek and inaugurated the Bowman ranch. He brought with him a small bunch of cattle and the proceeds from the sale of his home- stead and other interests and began his career as a cattle man. This was in about the year 1899, and the nucleus of his stock raising industry included about twenty-three cows and a bull. They were of the common strain then prevailing in this region, but five years or so later he added about 350 head from the Hon. J. R. Mckay's ranch, and among this herd were a number of bulls of the registered Canadian stock

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 194

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