Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 71

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 71

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While his early interests were largely identified with the Indian population around Wolf Point, Mr. Cogswell has always been a leader in the modern era of commercial development on the part of the white settlers. With the building of the Great Northern Railway he gave his influence toward the growth of Wolf Point as a modern town, and moved his postoffice to the new Wolf Point in 1913, finishing his service as postmaster there. In 1913 he established an implement business, and that is still one of his chief interests. It was he who took the lead in the movement for the erection of the Sher- man Hotel, one of the conspicuous hotels of northern Montana, and named in his honor. The hotel is a building far in advance of the period in which it was constructed, and all Wolf Point and the region about it regard it with justifiable pride. Mr. Cogs- well is vice president of the Hotel Company, and also took an active part in the establishment of the First State Bank, of which he is president.

Mr. Cogswell has never married. In politics he is a republican, having cast his first presidential vote in Montana in 1892 for Benjamin Harrison. He is affiliated with Loyalty Lodge No. 121, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Wolf Point, and with Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena, having been a member of the Shrine since 1904. While a member of no church, he is a believer in its work and acts as a trustee of the Presbyterian organization at Wolf Point.

WILLIAM POWERS is one of several men of that name who have founded and directed two or three

substantial banks in Eastern Montana and have given their financial and executive service to the indus- trial, stock raising and civic enterprise of that sec- tion of the state.

Mr. Powers, who is cashier and executive head of the Farmers State Bank of Bainville, was born at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, November 7, 1883. His father and uncle, Richard and John, have for many years been closely associated in banking and other business lines, and they established the first cream- ery in North Dakota, at Havana in 1893, a plant that is still in successful operation. John Powers is a pioneer of Dakota Territory, having located in Sargent County in 1883. He helped frame the present constitution of North Dakota as a member of the Constitutional Convention.

Richard Powers, father of the Bainville banker, was born at Lake Geneva in 1850 and is still a resi- dent of that attractive city of Southern Wisconsin. For a number of years he was identified with farm- ing, and has extensive banking and landed inter- ests., He is vice president of the Farmers National Bank of Lake Geneva, has banking and land inter- ests in Sargent County, North Dakota, and other interests that will be noted in Sheridan and Roose- velt counties, Montana. He married Bridget Cas- sin, who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1852. Their children are: Mrs. Oliver T. Cody, of Chicago; Miss May K., of Lake Geneva; Wil- liam; Edward S., of Medicine Lake, Montana; and John D., a rancher at Havana, North Dakota.

William Powers grew up at Lake Geneva, at- tended high school there, and at once began bank- ing, spending five years in learning the business with the First National Bank of Lake Geneva.

On leaving Wisconsin he came to Montana and identified himself with the locality of Bainville in December, 1908. At that time he took over the Bank of Bainville, a private institution, and it was four months before he could secure a safe or vault. In 1909 he organized the Farmers Bank of Bainville, another private institution, with John Powers as president, Richard Powers as vice president, Wil- liam Powers, cashier, and Edward S. Powers, as- sistant cashier. This bank was incorporated as the Farmers State Bank in July, 1911. It has capital stock of $20,000, surplus and undivided profits of $17,500, and deposits averaging about $200,000.

Mr. Powers is also president of the First State Bank of Medicine Lake, of which his brother Ed- ward S. is cashier and of which his uncle is vice president. Mr. Powers made the first farm loan recorded in Valley County. He is a stockholder in a number of elevators along the Great Northern Railway, three of which he practically organized. He was instrumental in locating the Jennison Mills Company of Bainville, the largest flouring mill in Northeastern Montana.

Mr. Powers is vitally interested in homestead and agricultural development. He proved up a home- stead of his own near Bainville and owns a section of land devoted to farming and stock-growing. He is half owner of the Mar Car Shorthorn herd, one of the select herds in the state and bred on the farm of Senator Lowe near Culbertson. Semi-an- nual public sales of the animals of this herd are held at Williston, and for several years past the prices bid and paid for at these sales range from $750 to $1,200 for each animal. This industry has done splendid pioneer work in fine cattle breeding in Eastern Montana, and is adding yearly to the state's standing as a prize cattle region.

When Mr. Powers came to Montana Bainville was in Valley County. He has been interested in the movements which have resulted in dividing up

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that county twice. He suggested the name of Sheri- dan County, and was a leader in the movement, securing about a third of the signatures necessary for the calling of an election. He was equally in- terested in the movement for Roosevelt County, and spent some time in behalf of that proposition at Helena, interesting various members of the Leg- islature.

Mr. Powers was reared in a democratic home, cast his first presidential vote for Judge Parker, and has been aligned with the party ever since. He was a United States commissioner at Bainville, serving four years by appointment from Judge Carl Rash. Mr. Powers is affiliated with Williston Lodge of the Elks. He served as local chairman of the Red Cross and of the four Liberty Loan drives, and had the satisfaction of seeing Bainville go over the top each time. He is of a Catholic family and has been identified with that church in Bainville.

Mr. Powers married at Libby, Montana, October 3, 1917, Miss Corinne DeMers. She was born at St. Paul, Minnesota, December 13, 1892, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Philip DeMers. Mrs. Powers is one of a large family, and finished her education in the St. Paul High School. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Powers has been born a daughter, Margaret O., and a son, James A.

WILLIAM FRANKLIN RHEA came into Eastern Montana twenty-five years ago, rode the range for five years, began ranching with a few cattle of his own, was one of the first stockmen to engage in agriculture, and has seen his pains and labor with the soil requited with a number of remarkable crops. Farming and ranching is still his business, though he is also a banker, being president of the First National Bank of Bainville.

Mr. Rhea is one of the few Montanans who came into the state from the West rather than from the East. He was born in Umatilla County, Oregon, October 30, 1874. He belongs to a family of Oregon pioneers. His grandfather, Elijah Rhea, who was probably a native of Scotland, was an early settler in Missouri and in 1854, with his family, crossed the plains with ox teams, passing through the Piute Indian country and making settlement in the Willa- mette Valley of Oregon. He became a wheat grower and stock raiser in that valley and in later life moved to Eastern Oregon and conducted a hotel at Arling- ton on the Columbia River, where he died about 1884, when past sixty years of age. He married a Miss Milliron, of an old Pennsylvania Dutch fam- ily. She died at Junction City, Oregon. Their children were: Columbus A., of Portland; Frankie, who became the wife of James Luper, of Hepner, Oregon; Lizzie, who died at Hepner in 1892 as the wife of Thomas Morgan; Thomas A .; James P., of Hillsboro, Oregon; and John, who died in early manhood near Eugene in the Willamette Valley. By a second wife Elijah Rhea had three children, and by a third marriage was the father of four daughters.

Thomas A. Rhea, father of the Bainville banker, was born in Missouri in 1849 and was but five years of age when the family caravan wended its way through hostile tribes and hostile lands to the Pa- cific Coast. He acquired his education in the pioneer schools of Eugene and Junction City, and was iden- tified with stock raising in Eastern Oregon until that region settled, after which he sold his ranch and established his home at Hepner, later on lived at Portland, and is now a resident of Hillsboro. He married Henrietta Cecil. Her father, William H. Cecil, was another Oregon pioneer, crossing the plains from Illinois in 1862. Henrietta, then a child

of seven, was born in Adams County, Illinois, in 1855, and died at Oroville, California, in November, 1916. She was the mother of four children: Iona, wife of J. W. Widrick, of Pasco, Washington; Wil- liam F .; Cora, a resident of Hillsboro, Oregon, widow of Harry T. Bagley; and Walter E., who died in childhood.

William F. Rhea was reared in Oregon, acquired his education in that state, and had something more than a theoretical knowledge of ranching and farm- ing when he came to Eastern Montana in the spring of 1895. For five years he lived the rough and tumble life of a cowboy on the range, working with one of the outfits of Henry Sieben. Mr. Sieben was a pioneer stockman of Montana, coming into the country in 1872, and eventually had his ranch interests widely scattered over the state. Mr. Rhea was with the Sieben ranch headquarters at Cul- bertson until 1900.

Going still further East, he became a squatter in the community of Bainville. No town of that name had yet been thought of, nor had the Scobey branch of railway been considered as a possibility. The only occupants north along the Big Muddy were a few stockmen. Mr. Rhea bought a few cattle in the spring of 1900, and with his brand, the "4 reversed R," ranged them anywhere east of the Dakota line and north to Lake Creek.

For ten years the ranchhouse and home of Mr. and Mrs. Rhea was a three-room log building, and they left it for a more convenient and modern seven- room frame residence. The first half dozen years Mr. Rhea did little else than look after his stock and its increase, and his pioneer effort in agricul- ture was made about 1907. The Rhea farm is re- garded as one of the best in that region today, and has grown many successive crops of wheat. Mr. Rhea entered the site of his log cabin as a home- stead as soon as the government gave him the op- portunity, he also entered a desert claim, and with the claims of Mrs. Rhea there was constituted 640 acres. This became the nucleus of the farm and ranch, and since then 880 acres have been purchased, all comprised in a solid body, all fenced, and with about 500 acres under cultivation.

There is no special secret in Mr. Rhea's methods which have had such generous results in crops. He has done what practical and scientific agriculturists advocate, plowed his ground well and thoroughly prepared the soil before seeding, and his experience makes him a strong believer in the summer fallow. In 1912 no farmer near him produced on the same · acreage the average yield of grain that he had. His average for wheat was a trifle over 35 bushels to the acre, while his oats crop averaged 124 bushels machine measure, equalling better than a 142 bushels by weight. His flax gave him 23 bushels. He has never had a total failure, though his experience has encountered several extremely dry seasons.

Mr. Rhea has never abandoned his farm as a residence, even with the dignity and responsibilities that have come to him as a banker. In June, 1917, he became interested in banking, opening the First National Bank of Bainville. His associates in that enterprise were Senator Henry Lowe of Culbertson, John Shaw, president of the First National Bank of Williston, and A. W. Springhorn and R. E. Gus- tafson of Bainville. Mr. Rhea has served the in- stitution from its organization as president, A. W. Springhorn is cashier, and Mr. Lowe and Mr. Shaw are vice presidents. The working capital of the bank is $25,000, its surplus and profits $5,000, and aver- age deposits $100,000. The bank paid a dividend of $2,500 in January, 1920.

Though reared in a democratic household Mr.

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Rhea gave his first presidential vote to William Mckinley in 1900. He supported Judge Parker in 1904 and other presidential candidates of the dem- ocratic party. He became a Mason at Culbertson, is affiliated with Helena Consistory No. 3 of the Scottish Rite, and is a member of Algeria Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Helena.

At Williston, North Dakota, March 27, 1900, Mr. Rhea married Miss Ella A. Bruegger. She was born at Watertown, Wisconsin, September 10, 1878, and is of Swiss ancestry, a daughter of Nicholas and Minnie (Heiz) Bruegger. Her mother was born in Switzerland and her father was a native of Watertown and of Swiss parentage. Mrs. Rhea was the third in a family of eight children and acquired her education in her native city, living there until she came out to Williston in 1896. Mr. and Mrs. Rhea have two sons, William T. and David E., the former a student of the Montana Wesleyan College at Helena and the latter a grade pupil at Bainville.

RICHARD H. SWEETMAN has been identified with Eastern Montana for nearly a quarter of a century and as a rancher and farmer has developed a part of the old Fort Buford Reservation at Lakeside in Roosevelt County. He is a brother of Luke D. Sweetman, the first Montana settler on the old Fort Buford Reservation, whose career as a maker of his- tory in this locality has been described elsewhere.

Richard H. Sweetman was born in Iowa October 23, 1862, son of Thomas D. Sweetman. As a boy he was taken by his parents to Montgomery County, Kansas, where he grew up on a farm and acquired a country school education and attended the Coffey- ville High School. When about twenty-one years of age he left home and went out to California and for about 11/2 years was employed as a street car conductor at Los Angeles. He then returned to Kansas and operated his grandfather Hollings- worth's farm there until he came out to Montana in 1896.

On coming to this state Mr. Sweetman joined his brother and was foreman of the latter's ranch. Dur- ing the next several years he also acquired a per- sonal interest in the stock business and then estab- lished a modest ranching enterprise at the locality where he is found today, Lakeside, and with lands adjoining those of his brother. His ranch is also along the right of way of the Great Northern Rail- way. . He entered a half section of the old Fort Buford Reservation, and has developed the lands which from time immemorial had never produced anything but wild grass. The log cabin which shel- tered him as a bachelor for several years is still a part of his more commodious home. Mr. Sweet- man has done both farming and stock raising, his chief interest as a farmer being the raising of grain and hay. His only financial connection outside of his ranch was as a stockholder at the time of the organization of the Farmers Elevator Company at Lakeside.

His ranch for some years was noted for its splen- did horses, and he took pride in the development of the heavy draft Percherons and bred them up to a high state of perfection. The horse market suffering a serious decline at the close of the World war, his individual enterprise in that field has also been allowed to panse. His cattle are the Red Poll and Shorthorn strains, and a feature of his industry is shipping cream from Mondak.

Mr. Sweetman has been satisfied to take a private citizen's part in community life. He is a republican of more than thirty years' standing, and cast his first vote for Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

At Glasgow, Montana, April 20, 1911, he married Mrs. Aurora Burneau. She was born at Montreal, Quebec, in 1888, daughter of Joseph DuFresne, now a resident of Fairview, Montana. She lived at Mon- treal to the age of sixteen, and then accompanied the family to North Dakota. Her people moved into Montana in 1910 and settled on a homestead in Richland County, not far from the Sweetman local- ity. Miss DuFresne became the wife of Theophile Burneau at Rolla, North Dakota. She has one son by that union, Theophile Burneau. Mr. and Mrs. Sweetman are the parents of four children: Pearl, Richard, Chester and Frances.

LUKE D. SWEETMAN came into Montana Territory from the south as a cowboy thirty-five years ago, and has been actively identified with the ranching interests ever since. For a quarter of a century the sphere of his business has been in the country im- mediately adjacent to the point where the Missouri River leaves Montana. He is proprietor and de- veloper of the Lakeside Ranch, which is a part of the old Fort Buford Reservation.

Mr. Sweetman was born at West Branch, Iowa, January 12, 1867. His father, Thomas D. Sweet- man, was a native of Maryland, went to Iowa as a young man, and during the infancy of his son Luke moved to Southern Kansas and was one of the early settlers around Coffeyville. He lived in that state many years and then returned to Maryland, where he died. He married in Iowa Miss Margaret Hollingsworth, whose father, Richard Hollings- worth, was a native of Ohio, a pioneer in Iowa, and also an early settler and farmer in Montgomery County, Kansas, where he and his wife are both buried. Mrs. Thomas Sweetman died at Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1916. She was the mother of three chil- dren: Richard, who has a ranch adjoining that of his brother Luke; Mrs. Anna Robertson, of Coffey- ville; and Luke D.

Luke D. Sweetman grew up in the vicinity of Coffeyville, attended the rural schools and the town schools, and as a boy made frequent excursions over the line into old Indian Territory. At the age of fourteen he began riding the range along the Okla- homa-Kansas line within what was then known as the Cherokee Strip. For three years he was con- nected with some of the big cattle outfits operating in that region. It was as an employe of the Co- manche Pool that he helped on one of the big drives over the trail to Montana, and for two years he was with the Ray Cattle Company, which held its stock on the range north of the Yellowstone at Miles City.

Mr. Sweetman left the cattle outfit in 1887 and in the spring of that year came into the eastern region of Montana and engaged in the business of buying Montana horses and driving them overland for market to the Red River Valley of North Da- kota, although his headquarters were at Miles City. He continued the business actively for some twelve or fifteen years, even after he had made his settle- ment on the Lakeside Ranch.

When Mr. Sweetman came to his present ranch the land had never been occupied by white men. Old Fort Buford had been abandoned and there . was a current opinion that the land would be sur- veyed and opened to settlers. In anticipation of such a move he introduced his cattle and horses into the region in 1896. His horse brand was "16" and his cattle brand "7." During eleven years of residence in Montana he had progressed from a wage earning youth to a modest ranchman and with reliable prospects for a still better future.

His first improvement was a small log cabin on

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the banks of the Missouri, which with additions served him while he was a bachelor and also during the first years of his married life. In those early years he had his brother and others as companions in his house and in the work of the range. When the old Reservation was thrown open for settle- ment both Mr. and Mrs. Sweetman filed on a home- stead and desert lands, their tracts adjoining, and Mr. Sweetman also located other land with soldier scrip. He now has 1,100 acres devoted to both farm and stock. Through the ranch winds the Missouri River, and recently much of the lowland has been seeded to alfalfa, which Mr. Sweetman considers an appropriate crop for the soil and cli- mate. While getting the soil in readiness for grass and hay he also used it to raise a few crops of grain.

The Lakeside Ranch today is in great contrast to the broad open prairie when Luke D. Sweetman first saw it. The log cabin home has given way to a splendid modern residence of ten rooms, watered from cellar to garret by his artesian well. In place of the old stables is an immense barn for his horses, still a prominent feature in his stock enterprise. .

Perhaps of even greater interest is the private irrigation project which he has developed. He began work on it in 1901, using at that time a dam and headgate about 11/2 miles above the mouth of the Little Muddy. Since then he has built a pumping plant on the bank of the Missouri with a ca- pacity of 4,500 gallons a minute. There are four miles of main ditch and laterals sufficient to water nearly all the bottom lands. Thus he has an irri- gated ranch, developed entirely at his own expense.

Mr. Sweetman has little use for scrub stock, and his cattle are of the Poll Angus breed and his horses are Percherons. For over thirty years he has been sending stock to market. At first he drove them out of Montana, and with the coming of the Great Northern has heen a shipper over that route. His cattle market has been in Chicago, and the Rosen- baum Brothers, to whom he consigned his first shipment, are still a prominent firm at the stock- yards.

At the birth of the village of Mondak Mr. Sweet- man was interested in the townsite and was one of the town promoters, and for a time was finan- cially concerned with the local store. He took stock in the Farmers Elevator Company when it was or- ganized at Lakeside, served it as president for a time, and he also favored the movement for county division when Sheridan County was set off from Valley, and later when Roosevelt was constituted a new county in the south part of Sheridan.

At Milton, North Dakota, January 25, 1899, Mr. Sweetman married Miss Alice Waterman. Her mother was Harriet Elmer, a daughter of Orrin Elmer. Her father was born at Beloit, Wisconsin, and her mother at Millard's Prairie in the same state, and came out to North Dakota and home- steaded near Milton in 1884. They finally moved to Montana, and Mrs. Waterman died at Scobey in 1918, at the age of seventy-four, and her husband is still living there. The Waterman children were: Herbert, of Mossbank, Saskatchewan; Mrs. Sweet- man, who was born August 29, 1881 ; and Mrs. Frank Robinson, of Scobey. Mr. and Mrs. Sweetman have a family of five: Corma, a teacher at Froid, Mon- tana; Lawrence and Merrill, students in the Bain- ville High School; and Alice and Donald.

Mr. Sweetman gave his first presidential vote to Major Mckinley and has always supported re- publican candidates. Mrs. Sweetman grew up in a republican home and cast her first presidential vote for Mr. Hughes in 1916. The Sweetmans were

. earnestly interested in the success of the war, were contributors to the Liberty Bonds and other cam- paigns, and did much work in their home, Mrs. Sweetman being a member of Mondak Chapter of the Red Cross, and for several months was dili- gently engaged in knitting.

ROY H. JOHNSON, who has been prominently iden- tified with the business life of Plentywood since its formative period, is the manager of the Sheridan County Abstract Company and a member of the Roosevelt County Abstract Company. The for- mer corporation has transcribed the records of the county, and has its books to date for the mak- ing of a complete showing as to titles to all lands within the county. It is a bonded company for the sum of $5,000, a safe and reliable institution for the transaction and sale of Montana's lands.

Mr. Johnson was born in Dexter, Iowa, January 30, 1892, but when he was a lad of seven years he was taken by his parents to Minnesota, where he grew to mature years on farms near Hancock and Alexandria, gaining his education in the meantime in the public schools and a business college at Alexandria. He was a youth of nineteen when he embarked upon his business career, and at the same time became identified with the life and interests of Montana.

Charles F. Johnson, his father, was a native of Sweden, but left his native land for the United States when nineteen years of age. For a time after his arrival he was employed as a wage earner in the Rock Island Arsenal and at Galesburg, Illinois, later was a railroad brakeman, and finally learned the mason's trade and followed that occupation until fail- ing health caused him to give up the work and retire to the farm, depending upon his sons to carry on its work. He became a naturalized citizen of his adopted land, voted with the republican party, and always proved himself a thorough American, in sympathy with its institutions and government. His death occurred at Alexandria, Minnesota, in Jan- uary, 1916, when he had reached the age of sixty- nine. He had married in Dexter, Iowa, Miss Clara A. Samuelson, who was also a native of Sweden, and they met for the first time at Galesburg, Illinois. She survives her husband, and is the mother of the following children: Albert, who is engaged in farm- ing near Clontarf, Minnesota; Gus F. and Walter R., both residents of Northwood, Iowa; Roy H., of Plentywood, Montana; and Marie C., the deceased wife of R. E. Johnson, the originator of the Johnson interests in the Valley County Abstract Company of Glasgow.

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Montana, its story and biography; a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood, Volume III, Part 71

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