Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 38

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

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

His first wife died at Canton in 1885, the mother of : Eric, of Seattle; Henry P .; and Martin, of Hemmet, California. Peter Lowe married for his second wife Helen Jordahl, and has six children by that union.

Henry P. Lowe was educated in the common schools at Canton, South Dakota, and at Sanborn, fowa. Most of his training from boyhood has been acquired on farms and livestock ranches. One of his early experiences was working on a stock farm in South Dakota where blooded horses were raised. In 1900 he went out to Washington, was a wage worker for a farmer near Davenport, spent the following year on two large ranches in the Harney Valley of Oregon, and was next at Sumter, Oregon, as stage driver to the mining camps in that vicinity.

When Mr. Lowe left Oregon and came to Montana he had no capital except the energy of his body and the dexterity of his hands. All the region around Culbertson in 1903 was a great livestock range, and only here and there did some improve- ment indicate the beginning of a change from nature's age-long sway. He came to this region primarily to get a home from the public lands as soon as they should be opened for settlement. How- ever, his first work was as a hand on the ranch of the late S. P. Mitchell north of Bainville, where he spent two years. He filed on a homestead in the locality of Culbertson, and while proving it up spent his spare time working for Mr. Mitchell.

For the past fifteen years Mr. Lowe has been dili- gently doing the work of development that makes the Mar Car Ranch a notable achievement. He began farming at an early date and was encouraged by the good crops and bountiful harvests of the early years. The ranch embraces 1,000 acres in a single body. It is improved and adorned with permanent and sub- stantial fixtures, including a group of barns, silos, residence of six rooms, laundry, bunkhouse, and other conveniences found on an ideal country place.

During the early years Mr. Lowe was satisfied with the fruits of the land itself. He began develop- ing improved livestock in 1913, buying some regis- tered males to run with his ordinary cattle breeds. By 1916 the ranch was cleared of all the mixed breeds and since then only pedigreed dams and males have been kept as the nucleus of the present numerous herd. A productive stage of the business was reached and the first advertised sale held at Williston, North Dakota, in 1918. Williston is the headquarters of the Missouri-Yellowstone Pure Bred Association, where all breeders of pure bred stock of whatever kind take their products for auction sale. The territory included in the association comprises the four northwest counties of North Dakota and the four northeast counties of Montana. At the initial sale in 1918 the Mar Car cattle averaged around $300 a head. The sale average of 1919 was $612.50 a head and the average price at the March sale in 1920 was $755 a head.

The Mar Car Ranch has placed exhibits of its cattle at the North Dakota State Fair at Grand Forks, the Interstate Fair at Fargo, the Montana State Fair at Helena, the Midland Empire Fair at Billings, and at numerous minor stock shows and fairs. These exhihits have called increasing atten- tion to the new and growing breeding farm in Roosevelt County. Reporting the exhibits at the Montana State Fair the Breeders Gazette commented upon the Mar Car Ranch cattle as among the best shown and bred in the Northwest.

Senator Lowe was one of the incorporators of the second farmers elevator built in Montana, its loca- tion being at the way-station of Lanark in Roosevelt County. For eight years he was chairman of its Board of Directors. In other ways he has been

deeply interested in solving the problems of direct marketing for farm and livestock products. In 1915 he organized the Farmers Mercantile Company of Culbertson, a corporation in which more than 100 farmers are stockholders. He served as its presi- dent until 1919, and is still on the board of directors. This is one of the highly successful co-operative con- cerns in Montana, and has fully met the expectations of the stockholders. The same could be said of the farmers elevator experiment, which has repaid more than ten times the original investment of its stock- holders. Mr. Lowe is also a vice president and director of the First National Bank of Bainville, and has other financial interests at different points in Northeastern Montana.

Senator Lowe is a republican by profession as well as by early training. He cast his first presidential vote for Major Mckinley. The demands of prac- tical business kept him out of politics so far as office holding was concerned until he was chosen a member of the Montana Senate in November, 1918. He succeeded Senator Fishbeck and became a mem- ber of the Sixteenth General Assembly. In the Senate he was chairman of the immigration com- mittee, a member of the dairy, the agriculture, public buildings, mileage and per diem committees. He was also on the commission appointed to investigate the high cost of living, was author of the bill which created the Twentieth Judicial District, over which Judge Comer presides, and also author of the bill changing the methods of selecting juries in the new county, and was joint author of the grain grading and warehouse law. His name appeared in the bill creating Roosevelt County as its first state senator.

Like other leading citizens Senator Lowe gave much of his time to war work, and served as chair- man of the seven in one drive for Sheridan County. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America.

December 27, 1909, at Minneapolis, he married Miss Edna Baer. She was born at Franklin, flli- nois, a daughter of Daniel and Margaret (Breugh) Baer, both of German ancestry. Her father has spent his life as a farmer and is living at Robins, Iowa. Mrs. Lowe was born March 27, 1886, was educated in public schools in Iowa and Kansas, and as a young woman followed the profession of seamstress and dressmaker. She was third in a family of four daughters and one son. Her brother Frank Baer is cashier of the First National Bank of Bainville, Montana. Senator and Mrs. Lowe have three daugh- ters, Marjorie, Caroline and Corinne.

HARRY M. SMITH came to Montana in 1909 and at once took an active and interested part in the mercantile affairs of Culbertson, where for several years past he has been manager of the Farmers Mer- cantile Company. Mr. Smith has spent his active lifetime, thirty-five years, in merchandising.

He was born near Bono in Lawrence County, Indiana, November 19, 1864, and is the only one of a large family of children to leave that state, where this branch of the Smith family has lived nearly a century. His grandfather, Christopher Smith, was a native of New York State, and went out to Indiana soon after it became a state, locating in the wooded region of Southern Indiana. He was a contractor and builder, and put up most of the early brick buildings of the locality. He also acquired Govern- ment land at the price of $1.25 an acre. Christopher Smith married Emily Fitzpatrick, and both were laid to rest in the Tolbert Cemetery in their old home locality.

Benjamin F. Smith, father of the Culbertson

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merchant, was born in Lawrence County in 1822, about six years after Indiana was admitted to the Union. He received his education in a pioneer Indiana school, a log cabin building with split logs for benches, heated by a fireplace, and wrote his copy with a goosequill pen. He spent his life within sound of the old school bell, and developed and farmed part of the tract of land which his father had taken up from the Government. He lived to be nearly ninety years of age, passing away in I911. In the old community where he grew up he married Jane Pat- terson, who was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1830, and died in 1909. They reared the following children: Laura, who became the wife of Calvin Hayes and lives at Saltillo, Indiana; Charles C. and Augustus F., of Saltillo; George R., who died at Mitchell, Indiana; Harry M .; Jennie G., wife of William McKnight, of Bedford, Indiana; Kate C., Mrs. Samuel Mills, of Linton, Indiana ; Della, wife of Alva Wesner, of Campbellsburg, Indiana; Edward E., of Saltillo; Emma, who is mar- ried and lives at Claysville, Indiana; Homer D., of Mitchell; and William T., of Rivervale, Indiana.

Harry M. Smith spent his childhood and youth on his father's farm, which was an extensive one. His father had cleared the timber from many of its acres, and the son participated in its varied work, plowing, cultivating, handling the grain crops and livestock. After the country schools he attended the Southern Indiana Normal School at Mitchell, taking a busi- ness course at the age of twenty. He then left the farm, and in 1886 became salesman and bookkeeper in the store of A. Guthrie & Company at Orleans, Indiana. He has always left a record of good serv- ice behind him and has a collection of letters com- mending his faithfulness and good service, beginning even with one from his teacher while he was in school. Mr. Smith came to Montana from Cando, North Dakota, where for five years he was clerk in the store of C. H. Olson.

On coming to Culbertson in 1909 he went to work for the old time firm of Tanner & Best Company, and was with that firm for five years. For the first few months he had charge of the books, after which Mrs. Smith became bookkeeper while her husband went on the floor as a salesman.

After five years he resigned and with others or- ganized the Farmers Mercantile Company, and has been manager from the beginning of that successful business. The company was incorporated, its first officers besides Mr. Smith being Henry P. Lowe, president, J. R. Buckley, vice president, and C. Carisch, who still continues as secretary and treas- urer. Jacob Bauer is now president of the company and C. C. May, vice president.

While an able business man and thoroughly devoted to his private affairs, Mr. Smith has always had a keen sense of his responsibility as a citizen and factor in the various communities where he has lived. For the past ten years he has served Cul- bertson as town clerk. He is one of the directors of the Culbertson Commercial Club, is treasurer of the Tri-County Stock Association and a stockholder in the New Evans Hotel Company. He grew up in a republican home, cast his first presidential vote for Benjamin Harrison in 1888 at Bedford, Indiana, and the only lapse in his regularity as a republican came in 1916, when he supported Mr. Wilson. He was reared a Methodist, united with the church after his marriage, and is a trustee and treasurer of the church at Culbertson. He is also a past noble grand of the Lodge of Odd Fellows. Mr. and Mrs. Smith had two sons in the great war and were diligent in the home activities, raising funds, while Mrs.

Smith was chairman of the first Red Cross Chapter organized in Eastern Montana.

At Bedford, Indiana, June 21, 1893, Mr. Smith married Olla Huston. She was born at Clarence, Missouri, July 31, 1872, only child of Samuel and Mrs. (Johnson) Huston, both of whom are now de- ceased. She had a public school education, took kindergarten training at LaPorte, Indiana, and was a primary teacher and doing duty in that capacity at Bedford when she met her husband. The chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Smith are: Franklin H., Richard D., Dorothy, a member of the class of 1920 in the Culbertson High School, and Paul, who died at the age of five years.

The sou Franklin H. was a student in Oberlin College in Ohio when the war came on, and volun- teered the day following the declaration of war against Germany. He became a sergeant in Battery A of the 135th Field Artillery, went to France with the American Expeditionary Forces, and saw some of the terrific fighting of the summer of 1918. He was in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, and con- tinued on duty until the signing of the armistice. Though not wounded, he suffered injury from over- exertion while helping to move the artillery, the horses of the battery having been killed, so that the men had to do the work of moving the heavy gun trucks. He was discharged from the hospital at Newport News, Virginia, and reached home in June, 1919. He is now associated with his father in business. Richard D., the other son, was a stu- dent in the University of Michigan when the war began, enlisted in the navy, was trained at Camp Upton, New York, later transferred to Portland, Oregon, and sailed through the Isthmus to New York, whence he went with a consigument of flour for Trieste, Austria. He was commissioned a lieu- tenant, and was on the ship Finland engaged in transport work during the rest of the war. He is still retained on reserve, and is now finishing his education, taking the electrical engineering course at the University of Michigan.

JOHN W. STAHL. One of the two firms that sold goods in the trading post days of Culbertson is the Tanner & Best Company, which began business there in 1903. One of the young clerks in the establish- ment at that time was John W. Stahl, a boy of sixteen. Mr. Stahl has been more or less continu- ously and actively identified with the enterprise ever since, and is now its manager.

He was born at Minneapolis July 23, 1887. His father, John William Stahl, was born in Lockport New York, of an old family of Stahls in the United States. He was a cooper by trade, was connected with the cooperage plant at Buffalo, New York, and as a young man removed to Minnesota. For a num- ber of years he was associated in business with the old commission house of B. Presley Company. He married Anna Kauffman, a native of Toronto, Can- ada. Her father, Frederick William Kauffman, was for many years, until his death, a Government archi- tect at Ottawa, Canada, and built practically all the old part of that city. He was a native of Germany. Anna Kauffman, one of the younger of five chil- dren, came to the United States when a young woman, was married in Minneapolis and subse- quently became the wife of George W. Tanner, one of the firm of Tanner & Best. She is now living at Culbertson.

John William Stahl attended school in Minneapolis, living there until he came to Culbertson in 1903. While working in the store he also attended high school, and after 1906 became a permanent factor in

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

the Tanner & Best Company. Later he left the business to join the army, but for about five years has been the active manager.

December 7, 1917, he entered the army as a volun- teer, was trained at Camp Meade, Maryland, and in September, 1918, was promoted to second lieutenant. He was assigned to duty at the Raritan Arsenal, and was ordered overseas but was stopped at port just before the armistice was signed. After that he was on duty at Washington, and was discharged there January 3, 1919. He then resumed his civil and business duties at Culbertson, and has been active in all patriotic movements, and especially in the formation of a post of the American Legion at Cul- bertson. He is a stockholder and director in the State Bank of Culbertson, and is also a partner with N. V. Wilson in the Wilson Drug Company.

Mr. Stahl, who is unmarried, is a republican, but in local affairs supports the man rather than the party. He is a past master of Trowel Lodge No. 67, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

FRANK S. REED could make a very strong claim to the veteran honors in the newspaper business of Eastern Montana. He is founder and proprietor of the Searchlight at Culbertson. Eighteen years ago he began casting the beams of the Searchlight over the sparsely settled region around Culbertson, which then was a mere hamlet, though the chief trading center of an immense area of public domain. That Mr. Reed had a great deal of courage and hardihood in establishing this pioneer paper is indicated by the fact that it was the only place of publication be- tween Williston and Glasgow and between Glendive and the Canadian line.

Mr. Reed was born at Decorah, Winneshiek County, Iowa, June 7, 1859. His father, Henry Reed, whose people were Virginians and early set- tlers of Southern Iowa, died at Decorah in 1868. when about thirty-four years of age. He followed the trade of barber. Henry Reed married Delilah Wertz, who was born in Ohio and died at Culbert- son, Montana, in 1912, at the age of eighty-two. They were the parents of the following children: William, who was a merchant and died at Culbert- son; Frank S .; Mrs. Lydia Eastwood, wife of the editor and proprietor of the Herald at Watertown, South Dakota; and Luella, a member of the Tingley Theosophical Society at Point Loma, California.

Frank S. Reed attended the public schools of Decorah, also an academy, and beginning at the age of seventeen taught a country school for two years. He learned the printer's trade in the office of the Decorah Journal. He has been identified with the northwestern country for nearly forty years. In 1882 he went to St. Paul, and for eight years was em- ployed in the job office of the Pioneer Press. The following five years he worked for the Minneapolis Journal as one of the force in the ad room. On leaving the printing industry Mr. Reed took up por- trait work for a few years, his wife being a pastel artist. He abandoned this to resume his trade as manager of the News and Times at Grafton, North Dakota, and subsequently moved to Lisbon, North Dakota, where the Searchlight was born by his enter- prise. The Searchlight is in its twenty-first year in 1920. After three years at Lisbon it was moved to Culbertson, and there continued under the same name but with a new volume number. It was the third paper in old Valley County, and was the only republican paper in the county in 1902. The Search- light began at Culbertson as a five column. quarto, and is now issued as a seven-column quarto. Its politics has always been republican, and it is a

paper devoted to the interests of Culbertson and Eastern Montana.

Mr. Reed is himself a sincere republican and has done his duty in the party since casting his first vote for James A. Garfield. He was a delegate at large to the Republican State Convention in Missoula. In the matter of county division he represented the interests of Culbertson for a county seat, favoring the division of Valley County when Sheridan was set off, and was equally an advocate of the creation of Roosevelt County out of Sheridan.

Mr. Reed is one of the public spirited men upon whom the community rely for the successive move- ments affecting the general welfare. He took part in the Culbertson ferry when it was promoted, was a stockholder in the New Evans Hotel and in the old Culbertson Creamery Company. He is an honorary member of the International Typographical Union, a member of the Montana Press Association and is affiliated with the Elks Lodge at Williston.

When Mr. Reed came to Culbertson only 100 people lived on the townsite, though the importance of the town was not to be measured by its population since it was the only trading point of importance in what is now Roosevelt and Sheridan counties. It was a stockman's town, all the surrounding lands being unsurveyed cattle range. It was under such conditions that the Searchlight began its existence. Some of the first important services rendered by the Searchlight was in a campaign of advertising, financed by the Culbertson and Big Muddy Immi- gration Association, Mr. Reed being author of the literature, and the circulars were printed in the Searchlight office. Through the Great Northern Railway Company these circulars were broadcasted over the east and south, asking for new settlers and describing the advantages of the region. A direct result of the work was the settlement at Dagmar and that of Dane Valley achieved in 1906, and since that date settlers have poured into the country until practically all the public lands have been entered and patents issued on a large part of it.

During the World war the Searchlight also car- ried the burden of advertising for patriotic causes, a service expected of all papers, and that was in- valuable to the Government, though no payment was received by publishers. The Red Cross work was similarly benefited through the columns of the Searchlight, and Mr. Reed had an active member- ship in that order.

In 1881, at Decorah, Iowa, Mr. Reed married Miss Mary E. Ball. Of their two children the only one now living is Isidora, wife of Sam J. Yager, of Tower City, North Dakota, and the mother of Philip and Priscilla Yager. At Culbertson November 15, 1908, Mr. Reed married Gertrude Westergard. She is of Danish ancestry and a native of Schleswig- Holstein. To their marriage were born two children, Thomas Frank and Gertrude Marguerite.

JOHN THOMPSON. For many years of a very busy life John Thompson, extensive farmer and ranch- man on Little Box Elder Creek, twenty-five miles south of Havre, followed railroading, and in that and other lines of activity became well acquainted with people and communities throughout his native Canada and also the northwest of the United States. Mr. Thompson is a self-made man, educated in the school of experience, and in following his interesting career one may somewhat understand the wide tol- erance and broad view that have made him so highly esteemed and so useful a citizen to his county.

John Thompson was born at Belleville, Ontario, Canada, April 3, 1866. He was the fifth born in a

John Thompson

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

family of eight children, six of whom are living. His parents were Henry and Annie (Dasey) Thomp- son, the latter of whom was born in Ontario and died in 1875. Henry Thompson's second marriage was to Mary O'Connor, and eight children were born to this union, six of whom are living. Henry Thompson was born at Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Ireland, and when sixteen years old he came to Canada, being landed from a sailing vessel at Quebec. From there he went to Montreal, where he learned the bakery trade and became expert in culinary matters, working afterward as a master baker and at one time was cook for a lumber camp in Michigan. He retired finally to West Toronto, and died there in 1812, when aged seventy- eight years. He belonged to the conservative party in politics, and was a faithful member of the Church of England.

Before the death of his mother John Thompson went to school at Belleville, where the family then lived, but there were many children in the home to be looked after and by the time he was twelve years old he left home without much protest and started to earn his own living. At that time and in that locality there were not many opportunities for a boy of twelve to find, unassisted, any very profitable work, but he knew that if he could gather enough bark along the Moira River he could sell it, and to that industry he applied himself. Before he had made much of a test as to the value of bark his uncle, David Andrews, came upon the scene and questioned John as to why he was not at school, and on learning that it was because the boy had determined to make his own living, 'offered him a job in his sawmill, by which he was certain to receive a wage of 50 cents a week and his board. Common sense has always been a factor in Mr. Thompson's makeup, and he accepted the offer until he made a better bargain with a local gardener, for whom he worked for some time. About this time he started to learn the tailor's trade, and when seventeen years old went to Toronto and completed his apprentice- ship and became a journeyman tailor by the time he was eighteen years old.

Mr. Thompson then became a member of the Sec- ond Battalion in the Queens Own Rifles, commanded by Colonel Miller. In July, 1885, after returning to Toronto, he went into the shops of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, then was a fireman on passenger trains until 1888, during the following year was in training with the Twelfth York Rangers, enlisting then with the Canadian Mounted Police and was stationed at several military points.

In 1889 Mr. Thompson came to Dupuyer, Montana. where his first business was herding sheep, after- ward for a time being employed at Great Falls in the waterworks in the old silver smelter, from there going back to railroading. He worked at first in the roundhouse of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Montana Railroad, then fired on engines between Great Falls and Minot, North Dakota, in 1891 transferring to Sand Point, becoming fireman on the railway con- struction work at first but later was switching. en- gineer in the yards at Spokane, Washington. In 1892 he was transferred to Glasgow, Montana, and continued a fireman on that line, and continued on engines in various capacities up to 1898. In the meanwhile, in 1893, he had embarked in the cattle business under the firm name of Redwing Thomp- son & Rehberg, in which he continued to be inter- ested until 1898, when the company was dissolved. In 1896 he filed on 160 acres in Chouteau County, Montana, on Little Box Elder Creek, in the Bear Paw Mountains. To his original filing he has added large tracts of land and now owns 2,500 acres, about

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 38

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