Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 26

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 26

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has been growing his own hogs and shipping a car- load each year, disposing of his animals at a year old and at a weight about 225 pounds. His preference is for the Duroc Jersey hogs.

The ranch and farm of Walter Kemmis has grown under his supervision and management from the original eighty acres purchased of the Diltz farm to three-quarter sections under the ditch and 1,000 acres of dry land, some of which he farms. Mr. Kemmis is connected with the ditch project of the Lower Yellowstone irrigation project, and almost his entire three-quarters are under cultivation, and re- spond to the waters of the Yellowstone. He became interested in the industry of grain growing in this region and with his brother became the proprietor of a threshing outfit in 1901 and for ten years was one of the leading threshermen, threshing in that time more than a half million bushels of grain.

Mr. Kemmis cast his first presidential vote in Montana for Benjamin Harrison in 1892. At Glen- dive in that same year he was a delegate to the Re- publican County Convention, and served on the plat- form committee, writing a portion of it himself. His conduct in this instance was such as to com- mend him to party leaders and he attended many republican conventions until that system was abol- ished by law. He was given the progressive repub- lican nomination for the General Assembly in 1912, received the highest vote given to the nine men run- ning, entered the Thirteenth Assembly, and served tinder Speaker McDonald of Kalispell. He was made a member of the judiciary, ways and means and roads committees, and succeeded in having passed a bill adjusting differences between old coun- ties and new with reference to assets in excess of liabilities. In 1914 he was defeated for the House as a candidate from Richland County, but was again elected in 1916 and served in the Fifteenth Assembly, under Speaker Judge O'Connor, a demo- crat. His committee assignment in that assembly was light, which gave him ample time to devote to legislation, and he was the author of the Accredited High School Law, under which thirty-three counties now operate. All new counties automatically come under this law. He was also the author of the Search and Seizure Act, a measure designed for the better enforcement of prohibition, and this became a law. In the extraordinary session of that year he was the author of the resolution ratifying the na- tional prohibition amendment, and offered at the pre- ceding regular session and secured the passage of a resolution for the relief of settlers of Northern Pacific Railroad lands in Richland County who had settled on the lands after their selection by the railroad company but had not been notified of such selection and had made improvements on the lands. He memoralized Congress to abandon the Yellow- stone and Missouri rivers as navigable streams within the State of Montana, the purpose of which was to permit the construction of wagon and rail- road bridges over the streams without the necessity of draw spans. He also secured the passage of a bill creating Richland County in 1913, but the gov- ernor vetoed it on the ground that the Legislature did not have the power to create counties, a ques- tion the Supreme Court subsequently passed upon favorably to the law. In his first session in the Legislature Mr. Kemmis cast a ballot for Thomas J. Walsh for United States senator, in compliance with a promise to be bound by the choice of the people in primary for that office.

He was elected presidential elector at the presi- dential preference primaries in 1920, receiving 26,- 879 votes. During one term he served as justice of the peace of his precinct, this having been dur-

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

ing the old Dawson County jurisdiction, and for a number of years he also filled the office of clerk of the Sidney School District. For some years he served as trustee of schools, was for an extended period a member of the Dawson County Free High School Board, and it was this school experience which caused him to introduce a bill in the Legisla- ture for accredited high schools as against the county free high school bill, under which eighteen counties of the state still operate.

At the home of his father in old Dawson County on the 16th of October, 1894, Mr. Kemmis was mar- ried to Miss Hannah E. Will, a daughter of William and Sarah (Colquhoun) Will, the father born at Wellington Square, Canada, and the mother in the locality of Niagara Falls. Mr. Will was drowned in the Missouri River at Ponca, Nebraska, and his wife died in Sidney in 1913. The children in the Will family were: Miss Annie, of Sidney; John, also of Sidney; Mrs. Kemmis, who was born at Fort Gratiot, Michigan, August 21, 1868, and William, whose home is at Jocko, Montana. Mr. Will, the father, moved from Michigan to South Dakota in 1887, locating in Faulk County. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Kemmis are: George W., of Sid- ney; Frank D., who is with the' Montana Cadillac Company of Missoula; Louis, engaged with his father in the stock business; Oscar W., whose home is in Lincoln, California, and Earl W., a lad yet in school.

Mr. Kemmis has given of his time and funds to the promotion of a good moral community and the building of a spiritual atmosphere in his home locality. He united with the Methodist Episcopal Church when a young man, and in 1892 was licensed to preach. A few years later, in 1902, he was or- dained a deacon of the church at Bozeman, and his ministerial work has been rather as a supply preacher. He has always been actively identified with Sabbath School work. He was chairman of the board of trustees in the construction of the first church erected in the Sidney community, and was chairman of the finance committee when the Sidney Hospital was taken over and became a Dea- coness Hospital, and still continues as one of the trustees of the institution, also a member of its executive committee. During two years Mr. Kem- mis was chairman for Richland County of the War Savings Stamp campaign and in many other ways he aided in war relief work.

Mr. Kemmis was one of the original members of the company which built the telephone system of Sidney and its outlying lines, and was made the president of the corporation. Later he also served as president of the Farmers Elevator Company of Sidney. Thus through many years he has borne many of the burdens and responsibilities of his home community, has been active and influential in pro- moting its growth and upbuilding, and to him was given the honor of naming Richland County.

JOHN G. BAIR, who was one of the early news- paper men of Montana, and long prominent as a lawyer at Choteau, died in the latter city December I, 1915.

Mr. Bair, who was a past grand master of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Montana, was born at Gerrardstown, West Virginia, Decembr 4, 1868. His paternal ancestors came out of Germany and settled in Pennsylvania in colonial days. John Griffith Bair was thirteen years old when his parents moved to Bedford, Indiana, where he grew up and spent most of his time until coming to Montana. By his own efforts he acquired a good literary education, and while teaching he studied law and was admitted to

the Indiana bar in 1886. He practiced in his home town of Bedford, but in the fall of 1889 came to Great Falls, Montana. He was connected with the Great Falls Leader, and in the interest of that newspaper made a trip through Northern Montana and became greatly impressed with the opportunities of Choteau. While visiting in the town he was offered the position of teacher of the public schools by the local board, and was the pioneer educator of Choteau. He was the head of the local schools for three years. Upon the creation of Teton County in 1893 he was elected first county superintendent of schools. At the end of two years he resigned that office to take up the practice of law. He had a large and important clientage over Northern Montana. For four years he also served as collector of cus- toms for the district of Montana and Idaho. For a number of years he was a member of the board of trustees of the Methodist Church at Choteau.

He was widely esteemed by his Masonic brethren and Masonry was a cardinal element of his char- acter. He took his first degrees in the order at Bed- ford, Indiana, became a charter member of the lodge at Choteau and served as its first senior war- den. He was worshipful master of the lodge three years, in 1897 was appointed junior grand deacon of the Grand Lodge, and in September, 1912, was chosen grand master, an office he filled during the following year. He was also affiliated with St. Paul Chapter No. 9 Royal Arch Masons; Black Eagle Commandery No. 8, Knights Templar, and a few days before his death had achieved the Scottish Rite degrees in the Helena Consistory. In 1906 he served as grand patron of the Grand Chapter of the Mon- tana Eastern Star, and he was also a Noble of Al- geria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena.

In 1886 Mr. Bair married Miss Mary Ramsey. Her people were among the older settlers of Helton- ville, Indiana. Mrs. Bair is still living at Choteau.

JEREMIAH SULLIVAN. The Montana pioneers of the '6os are rapidly diminishing hosts and of those that remain very few regard themselves in the class of active business men. After but fifty-five years of residence in Montana, Jeremiah Sullivan, the vet- eran hotel man of Fort Benton, passed to the home beyond November 11, 1919. For over forty years he was proprietor of the Choteau House of that city. He was a factor in the great drama marking the development and opening of the great West and few men possessed such interesting recollections of the old life of the Mississippi Valley and the Northwestern country as Mr. Sullivan.

He was born at Mills Street, County Cork, Ire- land, March 4, 1844, son of Jeremiah and Johanna (Clifford) Sullivan. While he came of an old Irish family, his parents were poor, and in order the better to. provide for their large family they immigrated to America in 1849, establishing a new home in Ontario, Canada. Both parents attained to old age, the father dying at the age of eighty-six and the mother at eighty-seven. Jeremiah was the fourth among twelve children, only one of whom is now living.

Jeremiah Sullivan had limited opportunity to at- tend school in Canada, and the numerous household duties gave him a serious sense of his responsibilities at an early age. About the time he left school he went to work in a country store at $6 a month and board. Later his wages rose to $10 a month. At the age of seventeen he went to Buffalo, New York, and for a time was employed as assistant cook on a government lighthouse tender, and subsequently worked on a steamer flying between Buffalo and Chi- cago. Mr. Sullivan had an interesting experience

Henry a miller and Wife

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

on the Mississippi River when that waterway was a principal artery of traffic. He became cook of one of the Mississippi River steamboats in 1862, and made a number of journeys up and down the river between St. Louis and New Orleans. Later returning to Canada, the winter of 1865 found him in Omaha, and on the 11th of March he shipped as steward on the steamer Benton bound for the Upper Missouri. The boat landed him at Cow Island, Mon- tana, and by ox team he journeyed on to Fort Ben- ton, reaching that pioneer outpost on the 24th of April. Attracted to the mines of Helena, he jour- neyed on by ox team, and his first camp was at the head of the present Broad Street in the capital, then only known as Dry Gulch. He did the strenuous work and enjoyed the vicissitudes of fortune that came to the prospector and miner of that day. In the spring of 1866 he started with a party of about forty-five men for the Wind River country, riding his saddle horse and leading a pack horse. He went on to the Yellowstone River, passed the present site of Bozeman, prospected in the Big Horn range, and subsequently, with a friend, crossed at the head of Clear Water Gulch on the south side of the moun- tain bound for Idaho Territory. They struck the trail between Virginia City and Salt Lake. Later Mr. Sullivan returned to Helena and in the fall of 1874 moved to Fort Shaw. He had long had an ambition to own and operate a first class hotel, and he first engaged in that business at Fort Shaw. Then, in November, 1879, he moved to Fort Benton and bought the old Choutean House, and for forty years maintained that as one of the best hotels in point of service in that section of Montana.

A more public spirited citizen than Jeremiah Sulli- van it would have been difficult to find. He was naturally interested in politics, but even more in the welfare of his community. He served as the third mayor of Fort Benton, from 1886 to 1888. In 1889 he was appointed collector of customs at Fort Benton, filling that office for four years. He was county commissioner of Chouteau County eight years, for twelve years was justice of the peace at Fort Benton, and in 1891 President Harrison ap- pointed him United States commissioner, and he filled the duties of that office for four years. He was a republican, and was an outstanding figure in his party in his section of the state. He served as county "chairman of the Central Committee. He was a Catholic, and was active in the orders of the Elks and Ancient Order of United Workmen, serv- ing as grand master of the latter for two years.

Above all the riches of his long and eventful ex- perience Mr. Sullivan placed his family and home. He was twice married. At Fort Benton in 1880 he married Mary Agnes Hoffman, daughter of Jacob Hoffman, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The seven children of this union were named Jeremiah J., Earl D. B., Harry G., John F., Eugene A., Nora and Mary Agnes. In 1900, at St. Paul, Mr. Sullivan married Miss Sophia Schubert, daughter of Frances Schubert. of Minnesota. They had one daughter, Johanna Veronica. All these children have been liberally educated.

HOWARD W. BATEMAN, M. D. A physician and surgeon, Doctor Bateman has proved his value and skill in several Montana communities. Besides a large general practice at Chotean he is a partner in a well equipped hospital which furnishes facilities greatly appreciated in Teton County. Doctor Bate- man was also a commissioned officer in the Medical Reserve Corps during the World war, and spent fully a year in France.

He was born on his grandfather's farm at Lexing-

ton, Minnesota, January 23, 1879. His father, George C. Bateman, was born in New York State, and at the age of six years accompanied his parents, Perry and Cornelia (Baker) Bateman, to Minnesota. Perry Bateman was a Minnesota pioneer, and served with a Minnesota regiment in the Union army during the Civil war. The rest of his life was devoted to farm- ing. He and his wife had four children, two sons and two daughters. George C. Bateman was edu- cated in the public schools of Minnesota, and for many years operated saw mills at Belle Plaine, Minnesota, and near Hayward, Wisconsin. He died in 1906, at the age of fifty-one. He was a republi- can in politics, a Methodist, and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. George C. Bateman married Mary J. Moore, who was born in Minnesota and is still living in her sixty-fourth year. Doctor Bateman was the second in a family of five children, three sons and two daughters.

His early training in the public schools of Min- nesota was supplemented by attendance at the State Normal at Mankato, and in 1907 he graduated from the Iowa University Medical College. In the same year Doctor Bateman began practice at August, Mon- tana, and in April, 1909, moved to Chotean. He is a partner in the Rhoads & Bateman Hospital.

As a young man Doctor Bateman served a year in Company M of the Fifteenth Minnesota Regi- ment, during the Spanish-American war. The first six months he was a private and the last six months a corporal. On April 7, 1917, he volunteered his services to the American Government and was com- missioned a first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps. ' He was assigned to duty with the Second Montana Regiment of Infantry, which became the One Hundred and Sixty-third United States Infan- try. He left this country December 14, 1917, landing in Liverpool on the 24th of December and arrived at La Havre, France, on the last day of the year. He was employed in general hospital work with the Forty-first Division, and was on duty until discharged on May 16. 1919. He was promoted to captain in March, 1918.

Doctor Bateman is a member of the Cascade County Medical Society, the Montana State and American Medical associations. He is affiliated with Chotean Lodge No. 44, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Choteau Chapter No. 25, Royal Arch Masons, and Bethany Commandery No. 19, Knights Templar. He is also an Odd Fellow and a member of the Methodist Church.

June 25, 1008, he married Miss Effie Helen Schultz, a native of Iowa.' They have two children, Howard William, Jr .. and Helen Lorene.

HENRY A. MILLER began an ' independent career in Montana in his youth, and from that early and formative period to the present time his interests have been associated with those of the growing com- monwealth. He started his westward journey from Geneseo, Illinois, in March. 1884, his railroad ticket hearing the destination of Helena, and from there to Chestnut Vallev he made the journey by stage and on foot. His financial condition at that time was at the lowest ebb, and for this reason he made the last stages of the journey on foot, and he arrived at Helena alone and friendless, a stranger in a strange country. Seeking work, he found it on a cattle ranch of the well known pioneer James Perkins, in whose employ he remained for six months. This was a new experience to the young lad. for back in his Illinois home he had been merely a farmer boy, but he continued on in the work at different places, practically in the same vallev, and he spent fifteen years in that region, going into it

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

at the age of fourteen and leaving it when twenty- nine. In that time he accumulated some cattle, and on leaving that region moved them to a spot further west.

When he came into Eastern Montana Mr. Miller located temporarily near Culbertson, where all was open country and he could chose his location at will. He leased Indian lands there that had been allotted to the Sioux, but a year later moved south of the Missouri River and settled on Charley Creek, the region in which he has since maintained his inter- ests. He finally homesteaded there, and his perma- nent as well as his pioneer improvements were built on his claim there. His first permanent home was constructed of logs brought from the Missouri River, and constituted a room eighteen by eighteen feet, covered with a dirt roof, this primitive struc- ture affording him shelter and a home for five years, until 1914, when it gave place to a modern bungalow of six rooms. There he kept bachelor's hall for a number of years, until he brought his bride to the home in 1918.

As a stockman Mr. Miller began running cattle under the brand (H-I) "Swinging H," and from this mark has designated both his cattle and horses from that early day until the present time. His early operations were confined to handling the common range cattle of Montana, but with the passing years he has improved with better breeding until his herd now constitutes a high grade of White Face ani- mals. His herd in the early stages of his career as a stockman numbered perhaps 150 head, but in time his brand covered vast numbers of his own cattle, and he also handled cattle for others, his stock rang- ing for 125 miles west and southwest. His market was in Chicago.

In the development of his ranch Mr. Miller has acquired title to about 3,500 acres, all fenced and cross-fenced, and his grass has been depended upon to bring his stock to maturity. The few ranchmen, five in number, within a radius of seventy- five miles, which constituted his neighbors when he located on Charley Creek, are all Montana people at the present time.

Mr. Miller came west to seek the broader ad- vantages which this open country presented. He had grown to immature youth in Henry County, Illinois, but was born in Geneseo of that state April 13, 1870, a son of Henry Miller, who was born in Sax- ony and came to the United States when a lad. His father settled in Henry County, Illinois, and he finally followed the tide of western migration and lived for many years near Ogalgala, Nebraska. He later took up his residence in Denver, Colorado,

where his death occurred in 1905, when he had reached the age of sixty-seven years. His wife, Adelia Baumgartner Miller, also born in Saxony, died during the childhood of her son, Henry. Of the five children born to those parents those living at the present time number two, George and Henry, the former living at Littleton, Colorado.

Henry A. Miller was reared under republican influences, and his first presidential vote was cast for Benjamin Harrison. Throughout all the inter- vening years he has remained true to the "Grand Old Party," has always cast his vote when it was possible to reach the polls, and in the early days of the West he was wont to ride horseback many miles to exercise his right of franchise. In the No- vember election of 1916 he was made a member of the Board of County Commissioners, succeeding in that office Commissioner E. O. Conkrite, and his colleagues on the board are Frank Hardy and Arthur White, of which board he is at this time chairman. Mr. Miller is also interested in Culbert-

son in a business way, for he is connected with the Citizens State Bank as a director, is a stockholder in the Farmers Store there, and also in the elevator and hotel. He became a member of the Masonic Order at Culbertson, still holding his Blue Lodge membership there, and he also belongs to the Con- sistory and Algeria Temple at Helena. He has membership in the Rainbow Lodge of Odd Fellows at Great Falls, and has also passed all the chairs in the subordinate lodge of Odd Fellowship. His membership in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is at Glendive.

In Sidney, December 12, 1918, Mr. Miller was married to Miss Belle Saxton, who came to Montana in 1910, and has been a resident of this state almost continuously since that year. She was born in Pierce County, Wisconsin, November 25, 1884, a daughter of John and Mary N. (Hayes) Saxton, the father born in County Cork, Ireland, and the mother in County Tipperary. They moved from New York City to Wisconsin, where they engaged in farming, .and Mr. Saxton died in that state in 1885 and his wife in 1893, leaving six sons and two daughters, of whom the following survive: John F., whose home is in Belleview, Idaho; Albert and Thomas R., both of whom reside in Tacoma, Washington; Herbert B., of Wallace, Idaho, and Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. Miller grew to womanhood in the home of her brother. She received a liberal educational training, for a time attending a convent, was next a high school student at Ellsworth, Wisconsin, and after her graduation there pursued a business course in Minneapolis and became a stenographer. She secured employment in a law office in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, and continued in this work practically until her marriage. At the time of her marriage she was in the employ of the county attorney of Sidney. One child. a daughter, Mary Helen Mil- ler, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Miller January 27, I920.

HON. THOMAS O. LARSON, of Choteau, is known all over the State of Montana for his splendid serv- ices as state senator. Some of the most progressive legislation enacted in recent years bears the impress of his name and influence. Mr. Larson has long been a factor in Northern Montana and until recently was one of the most extensive cattle ranchers and grain growers in Teton County.

He was born in Norway November 27, 1874, but has been an American since he was six years of age. His parents were Ole and Annie Larson, who came to America with their family in 1880 and were among the first settlers of Benton County, Minnesota. Ole Larson bought railway land and developed a farm from the virgin soil. He died in Minnesota in 1917, at the age of seventy-three. He was a respected member of the community and always voted as a republican. His widow is still living at the age of seventy-five. They had nine children, three born in Norway and six in the United States. Thomas is the second in the family, and four of the children are still living.

Thomas O. Larson acquired his early education in the public schools of Benton County, Minnesota, and lived on his father's farm to the age of four- teen. He earned his first money by driving cows out of town for pasturage. His wages were $8 a month, but after six months he quit hecause he was unable to collect $20 owing him. The following winter he worked in a lumber camp at $10 a month, and thus as a young man he had the discipline and train- ing in hard work which proved helpful in making his fortune in Montana. He spent several summers on his father's farm and also clerked in stores.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 26

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