Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 215

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 215

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).

Quoting from a former History of Montana we find the following: "Mr. Paul is a man endowed with fine eloquence and logic, and is much sought to convey at public meetings the wishes of the people of the vicinity in matters of general inter- est. It has been said of him 'His ease and readiness of speech make him eminently fitted for this work and it is a foregone conclusion that when Mr. Paul is called upon to express a sentiment that it will be expressed with accuracy and eloquence.'"

In 1889 Mr. Paul married at Dillon Miss Mary Bourret, daughter of Joseph and Mathilda (Giroux) Bourret. Mr. Bourret was a pioneer of the West and conducted a harness and saddlery business in Dillon for several years before his death which occurred in 1895. 'Mrs. Paul's mother is now living in Houston, Texas, and is a sister of Joseph L. Giroux, long one of the most prominent figures in mining circles in Montana, Arizona and Nevada, now a resident of Los Angeles. Mrs. Paul's only brother, Joseph J. Bourret, is a resident of Houston, Texas, and is engaged in the cotton business. Mr. and Mrs. Paul have three children: Hortense is graduate of the Beaverhead County High School and of the State Normal College at Dillon, is the wife of John Anthony Nolan and their home is in Chicago. They have a son George Paul now six years old. Mr. Nolan is a travelling repre- sentative of a commercial house of Chicago. Lucile Justan is also a graduate of the Beaverhead County High School and of the State University at Mis- soula in the class of 1918 with the degree A. B. and was a member of the Delta Gamma Sorority. She is now connected with her father's bank in Dillon, having recently returned from Washington, D. C., where she held a position in the Income Tax Department. Frank Goodwin, the only son of Mr. Paul, graduated from Morgan Park Military Academy at Chicago in 1920. At his graduation he held the rank of Brevet Lieutenant in the Na- tional Guard of Illinois, issued by Gov. Frank O. Lowden. Frank is now a student of the University of 'Missoula. He spents his vacations on the ranch in Centennial Valley and is greatly interested in that line of work.

CLYDE E. LEWIS came to Montana at the age of seventeen with an engineering party, and for over twenty years his work and study have been in

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irrigation engineering, and at the age of thirty-eight he has charge of one of the Government's big irrigation projects, that of the Crow Irrigation project.

Mr. Lewis was born at Pitkin, Gunnison County, Colorado, September 15, 1882. His father, John Lewis, was born in Wales May 7, 1852, and twelve years later, in 1864, accompanied his parents to America. The family home was established at Flint, Michigan, and in 1878 John Lewis came West and located at Leadville, Colorado, later at Pitkin, being a miner in both places. In 1884, leaving Pitkin, he moved to Montrose, where he became connected with irrigation and for several years was a ditch engineer for the Travellers Insurance Company in Colorado. He continued in this work until 1912, when he located at Hardin, Montana, where he is engaged in farming. John Lewis married Addie L. Hart, who was born at Camden, Oneida County, New York, in 1856, mem- ber of an old and prominent rural family of that section of New York. The children of John Lewis and wife are: Edith, wife of E. A. Cornwall, of Forsyth, Montana; Clyde E .; Arthur D., as- sociated with his brother in engineering work at the Crow Agency; Kenneth A., a bank employe at Los Angeles; and Donald J., a student of archi- tecture in the University of Michigan.

Clyde E. Lewis spent most of his early youth at Montrose, Colorado. As a boy he became in- terested in the practical and scientific aspects of irrigation engineering, and spent much of the time when not in school following his father. He at- tended the public schools of 'Montrose, and con- tinued to be a student for a number of years after coming to Montana. He took an engineering course at the University in Bozeman, and also courses in irrigation and mechanical engineering in the Inter- national Correspondence. School of Scranton, with which he earned a diploma.

The chief engineer of the party with which he came to Montana was W. B. Hill, though the engineer in chief was W. H. Graves. The work under construction at that time was the Big Horn Canal. Mr. Lewis did his first work for the Gov- ernment on that canal. He has had a progressive career of increasing responsibilities, and in 1912 became project engineer on the Crow Reservation. He has had a hand in the construction of two different units, that of Upper Little Horn Ditch No. 2 and the Reno Ditch. These units, 80 per cent completed, now supply water to about 7,500 acres of land under cultivation. Improvement and maintenance of various units comprise a large part of the program of work, and include the Forty-mile Ditch, Lodgegrass ditches Nos. 1 and 2, the Reno Ditch. the Agency Ditch, Big Horn Canal, Soap Creek Ditch, Pryor Creek, Lost Creek and Coburn Ditch, and also the Government's interests in Two Leggins Ditch. A number of, small individual ditches scattered over the reservation come in for a share of the time of the Agency irrigation force for maintenance, and the area supplied with water by the various projects mentioned total about 74,000 acres.

Mr. Lewis loves his work and profession, and has found in it all the diversion he needs. He has been a Mason since 1918, being affiliated with St. John Lodge No. 92, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Hardin. At Columbus, Montana, May 25, 1905, he married Miss 'Marie B. Ross, daughter of Hector and Mary Ross. Her father was born in Scotland but was married in the United States and was miller of the Crow Agency when he died.

Her mother is now living at Hardin, Montana. Mrs. Lewis' .brother, Robert P. Ross, is with the Stockman's National Bank of Hardin. Three daugh- ters have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis: Vivian, Evelyn and Helen.

THOMAS PENSON is a cattle ranchman on the Rosebud and the proprietor of the Big Bend Ranch, which is located in Big Horn County, seven miles south of Kirby and about twenty-two miles down the Rosebud from Montana's southern boundary line. This ranch is famous as the site of the battle of the Rosebud, which was fought by Gen- eral Crooks' regulars a few weeks before the Custer massacre, and in the engagement the gen- eral's troops were outnumbered and were forced to retreat.

Mr. Penson was born at Mason City, Iowa, Feb- ruary 2, 1873, a son of Charles and Betsy (Wain- right) Penson, both of whom were born near Lon- don, England. The mother died in 1898, but the father is still living, and has for many years been connected with the water department of Mason City, Iowa. He has spent the greater part of his life in that Iowa town, for he settled there immediately after landing in America. In their family were the following children: George, also of Mason City; Libbie, the wife of Fred Venable and a resident of Oscaloosa, Iowa; Thomas, the Montana ranchman and farmer; and Mrs. Mattie Burrows, whose home is in Des Moines, Iowa.

After completing his training in the public schools of 'Mason City, Thomas Penson worked for a time in a butcher shop and for a cattle feeder, and thus obtained some knowledge of the cattle busi- ness before he embarked so extensively in the enterprise in Montana. He formed the idea of becoming a resident of this state as the result of seeing a Northern Pacific map of the common- wealth hanging in the butcher shop in Mason City where he was employed, and he worked on with the plan of eventually making the state his home. It was on the 23d of April, 1893, that he arrived at Miles City by rail, spending his first night there at the old McQueen House. He was accompanied on the journey by a youthful companion of about his own age, and both hired to the representative of the old "OD" ranch, who were attending a stockman's meeting at Miles City at the time. Six years were spent by Mr. Penson as a cow puncher with the old "OD" ranch, now a part of the Cheyenne Reservation on the Rosebud, but during all this long service he kept his eye on his earnings, and for three years scarcely left the place. He eventually invested a part of the money thus saved in a quarter section of his present holdings. It was an unimproved tract save for a log house, which he occupied as his bachelor quarters and also used as a family shelter after his marriage.

Mr. Penson's first efforts in the stock business was with a bunch of Southern cows brought from Texas by George Kirby, which were the old Texas long-horns of the early days. Mr. Penson turned them loose on the range under the brand "T bar P." and for years at the roundups he branded the calves, and in the fall the entire bunch was gathered together and the calves were weaned and the cows were turned back on the range to forage through the winter months. The breeding of this kind of cattle into blooded White Faces and the pro- duction of better animals necessitates better care of the stock and the growing of feed for their use during the winters. So after years of constant

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care in breeding the Rosebud locality is stocked with a high grade of White Face animals, as good as are produced in any other region of the state.

Mr. Penson began farming with a quarter sec- tion of land, which he early seeded to alfalfa. He has continued this mode of farming until practically all his available agricultural land is in hay. Al- though he puts up hundreds of tons of hay it is all fed to his own stock, which are marketed at Omaha and Chicago. The Big Bend Ranch, so named because it lies at the bend of the Rosebud, now covers an area of 1,250 acres, fenced and cross-fenced and watered by ample wells of good water. The Big Bend has been the home of Mr. Penson since 1899, and here he has achieved his success and won for himself a place among the leading cattlemen and farmers of the region.

At Sheridan, Wyoming, he married Miss Mabel Barton. She came to Montana in 1898 to be with her sister, Mrs. Ferguson, and she was married to Mr. Penson on the 9th of April, 1900. Her parents lived at Irvington, Illinois, where she was born July 19, 1875, a daughter of Leicester Charles and Francelia (Ford) Barton. The father was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, in 1836, and died January 28, 1916. He was a son of Samuel V. and Sarah (Newman) Barton. In 1858 he went to Southern Illinois, and he took part in the breaking up of some of that prairie country with ox teams. His farm was located less than three miles from Irvington, and he spent thirty- five years of his active life there. Mrs. Barton, who was a Miss Hollander before her marriage, died August 2, 1918. They were married in 1871, and became the parents of the following children: Lena, the wife of W. J. Ferguson, of Big Horn County, Montana; Samuel V., of Pittsburg, Penn- sylvania; Mabel, now Mrs. Penson; George, whose home is in Nashville, Illinois; Bertha, who died as Mrs. Claude C. Rugg, of the Rosebud community ; and Clara, who has recently come to Montana and has acquired a homestead on the Rosebud. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Penson, namely: Charles V., Howard Harold (who died in childhood), Francelia Marie, Gregg V., Clara and Marjorie Leona.

'Mr. Penson has always taken a citizen's interest in political matters, and he cast his first vote in Montana. He generally attends the local county conventions of his party, and on national issues upholds the principles of republicanism. During six- teen years he has given efficient service to his school board.

CLAUDE CYRUS RUGG. The ranch of Claude Cyrus Rugg lies along the Rosebud, and there he is exten- sively engaged as a ranchman and farmer. He has been identified with the interests of Montana since 1902, when he established his home where it now is, purchasing the old George W. Kirby ranch. It was at that time a tract of 160 acres, improved with a cabin which could scarcely be called a dwelling, and his log barn was the pioneer one of the locality. With the passing of the years and with the success that has come to him as a Montana rancher he has replaced his first primitive dwelling place with a modern home of eight rooms, and the old barn which he first used has given place to a modern basement structure with granaries and mow room for many tons of hay. The di- mensions of the ranch has also grown apace with its other improvements and now comprises 2,000 acres of deeded land, where cattle has constituted the main industry, but where farming has also

been carried on as an aid to his feed production.

Mr. Rugg traces descent to the New England states, and his grandfather, Giles Rugg, was a sturdy New England farmer, and lived to be al- most ninety years of age. His wife, who was before marriage a Miss Mears, recently died in Los Angeles, California, at the age of eighty-seven. Of their children Joseph E. was the first born, and the others are Charles E., of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Mrs. Edward McGee, of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Eva Lane, who died in Fairfax, Vermont.

Joseph E. Rugg was born' in the Village of Fairfax, Vermont, but when a young man he left New England and journeyed west as far as Des Moines, Iowa, where he spent the winter, being too short of funds to continue further. But in the following spring he went on to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and engaged in the sheep business, but . the first winter in that industry netted him a loss of 5,000 head and one herder, and he then gave up the sheep business and secured a bunch of . cattle. He followed ranching on Horse Creek, using first the brand "RUG" but later inaugurated the "J bar O," a brand which descended to his son on the Rosebud. In time the senior Mr. Rugg abandoned ranching and engaged in the lumber business at Lusk, Wyoming, then at Douglas and still later in Boise City, Idaho, but he is now living in Chicago. His political affiliations are with the republican party.

Joseph E. Rugg married Ella Whitcomb, who was also a member of a New England family, and was born at Essex Center, Vermont. Claude C. Rugg is the only child of that union, and he was born at Cheyenne, Wyoming, August 24, 1881. His birth occurred while his parents were living on their ranch, but shortly afterward removal was made to Lusk and then to Douglas, where the son at- tended the public schools, and later was a student in the military school at Portland, Oregon. Several years before reaching his majority he began ranch- ing as a cowboy, spending his summers on the range and remaining at home during the winter months. His first employer after he arrived in Montana was United States Senator J. B. Kendrick, on whose ranch, the "OW," Mr. Rugg spent one year, and from that service he came to the Rose- bud and engaged in ranching for himself. He embarked in the business with a bunch of steers, and for a time extended his industry over the open range, but gradually the settlers have been coming in and curtailing the range until the stockman must needs look to his own lands for pasture. But with the diminishing of his stock range Mr. Rugg has dealt more extensively in better breeds of cattle,

handling the Herefords, headed by males from Ed Dana's White Faces of the "2ABar" at Parkman, Montana. During many years he has been a shipper to the Omaha market, and during the years in which he has been engaged in the industry his ranch has had the good fortune to produce stock without an epidemic of a serious character.

Mr. Rugg was unmarried when he settled in the valley of the Rosebud, and for several years he not only did his ranch work but also performed the work of the home. On the Ist of June, 1915, he married Miss 'Malinda Gravez, a daughter of Adolph Gravez, of Perry County, Indiana, where Mrs. Rugg was born. She came to Montana in I911 and engaged in teaching near Kirby, and it was there she first met Mr. Rugg. She sub- sequently taught two years at Kalispel before her marriage. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Rugg, Mary Josephine, three years of

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age, William Harold, a little lad of two, and Ella 'Marjorie, now one year old.

Mr. Rugg's connection with community affairs is well known, and for some years he was one of the school trustees of the Kirby district. He has also served as precinct chairman of the re- publican party, and while living in Rosebud County he was appointed a delegate to a county conven- tion at Forsyth. His fraternal relations connect him with St. Johns Lodge No. 92, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and with Algeria Shrine at Helena. He is also a member of the Elks fraternity at Sheridan, Wyoming, Lodge No. 520.

MARK I. DRAPER of Custer has known Montana for over thirty-five years, largely through the eyes and experience of a stockman and rancher. His arduous activities gave him the affluence which he now enjoys. His home is one of the historic spots in the Pease Bottom. While the achieve- ments of his life make an interesting record, it is possible to claim for Mrs. Draper many of the unusual experiences such as few living Montana women have enjoyed.

Mr. Draper was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 4, 1862, son of George W. and Mary (Ryan) Draper. His father was a native of Hagerstown, Maryland, while his mother was born in County Cork, Ire- land, and as a girl made the voyage across the Atlantic, being six weeks on a sailing vessel. She was married soon after she reached the United States at Baltimore. After their marriage in 1836 they left the old Draper home at Clear Spring, Maryland, and went to Walnut Hill near Cincin- nati, where all their children were born. George W. Draper was an Ohio farmer, but right after the close of the Civil war made another stage in his westward journey to Leavenworth, Kansas. No railroad had yet reached the Missouri River at Leavenworth, and the family traveled by steam- boat from Cincinnati. George W. Draper died at Leavenworth in 1900, being survived by his widow about two years. Of their eleven children nine grew to mature years, Mark being the youngest. Those still living are Kate, widow of Alexander Garden of Kansas City, Missouri; Lizzie, Mrs. D. T. Parker of Kansas City; Mrs. Etta M. Billings of Enid, Oklahoma; Annie D., wife of George C. Richardson of Kansas City; and Mark I.

Mark I. Draper acquired his early education in Leavenworth and soon after reaching his majority he embraced an opportunity to get into the cattle industry. From Leavenworth he went South to Texas, and at Albany in that state bought some 600 cattle, which he put with the holdings of the Ohio Cattle Company, and assisted in driving the entire herd of 3,000 head from Albany, Texas, up over the northern trails to Montana. This drive required about five months, and the stock was turned loose on the Musselshell River Sep- tember 4, 1884. Mr. Draper ranged these cattle on the open domain until 1892. During the first winter he built the first ranch house in what is now the Cat Creek oil field. His own livestock was run under the brand of "VD" and he shipped the surplus from Custer to Chicago markets.

On leaving the Musselshell he changed his loca- tion to Pease Bottom. The Draper ranch is located on the site of old Fort Pease. Mrs. Draper owned this site, originally 160 acres of railroad land which she had contracted for. When she and Mr. Draper married this became the ranch head- quarters. This historic tract is in Section 35, Town- ship 6 North, Range 34 East. Since then the

Drapers have acquired the entire Section 35, and also have hill lands embracing many hundreds of acres. The ranch became an agricultural proposi- tion as well as grazing ground, and besides cattle they have been in the sheep industry and have bred Percheron horses. From the business activities as well as the history associated with the spot the Draper ranch has become one of the noted places of the Bottom.

It was in this valley of the Yellowstone country that Major Pease and his associates started a colony in July, 1875. After a turbulent existence and after several of the members had been killed, the survivors were driven back into the Gallatin Valley. One of the number killed was Mr. Ed- wards, who was slain at the mouth of what is now Edward's Coulee where it enters the valley, while in company with Paul 'McCormick who succeeded in making his escape. A tablet appropriately inscribed and provided by the Montana Historical Society has been erected on the spot where he fell, and the same society has located an appropriate iron monument on the site of old Fort Pease, this monument being on the lawn of the Draper home.

Mr. Draper continued for twenty-three years in the active and strenuous work of stock ranching. In 1907 he sold the stock, rented the ranch, and with Mrs. Draper started to see something of the United States. They spent a year in Oregon, an- other year in the noted resorts of California, two winters in Kansas City, and after a brief stay in Florida went on to Cuba and for a year were at Camague. Returning to the United States they were in New Orleans, and soon afterward bought two plantations aggregating 825 acres near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Here they did farming on a large scale, growing oats, corn and hay and in- troduced oats into that section. This land was sold the following year and returning to Montana they have since been residents of Custer. In ad- dition to the Pease Bottom ranch they own two ranches near Custer, irrigated valley lands devoted to sugar beets, a new and coming crop of this region. Mr. Draper also helped organize and is a stockholder in the Custer State Bank.

Mr. Draper grew up in a democratic household, and has been a member of that party, though he cast his first presidential vote for Colonel Roosevelt in 1904. He was reared a Catholic and is a mem- ber of the Knights of Columbus.

Mr. Draper had been in Montana about eight years when on January 4, 1892, he married 'Mrs. Ida Woolfolk. She came into Montana in 1882, and is one of the few Montana women now living who had the experience of traveling by boat to different river points in the early '80s. Navigation of the Big Horn and Yellowstone was possible be- fore the advent of the railroads and the Missouri River was regarded as the great thoroughfare after the breakup of the ice in spring. The coming of mail and supplies up the Big Muddy was the great event of the year to those who depended upon this primitive means of transportation. Mrs. Draper went up that river as far as the head of navigation at Fort Benton, ascended the Big Horn to old Fort Custer and the Yellowstone to old Colson, now Billings, as a passenger on a little flat-bottomed craft that served the purpose of a steamboat.

She came to Montana as the wife of Capt. C. P. Woolfolk, a noted character and steamboat man on the Missouri, Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers. Mrs. Draper was born in Lewis County, Kentucky, March I, 1858, daughter of Charles and Uella (Drennan) Chunn. , Her father was a native of

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Virginia and her mother of Kentucky. The Chunn family left Kentucky on the first trip of the steamer James K. Turner up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, landing in Carroll County, Missouri. Her parents lived the rest of their lives at Carrollton where her mother died in 1872 and her father in 1914. Her father was a Missouri farmer but sub- sequently engaged in the drug business at Carroll- ton. He had been a merchant in Concord, Ohio, during the Civil war spending his last days at Carrollton, Missouri. Mrs. Draper was reared and educated at Carrollton, and married Captain Wool- folk there. Mrs. Draper has a sister, Mrs. Dean Loos, of Seattle, Washington, and her brother John D. died in St. Louis. Mrs. Draper by her first marriage has two children. Dora is the wife of D. T. Dunlop of Gotebo, Oklahoma, and is the mother of two children, Agnes and Mark. Early Draper, who took his stepfather's name, is a resi- dent of Custer, and by his marriage to Edna Wad- dell has four children, George, Mark, Gene and Berl.

FRANK A. MAXHAM. Among the settlers of the Rosebud community and the ranchmen of Big Horn County is prominently numbered Frank A. Maxham, who has spent many years of his life in Montana and has aided in its advancement and upbuilding. His ranch lies in the locality of Kirby, and although he has paid taxes in three counties he has never changed the place of his residence, the boundaries of the counties instead having changed. He ar- rived in Montana in April, 1884, and his first sum- mer here was spent on Tongue River, in the employ of a sheep man, James Sharp, and when his ranch was purchased by Peter Wylie Mr. Maxham re- mained on the place and continued in 'Mr. Wylie's employ. In 1885 he entered the Government service in the Cheyenne Reservation, having charge of the Indian beef cattle, but a year later, in 1886, he came up the Rosebud and secured his ranch, locat- ing upon the public domain, where he began his career as a ranchman and awaited the Government's pleasure to survey and open the land for settle- ment. He entered a quarter section and placed the first improvements on the land, and here he has spent the years which have since come and gone, and has become well known as a stockman. His place has the distinction of being the only ranch from the mouth of the Rosebud which has never changed ownership.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 215

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