Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 40

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 40

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

daughter Vera is a student in the Montana Wesleyan College at Helena, and Irene is in the Polson High School.

Mr. and Mrs. Gabb attend the Methodist Episcopal Church at Polson. He has been affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for forty years. His home has been in the Flathead Valley for four- teen years, and by hard work and good management he has made a success of his affairs and is esteemed as a good business man and a citizen whose support can be counted upon for every progressive movement. He has exhibited a high degree of physical and moral courage, and he deserves to rank among the trail blazers of the West.

JOHN WEIGHTMAN is one of the best known pioneers of the Flathead country of Montana. A veteran liveryman, former stage driver, his inter- ests through a long period of years have been in transportation, and he had handled a large volume of the traffic in and out of the Flathead country. Hundreds of prominent men have been numbered among his patrons, and have taken pleasure in ex- pressing for him the esteem and friendship he de- serves. Mr. Weightman has traveled from the At- lantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf to the Yukon, and it is his substantial verdict that no region he has visited contains so many qualities of charm as the Flathead country.

Mr. Weightman was born May 24, 1855, at Potts- ville, Pennsylvania, of English parents, a son of Wil- liam S. and Anne (Salmon) Weightman. His par- ents moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and lived in that eastern city until 1865. John Weightman ac- quired his early education at Bunker Hill. As a boy in Boston one day he saw some of the great celeb- rities of the world, including the Prince of Wales, Abraham Lincoln, Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt. In 1865 the Weightman family moved to Illi- nois, locating on the Buena Vista farm in McHenry County.

It was in 1877 that John Weightman started for the Northwest, having heard much of the country of Montana. He came to Beaverhead Valley, locating where the City of Dillon now stands. That was his home until 1890, when he moved to Demersville and engaged in the livery business. For ten years he operated a stage between Ravalli and Flathead Lake to the point now known as Polson. When the Town of Demersville was moved to Kalispell Mr. Weight- man went along and established and operated the first livery in Kalispell. Part of his old barn at De- mersville was moved to Kalispell. He has been in the business in the Flathead country for over thirty years.

At Dillon he married Miss Katie Barnard, a native of Box Elder County, Utah. Three daughters were born to their marriage: Mabel, wife of W. W. Bond, of New York, and mother of two children, Lucile and Evalon; Ida May, who is Mrs. F. W. Worden, of Ravalli, Montana, their family consisting of four children, Louise, Jane, Joe Dixon and Ruth; and Nina, Mrs. M. J. Salzman, of Ravalli, who has three children, Kathleen, Jack and Robert. The daughters were carefully educated at Kalispell, all being grad- uates of the high school and all were christened and reared in the Episcopal faith.

For thirty years Mr. Weightman has been op- erating the Star Route mail line, carrying the mails by special contract with the Government from Dil- lon to Bannock, from Demersville to Columbia Falls, and had the first mail contract between these points. He also operated a line between Galispell and Big Forks for eight years, between Belton and Lake McDonald eight years, and has handled most of the

mail since the National Glacier Park opened. He was the first licensed concessionaire to do business in the Glacier National Park.

Mr. Weightman is a charter member of the Elks, and a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, the Maccabees and the Masonic lodges. Politically he is a stanch republican, is a strenuous admirer of the career of Theodore Roosevelt, and among present day statesmen of the country enter- tains the highest opinion of Franklin K. Lane former secretary of the interior.

Mr. Weightman came to Montana without wealth or settled business position, and has found here all the opportunities his energy or enterprise craved. He has endeavored to do his part as a good citizen, and through his opportunities to meet personally thousands of travelers in the state has never neg- lected to present the resources and wonderful ad- vantages of Montana. The Weightman home has al- ways been noted for its hospitality, and Mr. and Mrs. Weightman have exemplified all the generosity associated with the typical old time Montana citizens. While a resident of Dillon Mr. Weightman was ap- pointed postmaster by President Garfield, his com- mission being signed by Garfield's successor, Chester A. Arthur. He cast his first vote for Hayes and Wheeler while at Elgin, Illinois, and his first vote in the territory of Montana was given to Maj. Mar- tin Maginnis. His last vote was cast for Hon. T. J. Walsh. Mr. Weightman served as a member of the school board of Kalispell, and has supported every movement that he thought would contribute to the development and prosperity of the community. While he was postmaster at Dillon a fire caused the total loss of his business, though he managed to save the mail. Before a regular express agent was appointed at Kalispell Mr. Weightman was the only man em- powered to open the safes on the express cars of the Great Northern at that point. In the course of years he estimates that he has transported in and out of the district between Belton and Lake McDon- ald more than 35,000 people.

In 1898 Mr. Weightman went to Alaska, taking 1,000 head of cattle to the Klondike. The stock, with 150 tons of baled hay and some material for building a railway, were loaded on the barge Skoo- kem at Seattle, and the tug Tacoma drew the barge to Pyramid Harbor. Mr. Weightman then herded his stock overland by the Dawson trail to the Upper Yukon, a distance of 610 miles. He left Seattle June I, 1898. On the way in he and a friend, Billy Lynch, floated down in a birch bark canoe from Fort Selkirk to Dawson, a distance of 200 miles, in two days. On this trip Mr. Weightman had a jersey cow, and sold her product in beer bottles for $5 a bottle to the Dawson Hospital. The steamer Klondike on Flathead Lake was named in honor of Mr. Weight- man's Alaska experience by his friend Mr. Hodge, the owner.

H. D. APGAR was one of the early homesteaders in Northern Flathead County, and has been a man of enterprise in developing the beautiful region around the National Glacier Park and Lake Mc- Donald, where his home is a dream of bean.y.

Mr. Apgar, whose name is found in the postoffice guide as representing Apgar Postoffice on Lake Mc- Donald, was born at Shakopee, Minnesota, a son of Milo B. and D. Jeanette Apgar. He was educated in the public schools of Minnesota, took up the drug business, and for a number of years followed it in Birmingham, Alabama. He came to the Glacier Park in Montana November I, 1895. His father had lo- cated a homestead on Lake McDonald in what is now Glacier Park in the spring of 1892, and H. D. Apgar

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proved upon it for his father's heirs, the father passing away in 1896.

In the early days all supplies were brought from Demersville by boat, constituting a trip of two weeks or more over forty or fifty miles.

October 1, 1901, at Kalispell, Mr. Apgar married Miss Jessie Cunningham. She was born in Arkansas, a daughter of H. J. and Atlanta Cunningham. They have three children: Helen, Jeanette and Milo D.

Mr. Apgar is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and Sons of Veterans, his father having been a brave and honored soldier of the Civil war. In politics he votes for the man and the principles rather than the party. Mr. Apgar is a member of the Apgar an- cestry that has been in America since Revolutionary times, and a number of his family have been soldiers.

Mrs. Apgar is the postmistress of Apgar Postoffice at Lake McDonald. Their beautiful home is on the shores of that lake and they maintain some attrac- tive accommodations for the annual flood of visitors to the National Park, having a number of log cabins which they rent to tourists. Mrs. Apgar as a young lady lived at Columbia Falls. She is a refined, Christian woman of pleasing personality.

HAROLD FLOWER, proprietor of the beautiful Fair- view Ranch at Hot Springs, is one of the typical ranchers of Montana and a man widely and favorably known. He was born in Derby, England, and is fifty-five years of age, a son of Capt. Joseph Daniel Flower, a Civil war veteran, and Elizabeth (Walker) Flower. But he left his native land when sixteen years of age and came to the United States, set- tling at Leavenworth, Kansas. Mr. Flower is a grad- uate of the Royal College of Preceptors, London, is an architect and civil engineer by profession, prac- ticing in Chicago until 1910, when he moved with his family into the Flathead Indian Reservation in Sanders County, homesteading 160 acres of land three miles from Hot Springs, later adding by purchase until they now have a very valuable and extensive ranch, forty acres of which is under irrigation. An attractive six-room bungalow, with its big porches, and other commodious buildings have been erected, good improvements have been made and there are no ranch homes in the valley more beautiful than theirs. The location of the ranch overlooking as it does the Little Bitter Root Valley and mountain peaks, naturally suggested the name it bears, "Fair- view."

Mr. Flower was married to Elizabeth Konklin, who was born in Kankakee, Illinois, a daughter of Henry Clay and Elizabeth Konklin, of Kentucky, the for- mer an editor. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Flower, namely : Walter, Virginia, June and Adrian, the three youngest of whom are students in the schools of Kalispell or Hot Springs.

A friend of education, Mr. Flower has done much to raise the standard of the schools and the school system in this neighborhood. For a number of years he has been a member of the school board of his district, three successive terms serving as chairman of the Board of Trustees. The beautiful school buildings at Lone Pine and Hot Springs were erected through his instrumentality. He was the architect, and he also planned and built the bath houses at Hot Springs. He is a staunch believer in progress and improvement, especially good roads, and, most im- portant, the proper education of the children, and that no investment can be made which will return better results. A man of education, high ideals and broad vision, he is able to look ahead and see the possibilities of this region, and works hard to awaken his neighbors to the importance of community build-

ing and development. He is a democrat, but a be- liever in principle and good men before politics or party. In all of his work he is seconded by his wife, a most highly educated and cultivated lady, who is very popular in the county, and is especially prom- inent in church and Christian service work. During the late war Mr. Flower was chairman of the Sanders County Liberty Loan Committee and Council of De- fense, which were accredited with honor and success through his efforts. He has been active in all mat- ters of interest for the welfare of the county and its people, a business man, farmer and true American.

SCOTT MARQUES. At present the country is exer- cised over the problem of providing proper employ- ment for the soldiers who have returned to this country from their service overseas during the great war or who have been discharged from the training camps where they were preparing to meet the enemy. Over fifty years ago the Government faced the same problem, and solved it by interesting the veterans of the war between the North and the South in agri- cultural pursuits. The man who passed through the necessary training, whether in camp or actual service required to develop him into a soldier, does not take kindly to a restricted indoor life upon his return from the front. He needs the outdoor life of the farmer or ranchman, and if the advice of the vet- erans of the other great war of the country is heeded the present problem will be solved as it was before. Some of the most prosperous of these veterans are those who have "made good" on western land, among them being Scott Marques of Camas.

Scott Marques was born in Switzerland, Indiana, a son of Sidney and Lydia Marques. Sidney+ Mar- ques was also a veteran of the war of the '6os, in which he was a brave and gallant soldier. Scott Marques enlisted from Cincinnati, Ohio, and was detailed after being mustered into the service to ,ambulance duty, in which he continued until the close of the war. After his discharge Mr. Marques went back to Ohio, and then to Illinois, where he met and was married to Mary Clark, born in Illinois, a daughter of John and Nancy Clark. Mr. and Mrs. Marques lived in Mason County, Illinois, for thirty years after their marriage, successfully engaged in farming, but in 1908, attracted by the opening up of land in Montana, came to the state and now own and operate a valuable ranch in the vicinity of Camas.

The ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Marques are as follows: Annetta, who is Mrs. Frank Wade, of Bloomington, Illinois, has five sons and one daugh- ter, namely, Grace, Clare, Francis, Sidney, Eugene and a young son; Robert, who married, is a cook and lives at Portland, Oregon; Sidney, who mar- ried Lettie Cox, is an undertaker and hardware merchant of Edgewood, Illinois; Ruth, who married Rollo Hoffmanf, a dairyman of Whitefish, Montana, has three children, Carlyn, Percy and Anna; Oscar, who is now at home with his parents, was in the service of his country for two years during the World war, and overseas for eighteen months; Eugene, who is also a veteran of the World war, served for eighteen months in France, and was dis- charged on May 19, 1919, at Fort Russell, Wyom- ing, and is now in the State of Washington; John, who lives at Elmo, Montana, married Ada Sparling and has five children, Evalyn, Leona, Gladys, Alton and a baby; Evalyn, who married Andrew Shultz, has two children, Harvey and Carrie; Andrew, who is married, lives at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has spent eight years in the marine service, and dur- ing the World war was in France and Germany ;

DR. AND MRS. E. E. JAMES

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and Harvey, who married Emma Wilson, lives at Denver, Colorado, and was in the marine service for four years.

In politics Mr. Marques is a strong republican. Out of the Marques family four sons enlisted under the flag their father fought to keep waving above a free people, and through her tears Mrs. Marques used to proudly view her service flag with its four stars, and she feels that she cannot be grateful enough that none of them turned to gold during that terrific combat.

EDWIN EVENS JAMES. One of the leading citizens and representative men of Cascade County for many years was the late Edwin E. James, whose fine ranch home is located about six miles southwest of Cas- cade, and where he died in 1916. His was an emi- nently active and useful life, but the limited space at the disposal of the biographer forbids more than a casual mention of the leading events in his career, which will suffice to show that earnest endeavor and honesty of purpose rightly applied and persistently followed will lead to unqualified success. He was a man of influence in local affairs, and was looked upon as a man thoroughly in sympathy with any movement looking toward the betterment or ad- vancement of the community.

Edwin Evens James was a native son of the old Keystone State, having been born in the City of Philadelphia, on April 9, 1851, and was the son of Charles S. and Mary (Evens) James, both of whom were also natives of Philadelphia. Of the seven children born to these parents, he was the third in order of birth. Charles S. James was an educator of acknowledged ability, having been a professor of mathematics in Bucknell University for many years. His wife dying in 1892, he then came West to visit his son, the subject of this sketch, and again in 1900 he came here to visit, and his death occurred here in June, 1901.

Edwin E. James secured his elementary education in the common schools of his native city, and then became a student in Bucknell University at Lewis- burg, Pennsylvania, where he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Subsequently his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Mas- ter of Arts. He then matriculated in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was graduated with the class of 1875. He first located for the active practice of his profession at Montandon in Central Pennsylvania, but later set- tled at Clinton, New Jersey, where he remained until 1880, when he went to Michigan. In the fall of 1882 Doctor James came to Chestnut Valley, Montana, and here was actively and successfully engaged in the practice until 1905, when he retired from the professional field. With a wise foresight Doctor James in 1882, on first coming to this valley, had pre-empted 120 acres of land, later, in 1885, took up a homestead, and here he engaged with considerable success in farming and stock raising for many years.

Doctor James passed through years of arduous toil and hardship during the early years after his loca- tion here. A western man in the broad sense of the term, although a native of the East, he realized the wants of the people, and with a strong hand and an active brain supplied the demand generously and unsparingly. His life was an open book, known and read by his many friends, who found therein no blank or soiled pages and nothing to offend, for Doctor James always endeavored to measure his life by strict principles of rectitude. He ranked high among the medical men of his day and was in

every respect a most commendable example of the successful, self-made man and unselfish, virile and helpful pioneer. Doctor James died at his home in Chestnut Valley on the Ist day of April, 1916, Mrs. James died April 9, 1920.

Edwin E. James was married on December 29, 1875, to Mary Frances Ingham, the daughter of Thomas and Martha Ann (Smith) Ingham. The father was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1818, and died in 1906, while his wife was born in Wil- liamstown, Massachusetts, in 1817, and died in 1891. Thomas Ingham was a carpenter by trade, but later became a manufacturer of hay rakes at Sandisfield, Massachusetts. Eventually he became a building contractor, which line he followed until seventy years old, when he retired. He was a member of the Baptist Church, was a strong abolitionist and was aligned with the republican party.

To Doctor and Mrs. James were born six chil- dren, namely: Charles S. who married Lulu Wyatt, and they live in San Francisco, California; Thomas James married Eva Nolan, and they have four chil- dren ; Anna Belle, who completed her education in the School of Domestic Science at Boston, Massa- chusetts, enlisted in the active service of the Red Cross in the spring of 1917 and in October of that year she was sent to Camp Sherman at Chillicothe, Ohio, where she spent one year, was then transferred to Brest, France, and later to Kirknon Hospital, where she remained as dietitian until August 3, 1919; John Sexton, who graduated in 1909 from the civil engineering department of the Montana State College at Bozeman, lives in Cascade, and married Edith Burke, and they have two children; Lucius died at the age of eight years; George M., who had completed his studies in the Great Falls High School. enlisted in December, 1917, at Great Falls in the Field Artillery. He was trained in the camp at Douglas, Arizona, and was assigned to the Tenth Regiment of Artillery, Third Division. He was ordered oversea and landed at Bordeaux, France. He participated in the skirmishes and battles inci- dent to the great Argonne drive, and was also in the San Mihiel drive and at Soissons, the second battle of the Marne, and other engagements. Be- cause of sickness he was finally sent to a hospital, and from there was sent home, arriving at New York on December 10, 1918. After remaining in a hospital there for a time he was transferred to a hospital at Lakewood, New Jersey, where he re- mained until his recovery, and was finally discharged in February, 1919.

Doctor James took a deep interest in the com- munity life about him and was a generous supporter of all good works. Along the line of professional interest he was one of the earliest local members of the Montana State Medical Society. Fraternally he was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was a Baptist in religious belief, while his political relations were with the republican party, though in local elections he invariably voted for the best men for office regardless of party lines. Such. in brief, is the record of a man who honestly labored not only for his own individual advancement, but also for the improvement of the entire community, whose interests he ever had at heart.

J. P. HINCHILWOOD. No student of history or one who had the honor of knowing a veteran of the great war of our own country was at all surprised at the wonderful army of gallant young men Amer- ica was able to send to France during the World war. Bravery, gallantry and patriotism is the herit- age of Americans. This country has never asked for : demonstration of these virtues in either war

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or peace that it has not met with a prompt and ready response. The "boys in blue" set the standard aloft, and it was not allowed to fall, but was upheld by the "boys in khaki," who were proud to feel that they were following in the footsteps of their grand- fathers. One of the men of Sanders County who enjoys the distinction of having served in the Union army during the war between the North and South, and later having been equally useful as a civil en-

gineer connected with western surveys, is J. P. , hold affairs and gives the excellent gentleman a Hinchilwood.

The birth of J. P. Hinchilwood occurred in Ma- honing County, Ohio, September 16, 1840, and he is a son of Archibald and Margaret (O'Keefe) Hinchil- wood, the latter of whom died when J. P. Hinchil- wood was a child. He grew to maturity in his na- tive county, where he attended the public schools. The war clouds which had been gathering over his beloved country burst upon the land in 1861, and when just twenty-one J. P. Hinchilwood enlisted in the Union army as a member of Company D, Ninety- third Indiana Volunteer Infantry, under Captain Courvoisier, being at that time a resident of Indiana. At first his regiment was attached to the Thirteenth Corps, but was later transferred to the Sixteenth, and was sent to Memphis and thence down the Mis- sissippi River to Vicksburg. Mr. Hinchilwood took part in the Red River expedition, and was at Alex- andria when the famous dam was built which floated the war ships that had grounded and saved them for the Government. Returning to Memphis, his regiment met General Forest and was victorious. Once more the command returned to Memphis, and from there went out against General Price, after which a return was made as far north as St. Louis. On this last expedition Mr. Hinchilwood, to his re- gret, was not present, as he was confined in a hos- pital. The command then went to Nashville and met General Hood at Franklin, being commanded by General Thomas, and later engaged in the battle at Nashville, where Mr. Hinchilwood rejoined his regiment. General Hood was followed up the Ten- nessee River, until he escaped, and the Union troops returned to Eastport. As this was in the middle of winter no further operations were carried on by this division until spring, when the troops were ordered to Mobile, Alabama. Mr. Hinchilwood received his discharge at Memphis, Tennessee, August 12, 1865, and returned home. The veterans of that war en- dured hardships unknown to modern warfare. It is a recognized fact that many more died on account of lack of proper care and of disease than did on the battlefield. In those days prevention of disease was only in its infancy. Modern surgery was un- known. Operations were made without either anti- septic or remedial agent, and few wounds healed without a period of infection. The great swamps of the southland were teaming with malarial germs, and it is a wonder that any of the men sent from a bracing northern climate into them escaped death. It is safe to say that not one of the veterans of this war came out of the conflict untouched. Each one has carried with him in one form or another re- membrances of the days when he put all thought of self aside to offer upon the altar of his country a free-will sacrifice.

After returning to Indiana at the close of the war Mr. Hinchilwood decided to seek a broader field of endeavor, and came as far west as Minnesota, where for twenty-one years he was engaged as a civil and surveying engineer, principally in the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company as a member of its engineering corps, and as such came to Montana. Finding an opening that suited him at Plains, Mr. Hinchilwood left the railroad and became a resident

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 40

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