Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 55

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 55

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Mr. McGee is a democrat but generally votes for the man rather than the party. He is a member of the Catholic Church at Eureka. His son William was in the service of the government three years, and was on the Texas and Mexican border.

WILLIAM S. MILLS. For forty years William S. Mills has known the varied experiences of the pioneer in the Montana country, and only recently he re- lieved himself of the heavier responsibilities of ranch management and retired to a comfortable home in the little City of Eureka.

Mr. Mills was born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, at New Cumberland, on June 25, 1855, one of the twelve children of Jonathan and Sarah (Down- ing) Mills. As a boy he attended district school in his native county and afterward a college at Clay City, Illinois. In 1876 he was fortunately married to Miss Theora C. Downing, also a native of New Cumberland, born on August 1, 1857, a daugh- ter of Hugh and Margaretta (Ryan) Downing. For a time after their marriage they lived on the old homestead in Ohio, and in 1881 Mr. Mills started

for the West, going to Colorado, and two years later was joined by Mrs. Mills in Wyoming. In the fall of that year they came to Montana and settled in the wild Indian country at Powderville, between Miles City and Deadwood. Later they moved to Ekalaka, and in 1895 came to the Flathead country. In those years before railroads were built they kept a roadhouse on the Kootenai River, supplying the needs of the passengers on the steamboats. Later they bought a ranch across the Canadian line of 352 acres and engaged in the stock business and ranching. Mr. Mills paid $3 an acre for his land, and after improving it sold some for $55 an acre and the rest for $160 an acre. He helped reclaim the country, and through a long period of good and bad years saw his affairs steadily prosper.

Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Mills, Lily A., Eva, Anna and Jud. They were educated in the schools of Tobacco Plains. Lily became the wife of Joe Tetrault, of Eureka, and they have five children, named Verna, Wilfred, Theora, Alice and Helen. Eva is the wife of F. R. Baney, pres- ent sheriff of Lincoln County, and has a son, Force. Anna was married to Fred Rock and has a daughter, Evalyn. Jud, who married Viola Brock, has three children, Gladys Lucile and twin sons, Dias Dean and Dale Eugene.

In 1919 Mr. and Mrs. Mills, having sold their ranch property, moved to Eureka and bought their present home in the eastern part of the village. Mr. Mills is a republican, and has always done his share in supporting community enterprises. For two years after coming to Montana, Mr. and Mrs. Mills lived in a hut and felt a great deal of pride when they secured the better accommodations of a log cabin, though they used gunny sacks for windows and doors. For years Indians were their neighbors and visitors. At one time thirty-five Indians camped at their cabin, among them being the famous Indian warrior Sitting Bull and his wife. Mr. Mills had a small grindstone, and the Indians employed him all day sharpening their hunting knives. When Mrs. Mills left her home in the East her mother gave her two bright red tablecloths. The colors attracted the eyes of Sitting Bull, and he coaxed her for one. She was loath to part with it but finally let him have it, and he was so pleased he threw down a $10 gold piece on the table and walked proudly away with the cloth, which he used for a shawl. At that time a fine baby girl was in their home, and Sit- ting Bull also admired and coveted the child and offered Mrs. Mills her choice of his fine ponies for the baby, saying she could visit her when she became eighteen years of age. Mrs. Mills was in great dread lest the Indians kidnap the baby. In the early years Mr. Mills had to freight all his provisions over the trail for seventy-six miles from Kalispell.

MONROE P. SHENEFELT. Retired from the more strenuous activities of former years in the environ- ment of a delightful town home in Eureka, Monroe P. Shenefelt is able to look back upon a long vista of years and experience, the most profitable and pleasant of which have been those spent in Mon- tana, which state regards him as a pioneer.

Mr. Shenefelt was born in Carroll County, Illi- nois, May 11, 1861, son of Isaac and Catherine (Bolin- ger) Shenefelt. He was the fifth among their thir- teen children. In the spring of 1865, when he was four years of age, his parents left Illinois in a cov- ered wagon and made a long journey across coun- try to Kansas. While en route the news of Lin- coln's assassination was given them. They became pioneer homesteaders in Bourbon County in South- eastern Kansas, and in that locality Monroe P. spent his boyhood days and acquired his early educational

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advantages. Subsequently his father traded his Kan- sas farm for one over the line in Missouri, and Monroe lived there four years.

About the time he reached manhood he returned to his birthplace in Illinois, where he met and after- ward married Laura Scott, who was born in the same neighborhood, a daughter of Samuel and Margaret (Neikirk) Scott. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Shenefelt settled down to the indus- trious routine of an Illinois farm, and for ten years was thus engaged. In the spring of 1892, having sold their Illinois properties, they started for Mon- tana in March, and in the course of the same year settled in the Flathead Valley, five miles south of Columbia Falls, where Mr. Shenefelt purchased a ranch. During the panic of 1893-94 they decided to move to the upper end of what was still Flat- head County, where Mr. Shenefelt filed on 160 acres in what is now Lincoln County. He proved up and improved the land, bought other land adjoining, and was accompanied by three of his old neighbors when he located on the homestead. Mr. Shenefelt was the first man in that locality to make a persistent trial and convincing demonstration of the dry farm- ing plan, which others regarded as impractical. He proved the contrary, raised a crop of fine grain, and hauled the first winter wheat over the trail from the Flathead Valley to Tobacco Valley.

Of the five children born to Mr. and Mrs. Shene- felt one died in infancy. Those still living are Or- ville P., Olive M., Edith May and Harriet Evelyn. They were all carefully educated. Orville was a student in the Montana Wesleyan University at Helena, and later studied theology in the Garrett Biblical School at Evanston, Illinois, and while there filled regular appointments as a minister. Later he was for four years pastor of the Methodist Epis- copal Church at Hingham, and for the past four years has been pastor at Malta, Montana. He is a forceful and earnest worker and able minister. He married Miss Katie Jolly, of Ekalaka, Montana, and they have a family of six children, named Aubrey, Roy, Esther, Beulah, Ruth and Orville. Mr. and Mrs. Shenefelt's daughter, Olive M., is the wife of George Dorsey, of Greenfield, Iowa, and they now live at Corona, south of Los Angeles, California. Their two children are Loraine and Iola. The other two daughters are still at home with their parents. Edith graduated from the Lincoln County High School at Eureka with the class of 1918, was also a student in the Wesleyan College of Helena, and is now a stenographer in the real estate office of C. E. Davis of Eureka.

Mr. Shenefelt in politics has been interested in the man and the policy rather than the party, He served on the school board, has been a worker for good schools and good instruction, and was chair- man of the board of commissioners for three years of the irrigation project at Eureka known as the Glen Lake Irrigation District. Mrs. Shenefelt and her daughters are active in the Eureka Methodist Church, and Mrs. Shenefelt spent much of her time in Red Cross work during the World war. The fam- ily left their ranch in 1915 and moved to Eureka, where they erected one of the very attractive and modern homes. Mr. and Mrs. Shenefelt have seen many changes in this section of Montana during the past quarter of a century. When they came there were no railroads near them, and Mr. Shenefelt freighted goods in and out of the valley. A monu- ment to his industry in the country is one of the fine homes in Tobacco Valley and some splendid ranch buildings. He and Mr. Peltier frequently hauled freight from the Flathead Valley and would camp at night on the ground, sleeping on two feet of snow with the thermometer thirty degrees below

zero. In the morning they would prepare their breakfast by cutting their bread and meat with an axe. Notwithstanding this exposure they declared they never felt better than in those days. Mr. Shene- felt on coming into this country drove a covered wagon, and made his first stop under the wide- spreading branches of a large pine tree. A long canvas was stretched around some trees, and within was set up the stove, this giving a tent home. Here their first friendly neighbors visited them. Two visitors who came were Joseph Peltier and Miss Lotta Adams, both of whom had homesteads on the Kootenai River. Later Miss Adams became Mrs. Peltier, and the friendship between the Peltier and Shenefelt families cemented in pioneer days has continued to the present.

BOYD CULVER is a prominent Montana business man, active head of the C. C. Bradley Company of Eureka, a mercantile house that has grown steadily. in influence and trade connections under his man- agement.

Mr. Culver was born in Wyandot County, Ohio, in 1874, a son of James C. and Letitia (Lamor) Cul- ver. He had a thorough education, beginning in public schools and completed at the Ohio Northern University at Ada. After three years of work as a teacher in his home county he came to Montana in 1897, locating at Kalispell, where he was con- nected with the McIntosh Hardware Company until 1907.

While in Kalispell Mr. Culver married Mrs. Lucy M. Crosby, daughter of Platt Mack of Iowa. Her death occurred in Eureka in 1915. In the meantime Mr. Culver had become shipping and receiving clerk in the McIntosh store, and in 1907 was sent to Eureka as manager of the branch establishment of the McIntosh hardware business. In 1909 the owner- ship of this store changed and another change was made in 1912, but Mr. Culver was continued as manager. In 1914 he took the management of the Lindsey Mercantile Company of Eureka.

In 1917 Mr. Culver married Mrs. E. M. Bradley, widow of C. C. Bradley. Since then he has been active head of the C. C. Bradley Company. As proof of the general confidence the public has in him he was elected to the office of justice of the peace and has also served on the school board and as mayor and alderman of Eureka, all public duties having been discharged by him in a capable manner and to the interests of the people. In 1919 his name was put on the republican ticket running against one of the strongest men in the county. When the vote was counted there was a tie, a second count was made, and only in the final recount was an error dis- covered that resulted in his opponent getting the office.

Mrs. Culver has two children by her former hus- band, Carlin Keith Bradley and Muriel Maude Brad- ley. Keith is a senior in the Lincoln County High School and Muriel is in the seventh grade in the Eureka school. Mr. and Mrs. Culver and their chil- dren are members of the Baptist Church and for a number of years have taken a prominent part in its affairs. Both are teachers in the Baptist Sunday School and Mr. Culver is church treasurer and head of the choir. Mrs. Culver is a member of the Eastern Star and Rebekahs, and a member of the school board; and he is a Mason and Eastern Star. while in politics he has taken an active part in sev- eral county conventions. Mrs. Culver was a very active and inspiring worker at the time of the World war and served as chairman of the Lincoln County Eastside Red Cross. During the influenza epidemic, while they enjoyed comparative freedom from the disease, they taxed their resources to the

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utmost in caring for the stricken members of their community, and practically turned their house into a Red Cross kitchen, Mrs. Culver overseeing the work of preparing good food and Mr. Culver dis- tributing it in his car to the homes of the sick. That was a service which will not soon be for- gotten by the people of Eureka.

Mrs. Culver was born in Iowa, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Carlin of Sioux City, Iowa. She was liberally educated and was a successful teacher in the State of Washington. She was the only woman ever elected secretary of the Baptist State Convention of Montana. For a number of years she has been president of the Baptist Ladies Aid Society.

J. A. SAMSON. Although he is now retired, J. A. Samson has been very active in Whitefish and has done much to develop the place as a real estate operator. He is a man of wide experience and ample means, and is entitled to the comforts he is now enjoying. The birth of Mr. Samson occurred in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, he being a son of James and Olive (Churchill) Samson. He attended the public schools of his home state until he was nineteen years old, at that time going west as far as Minnesota, where he spent five years. He then re- turned to Pennsylvania and was married to Miss Belle Lyman, after which he went to New York state and for eight years was engaged in lumbering, leaving that state for West Virginia, and there being engaged in business as a lumber merchant. After two years there he went to Kentucky and for eight years was engaged in buying and shipping railroad timber, a portion of the time being located at Jack- son and the remainder at Winchester. In his trans- actions he was brought into contact with mountain- eers who later became noted in criminal history, among them being the Hardys. In 1907 he came to Montana, and making Whitefish his headquarters embarked in the business of buying railroad ties.

Mrs. Samson dying, he took her body back to Pennsylvania for burial. Their two children had also died, and upon his return to Whitefish he felt his loneliness very keenly. In the meanwhile he had branched out into a real estate business, specializing in the erection of modest cottages for newly married people, to whom he would sell upon reasonable terms. In one of his business transactions he met a Mrs. Duncan and interested her in a project he had in mind, the erection of a first-class apartment. After due consideration Mrs. Duncan decided to join him in its construction, and the association then begun resulted in the marriage of the widow and widower. Mrs. Samson was born on Prince Edward Island, a daughter of George and Sophia (Mutch) Mason. She came to Montana in January, 1883, locating at Glendive, she became the wife of Dr. A. R. Duncan on Prince Edward Island, but their children were born in Glendive, Montana. She came to Whitefish in 1905, when the Divisional terminal of the Great Northern Railroad was changed from Kalispell to Whitefish, and erected and conducted the only hotel in the place that was heated by a furnace. At that time it was considered a marvel of comfort and luxury and is now conducted under the name of the Lindell Hotel. Under Mrs. Duncan's charge this hotel was well patronized and she became well known all over this section.

At the time of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Samson, the following was published in the White- fish Pilot.

"Duncan-Samson Nuptials. Wedding bells were ringing on Wednesday eve, November 30, but rang so softly and quietly but few in town knew or even

heard them jingle, though they had been listening intently for some time.

"However, a wedding had been expected to take place in the near future, involving two well known Whitefish people, namely J. A. Samson and Mrs. J. Duncan, but the exact date was not known, and although the representatives of the Pilot were as alert as a Hawkshaw sleuth they were foiled in their attempt to secure a scoop on the expected event.

"The marriage was a quiet affair and took place at their new apartments in the Duncan-Samson Building, Rev. J. W. Gaston officiating, with Mrs. J. W. Goodell and Miss Mary Gaston as witnesses.

"After stealing a march on their most intimate friends they confessed to the soft impeachment the next day after the knot was tied. Mrs. Samson, nee Mrs. Duncan, is well known in this community as a capable and successful business woman. By her energy and business acumen she has acquired a small fortune in a few years, and has shown her faith in Whitefish by joining forces with her partner there in a building that would be a credit to any metropoli- tan city. It is not saying too much to add that this building has added real values to every bit of prop- erty in Whitefish.

"Mr. Samson is an enterprising man whose money is helping to build up the town, adding to the place not only substantial but well constructed and hand- some buildings. He has shown his faith by his liberal investments of money here. Of our honored and useful citizens they take a high place in the ranks.

"It was not generally known that the apartments they now occupy were intended all along for their present use. With an up-to-date and artistic home, well merited, they enter upon life's golden days, which their numerous friends hope will be many and happy ones. We might add that as a wedding present Mr. Samson was handed a membership in the Town Council."

By her first marriage Mrs. Samson had the follow- ing children : Stella, who married Charles Malloy of Spokane, Washington, has a daughter Catherine, who is married and has a daughter, Dorothy Goodell; and Gladys, who is Mrs. Scott of Great Falls, Mon- tana, has two sons, George and Jack. Fraternally Mr. Samson is a Mason. He belongs to the Seventh Day Advent Christian Church. In politics he is a strong republican, and has cast his vote for presi- dential candidates in five different states of the Union. In addition to being a member of the council of Whitefish, he has been on its School Board, and was instrumental in raising the standard of the schools very materially. He is one of the directors of the First National Bank, which is now housed in a beautiful brick building recently erected. Both Mr. and Mrs. Samson are fine people, big of heart and action, who have hosts of friends not only at Whitefish but all over this country, and they de- serve the confidence reposed in them, for they have won it themselves.

MARIUS ANDERSON was one of the Danish settlers in that part of the Yellowstone Valley included in Richland County at the beginning of the present century. For nearly twenty years he went through all the experiences of pioneering, living simply, with rude comforts, working hard, and rather rapidly expanding his holdings and increasing his prosperity as a farmer and stockman.

Mr. Anderson was born in the City of Odense on the Island of Fyn, Denmark, March 12, 1879. His father, Christof Anderson, was a baker and a brother of Peter Anderson, founder of the Danish colony of the Lower Yellowstone Valley. Christof and

J. A. Samson Jemimal Samson

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HISTORY OF MONTANA

Sophie Anderson had only one child, Marius. The latter learned his father's trade, acquired a good education, and at the age of nineteen left his trade to enter the army. This was compulsory military service, and for two years he spent most of his time in training and as a resident of the barracks at Odense, serving as a private. He left the army a poor man, his little capital of a few hundred crowns saved from work at his trade having been used to maintain himself while a soldier, and he also spent his meager wage of four and a half dollars a month paid by the Government. The soldier of Denmark at that time had to provide his own shoes, under- wear, board, polishing powder for his gun and but- tons, the Government providing only uniform and gun. The service in the army therefore was no advantage to a young man who intended to abandon the country and make his future home elsewhere.

After his military training Mr. Anderson resumed work at his trade for a few months. About that time his uncle Peter returned home on a visit from Montana, and had much to say of the opportunities for industrious young men in the United States. It was to realize the vivid pictures formed in his mind by listening to his uncle that caused Marius Ander- son after deliberation with his young wife and other members of the family to start for the New World. They sold their little business, and secured enough money to pay their fare across. Peter An- derson had assured them that if they could do that the rest would take care of itself, that the country in the northwest would give them a living and something to spare. The little company sailed from Liverpool, England, on the liner Saxonia for New York, and arrived at Fort Buford February 9, 1901. That was midwinter and the climate was very dif- ferent from that of Denmark, so that Mr. Ander- son and his family suffered from insufficient cloth- ing. His uncle supplied him with a few dollars to provide extra clothing, and with the passing of win- ter and the appearance of spring Mr. Anderson went to work for his uncle as a farm hand at $30 a month. Horses and cattle were cheap, and he bought a couple of old horses as equipment for im- proving his homestead. He had exercised his right as a homesteader a few months after coming to the country. His location was a mile east of the home of his uncle. For a number of years he raised some good crops of grain, though the abundance of yield was offset by the difficulties of marketing. It re- quired a four days' journey to take a load of grain to Glendive, the nearest market point, sixty miles away, and when the grain was sold it was the usual custom to receive pay in trade instead of cash. A better way of disposing of his grain crops Mr. An- derson found to trade his oats and wheat for live- stock, and thus he acquired a nucleus of stock and was soon making progress rapidly.

The Anderson homestead was equipped with a two-room log house roofed over with boards and dirt. It was a rude shelter, though the home was one of contentment and good cheer for the five years the family occupied it. In that time they accumulated some capital and bought a quarter section of land near Sidney, where Mr. Anderson put some building improvements, including a home that cost $3,000 and equipped with many comforts such as they had not known before. He built a good shelter for horses. He had a profitable expe- rience at his new location both as a farmer and grain raiser. He sold his place at a good advance and moved to the farm he still owns, six miles north of Sidney. This land likewise he took at the "grassroots," and on the homesite erected a sub-

stantial house of nine rooms. He also has a base- ment barn 40 by 60 feet, with mow capacity for 105 tons, has a granary of 3,000 bushels capacity, and two machinery sheds. These buildings, together with other features, constitute one of the best im- proved farms of the valley. He has 444 acres, most of it under the irrigation ditch. By the close of 1919 he had put 250 acres under cultivation along the Sidney-Fairview road. The direct source of his profits on this farm has been handling horses and cattle. The Anderson family occupied the farm in 1911, and in 1919 he sold out and for the better health of his wife took up his residence in the mountain country of Montana, locating at Kalispell in the spring of 1920.

As a prosperous farmer Mr. Anderson has been interested in a number of enterprises in Richland County. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers National Bank of Sidney and served as vice president until he sold his stock. Later he was one of the organizers of the Sidney National Bank, and served as a director until 1919. He bought an interest in the Princess and Orpheum moving picture theaters in Kalispell, and the same interests are now building in Kalispell a fine new picture house at a cost of $60,000, which will be the most magnificent in Northern Montana. Mr. Anderson took out citizenship papers as soon as he could, acquired full rights in 1907, and has been a republican since casting his first presidential vote in 1908. He and his family were brought up as Lutherans and are attached to the institutions of that church and he has given generously to the erection of two Lutheran churches in his part of the Yellowstone Valley.

On the Island of Fyn, where he was born, Mr. Anderson, in September, 1900, married Annie Nel- son, daughter of Chris Nelson. . Their family con- sists of five children: Carl E., Sophus, Melvin, Carrie and Ella. Carl is a salesman with the Yellow- stone Mercantile Company of Sidney, while Sophus is a practical young farmer.

C. D. O'NEIL. To an important degree the city of Kalispell depends for its lumber and building supplies upon the enterprise and resources of the O'Neil Lumber Co., of which C. D. and C. I. O'Neil, brothers, are proprietors. The O'Neils have for many years been factors in the life of the city and have done much to improve its commercial and civic wealth.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 55

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