Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 213

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 213

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Mr. Viall was married at Lyons, Ohio, Septem- ber 18, 1895, to Miss Nora A. Cole, daughter of Enoch and Minerva Cole, and a member of a fam- ily which went to Ohio from Indiana. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Viall were born children as fol- lows: Edna, who died as a maiden of seventeen years; Harvey and Elsworth, twins, who are asso- ciated with their father in his ranching operations; and Raymond, Donly, Nora and Gladys. Mr. Viall was reared under republican convictions, for at that time his father was a republican. The senior Mr. Viall has since changed to populistic and socialistic ideas and was the socialist candidate for governor of Wyoming on one occasion. John D. Viall cast his first vote in favor of the candidacy of Grover Cleveland for President, and has frequently voted for democratic candidates since, owing to his prefer- ence for the man rather than the party. He is fraternally affiliated with the Elks, his only order.

JOSHUA P. MCCUISTON. During a quarter of a century of residence Joshua P. McCuiston has writ- ten his name large among the prominent ranchers and farmers of the state, particularly in Rosebud County, where his chief interests are today. He is one of the few men still active whose experiences go back to the historic ranch and range period of the old southwest and the far northwest, when stockmen had no competition from farmers and settlers.

Mr. McCuiston is a native of the Lone Star state of Texas, and. was born in Robertson County Decem- ber 18, 1863. His grandfather, Robert McCuiston, lived in Tennessee, near Nashville, and probably went to Texas through the influence of what was known as the Nashville Colony, one of the early and prominent movements into Texas in pioneer days. Robert McCuiston settled at old Franklin, not far from Calvert, Texas, and spent the rest of his active life as a cattleman and farmer. Joshua McCuiston, father of the Montana rancher, was born near Nashville, and was seven years of age when the family moved to Texas. He grew up near Calvert, but spent his later years around Val- ley Mills in Bosque County, on the Bosque River in Northern Texas, where he was a farmer and cattleman. During the war between the states he served as a Confederate soldier, and for a part of the time was with the commissary as a forageman. While in the cavalry he rode his own horse. He was never in politics, though he voted as a demo- crat, and was a stanch and working member of the Methodist Church. Joshua McCuiston, Sr., went to old Mexico with the Blalock Colony in 1906, and was murdered there. He married Mary McGuire, a daughter of Dr. John McGuire, of Nashville, Tennessee. She died at Valley Mills, Texas, in 1893, the mother of five sons and five daughters, all of whom reached mature years. Those still living are: Mrs. Mary Pervis, of Oklahoma; Noah and James, of Amarilla, Texas; Thomas, who lives in Oklahoma, near his sister; Joshua P .; Mrs. Naomi Lane, of Valley Mills, Texas; and Sally Vickory, who also lives near Valley Mills.

Joshua P. McCuiston grew up in the family home near Valley 'Mills, and learned farming and stock 'raising direct from his father, being at home in the saddle almost from his earliest recollections. He attended school at Lanes Chapel, where a com- munity teacher presided. After leaving school he was on the ranch and range, and in this industry he traveled out of Texas into New Mexico and eventually trailed a herd of cattle from that ter- ritory north to Wyoming, spending two years at Douglas. Leaving there, he made his first journey into Montana in 1894, stopping at the Big Bend ranch at the head of the Rosebud. Ultimately he purchased a place for himself at the narrows of the valley of the Rosebud, and occupied one of the cabin shacks of the early day formerly occupied by Tuman Frazier. Here he grazed his southern range stock of several hundred head of steers, and after finishing them off shipped them to Chicago with both the Kendrick and the Hardin and Camp- bell companies.

On leaving this Rosebud region he went north to the breaks of the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Musselshell on Squaw Creek. Here he bought out Hardin and Johnson, whose location was ideal for ranching. His brother as a partner bought stock cattle in Texas and shipped them north to the fine grass region of Montana. Their first shipments were unloaded at Orrin Junction, Wyoming, but later rates becoming more favorable to Billings that

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became their unloading point. The brothers con- tinued ranching in the Missouri River country for fourteen years, and only abandoned the district be- cause of the inroads of dryland farmers, who cut off the range and gave the country little in return. On leaving there Mr. McCuiston moved his home to Forsyth and established his farm and ranch in- terests in the Yellowstone Valley. His present prop- erties are on Wyant Coulee, and he also occupies the Lewis estate between the Reservation and Sarpy Creek. While running his stock on the range his cattle brand was "H cross" with . bar on left shoulder. He retained this brand until he finally sold all his holdings. For a few years he ran a roundup wagon, beginning as the pool wagon for the Squaw Creek Pool, and with the gradual breakup of the pool he ran the wagon himself.

Mr. 'McCuiston made his first efforts in agricul- ture while on the Missouri River ranch, though they were chiefly confined to raising feed for his chickens and potatoes for home consumption. In Rosebud County he has entered agriculture as a practical and profitable business, raising both grain and beets. However, all his agricultural production is on lands under the ditches of the Yellowstone Irrigation Company. His valley lands are scat- tered along the Yellowstone from Forsyth west to Finch, and his acreage under irrigation comprises some five hundred acres. To the improvement and maintenance of the Yellowstone Irrigation Company he has contributed since he moved to this locality and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Irrigation Company. Mr. McCuiston is also a direc- tor of the First National Bank of Forsyth. Since moving to Forsyth Mr. and Mrs. McCuiston have built their modern eight-room home on Cedar and Thirteenth Avenue. In politics Mr. McCuiston gov- erns his actions not by party nominations but by the character of the men who are candidates.

At Douglas, Wyoming, September 24, 1894, Mr. McCuiston married Miss Grace Dean. She was born in Iowa July 20, 1879, oldest of the six chil- dren of Henry and Kate (Hammond) Dean. The only other two children still living are Hal, of Douglas, Wyoming, and Vernon, of Santa Cruz, California, where her parents also reside. She was a small girl when her parents moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where she finished her education. Later they moved to Wyoming and she became acquainted with Mr. McCuiston near Douglas. Mr. and Mrs. McCuiston have one son, Henry, born March 31, 1909.

THOMAS WHITMAN LONGLEY. Of the individual and firm names associated with the livestock in- dustry in the Yellowstone Valley and heard and spoken every day in that region twenty-five or thirty years ago, the great majority are preserved only in memory or in history. One, however, is that of Thomas Whitman Longley, better known, however, as Whit Longley. Mr. Longley came into Mon- tana in the early '8os, was a real leader in the old range industry, saw it at its height and also at its decline, and now at the conclusion of nearly two score years in the state is handling what he de- scribes as "the remnant of the business" on the banks of the Yellowstone, just west of Forsyth.

The brief story of his career shows that he has been in close touch with the life and affairs of the great western country for half a century. He was born in Callaway County, 'Missouri, October 3, 1850, and is the last survivor of the nine children, seven of whom reached maturity, of Dr. T. W. Longley. Doctor Longley, a native of Mississippi, moved to Callaway County in an early day, and continued to

bear the burdens of a country physician until he was sixty-five years of age. During the war be- tween the states he maintained himself as a neutral and served to the best of his ability both the Union and Confederate troops in a professional capacity. In Mississippi he married Miss America McGary, who lived to the age of seventy-four. Both are buried near Fulton, Missouri.

Thomas Whitman Longley was reared in a home of considerable comfort, had a good education, but soon tired of the routine of life in a central Mis- souri community and sought the great adventures of the west and the far west. For five years he lived in Travis County, Texas, close to the south- western frontier. In 1872 he started for the Pacific Coast, helping trail a bunch of cattle for the firm of Harding & Riley, of Santa Rosa, California. At Elsworth, Kansas, the terminus of the railroad, the company secured a new outfit, and thence drove across to the old Emigrant road, 100 miles north of Salt Lake, crossed the Rocky Mountains at old South Pass, and went on to within 100 miles north of Winnemucka, Nevada, where the herders and their herd spent the winter. Altogether the jour- ney consumed seven months and seventeen days, and it is said to have been the first herd that com- pleted the long overland trail within twelve months of starting out. On reaching his destination Mr. Longley left the service of his employers and be- gan the cattle business for himself in the Pyramid Lake region of the mountains along the line of Nevada and California. For eleven years he ran his stock in that district, and altogether it was a peaceful existence, unmarred by Indian foray or other special vicissitude.

In 1883 Mr. Longley came into Montana territory with a bunch of horses in the employ of the Green Mountain Stock Ranching Company. This was a Vermont organization. The company turned over the management of its affairs in Montana to him personally in March, 1884. His first headquarters were established on the East Fork of Armell's Creek, and a year later moved to the West Fork of the same stream, and remained there during the work- ing season, until the company went out of business. However, winter headquarters were selected by Mr. Longley on what is well known as Cannibal Island, an island in the river of the Yellowstone, offering peculiarly attractive advantages for winter quar- ters. For twenty-nine years Mr. Longley's head- quarters remained on that island, and he only aban- doned it when the land was threatened with com- plete destruction by the turbulent waters. He had his stock on the island at a time when it afforded 400 acres of hay and pasture land. Now only about seventy acres lies above water, and this is disap- pearing with each recurring flood.

The Green Mountain Stock Ranching Company had for its object the breeding and finishing of both cattle and horses, though the chief emphasis was horses, and that became a very extensive in- dustry beginning in the fall of 1885. The com- pany had more than $40,000 worth of imported stal- lions, draft horses of the Percheron and English Shire of the Cleveland Bays. At the zenith of its business the company ran as many as 6,000 head under the brand "FUF." To this brand Mr. Long- ley fell heir as purchaser of the remnant of the old Green Mountain stock, and he still uses it. Among the owners of the old New England con- cern were Fletcher Brothers, one of whom was its president. When these brothers succeeded to the business of the corporation they continued it under the name Fletcher Brothers. They dealt in noth- ing but horses, and marketed their stock in many

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

of the states and in Canada. As a result of en- croachment from settlers their operations steadily declined, and eventually they offered the remnant of their stock to 'Mr. Longley and his nephew, J. E. Longley, who purchased it and have continued business as the logical successors of the old Green Mountain Company under the name Longley & Longley. However, this firm now concentrates its efforts on the breeding of White Face cattle, doing so rather as farmers than as ranchers, and they turn a few thoroughbreds into service by private sale every year.

Mr. Longley acquired his first tract of land on Armell's Creek, at the cow camp of the old com- pany. His main holdings as a rancher have been acquired along the banks of the Yellowstone, and he has developed a farm of valley land with 200 acres under cultivation. His total holdings em- brace between 800 and 900 acres. The ranch home on the island he abandoned in 1912, and then pre- pared his present residence on the south bank of the river, with the Yellowstone Highway and the North- ern Pacific Railway in front. An irrigation system of his own construction, supplied by pumps from the river, put his land under water whenever cli- matic conditions demand it. His chief agricultural crop is alfalfa.

While livestock and ranching have been his chief and big interest in Montana, Mr. Longley was also a factor and partner in the Home Trading Com- pany at Forsyth during its existence. Politics has not been a subject in which he has shown an ardent interest, though his eminent qualifications have made his services sought again and again by his fellow citizens. By appointment he served as county treas- urer, and during his incumbency both his political opponents as well as his friends asked him to take the office , for the first full term. Later he was elected and served four years as county commis- sioner, his colleagues on the board the first term being Commissioners Squires and Alexander and during the second period Commissioners Squires and Blakesley.

During the World war Mr. Longley was a mem- ber of the County Council of Defense, and his friends say that the Longleys "danced every set," meaning that they were participants in spirit, in action and in contribution to every war cause.

At Quitman, Arkansas, in 1904, Mr. Longley mar- ried Miss Mary Robinson Fentem, daughter of Dr. Charles K. and Cynthia J. (Longley) Fentem. Her parents were an old Callaway County, Missouri, family, and her father practiced dentistry at Jef- ferson City, Bloomfield and Fayette, Missouri, and for some five or six years maintained his residence at Quitman, Arkansas, where Mrs. Longley's mother died in 1905. Mrs. Longley has one brother, Professor A. L. Fentem, of Ada, Oklahoma. Mrs. Longley completed her education in Howard Payne College at Fayette, Missouri, and was a teacher in Arkansas prior to her marriage.

PETER C. JENSEN. The only settler of the name of Jensen tributary to Powderville, and one of the early residents of this region, is Peter C. Jensen, who dates his coming to this ranch April 9, 1894. Mr. Jensen rode into the state on horseback from Cheyenne, Wyoming, crossing the waste of desert and prairie and heading for the "Box T" outfit, an old-time cattle company somewhere on Powder River. His companions hither were "Hobo John," as he subsequently came to be known, and James Green, cowmen bound for the Montana range. They left the "AU-7" ranch on Cheyenne River in Wyo- ming and started for Wagner's ranch, but owing

to a heavy snowstorm which fell to the depth of a foot or more they lost the trail and wandered two days and nights, walking at times to locate the trail by foot, to keep warm and to rest their steeds, and then riding again to rest themselves. Finally they arrived at 'Morecroft, Wyoming, worn out and hungry, but with determination unshaken. With creeks full of slush and snow, they left there and began the second lap of their journey north. Com- ing to a creek, the older men persuaded young Jen- sen to jump his horse into the surging stream and lead the others across. Not dreaming the stream was past fording he plunged, went under with his horse, slipped from its back, and while he swam to the new shore his horse turned back to his com- panions. This necessitated his swimming back to his horse and the three returned to Morecroft for a fresh start.

On the following day the three travelers walked their horses across two planks on the railroad bridge over that particular stream and followed on toward Little Powder River. One night . they stayed with a Mormon trapper, who impressed Mr. Jensen with his conviction on Mormonism by saying that he had seventeen daughters and he "hoped to God that some good man would come along and marry them all." The travelers came down Little Powder to the Cross Ranch, and there Mr. Jensen joined a party going to the "Box-T" ranch with horses. The old ranch house and other buildings of this historic ranch headquarters have all gone into the river, but the place of their activity is marked by the im- provements of Dick Richardson's ranch. Mr. Jen- sen hired out to the management, and after spend- ing six months on the range became ranch cook and worked thus for three and one-half years.

When the "Box-T" went out of business here it transferred its activities to Nebraska and Mr. Jen- sen went with them and spent six months more as a cook, their ranch being on the Niobrara River. He came back to Montana then, having purchased previously the interests of the company in their horse ranch on Cow Creek, and to this he returned to begin ranching for himself. His beginning was a modest one, his first purchase being nine cows and three yearlings of W. G. Comstock, another old-timer of this region. He pursued a course of labor for others in the summer, running his cattle with others for the time being, and spent the win- ters on his own ranch and sheltered himself under his shack roof on Cow Creek. He worked three years in this way for 'Major Dowson, gained credit in the meantime and accumulated cattle from his earnings on the Dowson ranch, and made some headway toward independence. He took his home- stead along the creek, upon which his buildings and improvements stand, much of his quarter being hay land, which is the most valuable portion of his ranch. He has acquired title to a half section and the leased lands make him a ranch of nine sections.

Cow Creek is a semi-living stream and along its low banks the switches which Mr. Jensen found here upon coming into the region have become well matured patches of timber. Its flood waters served him for limited irrigation for some years, but the beaver has spoiled all this by taking possession of his "gate and dam" and controlling the water to suit itself. The little shack which Mr. Jensen first lived in is a part of the ranch bunkhouse and it was succeeded by the comfortable ranch home in which he is rearing his family. His strain of cattle have been the Herefords and he bred them up well and introduced into them the Durham blood-two crops of Hereford and one of Durham. His cow brand is "PJ," the initials of his own name, and his mar-

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ket has usually been Chicago but occasionally he ships to Omaha. Like many of the old cattle men, he mixed his industry with sheep and ranched sheep for nine years, and with excellent profit to him- self.

Mr. Jensen is a director of school district No. 2, and during the World war was chairman of the Custer County Council of Defense, and every bond drive and every other demand for war funds was oversubscribed. In his politics he began voting as a republican, casting his first presidential ballot for Colonel Roosevelt in 1904, and has been a county committeeman of his party. Aside from his ranch interests Mr. Jensen is a stockholder of the Bank of Broadus and of the hotel company there.

Mr. Jensen was born at Racine, Wisconsin, Jan- uary 30, 1869, and his growing-up occurred there · until he was nine years of age, when his parents moved to Seward County, Nebraska, where he came to his majority on the home farm. His education is of the country school kind, and he secured very little of that, but is a man of broad information along general lines. His father was Soren Jensen, who came out of Denmark to the United States in 1867 and brought his wife and two children across the ocean, starting from his old home four miles southwest of Copenhagen. He resides at Jonesboro, Illinois, at the age of eighty-nine years, and Mrs. Jensen is eighty-six. Their children are : Andrew, of York, Nebraska; Thomas, who was killed by a mine slide at Leadville, Colorado; Peter C., of this notice; Mary, the wife of Jacob Mc- Clune, of Springfield, Illinois; John, also of that city ; and Anna, who married John Byrd, of Jones- boro, Illinois.

Peter C. Jensen was married at Labelle, Mis- souri, December 22, 1907, to Miss Charlotte B. Sykes, a daughter of Edwin E. Sykes. 'Mrs. Jen- sen came to Montana as a young woman and a teacher and met Mr. Jensen at Ekalaka. She was born at Labelle, Missouri, in February, 1879, and was a student in the Spearfish (South Dakota) Nor- mal School and also in the Gem City Business Col- lege at Quincy, Illinois. In the family of Mrs. Jensen's parents, Edwin E. and Anna E. (Seber) Sykes, there were the following children: George, of Ekalaka, Montana; Mrs. Jensen; Bruce, of Chi- cago, Illinois; Frances; Ellis, of Calgary, Canada ; May, the wife of Asa Bartlett, of Roberts, Idaho; Harry E., of Labelle, 'Missouri; and Frank D., now associated in ranching with Mr. Jensen, was wounded in France while fighting with the Ninety-first Divi- sion of the American Expeditionary Forces. Mr. and Mrs. Jensen have three children: Mary Frances, Charlotte B. and Jeannette Sykes. Mr. Jensen is an apprentice in Masonry and a member of the Odd Fellows.

FRANK A. WRIGHT. In the legal profession of Montana as represented at the thriving city of Lewistown one of the younger members who has already won success and standing is Frank A. Wright. A native of the city in which his entire professional career has been passed, he has been identified with a number of important cases which have come before the courts, and in addition has also been connected with public life, having served Fergus County as county attorney one term.

Frank A. Wright was born at Lewistown, Mon- tana, December 19, 1890, a son of Edmund and Lizzie M. (Gudgell) Wright. There was another son born to his parents, Robert G., also a resident of Lewistown. Mr. Wright received his early edu- cation in the public schools of Lewistown, being

graduated from the high school with the class of 1909, and at that time entered upon an academic course in the University of Minnesota, from which he was duly graduated in 1913. His legal studies were pursued in the University of Michigan, from which institution he received his degree of Bachelor of Law as a member of the class of 1914, and in the same year he was admitted to the Michigan bar. Returning to Lewistown, he received permis- sion to practice before the bar of Montana, and since that time has built up an excellent profes- sional business at Lewistown, where he has offices at 309 Montana Building. During the same year that he embarked in practice at Lewistown Mr. Wright was elected, November 10, 1914, as county attorney of Fergus County, and served one term. He accounted for the duties of his office in an able manner, one in which he displayed the possession of thorough knowledge of the principles of his calling, and his skill and native talent have since been developed in a way that have served to place him among the leaders of his vocation in the city of his birth.

Mr. Wright was married June 29, 1914, to Miss Katherine Breitmeyer, who was born at Detroit, Michigan, daughter of Philip and Katherine (Grass) Breitmeyer, the former born near Detroit and the latter at Philadelphia. There were two children in the family: Harry and Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright's father was one of the prominent business men of Detroit, and was also a leader in civic af- fairs, having served at one time as mayor of De- troit. Mr. and Mrs. Wright are the parents of two children : Katherine Elizabeth and Hazel Lucile. Mr. Wright belongs to the county, state and na- tional law associations and has an excellent reputa- tion among his confreres as a lawyer who recognizes and respects the highest ethics of his calling. Fra- ternally he is affiliated with Lewistown Lodge No. 456, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; Judith Lodge No. 30, Knights of Pythias; and the Theta Delta Chi college fraternity. His political support is given to the principles and candidates of the republican party.

SEVER HAGEN. Among the pioneers of Rosebud County whose experiences do much to illustrate the history of development in that region, one is Sever Hagen of Ingomar, who has lived there for twenty- one years and is one of the leading sheep men of the region, and also a citizen whose public spirit has brought him into active contact with many local affairs.

Mr. Hagen was born at Lom, an agricultural community of Norway, July 3, 1876, son of Mr. and Mrs. Austin Hagen. His father died soon after his birth, and when five years of age his widowed mother brought him, her only child, to America and settled on a farm near Whitehall, Wisconsin. She remained at the head of her modest household while her son was growing up, but subsequently became the wife of Louis Kelly and is now living at Bro- derick, Canada.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 213

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