Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 29

Author: Stout, Tom, 1879- ed
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 1144

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He married at Williston, North Dakota, May 24, 1910, Mrs. Ella M. Daly, a daughter of Loren and Matilda (Clark) Lynn. The father was born and reared and spent much of his active life in Steuben County, New York, later moving to Kala- mazoo, Michigan, where he finally passed away. He was by trade a stone cutter, and also followed car- pentering, and his life covered a period of sixty- seven years. His widow still survives and is living in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. She has attained the good old age of eighty-five years. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Lynn were: Barney Paris, of Schoolcraft, Michigan; Castello R., whose death oc- curred in that county; Mrs. Kelch, who was born in Steuben County, New York, September 11, 1862; and Frederick Herbert, whose home is in Corning City, New York. Mrs. Kelch has been twice mar- ried. Her first husband, whom she married in Michigan, was Franklin H. Daly, a second cousin of Marcus A. Daly, the Montana copper king. She continued her residence in Michigan until 1908. when she came to Sidney to take the position of housekeeper for a Sidney resident, and the first house she entered in the town is the one in which she now lives. By her first husband Mrs. Kelch has a daughter, Floy Estelle (Daly) Hunt, of Vickshurg. Michigan. Mrs. Hunt is the mother of two sons, Earl Cecil and Lynn Everhart. Mrs. Kelch has ex- ercised her right of franchise since the opportunity has been presented. She took an active and effective part in the preparation of the Red Cross supplies that were sent to the soldiers overseas, having knitted fifteen pairs of socks, fourteen pairs of tops for machines and toed twelve pairs of socks. She also identified herself actively with the prohibition and temperance movement, and was president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union when Rich- land County was voted dry. She is now the corres- ponding secretary of the district Women's Christian

Temperance Union. She is a Methodist in her re- ligious affiliations, and has several times served as president of the Ladies Aid Society of the church.

ALEXANDER WANDELL, a ranchman and farmer who became identified with Montana in the year 1889, brought with him to this community a good grade of draft horses and established his home and ranch at the mouth of Burns Creek. The country then was all open range and the settlers widely scat- tered, the nearest one to the Wandell Ranch being five miles away. Mr. Wandell made ready for his industry by erecting log headquarters and other buildings necessary for the proper conduct of his business, but at the close of three years at his loca- tion on Burns Creek he left there and moved to the head of Dunlap Creek, selling his improvements at the former location to his partner.

Mr. Wandell was the pioneer ranchman on Dun- lap Creek above its mouth, and there he repeated the experiences of his Burns Creek ranching by erecting necessary improvements, his original home being the proverbial log one, a building 14 by 30 feet, and the logs were hauled from the Yellowstone River, a distance of fifteen miles. In time a "leanto" was added to the original structure, and still later a screened porch in front added greatly to the ap- pearance and comfort of the home. This primitive dwelling served the Wandell family as their abode while they remained on the ranch, and in it their prosperities and adversities, their joys and sorrows, were borne for many years.

After reestablishing himself on Dunlap Creek Mr. Wandell engaged in the cattle business as well as that of breeding horses, and his stock brand was known as "A bar A." The horses from his ranch were first marketed in this western region of Mon- tana and North Dakota, but later they were sent to the eastern markets, as were also his cattle, where he secured a ready market.

Mr. Wandell did not bring his family to Mon- tana until the year 1896, and from that time until he abandoned the stock raising industry his land embraced all that he could fence, and when his fences were ordered down by the Government in 1912 he fenced railroad lands with a rental compen- sation. When he identified his interests with the community of Dunlap Creek it was not his inten- tion to enter land and prove title to it, but the rapidity with which the country became settled in later years forced him in self defense to file, in con- sequence of which he proved up a quarter section and felt himself secure from the encroachment of the oncoming tide of settlers. His experiences as a farmer began in 1908, when he sowed a crop of oats and harvested about thirty-five bushels to the acre on sod. The seed was sown on the 17th of May, and with the exception of a snow fall of two feet three days after he had sowed the seed no other moisture came during the growth and develop- ment of the crop. In 1909 a more propitious season was experienced, and in that year his oats made a yield of eighty bushels to the acre.

The region of Dunlap Creek is now a settled community, with roads and lanes running in every direction, and the country is being rapidly converted from a stock country to a mixed stock and farming community. In the early days of his residence here Mr. Wandell felt deeply the lack of school facilities. for the nearest schoolhouse was twelve miles dis- tant, the district running in another direction sixty miles and touching the Missouri River on the North west. But this difficulty was overcome in the Wan- dell home by placing a governess therein, while later their daughter was sent to the Glendive School

JOSEPH DEMARS

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

and still later she attended the South Bend, Indiana, High School. She completed her educational train- ing in the normal school at Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Mr. Wandell came to Montana from Delaware County, Iowa, his native state, his birth occurring in Clayton County April 21, 1857, and he grew up in that locality and received his educational training in its public schools. His father, Ephraim Wan- dell, had located in Iowa as early as 1854, securing a claim of the public lands in Clayton County, and there he passed the remainder of his life. In that time he accumulated and developed a large farm, and he followed both farming and stock raising. His political support was given to the republican party, and he was a Universalist in his religions affiliations. In Cattaraugus County, New York, Mr. Wandell was married to Miss Angeline Tracy, who was born in that locality, and she is now living in Delaware County, Iowa, at the age of eighty-seven years, surviving her husband, who passed away in 1909, when he had passed the age of eighty-four. Their children were seven in number, as follows: Phineas, of Edgewood, Iowa; Alexander, of Sid- ney; John, whose home is in Waterloo, Iowa; Will, of South Dakota; Timothy, whose home is in Port- land, Oregon; Ephraim, who died in Harvard, Illi- nois, without issue; and George, who is engaged in farming at Frankfort, South Dakota.

When Alexander Wandell reached the age of nineteen years he left the parental roof and began life for himself as a farm hand at the princely wage of $20 a month. As his experience and strength increased he was able to earn as high as $75 a month at this labor, and he continued at this labor for five years, turning his attention then to the butter business. He was the butter maker for creameries in Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin, and it was after twelve years as a butter maker that he started for the far West and began a new career in Montana.

In Delaware County, Iowa, July 3, 1888, Mr. Wan- dell was married to Miss Harriet Wells, who was born in Berrien County, Michigan, October 5, 1864, a daughter of Lewis and Sarah VanDerhoff Wells and a granddaughter of Henry and Abigail (Wil- liams) VanDerhoff, the former a native of Holland and the latter of Wales. Lewis Wells was born near Columbus, Ohio, in 1827, and his wife was born ten years later in Berrien County, Michigan, but they both died at Greeley, Iowa, to which state they had removed in 1866. They were farming people. In their family were eight children, and those sur- viving are: Jud, Will and Robert, all of whom live at Linton, South Dakota; Mrs. Wandell; Fannie, wife of Gay Miller, of Waterloo, Iowa; and a son, Frank, the oldest of the children, has been lost to the family for some time. It is believed he en- listed in the Spanish-American war, and his identity has been lost since that time. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Wandell is a daughter Helen, who is now employed as an accountant with a business firm in Sidney.

The Wandell family removed to Sidney in 1917 to retire and rest after so many years of strenuous life on the farm. But the country entered the World war in that spring, and Mrs. Wandell instead of putting aside heavy responsibilities and work en- tered actively into the work of the Red Cross and was a busy and efficient patriot in various depart- ments of the work of Sidney Chapter.

JOSEPH DEMARS. It is not given to every man to see develop under his own eyes and on what was his own land a bustling, modern city, with its thou- sands of activities, where once were only wide dis-

tances, cold rocks and silence, but this has been the experience of Joseph Demars, the real pioneer of Havre, Montana, where he now lives in comfortable and honorable retirement. Almost sixty years have passed since he first came to Montana, and the changes he has witnessed have been the great de- veloping agencies of modern times.

Joseph Demars was born in the French-Canadian Village of Trois Rivieres, Canada, August 24, 1847, the fourth child in a family of nine, five sons and four daughters, born to August and Mary Demars. Neither father nor mother lived into old age, the toil of developing a pioneer farm under conditions of much hardship being a burden the father laid down at the age of forty-five years, while the mother passed away at the age of thirty, leaving many little children. Joseph grew up sound and steady and gave his father assistance on the farm until he was nineteen years old, when he started out to seek his own fortune, which he believed would be best forwarded across the border in the United States. The great forests of Northern Wisconsin called for strong and willing workers, and it was in the lumber camps in Menominee and other settle- ments that he received his first start, from there going to the lumber regions of Minnesota in 1867-8.

In the spring of 1868 Mr. Demars returned to Canada for a visit with his people, but in the spring of 1869 returned to the United States and to Mon- tana Territory. For the next three years he fol- lowed freighting as a business, working between Fort Benton, Deer Lodge, Butte and other points, transporting goods with ox teams, afterward for about two years being in the same line in the Sun River country, where he worked also on the range with cattle. In those days no work was too hard, no prospect too discouraging for Mr. Demars to un- dertake. Under contract he completed some ditch- ing along Bell Creek, following which he entered the employ of the United States government at Fort Benton and engaged in teaming and hauling wood in the winter and cutting hay in the summer. In the meanwhile he secured unimproved government land, and during those early days, before he could make any improvements, many nights of cold and storm were spent by himself and wife wrapped in blankets on the ground.

Through hard work Mr. Demars managed to keep his land until the opportunity came to sell, and he first parted with forty-five acres to the Great North- ern Railway, and the shops of this road now are lo- cated on this land in the City of Havre. He also was once the owner of the land that now belongs to the Agricultural Society, on which the county fairs are held. Mr. Demars was the pioneer in sev- eral lines of business at Havre. He operated the first dray here, and in partnership with Zill Pepin started the first butchering business and conducted it for about seven years. Since first locating in this county he has been in the cattle business and has been exceedingly successful. Before he consented to retire he had been able to give each of his sons a ranch, and they were all partners in the cattle busi- ness, owning 4,500 acres. In 1918 the partners sold all their cattle except 400 head, Mr. Demars him- self having retired from active life in 1917.

In 1876 Mr. Demars was married to Mary Anne Sovia, who was born in Minnesota, and five children were born to them, namely: George, who is on the homestead after service overseas in the Great war, enlisting August 15, 1917, and receiving his honorable discharge in July, 1919; Laura, who resides with husband and children in Minnesota; and Henry, Albert and Fred, all of whom are on the home- stead. Mr. Demars and his sons are republicans in

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

their political life because they believe in the under- lying principles of that party, but Mr. Demars has never accepted any political office whatsoever. His good citizenship has always been unquestioned, and in many ways he has been most useful in civil life. He has seen wonderful things come to pass and has helped to forward movements that have crystallized in great railroad building, irrigating canals and establishing happy homes where once was desolation.

FRED D. SULLIVAN. One of the first names to be enrolled in the annals of the history of Montana is that of Sullivan, and from that early and forma- tive period to the present time the name has con- tinued to figure prominently in the industrial and political life of the state. Fred D. Sullivan is a native son of the commonwealth, born in the Mis- souri River Valley, about thirty miles east of Helena, January 11, 1877. His father, Dan Sullivan, was brought to Montana by his parents when a youth. He was a son of Michael Sullivan, who was born in Ireland and for some years after coming to the United States was a laborer in Wisconsin. He married Nora Sullivan, also from Erin's Isle, and together they left Wisconsin and crossed the plains by bull train to Montana, establishing their home at Virginia City when the gold excitement there was in its prime. Michael Sullivan engaged in min- ing there, but subsequently went into the Missouri River Valley and engaged in ranching near Town- send. He remained in that locality during the best years of his later life, and achieved his main success there. His wife died in Townsend, and he passed away at the home of a daughter in Shelby. In the family of Michael and Nora Sullivan were five children: Mrs. Maggie Hughes, who died at Shelby; Dan, mentioned in later paragraphs ; Michael, who died in Idaho; Mrs. John Murray, whose death occurred at Shelby; and Dennis, who died in Washington.

It was in the Missouri River Valley country that Dan Sullivan reached mature years and started out on his business career. He became a blacksmith, which he followed in connection with ranching, and he closed his active industrial career on a ranch. He entered land on the Marias River when that country was being settled, proved up a home, de- veloped a farm and became one of the largest stockmen of the locality, shipping both cattle and horses extensively. His horses ran under the brand "DS" on the right thigh and the brand for his cows was "GL" on the left side. His ranch limits are extensive, aggregating perhaps 8,000 acres, and to the Sullivan Ranch this well known pioneer gave the best years of his life and his rewards came to him early enough to enable him to retire before overtaken by the shadows of life. He is now living at Shelby, Montana, where he owns the Sullivan Hotel. Mrs. Sullivan was the first white woman on the Marias River, where they took up their abode as early as 1883.

The marriage of Dan and Jane (Ranev) Sullivan was blessed with a large family of children, includ- ing : Floury A., on a ranch in the Marias River country ; Fred D., the Richland County sheriff ; Annie, wife of Dick Crouch, of Conrad, Montana ; John, who disappeared some twenty years ago after serving in the Philippines during the war with Spain; Mike, of Shelby, Montana; Edward, whose home is in Seattle, Washington; Mary, who married Charley Simms, of Havre, Montana; Frances, who married Luther Dobbin, now deceased, and she has remarried ; Margarite, who married William Wil- kins and died near Cutbank in February, 1920; and

Bertha, who passed away in Portland, Oregon, with- out issue. Mrs. Sullivan, the mother of this family, was born in Wisconsin, a daughter of William Raney, a farmer and ranchman. Mrs. Sullivan came to Montana with her parents, making the journey by boat to Fort Benton, and en route she saw buf- falo swimming the Missouri as the boat moved to- ward its head waters. She was one of a numerous household of children, the other surviving members being Charley, of Helena; Fred, a ranchman of the Missoula country, and Mrs. Ida Carl, of Canada.

In his political affiliations Dan Sullivan is a staunch democrat, but no personal ambition for office has ever possessed him, although at all times he gives a loyal support to home institutions and to his country. His church, as well as that of his wife, is the Catholic, in the faith of which they were reared.

Fred D. Sullivan spent the early years of his life on his father's ranch, and became proficient in rid- ing and punching cows. The education which he received in his youth came from the country schools, and he remained with his father until he married, at the age of twenty-three. At that time he began ranching independently in his home community, and remained there until he left the region in 1902 and came to Poplar in Dawson County, here resuming his ranching pursuits. In time he gained a home- stead of a half section, although his grazing region was unlimited in extent, and his ranch home was a four-room log cabin, typical of the homes of the early settlers. This cabin continued to shelter him while he followed ranching.

Being one of the earliest settlers on the Red River and active as a cattle man, both for himself and for the Big Fourteen outfit, Mr. Sullivan be- came widely known throughout the region, and it is perhaps due in some measure to this fact that he ultimately became the sheriff of Richland County. 'Contrary to the practice of his father, he began voting as a republican, casting a presidential ballot for William Mckinley in 1900. He has the dictinc- tion of serving as the second sheriff of Richland County. He won his first election in 1916, defeat- ing his opponent by a large majority and leading the ticket, as he also did in his second election, hav- ing been returned to the office in 1918. He suc- ceeded William Artel, and his administration has been marked by the handling of some very important affairs. The apprehension of Raney Menu and John Shear, who murdered Charley Menu, hauled off his grain and marketed it, and then set fire to the barn and burned the body, is noted among his achievements. Gordon Folkstead, a famous horse- thief in Montana, was sought and captured several times before he was finally sentenced for his crime. He escaped from an under sheriff while on the train, but was recaptured by Sheriff Sullivan, who was obliged to shoot and wound the criminal before be- ing able to capture him. He is now serving his sen- tence in Deer Lodge.

At Great Falls, Montana, June 20, 1900, Mr. Sul- livan was married to Miss Theresa Hilger, who was born in Minnesota, January 11, 1883, a daughter of Charles and Mary (Dietrich) Hilger, pioneer farm- ers of Minnesota, and in whose family were a son and six daughters. Four children have been born to the union of Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, Freddie C., George, Joseph and Clara. Mr. Sullivan is a Blue Lodge Mason and holds his membership at Poplar. By virtue of his office he was made chairman of the Selective Service Board during the reecnt war ac- tivities. Mr. Sullivan is a Mason and both he and his wife are members of the Eastern Star.

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

JOHN J. CAREY is perhaps one of the best known men throughout all this region, in his life time a rancher, stockman, farmer, banker, public official, and, above all, a patriotic and loyal Montana citi- zen. He was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, March 22, 1866. He was a farmer's son, and the district schools gave him his limited educational training. He was orohaned at the age of four years by the death of his father, and he left his mother's roof at the age of sixteen.

The parents of Mr. Carey, John and Margaret (Sullivan) Carey, were born in Ireland, the mother in County Cork. They were married in the State of New York. After coming to the United States they located at Brasher Falls, St. Lawrence County, New York. Four children were born of their union, namely : Dennis, who resides at New Butler, Wis- consin; James, who was last heard from at Water- town, New York; John J., of this review, and Daniel J., who occupies the old Carey farm in St. Lawrence County, New York. The father of this family died in 1870, but the wife and mother survived until 1909, passing away at the age of seventy-nine. The father was but fifty-eight when death claimed him,

John J. Carey became a wage earner when yet a boy, receiving from $8 to. $20 a month, and he spent some time in the employ of the Northern Adiron- dack Railway Company, now a part of the New York Central system. This road passed through the Adirondack Mountains, and Mr. Carey was em- ployed in its bridge and building department. He was employed at this line of work just before he started for the great Northwest, and therefore arrived in Montana with a working knowledge of carpenter's tools.

Mr. Carey was a young man of twenty-six when he started on this westward journey, Butte heing his destination, and since that early year of 1892 Mon- tana has been his home and the scene of his activities. He soon cast anchor at the embryo City of Lewis- town, but after busying himself with house carpenter- ing there for about a year, he decided to engage in other work which might eventually lead him into the stock business and ranching. Accordingly' he sought out the Chinook country and became an employe on the sheep ranch of Ed Fogerty on the east side of the Bear Paw Mountains, the property being known as the Geyser Spring Ranch. After six years spent in that line of work, in the employ of different ranch- men of that region, Mr. Carey entered the sheep business for himself in 1899 on Peoples Creek in partnership with Paul McCann, and they remained together for two years. The region they covered was the one he knew while working for others, and they ranged along the Canadian border, sometimes also crossing it for a score of miles. After the part- nership was dissolved Mr. Carey established a camp of his own, still remaining in the Chinook coun- try. He took sheep on the shares and remained with his band throughout the entire year, winter and summer, until 1903, at which time his flock num- bered 1,600, and he then sold it, pocketed the pro- ceeds, and abandoned the region for the one in which he is now located. While in the Chinook country he also entered a homestead, and although he never utilized it after securing his patent it was there that he established his first permanent home in Montana, erecting there a log cabin. It was a single room, dirt roofed and floored, and it shel- tered its owner for about three years.

Coming then into the old County of Dawson, as the Sidney region was then known, Mr. Carey entered the employ of the Maine-Montana Ranch Company in the capacity of foreman, but he subse-

quently became interested in the project as an owner, and when he sold his interests there in 1908 he abandoned the stock business.

After this for a time Mr. Carey worked as a journeyman carpenter in the locality of Sidney and in time drifted into politics as an office holder. He served Dawson County as deputy assessor under the pioneer in that office, Charles F. Bean, and in that capacity he became familiar with the region of Richland County, so that at the time of its or- ganization it had a man already trained to assume its assessment work. Mr. Carey was elected to the position in the fall of 1914 as the successor of Marion Hofstott and as the democratic party can- didate. He was returned to the office in 1916, and thus supervised the work of county assessment for four years, listing in that time all the property of the county, both personal and real, and placing it before the public in such a manner as to be readily available as an authentic record. In order to ac- complish this work he kept among other books an ."Ownership Book" of real estate, which proved one of the greatest helps in the office. The total taxable value of property during the first assessment he made of Richland County was $4,130,000, while the county valuation for taxes in the fourth assessment he made was $9,991,000. Mr. Carey also made the race for the third term in 1918 against an opponent who had the endorsement of the Non-Partisan League, an endorsement which he was offered but declined, and he was defeated by less than a dozen votes, while the non-partisan majority in the county ran several hundred.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 29

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