Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 208

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 208

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Robert M. Hamlin spent his early life on a farm in Morrison County, Minnesota, acquired a country school education, and also gained considerable ex- perience in the lumber woods, getting out timber, and in the mills, and that work employed his time and energies for about five years before he came to Montana.

Mr. Hamlin settled in Montana April II, 1896, and for the first two years was a ranch hand em- ployed on the roundup. One year he spent in a sheep camp for George Burt, and learned some- thing of the lonesomeness of a herder and the hard- ships of the sheep camp. After an apprenticeship at the blacksmith's trade in Terry he bought the shop and continued the business two years. Selling out, he bought a livery barn, and conducted that until the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway was built. The following two years he spent in the service of the Milwaukee company as a grading contractor, and the last year was employed at side track building and dam construction.

These varied enterprises, while worthy of notice, seemed only preparatory to his real career as a rancher. About the time he left the railroad com- pany he entered a homestead on the north side of the Yellowstone, and his business activities have been centered there ever since, though for several years his winters have been spent in Terry for the Vol. III-47

school advantages it affords. The first home of the Hamlins on the claim was a mere shack, 10 by 12, roofed with common boards and battens and with- out floor. That was only temporary, and was soon succeeded by something better. Mr. Hamlin is one of the men in this locality who have made a cred- itable record as a farmer. Grain is the best crop suited to the locality, and his best record per acre on both wheat and flax has been twenty-six bushels, while in one season he threshed eighty bushels of oats to the acre. His ownership extends 'to 1,760 acres, and of that 1,000 acres have been brought · under cultivation. From first to last stock grow- ing has been a prominent feature, and his brands are the "5H" and "YM."

For a number of years his friends and neighbors have looked upon Mr. Hamlin as a citizen who could be relied upon for advice, ideas and active participation when the affairs of the community needed them. Good schools and education have been uppermost in his mind ever since he moved his family to his ranch, and he naturally encouraged the establishment of a school and was one of the trustees of district No. 64 until 1918. He worked to build up public sentiment favoring the creation of the new County of Prairie, and was a member of the committee appointed for the purpose of wag- ing the fight for county division. When the matter came to a vote he was a candidate on the first ticket for county commissioner, was elected in 1914, and he and Henry Kramer and Lon Fluss have con- stituted the board throughout the history of Prairie County. Upon them have devolved many important responsibilities, requiring a tremendous amount of time and detail work necessary to get the business of the new county established. The records of the county from which Prairie was created had to be transcribed, supplies had to be purchased, and pro- visions made for courthouse and other buildings. The commissioners have also carried out a large program of road building, including the grading of 200 miles, and the construction of a road across the county north and south and the Yellowstone trail east and west. Mr. Hamlin is a republican in poli- tics, having cast his first presidential vote for Major Mckinley in 1896. He is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. He and his family enjoy one of the modern bungalow homes of Terry.

In Morrison County, Minnesota, November 9, 1898, he married Ella Campbell, daughter of Daniel and Margaret (Maxwell) Campbell. The parents were natives, of Scotland, but came to the United States prior to the Civil war, in which her father served as a soldier scout. The Campbells were farmers, and both died in Minnesota. Of their eleven children seven grew to mature years: Mrs. Mary Bowman, of Crow Wing County, Minnesota; Effie, wife of George Johnston, of Hilliard, Wash- ington; Dan, of Morrison County, Minnesota ; Samuel, of 'Morrison County; Edward, who was drowned in the Yellowstone River, unmarried; Thomas, who lost his life by drowning in Alaska nine months after his' brother's death; and Mrs. Hamlin, the youngest, who was born November 9, 1877. Mrs. Hamlin acquired her education in the country schools. Mr. and Mrs. Hamlin have a family of four children: Kathryn E., Eunice G., Sylvia M. and Roberta Luella.

JOHN C. EPLER, proprietor of the flourishing mer- cantile establishment which bears his name at Dooley, is one of the early settlers of this locality, and has the credit of having erected the first build- ing in Dooley, it being completed in August, 1913, this year being the date of his entry into Montana

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as a permanent citizen. The first few months after he reached the state he spent at Outlook, where he was engaged in merchandising in connection with the firm of Epler Brothers, and the business at Dooley was for a time conducted under that name, but later Mr. Epler became the sole pro- prietor. The store he occupies is located in a two- story brick structure, with which he replaced the original one of frame. For some time after his coming here his was the center of the business life of the community, and his store is still one of the leading ones in this part of the country. In addition to his interests as a general merchant Mr .. Epler is also interested in farming, having been one of the original homesteaders. He located his claim to a portion of the public domain two miles west of Dooley, and on it erected a three-room shack in which he and his family resided while he was doing his development work. While he was proving up his claim he was also conducting his store.

'Mr. Epler was born near Battle Lake, Otter Tail County, Minnesota, December 11, 1886, and there the family resided for a time, and he commenced his attendance at the public schools. Later his parents moved to Austin, Minnesota, and there he took the high school course. Subsequently Mr. Epler went to Charles City, Iowa, where he worked as a clerk in a general store, and as such learned merchandising from the bottom up.

John C. Epler is a son of Jacob H. and Anice (Chandler) Epler, and was the seventh child born to their marriage. Another of their sons, George C. Epler, is also a prominent resident of Dooley, and a biography of him will be found elsewhere in this work.

The marriage of John C. Epler to Miss May Furlong took place at Austin, Minnesota, where she was born. She is a daughter of John J. and Agnes (Ryan) Furlong. Mr. Furlong was born in Ireland and was brought to the United States when a child of six years, and during his active life he was a stock farmer. For many years he took an active part in the work of the republican party in Mower County, Minnesota, and is now a member of the Lower House of the 'Minnesota State As- sembly. Mrs. Epler was the second child born in a family of four. She was graduated from the high school course at Austin, Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Epler have one daughter, Virginia May. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that while Jacob H. Epler was a strong republican, all of his sons are equally ardent in their support of the principles of the democratic party.

Mr. Epler has always been a supporter of the schools, the good roads movement and other public- spirited institutions calculated to assist in the further development of his community. He is a man of high character and possessed of the qualities which lead men into new regions with the object of as- sisting in their upbuilding. While Dooley is still one of the new communities of the state, great advancement is shown, and the more progressive men like Mr. Epler and his brother have many plans in view with the idea of further developing the natural resources of the section, inducing new cap- ital to make investments, and bringing to it addi- tional settlers, and all of these will be carried out, for these men know how to go about such work and accomplish what they set out to do.

GEORGE A. HORKAN was born July 4, 1876. His mother died when he was only five years of age and his father was drowned when the son was eight years old. He lived with his uncle on a farm and attended a country school until he reached the

age of fifteen. He worked out as a cash boy to a dry goods merchant at a salary of $8.00 per month and board. He quit the job to come to Cus- ter County, Montana, in the spring of 1893. He worked on a ranch, rode the range and attended sheep camps until the fall of 1897, when, having sufficient money to further educate himself, he went to Washington, D. C., and entered a preparatory school. He secured a position as helper in the Government printing office, working eight hours a day at a salary of $60.00 per month, attending school at night. He took the examination for clerk in the Census Bureau, and secured a position as such, at a salary of $1,000 per year. While so en- gaged he enlisted as a private soldier in the First District of Columbia Volunteers, and subsequently was transferred to Troop I, Third U. S. Volun- teer Cavalry, which troop was organized at Miles City, Montana. He served throughout the Spanish- American war as a private soldier and was hon- orably discharged at the end of the war. He returned to Washington, D. C., and secured his old position in the United States Census Bureau, and in the fall of 1899 entered Georgetown Uni- versity Law School, attending the same at night, and from which University . he graduated in law in June, 1902.

Upon graduating from Georgetown University. Law School, Mr. Horkan returned to Montana and was admitted to the bar of the State of Montana by the Supreme Court thereof, and engaged in the practice of his profession at Forsyth, Montana, where he has since resided. He was elected county attorney of Rosebud County, Montana, in 1906, and re-elected in 1908. He served a number of years on the City Council of Forsyth, and in 1917 was unanimously elected mayor of the City of Forsyth. In 1912 he was chairman of the State Progressive Republican Convention and was elected delegate to the Chicago convention which nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president of the United States. In the fall of 1912 he was nominated as progressive candidate for Congress in the State of Montana. He volunteered his services to the Government in 1918, and was commissioned first lieutenant in the army, and subsequently promoted to a captaincy. He was honorably discharged from the army in 1919. In the fall of 1920 he was nom- inated as the republican candidate for judge of the District Court of the Fifteenth Judicial District consisting of the counties of Rosebud, Musselshell, Treasure and Golden Valley, and at the general election was elected by a majority of over 2,000.

On September 11, 1906, Mr. Horkan married Miss 'Marie Newnes, of Forsyth, Montana. There are five children, two sons and three daughters, four of whom are attending public schools at Forsyth and all were born in Forsyth, Montana.

JOHN C. LYNDES, who came to Montana thirty years ago, has had a busy and effective career as a pioneer teacher, lawyer, promoter of irrigation and in other business enterprises and for the past thirteen years has been identified with business and the law in what is now Treasure County. He helped found and establish the town of Hysham, where he lives.

Mr. Lyndes is of New England birth and an- cestry. His grandfather, of English ancestry, was among the pioneers of Vermont and at one time served as county judge. He also participated in some Indian wars. He was a whig in politics and a Methodist. He had one son and three daughters, all of whom married and had children.

The only son was John T. Lyndes, who was born

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in the same house as his son, John C. This house stood at Brookfield, Vermont, and John C. Lyndes first saw the light of day there November 17, 1865. Five years later in 1870, the family left the Green Mountain state and established their home in Northern Illinois, and then after fourteen years, in 1884, made another stage in their westward migra- tion, going to Kearney, Nebraska. John T. Lyndes was a farmer, stockman and drover in Vermont, Illinois and Nebraska, and died in the latter state in 1888, at the age of sixty-two. He was a repub- lican in politics. He married Sophia M. Collins daughter of George Collins, of Troy, New York, and she is now living at Forsyth, Montana, in her seventy-seventh year. John T. Lyndes and wife had seven sons: Elmer E., a farmer and stockman of Treasure County, Montana; Wallace H., of Treasure County ; William W., who was drowned in the Yellowstone River, unmarried; Pliny E., who died in Montana, unmarried; Bert, of Billings; Clarence W., of Hysham, whose wife is postmis- tress of the town; and John C.

John C. Lyndes acquired his early education in Illinois and Nebraska, completing his high school course at Kearney. He began teaching in that state, his first school being at Plum Creek, now Lexing- ton. It was with a record of an earnest and capa- ble teacher that he came to Montana in 1890, locating on the Cheyenne Reservation where, at Lame Deer, he taught school. For the following eight years he was a teacher along the Rosebud in Custer County. While instructing the youth of that region he was diligently studying law, and finished his preparation for his profession in the law de- partment of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he graduated with the class of 1898. Sev- eral of his classmates have become well known Mon- tana lawyers, including Judge C. C. Hurley of Glendive, O. W. Belden, speaker of the House of the Montana Legislature, Ike Pace of Whitehall, Fred L. Gibson of Livingston and William L. Wal- lace of 'Missoula.

From university Mr. Lyndes returned to Montana and engaged in active practice at Forsyth. He was the first lawyer to open an office in Rosebud County, was appointed county attorney to succeed Fred Gib- son and subsequently was twice elected to the office. Besides the routine of duty he figured in the prosecution of the famous import cases and the bounty fraud cases, all well remembered by old timers.

At the opening of the Crow Reservation lands Mr. Lyndes and others bought a large tract, and constructed the first irrigation ditch, known as the Sanders Cooperative Ditch Company, now owned by the Yellowstone Irrigation Ditch Company, cov- ering and watering 17,000 acres of land. The head- gate is near Myers, and the lands watered are in the valley within five miles east of Armells Creek. Associated with John Hershberger Mr. Lyndes constructed the Low Line Ditch at Hardin, covering 10,000 acres of Valley lands the headgate being on the Big Horn, about four miles from Hardin and in the vicinity of the old Mission and covering the Sorrel Horse Bottoms. All these lands are under a high state of cultivation and have con- tributed enormously to the food production of Mon- tana. Mr. Lyndes shipped the first car of wheat and the first beets that ever went out of this region. He has become extensively interested in irrigated lands aside from the ones under these systems of irrigation and individually owns some valuable prop- erties in irrigated valleys. He has been a grower and shipper of sheep, cattle and horses for several years.

In the establishment of Hysham he was asso- ciated with Ada Channell and J. O. Lockard in laying out the town. The first day's sale resulted in the purchase of 169 lots at $5.00 apiece, that giving a substantial impetus to the foundation of the village. 'Mr. Lyndes was the leading factor in the organization of the Hysham State Bank, now the First National Bank of Hysham, serving as its first vice president, and with Mr. Patterson estab- lished the first hardware business, and continued to be identified with it for a number of years.

While busily engaged in these various construc- tive enterprises Mr. Lyndes practically abandoned his profession, but later resumed the law and had charge of the practice of George A. Horkan of Forsyth until the latter's return from the army. He then opened his office in Hysham. Mr. Lyndes has been chairman of the Rosebud County Central Committee of the republican party conducting sev- eral county campaigns, and was a leader in the movement to establish Treasure County. Besides his farming and other business interests he is as- sociated with others in prospecting for oil and gas in Wyoming and Montana.

During the World war he was fuel administrator for Rosebud County, chairman of the Red Cross Seal Department, and subsequently was chairman of the local committee for the Roosevelt Memorial Fund. In his attitude to fraternities Mr. Lyndes describes himself as "a barbarian in school and has remained one since." His father was a Mason, and frequently gave a helping hand to unworthy persons through fraternal ties, and that, perhaps, was the chief reason why his son never took kindly to orders.

At Sumner, Nebraska, where for several years she had been principal of schools, John Lyndes mar- ried Miss Alice Mercer. Mrs. Lyndes was born at Canton, Ohio, August 23, 1874, second in a family of three daughters and one son. Her father, W. M. Mercer, was in the Civil war as a soldier under both General Sherman and General Grant. Mrs. Lvndes had a normal school training. She is the mother of five children: Mona, Ross W., Nova B., Jay C. and Alice Merle. Mona graduated from high school in 1920 and is taking the nurse's train- ing course in St. Vincent Hospital at Billings. Ross is in high school, while Nova and Jay are pupils of the grade schools.

JOHN K. LAMBERT. During the early and forma- tive period of Montana's history, in 1884, James K. Lambert arrived within its borders and began the work of reclamation which has steadily gone for- ward. He was then a youth of sixteen, and his first stop in the state was in the locality where Ekalaka now stands, then in Custer County and the region was then but a wide expanse of pasture land. He came with the old Hash Knife trail herd from Colorado, he having joined the herd at Brush, that state, while it was passing from the Pecos River in Texas. Mr. Lambert spent two years with that outfit after reaching Montana, also worked for various other concerns later, covering the entire Eastern Montana country until the Milwaukee Rail- road was built through, when he filed on a half section of the public domain thirteen miles south of Plevna and settled down as a farmer.

Mr. Lambert began his homestead improvements with a frame shelter 14 by 16 feet, and in this rude and pioneer dwelling he and his wife took up their abode. This, however, was his second home in Montana, his first having been located near Ekalaka and built in 1891. Mr. Lambert entered into the work of regular farming, raising the first flax in

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the locality, and the second crop raised on his claim 1877, a daughter of John Long. By her first mar- was sold to the new settlers coming in and brought $3.00 a bushel. A yield of twenty-one bushels to the acre was threshed from his crop, an almost unprecedented yield, and flax and oats constituted his main crops for some years, when wheat en- tered importantly into his farming activities. His best yield of wheat was forty bushels to the acre. Mr. Lambert has continued his agricultural labors with success, has developed his land into fertile fields, and has increased the area of his estate to 1,792 acres. This large acreage places his holdings in the ranch class, and he was quite extensively en- gaged in the raising of sheep and cattle until the settlers encroached too closely upon his range, and he supplanted 'his sheep and cattle with horses. His improvements now comprise a good four-room resi- dence, a barn 36 by 48 feet for his horses, and also sheds and protection for his other stock, and 600 acres of his land is under cultivation.

Although not a native westerner, Mr. Lambert was brought to the west by his parents when he was a babe, and thus the life of the free and open country has been familiar to him from his earliest recollections. He was born in Lawrence County, Ohio, March 8, 1868, but to the age of fourteen he was identified with Washington, Kansas, his parents removing at that time to Colorado and set- tling near Sterling in Weld County. The schooling which he received during his early boyhood days was very little, but after he was twenty-nine years old, during the winters of 1897-8, he attended school in Steele, North Dakota, making splendid progress in his studies. At the end of this training he took the teachers' examination and received an average of ninety-five per cent or better in all the branches.

Mr. Lambert's parents were Amos and Rommane C. (Litch) Lambert, both of whom were born in Lawrence County, Ohio, the father born in 1843 and the mother in 1850. Amos Lambert was a Union soldier during the Civil war, entering the army from West Virginia as a member of the Ninth West Virginia Regiment. During his service he was wounded by a shot in the leg, and after recovering returned to the service. He was in the mounted infantry, and was with General Sher- man's army at the battle of Winchester. While in the army he learned penmanship, being one of but two men in his immediate command who could write at all, and he was therefore in great demand in writing letters for his comrades. He became very expert with the pen, and when his company went on to Washington, D. C., after the close of the war he was detailed as a penman to write discharges and do other clerical work connected with the mustering out of the troops.

On leaving the army Amos Lambert became a farmer in Ohio, then in Kansas, where he passed through the grasshopper scourge, and subsequently removed to Colorado. In 1897 he came to Mon- tana, and his home is now in Ekalaka. His political support is given to the republican party. The fol- lowing children were born to Amos and Rommane Lambert: John K., the Montana farmer; Reuben E., whose home is in Sumas, Washington; Rachel E., the wife of John R. Schneider, of Ekalaka; Amos L., of Fallon County, Montana; Florence M., the wife of R. J. McNish, of Hill City, South Dakota; Lulu K., wife of Tony Treberts, of Ismay, Montana; Nellie, wife of Marshall Wright, of Fal- lon County; and Brice, whose home is at Plevna, Montana.

Mr. John K. Lambert was married in old Custer County, January 8, 1903, to Mrs. Cora Caldwell, who was born in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, in

riage Mrs. Lambert had three children: Nell, wife of Adam Maclay; Ethel, who married Bert James; and Ed, who died in young manhood.

Mr. Lambert began voting as a republican, cast- ing his first presidential vote for Benjamin Harri- son, and since that time he has never missed the privilege of voting at presidential elections and has never filled a public office with the exception of . that of deputy sheriff under Sheriff John Gibb of Miles City. Few men of the olden days in Mon- tana were as familiar with the life and men of the plains country as John K. Lambert. With them he shared the rough and frontier life of the times, and his reminiscences of the events of those days, of the tragedies as well as the joys of the plains- men, are both interesting and instructive to his listeners.

IVORY BRACKETT. Montana has received its citi- zens from all parts of the United States, the won- derful possibilities of this great commonwealth drawing like magnet men from every calling, but especially from that of farming. It is a far call, however, from the bleak New England hillside farms of a few acres to the great sunny stretches of ranchland, a single property in many instances comprising several townships, and yet Ivory Brackett heard and heeded it and arrived at Miles City in August, 1898. He was born at Clinton, Kennebec County, Maine, November 13, 1877, a son of Ben- jamin and Ann M. (Clifford) Brackett, both of whom were born, reared, married and died in Maine. The first Brackett of whom there is definite knowl- edge came to America from Wales prior to the American Revolution, and from that time to the present the representatives of the name have been connected with the affairs of this country. Ben- jamin and Ann Brackett had the following chil- dren: Daniel W., who lives at Clinton, Maine; Nathan, who died in Maine; Prescott, who lives in Winslow, Maine; Mrs. James Donaldson, who lives at Boston, Massachusetts; Ivory, whose name heads this review; and five who died in childhood.

Growing up in his native place, Ivory Brackett learned farming from a New England standpoint from his father and probably would have remained in his native state, as his brothers have done, but his only sister had married and come West with her husband, James Donaldson, a prominent stock- man of Montana. Homesickness probably made the young wife send for her younger brother, suggest- ing that he would find plenty of opportunity for rising in this new country, and the ambitious young man, chafing at the narrow confines of his home village, borrowed the money to take the trip and left the train at Miles City. Welcomed at the ranch, he was not content to be a visitor, but went to work and earned every cent of his pioneer wages of $35.00 a month. His experiences in the east were of but little use on the open range, and he naturally had to put up with considerable hazing as a "tenderfoot" before he learned the customs of the country.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 208

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