Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 51

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 51

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In November, 1908, Mr. Harper was elected clerk of the Eighth Judicial District, and by repeated elec- tion has been retained in that post of responsibility ever since.

He is a democrat in politics, and is affiliated with Euclid Lodge No. 58, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, Great Falls Chapter No. 9, Royal Archi Masons, Black Eagle Commandery No. 8, Knights Templar, Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena, and is also a member of Great Falls Lodge No. 214 of the Elks, while he and his wife are mem- bers of Olive Chapter No. ro of the Eastern Star.

December 6, 1910, Mr. Marper married Mary Isa- bell Mckinnon, a native of Manitoba, Canada. They had two sons, George, Jr., and John D. The latter died in 1918, at the age of twenty-two months.

JOHN E. MORAN for twenty years or more had a continuous record in public office or as a soldier. He is a veteran of the Philippine war. For the past five years he has been county clerk and re- corder for Cascade County.

Mr. Moran was born in Wyndham County, Ver- mont, August 23, 1856, a son of William and Nora (Brosnan) Moran. His father was born in County Kerry, Ireland, and his mother was a native of the same county, and they were married at Brattleboro, Vermont. They came to this country as young peo- ple by sailing ship, both landing at Boston. William Moran became a Vermont farmer, and spent his last days retired at Brattleboro, where he died in March, 1898, at the age of sixty-eight. His widow is still living. John E. was the second in a family of seven children, and two sons and two daughters are still living. His father was a democrat and a member of the Catholic Church.

John E. Moran had a farm rearing and training, and graduated from the Brattleboro High School in Vermont in 1874. He has had many varied ex- periences during the subsequent forty-five years. Un- til 1878 he was employed in the shoe business of his uncles, the Brosnan Brothers, at Chicago. He learned that business thoroughly, and when his uncles opened a branch store at Minneapolis he took charge as managing partner. In 1882 he engaged in the shoe business for himself, and in 1890 left Minne- apolis and came to Great Falls, Montana. Here he was first clerk for the Boston Store and later man- ager of the shoe department of that veteran mer- chant and banker Joseph Conrad. Mr. Moran's first introduction to public affairs was two years' service as a sergeant of the police department. He then served as deputy or under sheriff during the ad- ministration of Hamilton, Dwyer and Proctor as sheriff. Mr. Moran enlisted in April, 1898, for serv- ice in the Spanish-American war and was made cap- tain of Company A of the First Regiment of Volun- teers of Montana. This regiment was sent to the Philippines, and he landed at Cavite in the harbor of Manila on August 23, 1898. Later he was ap- pointed captain of Company L of the Thirty-seventh Regiment, United States Volunteers, and saw much arduous and dangerous service during the Philippine

insurrection. He was mustered out February 22, 1901, at the Presidio in San Francisco.

On returning to Great Falls, Mr. Moran was ap- pointed city clerk, filling that office two years, was chief clerk of the United States Reclamation Serv- ice at Fort Shaw four years, and in 19II was made deputy county clerk of Cascade County. Four years later, in 1914, he was elected county clerk and re- corder, and has been kept in that office by his loyal friends and supporters ever since.

Mr. Moran is a past departmental commander of the United Spanish War Veterans. He is a re- publican, is past exalted ruler of Great Falls Lodge No. 214 of the Elks, a past noble grand of Rainbow Lodge No. 28, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of Amer- ica and the Woodmen of the World.

FRED C. ANDRETTA, who was elected in November, 1918, county treasurer of Cascade County, has been a conspicuous figure in politics and public affairs at Great Falls for the past ten years.

Mr. Andretta is a young man and a native Mon- tanan, having been born at Butte, March 29, 1886, a son of Charles and Mary C. Andretta. His father was born at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1847, and his mother was born in Paris, France, September 8, 1856. She is still living. Charles Andretta came to America at the age of thirteen, and from New York drifted west to Nevada, finished his education in that state, and was a prospector and miner at Virginia City, Nevada. Later he engaged in the dairy industry, and in 1881 became one of the pio- neer dairymen in the City of Butte. In April, 1891, he settled on a ranch 41/2 miles south of Great Falls, continuing dairying, and there death overtook him in his labors on September 8, 1892. He was a re- publican in politics. He and his wife were married at Carson City, Nevada, in 1876, and had four chil- dren, three of whom are still living.

Fred C. Andretta, youngest of the family, acquired his early education in the public schools of Great Falls. At the age of eleven years he was partly supporting himself by selling newspapers. For a time he was agent for the Anaconda Standard, and later for about 11/2 years worked as a mail carrier. For about two years he was a salesman, and was then appointed deputy county clerk and recorder under Lee Deenis, county clerk and recorder. · In 1911 he became deputy clerk and recorder and in 1915 chief deputy county treasurer. Thus his ex- perience and abilities have brought him steady pro- motion at the court house at Great Falls, and he is now the chief and duly elected county treasurer.

Mr. Andretta is a republican and is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus. He married, September I, 1914, Mary Isabell Snyder. She was born at Kansas City, Kansas, a daughter of Winfield P. and Nancy (Whitehouse) Snyder, the fifth of their eight children, seven of whom are still living. Mrs. Andretta is a graduate with the class of 1911 from the Nurses' Training School at St. Patrick's Hos- pital in Butte.

JAMES P. BURNS, present sheriff of Cascade County, is a veteran railroader and has been con- nected with the Great Northern Railway, with home and headquarters at Great Falls, for over twenty- five years. He has also been interested in ranching. and is one of the most popular citizens of Cas- cade County, the best evidence of which is furnished in the fact that he was elected sheriff on the demo- cratic ticket in a nominally republican stronghold of Montana.

Mr. Burns was born on his father's farm in Iowa

le, a Montheur

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

County, Wisconsin, December 30, 1871, a son of James and Martha (Connars) Burns. His father was born in Ireland and died in September, 1918, at the age of eighty-two, while his mother is a native of Wisconsin and is still living. Sheriff Burns is the second in a family of four sons and four daughters. His father came to America when a young man by sailing ship, and was a pioneer set- tler in Iowa County, Wisconsin. That district was then new, raw and undeveloped, and he made a farm from the midst of the heavy timber and became widely known as a successful farmer and dairyman. He also was honored by his fellow citizens in local offices, serving as assessor for several terms. He was a loyal democrat and in religion a Catholic.

James P. Burns received his education in the pub- lic schools of Iowa County, Wisconsin, until he was seventeen. For several years after that he operated a threshing outfit, but in 1893 moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and entered the train service of the Chi- cago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroad. He came to Great Falls, Montana, in July, 1895, and entered the employ of the Great Northern Railway, and for fifteen years prior to the beginning of his duties as sheriff he was a railway passenger con- ductor for that road. He is a member of the Order of Railway Conductors and has held that affiliation for twenty years.

Mr. Burns was elected sheriff on November 5, 1918. He is affiliated with Great Falls Lodge No. 214, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. For a number of years he owned a ranch of 480 acres in the Judith Basin, and made it a grain farm. He sold this ranch in December, 1917.

CHARLES A. MATTHEWS. One of the most widely known and honored of Montana's early settlers is C. A. Matthews of Whitefish, Flathead County, who came to this favored region more than three decades ago and has lived here continuously. since. He early had the sagacity and prescience to discern the em- inence which the future had in store for this great section of the Treasure state, and, acting in accord- ance with the dictates of faith and judgment, he has reaped in the fullness of time the generous benefits which are the just recompense of indom- itable industry, spotless integrity and splendid en- terprise. Few men of the county have played a bet- ter or more noticeable role in the general progress of that locality than he, for while laboring for his individual advancement he never shrank from his larger duties to the community, and he today enjoys the good will and hearty esteem of all who have come in contact with him.

C. A. Matthews is a native of Ontario, Canada, and the son of Thomas N. and Eliza (Ayers) Mat- thews. He was reared under the parental roof and secured a good practical education in the schools of his home community. In 1875 Mr. Matthews came to the United States and located in Michigan, where he was engaged in the mercantile business for eleven years. In 1886 he came to Montana, locating in Marysville, where he was employed as a clerk in a mercantile establishment. Lured by the excitement of the wonderful gold discoveries, he went to Dirt Lincoln Gulch in Lewis and Clark County, where he engaged in the mercantile business. Eventually, how- ever, Mr. Matthews sought a promising location for a permanent location and came to the Flathead Val- ley, settling on the Whitefish River, where the City of Whitefish now stands, but which at that time had only been located. He has thus been a witness of the splendid growth which has characterized this sec- tion and has done his full share in pushing forward the wheels of progress. Today Whitefish is a beau-

tiful town, with attractive bungalow homes and sub- stantial building blocks, the general appearance of the place indicating the inhabitants to be people of good taste and municipal enterprise. Indeed, some have enthusiastically called this section of Montana the Switzerland of America, so enchantingly beau- tiful is the scenery. During the sixteen years Mr. Matthews has been in business in Whitefish he has been successful to an eminent degree, being now the leading merchant in his line in the town. He carries a large and well-selected stock of books, stationery, novelties and toys, and during the season serves ice cream and soft drinks. His courteous and prompt service and the high quality of goods carried by him have helped to attract to his store a large and rep- resentative patronage.

Mr. Matthews was married to Frances L. Soper, a native of Ontario, Canada, and the daughter of George T. and Martha L. Soper. To Mr. and Mrs. Matthews has been born one child, Clare, who is now the wife of George H. Blume, engaged in the oil fields of California. Mrs. Blume received a good education in the schools of this state, having grad- uated from the high school at Helena. She is the mother of three children, Doris, Gladys and Gordon H. Mr. Matthews possesses a very unusual and valuable photograph, containing the portraits of five generations of his family.

Politically Mr. Matthews gives his support to the republican party and has taken an active part in its interest. He has never sought public office, his only public tenure being as a member of the election board at the time Montana was admitted to the Union as a state and as a member of the school board, in which capacity he rendered effective and appreciated service on behalf of education. Every phase of civic life that has promised to be of benefit to the people has received the hearty support of Mr. Matthews. Fraternally he is a member of the An- cient Free and Accepted Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews are members of the Pres- byterian Church, to which they give generous support. Mr. Matthews is proud of Whitefish and loses no opportunity of advertising to outsiders the beauties and advantages of the locality. To this end he is active in pushing the Booster Club of Whitefish, an enterprise which promises to be of material advan- tage to the town. One of the projects which is now being agitated and which is approved by practically every one is the boulevard from Whitefish, along the lake, to the town of Eureka, where it will connect with the great state highway. Through the years of his residence in this locality Mr. Matthews has been true to every trust reposed in him, whether of a public or private nature, and his reputation in a business way is unassailable. His sterling traits of character have commanded uniform confidence and regard and he is rightly numbered among the rep- resentative men of his community.

RANSOM COOPER, who began the practice of law at Great Falls in 1890, has by thirty years of con- tinuous service earned the right to rank among the leading lawyers of the state, a position which is his by the unqualified opinion and judgment of his con- temporaries.

Mr. Cooper was born in Skiawassec County, Michi- gan, in March, 1857. His parents, Andrew H. and Sarah (McGilvey) Cooper, were natives of New York State, and his father died at the age of fifty- six and his mother at fifty-seven. His father spent his active career as a flour miller in New York and Michigan.

Ransom Cooper was the youngest of seven chil-

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

dren, five of whom are still living. He was edu- cated in the public schools of Michigan, attended the University of Michigan and studied law in a private office. He was admitted to the bar in his native state in 1880, and practiced law there until 1890, when he moved to Great Falls, Montana. He carried on his general practice alone until I911, when he became associated with Sam Stephenson under the name of Cooper and Stephenson. Mr. Cooper was for six years prosecuting attorney of Osceola County, Michigan, and in 1892 he declined the republican nomination for attorney general of Montana. Politics has had little attraction for him and he has preferred the steady and uninterrupted devotion to his accumulating business as a lawyer. He has served as school trustee at Great Falls, is a member of the state and county bar associa- tions and also of the American Bar Association.

Mr. Cooper has a fine family. December 31, 1879, he married Lillian Colgrove, a native of Pennsyl- vania. Their five children are Edith B., Ransom, Jr., Mathew H., Irving C. and Philip. Edith is the wife of William L. Dethloff. Mathew married Florence Southmayd. Ransom, Jr., 'early in the war with Germany enlisted at Syracuse, New York, was trained as an aviator at San Antonio, Atlanta, Geor- gia, at the Wright Field in Ohio, was commissioned second lieutenant, and saw several months of ac- tive service in France. He received his honorable discharge at Camp Mills, New York. The son Irv- ing also was a soldier, first enlisting in the Ambu- lance Corps in July, 1917. In March, 1918, he en- listed in the Engineers Corps and was discharged at Camp Dix, New Jersey, April 23, 1919.

NEWTON T. LEASE in point of continuous service is one of the oldest contractors in Montana. He has been in that line of business with headquarters at Great Falls for over thirty years. Much of his work has been on public buildings in the state of Montana, and he is head of a firm with ample re- sources and with the experience and skill and equip- ment that insure faithful and thorough performance of every contract entered.

Mr. Lease, whose name belongs among the ter- ritorial settlers of Montana, was born at Forest City in Holt County, Missouri, August 7, 1865. His birthplace was a log cabin. He was the fifth in a family of nine children, seven sons and two daugh- ters, born to Tobias S. and Mary J. (Poe) Lease. Five sons and one daughter of the family are still living. Tobias Lease was born near Romney in Hampshire County, Virginia, now West Virginia, February 19, 1829. He was a small child when his parents moved from Virginia to Ohio. At the age of nineteen, in 1848, he went to the edge of vestern settlement in Missouri, locating in Holt County. He became a farmer there and conducted his farm until the outbreak of the Civil war. Though a Virginian by birth he was a stanch Union man and he enlisted in Company F of the Thirty- third Regiment of Missouri Volunteers for a three years' term. After serving out his first term he re-enlisted in the same company and regiment. He was in the army of General Thomas at the battle of Nashville on November 16, 1864, and during that engagement received a severe wound in the left leg from a fragment of shell. He was taken to a hos- pital, and in May, 1865, received an honorable dis- charge. The rest of his life he was a cripple, but showed a great deal of skill and efficiency in the handling of the affairs of his farm. He died on the old homestead in Holt County, December 28, 1898. In politics he was a stanch republican. His widow, now eighty-five years of age and a resident

of Forest City, Missouri, was born at Lancashire in Garrard County, Kentucky, May 8, 1834.

Newton T. Lease spent his boyhood on the old Missouri farm. He helped in the fields, attended school in winter time, and earned his first regular wage by working as a farm hand in Holt County, Missouri, at 50 cents a day. Not long afterward he accepted an opportunity to learn telegraphy in the office of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railway. In February, 1886, at the age of twenty, Mr. Lease came to Montana. A stage brought him to the Town of Sun River, and thence he proceeded on foot to Chestnut Valley and from there to Great Falls. For a time he worked in a general merchandise store in the Chestnut Valley, performing every labor required of him from porter to salesman. In the spring of 1886 he joined a rail- way surveying party, doing work for the Montana Central Railway toward Great Falls. After con- struction began he was employed by the engineer- ing department of the road, and continued in that way during the winter of 1886-87. In June, 1887, he left engineering work and became a practical carpenter, and not long afterward was taking con- tracts. The firm for many years has been Lease and Richards. As contractors for the Government they have built the barracks and the barns at Mammoth Hot Springs. They have also built a number of courthouses in Montana and in North Dakota, in- cluding those of Cascade County, Teton County, Blaine County and Williston and Williams counties, North Dakota. They have also erected many school- houses and other public as well as many private structures.

Mr. Lease served as a member of the Montana National Guard from 1891 to 1894. In April, 1913, he was elected mayor of Great Falls. He gave the city a splendid administration for one term. In 1918 he was appointed a member of the State Coun- cil of Defense by Governor Stewart, while in 1919 he became a member of the State Efficiency and Trade Commission. He is one of the broad minded business men who are doing much to help the people of the state to adjust themselves to the new conditions following the World war. He is a mem- ber of the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce, Euclid Lodge No. 58, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Great Falls Consistory of the Scottish Rite and Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of Great Falls Lodge No. 214 of the Elks. In politics he is a republican.

July 20, 1892, Mr. Lease married Miss Nettie C. Stites. She was born at Pleasanton in Linn County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Lease are the parents of nine children : Esther Marie, Jessie F., Helen E., Howard S., Ruth Nettie, Alice Gertrude, Thomas S., Mar- garet Josephine and Rachel Dorothy. All are still living except Esther, who died at the age of twelve years.

JOHN CHARLES MAHER, who is district traffic agent at Butte for the Great Northern Railway, gained his early experience in railroading in his native city of St. Paul, and has been continuously active in the service of the Great Northern from boyhood to the present time.

Mr. Maher was born at St. Paul April 4, 1877, and his father, the late John F. Maher, was also a Great Northern employee for many years. His grand- father, Timothy Maher, was born in County Tip- perary, Ireland, in 1805, and lived to the remarkable age of 102 years. He came to America in early life, lived in Canada, and subsequently was a pioneer homesteader near Lansing, Iowa, and developed a fine farm in that state. He died near Lansing in

Robert & Ball

837

HISTORY OF MONTANA

1907. His two sons were James and John F. James was a business man and died at St. Paul in 1904. John F. Maher was born at Montreal, Canada, in 1849, and was reared and educated in Iowa. During his early manhood he removed to St. Paul, where he was married and where for many years he was in the operating department of the Great Northern Railway. He died at St. Paul in 1909. He was a Catholic and a democrat. His wife was Margaret Horrigan, who was born in St. Paul in 1857 and died there in 1882. She was the mother of four children : Ella, unmarried, and living at St. Paul ; John Charles; T. J., clerk of the District Court at Spokane, Washington; and D. H., who is in the postal service at St. Paul.

John Charles Maher was educated in the public schools of St. Paul, graduating from high school in 1895. After that he was a student in St. John's University through his sophomore year, and left college to become office boy at St. Paul for the Great Northern Railway. During more than twenty years of service Mr. Maher has won many promo- tions. From office boy he became rate clerk in the same department, and in 1901 left St. Paul and be- came contracting freight agent for the Great North- ern at Spokane. Later he was promoted to traveling freight agent, and since July, 1918, has been at Butte as district traffic agent. His offices are in the Daly Bank Building.

Mr. Maher is a democrat, a member of the Cath- olic Church and is affiliated with Spokane Lodge No. 228 of the Elks. His home is at 838 West Silver Street. Mr. Maher married at Spokane in Novem- ber, 1914, Miss Mildred Simmons, daughter of John W. and Martha (Lyman) Simmons, the latter now deceased. Her father is a fruit grower and or- chardist at . Greenacres, Washington. Mrs. Maher is a graduate of the high school of Sauk Center, Minnesota. They have one son, John Robert, born October 18, 1919.

GEORGE C. THOMSON. The recognized prestige of George C. Thomson as the leading photographer of the State of Montana is due not alone to his con- tinuous activity in that profession in this state for over thirty years, but also to the thoroughly artistic talent at the basis of his work. He is a prominent resident of Butte, member of the Rotary Club, and is representative of an old and prominent Scotch family.

George Carr Thomson was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, December 19, 1869. There is authentic record of the family in Scotland for many genera- tions. His great-grandfather, Alexander Thomson, was a farmer at Haughhead, Lumphanan, while the grandfather, Alexander, also spent his life in agri- culture at Lumphanan. Alexander Thomson, father of the Butte photographer, was born at Lumphanan in 1822, and lived out his active life on a farm near Aberdeen, where he died in 1915. He was a liberal in politics and a very devout Presbyterian. He married Agnes Thomson, of an unrelated branch of the Thomson clan. She was born at Wicker Inn, Banchory in Aberdeenshire, in 1836, and is still living at Aberdeen. Her people have been proprie- tors of the old Wicker Inn for more than a cen- tury. George Carr Thomson was second in a family of four children. His brother James is proprietor of the Grand Central Hotel at White Sulphur Springs, Montana, and has been the genial host of that establishment for over thirty years. The two daughters, Mary and Jennie, are married and live in Aberdeen, Scotland. Each of them had six sons in the World war. The oldest son of Mary

was in active service more than four years, lost his life and was buried at St. Quentin, France.

George Carr Thomson received a high school edu- cation in Aberdeen and was schooled in art at the famous institution, South Kensington Art School, London, graduating in 1887. In the same year he came to the United States, and has been a resident of Butte since April, 1887. At that time he joined his skill with A. J. Dusseau, famous as the pioneer photographer of Montana. They were associated in the profession for twenty years. Upon the death of Mr. Dusseau in 1909 Mr. Thomson continued the business under his own name. His chief studio is at 121 West Park Street, and he has several other studios in Butte. If a list of the sittings made at the Dusseau and Thomson studio could be compiled it would doubtless include most of the noted men and women of Montana during the past forty years.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 51

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